The Journey Beyond Fear to Personal Branding Success with Jeremy Weber

The Journey Beyond Fear to Personal Branding Success with Jeremy Weber – YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxnazPwbing

Transcript:
(00:00) what it’s all about at the end of the day is when you can help people really connect and see and really understand like what is unique about them and and and part of that uniqueness is the is the professional side of them some of that uniqueness is more personal non-work stuff but when you can find that sweet balance between the two where it’s like man this is what kind of I’ve been designed to do and and this is why I want to go out and speak or Advocate to serve as many people and oh by the way that helps me this isn’t always the
(00:35) case but it’s usually the case it helps me drive growth of my business or be a better leader or whatever it’s so funny this guy at Insperity like he was like I’m not posting on social I’m not getting out and one to speak it you know conferences and events because like I’m not inspired to do it like why am I doing it what would I say and then when you really create this space to dig deep into life I kind of like you know almost like your why or your uniqueness and this opportunity it it inspires action and then you can you can
(01:10) push forward with confidence because you actually have some meaning behind it versus geez I gotta go speak at this event or I gotta somebody’s making me post on social like I hate this right it’s like no I I want to be out there in front of as many people as possible because that’s that’s that’s why I’m here hello everyone and welcome to the flow over fear podcast where it is our mission to help you to rise above fear and realize your ultimate potential in leadership and life I’m your host Adam
(01:45) Hill and it is my goal to share with you the human side of high performance my guests share their experience with fear anxiety struggle Challenge and most importantly despite all of it how they Rose above it to achieve incredible results so if you’re ready to rise up let’s get started hey everyone welcome to flowover fear thank you for being to here today I’m so grateful that you joined us because I have a great guest my guest today is Jeremy Weber he is a senior strategist and founding member at Brand Builders
(02:19) Group over his 17 plus year career he has founded sold and helped to grow multiple companies his work has a as a personal brand strategist to support a New York Times best-selling authors Ted speakers celebrity influencers a shark take investor and uh seven figure entrepreneurs across many many Industries and as a founding member uh and Senior leader within brand builders group of which yours truly is a member he has supported the launch and growth of one of the fastest growing personal brand strategy firms in the world I’m
(02:53) telling you guys it’s a great great company and his work has spanned a team of 25 plus strategists overseeing the platform supporting 700 plus personal Brands uh and managing the company’s Global partner Network work as a thought leader in the technology industry Germany has spoken to audiences of over 15 000 people and I’ve got to witness him speak and it’s and it’s and it’s amazing and he sat on the Advisory Board of a global software company with annual revenues over a billion dollars Jeremy
(03:24) thank you so much for joining me appreciate it Adam thanks thanks for the intro I always feel a little bit weird like hearing hearing people say that you know they always say like the BIOS are the hardest thing right even as we work with clients it’s like you most people at least feel awkward talking about themselves and hyping themselves up so um but you you got to do it and and obviously it’s best when somebody else delivers it but man it’s great to be with you um you know just excited to get this
(03:53) time with you thanks man and I’m excited to learn more about you uh I’ve looked up to you in brand builder for quite a while now I’ve been a member for about a year now and it is I mean it’s changed my life I can’t deny that and I’m not just you know blowing smoke for the Services of brand builders but it’s been it’s been amazing and I mean I think a lot of that comes down to partly self-discovery I mean I’ve learned so much about myself in that process and and you started off by
(04:19) saying something interesting I kind of wanted to dive in because I hear this a lot from people when I when I when I read the BIOS and I go over that is you know people tend to get like wow that’s that’s so cool to hear that but you know there’s also this sense of like almost embarrassment so where does that come from why do we start to feel that way about some of our some of our Great accomplishments yeah I mean I don’t know I I I think probably the true answer to that lies above my pay grade
(04:47) but you know I mean my take on it would be that um I think how most of us are naturally wired is to be humble to to want to love and serve others and and to not hype ourselves up and talk all high about ourselves now we we all know those people that they they really love themselves right and they like to talk about it but I think for most you know most people are like they you know they don’t want to talk about themselves they don’t want to brag about all the accomplishments and um that’s good right I mean it’s good to
(05:23) be wired that way and be humble but it can be counterproductive from uh from a sales and marketing perspective if people don’t really if they’re not aware of all the great work you’ve done um so there’s a balance right you put together an expert bio and you deploy it in all these strategic places to help people just understand you know the amazing work you’ve done the lives you’ve impacted um you know but but again the the goal is that you don’t have to read your own expert file is that right that’s when
(05:54) it’s like yeah this this feels a little weird um but yeah don’t make the mistake of of loving yourself and talking about yourself all the time but also don’t make the mistake of being too humble and never putting your best foot forward because at the end of the day there’s so many people out there whether you like it or not they they do kind of judge a book by its cover and if if they don’t read something pretty quick that’s like man this person’s legit and good they may not give you that opportunity to you
(06:23) know to have a conversation or or whatever it may be so there’s at the end of the day the magic lives in the middle a little bit right which is the case with most things yeah yeah I I uh I can get that it’s always a delicate balance because I I feel the same way when I hear my bio and and and I always think to myself well that’s not that you know that’s not that great but then I’ll hear from other people it’s like we try to we often try times default maybe that humility or that humbleness or whatever
(06:49) tries to you know cause us to like deprecate ourselves or be self-deprecated a little bit more than we should a lot of times but uh but man you’ve achieved a lot of incredible things I mean just your by I mean just starting out with his company brand builders is one of the founding founding members um of which it’s grown dramatically even in the last year and before that founding starting businesses uh you know that have grown to seven figures doing you know doing a lot of how did you get your start so where where uh can you
(07:19) tell us a little bit about where uh Jeremy Weber came from yeah man I don’t know how far back you want to throw it but um yeah Western Kentucky so um hopefully I I try to intentionally suppress my Southern accent um so if if you if if it y’all slips in or something yeah I apologize but you know so Western Kentucky is where I grew up um just amazing family have two older older brother older sister amazing parents so just super blessed to grow up in an environment that had so much love so much support um you know so so that was key soccer
(07:59) was you know it was a pretty athletic kid but um soccer was kind of my thing and so growing up I that you know I dabbled in a lot of sports baseball basketball soccer like through elementary school but pretty quickly once I got into Middle School I like had a deep passion for soccer and I just loved it and I was like hyper focused so it wasn’t work man I mean I I played every chance I got to play and and that um that resulted in me excelling and being a pretty good player and um you know played on a competitive club team
(08:30) that traveled all over the country and then got a scholarship to play in college like a D1 scholarship and so um I went to Western Kentucky University so go hilltoppers if anybody knows what that is um but yeah so I played four years there but you know I I pretty much knew in college that yeah I was good at soccer I you know got my school paid for and all that stuff like that was that was amazing and a blessing but I knew I wasn’t good enough to you know to like make a make a career out of it post College I had to figure out what I was
(09:03) going to do like for real for real um and and what was interesting is both my dad and my older brother were um in this industry uh that Blended kind of um science uh and Technology right it was kind of like the intersection of these two worlds and more specifically like location-based technology or mapping technology so we all know like that that the technical like nerdy term if you want if you want me to just is geographic information system so like GIS but but the basic concept is there is information that is you know like uh
(09:44) you know like things are places right you have roads you have utilities you have hydrants you have you know like the enemy right it’s used in the military all this stuff right there’s there’s information that’s better visualized on a map you know you know in an interactive format whether it’s just you navigating in your car to get somewhere or or something else and so that technology is what um you know my older brother was kind of like heading down that career path my dad dad who is a professor at the University level he
(10:15) taught kind of that type of stuff so at a young age I was kind of exposed to it and I was like that’s kind of cool um and so I kind of headed down that that path with my studies in college so that was kind of interesting you know we think most kids in college are like I don’t have a clue what I want to be and they you know I major in General Studies or something like you know they’re they um but you know probably my freshman or sophomore year I was like that’s the track I want to be on and it was a
(10:45) little bit of that kind of location Tech but then like computer science and really like programming and really nerdy stuff that you know most people you know check out on when you talk about it so um no I play D D every week so I’m all into that nerdy stuff so basically pretty early on in college you know I was still playing soccer but I I knew I wanted to kind of head down this career path that was kind of computer science and technology but really applied to this location-based technology um you know industry and use case so you
(11:25) know I graduated in my first job out of school was in the public sector so I actually went straight into state government and it was cool like to be honest with you I wouldn’t change a thing for a couple Reasons I’m obviously in the private sector a big kind of entrepreneur you know is is a is a big part of my DNA now but that’s that wasn’t my beginning and but what was what was cool is that yeah if I if I could pick up on kind of like a couple things that were the big takeaways from that my start you know in the public
(11:58) sector was that I got exposed and if you think about it like government is a giant business now it doesn’t have to be as tight about balance see budgets right I mean there’s certain things where it’s not a direct correlation for sure but you’re talking tons of people big budgets giant projects right it’s it’s in certain cases like a big business right so um so right out of school I got injected into like a a massive environment with huge projects huge kind of Enterprise systems hundreds thousands
(12:31) of users right like so it was interesting to come in and try to have to figure out how to lead big teams and how to you know kind of manage and architect giant projects right with hundreds thousands of users and things like that so like it was I kind of cut my teeth on on big problems right so like that was cool and then the other thing that was that was kind of neat is as I um transitioned out of just doing like hardcore technology into more you know leading people and advocating for the technology and and kind of that type
(13:09) of stuff I ended up kind of leading a team of I think it was like 30 to 40 people um and you know I was still in my 20s at this point and um and so so I at that point you you realize pretty quickly that especially in a government setting like you can’t motivate people with money right like you know most people outside create those financial incentives get people to work hard that you want to make more money get those bonuses like that doesn’t exist like you’re you’re lucky to get the annual cost of living
(13:42) increase right like right let alone some nice quarterly bonus or something you know so it’s like you got to figure out how to inspire people to work hard and take action without money really being that big of a factor you know and so to me that that helped me understand how to really try to create a narrative around the work we were doing that that inspired people to want to do it like like we were you can look at it as pushing buttons or doing whatever but it’s like each of us played a critical role to to
(14:15) deliver this this big service that has a big impact on the people we were focused on serving and so to me that was cool that forced me as a leader at a young age to figure out how to be more tactical about how you how you get people to take action and want to come to work and work hard because we all know that it’s easy it’s easy in a lot of settings but definitely in a government setting for people to go through the motions so um that was cool you know I enjoyed that so I think those leadership skills have
(14:45) really helped me um you know all my career um and so yeah so that’s kind of where I was at there and interrupt me at any point if you want to dive deeper into any of this stuff yeah and thank you for that because I I love that the some of the ideas you put down there and I wrote some notes on on you know your early leadership and taking leadership at a young age and things like that you mentioned you learned pretty quickly that people aren’t really motivated by money especially in that government setting what what else did I mean with
(15:16) running 30 to 40 people what else did you learn about leadership at that point that that helped you to become better later man you got you got to be a really good listener I think for me I um and and I still kind of revert back to somebody’s not so great Tendencies You Know along the way like we’re not perfect we learn we get better then we slip a little bit yeah but I think what I found whenever I was driving to when you’re driving to try to like get up the ladder or be more successful right I I always default to
(15:54) um really wanting the right people to know my ideas and and over sharing or let’s say sharing a lot and oftentimes over sharing right yeah um you know and you just all you’re always out there you’re trying to inject yourself in the middle of things and really like kind of prove your Worth right right um and and right or wrong I mean like some of those Tendencies did help me get seen for being good and having good ideas and Elevate me up but what I realized pretty quickly that once you kind of get in a place where you’re
(16:27) leading people it it flips like it’s more of like you got to be a great listener you got to be you got to make sure people feel comfortable to Come Share right and it’s it’s more so like how are you now pulling greatness out of other people instead of like trying to project greatness over people right yeah and so so I had to work on that in the beginning like and I remember some of the early leadership training I got still in in this in the government setting right um really helped me understand how to
(17:02) ask the right questions to create space and try to like you know let people come up with ideas on their own and Coach them you know so like that was probably like another another big thing for me um that was that that’s that’s been impactful eve even today yeah that’s incredible I uh and yeah pulling greatness out of others instead of trying to push your greatness on on them that’s that’s powerful a lot of leadership is is like that and so did you want to climb was it your goal to kind of climb that ladder within the
(17:36) government space or did you know that you wanted to make the transition into something that you wanted to build yeah I mean it’s a great question so I I was very hungry like I was driven um yeah what was interesting at this time I had um you know like I told you I came up through this technical path so I like new programming and all like all this stuff technical stuff but I wasn’t the best program I wasn’t the nerdiest of nerds right they were better Pro but I had this ability to communicate like
(18:08) understand very complex technical things but communicate them in a in a way where non-technical people could wrap their head around them and understand them right and that kind of that shift where I wasn’t like programming and Building Things but I was advocating for the technology kind of set me on this path where where I was out speaking at a lot of conferences like becoming a pretty well-known uh subject matter expert in in this space in this industry and so I was hungry like in that and what if I had to boil it down to two things what
(18:44) like was fueling the fire um I wouldn’t I’d be lying if I didn’t say money was part I was young and I was I was I was wanting to make more money right and it’s hard to make more money in in a government setting but I think more so than the money I believed in this technology right like I saw the impact it had on the different public and private sector companies that used it and I just believed in it and so I wanted I you know I wanted to go out and tell as many people as wanted to listen about it so so there was those two
(19:16) things that really were driving my work and and I and I I saw an opportunity in the market to where you know because I was hyper focused like most people are like well technology is an industry but this is like a sub subset of the technology industry so I was very laser focused on this Tech and because I was so focused I was able to see some gaps in the market that most other people didn’t and so I think at that point that entrepreneurial bug in me was kind of like I I you know like I’ve got an opportunity to do something here like to
(19:53) build a software product that will plug this Gap in the market and and I think I have the ability the technical ability to do it um and and I can even remember in in my home office at the time you know sitting there like what am I gonna do yeah and I was like you know what convinced me was like I don’t want to be sitting here five years from now and be like what if yeah yeah what what if I had done that and so I I went all in you know like I I was like I still had my job at the government but like I would come home at
(20:27) night and I was coding and building this product and um ultimately brought that product to Market and licensed it and then when was licensing it to a couple organizations and then one of those one of those companies wanted to buy it and you know that’s where I was in this position of all right I gotta make a big pivot um and I was ready like I think my boss there tried to do some things and actually it was pretty cool my boss at the time in state government he wanted to keep he was a huge Mentor from Tom
(21:01) Fleming is his name I’ll give Tom some some props here but like I learned so much yeah I learned so much from him man and he was a lot older than me but just so wise um but I remember when I told him I was like man I think I’m I’m gonna make I’m gonna jump and he was like let me go try to get let me go Elevate this up to the boss boss and see if we can’t do something to keep you in and what’s interesting is the the head like the Comptroller of the treasury like the controller that’s like
(21:34) you know an appointed official by the legislature Etc yeah um he was a guy who had tons of success in the private sector and you know most of these high-level government officials they like make all their money in the private they come in and you know they’re like trying to have bigger impact Now who’s on the government side and so um so he was like I I’ll never forget this he was like good for him let him go let him go do his thing let him go make some money let him go do his thing and he didn’t even he didn’t want to try to
(22:07) keep me he was like he knew I think he knew what was on the other side and knew I was kind of wired to try to go after some of that and so he he didn’t even try he was like go and so that’s where at that point my tech got purchased and I came on as a partner in this Regional Tech firm and really was doing similar work where where I was out speaking on big stages putting out kind of thought leadership content online brokering Partnerships and big deals Business Development just trying to drive growth of of our tech company but
(22:43) that was kind of the pivot from public sector to private sector back in the day and that was probably about 70 years in to my I did about I guess about seven years in the public sector before I pivoted out that’s great yeah and and I want to really really emphasize a point that you made there so that everybody could hear this especially if you’re a leader in this in this uh in this audience is that that the great leaders if you know great leaders will take real real good talent and yes of course they’re going to do everything to keep
(23:11) them but ultimately they’re willing to let them go because because that that’s where our that’s where growth in in the future comes from you know people like Jeremy if he was still working in that in that private sector it might not be fulfilled in that way so that leader saw something else in you that uh that saw that could serve both you and the world as a whole so that was a that was a great great great move on on his part and your part yeah I don’t want to minimize the scariness though of of making that leap uh yeah
(23:45) and you know you’d mentioned uh kind of looking forward uh five years from now and saying you didn’t want to say what if um but uh what were there was there anything else that like helped you to in in addition to you know the support of your mentors and things like that that helped you to make that leap and um and and gave you the confidence to do it man you you you you knew something was underneath there right yeah I’m glad you’re you’re probing a little bit um so one thing I didn’t and this is uh
(24:21) uh pivotal like a huge thing in my life that um I failed to mention and it and it had a big impact on that decision um while I was with in in the government job uh and this was probably let’s see um middle of my run you know so like in that government job um I I got diagnosed with cancer and um and and that to be honest with you that’s probably the third reason I’m so blessed to have been in that government job at the time because you know you you get put in an unfortunate situation like that in the private
(25:07) sector it’s like well you can’t work for a while man sorry about your luck peace out right yeah you know so like in a setting where there was understanding and like um different benefits and things to let me focus on trying to survive you know like was a huge blessing um and so so again like I got diagnosed with cancer went through um chemo treatment surgery chemo treatment um and so I think for me coming out the back end of that like when you’re you you think you got issues in life and and then and then you when
(25:46) you’re fighting for your life or or have a loved one that’s fighting for their life you realize that those things aren’t aren’t as big of a deal as you might have thought and so I think for me that was um a wake-up call uh one and you know you got to take care of yourself but but two you know life’s not guaranteed and um we got we got one kind of crack at this here on this Earth at least and um and so so it’s like you know like let’s go let’s let’s you know I I don’t I don’t want to be like
(26:19) what if because I may not get another chance right so right something for me coming out the back end of that that was a wake-up call and and um once I got through it like all the things I was focused on money growth like bigger impact well that went away like all my energy was on doing what the doctors were telling me to do and just trying to survive but you know once I came out the back end it was kind of like a purifying experience almost and and I think you know again that changes your your um your thinking and the way
(26:53) you kind of like analyze opportunities uh when when you’re faced with something like that so so I think that that was another big factor that just like okay I need to do this because I may not may not get another opportunity to do it so let’s let’s get after it yeah and that must have happened to you when you were very very young too because I mean you’re not you’re you’re gonna die now that was um so uh so 24.
(27:23) wow wow so that’s a big big life-shifting you know perspective to to have as a 24 year old you’re looking for you know you’re looking to for different ways to grow in companies and things like that and all of a sudden you’re faced with your own mortality yeah that’s just your perspective and you kind of touched on this there too that that you came out of it purified do you look at it now as kind of a blessing in disguise or do you look at it as or how do you look at it now yeah absolutely a blessing in disguise like I I think
(27:54) um you know I wasn’t um I wasn’t perfect coming out the back end like there there are still things like you know I’m very flawed and was was driving too hard in a lot of the wrong areas even as I continue to push forward but yeah I think for me one it brought my wife and I even closer together like she was my rock you know like going through that um and again it just makes you appreciate the small things you know like it’s so easy to get tripped up with what Society tells us is important and just over consumption and
(28:31) all this stuff and and I think it just you know when you’re fighting for your life not much else really matters and and you know you figure out who your real people are um and you you you dig into those relationships to just grind and get to the other side and so so I think yeah I think it was kind of a wake-up call in a lot of ways um but yeah definitely a blessing in disguise um you know so yeah well I hope and I hope you don’t mind if I if I dig in on this because I know a lot of people who may be struggling with something like
(29:04) this maybe experiencing dark times you know just feeling like really really demoralized really feeling like giving up or or what have you and I don’t and and you know just kind of knowing that there is is Miracle beyond that that that challenge what um yeah what kind of you know did you face those dark times how did you manage those kind of really those times where you were just feeling like overwhelmed with it yeah I mean I can I can I mean if anybody’s never been through like chemotherapy you you can relate like it
(29:40) you lose your hair you you lose your energy you lose your immune system you lose your you know all the things almost right and so right so yeah I mean it strips you down to where there’s not much to be um inspired by uh you know and so I think for me um you know like the people around me this is one thing I tried to hold strong to is that you know this this thing is gonna eat me alive physically but I’m not gonna let it eat me alive mentally um right I’m gonna try to stay in control of my mind and um and really focus on what I can
(30:26) control and what what I could control was I trust that I’ve got a good team of professionals that know what in the world they’re talking about and um and they’re giving me a Playbook and this Playbook is the Playbook to stay alive and so I’m going to focus on all my energy on just doing what they’re telling me to do and I’m not gonna think about what could happen or like how bad this is I’m just gonna be like I am laser focused to get on the other side of this because I’m not done yet right
(31:02) like right it’s like I’m I’m not done and so so I think for me that was a big part is just staying mentally strong and and a big part of you know being mentally strong is you know your faith right spirit being spiritually strong and so um you know just my faith was a huge part of it I’ll never forget my my mom’s mom so my grandma that side of the family in the middle of all my treatments she she sent me a card like she was older but you know so and we didn’t live close to another but like
(31:34) she you know it was trying to help any way she could and she sent me this card it’s pretty like well known but like it’s it’s this Footprints in the Sand like poem and I think it’s based off like the book of Isaiah some script you know in there but you know that that’s just even to this day like and that’s been something I share with other people when they’re in the middle of a struggle is that like you know in in the worst you know times of our life you know like that’s when he’s there you know carrying
(32:06) us the most and and you don’t have to do it alone right you’re not doing it alone yeah and so like man that that was that was a game changer for me just that reminder and and just you know again you know staying hopeful in the middle of uh a dark a dark place yeah that’s so powerful I mean especially that last part of Faith because the you know the idea that that we’re letting go of things that are outside of our control you know but but giving those to a higher power of some kind I mean pardon me that that works
(32:39) so well within you know any type of struggle I know it worked in my own addiction recovery you know just letting go what I was outside I could make control and then controlling the things you can it’s not always easy it’s I mean it’s hard but uh it’s it’s worth it and you seem to come out the other side stronger did um um how long did that process take and when when were you fully recovered and and then what when did you get into the the new new uh new Venture yeah so so um so again this was all during kind of the
(33:13) government time so you know I had surgery it was like literally about a year from surgery where they um just like I was doing monthly checkups and monitoring because you know we thought we had caught it early enough where it hadn’t spread and it you know would have would it get to avoid all the fun chemo stuff right yeah um and um but literally like one year from the surgery they one of the CT scans showed that like hey it it might have spread so like we we need to go ahead and just do it running through this chemo and it’s got
(33:45) a high cure rate Etc so you know so there was about a year of kind of dealing with it but not too crazy and then probably another six months of really dealing with it through the chemo and everything so so about a year and a half um you know in in my mid-20s had had that uh not not so pleasant but again blessing in disguise kind of experience but then coming out the back end of it you know ultimately you know got back in the groove you know exited into the private sector and and I had about five or six years of
(34:23) um helping to kind of grow that Regional Tech firm into a tech firm that had a global client base and um and that was that was really cool and you know what’s interesting is um even in that role right it was it was similar where I was out advocating I was out speaking I was out kind of really trying to be an advocate for Thought leadership Innovative use cases and approaches to using this technology and that’s what again helped to kind of elevate me as a thought leader in this industry and you had mentioned it in the
(34:57) bio like you know on stage in front of 15 000 people that was during that time of my career at the San Diego Convention Center um sitting on The Advisory board for a multi-billion dollar Global software company that that was during this time and it was all because one I was good you know I had good results I was I knew what I was talking about but also was wanting to reach more people it’s like results times reach equals your reputation right we we talked about the reputation formula a lot right um but it was like I had been
(35:31) disciplined and focused and to be really knowledgeable about something but I felt like this calling or almost obligated to to try to share that knowledge with as many people as possible and reach as many people as possible because I believe that this technology could solve real problems could really help the people on the other end so I just want to get out there it could have been stuff on social it could have been blogging could have been on stages at conferences could just be out networking with people you know I
(36:02) was just I was passionate by it but yeah all that led to me you know being pretty well known in the industry and those opportunities and then as a result a decent amount of traffic and growth to our back-end business to help us grow so that was cool that was a cool run um and then I had had another um you know Blindside moment um you know where uh you want to get into this now you have any probing questions uh um yeah absolutely keep going yeah yeah I’m getting notes I’ll uh I’ll hit back on some of these things but I’d love to
(36:40) keep you flowing yeah so so this would be a time in my career where I was I was very passionate like I said but I was also very driven like I I was I was hungry four more success was always right around the corner fulfillment was always right around the corner right it’s like oh when I get X when I get X and then you get there and it’s like yeah there’s something more right It’s never enough and and and and so as as a result of that I was working hard doing a lot of great work but I was also just I was
(37:18) pushing really hard and and that that pushing for growth pushing I was kind of in the middle of trying to broker some Acquisitions right a bigger company buying us out to help us and that Vision was just in conflict with the vision for some of the other partners of the company and that created friction and um I came into work one day pretty early like I would and nobody was in the office so I was like no nothing was kind of new um but then all of a sudden my other two business partners walked in and they were like come to the conference room
(37:55) and it was like slid the papers across the table like man this isn’t going to work out like you’re out of here so just like that man I I something I had worked so hard to build so much equity and growth and just in a company and it was like it like that yeah you’re out you know and so that was that was another just like looking back a blessing in disguise but I you know I I deep down I needed like it wasn’t gonna work out um and that was eating at me internally in a lot of different ways and so what
(38:36) was really cool from that experience is one it forced me to make a big change that I would have been never made on my own right um I had always been so hyper focused in that industry and I I think I just I needed and I don’t want to say this in in a wrong in the wrong way but like I feel like if I had just stayed in that industry I wouldn’t have been able to reach as many people as I I feel like you know maybe God wants me to reach or you know like whatever but I just feel like I needed I needed to Pivot out like
(39:08) I I kind of been so focused for so long it was just like hey I kind of feel like I’ve been there done that I need to do something else but I probably would have never made that change on my own like I wasn’t that daring to make that big of a pivot yeah the other thing which is probably more value it’s not probably it is more valuable is it immediately I mean when you go from having a good good job good stable income all these things to no income and what the heck am I going to do next it’s another one of those
(39:41) like wake-up call moments and I think for me um what was so powerful about that is you know I realized in that moment that I was happier I was all of a sudden happier and I had a lot less money coming in but but it was like so man the the money has nothing to do with my happiness right but I I didn’t I’d never been in a position to like have to figure that out yeah and so it’s just like all these things grind and pressing like working too much you know like not having good balance and all of a sudden it’s like
(40:17) you don’t have a job and uh you don’t have money and there’s a lot of uncertainty but oh man like I’m I’m just as happy or happier now it’s like so that was like a big aha for me to like pay attention to what you’re focusing on and what you place a lot of value in because it’s easy to get things backwards so even though you were you were taken out or you’re essentially kind of removed from this this business that you helped build and and had no income after that you you found yourself
(40:47) happier at that point it was yeah and um now that’s that’s that’s fascinating because there’s a lot a lot of times and I’m I’m inspired by what you’re saying there because that idea of being of being forced into change from something that we might not be necessarily unhappy with but it’s not filling us up but then we’re kind of forced into something that it’s like it’s into this introspection or that we that we want to look inward of like where we’re where we’re going so
(41:17) that that’s powerful yeah for me whether it’s the cancer thing I I call them kind of inflection points right we have these big big kind of you know things that you never forget that have big shifts in your life you know the trajectory but for me it was the cancer thing then it was the making the decision to develop that software which really sent me down this entrepreneurial path then it was getting forced getting fired before you know doesn’t sound glamorous but again that was one of those things that you know set me down a
(41:54) different path that that I would have never done on my own and and I think as painful as it was in the middle of it you know like God had a bigger plan right and God God works in mysterious ways and through through different people and things you know and um so that’s my belief I mean everybody has getting free to believe in whatever they want but like for me that there was there was it was a big change that needed to happen he you know I would have never made it on my own there’s a change that was forced in
(42:25) um so yeah so like um super super grateful for it looking back and in the middle of it I was like never fun we’re in the middle of it right but yeah but but you know then you changed I mean ultimately over that time as you were talking about this even when you’re working in the government job maybe even if you didn’t know it you’re you’re building this brand you’re building a personal brand by getting on stage by by developing this stuff was so it was that last segue that segue into you know starting to to work with brand
(42:58) builders and and build other people’s Brands yeah there was about a year a year period before we started brand builders and and what’s interesting is at that point I I knew technology and was good at technology but also was just good at entrepreneurship running businesses sales and marketing just all the things you need to do as a as a business owner um and so I knew that like okay I I don’t want to just go back into the same industry I really don’t want to just help one business again like I really
(43:30) like this idea of management consulting or advising multiple businesses on growth strategy so I went on about a year-long uh Trek with the some of the co-founding group of brand builders group at the company we call the former the corner of the company prior to we started brand builders where we were very much advising businesses on sales and marketing strategies so Consulting um and so I did about a year of that until another Godlike thing happened and you know a big blow up that sent us out of that company so again all this stuff
(44:07) it’s kind of like I’m walking through a land mine almost I feel like it this is part of life it’s like you know just God blowing stuff up left and right right um but that’s what really sent us on this trajectory of starting brand builders group like we we knew a lot this group that started it we knew a lot about just building businesses we knew a lot about sales and marketing but we also knew that we didn’t want to just be another sales or marketing like marketing agency or sales coaching
(44:39) companies it’s like how do we do something different like what’s the future what what are how are things trending and that’s where we said like let’s be this personal brand strategy firm right and it’s this idea because it had been you look at a lot of the founding group it had been part of just like the natural DNA of how we had successfully grown our different businesses over the years um and so it was kind of like hey let’s really Niche down on this idea of saying you know as a growth strategy for any
(45:11) kind of business how are we taking one or more thought leaders inside that business and getting them out there more how do we Elevate the awareness of them as the expert they are and the more people that know like and trust them if they’re properly positioned they’re going to know like and Trust the company they’re associated with and all of that is going to help any type of business differentiate from the competition in the market right really kind of give themselves a Competitive Edge and ultimately you know
(45:45) build we like to I like to think of it as like building trust at scale like how do you kind of build trust at scale um and trust is not established between a person and a business to a certain extent it is but but real trust is established from person to person um and so so that’s kind of been this angle of you know how do we work with you know great minds that are doing you know trying to do good work and have big positive impacts in this world how do we get them out there so they can serve more people um but at the end of the day they’re
(46:18) always like there’s a business behind them could be a big business could be a small business um but that’s kind of you know kind of the heart behind it at the end of the day yeah that’s true I mean you guys are working with a lot of I mean you know your small fish like me Schmucks like me but but also like I don’t know no but I mean Lewis Howes you know Amy Porterfield just released a book uh that you know that’s been and been working with you guys it’s it’s you have a lot of big names in there and a lot of like
(46:46) at in a lot of reach it’s it’s incredible to be meeting the people in here and so the founding members was it you Rory AJ who else was in that yeah I’m not gonna do this justice but um so it’s Rory AJ um L Petrillo uh Kristen Hartnagel uh myself my wife Jane um Thomas Dodson um like Brittany Parker there’s about eight eight nine of us uh again I’m probably leaving somebody off and they’re gonna like hate me anyway um you know that was that was roughly the uh the group um that that’s still with us now too
(47:33) there are a couple of people that were kind of part of it that were that came from the prior company that over but then they haven’t stuck around so um so yeah those are for again I feel bad I’m probably gonna miss somebody but but anyway that that’s it but yeah what’s cool is you mentioned some big names right so like Lewis Howes Amy Porterfield Ed mylett you know air ET hip-hop preacher right right you know um so yeah we we have we have bigger individuals bigger bigger names right right but most of our
(48:07) clients are not big names like that but what’s actually interesting even if you look at those businesses the actual back-end business they represent is not like a big business I mean you you run a massive business dude I mean so it’s like what’s and that’s great like we have a we have small medium sized businesses could be those those types of Lifestyle businesses that are very much based around a speaker author influencer yeah so we have a lot of um we have a lot of clients that are just like yeah you know financial
(48:40) advisors or you know like or Consulting companies or like anything you know so all kinds of businesses what I am what this is kind of the thing I’m most kind of like nerding out on these days is deploying our strategy within big big businesses like we have one client um called Insperity they’re a multi-billion dollar you know publicly traded business where we’re working with multiple members of their executive team right we have right you know I’m in taught we’re working with like a 50 million dollar you know a year uh
(49:14) culture consulting company you know I’m in discussions with another multi-billion dollar tech company so it’s kind of like there’s this idea of elevating people so more of whoever could be internal people or external people know about them who really know them um and and that helps them want to work for them or want to take action or buy their thing or whatever like I think it’s got It’s got more use cases than we even know um and and that gives me a lot of Hope to just help good people impact more
(49:48) people um you know and and I’ll just say one last thing I know we’re getting close on time but um this this company Insperity one of their one of the execs we’re leading he’s um he leads a team of 1600 people um and and his target audience who’s who he’s trying to be better known by um is his team of 1600 people he’s not even focused on outside like you know customer acquisition strategic Partnerships it’s all how do I build a more well-known personal brand right right so I can be a better leader to my
(50:28) team and that when I when I when we figured that out I was like like my mind blew I was like you never thought about that but it’s true so that’s that’s kind of cool those are some of the edge cases but I think that’s you know like that’s the future like it’s it’s gonna go there so yeah well that’s that’s why it’s powerful and that’s why I love having you know you and like I had Kristen hartnagle on uh so many episodes ago to kind of talk about this because there’s
(50:55) so much there’s so much in a personal brand and we all and as we’ve learned from from I’ve learned from brand builders group that that we all have a personal brand every single one of us and you know part of my personal brand I learned more about myself I found alignment through brand builders um because I was you know I was a triathlon coach and I thought I needed to be a better Triathlon coach and I learned Triathlon wasn’t the thing you know that I found this alignment of what I what I wanted where that passion what
(51:23) I was good at and what you know everything else that where that aligned and it actually gave me more conviction which I also found was an antidote to fear you know that found that finding that flow over fear that’s where I found that so I mean I think that what you’re doing with Brand Build is what you guys in helping people find alignment through brand DNA and and teaching these crafts is is just is is you’re helping people to rise above fear and embrace you know their true authenticity and it’s
(51:51) beautiful so yeah I mean that that is what it’s all about at the end of the day is when you can help people really connect and see and really understand like what is unique about them and and and part of that uniqueness is the is the professional side of them so that uniqueness is more personal non-work stuff but when you can find that sweet balance between the two where it’s like man this is what kind of I’ve been designed to do and and this is why I want to go out and speak or Advocate to serve as many people and oh by the way
(52:26) that helps me this isn’t always the case but it’s usually the case it helps me drive growth of my business or be a better leader or whatever it’s so funny this guy at Insperity like he was like I’m not posting on social I’m not getting out and wanting to speak it you know conferences and events because like I’m not inspired to do it like why am I doing it what would I say and then when you really create this space to dig deep into like kind of like you almost like your why or your uniqueness and this opportunity it it
(53:01) inspires action and then you can you can push forward with confidence because you actually have some meaning behind it versus geez I gotta go speak at this event or I gotta somebody’s making me post on social like I hate this right it’s like no I I want to be out there in front of as many people as possible because that’s that’s that’s why I’m here right yes you know so like I think you feel that don’t you absolutely yeah that’s I mean that’s the point where you’re dancing with fear where you know
(53:31) it’s it’s something that scares you but it scares you in the right ways it’s you know what I call that uh that old crap moment you know it’s that that moment where you where you excitement and fear pop up and you just want to go and do it you want to get on as many stages as possible and um and yeah so what uh um what are like wonder if if you could give some advice to people who are kind of struggling with their own brand Persona um aside from from you know of the obvious one which is go to brand
(53:58) builders and get some help there uh what would you advise what quick piece of advice would you give yeah I mean I think they’re one of the biggest mistakes is is that people find themselves in a job um or whatever they they aren’t happy um and they think that the only way to find fulfillment or whatever is to start this side hustle or spin up this thing and they think personal brand means I got to start a new business or like whatever yeah and I would actually challenge that I think when when you dig
(54:34) deep enough you can find the intersection between like you wouldn’t be in your job if you weren’t like good at some you wouldn’t be good at something if you didn’t have some interest in it like some people hate what they do right you probably do need to find a new career but but I think most people like you know what you need to do is you need to connect on an emotional level with why you do what you do and how you can impact a ton of people through this work and then let that inspire you to to kind of like do
(55:05) what you do in a bigger way um you know so I think that’s what so many people come to us and they’re like hey I I want to do this and they have this big vision and we’re like man what I do for V1 is let’s let’s elevate your profile Let’s help you be known by more of the right people yeah but our goal is to not start a new business our goal is to help you be more successful in your current business or grow the business you’re running like let’s throw more gas on the fire of what’s working because
(55:34) the last thing you want to do is you feel like you got to start a new thing and then you start doing that and then you’re like crap this is hard and then you realize well not only is it hard to get this off the ground but now I’m I’ve got diluted focus on my other job and it’s now stagnant and now I’m feeling the pressure because that’s what pays the bills and it’s like you you don’t go anywhere fun right yeah yeah and so it’s kind of like to me I always like to challenge people to say like maybe it’s
(56:02) a different role in the company you’re in or maybe it’s just more authentically connecting with the why behind the work you do and how to serve more people in this business like let’s start with that because you can you take a ton of progress and then that makes it easier to Pivot out if you need to Downstream yeah so so find more sorry I guess like everything else that starts with self-awareness like learn what you want and learn what you’re good at and just become more self-aware and just start
(56:26) applying that to everything you’re doing now that’s a beautiful advice my friend and um where where can people find you what uh what’s what’s next for Jeremy Weber yeah I mean like I’m out on all the socials right so um the Jeremy Weber I think you you probably put in the show notes or whatever but what I would say if if anybody’s like kind of digging the conversation and they’re like yeah this is interesting like seems like this may be something I’m interested in just we do this really cool thing it’s like a
(56:55) free one-hour strategy call with anybody and these are legit strategists that know what they’re talking about so there’s tons of value with it and we just find that whether we actually do anything beyond that or not you can actually kind of like have some cool aha moments and and make some good progress at no cost so I’d just say like if anybody wants to you know take a Next Step a free step that to request one of the free brand strategy call with our team and you can just go to freebrandcall.com
(57:25) JW uh JW for Jeremy Weber and Adam you may put that in the show notes or wherever you’re going to put it but I’d say that’s I mean you can obviously Google the company for whatever and find general information but that’s probably the most tactical next step if anybody’s like man this is kind of cool like let’s see what this see what this looks like and maybe it’s a way that I can find more fulfillment I can have bigger impact I know while I’m doing all that I’m also driving growth of my business
(57:54) or moving up the career ladder or whatever which is a nice bonus yeah absolutely and and speaking from experience you know I had one of those free brand strategy calls and of course I became a client I’m getting absolutely nothing you know from this so just so take it for that it’s it’s it was an amazing highly valuable call just in and of itself it made me want to convert but I mean just the conversation alone gives you so much so much Clarity so I I please yeah do that go to free freebrandcall.com JW get on that call
(58:26) and um and yeah take a look at your own personal brand because that is you know getting more clarity on that to start it can make you a better leader where you’re at now where you want to go and it can help you to remove that lack of clarity which helps you to get over that fear so Jeremy thank you so much for joining me today man this was awesome and I know we could have gone so much longer but uh it’s always always awesome to talk to you man I appreciate that we’ll do it we’ll do a round too buddy
(58:53) thank you for the opportunity man always good to be with you thanks man I appreciate it to everyone out there thanks for joining us today and we will catch you next time hey hi everyone Thanks for tuning in to the flow over fear podcast if you’d like to learn more about getting into flow and learn the foundations of flow I have a free video series on my website at www.adamcliffordill.
(59:17) com called the foundations of flow feel free to go there and download it and start your journey to Rising above fear and achieving greater flow in your life if you like this episode and I’m guessing you did if you stuck around for this long then please do me a favor and hit the Subscribe button and you will receive notifications when I have new interviews new Recaps and new trainings that pop up on YouTube thanks again for joining us