Ep768: Bryan Kramer – Be Human and Build Relationships

Andrew Stotz 00:01
Hello fellow risk takers and welcome to my worst investment ever stories of loss to keep you winning. In our community. We know that to win an investing, you must take risks but to win big, you've got to reduce it. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm on a mission to help 1 million people reuse risk in their lives. And I want to thank our listeners in Lisbon, Portugal, in fact, for joining the show today, fellow risk takers this is your worst podcast hosts Andrew Stotz, from a Stotz Academy, and I'm here with featured guests, Brian Kramer and Brian Are you ready to join the mission?

Bryan Kramer 00:42
I'm so ready. Let's do this.

Andrew Stotz 00:47
Well, let me introduce you to the audience. Brian Kramer is a renowned business strategist, global keynote speaker, executive trainer and coach investor, two times bestselling author, and Forbes contributor, as President and co owner of pure Mater, a Silicon Valley global marketing agency since 2001. and CEO of HGH companies, he sparked the human to human or age to age global movement that sets out to humanize business through simpler communication, empathy, and celebrating our imperfections, which, as you can see, I am the worst podcast host, so I got a lot of imperfections. But Brian, if you just take a minute and tell us about the unique value you are bringing to this wonderful world.

Bryan Kramer 01:28
Oh, thank you, I'll tell you my, the biggest thing that I believe in the value I like to bring is that I believe that being human is everyone's competitive advantage right now more so now than ever.

Andrew Stotz 01:43
Isn't that such a funny and weird thing to say, to be human is a competitive advantage. And yet, I get what you're mean, you know, what your meaning is there like everything's AI and everything's, you know, automated and all of that, and the ability to just sit down and have a face to face talk. I think one of the things that humans have such a great ability is empathy, emotional connection. And so I think for all the listeners and viewers out there, let's take a moment now and enjoy this time together, as we get to know each other and learn from each other, and, and share the emotions that we have as humans. So I'm curious about what you're doing a little bit like with your marketing agency, and HGH, maybe you can tell us just a little bit about your business and what type of people come to you and what type of solutions are you providing?

Bryan Kramer 02:44
Yeah, it's real, real simple, we like to keep things simple. So, you know, on the pure matter is a is a is a little bit of a different approach for the first part of what we had pure matter day, which was marketing agency, which you mentioned earlier, and that that agency focused on all kinds of things over 25 years and eventually grew to a 30 person, company, and a $30 million agency and we focused on large, large brands eventually started small and grew, grew and grew. And then and this is part of the story of what we'll talk about in the financial investment part when we get to it but we shifted things about seven years ago, and collapsed it down into a consultancy. And so now it's back down to Courtney and I, we started coordinators, my wife, we started the agency together in 2001. And, and now she runs the marketing side, outsourced marketing and creative, creative outsourcing, CMO, outsourcing that kind of stuff. And I I shifted my life into being an executive coach so I work with a lot of marketers but help them in leadership and development.

Andrew Stotz 04:06
And in executive coaching, you know, I do some coaching for I have a product that I have or a service that's called profit bootcamp. And my tagline is, I help mid size family businesses double their profits in 12 months. And which of course either raises a question of if either someone says I need that or I don't believe you can do that. But that that's kind of an i I've never really been a coach in the sense I've been a teacher all my life and I've been teaching and and I've been guiding I've been a boss you know for many many years and setting the direction and talking to people but I've never been like an official coach but it's really been great working with people and with you know companies and to be able to go every every two weeks. I'm On site here in Thailand with my clients, and I work with the owners of the companies and I bring together all you know, strengths that I have. My strengths are not marketing, mine is more kind of Strategy and Finance. But maybe you could just tell us like, what are the common problems that you see, in your practice? You know, of coaching, what are maybe one or two of the common things? And what are some, you know, things that you've done that helped people, you know, to get over those for the listeners out there? Yeah.

Bryan Kramer 05:32
Common to narrow it down. Interesting. So, you know, it's so varied, I think, I think part of it is, part of it is, the higher I find that the higher you climb, that the more imposter syndrome grows. And in the more the older that we get, the more we don't know, or at least we're willing to say that we don't know. And, and so there's a lot to be learned, especially as an entrepreneur and growing a company and building people, looking at every area of the company, looking at HR, looking at organizational development, looking at structure, looking at culture, looking at brand, looking at marketing, looking at sales, look, you're you're juggling so many different things and trying to point to and think about what's the focus for today. And, and that's really, it really can be hard if you don't have all those things buttoned up. And so I work across all of those things. But really, it's all about focus. If you wanted to boil it down to one or two things, it'd be focus and impostor syndrome at the same time, which one do I focus on, and if I fail, that's the impostor syndrome. And so when you when you can kind of take all those things, which I work across, and boil it into those two and fix those two things, then all of a sudden, you start to mature and grow in ways that you don't, your mental health is wonderful, your family life is wonderful, your, your business starts to flourish without you being there every day. Those kinds of things are the things that I think are great impacts and wonderful outcomes. You

Andrew Stotz 07:17
know, the challenge with focus is you got to let go of things. And it's scary to let go. Like, I was talking with one of our one of my clients, and I was saying, it's pretty clear that you know, you're not doing retail, but yet you're doing retail, you're more business to business. So why not drop retail? And we talked about the disappointment of customers or frustrations that you know, it would cause. But that's where I was talking about, you know, if it's not painful for somebody, then you're not really reallocating resources, you're just, you know, turning off the light in an empty room. It's when you turn off the light in a full room and say, party's over here, I've got to allocate these resources somewhere else. How do you get people to focus when you know, it's not just distraction? I think distraction is one element that keeps us from focusing, but it's the fear of, you know, fear of what I've got to let go of, to focus on what, what we agree, let's say, is going to really move the needle.

Bryan Kramer 08:29
Yeah, that's a great question. I love it. When, if you were to take your finger and put it in front of your eyes, and I'd encourage your listeners to do the same thing, and focus on your finger, just look at the, your, the the tip of your finger. And, and what you'll see is your finger becomes clearer, but the background is blurry. And now look at the background, but don't look at your finger, look at whatever's behind your finger. And you'll see that the background is blurred is clear, but the finger is blurry. It is impossible to focus on both at the same time. It is absolutely impossible to have the background and your finger clear. At the same time at that distance. That's the same thing that we are, that we face as as humans, as as business as business entrepreneurs as as whatever it is, whoever it is that you're that you are in what you're facing out there and so so we really have to figure out like what is that one thing that we want to focus on today? You know, the we're all a society of fickle customers fickle owners fickle business people and when we look at so many different things brings so many different shiny pennies. So how do you focus on that one thing? Well, one is that you, you get somebody to hold you accountable. If you're held accountable, you're more likely to do it. If you're not held accountable, you're not going to be doing it. If you're lonely at the top and you're feeling lonely at the top, that's a sign that you need to be either finding somebody that can hold you accountable a partner, a person like yourself, Andrew, somebody who can actually, you know, come in and say, Look here, what are your priorities? Let's organize them. And then let's, let's hold you accountable to them. And yeah, they may shift, that doesn't mean that things won't shift that the economy won't change, or that things aren't going to, you know, come and surprise us. But then we just reshift what we're accountable to. And we hold hold to that. And again, we need to hold the near vision and the long game. That's the exercise is what is the thing that we have to be doing today in, in, in conjunction with the long game? What is that thing that we're striving for, and if both are in alignment, you're going to be more likely to hit it, if you don't, you're going to be less likely to hit it, it's kind of a one plus one equals two. So. So that's really, that's really what I would say is accountability is really going to be the shift and what makes that possible. You

Andrew Stotz 11:11
know, I think about myself, one of the things, being a business owner with other partners, one of the things that I've found very helpful is every time I get an idea of how to allocate my time to this project, or that I always go to my partners and say, What do you think? Should I do this? Or should I do that? You know, what do you guys think? Because ultimately, when you're in a partnership, or in a business, you know, your time is not your own, in the sense that if you were to be frivolous with your time and lose money and all that, then you know, you're hurting everybody. But it's such a relief to get a discussion because I get so excited, like you said, shiny Penny shiny objects, you know, exciting things. I have, I have six books here, that I'm digging into working on a particular project. And you know, I have to come out of it sometimes and talk to my team. And then you know, my, my business partner isn't okay, here's where I'm at, what do I What should I do? And, and then, and then we talk about it, and then the next morning, I get up and I got a good direction. So even for you know, everybody needs, you know, some accountability and just someone to talk to to say, you know, I need to think about, you know, what are the what are the choices here?

Bryan Kramer 12:27
Amen, amen. So you got it, I mean, it's, it, sometimes it can be just as, as, as fun as a creativity partner, or, or somebody to just bounce things off of, and sometimes it really is accountability, it can be a combination of both as well. But the biggest thing is get it get it out there with another human being, once you speak it into the space, that's the accountability, it's not that they have to micromanage you or that they have to check in with you every day or they have to, it's it's about sharing it and sharing it well with another human. And sometimes you're speaking in, in, in tongue, you don't even know what you're saying. And maybe it doesn't make sense now, but it will in a week. And maybe you're going to surprise yourself and say something that you didn't even know you are going to say and you look at yourself and go, that's kind of brilliant. Maybe I shouldn't do that. Well, self, I think I'm going to do that. But how often do we do that in the mirror, not very often, that's not a good person that you want to actually be having as a creativity partner alone that can sit there and actually say, that makes sense. Go, you should do that. Now I'm all about self talk and not believing in our saboteur. And that's a whole different runway that we could go down. But in terms of what's going to hold us accountable and speaking to another human being, as you just mentioned, and that's brilliant that you do that with your partners with your clients. I mean, with all the books that you have behind you, all that information is really no good it unless you put it to good use with other people. That's what we're all about. We're all about connection. And without connection, we aren't going to get much done. Yeah.

Andrew Stotz 14:16
And, you know, also just facing the problems and as you say, talking about them can make them go away in some ways. I have this really nice yoga teacher that she comes 630 in the morning and puts me basically gets me looking like a pretzel. And she's been really great. But I know she faces some challenges. And she just got told by her yoga studio that she doesn't she's not getting the prime slot. And we talked a little bit about how you know, she's not as I said to her, you're not really inspiring people. You know, you have a story of transformation, but you're not really telling and inspiring people. You're just a yoga teacher and if You'd leave yourself in that category. It's going to be, you know, hard. And then she was saying that she's thinking about going and studying yoga and Indian, you know, doing more study. And I said to her, I said, and I'll say this to all the listeners and viewers and to you, Brian, is, I asked her, Listen, let me just do something with me here. Don't, don't speak it out. But I'm just going to ask you to think about something right? And she said, Okay, I said, think about the worst experience you've had in your life, you know, the most painful experience you've had in your life? And I said, You got it? And she says, Oh, absolutely. I know exactly what it is. And I said, that's your problem. That's it, you know, like, dealing with the demons that we have, you know, when I was young, mine was drug addiction, and alcohol addiction. And, you know, I eventually, through the help of others, turned and faced it, and managed to, you know, overcome it and live a clean life of sobriety. But if I had never faced it, you know, who knows where I would have been, you know, so whatever that biggest issue that you can think of the most painful thing in your life, because in her case, I think it was something that happened in her youth that had some pain, and that that meant that she brought herself into the world in a way that really wasn't living up to her total her true potential. So, yeah,

Bryan Kramer 16:36
you know, that said, both of those are amazing stories, because it gives us an I think, that when when most of us hit our proverbial rock bottoms, we have a chance to use them as strength, and hope, or as, or sabotage unless our saboteur takes over and says, This is who you will be the rest of your life. And that's not, that's a choice. It's not something that we have to lean into, we can learn to use it as strengthen hope. I think that that hope is all we need. And once you get, you get hope you get faith. And once you have faith you have, you have potentially a life full of full life full of things that you didn't even know that was possible. But it takes that braking moment, that bottom moment to say, This is who I was, I won't let it define me. And I can create from here, this is going to open up my life and using tool sets, using things whether it's things like, you know, leadership, or AAA, or wherever you're at in your life, those are the things that are going to help set things in motion that that can create from there. But we again, I'm going to want to go back to it, you held her accountable. You held her accountable to that moment that defined her life, and you were able to say, look, here's another option, here's another place, and having that person that be coming her, her mentor, her her, her friend, her sponsor, or whatever to be able to say, do you see this blind spot over here? Because there is another way to look at this. And having that person in your life, I don't care what topic we're talking about. And that's vital. We need more of that

Andrew Stotz 18:28
in other eyes. We don't get that out. Even myself, even though my business partners are pretty direct, but like, really clear feedback on blind spots. You know, I remember in when I was young, we talked about the Johari Window, which was seeing that there was a portion of ourselves that we couldn't really see very clearly and we needed feedback to get, you know, to get an understanding of what was happening. Fascinating. Well, now it's time to share your worst investment ever. And since no one goes into their worst investment thinking it will be tell us a bit about the circumstances leading up to and then tell us your story.

Bryan Kramer 19:09
Yeah, you know, I was struggling with this because I have so many and so the worst you know, and I also was struggling with this too, because Was it really a bad investment or did it end up teaching me what I needed to know? And so, you know, the if you look at it just from a monetary standpoint, which I think we all kind of do, then my worst investment was was actually expanding my business from from 10 people up once I went past the 10 people and and I expanded it into a 6000 square foot space and then once I did that I expanded it to a 10,000 square foot space. And then I started expanding it to employees around the United States. And then it just started expanding from there. And I would say that, that while you look at that level of growth, it really started to snowball. Why it snowballed is because I was looking at Pat, I was looking at fame power speaking keynoting, creating a bigger business, creating more money, creating more jobs, getting more clients, and it was just a never ending process. And it got to the point to where I was speaking on the road, I'd written two best selling books, give it a TED talk, as you mentioned, and speaking on the road, I was traveling for 200 days a year, I was eating food around the world because it was so good. But I blew up and I became morbidly obese. And all of a sudden, I got type two diabetes, I was missing my family, I had two young kids at the time. And my wife and I was running the business from the road. And it was from the outside looking in an incredible time, because people just saw me keynoting, they saw me giving TED talks, writing books, running an agency, it was all looking good to them from me, it was just this in this investment of a snowball into something I had no control over anymore. And, and, and I ended up walking back into the to our house and my son, my 11 year old son said, Dad, we're not see you anymore. You're You're fat is only 11 year olds can say and, and you're drinking a lot you're in, he just really called me the mat. He was the observer. And he called me on all my blind spots. And he held my hand and he said, Dad, I just feel like you're never gonna meet your grandchildren at this rate, hit me right in the heart. And, and within the next almost week, I got back from another trip and I told my wife, I said, I gotta reverse everything we've just done. So we walked out, we consolidated everything down to the two of us over the next six months, and exited and I stopped speaking for a year I lost 85 pounds, I got rid of diabetes, I became an executive coach to help others do what what, what I learned and and create more of what they wanted. And I live a full happy life. And now do what I love doing every day. Without the Hat without the hustle. And without adding more space, more rent more, more. More to my financial statement on the overhead side, I added more to the profit side, which is more exciting for me now. And so. So that's really where I think, you know, if I learned a lot, I learned a lot from that investment I made in that I really do want to focus on the bottom line, but I want to look at focus in a different area on the bottom line, not not so much the the overhead side. So that's my story. And I'm sticking to it. There

Andrew Stotz 23:10
you go. And I thought you were gonna say and I, I had my 11 year old son run my business, and he's made it, you know, fantastically successful.

Bryan Kramer 23:19
He is 19. And he has done very well for himself. He actually now runs on demand shipping sites and communities and has made many times over six figures in the last 232 or three years of his life. And so he this guy, though, this kid who calls people in their blind spots, is incredibly smart, as is my daughter too. And they both just rock in this world. So yeah, I could go on about them too. I'll hold back. Yeah,

Andrew Stotz 23:53
we'll call that your best investment. That's exactly right. Yeah. So how would you summarize the lessons that you learned?

Bryan Kramer 24:04
So the best, the best way to describe it is, is it I don't, I really believe that, that everything that I've done that sustain me, is all about the relationships that I've built. And that I knew that having written a book called human to human, I knew it on a creative level. I knew it on a writing level and you did a marketing level but I didn't realize that going through that kind of dark period that I would need it on a supportive level. And relationships really are I believe the thing that carries us through the highs, the mid the mid levels and lows so I will never stop being a fight for like I said before, for relationships or for being human especially right now. You And, and that that every time I come across an executive or a person who's really struggling or are being challenged, it really we all we need to do is really just look around and go, who can I tap into that's in a relationship or who I need to be in a relationship with, that will help me to create more of what I need right now. And I think number two, and this is kind of a quick one is we have to take care of ourselves first. And then we can take care of everyone else. And so I think, you know, it's that old, put the oxygen mask on yourself first, before you can put it on never what else? When you're looking at, you know, especially as entrepreneurs or CEOs or executives, you're looking at how do I take care of my team? Or how do I take care of my family? Or how to take care of the bottom line? Or how I take care of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah? You know, look at what is it that you need today? First, and then how can I serve others? I know that it's a little backwards thinking because we're better off when we serve others. But we can't serve others unless we serve ourselves first unless we take care of ourselves first. So I do believe in the energy of health and mental health and health care, care of health, and physically and mentally. So when we can do that, man, everything else will come together.

Andrew Stotz 26:23
Yeah, those are great, great lessons. It reminds me I've recently I reconnected with an old friend of mine, she's in Korea. And we had a conversation just recently, and she told me that she had had colon cancer, but she had surgery, and she was free of the cancer. And this happened like a year or so ago. But she was felt kind of lost and all of that, and you know, was trying to figure out where she fit in this world. And she went through the cancer and found she was wanting to get support from her mother and her mother wasn't there, for she was physically there. But she wasn't emotionally here for it, it was just heartbreaking. And that a week after we connected, after not talking for maybe five or six years, she sent me a message. And she had told me she's coming to Thailand. So in a couple of weeks, I'm going to see her in Thailand. And just yesterday, she sent me a message and said, I went to the doctor and they said, I now have liver cancer. And, you know, the cancer is very difficult. My sister had that and eventually, you know, succumb to it. And it just made me think, you know, hearing thinking about what you've said and seeing her. And as I always tell people, if you feel sorry for yourself, go to a hospital, and just sit there and Imagine all the people sitting in those beds that would give anything to have your problems, because some of those people are not going to be existing in this world tomorrow. And you're an example of even an extreme problem of type two diabetes and obesity, can can be addressed. So I think that's an inspiration for all of us to say, what do I need to fix? And how do I start today fixing?

Bryan Kramer 28:13
Amen. Amen.

Andrew Stotz 28:15
That was inspiration. So, let's, let's now go back to those heady moments in days where things are expanding, and you're feeling good. You know, it's making sense to hire more people, it's making sense. To get more space, it's making sense, you know, up to a point. So based upon what you learned from this story, and what you've continued to learn, what would be one action that you'd recommend our listeners take to avoid suffering the same fate if they were in that situation?

Bryan Kramer 28:47
Yeah, I would ask yourself two questions. One is I? What is what will this make possible? It's another question that I made up. I've heard it from others before, but it's my favorite question asked. And if you can't answer that question of what will it make possible and answer it honestly? And I say that in both the upside and downsides of life, what will this make possible when things don't work out? What will this make possible when things do work out? What will this make possible? But you really want to know what that is? Once you lock in on, on that, is that really what you want? Is that really what you want? What will this make possible? And is that really what you want? Great? Now, if you can if you if that's something that you want for others, or other people are saying, wow, wouldn't that be cool? Or you're doing it for power or for ego or for the potential or or maybe you're a gambler and you think well if this works out, I used to say to my wife, almost all the time we get a new client, I'd say, Okay, now let's just get one more. And she'd say, Well, you said that the last three clients and we can not handle the work. And I'd say, Well, you never know when they're going to come in. And if we lose a client, then that would be bad. So I always have to work on new clients, because then we'll never get caught. And it ended up being a struggle, because I was always fighting for the next thing and never present and the thing I should be present at, and that's the lesson, the be okay, and be present with what you have. And look at the next challenge as an opportunity. And then ask that question. Is that really what you want?

Andrew Stotz 30:50
Great, great advice. And what's a resource that you'd recommend for the listeners?

Bryan Kramer 30:57
I'm gonna recommend, if you don't mind, I'm gonna recommend to one that is mine and another as a book. One, if you go to Brian kramer.com, forward slash newsletter, yep, it's Brian with a why and Kramer with a K. Then I do a newsletter. But it's not a newsletter. It's a letter that I write every two weeks. And I encourage people to write back and hit reply, whether it's even just a word, a sentence, or a brief thought, and reply back to. And it's usually around these kinds of topics. It's all around leadership, self development in and growth. And then number two is the book. I would recommend reading Untethered Soul if you haven't already. It is an absolutely probably one of my top five favorite books on Earth. It change it, I read it at least a couple times a year, the audiobook is even better, but you can, but the Read is really good. And it just speaks it speaks volumes about how we can stay connected and unconnected at the same time with our true self. And where were our compasses at and where we need to stay pointed and how to remain unattached. How to remain unattached with the things that we don't need to be attached to that aren't serving us. I'm not giving do as much justice, it will. I promise you it will. If you don't like the book, I will. I will buy the book for you. I will, I will give you a refund. That's how beautiful this book is. It's just absolutely stunning. And whoever wrote it,

Andrew Stotz 32:40
and I'm correct to say the Untethered Soul the journey beyond self, Michael singer. That's exactly it. Yep. Okay, I'm gonna get the audio audible, and follow your advice. And I'm going to have a link in the show notes so that everybody else can get it. What's nice about it from an audibles perspective, it's only six hours. One of my guests previously wrote a book that was 29 hours. And I decided I would listen to it. And amazingly, he wrote it so well. It's called power failure. And it's about the history of General Electric that I literally listened to 29 hour book, which I've never done in my life. So but this one, six, and I liked the message. So it's got 4.7 out of five, with 39,000 Reviews, which is a huge number of reviews. So that's very, very highly rated book. So great recommendation is something I haven't I haven't heard it hasn't been recommended on the podcast. So I'll have that in the show notes. Well, last question. What's your number one goal for the next 12 months.

Bryan Kramer 33:44
I'm working on a book, I'm working on a book and it's the book, it'll be my third book. And it's in line with the books that I've written. But also it's a departure. The books previously that I wrote, were about business and marketing. This book is going to be about trust. And I'm tackling the topic of trust and what we, what how, why, when and where we trust and how to rebuild it. Because I think that we're at the lowest level according to the Trust Barometer. By Eagleman, we're at the lowest level of trust we've ever been. And so I want to conquer that is my next topic that I would take on over the next 12 months.

Andrew Stotz 34:24
Well, you don't take on small projects. I see.

Bryan Kramer 34:28
You can change the world with that one. Hopefully. It's a you know, a labor of love. Yeah,

Andrew Stotz 34:33
it's great one well, listeners, there you have it, another story of loss to keep you winning. Remember, I'm on a mission to help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives. And as we conclude, Brian, I want to thank you again for joining our mission and on behalf of a Stotz Academy I hereby award you alumni status for turning your worst investment ever into your best teaching moment. Do you have any parting words for the audience?

Bryan Kramer 35:00
You know, I'll say it again, if you take one thing away today, just remember that being human is now your competitive advantage. That's what's going to help you stand out. Andrew, thank you so much. I really appreciate you having me on the show and I'm honored to have the alumni status.

Andrew Stotz 35:16
Yes. Well, you're welcome for that. And ladies and gentlemen, to build your competitive advantage. You already have it. You don't have to build it. You just are a human. I love that. And that's a wrap. On another great story to help us create, grow and protect our wealth fellow risk takers, let's celebrate that today. We added one more person to our mission. To help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives. This is your worst podcast hose Andrew Stotz saying. I'll see you on the upside.