Follow Your Different
112 California Wildfires & The Heroes Who Fight Them w/ TJ Welch
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As California is suffering another horrible season of wildfires, we thought it would be powerful to give you some inspiring insight into how heroes fight these massive fires. On this special reissue episode, Retired Battalion Chief TJ Welch gives us an insider’s view of how thousands of Firefighters and first responders spring into action in a matter of hours to save lives and property.
TJ Welch – Starting Out in the City
TJ spent the first years of his career dealing with brush fires and structural fires. He also had his fair share of wildland fires as a chief officer. But he and other city firefighters pretty much only stood guard in front of the houses.
It wasn’t until the late ‘90s when they made full use of city firefighters. They went to timber and brush areas to stop fires and perform other operations.
“This was my moment where it kind of changed my perspective of my role as a chief officer.” – TJ Welch
Wildland Fire in Numbers
Back in the day, the biggest of wildland fires reached up to 160 thousand acres, which is equal to the same number of football fields. This number has been expanding in recent years, reaching up to 200 thousand acres of wildland catching fire.
The terrifying numbers make sense when taken in the context of the number of residences, the timber that is involved, how exposed the wood is, and how quickly it burns. These wildland fires burn a couple of football fields per second. They are impossible to outrun and risk many lives.
There’s a lot of reasons as to why wildland fires catch so quickly. On the other hand, timber could take a while to dry and get moisture back. With the drought that has gone on for so many years along with other forest products left out in the open, the wildland fires have become more gigantic.
A Turning Point
There was one fire that forever changed TJ. This gave way to a collective effort to train firefighters in the art of effective mobilization when tempering these massive fires.
“When I left that fire, I said I’m not gonna be so ignorant when I come to another wildland fire.” – TJ Welch
To hear more about how California firefighters move as a unit and how TJ Welch dealt with the massive responsibility of being a leader, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
TJ Welch is a 32 year veteran of the fire service.
Throughout the course of his career, he served in volunteer, industrial and municipal fire departments.
TJ was a member of CAL Fire ICT 3 from 1997-2005 and a founding member of CICCS. He was a qualified Type OSC2, OPBD, DIVS, and STEN.
TJ retired in 2014 as Battalion Chief with Alameda County Fire Department.
He currently teaches and writes Officer courses for OSFM, and is a Firefighter Safety Specialist for California Department of Public Health and NIOSH where he investigates firefighter line of duty deaths.
Links:
How to donate to victims of Fires in California:
How To Help Victims Of California Wildfires As Tens Of Thousands Are Forced To Flee Homes
Supplying Aid To Victims Of Emergency (Save)
California Community Foundation: Wildfire Relief Fund
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! Get amazing, different stories on business, marketing, and life. Subscribe to our newsletter The Difference.
111 Mia Khalifa Digital Media Super Star
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Former adult actor and now digital media star, Mia Khalifa, joins us today for another riveting conversation. She walked away at the peak of her popularity to design a new life and career. She shares with us today about her past and how low self-esteem affected her decisions and how she’s moving forward with her life.
Sports, Punk Rock, and Pets
Mia Khalifa is a sports commentator, with a special love for The Washington Capitals Hockey team. Other than hockey, she used to watch basketball a lot when she was a young immigrant from Lebanon.
“It’s kind of just been a common ground that I could have with people and a way for me to connect, a way for me to feel like I am part of something or feel like I’m a part of this group even if I don’t know anyone. Sports is the unifying factor in this world.” – Mia Khalifa
Other than being a huge sports fan, she is a self-proclaimed foodie and she loves punk rock. She also shares in this episode how she loves her pet dogs so much and how she is trying her best to be the person her dogs think she is: a better human being.
Battling Low Self-Esteem
Mia is also a digital celebrity, raking a total of 17.7 million followers on Instagram alone. In fact, she met her fiance on Instagram. Her fiance is a Swedish Chef, whom she candidly shares, as someone who doesn’t know who she is.
She has never gotten used to fame as she shares how she battled low self-esteem when she was younger. She admits that due to low self-confidence, she made decisions that she regret at the present time.
“I think it was being overweight for such a large part of my life and on top of that, I didn’t really have many friends in highschool. I never fit in in any certain group or the popular crowd or anything. I think it also had a lot to do with never feeling like I belong.” – Mia Khalifa
The Ugly Side of Adult Entertainment
Most of her followers had known her from her previous career as an adult entertainment actor. In fact, she used to be #1 in the biggest Adult sites in the world. She started her adult film career when she was just 21 years old.
What most people do not know is her career only lasted 3 months. She shot about twelve scenes, where produces paid her only $12,000. Adult actors do not receive any kind of royalty, while producers amass millions.
“I was fooled into thinking they had my best interest at heart, when in reality, they were just looking out for themselves. They looked at me and saw a huge paycheck.” – Mia Khalifa on Adult Entertainment Producers
To hear more about #1 Adult Actor to Digital Media Star Mia Khalifa, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Mia Khalifa is a social media personality, sports commentator and former adult film actor.
She’s a passionate Washington, D.C. sports fan with a love for the Washington Capitals hockey team.
Links:
Mia Khalifa is among the world’s most-watched women. Yet the porn industry is keeping the profits.
Mia Khalifa: Why I’m speaking out about the porn industry – BBC News
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! Get amazing, different stories on business, marketing, and life. Subscribe to our newsletter The Difference.
110 Startup Marketing: Viviana Faga Emergence Capital
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We have another riveting and insightful episode today with Viviana Faga, Operating Partner at Emergence Capital. She is in-charge of marketing and helped create over 150B in new market cap. Today she shares some of her amazing experiences working both with startups and VCs.
The Importance of Marketing
Viviana Faga worked in Senior Marketing roles with companies like Salesforce.com and Zoom Communications. She was the Head of Marketing at Yammer and pioneered the enterprise social space.
At the moment, she coaches CEOs and Founders and leads them in finding the importance of marketing in scaling their businesses.
“You just got $5-15M and you’re thinking, ‘where do I want to spend my money? I want to spend money on building my product and I don’t know who to hire? Why should I hire a marketer? It just seems like one big massive waste.’ That’s what I deal with and those are the kind of questions that I get everyday.” – Viviana Faga
The Best Doesn’t Always Win
Viv narrates her current client who has a great product, but is currently in a category that his competition built. Viv find it fascinating to explain that the best products doesn’t always win. If a CEO doesn’t believe in this, the CEO then finds himself in a never ending cycle of “catch-up.”
“There are plenty of cases where it does. The company just sort of takes off, without great marketing. We’ve seen that. But for the most part, in the competitive market, if you don’t define the category, if you don’t create it, you’re going to really struggle because now you’re gonna look like you’re playing catch up.” – Viviana Faga
Viv advises her clients that the company will never be able to catch up if they continue copying the competition’s message.
“You have to change the game. Come up with completely new messaging. You have to go so hard at writing that message — from your press releases, website and sales collateral. Every single piece of content that is external facing has to speak this new language.” – Viviana Faga
CEOs Who Listen
Viviana was proud to say that she embedded herself into her client’s company. Other than this, she believes that she can only help those who are willing to listen. She narrated how she turned down the CEO of Yammer, twice.
“It was hard to turn him down, but obviously he convinced me. I wanted to work for a CEO who understood the value of marketing and after that conversation, I wasn’t so sure but a lot of folks from Salesforce have gone there. It’s our job to convince him Sales & Marketing matter.” – Viviana Faga
To hear more about Startup Marketing: Viviana Faga Emergence Capital and more relevant information about Viviana Faga, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Viviana brings over fifteen years of experience designing and building brand categories for successful cloud/SaaS and enterprise social companies, helping them create scalable growth engines that drive successful exits.
Her particular passions are scaling and structuring go-to-market SaaS teams, messaging and positioning, category creation, freemium product strategy, and sales enablement.
Before joining Emergence, Viviana served as VP of marketing for Yammer, where she defined the enterprise social category. After Yammer’s $1.2B acquisition by Microsoft, she became its head of marketing for enterprise social, which included Office 365, Skype, and Lync. She also spent over six years at Salesforce, where she launched several key product initiatives. Additionally, she was the VP of marketing for Platfora (now Workday) and the CMO of Zenefits.
Links:
Emergence Capital – Viviana Faga
103 The Power of an IPO with Eric Yuen
011 The Perception of your product is your product
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! Get amazing, different stories on business, marketing, and life. Subscribe to our newsletter The Difference.
109 Build A Tribe of Millionaires w/ David Osborn & Pat Hiban
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Best selling authors of Tribe of Millionaires, David Osborn and Pat Hiban, joins us to share the story behind their new book. We also have a no BS conversation on making money and why its an important fuel to your life.
Beyond money, we also talk about the power of building a tribe of like-minded people — who will support you in your dreams, goals and a lot more.
Tribe of Millionaires
Entrepreneurs, real estate investors, and authors David Osborn and Pat Hiban talk about their new book and the story behind it. Pat candidly shares that Dan Clements helped them put together this book.
“Dan Clements flew to Japan with 27 billbros, members of our mastermind. He listened to each of these members talk. During that time, we masterminded on how to make money and he heard personal stories that we shared.” – Pat Hiban
Dan created Ethan Martinez, the protagonist in the book, from listening to the stories of GoBundance members. GoBundance is a mastermind group for businessmen, who are millionaires. These men get together and share ideas to improve their net worth, health and/or their marriages.
Ethan Martinez
The book Tribe of Millionaires is a fable about Ethan Martinez. He receives a mysterious invitation after the death of his father. He then embarks on an adventure not only to save his struggling business but to discover his past.
“Basically, what happens was, his father dies and he goes to his Dad’s funeral to settle the estate. He hasn’t talked to his father in over 20 years. When he gets there, his father’s pallbearers are all millionaires and multi-billionaires.” – Pat Hiban
Ethan needed to spend a week with these pallbearers on an island before he could inherit the Estate. He then discovers what makes these men successful. Ultimately, he figures out how he can apply these learnings to his life.
Money Fuels Life
David shares how people are more receptive to stories, rather than hard facts. He also adds the importance of spending time with like-minded people who share the same dreams and aspirations.
“You can choose it yourself and put yourself around a lot of people who are on the same journey. That will remind you on a perpetual basis of the greatness you’re choosing. It’s way easier to be great when everyone around you is great.” – David Osborn
Furthermore, he laments how the whole system does not teach kids and adults about making and keeping money. He stresses that money is not everything. However, it allows an individual to create a life that he or she desires.
“Some people think you are a jerk because you talk about money. If you’re doing it with your financial planner, they’ve got an agenda. Me and Pat just have that ability to talk about that wide range of topics including money and being genuinely interested in each other’s well-being. That’s what we’ve created in the tribe too.” – David Osborn
To hear more about how to Build A Tribe of Millionaires and more relevant information about David Osborn and Pat Hiban, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
David Osbourne
After sticking out his thumb and traveling the world, David returned home to Austin, Texas broke and unemployed, at the age of 26. Though his travels may not have yielded wealth, they instilled the key motivation that he brings to every part of his life to create it — freedom.
Because to have everything you ever wanted takes the opportunity to design your life and believe it can happen.
Through this intention, David began to test his entrepreneurial merits alongside his business-partner mom in the world of real estate. The results were nothing short of remarkable. In less than 10 years, David built one of the top real estate brokerages in the world and he founded over 50 companies.
Yet, more than anything else, the inherent freedom derived from his success awards him the time to focus on the importance on what matters most: being a proud father of two beloved daughters, a son, and husband to the wonderful and talented Traci Osborn.
Today, David continues to travel the world not only to be enlightened by new experiences but to share his insight and expertise with others so they, too, can truly be free.
Pat Hiban
Pat Hiban Interviews Real Estate Rockstars is a top-ranked, 3-day a week real estate podcast. He interviews the best of the best in and around the real estate industry.
He is also the founder of REBUS UNIVERSITY which trains real estate agents to be successful and men’s mastermind group GoBunbance.
After building a team of over 50 members and making millions in the Real Estate Sales World, Pat realized he had spent over two decades being lead by mentors while growing very few mentees.
It was at this point that he wrote his New York Times Best Selling Book -“6 steps to 7 figures, A Real Estate Professional’s Guide Building Wealth and Creating your Destiny.”
Not too long after, Pat Hiban Interviews Real Estate Rockstars was born.
Pat has not always been a semi-retired, New York Times International Best Selling Author, podcast host, entrepreneur, and billion-dollar real estate agent.
After throwing his graduation cap at Frostburg State University in the summer of 1987 (A long time ago), Pat set out to find that necessary three-letter word…..JOB.
While trying to get his Real Estate license Pat substitute taught in Maryland, where he has lived his entire life.
His first year in Real Estate was…. decent. Selling 10 homes, and taking home $13,700 in commissions Pat knew that he needed more.
At the beginning of his third year in the industry, attending a Floyd Wickman Sweathog Course changed his life, and allowed him to realize that being a listing agent was the way to go. He made a commitment and switched to prospecting regularly for listings by calling up and down every street in town looking for future sellers. BOOM business for him tripled. From there, the sky was the limit.
After spending a few years at Long and Foster Realty, he made a switch to RE/MAX where he spent the next 15 years.
In 2004, he became the #1 RE/MAX agent in the world.
Links:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! Get amazing, different stories on business, marketing, and life. Subscribe to our newsletter The Difference.
108 Top 1% of Enterprise Technology Investors Bruce Cleveland
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As we continue our run on legendary VCs, we feature today Bruce Cleveland, an entrepreneur, executive, venture capital investor and best selling author of Traversing the Traction Gap. We have a fun and insightful conversation today about the state of enterprise tech and why its the best place to create enduring value. We also touch important points on digital transformation and a lot more!
Legendary VCs
Joining our list of legendary VCs that we have featured on Follow Your Different is Bruce Cleveland. He joins Randy Komisar (Episode 106) and Heidi Roizen (upcoming episode). He is the founding partner of Wildcat Ventures which has been rated in the top 1% of enterprise technology investors on the planet.
At the moment, he is taking up his Masters Degree at John Hopkins University, America’s first research university. He took up Digital Communication, which he feels would be beneficial for writing content for his succeeding books.
Enterprise Tech Scene
Bruce shares a number of important insights into the enterprise tech scene. Furthermore, he shares that the valuations of companies of public SAS companies or tech companies selling into enterprise using a subscription model are reflective of the enduring value.
Additionally, he cites examples of consumer companies that require a tremendous amount of capital, as opposed to enterprise companies, which require much less.
“Consumers require so much capital, not a fund to build a product but to build the market share.” – Bruce Cleveland
Enterprise vs. Consumer Company
Bruce shares what investors are looking for enterprise and consumer companies. The MOIC or The Multiple On Investment Capital is nominally better in an enterprise. However, he mentions that the issue is these enterprise companies take longer to build up.
“You don’t get those big mark up in the first 2 years, as the company began to scale and show minimum viable traction. The important part here is a lot of limited partners, people who invest in venture firms. They want to see early mark up in your funds.” – Bruce Cleveland
These investors want to see great markups to show the committee that the firm is of great financial health. However, they don’t inform the committee how much money they need to get the company “out of the door.”
“They are extraordinarily capital intensive, and the multiple uninvested capitals are high. A lot of these things are faddish. They may work initially, I don’t know, they can move in other areas. Then they’ll be okay, but a lot of times, these things can come and go.” – Bruce Cleveland
To hear more about the Top 1% of Enterprise Technology Investor Bruce Cleveland, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Bruce Cleveland is a Founding Partner at Wildcat. He focuses on investments in AI marketing, EdTech, enterprise software as a service (SaaS) and the Internet of Things (IoT).
He’s also the author of Traversing the Traction Gap.
His specific areas of interest include enterprise automation, education and training, and general business applications. Bruce likes working with early-stage companies that use technology and data to increase revenue and decrease costs.
An avid adventurer and sailor, Bruce enjoy the challenge of creating new companies and navigating new markets.
He is interested in growing entrepreneurial hubs outside of Silicon Valley, with a particular focus on the Pacific Northwest.
Bruce also is committed to sharing his knowledge and experience through the Traction Gap Framework™. This aims to help entrepreneurs navigate the critical go-to-market period between initial product release (IPR) and reaching minimal viable traction (MVT).
As a son of school teachers, Bruce supports continued education.
He founded GreenFig to offer applied business science training to higher-ed students and individuals in job transition.
Bruce held senior executive roles in engineering, product management and product marketing. He worked with companies, such as Apple, AT&T, Oracle, and Siebel Systems.
In this role, Forbes and IDC credited him with creating the most effective B2B alliance program in the software industry.
Bruce began his venture capital career at InterWest Partners, where he was the first investor and a former board member of Marketo. The company held an IPO in 2013 and was acquired by Vista Equity Partners in 2016 for $1.8 billion.
Bruce attended the United States Military Academy, West Point, and received a B.S. in business administration from CSU, Sacramento.
Links:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! Get amazing, different stories on business, marketing, and life. Subscribe to our newsletter The Difference.
107 How FanDuel Became a Category King & The Future of Podcasting w/ Nigel Eccles
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Our guest is the legendary entrepreneur Nigel Eccles. He’s the founder of Fan Duel, the category king in Daily fantasy sports. We go deep on how Fan Duel created and ultimately dominated this mega category.
We also talk about how they created a super-engaged community and how they explored podcast advertising to promote the brand. Nigel explains why he thinks podcasting is a massive new opportunity. In fact, it is one of his motivations why he started his new company, Flick.
FanDuel Fantasy Sports
Forbes reports that daily Fantasy Games is growing at 41% annually, and will be $14.4 billion category in 2020. This brought together five lads from Edinburg Scotland to join this trend. They created FanDuel back in 2009 as they wanted to create a simple platform for fantasy sports enthusiasts.
“We wanted to build something that is so simple and even we can play and I think actually is a big part of the success of the company.” – Nigel Eccles
Building Communities
Nigel narrated how they started FanDuel 10 years ago. When they started FanDuel, Fantasy Sports was played by 25 million people in North America. Their main motivation was creating a sort of community with the same interests — a platform that would connect individuals, not only with friends but with tens of thousands of people.
“It started to connect people who were players. It started to build a community. People want to do it more and more because they want to show they were the best in the community.” – Nigel Eccles
Nigel shares his tips for entrepreneurs when building a community. He advises to first, think about the direct connection you can have with customers and what mechanism can you use to establish that connection. Secondly, entrepreneurs must think about how these customers can connect with each other.
Podcast Advertising
As FanDuel was starting, Nigel and the other founders realized the user base is not growing. Their CMO planned to execute several advertising campaigns, mostly focusing on radio and podcasting. With a great product and innovative advertising, the business grew largely.
“The great thing about FanDuel is, anybody who listens to sports radio was a sports fan.” – Nigel Eccles
Nigel and his team tried a lot of different formats on radio and podcast advertising. They had endorsements and games, where listeners get to compete with the hosts. Christopher shared a lot of information about podcasting and how huge the opportunity is for advertising.
“Podcasting is an enormous opportunity. It is hugely unmonetized. It is one of the best advertising mediums today because there’s a connection with the host. It’s such a strong endorsement. The best hosts only sell what they believe in.” – Nigel Eccles
To hear more about how FanDuel became a Category King and the future of podcasting, and more relevant information about Nigel, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Nigel has vast startup experience and was previously the co-founder and CEO of FanDuel, one of Scotland’s first unicorn companies.
Links:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! Get amazing, different stories on business, marketing, and life. Subscribe to our newsletter The Difference.
106 Silicon Valley Legend Randy Komisar
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Silicon Valley legend, Randy Komisar joins us today in a longer than usual episode, but definitely an information-packed conversation. He shares a piece of his mind to us especially on how to have a legendary career, what it’s like to be dubbed as the Digital CEO and many more.
Rare Opportunity
Randy Komisar was a partner at VC pioneer Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. He worked closely with other legends like Steve Jobs and George Lucas. In fact, he has some very interesting stories he shared, being a former senior counsel at Apple and former CEO at LucasArts.
“I don’t like being disliked and I don’t particularly try to be liked. I try to be valued, to create something constructive or positive in a relationship. But being liked is not, it doesn’t cross my mind. I want to be respected, if I’m really lucky, I’d like to be admired.” – Randy Komisar
The Virtual CEO
Silicon Valley CEOs dubbed him as a Virtual CEO. Randy served in that role for companies like WebTV and Global Giving. He had some compelling stories and opinions to share in what Christopher dubbed as “the business equivalent of the lunar landing.”
He also served as the founding director of TiVo, which is a direct lineage of Netflix entering that category today. Tivo won one of the biggest patent damage claims of all time, way over billion dollars, and Randy recounts to Christopher what happened during that time.
“I actually think, we should have sued earlier. we have the patent rights to all of these, the real question was, could we have coop these guys as partners.” – Randy Komisar
Utopians Vs. Libertarians
Two significant and different technology demographics comprise Silicon Valley.
He describes the 70’s and 80’s guys as the technology Utopians. Infrastructures were allegedly oppressive at that time which led the Utopians to utilize tools and come to technology to end this. Ultimately, they wanted to empower individuals.
Furthermore, the Utopians had a sense of ‘a social contract.’ They felt they need to make the world better. These tools and the advantages that they had with these tools gave them the opportunity to challenge the status quo.
In the advent of Facebook and Paypal, we move from technology utopians to technology libertarians.
“The tools and platform that you build raise the creative endeavor. It’s not to take-the-money- and-run situation. That money gets invested in more ideas, more vision. Yes you need to make a profit, but that profit can fuel creativity or consumption, you get to choose.” – Randy Komisar
To hear more about the Silicon Valley Legend Randy Komisar, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Randy Komisar joined Kleiner Perkins in 2005 and focuses on early-stage investing.
He served as CFO of GO Corp. and as senior counsel for Apple Computer, following a private practice in technology law.
Randy is a founding director of TiVo and serves on the Roadtrip Nation Advisory Board and Orrick’s Women’s Leadership Board.
Additionally, he is the author of the best-selling book The Monk and the Riddle, as well as several articles on leadership and entrepreneurship.
Furthermore, he is the co-author of Straight Talk for Startups, the insider best practices for entrepreneurial success, Getting to Plan B, on managing innovation, and I F**king Love that Company, on building consumer brands.
Randy frequently speaks in the United States and abroad on such topics. Randy holds a B.A. degree in economics from Brown University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Links:
Book: Straight Talk for Startups
The Monk and the Riddle: The Art of Creating a Life While Making a Living
Executives Launch Podcast To Pass On Lessons From Bill Campbell, Coach To Silicon Valley Stars
Harper Collins Speakers Bureau: Randy Komisar
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
105 The Freak Factor w/ David Rendall
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Today’s guest is David Rendall—a standup comedian, with a doctorate in organizational leadership and author of The Freak Factor—gives us a run-down on self-acceptance which benefits our personal and business life. He talks about how our weaknesses can become strengths and why finding people who are weird like you is a good thing.
The Good and the Bad
Twiggy. Stickman. Ladder. These are some of the nicknames of David Rendall during his younger years. He was unusually skinny when he was young and was working odd jobs, something that most people of his age would not even bother to try. However, David turned his life around and embraced his inner freak.
The word freak usually has dual meanings. If people dub someone as a control freak or a neat freak, it usually means they are overdoing it and they need to tone it down. On the other hand, being called a freak in a sporting context means you have outside of ordinary skills.
“Freak is often a term we use for criticism but its also a term we use positively. I want both of those associations. I want it to remind people of something negative and positive at the same time.” – David Rendall
Embracing The Freak in You
David encourages people to be different in a very specific way. People should be willing to be themselves and to disregard the idea that they need to hide their weaknesses. Most of the time, people suppress who they are because of the pressures from their parents, teachers, employers, friends, and society.
“I’m trying to get people to see themselves differently and finding their strength in spite of that weakness and be willing to amplify and embrace those parts of themselves.” – David Rendall
Oftentimes, David says that people sacrifice uniqueness for acceptance. In his book, he discusses the importance of affiliation. He defines it as finding other people who are a freak in their own ways.
“Partner with people who are strong where you are weak. Look for the people who are different from you, but the other side of that is, finding the right spot and finding the right people.” – David Rendall
Be Weird and Different.
As he encourages people to find others who are also weird, he reminds people to not expect acceptance, love, and connection from everyone. He advises people not to force themselves everywhere, instead, to find people who will accept them as they are.
“You’re not gonna win everybody over. Ultimately it’s about finding people like youfor the weird person that you are, instead of ‘they’ll like you once you’ve changed.’” – David Rendall
He also shares the reason why people get stuck hiding who they are: because they thought people around them know better than them. These people—parents, teachers, employers—are often bound by rules of success and they thought imposing these will also ensure success.
To hear more about The Freak Factor, and more information about David, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
David Rendall. Randall. Randell. Rendell. Reynolds. Whatever.
No one knows how to pronounce his last name.
David’s mission in life is to be hilarious and helpful.
He’s a standup comedian with a doctorate in management.
A class clown turned leadership professor, he went from disrupting classes to teaching classes to disrupting companies and conferences from Portland to Paris to Pakistan.
After being criticized and punished his whole life for being hyperactive, he now channels his frantic energy to compete in Ironman triathlons and ultramarathons.
He wears more pink than the average middle-aged man. Well, actually, he wears more pink than an eight-year-old princess.
As a nonprofit executive, he built businesses to employ people with disabilities.
During the last fifteen years, David Rendall has spoken to audiences on every inhabited continent.
His clients include the US Air Force, Australian Government, and Fortune 50 companies such as Microsoft, AT&T, United Health Group, Fannie Mae, and State Farm.
In addition to his doctorate in organizational leadership, David has a graduate degree in psychology.
He is the author of four books: The Four Factors of Effective Leadership, The Freak Factor, The Freak Factor for Kids and
• Pink Goldfish
Links:
Freak Factor: Discovering Uniqueness by Flaunting Weakness
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
104 Enterprise Tech Category Queen Jennifer Tejada
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Our guest for today is the CEO of the newly public, enterprise technology company PagerDuty, none other than Jennifer Tejada.
This episode is the second part of the two-part series on IPO. Jennifer shares with us today how it is like to go public. This is a celebration of entrepreneurship and you’ll have fun listening to this long-free-form conversation.
Legendary IPO
Jennifer had a legendary career in Silicon Valley. Various media outlets featured Jennifer due to the recent IPO of PagerDuty, a leading platform for real-time operations.
In a moment of victory, what Christopher calls as “a celebration of entrepreneurship,” Jennifer recounts to Christopher the joys and pains on transitioning from being private to becoming public.
“I enjoyed the process of being forced to refine our story and our value proposition for retail investors and laypeople. I think its really helpful for the business to go through that exercise.” – Jennifer Tejada
NYSE Feels
Jennifer shares that there was not much significant change in terms of their monthly operations. In fact, she perceives the preparation to go public as running two-jobs and she and her CFO vowed to make the most out of it.
“It’s very hard to describe the intrinsic rewards of looking down from the podium of NYSE at a group of people and just seeing this, sort of wonderment in their faces. They just can’t believe, little old us got here, and that is one of the most rewarding moments of my career.” Jennifer Tejada
Jennifer also professed her admiration with her employees who went through this significant milestone with her.
“I don’t think there’s enough of said or honor pay to the folks that bet their careers early on and take pay cuts and take on option risks, to see a company through multiple investment cycle and growth cycles and ups and downs.” – Jennifer Tejada
Extending Reach
Jennifer describes IPO as a big-day-coming-out-party-to-the-world. Further, she mentions that one of the reasons PagerDuty went public is to extend its reach, to tap an enormous market opportunity. She believes being under the radar does not serve that big mission.
“We serve the enterprise market and these enterprises are members of NYSE. They are traded in the NASDAQ. They expect the level of transparency around our performance and how our capitals are being spent and the long term viability of our businesses.” – Jennifer Tejada
Likewise, going public can help create brand awareness and credibility because the company has to go through a lot of processes that will serve public market investors.
“In my view, that rigor, and extra scrutiny is good for business. Hiding away in the private market just for the sake of staying away from that scrutiny is not a good thing because you can’t survive with poor habits for a long period of time.” – Jennifer Tejada
To hear more about the Enterprise Tech Category Queen Jennifer Tejada, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Jennifer Tejada is the CEO and Chairperson of PagerDuty (NYSE: PD), a leading platform for real-time operations.
She is a veteran software industry executive and business leader with over 25 years of experience, spanning mass consumer products to disruptive cloud and software solutions.
Jennifer has a successful track record in product innovation, optimizing operations and scaling public and private enterprise technology companies.
PagerDuty went through a strong IPO in April 2019 through her leadership.
Prior to her role at PagerDuty, Jennifer was the CEO of Keynote Systems where she led the company to strong profitable growth before its acquisition by Dynatrace in 2015.
Before Keynote, Jennifer was Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer at the enterprise software company Mincom leading its global strategy up to its acquisition in late 2011 by ABB.
She has also held senior positions at Procter & Gamble and i2 Technologies (acquired by JDA Software).
Jennifer currently serves as a board member of The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. (NYSE: EL) and Puppet, Inc.
Jennifer holds a B.S. from the University of Michigan.
Links:
PagerDuty analysts shower stock with love even after doubling in a month
PagerDuty stock skyrockets nearly 60% on first trading day after IPO
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
