Tag Archives: Goalcast

Elon Musk on starting a company and facing failures

Video Transcript:
Starting a company is like staring at the abyss and eating glass, and there’s some truth to that. The staring into the abyss part is that you are gonna be constantly facing the extermination of the company, because most start-ups fail. It’s like 90% ~ 99% of start-ups fail. That’s the staring into the abyss part. You’re constantly saying, “if I don’t get this right, the company will die.” Which can be quite stressful.
The eating glass part is, you’ve got to work on the problems that the company needs you to work on, not the problems you want to work on. So you end up working on problems that you really wish you weren’t working on, so that’s the eating glass part.
On the big picture, you know where you’re generally heading for, and the actual path is gonna be some sort of zig-zaggy thing in that direction. Try not to deviate too far from the path that you want to be on, but you’re gonna have to do that to some degree.
You’ll hear something, “Well, I feel fear about this, and therefore I shouldn’t do it.” It’s normal to feel fear. There would have to be something mentally wrong if you didn’t feel fear. I feel it quite strongly. But there are just times when something is important enough, you believe in it enough that you do it in spite of the fear.
FACE YOUR FEARS

Walt Disney Motivational Video

Video Caption:
His family was so poor, he had to deliver 1300 newspapers a day. Then his father would take away all the money. His brothers ran away because they were fed up with the hardships at home.
~All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me.~
At the age of 19, he started an animation company – his lifelong dream. He failed to sell a single cartoon. His company went bankrupt.
~Everyone falls down. Getting back up is how you learn how to walk.~
He started an animation studio in an old garage. He spent the next 5 years working with no income. In 1928, he finally found success with a short film, but lost the copyright to his own characters. He was crushed. He had nowhere to live and little money for food.
~When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way – implicitly and unquestionably.~
He tried again with a new character, but the audience was not impressed with his film. Still, he made a second film, but he could not find a distributor. Finally, he found success on his third attempt. His character Mickey Mouse became a hit.
~If you can dream it, you can do it.~
He then wanted to make a feature-length animated film, but everybody said it was a bad idea. The movie took three years to make, and cost the equivalent of $25 million today. Disney ran out of money, and had to mortgage his house.
~The difference between winning and losing is most often not quitting.~
Once released, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” was hailed as a masterpiece. It made the most money of any movie that year – the equivalent of $134million today.
In his life, Walt Disney won 22 Academy Awards, and was nominated 59 times. Both marks stand as records to this day.
~All your dreams can come true if you have the courage to pursue them.~

Practice being the last to speak – Simon Sinek

Transcript:
If you agree with somebody, don’t nod yes. If you disagree with somebody, don’t nod no.

You will be told your whole life that you need to learn to listen. I would say that you need to learn to be the last to speak. I see it in boardrooms every day of the week. Even people who consider themselves good leaders who may actually be decent leaders, will walk into a room and say ‘Here’s the problem, here’s what I think but I’m interested in your opinion. Let’s go around the room.’ It’s too late.

The skill to hold your opinions to yourself until everyone has spoken does two things: One, it gives everybody else the feeling that they have been heard. It gives everyone else the ability to feel that they have contributed. And two, you get the benefit of hearing what everybody else has to think before you render your opinion.

The skill is really to keep your opinions to yourself. Simply sit there, take it all in and the only thing you’re allowed to do is ask questions, so that you can understand what they mean and why they have the opinion that they have. You must understand from where they are speaking, why they have the opinion they have, not just what they are saying.

At the end, you will get your turn. It sounds easy, it’s not. Practice being the last to speak.

P!nk response when her daughter said she is the ugliest girl she knows

Transcript:

She said to me, out of the blue: “I’m the ugliest girl I know.” And I said, “Huh?” And she was like, “Yeah, I look like a boy with long hair.” And my brain went to, “Oh my god, you’re six. Why? Where is this coming from? Who said this? Can I kick a six-year-old’s ass? Like, what?”
I went home and I made a PowerPoint presentation for her. And in that presentation were androgynous rock stars and artists that live their truth, are probably made fun of every day of their life, and carry on and wave their flag and inspire the rest of us. And these are artists like Michael Jackson, and David Bowie, and Freddie Mercury, and Annie Lenox, and Prince, and Janis Joplin, and George Michael, Elton John. So many artists. Her eyes glazed over.
But then I said: “You know, I really want to know why you feel this way about yourself.” And she said: “Well, I look like a boy.”
And I said: “Well, what do you think I look like?” And she said: “Well, you’re beautiful.” And I was like: “Well thanks!” But I said when people make fun of me, that’s what they use. They say that I look like a boy, or I’m too masculine, or I have too many opinions, or my body is too strong.
And I said to her, I said: “Do you see me growing my hair?” She said: “No mama.” I said: “Do you see me changing my body?” “No mama.” “Do you see me changing the way I present myself to the world?” “No mama.” “Do you see me selling out arenas all over the world?” “Yes mama.”
Okay, so, baby girl, we don’t change. We take the gravel and the shell and we make a pearl, and we help other people to change so that they can see more kinds of beauty. All of you, thank you for being your true selves and for lighting the way for us. I’m so inspired by you guys. Keep doing it, keep shining for the rest of us to see. And you, my darling girl, are beautiful, and I love you. Thank you guys. Good night!

Rob O’Neill – How Osama bin Laden’s Hunter Never Quits


Spoiler alert. Bin Ladin dies at the end of it. We knew we weren’t coming home from that mission. We were goanna die. We’re goanna get shot down on the way in. We’re goanna run out of fuel and just be in Pakistan and live our short, miserable lives in a Pakistani prison. If anyone is goanna blow himself up, it’s Bin Ladin. We’re not coming back.
The guy that ended up in the point man position taking me up the stairs to Bin Ladin’s bedroom, he pulled me aside before we left and he said, “Don’t take this the wrong way, I’m going, but if we know we’re goanna die, why are we going?” Which is just legit. He wanted to say it out loud.
And I said, “That’s a good point. We are not going for fame and we are not going for bravado. We are going for the single mom who dropped her kids off at elementary school on a Tuesday morning, and then 45 minutes later she jumped to her death out of a skyscraper because that was a better alternative than burning alive cause it’s 2500 degrees inside. Her last gesture of human decency was to hold her skirt down so nobody could see her underwear as she committed suicide. She didn’t want to do any of that. She wasn’t supposed to be in the fight. We’re supposed to fight; that’s why we’re going.”
We were a week and a half into planning that big mission. We had some of the best minds planning the mission to kill Bin Ladin, and we rehearsed the perfect plan over and over and over every day with real helicopters on a real training site, 14 hours a day, and then afterwards we’d talk about it around a table with a replica. And one night the boss said, “All right, guys, what’s the worst thing that could happen?”
The youngest guy in the room said, “Hey, the helicopter could crash in the front yard.” He’s like, “What? Can we talk about that for 20 seconds?” And that happened. But we were able to take a potentially catastrophic event and turn it into something great because of our preparation. No matter what, we never quit.
People will be so close to a goal, 95% of the way there, have a bad day, and then throw their hands … or a series of bad days. “That’s it, I quit; I’m done.” You are not having a bad life. You’re having a bad day.
Now, saying “Never quit” and never quitting are two different things, so I need to tell you a story. You’re in the navy, so you know how to tie a lot of knots. The test is go tie a series of knots with this rope around that rope. So the instructor will say, “Go tie a bowling knot.” So you hold your breath and swim down there, tie a bowling not and you back off. It’s been about a minute. He comes back down and checks it. “Yeah, okay, that’s good.” So you untie the bowling not, you go back up, you get one breath of air, enough time for him to tell you about knot number two. So “Okay, go tie a square knot.” The test is simple. Tie five knots in a row, you pass.
They give you a certain amount of attempts at each test, but a friend of mine named John was on his last attempt. If he doesn’t do all five right now, they’re goanna kick him out today. He’ll never be a Seal. Lifelong dream, that’s a lot of pressure. On his fifth knot attempt, he drowned, so the instructor swam down to get him. He straddled John and started immediately with a sternum rub trying to get him to cough it up, then he started CPR, and we could actually hear him saying to John, “Come back to the light.” So John was out for a minute and a half, finally spit up all the water out of his lungs, and the first words out of his mouth were, “Did I pass?” So the instructor kind of sat back on him, and he’s getting his colour back too because he gets to keep his job, and he goes, “Yeah, man, you passed.” And John goes, “Thank God, I finally got the fifth knot.” And the instructor said, “Well no, you didn’t. Look, I’m in a good mood right now so I’m goanna let you in on a secret. I don’t care how many knots you know how to tie. That is not part of the curriculum to become a Navy Seal. My job simply is to see how far you’ll push yourself. You just killed yourself. You passed the goddamn test. Good job.”
When you feel like quitting, which you will, don’t quit right now. Quit tomorrow. Wake up in the morning on time and make your bed the right way and brush your teeth. Little victories. Make it to 5 a.m. PT on time. Get through that and make it to breakfast. After breakfast, concentrate on getting to lunch. After lunch, make it to dinner. After dinner, do everything you need to do to get back in that bed. No matter how bad your day was, you get a fresh start tomorrow because your bed was made right. And the enemy is all your doubts, all your fears, and everyone you know back home that told you you weren’t good enough to do this. Keep your head down. No matter what, never quit, and you’ll be just fine. KEEP MOVING FORWARD.