Chris Do: Personal Branding, Identity, and the Courage to Stand Out | Be Yourself Podcast
Be Yourself Podcast · Part 1 of 2

ChrisDo

CEO of The Futur & Personal Branding Coach with Millions of Global Followers — on Identity, the Hidden Cost of Playing It Safe, and What It Really Takes to Stand Out Without Losing Yourself

33 minutes
Personal Branding · Identity · Design · Self-Expression · Immigration
Watch on YouTube The Futur

About This Episode

What Does It Really Take to Stand Out Without Losing Yourself While Building a Personal Brand in the 21st Century?

Chris Do has spent a decade building one of the most recognizable personal brands in the creative industry — more than 2.7 million subscribers on YouTube, a million on Instagram, 600,000 on LinkedIn — and he did it not by following what others were doing, but by becoming more fully himself. In this episode of Be Yourself Podcast, Chris sits down with Serhiy for a raw and honest conversation about identity, fitting in, and the price of playing it safe.

They talk about the Unbland Yourself workbook — the PDF guide Chris released through The Futur — and what prompted him to create it. Chris shares the three principles he believes every person needs to build a powerful personal brand in the modern world: being meaningfully different, having the courage to be disliked, and maintaining high aesthetic standards. He explains why blending in is the default setting of modern society, shaped by education systems designed to stamp out individuality, and why the first step to standing out is understanding that deeply.

The conversation goes much deeper than strategy. Chris opens up about growing up as a Vietnamese refugee in America, the identity crisis that followed rapid assimilation, and the graduation ceremony at art school that became a turning point. Serhiy shares his own experience of using a different name for seven years of business life — and what it felt like to finally stop. A conversation about courage, culture, and the long road back to yourself.

01
The Unbland Yourself workbook — what prompted Chris to research and create it, and what the name means
In 2014, Chris started researching why certain designers had breakout personal brands while others with equal skill stayed invisible. He compared a handful of people he admired, found more in common than he expected, and started teaching what he found — which made him start doing it himself.
02
Three principles of a powerful personal brand: be meaningfully different, have the courage to be disliked, and be aesthetically discerning
If you are the same as everyone else, the only competition is on price. Before you can gain fans, you have to make a few enemies. And beautiful things signal quality before a single word is read — over 50% of the brain is dedicated to visual processing.
03
Why modern society is built to make us blend in — and how education systems were designed to stamp out individuality
The industrial education model, built largely by the British Empire, was designed to create compliant human machines, not critical thinkers. We learn very early that asking too many questions or looking strange leads to ostracism. Chris lived this directly: moving every year and a half as a child, his biggest fear was not "who am I" but "who am I going to eat lunch with."
04
Growing up as a Vietnamese refugee in America — assimilation, identity loss, and the self-hate that followed
Chris arrived in America at three years old and assimilated so thoroughly that he lost his connection to his own culture — and went through a period of looking down on it. He describes the arc from blending in to identity crisis to a turning point that changed how he showed up in the world forever.
05
The graduation ceremony that changed everything — watching fellow students celebrate their culture without shame
At art school graduation, Chris saw Asian students dressed in traditional attire, proud of their identity. They had grown up as part of the dominant culture in their countries. They had never been picked on for it. Watching them, he made a promise to himself: never play small, own who you are, and start living that way.
06
Does crisis help build a powerful personal brand? — on hardship, character, and why difficult times produce stronger people
Hard times make good men. Good times make easy men. Easy men make hard times. Chris unpacks the cycle and explains why the ones who emerge from difficulty emerge stronger — and how iron becomes steel only through heat and pressure.

About the Guest

Chris Do — CEO of The Futur & Personal Branding Coach

Chris Do is an Emmy Award-winning designer, entrepreneur, and educator. He is the CEO of The Futur, an online education platform focused on creativity and business that has amassed over 2.7 million YouTube subscribers, one million followers on Instagram, and 600,000 on LinkedIn. For over two decades before that, he ran Blind, a motion design and branding studio in Los Angeles that produced work for clients including Nike, Microsoft, Ski Channel, and Sony.

Chris was born in Vietnam and came to America as a refugee at age three in 1975. He studied at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. What distinguishes his path from most designers of his generation is the decision to document and teach his thinking publicly — at a time when that was not a common move — and to bring the same principles of differentiation he taught his clients to his own brand.

The Unbland Yourself workbook, his most recent resource, grew out of ten years of research, teaching, and reflection on what separates breakout personal brands from forgettable ones. His answer: meaningful difference, the courage to be disliked, and high aesthetic standards. He practices all three. His approach to business, identity, and self-expression has influenced millions of creatives and entrepreneurs worldwide.

What He Does
CEO of The Futur — an online education platform teaching creativity and business. Emmy Award-winning designer. Personal branding coach. Former founder of Blind, a motion design studio. Author of the Unbland Yourself workbook. His audience spans YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and podcast platforms worldwide.
The Numbers
2.7 million+ subscribers on YouTube. 1 million+ followers on Instagram. 600,000+ followers on LinkedIn. Over a decade of content creation and teaching. Built entirely by being himself — not by following what other educators and influencers were doing.
The Philosophy
If you cannot find a way to be meaningfully different, you will compete on price and eventually disappear. Before you can gain fans, you must accept that some people will not like you. And beautiful, high-quality work is not superficial — it is a signal that carries more weight than words before a single sentence is read.
Background
Born in Vietnam. Came to America as a refugee in 1975 at age three. Grew up moving frequently — a new school every year and a half. Studied at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Built a global brand by turning toward his identity rather than away from it.

Key Quotes

"

People talk about I want to build a personal brand and I don't think you are. I think you're building a personal bland. Yeah, it's very bland what you do. There's no seasoning. There's no flavor.

Chris Do
"

I don't go into meetings apologizing for who I am. I celebrate who I am. I only work with clients who can acknowledge and appreciate the differences.

Chris Do
"

I couldn't raise my prices just because my inner voice was telling me that I'm not worth it, you know.

Serhiy

Episode Chapters

0:00 Episode Teaser & Intro 1:54 Chris Do's Brand Origins 4:20 Keys to a Strong Personal Brand 11:44 Human Machine 16:52 Chris's Childhood in the US 21:23 What Changed Everything 24:00 The Pull to Be Someone Else 26:09 Celebrating Who We Are 28:55 Does Crisis Help?

Full Transcript

BTW: This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation. Part 2 drops soon — subscribe so you don't miss it →
This episode of the Be Yourself Podcast is produced by Beverly Media.
0:00 Episode Teaser & Intro
Chris People talk about I want to build a personal brand and I don't think you are. I think you're building a personal bland.
Serhiy Yeah, it's very bland what you do. There's no seasoning. There's no flavor.
Serhiy I couldn't raise my prices just because my inner voice was telling me that I'm not worth it, you know. And one client deliberately he said, "I'm going to make you take more."
Chris For me, understanding and watching my fellow graduates at art center celebrate their culture was an awakening moment for me. And I don't go into meetings apologizing for who I am. I celebrate who I am. I only work with clients who can acknowledge and appreciate the differences.
Serhiy And I can relate to what you're saying because Soviet Union was a communistic country and Ukraine is doing everything in our power to get rid of this heritage and I think I have this additional motivation to create my personal brand.
Chris 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...
Serhiy Hey everyone, welcome to the Be Yourself podcast. This is the podcast on expressing our true self. Today, a very special day. I'm truly honored to greet Chris Do on my show. Chris is a personal branding coach who spent the last decade building a global brand with millions of followers across multiple platforms. He's got more than 2.7 millions on YouTube, a million or so on Instagram, 600,000 on LinkedIn. And what's most important is that he did it by not following what others did but by being truly himself. So Chris welcome to the show.
Chris Thanks for having me.
1:54 Chris Do's Brand Origins
Serhiy See Chris, I want to start off by talking about the newest release on the future.com — the handbook called Unbland Yourself. It's the subtle art of standing out in a noisy world PDF workbook. Chris, what prompted you to create this piece and why did you call it precisely Unbland Yourself?
Chris Okay. So I'm going to do a little storytelling time. I'm unfamiliar with this concept of being an influencer, a design celebrity, or someone who has an audience. And I'm new into the space. This is 10 years ago in 2014. I'm creating content. And I don't want to dismiss my own expertise and influence over local communities because I'm a teacher at this point. I've been teaching for over 10 years at that point, and I run a small design studio agency in Los Angeles and I'm starting to create content and somewhere along the way this kind of arc is happening at the same time.
Chris In 2014, I'm making content and there's a gentleman by the name of Aaron James Draplin who comes on the radar as this new kind of buzzworthy designer that people seem to be talking about, especially young people. And I become really intrigued by this person because I know nothing about him, but there's already like a lot of kind of positive word of mouth about this guy. And if you don't know who he is, he's from the Midwest here in the United States. He's a big bearded guy. Wears a jean jacket and a trucker cap and he speaks very plainly, kind of very folksy, very direct and clear, drops a couple of f-bombs and is very very endearing to people.
Chris And my community wanted to know like how do we become like that? Is that something that is available to all of us? And I started going down this rabbit hole. I selected a handful of people that I admire, look up to, that are part of the design elite and I started to look at comparisons in terms of what they had that were similar to each other and what was different and there was a lot more in common with each other even though they're not related at all. So I became really interested. I started teaching it. I started talking about it and in teaching and researching it, I started to realize what I was doing and I started to turn up the dial.
4:20 Keys to a Strong Personal Brand
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.
11:44 Human Machine
Chris So if we look at modern society, the industrial education system that was built mostly by the British Empire was to create a human machine, to create a human computer so that they can plug us into the field, into the ditches. If one person dies you just swap them out. So it wasn't about trying to elevate us to get us to be critical thinkers, to be divergent thinkers. In fact that was the opposite. They want us all to be the same. So it's much easier to grow an empire this way. And so we inherit an education system that is designed to stamp out individuality and critical thinking. It's really wild.
Chris Okay. So if you have a child or if you are a product of basically public education which is what we have here in America mostly — you learn really early that if you ask too many questions, if you look strange, people will treat you strangely and you'll be ostracized by the community. And what that means is you're going to be left behind. You won't have safety in social networks and especially at a time when we're really vulnerable, we don't know who we are. The last thing that we want is to be alone.
Chris Now, my parents, we traveled a lot, meaning we moved from city to city because we're coming from war torn Vietnam in 1975. We're refugees, immigrants. We're in the lower class and they're hardworking. They're moving up in the world. And so we're moving slowly from lower to lower middle, from lower middle to middle, middle to upper middle, and then finally upper class. And so I didn't have a stable childhood in terms of like where I was going to call my friends. We moved a lot. I think I calculated every year and a half I was changing schools. So one of my greatest fears as a child, as an early teenager, was who am I going to eat lunch with? Not who am I, but who am I going to eat lunch with? Because the last thing I want to do is eat by myself because I can see everyone has friends they're hanging out with. And here's this loner who's weird going to hang out by himself.
Chris So what we've learned really early on is we go along to get along. We just go along with what the trend is. So if everyone looks a certain way, has a certain haircut, wears certain brands, says certain things, likes certain sports and music, then there's a lot of safety there. And so we've learned really well to blend in. And you know what? In the corporate space, in the business space, there's literally a thing called the corporate code of dress. Business attire. It's usually a button-up suit, a tie, a jacket, appropriate shoes. And every once in a while we have casual Fridays, and we allow people to not wear a tie. That's casual Fridays, okay? It's not that you can come in with something else. Just you don't have to wear a tie today. You could dress down a little bit.
Chris And so if you walk along in New York in the financial district, everybody dresses the same. Same haircut, same power suit, and they go to the same places to eat because this is what successful people do. So you can see right now we've learned how to blend in. We've learned how to be beige. We know how to be vanilla. And that is boring. It's actually very forgettable. And so what we have to do is — and people talk about I want to build a personal brand. I'm like, I don't think you are. I think you're building a personal bland. Yeah, it's very bland what you do. There's no seasoning. There's no flavor. We need to have courage to be disliked.
Serhiy Yes, sir. And I can relate to what you're saying because Soviet Union was a communistic country and Ukraine is doing everything in our power to get rid of this heritage. We don't want to be like everyone else. We're not like Russia. We're not like Belarus. We're globally oriented individuals who want to build the new future for our country. And Russia is not letting us do this. They're really hurt by the fact that we're just not going to be like them. And I think I have this additional motivation to create my personal brand. And I want to ask you, have you managed to create yours? Obviously, your parents fled Vietnam in 1975, right? April the 30th.
Chris Yeah.
Serhiy We have different stories. I've lived my entire life in Ukraine. Never been to any English-speaking country. You learn the language by watching NBA basketball. But still you immigrated and you had to survive and learn the new culture.
16:52 Chris's Childhood in the US
Serhiy So how were you able to not only blend but actually create a unique voice that is globally recognized today?
Chris Yeah. I know this is a stereotype. I'm a little reluctant to say this, but I'll say it. Asians are known as being very fast at assimilating. Of all the different immigrants that have come to America, we assimilate really well. And there's a bunch of good things about that and there's a bunch of really bad things about that. I think a lot of it comes from Confucianistic culture and philosophy which is to serve society, to put the society ahead of the individual. It's kind of very socialist in its approach there.
Chris So when we come to America I'm three years old. So I don't have any memory of my mother country and I didn't understand why we look and sound so different. I just knew we did and I couldn't figure it out. But one of the things that my parents did, which was different than their siblings, was to say do what you need to do to learn the culture as fast as you can. Speak the language, learn their ways, because we won't be able to help you. They drop you in the water. Boom. Because my parents barely speak English themselves. If you think about it, they don't understand the culture any better. They're in the work environment doing what they can.
Chris They would share stories with us. Like when we first landed in America, we landed where our sponsor family was, which was in Kansas City, Missouri. And I remember them telling stories about how they would go to McDonald's and sit down and this looks like everybody's having a really good time and they just sat down and waited for 30 minutes for a waiter to come by and take their order and they're not quite sure what's going on. And eventually they go to the counter like what do we have to do to get somebody to come to our table? It's like, oh you order here, you pay here. It was a strange concept for them.
Chris And I'll tell you one little funny story. My uncle, my dad's younger brother, he and his wife were driving around in a suburban neighborhood and he saw a sign. It says garage sale. Garage sale. And he turns to his wife. He goes, "You know, America's so great. It's like there's so much opportunity for people here. Even if you don't have enough money to buy the whole house, you could just buy the garage." And he's like, "I'm going to buy the garage for us one day." And if you don't understand that joke, it's because it's not literally a garage for sale. They're just selling stuff they don't want on the driveway basically or in the garage. So there's a lot of cultural shock.
Chris So imagine if they were to try to teach us, they would teach us all the wrong things. So their whole thing is you're going to go to school and you need to learn everything that you can learn so that you can adapt and survive and thrive. And so we assimilate really fast. Now of course the bad part to this is unlike my cousins who are very fluent in Vietnamese and understand the culture really well and eat all the foods — I've lost a little bit of that connection to my own culture and I've almost assimilated too well. And there's an arc to the story. So you try to be like everyone else. You assimilate really quickly. What happens is then you start to lose your own identity, which is pretty obvious at this point. And I start to develop a kind of identity crisis where I look down on my own culture. I don't understand why we do what we do, why we're so loud, and our food has a strong aroma to it, and it's just so weird. And so I go through a period of self-hate for my teens into my late teens until I figure it out.
21:23 What Changed Everything
Chris And I'll tell you the moment that changed it for me. Eventually I go to art school, a private art school, and I'm seeing different cultures and everyone is united by their love for expressing themselves through creativity, through the visual arts. So I'm now I think 22 years old. I'm at graduation.
Chris And I've already become a little bit bitter about school and everything. So I have a funky attitude. I thought about dropping out a couple of times, but I go to the graduation ceremony and I see all kinds of Asians dressed in their traditional attire, right? So the long dress and the colors and the patterns and their hair headdress of people from Korea, from Japan, from China. I don't think there was any other Vietnamese person there. And they were very proud to celebrate their culture, their language, their identity. And it made me take inventory on myself, which was like I have never seen Asians represent themselves this way. And I figured out why.
Chris Because these people grew up where they were part of the dominant culture. They only came to America to go to school. They didn't grow up here. They weren't picked on. They weren't bullied. They weren't ostracized. Where they come from, they're the man or the woman. And to come to America to go to a very expensive private art school meant they had means. So you can't get in as a foreign student if you can't prove that you have the financial ability to pay. So not only were they part of the dominant culture, they're upper class in their culture. And their parents were forward-thinking enough to allow them to go and study abroad. So they had a lot of things going for them. And I had not seen that because every Asian person that I knew was an immigrant to America where we weren't part of the dominant culture. So we had a different story.
Chris And I find something really interesting. I saw a piece on social media recently about why the stereotypical Asian man in America has been viewed as weak, asexual, very nerdy, and not very manly. And that's not a good thing. But all of a sudden K-pop, Korean culture has become so dominant in K-dramas, movies, and music that the new standard for men is to not have some of the toxic masculinity anymore. So these K-pop stars tend to have very effeminate characteristics. Some of them wear makeup and women and men are like, "Wow, that's the new standard." So they completely flipped the paradigm from the Asian men not being very desirable in America to being quite desirable. And it's kind of interesting to see this happening on such a global level.
Serhiy That's dope.
24:00 The Pull to Be Someone Else
Serhiy You know, Chris, it's funny. I was reluctant to tell you the story or not, but I was using a made-up name for 7 years of my business life. I actually picked the name Chris also and I used the name Chris for seven years as I was building my first business. It was an international e-commerce copywriting business and I would cold call Americans at night because of the time difference and I would call myself Chris just because I was afraid of the reaction if they would hear Serhiy. So it's only roughly seven years ago as I started calling myself Serhiy and it was such a liberating experience. I think that all of us who want to blend in, who want to get rid of accent — this is something that Asian people want to do. We want to get rid of their accent to sound more American.
Chris No, I think these things, these imperfections, they make us us, right? And I think you wrote it on the Unbland Yourself landing page that transparency, trust requires transparency. Are you ready to be real you? And I think we all go through some of this, especially if we don't feel safe, if we're not part of the power structure. I'm sure if you grew up as part of the top 1% in your country, you wouldn't have any of these questions at all.
Chris It's quite interesting too to see my wife's family who's originally from Taiwan. Her cousins, they named their children with the names that they would have named them if they were in Taiwan and living in America. So times have changed a lot. So names that are hard to pronounce, that are very ethnic in sounding in the way that they're written, force other people to kind of meet you where you're at. Whereas when I was growing up I don't want to force you to do anything. In fact I don't want you to notice the fact that I'm different. I want to be the same.
26:09 Celebrating Who We Are
Chris And so for me, understanding and watching my fellow graduates at Art Center celebrate their culture was an awakening moment for me. And I teared up a little bit because I was filled with so much shame and guilt that I had for a long period of time looked down on my own culture, my own ethnicity, and now I was like, I have a new teacher. And from this point forward, I promised myself, never play small, own who you are, and start to live this life. And I took that into the corporate world. And I ran my business for — I guess we're on our 30th year technically, running two different companies. But I don't go into meetings apologizing for who I am. I celebrate who I am. And I only work with clients who can acknowledge and appreciate the differences. And if they can't, then I am not for them. I'm okay with that.
Serhiy As you once said, you're going to teach us charge as much that will make our moms nervous. And I definitely can relate to this, my man, because my mom her entire life she counts money. And I have this mentality, the scarcity mentality ingrained in me. I'm a video production agency owner. We also run YouTube for podcasters. And I couldn't raise my prices just because my inner voice was telling me that I'm not worth it, you know. And one client deliberately, he said, "I'm going to make you take more." So my client gave me more than you know. So it was just such an eye-opening experience Chris that for some reason our self-esteem dictates how much we can take from this world in exchange for real value that we bring.
Chris Of course. Yeah. I mean that's not a surprise. How you see yourself is how you conduct yourself and the actions that you take. So if you don't see yourself as a person who's worthy of getting more, you will never ask for more. And you always ask for less thinking, I don't even deserve this what I'm asking for right now. So it takes a very generous, kind and empathetic client to say, you know what, you got to start charging more and I just don't feel right even getting this from you. And most clients are just happy to pay the lowest price possible. And this person starts to send you on a path and then hopefully you've made permanent changes in the way that you look at yourself.
28:55 Does Crisis Help?
Serhiy Chris, I want to quote Winston Churchill who said that you can never ever let a good crisis go to waste and I think the co-founder of LinkedIn Reid Hoffman also had his variation of this rule that we cannot miss a crisis. Does crisis help in building a powerful personal brand?
Chris Good question. I can definitively say a good crisis helps to build a powerful character. And if brands are built on personalities and character, then it's pretty safe to assume the answer is yes. There is a phrase — I forget the exact phrasing, but it's something like this: hard times make for good men and good men make for good times and good times makes for easy men and easy men make for hard times — and it goes in a weird circle. So let's just explain and unpack that. If you don't have a lot, you become very resourceful. If you have to endure a lot of pain in the moment it's terrible and it's heartbreaking, but the ones who survive — literally and figuratively — are stronger because of that. And then they are able to figure things out and they're so capable.
Chris Like for example, I'm less capable than my father. My father can take apart an engine. He can figure out how to fix the motor, a computer. He can fix a lot of things. And he's developed a reputation in our family that my kids call him Mr. Fix It 'cause grandpa can fix everything. Now my wife's like, "Hey, this is a problem." I'm like, "What do you want me to do about that?" I'll Google it and then we'll just hire somebody to do it, right? So we're not as capable. And I imagine my father's father was even more capable than him and so on and so forth. So the harder the times in which we go through, the ones who emerge emerge stronger.
Chris And so my kids don't have a lot of hardship. They grew up mostly in one house and I have mostly gone to private school. So they haven't been in physical fist fights. They haven't been threatened with a weapon or anything like that. I'm not saying I have, but these times make for really tough people. This is why also some of the best music comes from black culture in America because black culture has not had a good time here historically speaking. And diamonds need...
Serhiy Yeah.
Chris And you know, there's this thing — I watch a silly show. It's called Forged in Fire where they have four blacksmiths make a weapon, a knife or a dagger or sword or something like that. I didn't realize this, but what is steel? Steel is iron. Iron is not very valuable. It's not nearly the value of steel, but iron and steel are the same. Iron becomes steel through heat and through pressure and the amount of carbon that exists within the iron. So it's kind of crazy to me that you can stick something that's kind of ugly, not that valuable, into a crucible, raise the temperature, and smash it with a hammer — heat and pressure — and you pound out the impurities. It's kind of weird. You're folding carbon and iron ore together, and it's like, wow. Now for all the blacksmiths, I apologize. That's kind of what I remember reading.
Serhiy Hey folks, thanks for checking the first part of my conversation with Chris. In the second part that we will drop just in a few days, we talk with Chris about enjoying the moment, aligning our passion with our profession, the value of business coaches, and I will also ask Chris one main takeaway from 2025 that he'll take with him to 2026. If you want to support me, please subscribe, leave some comments, or maybe check out some other videos I have on that channel. Thanks a lot and see you.