Why Personal Branding Is Entering a Whole New Era (And What It Takes to Survive It) | Ep 32

So I think it's important to set the foundation of how I even got started entrepreneurship.

And this is where that divine inspiration, massive action, and just always taking the best next step comes into play.

So I got started entrepreneurship at 17, selling Cutco kitchen knives.

I was extremely passionate about the product because my mom bought knives from some kid 10 years before.

I used the product every single night at dinner.

I think this is one of the biggest points of friction in people's businesses is that they're just not over the moon excited about their product or service.

Maybe they want to be a high ticket coach, but they're not actually confident in their coaching and skillset.

And so they're not able to actively, authentically, purely and enthusiastically sell their product or service.

And that's what I learned at a very early age is I had a product that I believed in.

It was kitchen knives.

Like, why am I so geeking out over kitchen knives? Well, it's because I used it every single night at dinner.

I knew it was the best product on the market.

And that conviction came through.

And I was massively successful at 17 selling kitchen knives.

It put me on the fast path to opening up a branch office, which put me in my first seminar room, my first experience to books that changed my lives, speakers that opened my eyes to new possibilities.

And at that first conference, the books that changed my lives, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Think and Grow Rich, How to Win Friends and Influence People, all came into my awareness at 17.

At that event, I heard that becoming a public speaker was the highest paid profession in the world.

And most people would rather die than speak on stage.

In my little 17 year old brain, I just heard ping opportunity.

Wait, like all I have to do is spend the next five years or the next 50 years figuring that out.

And that's all I have to do.

Like, that's pretty cool.

Shortly after that, Tony Robbins work came into my life and I saw the impact that could be had.

And that's when I first made the connection that, um, uh you could get paid to change people's lives and i just thought that was the coolest thing ever i'm 17. i don't have a message i'm kind of afraid to get in front of an audience how do i start to go down this path to do that someday so long story short several different side hustles in college that you know back in those days i felt like an entrepreneur in retrospect they were not like legitimate businesses it was kind of the gig economy before the gig economy was was actually created And going into my senior year, I saw all of my friends ahead of me graduating, who had graduated that spring, it's August, they still didn't have jobs.

And so I didn't want to be in that situation.