I messed up...The Truth About Niching Down

For so many years, I've told all of you to be hyper niche, to be a specialist because the world rewards specialists. And here I am doing a lot of different things for people. And I've lost my way. If you want to find out what I'm up to next and the reason why and the inspiration behind

it, watch this video. I consider you someone who has a lot of wisdom, knowledge around many things, and have done a great job in positioning yourself as a thought leader. Simultaneously me and you offline constantly have conversations around like dog why are you not the biggest business around this in personal branding in marketing in content creation and you've told me some of your frustrations around yes the business person in you the competitor in you is like you want to have a larger business and how you came up recently to a concept called the five ones and it's kind of reshaped your thinking around how you're looking at your business and I'd love for you to just start with explaining what it is and maybe where the disconnect was for you before hearing this concept? — Well, let's start with where this concept comes from. I've had the fortune of meeting a guy by the name of Taki Moore, which is an OG sales coach. — He's a coach that coaches how to coach. — And he has a concept called the five ones. And he goes, "The five ones is you have to have one target market, one offering, one conversion method, one traffic source, and you got to do it for one year. " M — and this is about extreme focus so that you can build a lucrative business and you're not trying to do too many things. And so it got me to think I'm clearly not doing the five ones. You can tell in the results of what we do, but the diversity of topics and the things that I care a lot about is not it's not straightforward because people often are confused. So what do you do again? How can you help me? It's not clear. So, if I want my business to thrive, and who doesn't? If you're in business, you want it to grow and it's not growing, I have to make some hard decisions. I got to get rid of things that don't fit into the five ones. — How has that been for you?

— Well, it's like this thing. Um, the more you try to do, the more burdensome all those things that you try to do feel. They feel heavy on my shoulders and it means that the website is complicated, the packaging is complicated, what we create for content is complicated and what people try to figure out for, it's very confusing. — And so in order for us to become the person we're meant to be, we have to let go of the person we were. And we talked about this recently at FutureFest where we kind of have to say thank you to our old self for doing all the hard work, for putting in the time, the sacrifices, for drawing the boundaries, for getting up early and staying up late, for putting in the work so that we can then evolve into the next person that we're going to be. So, we thank that person and then we have to kind of retire them or if you want to use a little bit more graphic visual, we have to bury them — because we only have so much space and I want to create more space to become the person always meant to be. And so, it's actually a relief to hear that all I have to do in the future is to focus on the one thing such that by doing everything else becomes easier and necessary. So at least externally I have to present a more unified front. What's my ideal client profile? What's the irresistible offer to them? Where are they at so I can speak to them on that channel? How can I grow and boost and scale that the conversion method? And I will be more than happy to do this for a lot longer than one year. Do you think that takes you away from how relatable and magnetic you've been because of your ability to have depth across breath so to speak? I didn't start there mo and I have to say that this is a challenge that lots of people have. I don't think I have too strong of a challenge with this. It's attachment. attachment to old identity — that even the way you phrase it sounds so violent to me. It's like — I don't have to let anything die. I'm as charismatic, as amazing, as relatable as I ever was. I just am going to narrow it in on one area of focus. — You're the one who used the visual berry. I just said, do you think? — Yeah, you have to bury your old self — because the new person can grow. — I'm with you. — Yeah, but I'm not I don't feel like there's a sacrifice here. I don't look at burial as a process of like mourning. I just I have to clear out the house, make some room, have guests coming by. — No, I guess my question is, do you think that this decision

dilutes the effectiveness of your personal brand as it stands today? — No, I don't even think so. I think if anything, it makes it even more potent. — Tell me why. Well, perhaps you tuned in because you watched a pricing video. Or perhaps I was negotiating with somebody who wanted me to make a banger video but wasn't willing to pay. Or you might have watched a video where I was critiquing some typography or a logo. Or perhaps you've tuned in because there's this guy who's talking about authentic personal branding in a way that you've not heard before and you really connect it. It really resonates with you. I think you'd be really happy for me to pick a lane so he can learn more from me so that you're not confused as to who's showing up every time. — What about the ones that showed up and you're letting go of that? — I'm okay with that. I'm not obligated to do what people want. — That's fair. — I mean, if you were obligated to do what people want, why aren't you still your mama's boy? — I am my being cradled in her arms. — Yeah. Yeah. So, let me ask you with that in mind. You're like, "F what everybody thinks. I'm going to do the thing and get really clear on it and stay in that lane. " Me and you have had Okay, pause, pause, pause. I don't want to say like, "F what everybody thinks. " I think everybody wants me to be me. [snorts] So, I have a very different point of view. And I'm saying this because I know other people are listening to this. Well, I think the vast audience who likes me is rooting for me to be more me. — Yeah, I agree. — Whatever direction that goes in. So, I'm not letting anybody down. Everybody who cares about me wants what's best for me. And the best person to decide that is me. — I love that. And you're going to make a choice that is 100% aligned for you. Correct. — Correct. — How are you defining that alignment? How are you getting to that point when you have such you have so many things that you could choose from you specifically Chris not that like you how are you coming to this decision because I know you're actively working through this five ones for yourself — yeah well I'll tell you how my career choices worked out and it's history repeating itself all over again — so year one and two of blind my production design company started in 1994 Five. If you called me for a logo, I'd make you a logo and it'd be good. You need an identity system, I got you. You need a broadcast promo for a Sunday stunt free e, I got you. You need a website for international beauty company, I got you. — Oh, you need an animation for your ski company? I got you. And as I'm doing all those things, I was never very good at any of them except for the thing I studied in school, which was traditional design. Hm. — And so it became a problem for me because clearly and I'll give you the example. The clients who paid me sent me one of their senior animators to overlook our project to give me tips on how to make sure the animation was going to turn out well. — Fascinating. — So, not only did they pay me, they paid for their own guy to come over because they knew I didn't know what I was doing. And that's a wakeup signal. Like, and I wasn't embarrassed. was like, "Wow, there's so much I don't know — because something that this person came by our studio and looked at our files and said, "Oh," and he was very pleasant about it. Did you know you could do this? And here's why I do it. And he showed me. I'm like, "God darn it. I should know that. " And so I think about two years in I said to my I think she was my wife then already to Jesse and said, "Hey babe, I'm going to make a big business decision for all of us. I want to focus on one thing. motion design. — I think there's enough there for me to sink my teeth into for a long time so I don't get bored. " And she's like, "Okay, whatever. I trust you. You know what you're doing. Go do that. So, I did it. And 20 some odd years later, it was a good decision. And here's a cool part. Especially towards the end of that 20 years, a company came up to us, a client said, "Hey, I know this is not your thing, but can you help us out with a logo design? " Not my thing. Do you guys do print? I'm like, did we do print? Should we help them with that? So, I was so good at this other new thing — that people forgot about the old thing. — But I was able to build a healthy business. I did millions of dollars of revenue every single year. — Got to work with some of the best people for the best clients as well. And until I decided I want to do something else, that's what I did. I'm just going through that same process right now on a personal level. M — so I would teach many things but then now this is what I want to teach and I think there's enough meat on the bones here that I could be doing this for the next 20 years and by the time I'm 70 well I think I'll be done. — People don't even know that you're above 50. So when you're 70 they're going to think you're 50 and then you're going to you got another 20 years. — Yeah. But you know at that point I'm like I think I've done what I need to do. Maybe I'll do the next thing. We shall see. I can see you traveling around uh Asia at 70 with a bunch of people dripped out. You know what I'm saying? — Me with my frail old man. — Roll dog. — Let me ask you though. I'm curious. Can you articulate for you during that time?

I'm sure what you were doing as far as logo design amongst other things were highly lucrative. And I know you just said that it's what's alive for you and what's going to create the most transformation. But I'm curious, what if there's something that you're really good at gets you massively paid, but you don't want to do more of it? How do you stay in that pocket of still choosing the thing that you know is right for you and will create the most transformation? Maybe it's not the most lucrative. — Well, you're a hired gun. You're a mercenary. You're a merc. You go in, you do a job, you have no affiliation. It's just whoever pays you the most, you just do that job. — And it's good to do that for a little bit because that allows you to have some space to think and reflect on what you want to do with your life. — And what I would do then is I would save as much money as I can so I have some runway so I can make the next big decision of my life. M — so I didn't look at it back then in 1996 or 97 that I'm walking away from something very lucrative. People were calling me for all kinds of things. — I could make money on all of them. I just got to choose the thing that I'm most passionate about that can carry me for the next two decades that can feel like I'm a forever student. I found that thing. Surprise surprise. It paid way more than what the other things did combined. Mhm. So your one thing people are scared of because they feel like it's limiting options, but your one thing is allowing you to focus. And if we just look at this, cuz I think it's kind of interesting the parallel of this. What is pressure? Pressure in physics is force divided by surface area. So if you push but you push across a wall, the wall will not break. M — but if you push same amount of pressure through a P-siz shape, you can punch a hole through a wall. And so if you look at it that like that and you want to have a breakthrough, you want to break through something. Take the same pressure because there's no more pressure you can apply. You can't work more than you can. You can't push any harder and you're not supposed to reduce the area of focus and you create tremendous pressure. — That's what I want to be able to do. So, this has led you to the five ones. So, you can create that focus and create that pressure. I'd love to know from you if you're willing to share publicly with the crowd, where's your head going as far as where you're where are you choosing this focus to be? — The focus is to help other people do what I've been able to do. First of all, it's really easy to sell. You have the receipts. You're ahead of them on that journey. — They can see the social proof that you have. So, I'm not telling you to do something I've not done myself. I'm a multiplatform content creator who understands high quality content, beats, following trends, algorithm hacks, and everything else somebody else is going to tell you. — And the reward is you get to know who you are more to develop ideas that are ownable that you build up brand assets that you will have for the rest of your life. And I also understand that having a strong personal brand built around your true authentic self can help you to get the reach that you so desire. Reducing your ad cost, your cost per acquisition can get you the speaking opportunities that you so desire to be not following people but to be peers with the people that you follow. — I think that's pretty special. And if it helps your business, fantastic. I'm pretty sure it will. But that's not what I'm trying to get you to be excited

about. How does one work with you to accomplish that right now? — Just lots of money. — It's pretty straightforward. Now, all seriousness, people see me and different masterminds speaking on stage. And I have to tell you, I mean, inside this cold exterior, the stoic exterior is still a um an emotional immigrant boy. M — and when people come up to me and they say to me and I think they're sincere when they say this to me, you're my favorite speaker or just your energy and your presence is what I resonate with so much. — I feel like the signal and the receiver of the signal is the transmitter and the receiver are in alignment. Like I broadcast it as a very specific tune tuned to a certain frequency. Yes. — And if people can hear it are picking it up, but then they inevitably ask me, "How do I work with you? What's your offer? " Cuz they're used to buying. And prior to recently, I got no offer. I got nothing. I don't know. It's not my pro community because that's

not right for them. It's it might be one-on-one coaching, but it's very expensive for them to do that. — So, when I created content lab, it was to answer that question. If you're making content and you're an experienced professional, you have some expertise and you need to go to the next level, I'd like to help you. If you believe in your heart that if you are surrounded by other people as motivated to make content as you and you want nuance feedback from a person who's been in the creative industry for 30 years at the highest level, that's what Content Lab is about. If that's you and that's peing your interest, just check the link. and we'll

include that in the description below. I've come to the realization that every time I start feeling stressed or feeling diluted and I don't know where I'm going, it's because I don't have focus. And so many people, especially people who are creative, suffer from some form of ADHD. They can't get focus on what they need to do. And so in hearing Taki's the five ones, I I hear the call. one offer, one client profile, one channel, one form of promotion, and do it for at least one year. That's what I'm going to be doing. Well