Patrick Womack, CTO of CelebSocially, argues that selling ideas and raising capital are the two essential entrepreneurial skills. He credits Think and Grow Rich with teaching him that belief determines outcome, and says the best mindset is working to learn, not earn. His platform connects celebrities with fans on social media while raising money for charity.
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Welcome to the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. This episode is brought to you by Authors Unite. Authors Unite provides you with all the resources you need to become a successful author. You can learn more about Authors Unite and join the free community at authorsunite.com. Now let's jump into the episode.
Alright everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have Patrick Womack with us. He is the Chief Technology Officer of CelebSocially. So welcome to the show, Patrick.
It's a pleasure to be here, Tyler.
Thanks for joining us, man. And we'll dive right in. The first question I have is, what's the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
Spanish. You know, when I was a kid, I used to pay attention when we would go to McDonald's, and I would look at, you know, Ronald McDonald bucks. And this is before, you know, Ronald McDonald was on the COVID of these dollars that McDonald's would kind of create. And this is before, of course, clowns were scary and, you know, kids were dressing up as clowns in the woods and coming out. But I was pretty intrigued by that. I always looked at it and I always wondered, like, how I would ask my family, what kind of value do those actually have? And of course, the response was it was pretty nominal or it didn't have much value at all. But as you fast forward through my life and through my journey over the past 17 years of running businesses, building businesses, selling them, assets, all of that that I've done, divestitures, acquisitions, what I came to realize is that really what I was looking at is I was looking at an idea. And that's really all money is to me. Money is an idea. It was created by man and it's used by man. And I don't mean man in the sense of— I mean more of the attribute of man, like mankind, essentially. And that's what kind of really stuck with me is that money is just an idea and all it takes to make money are ideas.
And what's the most valuable piece of information we should know that is within your expertise or industry?
I would say that being an entrepreneur, there are two absolute skills you need to acquire. You need to learn how to sell and you need to learn how to raise capital. And quite honestly, selling goes hand in hand with raising capital. You have to be able to sell ideas. You have to be able to create content-rich sales pitch that basically will sell to whether it's investors or other people that you want to join, because a lot of times you're not even trying to raise money from investors. You're trying to get other people excited about the idea so they join in with your culture and what you're trying to do. And so, you have to have those two skills, I think. Those are just basically the minimums of what I would say you need.
And what is your best piece of overall business advice and not necessarily industry-specific?
I would say work to learn and not earn. So, what I learned early on is that the skills I was acquiring through all the mistakes and all the failures and everything I've had, which I've had way more failures than successes. And quite honestly, I think that's why I am a huge success today in what I do, is because I was willing to fail and learn from my failures and move on. So look, you should be acquiring skills. And whether you're in a job or you're running a business, you wanna acquire as many skills as you can, because that ultimately, you will be paid in proportion to the value you create, you add to the marketplace. So the more skills you add and the more skills you have, the more valuable you are to the marketplace.
And if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
Being broke is not the same as being poor. So, being broke is temporary and being poor is more of a kind of permanent mindset. And a lot of business is really your mindset. It's really not so much action. I mean, everybody today pushes on action, push on action. But if your mental thinking and alignment is not in order, it doesn't matter how much action you put into something. You're just going to get back what you put in, which is if you're coming from a position of lack, you're going to get more lack put back to you. So, you're not going to get abundance in what you're trying to do. So, what I do is I do things like meditate, I find quiet places to clear my mind, quiet my mind, and I do this so that I can get my mind in the right mental alignment before I do a task or before I delegate a task.
And in your opinion, what is the key to happiness?
For me, it's a journey. I really enjoy the journey of creative, using the creative process to create things and, you know, basically come up with ideas and then see those ideas come into the physical reality or the physical manifestation form. That's what's always been the joy for me. Actually, when I finish projects, I get a little depressed actually, but then I get excited again about something else and then the process just kind of starts all over again. But I definitely want to make sure that I'm constantly moving. I feel like I'm moving and I'm progressing. I definitely don't want to feel like I'm looking in the rearview mirror too much. I really want to spend my time looking forward.
And what is the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from that?
Oh, that's easy. It's Think and Grow Rich. It was published in 1937. A lot of it is formal for today's times, but I still think the underlying message is more valuable than it's ever been. It just simply comes down to a lot of people believe with this, you know, sacred cow that you need to work hard to get ahead. And that's not true. The people I know that work the hardest are underpaid, overworked, and highly taxed. And the simple truth is, is that you really need to think. It's all about thinking. I mean, you know, Henry Ford said, you know, thinking is the hardest work I will do in a day. That's why so few people engage in it. And I think that's really important because Thinking is where you get where you are to where you want to go. You have to think out the plan first before it'll ever manifest into your physical experience.
And what is your favorite quote and why?
I just quoted him. I'm going to quote him again. Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right. And so basically, I've heard more modern quotes of that. Whether you think you can or you think you can't, either way you're right. And it really comes down to that. I think that The reason most people would have trouble making $1 million is because they actually don't believe that they can make $1 million. It's with anything. But I would remind listeners that, listen, everything you know how to do in your life, at one point, you did not know how to do. So, everybody who's made $1 million at one point did not know how to make $1 million. So, they basically went through the same mental process that somebody who hasn't done it to somebody who would do it. And all these people in most essences put their pants on the same way you and I do, one foot in front of the other. So, it's really just a matter of believing. And I think that Earl Nightingale said, "Whatever the mind can believe and conceive, it can achieve." And I think that goes hand in hand.
Yes. And what's the best way for people to find you online?
My LinkedIn profile, I'm pretty active through there. And that's kind of more or less where I spend most of my time. I really don't do a whole lot of interaction outside of my LinkedIn profile.
Awesome, and thanks for coming on, Patrick. The last question I have for you is I'd love to know what are you currently working on now?
We're working on a company called Celebs Socially, and we have some really great people involved. Doug and Ben, they're just rock stars. And it's basically a concept where we connect celebrities to their favorite fans through social interactions using social media, and we raise money for charity at the same time. So it's basically a program where we can create brand awareness for celebrities. We can up the user stance and user value for people to connect with those celebrities through social media engagement. And we can also raise money for charity at the same time. So it's a win-win. Awesome, man.
Thank you again for coming on. I really appreciate it.
Thank you so much, Tyler.
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