Super excited to be back.
With you here on an amazing Thursday afternoon.
I have my special friend and guest CEO of Sage.
Mr. Stephen Kelly joining me again.
Stephen how ya doin’?
– Great Evan and belatedly,
yeah Happy New Year and it’s great to be back.
I think really to be back with your audience
loved some of the shows last year,
loved bein’ engaged and gettin’ fantastic questions
and conversations goin’ with your audience
and we’re going to make it even better in 2017,
so very excited.
– I love it and new year and I see a new logo
behind you, there’s a new blue color around Sage.
– Yeah new kind of green on blue,
I think it’s actually a pretty cool logo,
pretty cool logo.
Very sympathetic colors to speak to what we do.
– And I hear you’re now also on Instagram and Facebook,
I just followed you on Instagram five minutes ago,
so you’re pumpin’ up the volume on social now.
– We are yeah,
we’re gettin’ social steroids,
so the thing is Evan and you are kind of the leader,
you’re the beacon of light out there
and your profile is awesome
but also the content you publish is amazing
and I think Instagram is just a great channel,
and attracts a different audience from Twitter.
So I’m very, very excited,
I’ve been doin’ loads more on Facebook as well.
– Very cool well today we’re here to talk about
how to have the confidence to be your true self
as an entrepreneur and I know you love starting
and the audience loves hearing your quotes
to lead off so what do you got for us this month Stephen?
– Why we’ve got five great quotes.
Five great quotes, an awesome actor first of all.
And this guy Robert De Niro says,
“If you’re an actor, always be true to your character.
“If you’re not an actor have the character
“to always be true to yourself.”
So thank you Robert, hat tip.
Next one the late and great Steve Jobs,
“Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition,
“they somehow know what you truly want to become.”
Great quote, a man with convictions Steve Jobs.
Next one, another fantastic entrepreneur,
“If you follow your dreams and spend your life
“doing what brings you joy,
“you are more likely to always find success.”
And that was Richard Branson.
And then the former first lady, Michelle Obama
and this kind of transcends everything
but I’ll explain it if it doesn’t translate
directly to Canadian audience.
“Whether you come from a council estate
“or a country estate, your success will be determined
“by your own confidence and your fortitude.”
A council estate is kind of social housing
for the more vulnerable.
So that’s kind of what Michelle Obama.
And the final one and the best one is from Evan almighty
and that is “believe, #believe.”
(laughs)
– I love it I always look forward to the quotes,
I know the people in the audience do too.
So today how to have the confidence to be your true self,
people who are already joining, welcome guys,
if you have questions leave them in the live chat,
we’ll try to get to them all as much as we can today.
But Stephen first off I’m curious,
why do you think people have a hard time
being their true self and having that confidence
to project that and use that and tell their story,
what do you think is the reason that people
have a hard time with it so much?
– I think part of it is a fear of failure,
and when I look at start-ups,
what 90% of them actually sadly fail,
only 10% succeed,
also if I look at the optimism,
particularly in the 18 through 30 year olds
in terms of entrepreneurs,
95% of ’em have a real belief in their own success
but I just look at my own kind of career
as an entrepreneur Evan
and I think there is some periods in your life,
where there are seeds of doubt
and it’s at those times where you really need
to galvanize your confidence to be successful.
It’s just human nature,
all of us have got that vulnerability
but I think you really need to dig into
your own authenticity.
Dig also into your core values.
What is your dream, how are you going to change the world?
What are you going to do for your audience?
If you stick to that then the dark days come along
and you hit some bumps in the road.
Then you can really kind of double down
and it builds your self confidence
and we can talk also about during the broadcast
how we kind of connect with other people to.
To galvanize our confidence and build it up.
Just an example from my career,
about 20 years ago when I was early stage CEO,
we were doin’ a big pilot for a company.
We kind of bet the ranch.
We bet the company on this
and it was the light Fortune 500 company.
We put all our best people on this pilot
and we actually turned down other business,
and the sad thing is the guy who was the VP
leading that project got moved,
left the company and we lost our sponsor
and the pilot got killed.
We were doing really well
and it was so demotivating for the team
’cause they worked crazy 80 hours a week,
they’d gone the extra mile,
it was a real story of human sacrifice
and blood sweat and tears.
When I look back what did it do?
It actually, we had some hard conversation,
we were runnin’ out of cash
and we did things like cut our own wages,
we sacrificed salaries, practically worked for nothing
and what it meant was,
when we tasted success for the first time,
boy did it taste sweet
but it took us honestly,
when we looked at the business plan we put together,
it probably took us about 12 months longer
because we hit a wall, lost that customer,
we’d sacrificed the opportunity cost of not working
while the business was immense
and it meant we really had to double down,
now why did we have the confidence to do that?
One is we really believed in this case
it was a product we were selling,
we really believed it solved
a massive need for our customers.
Two is we really knew that particularly,
actually through the pilot,
when we saw the cost it took out of this business
in the Fortune 500 and how they could be way more efficient.
That it had a compelling benefit.
Thirdly, when we looked around the room
on a pretty dark day when we lost the pilot,
we just looked at each other and said,
actually do we believe in each other?
Have we got a great idea, are we going to double down,
maybe draw no salaries at all
and go the long haul.
We said yeah we would and in reality it took us longer.
Now why I’m tellin’ you that is I think you have
to look at your inner self you really do need
to challenge yourselves as entrepreneurs
within your audience and you got to believe in your idea,
you got to believe it will make a difference,
and you’ve got to stay true to yourself
and absolutely have that confidence
to be authentic and honest,
to go the long haul on it,
if you got the belief and you got a dream
and you know it can change the world.
That’s where you get your confidence from
and reality of all of us honestly,
were the aspirations and dreams
when we put business plans together,
sometimes it just takes longer sometimes it takes longer
and the small entrepreneurs out there,
the entrepreneurs who double down
or actually change the idea to pick a new idea
to win the next time.
‘Cause then you put your lesson to work
and you create the next business.
– I love it you’re already gaining tons of love
in the chat for the opening statement there,
we’re gettin’ superb, love the topic,
hardcore #skel, he’s always hardcore that’s part
of why we love Stephen Kelly so much,
you’re gettin’ a lot of love here in the chat.
I want to get to some questions,
I mean we do this every month for you guys
to help you out and get you past whatever limitations
you’re facing right now.
So for those of you who have questions leave it
up in the live chat, ideally put it in all caps
so it’s easier to see ’cause the chat goes quickly
but first up is Lorraine.
Lorraine says hi I’m Lorraine from South Carolina,
I’m stuck I’m hopin’ that you can help me get unstuck,
my career, my livin’ arrangements all need an overhaul,
I’m so overwhelmed right now,
how do I start thank you, Lorraine.
– Hey Lorraine.
And then I’m going to ask Evan a question at the end as well
’cause he’s going to answer your question
as well really articulately.
Welcome we love the Carolinas by the way fantastic.
I think when you feel overwhelmed, you feel stuck.
I think you kind of in this moment Lorraine,
it’s really probably cool to just create
a bit of a reflective space
and come back to think of
what is your big idea going to solve and who is the audience?
What is their pain point and how can you help
them overcome that pain point.
A beauty about this particularly
when you become overwhelmed
and you got a to-do list this long
is cut back to the essence of your idea,
your product, your service,
why it’s going to change the world
and then the other thing,
you know the magic of simplification,
what does it do that you can actually
in a consumer product make the consumers like better
or in a b to b sort of world,
really try to take cost down or improve their top line
or take hassle out of their organization
and less stress.
So I think you just got to come back to basics,
just focus on where’s your audience,
what idea is going to really change the world
and create a market for your product or service.
And then if you do that, you can get really clear
about what’s important.
And actually one other thing,
I hope I’m not doing motherhood and apple pie here.
Loads of people get into this is urgent, this is urgent,
this is urgent and their to-do list grows and grows
and it becomes overwhelming and your head’s spinnin’,
I’d ask yourself if you’ve got ambition
what’s really important?
‘Cause everything can appear urgent
but there’s very few things that are really important
and what’s going to really move the dial.
And then just focus your urges about movin’ the dial
and actually Lorraine what you can do mentally
is create a bucket in the corner
and if there’s lots of good ideas
and they’re not fundamentally important
just write ’em down chuck it in the bucket,
come back to ’em in 90 days time.
Really focus on what’s important,
I’d say where you get confidence from
is not only the idea and then the strategy
but where you get success from
is awesome execution.
Really executin’ the hell out of an idea.
So Evan question for you,
obviously Lorraine’s question but also,
your inspiration I’ve met you in Toronto,
I’ve met you around the world,
where’s your source of confidence?
– I think two things for my source of confidence,
I think one is having,
trying stuff,
whenever I feel like I’m afraid to do somethin’
then I force myself to have to go out and do it.
Come and speak at this event, here’s a simple example,
I’m walkin’ down the street, on the side street
and I’ve got my ear buds on
and I’m dancin’ and I’m puttin’ on my favorite song
and then I come to an intersection,
it’s a busy intersection, then there’s people,
then my instinct is I got to stop dancing, go really small
because I’m worried about how people might think of me
and as soon as I caught that,
I’m playing small right now ’cause I’m worried about
what this person’s going to think.
Then I force myself to go out and do it
and then I’m dancing big on the street on purpose
to stretch my muscle,
so whenever you feel yourself shrinking down
if you can catch it,
a lot of times it’s so sub-conscious
that you don’t even catch it,
if you can catch it then force yourself
to step into that fear, step into uncomfortness
and start playin’ a bigger game,
the more you do that, the more you’ll get confidence,
The other thing is just havin’ a better environment,
I surround myself with entrepreneurs
who’ve done great things.
Whether you like quotes or books or videos
or meetings, or going to conferences,
surrounding yourself with people doing bigger things,
part of that seeps into you and makes you more confident
to go out and do your thing,
I didn’t have a ton of confidence at the start.
I didn’t know what I was going to do,
I didn’t have entrepreneurs in my family,
those two things forcing the uncomfortableness,
and then creating a better environment,
gave me more confidence to move forward.
– And what about thoughts you could give to Lorraine,
down the Carolinas, how could she become less overwhelmed
and really focus on her success?
– I agree with you, I liked a lot of what you said,
I think you just got to simplify,
I would look at what is the one thing,
that if I focus on that, that would really have a big impact
and have a ripple effect.
‘Cause once you start making progress on one thing
and you’re getting some results,
it bleeds into everything else you’re doing.
Once you’re more confident in a business deal,
you become more confident in your personal life as well,
it bleeds through everything.
So I’d be looking at, okay there’s a thousand things you
have to do, what’s the one single most important thing
that if you fix this,
It’ll not only help that one situation
but everything around it as well.
Then focus on doing that
and eliminate the distractions around him.
– That’s interesting, yeah I think actually
just thinkin’ about this Evan,
there’s an element here,
I’m not a psychologist , I would never pretend to be,
but the psychology of success,
Lorraine you know and I know if you start off in the morning
and you set yourself the toughest task,
and you don’t feel you do a good job of it,
it’s going to determine your mood and your confidence
for the rest of the day.
So maybe first thing you do is if you know
you can smash it out of the park,
and then you will feel 10 million dollars
and you will be able to crush the next thing,
what Evan said, you can build rolling thunder off success,
we talk about actually in Canada they talk
about gettin’ the moose on the table, cuttin’ it up,
in Europe gettin’ the elephant in the room,
all this sort of stuff
but if you can slice these things down into areas
where I know I can do that, smash it,
know I can do that smash it out the park,
you are unstoppable, you are relentless
but give yourself things,
treat yourself to some early successes,
that will really build your confidence honestly,
’cause you and I know,
if you start yourself and you hit your head against the wall
and you bounce off,
it takes time to dust yourself off
and go back and smash against that wall again,
but if you actually give yourself some things
on your list of priorities that are really important,
where you can deliver early success
then that success becomes insatiable and unstoppable.
– I love it!
Lorraine thank you for the question,
lots of love good luck.
– [Stephen] Good luck Lorraine.
– Relaxing sleep station,
I’ve started opening up very publicly using my story
as a differentiator, I’m still concerned
that I’ll need to get a job in the future
and keep my business as my side hustle
until it earns enough,
how do I be true to my story while not completely
turning off potential employers who will find
all this information with me with a simple google search?
– I think it’s great, I think actually
and I talk about the authenticity,
I’d say a lot of great start-ups
are spawned out of people like yourself
who work in doin’ a full time job for someone else
and then in the evenings and weekends,
creating their ideas
and then ultimately building a business,
it’s great if you can get a big corporation to pay
for you to be moonlightin’
and creating the next amazing business
that you’re going to create,
in your bedroom, or in the garage,
or wherever you’re doin’ it,
then that’s a fantastic thing to do,
so I don’t think there should
be any guilt associated with that.
I think that’s the way people operate in 2016,
I think the other thing honestly,
if people came to us in our company
and said actually I want to start a business,
I’d applaud you, they can be full time employees
and colleagues with me in Sage
and I think you will be surprised,
there’s a lot of entrepreneurs out there,
even leaders of big companies out there
who would really encourage their colleagues
and their employees to start their ideas
and incubate their ideas
and then get ready to fly,
I think it’s worth pursuing,
when I just look at the range of businesses,
I’ll give you an example,
Obviously I’ve mentioned this guy before,
he’s a genius and that’s Marc Benioff at Salesforce,
Marc Benioff’s worked with me bact at oracle
and Larry Ellison the chief executive and chairman
at the time of Oracle,
knew Mark was startin’ his business and was really happy
for him to be incubatin’ his business
while he was moonlightin’ and workin’ full time at Oracle
and now Mark, the evaluation of that company sells for
must be 60 billion dollars,
one of the greatest companies on the planet,
got huge respect for him and he does amazing things
around communities through the Salesforce Foundation,
giving back to communities, making a difference
and buildin’ and really leadin’ the collaborary revolution.
That’s a real example and that happened
what 16, 17 years ago,
I think we shouldn’t constrain ourselves to just say,
I work for a company, I leave them and do a start-up,
I think there could be almost a perfect meltin’ pot
where you can be workin’ and workin’ on your own idea
at the same time and startin’ your business
and maybe even getting buddies to start the business for you
and then at the right time you kind of flip over.
– I think this ties in really well to this theme
of havin’ the confidence to be your true self,
because if you are worried about a customer
not buying from you because of your story
or a company not hiring you because of your story,
that’s probably not going to be a great fit for you anyway,
if you’re looking for a part time job
to support your business on the side,
there’s going to be some companies who will
look at what you’re doing and won’t want to hire somebody
who has their own part time thing, they want to hire
somebody who’s only dedicated to their company
and there’s going to be other people who,
will look at that as an advantage,
oh you’re an entrepreneur, that’s great you can help us
’cause you understand entrepreneurs
and you could give us advice
and do a great job in your role,
by putting that content out there
and by being yourself, you’ll attract the companies
that are a better fit for you
and the companies that aren’t a great fit
they won’t be interested in you,
it’s the same thing with your customers,
if you’re sharing your story,
there’s some people who won’t connect to it
and that’s fine those guys would not be great customers
for you and there’s going to be others
who will madly, deeply resonate with it
and drive that extra 100 miles just to get to you
because they love what you’re about,
I hire people even if they have their own thing on the side,
I have 18 people on my team it’s not anywhere close
to what Sage is at,
but you just heard it from the CEO there too,
thousands and thousands of employees
and they value people who have things on the side as well,
I would encourage you to go in and embrace
what you’re doin’ and maybe even include it on your resume
as opposed to tryin’ to hide it.
– The other thing Evan the only area
where it could get a bit testy is if,
I think this speaks to authenticity, integrity
and your values, obviously it wouldn’t be appropriate
to work for a company and then steal their ideas
to become a competitor of that company.
– [Evan] Sure.
– I think the confidence comes
through having really powerful values
and part of that is integrity
and also connectin’ yourself to the customer
but I think as long as it’s not a conflict
and you’re not going to rip off
the company’s intellectual property or stuff like that
then I think there’s a lot of companies out there
where exactly to Evan’s point,
you can find a perfect marriage with you and a company
and their ambition for their colleagues
to be really happy, fulfilled,
I do believe companies of the future,
should believe they have a relationship for life
with the colleagues who work for them
and that might mean I’d say to these people here,
they might leave Sage,
they might go start their own business,
10 years time, seven years time,
they’re always welcome to come back to Sage,
so it’s not like the old days,
you have a career in one company,
I think it’s great for the economies
for individuals who are fantastic entrepreneurs
to really be able to express their business freedom
and really grow a lot of job creation and wealth creation
by goin’ to start your business
and then at the right time you can come back,
we need people who’ve got real experience
of livin’ the life of an entrepreneur,
goin’ for a start-up,
worryin’ about makin’ payroll for a month,
all that sort of stuff, runnin’ out of cash
because the more we have people who have lived
and walked in the shoes of our customers
then the more authentic we’re going to be as a company,
I’d really encourage you,
connect yourself to a company as Evan said
with the values that you respect
and actually I think it could be a great marriage.
– I love it
Next up is Chris,
knowing what you know today what advice would
you have given yourself when you were first starting,
different planning or other ideas.
– That’s a great question Chris.
I think I would’ve number one,
I would’ve absolutely my idea would’ve focused on,
what does the audience need, what does the customer need,
where do we find them?
The other great advice I’d give myself is surround yourself
with great people
and people who challenge you
but people who are on the same moon mission as you are,
the people with the same vision, the same ambition,
the people who want to literally fly to the moon
and if you do that,
you’re probably going to be hugely successful
and it might not be necessarily on your first venture
but you’ll come across as you evolve your idea, huge success
and in the context of this in confidence,
be really happy if you do fail fast learn quick
and you’ll do great business.
– This is a hard one for me because I’m so happy
and grateful for where I am now
that everything that led up to this moment,
has shaped who I am,
If I change something in the past would I still be here?
That’s the internal battle I have
when I get asked this question
but I would probably, if I had to answer it
would say believe sooner and harder,
finding belief and going all in on it
has had such a tremendous impact on my life
and on my business
and it’s been a newer phenomenon in my life,
maybe three, four, five years something like that,
If I discovered it sooner and went in on it faster
and was bolder and had more confidence in it
that would probably be,
hopefully further ahead then where I’m at now
but at the same time I’m really grateful for my spot.
– Also Evan you probably did this,
you’re a risk taker in some ways,
I think I’d say be a responsible risk taker,
I remember one job where I was workin’ really early
on in my career for a big safe company
and I resigned to go to a crazy start-up,
that did become a really successful company
but I went back for the weekend to talk to my mom and dad,
they were alive at the time and I said to Mom,
Mom I’m going to go and do this and she said
well who’s this company you’re leavin’
I know the company you’re with but why would you
go work for a small start-up
and she said you’re absolutely crazy,
you’ve got security, you’ve got a pension,
I was 24 years old,
with the benefit I saw, I didn’t take enough risks
in my early career, you’ll get loads of people
tellin’ you the reasons why you shouldn’t do stuff
but I think it comes back to your inner confidence
and conviction to say if that’s what you believe in,
then shoot for those stars and take more risks.
– So it’s an interesting question because a lot of people
get that, not necessarily the hate,
not the people who are jealous,
but it’s the people who are still close to you
like your parents, your friends telling you not
to go and do something
and for a lot of people that holds them back
’cause they really respect and they love their mom
and they want to make them proud,
and carry family traditions,
what’s your advice to people who want to pursue a path
but their parents are blocking them?
– That’s a good question and the other thing at the time,
all my buddies thought I was crazy for doin’ it,
’cause I said I’m goin’ to a start-up,
I’ll probably work 60, 70, 80 hours a week
and they said well we won’t see you anymore,
you won’t be able to come down to the pub for drinks,
I said well I’ll still come in maybe,
but I’ll get here at 10 o’clock in the evenin’
instead of six o’clock
but we’ll find a way to keep those relationships in tact
I think the key thing is,
I’ll directly answer to your question Evan,
The best advice I have at that age at 24,
’cause I went and said look everybody thinks I’m crazy
goin’ and joinin’ a start-up,
this guy I’d worked with and knew as sort of a mentor,
he said to me Stephen what’s the worst case
that can happen?
The worst case that can happen in a year
is the start-up folds or they fire you
and you know what you can knock on the door
of the company you’ve left and they’d welcome you back
with open arms and actually you would’ve gained even
more experience and great life experience
from dealing with that failure and learning from that,
you would’ve been a much better entrepreneur yourself,
when you look at it rationally
and you sort of divorce yourself from the moment,
and you say well what could really go wrong here?
If it didn’t work out, you can always go back
to where you were.
I think the way you have to deal with this Evan,
is you have to be true to yourself
and it kind of comes back to the essence
of where you get your confidence.
No one here is livin’ someone else’s life.
It’s not that profound but we only get one shot,
it’s not a rehearsal and you’ve got to make the most of it
and the only thing that flies past is time
and when you got the energy and you’re young
and you can work flat out
and you might not have responsibilities,
it’s a fantastic time to really pursue your passion
and really follow your dreams,
the folks who are listenin’ today,
it would be a time if you go home to your mom, your dad,
even friends and they say, the nay sayers, don’t do it,
if you really believe in it then absolutely
have the conviction to go and do it.
You’ve got to live your own life.
– I like it, I like it.
Here’s an interesting one,
gettin’ on the conversation with this guest Anna,
she’s in our chat.
She was just praising us and saying Evan,
you’re a natural host slash interviewer
and I wrote back to say it’s not natural at all,
it’s all learned behavior,
when I first started doing this I was terrible
and I’m curious for you,
some of the things that people may look at you
and say man Stephen is so talented at this
but really when you started you had no idea
and you were failin’, you were messin’ up
and it’s just a result of decades of hard work,
is there something that comes to mind
that you’re praised for and people might think is natural
but is really just a ton of hard work that went into it?
– Yeah I think,
this is true and I think even as you get older in life,
your soul remains the same, your passion remains the same,
your energy and your moral compass is always authentic
and remains constant.
The thing that, directly to your point Evan,
for me personally a lot of things I’ve learned through
a bitter experience to gettin’ on TV
and screwin’ up on an interview.
But boy oh boy did I learn,
when I’ve made mistakes,
they’ve been the best learnin’s I’ve taken away.
The other thing relative to confidence,
is the more you practice the better you get,
and you’ll notice Michael Jordan all these statements
about the number of times they’ve missed a winnin’ shot
in a game or whatever.
The more they practice, the better they get.
I think it was Rory Mciiroy and then Gary Player,
golfers said the more I practice, the luckier I am.
And it’s the same in business
and I think Anna to your point,
look at me what was I?
When I was probably your age Anna,
I was a spotty not very attractive, not very confident,
but I just was kind of, I wanted to be not a street fighter,
but in the world of entrepreneurship,
I wanted to get out there, I had a dream,
I had a passion and I was happy to hunker down
and really work hard because I really believed in
what I was tryin’ to achieve,
for ultimately the customers I served
and to create a market place.
When I look back, yeah I’ve learned
and obviously Evan I think is a brilliant,
he should be a chat show up with Trevor Noah
and these sort of guys, I think he’s up there
with the best of them.
But a lot of it is a bit of learned behavior,
but I think what is constant,
is the essence of who you are
and your soul is always the same
and that’s why ultimately people buy from you,
that’s why people want to work for you,
that’s why people want to work with you.
That’s why partners want to build something
special, unique and magical with you,
you want to hang on to that and the confidence
really amplifies your soul
and your physical presence and whether you do hand gestures
or whether good openings on presentational,
whether you got skills in terms
of blamps and google hangouts and stuff.
The only thing I’d say there is the more you do,
the better you get, the more you practice
and the one vital piece of magic that I learned in life
is two things really,
one is empathy, put yourself in shoes of people
you’re tryin’ to serve
and the second thing is just always with two ears,
one mouth take feedback.
If people are prepared to invest in you
by giving you feedback even though it can hurt you,
and it can cut to the core,
take that feedback, learn from that feedback,
’cause it is magic.
– I love it, I love it.
Spittin’ fire.
Next up is Adarsh who’s asking,
where can I meet you guys personally?
– That is great now if you guys,
we’ve got to organize this Evan,
I’m definitely going to be in Toronto for the Invictus games
which is people I have the most massive level of respect for
people who have served out countries across the U.S.,
Canada, European countries that have come back
with some sort of disability or mental scars
and they run and they perform in this amazing
sort of Olympic Games,
now that is in Canada in Tornoto,
great city of Toronto in September
which is the hometown of a rockstar called Evan
and we need to do something, a live broadcast,
I just make this up on the fly
but we should have maybe it’s possible
to do a live audience or something like that,
we should just have some fun
and we should open up and go very social on that
and that’d be a great place to meet in person
and if you ask really nicely,
Evan could probably be persuaded to do a book signin’
– There you go, there you go.
– I travel a lot, I’ve just come back from the states
so we do a lot of things around Sage Summit as well
if you go to sage.com website,
we’re goin’ out to Berlin, Johannessburg,
we’re comin’ back to Atlanta
so we’re doin’ loads of those sort of things,
again we’re really informal so we love to talk
to entrepreneurs, we love to spend time with you guys
’cause we find you inspiring.
– We did a fun one at the top of the CNN tower
a little while back which is good,
we’re still gettin’ views and comments and responses,
September could work other wise Sage Summit,
it’s announced for Atlanta,
have you picked a date?
– Yeah I think it’s April, May,
we’ll be down in Atlanta so that’ll be a great opportunity
and hey Evan, confidence,
I had my confidence shrink from me when
I was on the CNN tower on the top of the platform
and Evan very supportively nudged me on to the bit
with the glass beneath it and I looked down
and I thought oh my God.
– It’s high, it’s high.
– It’s very high.
– Cool so April or May come out to Sage Summit Atlanta,
if not Toronto September, we’re excited to meet you Adarsh.
– We’ll check out the date on Atlanta,
let you know before the end of the show.
– Cool.
Cynna, sometimes I get tired
of pursuing my passion of rapping,
I’m wondering right now should I take a break
or keep at it, if so how long,
I get afraid of fallin’ behind, much love to you guys.
– That’s a good question Cynna,
I think if you’re lovin’ what you’re doin’
whatever it is, rappin’,
you probably need to say are you really energized,
are you fresh?
Are you really focused on achieving your goals
and invariably there comes a time
where you run out of energy
and you need to have a bit of recharge and reflection
so at those point in times,
whatever works for you, you could have a vacation whatever,
you get together with friends, you go and see mentors,
whatever it is that really works for you
and then I think that’s a great time
to reflect on what’s workin’
fundamentally just still believe in your big idea,
If you do what do you need to change
to make it even more successful
and then you can kind of get right back into it.
– This is an interesting one
’cause we’re just about to release a video
on Lindsay Sterling, I don’t know if you know Lindsay,
she’s a violinist and she had one
of the top YouTube videos for one of her songs,
and when she was doin’ violin,
she kind of got bored of it
’cause it was kind of classical
and the same thing and she just grew a little tired of it
and she wanted to put it down
and then she discovered electronic music and Skrillex
and Djs and all these people putting out beats
and she said that’d be really cool to combine my violin
with the electronic beats and she formed a new thing
that hadn’t existed before
and that reignited her interest and passion in violin
and also helped her differentiate herself
and create one of the top videos for music videos,
so I’m wondering if there might be something like
that in it for you,
where if you still love rapping
but you don’t like doin’ it the way you’ve been doin’ it
or the way other people are doin’ it,
to explore maybe combine it with another passion of yours
to continue to test the waters.
If you look at The Beatles,
none of their albums sound like each other,
the first album was way different than the next one
and way different than the next one
and people are like we like the early Beatles,
why don’t you keep doing those,
well we’ve grown as people, we don’t do that anymore,
we want to do new stuff
and I think that’s part of every entrepreneur,
especially artists, you have to continue to evolve
and test and try new things
and so if you’re getting a little bored
of what you’re doing,
I’d say how do I mix in something new?
Try out a new project that still involves the rapping,
but you can involve and incorporate something else
in it to push yourself and see if it makes it come alive.
– I think also if you’re really gettin’ bored,
go round and listen to rappers you really respect,
go and meet some of them,
maybe think about doing something collaboratively
with a partner ’cause it sounds like
you need new innovation,
sounds like you got a core idea, you love what you’re doin’
but if you need to evolve it there’s loads of opportunities
and Evan, Atlanta, May 9th to 11th.
Sage Summit Atlanta.
– Well we’ll both be there so Adarsh come find us in May
in Atlanta, that’s just before my birthday I’m May 20
so we’ll celebrate in Atlanta together.
Sherry is writing in talkin’ about her story,
saying her story is too long every time she tries to tell it
and she’s havin’ a hard time cutting
it down to the essentials,
so when you’re tellin’ your story to people,
how do you make it impactful without talkin’ for too long.
Probably the first thing is think about the audience
you’re tryin’ to serve, so I mentioned that word empathy,
what problem are you tryin’ to solve, what pain point?
If you can tell ’em your story reflectin’ against
their needs and really speakin’ for their hearts.
Then I think you’re on a winner.
Then make it really simple, use language that’s simple,
understandable, compellin’, exciting, evocative
and you are absolutely unaware,
I just think when I look at the companies
that have been turned down for money,
some of them because they probably had
to refine their stories,
there’s tons of ’em,
like Tangle Teaser revenue’s now 23 million,
they got turned down,
another Trunkie revenues 10 million dollars,
all these companies have been out there,
either a stage where they’ve gone
through friends and family and your investin’,
tryin’ to raise money and the key thing was their pitch
had to be evolved and shortened and crispened
so it is really good,
the other thing around this I think was fair to say,
just give ’em enough of the story
to tease ’em for the next chapter.
Don’t try and read the whole book at once,
just tease ’em and what you really want
with a great story, you want the forward which
is whatever elevator pitch, whatever you want to call it.
It’s compellin’, evocative, audience centered,
and it just gives enough to say wow,
I want to go to the next stage
and then the next stage is the next stage
and then they open the rich fabric of the whole book,
chapter by chapter.
– Just like bein’ a good sales person,
the best sales people use their ears
more than their mouth.
You want to be a good story teller,
it starts by listening before talking,
understanding who they are and what they need,
’cause you have a thousand stories you can tell,
Stephen and I could tell a thousand stories
about different things from out past
but it’s picking the three out of those thousand
that’s going to make an impact on this person in front of you
and so if you have no idea who you’re talkin’ to,
it makes it harder, you could pick your most effective story
but if you have a little bit more context in who they are,
what they’re going through,
then you can select the right stories from your past
that will have a meaningful impact on them
so you don’t go to long and get really boring.
– Just a final thing, Evan on that is,
I always love to listen to stories that tell me about
how customers have been successful,
so if you’re at a stage where you got some early customers,
go and listen to Evan’s point, to those customers
and they will tell your story better than anybody
could in the world and then you want to bottle that
and if you can tell a customer a story,
of your product, of your service,
how it’s changed their lives,
how it’s made their lives easier,
you’re on a winner, you’re absolutely unstoppable,
get customers to tell your story for you.
– I love it.
– Next up we got a couple people asking the same question.
Tinmag is sayin’ I have a lot of ideas in my life
and for my business, how do I decide which is the best
one to go for?
Brian asking kind of the same thing,
my question is what if you have more than one dream,
how do you pick the best one?
So Tinmag and Brian basically got lots of potential ideas
how do you find the one that’s going to be best for you?
– Good question Tinmag, Brian
and I think you’re obviously people with great ideas,
sounds like lots of ’em.
If you want to be an entrepreneur,
what is it that really motivates you,
do you want to be a billionaire,
do you want to be the next Zuckerberg
or something like that
or do you want to do it to change the world
or do you want to do it cause you’re alteristic,
do you want to do it ’cause you want to change your community,
you got to decide what the motivate
and then against that rank in terms of your mission,
then you can start sayin’ well if
that’s what the end game is,
what’s the best idea to actually get to that end game?
Again sort of stayin’ true to yourself
and havin’ the confidence to pursue it
and then there’s the obvious stuff,
if you’re drivin’ it to build a business and monetize it,
it’s lookin’ at what’s the market opportunity,
how do you change the market, how do you be disruptive,
from that you can put the bones in the skeleton
of a business plan together
and then you just ask yourself what do you need to do
to execute against that vision,
now the question than becomes,
if you wrote Evan and my epitaph
it would be one life was never enough.
One life was never enough.
You have to be ruthless with your time,
’cause the most valuable thing
is your energy, your passion and your time.
So then you can ask yourself,
’cause you might be able to start two or three ideas
and start them simultaneously
but you need to be careful there
that you’re not tryin’ to spread yourself too thinly
and you might find if you spread yourself too thinly,
all three ideas fail.
What you might find if you only focus on one,
pick the winner, if it’s monetization it’s easy to evaluate,
if it’s other criteria you’re drivin’,
just pick the one that’s authentic and closest
to what you’re tryin’ to drive in terms of your values,
but if you can happy days,
say you can drive three business ideas concurrently
then it’s all about just pickin’ a winner,
and you’ll find through the momentum in the business ideas,
the one that really gains traction will be the one
that you really want to double down on and really focus on,
I think there’s no perfect answer to this
but the question you got to be true to yourself
and it’s that moment on a Friday night
when you get home maybe have a glass of wine or a beer,
pick the winners always, pick the winners
and then be ruthless can I just do one,
can I do two, can I do three,
can you get some of your buddies
to start some of your ideas for you,
be involved as an investor,
get them goin’
and then ultimately what you want to do
is fundamentally have the confidence to pick a winner,
double down on it and really grow a great business
and express your passion.
– I would first similar with what Stephen’s saying,
examine the intentions and make sure that it’s pure,
you’re doing this because this has to exist in the world,
you’ve got the passion for it,
it’s not on your list of ideas because you opened
up a magazine and here’s a list of hottest companies
and that’s why you want to go start and do it,
it’s got to come of a place where you actually
have the passion for it.
If your reasons are pure
and you’ve still got multiple ideas,
I would actually look for,
how can I combine these things together into one business
and use that as my differentiator,
so lookin’ at Lindsay Sterling
that we talked about, she likes violining
and she likes electronic music
and those have not typically gone together
and so by mashing them together
now she’s different and she’s unique
and she stands out
and she’s the only one doin’ it,
she found her own market,
so I’ve been lookin’ at how can I combine some
of these things together to form the ultimate business
that only you can do because
you have these different interests.
Good luck.
But again make sure that it has to be both things
are what you are deeply passionate about,
are true and pure and not just chasing opportunity.
– Great idea.
Good idea.
And if you can combine the ideas that’s even better.
– William is writing in, he’s okay with talkin’ to people,
he’s talkin’ about story telling,
he like talking with people but if the conversation goes on
for too long his mood goes down.
So for people who are maybe introverted
and don’t like having long conversations and it drains them,
what advice do we have on story telling
and being confident in conversations
when you’re more introverted.
– I think all of us have some degree of nature
where we’re introverted.
The other thing, there’s a unique skill
to have a rich conversation.
I think we get too excited as entrepreneurs,
we feel we need to pitch
and as Evan said the real uniqueness of great entrepreneurs
in my experience is people who listen really well,
listen acutely, so maybe William,
you just give ’em the value proposition,
the compellin’ reason why your big idea
can add massive value and change their world
but then you just sit back and you rely on some really,
really wise friends that you have.
Those friends ask just questions.
You’ve heard my idea what do you think?
How would this work for you?
Then you just listen and you take feedback
and then the interesting thing you say William,
your motivation goes down if you keep pitchin’
I think you get energized when you listen to other people
and you get their input and you get real engagement
and a rich interaction and that’s how you build
your products and service to be better and well beaten.
The power of listenin’ is such a great skill
an so often undervalued
and it just for me personally,
when I listen to whether I go to customers,
colleagues, partners, the accountants we deal with,
I find it really upliftin’
and it gives me a real sense of not only good karma
but tremendous energy,
if you find you’re out there pitchin’
turn the tables and start askin’ some wise questions
about what does it look like for you?
How do you feel about what I’ve talked about?
What’s the context, how would it solve a pain point for you
and then just listen, then the conversation flows
and it’ll be very energizing.
– So William, I’m an introvert that may not come across,
you may not feel that from me but I am,
a couple things that have helped me,
one I’d limit my exposure so I’d really chunk my time
so Thursdays are my day to be public facing,
it’s hangouts, I’m going into four meetings after this,
that’s my Thursdays
and then tomorrow is nothing,
introvert day just work and the rest of my week is similar
where I’m not meeting people,
I’m not having a lot of conversations
and that works for me so the one day a week
where I’m my extroverted self and then I can recover
for the rest of the week, may be helpful for you
and then also design a business model around
how you can win,
this theme is about having the confidence
to tell your truths
be yourself and tell your story.
It doesn’t mean you need to be out networking 24 hours a day
let the extroverts go out and do that.
I win by creating content,
I never go to events and conferences
’cause I hate networking and introducing myself,
I’ll only go if I’m speaking ’cause then people
will come up to me and I limit those too.
So recognizing what you’re great at,
you can still tell your story and create content,
you can make a video or you can write articles
and you can push out on social media
without having to go and talk to people all the time.
If my business relied on me being a sales person,
we would fail but luckily this is enough
of marketing and content creation
and all the other things that could help me win
that that’s what I stand on.
There’s a lot of different ways to build a business,
you don’t have to be the Mark Cuban,
yelling in your face super loud person to win,
you can find your way to stand as well.
– Evan what you say there is true.
I probably won’t articulate this very well
but you capture something in the essence
of the honesty and authenticity of what you say,
where you say look I’m not an introvert,
in this case to William as well,
sometimes if you’re doin’ a pitch,
I would feel pretty comfortable
with someone doin’ a pitch to me sayin’ look
I’m not the big I am, I’m not a big extrovert,
but I think I’ve got a compelling idea
that’s worth listening to.
If they said that to me, my heart would go out to them
and emotionally I’d feel tremendous resonance and connection
so I don’t think entrepreneurs
are stereotypical, clone extroverts,
I think there’s so many different types of entrepreneurs
and that’s the richness of diversity that we celebrate.
I just think part of that
is genuine honesty and authenticity
about acceptin’ who you are and just sayin’
I’m not going to change that ’cause that’s my soul.
But I’ve got a brilliant idea and it’s going to change
your world and I want to run it past you.
– I like it, I like it.
The heart, the Stephen Kelly heart.
Next question coming in,
what book should we read next?
What book would you recommend that people
watching this video then go and read next?
– I’m readin’ a book at the moment,
there’s loads of great books wow,
your book obviously Evan that’s a must read.
(laughs)
Big plug Evan’s book signed copies Toronto.
The other thing I’m readin’ about which is fantastic,
it’s around diversity and around the challenges women face
in terms of establishing an entrepreneurs career
and some of the sub conscious barriers that are out there,
it’s a book called What Works, we’ll send it to you,
so we’ll put it out on social media
but I think it’s a really cool book.
Why do I like it?
I like it ’cause it challenges so many assumptions,
now it’s a bit different,
it’s not related, well it is related to entrepreneurs,
it’s related to life, it’s a life book
so I think it’s pretty cool.
There’s loads of books you know
you can do From Good to Great,
Branson’s books are fantastic.
What you tend to find with these business books honestly,
is you can read ’em but there’s normally two or three
great ideas that you know make huge common sense,
it’s about trusting your instincts
and when you pick out these nuggets in these books,
and obviously you can apply them
they’re injections that give you new energy
and probably greater confidence
and really encourage you to support your conviction
but I think the thing that you should be thinkin’ of
is what’s your book?
What’s your book of your great idea
and how you brought that to market
and actually when you start your companies
and when you grow your companies,
it is worth thinking about the chapters of the book
that you’re going to write one day
about how you built a product,
changed the world, stuck to your big dream
and was always very true to yourself,
how you hire great people around you,
all these sort of things,
’cause when you do this it builds culture
and in your companies it’s great to have that culture
and that’s the reason why people want to work for you,
and be around you.
Read lots of books, get lots of ideas,
if there’s amazing mentors out there, learn from them
but think about writing your own book
and make it different, make it challenging,
make it the essence of your big idea but also who you are.
– I like it, I like it.
Stephen when are you comin’ out with your book,
I want the Stephen Kelly book,
we’ll call it Velocity by Stephen Kelly.
– Velocity.
And the speed of light.
We love it Evan.
What’s your ideas about books,
you read a lot of books you’re a great thoughtful–
– I just finished reading The Experience Economy
which is a good book basically talkin’
about how to realize you’re not
in a product or service business,
you’re not selling shoes, you’re not selling software,
you’re selling an experience
and tryin’ to give the best possible experience
to your customers in every scenario
so they have an emotional connection
to your business beyond just the benefits
they get from using your product.
It’s a great book.
I don’t know how much it relates to confidence
to be your true self which is this theme
so I just started a new one called Triggers
which is interesting
which is understanding the triggers that you have
that hold you back,
that when you want to go and do something big
and then you self sabotage somehow,
what are those triggers that then if you identify them,
you can change your behavior.
I’m just starting that
which is interesting,
but I recommend checkin’ that out for you guys
if you want to change some of your self destructive habits
and break through and have more confidence.
There’s a follow up question around this from Edwin,
saying how do you apply what you’re reading to your business
and personal life as an introverted person?
Are you introverted Stephen?
– I once did these, it’s funny actually,
when I went for one job they made me do these
sort of psychology tests and I had to answer
all these spacial awareness things.
I came out as an introvert,
I think you are what you are and I think you have to feel
very comfortable with your own skin
and be what you are and be authentic to that
but havin’ said that,
we all as Evan said, have learned behaviors.
I think Edwin the reality is when I look at,
and I read business books, I’ve read ’em over the years,
and I’ve read all the ones we talked
about From Good to Great and all that sort of stuff
but there’s probably a few great ideas
that you can apply to your business,
I think with this sort of thing,
you can read some business books
and it seems overwhelming.
If you read autobiographys of great entrepreneurs,
there’s so much but they’ve done
that over 30, 40 years sometimes,
if you read the books of the great entrepreneurs
it can be overwhelmin’ so just take one thing,
just take one magical thing
that is going to be transformin’ in your business.
Then do that really well and then maybe go
back to the next one.
It is definitely the case,
typically with both business books
and even fictional books that it can be very powerful
that it kind of reconnects you to your mission,
it allows you to maybe have some tools, some skills
that you learn that you can employ in the business.
– And just understanding that you can win as an introvert,
I have my channel, my audience
and had the success that I’ve had
and Stephen is running one
of the largest tech companies in the world
and at Sage Summit last year walks
in on the stage bangin’ a drum
with lights goin’ off and smoke flyin’ around,
he’s a performer, you can break through
the limitations you have to do things
that you never thought were possible
so just because you’re an introvert
doesn’t mean you can’t win.
Stephen we are at time.
It’s crazy how quickly an hour goes,
I want to leave believe nation
with a final summarizing message,
nuggets of wisdom from Mr. Stephen Kelly,
what do you have for us?
– Confidence to be true to yourself, couple of examples,
just looking back in the last 20 years,
you got to believe, it’s all about confidence,
it’s about conviction
and when people kind of give you darker days,
you got to dig deep so the CEO of Excite company George Bell,
got turned down Google for a million bucks
and then sold the business or valued at seven billion,
so why, because they believe,
I could give you loads of other examples,
entrepreneurs who’ve run out banged against the wall
or run out of cash and used that as a catalyst
to really invigorate their beliefs
and their conviction and their confidence
to build fantastic businesses
but I think you guys out there,
it’s been a brilliant session, fantastic questions
and I think the essence is you got two introverts here,
Evan and myself, we just are what we are,
we believe in what we believe in
and we’ve got a really clear mission,
clear moral compass of what we want to do,
and I think what we’ve shared with you today
if there’s one thing,
it is back to #believe,
if you believe in your idea, you believe in your passion,
you know how you’re going to stay true to yourself,
that will give you tremendous confidence
and let’s be very honest,
there are going to be bumps in the road,
when you hit those bumps go and get some spiritual upliftin’
whether it’s from mentors, friends, colleagues, customers,
to say I’m on the right track so I’m going to double down
and we’re going to be successful
and we’re going to make a difference to this world.
– I love it boom.
That’s the ending I love it.
Guys thank you so much for joining us again,
you can support Stephen with his new Instagram
and Facebook page skellyceo,
also for next month if you guys have ideas
and what you would like us to talk about,
leave it not in the live chat ’cause it’s going to disappear
but leave it in the comments afterwards
and we’ll check that out.
Stephen thank you again so much for spending time
to help enrich the lives of entrepreneurs,
I really appreciate.
– No it’s great we love you guys so thanks very much
for spendin’ time with us we really appreciate it.
We’re honored.
– Thank you guys continue to believe and we’ll see you soon.
”
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