Right About Now with Ryan Alford - 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.
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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 Sun Yi keeps showing up, like
hitting my feed. They must know I like it because he's here and he's the founder of Nite Owls
Digital Agency and a badass marketer, if I do say so myself.
What's up, son?
What's up, Ryan?
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, a hallelujah, brother. Like in my old
Southern Baptist stuff, Ken 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. I am 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.
Heating up here. You're headed towards the summertime. We're warming up, right? Is it getting hot in Texas?
Has that been a change for you?
I actually like the hot. I was sick of the cold, the snow storms. 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 Sun, let's set the table for everybody. Let's tell the Sun Yee 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 into our... Before that, we
worked with clients like Spotify,
American Red Cross, Columbia
University, some bigger corporate
brands. But when
I got tired of that because I was working with marketing managers,
marketing directors who are basically like nine to fivers.
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 worked with Gabby, it was like a different, because it was her own brand. Everything's safe. Nothing innovative. Just meet deadlines.
But when I worked with Gabby, it was like a different, because it was her own brand.
So I found, 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 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 things like that and she started introducing us to all these other personal
brands i don't know if jay sh. 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.
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 the future.
Because I realized that influence is the future.
It's like the new oil, right?
So I decided to build my own person i've i've always been behind the camera
like behind the curtain type of person but i'm like i gotta go out there so i spent like fifteen
thousand dollars buying all this video equipment hiring a video person i'm gonna be like the next
scary b and then have him follow me around.
But that didn't really work.
That wasn't my style.
And then COVID happened
and I just started taking my Zoom recordings,
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 behind the camera,
from behind the camera to in front of the camera,
which may not have worked for you,
but you recognize the power of being known.
And that's what I, I trademarked the line,
it pays to be known.
It 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 or...
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.
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 it 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?
Or I'm shy actually.
Yep.
And when I started, but I knew, like you said,
I knew I had to get out of there
because what I started noticing is,
like I saw that whole Kylie Jenner thing,
like she became the youngest billionaire
all over personal brand.
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 and over i think i got used to it and what i usually say is
people talk about self-love all the time. This process really, truly made me love myself.
I don't think I really loved myself before,
but just keep hearing myself over and over.
After a couple of years, I happen to watch videos.
I'm like, oh, I sound pretty good.
And that's when I realized I really love myself.
I'm glad you found it because I love your content and I want you to keep making it.
I'm glad you found that.
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 and 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, hey, everybody, all of that, that wasn't really me.
So maybe that's why I felt like a little bit awkward but when I started putting up zoom calls
people started resonating with me and I thought everyone is going to hate me like why is this guy
always yelling why is he so bad so emotional and all of that but what I realized 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 bech.
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,
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 off 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 people use the term like unpeeling the onion, right?
But sometimes if it's not the right onion, because you're unpeeling the 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 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.
Or, oh, I know somebody 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.
Something like that.
I've run into those issues where, 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.
Cause do you, are you, do you get in the business of trying to convince people to talk, to get into the personal branding?
Or do you just deal with 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 excelling 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 exactly 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 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 see Elon Musk.
Or if I'm flying up Virgin America, right?
Okay, I trust Richard Branson. 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, right?
People want somebody to put blame on, right?
So I think that's what makes people feel safe.
Like buying a Tesla or or buying buying i forgot
what tesla tequila company that the rock has yeah i think of casamigos which is not the rock but
that's a george clooney and whoever else but it's the same thing they know ryan reynolds ryan
reynolds but they all pivot into things and you're. 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, talk to me about, okay, the bigger stars,
the Mark Randolphs, 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 what 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 In order to do that, we 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 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 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.
And that's what he preaches. He says, don't make a perfect business plan. 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 and 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 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 a website i'm gonna speak web language right here 1.0 1.1 1.2 exactly 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.
It's going to get out.
They're going to copy it.
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. 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 went to 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 it's 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'm going to give let people give ideas let 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 realized
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 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 cashier of grocery store trying to come up with excuses
that i'm gonna 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,
how do I say?
People say, you come from old money or new money. And I come, we came from no money. That's the Ryan Alford story. And, 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 till 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 been my best performing piece of content because I think to your point, it's 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 it.
But then as soon as you tell that story,
it's,
Oh,
if you can do it,
I can do it too.
Exactly.
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 owls 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 let's i want to transition just a hair
talk to me about let's get into some real world stuff you're we got ai bubbling off you're
building websites what's the 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 me wordpress and beyond like 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 businesses 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 b-rolls and stuff like that so it definitely helps us in doing what we do yeah
but one thing i realized 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 percent 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 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 usually copywriters or designer or something like that
they're very mediocre i think those people are in trouble because
AI can actually write
mediocre copy better than them
and AI
can do mediocre design
better than them
but what I see is
I tried all this prompt on chat GPT
because I teach storytelling
in my community
so I know all the ins and outs of
how to make a story better.
So I try to teach ChatGPT 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.
As of now.
Yes.
I know.
I just said it's good.
The cream is just going to rise to the crop even farther.
Exactly.
I don't feel, I might be naive, but I don't feel threatened by it because I've done the same things.
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 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. I'm like, I feel like I'm eating the same 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.
And 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 posts 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.
And they're going to give all those nuance.
Yes.
And nobody wants that.
It's right.
You're so right.
I've literally noticed that very thing where 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'sux or windows or whatever and i think you need that right people
love the yankees people and people who love the red socks hate the yankees and that's what branding
is like 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 that was,
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 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 it's i love it yeah because those geeks they want to control everything right they
want to customize everything they hate apple oh they can't do that you can't and 2008 especially
it's gotten a little better but man that was a fun. And the exact example of how you break through by playing the other side of the fence.
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 let's let's hone in on a specific 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 gonna 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 thought verbs thought verbs 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 a picture for me so I can actually picture myself being there.
So when you said when you're at that restaurant scrubbing for eight months, like until your hands are bleeding.
Yeah.
That's the kind of story I want.
Because once you draw a picture for me, here's a good example I use.
So I can either say I was so broke.
I felt like a fraud because everybody thought I was successful. That's one thing.
But if I draw a 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. So that draws a picture of what being broke looks like.
So that's one quick theme.
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 out 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 through,
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 I 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? But when you quickly 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 did 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 like 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 that like you might not realize it but you can tell us that sounds like a sob
story or that sounds like that person's stolen trauma or like it sounds like they're playing the victim.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
No one likes that.
I love both of those. for how they might bring those stories to life or getting and building the natural tribe
around whoever's 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 oh yoga is like some spiritual people that wear lululemon that go on like the mat and they're
stretching or something like that but the story that she tells is she says she went to yoga boot
camp because she worked at lululemon and they made her go there but she fell in love with
it she practiced it for 11 years but 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
hard chair holding her hand crying together
laughing together talking about life together all the ups and downs 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 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 all over my whole body like some people, but it does.
It's similar to what you just described in that because I feel like it makes me tougher.
I'm tough because I get tattoos, but holding back and taking the pain.
And I don't know.
I feel like it's unlocked something mentally for me.
I got addicted to tattoo for a little bit because every time I get one,
I'm in this euphoria state where I feel a sense of accomplishment.
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.
Any tattoo artists listening right now?
Yeah.
That's a great brainstorm. 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, Sun, this has been great, man. I'd love to do this regularly with you,
just picking your brain and maybe a couple of 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-U-N dot Y-I,
and all the links are in my bio, everything you can find in there.
Keeping it easy. Do yourself 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 Son Yee. And of course, you know where I'm at, at Ryan Alford on all
the platforms. Verify before you could buy it. You know it. We're at theradcast.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 theradcast.com or follow us on social media at our Instagram account,
the.rad.cast.
Or at Ryan Alford.
Stay radical.