Thank you, everyone. Basically, every time
I've spoken on stage, I've pretty much spoken
with a very close friend of mine, Ryan Deiss.
He was actually here for Zentrepreneur. Great
guy, very, very talented, and every time he
does a conference he calls me up and, "Hey,
will you come just hang out?" "Sure." And
then I come and the day before he's like,
"Hey, can you come speak about this?" And
because I'm on the stage with him, it's just
basically talking to one of my best friends,
and so I do. The last time I did, he called
me up, it was a traffic conversion. It was
2000 people. He's like, "Yeah, can you come
talk about the mobile industry for an hour?"
"All right." That's like asking someone, "Can
you come talk about the Internet for an hour?"
That's Ryan by the way.
And so, today is the first time actually speaking
without him for a very long time, so kind
of brought him along with me, kind of like
my training wheels. So, this part is for me
and the rest is all for you. Because, actually,
being on stage by myself scared the crap out
of me. I haven't done it in so long and I
have this rule that if something scares me,
there's magic on the other side. And that's
the only way to experience magic is, like,
when something just scares you from inside
but you know it's like a tingling scary, you
gotta go do it. You gotta jump off that cliff.
That's every time I've had great things happen
to my life, when I felt the fear and I jumped
off. I mean, I've fallen off cliffs sometimes,
you know, I'll be honest, and got my bruises.
But I tell you, half the time you sprout wings.
It is the best thing ever. So, here I am sprouting
new wings in front of you. So, thank you for
this.
Actually, I've thought a lot about this talk
because this isn't about me telling you about
mobile industry or venture capital or crowdfunding
or all that stuff that I could just talk in
my sleep. This is about, you know, how to
be our best selves. And I was thinking, "What
is the one thing..." and actually Noah Kagan
reminded me of this, another great guy who
is here, "What is the one thing I can share
that has really made all the difference in
my life?" If I was to look back at the arc
of my life, what is the one thing that if
I could just pass along that advice, just
like sharing, that has made all the difference
is this, okay? And I'll use [inaudible 00:02:14]
as an example.
So, we're all here, we're meeting amazing
people, we're listening to amazing speakers,
and I'm not a believer in inspiration, you
know, I live in silicon valley, we're all
very results and metrics focused. I am a believer
in transformation. So, we're meeting all these
people, we're listening to all these great
speakers and we are learning. But I would
say if you can, in these four or five days,
if you can find one thing that speaks to you,
just one thing and pick it. Something that
just really feels right or tingles or whatever,
however you judge it, and just make it your
own. It's like you commit to it, you gotta
commit. Write it on a piece of paper, you
just commit that I am going to be this. I'm
owning it. Whether it's fitness, health, gratitude,
entrepreneurship, loving yourself, whatever.
Just go all in. Take that piece of paper,
write it down, put it somewhere you can see
it, but that's just half of the equation.
You got to do the work.
You can't just sit there and visualize it.
You got to do the work. Just commit. Burn
the ships behind you, and I will bet you,
by the time the new year's come, your life
will be different. It'll be transformed. Every
time I've done this in any part of my life,
in anything in my career, it has really made
all the difference. So, you know, I was actually
talking with the very well known editor, Nils
Parker. He's edited a bunch of New York Times
bestsellers. We were talking about the power
of sharing your story, because it's like,
it doesn't do any good to tell anyone, "Hey,
listen, I'm at the top of the mountain. And
this is really awesome being at the top of
the mountain." What it is, is, "This is how
I started, this is the path I took, these
are all the roads I took and fell and did
all of this, and this is how I got on top."
And because then you actually show others
the way, and hopefully, they can avoid the
pitfalls that you did.
So, I want to tell you a story about my friend
Joanna, and I don't know if she'll be horrified
that I'm telling everyone about this or not.
I'll check with her afterwards. She's one
of my dearest, dearest friends, this amazing,
tall, beautiful, striking blonde, full of
life, big heart, incredibly smart entrepreneur.
She was also a national champion rower and
she was in the FBI, and she used to train
the Afghan police, the Iraqi police, you know,
imagine this tall blonde teaching this really
male culture, the police there, right? She
used to take the toughest assignments and
now...and she's only like early thirties if
that, I can never tell, I think she's in her
twenties but given what she's done, I think
she's early thirties. And now, she's a CEO
in Silicon Valley building this great company
and she has people who get seven-figure offers
turn them down to go work for her for 100
grand, because they want to be a part of what
she's doing. And this is what makes Joanna...I
mean, she's just amazing, right?
So, she and I are having dinner in San Francisco
about four, five months ago in this Chinese
restaurant and she's sitting against the wall
and I'm facing her and we're talking. And
she tells me, out of the blue, we're talking
about our lives and things that have really
formed us who we are. And she tells me that
when she was 24, she had a heart attack and
she died for seven minutes. I was like, "Okay."
And so, like, I lean forward, I got to ask,
"What happened?" And she goes, "I don't remember."
She was in a coma afterwards, you know, they
brought her out of it, and she was in this
bubble, like, she was like the bubble boy
for like a month.
And Joanna being Joanna was just working away
in the bubble and... But she said, "You know
what changed there was after that, everything
I've wanted in my life, like, anything, whether
it's love, how she met her husband, her career,
whatever she wants to do, it just happens.
It comes to her. So, I'm like, "All right,"
you know, I'm like, "I don't want to have
to die to get there." I'm like, "How do you
do it?" And she goes, "Well," she leans forward
and she goes, "You're gonna think I'm crazy,
but what if this is heaven?" And then she
leans back. And it was like, you ever seen
the movies, like, the camera just spans back
and things get really slow. And I was like,
"Oh my God."
And I swear there was a homeless man, you
know, behind in the window. He kind of winks
at me and I'm going...It was like, "Oh my
God." Like for a few moments, I got it. Imagine
the irony of that. She's like, "Yeah, what
if this is heaven?" Like, she's like, "I died,
how can I prove I'm not on the other side?
So, because this is heaven, given what heaven
is about, I can have, be, and do anything
I want." And she's living that. So, you know,
that's an attitude that I've seen with her
and a lot, like, not... I'm gonna separate
successful people and fulfilled people. Because
I know people who are insanely wealthy and
I know people insanely wealthy and are happy
and fulfilled. Those are the ones I want to
be like. Those are the ones who are my mentors.
And for all of them I've noticed one pattern,
including her, that whatever happens, it's
never like this is happening to me. They all
look at life as life is happening for them.
Whatever is happening, they fall down, they
lick their wounds, they get up, but this always
makes them be better.
And they've internalized this attitude. And
it is an attitude. None of us, like, all of
us are trying to live this. None of us are
unique in that since we're all humans, right?
The same minds walking around with the same
dramas and same, you know, fears. But that
attitude that life happens for her, I have
noticed consistently in all the best people
I've ever met in my life. So, my story. I
never set out to be an entrepreneur. I'm not
one of those natural, you know, selling lemonade
when I was four, unlike Noah Kagan, Neil Patel,
those guys are natural entrepreneurs. They're
two of the best entrepreneurs I've ever met.
What I did, if I can say that the smartest
thing I did, was I moved out to a place where
all the best entrepreneurs in the world went.
I moved to Silicon Valley. I moved out there,
I knew nothing, I just jumped off that cliff,
showed up there and just managed to join a
startup, and I helped build that company,
that company ended up going public. It's actually
still one of the few from that time that's
still around. And so, I got to ride that big
wave and just learn along the way. And, you
know, where I live in San Francisco, you can't
throw a rock without hitting someone who's
running a startup as an app or who's looking
for funding.
Like, my doctor, my primary care physician
left his practice last year to start a startup.
It's like your waiter starting startups, everybody
starting startups. So, like, if you move there,
you're going to start a startup. But odds
are you'll get funding too because you know
everyone. That is actually another great secret.
If you want to be fit, don't surround yourself
with people who want to be fit. Surround yourself
with people who are insanely fit. You will
just step up. Surround yourself around entrepreneurs,
you will become one.
And now I'm very good at it, but I'm not good
at it because it's natural to me. I'm good
at it because I'm surrounded by the very best.
So I can't help but step up, otherwise, I'll
be left behind. And we all have egos and none
of us want to be left behind. So, with this
company that went public, after that, I got
kind of well known for being able to do certain
things and I went consulting for CEOs of big
companies and I started more companies that
some failed, some didn't. And so, by the world's
standards, you know, I've had some success
and I thought I had success, but it was very,
like, there was a lot of ego there in all
honesty.
And my last company that I started, that was
going to be my big thing, that was going to
be my last one. That was going to be like,
you know, the island money or what we in the
valley call, excuse me, "Fuck you money."
And that's all ego by the way, right? And
I was, you know, but that's where I was. And
I built it from scratch and I decided I wasn't
going to take any funding, self-funded it,
you know, and put everything into it. I was
going to transform an industry and it finally
started to take off, this crazy idea I had,
and it was really working. And then investors
jumped in because I wanted to build it out
bigger than... I was running out of money
and...but it didn't matter because I knew
what the potential of that thing was.
And I'll tell you something interesting. In
the beginning, I used to motivate my team
and everybody about how we were going to transform
an industry. By the end, I was motivating
them by how much money we were going to make.
See that difference? Can you see that I would
make different choices as a CEO, I would choose
different partners. Can you guess what happened?
Right. The thing blew up. I mean it blew up.
It was messy. It blew up horribly, right?
I lost everything. I was in debt, I lost my
friends' money I had firmly invested and I
lost all their money, and because my ego was
attached to it, I blew up with it.
I got insanely sick. My relationships fell
apart. I was bedridden. The doctors were throwing
diagnoses at me that were very scary, like,
"Pack your bags to your mortality" kind of
diagnosis. And I tell you, if I was depressed,
that was a good day. I was just...you know,
I thought about suicide, you know the works.
Yeah, I was in a bad place. And I remember
one morning I woke up and I was like, "I can't
do this anymore. I'm getting out of this,
or I'm dying trying, but I'm done." So, I
staggered over my journal on my desk and I
write down, I don't know where it came from,
but I wrote on a vow. You know, that one thing,
committing to one thing, I wrote down a vow
that I'm going to love myself.
I'm going to fully commit every thought, every
action, every feeling, every moment I'm conscious,
I'm going to love myself. And I sat back,
I was like, "Okay, where did that come from?"
First, and second, "Oh shit, I made a vow."
So I gotta, like, figure this out. I got to
figure out how to love myself because, you
know, it's not something they teach you in
school or you learn in Silicon Valley. But
so I set about to do it and I started meditating
and working my mind and doing things. And
what worked I kept it and went deeper, what
didn't work I threw it out. And here's the
thing, within a few weeks I was fine. I got
my health back. All right? Things started
working out.
I was happy, like, depression was a fond memory,
right? But here's the thing I did not expect.
My life got better. Things I had no control
over, people came into my life, situations
came, opportunities came. I could never have
reached out. It was purely because all I did
was commit to loving myself and I went all
in. I was going to love myself or die trying.
And everything changed. Right? So, now, it's
very interesting. Oh, before we get to that
point, the book. So, I used to share what
I did with people and it really helped them,
so a lot of them were like, "Hey listen, you
need to write about it." So, basically to
shut them up I wrote this little book, it's
like 8,000 words. Really, just 8,000 words.
No publisher would have published it, I self-published
it. I figured there'd be 10 copies sold, eight
of them I would buy to give him to my friends
and be done and... Really. And I was so shy
about it.
Silicon Valley, you don't talk about loving
yourself. Right? And the book's called, "Love
yourself like your life depends on it," and
within five weeks, it was the number one self-help
book on Amazon. No marketing, I mean, really
hiding, not telling anyone... You know how
they talk about things going viral? The book
went viral. That book has gone on and sells
more copies than a lot of New York Times bestsellers.
It just continues selling and selling. And
I get emails every day from people, like,
you know, this changed their life, this stopped
them committing suicide, like, all these groups
use it. That changed my life.
What's different now is that, and because
of that, it's insane. I have success now in
different things, but I have a different kind
of success. Fulfillment. Because I realized,
what did I do with the book? All I did was
I expressed my true self. Full on open, "This
is who I am, this is how I have screwed up,
this is how I got out of it, and this is how
anyone can replicate it." You know, all I
did was, I mean, the only secret there is
I put like a little piece of my heart in every
word. That's it. Anyone can do that, right?
And whatever they do, you can put your heart
into it and be your full on self, and that's
it.
And so, now, I'm... Silicon Valley, I run
a successful venture fund, I write books,
my books do very well. I get asked to come
speak at events like this. You know, I don't
need to buy an island. I'm on an island. I'm
meeting great people, right? This is better.
Who wants to be alone on an island. And my
only rules now, and because I get lots of
opportunities, I'm in a great place in my
life, but I only take up people I love. Only
people I love. I will do anything for them.
And, you know, just I will only work with
people I love. I get opportunities to plenty
of people who want to invest in my fund, I
turn them down if something about them doesn't
seem right, "I'm sorry, I don't need your
money," because money is energy, and you know.
Money, funny enough, when you start being
your real self is the easiest thing in the
world. You just stop worrying and it just
comes.
I know everyone says it, but there is a couple
of keys to it. The other one is that whatever
I do is an expression of me. Everyone has
things that are full an expression of them.
Writing, I would do if I was stuck in a deserted
island. I would write in my head because I
love sharing knowledge. Whatever I learn,
I just want to share it. And the fund, I love
helping entrepreneurs. And this is a very
lucrative way of helping entrepreneurs. So,
and it's just me. It's stuff I would do whether
I had money or not. And it just comes, and
that's like the simple secret, right?
So, I don't necessarily believe in success
anymore. I'm surrounded by insanely successful
people, but I also know their dark sides and
I also like know my dark sides. So, like,
what I just care about is fulfillment. And
there's basically four things that matter
in fulfillment, and which includes worldly
success. First is it's gotta be pure expression
of yourself, whatever that is. And, you know,
people talk about finding your passion. For
me, this is a definition, just what is you?
And I think that actually helps people when
they're trying to find their passion. Just
what is an expression of you? That's it. The
second, this is actually easy. If it's an
expression of you, you got to give your all
because you know when you're holding back,
you know. We can be our best friends and our
worst critics, and this way you can be your
best friend and give your all to something
that's naturally you.
The third one is the one where I've actually
seen a lot of talented people stop. Whatever
you create, you got to put it out to the world.
You know, I could have written that book and
I could have just, you know, just sent the
word doc to my eight friends to shut them
up, and that would've been it, right? But
it would not have created magic in my life.
I had the fears. It scared me. I mean, putting
that book out scared the crap out of me. I
lost a lot of sleep for many...even my second
one. It scared me even more, you know, but
that's how I know that there's magic on the
other side.
The magic is when you put it out to the world.
Because when you give your full self, your
full-on self and you give your all, you put
your heart into it, the world just, gosh,
the world just gives you so much. It gives
you more than you ever could have expected.
When the book took off, I was like, "Oh, okay."
So, someone asked me what's the definition
of success for the book, I was like, "Okay,
10,000 copies." It sold out within a month.
I never could have planned for what it's doing.
And the fourth, this is another important
one. This is what I learned when my company
failed because I was attached to the outcome,
right? Because a lot of great things did come.
My friendships and things that I'm doing now
came from building that company that didn't
work, but I was attached to one outcome, which
was that company succeeding versus who I was
being. You know, one of the key things in
life is we are the effort. We're never the
outcome. And if you do that, if you just focus
on your effort, who you are expressing yourself
to the world and just setting out to the world,
ironically, the outcome is far better than
you could have planned for. Guaranteed. I
mean, really, guaranteed.
So, and what's the prize? The prize is not
necessarily the accolades or the money, I
mean, those are nice, those come. But the
real prize, actually, is who you become in
the process. The price for me has been who
I've become. Like, if I do something stupid
next month and lose all our money again, you
know what, five months later I'll have 10x
that money. I'm not worried about it because
I know who I've become. And that you only
get by doing. I don't think you can visualize
that. I don't think you can train yourself.
That kind of confidence just comes jumping
off the cliffs and you realize, "Oh. I'm jumping
another cliff, I'll sprout wings again."
I think that metaphor, jumping off cliffs,
is a great one. You know, we talk about that
in startup land, but there we say it's like
jumping off a cliff and building a plane on
the way down. I like sprouting wings better.
So, which, of course, leads us to Tokyo. When
I came back from Tokyo, an interesting thing
happened. I checked my bank account and like
two-thirds of my money was gone. I was like,
"What the hell, did I get robbed?" Well, sort
of, like, apparently I owed back taxes and
my accountant, you know, he had signed blank
checks for me, he just paid them. So, I was
robbed by the IRS, you know, good luck getting
that money back.
So, I remember for like three days or so,
I was walking out and really stressed about
money. I was like, "All right, how am I gonna
bring that back? Blah, blah blah. There's
these things I want to do." And then I read
this post by James Altucher. If you haven't
read his blog, read it. It will change your
life. Amazing man. And it was about gratitude,
and it reminded me back to Joanna's thing,
life for her, this is heaven. It reminded
me of Tokyo, all of this, the almost empty
bank account, which is scary, is for me.
And so, I just walked around for days, just
feeling gratitude. So, like three days later
I was in LA at a friend's event and I check
my email, three days of feeling this way,
and I check my email and a company I advised
like maybe five years ago that I completely
forgot about or wrote off that I had stock
in, I had an email from them, "We just sold
for a lot of money, and can you please sign
your paperwork so we can pay you?" Three days,
right?
And you start to realize, this is how life
works. Like this is, you know, entrepreneurship
whatever. All entrepreneurship is an expression
of you. You know, I think a lot of people
get caught up in the, "I'm an entrepreneur,
I'm an entrepreneur." I'd say be the entrepreneur
that's a fulfilled entrepreneur. And the only
way you're gonna do that is if it's an expression
to you. I know people will go for the money
and they do well at it. I'm not one of them.
I will always screw up if I go purely for
the money. But if I go for what's an expression
of me, the world is just amazing.
And it goes back to that one thing. If I can
just leave you with that, it's just, find
your one thing, pick one thing, it doesn't
matter. Do it for a month, 30 days. Trust
me. Your life will just blow you away. I mean,
it does each time I do, and I'm lazy, you
know. So, like, I'll do it, it'll be amazing,
then I'll get lazy and I'll fall and I'll
be like, "Oh yeah," then I'll go do it again.
And that's okay. That's part of life, you
know, part of being human. I learn about that
and write more books. And, you know, so that's
my talk, and I hope this has been of value
to you. Thank you.
