(upbeat music) Success looks so easy from the outside, but all successful people have had to overcoming enormous obstacles along the way. And in many cases, look failure right in the eye. Most successful people don't focus on the struggle and they rarely talk about it because that's not what creates success. Join us here. Where we'll chat with serial entrepreneurs, both men and women, and share the good, the bad, and the ugly of entrepreneurship. We'll talk about the obstacles we've faced and how to overcome them, to reach the success that you desire. I am your host, Kami Lehman, and this is She's Invincible. (upbeat music) Hey, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today on She's Invincible. Guess what? We have turned to He's Invincible once again, and I am so excited to introduce to you this Invincible one. Adam Rosen, a world traveling entrepreneur, sold his first tech startup in 2019. He now leads EOCworks.com, helping companies get sales through cold email and the nomadcloud.com with 200,000 subscribers, supporting entrepreneurs who want to explore the world. Oh my gosh, what a short and precise bio, Adam. It's so great to have you here. Welcome to She's Invincible, and I'm excited to have you as one of our He's Invincibles today. Thank you so much for having me, Kami. I'm excited to be here and to be chatting with you. Yes, yes, so exciting. And as we talked before, it just amazes me how much you've done in such a short time. So there are people that are retiring that have not had the success or done the work that you've done or seen the places you've seen. And I'm super excited to share you with our listeners and just dive in. So are you ready to get started? Let's do it. Let's go. Okay, let's start with this. Let's tell our listeners how in the world did you get where you are today? And what makes you invincible? So I never held like a true corporate job. My first job at a college in terms of not working at restaurants, but my first actual career-focused job was just starting my first business. So I started my first company about three weeks before I graduated from my one-year MBA program that I was taking at the time. And my first tech started by half for about five years. I sold that company back in 2019. And one thing I always like to make abundantly clear, and I know, Cammy, we discussed this yesterday, is one of my issues with the startup world is that it's so overglamorous, where we all think these massive successes were overnight successes. And we're all tricked into believing that, especially on your first company, your second company, your third company, they're gonna be wildly successful. They're gonna make a boatload of money from it. And it's a smooth sailing ride. And as we all know, anyone who's an entrepreneur, it is always a roller coaster. And my first company was just that. It was the ultimate roller coaster. And while, yes, it was acquired, it was not acquired for the number that you dream of when you're starting a company. So I always like to make that abundantly clear. But with that company, one of the things we always did exceptionally well was getting new customers. And a lot of these customers were big brands, like Think, Think of America, Amazon, Apple, Gold, and Disney. And we got just about all of them through just cold emailing them. So when I sold the company, one of the things I did is I started to do a lot of work with different companies and different startups. And one of those startups I was advising just said to me, "Hey, Adam, can you talk to my head of sales? "She's struggling to get meetings on the books." And I talked to her and I saw there was a big gap with what they were not doing when it comes to cold email. So long story short, I called my previous co-founder of my last tech startup. I said, "Hey, man, I think we can help these guys out. "What do you say?" And anyway, that was about three years ago at this point. We've been going strong now for over three years where we do cold email outreach for our companies that want to get more customers. - Oh my gosh, I love it so much. Okay, tell us what makes you invincible. - Well, one of my favorite quotes is I used to have written on my office back when I was living in Boston was perseverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages. And it was George Washington that said that back in 1776. And it's something that I always try to live to. Whether the times are good or the times are bad is I always try to remind myself, if I can persevere through this and I can have a good attitude, something good will come from it. So I would like to think that I'm building towards that saying of perseverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages. So I'd like to think that's what makes me invincible. - I love it. Okay, so before we go any further, I do plan to talk a little bit later about this traveling and the Nomad and all of these things. But when did that first start for you, that passion for seeing the world and just being a Nomad? Where does that fall into this journey? - If you had met me during my first startup and I don't say this for any other reason of it was just my reality. And those the only way to build a business was to be stuffed in your office all day every day. So I was the guy who was literally seven days a week in the office almost every single day in Boston, whether it was 90 degrees outside or as negative nine degrees outside. I was in the office Monday through Saturday, typically six a.m. until six p.m. Sundays I'd go a little later, go in a nine a.m. Leave around six, seven p.m. So it was just, it was a type of lifestyle that I just always lived. I thought that's what I had to do. So the way I'm living now is the complete opposite of what I ever thought I would be doing. But to answer your question, it was a few months into starting this company, email outreach company, my co-founder was already traveling abroad. So he was actually traveling abroad during COVID. And my lease was up at the time in New York, which is where I was living previously. And he was like, hey, man, why don't you come out to Florence? You could crash on my couch for the month. And then we'll see what's going on with this business and see what's gonna see what comes after that. And I thought I would probably go there for a month, come back to the States, move into somewhere and kind of build my life somewhere else in the States. And now we're three month, three years, I should say in. And I've been traveling the world ever since. - So that little John on the couch worked out really well for you and it opened the whole new world. I love that so much. So it's been three years that you've been traveling the world and working and continuing to grow your business. Amazing. All right, let's jump in. Today we're talking about, oh, and this is like such a topic about cold email, using cold email to get more customers. Oh my gosh. I'm excited to hear what you have to say about this. I know you are the actual expert now with a huge, huge list and your newsletter. So let's jump in. Let's first talk about why is email such a great way to build your customers? - Well, for anyone that's listening to this that either has a business or wants to have a business, one of the things I love about cold email is how pinpoint you can get. You don't have to just sit back and wait and hope that your customers come to you. It could be much more proactive. When you do an Instagram ad or an Instagram video or Facebook, TikTok, you name it. You kind of put it out there that you're hoping for people to come and you're waiting for people to come. Where with email and you can be very proactive and you can get exactly to the type of buyers you want. So if you want to reach out to CMOs of companies with 100 to 500 employees, with making $5 million of revenue or more in a year, you can reach out to just those folks. So I love how pinpoint it is and how proactive you can be. Now, when you think about cold email though, the way to boil it down, 'cause it does get a bad rap. We all have heard the order stories of cold email. We're all frustrated with some of the bad emails that are sitting in every single one of our inboxes right the second. But when you think about cold email, all it is is a means to connect person A to person B. With my first startup, again, how we got just about every customer was through cold email. How I found the investor that ended up being our anchor investor for that startup was through cold email. How we found the company that ended up buying mine was through cold email. How I got partnerships was through cold email. How I've been on, at this point, I've been on almost 100 podcasts and a good chunk of those have come from just cold emailing folks and saying, "Hey, would you be interested in having me on as a guest?" So if you just think about cold email as a way to connect person A to person B, just know that it is an avenue to get whatever those appointments are that you're looking for. And then, of course, just how do you do it effectively? That's always the million dollar question. That was my next question. I love it. So I just actually wrote that down. Where are you finding these people that you're cold emailing? So there's a lot of different sources, but the good news now is the cost of getting lists is a fraction of what it was, even a year ago. For context on that, what I mean is like a year ago, there was a lot of people that were buying contact lists off of a Zoom info, for example, where some of them are paying a dollar more per contact. We used to sell email lists for a good price, and it was like around 25 to 30 cents a contact, and that was a good deal. Now you can get contact lists, high quality contact lists for a few pennies. And one of the sources that we love is a tool called instantly.ai. It's a great way to get high quality lists for cheap. So that's one of them. But there's many out there that exist, which is good, because it's brought down the price significantly. - Yes, that makes it so doable. So when, as we talk about this, do you do any paid advertising or are you just going through these lists? - For my company or for our clients? - Either way. - For our clients, we just do cold email, we'll also do cold LinkedIn, and we'll also build out newsletters. We're testing a little bit with paid advertising with my company now, but the majority of our customers, about half of them have come from just cold emailing folks. - That's amazing. Okay, talk to me about building an email list, because that's the one thing that people lack, right? Most small businesses or entrepreneurs are like, I wish I had a bigger email list that I could send all these messages to. So talk about that a little bit, and what's your thoughts on that? - Anyone who wants a bigger email list, you could have that in about 30 minutes. So I'll explain what I mean by that. So if you just think about cold emailing, I'm gonna boil it down to three main things that I need to be done now. For anyone listening, take this, run what they didn't do. The cold email world has changed a ton, a ton, a ton, a ton, especially over the last eight or nine months, where Google and Microsoft, these different providers have put new restrictions out there, which has made it so it's more difficult for people to just say, "Hey, I'm gonna throw out some cold emails and hope it works." But it's made it better where if you're someone who can do everything right, we're seeing better results today, than we were even 18 months ago, more of the golden age of cold email when you talk to folks. So there's really three things that everyone needs to do though, if you wanna get results through cold email. One is infrastructure, and I'll explain what I mean by that. Two is, to your point, Cammy, high quality list. And then three is, of course, copy. Those are like the three most simple things. So what do I mean by infrastructure? Anyone listening here, if you do any type of mass outreach, and I mean like 50 emails in a day even, do not, do not, do not do that off of your main domain. If you do that now more than ever, you are at a huge risk of every email within your domain becoming spammy, your deliverability dropping and proposals going out to potential customers landing in their spam versus their inbox. So it is a big no-no. So if you are someone who's mass emailing off your main domain, please stop doing it right now, it's too risky. So what do you need to do instead? You wanna create your email infrastructure. So you wanna set up different domains that you can send from, different emails that you can send from. So that's the basics with infrastructure. It's not as complicated as it might sound. Just know that you need to have different, you need to have your infrastructure built if you wanna send mass emails. Happy to get as nerdy here, Cammy, is it like? Or just email me and let me know any questions and I'm happy to answer them. Number two is lists. Again, like I mentioned, it is so much easier to get lists now. You can go on an instantly.ai, type in your little search features by location, by industry, by role, by revenue. You'll get lists in literally a matter of seconds. Three is copy. Now, how can you get high quality copy? Well, if you want just a simple way of getting copy, email me, I have a free, or we'll put in the show notes. We'll have a free chat should be T-Proved that will basically help you rewrite your emails in different styles that we have used that have gotten as good results. So you can have that for completely free. A simple way of looking at emailing is just one sentence, what's the purpose of your email? One sentence, what's the problem you solve? One sentence, what's your solution? One sentence, what's your social proof? One sentence, what's your call to action? If you do that, you're already doing better than 90% of the cold emails out there. So that's a very high level, simple way of thinking about it. Infrastructure, lists, and copy. Oh my gosh, that is so good and so simple, I love that. So, okay, let's talk a little bit about this AI 'cause it seems like you're utilizing that which is amazing in such a great way. When you're trying to write copy with AI, what kind of rules do you need? Because I hear a lot of people say like, they'll look at an article and be like, oh, they didn't write that, AI did. Like, how do you avoid those things? So that people like you got the best of the best, but it's not like that typical AI template. - Yeah, we're gonna supercharge your this by that. We all know whenever you see superchards, that is of course written by AI. So, one of the things I talked a lot about, and I was when I was in Hawaii earlier this year, I had spoken in an AI marketing conference. And one of the things I showed them was if you go on the chat, you'll be team, you just say, hey, write me a cold email for my type of company, reach out to these types of folks. The email it's gonna produce is going to be horrible. It's going to be a long email. It's gonna have chat GPT-style words to your point, Tammy. It's gonna be a bad email. Versus if you know how to prompt AI properly. 'Cause AI, it's all about what input are you giving it? If you give it strong input, the output will be great. If you don't want AI to use words like supercharge, you can train it through a prompt to not use supercharge. So, AI is all about the input, you give it. So that's why we built that GPT prompt so that people could go on there because if you use that prompt, we've already trained that GPT, it's a 10-page prompt we built, that basically says don't use these type of words. Use it in this structure, speak to it like you're this type of person. So, you have to train the GPT 'cause if not, GPT or any AI that you use is gonna output language that is probably gonna sound like traditional AI-type language. - Right, and I hear that a lot that people look at something and say that. Okay, so I'm gonna go back to what you were saying about infrastructure for a second. And I wanna talk about these multiple domain emails, right? From multiple domains. Listen, I don't know about the rest of the world, but I can't keep track of the passwords I have today. Every time I try to access my own stuff, I gotta change my password again. How do you even, is there like a simple way that you can manage that so that when you have, I can't imagine having more. So, how do you manage that? - Yeah, so one of the things that my company does, we do build out the infrastructure. When we do it, we just have a login spreadsheet that we just share with our customer. So, they have access to it. But the key is if you do something simple like that, like even if somebody wants to buy this on their own, you could do it on your own and just keep it in a login spreadsheet. The reason why I love instantly as an example, it's all can be done through there. Even creating the domains and emails can also be done through there as long as you have a basic level of knowledge. So, a lot of this stuff sounds more complicated than it actually is. 'Cause I know setting up a domain, it's a pain in the butt. - Yeah. - Most people don't do it, most people don't wanna do it. But if you wanna cold email, it's become the necessary evil because if you don't do it, you just might as well not even focus on emailing as a priority 'cause you're just not gonna get results at this point. - Oh my gosh, that's amazing. All right, let's switch over a little bit. I have questions about newsletters. Like, so you bought this company, you grew it to over 200,000 subscribers. Let's talk a little bit about, first of all, what is the benefit of this newsletter? - Well, I'll say the reason why I did it and then I'll get into the benefit for the audience is just because, for me, I have wanted to learn the newsletter game. I wanted to share how people can travel and make money. Travel's the most beautiful place in the world, they make money, you don't have your cake and eat it too, but I didn't know exactly how to do it. So, when we stumbled across this newsletter, it was a perfect opportunity for us to dip our toes into sharing more about how people could live a similar type of lifestyle as I am, if that's what they so desire. And then, two, is to be able to learn, hey, how do we build a newsletter? How do we make it successful? And then, also, how do you buy a business for X and build it up to something that's much more valuable? So, those are kind of the reason why I personally did it, but in terms of the audience, we make it so that it's focused on great places to travel in the world, great places for nomads to travel in the world, great places to make money while you travel the world, and then we have more of a premier membership for a smaller group within our community, where we send them a weekly jobs update every Friday of different remote jobs that they can do that pay at least $20 an hour, because a lot of our community, what they told us is, hey, we want to travel the world, but we don't know what jobs will allow us to do that. So, we created more like a premium community where we also share curated jobs for folks that want to work remote and, you know, make decent money while doing it. That's brilliant. Oh my gosh, that's brilliant. So, what are your top tips for the average Joe who wants to grow their email list for their newsletter and get more subscribers? What would you say to somebody who doesn't really, you know, done that well? - To get creative. So, like, you really got to figure out who is your ideal audience, and there's ways to get creative with it. Like, for example, one of the things that we did is we were able to do marketing to folks in Instagram that have digital nomads in their bio. So, it's like, what are some different ways that we can get creative to figure out who is our ideal customer? How can we, when we book meetings for ourselves, how can we make sure that those people are also going to our newsletter when people are reaching out to us, whether it's through a Facebook ad or through our website, that they're also added to the newsletter. And then most importantly, how do we create engaging content so that people are engaging with it? Because even for us, one of the things that we do with our newsletter is we are always also cutting people from our newsletter, too. When people aren't engaging over a month, we cut them out of the newsletter because we don't want low engagement. So, a big priority for us is not just having a ton of subscribers. We want to have great subscribers that are also engaging with our content, that are, you know, clicking on our different articles, that are supporting our advertisers, that are opening up our emails. So, if people aren't engaging with it, you know, typically every month, we'll just do a scrubbing of it, too. So, you also want to just make sure that your subscribers are engaged as well. - Oh, this is so good. All right. So, how often do you send out your newsletter? - We do ours once a week, but now we have this jobs report that we send on Friday, but it's to a much smaller list. I think right now there's 35 people that are subscribed to our Nomad Clouds Plus, and then we have over 200,000 subscribers on our main newsletter. So, the people that are Nomad Cloud Plus, they get that extra newsletter every Friday. - Nice. And my last question around this is affiliates. Do you have affiliates where people are clicking on these trips and vacations and jobs and whatever, and how's that working? - Yeah, a lot of our sponsors, we try to get a set fee. We do some cost per click, too, which is nice. Like, we have some sponsors where, you know, they'll pay us from a dollar to, I think, 360 is the most we've seen as a cost per click. So, those are always great, 'cause a lot of times we'll get a good amount of clicks on those ads that we'll get a lot of set fees. And then we do some that we are more affiliates, too, where every purchase that somebody makes from our clicks, we get some money from. - I love it. Oh, my gosh. So, this could be like, one newsletter can draw so many different things and different types of income as well. So, that is super cool. Oh, my gosh. Okay, anything else that you wanna share about this topic that we haven't covered yet? Just from the traveling standpoint, it may be we'll get into this later, too. 'Cause I know we talked about it yesterday, Cammy. - Yes. - The travel prompt, you know? One of the things that I do as I travel, 'cause I've been, I don't like the term a digital nomad, but I haven't found a term that sticks better. So, we'll just go with it for now. But oftentimes, when I'm traveling, I'm staying in different Airbnbs. And in these Airbnbs, especially when you're staying for a month or longer, which is typically what I'm doing, you can negotiate some really good deals with the Airbnb hosts. Like, typically, you could chop off about 20% of the sticker price, if not more oftentimes. So, we actually built out also a chat GPT prompt that helps you negotiate your Airbnb's as well. So, if anybody wants that, again, that's completely free as well. So, just send me over an email or we'll put in the show notes and it's all yours and use it and save yourself a bunch of money. - Oh, I love it. So, yeah, I didn't wanna talk about that. So, I love that you're saying that now. And so, you have this template that helps walk people through that process so they can negotiate. I was so shocked when you mentioned, I mean, and it landed on me hard as you could tell because you use the word negotiate and I'm like, wait a minute. You mean, you can negotiate. You don't have to just pay the sticker price. Like, I'm looking at all these sticker prices. Instead of looking at, like, this is the house I really want, right? And I'm like, but I don't wanna pay that much. So, I go on to another house and then you opened up this whole new world for me. So, I love that and definitely the link is in the show notes for our listeners. So, let's talk a little bit. We did cover this in a sense. We talked briefly about how do you decide where you're gonna go next? Because I think this is just the coolest thing ever. Like, a lot of people are just very methodical and they're like, they have this list and they just, you know, this is what they wanna do. And I just love what you're doing and the way you do it. So, share with us, like, what is this process that's going on in Adam's mind? When you're like, huh, I'm tired of being in this place. I wanna go somewhere else. - Yeah, so typically, and for 2022 and 2023, especially my co-founder and I were traveling a lot of the year together. Like, we'll spend about six or seven months traveling together. So, it ends up being like our traveling office as well as where we live. And we would just meet, like, towards the end of the year and we would just look at a map and literally just say, oh, this place looks cool. Let's check it out. And in Europe, you can only be in the shanking countries for traveling purposes. You can only be there for 90 days out of 180 days. So, basically, you could be there for three months out of six months, but you have to leave for the other three months. So, we take that into account of just what countries are in the shanking, what countries are outside the shanking 'cause we love spending time in Italy. And we'll just map out, hey, we should go here, this time period, here, that time period. So, that's how we've done it a lot. And that's how we did it this year as well, 2024. And I also travel my girlfriend now too when I met last year when I was traveling. And she's probably a little less spontaneous than I am. And I give her a lot of credit for kind of dealing with how I can spontaneously choose where I travel to. But we're recording this in the beginning of August and we still haven't booked our place for August 15th yet. So, right now, we're just looking at different place in the world and looking at different Airbnbs and deciding where we want to be. - I love that. So, I have to ask you, what has been your favorite place so far that you've traveled to and worked? Every place has really had its own beauty and charm. Like, it doesn't matter where I've been. I've been Cyprus, which was a beautiful hidden gem. Montenegro, a beautiful hidden gem. Spent a lot of different time in various parts of Italy, South of France, Tel Aviv, Paris, London, so many amazing parts all across the world. Hawaii, I spent three or four months in every year. Every place is phenomenal. But probably like the one place that was extra special, was Pozetano, Italy, which is on the Amalfi Coast. So, we spent five weeks there last summer in August and the beginning of September, and that was a really special experience. So, that was probably number one. Lake Como, I was just there, was phenomenal, but really every place I've been to amazing people. And they've all, I'm so grateful, I should say, for how much they've welcomed me and treated me while every place I've been. - That's just fabulous. All right, so you talked, you mentioned, while we're talking here, that you've been on about 100 podcasts. And I always love to talk about this because it is, it's a known fact that podcasting is one of the number one most preferred ways of marketing and advertising and really elevating your brand and yourself. So, tell me about what your passion is and why other people, in your opinion, should be all over this podcast theory. - Well, the great thing about podcasts, especially as you get started, is even if you don't get maybe your number one goal, which might be new customers, you get an added value from every podcast you're on. Like when I first started getting on podcasts, which was probably early 2022, and the hosts were amazing, I'm so grateful for that, but these were a lot of people that, I didn't have a lot of people listening to their podcast, there might have only been a handful of listeners. But the great thing about it was, even though I didn't get a single customer from a lot of those early podcasts, what I did get was practice, so training on podcasts. I got great content that I could repurpose, that nobody knew whether I was on the biggest podcast or the smallest podcast. And then I started to build up social proof, which allowed me to then continue going up the ladder and getting on bigger and bigger podcasts. And now that I've been on some much bigger podcast, it's allowed me to get some pretty good customers. So, now we've been able to, from a business standpoint, to be able to understand that it had a real ROI, but even before all the money that we were able to make from being on the podcast, the branding that I got from it, the experience that I got from it, the connections I got from it, some friendships I got from it, and then of course, the social proof built me up to amazing podcasts like yours. - Oh my gosh, I love that. And you know, I know those things, but I'd love to hear it from our guests that are utilizing this and proving it to be true day after day. You know, I get paid to say it's a great idea to be on podcasts, right? Because my business is to launch top podcasts, but when it comes from somebody else, I think that it's just so much more valuable. So thank you for all of that, Adam. What a great conversation and so much value that you have brought today. You guys, all the links are in the show notes. So be sure to click the links, get to whatever it is, whether you wanna be in Nomad too, and you wanna use that template or figure out this email, this cold email thing with AI, whatever it is, click on those, connect with Adam. What I would love to do, Adam, is have you share with us a little bit about your ideal client? Who are you working with? And what is the result that you're getting for them now? - So we work with our customers in two primary ways. The third way being newsletters, where we build that newsletters, but that's definitely one of our newer offerings. The two primary ways is one, basically our customers give us the keys, we get them on meetings. So we do everything, we build out the whole infrastructure, the list, the copy, the managing of the inboxes, we book the meeting on our customers calendar and they show up. Most of our customers there are further along companies, more established companies, companies with a hundred to even 500 employees. So we do have some early stage startups there, a thing or smallest customer. There's about 10 employees, but a lot of them are more established companies, typically with their head of sales, head of marketing, working with great companies like Magellan Jett, something private aviation company at tomorrow.io, a big billion dollar unicorn AI weather technology startup. But the second way we work with our customers is more for the earlier stage startup, the sub 10 employee startup, the solo founder startup, where it's a hybrid of our full service center DIY, where basically we set up a whole infrastructure, we walk our customers through, all the challenges of going through cold email, what technology to use, how to use it, how to get lists and a great copy. And then they or their virtual assistant or their head of marketing will run the campaigns for them. So typically what those customers were meeting with the founders or someone in their C-suite. - Awesome. And what types of businesses are they? Like what are they product based businesses, service based businesses, just trying to give people an idea of like, this is for you, you guys run. It is so rare I come across a business where cold email shouldn't be for somebody. But for anyone who's especially business to business, it's almost never where I come across a B2B company that shouldn't be using cold email. Like we work with everyone from Airbnb rental properties, traditional real estate, property companies to B2B tech startups, to service based businesses. We've even done work for a faith based movie with Gloria Gaynor, the I Will Survive woman who's selling into, who was trying to sell their movie into pastors and priests at different churches. And we ended up being very successful with them. So it really can work for just about anybody. Whether you work with us or you do it on your own is what I'm talking about. So if you are someone who's special, if you have a B2B company, you should be leveraging cold email 'cause it could be a huge asset for you and much more efficient than a lot of the other marketing that you would need to do. - I love it. And that was actually gonna be my next question is do people just hire you and you take it over? Or do you also have programs where you teach others to do it themselves? - Yeah, exactly. So our premiere as we do it for you, but that DIY we have is we walk you through getting results on your own. So it's not a full DIY 'cause we definitely do a lot of heavy lifting, but yeah, it's more of the training component. - Great. That's awesome. That's exactly what I was getting at. And I love that because it's great for the person that's already ahead of the game who's ready to make that investment, but they're the ones that are trying to get to that position. This helps them to be able to learn the skill and utilize it and grow and then be able to turn it over to you. And I love that that there's an option there for that. Awesome. Okay. Well, this has been so much fun. Let's tell our listeners one place where they can find you just one simple place. - EOCworks.com. - Love it. Oh my gosh. All right. And everything else is in the show notes guys. Just click while you're listening and it will take you to wherever you want to find Adam and connect. - You have moved from fighting cancer to discovering how to live beyond it. But what now? With so many emotional side effects still unknown, as a new survivor, you find yourself in a void as you navigate through the isolation, fear, and an uncertain future that can overshadow you and your family for years to come. Instead of focusing on the uncertainty of cancer, consider how strong and determined you are and think of the strength demonstrated by those who stood beside you through it all. Consider this. You now get to choose who you want to be and what your intentional, fulfilled life can look like. You made it through treatment. We can help you define yourself as a survivor. We're here to help you through this moment, to walk beside you as you shift your mindset from counting the days of life. - To creating a legacy. For more information, visit www.adventuretherapyfoundation.org or contact us at info@adventurefound.org. - Oh, Adam, this has been so great. Thank you so much for being here and being with us, sharing all of this knowledge today. I know it's going to make a huge impact in our listeners, in their journey. I mean, you make it sound so simple. I almost feel like I'm duped right now. Like, how could it be so easy? But I love that and I love that you're doing it. You've got the proof, as you say, and it's working and you're doing it and you can show other people how or that you can do it for them. You know, when she's invincible, we promise our listeners that we're going to bring them these fierce entrepreneurs, that we're going to spotlight their expertise, which you've done so well today. So thank you for all of that value. But we're not done because we also promised them that while we're sharing all this great stuff and they're all saying, wow, this Adam, he's really smart, right? Yeah, he's so lucky. I love that, right? He's so lucky, he gets to travel the world and build his business. Luck has nothing to do with it, you guys. When we hear that word, we just want to smack you. So there's nothing to do with luck. It is all about hard work and smarts and grit and all of those things, persistence, all the things you said, even about what makes you invincible. Like, this is what it takes. And so I love to pull back the curtain and share with our listeners. Like, you want this life Adam has? Are you willing to pay the price that Adam had to pay to have the life he lives today? And we all know as entrepreneurs, there is a price. And so we're ready to tell some stories about that. Are you ready? Let's do it. Let's do it. So I love this, the good, the bad and the ugly. It's a game changer for our listeners because they can actually connect and see themselves where you are and know. Like, there's nothing wrong with me. I need to shake this off and get back to work, right? So there's no giving up. But when she's invincible, what invincible means to us is about getting back up. It's about never giving up. You know, pivoting, making the changes that you need to make, regrouping, and going at it again because nobody ever remembers the guy who gave up. So I'd love to talk about some of your stories on your journey. And I would love to start with the good or the great because that's, I always want to hear the good news first. Whenever someone says to me, do you want to hear the good news or the bad news? I'm like, bring on the good news. So let's start with the good or the greatest part of your journey so far. The greatest part of my journey has been really the people, which I know is an easy thing to say. But everyone I met during, you know, my first, even before I started my first company, my advisor in the college I went to, who taught at entrepreneurship class, that even got me into entrepreneurship because my freshman year college, I couldn't even tell you what that word meant. So the good of meeting people like her, to meeting my co-founder, to meeting amazing customers and people in my first startup, investors, good friends that I met from there, to now traveling and going all around the world and meeting the local cafe owner in a random town in Italy or Montenegro or wherever, to the friends you meet in these different places. So for me, that's been so much of it because we're humans. Until robots officially take over, it's still a human-to-human connection. So the biggest good for me is around all the people that I've been able to meet, which has allowed me to hopefully become a better version of myself today than I was a year ago, or than I was seven years ago when I was tucked away in my office. So a lot of it is around the people I've met. And one of the reasons I started this entrepreneurial journey in the first place was my desire for freedom. And freedom can mean a million different things. It can mean, you know, the freedom to become that dream version of yourself that you see. Freedom can mean traveling here or there. Freedom can be spending more time with your family, your friends. Freedom can mean whatever it is to each individual person. But for me, I've always had these big dreams and big aspirations and never really fully sure how I can get there. But what I've learned in my entrepreneurial journey is that anything can be possible. But yes, you have to put in the work. You have to put in the discipline. You have to work on those muscles to help you get there. But the freedom of entrepreneurship has been so exciting for me. And the freedom of travel has been so exciting for me. Not in probably the most obvious ways, but even in the way of like, "Hey, tomorrow I could wake up in a totally different country in a totally different part of the world, meeting totally different people." Or the freedom of like, "Hey, I could have a new customer tomorrow that could totally change the trajectory of my business." But I don't know if I would have that same perspective if I took more of a corporate job coming out of college, where things are more structured and things are more guaranteed moving forward. So for me, that's a lot of it, is that people in the freedom, in the irony is that as I've been traveling more, I've been so blessed to be able to also spend more time with my family than I was able to when I was in Boston, not too far from them. So yeah, the freedom for me is a really exciting thing. It's something that I try not to ever take for granted, because I know how blessed I am to have my health and to have the opportunity to be able to do all those things. I love that. Yeah, a lot of people don't understand the freedom that comes with entrepreneurship, right between the time and the schedule and the money. And there's just so much freedom that comes with that, that makes it so worth everything that we deal with, right? Which we're about to talk about next. So let's tell a story about the bad. We'll save the ugly for last, but tell us a story about the bad part of the journey. I think the reality, that probably all of us face, I don't care if you work at a Fortune 500 company or you start in your own business, or you've got $100 million in the bank from a great exit. I think probably everyone feels what I'm going to share, but it's the reality of self-taught. As an entrepreneur, especially, we have to be optimistic. If we're not optimistic, then going through what anyone has to go through as an entrepreneur, you're just not going to do. You're going to say, "Look, I'm moving on, screw this. I'm going to try something else, because I don't want to go throw this heartache." You have to be optimistic to an extent that not everyone else has to be, because if you don't believe it, your team ain't going to believe it. If your team doesn't believe it, they're going to leave you. So the self-doubt that always creeps in, especially as you do different things, which, look, for the last three years, I've been traveling full-time. I'm 33 years old, where people, a lot of my friends are getting married or having kids, and I'm in a serious relationship, but I'm not settled down in one location. I'm not having kids tomorrow. So the self-doubt of, "Hey, am I doing the right thing, actually? Should I be going place to place to place, or should I actually be in one location building my business? Is this the best way to build my business, or is this not the best way to build my business? Is this the way I should be building, or is this not the way I should be building it?" The self-doubt that I think naturally creeps into probably everybody, just I hope everyone knows I have those same exact feelings and the same exact thoughts, because it is a constant battle. We have the good angel and the bad angel on all of our shoulders, or the bad devil, I should say, on our shoulders, and it's just, "What are we going to follow? Are we going to let the poison bring us down, or are we going to let the goodness raise us up?" And that's a daily challenge for me. I love that so much. Oh my gosh, and it is that evil twin, right? The good twin, evil twin, or angel and devil. But yeah, I love that. How do you manage that? Because as an entrepreneur, you cannot shut it off. Like you wake up with it, you go to bed with it, you face clients with it. How do you personally manage that? Well, I'm very lucky to have a great business partner, who is someone who, because we all know what we don't always share to the outside world. They didn't always share in the outside world of what was going on, you know, with the business at the time. But we always knew what was going on. So having that support system is so great. Like I do feel for some people that are solo founders and don't want to be solo founders, because it could be such a lonely road. So that's one thing that's huge for me is a great co-founder. I have a great family, support system, great friends, and some great mentors too. You know, people that have been there and done that. And even in my worst days, it's like they could say, "Hey Adam, I had this, this, and this happen. You're going to be just fine. I promise you." So having these amazing people that are friends and mentors that, you know, are a little bit older than I am, that have been through similar type of stuff that I have, can offer a perspective that sometimes we don't always get, because we can be harder on ourselves than anybody else. Like if we talked to somebody else the way we talked to ourselves, we would think we're the meanest person ever. Yet we have no problem talking to ourselves in that way. So I try to remind myself that perspective too. Oh my gosh, I say that all the time. It's like, I would never talk to somebody else like that, right? A client, a friend, a coworker. Oh my gosh, that's such smart wisdom. Okay, here we go. We got to tell them about the ugly. We laugh about it, right? Because you can laugh about it when it's over. That's what I think we need them to know. It's like you feel like it's over. Everything's imploding. And actually one day you're going to look back and laugh. And so we're here to do that. But tell us about your ugly story and how it's been on your journey. Yeah, I'll just give you a couple of quick ideas. Everything from when I was crashing with my one year MBA program, I used to work a ton. I worked for the school running the entrepreneur program. And I was also working at a restaurant four or five days a week while I came to my MBA. And it was great. I got to build up some money in my pocket, some savings. When I started my first company, that first year though, we did not bring in a dollar. My co-founder, we didn't give ourselves a dollar. And I worked at a restaurant to support myself so that my bank account wouldn't be a complete 90 degree free fall. Instead it would just be a gradual free fall. And then a year later, we raised a little bit of money and we got to pay ourselves like a bare minimum salary. But it was just enough to just be getting by every month. And throughout those five years of running the business, like a lot of it, I was just living on my credit card and maxed down my credit card. I was not putting guacamole on my Chipotle burrito. I was eating cereal and peanut butter a lot of nights. There was times where we had enough money in our bank to pay our employees. But my co-founder and I were not paying ourselves and nobody knew that. You know, there was times, I remember we did a big trick to Las Vegas for his big conference in our space. And it was so embarrassing because we didn't have enough money in our business bank account. Our credit cards were basically tapped out where we couldn't even buy a ticket into the conference. So instead, we were sitting in the coffee and the coffee shop next door taking meetings with clients or potential clients. And they're saying, hey, why don't you go with the conference? We're like, oh, we have, you know, with this other thing we have to go to so we can't go to the conference. And just the humiliation of being there and doing that, you know, to having to fire co-founders or having a co-founder quit. To having times where our investor finally said, hey, guys, I'm not going to invest any more money and knowing that we would have to sell the company or it's going to go completely under. I then selling the company but not selling it for an amount that, you know, anybody would dream of or anyone who would invest five years of their life building to sell it for an amount just to give as much money as you can back to your investors. So those are a lot of the natural things that happen in the journey. But all of those calluses are why I am where I am today. All those calluses are why I have the confidence that I have right now. All those calluses are the reason why I can say, you know, health aside, obviously health is a completely different thing. So anything business related, I'll take it on the chin. It's no problem. Doesn't mean I'm going to love it. But I know I can handle it because it probably is not going to be what I like, what I had to deal with in the past. And I know I'm bigger and stronger today than I was then. So those are just a few examples that come to mind. Oh my gosh. Yeah, well, you know, I think it's hard in the moment to remind yourself that these are the moments that will make you. But you know, these what do they call them, those character building moments. But but it is true. And so if anybody's here listening right now and you're feeling like that or you're in that situation, just know you have to keep going. Whatever you need to do, you just have to keep going. Just keep moving. And one day you will look back and you will you will be more confident and more successful and you'll actually be grateful. I know I can't believe I'm actually saying that out loud, right? Because we've all been through a lot, but you will actually be grateful for those times because they are preparing you for this such a time as this. And so Adam, thank you so much. Is there anything else that you want our listeners to know about you or anything that you'd like to add? I just want to give you, Cammy and your listeners, some roses too, and give you your flowers because you to build the successful podcast that you have built is a big tip of the cap. Because I might have shared with you, I had a podcast for a little while and it was so it was a lot of fun, but it was so damn challenging. You know, there's so much that goes into that. People don't see behind the scenes if you want to have the successful podcast. So I give you a ton of credit and of course you help do that for your customers as well. So that's amazing. And then for everyone listening to this, especially if you listen to this whole thing, I always try to give listeners a podcast, especially podcasts like this, you know, business or personal development type of podcast. I give you guys so much credit because there's a million different things that you could be doing right now. There's a million different things that you could be doing that are more like junk food, but instead you're feeding your mind with, you know, amazing content that Cammy and the guests are able to give. So I give you guys a ton of credit because the fact that you're growth-minded, that usually tells me everything I need to know about how successful someone will be in the future. Oh my gosh, Adam, thank you. That is amazing and what a gift to say goodbye with and to wrap this up. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for your wisdom. Thank you for being invincible and mostly for being here to share authentically with our listeners so that they can connect with you and be encouraged by your story and get back up, right? Because that's what it's all about. It just is just about getting back up and I really believe as entrepreneurs that once we figured it out, we owe it to go back to the others and say, "Hey, follow me. I figured this out. I can help you too." This isn't a selfish thing. It doesn't have to be lonely at the top and as entrepreneurs, we are grabbing people by the hands. We're sharing our authentic self with them. It's not easy to do, but oh my gosh, it's so valuable and it makes such a huge impact in the world. So thank you for being a part of that. Thank you for searching and finding us and reaching out because it's been such a joy to talk to you and such a pleasure to be able to really share you with our listeners and inspire them today as they listen in. What a joy. Oh my gosh, you guys, I don't know where you are in your life or your business, but if you are face down on the ground right now, I don't know what else we can say. Other than you are invincible, you can do anything. I know it feels like you can't. When you're in it, you feel like you can't lift your leg. I know it. I've been there. Adam's been there, but we're here to tell you, you can do anything. Nothing lasts forever, not the good and especially not the bad. And if you can just get back up one more time, you can do it. So get back up. You can do it. You can do anything. I love that. Thank you so much, Cammy. Well said. Thank you for joining us today. If you were inspired or learned something new, please follow the show. Submit a rating and review and share us with your friends. If you would like to chat to see if you can attract your ideal client and monetize your business through podcasting, please book a free call with me at cammyleman.com. I can't wait to meet you. [Music]
