Ikigai

Let’s talk a little bit about your history. You were a trader in Chicago, then you did some production work in Hollywood, then you tried to stand as an account executive at LinkedIn and decided none of those things were really for you. So, why not? And how has that compelled you to think about what your greater purpose truly is, and how would you describe that?

I’m a huge believer in the Japanese concept of ikigai. And ikigai is a framework that basically says that you can’t be the best in the world at something unless it’s the intersection of: what do you love to do? What does the world need? What are you uniquely great at? And what can you ultimately make money doing and make a career out of.
And it was so clear to me when I learned this framework that this business was right at the intersection of my strengths, it was something I’m passionate about. This was just the perfect, I love making people happy, this was the perfect business for me.
And in retrospect, one of the things that I tell, you know, I look at my own story and I try to give advice to younger entrepreneurs is, so often you hear about people start businesses because a category is big, but the truth is, in a big category, the person that’s going to win is going to be the person that is most passionate about it.
They live and dream that category, they’re thinking about it all the time, their play is somebody else’s work. And if the thing that you can do for play, the thing that gets your mind thinking about when you’re at work, that should be not the side hustle, that should be the main hustle. And from my perspective, that framework was something that really helped show that this was the thing I needed to be working on full time.