As you probably noticed, this month we're bringing you our "Life of Purpose" series and revisiting some of our most transformative episodes, tune in to explore expert insights and practical strategies on help, performance, and community well-being, all aimed at helping you achieve personal and professional fulfillment. If you sign up for the newsletter, you'll not only get recaps of the key ideas in each interview, but at the end of the series, you'll receive our free "Life of Purpose" ebook. What you have to do is go to UnmistakeableCreative.com/Lifepurpose again. In spite of all our communication technology, no invention is as effective as the sound of the human voice. When we hear the human voice, we instinctively want to listen in the hopes of understanding it, even when the speaker is searching for the right words to say. That's because the human voice resonates differently from everything else in the world. This is the UnmistakeableCreative podcast. Listen in on candid conversations with creative entrepreneurs and insanely interesting people. Hey, Prime members! Are you tired of ads interfering with your favorite podcasts? Good news! With Amazon Music, you have access to the largest catalog of ad-free top podcasts, included with your Prime Membership. To start listening, download the Amazon Music app for free, or go to amazon.com/adfreepodcasts. To catch up on the latest episodes, without the ads! Jewelry isn't a gift you give just once. It's a way to remind your loved one of a beautiful moment every time they see it. Blue Nile can help you find the gift that says how you feel and says it beautifully. With expert guidance and a wide assortment of jewelry of the highest quality at the best price, go to bluenile.com and experience the convenience of shopping Blue Nile, the original online jeweler since 1999. That's bluenile.com to find the perfect jewelry gift for any occasion, bluenile.com. When it comes to weight loss, no two people are the same. That's why Noom builds personalized plans based on your unique psychology and biology. Take Brittany, after years of unsustainable diets, Noom helped her lose 20 pounds and keep it off. I was definitely in a yo-yo cycle for years of just losing weight gaining weight and it was exhausting. And Stephanie. She's a former D1 athlete who knew she couldn't out train her diet and she lost 38 pounds. My relationship to food before Noom was never consistent. And Evan, he can't stand salads, but he's still lost 50 pounds with Noom. I never really was a salad guy, that's just not who I am. Even through the pickiness, Noom taught me that building better habits builds a healthier lifestyle. I'm not doing this to get to a number, I'm doing this to feel better. Get your personalized plan today at Noom.com. Real Noom users compensated to provide their story. In four weeks, a typical Noom user can expect to lose one to two pounds per week. Individual results may vary. My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big row as man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friends still laugh at me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to LinkedIn.com/Results to claim your credit. That's LinkedIn.com/Results. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn, the place to be, to be. Discover Hydro, the best kept secret in fitness. Hydro is the state-of-the-art at-home rower that engages 86% of your muscles, delivering the ultimate full body workout in just 20 minutes. From advanced to beginner, Hydro has over 500 classes, shot worldwide and taught by Olympians and world-class athletes. For a 30-day risk-free trial, go to hydro.com and use code ROW450 to save $450 on a Hydro Pro rower. All right, everybody, this is your host, Srini. Welcome to our inaugural backstage episode of The Unmistakable Creative. I am here with my co-host, Greg Hartle, and what we want to obviously talk about today is the significant volume of changes that we've made for our long-term listeners. If you are a new listener, you probably may have figured out by now until Monday of this last week we were formerly known as Blogcast FM, so really excited to kick off the year with a new brand and some really killer new interviews with Daniela Porte and Amber Ray. Greg, how's it going? It's going. It's going. We've got a lot to talk about and a lot changed in recent weeks. Yeah. I guess really the point of today's backstage episode really is to talk about a bit about the process, a bit about the motivation behind renaming the show and rebranding it and really everything that's gone into it. Of course, there's a lot of listener questions that will answer as well, but when we start with the motivation, you came into this whole process about six months ago, and one of the first things you said to me, I think probably about two to three weeks after we started working together, maybe even sooner, is I want you to start thinking about changing the name of the show, start thinking about rebranding it, and I think it was time when we've outgrown broadcast FM, but I'm curious. I mean, you saw that right when you came in. Yeah, I don't really recall exactly what I was thinking back then, but I do know that I, to me, branding is about a feeling and it's about how I want to feel or how I want others to feel when they interact with us. And the name alone, just broadcast FM, the word blog in it has a lot of connotation and a lot of specifics around it. And I felt that when I was listening to the interviews, I didn't feel in that title that it really represented who we were or who we wanted to be or where we were headed. And so that alone was enough to make a change. And then on top of that, I felt that we had reached a point where you have to determine what circles you're going to play in or where your brand is going to fit into the world. You know, I was talking to you about the idea that in everyone's mind is a parking lot and in that parking lot are a bunch of parking spaces and we all have parking spaces for everything. You know, what's our favorite restaurant, what's our favorite color, what's our favorite type of drink, what's any sort of brand fits into each of those parking spots. And for us, you know, it was determining what was the parking spot we were going to hold in people's minds and what did that mean and what did that represent and how did that feel. And to me, it was time for a change. Yeah, I mean, I think that even if you look at sort of our guest selection, it's funny because, you know, one of the funniest iTunes review I think we've seen that came in just this morning. Right when I woke up, it said, "Thank God they changed the name of the show because now I can go tell all my non-blogger friends about this. I've been wanting to tell them forever." And that's really kind of indicative of just the evolution. I mean, I think that if somebody had asked, "Did you always start out with the intention of not interviewing bloggers?" But after a certain point, there was one, there were so many other interesting people doing cool things and remarkable things and unmistakable things that we could learn from. You know, when we've had, when we look at our guests, we realize we kind of had transcended blogging once we started getting people like Eric Wall, who's a graffiti artist, people like Sean Acre, who's a happiness researcher, people like Noah Kageyama, who was a peak performance psychologist, and the funny thing is all of these people had really powerful things to teach us. Yeah, and I think that, you know, it's okay that the brand went through an evolution. I think, you know, it's a scary process. The idea that you're going to change everything is somewhat of a scary process. But it's also one in which you have to constantly ask yourself, you know, how have we evolved or should we evolve? And, you know, when you listen to the story of how you first started this in comparison to here, you know, 400 interviews later, four and a half years or whatever it is, it's, you're in a different place, the world's in a different place, what people are looking for is different, who we want to be is different, who we want to communicate with is different. And so it had to take that sort of evolutionary process and it was time to make those changes and what was nice was is that, you know, you don't know what's going to happen when you make those changes, but it was somewhat obvious. You know, if you go back and you connect the dots, it was somewhat obvious that a change was almost necessary in many ways and that's when you know it's time to change is when it is obvious and you'll notice that with other brands and other even personal brands, when people make that switch, it's a very uncomfortable switch, but if it's the right time, it usually reveals itself and it's pretty clear and for us it was for sure. Yeah, no, I don't think, you know, that's one of the questions people have been asking me is was it hard and I said, you know, I'd love to tell you that it was, you know, agonizing in terms of, hey, we got a ditch, you know, somebody asked me, was I attached to a broadcast FM and I said, you know, no, not really, it was really strange, I didn't feel that, you know, I felt that, hey, it was time to let go. I could see it, you know, I felt that we were very limited by being misbranded and, you know, we talked about this previously, our listeners were ahead of where we're at and it was the funniest thing, I mean, we were both at a party last night and we met somebody who listened to the show and she said, yeah, she was like, I was thinking, you guys have the wrong name. Yeah. Yeah, and she's a fairly new listener, she wouldn't have thought that had she been around from the very beginning, it would have made clear sense to her why the name was the name, but if you've listened in the last eight months or so, yeah, it doesn't make sense. And one of the things I was talking to you about was that, you know, people have their immediate impressions and if your immediate impressions don't reflect the feelings that you want to convey or want that person to feel, then they're gone. And for us, that matters on many fronts because, you know, first and foremost, we have our listeners, so it's the immediate impression that any new listener would experience and new listener meaning they haven't listened yet. So if they just search in iTunes or they arrive at the website or whatever it might be, will they even attempt to listen is a really important question for us to answer. And then on top of that, we have our guests, you know, how many guests would go to the website and go, why would I do an interview here? Why would I do an interview for bloggers when I'm not a blogger? Why would I do, you know, so we had to deal with it not only on the listener side, but also the guest side and then third, the sponsorship side, you know, it also has to match with the sponsorship. So when we're having conversations with sponsors or we're saying, hey, you should sponsor this show, they have to have that same feeling too. They have to arrive and say, yeah, of course we would sponsor that. That makes a lot of sense for us. And I think we had somewhat of an uphill battle on all three of those fronts where we had to explain ourselves too much. We had to convince, no, no, no, no, this isn't just a show for bloggers, no, no, no, no, this isn't just about online entrepreneurs, no, this isn't just about marketing or business. And when you have to explain yourself, you're misbranded, period. Yeah, totally. Well, that's a good way of putting in speaking of sponsors, you know, we forgot to do our shout out for sales. Right when we started this, but I mean, even, you know, I got an email Facebook message from Melissa, our community manager over at Sales saying, hey, she said, love the new branding because we already have new customers coming to us because of, you know, hearing about you guys on our site. But yeah, I mean, I think that there's no question. I mean, you know, and for those of you guys who haven't checked out sales, it's a cool product that makes it super easy to sell anything from your website with like no programming at all. I mean, it's one of the easiest things I've ever seen to use and really clean interface. So definitely check them out. But yeah, I mean, it was like, it was amazing how different that conversation was with her. It was kind of like, we're no longer trying to convince you that this is a good place to advertise. It makes sense. Like we're, we're actually a proper marriage, you know? Yeah. And, and then it becomes a lot easier, becomes a lot easier to convey the message we want to convey to new listeners, becomes a lot easier to find the sponsorships we want, becomes a lot easier to book guests that we otherwise might not be able to get. So I think in many respects, we freed ourselves up to, to grow the way we want to grow and to do the things we want to do. And of course, the only reason why any of this matters to the listener is so that they can consider that same thing with their work. You know, they can, they can take this message and this idea and this concept and ask themselves, you know, the questions that lead to, am I branded correctly? If I have a parking space, if everybody has a parking lot in their head and a parking space, am I in the right parking spot in people's heads? And is that, is that where I want to occupy their space? And does it make sense? And there's an alignment with where I started. Sometimes we just keep doing things because that's the way we've always done them. Of course, that becomes the innovator's dilemma and, and that's how people find themselves out of business. Whether you're Blockbuster or Kodak or whoever else you might be, that's how you find yourself out of business because you haven't innovated. You haven't disrupted yourself first and we were a little bit behind, but I think we caught up fast. Yeah, not only that. I mean, you know, like we were saying, we were talking the other night, you're saying, this is just the beginning. I mean, chances are we're going to disrupt ourselves again. Of course. That's the only way to keep doing things. So speaking of which, let's talk briefly about kind of the process and then we'll work in some listener questions to that discussion, but, you know, I think that it was, it was really interesting, you know, for you to come to me and say, okay, you know what, let's change everything after four years. And I'm thinking, okay, that sounds good. I'm terrified of things breaking. And how do we do this in a way that everything goes smoothly? And it really, and for the most part, I mean, for such a complicated rebrand of, you know, 400 plus interviews, a show that's been in the iTunes store for four years, we definitely pulled this off really smoothly. I mean, you know, we have to give credit to people like Brad Gothier, who did just an amazing job architecting this thing right from the get-go. And really, I mean, he's really the mastermind behind what you guys see on the new website. Well, yeah, I mean, and that's kind of a unique situation in and of itself, because, you know, the company that built the brand and the website, I own, so with Brad. So, you know, I was playing both sides of the coin here, where I was having conversations with Brad about what we're doing as far as sitebuilder.io, our business that built this site and this brand and everything else. And then I was having conversations with you about what to do on this side of things. So that's a very weird and awkward place to be, but yeah, I mean, Brad did a fabulous job, you know, on the programming and many things, of course, that the listener won't even see on the back end of stuff, but, and then on the front end. And then we had the right, you know, we, you had the right relationships from times past to bring in and really bring the artistry to it and make it distinctive. I mean, when you just wrote the book, the unmistake, you know, the art of being unmistakable, you know, it was really and that's in our title. It was really critical that we bring something unmistakable to the table and the reality is is that you look at the site, you look at the brand, you look at what we've created, you just simply won't find that anywhere else and that's what we had to create. And frankly, in my opinion, that's what every entrepreneur or creative has to create right now in today's world because it's so noisy and so crowded that if you aren't doing something that stands out as unmistakable immediately, it's going to be a tough road. Well, you know, I think that, you know, it goes back to what Brian Holiday said when we had him here, he said, "How are you going to make a large, un-ignorable statement?" And you know, I think that you, if you guys have not visited the site, highly, highly recommended that just overwhelming response when we've met people in person, when they've sent us emails, has been, "Oh my God, this is really cool." And you know, you're right. We were very fortunate to have, you know, we've got to give credit to our team here because they really, I mean, they came through and just find fashion. I mean, we really pushed them to their limits and they worked fast and they produced really high quality work and they never compromised, nobody on the team compromised. Yeah, I mean, we had great artwork by Sarah Steenland, we had great artwork by Mars Dorian, we had great, you know, web development by Brad and the other members of the team at site builder, and that's actually one thing that I think is really important. You know, I've talked to you a lot about solo pernourship and the real stats behind solo pernourship and the idea that you, it is almost impossible to build anything of significance on your own and the idea that you need a team, you need a team of people and you need to be good at managing that team effectively, bringing in the right people, choosing the right people but also managing them well through that process. I think that's highly underrated, you know, it's, you know, as I travel around the country doing my $10 in the laptop project, I met countless people that wanted to start things on their own and I am not a fan of that. I don't see a lot of value in doing something on your own. I'm not saying that you have to have 10 people on your team from day one nor can you likely afford them, but you have to get people involved from the beginning, you have to get whether it's just advisors or other people that you're hanging out with all day long that are guiding you or advising you or helping you, whether it's, you know, vendors like we used to come and do specific tasks at specific times or whether you have business partners or whatever it might be. This is a team game. You cannot win this game on an island by yourself and I see countless, countless, countless people trying. I mean, there's 22 million solopreneurs in America and less than 7% of that 22 million make over $100,000 a year. Less than 7% make over, and the average wage of a solopreneur is about $45,000, which is ironically the average wage of an employee in America as well. So you have these people that branch off on their own to do their own thing because they want to be their own boss and do their own thing, they make the same amount of money, they work 10 times as hard as an employee at a job. They don't have the support and they're running themselves into the ground. And I think it was really important for us to get the right team members on the team and put them to work and let them, let them do what they're talented and gifted at doing. It took a lifetime to find the person you want to marry. Finding the perfect engagement ring is a lot easier. At Blue Nile dot com, you can find or design the ring you've always dreamed of with help from Blue Nile's jewelry experts who are on hand 24/7 to answer questions and the ease and convenience of shopping online. For a limited time, get $50 off your purchase of $500 or more with code listen@bluenile.com. That's $50 off with code listen@bluenile.com. Let's talk about something that's not always top of mind but still really important. Life insurance. Why? Because it offers financial protection for your loved ones and can help them pay for things like a mortgage, credit card debt, it can even help fund an education. And guess what? Life insurance is probably a lot more affordable than you think. In fact, most people think life insurance is three times more expensive than it is. So with state farm life insurance, you can protect your loved ones without breaking the bank. Not sure where to start? State Farm has over 19,000 local agents that can help you choose an option to fit your needs and budget. Get started today and contact a state farm agent or go to statefarm.com. Hey, Prime members, are you tired of ads interfering with your favorite podcasts? Good news! With Amazon Music, you have access to the largest catalog of ad-free top podcasts included with your Prime Membership. To start listening, download the Amazon Music app for free or go to amazon.com/adfreepodcasts. To catch up on the latest episodes, without the ads. Forging ahead together drives Colorado's pioneering spirit at Chevron, we donate funding and volunteer thousands of hours in support of the community's We Call Home. We also employ our neighbors to deliver the energy needed as the state's largest oil and natural gas producer, all to help improve lives in our shared backyard. That's energy and progress. Visit Colorado.chefron.com. When it comes to weight loss, no two people are the same. That's why Noom builds personalized plans based on your unique psychology and biology. Take Brittany. After years of unsustainable diets, Noom helped her lose 20 pounds and keep it off. I was definitely in a yo-yo cycle for years of just losing weight, gaining weight, and it was exhausting. And Stephanie. She's a former D1 athlete who knew she couldn't out train her diet and she lost 38 pounds. My relationship to food before Noom was never consistent. And Evan, he can't stand salads, but he's still lost 50 pounds with Noom. I never really was a salad guy, that's just not who I am. Even through the pickiness, Noom taught me that building better habits builds a healthier lifestyle. I'm not doing this to get to a number, I'm doing this to feel better. Get your personalized plan today at Noom.com. Real Noom users compensated to provide their story. In four weeks, a typical Noom user can expect to lose one to two pounds per week. Individual results may vary. Discover Hydro, the best-kept secret in fitness. Hydro is the state-of-the-art at-home rower that engages 86 percent of your muscles, delivering the ultimate full-body workout in just 20 minutes. From advanced to beginner, Hydro has over 500 classes, shot worldwide and taught by Olympians and world-class athletes. For a 30-day risk-free trial, go to hydro.com and use code ROW450 to save $450 on a hydro-pro rower. That's H-Y-D-R-O-W.com code ROW450. Yeah, I mean, there's no question, I mean, I think that if there's anything I learned from this entire process, it was that it was how critical other people were. I mean, I honestly didn't do anything. I built the foundation, but this team is what made this all possible. Yeah, without a doubt, without a doubt. Every team needs the person that's kind of guiding and inspiring and keeping people focused and all that, and that was your job, and that's what you brought to the table. I mean, you were able to look at things and say, "Hey, this isn't... We need to bring more art to this. We need to make it look better." So you brought the right attention to detail that was necessary. You created the standard of excellence and brought the right attention to detail, and then the team delivered. Yeah, totally. I mean, that was really kind of one of the funnest parts, is to look at it and say, "Okay, how do we make this... How do we make it unmistakable?" I remember when we called Brad two weeks ago, like, "Listen. This is what we need. We need people to show up here and say, "Holy crap. This is unreal. Like, just be wowed and dazzled." And I realized that's a tall order and a vague one, but I mean, everybody kind of knew that that was it, where like, the standard is this. We set the standard, we all commit to it, and nobody compromised. Everybody wanted to be part of it. So let's actually talk a little bit about some of the listener questions around this whole branding process. Shannon Drake, actually. I need to define it creative and what inspired you to make creativity your new mantra. I'll give my thoughts on this. I mean, I think I define it creative as somebody who makes something worth talking about. And that's a big part of what drove my mindset, what really convinced me that rebranding was necessary, because I wanted to talk to people from different art forms. I wanted to talk to filmmakers. I wanted to talk to people who've done one of the examples that keeps coming up. There's a park, and I can't, for the life of me, figure out what it's called. The Skyline or the Highline in New York? It's like a 10-year public works project that became a park that got saved. And I think interviewing the guy who did that would be an amazing chat, I mean, to talk about stuff like that. So for me, that's really how I define it creative, somebody who makes something that's worth talking about. Yeah, and I would say much the same. I look for creatives to be people that have distinctive viewpoints or distinctive work. And what stands out, what makes them different or unique, or their work different or unique? And I think that's the world that we live in today. I think that the people who are succeeding are those who are distinctive in some respect, whether that's in their writing or whether that's in their drawing or whether that's in their small business in some way. We've talked a lot about people that we've had as guests on this show, obviously just in the last six months or so, who are very distinctive in their work. It's very obvious that it's them. They create that unmistakable art, and to me, that's what a creative does. So Angela England asked, "This has been brewing for a while. Is there something specific that made you decide that now is the time?" Yeah, I mean, I think coincidentally, you came in six months ago and we knew it was going to be... We knew that you said this is probably a six-month process. Part of it is it's a new year. I think that that's one of the things that worked out well in terms of timing, but I think that it was just... I don't know that there's a dead-on answer that I have for why now was the time to do. Yeah, well, now was the time because we were way behind the time. I mean, now as in January 6, well, there was no specific time, January 6 became the date just because we got the work done by then, and we had our first interview of the new year released by then. That was no magic formula, just happened to play out that way. But as far as now being the time, I mean, when I first got involved, it's... Let's talk about something that's not always top of mind, but still really important. Life insurance. Why? Because it offers financial protection for your loved ones and can help them pay for things like a mortgage, credit card debt, it can even help fund an education. And guess what? Life insurance is probably a lot more affordable than you think. In fact, most people think life insurance is three times more expensive than it is. So with state farm life insurance, you can protect your loved ones without breaking the bank. Not sure where to start? State Farm has over 19,000 local agents that can help you choose an option to fit your needs and budget. Get started today and contact a state farm agent or go to statefarm.com. Balancing a wellness routine and busy travel plans? Try Alamo Moves, the health and wellness app you need to stay consistent. Alamo Moves goes with you and offers yoga, Pilates, strength workouts, and so much more. From five minutes to 60 minute classes, Alamo Moves has a class or flow that fits your schedule. There's also meditations, sound baths, nutrition tips, and self-care tutorials to meet your holistic wellness goals on your time. Go to alamooves.com and use the code ACAST to claim your 30-day free trial today. Hey, Pride members. Are you tired of ads interfering with your favorite podcasts? Good news. With Amazon Music, you have access to the largest catalog of ad-free top podcasts included with your Pride membership. To start listening, download the Amazon Music app for free. Or go to amazon.com/adfreepodcasts. That's amazon.com/adfreepodcasts to catch up on the latest episodes without the ads. Forging ahead together drives Colorado's pioneering spirit at Chevron, we donate funding and volunteer thousands of hours in support of the community's we call home. We also employ our neighbors to deliver the energy needed as the state's largest oil and natural gas producer, all to help improve lives in our shared backyard. That's Energy in Progress. Visit colorado.chefron.com When it comes to weight loss, no two people are the same. That's why Noom builds personalized plans based on your unique psychology and biology. Take Brittany. After years of unsustainable diets, Noom helped her lose 20 pounds and keep it off. I was definitely in a yo-yo cycle for years of just losing weight gaining weight and it was exhausting. And Stephanie, she's a former D1 athlete who knew she couldn't out train her diet and she lost 38 pounds. My relationship to food before Noom was never consistent. And Evan, he can't stand salads, but he still lost 50 pounds with Noom. I never really was a salad guy, that's just not who I am. Even through the pickiness, Noom taught me that building better habits builds a healthier lifestyle. I'm not doing this to get to a number, I'm doing this to feel better. Get your personalized plan today at Noom.com. Real Noom users compensated to provide their story. In four weeks, a typical Noom user can expect to lose one to two pounds per week. Individual results may vary. My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big row as man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friends still laugh at me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get a $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to linkedin.com/results to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com/results. Terms and conditions apply. Linkedin, the place to be, to be. I do things in a big way. I look at things and I see potential and that's why I get involved. My whole goal is to take things that already exist and make them better. That's just how my mind works. When I came in, I agreed to come in because I saw something that was good and I thought I could make it better. A big part of making it better was immediately changing the brand and I think it will be better. Yeah, definitely. Ralph Quintero has a good question. This is a fun one. What's the most difficult decision you had to make with the rebrand and how did you handle it? My personal opinion on that, I don't know what yours is, was the naming process. The naming process was difficult, I don't know if it was the most difficult decision. I don't know. We didn't have too many difficult decisions, ironically. We knew what we wanted and I think that that's the important part was we didn't sit around looking at 900 different things and go, "Which one of these should we choose?" We knew what we wanted from moment one. We knew what made us distinct. We knew what made us unmistakable. We already knew what we wanted. We went through a few iterations on the logo design and went back and forth on it. The beauty of knowing who you are at the core, and this is something that will be talked about at the instigator experience by a few people, probably by Erica Learmark, who does an outstanding job of it and by Justine Mosk, is when you know who you are, when you strip it all down and you really know who you are, decisions are not agonizing. Decisions are really easy. When you know who you are and you know what your standard of excellence is, decisions are really simple to make and they're not agonizing, "Oh my God, which direction should I go?" The answer has already been made for you. That's what I think most small businesses fail at often. In fact, as an advisor to several businesses, I was just having this conversation on Monday with a company, the two owners of the company, who were making every decision was an agonizing decision. I said, "The reason that every single decision that you're making is agonizing is because you haven't determined the essence of what your brand is." When you have the essence of your brand, decisions are easy. When your Apple decisions are easy, it either meets Apple standards or it doesn't. There's no in between and that's how it was for us. Yeah, I think so and I think the perfect example of that was when we saw the first version of the icons. I said, "You know what? I looked at it and I said, "I know the problem. Right away." I said, "We can't use custom. We can't use stock photography." I'm like, "I know the issue. Let's have Mars design the icons." I said, "What do you think?" You said, "Yes." The next day, Mars, he had a check and he was to work. Yeah. It was that fast. That was the thing. A lot of the things you guys saw, when we say some of the people who, some of the artwork was fast. When Sarah turned things around in 24 hours in many cases, we said, "Hey, this is what we want to do. Can you do it?" The next day, we would see the first version of it. I think that's largely because we knew exactly what we wanted and you're right. I think that's what trips people up. That's why you have 100 different conversations with your designer about a logo because you don't know what exactly you want. Right. I would say that, one, you have to get clear about what you want because if you're working with any other person who has an expert skill at something, it's very difficult and very frustrating to them to read your mind. They can't read your mind. The second thing is once you do know what you want, though, you have to empower those individuals or turn it over to them, not really empower them, but just turn it over to them and let their talent shine. Thankfully, that's what we got. Yeah. Another question. This is an interesting one. I'm not even quite sure how to answer it. This comes from our friend Rachel Resnick. How deep does brand go? I don't even know what it means. I'm not even sure I know what it means either, but I love Rachel, so I appreciate anything that she says and when she chimes in. To me, brand is about essence. Back to what I was saying earlier, it's at the core of everything that you do, every decision that you make, it's the essence of who you are, and that's hard to verbalize properly. You just know it when you know it when you know it, and you know it when it's not it is just as important. When we're doing the instigator experience and we went around and we were looking at venues, within two seconds, we knew if it was it or not it, and when we looked at logo, within two seconds, we knew if it was it or not it. If you're on the fence about things, if you read copy that you have on your website and you're on the fence about it, if you see nine logos and you're on the fence about all nine, if you if you, you know, put something out into the world and you're on the fence about it, then you haven't determined what your essence is. And you know, I don't know what the magic formula is there. I just know it when I know it when I know it, and I know it when it's not it, and and so it becomes really easy. I wish there was a magic formula, I wish I had a magic formula, I don't, but I see that what other people do, I mean, I see people like Justine Musk, for instance, who has a process to get to that soul print as she calls it, and to me, it's about peeling the layers of the onion. I mean, brand goes as far as deep as you can peel the layers of the onion to get to the essence. Well, you know, I think that, you know, the fact that you just know it, you mentioned the venue. I mean, how many texts did you send me with ideas and I are for names, and every time I replied, I'm like, no, I hate it. Yeah. I didn't even wait two seconds. I didn't deliberate on it. And then when you sent the name on mistake, it will creative, I immediately said, that's it. Let's move. Yeah. And, and you know it when you know it, you know, it's, it's, there's no magic formula. And here's the thing is most of us are so caught up in, in the business of doing business that we lose sight of essence. So you know, we read the book, we listen to the podcast, we read the blogs, we're always trying to find some edge that exists outside of us. When all edges exist inside of us, our uniqueness, our soul print, our, our essence, that all matters far more than anything we're going to read from someone else that's going to tell us what brand is supposed to be. And I think that we've done a good job peeling back the layers through questions. You know, it's just a constant game of asking questions. You know, I'm always asking you questions for any, I'm, I'm asking you, you know, just the other day I asked you, who, who are the most downloaded interviews and what do they have in common? And through that process, we determined who they were and what they have in common and the direction to shift the interview of the show because of it. And you know, we, we just know, and where we get trapped as we start looking to other people and other ideas, other people's ideas for what our brand should be. And you can't get to the bottom of your own brand looking for other ideas for what brand should be. If you read a book on branding, you're screwed. That's my opinion. I mean, I, I think you're, you're screwed at that point. And I think you're better off just peeling the layers of your own onion to getting to the core essence of who you are and what you stand for, you know, put a stake in the ground and say, this is what I stand for. This is what I believe. You know, you look at a company like 37 signals, they do that really well. You know, they, they put a stake in the ground and they say, this is what I believe. Are you with us or against us? And most people are unwilling to make that claim. They're unwilling to get to the core of it. They're unwilling to put the stake in the ground. And in my opinion, that's what branding is all about. Yeah. Yeah. No doubt. Well, I'll take two more questions. These are, these are similar. I mean, they're from live Campbell and Liz Brazier. Why creative are you talking to more artists now and, you know, new target market or evolving target market? I think those are both kind of a similar question. Reality is, yeah, I mean, or it's not a, it's not one we've always been targeting creatives. We just haven't been as clear about it. I mean, there's plenty of creatives in our community. That's why people like Sarah Steenland listened to us. That's why people like Kathleen Jasper, who's a high school principal, listens to us. I mean, we have artists. I mean, we have doctors. I mean, the shared diversity of our community made it very necessary. So I wouldn't say it's a new target market. I think it's an evolving target market. I mean, it's pretty clear when, you know, like we said at the beginning of the show, when one of the iTunes reviews says, "Hey, I'm so glad this rebrand makes all the sense in the world. I have a list of friends a mile long that I've been wanting to tell about you guys, but it didn't make sense." Yeah. And I would say, though, is we have stayed in a bubble. You know, we've branched out of that bubble on occasion, but we've popped the bubble. I mean, we're outside of the bubble now. And I think that's going to be very important for our evolution. The reality is, is that you started this project as a project and you started in a bubble. You started interviewing the same groups of people that did the same type of work and you asked them the same questions about that work because you were trying to figure something out as part of a project and it's evolved greatly beyond that at this point. And yet, to a large degree, we were still in that bubble. And so to me, part of the rebranding was not external, you know, I mean, sure the logo changed and the name changed and all that, but it was internal. It was time to say, "Let's get out of the bubble." It was time to say, "Let's not interview the same people that everyone else interviews for their podcast." It was time to say, "Let's not ask the same questions that everyone else asks." And it was time to develop, uncover our own essence and develop something that was distinct and unique and unmistakable and so I mean, and it's a process, I mean, we're not going to get it right from moment one because we have four years of conditioning that we have to peel away and move more toward the direction that we want to go. And we were making those moves in small steps. Now we've taken a giant leap. Yeah, yeah, no doubt. Well, let's give some quick shout outs to our listeners. There's a couple, Ricardo Jimenez, it's my go-to place, Gina Egan, she wrote this just beautiful review. It's so long, it'll take too long to read, but thank you so much for that. It's awe-inspiring. Kurt Boomo is the guy who we kept referring to, he said, "The rebrand is incredible and this is it right here. I was subconsciously afraid to recommend the show to old friends just because of the name. Now I have a list of my along of people. I will tell about it." So Kurt, please go do that. We really would appreciate it. These reviews make a big difference not only in our ability to grow the show and get sponsors, but also in bringing you guys interesting guests, the more that there are reviews there, the more we can find these people that you don't get to hear on other shows and you only get to hear on ours because they look at it and say, "Okay, this is worth doing." Yeah, it's exciting times and thank you guys for all the shout outs and the feedback and their true thoughts around it because the show is built around you, obviously. The listeners are most important and first and foremost, so the whole idea here is we didn't just say, "What do we want to do?" The questions that we asked are, "What do we think our listeners want to hear and where do we think the world is headed and where do we think we can add significant value?" So hopefully we're accomplishing that and it sounds like from the reviews we're getting on iTunes, we are. Yeah. Which is great. Yeah, no doubt. Well, let's give a quick shout out to our sponsor, Sel's, you know, great company with a really cool product. If you're looking to sell anything online, they make it super simple just to upload your product and have it up for sale within minutes with no programming or anything required. No templates, none of that nonsense. And if you have not been to the new website, a lot of cool artwork that Sarah Steenlin did, you know, just overall you should visit the site because it'll give you a sense for how to push the envelope and being unmistakable. I think, you know, I mean, we've done something that Greg and I are both really proud of and, you know, like we said, you know, it was thanks to an amazing team. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you guys all very much. And I think we'll wrap the show with that and we'll see you guys next week. Thanks for listening in on another candid conversation at the unmistakable creative. Embrace your inner misfit, express your creative voice. 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