Chris And so there are three key principles I just want to share really quickly. In my opinion, if you want to build a strong personal brand in the 21st century, there are three things you need to do. Number one is figure out a way to be meaningfully different. If you're the same as everyone else, if you're like a bag of rice and you're the same as every other bag of rice, well, what do we compete on? We compete on price. Always. If we cannot see the difference between A or B, we're going to compete on price every single time. So you have to find a way to be different. Not the anti-commodity approach. If you can't figure out a way to be different, you're going to disappear.
Chris Number two, as part of a big concept is to have the courage to be disliked. It's really important here. Now, this happens to also be the name of a book that I like a lot, but the idea pretty much sums it up. The courage to be disliked because before we can gain fans, we have to make a couple enemies. Should we chase after this goal? Kind of even want to create a few enemies. I don't think we create them and I don't think we should want to do it because somebody some internet influencer told you you need to have some enemies. I think there's some things that are very principled inside of you that you stand against.
Chris So for example, as it relates to you and what your country is going through, sovereignty — that's kind of an idea that we kind of believe in, in freedom and the right to choose and the fight against tyranny. So if we're principled people and this is happening, it automatically has to become our enemy. And so there's something really interesting. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. And so if we hate certain things and because it comes from a deep rooted belief that are part of our values and we start to communicate this then people who hate the same things all of a sudden we become like brothers and sisters. It's really important.
Chris The opposite of this is to try to be friends with everyone. In America we call it being very politically correct. Always using the right terms, being very careful about how you say things, the phrasing of things. This happens a lot in academic circles because we try to be as inclusive as possible and we try not to say anything that might offend anyone. And I heard Jordan Peterson say this — he said something like to be a critical thinker you must risk being offensive because to think critically it is offensive.
Chris Okay. So I just wanted to land that idea and tell you the third key principle and we can unpack it all. The third one is — and it seems on the surface very superficial and not worthy of the same kind of consideration as the first two, but that would be a mistake. The third principle is to be aesthetically discerning, to have really high standards for high quality and good taste. Because when you put all those things together, a thing is beautiful. And if a thing is beautiful, that's shorthand for quality. When we look at a beautiful car or a jacket, a handbag or home, we automatically assume it must be high quality. And the reason why is because over 50% of our brain is dedicated to visual processing.
Chris So when we grab a bottle of wine, we make decisions about how that wine's going to taste and the quality of it before we even drink it, before we even swallow or take a first sip. This happens with everything. This is why companies like Apple excel because they understand those sometimes tangible and intangible qualities that people like. And so the classic example is always look at how an iPhone is packaged versus every other company on the market. And you think to yourself, they all have millions and billions, not maybe not trillions, but they have a lot of money. Why can't they just pull off what Apple does? Because Apple has a deep rooted culture of excellence in design, in photography, in typography, in printing. So from the very first moment in which you unwrap that phone to the time then you sell it or trade it in, you've had a pleasurable experience, a transcendent experience. It feels like we're better people because we've experienced something that's really beautiful.
Chris You could say the same thing about art, sculpture, and architecture. So the Eiffel Tower is this beautiful thing that people come to and it's generated billions if not trillions of dollars for the city of Paris or the Louvre Museum. We come to see these things because we want a transcendent experience. And you could experience this at Stonehenge, at the Egyptian pyramids. So we underestimate the value of beautiful things. We must be aesthetically discerning. Those are three key principles.
Serhiy And I heard Kevin O'Leary telling the story about Steve Jobs that Steve would say that people don't know what they want. I will tell them what they want. And when you say we have to have these unreasonably high standards, that's because we want our consumers to at some point get to this point as well, right? Because without these standards, we wouldn't even know that we might want something so aesthetically beautiful like an iPhone.
Chris Yes. Well, let's just take it back to ancient times. I'm talking about cave people who want to beautify a cave by painting on it and depicting life in the caves of Lascaux. So this is not a new concept. The instant you give people an opportunity to be creative and express themselves, to play, they try to beautify the world around them. And it's not that everybody has this, but the leaders do and the artists do and the visionaries do. I mean if you think about the term visionary — it means to see the future, to see ahead of beyond the curve, to see things that people can't see today. That's what visionary means. And it ties directly into what I'm talking about because if 50% of our brain is dedicated to visual processing, it's not a coincidence that we use this term visionary. You could see things before people can see them. So if you want to lead, this is how you lead people.
Serhiy So talking about unblending ourselves. Why unbland? Would you like to add something?
Chris Yeah, there's a lot to talk about here and a lot to unpack.