Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
How Rory Vaden Helps Entrepreneurs Build Powerful Personal Brands | Entrepreneurship | YAPClassic
Fri, 28 Feb 2025
When New York Times bestselling author and entrepreneur Rory Vaden wanted to get better at public speaking, he went out and spoke 304 times… for free. It was perhaps the best investment he could have made in himself and his abilities. In this episode, Rory will explain how to communicate effectively and show off your authentic self while building trust. In this episode, Hala and Rory will discuss: (00:00) Introduction (02:54) Rory Vaden's Journey to Success (05:21) The Power of Public Speaking (09:40) Building a Personal Brand (24:44) Overcoming Procrastination and Time Management (32:04) The Concept of Multiplying Time (36:32) Personal Branding Strategies (38:01) Mastering Book Launches and Monetization Strategies (38:38) The Key to Personal Branding (39:53) Breaking Through to Notoriety (46:20) The Power of Focus (51:13) The Importance of Personal Branding for Professionals (57:00) The Three E's Strategy (01:01:50) Common Mistakes in Personal Branding Rory Vaden is the New York Times bestselling author of Take the Stairs and Procrastinate on Purpose. He is an 8-figure entrepreneur and a Hall of Fame speaker with a TEDx talk that has more than 5 million views. Today, Rory and his wife serve as the co-founders of Brand Builders Group, where they teach mission-driven messengers to become more well-known and to build and monetize their personal brand. Their clients include people like Lewis Howes from The School of Greatness, Eric Thomas “ET Hip Hop Preacher”, Tom and Lisa Bilyeu from Impact Theory, New York Times bestselling author Luvvie Ajayi Jones, and #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author Ed Mylett. Sponsored By: Shopify - youngandprofiting.co/shopify Airbnb - airbnb.com/host Rocket Money - rocketmoney.com/profiting Indeed - indeed.com/profiting RobinHood - robinhood.com/gold Factor - factormeals.com/factorpodcast Rakuten - rakuten.com Active Deals - youngandprofiting.com/deals Key YAP Links Reviews - ratethispodcast.com/yap Youtube - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ Social + Podcast Services - yapmedia.com Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com/episodes-new Entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship podcast, Business, Business podcast, Self Improvement, Self-Improvement, Personal development, Starting a business, Strategy, Investing, Sales, Selling, Psychology, Productivity, Entrepreneurs, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Marketing, Negotiation, Money, Finance, Side hustle, Startup, mental health, Career, Leadership, Mindset, Health, Growth mindset.
Chapter 1: What is Rory Vaden's journey to success?
Imagine learning how to turn stage fright into a magnetic stage presence to craft speeches that captivate your audience and build a brand that doesn't just speak to people, but speaks for them. Well, in this Yap Classic episode, we're talking about brand building, public speaking, and so much more with one of the world's leading communication and branding experts, Rory Vaden.
Rory is the best-selling author of Take the Stairs and Procrastinate on Purpose and the co-founder of Brand Builders Group. I spoke with Rory last year in episode 274 about how to build a personal brand that doesn't just attract attention, but commands trust and respect.
Whether you're an entrepreneur, a corporate leader, or just somebody looking to amplify your voice, this conversation will be a roadmap to mastering the psychology of influence. So let's get started with Rory. Rory, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast.
Yes, I'm so excited. I'm so excited. I think you're like my newest, coolest friend. Thank you for having me.
I think the same. I'm really excited for this conversation. Way to bring some great energy to the conversation already. So Rory, you are super well known for actually building brands. But before you started building other people's brands, you were, of course, building your own brand. And in the past, you said success is never owned, it's rented, and the rent is due every day. So
So my first question to you is a softball. Do you still feel like success is never owned? Do you still feel that way today, like you're renting your success? Or do you feel like you've owned some of your success now?
What a good question. Also, you guys went into the backlogs. You did. We went to the backlogs. The back catalog. So that was from Take the Stairs, which has been out over 10 years. So success is never owned. It's rented and the rent is due every day. I do still feel that way. I feel that way. And I feel like the people we work with exhibit that. You're still hustling. I'm still hustling.
Ed Milet, Lewis Howes, our clients, Amy Porterfield, these people are still hustling. Some people might look at them and go, oh, they're at the top, like why are they hustling? But they don't look at it that way. They look at Jay Shetty and go, oh, they're always pursuing somebody or the next level. And the other thing about that, Hala, is if you take out that word success,
and you put in for it whatever really matters. Financial security is never really owned. It's rented and the rent is due every day. Like if you start making stupid financial decisions, you can blow a lot of money quickly. Being in great physical health, certainly never owned. That's rented and the rent is due every day.
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Chapter 2: How can public speaking build your personal brand?
And so he did. I did. And his son, Zach, worked with me for two years. We became really good friends. And then when I
finished my undergrad and was in graduate school eric was the one who he was a hall of fame speaker and you know i asked him i was like okay i'm ready what do i need to go do and i'll never forget hollow the very first time we sat down he said rory the difference between a good speaker and a great speaker is 1 000 speeches So the first thing I want you to do is go out and give 1,000 speeches.
And just a couple years ago, I became the youngest person in U.S. history to be inducted myself into the Professional Speaking Hall of Fame.
Oh, wow.
I've got a viral TED Talk that has like 5 million views. And I have to tell you, Hala, I'm still excited to go back and see Eric Chester and find out what step two is because there's been so much speaking. So that was how I got my start early on.
Amazing. And I learned that you spoke over 300 times for free in your first 18 months. So a lot of people aren't willing to roll up their sleeves, do free work like that. What was the logic? I know you were building your reps, but how did you decide, okay, now I'm going to get paid and I've got enough experience. So tell us about that.
What actually happened was Eric said the fastest way to get stage time is to join a group called Toastmasters. And so it's this worldwide organization that's been around for decades. And they had a contest called the World Championship of Public Speaking. And so I thought, gosh, maybe, you know, at the time I was 22 years old. And so I had no credibility.
This is long before social media, you know, it was like ever really out. And I thought, maybe if I could win the World Championship, of public speaking, maybe that would give me the credibility to like launch a speaking career. You know, it was all adults who were in this competition. And I thought if I just got more reps and I practiced harder.
And so I did, I went out and I spoke 304 times for free. The first year I made it to, there's 25,000 contestants. I made it to the top 10 in the world and I lost. And then the next year, I got more coaching. I spent more time, thousands of hours studying film, made it all the way back to the world championship. And then I lost again, actually, but I came in second.
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Chapter 3: What are Rory Vaden's insights on procrastination and time management?
I used to travel with him to like these big, huge arenas You know, he passed away several years ago. But anyways, he was the one that said, there is no elevator to success. You have to take the stairs. And so even the whole take the stairs concept was a bit of a homage to my mentor Zig Ziglar.
I love that. So next one, a key to self-discipline is, of course, commitment. And you said, the more we have invested in something, the less likely we are to let it fail. What did you mean by that?
Anything that matters to you is gonna be hard to let go of. The things that matter to you are the things that you've put the most time and love and energy and money and prayer into. So you go, if you lose a loved one, why is it so hard? It's because we've spent so much time together. We have so many shared experiences. We have so many interests and stories.
The irony is that the more we have invested into something, the less likely we are to let it fail. Well, what most people do is they keep their commitments conditionally. They keep their commitments as long as they're convenient to do so.
But the moment it becomes inconvenient to keep that commitment, we typically question the commitment or we challenge ourselves to go, oh, you know, maybe I'm not cut out for this or maybe it's not worth it. And so they go in search of something easier. In reality, they find that there's not anything easier.
They keep showing up and the same issues replicate again and again in their life because they struggle with commitment. And the real thing to do is when you are kind of tested to go, I'm not sure if this is gonna work out. I'm not sure if this is the right thing. is to increase your commitment. You increase your level of investment, right?
If you're struggling on social media and you just go, well, gosh, maybe I'm not cut out for that. Well, of course, then it's not gonna be successful. But the people who are successful at it are the ones that go, no, I'm gonna figure this out. I'm gonna spend more time, more energy. I'm gonna hire coaches. I'm gonna hire an agency. I'm gonna learn. I'm gonna figure this out.
So I think the difference here is going, You don't have a plan B. You only have a plan A. Now, you have to be flexible to adapt what plan A is, but leaving or quitting or escaping is not one of the options. And that is one of the secrets of ultra performers, right? They lock in on a goal and they go, I am going to achieve this.
How or when, I'm not entirely sure, but I'm target locked, and I'm gonna find a way. Other people go, I'll do it if it's comfortable. I'll do it if it's safe. I'll do it if it's easy. But not ultra performers.
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Chapter 4: Why is personal character important in branding?
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And I think all of us have these big dreams, big goals, but a lot of us have a problem with time management, actually focusing on the things we need to focus on, prioritizing. And you actually talk a lot about creative avoidance and procrastination. So my first question to you on that is, why is that so personal to you? Why have you wrote so much about procrastination?
Yeah, my first book, Take the Stairs, and my second book, Procrastinate on Purpose, Five Permissions to Multiply Your Time. So really the way this fits in is I have always been fascinated with success. And really, if you look at the arc of my whole career, Hala, I bucket it with something very simple called the four levels of influence. And so level one is influencing yourself to take action.
You're influencing one person, yourself. And all of my early work is about level one influence, which is basically the enemy of influencing yourself is procrastination. And so we talk about creative avoidance and priority dilution, these terms that I invented for different types of procrastination that people aren't aware of. So we can talk about those if you want.
And level two influence is influencing one other human. And so that is all of my work in sales. And our first company was a sales coaching company. We started that in 2006. We grew that to eight figures. We sold it in 2018. We had 200 people. And all we did was sales coaching. That's influencing another person. Also relationships. and one-on-one communication is level two influence.
How do I talk and listen and interact with an individual in a way that creates influence? It moves them to action. Level three influence is influencing a group of people or a team. So this is all the area and the work and the study and the writing we've done on leadership.
It's going, how do you act, talk, behave, operate, and create systems in a way that activates a small group of people to take action? So that's leadership. And then level four influence is really what we're doing now, which is personal branding. And that is inspiring and moving a community of people. It's creating a movement of
It's activating and influencing people who you may never actually meet face-to-face, but you impact them through your writing, your videos, your podcast, et cetera. So that's most of where we spend our world now. But my early books and my early work really stem from learning how to influence myself and to battle my own beast of overcoming procrastination.
And one of the things I think not enough people understand that you can't build a great personal brand Until you build strong personal character.
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Chapter 5: How can you effectively overcome procrastination?
Yeah, you're breaking through the wall. Gary Vaynerchuk's my favorite example. Everyone says, well, Rory, I think your whole finding uniqueness is stupid because Gary talks about a million things.
Yeah, Omnichannel.
Yeah, Omnichannel. And he talks about rap music and sports and Web3 and social and business and whatever, advertising and all this stuff. And he tells people, talk about all the things you're passionate about. Yeah, except that's not how he got there. You can't look at what those people are doing today. Look at how he got there.
Gary Vaynerchuk, in the beginning, talked about one thing on one channel. Wine on YouTube. So I love Gary. I don't know him personally. I have so much respect for him. I've learned so much. But I go, he did not get there by doing what he's doing now. You can't get to where he is by doing what he's doing now.
You have to look at what he did and you break through the wall on that one thing or one channel, one topic and just go, what's the likelihood of success? Talking on YouTube and TikTok and podcast and LinkedIn and Instagram about 25 different things or going, I'm going to dominate the topic of wine on YouTube.
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