Connection Is Currency: Build a Brand That Feels Like the Fries at the Bottom of the Bag

Jeffro (00:02.241)
Most brands talk about trust and authenticity, but very few actually know how to create it. Today’s guest is Stephen Seidel, founder of the award-winning Seidel Agency, TEDx speaker and coach to change makers across health, tech, entertainment, and other industries as well. With 25 years of experience in PR and media, Stephen helps businesses build what he calls connection as currency. And I like that phrase. We’ll talk about underdog energy, the fries at the bottom of the bag philosophy, and why the most memorable brands lead with real human connection, not just So if you’re trying to stand out without selling out, this episode is for you. Welcome to the show,

Stephen Seidel (00:37.25)
Thank you, Jeff Rowe. Man, that was probably one of the best intros I’ve ever heard to date. So thank you for that. You’re clearly a Paws professional and I love your show. I’m super excited to chat with you. So thanks for having me on.

Jeffro (00:49.351)
Absolutely. And I’m excited to talk about the fries at the bottom of the bag. So I feel like we can start with that. To you, what does that really mean in a business or branding context?

Stephen Seidel (00:52.3)
Yeah. Yeah.

Stephen Seidel (00:57.676)
Yeah, so thank you so much for asking. I’ve been doing this work. I went to Penn State in 1996 to 2000. So I’ve been doing this work for 25 plus years. in the early days of doing this work, when I was in New York City, I wrote a lot more and I don’t do it as much. feel like back in the day when I didn’t have a wife, two kids, you know, we prioritize our day, a couple of companies that I’m working with. But back in the day, I wrote a lot of poems and things that came as a sense of reflection. And I wrote one, was called Fries at the Bottom of the Bag. And it was about going to McDonald’s. We all know going to McDonald’s or going to some sort of drive-through when we’re a young kid, right? You get done sports game or it’s that special night. Maybe it’s more fast food now than it was back in the day, but there was a special night where I would have my birthday there. And it was just always a special moment for me when we would go through the drive-through and it would be my mom and myself and just sharing that moment and giving her that empty bag, the fries at the bottom bag, we all know those are the best ones, and just seeing how much joy it was for her to get those two, three, four, five fries at the end. And for me, it was an act of service, but at the same time, it was a moment of connection that it took me a long time to realize. My mom had since passed away, that’s what my TEDx talk was about, but it was those super genuine, authentic moments that we’re just there sharing space with each other and connecting on a much deeper level that we might not realize in today’s busy and hectic world where we may look back and say, those are the good times. Well, the good times are happening right here, right now. Me and you having these moments with our children and we get ahead of ourselves. And so as a brand, as a company, as an individual, I want to be mindful of those moments that we could savor within the actual present moment. And so to me, the fries at the bottom of the bag is a message.

So whether you’re with your kids, whether with your company, whether with your organization, I just took a breath because I get excited sometimes. Just take a moment, take a breath and appreciate it. And we talk a lot about just even talking to your team or your family members and just simply say, this is nice. I appreciate this. This is special. Thank you for doing it. And that really cements that story as you begin to build your brand or your own individual store.

Jeffro (03:15.394)
Alright, so it’s being present and grateful for the little things that a lot of times we would otherwise miss.

Stephen Seidel (03:21.57)
Yeah, I talk a lot about being great. So for me, great is an acronym. I’m a huge acronym nerd, but it’s grateful. Being thankful for the moments that we have, the good and the bad, what we go through, we grow through. Being reflective, reflecting on these moments that we have. E stands for empathetic, having empathy, especially in today’s world when we’re disconnected from technology. That connection for me is currency, that’s trust. A is being accountable. Say what you’re gonna do, do what you’re gonna say and then lastly is transformational. I really want to stress anybody, you we don’t have to go to work, we get to go to work. You know, don’t search for happiness, come from happiness. Find what inspires you. Find that alignment with your company or your brand, and then you’re gonna come from a place of joy where you lose all sense of time.

Jeffro (04:07.435)
So I like this from a theoretical, conceptual standpoint. It’s great, especially personally. When we’re talking about applying this to a business, what I see might happen is someone hears you talk about this, and then they’re like, OK, great. Here’s a list of moments. Let’s go make some videos about this to get people to buy our stuff. It’ll build a connection. But obviously, that’s kind of missing the point in a way. So can you talk about that?

Stephen Seidel (04:35.03)
Yeah, definitely. there’s a four, I started, we do a four step framework. And so I also like alliteration. So it starts with your mission. goes into your message, then your media. And then ultimately we want to build a movement. So today’s day and age, I built my agency is about 10 plus years ago with the intention to do good, get back and make an impact. That’s our motto. That’s our mission. And so as a company and organization, Starting with your mission, what are the core values? What are the beliefs? Are you in alignment as a CEO, as a C-suite, as a professional? Are the people that you work with, are they in alignment with that as well? So that people can vote with their dollar. Secondly, what’s the mission that you’re ultimately looking to distribute, whether it’s a product service or just a brand that you’re building? And then we get more into the media or the marketing aspect, but too often people flip it and it’s gonna change, right? But when you dive deeper into your beliefs, your core system, what is the value that you’re delivering?

How can we distribute that message? Then we can get into the media. then ultimately we want to build a movement. You look at Taylor Swift, look at Beyonce, the Army, whatever, like Tom Schuess. You’re building a movement that people can invest in and then they can believe it. And so as an organization, we focus on building a win, win, win. And that goes a connection to your calling for you. What is your purpose? Are you in alignment with that? Then a connection to your company.

Is that in alignment with what you do? you don’t believe in ecology and you’re working for maybe a cigarette company, that’s not a good fit. One of the guys in my men’s group literally worked for Philip Morris and had an epiphany. was like, I can’t do this anymore. And so now he’s a really successful self-help entrepreneur. Then lastly, there’s connection to your calling, connection to your company, and then a connection to your community. And that can be ultimately your consumers or your guests, as Disney calls it or the community that you live in. And so everything that we do as an organization, we’re trying to make sure that we’re empowering these individual segments.

Jeffro (06:36.072)
So it’s more about getting internal alignment and then kind of the other stuff that connection with the clients or the fans or whatever sounds like it would happen more naturally because you are now acting in alignment with your mission and core values and everything else. that correct?

Stephen Seidel (06:49.474)
Yeah, and I think at the end of the day, the connective tissue that connects all of it is story, right? You look at movies, you look at anything in life. Any successful speaker is gonna start with a story and they go down to when they their message and then that’s how they ultimately inspire others. But with those individual frameworks, that connection, if it’s a client that you’re working with, you’re gonna share a story, you’re gonna learn their story, you’re gonna find ways that you can ultimately help them and help them achieve their dreams or solve their problems. So the connective tissue with all of this essentially is story, being a solid storyteller. And one thing that I do, I created a men’s group and we talked a lot about friendship. And in today’s fragmented world, fractional CEOs and Zoom, we find ourselves getting busy and straying away from the importance of a really solid friendship or relationship. You’re a product of the five most people around you.

So making sure that you’re building these networks in the connection with your employees, as well as the people that are helping you, whether they’re friends or family.

Jeffro (07:54.688)
Got it. So another question I had, as we’re talking about connection as currency, is the association with currency, right? That’s something people spend. And if you’re viewing your connection to these people as currency as something that’s spendable, does that hurt the relationship? Because if you’re looking to almost use it to your gain?

Stephen Seidel (08:00.824)
Sure.

Stephen Seidel (08:05.293)
Mm-hmm.

Stephen Seidel (08:17.304)
That’s a great question. so thank you for bringing that up. There’s sapience. I don’t know if you’ve ever read the book Sapience, but way back in the olden times, the way that money first came about, money was formulated because it was a form of trust. If you gave them money, you knew that you could trust them. And so with that trust, it became currency. So connection is currency is not something that is meant to be transactional. It’s meant to be a form of trust, especially in today’s day of AI.

I was just watching a bunch of Sora videos. Nobody’s gonna be able to tell what’s real and what’s not. So instead of trusting what they see, they need to trust their sense of what they’ve experienced, the people that they had relationship with. And so as we move forward in the age of AI, connection’s gonna be more important now, especially when building a brand so that we can trust who you are, what you say, and that comes with, you know the message that you’re delivering, but connection is currency, it becomes a form of trust so that when you’re working with a client, they can trust you. As well as, you you’re sharing that story with friends and family members, they can trust you. Maybe you lose your job and then you go back to your Rolodex or the connections that you’ve made. They’ve already known that they could trust you, you’ve demonstrated that that’s possible. And the way that that’s been built is through shared experiences and the stories that you’ve shared.

Jeffro (09:39.738)
Have you adjusted your approach to brand storytelling with the rise of AI and constant content everywhere?

Stephen Seidel (09:48.03)
Absolutely. so I think right now AI is a tool, just like in back in the day during the industrial revolution, the hammer, I guess it’s before that, but the hammer is a tool, right? Somebody needs to operate that. If they take a hammer and they hit a nail, they’re going to build something. Same thing with AI. Right now there are operators and what we stress is the soft skills of really digging deeper into your connection. What is your story so that others can connect with that? And then second, is leveraging AI obviously to eliminate some of the tasks that you might have. But at the end of the day, I still feel that your connection with individuals and people are what’s most important because those people, people relationships are how larger scale businesses and transactions get made. And so we usually go along the do, delegate or delete. You know, when working with an organization, we want to find those menial tasks. But if you’re trying to elevate your brand or your business, We need to be more selective in where we’re going to be sharing our content. You what platforms do we want to be on? How do we want to present that content? And then in addition to the AI aspect is identifying what are the key outlets. If you’re creating a company, you know, obviously Forbes is well respected. I would like to think that they’re not going to be giving deep paint videos. So that’s still a well-respected resource that you can go towards. Whereas if things are getting posted on other lesser known sites, they might not be the solid play for you because then you’re putting your brand and your trust and your integrity at question.

Jeffro (11:18.27)
How do you find that balance though if you’re using AI to make things more efficient, right? But let’s say I’ve got some this idea. I’m going to ramble it out, give it to AI and say, clean this up and turn it into a post. Right now it’s back to that’s AI’s version of you. We’re not getting the true use. How do you find because obviously that’s a helpful thing to clean up your thoughts and all that. So what do you think?

Stephen Seidel (11:23.8)
Sure.

Stephen Seidel (11:34.2)
Sure.

Stephen Seidel (11:39.63)
Absolutely, I use it all the time. So essentially it’s a tool. So when I put things into that, it’s not for me, I am a writer, right? I’ve written, I have a couple of books and I’ve had a successful podcast, but I’m writing these stories. So I use it as a generation tool. I’m not extensive with it, but I have a writer friend of mine. He’s a writer in LA, he’s written for the neighborhood. He’s adamant on that and he will not touch it.

Which is fine, I understand that. But as a business owner and an entrepreneur, when we’re marketing, developing media, it’s a tool that needs to be leveraged. If you don’t use it, you’re to be left behind. So one of the things that I require when we’re working with it with my company or any clients is that we have some checks and balances. So if you want to use it, go ahead and use it for ideation or different ideas. But I wouldn’t have that be my laurel or my ultimate message that I’m hanging my hat on. You can use it to clean some things up or maybe automate some captions on social media but I would still look at that prior to pushing it out because then that’s a representation of who I am. And you don’t, never know what is going to spit out or if it’s going to have, you know, errors or grammatical things. When we’re bringing on a new talent, one of the things that we do is we ask them to create content, write a story and really build out the brand positioning. And we actually test them and allow them to use AI. Sure. Go ahead and use it if you want, but how are you using it? What prompts are you using? Are you doing it one prompt or are putting it 17 prompts down the lane. I’ve used it in a multitude of ways where a really amazing prompt is you could say, position this product or service amongst five authority figures in the marketplace that I would pay $1,500 an hour for, Tony Robbins, Simon Sinek, Neil Patel, you name it, and have them give me insights and thoughts based on their type of branding and where they position themselves. And so it’s a great way to leverage feedback but for me, I’m not gonna ultimately take what they say and say, all right, this is it. I still wanna have that human interactivity or that element where I have the soft skills that do touch it.

Jeffro (13:44.988)
Right, so you’re not letting it do the actual writing work. You’re just getting feedback. Because obviously, you don’t want to spend $1,500 if you don’t have to. The ChatGBT advice won’t be as good as the real person, but it might give you something that you hadn’t thought of before. Right, so it’s just.

Stephen Seidel (13:59.606)
Absolutely. It’ll definitely give you some inspiration. For me, it’s those shared experiences. And one of the things is when I relocated my business to Kentucky in 2020 during the pandemic, my mom passed away. I was her caretaker. I had a one month old baby. I was running my business out of my laundry room because my mom took over the room that I was in during the time. And we all found, we felt it, that lack of connection face to face, to eye, heart to heart. There’s something to be said about when you’re communicating with another individual or you’re sharing a space and have that experience together that I would never want to replace. so anytime you get the opportunity to go to a client and look them in the eye and share that space with them, there’s so many things that we can’t understand, whether it’s verbal or nonverbal communication, just holding space with them that we’re not going to be able to capture when, you know, we’re over a Zoom call or remote.

Jeffro (14:52.528)
I agree. All right, I want to move on to something else because we talk about AI all the time. It’s everywhere. You’ve talked about being an underdog and how that’s actually an advantage. know Dean Graziosi has a whole book on the underdog advantage. But I was curious to hear your thoughts and maybe you can give us an example of what that looks like when it comes to your business and creating a connection with that in mind, being an underdog.

Stephen Seidel (14:57.421)
Yes.

Stephen Seidel (15:05.377)
Yeah.

Stephen Seidel (15:16.29)
Yeah, that’s a great question. Thanks so much for asking. I relocated from Burbank to Lexington, Kentucky. I’m originally from Philadelphia. So I grew up in Philadelphia. I’m a big Eagles fan, go birds, Phillies, you you name it, all the sports team. And we’re classically known for being the underdog. So as I was growing up, I noticed, yes, we want to work hard. It’s a blue collar mentality, right? We want to put in blood, sweat and tears. And I noticed that nowadays certain things with the younger generation, they might not do that as much but that gave me the underdog mentality of the Rocky mentality. It’s not how hard you get hit, but it’s how hard you can get hit and keep going. And so for me, I was an actor for a period of time, had some shows, and it was constantly looking in the face of rejection. And so that built a sense of grit. So as an underdog, I think you see no, you see rejection. You’re willing to pick up the phone call. You’re willing to actually show up and knock on the door. And so that… built this sense of resilience. I call it grit. It’s gratitude, resilience, integrity, and trust. And for me, that gives me the opportunity where I’m going to get knocked down, but I’m going to fail forward and keep on going. And so when it comes to the underdog, I moved to Kentucky and one of the first meetings that I had with somebody, they told me that I should be wearing khakis and a button down because that’s not the way people do it around here. And I’m like, are you serious? But yet I still have not been able to crack the code. I’m in Lexington, Kentucky.

Yet I’m looking at that as an advantage because I’ve lived in New York City, I’ve lived in Philly, I’ve lived in LA. So I’m a couple years or decades in advance in terms of some of the things that I’ve learned. So in lieu of trying to put a square peg into a round hole, I said, that’s fine. I might not be accepted. I’ll be the underdog. But at some point, you know, I will rise to the surface here locally. But at this point, I’m going to accept the cards that I’ve been given and continue to play bigger in bigger cities. And so just being mindful of what the strategy that you have, the cards that you’ve been dealt, and how that you can move forward, I think is really important from an underdog perspective. And when you get hit down, that’s a moment, especially in my TEDx talk, I talk about grief as the hidden power of grief. When you go down or you lose something, you can use that as an opportunity. You’re gonna reconnect to your purpose or your calling. You’re gonna rebuild those relationships that are most important, and then you’re gonna reclaim that purpose or that narrative around what you’re doing. But never accept what others are saying about you.

Stephen Seidel (17:43.106)
We can’t believe our own thoughts, so why should we believe theirs?

Jeffro (17:46.489)
Yeah. No, I like that. And the example of the clothes to the khakis, it’s, it’s kind of makes it practical because I think, obviously that’s what makes you stand out. Like, aren’t we all trying to stand out through our marketing and get people’s attention? So on the one hand, if you decide, okay, I’m just going to blend in, then you’re undercutting yourself. But if you embrace the fact that yes, I am different and here’s why, that can be a, a, an advantage. you said.

Stephen Seidel (18:11.958)
Yeah, and so like I just came from New York City. So when companies are marketing in New York City, it’s the norm. People have sidewalks, have quotes, things on the sidewalk. They’re using gobo lights, put ads up on the wall. But to me, I used to have a show called Renegade Reporting and I’m a renegade man. I want to stand out. want to step up, stand out and speak out. And so what I do when I’m working with individual brands is we find ways that we can elevate them. So for example, Noodle Lane, one of my old friends, his wife started a noodle shop.

New York City and they had just launched in Brooklyn. They came to us to be their PR team and every brand, company, and organization needs a face. It needs a personality, especially now with AI because if we don’t see somebody at the forefront, we feel like it’s fake or it’s a group on or it’s animated. so her name was Lane Lee. She didn’t want to share a story. She didn’t want to be on camera. And I said, look, that’s not going to work. If you want to work together, you want to be successful. I need for you to get over it or figure out what that story is and share it.

So ultimately she opened up, she learned how to cook when she lived in China with her mom. She moved over here, she fell into a career in finance. She didn’t feel fulfilled. She started cooking for her son who loved Dan Dan noodles and it really built a strong relationship with him. And then she started going to Smorgasbord. 13 years later, she opened up a brick and mortar shop. And that’s a compelling story for any immigrant or anybody who comes to America that wants to live the American dream. And so ultimately we pitched that to Fox 5.

She had a five minute segment on Fox five in New York City that we were able to acquire for her. It’s worth something like $250,000. But the only reason that that happened is because she felt like the underdog. She honored her true sense and she shared her story. And by sharing her story, she was able to impact thousands of others. worked with an influencer that literally had her share her story and it was like therapy, but it was a social media video. She talked about being bullied and all the things that she experienced, but yet she overcame that and as a result, she’s now opening a second restaurant in Manhattan.

Jeffro (20:11.452)
that’s awesome. I love that. Now want to go eat some noodles.

Stephen Seidel (20:12.343)
Yeah.

Yeah, I know Chinese too. If you get to Park Slope Brooklyn, check out Noodle Lane. It’s a really amazing spot.

Jeffro (20:20.473)
Alright, we’ll do. Alright, now, so one of your TEDx topics was about rewriting your story. And we’ve kind of touched on that from a couple of different angles so far. what’s the first step someone should take if their current brand story just doesn’t feel aligned anymore? They want to kind of rewrite that and get back in line. What do they do?

Stephen Seidel (20:38.572)
Yeah, it’s a great question. think knowing where you’re at and starting somewhere. So wherever your brand is at, one of the things that we typically do, we have a bunch of exercises, but we want to understand what does your brand stand for? What do you stand for like we spoke about earlier? And so taking inventory and reflecting on what it is that you truly wanted to deliver to the world. And so that all starts with, what do you love? If you paid a million dollars and didn’t have a job, what would you do or flip it on the other side?

If you had a million dollars and you hated something or you wanted to stand up for something like PETA or other things, what would you work on? And so if you’re rebuilding your brand, it’s important also to create a Venn diagram. It’s where those three circles kind of connect in the middle. You want to really understand what are your passions? What are you really truly most interested in? What are the skills that you’ve been given? God given skills, you may be a great communicator, you might be a great storyteller, you might be great at engineering and then lastly, you want to look into a little bit further in terms of what is your positioning or what are your access points? You may be in a town like myself, that’s a Lexington, horses, bourbon, certain things like that. If you wanted to work within Lexington, which I talked about not doing so necessarily in the past, you were trying to figure out where you’re positioned in that. And again, like I said, you’re starting that brand and then you’re going to go through, you know, what is it that you can deliver to the world? We have a nine step process from startup to scale up and again, you’re gonna start with that mission. You’re gonna figure out what you stand for. You’re gonna figure out what that message is and get really clear. And also take notice, what is your brand’s story? If you are the brand and you’re a personality, what is the story that you’re telling yourself? And that’s the first and foremost is it’s gonna be mental. We really need to take that 80-20 rule that whatever you’re overcoming, you need to be mental. But what is the story that either you’re telling yourself or you currently have? And what do you want that to look like?

You don’t need to figure out how to get the point A to point B, but really envisioning where you’re going to be in five years from now and then setting a plan in place. Obviously it’s going to come back to various things, colors, messages, images, sounds, sites, different sensory elements, but you’re going to work through there and then testing that process. And right now we have social media, which is a great, great tool. We talked about AI earlier. That’s another tool where you can kind of test some of these messages. How do they land? What do they feel like? And then we’re doing it right now for my men’s group.

Stephen Seidel (23:01.282)
We’re simply leveraging YouTube, we’re doing a video every single day, taking some of the talk tracks, just pushing it out there and seeing how it resonates. And so as you do that, you begin to feel, you know, what do I resonate with? Where do I see that there’s an alignment? And then how can I move this forward? And obviously you want it to be a business. So what’s the product? What’s the service or what’s a way that I can position myself? So not only can I get some value from monetary perspective, but how can I also give back to make it that win win win?

Jeffro (23:31.093)
Yeah, that’s a great breakdown. Though I’m also hearing in my head, like the people listening, there’s probably some of them who have this objection like, okay, that sounds nice. It’s kind of a luxury though to be able to do that. And maybe I don’t even really have a mission. Like I want to make money for like, that’s my mission, right? And I just need the business to work and I’m busy doing it. How am going to go rewrite this whole story and kind of reinvent how I do business? What would you say to that person?

Stephen Seidel (23:48.206)
Sure.

Stephen Seidel (23:59.502)
So the person who wants to make money again, so there’s a couple of really amazing individuals, the guy’s name is escaping me right now, but what do you want to make money in? Like at the end of the day, when I spoke earlier, I think I mentioned we don’t, you you don’t have to get to work, you get to go to work, but to find a field that’s either adjacent to what you’re doing so that maybe you have a full-time job and you want to become a writer, you’re gonna have to put in some time to build that career and write about things that you enjoy. You want to lean in towards things that help you lose sense of time because that means that you’re in the flow. Or if you’re just looking to make money, that’s fine, but know that making money can be made in a myriad of ways, so why not do it in a way that actually you’re going to enjoy? And so knowing where are your unique access points, maybe you’re a financial planner and you’re really good at managing the finances for your firm, okay, you could maybe dip your toes in some stock trading or crypto or other opportunities. But I would be wary of the shiny object.

One of the things that I talk a lot about is the 20 year plan. I did a podcast, it’s called Wolves Among Us. My best friend’s dad was an FBI agent and I heard about the story in Penn State in early 2000. It finally became a podcast. We’re now adapting it for TV, but it took 20 years. It took 20 years to make the TEDx talk. So if you’re not willing to put in the work and to wait for it and you expect it to come in two, four, six weeks, a year, then I would advise you to maybe pump the brakes on it and make sure that that’s something that you are willing to do the blood, sweat, tears for. Typically, I focus on three positions. One would be the one that pays the bills. One would be one that you enjoy or job that you can enjoy that maybe you in your free time. And then ultimately, we want to get to a place where we’re giving back and we have a charity or something that we are aligned with as well.

Jeffro (25:45.941)
Because if you’re going to be spending decades doing work, you might as well find the overlap between those areas you just mentioned, because otherwise you’re just going to be sad and burned out and miserable.

Stephen Seidel (25:53.838)
and you’ll be miserable. You’ll come home and you’ll be miserable. And so being mindful of that, and I understand people are in certain situations. This too shall pass, I like to say, but it’s a lot easier to say when you’re outside of that, but no mud, no lotus. We’ve got to go through that mud in order to grow and really find these things. And I feel like everything happens for a reason. But Tony Robbins says, problems are subjective, right? You could have a tire that falls off and it’s the worst thing in the world, or you can have cancer you know, as you’re building your business or working through things, just be patient, be graceful, give yourself some time and look to build systems. At the end of the day, if you’re wanting to build that brand, whether it’s a company or an organization, think about how you can build systems and that’s where AI and automation can support you in that so that ultimately you can remove yourself and find that financial freedom.

Jeffro (26:45.909)
No, I really like that. One more thing I want to ask you about before we wrap up. You also run Gents Journey, which is a men’s collective. What have you learned from that work that applies to building a company culture or brand voice?

Stephen Seidel (26:52.492)
Yep.

Stephen Seidel (26:57.846)
Yeah, thanks so much for asking on that. like I mentioned earlier, when my mom passed away, it was the most challenging time of my life. was living, you know, I was trying to save my marriage because my mom was living with us and I was caretaking for her. was caretaking for a one-year-old. I was trying to take care of myself and I wasn’t giving anybody the love or attention that I needed. And so I realized at a moment, there’s a lot of people counting on me, myself included, my children, my mom. I need to get this SHI, you know what, together and so I didn’t have a strong support group. So I said, you know what, I’m going to create it. And, know, I listened to a lot of Ted talks, read books, whatever. I’ve heard a lot about growth friends, people who have the growth mindset and really surrounding myself with individuals that I felt could be beneficial towards me. So I took an inventory of my closest friends that I really felt could be there for me. But I wanted to find individuals who were entrepreneurs because that demonstrated that they would take risks. I wanted to find fathers because I was also a father and I also wanted to find other individuals that have lived a life, you know, have gone through the ups and the downs. So I created Jen’s Journey and we met every single week. And then after five years, we found out, look, we want to help others, but we saw a gap in the marketplace because there aren’t a lot of tools for men from a mental health perspective. You can go to Barnes and Noble, you’ll see tons of books for moms expecting babies. There’s like one or two called The Expectant Father. But the boomer generation, They were strong. They had a lot of chivalry. They didn’t want to accept faults like our fathers did. But for us, we wanted to honor the new modern male. And so we created Gents Journey where we could share our stories. We talk about being vulnerable and the challenges that we’re having. And then we created a card deck to help other guys and other gents connect on a deeper level. Too often, we don’t want to talk. We don’t want to bother our wives. We don’t want to talk to our best friends about it.

This is a group where we actually can talk about stuff that’s going on in our life. So it’s been going great. I’d love to ask you, I have this card deck. So this is the Gent’s Journey card deck here. And one of the things we talk a lot about, one of the questions is, what did you want to be when you grew up? For me, it was a magician, but we try and find cool tips and ways for your listeners. Think about what do you want her to be when you grew up? Find ways to inject that into your life and that could help you with your new brand or that new path that you’re on.

Jeffro (29:02.185)
Sure.

Stephen Seidel (29:22.016)
I love being a magician, so we create the card deck and I get to play a magician when I talk to Jeffer right now. Tell me when to stop.

Jeffro (29:28.233)
Alright, stop.

Stephen Seidel (29:31.488)
Okay, so this one says, how do you set and achieve goals in your life? It’s a little bit general. I’m happy to give you another one if you’d like to try another one. The second one that I just pulled out is if you could share a favorite memory with a parent, would it be? And so these are just meant so that we can start that sense of connection and really open up and go deeper.

Jeffro (29:55.486)
Yeah, I mean, we could do either one. I guess a favorite memory of when I first became a parent was just sitting in the recovery room after my first son was born. So he was finally wrapped up and swaddled and in the little thing falling asleep and then my wife fell asleep on the bed. And I was just in the room feeling like full, more full than my heart had ever felt before. And so took a picture of that moment and that’s one that’s… well imprinted on my heart.

Stephen Seidel (30:28.694)
man, I love that. It’s that’s so amazing. I remember our kids being born. Thank you for sharing that. And that’s what it’s all about, right? At the end of the day, we could create these businesses and build these brands. I know that we want to create a vehicle to allow us to thrive with them, but it’s those moments that I think are the most important.

Jeffro (30:48.243)
Yeah, well, very cool. I’m going to check into it. You guys listening, we’ll put the link in the show notes as well. But Stephen, thank you for this conversation. I love your approach to this. And it’s a reminder that branding isn’t just strategy. It’s kind of the soul of the whole thing that makes it worth doing and kind of facilitates that connection that we’re talking about. So if you guys are curious to explore Stephen’s world, brand storytelling, conscious leadership, or just want that fries at the bottom of the bag feeling in your next campaign. You can check out the links in the show notes. We’ll put it all there. And I believe you also have a free download at the SideL agency, right?

Stephen Seidel (31:22.656)
Yeah, you can go to thesidedownagency.com slash media and that’s a free download. If you are building your brand, that’s gonna be for free platforms where journalists are seeking experts. And to the world, you might be one person, but to one person, you might be the world. And so your work is important as an expert. And I just wanted to say too real quick, if you go to gentsjourney.co slash join, that’s a men’s community of 6,000 like-minded men that are all focusing on seven pillars of manhood to be the best version of themselves we would welcome anybody who would want to join.

Jeffro (31:54.994)
All right, well, I appreciate you, Stephen. Thanks for coming on the show. Guys, thank you for listening. If you found this episode valuable, please leave a quick review on Apple or Spotify, or just send the link to someone who you think would appreciate it. That’s it for today. Take care, and we’ll see you next time.

Stephen Seidel (32:08.76)
Thank you.