I'm about to give someone 100000 to quit their jobs and chase their dreams, which is absolutely wild if you think about it.
But it is our mission here at Standing Manifest, where Jamie, the aspiring filmmaker that we're bringing in today, we're going to surprise with a 100000 check.
But it's not just the 100000 today, but some mentorship we're going to give her.
It's all the experience we have of scaling the most successful career entrepreneur in.
I'm feeling amped right now.
I'm also feeling nervous, both for us, to make sure that we can get the room ready in time.
Nervous for her because I'm like holy shit, this is gonna be really stimulating for you.
But then at the end of the day, excited because this is our mission manifest.
This is why we do what we do.
Jamie's going to come in here, and I can't wait for us to support her for the rest of her career.
We'll have to start that today.
But the question is, why are we giving Jamie $100,000?
Well, it's in the context of a campaign we run every single New Year's that is super freaking dope.
It's the heart of our brand, which is called Dare to Dream, where every single New Year's we do a New Year, New Me campaign.
And with Dare to Dream, we had thousands of people this year submit a video sharing their story, their mission, what their dream is and what they want to build.
And then we have the incredibly difficult decision of trying to pick out of all these incredible stories who to fund with this 100000 prize.
In that context, Jamie's video really popped out to all of us, because it was so.
My name is Jamie and this is the year I bet on myself.
I've been through many phases in my life, but at the same time...
I haven't really changed at all.
Oh, hey, my name.
Hey guys.
Hello everyone.
It's Jamie.
Hey guys.
Thanks for watching this video.
Hey, I've had the same dream since I was 12.
I really love making videos and I definitely want to like, do something with that in the future.
So that's what I did.
But after graduating film school and after a never ending cycle of closed doors, I felt more stuck than ever.
I had to start from zero.
I had never felt more alone and lost, and I found out that a lot of people felt the same way I did.
I've been making YouTube videos to inspire people on their journey just as mine is unfolding.
And this past year, I was able to work with the creators that I look up to the most.
I want to prove that chasing your dreams isn't crazy.
I used to think my dream was about making it, but if there's one thing that I've learned after all of these years, it's that all of this means nothing without community.
Winning the Dare to Dream competition would mean being able to put 100 of my time into my work for an entire year.
Giving back to my community with real, ready-to-use education on how to level up your creativity, and even workshops and events to connect us all together.
I want to grow this dream of mine bigger than me.
A space where we figure it out together, where I don't know what I'm doing, isn't a failure, but instead a starting line.
All right, here's the plan.
My job is to stall Jamie for the next 90 minutes while the team sets up the room.
She has no idea.
Stan is actually split up into two offices.
I'm over in office one with Jamie, distracting her while the team is setting up in office two.
And we're going to make our way over once they're finished while I keep her talking.
The team only has 90 minutes to transform that room because Jamie thinks she's here to talk about her business plan and she has no idea that her life is about to change.
When I was 17.
This was like when COVID was happening, like I had just graduated high school, except there was no graduation and I'm feeling a little bit like what should I do?
And I decided to pick up skateboarding, but I, of course, as I do, film it.
Every single day I would go out, learn something, film it, edit it and post it, and then I gained 90000 followers in two months.
I kept doing that for a year but I sort of started to feel that like well, I needed to do something else, but I kind of didn't want to let myself.
How did your parents feel about this whole film?
It sounds like, is it when your mom's Asian?
My Asian mom, if I were to tell her, hey, mom, I'm not going to corporate.
I'm going to go to do a film career.
How did your parents feel about all of this?
She's very traditional.
When I found out, like when I was 12, when I found out like, oh yeah, I'm going to do this instead.
I want to pursue just creation.
I would tell her all the time, like, Mom, I'm going to make videos.
Like, I'm going to do this.
And she would kind of not take it as seriously as I was like, no, Mom, like, I'm being so serious.
Like I know I'm a kid right now, but like this is actually what I'm going to do for the rest of my life.
She didn't really understand that until When I got into college and I changed my major from business to film.
She was like oh,
And I was like, yeah.
She'd just be like, I hope you know what you're doing.
And I'd be like, yeah, I do.
You have to believe in yourself, even when there's nothing telling you you should, even when there's no proof or anything like that.
You have to be the first person to vouch for yourself and even be a little bit delusional.
Because if you're not, how are you going to ever take those actions that'll lead you to where you want to go?
On paper, 90 minutes is plenty of time.
But of course... There's been a fire.
You know, we dealt with that as the balloon blower upper went out.
So we're hand blowing everything up.
I'm in the other room running out of questions.
10 minutes out and the room still isn't ready.
Will you still tell me from your words like what you're thinking about doing?
I think of Starting Line as a community for aspiring creators, or even creators who feel stuck in that like sort of like the same loop.
It's more about the in-person like community.
Like I just don't want people to feel how I felt when I graduated film school and I felt like I wasn't sure what the path, of the next path, was going to be for me.
I don't want other people to have to go through that.
I really like that because it's very parallel to Stan's mission, which is just to empower anyone to make money working for themselves.
I think you're hitting a vein in society that I think we're all feeling, which is basically, we say all the time that the American dream isn't dead, it's just changed.
But it requires you to get past that fear of actually like believing in yourself.
You put yourself out of the world.
I understand it's your highest performing Instagram video too, right?
Yeah.
Isn't that cool?
It is really cool.
It's really cool.
Like, I think I might've mentioned this.
That was the first Instagram post that I made that felt vulnerable.
Yeah.
So for that, For the most vulnerable post I've ever created and posted, to be my highest performing one.
Yeah.
It's like, wow.
From what we've seen, we've worked with so many successful folks.
This is the hero's journey.
This pin works.
You were like right here just starting.
You want to launch starting line?
I see you right now on your journey is, this is Jamie.
We need to dual track growing Jamie while also over time growing starting line.
As in Jamie has a ton of potential, but no one knows her yet, on a relative basis, because there's actually only a singular input that you need to care about above all else, which is just making really fucking good content.
Do you have confidence in yourself that if you were to put out 52 videos and, by the way, after every video you learn from it Stanley gives you analytics on it.
All that kind of stuff.
Do you have confidence that you could get to some version of this if you actually had the time and energy?
So Jamie, actually, surprise for you.
You're not meeting the finalists.
Congratulations, you've won $100,000.
I'm really overstimulating, I'm sorry.
This is the stand team.
How are you feeling?
I have no words.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
I am going to make the most of it and make the world a better place.
I love it.
I love it.
Congratulations again.
We're very proud of you.
And what I will tell anyone who's watching this right now is if you have a dream and you have a vision and you know inside of you your integrity says I have what it takes and I'm putting in the work that's required to get to this level, then don't fucking let anyone stop you, because all of this physically around us is a manifestation of the ideas and thoughts I had here and the immense self-belief and willpower to push through and will something into this world.
And for five plus years each shit, every single fucking day, in all the ways you would never expect.
Truly, entrepreneurship is just a journey of you getting constantly fucking wrecked.
But if you do that and you keep rolling the boulder uphill, At some point there are going to be these moments where you get to like let it go and enjoy it for just a second as it flywheels.
And that's a moment, like, literally changing someone's life today.
And so if I can be at all a symbol to other people of, like, you can come from fucking nothing.
Single immigrant mom, immigrant kid in the South of the United States.
And you can work your fucking ass off and truly build something great if you believe in yourself and you dare to dream.
