52. Brian Scudamore: Author of WTF?! (Willing to Fail)

Hello, Book Thinkers family, and welcome to episode number 52 of our personal development podcast, Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books. During each episode, I interview one of the world's top authors, and as a listener, you can expect to discover new books, new mentors, and new resources that you can use to achieve more and live better. In this episode, I have the pleasure to interview author Brian Scudamore. Brian is an American-born Canadian entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of O2E Brands, which stands for Ordinary to Exceptional, the parent company of 1-800-GOT-JUNK!, WOW 1 Day Painting, and Shack Shine. He is a regular contributor to Forbes, writing about small business ownership, franchising, and building corporate culture. Now, our conversation today is all about his book, WTF: Willing to Fail. How Failure Can Be Your Key to Success. In this book, Brian takes you on an adventure that will convince you once and for all that you have exactly what it takes to succeed. So without further ado, please enjoy this amazing conversation with Brian Scudamore. Brian, thank you so much for coming on the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. How are you doing today?

I'm awesome. Yeah. Thank you for having me. It's exciting. I follow your Instagram and always impressed by all the great books that you cover. And so honored to be one of those authors that gets to be on your podcast. Yeah.

Well, thank you. I'm also excited for the opportunity. You sent me a copy of WTF: Willing to Fail, your book, a couple of years ago. And I went back through all of my highlights and everything and generated some fun questions for today.

That's amazing. Now, I know you're the one doing the interviewing, but one question I got to ask is, how many books have you read?

So I started my reading journey about 6 years ago, 5 or 6 years ago, and I'm anywhere between 50 to 100 in a year. So last year I read 80 books. The year before that was 75. And then I think it goes a little bit lower than that for the years prior. But yeah, I'm reading a lot. I'm reading a lot.

Good for you. Lots of learning. That's great.

Lots of learning. Lots of learning. Lots of podcast interviews, book promotions, things like that. But for those in the audience that aren't familiar with you, Can you please introduce yourself to everybody and tell us a little bit about who you are, where you came from, and why you wrote the book?

Of course. So I'm the founder and CEO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK. My name is Brian Scudamore. I started the company 32 years ago, and they, they say these overnight success stories sure take a long time, and you're absolutely right. Today we're about half a billion dollars in revenue across our 3 brands: 1-800-GOT-JUNK, WOW 1 DAY PAINTING, and Shack Shine. So we've tackled the home services space, very fragmented mom-and-pop industries, and we've created a franchise platform on which to help people take the entrepreneurial leap and build a business for themselves. You asked how I got my start. So back in 1989, 32 years ago, I was in a McDonald's drive-through of all places, saw a beat-up old pickup truck, plywood sides built on the box, said Mark's Hauling on the side, and it was filled with junk. I saw that truck as my opportunity to pay for college. And I put $700 into a beat-up old pickup truck of my own, Started a company called the Rubbish Boys. It was really just myself and had a vision to build something bigger. And here we are today. Now, ironically, what had me— what funded my college education, if you will, inspired me to drop out and run the business full-time and loving every moment of it. It's been an absolute amazing journey.

And you were a high school dropout as well, is that correct?

Yeah. So 14 schools from kindergarten through to college. Never finished high school, talked my way into college, and then never finished college. So I've got that kindergarten diploma, proud of that, but no other diploma to be had.

I love that. Well, you wrote this book, Willing to Fail, WTF. And I'd love to have you sort of describe who is the target reader for this book and why did you write it?

Yeah, it's interesting. So we've got a fellow, my co-author, Roy H. Williams, affectionately known as the Wizard of Ads. And Roy approached me every year. He said, Brian, you got to write a book. And so how I met Roy is he does all our radio programming and creative. And so I'd go to Austin, Texas and go to his Wizard Academy. And every year, you got to write a book, you got to write a book. And I'm just like, Roy, I have no interest in writing a book. I'm not a great reader. I can actually write, but I'm not a great reader. I buy a lot of books and have bookshelves like you've got behind you. But The difference between you and me is I haven't read them. And he goes, Brian, this isn't about you and your ego. This isn't anything more than you've got stories to tell. The world needs to hear them. There's lessons learned from what you've built and grown over 32 years or 27 years at the time, whatever it was. And I said, okay, if it's not about me and you think there's actually a story in there to tell that can inspire others, then great, let's do it. So he locked the 2 of us in the wizard's tower for a day, a couple of bottles of wine, and hooked us up to a mic. And he just— story after story after story. And Roy helped put together the initial framework of what the book would be. And what's interesting about the story is Roy said to me— I kept chasing him for a title. I go, we got to start with a title. And he goes, I've written a ton of books. You don't start with the title. the title comes after the book's been written. And that just didn't make sense for a branding guy like me. 1-800-GOT-JUNK, Shack Shine, I love brands. So I trusted him on the process. I said, you're the expert. And at the end of writing the manuscript, sure enough, we closed it off. And I was like, man, have I made a lot of mistakes. I failed and failed and failed. And the title did come. He was right. WTF, Willing to Fail. And the lessons learned from all the failures I've had. So it was actually, I did see the impact when you share a book with someone and they read it and they tell you what they learned and what hit them. I realized, you know what, it was good I wrote the book and love storytelling. So it's been a good process.

Well, that's one of the reasons I love this podcast is that people come into the show as a listener and they listen to me interview somebody like you Maybe you didn't come out here saying, ah, my story is inspirational, but at the end of the day it is. And they go and they read the book and then they chat to us. They'd send us a DM on Instagram. They read a comment, whatever. And they say, this book changed my life. And so that's why I love connecting people with these books. So I have to ask, when you went into that process and you wanted to have a title right off the get-go, did you have something in mind? Was there a title that really never made it?

Yeah. The one title I had was It Started with a Vision. And so if I think of what my business has become, it started with a business or with a vision. It was a business that grew out of a seedling of an idea of buying a truck to pay for college. The vision was to pay for college. Eventually, as the business started to grow, I had a bigger vision. I created what I called my painted picture, a story I love to tell, which was one of the biggest moments in my business career of 32 years was 7 or 8 years into the business, I was in a bit of a doom loop, a downward spiral, was feeling depressed. I had just joined EO, the Entrepreneur Organization, and I was comparing myself to others, which is a terrible thing to do. I was like, I don't have as big of a business as this next person. It's not a glamorous business. It's junk removal. I don't have the money or maybe even an idea to build something better. And I said, okay, hold on here. I'm a glass half full glass half full type guy. I'm an optimist. Take it from a more optimistic approach. So what I did is I took a sheet of paper, one page double-sided. I went to a creative place, which was my parents' little summer cottage on the water. And I started to write out what the future could and would look like. I said, we'd be in the top 30 metros in North America in 5 years. We'd be on the Oprah Winfrey Show. We'd be the FedEx of junk removal. All these things that I had envisioned. And when I finished writing this out, I looked at this piece of paper and I went, wow, I can actually see this. And it immediately took me out of that doom loop and had me see pure possibility. And so when I think of the title of the book, It Started with a Vision, that was kind of my visionary moment, my big aha where the sun was shining and the world just looked so bright. And I thought, I'm unstoppable. And I rallied a team of people a very small team and said, let's build this. And people that saw the same possibility I did joined forces and off we went. And here we are today.

In a few minutes, I'll definitely ask for more of those WTF moments. But I wanted to start with something you said in the introduction. So in the introduction of the book, you have a quote that says, failure is a temporary condition. And so when did you first realize that failure was a temporary condition and that it was something that we should celebrate and have fun with?

Yeah, it's a good question. You know, I think I— it wasn't one particular failure that hit me, but it was failure after failure and the realization that there's a gift in failure and that failure is part of learning. So let me give you a quick story from my kids' childhood. My middle child came back from ski school one day. She was crying. She's like, I hate ski school. I never want to go again. I said, why not? She said, Because I fall all the time. I said, you fall all the time? She's like, yeah, it hurts. I hate it. And I'm like, wow, do you know the best skiers in the world, the ones that go to the Olympics, they all started by falling. And I said, falling is a way to— you learn how to avoid that fall again. You learn to reflect and say, what could I have done differently? And eventually you stop falling and you have fun. And so the end of the next ski school, she came back and said, guess what? I fell today. And so I think it's just that we— I hope everybody goes through that transition at some point where they realize that failure is a necessary thing. It's a temporary condition because it doesn't last forever. You're in that moment, you've fallen on the skis, you're cold, you're in the snow, you're picking up your poles and skis and you're like, man, this sucks. But you get up and you get back at it and you learn what to do differently. Business is no different. You know, one of the biggest failures I ever faced was 5 years into my business. 1994. I had 11 employees and they say one bad apple spoils the whole bunch. I had 9 bad apples of my 11. I just didn't enjoy working with them. I just was struggling of having fun anymore. So I brought all 11 people in for a morning meeting and I started with 2 words. I said, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I failed you, that I've brought on the wrong people, that I didn't treat you with the love and respect you needed. I haven't given you the support you've needed to grow and shine. And I let these people go and I learned the valuable lesson that it's all about people, finding the right people and then treating them right. And so what was exciting about that, while I almost lost my company, half a million in revenue going down to one truck, just me and having to rebuild, I realized what an opportunity to get it right. We have a culture today that is just killer. Like, I'm so proud of what we've built because we found the right people. We don't get it perfect every time. But if I didn't have that failure, I would have never had that gift or opportunity.

What was it about the 9 out of 11 employees that sort of spoiled the bunch? Was there a specific thing that didn't align with your culture?

Yeah, I think number one, I mean, hey, let's face it, they were probably decent enough people, but they weren't my type of people. I like to be around optimists, people who see possibility, people who, you know, look at the pandemic. The pandemic has been so hard on everybody. and tragedies aside, I mean, it's just been a hard go for everyone. But I love being surrounded by people that see the gifts in it, of how it's changed humanity and brought people closer together, and how the world rallied together to create a vaccine at lightning speed. I want people that see the good, that see the positives, that see opportunities. And I think those 9, or let's call it 11 people then that I got rid of, I'm not so sure that they saw the world as a glass half full. There were complaints at the end of every day. They weren't happy with customers and how they were treated. And every interaction with the customer is an opportunity to deliver exceptional service. How do you— if things didn't go right, if a customer was in a bad mood, how do you turn them around and make it a positive experience? So I just wasn't surrounded by, by people that fired me up.

Yeah, in the book. So for everybody listening, in the book you have all of these notes and they're really like the lessons that sort of punch you in the face from the book. And lesson— I'll read this one right here. So note 27 reads, the key to daily happiness is to maintain an attitude of gratitude. I love that. I practice gratitude on a daily basis and everything really changed for me when I discovered gratitude, you know, intentionally focusing on the things that are beautiful about our lives and Always focusing on the optimism side, like you say, the glass half full piece. I love that. And it's really changed things for me. And that's, that's a common trait that I notice among successful entrepreneurs like yourself. It's always focusing on the positive outcomes. Or the—

yeah, you know, when someone falls or fails, if you can find something to be grateful for, it's hard to feel down. It's hard to feel down when you, you know, so when the pandemic first hit, We started as a family, my 3 kids and my wife and I, we'd sit down every dinner and say, what are we grateful for? Instead of all the challenges right now, what is just something? And it could be that we're having dinner together. It could be that we live in Vancouver in this beautiful sunny city surrounded by water and mountains. Whatever it was, it had to be something. And we go around the room and sometimes we couldn't stop sharing stories or sharing gifts that we were grateful for. And so anytime I'm in a business situation and something doesn't go as planned, a mistake happens, feeling sad about it, you know, I'm a human being, I get depressed, of course, right? Is I will pull out a sheet of paper and I just say, what's one good thing that could come from this failure? And it never lets me down. But when I'm ready to write it down, I start making a list and it's often quite a long one. So we've always got, you know, on a given day, something can go wrong. But if we can shift for a minute into an attitude of gratitude, I think it makes all the difference and it changes the outcome for the day.

It totally does. I actually have a tattoo on my wrist right here, the numbers 1, 2, and 3, because I'll kind of get into those headspaces sometimes. But when I look down, I think of 3 things that I'm grateful for and it changes, it changes my attitude immediately. And also when I meet people and they ask me about the tattoo, I always ask them to say something that they're grateful for. So Brian, I'd love to have you tell us maybe 3 things that you're grateful for in this moment right now.

Yeah, well, first of all, my grandmother made me promise to never get a tattoo, but man, if I was to ever get one, that might be it. The 1, 2, 3, I love that. So 3 things I'm grateful for right now. I'm grateful for my partner, Eric, who's my president and COO. I don't think we could have gone through the pandemic and shined in the way we did without his leadership. There was a time when the world was falling apart last March, a year ago, and I'm just like, man, What are we going to do? We're talking about revenue maybe being in half, but his calm, composed leadership really got us through. Number 2, I'm grateful for the opportunities of new franchise owners coming to us right now. We brought on more franchise partners last year during a pandemic than we had in 5 to 7 years prior because people are looking for life changes. They're saying, I'm sick of working for corporate America. Yeah, I want to work for myself. I want to be my own boss, live my own dream. And And so that's been exciting. I'm excited about 2021. And third, I'm excited for my health. You know, I think this time has taught us to, or me, to focus more on getting on the Peloton, getting outside for a walk with the dog, skiing a ton with the kids, and just making fitness and health much more of a priority. And yeah, I'm grateful.

Fantastic. Well, there's—

Great tattoo. It's a good one.

Yeah, my cousin ended up getting it and my brothers are considering it. So it's sort of starting to spread a little bit. I'm not sure. I mean, the idea came from the fact that I was journaling about 3 things that I was grateful for every day. But there is a quote that I will share with you. This came from a book called Life's Amazing Secrets, and it says that it is not the happy people that are grateful, it is the grateful people that are happy. And so, by practicing gratitude intentionally, you will end up sort of on that happier end of the spectrum. And so, that is just such a beautiful conversation topic. But I want to make sure that we move along because I have so many questions for you.

Sure. Sure.

So this next one, this next quote that I'm going to read has had a huge impact on my life. And I have to apologize because I read the book for the first time, I learned this quote from you, and then I started saying it everywhere and I didn't give you credit where credit was due. So check this out. Don't wait until you miraculously discover you have a passion for this or that. Just pick something, commit to it, and passion for it will follow. And then this last piece. Commitment leads to passion. Passion does not lead to commitment. And so at BookThinkers, people ask me all the time, how do I get into entrepreneurship? How do I start a business? Does it need to align with a preexisting passion? Because I don't have any passions and that stresses me out. And then I reply with sort of the quote that you talk about, which is start something, commit to something, and the passion will come later, just like it did for me and BookThinkers. I never read a book until the age of 20, 21. Never. I was almost turned off to it. I didn't think it— I mean, you couldn't get me to read a book when I was 18 or 19 years old. And now look at me. I mean, this is my passion, but it came from consistency. So anyway, thank you for writing those words. And I now know who to give credit to since I went back through the book.

That's awesome. Yeah. You know, for me, I'll go back to the ski example. Even my youngest, I don't know that it's that he fell in love with skiing. He's starting to ski race now. I think it's just that we taught him how to be committed to every weekend going to ski school. But there was this point after commitment where the passion just lit up. And so think of all the things in the world that if we didn't commit to first and follow through, we might not have ever fallen in love with. You're right. People often say, just, you know, how do I start a business? There's nothing I'm passionate about. Do you think I'm passionate about junk removal or painting or window washing? I mean, hell no, right? I'm passionate about People, watching them grow, opportunities. So when people say find something you love, sometimes don't get so literal and go, hey, you know, I love dogs, so I got to start a dog walking business. It's find what you love in people and what you love to do every day and what makes you tick. See if that can be a part of the business you're building.

Yeah, it's great advice. Just, just for everybody listening to, to bring this one home, there's a book called Built to Serve. It was written by Evan Carmichael. He's also Canadian. And that book, it's a serious reflection on what makes you happy. What are some of the themes in your past that have brought the most gratitude, I suppose, or happiness and fulfillment? And how do you work those into a way that you can contribute to the world moving forward? So, Built to Serve. And like you're saying, just because you love dogs doesn't mean you need to start a dog business. But what about dogs is it that gets you excited? And can you apply that to maybe a preexisting franchise opportunity?

Yeah.

like the ones that you present to people. By the way, how can people get in touch with you if they're interested in learning a little bit more about that?

Yeah, any, you know, I think Google is always the easiest way. Just put in @BrianScudamore. You'll find my book, links to all sorts of social media, whatever you're most into. You can go to o2ebrands.com, which is, it stands for Ordinary to Exceptional. We believe in taking ordinary people and allowing them to have a proven recipe of success that's exceptional. And so O2E Brands. Yeah. And by the way, Evan Carmichael is an amazing guy. When you talk about serving, there is a guy that every time I've talked to him, like he doesn't want anything in return. He's just like, how can I help? How can I help? And he just helps you. And it's amazing. You get what you give. You know, I think if you're willing to put yourself out there and help others with no agenda, it is amazing what comes back to you.

No, it truly is. I'll transition to a fun story. I actually ran a house painting business for 2 years while I was in college. And not only did I learn an incredible amount about myself, and it taught me a lot of invaluable skills, but it did teach me the importance of failure. So I'll never forget the company I worked for taught me how to cold call. They gave us some scripts that you could practice. I even went to a little sales seminar and I learned how to deal with objections and things like that. And then I went out on my own. And the first house that I knocked on, I had this whole script built up. And a woman opens the door and I just say, hi, my name's Nick. Would you like an estimate? And she's like, who are you? Why are you here? And an estimate for what? And I'm like, oh, I'm sorry, I'm running a house painting business. And she's just like, goodbye, and slams the door. And I said, oh, this is not going to go well. But, but after 2 years, I've improved my communication skills so much and they translate over to Book Thinkers and the podcast. So it's just a fun little example for you since you're in that world.

Yeah, no, it's a great example. And I think, you know, Nick, when you talk about getting a door slammed in your face, which happens to all of us at the best of times, I mean, it's— I love those opportunities to go, okay, what could I have done differently? So calling the press, we used to be— it used to be a big part of our strategy, getting on Oprah, Wall Street Journal, CNN. And the world's changed now where we're all journalists, right? Everyone's on Instagram and Facebook telling stories so that PR world doesn't work in the same way. But I remember every time I'd pick up the phone and call the press, when they said no, when that door sort of slammed in my face, I'd say, can I just ask you a quick question? What would make it a story? What's missing? What don't you like about it? And I never convinced them it was a story. But I got answers from great journalists that would allow me to go on to the next journalist to tell the story in a different way. So those doors slamming, Great opportunities.

That's a— it's a great concept that you just brought up. I was taught to call that an after-action report. And so always ask for advice whenever you lose a sales deal or somebody shuts the door. Reflect on it personally, but also ask, what could I have done better? So that's, that's great advice. To bring it back to note 1 in the book, I'd love to have you expand on this one a little bit. I'll read it to everybody. It says, when you follow a fork and don't like the scenery, double back and take the other fork. A lot of us during COVID we realized that we were in businesses that we didn't like or working for people that we didn't like. But then there's that fear. There's that fear of switching directions, going back, feeling like you have to take 2 steps back to take 1 step forward. That's a big move for a lot of people. So what advice do you have for people in that situation?

Yeah, you know, I think for me, it's always reminded me that we're in control of our own destiny. We're walking down a trail and we come to the wrong fork and take it and it doesn't work, we can turn around and go back. You know, one story that's in the book that's since changed is I talk about our company You Move Me, which was a moving company that we got into. We had 4 brands, now we're down to 3, but we're happier and life is better. We sold off that brand. We missed the franchise owners in that brand, but the reason we sold it is it didn't fit the happy friendly vibe that the rest of our services fit. So when someone has their junk hauled away or the windows washed or the walls painted, it's transformation, it's freedom, it's, it's less clutter. With moving, no matter what happens and how great the movers are, at the end of moving day, you're still boxes everywhere, you're stressed, you're not settled, mom and dad are fighting, you know, the kids are in a new neighborhood. And so we sold off that business because it just didn't fit what we wanted. We doubled back and said, okay, what do we really stand for? What will we look for in new brands that we start? And it was a meaningful conversation with ourselves. So it's okay to go back and make a change.

Hello, Book Thinkers family. A quick word from today's podcast sponsor. Today's episode is sponsored by Audible. Audible is the leading provider of spoken word entertainment and audiobooks. Ranging from bestsellers to celebrity memoirs, business, and my favorite, personal development. And as part of Audible's partnership with us, we're actually offering listeners a free 30-day trial. This trial includes one credit good for any Premium Selection titles you'd like on the whole platform. So that's pretty much any book, including the one we're talking about today. That book is yours to keep even after the trial is over. Now, this trial also includes access to Audible's Plus catalog of podcasts, audiobooks, guided wellness programs, and Audible Originals. You can listen all you want, no credits needed. Now everyone on the Book Thinkers Instagram knows that I love physical paper books. There's nothing better than having a book in your hand, scribbling notes everywhere in the margins. I kind of tear those things up, but I've been completing an additional 20 to 30 books every single year using Audible by listening when I'm in the car, doing chores around the house, Or while I'm on my morning walks or runs. You could take advantage of this free trial by clicking the link in today's show notes or going to www.bookthinkers.com/audibletrial. You will not regret it. Now, back to today's episode. You talk about another sort of WTF moment that I think is a good representation of this as well, which is Do friends and business mix? I mean, you went into business with a friend, you had to kind of back out of that situation and start fresh. Could you explain what happened there to everybody?

Yeah, so I think it's always better to have friends come from the business that you're in, where you already have a relationship of respect and working together. But they— but many people say friends and business don't mix. So one story is Cameron Herald, who was our COO. He came in, he was in my Entrepreneur Organization forum, He said he'd never work with me. One day something clicked and he got excited and came in, but we went from $2 million to $106 million together. And we were 2 fire-ready aim types, very ADD, moving too fast, and we needed more rigor and discipline to bring into the business. Now, he had recently gotten married. I was the best man in his wedding. Try firing your best friend. It's a really challenging thing to do. Fortunately, we have maintained a great friendship. You know, I talked to him today by text and we talk quite frequently. I mean, we're great buds. We were able to heal and get through that. And he would tell you if he was on this podcast, it was the right thing for both of us. And we were able to move into new paths. But friends in business, it can, it can be a challenge. I think you're always better when someone's in your business like Eric, who's our COO. And president today. He and I have built a 9-year and hopefully forever friendship working together versus having started as friends first.

That's great advice. I know that a lot of the advice you've given is relevant for a new entrepreneur, somebody who's thinking about taking that first step. But because we have so many young professionals in the audience and so many people are looking to take that road of entrepreneurship, What are some of the things that people should be thinking about when they decide to take that step?

You know, I think there's a few things. Number one is having a vision, having a very clear picture of what your future can and would look like. Too often people get into business and they think, you know, I'm gonna make money and they come up with, it's gotta be a passion, something that they love to do, but really understanding why you're building what you're building and what it could look like. You know, I go back to the Oprah episode of us getting, you know, our 15 minutes or my 4 and a half minutes of fame on the Oprah Show. It was a clear vision in our painted picture of me wanting to give Oprah a hug. I just thought she was a fantastic, inspiring leader, one of the best on the planet, and I wanted to meet her. And it turned out that we were able to pitch, get on the show, get great coverage that helped launch 1-800-GOT-JUNK's brand. And so it's just understanding what motivates you and what you're trying to accomplish. I think all leaders need a vision. You've got a clear vision that you want to rally people around who want to join you and who want to follow your cause. If you don't have a vision, you know, it's the old Alice in Wonderland, to quote one of the books that's got to be on your bookshelf somewhere. If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there. Clear vision, have a painted picture.

And note 2 in the book reads, at the moment of commitment, the universe conspires to assist you. And so you stated your intention to the world. You said, I want to be on Oprah, and I want to be, you know, the other items that were on that front-back piece of paper. So it's really important to state that commitment.

Yeah, Nick, we had a wall in our office, this big blank wall that needed something on it. So we said people in my company were having a hard time understanding vision and what it meant. And I said, everybody's got the ability to think of the future, you know, just think of an idea of something important to you. So I started with mine by putting a big decal up on the wall that said, can you imagine? You know what, that was the question I wanted people to think of. What could they imagine in the future for themselves within the business? And so mine became being featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show with my name below it. And sure enough, 14 months later, we made it happen. We had a woman, Andrea, in our marketing department that said, said, can you imagine if we were featured on Starbucks cups around the globe? And what she meant by that was they used to have these campaigns on the side of, you know, $10 lattes that would say, the way I see it. And they were quotes from authors and from, you know, famous people, you know, not necessarily a small-time entrepreneur at the time like myself, but we wrote a quote that said, you are what you can't let go of. With my name below it, the founder and CEO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK, and we were on 10 million Starbucks cups. That was because Andrea saw an idea, a possibility that could be big that was up on that wall. So it's, it's challenging yourself or people just sort of thinking differently and going, what's something just magical? You know, you look at this quote behind me here, it says, it's kind of fun to do the impossible. It's a Walt Disney quote. The more impossible, the more of a stretch it is, you know, think Elon Musk. I just love that kind of stuff. Think big, just to start by imagining, imagining a big possibility. You never know, you might conspire to have the universe come together and make it happen for you.

What's so exciting to me about thinking bigger is that part of, part of that thought process is accepting the fact that you're going to fail along the way. I mean, you say in the book that to succeed without ever failing is a hollow victory. And I think that that's true. Like, part of entrepreneurship is falling in love with failure and having fun with failure. I'd love to get your comments on something that I, that I just thought about. I took this jump into personal development because I sort of had an issue with the US traditional school system, how failure is looked down on as a bad thing.

Yeah.

People don't embrace failure. You're taught to conform, and if you fail, then, then you're not doing well in school. What are your thoughts on that? Does that need to change?

Yeah, I mean, you take me, who went from kindergarten to college and never graduated from high school, talked my way into college, never graduated from college, went to 14 schools. I failed more than anybody at school, right? You know, I graduated from kindergarten, but that's it. I think for me, school didn't work for me as an entrepreneur. My dad is a liver transplant surgeon. I wouldn't want someone doing a liver transplant on me that didn't have the right diplomas and degrees, right? But depending on what you're doing, if you're going into business, I think the best way to learn is by doing. That's why I dropped out of college. I sat down with my dad and said, hey, I'm learning more about business running one than studying in school, and I'm going to make a bold move here. I think the school system needs to celebrate failure. I think the school system, if someone gets a bad grade, a C-, a D, if I was a teacher, I'd sit down with a student and say, so what's up? Like, what happened? You know, what, what do you think it would take to get a C+, a B, an A-? And have a conversation around it rather than just D, boom, there you go, right? Like, it doesn't need to be a slap in the face. It needs to be a— So what does that mean? You know, have a conversation with kids. It's okay to fail. Again, back to sports, you know, nobody joins a sport and doesn't fail. Michael Jordan, the classic quote, right? I failed over and over and over again, and that's why I succeed. Failure is a gift. Failure needs to be taught in school. Failure needs to be celebrated in school. And it's just like the hollow victory of business. Who have you ever met? You've read more books than anyone I've ever met. Have you ever read a book about someone that goes, oh yeah, I came up with this idea, and off we went and boom. I mean, it doesn't work that way. Facebook and Instagram, they didn't start off with those concepts that they became today. Failure is, uh, is a gift. I really, really believe that. And there's—

yeah, like you, you kind of just mentioned the books again, so let's go a little bit deeper on that too for a second. There's 2 ways to learn from failure. You can learn from your own failures, or you can read about people who have failed miraculously and then put it on paper. So thank you for putting everything on paper and exposing your story because a lot of entrepreneurs sort of close the curtains and they don't talk about it. But we as entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs, young professionals look at somebody like yourself, we read your book and it helps us avoid obstacles, but it also helps us feel a little bit of comfort when we do get knocked down or the door does slam in our faces. So I'm excited that you wrote the book and I'm excited that we had you on the podcast today.

Yeah, you know what, that's a good way to look at failure. You're right, it isn't just necessarily a chance to learn, but it's also a chance to go, it's okay, you know. So while I say failure is a gift, it's also— failure is not just an opportunity to learn, but it's a necessary ingredient. You can't get from point A to point B on your journey without making some mistakes. And then learn from them, celebrate them. You know, I'm the kind of guy that on a roller coaster, my hands are up and I'm enjoying the ups and the downs. Same thing in business, like hands up, just go, you know what, we had a crappy day today, but hands up, just celebrate what you learned or what you got to experience.

Yeah, we, we had Guy Raz, who's the host of the How I Built This podcast, on recently because he wrote a book. And he said to me that his mission is to sort of de-superhero entrepreneurs. Like, he wants to humanize you people who are so successful. He wants to show everybody that there's a ton of failure and a ton of messiness behind the scenes. And that's exactly what you put on display in your book. And so what does that do for somebody like me? It helps me think, oh, that is possible. I'm just like Brian. I could do that. We felt the same way in this situation. And it gives people like us an opportunity To realize that it is an ingredient, like you're saying, to expect it. Like, that's a really important thing. So anyway, again, I'm happy that you mentioned it.

Yeah, Guy Raz. So we were in that book, uh, because we were on his How I Built This podcast. And, uh, I always used to joke with him, and he's become a buddy, that I rebrand when I talk about his podcast. Instead of How I Built This, I call it How We Built This, because I didn't do it alone. We did it with a group of people surrounding me and us building something and learning together. But I do love Guy. One thing that Guy does exceptionally well is he's able to pull out these stories from people where it's just failure after failure and challenge and obstacle. And, you know, you get tears on some of his podcasts. He's just able to humanize these people that have built billion-dollar businesses, some of them who have gone through a lot of challenges and hardship and depression to get there, but they got there. And lots of valuable learnings along the way.

Yeah, what's— I mean, to use him as an example to why he's so great at interviewing people is simply through repetition and learning from his failures. That's what he says. He says there's no tip or trick that you can use to have an effective interview. You just need to do it 1,000 times and just fail a bunch, learn what works. So it's another cool representation of the concepts in your book.

Thank you.

Well, Brian, it was great speaking with you today. It was great to have you on the podcast finally. I know you shared one time already where people can find you, but for those that want to learn a little bit more about you, where should they go? What should they do?

Yeah, whatever your social media preference is, @BrianScudamore. Happy to connect and love sharing lessons learned along the way. So if I can ever help anyone, don't be shy, reach out. And Nick, thank you very much. Big fan of the work you've done and the learning that you've done personally. You know, you've read so many books and you've interviewed so many great people that it's, it's an incredible talent and gift to have to be able just to be a sponge and take that all in from others. So thank you for including me on your podcast.

Thank you. That is a wrap. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books. It would mean the world to us if you could write a review and share this episode with a few of your friends. I mean, these books truly have the power to change people's lives, and by reviewing or sharing our podcast, you're helping us make an impact. If you have any recommendations for future guests or any constructive feedback for us on how we can improve our show, Please feel free to submit a form on our website, www.bookthinkers.com, or send us a direct message on Instagram @bookthinkers. With that, I am signing off, and I hope you have a wonderful day. Don't forget, go read something.