Lessons from Unexpected Places

Well, hi, everybody. I'm Alan Taylor from Inc. Radio, and this is Microsoft Launch the program. Now we're celebrating National Entrepreneurship Week presented by Microsoft. My friend Scott Duffy is the actual author of the book launch, which I think maybe that started this whole conversation.

Scott, I know. It's just great to be here.

Now, we've got an incredible week because all week long, we're going to be talking to some of the icons, some entrepreneurs that have helped us in our lives that can help these folks in there.

You're right. This week we're going to talk to some amazing innovators and entrepreneurs. But, you know, when it comes to lessons, sometimes the best lessons come from the most, like, unexpected places. Like, let me give you an example. Last weekend I went to Disneyland with my family. We're like, we're huge Disney fans. And my daughter Lexi, she's like, she's a money magnet. And by the way, Lexi, she's six years old, and we got to Disney, and I remember we walked in the gates and she found a dollar. And that was really cool. And so a couple hours later, we're walking around Disney and Lexi finds a 20. It's pretty awesome, right? Wow. Yeah, right, right. Two in one day. So finally, later that day, we're in a roller coaster. We're in a ride, and we sit down and Lexi sitting next to me, and she reaches into the area in front of her and. And she pulls out, like, 50 cents a change. And I asked Lexi, Lexi, I said, you are so amazing. How is it that you always find money? And here's what she said. It's what I look for. And sometimes the best lessons come from the most surprising places. And I think that's part of what we're going to find this week.

Well, there's no question about it. And the list of people that we're going to have on this show are going to change your life. And I know it because I know some of them. And Scott, I know Scott, and he is one of these kind of guys that changes my life every time I'm with him. I meet somebody new, or he gives me a little piece of wisdom that I can go out into the world and apply and change my life and somebody else's.

I gotta share, like, one more story about finding the coolest lessons in the strange, you know, from the strangest, most unexpected places. So my other daughter, her name is Lily, and Lily, she's seven years old. And every year we have a tradition in our family where once a year I take each girl and we do, like, a father daughter night, and we build a theme. And the first time that I did it, I did it with Lily, and the theme was all around the movie Brave, another Disney thing, right? And Brave was the big movie. And my daughter was so into Merida, and Merida's like the central figure.

She was an archer.

She was an archer. So we go to a hotel and we spend the night there. And the theme, because Merida used to always say, if you practice, practice, practice, you can get anything that you want. So the theme for our night together was, if you practice, practice, practice, you can achieve anything that you dream. And after dinner, I remember Lily and I went back to the room and I did something that I thought was kind of cool. I took some boxes and I brought into the room early, and I built, like, this castle out of these boxes. And because she liked to do the arching like Merida, what I did is I put a target on the wall, and I thought we'd play and she'd get to, you know, try and hit the target. So we get into the room, we get behind the boxes, and we start to play this game. And Lily, she's missing. She's all over the place, till eventually what she decides to do is try and get outside and around the box. I said, lily, come here. And she says, dad, she struggles. Lily, come here. Dad, she struggles. Lily, one more box. Get back in the box. You know what she said? She said, dad, how can I ever hit my target if I don't get out of this box? Which is one of the things that we're going to try and do this week is help shake up some of your thinking as an entrepreneur, to help you take your business to a whole new level.

So a few times every day, you're going to be able to see some of these icons of the industry of being entrepreneurs, no matter what industry it might be. Scott, maybe we should give them an example of some of the folks that are actually going to be on these podcasts.

Well, we're going to have people like Kevin Harrington, the original shark on Shark Tank. We're going to have Lori Taylor, who is a marketing guru. Lori has raised over $4 billion, $5 at a time using direct mail. We're going to have Richard Swart. Richard is the number one crowdfunding expert in the entire world. He's the guy that the White House and the Gates foundation goes to in order to learn about this new crowdfunding era that we're about to go into.

Well, we're going to bring you some inspiring stories to help you succeed in business. But because being an entrepreneur, not always easy. But if you have the right friends.

It gets a little bit easier.

Again, we're celebrating National Entrepreneurship Week right here, presented by Microsoft. This is Microsoft. Launch the program msftlaunch. Come on back. We'll have more for you.