Why You Don’t Have a Choice Anymore: Adam Torres on Personal Brand Ep. 16

Why You Don’t Have a Choice Anymore: Adam Torres on Personal Brand | Ep. 16

In this special episode of The Story Lab, Jonathan sits down with Adam Torres, co-founder of Mission Matters Media, to talk about the truth people avoid: opting out of a personal brand is still a personal brand and it’s usually not helping you.

Adam shares how he went from managing nearly $200M in finance to building a media company and completing 6,000+ interviews, and why he used to be totally anti-branding until he saw what works. You’ll learn how to use “pocket stories” to connect with different audiences, why repeating your message is how you become known, and how to tell your story in different lengths, from an 8-second hook to long-form conversations.

If you’ve been stuck in “I don’t want to be cringe online,” this episode is your permission slip to show up in a way that actually fits you.

What we cover

• Why “not having a personal brand” is still a loud message
• Adam’s transition from finance to media and what sparked it
• The cringe factor: why most people avoid personal branding (and how to do it right)
• Authenticity: how to show up without performing for the algorithm
• “Pocket stories”: choosing the right story for the right audience
• Why repeating your story builds trust and authority
• Storytelling at different lengths: 8 seconds, 15 seconds, 1 minute, and beyond
• Adam’s short-form framework: hook fast, move from basic to complex
• How podcasting expands your reach and opens doors you cannot knock on
• Why launching messy beats waiting for perfect

Action Steps

1. Google yourself and audit what shows up (or doesn’t).
2. Build a “story file”: 5 pocket stories you can tell in 8 seconds, 60 seconds, and 5 minutes.
3. Pick one message you want to be known for and repeat it on purpose.
4. If you want to expand your network fast, launch a podcast and invite the people you want to learn from.

Guest + Links

Adam Torres (Co-founder, Mission Matters Media)

• Instagram: @AskAdamTorres
• Resources + agency inf

Chapters

• 0:00 The Case For Personal Brand
• 0:38 Adam’s Leap From Finance To Media
• 2:24 Book Launch And Unexpected Momentum
• 4:15 Podcasting As A Career Catalyst
• 7:29 Anti-Brand To Brand Believer
• 9:09 What No Online Presence Signals
• 12:16 Authenticity Over Trends
• 16:16 Story Selection And Audience Fit

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

By not having a personal brand, that is a personal brand. You may think that you're telling people that, oh, you value your privacy. No, that the way people read that is you're out of touch, you're old. How can you even say that you're you're you're you're part of the upcoming trend or that you're in tune in business without a personal brand? You can't. Somebody googles you, you don't show up, you don't show up for the right things, you don't matter.

SPEAKER_02: 0:38

All right, guys, and welcome back to another episode of the Story Lab. I'm excited today because we have our guest Adam Torres here, and he is the co-founder of Mission Matters Media. And I actually want to talk to you quickly about how you made the switch from finance to media, because that's an interesting switch. And uh, so how did you get started in media?

SPEAKER_01: 0:57

Man, Jonathan. So, first off, thank you for having me here. Uh, loving the hat. Come on, man. We're talking we're gonna talk about personal brand today. And let me tell you, that hat and that setup you have memorable. I've I've done hundreds acts, I've been on that done thousands of interviews. You're the first one with that brand, man. Congrats. I love what you're doing. Thank you. To answer your question, though, to in terms of making my my my switch from finance to media, first off, people thought I was crazy. Like I'll I'll throw that out there. There's there's no way, no how I managed a little under 200 million dollars. I was in that business for almost 14 years, and I'm in Los Angeles, so a lot of people come here to be famous, be in front of the camera. That wasn't my case. My I came here to be a financial advisor and to manage money. And when I started my own business, I had launched a book, and it was called Money Matters. It was my my first book. I wrote it myself. I didn't even want to write a book. Like my mentor said, you gotta do it. I'm like, ah, broke people write books. I didn't understand story, I didn't understand branding, I didn't understand helping other people and using your story to do that. Like I was a baby, I grew up in finance, I didn't know. All I knew was numbers, I knew the markets, I knew those type of things, but any of the rest, I didn't know. So I do my first book, um, I put it out, and uh some strange things start happening. All of a sudden, I'm I'm like, I'm getting this different type of attention. I'm getting booked for speaking gigs, I'm traveling, I was on a speaking tour as far away as China, like that's crazy. How are people finding me? Cold on LinkedIn. Like people were literally messaging me and offering me opportunities, and I was like, and I was like, this is different. When I was that before the book, that stuff wasn't happening. I was paying to speak, I wasn't getting paid to speak before the book. But and when I when I implemented and when the podcast came into play, that's when the world changed. It was like, whoa, like um, number one, I love doing it, love doing interviews, love helping other people, love hearing about their stories. I was already doing that as a financial advisor. I was on phones, and a lot of my clients were business owners, and we'd have these great conversations, and I'd always be thinking, like, wow, to let other people have the opportunity to sit in on this meeting would be amazing. And so that's where the podcast, the podcast eventually got launched, and it grew from there. And as it grew, I made a decision. It was like, which way? Which way does it go? Like, I I wasn't blessed with that, I don't know, that Elon Musk gene or whatever it is, that DNA that lets you do all these different things. I don't got it. I don't got it, Jonathan. I I I could do one thing pretty well, and I get and I beat my head against the wall until I get better um at doing that one thing, hence why I've done over 6,000 podcast interviews and interviews in general. And um, I did over 1,500 this year in 2025. Next year I'll do another 1,500 or 2,000, um, trying to get better. So I'll beat my head against a wall to get better, but I'm good at what I could do like one thing. Um so that that's what let me transition into media. Eventually went full time, um, exited the other business. It was no, I haven't been licensed in almost nine years. Going on ten years this December, I believe. That's gonna be our our anniversary.

SPEAKER_02: 4:01

Very good. So, what I love that you said, because this is something that I tell my clients all the time, is that you didn't know anything about storytelling. You didn't know anything about personal branding, you learned it.

SPEAKER_01: 4:12

I was anti. I thought everybody that did it was BSing. I was anti. I didn't not only would I not know, I was against it. I was even anti, I would go further to say in the beginning.

SPEAKER_02: 4:22

In the beginning you were anti. So why should people now that you're not anti, why should people build a personal brand?

SPEAKER_01: 4:29

Well, the first thing is you don't you don't really uh now in retrospect, you don't really have a choice. Like, and I know some people are gonna hear that and they're gonna be like, oh Adam, I got a choice and this and that. What they don't understand is that by not having a personal brand, that is a personal brand. By not being on social media, that is a personal brand. You know what you're telling people? You're telling you might think that you're telling people that, oh, you value your privacy. No, that the way people read that is you're out of touch, you're old. How can you even say that you're you're you're you're part of the upcoming trend or that you're in tune in business without a personal brand? You can't. You could say it to your friends, your buddies, other people around you, but to the world, no, that's not the way you read that. Somebody googles you, you don't show up, you don't matter, not relevant. I mean, you might be to your friends, your family. I'm not talking about as people. As people, that's a whole different conversation. Talking about is a personal brand. And if you think that by staying outside of that line or outside of that game that you're helping anybody, I'm sorry, you're not. You're hurting yourself, and you can't catch up on personal brand. That's the thing. Like, if you if you haven't done anything on your personal brand in the last 10, 20 years and you're a and you're a senior executive, consider that time lost. Like, but it doesn't mean that don't start, it doesn't mean don't start now. But what I mean by that is you can't go back in time and publish a thought leader piece on Forbes or an article from 10 years ago that somebody can search. Knowing what you know now, to not be building a personal brand is the definition of insanity. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_02: 6:01

Yeah, absolutely. And now when they're building their personal brand, obviously this is Story Lab, so we're gonna go into the stories. How do people use their stories and their personal brand in a way that's gonna help them be seen, not in a way that's gonna hurt them?

SPEAKER_01: 6:14

First thing I'd say is authenticity. You don't wanna um and so I teach a personal brand accelerate for full transparency for everybody listening. And the first thing that my students normally come in and and they're they're thinking, and normally my student's gonna be somebody that's gonna be a senior-level executive. It's gonna be somebody that probably hasn't done too much, and they're scared or were scared to do it because uh they think that they have to all of a sudden be doing selfie videos or dancing on TikTok or who knows. Like people get these ideas in their head based on what they have to do, but what they don't realize is that what they want to start with is authenticity. You don't have to do something you're uncomfortable with when it comes to building your personal brand. You can be a you you have everybody everybody, I don't care who it is, has a story, everybody has an expertise, everybody has a journey. So finding out the correct mixture of that to get your your expected result is an art. I agree with that, but it it starts with authenticity. And so once you once you're thinking about your story, what matters and what's authentic, the next thing you do is you wanna you gotta you gotta think about what your goal in sharing your story is. So I'd say that's where you start. First, make sure anything you do is authentic. If you're cringing or anything else like that, other people will too. And what's the definition of that? If you're not if for some people it's authentic to, you know, launch a show, it's authentic to start doing selfie videos, doing all these other things. Probably if you're watching this and you've never done some of that out there stuff, it's probably not your authentic brand because if it was, you would already be doing it and you wouldn't be listening to this. No offense.

SPEAKER_00: 7:51

You'd be like, Adam, I get it, you would have already like tuned off.

SPEAKER_02: 7:55

Yeah, yeah, and I get that. And you know, I work with I actually just built a collective of uh female coaches who were in corporate and are now trying to show up online. Oh, I love that. They're absolutely in that place where they're like, I don't know what to do. I feel cringe with everything, and you know, just getting them to tell their story where they came from, their experience. I mean, they've got corporate experience that goes for years. Uh yeah. That's where I came from too.

SPEAKER_01: 8:20

So I know that nobody knows about. That's the thing. It's in their head, maybe they're immediate, like people around them know, but people like that get in trouble. Like if their company closes, changes, whatever else, and now they're out there even just looking, not saying it's your individual group, but they're out there looking for a job, and all of a sudden they've never had to look for a job in the last 10-15 years of their life, and the entire market changed. They can't even get somebody to look at their resume or their because why? Not because they're not amazing, it's because AI's taking part over that part of HR. So if you don't have that relationship or if you don't have that brand, they're not even gonna get a shot.

SPEAKER_02: 8:57

Yep, yep. It's amazing to me because I left corporate seven years ago after 18 years with Barnes and Noble College bookstores, and it was impossible for me to find a job. Having 18 years of experience has so certain expectation. So I went and did this on my own and and it worked really well.

SPEAKER_01: 9:12

Wow for me.

SPEAKER_02: 9:13

But it would have been nice to be able to do something, and I know how they feel. Like I got downsized, I got all this stuff, so it's it's scary. I get that. Yeah. But um so how do you pinpoint a story that's gonna resonate with your audience? Like you're trying to figure out which one of your stories to tell.

SPEAKER_01: 9:32

Yeah. I don't think there's one. I I like to think of it, and I I I I've always said this, I don't know what if it's a real term or not, but I have like pocket stories. I I I number one, whenever I'm I'm looking at an audience, you gotta think about your audience. I'll take it from the speaker standpoint for a moment. Um, if you're speaking and you're looking at an audience, you want to know who's in the who's in who's in the crowd. That's why I say the goal is so important. Um but but let's say that you do know who the crowd is, who you're telling this story for, then you want to have a couple of them. You want to have a couple of them. So the one that I just told you just now, the um personal brand story. Now there's there's a way to tell that particular story and how I made the transition into media that is a little bit more on the media side and on the growth side. There's a way that I that I tell that exact same story when I have a heavily Christian audience. When and this audience may be Christian, I don't know, but but uh that's very and and I go a little bit more into detail on the very specific moment that I got the calling and I understood that it was time to make the transition from finance to media. I have a really specific Christian story that I use for that one. I have a finance in corporate America way to tell that exact same story that I told you that leans heavier on finance and numbers and media in terms of talking about trends. I have a way to tell, so there's a bunch of different ways to tell that. So I have a way to tell that story for marketing. People that if I'm in front of a media, if I'm doing a keynote in front of a um audience full of media executives, where I can tell that exact same story, and I can tell that story talking about trends in media and why podcasting is so important. So I could I probably told that exact same story that I'm telling that I just told you, maybe 10, 10, 15, maybe 20 different ways to tell that exact same story, highlighting other things. But the key here is you gotta know your audience. If you know your audience, or if you know who you're trying to reach with that exact message, it's great. And for everybody listening, I didn't that's worried about this is what people normally tell me when I tell them this. They're like, Yeah, but what if somebody heard the story before? This or that? I said, Are you kidding me? That's the best thing ever. If somebody would be like, I remember that guy told that story, then you know what they start calling you? Les Brown, Tony Robbins, Oprah. They've been telling the same story 30, 40 years, and we love it. And if I'm in the audience here and Tony or some one of these greats tell their story, I'm like, give me the popcorn. I can't wait. I get to hear it again. It's amazing. It almost feels good like a nice, a nice, comfy pair of shoes. When I hear Les Brown tell a story about about his mom and Mamie and all the other things he did and losing his house and all the and the bad things that he did because he didn't know he he made a bad investment and there was tax lean on there. How many times have we heard that story? If you're a Les Brown fan, you know exactly what I'm talking about when I'm saying that. He's told that story a thousand times minimum, and I love it every time I hear it again.

SPEAKER_02: 12:25

Yeah, and I love that because one of the things that I tell my people is one, they've got to repeat their message because they need to be known for something. And that's how you get known for something is repeating that message. And I love that you kind of talked about what I call a story file, which is all the stories that you tell, you know, and the different lengths that you have them in and the different audiences that you tell them to. So I love that.

SPEAKER_01: 12:45

I love that. So length. I I gotta throw that out there. I love this. I do talking about like, okay, if you're on TV and you got like a one-minute spot in between something, you can you have to be able to tell that story within that one minute, and you have to be able to drop the couple of things you want to drop in there no matter what question they ask you. If you're on a longer, a longer format, then you have to be able to do it for that. If you're on an hour podcast versus a half an hour podcast versus a 20-minute podcast, you have to be able to fill all of those with that same story. That's advanced stuff, Jonathan. Obviously, you and I know that. But here's the thing: if you can do and you can convey emotion and get your story out in that little TV spot where you got a minute, maybe more, if you're lucky. Amazing. If you can do it and you can elongate and build color and you can build layers of complexity, and you can add emotion into that story in front of 10,000 people. You know what they call you? Rich.

SPEAKER_02: 13:42

Yeah. And I sit there and I tell them all the way down to the eight seconds that we have in short form video. You've got to let a message out in eight seconds, and that's hard. That is definitely hard, but that's the hardest for me.

SPEAKER_01: 13:54

I was, I'll tell you who taught me that the first time, and he gave me the tip. And I was this is years ago. So I was at I used to do a bunch of videos for Ty Lopez way back in the day, and for the like uh social media accelerators and all the other things. Like I was one of the instructors and just did a bunch of like collabs and stuff like that way back before we called it collabs. Uh and he taught me the first the first lesson I had on a 15-second video. He taught me, and I give him credit for this, is he says the the trick with the 15-second video is you gotta have the hook in the beginning and you gotta start basic, but you can't stay basic too long. You have to go from basic, you have to hook, go from basic to complex, and by the end of that video, you have to go to complex as fast as possible, but without losing your audience, because that's gonna give you the widest audience, because the 15-second video, if you start off too complex in the beginning of it, then you lose the audience that doesn't follow. If you stay there too long, then you lose the audience that already knows that information but wants to see what else you have to offer. So in that 15-second video, you got to do a whole lot. And I worked for years on trying to on undoing the 15-second video.

SPEAKER_02: 15:03

Yeah, yeah, and really being it has to be a dynamic video, no matter how you cut it, and that's that is tough.

SPEAKER_01: 15:09

I'm still working at it, by the way. I'm not saying they're good. Go to Instagram if you're watching this. Ask Adam Torres. I'm the shameless plug. I'm like, Ask Adam Torres on IG. I'm not saying my videos are good, I'm just saying I'm working on them.

SPEAKER_02: 15:21

We're working on them, and that's a good thing. That's the other thing. We can always work, we can always be better no matter what it is we're doing. So I got one last question for you. So you're an entrepreneur and you want to reach outside of your immediate sphere of influence. How do you do that? What stories do you tell? How do you increase that reach, that impact that you want to have?

SPEAKER_01: 15:40

Start a podcast 100%. That's it. You gotta you gotta start a podcast, period. That's the only way to do it in today's day and age. Like if you want if you're especially if you're trying to reach up. So specifically, if you're trying to reach up, like why should some really experience like I don't care what level you're at, why should I speak for myself? I'll I'll throw it out there. So I got a you know, decent-sized little company. We're doing okay. Um, I want to I still want to meet and leverage and and meet other people that are higher than me, always. And I want to meet people that that are doing interesting things. And this deal isn't inked yet, but uh let's just say knock on wood, it should be happening based on the team behind it. Next year, I should be interviewing three African presidents of countries. That can't happen without a podcast. What are you gonna be? Like, be like, hey, Mr. President, can can I can I can you be my mentor? No, you gotta have something of value to give people. Yeah, like and so when you start a podcast, you have something of value to give people. And the interesting thing about a podcast is is that it uh is that it attracts other people, and now you have a platform, and now you have I don't care if you got five listeners, now you have a platform, now you have something you can offer other people. Now, is everybody gonna want your platform or what you have to offer? No, but that's okay if they don't want if they don't want if you're giving away a free interview and they don't want that, then you weren't gonna get to talk to them anyway.

SPEAKER_02: 17:04

Offer it up the worst thing is you just don't ask. You you'll never know unless you ask. So this gives you the opportunity to ask and and connect with people. Absolutely love it. All right. Well, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for sharing such great tips in a really quick I know it's really quick, a really quick uh episode here. Um, is there anything that you want to share that we might have missed or where they can find you if they want to reach out to you?

SPEAKER_01: 17:29

Again, I'm gonna circle back on launch your own show. Launching and being in the podcast space has absolutely changed my life. I'm not just saying that because I'm a guy that does show uh that does production on podcasts. I mean, use a company like ours, do it yourself. My first podcast, it took me like 10 minutes to launch. I went on there, it was crude, it wasn't perfect, it wasn't even edited. I did my first 300 episodes, not even edited. Guess what? We grew an audience. It's okay. So if you got money and you can invest, obviously hire an agency like ours. If you don't and you're like do it yourself, or it's okay. I'd rather you do it yourself, get out there, stumble a little, learn than to sit on the sidelines and not do anything. So launch your show. If you want to learn, uh connect with me, ask Adam Torres on Instagram is the easiest way to do it. We have there's a link there, a link tree link. And if you click on that, you'll see our agency. You'll see a ton of free resources, books, there's all kinds of stuff there. You can go down an endless rabbit hole. But and if you got a show idea you want to pitch, DM me, shoot me a DM. So Ask Adam Torres on Instagram.

SPEAKER_02: 18:30

Right, awesome. Thank you very much again for being here.

SPEAKER_03: 18:32

Story the ones they remember, the spark in the night, the voice in the crowd. Turn your medicine to something that's better than stand up. Speak out, say it loud, make up this thing is the time.