{"id":23,"date":"2026-05-06T19:23:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T19:23:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.highpoint.edu\/watch\/chris-ullman-strategic-communications-access-innovators-podcast\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T15:12:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T15:12:06","slug":"chris-ullman-strategic-communications-access-innovators-podcast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.highpoint.edu\/watch\/chris-ullman-strategic-communications-access-innovators-podcast\/","title":{"rendered":"Access to Innovators Podcast with Chris Ullman"},"content":{"rendered":"<article class=\"hpu-video-article\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-layout\">\n<aside class=\"hpu-video-sidebar\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-sidebar-inner\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-cta-container\">\n<div id=\"hpu-video-cta\"><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<section id=\"hpu-video-transcript\" class=\"hpu-video-transcript\" aria-label=\"Video Transcript\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-header\">\n                        <span class=\"hpu-video-transcript-title\">Chapters &amp; Transcript<\/span>\n                    <\/div>\n<div id=\"hpu-video-transcript-content\" class=\"hpu-video-transcript-content\" role=\"region\" aria-label=\"Transcript chapters\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter expanded\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-header\" role=\"button\" aria-expanded=\"true\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-header-top\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-number\">1<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"hpu-video-transcript-speaker\">Intro<\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text-container\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text-inner\">\n                                    <span class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-time\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=2E3R3oaXIBA&amp;t=4\">0:04<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">Welcome to the Access to Innovators podcast powered by the premier life skills University High Point University.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">Hello and thank you for joining us. My name is Megan Hovey. I&#039;m a senior from Rochester, New York majoring in sports media and minoring in social media marketing. Today I&#039;m going one-on-one with Chris Ullman, who is the founder and president of Ullman Communications LLC and High Point University&#039;s strategic communication expert in residence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">Chris, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today and joining us. I&#039;m super excited.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">Well, Megan, I am delighted to be here. I love High Point University and I&#039;m excited to talk to a fellow New Yorker. I&#039;m from Long Island.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">Yeah, a little bit on opposite sides of the state, but we have that bond still. The Empire State.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-header\" role=\"button\" aria-expanded=\"true\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-header-top\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-number\">2<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"hpu-video-transcript-speaker\">Why High Point University<\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text-container\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text-inner\">\n                                    <span class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-time\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=2E3R3oaXIBA&amp;t=55\">0:55<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">So just kind of getting into it, I know you said you love coming back to campus. What exactly attracted you to bring your skills here to High Point University, and what do you think sets HPU students apart?<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">Well, this is a really special place. We first learned about it when my nephew, who&#039;s now a senior, came here about five years ago. We went on the tour with him and learned about the school. Then my son, who&#039;s now a junior at High Point, said his cousin Luke is having a great time and just learning a lot. He&#039;s in sports marketing, just like you, and thinks it&#039;s a great degree.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">We learned more and more about the school, about its philosophy, and we were really excited that our son was interested in coming here. Thankfully, he got in. Once our son was here, we started visiting more for parents weekend and were just so impressed with the place.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">Interestingly, a friend of mine is in the Experts in Residence program. A gentleman by the name of Bill Canard, an amazing man who is currently the chairman of AT&amp;T, was the ambassador to the European Union, and we used to work together at an investment firm called the Carlyle Group. Bill told me about this program and said, &#039;Wow, that&#039;s really neat. The opportunity to come and lecture and mentor students and help them understand what the real world is like.&#039;<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">I looked at the array of experts they had and amazingly they did not have a communications expert in residence. So I said to Bill, &#039;That should be me,&#039; and he said &#039;I agree.&#039; He went to the administration and pitched me, and they said yes. That&#039;s how I got the job. It&#039;s a volunteer job and it&#039;s part-time, both of which are fine with me.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-header\" role=\"button\" aria-expanded=\"true\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-header-top\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-number\">3<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"hpu-video-transcript-speaker\">What sets High Point apart<\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text-container\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text-inner\">\n                                    <span class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-time\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=2E3R3oaXIBA&amp;t=176\">2:56<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">What do you think kind of sets High Point students apart from other students you&#039;ve maybe interacted with in your tenure throughout the industry?<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">I have met many students here, of course my nephew and my son. I think what sets the HPU student apart is their appreciation for what makes this school really special. There&#039;s a very direct link between what the students are learning day in and day out and the real world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">I&#039;m all for theoretical learning and pure knowledge absolutely. But one of the things I really love about High Point, and my son loved about it, and many of the students that I&#039;ve met here is this almost workforce preparation. You&#039;re learning skills and that&#039;s really important, but it&#039;s the application of it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">You have the Experts in Residence program, you have the internship programs that they make available, and the fact that they take it so seriously. You have to take a course to prepare yourself to do an internship because they want those students to make the most of the internship and represent the school well, which I think is good.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">President Qubein, of course, is an inspirational leader who places such an emphasis on getting people ready for the real world. The students I meet, and students like you, they take their study seriously. They are good role models for their fellow students. They are really trying to harness what they&#039;re learning today so that it will be applicable in the future.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">The mentoring program here is really impressive. Every student has a mentor. Especially when you&#039;re a freshman coming to a school with six thousand students, you can feel lost. Having that mentor there is just one part of this larger spirit of how the school takes care of the students and prepares them for postgraduate life.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-header\" role=\"button\" aria-expanded=\"true\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-header-top\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-number\">4<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"hpu-video-transcript-speaker\">Favorite part of campus<\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text-container\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text-inner\">\n                                    <span class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-time\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=2E3R3oaXIBA&amp;t=317\">5:17<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">Absolutely. Since you&#039;ve been on campus so much, what&#039;s your favorite part of campus?<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">Oh, I could start with Chick-fil-A. I&#039;m a PR guy so I&#039;m going to rattle through them. I love the inspirational statues. I never get tired of it. I love the international promenade where you see all the flags from countries around the world, the fountains, the little hangout places where you can contemplate life, and the Qubein Arena is just amazing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">I whistled the national anthem there. I&#039;m a champion whistler, which is an unusual talent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">But ultimately, it&#039;s the faculty that is really impressive here. I&#039;ve gotten to meet a number of professors, particularly in the communications department, and they really are passionate. They are smart. They care about their students and they&#039;re very welcoming of practitioners like me who have a wealth of communications experience.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">I met with a group of about twenty-five freshmen students this morning, most of them communications majors or planning on it. The chance to instill some principles of what it means to be an effective communicator and practical things about how to advance through the profession is wonderful.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">It&#039;s great when the professors acknowledge that having practitioners come and guest lecture is important. You&#039;re mixing the academic and the textbook with the real world, and that&#039;s really important.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-header\" role=\"button\" aria-expanded=\"true\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-header-top\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-number\">5<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"hpu-video-transcript-speaker\">Innovation<\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text-container\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text-inner\">\n                                    <span class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-time\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=2E3R3oaXIBA&amp;t=450\">7:30<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">I can&#039;t say enough great things about the faculty here, especially in the communication school. For me, I&#039;ve really benefited from people like you coming via Zoom or in person to network and share your experiences because it&#039;s so important to just kind of get that exposure to what the real world is like outside of these four walls.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">Innovation is in our DNA here at HPU. Can you kind of talk about a time when you innovated your strategies to better serve your clients or people that you work with?<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">One of the things I talked with the students this morning was the difference between being what I call a message taker and an advisor. Message takers are very good at writing things down, going to the boss and saying, &#039;Hey boss, this is what&#039;s happening. What do you want to do?&#039; An advisor, on the other hand, looks at all the facts, which are important, but then comes up with options. Option A, B, and here are the pluses and minuses of each. I recommend B for these reasons. And then you make the case to the boss and to the client.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">My innovation is not some super fancy thing like some new AI technology, which I do think is important and will have a huge impact on the communications profession. It&#039;s this simple notion of pushing back against just the normal way of doing things. When you&#039;re an advisor, you&#039;re almost always pushing back because a lot of times clients will want to do a certain thing, but as the advisor you&#039;re saying, &#039;Well, there may be a better approach.&#039;<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">I had a client who is a billionaire and really loved helping homeless people. He wrote a five million dollar check to a homeless assistance organization in Washington DC. The PR people at the homeless shelter came to me and said, &#039;All right, we&#039;ve written a press release and we need your approval because we&#039;re sending it out tomorrow.&#039; I said, &#039;Well, first of all, what&#039;s the rush?&#039; But I reviewed it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">They were focused on the billionaire giving five million to help homeless people. Now that&#039;s a good thing. But as an advisor, I looked at this release and said, &#039;What is your objective?&#039; Because a press release is just a vessel. It&#039;s not a strategy. In a vessel, you pour content into it, but they were pouring the wrong content into it. They were just talking about the billionaire giving the money to help the homeless people. But we were missing who benefits. Well, homeless people benefit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">I said, &#039;That is what we should be focused on.&#039; Since their objective was to get a story in the Washington Post, just taking a news release and sending it to fifty reporters in the Washington area, just talking about the billionaire and how generous he is, it&#039;s not going to get you anything. So what I said to them is, &#039;What we should do is focus on the humanity of it. Let&#039;s focus on the outcome that this money is going to help actual humans get on their feet.&#039;<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">At first the PR people were like, &#039;Oh no, we have a deadline. We&#039;ve got to get the press release out.&#039; And I said, &#039;No, trust me, this will be much better.&#039; I finally convinced them. I made a connection to a reporter at the Washington Post and stepped away. Two and a half months went by and on Christmas morning I went out and picked up my newspaper, The Washington Post, and there is the story on the front page, top of the fold, featuring not the billionaire but the homeless families that were actually benefiting from this five million dollar gift and the housing that they now have in a warm, safe place on Christmas morning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">That is a great way to do PR. You might think the client&#039;s upset because he doesn&#039;t get all the attention. He didn&#039;t even want the attention. But of course, if you&#039;re going to make an announcement, it should be effective. The greatest innovation is almost like just doing it the old-fashioned way. Let&#039;s get away from mechanics and let&#039;s get away from things and let&#039;s humanize. I&#039;m constantly injecting the human component into how we communicate, and it makes a remarkable difference in both how the media perceive this news and how the audience reacts. They&#039;re much more likely to have an intimate and emotional reaction if they&#039;re hearing about a human and what they&#039;re going through rather than just some rich guy giving a check.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-header\" role=\"button\" aria-expanded=\"true\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-header-top\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-number\">6<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"hpu-video-transcript-speaker\">Giving back<\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text-container\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text-inner\">\n                                    <span class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-time\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=2E3R3oaXIBA&amp;t=789\">13:09<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">And as you know, High Point places a really big emphasis on giving back to the local community. You&#039;ve previously served as an adviser to the American Red Cross and helped them work through their communication strategy. How are you able to do that knowing that donations are still urgently needed?<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">I just love the Red Cross. I first got exposed to them when I was eighteen years old and gave my first pint of blood. This is crazy but I just gave my eleventh gallon, not all at once of course. There are eight pints in a gallon, so I gave my eighty-eighth pint of blood. I&#039;ve actually worked with the Red Cross as a donor for forty-two years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">Then I got named to the board for the greater Washington area, and that was a great experience. Board members for nonprofit organizations typically have several roles. You have to raise money and you have to get the word out among different audiences so that they too will support the organization with their time, talent, treasure, and strategic guidance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">I gave a number of suggestions to the Red Cross president at the time and their PR people, again focusing on humanity. How do we take either a disaster and humanize it, or how do we take the need for blood and humanize it?<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">That way of humanizing it is much more powerful because if you have blood in your body but you&#039;ve never given blood, if you actually realize the impact it has on an actual human, that every pint you give can save three humans. Now you&#039;ll probably never meet these people, but just the fact that you&#039;re able to change a life and save a life by just having someone stick a needle in your arm, which is nowhere near as painful as people think.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">I don&#039;t actually watch them put the needle in because I kind of critique the technique. You&#039;ve done it so many times, I think you have pretty good technique. I do have a good eye. I actually couldn&#039;t do it because I&#039;ve never done it, meaning putting the needle in. But I actually know when they&#039;re doing a good job. Most of them are very good.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-header\" role=\"button\" aria-expanded=\"true\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-header-top\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-number\">7<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"hpu-video-transcript-speaker\">AI in communications<\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text-container\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text-inner\">\n                                    <span class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-time\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=2E3R3oaXIBA&amp;t=952\">15:52<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">We talked a little bit about artificial intelligence and all that kind of stuff, but I want to dive deeper. With it being more prevalent than ever, especially in the communications world, especially with things like ChatGPT, how do you think the industry will be able to pivot? And what advice would you give to current students like myself looking to enter the communications industry and looking to compete against these robots?<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">This is such an important issue. It&#039;s both dazzlingly exciting and astoundingly frightening. In terms of the good, AI has a lot of good potential and a huge downside as well. I&#039;ve been telling my children, I have a twenty-one, twenty, and seventeen-year-old, that this is big and it&#039;s going to be huge. So you ignore it at your peril.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">The challenge with AI is that it&#039;s for the most part not creating things from scratch. It is assembling stuff that it finds. So if there&#039;s a lot of junk out there, all it&#039;s going to do is find the junk and rearrange it into a different form of junk. That&#039;s not good.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">The key is how do you harness it so that it will actually help produce good stuff. I try not to be a Luddite when it comes to technology and I am a fan of efficiency. Should we use AI to write the first drafts of documents? I&#039;m not opposed to that. But it should not be the final draft, for sure. Because you will just get an accumulation of stuff that&#039;s already out there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">I tend to think a lot of the press releases out there are just not well written. So if the AI robots are out there taking bits and pieces of poorly written press releases and reassembling them, that&#039;s bad.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">I think some of the lessons for communicators are that you should know a lot about AI, what it can do and what it can do best, and then what are the things that really don&#039;t work well. Because if you remove the human component from it, that is just bad because it will take away the creativity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">Any new technology, especially a time-saving technology, is generally a good thing because it frees up our time to do higher level things. As AI starts doing some of the very basic things in the communications world, that&#039;s fine. But students and practitioners of communications must make sure that their value-added skills are developed and omnipresent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">When you get that first draft produced by the AI, don&#039;t just sign off and say, &#039;Oh well, that was brilliant.&#039; There&#039;s no way it&#039;s going to be brilliant. But you can take that and because of your knowledge base about the subject that you&#039;re reporting on or doing PR for, which the machine probably doesn&#039;t have, machines don&#039;t have nuance. They don&#039;t understand politics. They don&#039;t understand market differentiation necessarily.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">There are going to be a ton of areas where AI, especially in this first wave, just can&#039;t do what you can do. That&#039;s where students must really bone up on their skill sets so that they&#039;re always adding value. Figure out how to harness the AI to be efficient because that&#039;s good, and perhaps be more thorough in terms of the search for data. But then use that human brain for the creativity and the discernment that AI just does not have.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-header\" role=\"button\" aria-expanded=\"true\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-header-top\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-number\">8<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"hpu-video-transcript-speaker\">Happy Whistler<\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text-container\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text-inner\">\n                                    <span class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-time\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=2E3R3oaXIBA&amp;t=1236\">20:36<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">So you&#039;re known around the world pretty much as the Happy Whistler. Can you explain how you developed and shared your special gift? How did you take up whistling?<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">I am a happy whistler and I love whistling. I&#039;ve been whistling for fifty-five years. I just turned sixty and I started when I was five. In the early days I was not particularly good, but I still enjoyed doing it. In a nutshell, some people can whistle. It&#039;s a physiological thing. Some people just can&#039;t. Thankfully, I&#039;m able to whistle.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">I was exposed to it because my father was a pretty accomplished whistler. He wasn&#039;t a champion, but he had a very beautiful sounding whistle and just loved to do it all the time. It brought him joy and brought me joy just listening to him. The exposure to that got me into it, and then I started practicing literally, not just randomly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">I would listen to classical music primarily as a child. I&#039;d put on Strauss Waltzes in particular and that&#039;s still my favorite rehearsal music because the complexity of the music, the range, and the requirement to have technique that mimic the instruments. That&#039;s a core reason why I enjoy whistling.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">But what I found is I can use this whistling to bring joy to other people. I have what I call a whistling ministry. I whistle Happy Birthday six hundred fifty times a year. What&#039;s interesting about this is that typically when it comes to wishing someone a happy birthday, your family, then your best friends, maybe your coworkers or if you&#039;re a student your dorm mates, and that&#039;s good. Maybe that&#039;s one hundred fifty-two people or so. But I get to inject myself into a happy moment for six hundred fifty people a year and honor their life, bring them some joy in a fun way.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">I routinely get notes and it&#039;s a great positive feedback mechanism. I happily whistle for someone and then they send me these sweet notes that say &#039;You made my day. Now my day is complete.&#039; I have friends I&#039;ve been whistling Happy Birthday for since nineteen ninety-five, so it&#039;s been about twenty-eight years or so of happy birthday whistles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">That brings me a lot of joy because I can bring joy to others. I&#039;ve done a lot of fun things with it. I&#039;ve performed with symphony orchestras. I whistle the national anthem at events. I&#039;m whistling tomorrow at a High Point women&#039;s soccer game. I&#039;ve whistled at the top of the Washington Monument, on the outside, not in the observation deck, but literally on the outside when they had scaffolding on it five hundred fifty-five feet in the air. I whistled Yankee Doodle Dandy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">I have a CD of performing with a symphony orchestra and I&#039;ve written a book about it. I&#039;ve done TED talks. My core message aside from the happy birthdays is, &#039;What is your simple gift in life and can you find it?&#039; The name of my book is called Find Your Whistle. It&#039;s a metaphor for what is your simple gift.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">You find the gift, develop the gift, share the gift. I take this counterintuitive approach which is don&#039;t try to change the world. It&#039;s really not possible. But you can change the world of the people just around you. That means bringing some joy to them and making them feel special because it&#039;s easy to just worry about oneself. What&#039;s really important is to care about other people and impact their lives.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">The whistling has been a completely unexpected big part of my life. I never could have mapped this out when I was five years old trying to figure it out.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-header\" role=\"button\" aria-expanded=\"true\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-header-top\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-number\">9<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"hpu-video-transcript-speaker\">Strategic messaging<\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text-container\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text-inner\">\n                                    <span class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-time\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=2E3R3oaXIBA&amp;t=1514\">25:14<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">Absolutely. You previously have worked for the White House and helped them develop some strategic messaging. What was it like doing that for such a large organization with so many different policies and guidelines?<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">In my career, I&#039;ve worked for some great organizations and institutions. I worked on Capitol Hill for the House Budget Committee. It&#039;s a very technical subject. That&#039;s where I really learned this humanizing thing. You turn this geeky document of numbers and put human flesh on it. What does this budget actually mean as it relates to humans?<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">When I worked at the White House Budget Office, it&#039;s called OMB, the Office of Management and Budget, which is the budgeting arm for the federal government and part of the Executive Office of the President. It&#039;s similar to the House Budget Committee but the White House is leading this effort.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">The goal is to take policy and put numbers to it because governing is all about resource allocation. You get money in through taxes and you spend the money. The goal is how do we allocate those resources? When you come up with policies, ultimately those policies have impact on humans. Our big goal was to communicate effectively about how this or that policy affects actual humans. It could be Social Security, Medicare, the Park Service. The federal government is vast.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">I&#039;ll tell you a crazy fun story about trying to humanize things. The budget director, a man named Mitch Daniels, who went on to be governor of Indiana and then president of Purdue for twelve years, is a serious guy but he&#039;s very funny. When we put out the president&#039;s first budget, we had to cut spending because there was a deficit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">Mitch, who&#039;s very witty, said, &#039;All right, this is what we&#039;re going to do. We are going to get copies of the Rolling Stones song, You Can&#039;t Always Get What You Want, and the refrain is, But if you try some time you might just find you get what you need. So he&#039;s trying to contrast wants and needs.&#039;<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">I made copies of this on cassette tapes, which no one uses anymore. When we handed out the budget to national reporters at the AP, DOW Jones, the Washington Post, etc., I gave them the budget and the cassette tape and they were like, &#039;What&#039;s that?&#039; And I said, &#039;You&#039;ve got to listen to that before you read the budget.&#039; They all did, and almost every article referenced this, about how witty it was, but we were trying to make a point that you can&#039;t always get what you want but we try to give you what you need.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">What ended up happening was that the White House went berserk when they found out what we were doing. The number two press person called me up and said, &#039;I heard you&#039;re doing this thing which clearly is not actually happening.&#039; And I said, &#039;No, no, it&#039;s happening.&#039; She said, &#039;Oh my gosh, you must stop that right now.&#039; But we had already sent it out to a bunch of reporters. The point is you can use humor to try to make a point and to try to get things done. Mitch was very good at harnessing humor to further his objectives.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">We tried to humanize it too. We&#039;re not just a bunch of geeky people. We can have some fun. We can use a Rolling Stones song to try to make a point and I think we were effective at it.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-header\" role=\"button\" aria-expanded=\"true\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-header-top\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-number\">10<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"hpu-video-transcript-speaker\">Book<\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text-container\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text-inner\">\n                                    <span class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-time\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=2E3R3oaXIBA&amp;t=1754\">29:14<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">Absolutely. All right Chris, so you have a new book coming out. Tell us about it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">It&#039;s called Four Billionaires and a Parking Attendant: Success Strategies of the Wealthy, Powerful, and Just Plain Wise. This is a book about how to be your best, how to be successful. I&#039;ve learned this through firsthand experience working with fifteen of some of the most successful people in the world. Four are literally billionaires who run investment firms. The governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin, is in there. Lou Gerstner, who is one of the greatest CEOs of the twentieth century. Adena Friedman, who is the CEO and chair of NASDAQ, a publicly traded company.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">These are all people I&#039;ve worked with firsthand and I&#039;ve seen these immensely talented people in action over a thirty-year period. I say, well, if Lou Gerstner or Adina or David Rubenstein or Orlando Bravo, he&#039;s another billionaire, if they do X, Y, or Z and it works for them, well let&#039;s see if I can do that too.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">What&#039;s really exciting is that each lesson is told via an anecdote so it&#039;s very accessible. You can really get it and they&#039;re very doable. If I said, &#039;Megan, if you can run the Boston Marathon in three hours and thirty minutes, then you can be your best and be successful,&#039; unless you&#039;re a serious runner, you&#039;d say, &#039;Oh my gosh, there&#039;s no way I can do that.&#039; But that&#039;s not what it is. This is about having drive, about being humble, and about being disciplined. Those are all things that don&#039;t require running the Boston Marathon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">I break these fifty lessons into eight strategies such as to be innovative, to be purposeful, to build bridges with people who don&#039;t agree with you, to think of others. People might think, &#039;Oh, there&#039;s a book about a bunch of billionaires, why would he have a section on thinking of others?&#039; Well, it&#039;s amazing how generous the billionaires that I&#039;ve worked with are. They&#039;ve pledged to give away all their money.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">I mentioned Bill Conway earlier who gave the five million to the homeless shelter. He would roam the suite at the Carlyle Group with a box filled with hundreds of gift cards for Dunkin Donuts and he would knock on doors and say, &#039;All right, if you promise to give these gift cards to homeless people you see on the street, I will give you as many as you want.&#039; So I to this day carry those in my wallet and give them to homeless people. I printed up a little card that tells them where to go for help because a ten dollar gift card is not going to change your life, but it will help for a few moments. If you can get to a place that can help with substance abuse, housing, clothing, medical care, etc., that&#039;s where you really want to get people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">Bill, this billionaire, could have been just making more money, roaming the halls really helping people, thinking of someone other than yourself in a way that can touch their heart and hopefully make their life a little better.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">There are tons of lessons in here about how to be your best. If you want to be a billionaire, that&#039;s fine with me. I&#039;m a capitalist, but that was not my goal. My goal was to be the best version of me, to be as strategic and purposeful and generous and a bridge builder in how I live my life day in and day out.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">There are just amazing lessons that I&#039;m really excited to share with people. The book comes out in October. I&#039;m hoping people read it, learn from it, and benefit the way I have as well.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-header\" role=\"button\" aria-expanded=\"true\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-header-top\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-number\">11<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"hpu-video-transcript-speaker\">Closing advice<\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text-container\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text-inner\">\n                                    <span class=\"hpu-video-transcript-chapter-time\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=2E3R3oaXIBA&amp;t=2027\">33:47<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">Just kind of wrapping up, what would you say is one piece of advice that you would give to current High Point University students when it comes to building their own personal brand that reflects their own values?<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">The key is understanding oneself because if you understand yourself, you can then effectively build your brand. Understanding yourself takes time. It&#039;s not something that happens in a weekend. To understand what&#039;s in your heart, meaning what do you want to do, or in your head, what are you able to do, takes time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">I encourage students to go through a period of discernment. Arguably, discernment lasts a lifetime, but it&#039;s especially acute when someone is in their early twenties where you&#039;re really trying to understand your strengths, weaknesses, desires, things you like, and areas where you&#039;ve struggled. The more you understand yourself, you&#039;ll have a much better sense of where you should be going because we&#039;re all on a journey. Life is just this long journey and you want it to be as fulfilling and effective as possible.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">In my new book, the beginning section is all about purpose, having what I call an &#039;it.&#039; What is your it? Early in my professional life, being the best PR person I could be was my it. Then I became a whistler and being the best whistler I can be was my it. Your it is different than mine, but the key is to have one so that you have purpose.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">The more you understand yourself, your strengths and weaknesses, the better able you will be to find your it and then to actually execute on it. It&#039;s understanding yourself. The more you understand yourself, the better you will be able to communicate yourself to others and you will have purpose through that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">All right Chris, thank you so much for sharing your extraordinary advice and achievements with us today. We&#039;re so grateful for your commitment to mentoring High Point University students and joining a remarkable and innovative program that inspires our students and campus community.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">It&#039;s a delight to be here, Megan. Thank you, and I wish you well with your studies, with your career, and with your life.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hpu-video-transcript-text\">Thank you so much, and thank you all for joining me on the Access to Innovators podcast powered by High Point University.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<div class=\"hpu-video-main\">\n<section class=\"hpu-video-section\" aria-label=\"Video Player\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-section-iframe\">\n                    <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Access to Innovators Podcast with Chris Ullman\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2E3R3oaXIBA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n                <\/div>\n<\/section>\n<div class=\"hpu-video-body\">\n<div class=\"hpu-video-tabs\">\n                    <button class=\"hpu-video-tab-btn active\" data-tab=\"description\">Description<\/button><br \/>\n                    <button class=\"hpu-video-tab-btn\" data-tab=\"related\">Related Videos<\/button>\n                <\/div>\n<div class=\"hpu-video-tab-content active\" id=\"tab-description\">\n<section class=\"hpu-video-summary\" aria-label=\"Video Description\">\n<p>This is a conversation between High Point University student Megan Hovey and Chris Ullman, founder of Ullman Communications and HPU&#039;s Strategic Communication Expert in Residence. Ullman discusses his path to becoming involved with HPU through family connections, what distinguishes HPU students from their peers, and his philosophy of humanizing communications through real-world storytelling. The podcast covers his innovation in shifting from message-taking to advisory roles, his volunteer work with the American Red Cross for over four decades, his perspective on AI in communications and the importance of human creativity, his unexpected journey as a champion whistler and advocate for finding one&#039;s simple gift, his experience with strategic messaging at the White House, and his forthcoming book featuring success lessons from billionaires and leaders he&#039;s worked with.<\/p>\n<div class=\"hpu-video-tags\"><\/div>\n<\/section><\/div>\n<div class=\"hpu-video-tab-content\" id=\"tab-related\">\n<section class=\"hpu-related-videos\" aria-label=\"Related Videos\">\n<div class=\"hpu-related-videos-slider\"><\/div>\n<p class=\"hpu-related-videos-none\">No related videos found.<\/p>\n<\/section><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<script>\r\n  \/\/ \u2500\u2500 Initialize Transcript Headings \u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\r\n  const firstChapterHeading = document.querySelector('.hpu-video-transcript-chapter:first-child .hpu-video-transcript-speaker');\r\n  if (firstChapterHeading) {\r\n    firstChapterHeading.innerHTML = 'Introduction';\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  \/\/ \u2500\u2500 Transcript Accordion Logic \u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\r\n  const chapters = document.querySelectorAll(\".hpu-video-transcript-chapter\");\r\n  \r\n  chapters.forEach(chapter => {\r\n    const header = chapter.querySelector(\".hpu-video-transcript-chapter-header\");\r\n    const content = chapter.querySelector(\".hpu-video-transcript-text-container\");\r\n    \r\n    \/\/ Initialize height for expanded ones\r\n    if (chapter.classList.contains(\"expanded\")) {\r\n      content.style.height = \"auto\";\r\n    }\r\n\r\n    header.addEventListener(\"click\", () => {\r\n      const isExpanded = chapter.classList.contains(\"expanded\");\r\n      \r\n      if (!isExpanded) {\r\n        \/\/ Expand\r\n        chapter.classList.add(\"expanded\");\r\n        header.setAttribute(\"aria-expanded\", \"true\");\r\n        content.style.height = content.scrollHeight + \"px\";\r\n        \r\n        content.addEventListener(\r\n          \"transitionend\",\r\n          function handler() {\r\n            content.style.height = \"auto\";\r\n            content.removeEventListener(\"transitionend\", handler);\r\n          },\r\n          { once: true }\r\n        );\r\n      } else {\r\n        \/\/ Collapse\r\n        content.style.height = content.scrollHeight + \"px\";\r\n        content.offsetHeight; 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Apply today to secure your future.\",\r\n      buttons: [\r\n        {\r\n          text: \"Apply Now\",\r\n          link: \"\/apply\",\r\n        },\r\n      ],\r\n    },\r\n    visit: {\r\n      title: \"Visit Our Campus\",\r\n      text: \"Experience our inspiring environment firsthand. 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Your housing preference is based on your deposit date!\",\r\n      buttons: [\r\n        {\r\n          text: \"Submit Your Deposit\",\r\n          link: \"\/admissions\/landing-deposit\",\r\n        },\r\n      ],\r\n    },\r\n  };\r\n\r\n  const urlParams = new URLSearchParams(window.location.search);\r\n\r\n  const ctaElement = document.getElementById(\"hpu-video-cta\");\r\n  const ctaParam = urlParams.get(\"cta\");\r\n\r\n  if (ctaElement) {\r\n    const ctaData = ctaLibrary[ctaParam] || ctaLibrary[\"visit\"];\r\n\r\n    \/\/ Title\r\n    const ctaTitleEl = document.createElement(\"h2\");\r\n    ctaTitleEl.textContent = ctaData.title;\r\n    ctaElement.appendChild(ctaTitleEl);\r\n\r\n    \/\/ Text\r\n    const ctaTextEl = document.createElement(\"p\");\r\n    ctaTextEl.textContent = ctaData.text;\r\n    ctaElement.appendChild(ctaTextEl);\r\n\r\n    \/\/ Button\r\n    if (ctaData.buttons && ctaData.buttons.length > 0) {\r\n      ctaData.buttons.forEach(function (button) {\r\n        const ctaButtonEl = document.createElement(\"a\");\r\n        const ctaClass = button?.class ?? \"hpu-btn-purple-outline\";\r\n        ctaButtonEl.textContent = button.text;\r\n        ctaButtonEl.setAttribute(\"href\", button.link);\r\n        ctaButtonEl.setAttribute(\"class\", ctaClass);\r\n        ctaElement.appendChild(ctaButtonEl);\r\n      });\r\n    }\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  \/\/ \u2500\u2500 Tag Pills \u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\r\n  (function() {\r\n    var containers = document.querySelectorAll('.hpu-video-tags');\r\n    if (!containers.length) return;\r\n\r\n    var match = document.body.className.match(\/\\bpostid-(\\d+)\\b\/);\r\n    if (!match) return;\r\n\r\n    var apiRootEl = document.querySelector('link[rel=\"https:\/\/api.w.org\/\"]');\r\n    var apiRoot = (window.wpApiSettings && window.wpApiSettings.root)\r\n      || (apiRootEl && apiRootEl.getAttribute('href'))\r\n      || '\/wp-json\/';\r\n    var url = apiRoot.replace(\/\\\/$\/, '') + '\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=' + match[1] + '&per_page=100';\r\n\r\n    fetch(url)\r\n      .then(function(r) { return r.ok ? r.json() : Promise.reject(); })\r\n      .then(function(tags) {\r\n        if (!tags.length) return;\r\n        var decoder = document.createElement('textarea');\r\n        containers.forEach(function(container) {\r\n          tags.forEach(function(tag) {\r\n            decoder.innerHTML = tag.name;\r\n            var pill = document.createElement('span');\r\n            pill.className = 'hpu-video-tag';\r\n            pill.textContent = decoder.value;\r\n            container.appendChild(pill);\r\n          });\r\n        });\r\n      })\r\n      .catch(function() {});\r\n  })();\r\n\r\n  \/\/ \u2500\u2500 Related Videos: Loader + Scroll Indicators \u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\r\n  (function() {\r\n    var slider    = document.querySelector('.hpu-related-videos-slider');\r\n    var noResults = document.querySelector('.hpu-related-videos-none');\r\n    var section   = slider && slider.closest('.hpu-related-videos');\r\n    if (!slider || !section) return;\r\n\r\n    \/\/ Scroll indicators \u2014 wired immediately, before any fetch\r\n    function updateIndicators() {\r\n      section.classList.toggle('has-scroll-left',  slider.scrollLeft > 0);\r\n      section.classList.toggle('has-scroll-right',\r\n        slider.scrollLeft + slider.clientWidth < slider.scrollWidth - 1);\r\n    }\r\n    slider.addEventListener('scroll', updateIndicators, { passive: true });\r\n    window.addEventListener('load', updateIndicators);\r\n\r\n    \/\/ Nav chevron buttons\r\n    var prevBtn = document.createElement('button');\r\n    prevBtn.className = 'hpu-rv-nav hpu-rv-nav-prev';\r\n    prevBtn.setAttribute('aria-label', 'Scroll left');\r\n    var prevChev = document.createElement('span');\r\n    prevChev.className = 'hpu-rv-nav-chevron';\r\n    prevBtn.appendChild(prevChev);\r\n    section.appendChild(prevBtn);\r\n\r\n    var nextBtn = document.createElement('button');\r\n    nextBtn.className = 'hpu-rv-nav hpu-rv-nav-next';\r\n    nextBtn.setAttribute('aria-label', 'Scroll right');\r\n    var nextChev = document.createElement('span');\r\n    nextChev.className = 'hpu-rv-nav-chevron';\r\n    nextBtn.appendChild(nextChev);\r\n    section.appendChild(nextBtn);\r\n\r\n    prevBtn.addEventListener('click', function() {\r\n      var firstCard = slider.querySelector('.hpu-related-videos-card, .hpu-rv-skel');\r\n      var n = window.innerWidth <= 1279 ? 2 : 4;\r\n      var dist = firstCard ? (firstCard.offsetWidth + 12) * n : slider.clientWidth * 0.8;\r\n      slider.scrollBy({ left: -dist, behavior: 'smooth' });\r\n    });\r\n    nextBtn.addEventListener('click', function() {\r\n      var firstCard = slider.querySelector('.hpu-related-videos-card, .hpu-rv-skel');\r\n      var n = window.innerWidth <= 1279 ? 2 : 4;\r\n      var dist = firstCard ? (firstCard.offsetWidth + 12) * n : slider.clientWidth * 0.8;\r\n      slider.scrollBy({ left: dist, behavior: 'smooth' });\r\n    });\r\n\r\n    \/\/ Align nav buttons to the vertical center of the thumbnail image row\r\n    function positionNavButtons() {\r\n      var firstThumb = slider.querySelector('.hpu-related-videos-card-thumb, .hpu-rv-skel-thumb');\r\n      if (!firstThumb) return;\r\n      var thumbH = firstThumb.getBoundingClientRect().height;\r\n      if (!thumbH) return; \/\/ element is hidden (display:none tab)\r\n      var top = slider.getBoundingClientRect().top - section.getBoundingClientRect().top + thumbH \/ 2;\r\n      [prevBtn, nextBtn].forEach(function(btn) {\r\n        btn.style.top = top + 'px';\r\n        btn.style.transform = 'translateY(-50%)';\r\n      });\r\n    }\r\n    if (typeof ResizeObserver !== 'undefined') {\r\n      new ResizeObserver(positionNavButtons).observe(section);\r\n    }\r\n    window.addEventListener('resize', positionNavButtons);\r\n\r\n    \/\/ Related videos fetch \u2014 runs after page load, yields to idle work\r\n    function loadRelatedVideos() {\r\n      var match = document.body.className.match(\/\\bpostid-(\\d+)\\b\/);\r\n      if (!match) return;\r\n      var postId = match[1];\r\n\r\n      var apiRootEl = document.querySelector('link[rel=\"https:\/\/api.w.org\/\"]');\r\n      var base = ((window.wpApiSettings && window.wpApiSettings.root)\r\n        || (apiRootEl && apiRootEl.getAttribute('href'))\r\n        || '\/wp-json\/').replace(\/\\\/$\/, '');\r\n\r\n      var decoder = document.createElement('textarea');\r\n      var catId   = null;\r\n\r\n      function showSkeletons() {\r\n        for (var i = 0; i < 5; i++) {\r\n          var skel = document.createElement('div');\r\n          skel.className = 'hpu-rv-skel';\r\n          var t = document.createElement('div');\r\n          t.className = 'hpu-rv-skel-thumb';\r\n          var l1 = document.createElement('div');\r\n          l1.className = 'hpu-rv-skel-line';\r\n          var l2 = document.createElement('div');\r\n          l2.className = 'hpu-rv-skel-line hpu-rv-skel-line-short';\r\n          skel.appendChild(t); skel.appendChild(l1); skel.appendChild(l2);\r\n          slider.appendChild(skel);\r\n        }\r\n      }\r\n\r\n      function shuffle(arr) {\r\n        for (var i = arr.length - 1; i > 0; i--) {\r\n          var j = Math.floor(Math.random() * (i + 1));\r\n          var tmp = arr[i]; arr[i] = arr[j]; arr[j] = tmp;\r\n        }\r\n        return arr;\r\n      }\r\n\r\n      function appendCard(post) {\r\n        decoder.innerHTML = (post.title && post.title.rendered) ? post.title.rendered : 'Untitled';\r\n        var title    = decoder.value;\r\n        var link     = post.link || '#';\r\n        var embedded = post._embedded && post._embedded['wp:featuredmedia'];\r\n        var thumbUrl = Array.isArray(embedded) && embedded[0] && embedded[0].source_url\r\n          ? embedded[0].source_url : null;\r\n\r\n        var card = document.createElement('a');\r\n        card.className = 'hpu-related-videos-card';\r\n        card.href = link;\r\n\r\n        var thumb = document.createElement('div');\r\n        thumb.className = 'hpu-related-videos-card-thumb';\r\n        if (thumbUrl) {\r\n          var img = document.createElement('img');\r\n          img.src = thumbUrl; img.alt = title; img.loading = 'lazy';\r\n          thumb.appendChild(img);\r\n        } else {\r\n          var ph = document.createElement('div');\r\n          ph.className = 'hpu-related-videos-card-thumb-placeholder';\r\n          thumb.appendChild(ph);\r\n        }\r\n\r\n        var titleEl = document.createElement('div');\r\n        titleEl.className = 'hpu-related-videos-card-title';\r\n        titleEl.textContent = title;\r\n\r\n        card.appendChild(thumb);\r\n        card.appendChild(titleEl);\r\n        slider.appendChild(card);\r\n      }\r\n\r\n      var cachedCatId = (function() { try { return sessionStorage.getItem('hpu_rv_cat'); } catch(e) { return null; } })();\r\n\r\n      showSkeletons();\r\n\r\n      Promise.all([\r\n        fetch(base + '\/wp\/v2\/posts\/' + postId + '?_fields=tags')\r\n          .then(function(r) { return r.ok ? r.json() : Promise.reject(); }),\r\n        cachedCatId\r\n          ? Promise.resolve(+cachedCatId)\r\n          : fetch(base + '\/wp\/v2\/categories?slug=hpu-videos&per_page=1&_fields=id')\r\n              .then(function(r) { return r.ok ? r.json() : Promise.reject(); })\r\n              .then(function(cats) {\r\n                if (!cats.length) return Promise.reject();\r\n                try { sessionStorage.setItem('hpu_rv_cat', cats[0].id); } catch(e) {}\r\n                return cats[0].id;\r\n              })\r\n      ])\r\n      .then(function(results) {\r\n        var tagIds = Array.isArray(results[0].tags) ? results[0].tags : [];\r\n        catId = results[1];\r\n        var params = new URLSearchParams({\r\n          categories: catId,\r\n          per_page: 12,\r\n          status: 'publish',\r\n          orderby: 'date',\r\n          order: 'desc',\r\n          exclude: postId,\r\n          _embed: 'wp:featuredmedia'\r\n        });\r\n        if (tagIds.length) params.set('tags', tagIds.join(','));\r\n        return fetch(base + '\/wp\/v2\/posts?' + params)\r\n          .then(function(r) { return r.ok ? r.json() : Promise.reject(); });\r\n      })\r\n        .then(function(posts) {\r\n          var verticalMode = window.innerWidth <= 900;\r\n          slider.innerHTML = '';\r\n          shuffle(posts);\r\n          (verticalMode ? posts.slice(0, 6) : posts).forEach(appendCard);\r\n          updateIndicators();\r\n\r\n          if (!verticalMode && posts.length < 12 && catId) {\r\n            var excludeIds = [postId].concat(posts.map(function(p) { return p.id; }));\r\n            var backfillParams = new URLSearchParams({\r\n              categories: catId,\r\n              per_page: 12 - posts.length,\r\n              status: 'publish',\r\n              orderby: 'date',\r\n              order: 'desc',\r\n              exclude: excludeIds.join(','),\r\n              _embed: 'wp:featuredmedia'\r\n            });\r\n            fetch(base + '\/wp\/v2\/posts?' + backfillParams)\r\n              .then(function(r) { return r.ok ? r.json() : []; })\r\n              .then(function(extra) {\r\n                if (!extra.length) {\r\n                  if (!slider.children.length) noResults.style.display = 'block';\r\n                  return;\r\n                }\r\n                shuffle(extra);\r\n                extra.forEach(appendCard);\r\n                updateIndicators();\r\n              })\r\n              .catch(function() {\r\n                if (!slider.children.length) noResults.style.display = 'block';\r\n              });\r\n          } else if (!slider.children.length) {\r\n            noResults.style.display = 'block';\r\n          }\r\n        })\r\n        .catch(function() { slider.innerHTML = ''; noResults.style.display = 'block'; });\r\n    }\r\n\r\n    if (document.readyState === 'loading') {\r\n      document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', loadRelatedVideos);\r\n    } else {\r\n      loadRelatedVideos();\r\n    }\r\n  })();\r\n\r\n  \/\/ \u2500\u2500 Dynamic Breadcrumb Logic \u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\r\n  (function() {\r\n    try {\r\n      const breadcrumbElements = document.querySelectorAll('.breadcrumbs [property=\"v:title\"]');\r\n      \r\n      breadcrumbElements.forEach(el => {\r\n        if (el.textContent.trim().toLowerCase() === 'hpu videos') {\r\n          const wrapper = el.closest('[typeof=\"v:Breadcrumb\"]');\r\n          \r\n          if (wrapper) {\r\n            \/\/ Find and remove the text node following the span to get rid of the stray \">\"\r\n            const nextNode = wrapper.nextSibling;\r\n            if (nextNode && nextNode.nodeType === Node.TEXT_NODE) {\r\n              nextNode.remove();\r\n            }\r\n            \/\/ Remove the parent span element itself\r\n            wrapper.remove();\r\n          } else {\r\n            \/\/ Fallback: just remove the element if no wrapper is found\r\n            el.remove();\r\n          }\r\n        }\r\n      });\r\n    } catch (error) {\r\n      \/\/ Fail gracefully: Do nothing and prevent JS from breaking\r\n      \/\/ console.warn('Breadcrumb swap skipped.');\r\n    }\r\n  })();\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n  \/\/ \u2500\u2500 Mobile Transcript Tab \u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\r\n  (function () {\r\n    const BREAKPOINT       = 1365;\r\n    const LABEL_BREAKPOINT = 767;\r\n\r\n    const transcriptEl = document.getElementById('hpu-video-transcript');\r\n    const sidebarInner = document.querySelector('.hpu-video-sidebar-inner');\r\n    const tabsBar      = document.querySelector('.hpu-video-tabs');\r\n    const videoBody    = document.querySelector('.hpu-video-body');\r\n\r\n    if (!transcriptEl || !sidebarInner || !tabsBar || !videoBody) return;\r\n\r\n    const relatedBtn = tabsBar.querySelector('[data-tab=\"related\"]');\r\n\r\n    \/\/ New tab button\r\n    const tabBtn = document.createElement('button');\r\n    tabBtn.className = 'hpu-video-tab-btn';\r\n    tabBtn.setAttribute('data-tab', 'transcript');\r\n    tabBtn.textContent = 'Chapters & Transcript';\r\n    tabBtn.style.display = 'none';\r\n    tabsBar.appendChild(tabBtn);\r\n\r\n    \/\/ New tab content wrapper\r\n    const tabContent = document.createElement('div');\r\n    tabContent.className = 'hpu-video-tab-content';\r\n    tabContent.id = 'tab-transcript';\r\n    videoBody.appendChild(tabContent);\r\n\r\n    \/\/ Wire new tab button (uses fresh querySelectorAll to cover all tabs\/contents)\r\n    tabBtn.addEventListener('click', () => {\r\n      document.querySelectorAll('.hpu-video-tab-btn').forEach(b => b.classList.remove('active'));\r\n      document.querySelectorAll('.hpu-video-tab-content').forEach(c => c.classList.remove('active'));\r\n      tabBtn.classList.add('active');\r\n      tabContent.classList.add('active');\r\n    });\r\n\r\n    \/\/ Patch existing buttons \u2014 their load-time NodeLists don't include the new tab,\r\n    \/\/ so add a second listener that deactivates it when they're clicked\r\n    tabsBar.querySelectorAll('.hpu-video-tab-btn:not([data-tab=\"transcript\"])').forEach(btn => {\r\n      btn.addEventListener('click', () => {\r\n        tabBtn.classList.remove('active');\r\n        tabContent.classList.remove('active');\r\n      });\r\n    });\r\n\r\n    let currentlyMobile = null;\r\n    let currentlySmall  = null;\r\n\r\n    function applyLayout() {\r\n      const mobile = window.innerWidth <= BREAKPOINT;\r\n      const small  = window.innerWidth <= LABEL_BREAKPOINT;\r\n\r\n      \/\/ \u2500\u2500 Transcript tab: show\/hide at 1365px \u2500\u2500\r\n      if (mobile !== currentlyMobile) {\r\n        currentlyMobile = mobile;\r\n\r\n        if (mobile) {\r\n          tabContent.appendChild(transcriptEl);\r\n          tabBtn.style.display = '';\r\n        } else {\r\n          sidebarInner.appendChild(transcriptEl);\r\n          tabBtn.style.display = 'none';\r\n          \/\/ Fall back to description tab if transcript was active\r\n          if (tabContent.classList.contains('active')) {\r\n            tabContent.classList.remove('active');\r\n            tabBtn.classList.remove('active');\r\n            const descBtn = document.querySelector('[data-tab=\"description\"]');\r\n            const descContent = document.getElementById('tab-description');\r\n            if (descBtn) descBtn.classList.add('active');\r\n            if (descContent) descContent.classList.add('active');\r\n          }\r\n        }\r\n      }\r\n\r\n      \/\/ \u2500\u2500 Tab labels: shorten at 767px \u2500\u2500\r\n      if (small !== currentlySmall) {\r\n        currentlySmall = small;\r\n        tabBtn.textContent = small ? 'Transcript' : 'Chapters & Transcript';\r\n        if (relatedBtn) relatedBtn.textContent = small ? 'Related' : 'Related Videos';\r\n      }\r\n    }\r\n\r\n    applyLayout();\r\n    window.addEventListener('resize', applyLayout);\r\n  })();\r\n<\/script>\r\n\r\n<style>\r\n  \/* \u2500\u2500 HPU Video Article \u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500 *\/\r\n\r\n  .hpu-video-article {\r\n    --purple:     #330072;\r\n    --purple-tint: rgba(51, 0, 114, .08);\r\n    --gray:       #f5f5f5;\r\n    --border:     #e0e0e0;\r\n    --muted:      #6b6b6b;\r\n    --r:          15px;\r\n    --r-sm:       5px;\r\n    --gap:        16px;\r\n  }\r\n  p:empty{\r\n    display: none;\r\n  }\r\n  .hpu-tm-r {\r\n    font-size: .75rem;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  \/* Suppress page header on video posts *\/\r\n  .archives_related.article-header { display: none; }\r\n\r\n  \/* Widen the WordPress content frame to accommodate the full layout *\/\r\n  .wysiwyg-content.wysiwyg-frame:has(.hpu-video-article) { max-width: 1800px !important; }\r\n\r\n \/* \u2500\u2500 Main Layout \u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500 *\/\r\n.hpu-video-layout {\r\n  display: flex;\r\n  flex-wrap: nowrap;\r\n  gap: var(--gap);\r\n  align-items: stretch;\r\n  max-width: 1800px;\r\n  margin: 0 auto;\r\n}\r\n \r\n.hpu-video-sidebar {\r\n  width: 380px; \r\n  flex-shrink: 0;\r\n  position: relative;\r\n  overflow: hidden; \/* hide native scrollbars *\/\r\n  border-radius: var(--r);\r\n}\r\n\r\n\/* \u2500\u2500 Sidebar Inner (Scroll Container) \u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500 *\/\r\n.hpu-video-sidebar-inner {\r\n  position: absolute;\r\n  top: 0; \r\n  left: 0; \r\n  right: 0; \r\n  bottom: 0;\r\n  background: var(--gray);\r\n  padding: 20px;\r\n  border-radius: var(--r);\r\n  overflow-y: auto; \r\n  \r\n  \/* Firefox: Default state is completely invisible *\/\r\n  scrollbar-width: thin; \r\n  scrollbar-color: transparent transparent; \r\n  transition: scrollbar-color 0.3s ease;\r\n}\r\n\r\n\/* Firefox: Hover state *\/\r\n.hpu-video-sidebar-inner:hover {\r\n  scrollbar-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) transparent;\r\n}\r\n\r\n\/* WebKit (Chrome, Edge, Safari): Base Structure *\/\r\n.hpu-video-sidebar-inner::-webkit-scrollbar {\r\n  width: 6px; \r\n}\r\n\r\n.hpu-video-sidebar-inner::-webkit-scrollbar-track {\r\n  background: transparent; \r\n}\r\n\r\n\/* WebKit: Default state is completely invisible *\/\r\n.hpu-video-sidebar-inner::-webkit-scrollbar-thumb {\r\n  background: transparent; \r\n  border-radius: 10px;\r\n}\r\n\r\n\/* WebKit: Hover state makes the thumb visible *\/\r\n.hpu-video-sidebar-inner:hover::-webkit-scrollbar-thumb {\r\n  background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); \r\n}\r\n\r\n\/* \u2500\u2500 Main Video Area \u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500 *\/\r\n.hpu-video-main {\r\n  flex-grow: 1;\r\n  min-width: 0; \r\n}\r\n\r\n  \/* \u2500\u2500 Video player \u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500 *\/\r\n  .hpu-video-section { margin-bottom: 24px; }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-video-section-iframe {\r\n    position: relative;\r\n    aspect-ratio: 16 \/ 9;\r\n    background: #000;\r\n    border-radius: var(--r);\r\n    overflow: hidden;\r\n    box-shadow: 0 4px 24px rgba(0, 0, 0, .14);\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  \/* Flatten WordPress oEmbed wrappers (figure, div, etc.) *\/\r\n  .hpu-video-section-iframe > *,\r\n  .hpu-video-section-iframe .wp-block-embed,\r\n  .hpu-video-section-iframe .wp-block-embed__wrapper {\r\n    position: absolute !important;\r\n    inset: 0 !important;\r\n    width:  100% !important;\r\n    height: 100% !important;\r\n    margin:  0 !important;\r\n    padding: 0 !important;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-video-section-iframe iframe {\r\n    position: absolute;\r\n    inset: 0;\r\n    width:  100%;\r\n    height: 100%;\r\n    border: 0;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  \/* \u2500\u2500 Tabbed Container \u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500 *\/\r\n  .hpu-video-body {\r\n    background: var(--gray);\r\n    border-radius: var(--r);\r\n    padding: 20px 24px;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-video-tabs {\r\n    display: flex;\r\n    gap: 16px;\r\n    margin-bottom: 16px;\r\n    border-bottom: 2px solid var(--border);\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-video-tab-btn {\r\n    background: none;\r\n    border: none;\r\n    padding: 10px 4px;\r\n    cursor: pointer;\r\n    font-size: 15px;\r\n    font-weight: 600;\r\n    color: var(--muted);\r\n    position: relative;\r\n    margin-bottom: -2px; \/* overlay the border *\/\r\n    transition: color 0.2s;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-video-tab-btn:hover {\r\n    color: #000;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-video-tab-btn.active:not(:only-child) {\r\n    color: var(--purple);\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-video-tab-btn.active:not(:only-child)::after {\r\n    content: '';\r\n    position: absolute;\r\n    bottom: 0;\r\n    left: 0;\r\n    width: 100%;\r\n    height: 2px;\r\n    background: var(--purple);\r\n    border-radius: 2px 2px 0 0;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-video-tab-content {\r\n    display: none;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-video-tab-content.active {\r\n    display: block;\r\n    animation: fadeIn 0.4s ease;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  @keyframes fadeIn {\r\n    from { opacity: 0; transform: translateY(4px); }\r\n    to { opacity: 1; transform: translateY(0); }\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-video-summary p {\r\n    font-size: 14px;\r\n    line-height: 1.7;\r\n    color: var(--muted);\r\n    margin: 0 0 12px;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-video-tags {\r\n    display: flex;\r\n    flex-wrap: wrap;\r\n    gap: 6px;\r\n    margin-top: 4px;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-video-tag {\r\n    display: inline-block;\r\n    font-size: 12px;\r\n    font-weight: 500;\r\n    color: var(--purple);\r\n    background: var(--purple-tint);\r\n    border: 1px solid rgba(51, 0, 114, .18);\r\n    border-radius: 20px;\r\n    padding: 3px 10px;\r\n    white-space: nowrap;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  \/* \u2500\u2500 CTA \u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500 *\/\r\n  .hpu-btn-purple-outline {\r\n    display: inline-block;\r\n    border: 2px solid var(--purple);\r\n    color: var(--purple);\r\n    background: transparent;\r\n    padding: 10px 24px;\r\n    border-radius: 5px;\r\n    font-size: 15px;\r\n    font-weight: 600;\r\n    font-family: Bitter, sans-serif;\r\n    text-decoration: none !important;\r\n    transition: all 0.2s ease;\r\n  }\r\n  \r\n  .hpu-btn-purple-outline:hover {\r\n    background: var(--purple);\r\n    color: #fff !important;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-video-cta-container {\r\n    background: #fff;\r\n    padding: 24px;\r\n    text-align: center;\r\n    border: 1px solid var(--border);\r\n    border-radius: var(--r);\r\n    margin-bottom: 20px;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  #hpu-video-cta { margin-top: 0; }\r\n  \r\n  #hpu-video-cta h2 {\r\n    margin-top: 0;\r\n    margin-bottom: 8px;\r\n    font-size: 20px;\r\n    font-weight: 600;\r\n    line-height: 1.3;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  #hpu-video-cta p {\r\n    color: var(--muted);\r\n    margin-bottom: 16px;\r\n    font-size: 13px;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  \/* \u2500\u2500 Transcript container \u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500 *\/\r\n  .hpu-video-transcript {\r\n    background: #fff;\r\n    border: 1px solid var(--border);\r\n    border-radius: var(--r);\r\n    overflow: hidden;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  \/* \u2500\u2500 Transcript header \u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500 *\/\r\n  .hpu-video-transcript-header {\r\n    padding: 16px 20px;\r\n    background: transparent;\r\n    border-bottom: 1px solid var(--border);\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-video-transcript-title {\r\n    font-size: 16px;\r\n    font-weight: 500;\r\n    color: #333;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-video-transcript-content {\r\n    background: transparent;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  \/* \u2500\u2500 FAQ Accordion Chapters \u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500 *\/\r\n  .hpu-video-transcript-chapter {\r\n    border-bottom: 1px solid var(--border);\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-video-transcript-chapter:last-child { \r\n    border-bottom: none; \r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-video-transcript-chapter-header {\r\n    padding: 16px 20px;\r\n    cursor: pointer;\r\n    position: relative;\r\n    transition: background-color 0.2s;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-video-transcript-chapter-header:hover {\r\n    background-color: rgba(0,0,0,0.02);\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  \/* Accordion chevron *\/\r\n  .hpu-video-transcript-chapter-header::after {\r\n    content: '';\r\n    position: absolute;\r\n    right: 20px;\r\n    top: 50%;\r\n    transform: translateY(-50%) rotate(45deg); \/* Point straight down *\/\r\n    width: 10px;\r\n    height: 10px;\r\n    border-right: 2px solid var(--muted);\r\n    border-bottom: 2px solid var(--muted);\r\n    transition: transform 0.3s ease;\r\n    transform-origin: 65% 65%;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-video-transcript-chapter.expanded .hpu-video-transcript-chapter-header::after {\r\n    transform: translateY(-50%) rotate(-135deg); \/* Point straight up *\/\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-video-transcript-chapter-header-top {\r\n    display: flex;\r\n    align-items: center;\r\n    gap: 12px;\r\n    padding-right: 24px; \/* avoid chevron *\/\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-video-transcript-chapter-number {\r\n    font-size: 14px;\r\n    font-weight: 700;\r\n    color: #333;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  \/* h2 preserved for heading hierarchy and AEO *\/\r\n  .hpu-video-transcript-speaker {\r\n    font-size: 16px !important;\r\n    font-weight: 500 !important;\r\n    font-family: Poppins, sans-serif !important;\r\n    color: #333 !important;\r\n    margin: 0 !important;\r\n    line-height: 1.4 !important;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-video-transcript-text-container {\r\n    height: 0;\r\n    overflow: hidden;\r\n    transition: height 0.3s ease;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-video-transcript-text-inner {\r\n    padding: 0 20px 20px;\r\n    display: flex;\r\n    flex-direction: column;\r\n    gap: 12px;\r\n    cursor: pointer;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-video-transcript-chapter-time {\r\n    margin-top: 4px;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-video-transcript-chapter-time a {\r\n    font-size: 11px;\r\n    font-weight: 400;\r\n    color: #000;\r\n    text-decoration: none;\r\n    background: var(--purple-tint);\r\n    padding: 3px 8px;\r\n    border-radius: var(--r-sm);\r\n    font-variant-numeric: tabular-nums;\r\n    display: inline-block;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-video-transcript-text-inner:hover .hpu-video-transcript-chapter-time a {\r\n    background: var(--purple);\r\n    color: #fff;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-video-transcript-text {\r\n    font-size: 13px;\r\n    line-height: 1.6;\r\n    color: var(--muted);\r\n    margin: 0;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  \/* \u2500\u2500 Related Videos \u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500 *\/\r\n  .hpu-related-videos {\r\n    position: relative;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-related-videos::before,\r\n  .hpu-related-videos::after {\r\n    content: '';\r\n    position: absolute;\r\n    top: 0;\r\n    bottom: 0;\r\n    width: 16px;\r\n    pointer-events: none;\r\n    z-index: 1;\r\n    opacity: 0;\r\n    transition: opacity 0.3s ease;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-related-videos::before {\r\n    left: 0;\r\n    background: linear-gradient(to right, var(--gray), transparent);\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-related-videos::after {\r\n    right: 0;\r\n    background: linear-gradient(to left, var(--gray), transparent);\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-related-videos.has-scroll-left::before  { opacity: 1; }\r\n  .hpu-related-videos.has-scroll-right::after  { opacity: 1; }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-rv-nav {\r\n    position: absolute;\r\n    top: 50%;\r\n    transform: translateY(-50%);\r\n    width: 48px;\r\n    height: 48px;\r\n    padding: 0;\r\n    background: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.7);\r\n    border: 1px solid var(--border);\r\n    border-radius: 50%;\r\n    cursor: pointer;\r\n    display: flex;\r\n    align-items: center;\r\n    justify-content: center;\r\n    z-index: 2;\r\n    opacity: 0;\r\n    transition: opacity 0.3s ease;\r\n    pointer-events: none;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-rv-nav-prev { left: 8px; }\r\n  .hpu-rv-nav-next { right: 8px; }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-related-videos.has-scroll-left  .hpu-rv-nav-prev,\r\n  .hpu-related-videos.has-scroll-right .hpu-rv-nav-next {\r\n    opacity: 1;\r\n    pointer-events: auto;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-rv-nav-chevron {\r\n    display: block;\r\n    width: 12px;\r\n    height: 12px;\r\n    border-right: 2.5px solid var(--muted);\r\n    border-bottom: 2.5px solid var(--muted);\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-rv-nav-prev .hpu-rv-nav-chevron { transform: rotate(135deg);  margin-left: 3px; }\r\n  .hpu-rv-nav-next .hpu-rv-nav-chevron { transform: rotate(-45deg);  margin-right: 3px; }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-related-videos-none {\r\n    display: none;\r\n    font-size: 13px;\r\n    color: var(--muted);\r\n    margin: 8px 0 0;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  @keyframes hpu-rv-shimmer {\r\n    0%   { background-position: 200% 0; }\r\n    100% { background-position: -200% 0; }\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-rv-skel {\r\n    flex: 0 0 calc((100% - 132px) \/ 4);\r\n    display: flex;\r\n    flex-direction: column;\r\n    gap: 8px;\r\n    flex-shrink: 0;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-rv-skel-thumb {\r\n    width: 100%;\r\n    aspect-ratio: 16 \/ 9;\r\n    border-radius: var(--r-sm);\r\n    background: linear-gradient(90deg, #e8e8e8 25%, #f4f4f4 50%, #e8e8e8 75%);\r\n    background-size: 200% 100%;\r\n    animation: hpu-rv-shimmer 1.4s ease-in-out infinite;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-rv-skel-line {\r\n    height: 12px;\r\n    border-radius: 4px;\r\n    background: linear-gradient(90deg, #e8e8e8 25%, #f4f4f4 50%, #e8e8e8 75%);\r\n    background-size: 200% 100%;\r\n    animation: hpu-rv-shimmer 1.4s ease-in-out infinite;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-rv-skel-line-short {\r\n    width: 60%;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-related-videos-slider {\r\n    display: flex;\r\n    gap: 12px;\r\n    overflow-x: auto;\r\n    min-height: 130px;\r\n    scroll-snap-type: x mandatory;\r\n    -webkit-overflow-scrolling: touch;\r\n    padding-bottom: 6px;\r\n    scroll-padding-left: 48px;\r\n    scrollbar-width: thin;\r\n    scrollbar-color: transparent transparent;\r\n    transition: scrollbar-color 0.3s ease;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-related-videos-slider:hover {\r\n    scrollbar-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) transparent;\r\n  }\r\n\r\n  .hpu-related-videos-slider::-webkit-scrollbar { height: 4px; 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Hello and thank you for joining us. My name is Megan Hovey. I&#039;m a senior from Rochester, New York majoring in sports media and minoring in social media marketing. Today I&#039;m going&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13788,"featured_media":243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_hpuaeo_plugin_post_data":"{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"VideoObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.highpoint.edu\/watch\/chris-ullman-strategic-communications-access-innovators-podcast\/#video\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.highpoint.edu\/watch\/chris-ullman-strategic-communications-access-innovators-podcast\/#webpage\"},\"name\":\"Access to Innovators Podcast with Chris Ullman\",\"description\":\"This is a conversation between High Point University student Megan Hovey and Chris Ullman, founder of Ullman Communications and HPU's Strategic Communication Expert in Residence. Ullman discusses his path to becoming involved with HPU through family connections, what distinguishes HPU students from their peers, and his philosophy of humanizing communications through real-world storytelling. The podcast covers his innovation in shifting from message-taking to advisory roles, his volunteer work with the American Red Cross for over four decades, his perspective on AI in communications and the importance of human creativity, his unexpected journey as a champion whistler and advocate for finding one's simple gift, his experience with strategic messaging at the White House, and his forthcoming book featuring success lessons from billionaires and leaders he's worked with.\",\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/2E3R3oaXIBA\/maxresdefault.jpg\",\"uploadDate\":\"2023-10-27\",\"duration\":\"PT36M38S\",\"embedUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2E3R3oaXIBA\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.highpoint.edu\/watch\/chris-ullman-strategic-communications-access-innovators-podcast\/\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=2E3R3oaXIBA\"],\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.highpoint.edu\/#University\"},\"transcript\":\"welcome to the access to innovators podcast powered by the premier life skills University High Point University hello and thank you for joining us my name is Megan Hovey I'm a senior from Rochester New York majoring in sports media and minoring in social media marketing but today I'm going one-on-one with Chris Ullman who is the founder and president of Ullman Communications LLC and High Point University strategic communication expert in Residence Chris thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today and joining us I'm super excited well Megan I am delighted to be here I love High Point University and I'm excited to talk to a fellow New Yorker I'm from Long Island yeah a little bit of the opposite sides of the state but we have that that Bond still the Empire State there you go so just kind of getting into it I mean I know you said you love coming back to campus so what exactly attracted you to bring your skills here to High Point University and what do you think sets HPU students apart well this is a really special place we first learned about it when my nephew who's now a senior came here you know four years or so ago well actually probably five years ago because when he was touring the school we actually went on the tour with him uh so we learned about the school and not a ton but just enough and then my son who's now a junior at High Point uh said wow his his cousin Luke is having a great time and just learning a lot he's in Sports Marketing just like you uh thinks it's a great degree and so we learned more and more and more about the school about its philosophy and the like and so we really excited that our son was interested in coming here and then thankfully he got in so once our our son was here then you know we started visiting more for parents weekend and the like and uh just so impressed with the place then interestingly a friend of mine is in the experts in Residence program uh gentleman by the name of Bill Canard bill is just an amazing man he's he's currently the chairman of AT&T he was the ambassador to the European Union and we used to work together at an investment firm called the Carlyle Group so I bill told me about this program and I said wow that's really neat the this opportunity to come and lecture and Mentor students and uh help them understand what the real world is like and and I looked at the array of experts they had and amazingly they did not have a Communications expert in Residence so I said to Bill That should be me and he said I agree so he went to the administration and pitched me and they said yes so that's how I got the job I mean it's a volunteer job and it's part-time uh both of which are fine with me uh so that's how I got introduced to it yeah and what do you think kind of sets High Point students apart from you know other students maybe you've interacted with in kind of your tenure throughout the industry well I I have met many students here of course my nephew and my son and I think what sets the HPU student apart is that their appreciation for you know what makes this school really special and what makes the school special and which and and it's why it attracts a certain type of student is that there's this very direct link between what the student are learning kind of day in and day out and the real world now I'm all for theoretical learning and um things that are you just you know pure knowledge absolutely but one of the things I really love about High Point and my son loved about it and many of the students that I've met here is this and almost like Workforce preparation so yeah you're learning skills and that's really important but it's the application of it so the having this experts in Residence program uh you have the internship programs that they make available and that the fact that they take it so seriously you have to like take a course to prepare yourself to do an internship because they want those students to make the most of the internship and represent the school well which I think is good and president Qubein of course is an inspirational leader who places such an emphasis on getting people ready for the real world and so the students I meet um and the students that are like you who they take their study seriously they are good role models for their fellow students they are really trying to harness what they're learning today so that it will really be applicable in the future um you know the the mentoring program here like every student has a mentor I think that's really impressive I mean especially when you're a freshman you come to a school with 6,000 students and you can feel lost and not sure where to go having that Mentor there so that that's just kind of one part of this larger Spirit of like how the school takes care of the students and prepares them for the postgraduate life yeah absolutely and kind of going off of that since you've been on campus so much what's your favorite part of Campus oh I could start with a Chick-fil-A okay uh see oh my gosh what do I right so many good I'm going to rattle through I'm a PR guy so I'm going to rattle through them um I love the inspirational statues they have I I never get tired of it and I love the international kind of promenade where you just see all the flags from uh countries around the world The Fountains the uh little hangout places where you can contemplate life and the like uh the Qubein Arena is just amazing uh I I whistled the national Anthem there I'm a I'm a champion Whistler which is unusual talents uh and you know but ultimately it's the faculty that is really impressive here I've gotten to meet a number of the professors particularly in the communications department and they really are passionate they are smart they care about their students and they're uh and and in the spirit of the school they're very welcoming of practitioners people like me who have a wealth of communications experience to to come into their classroom and feel welcome there and to to share uh my experiences and tips and uh of the trade with uh with students I just this morning I met with a a group of 25 or so students who are all freshmen uh most of them are are Communications Majors or plan on it and you know the chance to kind of instill uh some principles of what does it mean to Be an Effective communicator and and then just some practical things about how to advance through the profession and what makes for uh an effective communicator and the like uh you know it's great when the professors they acknowledge that that they they understand that having practitioners come and guest lecture is important so you're you're mixing the academic and the textbook with the real world and that's really important yeah I can't say enough great things about the faculty here especially in the communication school and I know for sure for me I've really benefited from people like you coming via Zoom or in person just to kind of network and share their experiences because like you said it's so important to just kind of get that exposure to what the real world is like outside of these four walls of the communication School MH so Innovation is in our DNA here at HPU can you kind of talk about a time when you innovated your strategies to better serve your clients or people that you work with yeah one of the things I I talked with the students this morning was the difference between being what I call a message Taker and an advisor and message takers are very good at writing things down going to the boss and saying hey boss this is what's happening what do you want to do and advisor on the other hand looks at all the facts which are important but then comes up with options option A B and here are the pluses and minuses of each I recommend B for these reasons and then you make the case to the boss to the client so my Innovation is it's not like some super fancy thing of like some new AI technology which I do think is important yeah and is going to have a huge impact on the communications profession but this simple notion of kind of pushing back against um you know maybe just kind of the normal way of doing things and when you're an advisor you're almost always pushing back because a lot of times clients will want to do a certain thing but as the advisor you're saying well there may be a better approach all right so with that as a foundation I'll give you an example and so PR people and I've seen this throughout my career tend to focus on kind of things versus humans and let me explain that so uh I had a client who is a billionaire and this billionaire really loved to help homeless people so he wrote a $5 million check to this homeless uh assistance organization in Washington DC and the PR people at the homeless shelter came to me and said all right we've written a press release and we need your approval because we're sending it out tomorrow and and I said well first of all what's the rush but yeah I'll I'll review your press release and so they were focused on kind of the the what billionaire gives five million to help homeless people now that's a good thing but as an advisor rather than just a kind of a box Checker oh I approved your release and it's fine you know I didn't add much value there but as an advisor I then looked at this release and said what is your objective not because a press release is is just a vessel it's not a strategy and in a vessel you pour content into it but they were pouring the wrong content into it they were they were just talking about the billionaire giving the money to help the homeless people but what we were missing was who benefits well homeless people benefit and I said well that is what we should be focused on and since their objective was to get a story in the Washington Post then just taking a news release and sending it to 50 reporters in the Washington area just talking about the billionaire and how generous he is it's not going to get you anything so what I said to them is what we should do is and serving as an advisor is focus on the humanity of it let's focus on the outcome that this money is going to help actual humans get on their feet and at first the PR people were like oh no no we have deadline we got to get the press we have a deadline we got to get the press release out and I said no trust me this will be much better so I finally convinced them so what then they I then made a connection to a reporter at the Washington Post and I then step away and two and a half months go by and on Christmas morning I go out and pick up my newspaper The Washington Post and there is the story on the front page top of the fold featuring not the billionaire but the homeless families that were actually benefiting from this $5 million gift and the housing that they now have in a warm safe place on Christmas morning now that is just it's a great way to do PR of course and and you might think oh my client's upset now because he doesn't get all the attention he didn't even want the attention like they kind of made him make this announcement but of course if you're gonna make an announcement it should be effective so the greatest Innovation and is almost like just doing it the kind of the old-fashioned way which is let's get away from mechanics and let's get away from things and let's humanize so I constantly injecting the kind of the human component into how we communicate and it it makes a remarkable difference in both how the media will kind of perceive this news and then the audience when when they see it they're much more likely to have a um more intimate and kind of emotional reaction if they're hearing about a human and what they're going through rather than just some rich guy giving a check yeah absolutely and as you know High Point places a really big emphasis on giving back to the local community and you've previously served as an adviser to the American Red Cross and helped them kind of work through their communication strategy how are you able to do that knowing that donations are still urgent needed and were still urgently needed I I just love the Red Cross so I first got exposed to them when I was 18 years old and I I gave my first pint of blood and this is crazy but I just gave my 11th gallon not all at once of course you know there are eight pints in gallon so I gave my 88th pint of blood so I've actually worked with the Red Cross uh as a donor for 42 years and then uh I I I got named to the board for the the greater Washington area and that was a great experience and you know board members for nonprofit organizations typically have several roles to do you have to raise money and you have to kind of get the word out uh among different audiences so that they too will support the organization with their time Talent treasure and the like and then kind of strategic guidance as well and so I gave a number of suggestions to to the the Red Cross kind of uh president at the time and their PR people uh again focusing on Humanity you know how do we take either a disaster and humanize it or how do we take the need for blood and humanize it and it's not like they weren't doing this but I tried to give them tips on how to maximize it and uh that that way of humanizing it is I think much more powerful because if you have blood in your body but you've never given blood if you actually realize the impact it has on an actual human that every pint you give can save three humans now you'll probably never meet these people but just the fact that you're able to you know change a life Save a Life Yeah by just having someone stick a needle in your arm which are nowhere near as painful as people think I don't actually watch them put the needle in oh uh because it I kind of critique the the FLOTUS you know I mean you've done it so many times I think you have pretty good I do I have a a good I actually I couldn't do it because I've actually never done it meaning putting the needle in but I actually know when they're doing a good job you and most of them are very good and I know we talked a little bit about artificial intelligence and all that kind of stuff but I kind of want to dive deeper into that so with it being more prevalent than ever especially in the communications World especially with things like chat gpt and things like that how do you think the industry will be able to Pivot and what advice would you give to current students like myself looking to enter the communications industry and looking to compete against these robots and these kind of this is such an important issue I mean it's it's both uh dazzlingly exciting yes and astoundingly frightening and in terms of the good because any new technology has at least I shouldn't say any new tech technology but AI has a lot of good potential and a huge downside as well and I've been telling my children this I have a 21y old 20 and a 17y old is that this is big and it's going to be huge so you ignore it at your peril so if you look at the communications profession and how how AI will affect it you know the the the challenge with AI is that it's for the most part not creating things from scratch it is assembling stuff that it finds so if there's a lot of junk out there all it's going to do is find the junk and rearrange it into a different form of junk so that's not good so the key is how do you harness it so that it will actually help produce good stuff and you know I try not to be a Luddite when it comes to technology and and I am a fan of efficiency and the like so if should we use AI to write the first drafts of documents I'm not opposed to that uh but it should not be the final draft that is for sure because you will just get again this kind of accumulation of stuff that's already out there and I tend to think a lot of the press releases that are out there are just not well written so if the AI little robots or whatever they are are out there just taking bits and pieces of poorly written press releases and reassembling them I mean that that's bad so I I think some of the the lessons for communicators are that you should know a lot about AI what it can do and what it can do best and then what are the things that really doesn't work well because if you if you remove the human component from it that is just it's just bad because it will take away the creativity so it's sort of like any new technology especially a time-saving technology you know is generally a good thing and because it frees up our time to do higher level things so as AI in the community Communications World in particular starts doing some of the very basic things I say well that's fine but so students and then practitioners of communications what they must do is make sure that their value added skills are like developed and kind of omnipresent yeah so that when they get that first draft produced by the AI they don't just sign off on and say oh well that was brilliant because there's no way it's going to be brilliant but they can take that and because of their the knowledge base they have about the the subject that they're reporting on or or doing PR for that the machine probably doesn't have machines don't have Nuance they don't understand politics they don't understand um kind of Market differentiation necessarily so there are going to be a ton of areas that AI especially in this first wave just can't do so that's where the students must really bone up on their skill sets so that they're always adding value and then figuring out how to harness the AI to uh be efficient because that's good and then to perhaps be more thorough in terms of like the search for data I mean it's hard to say that's a bad thing right uh but then use that brain that human brain to uh for the creativity and the discernment that a AI just does not have yeah I love that so you're known around the world pretty much as the happy Whistler MH so can you explain how you developed and shared your special gift I mean how did you take up whistling well I am I am a happy Whistler and so I love whistling I've been whistling for for 55 years I just turned 60 and I started when I was five now in the early days I was not particularly good but I still enjoyed doing it so you know in a nutshell you know some people can whistle it's a physiological thing some people just can't so thankfully I'm able to whistle and I was exposed to it my father was uh a pretty accomplished Whistler he wasn't a champion but he had a very beautiful sounding whistle and just loved to do it all the time and it brought him joy and brought me joy just listening to him so the exposure to that and it got me kind just into it and then I started practicing like literally practicing not just kind of randomly with uh so I would listen to classical music primarily as a child so I'd put on uh Strauss Waltzes in particular and that's still my favorite rehearsal music is Strauss Waltzes because the the complexity of the music the range the requirement to have like little technique that kind of mimic the instruments so that is a core reason why I just enjoy whistling but what I that's for my personal satisfaction what I found though is I can use this whistling to bring joy to other people uh so I have a what I call a whistling Ministry so I actually I Whistle happy birthday 650 times a year and so the what's interesting about this little happy birthday Ministry is that typically when it comes to wishing someone a happy birthday of course your family and then your best friends and maybe your co-workers or if you're a student your dorm mates or housemates or something like that and and that's good and you know maybe that's 152 people or so but I I get to kind of inject myself into a a a happy moment for 650 people a year and to kind of honor their life bring them some joy and in a fun way and I routinely get notes and it's why this this real great positive feedback mechanism is that I happily whistle for someone and then they send me these sweet notes that you made my day now my day is complete and I have friends I've been whistling happy birthday for because I started in I think 95 so it's been 25 28 years or so of happy birthday whistles and anyway so that brings me a lot of Joy because I can bring joy to others and and I've just done a lot of fun things with it I've performed with symphony orchestras and I Whistle the national anthem at events I'm whistling tomorrow uh at a High Point uh women's soccer game the national anthem so I'm excited about that I've whistled at the top of the Washington Monument on the outside not in the observation deck but literally on the outside when they had scaffolding on it 555 ft in the air I whistled Yankee Doodle Dandy that's a a whole another crazy story so it's been uh it's been a great journey I have a CD of performing with uh Symphony Orchestra and I've written a book about it I've done TED talks and uh and my kind of core message aside from the happy birthdays is you know what is your simple gift in life and can you find it and the name of my book is called find your whistle it's a metaphor for what is your simple gift and you know so you find the gift develop the gift share the gift and and I take this kind of counterintuitive approach which is don't try to change the world it's really not possible you know and but you can change the world of the people just around you and and what that means is to bring some joy to them and to make them feel special because I think it's easy to just worry about oneself and what what's really important is to care about other people and you know impact their lives so the whistling has been uh just a completely unexpected big part of my life I never could have mapped this out when I was five years old you know trying to figure it out yeah absolutely and you previously have worked for the White House and helped them you know develop some strategic messaging what was it like doing that for such a large organization with so many different policies and guidelines and things like that yeah in my career I've worked for some great organizations and institutions worked on Capitol Hill for the House Budget Committee so it's a very technical subject and and there that's where I really learned this humanizing thing yeah like you turn this geeky document of numbers and put human flesh on it like what does this budget actually mean as it relates to humans and then when I worked at the the White House Budget Office it's called OMB Office of Management and Budget is the budgeting arm for the federal government it's part of the Executive Office of the President and uh there it's it is similar to the house budget committee but the the White House is leading this effort and you know the goal again is to to take policy and put numbers to it because governing is all about resource allocation you know you get get money in in taxes and you spend the money so the goal is you know how do we allocate those resources and when you come up with policies I mean ultimately those policies have impact on humans so our big goal was to communicate effectively about how this or that or this or that policy affects actual humans it could be Social Security it could be Medicare could be the Park Service uh the federal government is vast and I'll tell you it's crazy crazy fun story so again trying to humanize things um so the budget director a man by the name of Mitch Daniels who went on to be governor of uh in of Indiana and then he was president of Purdue for 12 years like this is a serious guy but he's very funny yeah so when we put out the president's first budget uh we had to cut spending because there was a deficit and so Mitch who's very witty said all right this is what we're going to do we are going to get copies of the Rolling Stone song You Can't Always Get What You Want and the refrain is but if you try some time you might just find you get what you need so he's trying to contrast wants and needs yes and I made copies of this and this is this is shows you how long ago on cassette tapes which no one uses anymore and then when we handed out the budget to the reporters like these are National reporters at the AP and DOW Jones and and other you know the Washington Post Etc I gave them the budget and the cassette tape and they were like what's that and I said you got to listen to that before you read the budget and and they all did and then almost every article referenced this about how witty it was but that we were trying to make a point that you can't always get what you want but we try to give you what you need now what ended up happening was that the the White House went berserk when they found out what we were doing the the like the number two press person called me up and she says I heard you're doing this thing which clearly is not actually happening and I said no no it's it's happening she's like oh my gosh you must stop that right now and I was like oh okay but we it we sent it out like to a bunch of reporters by the time she intervened so like what's the point you know you can use humor to try to make a point and to try to uh get things done and Mitch was very good at use harnessing humor to kind of further his objectives and we you know we try to humanize it too we're not just a bunch of geeky people you know we can have some fun we can we can use a rolling stone song to try to make a point and I think we were effective at it yeah absolutely all right Chris so you have a new book coming out tell us about it let's see it all right it's called four billionaires and a parking attendant success strategies of the wealthy powerful and just plain wise so this is a book book about how to be your best how to be successful and Having learned this through a firsthand experience working with 15 of some of the most successful people in the world four literally four billionaires um who run investment firms uh the governor of Virginia uh Glenn Youngkin is in there Lou Gerstner Who is one of the greatest CEOs of the 20th century Adena Friedman she is the CEO and chair of NASDAQ publicly traded company so these are all people I've worked with firsthand and I've seen these immensely talented people in action over a 30-year period And I say well if if Lou Gerstner or Adina or David Rubenstein or Orlando Bravo he's another billionaire if they do X y or Z and it works for them well let's see if I can do that too right and what's really exciting about this is that uh each lesson is told via an anecdote so it's very accessible you can really get it and they're very doable meaning like if I said Megan if you can run the Boston Marathon in three hours and 30 minutes then you can be your best and be successful you know unless you're a serious Runner you would say oh my gosh there's no way I can do that and but that's not what it is this is about having Drive about being humble and about being disciplined and those are all things that you know don't require running the Boston Marathon in the 330 now I'm not saying having drive and being humble and being disciplined are like necessarily super easy but they are very achievable and so I break these 50 lessons into these eight strategies uh such as to to be Innovative to be purposeful to build Bridges with people who don't agree with you to think of others so people might think that oh there's a book about a bunch of billionaires why would he have a section in there on thinking of others well it's amazing how generous the the billionaires that I've worked for are they have pledged to give away all their money in one example um actually I mentioned it earlier Bill Conway who gave the $5 million to the homeless shelter he would actually roam the whole suite at the Carlyle Group where we worked with a box filled with hundreds of gift cards for Dunkin Donuts and and he would knock on doors and he he'd say all right if you promise to give these gift cards to homeless people you see on the street I will give you as many as you want and so I to this day carry those in my wallet and give them to homeless people and I printed up a little card that tells them where to go for help because you know $10 gift card is not going to change your life yeah but it will help for a few moments and then if you can get to a place that can help you with with u substance abuse and housing uh clothing Medical Care Etc so that's where you really want to get people but Bill this billionaire could have been just making more money roaming the Halls really helping people to think of someone other than yourself and in a way that can uh you know touch their heart and hope hopefully make their their life a little better and so there are just tons of lessons in here uh about just how to be your best you if you want to be a billionaire that's fine with me I'm a capitalist but that was not my goal my goal was to be the best version of me you know to be as strategic and be as purposeful and be as generous and uh you know be a bridge builder in how I live my life day in and day out so there just uh just amazing lessons that um I'm really excited to share with people the book comes out uh in October uh so I'm hoping people read it I hope they will learn from it and hope they will benefit the way I have as well yeah I'm excited to read it you gave me a nice little taste yeah yeah I'm excited so just kind of wrapping up what would you say is one piece of advice that you would give to current High Point University students when it comes to building their own personal brand that reflects their own values know the key is understanding oneself because if you understand yourself you can then effectively build your brand and so understanding yourself takes time it's not something that happens in a weekend you know to understand what's in your heart meaning what do you want to do or in your head what are you able to do takes time so what I encourage students to do is to go through a period of discernment now arguably discernment lasts a lifetime but I think it's especially acute when someone is in their early 20s where you're really trying to understand those strengths weaknesses those desires things you like think where areas where you've struggled so the more you understand yourself you'll have a much better um much better kind of sense of where you should be going because we're all on a journey you know life is just this long journey and you want it to be as fulfilling and kind of effective as possible which is why in my new book there this the beginning section is all about purpose having what I call an it like what is your it yeah so early in my professional life you know being the best PR person I could be was my it and then I become a Whistler and I say well uh being the best Whistler I can be was my it and your it is different than mine but the key is to have one so that you have purpose and the more you understand yourself strengths and weaknesses the better able you will be to find your it and then to actually execute on it so it's at its core it's understanding yourself and the more you understand yourself the better you will be able to communicate yourself to others and you will have purpose through that yeah love that all right Chris thank you so much for for sharing your extraordinary advice and achievements with us today we're so grateful for your commitment to mentoring High Point University students and joining a remarkable and Innovative program that inspires our students in Campus Community thank you well it's a delight to be here Megan thank you and I wish you well uh with your studies and with your career and with your life thank you so much and thank you all for joining me on the access to innovators podcast powered by High Point University [Music]\",\"keywords\":[\"Chris Ullman\",\"High Point University\",\"strategic communications\",\"innovation\",\"humanizing communications\",\"AI and communications\",\"Red Cross\",\"whistling\",\"personal brand\",\"leadership lessons\",\"mentorship\"],\"hasPart\":[{\"@type\":\"Clip\",\"name\":\"Intro\",\"description\":\"Intro\",\"startOffset\":4,\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.highpoint.edu\/watch\/chris-ullman-strategic-communications-access-innovators-podcast\/#t=4\",\"transcript\":\"Welcome to the Access to Innovators podcast powered by the premier life skills University High Point University. Hello and thank you for joining us. My name is Megan Hovey. I'm a senior from Rochester, New York majoring in sports media and minoring in social media marketing. Today I'm going one-on-one with Chris Ullman, who is the founder and president of Ullman Communications LLC and High Point University's strategic communication expert in residence. Chris, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today and joining us. I'm super excited. Well, Megan, I am delighted to be here. I love High Point University and I'm excited to talk to a fellow New Yorker. I'm from Long Island. Yeah, a little bit on opposite sides of the state, but we have that bond still. The Empire State.\",\"endOffset\":55},{\"@type\":\"Clip\",\"name\":\"Why High Point University\",\"description\":\"Why High Point University\",\"startOffset\":55,\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.highpoint.edu\/watch\/chris-ullman-strategic-communications-access-innovators-podcast\/#t=55\",\"transcript\":\"So just kind of getting into it, I know you said you love coming back to campus. What exactly attracted you to bring your skills here to High Point University, and what do you think sets HPU students apart? Well, this is a really special place. We first learned about it when my nephew, who's now a senior, came here about five years ago. We went on the tour with him and learned about the school. Then my son, who's now a junior at High Point, said his cousin Luke is having a great time and just learning a lot. He's in sports marketing, just like you, and thinks it's a great degree. We learned more and more about the school, about its philosophy, and we were really excited that our son was interested in coming here. Thankfully, he got in. Once our son was here, we started visiting more for parents weekend and were just so impressed with the place. Interestingly, a friend of mine is in the Experts in Residence program. A gentleman by the name of Bill Canard, an amazing man who is currently the chairman of AT&T, was the ambassador to the European Union, and we used to work together at an investment firm called the Carlyle Group. Bill told me about this program and said, 'Wow, that's really neat. The opportunity to come and lecture and mentor students and help them understand what the real world is like.' I looked at the array of experts they had and amazingly they did not have a communications expert in residence. So I said to Bill, 'That should be me,' and he said 'I agree.' He went to the administration and pitched me, and they said yes. That's how I got the job. It's a volunteer job and it's part-time, both of which are fine with me.\",\"endOffset\":176},{\"@type\":\"Clip\",\"name\":\"What sets High Point apart\",\"description\":\"What sets High Point apart\",\"startOffset\":176,\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.highpoint.edu\/watch\/chris-ullman-strategic-communications-access-innovators-podcast\/#t=176\",\"transcript\":\"What do you think kind of sets High Point students apart from other students you've maybe interacted with in your tenure throughout the industry? I have met many students here, of course my nephew and my son. I think what sets the HPU student apart is their appreciation for what makes this school really special. There's a very direct link between what the students are learning day in and day out and the real world. I'm all for theoretical learning and pure knowledge absolutely. But one of the things I really love about High Point, and my son loved about it, and many of the students that I've met here is this almost workforce preparation. You're learning skills and that's really important, but it's the application of it. You have the Experts in Residence program, you have the internship programs that they make available, and the fact that they take it so seriously. You have to take a course to prepare yourself to do an internship because they want those students to make the most of the internship and represent the school well, which I think is good. President Qubein, of course, is an inspirational leader who places such an emphasis on getting people ready for the real world. The students I meet, and students like you, they take their study seriously. They are good role models for their fellow students. They are really trying to harness what they're learning today so that it will be applicable in the future. The mentoring program here is really impressive. Every student has a mentor. Especially when you're a freshman coming to a school with six thousand students, you can feel lost. Having that mentor there is just one part of this larger spirit of how the school takes care of the students and prepares them for postgraduate life.\",\"endOffset\":317},{\"@type\":\"Clip\",\"name\":\"Favorite part of campus\",\"description\":\"Favorite part of campus\",\"startOffset\":317,\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.highpoint.edu\/watch\/chris-ullman-strategic-communications-access-innovators-podcast\/#t=317\",\"transcript\":\"Absolutely. Since you've been on campus so much, what's your favorite part of campus? Oh, I could start with Chick-fil-A. I'm a PR guy so I'm going to rattle through them. I love the inspirational statues. I never get tired of it. I love the international promenade where you see all the flags from countries around the world, the fountains, the little hangout places where you can contemplate life, and the Qubein Arena is just amazing. I whistled the national anthem there. I'm a champion whistler, which is an unusual talent. But ultimately, it's the faculty that is really impressive here. I've gotten to meet a number of professors, particularly in the communications department, and they really are passionate. They are smart. They care about their students and they're very welcoming of practitioners like me who have a wealth of communications experience. I met with a group of about twenty-five freshmen students this morning, most of them communications majors or planning on it. The chance to instill some principles of what it means to be an effective communicator and practical things about how to advance through the profession is wonderful. It's great when the professors acknowledge that having practitioners come and guest lecture is important. You're mixing the academic and the textbook with the real world, and that's really important.\",\"endOffset\":450},{\"@type\":\"Clip\",\"name\":\"Innovation\",\"description\":\"Innovation\",\"startOffset\":450,\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.highpoint.edu\/watch\/chris-ullman-strategic-communications-access-innovators-podcast\/#t=450\",\"transcript\":\"I can't say enough great things about the faculty here, especially in the communication school. For me, I've really benefited from people like you coming via Zoom or in person to network and share your experiences because it's so important to just kind of get that exposure to what the real world is like outside of these four walls. Innovation is in our DNA here at HPU. Can you kind of talk about a time when you innovated your strategies to better serve your clients or people that you work with? One of the things I talked with the students this morning was the difference between being what I call a message taker and an advisor. Message takers are very good at writing things down, going to the boss and saying, 'Hey boss, this is what's happening. What do you want to do?' An advisor, on the other hand, looks at all the facts, which are important, but then comes up with options. Option A, B, and here are the pluses and minuses of each. I recommend B for these reasons. And then you make the case to the boss and to the client. My innovation is not some super fancy thing like some new AI technology, which I do think is important and will have a huge impact on the communications profession. It's this simple notion of pushing back against just the normal way of doing things. When you're an advisor, you're almost always pushing back because a lot of times clients will want to do a certain thing, but as the advisor you're saying, 'Well, there may be a better approach.' I had a client who is a billionaire and really loved helping homeless people. He wrote a five million dollar check to a homeless assistance organization in Washington DC. The PR people at the homeless shelter came to me and said, 'All right, we've written a press release and we need your approval because we're sending it out tomorrow.' I said, 'Well, first of all, what's the rush?' But I reviewed it. They were focused on the billionaire giving five million to help homeless people. Now that's a good thing. But as an advisor, I looked at this release and said, 'What is your objective?' Because a press release is just a vessel. It's not a strategy. In a vessel, you pour content into it, but they were pouring the wrong content into it. They were just talking about the billionaire giving the money to help the homeless people. But we were missing who benefits. Well, homeless people benefit. I said, 'That is what we should be focused on.' Since their objective was to get a story in the Washington Post, just taking a news release and sending it to fifty reporters in the Washington area, just talking about the billionaire and how generous he is, it's not going to get you anything. So what I said to them is, 'What we should do is focus on the humanity of it. Let's focus on the outcome that this money is going to help actual humans get on their feet.' At first the PR people were like, 'Oh no, we have a deadline. We've got to get the press release out.' And I said, 'No, trust me, this will be much better.' I finally convinced them. I made a connection to a reporter at the Washington Post and stepped away. Two and a half months went by and on Christmas morning I went out and picked up my newspaper, The Washington Post, and there is the story on the front page, top of the fold, featuring not the billionaire but the homeless families that were actually benefiting from this five million dollar gift and the housing that they now have in a warm, safe place on Christmas morning. That is a great way to do PR. You might think the client's upset because he doesn't get all the attention. He didn't even want the attention. But of course, if you're going to make an announcement, it should be effective. The greatest innovation is almost like just doing it the old-fashioned way. Let's get away from mechanics and let's get away from things and let's humanize. I'm constantly injecting the human component into how we communicate, and it makes a remarkable difference in both how the media perceive this news and how the audience reacts. They're much more likely to have an intimate and emotional reaction if they're hearing about a human and what they're going through rather than just some rich guy giving a check.\",\"endOffset\":789},{\"@type\":\"Clip\",\"name\":\"Giving back\",\"description\":\"Giving back\",\"startOffset\":789,\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.highpoint.edu\/watch\/chris-ullman-strategic-communications-access-innovators-podcast\/#t=789\",\"transcript\":\"And as you know, High Point places a really big emphasis on giving back to the local community. You've previously served as an adviser to the American Red Cross and helped them work through their communication strategy. How are you able to do that knowing that donations are still urgently needed? I just love the Red Cross. I first got exposed to them when I was eighteen years old and gave my first pint of blood. This is crazy but I just gave my eleventh gallon, not all at once of course. There are eight pints in a gallon, so I gave my eighty-eighth pint of blood. I've actually worked with the Red Cross as a donor for forty-two years. Then I got named to the board for the greater Washington area, and that was a great experience. Board members for nonprofit organizations typically have several roles. You have to raise money and you have to get the word out among different audiences so that they too will support the organization with their time, talent, treasure, and strategic guidance. I gave a number of suggestions to the Red Cross president at the time and their PR people, again focusing on humanity. How do we take either a disaster and humanize it, or how do we take the need for blood and humanize it? That way of humanizing it is much more powerful because if you have blood in your body but you've never given blood, if you actually realize the impact it has on an actual human, that every pint you give can save three humans. Now you'll probably never meet these people, but just the fact that you're able to change a life and save a life by just having someone stick a needle in your arm, which is nowhere near as painful as people think. I don't actually watch them put the needle in because I kind of critique the technique. You've done it so many times, I think you have pretty good technique. I do have a good eye. I actually couldn't do it because I've never done it, meaning putting the needle in. But I actually know when they're doing a good job. Most of them are very good.\",\"endOffset\":952},{\"@type\":\"Clip\",\"name\":\"AI in communications\",\"description\":\"AI in communications\",\"startOffset\":952,\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.highpoint.edu\/watch\/chris-ullman-strategic-communications-access-innovators-podcast\/#t=952\",\"transcript\":\"We talked a little bit about artificial intelligence and all that kind of stuff, but I want to dive deeper. With it being more prevalent than ever, especially in the communications world, especially with things like ChatGPT, how do you think the industry will be able to pivot? And what advice would you give to current students like myself looking to enter the communications industry and looking to compete against these robots? This is such an important issue. It's both dazzlingly exciting and astoundingly frightening. In terms of the good, AI has a lot of good potential and a huge downside as well. I've been telling my children, I have a twenty-one, twenty, and seventeen-year-old, that this is big and it's going to be huge. So you ignore it at your peril. The challenge with AI is that it's for the most part not creating things from scratch. It is assembling stuff that it finds. So if there's a lot of junk out there, all it's going to do is find the junk and rearrange it into a different form of junk. That's not good. The key is how do you harness it so that it will actually help produce good stuff. I try not to be a Luddite when it comes to technology and I am a fan of efficiency. Should we use AI to write the first drafts of documents? I'm not opposed to that. But it should not be the final draft, for sure. Because you will just get an accumulation of stuff that's already out there. I tend to think a lot of the press releases out there are just not well written. So if the AI robots are out there taking bits and pieces of poorly written press releases and reassembling them, that's bad. I think some of the lessons for communicators are that you should know a lot about AI, what it can do and what it can do best, and then what are the things that really don't work well. Because if you remove the human component from it, that is just bad because it will take away the creativity. Any new technology, especially a time-saving technology, is generally a good thing because it frees up our time to do higher level things. As AI starts doing some of the very basic things in the communications world, that's fine. But students and practitioners of communications must make sure that their value-added skills are developed and omnipresent. When you get that first draft produced by the AI, don't just sign off and say, 'Oh well, that was brilliant.' There's no way it's going to be brilliant. But you can take that and because of your knowledge base about the subject that you're reporting on or doing PR for, which the machine probably doesn't have, machines don't have nuance. They don't understand politics. They don't understand market differentiation necessarily. There are going to be a ton of areas where AI, especially in this first wave, just can't do what you can do. That's where students must really bone up on their skill sets so that they're always adding value. Figure out how to harness the AI to be efficient because that's good, and perhaps be more thorough in terms of the search for data. But then use that human brain for the creativity and the discernment that AI just does not have.\",\"endOffset\":1236},{\"@type\":\"Clip\",\"name\":\"Happy Whistler\",\"description\":\"Happy Whistler\",\"startOffset\":1236,\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.highpoint.edu\/watch\/chris-ullman-strategic-communications-access-innovators-podcast\/#t=1236\",\"transcript\":\"So you're known around the world pretty much as the Happy Whistler. Can you explain how you developed and shared your special gift? How did you take up whistling? I am a happy whistler and I love whistling. I've been whistling for fifty-five years. I just turned sixty and I started when I was five. In the early days I was not particularly good, but I still enjoyed doing it. In a nutshell, some people can whistle. It's a physiological thing. Some people just can't. Thankfully, I'm able to whistle. I was exposed to it because my father was a pretty accomplished whistler. He wasn't a champion, but he had a very beautiful sounding whistle and just loved to do it all the time. It brought him joy and brought me joy just listening to him. The exposure to that got me into it, and then I started practicing literally, not just randomly. I would listen to classical music primarily as a child. I'd put on Strauss Waltzes in particular and that's still my favorite rehearsal music because the complexity of the music, the range, and the requirement to have technique that mimic the instruments. That's a core reason why I enjoy whistling. But what I found is I can use this whistling to bring joy to other people. I have what I call a whistling ministry. I whistle Happy Birthday six hundred fifty times a year. What's interesting about this is that typically when it comes to wishing someone a happy birthday, your family, then your best friends, maybe your coworkers or if you're a student your dorm mates, and that's good. Maybe that's one hundred fifty-two people or so. But I get to inject myself into a happy moment for six hundred fifty people a year and honor their life, bring them some joy in a fun way. I routinely get notes and it's a great positive feedback mechanism. I happily whistle for someone and then they send me these sweet notes that say 'You made my day. Now my day is complete.' I have friends I've been whistling Happy Birthday for since nineteen ninety-five, so it's been about twenty-eight years or so of happy birthday whistles. That brings me a lot of joy because I can bring joy to others. I've done a lot of fun things with it. I've performed with symphony orchestras. I whistle the national anthem at events. I'm whistling tomorrow at a High Point women's soccer game. I've whistled at the top of the Washington Monument, on the outside, not in the observation deck, but literally on the outside when they had scaffolding on it five hundred fifty-five feet in the air. I whistled Yankee Doodle Dandy. I have a CD of performing with a symphony orchestra and I've written a book about it. I've done TED talks. My core message aside from the happy birthdays is, 'What is your simple gift in life and can you find it?' The name of my book is called Find Your Whistle. It's a metaphor for what is your simple gift. You find the gift, develop the gift, share the gift. I take this counterintuitive approach which is don't try to change the world. It's really not possible. But you can change the world of the people just around you. That means bringing some joy to them and making them feel special because it's easy to just worry about oneself. What's really important is to care about other people and impact their lives. The whistling has been a completely unexpected big part of my life. I never could have mapped this out when I was five years old trying to figure it out.\",\"endOffset\":1514},{\"@type\":\"Clip\",\"name\":\"Strategic messaging\",\"description\":\"Strategic messaging\",\"startOffset\":1514,\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.highpoint.edu\/watch\/chris-ullman-strategic-communications-access-innovators-podcast\/#t=1514\",\"transcript\":\"Absolutely. You previously have worked for the White House and helped them develop some strategic messaging. What was it like doing that for such a large organization with so many different policies and guidelines? In my career, I've worked for some great organizations and institutions. I worked on Capitol Hill for the House Budget Committee. It's a very technical subject. That's where I really learned this humanizing thing. You turn this geeky document of numbers and put human flesh on it. What does this budget actually mean as it relates to humans? When I worked at the White House Budget Office, it's called OMB, the Office of Management and Budget, which is the budgeting arm for the federal government and part of the Executive Office of the President. It's similar to the House Budget Committee but the White House is leading this effort. The goal is to take policy and put numbers to it because governing is all about resource allocation. You get money in through taxes and you spend the money. The goal is how do we allocate those resources? When you come up with policies, ultimately those policies have impact on humans. Our big goal was to communicate effectively about how this or that policy affects actual humans. It could be Social Security, Medicare, the Park Service. The federal government is vast. I'll tell you a crazy fun story about trying to humanize things. The budget director, a man named Mitch Daniels, who went on to be governor of Indiana and then president of Purdue for twelve years, is a serious guy but he's very funny. When we put out the president's first budget, we had to cut spending because there was a deficit. Mitch, who's very witty, said, 'All right, this is what we're going to do. We are going to get copies of the Rolling Stones song, You Can't Always Get What You Want, and the refrain is, But if you try some time you might just find you get what you need. So he's trying to contrast wants and needs.' I made copies of this on cassette tapes, which no one uses anymore. When we handed out the budget to national reporters at the AP, DOW Jones, the Washington Post, etc., I gave them the budget and the cassette tape and they were like, 'What's that?' And I said, 'You've got to listen to that before you read the budget.' They all did, and almost every article referenced this, about how witty it was, but we were trying to make a point that you can't always get what you want but we try to give you what you need. What ended up happening was that the White House went berserk when they found out what we were doing. The number two press person called me up and said, 'I heard you're doing this thing which clearly is not actually happening.' And I said, 'No, no, it's happening.' She said, 'Oh my gosh, you must stop that right now.' But we had already sent it out to a bunch of reporters. The point is you can use humor to try to make a point and to try to get things done. Mitch was very good at harnessing humor to further his objectives. We tried to humanize it too. We're not just a bunch of geeky people. We can have some fun. We can use a Rolling Stones song to try to make a point and I think we were effective at it.\",\"endOffset\":1754},{\"@type\":\"Clip\",\"name\":\"Book\",\"description\":\"Book\",\"startOffset\":1754,\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.highpoint.edu\/watch\/chris-ullman-strategic-communications-access-innovators-podcast\/#t=1754\",\"transcript\":\"Absolutely. All right Chris, so you have a new book coming out. Tell us about it. It's called Four Billionaires and a Parking Attendant: Success Strategies of the Wealthy, Powerful, and Just Plain Wise. This is a book about how to be your best, how to be successful. I've learned this through firsthand experience working with fifteen of some of the most successful people in the world. Four are literally billionaires who run investment firms. The governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin, is in there. Lou Gerstner, who is one of the greatest CEOs of the twentieth century. Adena Friedman, who is the CEO and chair of NASDAQ, a publicly traded company. These are all people I've worked with firsthand and I've seen these immensely talented people in action over a thirty-year period. I say, well, if Lou Gerstner or Adina or David Rubenstein or Orlando Bravo, he's another billionaire, if they do X, Y, or Z and it works for them, well let's see if I can do that too. What's really exciting is that each lesson is told via an anecdote so it's very accessible. You can really get it and they're very doable. If I said, 'Megan, if you can run the Boston Marathon in three hours and thirty minutes, then you can be your best and be successful,' unless you're a serious runner, you'd say, 'Oh my gosh, there's no way I can do that.' But that's not what it is. This is about having drive, about being humble, and about being disciplined. Those are all things that don't require running the Boston Marathon. I break these fifty lessons into eight strategies such as to be innovative, to be purposeful, to build bridges with people who don't agree with you, to think of others. People might think, 'Oh, there's a book about a bunch of billionaires, why would he have a section on thinking of others?' Well, it's amazing how generous the billionaires that I've worked with are. They've pledged to give away all their money. I mentioned Bill Conway earlier who gave the five million to the homeless shelter. He would roam the suite at the Carlyle Group with a box filled with hundreds of gift cards for Dunkin Donuts and he would knock on doors and say, 'All right, if you promise to give these gift cards to homeless people you see on the street, I will give you as many as you want.' So I to this day carry those in my wallet and give them to homeless people. I printed up a little card that tells them where to go for help because a ten dollar gift card is not going to change your life, but it will help for a few moments. If you can get to a place that can help with substance abuse, housing, clothing, medical care, etc., that's where you really want to get people. Bill, this billionaire, could have been just making more money, roaming the halls really helping people, thinking of someone other than yourself in a way that can touch their heart and hopefully make their life a little better. There are tons of lessons in here about how to be your best. If you want to be a billionaire, that's fine with me. I'm a capitalist, but that was not my goal. My goal was to be the best version of me, to be as strategic and purposeful and generous and a bridge builder in how I live my life day in and day out. There are just amazing lessons that I'm really excited to share with people. The book comes out in October. I'm hoping people read it, learn from it, and benefit the way I have as well.\",\"endOffset\":2027},{\"@type\":\"Clip\",\"name\":\"Closing advice\",\"description\":\"Closing advice\",\"startOffset\":2027,\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.highpoint.edu\/watch\/chris-ullman-strategic-communications-access-innovators-podcast\/#t=2027\",\"transcript\":\"Just kind of wrapping up, what would you say is one piece of advice that you would give to current High Point University students when it comes to building their own personal brand that reflects their own values? The key is understanding oneself because if you understand yourself, you can then effectively build your brand. Understanding yourself takes time. It's not something that happens in a weekend. To understand what's in your heart, meaning what do you want to do, or in your head, what are you able to do, takes time. I encourage students to go through a period of discernment. Arguably, discernment lasts a lifetime, but it's especially acute when someone is in their early twenties where you're really trying to understand your strengths, weaknesses, desires, things you like, and areas where you've struggled. The more you understand yourself, you'll have a much better sense of where you should be going because we're all on a journey. Life is just this long journey and you want it to be as fulfilling and effective as possible. In my new book, the beginning section is all about purpose, having what I call an 'it.' What is your it? Early in my professional life, being the best PR person I could be was my it. Then I became a whistler and being the best whistler I can be was my it. Your it is different than mine, but the key is to have one so that you have purpose. The more you understand yourself, your strengths and weaknesses, the better able you will be to find your it and then to actually execute on it. It's understanding yourself. The more you understand yourself, the better you will be able to communicate yourself to others and you will have purpose through that. All right Chris, thank you so much for sharing your extraordinary advice and achievements with us today. We're so grateful for your commitment to mentoring High Point University students and joining a remarkable and innovative program that inspires our students and campus community. It's a delight to be here, Megan. Thank you, and I wish you well with your studies, with your career, and with your life. Thank you so much, and thank you all for joining me on the Access to Innovators podcast powered by High Point University.\",\"endOffset\":2198}]},{\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.highpoint.edu\/watch\/chris-ullman-strategic-communications-access-innovators-podcast\/#faqpage\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.highpoint.edu\/watch\/chris-ullman-strategic-communications-access-innovators-podcast\/#webpage\"},\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Intro\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Welcome to the Access to Innovators podcast powered by the premier life skills University High Point University. Hello and thank you for joining us. My name is Megan Hovey. I'm a senior from Rochester, New York majoring in sports media and minoring in social media marketing. Today I'm going one-on-one with Chris Ullman, who is the founder and president of Ullman Communications LLC and High Point University's strategic communication expert in residence. Chris, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today and joining us. I'm super excited. Well, Megan, I am delighted to be here. I love High Point University and I'm excited to talk to a fellow New Yorker. I'm from Long Island. Yeah, a little bit on opposite sides of the state, but we have that bond still. The Empire State.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Why High Point University\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"So just kind of getting into it, I know you said you love coming back to campus. What exactly attracted you to bring your skills here to High Point University, and what do you think sets HPU students apart? Well, this is a really special place. We first learned about it when my nephew, who's now a senior, came here about five years ago. We went on the tour with him and learned about the school. Then my son, who's now a junior at High Point, said his cousin Luke is having a great time and just learning a lot. He's in sports marketing, just like you, and thinks it's a great degree. We learned more and more about the school, about its philosophy, and we were really excited that our son was interested in coming here. Thankfully, he got in. Once our son was here, we started visiting more for parents weekend and were just so impressed with the place. Interestingly, a friend of mine is in the Experts in Residence program. A gentleman by the name of Bill Canard, an amazing man who is currently the chairman of AT&T, was the ambassador to the European Union, and we used to work together at an investment firm called the Carlyle Group. Bill told me about this program and said, 'Wow, that's really neat. The opportunity to come and lecture and mentor students and help them understand what the real world is like.' I looked at the array of experts they had and amazingly they did not have a communications expert in residence. So I said to Bill, 'That should be me,' and he said 'I agree.' He went to the administration and pitched me, and they said yes. That's how I got the job. It's a volunteer job and it's part-time, both of which are fine with me.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What sets High Point apart\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"What do you think kind of sets High Point students apart from other students you've maybe interacted with in your tenure throughout the industry? I have met many students here, of course my nephew and my son. I think what sets the HPU student apart is their appreciation for what makes this school really special. There's a very direct link between what the students are learning day in and day out and the real world. I'm all for theoretical learning and pure knowledge absolutely. But one of the things I really love about High Point, and my son loved about it, and many of the students that I've met here is this almost workforce preparation. You're learning skills and that's really important, but it's the application of it. You have the Experts in Residence program, you have the internship programs that they make available, and the fact that they take it so seriously. You have to take a course to prepare yourself to do an internship because they want those students to make the most of the internship and represent the school well, which I think is good. President Qubein, of course, is an inspirational leader who places such an emphasis on getting people ready for the real world. The students I meet, and students like you, they take their study seriously. They are good role models for their fellow students. They are really trying to harness what they're learning today so that it will be applicable in the future. The mentoring program here is really impressive. Every student has a mentor. Especially when you're a freshman coming to a school with six thousand students, you can feel lost. Having that mentor there is just one part of this larger spirit of how the school takes care of the students and prepares them for postgraduate life.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Favorite part of campus\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Absolutely. Since you've been on campus so much, what's your favorite part of campus? Oh, I could start with Chick-fil-A. I'm a PR guy so I'm going to rattle through them. I love the inspirational statues. I never get tired of it. I love the international promenade where you see all the flags from countries around the world, the fountains, the little hangout places where you can contemplate life, and the Qubein Arena is just amazing. I whistled the national anthem there. I'm a champion whistler, which is an unusual talent. But ultimately, it's the faculty that is really impressive here. I've gotten to meet a number of professors, particularly in the communications department, and they really are passionate. They are smart. They care about their students and they're very welcoming of practitioners like me who have a wealth of communications experience. I met with a group of about twenty-five freshmen students this morning, most of them communications majors or planning on it. The chance to instill some principles of what it means to be an effective communicator and practical things about how to advance through the profession is wonderful. It's great when the professors acknowledge that having practitioners come and guest lecture is important. You're mixing the academic and the textbook with the real world, and that's really important.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Innovation\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"I can't say enough great things about the faculty here, especially in the communication school. For me, I've really benefited from people like you coming via Zoom or in person to network and share your experiences because it's so important to just kind of get that exposure to what the real world is like outside of these four walls. Innovation is in our DNA here at HPU. Can you kind of talk about a time when you innovated your strategies to better serve your clients or people that you work with? One of the things I talked with the students this morning was the difference between being what I call a message taker and an advisor. Message takers are very good at writing things down, going to the boss and saying, 'Hey boss, this is what's happening. What do you want to do?' An advisor, on the other hand, looks at all the facts, which are important, but then comes up with options. Option A, B, and here are the pluses and minuses of each. I recommend B for these reasons. And then you make the case to the boss and to the client. My innovation is not some super fancy thing like some new AI technology, which I do think is important and will have a huge impact on the communications profession. It's this simple notion of pushing back against just the normal way of doing things. When you're an advisor, you're almost always pushing back because a lot of times clients will want to do a certain thing, but as the advisor you're saying, 'Well, there may be a better approach.' I had a client who is a billionaire and really loved helping homeless people. He wrote a five million dollar check to a homeless assistance organization in Washington DC. The PR people at the homeless shelter came to me and said, 'All right, we've written a press release and we need your approval because we're sending it out tomorrow.' I said, 'Well, first of all, what's the rush?' But I reviewed it. They were focused on the billionaire giving five million to help homeless people. Now that's a good thing. But as an advisor, I looked at this release and said, 'What is your objective?' Because a press release is just a vessel. It's not a strategy. In a vessel, you pour content into it, but they were pouring the wrong content into it. They were just talking about the billionaire giving the money to help the homeless people. But we were missing who benefits. Well, homeless people benefit. I said, 'That is what we should be focused on.' Since their objective was to get a story in the Washington Post, just taking a news release and sending it to fifty reporters in the Washington area, just talking about the billionaire and how generous he is, it's not going to get you anything. So what I said to them is, 'What we should do is focus on the humanity of it. Let's focus on the outcome that this money is going to help actual humans get on their feet.' At first the PR people were like, 'Oh no, we have a deadline. We've got to get the press release out.' And I said, 'No, trust me, this will be much better.' I finally convinced them. I made a connection to a reporter at the Washington Post and stepped away. Two and a half months went by and on Christmas morning I went out and picked up my newspaper, The Washington Post, and there is the story on the front page, top of the fold, featuring not the billionaire but the homeless families that were actually benefiting from this five million dollar gift and the housing that they now have in a warm, safe place on Christmas morning. That is a great way to do PR. You might think the client's upset because he doesn't get all the attention. He didn't even want the attention. But of course, if you're going to make an announcement, it should be effective. The greatest innovation is almost like just doing it the old-fashioned way. Let's get away from mechanics and let's get away from things and let's humanize. I'm constantly injecting the human component into how we communicate, and it makes a remarkable difference in both how the media perceive this news and how the audience reacts. They're much more likely to have an intimate and emotional reaction if they're hearing about a human and what they're going through rather than just some rich guy giving a check.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Giving back\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"And as you know, High Point places a really big emphasis on giving back to the local community. You've previously served as an adviser to the American Red Cross and helped them work through their communication strategy. How are you able to do that knowing that donations are still urgently needed? I just love the Red Cross. I first got exposed to them when I was eighteen years old and gave my first pint of blood. This is crazy but I just gave my eleventh gallon, not all at once of course. There are eight pints in a gallon, so I gave my eighty-eighth pint of blood. I've actually worked with the Red Cross as a donor for forty-two years. Then I got named to the board for the greater Washington area, and that was a great experience. Board members for nonprofit organizations typically have several roles. You have to raise money and you have to get the word out among different audiences so that they too will support the organization with their time, talent, treasure, and strategic guidance. I gave a number of suggestions to the Red Cross president at the time and their PR people, again focusing on humanity. How do we take either a disaster and humanize it, or how do we take the need for blood and humanize it? That way of humanizing it is much more powerful because if you have blood in your body but you've never given blood, if you actually realize the impact it has on an actual human, that every pint you give can save three humans. Now you'll probably never meet these people, but just the fact that you're able to change a life and save a life by just having someone stick a needle in your arm, which is nowhere near as painful as people think. I don't actually watch them put the needle in because I kind of critique the technique. You've done it so many times, I think you have pretty good technique. I do have a good eye. I actually couldn't do it because I've never done it, meaning putting the needle in. But I actually know when they're doing a good job. Most of them are very good.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"AI in communications\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"We talked a little bit about artificial intelligence and all that kind of stuff, but I want to dive deeper. With it being more prevalent than ever, especially in the communications world, especially with things like ChatGPT, how do you think the industry will be able to pivot? And what advice would you give to current students like myself looking to enter the communications industry and looking to compete against these robots? This is such an important issue. It's both dazzlingly exciting and astoundingly frightening. In terms of the good, AI has a lot of good potential and a huge downside as well. I've been telling my children, I have a twenty-one, twenty, and seventeen-year-old, that this is big and it's going to be huge. So you ignore it at your peril. The challenge with AI is that it's for the most part not creating things from scratch. It is assembling stuff that it finds. So if there's a lot of junk out there, all it's going to do is find the junk and rearrange it into a different form of junk. That's not good. The key is how do you harness it so that it will actually help produce good stuff. I try not to be a Luddite when it comes to technology and I am a fan of efficiency. Should we use AI to write the first drafts of documents? I'm not opposed to that. But it should not be the final draft, for sure. Because you will just get an accumulation of stuff that's already out there. I tend to think a lot of the press releases out there are just not well written. So if the AI robots are out there taking bits and pieces of poorly written press releases and reassembling them, that's bad. I think some of the lessons for communicators are that you should know a lot about AI, what it can do and what it can do best, and then what are the things that really don't work well. Because if you remove the human component from it, that is just bad because it will take away the creativity. Any new technology, especially a time-saving technology, is generally a good thing because it frees up our time to do higher level things. As AI starts doing some of the very basic things in the communications world, that's fine. But students and practitioners of communications must make sure that their value-added skills are developed and omnipresent. When you get that first draft produced by the AI, don't just sign off and say, 'Oh well, that was brilliant.' There's no way it's going to be brilliant. But you can take that and because of your knowledge base about the subject that you're reporting on or doing PR for, which the machine probably doesn't have, machines don't have nuance. They don't understand politics. They don't understand market differentiation necessarily. There are going to be a ton of areas where AI, especially in this first wave, just can't do what you can do. That's where students must really bone up on their skill sets so that they're always adding value. Figure out how to harness the AI to be efficient because that's good, and perhaps be more thorough in terms of the search for data. But then use that human brain for the creativity and the discernment that AI just does not have.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Happy Whistler\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"So you're known around the world pretty much as the Happy Whistler. Can you explain how you developed and shared your special gift? How did you take up whistling? I am a happy whistler and I love whistling. I've been whistling for fifty-five years. I just turned sixty and I started when I was five. In the early days I was not particularly good, but I still enjoyed doing it. In a nutshell, some people can whistle. It's a physiological thing. Some people just can't. Thankfully, I'm able to whistle. I was exposed to it because my father was a pretty accomplished whistler. He wasn't a champion, but he had a very beautiful sounding whistle and just loved to do it all the time. It brought him joy and brought me joy just listening to him. The exposure to that got me into it, and then I started practicing literally, not just randomly. I would listen to classical music primarily as a child. I'd put on Strauss Waltzes in particular and that's still my favorite rehearsal music because the complexity of the music, the range, and the requirement to have technique that mimic the instruments. That's a core reason why I enjoy whistling. But what I found is I can use this whistling to bring joy to other people. I have what I call a whistling ministry. I whistle Happy Birthday six hundred fifty times a year. What's interesting about this is that typically when it comes to wishing someone a happy birthday, your family, then your best friends, maybe your coworkers or if you're a student your dorm mates, and that's good. Maybe that's one hundred fifty-two people or so. But I get to inject myself into a happy moment for six hundred fifty people a year and honor their life, bring them some joy in a fun way. I routinely get notes and it's a great positive feedback mechanism. I happily whistle for someone and then they send me these sweet notes that say 'You made my day. Now my day is complete.' I have friends I've been whistling Happy Birthday for since nineteen ninety-five, so it's been about twenty-eight years or so of happy birthday whistles. That brings me a lot of joy because I can bring joy to others. I've done a lot of fun things with it. I've performed with symphony orchestras. I whistle the national anthem at events. I'm whistling tomorrow at a High Point women's soccer game. I've whistled at the top of the Washington Monument, on the outside, not in the observation deck, but literally on the outside when they had scaffolding on it five hundred fifty-five feet in the air. I whistled Yankee Doodle Dandy. I have a CD of performing with a symphony orchestra and I've written a book about it. I've done TED talks. My core message aside from the happy birthdays is, 'What is your simple gift in life and can you find it?' The name of my book is called Find Your Whistle. It's a metaphor for what is your simple gift. You find the gift, develop the gift, share the gift. I take this counterintuitive approach which is don't try to change the world. It's really not possible. But you can change the world of the people just around you. That means bringing some joy to them and making them feel special because it's easy to just worry about oneself. What's really important is to care about other people and impact their lives. The whistling has been a completely unexpected big part of my life. I never could have mapped this out when I was five years old trying to figure it out.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Strategic messaging\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Absolutely. You previously have worked for the White House and helped them develop some strategic messaging. What was it like doing that for such a large organization with so many different policies and guidelines? In my career, I've worked for some great organizations and institutions. I worked on Capitol Hill for the House Budget Committee. It's a very technical subject. That's where I really learned this humanizing thing. You turn this geeky document of numbers and put human flesh on it. What does this budget actually mean as it relates to humans? When I worked at the White House Budget Office, it's called OMB, the Office of Management and Budget, which is the budgeting arm for the federal government and part of the Executive Office of the President. It's similar to the House Budget Committee but the White House is leading this effort. The goal is to take policy and put numbers to it because governing is all about resource allocation. You get money in through taxes and you spend the money. The goal is how do we allocate those resources? When you come up with policies, ultimately those policies have impact on humans. Our big goal was to communicate effectively about how this or that policy affects actual humans. It could be Social Security, Medicare, the Park Service. The federal government is vast. I'll tell you a crazy fun story about trying to humanize things. The budget director, a man named Mitch Daniels, who went on to be governor of Indiana and then president of Purdue for twelve years, is a serious guy but he's very funny. When we put out the president's first budget, we had to cut spending because there was a deficit. Mitch, who's very witty, said, 'All right, this is what we're going to do. We are going to get copies of the Rolling Stones song, You Can't Always Get What You Want, and the refrain is, But if you try some time you might just find you get what you need. So he's trying to contrast wants and needs.' I made copies of this on cassette tapes, which no one uses anymore. When we handed out the budget to national reporters at the AP, DOW Jones, the Washington Post, etc., I gave them the budget and the cassette tape and they were like, 'What's that?' And I said, 'You've got to listen to that before you read the budget.' They all did, and almost every article referenced this, about how witty it was, but we were trying to make a point that you can't always get what you want but we try to give you what you need. What ended up happening was that the White House went berserk when they found out what we were doing. The number two press person called me up and said, 'I heard you're doing this thing which clearly is not actually happening.' And I said, 'No, no, it's happening.' She said, 'Oh my gosh, you must stop that right now.' But we had already sent it out to a bunch of reporters. The point is you can use humor to try to make a point and to try to get things done. Mitch was very good at harnessing humor to further his objectives. We tried to humanize it too. We're not just a bunch of geeky people. We can have some fun. We can use a Rolling Stones song to try to make a point and I think we were effective at it.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Book\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Absolutely. All right Chris, so you have a new book coming out. Tell us about it. It's called Four Billionaires and a Parking Attendant: Success Strategies of the Wealthy, Powerful, and Just Plain Wise. This is a book about how to be your best, how to be successful. I've learned this through firsthand experience working with fifteen of some of the most successful people in the world. Four are literally billionaires who run investment firms. The governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin, is in there. Lou Gerstner, who is one of the greatest CEOs of the twentieth century. Adena Friedman, who is the CEO and chair of NASDAQ, a publicly traded company. These are all people I've worked with firsthand and I've seen these immensely talented people in action over a thirty-year period. I say, well, if Lou Gerstner or Adina or David Rubenstein or Orlando Bravo, he's another billionaire, if they do X, Y, or Z and it works for them, well let's see if I can do that too. What's really exciting is that each lesson is told via an anecdote so it's very accessible. You can really get it and they're very doable. If I said, 'Megan, if you can run the Boston Marathon in three hours and thirty minutes, then you can be your best and be successful,' unless you're a serious runner, you'd say, 'Oh my gosh, there's no way I can do that.' But that's not what it is. This is about having drive, about being humble, and about being disciplined. Those are all things that don't require running the Boston Marathon. I break these fifty lessons into eight strategies such as to be innovative, to be purposeful, to build bridges with people who don't agree with you, to think of others. People might think, 'Oh, there's a book about a bunch of billionaires, why would he have a section on thinking of others?' Well, it's amazing how generous the billionaires that I've worked with are. They've pledged to give away all their money. I mentioned Bill Conway earlier who gave the five million to the homeless shelter. He would roam the suite at the Carlyle Group with a box filled with hundreds of gift cards for Dunkin Donuts and he would knock on doors and say, 'All right, if you promise to give these gift cards to homeless people you see on the street, I will give you as many as you want.' So I to this day carry those in my wallet and give them to homeless people. I printed up a little card that tells them where to go for help because a ten dollar gift card is not going to change your life, but it will help for a few moments. If you can get to a place that can help with substance abuse, housing, clothing, medical care, etc., that's where you really want to get people. Bill, this billionaire, could have been just making more money, roaming the halls really helping people, thinking of someone other than yourself in a way that can touch their heart and hopefully make their life a little better. There are tons of lessons in here about how to be your best. If you want to be a billionaire, that's fine with me. I'm a capitalist, but that was not my goal. My goal was to be the best version of me, to be as strategic and purposeful and generous and a bridge builder in how I live my life day in and day out. There are just amazing lessons that I'm really excited to share with people. The book comes out in October. I'm hoping people read it, learn from it, and benefit the way I have as well.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Closing advice\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Just kind of wrapping up, what would you say is one piece of advice that you would give to current High Point University students when it comes to building their own personal brand that reflects their own values? The key is understanding oneself because if you understand yourself, you can then effectively build your brand. Understanding yourself takes time. It's not something that happens in a weekend. To understand what's in your heart, meaning what do you want to do, or in your head, what are you able to do, takes time. I encourage students to go through a period of discernment. Arguably, discernment lasts a lifetime, but it's especially acute when someone is in their early twenties where you're really trying to understand your strengths, weaknesses, desires, things you like, and areas where you've struggled. The more you understand yourself, you'll have a much better sense of where you should be going because we're all on a journey. Life is just this long journey and you want it to be as fulfilling and effective as possible. In my new book, the beginning section is all about purpose, having what I call an 'it.' What is your it? Early in my professional life, being the best PR person I could be was my it. Then I became a whistler and being the best whistler I can be was my it. Your it is different than mine, but the key is to have one so that you have purpose. The more you understand yourself, your strengths and weaknesses, the better able you will be to find your it and then to actually execute on it. It's understanding yourself. The more you understand yourself, the better you will be able to communicate yourself to others and you will have purpose through that. All right Chris, thank you so much for sharing your extraordinary advice and achievements with us today. We're so grateful for your commitment to mentoring High Point University students and joining a remarkable and innovative program that inspires our students and campus community. It's a delight to be here, Megan. Thank you, and I wish you well with your studies, with your career, and with your life. Thank you so much, and thank you all for joining me on the Access to Innovators podcast powered by High Point University.\"}}]}]}","_hpuaeo_plugin_meta_tags":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[12,10],"class_list":["post-23","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hpu-videos","tag-innovators-in-residence","tag-marketing-sales"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.6.1 (Yoast SEO v27.6) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Access to Innovators Podcast with Chris Ullman - Watch HPU<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.highpoint.edu\/watch\/chris-ullman-strategic-communications-access-innovators-podcast\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Access to Innovators Podcast with Chris Ullman - Watch HPU\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Chapters &amp; Transcript 1 Intro 0:04 Welcome to the Access to Innovators podcast powered by the premier life skills University High Point University. Hello and thank you for joining us. My name is Megan Hovey. I&#039;m a senior from Rochester, New York majoring in sports media and minoring in social media marketing. 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