Episode #25 - Advice to Our Younger Selves
Imposter syndrome — everyone gets it, even seven years in. Coby confesses to still feeling weird asking for money after two years in business, while Dale shares the value exchange mindset that finally made charging feel natural. A real and reassuring episode for anyone who has ever felt like they don't deserve to be paid what they're worth.
Hello and welcome to the Sequoia Project podcast. Today we are talking about things that can help people — not just shit we say. We're talking about advice to give our younger selves.
Dale: If I tried to tell them anything that I know now, the only way that I would have got into my own head is to say something that kind of rattled around in my own brain that I couldn't unthink. There's actually a term for that in psychology. It's called a basilisk thought. It's something that once you think it, you can't unthink it. And that thought would be — if you're not going to do anything else, just pay attention. Pay attention to things that are happening around you, pay attention to things people say. That's the most profitable and beneficial thing that that kid could learn. Because I probably didn't start actually paying full on attention until I was probably 21, 22. And if I had started doing that a lot earlier, I would have realized people have a lot of problems that they don't really want to do anything about a lot sooner. And I would have become a problem solver probably by the time I was 16, 17, 18.
Coby: I think early stages of talking to you I was like I want to make a million dollars by the second year of business. But I think so much of it — if I was just starting out, even if something didn't have my interest, that doesn't exist to me. I could not give a shit. I'd go to my classes and all that sort of stuff and I wouldn't pay attention. So much of the world, I feel like I just definitely let kind of pass over my head, despite the fact that obviously in three to four years time, I'm going to be a literal full grown adult with responsibilities. I completely agree — actually paying attention to literally everything around you would have made such an insane difference.
Dale: Now — every single customer that I have has a file. Every single employee that I have ever had has a file. If you want people to do exceptional things, because it's so easy to be ordinary, if you want them to do something extraordinary, you have to be obsessed with them. You have to be obsessed with the way they feel, how they're motivated with, you know, their goals and dreams and visions. And if they don't have one, you have to build a vision or dream for them because someone who tries to do something because of something bigger than themselves, it gives them purpose. And if someone has purpose, they don't want to quit.
Dale: There was a company out of South America that was doing a basically giving away their services completely for free — house repairs and things like that. Everyone was going crazy, leads coming out of their ass. What they actually ended up doing was they would tell everyone that they were so busy that they couldn't fill and then they would sell the leads to other companies. They've restructured the entire business. It's not a service business anymore. It's literally a lead generation business. And they run promotions like that to get leads to sell to market. Instead of going — how do I scale the team to be able to service all these bookings that we're getting — they pivoted. Leads come in, they cancel the service, and then sell the leads out the back door. Stroke of genius.