Latest / The Bold Lounge / Shawn Nelson: Bold Risks, Big Lessons & Building a Legacy

Transcript

Shawn Nelson: Bold Risks, Big Lessons & Building a Legacy · The Bold Lounge

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge podcast.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: My name is Leigh Burgess and I will be your host.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: If you're anything like me, you love hearing inspiring stories of people who have gone on bold journeys and made a positive impact in the world.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: This podcast is all about those kinds of stories.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Every week, we'll hear from someone who has taken a leap or embarked on an extraordinary journey.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: In addition to hearing their stories, we'll also learn about their bold growth mindset that they use to make things happen.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Whether they face challenges or doubts along the way, they persisted and ultimately achieved their goals.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: These impactful stories will leave you feeling motivated and inspired to pursue your own bold journey.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I believe everyone has a bold story waiting to be freed.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Tune in and get ready to be inspired.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Today I have Sean D Nelson.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: He is the author of the best-selling book Let Me Save you 25 Years Mistakes, miracles and Lessons from the Lovesack Story.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: He's the founder and CEO of the Lovesack Company, which designs, manufactures and sells such furniture as modular couches and beanbag chairs.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Nelson holds a BA in Mandarin Chinese from the University of Utah and a master's degree in strategic design and management from Parsons, the new school for design in New York City, where he later became an instructor.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Thank you, great to be here.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: So excited to talk and jump right into being bold and I have listened to many of your videos and senior story and senior sledding on New Year's Day and doing all these bold things.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: I would love to hear your definition of what bold means to you.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, to me, bold is different than bravery, different than courage.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Bold is a state of mind that is as constant as we can push ourselves to make it, that is as constant as we can push ourselves to make it right.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: So I feel like a lot of those other words that are synonyms or cousins to bold are more temporized and more in the moment where I think that bold can be kind of just a way you live your life, and so as we face opportunities, challenges, even just as you mentioned as we play, as we seek for fun, we can be bold through all those things and just adopt an attitude that goes beyond momentary courage or momentary bravery to just approaching everything with boldness, with confidence, with excitement, with openness and putting down fear.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of an approach to life, right.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: It isn't just, like you said, a moment in time where I'm brave and I step forward, or I did the thing and now I'm done.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: It's just the way that you are.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: It's part of your genome in a way, like your DNA, and you can get it at any point in your life.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: You can maybe I really feel like people have it within them, but it has to get freed at some point or let out, and or let out in a way where they can feel empowered and have agency in their life.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, I agree.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: You have many, many bold moments.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Do you have one that comes to mind that aligns with how you just defined it?
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I believe in putting myself in situations that require boldness and that really push me to keep that edge.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: And so you know two things I can think of just off the cuff that are common for me but useful to staying bold would be.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: You know, on the personal side, I have become obsessed with riding dirt bikes, which in Southern Utah, where I live, is a very easy thing to do in the sense it's available.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: I can, I could ride from my driveway and find some of the best trails in the United States of America complex, difficult, tough stuff, that's, you know, intensely physical.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: But when I first started writing and I only started in my forties it was terrifying, because these types of trails, this type of riding, is dangerous and you can get hurt.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: You can, you know, you could easily fall off a cliff or, you know, fall off an obstacle, have your bike fall on you and all these things I've actually done in some way or another along the way.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: But when I would see some of these little skinny trails that would go up little skinny spines with cliffs on both sides and sometimes almost straight up, almost vertical, I could not believe they were even possible.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: I could not imagine how someone could actually do that.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: And then you know you see someone who's better than you.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: Go do that.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: And you know it brings me to one of my little Sean-isms.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: I celebrate in the book.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: You know, if it has been done it can be done, and why not me?
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: And so then you just have to be bold enough to go for it.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: But before you can even go for it, you have to have been bold enough to wake up every day or every other day or whatever you can afford, and go, put in the time to get reasonably good so that you can handle some of those things.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: So you know, seeking out opportunities to make yourself uncomfortable, to make yourself afraid, to put yourself in a position that you're feeling some vulnerability to me allows you to then face other moments in your life with similar courage, and you know.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: So to flip it to the professional side, at Lovesack we are not content to just make stuff and put our name on it.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: We have this design for life philosophy that we've evolved into.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: That's taken a very long time to develop and we weren't born with it.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: You know I made a big beanbag.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: People liked it.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: We made couches, because our first store had a couch and we were trying to sell more stuff, but we of course had to figure out how to put it in a box, so we invented Sactionals.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: Sactionals have become probably the best selling couch in the United States of America over many years and it's grown the company into the hundreds of millions and billions in sales so far of this Saxonals product.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: What's my point?
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: As we develop new products, it would be easy to take this brand that's penetrated millions of homes that people see on TV and understand and like and love and we have great reviews, great name.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: It'd be easy to take that brand and put it on many different products and just sell our version of those and make another 50 million, 100 million, that sort of thing.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: We're not interested in just doing that.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: We have this design for life philosophy.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: We'll demand that we invent better solutions in whatever category we're going to innovate in.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: And so as we develop those and go to bring them to market and we are doing that now actively it can be very scary in the sense that we're going to put something new in the world that was not there before, has no track record.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: We've sold zero and, by the way, nobody's sold a version of this like we have.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: There are plenty of fill in the blanks out there, but ours is so different, just like Sactionals, you know, ours has nine ways that it's different and we think better.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: But it's risky, right, it's not like, oh, it's just like this, but a little better.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: No, these are big departures, just like Sactionals.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: A big departure from a traditional sectional sofa.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: If you look into them you'll understand.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: Those are super high stakes maneuvers and the upside can be massive, of course, in the hundreds of millions and maybe billions of dollars.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: But the downside is it takes a ton of investment, a ton of time, a ton of energy and there's a ton of risk involved, because there's always a chance it may not work or may not be accepted in the way that we think it should be.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Of course we mitigate that through research and all kinds of other things.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: But just operating a company like that, where the easier thing to do is just oh, make it like someone else's a little better, put your name on it, let's go that requires a ton of boldness to not operate like that.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: So like being on the edge, in kind of being able to put yourself out there to be the first to do something, is part of what you've been doing in the company, but also staying consistent to what you believe in, your brand and alignment with your values and your mission, which you can say it in one sentence.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: But a lot of people aren't able to do all of those things all the time, which is kind of what you're talking about, like you could do something cheaper, one-off and make a lot of money.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: But that's not what it's about and I think that's what you've built in a company that's lasted and continues to have a positive impact.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: We take your you know, the personal example where you see someone go straight vertical up you know up rock that's, you know six inches wide and you're like how in the world did they just do that one?
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Like to see it and know it can be possible, but then also know that you know you then have to do it and try and you might not get it on the first.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: I'm assuming when you're dirt biking you might not get it on the first one.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: I think the closest thing I think I've come to that is like jeeps doing the rock climbing and you're just like, how in the world is our way to keep up that wall, that type of thing.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: But it's doing things first again, I think, and also knowing that it may seem impossible, but it is possible.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Have you always had that inside of you, like, is that something that you grew up doing?
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Or you know being able to be in the forefront, be the one doing the thing that nobody else has done, and then people are following you.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: Probably.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: I think some of that boldness or that draw to the exciting, to the new, to being on the edge, is natural for some people.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: I think it's natural for me to some degree.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: Being on the edge is natural for some people.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: I think it's natural for me to some degree.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, there are Red Bull athletes doing superhuman stuff that I'm not even and I never will be capable of.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: It's not where I've spent my time and, by the way, I'm not even drawn to it like that.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: It's not that I don't necessarily think I'm some kind of adrenaline junkie.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: I just I do like exciting things, I do like dangerous things.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: I I enjoy that stuff, but I also.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: It's like skiing right Like, if you've ever been skiing, it's not very fun until you get good at it and then it becomes really fun, and the better you get out of it, the more fun it is, and I discovered that enough times in my life in different sports and different realms and different activities that I know it's to be true.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Therefore, as I look to take on new challenges, new hobbies, I really am able to use that faith in what I know is to come to push me through the long valley of becoming facile in something which is the harder part, you know, because you can't even attempt that vertical wall unless you've put in the time to be good enough to even attempt it.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Otherwise, one, it's pointless, you can't do it, and two, you're probably going to get hurt.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and being in shape like when you fall.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: There's a whole preparation phase for it.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: There's probably a lot of analogies actually with what you're talking about, with general you know life, but also how we really tackle things that are new or different, particularly as an entrepreneur, I think.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: A lot of the times at least, I feel like I've never done this before, but I'm going to believe that I'll figure it out Like that's why be of my framework for the believe, own, learn, design framework.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Belief is the foundation for everything that you do, like it's.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: You're going to lever off of that self belief of I might fall but I'll get back up or I'm going.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: I can't get up that hill today but I am going to and I'm going to do this smaller one, maybe to work my way up to it, depending on you know your strategy for it.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Do you think that your self belief has been a big factor in you being able to be where you are today?
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: Of course.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: I think that we are all constantly battling our own fears and doubts, and even just daily moods or apathy, and it has to be battled.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll all have good days where we're just feeling like, you know, top of the game, but I think, much of the time and I think it's different for every human being but much of the time we're fighting some of those negative forces and we can't just expect them to right themselves.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: We have to fight those.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: We have to find ways and methods that work for us to get ourselves out of those funks or, by the way, have the again faith to believe that this too shall pass and I will feel better tomorrow.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: But we have to push ourselves, because we can't just rely on the world to get easier, and so these are skills that we develop over time or we don't.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: But I think the highest functioning people, the people that you know, achieve the most rewards in life, whether that's money, whether that's fame, whether that's success however we define it, worked for it, and we don't see that right From the outside.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: We just see, oh man, their life, their job, their business sounds so much easier than mine, but we're not seeing the preparation that went into it.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: And, by the way, the best achievers make it look easy.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: That's part of achieving, I think, at the highest levels.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: You go see a really good singer, a really good musician.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: It just looks so effortless and they just have this natural ability.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: But I promise you, behind every one of those there is 10,000 hours of work that's gone in.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: That you just don't see.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: And yes, certainly people are born with all kinds of natural abilities, but the ones who you're looking at on the stage, they've combined that natural ability with a serious work ethic that you're just not aware of, I promise yeah, they make it look easy.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: So when someone says you're killing it and you're like man you didn't see me in like the fetal position under my desk yesterday but yeah, I'm killing it right and, by the way, you know, none of us want to show that side.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: Really, I think that social media, for the first time ever, at least in the modern age of celebrity, allows for some of that, if the person allows for it themselves.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: And that's why, for like my book, let Me Save you 25 Years Mistakes, miracles and Lessons from the Led Zeck Story I tried to be really explicit with the mistakes I made and some people that I know have read it, you know, have commented on that Like wow.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: I was surprised to see you share this, because I read all the business books.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: I love them.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: They've been my mentor and my companion through, you know, these three decades of growth at Lovesack and as a young business person originally anyway and most of them are filled with great advice, great learnings, even the biographies, great stories.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: But you know, I think that we learn the most from these mistakes and also miracles I mentioned.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: You know, like some things I got lucky, some things happen at the right time, stars aligned, and that's a big part of it.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: We have to achieve a little bit of luck to really break through and it's full of 25 stories that I think can be useful if people choose to maybe learn from my mistakes and not make every one of them themselves Right, because you and I will learn the same things.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: Like any entrepreneur, ultimately we all learn the same lessons.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: You know I can put names to them.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: I've created these 25 little Shawnisms.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: I run the podcast Let Me Save you 25 Years, where we unpack these Shaanisms in great depth with some of the most successful people on planet Earth, and those conversations have been very instructive for me and for my listeners, of course.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: But it's because, ultimately, this life just somehow forces on all of us in our different realms.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: I've had pro football players, I've had actors, I've had, of course, a ton of business people and we all learn the same lessons.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: It's wild.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's just through our filter or through our vantage point, but they're the same.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: I think it's sometimes you have to be bigger than the challenge, and I don't mean like tougher, but you have to have resilience or tenacity or you have to just feel the feels of the failure and you got to keep going, though I think that's the key thing, and a lot of the things in your book are really about taking action and learning and that growth mindset and just dealing with life in a way that we learn to deal with it, and I think some people may give up or it gets too hard or they go back, and I think that's okay because that's your life path, but I think for those of us that stay in it, it can get messy, and I think I appreciate seeing the vulnerability of people's journeys, because I think that's actually where people see, oh, I can make it up that hill.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: Going back to your original I think a stark moment from my book that illustrates that is, of course, the lowest of lows for me was a Chapter 11 bankruptcy start over for Lovesac, which was terrible.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: It's the worst thing.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: It's short of Chapter 7, where you're just out of business and done Chapter 11, you're trying to reorganize the company, reorganize your financials, so that you can continue to operate and to go through.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: That is hell, because not only are you being picked apart by courts and everyone that you owe money to, but you're also trying to run a business and keep people happy and keep people going so that you can reemerge as a new entity, which we did and I'm proud of that.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, it was my MBA in a box, I call it.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: But when we were in the middle of all of that pressure and I'm going out to stores that I'd opened six months before in the middle of the night because we can't work in the malls in the day and you have to show up there and you have to pull them apart and dismantle them because you're closing them down and getting out of that lease through this chapter 11 and using a skill saw to chop in half cash and wrap counters that were just installed six months before with all this money, and it's just while I'm, by the way, trying to run a business, while I'm trying to deal with all the legal implications of a chapter 11 reorg.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: I mean this is like the highest levels of stress and pressure physical, mental, emotional that I've ever felt in my entire life.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: And I, at one point I was sitting at a kitchen table with my parents on a Sunday afternoon and asking them for advice.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: They're not entrepreneurs, I mean, you know, they were self-employed, my dad did some real estate, my mom taught ballet.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: But I'm asking them for advice like what should I do here?
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: Because I could just walk away To your point about we have to keep going and I've damaged people.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: I said to my mom and dad like, look, people have lost money, they hate me, they think I've stolen from them, they think some of this is intentional.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: Of course it wasn't, but I've ruined my reputation.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: I was just a celebrity on national TV with Richard Branson a year ago.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: And here I am in this terrible, embarrassing, humiliating situation and my mom was getting a little bit upset and just feeling for me, I think, emotional, and holding back the tears.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: There was a lot of silence and she finally said.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: There was a lot of silence and she finally said well, sean, you can quit or you can keep going.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: And that's become a Seanism in the sense that we have that choice to make every day when we wake up, everything that we do.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: I could quit dirt biking tomorrow.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: I could just not go anymore.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: You know dumb example, but from the dumb stuff to the heavy stuff, we have the choice to quit or keep going every day of our life and there are times to quit.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: There are things I've quit.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: There are moments in my life where I've given up on something and it's been the right choice to make.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: But in the bigger picture, let's say of Lovesac, this public company that I get to keep running, that's been worth a billion dollars on NASDAQ at different times.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: It would not exist had I quit it, and so I've kept going.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: And so I can't say that's always the right choice, but that's the only choice I've made that's arrived me to this point.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a good point, you know so, from the perspective of keep going, I think what I was alluding to was you know, things do get hard, and if hard is not something you deal with, well, don't be an entrepreneur.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: But that's good.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, to that end.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: I have a Shaughnessy that I talk about a lot, embrace uncertainty and I make the argument.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: I've pondered this a lot.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: People ask all the time what makes an entrepreneur an entrepreneur?
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: What's the secret to success?
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: I think that entrepreneurs have a unique capacity to deal with uncertainty, and uncertainty wrecks most people.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: There's this time where we're waiting.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: That's like the hell time.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: Most people would rather take a slight lower price on their house sale or their car sale or something, than just to have it linger there for another 30 days on the market while you're waiting.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: Uncertainty is just really frustrating for people.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: People want things instantaneously too.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: We have an instant gratification type of mode that exists in a lot of people, and they see things on social media and they think, oh, overnight success.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: And they're like, no, that's actually 30 years or 10 years or 11 years or whatever it may be.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: I think that also plays a piece into it as well.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Do you agree with that?
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: 100%.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: I think that society is really pushing us to walk away from uncertainty.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: It was really pushing us to have shorter attention spans.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: It's really pushing us to, you know, just accept things the way they are, accept people the way they are.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: Accept.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: You know, my truth, that truth, all of these things.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: But in reality there is a lot of mental toughness required if you want to achieve at high levels and there is no way around it.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: And often, perhaps every time, time is a major component of it.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: And so the last Shaughnessy in my book Let Me Save you 25 Years is maintain top ambition with infinite patience.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: And at first it's hard for ambitious people to reconcile that one, because you know I mean patience.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: That sounds like it sounds a lot like complacency.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: It sounds a lot like I'm waiting, you have to wait sometimes.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: And I don't mean we're waiting standing still.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: I mean listen, I have ideas for Love Sack that I've sat on for a decade because the organization wasn't ready.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: And I don't mean like people can't keep up with me.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: That's not what I mean.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: What I mean is for me to bring certain products to market will be much more successful when we have 300 locations, which we do now, when we have the ability to spend a hundred million on advertising, like we do now, when we have a brand that people know at least a little bit, like we do now and so it's required a ton of patience to allow the business to grow to a point where, even operationally, we could bring these complex ideas to market in a way they can be successful, as opposed to just.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: I have this idea, let's put it out there.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: You know, and could I have launched something sooner and made money earlier doing some of these things?
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: Sure, but what do I want?
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: Do I want to make another 50 million or do I want to make 500?
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: Do I want to build this into a multi-billion dollar brand that can resonate with people and do good in the world?
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: Because I mean we embody the word L-O-V-E and do good in the world Because I mean we embody the word L-O-V-E.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: It's our stock ticker love.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: We're proud of that.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: We're building a culture that gets to employ thousands of people.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: Is that what I want?
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: Or do I want to build a company a little faster, exit and be super rich and golf more?
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: Well, I've chosen the former right, and it's a long, freaking slog and, by the way, you don't have to.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: You can find ways to juice it up, sell the business, be super rich.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: But you have to decide.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: What do you want?
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: And some people don't even take the time to figure out what they want.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: They just keep doing.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: Or, by the way, they just assume that they want a private jet and to be super rich, Cause, like, that's kind of what social media tells us we should want.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: It's not what I want.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: I've made the overt decision to try and build something, you know, an organization that can employ thousands of people for a hundred years, Like to me.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: That's very interesting and it'll probably make me a lot of money, but it's just not what I'm focused on.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not what your goal has been, you know, and it's.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: I think there's power in that too, because I think I'm not saying having.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: I think there's power in that too, because I think I'm not saying having.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: You know, money or being financially stable isn't important.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: So it is important, but I think when it is the thing that drives you, are you equated to that's happiness or that's joy?
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: I fear for you, because you're going to get let down at some point, most likely, by the way you'll either get let down or you'll get it, true, but what happens when you'll either get let down or you'll get it?
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: True, but what happens when you get it?
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: That's what I mean.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: I guess.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: I know many hundred millionaires personally, and billionaires personally, that some, I think, might trade places with me.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: I'm on my first wife.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: We have an awesome relationship.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: I know my kids, I like my kids, we hang out.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: I think they like me.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: For me, that's success.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: And be careful what you wish for, or be careful if you don't really know what you really want.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: That's the dangerous place, because you might just get something that doesn't actually fulfill.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: So with your 25 years of experience, how can someone begin to really define what they want?
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Because we evolve too, I think, and we should, I hope we are.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: I can tell you one very useful, I think, exercise that made a big difference for me.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: So I'm a big believer in purpose.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: You know businesses having a stated purpose, something bigger than just like make money and get big or something.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: And at Love Sack it took us two decades to identify a purpose that you know.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: We had different ideas and missions and statements along the way, which you should, you should constantly be trying to achieve this.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: But now I think this stated purpose can last decades, and it is at Love Sack to inspire humankind to buy better stuff so they can buy less stuff.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: And that's why, when we sell Sactionals, we want you to have them like the rest of your life and add to them and grow them, and that will make us more money and we'll win.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: But you'll win too, because you've bought the most sustainable solution in couch land, and it will be even better for you a few years down the road when we invent the next thing and the next thing and the next thing.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: You can just add on to what you already have.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: To me that, and then the world wins.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: You know, it's fewer resources extracted from the earth to be put back in the landfill.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: It's a win, win, win and I'm proud of that and that motivates me and it motivates everyone who works at Lovesac.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: Now, what about me?
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: Shouldn't I be just as explicit about having a purpose that I'm aligned to, to manage my own life?
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: And you'll say, well, your life is Love Sack.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: No, love Sack is Love Sack and I get to be the CEO and it's great.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: But what about Sean?
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: What does Sean want out of all this?
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: And what is my purpose on this globe, as opposed to just getting rich or, I don't know, enjoying myself?
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: So where did I go to identify that for me?
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: I asked myself, when am I just happy?
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: When do I just feel awesome?
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: And I thought about being on my boat.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: I bought my first little water ski boat crappy water ski boat for $1,700 when I was 17 years old, because I loved wakeboarding and water skiing and being on the lake with my family and friends and I just couldn't get enough of it.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: So I bought a boat in high school, like who does that?
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: I saved my money from waiting tables, mowing lawns.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: I did that ever since then.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: I've always had a water ski boat of some kind in my life and no, now I can afford a really good one.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: I'm really happy in that mode and I started thinking, you know, is it because I love wakeboarding?
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm a good wakeboarder, I can do some tricks, but I mean, there's 10,000 people better than me, you know, and who cares if I could do like a double backflip or something Like?
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: There's a thousand other guys that can do that too.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: So it's not really that I love wakeboarding.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: What is it really If you get down, if you really take the time to meditate on really where you're your happiest?
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: What I finally figured out was I didn't.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: It's not that I loved wakeboarding, it's that I love just being out there.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: And it's not just that I love being out there, it's that I realized I loved if I observed how I did it and how I behaved and how I thought I loved controlling the environment.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: I loved creating an environment that brightened me.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: When you launch me in the water and I turn around to pick you up at the dock on the boat, the drinks are already in the cooler and they're the right drinks.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: The music's already playing.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: I'm not fumbling around with the stereo because it's on the right playlist and I've got the towels in the right place and I'm not expecting you to do much work.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: It's just when you step on, you're stepping into my world and it's good and it's fun and I don't mind doing it.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: In fact, I love doing it.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: I get off on having the right music at the right time and doing the right things and make people laugh.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: And then I do that and you know they're like when the time they're done, I was like that's like they just had a great time and I realized what motivates me.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: It's not what, it's not the boat, it's not the wealth of it, it's not the sunshine, it's creating environments that uplift and inspire people.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: That's my purpose Now.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: The fact that I get to do that inside this company.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: I get to build stores that move people, I get to create a company that gets to employ people and have these wonderful events and even like our weekly calls on video with people all over the country, like the way we shape that, like I get to create environments that uplift and inspire people.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: That's Sean's purpose, and I don't think most people have taken the time to identify what is your purpose and I think you get there by identifying when you're happiest and working backward from there to get to the underlying motivation.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: Don't mistake it for wakeboarding, and a lot of people do that, and then they try to go become a professional wakeboarder and they'll probably not get there because it's pretty competitive.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: But they mistook it, do you understand?
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: They didn't really go deep enough to understand what was their true motivation, and so for me, that was a very enlightening process.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: I encourage everyone to go through it.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: When you can align to a purpose that matters, it makes waking up and doing the hard stuff a lot easier.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I encourage people to do that and it's not something you can answer like oh my purpose is blank, like you really have to think about it.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: Like you said, it isn't just the wakeboarding and as you were talking about it, I thought about the environment, the experience that you're creating, as well as the way the world is not on that boat.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: You know the things that hit us every day, or the news, or the pressures, or you know, when I'm on a boat, I almost feel like I've literally like left land and it's like my own land right.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: It's our own space on this water, that's ours to like, do whatever we want to do with it and, of course, you want to have fun and you know, just experience it and be present.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: I think that's the other thing and, as you were talking, because I think that's also capturing, not only you're the host of this experience that brings joy and happiness.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: I think you also give them an ability to to maybe be buffered from some of the junk or some of the stuff that goes on.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: That's just life, you know.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: It's just the way.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: You know we have to deal with some things, but something about being on the water creates a like almost a sacred space away from it.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: Absolutely and, by the way, you don't have to like it because I like it or you like it, right, like I'm talking to anyone listening.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: There is some place where you feel relaxed and happy and underneath that, I believe, is some motivation where you can unlock a purpose that's unique to you and then and then find ways in life.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: So, like I find now, because I know this about myself, if I can put myself in positions where I get to craft environments that uplift and inspire people, it could be through my church service, it could be, you know, in my family, like at my home with my kids.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: I'm happy, I feel good and therefore the money doesn't really matter.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: And I don't mean to say that like, look, we need money to facilitate our existence on this earth, like that's the human condition and more of it allows, you know, for some things to be easier, for sure, but it doesn't have to be the driver, and you can find tremendous fulfillment and happiness and joy If you can align to a core motivation like I've described for you, and it doesn't have to be just like mine.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: It could be yeah, I think there's probably a lot of us that are motivated by the same things, but it doesn't remotely need to be the same as mine.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, I think it's personal and I think you need to be curious.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: I think that's one thing that people don't allow themselves to be, and I do think it's a bold thing to be curious.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: I think boldness is on a continuum of something big and loud that everybody sees Like when, like my big and loud moment was I quit my job without having a plan, I just knew life could be better and I would figure it out with my family and I did to.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm going to talk to myself kinder.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: I'm going to actually get these habits in shape.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: I'm going to not let myself down because I have this thing about I won't let anybody else down, but I let myself down Like.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: Those are moments like finding your purpose and having those conversations and just trying some things out.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: No matter what age you are, I think you know one of the myths of being bold is too late to be bold, and I don't think our dreams ever expire.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: So I think what you're talking about is like you know, do you, you do you and then make sure that you find you know what that is and it's not something that was ascribed to you by someone else, but it's truly yours and you own your purpose, so I love that we talked about that.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, one, if I can just tag on that.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: I think you have to be bold enough to be really honest because again the world will make you believe that you should want certain things, like a boat.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: By the way, like I, you know, I can think of people who go out and get boats because their neighbors have them, or like it's kind of a sign of, you know, affluence or like whatever, and then they're miserable.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: It's like all of the tubes and winterization and maintenance and, you know, then they back it into a gas pump, or like making their life miserable because they thought they wanted a boat, because they weren't thoughtful enough to align again all of their motivations in life and their activities in life to some kind of central purpose that might've led them to some completely different hobbies or completely different outcomes or completely different investments of time and energy.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: So just because I'm motivated in that way does not remotely mean you need to be or feel bad because you don't feel like creating environments for others.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: That's just me, but you can't be all the things either.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: You know, again, I know plenty of rich people who own houses all over the world, but they can only ever be at one and the other six of them, give them all kinds of headaches and maintenance and troubles and taxes and whatever.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: And that's why it's so important that we are thoughtful, bold enough to be honest enough with ourselves that if what we identify like I have friends who think I'm nuts for not flying private because, like I'm the CEO of like a going on billion dollar company, like you know, whatever, but it's just not what motivates me you have to be bold enough to just like and I don't need to be that guy because, like I have friends who fly private, or friends who've even always buy first class, I don't do that.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: It's not what motivates me, it's not what makes me happy, and I don't care what others think about where I should be sitting on an airplane.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: And so we have to be bold enough to be really honest and not just do things because others think or we think others think that we should do things, which is often our surface level motivations if we're not careful.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I talk about.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: Something's ascribed to us, whether it's a belief or something you should do, or by now you should have, or you should fly, and it's like you do you.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: And I think it is bold to be.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: You like to be yourself, to claim who you are, to claim your value, to claim you and a lot of the times that's easier said than done in our lives and I do think it's in those bold moments of like, introspection and really thinking about it.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: But I always encourage people just do it sooner, like don't wait.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: Don't wait till midlife or whatever we call it.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: Do it earlier.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: That would be my advice At 48, I finally was bold enough to claim it and do it and even though I'd been bold in different circumstances, I don't think I had been bold with my purpose.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: And, by the way, three examples Ray Kroc, McDonald's, Sam Walton, Walmart, Henry Ford, all of them in their 50s.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: You got to have some women in your list there.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: Look, it's off the cuff, Give me a woman.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: But my point is all of them in their 50s, it's never too late.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know it's easy to be like.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: Well, you know they got started in my case 25 years ago I made the first love.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: Second, I was 18 years old, right?
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: That can be really defeating to people Like, oh man, I missed.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: Agree with that.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: So as we close out, like when you write let me save you 50 years, 25 years from now, is there anything you've already?
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: learned that you would include as the next Seanism.
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean.
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: So that's the fun part about my podcast, same name.
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: Let me save you 25 years.
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: We did the first season and each, each episode with amazing guests.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I've had Mark Cuban, gary Vaynerchuk, gronkowski talking about these individual Seanisms, unpacking them in great depth, and so the conversations are different than a typical interview with those people.
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: But after the first season, we're now on season two and it's 25 more Seanisms and these are just dumb phrases.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: Like I've said, I've dropped a few of them on this podcast, like this week on my podcast, I've had the top wakeboarder, ironically in the world, talking about living well takes work, and so I unpack these ideas with very successful people in very different realms from me.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: And the ideas, to be honest with you, I'm sure I could do another 25 and another 25, because the idea is to be honest with you, I'm sure I could do another 25 and another 25, because life is a mystery that's constantly unfolding and I think by the time we figure it out there's something new to learn.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: There's something new to learn.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: Let me give you an example.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: I was a missionary for my church.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I got to serve a two-year mission in Taiwan.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: I learned Mandarin Chinese, I did service every day, met people, shared my beliefs and I thought I was pretty hot stuff.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, at 19 years old, I learned Chinese faster than almost anyone out there.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: I, you know, I was a straight A student, I was a hard worker, I had a great work ethic, we were kicking butt, we were doing our thing, we were having success.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: And I remember this feeling at about 22 months, in where I was meeting with a family and we were having a great conversation and I just had this overwhelming feeling that like I'm finally figuring out how to do this here.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: I thought I was hot stuff 90 days in, having learned my Chinese quickly and been successful and whatever that means, but at 22 months I'm about to go home at 24 months and I'm feeling like I'm just figuring this out, like I'm just getting, and I have a sneaking suspicion this is how I'm going to feel a few months before I die, whenever that is, it's just getting in the groove of life.
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: I'm just getting it figured out and it's done, and so we're always learning, and there will be 25 and 25 and 25 more.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: And the key is, I once had this business partner who I tried to share a book with and she was older than me.
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: She was great, fantastic business partner, helped me grow the business through some trying times, and I was always reading books, though, and I took her this book.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: I'm like, oh man, you got to read this and she kind of like brushed it off.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: I was like, look, she's, like she's, you know, like 20 years older than me at the time and she said, look, you know, you're in the mode of acquiring information, sean, I'm in the mode of something else, and my point being like I was so disappointed that she had lost her curiosity, you know.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: And look, she was smarter than me, she had a lot more experience than me, she had read a lot of books herself, whatever, but I hope like that stuck with me.
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: So, you know, you asked me is there something in the next book?
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: It would say always be curious, like, never lose that, because it's easy as we get older and have more experience or have more success to get lazy, and that's why I push myself into these uncomfortable situations, whether it's dirt, biking or even other things, and if I find myself not wanting to do something, that's my sign I probably need to do it.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't feel right.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: Maybe I should try it.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: I probably need to at least get near that, and so always be curious.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so when curiosity knocks open the door, don't leave it shut.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: And I love to end on that, and I appreciate you sharing your Sean-isms.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: Please do pick up Sean's newest book Let Me Save you 25 Years and learn about all the mistakes and the miracles that he can share with us, along with his Sean-isms.
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: Appreciate you being on the Bold Lounge and all the information about Love Sack and connecting with Sean is below in the episode notes.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the Bold Lounge podcast.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: Through the continuum of bold stories vulnerability to taking a leap you will meet more extraordinary people making a positive impact for others through their unique and important story.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: By highlighting these stories, we hope to inspire others and share the journey of those with a bold mindset.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: We hope you've enjoyed this podcast and look forward to sharing the next bold journey with you.