The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - TSC X DONALD MILLER

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

#811: Join us as we sit down with Donald Miller – CEO of StoryBrand, a company revolutionizing how businesses clarify brand messaging through the power of storytelling. Best known for his StoryBrand framework, Donald reveals the secrets behind impactful marketing & branding strategies. In this episode, Donald dives into the power of problem-solving in branding, the formula for compelling storytelling, & the profound impact of clear messaging. Plus, Donald reveals the evolution of StoryBrand & how he has integrated AI with StoryBrand.ai, a tool designed to streamline brand messaging like never before! To Watch the Show click HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To connect with Donald Miller click HERE To connect with Lauryn Bosstick click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential Head to the HIM & HER Show ShopMy page HERE and LTK page HERE to find all of Michael and Lauryn’s favorite products mentioned on their latest episodes. Visit donaldmiller.com to learn more about Donald Miller. Click HERE to purchase his best-selling books, including his latest addition, Building A StoryBrand 2.0. For a free trial of StoryBrand.ai click HERE. This episode is sponsored by Chomps Get 15% off your order of Chomps meat sticks at Chomps.com/SKINNY with code SKINNY. This episode is sponsored by Cymbiotika  Go to Cymbiotika.com/TSC for 20% off + free shipping. That’s Cymbiotika.com/TSC to claim 20% off + free shipping today. This episode is sponsored by Skims Shop SKIMS best intimates including the Fits Everybody Collection and more at SKIMS.com/skinny and SKIMS stores. This episode is sponsored by Agent Nateur Visit AgentNateur.com and use code SKINNY for 20% off sitewide. This episode is sponsored by Live Conscious Collagen Peptides Visit weliveconscious.com and use code SKINNY at checkout for 15% off your first purchase. This episode is sponsored by Fatty15 Fatty15 is on a mission to replenish your C15 levels and restore your long-term health. You can get an additional 15% off their 90-day subscription Starter Kit by going to fatty15.com/SKINNY and using code SKINNY at checkout. Produced by Dear Media  

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. Hello everybody, welcome back to the Skinny Confidential Him and Her show. Today I am so excited to welcome a guest that continues to inspire me every single day. I would say many of the brands that I've been part of or built have largely been inspired by this guy's work and that is Donald Miller. He wrote Building a Story Brand and that book changed my life. We're going to talk all about it on this show, but if you're somebody that wants to build an online brand, your own business, if you want to be able to get your message out there and have people resonate with it better, if you want

people to understand what you're trying to say online and it's not breaking through this episode is for you. This is all about communication, building a brand, making sure that your message is reaching your customers, growing a personal brand, you name it. This guy's got the answers for you with that Donald Miller. Welcome to the skinny confidential him and her show. This is the skinny confidential him and her. There's a reason people are ignoring you.

And here's why, why in short, you have not identified a problem that you solve and become known for that. That would be the, there's multiple answers. We value products, people, brands, politicians, soap. We value anything because it solves a problem. That's it. The only thing human beings spend money on are things that solve problems. And if you haven't communicated passively or directly

what problem you solve, it's very hard for people to figure out why you matter. I realize that's incredibly selfish. It's not true for your children or your spouse or anything like that. But if you're trying to build a brand, you've gotta be known for solving a problem. That's reason number one is because you haven't identified a problem. And once you identify

what problem you solve, you need to talk about it endlessly because the bigger the problem is, the more valuable you are because you're somebody who solves problems. And for instance, let's say you're at a cocktail party or something, you meet two people who do the exact same thing, same business, same quality, same price. You go up to the first person, you say, what do you do? They say, well, I'm an at-home chef. I come to your house and cook. You're thinking, that's interesting. Where'd you go to culinary school and, you know, how do you make your hollandaise sauce? And, you know, you're probably not going to do business with them, but you're genuinely curious about their story.

You go to the next person, you say, what do you do? And they say, well, you know how most families don't eat together anymore when they do, they don't eat healthy? I'm an at-home chef. I come to your house and cook. Chef number two is going to get all the business and chef number one is not going to get any of it. And the reason is they position themselves as the solution to a problem.

So the number one reason most people are being ignored is because you can't figure out what problem you solve, which I realize sounds shallow, but the human brain is designed to help you survive. And it's a problem solving machine. So it can't help but try to figure out where are you useful? Where's this useful? Where's this product useful? So if you state it clearly, this is the problem I solve, all of a sudden your brand gets a lot more attention, which is point number two is you've got to state it clearly, this is the problem I solve, all of a sudden your brand gets a lot more attention.

Which is point number two is you've got to state it clearly. You can't be elusive about it or vague. You have to state, if you have a leaky roof, I'm the guy you call. It's so funny. Well, first, I'm so excited that you're here and I told you that before we started, both Lauren and I are. I must have read your book, Building a Story Brand in 2015 or 16. Does that sound?

Probably, yeah, probably the year it came out. Thanks for doing that. Yeah, I was like, and it was before I started this company, Dear Media, right around the time we were starting this. So the office we're sitting in is called Dear Media and we primarily produce shows like ours. We have this one and about a hundred others we produce. What's your problem, you solve bitch.

You doing it? So, but I was- State it clear. I'm so excited to go through this with you. this one and about a hundred others. What's your problem? You solve bitch. I'm so excited to go through this with you. But what I realized when I was starting this business subconsciously, and the reason this exists is many people that do what we do had huge problems in producing, monetizing, distributing, marketing. And because you solve a problem, you're rich. And well, my, my thing that I said to many of them was not, I'm starting a

media company or a media business. I would approach them and say, you have this problem where you can't reach audiences, you can't make money, you can't get heard, you can't get seen. That's right. And it largely started this snowball and, you know, not to be self-grandiosity or like brag, but you know, the success of that approach manifested largely because I read your book and figured out how to tell and communicate that story.

Yeah. And so I'm so excited to have you here because I think this is applicable not only to what we do, but for anyone looking to build a personal brand, a business, a product, whatever it may be. It's the reason I'm married. I mean, I had been crazy about my wife for three years, similar story to yours. She just like, you know, never gave me much of the time of the day. And I started studying this. I was starting to think about the Story Brand framework. I didn't call it that at

the time, hadn't written the book. She was dating somebody, had been dating somebody for three years, off and on. And so I'm sitting there across from her and I just go, you know, it seems like he should be popping the question by now and if I were dating you, I would be asking you, I just can't imagine, I don't know why I didn't see that, but if you're not feeling cared about or paid attention to, and I literally said 30 days from now, I'm gonna call you and ask you out.

And if you have a boyfriend, it's gonna be really uncomfortable. 30 days later gonna call you and ask you out. And if you have a boyfriend, it's gonna be really uncomfortable. 30 days later, called her and asked her out. And she was like, I said, when I called her, I said, do you have a boyfriend? She goes, no. I'm like, well, we should go out. But I say that as a joking story,

but literally I figured out how to position myself as the solution to her problem. And it worked. Now she would say that had nothing to do with it, but, but I, I, I think it works on so many levels that it doesn't matter what you're trying to do. If you just go, you seem to be struggling with this. And one, I care about that, that that shouldn't be happening to you. And two, I know how to solve that problem,

and I'm willing to do so. That's the point at which potential customers, because we're talking business here, begin to pay attention to you. They're literally not paying attention to you until they put their problem together with your solution and they go, oh, there's some potential there. How did you see this space? Talk to me about when you were a little boy How did you see this space? Like talk to me about when you were like a little boy, did you see, did you see something or have an epiphany of understanding this? Like how did you even begin to conceptualize this? You know, I don't, I'm not exactly sure. It's sort of a Forrest Gump scenario. I actually went to Alvin Community College here in Texas, home of the Fighting Dolphins, I actually went to Alvin Community College here in Texas, home of the Fighting Dolphins, on a Tuba scholarship.

So that explains why I got married so late, but it was a creative, I was a creative and I was writing compositions for Tuba. And obviously that was not gonna go anywhere. And picked up a pen and started writing and realized, oh, that same desire that to sort of compose experiences, I can channel that through literature. Began to write, wrote my first book about a road trip I took across the country,

and that book sold like 10,000 copies, which is not very good. And then ended up auditing classes at Reed College in Portland, where we ran out of money on the road trip. And Reed had two distinguishing characteristics. It was the most godless campus in the country. And then the average IQ was two points above genius of the students there. And so I spent three years at Reed and wrote a book about it, wrote a book about my experience at Reed.

And that book ended up on the New York Times for like 40 something weeks. And then that set me up as a writer and I began writing book after book. Well, in order to write better books, I began to study story and story structure because it keeps people turning the page. It's very formulaic. And I studied it and studied it, wrote eight memoirs. They all did pretty well. And the publisher always wants another one. And I said, I don't have another memoir. I'm going to write a book about narrative structures and how you can use them to

clarify a message, to bring attention to a brand. And they said, that book is going to sell four copies and it ended up selling a million copies. And that started this whole career, this whole second career, if you will, of helping people clarify their message. And I'm extremely grateful for it. Because I wrote a lot of books, and they were really fun to write, but I was just done, sort of navel gazing and talking about myself. And so now I'm able to work with other brands and help them figure out how to get that kind of attention. Based on all the studying that you've done on storytelling and branding, who do you think, from an outside perspective, does it the creme de la creme? You could do a restaurant, you could do Uber, like who's just doing it where you're blown away?

There are half a dozen doing it at the highest level. Not all of them are big brands that you know about because if you're Coca-Cola, everybody knows what Coca-Cola is. And so Coca-Cola can sell emotions. They can sell a feeling. Smaller brands, if they try to do that, they go bankrupt because nobody actually knows what you do or what problem you solve. Like Dave Ramsey was an early story brand adopter, and Dave is $300 million business, but he's known for solving your financial problems.

That's what the character wants. There's a villain, which is credit card companies in debt. He's going to give you three steps to overcome the villain and beat them at their own game so that you can have the climactic scene of being debt free. That's all story brand framework. That's all inviting the customer into a story in which they play the hero, overcome a villain, and live to win and experience a better day. That would be probably one of the top brands that I would say implements the StoryBrand

framework. Other people play with it. United Airlines has now positioned the customer as the hero, traveling in order to win the day, but they're just sort of playing around it. It's mostly StoryBrand as a framework has been adopted by mostly small businesses who've seen dramatic success when they figured out how to clearly articulate the problem that they solve. I think what has been so helpful to me is that the customer should be the hero. You've helped me realize that even with this podcast, like I'm sort of the guide and the customer is the hero.

And when you constantly tell yourself that when you're creating content or when you're building a brand, it really makes a big difference. Yeah. What pro, you know, if you're going to write a blog or going to do a podcast episode, you just want to identify, you know, okay, this is our guest today. What are the three big problems that the listener has that this guest can help solve? And at that point you're mediating between the guide

and the hero, which would be a very popular podcast. So what do you think the top three problems that the listener has? For this episode? Yeah. They're not getting the attention that they want. Okay. They're beginning to think that their product

or themselves are not good enough. And they wanna grow a brand. Those would be the problems that I solve or help people solve. Can we solve each of them live on the show right now? Can we go through each one? Give me the, yeah, give me the brand. So say somebody-

Oh, so you'd have to, we'd have to give you the brand. Yeah, you know, what like, what do you do? Got it, got it. Maybe let me ask you a different, more broad way to answer this question. When somebody brings you on or starts to work with you and you dive into their business,

what are some of the three biggest mistakes you see brands doing? That's a really great question. Okay. So a recent brand was Spectrum brands. Spectrum brands got started because they bought George Foreman grills. Okay. Co-form grills were doing extremely well. They began to decline as far as I understand the story. And my guy, the CEO of Spectrum brands is really good at buying companies that are on the way down and then bringing them right back. They own that. They own Remington Shavers.

They also dominate the fish food, fish aquarium market at all American pet stores. They called me in. We spent a day with their team, a lot of them from Europe and very, very intelligent folks. They said, look, hobbyists buy fish aquariums, families don't. We sell about $100 million worth of aquariums, fish food, that sort of thing a year. I said, well, okay, you want to break into families. They're like, yeah, but families don't buy aquariums. And so I remembered being in London for a month

with Betsy and Emeline and we would, we stopped, we'd have to stop at the lobby of the hotel we were in to look at the aquarium because Emeline was so fast and she wanted to find Nemo. There was three Nemos in this aquarium and we'd always find it was just a blast. And I said, but kids love aquariums. And then the light bulb went off. Well, if you just put kids love aquariums. And then the light bulb went on.

Well, if you just put kids love aquariums on everything, you'll sell aquariums to families. In other words, what is the problem that the mom or dad walking into the pet store has? They're looking, if they are looking for something that their kids will love, then what you need to say is kids will love this. And it's that simple. And so convincing these very, very intelligent people that they could put three words on an aquarium and sell a lot more of it was very difficult

because they get paid a lot of money, they A, B test everything, and they're not gonna believe this guy who wrote the book that our boss read, right? And so I convinced them, I said, look, do it in a test market. Just put kids love aquariums on it. Put it on the aquariums, put it on the fish food,

put it on signage, because the problem is I'm looking for something my kids will love. Now what's interesting is no parent would actually tell you that's the problem, so they don't even know what their problem is. So that's the other challenge. You gotta figure out what is the internal struggle of your customer, even if they can't articulate it.

But it sounds like in that instance, the parents don't even know what they're looking for. They don't. They're walking into it, and they might even be walking in to get dog food. But then when they see kids love aquariums, what percentage of parents love their kids? Roughly 100. And what percentage of parents want something that their kids will love?

Roughly 100. And so there it is. So they were just like, I don't know. So I pulled Marcus out, I said, look, will you just test it in one market? About three months later, he calls me, he says, hey, I want to come to Nashville and spend some time with you. I was like, okay, what's going on? He goes, we did the test market.

I go, well, how'd it go? He goes, I just want to come to Nashville and spend some time with you. Please don't be suspenseful. Comes to Nashville, we're up in my office and I'm like, well, something happened. And he said, I just wanted you here in person, 99% in Christian sales. Wow. Holy shit. Now just think about why.

Why? Because this is the number one reason they stopped making the customer think. Most businesses fail because, not because their product wasn't good enough, it's because they made their customer think. Now, the average brain burns six to 800 calories a day. You're constantly processing information and your brain is a supercomputer. Your brain is the organ in your body that burns more calories than any other organ in your body. It is very, very hungry. Because your brain burns 600, 800 calories a day, 20% of the calories you burn are with your brain.

You're constantly actually trying not to think because if you burn 1,400 calories in a day and barbarians attack you in your cul-de-sac that night, you don't have any energy to fight them. So your brain is always trying to say, only think about things that will help me survive. That's it. Don't think about anything else. Only think about things that will help me survive.

That's why you look both ways when you cross the street. That's why when you walk into a Starbucks, you get your coffee, you leave, you don't study the glue packaging on the coffee. You're constantly ignoring information. It's why when you say the same thing four times to me, I get... I need him to acknowledge.

You have to associate what you want. I'm trying to survive. That's all I can... You have to associate what you want with his survival. So what you need to actually say is, if you don't do this, there's going to be hell to pay and he'll do it. Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, maybe you need to give us a slogan as wives of what to say, like a kids love aquarium situation. Maybe we need like a brand story for how wives can get their husbands to snap to it. That's a whole other book that I'm not qualified to write. Okay. But the idea is short, simple soundbites that associate with your, with your customer's survival. And if you don't do that, you will not grow a business. Let me ask you or give you another prompt these days.

And I don't know if you've worked with individuals like this. Many people want to pursue a career building an online persona, whether they want to do a show like this, or they want to be a blogger or they want to whatever it may be, you know it may be, that's become a thing. For those individuals that are struggling to break through, what would you tell them? Because it's maybe similar in a lot of ways, but different than a brand or a product business.

Niche down on a problem, niche down on a problem that a lot of people have and feel very passionately. For instance, let me just, Dr. Becky. Yeah,, we love Dr. Becky. She's been my best friend. Okay, why? What problem does she solve? She helps us be better parents. There you go. Peter Atiyah. We just had dinner with him. It's going to help me live longer. There you go. If I can't name the problem you solve very quickly, you're going to have a struggle

building a brand. That's the fastest way to do it. Peter Attia is known for longevity. Now, there's a lot of people who are known for health, wellness, that sort of stuff. He niched down on one aspect of it, longevity. Dr. Becky is a psychologist, probably give really great marital advice. She doesn't, only parenting. By the way, she has a paradigm shift that kids are actually good, which is yet a further

niche because it's the antithesis of what most people think. Now she's combining the solution to a problem that is a felt need everybody has with a paradigm shift that is different than what you previously thought. In screenwriting, that's called the same but different. The reason there are so many sequels in movies is because people batch their thinking. Well, I saw the first Marvel when I liked it, so I'll spend money on the second.

That's why there are very few movies in the theater that are different. The new Bob Dylan movie, which is a fantastic movie, is very much like all of the other, the movie about Queen, the movie about Elton John, the movie about, it's the same but different. And so what you wanna do is say, well, I'm a parenting coach, the same, but I believe

kids are good. That's different. And I will help you and your kids get along much better and help you develop kids so that they thrive. That's the problem you solve. So the people that I'm listing, there are people who have some degree of fame who maybe aren't known for a problem But if you actually want to grow a personal brand really really quickly own a problem It's probably from my friends who you know are trying to grow a brand. This is the number one conversation that we have

So I want you to own some I own clear messaging There are other people out there trying to do it But they but I own it because I talk about it so much. And it's the reason that I'm on podcasts is to talk about clear messaging. And if you can actually own a problem and be the first person or maybe the best or the second, but say it clearest, it's the fastest way to grow a brand. No, you're so right. Can we pick on ourselves for a second? So let's say you're consulting us on this show.

To me, this show, and I'm curious to know what you think the problem is, but to me, this show is to be the best version of yourself. So every episode, my goal is to give the audience tangible tools to be the best version of themselves. Right. Is the problem that we're solving that, like, how do you articulate that problem? I would say the problem we're solving is you want to be better and you could be better. But you just don't know how. Yeah. Yeah. And you guys are facilitating that conversation. Is that how simple it is? That's how simple it is. You could niche down even further.

Yeah. Like for instance, if you said how stay at home moms can experience meaning, that's a whole area of expertise that you can niche down on. I think what's happened in this instance. But you guys, you're successful because you're solving problems. And let me say this, the reason that we're in the 24th floor of a beautiful building in Austin, Texas in a gorgeous studio is because you've solved problems. That is rule number one is unless you solve problems, people are not interested in you.

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This is a good one for every day just to keep them even and lifted. Again, amazing under a fitted tee. Shop Skims best intimates, including the fits everybody collection and more at skims.com and skims stores. After you place the order, be sure to let them know we sent you. You can select podcasts in the survey and be sure to select our show in the drop-down menu that follows. Go to skims.com slash skinny. That's skims.com slash skinny. That's skims.com slash skinny. What I always am careful about with this platform in particular is somebody is going to tune

in or listen to episode 805 with Donald Miller. And they don't realize that episode one, two, three, and four were very niche down and they were very specific. But over time, it's been a decade of, it's been almost two decades of creating content, but a decade of doing this. So obviously the conversations and topics have gotten wider and broader over time, but in the beginning

where we found success was very specific niches and problem solving. Yeah. And I just mentioned that. And it's such a great way to get the fire started, right? As you niche down, niche down, and then get broader as the brand gets bigger. Yeah. How would you describe, because you mentioned this earlier, the components of telling a story in the

best way? Well, the way stories work are extremely formulaic. They have been for 2,500 years. Sorry, I'll ruin some movies for me. I'm not going to lie. Yeah, you can predict pretty much what's gonna happen based on seven different story structures that exist in modern movies and in a lot of novels, mostly in movies. But in all seven story formulas, if you will,

and they have names like Monster in the House and There and Back Again, there's seven. Christopher Booker wrote, I think, the best book called The Seven Basic Plots. It's 700 pages of text smaller than your Bible. It took him 34 years to write the book. It's a fantastic book on story and story structure. However, there are seven things that happen in all seven formulas. Those things are you have a character and the character wants something.

The character encounters a problem so they can't get what they want. That opens the story question. The guide shows up, which is a strong character who's been there, done that, I can help the hero win. The guide gives the character, the hero, a three-step plan that either ends

in a happy ending or a tragic ending. That's it. That is pretty much every movie you can name. And where screenwriters get it wrong and us personal brands get it wrong, there's a bunch of rules inside of that structure that if you break them, your brand is probably going to fail. One of them is you haven't clearly defined what your hero customer wants.

When my chef example said, you know how most families don't eat together anymore, when they do, they don't eat healthy. He's identified what the customer wants. In fact, he didn't even tell them what they do. He started with the problem, right? And then if you're not very, very clear and niche down, that's one big mistake.

Another big mistake is most people position themselves as the hero. And so they actually say, I am a hero, here's my story, I want you to buy my product, I'm trying to grow my company and blah, blah, blah. And they tell their story. Stop telling your story. It doesn't matter. What matters is the customer story. You need to position yourself as the guide in the hero's life. Listen to the ramifications of this. We got a call from the Jeb Bush campaign. I was on a task force with Barack Obama in the White House, but we got a call from a Republican.

I'm neither a Republican or Democrat. I'm frustrated with both parties, but they called. A friend of mine is Jeb's nephew and said, would you go to Florida and help him out? He's getting beat by this television guy, Donald Trump. It was back in the first one. And again, I don't want to piss anybody off, but I said, yeah, I'd love to. So I go to, at the time,

Jeb's campaign tagline was, Jeb can fix it. Jeb can fix it. What makes it about them? Who's the hero? Him. Jeb. So you have not entered into my story. You're telling me a story about you, but you've not entered the story as mine.

And then he broke the second rule or one of the other seven rules is you're gonna fix it. Well, it is very vague. What is it? I can't emotionally, if you walk into a pet store and there's signs everywhere that says kids love it, what am I supposed to buy? Right. I can't get my mind around your offer.

So $112 million in the Right to Rise Super PAC, $15 million in the general campaign fund, approximately, and 3% in the polls. Money's not going to solve your problem. A message will. Trump goes on to win, very clear tagline. In fact, I was in Finland at the Nordic Business Forum, 8,000 entrepreneurs in the audience. This was before Trump was elected. I said, what does Donald Trump want to do with America?

And 8,000 people said, make America great again. It was a short, memorable tagline. Build a wall is his foreign policy, basically. Jeb Bush wrote a book on immigration. Donald Trump had three words, three words beat a book. I'm not proud of that. I'm just saying if you don't understand, this is how the human brain works, good luck building a brand. He also did what you're saying where he niched down even harder. So he made the color red, so you immediately associate that. And then he niched down where he said, even harder. So he made the color red, so you immediately associate that.

And then he niche down where he said, make America healthy again. But he also articulated this later. Well, that was the campaign number two that he lost, he got convoluted. He changed it to keep America great. Well, there's not a single person in America who thought America was great. So you're not making any sense. He lost people. Right.

Then when he comes back, it's make America great, make America healthy. He had subplots in the general plot. But he articulated a problem and solution in the same four words. And where was he trained? Media. He was trained in storytelling. And listen, I'm not a fan. I think he has ridiculous autocratic tendencies that are very dangerous. I'm a fan of some of the policies and some of the drastic changes that he wants to make because I think the Republican and Democratic parties are both destroying this country. But if you want to say why did that man succeed, it's because he understood intuitively narrative structures. And he also understood the power of the sound bite. All good marketing and messaging

is an exercise in memorization, all of it. I am trying to get you to memorize my soundbites. So I'm going to put it on a red hat, right? I'm going to put on signs, I'm going to put on flags, I'm going to repeat it until I'm blue in the face. I'm never going to stop repeating the exact same message and the exact same words because I need you to memorize. And the difference is when somebody went to the polls in that first election, they could either make America great again, or I can't remember what Hillary was offering. Here's what she was offering. I'm with her. That was her tagline.

She's the hero and there's no offer. I'm just with her. Going where? We don't know. Doing what? We don't know. Now, she had 120 ideas that she told us outlined on her website that she wanted to do for America.

So she threw 50,000 mental calories at you that you would have to burn in order to understand why you should go for it. And no one wants to read all that. And it really stinks. I mean, this is a grievance. That's how the human brain works. We are looking for the shortest possible solution to our problem because our

brain is literally telling us, don't think about anything that's not going to help you survive. And if somebody takes more than four, eight seconds for you to figure out how they can help you, I'm going to cause you to start daydreaming and your eyes are going to glaze over. It's funny, like doing what I do, we sometimes we'll get pitched, like we'll get business pitches and this company is supported for businesses, but I always like my eyes glaze over when someone can't explain what they're trying to do in the first, like 20, 30 seconds.

Like if it's some huge explanation about what's going to be built and why, and it's like, I can't follow it. Like if they can't explain it that quickly, honestly, like the rest of the presentation just kind of goes in the direction. Even if it's an amazing product. They'll say, I'm the next Howard Stern. Right? It's almost like lazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But, you know, people, I'm sure I've missed plenty of great business opportunities by just, by that messaging not being clear because I don't have the mental capacity to kind of jump through the hoops to try to decipher all of it. Like if it can't, if it's not straight from the horse's mouth and very clear, I think many of us just zone out. I think it happens in dating as well.

How does, also I'm curious because I'd love to know how this applies. I listened to some of my friends that go on these dates and when it goes astray and it's like, to your point, a lot of it's about them. Yeah. They're selling themselves. The guy's the hero. Yep, a lot of it's about them. Yeah. They're the hero. They're selling themselves. The guy's the hero. A lot of it is.

And by the way, hurting people talk about themselves, strong people listen to others. And so, and what does the opposite sex wants? Whether it's man or woman, they want strength. They want stability and they want strength. And if you're talking about yourself the whole time, you're coming off as weak. I also-

I totally agree with you. I grew up with sisters and when they would tell me, sorry, girls, they're married now, that's fine. When they would tell me things wouldn't work out with guys, it was a lot of like the problems that they were having that somebody else needed to solve for them on and on and on or whatever. And I was like, these people, like,

it's all about you again. And I think this is what happens in many relationships, especially in the dating period, is people zone out because it's like, someone puts themselves first and it's all about them. I got married at 42, became a dad at 49, was not married before that. And somehow really early in life figured out that if I play the victim, I can get attention.

And I brought that into relationship after relationship after relationship. And I was like, I don't understand why these women won't date me for more than three months. It's because they're not looking to take care of you, buddy. They're gonna have to partner with you to raise children, which is incredibly painful, incredibly difficult, incredibly aggravating, and they don't need another child

helping them, they need an adult, they need someone else. And literally when I figured out women weren't attracted to victims, it went away pretty much overnight. In other words, I was only a victim because I thought it was going to work for me. And when I realized it wasn't, I shunned that identity. I've broken up with someone because they were too much of a victim. Yeah.

He broke his arm surfing. Because it cost you too much. And then two weeks later, he broke his other arm. So he had two broken arms. He might've actually been a victim. No, but it was like, this loser got bit by a shark. He could literally not even like,

Wipe his ass. It was out of control. I was like, listen, maybe he was a victim, but the way he played up the two broken arms was out of control. It was too much. Too much. No, the person you're looking for is like,

I broke both my arms, but I can swim in a circle faster than I ever could. Some sort of positive outlook on anything. You are a fucking victim though. When you have a cold, it's like, I'm like, call me in five days. It is like literally someone has like murdered everyone you know. That's every man in this room.

I would rather get punched in the face three times. My wife and her girlfriends literally asked me like, if men were the ones to have babies, would we? And we were just like, no, that would just be the end of civil. I'll go die in a war before I have a baby. So there's something, yeah, there's something that's, that's inherently wimpy about a man. But I do think though, that this, this goes back to building a brand.

There are two things that, two characteristics we recognize in human beings and we automatically position them as the guide in our life when they do it. And the guide, by the way, is the strongest character in the movie. The hero is actually very, very weak until the last nine minutes in most screenplays. The guide is never weak. Ever. It's like the Mr. Miyagi.

It's literally a rule. The guide cannot be weak in their area of expertise. Now, Mr. Miyagi has this sort of meltdown. Remember he gets drunk one night, but he doesn't have a meltdown in their area of expertise. Now, Mr. Miyagi has this sort of meltdown. Remember he gets drunk one night? Yeah, I forgot about that. But he doesn't have a meltdown in the area of karate. He can't, he literally, there's a wonderful scene in the movie King's Speech, which won an Academy Award.

Do you remember that? King George. Yeah, I like that movie. He learns to give a, he has a stutter. So he's the hero with a problem who wants to be a good king, wants to help the allies articulate some courage as they fight the Nazis. He can't do it. He hires Daniel, the drama teacher who teaches him not to stutter. There's a point in that movie where King George literally says, he pulls him aside, they're alone, and he says, I've discovered you are not a doctor.

You lied to me. And you don't know what you're doing. I've put my faith in somebody who cannot help me. This is a critical moment. We're gonna go back to dating in a second. This is a critical moment in that film. If Daniel says, you're right, I lied, but I'm also growing. I'm also figuring things out. Now we have two heroes.

We don't have a hero and a guide, we have two heroes. There's a screenwriting rule that the hero cannot diminish their authority ever, or the guide, the hero can, the guide cannot. And so Daniel literally says, you're the one who thought I was a doctor. I may have let you believe that, but I never told you that. All right? And he also said, I helped hundreds of men coming out of World War I who had speech impediments because of trauma, and I helped almost all of them overcome it. So if you're telling me I don't have an authority, I'm not listening. I have incredible authority, and I will make

you a great king." That scene is the reason it won an Academy Award. Mary Poppins is actually the guide in the movie. The father, George Banks, is the hero. And George Banks confronts Mary Poppins when the kids come back from the bank. There's been a run on the bank because the kids have done something stupid. And George Banks says, you are the reason for this, Mary Poppins. You are. This is your fault because you put those ideas, supercalifragilist, whatever, in my kid's heads. They go to the bank. They call a run on the bank. This is on you. Explain yourself. Mary Poppins looks at him and says, Mary Poppins doesn't explain herself to anybody. That's a quote from the movie.

That is the guide standing in their authority. We are wired for survival, which means we're looking for people who are competent, more competent than us, who can help us survive. If you're not more competent than me in the area of my challenge, what use are you for my survival? This is really important for young men who grew up without dads like I did. You need to get competent and you need to figure this out so that a woman can trust you to protect and provide. Otherwise, what use are you to her?

You've got to figure that out. She also needs to figure out how to be a guide and it's two guides helping heroes win. It's a conflicting sort of hard thing to understand. But once you say, I don't have the authority to help, you're still a valuable person in the eyes of God. You're just not useful in my personal narrative. So the two things that you wanna do to position yourself as a guide, there's two things.

One is compassion. You actually want to empathize with the hero's problem as a brand, you empathize with it. When somebody says, Don, we have a fantastic product, sales are stagnant, and we can't figure out how to talk about it. I don't come in and say, well, I'm the guy. What I do is I say,

I am so sorry you were dealing with that. Tell me how frustrating that has been. And I stop for minutes and just say, and I empathize. I care, I feel your pain. Then and only then can I say, I've solved this problems for literally thousands of people and I'm going to solve it for you. The one two punch that positions yourself in the guide

and the subconscious of a hero is empathy and authority or empathy and competency. Now you can be, you know, Hey Mitch in Hunger Games is an alcoholic for crying out loud. His life is just, you know, unraveled. However, he has complete authority on winning the Hunger Games. He won't apologize for that authority. He won't diminish that authority. So the guide has to have authority in the area of their expertise and they also have to care

about the customer's problems. I remember George W. Bush and Bill Clinton in a presidential debate. I'm obviously a geek on politics. So many of the audience asked a question. George W. Bush says, what do you mean by the national debt? That's a complicated thing. He tried to make everybody in the audience think he was smart. Bill Clinton comes over and he pulls on his, he says, can I take this?

And George W. Bush, you know, on camera like goes, yes. And Bill Clinton says, ma'am, has anybody you know lost their job? That's connected to the national debt. And I want you to know I care about you. So one person is giving an answer and solving the problem. The other person is just saying, I care. By the way, our unemployment rate and people losing homes has nothing to do with the national debt.

Absolutely nothing. No, but Bill Clinton was pretty savvy. He saw a guy being calloused and he stepped in to be, and remember, I feel your pain. That was almost his tagline. So empathy is literally that important that the guide actually cares. And when a brand cares about their customer

and has the competency to solve their problem, we automatically position that person as our guide and we follow them when we buy their products. It's really funny because I just did a solo episode without Michael on it and one of the questions was like, how do I find a mate, blah, blah, blah? And I said one thing that I did was I wrote down three things that were non-negotiables.

Love that. When I was dating, like, what are my three most important things? And then I sort of examined the list, and the number one thing on my list, I don't even think he knows this, was someone who's capable. And that's one of the reasons reasons whenever I write him a card,

the word capable always comes up. It's so important. That makes total sense that women would want a capable, confident man. And even me as a man sitting here, you calling him capable, like my heart skipped a beat. It's like, that's what men want. I think that's what everybody wants, right? Or maybe you want to be a capable mother and a...

But competency, the reason you're attracted to capable is because capable is going to help you survive. That's it. I didn't even know that. Incapable is going to be a drag and a burden on you that might make you vulnerable. Incapable is two broken arms. Okay?

Sorry, if someone's listening with two broken arms, I don't know what to say. I ever see a picture of Michael with a broken arm, and I go, ooh, that's rough. If I ever get hurt, my days are numbered. When he does get hurt- Just don't ski. When he does get hurt, I'm like, figure it out.

Yeah, it is- I'm a little harsh. Well, you know, there's been times when, you know, I've been worried about something or scared about something, and I've been smart enough not to go to Betsy with it the second time, it's just not what she needs from me. And so I literally, what's interesting is I've got this group text called The Lions.

We're a bunch of guys who go fly fishing. We're just adult grown children. But I texted them, say, hey, I'm worried about this. I'll go to my buddies and say, hey, I need some help figuring this thing out. It's not that I don't want my wife to know, it's that she just doesn't need this from me. She needs competency, especially with what's more vulnerable than a woman holding a baby. You need a man in this season to be competent and helpful. Yeah. I mean, I think, and I, you know, my dad sometimes listens to this show, but I think as

a kid growing up, one of the things I appreciate the most now as an adult male with my own kids and wife is I never saw him sweat. I never saw that worry. Like I never, I never... And now as I've gotten older and he's told me some of the things that they were going through, both financially and personally, like, there was a lot of shit that they were dealing with, that he dealt with personally, but he never brought it to the marriage or to the kids. And I think it's like, it's such an admirable quality

because it's not like he wasn't going through it. He just handled it probably with friends or... dad also is really good at just saying yes, dear You which is also a survival mechanism. It's so easy guys. Literally every guy listening. It's yes dear It's so much easier, but you're so right because I find myself Sometimes like you know, like I think like anyone getting stressed or worried about certain things and I will sometimes on occasion bring it Sure, but I catch myself more as I've gotten older being like, okay, that's not actually adding anything to the marriage. It's just not, it might not be helpful.

I do think that there's something about vulnerability that is akin to strength. I'm not saying never be vulnerable. There are times when I go, Hey, I'm worried about this. And my wife sees it as strength. She's like, that was probably very hard for you to talk to me about, but I'm not gonna bitch and whine, right?

I'm not gonna do that. And so I think that we also have to be, look, we have to be this way as leaders of companies. You know, we can't sit there and go, hey everybody, you know, fourth quarter didn't go well. I'm not exactly sure any of us are gonna be able to keep our jobs. I don't have a plan.

Yep. Negative word. Negative word. I don't have a plan. Yep. Negative word. What good are you? Negative word. Negative word. What use are you? Carson sitting here knows, like, this is something that I, again, using that example of my dad, I remember like when COVID happened and then there was market downturn and there was a lot of civil unrest and you're running a media business. Like there was some very stressful

moments and at times I wanted to scream, but I thought to myself like, okay, if everybody in the company starts to panic or see me sweat more than I should be, then it's gonna destabilize the entire environment and maybe get people to leave or maybe get people to leave or maybe get people to think about going somewhere else. I think it's a relevant point to bring up because for anyone that's starting any kind of business

or family or anything, there's going to be those moments of turbulence. You're going to need to be stronger than you were. If you wanna be a father, you're going to need to be stronger than you have been. And you've got to develop that strength. And what a beautiful opportunity to do that. It's like if the pilot on the plane says,

we got a problem, I don't really know what to do about it. Does anybody know how to land this thing? When someone starts an email out with unfortunately, I got a problem. I don't really know what to do about it. Like, does anybody know how to land this thing? When someone starts an email out with, unfortunately, I'm tuned out. You start an email out with, unfortunately, I am like, get away from me. I would rather have somebody say in an email, unfortunately, than the pilot Sam.

I'm in some trouble here. Unfortunately, is a real. Okay. So you pivoted a bit and you know, you wrote, I don't think it's much of a pivot, but you wrote Hero on a Mission, Path to a Meaningful Life. What made you want to write this book years later? The building of story brand is all about how to clarify your message, invite customers

into a story. Hero on a Mission is about how to live one, how to live a really interesting life. It's based on me having read Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, which I recommend before reading Hero on a Mission. And more importantly, if you're gonna read one, read his. Such a good book. It's an amazing book.

I wanted to explain in layman terms what logotherapy actually was and use narrative structures to do that. And so Hero on a Mission was, honestly, it was me trying to figure out what happened to me that transformed my life. At one time I was 387 pounds. I'm 180 pounds now.

I was lonely, you know, couldn't obviously at 400 pounds women aren't, I didn't have two broken arms, but it was almost as bad. And, you know, and I realized, there are four characters in stories, victim, villain, hero, god. And if you live like a victim, what will happen to you in life is what happens with the victim in the story.

They die, they put a blanket around them at the end and sit them on the ambulance while the camera goes to the story. They die. They put a blanket around them at the end and sit them on the ambulance while the camera goes to the hero. And I realized, if I keep thinking of myself as a victim, what's going to happen in my life is what happens to victims in movies? Nothing. But if I figure out how to be more heroic, then what will happen to me is what happens to heroes, which is transformation. They get strong. And then, so I did that and lost 200 pounds and rode a bike across America and wrote bestselling books and started a company. It was a wonderful journey. And then you get old enough and you realize making the story about me all the time isn't as fulfilling as it used to be.

But this person over here needed some advice and I gave them some advice and I watched them win and that ended up being more fulfilling than actually winning myself. I remember interviewing Pete Carroll who won multiple national championships with USC. It was right before he won the Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks. I'm a Seahawks fan. I got 15 minutes with Pete Carroll and I went to his office, interviewed him. He, two hours later, we're still talking. And just a fascinating human being. And I said to him, I said, why do you help so many people win? And you seem to be fulfilled and driven by helping other people win. Where did

that come from? And he said, Don, I had the luxury of winning early. I said, what do you mean I had the luxury of winning early? He said, when I was young, I was an athlete and I would win races. And he said, there's a diminishing return on self-victory. There's a diminishing return on you winning. But when I started coaching and helping other people win, there's no diminishing return on helping other people win. It just gets better and you get addicted to it. And it's fulfilling, it's meaning.

And I realized I need to make the transition from hero to guide. gets better and you get addicted to it and it's fulfilling its meaning and I realized I need to I need to make the transition from hero to guide. Most people transition in their lives from hero to guide when they become parents because all of a sudden the majority of their life is spent trying to help somebody else win and it's the most fulfilling journey you can possibly have and so I thought I want to write a book about this, how to go from victim to hero to guide. There's the fourth characteristic, which is villain. And villain is one that all of us go in and out of. We all, by the way, play these four characters every day.

Every one of us plays the victim, the villain, the hero, and the guide every single day. The more time you spend playing the hero, the better your life is going to go. The more time you spend playing the guide, the more meaningful your life is going to be. The more time you spend playing the hero, the better your life is going to go. The more time you spend playing the guide, the more meaningful your life is going to be. The more time you spend playing the victim, the more your life is going to go nowhere. And the more time you spend playing the villain, the sooner you're going to end up in prison. A villain and a hero, they have the exact same backstory. The villain and the hero have a backstory of pain, of neglect. In fact, almost always in a movie, watch this, the villain will have a scar or a limp. And the reason is it's the screenwriter's way of telling you that some pain happened in their

backstory. I'm not going to explain it, but some pain and what made them the villain is how they responded to the pain. The hero takes the pain and says, I'm never going to let this happen to anybody else. The villain takes the pain and says, I'm gonna get you back. It's so funny you say that. I'm gonna get the world back. I just watched our kids are little, the Lion King, the original. Yeah, Scar, his name is literally Scar. And our son is like, oh, he's got this,

you remember Scar has the scar and it's funny how you, cause it's like two brothers, same background. One had something happen. Yeah, and they both dealt with pain differently. A seeking of vengeance is a sure sign that you're heading down the villain path. You saying this hurt, but I'm going to learn from it and try to make sure that this never happens to anybody else, maybe even to the point of putting the person who hurt me in jail.

Right? I mean, that's a heroic story. So we really have to be self-aware enough to know which role we're playing so that we can predict what our future is going to look like. And here on a mission, I wrote a book to help people predict what their future is going to look like. One thing that I do not play around with is stretch marks. I do not play around with them, especially in pregnancy. And what I use on my body is Agent Noture's Holy Body Ageless Body Serum. This is the best for moisturizing. It has like omega fatty acids in it, and it just promotes useful looking skin. This is

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Fred Rogers, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Rogers neighborhood, arguably the best. Tony Robbins, I speak at business mastery twice a year. He's a hero of mine. He's a guide of mine, I should say. He is that guy. He is that guy. He's just obsessed with helping other people win.

Fred Rogers, when you talk about empathy and authority, watch interviews with Fred Rogers back when he was alive, when the interviewer pushes back and you watch a man with a steel spine who will not cave on the idea that we should be kind. He's almost angry about it. He does not diminish his authority at all, and yet he oozes compassion. He apologizes for nothing. We will be kind to children, period.

And he oozes the authority and the competency and the compassion of a guide. Who's played a perfect villain that you can pinpoint? Well, we're gonna to get personal here. Xi Jinping, I think, is heading down a villainous, I think Vladimir Putin has done so. Obviously, Hitler saw the Germans as both victims, but he positioned the Germans as the Christ figures of the world who would sacrifice of themselves to perfect the world. Autocratic tendencies are a utopian vision, a failure, a diminishing of the individual in exchange for the state. In other words,

a lack of care for human life. They want to be gods. Emperor Harimoto, I think I'm butchering his name, didn't even, he had a utopian vision for Japan in World War two and he literally saw himself as a god he was a descendant of the gods and So those are villainous Tendencies when your life is about you being God and diminishing human lives in order to accomplish your utopian vision You're a villain. When somebody, and from the work you've done and studied, stays in the victim state for

long periods of time and can't get out of it, what is the main reason why? Well, it's because it's comforting. You know, sugar is comforting. You know, drugs are comforting, alcohol is comforting, victim state is comforting. There's a reason that we do it. If I feel sorry for myself, I don't have any responsibility. If something bad has happened to me, I don't have any responsibility to do anything about it. I think it's just a very comforting place to be in, to be a. And once you identify fully as a victim, I think it's nearly impossible to get out. It's one of the reasons that I get frustrated

with sort of political leaders who position the American people as the victims. And I think you gotta be very careful with what you're doing here. You're trying to get elected. You're the victim, I'm the hero who will come and save you. Well, what are the American people? They're the victims. You know the hero who will come and save you." Well, what are the American people? They're the victims. Instead of treating the American people like the heroic people that

they are and saying, look, the government's not going to solve your problem. We're going to get out of the way and you're going to solve your own problem. That's the sort of, I think, leadership that we need with a strategic plan to do so. But I call it victim baiting. That I'm gonna bait you to think of yourself as a victim so that I can actually be the one with power and help you. Well, I think if you know, you seem like you obviously very much know your history. If you study those kinds of political campaigns

that pander to people like that, it doesn't tend to work out for them very often. So I think people catch on and they start to say, you know, that's not what we're looking for. We, you know, they, I think people believe they're more capable or at least the individuals believe they're more capable than the politicians sometimes give them credit for. Sometimes I notice that really smart people think that they're the only ones

who are smart in the room. And it's a really big mistake because I personally think you should assume everyone's smart. They, they'll come in and they'll be like trying to sort of manipulate the situation so I could see how a politician comes in thinking they're smarter, stronger, have more money and they think they can manipulate the American people or whoever. Well you know there's that personality type, I can't remember, I'm not a psychologist, but it's the nurse who wants the patient to be sick. Because they get off on being a nurse, right? Or the parent who wants the child to be weak.

Like Munchausens? Yeah, that's, I think that's my view. Well that's taking it like really gnarly. Clearly smarter people in the room than me. Well no, no, no, no. He took it just like really far. He's just saying like the parent wants the child to be weak. What's munchausens? Munchausens is when you make your kid sick. Oh, fuck. Okay.

Well, that's too far. Yeah, you took it too far. I thought it was. Maybe not that far. But I think that a lot of people like being sick. Did you see the Scarlet Thread, Paul Thomas Anderson's movie? You know, he wrote, there will be blood and magnolia. The Scarlet Thread, I think is his greatest work.

I've never seen that one. Daniel Day-Lewis, and I can't remember the woman who was the actress. Oh, is that the newer one? It's newish. It's been 10 years. Okay. Because he doesn't make, it takes like six years to make it. No, that's not the new one.

Is he sewing something? Yes. Oh, okay. I know what you're talking about. I never saw it, but I know what you're talking about. He falls in love. He's a fashion designer and he always has a female assistant and he goes through them very quickly

because they can't stand him. They can't stand where he's controlling, he's dictatorial and he goes through one and finally he's like, I'm gonna go to the coast because it's been, after fashion, he meets a waitress. It's one of the most intense scenes I've ever seen. There's so much sexual chemistry between these two,

unspoken sexual chemistry, they fall for each other. And he starts doing it to her. He starts being the bully, the beast and whatever. And slowly, you're like, I don't understand this movie. I'm intrigued by it. The movie ends with the waitress controlling him and putting mushrooms in his food that make him sick and weak so that she can take care of him.

And he likes it. That's how the movie ends. And you're watching the power dynamic in a couple shift over the course of two hours in the most subtle ways and it's brilliantly written. You better be careful if you fuck around I'll put mushrooms in your food. But it's the story of the villain becoming the victim and it's just fantastic but I think there's a lot of cultural like you know ultimately you just want to be self-aware. And also never let your brand play the victim.

Never let your brand play the villain. Only let your brand play the guide. Let me ask you this. This is, I wasn't going to go here, but I just wonder, especially given the fears, how do you feel about brands starting to be kind of like, kind of take like activists or social positions on in things where their customer base is not necessarily looking for them? Great question.

And I mean, specifically like brands that are communicating sort of woke ideologies, not just woke idea, any like, okay, say that I am into fishing. Yeah. Like you and I want to go fly fishing and I'm looking for the best rod. Yeah. And next thing you know, they're pushing some either political or social agenda. Bad move. I don't want to like comment on any of it.

I just want to know from a business growth perspective what you've seen. Well, you need to be an expert in helping me catch a fish. Okay. And anything that you do to confuse me about your expertise in catching a fish is creating cognitive dissonance in the mind of your consumer. And if you keep doing that,

you're gonna get beat by the competition who's actually focused on the objective at hand. So like Bud Light was the most extreme example. And we've talked about that on this show. Bud Light needs to help me get a buzz. Bud Light needs to hire Don. Bud Light needs to hire you immediately. As somebody who, and I'm sure you've had clients reach out to you about this very thing in

moments and wondering like what messaging should exist. And I've, you know, I've always looked at it from a consumer, not from a business understand, but from a consumer standpoint, like if I want to go fishing, I really don't want the other stuff involved. I just want to know what fucking rod is the best one. Keep it out. And a lot of times, you know, where those messages are often coming from, and I have I have empathy for these CEOs

who feel like they need to do this, they have 100,000 employees, and those employees are yelling at them, make political statements, come on these horrible things, and you're being quiet, and if you're being quiet, you're for the enemy. And so, you know, Disney, Delta Airlines, they all step into these minefields

because their employees are saying you gotta do something. I feel for you, but at the same time, hold your ground. But let's just like observe it from like- And don't do it. A shareholder revenue, like P&L perspective. In those instances, maybe some of those employees and some of those CEOs that had to deal with those issues then later had to let go of employees because of those very things. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. So I just think it's like, it's, it's worth, you know, thinking about because it's kind of, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's down the whole ship is what I'm saying. You can, and you want to be really careful about that, but I think strong statements about we're here to help people catch fish. You want to keep saying that as long as you possibly can. Michael and I are obviously huge fans of building a story brand. Our office has used it. We've

whiteboarded it. What can we expect from your next book, Building a Story Brand 2.0? You know, I had a lot of fun. The book is seven years old, sold a million copies, and the publisher came to me and said, you want to rewrite it for the millionth copy edition or whatever. And they've asked me that with a ton of books and I've never wanted to rewrite anything. I've never wanted to read. I've never read anything I've written.

We have none of my books in the house. I'm just not interested. I'm very interested in the future. And I said, I'm in. And the reason I wanted to rewrite it is because there were so many stories that I can include. So I started at page one and I literally took the Word document and just rewrote the entire book.

I was shocked at how poorly written the first book was, by the way. I thought it was great. But 10,000 new words and almost all of them are stories. Stories of national security called me. Stories of plumbing companies that quadrupled their business, stories of just really interesting stories. And then with AI coming online in the last several years, we actually created storybrand.ai, which I used to charge an enormous amount of money to sit with you for eight hours and

figure out your messaging. And storybrand.ai, after I wrote about 110 pages of single space instructions, can now do what I used to do in eight hours and about three minutes. Damn, that's a good idea. So you can reach a wider- That's one of the best ideas I've heard in a while. That's a very good idea.

So I could go on and I could be like, cause I literally was like, how do I consult with you? So I could go on and I could use storybrand.ai for the Skinny Confidential. It's as smart, if not smarter. Wow. It is faster and it's less moody. I don't mind moods.

And it doesn't have broken arms. Okay. Yeah, so if you go to storybrand.ai, I will give you, you can answer about five or six questions and I will give you seven sound bites that you can repeat about your business that I guarantee will grow your business and I'll give you a tagline.

That's so, you know why you're so smart? I have to give you like a acknowledgement. Well, what's really fun is it's now being used by thousands. It's only been out two weeks. It's being used by, I think we have 10,000 users and 2000 subscribers. I think you'll have a few more after this. I think everyone's going to-

All of them think I'm writing it and I'm, I'm fine with that. I just think you're so smart because you, you were the guide and you gave us all these tools and in these books and you content marketed for this. And then when AI comes out, which is so relevant right now, you have basically taken everything that you can do and now you're a guide on AI. It's really smart. Yeah. Really smart. Honestly, I feel like Forrest Gump just sort of stumbled into the right circumstance.

You stumbled into the right circumstance. But what I love is I haven't, people will call me and, you know, we're dealing with this, we want it, we're struggling with this. The ambassador, there's only a few ambassadors who are not to a country. One of those ambassadors is to the issue of human trafficking. You know, so John Richmond called and said, can we get some time?

And we were able to put together a global strategy on human trafficking. AI can do that. You know, you definitely want to study it and look at it. Can do that, you definitely want to study it and look at it, can do that for everybody instantly. And so to me, that's what's so amazing is all those people that I've had to say no to, foster care, adoption services, human trafficking organization, and Tulsa wants me to help them

figure this out. And I can't, I'm a husband, I'm a father. Disturbance.ai literally just duplicated my personality times and what I know about messaging times a million. Can you even imagine my dad just launched an elk pozole business? Elk pozole? It's so good. Elk pozole, you can get it at the farmer's market. What's it called? We got to plug it.

It's called Moose Farms. You can get it at the farmer's market. He also sells it with cornbread. It's like the best elk pozole. His biggest fan is Peter Attia. Peter Attia loves this Elk Pozole. Peter Attia followed my dad from San Diego to the Elk Pozole. He loves Elk Pozole. Anyways, this is a perfect thing for me to recommend to my dad. What is the problem he's solving with Elk Pozole? Yes. It's genius. I'm going to recommend it to him.

You know what you want to do if you're using the props at StoryBrand.ai? You want to take a littleazzole. Yes. It's genius. I'm gonna recommend it to you. You know what you wanna do if you're using the prompts at storybrand.ai, you wanna take a little extra time. Okay. You just answer every question slowly and put as much in there as you possibly can. My sister is a florist in Houston, Texas. Okay. And she's tired of being a florist.

And she said, Don, I just created this sculpture with driftwood and moss that I put in this corporate lobby and they gave me like 500 bucks. I'm like, Jennifer, that's a business. Right? And so I literally went to storevan.ai and I said, and it said, what problem does your customer have? They're tired of replacing their flowers. They want a better entrance as you walk into their building. They want to make a good impression on their clients. They don't want to have wilted or dead flowers sitting there. How does your product solve this problem? Well, it'll stay fresh for over a month.

We come in and we rotate it from building to building so nobody ever sees the same sculpture twice, blah, blah, blah. And literally just wrote down, I guess this is how you do it, and hit see website and it gave me the entire landing page for a website for a business that doesn't even exist. Sent that to my sister and she just goes I'm going to do this and puts up the website. Because it makes people I think too who are so creative and have so many ideas it's almost like gives you like it articulates it for you. Synthesizes information. Yeah I think that is one of the smartest things I've heard in a while story brand AI You guys I would recommend all of dawn's books you if you if you want to start a brand building a story brands

Amazing I can't wait to read building a story brand 2.0 You can come back on the show anytime you want. We really could have taken this any direction This was really fun and I know it would be because I was I'm a fan of you guys too, so I knew it would be. And I'm grateful. I told you, I've DM'd you for years. I really wanted you on for so long. Some of the guys in our studio are so excited that you're here. Weston is such a fan.

He built his whole... You built, you built Coconut oil lube. One of the greatest sex businesses of our time. Yes. Let me tell you, I'll send you some. We'll send you with some. Coconut oil lube. Are we on the air?

Yeah, we're on the air. Can I get samples? Yeah, you can have samples. Coconut oil lube, you are responsible for building a brand story. And now the company- One of the taglines is even better sex. Yeah. That's pretty good. I know, who doesn is even better sex. Yeah.

That's pretty good. I know who doesn't want better sex. Yeah. Not sure what's in your lube. Worrying about harmful chemicals, coconut lube. I swear to God we did when we built the brand with them. Your sex doesn't smell like the tropics. We've got a solution.

Oh, you gotta be Weston. You gotta be Weston when you're walking out. I swear to God we like whiteboarded that business with, and you know what's so funny? Cause like, obviously sex is, everyone has sex and it's, or has it's- Not everyone might have. Not everybody, but it's a universal thing.

Yeah, it is a thing. We know you're having sex. We can tell with memes. It's a saturated space, but there were so many people, so many people have issues in the bedroom, whether they don't feel confident or their sex isn't great It's very simple messaging. Yes, very Is better sex you can eat it look at suck it fuck it start off with a massage

I mean I got taglines It is better sex so if you want to get some lube woo more play Donald Miller, where can everyone find you on Instagram? If you want to get some lube, woo more play. Donald Miller, where can everyone find you on Instagram? Instagram is just Donald Miller. Okay, and where can they buy your book? Amazon.com, it's called Building a Story Brand 2.0. Have you ever ended an interview that way? With better sex.

Lube, lube. No. Okay, it's a first. Well, guess what? Don Miller, thank you for coming on, man, appreciate you. It was a pleasure meeting you guys. Thank you.