 Welcome to the creative life, collaborative production between the American Creativity Association Austin Global and Global and Think Tech Hawaii. I'm your host, Darlene Boyd. Joining me today from Irvine, California is Ryan Poland, keynote speaker, Ted Talkspeaker, podcast host, communication strategist and personal branding expert and more. And we'll be talking about some of that more as we move along. Ryan, thank you for joining us today. It's certainly a pleasure to have you with us. And let's just share with the folks that are with us watching us today that you are the director of the University of California Irvine's Entrepreneur's Center. Zod Zod Zod. Well, you'll have to explain that in a second. I'll give you a second to explain the Entrepreneur's Center too. People may be thinking they're hearing us incorrectly and it is an entrepreneur's center. And other than the name, what distinguishes UCI's? You're the center that you oversee. What distinguishes their center from other centers that continue to pop up on universities? And am I correct that there are also some of them are called incubator centers? Yeah, so you have a lot of different pieces in the ecosystem when it comes to supporting entrepreneurship and colleges are a huge part of that. Here at UCI, our mascot is the anteater. And so we are nerdy and we love our puns. So if you take an anteater who is also an entrepreneur, it becomes an entrepreneur. And believe it or not, culturally, a lot of students don't associate themselves as being an entrepreneur. Even though they're problem solvers, even though they're creative, even though they're innovative, they don't necessarily take that piece of title and own it. And so it's a lot easier and it's still fun to get them to admit that they are an anteater and that they're innovative and that they solve problems. And so we allow them to be an entrepreneur, which is just a lower bar, a lower threshold. And once you can identify with some sort of title or some sort of genre of business, then you can sort of jump into it. So you got to see it to believe it. And in this case, that's why we are the antepreneur center. Now we're not an accelerator. We're not an incubator. We are really like the starting point. And so when you deal with undergrads, and that's our focus, we're part of the undergraduate resources that are available on campus. And this is sometimes somebody's first go around with an idea and coming up with an idea or watching Shark Tank and thinking that they've got a new big idea, we help them learn how to fish. We're not here to judge their ideas. We're here to help them understand the lean business, lean business methodology, the business model canvas. Some of the essential tools that we use as entrepreneurs to flush out problems, find customers, and at the end of the day, make the world a better place. And good to me. It sounds like a great opportunity for our students and as you are like the undergraduate students certainly start them early and become familiar. So thanks for that little diversion. So we call that in the spirit of creativity clarifying the concept. So we just clarified the concept of your center. But we're here to talk about ditching the act which takes us on a curve of sorts to embrace our vulnerability. Might you be able to share a specific step back or challenge you faced in your career that ultimately became a stepping stone for your success. And I would assume became the impetus behind the title of your book, Ditching the Act. Yeah, how much time you got. I've had quite a few setbacks to be here all day. You know, one that comes to mind was on the heels of 2008. And for those that remember, it was the worst of times. Precursor was the best of times. And I was in the mortgage industry and I was making more money than I knew what to do with. So obviously I bought a Rimini Red Range Rover with 22 inch Rimini Red Rims. I bought an SL500 Mercedes Benz convertible hard top. I bought a house. I spent a lot of money because I was making money. My parents on the other hand suggested that I save it. And I was like, you're silly. I'm just gonna spend it because I'm making it, right? Well, when the bottom of the market crashed mortgage industry was at the heart of that fall. And so was my business. And long story short, I lost my house. I lost my cars. Had to borrow money from my parents to actually hire an attorney to file for bankruptcy. It is the one thing that I guess as an entrepreneur, you're most scared of because that's the ultimate failure button. And it was a tough pill to swallow. One that I actually was not proud of and felt I would be judged on. And I figured I would just keep this a secret for the rest of my life. So I mailed out all the paperwork because that was the cheaper way to do it. And two weeks later, I got this whole package returned to me. I'm like, wow, they're fast. But it was the same paperwork that I sent. And it just said return to postage 32 cents short. I was like, oh my gosh, this is a sign. This means that I wasn't meant to do this. So I ripped it up with all my brute force and then felt bad and picked up all of the scraps from the ground and recycled it. And at that moment it was really sort of, that was a watershed moment for me where I'm not a victim to what's happening. I maybe was given a second chance. And that's just a small vineyard story that I don't need to share with people. Nobody needs to know. But for those that have been in financial turmoil or for those that were impacted by 2008 or for people who are entrepreneurs and know how quickly things can change or for people who borrowed money from their parents or for people who spend more money than their future allows them to, there's so many points of relatability. And I'm not ashamed of that. There's a number of moments in my life where prior to really realizing the power of connectivity and relatability, I would be afraid to share. But the reality is that people are gonna judge you no matter what. And if you're putting yourself out there, the misconception is that people want to only hear about your stories of success. But I have found that to be false. And in fact, I found that people are more interested in how they see themselves in your story. And so when you can share these curve balls, as you mentioned, life is full of curve balls. But it's when you actually have the strength and the courage to share them and can relate the lessons that you've learned. Trust me, I'm a lot more financially responsible now. I have a car that's paid off now. I have a house and I'm not gonna lose it now. And so this is how we gain our experience. And bringing this full circle, experience is only what you get after you need it. And that's unfortunate, but that's the reality. So you either have to read about it or gain mentorship or find people who've been there, done that. But the real learning lessons happen when you fall pretty hard. And so when I realized that sharing those moments were a catalyst for connection, I saw a whole new way of creating content and opening up and ditching the act. So risk-taking is a very important part and often sometimes a necessity in the process of creative productive thinking or production in itself, creative production. And you took a risk, but then do you feel that your particular personality of the moment made you feel I have the potential to make money and to make more money? So I could spend it. Is that part of your risk-taking spirit at that time? I think risk is all about understanding the risk and reward. And I think that the failures that I've had have not made me less risky. It's made me more calculated. It's made me measure twice and cut once. It's made me understand and expect that things can and will go wrong. And that just all foils back to experience. And I think that the best thing we can do as individuals to give back is to share our thought leadership and thought leadership is just our own experience. It's what we've experienced and that has helped us out. And when it comes to creativity, I learned a long time ago that a stressed brain is not a creative brain. And helping to share moments where stress has taken over or I've been in a spot where I'm not feeling my best, I can directly correlate that with times where I'm not my most creative self. And so at the end of the day, I think that to ditch the act is to share along the way of the good, the bad and the ugly, which helps people relate to you. Because when people can see themselves in your story, it's more relatable and everybody feels more comfortable. I think I had a lot of bad mentors originally and the advice still floats out there, right? They can tell you make it, act as if, just assume the role. But at the end of the day, that doesn't necessarily work. It may seem like it works for a certain amount of time, but the most traction I've gotten in my career and my personal brand is when I sort of fess up to living life as a human. And I think that's the only way that you can really expect to connect with people today. People want to do business, not with businesses. They want to do business with people. And so the more we put ourselves in the small talk, which is really big talk and connecting with people on a human level just makes the world a more enjoyable, productive and creative place. What are some of the ways at the center and these are your conceptions for the center and making it a success? And what are some of the ways that you bring people to the students? You have some particular activities. I know one that I've heard. Sure, no, we have three for sure. And there's three little mice for reason. There's three little bears for reason. There's three everything. So I live my life in threes. But from a programmatic standpoint, we have our way for it. And ear to and leader speaker series, which is really focused on professional development. And that helps to draw students in that are interested in gaining those professional skills, but don't really associate themselves as entrepreneurs. Then we have our Aunt Eater to entrepreneur workshop series, students who have ideas they're working on and things like that. And then we have challenges and hackathons, which are low level or low bar competition opportunities for students to form a team around an idea and then create a business and then put together a pitch deck and then pitch it and then win prize money. And it just allows them a sandbox for them to explore, fall flat on their face, have challenges with team members, have tough discussions about equity splits. And it just preps them for the real world, which is that there's plenty of curve balls. The best thing you can do is to have real time transparent communication. Because the more you let things fester, the more they have a likelihood of blowing up. So we are a big sandbox for student entrepreneurs. And we bring in those with experience to help them accelerate their growth but not stop their failure. That's how they actually are gonna learn. What's the range of the amount that the student perhaps could aspire to acquire? The amount as far as competition money or what amount are you referring to? Yeah, so this last year, we had a design challenge where we were trying to create interdisciplinary teams to reinvent the way that parents interact with their children at a STEM museum. Pretend City is the museum. So we put up a $10,000 prize winner take all. We had over 20 teams and the winning team was a technology around tap to play, just like tap to pay, but it allows parents to go to these exhibits and tap with an RDIF chip to get real time information in multiple languages to learn about STEM concepts so that they can interact with children. Our sort of cornerstone yearly hacking student success, we raise $100,000 and 60,000 of that goes back into the students. We're in the middle of our sustainability challenge right now and we handed out $40,000 in checks a few weeks ago. Students now work through the summer and in fall, they will compete for a $20,000 prize. So it's real money and it makes things real and it gives them an excuse to really invest time and get serious about it. And I think that would be very attractive that I had the opportunity to do something like that and it make it very exciting when you talk about how you encourage them to work with something that would bring in parents. And the title of your book, Ditch The Act, is really an intriguing concept. Could you explain why what Ditching May Act means to you? And I think you have, you've set the stage for us, but what's really in your heart and your passion about it? Yeah, well, funny backstory is that when McGraw Hill Business bought the book, because we traditionally published this, they bought it under a different title and the title they bought it under was Expose Yourself. And that was a title that was a bit risky and a bit risque, but essentially like exposing yourself is what truly helps people get to know you. And if you think of anybody that you really know, your friends, your family, your loved ones, like you've seen them through their best times, you've seen them through mediocre times, you've seen them in their darkest moments, you actually know them. And it's with this information that you're able to evaluate whether or not you like them. You don't have to like them, but a good chance is you will like them because you see them come through these challenges and you're there to help them out. And if you get to know somebody and then you decide that you like them, it sets the foundation for trust. And the reality is that people wanna do business with people who they know, like, and trust. But we live in a world of sort of Instagram culture where it's easier to share the stuff that's all good and we tend to not wanna share anything that is not good. But what people don't realize is that you're setting up this dissonance between what publicly you're sort of putting yourself out there as and then what privately you're dealing with. And when that delta gets too strong, there's some real examples of people who, to some extremes, maybe take their lives and you're like, what is going on with that? Everything seemed fine, but it wasn't because they were just putting on an act. And we all put on acts. But when you realize that you're actually part of the playwright, you're part of writing the narrative, you can have control of that. And when I ask people if they have a personal brand, so many of them are like, nope, nope, not me. And if you don't think that you have a personal brand, sorry, you're wrong, everybody has a personal brand, it's what other people think of you. Like if I were to ask one of your friends, Darlene, tell me about Darlene, whatever comes out of their mouth, that's what your brand is, that's what you've put out there. And so if all you're doing is putting out just the good and the glitz and the glam, then you're like missing a huge part of who you are. And you get to know people through their struggles and you get to know people through common sort of experiences. And so I think that to expose yourself or to ditch the act is a way of just being real. And the one example I love to share with people where it can show up in your life and you can see the benefit of it, is when somebody asks you, how are you doing? And the default answer always usually is, oh, I'm good, I'm great, thanks, I'm good, how are you? It's almost like knee-jerk. Not everybody is always great all the time. And so my challenge to you listening is that if somebody asks you, how are you doing? Try to answer honestly in the moment. I'm pretty tired or I'm super excited, I'm leaving for France tomorrow. Or like, oh my gosh, you wouldn't believe how frustrating it was to figure out the technology on this podcast that I had going. Whatever it is in the moment, if you were the first one to sort of open up a little can of worms other than, I'm great, just watch what happens. The person you're talking to might be like, wow, I'm actually pretty tired too. Or I hate it when that happens, that just happened to me last week. Or are you kidding? I thought I was the only one that that happened to. And now you're connected in a way that really accelerates your ability to get to know them, possibly like them and trust them. So it's just real-time transparency and sharing what's on your mind. In the book, I talk about the different levels. You can't overshare. Very much you can overshare. You don't wanna just be misery, doom and gloom and emotionally vomit on anybody who is willing to listen to you. That's not the case here. But when you share these little things that make you human, it gives other people a chance to relate as humans. Because we're not all doing great all the time. In your book, there's the mention of the get-together that you went to in college with Bills. And the book is talking about being vulnerable. You share the experience of walking in there. You really wear a bow tie. Yeah, I still rock a bow tie. Now I was actually wearing a bow tie that was made by a student startup that is still in business today. And it was a knitted bow tie that was put on a bust of Abraham Lincoln because Abraham Lincoln popularized the bow tie. Not a lot of people know. So this crocheted bow tie was actually supposed to be channeling the energy of Abraham Lincoln. And I definitely stood out at the party and the host of the party, Keith Rossi, noticed it, liked it. I actually left it with him as a present and he ended up writing the forward in our book. And we've become friends with him and I still interact with him. And he's an amazing author himself. He's a speaker, he's a transformational leader and he's all about radical candor. And when we met at his house, it's crazy, Hollywood Hill House, multi-levels, all these successful young entrepreneurs. And when he addressed everyone, he said, everyone, put your phones away. I'm like, oh my gosh, what's happening? Like everybody puts their phone away. Like I'm just gonna share some things that are happening with me in my life, professionally and personally, that are going wrong. And everybody's like, wait, what? Like everybody held this guy in a pedestal. We're like, we're so excited to meet him but what do you mean? And so he proceeded to share some of his real challenges personally and professionally. And you could just hear like a pin drop. Everyone was just completely engaged. Like, wow, you, oh my gosh. And so when we got our plates, everybody had a number written on the bottom of the plate and you went to these different areas, multiple fireplaces and stuff. And there was a facilitator and everyone had to get up and introduce themselves and say, my name is Ryan and this is what's going wrong professionally and personally. And what that does is it, like everybody can sit there and talk about how successful they are but that's why we're all here is we have elements of success. But Keith was saying that the trick is to become vulnerable to share what you need help with and then everyone around who was like hearing, they were like, it gave them a chance to add value and help out. So what a cool way to like start a conversation. Like let's get to it. This is what my challenges are. And so I think that if we incorporate more honesty in what we need help with, people want to help. And we just feel like they're gonna judge us. And so sometimes we don't talk about it or we hide what's really going on. And then if you do that for long enough, there's gonna be a distance between you and people and there's gonna be a distance between what you put out there in the world and how you really feel. And that becomes unhealthy real quickly. It'll affect everything that you do, your relationships, your work, just, and your creativity. So in discussing or working with people and encouraging them to look, I guess it's similar to the common stock term of wearing your heart on your sleeve, but expressing your vulnerability. Do you have an outline or a plan of how to approach that? And you talked about the part, I mean, do you just immediately say that a horrible day and my whole life is falling apart or do you have a setup of some practical strategies? Totally have a setup. There's actually a five-step process that's outlined in the book. Level one is the silly, stupid stuff that makes you human. Spilling coffee on yourself or getting your microphone, your AirPods being dead, whatever it is that makes us human, that's level one. That's easy to share and it's easy for people to relate to. Level two, think two, is when you have a conflict or a challenge with more than one person. It's you and somebody else, a relationship challenge, a coworker challenge, something like that. You're never trying to throw anybody under the bus, but when you feel the strength and you talk about challenges that you have with other people, it allows for people to give you input and relate to you on that because trust me, we've all had challenges and relationships. We've all had challenges with coworkers. We've all had these challenges. And so when you start to tap into that, there's like this a lot of emotion and a lot of experience that can be tapped into. Level three are for the situations that are a little bit scarier to share. Maybe you like filing for bankruptcy or going through a divorce or something like that. And level four is like catastrophic stuff that you just would never want to share with somebody and it might take you a long time to get that out there. But if you look at the cover of Forbes magazine, right, this iconic spot and you actually read the article, I guarantee you it's not. They had an amazing life and they did everything great. It's usually like they overcame this and then this happened and then this happened and then it was crazy. So like, you know, we put these people up on these pedestals thinking that they're successful assuming things are easy. No, you show me a successful person and they have had challenges. Like that is the honest truth. So levels one, two, three, four are a guide of identifying. So there's an exercise of going through an exposure resume, all the things that did not make your resume, the stuff that you're afraid of and you can teach each thing that you would never want to share with somebody and you understand the lessons learned and how it's changed you as a person and you can incorporate those as the skills and the talents that you have. We actually talk about an exposure bank. So you have these different stories that you understand and you think about how to share and then at the right time, you can share them to relate to other people. It shows that you're more like them than anything else. And level five is what not to share because when you share anything extreme, extreme sex, extreme religion, extreme violence, extreme hate, all of that is super divisive and so you really have to stay away from that. So I think that if somebody wants to grab the book, it really shares about what Ditching Me Act is, why you should do it and then how you do it. We use a lot of examples in case studies and share along those lines. So it is about wearing the heart on the sleeve but like not sporting blood on everybody's face. That makes sense. I liked your five step approach. I also, I had said to you earlier that I really am enjoying going through your book and we mentioned case studies and I was glancing at something today that the page 100, in fact, was sent to the number 100. But they're quick and they're small vignettes and I really appreciated having them. Also their placement in the book is better than this lengthy case study moving along. So like one example real quick is somebody who actually robbed a bank unsuccessfully and went to jail, okay? But when he came out of jail, he had a hard time finding his brand positioning and like, how do you come back from that? Well, he actually used that banking experience if I call it that and branded himself as a growth hacker and it actually was on brand and he was able to come clean about it and it was part of his story. So when you own things that went wrong, it becomes part of your story. And the challenge that I have for you and for anyone else listening is the LinkedIn bio challenge. If I were to go and read your bio right now on LinkedIn, are you human or are you one of these? I did this and then I did this and I had this many years and like, this is amazing. Like if you look at people's LinkedIn bios, it is like the most humble, braggy, the most I am so amazing, like all of these accolades and it's like, where's the human in it? And so I always challenge people, really good way to start is like, share some stuff and it doesn't have to be bad stuff. Like, do you have a husband or a wife or a partner or a dog or do you like to do things other than work or what do you do when you're not working or like, what was the challenge as a kid that now you've overcome? What do you like? Like there's stuff other than, you know, your sales numbers and the percentage you're over a year. And so I think that we just have so many opportunities to ditch the act and help people get to see that we're more like them than anything else. Appreciate that. And I think the LinkedIn is a good example. Ryan is so out of date, so it's time to do something. So I appreciate your tips and I think those watching me probably all turned to their LinkedIn now, next opportunity they have and you're so right, especially the design, it's a great social media connection in many ways. But the fact that you get to keep your friends and those to endorse you and trade off and the endorsements are coming in. So, I don't know if it's all that natural. So I think you're taking us to a place and I appreciate that you have those strategies and those five steps for us. I was going to ask you for an example of a success story, but you already did that and I didn't expect you to call upon the bank robber as the success story. I was not anticipating that that would be an example, but it makes a lot of sense as you brought it forth. So with that, Ryan, this is why I'm so fast forward since our show's off and do, but it's been a pleasure to have you. I look forward to seeing you in person, drifting down to the center when I can for some of those great opportunities you can have for the community at large and with that, at this point, I have to let our viewers know that you've been watching The Creative Life on Think Tech Hawaii with our guest communications expert, Ryan Poland, and he's been revealing the surprising power of the real you on the path to greater success. Join us in two weeks for another offering of The Creative Life and until then, thank you, Ryan, Mahalo and Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please click the like and subscribe button on YouTube. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Check out our website, thinktechawaii.com. Mahalo.