Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice - The Power of Great Storytelling in Social Media and Branding with Sun Yi
Episode Date: May 30, 2023Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast, where we feature only the most radical individuals who catch our attention. In today’s rad episode, Ryan interviews Sun Yi - founder of Night Owl's, an ...award-winning digital agency in NYC, TEDx speaker, and a badass marketer.Join us for an exciting episode where Sun Yi shares the secrets to building a personal brand that delivers real results! You won't want to miss out on this insightful conversation, so tune in now and learn how to apply these strategies to your own business.Key notes from the episode: Sun Yi shares how he discovered the world of personal branding and realized that influence was becoming the "new oil" and how he started with this journey (00:29) Ryan and Sun discuss the importance of self-awareness in personal branding and leaving a legacy and the importance of going with what people say and being authentic in order to be successful. (07:43) They discuss the value of building a personal brand, and how this helps to provide leverage and trust and the process of helping clients develop an elevated website and brand story. (12:23) Ryan shares his story of working hard to make something from nothing that taught him valuable life lessons and how Sun Yi talks about the growth of website development and being able to find talent amidst low-quality submissions. (21:32) Sun Yi gave advice on effective storytelling, emphasizing not using thought verbs, drawing a picture for readers, and focusing on transformation rather than tragedy. (27:23) Sun Yi shared an example of a story from her friend who trails yoga and explains that people often don't realize the power of stories until it unlocks deeper connections. (34:14) This episode is packed with information, wisdom, and passion and we know you will get a ton of value from this.To keep up with Sun Yi, follow him on Instagram @sun.yi and his website www.sunyi.co Subscribe to our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/c/RadicalHomeofTheRadcastIf you enjoyed this episode of The Radcast, Like, Share, and leave us a review! If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE. Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding. Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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You're listening to The Radcast, a top 25 worldwide business podcast.
If it's radical, we cover it.
Here's your host, Ryan Alford.
Hey guys, what's up?
Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast.
I'm Ryan Alford, your host.
We like to say, if it's radical, we cover it.
And you know what?
It takes someone quite radical to hit my radar these days.
I'm going through my TikToks and through my Instagram and everything else.
And a guy named Son Ye keeps showing up, like hitting my feed.
They must know I like it because he's here.
And he's the founder of Nidow's Digital Agency and a badass marketer, if I do say so myself.
What's up, son?
What's up, Brian?
Thank you so much for having me on.
Hey, my pleasure, brother.
I like your work.
I've checked out your stuff.
I was like, look, it takes a lot to break through.
And you preach about breaking through.
and you're actually breaking through yourself.
So it's like when I see someone practicing what they preach,
I like to come down from the balcony with an amen, hallelujah, brother.
Like in my old Southern Baptist stuff,
I used to say, you're doing it, man.
And I really appreciate it.
I know we'll get into some of those things,
but I appreciate you coming on and excited to break it down.
How's life treat you in Austin?
Pretty good.
I recently moved here.
It's getting acclimated, but pretty good.
Yeah, keeping it weird.
Coming from Manhattan, right?
Yeah.
The is heating up here.
You're headed towards the summertime.
We're warming up, right?
It's, is it getting hot in Texas?
Has that been a change for you?
I actually like the hot.
I was sick of the cold.
There's no storms.
Yeah.
So I love it here.
It's cool.
I know you're back and forth with your agency in New York.
We'll get to that with Night Owl and all that's going on.
But, son, let's set the table for everybody.
Let's tell the son you story a little bit.
and then building into some of your practices, principles, best tips, and marketing and this crazy world of AI we're living in.
But let's start down that path for me.
Yeah.
So I started out, I'm a hands-on person.
So I'm a developer and a designer.
So I used to make websites.
So I started out freelancing, started my agency in 2010, mainly doing websites.
We played around with a bunch of different niche.
but eventually we, about six years ago, landed on personal branding.
And that started with Gabby Bernstein walking in Toronto.
Before that, we worked with clients like Spotify, American Red Cross, Columbia University,
some bigger corporate brands.
But I got tired of that because I was working with marketing managers and marketing directors
who are basically like 9 to 5ers.
So they don't want us to do anything innovative.
Like, their job is not to get fired.
So they wanted to keep everything safe, nothing innovative, just meet deadlines.
But when I work with Gabby, it was like a different, because it was her own brand.
So I found, like, I reignited this passion.
And I didn't know at that time this whole personal brand, like personal development area.
Like, the only thing I knew about Tony Robbins was that he was in.
shallow hell.
So I went down that rabbit hole and I fell in love with that whole like space of like
personal development and things like that.
And she started introducing us to all these other personal brands.
I don't know if Jay Shetty.
Oh yeah.
Mel Robbins.
And then recently we started working with Mark Randolph, the co-founder of Netflix.
Yep.
I know Mark's been on the show.
Oh yeah.
I actually saw that.
Yeah.
So I felt like what's going on?
Because around that time, that was like three years ago.
Yeah.
I was like, why is Kevin O'Leary starting a YouTube channel?
Like, why is Will Smith starting a YouTube channel?
I'm like, what's going on?
And I realized that personal brand is a future.
Because I realized that influence is like the future.
It's like the new oil, right?
So I decided to build.
my own person. I've always been behind the camera, like, behind the curtain type of person.
But I'm like, I got to go out there. So I spent like $15,000 buying all this video equipment,
hiring a video person. I'm going to be like the next scary bee and then have him follow me
around. But that didn't really work. That wasn't my style. Yeah. And then COVID happened.
And I just started taking my Zoom record.
like clips of it and started posting it online.
And then I found this whole community of Instagrammers who make carousels.
And like copywriting and design is my passion.
So I started making those and it just started blowing it up.
And then now here I am.
On the Radcast.
No, I know.
But it's fascinating to me, the world of personal branding.
It's got that cringe-worthy name.
I've tried for three years to come up with a different name,
but it's like trying to rename Google.
Like, you can't do it.
There's just too much equity in it and people know it and understand it.
A lot of people roll their eyes at it.
But at the end of the day, it's just reputation, right?
It's like reputation amplification.
And I think that's the biggest thing.
Like, you talked about you being a developer
and kind of getting from behind the camera to in front of the camera,
which may not have worked for you,
you recognize the power of being known.
And that's what I,
I trademark the line.
It pays to be known.
Literally,
that's really what it's about.
I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you if I didn't do my Instagram, right?
And I've had so many opportunities like that where people either reach out to me out.
There are people that I would reach out to that probably wouldn't have given me a time of day.
But because I put out content, they see it.
And then they'll reply.
Yeah.
What's what I mean you talked about it and I think a lot of people that's the biggest thing like getting in front of the camera like okay I'm not good in front of the camera.
I don't like it.
What was the pivot point for you?
Was it like because you didn't feel like you were getting the traction or because you just didn't like it?
Or both.
I've never even thought of myself as a personality.
Right.
I'm shy actually.
Yep.
And when I started.
But I knew like it's.
said I knew I had to get out of there because what I started noticing is like I saw that whole
highly general thing like she became the youngest billionaire all of her personal breath so I started
going out there but when I did that whole YouTube thing and I watched it back I felt so cringe
I was like I sound like that and that kind of thing yeah but then watching my videos over over
I think I got used to it and what I usually say is people talk about self-
love all the time. Like, this process really truly made me love myself. I don't think I like really
love myself before, but just keep hearing myself over and over like after a couple years. I happen to
watch videos. I'm like, oh, I sound pretty good. And that's when I realized, like I really love myself.
I'm glad you, I'm glad you found it because I love your content. I want you to keep making it.
Yes. I'm glad you found that. And that's a really
introspective take and something that people that might roll their eyes or might not think about it.
And I want to get your opinion and how much you get into the business of trying to convince people to do personal branding.
We'll come back to that.
But that getting to see yourself and getting to recognize your skills and your talents and what you're good at, whether it's carousels or videos or whatever, that's a really powerful discovery in what can come out of this.
And that's what I talk to people about all the time when I counsel people on the personal branding side is you're leaving a legacy and you're discovering a lot about yourself that you may not know.
And I think that's a really powerful notion.
Yeah.
So when I hear the word self-awareness, I think a lot of people don't realize that self-awareness is not really knowing myself.
I actually think that we're the worst person to try to define who we are.
because there's an idea, for example, I'm very emotional or impulsive, but I hate that about myself.
So if you were to tell me to define myself, I'm going to define the perfect ideal version of me, not the real me.
But what I noticed is that when I started uploading my Zoom recordings, that was the real me.
Like before when I was like on YouTube, it's, hey, everybody.
That wasn't really me.
So maybe that's why I felt like a little bit awkward.
But when I started putting off Zoom calls, people started resonating with me.
And I thought everyone's going to hate me.
Like, why is this guy always yelling?
Why is he so emotional and all of that?
But what I realize is that people around me, that's what they love about me.
And what I usually tell people is don't try to define your best.
Ask the people around you, your family, friends.
like what do they come to you for?
Right?
Because I think that's like a little hint that they come to you.
For example, if somebody breaks up with their boyfriend or girlfriend and they want to hear the truth,
they want to hear not the bubbly, the rainbow sunshine, but they want to hear what they did wrong.
They'll come to me because I'm going to tell them straight up.
It's like you messed up there.
But then if they want somebody to just comfort them.
and make them feel good.
They'll go to my wife because that's what she'll do.
And that's how we're different.
Yeah.
So I think we really need to step into that, who you really are like that.
And then that's the benefit.
That's what you're serving.
Yes.
And that's the key is, and that's back to authenticity, right?
It's that's your, you being your authentic self and learning that about yourself and then
leaning into it more.
Like, all right, how can I, sometimes.
sometimes people use the term like unpealing the onion, right?
And but sometimes if it's not the right onion, like you're just,
you're going further down the wrong hole.
But if it, but when you find that path, you get real dangerous, like in a good way,
because you're unpealing that authentic self and getting more comfortable with being you.
And I think that's what personal branding and authority building is all about.
Yeah.
Yeah, don't get me wrong.
It's not like I'm just talking about what I want to talk about.
Yeah.
Because in marketing, we always know that it's all about the customers.
So to give you an example, before you talked about the term personal brand,
like when I started in my agency, I always thought that what we do is brand strategy.
We work with them to do brand storytelling.
And that's a huge part of what we do.
But when I go to a networking party or when I meet people and I'm like,
we do brand strategy, we do brand storytelling, something like that.
They're like, oh, yeah, that's cool.
What is that?
Or something like that.
But whenever I said, I'm a web designer, they'll be like, oh, I need a website.
Oh, I know somebody else who needs a website.
So that's when I realized that there's a difference between what we think people need
and what they actually want.
So I just, like you said, I go by whatever they say.
If they call me a web designer, okay, that's what I am.
Yeah, yeah.
Something like that.
I've run into those issues where the exact same thing.
I'm trying to use like this high level marketing speak.
I don't know if it's going over their head or under mine.
I don't know, but it's like I'm talking to myself.
And that's dangerous at its own right.
But how do you, I want to come back to something because do you,
do you get in the business of trying to convince people to talk to,
to get into the personal branding?
or do you just deal with, okay, people that have gotten over that hump and they know they need something?
I think the people that I'm teaching right now, they're not necessarily at the level of Mark Randolph.
Sure.
Those are my clients in my agency.
Yeah.
But in my content, I'm talking to people like yoga teachers or like a therapist or coach or somebody that provides some sort of a service.
but their expertise.
And they are a personal brand because they're exalding themselves.
But they're not really putting out content and stuff like that.
So I don't force anybody.
I don't tell people to go build your personal brand.
But I show them the benefit of that.
Because once you build a personal brand,
you can start a yoga studio.
You can start a yoga apparel line.
You can literally build as many businesses you want.
and you have eyeballs on it immediately.
Yeah.
So that's why I believe.
You build leverage.
Tension is,
and I think that's Gary V.
old term of tension is leverage,
but he's right,
which is once you have the followers
or the eyeballs or the attention,
whatever,
you can point it towards anything.
No different than the rock or a celebrity
is the best example.
They gain all this fame,
maybe from wrestling,
maybe you're from movies,
maybe from whatever.
And then they are pointing it towards tequila or a gym or whatever they want because they have fans.
It's also the trust because when people buy a Tesla, right?
In the back of their mind, they're thinking like, okay, I trust.
I just Elon Musk or if I'm flying a Virgin America, right?
Okay, I trust Richard Branson.
But the thing about brands without that face, it's almost, okay, what's going to happen if they mess up?
I'm just going to, who am I going to blame the board?
People want somebody to put blame on.
So I think that's what makes people feel safe, like buying a Tesla or buying, I forgot what Tesla, tequila company that the Rock has.
Yeah, I think of Casamigos, which is not The Rock, but that's George Clooney and whoever else.
but it's the same thing.
They know.
Ryan Reynolds.
But they all pivot into things.
And you're right.
They've built that authenticity and the trust that, hey, if George Clooney the Rock,
Ryan Reynolds, if they make this, I trust that it's going to be premium or quality
on some level because of that relationship they've built with their fans.
Yeah.
And it's the same thing.
They're putting their name on the line.
That's right.
What's talked to me?
about, okay, the bigger stars, the Mark Randolph's, the people that come to your agency that are
down this path already, but perhaps are coming to you and your agency for that next step,
an elevated website, an elevated brand story. What's that process like and what do you help
distill for them? Yeah, it's a lot like therapy.
You bring the brown couch out?
Lay down.
Exactly.
So we have a three-hour
brainstorming session
when we start.
And usually our clients,
like three hours,
right?
They're busy people, right?
Yeah.
But during that three hours,
they'll tell me their whole life story.
And my job is to figure out
which point in their life
was a turning point, right?
What's the thing
that made them who they are now?
In order to do that,
we have to, I have to ask a lot of questions, like, do this whole therapy thing.
For example, like Mark Randolph, through the whole, if you go to like his about page,
that's where we tell the story.
But through this whole discovery, we figure out that he has a very curious, rebellious mind.
So like when he was young, he would pull the fire alarm and cause trouble.
He was that kid.
Exactly.
So he would just try things.
So when he started Netflix, the first thing they did is they just bought a CD, put it in an envelope, and mailed it to himself to see what would happen, right?
And that's what he preaches.
He says, don't make a perfect business plan.
Don't go get raised money right away.
Just whatever it is, try it first and see what happens.
And the tagline he uses is there's no such thing as a good idea.
Because you know how everybody says there's no.
such thing as a bad idea.
Yeah.
He says there's no such thing as a good idea.
Everything starts out bad.
No matter what you come up with, it's going to start out bad.
And you just got to try things out.
Iteration.
Iteration creates value.
It's like everything is better.
Like a website, I'm going to speak web language right here.
1.0, 1.1, 1.2.
version 4.0 is way better than 1.2.
Exactly.
And so iteration breeds value, breeds change.
And really it's about change.
Like, you got to, everybody gets in love with their own thing.
It's, oh, I don't want to tell anyone this secret might, it's going to get out.
They're going to, they're going to copy it.
And it's, well, it's probably, to Mark's point, a bad idea that needs refinement.
So you go through that with them and then you help them distill all of that into language and ways to,
which to bring that to life.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So it, I, the typical brand story I see is, oh, I wanted this college.
I worked at this and I won these awards.
Or if it's a company, it'll be like, we were founded in this year.
And then we, that's not a story, right?
That's a biography.
Yeah.
So I try to drill down to the moments, which made that person know who they are.
And usually what that does is if I tell a story that's vulnerable, for example, maybe this will resonate.
When I started my agency, before that, I worked for a boss that was a tyrant.
He's like, my way or the highway type of person.
So when I started, I'm like, I'm going to be the cool boss.
I want to let people give ideas, be flexible and open-minded.
But I wasn't.
I was in a nice way.
I was like, oh, that's a good idea, but I don't think that's going to work.
I knew that inside, I was shutting them down, right?
And two years into it, one of my kind of key employees quit.
And we were having a conversation on why.
And like about 30 minutes into it, he said, son, I realize you're never going to let me make decisions.
And at that moment, I just started bawling out crying.
I don't like and I didn't know why.
Yeah.
But reflecting back, it was because I had built this identity of me of this cool boss that I'm open minded and things like that.
But deep inside, I wasn't.
I knew he was right.
So when I tell a story like that, some people might listen to that and go, holy shit, like, that's me.
I'm doing that.
But I've never heard anybody else say.
it. It's vulnerable. At that moment, it's like when you know a secret and I know a secret
and we're the only two people in the world that knows it, it creates an immediate bond.
Yeah. So like one another example is with Mel Robbins. She tells the story of how she was
bankrupt, but she tells the detail of I used to stand in the cash share of grocery store,
trying to come up with excuses that I'm going to give when my credit card declines.
Or I would unplug all the phones in my house because every time the bank calls,
like, I would get anxiety attacks.
So when she talks about those moments, people who are listening, oh, my gosh, I thought
I was the only one who did that.
So that creates an immediate connection with the audience.
I love that.
And I will add on to that.
I've tried to not be the guy that posts just the positives or all that.
But I grew up in the lower, I say, people say, you go from, you come from old money or new money.
And we came from no money.
That's the Ryan Alford story.
But my best performing piece of content was talking about washing my first job washing dishes for eight months at a meat and three restaurant where I would scrub macaroni dishes.
until my hands would practically bleed for eight months.
And I did it for eight months, and it taught me probably more about life and work than anything else.
But that's my best performing piece of content.
Because I think to your point, it's for like relatability and vulnerability of like just telling that story.
Exactly.
Yeah.
It's when I look at some like superstar or something like that, I'm like, oh, yeah, it's easy for you to say.
But then as soon as you tell that story, it's, oh, if you can do it, I can do it too.
Exactly.
That kind of deal.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Like, if I can do it, anybody could do it.
But talking with Sun Yi, founder of Night Owl, Night Owl's digital agency and marketing wizard guru specialist, everything.
Let me tell you, you got to go follow him.
We're going to hit his social channels up here shortly.
But, son, I want to transition just a hair.
Talk to me about, let's get into some real world stuff.
We've got AI.
bubbling off, you're building websites.
Let's start maybe down your path of what's happening in website development these days,
like with everything else going on?
What are the, is it changed that much or is it still for WordPress and beyond?
Every time something new comes out, people are like, oh, websites are done,
but that's so 90s or something like that.
Yeah.
But I don't see that because I feel like the market itself is growing.
Like every day there's new creators coming out.
There's new business that popping up and things like that.
So I don't see that happening.
With the AI stuff, I don't know too much about AI,
but I know my video editors use AI to BROs and stuff like that.
So it definitely helps us in doing what we do.
Yeah.
But one thing I realize is, and I'm sure you notice this too,
when you try to look for talent, whether it's designer,
copywriter, or a salesperson, or whatever it is,
you realize that 90% of people out there suck.
They're like mediocre.
So then you go to other people that you know who knows a good lawyer,
good designer or whatever, and you say, can you recommend one?
And usually the best ones are booked up.
They're busy, right?
They're not necessarily looking for clients.
So I bump into that problem all the time.
So when I end up hiring more usually copywriters or design or something like that, they're very mediocre.
I think those people are in trouble because AI can actually write pretty mediocre copy better than them.
And AI can do design, mediocre design better than them.
But what I see is I tried all this prompt on chat GPT to, because I teach storytelling in my community.
Yeah.
So I know all the ins and outs of how to make a story better.
So I try to teach chat GPT how to do it.
And I kept prompting prompt.
But I couldn't get it to tell like an exceptional story.
I can tell it to give me a pretty good story.
But I couldn't get it like the top 10% of storytellers.
So I think those people are pretty safe.
I just said the cream is just going to rise to the crop even far.
Exactly.
I don't feel, I might be naive, but I don't feel threatened by it because I've done the same things.
And it helps us in our agency shortcut some things that don't need nuance.
So it has its helpful things.
But the moment, like you said, if I.
I start throwing something at it that would normally take me an hour of thinking and like distilling and thinking about thinking, which is my favorite thing.
It can't get there.
And maybe it's because I'm the judge jury and executioner, but it's just not what can be distilled or brought together either in storytelling or positioning.
It's just very, I'm starting to see through the holes where it all starts to sound a little bit the same.
It'd be a different client.
And I'm like, I feel like I'm eating the same bowl of cereal every day.
That's how it is.
Most copy, most stories, they sound similar because of that.
Yeah.
What I noticed is because AI cannot have morality, right?
So they can't say this is right and this is wrong.
They can't do that.
But if I look at my best performing post,
or other people's best performing content,
stuff that people love.
It's usually the ones where they have an opinion,
where they put their foot down and say,
this is good and this is bad.
That's right.
And that's what people love.
But what AI is going to do is this is good under this kind of context,
this is bad under this kind of context,
but they're going to give all those nuances.
Yes.
And nobody wants that.
No.
It's right.
You're so right.
Like I've literally noticed that very thing where it's like it's almost afraid to offend or whatever or to contradict.
And that's the essence of life is agitation a little bit, right?
It's the least agitational content on the planet.
Yeah, exactly.
To give you an example, I don't know about now, but back in the days,
people used to love Apple.
But then there was also a group of people who hate Apple, right?
They're strictly like whether it's Linux or Windows or whatever.
And I think you need that, right?
People love the Yankees.
And people who love the Red Sox hate the Yankees.
And that's what branding is.
It's finding our people, right?
And in order to do that, we have to piss off some people who don't agree with that.
Yeah.
But if you make it everything mediocre, safe, yeah, people might not get offended, but nobody's going to love you either.
Yeah.
And I'm going to thank you for teeing up a campaign that made me a lot of money called Droid.
It was the anti-Iphone.
Like literally, I worked on that campaign in 2008.
We sold more smartphones than Apple for two weeks.
And Motorola, like a, you know what, bailed.
on it because it was a little polarizing, but we sold.
We're the only smartphone maker to outsell Apple in pretty much its entire history with
the Motorola droid campaign.
Droid does, iPhone doesn't.
And it was the exact what you're saying.
And people loved it because the iPhone came out and it was great because it was stupid simple.
You could do everything you wanted, but it didn't have all.
You couldn't change out the memory.
You couldn't change the resolution of the camera.
You can now.
but you couldn't do all these things.
And the whole campaign was around, I can't, I can't, but Droid does.
I love it.
Yeah.
Because those geeks, they want to control everything, right?
They want to customize everything.
They hate Apple.
Oh, they hate it.
You can't.
And 2008 especially, it's gotten a little better.
But, man, that was a fun campaign.
And the exact example of how you break through by playing the other side of the fence.
Exactly.
Son, talk to me.
let's give everybody some value here on your storytelling.
So what your art of storytelling, what are some of the key tenants that you counsel clients on or in your coaching or things like that?
Are there any nuggets you could give away for people that trying to do better storytelling?
So a lot of times, the first thing is what I said.
If I say, hey, tell me a story.
They tell me their life story, right?
Their biography.
And I say, that's not a story less, let's hone in on a specific story.
moment, some life-changing event.
And then when they tell me that, they usually summarize it.
They're like, oh, I was stuck in this nine to five job.
And I wasn't fulfilled.
I was making money, but I wasn't fulfilled.
So eventually I had to do something about it.
So one day I just walked into my boss's office, quit.
And then I started this business.
And then now I'm going to show you how to do it or something like that.
Yeah.
And that's pretty much like every story.
Like somewhere in between this, like, that's when I hit rock bottom.
Something like that.
Yeah.
So what I do is I say don't use thought verbs.
Thought verbs are like, I thought, I felt, or I understood.
You're trying to describe the story rather than actually showing me what happened.
So one of the things I say is try to draw pictures.
for me. So I can actually
picture myself being there.
So when you said when you're at that restaurant
scrubbing for eight months
until your hands are bleeding.
That's the kind of story I want
because once you draw picture
from me, here's a good
example I use.
So I can neither say
I was so broke
I felt like a fraud
because everybody thought
I was successful.
That's one thing. But if I draw
picture. It's like on payday, I would take all my friends out to dinner, buy drinks,
and then for the next two weeks, I'll sit at home eating ramen noodles, waiting for my next
paycheck. Yeah. So that draws a picture of what being broke looks like. So that's one quick
team. Another thing is people try to tell this hero's journey story, but it's a lot of times
it sounds like a sob story, like they're playing the victim. So for example,
They might say something like, oh, when I was young, I was weird.
I was different than anyone else.
So nobody wanted to play with me.
But I didn't care.
So I just hung up by myself.
And then eventually I found other weird kids and we formed our own tribe.
So the lesson is find your own tribe, right?
Now that sounds like a hero's journey is thriller.
But it's not.
It's actually, they're saying that, oh, I didn't care.
I was always cool.
Not cool, but I always was authentic and I'm still authentic now.
The better way to tell that story is I was weird.
Nobody wanted to play with me.
But I wanted to fit in.
I wanted to be part of the popular crowd.
So I dressed differently.
I talked differently and I became somebody else.
But it became exhausting.
So one day I decided to just be myself and lose these friends.
but then I ended up finding my own tribe.
There's an internal transformation there
where there's an old me and the new me.
And one of the ways I tell them to find that is
don't focus on the event, the tragedy.
Okay, my father died or I got into an accident
or this person fired me.
Because when you dwell on, that sounds like a sob story.
That sounds like you're just blaming everybody else, right?
Yeah.
But when you quickly get over,
that and then go straight to the okay what i do wrong as a result of that what was my fault
that's when it becomes a transformation story i love that you take you taking the own blame for your
what happened and owning it and then how you pivoted from it nobody wants to give you cheese
with your wine exactly it sounds like when you hear a story like
like that? Like you might not realize it, but you can tell us that sounds like a soft story or that
sounds like that person's stolen trauma or like it sounds like they're playing the victim.
Yeah. No one likes that. I love those of those. I can see how that uncovers deeper stories
that people relate to, which then translates to better content for how they might bring those
stories to life or getting and building the natural tribe around whoever story that might be,
which is ultimately what you're coaching them to do, right?
I always say selling is teaching because to give you an example,
I have a friend who's a yoga teacher, but let's say you don't do yoga.
That person is thinking like, oh, yoga is like some spiritual people that wear Lululemon,
they go on like, I'm mad, and they're stretching or something like that.
But the story that she tells is she says she went to a yoga boot camp because she worked at Lulu Lemon and they made her go there.
But she fell in love with it.
She practiced it for 11 years.
But a few years ago, her aunt passed away from cancer.
But she spent the last few years, sorry, last few months of her aunt's life.
sitting there in the hospital, sitting in that heart chair, holding her hand, crying together,
laughing together, talking about life together, all the ups and down.
And she said that was a familiar feeling.
Like her family stopped coming.
They couldn't handle the kind of the mental toughness.
So they stopped coming.
And so she was there by herself all the way till her aunt's dying, last dying breath.
And the reason why she was able to do that.
and that feeling, that familiar feeling,
was when she's on the yoga mat in the 90-degree room,
holding that pose for another extra minute,
that she was practicing that uncomfortableness.
And that's what yoga does for you.
It helps you get through those tough times in life.
And that's the gift that yoga gave to me.
And now I want to give that gift to you.
That's why I teach yoga.
And that usually will people like,
oh man i kind of want to try yoga now yeah something like that i tell that story with getting tattoos
like i say i like it because it teaches me it's painful and but i like it but number one i like
the art of it that's number one but number two now that i've done it it teaches me control
and i actually think it's therapeutic and i'm not going to have tattoos over my whole body like some
people, but, but it does. It's similar to what you just described in that, because it,
I feel like it makes me not tougher. I'm tough because I get tattoos, but holding back and
taking the pain. And I don't know, I feel like I've, it's unlocked something mentally for me.
I got addicted to a tattoo for a little bit. Because every time I get one, I'm in this euphoria
state where I feel a sense of accomplishment. Yeah. I'm like, and I'm looking at it like, wow.
And then because I was in pain for three hours.
Like now, yeah, exactly.
Yeah, there's something about.
Any tattoo artists listening right now?
Yeah.
That's a great friend story.
Yeah, we're selling for you.
Yeah, I hope you take this clip and put it on your social media.
Just tag Sun and I for proper credit.
We'll take 10% commission on that as well.
All jokes aside, son, this has been great, man.
I'd love to do this regularly with you.
Just picking your brain and maybe a couple times a year.
you're a really bright, intelligent person.
And I'm fascinated by your content and your approach.
It's very different, but really well received.
I think our audience is going to love this.
Thank you so much.
And thank you for having me on.
Son, tell everyone where they can keep up with you, your content, get involved with your
coaching, night owls, all the stuff we've been talking about.
Yeah.
So everything I post on my Instagram, which is sun, s-un, that Y,
I, and all the links are in my bio, everything you can find in there.
Keeping it easy.
Do your self a favor.
Go follow him like I do.
You'll get addicted.
The carousel craziness, but it's all unpacked.
I'm swiping.
My time on page with you is increasing your algorithm a lot, buddy.
I guarantee you.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Hey, guys, go follow Sonny.
And of course, you know where I'm at, at Ryan offered on all the platforms.
Verify it before you could buy it.
You know it.
We're at the radcast.com.
Search for Sun Yi.
You'll find all the highlight clips from today.
And there's going to be some good ones.
Let me tell you.
We'll see you next time on the radcast.
To listen or watch full episodes, visit us on the web at the radcast.com
or follow us on social media at our Instagram account,
the dot rad.
Or at Ryan Alford.
Stay radical.
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