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Telling the stories of startup founders and creators and their unique journey. Each episode features actionable tips, practical advice and inspirational insight.
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:20:04
What great leaders have is empathy. Yes, I agree. And you know, and I think two things right. Empathy and self-awareness. Self-awareness. The number one say I'm not like everybody else. 99.8 we're sitting here in New York City, 99.9999%, even in the probably the most dynamic city in the world, are never going to do the stuff that you did.
00:00:20:06 - 00:00:37:07
Yeah, they're never going to. Yes. Right. So that's number one. But but actually having that self-awareness to say it's neither good or bad. Right. What I did is just what I needed to do. It was my journey, like you said. And it's a choice. You made a choice. That's right. But that's not a bad. It's right. It's not.
00:00:37:07 - 00:01:02:03
And but and it's also not good or bad if other people don't choose that same thing. And having the empathy to kind of understand that and still lead not with that expectation, yes. That they're going to sacrifice their lives. Yes. To go do this right. And it's a hard thing, I think, for founders, it's really easy to get caught up in your own stuff.
00:01:02:03 - 00:01:23:22
Right? Just caught up in your own, in your own story and expect everybody to follow that story. And it's it's different. But another part of that too is, I felt like that, I think and I think a bad part of me feeling like that was, I think I dealt with and still deal with at times, imposter syndrome, where it's, it's like, no, I'm no better than, like, you know, right.
00:01:23:22 - 00:01:41:15
And even like, my, my like I said, my partner blew. He's my head engineer here. Yeah. He told me all the time, like, you know, I have a couple patents. And he's like, yeah, you're an inventor. I'm like, no, I'm an inventor. Like Thomas Edison. And they're like, you know, like they got white hair and crazy white hair, like, no, I'm not.
00:01:41:17 - 00:02:02:20
Unknown
And, you know, he's been, he's played a obvious, you could tell like a very like instrumental role in me developing. Yeah. But being able to look at myself like, oh, there is something different about me that's that special, you know, and I think like that imposter syndrome played a role in me not being able to see other people's stories for a while.
00:02:02:22 - 00:02:22:05
Right? Because it was like, you know, I'm not that special. You know, if I can do it, anybody can do it. Yeah, right. But there is that extra gene in me that pushes me beyond, where other people would normally stop. Well, you're also in an industry with some of the most. It's not only some of the biggest egos in the world.
00:02:22:09 - 00:02:47:18
Right. But some of that, some of the most famous people in the world, right, to, you know, to say, like, I think every, every founder can wrestle with imposter syndrome a lot. I know I have, Peter as Brett, but then you sort of compound that by saying, like, I'm in this studio, actually the one helping create this music with, like, the with Justin Bieber or with like, I mean, these people and I'm an actually an integral part of this.
00:02:47:18 - 00:03:05:17
That's it, that's it. But you don't see it though when you're doing it like and I it's so funny. Everybody's like, who's your favorite artist. Like who have you gotten an autograph from? There was only one person I was mad that I didn't get here to. I've never gotten an autograph from anybody, except there was one person whose name is Scarface.
00:03:05:19 - 00:03:24:07
And you say, but I was so mad when I missed Lawrence O'Donnell being here. So he's an MSNBC? Yeah, yeah. And I was like, yeah, man, I missed Lawrence O'Donnell coming to do an interview. I'm like, my friends are like, what? Who is Lawrence O'Donnell? And like, why do you do you care? What do you like? You know.
00:03:24:09 - 00:03:41:22
Unknown
So yeah, I, I work with with big people, but it's sort of I'm used to it now. And I feel like, like I said, a part of that is like, oh, they're doing the thing right. But we are creating the support system to make that thing sound great, for it to be great, for them to be creative and be able to to do the thing themselves here.
00:03:42:04 - 00:04:06:07
Three biggest lessons you've learned while on the, on the way here. The biggest lesson, I think was you can't do it alone. You need a team. Because a lot of this I did on my own, it took a long time to do this. You know, I'm 21 years in, and, It's amazing. We have a lot of, you know, things happening here, but it was a slow grind, like, that's one thing.
00:04:06:07 - 00:04:21:03
The other thing is become financially literate, right? I didn't know what a credit score was when I got to New York. I didn't even know that you could have what a credit score was like, how it was measured. Right. So when people would say, oh, you're you're spending all your money, why don't you just get a loan?
00:04:21:05 - 00:04:36:06
And then I was like, how did you do that? I don't know, yeah. And then if you buy bank and they're like, you don't even have them, you don't have credit, like you don't have a credit card. You don't have. I had no financial literacy. And it continued on, you know, because I was building I was like, do I have time to spend?
00:04:36:07 - 00:05:09:07
But then when you start having to pay taxes and you start having to do payroll and you start, you have to understand, like where your money's going, where it's coming from, how to stay financially healthy, to be able to borrow later on if you need it. Yeah. So I would say that's the second thing. And then the third lesson, I think, is what, touched on a little bit earlier is just having Grace, understanding that not everybody is you and then understanding where people are coming from, not writing them off like you're not good enough or you're not cut out for it, but finding a way to make them cut out for
00:05:09:07 - 00:05:27:06
it, finding it, finding their niche, finding out what does make them take, you know, if there's something there and finding those things instead of me. You know, in the beginning I would just be like, oh, you said this was your dream. This was your passion. Like, you know, you can work 30 hours a week, you know, but then, you know, people have different situations.
00:05:27:06 - 00:05:40:23
Unknown
Maybe somebody taking care of their mom at home where they're not able to do that. Those things all came with age and just through experience. And so I would say that those are the three biggest lessons that I've learned.