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Elevating Your Personal Brand with Style
Chris Do explains how to engineer your personal style to communicate value, manage perceptions, and create opportunities in a competitive world.
Chris Do
Founder, The Futur™ · September 8, 2023
This Is Not a Fair System
Water covers over 70 percent of the Earth. It rains from the sky, free for the taking. Yet somehow, companies have convinced the world to pay more for a gallon of bottled water than for a gallon of gasoline, a resource that requires massive capital investment to extract, refine, and distribute.
This paradox is not about hydration. It is about branding.
It’s a lesson in how perception designs reality, and it reveals a fundamental truth about the world we operate in. We are taught to believe in a fair system, the kind we experience in school. In that world, there are clear rules, known outcomes, and a direct path to victory. There are right and wrong answers. Success is a matter of following instructions.
The real world does not operate under a fair system. It operates under a wicked one.
Author David Epstein explores this concept in his book Range. A wicked system is one where the rules are unclear, feedback is delayed and inaccurate, and there is no single right answer. It’s a world where less talented people get promotions over their more qualified peers, and it makes no logical sense. As The Futur’s founder, Chris Do, explains, “It doesn’t compute. It’s like it doesn’t function in our brain. And the reason is because the rules to the real world aren’t there. All of it’s fabricated. It’s a construct.”
To navigate this world, you cannot rely on the linear, convergent thinking rewarded in school. You need something more. You need divergent, non-linear thinking, the kind that allows Mavericks to disrupt entire industries. Elon Musk didn’t beat NASA by playing their game. He solved a wicked problem they ignored: making rockets reusable. He applied existing ideas in a new way and revolutionized space travel.
This is what business thinker Daniel Pink meant in A Whole New Mind when he argued that right-brainers will rule the future. The ability to combine analytical thinking with creative, divergent problem-solving is a superpower. It’s about activating the whole mind.
This same principle applies not just to building rocket ships, but to building a career, a business, and a name for yourself. It applies to personal branding, and more specifically, to its most visible and visceral element: your personal style.
The Power of the Package
A product without a story is a commodity. When there is no story, there is no emotional attachment, no preference, and no reason to pay a premium. The decision defaults to a single variable: price.
The story is told through packaging. Consider a simple experiment. Two bottles of shampoo, both containing identical liquid. One is in a sleek, minimalist black bottle with elegant typography, staged among balanced stones in a spa-like setting. The other is in a generic, brightly colored plastic container on a plain white background. Which one is more expensive?
The answer is immediate and intuitive. The design, color palette, shape, and context communicate value before you ever read the ingredients. The same is true for coffee. A bag with dark, bold graphics, exploding coffee beans, and a starburst effect is perceived as stronger than another, even if the copy and logo are identical.
Packaging absolutely influences our perception of quality, taste, and freshness. As author Seth Godin writes in his book All Marketers Are Liars, marketers and consumers are complicit in a pact. The brand tells a story, and the consumer chooses to believe it. “We taste the wine before it enters our mouth,” Do says, “just by how we hold it in the glass, how it’s poured, how it’s presented.”
Our minds are built to fill in absent details with story and context. This is the core engine of branding.
So what is brand? It is not a logo or a color scheme. According to brand expert Marty Neumeier, “Brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or organization.” It’s what they say it is, not what you say it is. Cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Christine Looser defines it even more practically. For her, branding is simply impression management.
You cannot control how people feel about you. But you can absolutely influence it. You do it on a first date. You do it in a job interview. You pay extra attention to your handshake, your eye contact, and your presentation. You are managing the impression you make.
This is why branding creates preference. It builds an irrational, emotional connection that allows a company to charge a premium. The value of a brand, its ROI, can be measured by how much more someone is willing to pay for it over a cheaper, generic alternative. This is the space where Apple, Porsche, and Starbucks thrive. They’ve already won the battle for your heart and mind. As Marty Neumeier argues in The Brand Flip, we don't just buy products anymore. “We are joining tribes. We’re searching for meaning. We want to form our identities.” Every dollar you spend is a vote for the world you want to live in.
This understanding of brand is crucial, as Do explains in Developing a Winning Brand Strategy. But how does this apply when the product is you?
You Are the Product. Your Wardrobe Is the Packaging.
For a personal brand, there is no bottle or bag. There is no traditional package. Or is there?
Your face is your logo. It’s the container for meaning, the shorthand for who you are. We are neurologically attuned to faces. We might forget a name, but we remember a face.
The product itself is you: your beliefs, your values, your skills, what you think, say, and do.
And your packaging? That is your wardrobe. It is the clothes you wear, your grooming, your posture, and the accessories you carry. It’s the entire context and narrative you present to the world. And people make judgments based on it instantly.
To illustrate this, Chris Do puts a friend, Rich, under the microscope. From thirty feet away, Rich is wearing a non-descript t-shirt, pants, sneakers, a backpack, and a hat. The immediate assumptions about his occupation range wildly: creative, tech developer, trainer, videographer. There is no clear signal.
Zooming in, we see the logo on his t-shirt is for RVCA, a skate and surf brand. He wears a wristband and a watch. We can make a few more guesses about his backstory, but the image remains generic, pleasant but indistinct. The crucial question is this: what impact does his packaging have on the perception of his value? Is it positive, negative, or neutral? For most, it's neutral. He blends in.
Here is what the packaging fails to communicate. Rich is a Marine veteran who served with Apache attack helicopter crews. He is an entrepreneur who runs a podcast production company. He’s a videographer who works with A-list clients. He is an athlete who is in the gym at 5 A.M. every morning. He is, by all accounts, a disciplined, generous, and highly capable professional.
His packaging tells none of that story. It is a generic container for a premium product. It is an opportunity waiting to be seized.
The Style Playbook in Action
How do you transform a generic package into a narrative that communicates value? It begins with intention. It requires a makeover, a reimagining of how style can tell a story. For Rich, the process starts by identifying the core pillars of his identity: military background, athletic discipline, and creative profession.
The first step is moving from baggy, non-descript clothes to a more tailored and fitted silhouette. “A person who’s fit needs to wear clothing that’s slim, that’s tailored and fitted, so that it accentuates their silhouette,” Do advises. This alone signals discipline and attention to detail.
Next is to lean into his unique history. Military-inspired design offers a rich visual language. It’s functional, fitted, and communicates precision. Do suggests exploring brands that master this aesthetic:
- G-Star RAW: Known for its modern, architectural take on denim and military silhouettes.
- Alpha Industries: A literal supplier of jackets and gear to the U.S. military, now a fashion staple.
- Stone Island: A high-end Italian brand famous for its innovative materials and tactical, technical aesthetic.
To honor his athletic side, the look should be versatile and multifunctional. Instead of generic gym wear, the choices become more deliberate. Brands like Army, a fitness company with a sharp, stenciled logo, Nike ACG (All Conditions Gear), and Adidas Terrex offer performance wear that is also stylistically distinct. These pieces are designed for movement but carry a strong design point of view.
With a foundation of fitted, military, and athletic-inspired pieces, the next step is adding layers of personality. This is done through color, pattern, and accessories. Rich’s current wardrobe is largely monochromatic gray. Introducing a pop of color, like a supernova orange, used sparingly, creates a focal point. “Colors can be used to accent,” Do cautions. “A little bit goes a long way.”
The real transformation happens in the details, the accessories that tell a story. Instead of a standard watch, why not a Bell & Ross, a brand whose timepieces are directly inspired by the instrument gauges in aircraft cockpits? The connection to his past as an Apache crew member is immediate, subtle, and powerful. It’s an insider’s nod, a conversation starter.
As a podcast producer, he should signal his connection to audio. A pair of high-quality headphones, perhaps in his signature accent color, worn around his neck, communicates his profession without a word. It’s functional jewelry. As a videographer, his camera gear itself is part of his packaging. A basic DSLR says amateur. A camera fully kitted out with a tactical cage, top handle, and side grips says professional. It looks military-esque, precise, and serious. People sit up a little straighter when that camera is pointed at them.
This is what building a personal brand is all about. It’s not about being someone you’re not. It’s about making the invisible, visible. It's about aligning your external packaging with the high value of your internal product.
Standing Out Is Non-Negotiable
In the world of branding, there is one cardinal sin. It is not being disliked. It is being ignored. Do borrows a line from designer Brian Collins to make the point: “It’s called branding, not Blanding.”
In every industry, there is a de facto uniform. The tech CEO in the hoodie. The lawyer in the navy suit. The creative in the all-black ensemble. This code of conduct provides a sense of belonging, but it is also a trap. It encourages conformity. If you want to build a personal brand, you must do something different. You have to stand out.
Our brains are hardwired to notice differences. We are superior pattern-processing machines. In the film The Matrix, a training program demonstrates this perfectly. In a crowd of people dressed in monotonous black and white, a single woman in a red dress instantly captures our hero’s attention. She is the anomaly. She is memorable.
This principle is wielded with masterful effect in the world of entertainment and sports. Look at UFC champion Sean O’Malley. Early in his career, he looked like a standard All-American kid. But as his star rose, his style became increasingly flamboyant: rainbow-dyed hair, bold tattoos, flashy jewelry. He became impossible to ignore. His rapid ascent to a title shot, jumping past many higher-ranked fighters, was not just about his skill in the octagon. It was about his ability to command attention.
His style is heavily influenced by his friend, the rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine, another master of personal branding who transformed himself from a regular kid named Daniel Hernandez into a notorious, un-ignorable public figure. Their strategy is clear. “You either want to see them win or you want to see them lose,” Do observes, “but the only thing that you can’t do is to ignore them.”
This is not a call to be obnoxious. It is a call to be expressive. “When they zig, another zag,” Do urges. “You Zug.” Go a different direction. Draw inspiration from your culture, your city, your hobbies. The goal is to tell your story, and you cannot tell a unique story by wearing a generic uniform. Whether you emulate the provocative tactics of an O'Malley or not, the underlying lesson is the same, a theme Do explores in Why You're Still Invisible. If you want to stand out, you can't blend in.
Your Personal Style Toolkit
Developing a personal style can feel daunting. Where do you even begin? The process starts with a simple, foundational question: What three things do you want your wardrobe to communicate about you?
The key is to choose words that evoke a visual. “Integrity” is an admirable quality, but what does it look like? In contrast, Do’s three words are: “Designer,” “Doesn’t fit a mold,” and “Intention to detail.” These words immediately suggest a visual direction: deliberate choices, pushing boundaries, perhaps even androgynous clothing, and a high level of craftsmanship.
A powerful way to find your direction is to identify a style icon. This isn’t about copying them, but about drawing inspiration. Look at Pharrell Williams, who can take classic silhouettes and add an editorial twist that makes them entirely his own, from his signature hats to his expert use of neckwear. Or the rapper T.I., who masterfully blends classic American style, like a tweed jacket, with hip-hop culture, adding luxe accessories to elevate a simple sweatshirt and jeans.
Once you have an icon, dissect their style. Ask two questions:
- What is the one thing they wear that complements their unique physical features?
- What is one way they accessorize that you really like?
Pay attention to body type. A style that works on a 6’3” person who weighs 160 pounds will not work the same way on someone with a different build. The clothing must fit the person.
With this foundation, you can start building your own toolkit. Do offers a straightforward guide:
- Have one statement piece. This is something unique that tells a story. It could be a splurge, like a pair of designer sneakers, or something deeply personal that references a hobby or passion. It becomes your signature.
- Layer and accessorize. For men especially, accessories are a critical opportunity to add personality. Think neckwear, eyewear, jewelry, bags, and even the tools you carry. Glasses frame the face, a unique watch tells a story, and a scarf can change an entire outfit.
- Find your signature color. Move beyond the designer’s all-black trope. Pick a bright, brilliant, saturated color and use it as an accent. A pop of yellow on a cap or a flash of red in your socks can define your look.
- Experiment with patterns and textures. This is an advanced maneuver, but introducing patterns like houndstooth or textures like woven fabrics can break up a solid look and add a sophisticated layer of visual interest.
Your clothes are an invitation. For introverts, they can be a way to provoke conversation without having to initiate it. A concert t-shirt or a piece of tape on a hat becomes a prompt. It invites extroverts to ask a question, to find common ground. It turns your wardrobe into a passive communication tool, a strategy he details in How to Ditch Networking and Build an Authentic Brand. It is your business card, your packaging, and your story all in one.
Master Your Silhouette
The late, brilliant fashion designer Lee Alexander McQueen once said, “To change the silhouette is to change the thinking of how we look.” Fashion designers are obsessed with silhouette. They play with collars, shoulders, sleeve lengths, and pant widths to alter the fundamental shape of the human form.
This same principle is a cornerstone of character design in animation. In the film Kung Fu Panda, each character has a distinct and instantly recognizable silhouette. The crane, the panda, the tiger, the snake, the mantis, each has a unique shape. Designers even give the crane a large straw hat to alter its naturally small-headed silhouette, making it more graphically interesting and identifiable from a distance. The details don't matter if the core shape is not clear.
You can apply this thinking to your own personal style. Start with a generic silhouette: a simple shirt and pants. It’s a monolith, a single, unbroken shape.
Now, start making small, intentional changes. Add a pop of color with bright red socks. The entire visual balance shifts. You’ve anchored the look and created a focal point at the bottom. Add red glasses. Now you have visual interest at the top and bottom, drawing the eye up and down.
Turn a cap sideways and add some color. The silhouette of the head is now different, more angular, more dynamic. Add a t-shirt with a simple red graphic. The monolithic torso is broken up. Add a red watch band. You now have a complete, intentional look built from small, deliberate pops of color that transform a generic shape into something with personality and intrigue.
You can upgrade your silhouette and signature look with a few key items:
- Designer Sneakers: A statement piece that anchors your entire look.
- A Signature Hat: A beanie or cap can break up your silhouette, but be sure it fits the shape of your face.
- Neckwear: A scarf, ascot, or even a bolo tie can add an unexpected and sophisticated touch.
- Jewelry and Eyewear: Rings, necklaces, and distinctive glasses add layers of personality and frame your face.
- Bags and Tools: Your backpack, briefcase, or even your phone case are all part of the package.
The journey begins with a mood board, collecting images that inspire you from art, music, movies, and your own culture. As you collect, a theme will emerge. A story will begin to form.
As the musician John Prine once quipped, “If you keep making the same mistake long enough it becomes your style.” The goal is to make your “mistakes” intentional. Once you start wearing a signature cap or a specific style of glasses, people will associate it with you. You are creating consistency. You are creating a brand.
Be bold. Be italic.
But never be regular.
TRANSCRIPT
this is a little bit of what I hope to share with you within the future Mastermind called brand lab it's a brand new initiative that we're launching the tagline that we've come up with is helping left brainers think right in the whole mind the lateral mind not convergent not Divergent but using the
entire mind what we can do is activate not only the analytical convergent thinking but what we in the creative space have been doing all this time doing that Divergent thinking the non-linear part that allows us to solve complex problems and there's a really strong reason why we want to do this okay and
I would just share this on a podcast interview yesterday so it's fresh on my mind number one is when we're living in a a fair system what we learn in school where we know the rules we know the outcomes we know how we're going to be scored there's a very clear path towards
Victory there's definitely a right answer and a wrong answer we take quizzes and that's how we're graded in life but what we realize after we graduate school through high school and through college is the real world doesn't operate under the fair system it works under a wicked system and David Epstein writes about
this in his book range and he talks about it quite a bit and why he thinks you need to not Niche down but I'm going to hold off on that for a little bit because I don't agree with that point I do agree with the observation that in the real world you'll notice
that there are certain people who get promotions that are less talented or qualified than you who are less personable than you and you notice people that are more talented than you who should have a better position greater better salary but they don't get that either and it doesn't compute it's like it doesn't
function in our brain and the reason is because the rules to the real world aren't there aren't any rules all of it's fabricated it's a construct and so when we're trying to to design or solve Wicked problems that exist in real world we're not sure what to do and we'll see Mavericks or
people who are new to Industry come in and disrupt it and then capture the entire market share the example I'd like to give to all of you is this Elon Musk did something that most people were totally ignoring which is he outdid what NASA was doing and he thought of this one pivotal
concept I think which allows SpaceX to thrive which is they can't afford to build these Jets or these rockets and fly them into outer space and throw them away so one of the biggest problems they had to solve was can we reuse most if not all of the rocket and figure out a
way to land it so using a lot of different available ideas and Technology puts it together an application that's brand new because he's solving a wicked problem he's looking for Divergent Solutions there's more than one way to do this and then he revolutionizes space travel I think and also was able to get
his satellite company out there and so all those satellites that are out there providing internet to you are because he's able to do this fairly affordably and he can charge NASA and other organizations to launch satellites so this is what we talk about like why uh in in Daniel Pink's book a whole
new mind why right brainers will rule the world so we can combine analytical thinking with the creative thinking and put them together it's a very powerful concept now I say this because there are also a bunch of right brainers here who know how to activate their left brain and can think about like
real world problem solving not just Flights of Fancy and just be lost in their own imagination so where we meet together in the middle I think we find like ourselves in our most powerful way and if you haven't guessed it you're here because we're going to be talking about one very small aspect
of personal branding or branding which is style right it's the most fun that we're going to have because the actual application and it's just a subset of the personal branding stuff and that's what we're going to do Deep dive in so here's the first thought I want to share with you today the
Earth is covered in water like almost two-thirds of the planet is covered in water 71 to be precise so water is an abundant resource that's available it literally is free because it rains from the sky you can go to the river or stream and drink from it you can desalinate the ocean salt
water and then be able to drink that there's many ways to gather and collect water yet somehow a bunch of companies and brands have been able to charge you more for a gallon of water than what you would pay for a gallon of gas now I just did this check recently so I'm
looking at La we're paying about 5.37 for a gallon of gas it's very expensive to buy gasoline in California relative to the country but not relative to the world how were they able to do this something that's free that doesn't require nearly the kind of capital investment that it would take to pull
crude oil out of the ground and refine it and then distribute it and sell it to you at the pump how are they able to charge us more for this well there's a little bit more to go to the story and once we start to unpack this we'll understand why personal branding personal
style may have more impact than you think and so the question for you is does packaging matter so when it rains from the sky when you can pull it up from from a well it's relatively affordable free almost in many cases but when you bottle it up and you tell a story The
Packaging tells you something and it creates a feeling within you and I was talking to Michael Margolis uh in in a recent podcast he wrote the book story 10x he says that all products have a story and then I add to that a product without a story is a commodity and a commodity
is something that we have no personal attachment or uh where we relate to we would never pay a premium for we just buy it the cheapest price possible there's many things that are in that space it competes mostly on price because the product without a story is commodity now a while back couple
years ago my friend Joanna galval from gift Design Studios did this Instagram post with me it was a collab post and she asked this question like do you want to play a game and so the so she splits the screen into two parts to show you the power and impact of packaging so
she asked this question which shampoo is more expensive A or B which one is more expensive just based on what information is available to you so the shape of the bottle the materials the color palette the topography design does it communicate something to you beyond what's inside for all we know one is
superior to the other in terms of ingredients in terms of testing how it was uh ethically produced without harming animals Etc but we're just looking at the package what we can see from a few feet away so hopefully you all have come to a conclusion and she gives up two more examples but
I'm gonna just share one more here which coffee is the strongest or stronger a or b A or B and we're just looking at the design now what she goes on to say is did you notice that in both cases it's the exact same logo it's the exact same copy now that you
can zoom in and see it and the rest of it is impacted just by Design so we're saying the contents can be the same the logo can be the same the copy and the messaging can be the same but how design can impact your perception of it and so Jessica what did people
type in since I'm not able to look at everything at the same time and still keep my focus here did most people vote a in terms of the shampoo is more expensive can you let me know are people saying a I don't know how to do this okay thank you very much and
then before I lose track of where I'm supposed to be here and then which which coffee is stronger a or b what do they say what did our audience say let's see if they're paying attention this morning they said a again okay now Joanna cheats a little bit because you notice something and
I just realized this recently as I was putting this together is that a has context too which is kind of an important clue whereas B is just on a plain background there's so there's no context so she adds these stones that seem to be in balance and I don't know what's in the
background but there's another cream or something so it feels like it could be in a spa or Salon some kind of Meditation Retreat Center and so that's also telling the story so context package design do seem to make an impact on perception right again here she's cheated a little bit and adding the
starburst behind the Morning Blend Coffee on the left and she's got pieces of coffee beans exploding out from the center and a bunch of beans spilling out and again she's adding additional context what would have been really interesting to compare left to right is if they're in the exact same shape with just
different graphics and materials and colors if our perception would be the same conclusion I think it would be but there we go so the so I have to ask you this question this is a poll for audience right now does packaging influence your perception of quality of taste and a freshness yes or
no go and type in why or n and I'm afraid to click on the live stream because I'm I'm afraid it's going to give me double audio here but I can see that okay all right just give you a second to type in your answer and I think most of you are going
to say yes if you're not being stubborn if you're just not being obstinate right now you're going to say yes and why is that and when I've been talking about like what's inside yet it's just the packaging well in his book Seth Godin writes about this in his book all marketers are liars
and you can see that all marketers tell stories it's because the marketer and the consumer are in a pack together we're complicit in the LIE marketers tell you that this beer will taste better it's stronger or this soda has fewer calories or the steak will be tastier or these beans are fresher whatever
it is and they tell us this through packaging and through conditioning and through context and social cues and we buy into we taste the wine before it enters our mouth just by how we hold it in the glass how it's poured how it's presented if it's a white glove thing if somebody has
you smelling the cork or allowing you to swirl the wine around in your glass we we taste it in our mind before we actually put it on our lips and this is what happens because we are always filling in context and story absent details it's how our mind works okay so this is
a clue as to how branding and personal branding works so just to make sure we're all on the same page in terms of definitions brand is a person's gut feeling about a product service organization it's not what you say it is it's what they say it is that's from Marty newmeyer my friend
Dr Christine looser says branding is impression management so you can't control how people feel about you but you can definitely influence it by managing the impression the classic example is when you go in for a job interview or a first date you're going to be paying a little bit more attention to how
you present yourself your your body language that firm handshake whether or not you look at them in the eye or not you're trying to manage the impression you're trying to make a very good impression it's also why Realtors dress a certain way and they drive certain cars because maybe you'll feel less confident
when the realtor drives in a car worse than yours it's part of the cues that we pick up on it's part of the packaging and the experience and we need it to be consistent with the way we see it in our minds so branding creates preference it builds an irrational emotional connection with
the consumer and the company and it is said then you can measure the value of a brand the ROI the return on investment is how much more someone is willing to pay a premium over a cheaper alternative a commodity so we can buy uh Folgers coffee or we can buy a Starbucks coffee
or we can buy Blue Bottle Coffee and the mountain which we're willing to pay for the cheaper alternative is the value of that brand and it's important to note this this is why some companies are able to be so profitable like apple like Mercedes like BMW or Porsche because they've already won the
battle for your mind and your heart because when you buy that car you've already told yourself this story about Someday I'm gonna make it in life I'm going to show everyone who doubted me that I amounted to something it's not anymore about the car back to Marty newmeyer in his book the brand
flip he talks about this we no longer buy products we are joining tribes we're searching for meaning we want to form our identities and the things that we buy and use and on a lot they said that every dollar that you spend is a vote for the world that you want to live
in so when we pay money for one kind of company we are supporting them literally with our money our finances and in secret maybe we're hoping that their competitors go out of business so we're all voting in one way or the other by our money and our money speaks loudly okay so hopefully
you're along with me in terms of like what it is I'm trying to share with all of you that there is a real return on investment in branding and potentially even a greater one in personal branding let's get into that so many of you are going to ask me so how does this
apply to personal brand there's no packaging Chris there's no context what is the messaging what is the positioning here well let's see how this works okay now my friend Rich did not agree to this but I'm going to subject him to this anyways I told him I've shared this and I'm going to
keep sharing this until he and I are going to work together we're actually working together I'm just kidding around there so what I want to do is just test when you're in a public space and you meet people in the real world you're going to see somebody from afar so maybe it's like
30 foot view like we're 30 feet away from my friend Rich and we're going to make assumptions about him just like we did with the shampoo just like we did with the coffee so I want you all to guess if you don't know who rich is what is his occupation based on how
he presents himself he has a lot to excuse me he has a lot to offer the world he's an incredibly warm generous guy a guy that you want to have next to you in tough situations that's him that's his essence but here he is with a backpack a t-shirt uh some pants and
some sneakers nondescript hat what is his occupation okay all right Jessica what are people writing down uh help me help me monitor this I'm gonna do something crazy right now I'm gonna actually join the live so I can see what the comments are so hopefully I don't get an echo here I'm gonna
hit pause right away there we go so no audio boom I can do that I can play I can see now oops what the heck I said no audio all right okay creative backpack has a laptop outfits casual could be a trainer some sort of creative line a nurse I like that abalash
Tech maybe Tech developer life coach a virtual assistant a VA I believe that's what that means computer engineer videographer there's a lot of wild guesses going on here okay this is awesome all right so we'll see how right you are or potentially how wrong you are let's go back to the deck here
okay so now we're going to zoom in a little bit closer we're going to say we're about three feet away we're a little bit farther than three feet but I only get that close to this mug just yet what do you think his backstory is now you can actually see the logo on
his T-shirt it's a Rucka t-shirt and that might give you some Clues you can see that he's wearing a wristband and a watch of some sort you can you can make a little bit with what's on his hat now maybe the materials and the texture so what do you think his backstory is
hmm and then we're going to zoom in a little bit closer and now we're like right in front of him and we can smell what kind of a deodorant he's wearing or what kind of cologne hopefully not the deodorant that's too close what assumptions can you make about his character again we've not
spoken to Rich we don't know anything about him all we know is this is who he is and we have to make a decision do I trust this person should I be scared should I be afraid he's gonna pitch me something where he's gonna give me a helping hand is there something interesting
about him that I want to have a conversation with foreign so we're going to look at how he presents himself the clothing the Wardrobe everything that he puts on in in a conscious or unconscious way as part of his Packaging so I'm gonna ask you this next question this one's critical and it's
going to tie in the first part to the second part which is what impact does his packaging have on your perception of the value of his services so he is a professional service provider in the creative space this is Packaging impact you negatively is it neutral like you don't know or in a
positive way like do you think he's worth more or less or about the same as you expect based on how he presents himself so we can type in the words negative you can put a minus sign equal sign for neutral or Plus for positive what do you think the check got real quiet
here um is the chat still live somebody typing something so let me see here I'm gonna type in is this live there we go I know it's working because I just typed that in I would love for some of you to take a guess okay and then I'm going to tell you who
he is and what we plan to do with him in one second okay no one's gonna type anything because I don't want to judge people right okay it's probably a good thing well in the suspense now what you may not know about rich is he's a Marine so he's ex-military he's a veteran
he's served this country um and he used to fly Apache Attack Helicopters like this or be part of the crew okay so here he is he's also a podcast producer he's an entrepreneur he runs a small company uh he's also a videographer he shoots video and he really believes in physical fitness he's
athletic and he takes working out pretty seriously if you follow him you'll know this because he's in the gym at five in the morning doing his military thing getting up early putting in his reps and he works with some pretty high level A-list clients and helping them to grow their podcasts so for
Rich it he didn't ask me for this but I'm like Rich it's time for a makeover and I'm a heterosexual but I'm gonna do my best we're gonna do a little hashtag fashion911 and get into it okay and I'm going to show you how my mind thinks and why some of this may
matter and how it impacts you so I know a little bit about him and without his permission without any guidance from him I'm just going to help to make him over a little bit like we went shopping together virtually which we'll do in real life and I think a person who's fit needs
to wear clothing that's slim that's tailored and fitted so that it accentuates their their silhouette this is really important and it just so happens that clothing that is designed with a military design in detail are also quite fitted because you don't want a sloppy looking person in service and there's a couple of
companies that may close that follow these ideas one of which is g-star another one's Alpha Industries which literally makes clothing and gear for the military the armed services and some that that don't but have a look like that like Stone Island and I want to share a little bit more about these other
brands in a little bit but since he's Athletic Works out in the gym there's a couple of Brands like Army uh you know ironically because he's a ex-marine Nike ACG all conditions gear Adidas terrax and asrv so that he can look sharper even when he's working out running between meetings so the look
should be multifunctional it should be versatile and there should be a fitted military detail in there for me as they were doing a makeover for him and I apologize I don't know anything about fashion for women really so I'm going to stick to what I know which is men's fashion and so you
can take these same Concepts and you can apply them for women I just know where I'm dangerous and where I need to keep my mouth shut uh the sneakers here are a collab between Converse and Ambush I love collaborations between well-known Brands and smaller more independent Brands because it takes the best of
both it takes the manufacturing the distribution of a big company and the idea and the progressive nature of smaller companies and Brands and it puts them together so this is the classic Chuck Taylor silhouette but it's done differently it's this black on black thing it's a beautiful looking shoe I regret not being
able to get this drop and it just so happens that I was in New York City a couple months ago on an event and I walked by the store and I was like this is super cool the display the logos the graphics and it's like Soul cycle but they call it Army like
a fitness Army and I walked in just mostly interested in or close not the workout program and and and I found this and it was really cool so what I would recommend for rich is to introduce color you notice that rich is mostly monochromatic let me find the wide shot of him here
right here monochromatic very gray there's not a lot to draw your eye in introducing a pop of color a POC that'd be pretty cool I wanted him to experiment with patterns a little bit to create a little more texture and then start to layer things and so we could sneak in a little
bit of color and then add some fine details these are mesh mesh shorts so there's a little bit of perforated holes throughout them naturally because they're they're for exercise but including some of those details actually will kick up your game and I just love the Simplicity of the a of the Army logo
and it's a stencil typeface it's quite beautiful and then for him to start to give a little bit more sophisticated and working layers you see he's a almost a one layer kind of guy pant shirt undershirt and that and a cap but working in layers gives them more opportunities to express themselves to
create a more interesting silhouette but one thing that I just remembered was instead of wearing a standard watch why not wear a bell and Ross watch which are uh influencer inspired by the gauges inside aircraft considering it used to be around Apache helicopters and presumably Jets and things of that nature this would
be like a cool thing to do and the cool thing is they come in black ceramic black with orange dials like how cool is that so whatever color you pick in your personal brand and style I recommend that you pick a bright saturated color but use it sparingly not to wear head and
toe jumpsuit in this bright super nova orange because it's just a little bit too much to deal with so colors can be used to accent but caution all of you especially if you don't know what you're doing don't go crazy on color everywhere a little bit goes a long way just like my
cap a little bit of yellow in an all Black Ensemble really highlight and accentuate each other and I think there was a wonderful opportunity for Rich to capitalize and and create accessories that are both functional but also kind of eye-catching and there are many manufacturers who make colored headphones this one happens to
be a company now that they've seen better days called Urban ears than they they used to come in a variety of Hues from lavender to seafoam green to Bright Sunburst kind of orange to deep Cardinal Reds so just finding a pair of headphones if you throw those on and you're walking around a
space it creates intrigue and I'll get into this a little bit more later but I want you to all be very intentional by thinking about how you package yourself and how those different things give you an opportunity to play and communicate different ideas to people and and so somebody who who produces podcast
it would be good for him to wear headphones because that's a signal to other people like he's somehow involved with music or Sound because he really cares about this now if you don't care about the color there's some amazing audiophile quality headphones from master and dynamic Sennheiser makes a really great one on
Grotto with mixed materials open mesh over ear headphones okay the other thing that he was doing was walking around an event with a DSLR but he had a pretty basic DSLR not this one different brand but this is an opportunity too now it used to be 10 20 years ago whenever you walked
around with the camera that like a full-frame camera people would freak out they're like oh you're a photographer you're a professional but today because cameras have become so ubiquitous having a camera doesn't mean Jack because everybody seems to have one and so I want to remind him and I don't know why since
I've been a child I've been fascinated with the military uh with guns I don't own any guns I don't plan on buying any guns but I just like the look you know and there's like a like a tactical Precision to it I just love the layering and just it's a fantasy of mine
and when we start to look into the equipment and the visual language of the military lots of things start to open up and I I happen to pull some more kind of like reference frames for Rich to look at in terms of like outdoor over landing and the kind of equipment and tools
and so you can see there's a visual language here that starts to give you more context and character to the personal style so I'm not talking about just the clothes that you wear but the car that you drive and the graphics and and all the accoutrements if you will the little things that
you add to your life that start to communicate to people and it turns out camera gear the cages and the things that you you add as an accessory to your camera provide additional functionality but it's designed to look very tactical like military-esque and so rather than just walking around with a simple handheld
which says yeah B2 I'm a photographer just like you and I'm an amateur if you were to kitted out with a top handle a cage a side handle that thing for bottom rails a quick release Mount all of a sudden you can really stand out and if you were to walk around holding
this camera shooting people you'll notice that people will sit up a little straighter and like oh who are you shooting for what's going on here and so the whole idea I want you to walk away with today is your clothes your wardrobe how you put things together and put yourself together communicate something
about you now for a person like me who's socially very awkward as an introvert I have a difficulty starting conversations with strangers people that I don't know and I don't want to be left out of the party I don't want to be the Wallflower who's ostracized in the back so I wear clothes
as a form of invitation to provoke conversation with people so the simplest trick that you can do is to wear a concert T-shirt or something with a word on it so that people are like oh that's interesting and the extroverted people or the ambiverts in the world will start talking to you and
saying really oh I like that and it's just a way for us to find common ground or to disagree on something so I want you to start thinking about clothes is as an invitation almost like a business card or a package and rather than you going to networking function or an event or
party or out in their street where you have to work for every piece of communication that you get every relationship has to be earned through extroverted energy if you were just to wear something like this where people are always asking me like what's what's up with the tape and what's going on there
and I leave it as a mysterious thing and we can have a dialogue about it but one thing I also want people to know is I care a lot about design I care a lot about Aesthetics and it's very important to me so this is one of uh like my one of my
favorite songs uh American Boy from Kanye West and the lion goes dress smart like a London blog before he speak his suit be spoke I love the lyrical word play here and it's just saying your clothes say something about you so you know personal style does matter okay so people are still listening
okay commenting on this okay my friend yo santosa from Pharaoh concrete who's a brilliant designer runs a branding agency and she said this is one of my favorite quotes which is people don't fall in love with corporations they don't we don't care they fall in love with personalities and this is where we
create that preference so when we talk about personal branding the big highlight is on the word person like who are you what is your personality What Makes You Different okay and so when we look at companies and corporations there's a couple things they all have a logo which is a container for meaning
the Nike logo doesn't mean anything the Apple logo doesn't mean anything it's through all the thoughtful actions and experiences that apple or Nike creates for you that the logo has meaning it's a container for meeting and I think I picked up that line from Kevin Finn during our podcast together and then the
logo usually houses or is a button an activator a beacon to tell us like what's inside and so we're if we're buying a product it's the packaging if we're listening to something or experiencing something like a car then it's the entire experience with the materials the sound of the car the whole presentation
of it that creates that feeling underneath all of that is actual the product in the engine the the components of the wheels or the rubber of the sole the canvas or the leather of the shoe itself the product so oftentimes we think the product is what creates the feeling it's not it's the
things that surround the product that create the experience and the memory and the emotions and the story and it's encapsulated in short form in the logo so when we look at personal branding uh you you can have a logo which uh in a different talk I'll teach you how to make a logo
for your your personal brand and some fun exercises for you but not today you have your face that is the shorthand for you and that's why we're so attuned to the to faces and we recognize faces we might forget the name but your RAM you'll remember the face right so I mean there's
a joke I forget who said this maybe it's Simon sinek who's like you never go up to a person it's like John like is this your face like you remember the name but you don't remember the face it's almost always the opposite like I know you I just I'm spacing on the name
right now remind me again what's your name so your faces that container for meaning and then when we talk about your packaging or the presentation the context and the narrative that's all in your wardrobe the clothes that you wear so you're the product you know what you think say and do your beliefs
your values your interest but in order to get through that we kind of make judgments about you based on how you present yourself if you're bathe well groomed if your face is bright and you have a brilliant smile or if you have dark Rings under your eyes all these things say something about
you including the clothes that you wear if it's baggy if it's ill-fitting the joke is that the accountants always wear a suit size like two sizes too big they like they shrink inside their suit or something right or people who work out wear a size too small it's like um you could probably
bump up that one size of seeing a little bit too much information about you right now so the part in this conversation that I'm gonna focus on and go deeper in is your clothes your wardrobe okay and how do we start so Jessica has helped me out by sharing the prompt and the
prompt is this so if you didn't read the prompt before it's it's here for you right now what three things three things do you want your wardrobe to communicate about you and this is really important and you'll want to spend time thinking about this and you'll write some things down and some of
you are prepared already because you've written answers in the comments prior to us going live but now that you have more context as to what we're talking about you you might describe different things now when I spoke to Rich and I said what are the three things I should pull up his message
here but I don't want to do that right now he described things that don't really evoke a visual or an image in my mind you know like there are words and there are words that that create some kind of like visual in your mind so you want to start thinking about that like
if you say uh I want people to know that I'm full of integrity what does integrity look like and it's so strange right well I'll give you my three words as an example and I thought about this for half a second so assume if I change my mind later okay I was thinking
like I want you whenever you see me walking around wherever I walk around I want you to think he's some kind of designer he's made some deliberate choices because no one falls out of bed in that exact combination of clothes and layers there's just a little bit too much effort to go on
for it to feel random and coincidental although that might be the case it's not just because I've grabbed the clean laundry here I put it together I also want you to see me and get this feeling like this person does not fit a specific mold he's Asian but he doesn't look like a
typical Asian person he's a creative but there's something else here or maybe he's a business person or he's a keynote speaker I don't know what it is but he doesn't fit in the Box he's he's going to have fun he's going to push the boundaries and he might even wear uh androgynous clothing
to kind of mess around with your head and that's me I like wearing clothes to provoke thought and there is an intention to detail that I want to impress upon you and so you see those words at least in my mind evoke an image and and this is how it translates to the
real world so from wearing short crop what my friends would call diaper pants you know with the wallet chain and the off-white jacket or the shirt to the the the Ami Paris pants that are uh like a bull checkerboard pattern the cigarette I think they're called cigarette style pants with the Scotch and
Soda ombre sweater and to the woven jacket with the pants the Japanese pants with white flared legs and suspenders they all are designed to evoke a feeling from you and it's quite interesting because at the very beginning of my journey I dress very much like rich I wanted to wear a uniform I
didn't want to think too much about it but the uniform was basically a generic container package for who I am and I want to say something I want my suit to be spoke okay so when we get into it and we talk about style like what is personal style anyways it's a it's
confusing concept so this is quote from John Preen says if you keep making the same mistake long enough it becomes your style that's right just keep making the same mistakes this happens in art in design and also in fashion so being consistent with your mistakes creates style so we want to start being
much more intentional and conscious of the decisions that we're making so that we're telling the right story we're making the same mistake so once I started wearing the cap sorry I should have switched the slide there once I started wearing a cap and people started recognizing me for it when I take the
cap off people are like no no it's not you when I switch glasses like no no put the other glasses back on they're used to seeing you a very specific way and so sometimes I forget I wear my quote unquote wrong glasses my home glasses instead of my show glasses okay and in
terms of personal style rule number one it's called branding not Blanding I stole that from Brian Collins I love it and here's a typographic joke here and those of you in design will know this those who that don't don't worry about it not worth explaining be bold be italic but never regular okay
so all you type nerds you design nerds you know what I'm talking about okay I see there's a thumb up for that some of y'all get that all right um I also wanted to point out something very topical recently Sean O'Malley won the featherweight championship of the UFC and what's quite remarkable about
him is his Ascent into getting a shot at the title happened really really quickly he's a fairly young guy still and I think he is one of these unranked Fighters who's able to command a championship fight he jumped past so many ranked Fighters and why is that why is that well we start
to dissect him a little bit he was on Dana White's Contender series which he features up and coming Fighters and this is how sean O'Malley used to look in 2014 so nine years ago it looks like an All-American kid it's pretty standard got some tattoos but he's really rocking his trademark signature pink
shorts right and so this is Sean O'Malley just nine years later crazy hair glasses open shirt uh got the got the bling the chain got the tats now and and oftentimes well I'm sorry here's the reflection here 2014 2021 okay something has changed and people are saying like yes let's change he grew
eyebrows he used that money to buy some eyebrows that's not the case I think he just shaved his eyebrows as a day or something and took a picture of it a selfie and so people compare Sean O'Malley uh to someone else who's like a really big Marquee fighter probably one of the best
known uh mixed martial art fighters in the world um Conor McGregor you can see that they're both wearing their green shorts tapping into the Irish heritage plus the tattoos the big uh chess piece that they were both wearing and how flamboyant they are in the ring right but if you go a little
deeper into Sean O'Malley's story you'll find out that it's probably not the case and it's just a coincidence that these are both irish guys white guys who are dominating who are commanding so much attention from the public now I'm just curious if any of you guys know who Daniel Hernandez is this is
a picture of young Daniel Hernandez how to block out his T-shirt a little bit here and many of you probably don't know who he is you probably don't even know his his uh better known alter ego which is a guy named six nine or takashi69 and you can see that Daniel has undergone
a pretty radical transformation from a New York kid who aspired to be somebody who was always pushing buttons to becoming Takashi six nine or six nine and this this guy has the six nine tattooed all over his body everywhere and he started to popularize this rainbow dye haircut thing that he's got going
on and it turns out surprise surprise takashi69 and Sean O'Malley are friends and to celebrate Sean O'Malley had six nine tattooed on his body as a sign of the friendship or what's going on what you need to know about both of these people is they are masterful at crafting their own personal brand
and personal style in such a way that it's impossible to ignore them and by doing so they capture the imagination of the public you either want to see them win or you want to see them lose but the only thing that you can't do is to ignore them so rule number two in
personal branding is if you want to stand out don't blend in and the funny thing is in every industry no matter what industry there seems to be a de facto uniform that everybody adheres to it's the code of conduct it's the the dress code that we all seem to buy into and to
a degree I understand that but there are variations to that that you can break out of the mold but if you want to develop your personal brand you're going to have to do something different you're going to have to stand out and the reason why is because we are uh biologically uh evolved
to notice differences where Superior pattern processing beings and it's how the human brain works so when I reference like say pop culture when Neo is like entering the Matrix and he's trying to understand the program they run the woman with the red dress program so everybody's walking around Bland Suit and Tie black
and white the woman in the red dress and the blonde captures his attention immediately and distracts him allowing him to become vulnerable and so we don't want to dress in a way to be obnoxious but we want to dress in a way to express who we are okay so when they dig another
zag you Zug just go a different direction and you'll stand out and you'll tell a little bit of your story so there's something in your culture in your uh in in where you live that whatever it is draw inspiration from that so the next question I have for you is who is your
style icon and we all should have some and we can be inspired by them and draw inspiration so that it informs what we wear so of course I'm gonna have to mention the Ageless Wonder Pharrell Williams who is now also the design director for Louis Vuitton which is incredible because he's the first
non-designer that is a design director for Louis Vuitton and then you think why well look at this gentleman the way he dresses and he makes you know these Ranger hats popular and look at his neckwear game and look at how he's just taking standard Silhouettes and dress code and he's he's making an
edit an editorial stylistic changed that then makes it his own and then I don't know if you know this and it just is a coincidence that I picked two entertainers T.I TI look at this guy and you're like oh I see I can draw inspiration from him in terms like he's wearing like
I think a houndstooth or a tweed jacket or what is that called The Glenn plaid shirt or something like that and he's just mixing up classic American Style with hip-hop culture and he's blending the two just beautifully with certain accents I just love it so he can take um a plain sweatshirt like
the white sweatshirt and a pair of jeans and add in a couple of Luxe accessories and have this great haircut and sunglasses and just looks super cool and then there's just non-celebrity who said you can be inspired by especially if you live in a metropolitan area that's Coastal generally the coast attracts different
types of people an exchange of ideas and fashion and influences will create some really interesting things so I just take great inspiration for these gentleman in the Life an older gentleman wearing this felt hat I think and then his leather attache but just the layering the the rolled up cuffs with the brown
boots so sharp and the gentleman next to him wearing this suit with like a jean bottom I just think it's such a smart pairing combination tailored yet a little bit Carefree super stylish and the unique thing here is the rolled up cuffs on his jacket with a couple of bracelets very cool personal
style I'm not going to dissect all of them but you get it you can easily just search street style and type in the city Tokyo New York whatever and find something so when you find your style icon your stylecon what is the one thing they wear that complements their unique physical features what
is it and just take note of that so what we want to do is dissection reverse engineer what works for them because oftentimes we try what they do and we're not paying careful enough attention we're not paying careful enough intention but our body types are drastically different so if you see someone who's
long and lanky someone's like six foot three but 160 pounds and you try to wear what they wear and you can't pull it off like many athletes it looks weird on you because you're not six foot two and you're not 160 pounds that's why so we need to recognize that the suit fits
the person when I say Suit the clothing and here's another question for you which is what is one way that they accessorize that you really really like and I say this mostly for men because I know men are pretty clueless generally speaking about fashion and style so this is just me trying to
help out the people that are in need I do realize there are a lot of women who are also pretty clueless or who fall in the Trap of dressing like everybody else in the industry whatever that might be the pantsuit outfit whatever okay so quickly to summarize here my guide for you is
you want to have one statement piece it could be something expensive you can splurge on it it doesn't have to be but something that's unique that tells a story so if you're you're um I I don't know if you're super athletic you might include something that references the sport that you participated in
who knows uh like if you are uh if you're into like Aviation you might wear some some goggles or something I don't know whatever your interests your hobbies you're passionate about try to include that as a statement piece that becomes unique to you you want to start to layer and think about accessories
that you can add because at least for for guys there's not a lot to work with here and so adding some accessories like some neckwear some eyeglasses now I met a gentleman who was running security at Neil's event and he showed me his business card he does Private Security a beautiful looking black
man a great facial structure and I just said you know red is your color but there's not a lot of it here and he he lists up his uh his pant leg and shows me that it's wearing red socks but that's cool but you're not showing enough angle for anyone to really notice
that you could be wearing a red tie right now you could wear red glasses he goes but I have good Vision because they don't have to be real they could just be UV coated for whatever reason and they don't have to be prescriptive but those are opportunities for you and he's like oh
you're right because the glasses frame the face of the eyes and for some people they they we have this Prejudice I think that we think people wear glasses are smart not always we're just nearsighted okay and to start to look for your signature color so I know for a lot of designers the
Trope is that they all just wear black and I'm guilty I wear all black too just easier to like layer stuff but find a color that works for you and start to use that integrate it and and preferably it's a bright brilliant color you don't want to pick a color that's very muted
and desaturated because there's no point in it all right and you could do this in layers now I found out uh from a gentleman that I met in Amsterdam that he wore layers beautifully and I was like man your lair games on point he goes the trick is you just bite all from
the same manufacturer because the tones work together they're designed in as like a like a system which I didn't realize so if you buy clothing from a store that you love especially if you're a little bit clueless and you want to start leveling up just buy multiple things from them that can be
layered on top of each other the colors and the materials and the cut will complement one another and so that's how he avoided the problem like how do I layer and and start to take some chances everybody think about patterns and textures so it's just not one solid blank on you break it
up a little bit and that's an advanced level maneuver so it's not for the faint of heart but introduce patterns and textures all right now what I want to do is talk a little bit about the silhouette and there's a quote from um one of brilliant Britain's like most brilliant fashion designers in
the last I don't know 20 years unfortunately he's passed Lee Alexander McQueen he says to change the silhouette is to change the thinking of how we look so many fashion designers are always looking at the silhouette how do we change the silhouette there's the human body what else can we do to it
so they'll they'll play around with collars or shoulders or or making the sleeves extra long or the pant legs wide or short narrow whatever it is so they can they can play around with the silhouette and you can see the same principle being applied in the world of animation so when they design
characters for an animation this happens to be for Kung Fu Panda you can see each character clearly has a different shape and proportion from the crane to the panda to the tiger to the snake to the Mantis they all look so different and the reason being is we need to be able to
quickly identify who they are purely based on the shape so what they'll do is when they're designing a character sheet like this they'll just work on Silhouettes and not even about the detail and so you'll notice the crane would normally have a small head but by giving the crane this kind of straw
hat they can change the silhouette and that's a pretty cool thing that they're doing there okay you look at the silhouette and we're going to do this little kind of mental exercise and add a pop of color here everybody so I'm going to show you what that might look like all right so
here we are we're just blending in we're fitting in that uniform and there's not a lot that we're doing here but I want to show you how by adding just a pop of color to the silhouette we start to change how we perceive it so right now it's a monolithic thing it's just
one entire silhouette but if we were to say pop some red socks on you'll notice now they're going to look very different than everyone else next to them if we add some red glasses as I mentioned all of a sudden we're adding things at the top and the bottom to create visual interest
at the top and then anchor in the feet and if we add a cap we turn it sideways like this and we add some color to it again we just changed the silhouette we we drop on a t-shirt with a red X so it's not too much red yet it's going to get
really close adding too much red but I think we can still manage this in terms of a pop of color if we add a red watch band I think this is a pretty complete look and we've not drastically altered the silhouette except for with the cap it's just with a pop of color
and these are powerful things and when I mentioned Rich earlier when he's walking around he has an opportunity to wear headphones that are synced with his color his brand colors that allow him to signal to other people he does really care about sound and sound quality okay so when you look at how
you can upgrade your game to have a signature or like uh what do we call this here I forgot my own terminology here one thing that you can splurge on the statement piece your statement piece for guys the easiest thing to do is buy some designer sneakers something that's cool that you like
forget what other people like just buy what you like and let that be a staple of your new ensemble uh to break up the silhouette especially if you're like me you have a shiny scalp you'll probably want to wear a hat uh some kind of Capper beanie that's got a cool look for
you and you you're going to make sure because all our faces are very different some are angler some are wide some are narrow not every hat works with every face just like not every pair of glasses works with every face you can also change it up I like wearing scarves now or a
hanger chair for an ascot a tie instead of a a bow tie instead of a tie it's that's a level up maneuver there it's an old school detail you can wear necklace some jewelry you can accessorize with bags and backpacks and and what do they call those shoulder bags things like that sunglasses
and Eyeglasses and even tools the things that you use can start to create a story narrative around you the package if you will and the way we start all of this is we begin with a mood board we we collect assets that we like things that Inspire us and I'm going to give
you some Clues on how to do this because I asked Rich to put together a mood board he practically freaked out on me he's like Chris I don't know what I'm doing here but just gather things man put things together and then I realize the thing he gathers are from the world that
he knows and so they're just piles and piles of like not interesting stuff to me so look at your culture if you come from some other place draw from that and draw from art music and movies I didn't know this at the time but I watched the Ralph Lauren documentary and it turns
out he was really fascinated with Cinema and the Wardrobe and fashion within Cinemas so the great Spaghetti Westerns became the inspiration for a lot of his Ralph Lauren line and more specifically his double RL brand so he's pulling from from from movies like maybe The Great Gatsby or maybe it's some post-apocalyptic thing
that you draw inspiration from it doesn't matter just pull it out and the one of the great resources or places you go to is Pinterest you can type in a couple of keywords and go down that rabbit hole and start saving images don't worry whether it's good or bad just download everything you
can decide later and here's one thing that you can do you can type in a designer's name plus Runway plus year because you want to get a complete look not just a piece how they put things together on Runway shows or lookbooks shows you a very thoughtful considered approach to dressing someone top
to bottom and they put them in fanciful situations these kind of fantasy scenarios Laguna Safari or going on a trip for a weekend or sailing on a boat or something like that now you don't want to grab all their accessories because you're not going on a boat tomorrow but there are ideas to
work with and to be inspired by so just to help all you all out here I don't know what the female equivalent it is but I know at least for some guys if you're a J crew person I would strongly consider or encourage you to consider Todd Snyder he's an American designer based
out of New York often featured in GQ Magazine multiple collaborations with other designers himself and so this was the The Runway look from his collaboration with LLB so LL Bean is a traditional American Outdoor Outfitters for like people in backpacking outdoors and also fishing gear and I went to the LL Bean catalog
to try and find some of the clothes and they're not cut the same way they're not using that same editorial eye so the collaboration between Todd Snyder like a fashion designer working with a Heritage brand like LL Bean came up with some really cool looks like those duck boots on the far left
with the cardigan sweater with a kind of print super retro I love it I'm still trying to build this exact same look unfortunately I was on my way to building this in some of my clothes were my wardrobe was stolen when I was traveling overseas but eventually I'm going to be able to
build this and some of you might have noticed that I'm wearing a red like plaid jacket like this one from double RL and I'm trying to rock this whole look right so there's interesting things that you can pull from from these runways in terms of how they put the whole thing together colors
textures materials as well as the silhouette and if you're a North Face person or maybe a Columbia Sportswear I would strongly consider or encourage you to keep mixing up the words there to look into Montclair or Brands like this because they do some very fashionable things Montclair traditionally provides like snow and ski
jackets very upper crusty things but to make them more contemporary and appeal to younger people and to make it not just a winter wear thing they collaborate with some really young up and coming designers they do this thing called the Genius project where they're really playing around with their assets and allowing young
designers to infuse new energy and ideas into it and if you're into like Tech streetwear strongly I encourage you to look at acronym they're kind of pricey hard to get but errolson Hugh is a master he's the Godfather of technical apparel many years working with Nike ACG Stone Island and Burton Snowboards has
led him to his own line he's been doing this for decades now and so some really interesting unusual things about his clothes hella expensive hard to get if that's your jam do it I just bought my first pair of acronym pants and my wife's like what are you doing what did you pay
for this are you buying into all the hype I guess I am all right if you're a Levi's person like an All-American thing consider Ralph Lauren's double RL line and the looks that he's able to put together super inspiring if you want to be inspired by this kind of look like the peaky
blinders look just go to a double RL flagship store I went to the one in Tokyo meant everybody there was dressed to the nines with all the layers I just wanted to buy their entire ensemble but you know everything from the pocket watch and up from the scarves and everything so when you
see me walking around looking like this you're like yeah I now know where Chris gets it so as you can see my in interests are rather diverse it's not just a uniform for me I like playing around with different clothes to match my mood or where I'm going to also just kind of
go against the grain if you will and if you're like a surplus Thrift kind of person and you're looking for this kind of military details one of my favorite Brands Dutch brand called g-star I think Pharrell Williams now owns part of it or owns the whole thing but g-star takes inspiration from the
military and puts it into their clothes designed really well a little bit pricey but relatively affordable so if you're into denim if you're into this kind of pseudo-military detail you cannot be g-star for that and and lastly if you're an athleisure person I like collabs so the Gucci and Adidas collaboration produce some
amazing Silhouettes and different looks now from the fainter heart you're going to freak the F out when I show you this but I just love how they're putting stuff together it's something that I aspire to be able to rock without feeling hyper self-conscious like the fact that they've got trainers on underneath when
it looks to me like a skirt with a suit jacket and with a soccer or or a football gloves on it to me is just so bold I just like that these oversized gloves really change the silhouette okay not for the faint of heart but just super cool if you want your drip
game to be on point hard to go wrong with the Gucci Adidas collection be prepared to drop some serious coin though because we're talking about thousands of dollars per piece so what you want to do is collect all these inspirational things and start to curate them put them together and this is the
mood board right so on the bottom middle here you're gonna see this fairly athletic looking person with the gray suit jacket with a pretty high uh trouser legs so the shown a lot of ankle that's LeBron James and LeBron James has the build the height and the frame and his suits are super
tailored to his body they fit like a glove but for me since I'm a designer I love things with Wells like good set typography so the Nike SF ones on the bottom right the goddess designer plus I just started to recently explore the world of luxury goods introducing a little Louis Vuitton and
of course the aforementioned acronym and Todd Snyder so what you do with this is if you're able to clip some of your favorite looks what I would suggest that you do is to print them out go a little go do a little shopping until you can build up enough pieces one piece it
won't work you have to have layers and you have to have components that work together and then what I do is I would tape these things through the mirror or to the door where my wardrobe is and so when I'm getting dressed I'm like okay that's how you wear that I'm not going
to look for something and after a while you won't need this at all you'll be able to do this intuitively like your own your you are your own best stylist but I'm going to just tell you this if you're going to go through this exercise if you're still here an hour and some
odd into this live stream with me it means you care and don't take a tibbon step forward take four steps forward everybody okay the last thing I'm going to share with you there's a way for you to do this that uh maybe a little bit more analytical for some of your left brainers
there to develop a style slider and a slider helps to dial in more Nuance definitions of what you're trying to go for so maybe you're more rock and roll or maybe you're more hip-hop or somewhere in between like that collab between Run DMC and Aerosmith Back in the Day the original collab right
maybe you're more vintage or maybe you're more avant-garde and you can slide this and use different words whatever works for you solids the patterns muted tones to both colors uh more formal versus casual figure out the dial here and you can start to figure out what brands align with this and let's just
help you and so to try to like bookend this entire conversation as I'm about to land the plane and potentially answer some questions uh this is me propping Jess to get ready for this part remember before we talked about packaging and packaging tells a story if there's no story it's a commodity but
we don't have to be the same package we don't have to say the same story I prefers not to you have to ask yourself are you going to be this standard generic bottled water has no story or maybe you're like Foss or the darling of the moment liquid death each one says something
about you and when people choose to work with you or choose to buy your products and services they want to join your tribe okay I'm going to share some resources everybody especially if you're new to the world of fashion I'm doing my personal Deep dive because I'm planning to launch my own clothing
brand in a little while here some of the books here so you just take a screenshot of this and you're set okay and and I'm going to turn this over to my my co-host the person that's running this in the background maybe my director producer just to do some things but I want
to thank you all for spending some time with me and potentially some of you are very curious about brand lab it is designed for Left Brain entrepreneurs who want to think right who want to introduce creativity and I as your host and your brand master so to speak want to invite you to
play with the crazy kids to eat some crowns to color Outside the Lines come into the light it's awesome here and I'll open up to some q a now as you can see you see the yellow stripe even though this is not my design it's all intentional right like I'm trying to design
things I'm pointing the wrong direction where am I pointing and whatever you know where I'm pointing okay and that's my time I'm gonna do some q a now I don't know how this works Jessica so it's time for us to stop the share right so how do I do that I gotta get
back here stop stop screen okay Jessica what do we do now besides play the music and get us out of here hello hello so one question that I thought was really good that came up a little bit earlier okay is about knowing yourself to even get into your style and a lot of
people don't necessarily even know who they are so what would you say as far as just exploring that part of you um as you ask the question I should not drink for my bottom water as I'm about to spit all over the place okay you're right some of you who are fairly new
to our content and what it is that I'm doing you haven't seen me speak or haven't attended to worship maybe this is a little bit overwhelming for you and and I guess that's kind of on purpose so what I need to do is to teach you some other exercises to to get in
touch with who you are and it's a very difficult journey to go on so it's not going to be easy but one of the things I talk about is finding your two-word brand the the two or three words that summarize who you are as an invitation to the world to get to know
yourself get to know you better like for me I'm a loud introvert for Phyllis Trotter she's the brand mother so she took two words and put them together branding and grandmother and created the brand mother um uh Sean who was a part of the workshops his his two-word brand was hope dealer and
I love that because he took like a coke dealer and he made it a hope dealer and he works in in real estate and so it's kind of fun to see people coming up with a two-word brand so I I can't explain it right now due to any real justice but look out
for content from us my plan Jessica and it's part of our larger mission of educating a billion people is and it was confusing to me before but it's clear to me now what we need to do the confusion came in that if I give you the content away for free will you show
up to the workshop will you buy the course and then therefore we have no money I have no staff we can't build a company and that's not a good prudent business thing to do but it goes against my nature to want to give and to share with people so the current plan right
now is everything that relates to personal branding I just want to teach you for free on social media on Instagram on LinkedIn and everywhere else everywhere else you can find me and YouTube obviously and then you can just watch and you can learn and you can do the exercises on your own so
now now we're going to be out in the Poor House Jessica so uh don't go buying any fancy car any luxury goods right shut it down shut it down cancel the credit cards put a freeze on the account now I'm just kidding so the way that we're gonna do this is we'll teach
you for free and for those of you who want to go down the rabbit hole if you choose the red or the blue pill and you want to go see how deep the rabbit hole goes as Morpheus as the Neo then I invite you to join me in my brand lab it's an
exclusive group of 100 people it's a creative Think Tank where I'm going to leverage my 30 years in working the industry as a person who's worked in advertising making music videos and commercials for some of the biggest brands in the world like like Nike therefore or full mentioned Nike uh I'm gonna make
myself available to this exclusive group of 100 people to give them what I think is what I can the most valuable thing I have my time my attention my access but also critical tactical feedback to help you get clarity and what it is that you're doing now when I talked to Neil he's
like Chris whenever my community shows up they're a little confused about what they're doing so when you're that confused it's like we don't know where to start and they get into that analysis paralysis mode so it's often helpful for people like once they're like this is our Target customer this is our identity
system this is our voice and and this is our positioning the content creation part the marketing part the telling of our story becomes super super easy because you get that kind of laser focus we call it the anti-fog we're going to provide you some of the anti-fog spray on your personal brand so
if you're looking for feedback if you're in the position where I don't know you're going to do a Rebrand and you're about to hire a design firm to help you with that this is not a service thing I'm providing and you need guidance so you're not spending your money foolishly if you're going
to go out and redo your whole wardrobe and drop 5G you might want to have some guidance in that process and I'm here for you for those that are willing to do that now time my time is a premium I can't do this normally but I thought and we we conspired Jessica myself
Ben and Carrie green have conspired to figure out a way that I can do this so it still works financially for me but then you get the feedback so the brand lab is weekly calls mostly not all the time where you can drop in and be be part of the the hot seat
coaching where we address your problem and I'm just going to sit there I'm like I'm gonna pour into you so if you want to pull up your website or your identity system or even bids or proposals that you're seeing from other people about your marketing your content game I can help look at
it I can guide you along the way so you can make smart decisions so you can amplify your influence grow your Authority and to further deepen your mission that's what I'm here for Jessica somebody who goes there goes they're going to be businesses that are at a certain stage so that they can
benefit the most um can you tell us a little bit about Pro so that they know yes there's personal branding work that's still available yes so what we try to do is be very thoughtful in the uh the the Journey of all entrepreneurs whether you're left or right brain so we have three
tiers and this is how we can serve all our community so brand lab isn't us just turning our back on other communities it's just in addition to it's not a but it's an and all right so brand lab we're targeting people that do a million plus in Revenue that's not a hard number
but as a general guidepost for you and who can afford eighteen thousand dollars basically three thousand dollars a month for six months this is what I'm willing to do that's a commitment I'm willing to make there is a tier for people who are between a hundred thousand dollars to million dollars in Revenue
that group is called the pro group we do different things there's more curriculum uh it's more time invested in you trying to get the help that you need it's a little it's a lot less one-on-one attention Okay but that group is fairly affordable 250 a month versus three thousand dollars a month so
you can see there's a big gap there and then we also have another group called the accelerator which in case you're here and you're like this sounds wonderful I need help I'm not there accelerators for anybody who's just starting out for Creative people only who want to get from zero to hundred thousand
dollars in Revenue a year Ben Burns Stephanie Owens has got you a very specific program to give you direct feedback on your website your copy your positioning so you can build your business so you can see we're going to take care of you from the infancy of your creative entrepreneurship game all the
way into like you know what I've made enough money I want to do something deep and meaningful find my purpose and share my gift with the world we got you on both ends awesome and with that it looks like it's a wrap you ready it's a wrap yeah that means I'm gonna play
the music and get us out of here so first of all I want to thank each and every single person who's tuned in who's stayed with us the entire time and actually the question always comes up hey Chris is this recorded this one is recorded I don't know how it's going to be
shared it could leave here on LinkedIn for a little bit it might migrate its way over to YouTube maybe there's like little segments that we cut up who knows you know we're in the media game we'll figure this stuff out okay so appreciate all of you for hanging out with me if you
have other questions just please comment on the live stream and we will be checking it if you're very interested in brand lab just type in the word lab l a b and the number one lab one like you're the number one person here and we'll take care of you okay and on behalf
of the entire future team myself and Jessica thank you very much very much for being here everybody we'll see you on the internet take care we'll see you next time [Music]
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“If you keep making the same mistake long enough it becomes your style.”
— Chris Do
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