The Unmistakable Creative Podcast

Scratch Beginnings, 25 Dollars and a Homeless Shelter with Adam Shepard

Adam Shepard decided to start in a random city with 25.00 and the clothes on his back to see if he could achieve his version of the American Dream by going from the 25 to 2500 Dollars. Here are some of the highlights from our conversation.

Finding that one little bit of greatness inside of you
Mastering the art of diving in head first to everything
The numerous businesses that Adam failed at
How failure prepares you for the moments you get punched
Drawing inspiration from those around you who get back up
Learning to respect the failures that happen in your life
Lessons learned from the world of college basketball
Learning that you have to be great at one or two things
Why 10,000 hours of practice doesn’t guarantee a thing
Considering the practical aspects of living your life
The unexpected things that were in a homeless shelter
Lessons from people who live in the homeless shelter
The misperception we have of homeless people
Why speed matters so much in your goals
The importance of looking at things day to day
Breaking goals up into small pieces that seem achievable

After a whirlwind journey that took his self-published book to the Today Show, CNN, Fox News, and NPR, Adam sold Scratch Beginnings to HarperCollins and made appearances on the Dave Ramsey Show and 20/20. You can laern more about him at his web site,Shepardspeaks.com.

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Duration:: 1h 10m
Broadcast on:: 24 Mar 2014
Audio Format:: other

As you probably noticed this month, we're bringing you our "Life of Purpose" series and revisiting some of our most transformative episodes, tune in to explore expert insights and practical strategies on help, performance, and community well-being, all aimed at helping you achieve personal and professional fulfillment. If you sign up for the newsletter, you'll not only get recaps of the key ideas in each interview, but at the end of the series, you'll receive our free "Life of Purpose" ebook. What you have to do is go to UnmistakeableCreative.com/Lifepurpose again. I'm Srini Rao, and this is the Unmistakeable Creative Podcast, where I speak with creative entrepreneurs, artists, and other insanely interesting people to hear their stories, learn about their molding moments, tipping points, and spectacular takeoffs. My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day, and said he was a big row, as man. 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Adam, welcome to the unmistakable creative. This is fantastic. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, my pleasure. I came across you by way of our mutual friend, Charlie Hone, and when he told me a little bit about your story, my immediate reaction was, "Hell yes, we definitely want to talk to him." On that note, tell us a bit about your background, your story, and then how that has brought you to where you're at today. Yeah, and first of all, I need to send Charlie. Let me know what I need to send Charlie. Let's see, their flowers are chocolates because he's hooked me up with three fantastic shows like this. Yeah, that's great to me. The connection, I'm really happy to be here. I think getting from where I started to where I am now has been an interesting story, but I think it's also been a very approachable and realistic story. I think that like many of the guests that you have on the show, I mean, it's remarkable things are happening in little small pockets of the world, remarkable things are happening to very average people. I'm a very average person and just like you or many other people and we just find that one little bit of greatness and then we write it as far as we can. I know during this time, we'll talk about different books and different stories and all this, but it's been a fun ride to just find a direction and then dive in head first and then fail and then find another direction and dive in head first and just the art of diving in head first should be somebody's book out there. Well, let's get into specifics. I mean, the story that I was told was pretty much holy crap. That's unreal. We have to hear the details. So let's get into it. Like this, my first, when I, I went to Merrimack College in North End of Massachusetts. The summer after my freshman year of college, I read this book, Nickel and Dime, where Barbara Aaron Reich basically writes on the demise and the death of the American dream and you can't make it in America. And I read this book, you know, as soon as it was handed to me and I just, and I took it everywhere that I could, I finished it in one sitting. And I was just so disgusted with this idea that the American dream could be dead. And so I kind of started to formulate over, you know, the next three years of college, you know, my own idea on what I'm going to do. How can I go out there and make my own discovery of the American dream? I played college basketball, so I finished my college basketball career. I went over, I played a professional basketball in Germany for about, you know, it's debatable but somewhere between 24 and 36 hours. And when I, when I came home, it was, you know, okay, what am I going to do next? Because I went over to play, play basketball in Germany for two, three, four years, maybe. And I was home after a weekend. And so the question was, what am I going to do now? And I remembered this book that I had read. And this premise that I had started to develop in my mind was in, in, in discovering the American dream was to start with $25 and they closed on my back in a random city to see if in one year I could have $2,500 a car and a furnished apartment. So, and, and there were various parameters to this experience, you know, I couldn't use my credit history, my contacts, my education, you know, all, all these various little rules and regulations that I put in. But the idea for me was I'm going to go out there with basically next to nothing and see if after a year I can not be rich and famous, but after a year I can have a little bit more money and a little bit of a, of a standing in society where now I can work up to the next level and the next level and the next level and the next level and kind of slowly move my way up. All right. So a ton of stuff here. So we're going to, you know, I'm going to tear it all apart and dig back into it. But I want to start with the very beginning because, you know, you talked about sort of this idea of remarkable people and then finding our own sort of personal bit of greatness. And you know, I love that and at the same time I think that is such a struggle for people, right? Like, people listening to this are thinking, that sounds really inspiring. How the hell do I find it? I think that that's, there's, and I don't know, I don't necessarily know that there is a right answer, but I mean, when you're, when you're talking to people, I mean, where, where do you take that? Like, if somebody comes to you and says, okay, I, I'm trying to find that in my life. I mean, where do you go with that? Yeah, I think, I think the struggle is not ultimately finding success. I think, I mean, success, success will happen, whatever that means for you or me, for anyone else, you know, it on a different scale that will happen. I think the struggle is fighting through that first, second, third, fourth bit of adversity. I think if, if I look back on my life, I mean, my life has just been a series of one failure after another. And when I look at my peers who are still struggling now, I'm 31 now and, and, and as I work my way to 40 and then 50 and 60, I think that if I look at my peers that are still struggling, it's because they just kind of, you know, they didn't give up, but they just kind of got complacent and they figured, well, I've, I've faced enough adversity. I've, I've gotten punched in the face enough times and, and that's it. And so, so when I, so it's not like, oh, I wrote this book and then the today's show called and then I sold it to HarperCollins and then the speaking gigs, I'm getting paid $5,000, which is just a crazy amount of money to speak. It's not like it just happened over six months or a year or five years. It happened when I was eight years old and selling pencils door to door and I was this cute little kid going and I, I had this box of pencils and, and for 25 cents, which was such a barnhouse and two for 50 cents, I was, you know, it was great and didn't, didn't succeed at that, didn't succeed at, at mowing lawns, 12, 13, 14, 15 years old. My basketball career, as I just mentioned, you know, kind of went up in flames over one weekend and I think those experiences prepared me for when I got punched in the face with this book, right? So, so, you know, when I had this wonderful experience and I immediately as people and, and I, and I'm living this, this new life, I think I was ready for that because when I was eight years old, 12 years old, over in Germany, you know, failing it at, at this basketball career that I had such high holds for. So I think the struggle is not the ultimate success, but the struggle in this journey, the struggle is getting punched in the face once, twice, three times, four times and then, you know, and, and, and the question is, what are you going to do now? And so when I look at my story versus someone else's story versus those who are much, much more successful than I am, you know, I, I draw the inspiration from those guys that they get punched in the face and get back up. Well, you see, you know, here's what I love. I said, you know, you mentioned complacency and this idea of getting punched in the face. And I think that there is sort of this, this common misperception that there comes a point at which you stopped getting punched in the face. I don't think you get stopped getting punched in the face. I think the punches just get harder as you find more success. Like when you get knocked out, you get knocked out bad. Like, I mean, you, you take a fall because the thing is, you think about it, right? The greater you are, you know, the, the higher the rise, the greater there is to fall, like the further down there is to fall, the more it's going to hurt. And, you know, I mean, it's something that I've had to get my head around is that, you know, the problems don't go away. They just, they turn into different kinds of problems and they turn into bigger problems, you know, we jokingly call them high quality problems, but they're still a pain in the ass. Yeah, absolutely. So, so then the question is as you're rising and you're enjoying more success and, and, and, you know, do you think because it, it, my own personal life, I feel like now I'm, I'm not immune to getting punched in the face, but I'm also not complacent. It's not like, I respect every bit of success and I respect every punch in the face, right? And so I think maybe that is what's tough is it just becomes like, oh, you know, it's not, not normal, so to speak, but it just kind of becomes like, oh, you know, that's a little failure while I had all these other failures. So I'll just kind of throw that one on the pile. You've got to respect every bit of success and every bit of failure as if it's the first one to come along and that's tough to do because you're building it on the back of what happened at eight years old and 12 years old. So not only do I have to, you know, still muster the energy to punch back, but I also have to kind of, you know, forget that, you know, this could happen again and again and again in the future. I've got to take this one, one step at a time. So when you're saying that it gets harder, I think maybe I don't know, I don't know your thoughts on this, but maybe we, we make it harder. You know, you get older, you have different responsibilities, you know, you're not in a college dorm room anymore. All of a sudden you've got bills to pay and you've got all these, and you become maybe less risk averse. All of these different things play into it. For me, I think the challenge is facing each failure as its own, each success as its own, right? And I think if you can respect each one brand new based on your past experience, then at least mentally, it makes things a little bit easier. Yeah, I love this idea of respecting your failures and successes and respecting failure. I think that honestly, I think that is a hard one for a lot of people. I mean, so I want to dig deeper into this. I mean, how do you mentally make the shift to a place where you can respect the bad things that happen to you and respect the things that are punches in the face? Because, you know, as much as we want to avoid them, they're part of life. Yeah. I'm going to tell you right this, and it's interesting that we're having this discussion now. If we, you know, when I first had this experience down in Charleston with this $25 and I'm living in this homeless shelter, and then I emerged from this year and I write the book and, you know, I'm doing this various interviews, I think my answer at that point would have been just suck it up, buddy, you know, just kind of go out there, you've got to just believe in yourself. I've got much more generic answer. I think now, you know, now that I'm five, six years out of this experience, I think I'm really starting to draw energy more from those around me. I'm very much, you know, I love working on my own. I love being an individual and at my desk and concocting these ideas and so I love working an individual environment much more than I do in a team environment. But with that said, you know, I've just got such a wonderful group of people around me that I can draw energy from and, you know, they're just smart, sophisticated, motivated people. And so you say, how do I respect each, each failure and each success? It's easier when I can draw that energy from my wife, for example, you know, or from my friend Justin who has just all these contrarian ideas, but he's so smart that I listen, I open up and I'm like, wow, that's crazy. And he's enjoying his own successes and his own failures, right? And so when I can, you know, have someone around me that I can reach out to, I think it makes it a lot easier and more fun and energized, right, rather than me just sitting at my desk by myself. So you know, like I said, I think, I think five, six years ago, it would have just been a much more generic, oh, you just got a frickin' do it. But now it's emerged as, hey, there are some great people around me, and there are some crappy people that I've had to cut out of my life, but there are just some great people around me and I draw energy from their successes and failures just like I hope they do with mine. Well, so let's do this. Let's shift gears a little bit. I want to talk about basketball since I know it's a huge part of your life and I'm always very curious about how things like this shape and influence, you know, who you are today and how it's influenced your entire journey. I mean, I can't imagine four years of college basketball doesn't have a tremendous impact on your life. So I'd love for you to talk a bit about the lessons that you've brought from the court out into the real world. You know, it's interesting, you're in high school and you're the star, right? I mean, there are many high school stars out there, just mathematically there are many high schools, right, and then you go to college and you've been put on this pedestal for the last four years of your life and then you, you know, orientation hits and the first day of practice and then games and your five, six games into the season and you're not the star that you were, you know, six months ago, right? And then sophomore year comes and you're doing a little better and for me, I never emerged as the star that I was in high school in college. That was difficult for me and it's because, you know, I set very high expectations and I think as we should, you know, you know, some people set low goals and then they achieved those goals and they feel accomplished. I think we need to set high expectations for ourselves, right? But man, you know, for me to hit my junior year and my senior year and it just hasn't worked out for me. That was very, very tough for me and then I chased the dream and I, you know, really felt like it was going to happen in Germany. We could go for hours and hours about the lessons learned on the basketball court. But I think the biggest thing for me is you just assume this humility where, hey, you know, I am very good at this, this, and this and that's what I learned on the basketball court. I'm a very good shooter, I'm a terrible defender, I haven't played defense since I was nine years old. I think that on the basketball court, I learned what I was really good at and so now that I applied that to the business world, I don't want to be, you know, good at seven, eight, 10, 12 things, you know, I want to be great at one or two things. And so that's how it emerged for me from, you know, throughout the evolution of my basketball career was, hey, you know, from high school to college, I'm not going to be good at all these things. I've got to be great at one or two things. And so I think in hindsight, looking back now, I should have focused more on those one or two things that I'm great at and I think that's why I'm enjoying the success that I am now. Let me ask you this. I mean, going from sort of, you know, being a star to sort of, you know, down the ranks and just being somebody who's, you know, a supporting cast member, how does that play out in terms of ego and how do you overcome that? Because I would imagine that's got to do some damage to the ego. It does doesn't damage to the ego, but, you know, I'll revert back to, you know, what I would have said, you know, five or six years ago, you've got to suck it up. I mean, I think, and I think that's one thing that I'm struggling with now when I do speak to high schools and colleges, you know, we have this entitled generation and it's, oh, you know, we think that we're, you know, supposed to get A, B and C and then it doesn't happen and it's all for me. It's like, you know, suck it up, buddy. I mean, I went to college and I wasn't a star, you know, and that did hit my ego. But ultimately it's like, dude, that's not really how life works, you know, you don't just, you know, you don't just get to put in 10,000 hours and, you know, like Malcolm Gladwell says, and then you're going to be, you're going to be this genius. You may put in 10,000 hours and you still may kind of fall back on your butt, right? And so I think that it does hit your ego. But I don't think it's something like, oh, poor me, it is man, look at the reality of the fact that I put in 10,000 hours, I enjoyed a modicum of success, but not the success that I would like to have enjoyed. But maybe that means I just never put 10,000 hours into something again, or maybe it means that I find something that I'm really good at and I put another 10,000 hours in and just see where this takes me. And so I think for me, the whole discussion about the ego, it really comes back to, hey, listen, just mathematically speaking, you can do, you know, you can put all of your effort into this and only one, two, three, five, 10, however many you're going to emerge as the cream at the top. And I think for me, it bothered me that I wasn't better in college. It bothered me that I didn't enjoy the success I wanted to when I went overseas to Germany. But the options are to, you know, kind of sit on your couch and remunerate over it, or you can just get back up and dive into your next project. Yeah. I mean, I think that there's something to be said for finding intrinsic value in everything that you do and not doing it for the hope of some sort of external accolade. And I mean, the irony of this for me, and I've shared this before with people, I said, you know, it's when I got that, when I finally got that and really understood that the external accolades started to show up in droves. Yeah, I'll tell you what, you're talking about things that become harder over time, you know. Oh, I wish. Yeah. It's a, I still battle with that, right? Yeah. Because then at the external accolades show up, you're like, you know, now I gotta, you know, now I got, now, now it's, it's a battle between, you know, realizing that you understand that and trying to, you know, live from that place again. Yeah. When I, when I was right, fresh out of college, I go play professional basketball for, for a weekend, come home and I live this experience of scratch beginnings, $25 living in a homeless shelter, working my way up. I never came home from Germany. I didn't have an agent, I didn't have a, a, a literary agent, I didn't have a publisher. I didn't have any idea what was going to happen with this book that ultimately I hope to write. All I did was just leave with a journal and kind of just go with it, right? And, and, and, and, but I never even thought twice about it. I just thought I want to have this experience. I want to meet EZE and Rico and Leo and BG and Derek. I want to meet these guys in the shelter and out of the shelter at the moving company. I want to be able to learn from them, share their story and then ultimately if a book comes out of it, great. If it doesn't, that's fine. I've had this wonderful year. I think that was very organic at that time of my life. Now it's become harder for me to, to shift those more material things out of my life, right? I mean, now I'm 31 years old. I think, my gosh, I want to go have this experience or I want to do this project or I want to work on, you know, this little idea. And then I think, well, this could be a great experience, but also, you know, is this going to make me a hundred thousand dollars? Is this going to provide for my wife and I? It's just going to allow us to travel. There are all these other things that I have to kind of shift away or not shift away, but kind of put in a little pocket over here to the right to make sure that I'm still, I still have focus on what's important. And for me, it's important to pay the bills, but it's also important to have as organic an experience as possible. So I think for me, it's my point is it's becoming harder in my life to balance this wonderful journey of life with the business side. And is it the same for you? Because when you're 23, 24, it's just, oh, let's go have the journey because, of course, I'm going to be rich, right? And then now as you get a little bit older, a little bit older, do you find it harder to have that work life balance? Um, you know, it's interesting because I'm 35. So that's a tough one. It's I don't necessarily know that I have a very concrete answer around it. I will say this. I think that the appreciation I have for everything is very different than when I first started this journey. Like, I like, okay, I get to do this. To me, the reward, the greatest reward is, yeah, of course, I need, you know, the byproducts to survive, but the reward is always the work to getting to do the work that I love to do. I mean, the fact that I get to sit here with you on a Thursday afternoon or Thursday morning, that to me is the greatest thing in the world. I, you know, I wouldn't want anything more. I mean, it's so I don't know. I mean, I don't know that my material needs have changed any. I think they've, they've lessened actually, but I understand what you're saying. I think that, um, when you have, you know, some level of success, you're, you're always wondering, okay, how do I one up what I just did? Like, you're always leveling up and you're always thinking, how do I, I improve? And it's a balance between maintaining this desire to improve and get better and to master your craft and taking, you know, the work for what it is and enjoying the intrinsic value the work creates. You know what I mean? Absolutely. Yeah. And, and, and so I don't know for, for, for me, it has been harder to making that balance, but I think it's something that we all have to just keep in check, right? We all have to keep our sights on, on what is important. Um, and, you know, ultimately at the end, maybe we are rich, maybe we're not rich, but if we can have this, this awesome experience and, and if we're loving the work that we're doing, then that trumps any, any other ideal. So speaking of awesome experiences, let's get into why you're really here. Um, the reason that, that, you know, the, the reason your story intrigued me so much. I mean, I want to start at the very beginning of this story. I mean, you start out with $25 and you spend a year living in a homeless shelter. So let's get into details of, you know, how you get from $25 to $2, $2, $500. I mean, from scratch beginnings to, to where you're at. I mean, this is, you know, I mean, as you and I were talking about before, I mean, my business partner Greg Hartle has a similar story. Um, and that's why it was so intrigued. So, so talk me through this. Yeah. Well, I, I, I'll tell you what's, what's most, uh, fascinating for me, uh, looking back on this, this experience that I've had is, is how naive I really was because I, I had this picture. And this, this is how it is in all aspects of life, but I had this idea on what was going to happen. Right. So I had 12 cities and a hat, um, southeastern cities, kind of mid major cities that the, the, you know, the Tampas and the Savannah, Georgia's and, and I picked Charleston, South Carolina out of the hat and then I was on a train the next day. And I had this idea on what was going to happen. Right. And, and you know, and I, I, it may stray a little far, a little to the left or right, but I, I had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen my first night and my second night. I'll probably have a job maybe by the fourth day, I'll have a job, you know, and, and just these different little things that I could do sleeping under the bridge. And then, and then bam, I arrived in Charleston and literally on the other side of the tracks and I'm walking down 10 30 at night, really shady neighborhood. I don't know where I am, you know, and, and I, I think I was too naive to be scared, but immediately I realized, man, I've got to get indoors. I've got to change my whole thing and I can't sleep under a bridge. I've got to find a place to be. And so I think this whole idea that this, this is what's going to happen. You know, I'm going to go and I'm going to work and I'm going to make money and I'm going to have a job. I'm going to save it and I'm going to meet this guy. It's going to be great. The first night, everything kind of shattered for me and I'm walking down the middle of Charleston, and this lady of the night comes up to me and she says, "Hey, what are you doing?" And because people have been staring at me and giving me glances and, you know, because I'm this goofy kid with the long hair and the daisy-duke shorts and the tall socks, I was clearly out of place and, and she was asking me what I was doing. And I, I had this fabricated story on where I'd come from. I don't know, my, my druggy mom, my alcoholic father, just to kind of make me fit in. And she told me that he's going to get to the homeless shelter. And that's where I ultimately ended up staying, you know, working my way there and I ended up staying there for 70 days until I was able to, to move out. But, but it's just, you know, I'll sleep under a bridge. I'll have a, I'll have a job after three days and I'll save my money and it's just going to be great. Ten days in, I didn't have a job, right? And, and so I'm applying to all grocery stores and hotels and moving companies and restaurants. I will take any job that's out there and nobody is calling to tell me, hey, yeah, you're hired. And so I think it, what, what was most challenging for me and I think that what I've carried forward more than anything is that you have to, like I said before, you have to go for it. You know, you have to go, you, you know, it's one thing to have this idea to go to a random city with $25, but to actually do it and then realize, hey, these things are not going to, happen the way that I envision. So when things go wrong, I can either deal with those or not. When things go right, I can capitalize on those or not. And so, so I think for me, it was learning to deal with every single one of the aspects of this journey one by one, things that just didn't go the way I wanted to go. Spark something uncommon this holiday with just the right gift from uncommon goods. 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All right, so let's talk about this in a bit more depth. I love this. This is really, there's this pure gold here. I mean, you're talking about dealing with effectively what is a tremendous amount of uncertainty and all the aspects of this journey that you had to learn to deal with one on one. Break them down for us and talk to me about kind of what are the takeaways for somebody listening? I mean, how do you build this kind of a tolerance for uncertainty? I mean, if there's anything that I know is probably one of the most useful skills for navigating the world that we live in today, it's to deal with the fact that nothing is going to go according to plan. Yeah, and for me, it has been most easy to draw inspiration from others. I was in the homeless shelter, day four, getting my TB test and I was waiting for the nurse to prick my arm and check my arm or whatever it is that they do it for a TB test. And I'm sitting there in the lobby and there's a guy, this is at the shelter and there's a guy sitting in a wheelchair next to me. And so we got to talking and he's sharing the story of how things were actually going pretty well for him in his life. And then last Thursday, he got hit by a drunk driver and then things just completely fell apart because he had a job where he, now he's in a wheelchair and he had a job where he needed his legs. Everything in his life, literally in an instant, fell apart. And here he was seven, eight days later in this shelter. And for me to see kind of his bright eyes and to see the smile on his face and to see just his general demeanor, despite the fact that seven or eight days ago, life was good. Now here he is in a wheelchair. And I think to see what he's doing, it really offers no excuse to me, right? And so I mean, think about that. Here I am, I'm an able-bodied guy. You know, I've got a good attitude like you can do it. You just got to believe in yourself. And here's a guy who is in a wheelchair who has that same attitude. So I think for me to be able to draw inspiration for my guy like that, it means that when I do face that bit of adversity, when I do face that bit of uncertainty, when I do face the triumphs of my life on both ends here, I think that's what that's what I'm saying. It makes me respect those because I know that there's a guy next to me who's facing a much more challenging situation, right? So I think to face that uncertainty, you just have to look at me and say, "Hey, there is really no excuse here." And so I think that the people around me made that specifically in this journey in Charleston, the people around me who were facing much more dire circumstances than my own, I think to draw inspiration from them made that uncertainty much more palatable. Let me ask you this. I mean, you brought up the first 10 days. So talk to me about days 10 through 70. I mean, the part that leads you to getting out of the homeless shelter. Day 10 and I said 10 days because I came home on my 10th day and at the shelter. And I've been doing this day labor. Work today, you get paid today and it's terrible wages. It's minimum wage. And then they take this fee and the taxes and just terrible wages for this really hard work, but the advantage was that I got paid at the end of the day. So that's what I'm doing for my first 10 days. And then at the end of the day, I'm filling out these applications for two or three hours. Just literally, I'll take any job that's available. And nobody's calling me up to the shelter and saying, "Hey, come on in for an interview." And so on day 10, I come in after a hard day of work, applying for jobs, and there's this guy Phil Coleman. And I'm kind of addressing the table. I had started to become friends with some of the guys and I just said, "Carly, I do not have a job. What is going on?" I've filled out all these applications. And this guy Phil Coleman who was a little loopy, but otherwise a grounded guy, he just went into this two-minute diatribe without letting me speak at all on who did I really think I am? And I'm just going to go and pass out applications. And these managers are going to get really excited that they get to hire a homeless guy. And they're going to call me at the homeless shelter and give me a job. And I mean, did I really think that was going to work? Just this really real look at the fact that my approach was not going to be successful for me at all. And so he gave me this advice. He said, "You need to go to these managers. You need to look them in the eye. You need to shake their hand. You need to tell them, "Listen, I am the best dishwasher. I am the best waiter. I am the best grocery bagger. I am the best whatever in Charleston. And I would like to work here. Let me work a day for free." I mean, he gave me this, you can't just stop. In case you've got to look to the managers and shake their hand. And so it was really fascinating to get this advice from this homeless dude. I mean, I'm not 10 days into getting a human right, because here I am. I'm going to go with my $25. And I'm going to show that with persistence and discipline and frugality, that the American dream is very much alive. And I'm going to write this wonderful book on the back end. And then Oprah's going to want to have my children. It's going to be such a wonderful experience. And here I am, day 10. I don't have a job. And here's a homeless guy that's giving me advice that essentially changed the course of not only my entire year, but my thinking in general. Because this is a guy that I don't care about. I mean, if he asked me for $2, I'm going to walk right by him. So he gives me this advice. And the next day I did exactly what he said. I went to the moving company where I'd applied. I really wanted this job. And I spoke. And I'd already applied there. I called twice. I really wanted this job. And I stood across from Curtis, the manager. And I said, Kurt, listen, and I mean, just straight out of Phil Coleman's mouth from the shelter, I said, Kurt, listen, you know, I am the greatest mover in all of Charleston. And I just gave him this 30 second speech right from Phil Coleman. I said, listen, I'm going to come into work on time, ready to work, you know, shirt tucked in. I'll do whatever you want to do. And I said, but wait, listen, let me let me work one day for free. You know, let me show you rather than all this talk, let me show you what I'm capable of. And Curtis, the manager's looking across the desk at me. Clearly, he knows, you know, I'm this is not a frail kid, but it's certainly a slender young man in front of him that has never probably moved furniture. And it's like, he knows that I am not the greatest mover in Charleston, right? He hires these hulky ex athletes. And here, here's this skinny kid. But he hired me on the spot just because he liked my attitude. And then, and then I moved forward from there. But the point is that, that Phil Coleman gave me that slap in the behind that I needed, right? I mean, he, here I am. I've had this great upbringing with two loving parents and, and, and all of the values that one should possibly have a skewed from their parents. And here I am in Charleston. And there's a homeless guy who gives me advice that ultimately gets me a job that ultimately lends itself to my, my success. So I don't, you know, just the energy, again, the energy that we can draw from those around us and then apply that to our own life. We, we, I think too often we just lean on those rather than, you know, seek to, to work in concert and certainly Phil Coleman worked in concert with me to help me get that job. Amazing. So, so talk to me about kind of what happens from here. I mean, you know, you finally get, you, you get yourself a job. But I mean, there's still 60 days to go. You're, you're in a homeless shelter. I mean, what's, what is that experience like day to day? I mean, I'm very curious. And I mean, what's going through your head during this time? Are you thinking, yeah, now this is awesome. I've made it. I mean, I, I get the sense that there's still a lot of adversity ahead of you here. Yeah, I, I, I'll tell you this, that it's, I love reading and I love watching documentaries and all kinds of films and I love hearing stories and, and having lunch with just wonderful people. But to actually be there, it changes, you know, your, your perspective completely, right? I mean, and, and, you know, ultimately we will all die. And so we can't have every experience in the world, which is why we do take the time to read books and watch documentaries. But for me to have read about homeless shelters, to have seen the homeless on the side of the road, sleeping in parks, I think to actually be there, it really cemented a perspective for me that I think otherwise I, I couldn't have gotten, you know, to be at the shelter to, to hear hustle man story, you know, hustle man is a guy who, who had a heroin addiction and to see where he had come from and what he was trying to accomplish now. I think to, to actually be there firsthand to witness this over a course of 60 days, it's, you know, it's different and then, then being in front of the, the, the TV, Washington documentary. So, so I think for me it, it, it really, it, hit home, so to speak, because otherwise I, you know, I wouldn't have had this same experience. I, I wouldn't have been able to really foster the kind of attitudes that I have moving forward. So, and, and, and I could give hundreds of examples, but I, but I think for me, the most important component of this was, was to actually do it, right, to actually go out there. And I think sometimes we lose perspective on that because we get so comfortable. We lose that spontaneity. We, we, you know, life is good. And so, you know, I don't really need for it to be that much better. And, and sometimes that does happen where we, we get a little bit too secure and too comfortable. But being there in the shelter, showering with these guys, having dinner with these guys, waking up at, at, at, and having breakfast with these guys and hearing their fascinating stories and seeing how completely boring my life had been and probably would be forever. I mean, to hear, to hear the things that, that, that day had done and, and where they'd come from, you know, it was, it was completely fascinating to me. And, you know, I'm, I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to do that. Mm hmm. You know, it's interesting as, as I'm listening to you say this, I think about how we perceive these people and I feel like we perceive them through the lens of our own experiences. And so, there's judgment when we see them. And I know it, like, I, I know for a fact, I'm not going to lie to anybody listening that, you know, when you walk by the homeless person on the street, your mind goes to, he must have done something horrible to get there. Absolutely. Yep. And, and, and I had that perspective going in and I walked out with that perspective on the back end. And, and, and when I say that, that my attitude towards the homeless was kind of cemented, I always kind of assumed, ah, you know, probably some of these guys put themselves in this position with, you know, drugs or alcohol or whatever. But maybe, you know, also there, there's another side where you've got, you know, a couple guys who are victims of circumstance and just wrong place, wrong time. And so for me to, to be in the shelter and see the 50/50 split, to see, you know, what I perceived to be a 50/50 split, some guys were in there by their own doing and some guys just had a string of bad luck. And I, but I think more important than that, to see that these were all across the board, these were real, real people that formed complete sentences and had a daughter and, you know, what one guy had, had been to college and had his own painting business. And then there he was at the shelter. And I, I think for me to see that yes, there are guys that are on the side of the road and are begging for money and are able bodied and should have a job. There are those guys that, that to me are, are the scum of what we're trying to create in this great country. And then to see that there are guys that just had a tough break, but we're back and we're up at six o'clock in the morning and we're going out and earning $50 on the day and saving $40 of that times seven days a week, times four months. And then after that four months, they were going to be back out and on their own. I think, again, it's inspiring to see, to see that component of the, of the shelter because some guys you meet them in the shelter and you think, you know what, you're probably going to be here and to, if not this shelter, another shelter or out on the street in two years and five years, you, you may never be off the streets. And then to see another guy and he's saying, man, this one, this one is going to make it in three months, he's going to be out of here and he's going to be on his own. And so I think for me to be able to see that was, was, like I said, was very inspiring. Awesome. So talk to me about what happens. I mean, once you get to that point and I love that you brought up the, you know, the breakdown of, you know, how much you save and knowing when you're going to get out of there. Because I do want to talk about that in a bit more detail because, you know, one of the things that Greg Hartle told me when, when I sat down with him and asked him about the very beginning of the $10 in a laptop story, he said that, you know, if 90% the success rate for somebody who makes it out within 90 days is incredibly high. And he said, after the first 90 days, what happens is your circumstances and your identity get intertwined and then it becomes really hard. And that's why speed matters so much in a process like this. So I want to ask you your perspective on that. And then let's get into what, what happens from, you know, I mean, to the point where you get out. Yeah, I mean, I saw that. I saw guys that had been kind of migrating from shelter to shelter for, you know, six months, a year, five years, some certainly longer. I mean, I, and I think you see this attitude that it does, like you say, become part of their identity. I mean, they just, not that they don't know that there's more out there, but they just kind of figured this is it. You know, this, this is, this is what I am meant to do is just go from shelter to shelter, shelter to shelter, hustle up or grind it out day to day and then maybe ultimately I make it out, but probably not. And I think, you know, the speed definitely does matter. No, no question about it. And I think for me to ask if I would have stayed there for six months and then a year and then two years if I would have been in that same environment, would have started to cut to my core a little bit, absolutely. And, and I, I think that's part of the struggle. It's part of the adversity is part of the journey is, is getting punched in the face and then punching back, right? And so for me, it was important that speed was important. It was important for me to get out. It was important for me to kind of move to the next level and then the next level and the next level. And, and the next level meant day to day, it meant month to month and then it meant, you know, at the end of this year, ultimately, I'm going to have $2,500, right? And then after I have saved that amount of money, what will I do next? And so for me, it was a, it was a day to day thing, whereas some guys just looked at this whole grand picture and thought, well, I guess this is kind of where I'm, where I'm meant to be. And so, and you could see it at dinner time, you could, you, you know, you, there were just pockets of guys sitting, you know, three, four, five together and you could just tell who were, who were the pessimists, who were, who were negative, who were the drugs of society, as opposed to the guys on the other side of the room, sitting four or five together who were just kind of masterminding this plan to, to get out of this five year funk that they had been in. So it was hard. But again, it's about drawing that energy, I think from, from those around you. Yeah, amazing. I mean, it's, I love that you brought up that people look at it as this whole gigantic, you know, thing, as opposed to you who's thinking, okay, what am I going to do today? And, you know, for people listening, I mean, to me, this is one of those things. That's how you approach any big goal. It's not, you know, what does the finish line look like and how am I going to get to the finish line? It's, how am I going to make a few steps today toward the finish line? Yes. And for some, that's easy. And for some, it's very challenging because you can't really see the, the bigger picture necessarily. You, you think, Oh my gosh, I would like to live in that house and that house is beautiful. And my gosh, look at that front lawn. It's so green. And, and that guy is mowing the lawn and he's got the bushes. He's probably going to trim the bushes next and it's got new paint. And is that a hot tub back there? And you think, wow, I would really love to have that house. I mean, I, I know that I'm, that I'm, that I'm poor right now, but I love to have that house. And then you look at the price tag and you think, God, $350,000 or $300,000, you know, it's so far beyond the realm of possibility to consider that I will ever have $300,000, right? But maybe I don't need $300,000. Maybe I need $25,000 for a down payment. And you think, good Lord, 25, I've got $722 in my bank account. I've been saving that for six months. How am I ever going to have the money for this down payment? And I, so I think when, when you look at this huge big picture, it can be daunting. But when you break it down, when you think, okay, $300,000 house, I would like to have that. And in order to do that, I've got to have a steady job that will allow me to pay the mortgage. In order to do that, I've got to have an education. In order to have an education, I've got to apply. And in order to apply, I've got to go ahead and get an application and do it, right? And so I think if you break it down to the smaller components, what can I do today to succeed in, in 10 years, right? In 10 years, I want the house. But right now, I've got to apply for, for the, the job or, or the two year training to get the job that I want. And then when it comes to start saving, I, you know, I'm not going to be able to save $25,000 in two years, but I can save $25,000 in six or seven years if I save $20, $30, $40 a day, right? And so I think if you break it down like that, you know, you can see that this is a daunting task, but it's not as daunting as just looking at the immediate end result, right? And so for me, while I was there for a year, I had my one year goal, $2,500. And then you break that down by the day. I mean, you're talking, you know, less than, than $10 a day that I've got to save. And then once I have that money, wow, think about the things that I can do with $2,500, I can buy a lawnmower and a trailer to go on the, the back of my pickup truck, right? And, and then I can mow lawns. And then in four years, maybe I'll have a fleet of three trucks. And, you know, I, I think if we look at how we can slowly build rather than the end result of having $300,000 for a house, if we go day by day, it makes the journey of first of all, a lot more palatable and fun. But I think it makes it, it makes it easier to, to attain. Mm hmm. Well, you know, what's interesting, uh, like you bring up these daunting tasks. And I think, you know, like, I've seen certain people who have a gift for looking at something and just breaking it up into hundreds of pieces. And it, it seems, you know, incredibly intimidating. I think part of it is a mindset thing, right? Like it's one thing to be able to, to, to break it up. But I mean, I think certain people are built in a way that says, okay, you know what? Yeah, this is extremely daunting and overwhelming. I mean, we're in the middle of planning our first event, uh, which will happen, you know, in a month from now. And I remember sitting down at the very beginning thinking, I have no idea how this is going to happen. But I know that this is the starting point. I'll buy the domain name and put up a page and we'll see where it goes. Yep. And, but I think that just that first step or the ability to believe that you can break something up into pieces and make it happen, that's another conversation entirely from actually doing it. And I'm wondering, you know, do you think there's something distinguishes people who have that inside of them? You got it. You, you know, well, perhaps so, but perhaps not. But I think that when you break it down so far, you exhaust yourself into this world of breaking things down. You know, I, I think you just have to, you have to do it. A lot of times we think, oh, well, you know, am I naturally good at this or am I, you know, I don't know. And then we break it down and then we just get in our heads and we talk ourselves out of it. And then we're right back at square one and we're even more intimidated. The best example that I could give in my present life, my wife really wants to take ballroom dancing classes. And, and, and, you know, I'm, I'm not a, I don't have rhythm and I'm not a fan of dancing of any kind necessarily. Although I love, I mean, I love just doing things when I went with my wife. And, but she wants to do these ballroom dancing classes and I don't want to do these ballroom dancing classes. But I think, and, and, and I'm not saying I'm just going to do this just to appease her, but I'm thinking, you know what, in order for me to, to live a, certainly a happier and healthier life with a happier and healthier wife, I'm, I'm going to have to do this. But also it, you, I just have to go do it. You know, I, I can't think, oh, well, you know, should I, should I do the ballroom dancing classes or should I not, you know, what's going to happen if I do or if I don't, I just, I just go do it. And then I will decide once I'm in there, right? And I think if we're going to enact change, we have to, in our own lives, we have to dive in headfirst, first rather than always over analyzing what could or could not happen. Certainly when you dive in with the business, you want to have a business plan and a marketing plan. But ultimately, it's a matter of, am I going to test this out? Am I going to go for it or not? Otherwise, it's two years later, and you haven't started your business, you haven't bought the domain name, you haven't, you know, really enacted any kind of, you haven't taken ballroom dancing classes and you're right back at square one. Yeah, I mean, I think the view keeps changing with every step forward. And then as a result, you start to figure out what to do next. Explaining football to the friend who's just there for the nachos, hard tailgating from home like a pro with snacks and drinks everyone will love, any easy win. And with Instacart helping deliver the snack time MVPs to your door, you're ready for the game in as fast as 30 minutes. So you never miss a play or lose your seat on the couch or have to go head to head for the last chicken wing. Shop Game Day faves on Instacart and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three gross reorders. Offer valid for limited time, other fees in terms apply. Ryan Reynolds here for, I guess, my hundredth mint commercial. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Honestly, when I started this, I thought I only have to do like four of these. I mean, it's unlimited premium wireless for $15 and what power there's still people paying two or three times that much. I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim blaming here. Give it a try at midmobile.com slash switch whatever you're ready. $45 up from payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speed slower above 40 gigabytes of CD-Tails. Hey there, it's Greenie and H.E.M.O. and we are back and better than ever. Got your answers is for sale. And if you are interested in winning every sports debate you have for the rest of your life, this is the book for you. We take the 100 biggest sports debates and answer them, settle them once and for all. Meanwhile, H.E.M.O. what's your favorite part of the book? 100 sneaky H.E.M.O. trivia book. All that and a whole lot more. It's called not your answers. It's available anywhere you get your books right now. Forging ahead together drives Colorado's pioneering spirit. At Chevron, we donate funding and volunteer thousands of hours in support of the community's we call home. We also employ our neighbors to deliver the energy needed as the state's largest oil and natural gas producer. All to help improve lives in our shared backyard. That's Energy in Progress. Visit Colorado dot Chevron dot com. Discover Hydro, the best kept secret in fitness. Hydro is the state of the art at home rower that engages 86 percent of your muscles, delivering the ultimate full body workout in just 20 minutes. From advanced to beginner, Hydro has over 500 classes shot worldwide and taught by Olympians and world class athletes. For a 30-day risk-free trial, go to hydro.com and use code ROW 450 to save $450 on a Hydro Pro Rower. That's H-Y-D-R-O-W dot com code ROW 450. This is a mini meditation guided by Bombus. Repeat after me. I'm comfy. I'm cozy. I have zero blisters on my toes, blisters. And that's because I wear Bombus, the softest socks underwear and t-shirts that give back. One purchased equals one donated. Now go to bombus.com/acast and use code ACAST for 20 percent off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com slash ACast and use code ACAST at checkout. Yeah, no question about it. So let's do this. Let's shift gears. Let's talk about some of the byproducts of this whole experiment of yours and kind of the external things that have happened in your life as a result. After you go through this year, you get to $2,500. I mean, obviously there's a book about this. I mean, what happens from here? Where does the story go? Yeah, well, I'll tell you a couple of things. And it's great to have had the experience of writing this book and being on different shows. And it's been a wonderful professional journey. No question about it. And I think the process of first self-publishing this book and then getting it out there and then HarperCollins buying the book. I mean, it's just it and then selling the book, my agent sold the book in Chinese. The book is in Chinese now and we got nothing for we got like $50 in a plate of kung-pao chicken for the rights, but we got the rights sold to China. And it's just been so much fun and exciting to see how these things have developed. And then like I said, to speak to high schools and colleges, it's a lot of fun. But I think the most important component and you touched on this much better than I did at the beginning of our interview, I think walking away from this, I love that I sold this book and I love that I get to speak and I and and I love to be able to share these different ideas and to get this discussion going about, you know, is the American dream alive and what advantages did I have and and what did it take for me to succeed? I love that conversation. I think more than anything, if you take all of that away, this is still the most wonderful year of my life. I mean, think about that. Think about meeting Derek and BG and EZE and Leo and and guys that I wouldn't have otherwise met in my life to be able to have a year to spend with them, to move furniture alongside them, to lay my head, you know, four or five inches away from them at the at the homeless shelter when they scrunched us all up together in those mats to really get to know these guys and and hear their stories. I mean, this this was regardless of the book or any professional success, it was the greatest year of my life. And so I think I think ultimately it it's important to find that work life balance. It the book, the the speaking, all these things, wonderful, great. And it's important that I had perspective on the fact that this was this was a great, great journey in my life. Amazing. Well, Adam, I'm going to wrap things up with my final question. I mean, I am really, really happy Charlie sent you my way because this has been amazing and inspiring and eye opening. So, you know, our show is called the unmistakable creative and my question for you to wrap things up in a world of this much noise. How do you become unmistakable? You dive in head first and I'll tell you tell you one final story. When I recently took a one year trip around the world and I was down in Nicaragua and they were having this festival at Omotepa Island. There were five 600 people that were watching this bullfighting in in this kind of makeshift bullfighting ring. And so there are 500 600 Nicaraguan's that are watching this bullfighting. And I really wanted to do this. I really wanted to do this bullfighting. You know, I wanted to to have this experience, you know, check it out, check it off the bucket list even though I didn't have it on the bucket list. This is something I would love to to experience. And so there was a lot of back and forth with my with my guide who I'd hired for $10 a day to take me all over to these these great places. And finally, we went across the street to this restaurant and I paid 60 cents for this red tablecloth. And I hopped in there. They a gringo had never been in in this bullfighting ring, all the festivals that they'd had. And and I, you know, stood across from this bull. It was the most frightening moment of my life. I mean, I'm I'm 10, 12 feet away from this, this snarling bull who is literally salivating and you know, rustling his hoods, his hooves in the in the dirt as you see on TV. It was the most frightening moment of my life. And I think it was also one of the more defining moments of my life to say, Cali, this is so scary. But I want to face this because if I can face this moment, then I can face other moments in my life. And so for me to to be there and and just just have the opportunity just to dive in to just go for it. And, you know, we'll see what happens on the back end. If I get gored, we'll deal with that. And if if I, you know, emerge triumphant, then that will be a wonderful moment in my life as well. I think just to dive in and do it, that's when we create these wonderful stories and these wonderful journeys in our lives. Awesome. Well, Adam, let me say it's been my absolute pleasure to have you here as a guest on the unmistakable creative. You know, this has been amazing. I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join us and share your whole story with our listeners. Dude, this is great. And and cheers to you for this these wonderful, wonderful interviews that you do. I mean, my gosh, it just it it opens up a lot of people's eyes to to their own possibilities. So so yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me on. But thank you for doing this this wonderful show. Yeah, my pleasure. And for those of you guys listening, we'll wrap the show with that. You've been listening to the unmistakable creative podcast. 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Finding that one little bit of greatness inside of you
Mastering the art of diving in head first to everything
The numerous businesses that Adam failed at
How failure prepares you for the moments you get punched
Drawing inspiration from those around you who get back up
Learning to respect the failures that happen in your life
Lessons learned from the world of college basketball
Learning that you have to be great at one or two things
Why 10,000 hours of practice doesn’t guarantee a thing
Considering the practical aspects of living your life
The unexpected things that were in a homeless shelter
Lessons from people who live in the homeless shelter
The misperception we have of homeless people
Why speed matters so much in your goals
The importance of looking at things day to day
Breaking goals up into small pieces that seem achievable

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