Business Q&A + League of Legends Ep. #29 ft. @RishyCupTV

What's up everybody? Welcome to another League of Legends Business Q&A. Let me just go to Twitch and say, what's up guys? Super excited to be back. It's been a while. I feel like it's been forever, but I guess it's only since Friday. A lot has happened in my life since then, so it feels like it's been a while. I'm excited to be back though, and I have my usual co-host Rishi CupTV. Rishi, welcome back.

Thank you, Evan. So happy to be here. Cup of love, everyone.

Cup of love. J-Rise is in-game with me. He wants to do an experiment where we go bot lane, so I'm gonna go bot first and jungle second. And, uh, wait, wait. Hold on, did he say that he wants to be Heimer as support?

All I know is he's saying, "My mood exited host mode." That's all I see on my end.

Today's experiment, I want to go back to Heimer, you go Teemo, but we go to the bot lane. So he wants to play Heimer support, I think. Okay, well, we're gonna do— Yes, he said yes. Okay, experiments. Hymer support it is. Hymer support. Okay, so a cup of love. What else? What's the coffee of the day?

Well, I needed my coffee today. It's that café con leche, but I was, you know, we didn't stream yesterday because you were recording your audiobook, which was super exciting. I don't know if you want to go into that a little bit again today for this audience. But yeah, I got to catch up on some much-needed sleep yesterday morning. So as much as I, I missed everybody, I'm happy that I, I'm waking up this morning with more caffeine and awakeness.

I love it. I love it. I'm just trying to clarify with J-Rise that we're doing Heimer support. This is a definitely non-traditional bot lane that we're trying to do, so it should be exciting. Um, yeah, yesterday was book audio day. I spent the morning from— not the morning, the whole day from 10 to 5 recording the audiobook, which was super exciting. I missed, I missed you guys. I missed doing this, but, uh, but it was fun. Oh, we didn't get our, our lane, so I'm, I'm jungle. Okay, well Jungle it is. While we sort this out though, why don't we get to our first question? What do we got?

Did we shout out the, uh, yeah, yeah, let's shout out.

I see I'm off my game here, I'm not used to this now. Shout out to Soul for Soul Forget 2453. What's up? Welcome, welcome. Who else we have? Rise Online, Rishi Cup.

ADC Rotheart.

The initial plan was to do Teemo ADC, but it, uh, we didn't get lined up like that, so I'm doing Teemo jungle. And we don't play ranked, not on these experiments. All right, welcome everybody on Twitch and live. Let's get some questions.

Cool, let's get to the questions. Okay. First question's coming from Tafara. Tafara is saying, my question is, what advice would you give entrepreneurs in Africa and other developing nations? Unfortunately, I can't attend the session today. Oh, I think this was in response to one of your live streams because of my poor network connection. But he signs off, believing in Zimbabwe. So, Tafara, thanks for the question. The first thing that came to mind for, you know, kind of general advice for anyone who's in Africa or developing nations is—

Oh my God. Oh, I just messed up so badly. Oh no. I wasn't paying attention. I messed up. So I was listening to you and then I made a huge mistake.

Oh no, what happened?

I banned Teemo. Oh God, I banned Teemo and I thought we were— I thought we were— I thought I was picking Teemo and it was my turn to ban and I banned my own champion.

Oh no.

Okay, well, you know, We live and learn. I'm gonna go Eve then. Very sad. Okay.

Aw, you've had good times with Eve though, but I know that's sad.

Yeah. Yeah. It's all good. J-Rod says, should we dodge? It's all good. Okay.

Oh, I'll give you more time if you need to get in the game.

No, no, no, I just, uh, This is what happens, see, you lose the skills when you take too long off. No, it's all good, it's all good. Okay, so yes, Africa, entrepreneurs in Africa.

Africa, yep. So I guess the first thing I would just say is that, you know, whatever you're going to end up doing, because there isn't really any specifics about his or her business, but I think the, the greatest strength you'll have is to differentiate your business and really owning what makes you different, how you see the world differently, because you being from Zimbabwe is going to give you a perspective, and then you as an individual living in Zimbabwe, you're going to have a unique perspective. And so whatever you decide to do, Embrace how you are different and embrace how you are unique and embrace how you uniquely see the world and really own it. Be confident about it and incorporate that into whatever you do because I think that is, you know, that's what will set you apart. I mean, there's lots of other advice I know that we could give you, but that's kind of where I felt there was value.

Can you read the question back, the specifics about why Africa? I mean, obviously from Africa, but what was the— just general advice?

Yeah, just general advice for anyone who's in Africa or other developing nations.

Yeah, okay, so the first thing I would think about is not letting that be an excuse or a reason for you. You know, a lot of people say, well, because I'm in a developing nation, I can't have success as an entrepreneur. There's been tons of people coming out of Africa who've had a lot of success. We've covered a ton of them on the, on the channel too. People who, you know, I didn't know a lot about before, but, but have gone on to have massive success. And in not letting that be the reason why you don't go off and kill it, right? Just because you're in a developing country doesn't mean you have a developing mindset or developing business. You can be just as successful as we are here. And you can apply that to anything. You know, I'm too young, I'm too old, I don't have the education, I don't have the parents, I don't have the background, any of that stuff. So I would, I would do my best to eliminate that mindset. I would surround myself with stories, resources, people that build me up. You know, if it's having Strive Masayuwa on the wall or whoever it is that you look up to, to know that you can make it. And also understanding that it's a global marketplace too, right? You could sell stuff online, right? I mean, I'm here in Canada and most of my audience is in the US, but then also around the world. The amount that I sell to Canadians is tiny compared to where I'll sell around the world. And so it's so much easier. It's so much easier to get started now and to have a huge impact. Oh, I have sounds on here. I should turn those off. That there's no excuse anymore. There's no excuse anymore, and it's just overcoming that, the limiting mindset that you have, that it's, uh, I'm Africa, I'm from Africa, or I'm from a developing country. Everything, it's all the same. It's all hustle. It's all hard work. It's all providing value. It's just going out and doing it. Do the work and you'll have You have the same chance of success as the rest of us. That's what I got.

Nice. And you know, Evan, I've been looking out because I know we get a lot of callers from— or people asking questions from Africa and kind of in that same place in their mindset about, you know, how can they be successful in their businesses. I recently ran by a tweet by Stephen Kelly about startups in Africa using tech. And there's a lot of tech opportunities that he was highlighting in this particular tweet and things. So I'm always looking out to see kind of what's going on, but I think there's much more than people realize, and I think it might also just require a little bit of resourcefulness in terms of finding out what's going on for entrepreneurs in your area. Because I think there's more than I think people realize.

Yeah, yeah, you know, 100%. At the same time, if there's nothing, go and make it. Right? Or join an online group, right? Or come here, or, you know, add comments to Believe Nation videos. You know, just because you're not in the big city doesn't mean that you can't go out and get the support you need for your business. Cool.

All right. Got lots of people in the chat today. I want to shout out as you come in, uh, OptiSource Book. Welcome back, uh, Last Minute Louis.

Ah, Louis! Louis, welcome back, man. Actually, I don't think— I don't know if Louis joined. Louis is a buddy of mine. He's an entrepreneur here in Toronto, runs Last Minute Training.

Oh, I— yeah, cool. So Last Minute Louis, welcome. Um, did I miss anyone? Oh, we got Ant from our gratitude stream, uh, last minute or no, Breathe Fitness. You know Anthony from over at our earlier stream this morning.

I love it. Welcome aboard, guys.

Thanks. Yeah, cool to have you guys. All right, next question coming from Dottie. Dottie says, is it necessary for collaboration in any business? If not, what type of business needs collaboration as a necessity? I will be expecting to hear from you soon. Yeah, you know what came to mind actually, and I don't believe this business had any partners. There was this mompreneur who was hugely successful and she was featured on Shark Tank, and anyway, she made these products for children. And basically, so she was an inventor and entrepreneur. She sold children's products on a retail website, and I think she had like $2 million in sales annually. And I think she was literally doing everything out of her own house, um, with the help of family. But I don't think there was any, you know, major partners. And I— and she was obviously a hugely profitable business. So I think it's definitely possible to have a business without partnerships. But yeah, I think one of the advantages of a partnership would be if someone has a skill in an area that you don't. One thing about this mompreneur was that she was super brilliant, super on fire, and may not be the average solopreneur. And so if you aren't able to do everything on your own, one of the advantages of partnership is getting someone who can kind of be strong in in areas where you're not so strong. I think it's a personal decision based on your business, where you want to go, how big you want to get, that sort of thing.

Well, I just died.

It's all good.

The question is just, do I need to have a partnership to be successful as a mompreneur?

Well, I think he wants just information on businesses and collaborations, like when is it necessary, when is it not?

Yeah, it's a— so it's a great question, and I think a lot of entrepreneurs have to deal with it. I think it starts with understanding what your skill set is and how much you need to have support for what you're doing. So are you able to do everything yourself, or are you really out of depth in one of the things that you're trying to do? So as an example, my first business, we were selling biotech software. You know, I am not a programmer. I can't, I can't create, you know, the code for, for what we need. Oh, we're about to fight, are we about to fight, are we about to fight? Maybe? Uh-oh, Zed is here. So I can't do everything myself, you know, and my partners, they couldn't do it all on their own either. They needed to have support. So that worked out well where I did a lot of the business stuff and media stuff and partnership stuff, and they did a lot of the coding work and programming and all of that other stuff to help the business go. In this business, you know, I could do a lot of the stuff, at least the early stage stuff myself. I could, you know, I don't need a business partner to edit videos as an example. Something that I wanted to eventually build a team and hire out. So it starts with an honest self-audit to know what you're good at and where you might be able to need some help. If it's a critical business function that you don't know how to do, then it's something to think about having a business partner come in and help you with it. When you're going into a business partnership, I would just make sure you understand that it's— Alex is making noise. Understand that it's— people jump into partnerships too soon. So many times they jump into partnerships too soon. They feel like, oh, you're really good at marketing, I'm really good at products, so let's, let's do a joint partnership where you really need to, you know, date before you get married and make sure that that's something that you really, really, really like this person and can go through the hard times with this person, not just the good times. So that's a start. And at the same time, I'd say if you don't have it, you don't have that partnership, don't stress yet. Don't, don't not take action. You gotta keep moving forward on your business regardless. Oh, we got a kill. Good job, team. First kill for our team. Yeah. Uh-oh, Zed is coming. Yeah. So those are my thoughts. It may mean that you need to have somebody or may not, just depends on what you feel is lacking in your business.

Mm-hmm. Cool. Alrighty. Anything you want to tell us about the game right now?

Um, we're losing. We're 1-3. I, I'm 0-1. I gotta make up for that early, early death. Uh, but we'll see. It's still early. We'll see how it goes.

I'm still believing.

I still believe. I still believe. I still can't believe I banned Teemo though. It's pretty, pretty rookie mistake there, but, uh, it's all good. All right, experiments.

Next question comes from Maddie, or Maddie, Maddie, and Maddie is 50, 50-year-old female from Egypt. She's trying to find a job in her country and she failed many, many times and she finally found a job in Saudi Arabia. "But she's struggling because she says, 'My biggest problem, internal fear, is about losing my job, or will I be— will I not be successful? How can I overcome this mental block?'" She says she also has, like, back pain and things, but she's just feeling, like, nervous from having failed a lot in trying to find a job and She has a job and is afraid to lose, lose it.

So she's afraid of losing the job that she has right now?

Yeah, she's afraid she won't be a success.

Okay.

Because she's just had a lot of failure. Yeah, so obviously very natural fear when you've had, when you've experienced failure in a particular area over and over. So I think it helps to first just congratulate yourself and give yourself props for having kept trying after lots of failure, because usually when we experience lots of failure, it just gets harder and harder to keep trying. But clearly you're tenacious. You've continued to go for it in spite of obstacles. But yeah, I think how to overcome fear has a lot to do with your mindset, and I know you recognize that because you recognize it's a mental block. One of the things that I do when I'm dealing with fear is either one, remember the times when I was afraid and then it turned out okay. So the first thing is to like try to think about, you know, when was I afraid and then I found out there actually wasn't a reason to be afraid, and just kind of think and meditate on those times when things worked out. But also, I think just whether it's talking to yourself or Watching a video, surround yourself with material that counters that fear. So, like, I'll just speak to myself sometimes, like, you know, if I'm feeling afraid, I will say to myself certain things that I know help me in that moment to not be overtaken by that fear. What do you got, Evan? Anything?

It seems like there's a lot of questions all at once. We're talking about dealing with fear, dealing with failure, and what was the third part?

Overcoming this mental block. Is that the one you meant? Maybe. She's got the fear of The fact that she failed, she's got the fear of not being successful at her job, kind of the same, I guess. And then how to overcome that mental block.

Got it. Okay, so a couple things. Fear of failure is— well, all of it's normal. I just died again. Holy cow. Yeah, my team. You don't overcome the fear of failure, at least in my mind. You just, you feel the fear and you do it anyway. If you're afraid of something, you, it's not, this correct answer isn't going in and being unafraid. You're going to be afraid. It's I think a lot of people make that mistake where they feel like, oh, because I'm afraid, I shouldn't do it. And all these people have had success and it looks like they're not afraid. They were terrified when they first started. You know, when I first was doing YouTube videos, I was terrified. But it's feeling that fear and just doing it anyway. Um, and so whatever it is that you want to try to do, It's understanding that that's totally normal. I mean, it's just something you have to get through. And the thing that helped me at least get through it was thinking about trying not to live with regret in my life. So if I'm ever afraid of something, even like, even doing the audiobook, right? Like I'm afraid to go to the studio and do something new, and it's a, it's a, it's a big deal, and this is where Justin Bieber records his albums and there's all of this potential failure in that maybe I won't do a good job or maybe my throat will be sore or maybe it won't do as good as I can. But I still went. I didn't want to not show up because even worse than the fear of failure is knowing that you, you didn't do your best, knowing that you shied away when you could have done more. And so I try to live without regret as much as I can because it's kind of haunted me before. In terms of not— in terms of being fired from a job, uh, when you're wanting to keep your job, if you want to keep your job Just do a good job. You know, it sounds maybe really— it's not meant to offend, but you just, you do a good job. If you do a good job, they'll keep you on and they'll look for other ways. Like, if I was working at a company, I would want to look for ways to add so much value that they couldn't imagine me not being there, that they would want to go out and find other opportunities for me. To, to help because I am doing such a great job, right? Where if they're saying there's a new project coming up, how do I become the default person that they want to give it to because I've done such a good job on projects in the past for them? So it's always just looking to do more, like do your, do your job and do a little bit more than your job as well to, to get ahead. Team is suffering. Can I get anything from this or I'm just gonna die? Die. Man, these guys are good. Oh, I got a kill. All right. I mean, I've told this story a couple times, right? And this is also for entrepreneurs, not just people who are In jobs, you know, you— there's the fear of losing your client, right? What if the client doesn't keep me on board anymore? Well, do an amazing job for that client, you know. Don't just sell a product or service. Be an indispensable part of their operation so that they would rather, you know, get rid of somebody on their team before they lost you as a provider. Yeah, that's what I got.

Love it. And I like how the value— your, your message about value, you know, transcends entrepreneurship. It's like whether you are an employee or you're the employer, when you add value, you're never going to lose. I mean, I guess you still lose sometimes, but It's not because you didn't do what you were supposed to do, you know?

Yeah, it's just, it's everything in life. It's relationships, you know, it's jobs, it's relationships, it's everything. If you want to have success, you want your relationship to work out well, then you need to provide value, right?

That's good, really good.

Your spouse, your boyfriend, your girlfriend to feel valued because of what you're doing for them, whether it's, you know, listening to them or just being a shoulder to cry on or helping them through problems in their life or whatever it is. You know, if you're not adding value to the person in your life who's supposed to be your significant other, then that relationship's not going to last very long. Same thing with friendships. It's everything. We're going meta. We're going meta.

Yeah, no, it's awesome. I love it. I mean, Soulforge2453 says, I was in a company where I worked so hard, but it was the type of company where that doesn't work. Hard to imagine. So I left in the end and went for my own company. Yeah, and then last minute, Louis said not all employers are smart enough to recognize the added value.

That's—

yeah, and I— and then I think so, I think it comes down to just really recognizing that you're doing it for you because you want to provide value and you want to feel good about the work that you're putting out there, whether it's your job, whether it's your business, whether it's your relationship. You're not necessarily always— yes, you want to get the results, but sometimes you can't control what the other person is going to do. But you can at least feel proud that you gave your best.

Yeah, and net-net, it works out. So, you know, not every relationship is going to be— whoa, I am dying. I died. Not every relationship is gonna— they're gonna recognize— like, if you're the most caring individual and you pour everything into the relationship, not all the time, they're not always going to reciprocate. And so the answer is you have to go find somebody else, right? It's not staying in this bad relationship for the rest of your life. It's not staying in a bad job or career with bad clients for the rest of your life. It's go off and do something else.

Mm-hmm.

Right? And eventually that's gonna work out. Like somebody— not everybody will recognize the value. Great. If people don't recognize your value and you're giving everything you have, you don't want to be around those people anymore. Go find a new relationship. And same, you know, some, some customers won't appreciate all the value that you provide and they just call you up and give you headaches and yell at you and berate you, you know, that's— those aren't people that you want to stick around. But it doesn't mean that the answer— like, the answer is still— the answer is still go in and provide value, right? Like, it doesn't change the advice. It just means go off and— oh, oh, we lost. All right, I got a kill, but we lost. Um, Yeah, short game. Didn't do so well in that game. So it's just like if you're trying to get in, you know, you have this passion for a business and it doesn't work, it doesn't mean you give up the first time that, that it fails, right? And I mean, I do like your advice too, Rishi, saying that you value the process. You have to you're doing it not only to get ahead and not only to, you know, get that promotion or get the bigger deal, you're doing it because you feel it's the right thing to do. You're trying to help, you're being nice, you're over-delivering because it makes you feel good as well as hopefully furthers the, you know, the career or the job opportunity or, you know, relationship. But that outcome is not the only goal. It's not the main reason you do it because you want to do it. And ideally, you're around people who recognize that awesomeness and support you and build you up. So yes, not everybody is going to recognize it, but it doesn't matter. Get rid of those people and start focusing on the ones who do recognize it. And do feel appreciated and valued and give you the good opportunities.

Well, I thought that was a good way to end this sesh.

Yeah, so I went 4-6 and our team went 7-21. So I got over half of our kills, but the team the team was nice, feeding hard. Anyway, so well, that was a failed experiment, but, uh, you never know, right? You know what, what, you know, J-Rod suggested something new. I was pumped to try it. We didn't get it. Uh, I then banned out my own champion, you know, and we still went for it, and it might have been the greatest thing ever, you know, but this time it didn't work out. That's fine, we're still gonna bring it for the next game. Cool, well, it's been fun. Rishi, what are we gonna end on? What's the Rishi wisdom of the day here?

Oh, you know it, cup of value. Give value today in every area of your life, whether it's job or your relationship, your friendships. Give value.

I love it. Well, thank you guys for watching. Have an awesome day. What else? Anything else you need to talk about? It's only Tuesday. I feel like it's Thursday and we got to do live streams. More live streams coming up, although this Thursday is going to be nuts. It's full on, full on, no breaks. It's, it's straight into live stream. I think we have like 8 or 9 live streams.

Um, so yeah, tell us how that last— last week you had 9, right?

Last time I had calls and livestreams, so it wasn't always online, but this time it's straight— it's all YouTube Hangouts, so it's gonna be fun. Cool, well, thank you guys for watching. Thank you for the questions. Thank you for the love in the chat. Hopefully it helped you and you got some wisdom. Go off and crush today. Have an awesome entrepreneurial adventure. Go try something new. And add value, as Rishi was talking about. Continue to believe, or whatever your one word is, and we'll see you soon.