The Startup Ideas Podcast - Billion-dollar Acquisitions, Private Jets, and the Art + Science of Persuasion

Episode Date: July 27, 2023

Today Greg is joined by Andy Ellwood, a startup operator, sales genius, and all-around curious human. In this episode, Greg and Andy talk about how curiosity increases your surface area for luck, why journaling is an underrated life skill, and why you should be growing your business, not your burn rate. ►►Subscribe to Greg's weekly newsletter for insights on community,creators and commerce.You'll also find out when new and exclusiveepisodes come out from Where it Happens. And it's totally free.https://latecheckout.substack.comFIND ME ON SOCIAL:Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenbergInstagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@gregisenbergLINKS FOR THIS EPISODE:Production Team:https://www.bigoceanpodcasting.comAndy Ellwood:https://www.andyellwood.com/https://www.andyellwood.com/journalchallengehttps://twitter.com/andyellwoodSHOW NOTES:0:00 - Intro6:00 - Increasing your luck16:30 - What religion tells us about community26:40 - Journaling for creativity and clarity39:25 - Grow your business, not your burn rate

Andy, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. So I met you 12 or so years ago. Yeah. And you were my first introduction to, like, people in this world who have crazy stories. Before then, I had just read about people like you. And then you told me, I think I said, tell me a bit about yourself, Andy. And you said, first I sold private jets.

I sold a company to Facebook. Yeah. And then what was after that? after that was we sold ways to Google. Oh, right. Then I was like, then I sold it coming to Google and I was like, who is this guy? You're like in your early 30s. Yeah. I learned early on in my career and well, early on in my life that I really enjoyed convincing people of things. And later on in life, I learned that that's called sales.

And I think that there's two types of people in this world, people who know they're in sales and people that are in denial. We're all selling something, even if it's an idea, a restaurant recommendation, whatever it is. We're all selling something. If we just kind of get comfortable with that and we understand that that's a skill, we might be able to have a little bit more of what we want and bring people along with us. How do you get good at sales? If sales is important and we all could use it as a secret weapon, is there a framework for being a pro at sales?

Yeah, my framework is to own what you can control in the process. So my first job out of college was selling life insurance. And I have to tell you that life insurance is one of the least sexy things you can possibly sell because the opening part of the conversation begins, had you recently thought about your death? And then you have to recover from that. And I ended up being the number one life insurance sales in America in the rookie class when I was 23 years old because I learned how to own. what I could control. It wasn't who said yes because one out of three people would say yes. So there's two people that I had no control over their nose. And to get to three pitches,

I had to start with 10 leads. So there were seven people who were leads that were not going to ever let me pitch. And so I said, I want X number of sales. So I multiplied the number of pitches I needed to do by three. And I multiplied that number by 10 to get how many leads I need. to get. And every week, I just went out and made sure I got that many new tens that would turn into threes, which would turn into ones. Because I didn't control who would say yes. I didn't control who would let me pitch. I just controlled making the reach out to the people in there. And for different parts of our lives, we're going to go through different amounts of 10 threes and ones and dating. You got to kiss a lot of frogs sometimes to find the person who you want to

spend a little bit more time with to, in your case, find the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. Congratulations, by the way. And it's a process, right? But it's not everything's a funnel. It doesn't have to be unsexy, but it does break down to, you know, a number of people we spoke to, number of people we spent time with to the one person that we wanted to actually spend a life with. Not everything's a funnel, but everything's a funnel. Yes. And so I think that getting good at sales, getting good at being persuasive, getting good at bringing people along with you on a journey, is figuring out which part of that process you're in control of and then knowing what the next step is after the part that you're in control of, right? So in sales, it's you make a pitch

or you make a presentation. In recruiting, it's you put together an offer. In dating, it's the ask for the next date. Do you remember one of the hardest negotiations of your life or one of the hardest of your life? Getting the job selling private jets for Warren Buffett was one of the hardest sales processes I ever went through because the guys that ran the company were literally the 40 best sales guides in American. And so to convince a sales guy to let you be a sales guy with them is a really arduous process because these guys are not giving me notes after we finished an interview, right?

They're not being kind until once I've gone on the team, awesome, best people in the world. A lot of people know Jesse Itzler, right? Jesse was my boss, you know, when I was Sun Tribe of Jets. And like watching him operate up close and in person was like incredible. And the whole team at Markey Jet back 2006 to 2009 was like Jesse and baby Jesse's. Right. And like to get to be a part of that crew for a few years. and run the Texas sales region for Warren Buffett's private jet company was absolutely what I wanted to do.

But I think it took me three tries to get in there and to like show them how hard I was going to work. They said we only hire people with 15 years of sales experience. And I said, well, I started my lawnmoy company when I was 12, 26 now. So like I'm just one year shy. And they're like, no, that doesn't count. But they ended up hiring me when I was 28. But being able to be one of the youngest guys on the team was totally worth. all the effort that I put into it and all the, you know, I'm going to be in New York for meetings

and I just flew and hung out outside their office and waited until I could get somebody on the phone and be like, hey, I'm actually nearby. You know, could I swing by to continue the conversation that we were having? I sent my business plan to five different hotels in San Francisco, knowing that the CEO is going to be in San Francisco. I knew he'd only stay at one of five hotels. And he called me, he goes, how did you get this into my room? Like, those were the types of things that I was trying to do to just show them like, like I'll do this to get the job. Imagine what I will do when I'm working for you. The way I, one of the ways I got, I got to know you actually was you were throwing a dinner

called the Good People dinner. Good people, great dinner. Yeah. I was living in Montreal at the time and you like sent an email. You're like, yeah, I'm having a dinner tomorrow or something. You should come by. You know, I was in college at the time. And I remember looking at flights and it was like, for whatever reason, it was like, I don't know, $2,000 or super expensive.

And I was like, oh, you know, a part of me is like, I shouldn't do this, but I take out my credit card. I swipe it. I show up to the dinner. From that dinner, I met you, which has been super fruitful, but also met like a bunch of like lifelong friends from that dinner. So I feel like one of the biggest hacks is just being okay to get on a plane and acknowledging that it's a funnel. Like not every dinner is going to be amazing and not every meeting is going to work, but you have to be willing to get on a plane.

Yeah. I am in London right now. I got here this morning. There was a meeting that last week I found out about it. And they're like, do you want to Zoom or are you guys based in London? I was like, oh, I'm actually going to be in London next week. Yeah, perfect. Because you don't get the opportunity that I had this morning to meet with the person I met with in person.

And I still believe that pressing flesh, as we used to say, shaking hands, it matters. There are certain times when it matters. And there are certain things that will happen in a room that you just can't pick up on on Zoom. And it's not everything. I'm very grateful to not be traveling 200 days a year like I used to. but totally worth it to hop across the pond for the meeting I had this morning and another one tomorrow. I think there's a story with you and I want to say someone at Coca-Cola or Delta and you missed a flight. Do you know what I'm talking about?

I do. I do. Yeah, I was speaking at MIT, I had been invited to join this panel. It was in a panel of academics and I'm a homeschool kid from Texas that got a finance degree from Texas A&M. And these are like double ivies, right? Everybody's intellectually, like, they're the ones who should be speaking at MIT. And I did a lot of prep work for this panel. I knew everything about all of their businesses. But I wanted, you know, I wanted it to be friendly and cordial. But I love panels where you can disagree just enough to spark a conversation.

And so I did that on a couple points that I thought for the audience would be great. You know, I'm rushing back to New York. And I hear behind me, hey, really enjoyed what you shared today. and, you know, a gentleman who I had not seen before, a big auditorium. And so as we're like literally repacking our bags after having gone through TSA, I was like, hey, by the way, my name's Andy. He goes, I don't know, my name's Dale.

I was like, you know, what we're up to before? He was, oh, I just got hired as the new head of digital for Coca-Cola, and I'm trying to learn as fast as I can. I'm working for a startup that would very much like to be involved with Coca-Cola at the time. And I said, oh, you know, what stood out to you from today? So he starts to talk and we're trying to walk in together towards the gate. And I'm not late for my flight, but I'm pretty close to late. Like boarding is happening pretty soon.

And I say, would you like to get a beer? And he goes, oh, yeah, I'm here actually early. So, you know, sure. It's we're sitting at the Boston Airport bar. And I can hear them paging my name. Passenger Elwood last fall. And I say, you want another round? And I know that I'm missing my flight, but I'm keeping my poker face as calm and collected as I can.

And so we have a couple of beers. We come up with two ideas. And I said, hey, when I get back to New York tomorrow, I'm going to follow up with you on both of those ideas. Does that sound like a great next step for us? This is really productive conversation. He said, absolutely, thanks so much for the beers. And he walks to his gate, catches his fight, makes it home to his family in Atlanta.

And I end up booking like the 11 p.m. puddle jump, you know, and sit middle seat, which I'm not a middle seat type guy. but got that connection and was able to do one of those ideas with Coca-Cola. And my favorite part is that I later hired him to be the CMO of my last startup. Wow. And it was his way five years later, six years later, to leave Coca-Cola. He'd served his time. He'd done what he wanted to do at Coca-Cola.

And he came in and was CMO for a little bit and then said, hey, startup life really isn't for me. but he launched his own agency and now it's one of the most successful digital agencies, boutique digital agencies in Atlanta. And all because I just was willing to miss a flight and buy a couple beers. And you never know who you're going to sit next to in life, right? Yeah. So let me tell you a story like that. So I'm flying home from Vegas, CES, when I was living in San Francisco.

So Las Vegas to San Francisco back. row, middle seat, and I have this guy next to me who keeps like basically sleeping on me. You know, he's just like going on my chair and I'm kind of like lightly moving him to my right. You know, it's Vegas, right? He was probably up for 32 hours, let's say. But I didn't know who I was sitting next to, right? So, and I'm a positive guy. And I, anyways, I started talking now. I was like, hey, you're like, are you okay? Like, you've been kind of like coming in my seat. So, oh, I'm so tired. It has such a bit busy CES.

We start talking. Turns out he's a co-founder of Lyft. He's a co-founder of Lyft. And we get talking and he's like, you know, telling me he's just, oh, I'm so tired. But I'm excited to play tennis when I get back. I was like, oh, we should play tennis sometime. And all of a sudden I have this relationship with the co-founder of a multi-billion dollar company who, like, to this day, like I have that relationship. with. And the lesson really for me was always lead with kindness and positivity and you never

know who's sitting next to you. 100%. In situations like that, you know, when you lead with kindness and positivity, how do you know to continue it? Like, how long did it take for you to get to, he's the co-founder of Lyft? Because he didn't probably lead with that. Only at the end of the flight did he tell me he was the co-founder of Lyft. So only after we had, talked about tennis. I was playing tennis with him even before I knew he was the co-founder of Lyft. Wow. Right.

Yeah. Sure. But there was something inside me that was like there's something interesting about this guy. Yeah. And there's something that I was just following my curiosity. Like I really, I'm sure you feel, you feel this a lot of the time when you meet someone and you kind of just sense that like, oh, there's something to this person. And you can't put your finger on it.

I had that same feeling with him. and as we're getting up off the plane, he's like, oh, by the way, you're in tech, right? I was like, yeah. He goes, I think you might know him with a company that I started. Wow. And he's like, it's left. You know, Greg, I have always admired your curiosity and you're willing to test things. You know, I followed you into the, you know, the one million follower AI challenge on TikTok.

I just crossed over 500 followers last week. So, you know, didn't quite make it either. But where does curiosity show up the most for you? I think curious people are curious everywhere. Like it isn't something that is siloed into relationships or, you know, just when you go out to, you know, I just got, I just grabbed the coffee right before this at the coffee shop and started talking to the brista about real estate in this particular town that I'm in. Like, I just feel like curious people are curious people. And I've learned that when you're curious, it increases your, you know, what people call the luck surface area. Like, you become more lucky if you're curious.

That being said, you also get burned and rejected a hundred times more when you're when you're curious, right? So, like, you have to be okay with being burnt. And I have plenty of examples of like, yeah, I was curious and I got rejected or burnt and it sucked. Right. It sounds like curiosity came first, but then an ability to deal with rejection came second. Yeah, I think, I don't know, I was always taught, like, you know, from my parents and grandparents to go out in the world and be okay with rejection. So as a child, I was just like, okay, rejection is a part of life, right? Like it just, it is. And if you're not getting rejected, then you're not doing life properly. Just like if you're not breathing, you know, something is wrong. wrong. Yeah. So if you believe that rejection is a part of life, then the next step is,

okay, well, I want to be curious about the world around me. And I'm going to go try a bunch of different things. And then I just learned that like the coolest people on this planet are the most curious people on this planet and have collected the most interesting experiences like you. And that's what drew me to you. What drew me to you is you told me about stories and and experiences that at that point, I had only read about in books. And I don't believe you can be an interesting person if you're not curious. I completely agree with that. Quick interruption from me.

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Enjoy the rest of the show. You asked a really interesting question when I was talking about the Lyft co-founder. You said, when did you know that he was the Lyft co-founder? Which is a really astute question. And it relates to this because when you're meeting people within the professional context and you know what they're doing right away, it's very hard to build long-lasting community because you might be, you know, friends with someone because they're the CMO of Nike or something like that.

Right. So last week, I'm not a particularly a religious person, but I went to a religious event. And the leader of this community was like, hey, like, I've never seen you here. Would you like to have dinner with my wife and myself and a few other friends who are in from out of town? I said, I'm a curious guy, right? I'm like, sure. So I show up. It's a four-hour dinner.

And not once did anyone at the table ask me what I do? Not at all. It didn't even pop into it. And by the end of this meal, I felt like these were my brothers and sisters. Yeah. So I think there's a lot that we can learn about community building from religion. Yeah. I grew up a very religious person.

and have had a wandering journey. Somebody called a prodigal sun journey of my own. But in thinking about communities that are not built around what can I get out of this, but what can I give to this? Right. Which is what I think at its pinnacle at its best is what religious communities that I've had the opportunity to observe exhibit. Like if I go through my role at X at founders, the number of founders that I know who grew up with some amount of religion in their life,

it's pretty high. Like, it's north of 70%. Like, they grew up believing in something that they couldn't see. And so they're pretty comfortable being a startup founder because they're believing in something they can't see. Right. This idea of faith is not weird to them. They're like, hey, I spent my entire high school going to youth group on Sunday nights, talking about things that I've never seen.

And you made me feel something. So cool. And they pursued other things in their life that take some faith. But I think that there were so many bad actors and so many, I don't want to say scandals, but so many reasons to like walk away from organized religion that people just like baby with the bathwater, throw the whole thing out. Good, bad, and definitely the ugly. And we just all went internal to work on ourselves.

The past 20 years, 25 years has just been, you know, the spirituality of you. What are you? You are the God inside of yourself. And what I'm seeing in a lot of conversations I'm having is people looking to be a part of something bigger than themselves that will outlast them. And they're realizing it's not their startup. And it's not their newsletter. And it's not, you know, whatever thing that they're working on right now, they know, probably won't outlast them.

And it's definitely not a global worldwide thing. And now we're kind of like, no, we're building things that give us joy. And communities that are more about giving, I think you're going to have a really big rise in popularity. I mean, I think that's why Burning Man took off. Like, look at the popularity of Burning Man 20 years ago versus today, and it's just gotten bigger and bigger. Have you been to Burning Man?

I've been one time. Describe what your Burning Man experience was and why it's a great example of community. Yeah. I'll just describe it and explain why I'm going back this year. Yeah, okay. Yeah, exactly. So I had been invited to go quite a few times. And the idea of truthfully taking that much time to be literally off the grid, right?

Because cell phones don't work there and there's no money there. and everything's a barter system. And there's not really like hours in a day. There's just what do you feel like doing? Like, if you want to sleep, if you want to stay up all night, you can sit up all night. You know, I watched the sunrise eight days in a row, right? The last two times I had not gone to sleep in between. Like I just watched, you know, they called the double sunrise and like sober.

Like I wasn't, you know, I was not enhancing myself to, you know, make sure that I stayed up again. I just was like I finally clicked. And so I was, you know, I had two friends that were my sponsors. They said, hey, we're going to help you with all. You know, it takes a little bit to figure out how to get there and what you do the pack. And then they just kind of like got me there and worked friendly for the first day. And they're like, all right, go experience it.

And talking about a place where you can be curious because everybody there is just fascinated by everybody else there. And, you know, a city of 80, thousand people pops up in less than two weeks and disappears in less than two weeks. And in the process, you have everything that you need if you are fully present and fully there. And no one knew what my name was. My playa name, they called the playa. My playa name was Boots. They had no idea what I did outside of Burning Man. They didn't know my real name. Didn't know what my company was. They didn't know where, truthfully, where I lived. I was just a guy named Boots.

who was there for some music, there to play some games, eat some food, host a happy hour, whatever it was, ride our bikes. And the third day that I was there, I went to one of my friends,

and this guy had been like 10 times, 12 times. And after three days, I was like, okay, so I've had enough. What do we do for like the next five days? Like, I get it.

I get it. But like, I don't want to do this for another five days. And he said, he said, Andy, do you have a handful of friends here? I was like, yeah. Do you have more than a handful of friends here? I was like, yeah.

He goes, do they come multiple times? I was like, yeah. Is it possible that in three days, you have not yet discovered what they've discovered that makes them want to come back every year? And I was like, I was like, so three days is not, is it enough to understand burning man? What? And that moment was just a pivotal moment for me that I was like, be more curious. Like, what am I not seeing?

And so I started going off by myself more often. I started introducing myself to people who I didn't know and had no idea. And I just started being uber curious. And day four and a half, like, if I could have, I just would have stayed for another three weeks. Because I started to unlock the spirit of curiosity. And it's just you're like, it's like you're on another planet and everything else just kind of fades away. And there are people who definitely enhance their experience and people who, you know, that's what they're there for.

But I think that overall Burning Man, in my experience, gets a bad wrap for that. You know, you're high, but it's not on a supply, right? You're high on just this experience of like, you know, they call, you know, when you leave Burning Man, they call it going back to the default world, right? Because like, you kind of, you logged in, you found this place, and then you disappear, you know, back into the default world. And for a lot of people, it is a version of a religion that they need it once a year. They need that.

Yeah. What I don't like about it is it's once a year. It's a pilgrimage to Mecca. But it's you go back to your life and then you get back into your routines. Like I wonder how you can incorporate like that same lessons in your everyday life. It sounds like you are doing a bit of it. But it feels like a lot of people I know who go to Burning Man are just like they go. They have a great time and then they leave.

Yep. Yeah. On my final day when we were cleaning up camp, I said to a new friend of mine, I said to her, I have so many things I want to do when I get back. What am I supposed to do with this feeling of like, I got clarity on a decent amount of things because I was not around those things. I was completely detached from any interaction with those things, with those projects, with those people.

And she said, write it all down as explicitly as you possibly can and then wait 30 days. and if you still want to do any of those things, do it on the 31st day. And it was such great advice because it allowed the experiences I had to metastasize into wisdom, into ideas, into action. But it wasn't like, oh my gosh, I just heard this quote. I'm going to go tell the whole world. Oh my gosh, I just had this experience. Like, I'm moving to Switzerland.

Like, no, it was, okay. I know what my urge is, but I was able to kind of sit with it and say, like, what actually is that? And in that next 30 days, I ended a 14-year friendship. I logged out of a company that I was considering and spending more time investing in myself. I said, you know, that's not, I like it, but I don't love it. I decided to marry my girlfriend, which I did, you know, four years later. I made a lot of decisions coming off of being logged out. And it wasn't because of Bernie Min,

I'm not telling you or your audience or anybody to like, you have to go. But for me, it was what you said, it was a version of love as a service, a version of community at its best. I'm wondering if that's something that you should be doing monthly, weekly, quarterly. How do you think about that?

So I have a pretty active journaling practice. And for me, the act of slowing down long enough to write what I'm thinking forces my brain out of its normal routines. And it's not the full burning man experience, obviously, right? Yeah. But it forces me to think differently because I'm slowing down long enough to actually choose the words and put them on a page. I don't, you know, a lot of people go, oh, there's so many cool journaling apps and there are. There's, you know, if that's your thing, like, just journal,

like, that's the most important thing. But like, for me, it's slowing down to actually pen to paper, you know, see each letter as it comes out. I take, you know, as long as it takes, you know, to fill the page. And that for me is a little bit of logging out because I'm choosing what is worthy of making another paper. And I don't write for a certain duration. I don't care how many pages I write. Yesterday morning, I wrote two sentences. That was it. That's all I needed.

But I had a place for the thought. I had a place for like, hey, let that sit there outside of my head and let it be something that might turn into something and might not. And, you know, I have kind of a graveyard of projects and a graveyard of blog posts and a graveyard of newsletter headlines that, like, I wrote them down. And I was like, okay, I know why I thought that was good. But now that's outside of my head, it's not as good as I thought it was. But sometimes it takes externalizing those thoughts.

And for me, two paper, for me to really get clarity on like, all right, it sounded clever to me when it was rattled around in my head. But that's not actually the thing. But maybe it's by getting out of my head, I open up a little space for the thing to slot in. There's a little more space. So I don't do any journaling. although I do have like a notes folder and ideas folder and stuff like that. If I wanted to get into journaling tomorrow, let's say every morning, to me staring at a blank page is a bit overwhelming.

What advice do you have to someone who is afraid of the blank page? I think it's the number one reason people don't journal is afraid of the blank page or they've not ascribed a value to their own. thoughts. Well, the second one, the second one is like a bigger problem. It's like, yeah, yeah. No, like every, your thoughts are valuable, period. Yeah, yeah. I've seen people unlock that belief in themselves through journaling, but it was the reason that they didn't to start. And so to start, one of the things that I, I've done and still from time to time do is, you know, my full name is Andrew Thomas Elwood. And I have Andrew Thomas Elwood. And I have Andrew Thomas L. would write Andy a note as if he was Andy's executive coach.

Dear Andy, here's what I observed this week. Here's the things that it seems like you're spending a lot of time on. Here's the questions that I'd love to see how you would answer. And it doesn't have to be writing the letters to yourself. Like you could think about, dear future biographer, this week was really interesting for me. And here's why. the book Titan, one of the best biography, business biographies out there.

It's the life of time of John D. Rockefeller. But the Rockefeller Foundation gave the author two years full access to John D. Rockefeller's journals. And so this book is unreal because it's literally pulled from the journals. And it doesn't have to be that she thinks we've read a biography about you, but you're capturing those moments. And it's like, well, wait, how would I explain that critical thing that happened recently? Like, here's the story I've told my friends, but what's the story that I would tell my future self that was going back and saying, like, what was going on in 2023? Oh, wait, that's what I thought happened?

Interesting. And so I have, I'm on journal number 20 in the series that I'm on. And, you know, everything that's happened since my first startup to now is in those. 20 journals. My last company, Islands, one of our investors was the co-founder of 24-hour fitness. They basically invented, actually, not basically, they invented gyms, like membership gyms in the early 80s. And I went to go visit the co-founder. I just give them an update about, you know, we had this acquisition offer from Facebook and I was so excited. and I asked him and I said, what's your biggest regret in your career?

And he goes, my biggest regret is just not writing it all down daily. And I was like, I said the same thing. I was like, I hate staring at a blank page. I don't know what I'd write down. And he starts laughing. And he goes, this story about going to Facebook and like getting an offer is insane. This is obviously not going to happen every day. But even in your, you know, that's a big moment.

even in your little moments of you're going to the coffee shop and you have a conversation with the barista, that itself is an interesting potential story. So journaling to me sounds like I just personally like have to get past. I just have to do it. I just have to like, I feel like for me, buy a pen and buy a journal that I'm excited to open and use. I actually tweeted about this the other day where I want to double down on my YouTube. So I went and bought like the do dopes, YouTube, camera, equipment, studio, that sort of thing. And now I'm on the hook to record. The question is, how do you put yourself to be on the hook for journaling?

Because it's your accountability is to yourself because it's a personal thing. Yep. Yeah. The reason I show up every Tuesday and Friday for my boxing workout is not because I actually enjoy working out. I really don't. But I pay my trainer, one to train me, but basically just to make sure I'm there. It's like a babysitter in some ways.

A little bit. A little bit. Yeah. And I think that if you said, I want to get into journaling and you reach out to your inner circle or some of your high school friends and said, hey, for the next 30 days, would you be willing to text me if you journal and I'll text you if I journaled? And just, you know, you just start there and say, as long as I write one sentence, That's it. One sentence every day. That counts.

There's a personal trainer who tells the story that when he's working with people who it's really their first time in a gym, he just asks them the first day to show up, they have a conversation and then they go stand on the treadmill. I don't turn it on. He goes, okay, that's enough for today. See tomorrow. And they're like, well, wait, where's the workout? He goes, no, no, no, that was it. I want you to show up tomorrow. We'll do more tomorrow. Right. And they get, they have the conversation standing on the treadmill and they walk for one minute. You can ease yourself.

If you said, hey, over 30 days, I'm going to do one more sentence per day. So day one, I'm going to write one sentence, day two, I'm going to write two sentences. Day one, I'm going to write three sentences. You would start to realize, oh, but wait, I had more to say than just two sentences. It happens pretty quickly. Two business ideas. One is an online journaling product that, that is kind of like social by nature in the sense that like every day once you press publish,

it tells like your friend, so Andy or whoever you've published. So you stay accountable as a group. And then the other business idea is just like, you know, would I pay $99 a month or whatever, a couple hundred bucks a month just for the text from, you know, Andy or someone like Andy being like, did you write in your journal today? So I love that, but I think that what you're tapping into, and this is something that I have journaled about this. I have written this down on more than one occasion. Journaling truthfully is a good jump-off point, but I think it expands to learning in general is accountability as a service.

Yeah. Right. So I was homeschooled from sixth grade all the way through high school graduation. And so my mom would give me my assignments on the first of the month. And then it was up to me to just get my stuff done. Like I was the eldest child. I didn't have friends who, you know, I had a lot of homeschool friends. And when I got to college, people were like, oh, my gosh.

Like he didn't check to see if we did our homework. I was just like, what do you mean he didn't check? Like, what are you talking about? Like, if it's assigned, you just do it. But like, you did it? How did you know? I was like, because he said, and I realized that like time management and just taking like personal responsibility to get the thing done was unique to the way that I started learning

in high school. And so college, that part of college was not challenging for me. But I realized, and the more I've thought about like our traditional education system and when I was seeing everything go online, right? Like right now, there's no reason to go to college if you know what you want to be. be when you graduate because all of it is online for free and you can just start being the thing quickly. But the accountability to actually do it is the reason people don't. Accountability and social aspect, right?

Yeah, yep. But I think that you actually, like, you can get the social aspect by doing the thing. Yeah. And talking about it publicly too. That's why. That's why I think that like if you're doing anything, talk about it publicly because you're going to attract other people that are going to be into it. Yeah. One of my ideas that I played around with is, is what some of it I've done, I don't respond so well to rewards, but I do respond really well to downside, to consequences. So, for example, when I was becoming the number one life insurance salesman when I was 23, this is in Texas. I'm wearing a full suit carrying a hard side, hard-sided briefcase. And I said, until I make my 20th sale, I have to park on the top floor of the parking garage and take the stairs in Texas in the summer.

Literally every single day as I'm walking up six flights of stairs in a suit carrying a briefcase to my truck, which has been sitting in the hot sun. I'm like, I better freaking make a sale today. I'm so sick of this. And so I thought about that. Another time I set a goal and my bet was if I lose, I have to donate $1,000 to my rival. my rival universities and downment fund. They don't care at all about my $1,000. Right.

But that was meaningful to me at the time, right? There are things that I was doing that I said, these are the consequences. So I was thinking about this for this accountability app was if I put 50 bucks on deposit in this service, and I said, if I'm not, if I don't journal every day for the next 30 days, that $50 disappears.

You can decide where it goes or, you know, all it sets up. But like you tell everyone, if I don't journal for the next 30 days, this 50 bucks is going to be donated to a campaign for, you know, a politician that I don't like. Right. So first of all, I think accountability massively underrated and underpriced, underpriced, underrated. And I think negative incentives in our own lives, just thinking about what we can do to keep us responsible is important. Yeah. And that could be a financial cost. It could be a social cost. Yeah. It could be a time cost.

Like it doesn't necessarily need to be money, but there has to be a cost associated with it to you. Yeah. Yeah. Greatness costs something. Yeah. And that's why most people aren't great, frankly, because they're not willing to risk it. And they're not willing, and this goes back to like curiosity, but they're not willing to be curious and fail and get rejected and put themselves out there and do it day after day after. day because that's really what it takes. Yeah, you know, I have friends that are sitting on

incredible ideas, but they didn't think that they would, they would do it. And so they kind of limited their options as to their ability to pursue it. And they have big boy budgets. I mean, like, they have expenses and they have, you know, private school tuition, and they have a house and cars. And they're like, but I really want to pursue this thing. And I'm like, you really should. They're like, yeah, but I need to be making half a million in like the pre-st seed stage of the company in order for this to work. And I'm like, well, that's just never going to happen. Like, zero people will invest in that.

And if you can't self-finance, like, this idea is going to sit on your shelf until somebody else does it. And I still think about it, you know, that, you know, my wife and I are both small business owners and we do our best to keep a pretty lean budget. We have, we have, we love an amazing life. Don't be wrong. but the fixed cost part of what we do, like we want to be as nimble as we possibly can, so that if that next opportunity arises and we have to go lean for a period of time,

okay, okay. And, you know, that won't always be the case, but it's, you know, it's lifestyle by design. Do you are somebody who wants to be able to take risks? Like, keep your budget as little as low as possible. If you're just getting out of school, do not get a nice car. Do not get a nice apartment. You are not in competition with your parents. Don't try to move into that neighborhood and impress people.

It limits your options. It limits your options so quickly. You know why it's tough because you start making a little bit of money. You start going out to restaurants. So you like going to restaurants. And then all of a sudden you're ordering a glass of wine with dinner. And then all of a sudden, like, you're used to a glass of wine at dinner. Now, if you have to go start a startup and all of a sudden you say to yourself, well, now I can't have a glass of wine at dinner, you might not be able to enjoy that meal.

And that's a bit of the problem. So I think what you're saying makes a lot of sense, which is sometimes like don't get that glass of wine in the first place. You know, if you're serious about building a startup, if you're serious about putting something out there, if you're seriously about being a solopreneur or a multi-preneur or whatever, keeping your cost down is another one of the greatest strengths that you can have. It gives you options. Yeah. It's just tough, though, because, like, wine is great.

Absolutely great. Absolutely great. It is really hard to shed those habits if you get accustomed to them. And I think going back to our conversation about friends, that's where in some ways, my experience, people stop being curious. People stop trying new things. People stop getting rejected because they're accustomed to life being a certain way. And trying that new thing, downsizing for the chance to supersize.

I'm not so comfortable with that. And I think that if you have the chance to stay nimble longer, you have the chance to go a lot further. I could not agree more. Someone who listens to the pod, actually, he's a Fortune 500 client. and exec at a Fortune 100 maybe. And Paisley checkout seven figures a year. And he came to visit me in Miami. And I picked him up in my Volvo, which is like six or seven years old.

And he just starts laughing. And he's like, honestly, I did not expect you to be driving like a seven-year-old Volvo. And I was like, oh, I love this car. You know, it's perfectly fine. Like, it's safe. It's like, it works. Like, you know, I, I love it. And he goes, oh, I just figured, you know, you would have like a big Mercedes or Bentley or Lambo or whatever. And I do it because I do want to keep my cost down. And I'd rather take that money and, and grow my business. Like, versus like, grow my burn rate. Exactly. grow your business, not your burn rate. Yeah, literally.

Andy, I could talk to you for hours. I want to thank you for coming on the show. I think you're criminally underfollowed, literally. It's a crime. So where could people follow you on the internet? Yeah, so Andy Elwood.com. And I am at Andy Elwood with two Ls on all social platforms and pretty, to track down. If you type it out, it looks like, and yell would. It looks like, so when I walk into

my boxing gym, people go, wood. And when you walk on the playa, people go boots. Exactly. Exactly. All right. Enjoyed everyone. Later, Andy. Thank you.