Welcome to the Telling of Story podcast. I’m your host, Storyteller Jewels. And along with my guests, it’s my endeavor to explore the art and science of storytelling to attract, engage, and retain a business audience. And to unpack why it works for some and not for the many that try. Listen in as Chad talks about authenticity and being comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Chad: It’s about authenticity, right? It’s all about what are your values, how are you not pretending to be somebody else, and you need to be comfortable being a bit uncomfortable. Because we think personal equals private. There’s a difference between like, personal brand and sharing everything in your life. But like, you get to decide, okay, what do I share?

What goes out in the world? And then hopefully figuring out, is that authentic to me? Even though I’m technically packaging it up because it’s existing as content on the internet.

Jewels: In this episode I have the pleasure of talking with Chad Barnier. Chad is a creative director, brand strategist, and speaker passionate about helping creative entrepreneurs make their voices heard. His journey started in music, performing internationally with his band Drawing North, where he learned first hand how to connect deeply with audiences and tell compelling stories.

Since then, Chad has spent over 15 years in branding and marketing, launching his own agency and joining others to create meaningful, impactful campaigns. Chad is also passionate about advocacy and community building, and he hosts Give It To Me Bi, a podcast dedicated to bisexual advocacy and storytelling.

He also hosts Statement Brand, a podcast focused on personal branding, and how leaning into the authentic self may just be the secret to your business, to building your business and impact. With a unique blend of creativity and strategic thinking. Chad helps brands and people stand out and resonate with those who matter most.

Chad. Welcome to the show. 

Chad: Thank you for having me, Jewels. 

Jewels: Chad, I’ve been super excited about having this particular podcast because I’ve known you for a bit over a year, I guess now. And I’ve always been super impressed with your style, but also the way you kind of explain things. So to help me and the audience out a little bit, I’m going to jump straight into it because I’ve got a ton of brand kind of questions.

Chad: Yeah. Awesome. 

Jewels: Can you please define what a brand is? Oh, 

Chad: okay. I love this question. I love this question because it is so often misinterpreted. We think a brand is a logo. We think a brand is a color kit or it’s a font package or something like that. A brand is simply how your business or your personal brand, so you, exists.

Chad: [00:03:00] In the minds of other people, that’s really what it is. Simply there’s a thousand things that can contribute to that, that can add up to your brand experience, including things like logos, colors, and all that kind of stuff. But really it’s, it’s how you make people feel. 

Jewels: My interpretation of brand is also that you don’t necessarily exude one brand.

Jewels: I think this is my view and I’d love to hear your vision of it, but I think we’ve kind of got three. One is your personal brand, just you as Chad, you know, Chad, Chad with your mates, Chad with your friends, Chad with your partners, et cetera. That’s kind of the personal you. Then there’s the professional you, you know, the guy that turns up to work and does the things he needs to do and, and acts in a certain way, there’s certain ethics around the time that you spend in business mode.

Jewels: And then the kind of the third version is the representation of the business that you’re actually working with. [00:04:00] That’s kind of my gut feel. Now in more recent times, I thought they were really, really, really separate where you tried to effectively, particularly your personal and your professional brand, I always tried to, I guess, Be the professional that I needed to be or I was expected to be.

Jewels: And then whatever came out as, you know, jewels, the personal jewels was whatever that was, right? And that never the twain would meet. There was quite a difference in the two. And it wasn’t until probably the last, probably only the last few years, that I made the distinction and said, you know what? It’s kind of one and the same, it’s just what I’m saying at certain points might be spoken differently because I’m in a professional mode versus how I might speak to my friends, but it’s still the same kind of person.

Jewels: What are your thoughts around kind of those three? And whether or not there is such a thing as three separations or whether they’re all [00:05:00] mixed in together. Yeah, 

Chad: I totally agree. I’m not sure if I’ve kind of divvied them up into those three buckets. I definitely know that people would think of a personal brand as separate to like their business or professional brand.

Chad: But absolutely, people would try and partition them. I am my home self and then I am my work self. But really, what is the self? It’s just a version of you. I use the example of the way I talk to my grandmother versus the way I talk to my friends and then the way I talk to my child are all completely separate versions of the same thing.

Chad: It’s still me. I’m still turning up as me. And it’s impossible for me to turn up even in a work setting as anything other than me. I can maybe dress up a little bit nicer, maybe speak a little bit more professional, maybe use certain buzzwords to appear more professional or put together. But really it’s the same thing in the end.

Chad: And the more you can lean into you and try and bring them closer, the less kind of context switching you have to do as well. So you [00:06:00] might feel it easier to turn up to work if it’s a little bit more authentic to your personal self. I’ve found that in the past. I have a long career of doing things that are almost too authentically me.

Chad: I started in music because I didn’t want to do anything else. I picked up a guitar and that was it. My life was on course. Once I picked up my first guitar. So I wanted to be a musician when I found the right group of people. We were like, let’s do the damn thing. Let us try and make this a career. And then after that, and, or through that, I learned storytelling and other things like graphic design and photography and web design, because we wanted to market that.

Chad: Then after that I was like, whoa, I’m not in the band anymore, but what do I like to do? What’s authentic to me? And I was like, well, I like this branding thing. I like telling stories. I like kind of communicating complex things simply. And so I took those likes and those wants, and what kind of lit me up, I went, well, let’s make an agency doing that.

Chad: Let’s start doing that. And so. I’ve always had a pretty close [00:07:00] alignment between my personal and my professional brand. It might, though, looking back, appear disparate at times because I can see that I was trying to be a certain thing. I was trying to be maybe a little bit too, you see people trying to be experts.

Chad: I now kind of loathe the word expert, like who has any right to presume expertise? I think you could be knowledgeable, you could, you could have a deep interest in something. But I had a podcast. called The Personal Brand Podcast, and my brand was The Personal Brand Expert. I was like, who am I to say I’m an expert looking back?

Chad: Like, but I thought that that’s how you cut through. I thought that’s how you got clients is to kind of position yourself as more knowledgeable than them. So they would want to pick on your knowledge. And, but yeah. So. Over time you start to see a body of work. Oh, there’s some through lines of like, okay, I see where the real chat is coming out.

Chad: The real jewels is coming out and hopefully your personal and your professional brand can align with that through line. [00:08:00] 

Jewels: Just let me unpick that just a little bit. You talked about being your authentic self and even in your bio, you said that the podcast focused on personal branding and how leaning into the authentic self.

Jewels: May just be the secret to building your business and impact. I too believe that the personal brand is a strong part of your business brand as well, or who you show up as in your business, whether you own the business or whether you just partake in the business, your personal brand is what actually People want to see or people do experience, right?

Jewels: Not necessarily want to see, but they will experience. Like when you turn up to a meeting, it’s not, they’re not turning up to a business meeting. They’re turning up to a meeting with you. So you are the representation of the business and yourself at the same time. So I think, I believe. Having a personal brand is equally as [00:09:00] important, if not possibly more important than a business brand.

What do you think?

Chad: Yeah, I think especially now, like we are moving into an era where AI is doing everything and I’m not going to come on any podcast and slam AI. I love AI. I use AI a lot, though I understand there’s a lot of risks for the future of work and future of connection because of these tools that we are starting to lean on maybe too heavily in some areas.

Chad: So I believe there’s got to be a resurgence of the personal, the intimate, the interconnectivity of people. We might sit in 2025, I think we’re already seeing a little bit of pushback. But maybe it’s not reached breaking point yet, where people are desperate for it, but you probably want to get up to speed with that kind of personal storytelling before, before it becomes a desperation.

Chad: But I do think that this interpersonal, this authentic nature of who you are and how [00:10:00]you turn up, will be how you cut through in any kind of market. I do believe, as you’re saying, that it is Important to have a personal brand. It is probably the best resume you could ever have. You having a personal website, a personal LinkedIn or social channels where you post about your work, you post about your behind the scenes, you post about your challenges and the things you struggle with and things and your successes and all those things make up a fully formed you.

Chad: And if you can pack it up and show people, people are eager to work with you. I’ve been very fortunate to host a podcast about personal branding. And at the end of every call, the recap is, well, it’s about authenticity, right? It’s all about what, what are your values? How are you not pretending to be somebody else?

Chad: And you need to be comfortable being a bit uncomfortable because We think of personal equals private. There’s difference between like personal [00:11:00] brand and sharing everything in your life. Like they’re not the same thing, but like you get to decide, okay, what, what do I share? What goes out in the world? And then hopefully figuring out is that authentic to me, even though I’m technically packaging it up because it’s existing as content on the internet.

Jewels: I’ve been thinking about this personal brand thing for quite a while now and I’ll keep reflecting, I’ll keep going back to what can a personal brand potentially do for your business and if you don’t have a personal brand, potentially what are you kind of missing out on and I always look at, there’s a few key people that, you know, resonate with me that you think, you know, would one have existed without the other.

Jewels: So the original for me is Richard Branson. Without his personal brand, would Virgin be anything like it is today? 

Chad: Mm. 

Jewels: Because he was the king of it in the early days, right? He was, you know, jumping, you know, flying balloons, he was doing all sorts of weird and [00:12:00] wonderful stunts, I guess, at a personal level to promote the brand, the business brand.

Jewels: And I don’t think I, you know, looking back, I don’t believe that Virgin would be anything like it is today without him. And you could say the same for a few others, right? So Apple, you know, would it be the same without Steve Jobs, without his personal brand? Amazon with Jeff Bezos. Microsoft, you could name quite a few that have a really strong business brand, but also an incredibly strong leader brand, leadership brand.

Jewels: So the owner or the original founder or something like that. But there’s a lot of examples of businesses that are fantastic without a, you know, a head person that you see as well. So I’m not necessarily saying you can’t build a big business without a personal brand. But I don’t know at a smaller level whether or not Which one of those is actually stronger?

Jewels: Is it better to have a really strong business [00:13:00] brand? You know, I’m talking small business, you know, the majority of businesses in Australia, sub 50 employees, sub 10 million, you know, there’s almost all of them fit into that kind of space. So you’re never going to have the budgets of the Amazons and the apples to spend on a marketing campaigns to push and promote your business brand the way some of the big players do.

Jewels: So is the. If you had a choice, I guess, if you’re a smaller company and you had a choice, which one would you focus on business brand or personal brand? 

Chad: Can I only choose one? Cause I would say both, but if I can only choose one, I’d choose personal brand. I would, because I think what it does, it does shortcut a lot of the.

Chad: The frustration around business marketing, and marketing and branding are different. Marketing is like, you know, kind of the act of going out to market and getting customer awareness and sale and all that kind of stuff. Branding is, like we were saying before, is how you make people feel. [00:14:00] And people are emotional buyers and they can, they tend to try and justify their purchases after the fact, but connecting with people as, as a human, as someone with maybe like interests, like values, like it was kind of all of that kind of building trust.

Chad: Connecting with people kind of shortcuts that that marketing process from let’s say a typicalmarketing funnels to kind of like you have like awareness and then you bring them into the kind of consideration or knowledge consideration down to sale with a personal brand also with a business friend that could be weeks, months, potentially even years.

Chad: Very rarely is it days. With personal branding, if someone connects with you, they go, I like Jewels style. I like what Jewels is about. Jewels talks about their values, and the way that they think about this topic. I so resonate with that. And you kind of skip, uh, the consideration stage. It goes like, It’s [00:15:00] just a matter of, is this right for me at this time?

Chad: It’s just about timing then of like, well, whatever Jewels does, I will do it. There’s a whole Kevin Kelly thought years ago, the thousand true fans of, and the number is a bit arbitrary, but the idea is like, if you had a thousand through fans and the defines true fans by. Someone who consumes and would purchase anything that you release.

Chad: Like, I put out a podcast, I listen to that podcast straight away. I announce that I’m going on tour and I’m selling tickets. Yep. I’m going day one on sale. I’m going to, that’s a true fan cause they’re not going to get like question whether they’re going to consume the content. He says, if you have a thousand, then you could consider yourself pretty likely to sustain yourself for a career because they’re going to consume everything.

Chad: How do you build true friends? You don’t build true fans by saying, well, my product has used guitars as an example. This guitar has 24 frets and it’s got six strings and it’s got two single coils and a [00:16:00] humbucker pickup. You, no one cares about the technicality of a guitar, but if you say. This guitar was used by John Mayer, and Eric Clapton, and Jimi Hendrix, and they set the world on fire.

Chad: And all, like, you tell a bit of a story and a narrative and a brand, you attach these personal aspects to it. Okay, I could, no matter what, I don’t have the money for it, but the second I do, that’s it. That’s a guaranteed yes. And so, yeah, I feel like the personal, the story. I’m here for it. Hey, I would jump into the personal branding first because it just makes it so much easier.

Chad: I think the biggest hurdle is the uncomfort of being personal and being vulnerable online or in person. That’s a challenge, but I don’t think the challenge then is on the other side of the connection. The connection becomes effortless. 

Jewels: So tell me a little bit about that, the reluctance, I guess, or the, the challenge of being personal when maybe you’re quite a private person or you’ve [00:17:00] never ventured in this direction.

Jewels: This is something I speak about quite a lot and get asked a lot, and it’s pretty much the number one reason or excuse that people give for not wanting to go down this path is like, firstly, I don’t have anything interesting to say, isn’t often a common thing. But I think deep down, it’s more fear. It’s a fear of being judged.

Jewels: It’s a fear of being vulnerable. It’s a fear of being exposed, potentially. What are your thoughts around that? And given that the audience might be in that sort of stage themselves, and thinking, maybe this is something I should be doing or considering, but I’m too scared. 

Chad: Yeah. Great question. I think it is important to realize that a lot of these fears aren’t unique to you.

Chad: These are human fears. We fear judgment because judgment speaks to something that could really potentially damage us or harm us. We [00:18:00] could be ostracized. We could lose out an opportunity or work or whatever. Therefore, we could lose our security and our security is kind of everything. That’s where that fear of judgment comes from.

Chad: It’s like a deep seated fear. But we also often overestimate those fears. Posting on LinkedIn, posting on Instagram about your thoughts or your process or your business or your values won’t ruin an opportunity the way it might have ruined an opportunity 20, 30, 100 years ago. Or, just, sometimes our fear is just overblown.

Chad: We don’t have tigers chasing us through the the savannah anymore, right? We’re sitting in an office in aircon. But that fear makes sense. There’s this I think it’s kind of, one, there’s that real fear of like, I don’t want to miss out or like, get judged. And then there’s kind of the cringe factor, the kind of cringe mountain.

Chad: I heard someone talk about it like, with cringe mountain, is the only people who think you’re cringe are people who haven’t done it themselves. [00:19:00] People who have achieved what you want to achieve will never look at you and say you’re so cringe. They’re never going to say, oh, I can’t believe Chad is posting another video trying to promote his stuff.

Chad: They’re going to, one, they’re focusing on themselves, so they don’t care. Two, if they do look at it, they’re like, cool, get it. Like, get yours. Absolutely. You’re doing the work you put in the hard yards in. The only people that will, will kind of maybe look at you and judge you is the people who are afraid to do it themselves.

Chad: So they externalize their, their own personal judgment and put it onto someone else. And then what will happen is you will reach a precipice or a peak and you’ll get over that and you go, Oh, this isn’t cringe anymore. Now I’ve kind of established myself. I have this brand. I have a bit of a platform and people will start to celebrate you for posting that.

Chad: Oh my gosh, like, it’s funny. Payton is banned, right? And for a long time, I had people, when I was younger, bully me for being a musician or playing. I went to an all boys school and it was very football focused, very macho. I’m the least [00:20:00] macho person around. So I got bullied, I got beat up for being like the nerdy music kid.

Chad: And I remember like, Oh, well, screw them. I’m going to do this anyway. Years later, I had quite a few achievements through my music career. And I had bullies reach out to me, like, oh my gosh, I’m so jealous, like how, like, I wish I could do that, like, you’re so courageous, so brave, I’m so sorry for everything I ever did.

Jewels: Oh, they apologized, they did apologize, wow. A couple 

Chad: of them, yeah. And it’s, one, very nice to receive, but also, You realize that wasn’t about me. It was never about me. It was about them. They, they had an insecurity. And so if you could put your own insecurity aside and just get on with the work and get on doing the thing, it’ll always kind of pay off.

Chad: And I think there is this fear that like of showing. an imperfect character, right? Like maybe like, I’m not a finished product. Like you said before, who am I to say anything? I’m not an [00:21:00] expert. I don’t have all, all my eggs in a row or ducks in a row. And to that, I say human flaw is the core of. character and story.

Chad: Stories revolve around flawed characters. This, at the start of every story, there is a character that needs or wants something, therefore they have a lack, and that sets them on course for a journey. The imperfections make them relatable and drive that narrative forward. I guess who we are is how we are broken.

Chad: Who we are is defined by our lack in a lot of ways, because that’s what drives us. 

Jewels: I love that and I want to just lean a little bit into that because I know you personally have leaned right into the personal brand and being publicly visible quite a bit and to your own admission through some of those posts you’ve struggled [00:22:00] yourself A lot of these ideas and the, and the, this idea of the flawed character, I think is fabulous because nobody relates to the perfect version, right?

Jewels: It doesn’t, it doesn’t resonate. It doesn’t feel right. Tell me how you’ve overcome a lot of those insecurities and and fears to, I guess, open and openly show some of these flaws and be open and honest about it. And what has that done? And, you know, have, what have you received back when you put it out into the universe?

Chad: It’s a good question. And one I’m going to push back on a little bit because I don’t think I am over or have overcome those things, right? I think my posting those things about my journey, let’s say, with mental health or ADHD diagnosis just recently, that’s very recent, I’ve definitely not like processed it, but my talking about it.

Chad: Is part of the journey [00:23:00] of processing those things out loud, right? Often they’ll go into a journal and, and sometimes the journal is LinkedIn Instagram or Facebook. So what I find is I have definitely tried to do the business. thing, tell stories for business and play a character. And I find those things just don’t resonate.

Chad: People just like, okay, cool, man. I can see that you’re trying to sell me something. I can see that at the end of this, you want me to sign up to your email so that you can then send me something later. Like it, people’s bullshit radars are so finely tuned because it like, they just get sold bullshit every day.

Chad: We see 5, 000 advertisements a day. Like we don’t add to the noise. And so I have just found that like, for my own selfish benefit, talking about these things out loud allows other people to connect with me about those things and offer support, offer encouragement, offer just, just [00:24:00] a, I see you moment. And that’s really beautiful.

Chad: Like, I think. At the end of the day, there is only one story. There’s the human story and we are all dipping in and out of it to try and connect with people. And so I have a perspective and a point of view on the human story and I will hopefully try and tell that authentically as possible. And someone else will have their own version on the human story and try and tell that as authentically as possible.

Chad: And if there’s any overlap, hopefully we find each other. Hopefully there’s a Velcro moment where we go, Oh, okay. I’m latching on to you. That’s really cool. I love what you said. And then maybe we can encourage each other and build from there. And sometimes in the context of business, that is a potential client.

Chad: Maybe that potential client Man, I’ve really been feeling that way myself, or I just got diagnosed with ADHD. I’m really struggling. What are the things that you use to do better in business or to build your personal brand? And then, and then it’s not a me selling [00:25:00] moment. It’s a, I can help provide value to this person because, hey, I’ve maybe I’m just a week down the track further than you, or a year down the track.

Chad: That’s why I was saying before, there’s no such thing as experts, they’re just people who’ve kind of just done it a bit longer, who’ve experienced it a few more times than you, and you’re just maybe trying to build a bit of a community around yourself, because we’re so divided on the internet and politically, we’re so divided that like, Maybe putting a head up and saying, this is who I am, your hand might be seen by somebody else.

Chad: And maybe you could see theirs as well and connect in that moment. 

Jewels: I love what you said and connected those dots for me because it was actually a question that was popping up in my head. And the question was, and you’ve already answered it, but the question was, do you think that being your authentic self then potentially, because this is a business podcast.

Jewels: Yeah, yeah. Does that relationship potentially turn into a client and you said, yes, in some cases that that may be true, right? Equally potentially true [00:26:00] is that, let’s use the ADHD example because that is very recent. Like by sharing that, possibly somebody might look at that and go, Oh, I don’t have, I personally don’t have ADHD and I don’t resonate with that story.

Jewels: And maybe that turns some people away. But is that a bad thing? You know, potentially, are you just drawing in your thousand true fans and therefore, by definition, you’re excluding, you know, eight billion others, or does it really, does it matter that you might turn a lot of some people away and maybe a lot of people away potentially as a percentage, you might only, you know, attract one in 10, for example, that might have ADHD, for example, Yeah.

Chad: I think if everyone was to think of their roster of clients, either current or holistically throughout their business, they can think pretty quickly about their best clients. Like, who did you love working with? Who was a [00:27:00] breeze to get on with? Who do you communicate really well with and communicate well back?

Chad: Who like to work on a fun project together, all that kind of stuff. You can pretty quickly figure out who that is. And you, just as quickly, can think about your nightmare clients. And I would say that there, there would be a through line, most of the time, for those best clients that would be very true and very aligned with who you are, right?

Chad: Because there’s some kind of connection there. I doubt that your best clients, uh, Entirely opposite to you. And you just happen to do very prudent to work together. There’s, there’s usually some kind of overlap. And so I would like, I kind of use this kind of personal branding as an opportunity to filter people out.

Chad: I’m not upset if someone doesn’t want to work with me because. I was really bold and really loud about my values around, say, queer rights, and, and because I campaign for [00:28:00] marriage equality, or because I am really active about ending violence against women, right? If someone doesn’t want to work with me because I’m, I, my values, uh, and, and the way I exist online talks about those things, I don’t want to work with you either.

Chad: Why would I ever want to work with someone who doesn’t agree with those things? And yes, in a work context, those things might not ever come up. But I think there’s this idea of self similarity. Where things at a small level are how they are at a large level. So, a pebble is smooth because the microns of that pebble is smooth.

Chad: A rock is rough because the microns of that rock is rough. And so if you look at a leaf, the same thing is true. A leaf looks like a leaf, and you look at the, the spines of the leaf, it’s like a little mini leaf. And you look at the spines of that mini leaf, it’s like a little smaller one. Like, whatever you are at a small scale is kind of who you are as a bi at a big scale.

Chad: And so, people who might. Disagree [00:29:00] on those value things or those maybe potentially political things at a small level doubt going to show up in the way they communicate with people, the way they hold hold meetings, the way they engage in contract negotiation, the way they push back on project approval, all that kind of stuff.

Chad: I think it’s only helpful to be as upfront about who you are and how you are as possible. I love that 

Jewels: Chad. I’m going to switch tech just a little bit. Right. Yeah. I’ve had the pleasure of being taken through a brand refresh that you did for a mutual client of ours a little while ago. 

Chad: Yes. 

Jewels: And the brand contextually, the, the output of the brand, as you mentioned before is, you know, logos and colors and fonts and those kinds of things.

Jewels: And all of those things. Can be beautiful, but they’re also subjective, right? So some people, you either love it or you hate it. And if you had a room full of 10 people, you’re probably going to have a [00:30:00] mix of both, right? Not everybody’s going to absolutely fall in love with a particular design. But as you mentioned, the brand is not just the logo and the colors, et cetera.

Jewels: It’s the feeling behind it. It’s the intent behind it. And through that exercise, you. Took the business through the intent and it was that storytelling made me fall in love with you, Chad, right? In a business context, I really, really resonated with the way you told the story. Of the impact of the brand and why it has come together in a certain way.

Jewels: And to me, it actually changed my perception of the physicality of the, the output, right? So the colors and the fonts and all those kinds of things that made me feel differently about. The things that were produced. So to me, the strongest part of that brand exercise wasn’t necessarily the brand on its own [00:31:00] or the fonts and colors, et cetera.

Jewels: But it was actually the storytelling piece. Tell me, I may or may not have shared that with you before. And I apologize if I haven’t. 

Chad: No, you have mentioned that it was. It was quite a wonderful message to receive when you sent me that. And I remember it vividly. We were working on, like you said, a branding project.

Chad: And to put it bluntly, the people we were working with, including yourself, at the time were what I would probably call a brand naysay. I was like, okay, cool. I’ve been around the traps. I’ve seen businesses work without it. And I’ve seen businesses work with it. No one’s convinced me why I should care before.

Chad: And I remember there was one particular call we had where yourself and a collaborator kind of like, there was a switch moment of like, Oh, I get this. This is, this is really cool now. And I think you’re right. It comes down to that storytelling. I think it is a little bit deeper than that. Storytelling is almost the manifestation [00:32:00] of a few other things.

Chad: I think deep down there’s values. What do we, what do we care about? Who are we? Like, who are we here for? Where have we come from? What are we trying to achieve? And those, hopefully, you kind of build up some values. And so some businesses might be, we are innovative. And some businesses might be, we get the job done.

Chad: But some businesses might really care about, Equity. Like, I really care that, like, everyone is taken care of and everybody is seen. And some businesses might be, we care about the, the best, best idea wins, right? And those start to be, like, really cool values. From those values, you can extrapolate, like, little story moments, or brand moments, or iconography, and ways you can interpret that, that idea visually.

Chad: There’s like you said there’s a thousand ways to do that though. So then how do you kind of hone it in? How do you how do you cut through the thousand ideas and bring them down to ten five and hopefully eventually one? [00:33:00] And Context plays a big part of that. The company we’re working with is, has been around for a long time and they would like to continue being around for a long time.

Chad: They’re working in a particular industry that isn’t necessarily super hip or super trendy. They, so they’ve got a bit of a legacy brand. They work in a, maybe a, uh, a stiff yet tech adjacent kind of industry. So there’s a few different things that you can pull apart. So that you can look the part. You want to make sure that you, that you are looking at what the best way to describe it I think is like, if I If I am a lead singer in a metal band and I, and I get a gig to go sing Christmas carols and I turn up with all my tattoos and my piercings and my big leather jacket that says Metallica across the back, it feels incongruent.

Chad: And although I might be great at it, there was friction, [00:34:00] probably, for the audience toget on board. People are sitting in the seats going, What the heck is about to happen here? Or, some parents might go, This doesn’t look appropriate, I’m just gonna like I’m going to take my kids over here to the playground before this guy starts singing.

Chad: And the same thing can be said with brands and businesses. If you turn up looking not par for the course, you have a lot of work to do, which is fine. You have to be willing to do the work though. So there’s this balance of like, do I want to fit in? I need to stand out a little bit here. And you can stand out, not just in style.

Chad: It could be quality. Maybe your industry is a whole bunch of stiff and not so technically executed well brands. And so you could set up by being just the best dressed. Like there’s so many different ways to do it. And it’s so individual to each, to each company, to each brand, to each industry, to the audience.

Chad: And so it really is a journey and but it really starts at that nucleus of like of [00:35:00] figuring out those core values and who we are and what do we stand for. 

Jewels: So do you naturally go to micro stories, right? So just even in that little spiel there about talking about storytelling, you actually went into a story around about the heavy metal person turning up, which is Which was very visual, right?

Jewels: You can actually picture that person turning up. You can see the tats and the earrings and the, and the leather in that story. And it made me connect to the point that you’re trying to make, which is a really strong piece around storytelling, is putting it into a context, but also making a point that allows you to, you know, enrich what it is you’re trying to say.

Jewels: So you do it naturally. I’m not sure if that’s Practice or whether that’s just a natural thing. Tell me about storytelling in the context that you’ve just described. It just used, how important is that in the business? And then, you know, when you’re talking about brand or when you’re talking [00:36:00] about the product or service that you’re trying to sell, how important is storytelling and injecting some of that.

Jewels: Maybe some of that personality because again, you drew on music as your first example, right? And you just said heavy metal guy like whether or not you did heavy metal doesn’t really matter But it was a part of your DNA that came through in that story. How important is that? Combination to bring all of that together and what are some maybe hints and tips to help the yeah 

Chad: So I think there’s kind of three parts to this.

Chad: One, the micro story. It’s, I have actually in my life really struggled with communication. I, one, I’ve just found out I have combined ADHD, so I struggle with attention and, and working memory and executive function. There’s a, it’s a big struggle for me. I’m now learning, but also growing up, I actually had a large hearing deficit.

Chad: So I grew up with a [00:37:00] need for hearing aids and didn’t get them until I was in year seven, year eight. And so, communication has actually always been a really big struggle of mine. And I was very self conscious about it. So, over the last, say, six or seven years, I’ve really, really tried to make a conscious effort to communicate.

Chad: Well, I am still struggling with it today. In different contexts, I’m better at it than others. When I’m hosting a podcast, I feel very confident. I feel very comfortable to kind of like, I know my mission. Being interviewed right now, kind of like it’s a bit uncomfortable because I’m not super practiced in it lately.

Chad: And so I’ve yeah, consciously what on, on communication and the micro story or the metaphor is a super powerful tool. And scientists kind of say that like metaphor is. Really the, like the fundamental way that our brains understand abstract concepts. And I read it, this [00:38:00] really fantastic book. I encourage everyone to read it.

Chad: The author is Will Storr, S T O R R. It’s called The Science of Storytelling. And In that book, he talks about just how often we use metaphor and it sounds ridiculous. I don’t know the number off the top of my head. It sounds fake when you hear it. It says something like you use metaphor 30 times every three minutes or something.

Chad: But metaphor in its most basic form could just be a comparison. It can just be like, Oh, Oh, look at that drink. It’s. It looks like a sunset. It’s so vibrantly red, right? Like, metaphor doesn’t have to be a whole three act story. It could just be a comparison. And so it could be very small micro things, which is a very powerful tool for online storytelling with brevity.

Chad: Sometimes you need to be quick, especially in positioning or marketing your brand. So metaphor can be a really great way to hijack someone else’s experience or borrow their experience of [00:39:00]something and apply it to something else. It creates those connections quicker. I, when it comes to business, there’s a big trend lately that I love, but I am, I have friction with in particular, as it pertains to positioning your business and how you communicate who you are, what you do and who it’s for.

Chad: And it’s this idea of clear, not clever. And I see so many LinkedIn positioning gurus, messaging, marketing gurus, copywriters saying, you just need to be clear, not clever. And although I agree, I think that this is a first step, it feels half baked. And, or it feels dry. Yes, you advertising your SaaS company or your business do need to communicate what you do, who it’s for, how it works.

Chad: Like, you absolutely need to do that. And I think the, the push to the clear, not clever has come from people just [00:40:00] being generally bad at doing any kind of positioning or marketing of their business. And so it’s almost a return to fundamentals. I’m a fan of Ogilvy. I’m a fan of, I’m a musician. I’m a poet.

Chad: Like I, I love language. And so I think that we need to be clever once we’re being clear. We need to kind of almost like clever through clarity or clarity through cleverness. Like it needs to be this combo. And that’s when I think brand comes in. So if you just say, Look, I, I have an app. It is, we are a calendar app for, for cyclists who are struggling with, I don’t know, some cycling problem.

Chad: I don’t know, cyclists, like that works because people kind of go, I get it. I get what you’re selling. It’s very easy for me to understand your company, but if you can infuse some personality, maybe some industry lingo. Maybe some like lived experience, some [00:41:00] color, some spice into that marketing message where you’re saying like, again, I should have probably should have chosen an example of an industry that I know anything about, but you confuse that clear message with some clever.

Chad: And then you, you are so far above the competition. Like people are getting this wrong on such a fundamental level that if you were to get that right. You’re, you’re killing it. You’ve got a lot of, I dare say you would do very well with that. 

Jewels: I do agree with what you just said because I think the clarity part is really important because if I don’t know what you do then I’m never going to buy from you, right?

Jewels: So the clarity is increasingly important, especially when people don’t, aren’t always able to articulate themselves what it is they do in a clear manner. So that’s always an interesting starting point. But if you can be clear on that, I agree because the, and the reason I agree, Is, it has no cut through.

Jewels: Great, you’re a calendar app for cyclists. So what, [00:42:00] there’s 50 others probably, or 100 others, thousands of others. And so you’re never going to stand out in your industry or your little niche. Doesn’t matter how tight it is, unless it’s really, really small and you are one of two, which is pretty rare these days.

Jewels: Right? So I think the cut through is still important. So that’s where I think I agree. The clever bit sort of makes you take notice for a minute longer or for even for a few seconds longer. Cause one of the things I am big on is, is in particular the word attention. Right. And in today’s world, we are so inundated.

Jewels: As you say, we’re, we’re inundated with 5, 000 messages a day and that’s probably being low balling it, right? It’s probably tens of thousands and it’s pretty hard to stand out. It’s pretty hard to stand out. So clarity is not necessarily going to make you stand out. It’s going to make you clear once somebody stops on your doorstep and says, Oh yeah, I know what this sign on the wall means.

Jewels: But it’s not really going to make me walk through that door. 

Chad: I think [00:43:00] also to that point as well, it’s like you said, well, there’s a thousand apps like that, or there could be 50 or even 10. And so the clarity might get someone to buy, Oh, I downloaded this meditation app, right? Fantastic. It’s really good.

Chad: But since that meditation app came out, 10 more popped up and they’re all pretty reasonably priced. What is stopping me from just jumping ship to whoever’s got a good deal that week or that month? Like you like you want to kind of keep people on like it’s not that hard to cancel a membership And so I think brand also comes into loyalty and churn.

Chad: Why do I stick with notion over the 50 other Notetaking apps. Why do I stick with Fender guitars? Oh, why do I? Because I’m tied to that brand. There’s a part of that brand that, like, I see myself in. And, oh, I couldn’t possibly use a Microsoft computer. I’m a Mac guy. And, like, I’m slowly trying to, uh, ha, decouple myself from the capitalist [00:44:00] world that we exist in.

Chad: But there is, like, there is values. When I bought the Mac for the first time, there was, like, this is the computer for creative types. And I identify with that. I’m a musician. I want to record on the go. I want to do graphic design on the go. That’s a MacBook. There’s no other pers uh, no other laptop for me.

Chad: And now they’ve got me hooked. And because that was true then, I assume it’s true now. Often it’s not true now. But like, you bought me with the brand, not because you had the most expensive laptop in the in the market. 

Jewels: That’s a really great example, right? The technology today in particular, you could do any of those endeavors on pretty much any device from any brand.

Jewels: Yes, it might be easier or quicker or faster or more intuitive in certain ways. But the availability and the other, so you actually have been sold on the brand itself, which, which is deeply seated, right? Like you said, it could have been true. It was true for you maybe 10 years ago, 15 years ago, [00:45:00]and it’s still true for you today, but it hasn’t necessarily been updated by, you know, all of these, here’s the new tech from Microsoft, for example.

Chad: Yeah. And the same can be true about pricing as well. So like, Brand can go a long way when it comes to increasing prices or coming in into a market at a, at a great, I mean, Apple’s a great example of that, right? So again, a premium price. Exactly. Like I use an example. So my partner and I were big foodies.

Chad: We love food, but we’re also big on branding. We’re both big brand people and the experience of, of, of a place. So. We can go to anywhere to eat dinner. But if we hear about a new place that’s opened and, oh man, what a cool logo. Oh, look at the photos. What a vibe. They really kind of splashed out for some good photography.

Chad: Oh, and I love those bowls. I, I want those bowls. Like, we should look at getting those bowls at home. They’re really cool. And, oh, I love that they didn’t just like, they’re not just wearing a black t shirt as the waiter. They got really nice branded [00:46:00] aprons and they come over and serve you, give you a bit of experience.

Chad: You go, okay, I have to go there. And you go, well, that’s 200 a head. And the other place for dinner was 50 a head. It’s like, well, but you’ve got to try it. And you go, Oh yeah, well, it was a pretty great experience. I, I might not have 200 every week to spend on dinner, but I will definitely, when that is in the budget, I will be going there.

Chad: That’s the spot. And so. All those factors make up the brand. Like I said, it’s not just the logo, but it’s the, when you turn up, what’s the music volume like at that restaurant? That’s part of the brand. If I go to a restaurant, like, uh, the Italian bowl in new town or something. It’s loud. It’s so loud. I feel uncomfortable.

Chad: I can’t focus. I can’t listen to my partner. But if we go to, and let’s use another one in your time, Cafe Pachi or something, it’s nice, it’s low, it’s, it’s conversation level, like you can hear a bit of a buzz of the room, but I’m not, I’m not feeling anxious because, like, we’re shouting at each other, like, just that one thing of volume sets, sets an experience, and [00:47:00] that, that makes me feel, I love Cafe Pachi, that’s amazing, my favorite place.

Chad: I don’t love that logo, you know what I mean? The Italian ball might actually have a better logo, but it’s the experience of the brand. It’s 

Jewels: the entirety. And harking back to what you said to begin with, it’s how it makes you feel, right? Exactly. It’s the combination of all those things. So you’ve, you’ve given some really nice examples across all those little factors in, in business.

Jewels: But one question that I’ll probably end. The podcast on because I’ve got a feeling that we could probably speak for two or three days on this particular topic. If we’re allowed to, 

Chad: I feel like I’m just getting warmed up. You’re just starting 

Jewels: to get warmed up. So maybe there’s a second podcast in this, but if you can, can you leave, do you have any frameworks or exercises that help people discover their core brand?

Jewels: So their personal sort of core brand, what are the things that they should consider? You know, you’re talking about all those little elements at a business level. What does that mean? You know, what, [00:48:00] what would I do if I was looking at my, considering my core brand and who I am? 

Chad: Yeah, good question. Really good question.

Chad: I do have some frameworks that, so I have a, a program called the make an impact program. It’s an acronym impact. So it’s identity market platform, audience capture and traction, and it’s split in two. So I actually think personal branding is a local exercise. You don’t need to be on stage as a writing books or giving keynotes to have a personal brand.

Chad: You could have a personal brand where. You just influence your local community of 50 people or post on social media and maybe it reaches 150 people. Then the second part is kind of thought leadership. How do you kind of blow that up to the masses? So I do have a program I can kind of run people through, but I think if I could maybe give an exercise for somebody to make it as as kind of simple and maybe fun as possible.

Chad: I believe in the idea of rubbish in, rubbish out, and so like what you’re consuming will kind of go out. So I’ve [00:49:00] taken that and started to curate a lot of what I put into my brain and in my life and in my home. And I think looking around at all the different areas of your life, I think most people do this similar, you will see manifestations of you in all those different areas.

Chad: And I would almost challenge people to create like a bit of a personal mood board in a thousand different categories, not just business, but like, What’s your, what are the favorite things in your homethat like speak to you that feel like you? Is it a certain lamp that you bought or a rug or a piece of artwork that’s like, oh that feels true to me, that, that’s a good representation of the things that I like and the things that I enjoy, more my values.

Chad: Or maybe it’s a certain book or a movie, it’s like I really love, maybe it’s a documentary about this thing because they were fighting, maybe it’s a, they’re fighting for the rights of that community group and I really resonated with that. I love. Maybe an underdog story or maybe I love and so you’ll start to pull all these different areas from your life into one bucket and that [00:50:00] bucket is a manifestation of who you are at your kind of core, right?

Chad: And it’s, then it’s up to you to pick it apart and go, what are the through lines here? If I was to look at this lab and that documentary and that thing over there, what is true to me through all of these things? Is it quality or is it value or is it, is it aesthetic? Like is it just like aesthetic appeal or like sort of for my partner loves attention to detail So we we kind of did this we made a happy list a few years ago So a similar kind of process like because we’re both feeling a bit down And so we both made a happy list all the things that light you up And then we started to piece together.

Chad: What are the through lines? So for my partner a restaurant or an event or a food dish or a piece of furniture. The thing that she loved the most was someone really cared and paid attention to the small details, which [00:51:00] made her look deeper into it and appreciate it further. And so, oh, that’s a, that’s a cool value.

Chad: And so my partner, I see that manifest in, in them. Is they care about details and those small things, and that could be a part of your personal brand value system. And so whether it’s a happy list, a hate list, or just a bit of a collage of all the things that are your favorite things, it’s a really nice way to kind of dive into the bucket of you and go, okay.

Chad: What feels like me and, and you might be able to pull out different threads. So there might be the, the family guy, Chad, there might be the, the musician, creative Chad, they’re all versions of you. Are there maybe challenge yourself as well. Are there other through lines? Maybe they’re not pillars like that.

Chad: Maybe through being a family guy and through being creative, maybe what I love is play. And that that’s the same value across different pillars. So you could pull it apart different ways and how you pull it apart might tell some stories and tell [00:52:00] yourself a little bit more about yourself. 

Jewels: It reminds me of the adage that you are the average of the five people you hang out with, right?

Jewels: I think you’re, you know, what you’ve just described is you’re the average of pretty much everything that you surround yourself with. And so I love that concept of curation because I think we probably fill our homes. I imagine there’s a lot of stuff, and I’m just looking around the room, there’s probably a lot of stuff that I don’t really care about, that wouldn’t matter, you know, if we had to move, you know, possibly they’d end up in the bin, you know, but there’d be certain pieces that would come with you for the rest of your life, potentially.

Jewels: There’s definitely an, an aspect of sort of those physical things, but where I think that runs deep for me is the curation of what comes into your world, particularly around information. So your social media, you know, who do you follow in social media is probably, so if you’re constantly angry, but you find yourself on [00:53:00] these death spirals in Twitter, then you probably should disconnect from those death spirals.

Jewels: Twitter in general, just in general, right? Yeah. Because that’s affecting, it will have an effect on who you are as a person and, and sort of how you show up. So I love that idea of curating what comes in. So the books you read, the movies you watch, the people you hang out with, the news that you listen to.

Chad: Absolutely. A few years ago, I I love to read and I, I was reading all these different business books and all these self help books and I was like, oh, I’m getting so much good info and although that might’ve been true, I kind of sat with it for a moment and I was like, these are all written by the same types of people.

Chad: It’s all like, like, older straight white dudes with a lot of privilege, a lot of money and came from money, came from wealth and privilege. I was like, okay, so like, the guy who has millions of dollars and can, like, decide [00:54:00] where he spends his time is telling me to spend two hours meditating in the morning?

Chad: Maybe it’s a little bit impractical. Maybe that’s not really for me. And so I made a really conscious effort a few years ago to curate the books that I read, and not just take, like, the top ten bestsellers, because it’s a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy, is to be like, okay. If I’m gonna read 5, 10, 30 books this year, I want a nice average and a nice mix of men, women or otherwise, of queer representation and otherwise across different people of colour.

Chad: And I just had the best year of my life. I was like, wow, I’m just like, I’m just like, I felt so broad as like my mind. Was this expanding of like, okay, like this isn’t and it really helped me de shackle from the hustle mindset. I hate this hustle grind mindset of business. I think it’s really toxic and very quite masculine and I think it’s a distraction from [00:55:00] other things for a lot of men.

Chad: And so yeah, it was. Just this wonderful exercise of like, okay, that worked there. What else can I do it with? What movies and media am I watching or choosing to engage with? What social accounts am I choosing to follow and engage with? What people in my life am I choosing to prioritize and engage with?

Chad: And it’s just kind of been a wonderful journey and you do fall back into habits and that’s, that’s fine as well. There’s, there’s. Nothing wrong with a safe zone, but yeah, it was a good challenge. And I try, I try and actively do it whenever I have the energy to do it. 

Jewels: Chad, I think we can all learn a little bit from that exercise and I’m definitely going to put it to practice immediately after this interview.

Jewels: So thank you so much, Chad. This interview has been a long time coming, but it was well worth the wait. You’ve shared lots and lots of gold as you are always very generous. In your time and in your sharing. So I really do appreciate your time and thank you so much. Where can the audience find out a little bit more about [00:56:00] you?

Chad: Sure. So I have a website, chadbarnier.com Barnier, it’s spelled like Garnier Fructus, but with a B. You can find me on socials at Chad Barnier on LinkedIn and Insta, I’m now off Twitter. But my podcast Give It To Me Bi is kind of my current deep love. This is my podcast about bisexual community and advocacy, sorry, camera cut out.

Chad: This is my podcast about bisexual community and advocacy and just really, really having a great time over there talking about things that are often not talked about and trying to help our community battle through stigma and health challenges that are often unseen in media. And as well, I have another podcast called Statement Brand, which is under The Firm.

Chad: is a really wonderful media company helping accountants and bookkeepers connect and share information with each other. And I interview people about personal branding. You don’t have to be an accountant or a bookkeeper to listen to it. It’s mostly not about accounting bookkeeping. It’s about [00:57:00] personal branding, authenticity, values, content, social media, all that kind of stuff.

Chad: So if you like this chat, that’s probably the most appropriate place to go to next. 

Jewels: Fabulous, Ted. Thank you so much. And I appreciate your time as always. Of 

Chad: course. Anytime. Thanks for having me. Cheers. 

Jewels: A wide and wonderful branding chat with Chad. My highlights.

Your personal brand is your resume. Your brand is how you make someone feel.

Human flaw is the core of character and story. Embrace your flaws. Oh, and curate what you consume. Much love. Chat soon.