A little over a week ago, I co-presented a session at South by Southwest alongside Ryan Levesque called You Are Still the Brand: What AI Can’t Do For You.
This was the first time we presented together and preparing with him was one of the more interesting experiences I’ve had in a while. I don’t co-present often and if I do it’s usually with someone I work with regularly.
Content-wise, our ideas have some overlap (apparently we both love Venn diagrams) so that wasn’t really a concern.
The fun was more in seeing how differently two people prepare to arrive at the same destination.
A few weeks before the event, we jumped on a call to toss around ideas, then sent each other our slides. Ryan had about 20 slides of frameworks, diagrams, and magazine-worthy photos of his family and farm.
Me? A whopping 5 slides. One was some ratchet screenshot of AOL messenger with a crying face emoji, a Venn diagram, and some stick figures. No magazine-worthy photos of my place in traffic-congested New Jersey made the cut.
Most of the time, we only ever see the finished version of someone else’s work: the polished deck, confident delivery, wardrobe (yes, we made sure to tell each other what we’d wear).
Co-presenting this session gave me a rare window into how someone I respect actually does their work, and it made me rethink a few things about my own process. Some great new ideas came out of it, too.
Ryan and I stayed up late the night before working on our talk. We rehearsed a cold open together (his idea), where I’d say,
“My name is Mike Kim, and I believe the only business worth building is around your personal brand.” He’d follow with, “My name is Ryan Levesque, and I believe the only business worth building is a category of one business.”
I use the image of a campfire often when talking about building a personal brand, and Ryan suggested we expand it to some other fires: we ended up with fireworks and dumpster fire.
That three-part fire analogy absolutely nailed it and I am going to use it forever.
It also scratched my oddly profound love of saying the phrase, “dumpster fire.” Just say it right now, wherever you’re reading this: “DUMPSTER FIRE.”
Now say about someone you totally know whose life is a dumpster fire. Go ahead, I won’t judge. Let some of that stress out: “____ IS A TOTAL DUMPSTER FIRE!!!”
(Feels good, right?)
Back to the story. I was pretty fried that night because I had a VIP Day with a client the day before and hosted a mastermind earlier that day, so I was ready to crash.
I’m pretty sure I heard Ryan rehearsing all our transitions in the kitchen as I drifted off to la-la land. I could tell that this is how he approaches every presentation. Every piece of content he prepares gets his full attention and care.
Not to say that I don’t prepare – we just have different approaches. I was legitimately inspired by how much he puts into his craft.
3,000 Stages Have Taught Me a Thing or Two
The morning of our session, my lav microphone wasn’t working during soundcheck. Between Ryan, me, and my friend Ryan Koral (who graciously filmed our session) we were outnumbered by a small army of audio technicians.
No matter what, I was pretty calm and figured to use a handheld.
I need to give some credit to my past life here. I’ve been on a stage of some kind probably 3,000 times, between years of leading music in churches, playing in bands, and speaking at conferences.
The stages have looked different over the years but the reps accumulated regardless. I’ve had so many experiences onstage where in-ear monitors cut out, guitar strings break, and sound techs press buttons that create head-splitting feedback.
I’d always power through and rely on my experiences. I know how not to overcompensate with my voice volume just because a monitor goes out. I know to strum chords with lighter pressure when a string breaks because it knocks the others out of tune.
I was once doing a live recording and the drum feed went out for the whole set. I had to play with stage energy to the clicktrack (metronome) in my ear. That sucked, but you learn to adapt.
All of those years were preparation for what I do today, they were just spread across two decades and have helped me stay fluid.
Hamilton vs. Improv, You Decide
I live just outside New York City, famous for its Broadway shows. At its peak, a ticket for Hamilton was selling upwards of $1,500 a ticket (thanks, scalpers).
Lin-Manuel Miranda spent seven years writing that show. Seven years of research, revision, workshop performances, and rewrites before it ever hit the main stage.
When you watch it, the performers look like they’re freestyling. The energy feels spontaneous, almost improvised. But every single word, every pause, every beat is meticulously composed. It takes a ton of preparation to make things look easy.
Walk a few blocks off Broadway after Hamilton and you can duck into an improv club for a $15 cover charge. I’ve done my fair share of those. Most are terrible.
$1,500 vs. $15. Powerfully prepared versus making stuff up on the spot. One demands top dollar, the other is priced accordingly.
I think the best communicators and creators operate closer to the Hamilton end of that spectrum. The deeper the work that goes in, the more natural the output appears.
Ryan’s deep work looks like 20 slides and prepared transitions. Mine stems from two decades on stages and a sense for when an audience is with me vs. when I’m losing them.
Both can produce the same thing in a room: something that feels natural and earned.
My favorite line from our talk (Ryan wrote it):
“Mike is the tall, good looking Asian guy… I am the short, bearded Caucasian guy.”
The room erupts in laughter! Forget Tiny Fey and Amy Poehler, the Oscars need to have us co-host next year.
If there’s a throughline to all this, it’s that the work you’ve been putting in – the reps, the study, the taste you’ve been developing when nobody’s watching – all of it matters.
Sometimes it takes standing next to someone who works differently for you to see your own process.
If you get a chance to collaborate with someone you respect, take it. (I am absolutely going to have better pictures on my slides now. Thanks, Ryan.)
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Joining doesn’t obligate you to join and you certainly won’t get pounded with spam emails (that’s not my style, and never has been.)