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I have more friends who used to be successful than who currently are. I’ve had more friends who had it going for a while—a good year, five years, six years. But a real entrepreneur can do it for a decade. They can do it for 20 years. Most people self-destruct. They blow up the wrong way. They annihilate themselves.

Quarterly, I have the CEO or founder rate themselves. Not long ago, I looked back at those who had failed and the ones who had succeeded. The ones who failed had all rated themselves higher than I rated them. The ones who succeeded all rated themselves lower than I rated them.

The two biggest reasons for failure? First, arrogance—being aware of strengths but blind to weaknesses. Second, an inability to manage oneself. They can’t manage their weight, their marriage, how they show up for their team, or their emotions. And because they’re like this, the business goes like this.
(She’s moving her hands up and down for those listening on audio.)
Their emotions are up and down all the time, like a rollercoaster. They’re friendly one day and aloof the next. They are controlled by their feelings, not their values.

When I see an entrepreneur in a startup phase, they play scared, which I think is a good thing. They work their tail off, learn, grow, and have a ton of humility. But a lot of people want to get over that phase too soon, or they think they have. They say, Man, I just want to get to where I don’t have to work like this anymore. They have this illusion or delusion that at some point, they can cool it. I watch their work ethic change. They show up later, start spending money prematurely, and vacation too much. They begin to behave like they’ve made it—believing their own press clippings way too soon. I’m 53, and I’m still afraid of going broke. I still work 18-hour days. When I had dinner with you guys—some of the most successful young entrepreneurs in the world—it was a dinner, but it was almost like an interview. You asked me questions: How did you exit? How did you position the company? What did the financials look like? You’re still learning.

I don’t want to invest in an entrepreneur who hasn’t been slapped in the face. Until someone goes through a season where they realize they can make the right decisions and still be wrong—that forces outside their business can dictate what happens—they will continue to fail. They think they’re untouchable. I’ve witnessed this in multiple portfolio companies. We had one that was super successful for three years. Then, at the three-year mark, the founder said, I don’t think this plan makes sense anymore. We’re going to do X instead, and we’re going all in on that. We said, That sounds incredibly hard. You’re risking the whole company. But he insisted, I’ve been right every time. He was operating under an illusion. If you wait long enough, you’ll be wrong. Some people get lucky and wait longer, but I don’t actually think that’s lucky.

You can’t play God in your business, but a lot of people get drunk on power. They create an environment where everyone only tells them what they want to hear because they punish those who don’t.

At the end of the day, or the end of my life, I want to know that my daily choices reflect self-respect.

A lot of people blame others. They position every decision to leave a business, job, or partner as this person is toxic. I’m not talking about abusive situations, just generalized cases. This person’s bad, toxic, all these labels. But what has empowered me—rather than stolen my power—is not asking, Is this person bad or toxic? Is this job bad or toxic? Instead, I ask, When I’m in this situation or around this person, do I respect myself more or less?

Do I respect myself more or less if I go to the bar with single girls who invite me out and flirt with men? Less—so I don’t hang out with them.

Do I respect myself more or less if I allow an employee to stay in my company who does not embody our values and speaks poorly to my team? Less—so I can’t have them here.

Do I respect myself more or less in my marriage? More—because I have a husband who promotes and supports me and would do anything to see me succeed.

It all comes down to personal values and vision. The way I center myself is by asking, Do I respect myself more or less? If I don’t respect myself, I can’t show up for my company, create content, or do this podcast. I will sacrifice anything to maintain that self-respect. Since I was young, it’s the one thing I’ve held onto.

There's this phrase I heard a long time ago that stuck with me because it resonated so deeply: "Fear is a mile wide and an inch deep." I have never encountered a situation in my life where that hasn’t been the case. The moment I see what looks like this ominous lake—my fear—and I think I’m going to step in and drown, I take the first step and realize it’s just a puddle. That’s it. That’s what controlled my life for the last three years. I didn’t make content for four years after Alex told me to try because I was terrified of being judged online. I hate even saying that—it’s embarrassing. I can run a $100 million company, but I didn’t want to make content on Instagram. The moment I made and posted it for the first time, I realized that avoiding it had degraded my self-respect for three years. When I avoid the things I’m scared of, I respect myself less. It all ties together. I’ve come to realize that every time something has started with fear, it has ended with confidence. When people ask how to become more confident, the answer is simple: conquer your fears. I almost look at it like I’m collecting my fears, fueling myself to be the confident person I want to show up as.

My favorite human beings are self-aware.

We confuse how we feel with mental health.

Honestly, my entire life, people have told me something was wrong with me—except for the people who are where I want to be. They say, "Take a break. Don’t do this if it doesn’t feel right." But every time I do what "feels right," I succumb to my fears. What feels good and what is good for you are two completely different things. Yes, there are days I don’t want to come into the office and record content for hours, then do an event and speak. But I’m not going to say, "I need a self-care day" and take a bubble bath. People conflate self-care with avoidance. Most people today label avoidance as self-care, but avoidance makes the problem worse. It makes emotions bigger. The more we avoid an emotion, the bigger it becomes. We literally train our brains that we are running from it.

We have moved toward avoidance as a socially acceptable norm. Instead of confronting problems, we avoid them. And that has become normal.

Those of you with addictive personalities—whether it's alcohol, drugs, gambling, or something else—do you know how close you are to being successful? You have the brain of a successful person. If you can redirect those compulsions and obsessions in a healthy way, you can change the world and your world. Those of you who think you're all screwed up—you’re just a millimeter away from being mega-successful with a tweak or two.

When I was younger, I was arrested six times for alcohol and drugs. I was drinking all the time, doing drugs. That was between the ages of 18 and 19—an 18-month period where I allowed myself to indulge in the wrong direction. That’s when I realized there’s nothing wrong with being obsessed—just that I was using it on the wrong things. I identify as a hunter. I want to hunt, and when I don’t have something to hunt, I get into trouble. Maybe it’s rare for a female to feel that way, but you should not suppress that because it just makes it worse. When people try to suppress the things they are naturally gifted with and are told they’re wrong, they go in the wrong direction. That’s what happened to me. It took me saying, "Screw what everyone has told me. What actually works for me?" What works for me is the opposite of what most people say. For anyone who thinks they’re stuck—I was that person. It’s not that something inside of me fundamentally changed. I just put my obsession in the right direction. Now, it works for me, not against me.

What a waste of my life if I were to spend half my days trying to live longer instead of just living. I want to go down beaten to shit. There's a phrase: "I want to be used up." I want to know I did everything I was possibly capable of in life. That is what I will measure my life by. It’s not about money or success. It’s about whether I did the things that once felt impossible.

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