My First Million - MFM Mini - The Way To Be Confident

Episode Date: June 13, 2021

Shaan (@ShaanVP) used to be super shy. Now he is known for his confidence. Talking on stage in front of thousands or starting new business takes confidence. In this 10 minute mini episode he talks about what the turning point was for him, and his unusual hack for building confidence. Like Shaan’s stories? Subscribe to his newsletter to get 1-2 stories like this a week at www.shaanpuri.com --------- * Want to be featured in a future episode? Drop your question/comment/criticism/love here: https://www.mfmpod.com/p/hotline/ * Support the pod by spreading the word, become a referrer here: https://refer.fm/million * Have you joined our private Facebook group yet? Go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/ourfirstmillion and join thousands of other entrepreneurs and founders scheming up ideas.

I wanted to talk about confidence. Growing up, I was never super confident. I was, you know, in a group, in my group of friends, let's say there were six of us. You had, you know, the kid who always got into trouble, right? He was always, you know, he was always on an adventure. And then you had the class clown. Everybody loved that person because they were making everybody laugh. You had the person who was, you know, ambitious and was this, and they always got good grades.

and they were always sort of top of the class and doing good in sports, that sort of thing. And then you had me. I was the friend who was like just, I was just there to support all of them. I was just laughing. I was like a laugh track of a show. I wasn't even the character.

And I wasn't very confident. I didn't talk very much. And it all changed for me when I was living in Houston, Texas, and in 10th grade, my family, my dad got a job in China. And so all of a sudden, we were moving to Beijing. And so pack up your bags. You're moving from Texas to China.

And on the plane ride there, I remember my sister was talking to me and she goes, how are you feeling about your new school or you're excited, nervous, whatever? I was like, I don't know. It's kind of the same thing, probably just another school. It won't be too different. And she goes, well, it can be. I go, what do you mean? And what she was trying to say was not the difference between China and Texas,

but the difference between me and China. me in Texas. She goes, you know, none of these kids know you. So you have a kind of a fresh start. That's pretty cool. Like, you can pretty much be whoever you want to be. You could be however you want to be. And I was like, what do you mean? She goes, well, think about in Houston, like the kids in your school who are cool, right? I had this friend Kane. I mean, his name was cool. My friend Kane, Holderfield, he was one of the cool kids. Everybody loved him. And he was always having a good time. And I used to see these other kids. I remember this kid. Casey and they were always having a good time. And one of the reasons why was they were very

confident. They were confident in themselves. And so they were relaxed. They don't run over as worried about what other people were thinking of them. And I thought, man, that'd be great if I could be like that. I didn't know how. I didn't know how to be confident. And over time, I have learned the secret to confidence. I used to think, okay, here's what I originally thought. I used to think confidence was, you know, either something you just have or you don't. You're born with it. Okay, that was wrong. When I moved to China and when I landed, you know, after that flight, I ended up walking into school on the first day of school and I carried myself like Kane. I carried myself like Casey. I carried myself like they used to do. And I didn't know how to be confident. I didn't really

understand it. I sort of faked it until you make it. But what I figured out was that confidence is not something you do directly, right? So confidence is not just puffing up your chest because that's bravado, right? That's false confidence. It's easily deflated by reality. A confident person is not just like a fearless person. A confident person is confident as a byproduct of being adventurous. Let me tell you what I mean. Over time, I figured out that all I needed to do was focus on being adventurous, putting myself in new, unfamiliar situations, and going for it. You know, if there was a, if we were at a lake and there was a rope swing and I didn't know how to do the rope swing, I didn't know if I would land right, then I must do it, right?

I got to lean into that adventure. If there was a group of girls at a bar I wanted to go talk to, but I didn't know what to say, I must go talk to them, right? I must lean into the adventure. And what I realized, you know, one adventure after another, you sort of realize, well, if I keep putting myself in these positions, and then I come out the other side and, you know, sometimes it works, sometimes it's good, and sometimes you belly flop, doesn't work so well. But either way, you end up all right, then fear goes away, anxiety goes away. Confidence sets in that regardless of the situation, I'll be all right. I will, good things can happen.

I have evidence that good things happen from being adventurous and therefore confidence. So when I did my first business, we wanted to start a sushi restaurant. We had this idea to create that Chipotle of sushi. Now, the problem was, I had eaten sushi for the first time, like two weeks before that. That's why I had the idea. I was like, oh, my God, sushi's amazing. I haven't had this in my whole life. I was scared of it.

Why doesn't somebody make a kind of more accessible version of this? So that was the idea. And where most people would not have the confidence to go do. it because they have no experience, I leaned into the adventure. So we're watching TV, watching the Food Network, the throwdown with Bobby Flay. And we see this, it's a sushi throwdown. So we skip class and we're watching this throwdown. And we see this awesome charismatic chef from L.A. do the sushi throwdown against Bobby Flay. He seems great. He knows his stuff. We say, we got to get in touch with that guy. How do we make that happen? Well, my friend,

Googled him, and we saw his restaurant in LA. And my friend goes, my friend Trevor goes, let's call him. Again, normally, a lot of people would shy away from that, right? That's an unknown situation. What's going to happen if I call them? What do I say? Will it work? Will it not work?

Lean into the adventure. All right, so I pick up the phone. I call him ring, ring. Somebody picks up. I'm so used to getting the run around with things that I just assumed I was going to get the run around again, I go, I need to talk to Philip Yee. How do I make that happen? Voice on their line goes, it's Philip. Talk to me. Now, I didn't have much planned on what to say after that. So I, you know, sort of stumbled and fumbled, but I was like, oh, Philip, you know,

my name is Sean, and I have this idea for a sushi restaurant. I think it can be really great. And I just saw you on TV and I think that you're the perfect person to work with. And he's like, who are you, you're a kid, like, no, not interested. But we kept pursuing, we were very persistent and eventually, eventually he did come on board and became kind of like a life mentor of ours. But that part of the story is not important. Really, it's just picking up the phone and calling that was important. Another situation I remember early on in my career,

we were in a program called Cairo. It was like an entrepreneurial society, like a, I don't know. Basically, they named the top 100, most innovative college startups, which is, you know, like Forbes 30 into 30. It kind of means nothing. It was just people picking friends. In fact, I think our school had no nominees. And so we, just by default, by being the only people to apply, we won. So we get flown to New York. You go to the Stock Exchange and you get to present. We got on CNN. It was amazing. During that process, we heard that there was a trip you could win if you were in that group. There's a trip you could

to win, like 20 or 30 people were going to win this, to China, all expense paid trip to China, and a courtesy of Alibaba. I didn't know what Alibaba was at the time. And we had missed the deadline to apply. So we were not going to win, and it was sort of over. Well, I saw somebody carrying the sign for the contest and getting into the elevator and go into the third floor. So I said, I said, okay, you know, hey, you know, taxi, follow that car, basically.

right so let's follow her so we go into the elevator i go to the third floor i try to find this one and find her and i go up to her and i say hey i know what i know i missed the deadline to apply but um and i just made this up i go i had a dream last night that um i met a woman who ran the trip and uh and i got tickets to the trip i don't know how it happened but i just in my dream it happened and then i saw you and you had the sign um tell me that's not a sign and she laughed she's like That's a sign, yeah, sure. She goes, you know, the registration is closed. I said, I know registration is closed, but, you know, I would love to go.

I think, you know, I think I would make the trip fun for, are you going? If you're going and I'm going, the trip's going to be fun. Can you do it? You have the power to make that happen, don't you? And, yeah, she did. She made it happen. We won an all expense-paid trip to China, went to the Alibaba headquarters, learned what the heck Alibaba was.

I was just trying to get a free trip. I thought that would be a fun adventure. that ended up being extremely lucrative later because I learned about e-commerce through Alibaba and now have a e-commerce brand because of that. I also bought Alibaba stock and that did extremely well. I only had a tiny amount of money, but it did super well. So anyways, you can't predict what's going to be the result. But the lesson I want to share is confidence to cold call somebody, confidence to go up to a woman and say, hey, you know, I had a dream that I won, make it happen for me. It's not confidence. It's leaning into an adventure over, over and over and over again.

And the more adventurous you become, the more bulletproof you realize you are. And that, the byproduct of that, is confidence. Try it out. Today, if you see an opportunity to be adventurous, lean in where you would otherwise just stay on the sidelines try it one time tell me what happens tweeted at me and trust me this works if you want to if you ever want to be more confident this is the way to do it don't don't don't focus on confidence focused on adventure all right see yeah