Manders Mindset
Are you feeling stuck or stagnant in your life? Do you envision yourself living differently but have no idea how to start? The answer might lie in a shift in your mindset.
Hosted by Amanda Russo, The Breathing Goddess, who is a Breathwork Detox Facilitator, Transformative Mindset Coach, and Divorce Paralegal.
Amanda's journey into mindset and empowerment began by working with children in group homes and daycares. She later transitioned to family law, helping people navigate the challenging emotions of divorce. During this time, Amanda also overcame her own weight and health challenges through strength training, meditation, yoga, reiki, and plant medicine.
Amanda interviews guests from diverse backgrounds, including entrepreneurs, athletes, artists, and wellness experts, who share their incredible journeys of conquering fears and limiting beliefs to achieve remarkable success. Hear real people tell how shifting their mindsets—and often their words—has dramatically changed their lives.
Amanda also shares her personal journey, detailing how she transformed obstacles into opportunities by adopting a healthier, holistic lifestyle.
Discover practical strategies and inspiring stories that will empower you to break free from limitations and cultivate a mindset geared towards growth and positivity.
Tune in for a fun, friendly, and empowering experience that will help you become the best version of yourself.
Manders Mindset
Sell The Truth: Personal Branding Without the B.S with Hersh Rephun | 149
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What if the most powerful brand you could build… is the one rooted in truth?
In this raw and real episode of Manders Mindset, host Amanda Russo is joined by Hersh Rephun, holistic brand therapist, comedian, writer, and the creator of Yes Brand. From a background in screenwriting, stand-up, and advertising, Hersh brings a deeply honest and refreshingly human perspective to what it means to build a personal brand.
Together, they explore why knowing yourself must come before branding yourself, how humor can be a healing and strategic business tool, and why authenticity always outlasts trends. Hersh also shares a powerful aha moment that transformed his mindset around sales, and why he believes branding is as intimate and layered as any real friendship. This is a must-listen for entrepreneurs ready to ditch the fluff and build a brand that feels real, grounded, and true.
🎙️ In this episode, listeners will discover:
🧠 Why “selling the truth” is the most sustainable brand strategy
💔 How fear of rejection can quietly sabotage your sales process
😂 How humor can elevate your brand without losing credibility
🚫 What doesn’t belong in your brand identity (and why)
🔍 The question to ask when your brand no longer feels aligned
📖 Why your personal brand is your most powerful intellectual property
🤝 How branding is as deep and relational as real friendship
⏰ Timeline Summary:
[2:22] - Growing up with integrity and learning to value the truth
[6:36] - Hersh’s journey from acting and improv to advertising and branding
[11:08] - The surprising path to becoming a “brand therapist”
[16:24] - Why “know yourself before you brand yourself” matters more than ever
[21:52] - How humor disarms, heals, and builds better brands
[31:23] - The one thing that has no place in a personal brand
[39:17] - What to ask yourself when your brand no longer fits
[45:34] - A surprising breakthrough on fear, sales, and abandonment.
To Connect with Amanda:
Schedule a 1:1 Virtual Breathwork Session HERE
📸 Instagram: @thebreathinggoddess
Follow & Support the Podcast:
📱 Instagram: @MandersMindset
👥 Join the Manders Mindset Facebook Community HERE!
To Connect with Hersh:
Learn more at yesbrandbuilders.com
Get the book: sellingthetruthbook.com
Welcome to the Manders Mindset Podcast. Here you'll find both monologue and interviews of entrepreneurs, coaches, healers and a variety of other people when your host, amanda Russo, will discuss her own mindset and perspective and her guest's mindset and perspective on the world around us. Manders and her guests will help explain to you how shifting your mindset will shift your life, will help explain to you how shifting your mindset will shift your life.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Mander's Mindset, where we explore the power of shifting your mindset to shift your life. I'm your host, Amanda Russo, and I am so excited for today's guest. I am here with Hosh Vapoon, and Hosh has achieved success in a number of niche businesses but was tired of struggling to convey his mission to others, and we are going to chat about how he changed that trajectory. It's great to be here, Amanda. I appreciate your having me on. Who would you say Hosh?
Speaker 3:is at the core. Have me on. Who would you say Hirsch is at the core? I would say at the core. Hirsch is compelled to be truthful about himself. And I say compelled because I think that a lot of times we don't, you know, we may be honest at the wrong moment or deceitful at the right time. You know in some way to spare someone's feelings or confusion or whatever it is. So knowing how to present yourself honestly is very important, and so I would say that's, that's kind of who I am.
Speaker 2:Can you take us down memory lane a little bit? Tell us about your childhood, family, dynamic upbringing.
Speaker 3:I grew up in Miami Beach, florida, and I often describe it as kind of an idyllic upbringing in the sense that I was a happy kid. I know I was nurtured by my parents and my dad was an attorney, but also he was an honest attorney. I mean, he had a lot of integrity and I think both my parents, having a lot of integrity, set the example for me that ultimately, the truth is all you have. It's like that's what I say now sell the truth. Sell the truth, because it's all you really have. The other stuff if you make up a story, that's a borrowed story, right, it's not yours, it doesn't belong to you. So I think that kind of it was transmitted to me in a way that was subtle. It wasn't something that was on a blackboard, it was just how they moved through life.
Speaker 3:I have two older sisters and you know, watching them grow up and watching how they interacted with people and with my parents and our family, it was very interesting to me. When you're the youngest, you the youngest two things can happen. You can observe a lot, but you could also just be very into your own space. Being the only boy, I had my own room, so I had a lot of time that I spent in my own head. I had a very vivid imagination. I had vivid dreams, which I still do, extremely vivid dreamer writer.
Speaker 3:But still I learned the difference between making stuff up for show and lying. Not that I didn't tell lies I mean, I think every person does, every kid does but I think I knew the difference. I much preferred to get on stage and perform in a play and play a character, or even dress up at home as a character and do voices and do whatever stuff I would do, than to actually tell a story that I knew was completely false, to get away with something. So it always drew a distinction to me Of like playing or kidding around and being, you know, a bullshit artist, if I could say you know.
Speaker 2:I get what you mean. Now, how was schooling for you? How was high school?
Speaker 3:And then school. School was good. I think that I did get a sense of I was small and rather than be a tough you know, a lot of little kids are tough because they need to prove themselves and I was just witty, I guess, and funny, but I did feel like it was a little bit of it was nice to be. I would look at my bigger friends who were very athletic and I think it was nice. It's nice to be big and tough and in my mind at the time, as a little kid impervious to bullying and stuff but I wasn't bullied a tremendous school. I think I was interested in being something more than whatever I was. So I think I always had a sense of I was okay, I was safe, but I wanted to achieve something else that I wasn't quite ready for yet. Whatever it was, I was writing screenplays and stuff when I was 12 years old. So I think there was a little bit of restlessness on my part.
Speaker 2:Okay, and post high school, did you go to college?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I was raised Orthodox Jewish, so that for me was both a little restrictive in the sense that there were a lot of laws to follow, a lot of things you couldn't do. I went to Yeshiva College, which is a university in New York Yeshiva University but they had an excellent theater department and I was in a lot of plays there. I really found my people there. You know theater people. I did improv in New York City in a group and I went to School of Visual Arts after I graduated. I graduated with a degree in speech and communications and sociology and then I studied film at School of Visual Arts as a kind of postgraduate period. I didn't take it for a degree, I just did a year of it and then I started working in advertising, interestingly to me, surprisingly to me, I would say.
Speaker 2:So you didn't plan on working in advertising.
Speaker 3:No, no, I was writing screenplays. My reasoning was that, being an Orthodox Jewish boy who wouldn't work on the Sabbath, I didn't have a tremendous career ahead of me as an actor, which is what I would probably have done otherwise. But for some reason I just I think it was fear that I really just didn't want to be like. You know, as an actor you have to be willing to be one of thousands, right that audition for a certain thing or take a certain you humility when it came to my personal way of interacting. But I had tremendous confidence only in the theoretical sense. I had immense confidence that I was a good actor. But I didn't want to suffer the indignity of hitting the street every day, going on auditions and not getting them. I did a little of that, but I just didn't have the passion and willingness to do that, to the exclusion of everything else. If I had, I would have probably chosen that path. I did do stand-up comedy. I did stand-up comedy in New York City. Again, that's a thing that you do a lot on Friday nights. It's not for a nice Jewish boy, that type of thing. So I focused on screenwriting where I felt like that wouldn't compromise my religious observances, and so I pursued that.
Speaker 3:When it was suggested to me to consider advertising as a career, I kind of took the advice. But I was always thinking, okay, I'm going to go to California, I'm going to work in the film business, but working in advertising, in commercial production, I was able to work with a lot of directors. I was like an agent for commercial directors. So I was able to meet a lot of very interesting filmmaking people and represent a lot of very cool directors for commercials. So it was kind of an interesting niche. It was again like would I rather be in the mailroom at CAA or would I rather be representing? You know, we represented the Coen brothers, jodie Foster, who else? Some big name directors that did commercials occasionally and then a lot of really wonderful directors that did commercials as their career, and it was a fascinating world.
Speaker 2:And now, how long did you do that for?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I did that for about 10 years. I did get some movies produced during that time, so I was hired to write a few movies. The screenplays I wrote were a little off the beaten path, so they would get optioned but not made, and then the producers would hire me to write something else that was more formulaic and low budgets. But it was really interesting to get those opportunities and pursue those opportunities while working a regular job. Eventually I'll do something else. I'll do something else. I'll either be a screenwriter or it will be an entree into acting again, or I'll do standup comedy. And I was always doing these things like in some way, so it wasn't like I didn't write or didn't do comedy. I just didn't do them exclusively or make a living exclusively at them. I made a living representing commercial directors and then eventually starting a PR firm representing commercial directors as their publicist, not as their sales agent, you know, and that was unique. Nobody was really doing that at the time.
Speaker 2:Now, when did you make this transition and switch to being a holistic brand therapist? I was doing that for them.
Speaker 3:I was shaping their personal brand because they you know, artists can have a particularly difficult time expressing who they are, what they're about, how they're different from other. You know, they write even writers but I didn't call it holistic brand therapy at the time, I was just doing PR, but I really was doing much more work on their brand than I was just promoting them to magazines. So when? Well, covid was a turning point. But I was also a creative director for sneaker brands, because a very close friend of mine was a sneaker retailer. A friend of mine that was a sneaker retailer had stores in LA called Sporty LA, and I formed a niche boutique marketing firm with him called Propeller 5. That was very successful.
Speaker 3:Until COVID, everything stopped and so everybody kind of hunkered down to see what they wanted to do and we didn't really want to keep doing the same thing again.
Speaker 3:As you can probably tell, I like to change things up. So I started podcasting and as I was interviewing people and learning about them, I realized I should be working one-on-one with entrepreneurs, founders, creators, interesting people, even executives, who wanted to pivot and do something different and help them shape their personal brands in this world where we have so much opportunity to present ourselves, but also a lot of guru kind of atmosphere around entrepreneurship where it's like you know, do this and you'll grow your income 10x, 10x. This and all of these best practices quote unquote. That may have worked for the people who are doing it, but it's a lot of BS. So I felt like for the people who were a little frustrated about wanting to really step into their identity and have it work for them and earn their thought leadership and get better opportunities to work with the clients they want to work with, that I had something unique to offer in terms of their brand and their storytelling, their offers and so forth.
Speaker 2:Now did you previously see yourself doing something like this?
Speaker 3:well, like I say, I kind of was doing it without knowing what it was called, and I was frustrated as a publicist that the publishing industry was changing. There were fewer magazines in print, there was a lot of stuff online as that, and so I think that spurred me on to create this brand firm, this podcast, this business of holistic brand transformation, you know, because I felt like I'm not just talking to people about their job, I'm not just talking to them about their product or even their brand. It really is their life, it's their life, it's everything that they value, it's their IP. Your personal brand is your IP, and so, to me, holistic brand therapy and transformations felt much more apt for what I was doing and if they didn't really care about their brand and they didn't really care.
Speaker 3:You know I love ChatGPT. It's great, like everybody else likes to use it for stuff. But if, when it comes to talking about yourself and creating a language around yourself and who you are and what's important to you, that stuff you know, if it's too important to trust to Google to tell you who you are, we're supposed to tell Google who we are. Google is not supposed to tell us who we are. So my attitude was let's figure out who you are, let's tell the world who you are in the language that suits you best, that is most true to you, and then tell ChachiBT how to learn that language.
Speaker 3:But don't ask it to tell you who you are because it'll just make up all kinds of shit. It not only pulls stuff from the internet that it finds, it makes up stuff. It's sometimes a bad robot, it's a little naughty sometimes. I'll say to it can you create an outline for this kind of story or whatever, and they'll give me these quotes that I know I didn't say or my client didn't say and I'll be like don't make stuff up, stop making stuff up. Chat will be like okay, we'll make him We'll tell any more lies.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. Yeah, that's true. Now, one of your biggest philosophy is know yourself before you brand yourself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, why do?
Speaker 2:you say that yourself. Why do you say that?
Speaker 3:I think that a lot of times, we are trying to please the audience, which I know a lot about from doing stand-up and from being a writer.
Speaker 3:Some of us are just trying to please the audience. So you want to be whatever they want you to be, and in business, especially if we need to make money, which we do we want to succeed. We feel like, well, okay, it's going to require some compromise, we're going to have to be this or we're going to have to be that, or they tell us to talk like this, and we ignore some of the things that are important to us in the process, and so I think that we don't take the proper time to get to know what we really want, what really matters to us, and it's not that it's so hard to find out, it's just a lot of people skip that step. They think that their values are like well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, like that's not how values work, because what happens is you cross that bridge and then you know you're here, you are on the bridge. That's not. The best time to decide your strategy about how you want to cross bridges is when you're standing on them, you know.
Speaker 2:So you'd suggest figuring out their values.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and what makes you happy, what's really fulfilling to you? I think, going a little deeper, amanda it's that I think I spent a lot of time clinging to ideas about myself that I thought were I thought I knew myself, and it was only when I started to meditate and I started to do some more of that stuff, that took some pressure off of me, that I was able to just let myself evolve a little bit. You're so busy delivering stuff and you're so busy trying to achieve things that you sometimes forget why you started doing it in the first place. And I do think that I had ideas in my head that were ingrained from a very early age, that were just misperceptions, and I don't know any other way to address that than to just challenge them. So if you challenge your values, challenge your intentions, challenge your desires, you might discover that there are different things that you didn't realize you wanted or stood for.
Speaker 2:Now, how deep does branding go?
Speaker 3:So I think it goes really deep, because if you want a connection, everybody talks about authenticity. They talk about oh, it has to be authentic, as opposed to what you know, as opposed to just being full of shit. That would be the alternative to authenticity, and you're just choosing between the two. Between the two. Authenticity means people want to have a relationship with a product or with an author, or with a collaborator or a service provider. They want to have something they can count on, and so brand, when it comes to personal brands, for sure goes really deep, and I think that's why I like it, because there's no limit to how deep it can go.
Speaker 3:It doesn't mean that your brand you know, if your brand is you're the plumbing guy and that's your brand that everything about you has to do with plumbing. More likely, it's that the values that you have as a person may influence how you behave as a plumber. You know, but that is pretty deep, whereas if you sell light bulbs, the values system and all that stuff are probably not quite so important, but it still matters, right? Do you sell broken light bulbs or you only sell good light bulbs? You pack them using more expensive packaging so that they don't break in transit, or you don't really care, you know. So those things are pretty deep. I mean those things, let's put it this way, I think they're as deep as a friendship. So if you think friendship is important and it's deep, probably branding is too that makes sense.
Speaker 2:It's as deep as friendship. I'm very into analogies or comparisons like that. That resonates with me. You know, there can be very different layers to the friendship, just like there can be different layers to the branding, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What would be your biggest tip for entrepreneurs struggling with their branding?
Speaker 3:The biggest tip would be bring a little humor to it. In other words humor and there's a whole chapter in my book about humor and when to use it for business but I don't mean just humor, like externally using humor in your marketing. I mean bring a sense of humor to the situation, like life is hard. Even life is hard under even the best circumstances. So if you're struggling as an entrepreneur, it makes sense to have a little bit of a sense of humor about it.
Speaker 3:I think the reason I click with entrepreneurs and I never thought I would like I always thought entrepreneurs were about money. Entrepreneurs, by and large, aren't about money. They're about creating something and they're taking a risk, and it's often money that they're risking. But they risk other things too to do that thing. If you're risking things of value to do something of value, give yourself a little break and allow yourself to laugh at yourself and at the sometimes random or fickle nature of life and pull back a little bit, because on some level, what you're doing is not the end of the world. It probably isn't, and the end of the world is probably something you can neither stop nor really worry about. Worry about the things you can influence, and if that is the area of your greatest concern the end of the world and you want to really work on that, well then, you're going to need a sense of humor too.
Speaker 2:Interesting Humor. That makes sense, though, whatever the the situation is, because life is hard, as you know. Like I mentioned, it's hard enough and I think there's so much healing in laughter and humor.
Speaker 3:You know, and I'm sure you notice that in your stand-up comedy yeah, and I think that was what drew me most to comedy was its healing power, you know. Know, not the power to be a smart ass Like. Even as a kid, I think I felt bad if I told a joke or did something that hurt somebody's feelings, even a bully, even when I would make fun of a bully. I felt bad a little bit because I knew that, and it's true today, although some of the bullies that exist today it would be very hard to feel bad for. But I would say that every hostile act comes from some kind of pain and fear.
Speaker 3:Nobody is hostile if they're not afraid. And so when a bully was doing something you know like just threatening me or wasn't anything terrible, like I said, but still they're making you afraid or they're trying to make you afraid. And so if I disarm them with humor by making them, by revealing them, to be afraid and be small, they all of a sudden became so small. It doesn't matter how big a person is. It's that David and Goliath moment you may not hit them with a rock, but you're hitting them with something more powerful and that reduction in their size that takes place is really like. That reduction in their size that takes place is really, like you know, takes all the wind out of them.
Speaker 3:I did have a kid pick on like a bullet. He was little like me, so I think he was just struggling with his own sense of his own insecurities and he challenged me in some way and I didn't use humor to deflate him, but I stood my ground against him and I called his bluff and he broke down crying and he was never a bully again in that way and it was very startling and transformative to me to see someone who went from total aggression and anger to total vulnerability.
Speaker 2:That makes a lot of sense, you know, like being able to laugh at something or find humor in something. The world is serious and life is hard.
Speaker 3:You know, even, as you said, and like I'm sure that brought so much joy like to you, being like doing the comedy, you know and I think it was subtle in that you get up on stage and you tell jokes or you do bits or whatever it is, and people laugh. It's not like hi, I'm here to cure you. I'm not laying hands on the audience and like curing their. Oh, I feel so much better now. We don't even know what transpired. I went up on the stage, I brought them in on the joke, even if we're making fun, even if there's people.
Speaker 3:You know Don Rickles, the comedian, who was famous for making fun of people. He was a very warm and funny person and the whole joke was that we were all worthy of being laughed at. We all were going to be made fun of. Someone was going to make fun of us eventually, someone was going to kick our ass eventually, and so it was a very comforting kind of joking where you're comfortable enough to make fun versus being mean. You know, like I have a friend, that we bust each other's chops constantly and it's like it's just because the love is so deep and strong that there's no way you can ever hurt that person on purpose, right? So they know that anything that you would say that would be making fun of them would be in jest, and so, therefore, you're able to say the most because even if it's not foul or something, but you're able to act angry or insult them in some way, but it's so totally performative and funny that you just enjoy that. It's a thrill. You know to do that, so it's fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how would you say, entrepreneurs could use humor without taking away their credibility or their expertise?
Speaker 3:Hmm, that's a really great question to ask, amanda, because that is a little bit of a tightrope walk. The simple answer is don't be a clown, and what I mean by that is when someone walks into a room, they bring whatever authority they have, and the type of humor they may use is not really the point. Because, for example, let's say, someone's a real creative person and they're very eccentric and they're very funny and they are goofy or they wear funny clothes, they dress funny, they wear shorts. Let's just say they always wear shorts and flip flops and that's their thing, that's fine, that's who they are and that's their brand. But when I say don't be a clown, I mean don't make yourself a joke. They're wearing the shorts and they're telling jokes or they're being funny or they're, you know, just growing their hair. However they wild, whatever it is, because that makes them comfortable and so that's their comfort level. You know, think of like Robin Williams as a comedian. But imagine if Robin Williams were an inventor or an executive somewhere, or a entrepreneur. Right, let's just say he is an entrepreneur. You would never consider him a clown.
Speaker 3:Right Now, someone like Jim Carrey struggled with being taken seriously, and Jerry Lewis, because their whole persona was being a clown. But they're not clowns. Jim Carrey is not a clown, he's an artist and I guarantee when he went into meetings to talk about money and talk about other things, he wasn't making faces. If he goes to buy a piece of art, he's not turning around and making fart faces who they are as buy a piece of art. He's not turning around and making fart faces who they are as people. That's part of entertainment. So same with an entrepreneur. If they have a very funny way of talking or they like to make jokes or they appreciate humor, it's not the same as not taking their business seriously. And so when I say don't be a clown, it means the part of you that you mean to exert authority with and establish thought leadership with is not the same muscle with which you just make jokes, because that is tricky and you don't want people to think that you don't take yourself seriously or your work seriously.
Speaker 2:Now would you say. There is anything an entrepreneur should not have as a part of their personal brand personal brand.
Speaker 3:I would say that negativity and hurtfulness is just not good in a brand. So I subscribe to the notion of positronics. You know, positronics isn't a word that I made up. It's a word that Isaac Asimov, the science fiction writer, made up. It's just an idea of do no harm. Really, it's the idea that you shouldn't program anything to do any harm. In his case, he's talking about robots. It actually is a very kind of prescient idea if you think about AI and stuff. But it's the same thing in business.
Speaker 3:It doesn't make sense to me that you would have hatred as part of your brand. You know, and that's a big problem for a lot of men because they think that force and power are useful, right, and that making reducing other people is important, and that winning means that somebody lost. And winning doesn't mean that somebody lost. There is no equation that demands that somebody lose in order for somebody to win. That is a fallacy. That isn't real.
Speaker 3:That doesn't mean that in sports you know in the Super Bowl that both teams win. It means that, as a human being, as a brand, the owner of the team that won that Super Bowl ring. That doesn't mean that the owner of the other team or the players on the other teams are losers. They lost that game. That doesn't mean they're losers. So if you make a deal, the person you make the deal with certainly should not be the loser Right, and there are. There is a certain class of business person and a certain class of leader that thinks that the person they make the deal with has to lose in order for them to win, deal with has to lose in order for them to win, and I don't subscribe to that and I don't think that that brand is a healthy brand in the end. You know, that's my take on it.
Speaker 2:That makes sense. Now I'm curious would you say there's anything different for spiritual entrepreneurs that they don't want to have as a part of their brand?
Speaker 3:Oh well, while I do work with a lot of spiritual entrepreneurs and I like having those client relationships with spiritual entrepreneurs, with spiritual entrepreneurs what I would do in their case as a brand therapist or as a brand transformer is I would see what energy they're wanting to put out and honor that, but it's very unlikely that they're wanting to exert negative energy, right? I've never had a spiritual entrepreneur come to me and say it's my mission to destroy the spirit of certain kinds of people. They may want to transform the spirit of certain kinds of people, but they don't necessarily want to be destructive. But I would say that in terms of their energy, their persona, if I wanted to work with them it would probably be because they have some positive impact that they want to have. So it's unlikely that I would suggest that they limit the scope of their persona beyond to the point where it constrains that.
Speaker 3:And a good example would be let's say, they believe in a coach that has a tough love kind of approach and just tells it like it is and doesn't sugarcoat it, and if you don't like it, then you probably shouldn't work with that person. Or if you're afraid of looking yourself in the mirror, you probably shouldn't work with a coach that makes you do're afraid of looking yourself in the mirror. You probably shouldn't work with a coach that makes you do that. So I wouldn't tell those coaches don't tone it down.
Speaker 3:I would say in general you have to kind of be who you are, because you are trying to help people and you're trying to serve a certain type of person and it may be a person who has a hard time at first with that and maybe you could. Maybe you could calibrate your message so that they understand where it comes from. You could tell your story. Maybe there's something in your story in your childhood that really explains why you do this. That stuff is helpful, but I wouldn't tell them. You know, don't be tough, be nicer, that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now is there in terms of branding and in terms of entrepreneurs. Do you think entrepreneurs should keep trying to figure out how I want to word this? Like any side of their personal life, should that not be a part of the brand?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I don't think that branding is an open book. I don't think that we have to insert every part of ourselves into our personal brand just because it's our personal brand brand. I think people's personal lives don't have to be subject to scrutiny just because they are a brand. I think that the rule of thumb that I use is if it pertains to the service that you offer, then number one that should relate to your core values. So don't be a hypocrite in that sense, but don't be publishing religious books and then be a thief or a dishonest right. Don't be a clown and hate children. It's like those kinds of things. But if it doesn't pertain to you, you don't have to offer your opinion about it either.
Speaker 3:I'll tell clients, you know. They'll say, oh, there's this issue, there's an issue that's very important to them personally, but their brand doesn't think about that. In that case, your brand doesn't need to have an opinion about everything, and that would be foolish to wade into a conversation. But if it is a conversation that is about your area of expertise and your area of interest, it'd be very hard to sit it out. That's your thing, and some brands consumer brands do that really well. Patagonia is a great example. They're a very environmentally conscious brand and make sense that you care about the environment and you know that would be appropriate, but it doesn't mean that your views on you know marriage, let's say are relevant. That's not what your brand is necessarily, so that's your business.
Speaker 2:No, that makes a lot of sense. Now, if somebody was feeling stuck and no brand evolution, what would you say they should ask themselves?
Speaker 3:I would suggest that they ask themselves why where they want to be and why, okay, and consider whether the resistance that they're meeting, the stuckness that they're facing, is because of some external factor that is in their way that they need to move or combat, or whether they are actually not seeing something about where they really want to be. In other words, are they stuck because they're facing challenges and they have to get around those challenges and they have to wrap their head around solutions, which some of the solutions may be mindset stuff. Some of the solutions may be internal right, it's not all external but is it that they're facing blocks that are not indicative of what their mission should be? Just they're facing those blocks or is there something about it that is not the right goal for them? That is not the right goal for them, and they have to really examine those goals. And that's why I say know yourself right. They have to examine those goals and say do I really really want this?
Speaker 3:In the book there's a chapter called the breakthrough is in your head, not the wall right. The breakthrough is in your head, not the wall right, because a lot of us bang our heads against the wall over and over and we may now. Maybe it is what we want and it's just hard. Well, that's okay, but maybe it's not what we really want. And I don't think I had asked myself that for a long time because I would struggle with certain things and I would be like, okay, well, I have all this anger or distaste for certain things that I feel I'm being forced to do, but maybe the things that I think I want are not the things that I want. And so it's different from saying you should give up right on what you want because you're never going to get it, because a lot of people will tell you that, oh, you shouldn't keep trying to be an actor because it's just it's never going to happen or you're not good enough or whatever. No one ever told me I wasn't a good enough actor. No one ever told me I wasn't a good enough comedian, although I will say, with comedy I eventually really worked on it a lot harder than I worked on acting.
Speaker 3:But it wasn't people discouraging me that made me shift. It was saying to myself, well, if I'm not getting where I would want to be with it, is there a reason that? Is it really what I want? Or maybe I'm not getting it because I don't really want it. And I would have to examine that honestly and only I would know, right, only you would know whether this is what you want. So no one could tell you. There's no reason, logic whatever, but it's.
Speaker 3:You have to dig there and be like am I at least open to the idea that maybe I don't want? Like, am I elite or am I so married to that idea that I won't even consider it? You know how that can be, that kind of stubbornness of don't even mention it, don't even bring it up. You know someone will say, oh, you know, have you thought about doing this? And you'd be like you know, don't, even I hate when you don't bring it up. You know someone will say, oh, you know, have you thought about doing this? And you'd be like you know, don't even I hate when you don't bring it up. Well, it's not the other person who should bring it up, you should bring it up. You know, do I really want this?
Speaker 2:So you know, you know, do I really want this? Wow, that makes so much sense. Wow, that makes so much sense. You know, even with society, I feel like so many people like, whether it's a job, education, they want this thing because maybe their parents and they might, it's like said something, like it doesn't have to be a deeply rooted thing. It could be one small thing and it's like you don't actually want that, or the life that's gonna come with xyz.
Speaker 3:You know, like yeah even the people that like say they want this thing and then they try so hard and then it's sabotage because they didn't really want it or or they get it and they knew going in that those things were true, right, that there were things about it that they weren't going to like, there were sacrifices that they were going to make that they are pretending they're not going to make and they're thinking that they're ignoring certain things. They're telling themselves little white lies, lies and then when they get what they want, they realize that they did have to do this thing or that thing, or it was going to come with this or that. Fame is like that.
Speaker 3:Fame is one of those where people become famous and then they become very depressed and we don't understand why If we're not famous, we don't understand what that is. But they thought that it was, but they also romanticized it and then when they got right down to it, it sucked. It doesn't mean they don't want the money. It doesn't mean they don't like being recognized and celebrated. It just means they just maybe wanted a normal life and they thought it looked great to be doing all these things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's so true. A lot of people have experienced multiple aha moments in their life. I'm curious if you've experienced a really big one, one where a lot in your life shifted a lot in your life shifted.
Speaker 3:Well, that's a hard one, because there are those moments that are really aha moments that shift everything, and then there are aha moments that we don't really know what they shift. You know, like, I'll tell you one, I'll share. I'll share one that's recent that felt like a really big aha moment. It didn't change my life, but it may have changed me. So I was on this marketer's cruise, which is a work cruise, which I love, because you know, I love being on the ocean, I love being in tropical areas. Growing up in Miami, it was a thing that I did with my family, so I have a lot of sentimental attachment to it. But anyway, I was on one and one of my colleagues was doing readings like an energy healing session, and her name is Jen Takagi.
Speaker 3:I'll give her credit because this was like a transformative thing, and she was asking something that I'd like to fix and it had to do with business, something I'd like to fix with my brand or my business, and she was getting into this question of what could be a blocker that I have. That had to do with sales. It had to do with a lot of people who are entrepreneurs hate doing sales. They hate closing clients or doing business. And I was one of those people and I've always tried to figure out why. What is it about that exchange? And there are plenty of reasons I figured out over time that are legit. But she said do you have a fear of abandonment? And I thought that's weird. I don't recall having a fear of abandonment.
Speaker 3:It doesn't make sense. And she said, yeah, it has something to do with your mother, and my mother didn't abandon me. And again, it didn't really make sense. She said, well, it could be it, and this might make sense in terms of sales, because if you lose the sale, you're being abandoned. So it's not necessarily the money. You may think it's the money, but you're actually afraid that they're not going to like you if you ask for too much money or you end the relationship because they can't pay you, which I never thought.
Speaker 3:And she said, well, it could time that my mother was pregnant with me and his marriage ended up causing a very big rift between him and his sister and his mother, with whom he was very close, with both of them Kind of inseparable, especially when you think of a twin. And so a twin getting married can be very traumatic, right. So that was traumatic for my mother in this case. She was pregnant with me at the time, so when she was pregnant with me, it would definitely be safe to say that she was feeling abandoned by her brother in that case, you know, and so the idea of that kind of made sense to me really was an epiphany in the sense that you know if you can put a name on something, if you can figure something out, you could probably solve the problem.
Speaker 3:So whether it was right or wrong or whether it's accurate or not is really beside the point, because at that moment I thought, oh, that's why I have this kind of fear of Now it's not necessarily a fear of closing a deal or enrolling a client, but it puts an immense amount of pressure on relationships, on business relationships Right, on relationships on business relationships right, because I don't have that in my personal relationships, fear of abandonment. But I might have some of it. I might be afraid to have arguments with people or be non-confrontational. So that's something. So this whole thing.
Speaker 3:And I realize I took a lot of time kind of telling that story, but I did find that I was very relieved after that because I felt like, oh, now I know why I'm very afraid about these business relationships and why I'm afraid to displease clients. So I think that what made me different in terms of how I went about these things, it wasn't a thing where I was like, oh, I'm going to change my entire business model, now I'm going to change my life plan. It wasn't anything like that, but it was an opening, nonetheless, into self-discovery and solving issues that are dogging me.
Speaker 2:That's so fascinating. You know, a lot of people talk about how feelings and thoughts that the mother has while she's pregnant can affect the child. But wow, and it's interesting to me about the fear of abandonment showing up and somebody not booking or coaching with you, like it relates a lot to me, but it's like like mind blown. I'm like, oh my god, you know what I mean. Like you don't think that it would show up, but it makes so much sense that it does. Yeah, you know you'd think it would show up more.
Speaker 3:so, personally, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but it probably does. I mean, if you think about it, it has to do with the stand up comedy, because I used to think, oh, you know, it's odd that I do standup comedy, there's nothing wrong with me, right, like that is what I thought. But having those issues, even if they're inherited, versus as a result of something that happened to you, like literally to you, that's interesting because it does say a lot. It does explain oh, why was I very hungry for attention? Why was I, you know, why did I even want to be a comedian and get the applause and the adoration and the approval Right? So I think it explained a lot.
Speaker 2:That makes a lot of sense. Well, thank you so much for speaking with me, Hosh. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3:My pleasure, amanda. It's been great. It's a wonderful platform. You have a really great opportunity, both for us as people talking and listeners, as people kind of being able to think about themselves and see perhaps themselves. So it was really cool, thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I really appreciate it. Have you heard of a man named Jay Shetty? Yeah, so he's got a podcast called On Purpose and he ends it with two segments. Oh, nice, with those two segments. First segment is the many sides to us. There's five questions and they need to be answered in one word each. What is one word someone who was meeting you for the first time would use to describe you as?
Speaker 3:Adorable.
Speaker 2:What is one word that someone who knows you extremely well would use to describe you as?
Speaker 3:Fantastic.
Speaker 2:What is one word you'd use to describe yourself?
Speaker 3:Disarming.
Speaker 2:What is one word that, if someone didn't like you or agree with your mindset, would you describe you as Idiot? What is one word you're trying to embody right now?
Speaker 3:Honesty.
Speaker 2:Second segment of the final five, and these can be answered in a sentence what is the best advice you've heard or received?
Speaker 3:If you're going to do something, do it right. Why is that the best advice you've heard or received? If you're going to do something, do it right.
Speaker 2:Why is that the best advice?
Speaker 3:I got that advice from my father and I didn't realize until I got older how many things that applied to you know. It makes sense because if you're struggling with something we were talking earlier about entrepreneurs getting stuck you can ask yourself are you doing it right? Are you giving it the proper attention? And it just applies to everything. It applies to jobs you do for people, applies to relationships you're involved in with people. It applies to advice that I give my kids.
Speaker 3:You know, and we don't always succeed at it and it can be a process. So it doesn't mean it's not about being a perfectionist. It's about you know do it right, take pride in what you're doing, regardless of why you're doing it. A good example is you do somebody a favor, right, and so it's maybe a work favor, and you're not getting paid and you're doing a lot of time, but you're going to do it right. You're going to do that job as if you were getting the full amount that you always get paid, because that's part of your integrity and part of what you bring to it. So it's good advice.
Speaker 2:What is the worst advice you've heard or received?
Speaker 3:The most important thing is that people should like you.
Speaker 2:Why is that the worst?
Speaker 3:That and that was my. My grandmother Didn't say it to me, she said it to my father and, by the way, it might have been the best advice that she gave him, because here's a kid that's escaping the Holocaust to come to America and with his parents and his siblings and survive, and in that context I don't know that it's bad advice, but I think I took it to mean what we were just talking about, that everybody needs to like me, and I don't think that's what she meant. I don't think she meant please everybody and all that stuff. And because she didn't say it to me and I don't think that's what she meant, I don't think she meant please everybody and all that stuff. And because she didn't say it to me and I was four when she passed away, I don't, I never got to ask her about it, but I think that I took that the wrong way. Oh, people like me, I'm liked, I am approved of. That's so important, and so I think of that as bad advice, even if it was the way I took it.
Speaker 2:What is something that you used to value that you no longer value? Approval, I would say If you could describe what you would want your legacy to be, as if someone was reading it, what would you want it to say?
Speaker 3:He loved his kids unconditionally and he loved the world purposefully.
Speaker 2:If you could create one law in the world that everyone had to follow, what would it be? And I want to know why.
Speaker 3:Well, don't be an asshole, I think would be the law, like I was trying to think of that in ways that would be more like officious do no harm, don't hurt anyone, like we've talked about. But I think you know, because people will say we have a no asshole policy here. We don't have a no, our company or I don't have a no asshole policy when it comes to clients. I think if there were a law you just don't be an asshole I think a lot of things in the world would be different. It would show the assholes that the rest of the world frowns on that kind of behavior, which is something that a lot of assholes don't realize.
Speaker 2:I like that Well. Thank you so much for speaking with me, harsh. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3:My pleasure, Amanda.
Speaker 2:And where's the best place for listeners to connect with you?
Speaker 3:They can go to yesbrandbuilderscom and everything is there that they might want to find out about me. My book's there. They can go to sellingthetruthbookcom if they're specifically interested in the book, but they could find out anything else my podcasts, my appearances, my work at that site.
Speaker 2:Awesome. I will link that in the show notes and I do like to just give it back to the guest. Any final words of wisdom you want to share? Don't be an asshole words of wisdom you want to share.
Speaker 3:Don't be an asshole. No, I think that's good, I think that's really good. I mean, if anybody listens to that and takes that advice, I think that's probably the best advice that.
Speaker 2:I could give. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Hirsch, Thank you and thank you guys for tuning in, really appreciate it.
Speaker 3:Harsh. Thank you.
Speaker 2:And thank you, guys for tuning in to another episode of Mander's Mindset. In case no one told you today, I'm proud of you, I'm booting for you and you got this, as always. If you enjoyed the show, I would really appreciate it if you would leave me a five star rating, leave a review and share it with anyone you think would benefit from this. And don't forget you are only one mindset. Shift away from shifting your life. Thanks, guys, until next time.
