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    PERSONAL BRANDING
    Podcast 14 min read

    Becoming Unshakable: Design, Filmmaking, and Identity w/ Stan Nwaeze

    with Stan Nwaeze

    Stan Nwaeze and Chris Do connect creative identity, visible expertise, and the discipline of standing out.

    Chris Do

    Chris Do

    Founder, The Futur™ · August 28, 2025

    A creative career does not arrive fully formed

    A broad skill set can look like a lack of direction until the right medium brings it together. Stan Nwaeze, a largely self-taught designer and filmmaker whose work includes branding, weddings, events, and corporate interviews, has built a practice across disciplines that are often treated as separate careers. His experience offers a practical counterpoint to the pressure on creatives to choose one identity and defend it forever.

    His starting point was not a grand artistic vision. A friend suggested that programming could earn him money, and money was what he needed. He began learning HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, then found himself struggling with JavaScript while another friend introduced him to Photoshop.

    The decisive intervention came during an internship. A colleague had seen his designs and questioned why he was investing so much effort in programming when design appeared to offer a stronger direction. Nwaeze chose to focus there.

    What followed was not a clean replacement of one discipline with another. Graphic design led to branding, marketing materials, and social graphics, followed by web design and interface work in Figma. Filmmaking eventually gave those accumulated skills somewhere to meet.

    His shorthand is “a designer by day and a filmmaker by night.”

    The phrase sounds like a division of labor. In practice, it describes an expanding creative vocabulary. As a creative lead at a previous workplace, Nwaeze developed campaign concepts and worked with colleagues on videos, documentaries, and corporate interviews, bringing design decisions into moving images.

    Filmmaking also serves two purposes for him: paid professional work and a way to document his own experience. Neither requires him to discard what came before. Composition, messaging, motion, and audience experience become parts of the same assignment rather than competing claims on his attention.

    That is the central tension in his conversation with Chris Do. Nwaeze is still actively building across disciplines; Do describes himself as being at the tail end of his creative career. Both recognize the anxiety of competing in a crowded market, especially as AI design tools add to the sense that competent production is becoming easier to find.

    Yet their answer is not simply to produce more or specialize harder. It is to make the relationship between skill, judgment, and identity legible.

    Difference becomes useful when other people can see it.

    Nwaeze's background matters because it gives that argument something firmer than a motivational slogan. His skills did not arrive as a polished brand proposition. They developed through financial necessity, encouragement, experimentation, and work, then became more coherent when he found a format that could contain them.

    The challenge was no longer just becoming capable. It was making that capability visible without flattening it into the same professional persona everyone else was presenting.

    The work before the introduction

    Nwaeze began publishing videos on YouTube during the 2020 lockdown and sharing educational material on Instagram, including carousels. The premise was straightforward: someone further back in the learning process could benefit from what he already understood. Waiting to become an unquestioned expert would only delay that exchange.

    He credits Do's instruction to “teach what you know” as an important influence. The value of a lesson does not depend on its being new to every person who encounters it. Knowledge that feels routine to an experienced designer can still answer a beginner's immediate problem.

    That distinction changes the purpose of publishing. The assignment is not to prove intellectual ownership of an entire field. It is to make a useful piece of experience available to someone who needs it.

    For Nwaeze, the commercial consequence was concrete. While he was in Nigeria, a person in London discovered his Instagram content and contacted him about design work connected to an album. Years later, Nwaeze says, they were still working together in London.

    The initial post did not have to contain a sales pitch. It had to give someone a reason to investigate.

    Other prospects followed a similar pattern. They asked to see his work or his page, including people who had already received a referral. The recommendation opened the door, but the visible history helped them decide whether to proceed.

    In his account, that history performed several jobs:

    • It showed examples of his creative work.
    • It demonstrated that he had been sharing knowledge over time.
    • It gave referred prospects something to inspect independently.
    • It made his experience accessible to clients beyond his immediate location.

    This is a more specific argument than the familiar demand to build an audience. Nwaeze does not offer follower totals as proof of success. He describes inquiries, ongoing relationships, and clients, including clients in the United States, who could examine his work before deciding to hire him.

    A public archive can be commercially useful without becoming a mass-media property.

    The distinction is important because the pressure to stand out often gets translated into a pressure to be spectacular. Nwaeze's example points toward continuity instead. Prospects saw that something had been happening before they arrived, not a page assembled only after someone requested evidence.

    The broader subject connects naturally with Where To Start With Social Media. Here, however, the strongest evidence is the sequence Nwaeze describes: useful material became discoverable, discovery prompted contact, and contact developed into work.

    None of that establishes a guaranteed return for every post. It establishes a reason to publish beyond the immediate reaction beneath it. A piece of content can be quiet in public and still become decisive when a prospective client starts looking.

    Credibility needs an outside witness

    Visibility alone leaves a difficult question unresolved: why should anyone believe the claims attached to it? When Nwaeze asks for advice beyond sharing knowledge, Do begins with evidence. A professional reputation becomes stronger when other people can verify the signals supporting it.

    Verifiable proof carries more weight than self-description.

    Do names awards, certificates, speaking engagements, recognized publications, and appearances alongside established people as examples. These are not interchangeable measures of creative ability. They are external markers that help a stranger assess someone whose work and history are otherwise unfamiliar.

    His distinction is blunt: “The claims that you make that cannot be verified are not as powerful.”

    A claim of excellence asks the audience to trust the claimant. A recognizable client, an identifiable award, or a documented speaking role gives the audience something else to examine. The difference is not merely how impressive the language sounds, but whether the evidence exists outside the speaker's own description.

    Do illustrates the point by contrasting an obscure company name with widely recognized clients. The former can represent excellent work, but the audience has little context for it. A familiar name gives people a reference point before they have investigated the project itself.

    The same reasoning explains why he sometimes accepts speaking engagements that do not pay him and can cost money to attend. The institution's recognition can make the appearance valuable in a way that the immediate fee does not capture. A smaller event can still offer practice, but he distinguishes that benefit from the credibility attached to a better-known platform.

    That distinction also demands restraint. An external signal supports a claim; it does not relieve the professional of having to deliver. The argument concerns how credibility travels, not whether a logo or award can replace the work beneath it.

    For a creative deciding where to invest effort, Do's examples create a practical set of possibilities:

    • Recognition that can be checked. Awards and certificates provide specific achievements to examine.
    • Platforms that carry context. Publications, conferences, and panels make expertise visible through established venues.
    • Work that has a recognizable reference. Familiar clients can help audiences understand the scale or context of experience.

    His advice is to focus on a few relevant opportunities at a time rather than treat every credential as equally useful. The task is to identify the publications, events, and award programs connected to the industry, then work toward having the work seen there.

    There is a productive tension between this approach and Nwaeze's publishing history. One builds evidence through repeated public demonstration; the other seeks confirmation from outside institutions. Neither requires choosing between substance and reputation.

    The professional problem is getting substance to travel farther than the person who created it.

    The strongest position is a combination

    Do's second response moves in the opposite direction. After discussing the value of recognizable institutions, he turns toward the parts of a person that cannot be borrowed from an institution at all: interests, background, temperament, and combinations of skills.

    Recognition helps establish credibility. It does not explain why one credible creative should be chosen over another.

    That is where imitation becomes expensive. A designer can spend years learning the same tools, studying the same references, and adopting the same professional language as competitors, then discover that those efforts have made the comparison closer rather than more favorable.

    Do describes branding as meaningful, intentional differentiation. His question is not simply which discipline someone performs best. It is which combination of abilities and interests produces a way of working that feels distinct.

    His own inventory is broad: design, animation, motion design, art direction, creative direction, directing, entrepreneurship, and teaching. Alongside those roles sit interests in comic books, movies, art, architecture, photography, and popular culture. Content creation gave those inputs a shared outlet.

    A single job title could account for only part of that material. Speaking on camera and presenting ideas allowed more of it to become useful at once.

    Nwaeze's filmmaking offers a parallel. A video can carry his visual taste, literal voice, editing decisions, framing, lighting, and understanding of an audience. Skills previously assigned to separate services become visible within one finished piece.

    The medium does not erase complexity. It gives complexity a structure.

    Do extends that reasoning to stage presentations. He describes drawing on his Asian American identity, his experience as a refugee from Vietnam, his design sensibility, and his comfort with spontaneous audience interaction. Visual thinking and live drawing become part of how he teaches, rather than details left outside the professional performance.

    The useful lesson is not to copy that performance. Copying it would repeat the problem. The point is that a presentation can be built around the speaker's actual strengths instead of an inherited idea of what authority is supposed to sound like.

    This is a useful companion to How to stay curious, particularly for creatives worried that interests outside their primary discipline dilute their identity. In Nwaeze's case, adjacent skills became more valuable when filmmaking gave them a common purpose.

    There is still an editorial decision to make. An inventory of everything someone likes is not automatically a position. Do emphasizes finding the overlaps, not displaying every trait with equal emphasis.

    The resulting identity has to be coherent enough for another person to recognize. It should explain the work rather than bury it beneath a catalogue of interests.

    Distinctiveness, then, is not an invented eccentricity attached to an otherwise generic offer. It is a pattern already present in the person's experience, brought into sharper focus through the way the work is made and presented.

    Exposure is an investment, not a wage

    The pursuit of recognition introduces a dangerous ambiguity. If a platform can carry value beyond a fee, almost any unpaid request can be described as an opportunity. Nwaeze presses on that point by asking whether creatives should ever work for free.

    Do's answer depends on context. A project can justify an exception when it creates access to an opportunity or a category of work that would otherwise be difficult to enter. But the exception needs a different accounting system from ordinary paid work.

    “It's not really work, it's marketing,” he says.

    Unpaid work needs a marketing budget.

    The budget is what keeps the idea from becoming a blanket endorsement of working without compensation. Time, money, and resources still have costs. Calling a project marketing does not remove them; it gives the business a category in which to evaluate and limit them.

    At Blind, Do says, money was set aside for projects that did not make conventional financial sense. Creative directors had discretion to pursue work that could benefit their portfolios and the company by demonstrating something the studio would not otherwise get to make.

    He identifies public service announcements and music videos as common examples. In his account, these projects frequently came with budgets that did not cover the desired creative ambition. The studio could spend the full fee or commit more than it received because the result served another purpose.

    Do describes that plainly as buying the work. The studio was not discovering that a loss had somehow become revenue. It was choosing to subsidize a creative opportunity.

    The decision therefore needs boundaries:

    • Identify the kind of work or opportunity the project makes accessible.
    • Check the resources available within the marketing budget.
    • Judge whether the result adds something useful to the portfolio or company.
    • Recognize any subsidy as a deliberate cost, not an invisible sacrifice.

    Nwaeze offers a smaller-scale example. He worked on branding and marketing designs for a music reality show at substantially less than the fee he wanted. Seeing the work onstage was satisfying, but the commercial significance came afterward.

    Someone saw the designs, asked who had created them, obtained his number, and contacted him about a larger job. The underpaid assignment produced an introduction attached to visible work, not simply a promise that the right people would notice.

    It remains one outcome, not a universal law. The story supports a selective argument: exposure has value when the work reaches relevant people and gives them a reason to act. It cannot establish that every reduced fee will generate a better project later.

    The question also sits alongside Free Work That Actually Pays. The operative distinction here is between an intentional investment and an open-ended concession. A professional can choose the former without accepting the latter as the normal price of admission.

    Expression and distribution are different jobs

    Nwaeze raises another familiar cost of visibility: exhaustion. A creative keeps publishing, receives little engagement, and begins to question whether the effort is worth continuing. Do separates the emotional problem from the production problem before trying to solve either.

    First, making content can be a form of self-expression. Explaining an idea forces its author to discover what is clear, what remains vague, and what actually deserves emphasis. The act has value before an audience supplies a verdict.

    Second, reaching people is a craft. An idea can be worth articulating and still arrive in a package that gives strangers little reason to pay attention. Respecting the work does not require pretending that its presentation cannot improve.

    Those are different jobs, and confusing them makes every weak performance feel like a judgment on the person.

    Do identifies the opening as one common failure point. Creators take too long to establish why the material matters, or address viewers as though a relationship already exists. A stranger has no obligation to wait through that setup.

    On YouTube, the encounter begins even earlier. A prospective viewer sees a title and thumbnail before hearing the opening line. Do says that changing those elements has affected how his team's content performs, making packaging a meaningful part of the work rather than a final administrative task.

    Nwaeze approaches that problem from both verbal and visual directions. He invests in an opening that can hold attention through the language, the edit, or both. He also looks for questions people are asking and considers how his message and title respond to them.

    His production choices include:

    • A verbal or visual hook that gives the opening purpose.
    • Music and sound choices that support the intended feeling.
    • Consistent thumbnails with a dramatic visual character.
    • B-roll that adds something beyond a person speaking.
    • A message shaped around something the audience wants to understand.

    He describes researching fast cuts for a recent video, then assembling different shots and adding sound to strengthen the opening. It is a modest but revealing example: the response to a creative problem was to learn a specific technique, not to declare the entire effort a failure.

    The packaging question connects with She Cracked the YouTube Code. Here's Everything She Knows. In this conversation, the important distinction is between the value of the idea and the decisions that help an unfamiliar audience encounter it.

    Do also cautions against treating energy as a constant setting. Relentless intensity becomes tiring; an unvarying calm can become dull. He compares effective delivery to music, where changes in pace and intensity create movement.

    Short, choppy phrasing can communicate excitement. Longer pauses and stretched words can create drama. The speaker's voice is another creative instrument, not merely a delivery system for a script.

    Make the overlap visible

    The practical resolution begins before another post is made. Do describes an exercise that turns a vague search for identity into material a creative can inspect: list developed skills, list strong interests, and list the unusual traits or fascinations that make the person less interchangeable.

    Find the overlap before choosing the performance.

    The order matters. Starting with an admired creator's format invites imitation. Starting with the actual inventory creates a better chance of discovering a format that expresses something already present.

    Do's process can be rendered simply:

    • List skills developed through training, coaching, certification, or deliberate practice.
    • List subjects and activities that generate sustained enthusiasm.
    • List unusual interests and personal traits.
    • Cluster the lists and look for combinations that belong together.
    • Highlight the combination through the work and its presentation.

    The exercise is not a demand to turn every private interest into content. Its purpose is to notice relationships that a conventional job description leaves out. A designer who also understands editing, performance, and storytelling has more to work with than a list of software proficiencies suggests.

    Nwaeze supplies the evidence in practice. His branding experience informs messaging. His design background informs composition and thumbnails. His filmmaking gives those decisions timing, sound, and a human presence.

    Do's advice about B-roll sharpens the standard for that integration. Additional footage should relate naturally to what is being said and can illustrate an idea metaphorically or symbolically. Movement alone is not the objective.

    A visually interesting shot still has to belong to the story.

    That requirement protects differentiation from becoming decoration. A dramatic thumbnail, a carefully chosen soundtrack, or an unusual presentation style is useful when it helps communicate the underlying idea. Without that connection, the audience encounters a collection of effects rather than a point of view.

    The same discipline applies to the business decisions surrounding the work. A recognized platform should support a credible claim. A subsidized project should have a defined purpose. A public lesson should give someone something worth understanding.

    Nwaeze's account does not require a creative to resolve an entire identity before becoming visible. His path suggests the reverse: making and sharing work can reveal which combinations are strongest, while real inquiries show what other people can recognize and value.

    The next piece of work therefore has a more demanding brief than simply attracting attention. It needs to demonstrate a skill, communicate an idea, and reveal a combination that does not disappear when another person opens the same software.

    A crowded market makes imitation feel safe because its forms are already familiar. But familiarity offers little protection when the prospect can find the same presentation elsewhere.

    The tools can be shared. The combination has to be earned.

    TRANSCRIPT

    Stan and Waze didn't just build a business, he built himself. From growing up with scarcity to leading with vision and values, Stan's story is one of grit, growth, and grounded confidence. In this episode, we talk about what it really means to lead, how faith shaped his path, and why identity always comes before influence. If you're trying to lead others without losing yourself, this one's for you. Hi, my name is Stan Waze, and you are listening to The Future. Tell me a little bit about your background, because I don't know that much about you. I've seen a couple of your videos, and I thought they were really well done. Super smart, how you presented it. So what is it that you do? I'm just going to go back in time. So I actually started my career as a web developer. At that time, a friend of mine, you know, told me that I could make some cool cash as a programmer. That drew my attention, because I needed money, and I was like, okay, let's see what this would bring. I started learning HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and all of those things. And I got stuck at some point when I got to JavaScript. And then I had a friend then that was a graphic designer. So he was also like putting me through one or two things in Photoshop. And during my internship then in one of the companies I worked with, one of my colleagues said, why are you struggling with JavaScript? I've seen your designs. If you put more time and attention to this, I mean, it can turn out to be something better. And so that day, I said, I was just going to focus on graphic design. So I started my career as a graphic designer. I was doing a lot of branding, marketing, social media graphics, and all of those. And eventually transitioned into doing web design, more like UI UX with Figma. So I did a couple of those as well, and about for the past three years, four years, I found a new life. I'd say in social media graphics and all of those and eventually transitioned into doing web design more like UI UX with Figma. So I did a couple of those as well and about for the past three years, four years, I found a new love. Framing is the way I express myself. I bring all my expertise together from branding, marketing, motion graphics, UI UX. I felt like I needed to share my story and that was why I really piqued interest in shooting new videos and making good videos for myself. So that's just the background in a nutshell. So it sounds to me like you're this kind of curious creative soul that whatever piques your interests, you kind of dive into. And most of this is a self -taught? A lot of it is self -taught because I learned on YouTube. I'm a very curious person. I like to learn. I love to learn. Now I kind of know a little bit about you. So when you're doing filming, is it something you do for as your profession or is it something you just do to document what you're doing? Yeah, the both of them. So I do filming also as a profession. I like to introduce myself as a designer by day and a filmmaker by night. What that means is when I'm not designing, trying to film, I shoot weddings, events. I've done some couple of corporate interview videos. All of these things have helped me. In my previous place of work, I was more like the creative lead. So when it comes to trying to like plan a campaign and the videos that would be used to push that campaign, I was in charge of coming with the concepts and working with the other members of the team to create those videos. And it was a learning curve for me because we've done, we've worked on documentaries, we've worked on corporate interviews and all of this stuff. It's something I do as a profession and it's something I do to document my own journey. I think what will be helpful for people right now is there's, we're on two different arcs. You're still in the heat of your creative career. I'm on the tail end of a creative career. And I think we can share some insights around how you stand out in a crowded space. And it's my own journey. I think what will be helpful for people right now is there's, we're on two different arcs. You're still in the heat of your creative career. I'm on the tail end of a creative career. And I think we can share some insights around how you stand out in a crowded space. I think there's a lot of concern about how much competition there is, how much noise there is. And it's being exacerbated by the proliferation of AI, quote unquote, design tools and platforms. And so it feels like it's harder than ever to stand out. What have you found to be helpful in your creative pursuit? So in my creative pursuits, what I've found to be helpful when it comes to standing out is talking about what I do. If there's anything that stood out for me, it would be a popular thing that I've heard. It says, I might not be quoting it exactly, but it says, don't wait to be discovered. Create a stage instead. And that stands out for me. So I got the book, A Pockets Full of Do. I have it here, actually. And one of the things that stands out for me in your book is the part where you said, teach what you know, teach what you know. And then I feel like we don't necessarily need to be experts, like pros or experts at what we do before we share our ideas or share what we know. So in trying to stand out, I think one of the things would be to share our ideas, what have we learned so far? Because I feel like sometimes we think that what we know is like a lot of people know it already. And why do we need to talk about it? But then if we put out our ideas, our knowledge, our experiences, what we've gathered so far over the years, I think it would make a difference in the life of someone. Because I know that in this space, there are other people coming, other creatives, they're just out of school and they want to learn this, they want to learn that. So one content can speak to them. So that's what I think. Okay. So you've taken this idea of teaching what you know while you learn it to heart and you're documenting and sharing it. they're just out of school and they want to learn this they want to learn that so one contents can be can speak to them so that's what i think okay so you've taken this idea of teaching what you know while you learn it to heart and you're documenting and sharing it with people how has that created opportunities for you so there was a point where it's a bob story because i started sharing my ideas sometime i think it was like 2020 i did my first youtube video in 2020 during the lockdown and i started sharing instagram contents i think then we had the ibitos more of carousels so we're doing carousels so i started sharing doing carousels and all of those things and then one day someone reached out to me on instagram he was in london then i was still back in nigeria and he said that he wanted me to that he came across my contents and everything and he was working on a music video on his album and then he said if i could help him work on the design for the album ads and that wasn't just it and the thing about this story is that the same person that reached out to me a year years back is the same person that i'm still we still we are still working together currently in london that was one of the experiences i had also i had some clients reach out to reach out to me and the first thing they ask is can we see your work or can we see your page and when i redirect them to my page they see that there's been like a history they're seeing that there's something that's been going on okay if this is the kind of person if this is what you've been putting out i think it's safe to to say we can work with you because it shows that you've established an authority in this let's see what you can do let's try and work with you and then i've also had situations where i get a referral a friend of mine refers a client to me and they're like it doesn't just stop by referring can we see your page as well and then i showed them my page and they're like oh okay that's fine i've had the opportunity to work with clients from the u .s Yet a referral, a friend of mine refers a client to me and they're like, it doesn't just stop by referring. Can we see your page as well? And then I showed them my page and they're like, oh, okay, that's fine. I've had the opportunity to work with clients from the US across the world just because of that simple step of trying to like put out what I know and share my ideas without hoarding. So it's really been helpful for me. That's what I can say about that. Okay. So where do we go from here? I won't ask you, Chris, because I know that you have a lot of experience as an art director, you know, in motion, building a brand, building an agency, blind. You have this vast knowledge and experience. If you are to advise someone that is like confused or a creative that's confused on what they want to do or how they want to stand out amongst like the crowded space, what would be like the blueprints or big blueprints that you would give to them and say, these are the steps you should take. This is what you should do. Aside from, let's say, maybe sharing what you know and all of those things. I have two pieces of advice for you. Number one is you need to gather as much proof as possible that you are good at what you do. And there's a lot of external markers that signal to other people that you're very good. It can be awards, certificates, being able to speak on a panel with other famous, well -known people. Just those hallmarks that people lean to and say, oh, I'm a bestselling author. I've been published in Forbes, a fast company. I've won this award or received this achievement. I've judged these shows. All of those things really help to build your credibility and that can be verified. The claims that you make that cannot be verified are not as powerful. So you want to look for those things. And they're not that hard to attain if you focus in on a few of them at a time. So if you look at whatever notable publications or award shows or conferences or events that are around your industry, I would do my best to get on the radar to be able to speak and to have your work seen by those people. One of the reasons why I speak at some events when I don't even get paid where it costs me money to do is because they have name brand recognition. award shows or conferences or events that are around your industry, I would do my best to get on their radar to be able to speak and to have your work seen by those people. One of the reasons why I speak at some events when I don't even get paid where it costs me money to do is because they have name brand recognition. So if you speak for some very small organization that doesn't have name brand recognition, that's good for you, good for practice, but it's not really going to move the needle for you. If I tell you I work for John Smith and company and I've done great things for them, you are like, and so what? But if I told you I've done multiple commercials and campaigns for Nike, for Microsoft, for Google, for Fox Sports, and I've worked with the All -Stars for Major League Baseball, that will hit differently. You see, because those are name brand things. You can't really see, but behind me somewhere on here are a bunch of little statues. None of them anybody knows about unless you work in the industry, but there is one. It's not here with me right now, but I have an Emmy for art direction and design for music video that I did, and that's a name that people know. So if you win an Oscar, an Emmy, or a Clio, or something, or a Cannes Lion, those things really help you raise your profile. And we need to, as much as possible in this day and age, to be able to get as much independent media coverage and press as we can. It's a lot easier to do today than it used to be because there are people actively looking for you right now to write a story about you, to profile you, to shine the spotlight on you. That's number one. Number two, and this is easier the two to accomplish in concept, but maybe not an application, is to find out what makes you uniquely you and to be able to highlight that. We're so much trying to be like everyone else that we start to lose who we are. And there's this quote, I think it's from Sally Hogshead, which says, it's better to be different than to be better. So we want to be different. And branding is really our differentiating, meaningful, intentional differentiation. How is this bottle of water different from that bottle of water? How is this shirt different from that shirt? And when we can find that point of difference, we need to highlight it, we need to amplify it. Some practical steps for everybody here. I do this with lots of people. I say, tell me everything that you're good at, things that you're trained in, and you can list a lot of different skills, some things that you're certified in or been coached, something that you put in a lot of deliberate practice in figuring out. And tell me all the things that you're really super passionate about. Make a list of all those things. Then tell me things that you're just interested in or that weird that make you. everybody here. I do this with lots of people. I say, tell me everything that you're good at, things that you're trained in. And you can list a lot of different skills, some things that you're certified in or have been coached, some that you put in a lot of deliberate practice in figuring out. And tell me all the things that you're really super passionate about. Make a list of all those things. Then tell me things that you're just interested in or that weird that make you kind of a weirdo. And then we create these clusters and we start to look for overlaps. And when we can take several different things that don't belong together and we put them together, we find a point of differentiation and that becomes who you're supposed to be in this life. And I think I've done this twice recently within this last week, actually, where each person says to me, wow, I didn't know that was possible. Let me put this in context. Okay. I've worn many hats like you. I've been a designer. I've been an animator, a motion designer. I've been an art director, creative director, a director. I'm an entrepreneur. I'm an educator. I teach sequential design. I love all things pop culture, comic books, movies, art, architecture, photography. And it's not until I'm able to bring all these things together that I find my superpower. And when I find this thing, I want to really lean into it. So it's not until I start making content, not from the point of view of a videographer, but as a content creator, someone who steps in front of the camera to speak, to share my ideas, my point of view, and to do it in fun and interesting ways. So I start to realize all of who I can be. Because every time I just wear one hat and show the world one face, I'm only one dimensional, but I'm a multidimensional being. And I want to be able to show these multidimensions. The trick is to find the overlap between all these things. So I think you found this to be true too. Correct me if I'm wrong. When you're working as a storyteller through the lens of cinema, you're able to incorporate so many different aspects of who you are, your personality, literally your voice, your style, your aesthetic, your problem solving, your ability to tell stories and frame things. And you're going to be able to show off your editing and how you color grade and how you know how to light things. You're painting with light essentially when you're doing cinema. So you're bringing a lot of complicated skills together to achieve a very specific result, a feeling or an outcome. That would be user experience design, or maybe that's branding, or maybe that's partly marketing. So you're able to synthesize all these super complicated things together to present to the world. how to light things. You're painting with light, essentially, when you're doing cinema. So you're bringing a lot of complicated skills together to achieve a very specific result, a feeling or an outcome. That would be user experience design, or maybe that's branding, or maybe that's partly marketing. So you're able to synthesize all these super complicated things together to present to the world. I think that's why you might say, like, I'm a designer by day and a filmmaker by night, because the night part is the part that gets to explore all of you, not just some of you. I think that's really important. So when I go on stage and I speak, I think about the things that make me unique and different. Now, I'm painting with very broad strokes here, so everybody forgive me. Typically, when you go to a conference, who do you see on stage? This is not to cast blame at just calling it objectively. You typically see older white heterosexual men, okay, of European ancestry, generally speaking. And why is that? It's not because of the patriarchy or all these kinds of things. It's because European white heterosexual men write most of the books, the books that you and I read. They're the ones who we champion as the icon in the industry. So when event organizers go to book speakers, they tend to book those types of people. There's not so much diversity, people of color, people from Africa or people from Asia, queer, gay, lesbian, neurodivergent folks. We don't see that. And so what I do is I don't want to be on stage and try to be a European white heterosexual man. It could not be. But there's a cadence of the way they present. They're very professional. They're very eloquent in how they speak. But you know what's missing to me? Some flavor, a little seasoning. So I lean into my Asian American roots. I lean into the fact that I'm a refugee from Vietnam, that I love design. And I can bring that to the slides. I have a flair for presentation and performance on stage that maybe I'm not as good as some. I know that for sure. But I'm a lot better than others. So I want to bring as much of that into it. I love being spontaneous and doing a little improv crowd work and pushing and pulling with the audience. I'm comfortable in the unknown, in the friction of where might this land? And I'm confident enough that I can do that. I love drawing and I can draw. I can think visually. So I like to have a marker and a whiteboard. So when I share this, it's not to say I'm better than anybody. I'm just different than a lot of people. So I don't want to create a situation where I go on stage and give a presentation like how in the friction of where might this land and I'm confident enough that I can do that. I love drawing and I can draw. I can think visually so I like to have a marker and a whiteboard. So when I share this it's not to say I'm better than anybody. I'm just different than a lot of people. So I don't want to create a situation where I go on stage and give a presentation like how everyone else is able to give a presentation because in that space I'm going to lose. They're more practice. They put more intentionality behind their presentations but what I do is do something totally different and I stand out. And I think what I do is I help people A have a good time and B learn in a way that they didn't think that they could learn. And that's how I lean into my roots. So everybody who's listening to this or watching this or thinking about how they can stand out in the world lean into what makes you different. It's like you to the power of you. You squared. College football is back. So Hilton called a meet the superstition concierge to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Oh that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching band wake -up call at 5 55 in 55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton for the stay. That's quite interesting, Chris. Really interesting. When you were speaking, I think one of the things you said that really caught my attention was when you said that you've had a series of speaking engagements that was unpaid but because of you had to go for it because you had like something you're looking at. So is it safe to say, and I'm actually putting out these questions because a lot of people have asked these questions like several times, is it safe to say at some point it's fine to do free work? Because there's been these debates. Should I do free work? There's been this debate. Should I do free work or no? It must be paid. Especially for people that are trying to come into the limelight, right? Should creatives do free work? What do you think about that? I think it depends on the context. If you feel like you cannot achieve an opportunity or switch into a vertical that you've not done before outside of doing free work, I have to go for it. Free work needs to be put into a different category though. It's not really work, it's marketing. work? What do you think about that? I think it depends on the context. If you feel like you cannot achieve an opportunity or switch into a vertical that you've not done before outside of doing free work, I have to go for it. Free work needs to be put into a different category though. It's not really work, it's marketing. And every one of us needs to spend some time and money and resources against marketing. So when we take on a client that is the wrong budget, we look at like, what is our marketing budget for this year? And have we used it? And so we need to be very disciplined about this. And if you use that kind of discipline and discernment, I think you'll do well. I'll give you an example. Back when I was running blind, we would have a certain amount of money set aside. And I would give each creative director the discretion to say, you know what, for all the reasons this project makes no sense, but I'm going to go for it. And that they get to exercise that I'm going to do this because I think this is good for me. It's good for my real my portfolio and for the company because it's doing something that we normally wouldn't be able to do. Almost always, the types of projects that we're talking about fall in one of two categories. What we would consider a public service announcement, a PSA. So those could be campaigns to help with homelessness, with drunk driving or drug abuse or something like that, because they have no budgets usually. It's all pro bono work. Or more likely the second of the two, which is music video work. Artists spend their own money to make music videos. Regardless of how big they are, they still look at it as like, that's money I'd rather not spend. Because I'm not sure how to get my money back from that. So they're almost always underfunded. They should be two, three, four times the amount of money they're going to spend. And those are the kinds of projects we take on that we'll break even on. We'll spend pretty much every dollar we get, or we will go red, meaning we'll spend more money than the money that we receive. We're subsidizing the work. So we're buying the work. So we've worked with bands like Norris Barkley, Justin Timberlake, Jet. And the last music video we worked on was for Coldplay. And despite being the world's biggest band, Coldplay also has a finite budget for music videos. And so we did it and we put a lot of love and energy into it because it's good part of the culture, not just design ads. That's really interesting. I think regarding this, one of the, one of the experiences that I've had doing free work would be the other. and we put a lot of love and energy into it because it's good for us because we want to be part of the culture, not just design ads. That's really interesting. I think regarding this, one of the experiences that I've had doing free work would be all the time where I did, I worked for a reality show. It was more like a music show. And I mean, I didn't really get paid the amount that I wanted. Actually, it was more like into four parts and say, take this one. This is for you. But then what I learned in that because I was, at the end of the day, I saw my work on stage. A lot of celebrities came around and they liked the branding and everything. And it really gave me joy and fulfillment. And that single act of doing that job gave me another job, a bigger job, because someone saw my, someone saw design that I did, the branding and the marketing designs. And it was like, who did this? And they had to give my number to him. And he reached out to me and said, would you be willing to work with us and for this amount? And it really made sense to me. I think I agree with you because it's free work is marketing. You said something and I captured it, said free work is marketing. So it's more like you're marketing yourself. All right. Don't just think about it as free work. And also it depends on the context. You need to also look at, envision what is going to be in for you in the long run. So that really stands out for me. Chris, I was going to ask this question, right? Because a lot of people have tried sharing what they know, right? Putting out their content, putting out their videos. And they put out their videos and they're not really getting engagements. It's like nobody's seen me. And I feel like every successful creator had that point in their life. What would you say for people that feel like they're not getting so much engagements, like no one is noticing them? I'm tired. I'm exhausted. What can I do? Should I change my strategy? Okay. Good question. a successful creator had that point in their life, what would you say for people that feel like they're not getting so much engagement, like no one is noticing them? I'm tired. I'm exhausted. What can I do? Should I change my strategy? Okay, good question. There's a couple of things that I want to unpack for people. I think you should look at making content as a form of self -expression versus a means to get something else. Because when you make things with expectations, you're bound to be disappointed. There's a line from David C. Baker's book, The Business of Expertise, where he says something to the fact of, you gain clarity through articulation, that you learn about what it is that you know or you think you know by sharing it with people, by saying it out loud, by writing it, by articulating it, by performing it, or doing something, then we know what it is that you know. And it's mostly just for you. So if you make content and you're practicing self -expression, there's no pressure for it to perform. And the act of creating should be its own reward versus some other metric about likes and follows and shares. That's number one. If you have that mindset, things are going to be great. Mindset number two is you're going to say, I'm dedicated to this. If I'm committed to doing this, there's two ways I can do this. I can grind at it and make small improvements as I go, which is fantastic. Or I can find someone who's done it before, follow their path, or just pay them to teach me what it is I need to do. So if you're really good at articulating your thinking, but no one's watching the content, there's probably several problems that you have. Number one is you're not providing a strong enough hook at the beginning of the video to keep people interested. You're taking too long to do the setup, and that's problematic. You got to get right into it. You got to let people know why they should stick around. And the mistake that a lot of people make is they're speaking to their audience versus to a stranger. Always assume that someone's never seen you before. Why are they going to care right here, right now? You got to draw them in. Now, before you can even watch a video, you need to read the title and you need to see the thumbnail. I'm talking about YouTube specifically right now. So the packaging of the content is really important. Because we do lots of content and we find out when we change a thumbnail in the title, it can really perform or it can really tank. So learning from others how to title your content and designing really good visuals to draw. So learning from others how to title your content is really good for you. YouTube specifically right now. So the packaging of the content is really important because we do lots of content and we find out when we change a thumbnail in the title, it can really perform or it can really tank. So learning from others how to title your content and designing really good visuals to draw people into to watch it, I think that's an important skill to develop. So you can have an entire career by designing thumbnails and titles for people's videos to package it. I would call it packaging YouTube content and you could probably create a pretty good business just doing that because it's a very difficult skill. You can take a dud and you can make it into a stud and that's what you need to be able to do. So those are some of the things you need to work on. Continually improve your presentation skills, continue to improve on how you speak or articulate. And one of the things that we learn is, let's just say I'm a high energy guy, I'm yelling all the time. I'm like, rah, rah, rah, learn this, never do this again. That's good for getting attention for a little bit, but if you do it for any length of time, it's going to fry people's circuit. They're going to be completely emotionally drained. It's just too much. Conversely, if you slip into the slow and low FM DJ voice that Chris Voss talks about in his book, hello, welcome to this podcast. I'm Chris Doe and I'm speaking to Stan. And today we're going to talk. That's very calming, but don't knock you out cold. You're going to fall asleep. Like when you said you sleep on our content, I'm like, I'm hoping I'm not putting you to sleep. Right? So you have to find a balance. So when we look at classical music and the way it's composed, we can learn a lot. There's a build, there's a climax, and there's a rebuild, and there's just moments in the story of the music itself. There's these dramatic moments, and there's calm moments, there's tearful moments, and there's joyful moments. You need to be able to have that. So one piece of advice I can give to every single person is to vary your tone. Simply insert more spaces or fewer spaces, depending on how you speak. When you are short of breath, it shows people that you're really excited. I'll give you an example. I said, you know, I'm so glad to talk to you today. I mean, we've been talking about this on Instagram, and here we are, today's the day, and people feel excited for that. And that's because you're short of breath, and it's like choppy staccato kind of speaking. When you are short of breath, it shows people that you're really excited. I'll give you an example. Like, Stan, you know, I'm so glad to talk to you today. I mean, we've been talking about this on Instagram, and here we are, today's the day, and people feel excited for that. And that's because you're short of breath, and it's like choppy staccato kind of speaking. And you can do that for parts that are exciting in your story. And if you take a word and you stretch it out, and you put long pauses, you make it much more dramatic. So, here's what I was thinking, Stan. The other day, I was mortally wounded. So I just showed you two different examples there. One where it's short and choppy and fast, and one where it's long, it's a little breathy, and we're stretching out words. So if you just vary the pace, the space between words, you can affect the tone and how it's perceived. You have to become a master of your voice, your instrument, to play it for an audience so they don't get bored, so they don't get fried. If you can learn that, you can do really well. Now, I'm curious, because I've watched some of your videos, what's the approach that you take in creating content that really draws people in? So the first thing that I do is I always try to be intentional with my hook because I know that the thing about hook is, so I think hook is divided into the verbal hook and the visual hook, right? If you're not really good at editing, then try and focus on your verbal hook. But if you're not really good at the verbal hook, then probably you should focus on your editing. But I think that there should be some sort of balance between the both of them. So the hook first is very important to me because it says you have like about three, four or five seconds to get people's attention, especially on Instagram. And if the hook isn't inviting, someone is struggling to scroll past because social media is a very, very busy place. The world is very busy. People are moving quickly. They're just scrolling. It's a vertical scroll, so it's easy to scroll past your content. So I try to like invest in the hook and I also try to invest in good sound. I like... inviting someone is struggling to scroll past because social media is a very very busy place the world is very busy people are moving quickly they're just scrolling it's a vertical scroll so it's easy to scroll past your content so I try to like invest in the hook and I also try to invest in good sound I like using so I love listening to sounds like Hans Zimmer cinematic sounds movies soundtrack and although it doesn't always work for all my content it could be sometimes I just want to use lo -fi like hip -hop and just calm sounds so I try to focus on book my sound my messaging okay I try to think about what are things that people would want to know about and I also did a research one of the website I use is answer the public I just go there to ask some questions what are people asking what are people talking about what would they like to know so I just try to look at it and then look at my title and I also invest in my thumbnails right I have a I have a particular way that I like my thumbnails to look so there's this consistency in my thumbnail and I just like it to have a dramatic feel so those are some of the things that I do and I also do a lot of bureaus because I feel like bureaus for me is aside from people just seeing you talk they just want to see some things happening behind the scenes so I try to infuse those bureaus in my video editing so that people are engaged throughout the process of my video and yes five things I've said the hook the sound design the music that I choose and the bureaus and the messaging so those are some of the things that I intentionally put in check before putting up my video if the hook doesn't feel right to me I probably just make a lot of research the last video I did I went to learn and I searched for fast cuts and I when I check fast cuts I just wanted to like do a fast cut of different shots and add some sound there that get people's attention so that's what I did and the video really I mean it did well so these are some of the things that I do for my contents It's like do a fast cut of different shots and add some sounds that will get people's attention. So that's what I did. And the video really, I mean, it did well. So these are some of the things that I do for my contents. Solid principles. I can tell you're a student of filmmaking because that's pretty much the three most important things that you can do in a piece of content. Having a strong, engaging hook. Think about the musical track because that brings most of the emotion. And if you just do talking head videos, they're fine. That's what I do. But I'm too lazy. But the artistry is in the B -roll. Trying to metaphorically or symbolically illustrate the kinds of things that you're talking about to give us something to look at. The general rule in making a commercial is you need to edit or put a cut in every three seconds. Otherwise, it gets really boring. So you and I are talking right now. We are not editing anything. There's just one camera on each of us. So it's going to be really dull. So adding some motion design. Maybe showing like a flower kind of swaying in the wind. Rustling in the wind. If it's relevant to what you're talking about. A little creek bed with water and a leaf kind of floating in it very poetically. B -roll is where it's at. Like whether you produce weddings or event videos or corporate talking head videos. You have to find a way to introduce B -roll that feels natural to the conversation so that people are drawn into the cinematics of the story. And there's also a video you did that I watched that video. So I kept repeating the video. That video started this way. And I decided, I'm going to show you a Japanese secret called Shuhari. is this, is that. And I can't really say everything you said. But that video, and I think that video really like it did work. Because the intro was superb. And then there was a lot of cuts. There was a lot of B -rolls. There was a lot of like motion graphics attached to the video. And then the sound you used was quite solemn. And a lot of people would just want to like pause and say, oh, what's Chris talking about? Yeah, that video was very interesting for me. And that was the first time that I saw the soundtrack. And I copied this from you. I stole like an artist. Oh, what's Chris talking about? Yeah, that video was very interesting for me. And that was the first time that I saw the soundtrack and I copied this from you. I stole like an artist and then I used it. So, we shook it. Thank you, Chris.
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