So usually in these videos you see these guys flex a really nice watch, or they drive up in a Bugatti or they fly into Dubai on a private jet, which I think is pretty hilariously cringe.
But I also think isn't the actual best part of becoming a successful CEO or entrepreneur.
Because I think the thing that's actually going to fill your soul is this really unique and deeply human experience that we call being a CEO.
And so that's what I want to show you today are the things that you're truly going to be proud of, rather than the things that are here today and gone tomorrow.
But first, let me have my breakfast.
So I want you to think about the pride you're going to feel at the end of this journey, where you've basically just been hustling your ass off for the last few years.
It's been immensely painful the entire time you got knocked on your ass basically every single day.
But there will be these brief moments where you'll zoom out and look at what you've created, like what you've built, and get to sit back and just pick holy shit, like look what I've manifested into the real world.
And so I will tell you this story that's really gonna help you hit this home, which is last year I had a holiday party in our Toronto office.
So our entire engineering and product team is there.
And everyone ended up wearing Christmas sweaters.
It was really fun.
It was like tacky Christmas sweater day.
And then on top of that, everyone brought in their families.
And we just got this new office in Toronto.
It is like right on the lake.
It is the most beautiful, like newest tower in city center.
And I was standing next to one of my early teammates and we were just watching the kids build ginger houses and everyone's laughing and having a good time.
And she just taps me on the shoulder.
She looks at me and she says john, have you ever thought about the fact that all of this came out of your brain cells?
And it was in that moment that it really hits you that you've been grinding for so long, you've been so in the thick of it that you rarely take a moment to zoom out and just truly enjoy the process that you're in and what you've created.
Because I think in some ways you're so fearful of actually zooming out and enjoying it.
Because there's this fear that if you get complacent or if you recognize what you've done, you won't keep going.
And that's what really drives you in many ways.
But there's this feeling that is just truly irreplaceable when you look out and you realize, like holy shit, this thing that I've created, this thing that I've like willed into this world, is actually out here serving people and helping them live their lives and impacting the world.
Like it's a really, really crazy feeling, which I think tees you up really well for this first unlock you're going to have when you get to this level, which is realizing that you get to carve your own path.
Basically, there's a certain point in life where you realize that every role is kind of just made up.
Like this idea that you go work a nine to five and then this is how you get to partner, track and do things by the book in this specific way and live your life in that specific way.
Basically, you stop becoming an NPC at some point and you realize that you have absolute, complete free will and agency, obviously to a realistic degree.
And what's interesting about this whole company building process is that if you're lucky enough to have a business that actually ends up generating a meaningful profit for you is you realize that you have a certain level of stability and freedom to then actually do whatever the fuck you want to do.
Like your business actually can become your artistic canvas, where there are no rules that you have to market this way or market that way or do things this way or follow these old corporate rules.
Like you can actually just self express through the lens of your business.
Like you don't have to do a boring product photo shoot for your coffee company.
Instead, you can make it this really cool sexy, exciting thing where you're actually the model in the campaign.
Or even on a personal lifestyle basis, you don't have to go work a nine to five in a job you hate.
You can actually just fuck off to Bali and be a solopreneur and be a digital nomad and live and work in the hours that you want to.
Or if you want to disrupt the entire chocolate oligopoly in a really cheeky way like you, can just go do that.
And so this is why I say that entrepreneurship is one of the greatest forms of self-expression, because once you hit a certain level of success, you can just go out there and do cool shit.
And I would actually argue that leads you to be even more net, net successful than just following the MPC rule book.
And it all helps you realize this next really cool thing with this job.
And that's in realizing that there is no greater game where I actually had an investor from the other day asked me if I'd ever consider selling Stan.
And I was kind of like you know, maybe one day, like I just want to focus on like being happy, like having a farm, having a family.
But then he really pressed me on it.
Cause he was like John.
I don't think you'll find a more interesting game, at least to occupy your daytime with.
Because if you were to sell this company, you just have to re-solve the same problems once again.
And the reward in entrepreneurship when you solve a problem is an even harder, more interesting, more complex problem, which oftentimes, by the way, in the moment sucks ass.
But when you really zoom out and think about it intellectually, it ends up being really, really fascinating where, if you think about it, business is the game of people, right?
It's about managing people, inspiring people, convincing people like really thinking through hard, complex problems.
And that conversation helped me realize that business is actually my sport.
Where, if you think about a game like basketball to some degree, you're dealing with a certain amount of constrained variables, right?
It's a closed game.
It's a closed rule set.
Whereas in the game of life or in the game of business, you basically have an infinite amount of variables to optimize and figure out, which means that as you solve one of these problems, you get an even harder problem to solve, which obviously in the moment kind of sucks.
But on the flip side, if you zoom out, ends up being a really interesting intellectual game.
Like every day I get to learn something new.
Like one day I'm learning high level marketing psychology.
And then the next day I'm deep in the weeds of the finances.
And then today I'm studying how to build the very best culture.
And the thing is, isn't one of the points of life to learn and grow and experience as many new things as possible?
Because this job has taught me so much, including one of the next coolest things that come with being a CEO.
But before we talk about this, let's go into the office and say hi to the team.
Hey guys.
We're vlogging with the team.
What are we working on?
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Awesome.
Yeah.
We're trying to get people paid.
All right.
I'm going to go disrupt this meeting here.
It's reserved.
I don't know if you guys would be upset if I had disrupted.
We're just making a little vlog today.
Oh, no.
Not upset at all.
What are you guys working on?
Just core ops stuff.
A lot of stuff.
What is core ops?
It is the foundation of our company here at Stan on the back end, which is finance people, legal and general ops to keep things running and efficient for everybody.
And why is people important?
Because it's literally the heart of the business.
I love it.
If people aren't good, nothing works.
I love it.
Cool.
That line, it's a really good setup for this next section of the vlog.
So in order to build a successful enterprise, you need to work with incredible people.
I think a lot about the quote if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together.
And it's really hard to deal with people, right?
To build teams, to hire teams, and to deal with us as humans and all the emotions we feel.
But out of that hard work can come some really beautiful things.
And that's that you get to work with the coolest people.
Like my startup Stanford is just my co-founder and I hacking away in a room.
But we've now worked for so long and compounded this asset for so long that we get to work with the very best people.
Like there are a few better feelings than getting to sit back and watch your team go out there, be super hungry, be super inspired and accomplish things that you truly could never have even dreamed of yourself.
In fact, I'm actually seeing two of my best employees sitting outside right now having meeting, who've absolutely crushed it for our social media presence.
So I actually might go bother them and knock on the window and see if at least Lowe will join me.
Lowe, will you be in this vlog?
Cool.
Yeah.
Working in stand is also a workout.
So I'm recording a vlog right now about the coolest parts about running a startup.
And the section is getting to work with awesome people.
Would you be down to join?
I mean, I guess I fit the criteria.
All right.
Okay.
Let's see you down.
All right.
Pull up a chair, Lo.
Hi.
So Lo, what do you do here?
I am a content creator and I'm running a strategy for our Instagram.
Heck yeah.
What's it like working here at Sam?
Oh my gosh.
Very, very fulfilling, first of all, because our mission is literally helping people.
So overall, very fulfilling.
And then also, just being with the team, everyone is so cool.
Like you said, this whole thing is working with awesome people.
Being able to come into work and like look forward to the people that i'm going to be seeing is amazing, because we come in office twice a week and like those two days are like the days that i'm like i get all of like my social needs.
You know all these amazing people, so really like the fact that i get to go into work and enjoy it is like the coolest thing.
What do you think makes the people here at stan so dope and cool and awesome and sick?
Well, first off, I know I know the hiring process is like insane, so you want to make sure that not only are they a hard worker, but they actually fit with our culture.
Like that's a huge part of it and I think like that's a reason why we have like so much success with it.
But then also the fact that everyone cares a lot, because I think if you have people who don't care about what they're doing, that's when there can be some like like almost like annoyance towards each other or like oh, why aren't they picking up their slack?
But that's never been an issue.
Like everyone goes above and beyond.
So you like want to work even harder for them too.
Yeah, I love it.
What we're talking about right now is you get to work with cool people at this level.
It's like in order to get to this level, you have to work with cool people who are all bought in in the same way and all like rowing that hard in the boat.
Yeah, exactly.
Thanks, though. but it doesn't just stop with working with cool people like Lo.
I want you to think about all of the really cool people you're gonna start to get to meet once you hit a certain level of success.
Like, you're gonna get to meet all these other people who are super passionate about whatever you're passionate about.
Well, some of the closest friends I have to this day are friends that I met on TikTok.
Like I think a ton about Austin Hankwitz.
Austin, you're the fucking homie.
Austin and I met in the early days of TikTok, where he was one of the first people with a blue check mark and responded to my first ever vlog where I built in public saying that he wanted to support me very quickly thereafter became one of my first customers and then actually invested in Stan as an angel investor.
Like.
This is us, literally four years ago, meeting in New York for the first time in person, after being internet friends and entrepreneur friends for a year plus.
And now, as Stan has gotten to a big boy level, I'm getting to meet and work with, and start cooking with, some incredible people.
That meeting were truly beyond my wildest dreams.
But stay tuned on that stuff.
We're cooking up some big updates for you later this year.
And even getting to say that to you right now just makes me realize like, how fucking lucky I am to get to be doing this job and the immense amount of privilege that's come from.
Obviously yes, working super hard, but getting to be in this position, which is actually the next thing that I want to talk to you guys about
And that's the privilege that comes with financial freedom.
Where at the end of the day, we're all looking for this.
No matter who you are or what you might do, we would all love this privilege.
But the reality of getting to such a privilege is that you have to work your fucking asses off.
But if you do do that, not only are you going to take care of yourself and get to do whatever you want to travel the world, sit on boards or work on nonprofits that actually fill you up, but you also get to take care of your loved ones.
Where, very candidly, if we continue to execute here at Stan, both myself, my co-founder and all of our early employees aren't going to have to worry about money anymore.
And because of all of this work I'm going to get to retire my mom, who raised me as a single mom and hasn't stopped working her ass off for the last 40 years.
But here's the flip side.
I've talked about all of these privileges here, but the one thing in life that I've learned is that there is no free lunch.
And this is actually the last thing that I want to talk to you guys about, which is that this journey is really painful.
And that might sound super counterintuitive at first like wait, why would something being extremely painful be one of the coolest parts about the journey?
But the one thing that I've realized is that, if you can survive it and get through it, immense pressure and immense stress truly makes diamonds.
Where I think in today's society, so many people cower from the hard stuff, right?
Which makes sense because we have so many easy things getting doled out to us.
It's really easy to feel entitled with how much abundance we have.
But what I've learned is that pain is a signal.
And within this entrepreneurial journey, at least oftentimes that pain is a signal or a consequence of growth.
Because I actually think about the metamorphosis journey that a caterpillar goes through in order to turn into a butterfly.
And if you know anything about the chrysalis process, that caterpillar actually completely melts before it turns into a butterfly.
And thinking about that journey.
There's just absolutely no way that that process isn't immensely painful.
And so if I were to give you any reason to pursue this whole crazy thing called entrepreneurship, it would be because it maximizes your full potential.
I know for a fact I wouldn't be half the person that I am today had it not been for all the rejections, all the failures, all the trials and tribulations I've had to go through as part of this journey.
Because calm seas don't make good sailors.
I don't know a single case where someone had outsized prolonged success without an outsized work ethic.
And I actually think that's a good thing, because if you want to grow immensely and you're that hungry like that is your opportunity for the taking.
And so, with all that being said, I'm going to go ahead inside enjoy having lunch with my team, but I hope this video gave you a different perspective on what it's actually like to run a successful business.
And if you want to see more videos about what it's like trying to build a billion dollar company, make sure to like and subscribe.
