702: Blake Mycoskie (Founder of TOMS) - Hitting Every Goal & Still Feeling Worthless... Gratitude, Mantras, and Hiring Like a Champion

The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk www. LearningLeader.com https://www. LearningLeader.com The Price of Becoming is a USA Today, LA Times, and Publishers Weekly Best-Seller! www. LearningLeader.com/Becoming https://www. LearningLeader.com/Becoming This is brought to you by Insight Global https://insightglobal.com/learningleader/. If you need to hire one person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world has the hustle and grit to deliver. Blake Mycoskie founded TOMS Shoes in 2006 after a trip to Argentina, where he saw children without shoes and built a company around giving away a pair for every pair sold. TOMS went on to donate more than 100 million pairs of shoes and became one of the most copied business models in the world. What most people don't know is what happened after he sold it, and I'm grateful that he was open to talking about that on this episode of The Learning Leader Show. Key Learnings Make your gratitude specific. Not "I'm grateful for my family." Name the exact thing. Blake's example from that morning: the photos the camp posted of his daughter laughing in the lake, and knowing his stoic kid does not smile like that unless she is genuinely happy. He kept the practice going for five years when he couldn't feel any of it. Blake could not name five things he was grateful for, and he had all the same things in his life he has now. He did it anyway. He credits it as one of the things that kept him going. Surfing is a great thinking practice. Surfing is mostly just sitting on the board. Three hours in the water, ten waves, maybe five minutes standing. The rest is paddling and sitting. That's why it works as a thinking practice. Capture the idea in the moment or lose it. Blake programmed the side button on his Apple Watch to open a voice memo. Every idea he has sitting on the board, he records. They're all waiting when he gets out. He hit every marker and still felt worthless. "I did everything, and I still, deep down in my soul, had this feeling like I'm not worthy, I'm not enough, and I never will be." The external validation was the drug. Selling TOMS cut off the supply. The thing that had been holding up his sense of self was suddenly gone. If you get there and it's empty, don't panic. Panicking is what Blake did, and having money meant he could make expensive mistakes fast. Build the dream house. Get divorced. One thing after another. The emptiness may be the point. Blake's read on it: if achievement delivered what society promises, you'd never go inward. Feeling hollow at the summit is what forces the inner work. He re-patterned the sentence he'd been telling himself since childhood. The old one was "you're not enough." He replaced it with "I am enough. I've always been enough." Twenty minutes every morning and every evening. Forty straight days. It worked, and he no longer needs to do it daily. Sometimes you just need a physical cue to catch the loop. That's the whole idea behind the bracelet he wears. Not magic. A reminder on your wrist that interrupts the thought. Give the second one away. Blake found the bracelet's real power was handing one to a friend. Now you're both wearing it, you're both in on it, and there's an unspoken agreement that neither of you has to have a bad day alone. Men are worse at building that than women are. Tell your kids they're enough, and keep telling them. They're going to get the opposite message from everywhere else, which is exactly why it has to come from you repeatedly. Blake says the relaxation you'll see in them is immediate. Be brutally honest about how hard the job is. Try to talk them out of it. Blake is the last interview in the process now. If he can lay out every negative and they still desperately want it, the commitment is real. "How many people did you convince not to take the role before you got the right person?" Most leaders slip into sales mode, talk the candidate into it, and end up talking themselves into the candidate. What he screens for during the interview process: Integrity first. If it isn't there, it surfaces fast now. Attitude second. The person who never says "that's not my job." Whether they're building a resume or joining a movement. Find the people who cover what you're bad at. Blake is a storyteller, a vision-sharer, and high energy. He is not a supply chain guy, not a finance guy, and he has trouble saying no. So he hired around it. That's what let him actually be the chief shoe giver instead of pretending to be a CEO. Don't wait for permission. Most people stand in line at the front door. Blake looks for side doors. In Argentina he had no investors and no plan, just an idea and the words One For One. Ryan's version for his kids: everyone can apply online. Drive to the restaurant and go talk to the manager instead. Having no experience was the advantage. He'd never made a shoe, so he didn't know which rules he was breaking. Same with outdoor advertising. Same with driver's ed. He learned it from Richard Branson: ask forgiveness, not permission. Nashville wouldn't allow advertising, so he sold art instead. Blake spent two years with the city council and got there by removing the ad from the ad. No price, no call to action. Just album covers on the sides of buildings, called country music art. Once one artist had one, they all wanted one. He sold the company to Clear Channel. You don't attract what you want. You attract what you are. Want honest friends, be honest. Want peace at home, bring peace. Want trust, practice it when nobody's watching. Blake applies it to customers too: sloppy companies attract sloppy customers, and that's usually the real reason the business fails. Charlie Munger got asked how to get a great wife. He said: deserve one. Be known for doing what you said you'd do. Early on Blake didn't have the skills, so he built the reputation on execution instead. Move fast, keep it simple, do it with integrity. Momentum is a form of trust. The other half of that is not overpromising. Blake's own failure mode is getting excited, feeling falsely confident, promising something big, and missing. When it happens, own it fast and be honest, and the relationship usually survives. Be careful using a general-purpose chatbot as a therapist. Blake's warning, and the reason the founders of Sonia built a purpose-built tool instead: the big consumer models are designed to make you feel good about yourself. If you need to hear something hard, that's the last thing you want. He went from skeptic to advisor in six months. Blake met the Sonia founders at a mental health conference, tried the app to be polite, and by the third session was getting insights he hadn't gotten elsewhere. He now spends five to ten hours a week helping them. His reason for loving the work: "Now I get to be the coach instead of the athlete." Stop chasing balance. Design for harmony. Blake picked this up from an executive at Cannes who said she'd given up on balance. He goes hard in phases. Full dad mode with the office waiting on emails. Then all in on a launch and missing things at home. The measure isn't evenly split day to day. It's whether, over a year, everyone in his life feels like they got what they needed to thrive. Including him. Reflection Questions What did you actually feel grateful for today? Not the category. The specific moment. What is the sentence you've been repeating to yourself since childhood, and is it true? In your last hire, how hard did you try to talk them out of it? Or did you spend the interview selling them, and then sell yourself? More Learning #598: Sam Parr https://learningleader.com/samparr598/ - Bold. Fast. Fun. Living by a Mantra & Building a Media Company #547: Dr. Michael Gervais https://learningleader.com/mikegervais547/ - Stop Worrying About What Other People Think of You #676: Jesse Cole https://learningleader.com/bananas/ - Built for The Fans (The Owner of the Savannah Bananas) Episode Chapters 00:00 Meet Blake Mycoskie 01:38 Surfing is Great for Deep Thinking 03:41 Make Your Gratitude Specific 05:39 Blake Sold TOMS and Fell Apart 11:20 Advice for Those to "Make It" and Feel Nothing 13:23 "I Am Enough" and the Bracelet on His Wrist 17:35 The No Magic Pill 19:41 The Risk of Chatbot Therapy 22:42 A Surgeon Dad, a Bestselling Mom, and the Pressure Nobody Said Out Loud 25:13 Telling Your Kids They're Enough 31:31 How He Got Country Music Art on the Side of Buildings 35:15 Learning to Be Proud of TOMS Again 38:49 Hiring Around Your Weaknesses 41:25 Try to Talk Them Out of the Job 45:07 You Don't Attract What You Want. You Attract What You Are. 46:54 Don't Wait for Permission 48:34 Be Known for Doing What You Said You'd Do 50:02 The Champagne Question: Harmony, Not Balance 52:28 EOPC

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Ryan Hawk?

  Welcome to the Learning Leader Show presented by Insight Global. I am your host, Ryan Hawke. Thank you so much for being here. Go to learningleader.com for show notes of this and all podcast episodes. Go to learningleader.com. Now, onto tonight's featured leader. Blake Mycoskie is the founder of TOMS Shoes. He built a company around giving away a pair for every pair sold. TOMS went on to donate more than 100 million pairs of shoes and became

• 0:40Ryan Hawk?

  one of the most copied business models in the world. Blake eventually sold TOMS to Bain Capital for hundreds of millions of dollars. That unfortunately led him to a deep depression. He went dark for almost four years. He'd hit every marker of success and he still felt empty and worthless. During our conversation, Blake describes exactly what happened, why, and how he made it to the other side. We also discussed what he specifically looks for when hiring a leader, his morning mantra and how it helps him, what he learned about himself after

• 1:20Ryan Hawk?

  going on the amazing race with his sister, why you should never wait for permission, and what you should do if you want to get a great spouse. Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy my conversation with Blake Mycoskie.

• 1:38Ryan Hawk?

  You have this beautiful background. It's not fake. It's real. What were you doing 90 seconds before we connected here?

• 1:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, literally, I'm still dripping with saltwater because the waves are so good in Costa Rica right now. And I'm not even at my house. I luckily brought my computer to my friend's little beach shack and left it here while I surfed. And then I got out, dried off, put a hat and t-shirt on, and here we are. And I got this beautiful cat who I don't know, right here hanging out with me and waves crashing. And you found me on a little vacation. My kids are at camp this month, so I'm getting some time for myself. And it's really nice.

• 2:15Ryan Hawk?

  What is it about surfing that you love?

• 2:17Speaker 01

  You know, I love just being in the water. I usually surf at sunrise. So I get, it's also an excuse to see the sunrise every morning. And I think there's something magical about, and I've read some stuff about the ions and the waves and how it connects with our energy and charges us up. Also, the thing that a lot of people don't realize that they're not surfers is that most of what you do when you're surfing is just sit on your board. And so it's almost a meditation, because you're actually only surfing. I just surfed for three hours and I probably caught maybe 10 waves total. I was probably on the board standing, you know, less than five minutes. So, most of it is paddling, which is great exercise, and sitting there, which for me, gives me a chance to really do things like my gratitude

• 3:02Speaker 01

  meditation, or to sit there and really think through something that I might rush through in normal life. And so, I always come out of the water with a really good mindset. And actually, something that for people who are like me and probably like you, have lots of ideas, especially business ideas, my new hack is I got an Apple Watch, and I programmed it to where if I hit the button on the side, it turns on the voice memo. And so, I used to sit in the water and surf and have all these ideas, and then I'd forget them because I don't have a pad and pen. So now, I sit there and every time I have an idea, or oh shit, I need to call my mom back, I just go, do, do, do, do, talk. And then when I get back, they're all there. So, it's cool.

• 3:41Ryan Hawk?

  Love it. You mentioned gratitude meditation. Tactically, what is that? Are there specific words you say? Are they the same ones? Or is it, hey, I'm grateful for this? Like, what does that sound like?

• 3:51Speaker 01

  So, it's kind of sounds like a prayer. So, depending on what your religious or spiritual beliefs, it's a, you know, thank you, God, thank you, universe, for, and I think the most important thing is being very specific. So, like this morning, I was like, thank you, God, thank you, universe, for the pictures that I saw last night of my daughter at camp looking like she was having the time of her life in the lake. Because the camp posts pictures for the parents to see, you know, and it's great because this is their first time to ever go to camp. And I was, you know, I wanted to make sure that she's happy there. And she looks like she is, I mean, I know my daughter. She does not have that smile unless she's ecstatic. She's kind of a stoic girl. And so, seeing those photos just made me feel

• 4:33Speaker 01

  so grateful and for her experience. And then also, it's great because now I can really relax down here myself. And so, that was one of the things that I rattled off. And I just kind of say them to myself, but I try to do it every day. And oftentimes, I'll write it down if I'm journaling.

• 4:47Ryan Hawk?

  It's easy, especially today, I feel like, for us to complain, for us to highlight and think about the things that are not going well, for the troubles, the challenges, the people that may have wronged us, whatever. It's very easy to go there. What does focusing on being grateful, and I love that you said with specificity, because that's a big word for me. I love specificity and praise, and thanking somebody, and complimenting. Specificity is so critical. Love notes, you know, you talk about being with someone you love. I think specificity with love notes is very, very important. So, how does being grateful and actually voicing it, thinking about it, knowing you're going to do it every day, how

• 5:29Ryan Hawk?

  does it help you, especially in a world where it's very easy to be a cynic and to be upset about things that maybe where you've been wronged?

• 5:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I would say it's easy to go down that negative path. And I'll say, just at the top of the show, you know, after I sold TOMS Shoes, I got extremely depressed. And I experienced a depression for almost seven years. And for two of those years, it got so intense that I was suicidal. So, like, it was really, really intense. And I say that at the beginning, because I think it'll help give framework to our conversation, because I will honestly say for five years, I couldn't write five things I was grateful for. Yet, I still had all the same things in my life. And so, I want to really show compassion for someone who might be listening and be like, oh, it's easy for you, Blake. You're in the water surfing. You've got all this success. You're doing well now again. But it isn't

• 6:17Speaker 01

  easy. But I will say, even during those five years, when it was so hard to even think of one or two things a day, it was something I still tried to do. And maybe I didn't even feel it, but I do think it was one of the things that kept me going and kept me on this planet. Because oftentimes, it was things like, I'm grateful that my kids are this, or grateful, you know, it was about family and friends. But I do think to go back to your question on, you know, kind of a bit more of the how, is what happens when you do this, is you start recognizing that you're actually have a lot more to be grateful than you think so. Because if you do it every day, you're not going to say the same thing every day, right? So, I'm not going to be thankful for my daughter at camp tomorrow,

• 7:01Speaker 01

  even if I still am. So, every day, you have to kind of build your gratitude list. And so, what that does is that forces you to expand your aperture of how you're looking at your life and what are you grateful for. So, before you know it, you know what you're talking about? I'm grateful for espresso. I love the buzz of an espresso. I don't drink, I don't do drugs, but espresso is my thing. And so, then you're like, ah, I love espresso. And then, and so, it's, it really can grow if you can make it a practice. But if someone is listening or watching and saying, man, my life just sucks right now, and I feel stuck, and I'm not happy, and I'm not grateful for anything. Okay, I was there. I was there for a good five years.

• 7:41Ryan Hawk?

  It's hard to imagine, looking from the outside, because you sell TOMS. We all know TOMS. We've all bought lots of TOMS, probably. I know I have, my whole family has. And you get hundreds of millions of dollars in cash. I know you agreed to give at least half of it away.

• 7:56Speaker 01

  Half of it away, yeah.

• 7:57Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah. And so, you think like, what is Blake talking about? He got hundreds of millions of dollars, could literally do whatever he wants. And yet, you said it's like, what was happening? You see the wire come in, or I don't even know. I assume that's how it happens. And you're like, oh, my God, my bank account is infinite. And yet, you feel bankrupt, it seems like, on the inside.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, basically, what happened was, you know, and this is only, I'm only able to really speak to this now, after, you know, years of therapy and unpacking it. But the simplest way to explain it is, my whole life, I never felt that I was enough. And I basically needed external validation to just get through the day. Now, thankfully, in some ways, I was really good at getting external validation. I mean, I built a company that helped give 100 million children shoes, which put me on the covers of all these magazines, which people celebrated the one-for-one model. You know, I made a lot of money, as you said, but that was really not even what it was about. But that, that constant need for the

• 9:02Speaker 01

  external validation, once I sold TOMS, yes, I had a lot of money, but almost like a drug, like that dried up external validation. I was no longer running the company. I was no longer, you know, with all the people that were working there. I felt isolated. I didn't feel like I had purpose. And I actually had moved to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I was living in the mountains, which was getting dark early every day. The point was, is, once I didn't have the external validation, and to make me feel like I was enough, then it got very dark, because I was like, well, I did everything my parents told me to do. I did everything that the society told me to do. I built a great company. I made lots of money. I helped 100 million kids. I got married. I had kids. I did everything. And

• 9:45Speaker 01

  I still, deep down in my soul, had this feeling like, I'm not worthy. I'm not enough. And I never will be. And so, that's why it got so dark so fast in my situation, because there was nothing left I could do. Like, I did everything, and I should, and the world was telling me I should feel great. And I sure couldn't tell anyone about it. So, I went dark on social media for almost four years. You know, I didn't do a single post after being prolific on social media. And it was because I just couldn't lie to people anymore. I couldn't act like my life was great and I was happy when I was so suffering, because I was ashamed. Because like, who am I to say I'm suffering when people are struggling paycheck to paycheck? And so, that, I think is a very, and I'm sure a

• 10:28Speaker 01

  lot of people listening and watching this are entrepreneurs and business leaders, some might relate to that. And that was why I was excited to come on the show, because it can be extremely lonely if you achieve everything you set out to do, and yet, you don't feel whole inside.

• 10:43Ryan Hawk?

  So, there are probably people who experience this on various levels. They may not sell their company for a bunch of money, but, but maybe they're super accomplished, they're achievement oriented, and they've achieved. They've done the things. They beat the goals in a huge way, whatever. What are some things that if that person thinks like, well, once I do that, I will feel this. And then they do it, and they, they go, oh, I don't feel like I thought I would. In fact, maybe they feel worse, or they feel bad. Like, what am I supposed to do? What would you say to that person? Maybe they're, they're about to have that happen to them. Maybe it just did happen to them. What advice would you give them?

• 11:20Speaker 01

  I would say the first thing is, don't panic. Because that's what I did. I panicked. And so then I really made a mess of my life. Cause I was like, okay, well, if I build the dream house, then I'll feel better. If I get divorced, I'll feel better. If I do, and I just one kind of mistake after another, which you can do a lot of when you have a lot of money. So I say, don't panic and recognize that I believe that this is been designed, and I'm saying divine way to not give you the satisfaction. Because if you have the achievement and you get there and you realize that it's not everything that everyone in society told you, I believe it was designed to feel empty. So that that will be forcing you to go inward.

• 12:02Speaker 01

  And that's really, I think, where the big adventure in life starts and what I call the inner adventure. Cause if you have been someone who has put so much emphasis on the external to feel good, then there's clearly something you need to work on, on the internal. And that was the case for me. And that started my healing journey, which has been, you know, the greatest experience of my life and has led to my purpose. And, you know, doing my No Magic Pill podcast and everything in my life. It's really come from hitting rock bottom because nothing external could make me feel better.

• 12:33Ryan Hawk?

  To me, that feels like focusing on your personal purpose, your core values, your critical behaviors, like all of the ways that you live your life, having the internal scoreboard of what it means, your own personal definition of success slash happiness, contentment, not society's, not what you see on Instagram, but your own version of that. And that takes work, that takes being super thoughtful, reflective, probably a lot of writing, talking with people who could be helpful. That's how I would, I feel like, and I've tried to do that. How was that for you? Like going inward? Cause sometimes you hear the word like journey and all this and people will start going, oh, this guy is like a woo woo hundred millionaire dude or whatever. And to me, I don't sense the money has anything to do with it all.

• 13:18Ryan Hawk?

  It's purely about doing work.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  It's actually incredibly practical. So once I did some healing around this with some deep traditional therapy and really went back and saw where this came from my childhood and how I've been trying to deal with it my whole life. I was able to do some real healing around repatterning my neural pathways. And I think there's some real science behind the message that we tell ourselves for so many years. Mine was, you're not enough. Well, I had to change that to that I am enough. And so one of the very practical things that I did is I created this bracelet that I'm wearing right now. And it says enough on it. The idea was is I have a daily reminder every day to tell myself, which sounds so simple. I am enough. I've always been enough. I'm enough. I've always been enough.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  And if you do that for long enough, you start to re-pattern that subconscious thinking, which I think can have a real impact on someone's life. And the thing is, is that sometimes we just need a physical cue to catch ourselves in a negative thought pattern loop. And so since I started feeling better and using the bracelet, we now sell the enough bracelets and we donate a hundred percent of the profits to mental health organizations. And what I've found, the biggest power actually of the bracelet has been in sharing one with someone else. Because then you create kind of a bond where you're both wearing it. You're both committed to this journey of self-worth. And it's a reminder to both of you that you have someone you can depend on,

• 14:48Speaker 01

  which especially I think for men, it can be very lonely when you don't feel that you have someone that you can really share everything with. Women typically have that more than men. And so I give the bracelet to a guy friend of mine and we both wear it. And we're reminded like, hey, if you're having a tough day, don't suffer alone. Give me a call and let's talk it through. And I think that that's super important. So there's nothing woo woo about it. It's just like really simple. And, you know, we could do a whole hour or two about the neuroscience behind repatterning our subconscious with a mantra based kind of meditation, which mine was, I am enough. I've always been enough. And I did that for 20 minutes every single day in the morning and in the evening for 40 days. So it was really intense, but it worked. It really worked.

• 15:32Speaker 01

  I started to feel different in my body and then I started to make good decisions and like my whole life turned around.

• 15:38Ryan Hawk?

  Is there another mantra you do now at the beginning and then end of each day? Or is there another practice?

• 15:43Speaker 01

  I actually don't even really meditate anymore. It's amazing. I mean, I found that there's other things like the gratitude practice and that are just sitting quietly. In the morning, I have a practice where I, I really hydrate early in the morning, first thing. And I get some sunlight in my eyes before I go out and spend my day. But if it does sneak back up and I do have some, some feelings of insecurity or some doubts or feeling stressed, then I do go back to the mantra, but it's not something I feel like I have to do every day. I feel like I, I need to do it to kind of re-interrupt that negative pattern that had been driving my life. And then the good thing too is for me, it's like, once you feel aligned with your purpose, then everything also kind of falls in line.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  And so now, running this nonprofit and giving out these bracelets to people, especially young people, because I think a lot of people, especially because of social media, they're really susceptible to not feeling enough or not feeling worthy because of what they see everyone else is doing. By working on that every day and then working on my podcast and having people talk about their mental health has really helped me stay in a good mental state.

• 16:48Ryan Hawk?

  Somebody asked me recently about like, what's the motivation behind continuing to do this after so many years? And, and I said, it's like that farmer in Iowa who sends you an email saying, your podcast is the Monday night family dinner table conversation with my wife and my kids. And it's led to such rich dialogue. And so I say, the juice of it, the purpose is one person at a time, one family at a time. In your case, maybe it's two people at a time, the person who has the bracelet and then gives it to somebody else. Cause I think when it comes to your purpose, it has to include, in my opinion, helping other people in some way, shape or form. There's different versions of that.

• 17:31Ryan Hawk?

  You've lived that through times, through what you're doing now and everything in between. How did you come about your purpose and how does that actually come alive in the world?

• 17:40Speaker 01

  What I recognized after getting through my, you know, mental health crisis and starting to feel better a couple of years ago, was that I had such a unique opportunity to be radically honest about everything I went through, everything I tried. So my podcast is called No Magic Pill. And the reason it's called No Magic Pill is because I had all the resources in the world to do everything I could possibly do to try to feel better when I was really depressed and struggling with panic attacks and anxiety. And so I was able to have the best therapist. I got brain stimulation at Harvard to try to wake up neurons in my brain so that I would get out of the depression.

• 18:21Speaker 01

  I did psychedelic journeys. I did pharmaceuticals. I did retreats in NDL. I mean, I have done it all. And, and so what I realized was is most people won't be able to do a fraction of those things. And what I also realized was, which is so important, is most of the things that helped me ended up not costing any money at all. And so I decided to do this podcast called No Magic Pill where I have people on who will maybe open up about their mental health journeys in a way they haven't before. So we've had Matthew McConaughey on, we've had Kevin Love, we've had Jewel, we've, you know, had Michael Pollan. And that has become a huge part of my purpose because, and it's the way I'm executing it in a sense,

• 19:05Speaker 01

  is by inviting people to have conversations that would help someone who might be feeling stuck, who might be feeling depressed, who might be feeling lonely in their mental health journey. And I always say that at the beginning of the episode, I say, the only reason we're doing the show is to think about, and please think about the person that just is about to give up. That's just stuck, that's just, and maybe they're just going through midlife and they're just like, I don't think the future is going to be any better than the past. Like my best days are behind me. Cause that's where I was. And so that's how every day as I work on that, along with enough foundation, I am kind of living out my purpose. And then that actually led to another thing that I feel like, especially as we get a little older, that can really kind of enliven business people.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  And that is really mentoring other entrepreneurs that are aligned with your purpose. And so I had the coolest experience, six months ago, I was speaking at a mental health conference. And the guys that spoke before me were these amazing MIT grads, like 26 years old. And they spent the last couple of years building a AI therapy app as a research project. And they started it because, you know, they started to hear that people were using ChatGPT or Claude for therapy. And that's very dangerous because those L L Ms are built to just make you feel good about yourself. And so if you have serious mental health things you need to talk about,

• 20:31Speaker 01

  the last thing you want to do is talk to someone who's just going to tell you, oh, that's great. Yeah, you're the right person. No, you, you, your ex-wife or wife should never have said that like, and we've seen some very bad outcomes. And so these guys were like, you know, we need to build something that is safe and also that will give access to the millions of people that can't afford therapy. Or people who just don't want to go to therapy. I go back to guys a lot. Like a lot of my guy friends just don't want to sit in front of a therapist, even on Zoom or have the time for it. And so I met them at this conference and they heard my story and they said, hey, we assume that you've probably had some great therapists based on your story. We would love it if you would try it. And so I was really skeptical at first and I was like, okay, I'll give it a try.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  And I did a session and then I did another session. It's called Sonya is the name of the app. And so I'm talking to Sonya and about the third session, I was like, wow, like that was really insightful. Like, you know, and the other thing that was interesting about it was I was able to be radically honest because I was not worried about any judgment from this AI, right? So it's unlike, you know, even a richer person. I shared some things that I had some real deep shame around from my first marriage that like, I probably hadn't even shared with my real therapist. And all of a sudden it was giving me some insights of like, why this happened and this and that. That was six months ago. And so I started using it, using it. And I finally was like, I gotta help these guys. And so I'm now spending five or 10 hours a week helping them.

• 21:56Speaker 01

  It's on the app store now. I mean, they're just getting ready to start charging, but it's incredible. I mean, it's helped me so much. And the cool thing is, is, is there's no judgment and it has infinite memory. So it'll bring up things from like four months ago that we talked about that helped me then to help me now. And so that has really enlivened me as an entrepreneur because now I get to be the coach instead of the athlete, you know? So like they're the athletes, they're the founders, it's their company. And I'm getting to really give my perspective and guidance on the things that I've learned in hopes that they will be able to help millions of people with this. And so I work on Sonya all the time and I love it. And it's been really a good way for me to think about how do I extend my purpose

• 22:40Speaker 01

  beyond the things that I'm just doing myself.

• 22:42Ryan Hawk?

  You mentioned before about your parents. I read that your mom wrote books, diet books. Is that right?

• 22:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, cookbooks.

• 22:48Ryan Hawk?

  Cookbook, cookbook. And your dad was a surgeon?

• 22:51Speaker 01

  Yes, correct.

• 22:51Ryan Hawk?

  So what was it like growing up with a surgeon and an author of cookbooks? I assume it sounds like high standards, accomplished people themselves. What was your upbringing like with them?

• 23:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think my dad was a really great surgeon and very smart guy. I mean, obviously still is not a surgeon anymore. So I think there was a level of pressure and achievement that was built in to this life. My mom wrote her books when I was kind of out of school. I was like 16. So that was had less influence on me maybe as a young person. But where my mom's influence really came in for me and my sister. Cause my sister is an incredible entrepreneur. I don't know if you know her story.

• 23:32Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 23:32Speaker 01

  But we saw my mom go from a woman that never graduated college. She saw that she had a high cholesterol and she wanted to work on that. And while she did that, she wrote these recipes that lowered her cholesterol and she also lost some weight. And then she just wanted to help people. And so she self-published this book and it became the bestselling cookbook for like five years. She made millions of dollars, way out made my dad. I mean, like my dad was basically retired early and it helped support her career. And my sister and my brother and I were like, wow, like that's cool. Like she went from like no experience to making millions of dollars because she wrote a book to help people. I'd say that's probably the biggest influence of all was seeing her do that.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  And then believing that you can kind of start something from nothing.

• 24:19Ryan Hawk?

  So I think about this as a parent and I'm sure you do too. You said that you felt maybe pressure to achieve because your dad's this amazing surgeon. Was it talked about like blank? We expect a lot from you. You're not working hard enough. Your grades aren't good enough. Or you gotta get into this school. I know you played sports too, right? Or was it just, you just felt it because you saw what they did?

• 24:43Speaker 01

  I think it was felt. I don't, I never remember my dad putting too much pressure on me overtly. I think it was more, I just had a deep desire and maybe, I mean, depending on what you believe in terms of how you come into this world. I mean, maybe karmically, I came in here to really heal this wound of not feeling enough. And so it might not have had anything to do with my parents. And just that I just innately felt that I had to achieve and accomplish to earn love. Cause I never, and that was never told to me overtly.

• 25:13Ryan Hawk?

  Okay. So now that you're a parent, how does that impact you as a dad? Trying to raise, you know, great kids to go up and, and feel enough. But also still leave a positive dent in the world like you're doing. How does that impact your parenting philosophy?

• 25:29Speaker 01

  Well, I think one of the most important things I've done is once I healed this wound in myself that I didn't feel enough. I feel like my whole relationship to my kids changed because I think I was putting that pressure on them, whether I realized it or not. And that's why I always tell especially high performers, I'm like, wear the bracelet and give one to your kids. And my kids wear it as like the best conversation you're ever gonna have with your kids. I guarantee it. You will not believe the relaxation you will see in them. When you tell them, yes, achieve your dreams, work hard, but regardless, you're enough and I love you just for you. And that is the conversation that I hope every parent has with their kids.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  And they have it over and over again, because what's gonna happen is even if I tell that to my 11 year old and my eight year old, they're still gonna get the message that you're only good if you're smarter or prettier, or you have this many likes on Facebook or Instagram or Snapchat or whatever they're doing. They're gonna still get that message from everyone else. So even more important that the parent is telling them that they are enough just as they are. And so that is at the core of my parenting philosophy. And I've seen a huge difference in my relationship with my kids since I healed it in myself. The second thing I think that is so important, if we're talking about parenting, is I just keep going back to like, the most important thing is just to be kind.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  Just to be kind. You never know what someone's going through. You never know what their situation is. Just be known as the kindest person. And so I really work with my kids on what are opportunities to just be kind? Kind to strangers, kind to each other. They're not always kind to each other. That's the hardest part, an 18 and 11 year old. But I will say they're very thoughtful about other people and other people's situations. And especially when you have resources. Like one of the coolest things happened the other day. I was with my son. We were walking down the street and there was a homeless person. We were in New York City and he said, hey dad, can I give them some money? And I, I don't really carry a wallet. I usually just stuff some cash in my pocket whenever I'm places that I don't use cash that much.

• 27:34Speaker 01

  But luckily I had some cash and so I had like a couple hundred dollars in my pocket. And so I pulled it out and I gave him like 20 bucks. And he goes, no, give it all to me. And I was like, really? It's like, yeah, we have plenty. And he just went and gave the guy like 350 bucks. The guy just like exploded in happiness. And my son was beaming and I was like, that might be the best 350 bucks I ever spent, right there. I mean, it was like, made me so happy that that was his, it was, it wasn't even a question of how much. It was like, no, we give him everything that we have in our pocket. And so I thought that was really cool.

• 28:06Ryan Hawk?

  The other part of your story that I enjoyed reading about, maybe because it's selfishly, it relates to like, I went to college to play football and played a little bit after college as well. And you went to college to play tennis on a scholarship.

• 28:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:18Ryan Hawk?

  And then unfortunately you got hurt. What role did sports play in your life? Both doing it, being so good that you could go and play in college? And then also how it was taken away from you by injury?

• 28:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. So my whole life was tennis. So I actually moved away from home at age 15 to a tennis academy. Like you read about with the Agassiz and the people of the world. I was never as good as them, but I was one of the better players in the country. And I loved it. It taught me discipline. It taught me work ethic. And ironically, it also reinforced the fact that I'm not enough probably. Because when you're so good at a sport like tennis, then you play the very best people. And so even though I was one of the best players in the state and one of the top, say 100 players in the country, I just lost a lot because I kept playing the guys that were the very best. And so my whole tennis career, I always say is like, I just battled a lot of losing. You know, basically I just kept losing. And in college, I was like the last guy on the team, even though I was on scholarship.

• 29:16Speaker 01

  But it taught me a lot and I'm really grateful. And I think sports is a great opportunity, especially for kids to learn especially hard work and discipline. You know, having it taken from me was really hard because my whole identity was a tennis player. And so that was a very difficult time, but it ultimately led me becoming an entrepreneur. And so I look back now and I'm like, oh, it all kind of happened for a design purpose. But uh, I'm very athletic now. I mean, I still do a lot of sports and it's a big part of my life.

• 29:43Ryan Hawk?

  You said it led you to be an entrepreneur. A lot of us probably think of Toms. But now I'm reading about EZ Laundry, a billboard company. Like what happened after you got done playing and you, and you immediately go into this, I'm gonna start creating businesses mode?

• 30:00Speaker 01

  First off, the funny thing is, is I did not know what the word entrepreneur meant. After I started my first business, which is EZ Laundry, which I'll share it up. And then I was at the bank cashing a check from one of our customers. And the bank person said, man, you're a young entrepreneur. And I was like, I had no idea what that means. Like, I don't know if that's a good compliment or bad. And I actually, it was back when we had dictionaries. I had to go look at a dictionary and figure out what that meant. And I was like, oh, okay, that's cool. I like that idea. I can be an entrepreneur. But yes, I, you know, basically I had this Achilles tendon injury. I wasn't able to really carry things because I was on crutches. So I couldn't carry my laundry down to the facility at the dorms.

• 30:40Speaker 01

  I looked in the Yellow Pages back then and there was no place that would pick up and deliver my laundry. And so I complained about it to my roommate's dad at Thanksgiving. And he was an entrepreneur. Now I didn't know that, you know, at the time. And he said, I think, man, that sounds like an opportunity, guys. You guys should start a laundry business. And so we did. We bought an old truck from FedEx. It cost us $1,500. We painted EZ Laundry on the side and we opened for business. And that was the beginning of my entrepreneurial life. Within a couple of years, we expanded it to multiple universities. I dropped out of college. And you know, I never, never kind of looked back. So that's how it all started.

• 31:18Ryan Hawk?

  And then you sell to your partner, right? And then you start another business with the billboard? Like what was this?

• 31:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, billboards. That was my favorite one. I mean, I've, I've had about eight or nine companies, I guess now. But that, that one was just, it was so great. So basically what happened was is I was in LA, which I'd never been to before. And it was after my sister and I were on the reality TV show, The Amazing Race. And this is back like, we were in season two. And that's when like reality TV stars were like real celebrities for about 15 minutes. The 15 minutes of fame, right? And so we were there and we were going to all the parties and doing all the stuff. And we're staying in Hollywood. And one of the things I was amazed at is there are these huge buildings with like big advertisements that either painted on or hung on the side. Like now we see in Times Square or whatever.

• 32:05Speaker 01

  And they were these big movies and it was all entertainment oriented. And I thought, wow, that's like the most effective advertising I've ever seen. Everyone in town knows the new Jurassic Park movie is out because it's on the side of this building, 50 stories hall. And at the time I was living in Nashville, Tennessee. And I had this idea. I was like, I've never seen this in Nashville, but we have country music. And I was like, I wonder if I could get the rights to put Garth Brooks on the side of a building with his new record release. And if I did, I bet you George Strait's gonna want one or Dixie Chicks or Amy Grant or whoever. And so I spent a couple of years, it took me almost two years, working with the city council in Nashville. And they would not allow advertising.

• 32:48Speaker 01

  So that was pretty much everyone normally would say, you're dead in the water, right? Okay. No advertising. But I recognized and convinced them that we would never have any ads. So there would be no price for the album. There would be no call to action. But what we would do is country music art. And country music art would be the album covers because they're beautiful things and we just leave it at that. And I realized too, that there was a lot of egos in town. So once I had one, they would all want a huge picture of their new album on the side of a building. And that turned out to be a great business. I sold it to Clear Channel. And that's when I really think I got the entrepreneurial bug. I mean, doing the laundry is what everyone knows. They know that story because it's the first one.

• 33:30Speaker 01

  But I was bringing in like 30, 50 grand a month as a 20 year old, you know, selling country music art. That's when I was like, okay, I think I've got a gift for this.

• 33:38Ryan Hawk?

  How was the amazing race? How did you get on the show? I mean, season two is early. I love that show.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:43Ryan Hawk?

  It's early days, early days. How did that happen?

• 33:46Speaker 01

  Basically, my sister and I wanted to be on Survivor, both of us. And we both sent in tapes. That's when you send VHS tapes then to try to get on. And we got pretty far in the selection process. And then they realized that they got down to like the final 20 or 30 people for Survivor, which was already a big feat to get to this final group, that we were brother and sister. And they're like, we can't have a brother and sister on the show. But we had this other show, they're perfect for it. And so they called us and they said, hey, this show hasn't even come out yet. It's going to come out next year. Basically, it's a race around the world. You guys want to do it? We're like, we're in.

• 34:19Ryan Hawk?

  Wow. How was it? I didn't see that season. How was it?

• 34:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's great. We raced around the world 31 days and we lost a million dollars by four minutes. And it was my fault.

• 34:28Ryan Hawk?

  What'd you do?

• 34:29Speaker 01

  So at the end, what happened was we got to San Francisco, which I had never been to, my sister had never been to. And we were leading the race. There were three teams left and we had to get to Pier 31. And I didn't know that the way that the bay is shaped. And so I just said, my sister wanted to get a map and really figure it out. And I was like, we don't have time to go find a store to get a map and all this stuff. Let's just get to the water because obviously the pier is on the water. If we get to the water, we'll find Pier 31. So San Francisco is like this, we're here, we go here, which we really need to go the exact opposite way. So then we had to go all the way around the bay to get there. And, and we still almost won, but we lost by four minutes.

• 35:13Ryan Hawk?

  Oh, my goodness. Wow. Incredible. Well, I mean, Toms is there, right? So I think a lot of people know the story of Tom's origin story, the success of it. How much of that are you still enjoy talking about? I mean, I don't even know if that's the right way to ask the question. Or are you like, I just kind of want to move on past that. Where are you at with it?

• 35:35Speaker 01

  It's interesting because when I was really suffering mentally after selling Toms, I didn't want to talk about it at all because I didn't feel worthy of the success that we had. Now I'm extremely proud of what we did. I actually can accept compliments. And I look back at magazine covers and awards in the White House and things. And I'm like, man, I wish I would have enjoyed that more. Like, we did deserve all that. We created a company that changed the world. And now I don't feel like I'm being egotistical saying that, but I really look back at how many businesses have been inspired to create giving or put purpose above profits. And I'm like, wow, that all started after we started Tom's. It's like, so I'm extremely proud of it. And some of my greatest memories of my life are from those 11 years that I was running it.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  And, you know, I'm also excited to talk about the things that I'm working on now.

• 36:24Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  One of the companies that I'm a co-founder of is called Morning Water. This was something that I did for years myself as a surfer. I would always like make a really big 20 ounces or 24 ounce thing of water. And I put creatine in it and I put L-theanine and magnesium and all these supplements. But it was like all these powders all over the place. And my friends would always say, what is that? And I always said, it's my morning water. And then one day, my friend Ben, so I really give him credit for this. We were on a surf trip. He said, Blake, that's a good fucking name, Morning Water. I can see that in a store. You should trademark that. And so thankfully I, I was able to. And then I sat on it for six years, didn't do anything. And it's a funny story.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  I was at a men's retreat while I'm at the deepest part of my depression. Like, I literally am barely hanging on. And I'm like, I just got to get out of the house. And a friend of mine suggested this great guy, Andrew, who runs these men's retreats. He said, just go and get out of the house and be with other guys. And, and I did, and I was there. And when I was there, there was this guy, Austin, young entrepreneurial guy. Most of the guys on the retreat were kind of entrepreneurial. He was like a little bit of a fan. He was like, wow, he's like, you were founder of Toms. And he's like, what are you doing now? And I'm like, dude, I'm just trying to get out of bed. Like, I've been depressed for the past few years. I'm not in a good place. I got divorced. And he kept pushing me. He kept saying, come on, you have to have something you're working on. And I think the only idea I've had in the last five years is this thing called Morning Water.

• 37:50Speaker 01

  And this is what it is, duh, duh. And he's like, can I do it? And I was like, what do you mean? Can you do it? He's like, well, this is great. If you're not going to do it, someone should do it. Like, what if I did it? I'll go finish the formula, get it, deal. I'll come to you and if you like it, you can invest in it. And that's how it happened. And, and so, so we launched Morning Water like six months ago. And we're actually totally sold out now. You can't even buy it online. We have a waitlist that's grown so fast, well before we thought. But it's been so fun. And so I like, you know, now I have other things to talk about than just Tom's.

• 38:22Ryan Hawk?

  Well, we just got ours beautiful packaging pumped.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  Oh, great. You got it.

• 38:26Ryan Hawk?

  Pumped. Just got, yeah, literally just mailed out. And I was, wait, what is this? And then I was like, but this is beautiful. I'm excited to like dig into it, man. It's

• 38:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a, is it 30 days? Just try it for 30 days, as we tell people. You really need, I don't know if you use creatine now, but you really need about 30 days for it to kind of, you really feel the effects. And you just take it first thing in the morning. You just put it in water and chug it and yeah.

• 38:47Ryan Hawk?

  Love it, love it. Really, really cool. I'm going to talk a little bit of like business stuff and business building. And so we can go from any of the businesses. But you were the CEO, but you didn't really want to call yourself that. You wanted to call yourself the chief shoe giver. So how did you balance being the chief shoe giver and being the business CEO guy too? Cause I think others may have the passion and purpose behind what they're doing. But the other part is also necessary. And so figuring out how to balance those two could be useful. I'd be curious to hear how you balance those things.

• 39:19Speaker 01

  So I would say, as I've reflected on my career, the thing that I'm probably most proud of in terms of how I work, and I think one of the things that I'm best at is finding amazing people to complement my weaknesses. So I am a great storyteller. I'm very creative. I'm very good at sharing a vision and I have lots of energy. What I don't do well is necessarily run a supply chain or work on the finances, or I have trouble, you know, saying no to everyone. You know, like, so I needed some real guardrails. And so very early on in Toms, I surrounded myself with people who were good at running businesses,

• 40:03Speaker 01

  who really cared about the mission. You know, there was a woman named Candace who was kind of my right hand on the giving side. And there was another woman named Jill, who was the right hand on the sales side. And then we had a great CFO. And I think that's where I was able to truly be the chief shoe giver. I mean, that was, that was a title, but it was actually very representative of what I love doing and what I did that helped the business the most. And that was out giving shoes to kids and then telling stories about it. I mean, that was, you know, really what was so unique. And, and it was a very unique time too, because we didn't have the proliferation of messaging that we have now. And so a story like Toms, I could reach a lot of people through some basic channels

• 40:46Speaker 01

  like People Magazine, CNN, The New York Times, and then Vogue Magazine. Now it'd be much harder, no matter how good a story you have. I mean, we're seeing this with Morning Water. I mean, my social media presence has helped us get a lot of people and then get other ambassadors. And we're kind of learning that game. But it is definitely different than it was then. But to answer your question, I feel like I've always been really good at surrounding myself with people who are really good at things that maybe aren't my passion.

• 41:12Ryan Hawk?

  I think that's a commonality among leaders who have sustained excellence over time is they're really good at that part. They're understanding that they become the people who they surround themselves with. So let's get tactical for a second when it comes to hiring. So you're a great storyteller. There are certain areas you're good. And then you have enough awareness to realize there are certain areas where you need help from others to be good. When you're hiring to add leaders to your team, okay? Let's broaden that a little bit, okay? What are some of the must have attributes that a person needs to be a leader to work with you? As well as what questions are you asking? Like, take me inside the room or the conversations or however you're finding and then hiring these people? What do they have to have?

• 41:57Ryan Hawk?

  And then what do the conversations sound like to ensure you're not getting fooled through the interview process?

• 42:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is a very relevant question because this is what I'm doing for Sonya, the AI therapy app right now, because these guys are young, they're 26 years old. They're AI geniuses. They know how to build an incredible product that is up to a lot of people. But when I said, okay, I'm going to help you guys, one of the areas they said is you interview our key people as we're building, because they're growing really fast. And that's what I've been doing is helping them. And I think I hopefully helped them, you know, avoid a hire that I don't think would have been a good hire, you know, about a month or two ago. And the way is I really am brutally honest about how hard the job is going to be. And I almost try to talk people out of the job. I mean, I, I explain, and maybe I do it even in a dramatic way.

• 42:48Speaker 01

  Cause then I'm like, okay, if I can basically try to talk this person out of the job and they still desperately want the job, especially at a startup where they're not going to get paid a lot, then there's probably a real commitment to the mission. Cause that's what I'm really looking for. I'm looking for attitude. Is this a roll up my sleeves, I'll do whatever it takes. I'm a team player person. Cause that's what's key, especially in a startup. You got to have everyone feel that way. And then the other thing is, is are they looking to be building a resume? Or do they want to build a movement? So like with Sonya, I was very clear with this person that we were potentially hiring and being like, this has a big, big mission. I mean, these guys think that they're going to change the world of mental health. They're going to provide therapy to people who've never been able to access it.

• 43:32Speaker 01

  And in order to do that, and especially with the competitive nature of an AI company, we're all working a crazy amount, even though I'm just advising, I'm still advising well more than I thought I was going to be advising. And so if you're going to take this role, it's going to be your whole life for a little while. And so I think that's one of the things that I try to do is just be brutally honest about the negatives of a role versus a lot of people. I think when they start hiring is they start getting in sales mode of trying to convince the person why it's such a great role. And then they end up convincing themselves that the person's a good fit. And when really what success I think looks like is how many people did you convince not to take the role before you get the right person?

• 44:11Ryan Hawk?

  So you're in there, I assume before they get to you, they've probably already checked some boxes.

• 44:15Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. I'm the last one.

• 44:17Ryan Hawk?

  You're the last one. So you're the one trying to talk them out. And if they're like, no, Blake, dude, this is what I'm doing, man. I'm committed. You're looking for commitment and attitude and a willingness to get after it, even when it's really hard and you're not getting paid very much.

• 44:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. In this particular situation, obviously, if someone's hiring people and is a leader of a Fortune 500 company, it might be very different. But I still think, you know, the most important thing of all the things I've learned, and I had, you know, we had 350 employees at Tom's. So I've done a lot of hiring and I've seen a lot of things. I think integrity is number one, because in this day and age, if you're not highest integrity, it will get figured out really fast. And the second thing is, is really attitude, that you're the type of person that is not gonna say that's in my job description or not. Like, you're just like, this needs to get done. Let's figure out how to get it done.

• 45:07Ryan Hawk?

  You posted a, I don't know if they're still called like a thread anymore on Twitter, but there's a few of them that I just wanted to riff on. Is that cool?

• 45:14Speaker 01

  Right? Yeah, sure. Yeah.

• 45:15Ryan Hawk?

  Okay, so one of them is, you don't attract what you want. You attract what you are. Want honest friends? Be honest. Want peace in your home? Bring peace. Want trust? Practice it when no one's watching. So talk me about you don't attract what you want. You attract what you are.

• 45:35Speaker 01

  Especially in relationships. I mean, in business and personal relationships. So the best way to find, in my opinion, a romantic partner is to work on yourself, just to really work on your own inner work, your own issues, and to try to clean yourself as much as you can from anything of the past that's holding you back. So then you can attract someone who will be a good partner. I think in business, it's the same thing. I even think your customers, like, I think you attract great customers when you are a really great company. And I think when you're a company that is maybe not the most ethical, or not the most forthcoming about your purposes, then you attract crappy customers. And ultimately, that is the reason why the business doesn't work. And

• 46:20Speaker 01

  so I really do believe that there's this, and this is probably more woo woo-y, but there is this energetic thing about a person and how they attract other people, or are aspects of the business that really represent who they are at that moment.

• 46:35Ryan Hawk?

  It reminds me of that Charlie Munger story. He was speaking somewhere and someone came, hey, Charlie, how do you, you know, how do I get a great wife? And he paused and he looked at him and he said, deserve one. And I thought, ah, you know what I mean? Like, that's, you don't attract what you want. You attract what you are. Okay.

• 46:52Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 46:53Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah, me too. Next one. Don't wait for permission. Most people stand in line at the front door. I look for side doors. In Argentina, I didn't have investors or a plan. I had an idea, one for one. So, but this idea of like, well, they didn't say they were hiring. So I don't know. It's like, no, I try to say this as a dad. I like, go, hey, drive to the place, knock on the door, talk to them, even if it's like, this is a serving job. We were talking about, go, drive to the restaurant, go talk to the manager. Everyone can apply online. Everyone can do that. You can, no, we're not waiting for permission. We're gonna go make it happen. So talk me about the idea of not waiting for permission.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  I mean, I think that's been the key to my entrepreneurial success, honestly. I'm so glad you brought that up, because I always say to people, the reason why I was able to have success in the different places I have is I had no experience. Like, I had never made a shoe before. I didn't know the shoe industry. I didn't know any of the rules about shoes. So I was able to break them. I didn't know anything about outdoor advertising, or the contracts you gotta have with the different cities and all this. So I figured out a way to do country music art. I had an online driver's ed company. I'd never been in the driver's ed business. At that time, it was all in classrooms. That's where you had to go learn. It's in a mall and a Sears. And so I thought, a better way of doing this is online. So, and I really learned that from Richard Branson. I want to give him credit. He's been a mentor to me. And I think he's one of the greatest

• 48:14Speaker 01

  entrepreneurs of all time. And I really learned that first by reading his books, then later getting to spend some time with him. But, you know, he loves, I mean, he has a whole book, I think it's called Break the Rules, or something, a guide to a renegade entrepreneur. And it's a great book. And it really is about breaking the rules, asking for forgiveness, not permission.

• 48:33Ryan Hawk?

  Let's do one more.

• 48:34Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 48:34Ryan Hawk?

  Be known for doing what you said you'd do. This seems obvious, but it's not. People talk, and then they don't execute. Early on, you didn't have skills, so your reputation was all about execution, moving fast, keeping it simple, doing it with integrity, momentum. You're right. I like this. Momentum is a form of trust. Be known for doing what you said you'd do.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think it's just, and even more so than ever, especially for young people. It's like, if you say you're gonna do something, you can't flake. I mean, it's just, it's that simple. Like, it's just like, people have zero tolerance for that. There's, there's someone else that wants a job. There's someone who else wants a gig. If you say you're gonna do something, then you do everything you possibly can to do that. Now, that's important for parenting. That's important for relationships. But I also think it's really important for business, and especially entrepreneurs that are trying to get large customers. So for instance, in the shoe business, you know, getting Nordstrom is a huge deal, right? Or getting Journeys is a huge deal. If you don't follow through with exactly what you say you're gonna do and ship those shoes when you say you're gonna ship

• 49:40Speaker 01

  them, you're out. So it's really important to be someone, and that's also about, don't over promise, either. That's the other thing. It's, I think that's something I have made a mistake in the past. I get so excited. I have some false confidence, and I overpromise something, and then I can't deliver. And that's always painful. But if that does happen, just own it and be honest about it. And then you'll have that relationship with that buyer or that customer for a long time.

• 50:02Ryan Hawk?

  Okay, this is awesome, Blake. One more question before we point people to where to go. And that is, let's, let's fast forward a year. You are exactly one year from today. You are surrounded by all of the people that you love the most, right? Friends, family, everybody you love the most. And you guys are popping bottles, you're spraying grape juice on, on each other, whatever it is that you want to be popping, right? You're celebrating like crazy. What are you celebrating?

• 50:28Speaker 01

  Hmm. Well, that's a great question. I love that question. I think my, my biggest goal or desire right now is to design a harmonious life. I actually recorded an Instagram post that's probably gonna go live on Monday about this, because it had, it's something that a woman said, I was just, the Can't Add Festival. And this woman, who is the head of, I think, Google Health, said, I gave up on life balance this year, and started focusing on harmony instead. And it really struck me, because so much of my life, I've thought about trying to balance it all. And I

• 51:13Speaker 01

  think that's like, not really who I am. I go really hard and get really excited about things. And so sometimes, I am full in dad mode, and everyone at the office is like, when are you gonna respond to those emails? We can't do this until you respond. And I'm so into dad mode that I don't care. And then sometimes, I'm like, you know, when we launched the No Magic Pill podcast a few months ago, I was like, all in, doing tons of press, everything I possibly could to get that launched. And I missed some things with my kids. So my point in this is, is what I would be celebrating is if I have found a way to really make it working in harmony, and everyone in my

• 51:56Speaker 01

  life feels that they are getting the attention that they need to thrive, you know? So that's my romantic partner, that's my kids, and that's my business interest. And then myself, you know, I can't forget myself. So, so that's really kind of what I'm, my biggest thing is to really stop worrying about the balance of it all, but look at it like on a year-long kind of experience of harmony. I feel that I'm, I'm on my way. So.

• 52:23Ryan Hawk?

  Very cool. We'll definitely be checking on that in a year from now. And I'll be following up. This is awesome, dude. I really appreciate it. Where would you send, there's a few different things you're doing. So where would you send people to learn more about everything you got going on?

• 52:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, probably just my Instagram. It's at Blake Mycoskie. And then also, I have a website, blakemycoskie.com. And it has the list of all the different projects and things that I'm working on. And, and that's how you can find out the best. Yeah, blakemycoskie.com or at Blake Mycoskie.

• 52:51Ryan Hawk?

  Perfect, man. Thank you, especially while you're down in Costa Rica for joining me. I love this, and I would love to continue our dialogue as we both progress, man.

• 52:59Speaker 01

  Thank you so much, Ryan.

• 53:04Ryan Hawk?

  It is the end of the Podcast Club. Thank you for being a member of the End of the Podcast Club. If you are, send me a note, [email protected]. Let me know what you learned from this great conversation with Blake Mycoskie. A few takeaways from my notes. Make your gratitude specific. Don't just stop at, well, I'm grateful for my family. Name the exact moment, like that photo of your daughter laughing at camp, or a specific text from a friend. Specificity is important. It makes it tangible. It makes it real. That goes for giving compliments, giving

• 53:43Ryan Hawk?

  thanks. Be specific. Then, you don't attract what you want. You attract what you are. You want honest friends? Be honest. Want peace in your home? Bring peace. Want trust? Practice it when no one is watching. As Charlie Munger once said, how to get a great wife? Deserve one. You don't attract what you want. You attract what you are. Then, be known for doing what you said you'd do. Blake said, early on, I didn't have all the skills, so I built a reputation for

• 54:20Ryan Hawk?

  execution. Move fast. Keep it simple. Do it with integrity. Follow through on your word. Do what you said you'd do. Once again, I want to say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two, hey, you should listen to this episode of the Learning Leader Show with Blake Mycoskie. I think it'll help you become a more effective leader, because you continue to do that, and you also go to Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and you subscribe to the show. You rate it, hopefully five stars. You write a thoughtful review. By doing all of that, you are giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will

• 55:02Ryan Hawk?

  forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk to you soon. Can't wait.