What I can't fit on Twitter is on Random.AndrewWarner.com

Orman on Twitter reminded me of this great story from my interview with Jermaine Griggs, the guy who’s generating over $3 million from teaching people how to play music:

I’ll tell you a quick story, my first course was shot with my barber’s brother in the hood. He’s like, “yeah man, my brother can help you shoot this. He’s got some nice Sony cameras.”

We didn’t even have a tri-pod.

We didn’t have two cameras, so every time I talked he’d come up and shoot my face. And then every time I’d play the piano, he’d come down and shoot the piano.

I mean, you can get sick watching…you can learn, but you might be a little dizzy. But you know what, customers later would tell me that was the most revolutionary program.

The system that I taught them, regardless of the quality, it was [the ideas] I was getting across … So I’m a proponent of getting started and done is better than perfect.

via HearAndPlay.com: Turning $70 Into A Multimillion Dollar Instruction Web Site – with Jermaine Griggs | Business Tips.

I was at one of Warren Buffett’s annual meetings and watched him stop everything to tell his shareholders to go shop at the local stores, which he owns.

He also encouraged everyone to buy cans of Coke. They didn’t have to drink the soda, but since he owned a big percent of the company, they should at least crack the cans open.

And a few minutes ago I noticed that his web site links to a store where you could buy swag, like this deck of cards which feature his photo.

When I hesitate to promote something, I have to remember how he keeps selling, selling, selling.

As I type this, a group of entrepreneurs are meeting an a mansion in Mammoth, California because of something Dane Maxwell did in his Mixergy interviews. I’ll tell you what’s up in a moment (but what I can’t explain is why one of them is wearing a clown wig in the video they shot).

If you’ve heard my interviews, you know what I demand from all my guests, right?

I want them to 1) teach something that has impact on the audience, and 2) be open.

To Dane, that comes naturally. So he talked about how to find great programmers on message boards instead of waiting for mediocre ones to respond to help wanted ads. He taught how to get skeptical online buyers to whip out their credit cards and buy. And he even revealed his vulnerabilities, like when he talked about how lonely entrepreneurship is for him — especially since he lives in Iowa.

(I never understood why he lives in Iowa, by the way, but that’s a conversation for another day.)

So, when he put out an idea at the end of his latest interview, dozens of them signed up. He said that he was putting together a Software Roundtable that would meet online to help each other build software-based startups.

I just found out that members of that group got together for an in-person meeting, as you can see in this video.

I just read this on Snopes:

It was about money. … In 1990, the Commonwealth of Kentucky, mired in debt, took the unusual step of trademarking their name. Henceforth, anyone using the word “Kentucky” for business reasons — inside or outside of the state — would have to obtain permission and pay licensing fees to the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

It was an unusual and brilliant scheme to alleviate government debt, but it was also one that alienated one of the most famous companies ever associated with Kentucky.

The venerable Kentucky Fried Chicken chain, a mainstay of American culture since its first franchise opened in Salt Lake City in 1952, refused as a matter of principle to pay royalties on a name they had been using for four decades.

After a year of fruitless negotiations with the Kentucky state government, Kentucky Fried Chicken — unwilling to submit to “such a terrible injustice” — threw in the towel and changed their name instead, timing the announcement to coincide with the introduction of new packaging and products to obscure the real reasons behind the altering of their corporate name. 

From my interview with Robert LoCascio, founder of LivePerson:

I’ve been keeping a journal since I was 15 years old. I read the journals every now and then and they’re funny.

It’s like, “Oh my god, we signed a customer, we’re going to stay alive!”

A week later, “oh my god, we’re going out of business. I don’t think I can make payroll.”

A week later, “oh my god, I can’t believe it, we signed another customer!”

A week later, “I got to eat a good meal because we signed a customer.”

Next week, “I don’t think we’re going to make it.”

The normal thing [in business is to have these] the up[s] and down[s]. What I think the journey of the entrepreneur is a very specific journey…. It’s not designed for everyone, and it’s got a lot of walls….

The walls are designed so not everyone can make it, and that’s the way it is….

So, only 1% of people who start out in their businesses [make it]. I think they said about 90% go out the first year. They fail.

It’s because when people hit the first wall, [they say,] “Forget this. This is too tough.”

Read the full interview here.

Check out this excerpt from my interview with Robert LoCascio

My question: [Your therapist] told you, “stop sleeping at home, stop using your mother’s credit card. You have to be your own man and stand up for yourself!” Right?

Robert’s answer: Yes. That was the first thing he said was, “Look. I’m going to ask you to do a bunch of things you’re not going to want to do, and if you don’t do them, I’m not going to work with you because I don’t want to work with losers.”

That was his thing. It was pretty hard core.

He said, “The first thing I’m going to ask you to do…I want you to go home and I want you to give the credit card back.” My mother had given me a credit card because I didn’t have any money to eat.

[He said,] “I want you to take this journey on your own.”

I told him, “I don’t have any place to sleep.”

He said, “Well, you have an office, right?”

I said, “Yeah.”

He goes, “Sleep there”.

So I went to the Kmart downtown, got a comforter and a pillow. That first day on that couch, I was alone…. I remember thinking, “Man, this is a scary day. I’m alone. It’s dark. It’s November. I’m alone in this building that no one’s in right now.”

There was no shower or anything. I had to shower at a health club. (I got a health club membership.) But I was like, “This is just the beginning of something. I’m either going one way or I’m going the other way.”

I had no place to go.

I knew I had to go up, because I was at the bottom.

You should read, watch or listen to the full interview.

“I really started running for meditative purposes. I would pick some problem to have in my head while running—not for the purpose of solving it, but for the purpose of having it bounce around in there. Like when you say you’re going to sleep on it; I say I’m going to run on it. Then at some point later on, a solution falls out.”

—Biz Stone, cofounder of Twitter

Quote via Men’s Health. Photo via @biz

From my interview with Ben Parr, the former Editor-at-Large of Mashable:

“You have to train your users. And so, Mashable, one of the reasons it’s done so well is that we, the Senior Management, made a conscious decision to train our users on how and why to share.

“We trained them on how to Tweet, how to re-Tweet, why to re-Tweet, how to share a blog post, ten ways to share a blog post, why to share a blog post. You do this over and over again and eventually users learn and guess what they shared first? Mashable.

“And they started following Mashable content and it helped us grow from there.

“You have to train your users and you have to do it consistently and constantly and you have to train them exactly what behavior you want them to do.”

Mashable: How To Grow A Blog Into A Popular Brand – with Ben Parr | Business Tips.

A few years ago, just as I was about to tell a friend that I love running as much as she does, she said, “The only thing I don’t do when I go for a run is walk. Real runners NEVER walk.”

I felt like a poseur. A fake.

I’ve heard the “real runners never walk” rule a lot, but I’ve walked. When I hurt too much to run, I’ve given in to the pain.

Not only that…

…A couple of times I even took a taxi home.

…Instead of carboloading the night before I did the Vegas Marathon, I had some greasy food at Hooters. (It was the closest restaurant to my motel.)

…Even though real runners are supposed to switch out their sneakers on some kind of schedule, I’ve worn the same ones through multiple marathons and for about half-a-decade.

…I don’t know my pace. (When two marathoners meet, the first thing they ask each other is “How long did it take you to finish?”)

…Etc

But!

This weekend, for the first time in my life, I ran an ultra-marathon distance! I did 30.5 miles. On my own. Carrying my own water and food. (And no taxis were involved.)

A marathon is 26.2 miles. Ever since I finished my first one — even while my knee throbbed — I wondered if I could go longer. Turns out I can.

Real

Don’t you hate getting sucked into other people’s definitions of what’s “real”?

“Real runners never walk.”

“Real cyclists never get off their bikes.”

“Real entrepreneurs never get a job.”

Every time I buy into that, I feel “real,” but miserable. When I do what I want and ignore the “real” people, I sometimes feel embarrassed at first, but I’m prouder of the results.