Rich Kozak is a strategic mentor for individual brands -- 49 years defining & languaging brands with his servant’s heart. Certified as a Global Branding Consultant, Rich worked with partners worldwide. Today, he shares his gifts with individuals -- heart-centered entrepreneurs & professionals, experts & authors -- evolving their top level umbrella brands with CLARITY that aligns everything they say & do, including creating & writing books to move their brand forward. Get your branding right!

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Today I have the pleasure of introducing Rich Kozak. And we are also at Patapalooza today. And this is what we call a blind date. So we are just being introduced to him right now.

And Rich talks about being an imp, having an impact driven life, how it can impact you personally as a family. And today we are really looking forward to seeing how impact can affect us as families. So we. Rich, it is a pleasure to have you here today.

Why don't you tell us a little bit more about yourself and what it is that you do.

Thank you. It's a particular delight to be here with you too. Families are so important. The book I read every morning says life is a team sport.

We're not meant to go through this life alone. And we're meant to live and live abundantly. And families are a big part of that.

So to give you a little bit of an insight into me, I've been married for four, 49 years and going on 54 Valentine's Days in February. I have two grown sons and three granddaughters. So I'm still learning. And family is hugely important. I come from a family.

Both sides of our family are people who are people of faith and who have read their Bibles and ask God for his will in their lives. And we've inherited Bibles filled with notes. And mine is. And I'm showing my sons. And so that's one of the pieces of legacy. But legacy is everything.

Legacy is the problems you've had. Legacy is the hurts. Legacy is where you came from if you're an immigrant, and this is the United States.

So there are a lot of people came from somewhere else. If you go far back, far enough. So everything that we create to pass on is legacy. So we get to create that.

It's not something you leave, it's something you create. Documenting it, sharing it. We come from a couple of generations where everybody had photos, they were on paper.

Now they're on phones, but we have them, even videos. Okay. So it's become easier to share. As long as it's not trivial if it's substantial.

So what we believe in, what we stand for, what we chose to go for. Some people. One of the women we just heard introduce herself said she just moved from Russia and left her family and came here first.

So that's all part of the Legacy that we get to leave. Language and words share energy.

So the words we use in documenting who we are, why we do what we do, what our family believes in and does together are very important.

So I on the professional side, rich brands these days for the last 10 years has been evolving personal brands, individuals brands with deep clarity that's often missing. And brands fall flat if they don't communicate with clarity.

Energetic longevity so that people can do what they love, enjoy for more decades and divine purpose.

Branding helps build businesses and makes us more abundant, but it also can create a platform that enables it to, to be easier for us to step into our purpose, into why we're really here. And any family, we're all created by the same creator and we all have the same opportunity to impact the world we touch.

That could be individuals and it could be millions in the most significant way we can with the gifts we're given.

So documenting those gifts and the path we've gone through to do what we're doing here, as long as we're allowed to be here, is a good family activity. And when families see that and do it together, what a powerful thing that is.

So branding is, is a very, an entrepreneurial business kind of a concept. And legacy isn't very talked about a great deal in our society anymore.

So how do we start bringing these concepts of creating a legacy and a branding inside of a family that's not necessarily involved in business to actually impact and bring together families? How does that structure work? How does it.

Or it's a good question. Any individual or couple or family can have the discussion about what impacts it wants to make.

If people are touched by the opportunity to have clients who have, who have brought children back from Ukraine orphanages and made them members of their family. I have people who love to build water wells in Africa. People see the impacts they want or education is a huge area.

Someone in our network was a foster care child and would have timed out, graduated out. So they turn 18 and now they're out of the program, but they don't have a home.

They, they don't have a real family often and they end up dead or on drugs or in the white slave market or, you know, it's like it doesn't turn out well. And he wants half those kids to come out as entrepreneurs now and he's working on it. You know, it's like everybody has an impact that or not. Okay.

It's not like if you don't have one, if you can't like write it down. Like there's something wrong with you. But you get to answer the question, hey, if you could make an impact, what would you like the impact to be?

And start thinking that way.

And if you run around the horn at the dinner table and said, hey, if you can make, you know, wave a wand, if you could make an impact, what would you do? A 40 year old might say something. I have a five year old granddaughter who's like, she talks like a 35 year old is remarkable.

She's got like CEO eyes, you know, and you're like, we just get to ask. Now that's a parent maybe asking children or an uncle asking, you know, a nephew.

Imagine if we turn the tables and we ask our creator, what impact would you like me to make? If I'm reading the Bible in the morning and, and I say, if I pray first, say, lord, help land on my heart.

The impact you want to land, help me hear what you want me to hear. Once we start asking, that speeds it up. So for people of faith, that's a good first step. Ask for people that aren't raised in the church.

It doesn't have to be churchy, it's just the impact question. But it starts the heart, the head, it starts the heart going. And so if we ask our head, you know, the head's going to trick you. It's going to.

If, if I said, wow, you guys are like, help, you know, educate, you know, that's really great. Like, who can you help? And if you ask your head, your head's going to go, rodeo clowns, we can help rodeo clowns, we can help the mailman.

It's like, you know what I mean? It's like the head is not going to help you. You got to go here. Right? So does that help?

Yeah, that's a good story. Absolutely. I love that connection between, you know, the parent and the child.

But then asking the other direction as well, because yeah, we need that divine inspiration, we need that deeper emotional connection to get that impact that you're talking about as well. Because if it doesn't come from the heart, if it doesn't come from a place of goodness, then it's probably not going to land.

And for people who are in the more secular world, they have what's called the blue Honda rule, where it's like you go out and you see a blue Honda and you think it's awesome and you've never seen one before, so you buy one and now you're driving it off the lot and every other car is a blue Honda. So by asking God, by asking every day, what, what impact do I want to have? It's like that blue Honda is going to start showing up.

The impact that you want to have is going to start showing up for you in ways and pretty soon it's going to be like, okay, yeah, that's what I want.

Blindingly obvious.

So it'll, it'll smack you upside of the head brain science wise by asking the question and again by asking God, because it is all related.

So it's, it's a, I have a test. I have a confession. Testament. So I, I ran a high tech agency for almost 20 years. Partners all over the world. Certified global branding consultant.

I was busy. Like busy busy. I did take time to change into an Indian guides outfit on the way home to get to the ending guides meeting in time.

That was like creepy because you know the beads and it's, they're sharp but. And boy scout uniforms get. The shoes are tricky. Sometimes you have to wait till you stop. But yeah. However, I was really busy.

So I was addicted to my job at the agency. And when I turned 50, I change my prayers. Lord, I'm going to resign this addictive career to change my life, reshape my life.

Show me what you want me to do. I'm ready. I prayed that prayer for about six months by the time I decided to leave. Until the day came and I'm still in show me mode.

That was years ago, but I'm still in show me mode. It was a couple years after that.

I was involved in a multi level marketing company and I was at an international training and there was a Sunday morning church service. You can do the math there. And at the end of the service they did a soft altar call. Considered 25,000 people.

About a quarter of them were not churched and they're young and they said, look, if anything's going on in your life, come on over to the side of the stage, let's talk to you. You know, we'll give you some things to read and we might even pray with you, you know, just come on over.

And all these people serve porn on the side of the stage and I'm way up in the rafters and I'm thinking, I stand up and I'm thinking, this is amazing. Here's a multi level markup and they're an outreach. What a marvelous thing.

Even if someone was raised in the faith like I was, I'm not going to brag, but I was the president of my confirmation class. Okay. Anyway, my faith was above my neck at that time it dropped later. But.

So, but, but if you're, you know, it's like me, but your business is here on one hand and your faith is over here. And I realized that was me on my way down. I made the decision, and I'm not kidding.

I think it had to do with the MLM thing because they always say, like, we showed you how to do the business, but you didn't do it. You need to go back to square one. I'm. Literally had that mindset and I said, I'm going to go back to square one.

I'm going to restart my faith as a new Christian and do what a new Christian would do. And one of those things is to read the Word every day. I wasn't doing it before I had a devotional.

I. I had the extra big print one that I read in the car on the way to the agency, Louisiana.

But grabbing at the same time.

Yeah, yeah, sorry, sorry. Well, it was, you know, this is rush hour, so we weren't going very fast because there was a lot of cars. But yeah, you have to be careful.

I have a really good mirror checking. Yeah, right. But. But yeah, this is. Do not share this with the dmv. So you the. Okay, so we took you. Yeah, that was kind of crazy.

So I walked out of the stage and. And I took their little Billy Graham literature and I went back to the hotel instead of going to the big party. And I just started.

I just made a commitment. And so I started doing that every day. And I wasn't reading the Word just to check, you know, like, I read the Bible 16 times last year. That I don't.

I've never done that, and I still don't do that. I read a devotional, but if it says, read this verse, I'll read the whole chapter. But before I do, I'll say, I'll ask, Lord, help. Land on my heart.

What you want. Land there and get. Give. Give me the message I'm supposed to get out of this. You start doing that, things change.

Well, I didn't always do that, but I made a choice. And that choice took me to a whole different level. And I truly believe the outcomes that I'm experiencing.

I believe the people that I connect with, the people that resonate with me when they hear me speak. There are no coincidences. It's intentional. And I'm not the puppeteer. Yeah.

So I'm on that quest in the moment. I'm igniting my faith in new ways and exploring.

So I get to do it from A really interesting perspective of brain damage because I got to a place in my life where I felt really good and is like, okay, God, I'm ready for the next challenge. And God picked up Mount Hood and hit me over the head with it and gave me a traumatic brain injury and basically erased a lot of my life.

So coming back from that has been really interesting to say the least. But so I'm now. The initial aspect of that took a lot of my faith away.

And so coming back to my faith now is a little harder than it was the first time, but a lot more meaningful. And so I'm really enjoying this journey I'm finding at the moment. And I would love to keep talking about this, but we are at Pat a Palooza and.

And we have time limits today and we are out of time. And again, love this conversation, Love where it went here at the end. Heart work. So, but again, how can we reach you?

How can our families get a hold of you? We got to be quick. We got about two minutes.

My the website, Rich Brands. What? It's above my head. Richbrands.org right on the homepage it says, talk with Rich for 30 minutes.

You can get on my calendar and meet with me and I will listen to your heart. Okay. I still do that. People say, oh, you shouldn't do that. I do it. I'm on Zoom. I'm not on a beach, I'm not on a yacht. I'm on Zoom.

It's not my work, so I got to be out there and I love to be out there. So that's one. If you don't want to be one on one with me and you just want to show, come to a free 60 minute masterclass. And here it is.

Brand first f I r s t or die dot com. Brand first or die dot com. I do it a couple times a month.

It talks about why we need to evolve the perception in the mind of our target that is our brand. It's the perception that's our brand. It's not what we think it is. It's their present.

You've got to evolve that or they might not let you in or see you as the one you must evolve. Brand firstordie.com so those are two ways. You can even email me richbrands.org thank.

You so very, very much, audience.

I want to connect you with Janet Vinceguera, the architect of character and comps and kids, because of your education, Ben, you guys get to know each other. It's awesome.

Perfect.

Looking forward to that.

Absolutely. All right, audience, you know what to do. Subscribe, like and share. And make sure that you're making these connections. Right.

They're put here for a reason. Whenever we find them. Our show is here for you as a family to help bring up happy, healthy and successful children. All right, everybody, bye for now.

Bye for now.