how to build a profitable personal brand (in 2026)

English
MMatt Gray
마케팅/광고창업/스타트업자격증/평생교육AI/미래기술

Transcript

00:00:00How we doing y'all?
00:00:04We are live here in Niseko, Japan.
00:00:12You guys hear me all right?
00:00:18Let me know if the sound is all good.
00:00:23Just want to check, make sure we're rocking and rolling here.
00:00:29I'm out here snowboarding the next week or so in Japan.
00:00:40How we doing Zach?
00:00:42I'll post it up out here.
00:00:44Backcountry snowboarding.
00:00:47It's snowed about a foot and a half to the A,
00:00:52and it's going to snow about another meter.
00:00:54And so we've got a big adventure planned tomorrow.
00:01:00Today was on the mountain, and I'm not going to lie.
00:01:03I had a little bit of a dicey moment.
00:01:06I met a few guys up on the hill, and we started
00:01:09going into backcountry territory.
00:01:12And one thing led to another, and we were on this ridge
00:01:20and snowboarding down the ridge.
00:01:23And I was carving, doing my thing,
00:01:27and we slowed down for a sec.
00:01:29But then all of a sudden, all the snow just started to sink.
00:01:34And I was sinking so fast in the snow,
00:01:39my snowboard was above my head.
00:01:43And my back was slowly sinking into about a meter
00:01:49or so of snow.
00:01:54And so it was pretty terrifying, because the snow was kind
00:02:02of caving in on me.
00:02:03And I was wondering, oh man, is this going to just--
00:02:09is this it?
00:02:10And even the snow was kind of piling on my face a little bit.
00:02:12I was like, man, am I just going to sink into this thing?
00:02:15So kind of a scary moment there.
00:02:18But luckily, I stopped sinking.
00:02:20I was able to kind of calm my breath,
00:02:22because I was feeling a level of panic for a second.
00:02:28And then kind of push some of the snow off my board,
00:02:32kind of shimmy myself just a little bit,
00:02:35and managed to shimmy my way eventually forward,
00:02:41and then decided just to send it down the rest of the hill
00:02:45to try and pray for the best.
00:02:48And sure enough, we're back.
00:02:52So that was today's little adventure out on the hills.
00:02:57We'll be more careful tomorrow.
00:03:00And today, guys, I thought I'd go live with you briefly.
00:03:05I was thinking about you guys.
00:03:06It's February 1, right?
00:03:08So the year is moving.
00:03:09And I know a lot of you guys are looking
00:03:11to really go and capitalize on content,
00:03:13on building your own profitable personal brands this year.
00:03:17And so, well, what is it going to take, right?
00:03:20And that's what a lot of you guys are wondering.
00:03:22And so let's get into it, right?
00:03:24Let's chop it up around this a bit.
00:03:25You know, I have helped 2,500-plus founders
00:03:29over the last year do exactly this.
00:03:31And I really think there's a way to go
00:03:35and build a profitable personal brand
00:03:37without being the bottleneck.
00:03:39And so I'm going to give you some pointers
00:03:41that I wish someone had told me when I was getting going,
00:03:44the kind of stuff that are the insider tips
00:03:47that I don't think many people talk about.
00:03:50So we're about to get into that right now.
00:03:52Along the way, if you have questions,
00:03:53you're welcome to go and drop them in the stream.
00:03:56Obviously, the intention of doing all this
00:03:58is really just to be insanely generous, help you guys out,
00:04:01and to hop on here with some fellow founders,
00:04:04chop it up, and to be of service.
00:04:06So let's get into it.
00:04:08So first things first, okay?
00:04:11You gotta have an awesome offer
00:04:13if you're gonna try and build something profitable.
00:04:17And so for many of you, you have an established offer,
00:04:21you're rocking and rolling, you're ready to get selling.
00:04:24And the key thing then
00:04:25is having the right infrastructure behind it all.
00:04:29And so what do I mean by infrastructure?
00:04:31Well, typically, you'll go and you'll have
00:04:34your actual audience on a given platform,
00:04:38and you have an offer over here,
00:04:41but you're missing this middle layer.
00:04:44And that's what the infrastructure is.
00:04:46Now, what I mean specifically is across your social,
00:04:51every single day, you should have call to actions
00:04:53that are going out.
00:04:55Those call to actions will lead people
00:04:59to go and buy from you eventually, right?
00:05:04More probably, they may lead people
00:05:06to things like lead magnets, joining your newsletter,
00:05:10where they can then get nurtured more,
00:05:12and when it makes sense, go and convert to your thing.
00:05:17And so as an example here, I'm just sharing my screen.
00:05:22Can you guys see my screen all right, hopefully?
00:05:24I think so.
00:05:26So here you can see on my Instagram as an example,
00:05:29I have 960K followers here,
00:05:33and we have different call to actions
00:05:35in the content, right?
00:05:38So this is me snowboarding just yesterday here in Niseko.
00:05:42And in a given post like this, right,
00:05:47everything changed when I built strong systems.
00:05:49You can see it goes through a bunch of value, right?
00:05:53And then at the end of this,
00:05:54I say I've put my 21 best profit systems in a free course.
00:05:58And then people can go and message me 21.
00:06:03And when they do that, they go and get funneled
00:06:06into ManyChat, which grabs their email,
00:06:08has them go in my email list, where then when it makes sense,
00:06:12that person may go and join founder OS,
00:06:15which is the community of founders that I've built,
00:06:18helping them grow a profitable personal brand,
00:06:21remove themselves from operations
00:06:23so they have a business that runs itself, okay?
00:06:25And so that is just one example of the infrastructure
00:06:29behind the content that will actually go
00:06:32and drive sales.
00:06:34So you can monetize, but in a way that's not salesy,
00:06:37because I'm not just saying, oh, go buy this thing.
00:06:40Instead, it's using call to actions
00:06:43where I give something free away, right,
00:06:46that then go and allow me to capture the email.
00:06:49Because as you may know, right,
00:06:52email is statistically proven to convert
00:06:54about 28 times better than social media.
00:06:58And secondly, with an email, right,
00:07:01you own that audience and your email list
00:07:04in any given business is generally your most valuable asset
00:07:09because you own that email list.
00:07:12And so you don't own Instagram, that suck,
00:07:15you don't own X, right?
00:07:17But through effective call to actions,
00:07:19you can go and drive people, right,
00:07:22to actually joining your email list
00:07:24where then you can convert them.
00:07:26So similarly here on X, right,
00:07:28I've grown this organically to about 390,000 followers.
00:07:32And you'll see throughout my content,
00:07:34see, I put a video out like this.
00:07:36This is a recent video we launched on YouTube
00:07:39where I was helping Sam Kolder, a big creator on YouTube
00:07:41with over a million subs with his business.
00:07:44And you can see over here,
00:07:45I drive people then to get my offer stack pyramid.
00:07:49When we open up this,
00:07:51which I think you guys can see all this, right?
00:07:54Okay, you can see that I drive people
00:07:57to this offer stack pyramid over here.
00:08:00People put in their first name, last name,
00:08:01email, and phone number,
00:08:03and then they get the offer stack pyramid, okay?
00:08:07I featured this in the video.
00:08:09Now people can get it for free
00:08:11in exchange for me getting their email.
00:08:13So the cool thing is then in the emails
00:08:15that I send out every single week to my email list,
00:08:18at some juncture, someone may be interested in helping,
00:08:21you know, getting help growing their profitable personal brand
00:08:24getting access to the 180 systems inside of Foundress,
00:08:27getting access to Aria,
00:08:29which is our custom AI that we built,
00:08:31trained on over 600 of my private systems, right?
00:08:34And be able to get access to me every single week,
00:08:37my C-suite, over 50 calls,
00:08:38over 800 other people in the community.
00:08:41And so they join, they get all that, right?
00:08:44But they learn about that inside of my email list, right?
00:08:48And so this leads me to the next thing, right?
00:08:52Which is many people are trying to build
00:08:54a profitable personal brand online, right?
00:08:56And you don't wanna be salesy, right?
00:08:58And you don't wanna sell your soul, right?
00:09:01By putting out a bunch of stuff
00:09:03that feels kind of dirty, right?
00:09:06And feels like you just are selling people constantly.
00:09:08The truth is though you don't have to do that though, right?
00:09:12There are ways to be insanely generous online.
00:09:15And this is one of the core principles I have
00:09:18and that I make sure that people around me embody, right?
00:09:21Because I think it's the best way
00:09:23to build a profitable personal brand in 2026.
00:09:26So let me explain.
00:09:27Insanely generous means that you're giving away free things
00:09:33in exchange for emails,
00:09:36and you're playing the long game with your audience.
00:09:39Because one of the most powerful forces in humanity
00:09:42is reciprocity.
00:09:43This idea that if you give, give, give,
00:09:46eventually someone's gonna wanna go and join
00:09:49if you're doing great work.
00:09:51And so what you're trying to do
00:09:53is go and put out amazing content, right?
00:09:56Drive people to free things that you give away to them
00:10:00and then nurture people in your email list,
00:10:03driving them eventually to either a sales call,
00:10:07if that's how you sell folks,
00:10:08or just to a landing page where they can purchase.
00:10:12And that being how you then go and monetize.
00:10:16So people's general impression of you
00:10:19is just that you're being generous, right?
00:10:21You're just giving and giving and giving, right?
00:10:24And it's from all that giving, right?
00:10:28That you're able to go and create more of a movement
00:10:31because people are gonna go and share the content
00:10:34with others.
00:10:35They're gonna share your resources with others.
00:10:37So you're growing the general pool of people
00:10:40that you're helping.
00:10:41And sure enough, there's always gonna be a solid sliver
00:10:45of those folks that wanna go deeper
00:10:48and get your help with implementation,
00:10:50get your mentorship, go and join your community,
00:10:53belong to something bigger, go and get more help,
00:10:57more support, more hands-on access.
00:11:00And so they're going to go and take the plunge
00:11:02and take the leap, right?
00:11:03Because in any given community, right?
00:11:07There's going to be a large portion of people
00:11:10that are real action takers.
00:11:12The kind of people that don't just wanna watch content,
00:11:16don't just want a free resource.
00:11:18They understand that to get real results,
00:11:21impact, make a difference,
00:11:23really get the growth thereafter,
00:11:25they need to go and be part of something more serious, right?
00:11:28They need to go and take the plunge
00:11:30and be inside of something where it's more focused
00:11:34and they're getting the support that they need, right?
00:11:37So one thing I see come up a lot though, right?
00:11:42Where people go and screw up is they don't know
00:11:46how to pick the right platforms.
00:11:49Well, to give you some behind the scenes
00:11:51kind of numbers here,
00:11:52YouTube is responsible for about 45% of the leads
00:11:56to my portfolio of online businesses
00:11:58that do $13 million a year.
00:12:00LinkedIn is responsible for around 30% of people.
00:12:05And then Instagram, TikTok and X
00:12:08are responsible for about the rest, okay?
00:12:11So YouTube and LinkedIn are number one and two respectively.
00:12:16Now that just really shows you first off
00:12:19the power of YouTube, right?
00:12:20Because I have around 235,000 subs
00:12:24or something like that on YouTube,
00:12:26but it's responsible for about 45% of the leads
00:12:30to founder OS, which is pretty insane
00:12:32because on say Instagram, I have almost a million followers,
00:12:37but it doesn't even do as much as my YouTube.
00:12:40And on LinkedIn, I have over 880,000 followers, I think, right?
00:12:46But YouTube is still more powerful.
00:12:48So YouTube and me, you know, we're good friends
00:12:52and I am bullish on this platform, if I'm being honest.
00:12:56Now I'm not saying you have to get going on YouTube
00:12:58because the truth is the way that I see things, okay,
00:13:02is that there's two kind of models by which to look at
00:13:07how you should pick the platform that's right for you.
00:13:12So you're probably wondering, Matt, how do I choose?
00:13:16All right, well, let's get into it.
00:13:18All right, so the first way I want you to look at this
00:13:25is that I want you to think about the following model.
00:13:28Imagine we have like three different circles here.
00:13:32We have circle up here, okay?
00:13:33And this circle is gonna be,
00:13:35what is the most fun for you, okay?
00:13:39What do you like?
00:13:41You know, do you like to write?
00:13:42Do you like to film stuff?
00:13:45Which one excites you the most?
00:13:47Okay, let's go down to this one over here, okay?
00:13:51Over here, this circle, right?
00:13:53Is where are your customers?
00:13:56Because we're looking to go
00:13:59and build a profitable personal brand.
00:14:01Hence, we need to know where our customers are
00:14:04because we need to go and make content where they are.
00:14:08All right, so mark that down.
00:14:09Are they on YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok?
00:14:12Where are they?
00:14:14All right, over here.
00:14:16This is this next circle.
00:14:17And this one, okay?
00:14:20Is all about, what are you great at?
00:14:25Are you an amazing writer, okay?
00:14:30Are you amazing on camera, right?
00:14:33If you're amazing on camera, let's say,
00:14:37and your customers are on YouTube,
00:14:42and you're excited about YouTube as a platform,
00:14:47well, you should probably get going on YouTube.
00:14:53On the other side of things, right?
00:14:55Maybe you don't care what platform you're on,
00:14:58but you really do enjoy writing.
00:15:01And you're really great at writing.
00:15:03And most of your customers are on LinkedIn.
00:15:07Well, it's probably a safe bet to get going on LinkedIn.
00:15:12Because let me describe the next thinking here.
00:15:17And actually, you know what?
00:15:18Let me maybe just, let me show you some thinking here.
00:15:22'Cause the next aspect here, right?
00:15:24Is that there's kind of like two directions to go.
00:15:29You got like pen first, creators,
00:15:33and you got camera first, creators, all right?
00:15:38Pen first, well, they're probably gonna be LinkedIn X.
00:15:43Yeah, that's kind of that.
00:15:47Whereas camera first are gonna be more kind of Instagram,
00:15:52YouTube, TikTok.
00:15:56Now, either way you go here,
00:15:59whether pen first or camera first,
00:16:02you're likely gonna need a newsletter, right?
00:16:05Because again, email converts 28 times better
00:16:10than just social media.
00:16:12So you wanna own your audience.
00:16:14So either way, we're gonna have that newsletter, right?
00:16:18And then from there, convert people to our offer, okay?
00:16:23And so the big thing for you to consider
00:16:26is are you more pen first,
00:16:28meaning you wanna get writing
00:16:29and pick either LinkedIn or X,
00:16:32or are you more camera first
00:16:34and wanna go Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok, okay?
00:16:39So that is one model to look at this all through, okay?
00:16:44Now, let's talk a little bit about CTAs, okay?
00:16:49Because a lot of people struggle with this.
00:16:56Well, CTA, what does it mean?
00:16:57It means call to action, okay?
00:17:00And the way to think about CTAs
00:17:02is that you're creating this ocean of attention online
00:17:05when you create content.
00:17:07Like, let's just think about this for a sec, right?
00:17:09A lot of you guys are worried
00:17:10because you put out a piece of content
00:17:11and maybe it gets 500 views.
00:17:13Well, now think about a room for a second
00:17:17with 500 people in it, right?
00:17:21I don't know about you,
00:17:21but if I'm in front of a room of 500 people,
00:17:23I'm kind of fucking nervous straight up, all right?
00:17:26I may seem confident on camera and all this stuff,
00:17:29but the nerves of being in front of a lot of people
00:17:32are not beneath me, all right?
00:17:34I get stage fright.
00:17:36So 500 people, that's a hell of a lot of people.
00:17:39And also, I know that if I'm in front of 500 people
00:17:42and I'm talking my talk and I'm showing my thing,
00:17:45sure enough, I'm probably gonna go and convert
00:17:4770 to 100 of those people if I just do what I do,
00:17:51which is just build trust, help some people out,
00:17:54and point them in the right direction, right?
00:17:56That's generally the math I've seen.
00:17:59And so when you're on social, right,
00:18:01and you're digitally kind of putting yourself
00:18:04in front of people, call to actions are the way
00:18:07that you can actually go and capture that attention
00:18:11and move it from content to nurture,
00:18:16which means that you're now nurturing people
00:18:18in your email list.
00:18:18But here's what most people screw up.
00:18:21Let me show you scenario A, all right?
00:18:26This is where people screw up.
00:18:28They'll go and have, let's say, a post on deep work, right?
00:18:33It'll be my deep work routine, okay?
00:18:38And then they get into a bunch of value, okay?
00:18:44And then at the end of that post, they have a CTA.
00:18:47And their CTA will be something like,
00:18:50subscribe to my newsletter.
00:18:54And then they have a link to their newsletter, let's say.
00:18:57Now, the issue here, okay,
00:19:01I'm gonna point out to you in a second,
00:19:03but let's see if you can spot it, okay?
00:19:06We go to scenario B here, okay?
00:19:09Scenario B is that we have my deep work routine, okay?
00:19:12Same post, no difference here.
00:19:15We have all this value that we're gonna give away
00:19:17in the post, okay?
00:19:19And it can be anywhere, LinkedIn, X, doesn't matter.
00:19:22The CTA on this one is want to discover
00:19:27the best deep work routine to 10X your productivity in 2026.
00:19:36I'm giving away my deep work routine checklist here, okay?
00:19:53So what have I done here, right?
00:19:57Between scenario B and scenario A.
00:20:01Let me hear in the chat.
00:20:02What do you guys see as the difference there?
00:20:04Okay, so I know this is pretty, maybe sounds basic, okay?
00:20:08But I guarantee when I look at 97% of founders,
00:20:13they fuck this up, okay?
00:20:16Because here's the key thing.
00:20:18You need contextual CTAs.
00:20:22What are contextual CTAs?
00:20:24It's where the CTA is tightly coupled to the content, okay?
00:20:29So if you're talking about deep work,
00:20:35make sure that the CTA that leads people to your email list
00:20:38says, "Hey, on Saturday, I'm releasing a newsletter
00:20:42"that's my deep work routine and a checklist
00:20:44"that you can implement yours.
00:20:46"Be sure to sign up here to get access."
00:20:48Oh, okay, now I wanna learn
00:20:50because I was just reading a post on deep work from you
00:20:55and now you're giving away a deep work checklist.
00:20:59Makes sense.
00:21:00What you don't wanna do
00:21:02is have someone reading a deep work article
00:21:06and then you're just like, "Join my newsletter,"
00:21:09because it's just not relevant at all, right?
00:21:13And so that's where most people screw up.
00:21:16Now you can see when you look at, say, my Instagram here,
00:21:20we go to this post here.
00:21:21This post, "How to Get So Good They Can't Ignore You."
00:21:24It's got over 180,000 views, right?
00:21:28So it's done very well.
00:21:30And when we go to that post, okay,
00:21:33I go through a whole exercise
00:21:37helping people question themselves.
00:21:39What's really the things that make them really unique?
00:21:42What are their skills and how are they stacking them?
00:21:45Okay, let's now help them face self-doubt
00:21:48and then track their time more.
00:21:50Set anti-goals as to what they're gonna not do
00:21:54so that they can avoid these things at all costs.
00:21:57And then help them go and set specific goals.
00:22:01And then I show them that I set my goals
00:22:05for my years and my months
00:22:08inside of my personal board meeting.
00:22:11And you can see actually on my tabs here,
00:22:13I actually have my February one open
00:22:14because I'm always looking at it.
00:22:16I'm always using it.
00:22:18It's my most valuable system.
00:22:20And so people can then go and comment board
00:22:23to go and get that exact system.
00:22:26So this is an example of contextual CTAs.
00:22:32Now, why does this matter?
00:22:37Well, we're trying to build
00:22:39a profitable personal brand in 2026.
00:22:42And in order to do that,
00:22:45you don't just need to drive a lot of attention
00:22:47in your content.
00:22:49You have to make sure that the CTAs
00:22:51are catching that attention
00:22:55and converting it to your email list.
00:22:57With contextual CTAs,
00:22:59what you'll generally see is that you convert
00:23:0220, 30, 40, 50 times more people,
00:23:07because it's a combination of being insanely generous,
00:23:12which we've gone over and super important.
00:23:15And two, it also is relevant
00:23:19to what people are already paying attention to.
00:23:23So they're more likely to convert.
00:23:26Okay, so I just want to cover that
00:23:28because honestly I see founders screw this up way too often.
00:23:33And so I want to make sure I'm giving you guys
00:23:36some of those tips that will just help you avoid
00:23:40unnecessary struggle and just spin your tires for no reason.
00:23:44All right, so hopefully that's helpful.
00:23:48All right, now along the way,
00:23:53what you also might find with growing your brand, right,
00:23:58is you inevitably, at some point you got to sell, okay?
00:24:04And selling is probably the most valuable skill
00:24:12you can have, okay?
00:24:14And I think that too many people use words around selling
00:24:19and sell themselves out from being good salespeople.
00:24:25They'll say things like, "Oh, I'm not good at sales,"
00:24:28or, "Oh, I just need to find a salesperson first."
00:24:32Well, depending on where you're at in your business, right?
00:24:35If I'm going and starting a new business, right,
00:24:39or I'm scaling something that I think is maybe a new offer
00:24:43I'm building within an existing business,
00:24:45guess who's gonna go and sell that thing first?
00:24:48Me, I'm gonna go sell it.
00:24:52And that's key, why?
00:24:54Because there's no better way to go get feedback
00:24:57on whatever the hell it is you're building
00:24:59than getting out there and going and selling it yourself
00:25:02and learning why do people buy it?
00:25:05Why do people not buy it?
00:25:06What questions come up?
00:25:07What hot buttons are there?
00:25:09What caused them to convert?
00:25:10What caused them to back away?
00:25:13All of these things allow you to go
00:25:14and rapidly develop a product because it's not just selling.
00:25:18I also like to convince myself
00:25:21that I'm doing product research.
00:25:24And there's no more valuable thing early on
00:25:28as you're building your profitable personal brand
00:25:30than to be listening to what the market is saying
00:25:33about your product.
00:25:36Because it doesn't just help you sell more on sales calls
00:25:40or sell more in landing pages depending on how you're selling
00:25:44but here's the thing too, quick story.
00:25:49So I've been running companies for 20 years now, okay?
00:25:54And what makes me different than a lot of people, okay?
00:25:57Is when I'm building a company,
00:26:02I basically take the marketing team, okay?
00:26:09I take the data side of it and I take the content team,
00:26:14whoo, sorry guys.
00:26:17And I like think of them all as one team called growth, okay?
00:26:23And someone's asking if this is prerecorded.
00:26:26No, this is not prerecorded.
00:26:27I'm here with you guys right now.
00:26:29It's 5.38 PM in Niseko, Japan.
00:26:32So it's all one team, right?
00:26:37And so what I have happening is that every single Friday
00:26:41I have my sales folks tell me,
00:26:44what was the number one hot button thing you saw come up
00:26:48that caused people to convert?
00:26:51Also, what were some of the reasons
00:26:52where maybe people said no?
00:26:54Or what were the kinds of questions that kept coming up?
00:26:57Then what we do is we take those Friday end of week reports
00:27:01from the sales team and we feed those back
00:27:04into the content team.
00:27:06And then those things that we hear come up
00:27:11become our content ideas for the next month.
00:27:15So that our content is essentially just serving the function
00:27:20of serving the kind of people
00:27:22that we're getting on calls with.
00:27:23And so there becomes this nice flywheel, right?
00:27:27Between sales saying, hey, people have questions around this.
00:27:31And then content going, okay,
00:27:33we're gonna make an idea around that.
00:27:35Then someone's seeing that say on YouTube and going,
00:27:38okay, damn, I wanna work with these guys.
00:27:41Then boom, they get on a sales call and then they convert
00:27:43and that just kind of rips, okay?
00:27:46So what kind of content then
00:27:51do you think you should be making?
00:27:52Well, if you're listening on sales calls
00:27:55or you have a team bubbling up those insights to you,
00:27:58you should be making content around the kind of stuff
00:28:02that is either the hot button stuff that's causing people
00:28:05to convert and or the questions that people have
00:28:10on sales calls and or the main reasons why people
00:28:16are actually purchasing your thing.
00:28:20So you can go and find more people like those people
00:28:23that are purchasing your thing.
00:28:26Okay, so let me give you an example of this.
00:28:28So last Friday, okay, about eight days ago, nine days ago,
00:28:33one of my brand strategists on my team said,
00:28:36hey, Matt, people are getting on calls and they're saying,
00:28:41I heard this thing and I want you to know about it.
00:28:44Basically, people are saying,
00:28:45hey, I've been running my company for a few years now
00:28:49and I see that Matt's got all these systems online
00:28:53and he's able to really travel the world
00:28:56and go live in Bali and then go to the Dolomites
00:28:59and snowboard in Japan or whatever.
00:29:01And I know that if I left my business for seven days,
00:29:05not even if I left it for 30 days, the business would crumble
00:29:09and I feel like I'm just holding everything together
00:29:16and I wanna learn how to build a business like Matt does
00:29:22that achieves the things that Matt's talking about,
00:29:26like the four Ws, being able to control where you work,
00:29:30when you work, what you work on
00:29:33and whoever you wanna work with.
00:29:35That to me, that's what I want
00:29:38but I can't see the steps to get from where I am now
00:29:42to that point and I wanna work with Matt
00:29:47to understand how to get from here to there.
00:29:50Well, Daniel goes and summarizes this
00:29:53and again, Daniel's my brand strategist.
00:29:55He summarizes this call in Slack
00:29:59and sends it in our marketing ops channel in Slack
00:30:03where my whole team can go and see this, okay?
00:30:08And so then I'm able to go and take that idea
00:30:13and now we've gone over the last week
00:30:17and made a YouTube video that's gonna come out soon
00:30:21and the title is something like how to go
00:30:26and be able to take 30 days away from your company
00:30:30and it thrive or something like how to take a 30 day vacation
00:30:35without your business crumbling, right?
00:30:37We always test different titles, right?
00:30:38But these being kind of idea titles for this video we made.
00:30:43Okay, so I've now made content
00:30:46based on the actual sales calls that went down
00:30:50and so it's not, oh, there's a sales team over here
00:30:54and then this marketing team over here
00:30:57and these are just two silos of departments.
00:31:01That's some 1982 level company building bullshit, right?
00:31:06Marketing department here, sales department here.
00:31:09I see it all as one growth department
00:31:15where we're all working together
00:31:17to obsess around what it is that the customer,
00:31:22in our case, the founder most needs
00:31:25and then we go and we make content
00:31:28to help give them massive clarity.
00:31:31We give away an insane amount of free, amazing playbooks,
00:31:36resources, systems inside of that stuff.
00:31:39We continue to give and give and give to founders
00:31:43to aim to build trust over time,
00:31:45whether it takes a week or a year or a decade,
00:31:48doesn't matter to us, we're not going anywhere, right?
00:31:52I built founder OS to build this
00:31:54for the next hundred years of my life till I die.
00:31:57And so then at some point,
00:32:00when that founder decides the timing's right,
00:32:03they're gonna come and think of us and work with us
00:32:05because we've been answering the questions
00:32:08that are on their mind for so long
00:32:10that they believe that there's no one better out there
00:32:12to help them with what it is they're currently going through
00:32:15than us.
00:32:16And at best, the major metric that I think about
00:32:20when I'm making content online is the following.
00:32:23Now, let me see if you can guess it in the chat.
00:32:25What do you think is the main metric
00:32:27that I'm aiming for with my content
00:32:29that I know then I've made something amazing?
00:32:32Let me hear it.
00:32:38What's the guesses here in the chat?
00:32:40Any guesses?
00:32:42What do we got?
00:32:44Come on, let me hear from you guys.
00:32:45Views, likes, nope.
00:32:49I would consider those to be vanity metrics,
00:32:50but I think, thank you for sending some through here, Zach.
00:32:54All right.
00:32:55The main metric I'm aiming for, okay,
00:32:58is I want a founder to go and share
00:33:03the given piece of content in their company Slack
00:33:08with 20 other people on their team.
00:33:12Because what we want to have happen over time
00:33:16is that each piece of content provides so much value
00:33:20that someone can't help but share it in their company Slack.
00:33:24Now it's not just one founder that's aware of it.
00:33:26It's a whole company of, say, 20, 30 people
00:33:30that are now aware of it.
00:33:32That then causes all of them
00:33:34to start studying our material, learning from us,
00:33:37helping them grow their operation,
00:33:39helping them monetize their audience,
00:33:40helping them grow organic content,
00:33:42helping them build profitable personal brands.
00:33:45And sure enough, the team starts ingesting this,
00:33:49starts kind of becoming more familiar
00:33:52with things like building a personal media company,
00:33:54building infrastructure behind your content.
00:33:57And one thing leads to another,
00:33:59and they take the plunge and join founder OS.
00:34:02And so the signal that we want to have
00:34:06is that stuff's so valuable that founders can't help
00:34:09but go and share it in their company Slack
00:34:11with 20 people on their team, okay?
00:34:14That then is a leading indicator
00:34:17to things that I'm sure you're thinking about too,
00:34:19like profit, cash collected, all this kind of stuff,
00:34:23which obviously matters
00:34:24if we're trying to build a profitable personal brand.
00:34:26But I'd see that more as the result of the amazing content.
00:34:31But first things first,
00:34:32it's about really focusing on that insane amount of value.
00:34:36And what I'm just trying to make sure
00:34:37that I'm being super clear with you on
00:34:39is that the best way to find
00:34:41what that insane amount of value is,
00:34:43is to really listen to your core customer
00:34:46on those sales calls.
00:34:48Now, along the way,
00:34:50other ways to go and generate endless ideas
00:34:53from your audience include things like,
00:34:55you could go and send out a survey to your audience, okay?
00:34:59And in that survey, you could go ask people, right?
00:35:05It's a three-question survey, right?
00:35:09And in the survey, you'd probably go ask,
00:35:11number one, what is your biggest goal in 2026, okay?
00:35:16The next thing you're probably gonna ask is,
00:35:22what is keeping you up at night?
00:35:26And then you may ask,
00:35:29if you were to wave a magic wand,
00:35:34what would you most want my help with?
00:35:39So maybe someone says to this question, right?
00:35:45I want more leads from YouTube, let's say.
00:35:50And then to this question here,
00:35:55they say, what's keeping you up at night?
00:35:57They're like, I can't figure out
00:36:00how to get going on YouTube,
00:36:04and I feel afraid being on camera.
00:36:10And then if you were to wave a magic wand,
00:36:14they're like, oh, well,
00:36:17I want someone to help me scale on YouTube
00:36:23and get to 10,000 subscribers.
00:36:25So as we can see here,
00:36:29this is a lot of valuable information.
00:36:31Let's just say, if this was your customer, right?
00:36:34So what content could you then begin creating?
00:36:37Well, off of this, we could go and create content ideas
00:36:42based on what's actually on their mind.
00:36:45Things like how to get your first 1,000 subscribers,
00:36:50starting from scratch.
00:36:54Or we could do stuff like,
00:36:57how to get started on YouTube for beginners.
00:37:02Or how to get your first 100 customers from YouTube.
00:37:08Or how to be confident on camera.
00:37:15How to articulate, whoa, yourself on camera, right?
00:37:20How to come up with high converting.
00:37:27YouTube videos.
00:37:30You get it, right?
00:37:32So I'm able to come up with these awesome topics
00:37:35based on the customer research I did.
00:37:39Now, just a week ago, I wrapped up reading a book.
00:37:45And as you guys may know, I read a lot of books.
00:37:50This is my book list.
00:37:54I'll show you here quickly.
00:37:58All right.
00:37:59So I'm always reading.
00:38:02This is '26.
00:38:05We finished 49 books in 2025.
00:38:0846 books in 2024.
00:38:11So often reading.
00:38:13So far this year, 100 million money models.
00:38:16Meditations, Marcus Aurelius.
00:38:18Becoming Steve Jobs.
00:38:20In Praise of Shadows.
00:38:21And I just read advertising.
00:38:23Now, David Ogilvy, the founder of Ogilvy,
00:38:26which is one of the biggest advertising agencies out there.
00:38:29He's one of the most prolific copywriters ever, okay?
00:38:33And so he has a book called Ogilvy on advertising.
00:38:37And one of the main things that separated him
00:38:41from every other copywriter was one thing,
00:38:45which was research.
00:38:47Before even writing on paper anything,
00:38:52before even coming up with some massive campaign, right?
00:38:55And everyone thinks, oh, it's just about creativity
00:38:57and brainstorming and all this shit.
00:38:59No, no, no, no, no, no.
00:39:00It all started with him and his obsessive focus
00:39:04around research.
00:39:05Because David Ogilvy wanted, he would say,
00:39:09"I just want to be a formidable man."
00:39:11And to be formidable meant to make sure you do your research.
00:39:16Okay?
00:39:17And so as you think about going
00:39:22and building your brand, right?
00:39:26And creating content that's going to convert,
00:39:28do the research, right?
00:39:30Make sure that you know your audience
00:39:32better than anyone else.
00:39:34Make sure too, that you're focused on signal over noise.
00:39:39What's the difference between signal and noise?
00:39:41Well, noise is when you just focus
00:39:44on creating viral bullshit.
00:39:47Why?
00:39:47Because virality does not mean cash.
00:39:51Viral stuff is just cheap views.
00:39:55Whereas signal is the kind of content
00:40:00that it may not get a lot of views.
00:40:03Maybe like the stream even, right?
00:40:05Not that many views, but more high signal.
00:40:09Okay?
00:40:12And so the key thing is to focus on signal.
00:40:19Okay?
00:40:21And so you want to really nail
00:40:26putting out stuff that your core customer cares about,
00:40:30not just focusing on a bunch of views.
00:40:33Because even like I said,
00:40:35getting 500 or a thousand views on something,
00:40:37you can build a proper business off that
00:40:39if you're making the right kind of content
00:40:42that people care about and will convert off of.
00:40:46All right?
00:40:47Now, guys, we've got something kind of cool here.
00:40:51And I don't know if you've seen it
00:40:52via the description here, okay?
00:40:55But we've gone and kind of crafted this system
00:40:59that I've been perfecting over the last 15 years, okay?
00:41:02It includes everything like my YouTube OS, XOS, LinkedIn OS,
00:41:07how to go and do proper CTAs and offers
00:41:09and examples and templates and AI and all that.
00:41:12This is the thing that typically we charge over 3,504,
00:41:17but we put together this cool new thing, okay?
00:41:20I just put it in the chat there, okay?
00:41:24And you can go and text, okay?
00:41:28And hit up that little number there, okay?
00:41:34And message it on WhatsApp, okay?
00:41:43And basically you will go and get access
00:41:48and you'll get connected to my assistant, Stacy, okay?
00:41:53Now, Stacy will go and get on a call with you
00:41:59and basically, or sorry, not on a call, sorry.
00:42:03She'll message you in WhatsApp.
00:42:04And you can essentially go and simply text OSLite
00:42:10to that number there in WhatsApp.
00:42:13You're gonna go and get in a messaging flow with Stacy.
00:42:17You can ask any questions that you have.
00:42:18Stacy will help you out.
00:42:21And if you're interested, you can get into OSLite
00:42:24if you came from this stream for not $3,500, not $2,500,
00:42:29not even $1,000, okay?
00:42:31We're just giving it away right now for just $197, okay?
00:42:35So no pressure, no nothing, but either way,
00:42:38it's probably just even cool to go and just message
00:42:41that number and just play around with it.
00:42:43It's kind of cool.
00:42:44We've been playing with this kind of stuff
00:42:46for a long, long time.
00:42:48We've been building obviously all this stuff
00:42:49for a long, long time.
00:42:51And we're always trying to be at the forefront
00:42:53of just like new, cool tech and stuff.
00:42:56And streaming now is something I'm gonna be doing more of.
00:42:59So if you've enjoyed this,
00:43:00we're gonna be doing a lot more of it.
00:43:02And we're also playing around with some stuff
00:43:05in WhatsApp as well, which you'll be able to see
00:43:06if you text that OS Lite number and message Stacy.
00:43:10So go give her a message.
00:43:12She's a legend and can help you out.
00:43:15Let's get some questions here in the chat
00:43:18because I'd love to hear from you guys
00:43:19and see how we can support you guys.
00:43:23So what questions do you guys all have?
00:43:26We'd love to hear from you here.
00:43:28What do we got y'all?
00:43:30What do we got?
00:43:31All right, y'all, what do we got here?
00:43:37Any questions, any questions?
00:43:40All right, what do we got?
00:43:45Any questions y'all?
00:43:47Hit me, hit me with something.
00:43:49All right, well, we've got a shy crowd today.
00:43:57I don't know what's going on.
00:43:58You guys are, you guys are scaring me a little bit here.
00:44:01A little, a little quiet.
00:44:05What do we, what do we got here?
00:44:06All right, y'all.
00:44:13How often am I in Europe?
00:44:14Well, I'm in Europe every summer.
00:44:18So I'll be in Europe for probably June, July, August.
00:44:21Three months.
00:44:22Generally in the Dolomites, mountain biking
00:44:26and a couple of places in Italy
00:44:27and roaming around doing my thing.
00:44:30So three months.
00:44:32Zach's asking, what is the hardest thing
00:44:33about showing your head on YouTube?
00:44:35Showing my head?
00:44:37The hardest part about showing up on YouTube,
00:44:43I think is just getting into the flow of it, right?
00:44:47I think that it just takes a second
00:44:49to kind of get used to it
00:44:50and get comfortable in all that.
00:44:54But, you know, once you kind of just like show up
00:44:58and just commit to putting in the reps,
00:45:01I feel like, you know, it gets real easy.
00:45:05The thing is, most people just get too scared.
00:45:07They don't even show up, right?
00:45:08And when you don't even show up,
00:45:10you're not really even, you know,
00:45:12really kind of going to get better, right?
00:45:14So it's more viewing it like,
00:45:16you're kind of going to be shit to start off with.
00:45:18It's going to feel uncomfortable.
00:45:19It's not going to be easy, right?
00:45:20But just viewing it like anything, right?
00:45:22You're learning tennis initially.
00:45:24You're going to kind of suck at it.
00:45:25It's going to feel weird.
00:45:26And what I like to think about is like,
00:45:27am I just getting 10% better each time?
00:45:30And that to me then lowers the expectation
00:45:33so that it's not this like scary thing.
00:45:35I'm just like, oh, if I just get, you know,
00:45:37a little bit better on camera next time,
00:45:38or I make the thumbnail a little stronger,
00:45:40or the title a little better, then it's all good.
00:45:43You know, I'm just really banking
00:45:44on just getting a little bit better each time
00:45:46versus I got to go from here to expert in like a month, right?
00:45:51Instead, just fall in love with the craft, right?
00:45:55Of putting yourself out there, of making stuff.
00:45:58'Cause guys, I can tell you, I've been building stuff,
00:46:00like I said, for two decades now.
00:46:02My number one regret is not building a personal brand
00:46:05when I was getting started, right?
00:46:07I started building my personal brand
00:46:08around like say five years ago when I was like 30.
00:46:12Oh my Lord.
00:46:13I just, the amount of leverage and power
00:46:17of like recruiting amazing talent and building communities
00:46:21and movements and brands and all that good stuff, right?
00:46:25Oh my Lord, like personal brands are so powerful, right?
00:46:28And I can only imagine where I would have been way faster
00:46:33had I started sooner.
00:46:34So honestly, the number one thing you can do in 2026,
00:46:37bar none, is building your personal brand, for sure.
00:46:42Okay?
00:46:43So would highly recommend that.
00:46:45All right.
00:46:47Someone's asking, what do you think will be the trend
00:46:52for IG carousels and reels in 2026?
00:46:55So yeah, the one thing I see there
00:46:59and I'll share my screen here,
00:47:01is that say I'm on my Instagram, right?
00:47:06So first off, I think it's really important guys
00:47:10that you have pinned posts on Instagram.
00:47:13So first off, like you want to make sure
00:47:15that you're making sure when someone hits your profile,
00:47:18they're not just getting lost in the sea of posts,
00:47:20that they instantly understand who you are
00:47:22and what you're all about.
00:47:24And so here you can see
00:47:24when you go to my Instagram pinned posts, right?
00:47:27I instantly get into like my story.
00:47:29So people know even who the hell I am.
00:47:32So it's like, here's my story
00:47:33going from nothing to eight figures.
00:47:35Now I was 20 years old with a dream.
00:47:36I built a coding bootcamp in Canada.
00:47:39I started this thing called BitMaker Labs
00:47:40when I was 20 years old.
00:47:42We trained over 2000 software engineers.
00:47:44We got them jobs at Shopify, Facebook, Google.
00:47:4795% of graduates got jobs within two months.
00:47:51You know, at 2013, the government came and raided my business
00:47:54when I was like 22 years old.
00:47:57They told me they were gonna shut it down
00:47:59or I'd face jail time, right?
00:48:01I felt like my life was flashing before my eyes.
00:48:03My heart sank.
00:48:05Then I stayed up for two nights straight,
00:48:07emailed over 3000 people, every CEO, founder, reporter.
00:48:11Within four days, this was trending on Twitter in Canada
00:48:16and we got the only exemption of its kind in Canada, okay?
00:48:20I then sold BitMaker a year later for a life-changing sum.
00:48:24All right, and I learned a lesson I'd ignore
00:48:26for seven years though, that your personal brand
00:48:28as a founder is the ultimate form of leverage.
00:48:31And so from 2014 to 2017,
00:48:34I built the Stoner's Cookbook, right?
00:48:36And grew it to over 14 million people,
00:48:41eight figures revenue, right?
00:48:43But I just built the company brand.
00:48:46Then in December, 2017, you know,
00:48:49I really started to change my mind on things.
00:48:51I sobered up seven years ago, quit drinking, quit smoking,
00:48:55went cold turkey.
00:48:57And in age 30, I started building my personal brand.
00:49:00Messy content, janky profile, scared as hell,
00:49:03no idea what I was doing, right?
00:49:04But I just shipped anyways.
00:49:07And so moving on through 2020 to 2024, age 32,
00:49:12I went all in and started building founder OS, right?
00:49:14For CEOs and business owners
00:49:16doing between 30K and 500K per month.
00:49:19We've helped over 10,000 founders now
00:49:21systemize their business, build founder-led brands
00:49:24and remove themselves from the weeds.
00:49:272024, I've cut my working hours by 40%,
00:49:30built multiple eight-figure businesses that run without me,
00:49:33travel wherever I want, have complete freedom, right?
00:49:36And this is now what I help founders do.
00:49:39I stopped building a job and started building systems.
00:49:41I stopped chasing revenue, started optimizing for time.
00:49:44And I stopped hiding behind the company
00:49:46and started building in public.
00:49:48At 36, I'm living proof.
00:49:51The systems I built helped me build a thriving business
00:49:53and vibrant life.
00:49:55Okay, so what's the power of this, guys?
00:49:57Well, here you can see someone's maybe gone and followed me.
00:50:02And instantly, if they see this post,
00:50:04which is the pinned post on my profile,
00:50:06they get to know what I'm all about.
00:50:08Now, when you don't have this,
00:50:10maybe it takes like a year for someone to know,
00:50:11oh shit, that's your story?
00:50:14Whoa, that's crazy.
00:50:15But when you do this,
00:50:18people may learn all about you in one day.
00:50:21And so you're moving from kind of an anonymous character
00:50:25in their lives to someone that they're like,
00:50:27oh, I feel like I really understand this human.
00:50:29And that's powerful, right?
00:50:30'Cause stories matter and they're memorable
00:50:33and they build trust.
00:50:34So I really recommend that, first off,
00:50:36you're using good carousels to tell your story
00:50:38in your pinned post.
00:50:40Now, I'm different than most people online
00:50:45because I think a lot of people
00:50:48just are like doing things for cash, right?
00:50:51Or they talk about having an offer.
00:50:54I'm trying to build a brand, okay?
00:50:58I talk about with Founder OS,
00:50:59we're doing what Apple did for creatives in the '70s,
00:51:03what Nike did for athletes in the '80s
00:51:06is what we're doing for founders in the 2020s, okay?
00:51:09It's about building a timeless brand,
00:51:14building something that stands for freedom,
00:51:18building something aspirational,
00:51:20building something that has an emotional connection
00:51:23with other people and a brand that is associated
00:51:28with simplicity, generosity, simple systems, taste,
00:51:32design, aesthetics, freedom, travel,
00:51:37building an amazing business and an amazing life, right?
00:51:41Tasteful content, intentional, abundant,
00:51:46building things differently, you get it, right?
00:51:50This is kind of like the word cloud
00:51:53that we're sort of associated with
00:51:55amongst many, many other things, okay?
00:51:58So as such, when I'm building content,
00:52:01I'm not just chasing views like most people, right?
00:52:04And this is what I told you to avoid, right?
00:52:07We're building stuff that is tasteful, right?
00:52:10We're building stuff that evokes some sort of emotion,
00:52:12like this kind of post here.
00:52:14Like I'm not just sharing random shit just for views, right?
00:52:27This post tells the story and what I believe in
00:52:31and has some photos of me and videos of me
00:52:33when I was a kid, right?
00:52:35And it got probably around 25,000 views,
00:52:39so not the most amount of views, right?
00:52:40Didn't get a million,
00:52:42but it's getting the right kind of views, right?
00:52:45And people see this that believe
00:52:49in the same sort of stuff I believe in, right?
00:52:51Building an amazing business and an amazing life,
00:52:53freedom, all that stuff, and they resonate with this, right?
00:52:56So we use a mix of these tasteful videos
00:53:00that embody the lifestyle and the aspirational image
00:53:05that I think founders are really looking for, right?
00:53:10And the good news is I embody this, right?
00:53:13I'm in Japan right now.
00:53:14I'm out snowboarding.
00:53:15I'm taking time over the next week to do that.
00:53:17I'm in Banff, Alberta next week snowboarding as well
00:53:20with my brother.
00:53:21And after that, I'll be in LA in Big Sur.
00:53:23So this is what I do.
00:53:24This is my actual life.
00:53:28And we mix that then with a lot of value through carousels.
00:53:33So it's the combination of carousels for value
00:53:36and reels to build the lifestyle behind it
00:53:39that I think is like this awesome one-two punch
00:53:43to build your brand identity
00:53:45and an effective narrative on Instagram.
00:53:49Because what I see a lot of people do
00:53:52is that they're kind of like these faceless creators.
00:53:54And I have nothing against these people.
00:53:57I think everyone should do whatever the hell they want
00:53:59genuinely, right?
00:54:00So I don't think there's a right or wrong way to do things.
00:54:02But when you're a faceless creator, you're faceless, right?
00:54:06People don't know who you are.
00:54:08And so you're not really building a personal brand
00:54:11'cause you're not really personal, right?
00:54:13It's like you're building just a faceless brand.
00:54:16And I think it's hard for people then really connect
00:54:18with it sometimes, right?
00:54:21On the other side of things,
00:54:22you may see people build a real lifestyle brand.
00:54:25It's just constant lifestyle-y stuff.
00:54:27And I think what ends up happening there
00:54:29that I try to avoid as well
00:54:31is that it just becomes very entertaining.
00:54:36And what you wanna kind of have is that mix.
00:54:38It's like entertainment and education, like edutainment, right?
00:54:43Where you're both showing a level of a lifestyle,
00:54:46the brand, and what you're all about
00:54:48while also helping people, right?
00:54:51And I think that attracts the right kind of person,
00:54:53the kind of person that believes the same sort of stuff
00:54:56that you believe that resonates with your identity,
00:54:59your values.
00:55:00And also they're looking to take action, right?
00:55:05They're looking to learn, they're looking to grow.
00:55:12And that mix I think is the magic
00:55:14when you're going and scaling.
00:55:16So I release one carousel every day and one reel
00:55:19at around 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. respectively in EST.
00:55:23And it's that one-two punch that allows us to provide value
00:55:27and build the brand narrative that I think is interesting
00:55:30and that I recommend.
00:55:32And if I was going hardcore on Instagram
00:55:34and helping and building things, yeah,
00:55:38that's how I would approach it.
00:55:40So that's how I would approach it.
00:55:49Zach's saying, "If you had to do it again,
00:55:51would you do it differently?"
00:55:52No, I wouldn't do anything differently if I'm being honest
00:55:58because I think it all happened perfectly.
00:56:00I started five years ago with my personal brand.
00:56:03I started a long time longer than that building companies.
00:56:07But when I got going with my personal brand,
00:56:09I got going on X originally, on Twitter at the time,
00:56:12and then grew that in a few months to 40,000 folks there,
00:56:15and then took that same content to LinkedIn.
00:56:18Then over a year, grew it to around 150,000
00:56:20and a combined audience of around 350,000.
00:56:24And then after a year, started moving to video
00:56:27and so forth, right?
00:56:28And so that was my journey.
00:56:33And I wouldn't really change anything
00:56:37because I feel like those were just the necessary steps
00:56:40to kind of like master Twitter, learn the ropes,
00:56:44get good at writing, share it on LinkedIn,
00:56:46grow the audience, take my best ideas
00:56:49that I knew had the most weight, bring them onto YouTube,
00:56:52bring them onto short form video.
00:56:54And it was just this nice cycle, right?
00:56:56Of just kind of taking the stairs.
00:56:59Like I think a lot of people get going with anything in life,
00:57:02but personal branding or business building, whatever,
00:57:04and they want to take the elevator to success.
00:57:06But the truth is, and I know you guys know this,
00:57:09there's only the stairs, right?
00:57:11And it's just gradually getting better day by day,
00:57:15month by month and being on that journey
00:57:17that is really essential.
00:57:19And honestly, that's the fun part of building.
00:57:21So I wouldn't have it any other way.
00:57:22I took the stairs and boy, did I love it.
00:57:25Still love it.
00:57:26All right, last question here is what's your favorite way
00:57:31to self-regulate yourself?
00:57:34So I like to self-regulate myself a few ways.
00:57:39So number one is intentional breaks.
00:57:44So now I have like an onsen in one of the rooms back here.
00:57:47It's like a hot tub.
00:57:48And taking breaks after a long day of snowboarding
00:57:53and just allowing my body to regulate and chill out
00:57:55and just maybe read my Kindle while in the onsen.
00:57:59That's a nice way just to kind of like chill the fuck out
00:58:02and just regulate.
00:58:04On a other basis, I meditate twice every day.
00:58:08Generally doing a bit of like a mindfulness type meditation,
00:58:11just imagining myself in the universe
00:58:14and all the multi-universes out there
00:58:16and me being this little speck.
00:58:18Then I just let my mind kind of wander for like 10 minutes,
00:58:21five minutes, 15 minutes, depending on the day.
00:58:23And that kind of allows me to get to center.
00:58:26And then exercise is really important in nature.
00:58:29So obviously I've been snowboarding three, four hours a day
00:58:32in the morning right now.
00:58:33And it's that time that allows me to regulate
00:58:36and really just like kind of ground myself and feel good.
00:58:40And so, yeah, I think being in nature
00:58:45and I think making sure you're like,
00:58:45you're breaking a sweat daily, right?
00:58:47Like working up a heart rate.
00:58:49And it allows you to then kind of approach your days
00:58:54in a way where you feel grounded and feel centered.
00:58:58So those are my main techniques amongst many others though.
00:59:03I read, I have a good support system around me.
00:59:06I have good friends.
00:59:07I have an amazing team that allows me to build
00:59:10in a way that I can feel calm.
00:59:13I am really strict about who I allow around me.
00:59:16And I notice when I do get stressed and do my best
00:59:20to also remove folks that may not be conducive
00:59:24to living a chill life.
00:59:27So those are some ideas.
00:59:29So guys, I'll leave you there.
00:59:32I am dropping off this thing now,
00:59:35but I just wanna say guys,
00:59:36thank you so much for being a part of the stream.
00:59:37This has been a lot of fun.
00:59:38I hope you got a lot out of this.
00:59:39Be sure to go and text that number in the chat
00:59:43or in the description below.
00:59:45If you wanna go get access to Foundress Lite,
00:59:47awesome offer there.
00:59:49Much love.
00:59:50Thank you guys.
00:59:51I hope you guys have a beautiful weekend.
00:59:53Go get outside, go break a sweat.
00:59:57Thank you for being a part of the founder freedom movement.
00:59:59Much love y'all and let's win together.

Key Takeaway

Building a profitable personal brand in 2026 requires a systemized approach that converts social media attention into owned email lists through contextual, high-value resources and a feedback loop between sales and content.

Highlights

Building a personal brand is the ultimate form of leverage for founders to recruit talent and build movements.

Email lists are the most valuable business asset as they convert roughly 28 times better than social media platforms.

The most effective content strategy utilizes "Contextual CTAs" that link specific value-add resources to the topic discussed.

Successful brands use a "Growth Department" model that integrates sales feedback directly into the content creation process.

YouTube and LinkedIn are identified as the most powerful lead generation platforms

Timeline

Intro and the Niseko Backcountry Incident

The speaker opens the live stream from Niseko, Japan, where he is currently on a snowboarding trip. He shares a harrowing story about getting caught in a backcountry snow sinkhole where the snow caved in and piled onto his face. This scary moment serves as an icebreaker to establish his adventurous lifestyle and humanize his personal brand. He explains how he managed to stay calm, shimmy out of the meter-deep snow, and eventually make it back to safety. This personal anecdote sets the stage for the importance of systems and staying grounded during high-pressure situations.

The Infrastructure of a Profitable Brand

The speaker transitions into the core business strategy, emphasizing that a profitable brand needs a middle layer of infrastructure between the audience and the offer. He demonstrates his Instagram strategy, showing how a post about snowboarding actually leads to a call to action for a free systems course. By using tools like ManyChat, he funnels social media followers into an email list where they can be nurtured without being subjected to a 'salesy' approach. He highlights that while social media platforms like Instagram and X are great for reach, you do not own them. Therefore, capturing emails is critical because the email list is the most valuable asset in any business.

The Principle of Reciprocity and Platform Selection

The speaker introduces the concept of being 'insanely generous' as a primary growth driver for 2026. This strategy relies on the psychological principle of reciprocity, where giving away valuable playbooks builds deep trust with an audience over the long term. He shares internal data revealing that YouTube accounts for 45% of his leads, while LinkedIn provides 30%, despite having higher follower counts on other platforms. This section explains that followers are a vanity metric compared to the actual conversion power of high-intent video content. He argues that even if users only consume free content, a 'solid sliver' will eventually pay for implementation and mentorship.

Choosing Your Platform: Pen vs. Camera

A framework is provided to help founders choose the right platform based on three overlapping circles: what is fun, where customers are, and what the founder is great at. The speaker categorizes creators into 'Pen First' (writing-focused for LinkedIn and X) or 'Camera First' (video-focused for YouTube and TikTok). Regardless of the starting point, he insists that every creator must maintain a newsletter to bridge the gap between social media and sales. He encourages founders to see even small view counts, like 500 views, as a significant opportunity akin to standing in a room with 500 real people. This perspective shift helps creators overcome the discouragement of slow organic growth.

Mastering Contextual CTAs and Sales Flywheels

This segment breaks down the 'Scenario A vs. Scenario B' approach to Call to Actions (CTAs). Instead of generic requests to 'join my newsletter,' the speaker advocates for Contextual CTAs where the free resource is tightly coupled to the content of the post. For example, a post about deep work should offer a deep work checklist as the lead magnet to increase conversion rates by up to 50 times. He also discusses the necessity of founders selling their own products initially to conduct vital 'product research.' By listening to why people buy or hesitate, a founder can refine their offer and messaging far better than a hired salesperson could.

The Growth Department and Content Research

The speaker explains how he destroyed the silos between marketing and sales to create a unified 'Growth Department.' Every Friday, his sales team reports the 'hot button' issues and common questions from prospective clients, which then become the content topics for the following month. This ensures that the content is high-signal and directly addresses the market's current pain points. He references David Ogilvy's obsession with research, stating that being 'formidable' in business requires knowing the audience better than anyone else. The ultimate metric of success for a piece of content is whether a founder shares it in their company Slack channel.

Q&A: Trends for 2026 and Personal Regulation

In the final portion of the stream, the speaker answers audience questions about Instagram trends and personal habits. He suggests that the best Instagram strategy for 2026 is a 'one-two punch' of educational carousels for value and lifestyle reels to build brand identity. He shares his personal story from facing government raids on his first business at age 22 to building an eight-figure empire today. To stay grounded, he practices daily meditation, spends time in nature, and maintains a strict circle of positive influences. He concludes by urging the audience to start their personal brand immediately, citing it as his number one regret for not starting sooner.

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