Everyone is fond of self-help books. Why? It’s because they’re practical and easy to digest. They are very effective. It is because they point people who need help in the right direction on whatever aspect that may be. Self-help books tend to simplify the complicated. Instead of digesting everything as a whole, it is digested and offered in bite-size pieces. By doing this, you can readily grasp certain principles.

Self-development books are useful resources for anyone interested. They transform a difficult structure and make it easy to understand. This makes everything flow. Because of its fluidity, it makes it beautiful to read. You should not miss this book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. This one is a must-read for everyone who is into self-development. Since its first launch in 1989, the title has sold more than 25 million copies worldwide. 15 years later, Covey came out with a sequel titled The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness.

The book was a product of his 25-year experience. He worked with successful individuals in different environments, in both companies and universities. He discovered a recurring theme. Overachievers often struggled with feelings of emptiness. Within this time, he read all kinds of books, including self-improvement and psychology.

As for the author, Stephen Covey was born on the 24th of October, 1932 in Salt Lake City, Utah. He passed away in 2012. As a bestseller author, his works are recognized all over the world. He targets the mindset, management about efficiency, and even religious pieces. He was a sought-after speaker and a university teacher at the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business of Utah. Now, his legacy is still carried on by his nine children and wife Sandra.

Going back to Covey’s book, the principles and values conveyed are structured. They all form a deep meaning about life. They are and will always be, as he states himself, universal and timeless. After 30 years, this book is praised and seems to give his statement validity. In this book, he emphasizes that it starts with one’s set of character ethics. One must become effective so that anyone can reach his or her goals.

The structure is kept simple. It is divided into 7 habits that we must be made aware of to take on. Covey states that these primary principles on our character. It is based on happiness and success.

3 Principles for Independence:

  1. Be proactive
  2. Begin with the end in mind
  3. Put first things first

3 Principles for Interdependence:

  1. Think win-win
  2. Seek first to understand, then to be understood
  3. Synergize

1 Principle for Continual Improvement:

  1. Sharpen the saw/growth

 

In the following blog post, we will focus on three of the seven principles. The foundation forms “be proactive” from independence. It is followed by the interdependence principle “think win-win”. Then, the ending comes with “sharpen the saw/growth”, the continual improvement aspect. These will receive more recent perspectives and support the timelessness of the principles.

INDEPENDENCE

In the book, it notes that one should move from dependence to independence. This movement refers to “self-mastery”.

According to the Cambridge dictionary independence is:

“the ability to live your life without being helped or influenced by other people”

Nowadays, we often find this term in connection with women. It is either being financially independent or in a relationship. Women have struggled for centuries to be as independent as men. Women have progressed a lot in the field of independence. Most countries provide the same rights and meet the same education. But, there are still many differences to be found, some of which are very subliminal.

“I am a strong independent woman”

Be Proactive

One such move towards independence is becoming proactive and taking initiative.

Proactivity means that one takes initiative to improve one’s surroundings. It is better to do this. Instead of getting overwhelmed by it and remaining passive in decisions. Take full responsibility for one’s actions and bearing the consequences is part of that as well. Thus, it suggests being present in the moment and active when one sees a chance to enhance the standard of one’s life. Being proactive means that you are driven by a set of intrinsic values. It is the ability to stick to certain commitments within yourself and other people. After all, you cannot depend on other people to make important decisions for you.

In connection with women, this could be as mentioned before important if it comes to finances. Empirical observations on financial investing show a clear trend. Women tend to invest up to 40% less than men. See Why women invest 40 percent less than men (and how we can change it) (nbcnews.com. This could be because women are hesitant to start trading and investing in the stock market. This hesitation might be due to subliminal factors. One of the factors is that society still sees men as the main income contributor. It is for a family or that in films wealthy men are more often depicted than wealthy women. In our subconscious, we associate wealth more with men than with women. It makes women less curious about earning more money in total. Additionally, until this date, women also tend to earn less. It exacerbates the financial situation of many women.

A proactivity approach is for women to educate themselves. Especially when it comes to investing to close the gap. One Youtuber who wants to support women in investing is:

Further, proactive decisions would be to track one’s incomes and spending and to regularly set financial goals. These goals could be about gaining education via courses, but also about salary expectations and/ or diversified income streams.

“The only solution to your problems is action

Begin With the End in Mind

Ask yourself this set of questions: 

  1. When you leave this world, how would you want your loved ones and the people around you to remember you?
  2. What vision do you have for yourself? 
  3. What steps are you going to take to achieve them?

By putting this into perspective, you should have some idea of what your vision is going to be. To make this clear, try to write your own personal mission statement. It should focus on who you want to be, what you want to do, and what values are these things based on. Your character, contributions, and achievements will play a big role in this.

Put First Things First

After nailing down the first two habits, this one implies that you need to take action. Once you start taking initiative and having that vision in front of you, you need to set the wheels into motion. Everything that you start doing must bring you a step closer to your goals. If they steer you away from them, you should avoid them at all costs. Doing this will steer you in the right direction.

INTERDEPENDENCE

Many people encounter the word independence. But interdependence is rarely used.

“Interdependence is the state of being dependent upon one another.”

And yes, this is in sharp contrast to the statement we made before. The reason is this. In life, there has to be a balance of independence and interdependence. We can live only by ourselves, but most people prefer otherwise. We live in cities because life is easier that way. We work together in teams because we are more productive. We live in families because we feel safe and loved. We depend on each other in many complex ways and often forget about it. The chair we are sitting on was never produced by us, but by someone, we don’t know. The food we have in the fridge was never cultivated by us, but again by a stranger. And, we depend on them in a materialistic way. Yet, with family, friends, and colleagues we depend on them more emotionally. Here lies the contradiction with the first aspect Covey drew in his book.

Drawing this line between independence and interdependence is not always easy. Individuals have very different perspectives about that. Taking the example of women, they tend to be more emotionally attached to people than most men would be.

Think Win-Win

When people are too attached, they often sacrifice their goals and needs. This is to keep the relationship with the other one. Their win-win is actually a lose-win but blurred by the perception that “keeping the relation” is a win. This can not be a sustainable relationship and brings a lot of suffering and pain with it. Often, one side feels neglected and not appreciated. Ironically, the person himself or herself caused the situation.

A true win-win includes mutual solutions that respect each person’s position. These solutions ensure successful long-term relations. They are necessary for building trust and openness. With win-win outcomes, every person feels worshiped, valued, and understood. An example of a win-win solution is a classical compromise. It could take the form of dividing tasks such as cooking food or cleaning the house within families. In business, these could turn into deals of acquisitions or partnerships.

Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood

Empathy is the ability to sense the emotions of others. It is to deeply understand what he or she is thinking or feeling. By having empathy, you will create a positive atmosphere. It thrives on care and problem-solving abilities.

Synergize

As they say, no man is an island. Everyone should learn how to work together. Whether it is at home or professional setting. There is a need to combine everyone’s individual strengths. You can achieve goals in the fastest time possible compared to if one were to work by himself or herself.

 

CONTINUAL IMPROVEMENT

This continual improvement process should take place in two environments. It is both personal and interpersonal. It focuses on recharge and reflection. Especially on working progress and is crucial for a successful journey.

Sharpen the Saw/Growth

“If you neglect to recharge a battery, it dies. And if you run full speed ahead without stopping for water, you lose momentum to finish the race.”
― Oprah Winfrey

Maybe you know the following situation: In between studies, one has holidays. We often feel that these holidays, we view them as life-changing. They change the way I see the world. This is the time where I have time to think and reflect. Or it is the time where I read books or watch documentaries. It is also the time where I meet more friends and exchange stories about what has happened and what is coming. The point is, taking a break frees the mind and opens up new ways of seeing one’s environment.

In the book, these “recharge” times are necessary. They often associate with sports, meditation, reading books, or social services.

  1. Physical: Nourish your body with the right exercise and nutrition. Know how to deal with stress management effectively.
  2. Social/emotional: Understand your feelings. Know how to use them when dealing with other people.
  3. Spiritual: Focusing on meditation, value clarification, commitment, and study. In this aspect, it will bring you closer to your intrinsic value system.
  4. Mental: Educate yourself by continuing to learn through planning, reading, visualizing, and writing.

 

These are essential principles you’ll have in life. Next to them, there are four that form a wonderful balance as you can see in the list at the beginning. They aim to create mindsets of abundance and fulfillment with clear guidelines. Life is not about zero-sum games, where one’s success is another’s loss. Covey emphasizes that everything is a give-and-receive relation. With these principles, the right balance is being achieved. Further, the goal is to build high self-worth, inner peace, and confidence. It is to share profits with others and support them in their journey. It because according to Covey, they are the most fulfilling tasks in life. Helping each other grow.

Community

 

Congratulations on reaching the end!

Check out our podcast Impact Talks, where you can listen to high-profile experts from various backgrounds!

Join our Facebook Group Community with over 4,700 entrepreneurs, innovators, and creators by Startup Funding Event, where you get access to free live training, daily Q&As, design templates to get your business started, and support from the SFE team. Join here!

Every one of us has specific milestones in life. Might it be to achieve a degree, to get the dream job, or build a business from scratch. To achieve these targets we often think of studying the material that underlines the discipline thoroughly will be enough. Think of Bill Gates or Elon Musk, who just know everything they need to know about their business, and if not they keep on studying.

But, what many people do not realize in time is the requirement for an assertive mindset.

Assertiveness can have negative associations such as being arrogant or selfish and of course, no one wants that. However, most individuals are far from being assertive and then wonder why it takes so long for them to achieve their goals although they do plenty of steps that should contribute to their progress.

For instance, I have a friend who was brilliant in school. She studied hard, she scored high. She wanted to be liked and played it always safe with people. And that was fatal to her success. People exploited her kindness, they used her and she won little or nothing by interacting with her colleagues. Until this day she has issues with setting clear borders and all her work might be brilliant, but it is not she who shines.

In order to prevent that and to nurture my mindset, I read a lot of books on these topics such as “Nice girls still don’t get the corner office” by Dr. Louis Franklin or “Don’t split the difference” by Chris Voss. I was astonished by the simple but profound mistakes people do. These mistakes as we call them are sometimes even habits. Habits that we developed without realizing. Habits that come from our environment such as parents and friends or books and series that we read and watch.

The combination of the 5-second rule from Mel Robbins with the views the authors give tackle four of the most important mistakes people make in business and life concerning the lack of assertiveness that I found.

 

Waiting to be given what you want

In the old saying: “The squeaky wheel gets the grease” lies a relevant and more than ever temporal truth.

Only when one expresses one’s desires and needs can other people react to them and bring you closer to these. But, for some people the process falls apart at the first step: Expressing what they want.

There are several reasons for that:

Often people feel that they demand too much. They feel insecure about the right of this authorization. They feel that they would not be successful in the request anyway and just annoy others and therefore leave it finally. They don’t even attempt to raise the issue in any way. A concrete example could be asking for support to accomplish a task, a salary increase, or even a promotion. They wait it out in hope that whatever they wanted to ask for is being seen by e.g. superior managers or family members with luck and time.

Of course, sometimes hesitations of such claims are justified. However, when the potential gain of such an expression of desire is very high and the caused negative effects small then go for it by 5-4-3-2-1!

Don’t think too much of it, just do it. That is the 5-second rule by Mel Robbins:

 

 

Another reason why the expression of the request fails is the expression itself. Instead of making it clear what they want, they become nervous, speak a lot with vague words such as “maybe”, “one day” or start to mumble altogether. Another crucial feature is the transformation of statements into questions. With these characteristics, the speaker hopes to avoid any confrontation but puts the situation obviously on the path of failure.

The intensity of the wanted objective is not clear:

 

  • “When do I receive a salary increase?” is the start of a delay.
  • “I haven’t seen my salary increase, although I have accomplished XXX” is an observation and the start of a claim that is being heard.

 

 

Letting people waste your time

 

“Would you mind asking me a question about a process? Mirella is busy now.”

Like, I am not?

 

Your time is the most valuable asset you possess and if you have a very tight deadline, you have to protect your time to accomplish your priorities. That doesn’t mean that you should not help others or isolate yourself from the world. It means that you choose to do these tasks at another time. You have the right and the power to do so.

However, many people try to avoid conflict and confrontation. They don’t want to be seen as impolite. And many people, therefore, give in. It just takes 5 min, doesn’t it?

Having the habit of giving in or doing those small tasks in-between, distorts your focus on more crucial tasks, but also conditionalizes you of being a “crisis-manager”. Every small interruption is being seen as something very big and important, even if that is not the case. Your skill of assessing the priorities in your life or job is being contorted and blurred.

Although these kinds of acts can be returned by others and help to foster relationships, often people pay a high price for that by not negotiating the timing of the act.

Here, one has to set clear boundaries and learn how to convey to others one owns current position brief and direct, without coming off too sharp. Easy to say, but it takes a matter of practice and awareness. Some tips and tricks could include:

 

  • Distinguish the urgency of the need: Do they want to talk to you or do they really need to do so?
  • A short phrase to extend your leeway: “My apologies, I would like to talk further, however, I am on a tight deadline. How about we continue this conversation at XX.”
  • If you are waiting for more than 20min for a person – just leave. Your time is worth more than being filled up with nothing and a feeling of disappointment.
  • Communicate to others time slots where you are definitely not available or use a “Don’t disturb sign” at the door
  • If people walk into your office, don’t set down the pencil. Don’t stop what you were doing.

 

Here the book recommendation: Nice girls still don’t get the corner office

 

Taking full responsibility

In life, whatever it might be, you don’t get star stickers for running a project alone, but for getting the project done. Whatever this project might entail. It could be a task at work or something you have to do for your family like planning a vacation, but also a goal you have set for yourself. Usually, people just accept the task and “work it off”, like they learned to do it in school with exercises. One by one. In contrast to back then, some tasks are just more complex. They require time and energy, two of the most important resources you have, due to them not being recuperable. So, instead of doing everything and being overwhelmed with it, stop for a minute and think.

Can you somehow delegate these tasks, maybe even to a person who can get the job done more efficiently?

What are your resources available in the sense of in your network?

Who could help or knows someone who could help?

Do I have to reinvent the wheel? In most cases, NO. So, find these people and ask for their expertise.

For instance, at work, it is a usual phenomenon to be put into groups to accomplish something. But, if you are assigned a task alone by your boss, that does not translate into only you doing the work. If you require more resources, that is ok and natural. You can’t know everything. So, just look for your resources in your surroundings and you will be surprised by the abundance of possibilities.

The same could be with personal goals. Let’s assume you want to eat healthier and you live with a spouse together. Ask them to work with you on this goal. If they go shopping, they could buy the salad and not the chips, because maybe their willpower is stronger in that sense. You kind of delegate the responsibility of having more vegetables at home to them, because you know they are potentially more resistant to spontaneous purchases of sweets.

There are plenty of possibilities, just learn to seek them.

 

 

Reluctance to negotiate

 

 

As Chris Voss points out: negotiation is mission-crucial in life.

I can recommend anyone to read at least one book or engage in a course of negotiation because it determines an abundance of life’s outcomes, such as your salary/ position in a company, the satisfaction derived of relations to others, and therefore even your own well-being and happiness.

But, what is not mentioned in the video is the avoidance of negotiation by the majority of people. As in the example before, it is uncomfortable for most to confront others. Well and that is what it is about in negotiations in the broadest sense, right? First, it is about realizing the other’s point of view, seeing a difference in the opinions, and letting the two worlds clash. At least, that is what most people think. Maybe, people should start perceiving negotiations as less dramatic. While negotiating, one shows what one thinks to be entitled to. Sometimes, one shows clear values and principles underlying the subjective. One wants just to convey one’s thoughts and concerns and wants to be understood.

By being reluctant to negotiate, these important aspects of your life are being lost. It could be your salary, your feelings in a relationship, or a piece you wanted to buy on a market.

Negotiation is a learnable skill, therefore the following measure can be undertaken:

 

 

  • Gather information about the other side
  • Know your standpoint and your limits
  • Anticipate pushbacks from your counter partner
  • Have a plan B and know the other’s plan B
  • What is your best alternative if the agreement is not reached?
  • What is their best alternative?
  • Compare the two and see who has more leverage in the negotiation.

 

Practice the negotiation with a colleague or a friend and get their point of view.

 

 

Here the book recommendation: “Never split the difference” by Chris Voss

 

 

To receive the most out of this blog post, I recommend you to take one out of the four points where you felt the most guilty off and work on it. Set yourself a goal, create a plan, and execute!

Just one little improvement in your life could have an accumulated domino effect that could potentially lead to a better and more successful self. Being more assertive could be one of these small but leveraging changes you implement.

All the best with the goal that you set!

 

 

Community

 

Congratulations on reaching the end!

Check out our podcast Impact Talks, where you can listen to high-profile experts from various backgrounds!

Join our Facebook Group Community with over 4,700 entrepreneurs, innovators, and creators by Startup Funding Event, where you get access to free live training, daily Q&As, design templates to get your business started, and support from the SFE team. Join here!

Billionaire. Investor. Philanthropist. Those three defining words shed light on Jack Ma. Today, he is getting attention for the wrong reasons but let’s take a step back and focus on his road to success. Not everyone could pull what he did and become one of the richest men in China. Many can say that he made the largest impact on China’s economy. He forever changed the country’s internet industry. For those who are not familiar with his name, he is the founder of Alibaba. It is the biggest e-commerce platform in China. According to Forbes, his real-time net worth is $61.6 billion. You’d think the journey to a billionaire for Jack was simple. Was it handed over to him? Not really. Luck? Maybe.

In 1964, Jack Ma was born as “Ma Yun” to poor parents whose professions were musicians and storytellers. He lived in Hangzhou and it was a time when China was still in its communist era. Like most Chinese families, they did not have much and were not exposed to the rest of the world. His favorite subject was English and one of his first jobs was to give out free city tours to foreigners. His inspiration for doing so came after Richard Nixon visited Hangzhou. Tourism trickled into this south-eastern city. This gave him the chance to practice and improve his English speaking skills. Eventually, he graduated with an English degree at Hangzhou’s Teacher’s Institute. His first pay as an English teacher was a meager sum of $12 per month.

Jack Ma happened to be at the right place at the right time. It happened in the mid-90s. The internet was gaining popularity among households. After a business visit to the United States, he was exposed to the internet for the very first time. There, he recognized that the internet possessed a lot of potential for business. While doing some research, he recognized that China was nowhere to be seen. He did something that no one thought of doing at that time. He decided to put China on the map by creating a website with the help of a friend. The internet would know more about China with a little bit of its information.

This certainly caught the eye of Chinese investors. They pursued what he was doing. Starting with $USD 20,000, this company was known to the public as ‘Chinese pages’. They focused on assisting companies when it came to website creation. Three years later, the same company made $USD800,000. Things seem to fall into place when he made the head of an information technology company. Moving on, he quit his job. With the help of his friends, they founded a startup in his apartment. It would grow into a household name of Alibaba. It served as China’s very first business-to-business marketplace website. Here, exporters were able to post their product listings. Customers who showed interest reached out to them and made the necessary purchases.

Before that success happened, he experienced a lot of obstacles along the way. You could say that he was the king of rejections.

1. Rejections Make Us Stronger

  • He failed a total of 8 examinations in his elementary (2), middle (3), and university (3)
  • He applied for 30 jobs including KFC, hotel, and the police force – and got rejected by all
  • He was rejected 10 times by Harvard
  • 2 of his business ventures failed

You would never imagine that these occurrences happened. Or it paved the way to becoming a billionaire. An ordinary person would have simply given up. Many would have said he was a loser. Others wouldn’t expect much of him. There’s one thing we can learn from this extraordinary man himself. It’s to never be afraid of rejection. He never stopped trying. As a teacher by profession, he never stopped learning. Because of his resilience, he recognized a business opportunity. He preyed on it.

Aside from Alibaba, he founded Alipay (one of the digital payments used in Alibaba. Think PayPal!) in 2003. When it hadn’t materialized yet, many people thought it was the most ridiculous idea. His persistence paid off. That’s because he pushed through. Alipay now has more than 500 million users! If he had listened to them, Alipay would not have come into existence. Otherwise, someone else would’ve beaten him with the same idea.

We should learn to accept rejections, not as obstacles. Rather, it’s an opportunity to improve ourselves even further. If our business ideas get rejected, it’s a chance to improve them even further. Or we just need to recognize there must be a better opportunity out there. We just haven’t seen it yet.

The biggest failure is to give up. Whether you achieve your goal in the end, you will pick up valuable information and skills along the way. You, as a person, will learn so much. The best way you can learn is to overcome challenges and obstacles.

2. Attitude + Skills + Passion = Success

Instead of learning everything on his own, he’s the kind of guy who hires people for their skills. Especially the ones that he doesn’t have. He hires employees who have far better skills than him. He knows for a fact that they can get the job done and better than anyone else. With the right kind of employees, you can achieve and towards a shared vision. He believes workers should have the right attitude and driven passion.

Would you believe this billionaire found Alibaba at the age of 31 years old? He achieved success without having to sell something to someone or writing a single code. Yet, his e-commerce company is worth much more than Facebook. You may or may not know that Alibaba processes more goods than eBay and Amazon combined! With global sales, they are second behind Walmart. Not bad for a company that started in Jack Ma’s apartment in China, right?

This man believes that all leaders should own foresight, intuition, and tenacity. When someone has all these qualities, they can always be one step ahead of everyone else. They should be able to weigh out their decisions and foresee what the consequences are. By doing so, they can have a better advantage.

When a true leader sticks to a clear vision, there is simply no stopping him or her. They will not take no for an answer. Instead, they will find creative ways to work around any problem. United by a common goal, it will inspire others to do the same.

If there is one takeaway we can absorb from Jack Ma, it would be this:

“On the MBAs at a lot of business schools they teach people a lot of skills on how to run business and make money. I want to tell people that if you want to run a business, you have to run the value first. Serve the others, help the others, that’s the key. This is the way to run business in the 21st Century.”

Many people look up to Jack Ma because of his practicality when it comes to business. He truly believes in helping other people and their businesses, allowing them to stand on their own. If he focused on accumulating wealth, he would not have retired from his position as CEO at Alibaba Group. At the moment, he is proud of Jack Ma Foundation, a fruit of his labors. This philanthropic organization focuses on four core pillars:

  • Education
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Medical and Environmental Protection
  • Women’s Leadership

3. Stop Complaining

“We keep fighting. We keep changing ourselves. We don’t complain.”

Jack Ma learned a lot from people’s complaints. He observed that some complaint a lot but never do anything about it. However, the game changers are those who try to do something about it. Once there’s a complaint, the best way to overcome this is to change the existing situation so that you can move on. Once it has been fixed, they pick up something meaningful from the experience. Like, “Oh, it was that simple!” or “Hey, I can start getting the hang of this!” which will lead to satisfactory results. Jack advises everyone to stop complaining and look for opportunities instead. They can be found anywhere if you just know where to look.

“If we want to change the world, we change ourselves. Changing ourselves is more important, and easier.”

Are we guilty of complaining? If you answered yes, then this is the right time to stop and start doing something about them. It’s a skill if we can listen and observe. It’s because these complaints can be disguised as real opportunities. Once you recognize them, don’t be afraid to take charge. After all, this could lead you to something bigger, bolder, and better!

This video is his advice for young people:

4. Customer is King

“Customer, number one; employee, number two; shareholder, number three.”

Jack Ma stuck to this philosophy which he believes made his company successful. He truly emphasizes that customers are the number one priority. That’s because they are the ones bringing revenue to the company. Next on the list are the employees who are bringing innovation. As for shareholders, they were the first ones to sell when times came tough. It can be best summarized in Jack Ma’s quote:

“When the crisis came they run away. My people stayed. Customers stayed.”

In reality, you will never be able to please every person you encounter in life. You also won’t be able to convince everyone to invest in you. Jack Ma says that’s okay. If tradition tells you to quit, he’ll tell you that anyone can change their approach.

5. Enjoy Life

“My religion is helping small businesses. It is an honor. We would focus on helping people, helping others, and then people would help us.”

After achieving so much success in his life, it is time for him to enjoy life. He finds contentment in helping others to succeed. Just like a teacher, he acts as a guide and facilitator in aiding others to achieve success as well.

He also reveals that one of his biggest secrets is that culture is his core competency:

“My core competence is culture. Working hard on the vision, mission, and values of our company. We believe in helping others rather than just making money.”

According to Jack Ma, success comes when culture becomes the main focus. When everyone sticks to a company’s mission and values, it will lead you to the right path. Once this has been achieved, the money will follow afterward.

Others may be obsessed with making more and more money, but not him. Money was never his ultimate goal in life even if he came from a simple background. He was interested in business opportunities that helped others making business others. He turned down plenty of offers that promised him a lot of money.

 

We can learn so much from this billionaire who came from humble beginnings. Jack Ma went through so many failures in his life yet he persevered until the very end. He became resourceful and made the most out of what he had. If he hadn’t gone through what he went through, things would be different. He might not have been standing tall today as one of the richest Chinese billionaires. If it weren’t for him, it would’ve been someone else walking in those shoes. We would not have learned who Jack Ma was.

There came a time when no one believed in him. That’s why you need to believe in yourself, your vision, and your goals. If you don’t believe in them, no one else will do. Don’t start with something small. Dream big. It will be your dream that will keep you alive. Are you ready to make your vision, goals, and dreams a reality? Make it into reality by starting today with small steps.

“Go big or go home.”

Share with us what you think about Jack Ma’s story and the components that made him successful. What can you change today to reach out to tomorrow’s goals?

Community

Congratulations on reaching the end!

Check out our podcast Impact Talks, where you can listen to high-profile experts from various backgrounds!

Join our Facebook Group Community with over 4,700 entrepreneurs, innovators, and creators by Startup Funding Event, where you get access to free live training, daily Q&As, design templates to get your business started, and support from the SFE team. Join here!

To work from home, with a flexible schedule, autonomy, and career development! Thanks to the gig economy. At first stance, these expressions appeal to workers seeking a job. But in reality, how do workers experience work in the digital world compared to the physical world?

The gig economy can bring flexibility, autonomy, and career development, but also precarity and inequality. The gig economy is constantly growing nowadays. This trend is due to the competitive environment and rapid technological growth. Additionally, the Covid-19 pandemic has taught us to think about the gig economy as a replacement for physical work. In such a context, gig economy businesses are becoming commonplace. In other words, we are facing the new normal of work, and this new form is not a choice but a necessity.

The gig economy is the economic system that workers and clients come together in the virtual world (Meijerink & Keegan, 2019).

The gig economy can create equality. It means it can offer digital space to individuals regardless of demographics. It yet seems to exclude individuals due to technological infrastructure.

In the following paragraphs, we first review the positive impacts and the adverse outcomes of the gig economy. Next, we come to know how to thrive in the gig economy.

Positive Impacts of Gig Economy

In the digital world, freelancers and entrepreneurs can show their skills and knowledge in the gig economy. They can also compete with large businesses regardless of demographics. From this perspective, the gig economy provides opportunities for inclusion. Digital platforms such as Upwork.com or freelancer.com enable individuals to work, regardless of age, gender, race, disability, or experiences. Thus, the gig economy allows entrepreneurs with diverse backgrounds to be present in the new market.

Are the provided opportunities equal among all entrepreneurs? Or other drivers such as social, technological, and political factors can influence this inclusion? These factors are beyond the power of platforms, clients, and workers as the three main actors of such an economy.

Anytime, Anywhere, Any client?

Flexibility is a distinctive characteristic of the gig economy. Gig economy work can bring flexibility for gig workers in terms of time and location. In other words, workers can adjust the time and place to work based on their preferences. It gives them more autonomy and freedom.

Yet, flexibility at work might raise some consequences. One issue is whether flexibility allows workers to decide where and when to work. Or can they freely choose clients? If they are not flexible in selecting the clients, they have to accept the available circumstances. Otherwise, they may encounter unavailability of work.

Flexibility can also bring procrastination and lack of motivation for workers. It means we, as humans, are more structured and organized in the physical workplace as we have a fixed timeframe to follow.

Adverse Outcomes of Gig Economy

The gig economy can bring both precarity and structural inequality. Precarity refers to the health vulnerabilities of the gig workers. It means the gig workers face a lack of health insurance and income insecurity. But structural inequality means the challenges of design and operation in digital platforms.

According to Heeks (2017), structural inequality includes power and information asymmetry. The gig economy can bring a new form of insecurity for workers and inequality of structures.

Power and information asymmetry as the adverse outcomes of the gig economy will discuss as follows:

Power asymmetry means power is not equally distributed among platforms, clients, and workers. Additionally, the power asymmetry exists not only between workers and clients but also among the workers.

For instance, some workers depend on the platform’s income for their living costs. They may experience precarity and dissatisfaction. Yet, some consider income from digital platforms as supplemental income. They have more power to negotiate their rights. Thus, the good economic condition of workers can empower them to bargain for their rights.

Information asymmetry is another negative outcome of the gig economy. To be more specific, information is not equally shared among actors. For instance, in creating an account, workers need to present all personal information. While they do not even know the name of the client they seek to work.

Workers should have the right to know about the company they want to invest their time in. In other words, sharing information should be reciprocal between workers and clients.

It can raise an issue of whether the personal data of workers are just for creating an account. Or the data are collected for other commercial purposes. Privacy issues in the gig economy need significant consideration. Particularly in developing countries due to the absence of the GDPR.

Thriving the Gig Economy

There are many opportunities and challenges in the gig economy among various actors. To improve the nature of the gig economy, we should recognize the key actors. By understanding their responsibilities and powers, we can thrive in such an economy.

We will look at the roles of platforms, clients, workers, and governments as main actors in the gig economy. By considering their powers and challenges, we realize how to improve the future of the gig economy.

Platform Role: Inclusion or Isolation?

Platforms bridge workers and clients. There are structural inequalities in the platforms such as workers and clients not being well treated there. The structural and technological design of the gig economy platforms can isolate workers.

Many studies show that a new form of exploitation is emerging in the gig economy. For instance, gig workers compete against each other on price. In other words, exploitation is not just from the client. But gig workers exploit themselves through competing to succeed in their bid. It seems it is due to the structure of the platforms. This self-exploitation could aggravate during economic crises such as Convid-19. At the time that competition among gig workers exists due to economic conditions and the lockdown of businesses.

What does the Algorithm Say?

Algorithmic control can also bring advantages and disadvantages to the platform. To be more specific, algorithmic control can bring task variety and flexibility to workers. Yet, those with low skills and reputation have less chance to be selected due to the algorithmic mechanism. In general, platforms can benefit workers with inclusion and flexibility. Yet, we need to consider if those can compensate for inequality emerging from the gig economy. We should direct the future of the gig economy toward taking advantage of inclusion and flexibility. Yet, minimizing structural inequality on the gig economy platforms should seriously be considered.

Platforms can reduce inequality by introducing and implementing regulations among workers and clients. A concern is how platforms can harmonize these regulations around the globe. In other words, implementing rules in developed and developing countries could be challenging because they differ based on the norm, culture, politics, and economy of the target labor market.

There is competition among different platforms. Thus, we could expect they equally protect the rights of both clients and workers for the sake of their sustainable success.

Workers as the main vulnerable Actor in the Gig Economy

Workers constitute the vulnerable segment of digital platforms. So, why is the gig economy rapidly growing despite the low trust nature of it among workers? There is a host of unawareness about the regulation and its implementation among workers. The digital divide is a factor contributing to the unawareness among workers, mainly in developing countries.

Raising awareness among workers can protect their rights. One way is to form an informal group. The informal group can contribute to raising awareness and mobility among gig workers.

Informal groups and networking allow workers to communicate with each other and avoid isolation in the gig economy. It can cause social cohesion among workers. By sharing information and personal experience through informal groups, workers can feel secure. It can also raise consciousness about their rights.

Freedom and flexibility in the gig economy do not necessarily bring better working conditions. These factors can create precarity that can cause a lack of sleep and stress among workers. Flexibility and autonomy can also cause procrastination and lack of motivation among workers. It is because of the lack of a structured timeframe.

Clients with the Bargaining Power

Clients enjoy the gig economy through lying in a pool of workers willing to work with low wages. It can provide bargaining power for clients. To be more specific, with more power, clients can exploit workers. It means clients compensate workers’ efforts with low wages. Moreover, the power asymmetry is more significant during crises such as Covid-19. Intense competition exists due to financial conditions and the lockdown of businesses.

There is a communications gap between workers and clients in the gig economy. Clients should also be accountable to workers. In other words, workers should have the same rights as in the physical world.

Additionally, clients should give all related information to the workers on the onboarding phase. Through agreement, workers can get familiar with their roles, responsibility, rights, and guidelines. This transparency builds trust among workers and secures both workers and clients.

Are labor agreements well respected by employers and governments in the physical world? If not, how can we expect its implementation in the virtual platforms, particularly in developing countries?

Quality or Quantity: Which One Matters?

The gig economy can improve employment. Thus, governments welcome the gig economy because it can bring economic growth. Government hospitality to the gig economy is more tangible during the pandemic and with the lockdown of businesses. Hence, Governments intend to accept this economy to increase the number of jobs to solve the unemployment problems.

The question posed here is whether governments think about the quality of work while seeking the quantity of created jobs. It means the quality of work among the gig workers needs more scrutiny as well.

Studies have shown that the quality of work depends on autonomy, income, and other social and environmental factors. These factors include education, healthcare, and regulation. Thus, applying decent work depends on the broader social, political, and economic context. Yet, these factors are not under the control of platforms, workers, or clients.

Considering the quality of work, governments should introduce new labor regulations. These regulations should cover wages and working conditions to reduce inequality in the gig economy.

Stewart and Stanford (2017) provide practical recommendations for regulating the gig economy. Revising the existing laws and introducing new regulations are some of the interventions.

The issue raised here is whether all governments across the world can implement these regulations. Yet, shortages in conforming to existing regulations still exist in some countries.

The Covid-19 pandemic has taught us that people who are unwilling to embrace digital change may experience exclusion. With technological advancement, we are transitioning to a new form of work. We should manage this transition to happen in an inclusive, fair, and sustainable manner. In other words, power should equalize among all actors. The potential benefits of the gig economy are indisputable. Providing a safe ecosystem needs amending existing legislation and introducing new regulations. Yet, it is too simplistic to think applying these regulations can happen overnight and without effort.

Will the future of the gig economy reduce precarity and structural inequality? Will the trend still maintain inclusion, flexibility, and autonomy?

 

Community

 

Congratulations on reaching the end!

Check out our podcast Impact Talks, where you can listen to high-profile experts from various backgrounds!

Join our Facebook Group Community with over 4,700 entrepreneurs, innovators, and creators by Startup Funding Event, where you get access to free live training, daily Q&As, design templates to get your business started, and support from the SFE team. Join here!

Transcript:

Welcome to another episode of the podcast. Today we have Alex Clark with us, game creator and YouTuber. Alex, tell us where you’re from, what you do, and for what people might know you from.

Hey, I’m in Los Angeles, in the United States, and in addition to making that card game we were just talking about, I’m also a big YouTuber. I’ve got four million subscribers on there and I’ve been growing that for the past 10 years.

I noticed that you started your channel in 2009. Can you tell me a little bit about it? Well, actually, I noticed you started your channel on the second of December. Was it? 

Yeah, that sounds right.

You uploaded five days later. Is there any reason why there was that five-day gap?

Uh, I wish I could remember. These are going to be some detailed questions I can tell already.

I usually notice when I upload things or when I start something, I already have something prepped or sometimes when I start something, it’s like: “Oh, I want to start!” And then you start it, and then you realize you don’t actually have content to upload. So I just kind of wanted to go back to when you first started, how it went through your mind.

Yeah, I’m of the mindset like, just get it. Just start doing it. The first time you do something, it’s going to be awful. So who cares if you’re ready or not? Just give yourself a deadline, hit the deadline and then learn from it, improve the next time around.

Nice. So probably that’s what I have. So how was it when you first started in 2009? Obviously with completely different… How was it back then?

Oh, it was the glory days. I feel like an old man, but there was no one online like you could. It was a lot easier to stick out and the market wasn’t as competitive, so it was easier to get ahead. That said, I did not get ahead quickly at all and I wish I knew everything I knew now because I would have skyrocketed right away if I knew now what I knew, if I knew then what I know now.

What do you know? Obviously will probably cover things a bit later, but just a couple of bullet points?

You know, just I’m better at producing content. I know to make stuff more relatable and talk specifically to the person on the other side of the screen. I’m better at editing and animating. I’m just better overall at everything.

And when you first started, what was the process like? Where were you mindset wise? Like also, were you just starting out? Did you come from a career? What was happening in your life?

So, I’m in addition to making that game and being a YouTuber, I’m also a comedian, which is why I started the YouTube channel. I was performing a lot at like small corporate events and little clubs. And I was like: “There has to be a way to reach a wider audience.” And so I started posting videos as a way for when people saw me, they’d be like: “This is great, but we can only see it right now. How can we see you every day?” And so I posted videos as a way to stay in touch with the audience every day of the year.

And was it just stand up comedy in clubs and kind of all we can imagine now if you see a Netflix special or…but smaller?

Say that again?

Was it like what we see now with the Netflix specials, like people on stage, just talking, except the size of the audience would be probably smaller? Was it kind of like that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s what it was. I also came from a circus background. I also did like some juggling acts and stuff too, because when you’re starting out, that pays way better than being a comedian. So, I did a bit of that as well.

But so OK, so let’s kind of go way back because there’s a big background before you started YouTube, which I think would be probably necessary to know to see the terms and yet twists that you had during your YouTube career, being a comedian and animator kind of probably comes from somewhere. So where did you study? How did you start your journey or…?

Fair. I got picked on like crazy in school and so I was always a loner. And then…

Where was school? Was that in L.A. or…?

No, it was in Massachusetts. There’s a lot more bullies. So I was there. And then, I used to watch Aladdin and I loved Robin Williams. So it was like: “Oh, he’s really funny. I want to get into stand up.” And then around the same time I found out that there was a performing arts school near me. And so, I actually made a couple of videos about that. So, I got into the art school, which was very exciting. And then I found out that one of my English teachers had been a comedic juggler. And, I was like: “Oh, you got to teach a juggling class so I can learn to do that, if that’s what you do to make it.” And so, that’s where the juggling came in.

How old were you when you started?

17, 18?

So you learned juggling in high school?

Yeah.

When you enter an arts program like that, how does your day look like? Is it all arts or do you also study math and…?

So, that school was run by hippies, which was a blessing because we didn’t have grades. Instead we had…

How did that work with the government?

So, they had a written evaluation. So, at the end of every semester, you would get like a three paragraph summary of how you were doing in that class. And then…Yeah, so that’s how that worked. And then the day was… It was a longer day. So the first six or seven hours of the day was just regular academics. And then the last two hours of the day was an extended period performing arts class.

So…what kind of things were you doing throughout the week in those extra things, obviously juggling, but can you give a few more examples?

A lot of improv theater. I remember we also, uh, we have this thing called Piedea, where you could in between first and second semester, you had two weeks to create your own curriculum. And so, a friend of mine took that and submitted a proposal to make our own game. And I think that’s probably one of the first games we made.

What kind of game was it?

That was… It wasn’t a card game like. There was a point and click adventure game about surviving and… (I’m having a brain fart right now) Oh, about the Underground Railroad. And it was trying to get through the Underground Railroad successfully.

So is that kind of where you started to stand up, uh, part of your journey or…?

Yeah, at that high school we were… We started like the first comedy after curricular, after school activity curriculum.

You start it or somebody of your teachers started it or…?

Um, the school had only been open for a couple of years. And a friend of mine and I, we started like the first comedy club at the school called “Headgear”. I actually went back a couple weeks ago… a couple of years ago to give like a speech with, like with other alumni. And I wasn’t expecting this, but there was a bunch of kids that were still in that group and they’re like: “Oh, my God, you’re one of the founding members.”And it’s like, I feel so old. I feel like like the first president of the United States or something.

But, I mean, that’s pretty cool. I think it still shows like an entrepreneurial spirit starting something during school. That’s kind of how it starts.

Yeah.

I mean…You just told me you were kind of a loner, which, you know, when I was growing up, kind of similar introvert here. But, I was quite scared during my school time to start some things. So, what was happening in your mind that you were like, no, we need… I mean, unless you were extremely passionate about comedy, why found something? Why not just follow your normal classes?

Um, I think at the time we just wanted an outlet to perform. We were like, this doesn’t exist, so let’s create it. And I’ve always had that mentality.

And so it was just…How did that club go? You would literally just do stand up in there, or was it more than just stand up?

Uh, there was maybe… So we held auditions and cast all our friends as that’s how everything works. And, then we spent a couple of months writing a show and it’s on tape. If anyone wants to watch it, you can. It’s awful. Uh, but, uh, yeah. So it was a combination of sketches and stand up and improv games, if I remember correctly.

You can find it on your YouTube channel or somewhere else?

Uh, I think that was pretty YouTube. You’d have to break into my house and get the VHS, I think.

You can also upload it. Cool! So we kind of now understand where it started all, so now high school finished for you around eighteen years old, right? So what, what then? What was the next?

I went to Emerson College in Boston which is a great film school.

Why film school?

Uh I really, I was like I don’t need to go to school to be a comedian or be an actor. I’m already talented. I need a backup plan. So I went to school for film, and I also got a degree in Web design because those are things I felt more like you would need a degree to help you succeed.

Do you still think so?

No.

Why not? I get this question a lot, so I want to hear from you.

Which question do you get?

If people should go to film school?

Oh, um, I feel like that it’s more I mean, there’s certain things you definitely… Oh, this is weird because it also depends on the person. Like if you’re self-motivated and you start projects on your own and you outreach to people, I don’t think you need to go to college for film school. But if you’re the type of person that needs time to learn and you need to be, um, that time to grow, then I would recommend it. But for me, I kind of feel like it’s more about networking and meeting people and being a good example and learning from your mistakes. So,  for film school, for me, I think it would have been better just to move out here and grow as an artist. But then, I’m I also now that I live here, I also hear from people all the time that they move here and they don’t know anyone and they end up leaving because they’re all alone, whereas with my school, I came out with a network of like dozens of friends and we all still live here and support each other.

Really? All the friends went with together?

Yeah, yeah. All my closest friends, I would say… seventy five percent of my school moves from Boston to Los Angeles at the end of school.

How come? Just because the industry is there or…?

Yeah definitely, because I’m here! No, because of the industry for sure.

But it’s, I mean we’ve actually been looking to scale, I mean companies, video agencies and we’ve been starting to look… We kind of wanted to go to New York from Amsterdam. It’s a bit closer, but it just kind of seems like everything that is film related is happening in L.A.. So, if you compare…

Well, I think it’s. I think it’s different now for sure.

Yeah, the East Coast and West Coast, like, how is it different now?

I would say there’s just more in L.A. than in New York, but there’s still plenty in New York. I mean, I would definitely say go there. If you’re just looking to expand, you’ll still get a lot out of that.

And then… Cool! Then for you after. Well, actually, still film school. How long was film school and what were the biggest lessons that you got out of film school?

Uh, film school. Yeah. Again, I’m more of a do it yourself guy. So freshman year when everyone was still in orientation, some kids I met in my hallway, we started… This was before Internet, TV and stuff. So we started a half an hour sketch comedy show that we talked to the station manager of the college TV station and we started airing that within two weeks of starting school.

Where were you airing it?

On the local college TV station. So as a half hour sketch comedy show and we produced an episode, this was when you had to, like, digitize tapes, like let the tape playback and record onto the computer. So we were digitizing tapes, editing it all and producing a half an hour episode every week for like the first six months of college.

Wow!

Um. Yeah, and then at the end of the college, same thing, self starter, we took like our final: “Let’s make a film class film three or whatever it is called” and we were like: “Sweet, this is our chance to make a movie.” And so, we wrote this like very Indiana Jones inspired thing with like a plot and a Mayan temple that rises out of the park and this guy dies in a pit of lava. And then, we showed it and our teacher was like: “Is this really what we’re going to do?” I’m like: “Yeah, why else would you take a movie-making class?” And so, we brought our project in on the last day. And there was like… the first guys did like a man eating a sandwich on the bench. The next one was like a guy roller skating. And then, ours was like this 20 minute action adventure film. And we’re like, oh, we overdid it.

How were you able to film that?

I have no idea.

Or did you partially animated?

No, the whole thing was filmed. We built sets. I can probably give you a link. I think there’s a trailer up somewhere on YouTube that you can include in the notes of the podcast. But yeah, we we built an actual physical model for the temple rising out and we composited it on the footage to make it look like it was rising up. Then we built a set out of Styrofoam and wood and paint from Home Depot that looked like the inside of a temple.

So you really went the extra mile.

At the time, we had no idea. We’re just like, we got to get this done.

But it kind of also shows what you meant then with: “Are you self-motivated?” Because it seems to me like the other time, you know, people you were with in class, they kind of just did their assignment. But you guys were doing the sketch. You were doing this movie, that nobody had. And so, do you feel like the film school opened up doors for you outside of the friends? Obviously, the network is valuable, but do you feel like film school opened doors to put your creativity to something, or do you feel like you would have done it anyways if you weren’t in film school?

That’s a good question, I’m not sure. I don’t know on that one, I plead the Fifth.

No worry. It’s always tricky because you never know. Obviously, the environment is a big stimulus. I noticed when I’m not in the office, I just work a little bit different. But OK, let’s move on then from film school. So you got a degree and then you continued with your life, but obviously you just finished film school, and then how do you end up going? Like do you still continue doing your sketches where the stand up comedy come in or juggling?

My college has a satellite office or a satellite school in Los Angeles. So, the last semester I moved to Los Angeles and I got an internship on a on, uh, a show on the TV station Comedy Central. So after that, I just ended up staying in L.A. and got an apartment and struggled for several years like everybody.

What do you mean you struggled? What was happening?

You know, just trying to find a job and figure out, like, what direction you want to go. And like, when I was growing up, I was like, oh, yeah, you do everything you ate at the movies, you write the movies, you starred in the movies. And then as you get older, you’re like, oh, there’s one person that edits it and is really good at editing. There’s one person that writes it and they all like work together. So it’s like, which one of those things do you want to do and how can you make money at the one that you’re the best at?

I mean, technically now you also still manage all of it.

Yeah. YouTube didn’t exist yet. So that happened, I was like, this is my destiny.

So let’s go back to Comedy Central. You got an internship at Comedy Central, like a six month internship or one year…?

Yeah, I would say I was about six months, those for the semester.

Was the internship worth it? What did you learn there?

Uh, yeah. I wish that there was one spot where I wish I was more outgoing. I wish I had asked more questions to people and, um, been more nosy about what everyone was doing. But when I got there, they’re like, you’re going to help the writers. And so basically, I would just scrub the news to try and find headlines for them to think about what they could write about. And I would just go in and leave at the end of the day. But I wish I’d been more nosy and proactive there for sure.

How come you weren’t? Because obviously so far you’re telling me how your high school went. And obviously, if you’re telling me ‘hippie’, then I’m assuming, you know…connecting with people, that’s probably something that is…

I think it was, uh, I was probably a little nervous. Uh, I was like a young kid and every one else there in my eyes was like this big working fancy professional. But now that I’m older, I’m like, oh, we’re all the same. We’re all we’re all the same dipshits that came out of some school somewhere and got picked on.

For the people who are getting internships, let’s say they get in like a big company like Comedy Central or a Disney or whatever. So what would you tell them that they should do?

Uh, just constantly find ways to support the people that you work for and go above and beyond because they’ll remember that forever.

Do you recommend doing more hours as well and putting in more?

Uh, I don’t think you have, like, more than are required. I don’t think you have to do that. I think you just actually have to take the time to think about the person you’re working for beyond what they’re asking you to do and figure out extra ways you can deliver to them something that’s useful to them.

Cool. I mean, I would maybe add to that as well from my experience to walk around and connect also with other people a lot, because you never know down the line if you see them. Do you feel like you’ve met some people that helped you down the line there or…?

No, I don’t know anyone from that job at all.

Sad.

I wish I did, yeah.

But so, uh, sorry, I forgot it was a six month or one year internship?

It was about six months.

After the six months you said you stayed a bit in L.A., but you, I assume, didn’t get a job with Comedy Central?

No. After that, I got a job at Fancy Film. It was like a really small post house editing videos. Um, and this was like the beginning of my slow transition to being like a, uh, self-employed performer.

I would that job was really flexible. So they’d like me take time off whenever I had gigs. And there’d be times where I’d take like two month stints off because I’d have a slew of gigs. And so they’d let me take that off to perform and come back and. I owe them a lot.

In the job they allowed you to do that?

I was just like a post PE an assistant editor, I’d edit projects when they needed them and help out around the office and that was a really small company. It was like maybe five people.

So then you get out of the internship and you got that job. But you just said that you were doing stand up act or something like that.

I was doing a lot of performing.

Why was it an itch that you were trying to scratch or was it more like you needed the money because it was L.A.?

Why was I performing?

Yeah. Why were you putting in the hours in something else?

Just because I loved it. One hundred percent, I was like, this is what I like the most. I just have to figure out how to make money at it. And so I just kept doing that whenever I could.

So can you tell me more about that journey when you first started in L.A., the first acts that you did, how did they go? Why do you feel you wanted to continue?

Uh, and that is all a blur.

Do you remember your first one maybe?

I’m trying to remember. One thing I do remember is I was like, even though I wanted it so badly, I was still petrified to go on stage. And so for the first while I had a partner that I do all my acts with just because being on stage alone petrified me. And so we’ve been working together for a couple of years and he was kind of giving me this look like he wasn’t going to make it much longer. I was like, OK, I got to figure out how to do this by myself. So after, like, five or six years of performing professionally with a partner, I remember the first time out on stage by myself. I was like shaking and was holding back tears in my eyes because I was so nervous of it failing and coming from that. Like last year, we sold out a tour in twenty three cities. And it’s like crazy to think that even with all that experience, I was still nervous.

Was it really just because suddenly you were alone and then…?

Yeah.

How long did it take you to get used to it? Or did you get a coach or a mentor?

No, I didn’t have a mentor. I just kept making … I like pain, I guess. I just kept going. If I don’t feel a little fear, I, uh, I try to find a scary performance space, I guess, but, uh, yeah. I don’t know. I just, um. I wanted it for myself, so I kept pushing myself to do it.

How long did it take before you finally got: “OK, I’m really maybe not the best, but I’m kind of good at this. I should definitely keep doing this.” Because I know a lot of people that start, I mean, including me. There were many moments where I thought: “Uh, I don’t think I’m good enough” with the impostor syndrome is so famous. So, for you, you say you really wanted it and the struggle is real, like I can feel like obviously you really… You went through a struggle, but some people give up in the middle. So, for you…I can imagine you were feeling that impostor syndrome. When was it slowly, finally getting away? When did you feel like this is really…?

I think when you start you’re like one day I’ll feel good enough and I need to work to that point and then when you when you’re finally a pro at it, you’re like, ‘Oh, you never get to that point.’ You always feel like you’re not good enough and you just keep pushing. But yeah. And you just accept the fact that you always want to improve and I think that’s part of what, um, that’s what makes people succeed, is that they always want to improve and they see what they suck at and they’re like, how can I make this better? And they constantly go back to the drawing board and figure out how to, uh, make a better product, whether it’s being on stage or creating a company.

How long were you in that job, the flexible one, while you were doing the act?

I would say about a year and a half and then I had another job, uh, for about a year and a half. So I’d say about three years of, like, flexible jobs and then I went full time performing around like twenty three.

How much were you … Can ask maybe financially, like, how much were you earning before you said, I’m going to cut the cord and then work for myself?

I have no idea. I would imagine I would imagine, uh, thirty thousand dollars a year minimum, I would guess, but I honestly….

Pretty much your rent and your food and maybe and some other stuff covered and then you’re… So you were just like, that’s it. I’m done. I’ll just do this full time.

Yeah.

Weren’t you scared that some gigs would go away?

Uh, no, because I also, uh, I’ve got to be the most random person. I also learned how to street perform and so, there was a time when you could go outside with other people. And so, for me it was like, oh, at any point if I really need money, I can go out to a street corner and gather a crowd and continue to pay rent that way.

Wait, so OK, you were doing the act.

Just blow your mind out.

You know, you hit something really important because what you created for yourself was a mental backup, which is : “If I quit my job, I have something to fall back on. It’s not the main thing I’m doing, but it’s a backup.” But like I know for for instance, ourselves, like me… To create that backup, it took years to realize the product that you’re really good at that no matter what, it will always be there to cover rent, which is a huge step that most of the population doesn’t have because they’re in the job and they want to sometimes cut the cord, but they don’t have that backup. So how did you get to street performing? When was it even happening? Because obviously you’re doing the act. You’re doing the job. That’s flexible, of course. But like, when did this street performing happen and how did you get into it? How did it become something like a backup in your mind?

Um, well, in high school, I had that, uh, English teacher that I talked about. There was a comedian and juggler. And so that kind of put the idea of street performing into my mind. And then in Boston, uh uh… You are you’re in the Netherlands, right?

Yeah.

There’s a dam square that has all the street performers.

Yeah, well not right now, but I mean…

Right, right. Yeah. So, in the United States, pretty much there’s only like two or three places in all of the United States that has street performers like Dam Square does and one of them is in Boston, Massachusetts and Faneuil Hall. So during college, I would see those guys and I’d be like, oh, that’s that’s interesting. It looks like they’re making a good amount of money. Um, and so, in college, I was a bouncer at a comedy club. And then…

You were a bouncer, as in security.

Yeah, I’ve shrunk down since then.

OK, let’s back up. How did you end up as a bouncer at the…?

Right, so my good college buddy Adam Junior Visión, who is a big comedy agent right now, he started out there with me as well and he was he is like six and a half feet tall and bulky. And so he got a job as a bouncer and thank God for him. He said to his boss, I have another bulky friend that could bounce with me, but that’s how I got that job. Um, yeah.

Cool. So then, OK, so you have that in Boston. You see all these street performers. Are these like… Do you decide in Boston to already try it a little bit?

Yeah. It was the summer after my I want to say junior year we stay. We stayed in Boston for the summer and tried straight performing while I was working as a bouncer at the comedy club at night.

You tried to street performing with friends?

Yeah, that that partner I talked about with whom I performed with the first couple of years.

Were you then juggling or what were you doing? A street performer.

Yeah, I think we were juggling. Yeah.

OK, so you tried it in Boston and then you moved to L.A. Are the rules different in L.A. for street performer because I know city by city in Europe it’s…

Yeah. In L.A. it’s, um, not fun with it. There’s a lot more. Uh, what’s the best way to say this? Free spirited, uh, free spirited vagabonds to compete with, I guess. Yeah. So and then just in general, in the United States, I’d say street performing is more frowned upon than in Europe, so…There’s just not as many opportunities, like I feel like in Europe, the arts just in general are way more accepting. So, every street fair in my mind, every street fair in Europe is like, yeah, we have a street performer. He’s right there and it’s free, and here it’s like if you show up to a street fair to street performer, you’re going to get arrested for breaking and entering more or less.

And you still need permits here? It’s not everywhere like that but in some places, I mean, places like Amsterdam are pretty strict. Rotterdam was so, which is a second city. I know other countries like, you know, the UK, Germany, they’re a bit stricter. But I think if you have a permit, you can do those things. But so, you’re… OK, so right now you’re kind of saying something interesting because in L.A. was different and then how did you decide that that was going to be able to pay your rent? Like was your act preplanned? Did you know that if you do it this way roundabout, you would be earning this much even in a city like L.A.?

Uh, to move on from the street performing because for us, that was more like a starting point for the career and the backup plan. At some point we started booking gigs and got an agent that was really just wonderful, and they would get us … They were a reliable source of income with a lot of gigs that traveled across the US.

You got an agent! How did you get the… Like what was happening that you got an agent?

That, uh, that I was performing at an event in Wisconsin and I noticed that every single other act…. Oh! This is actually a great story for entrepreneurs. So, that gig was the Wisconsin State Fair, and they have… It’s one of the best performance fairs, I would say, in the country. They have, like I would say, over two hundred bands performing every day of the week for like twenty days, and then on top of that, they have all sorts of performers and comedians. But, that booking came because we had sent out a mass mailing like three years before, and never heard anything from any of them. And then one day the guy calls up and he was like, yeah, my boss said, we need it all new entertainment, and I’ve had your folders sitting on my desk for two years. Can we hire you?

Like, a mass real mailing? Not like email?!

Yeah, it was like a folder with like our pictures in it and a DVD. And we had spent thousands of dollars sending hundreds of these out all over and didn’t hear anything.

Really? Where were you sending it to, like … Agencies?

Agencies, fairs, colleges, performance venues, comedy festivals, just like anywhere we could think of, and we never heard anything until two years later when one guy said he’d had it sitting on his desk for years. And so he booked us, and then when we got to the gig, I noticed that every other act at the event that was in our genre had the same agent. So, I was like, all right, I’m going to start sucking up to all these people. So, they had put us in a separate trailer and every day I was like Dave, my partner, I was like: “Dave, we have to go hang out on that other trailer because they’re all represented by the same agent.” And then, so we started doing that, became friends with them all. And what I said about the internship, like be friends with people and over deliver, that’s what I did with all those people in that trailer, like every day I was being super friendly. And like, any time I felt like they needed something, I got it. Like, there was one day the trailer ran out of something simple. It was like it ran out of water. So the next that day during lunch, I ran to the store and got several gallons of water just so they’d have it and like huge change. And after the gig was over, like a week later, the agent called us and was like the people in charge of the fair were raving about how great you were. And then I checked with all our acts and they said you were so nice and easy to work with and like you just were like helpful all week long. So we want to represent you. Um, so that is something I learned probably during those internship days of like just over deliver with everybody.

Was it because of that internship that you were like, OK, I need to overcompensate because because I really want this? Or was it just something inside of you?

I’d say it was a subconscious thing that I probably learned from making mistakes.

Yeah. Cool! So the agent pretty much calls you from that, which is you got in touch with them by cold print mail and then the agent gets in touch with you a couple of years later.

Oh no. That was a… So I got in touch with the event with cold front mail. The event got in touch with me a couple of years later. And then I noticed doing the event that everyone had the same agent. So then, I sucked up to everyone that was from the agent who are now some of my best friends. And then after that, the agent reached out to us.

Nice. And then the agent reaches out. I mean, at this point you’re kind of like, well, not at the beginning, but also not really like jumping up or something like that. So how do you negotiate with an agent like that? Was he just like, “OK, yeah, we’ll do it.” And then they get a certain percentage and that’s it? Or was there a negotiation? What was happening?

They got a percentage and they are just… So that particular agency ‘GELBERG’ is just so this is how we do things and we do it in the fairest way possible and everything is out in the open to discuss. And I just found from working with them for so long and so many other agents that have they just seem the most genuine and literally care about every single person that they represent, like it’s a family member. And so I, a hundred percent trust them with anything.

They are L.A. based or…?

No, they’re in Minneapolis.

And so just for me to know, how does… Maybe you don’t want to mention their percentages, but in L.A. in general, what are the percentages for good or bad agents? And how can you spy or bad agent?

I don’t know enough about that to say.

And then maybe the tips on how would you know what to do? Because you said a couple of agents you’ve seen already and then this is a good one. What makes a good and what makes a bad one?

For me is I mean, it’s this the same thing, as I said about being an intern, like they go above and beyond and show that they actually care.

Um, how do you test that, though?

That’s something that I’ve tried to get better at when working with people is like… I said a couple of years ago to my wife, I was like from now on, whenever I work with anyone, make sure before I sign the contract to do whatever I make them prove themself. Like just give them some sort of simple test to see if they follow through. Because when you’re first in business, when you’re first working with someone, everything’s a promise, like, yeah, we can do that and this and it’s going to be amazing and we love you and everything is great about it. And then once you sign the dotted line, like they can totally screw you. So for me, it’s like, oh, you want to work together? Cool. Could you put together a list of like ten? I don’t know if it was my stand up. Could you put together a list of like ten events that you have in your roster that you think would be a good fit for? And give me a paragraph description of why I’d be a good fit for each one, like that is not something that would be hard to put together, but it is something that I think if I asked people to do it, a lot would fail at it. And so it’s just because they wouldn’t do it, you know?

So, by that small thing, you pretty much just qualify if they’re going to do big things as well?

Yeah, it’s just do they care enough to put in the effort to help? Because, uh, whenever I work with someone, I want to make sure it’s someone that I care enough to help with. And so I just try and find people like that but feel the same way.

I mean, that’s nice, though. Like we do something similar when we hire people, like a smaller recruitment where we test for the motivation is real because motivation tends to go after a week or two, and then you’re stuck in the company

A hundred percent!

But it’s fun. You kind of also do that with agents, which just shows that technically the agent becomes part of the family, like you said.

Yeah, I wouldn’t I don’t do that just with agents. That was just advice for working with anyone on anything.

True. You have multiple agents or how does that work? Or is there one agent?

Uh. Yeah, um, I would say… Can you ask the question one more time?

Yeah. Do you have multiple agents or do you advise maybe agents for everything, everything that you do, like stand up or YouTuber?

I would say that every agent has a special field, whether that stand up or commercial acting, or TV acting or book writing, whatever you want to do. There is an agent that specializes in that field. And so you should find an agent that does that, like there’s agents that specialize in live touring, but there’s agents that specialize in getting you Netflix specials, right? So, it’s like getting a plumber, right? Some plumbers are specialized in commercial plumbing for major real estate, and others are like more handymen. You want to find the one that specializes in the the field you’re looking to, um, move forward

I didn’t know that. OK, so then let’s move on to the next part. So the agent finally gets on board. Does your life change a lot after that, or what’s the difference before and after?

Yeah, they got us gigs non-stop all the time, and I was just full on performing, traveling all over the US, getting sick of airports and having it be worth it once you got on stage with like a good audience and then from there, I was like, how do we expand this audience? And so, that’s when I started getting into YouTube and posting videos regularly.

So when does it (year wise) when does the agent get onboarded?

Let’s see…I’m going to say, around 2012.

But YouTube started in 2009.

OK, so that maybe it was like 20… I don’t know, it’s all a blur.

No worries, but in your mind, was the YouTube first or the agent first?

I would say it was all around the same time, but I would say that the agent took off way before the YouTube channel.

Cool. So OK, so then you’re doing… OK now I get it. So you’re doing the gigs, and then obviously…It’s not obvious actually, because what you’re saying right now is you were doing the gigs, which is by the way, you said your dream and you’re performing and doing something you love, but then something in your mind goes just, well, if I’m assuming right now, kind of like during high school, something in your mind goes off and it’s like, let’s found this this club. And then suddenly you’re saying like, let’s scale this audience. Why? Was it people approaching you just saying :”Hey, I want to see more of you or what?

That was it. It was like years of people being like: “Oh, we come to see you every year, but we can only see you one day of the year. Like, how do we see more of you?” And I was like, how can I give…? And as I thought about that more, I was like, that’s true, like even if I did a show every hour of every day, I’m still performing for like one small group, whereas on the Internet you can reach the entire world in one click. And so, I was like, I have to scale this audience, and that is why I started posting on YouTube.

It sounds to me like it was a gradual mindset shift, like it wasn’t happening right away. What happened for you to know? How was your reaction at the beginning? Because YouTube existed already.

I always watched YouTube from like the day it started and I think similar to like how I was afraid to be on stage by myself I was probably afraid to post a video. And so I think, um, eventually I was just like, screw it. I’m just going to do it and I’d say I posted videos for like five or six years before one took off.

And how does the animation tie into it? Because for the people just listening and not on computer or something like that, you obviously make animations, and as well you produce and film yourself sometimes. Where do you did you learn that skill from film school and why?

My first job I wanted as a kid was to be an animator, and that’s because I was really good at drawing. That was like the first thing I remember being good at, and, uh, then I started taking some animation and drawing classes and realized how long and arduous and boring being an animator was. And I was like, oh, maybe I don’t like art. Like I said earlier, maybe I don’t like the art of Aladin, maybe I like Robin Williams. And so I transitioned to comedy, and then after doing my YouTube channel for a while, I was like, I used to draw as a kid. Maybe if I try switching to animation, um, that’s closer to comedy. Maybe that’s the move I need to make. And so I tried making one animated video after posting live action videos for a couple of years. And the animated one, I went from getting like a thousand views, a video to like fifty thousand overnight. And I was like, oh, I got to make the switch. And so, I think that was in 2012, December 2012. And then from that point on I was like, I got to go all animation and I learned to draw again.

So it’s pretty much the audience telling you this is what we want to see and then you just make the switch. But isn’t it…? So we actually do some animation as well. Corporate work. It takes a while, like it’s not easy. And what you do is very custom work.

Yeah.

How long does it take you to then make a video or something like that? You can’t just whip it up or…?

Yeah. So I’m like a very analytical problem solver person. And so for me, I’m like… I’m more interested in the back end of animation, which sounds really weird, especially since I just said I hated how analytical and boring it was. But, um, so for me, like, I’ve perfected, like, reusing assets. And so we have like a super organized library of backgrounds that are like categories categorized by like location and type. So like if we need a scene in a bedroom, I can go in a folder and there’s like every angle of a bedroom possible with like our backgrounds are like everything is a separate layer. So they’re completely customizable and reusable. Our characters are super rigged puppets that are like two hundred layers. So the main character that represents me, Alex, is like one hundred and fifty layer puppet about… And we can even drag and drop animations on to him to make him walk or talk or act like all that stuff was animated once and now it’s just urías like as easy as like searching for a gif online.

Right. So you animated it. How did you animated it? Which software did you use?

We use Tune Boom which if you’re interested in animation, I would be impressed if you could show me software that was better suited for it, because what what Tune Boom does is just to me, mind blowing.

What does it do then?

It has, um, it’s hard to explain it with just words, but it just has so many feat. Custom features and its feature-rich that as far as I can see, there’s no other software that has as many features in it as Tune Boom does. Like it has 3D character, 3D camera, which gives you depth, it gives you character rigging, which lets you bend into form drawings in an easy way. It has, um, I mean I could talk endlessly about it, if I could remember the words, but, uh, I would say the most basic explanation is that the amount of features it has is uncomparable.

I mean, you can go pretty technical on this one, but so all the features in there but that’s when you animate new assets, right?

Yeah.

Once you’ve animated them, I can imagine the software that you’re using is pretty intense. You’re switching to a different software. That’s less…

No, we just, uh, we do all the animation in that software.

Really?

Yep.

And can I ask like how… What kind of computers you can use because the expert time must be pretty long?

Um, we, uh, just do it all on like base model or not based model. The whatever the like mid tier IMAX are.

Really?

Yeah. What I would say we do have one PC because we had a PC master race person work here for a while and I would say that’s the route to go just because it uh, the graphics card and those are way more affordable and um, that renders are a lot faster on that.

Really? Do you …Did you try an external graphics card as well? You can buy them online.

Uh, no, we haven’t tried that yet. No

You should definitely try. You can get a lot faster in those things. It’d be interesting to hear maybe later also: what’s faster? A PC or a Mac with an external graphics card? Because you can buy one for, I think three hundred bucks on Amazon, and then you can exchange the actual so you can buy the rig and then exchange the graphics card from Nvidio or Reagan, and then that’s good, because you can upgrade it. So, it’d be interesting to hear because I know for software that is strictly strictly Apple, you definitely need a Mac. But then if you use graphics, I’ve always heard Windows. So you kind of saying the same thing right now.

Oh, I totally say the same thing. Um, yeah.

So the graphics card would be the most important part and that’s rig?

Yeah, for sure. I think for anyone just starting out like any computer you have is going to be fine. Don’t worry about having the most powerful computer, but we’re so into the program with the compositing and how taking it to a super advanced level that I think we need more power.

How come it’s different now? Is it just because there are so many layers?

Uh, yeah. We require more power just because we use, um, so many more layers and the puppets we use have so many deformers on them. Um, I would say a puppet probably has like 10 to 20 deformers that can bend and move the puppet around, and so and you have that many deformers on a puppet and then there’s three or four puppets in a scene. It just starts to become taxing on the computer.

Correct. So can I ask then you have a video like, let’s say a five minute video. How long does that take you?

If we were starting from scratch, it would probably take us a month, I would say, if we had absolutely nothing.

But with the library that you have right now?

With the library we have right now, we can…One or two people can pump that out in about a week.

Wow! How do you get…? Because you publish more than once a week, so how do you..?

No, we’re publishing once a week right now.

OK, that explains it, because I saw that you were…But you usually also post live videos. I just saw you posted that as well.

Yeah. The live video we just posted was because we’re launching that card game on Kickstarter, which we’re getting a great response on, and I just wanted to quickly answer some people’s questions. So I did that live video as well.

Tell me about the card game. So…wait, maybe let’s keep that for a second. So you got the agent, the YouTube is kicking off. You made the switch to animation because it gets more audience. So now you’re doing this card game, but you did a card game before and in high school, you said or in…

That was like a point and click adventure game on the computer.

But the game-making has been kind of in you for a while. Have you done any other games since then or is this your first one since that old one?

I would say the love of games has been there forever. And this was the first one that we we actually made. My friend Zack, that I went to college with, his wife and my wife, we’d always play games together and be like: “we’re going to make one, we’re going to make one.” And then he had his twins. And I was like, uh, if we don’t do this now, we’re never going to do it. And so that’s that was what inspired us to make the game.

So this is the first game since pretty much last time.

Yeah.

And then when you’re doing this game, so you’re doing with a friend, which is always nicer. How does that work? And maybe also the dynamic of doing it with a friend, because obviously I have a best friend and we laugh about things and doing a YouTube channel together, but then you actually do it. Is there a difference in your collaboration? And you know, how you work together… Does it help?

Uh, uh, the friend that I did it with, um, or remember earlier when I was talking about starting that TV show in college?

Right.

That was the guy I did that with. And then when we made that ridiculous action adventure movie, it was that guy as well. So like we’ve always collaborated together on projects. So, I think we just like each other and respect each other a bunch so that working together, it’s like… It’s very easy for us to throw responsibilities at each other and know who’s in charge of what.

So how did it start? OK, so you’re playing the games. That’s how it started. But when did it really get to the nitty gritty: “You’re doing this. You’re doing that…?”

I would say about a year and a half ago is when we started taking it really seriously and just getting together every week and playing the game over and over again to find out how terrible we could make it. Just like with performing or starting a company or anything, it was like, let’s be really bad at this and keep making it better until it’s at a point that we can share it with everyone. And then I would say maybe six months ago, we’re like, all right, we have something that’s cool. It’s time to start doing the artwork and getting the balls in motion and sharing this with the world.

So it’s pretty much one year and every week on like a Saturday you would get together and play would became this, uh, card game…?

“Sugarheist”, yeah.

And then how is it at the beginning? Like was it really bad or something? Or how did you even come up with the first try?

Right. So, uh, for the mechanics of the game, we looked at all the games that we’d play all the time, like, what do we like about this? And like, well, we like trading cards and we like wreaking havoc on other players, like instigating arguments. Basically, I love card games that instigate arguments, so we are like we have to make a game that instigates people getting upset with each other in a fun way. And so that, uh, was how we started. And then we set up a bunch of rules and played at once and were like, oh, this is not fun. This is fun. This sucks, this doesn’t suck. And then we just did that over and over again until we had more “doesn’t sucks than does sucks.”

How long how long were those games initially?

What do you mean?

So you started in the beginning a year and a half ago. Every week you sat down and then you were playing these kind of beta games. How long were you playing it… For 20 minutes together or..?

Yeah, I would say games would last anywhere from a half an hour to an hour and a half. Sometimes we’d play it all the way through. Sometimes it would be so bad that after ten minutes we’re like, we have to stop. This is awful.

OK, so half a year ago it becomes something fun. Do you then get your life together? Like who’s the first person who actually saw it outside of you two?

I would say, uh, my animators are probably the very first people to play the game. Um, that wasn’t the core group. Um, one day they stayed after work and we all played the game, um, and they gave some feedback and we went back and improved it again.

Why the animators?

Uh, just because they were here already. And I know that… And they play games all the time, like they have, uh, game groups where they go out and play cards and board games with their friends.

Nice. And then, uh, OK, so then the animators… Then you actually design it professionally and then you start printing it. I saw in the video that you also had… You printed it in the printer first?

Yeah, I have some of those right here, actually.

Those look actually pretty good! Why not create like a digital experience where people can just print the card? Well, probably bad for copyright.

What was the question?

Why not just create a digital experience, like they just download the cards and can print it themselves?

We are going to have that but this is more meant to be… We wanted people to have like something that could last a while. So there is going to be a print in play available where they can print it out. But it also requires a ton of cards. There’s one hundred and eighty cards in the game, so I can’t imagine someone wanting to sit there and cut out one hundred and eighty cards.

Cool. So, OK, so then you have that the animators take over. How does the process work, like, you know, to to print something like that to you, go to a printing shop?

I’m in the US. There’s a couple… We’ve been I mean, as everyone has like, uh, made it more difficult to make this all happen with Covid-19. But because the one print shop we were going to use, uh, like, they just aren’t in operation right now. So it took some researching to find one. But there are a couple of when you’re prototyping a game, there’s a couple of great websites that will do. It’s hard to tell, but these are not as high quality as something you’d buy in the stores. They’re pretty close, but it’s not an exact match. But there are companies that will like do basically print on demand games for you and that can include games with like little miniature figures, games with cards, games, boards, like all of that stuff. There’s a couple of great websites that can put together mockups for you.

And then you just Google that or…?

Yeah. The one the one we used if people don’t play games is the one we used for these and I’d recommend them. It’s good quality and fast turn-around. And then the other major one is the game crafter, and those both offer great resources for building prototypes.

Cool. So then, you know, you started kind of in your friends circle and then they gave you the green light. How do you scale that? When it’s the light bulb going on? Okay, this needs to go to the world like… Do you first test it out, try to sell it to your friends and family, or do you right away go to the Kickstarter?

Um, well, uh, the goal was always to share it with my YouTube audience. Um, I’m in a lucky position that I already have, uh, a fan base to that will help bring it to that next level of letting everyone know about it. So, um. The goal was like: “let’s get the fan base excited about it” and hopefully that is enough of a push that it can get it more into the mainstream of other games on Kickstarter.

Do you have a proper strategy in place, as in obviously the strategies in videos? Who are you going to do paid advertising and stuff like that to get it to people that don’t know you yet?

Yeah, we’re going to see how the first day of funding goes. And then based on that, we’ll possibly invest in like Facebook and Instagram ads.

Nice. And the whole infrastructure is done by the providers. So then you don’t have to worry about the whole logistical part, right?

We have a separate company that’s in charge of all that stuff. So the ones I mentioned, uh, print and play games and game crafter, those are more just to print mockups. But we have a separate company that’s helping us with the logistical stuff.

OK, is there like a number you have in mind of…OK, if we achieve this number, then you know, it’s worth it for us to take this to the world. Or if we don’t achieve that number, it’ll just stick with my friends.

Um, I personally I mean, I hope it’s super successful because the game is awesome and I know when people play it, they’re going to love it. But personally, I… It doesn’t matter to me how well it does. Like, it would be a dream if it made lots of money. But me, I’m more excited about just the people that want it get it. Um, just because it’s it’s fun. And I would love to give them something fun to share with their family and friends.

I saw in your last video that you uploaded just before the call. There you said it’d be a dream that if it’s in the stores, um, I think your wife has your dad and then. But don’t you have I mean, you’re doing it with a with a friend. So there’s a partner involved. Don’t you have a strategy to get it into stores or is that something for after you get feedback from the Kickstarter campaign?

The company that’s handling all the logistical stuff does have relationships with stores, but that’s still like… Lots of people make card and board games, especially these days, where, like anyone can do it. So getting it into a store, there has to be enough of a demand for it. We have to prove ourselves basically because we’ve never had anything in a store before, right? So we have to say, look at how many people bought this game already. If you have it in your store, you’re going to have the same success. So, so…

So it’s super important to have your audience.

Yes. One hundred percent. Um, I think we have a huge advantage and I’m confident it will end up in the store. But at the end of the day, like, it’s not up to me, it’s up to everyone coming together and backing the Kickstarter to make it happen.

So, pretty much in short, your audience plus all of their friends, and then, yeah, if they just keep enjoying it, I mean the Kickstarter is thirty days, right?

Yeah, and I have a sizeable audience too, like I have four million subscribers on YouTube, so I’m not at a disadvantage by any means. But um,…

How do you how do you get in touch with your audience, because with YouTube after you hit a certain number, especially like above the millions, I can imagine, not everything pops up in their feed. So how do you interact with all? I’m imagining you’re trying to interact with almost all of them. So how do you get directly to them?

One thing, two things that I love are “Discord”, which for anyone that doesn’t know, um, is this great chat app where you can set up communities. And it just is it’s basically a chat room app, but it’s the current trend. And it’s been a great way for everyone that’s involved in my community to be able to talk to each other. So I’ve been loving that. And then as recently as this week, I just started using this thing called “Community.com”, which gives you a … Do you know what that is?

No, I’ve never heard of it.

Oh, it’s great. Community gives you a phone number that people can text message and then it’s still it’s not in beta, but it’s like slowly coming out of beta. Um, and it gives you just all the resources to be able to respond to people one on one, but in a way that can scale to thousands of people. So I get to have one-on-one conversations with people, but also be able to scale that and text people in a way where it still feels one-on-one, but I’m reaching a mass amount of people.

Because the interface of Community.com is on your laptop so you can message…?

It’s on the laptop and it’s on the phone. And it just gives you… I don’t know how to explain this, but it does give you a way to like respond to messages, uh, multiple messages at once, but still give it that one on one feel.

OK, so it’s just a little bit more organized, gives you a little bit more features and it’s not all over the place like a WhatsApp or an i-message?

Yeah, exactly. So like I can search for keywords and everyone that uses that keyword in a message, I can respond to them all at once, and they get it in their text message as in like an individual message just to them.

So how much does Community.com cost?

Um, I believe it’s one hundred dollars a month for the first thousand users. Um, but I think their pricing structure is still something they’re working on. So that could be totally off. But that’s just what I remember.

And then OK, so again, I’m assuming you’re not getting everybody on text. So what do you do that gets you the most amount of interaction with your audience?

Um, I would say…four million

Like, how do you hit all four million, I imagine you can’t hit all four million?

No, it’s impossible. It is literally impossible. I’ll make… I’m sure even though I’ve been talking about this game for months, um, there is still people that will be like, what do you mean you’re making a game? And it’s like or every single time I post a video, I would say there’s at least one hundred comments. They’re like, why don’t you post videos anymore? And it’s like, I’ve been posting a video every week for the past five years.What do you mean? Why don’t you post videos anymore? And so it’s just, uh, especially with all the competition for eyeballs these days, it’s just you have to accept that not everyone is going to know everything.

Do you have ideas on what the best practices are to actually get as much in touch with them?

I don’t know but if you figure it out, let me know first.

I will. We’re actually looking into it as well. That’s how I was interested, but I’ll let you know if I discover something. So OK, so to give me, like, a little bit numbers wise. So you have these numbers, community.com and stuff like that. Instagram I saw as well. Do you feel like your audience, like, it if let’s say you would start an Instagram today from zero and you would say, hey, audience, have new Instagram, how many of those four million do you think would convert onto an Instagram platform?

None. Yeah, yeah. For me, I mean, I’m sure it’s different for everyone, but for me, getting people to go from platform to platform is really hard. Like…

Really? Why?

I don’t I don’t know. I would say for me, like if I was like: “hey go follow this new Instagram!”, I wouldn’t get any traction. But if it if I was on YouTube and I was like, “hey, go follow this other YouTube!”, that will get a lot more traffic. That would get a ton of people because it’s within the platform. But to get people to switch, like, I don’t I don’t understand that at all. Yeah.

And have you ever tried, like, getting them from YouTube towards an email or something like that, something where they have a newsletter from you?

I would say the most recent conversion I’ve tried to make platform to platform is this card game. And so we announced that… And the card game got …I’m looking right now. Ten thousand sign ups about from reaching out to an audience of four million.

But at start you said in your last video, was like twenty thousand, but not all of them confirmed.

Yeah, yeah.

Why do you think that happens?

They didn’t know they had to confirm. It went to their spam, they didn’t see the email, it could be anything. I’ll send out emails. Like, for instance, last year, I went out on tour and I’ll get emails, and we sent out an email blast being like, hey, we’re going on tour and I’ll still get emails to the day. They’re like, hey, I just saw this email that you’re going out on tour. Sorry that I missed it. I’m like, who checks their email from eight months ago?

Yeah, I get that. So, how interesting, we’ve tried some stuff over the over the past couple of months because since MailChimp changed a lot of things which was made last year, I think, a lot of these emails don’t get into the inbox. And what we’ve noticed is if we build our landing pages a little bit different, warning them that there is going to be a confirmation link and they will arrive in the next one or two minutes, it seems to help a little bit. But we also have… Sometimes we just skip the double opt in and we go straight for the single opton. Have you ever tried that?

Um. Yeah, I do it for my personal email list, but for this, since we’re working with a company, we had to do the double up and…

What’s the difference between… If you noticed, like double opt in and single opt in. Do you notice the difference?

Um, personally, I don’t I don’t I don’t know why we need a double opt in. I know it’s the law sometimes, but for me, I’m just like if they put it in their email address, let me send them e-mails.

No, the double opt in is not for the law, I think. Well, now would you DPR might be a bit different, but before that, I think it was more of making sure that they put in the right email. Yeah, because if you’re sending to 10000 subscribers, but nine thousand of those are like Brian with two N’s or something like that. And you screwed up and suddenly you’re paying for a subscriber that doesn’t exist. Yeah. So that’s usually…

In that regard, I’d say the double opt in is worth it for sure.

Cool. OK, so a lot of the card game I’m probably going to add.

It’s so good. Get it guys. Yeah. Kickstarter 26. That’s going to be awesome.

I’m definitely getting it. I’ve been excited but I’m definitely going to ask a bit more later about it. But let’s go a little bit back again because I was super excited where we were going with the whole: “she got the agent thing and now you’re doing the YouTube thing.” So, your first couple of years you’re doing live videos, right? You’re not doing animation yet. So how many subscribers did you get before you made the switch to the…Well, yeah, before we made the switch to make an animation?

I don’t remember exactly, but I would say when I posted my first animation, so from 2007…When did I start the YouTube channel?

2009.

I’d say from 2009 to 2012, I had like ten thousand subscribers total. And then once I switched to animation, I jumped up to like, uh, maybe like one hundred thousand and then within a year or so, it just started getting into the millions.

You think it was because of the animation? So what were you doing that was so attracting them? That was so different even than the live videos.

I mean, at the time it was different. There was maybe two people posting animated videos on YouTube, um, and the similar format to me. And so at the time that stuck out as individual. Now there’s like there’s so many that I couldn’t even name them all. But at the time it was a very unique genre.

That’s fun. And then obviously, YouTube started growing outside of posting weekly. You were posting weekly, right? So outside of posting weekly and then switching over to the animation, were there any big things that you were doing that gave you a light like “Aha!” moment where you were like, OK, if I do this, they will give me more subscribers?

Um. I can’t think of anything now.

Because I saw I saw, for instance, you talk a lot about your life, but then I saw also that that one video about the gun policy with the cats.

Oh, yeah, that video exploded.

Yeah.

And I’ve tried to make other videos similar to that, and they just haven’t clicked as well. So for people tuning in, then I have no idea what we’re talking about. I did a video called “The Guns Explained with Cats”, which was just a little parody of like if having a cat lady on your street and how absurd she gets with cats, but that’s the way people are treating guns in America and that exploded. But I think that was also at a time when that was… It said what needed to be said and, uh, an appetizing way. So people that didn’t even care about the comedy of it just shared it because they’re like, this is the point I need to get across. And it’s getting it across in a way that is easy to consume.

But were are you always looking for trending topics? Like what got you to that first ten thousand and then what got you from ten to hundred? So, from ten to one hundred. I’m assuming it was the animation that you were unique and everything, but to ten thousand you were probably doing something that still… Were you talking about trending topics? Was it relatable subjects just because it was your life?

I would say the video that really blew up was I made this video called “My hot babysitter got me in trouble.” And it was about the story from school, um, in middle school. And I dated my babysitter and who is about the same age as me. Anyways, it’s a ridiculous topic, but I think that scratch the itch of like a relatable story. So people connect with it and see themselves in the shoes of me. It gave them excitement of like, “Oh my God, I wish this would happen to me.” And then the third thing was that it ended on a cliffhanger that was like, oh, I want to see more. And so when you make content online, like as much as you want to make something that’s good, like that matters very little. Unfortunately, what matters is you make content that people watch to the end, that they leave comments on, they watch another one. So when you make your content, those are the three most important things. So that video got a lot of people to leave comments. It got a lot of people to subscribe because they wanted to see more of the story, and it got them to click on other videos, which is as far as YouTube is concerned, that’s literally all the algorithm cares about. And it’s the same with Tik Tok or Twitter, Instagram, like as much as you like: “Oh, I want to make this a good thing.” It doesn’t matter. What matters is making stuff that turns on the buttons on YouTube that says I have to share this with more people.

So do you make then a series about the baby sit? Or like if you make content now, do you think out a series of content: part one babysitter, part two baby sitter and then to trigger those three things or…?

Yeah, that’s one… That’s been interesting. So the baby sitter thing we wrapped up in December with a movie, uh, which is crazy. We posted like an hour and a half long movie that…

I saw that.

Yeah. I can’t believe we did that still, but. So… They love like as far as the algorithm is concerned, it loves the continuation and like getting people to come back for more. But the audience in the comments, they like what’s with all these cliffhangers? So it’s been interesting figuring out an approach that makes them want to see what happens next, but doesn’t get them upset that the story isn’t finished. So the most recent one, as I’ve been telling the story of how I met my wife and, um, it’s we’re trying to scratch that itch of like I want to know what happens next, but also give them a conclusion that doesn’t leave them upset, which is weird because TV is so episodic and like the next episode.

So how do you do it then? Because with TV there are cliffhangers, which is why you keep watching the episodes. And obviously like for instance, I watch things like Suits and get super angry because it’s like “No! Why?!” Why now…?

Yeah. Yeah

But so YouTube you’re telling me is different and you don’t really want to do such cliffhangers because your audience will get upset, you’re telling me.

Well, I think I mean, it’s hard to say because, like, their reaction might be as trivial as the way you just were talking about Suits or whatever you’re talking about, like: “No, why now?!” All I can see is the text of the comment, which is why did you do that to me? which I can read many different ways.

Um, so, um, one thing I found that helps is instead of just ending it right on the cliffhanger, like leaving it up to the audience and, like having a conversation with them one-on-one at the end of the video, that’s like “we could end the story here”, or if you want me to continue it, let me know that and we can continue in the next one or like letting it become more of a “choose your own adventure” than a cliffhanger, right? So at the end of the video, being like, on the next one you could go in this direction or that direction. Which way… Which part of the story do you want me to tell? And we’ve seen success with that and, uh, pleasing people.

So it’s kind of like a new generation TV series where at Netflix you pretty much get your TV series with a cliffhanger. And here it’s more like you make a full rounded story with a conclusion. But then at the end, you have this question: do you want to explore more? If so, what do you want to explore?

Yeah.

Interesting. How did you come up with that or was it just naturally came up?

Lots of trial and error similar to… Yeah, I think my whole life is trial and error actually.

Sounds like it. But it sounds like you’re learning which is the most important part.

Yeah.

So… Sorry… So those first ten thousand was about those topics that you were just mentioning then? Do you think the ten thousand two hundred thousand was because you introduced animation on top of that?

Yeah, for sure.

Then what do you think got you from one hundred thousand to your first million?

Totally that babysitter video, that first babysitter video got me like a million subscribers and a couple of months or a couple of weeks, I’m sorry. It was the growth from that that was insane. It was unbelievable.

So… Is literally just you got lucky with a certain topic and then it just hit home?

Yeah.

Do you wish that sometimes you could produce more than once a week just so that… You know…?

Yeah. I wish I could produce every day of the week. It would be great. But it’s just especially the animation. It’s impossible. Even with a video a week. It’s a real… The animation part is challenging and as difficult as it is, that’s very like paint by number and so it’s easy for us to accomplish. The thing that is most draining for me is coming up with the scripts and interesting stories and topics, because with YouTube, they want personal personal experiences and personal stories. And so, to come up with something fresh and interesting every single week on top of directing and producing all these videos, that’s the most challenging part. So I don’t know how one person could do that.

And why have you never thought (just out of interest for me)…? Because, you know, we deal more corporate, so I get to see that part. Why have you never thought of it as a studio where you get, you know, a couple of screenwriters together, you think out your ideas for the next year and then you get like an editing team or even maybe outsource the editing? I don’t know.

So we did that for… I’ve hired writers before and trying to get people to match my voice has been very challenging. Um, I even went as far as to make a really detailed and thorough, like script Bible with like, this is the voice that needs to be in and this is how it needs to be written and this is what it needs to include and not include. And like, I don’t know if I just didn’t find the right people, but it was just… It was difficult to find people that wrote in the same tone as I am. And because YouTube is so personal, like I’d say, that’s the most important thing.

And what about mentoring somebody or?

What do you mean?

I don’t know. I’ve noticed that delegation is being one of the hardest things also for some of the team leaders in my team. And that, um…

Like they have a hard time telling people what to do?

Yeah, they have a hard time translating their voice, like you said. Yeah. And then I’ve noticed that it just is difficult when especially when it gets more personal when we do creative work. But when you get people like really as a blank slate in the beginning of their careers and they stay with you for like let’s say a year or something like that, um, suddenly it just becomes a little bit easier to… To explain these things to them, because they haven’t gotten outside perspectives or something like that to have a different voice. You know what I mean?Have you tried something like that, like interns?

I would say writing wise I haven’t, but animation wise I would say one of our best… I work with the animators all the time and I would say my best success story wasn’t someone that applied for a job, it was someone that kept sending in fan art. And I was like, hey, you’re really good at this. Do you want to come in an intern? And they came in an intern and they were great. And I was like, hey, do you want to possibly, uh, start out assistant animating? And then they did that and they totally killed it. And then I was like, hey, you’re really good at this. Do you want to be a full time animator? And that’s similar to what you’re saying, someone that like was mentored and grew up within the system of what we do here. And so they just get it. And I think that was our most successful person we’ve worked with, I would say. I mean, I work with so many great people, but that one was just like it was such a pleasant surprise for both her and I, I think.

What’s the… What’s the issue of doing that for writers?

Um, I just it’s hard to… Well, one thing with writers…

I mean, I’m struggling with the same thing. I have to say for writers specifically, it’s quite difficult. But, yeah, I’d love to hear from you. Like, why?

Um, well, writing is hard. I hate doing it myself. So I think that’s the first problem. But the second thing is it’s, um. A lot of the writers we hired would write it more in line with the traditional TV show with like, dialogue and scene changes and a story arc, which there is a story arc, but with YouTube, it’s more about personal antidotes and telling stories. And as many times that be like we have to take all this dialogue out and make it directed at the person listening, like it just wasn’t conveyed in the scripts. And so. Fine.

What if you what if you take like a retreat or something like that, you do retreat where you sit down with screenwriters and you literally plot out the next year of content?

I think, so we did do that when we were using writers a lot. I think the other thing is that I’ve also gotten way more efficient at writing scripts, and so I have less of a need for that. But the other thing, we did do that for a while, where we’d meet once a month and we talk about what their script would be about and then they’d go out and write it. Um, and like I said, I put together that really thorough, um, writer’s guide and Bible that like detailed how many lines of dialogue should be in a script and how it should be written. Um, and the perspective and voice and how each character should talk. Um, and again, like all my stories are based on real life. So it’s not like they’re making stuff up, but, um, it just still wasn’t it wasn’t in the right voice and in a way that worked for me. So I would love to try it again. It’s just something we’ve put on pause for a while.

Interesting. Cool,  so um. Yeah, so then one hundred thousand to a million was the babysitter. Obviously, you’re going now one million to 10 million or even five million because you’re close. Do you feel like there’s a different thing you’re doing now?

What do you mean?

Are you focusing on different things or maybe you’ve piled up everything you’ve learned and you just keep doing that, or have you introduced a new learning lesson to it?

Um, for the like, what is my next phase of my career? Is that what you’re asking?

For YouTube specifically. So the first ten thousand was about getting those three topics in order, something that they comment on, that they come back and stuff like that. Then afterwards, you introduced the animation and then afterwards you introduce these topics that are very clickable. So, now that you’re going into your next phase of YouTube, so to say, do you feel like there is another learning lesson that you’re doing? Are you doing more training?

Oh, yeah, totally. So, as I said earlier, like, the whole reason I started my channel was to scale my performance audience. And so, we did it last year for the first time, we did 20, 30 cities, and it did great. But we got lots of emails that were like, we didn’t know you did stand up. We didn’t know you were a comedian. What are you going to be like on stage? And then I’d finish the show and I’m like, that was really great, but that’s not what I was expecting. And so from that, we’re like, “oh my God.” The whole reason I started this is not clear to the audience. So now, it’s been all moving forward. I want to make sure that it’s very clear in every video that I’m a comedian and that what I build my persona on stage, because I guess it’s a little bit different than it is in the videos. And so originally, I was just going to start recording all of my sets and talk about similar topics that are in the videos and kind of interweave those with the stories that I tell, similar to how… Do you ever watch Seinfeld?

Yeah, I did.

Do you know how like at the beginning or the end of Seinfeld, there’d be like a little clip of him doing standup?

Yeah.

I was going to do something similar to that, but animated. So that would be the animated story. And then there’d be like a little clip of animated standup that would be related to the topic. And so that was the plan. And then every comedy club in the entire world closed because of the pandemic. Uh, so that idea has been put on pause right now, but that is what we’re going to do as soon as we can.

But why not do an anime like you said yourself, just do the animated skits so you not being like just you like this and then just animate yourself doing your…

Because I think what’s because I mean, that’s what we were already doing. I feel like four years and they’re still not getting that. I’m a comedian. So I think actually having the feedback of a live audience and like seeing me at a microphone is what will, um, make that clear.

To pretty much making that sound fall. So, I guess the next part of your journey is making clear what you really do and getting your whole audience on board. And I guess the transition that you’re then making is getting your offline world connected with your online world, where before it was very much about growing your online world. And you’re off the world. But now it’s about bringing them together and connecting them.

Yeah, exactly.

It’s really cool. So outside of the card game…

And just to give you a heads up, I have to go in about 15 minutes…

Yeah, sounds great. We’re about to wrap up anyway, but I guess that’s partially what I wanted to wrap up with was going into the future. And the next thing that you want to do, your YouTube, it’s pretty clear. The card game that you’re doing right now, that’s kind of, again, bringing your offline and online together as well.

I’m so excited about it. It’s so good.

But outside of the card game and your YouTube, have you thought about a Netflix stand up on Netflix or something like that? I can imagine that could be interesting.

Yeah, I think that is the next kind of area I want to go to is, uh, a standup special or some live performance more and getting it back to that, because the past couple of years have been all about growing the online audience and like where my heart and like true passion is is and performing for people. So, I mean, all these other projects we’ve talked about are super fun and I love them and I put my heart into them. But I feel like the the most satisfying I ever feel is when I get off stage. And so I was like, that was the best thing I’ve ever seen, that just like it gives me life and it makes me feel like I did something good for a person to, like, give them that much joy. So that is what I want to share more of.

For people who would be looking and thinking that they have that, you know, live entertainment. But they would maybe like speaking or entertaining or something like that. But obviously now with Corona, YouTubers are a little bit better off than than…So, how would you tell this person to transition into digital and what tips would you give this person?

Do it and trial and error. Just do it over and over and over again. And good luck.  Cause it’s so oversaturated right now.

Any like practical things you should definitely be doing or not doing?

Um, be be ready for when it’s I would say, I mean I’m a very interesting person because I’m interested in both the YouTube, which is a very secluded life and the performing which is very in front of people. And I think most people don’t have both itches, both bugs. Um, but I would say if you are a live performer, like there’s so much you can be doing right now to be ready for when this is over. And I think when it is over, people are going to be so desperate and excited to see live entertainment that they’re just going to explode and you’re going to have so much work.

So how would you tell them to prepare already for that?

Update your promo material, reach out to people that are in your industry that are affected by this and just be like, I’m thinking about you and hoping you’re OK, just like the same story of like how at that fair I got water for all those people. Like, just because you can’t get money from someone doesn’t mean you can’t connect with them and be helpful to them, right? Uh, yeah.

Cool. I think that’s a really good one. Um, maybe the last question that I’ve been getting is a request a lot. Are you reading any books right now? Do you have something interesting to recommend that has helped?

There was …I just finished the Robin Williams biography, um, which was, uh, for a performer like it is a very sad book. Uh, but, uh, as a performer in major, I realized, like, why are we all trying so hard?

What do you mean?

The whole book, like he was my Robin Williams was my idol and like he is just like the most talented comedian on the face of the planet. And like half the book is him talking about how, like, critics hated him and he never felt like he was good enough and he felt like Jim Carrey was going to ruin his career because he was so talented and like people didn’t want to work with him because he wasn’t a good actor. And I’m like, you are like the most phenomenal actor comedian I can think of. How could you even be having these thoughts? And just to see that like someone and as phenomenal as him was also struggling with being accepted was just mind blowing to me.

How did it affect you? Were like, what did you get out of that learning?

Um. Well, it made me a little depressed. Uh, and then, uh, then I felt, uh, I was like, it’s good to be depressed, I guess, because he was he felt the same exact way. So, uh, yeah. It was just good to not feel alone.

Right. I guess that’s a good one to close with because… No, it’s a bit depressing, but hear me out. I think I think, you know, knowing that we’re not alone is partially why we’re doing this in the first place. I can tell you, like from our end, like the reason we did we did these events and doing the podcast, just realizing we’re not alone, no matter how big you’re becoming, everybody’s struggling, which is kind of also what I learned. But at the same time, maybe the conclusion wouldn’t be, oh, you know, everything’s bad and everybody’s going to hate us. But it’s more like, you know, we’re not alone. Everybody’s struggling. But at the same time, it’s trial and error. And if you keep just learning, then maybe we’ll have those learning lessons that you’ll have as well, going to your ten thousand subscribers and hundred thousand, a million. But also, at the same time with your audience and how you learned from Comedy Central compared to like that gig that you got and eventually ended up being your… Becoming an agent that came to you. I think it’s just I would add to that just to trial and error, you know. We’re not alone. It’s hard, everybody  is struggling. But as long as you do trial and error, you’ll kind of get ahead.

You know, one thing that is similar to that, the I think it might be a little bit inspiring. There was a series on Netflix. It was about… Like, I can’t recall what it was called, but it was about like, uh, movies and where they came from.

Oh yeah, I forgot it. Explain or something. No, I remember what you mean. They did one on ‘Home Alone.’

Yeah, that’s the one I’m thinking of.

If you type in ‘Home Alone’ in Netflix, you’ll find the series, um, ‘Director’s cut’ or something? Was it that one?

Home Alone Netflix….Oh, turn that off. Stop now. Where is that coming from? Stop talking. Uh, ‘The Movies that Made Us’!

‘The Movies that Made Us’, right.

Uh, ‘The Movies that Made Us’ is all about these huge blockbuster successful movies and how they became huge successes. And pretty much every single one of them at some point or another was a complete failure. And the people that worked on it, uh, were not expecting it to be even a success at all. Oh, and it just kind of reminded me of that Robin Williams book and how… It makes me feel like absolutely everything everyone makes sucks. Always. Everything everyone makes always sucks. And the only time something is successful is like winning the lottery. Like you get lucky with that one thing and the people that get lucky on it, capitalize it and try and get lucky again. But if you’re making something or working on something, it does suck because everything sucks and it’s just people that keep making sucky things cash out when they get the lucky one. So just keep working on whatever you’re working on and keep hoping you get lucky. Like, the more times you try something, the more chances you have to get lucky. So that’s kind of how I felt about everything I’ve ever worked on lately.

That is so that’s so true also in business that you’re going to do so many failures. And it’s usually that one then makes it worth it for all of the failures. With investment, same thing. So it’s just interesting that also in the creative arts, it’s pretty much the same thing.

Yeah, exactly. I think it’s the same for everything. Everything sucks, you guys.

But I think that’s a good… That’s a more positive one to to kind of close with. I really enjoyed this. I’m very happy that you came on. I really hope the Kickstarter goes really well, will definitely promote it. Well, I’m definitely going to be buying one. So…

Yay! You’re going to have a lot of fun with it. It’s a great game.

I’ll, uh, I’ll definitely give you a testimonial and see how it goes. But thank you so much for coming on. And I hope to invite you once again after the Kickstarter or something like that.

Yeah, that’d be great.

Good luck.

If you like this episode, you can check out our most recent one here. And if you haven’t already, make sure you click here to subscribe and see the next one. But if you’re interested in more tips and tricks, then make sure to join our Facebook group where you can find thousands of like minded people and you get direct access and support to any business question from the entire Startup Funding Event team.

 

Community

 

Congratulations on reaching the end!

Check out our podcast Impact Talks, where you can listen to high-profile experts from various backgrounds!

Join our Facebook Group Community with over 4,700 entrepreneurs, innovators, and creators by Startup Funding Event, where you get access to free live training, daily Q&As, design templates to get your business started, and support from the SFE team. Join here!

Slave labor is very much real and part of our everyday life. Every time you go to the supermarket, there is a good chance that you bought a couple of products that are produced by what we call modern slavery. Modern slavery is the severe exploitation of other people for personal or commercial gain. 

A good example is the chocolate industry. Tony’s Chocolonely explains this best: 

There is an unfair distribution of value and power in the chocolate supply chain. The chain starts with the millions of farmers that produce cocoa and ends with the billions of consumers that enjoy chocolate. But what about the bit in between? This section is dominated by a group of chocolate giants that profit from keeping the cocoa purchasing price as low as possible. As a result, farmers are forced to live in poverty.. leading to child labor and slavery.

While lots of people ask politicians and NGO’s to address this issue, the founders of Tony’s Chocolonely took this responsibility by making this problem their purpose. Their mission is to make 100% slave free the norm in the world of chocolate production. 

If you want to know more about Tony’s Chocolonely and how they want to eliminate slavery within the world of chocolate, we had Ynzo van Zanten as a guest on ‘Impact Talks’ telling their story. He is the Chief Evangelist at Tony’s Chocolonely. You can also read about it in our blog 10 Things I’ve Learned from a Chocolate Evangelist as a Social Entrepreneur.

Impact Talks is a podcast with influential speakers from all over the world. We are dedicated to encouraging growth and innovation within startups and scale-ups. 

Purpose-Driven Brands

While Tony’s brand purpose addresses a moral issue, not everyone can pursue one of this size. However, many great companies are purpose-led. Nike wants to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world. Google tries to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. 

A brand purpose allows brands to occupy a meaningful place in their customers’ minds. Even though profit and purpose aren’t mutually exclusive, a clear purpose can deliver commercial success. 

‘Companies that stand for something bigger than just what they sell are usually more successful, because of this meaningful place in their customers’ minds’. – Bill Theofilou, Managing Director at Accenture Strategy


So, What is Brand Purpose?

The definition of a brand purpose is “a higher-order reason for a brand to exist than just making a profit”. It connects with consumers on a more emotional level, such as values and norms. 

While a brand purpose is similar to a social purpose, there are differences. Take Coca-Cola’s brand purpose for example: “Refresh the world. Make a difference.”. It does not account for their social, cultural, or environmental goals. 

If we compare that to Tesla’s purpose: “To accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable transport.”, we see a clear difference. Tesla has an environmental goal, while Coca-Cola does not clearly state it has one. If you ask me, the purpose statements including social, cultural, or environmental goals, are way better than those that do not. 

A perfect example is this Dutch article that states that if even Shell uses a purpose, then it must be another empty business jargon. While it’s often mixed with CSR, they are not the same. Therefore, Shell is perfectly capable of having and pursuing a purpose. However, the credibility and power of their purpose is a different story when it includes their environmental impact. 

One of the big misconceptions about a business’s purpose is that it’s about good initiatives, sustainability, or making the world a better place (it often does, however). A purpose should be visible in all elements of the business and manifest itself in everything a brand does. 

In contrast, CSR often runs parallel to the business. For example, a supermarket can give free gaming consoles to the local youth center as a token of goodwill. Or less related to their business, they can donate a ton of money to a good cause. 

Both cases, however, do not say anything meaningful about their product. Their purpose is probably something down the line of: “making fresh and healthy food available for everyone”. Giving away free products or donating money does not reflect their purpose. 

Differences Between a Brand Purpose and Business Mission/Vision/Values

It is easy to confuse a business’s purpose with mission, vision, or values. However, it differs greatly. Below here are the differences:

  • Purpose is WHY you exist: The reason for being for a brand or business than just ‘making a profit’ or ‘driving shareholder value’.
  • Vision is WHERE you want to get to: This is what you want the brand or business to be (e.g. ‘We want to be the world’s most sustainable provider of X by 2025′).
  • Mission is WHAT you do: This is what you do or the core of the business.
  • Values are HOW you want to behave to get there: What is the organizational culture of the company? Which types of behavior do we tolerate, and which do we not condone? 

It is imperative to get all of this right since they will help you make decisions. Tony’s Chocolonely for example, bases all of its decision on the question: “Will this decision help us make the chocolate industry 100% slave free?” 

It is easy to lose track of your long term goals. By asking yourself, “Will this decision help me achieve my purpose, vision, and mission?”, you are sure to work your way to whatever it is you’re chasing. 

Brand Purpose & Social Entrepreneurship

This is where brand purpose and social entrepreneurs meet. By developing, funding, and implementing solutions to social, cultural, or environmental issues, you are sure to have followers. 

We, as humans, are currently living in a way that is far from sustainable, taking about 1.5 times as many resources than we can replenish. Luckily, the number of people that want a more sustainable and more ethical world is rising. It is not surprising that entrepreneurs addressing these issues are on the rise.

Social entrepreneurs focus beyond simply pursuing profit and mainly focus on the positive impact the business makes on society – whether social, cultural, or environmental. If you want to get started with social entrepreneurship, these lessons will get you a long way. 

Companies that follow sustainable business practices/principles are well on their way to making the world a better place for us. However, putting sustainable business practices at the heart of your business will maximize impact. Therefore, social entrepreneurs should take time to develop their purpose, which will help them grow their business. 

Get Free Marketing from a Social Brand Purpose

Tony’s Chocolonely does not do paid advertising. Their marketing is based on word-of-mouth communication. Moreover, their strategy is working so well they can slowly take over the American market. 

The beauty of it is that Tony’s Chocolonely did not enter the American market to make more money, but because it was the only way to disrupt the international chocolate industry and to pursue their purpose: “100% slave-free chocolate”. 

A message like this resonates with their customers, who, in turn will spread the message freely. This shows that having a social brand purpose can give you free marketing and help you pursue growth. 

Purpose Attracts Talent

According to research done by Deloitte, many millennials express little loyalty to their current employers and have one foot out the door. Meaning they are planning their near-term exits. This leaves us with the question: “How can we attract and keep talent in the organization?”

Millennials are less impressed by the sheer scale of a business, its age, or the general buzz that surrounds it. Based on a stereotypical view of Millennials, the profile or “positive energy” around a business might be thought of as being highly important to them.” ~ The 2016 Deloitte Millennial Survey


One part of this ‘positive energy’ is a company’s contribution to society. This and lots of other surveys show that millennials prioritize the sense of purpose rather than growth or profit maximization. 

Millenials look for work that fuels their sense of purpose and makes them feel important.” ~ The 2016 Deloitte Millennial Survey

This Harvard Business Review article shows that not only millennials are purpose-hungry, but boomers and Gen X prefer to work for purpose-driven brands. 

 

This means that having a brand purpose that is bigger than pursuing growth or profit, will attract young talents. This will lead to more growth, profit, and above all, a better chance at achieving your business’s purpose. 

Developing Your Brand Purpose

There are two possibilities. You either want to start a company and are searching for a brand purpose, or you have an existing company in need of a brand purpose. 

If you are starting a company:

  • Firstly, you have to find your passion. I know this can be extremely difficult. Luckily, we have a blog that can help you find your passion
  • Secondly, you have to look at what you are good at. By doing something in line with your skills and expertise, you have a higher chance of succeeding. 
  • Third, think about what the world needs. If you are very passionate about something and extremely good at it, but nobody needs your product or service, it won’t be easy to find customers. 

 

The sweet spot lies within a combination of these 3. Combining these 3 will keep your motivation high because you are chasing your passion while offering a high-quality product or service to potential customers. 

Think of why your consumers want to support what you do and why you do what you do. This way, you will get consumers that follow not only your product or service but also your purpose.

Now that you have established your purpose, you are ready to start. This guide will help you on your journey. 

If you are an existing company:

It is extremely risky to stick a purpose on top of an already established brand. Especially if you do it for the sake of having one, people will see right through you!

However, with the help of a specialist or by following the steps described by Afdhel Aziz, existing brands can discover their purpose. 

  1. Dive-deep into the history of the company, how it was founded, and by whom, and its reason for coming to existence was in the first place. 
  2. Follow the same 3 steps as when starting a company described above. 
  3. Ask why employees are proud to work for you. This often reveals the real value they see in your company and their work.
  4. Ask why customers choose your brand. This can reveal why they choose to follow your purpose/brand and not someone else’s. 

Brand Purpose Examples

What’s better to give you inspiration than real-world examples? Here are 5 businesses with a purpose:

  1. Eliciting Joy (Coca-Cola) –  exists to inspire moments of happiness.
  2. Enabling Connection (Facebook) –  exists to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what’s going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them.
  3. Inspiring Exploration (The North Face) – exists to provide the best gear for exploration and new experiences. 
  4. Evoking Pride (Mercedes-Benz) – exists to epitomize a lifetime of achievement.
  5. Impacting Society (Tony’s Chocolonely) – exists to create 100% slave-free chocolate. 


Changing the World With Your Brand Purpose

Starting an impact startup can change the world. Tony’s Chocolonely is only one of the many successful examples. There are countless possibilities to make the world a better place and make a dime while doing it. Just keep in mind what your purpose is. 

Your goal should not be to make as much profit or to reap in as many dividends for the stakeholders as possible. A true purpose-driven brand taps into the true needs of its consumers and fulfills a goal that is bigger than money!

One important thing to remember is that you can make money whilst also making the world a better place! You do not need to be an NGO or government to change the way we do things. 

If you are a startup with a social brand purpose, we, Startup Funding Event, are here to help. We organize events for impact startups, where we give you a stage and connect you with potential funders. 

As you join this event as a startup, you’ll have real opportunities to create a positive impact on human lives. At Startup Funding Event, we bring together our international volunteering team to run an inspiring event that can help other impactful startups and companies grow. Once you win, you’ll be part of this organization by sharing impact and innovation with the support of our entire community.

You can sign up on our website:

https://startupfundingevent.com/startup-application/

Community

 

Congratulations on reaching the end!

Check out our podcast Impact Talks, where you can listen to high-profile experts from various backgrounds!

Join our Facebook Group Community with over 4,700 entrepreneurs, innovators, and creators by Startup Funding Event, where you get access to free live training, daily Q&As, design templates to get your business started, and support from the SFE team. Join here!

The world we live in is rapidly changing due to innovation. Brilliant individuals are transforming new ideas every day into products and/or services that are valuable to society. It’s always been about offering something more – whether it may be better, cheaper, faster, stronger, etc. As more cutting edge technology is introduced to the population, we will continue to see this rise in innovation.  

Let’s take a look at the most brilliant innovators of the past two decades. We have Steve Jobs who got all of us using touch screen phones with functions extended beyond calling and texting. There’s Elon Musk who is spearheading the change from gasoline to electric cars. Jeff Bezos has changed the way we shop. And last but not least, Mark Zuckerberg has gathered one-third of the population on one social networking platform.  

They all have one thing in common – relentless innovation. These four geniuses consistently roll out new products and have seen their empires grow over recent years. Although they share the same innovation beliefs, they are four unique individuals working in different industries. And they have their own business and marketing strategies. 

Steve Jobs

An extraordinary innovator, Steve Jobs has had 241 patents registered to his name or as a co-inventor. Many of the products he invented went on to be hits in the tech world, notably the iPhone. Before passing away in 2011 from pancreatic cancer, the American entrepreneur was the co-founder, CEO, and chairman of Apple Computer.  

Born in 1955 to a Syrian father and American mother, Jobs was given up for adoption to Paul and Clara Jobs. Neither of them were university graduates, but they promised to put him through college. During his early years, he struggled in traditional classrooms and faced some challenges in school. The future genius was a loner and often bullied by classmates, but it did not hinder his progress.  

When he was 10, Jobs took a keen interest in electronics. He became friends with all the engineers in the neighborhood. At the age of 13, he got a summer job with Hewlett-Packard after cold-calling them for some electronic parts. Then during his high school years, he met his future business partner Steve Wozniak. 

By his senior year in late 1971, Jobs became fascinated with electronics and completed his first project with Steve Wozniak – the low-cost digital blue box. The sales were excellent and this gave them the idea that they could do wonders. He later attended Reed College but dropped out after only one semester citing that education was not for him. 


After some stints with Atari and a spiritual trip in India came the birth of Apple. In 1976, Wozniak and Jobs joined forces once again with operations beginning in the latter’s bedroom. There was a third co-founder by the name of Ronald Wayne, but he didn’t stay in the picture for very long. 

The duo decided on the name “Apple” after Jobs returned from a farm in Oregon. He had spent time on a farm’s apple orchard. To raise funds for their project, they had to sell some of their personal belongings. Wozniak sold his HP scientific calculator and Jobs sold his Volkswagen van. Sacrifices had to be made so they could build the first batch of the circuit boards for Apple I.

About 21 years later and a plethora of tech products, Steve Jobs unveiled a game-changer in 2007 – the iPhone. 

 

On June 29, 2007, Apple’s launched its first iPhone. Although it wasn’t the first smartphone, it managed to outperform its competition so heavily that a mobile revolution ensued. It changed the game.

“This is a day I’ve been looking forward to for two and a half years,” said Steve Jobs on the day of the launch. 

 

After 11 years in the market, Apple had recorded 2.2 billion units sold. It is a series of smartphones that is capable of doing many things a computer can do, but small enough to be carried around in your hand. The whole idea for this phone came into being when Jobs was trying to combine the features of an iPod with that of a phone and computer.

The awesome combination of design, power, multimedia features, and the AppStore catapulted the iPhone to success. Because of its multifunctionality, it became very popular with consumers.  

Here are some major influences of the iPhone and how it has changed our daily lives.   

Touch Screen

Entering a Blackberry-dominated era, who would have thought that this touch-screen device would take off like a rocket. Jobs made a very daring move that took the world by a storm. His innovation made traditional keyboard smartphones obsolete. Other smartphone companies followed the trend and these days, you’ll find touchscreens on every phone and tablet. 

A touchscreen is a computer screen that responds to touch. The touchscreen makes it so much more convenient to browse, use apps, play games, and so much more. By not having a physical keyboard, it doesn’t waste any space, giving you a huge area for the screen. 

One Device for Everything

Before the iPhone landed in the market, people had to go through the hassle of carrying multiple devices. It was typical to see a person with a cellphone for making calls, iPod or MP3 player for music, and a laptop for work. But today, you can do these three things with just the iPhone.

Not to mention, the camera feature. Back then, people would bring their digital cameras around. But with the iPhone and its decent camera quality, you no longer need a camera. The coverage of its features is so broad, you literally need just one device for everything.     

Internet Browsing

This is yet another feature that already existed, but the iPhone made obvious improvements that changed the experiences of its users and the way we do things. Back then, you might recall being able to browse the Internet on earlier smartphones. However, the experience was never the same as using a laptop. 

This Apple device paved the way to better browsing and instant information. If we quickly need to search something, we no longer have to wait to get on a laptop. We just need to reach in our pockets and open Google on our phones.   

Video Recording

Speaking of obsolescence, the iPhone pretty much had the same effect on the handheld camcorder. When cameras were first installed on phones, it was already a big deal. And then the iPhone took it a step further when it came with a built-in video recorder. The quality is so good that some people don’t even use their camcorders anymore. 

The fact that we’re able to so easily record moments has also led to the wide use of videos. Social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok have been on the rise with more and more demands for video content around the world. It is a common past time to post videos and stories.   

Selfies

It is pure speculation that the term “selfie” was coined by some Aussie guy. It is the slang word for a self-portrait digital photograph taken with a digital camera or smartphone. Although selfies have long existed, the term and practice only grew in popularity in 2010 when Apple launched the iPhone. It was yet another breakthrough in the sphere of innovation. 

The iPhone 4 featured a front-facing camera, which made it easier for people to take selfies. With the camera facing the front, you could see the angle at which you were taking the photo. Today, all phones feature this type of camera. Love them or hate them, selfies are here to stay.  

Apps

Not only a game-changer, but the iPhone also gave birth to a completely new industry – apps. With the Apple AppStore, it digitally distributed applications that users could install on their phones. Today, you can find apps for almost everything. 

 

The app industry is worth billions of dollars. Major tech companies such as Facebook partially owe their success to this. Apps are just another way our lives have changed for the better due to innovation. 

Made Apple one of the most valuable companies

Prior to the launch of the iPhone, Apple’s sales in 2006 hit close to $20 billion all thanks to the iPod and Mac. Ten years later, and you’ll see how the revenue has increased tenfold. If you break down the sales, most of it is due to the success of the iPhone. See the chart below. 

 

In 2016, after 9 years circulating in the market, Apple’s revenues have reached a whopping $216 billion. 63% of this is attributed to the iPhone.  

Opened doors for the Android ecosystem

The existence of the iPhone has led to many good things. Apart from apps, the Android ecosystem has also been on the rise. Companies that used to dominate such as Nokia and Blackberry are barely heard of these days. You have other emerging giants such as Samsung who are benefitting from the courage of Jobs. 

With iPhone’s prices much higher than the rest, the market share is being stolen by cheaper competition. 

Other Innovations

The iPhone was and still is a mega-hit. It is by far Jobs’ most successful innovation to date. Years after his passing, the iPhone legacy still lives on. As of 2020, there have been 11 versions of the smartphone with a new series being launched almost every year. But besides this revolutionary smartphone, this innovative genius was also responsible for other amazing products.

iPod

Launched in 2001, consumers shifted their attention from MP3 players, Discmans, and Walkmans to the iPod. It is widely recognized as the first user-friendly portable music device. Synced with the Apple iTunes store, users were able to purchase and load hundreds of songs in a single tiny device. 

iPad

After the massive success of the iPhone, came the iPad. Its inspiration came from the smartphone and Jobs wanted to create the first touchscreen tablet without a keyboard. A cross between laptops and the iPhone, this innovative product also spurred the development of a new industry. Competitors followed and consumers benefitted from fierce competition. 

MacBook Air


When the first Macbook Air was launched, consumers were shocked to see that the CD-ROM had been discarded. But this again shows how forward-thinking Steve Jobs was. He was a visionary that could see things changing before anyone else could. A few years down the road and we’ve all stopped using CDs. Launched in January 2008, the Air was so thin and light. Not only beautiful and sleek in terms of design, but it was powerful enough to do most of your work. The best part was being able to carry your laptop around in your bag like a feather. 

Pixar

Many of you might not know this, but Jobs made a very wise investment in 1986. He bought over Lucasfilms’ Computer Graphic Division for $5 million and later renamed it to Pixar. It wasn’t until the success of Toy Story in 1995 that this animations company made a name for itself. And in 2006 after creating a new animation industry in Hollywood, Jobs sold Pixar to Disney for a whopping $7.4 billion.  

 

With all his visionary inventions and accomplishments, it is no doubt that he was miles ahead of everyone. When the iPhone launched and many people thought he was crazy for removing the keyboard, Jobs was fearless. He continued to chase after the things he believed in.

The successful college dropout had this amazing ability to enter existing industries and take control, quickly evolving into the market leader. His ideas and motivation to change the world revolutionized the way we do things, often creating a new industry on its own.     

Bonus: Interesting facts

 

He was a Zen Buddhist

Jobs traveled to India in 1974 in search of spiritual enlightenment. He was known to practice meditation often, didn’t eat meat, and loved to walk around barefoot. 

He ripped off his partner Steve Wozniak

During his time in Atari, Jobs and Wozniak built a circuit board for the video game Breakout. Atari had asked the pair to use fewer chips in the device and beyond their imagination, they succeeded in doing so. After completing the project, Atari paid Jobs $5000, but he told Wozniak that he only received $700. The two split the profits and Wozniak got his share of $350. It wasn’t until years later that his partner found out he was ripped off so badly. 

He was fired from Apple

Jobs recruited Pepsi executive John Sculley to be the CEO of Apple. After Sculley convinced the board that Jobs was too young, he was fired from Apple in 1985. 

He made Google change the yellow shade in the letter “o” 

With his incredible attention to detail, Jobs called Vic Gundotra, the former VP of Google. He explained to him that the second “o” had the wrong shade of yellow and that he intended to fix it. 

He experimented with psychedelics

Jobs’ drug of choice was LSD and he claimed that it helped him to think differently. His trips were profound experiences that helped with his creativity and innovation.

Elon Musk 

Among the number of companies Elon Musk runs, Tesla is the one you probably hear about almost every day. But you might not have known that the world’s most valuable car company has a $0 marketing budget.  

As the CEO and product architect of Tesla, Musk is known to make headlines around the world. He knows how to wield the media to shine the spotlight directly on himself and his company. And he does this without paying a single cent. All the funds are allocated to product development, to ensure that the world receives products of exceptional quality.   

 

With other automotive giants spending so much on advertising, it is very intriguing that Tesla has chosen to go the other way. First and foremost, they’ve created a product that matters to people. The cars are so advanced and environmentally friendly, car experts and regular drivers absolutely love them.  

Building an amazing product is the first and most difficult step. But if you’re lucky enough to figure this out, the next part is to communicate the product’s value to the market. In this time and age, you need to be able to tell stories that resonate with people. 

This is exactly what Musk has mastered. Over the years, he’s developed cool products and has been associated with some very interesting projects. Although he has a slightly awkward presence about him, he does as many interviews as he can to get his brands and products out there. He’s aware of newsworthy factors and potentially viral stories. Clearly, this man knows how to put on a show.    

 

Tesla Motors has no advertising, no ad agency, no CMO, no dealer network. And that’s no problem. – AdvertisingAge

 

Besides interviews, there are also other acts that have helped to boost Tesla’s image. Here are some examples of how Musk has received so much attention without taking out his wallet: 

Bold statements

Saying something absurd is something that Musk does quite often. People might think he’s crazy, but he does know how to make magnetic headlines. Here are some of the things he’s said:

Nuking Mars is the quickest way to make it livable

Vehicles will drive themselves in two years

Apple only hires Tesla’s worst engineers

 

Cameos

The South African tech mogul has had a number of appearances in Hollywood movies. Let’s take a look at his top five cameos:

  1. Iron Man 2

  2. The Big Bang Theory

  3. Young Sheldon

  4. Rick and Morty

  5. Why Him

 

Giving away patents for free

In June 2014, the tech founder announced that he would be supporting the open-source movement. During the early days of his career, he believed in creating and obtaining patents. However, he soon realized that patents merely obstruct advancements. If the goal is to create and accelerate technology to make a difference in the world, then getting patented is no help at all.


 

In Tesla’s Palo Alto headquarters, you will find that this wall of patents has been removed.

Fulfilling a dying man’s wish

Musk was involved with another act of generosity in 2016. There was a long line of people waiting to receive their Tesla Model S. In December 2013 at the age of 29, Ryan Wagner was diagnosed with colon cancer. With the disease spreading to his lymph nodes and lungs, doctors stated that he only had a few years left to live.

Knowing that he didn’t have much time left, Wagner started crossing off items on his bucket list. Among his many wishes was owning a Tesla. He ordered the Model S and when the dealership got to know about his story, they bumped him up the production queue. Wagner sadly passed away in January 2018.

Using Youtube

As one of its marketing strategies, Tesla has its very own YouTube channel. As of August 2020, the channel has 1.39 million subscribers. It uses the video distribution platform to showcase its latest models and technology so viewers can enjoy the Tesla experience.

 

 

Here is one of its latest videos giving viewers a peek into the latest developments to help with the COVID crisis.

 

Emphasis on safety

One of Tesla’s biggest principles is its focus on safety and using technology to improve safety. Tesla mobiles are considered to be the safest cars in the world. On the Tesla website, you will find this statement regarding its safety standards:  

We believe the unique combination of passive safety, active safety, and automated driver assistance is crucial for keeping not just Tesla drivers and passengers safe, but all drivers on the road. It’s this notion that grounds every decision we make – from the design of our cars, to the software we introduce, to the features we offer every Tesla owner.

 

It’s mandatory for all cars to get tested by the U.S. government’s New Car Assessment Program. Model S, Model X, and Model 3 have achieved extremely high safety ratings. Tesla’s models have a very low center of gravity, which attributes to the rigid and powerful structure. Due to this, if ever a Tesla car is involved in an accident, the battery has very low chances of getting damaged. And if in the slightest chance there’s a fire, the advanced technology has a safety system in place. It isolates the fire to other parts of the battery that are less dangerous while pushing heat away from the vehicle at the same time.   

It would be a dream to have a car that can prevent all types of accidents. Although it is pure imagination, Tesla does come very close to it.  

 

Working on massive and impactful developments 

Tesla and Musk are on a mission to creating a better world. Their main focus is on the world’s transition into sustainable energy. With the majority of cars running on gasoline, Musk would like to see more electric vehicles and energy products on the road. To achieve this, he’s striving to manufacture affordable electric cars. 

To be able to produce and deliver 500,000 cars per year, every single lithium-ion battery that exists on this planet is necessary. With that in mind, the Gigafactory was built in order to supply enough batteries to support Tesla’s car production. This massive structure of a factory produces the Model 3 electric motors and battery packs as well as other energy storage products. 
 


Located outside Sparks, Nevada, the Gigafactory covers an area of approximately 1.9 million square feet. With its several floors, there’s an operational space of close to 5.3 million square feet. Opening its doors in June 2014, the name truly represents the size and mission it is trying to accomplish. 

Although the entire project is still years from completion, Tesla has already begun manufacturing inside. Once complete, the Gigafactory will be the biggest building in the world and powered only by renewable energy sources. With the aim to be a net-zero energy factory, the factory will solar-powered. 

Free ads & publicity from Project Loveday

According to Tesla’s policy, the company does not do traditional advertising. It does things a little differently and chooses to earn respect through PR acts. Loved by so many, the innovative car manufacturer has even received free ads made by superfans. 

And then one day, a 10-year old girl by the name of Bria Loveday sent a letter to Tesla suggesting that they hold a video contest. The automotive giant thought it was such an awesome idea and Project Loveday was launched in 2017. 


For a few months, Tesla collected videos from all around the globe. All submissions had to be related to Tesla and kept to 90 seconds or less. Videos were judged based on these four criteria: originality, creativity, relevance to Tesla, and entertainment value. 

The winner didn’t get a Tesla. The Grand Prize was an invitation and public introduction at a future Tesla product launch. Here was the winning video by famous YouTuber Marques Brownlee: 

 

  

Extremely active on Twitter

It’s no secret that the billionaire CEO loves his tweets. His presence on the social media account dates back to 2011. With 37.6 million followers, he’s able to tweet to a huge audience and have his voice heard. 

With every year that passes by, his twitter feed seems to be expanding. If you check out his profile, he doesn’t have a tweeting routine. He’ll randomly tweet at any time of the day and late into the night.

The effectiveness of marketing through Twitter has shown that it’s about time other CEOs jump on board. For the automotive industry, stats indicate that over 95% of people explore digital channels when they research on cars. Specifically, social media is used to check out reviews, listen to what others have to say and to follow influencers. It’s a virtual gallery for brands and products to showcase their expertise.      

Among all the major tech CEOS, Musk ranks second as the profile with the most tweets. Only Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff tweets more than him. Not only are most of his activity tweets, but he also replies to anyone – literally anyone.


This is the marketing genius interacting with ordinary citizens. The blocks in yellow are his replies. More than half of his activity on Twitter is a reply. He’ll answer anyone regardless of the number of followers you have. His popularity on Twitter is also attributed to the fact that he uses a very casual tone. Unlike other very serious CEOs. 

Here is a list of things he uses his social media account for:

  • To make jokes
  • To share about his personal life
  • To give insight into his various businesses
  • To ask the market what they want
  • For customer service
  • To spar with critics



               
     

 

It’s a combination of his humor, casual tone, and genuine self that makes him very likable on social media. At times, he might tweet about the wrong thing, but he has shown how powerful a marketing tool Twitter can be. If you run a business, you should be jumping on the wagon.   

 

He doesn’t believe in market research

Apart from his zero paid advertising policy, the South African billionaire also knows how to allocate budgets wisely. Ignoring this aspect of the company, he has claimed that he does “zero market research whatsoever”. 

“A lot of times people try to make products they think others would love but they don’t love themselves.” – Musk at a conference

 

The Tesla CEO has absolute faith in his product. He believes that if you love your product, others will too. And they will be interested in buying it. In other words, you need to focus on developing an amazing product and it will market itself. 

On the contrary, many other large corporations still place their bets on market research. It’s not the wrong path either as it has also proven to be successful over the past decades. If you’re thinking about whether you should be conducting this type of research, here are some situations for when market research might not be necessary: 

1. When your product is beyond the market’s imagination

You might be developing a product that the world has never seen before. Though you’re convinced that it will improve their lives, they might not be ready to accept it. A good example is when Ford started producing cars. It is rumored that Henry Ford once said “If I asked the people what they wanted, they’d have said faster horses”. 

This was during a time when people used horses to get around. Asking them for their opinion on such a new concept would have been unfathomable. 

2. When time is ticking

When time is of the essence, you can’t waste time on consumer research. This type of study could take years. There are just too many phases and tests to run. While you’re spending time conducting research, a competitor could overtake you as well. 

3. When you trust the experts in your team

You’ve been working with your team of experts that they have become your trusted advisors. If you have faith in them, their opinion is often better than the market’s thoughts. Let your team go wild with their innovation and develop new ideas. 

4. When failing doesn’t mean bankruptcy

It saves a lot of time, effort, and money to just develop a product and put it out there. Go with the flow and see what happens. If the market responds positively, then it’s a successful product that can go into the next phase of mass production. On the other hand, if it is met with negative responses, it would be considered a failure. But a cheap failure that you can afford and learn from. Then, move on to the next idea.  

Jeff Bezos

Jeff Bezos is currently the richest person on the planet. Amassing his wealth from online retail giant Amazon, the CEO and founder started his company in July 1994 in his garage. From humble beginnings to becoming the first person with a fortune exceeding $100 billion, he has always believed that the growth of the Internet would overtake the brick and mortar industry. 

The year 2020 has been an amazing one for the world’s wealthiest people. Apart from Bezos, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have also added billions to their bank. Today, Bezos is on the verge of being the first man to reach the $200 billion mark. He might just be the world’s first trillionaire if things continue to go in his favor. 

A highly intelligent individual, the Princeton graduate has grown Amazon into one of the most powerful companies. This brilliant mind does things his own way, he refuses to have a typical meeting structure with PowerPoint presentations. Many years ago, he replaced these presentations with reading and silence. Each meeting begins with attendees reading the memo for the first 30 minutes of the session.

This is just an example of how he leads. But besides his management style, his success is mainly attributed to his business strategies. He might not have the charisma of Elon Musk, but his entrepreneurial brains are worth picking. If you’re interested in running your own business, there’s so much you can learn from this guy.

Here are his top 10 business strategies: 
 

Dream BIG

When you’re setting your goals, think big and picture how you see yourself in the next few years. Having big dreams will give you the energy and excitement to keep chasing. Even if you don’t end up achieving that goal, you’ll be occupied with activities every day that will make you an improved person. 

When Bezos first started Amazon back in 1994, he warned investors that there was a 70% chance of failure. But he also told them that by 2000, sales would reach $100 million. In fact, the sales outperformed his projections and reached $1 billion. 

His early success was due to his courage to pursue the impossible. With Kindle, Bezos imagined a world where readers would be able to buy, download, and enjoy a book from anywhere. This was before cell phone data hit it big.

When he told the designers his idea, they responded with negativity. He didn’t care that the designers were hesitant. He told them to just get it done and eventually they did.

  

Hiring is Key

The employees are the backbone of the company. They’re what keeps the engines running. Depending on your style of leadership and principles, always try to hire the best out there. You don’t want to end up with someone that doesn’t want to work towards your goals and vision. 


As for Bezos, he’s always had high standards for new recruits. He believes that you have to continue raising the bar. Contrary to popular practices, he does not support work-life balance. Once again, hiring also varies on the way you run your company. 

It might seem outrageous, but he firmly sticks to his judgment. He’s only on the lookout for people who are gladly willing to work 60 hour weeks. He finds people that also share similar expectations.   

 

Dare to experiment

This is a great quote by Bezos:

“If you double the number of experiments you do per year you’re going to double your inventiveness.”

Through experimentation, new innovations are born. It’s how companies stay competitive in the market. You have to keep finding ways to improve your product or introduce a new one into the market. 

Here’s how Amazon ran a few experiments: 

  • The effectiveness of TV advertising: Bezos wanted to know how this strategy would impact their sales. For 16 months, they advertised in two markets – Portland and Minneapolis. After an expensive campaign, he had the answer. Although Amazon sales slightly edged higher, he decided that it simply wasn’t worth it. In the end, this experiment led to Amazon having a more focused advertising strategy.
  • Free shipping for orders above $25: Amazon has a program called Super Saver Shipping. It offers free shipping only for orders over $25. This makes the customers extremely happy, but when you do the math, it’s simply not feasible. From this experiment, Bezos learned that he gained customer loyalty and more orders in the long run. 

If you believe in something, don’t be afraid to test it out. If it doesn’t work out, quickly accept and recognize the failure and move on. 


You should invent, not the customer

As an entrepreneur, you should always be passionate about coming up with something new. It’s your responsibility and not the customers. If you ask your customers for their opinion, they will just tell you what they don’t like. They won’t exactly tell you how to do something in a different way. 


No matter what field you’re in, you need to be brainstorming and experimenting. According to Bezos, inventing is one of the most important factors for him and his team at Amazon. Ever since his childhood days, he’s always loved creating and when he’s hiring, he tends to choose those that love it too.  


Regret minimization framework

Living life as an entrepreneur or startup founder poses its many challenges. You’re going to be faced with choices and life-changing decisions. There isn’t a single method that works for everyone as we are all unique individuals. However, if you’re stuck and contemplating certain decisions, you could try out this mental framework.   

Here’s the framework coined by Bezos when he chose to start his own company. At the time, he wasn’t young and it was a very risky move considering he had a family to feed. But it all came down to what he would regret more on his death bed. 

I knew that when I was 80 I was not going to regret having tried this. I was not going to regret trying to participate in this thing called the Internet that I thought was going to be a really big deal. I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not ever having tried.


The eCommerce founder was faced with the decision to play it safe with his stable job or take his chances with his business idea. With this framework, he easily decided to go for it. He looked into his future as an 80-year-old man and thought about minimizing whatever regrets he might have. He knew that at 80, he wouldn’t regret going down this path. 


Put the magnifying glass on your customers

This is Bezos during an interview with Charlie Rose:

“We’re not competitor obsessed, we’re customer obsessed. We start with the customer and we work backwards.”

Many companies do the opposite. They brainstorm the idea first, then start developing the product, and finally test it in the market. 

When you can identify the customer’s needs and problems, you’ll be able to build what is best for them. In turn, that will be what’s best for the company as well. 

Here are some examples of how Amazon focuses on its customers:

  • Warn customers about having duplicate orders: there’s a feature that warns customers when they visit the same page of a product they had already purchased. 
  • Encourage customers to leave a review: this feature provides genuine and honest value. When potential customers want to conduct research on a product, they check reviews before deciding to make a purchase. By being transparent with them, you’re actually gaining their trust and loyalty.  
  • Allow competitors to advertise on your website: it’s best to give customers more choices, but still stay within the Amazon marketplace. 


The limitless potential of eCommerce

The eCommerce industry has been booming with the help of the Internet. Scalability, reach, and convenience has turned many shoppers into online shoppers. You can find just about anything on the Internet these days. 

As Bezos was building his empire, he noticed the many strengths of eCommerce and took advantage of them. He understood that you could get deeper insights into your customers as compared to offline. For example, he created an algorithm that recommended products based on your purchase history. This resulted in an increase in sales. Another example was the affiliate program he set up. This program allowed anyone to join and recommend products. Today, it has grown into a billion-dollar affiliate program. 


Be frugal and thrifty

Especially when you’re just starting out, you have to be smart with money. You can’t be forking out cash on things that aren’t important. Every cent counts and must be used properly. And even when you’ve earned a good amount, always try to spend less than you make.  

Although you see many wealthy people splurging and living the high life, you’ll see Bezos trying to cut costs anywhere he can. It is rumored that he adopted his frugality from a successful businessman named Sam Walton. He learned it from Walton’s book ‘Made in America’. 

I think frugality drives innovation, just like other constraints do. One of the only ways to get out of a tight box is to invent your way out. – Jeff Bezos


Here are some examples of Bezos being thrifty:

  • His employees are not allowed to fly business class
  • During business trips, his employees are put up in the Holiday Inn (2 people per room) 
  • He created an employee loyalty program to save money


Lower margins, higher turnover

If you’re new to the business world and haven’t heard the term “margin”, it is the difference in price between the product cost and selling price. Depending on the way you want to model your business, you could either go for high or low margins. Many businesses prefer high margins because it means having to do less work. 

For the Amazon tycoon, he sees lower margins as the perfect opportunity to beat the competition. When you have lower margins, your customers will be over the moon. Customers love paying less for good quality products. And you’ll have new customers as they leave your competitors. 


Lower margins can result in having a higher turnover. A huge sales volume with small profits accumulates into a lot of money.   


Be on the frontlines with your employees

There are many leadership styles out there. Frontline leaders are doers. They’re able to do what their employees do. It is inspiring for many to see that their leader is willing to actively participate in daily work activities.  

As a leader, your role is to create an environment that reflects your vision, mission, and values of the organization. You are setting an example that others will follow. 

In terms of leadership, Bezos is willing to do any type of work. He would even do the handy work in the manufacturing department if there was a need for it. When Amazon was at its busiest, you would see him around doing work and wearing many hats. 


Today, Amazon isn’t just the online bookseller it set out to be. With its many business strategies and strict practices, it has dethroned Walmart as the biggest U.S retailer. Besides the retail industry, it is poised to disrupt others such as consumer electronics, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and entertainment media. 

In the next ten years, you’ll continue to see Bezos owning the internet as well as jumping into new ventures. With Project Kuiper, it will be years before it takes off, but he’s already begun to compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Although Musk was the first to work towards offering satellite-based broadband internet, Bezos has joined the race.  

Having leased over 200,000 square feet in Redmond, Washington, Project Kuiper is set to roll out Bezos’ broadband internet plans. The project has been described as a constellation of 3,236 satellites deployed in low Earth orbit for high-speed broadband. When this gets launched, the world will witness total internet domination by Bezos. 

Mark Zuckerberg

 

“Understanding people is not a waste of time.”
—Mark Zuckerberg

Your team is so crucial to the success of the company. As a leader, you’re responsible for steering everyone in the right direction. Duty calls to create a thriving work environment and to encourage all employees to produce the best work possible.  

This year, Facebook celebrates its sixteenth birthday. With over 2.4 billion users, it is the largest social media platform that can be found on almost everyone’s smartphone. As it aims to connect the global population, the app has become a huge part of modern society.

Continuing the trend of successful college dropouts is Mark Zuckerberg. Dropping out of Harvard in his sophomore year to focus on Facebook, Zuckerberg co-founded the service along with some college mates. Today, he serves as not only the co-founder, but as its chairman, chief executive officer, and controlling shareholder. 

Finding success at a very young age, the Facebook CEO became a billionaire at the age of 23 following the social network’s IPO in 2008. This move made him one of the youngest self-made billionaires of all time.   

Regardless of your company size, there’s so much you can learn from this young billionaire. Let’s dive deeper into how he leads his employees and the management strategies that made him the social media juggernaut he is today. 

The 5 P’s

If you’ve ever read the book Think like Zuck: The Five Business Secrets of Facebook’s Improbably Brilliant CEO Mark Zuckerberg, you would have come across the 5 P’s. Over the years, the social media magnate built his empire with a mentality that drives great leaders to build amazing businesses.    

 

The 5 P’s described in the book are:

PASSION — Keep your energy and commitment fully charged at all times by pursuing something you believe in.

Zuckerberg once explained, “The question I ask myself like almost every day is ‘Am I doing the most important thing I could be doing?’”

Ever since he was a young boy, he’s always been passionate about designing programs where people got to interact with each other. This is what drove him to start Facebook.

If the work you do is something you believe in, it won’t feel like work at all.  

PURPOSE — Don’t just create a great product, drive a meaningful movement.

Purpose goes beyond the product. In terms of Facebook, it’s not just a great product. Zuckerberg has a long-term vision that he’s driven about. He won’t stop until he’s fulfilled his purpose – which is to connect the global population through his social networking platform. 

PEOPLE — Build powerful teams that can execute your vision.

The third P involves all the humans that will bring you closer to your vision. You’ve got to not only hire amazing people, but also those that align with the company’s culture and vision. You can do this by sifting through a ton of resumes and also by having a strict screening process. Make sure that they are qualified individuals and that they share the same values to be a team player.

PRODUCT — Create a product that is innovative, that breaks all the rules, that changes everything.

Having majored in Computer Science and Psychology, Zuckerberg has always had a deep understanding of the way humans technology. He prioritizes the problems of people first. In doing so, he’s been able to develop a product that fulfills the needs of its users. 

More than 2 billion people around the globe are able to stay connected with each other. Moreover, they get to share updates and media with their own networks. There are also many other features that Zuckerberg has developed, putting Facebook far in front of other platforms. 

Here are some of the innovative features he’s added to the social networking platform that has taken it further than what it set out to be:

  • Facebook platform for developers
  • Social Ads
  • Facebook Messenger
  • Facebook Graph Search
  • Facebook Business Manager
  • Facebook Marketplace

PARTNERSHIPS — Build powerful partnerships with people who fuel imagination and energize execution. 

The saying that you can’t do things alone is often true. To be able to achieve great things, you’ll need a sidekick. Look at Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak for example. Having a partner that shares the same vision as you gives you more motivation and purpose. 

When it comes to Mark Zuckerberg, he’s got a great vision and tremendous creativity. But alongside Sheryl Sandberg, the Chief Operating Officer, things at Facebook have skyrocketed. A lot of its business success has been owed to Sandberg’s efforts. Although they have different strengths and weaknesses, they just seem to complement each other and it works. 

As you’re moving along, always think about the right partnerships. It could be a business partner, supplier, distributor, producer, developer, or something else. 

Office culture

Depending on your beliefs and interests, you’ll have to create an office culture suitable to you and your team. At Facebook, the young billionaire has a relaxed and open corporate culture that heavily emphasizes on diversity and equality. There are no physical constraints – no cubicles, no walls, just office furniture. Everything feels really open.  

What’s really interesting is that the top guys in the company also don’t have their own offices. Zuckerberg and Sandberg occupy the same workspaces as the other employees. This emphasizes even more on his principles of openness and equality. Outside of that, Mark also holds 1 hour Q&A sessions every Friday. It gives employees the chance to voice their opinion and feedback on work-related matters. Giving them the freedom to be open encourages better teamwork and friendlier communication. 


Another jaw-dropping factor is the dress code. In a superficial world where what you wear says a lot about you, people who work in high-level positions are often pictured wearing suits. Not at Facebook. Employees are allowed to wear T-shirts, jeans, and flip-flops to work! Besides being comfortable in whatever you want to wear, you’ll see another reason as you continue reading this. 

Spend less time in the office compared to other CEOs

The social media tycoon doesn’t spend hours and hours in the office. According to some studies, working really long hours can affect your productivity levels. Instead, Zuckerberg spends a lot of time pondering about connecting the global population and bringing better products to the community.  

Razor-sharp focus

 “Once you know what change you want to make in the world, all of the tactics and strategies for how you do that just fit into that change,” said Zuckerberg.

If you are truly passionate about something, all those ideas will transform into focus. To start with, you’ll need to find that fire that’s going to drive you to make changes. 

Don’t waste time on small decisions

Connected to one of his office culture principles, you’ve probably seen the grey shirt often worn by Facebook’s CEO. In fact, he wears the same type of shirt on a daily basis. He believes that dressing simply is not only comfortable, but it eliminates having to make small decisions. 


Being so fixated on his vision, he wants to be using his energy on important decisions. Having to make fewer decisions, gives you more time to concentrate on priorities.    

Be proactive, not reactive

With the way he manages his time, he tries to maximize his productivity and effectiveness. Rather than waiting for something to happen, he’d rather be proactive than reactive. When you’re reactive, you’re just waiting for something to happen. And when it does happen, it might waste your time reacting to it. 

Don’t wait for something to happen. Be proactive and set out to accomplish goals each day. 

Encourage your employees to correct you

A lot of CEOs might have a huge ego that intimidates their employees. But this is not the case with Zuckerberg. With the open office culture, he is not embarrassed about making mistakes and being corrected. He’d much rather have employees stand up and voice out. 

That’s the whole point of being a team. If anyone in the team, including the leader, makes a mistake, he or she should be corrected.

Recognize and accept your mistake, then quickly move on

Many of the world’s most successful innovators say this as well. You’ve got to be able to fail and keep going. Don’t dwell on your mistakes. As humans, we’re bound to make mistakes. No one is perfect. 

Have the courage to make mistakes because you will learn a lot from it. A lot of people play it really carefully as they focus on avoiding mistakes. Living life like this won’t get you out of your comfort zone. Playing it safe will give you fewer worries, but it will also limit your potential.   
 

Taking calculated risks is okay

Zuckerberg has been risking it his whole life. Not many people have the courage to drop out of a great school like Harvard. But he did in his sophomore year. He saw the opportunity in Facebook and prioritized it.

 

If you look into the other moves he made over the past few years, you’ll notice that he was not afraid of risk at all. Betting heavily on the future of going mobile, he got his company publicly listed in 2012. Not only that, but he also bought Instagram for $1 billion and WhatsApp for $19 billion. He took really big calculated risks. 

 

Know when to say NO

As a leader, knowing when to say no is also crucial. For example, if you’re focused on something, in particular, try not to take on too many projects if you don’t have the infrastructure or resources to do so.

In Zuckerberg’s case, he was keen about venturing out of Facebook. But he learned his lesson. The young CEO developed a software called Wirehog. It was a service that allowed users to share media with each other. He envisioned this service to be integrated into Facebook.

Although he was really excited about this project, others opposed it. Sean Parker, who had experience working in Napster, advised him against it. However, Mark didn’t listen to anyone. He continued developing Wirehog and it launched in November 2004. After a few months, it wasn’t working out and the young leader had to make a tough decision. In the end, he shut down Wirehog and re-focused on building Facebook.  

Acknowledge your weaknesses

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. It’s only normal. If you are able to identify and acknowledge your setbacks, you’ll be able to improve. As a very young CEO, Mark said this to his team:

“It may not make you comfortable to hear me saying this, but I’m sort of learning on the job here.” – Zuckerberg on his role as a CEO during the early days

Honesty and transparency are values he embraces. What is really admirable is that he makes the effort to become a better leader as he learns from his experience. When he was only twenty-two and there were rumors going around that Facebook would get acquired, he started going for sessions with an executive coach. This taught him how to be a stronger leader during uncertain times. 

As employees started to feel restless not knowing what the future held, he also organized more meetings with everyone as well as with the executive team. From this, he learned that candor is certainly one of the most essential leadership qualities. 

What the Future Holds for the Facebook CEO

As we look back to the birth of Facebook, it was a social networking platform available for only Harvard students. After 16 years in existence, it has become a global success with one-third of the world’s population. With the acquisition of WhatsApp and Instagram, Zuckerberg has become a household name in the communications industry.

“I believe the future of communication will increasingly shift to private, encrypted services where people can be confident what they say to each other stays secure and their messages and content won’t stick around forever.” – Mark’s opinion on the future

The social networking mastermind aims to get the whole world on one communication platform. As he continues working towards this, there will also be extra emphasis on privacy. Take a look at how quickly Facebook jumped into “Stories”. Although Snapchat was the first to introduce this feature, Instagram and Facebook quickly adopted it as well. With “stories”, content only lasts for 24 hours. People don’t always want to have content saved on their profiles.   

When users know that content will automatically expire, they feel more comfortable to share. Not only that, but you have the choice to save them in your archives if you want to. This provides a glimpse into the future that perhaps content expiration will be extended to all areas of communication, including private messaging. 

Community

 

Congratulations on reaching the end!

Check out our podcast Impact Talks, where you can listen to high-profile experts from various backgrounds!

Join our Facebook Group Community with over 4,700 entrepreneurs, innovators, and creators by Startup Funding Event, where you get access to free live training, daily Q&As, design templates to get your business started, and support from the SFE team. Join here!

“Understanding people is not a waste of time.”
—Mark Zuckerberg

Your team is so crucial to the success of the company. As a leader, you’re responsible for steering everyone in the right direction. Duty calls to create a thriving work environment and to encourage all employees to produce the best work possible.  

This year, Facebook celebrates its sixteenth birthday. With over 2.4 billion users, it is the largest social media platform that can be found on almost everyone’s smartphone. As it aims to connect the global population, the app has become a huge part of modern society.

Continuing the trend of successful college dropouts is Mark Zuckerberg. Dropping out of Harvard in his sophomore year to focus on Facebook, Zuckerberg co-founded the service along with some college mates. Today, he serves as not only the co-founder, but as its chairman, chief executive officer, and controlling shareholder. 

Finding success at a very young age, the Facebook CEO became a billionaire at the age of 23 following the social network’s IPO in 2008. This move made him one of the youngest self-made billionaires of all time.   

Regardless of your company size, there’s so much you can learn from this young billionaire. Let’s dive deeper into how he leads his employees and the management strategies that made him the social media juggernaut he is today. 

The 5 P’s

If you’ve ever read the book Think like Zuck: The Five Business Secrets of Facebook’s Improbably Brilliant CEO Mark Zuckerberg, you would have come across the 5 P’s. Over the years, the social media magnate built his empire with a mentality that drives great leaders to build amazing businesses.    

 

The 5 P’s described in the book are:

PASSION — Keep your energy and commitment fully charged at all times by pursuing something you believe in.

Zuckerberg once explained, “The question I ask myself like almost every day is ‘Am I doing the most important thing I could be doing?’”

Ever since he was a young boy, he’s always been passionate about designing programs where people got to interact with each other. This is what drove him to start Facebook.

If the work you do is something you believe in, it won’t feel like work at all.  

PURPOSE — Don’t just create a great product, drive a meaningful movement.

Purpose goes beyond the product. In terms of Facebook, it’s not just a great product. Zuckerberg has a long-term vision that he’s driven about. He won’t stop until he’s fulfilled his purpose – which is to connect the global population through his social networking platform. 

PEOPLE — Build powerful teams that can execute your vision.

The third P involves all the humans that will bring you closer to your vision. You’ve got to not only hire amazing people, but also those that align with the company’s culture and vision. You can do this by sifting through a ton of resumes and also by having a strict screening process. Make sure that they are qualified individuals and that they share the same values to be a team player.

 

PRODUCT — Create a product that is innovative, that breaks all the rules, that changes everything.

Having majored in Computer Science and Psychology, Zuckerberg has always had a deep understanding of the way humans technology. He prioritizes the problems of people first. In doing so, he’s been able to develop a product that fulfills the needs of its users. 

More than 2 billion people around the globe are able to stay connected with each other. Moreover, they get to share updates and media with their own networks. There are also many other features that Zuckerberg has developed, putting Facebook far in front of other platforms. 

Here are some of the innovative features he’s added to the social networking platform that has taken it further than what it set out to be:

  • Facebook platform for developers
  • Social Ads
  • Facebook Messenger
  • Facebook Graph Search
  • Facebook Business Manager
  • Facebook Marketplace

 

PARTNERSHIPS — Build powerful partnerships with people who fuel imagination and energize execution. 

The saying that you can’t do things alone is often true. To be able to achieve great things, you’ll need a sidekick. Look at Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak for example. Having a partner that shares the same vision as you gives you more motivation and purpose. 

When it comes to Mark Zuckerberg, he’s got a great vision and tremendous creativity. But alongside Sheryl Sandberg, the Chief Operating Officer, things at Facebook have skyrocketed. A lot of its business success has been owed to Sandberg’s efforts. Although they have different strengths and weaknesses, they just seem to complement each other and it works. 

As you’re moving along, always think about the right partnerships. It could be a business partner, supplier, distributor, producer, developer, or something else. 

Office culture

Depending on your beliefs and interests, you’ll have to create an office culture suitable to you and your team. At Facebook, the young billionaire has a relaxed and open corporate culture that heavily emphasizes on diversity and equality. There are no physical constraints – no cubicles, no walls, just office furniture. Everything feels really open.  

What’s really interesting is that the top guys in the company also don’t have their own offices. Zuckerberg and Sandberg occupy the same workspaces as the other employees. This emphasizes even more on his principles of openness and equality. Outside of that, Mark also holds 1 hour Q&A sessions every Friday. It gives employees the chance to voice their opinion and feedback on work-related matters. Giving them the freedom to be open encourages better teamwork and friendlier communication. 


Another jaw-dropping factor is the dress code. In a superficial world where what you wear says a lot about you, people who work in high-level positions are often pictured wearing suits. Not at Facebook. Employees are allowed to wear T-shirts, jeans, and flip-flops to work! Besides being comfortable in whatever you want to wear, you’ll see another reason as you continue reading this. 

Spend less time in the office compared to other CEOs

The social media tycoon doesn’t spend hours and hours in the office. According to some studies, working really long hours can affect your productivity levels. Instead, Zuckerberg spends a lot of time pondering about connecting the global population and bringing better products to the community.  

Razor-sharp focus

 “Once you know what change you want to make in the world, all of the tactics and strategies for how you do that just fit into that change,” said Zuckerberg.

If you are truly passionate about something, all those ideas will transform into focus. To start with, you’ll need to find that fire that’s going to drive you to make changes. 

Don’t waste time on small decisions

Connected to one of his office culture principles, you’ve probably seen the grey shirt often worn by Facebook’s CEO. In fact, he wears the same type of shirt on a daily basis. He believes that dressing simply is not only comfortable, but it eliminates having to make small decisions. 


Being so fixated on his vision, he wants to be using his energy on important decisions. Having to make fewer decisions, gives you more time to concentrate on priorities.    

Be proactive, not reactive

With the way he manages his time, he tries to maximize his productivity and effectiveness. Rather than waiting for something to happen, he’d rather be proactive than reactive. When you’re reactive, you’re just waiting for something to happen. And when it does happen, it might waste your time reacting to it. 

Don’t wait for something to happen. Be proactive and set out to accomplish goals each day. 

Encourage your employees to correct you

A lot of CEOs might have a huge ego that intimidates their employees. But this is not the case with Zuckerberg. With the open office culture, he is not embarrassed about making mistakes and being corrected. He’d much rather have employees stand up and voice out. 

That’s the whole point of being a team. If anyone in the team, including the leader, makes a mistake, he or she should be corrected.

Recognize and accept your mistake, then quickly move on

Many of the world’s most successful innovators say this as well. You’ve got to be able to fail and keep going. Don’t dwell on your mistakes. As humans, we’re bound to make mistakes. No one is perfect. 

Have the courage to make mistakes because you will learn a lot from it. A lot of people play it really carefully as they focus on avoiding mistakes. Living life like this won’t get you out of your comfort zone. Playing it safe will give you fewer worries, but it will also limit your potential.   
 

Taking calculated risks is okay

Zuckerberg has been risking it his whole life. Not many people have the courage to drop out of a great school like Harvard. But he did in his sophomore year. He saw the opportunity in Facebook and prioritized it.

 

If you look into the other moves he made over the past few years, you’ll notice that he was not afraid of risk at all. Betting heavily on the future of going mobile, he got his company publicly listed in 2012. Not only that, but he also bought Instagram for $1 billion and WhatsApp for $19 billion. He took really big calculated risks. 

 

Know when to say NO

As a leader, knowing when to say no is also crucial. For example, if you’re focused on something, in particular, try not to take on too many projects if you don’t have the infrastructure or resources to do so.

In Zuckerberg’s case, he was keen about venturing out of Facebook. But he learned his lesson. The young CEO developed a software called Wirehog. It was a service that allowed users to share media with each other. He envisioned this service to be integrated into Facebook.

Although he was really excited about this project, others opposed it. Sean Parker, who had experience working in Napster, advised him against it. However, Mark didn’t listen to anyone. He continued developing Wirehog and it launched in November 2004. After a few months, it wasn’t working out and the young leader had to make a tough decision. In the end, he shut down Wirehog and re-focused on building Facebook.  

Acknowledge your weaknesses

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. It’s only normal. If you are able to identify and acknowledge your setbacks, you’ll be able to improve. As a very young CEO, Mark said this to his team:

“It may not make you comfortable to hear me saying this, but I’m sort of learning on the job here.” – Zuckerberg on his role as a CEO during the early days

Honesty and transparency are values he embraces. What is really admirable is that he makes the effort to become a better leader as he learns from his experience. When he was only twenty-two and there were rumors going around that Facebook would get acquired, he started going for sessions with an executive coach. This taught him how to be a stronger leader during uncertain times. 

As employees started to feel restless not knowing what the future held, he also organized more meetings with everyone as well as with the executive team. From this, he learned that candor is certainly one of the most essential leadership qualities. 

 

What the Future Holds for the Facebook CEO

As we look back to the birth of Facebook, it was a social networking platform available for only Harvard students. After 16 years in existence, it has become a global success with one-third of the world’s population. With the acquisition of WhatsApp and Instagram, Zuckerberg has become a household name in the communications industry.

“I believe the future of communication will increasingly shift to private, encrypted services where people can be confident what they say to each other stays secure and their messages and content won’t stick around forever.” – Mark’s opinion on the future

The social networking mastermind aims to get the whole world on one communication platform. As he continues working towards this, there will also be extra emphasis on privacy. Take a look at how quickly Facebook jumped into “Stories”. Although Snapchat was the first to introduce this feature, Instagram and Facebook quickly adopted it as well. With “stories”, content only lasts for 24 hours. People don’t always want to have content saved on their profiles.   

When users know that content will automatically expire, they feel more comfortable to share. Not only that, but you have the choice to save them in your archives if you want to. This provides a glimpse into the future that perhaps content expiration will be extended to all areas of communication, including private messaging. 

Community

 

Congratulations on reaching the end!

Check out our podcast Impact Talks, where you can listen to high-profile experts from various backgrounds!

Join our Facebook Group Community with over 4,700 entrepreneurs, innovators, and creators by Startup Funding Event, where you get access to free live training, daily Q&As, design templates to get your business started, and support from the SFE team. Join here!

 

Transcript:

Welcome to the Impact Talks Podcast. Today we have Lance Allred with us. Obviously, I always want to ask you who you are, what do you do and what your current job is. Just tell the listeners everything. Oh, well. That’s a loaded question, so I retired from basketball about five years ago, so I’m now in my second career, I played professional basketball for 10 years. I was the first legally deaf player in the NBA. I couldn’t play basketball with my hearing aids in.

And so I had to learn to play in a very different way, keeping my head on a swivel, approaching it from a very visual aspect, intuiting people’s body language and responding in kind and playing more intuitive, more heart centered and staying in my body.

Because when we’re always analyzing in our head, you’re step behind on the basketball court when you’re aiming your shots is when you’re missing them. And so when you trust in your intuition and you’re just out there playing basketball, that’s how I learned to play it. And it allowed me to play professionally for ten years all around the world and in the NBA with the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Indiana Pacers. And I retired from basketball about five years ago and I was going through a divorce, didn’t want to be away from my son.

And he was only 15 months old at the time. So I had to figure out something to do to.

Adjust and adapt to be with my son, and since my days with the Cleveland Cavaliers, I had so many schools and people reaching out for me to come speak to them and coach them. And I was like, so I guess there’s this rumor that people can get paid to speak. And so I transitioned and little by little through the hair, my by the skin of my teeth, really, the expression goes just hanging in there. I found a way to make it work.

And so with my new book came out two weeks ago. Right. With the whole meltdown of the coronavirus and everything, my book tour was just stopped. And we’re all having to adapt and to adjust. And that’s the whole message of the book anyway. And so it’s a good opportunity for me to walk my talk. As far as hey, as a basketball player, if the ref starts calling the game differently in the fourth quarter than what they were in the second in the second quarter, the first half, I can throw a fit and POW and cry about it, but I’m not going to win the game.

So it’s all about adjusting and adapting. And that’s what my skill has been. And being able to take my basketball and sports experiences to connect with all ranges of people in various eclectic audiences, people who are big into self development, where people who don’t care about that at all. I’m able to find a way to connect with people all across the board when I go speak. And so I speak, mostly private, corporate or company events. I’m not a I’m not a conference speaker where there’s a bunch of lineups of other speakers coming in and they kind of present a Course or a packet.

But I’m more of an in-house content speaker and trainer. And so I’ve been doing that for about five years now and I love it. It’s very fulfilling and I don’t miss basketball because of it.

So how is it structured? Do you have a team around you or do you have a P.A. or you at an agency right now?

So I work with. Seven legitimate speaker bureaus that get me engagement’s, and I love them and they work hard for me, but for the most part, most of my speaking events come through word of mouth. And referrals from past clients that I’ve worked with and, yeah, online social media marketing, it helps is gotten me lots of engagements too. Do you use LinkedIn or Instagram?

Yeah, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter. LinkedIn has gotten me the most speaking engagements, really. And the number the number one way to do LinkedIn, I tell people, don’t pitch too hard.

Just simply adding people into your network and if you have a solid resume and if you’ve actually achieved something in your life because as you know, it’s such a saturated market, the whole speaker influencer thing that anyone like YouTube and I remember in basketball, my basketball days, anyone can edit their basketball highlight film to make him look like an all star.

But when push comes to shove, when it’s time to produce, can you actually show up and help the team win the game? That’s a very different story. And so influencing is not that hard to do as far as padding your stats, getting fake likes, fake followers, getting a million followers on Instagram. I get offered that almost every day by these boutique social media marketing firms. And I’m like, no, I’m going to trust in my message and my content and my authenticity to carry me through.

But it has been quite sobering. In researching for my book, I was kind of tackling this topic in my book, The New Alpha Male How to Win the Game. The rules are changing. I decided to play along with one of the marketing boutiques and they invited me into what’s called an engagement pod. An engagement pod is where influencers get together and they automatically like and comment on each other’s posts.

OK, so it’s like it’s a life event or is not a live event is actually there’s a bot in the middle of it, a robot.

OK, so any time anyone makes an update, they automatically have everybody else in their group making comments like that to help their algorithm rankings and Instagram or LinkedIn.

And so a lot of people are cheating the system. And I don’t want to throw people under the bus or be a gossiper. But I will tell you, it was quite surprising. The names that were in that engagement pod, some pretty big names that you would think wouldn’t need that kind of aboost.

Why do you think that happens though?

So, yeah, they were worried because I think a lot of people are getting stuck in the whole keeping up with the Joneses. Thing is that especially in America, where you’re trying to keep up with your competition to make you look like you’re more important than you really are. But once you start taking that drug, you can’t stop it. OK, I got 100000 followers now. OK, I got to get out of these by all these likes and by all these comments to keep up with that all.

But what’s my competition doing? Oh my gosh. They drew a million followers in just six months. How is that possible? Because they bought them.

And I think we’ll all I think we would all be sobered if we saw all of our favorite influencers and celebrities. How much are their followers were actually real followers.

That is part of the whole marketing gimmick. Now, is is not just no longer having your your face on a magazine at a grocery store. To say you are important in your celebrity is to say, oh, I have 20 million followers or I have a million followers. So much of it is a racket especially. If it is someone who hasn’t really accomplished anything, who hasn’t really done something remarkable with your life, but then suddenly they’re just an influencer and they have all of these followers.

How does that how does that affect you in your career? Because obviously you have accomplished something. Do you find that you get less speaking engagements or do you find that because you’re doing word of mouth and that word of mouth?

That’s a great question, because, yes, some event planners haven’t figured this truth out yet. Some event planners still think that, oh, he has 100000 followers on Twitter. That must mean he’s really important. But then they don’t take the time to actually look at the engagement, are the comments authentic? Are they real or are they just generic emojis or comments that have nothing to do with the content? A lot of event planners don’t go that far, but more and more they’re figuring it out.

They’re getting wiser to it. With all that being said, going back to LinkedIn and. When I add people or reach out and I research event planners or HR people and I add them just my resume, when they say, OK, they read first legally deaf player in NBA history, an inspirational speaker, four million of TedX they’re going to see.

Oh, wow, that’s just a free marketing right there. And I don’t follow up with some email or pitch. I they now just know that I’m their just because they read my bio when they accepted my friend request and then now that they’re connected with me, if I just post good content, hopefully they see it.

But LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram, it’s it’s tough because you might have people follow you, but they’re not all going to they’re not all going to see your content because of the algorithms that they have. And so you have to, like, pay to get even your own followers to see your content. So it’s frustrating. It’s difficult. And so I think what you’re doing is brilliant, actually, by creating your own platform, having people signing. And so therefore you’re not having to pay a premium just to reach your own followers.

So that’s the genius of what you’re doing, recognizing that’s where the trend was going and not having to pay to stay connected with people that have chosen to stay connected with you. And so hats off to you with that. It’s a very valuable thing that you’ve done and created for yourself. And so all that being said. Right now with social media. And influencer marketing, just staying authentic and staying real with people is the most important thing, though, do you think?

Don’t you think that I mean, that’s been my experience, at least in the last couple of years as we were growing our event, that there’s a trend now going towards online and offline because a lot of people are looking at all these influencers and exactly what you’re saying. They’re realizing that pretty much you can edit your highlight reel and it’ll look like you’re awesome, but not everybody can actually do it consistently and and show all these. How do you say actual like real life things?

So and what I mean with that is look at Amazon. Amazon is an online store, but yet they are starting to go in the physical world, something I see with my clients a lot as well, partially why we did the event as well as a little bit to show. Look, you can highlight you can do a lot of ads, paid ads and make yourself look great. But at the same time, what if you actually had a thing where you would bring people together like an event and you know, or like a virtual community?

Because when we started building course platforms for clients, we noticed that exactly what she said people need to do, paid ads just to get in touch with their fans. So we we started asking our clients, OK, look, you can go that way. You can have all the followers and you can do all of that and not really our expertise. Or you can actually build a physical event or a virtual space where you can really get in touch with all of them at the same time with no ads necessary.

A little bit. Right. Like a WhatsApp where all of them have personal interaction with you and your team. And the thing that a lot of people don’t understand there is also that you really need a team to execute on that. I mean, here you have one super cool, but it’s almost impossible for you to interact with a thousand people at the same time. Yeah, you can. But if you have direct interaction with all of these people that follow you, then, you know, and you have a team around you that can answer the most basic questions that you get asked all the time.

And then you are there for the valuable questions that gets more valuable. So to turn that back around to you, my question is, because obviously you are in that part of your career where you’ve experienced, you know, the time before the craziness of social media with a successful career, having fans and stuff like that. And now you’re actually going into the craziness of this whole thing as a speaker. And so my question is, don’t you think the trend is going now towards using both like the physical and online?

Yes, you are. To your point, it’s 100 percent accurate that just two months ago, I mean, I’ve been shooting online courses in my head for the last year, you know? I know. And I got to get a spun up. I get spun up. But just a month ago in February, I said, you know what kind of start doing it.

So I started doing some production of online courses and then bam coronavirus hits. So to your point is like, yeah, intuitively it is important to be able to offer courses for people to stay connected with you because again, a keynote.

I love keynotes. I love being able to go into an audience and people are shocked because I’m not up there giving them cliches. I’m not giving them just I’m not repeating Tony Robbins. I’m not repeating Wayne Dyer as much as I love them. I’m not using other people’s quotes in my PowerPoint. I’m not having bullet points.

Why would someone pay me to read out loud on Akino?

It blows my mind when people do that, but my ability to go into any audience and the basketball player in me comes out when I’m able to adlib or I’m able to respond and feed off the crowd and play like I did as a basketball player. That’s something that people respond very strongly to because they are tired again of the perfectly polished presentations.

What do you speak about usually or how does a typical presentation go?

Well, a typical presentation goes is that I have my principles of perseverance. I have seven of them that I use in the book. But depending on the client, I will use four or five and I’ll customize it, but I have just the word, I have videos, pictures and one word integrity or discomfort or compassion and just the word. And then I will go into the crowd and I’ll ask someone, what does this word mean to you?

Did you learn how to build the PowerPoint somehow?

Or I have a friend named Marcie in the former NBA all star. He does speak and as well. I went and saw him one time and I saw how he used a lot of black screen, meaning when he was done using the word, he clicked the clicker and the screen behind him went blank. So therefore everyone could go back to him. They could focus on him, so I love using black screen, I’ll use the word and then I’ll get the black screen so people aren’t just there looking at a graphic.

They’re actually focused on me and I can look them in the eye and we can actually feed off of each other. That was a very valuable thing that I learned. I loved it. And so taking that, always asking to. What will entertain me, yeah, because I have to make sure I’m putting myself in the audience’s shoes. Because, again, just because you’ve seen Zig Ziglar or someone do the perfect, polished, smooth presentation, maybe that was cool in the 1980s at the beginning of this keynote speaking trend.

But people’s attention span is shorter because of social media. People are just clicking and scrolling. They need to be captivated. And so if you’re just there clicking, it takes him back to the default mode of when they were in high school and their teachers are talking down to them, just going through recited short term memory people are going to check out. So taking the basketball background that I have is I actually I was an entertainer as an athlete and I had to learn to feed off the crowd and give them something that will captivate them and hold their attention by having a crazy story.

Growing up in a polygamous cold in rural Montana, escaping when I was 13, started playing basketball when I was 14. At the end of the hearing loss, I kind of played my hearing aids and talking about that as a disability, then talking about obsessive compulsive disorder, mental illness, post-traumatic stress disorder, the things that I’ve gone through being authentic and brave enough to talk about the real human journey of this life. And not giving people boring cliches and platitudes, but actually meeting people at the human element of the heart.

People remember what they feel, not what they hear, right, and that’s where I’m lucky that I don’t hear very well, but I’ve learned to understand that’s OK being in speech therapy until I was 16, having to learn how to communicate, do I communicate to have anyone listen to how smart I am? No. Being the smartest guy in the room doesn’t really get you anywhere. Are you the best listener and can you feel where people are at? You know, meet them there, sort of answer your question?

Yes. The need for live, public engagement in person will always be a necessity. It’s been that way since the dawn of time. People need to have their fireside ceremony like the Greeks did. The great bonfire, where they were all great and tell stories is part of human connection. That need will always be there. And then going to the point of online is I have a message that is a big message and I can’t get to everybody.

I can only be in one place at one time. So the need to be able to expand on the keynote, c’os again, I can only speak to 45 minutes to an hour, but with the online courses I can go for hours. I can expand and go deeper and provide more educational content because a keynote is inspiration, but it’s also entertainment.

Yeah, an online course is more education. Right. And then hopefully entertainment and inspiration. So that’s the need of the online course, which is further systemic development, a culture of a company, but someone’s own culture within their head. And so your point is they’re both just as valuable now, correct?

Yeah, we started in January this year focusing on the educational aspect of our company, focusing with recognizable brands and some celebrities to really hone in on creating a journey of let’s do an online course, but then also see how we manage the community part of it. How can we get a fireside chat together? Yeah, using kind of also ourselves as the example of Startup Funding Event how we went from online content to fully physical, nothing online, just events.

And then at the same time, once we figured out the systems for that, brought that back to online. And now, you know, we were our biggest event I think was there like around a thousand people. But then when we started doing the podcasts, we started launching those. And then with the listeners, that hundred xed so thinking exponentially, just exactly what you said. You have to look at, you know, the fireside chats just like the Greeks, which I love that analogy.

But at the same time also I don’t want to get too marketing about it because I just wanted to hear your perspective on it because you’re actually in it, but you’re in it and you’re right on time.

You’re right.

I’m I’m I’m more interested in actually the beginning. Your mindset. Um, one of the things obviously, as we grow, my company grows, my team grows. So many obstacles pop up. So many people want to be a part of it. And so for me, the mindsets of the people that come into podcasts and more specifically with you and everything that I’ve researched about you is for me, more interesting. So my question to you is, how did your journey kind of start?

And I guess my question is more specifically, when did your personal development journey start? When did you become aware of what you wanted to do, where you wanted to be, or was it just day to day?

Great question. When did my personal development journey start? It has started ever since, I can remember, and every day being raised in a polygamous cult in rural Montana in the wilderness, there were no amenities to learn, sign language and stay in my comfort zone of having people meet me where I was at. So every day when my mom forced me to wear my hearing aids and she forced me to go to speech therapy, she would drive me out of the commune to a tiny town where there was a speech therapist pushing me out of my comfort zone.

What kind of commune was it? So it was a ultrareligious Mormon or Latter-Day Saints branch. It was a break off of the Mormon faith where they still practice polygamy. Multiple wives, mainstream Mormonism in Utah does not do polygamy. They outlawed that a long time ago. But my grandfather broke away and continued his own little sect. And so it was a very religious extreme fanaticism. And so it was ironic that I’m growing up in this tiny bubble of a cold, but at the same time I’m being forced outside of my comfort zone every day as a kid learning how to read people’s lips.

I had to learn how to read English first and then watch people read it so I could read their lips and take the context of the conversation of what we’re talking about, piecing together the vowel shifts, IOU, and then just over the years, learning out OK, learning how did people communicate? What are their patterns? And so to answer your point, your question, I’m sorry, the cell development journey has been ingrained in me because I live between worlds.

I’m not fully of the hearing world. I’m not fully of the deaf world. I’m between two worlds. I’m being an outsider. I have had to watch people all my life. What do you do here?

Because I read somewhere 80 percent. 80 percent. So what how does that can you describe it? Do you hear something, or? the best way to describe it.

I hear percussions. I feel, even though I can’t hear what’s being said, my skull, my brain, I still feel sound waves like a bass or a drum. So I wake at the slightest murmurs. I can feel all those but the sound. If it’s a higher pitch, I don’t hear it at all. But lower pitches like a male voice. I can hear something if I’m in close proximity, like if I’m in the same room with you and I don’t have my hearing aids.

But you have a male voice and you say something, I’ll know that you’re speaking and then I can turn and look at you and say, Can you repeat that? And then I’ll read your lips. So I’m a lip reader. So that’s why I do the face times. I’m a lip reader when I communicate with people, I still rely mostly on lip reading and hearing aid.

Help you a lot then or I say again, sorry, the hearing aid, does it help a lot oh the hearing aid?

Yeah, the digital hearing aid is amazing now that we have digital because I remember growing up we had to have analog back in the day, but digital really discern foreground and background noise. So I could actually figure out, OK, that helps me hear a little bit better. So hearing aids definitely do help, but it puts me up. Hearing aids putting up to about 60 to 70 percent of what normal people hear. But I still usually have to be reading their lips.

And so with it all, with them and with them, it sounds like the best way I can describe it from what I’ve watched and seen, it sound like, you know, what it sounds like when you’re underwater and everything is really muffled.

Yeah. That you can feel noises around you sometimes, but like, everything is just so muffled and you can’t really even make out what they’re saying.

So you to that’s you really then if that’s how you heard, then you also really wanted to do to lipreading I’m assuming.

Yeah. I wanted to be able to connect and understand. And so learning how to connect with people, being an outsider, basically being a cat, trying to make friends with dogs, learning how to connect with them.

Why was that so important? Like why not like play Xbox or PlayStation all day?

Well, what do we here to do as humans? To me, I’m here to connect. We’re here to have the human experience, which is having intimacy, which is being able to feel what makes us human is not our ability to think and analyze and be smarter than all the other animals in the world, which makes us human is our ability to feel multiple emotions at once. Meaning? I can hold sadness for a failed marriage and at the same time I can hold gratitude for all the things I learned about myself through that process, I can hold both at the same time.

That’s what makes me human. And so, yes, we humans have to be able to distract ourselves and turn off the brain and play an Xbox, watch a movie, check out for a while. It’s part of just self maintenance. But what we’re really here to do is to have the human experience and be able to report back to the universe, to the mainframe, whatever you choose to believe in information, data of what the human condition is.

Yeah. And so that’s what we’re here to do. We’re here to live and be able to report back, because I think we’re all just Antanas, we’re all just extensions of the universe that we’re here reporting the universe, helping the universe learn more about its self. And so that’s how I see living in this world, that we’re here to experience the human condition and to have real intimacy. Intimacy is not what the movies tell us, that we have to play a role.

Intimacy is being able to have a real conversation and say, OK, wow, I have a blind spot coming up. When you said this, you brought up a deep wound or a trigger in my childhood, and I need it not to happen again.

And also, I understand, is bringing up a great opportunity for me to go inward and do some healing. That’s intimacy. Being able to have a real conversation with a partner or friend in your life instead of projecting onto your partner. Oh, you did this. You’re never going to do that again. And you’re supposed to read my mind anyway. Yeah, a lot of people think the soulmate thing is just people being able to magically read your mind and you’re just supposed to get me away.

You’re not reading my mind. What I’m hearing when people say that and they talk about a soulmate as people saying, I don’t want to have to communicate. Yeah.

And so it’s funny that me, the deaf guy, I get paid a lot of money to help teams, corporations communicate better.

Because I learned how essential it is and I learned how to do it, to get past the whole one dimensional surface level communication stuff and find a way to really connect with people. So to answer your question, why do we do it? We’re here to we’re here to feel it. Right here to feel love. We’re here to feel intimacy and have real connection with people. And I’m very fortunate that I get to talk about these kind of things with the basketball metaphor as a big Trojan horse coming in first to get people to suddenly say, oh, wow, he he he’s been through a lot.

He’s paid a price to be on a stage talking to us. And now he’s going to pivot and not just tell sports stories, but use those experiences to help us all learn to communicate better. So that’s my that’s my big passion. I love it.

I like what you said about the whole soul mate, that what you hear is people actually not wanting to communicate. But it’s kind of what you said.

If you are like this soul mate, you have to work to constantly communicate, always constant communication, constant humility of knowing that you were always going to have blind spots. Yeah. That you’re always going to be activated, that you’re going to have archetypes. So the Greeks to talk about the archetypes, call young Joseph Campbell, the archetypes. You all have archetypes in our psyche. And when you fall in love with someone, you fall in love with two of their main archetypes.

But then when you get married or move in with them, 10 other people move in with them. Like, who is this person? Yeah. And who am I? I’m bringing in stuff, too. We’re all bringing in our own baggage to every relationship. But do you have the humility to know that you’re blind spots are going to be exposed until the day you die? Yeah. And do you have the humility to know that you don’t have all the answers?

And are you do you have a real soul mate who is meeting you at that level, who has the accountability to own their stories of what they bring into a relationship? And most people, when they want relationships, it’s like, oh, no, I have a sad story. You’re responsible for healing that story.

And they think that’s love. It’s not as co-dependency, real, authentic intimacy as being able to have that vulnerability to be on the same wavelength with somebody to say, I got a lot of bullshit I’m bringing into this relationship and I’m going to own it. And I need you to be patient with me. And when I’m operating with a blind spot and I’m not seeing it, I need you to call me out. Yeah, smart. That’s that’s real powerful communication, whether it’s a romantic relationship or a deep friendship, family or even professional.

I’m working now with a lot of companies that want to have more authentic communication. And I say, OK, how authentic do you really want to get? Yeah, because people say they want authenticity. Yeah, but a lot of people, as you know, love to say the big words, the key word is at the moment, but what does it actually mean? And so since I was a kid, long winded answer, I know I’m coming back since I was a kid, being on the outside, looking in, watching people and their body language, watching them change their body language, depending on who they’re talking to, which is not integrity.

Integrity is the same person. Are you the same person in every room that you walk into? Yeah. Every person you’re talking to, whether they have money, whether they don’t have money. And can they help your career or not? Do you still talk to everyone? Exactly the same. That’s integrity. But watching so many people in leadership positions in my religious upbringing, not being integrity, say one thing on the stage, but then off the stage at home, be a very different person.

And I got a very early education on that with my ability to watch body language. And so living in a quiet world, when I take my hearing aids out at night, everything goes quiet. Laying there in bed as a kid, I would just replay the entire day in a very quiet world asking.

Why did I feel the need to say that today, why did I behave that way? So how young were you when you were having these conversations? Five, six. Wow, that’s crazy. Self reflective for such an age.

It was I was a very sober kid, too. I dealt with a lot of self-esteem issues, but that the skill of introspection and this a skill because if everyone could do it, they would. Yeah, but they don’t. I think I’ve learned the more and more you go into self development, work of accountability, introspection, reflection, the more and more you realize that not many people have the skill. Of insight and self reflection, and so it’s been a lonely world, but it’s also been rewarding again for platforms like this that you’re building, finding the small percentage of people, the 10 percent in the world who are into self development, who are asking the deeper questions of why are we actually here?

What are we trying to accomplish? I believe I don’t believe that death is a finite thing, I believe in eternal progression, I believe in constant growth and sometimes growth is contraction. That’s where the universe is expansion and contraction. And we had to have it. And I believe in that. And so and I know the people in your following that are listening to this now, a lot of them, if not all of them, are big into growth because otherwise if we’re not growing.

Then what the hell are we even doing? Why are we even here? And so those questions are questions I’ve been asking since I was a kid, and is it like something your parents gave you or because you were in the in the religion?

No, the religion did not have a lot to do with it, because the religion, the religion, my religion is such a cult mentality where they operate in absolute truths. Really, we’re God’s chosen people. You know, everyone else is a gentile or not going to heaven. That creates a comfort zone. The absolute truth creates a comfort zone that says I’m safe. I don’t have to do any real hard questions in my head. I don’t have to ask too many questions or wonder where is this all going?

Because I have a prophet telling me what’s going to happen and everything is going to be OK. And so, no, it didn’t come from religion. But my mother my mother was not raised in this cult. Her mom joined when she was 15. But my mom, her father, my maternal grandfather was a man who raised her on the truth or the expression that thoughts are things. So my mom always remember that, and so my mom was big on accountability.

Accountability is the first principle of perseverance that’s shared with everybody. Accountability is many things, but basically is the buck stops with me. I am a star. I am responsible for my not only my behaviors and my actions, but I’m responsible for my thoughts. I’m responsible for the stories that I tell them I had an event is an actual thing that happened, but your story is how you choose to tell it. Excuse me. Get excited here and I’m rattling my desk.

Your story is how you choose to tell the event. And so my mom was always someone that hammered home accountability. Not only do I say what I do, what I say I’m going to do, do I follow through and do I own up my mistakes? Because I think you would agree accountability is inspiring when you have a leader. Who owns the fact they made a mistake? And it says, guys, I screwed up. That’s inspiring, and yet we were raised in a world with 24/7 news, social media, where people live in fear that if they make a mistake, they’re done for.

So I always have to be perfect. And therefore, you have a lot of people in leadership positions that are so afraid to apologize. Let me ask you, in my 10 years of pro basketball, how many times you think I had a coach ever truly apologize to the team?

Uh, I you don’t really deep into all the NBA. I’m very passionate about NBA. For a while time, I only heard of one coach who was famous for that. And I think that was the guy for the San Antonio Spurs. Popovich. Yeah, I heard he was one of the like maybe only a few ones who actually like the stories I read about him. So interesting. I don’t know if there were other coaches famous.

Yeah, you. So you said one in my own person. I’ve never played for Popovich. I have one coach who truly apologized to the team in my ten years and I’ve had coaches sit me down one on one and own up to it. But in front of the entire team, one coach said, Guys, I screwed up. Really, I’m going to make it up to you. That was so inspiring to me, I would do anything for that man was he was he was my coach, my last coach in Puerto Rico, my last job.

I was playing in Puerto Rico. Great league fun. A tiny little dude who had every right to have a Napoleon complex and be threatened by my size.

But yes. How tall are you?

I’m six 11, six foot 11 or 211 centimeters.

211? Yeah, 211 centimeters. Oh, wow. So, yeah, I’m a big dude.

I had no idea that six eleven was 210.

Yeah. It’s somewhere around there. It’s 210 or 211. And this coach, he apologized and it was so inspiring. I would run through a brick wall for that man.

But like nobody apologize. I mean, not apologies. Nobody really owned up.

And yeah, because these coaches live in fear. Why 90 percent of the world operates in fear that the world is not a safe place, that they lose their job, that people were undermined me and trying to take my job from me. 10 percent of the world operates in trust. That says if I keep showing up authentically every day with humility, with accountability, owning my shortcomings. Walk in my authentic path, I will get to where I need to go, if I’m always and integrity, always in accountability, that even if I have a bad experience.

A person who is big in self development if we have a setback or heartbreak. Instead of us saying, oh, why does this always happen to me, we say what a great opportunity for me to learn. What can I learn in this experience and choosing to step out of the victim archetype that so much of the world operates, and especially on social media, people love to play the victim and have it be validated. But the opposite of the victim archetype is the teacher.

The victim says, why does this happen to me? The teacher says, What can I learn about myself in this experience and how can I share with other people to empower them?

And that’s why teacher. That’s teacher. Victim says, Oh, I am the center of this experience and everyone needs to know about it so I can take empathy, compassion from them. The teacher says, how do I get empathy and compassion in an educational context and give it. And so, so few people, so few coaches operate in that kind of trust because they live in fear, because it’s all about them and they don’t know how to be teachers.

They only know how to be a boss.

But isn’t it that if you go into higher, you go the less? Well, I’ve noticed when I work with some corporates, um, that so when you go to C level, which is like the usual managers who are 10, 20 years in the company, they operate exactly how you describe it. Like the moment you start going to the more executive people they are. So chill, super nice people. And so I kind of assume that the higher you would go, the more like the more chill, I guess more flexible, the more, you know, leadership esque.

Yeah. People would be.

Your point is valid. I’ll answer in a couple of parts. It’s easy to be chill. When you control the whole thing. When you get the final say, but. I will say that more and more we have more people ascending to leadership positions because they have the humility to always be a student of life. The mid-level management or the sea level, as you said, yeah, most coaches in professional sports are sea level because they have the answer to the general managers that have to answer to the owners.

So they’re stuck in mid-level management.

Really Wouldn’t you assume that a coach would be saying to the owner, hey, let me do this thing because I’ll get you there?

Yes, you think they would, but only a few coaches have that kind of leverage. Popovich is one of them because he’s been coaching for so long and he’s been successful.

But basketball has become so corporate now with all the sponsors and advertising that there are so many different bosses that people have to answer to, said they are really like two or three levels away from the owner almost.

Mm hmm. And so they’re stuck in that sea level that you’re talking about where people are trying to control things and they had the boss cap on rather than being a leader or, again, always a student.

And so it’s fascinating when people fail to recognize that if you are someone that can never apologize, people will want to see you fall.

But if you’re someone that has the humility to say, I don’t know anything, yeah, I’m learning with you. And I’m in a position where someone decided that I should be the leader of this group, I don’t feel like I’m the right fit, but I don’t know anything. And I’m going to learn and grow with you. This same coach, this Puerto Rican guy I was talking about, Juan Cardona, he was also the coach that could pull me over to the side of a game and say, Lance, what are you seeing out there in the middle as the center, as the big man that I can’t see from my perspective.

And I would tell him now whether or not he took my advice and applied, it did not matter. Just the fact that he was willing to listen to what I had to say, which then allowed me to know that he saw me as a human being. He saw my perspective and my human experience and took it in consideration. Once he heard it, I was in complete trust that he was going to make the best informed decision with all the information he had for the whole group.

Did you ever disagree? Oh, yeah, we disagreed all the time.

But because he still was willing to hear what I had to say. I’m like, OK, coach, this is what I say, you’re going to go a different way. I can I can wash my hands and I can choose to trust I’m going to follow you because you’re the one that has the ultimate say. At the end of the day, the coaches who could not hear feedback that rule with the iron fist that acted like they knew everything.

It was just like, OK, coach, make your call and we’ll do your game plan and then you can fall on your sword. Yeah, because you don’t have the humility to acknowledge that you’re just human. Yeah. And just a big game. When you’re human, you’re going to make mistakes every have the humility, the honor and follow up with you.

Everything you’re just describing right now is partially why I became an entrepreneur, because I was in jobs and uh, and I just never saw one of my earliest, earliest mentors was in the Special Forces until my entire leadership, you know, perspective and how I saw somebody should lead me came from that. Um, so when I started working, I just I really didn’t understand how, you know, you would do the extra effort and then people would react exactly like you’re mentioning right now.

And I didn’t even really start ever working in my student time. I worked. But I kind of said to myself, I there are so few people that I would follow. I don’t think I would be a bad employee. But just I guess I’d be a bad employee if I have a bad leader. So I would rather just work for myself. And as long as I can survive, I guess I’ll just do this, you know, game that I’m playing.

Eventually I started meeting people that I would actually follow. But at that time, you know, we had a company, so we were just collaborating with them. Um, they would become my clients. But everything you just said, I imagine you’re a bad employee for bad leadership.

Yeah, that’s a beautiful way to put it. Yeah, that’s a that’s that’s a very beautiful way to articulate it. And it’s not so much that people have bad employees that have bad leadership. Yeah. If you have bad leadership, going to have bad employees. Simple as that.

When we started recruiting here, one of the things we started doing is, uh, before it was popular, this was like. I know. Uh, when do we start recruiting our first people? Like five, four years ago or something like that? We started looking at the three core values that we value, which is honesty, loyalty, curiosity, which a lot of people, they hear that and they think it’s a buzz word. Um, it’s what they don’t get is that to me, like my honesty came from the fact that I had a really bad experience with my parents and our entire life collapsed because they lied.

So in my mind, honesty was painful and not good. And, you know, when you have the bad feeling inside of you of, oh, should I say it, should I not say it? And then I kind of ingrained it in myself that every time you feel that you should say it, which is something that a lot of people, if they’re not in a safe environment, they struggle with so little loyalty came from people, just not having my back when I was alone, trying to feed myself working.

And eventually then at one point, the government had this charity that actually, help children from low income families to graduate. And if they had not supported me, I would never have graduated and been in a position where I am today able to help them back. And it’s, you know, when you feel that that’s what loyalty starts becoming free. And then curiosity, obviously, everybody, what you said growth. But then when we start recruiting people, it’s brutal for them because they’ve never been in a safe environment where you were expected to fail, where if you lie, you will be severely punished up to the point where you could be fired.

And it’s just like, yeah.

So the fact is you want people to fail. I mean, there’s two different types of failure.

Uh, failure to me, real failure means you’re simply stepping outside your comfort zone, that you’re trying something new. Yeah, but you’re taking a risk.

Whereas the the bad failure is when people who stand inside their bubble and try to play it safe and not make a mistake.

Why would you say that it’s a failure? Because they’re staying inside. They’re being mediocre. Yeah, because you’re being because they’re just sitting there trying to find all the stats to make sure they don’t take any risk, that everything is predictable, that I can have all these great out. With minimal risk involved, so I’m going to do the bottom line, that’s required not take any risk so I won’t lose my job or have my heart broken. That’s called playing it safe.

That’s called being mediocre. And that’s the real essence of failure to me.

Do those players, like if you look at your career, does players make it very long in their careers?

No the players who are afraid to take risk and step outside of their comfort zone don’t last long at all. The thing is, the greats are the people who are willing to step onto the court and say my worth is not attached to an outcome, that with accountability I am making the best decision I can in the moment and I’m going to take the shot. If I missed the last six shots is gone. Is done. Yeah, being present. Looking back in the past and feeling guilty.

Feeling bad, that’s not accountability. Accountability is saying I own what has happened and all I can do to ameliorate that is be present in the moment and make the best decision in this moment. Because if I’m thinking back in the past regretting stuff I’m still in the past, I cannot make the best decision right now.

And so the players who are able to say, all right, this is the situation, I got to take a risk. And if I miss the shot, yeah, some people will blame me, but that’s part of life. At least I had the courage to step up and take the shot that needed to be taken.

Do you have an example of a story like that?

Oh, gosh. Like a good I got I got I got two examples from my own experience. Different years back to back years. Actually, one year I was in Japan, one year I was in Mexico playing in Mexico. Last couple of season in my career in Japan, we were the number one team and we were in the semifinals and is we were down by one. And I had a choice with ten seconds left to go in the game.

Oh, this is a difficult shot, but I can make this shot and I’m open. Or do I pass it to somebody who might be a better shooter from three point land, but they’re going to be guarded because the defense is guarding them.

Because you’re a center right. I’m a center, but I can I can shoot everywhere.

I want that type of player.

I want a horse trophy, an NBA all star weekend horse is the game where people have to match your shot. So I was a big guy and I won horse trophies. I was I was a different type of center. I played much more cerebrally versatile in Japan.

I took the shot rimmed in and out owner, coach all freaked out. They blame me. They cut me. I didn’t get renewed for the next year, even though I was the only all star on the team, we were the best team in the league.

But because they blame or they focus so much on outcome rather than process rather than the consistent beat, you keep through it all knowing that you were getting attached to an outcome.

But the Japanese do think that way. Yeah. So they’re afraid to make mistakes.

As much as I love Japan and my time there and their consistency as a product and everything, their ability to grow and let new ideas come in, you know, very, very, very old conservative mentality of Japanese culture.

And so they’re afraid to take risk. Because they’re afraid, they know that their community, their society will shame them. Whereas in Mexico the next year. Again, I had an opportunity in the playoffs, three pointer and of the game game seven, oh my God, do I live in fear? Last time I took a three pointer and I missed it, I wasn’t renewed for the next year. Or do I say I missed that shot last year because that was because that is what was supposed to happen.

Why was that supposed to happen. Because that’s what happened.

Yeah. And you have to let it go and you have to keep playing on that basketball players, no basketball player has ever played a perfect game is all about. Who has the grit and the tenacity to keep getting up and keep playing on? That it. Most people, they make it fail, they make a mistake, they get so stuck there, they can’t move. So I had a choice to say, oh, oh my gosh, last time I took the shot in a playoff game, I missed it.

I lost my job. What I say. The best way I can be a teammate. I’m open, I got to take the shot, this is the highest percentage shot for our team to win the game and I took it and we won. Really?

So. We’re going to fail, but it’s not failing if you’re learning from it and you’re playing on it is failing. What’s going through your minds here?

Standing at three point line in Mexico and then, like, are you actually in the game of the adrenaline’s happening, weren’t you actually thinking, is there, you know, a millisecond of fear coming?

Oh, I might get, of course, that millisecond of fear that says, OK, OK, something bad happened to me the last time I was here. Yeah. But then I said, oh, sweet, I get a do over. Just try it again. Nice.

And life or the universe will always give you do overs, meaning you’re not going to get the same opportunity, the same window but the same lessons. Right. Are going to keep coming at you until you finally learn the lesson. It might appear in a different context, in a different dynamic with somebody or in a different job or a different career. But the things that you’re afraid of that you keep running from are going to keep coming back to bite you until you learn to face them head on.

So this was a beautiful lesson to gauge how much I’ve grown up getting out of my head and choosing to be heart centered, saying, you know what, I’m here, I’m in this moment.

That shot last year is gone. It’s over. Yeah. And now I’m here in the moment. I’m playing from the heart, not in the head, playing from the heart, which is the louses, again, called the Zone. It’s called the Zone. That’s when you’re playing in your heart, when you’re masculine and feminine. The greats are masculine and feminine, meaning Michael Jordan. He was feminine when he passed the ball off the Steve Kerr and John Paxson for their game winning shots of their respective NBA titles in 93 and 95.

No, yeah, Ninety, yeah. Anyway, won’t won’t go into those details, but that doesn’t matter. They made their shots because Jordan passed it. Passing is a feminine act. Jordan in 1998, when he pushed off Byron Ruso, the Utah Jazz, the great push off shot, and he hit the game winner to win the NBA finals in 1998. Very masculine. He pushed he took the shot. The basketball players, the greats know how to be masculine and feminine at the same time, if you’re always masculine, always shooting the ball every time you touch it, you’re going to get benched.

Same thing in life. If you’re always going to like trying to press it, trying to just blast your way through everything, be the ultimate tough guy, false bravado, authoritarian. You’re going to get benched. Life’s going to take you out. But also, if you’re too passive, always playing, OK, you know, I can’t take the risk and take the risk. You’re going to get benched because either way, you become easy to guard on a basketball court.

If I know you always want to shoot it, I can guard you very simply. If you always want to pass it, I can guide you very simply, but if you’re able to do both, it’s very hard to guard. Life is the same way. The universe is the same way. If you’re one dimensional and you’re easy to guard, always am asking and they’re always feminin, you’re going to get stuck. He had to be able to play masculine and feminine in the game of life and flow with all that, and so that moment in that mine in my head was like, you know what?

I can be in my head and analyze and aim the shot and I’ll miss the shot if I do, because too much in the head is too masculine. Heart is masculine and feminine, like, you know what?

I’m here in the moment, I’m in the heart, shoot it, whack, make it so with all that being said, it’s there’s no such thing as a perfect game. And I think self-help books have fallen into a trap.

My book, The New Alpha Male, doesn’t have any stats. Is me going through human experience? Of what it means to be human and applying those stories and making them generalizable to everybody else with actionable teaching points, we’ve fallen into self-help books where they’re trying to throw stats at everything so people can feel like that’s how they’re going to win the game. But guess what, I scouted so many teams, we had so many game plans, we watched all of this film and we thought we had an idea of how the game was going to go.

But you think the other team wasn’t getting ready to throw us a wrinkle? That we come out and some the team is running a whole new set of offensive plays that we had no idea they were going to run and do we thought fit and say, oh, wow, that’s not the way you’re supposed to be because the stats said this. Instead, it’s like, OK, stats inform us as athletes, but they don’t drive us. That we have to be ready to play ball and adapt states allow people the illusion of a comfort zone to think that they’re in control.

So what do you think then? Maybe outside question, but what do you think of that movie? Um, I forgot it was Moneyball, the ad that won with Brad Moneyball.

First off, baseball, more than any other game, is probably more conducive to stats because there’s a very simple game where you throw a ball. They have a choice of how they want to hit that ball if you throw them a curve or a strike. But because basketball and football are so in a symbiotic dance offense and defene too many variables, too many variables.

Baseball has very few variables. But I do believe Moneyball. As cute as it is, yeah, it did help the Red Sox, it did help the Cubs a bit, but granted they drafted so well, it wasn’t like they just suddenly drafted these simple players that Phil Stastny, the Theo Epstein for the Cubs, they have great players. And so the whole notion of Moneyball really sold the idea that. The human component, the human element can be marginalized.

Baseball is a unique game in that baseball. If you remember when Alex Rodriguez left the Seattle Mariners and went to the Texas Rangers in baseball the next season, the Mariners had the best record in baseball. And I didn;t know that baseball is a game where, again, it’s just so one on one in that moment that. You can lose your star.

And your team, the pitching staff and everything, baseball, so it the women pitching and hitting that all the other things kind of separate, but because basketball and basketball have something similar, when you have like they tried a basketball, they tried to have all their advanced stats and everything, but really the advanced stats could never have predicted that Steph Curry was going to come in and revolutionize an entire game with the long ball, with a three point shot. That was him being a magician.

And blowing stats out of the water. And just making everyone adapt and revolutionize, and now everyone’s trying to say, hey, well, now these are the current stats, this is the best way to be effective in the Steph Curry era of basketball. But someone else is going to come along, some other coach or some other player. They’re going to change it up again. Basketball more than baseball. Baseball is pretty consistent as far as, hey, you know what, nine innings, three three outs.

It can only be so cerebral. But basketball, because it’s all real time action, offense and defense people having to interact with each other.

People have fallen into the trap with stats, whether it’s sports or corporations, as you know, I think, and they can quantify heart.

That they can quantify chemistry. They can quantify these two people are going to get along because we have all their stats. Baseball, again, you may like your friends, whatever these guys, but you’re one guy is an outfield, one guy in third base, it’s not like you’re really doing a lot of, maybe trying to make a great catch and a pass and get that guy struck out. That’s as far as the interaction goes. When you’re on offense, you have to bat.

Everyone’s on the way.

If you hit the ball, great. But basketball, you have to be able to read off of each other, pass screen, cut through. There’s so much chemistry involved that people have tried to think that you can pigeonhole that through stats.

And what was the best like team you were a part of? How did the coach create the chemistry?

Oh boy. Best team will play with the Cavaliers was fun, but the team I was called up from in the NBA minor leagues, the NBA Development League at the time I’m hosting what’s that? NBA development NBA Development League is like a minor league team, minor league like baseball’s minor league, the NBA minor leagues, the NBA Development League. I was called up in the Idaho stampede when I went after that league.

It’s the NBA. Yes, OK, yes.

It doesn’t pay as much as the European leagues, but some guys choose to stay in the minor league and get a chance to get called up. That’s what I did. I got called up from there, this coach. Had the humility, Brian Gates and I love him, he wasn’t the type to ever really apologize in front of everybody, but at the end of the day, he was a coach that could sit with you one on one.

And figure out how can we find the winwin together to make sure you have a best opportunity to grow from here, not just this season, but next season.

He was so good at seeing beyond stats that he could watch guys on film and see, oh, this guy has an intangible something that can’t be measured.

This guy is always in the right place at the right time. This guy is not afraid to set a screen and take a hit. This guy knows how to make the extra pass.

He could see those intangibles that cannot be measured on stat sheets. And that team was the funnest team I ever played on and we loved each other.

What did you do? Just a one on one interactions or one on one interaction.

But because I was a team captain, but also our other team captain was a point guard who was a veteran, that he had played for 10 NBA teams, that he was just here to play and have fun. And he wasn’t there to get his own stats. But he was a point guard that knew how to pass it at the right place at the right time. But the one deal was if you take a dribble, he loses the assist credit.

So his deal was, I’m going to get you all the ball, but don’t you dare take a dribble. You shoot it when I get you the ball. I’m going to make you look good, you make me look good, and that was kind of the deal that we all trusted. He knew he was going to this guy was avenging the first month of the season. It was ridiculous. He was averaging 19 assists the game.

And what normal average?

The normal average for point guard in the NBA Development League is like maybe five. He was getting 15, 15 to 19, but he ended up with like 15 that year, the first month he was just on fire.

But more important, the actual points or the assists, there’s no real importance.

There all matter. You don’t get the assists without the points. Right. But.

But because he was playing in a way that was transparent, it was, hey, we’re all here to get our stats. That’s what the minor leagues for. But we’re going to help each other do it and we’re going to help each other look really good. So calling it out instead of just saying, oh, we’re all here to be champions, and if we’re champions, we’ll get better jobs, doesn’t really work that way. In the minor leagues, she was who’s being most productive instead of just saying, hey, we’re all here to get better jobs next year?

We’re all here to make sure everyone has a fighting chance to be seen by other teams. It’s a very pointed, very team oriented and very transparent, instead of just spouting out, again, as you say, buzzwords and cliches where you have a coach they’re very transparently, you can say he wants to get a better job next year instead of the coach saying, oh, we all need to sacrifice and be team first.

But when I get a better job, I’m going to leave you all on the dust.

It’s very much like when you were a child and you saw these religion religious leaders absolutely says so. Pretty much as long as you say what you really want and then think from a team perspective how to get there, you’ve you always felt like and you got the team nailed it.

You understood it, told me you’ve done the work. This was the same team at the beginning of the year. I was able to say, hey, coach, do you trust me with an exercise? He said, Yeah. What we did one night, we said, hey, guys, we all want to get the better job, we all want to make money. But I want to know, why do you want the money? Why do you need the money?

Help me know, and so we all go down. We got one guy owed child support, never been able to see his daughter, so he needed to pay child support. One guy’s mom had cancer. One guy wanted to go back to school and be a medical doctor. One guy apparently said, hey, I like ladies, I like women. I want to be a baller. But the fact that we knew. Transparently, why they needed the money, wanted it.

It allowed me to care. It allowed me to connect with them and say, you know what? All right, pass it. Go to Darnell. Darnell, get that bucket. All right.

You might get a chance to help you help you make money to see your daughter. And so when he made it, I was happy for him. So when people tried to shame individual need in team settings and say, oh, you’re being selfish, you need to sacrifice to the team, but then, you know, well, coach, you’re going to abandon us as soon as you can to get that better job. So don’t try to sell me on the whole altruistic notion of team.

Yes, we all want to win, why do we want to win now, because we actually care about each other. And we’re having fun playing together. Transparency is one of the most beautiful things you can have in team development. So going back to what you were sharing, you have your honesty, you have your loyalty, and you have your exploration, you have your curiosity.

It allows you to say, hey, I’m going for honesty, I’m going for transparency. I don’t care if you make a mistake. I want to know why you’re here and what inspired you to even get to this point? What are you wanting in your personal life to look like by working here? And once you know that, you can understand when they’re acting out of fear, that part of that is that they’re afraid that something is not being supported from the back end.

And you can meet them quickly saying, hey, what’s going on? Are you feeling like I’m not helping you reach this to help this dream come true for your personal life? That’s inspired leadership, where there’s transparency, which allows everyone to play their role, which serves the greater whole. That’s true.

And also when eventually people would leave, they would actually still stick around as volunteers for the event. So they would actually never really leave. They would still be on their monthly calls. And that is something that I could have never imagined me doing for for another boss. So I’m always, like, baffled and surprised. But I guess what I’m getting out of your story is how important it is to have the transparency when you’re in a team operation, when in business, it’s like we think it’s a team, but it’s not as transparent as in an NBA where it’s like you really see results.

If the team works or not. Um, so, yeah, just very interesting.

Sorry I was about this. No, no, no. I could talk for hours about this and it was no, these are just the kind of experiences that I have to take into these corporate settings where you have these Seasprite people talking a big game about team. And I’m saying, hey, look. If you think that you’re selling your employees on the vision of team. And thinking they don’t see that you are firstly being most self-serving for yourself, but you’re just trying to make sure you get that job promotion.

They’re going to hit you. People love transparency. It gives them dignity to the point you talk about with your parents and the honesty, honesty, as harsh as it may be up front. You’re still giving people dignity, yeah, by telling them straight up like, hey, you know what you have companies are about to lay people off. Yeah. And I tell them, you let your employees know now so you can tell them, hey, you know what?

We’re going to let you off in two months. And if you can just work your hardest for me these last two months, I am going to do my best to help you get a better job somewhere else. Yeah. Instead of just saying, hey, I’m going to manipulate you, milk you along and get you, I get everything out of you and then I’m going to cut you. That gives people no dignity and they will hate you. If you can hit people with the brutal honesty straight up front and say, hey, as a C suite executive, say, hey guys, it’s really important me, I’m trying to get promoted.

And I also know that I don’t know anything. I would love to keep working this ladder. And I know some of you had that same vision. I know some of you don’t even care. But if you can help me as I learn, I’m going to fight for you, I’m going to give you the best resume, I’m going to help you grow and move from here, that you give people the transparency of what you’re actually trying to do.

Most people aren’t stupid. You have all these people in leadership position thinking that people are stupid.

Yeah, I assume people are smarter than me. And then I make assumptions based on that assumption. Do you know do you know the book Leaders Code by Donovan Campbell?

I know the book, but I’ve not read it. Oh, very good book. OK, but he talks about the leader servant model to quickly summarize it, what do you think of the notion of when you’re in that mindset of a team? What do you think of the notion that the leader works the hardest, the most hours, the last pretty much with people like Simon Sinek, maybe, you know, him talks about from my perspective, it’s a very hard thing.

And I mean, it’s extremely hard. I never kind of knew I kind of knew what it was. And hopefully I’m doing it right from what my team tells me. I do it right. But it is extremely difficult, extremely lonely. And I think the the one movie scene that really summarized it for me was, um, in the movie Three Hundredth with King Leonidas. I don’t know if you saw that movie, but yeah, I did.

That movie just summarized how brutal leadership is and how it is. Yeah, it’s like at the end of the day, the guy was dead. Yeah. So have leadership.

Leadership to me is service. But when did you know your ready? leadership was not power, you know, you’re going to be a leader when you don’t want to really be a leader, meaning? You know, you’re a leader that when you have a vision and you’re chasing it, and even if it means you have to go it alone. And you do not care whether people validate you or not. That means you have the humility to be a leader because you’re not playing the ego game.

I says I want to be leader so I can have success so people can look at me and say, I’m so successful and I can get a pat on the back. A true leader does not care about his own self glory. How do you find the people that are like that and the ones that you know are faking it? Have you had that experience?

Oh, yeah, so many of them. Body language is a big tell. I have found that a real leader is someone. Their shoulders are straight, but they’re not rigid. When you have someone who’s standing with their feet together and rigid. That’s someone that wants to be a boss, that’s someone that wants control when he has a leader that can be present and confident but is able to stand usually with their left foot forward. The body tells you everything.

I’ve watched all these things. I help people with communication. But a left foot forward means humility means a feminine side that you’re able to receive information. Watching those cues, the body language, have really helped me, but again, the leader that I know I can work for is one who is willing to hear feedback. Yeah. He was not threatened by feedback, and you’re not stupid if you’ve been around long enough. You picked that up pretty quickly.

Yeah, you’ve been around long enough, especially in your field when you meet someone. Is this someone that can hear feedback or someone that can’t? Yeah, and you can intuit that. You can feel that. And I immediately know right away. Yeah. This isn’t a leader because a real leader. Is someone who is. Able to be a leader of their own life. Being a leader of your own life is someone that is brave enough to say, I decide for myself, what are the metrics of success that I will measure.

My growth. Not what my culture, my family or my community or materialism, I decide. And if that means I have to walk it alone. So be it. Yeah, people follow that. Yeah, I mean, when people know that you’re not playing the game for validation, they can see that you’re confident enough and they will follow you.

But if you’re being the leader that wants validation, that reeks of insecurity. If you want people to pat you on the back and say, oh, congratulations on the new fancy car. Yeah. That tells people that you’re insecure and you want validation. Yeah, that is not leadership. That is not a leader. And I do not follow people who aren’t who I can tell very clearly want validation. Those aren’t leaders.

Yeah I, I’m interested to hear. So in my company I’ve noticed that sometimes you can really wait too long before you want to see if somebody needs a team. So I’ve noticed obviously that’s also how I’ve been taught that when you put somebody under pressure, their real self comes out. Um. So before we promote anybody or before we give a team to anybody, um, we always put them under really intense pressure, impossible deadlines, really something that would make them really angry or something.

And then, you know, in those moments we when they’re about to break, we give them feedback and we see how they react. My question is, you know, looking at your basketball career, how how do you guys do it in a team environment? How do you put pressure and really see who’s who and who deserves to be promoted?

Or, you know, there’s all sorts of all sorts of things. Well, just in practice, like, OK, you have people do a free throw drill where they have to make ten free throws in a row. Or else there be there all day and you see how long it takes people and you see how quickly they get frustrated. If they get frustrated quickly, it means they will crack under pressure. It’s one thing to be competitive, it’s one thing to hold yourself to a high standard.

And he said, yeah, that’s not good enough, and he keeps stepping up to the challenge, but you eventually learn, here’s how you know. Who will crack under pressure? Someone who is always in their head. Again, meaning basketball, we have to play in our bodies, we humans, but with all the stats and all the information out there, we learn to cut our head off from our bodies. We have to learn to get back into our bodies.

Trust your heart. Trust your instincts. Trust your intuition. Yes, the brain has its place. The brain is analysis, is analyzing. And you use that to process information and quickly get it back down into your body to make sure you never repeat that same mistake again. The brain is where you funnel information and filter in and say, OK, this is what I’ve learned from it. Now let’s get it back down to the body for muscle memory.

We live in a world where we think the brain is the most important organ and the brain thinks it’s the smartest organ, know the heart is the heart also produces the electromagnetic energy, just that the brain does the heart and is just as intelligent. But we become so masculine left brain logic that we think the brain is the only thing that we have to worry about. And so when I have a teammate on the floor who was stuck in his head, that means they’re doubting themselves, they’re not in their body, it means they’re OK, what play we’re running OK.

I’m afraid to make a mistake.

How do you get out of your head in those moments?

Taking the breath, taking a breath, having it, having the daily discipline to do I do lots of drumming exercises, breathing exercises. I would do breathing routines before the game to get myself into my body. And I have them listed in the new book, The New Alpha Male. They’re all there. I have people that go through. I help people go through them learning to get in your body. And reminding yourself constantly to shut your brain off.

I would tell myself all the time, rebound and run. Yeah, rebound and run. That was it. Keep it simple. Let my body take care of the rest. The analysis can come after the game, right? Analysis can come during film session. But right now I have to trust my instinct. What’s with the body language around me is doing? What am I opponents doing? And I have to trust my years of experience. And go out there and apply it in my body.

So going back to the pressure part, so you so when they did repetitive tasks that were pretty much almost like almost impossible, of course, almost impossible. Yeah. Then you would see their frustrations pop up because everybody would get frustrated and everyone would get frustrated and angry.

Frustrated. Yeah. How quickly they get frustrated and who will stay there all day if they have to? People would walk away.

Yeah. Really.

After like two or three hours some would just say at this out or sometimes a coach would give them an out really to coach or say, OK, time’s up, we’ve had enough. And some would take it, whereas some would just say no. No, I’m going to stay here. Turn the lights off. I don’t care, and I’m glad to stay here. Have you seem like a guy or person you’re playing with who would actually have the attitude of I’m out of here and then actually make it to the NBA or not?

Usually not.

Usually those are guys with the guys who have that attitude. Will also the most talented. Because they thought they were because they knew they were talented, they thought they were an exception. And the sad thing is companies and corporations keep trying to recruit talent. And then asking me to come in and motivate their talent. And I tell them, doesn’t work that way. Hard work, the ability to work hard is actually the greatest talent of all. Because if everyone could do it, they would.

Serious a talent. But it’s also people with that talent who are willing to develop skills through so much adversity and so. I was not the most talented. I was not the most athletic. I didn’t make the NBA until I was 27. The average NBA rookie is twenty seven years longer, seven years longer of heartbreak and disappointment.

Why did you continue it?

Because I chose to. Because I chose to I failed so many times, I’ve been knocked down so many times, but I set a goal to myself that I was going to be the first deaf player in NBA history because I didn’t have a lot of role models as a kid to look up to. But I thought, you know what? I have a chance to do something here. Two blazed a trail to be an inspiration for so many other kids with disabilities that are being pigeonholed or labeled for being minimalized.

We actually went to, of course, a little bit.

But it’s super relevant to what you’re saying about how that personal development journey from like two hours back now when you were a child.

So obviously five, six years old, you’ve started getting this introspection scale. But like, how were your teenage years? When did you know the little bug coming your mind to become an NBA player? Like, well, yeah. What led up to you being dad dedicated, which I mean, most people that’s how I’ve been called my entire life until I moved to the Netherlands, which is super entrepreneurial. They always call me weird that I had crazy goals in my mind.

So great question. My family broke away from polygamy when I was 13. My father blew the whistle on child abuse, some money laundering. So we had to go into hiding when we escaped. And then next year we went to a public school. I was a new kid. I grew from five, ten to six for that year. I was an eighth grader at the age of 14. There was a lot, but I was new, didn’t have any friends, and the coach saw me walking down the hall and said, Hey, you should come play basketball.

I’m just going, Oh yeah, I’ve never played before. I had no basketball skills at all. I got a late start. But my sister, my oldest sister, growing up in a polygamous, ultra patriarchal commune where women did not get educations when she was 11, she said, I want to be a medical doctor, OK? And everyone laughed at her and said, yeah, that’s impossible. Women don’t get educations. How many brothers and sisters? I was the youngest of five and my mom, my dad had three other kids from the second wife.

So I was the youngest of eight total, but.

My sister, when we went into hiding, she was also accepted that same time to the University of Utah Medical School. And so when she saw me later that year start playing basketball, she saw how much I began to care. She said, oh, Lance, here’s what you do. You write down your goals, and I love her so much, you write down your goals and you put them above your light switch and every time you touch a light switch on or off, you read your goals out loud.

My first set of goals, I Lance Allred will start from a high school team by my junior year, I Lance Allred will average of three point five GPA. I Lance Allred we get a college scholarship to play basketball. That was it simple, but I read them every day for three years and here’s the thing about the whole law of attraction that people love to talk about. You can’t just make a wish and then it’s going to come true. As you set an intention, you declare an intention, and then you get a download, an intuitive here that says this is what I have to do, this is how hard I have to work to make this dream come true.

Most people stop. Because it’s hard and it requires accountability, a lot of people want shortcuts, and I tell people there really aren’t shortcuts, there is shortcuts. After you walk that path first, then you look back and, you know, OK, those are the shortcuts I can take. But I wouldn’t know about those shortcuts without the experience of walking the path.

So, so many people are trying to do this whole I want to be a millionaire and get rich quick, listen to podcast, give me a time hack or a cheat sheet. And I tell people there are no there are no shortcuts. You have to pay the price and you have to be willing to wake up every morning like I did from the age of 14 to 17 every morning at 5:00 a.m. and work out before school with my coach biking through rain, sleet or snow, working out with them before school.

Your coach did that. He’s a great man. I know. He’s a great man. He met me one on one when he’s now he’s now the associate head coach at Oregon State University. But he you you recognize the investment he made to me. He’s my greatest mentor.

Who? He didn’t receive an extra penny at all as a high school teacher and basketball coach. But he showed up every day and met me for three years and worked out with me. Wow. And that was the price we have to pay. There were no shortcuts.

Are you still in touch with him? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, in touch with him a lot. I love him so much. And so. To answer your question, at that time, when I started learning the power of the written word and the spoken word, understanding the power of intuition, download that we tap into the mainframe, we get that download hit that says, this is what I have to do to make this dream come true. And the end of my junior year, like I said, I was going through almost half of my junior my high school team at my junior year, three point five GPA.

I then went to a national tournament for high school athletes to fill in for a player that was injured. Yeah, and I went an unknown and I came back, ranked the best center in the western United States.

Wow, that’s weird.

To answer your question, I was like, oh, I might actually have a shot to play professional basketball.

So that was just a validation of of your initial I mean, your goal was not even that big initially was just the validation that made you see what’s possible, your validation, but made me see what’s possible.

You got it. That made me see again the power of the written and spoken word. Yeah. That I have to follow these intuitive hits and chase it as though I were on fire.

Did you did you get scared? So there’s this part you probably watch Coach Coach Carter. Right. So when when the guy gets up and reads the poem of what scares us most is in our darkness or something like that, it’s the light windedness or like pretty much how that most people are scared of truly becoming great. It’s not, oh, I’m going to fail. And it’s not really what I’ve noticed from a lot of friends, entrepreneurs as well, the ones that have really made it seem that there’s this moment where you have to go over, which is, uh, you have to realize that at one point failure is one thing and most people are scared of it, including me.

Everybody’s still scared of it. But truly, the thing that holds us back is realizing that at one point you can become so big beyond your dreams and have noticed for me, that’s very scary. Um, so when you won and you became this you got you got this title, did you get scared?

No, I understand that that’s not my biggest fear. Would be, I would say my biggest fear that drove me was the fear that I. Which falls short. Because going back to my childhood. There are many motivators to answer your question. Being pushed outside of my comfort zone gave me as a child with a hearing aids and speech therapy, gave me a high threshold for discomfort, gave me a high tolerance for risk. It did. And this intuitive knowing that, OK, I’m alive, I wasn’t supposed to be alive.

I should have been dead when I was born. Something called RH Factor. That’s why I had a hearing loss. But it’s like, you know, there’s something to it. You know, I’m here to do something. I don’t know what, but I’m here to do something. And all I can do is keep showing up, and so that was the the fear of being too big was never really what scared me. It was I would fall short because I felt there was some mission I was here to do to not get enough help.

Yeah, not being good enough is definitely probably a big driving factor. But also there are stories to drive us to. A big story was at the age of five in this religious commune, I had a church teacher tell me that God had made me death as punishment for something I did wrong in the pre life.

And so even as an adult, there’s someone says how you say, okay, you’re crazy, get yourself checked into an institution. But when you’re a kid and you’re absorbing all this information. So I had a deeply embedded story that I wasn’t worthy of love, that God was angry with me, that I had to do something superhuman. And then, you know, I’d be worthy of love. And so the fear of not being enough, the fear that I had to do something and then I’d be worthy of love was my biggest driving factor of making it to the NBA.

And then you can imagine, once I got to the NBA, well, you’re skipping a bit where you won that one tournament.

OK. OK, so now you say you realize now that you’re like, good enough for the NBA to your new goal became I want to go to the NBA. Yeah.

My goal there. So it’s like, you know what? I had this deep insecurity that I wasn’t worthy of love. And then it’s OK. Wow. I actually have a chance to make the NBA other right away.

NBA after I was in high school once once I started getting the recruiting letters to college, it’s like, oh, I might have a chance to make the NBA. So I updated my goals and I started to be the first deaf player in NBA history. I started buying that when I was 17. Took me ten years, seventeen to twenty seven and but a big driving factor was I had to do it and then I’d be worthy of love. But then you can imagine when I finally get to the NBA, it’s like I’m shooting my free throw in front of 20000 people for my first point of the NBA.

I’m shooting a free throw. But then a thought came. It was like, is this it? Yeah. Why why would I feel any different?

Because for so long, I was living my life on other people’s standards of what is success, what is happiness. I didn’t know how to be a leader of my own life. Yeah, I wasn’t playing basketball. Yeah. There were times where it was pure joy and pure love, but there were many times too. I wasn’t playing basketball for me. Yeah, I was playing basketball for other people to make them validate me, to have them be proud of me and to be worthy of love.

And so when we chase our dreams and we go after them for external validation. You’re always going to be unfulfilled. Always, that’s why you see so many people do the corporate thing and stab people in the back and the people in the rug and then get that job promotion and they’re so damn unhappy that they’re still trying to buy the next boat, their next car, because they still feel so empty, because they have no self actualization, they have no intimacy with themselves.

To ask the hard questions, why do I choose to strive for greatness, for other people to validate me, or do I do it because I choose to for me? And so much of our world strives for greatness, to earn love or to be validated. So how did you deal? What happened after that first game? After the first time you scored?

It was sobering. It was like, you know, well, I guess it’s a job because you see the politics of it all outside the court when there’s that much money involved.

Of course, there’s politics. And then in 2008, the next season, the economy crashed and I was released to save money for the team. They released me. And I nearly committed suicide. What was going through your mind, because I remember when, um, when I finally achieved a certain goal, I think it was on point we had and it was something big. I remember the last year and I just, um, I think it was maybe our revenge or something like something big happened in the company.

And that summer I took, uh, a vacation for a week. I called it, um, my, uh, genie trip, where you go for a week and then you ask your three wishes, which you write down, and then you go back into life and then you execute on that. When in that genie trip I remembered I had almost like a crisis of identity, like, yeah. What is the point of working such crazy hours and sacrificing myself as a leader for my people?

If it pretty much. Yeah. I guess my question to you is what happened after that and how did you deal with it? How did you get back from those toxic thoughts?

So after I nearly jumped out of a window and killed myself, I was in Italy at the time playing in Italy. The team wasn’t paying me money. And so I was frustrated, angry at everything, angry at life, because I’m like, what the hell was it all for? I work that hard for what and. It took 10 years to answer your question of me in 2008, 2009, going through a long, arduous journey. I’m choosing to catch myself in my thought patterns and my stories and the whole expression, change your thoughts, change your life is not enough.

You have to change your motherboard, just the wiring of your brain, so much of our culture where we come from, our culture has so much programming in our brain of how we process information, how we tell stories and how very sober, very somber are really excited about life.

So much of our culture and our family DNA, our family heritage is ingrained into our system and how we choose to see the world. So it was 10 years of long, slow accountability of waking up every day and asking myself. Do I choose to see and narrate life as a victim? Would I choose to narrate life as a teacher, right? Where do you get that from?

I’ve had a couple of good mentors in my life. One was a gal named Denise Lynch, really helpful for me. She’s pretty. She’s very small. She likes to keep her things small, but she’s here in Utah. But I’ve also spent a lot of time with Native American teachers doing sacred drumming, sweat lodge ceremonies, town or Utah, Montana, Canada.

I go to lots of places with these people and them helping me learn to. See the humility? See that humility and being able to bow and understand that we don’t have control, even though we like to think we do, as our Western culture likes to tell us. We do that. We actually don’t have as much control as we like to think we do. Once you step into that surrender. That’s when he actually gained true power. To let life come through you.

Instead of making it, forcing it to be a certain way, but the funny thing is I was already doing that as a basketball player when I was in the zone that I talked about when I was no longer aiming my shots, when I was just letting life come through me, when I wasn’t in my head trying to control everything. And I already had those skills, it was just learning how to apply them in real life for myself.

So what was the what was like the click? What I mean, obviously, you learn it in an NBA or basketball and then you’re talking with the Native Americans and they’re what are they telling you to apply in real life?

Applying it just like it’s just learning to see, like, OK, one of the great ones was you’re here to learn to have the ability to bow to something greater than yourself. And learning to bow to an idea of a creator or a mainframe, if you’re I mean, I don’t care if you believe in simulation theory, whether you believe that there’s we’re just a simulation within another simulation or something, you have to have the humility to bow to a greater intelligence than yourself.

We humans I grew up in a very arrogant world of extreme religion that thought we could put God inside of a box and have God match our mental construct, that we humans love to think that we’re somehow this really intelligent being that we can grasp the vastness of the cosmos. That’s hubris to think that we’re that smart. We’re not as smart as we like to think we are. And having the humility to bow and so dealing also with the people on the atheist spectrum who say there is no greater intelligence, this is all a mindless accident.

That’s pretty arrogant to think that somehow we’re the greatest intelligence out there. That is that is ripe for a Greek tragedy of hubris to think that you are somehow this created intelligence. So learning to bow in humility after the heartbreak of the NBA disenchantment and realizing, wait, this God I have been chasing from this mental construct of extreme religion, didn’t fulfill his end of the deal. That way I’m going to do something amazing and then all my dreams are going to come true and you’re going to love me and I’ll feel all this happy ending.

That is a mental construct that we humans do to try to make sense of the world, to think that we can pigeonhole God to make sense of the world. When you realize that we don’t get to make sense of it, we can try all we want, but there’s still this great mystery. That all we can do is tap into it and dance with it. That’s where we athletes do when we’re in the zone. That’s where the meditation and gurus do when they’re meditating.

That’s what the Indian fired sun dancers do when they’re doing the Sundance in the sun, they’re getting out of their head and they’re getting into their body and they’re tapping into the ephemeral plain. That is the great mystery. Do they use, uh, like drugs or something to…? Some use peyote? But the ones I work with, we don’t use any. We use tobacco, we use sage, but we don’t use any real mind altering substance.

So like that tabacco, that’d be like obviously I’ve never done anything like that, but I’m imagining something like a water pipe or something like that. Yeah.

Yeah, just that tobacco is a sacred plant, sacred energy. But the thing is, so many people want to take the shortcut to get the ultimate high. Yeah, but if you just breathe correctly and you sit and focus or you can drum, I have some medicine drums where if you just drum and get your brain to a theta state faster, what we can, you know, what’s a medicine drum?

A medicine drum. It’s like a normal you can be any drum.

But as these drums that I’ve made that you close your eyes and you drum, it helps you bring it to a theta state faster and then you can go inward and get the messages inward that we think in our logical, masculine mind that everything is outside of us.

Right. But really, messages come from within. They don’t come like from some external radio station. Yeah, they come from within. And so learning those type of skills.

But again, those are things I was already doing as a basketball player when I had my breathing techniques before the game. Right. Those are things I intuitively knew how to do when I was listening to my body. Right, right. Our heart is very intelligent. If we just take a minute to sit and listen to your body instead of trying to make sense of all of it with your head. Mm hmm. That’s the trick. That’s the key.

That’s what I can share with people I know. We’re coming up on two hours now, so hopefully I’ve been able to give you something. Yeah. Have some takeaways.

But again, to you, I thank you for trusting me with the time and to share some of your experience and your listeners with me. My message and I hope has helped you in some way. And, you know, it would mean a lot right now, especially with the whole quarantine happening. My book is out there. My book came out this week. Everything. Yeah.

Let the let the listeners know where because you have four books, if I’m correct.

Yeah, I have four books. And first two were memoirs. The third one was more of a public speaking book. How to get million view TEDX Talks to help people with public speaking skills. Yeah, that’s on Audible as well as print or Kindle. But then the last latest book, The New Alpha Male How to Win the Game. And the rules are changing. It’s for men and women, but it helps us with authentic communication.

Right. Again, it’s a lot of these things I’ve walked you through helping us get grounded. Yeah. Get out of our head and get grounded to better play the game of life and maneuver through it. And I’m really proud of the book. I love it. It’s what sounds to publishers and testimonials from people.

Finally, can they get it on places like you can get out, you get an Amazon, audible for audio books, you can get it all over. It’s online there so you can find it.

So you do the did you do the voice for the audio book? Yeah, I did. Yeah, I read. That’s always nicer when you actually hear the author. Oh yeah.

Now if, if authors don’t and self-help books if authors don’t read their books. I don’t, I don’t. Yeah. I don’t understand why they would do that. It doesn’t make sense to me sometimes.

Yeah. Sometimes it’s deeper. Voices make you fall asleep but then it’s like you want to do it but no thank you so much. Maybe last question because I really wanted to cover it before you go. Yeah. You can answer short or long or whatever you want now obviously can deny it. Coronaviruses happening, especially with your last book and what you’re doing with it. It’s very much about innovation, innovating, going with what’s happening. Coronavirus has said everybody really hard, especially in the event industry.

How are you dealing with it? How are you innovating? A great question. What are you especially all this inner journey, I think can help a lot of entrepreneurs. But how are you applying your pretty to hopefully now stable mindset?

Yeah, great question. So when my first book came out with HarperCollins called Long Shot in 2009, it came out during the recession when I lost my job with the Cavaliers.

Right. Yeah. And it didn’t do very well. Critically did great. Book sales were bad. Yeah. And here I am. Eleven years later my book comes out and my next major book with a major publisher comes out and comes out during another recession. Ah, a do over. You got it. I had a choice, I could say, oh, man, look, shit’s happening to me again. I was very angry and that’s what I nearly committed, suicide, right along with the  the release of the book.

Right. And I was so angry. And now I’m like, wow, what a good chance for a do over what had a chance to walk my talk. That, as you know, there’s a lot of speakers out there that talk a really big game, but they can actually walk their talk, right? Can I actually choose to accept the situation for what it is? Meaning the shot was missed, but I’m going to be present and I’m going to flow and I’m going to adapt and I’m going to learn to take all this craziness and find the cracks, because right now is a huge opportunity with the status quo losing power.

Yeah. For us to fill in cracks.

So with your eyes out, with your future looking like how are you innovating, how are you adapting?

So how am I innovating what I’m doing? Yes, online courses, more I’ve taken on more one on one clients book coaching.

I booked a lot of one on one client that I can work with digitally and just the last two weeks than I have in the last five years. Wow. Because I wasn’t really focusing on that. But like, no, this is a good time to work with clients because I do avatar decoding, I do astrology for my travels and Greece and all sorts of things. I don’t do the whole fairy dust astrology, but I work on people’s psyches, the avatars, the archetypes to help them see their blind spots.

So I’m doing all that working now also with a consulting firm that helps with factory worker and safety wellness developing courses with them for thousands and thousands of people is like that stuff that I would not have taken the time to do when I was so busy traveling, doing keynotes and going on the book tour.

And now it’s like, hey, this is forcing me to take a step back and figure out a way to be more efficient with my time.

And another thing I want to share with you, it is not wasting time when we’re forced to slow down right now. Yeah, it is not wasting time to take your shoes off and go outside and walk on some grass and just ground yourself and breathe is wasting time. If you’re sitting there in social media and just scrolling mindlessly, clicking through the channels, mindlessly trying to find a distraction, trying to find a distraction, is wasting time getting yourself grounded and just being present in the moment.

That is never, never wasting time. That’s where are you going to get messages coming to you from within. So this is a great time for you to learn so much more about yourself and also get so many more messages that you otherwise would not be able to hear, right?

Yeah. Also in business and also. Yeah, if you take it, I would agree that my biggest revelations came when I was just taking my time like the genie and just listening to my inner self and where to innovate. And I think that’s actually a really good way to end to understand that, you know, during these crazy times, I mean, you can also just take the time, not be on social media and just reflect about what you should be doing.

And especially if you’re struggling with business, maybe the answer’s already inside or. I think what I also take away from this podcast is mentorship, connecting with people and making sure that they can guide you into a certain direction. Absolutely. So agree. Thank you so much. Going to close the podcast here. And, um, I’d love your questions, by the way.

Man, these are great questions. Thank you. If you like this episode, you can check out our most recent one here. And if you haven’t already, make sure you click here to subscribe and see the next one. But if you’re interested in more tips and tricks to make sure to join our Facebook group where you can find thousands of like minded people and you get direct access and support to any business question from the entire Startup Funding Event team.

 

 

Community

 

Congratulations on reaching the end!

Check out our podcast Impact Talks, where you can listen to high-profile experts from various backgrounds!

Join our Facebook Group Community with over 4,700 entrepreneurs, innovators, and creators by Startup Funding Event, where you get access to free live training, daily Q&As, design templates to get your business started, and support from the SFE team. Join here!

An extraordinary innovator, Steve Jobs has had 241 patents registered to his name or as a co-inventor. Many of the products he invented went on to be hits in the tech world, notably the iPhone. Before passing away in 2011 from pancreatic cancer, the American entrepreneur was the co-founder, CEO, and chairman of Apple Computer.  

Born in 1955 to a Syrian father and American mother, Jobs was given up for adoption to Paul and Clara Jobs. Neither of them were university graduates, but they promised to put him through college. During his early years, he struggled in traditional classrooms and faced some challenges in school. The future genius was a loner and often bullied by classmates, but it did not hinder his progress.  

When he was 10, Jobs took a keen interest in electronics. He became friends with all the engineers in the neighborhood. At the age of 13, he got a summer job with Hewlett-Packard after cold-calling them for some electronic parts. Then during his high school years, he met his future business partner Steve Wozniak. 

By his senior year in late 1971, Jobs became fascinated with electronics and completed his first project with Steve Wozniak – the low-cost digital blue box. The sales were excellent and this gave them the idea that they could do wonders. He later attended Reed College but dropped out after only one semester citing that education was not for him. 


After some stints with Atari and a spiritual trip in India came the birth of Apple. In 1976, Wozniak and Jobs joined forces once again with operations beginning in the latter’s bedroom. There was a third co-founder by the name of Ronald Wayne, but he didn’t stay in the picture for very long. 

The duo decided on the name “Apple” after Jobs returned from a farm in Oregon. He had spent time on a farm’s apple orchard. To raise funds for their project, they had to sell some of their personal belongings. Wozniak sold his HP scientific calculator and Jobs sold his Volkswagen van. Sacrifices had to be made so they could build the first batch of the circuit boards for Apple I.

About 21 years later and a plethora of tech products, Steve Jobs unveiled a game-changer in 2007 – the iPhone. 

 

On June 29, 2007, Apple’s launched its first iPhone. Although it wasn’t the first smartphone, it managed to outperform its competition so heavily that a mobile revolution ensued. It changed the game.

“This is a day I’ve been looking forward to for two and a half years,” said Steve Jobs on the day of the launch. 

 

After 11 years in the market, Apple had recorded 2.2 billion units sold. It is a series of smartphones that is capable of doing many things a computer can do, but small enough to be carried around in your hand. The whole idea for this phone came into being when Jobs was trying to combine the features of an iPod with that of a phone and computer.

The awesome combination of design, power, multimedia features, and the AppStore catapulted the iPhone to success. Because of its multifunctionality, it became very popular with consumers.  

Here are some major influences of the iPhone and how it has changed our daily lives.   

Touch Screen

Entering a Blackberry-dominated era, who would have thought that this touch-screen device would take off like a rocket. Jobs made a very daring move that took the world by a storm. His innovation made traditional keyboard smartphones obsolete. Other smartphone companies followed the trend and these days, you’ll find touchscreens on every phone and tablet. 

A touchscreen is a computer screen that responds to touch. The touchscreen makes it so much more convenient to browse, use apps, play games, and so much more. By not having a physical keyboard, it doesn’t waste any space, giving you a huge area for the screen. 

One Device for Everything

Before the iPhone landed in the market, people had to go through the hassle of carrying multiple devices. It was typical to see a person with a cellphone for making calls, iPod or MP3 player for music, and a laptop for work. But today, you can do these three things with just the iPhone.

Not to mention, the camera feature. Back then, people would bring their digital cameras around. But with the iPhone and its decent camera quality, you no longer need a camera. The coverage of its features is so broad, you literally need just one device for everything.     

Internet Browsing

This is yet another feature that already existed, but the iPhone made obvious improvements that changed the experiences of its users and the way we do things. Back then, you might recall being able to browse the Internet on earlier smartphones. However, the experience was never the same as using a laptop. 

This Apple device paved the way to better browsing and instant information. If we quickly need to search something, we no longer have to wait to get on a laptop. We just need to reach in our pockets and open Google on our phones.   

Video Recording

Speaking of obsolescence, the iPhone pretty much had the same effect on the handheld camcorder. When cameras were first installed on phones, it was already a big deal. And then the iPhone took it a step further when it came with a built-in video recorder. The quality is so good that some people don’t even use their camcorders anymore. 

The fact that we’re able to so easily record moments has also led to the wide use of videos. Social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok have been on the rise with more and more demands for video content around the world. It is a common past time to post videos and stories.   

Selfies

It is pure speculation that the term “selfie” was coined by some Aussie guy. It is the slang word for a self-portrait digital photograph taken with a digital camera or smartphone. Although selfies have long existed, the term and practice only grew in popularity in 2010 when Apple launched the iPhone. It was yet another breakthrough in the sphere of innovation. 

The iPhone 4 featured a front-facing camera, which made it easier for people to take selfies. With the camera facing the front, you could see the angle at which you were taking the photo. Today, all phones feature this type of camera. Love them or hate them, selfies are here to stay.  

Apps

Not only a game-changer, but the iPhone also gave birth to a completely new industry – apps. With the Apple AppStore, it digitally distributed applications that users could install on their phones. Today, you can find apps for almost everything. 

 

The app industry is worth billions of dollars. Major tech companies such as Facebook partially owe their success to this. Apps are just another way our lives have changed for the better due to innovation. 

Made Apple one of the most valuable companies

Prior to the launch of the iPhone, Apple’s sales in 2006 hit close to $20 billion all thanks to the iPod and Mac. Ten years later, and you’ll see how the revenue has increased tenfold. If you break down the sales, most of it is due to the success of the iPhone. See the chart below. 

 

In 2016, after 9 years circulating in the market, Apple’s revenues have reached a whopping $216 billion. 63% of this is attributed to the iPhone.  

Opened doors for the Android ecosystem

The existence of the iPhone has led to many good things. Apart from apps, the Android ecosystem has also been on the rise. Companies that used to dominate such as Nokia and Blackberry are barely heard of these days. You have other emerging giants such as Samsung who are benefitting from the courage of Jobs. 

With iPhone’s prices much higher than the rest, the market share is being stolen by cheaper competition. 

 

Other Innovations

The iPhone was and still is a mega-hit. It is by far Jobs’ most successful innovation to date. Years after his passing, the iPhone legacy still lives on. As of 2020, there have been 11 versions of the smartphone with a new series being launched almost every year. But besides this revolutionary smartphone, this innovative genius was also responsible for other amazing products.

iPod

Launched in 2001, consumers shifted their attention from MP3 players, Discmans, and Walkmans to the iPod. It is widely recognized as the first user-friendly portable music device. Synced with the Apple iTunes store, users were able to purchase and load hundreds of songs in a single tiny device. 

iPad

After the massive success of the iPhone, came the iPad. Its inspiration came from the smartphone and Jobs wanted to create the first touchscreen tablet without a keyboard. A cross between laptops and the iPhone, this innovative product also spurred the development of a new industry. Competitors followed and consumers benefitted from fierce competition. 

MacBook Air


When the first Macbook Air was launched, consumers were shocked to see that the CD-ROM had been discarded. But this again shows how forward-thinking Steve Jobs was. He was a visionary that could see things changing before anyone else could. A few years down the road and we’ve all stopped using CDs. Launched in January 2008, the Air was so thin and light. Not only beautiful and sleek in terms of design, but it was powerful enough to do most of your work. The best part was being able to carry your laptop around in your bag like a feather. 

Pixar

Many of you might not know this, but Jobs made a very wise investment in 1986. He bought over Lucasfilms’ Computer Graphic Division for $5 million and later renamed it to Pixar. It wasn’t until the success of Toy Story in 1995 that this animations company made a name for itself. And in 2006 after creating a new animation industry in Hollywood, Jobs sold Pixar to Disney for a whopping $7.4 billion.  

 

With all his visionary inventions and accomplishments, it is no doubt that he was miles ahead of everyone. When the iPhone launched and many people thought he was crazy for removing the keyboard, Jobs was fearless. He continued to chase after the things he believed in.

The successful college dropout had this amazing ability to enter existing industries and take control, quickly evolving into the market leader. His ideas and motivation to change the world revolutionized the way we do things, often creating a new industry on its own.     

Bonus: Interesting facts

 

He was a Zen Buddhist

Jobs traveled to India in 1974 in search of spiritual enlightenment. He was known to practice meditation often, didn’t eat meat, and loved to walk around barefoot. 

He ripped off his partner Steve Wozniak

During his time in Atari, Jobs and Wozniak built a circuit board for the video game Breakout. Atari had asked the pair to use fewer chips in the device and beyond their imagination, they succeeded in doing so. After completing the project, Atari paid Jobs $5000, but he told Wozniak that he only received $700. The two split the profits and Wozniak got his share of $350. It wasn’t until years later that his partner found out he was ripped off so badly. 

He was fired from Apple

Jobs recruited Pepsi executive John Sculley to be the CEO of Apple. After Sculley convinced the board that Jobs was too young, he was fired from Apple in 1985. 

He made Google change the yellow shade in the letter “o” 

With his incredible attention to detail, Jobs called Vic Gundotra, the former VP of Google. He explained to him that the second “o” had the wrong shade of yellow and that he intended to fix it. 

He experimented with psychedelics

Jobs’ drug of choice was LSD and he claimed that it helped him to think differently. His trips were profound experiences that helped with his creativity and innovation.

 

 

 

Community

 

Congratulations on reaching the end!

Check out our podcast Impact Talks, where you can listen to high-profile experts from various backgrounds!

Join our Facebook Group Community with over 4,700 entrepreneurs, innovators, and creators by Startup Funding Event, where you get access to free live training, daily Q&As, design templates to get your business started, and support from the SFE team. Join here!