Speaker 1All right, today I'm going to talk about some embarrassing stories that happened to me. These are three moments where I felt that sting of embarrassment, but something changed in me because it was so painful. As they say, sometimes the wound becomes the door.
Speaker 2I feel like I can rule the world, I know I can be what I want to. I put my all in it like no day's off, on the road, let's travel, never look back.
Speaker 1I think in every social situation, I am fundamentally, at some level, just actively trying to avoid embarrassment. Probably even more than trying to avoid pain and death, because I don't even think about those, but I definitely think about ways I could be embarrassed. And yet, embarrassment seems to find me, and it finds me somewhat often. And there is an upside to the embarrassment. After the sting wears off and the pain is gone, there is usually some sort of learning, some sort of growth, some sort of benefit. But even knowing that, I don't go look for embarrassment. I still actively try to avoid it. So the first story, I recently sold, I sold a company and made more money than I've ever made in my life. And with that gain comes the obnoxious problems that nobody wants to hear about, where you're just sort of like, "Uh, I don't know what to do anymore." And so I hired this coach, this sort of like life direction coach. And he has me take a personality test at the beginning. And he tells me, "This personality test is going to be kind of weird. It's not like a normal one." But he's like, "Don't worry, just answer all the questions." So I'm answering all these questions. Some are about work, some are about personal life, some are about relationships. I answer all these questions. I thought it was pretty straightforward, pretty easy. And I tried to answer them as honestly as possible. A few weeks later, he says, "You want to see the results of that test?" "Yeah, absolutely." And he pulls up this slide. There's like all these categories. And I have low scores in all these categories. And there's one score where I'm off the charts. And I squint, and I lean in to Zoom to see what it is. And it just says, "Narcissism." I had, no joke, 110 on the scale. It was over 100 on the narcissistic scale. Personality tendency score. And as a narcissist, I was like, "That's right, I win." And so I'm like, "What is this?" And he's like, "Yeah, so you scored very high on this thing. Is this guy calling me an asshole and arrogant and narcissistic? And am I? Wait, I kind of am. What does that mean?" And so my head is swirling. I'm not even listening to him for the next five minutes. I'm just, again, thinking about myself and proving his point. And I actually learned something pretty fast. I'm very valuable about myself. And I'll share with you the lesson. Probably most of you won't score 110 or 115 on the narcissism scale. But maybe some of this might apply to you. So the thing about this trait is it's not a judgment or an insult. But it is something to be aware of. Okay. So he was like, "People who have this trait, what it means is that they feel like they are special. And their life is going to be special. And that the norms of the world, the averages, the rules of the world don't fully apply to them." Sound familiar? I was like, "Yeah. Yes." Actually, I remember filling that in on the test. Absolutely. And I've always taken great pride in that. Of not wanting to be ordinary. Of wanting to be extraordinary. Of wanting to have a special life. Of feeling like, you know, great, you can tell me all the averages. Those don't apply to me. I'm the outlier. And he goes, "That's served you, hasn't it?" I said, "Yeah." "Well, what's served you can also screw you. The dose makes the poison. If you believe that to be true, then you're not going to die. You're going to accept that you shouldn't go start a business. 90% of businesses fail. Well, I'm special. I'll be different. And it'll get you to go take action." But the thing about it, why it's called narcissism, instead of just self-confidence or self-belief, is you don't know what it is that's special about you. There's a vague sense that there's something special, that something is going to happen to you. But you don't have any specificity on it. And because you don't really know it and really understand it and really understand the specifics of it, it's fuzzy. And when it's fuzzy, you go searching for values and validation in other places. Meaning you want others to see you as special because it validates that thing inside you that you felt was special about you. So you might be more active on social media or creating content or public speaking. And I'm like, "Well, yep, yep, check, check, check. Definitely have oriented my entire life around that. That sounds correct." There's a danger in that and seeking that validation of your specialness from others. Because you'll get a high high when you get it. But you'll get a lower than normal low when you just lack it. Not even somebody says something bad about you, but you don't feel seen as special. Does that sound familiar? And I thought about, I host this event with 30 of the most unbelievable people on earth, founders of the biggest companies in the world. But every so often in this event, I feel this pang of insecurity. And I want them to know how awesome I am and how special I am, how great I am. I don't say this out loud, but deep down, that's what bothers me, right? That's the part I'm feeling bad about. Because everything is going great at the event, but I am feeling bad. I've gone to heaven and I'm feeling hell. And a man could do that. You can make hell out of heaven. If you're not careful, if you're in your own head. And I said, "Well, is there something I could do about this?" He said, "Well, yeah, you can. You know, first step is just being aware of it, noticing when that might be happening. Catch yourself before you fall down a trap. But the second part is get clear. Get clear about what it is that is special about you so you don't need it from others. When you filled your own water cup, you're not waiting, you're not sitting around waiting for the waiter to come back. I think that's a very powerful idea. Many of you are probably like me, where you seek some external validation, some external praise, some external awards, some external, whether it's grades or money or praise or whatever, as a substitute for just filling the cup up yourself. And when you fill the cup up yourself, because you understand what makes you great, you could just kind of be comfortable in your own skin, which I think is one of the greatest feelings on earth, is when you feel totally comfortable in your own skin. You don't feel like you need to be comfortable to be anything more than you are. And I don't think I've achieved that yet, but I've definitely taken the wound of seeing the 100 and 110 or whatever on the narcissism scale and saying, "Hmm, okay, somebody held up a bit of a mirror, and maybe I don't love what I see, but at least I see what it is. And now I can adjust accordingly." The truth is such a rare gift. One time I got a call from Scott Harrison of Charity Water. And I know Scott, but we're not friends. We don't call each other. This is the first call I've had in 10 years from him. You got a minute? Yeah, yeah, I got a minute, Scott. What's up? Hey, man, I was listening to your podcast. You know, you do a good job, but you want to be great at podcasting, right? This is like your thing? You really care about podcasting? I was like, "Yeah, man, it's my thing." You got to stop saying "like." You say "like" all the time. Huh? Dude, you're saying "like" all the time. You say "like" like 500 times in an episode. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's true, man. I should work on that. Yeah, yeah, you really should. You could do it. You could fix it. It's not that hard. Just pay attention to it and do it. You'll be so much better at it. You're doing so many other great things, but this "like" thing is crazy. And I just want to tell you that, man, because I know that this is important to you, and I wanted to make sure you're aware of it. You might not know. And, you know, at first, you know, I'm simultaneously having two reactions: the embarrassment of getting called, literally called out, on saying the word "like" too much as a podcaster. On the other hand, I really appreciated it. I was thinking, man, how many people in my life could I count on to tell me the truth in a way that is completely uncomfortable for them and not self-serving in any way, but they just -- literally, he came by and just dropped something off at my door that would be helpful. And so, Scott, thank you for that. I'm still working on it. Hey, let's take a quick break. You know that feeling when strategy is done, the brief is written, everyone's aligned, and you realize someone still has to sit down and actually create all the content? That someone is usually you, and it's due tomorrow. Well, the Breeze Assistant from HubSpot can help. It works right inside HubSpot. You can draft a campaign copy, blog posts, emails, all in your brand voice, all using your actual customer. So you don't create just content. You create content that converts. Check out HubSpot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses. All right, I'm going to give you the second one. I'm 21 years old, and me and my two buddies have had this brilliant idea to start a new restaurant concept. We think we're going to be the next Chipotle, the next Subway, the next Five Guys, and we're going to do it in the world of sushi. Now, you might be wondering, how does somebody who looks like me start a sushi chain? Many people wondered this. Many of the investors we pitched wondered this, and there really was not a good answer. I was not a foodie. I was not a sushi chef. I had not grown up eating sushi. In fact, before I had this idea, before this moment of embarrassment, I had really tried sushi like three months prior or five months prior, something like that. But I had the confidence that a beginner has. You know, when you're young, you do have one great asset. You lack experience. You lack knowledge. You lack skills. You have the beginner's mind and the beginner's confidence, where you don't know what you don't know. So I think at this stage, I think I know what I'm doing. And why do I think that? Because I had won a business plan competition. I had written a business plan, and we won this competition. So we cold emailed the founder of Chipotle. We cold emailed the founder of Quiznos. We cold emailed the founders of all these different companies, and one replies to us, the guy from Noodles and Company, if you've ever been to Noodles and Company. And so he invites us out to lunch, and we get to go and show him our plan. And we're hoping for some great advice. So for the last three months before this, I had been working on bringing this business to life. And in my mind, what that meant was, take that business plan that had won the competition, really flesh it out. Leave no stone unturned. I really subscribe to this kind of hard work, grind set, mindset mentality. But my version of hard work was what it is for many people, where you avoid the actual work, and you instead do the flavor of hard work that you feel more comfortable with, that you feel safe in. that was planning, and so we were writing our plans we're creating forecasts, financial models. We were planning everything from what our employees would wear and how our managerial system would work, where somebody would get promoted and what that would take. And we thought that was a symbol of preparedness. And so we walked in ready to impress this guy. We printed out this binder. It was like this thick. And I think it's like a 250 page business plan, which is, if you know anything about business, you already know where this story is going. The last thing you want to do as a founder is build something that nobody wants. You might dedicate years of your life just building, building, building, only to find out at the end that nobody even wanted the thing in the first place. The better way is to validate your idea as you go. Earlier, the better. So the team over at Starter Story, which is part of HubSpot, has made a guide for validating business ideas. It's templates and case studies to learn how to validate an idea and how to start doing that before you build too much. And it shows you how the best founders test their ideas before wasting months building the wrong thing. You can get the guide for free. You can scan the QR code. You can download it. You can download it. You can download the QR code on the screen or click the link in the description below. All right, back to the episode. And so we go, we sit down and he says, so tell me, what are you guys doing? I said, well, I could tell you, or I could show you. And I thumped this business plan on the table dramatically. And I said, take a look at this. This is a business plan that we've been writing up. And I think you're going to like it. And so he starts flipping through and I noticed he's not really reading it. He's flipping through. And pretty quickly, he's just trying to rock like what the hell could possibly be in this 300 page binder. And I'll never forget because I've, I've already realized at this point that it's not going well and I'm bracing myself for rejection. But you know, I, as a entrepreneur, I was prepared for rejection. I had actually experienced a little bit of rejection through trying to sell, trying to pitch investors. So I was hardened to that. I was ready for that. I braced myself for that, but it was like, I thought someone was going to hit me in the face and then they just punched me in the gut because he did not or say anything mean. Instead, I could see on his face, he was trying to work out how to be nice to us because we were so hopeless that it was not rejection. It was pity. And he didn't even really know what to say. So he started trying to just be like, um, look guys, you know, you've put a lot of thought into this. He goes down that road and you know, halfway through I'm like, hey man, you could just tell it to a straight. And he goes, okay. Um, I'll give it to you straight. This is nothing. I don't know what you're doing. I don't know why you were doing this, but this is not how you start a restaurant. You start a restaurant by going around, finding a location, paying the lease, you know, putting down a deposit and, uh, you know, saying we're going to open the doors in the next 90 days and getting going and start serving customers and start figuring out how to make them happy. That's what it means to start a restaurant, not this. So we kind of go home with our tail between our legs. And, uh, I just remember we didn't even get in the, we like got in the car, but we didn't drive. We just like had a moment of silence. The friends who were co-founded this company and we didn't even really talk. We didn't know what to say. It was very, it was, it was just embarrassing. It was like, okay, we didn't lose anything except for our dignity. Like that guy didn't, he wasn't a part of our life the day before. He's not going to be a part of our life the day after, but like, wow, we really thought we were doing something right. And, uh, we just got smacked. So we go home and we procrastinate. We turn on, this is a great episode of Seinfeld where George walks in and George sits down and he goes, Jerry, I don't know what I've been doing with my life. You know, he's like, I don't know where I went wrong. I was a promising young man. And he's like, and here I am. And he describes the state of his life. You know, he's like, I'm single, I'm balding, I'm blah, blah, blah. And he just starts to describe how his life, his life did not go the way he wanted. And that's how I felt in that moment too. Life was not going the way I wanted. We're living in Trevor's aunt Patty's basement. We're no closer to the restaurant than we were five months ago. We've just been wasting nothing. Don't even do this. And so like George, we were, I, we, we realized we had gone far wrong. And in that episode, the waitress comes up and she's like, can I take your order? You know, the usual George? Yeah. Yeah. I'll take the chicken salad. And then right before she walks away, he goes, no, no, no, wait every day, chicken salad and chicken salad has got me here today. I'm doing the opposite. What's the opposite of chicken salad? Tuna on toast. I'll have the tuna on toast. And, um, and so he changes his order right there. And she's like, okay, she leaves. And then he sees this beautiful girl at the, at the counter sitting there. She kind of is looking at him and, and, you know, Elaine's like, uh, you know, George, she's looking at you. Go talk to her. He goes, well, talk to her. Why would she talk to me? I'm a, I'm a loser who's blah, blah. And then she goes, that's what the old George would say. So what's, uh, what's the opposite? He goes, the opposite. I was, I would approach her and I would tell her. And so he goes up to her and he says, I'm George. I'm single. I live with my mother. You know, he's, he's introduced himself as a loser instead of, uh, playing himself up and she loves it. And so that day I was like, okay, same as George from now on, I'm doing the opposite. So I went from a, I said, well, what were we doing so far? So far we were planning everything. We were trying to be buttoned up to impress people like this guy from noodles and company. Forget it. We're not going to be, it's not going to be about planning. It's going to be about action and it's not going to be about impressing others. It's going to be about doing the thing, actually doing it so that, you know, I don't, who cares? We don't need their approval. We're no longer in school. This is the real world now. We're actually graduated. We're in the real world now. And I got to change my approach. And so from then on, I decided to become a man of action and I became religious and I worshiped at the church of action and I, everything just became about action. And so if there was ever a choice between action and inaction, I had to be tuna on toast, baby. I had to take action. And that really served me. A year later, we met this mentor. He gave us some advice and like 48 hours later, we came back to him and we're like, cool. So, um, we did those three things and did this. This is what we learned. And here's where we're at now. Um, you know, here's what we're thinking next. Let us know if you have any ideas. And he was pretty blown away. And we just did that like three times with him. And then he wrote this blog post for the world to see. And he said, I've met these founders recently, and I don't know if their idea is any good or not, but they have the highest bias for action of any founders I've ever met. And it was sort of the validation of the, the, you know, going from chicken salad to tuna on toast. So the embarrassment, once it wore off, it had, uh, had some, some powerful effects on me. They were, they were, they were, they were, they were, they were, they were, they were, they were, they think you know this already. I use Mercury for all of my businesses. I think I have like maybe seven or eight businesses. We use Mercury as our business banking across all of them. And now they actually just launched a personal banking account. So I have my personal account there. I moved off of Wells Fargo and chase. I'm just all in on Mercury. Why? Uh, I like products that are easy to use. I like products that get me and the problems that I have. So like very easy to make a joint account with my wife, very easy to spin up virtual cards, uh, one click and I get savings yield. It's just has all the stuff that I need in one place. So if you're looking for the best banking product on the market, it's definitely Mercury. I will fist fight anybody who disagrees with me on that. Go to mercury.com slash personal and learn more. Mercury is a FinTech, not an FDIC insured bank. Banking services are provided through choice financial group and column and a members FDIC. We'll give you the third story. You may not know this cause now I'm a talker for a living, but I was very shy growing up. I remember once my sister pointed this out. She, you know, I have an older sister. She liked to make fun of me and she called me the laugh track because you know, like in a sitcom, you have all the characters, you have the main character, then you have his love interest. Then you have the, the, the buddy, the sidekick at school. I was none of those characters. I was literally the laugh track, the background of the background, uh, not even a background character. I had a few friends, but I was basically just this kind of NPC that was walking around school. And, um, I really liked this girl. And, you know, it's pretty scary as a teenage boy to go tell a girl you like her. So I thought, okay, I'm going to write this note. So I wrote this note. I'm calling it a note. It's probably a poem, but that's even more embarrassing. So I'm just going to call it a note for now. And it was basically like describing this girl and how much I liked her, but it was like describing her in abstract terms. I didn't say her name. I just wrote this girl. She's so great, you know, blah, blah, blah. And then, so I, uh, the new Testament, the old Testament, and I wrote the cringe Testament. So I have it. And, um, I kind of like plan for her to see it herself. And then I her locker next to mine. And so I'm like at the locker and I like have the note and I like drop the note or whatever. She picks it up. She's like, what's this? And I was like, oh, it's this note I wrote for this girl. And she opens it up. She's like, oh, and she reads it. I'm totally friend zoned at this stage. So she's just amused. Like what is Sean doing? So she reads this note and she realizes it's this like very, like this love letter basically. And 14, 15 year old me is sitting there. I'm waiting for the reaction. I'm waiting for her to, to, to love it. I was so far in the that her reaction was who's this for? Like she couldn't even imagine that this was for her. Certainly this must be for somebody else. Cause like the feeling I had and the feeling she had was so far apart. And so in this moment, she asked who's this for? And I immediately, you know, embarrassed. And I'm like, I should just say it's for you and just see what happens and just face the music. But I'm a coward and I don't do that. And I say, um, it's this girl I met and I make up fictitious girl that I met at some, uh, you know, some competition that weekend from, oh, and she goes to another school. I literally did the girlfriend, girlfriend at another school, but not even girlfriend, just a girl I like at another school. And she's like, that's so sweet. And then for the next six months, I basically had to keep up the appearance, how it's going with this girl. Cause she would ask me for updates. And I dug the lie so deep. In fact, if she's listening to this today, she probably now just now is realizing that that note was about her. Cause I came out of the hole. I just dug, dug, dug, dug, dug until my family literally said, we're moving to China. And I moved from Houston, Texas to China in the in 10th grade. And so as I'm now moving to China and I've, I've, you know, basically decided, I guess I'm just celibate. And like, you know, it's just not, it's not for me. My sister who called me the laugh track and knows that I was not particularly popular or successful at school, definitely not successful with girls. She has this conversation with me on the plane and she says, you know, the school you're going to, nobody here knows you. You're going to go in and they're all going to know each other. They're not going to know you. And I was like, wow, like, thanks for, you know, piling it on older sister. And she, uh, but she was actually going from a good place. She goes, so you know what that means, right? And I go, what? And she goes, you could be anybody. I go, what does that mean? She's like, they don't know you're the laugh track. They don't know who you are. So you can just be a different guy. And she's like, who is, who is the coolest guy at your school? Like the guy, if you were him, you would want to be him. And I was like, oh, it's this guy, Casey Prusman. And I was like, Casey Prusman, he was the class clown. He was athletic. He was a nice guy. He was nice to everybody. And I just love this guy. I was like, yeah, he was a great guy. She was like, well, when you get off this plane, you could be him. You could just go to that school and you could be him. They don't know that you're not him. And I realized that life really is that simple. You actually don't have to move to China for this, but you can reinvent yourself like that. You can literally reinvent yourself today. You can say, you know, that, yeah, that's who I was. Well, now I'm this other guy. Now I just do this other thing. And it's literally a, it starts with a decision. The decision is upstream of all action. And when I went to this new school, I just decided what would he do? And I would just do that thing in that situation. And, you know, at first it felt a little uncomfortable or odd or like I was acting, but pretty soon I just realized like, well, I can just do those things. That can be me. And so I realized the power of reinventing yourself. And I've since reinvented myself several times and I've taken stripped off labels off, off me and put new labels on, you know, before I started this podcast, I was an entrepreneur. I was a value and my worth from that and my friends that, and that's why I introduced myself. And that's what I thought I would do every day. And then one day I decided, you know what? I think I want to be Tim Ferris. I think I could say things that will entertain people and will contain enough insight that they'll walk away being like, I kind of want to listen to that guy again. And I just decided that I wasn't that yet, but I believed it and I decided it. And so the next day I just thought, well, what would Tim Ferris do today? He probably wouldn't go to meetings. I don't think he does that. And so I created a show and I booked a studio and I got my friend to be my first guest. And that became episode one of my first million. And that's how this podcast started just by literally reinventing myself at the drop of a hat. So those are three stories of embarrassment where the wound became a bit of a door. And I wanted to share those with you today. I hope you enjoyed them. Hope you take something from them. If nothing, nothing else, a nice laugh at me. But maybe there's something from your own and maybe there's, maybe there's a moment either upcoming where you could remember, Hey, yeah, I might've lost something here. I might've lost a little dignity, but what did I gain? Again, the question is of what? And when you start to answer that question, you know, you start to grow from it. All right, that's it.
Speaker 2I'm out. All right, let's take a quick break. I want to tell you
Speaker 1about marketing school. It is a podcast that is part of the HubSpot podcast network, and it is run by Neil Patel and Eric Hsu. And these guys are both marketers who are running businesses. And so if you want real world tactics from doing it, this is the podcast for you. Check it out wherever you get your podcasts.
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