One thing that I don't think anybody really talks about kind of touchy-feely but every single successful person I know has a story like I feel like I can rule the world. I know what I could be what I want to say and I want to do a short episode that is about one specific topic Believers. So a lot of Founders I know are interested in getting investors getting advisors.
I'm sure you get hit up a lot in your email for either. Hey, will you invest in this we advise in this so I think everybody needs somebody in their career usually in your early 20s that believes in you more than you believe in yourself at the time. They they just have an irrational belief. You're a penny stock, but they see you as a blue chip and they want to buy up all your stock and they do that by spending time with you by spending effort with you. Sometimes investing you sometimes advise you but it's not the advice that's not the money that actually now in hindsight when you look back because what matters
The thing that really mattered was this person believed in you more than you believe in yourself at the time and that they were they almost trick you into believing in yourself or to just going for it and overcoming that initial like hesitation or doubts to just get going to we're finally your evidence will start to catch up and eventually you're fueled by your evidence and you're fueled by a you know, your own self belief. All right. It's like jumping jump starting a car. There's people you like for do that. I've got you know, I've never talked to you about this. I know a couple of you
Want my life said this I want to hear. Did you have
this I had this with a couple people. First of all my wife I felt like she was like doing the same thing when I met her she was like picking stocks and she picked a good one. I hope yeah, I had to the first one was Scott belsky. So Scott belsky currently is the chief product officer of adobe soon to be CEO, I think and he's probably a billionaire because he's has started and sold a bunch of companies and I called the emailed him when I first started my company the hustle asking him to invest and he said no,
And then about six or eight weeks later. I was on our daily email and I got an email from him in particular when I was having a horrible day and he goes these emails are just so good. I have to join and he gave me like 15 thousand dollars or something like that and I only met with Scott in person one time and like because Scott has always been he was a big deal back then he's an even bigger deal now and he had one meeting with me where he taught me that I had never heard the word Steward, you know Steward like you are.
A steward of this cap. I do you are a steward of the bran and he gave me this pump up talk and he's like you are so like I could tell you were going to be a steward of the hustle and a steward of my money and everyone else's money your customers you have this in and I remember thinking it changed my life the fact that Scott fucking belski believed to be able to use this word Stewart. I was so into it. The second person was Tim Ferriss, so I have told the story before but basically I met Tim Ferriss because he lived near me in San Francisco and we would walk on
Dogs at the same time and just talk about neighborhood stuff. Well a few weeks after we first started talking I get an email from Tim saying hey, I know what the hustle is. It looks really cool. Could we meet and get dinner and I can ask you a little bit about email because I want to start a newsletter and I said, yeah sure let's do it man. And so we go out to dinner and in our neighborhood and I get down to sit at dinner and he goes, oh, you are the dog owners guy like you are the same guy and I was like, yeah, man what's going on? Because I never told him what I did for work when we would walk our dogs together because I wanted him to think.
I don't want to bother him because he was like a celebrity to me and I don't want to ruin that relationship and it was awesome. The fact that this guy like wanted to meet with me and I was like what you guys are doing is so smart. So Innovative and I was like, it's not that interesting. He's like no it is any like bought into me and he believed in me and that was such a big deal to me that he gave me the time of day just even just a dinner. It was like game-changing when I was like, I'm the man. I'm the man. I'm the best like there is no one better than me and I had that like energy because of those two
meetings.
Hey real quick, you know one of the cool Parts about what we're doing is that people have reached out and told me that they've built actual Million Dollar business has made their first million often idea. They heard on the show. That is crazy. That's wild. That's why we want to do the show and we want to see more of that one of the questions we get asked over and over again is is there some kind of idea database or spreadsheet where we list out all the different business ideas that we've talked about. Well, the answer is finally. Yes, the fine folks at HubSpot have dug through the archive and pulled out 50 plus business ideas and put them into a business idea.
Databases totally free go to click Hub spot.com / M FM and get the database view. All right now back to the show. And did you use that as I guess I could it was it just like a temporary high that that Fades, you know, 30 minutes later or do you feel like that planted some kind of seed in you it planted a seed because then I would look at Scott and Tim's other endeavors, you know, they did some amazing stuff and it felt good. You know how when you go to a website and you see someone who puts your logo on their website
To brag that they use you you got to like HubSpot.com and like Nike it says like Nike use and I felt so much. I felt so much gratitude that I was one of the logos on their websites. Do you know what I mean? And I remember like taking that Mike looks like this person picks a bunch of winners and I happen to be part of this basket. I feel honored and so I you would use that for a long time of like go to his crunchbase profile. He lists the hustle as an investment. I remember thinking like I was so special and I use that for fuel for a long time.
That's a that's a great story. Have you done that for anyone else? Do you think
yeah look you and I you and I have done it together on this podcast when we call people out and I think like for example Michael from our future this kid who was probably 20 years old when he cold email the you and I to make videos for us and we loved his energy but I think that like you and I both bought into him a little bit more like your energy so good or same with Dylan and Henry like yeah, I think you and I have done it together who bought in who bought yours.
So I'll give you three quick examples. The first one is a woman named Lisa keister. Lisa keister is a professor at Duke where she was at the time. I have no idea what she's doing now is a good reminder to look up and drop a note. I took a class my last year at Duke. I was a pre-med student. I had taken the mcats. I was ready to go to med school in my last semester. I said I should take a class of my two best friends crazy. We're friends through college. We live together. We never taken a class together and we decided let's take the easiest class. We can't I was so burned out from taking from studying for the mcats. I just wanted something that was like the easiest class.
We looked it up on Rate My Professor I calm and it was like easiest class is a class called getting rich.
It sounds good good good title
and she was just click baiting us. Like it was a personal finance and Entrepreneurship class, but getting rich sounds a lot better and she was a woman who she had a crazy story. She graduated from duke with a degree in Mandarin because that's what she was interested in. She just followed what she was interested in and she remembers she told us she's like, I remember at the time feeling completely clueless what the hell I'm supposed to do with my life because all my friends were going to law school banking whatever I didn't want to do those but
It felt like school was just giant like pipe that just dumped you out in New York or LA or San Francisco in one of these tracks and I wasn't on one of the tracks and I felt bad about myself and I realized like, you know people like what the hell you gonna do with this Mandarin degree and they're like good luck with that and she's like I bet I can figure something out in China, but it's so she just moves to China One Way Ticket ends up building a great business. They're connecting Chinese companies with American companies because she spoke both languages. Anyway, she got super rich in the process retires by 30 comes.
Back due to teach and so the reason she bet on me or believed in me early what she was not an investor. She really wasn't even an advisor. She was a Believer we had this terrible idea to start a sushi restaurant chain. We were like, why isn't there a Chipotle for sushi and we were like, we'll do it, even though we had no restaurant experience on Sushi experience on nothing and everybody. I talked to every adult every grown-up that I looked up to was basically like restaurants equal fail doing a start-up versus going to med school like, I don't know man, like are you sure?
I'd like you just got to get you just got it and got accepted in like you should just go and she was the only one who was like this sounds awesome. You guys should totally that you could totally do this and at the time I took that as she believes in our idea, we have a good idea.
And I wish I could say that she believed in us, but she didn't even really know us that well, she was actually just such a big believer that like if you just do the most interesting thing and like the most exciting thing and ambitious thing for you and your life at the moment shit works out. She was just a believer in the path or than even us but at the time I interpreted it as she thinks we can we're gonna win she thinks this is a good idea and that this is going to work and so even false belief will work a little fuel your engine for a while.
Not only false believe but just her one.
Conversation with you, which she does not remember and at the time she was like what I'm saying? Is that important. This is no big deal and conversations like that. Make such a big impact every once in a while. They don't even
like when your kid draws something and then they show it to you and it looks horrible but you're like, this is awesome. Oh my god. Did you how did you think of this or like whatever like are those two colors as a because of this and you make them feel like they're a fucking artist. She did that for me except I was 18 years old. I was 22 years old or something 21 years old.
And seemed looked at my shitty business plan and she was like, that's awesome. You could totally do this and I fueled me and so Lisa keeps was the first one and she it was genuine. By the way. There was no like BSN it I think she genuinely had that level of enthusiasm and excitement about it and it was contagious. It cannot be faked when somebody's genuinely excited for you.
Hey, so you're listening to a business podcast, which means you probably like business and you like podcasts and because of that I've got another business.
Podcasting you check out its called marketing made simple and its host is dr. J Peterson again marketing Made Simple marketing Made Simple brings you practical tips to make your marketing easy and more importantly make it work. One of the episodes that I think you need to check out. It's called a get your audience from don't care to buy now with better copy and he basically just breaks down all the biggest mistakes that most marketers make when it comes to the audience in respect to copy, which is obviously a topic I love and I talked all about so you guys see a check it out marketing Made Simple.
You can get it wherever you find your
podcast the second person was this guy named John Pendergrass. So we got into some accelerator. You're supposed to get assigned with a mentor which is like the most fake way. You can get a mentors like it gets assigned to you and this guy put in a request. He goes I want these guys and it was because he himself, although now he was doing some fin tech company his first business was he was a franchisee of Boston Market and he was like, oh these guys are doing a restaurant thing I can help them out.
And he helped us out in two ways. The first was he gave us real talk. So he took us into a we came to his office and he was like, so what's the plan we told the whole business I will give the pitch. We'd practice a million times. Then he goes is this you're going to work or not? It just him asking us that way like Jarred me and I was like, I have no idea which is like not what you're supposed to say when you're pitching or investors or employees or anybody really so let's just say, of course, it's going to work. Here's the research years the studies. Here's why this plan I was like dude. I have no idea and he goes so you probably shouldn't sign a lease.
He's attending on that personal guarantee a 10-year lease, right? If you don't know if this Concepts gonna work is it feels how can you figure out if the concepts could work? You just ask a better question like instead of where should we launched? Like what what what location should we go for he's like, how do you figure out if this is even worth doing it people want this and he got us thinking he got us to eventually do like a cloud kitchen and so he helped us that way, but the thing he did afterwards is much more valuable after we so he talked to us for about an hour.
And yeah, the bad news was we were done. The good news is we knew we were dumb whereas there is a lot of 21 year olds who are dumb but they think they are smart. We had the one asset which was we thought we were pretty dumb and so when somebody told us a good idea or somebody seems smarter than us. We actually like took them up on it. And so he told us to do these three things or think about these three things. So we just immediately went and did those three things and then four days later we were like, hey John we did those four things. Here's what we learned. Here's what we're gonna do next. And so he was like, these are great which is
Now that I'm in the position where sometimes I give people advice that never happens like it seemed like the obvious thing to do but actually that rarely ever happens rarely do people ask a question genuinely want the answer then take it to good advice and act on it and come back and say here's what happened. They close the loop and say here's what happened. Here's what we're going to do next and so he wrote this blog post and what he said in the blog post. I don't believe was true at all at the time. But dude that was like a gust of wind in our sails. He goes I met these founders
Hers, and I've met a lot of Founders probably 100 Founders and I've given a lot of advice he goes these guys. They took what I said they act on it immediately violently and he goes one of the most important thing for an entrepreneur is a high bias for Action. He goes in these guys in named us and he goes they have the highest bias for action of anyone. I've met in the last 10 years. I didn't even know that phrase kind of be like you're talking about Steward. Like I didn't even her bias for Action. That was not a phrase I've ever heard, but I was like fucking put that label on my back. That's me. Now II
A blank canvas before that. I was an empty vessel and him giving me that label became kind of like calling cards like you I don't I don't know what the right action but what the right answer is, but I know that how I do things is I have a high bias for Action. So I'm just going to take a shit ton of action and I'll figure things out that way and so he gave us like a real gift in that moment, which was again, not really true, but it didn't matter. It was like true in my mind and therefore he gave me something to strive towards which reminds me of your belski story.
So check this out. So Joe.
John is a an entrepreneur. I guess he I think as a podcast to I found I won't say too much about I don't know if people see us. I found an old Shawn website that is basically your resume and on your website and on this website, it has references and you've got one from John I would bet on these guys in almost anything. They have the highest bias to action of any entrepreneurs. I've met in the past few years and it links off to this.
Posts that he wrote about you, which is insane in the blog post. He has a conversation that you guys had together and it's pretty funny
exactly. So he is so that was the second one and the third one is Michael Birch Michael Birch. He was the guy who was what I wanted to be. He was still convey Ali billionaire built multiple successful companies was living the life had a cool office in San Francisco and I came I moved to San Francisco to work with him. And so I worked with them and eventually he ended up promoting.
To me. He was the CEO at the time. I was a junior guy in the company was 24 years old probably youngest guy in the company and he actually promoted me to see which is insane. This is you know to like a 18 person company at the time and it wasn't that he promoted me is it was the speech he gave he goes it took me off site and I thought I was getting fired because that's what I had seen in movies is they take you like out to coffee because they want to like shoot you in the head out there not cause a scene in the office. So I texted my mom I was like, oh no he wants to meet off-site like I'll be home for lunch. You know, it's over. I had a good run.
Fine, but I get whatever I was doing. They're making it up as I went. I did something wrong.
All right, so listen to how ridiculous this is, so I remember in the 90s when I used to go to dinner with my family. I was just a kid and you get to the hostess stand and she would say something like do want to be in the smoking or non-smoking section and we look back at that. Now we think that is ridiculous. I cannot believe that existed. Well, I often ask myself that question now which is in 20 years. What am I going to look back? And it's going to be sort of like the smoking versus non-smoking section question and that my friends is why I love
Love the a 16z podcast. They look at how technology is changing so quickly and how you can stay on top of it. The podcast is put on by VC firm Andreessen Horowitz is one of the best firms out there in the world. And so they're able to see all this amazing information that people like you and I we don't normally get access to and I love hearing steps depending on it. So they look at topics like autonomous vehicles the science behind drugs, like I was epic and things like that and the security behind LMS and how it's on all of our devices and whether we should be freaked out or not. So
Get out. It's called the a 16z podcast. It's hosted by Steph Smith. One of my favorite people on Earth again the a 16z podcast you can find it wherever you get your podcast. He sat me down and said his
wife and he goes, you know when you meet somebody sometimes you just know and I think he's talked about his wife and he goes I bet a lot of people Silicon Valley. I know now a win somebody special and they're going to do something special in their career because you're either going to do it here or elsewhere. So I'm going to give you the keys have you do it here and I was blown away, you know, it was like
Like astrology reading like it didn't mean anything there was no evidence. There was no logic there was no explanation. No rationale, but him just saying, you know, you're going to do something special. Yeah that fucking fueled bi I didn't like failed for like 60 or straight right after that which felt horrible because this guy believed in me and I just felt like I couldn't deliver this like, you know billion dollar company that I was supposed to but
that fueled me for a very long time dude this more than anything inspires me to give these speeches to other people.
Yeah, I'm wishing willy-nilly baby. Everybody's getting the fortune cookie for me from now on.
Can I just tell you one of the funnier things that I've seen this week? So on Sean's this looks like Sean is like a year out of college on our he's 24 years old on your website, which I assume is your resume. Basically you have your height and weight listed so it says Sean
Hurry, 24 years old six foot 165 167 pounds of pure hustle. Ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Yeah, dude. I didn't know how to Twisted Twisted steel
and sex appeal like you just like you've listed your your height and weight on your resume and he said I live on a stage Running on Fumes and I'm gonna take big risks. Oh my God, that is so funny.
When you're the greatest founder in the world, they don't
Call you the greatest outer they call you Sean. Poori. All right, I didn't know how to make a resume. I didn't know what you're supposed to do. So I just like thought from first trench. Like what would I do at a it was it's like half NBA draft Scouting Report like my height my weight. I did it. You can see it on there. I did a thing. That was like you'll probably see this. I did like skills bar like an NBA 2K where it's like this person is a good at three point shooting bad at dunking like and I remember I did this.
The guy in the interview was like so I looked at your resume if we're going to call it that and he goes up hard work is only like halfway full like what? Why would you why would you say that? You don't work hard? That's like well true. That's why
not dude a lot of your stuff is accurate. By the way. He does have 24 that so over 10 years ago. Negotiations was high design medium programming nothing.
NG public speaking almost 100 out of 100 you had attributes son. You you knew exactly what me you're on point right out of high. This is such a funny website. This is so funny. Yeah organization under 50, like on the scale of 0 to 100 my organizations of 40. That's true. You know that where's my hard work like my heart work ethic? OK I give us a like 70, whereas like, you know improvisation. I can resolve a 90. This is how I can accurate at least I did.
Told no lies. This
is so funny. And then you have like a collage of all the stuff but it says hot off the press and has it's a collage of all the times that you've been mentioned and media. This is awesome. It's actually cool to see I bet you a lot of absolute listen to this we should go and I did because when I did that my final
interview with the the billionaire he scroll down to the bottom. I had this little like motivational poster looking thing. I mean, it's all cringe now dude, like let's let's get their cringe. This is all very Creek Ranch what I'm like, it's like proud cringe like when you look back in your life.
Like oh that was a geeky in high school. But like, you know this kids going places. That's why but I felt like I was going twice and I had one thing on here that they got reference. I she was like, you know why I like to resume the very last line under things had don't believe your own bullshit. I like that and that like resonated with the you know, the billionaire and I was like, oh man, I was just throwing shit at the wall. This whole thing was like a hundred possible things that might resonate your like I actually did believe my own bullshit and it works like I hear from all this shit.
And it got me here. That's awesome. I like liking this website. By the way. Yeah Believers versus advisors. I'm on board could be a believer for somebody and if somebody believes in you, it's a good reminder today to hit him up and thanked for it. That's a that's that's the takeaway here. That's it. I feel like I can rule the world. I know what I could be what I want to
