Executive On-Camera Mastery: Rich Bornstein's Expert Tips for Authentic Video Communication

In this episode of Play the King & Win the Day, host Brad Banyas sits down with media strategist Rich Bornstein of Bornstein Media to discuss his "Clarity Framework," a strategic approach designed to help executives overcome on-camera awkwardness and speak about their business with genuine conviction. 

Rich emphasizes that for high-level leaders, positioning and authenticity is the ultimate "secret sauce" for building an emotional connection with a sophisticated audience. Our discussion provides actionable tips for busy professionals and offers a roadmap for tuning out the noise, identifying your storytelling "nuggets," and mastering the art of the camera to elevate your personal and professional brand.

About Rich Bornstein:

Rich Bornstein is a video storytelling strategist, Forbes contributor, and founder of Bornstein Media. He’s spent his career inside some of the world’s most influential storytelling environments, including Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, and the Samuel Goldwyn Company, leading campaigns seen by millions and contributing to Oscar and Emmy-recognized work.

Today, Rich works with B2B founders and leadership teams to uncover the story at the core of their brand before anyone turns on a camera. He calls it The Clarity Framework, and it’s changing how companies think about video, executive presence, and trust.

Connect with Rich at the links below:

Rich on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardbornstein/
Bornstein Media: https://bornsteinmedia.com/

Transcript

Brad Banyas (00:00)

You're listening to play the king win the day today we talk to Rich Bornstein a video storytelling strategist, a Forbes contributor and founder of Bornstein Media. He spent his career inside some of the world's most influential storytelling environments including Warner Brothers, Paramount Pictures and Samuel Goldwyn Company leading campaigns seen by millions and contributing to Oscar and Emmy recognized work.

Brad Banyas (00:37)
Rich, welcome to the show. I'm really excited to talk to you, brother.

Rich Bornstein (00:41)
Hey, thanks for having me, man. I mean you know, we've been going back and forth a little bit, just, you know, we've had a little pre-call. You're an awesome dude. So, you know, so it's kind of an honor to be able to spend a few minutes with you. I can tell that you, you know, be a fun guy. Let's, you know, let's make a point when you come out to LA, you know, we'll have a bourbon and a cigar. Well, you know, we'll be good. So that'll be great.

Brad Banyas (00:48)
Yeah. Thank you.

I would love that. My sister lived in Malibu for a while, so I got to spend some time out visiting her and ⁓ love LA area. So I'm going to take you up on that. Yeah, she she well, you know, she she's, she's a smart one of our crew. She graduated from Harvard, went to Pepperdine Law

Rich Bornstein (01:12)
What a terrible place to live in Malibu right on the beach. mean, that must be awful.

Brad Banyas (01:24)
And when I went out there, you know, I was kind of the jock guy had gone to five or six colleges. I liked the girls in the Southeast. So I just went to about six different schools. ⁓ when I saw I met her at Pepperdine and when I went up to Pepperdine and saw all those, you know, five, 10, five, 11 blondes walking around with a lot of money, I was like, my God, this is why my dad wanted me to study in high school. Like he knew what he was talking about. So anyway.

Rich Bornstein (01:50)
Well, okay. I don't want to go down that path because we could,

we could, we could, you know, get really, we could get off the point, but thank you for that nice intro. ⁓ listen, I realized that what's, you know, what is the central theme of everything I've done throughout my career? What is it? It's positioning. It's grabbing people in the lead. Like when I was a journalist, what, if you didn't grab people in the first sentence or two, they weren't reading your story. Okay.

Brad Banyas (01:58)
Absolutely.

Right.

Rich Bornstein (02:19)
Now I transfer to the studios. Okay. Is it a great Shakespearean movie or a great film based on Shakespeare? Okay. I always opt for the latter. Who the hell wants to go see a great Shakespearean film except for three academics, you know, in London, you know what I'm saying? But they will go see a great film that happens to be based on it. And, you know, fast forward to today, Hamnet is just a great film. I mean, I, you know, listen, I passed, I used to be

know, Shakespeare was like my middle name. And I now it's, got to admit, I mean, I, you know, worked with Kenneth Branagh for a long time and I'm going, God, a Shakespeare movie. So I was a little reluctant to see it. And someone kind of grabbed me at the gym and said, Rich, see the damn thing. And I did. And it was fantastic. Why was it fantastic? Cause it would had heart. Okay. It, you know, just, it just happened to be based on Shakespeare and his wife, you know, fictitional. And, and it was just like, okay.

It was the heart that brought to it. So I realized, okay, now that I'm out of the studios and I'm running my own business, the same principles apply. It's like, need to know, speak from the heart, speak authentically, speak with clarity. And what is your position on things? It's not the what, it's the why. Yeah, sure. There's a thousand people that do what you do, maybe 10,000.

Maybe a hundred thousand, maybe a million. But there's you have a secret sauce that sets you apart. And that's really what that's my goal. And video is the number one thing in life now. I mean, who's reading anymore? I mean, I hate to say that I got shouted down. I've written six books. I resent that. But the reality of it is people are not reading. They are, you know, they're getting their things in, you know, increments of 60 seconds or two minutes or whatever, whatever they can digest while they're on the go. And

And that's why I concentrate on the video, but with a twist. And that is, start with your why. Everything else will follow.

Brad Banyas (04:25)
Well, what you and I, so, you know, just haphazardly, we, I don't know, we ran into each other or on LinkedIn or whatever it was. And you had written an article that was just another article just for, was just published in Forbes. So congratulations, you know, you're not just doing this or an author. And so you had to read a little bit your background as a journalist. So don't fool everybody rich. You, you're an avid reader, but, but really you had sent something and said, what do you think about this? And as someone who had not been on camera a lot,

Like, so, you know, I've been a business guy my whole life. You know, you've been on zoom calls and go to meetings and all this good stuff, but I was never forced to do anything like this. And, you know, we just happenstance got into a brand, wanted to tell people stories. So I had to get comfortable in front of the camera because I don't think it's natural for people to kind of talk what I say into the abyss. Right. And you were asking me, well, why do you think the video is good? I said, well, because you can see my facial expressions.

You can see if I'm excited. You can see if I'm genuine. You can see if I don't like what you say because your eyes don't give it away. Your face doesn't give it away. So I was just really intrigued with what you were doing in the executive space and helping people because it is awkward. It's very awkward to do this when you start out.

Rich Bornstein (05:44)
Well, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. I mean, between you, me, and, you know, your millions of listeners and viewers of this thing. ⁓ I can't stand being on camera myself. This is something that I do. You know, this is what I've been doing, you know, throughout my career, basically. I mean, not when I was a print journalist, but certainly at the studios, was shepherding these people to go do interviews. And, and, you know, that was part of my thing and, setting the strategy. And, and then now it's like, Hey, Rich, if you're going to

preach this stuff. Get your butt on camera. And I got to tell you, what do I notice about myself on camera? I got a five head as opposed to a four head. my God, I hear my own voice. And it's like, so I have have somebody interview me. Okay. Otherwise it's like words that I've written. It's like, get tongue tied. Okay. So, so it's a, the art is blocking all that out.

Okay. It's not performance art, which is what people think. It's just getting rid of the noise and having the courage of your convictions and doing it. And guess what? I get, you know, we're going to get to some examples. You know, when you speak authentically from the heart, that's what's going to get through to people. The great performers, and we don't need to go down that path about who, you know, the great performers are that, you know, that we see every day. It's like, there's no there there.

Okay. But in business, there better be a there there because otherwise people are going to tune you out so fast. You're not even, you're not even going to get, you're not even getting to the next level. So that's, you know, that's, that's what it's important. And look, we all have flaws that we would, would like, don't really like ourselves on camera. We're not perfect. Hey, okay. You know, I mean, I hate to tell you, you know, some of the people that you saw.

you know, before or after without the right lighting or without makeup or whatever. And we're not going to go down that road. But, you know, we all have flaws. The idea is just to get through all that, block that nonsense out and speak from the heart, man. You know, really figure out what your messaging is, figure out what the truth is, and then identify that and go through it. So, ⁓ yeah, I mean, you have to, Brad.

Brad Banyas (07:57)
Yeah.

Rich Bornstein (08:09)
I mean, you've got to take the next level. Yeah, and yes, I do read and yes, I've read a lot because, you know, I mean, I even think I have some books on me. They just haven't gotten out there yet. But yeah, it's not like I sit there and just look at, you know, TikTok videos all day. a matter of fact, I don't because once you go down that road, that's all you do. And so, you know, can't do that.

Brad Banyas (08:15)
Ha

Yeah.

Well, I love how you so, ⁓ we just said, David Meltzer on, and he was talking about, ⁓ you know, ⁓ persistence with purpose. And so when I saw your, you know, clarity with purpose, right. based on your clarity framework of how you kind of help people guide people, teach them to do this. It made, it made a lot of sense to me personally. And I think, ⁓

What's hard as I would say as an executive, specifically in a bigger company, right? Where you've got, you know, you've got marketing, you've got PR, have all of these influences that are just hitting you from all areas. So this is a message. And most of these messages are marketing BS, right? We put the whatever, we put the Y and Y or whatever the trendy bullshit is. And the hard thing I think is for someone to say like, I don't know if I believe like,

I understand what we're doing from a marketing perspective, but I've got to tell, you know, the world like, like your why, like you were saying, really, why is this company in place? Why did I join this company? And a lot of times I don't, I don't think people know because they've been sold so much marketing or positioning or, know, the market data says this. And I think that would be very hard for a fortune, you know, fortune 100, fortune 500, just your thoughts on that.

Rich Bornstein (09:59)
Okay, well, okay. So my, previous piece I did on Forbes actually was about executives being on camera and you know, they're being handled by their handlers, you know, the market, the marketing people, their publicists, whatever. And I say, you got to strip away that nonsense, just what you said, strip it away. Okay. So in other words, when you, what are the issues that are there instead of going to your stump speech, instead of go, we're working hard to address all your concerns. No.

Brad Banyas (10:27)
Yeah.

Rich Bornstein (10:28)
You hit it head on. We know that there are some challenges today. You know, we are not, you know, our, our bottom line is not where we want it to be. We realize there are factors. We are addressing those things and here's how we're doing it. Do we have all the answers? No, we do not. But we are addressing it by doing this and this and this. Now, all of a sudden your audience is going to, they're going to, you know, prick up their ears and go, ⁓ the guy's not full of it. Okay.

He's not talking in platitudes. Listen, when I was in a studio, they did one of their purges and they, you know, and we knew what happened, what really happened. They called after firing, you know, like a lot of the workforce. I don't know the numbers anymore. They called us all into the studio theater and they said, you know, okay, congratulations, you just made the cut. But now listen, any negativity that comes out of here, you're going to be fired immediately.

And we're looking at each other going, dude, the reason you're sitting up there talking to us is because you were negative. And you know, so we knew, you know, we knew the story behind the story. He lost the room at that particular moment instead of like hitting it hit on. Listen, we hit some rough times. We're looking at our schedule going, we don't see where the hits are coming from. So as tough as it was, we had to do it. That would have been honest. You know what mean? And look, we're, we had to get rid of people because let's face it.

Brad Banyas (11:33)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Rich Bornstein (11:56)
We're only as good as, you know, Wall Street allows us to be. If our stock goes, you know, down, you know, down the toilet, then, you know, then, then, then we're done. We're done too. That's honest. Okay. So that's, so that's positioning. So, but I did have to look in the mirror cause I laugh because I realized one of my favorite pieces that I ever did, one of my favorite stories that I've ever told was something that I call beautiful noise.

Brad Banyas (12:07)
Yep.

Rich Bornstein (12:25)
I mean, it was, it had everything. It had everything. I mean, it had young, energetic people that, you know, that were scientists. So they were brilliant in their own way. Okay. They were very articulate. That was fantastic. Major network person behind it. Okay. So there was a lot of credibility to it. They said here, here's six or seven of our finished episodes that we shot. You go do your thing. Create.

Create a cool two minute sizzle for us, because we need to get this out there. It was one of my favorite sizzles ever. It was incredible. I loved it. To this day, it's still one of my showcases. Why did it fail? There was no, there was, they hadn't done their, they hadn't done the work. They hadn't asked themselves the hard questions. They hadn't, they were just worried about presentation. And they were shot down because they didn't do, they took the shortcut.

Brad Banyas (13:16)
Right.

Rich Bornstein (13:23)
They didn't do the research, they used stock footage to prove their points. So the people they were going after said, what the hell do we need this for? Just because there are interesting people on screen? No, if we're going to do this, there has to be something behind it. And so that taught me that lesson. And that's one of the things that led me to what I call the clarity framework. that's like, anytime I talk to somebody where the... ⁓

an executive, a founder, know, somebody in a position that, you know, where their voice matters. I always ask three basic questions. OK, so what insights are we building on? What's the one job that this video has to do? I mean, that's those are pretty straightforward. What do you actually believe? Not what you want to believe. What do you actually believe? Start with those three questions. Then we can get to it.

Brad Banyas (14:20)
Yeah.

Rich Bornstein (14:20)
Now

I've been around enough to know, you know, let's pull those nuggets out. I mean, I love it when I'm sitting with somebody and they go, ⁓ you've done your homework. I mean, to me, you know, that, that, then, then I know that we're, you know, we're communicating and they know that I'm just not reading from a list. You know, I work, I work with the guy. He like, you know, he, he likes to do the interviews and then, you know, sometimes it's just, well, the paper says this. I can't do that.

Brad Banyas (14:37)
Absolutely.

Rich Bornstein (14:47)
You know what mean? You know what mean? The paper doesn't say anything. You know what I mean? It just reminds me of what it is. So there's natural follow ups that you need to be aware of. So if you can't answer those three things honestly, then you're really not ready to get in front of the camera, in my opinion. You could fake it. You can try. Maybe some people won't recognize it, but I think in today's sophisticated world, they know.

Brad Banyas (15:06)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Rich Bornstein (15:15)
They

know when you're just shooting from the hip, when you're not really committed and you're not really telling your stories. So that's, that's what the clarity framework is about. It's pretty simple, you know, but I've got some pretty, you know, amazing comments from people. go, wow, like, yeah, like, yeah, that's, that's interesting. So it just comes from a lot of experience and listen, not everything goes, goes smoothly. You have some people that are just blocked.

Brad Banyas (15:44)
Yeah.

Rich Bornstein (15:45)
You know, they're

Brad Banyas (15:45)
Yeah.

Rich Bornstein (15:46)
not going to give it to you. mean, I met, you I interviewed somebody no matter what question I asked him, answered whatever the hell he wanted to. No matter how I phrased it, didn't matter. So, you know, you're going to run into stuff like that.

Brad Banyas (15:57)
Yeah.

So, so what do you, I'm just curious, like what you think. So the world's kind of, first of all, in storytelling, I've in previous things we do, I've always thought it was one of the things I liked being doing a podcast around these artists and stuff is because it was really just kind of, let's hear your story. Like it's, let's hear it, right? Let's tell the people your story. So I think the art of storytelling is kind of then pushed aside from a traditional culture perspective, right? I truly believe that I think we need more.

grandpas, more uncles telling stories about, this is what your dad was like, or your mom or your son or whatever it is. We need that kind of storytelling just natural to us, not like it's being pushed on us. But I wanted to ask you like, what do you think about now? Now the pushes back to really kind of the individual build your own brand, right? So now you're going out and it was the influencers and now we're saying, know, Susie or John or Steve or

Rich, you gotta build your own brand. Like you are your brand. You need to be able, like what do you feel about that movement as what it's gonna do to just kind of the proliferation of everybody, everybody just trying to be a superstar or whatever. What are your thoughts on that?

Rich Bornstein (17:11)
Well, okay, you hit on a lot of points there. So let me try to break it down, you know, a little bit. Okay.

Brad Banyas (17:15)
All right. I got I got ADD or ADHD. I didn't get medicine,

Rich. I just got a spanking. So you got to.

Rich Bornstein (17:23)
Yeah, I think we're part of that same generation.

Although, hey, he's got a lot more gray than I do, guys. You I just do this for effect. No, look, it's who wants to be lectured? Okay, nobody. Who wants to be sold something? Nobody. Who wants to be told it's good medicine? Nobody. And so what's the way that people will identify you? What's the way that people are going to

Brad Banyas (17:30)
He does. He He does.

Rich Bornstein (17:51)
fall in love with you. What's the way you're gonna get an emotional connection with people? You're gonna tell a story, okay? It's like, it should be a no-brainer, but it's not. When you put the why up front, look, something happened to me and I realized this is what, this was my life calling, okay? Whether it was a negative thing or a positive thing. I mean, I'm gonna talk to somebody that had.

You know, something really negative happened to her and she turned it into a positive in her life. That's a pretty powerful statement as opposed to, well, well, I do this and I do that and I do this. you do, everybody has a unique set of experiences. You didn't wake up one day and say, yeah, you know, think I want to host a couple of podcasts, you know, and I'll bring in somebody. No, it was something that evolved. And, you you brought up a point, you know, I don't want to. Piss off anybody, but you know, I'll run the risk.

Brad Banyas (18:47)
It's okay.

Rich Bornstein (18:48)
The whole influencer stuff drives me nuts. It really does. I mean, what's an influencer, right? I mean, they're trying to influence you to do something that you may or may not want to do. I believe speak from your heart, be authentic. And then, you know, let the chips fall as they may. I'm at this piece that just ran in Forbes. I had a friend of mine that I've known for years. And he wrote me and he was being funny. You know, he basically said, you know,

When did you become so hip? I don't consider myself hip. But I did answer him seriously. I said, once I got over the fact that people may or may not criticize me, they may think that I'm completely full of it and certain things, okay, all right. But if there's 10 people that think that, but there's 10 people that think that like what I have to say in terms of the thought leadership, okay, I'm okay with that.

You know what I mean? it's like my friend, late Robert B. Parker said to me, goes, if you believe the positive reviews of my books, then I got to believe the negative reviews. And I choose not to believe any of them. Well, I don't necessarily go that far because we wouldn't be human if when we get the criticism, if it didn't sting a little bit. But the idea is just step out of ourselves. And if we have something to say, say it.

Brad Banyas (19:59)
Ha ha.

Yeah.

Rich Bornstein (20:16)
and say it conviction and say it from your heart and say it with authenticity and say it with clarity. And then, and then let the chips fall. I mean, look, I can listen, this is our first conversation or one of our first conversations. I can tell you're a charismatic guy. You know, you're a great guy. You're very personable. And that comes across. You don't have to tell me that. Are going to write, you're to send me your bio and say, I'm charismatic and thoughtful and whatever.

Brad Banyas (20:26)
Absolutely.

I'm

the last person really that ever wants to be on a video of you and which is funny because all my close friends are like, what, what are you doing? And I was like, really, this is not about us. Like we, we said we were gonna honor people. said we were going to highlight people and you know, no one else is stepping up. So as soon as someone else in our, in our organization wants to take it over, you know, I'll go back in the corner and you know, do my thing. So I think it's, it's a reason, a lot of people think you're doing things.

for publicity or whatever that may be true in a lot of cases, but a lot of cases are like, Hey, look, you know, we were taught when you're younger, if you're going to, know, sometimes you don't want to be the leader. You don't want to take control, but if no one's going to do it and you believe wholeheartedly enough in something, well, no one's going to do it. Somebody's got to do it. Congratulations. One of my kids who, who helps with our fight talk podcast. said, dad, do we really need to be highlighting these fighters?

I said, congratulations, you have your own podcast show. He's like, what? I said, I'm not doing it. I don't have time to do it. That's your passion. Roll it. And it was, we all kind of laughed here because it, got to do stuff outside your comfort zone sometimes. And you know, whether, whether we're changing the world with this, I don't know, but if it helps somebody great, you know, so it's meant to do.

Rich Bornstein (21:57)
Absolutely. Absolutely. Listen, we can't be all things to all people. Some people aren't going to like you because of your name. They're not going to like you, you know, they're not going to like you because they don't like your headphones. Okay, great. Okay. Well, live your life. Okay, great. You know.

Brad Banyas (22:04)
Yeah.

Hey,

hey, don't shit on the Carpathian Rusyns now. As we're fighting words, you start you start knocking the Carpathian Rusyns. We're coming out of the. Yeah, you'll you'll love it. We're called the people without a home.

Rich Bornstein (22:18)
Hey. Hey, yeah. Oh, here we go. Like I said, like I said in our previous call, I have to look that up. I don't even know what that is. you know,

and I've, you know, and I've read my Lermontov and, know, and Pushkin and, and, you know, and Gogol, but, you know, you know, I don't, you know, but any of that stuff. So, um, but, but seriously, if we live from here, okay. Again, we can't just always be spewing.

Brad Banyas (22:36)
Hahaha

Rich Bornstein (22:46)
you know, whatever our first emotion is. I mean, that's ridiculous to think that. But if we figure out the authenticity and we figure out what we're really trying to say, and we say with conviction and emotion because we truly believe it.

you're ahead of the game.

Brad Banyas (23:03)
Yeah.

Yeah. I agree. I think, I think, ⁓ good people are good people. And, know, and you're not, not to, ⁓ not to, you know, I'm not trying to promote David Meltzer's book, but he wrote a book called, you know, don't do business with Dix. And it was a very controversial title. And he said,

I didn't really want to name it that, like, you know, the publisher said it and the reality of it is it's it, you would look at it and think, wow, this is going to be off the wall. I read it. I do read people in Georgia do read. I, I, I, though, you know, other people don't think we do, but, but I read it and it was all good things, right? It was all positive things. So, sometimes you got to dig a little bit deeper, I think, ⁓ to find the good stuff. So I think what you're doing is pulling it out, which I,

Rich Bornstein (23:50)
which

is another great point that you make up. Sometimes you gotta walk away. If it doesn't feel right, you gotta say, appreciate it, I'm walking away. Give me an example. I was at a shoot and so we were trying to create the brand, enhance the brand for this guy. For no reason, the guy went off on his wife. And I mean, just like... ⁓

Brad Banyas (24:00)
Yeah.

Rich Bornstein (24:19)
lost his shit, okay? And my camera guy goes, I'm not sticking around with that. Like, way. I mean, at what point is he gonna turn on us like that? And then what? We're gonna have to defend ourselves? Like, really? So I said to the guy that was overseeing it, I kind of took him aside and I said, look, we're done. And he goes, what do you mean? I go, I'm sorry, this is not what I signed up for.

Brad Banyas (24:27)
Yeah.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Rich Bornstein (24:49)
⁓ we're really uncomfortable. You know, if I say something, if I asked him a question now and he, you know, and he goes nuts, I'm not putting myself in that situation. And I got to tell you, my camera guy wants to leave already. The only reason he hasn't packed it up yet is because he was afraid of the reaction, but guess what? We're not going forward with this. And he said, okay, I got to respect that. And, know, look, it was money. mean, I left money on the table, but it was so uncomfortable, Brad.

that we knew that there was no way. And look, I had already made the trip. I already made the hour and something trip down to do it. We had already set up, we already started, we already shot half a day or more, okay? But something about it didn't feel right. So I think that's what, I mean, I didn't read the book, but I think that's what he's saying. I think part of it is sometimes you gotta have the wherewithal to say, you know what, listen, this doesn't feel right. And it's...

Brad Banyas (25:39)
Yeah.

⁓ Absolutely.

Rich Bornstein (25:47)
and it's not

something that I want to do. And I think that's what he's saying. Don't do business with dicks. It's like...

Brad Banyas (25:52)
Yeah,

he is. I just was bringing that up as far as like you got to like the whole storytelling. Sometimes you've got it's like the hardest thing to be is yourself sometimes. And then the easiest thing to be is yourself. So you got to make the decision. Just either be yourself all the time. Right. Don't make it too hard on yourself. And that's that's that's a real struggle for people. Let's be honest. You came out of the movie world and production world and a lot of the stuff's fabricated. It's it's it's la la land bullshit that like, hey,

Rich Bornstein (25:55)
Yeah.

Brad Banyas (26:21)
99 % of the world doesn't live like this yet you project this so it sets an example for some people that think That's the way it should be well in a a in a pretend world yes, but in the real world not not so real right so it's Hey not to shit not shit on your Hey, I'm not shitting on the on the mini business. I'm just telling you yeah, so

Rich Bornstein (26:32)
Yeah.

Really? Really? You're saying that stuff's made up? ⁓ my god, you're saying stuff's made up? Are you kidding me? Can I get the check please?

Please,

mean, listen, this is what I always maintain because they always say, you're, you know, they always refer to people. Oh, you're so Hollywood or this or that or the other thing. Listen, I always maintain this. The people that are the most quote unquote Hollywood, the people that are the most quote unquote LA, they're people from elsewhere. Okay. I mean, I mean, they might, they might move here, but I mean, I, I mean, I can give you example after example. go.

Brad Banyas (27:07)
They don't live here, they don't even live here.

Rich Bornstein (27:15)
Who the hell, like who are the worst drivers? They come from elsewhere. I mean, like please. Of course now it's changed, but you know what I'm saying? It's like, yes, I agree. I agree. You can't drink your own Kool-Aid, you know, and you really can't. No, no, no, no. I'm not defending it because I could tell you some stories, you know, that whatever, and you're right. But listen.

Brad Banyas (27:19)
⁓

Ha

I shouldn't have gone there. I took a slight knock at it. I shouldn't have.

Rich Bornstein (27:43)
people are full of shit in business too. You I mean? I mean, you I mean, you want to go down the list? know, what kind of TV do you want me to tell you? Yeah. Yeah. I'm just saying. So, again, the point being is you got to have your own filter. You got to know what doesn't feel right. And you got to know what's authentic. In business, it's just important.

Brad Banyas (27:45)
Absolutely. Absolutely.

We better not because some of those are your customers and my customers. So we need it. We need it.

Rich Bornstein (28:13)
start with the why. Figure that out. Look, I've been doing this on my own for 20 years, you know, ⁓ which is weird because I'm only 29, but yeah, you're right. So, you know, it's taken me a long time to identify who's my super consumer, you know, who's my super customer, right? And who's my secondary.

Brad Banyas (28:26)
I was gonna say, shit, you were 10 when you started? ⁓

Rich Bornstein (28:42)
because one of the things I ran into, well, what industry do you, know, what industry are you focusing on? I don't focus on any industry. Everybody needs storytelling. You know, listen, as a journalist, I became a student of whatever I had to write about. You know what I mean? I mean, I was a sports writer, but I did other things. I had to find out as much of it. When I got to the studios, you know, I didn't know who Robert B. Parker was.

Brad Banyas (28:53)
Absolutely.

Rich Bornstein (29:11)
And then I fell in love with the whole genre of the literary fiction, the literary detective fiction. It became one of my passions in life simply because I was going to work on a project, turned out to be Spencer for hire, ⁓ with Robert Parker. Listen, I ⁓ did the marketing for American Gladiators when I was at Goldman. I mean, you have no idea the calls I got. George Will would call me. But what this? This the demise of civilization. What's going to be next?

you know, executions, it was nothing of the sort. It was real. And I maintain that American Gladiators was the first real reality television series. I don't believe that without American Gladiators, now people can hoot and holler, you wouldn't have American Idol. You wouldn't have The Voice because it was legit. You know, one of the things that we learned, every one of those personalities was scripted, okay, when we were first getting started.

And some guy got launched, one of the characters got launched. The guy got kicked in the head and he had stitches. And he came back and they said, well, what'd do, man? We saw you get, you know, we got stitches and all this. And he goes, I just hung out on the beach. I had some babes and it healed itself. And I watched the media literally just say, this is bullshit. And then we did a huddle and I said, okay, let them have personalities.

but let's stop with their character stuff. And that was a big turning point in that show because everything was real except their personalities. And then boom, once we got rid of that nonsense, the show took on a new level. And if that show were today, where we weren't relying on time periods and carriage and things like that, we'd have the biggest hit in the history of mankind because there were so many elements that that are worth.

perfectly for social media. ⁓ you know, yeah, but that's exactly right. So, you know, you have to, you have to be aware of your surroundings and, and you got to be, you know, you have to be aware that things are real and not just sit there and, yeah. I mean, can you imagine the guy says, I mean, I guess we should have known. Yeah, I had some babes, you know, I had some rays and then whatever. Again, it was great. Guy was a great guy. I'm not making fun of him.

Brad Banyas (31:10)
absolutely. Like UFC, like pre-UFC.

Yeah.

Rich Bornstein (31:37)
That was what he, you know, that was what he was, you know, that was kind of what he was scripted to do. It just wasn't real. And people knew that, you know. We watched him get launched 25 feet, you know.

Brad Banyas (31:44)
⁓ it, yeah.

Well, I mean, it sounds like good therapy to me though. I mean, like if I get hit in the head, that would be a cool thing to do. ⁓

Rich Bornstein (31:53)
Yeah, no, exactly. But you're not on national TV, you know, and you're not competing.

But I think you know what I'm saying with that kind of stuff. So there's an awareness, and I think maybe that's good. You sometimes it's great to be aware. Maybe sometimes, as I was saying earlier, stop being so hyper aware of yourself. Just, you know, get yourself in front of the camera and just, you know, maybe it takes you a while. Maybe it takes your friend to interview you.

Brad Banyas (32:01)
Yeah, I do. I do.

Yeah. Yeah.

Rich Bornstein (32:23)
You know, maybe you need your spouse to sit there and ask you questions. Maybe that's what it takes. I admire the people that can sit there and talk for 10 minutes and I don't see any cuts in the video. You know what mean? Because I'm pretty well trained, you if I see a jump cut or whatever. So I can't do that. There's no way I could record anything for 10 or 15 minutes and, you know, just have a stream of content. I don't care if I have the bullet points in front of me. It ain't happening. You know, there's always going to be a stutter, a flub.

Brad Banyas (32:28)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Rich Bornstein (32:52)
or I'm miss speaking some words, always. You know what I mean? So the people that can sit and do it to where it makes sense, hey, my hat's off to them. Because that's an art and it's a talent that I don't have.

Brad Banyas (32:56)
Absolutely.

Well, what what do you what are just some tips like for since we you know really talking about Warrenstein media here and what you guys are doing like what are some tips that you would give away ⁓ just for people other than the why what we just talked about but is there any one two tips like how you how you should you know get comfortable with it you know should you start just doing some stuff on your own social media just to feel comfortable with it just ⁓ like what how do they how do they train themselves because I'll say you eventually

It's not maybe you get better, but you get used to it and you get comfortable with it. So you're like, yeah, I have a list. No one, no one's going to know about it. Who cares? Right? So people, people laugh, but like I had to go to speech therapy from the time as far as I could remember as a little kid. And I can remember they didn't have like speech therapists on site. So when I was in sixth grade, I had to go in and I didn't get to go to recess, right? I never got to get a recess. I'd have to go to speech therapy.

And I can remember the day the lady's like, you're done, you don't have to come anymore. I didn't give a shit about spitting on people or people making fun of me. All I wanted to do is play outside at recess. Like that's all I wanted to do. So what do you tell a couple people to help them get through this stuff?

Rich Bornstein (34:23)
Well, know, one of the things that I just referred to, some people can't just turn the camera on and be any good. So a good trick is to have somebody talk to you, have somebody interview you. You you can do it on Zoom, but record yourself locally. OK, that way you get better quality video. But you're also the person, they have to be able to ask a follow up question. You said this, but I think you mean this or whatever.

And then you can respond to it. always say that the best videos is feel like you're eavesdropping on a conversation. That's why I really don't like talking directly into the camera. Okay. It's because that's uncomfortable. Okay. So, you know, like, sure. At the moment, if you have a call to action, you want to talk directly in the camera. Great. But I think it's, you're eavesdropping on a conversation. Picture that. They're all of a sudden they're, you know, they're the plant.

Brad Banyas (35:02)
Right.

Rich Bornstein (35:22)
on this, you know, on the side, just sitting there eavesdropping on it. And then you get a sense of what that is. So that brings a comfort level. And the other part of it is, fact, people tell me, your first 50 videos are going to suck. Sorry, I don't want one video out there that's going to suck. So you just got to keep, you got to keep at it. Okay. You can't just settle for something. Now at the same time, you can't just be the ultimate perfectionist and go,

my God, you know, I had that hair out of place or, whatever. That's, that's insanity. Okay. But at the same time, you don't, whatever you're putting out there is an extension of you. Okay. You've got to be okay with it. may not be perfection, but it's got to be a reflection of you to where you're comfortable with that. So again, if it takes somebody to bring that out of you, fantastic. It doesn't make you a bad person, you know, whatever.

And then, listen, I leave myself some bullet points all the time. Okay. My little triggers, because let's face it, when the camera's rolling, you know, and I get on a roll about something, maybe I forget to, you know, God, I forgot to bring up that point. Like, I mean, listen, when we're done, I'm going to realize, ⁓ man, I didn't, forgot to bring that up. You know, so, so that's just human nature. But again, bullet points help you. If you script yourself, then what does that sound like?

It's a script. But if you have bullet points and you're just going, oh, OK, yeah, I want to talk about this. OK, Brad, so tell me about that experience when you went to the speech therapist. You know what I mean? It's like, again, that obviously had a lasting impact on me. Yeah, it could have done two things. It could have destroyed you to where you would have wanted to go into the carpeting all the time. But no, you used it as a positive in your life.

Brad Banyas (36:49)
Yeah.

Ha ha.

Rich Bornstein (37:17)
And you realize it's not going to define me and it's not going to defeat me. was, it was a challenge that I had to overcome. ⁓ mean, who looks in one of our heroes had the worst stutter in the history of mankind. Who was that? Bill Walton. Okay. You know, and I had, I had the opportunity to, to just spend, you know, a great day with Bill Walton. Okay. And Walton taught himself how, how he could survive in the media.

Brad Banyas (37:32)
wow.

Rich Bornstein (37:47)
without stubborn and you he worked with, you know, people like Nina Foch and whatever. So a lot of times there was a run on sentence with Bill, you know, because that was how he overcame that. But he was truly one of the most remarkable people I've ever spent time with my life. I mean, we drove up to Mickey Hart's house from San Francisco and Mickey Hart from the Grateful Dead. So he did it. I watched him do his radio. was when I was doing some work for ESPN. I watched him do his radio show, you know, and, ⁓

Brad Banyas (37:55)
Yeah.

Rich Bornstein (38:16)
So I got it. Then I interviewed him for ESPN afterwards. And then ⁓ he was just just an honest, human being. ⁓ And even though later in life he, you know, he became more of I love my bike and all that kind of stuff. Great. You know, but all that was him. And he thought, OK, if that's just an extension of me, that's fine. Like it or lump it, because he's Bill Walden. You know what mean? But, you know, life was just because he was, you know, seven feet tall.

Brad Banyas (38:39)
Yeah.

Rich Bornstein (38:45)
And if he could have stayed healthy, he would probably have the greatest basketball player to ever walk the planet. You know what mean? That thing could have defined him, but it didn't because he did the work and he overcame whatever that stumbling block was. We all have them. know, everyone, you know, it is part of life. I mean, how many people, how many people have everything laid out for them? And if they do, they don't appreciate it because you can't.

Brad Banyas (38:54)
Absolutely. Yep.

Absolutely. Well, it's part of life.

Absolutely.

Rich Bornstein (39:15)
You can't appreciate if it's laid out for you.

Brad Banyas (39:15)
Yeah. Yeah.

Rich Bornstein (39:18)
Which is why I believe, you know, there's a whole pushback in today's world about, nobody needs college. needs this. Listen, I'm not one of those people. College is a way, it's the first time in your life that you're on your own. It's the first time in your life when you're scared, most likely. It's the first time in your life when you have to deal with happiness and loneliness and setbacks.

and just things that are normal life to where you have to deal with them as a human being. To me, that's what college is. You learn something along the way, you're going to. Because why? Because you got to go to class. Is it going to be ABCD? No, it's not. But you have that opportunity. And what other time in your life can you be with people around your age to where you can have those kind of experiences? Never. Because the older we get, what do we want?

material things, you know, we want money, you know, we want a job. So let's enjoy it and let's become people. Let's explore who we are. And, you know, I have to laugh because when I was in school, they sent out these things for Dianetics. I didn't know what the hell Dianetics was. And, you know, and then all of a sudden I realized, holy crap, I was this close to like, you know, attending some sort of seminar for that. was like, oh, God, thank God I didn't. Because it was like,

Brad Banyas (40:38)
Yeah.

Rich Bornstein (40:41)
you know, be a better person. Yeah, who doesn't want to be a better person at 18 years old or 19 years old, right? Yeah, but so, so again, it's a way to explore. mean, listen, I didn't grow up liking Shakespeare. You know, my dad was probably the anti-Shakespeare. You know what I mean? You're reading Russian literature? What the hell? Who's Raskolnikov? You know, whatever. Like, really, are you nuts? Let's read the sports page.

Brad Banyas (40:43)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it sounds great.

Yeah.

Rich Bornstein (41:10)
Okay, you know what I mean? So it wasn't, you know, it wasn't just, you better read, big guy, you know, it's the only way you're going to learn stuff. It was something that just evolved. I mean, I met some charismatic people. I mean, I, listen, I was a journalist, so I always thought nonfiction. I had one of my English professors say, yo, you should try writing some fiction. And guess what? He goes, I'll, I'll give you feedback. Just, I'll edit it. You know what I mean? You say you're not working on a vacuum.

Brad Banyas (41:16)
Yeah. Yeah.

Rich Bornstein (41:38)
Really? Really? Again, it was just something that I was exposed to and we kind of hit it off. I'd taken his Hemingway class and then we had just been able to chat as human beings. My Shakespeare professor was simply because I went and had some tea at his office hours. ⁓ And he goes, what do you want to be? I said, I want to be a sports writer. I want to be the greatest sports writer ever. Got a gleam in his eye and he went, if I can reach you, I can reach anybody. So now.

Brad Banyas (41:50)
Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Rich Bornstein (42:08)
You know, in the middle class, he'd say to me, Rich, picture this as a locker room scene, you know, from Shakespeare, okay? Now, was I embarrassed? Absolutely. You know, like, embarrassed the crap out of me that he was, you know, but it showed me that there was, you know, more out there than going to cover the game and, you know, that kind of stuff. And then.

Brad Banyas (42:13)
Ha ha ha.

Right. Well,

it shapes you, it rounds you. mean, it's okay to have multiple interests and also be influenced by people that you're like, hey, I'm never going to do this. have no, you know, no claws to do this in my life. I'm not capable of doing this. But yeah, same thing. I've worked in construction for a while. One of the best things ever happened to me, I've had 10 thumbs. I mean, I can't put a box together. Like I'm terrible. But it was good. It makes you appreciate like, wow, these guys are talented.

Rich Bornstein (42:54)
All right.

Brad Banyas (43:01)
There's no way I can do what they do. Thanks for the memories. It shapes you. It shapes you.

Rich Bornstein (43:01)
Right.

Right. Yeah. Yeah, no, no,

absolutely. And like, you know, like I think I said it earlier, you know, one of the people that I worked with, he was reluctant. He had a very thick accent and he didn't see how storytelling was going to help him. And I just said, and what he was doing was very unsexy data management. mean, like, could there be anything more boring potentially than data management? I said, I said, said you.

Brad Banyas (43:23)
Yeah.

Absolutely not. can vouch for that.

Rich Bornstein (43:32)
Have a story. You have a lot. And once people know where you're coming from, you're no longer just a guy that has a business solution. You're a guy that's passionate. And you know, so I, the piece is one of my favorite ones. I mean, is it the most sexy? Absolutely not. But he says, back in the days, know, know, you know, in the days when water was, you know, everything was in the power plant or whatever, you know, that was, that was the most important thing.

Boom, I mean, that's what illustrated it. And he says, power of data. If we all work from the same playbook, now we're successful. But if you have 30 or 40 or 50 different spreadsheets, you're never going to be successful. So again, where you don't think there's a story, there are stories and you just have to uncover them. That's where the work comes in. They're not always apparent. You don't always go, you know, put your head in the pillow at night and go, I got a hundred stories. Sometimes you got to fight with yourself.

Brad Banyas (44:03)
Yeah,

Absolutely.

Absolutely not.

Rich Bornstein (44:32)
figure out where those stories are. But they're there. They're there.

Brad Banyas (44:35)
Absolutely. Well, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm grateful to hear your story and what you've, what you've done in your life, which you've done quite a bit. And, ⁓ we really appreciate you being on this podcast and you sharing the story. So if you're out there and you're, trying to get into better storytelling around your brand, yourself, your business, ⁓ or just, you know, how to deliver the why. Right. So I'm confident and rich now that I've known him for about 40 minutes.

⁓ that Rich Bornstein and Bornstein Media can definitely help you. Rich, I'm gonna take you up on that trip out to LA and smoke some cigars and drink bourbon, and then I'm gonna hit my head and we're gonna go to the beach, and some chicks are gonna take care of me and make sure that I'm better. How about, my wife, God bless her, she's the greatest thing that ever happened in my life. I've been married 36 years. She knew I was a nut when she married me.

Rich Bornstein (45:23)
Isn't your wife listening to this, I mean...

Brad Banyas (45:34)
And I'm still a nut. So she says, I got myself into it. She's a... Okay.

Rich Bornstein (45:38)
Here's the great thing about Brad. I'm just gonna tell him. Brad, I hope you don't mind me telling your secret. Brad's

really worried about his looks, but he looks damn good standing on his wallet. So I know that we're gonna have a good time when we are there.

Brad Banyas (45:46)
⁓

That means that Georgia guys pay the Carpathian reasons gotta bring the checkbook. That's that's that's what. ⁓ Well, rich, you have anything in closing you bet you've been awesome buddy and I really appreciate ⁓ you being on the show and I love what you're doing and like I said just happenstance. This was something that we just kind of cross paths and I saw what you were doing and.

Rich Bornstein (45:54)
No, no, we can still deal with cash here.

Brad Banyas (46:16)
And I could associate that with kind of what I went through with trying to do this stuff. And I just thought it would be awesome for others that are getting ready to go on that journey or try to figure this stuff out.

Rich Bornstein (46:27)
Well, first of all, thank you, man. It's been great. I get the feeling we could talk for another couple hours and never repeat ourselves. So maybe there'll be another opportunity for us to get back and do this again. Listen, everybody needs a sounding board. Everybody needs to step out of themselves when they're in business. So if anybody feels like this is something that they want to do and they have a true interest in video and they have a true interest in expanding their brand,

Brad Banyas (46:33)
⁓ Absolutely.

Rich Bornstein (46:57)
You know, ⁓ let's have a call. I mean, again, ⁓ I opened myself up because I'm not a therapist and a of people, you know, a lot of people think that I'm a therapist and they get a call from me, but no, you know, but if you have a true interest in creating brand video and expanding your brand and telling your story and starting with your why, I'd love to talk with you, man. I mean,

If I was talking to the younger Brad or the other Brad before, I think we'd come to some sort of meeting of the minds very quickly and realize how we can accomplish some things together.

Brad Banyas (47:38)
Well, absolutely. So in closing, this is not a pitch for us, but I'll do it anyway, since it's our show. So we just, we just launched a brand owned broadcasting platform, right? Called Rowan X. So it is, it is formed for companies, brands. So our number one guy that's going to come in and help you tell your story is a guy named Rich. So we're going to introduce you to Rich and he's going to make the platform work amazing for you and get

Make your fans happy, make ⁓ everybody happy. So Rich, I think you and I will have plenty to deal with and talk about and no objective here other than tell the world what you're doing. And I read your articles and I read them all now. So I'm a fan. You've got a fan with gray hair. So I'm sorry, I'm sure as soon as all this gets out, all the chicks will be calling you from Georgia, but we'll wait and see if that happens.

Rich Bornstein (48:32)
⁓ yeah, okay. Here we go. Yeah. And then when you call

them chicks, that'll be good, too.

Brad Banyas (48:35)
They're

not, they don't get a fit. Young ladies, women, a, know, lighten up. It's humor, people, humor.

Rich Bornstein (48:40)
All right. All right. Listen,

if anybody, seriously, you can check me out, bornsteamedmedia.com, or you can look at my YouTube channel at Rich Bornstein Official. You know, check me out. It's okay. You know, LinkedIn, I'm there. I'm prominent on LinkedIn, or I try to be. And, you know, if we have some discuss, you know, let's discuss it. All we have is, all we have are ideas and time. And, you know, if I can help get you to the next level, that'd be fantastic.

Brad Banyas (49:06)
Absolutely.

Absolutely. Well, you're very humble and not going into all the work you've done, right? Like we talked about Warner Brothers and other areas. So, I mean, this is not your first rodeo. So, he was pretty humble and not going through all the work. had a couple of Grammys in there and Oscars that they were around. Yeah, okay. Well, he was part of it.

Rich Bornstein (49:24)
No, no, no, were Emmy nominations. No, I've been part of Oscar campaigns. And there's

nothing worse when your film doesn't win and you're in the John and you're listening to, we won the F-ing Oscar, we won the F-ing And you're you're going, we didn't. So, I mean, you're happy to be there, but at the same time, when you have to listen to the gleeful people that are winning, it's not the most pleasant experience in the world, but you know.

Brad Banyas (49:38)
Alright.

Yeah, it's.

Yeah.

Rich Bornstein (49:54)
That's okay.

Brad Banyas (49:54)
Well, well, you're a sport, you're

a sports guy because you're a sports journalist. So the reality of it is it takes a team to deliver wins or results. And you may have a star quarterback, star actor, actress, whatever, whatever, whatever you want. The reality of the people behind it are the people that won that. So they don't get recognized quite a bit. But so ladies and gentlemen, that's it. You were listening to play the can play the king win the day and Rich Bornstein with us. Rich, you've been amazing.

Rich Bornstein (49:57)
I was, I was.

Right.

Brad Banyas (50:23)
I appreciate it,