Phyllis:

I was actually ready to walk away from the show. I'm like, "Baby, we don't have to do this. We have people standing in line, we make our money." And the producers were trying to talk us into, "No, no, we really want you, we really want you." It was in that moment of knowing that, "You know what? I'm doing this for you, sweetie. I don't cook on purpose, not even for my child. The only reason I do any of this is because I support you. So, if you want to do this, let's do it."

Chris:

Hey, everybody, I think this episode is long overdue. I have my friend Phyllis Strawder, who goes by a couple other names that I think it's going to be very intriguing for today's conversation. I'll save that for a little bit. Phyllis, for people who don't know who you are, can you please introduce yourself, and tell us a little story about you?

Phyllis:

Hey, sweethearts. I am Phyllis Williams-Strawder, known as the Ghetto Country Brandmother. I'm an empathic bitch who works with solopreneurs who want to build scalable brands. The way that I got here is very strange because I got here by way of barbecue. But now I focus on helping solopreneurs who have shiny object syndrome because I realize a lot of people are running around here as solopreneurs trying to build a brand, and they have all of these offers and all of these things, and it just sound crazy. But I also realized, this is a story that includes you. Is that when you were on Clubhouse, when I introduced myself in your house as Ghetto Country, and I told you I was raised hood adjacent by a country mama, that flipped a switch for me for everything. It is how I found my branded voice and how I started to lean into my personal brand. And it just made me want to help other people do that and not be so confused or trying to put so much pressure on themselves to build a brand. So, that's how I got here.

Chris:

Wonderful. What I love about you is you're so fully yourself, meaning you've embraced who you are. You lean into your history and people hide from the history, and you just lean all in. Now, in case you haven't figured this out, I do need to give a warning to sensitive listeners. There may be an occasional F-bomb here and there and some strong language, but we would not ask the Ghetto Country Brandmother to change just to be on our show. So, I think if you can handle that language, she's funny as heck, and I just want her to be her full self. So, there's the warning, there's the public service announcement. Now let's take us back to, before we talk about how you and I met. Tell me about this concept. You put a lot of words together that need to be unpacked, ghetto country. There's a juxtaposition of two words there, hood adjacent. Take me back to young Phyllis. What the heck is going on here?

Phyllis:

Oh my goodness. When I talk about being hood adjacent, I'm talking about my mama, she was hardcore. Like I say, her countryness, she was not going to let me run a muck and all of that kind of crazy. But she did leave the house every once in a while. I would sneak out and I'd do some bad shit, and I'd hung out with some bad folks. I was almost in a gang, but to be in a gang you got to get jumped in. I wasn't about to get jumped on. I hung around with some seedy dudes because I was a serious tomboy back then. The guys that I hung out with, most girls wouldn't do that.

It was always that opportunity, and plus my dad. My dad, oh, don't let me get in that part. But my dad always taught me to fight, even though I was a girl, because I always had to fight dudes. Because I was always tall, guys always ... Everybody figured they had a Napoleon complex, so they wanted to beat up the tall girl. I actually had to learn to physically fight and fight dudes. And so that's how my dad raised me. I knew how to wrap up my fists and knuckle up and all of that kind of stuff. And so all of that is who I am, and to try to dismiss that like I did for so many years was doing me a great disservice.

Chris:

How tall are you, for people who are listening to this?

Phyllis:

I am actually six one.

Chris:

Wow.

Phyllis:

Yes.

Chris:

Okay. I met you in person, I don't remember you being that tall, but wow, oh my gosh. Did you have an early growth spur?

Phyllis:

I did not. I stayed five 10 for a long time and I thought that's where I was going to stick. And then I got kind of pissed off when I grew taller because all the tall guys wanted to date the girls that reached their belly buttons and all that kind of shit. Yeah, yeah. I was kind of salty back then, but then once high school was over, "Oh, she got long legs." No, miss me with the bush. Keep it pushing.

Chris:

I mean, when you say you had to stop at five 10, that's already tall, especially for women. And then you went 6'1?

Phyllis:

Yes, 6'1.

Chris:

So, you grew a couple of more inches there. Wow.

Phyllis:

Yes. Yeah.

Chris:

Okay, you're a little rough.

Phyllis:

Yes.

Chris:

You're a tomboy.

Phyllis:

Yes.

Chris:

You're tall. And so instead of hanging out with the prissy women or girls back then you hung out with boys and some idiots always got to prove something to somebody, right?

Phyllis:

Oh my gosh. And it's not even just that. Like I said, when I did step into my girly phase and all of that kind of stuff, dudes that were my brothers for so long, all of a sudden it's like, I'm not going to get really explicit on you, but they're, the way they saw me changed. And I'm like, "Dude, you're my brother. That does not work for me." And getting people to understand that when folks talk about boys and girls can't be friends at that age. No, at this age, sweetie, I'm cool with all of it. I can be your friend all day long. I don't have nothing to prove.

Chris:

What age are we talking about where you kind of blossom into this young woman and the boys that used to-

Phyllis:

Oh my gosh.

Chris:

... maybe run with you all of a sudden look at you differently? How old are you now?

Phyllis:

I am 57. I am 57 right now. But back then, oh, when 20s hit and mini skirts was a thing. Oh, you couldn't tell a sister she couldn't show her legs. I was, oh, it was on and popping, I promise you.

Chris:

Okay. We're talking like after high school, college-ish.

Phyllis:

Yes.

Chris:

That's 20-something. Okay.

Phyllis:

Yes.

Chris:

Well, let's take it there. I'd like to just follow along with the chronology of things.

Phyllis:

Okay.

Chris:

Did you go to college? What did you study?

Phyllis:

I did. I went to college straight out of high school. I went the first summer and I dropped out after three years. I did not like it.

Chris:

Okay.

Phyllis:

I got accepted to UCLA. I was a math computer science major back then, and I stayed in the dorms that first summer. And it totally turned me off. I felt like I was in some type of college movie. It's like, "Y'all are just some nasty mother-fuckers." It was not what I expected. And so, I did that first summer and then my dad got me an apartment way off campus. Oh my God, so far off campus. But he got me my first apartment. And since I had always been an independent person, it was the commute and all that stuff, I was fine, but I went. And then I finally realized in that third year, I was going for the wrong reason. My dad had gone to UCLA. My cousin had gone to USC, so there was a rivalry right there. But it wasn't in me to go to college then. And even though I did not have, I had good grades. I was a 3.24 GPA and all that stuff. It's just one day I didn't go back. I just couldn't do it.

Chris:

Was that a consideration to think about your parents saying, "I'm done with school," or it's not a big deal for you?

Phyllis:

I hid that shit for a long arse while.

Chris:

Oh, I see. It was a deal.

Phyllis:

I lied and lied some more. But yeah, I hid it for a long time. And the disappointment, my father is my heart. And when I told him, he was more disappointed that I dropped out than had I flunked out. The fact that I just walked away really hurt and devastated him, and I'm a daddy's girl all up and through. And to watch him not speak to me anymore for a while, while his heart was broken and all that kind of stuff, I knew that's who would take it the hardest. So, I had to let him sit in it for a while. But because I'm his favorite, well, yeah, I'm his favorite. I'll go ahead and own that. Being that girl for him, being that daddy's girl, I never lost my place with him. I knew that that wasn't going to be an issue. It was just the dealing with the disappointment. My daddy is a bigger crybaby than I am. Oh my gosh. Yeah. That was the biggest heart part. It wasn't my mom, it was my dad.

Chris:

When you dropped out of school, what'd you do for money? How'd you support yourself?

Phyllis:

Oh lord. I have never had a McDonald's job in my life because actually I start working for my dad when I was about 16 or 17. He was a real estate broker by then. And so I had worked for him. And if you're going to hire your kids, pay them please. But I learned so much working in an office, so there was never a time where I did not have a job after that. I could get an office job in a heartbeat because back then that's when they taught you typing in school and stenography and all of that kind of stuff.

Chris:

I remember.

Phyllis:

It was easy for me to go and get a job, and I actually had to quit working for my dad because it was just too much overlap of, "Am I your daughter or am I your employee? Because one of them got to get paid, I'm sorry."

Chris:

Right. Okay, let's forward in timeline here. How do you find your way into doing branding and design work?

Phyllis:

Oh my goodness. You're not going to do pretty shit. But no, I found my way into branding, when we had the barbecue restaurant, we had to learn everything on the fly. Because we straight bootstrapped from the kitchen table all the way into two restaurants and all of that kind of stuff. But it was fighting with Neil on the constant about how we should brand and market our business. And I always made sure that he was the face of the business. Whenever there was something to do on TV, go get him. Whenever there was something to apply for to be on TV, go get him. And so making sure that he was always consistently the face and the voice of the thing was how I learned a lot of things. But the argument was always between when we should put this stuff out here. "Baby, stop trying to market last minute. Why are you telling them today that we're putting this on sale tomorrow?"

So, there was all this confrontation, so I had to learn how to get around that and to navigate it. But even back then, I didn't know what I know now. And so, the fact that we were as successful as we were is a blessing to me. Because to come out of that unscathed and being able to walk away, most folks don't get that opportunity. They have to stay and watch their business die. I didn't have to do that.

Chris:

Well, we have to clarify a few things for our audience here. Somewhere along the way you meet a man who later on becomes your husband, who you're still married to this day. His name is Neil. Lovely gentleman. He's into barbecue.

Phyllis:

Yes.

Chris:

And you guys start a business together. And you also wind up on this show with Tyler, I think it's called the Great American Food Truck Race or something like that. Is that right?

Phyllis:

That is right. I hated that show.

Chris:

Okay, let's just slow down here and expand on this. Prior to you trying to help Neil with branding and marketing, what is your role in the business relationship? Are you managing the finances, are you doing front of house stuff? What are you doing?

Phyllis:

Neil's job was to look cute and cook, my job was everything else.

Chris:

Okay.

Phyllis:

Seriously, I did the invoicing, I did the contracts, I did the quotes and all of the different things. Anything that had to do administratively, that's what I handled. And it made me salty for a while because everybody would act like Neil did all of this by himself. And so even though I stayed behind the scenes, it's like, "Seriously?" And then he would piss me off because he's like, "Baby, how do you do this?" And then he go and said, "Seriously, dude?" You're going to act like you just had this information at the top?" Yeah, we had some challenges on that stuff. It was learning all of that, but then also learning to be comfortable with, you know what, my place right now is behind the scenes. Even his first opportunity to be on TV to be on, was it Barbecue Pit Masters? He almost didn't get to do that because they thought it was a husband and wife thing. I'm like, "I'm not going to be the angry black woman in the corner. No, I'm not going. Period."

Chris:

Can we talk about that a little bit?

Phyllis:

Sure.

Chris:

I emphasize this to a lot of people, one of the most important decisions you're going to make in your life is who you choose to be your partner in life. Some partners support you, build you, hold you to higher standard and you nurture each other. And some are questioning you, picking at you and it's a competition for your time and attention. Very important. And I think I was one of the lucky ones. It sounds like you guys are very lucky to have each other, because you do very different things and you recognize each other in your zone of genius. Here you are pretty much running the business for Neil so that he can be the star of the face and the genius behind the food. That's his gift in life, and he's probably not great at everything else. And to recognize that and to find someone who supports that where you can work off each other is a beautiful thing.

Phyllis:

Yeah, it really is.

Chris:

You say that he's being considered for TV shows, and then you mentioned, "I'm not going to be the angry black woman." Tell me a little bit about what that is and unpack that for people who don't understand what you're talking about?

Phyllis:

With me being who I am, like I said, with the hard edges that I have and all of that kind of stuff, it comes with the stigma of people thinking like, "Oh, there's no femininity to this." And like I say, I know how to embrace my feminine side, but like I say, I love the hanging out with guys and all of that kind of stuff. But when you act a certain way, when you get angry, when you assert yourself, when you take any stand on anything, you become the angry black woman. Even when Neil did, when we did The Great Food Truck Race, one person tweeted that, "I don't like her. She's a bitch." I said, "Thank you. Yes, I am."

Because they don't understand the dynamic of how we have to work because our business was born out of doing barbecue competitions, and that shit has to be on point. When I have to yell at Neil, "Come on dude, let's do this. You think I'm being a bitch, but I'm keeping his time because I know what he's trying to accomplish and what he's trying to do." So, does that help answer that question?

Chris:

Yes, it does. It's like the way that you function as a team internally is this is how we work. And if you don't know better, what people tend to do is they bring their standards, their values, and they project them onto you. Maybe you grew up differently and you have this perfect kind of leave it to be husband, wife team. And then you look at somebody who this is how you function, and you project that judgment onto people. You're like, "You know what? Step back, this is how we do our thing." And I don't do this myself, but I have moments where I work with my team in a very specific way and we have great results. And when somebody who doesn't know any better pierce into that world and starts to, I hate to say this word, but virtual signal to other people that they're cool and they're all for egalitarian and treating people a certain way.

And well, try to run a business, see what happens, see what happens. And then before you cast judgment, put yourself in those shoes just for hot minute. It sounds to me like the way you work, and I've met Neil briefly via Zoom or something like that. I saw him, he's the sweetest guy. I mean, he's very different than the way that you are. But you two make magic together. So you're like, "Okay, I'm not going to play that role." And it's an easy role for you guys to point out because you have a high self-awareness and high self-acceptance, which is pretty rare. And you're like, "I know how you're going to see me and I don't want to play that role."

Phyllis:

Yes. Yeah.

Chris:

Okay. Then how did they drag you into the Food Truck Race?

Phyllis:

Oh God. What it was is that I have resolved myself, because we had done other Good Day L.A. segments and I started showing up on those. And in those I didn't have to talk or really appear on camera, I just had to be window dressing. But when it came to this particular episode, Neil was like, "Baby, let's do this." And the reason it became a bad experience, because they came at us knowing that we were a barbecue restaurant, but then when it came time for us to leave that night, because we told them what we will need, the smoker and all of that. And when it was time to do this particular thing, they were, "Well, oh no, you guys got to cook when everybody else cook." I'm like, "Pump your brakes." So I was actually ready to walk away from the show. I'm like, "Baby, we don't have to do this. We have people standing in line. We make our money. We don't need this shit."

And the producers were trying to talk us into, "No, no, we really want you. We really want you." And so at the last minute we had to actually change everything that we had planned to cook for the show into some made up bullshit. But thankfully that bullshit ended up in being our second restaurant, which was Bigmista's Morning Wood. But it was in that moment of knowing that, "You know what? I'm doing this for you, sweetie, because the only reason I'm in this, I don't cook on purpose, not even for my child. So the only reason I do any of this is because I support you. So, if you want to do this, let's do it." My husband's a media whore, I know this. So let's get out here and do this thing for you.

Chris:

Okay. There's a lot of love in these words and-

Phyllis:

There really is.

Chris:

... there's a lot of love. We have to just keep reminding people. There's a colorful way of describing things and definitely you're going to get a lot of flavor and spice in this conversation. I think what Phyllis is saying in non-violent language is, "My husband enjoys the limelight and it's good for our business and our brand." I think that's what you meant to say, right?

Phyllis:

Sure. That is the very politically correct way to say it.

Chris:

Well, I don't even think of myself as politically correct, but sometimes if you don't-

Phyllis:

I know.

Chris:

I want to get into this a little bit, like different cultures and how we talk to each other and there's a familiarity and if you step into a different culture, it is very shocking.

Phyllis:

It is, when you're in a space, believe it or not, the more cussing you hear, probably the more love there is in the room. Because the way that I grew up, and when I talk about the whole countryside of me, my mom and them are from Texas and the way you supposed to stay there, my mom and them from Texas and growing up with them, sitting at the table playing dominoes, drinking the Hennessy and cussing everybody out, and it's like, "Fuck it." There's just all this different language. And so we grew up with it and you know what? They don't mean nothing by it. They'll tell you, you know when the tone changes if someone has gotten their feelings hurt and it has gotten serious. Because you pick up on the tone of voice, not the language that's used.

Because when somebody said, "Wait, hold up." Now you know some shit is about to pop off. Somebody got their feelings hurt and you about to get, let me put it this way, you're about to get cussed the fuck out. Because cussing is one thing, but cussing somebody out is totally different. So, when you're in a room and there's just words flying around and somebody's like, "I'm going to kick your arse," trust and believe there's going to be no arse kicking.

Chris:

Right.

Phyllis:

It is just a way of expressing, "You know what? I got you. I'm going to get you next time." Because it's just a way of joking around and how we speak and how we deal. So it's nothing it, I'm sorry you was traumatized a little bit.

Chris:

I was not traumatized. I was fascinated by this because where I am and where I've been, I don't have opportunities to [inaudible 00:18:38] into cultures where there's no censorship. It's just fully unbridled people being who they are. And you can feel the difference when you go into different rooms where people are from Asia or the Middle East or from the south or wherever they're from. There's different energy. And as a person who's curious about people and cultures, I listen in, I'm like, "Wow, that is a lot." And so I can relate to a degree. So the language that you're using, it's kind of Terms of Endearment in a way. Whereas if we're very formal with each other, there's not a lot of love. It's suspicion maybe.

Phyllis:

No, we're just being polite. We're just being polite.

Chris:

I can see that.

Phyllis:

Because part of it is also, if we went out in public and acting like that in front of other folks, I'm going to whoop your arse when I get home. Don't be going up here and showing out and acting crazy. We can do that amongst family. But there used to be a saying, "What goes on in my house stays in my house." So you don't go out in public showing your arse. You don't get to act like this with everybody. The more you act like this with people that are of another culture or of another neighborhood, the more you're actually showing love. It's like, "I consider you family now." So it's why so many black people embrace other people as family. Because sweetie, if I can say this to you and you can still stand here and hang out with me, oh, we're good. We're good all day.

Chris:

Okay. There's a connection here between the idea of community culture, connection and language. And we'll probably get to that a little bit, but when we talk about building a brand and learning the lyrics, so people want to feel like they belong to something, some group, because to be alone in the world and the universe is a horrible thought. And so we're looking for our tribe, whether you're part of the ghetto country or the hood adjacent family, or you're part of whatever entrepreneur's organization, there's a language that they speak. And if you want entree into that world, you learn to speak the language. And it goes both ways. If you're a brand that wants to connect with the specific culture, you have to learn their language and you have to meet them where they're at. And we then acknowledge and see each other. How much does brand voice play into the kind of work that you do and how you teach this?

Phyllis:

What I tell people, with my brand voice and how I speak and all of that kind of stuff, this is how I am at my house. If I come to your house, it's just like me being over here on the future. I'll respect your house. If you say I can't drop all the fucks, then you know what? I won't drop any, because this is your house. But when you're talking about building your own brand voice, you have to also recognize when you go over to somebody else's neighborhood, sweetie, watch what you say. Someone within The Futur, and I won't mention any names, they tried to connect with me on LinkedIn and on The Futur in the pro-group, we was cool. But then when he tried to connect with me on LinkedIn, he sent me a thing saying, "What up doll?" You don't know me like that.

And I was actually offended by it. Because you thought that you were that familiar with me that you can come at me that way. You know me as the Ghetto Country Brandmother, you don't know me as Phyllis. These are two, don't cross them up. And so I never connected with him, because no, you don't get to do that. "Had we had some personal kind of interaction before that, then that might have been cool. But this is the first time you're talking to me and that's what you come at me with? No, we are not cool. We are not cool at all." So, you have to be very careful, especially if you go off like I do. Then you have to be careful. I have to be careful where I take Ghetto Country Brandmother because there are actually some spaces that I might want to go into, but I won't because I know you don't like my get down.

So I'm not going to offend you and you're not going to offend me. I'm going to keep my black arse over here and shut the fuck up. And so it's with that understanding that if you're going to do this thing, if you're going to create a voice, you have to actually make sure that you know what, some people are not going to like it. But the same people that will call me ghetto and diss me for it will crawl over my arse to get to Gary B and let him drop all the fucks. So, it hits different.

Chris:

Are you saying that as a observation or a criticism?

Phyllis:

No, I'm just saying it as an observation.

Chris:

Okay.

Phyllis:

I don't criticize. No, it's an observation.

Chris:

Okay. Well, I have a personal experience here. When I was in high school, my friends, a very tight-knit group, small, small group, we would jokingly refer to each other as bastards. Not really obviously meaning that because one of them is my cousin, not the little definition, "You're a fatherless son of a loose woman," obviously. And we would say that to each other all the time. And he's like, "Oh, shut up, you bastard." And we would say things like that. And there was another person while we're playing basketball who was trying to get into our game and we're doing something. And I called him a bastard and he's like, "What'd you call me?" And then I realized what you said. You realize right now something had happened, a line was crossed inadvertently. And this is where hopefully maturity steps up and not ego. Where you're like, "My bad, my bad. I didn't realize we don't have that kind of connection. And my apologies, was harmless, my apologies, right?" Versus flaring up because someone challenges you even though you might have insulted someone.

So, you learn these lessons pretty early on that you have to be mindful of the language you use and where you're at, who you're with and the circumstances. And it can get quite complicated if you're not being intentional with the way you communicate. What kind of business lesson can be learned where someone is not really leaning into their culture in the way that you're talking about? If I'm a corporation, if I'm a mom and pop business and I want to attract a certain kind of client where I just want to be authentically myself, what kind of lessons can we learn here?

Phyllis:

You're going to have to learn that if you're embracing yourself, everybody does not like you. It is no different in your business. If you decide that you want to roll out your culture and you want to be all the way you, sweetie, just like people don't like you, don't like, they're not going to like you in business. But you get to decide because someone's going to come in here and say, "Oh, you need to change your attitude." "No, you need to get the fuck up out of here. Because this is my house. When I come to your house, then you know what, I'll change if I choose to." But like I said, my mama raise me a certain way. I'm never going to somebody else's house and disrespect them. And so I expect you to do the same. And so when you're doing this as a business and you're building a brand and you want to be that thing, like I said, I'm not about people pleasing.

I will tell you, "No, I don't want your money first." But if you want that money and you decide that you're going to change yourself in order to get that money, then sweetie, you stop being you in the first place you, you've moved on.

Chris:

By virtue of you being who you are, being Ghetto Country, hood adjacent, the Brandmother, do you put out a certain energy that attracts a certain type of client to you? And is that a good thing or sometimes that's limiting? What are your thoughts on that?

Phyllis:

I attract, surprisingly, I attract calm people. I really do.

Chris:

I need to meet these people. Show me some receipts as they say.

Phyllis:

It surprises me. You actually know one. Cass is one of my clients. And you see how mellow Cass is. Cass lives in London. She does not cuss. She will not let you push her beyond a certain lemon. She's like, "No, no, no, we're not doing that." She's just this ASMR voice that I'm not checking for that. But the thing is, it also allows her to, when we work together it allowed her to step up and say that, "I get to bring my queen to the stage." Because we call her the queen, but she gets to be that queen and that royalty brand that she wants to be and not have to apologize for the fact that, "This is the boundary that I'm creating around this."

And so when I talk about people being authentic in their brand, I'm talking about, "Sweetie, you get to set the boundaries and the limits for how you want to show up." And so if someone says that, "You know what? You shouldn't act like that." You get to correct them, and no, you're about to hear some shade. But I tell people, "Fuck what Jeff Bezos says about your brand is what people say when you're not in the room." If you say the wrong thing when I'm not in the room, then I need to correct you. Because especially if you're trying to establish a brand that has a certain reputation, then you have to correct that. If someone comes to me, usually my restaurant days, they used to come in and say, "Oh, you need to serve vegetarian food." I didn't ask you to come in here. If you needed something vegetarian, you should have asked your friends to take you somewhere else.

And I will say it jokingly and all that kind of stuff, "But baby, no, you know where you came, it says real good meat. It does not say anything about vegetarian on here." So, it's being able to set limits and boundaries around the personal brand that you create in order to create that business brand. And so if you are going to respect what you're building, just recognize, you can't go everywhere you want to go, not comfortably anyway. If you don't give a fuck, then you go wherever you please and just let the chips fall where they may.

Chris:

Okay. Oftentimes Asians are labeled as the good minority. Where we have learned, I think, and this is a very broad statement here, so I got to be careful how I phrase this, how to assimilate inter culture really fast. We subjugate our own culture where some cultures celebrate and put that front, like we learn the language, we learn the customs, and we move up really fast. We learn how to play the game and we play it well. We become the law doctors and lawyers. We fit into society really neatly so that we sort of disappear. And I think I can't be but influenced by some of that.

I think about how I am where I am at is because I learned to play other people's game really well, whether that's design or motion graphics or directing or brand building, or now as an educator, I kind of see the system and I understand, and I don't want to use this, let me ... I understand how to play the game and to take advantage of the opportunities or the openings. And I can fit into these molds pretty easily, because I want to capture the market or I want to have the kind of success. Now, your approach is so much, so 100% authentically you. Do you see that that may or may not create opportunities for you? I'm just curious.

Phyllis:

People will see it that way that I'm losing opportunities. But what I'm seeing it as is that that's the place I don't want to be anyway. If I have to be someone else, if I have to people please, if I have to kiss your arse, I don't want to be there anyway. And so I'd rather lose that opportunity. And I tell my clients, "What is your PIMA fee?" PIMA stands for pain in my arse. If you're going to accept some place that you don't necessarily want to go, the price has to be high enough for me to show up. And sometimes the price is playing that game. It's subjugating to that thing, it's adapting, and it's like, "You know what? Let me mellow out." So, that's the price you're willing to pay. Some prices, like I said, I haven't met one yet that I want to, but trust and believe there's a PIMA in my back pocket for what I do.

Chris:

Well, what if we take it to the extreme?

Phyllis:

Okay.

Chris:

You say, I'm not all the way on one side, you're not all the way on the other side, but we take the more extreme stance of where you are and you meet a young person who is your client, and they have exactly two clients that are not going anywhere, but they're like, "I'm not changing for nobody. I'm not compromising nothing." And they're starving and they can't put food on the table. And they've taken not your idea, but just this idea that you never compromise. It's unbending, unyielding. How do you help this person, or do you need to help them?

Phyllis:

It becomes part of their brand. If they decide that they're not going to shift in any shape, form, or fashion, then they're going to have to learn to attract people who are similarly drawn to someone like that. I want somebody that's going to stand 10 toes down in their shit, not move for anything. You have to learn to build a brand around, "How can I attract people that won't ask me to move?" And then when they do, you have to make sure that line that you're drawn in the sand, that you stick to it. Because once you cross it, everybody else that saw you like, "Oh, you punked out, uh-huh. See, you were faking and shaking."

And this is why I leaned so much in the authenticity because I don't want you to have to cross that line, "Sweetie, put your cards on the table and let the chips fall where they may." And then that way you don't have to worry about the code switching and the people pleasing. Now if you decide that, "Oh, well, you know what, they going to give me a million dollars, I'm going to fake and shake my arse off." But then the other people, once they see that they're not going to respect you anymore. And you're so worried about no liking and trust, this is all about respect now.

Chris:

All right, so you used the word, a phrase code switching. What does that mean?

Phyllis:

In black folks' language we used to always talk about, "Oh, you're talking white, you're trying to sound white." And so your language changes, all that vernacular that you hear and that ghetto country and all that kind of stuff, it suddenly becomes very polite and you pronounce all the words and you put all the ing-s on the end of everything. And so you code switch.

For somebody that's say nerdy, all of a sudden you're trying to roll out a pimp game and it's like, "Sweetie, your pimp game is weak because we know what's under all that Maybelline. This does not work for you. Why are you trying it? Why are you trying to code switch because you think it makes you look cooler? If cool is not your thing, then brand over here for the nerds and go make your money. You don't have to fake and shake for somebody else. It's all about, sweetie, what is relevant and conducive to you showing up as your best self. When you feel like you have to code switch and you have to put on a different language, a different hat, a different vibe, then you have now made yourself uncomfortable in order to make everybody else comfortable. And you should never do that."

Chris:

How do you distinguish between that and respecting the rules of the house? When I travel there's a lot of different cultures and Americans have a bad reputation around the world as being loud and obnoxious, like "Garson, give me this, do this." Because we're used to a certain level of service in America and when we go to other places they don't run things that way. And you're not only in their house, you're in their freaking country, learn to speak their language.

And so, are we code switching then? I mean, I'll take for example, Japan is pretty extreme. They have very specific customs and if you don't abide by them, it's a huge no-no and it's a giant thing of disrespect. They have a tremendous amount of respect for each other. So when you're in the subway, they ask you not to eat, not to talk on the phone and to mind your manners. So if you're going to be there talking loud, playing music and eating a taco or something like that, not that you would in Japan, but now you're disrupting a lot of people's flow. But if you're like, "I'm going to be a 100% myself, how does that fit in?" Japan has a custom of bowing, a lot of respect and gestures. They're pretty harmless, but you should try to play by their rules, or should you not? What do you think?

Phyllis:

I think you should. Because here's the thing, and like I say, being the Ghetto Country Brandmother is one thing. Phyllis, y'all would be surprised how quiet Phyllis actually is. When I went to Singapore, it was that kind of mindset that, and because I only lean into my empathy and not Empathic Bitch, I'm mother on everybody. When I went, I stayed at what's the hotel? Marina Bay Sands, and so I was on the concierge floor, they got to know me so well, by the time I got up there, my drink was on my table and they knew that they wanted me to try something new and different. Sweetie, it is a matter of respecting your house. And I tell them, "My sweetheart, when I call people sweetheart, it does not discriminate. It doesn't care about age, it doesn't care about gender, it doesn't care about culture. Sweetie, you're my sweetheart."

And so when I come in that room, trust and believe, my sweetheart is always with me. When I'm in somebody else's country or in somebody else's house, unless you tell me that, "You know what? Don't call me sweetheart. I don't like that." All right, I'll call you by your name. I'm still being Phyllis, but now I'm true on Phyllis. My mama told me to respect my elders, respect other people's things. Keep your hands to yourself. That's also Phyllis. It's not that I'm switching up or I'm code switching. This is how my mama raised me. And then my mama was still alive, and even at 57 she would whoop my arse. "Get your arse in the house and stop acting stupid."

It's all you, but like I say, you get to set the boundaries around how much you're going to put out there. And so a lot of people are attracted to this side of me. And it's something that actually Neil brought out at me because he was, "Baby, people like you." I'm like, "Why? I don't like being around a lot of people." I am very quiet and to myself and I'm reading and all of that. But when I go out, I see people. So he see you. What's wrong? Who's arse we need to go kick? And they'll start laughing like, "Oh no, I'm okay." "You sure? Because I got you." And I don't have a problem doing that. I see somebody happy, "What we're jumping about? What we're happy about?" I'm there with you. So that is all me. But like I say, when I set up and I set the boundaries around my life and my brand, trust and believe, you don't get all of Phyllis. The only people that deserve all of Phyllis, Neil, Morgan and a few close friends. And that's who gets that.

Greg:

Time for a quick break. But we'll be right back.

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Chris:

Welcome back to our conversation. Let's go back to the you working with Neil and finding that there's this other need for you to develop marketing and branding and developing something. I think it's hard to deny that you have charisma, you have a way with people and with words that you put people at ease because you're so much at ease yourself. And I think that's something that's important for people to learn from here, which is, when you are comfortable, you send out energy in your language, in your body, in your voice and everything that you do, your actions, how you carry yourself. And we see you're not fronting, you're not trying to fit in, and whether you're aggressive, kind, soft or loud, whatever it is, people say, "That person knows who they are." And you create space for people to join that. And I like that.

One of my shortcomings in life, Phyllis, you may or may not know this is, I see people. You see people differently, but I see people in a way that I know the person that's inside that wants to get out, but you keep showing up with this persona trying to fit in online and in person. And I can see right through it. Now, I do it gently. I do it in my style and my way, but I try to encourage people to lean into who they are and let go of the facade mostly because I tell them, "People can see right through it anyways." You think your mask is this brilliant, academy award-winning makeup thing, it's a $2 paper mask from the Dollar Store and we can see right through it. We really can. So, not only are you not yourself, you're repressing who you are, you're probably pretty miserable, but the fact is you're not fooling anybody. Let's go through some steps here.

Phyllis:

Okay.

Chris:

We're on the same page, maybe two different approaches to solving the same kind of thing, which is to help people to be 100% authentic themselves.

Phyllis:

Yes.

Chris:

What are some ways that you can help people to find that voice and to give them courage to be that?

Phyllis:

When I work with clients, the thing that I want to know most is, "What do you want to show up as and what do you want to be famous for?" And it has to be more than money, because people will put the label of money on anything, but when you dig deeper, it's like, "Okay, this is what I want to be famous for." And it's like, "Okay, why?" If you get famous for that thing, how is it going to impact your life? When we're talking about building out brands, you have to go back and look at, especially when you're a business of one, you got to go back and look at, "How is this going to impact my life? If I become famous and everybody's all up in my face, how is this going to impact my life?" With the understanding that I want to be authentically 100% myself, but how much of that self do you want to share?

So, when you start laying out, okay, "It's okay for me to be this in public, but I want to keep this for myself." Because you got to keep some parts for yourself, you shouldn't have to share that. I don't even share some parts of myself with my husband and my child. Then when you start to lay out and understand that, "This is all me, but this is how much of this I want over here, this is how much I want in my business, and all the rest of this gets to go over here in my life." It's laying out those things, when you talk about, when you look at it from the traditional way of branding, the purpose, vision, and mission, sweetie, you have to have a life purpose, a business purpose, and a brand purpose. Those are three different things.

When you talk about how much money you want to make, you got to make some money. The business got to make some money, and the brand got to make a profit. Everybody got to get paid. You have to understand and make your list of how these things are going to happen and understand that, you know what, once you set that boundary in place, it's not saying that you can't mature into something else, it's just saying, you know what? This is where I am right now. Because branding is all about closing the gap from where you are to where you want to be. Now that you've reached this level of maturity, don't you want to mature again? Why the fuck you're sitting right here and now your business is declining and you're losing money? Don't do that. It's just about having the conversation of, "Let's find out what it is that you really want to bring to this game. Tell me what it is?"

Chris:

Okay, so beyond money, why do you exist is the question. And you have to answer that on multiple dimensions.

Phyllis:

Yes.

Chris:

Am I getting that right?

Phyllis:

Yes.

Chris:

Okay. Phyllis?

Phyllis:

Yes, honey?

Chris:

What do you want to be famous for?

Phyllis:

What I want to be famous for? I want to be famous for, believe it or not, it's not what I do on my business. I love what I do, but what I want to be famous for is I want to, and I'm going to cry. I want to be famous for helping teen preneur. I want to help teens start businesses before they age out of the foster care system. That is what I really want to do. And when I was, the thing that pulled me out of the restaurant was coaching kids on starting businesses based on their gifts, talents, and abilities.

Because I don't think every kid was made for college and not every kid was meant to be broke, but we leave them sitting there because they don't fit into the STEM model, because they don't fit into the traditional school model. No, baby, you ain't got to do that. It's always been on my heart to do that. And once I make the money that I want to make, I don't need your fucking grants. I can go get my own money because I want to do this for them. I'm not even doing it for me. And that's what I want to be famous for.

Chris:

Why is this so important to you?

Phyllis:

Growing up the way that I did, even though I had my mom and dad, mind you, my dad didn't live in the house, but I was still a dad's girl. I still spent a lot of time with my dad. But just watching some of the kids and how they grew up and how they thought that they didn't have anything. They either had to play sports or they had to learn how to rap, and that was the only thing that they were known to be good for. It's the only thing people thought they could get them out of the situation that they were in. And I think that's a fucked-up place to lead them. So, it's always been on my heart to help. Who y'all want to throw away is who I want to go back and pick up.

It's also why I decided to help people with branding at the solo level. Sweetie, don't sit up here and dismiss who you are because you want to make some money. You can still make your money and do what the fuck you want to do. And that's very important to me. I don't condone a whole lot of shit in the world, but I respect your game. I don't tolerate it, I don't accept it, but I respect your game. I don't care. I don't have to go in the spaces that you're in, but I respect your game.

And a lot of people are dismissed and disrespected, or they feel like they have to change in order to say, "You know what? I got to go do this because I got to get this paper. I promise my mama a house. And the only way I can do that, I either got to go sell drugs, I got to rap, or I got to play basketball." Fuck that. Sweetie, it's a gift, talent and ability somewhere, somewhere that you can monetize. But if you're going to monetize it, you got to learn how to brand it and market it, because otherwise it's always going to be a side hustle. And I'm not here for that shit. I'm not.

Chris:

While you're growing up, are you seeing people your age to feel like that they're in situations where they don't have a lot of options and they look at what's available to them? And is this from your teen years you're seeing this and feeling this? Or is it later?

Phyllis:

It's all throughout my life, because even seeing some grown people now that have a business, I'm respected and say they have a business, but I see how they struggle from day to day, but they try to put on this front like, "I'm bawling out of control. I got a business." Sweetie, saying You have a business and running a successful business, two different things. And I want to help you, but you figure like, "No, I can do this myself. You can't tell me how to do my shit." This is why I only work, work with certain clients. Because I'm not going to sit up here and fight with you about your shit. If you want to sit here and struggle for the next two years when we could have got this done in six months, then baby do your thing. I see this and I even when ... I know you've seen this, when you see somebody call themselves putting out or launching something and they got all this crazy arse curly Q font and they put the purple and gold on it, and then they called it premium.

Come on now, that is not right. Well, you don't know. I bet you I have made more money than you do. Yes, I do know, but I can only do so much. And because I decided my business model was one-to-few, instead of one-to-many, I'm not taking on a whole lot of clients anyway. So, it's with the understanding that, "Sweetie, I see you." And on occasion I will help. I put out as much content as I can for free, but I no longer let you pick my brain to the point of picking my pocket. No, I'm not doing that. But if you want this work, I'm standing right here. I'm standing 10 toes down in this shit right along with you, but I'm not fighting for you more than you fight for yourself. And this is where the bitch comes in, when I say Empathic Bitch, sweetie, that empathy is going to make me stand. But if I'm doing most of the standing, bitch mode, I'm out.

Chris:

Okay. You said a bunch of things there. You're moving a little faster for me, Phyllis, I'm going to slow down-

Phyllis:

I'm sorry, sweetie, I'm sorry.

Chris:

No, no need to apologize, because there's a lot there and I've had the benefit of talking to you on many different occasions and different settings, and so I have more context than what our audience is going to have. And so I have to pretend like, "What is she talking about?" So, I want to unpack a few things here.

Phyllis:

Okay.

Chris:

When you say somebody's launching some new premiere premium thing, and you're talking about the purple and the gold, I think I know what you mean. But you got to just describe it a little bit. What are you responding to? What is it that's bothering you about this?

Phyllis:

Because I know that for one, they can only charge, say small amounts of money. They want to be this premium and this luxury thing, hence all of the purple and gold. But sweetie, when you make shit too busy, when you try to do too many things, when you try to have too many offers and too much shit on the table, it actually detracts from what you're trying to do instead of making it more attractive. And so when I see people do this and like, oh my God, I can't even tell that because they're going to hear it and somebody's going to be triggered, so I'm going to leave that one alone, but it's-

Chris:

You can abstract it a little bit.

Phyllis:

It's like because I own My Ghetto Country, the reason I own it, because this is why I'm comfortable. When I used to code switch, when I used to try and use all the proper English and the big words and all that kind of stuff, I wouldn't listen to you for the fact that I was trying to make sure I didn't say something stupid. And so I'm in these rooms on Clubhouse sometimes and I'm listening to these folks and it's like, "Could you please just pronounce it correctly? I don't care if it's a bad pronunciation, but stop putting a G where G don't belong."

Or even it's, oh my goodness, I was listening to this one person and if she said literally one more time, I wanted to shoot her in the face. And sweetie, you don't have to use that language just because it's a word. You can find your own language. And part of building a brand is finding your language. Now, if literally was her word, then sweetie, use it more sparingly. I'm sorry, just take it out if few times. But every sentence shouldn't start with literally. But you do develop a language.

Chris:

Especially if you mean figuratively.

Phyllis:

Really, oh my God. One of the words that I say to piss Neil off, I say conversate. Neil said, "It's converse." And it's, "Really, you think I don't know that, dude?" When I'm feeling very facetious, I say conversate. But I know, you know what? If you want to converse, it's not a problem. But I do want to see people do better. But like you say, I can't save the world. I really can't. I tried that and it left me broken. I don't do broke no more.

Chris:

I'm going to try to unpack a little bit and let's see if I understand what you're saying.

Phyllis:

Okay.

Chris:

Let's just say I'm struggling in my life and my business and I'm seeing the hallmarks of success, fancy car, nice suit, nice hair, whatever jewelry, flashy bags and shoes and I'm struggling. And then I say, "Well, that must signal to other people I'm successful, so I'm going to launch something. And I'm going to follow someone else's game plan, step outside of who I am in front and pretend and set up this facade." I'm doing the purple and the gold and I'm putting it out there. Were you like, "Bobby, Mary, Jane, whoever you are, I know you, you're struggling. Why you got to put up that stuff? Because nobody's buying it, because it isn't even you." There's all these fake Instagrammers who go on to the L.A. airport and then there's jets that you can go in. They're just props, they're not taking off and they take pictures and they try to front. Is that the kind of stuff you're responding to or is it a little bit different?

Phyllis:

No, it's that as well. Because I wouldn't probably never put anybody on Blast, which means I'm not going to call them out on they shit. I'm not going to do that to you in public. But if I do see something that I could possibly just give you a little hint on something, I'll send you something in the back channels or I'll send you an email, "Here sweetie, you might want to do this a little bit." But I found when I do that, people want to say, "Well, let me send you this. Can you check this for me?" No, now you're trying to pick my pocket. And so you have to be very careful when you try to help somebody adjust their crown, as we would say.

Chris:

All of a sudden, there's this clip, I think that's with Michael Jackson and Eddie Murphy. And Michael Jackson steps up to the microphone. He's like, "Eddie, can you adjust this?" And Eddie goes, "To adjust." He's like, "You adjust your own fricking mic. Who do you think I am? Are we talking about the same thing here?"

Phyllis:

A little bit. But there's a thing that black women say a lot of times, "Queen adjust your crown." So, they don't want you out here looking crazy and all of that kind of stuff. But sometimes they don't want their crown adjusted. They think they got it on straight. And so I say you have to be very careful, but then also when you do adjust and it's well received, you can't keep going down that rabbit hole of, "Can you look at this? Well, now can you help me with this?" Because I tell people, "You got maybe two or three times and I'm going to have to tell you got to roll me out my coin. You're going to have to pay me. You're going to have to book a session." And it was never meant to be that.

So, when you're talking about adjusting somebody's crown, for you it's just different. You know what? You get on the future protocols and people ask you something and essentially sometimes you're adjusting people's crown. It's like, "Yeah, no, don't do that. That's not conducive to what you're trying to build as an agency. That's you adjusting someone's crown." But then they want to sit there and it's like, "Y'all know this is a limited room. We only have Chris for an hour. Why are you trying to talk to him for 30 minutes?" That should be pissing me off.

Chris:

I thought you said you weren't going to put anybody in Blast? Now they know who they are.

Phyllis:

But no, I'm not calling out no names. That's the thing.

Chris:

No names.

Phyllis:

I'm not calling out no names.

Chris:

It's like if you're chewing up some time, now you know your name was sort of hinted at there. Yeah.

Phyllis:

But there's more than one, you know that.

Chris:

I know, I know. There's plenty actually. What we're talking about too is sometimes we try to help people. We notice something and you're like, "Hey, you might want to adjust this." And then they feel like, "Oh, I got some value there and what else should I do, Phyllis?" You're like, "Hey, hey, come on. I'm trying to help you a little bit here. Don't take advantage of my kindness and generosity, right? If you want me to help respect that that my time ain't free. And help me help you help yourself. And we can do that." It's a tough line to draw, because sometimes we want to give, and then people, I don't think they do it maliciously all the time, but they see a helping hand. They grab all of the hand, the shoulder, the rest of the torso and they drive you into their mess, right?

Phyllis:

Yeah, I had somebody reach out to me on Clubhouse saying, "I want to work with you." And I read through, he had wrote text, three paragraphs. Now at the bottom it's like, "But I can't pay you, but when I make my trillions, I break you all billions." Get the fuck up out of here.

Chris:

Such a pretty good line though. It's all BS, but I respect the line.

Phyllis:

[inaudible 00:53:08] know what, but yeah.

Chris:

It's funny. At least you're funny.

Phyllis:

Yeah.

Chris:

Okay, I don't want to leave this loop open, so I want to close this part. You said that, "I want to be famous for something that I'm not doing right now." You said you want to help teenagers figure out their entrepreneur game before they age out of the foster system. Pardon my ignorance here. Do we age out of the foster system at 18?

Phyllis:

Yes, [inaudible 00:53:37].

Chris:

So, you need to reach this teenager. I mean, it's because they're not going to happen overnight. These kind of transformations, it's not instantaneous. We're talking about 13, 14 that you have to coach about?

Phyllis:

No, I'm talking about 16 or 17. I want them to-

Chris:

16 or 17? Okay.

Phyllis:

At least a year before they age out.

Chris:

And then they have to have the wherewithal to know that they can become independent business people, not follow some crazy plan. They have to be able to seek you out, find you, and to be open enough to work with you and apply what it is that you teach them. There's a lot of conditions on this thing for this to work.

Phyllis:

And there are, so once I go back into that realm, because that's what CKO Creator was about, Chief Kid Officers. Once I get back into that, I will connect with agencies and it will still be limited. It may be only 10 kids at a time or something like that. Because you can't just walk up to me and say, "Well, I want to be an entrepreneur." "Well baby, what do you do?" "Well, I thought you would help me start a business." "If you don't know, I don't know. It doesn't work like that. You have to have some type of gift, talent, and ability that we can monetize and now we can turn it into a brand and market it."

But just walking up to me telling me you want to make some money, I don't care kid or not, get the fuck home, I don't play like that. It is with the understanding that I know my services will be limited, but I also know that that will probably be the one time that if I have to move into a classroom where I will do one-to-many in that respect. But the folks that will get the one-on-one will be very limited.

Chris:

Okay, so here's what I've been picking up from you so far. Correct me where I'm wrong, please?

Phyllis:

Okay.

Chris:

You grew into understanding how to run a business because you and your husband started a business. And you handled everything. Finance, marketing, sales, customer relations, basically everything that isn't making the product and putting a smile of face on it. And so you have your business chops, from the School of Hard Knocks, I believe, right?

Phyllis:

Yes.

Chris:

And then along the way you also start to figure out that people don't understand who they are. They're trying to be all kinds of things to other people. So, you start to figure out, "You know what? I need to help people figure out their true self and to be brave enough and courageous enough to present that to the world." Is there another component to what it is that you are able to do and help people with?

Phyllis:

In the way that I work? I know that we talk about personal branding a lot. And people think because I do have a strong personal brand that I do personal branding. And I've only recently accepted the realization that I kind of do, only because part of how you build your brand as a business, and one, you have to have a personal brand and a business brand. So, you cannot build over here if you haven't established over here. Establishing that personal brand that feeds the business, that endorses the business, I don't want you out here pitching and feeling all kind of sideways. Let's learn how to endorse this shit. Just like you endorse any other business or anything else that you love, you can endorse your business and not feel creepy and salesy and all that kind of stuff. It's with the understanding that, "Okay, let's deal with this personal brand and then we're going to find a way to build it into the business brand."

And so, one of the things I help with, and we talked about is the two word brand. I love two word branding because it can set the foundation for how you scale, even if you don't have a full-on brand strategy. Being an Empathic Bitch or being the Ghetto Country Brandmother, being the Ghetto Country Brandmother, I don't talk about, I'm on platforms. No, I got a house on YouTube. I got a house on TikTok, so I talk about it in that format. I talk about my clients being my brand babies. And so all of it comes from me being a brandmother in the nurturing that I do. I don't help you, I nurture you. So, understanding these things, when you come up with a two word brand that you can actually scale it into something more, but you have to realize where to draw the line.

It's like, "Okay, my personal brand starts to end here. Now I'm falling into business brand territory, and I have to let everybody else magnify this while I maintain my personal brand." It's just like you constantly, you are Chris Do and people see you as a brand, but you're always endorsing The Futur. You don't pitch it, you don't sell it, you just talk about it. And a lot of people think that, "Oh, well Chris is selling." Chris don't sell. I've yet to see you sell anything. But you constantly endorse The Futur pro-group. Even now, the only thing, the first time I ever seen you do something along the lines of selling was when you start talking about your European tour. That's the only time. But any other time you don't pitch shit. And people got to understand, sweetie, you don't have to always beat people over the head with what it is that you offer. But because you built up that authority and that expertise it's like, "I can just walk in a room and say my name," and be like, "Ooh, Chris, Chris, no."

Chris:

That is a dramatization of something that may or may not happen. I'm just going to put that out there, okay? It's funny because people, my team, they'll tell me, "When you leave the room, people start fanning out." It's like, "Okay, I don't know. I don't see, and it's all good by me." For people who are not familiar with this concept, what is a two word brand to you?

Phyllis:

Two word brand could be something as obvious as like you say, me being the Ghetto Country Brandmother, but then my actual two word brand is more of a description of being the Empathic Bitch. It sets the tone of how I will work with you. It's like, "Sweetie, I got all the love, but my love comes with violence when it needs to." And so you're able to work everything around that and it makes the conversation more engaging. If I walk into a room people say, "What do you do?" "I'm an Empathic Bitch." "Wait, what?" And it's funny because people are afraid to actually use the word bitch when I say it, so it makes them a little uncomfortable, but they still want to know more. And so when you use a two word brand, whether it's in your how you learn to use it in your bio, how you learn to use it in a conversation at a conference, at a networking event, there's all these different ways that you can use it and lean into it that help you to establish your authority and your expertise.

And people need to stop making it so complicated. Actually, own the fact that this is who you are. You recently did a podcast with Sean, and Sean tells everybody, "Phyllis told me to lean into my crazy." No, I told you to own your crazy, but you want to use lean all the time, you go ahead and lean, dude. But it's with that understanding. Own the crazy that you want to put out there. Don't let somebody else weaponize it against you, use it as your strength. Own something, be okay with it.

Chris:

If we look at something like this, I mean, I think we've touched on this and I'll try to bring it all together for everyone listening, because Phyllis' mind moves really fast. She's a very creative person, creative with words and descriptions, and I'll do the boring part and try to explain some of it to you. Sorry if I mansplain this, everyone.

Phyllis:

Come on, mansplain.

Chris:

Let me try. When people ask you what you do, people get this thing, it's called diarrhea of the mouth. They start shooting all kinds of things and it's like, "It's too much. It's too much. You're taking up too much time, too much space, and I like you, but I don't like you that much." We know a couple things with the way the human brain works. If you make me work too hard, it consumes more energy and I'm going to fall asleep. That's what happens in lecture halls. We've done it. We've been a part of it. We've been on both sides of that, right?

Phyllis:

Yes.

Chris:

What you have to do is you have to fight against complexity, because complex things are hard to understand, they're hard to remember and you're just asking too much from the other person. So we got to make it simple. And so what we find is if we can distill it down to one word, that would be incredible. And next best is two words. Now, you have a one word brand, which is Brandmother, and I love that. Basically you've smashed two words together and you're using your very creative brain, say grandmother or Brandmother. And you find that connection. And when you know it's a good connection is when you think, "How obvious, but how cool? Why didn't I think of that?" That's the hallmark of a good idea when it's like, "Huh?" That's a terrible idea because it's like you smashed two words together, but it didn't come together elegantly. And anybody can smash two words together.

So, it takes elegance, it takes intelligence and creativity to bring these things together. You've done what I would consider the hat trick, which is I try to tell people, find two words, juxtapose together that allow you to occupy a very unique space. Not one of one, but one of few. And that's all we need to do, so that it creates intrigue and people are like, "Tell me more? That's so interesting." And you own not only the strengths of you, but also some of the vulnerability. And I think that's where the magic is. So everybody wants to say, "I'm a creative visionary." Like, "Yeah, everybody else says the same thing." That's just good on top of good, and it's probably not even true.

We try to find these two words, and the way I try to describe it to people is, there's usually the persona, the person who you show up in public, how you try to be all buttoned up. I'm not trying to say anything. I dressed up for this call. I think you dressed up a little bit. You're not going to sit there and just throw in your pajamas. We show up a little bit because we want respect and we want to be seen in a certain way. Nothing wrong with that. But if that's all you do, you lose who you are.

Phyllis:

Yes.

Chris:

The other side is to lean into the shadow, the things that we have some shame or guilt around that we're afraid that, "If people find out about this, they're not going to like me so much." But in actuality, true strength comes from embracing what it is that is inside your shadow, your vulnerability. I was just on this program where somebody, I'm [inaudible 01:03:06] his name right now, he was helping me with my purpose map. And he pulled this line and he said, "In the shadow are glimmers of divinity."

Phyllis:

Wow.

Chris:

It points to your, these little gold flakes are part of what makes you you. When you're doing the Brandmother, now some people is like, "Well, why would you celebrate that you're older, that you could be a grandmother?" Because that's part of who you are.

Phyllis:

That's hard. I've always been a mom even before I had a child.

Chris:

There you go. And so we put these things together and we find this. Now, I was talking to Joe Capon on an interview with him about the laws of creativity. He says, "If you take any one dimension of who you are, and we have multiple dimensions, you are one of 10,000." Let's say there's 10,000 variables, like different types of skin color, different types of eyes, or different kinds of sports or whatever it is. There's 10,000 variables. If you're one variable, you're one of 10,000. But if you take two variables together, it's 10,000 to the second power, which I think is a million.

Phyllis:

Wow.

Chris:

If you take three variables, it's a billion and you take four, it becomes a trillion, I believe.

Phyllis:

Wow.

Chris:

This is why we try to encourage people, you and I, and we take different approaches, but the result is the same, is to help people not only understand how they want to show up, but who they really are. And the overlap in a Venn diagram, the two circles, in that center part is something fairly unique. And that's what you try to help people find in their two word brand, right?

Phyllis:

Yes. My clients have taken on names, you know the Ratchets Age, you know the Ethical Strategist, but then there's the Brand Misfit. There is, my husband is now the Hospitable Box who, I can't say hers because it has an African dialect to it, but one of my other, she calls herself the [foreign language 01:04:56] Whisperer. And these are different things that people lean into and they own, because like I say, this is part of what they want to be famous for. And so it's with the understanding that, sweetie, my client, like I say, half my clients don't cuss like me. You met the the Ratchet Age that's probably about as close as you going to get to how I operate.

But then everyone else is like, "I don't know how to show up as myself." And I think they get scared because they wonder if people are still going to like them. Sweetie, the thing about it is, when you create it, you create the attractiveness of what people like. People are drawn to you for a reason. And if you own that part, one of the easiest way I tell them to find it, "If you're not going to work with me, this is how you do it. Why do your friends like you? If you don't know, go ask them. Why do they like you? And tell them to tell you the weird shit, not the shit that everybody else sees. Why do they like you? Do you touch your spoon to your nose or something? Why do they like you? And lean into that part of it and then find a way to tie it to what it is that you do."

When we talk about the Brand Misfits, she talks about her journey of all these missteps she has, but then also the misfits of her clients that come to her when they're struggling trying to build their websites. So, there's misfits all up and through, so she can own that thing. I've been a misfit since day one, and she gets to tell that story and their journey based on that misfit journey. When Cass came to me, and she came to me totally differently, but when she started leaning into the Ethical Strategist, we had to fight about this operational hummingbird, I'm like, "Girl, please lose that shit." But it had to be on her terms, and she finally did. But that was the thing, it did not fit. But the Ethical Strategist, I understand that because when she talks about policies and procedures as they affect your internal community, it hits different and she can have that conversation.

It allows you to bring out a story that you want somebody to ask you about so that you can have the conversation. It is a thing that leads to you not having to pitch. But you know what? Let me hook you with this one-arse line and I bet you're going to want to talk to my arse the rest of the night.

Chris:

Why do you think it's so hard for people to figure out their two word brand? It's something, because I do speak on this subject and people are like, "What about this?" "That's boring, that's generic. You're not telling me anything new." So, people need help with this. But why do you think it's so difficult for people?

Phyllis:

Because they're trying to find all of their good qualities and they're afraid to be vulnerable. A lot of people are afraid to be vulnerable in public. I am very, as private as I am, I'm very transparent. I don't really have any secrets. I met my husband on the internet and we spilled all our beans over the internet. But it takes a level of bravery. No, I won't even say bravery. It takes a level of courage, because courage means you do it afraid. And so when you decide that you're going to step out and it's like, "Oh, this is uncomfortable, but I like it." Like when somebody come along and smack when your wife smacking on your arse, "Ooh, baby."

Chris:

My wife doesn't do that, so I'm going to have to encourage her to try a couple times.

Phyllis:

But there's something that, when you start trying on something new, it's meant to be uncomfortable. Because you have to learn to lean into it. When you start to lean into it, you begin to like it more. And because it gives you a level of confidence for any room you walk into, that's why you begin to embrace it. Because nobody else is walking in the room with this thing. Nobody else is walking in the room as an Empathic Bitch or a Ghetto Country Brandmother. I get to put on my big girl panties and show up like the fuck I want to. And so when you talk about being a loud introvert, y'all going to drain my energy, but I'm going to be loud as fuck. I'm up in here now.

And you get to own that. And it's with that understanding that, you know what? If you're going to be famous, if you're going to be loud, because baby, you're a business of one, you got to be the loudest one in the room. How are you going to do that? And two, where branding helps you do that. It helps you hook people, it helps you be engaging. It helps you be memorable. Because walking in the room as Phyllis, y'all forget my name as soon as I turn my back. But if I tell you to go Google Ghetto Country Brandmother, well, I'm going to remember that shit. I don't care if you never look up Phyllis Williams-Strawder, I bet you will go look up Ghetto Country Brandmother. It is different.

Chris:

That's a good clue though what you said, is if it doesn't make you uncomfortable, it's probably not a good two word brand. Because part of the discomfort is to lean into some of your vulnerability, the things that you're afraid to show the world. But when you can own it, it's powerful stuff.

Phyllis:

Yes.

Chris:

It really is. And so we've been taught, maybe not you, maybe not me, but when I say we, we've been taught how to fit in to society to be accepted, to be loved, and to be appreciated. So much conditioning goes on that we then forget who we are. And that's why oftentimes you need an external person to look at you, to see you for who you are, and to highlight not only the good, because a lot of people can do that, but to highlight some of the things that you know aren't perfect about you. But it is you and you're not going to change that part, and you've learned to embrace it. I refer to this as part of the 8 Mile Rule with Eminem and B-Rabbit, where the final moment in the climax of the movie, he does the battle rap and he takes away all the ammunition from his opponent and leaves him speechless and destroys him that way. Because he professes all the things that would be critical, negative things about him that then the other rapper has no material to work with.

Phyllis:

None.

Chris:

Destroys him. And that's when you step into your true power and when you step into your light and out of the darkness. And I think it's a beautiful thing when you can help people find this, and it's not an easy thing to do. It might be easier for someone like Phyllis, but it's a wonderful thing to do. Now, there's something else that you did that I just want to point out and highlight to people. And what you do is, I've only seen a handful of other people be able to do this, where you have an idea and you're able to riff on the idea and build sub-brands in a whole language or lexicon around one central idea. This person I'm thinking of, his name, name is Johnny Cupcakes, and I want to illustrate this and I want to connect it to you, so allow me to go there for a second.

Phyllis:

Okay.

Chris:

So Johnny Earle, aka Johnny Cupcakes comes up with a T-shirt brand that serves no baked goods, but he deliberately does things to riff on this whole bakery thing. He has affiliate partners. He doesn't call them affiliate partners, he calls them bake dealers. Or cake, I'm sorry, he calls them cake dealers, okay? So he's playing around here a little bit and he doesn't put his shirts on shelves, he puts them inside refrigerators, and you don't get the shirt that you buy in a bag or a box. You get it inside of a bakery takeaway box. He has a menu, so he's understood a theme. He knows how to build it. Now, you said this so quickly, that unless you were really carefully paying attention, you might have missed it, so I want to go back a little bit. What you said, Phyllis was, you said, "I'm the Ghetto Country Brandmother. I'm not on social platforms. I have a house." Did you say brandhouse or just house?

Phyllis:

No, I said I got a house-

Chris:

A Ghetto house.

Phyllis:

... residence, yeah.

Chris:

And then you don't have clients, you have brand babies. So, you're building something and each time someone understands the language and the creativity, it goes in with the way you describe things. It goes all the way back to Ghetto Country Brandmother.

Phyllis:

Yes.

Chris:

And you do that so well. So you have a gift with language. And I remember the time when I was in a room with you and your two friends spinning around. I was like, "Oh my God, you need to have a podcast because your way with words and you're wordsmithing and you're doing it on the fly." Maybe some of it's premeditated, but I don't care. It feels good. And I'm thinking, "This woman is special. She has a talent, she has a gift." And that's why I wanted to invite you on today's podcast so you can share some of that magic, some of that Ghetto Country Brandmother magic at the world.

Phyllis:

Well, I appreciate it, sweetie. I'm going to tell you something. I was talking to Matthew, and I can never say his name, Matthew C, and he was telling me his story about, I'm sorry, being blind and deaf in one ear and all of that kind of stuff. And he was talking about how he was talking about inclusion, and we were just having a conversation and I said, "Sweetie, you need to become the Neuro of the Top, because you talk about your neurodiversity and you're that photographer and you're trying to tie those two things together. You need to become the Neuro of the Top. And whenever you get on the stage and you're speaking, you need to have a mic in the one hand in the camera and another, and you're taking pictures and you're giving your speech like, 'You know what? Look, when we talk about this and we are looking at the lens and what it captured.'"

When you can't see the diversity in the room because your lens is so small and so tight. When you don't see the bigger picture. It's like there's a way that you can turn around, and like I say, you build on it. You start speaking the language. It's no different than any comedian. When he has a mic in his hand and his drink is on the stool. Having a two word brand is so conducive to how you can grow and build and expand your business, so don't be afraid of it.

Chris:

I want to ask you for one of your secrets here. You're the Ghetto Country Brandmother. How does that inform the clothes you wear, the colors you pick, does it?

Phyllis:

Oh shit. No.

Chris:

I'm just teeing you up here, so you take it.

Phyllis:

No. I am, believe it or not, I'm a fan of the classics. They don't represent a whole lot of black people, but I am a fan of the classics. Like Lena Horne and especially [inaudible 01:14:38] and all of them. But I'm also a big fan of The Thin Man. I don't know if you know that movie, but it's a style and a vibe. I love a good fedora, but I also love a good bourbon and a cigar. And so even though those are things that I do in my life, I also bring them to my brand. When I'm in a meeting with clients, depending on the time of day. If we're doing a six o'clock call, then sweetie got her bourbon right here and my cigar is right here. And my clients feel comfortable enough. And I'm going to tell y'all, some of my clients, when we having a session, they got they joint, their weed, they whatever, they're vaping.

Because it's not about that, it's about the work. Now, you get to decide outside of this room if that's what you want to show to the world. I don't mind showing it, but that doesn't mean that you have to do it. Sweetie, if you don't want anybody to know and see you're rolling a joint and all that kind of stuff, then don't put it out there. But just recognize that if somebody else tells your story, and you can even talk about it without ever showing it, you know what? Every once in a while I get a little faded. And you can share that, but you don't have to show it. Because now like you say, you're taking that weapon away from somebody else who wants to try to put you on Blast about it. "Oh, you shouldn't work with her because she smokes weed." Seriously? You think I can't rock this gang with a little joint in my hand? I don't smoke weed personally, but I grew up with it around it all my life.

And so you get to understand that I get to be the part of me that I want to be within my brand. And just like you would not be, people don't believe that I'm introverted. I promise you, people suck the life out of me, but I don't mind. But trust and believe, once I'm done you might not hear from me for two or three days. But it is because I love what I do and I tell people to take the word help out of their whole brand part of it. But because I want to nurture people and I want to pour into people, that's why I do this. And I want to pour enough into you where you can stand up on your own. I don't want to give you a bunch of fish. Bitch, you learn how to fish on your own. That's your job. You got to feed yourself. How are we going to do this? I'm here as long as you need me, but I want you to grow to the point that you don't.

Chris:

Love it. You might see Phyllis holding a cigar with one leg up on a chair, other hand holding a glass of bourbon. Is it bourbon?

Phyllis:

It's bourbon.

Chris:

Yeah, because I don't drink at all. The whole culture's strange to me. I don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't cuss. But somehow you and I have become friends, and it's kind of fascinating. It's like, that's a conversation for another day. We'll conversate on that later. Now, the reason why I just want to say this is, we're trying to help people build their brand and to help to push their business forward. And you've connected a couple ideas. You have your business brand, you have your personal brand. The personal brand allows you to be you and informs people of the business, because businesses can be cold and generic and corporate. And we understand that is what it is. And you can shine bright and some of that light can fall on your business and it can work in unison together.

We talked about finding your two word brand and building a lexicon, a whole vocabulary of distilling that core idea down to everything that you do so it trickles back up and reinforces the brand. And we just talked about one last part of it, which is the way that your brand lives in the real world, because it's not always what you write. It's about how you live, how you carry yourself, how you present. And if they're all in unison and it's truly you, then it makes it very strong, believable, and authentic. I'm a loud introvert, so what that really means is, I'm a shy person by my nature, and I would rather just be at home with my computer. But I have to push myself out there because I know that's going to hold my business back. And you feel the same way. We got to show for what we got to do to do the media stuff, step into the light temporarily. We'll take our nap later, but we'll do it.

So for me, the loud introvert is a person who wears bold prints, colors, typography, maybe a little bit flashy from here to there, because that's how I'm able to get people to come to talk to me. And so you can see this becomes not just words we write on a piece of paper, but how we govern our lives and how we make decisions and what kind of actions we take. And I want people to know that. Phyllis and I are not out here saying, "Let's craft something that A, is not you, and B is something that's just on a piece of paper that we can all smile and pat each other on the back. Good work today, right?" No, it has to be something that is useful to you, that becomes a part of you because it is you.

And I would not settle for words that don't have that kind of power. Phyllis, I could talk to you for a couple more hours. I can't, but I want to make sure that I do ask this. For people who are intrigued by who you are, your energy, your vibe, your ethos, and also if they want to help you with building this entrepreneurship program for teenagers who you want to help and support, how did they find out more about you? Where did they go? Please tell us?

Phyllis:

You can always go to brandmashouse.com. You can find my houses on YouTube, TikTok, and various places, Twitter. You can either look for GC Brandmother. Those are where I do my personal thing. But then there's also Brandma's House. So Brandma's House is on Facebook, it's on YouTube and all of those, because I try and keep them separate. They have similar voices, but trust and believe, they are different. Then you can always send an email. And my email is holla@brandmashouse, H-O-L-L-A, holla@brandmashouse. Because my grand baby's Holla. For real, for real. So, there you go.

Chris:

Thank you so much.

Phyllis:

Thank you, sweetie. This was fun. Hey, Brandbabies, this is a Ghetto Country Brandmother, and you are listening to The Futur.

Greg:

Thanks for joining us this time. If you haven't already, subscribe to our show on your favorite podcasting app and get a new insightful episode from us every week. The Futur Podcast is hosted by Christ Do and produced by me, Greg Gunn. Thank you to Anthony Barro for editing and mixing this episode, and thank you to Adam Sanborn for our intro music.

If you enjoyed this episode, then do us a favor by rating and reviewing our show on Apple Podcasts. It'll help us grow the show and make future episodes that much better. Have a question for Chris or me? Head over to thefutur.com/heychris, and ask away. We read every submission and we just might answer yours in a later episode. If you'd like to support the show and invest in yourself while you're at it, visit thefutur.com. You'll find video courses, digital products, and a bunch of helpful resources about design and creative business. Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next time.

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