From Soap Operas to AI: Daniel Goddard’s Journey in Branding and Networking

Sara Lohse [00:00:09]:

What is happening, everybody? I am Sara Lohse. Larry can't be here today, but this is still Branded. And I'm really excited about today's guest. We have Daniel Goddard, and if y'all know him as Dar, I believe his name was on Beast Maker. These master. Okay. I'm really, like, up to date on Australian soap operas. It's like, where was.

Sara Lohse [00:00:33]:

Where I spend my time. But he is now running a digital marketing company. He's running his own AI networking app, which we're definitely going to talk about, and doing a lot of things that are not acting on soap operas anymore. He has had a really interesting career that we are really excited to talk about. And Daniel, welcome to the show.

Daniel Goddard [00:00:51]:

Thank you very much for having me. Hello, everybody.

Sara Lohse [00:00:54]:

Like, so, like I said, so you have a really interesting career, and you started. Started in acting. You were, I think, over 500 episodes on Young and the Restless.

Daniel Goddard [00:01:05]:

Over a thousand. Did over a thousand episodes.

Sara Lohse [00:01:08]:

You did over a thousand. Okay. Google lied it under. It underestimated you.

Daniel Goddard [00:01:13]:

Not really. Yeah, Google does that. It's part of the machine. Its goal is to lie to us.

Sara Lohse [00:01:19]:

That is insane. How did you get from that and everything you were doing to now you're launching brands and helping people network and running AI platforms?

Daniel Goddard [00:01:31]:

Sure. I started out in Australia going to school to do business, but I always wanted to act because acting, to me wasn't an escape from, like, reality. It was just a way of doing different things with my life and not being pigeonholed into just one thing. So I considered acting to be an opportunity to have different, you know, vocations. So I started acting. I started on soap opera in Australia or nighttime soap opera called Home and Away. From There. I moved to la, where I got Beastmaster, and that went.

Daniel Goddard [00:02:07]:

That was like a global show. It was back 99 to 2002, we did that. I was. I ran around a loincloth with a pet tiger. Pet eagle. Excuse me. So then after that ended, I ended up Young and the Restless, where I did over a thousand episodes. So my entire life, I've been branding, and I realized I'd been branding myself because back in the late 90s, there were no.

Daniel Goddard [00:02:33]:

There was no social media. There was no opportunity to reach out to a fan base other than writing fan mail or having a website which had a chat room. So we built our first website, and we built the first chat room in the website so the fans of Beastmaster could chat and meet each other. From there, I started to realize the power of community and the power of building your brand and aligning it with different bases and different people who gravitate towards that brand. By the time I started Young the Restless, Twitter had almost hadn't started yet. It took a couple of years. I started 2006 there, but Facebook was out. And from there you kind of just start to realize that your brand will always.

Daniel Goddard [00:03:15]:

It does two things. One, your brand is stable because if you don't shift and don't move, it'll stay where you are. But there's always different groups that will gravitate to it. So like you're the sun, they're the planets and the moons and they start to orbit. So the goal with all branding is to figure out where your strongest orbit and your strongest gravity, the gravitational pull is, you know, what demographics, what groups, what people. So we kind of just, you know, decided when I say we because I fast forward to where I am now with my company, but I kind of at that time just realized that once you find a niche and you understand that people find something they gravitate towards, you have to cater to that niche. And then the goal is to keep adding to it, adding to it. So Fast forward to 2020.

Daniel Goddard [00:04:04]:

I left Young and the Restless. I launched underthe in.com, my digital marketing company. And now we run social media campaigns for people. We build websites, we do email campaigns, but we launch brands. For example, you know, someone want to launch a skin care cream, for example, and they want it to be an anti aging cream. So we called it Time Machine cream because it's like you put it on, it's like traveling, you go backwards the way you age. So we launched Time Machine Cream. We've launched Backpack buffet, which is basically over a thousand customized backpacks.

Daniel Goddard [00:04:40]:

Any backpack you want, any college, anything. Backpack buffet dot com. So we kind of got to this place where people would come to us and say, I've got an idea for something and I want to get into the e commerce business. Because everyone wanted to do drop shipping or some form of e commerce. But the question is they don't know how to get into it. They don't know how to start it. So the most important things are just basically finding something you love, find something that you have some sort of passion for, and beginning to lay out a business strategy that makes sense. Then simultaneously now we're running Disco, which is a AI networking app.

Daniel Goddard [00:05:16]:

And all of this began where I would do conventions and I would do fan events and people come up to me and say, I never realized that there are so many people in this convention hall right now that I would be friends with. But if it wasn't for you or your show, we never would have met.

Sara Lohse [00:05:32]:

Yeah.

Daniel Goddard [00:05:32]:

So a group of girls will come up and they'll be like, oh, we met over, you know, beast Mass, or we went met over Young and the Restless and your character and this storyline. So I started to think to myself, how do you start to bring these people together? How do you find people everywhere in the world that have a commonality that never otherwise would meet? So what disco does is you create your profile and you define yourself by hashtags. So it can be any hashtag you want. It could be hashtag podcast, hashtag, underwater basket weaving, it doesn't matter. And then math, that's going to be mine. It has to be.

Sara Lohse [00:06:08]:

Yeah. I want to be number one in underwater basket weaving.

Daniel Goddard [00:06:13]:

Well, as long as they're pink. You need to have pink underwater baskets because, you know, they. They'll just. It's prettier.

Sara Lohse [00:06:19]:

Yeah.

Daniel Goddard [00:06:19]:

And you want your underwater baskets to be pretty.

Sara Lohse [00:06:22]:

Like, they have to be on brand. So we're not. We're not even favorite daughter media anymore. We are favorite daughter underwater baskets. We're rebranding today.

Daniel Goddard [00:06:32]:

I love it. I love it. So then you take all these hashtags, and then we. We design it where it's GPS based. So let's say you're in Austin, Texas, and ironically, you walk out the door and you're walking towards a coffee shop where you like to get coffee. If you pass the radius, and you can set your radius from like 0.2 miles to 10 miles. If you enter the radius of somebody else that has hashtags that match with you, you get notified. So you'll know there's someone your proximity that you're coming near that has commonalities with you.

Daniel Goddard [00:07:05]:

And then we have an AI conversation, voice chat that then allows you to start talking to that person using AI conversation based upon your commonalities. So you could say, I want to talk to this person only about, you know, pod matching, podcasting, Dallas Cowboys. I know you're probably a Cowboys fan now because you moved to Texas. You have to be, right? You moved to Texas.

Sara Lohse [00:07:26]:

Don't insult. Don't insult me like that. New York Giants, New Orleans Saints, and Detroit Lions, which makes a lot of.

Daniel Goddard [00:07:36]:

There you go. So you'd have Jared Goff, hashtag Detroit Lions, hashtag, you know, Drew Brees. And then so basically the goal is, was to find a way to build community and bring people together in a way that otherwise they would never be able to do. And what the great thing about this as it's starting to build its own life is we have colleges around the country from Syracuse, Kentucky University, Southern University, et cetera, where they want to use the technology because it allows kids, when they get to campus on the very first day to put the subjects are into this studying the, the hobbies are into all the things that define them and start to make friends immediately because it takes forever. When you get to college, you don't know anybody. You walk around, everybody's a stranger. You don't know. You just have no friends.

Daniel Goddard [00:08:23]:

So the goal is how do we make a younger generation and an older generation for that matter, find a way to streamline. They meet people of value, people that matter, people that will change their life for, for something that's positive. And it works at conventions. You can drop into a convention and attend it virtually and everyone can meet and match and it just streamlines deal flow. So I think the long story of all of this short is what began as a business career in the 90s when I went to college and turned into an acting career, turned into a branding career, came back full circle to a business career. But as at the whole or at the center of it is, is is always the need to brand and, and form brands that people can connect with.

Sara Lohse [00:09:11]:

That's really interesting. And it's interesting like the, the app is built on connections and we've talked about AI connections, all of this stuff a lot. And it always kind of comes back to this idea of like AI generated authenticity because we're in this age of AI and now it makes everything feel a little bit fake. But it sounds like, yeah, it sounds like with this, it's like kind of the.

Daniel Goddard [00:09:40]:

It's anti AI in its own way.

Sara Lohse [00:09:42]:

Yeah, we just said the same thing. We're the same person. We have the same person so much in common. I was also on the Young and the Restless. You just didn't see me. I was in the back. But no, that's really interesting. It's kind of also.

Sara Lohse [00:09:59]:

But we think about networking, we think about it professionally, but this sounds kind of more like online friend dating.

Daniel Goddard [00:10:06]:

Yeah, it's. It's almost like a compilation of everything that I've used from a branding or social side or a social media side kind of rolled into one more streamlined, whittled back sort of like special forces application in a way where it's what really matters because you'll go on TikTok and you'll get, you'll get sucked into this void of just swiping same with Instagram, maybe the same with Twitter. But at the end of the day you're just basically burning time and you're just looking for dopamine. So we kind of discovered pretty quickly that there's still a strong need for human connection. And it's not just superficial. You know, I post something, somebody I'd never meet, will never know commented on it or liked it. You know, people get a lot of satisfaction from oh, I got this many likes or this many comments or this many shares, right? But it's generally amongst strangers, they really don't matter, they don't mean anything to you.

Sara Lohse [00:10:59]:

So it's basically vanity metrics.

Daniel Goddard [00:11:02]:

It's vanity metrics. Exactly what it is. It, it's, it's, it's ego based vanity, vanity metrics. And at the end of the day it just leaves you mo. It gives you momentary satisfaction and momentary dopamine and, and endorphins. But when it comes and goes, then the next one has to be better, otherwise you feel like a loser. Like, you know, you'll post something and you'll get like say a hundred comments and 6,000 likes. The next one's like, oh, I only got 20 comments and 400 likes.

Daniel Goddard [00:11:29]:

Why, what I do wrong? And then you start to go, is it me, what I do wrong? And then you'll see on social media, people constantly just doing whatever they can just to get clickbait or get vanity likes. But it doesn't solve the problem. And the problem is people just want connections. They want real humans that mean something to them, that have something in common that they can interact with. Because we as a species, and I've learned this through all the acting, we are a species that is designed to have interaction with each other. And without that, we start to fragment into these sort of like, I need attention, narcissistic vanity sort of posting sort of people. So I'm trying to bring it back to a place where we as humans can find real people that matter to us to make our lives mean more, whether it be from dating, whether it be in college, or whether it be professional. So it's got applications across all three areas there.

Sara Lohse [00:12:26]:

This reminds me. So I was at a conference about a year ago and it was for like business building and branding and networking. And they had us do this like exercise where they pretend you're walking into this room specifically to network. What do you do? And you're supposed to just like act out what you do. Do you go hide in the corner? Do you like gravitate to A large group. And I just went up to the people that ran it, and I'm like, am I allowed to leave? Because if this was real life, and I would not have walked into the room.

Daniel Goddard [00:13:01]:

Right, right, right.

Sara Lohse [00:13:02]:

I would, like. I would be up in, like, my hotel room waiting for that part to be over. Because I don't like to just walk up to people. It's my. One of my biggest fears. And I know that's kind of part of it too, with what you were going for, because social phobia is something that you talk about.

Daniel Goddard [00:13:20]:

Absolutely. In particular, college kids. The studies have come back that 35% of all college kids suffer from social anxiety disorder. I think Covid did a large number on a whole generation where, yes, it did. And then you throw in the fact that everything now is not face to face. It's phone to phone, screen to screen. So there's a generation of kids that have lost the capacity or never were taught the capacity outside of school to enter into a workplace or into. Into a world which has a massive amount of uncertainty and find a way to conquer that.

Daniel Goddard [00:13:57]:

So in my. The scenario here with you would be, what city was it in? Where was the location when you had that conference?

Sara Lohse [00:14:03]:

Fort Worth.

Daniel Goddard [00:14:04]:

Fort Worth. Was it like, at a convention center or like a Marriott or.

Sara Lohse [00:14:08]:

It was. It was in a hotel.

Daniel Goddard [00:14:09]:

Okay, so let's say it was at, like, the Fort Worth Hilton, for example. You could have stayed in your bedroom, up in the room, and you could have placed a pin, your disco billboard, if you wanted, at the convention center in the room. So you entered the GPS location of it, or put the Marriott or the Hilton, and it would place you there. And everyone who basically entered that room would match with you. So you could be away from that. And how will that matching take place? Have AI conversation. And then when you find those 5, 10, 15 people that actually have commonalities, say, hey, I'll come down and meet you. And when you walk up to them face to face the first time, you already know all the things we're into that match with you.

Daniel Goddard [00:14:50]:

You've already chatted with them. The AI did it because in our first iteration of disco, we realized that we were matching people. But then they were faced with the daunting task of actually conversing with each other. So that's where AI comes in now, is that we have AI matching. But also the AI conversation changes everything, because you don't have to now go, oh, what do I say? It does it for you based upon those commonalities, and you Have a work tone or a social tone so you could leave the room, finally go downstairs, you've already met the people that you wanted to meet, and all of a sudden you have a successful convention. And that's what AI does. So it's not, as you're saying, it's not AI, it's anti AI. And I love that expression.

Daniel Goddard [00:15:31]:

That was really cool.

Sara Lohse [00:15:32]:

And this. So I don't like to make assumptions. So I probably should not assume that you don't like, have, have that like fear of like social interactions just based on what you spent your entire life doing.

Daniel Goddard [00:15:44]:

I do. And I don't. You know what it is? I, I, I, I've learned to not care, okay? I, I've learned to get to the point where I realized that I've, I've, I've met so many people in my life that have either promised things or are meant to possess certain traits or qualities that, that can do for you what you're hoping they can do. But ultimately it doesn't really mean anything. So I can walk up to anyone now and be like, hey, this is who I am, this is what I'm doing. And if I get rejected, it means nothing to me. And it took a lot of rejection to get to that point. You know, I was rejected a lot.

Daniel Goddard [00:16:22]:

As an actor, you know, you're rejected a lot. And so ultimately you have to get to this place where you start to say, well, it's not me, it's just the situation and it's maybe them. So I think anyone can get to that. It takes a lot of pain and suffering. You know, it's like you're saying, you walk in the room, do I stand in the corner or do I walk up to people? And I think that it's taken me 25 something years to get to this point where I understand that it's never personal. Everyone's insecure. Everyone in every room is insecure. And the ones who aren't insecure, normally the narcissists who come across as not insecure, but they're the most insecure of all because their egos are so fragile that the moment you offend them, they start to either fold or they start getting, you know, confrontary in some aspect and they have to insult you.

Daniel Goddard [00:17:11]:

So I think that everyone is insecure, whether it be in the business environment, at a convention, because at a convention everyone's trying to make sales, everyone's trying to create deal flow, and that's massively insecure. It's cost you money to get there, set up the booth, go to this convention, you hope to leave going, that was worth it. I made some good introductions or I made some good business flow. So everyone's insecure about that. Your first day of college, you're insecure about not having friends. You go to a nightclub, you're insecure about, you know, will I, will I meet someone tonight that you know, whatever my purposes are, you know, will I meet the right guy, the right girl, Will I have a good time? So you know, it's interesting when we focus group the first version of disco, we had a bunch of girls, we focus, focus grouped it with UCLA college students. And one of the girls said, I would use this to find out if my ex boyfriend is at the nightclub I want to go to. And I was like, oh, that's really cool.

Daniel Goddard [00:18:03]:

I didn't think of that. So she's like, I would drop into the nightclub, look around, see who's there and who I match with to say, oh, I want to go to that nightclub tonight. But at the same time I'd be able to say, oh, my boyfriend's there. I don't want to go to that nightclub. So you start to realize that it's got dating potentials, has all these things. But that's because at the end of the day, human beings are designed to live in communities amongst like minded people that have commonalities. That's, that's, that's what we do. So that's my, that's my goal, to bring people together like that.

Sara Lohse [00:18:35]:

I feel like as an actor you spent so much time acting naturally. You played all your characters and you were the same character for over a thousand episodes. I can't believe you said you left Young, reckless, restless in 2020. I didn't know it was still going in 2020.

Daniel Goddard [00:18:53]:

That is, yeah, it's, it's still on now. It's.

Sara Lohse [00:18:54]:

So it started in the 70s, didn't it?

Daniel Goddard [00:18:56]:

Yes. 73. It's, it's fifth. Was it 50 years now? 50, 52 years or something.

Sara Lohse [00:19:02]:

I thought Grey's Anatomy was long. Like that is absolutely insane.

Daniel Goddard [00:19:06]:

Yeah, there's other ones out there too, I think. Was it Days Our lives is like 65 years or something. It's crazy.

Sara Lohse [00:19:11]:

God, that, that is insane. But you spend like all of that time and then you go to these events that like you said, like people are coming up to you, they want to talk to you, probably want their picture with you. Was it a challenge for you to step away from the role and figure out like how to be yourself in these Situations?

Daniel Goddard [00:19:35]:

No. That's a great question. No, because most people who meet you see you as the character. So they were mo. I'd say 90 of them would call me Kane, which was the name of my character. They'd be like, kane, we love you. And then they would come up to you and tell you things like, my love interest on Young and the Restless. For a long time, her name was Lily.

Daniel Goddard [00:19:52]:

And then be like, I have to tell you, Lily is talking to this other character, this other person. They tell you the name. Be careful. I think that she, you know, I'd be like, okay, cool. And once they're telling you like that, you just talk to them like, okay, cool. I'll make sure I tell her. Okay, thank you so much. But other people will be like, oh, my God, Daniel, we love this.

Daniel Goddard [00:20:07]:

We love this. And they're talking like, Daniel. So I think people would dictate the way that interaction took place. But at the end of the day, it's always gratitude, because you're grateful for having the opportunity to have what you have. You're grateful for having people to come there and meet. You're grateful for them coming up to you and going back to what you were saying about going into convention. You'll stand at a. You'll go to a convention or a sub convention or some form of fan convention, and the people line up.

Daniel Goddard [00:20:36]:

When they get to the front of the line, they're nervous. And the first thing you do is give them a hug and say, hey, don't be nervous. You know, because in their mind, they've built this up to be something that is big. You know, they've watched you for so long, so many years, and this is the moment where they meet you. And you know that that mindset is not just for people who come to a soap convention and they meet a character they love. That's everything. You can go for a job interview, and you've always wanted this job. You've always dreamed of working here, and now you have the opportunity.

Daniel Goddard [00:21:05]:

You know what I mean? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Like, you can you move to a new city the very first time? You've always wanted to move here. Now you're here, and you're walking down the street. You're not even interacting with anybody, but you're nervous. It's because we as humans build up these. These levels of expectation. You know, going back to branding, you finally got the brand done.

Daniel Goddard [00:21:24]:

You've come up with the name for it. You built the website, you've built the social media, and now you're about to run your first launch. It's. You're nervous because we have expectations. And one thing I've learned in life, and this is I always used to be expect the best. Because if you expect the best, you can somehow manifest it in the universe and it can come true. But you learn that that just leads to disappointment. So if you can expect the least amount of anything or the less you can get from it, then you'll always be pleasantly surprised.

Daniel Goddard [00:21:54]:

And it almost sounds like it's a negative mindset where if you told me this years ago, I go, that's stupid. Who would do that? Why would you go, oh, it's going to suck? Oh, it's this. I'm saying it's not going to suck. But just don't go, I've created this new product. Everyone's going to love it. All of a sudden, it's going to be sold everywhere, and I'm going to be a millionaire, you know, because it's not going to happen that easy and that fast, and all you do is get let down. So I think the goal is to. And I've met a lot of people myself that I was a huge fan of, like living in la, a couple of actors that I, I rarely would skill up to anybody and say, hi, whatever, you know, because I just kind of would leave people alone, have their own space.

Daniel Goddard [00:22:30]:

But I would see, I'd walk past someone and I'd be like, hey, I'm a big fan. I love your work. Right? And you will see instantly when you say that to some people, I'm talking about big names. And some people like, like this, or someone like, oh, thanks very much. I really appreciate that. And they'll keep walking. I worked. When I first got here, my first job was walking, walking, working in Denzel Washington's restaurant.

Daniel Goddard [00:22:57]:

And I, I waited on everybody who is a big star back then, from Mark Wahlberg to Will Smith, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Costner, Halle Berry, names, Dr. Dre, everybody. And I can tell you this. Every single person that I waited on that still has a career was an exceptionally kind and generous nice person. All the ones that you waited on that were like, get me this. I don't like that. That's not good. This sucks.

Daniel Goddard [00:23:28]:

I like that. What is this entitlement. Their careers have come and gone, and you realize it's the same as a brand. Your brand has to have a relatable trustworthiness to it. Where people go, I feel like this brand comes from a place of it's Genuine. It has to be genuine. And I think that permeates everything we do. If it's not genuine, people just smell the bullshit eventually and just.

Daniel Goddard [00:23:54]:

It comes and goes.

Sara Lohse [00:23:55]:

That's funny. I was a bartender in Baltimore City, and I served someone who was very famous, but on the political side, like, they were very famous political figure. And I didn't know this till after because I was like, well, like, they're very nice. Like, everyone was like, do you know who that is? I'm like, no, I haven't watched the news this year. And they. I. I think they were just really happy that I didn't throw something at them, because I had just looked it up and like, the last, like, public interaction that they had, people at a restaurant, like, threw drinks at them and.

Daniel Goddard [00:24:28]:

They went out to a bar. I'm surprised at that point that hadn't.

Sara Lohse [00:24:30]:

Right. They got a. They had the private room for their, like, family brunch or something. But I'm just like. Like, they. They seem nice, but that was the closest I got to, like, any. I don't think I ever served Kevin Costner. That would have been.

Daniel Goddard [00:24:45]:

Well, politicians. Yeah. I mean, the idea of being a politician, to me is very bizarre because there's not many people who say, I want to get into politics because I want to make things better. They just want power, you know, they want to be in a position where it's like, you know, I have power. If you're a politician that truly cares about your constituents and wants your constituents to have a better life, and you're going to go to Congress to fight for your constituents, I think that's kind of few and far between because most of them just get there and they stay there for 20 years, you know, if they can. And they just. Next thing you know, they retire and they're worth, like, 50 million, $100 million. I'm like, well, how did you get that rich on a salary of like, $200,000 a year? Doesn't make sense.

Daniel Goddard [00:25:23]:

The math doesn't. Math, yeah. So, yeah. Politicians are a different breed, though.

Sara Lohse [00:25:28]:

Yeah. Did you ever have that experience, though, of trying to almost, like, take off the mess that people actually tell, like, think you didn't know what was going on in the show outside of your character?

Daniel Goddard [00:25:40]:

Did. What did they think? Did they want. What was that?

Sara Lohse [00:25:44]:

Like, you. You said that they would come up to you and be like, lily is doing this. Don't trust it. Did they really think you didn't know?

Daniel Goddard [00:25:51]:

It's. It's interesting. I don't think I don't think that they. I don't think they did know. I don't think they knew I was Daniel. They knew I was the character and the character was there because it's funny, you've been in situations where you'll have, say, three girls. One will call you the character and two will call you Daniel. And then the friends, the two of them correct their friend going, no, it's Daniel.

Daniel Goddard [00:26:17]:

Okay, okay, okay. So Kane. And then the friends. And I'll look at the friends and the friends will look at them. We can't just have a laugh about it. But what it comes down to is that you basically have done your job really well because you're so entrenched in their mindset as this character, and you're so entrenched in their psyche as this, this person. Person that they watch that they, they don't differentiate between reality and the show. So I think that's probably a testament to great work on, on my side, you know, without myself, like a pat on the back.

Daniel Goddard [00:26:51]:

But you've done your job because that's what they see. So it, it does happen. And, and look, I suppose it's like a great brand. I mean, like if you see a can of Coke, like, you know, that's Coca Cola, you don't go, that's a high fructose corn syrup caffeinated drink inside a recycled aluminum can. You know, that's being overpriced and charged too much. And as I guess it should only be worth like 15 cents at most.

Sara Lohse [00:27:15]:

Most Coca Cola sponsorship. Thank you.

Daniel Goddard [00:27:18]:

Oh, sorry. It should be Pepsi anyway. But you know what I mean, like most people are ingrained advertising, marketing. Its goal is to ingrain the belief that that product, no matter where you see it, is a part of your life and it's something that you feel safe and friendly with. They don't want you looking at it for what it is. They don't want you seeing that that's what a can of Coke is. You know, they don't want, you know, people from a creative production side don't want people going, oh, that's Daniel. They want them to go, that's Kane.

Daniel Goddard [00:27:52]:

So it's interesting that there's a balance between people who see through the marketing and the branding. And there are people who don't, like, they get to the walls of branding and they stop, you know, they touch it, it's the brand. But there are other people who can cross over that and get past it.

Sara Lohse [00:28:08]:

Yeah, he's not here today, but I, the co host of the show is Larry Roberts.

Daniel Goddard [00:28:12]:

You don't need to come.

Sara Lohse [00:28:14]:

You need your own show by Larry. You're fired. Daniel said it. Kane gave me permission to fire you. But he. It's kind. It's. I mean, it's not the same level, of course, but he is known in a lot of places as the red hat guy because he wears his red hat.

Sara Lohse [00:28:32]:

His company's Red Hat Media, and he's known for this red hat. And there's so many people who don't know his name. They don't know actually what he does. They just know him as the red hat guy. And that was really cool at the beginning because it's like. Like he walks into a room, people know him. But then he actually realized that it's kind of now a challenge because he has to get people to look past the red hat and actually see, like, who he is and what he does and like, what, like, services he could offer. What have.

Sara Lohse [00:29:03]:

Have you found? Because I know you've taken that step into the branding and the marketing. How do you, as a personal brand, really build that reputation so that people do know, like, that's coke and how have them look past everything else and actually know you and who you are and what you do?

Daniel Goddard [00:29:22]:

Yeah, I. I think that going back to the Red Hat thing, I. I think what happens there is you have to start saying yourself that I'm becoming. To lose my identity as to who I am, and I'm becoming this other person. So therefore, at that point, if you start. You've built that base, maybe then it would be every. Every second time you go out, you don't wear the red hat. You know, eventually it's not gonna happen.

Sara Lohse [00:29:45]:

Oh, he wears in the shower.

Daniel Goddard [00:29:47]:

Has he got good hair?

Sara Lohse [00:29:49]:

He. He doesn't have much of it.

Daniel Goddard [00:29:52]:

Oh, that's why he wears the hat. Yeah, the hat. That's what the hat's for.

Sara Lohse [00:29:58]:

It's no he, you. No one has ever seen the top of this man's head, I swear.

Daniel Goddard [00:30:03]:

Interesting.

Sara Lohse [00:30:04]:

Yeah. Oh, you'd love him. He's great.

Daniel Goddard [00:30:08]:

Now I'm just trying to picture. It's like, there's a guy, Brett Michaels, he was a lead singer's band called Poison. And whenever you see him, he always wears a bandana. Yeah, he's got, like, the long hair. He's never had the bandana off anyone's. Like, what's under the bandana?

Sara Lohse [00:30:20]:

See, for me, I always think of that scare. I don't know if. And no one has ever gotten this reference, so I don't I doubt anyone will.

Daniel Goddard [00:30:27]:

No, no. I'm hoping I'll be the first.

Sara Lohse [00:30:29]:

Okay.

Daniel Goddard [00:30:30]:

I'm preparing myself.

Sara Lohse [00:30:32]:

Yes, it was a scary story from probably sometime in, like, the 2000s. There was the woman who always had the ribbon tied around her neck, and everyone always asked her why she had the ribbon, and she would never tell. And then finally she does. She takes a ribbon off and her head falls off.

Daniel Goddard [00:30:49]:

Oh, that's funny. It's not funny that her head fell off. I mean, that's kind of sad and tragic, you know?

Sara Lohse [00:30:54]:

But no one. No one's ever heard of this story. How? I feel like it was a fever dream. How does no one know the story? Everyone knew the story.

Daniel Goddard [00:31:03]:

I will look this up. I will Google this afterwards. I want to find out more about.

Sara Lohse [00:31:07]:

The girl with the green ribbon or something.

Daniel Goddard [00:31:09]:

The girl with the green ribbon. Okay.

Sara Lohse [00:31:10]:

I think it was green.

Daniel Goddard [00:31:11]:

Yeah. Well, I think. But see, that's like. If you look at people like Madonna, for example, and. And to a lesser extent. No, I won't bring up. Look at Madonna. I mean, Madonna, every couple years, would completely reinvent herself.

Daniel Goddard [00:31:25]:

She would go from, like, in the 80s, she was like the. The prom dress, wedding dress, kind of like pink and. And hair and ribbons. And then she went to, like, the dominatrix thing in. In erotica in the early 90s. And then she went to something else, then something else. And from her perspective is she didn't want to. She knew her fan base would always move along with her.

Daniel Goddard [00:31:50]:

But what's interesting is, is that as time passes, like, if you look at music, every five, six, maybe eight years, music cycles out again, because kids who turn 12, 13, turn 18, and the music they love through their teens kind of defines that part of their life. And then you get to the point where you hit 18. A lot of people when they get to 18, look back at those years prior to that as either a. That was really cringy. I hated it. I never want to go back there ever again. I want to forget it ever happened. And they want to move on.

Daniel Goddard [00:32:20]:

So everything that you associate with that time in their life, they turn their back on. So if you were a musical artist during that time, all of a sudden you get dropped from their. From their. From their brand affinity. So the brand's got to find a way to reinvent so that you take those people. And as you reinvent, they're also reinventing themselves. So you get to college, you no longer want to be the. The person you were in high school.

Daniel Goddard [00:32:42]:

You know, it's like A. Like a. One of those movies where you get the makeover, you lose the weight, you get in shape, you dye your hair, you know, you. Whatever it is you lose, or they.

Sara Lohse [00:32:52]:

Just take off your glasses and realize you're beautiful all along.

Daniel Goddard [00:32:55]:

Oh, my God. We never knew. It was just like Clark Kent. No one knew Clark Kent was Superman. I mean, who, who, who, who could figure it out?

Sara Lohse [00:33:01]:

Don't get me started.

Daniel Goddard [00:33:03]:

Seriously. I mean, when I realized that all you have to do is take, look, watch. Hey, you've never met me before. It's nice to meet you. What's your name?

Sara Lohse [00:33:09]:

Who are you? Where did Daniel.

Daniel Goddard [00:33:10]:

Wait, who are you? Why am I here talking to you?

Sara Lohse [00:33:12]:

Oh, you must be Kane. It's so nice to meet you.

Daniel Goddard [00:33:14]:

Oh, my God, that's crazy. Look.

Sara Lohse [00:33:16]:

Oh, you're back. Okay, I'm back.

Daniel Goddard [00:33:18]:

Sorry, I had to go and, like, I got worried. Yeah, it's. I didn't want to scare you too much sometimes. Nice to meet you again. But that's what happens, you know? It's like people are constantly having to find a way. How do you rebrand? How do you reinvent? Once again, if you're Coke, you have Coke Original, you never. You don't mess with that. But you'll launch Vanilla Coke, you'll launch Cherry Coke, right? So I think the goal in branding is once you have that thing that defines who you are and that one thing that people gravitate, gravitate towards, you have to add another thing into the mix, another thing, another thing, and that's you as a person.

Daniel Goddard [00:33:50]:

Like, you go through, you're 12 to 18. You hopefully can say, these are the things that I'm into and that define me, and I know a little bit more about myself. You don't throw that out. You keep that, but you add to the new stuff. So it's hard, I think, as a brand, to think that you can create a brand and not update it. You have to. It's like your clothes, like, you think about what you're wearing this time, this day. You weren't wearing the same clothes five years ago.

Daniel Goddard [00:34:18]:

Maybe you were. Maybe this is the only dress you own. Maybe you're like Einstein, you know, he wore the same thing every day, and he bought multiple copies because it took too much thought to put into what I was going to wear. So he wore the same thing every day, which I'm a big fan of, to be honest with you. As long as you wash it, it's clean. That's fair, you know? Yeah, hygiene helps.

Sara Lohse [00:34:37]:

I. As long as it's pink, I'll wear it. I've thrown out everything that's not pink naturally.

Daniel Goddard [00:34:43]:

Do you have any. You have any pink tattoos?

Sara Lohse [00:34:46]:

I don't, but I am. My brand is kind of centered around one of my tattoos, so.

Daniel Goddard [00:34:53]:

Which tattoo?

Sara Lohse [00:34:54]:

So it's the airplane that I have on my arm, and when I. Oh, God, we have to tell this story again. When I got it, I was on a solo trip in Ireland, and I asked for an airplane tattoo, and it looked like a penis. Years later, I got it covered. So now it looks like an airplane. But years later, I'm at a podcast conference, and I'm trying to get one of my clients booked on one of the biggest finance podcasts in the country. And I pitch him as an expert in all of these things. And the host just looks at me like, yeah, that's great.

Sara Lohse [00:35:32]:

I don't need an expert. I want someone with a cool story. So naturally, I didn't know what to say next, so I just said, do you want to hear about the time I got a tattoo of a penis while I was in Ireland? And he did, and I accidentally got booked on one of the biggest finance podcasts to tell that story.

Daniel Goddard [00:35:50]:

See, what you should have told him was is that your client used to be a tattooist, and all they could tattoo was penises. Not tattoo on penis penises, but tattoo penises. And he said, I want an airplane. And he didn't say, I can't do an airplane. So it ended up looking like a penis.

Sara Lohse [00:36:06]:

I mean, in his defense, I didn't specify. I just said airplane. He took his own creative freedoms with that and decided it had to look phallic. I didn't outright say, don't make it look like a penis. So it was. It was my fault.

Daniel Goddard [00:36:21]:

Well, there is a correlation between penis and airplanes. Is mile high both. No, they both can point to the sky.

Sara Lohse [00:36:32]:

This is true. So Larry's editing all of this out. I'm sure.

Daniel Goddard [00:36:39]:

Larry's gonna kill the fun part, right? Larry's the fun killer.

Sara Lohse [00:36:43]:

So when I wrote my book, I.

Daniel Goddard [00:36:46]:

Oh, you wrote a book? I want to see what's.

Sara Lohse [00:36:47]:

Oh, I did. It's called Open this Book. I love Telling for Aspiring Thought leaders, but it's about how to tell a story, and I learned how to tell my story on that podcast because he had to take my stupid tattoo story that was basically just a punchline and make it valuable for his audience. So he. The way he interviewed me, taught me how to tell a story, and it. And like, that experience Changed my whole career. And now I teach people how to tell their stories. I speak at conferences all over the country, teaching how to tell a story.

Sara Lohse [00:37:17]:

And I wrote my book. The second chapter is that entire. The entire story of the tattoo. The chapter is called the Girl with the Penis Tattoo. And I had a friend of mine illustrate it, and she'd actually traced my tattoo and put it on the COVID of the book, which is like a little Easter egg, because if you don't know the story yet, you don't know that's what it is. And it makes.

Daniel Goddard [00:37:39]:

What I like about your book is that it's. The COVID is. The art's great. It's not convoluted. It's easy to read. I like the color. I like the branding. I love it.

Daniel Goddard [00:37:51]:

Most people will try and put the kitchen sink on the front of their book. Oh, and there's a very famous book by. Was it Avi Kaufman? I think it's called Steal this Book.

Sara Lohse [00:38:01]:

Yes, it was written.

Daniel Goddard [00:38:02]:

It was written in the 70s and it was called Steal this Book. So you'd see it on a bookshelf and it'll. In a bookstore. It almost became a cult thing where people go, I gotta steal it. So you actually go, I did steal it.

Sara Lohse [00:38:12]:

So did he get sued by Barnes and Noble at any point?

Daniel Goddard [00:38:17]:

I don't know. I think it's maybe before Barnes and Noble. I'm sure it was Harvey Kaufman. But it's called Steal this Book, but open this book. I like that. But what happens when they open it? Should. Does the next page say, now read this book?

Sara Lohse [00:38:30]:

Actually, it says, what happens when we.

Daniel Goddard [00:38:33]:

Open the COVID Oh, good, you did see. There you go.

Sara Lohse [00:38:38]:

That is also.

Daniel Goddard [00:38:39]:

It should be. Yes, you can read now. Keep doing it. And turn the page.

Sara Lohse [00:38:43]:

Basically, Jasmine Designs out of Australia is actually who did it. And she's amazing. Um, but then I had custom pens made to give out with the book because it's half journal, and so, like, there's places to write your own story.

Daniel Goddard [00:38:56]:

Cool. I like that.

Sara Lohse [00:38:57]:

And so I had custom pens made, and after I'd already ordered them, and they say something like, your life is a story. I can't wait to read it. Or something like that.

Daniel Goddard [00:39:05]:

Sure.

Sara Lohse [00:39:06]:

But after I order them, she's like, please tell me the pen. Say, use this pen. And it didn't. And I'm still disappointed in myself.

Daniel Goddard [00:39:15]:

Use this pen like it's a penis.

Sara Lohse [00:39:18]:

That sounds painful. Don't do that.

Daniel Goddard [00:39:20]:

It does, doesn't it?

Sara Lohse [00:39:22]:

At least. At least retract the. To the tip.

Daniel Goddard [00:39:25]:

Exactly.

Sara Lohse [00:39:26]:

This all sounds terrible.

Daniel Goddard [00:39:29]:

Put the cap back on the pen so you don't. Don't damage the tip of the pen.

Sara Lohse [00:39:33]:

Yeah. Always practice safe writing.

Daniel Goddard [00:39:36]:

Always practice safe writing. True. Don't. Don't chew on it. Don't chew on the pen either. It's just like. It just.

Sara Lohse [00:39:42]:

No, no one likes a bitten pen.

Daniel Goddard [00:39:44]:

No one likes a bibbing pen.

Sara Lohse [00:39:46]:

But I'll send you a copy if you want.

Daniel Goddard [00:39:48]:

Larry's dipping his head now with his red hat.

Sara Lohse [00:39:52]:

I'm so sorry. Okay, well, it is.

Daniel Goddard [00:39:56]:

Wait, wait. I want to hear. So when did you launch your book? How many years ago is it? Recently?

Sara Lohse [00:40:00]:

Last year.

Daniel Goddard [00:40:01]:

Last year. Is it on Amazon?

Sara Lohse [00:40:03]:

It is, really?

Daniel Goddard [00:40:05]:

So if you want to go to Amazon, we go to Amazon and we just put in Open this Book.

Sara Lohse [00:40:09]:

Open this book. Yeah.

Daniel Goddard [00:40:11]:

See, I don't have to remember anything.

Sara Lohse [00:40:12]:

Else other than Exactly. Exactly. And it's the title itself is the Call to Action. You know exactly what I want you to do, right?

Daniel Goddard [00:40:19]:

Yeah.

Sara Lohse [00:40:20]:

There's my little awards collection for it.

Daniel Goddard [00:40:22]:

So is the sequel going to be called Throw this Book?

Sara Lohse [00:40:26]:

Oh, it should be, right? Yeah. Or, like, Close this book? It could be. I can't. I know.

Daniel Goddard [00:40:33]:

There's already this book.

Sara Lohse [00:40:35]:

Oh, that one's fun. Fun.

Daniel Goddard [00:40:37]:

So it becomes. Every book becomes an Easter egg.

Sara Lohse [00:40:39]:

Oh, I like it.

Daniel Goddard [00:40:41]:

Yeah.

Sara Lohse [00:40:42]:

So there. I know there's. Oh, there's steal this book. And then there's also, like, destroy this book, I think. Or it's like, destroy this journal. And that one's fun because, like, every page has a different thing you're supposed to do with it to destroy it. It's like, rip this out and, like, burn it and, like, dunk the whole book in water. Like, every page is a different, Like.

Daniel Goddard [00:41:02]:

Or maybe every page. Yeah, every. Not the book, but every page, you have to destroy the page. So once you read the page, you have to tear it out and then destroy it. And that's a symbolic way of learning the lesson from the book and then setting it free. And by the time you finish the book, there's no pages left, so you basically become the shaman monk of what you're trying to teach.

Sara Lohse [00:41:25]:

But just don't go, like, for Fahrenheit 451 on it and just start, like, burning books in general. We don't. We don't like that.

Daniel Goddard [00:41:31]:

We don't want to burn. But you can burn one of the pages. I mean, like, you could roll it up into, like, you know, big doobie or something, and then, like. Like, smoke this book. Smoke this book. There you go. Every page is actually roll your paper. So once you've read it, you make a big blunt out of it and you smoke this book.

Sara Lohse [00:41:47]:

There's actually a journal called like, use this while you're high. And I have bought it for so many of my friends.

Daniel Goddard [00:41:53]:

Right. You have a lot of high friends. Nice.

Sara Lohse [00:41:56]:

I mean, that's Texas.

Daniel Goddard [00:41:58]:

Is we legal in Texas?

Sara Lohse [00:41:59]:

No, I don't think so.

Daniel Goddard [00:42:01]:

Wait, because I know the porn's not legal in Texas and they just block, like, they block porn or something. You can't.

Sara Lohse [00:42:06]:

Yeah, you. You can't get on any. Any of the websites.

Daniel Goddard [00:42:09]:

You know, I find that kind of funny when you think about it, that a lot of people from California, New York, all flock to Austin because they wanted to have this sort of like a different experience, but they didn't want to pay the taxes and they didn't like the weather in New York. And then they got there and then all of a sudden they can't watch porn, can't smuggle.

Sara Lohse [00:42:26]:

That's. You know, that's. That's the. The problem I've been having. I'm just like, why did I move here? I moved here specifically.

Daniel Goddard [00:42:31]:

Your life is so pointless right now.

Sara Lohse [00:42:33]:

Yeah. Like, I moved here to watch porn and smoke weed, and here we are.

Daniel Goddard [00:42:38]:

So it'd be porn podcasts and weed. Epw. The porn. Yeah, the porn podcast and weed podcast.

Sara Lohse [00:42:46]:

Yeah.

Daniel Goddard [00:42:47]:

Yeah.

Sara Lohse [00:42:47]:

Would you like to launch it with me? We can co host.

Daniel Goddard [00:42:50]:

Sure, sure.

Sara Lohse [00:42:51]:

I think it's on brand for both of us.

Daniel Goddard [00:42:53]:

Well, I mean, you know, you like pink, so therefore there's a lot of. A lot of crossover there with. With the porn side. So. And your microphone's phallic and it's pink, so. Hey, you've already. You've already. You're already halfway towards the.

Daniel Goddard [00:43:06]:

Checking all those boxes off. Right?

Sara Lohse [00:43:09]:

And with that, just leave a little.

Daniel Goddard [00:43:11]:

Closer to this mic. I can't hear you. What'd you say?

Sara Lohse [00:43:15]:

I'm getting a new microphone. Okay. Daniel, thank you so much for being on Branded. This was pure chaos. How can people get in touch with you, find out more about you, get your get on the app.

Daniel Goddard [00:43:29]:

All of the things the they can go to under the in. That's U N-E-R-T-H-E-I-N.com for to look at the digital marketing branding inside the company. And the app is disco, which is D Y S K O. It'll be in the app and the play store in about three weeks, a month. I don't know when you're going to air, but basically it's Dysko. Just go to the App Store, the Play Store, and download it and check it out.

Sara Lohse [00:43:58]:

Awesome. And I am not as good as transitions as Larry is. So everyone go ahead and hit that subscribe button so we can keep bringing these purely chaotic episodes every week. And with that, I'm Sara Lohse. Larry Roberts will be back next week. And we will talk to you next week. Bye.