Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
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: How did Rory Vaden's journey to success begin?
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 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. Oh, 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. A great marriage or a happy relationship,
It doesn't matter if you've been married 20 years. If you don't treat your spouse or significant other in the way that they deserve, 20 years can disappear in one moment or a few minutes of bad decisions. So I do agree with that. And I think I look at people like you constantly leveling up.
You blew my mind when you came on my podcast and I was just like, gosh, there's such a next level for me in podcasting. And I gotta do the work if I want the results. So what a great question. And yes, I would emphatically say there are some things I've changed my mind on, but that's not one of them. Success is never owned, it's rented and the rent is due every day.
I love that. I resonate with so much of what you're saying and I align with so much of what you're saying. So when you actually wrote those words, like you said, that was decade ago now, you were in grad school, living in a crappy apartment. Can you tell us about that period of your life and how you ended up starting to speak?
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Chapter 2: What is the power of public speaking in personal branding?
He said, if you mentor my son in this program, then when you graduate, I'll mentor you. 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 how the very first time we sat down, he said, Rory, the difference between a good speaker and a great speaker is 1000 speeches. So the first thing I want you to do is go out and give 1,000 speeches. And just a couple of years ago, I became the youngest person in US 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, 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.
So I lost better than the first time. I was the world champion first runner up. And that was just my strategy. That had been my strategy for life in school and in knocking door to door was like, I'm just going to do a higher quantity than everybody else. And I had this belief that if I did more quantity, eventually that would lead to quality. And that's what happened.
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Chapter 3: Why is managing time crucial for success?
I used to travel with him to these big, huge arenas. 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, 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: What are common procrastination pitfalls?
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.
Yeah. You need strong core values that you yourself align to before anybody wants to follow you. Because if you're not an impressive person or a well-rounded person with good character, no one's going to want to follow you or be a fan of yours because you're only fans of people that you look up to.
Totally. And my pastor said this to me one time. He said, your influence will never grow wider than your character runs deep. Your influence will never grow wider than your character runs deep. And if it does, that's when the implosions happen, right?
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Chapter 5: How does personal character influence personal branding?
And it's like, it was your offline reputation that really caught my attention and and then supplemented by your online reputation, which is clearly super impressive. So I think the reason it matters in business, I mean, the reason I know it matters in business is because reputation matters in business.
Today, reputation is determined at least as much by what your online reputation is as your offline one. And if you don't have one, It's just like going, well, would you want to not have an offline reputation? You would never say, I don't need a reputation and I don't need people to say good things about me or to know about me. That's vain.
You would never say that about an offline reputation, but those are the things we sort of errantly say about personal branding online just because it's newer and we don't understand it. And because business people don't want to point and dance and do trending songs and spend their whole day trying to deconstruct an algorithm, right?
That's not how they spend their time, but it doesn't change the fact that it's super important and becoming more and more and more critical. So that's the common sense part. Now, if you look at the data, okay, so if you're going to talk about business people, We're very, very data-driven as a company. Part of why we do the various things we do is because it's data.
And one of the things that we led, a PhD-led academic research study weighted to the U.S. Census, a statistically valid, and it's a national to the U.S. We didn't do it for the whole world, but we spent tens of thousands of dollars on this. In fact, if you want to go download the study, if you go to freebrandstudy.com forward slash profiting, you can download a copy of the full study.
74%.
That's across all ages, income ranges. We trust people who have an established personal brand. And when you look at the professions... One of the things that we ask, so one of the questions is, how important is it to you that each of the following people have an established personal brand?
And so we ask the general public, which careers, which professions, does it most matter to you that your provider has a personal brand? The top ranked spot, 61% of people said they want their doctor to have a personal brand. 58% of people said they want their lawyer to have an established personal brand.
55% of people say they want their financial advisor, their banker, their business consultant to have a personal brand. 53% said they want their insurance agent to have a personal brand. 52% said they want their real estate agent to have a personal brand. This goes on and on and on. And here's what we found.
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Chapter 6: What is the concept of multiplying time?
Our entire methodology, our entire curriculum is actually 14 different two-day experiences. That's like our full, like if you did the full everything we do, there are 14 different two-day experiences. Well, the very first question in the first experience is a super simple question, which almost nobody can answer. And it is, what problem do you solve in one word?
What problem do you solve for the world in one word? And most people cannot answer that question. If you cannot answer that question in one word, there's no way your audience is ever gonna be able to answer that question. So how are they gonna refer you? We buy solutions to problems, right? I get a flat tire, I have a flood in the house and I call a plumber, right? We buy solutions to problems.
You have to be able to articulate the problem you solve. If you can't articulate the problem you solve in one word, This game's over before you even started. That's the thing is just too much. And honestly, that's the only mistake, Hala, that really matters. Probably that and consistency, right?
Like once you get it, everything else is a tactic that can be tweaked or figured out or somebody brilliant like you's got, they got the answer for how to do it. You just got to find it.
You are like a wealth of information. First of all, I want to invite you to my mastermind to talk about branding. I talk a lot about branding, but I feel like you know so much. So I'd love to invite you to my mastermind. And I know that you actually do free coaching calls at your company. Can you tell us about that?
Yeah, totally. We, as I mentioned, we're very human experience. So we do the first call with everybody for free. If you go to freebrandcall.com forward slash profiting. So freebrandcall.com forward slash profiting. I mentioned freebrandstudy.com forward slash profiting. If you just want to download the study, you can go just get the data. But freebrandcall.com slash profiting.
You can fill out a form. And we will do the first call for free with everybody. And we just want to hear your story. We want to hear who you are and what you're about. And most of the clients we work with are not the celebrities. Like a lot of my private clients like you are people that are pretty well known.
But our company, we work with people just starting out to intermediate to like advanced, but all the above. But if there's a shortcut to finding your uniqueness, here's the pattern that we noticed. We didn't know this when we started the company. We figured this out after about 1,500 clients. You are always most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were.
You're most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. So, On our first call, that's what we usually ask about is, who are you? Who have you been? What challenge have you conquered? What setback have you survived? What obstacle have you overcome? What tragedy have you triumphed over? We want to hear your story.
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