Scott Dinsmore is the Founder and Chief Experimenter of Live Your Legend. He’s a 29-year-old Entrepreneur, coach, and value investor obsessed with adventure, life experiments, and learning.
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Resource Mentioned:
- Your Big Idea: Successful Entrepreneurs have One Big Idea. Follow JLD’s FREE training & you’ll discover Your Big Idea in less than an hour!
Success Quote
- “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” – Mahatma Gandhi.
- “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” – Jim Rohn.
Business Failure
- Scott experience a 0% growth with Live Your Legend in the first four years of its existence. Listen to find out what turned the business around.
Entrepreneurial AHA Moment
- Scott realized that if he wanted to be successful, he had to surround himself with successful people. He made the change, and things started happening QUICK!
Current Business
- Scott just launched a new product, was on Tedx, and on EntrepreneurOnFire all in one week. Whew! Impressive by my standards. :-)
Small Business Resource
- Things: Lets you enter new to-do’s the moment they hit you. No matter what application you’re in.
Best Business Book
- The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.
Interview Links
Killer Resources!
1) The Common Path to Uncommon Success: JLD’s 1st traditionally published book! Over 3000 interviews with the world’s most successful Entrepreneurs compiled into a 17-step roadmap to financial freedom and fulfillment!
2) Free Podcast Course: Learn from JLD how to create and launch your podcast!
3) Podcasters’ Paradise: The #1 podcasting community in the world!
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Full Transcript
John Lee Dumas: Hire Fire Nation and thank you for joining me for another episode of EntrepreneurOnFire.com, your daily dose of inspiration. If you enjoy this free podcast, please show your support by leaving a rating and review here at iTunes. I will make sure to give you a shout out on an upcoming showing to thank you!
John Lee Dumas: Okay. Let’s get started. I am simply overjoyed to introduce my guest today, Scott Dinsmore. Scott, are you prepared to ignite?
Scott Dinsmore: I am ready, man! It’s going to be fun!
John Lee Dumas: Alright! Scott is the founder of Live Your Legend and the creator of How to Connect with Anyone. He’s a 30 year old entrepreneur, coach and speaker obsessed with adventure, life experiments and learning. His mission is to change the world by helping people find what they’re passionate about and build a career around it.
I’ve given Fire Nation a little overview, Scott, but why don’t you take a minute. Tell us about you personally – how old you are, where you’re from. And then take another minute and give us an overview of your business.
Scott Dinsmore: Yes. Sure. I mean it’s an honor to be here. Thanks for having me, John. Let’s see. I mean that’s a pretty broad question, but I’m in San Francisco right now and that’s where I spend most of my time. I grew up around here and lived in Santa Barbara for a while as well, which is where I kind of got my entrepreneurial start down there in that pretty neat little startup community. I’ve been up here for a while. I spend a lot of time trying to get out and explore the world with my wife, Chelsea as well as often as we can. We have a little trip to Thailand coming up in a couple of months, which should be a blast.
John Lee Dumas: Very cool!
Scott Dinsmore: As it turns out, we might get into this, but that’s probably been the most useful single practice for me to kind of think of big ideas and look at the world differently, is to get out away from my normal environment. Certainly, that’s a lot of fun and just trying more things in the city in San Francisco. I’m 30 and I’ve been at this, building Live Your Legend, I guess informally for like six years, although for four years it grew by exactly 0%.
John Lee Dumas: [Laughs]
Scott Dinsmore: We might talk about this, but it was just my wife and my mother and father pretty much were paying attention to it. And then a few neat things happened where it got pretty exciting pretty fast and we were able to get the message out and help people, but really the goal is that – I mean 80% of people don’t like the work they do and it’s just a tragedy. Like imagine if that statistic was turned on its head and most people were inspired by how they spent their time, like how would they treat people differently, how much more innovation would there be? I mean how could things change? That’s what we’re working on doing because I think the tools, now more than anything or any time in the past, are so readily available to really build I think just about anything into a career and it’s just wild. I mean there’s an example of anything you could imagine, whether you want to start a job or create a business around knitting. I mean you can find someone who brings in eight figures knitting every year. I mean it’s wild. So it blows my mind. It’s so fun to be in this space and kind of facilitate and help people create these things because it’s so doable.
John Lee Dumas: Now you talk about the 80/20 rule. I also heard there’s a rumor that you have an 80% rate where when you sit down with somebody for lunch, 80% of those people end up quitting their job.
Scott Dinsmore: [Laughs] Yes. I like that you saw that. So that’s how I kind of got into this space. Like I had a miserable job out of college. This Fortune 500 company in San Francisco which is the kind of job you can be proud of. The only problem was I wanted to slam my head through the keyboard. Like I just wasn’t happy.
John Lee Dumas: [Laughs]
Scott Dinsmore: It was very obvious that like I wasn’t having an impact. I wasn’t using any of my strengths and my talents. I’ve had conversations with my boss and he knew too. He was like, “Okay, this probably isn’t the best fit,” and I quit to go find something I could screw up. That’s how I put it because I still probably just wanted to have an impact of some sort, and then I went through this process learning about myself, what got me excited and what really I was meant to do, and as I did that, more and more people asked for help. They’re like, “Scott, I don’t really like my job. Could we have lunch?” It got to a point where literally, yes, after within two months of us meeting, like 80% of people were quitting their job. It wasn’t really because I had some like magic thing I was doing. I was just mainly asking one simple question, like why are you doing what you’re doing, and so often the answer would be because I’m supposed to, because someone told me to, because I’m following this path, this is the dream, right? And the American way of doing it. They kind of realize, wait, let’s start thinking for ourselves a little bit. And then once that idea is in your head, it’s impossible to get it out, and then it’s just a matter of time before you look for something different.
John Lee Dumas: I love that insight and I’m really looking forward to delving more into that later in the interview, but before we do, Scott, we always start every show off at EntrepreneurOnFire with a success quote. Let’s get that motivational ball rolling. What do you have for us today?
Scott Dinsmore: It’s impossible for me to give you one. I have two, but they’re related.
John Lee Dumas: Perfect!
Scott Dinsmore: So the first one is Mahatma Gandhi, and it’s “first, they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” I guess when you look at Gandhi’s life now, he was a lawyer or a recovering lawyer as I’ve heard it said by some folks in the legal space but…
John Lee Dumas: [Laughs]
Scott Dinsmore: He was called out to a greater cause and you see with anything that is done in history, everything was impossible until somebody did it. Whether it’s Roger Bannister running the four-minute mile or [Tesla] run electricity or the Wright brothers and man-powered flight, they’ve always said people were just crazy and stupid for thinking differently, until all of a sudden, it becomes reality, and then it becomes accepted and it becomes normal. It’s unfortunate that that’s the process you go through, but I think it’s reassuring that if people aren’t jumping on your ideas or they’re even trying to put them down, well then that’s an indication that what you’re doing actually matters. So that quote, I read it and look at it every day.
We talk about things were impossible until somebody did it, well that comes to probably my all-time favorite and most powerful quote by Jim Rohn. It says “you are the average of the five people you spend most time with.” There is no bigger life hack in the history of the world and all the work and research and reading that I’ve done in this quote than those five people or those few people that are in your corner that you’re around on a day-to-day basis because the people you’re surrounding yourself with can either bring you down or they can inspire possibility and so few people embrace the fact that that is 100% in our control. Like no one can tell you you can’t hang around, inspiring people and no one can tell you you have to hang around people who pull you down, but a lot of us take it as just a fact of life who our surroundings are and that’s really what caused – changing those surroundings is what caused my business to be stagnant for four years, 0% growth, to all of a sudden grow by 10x in six months and 160x in the next year because I just all of a sudden started hanging around people who showed me that it was possible that I call it brainwashing the impossible. The fastest way to do something you don’t think can be done is to hang around people already doing it, the people who consider it as normal, everyday things, and then all of a sudden your standards just go up to a new level without even having to try just because of the people you’re around.
John Lee Dumas: I love your analogies about the impossible with the four-minute mile and things along those lines. My favorite analogy has always been when Henry Ford went to his engineers and said, “I want you to create an eight-cylinder engine,” and they said, “Respectfully, Mr. Ford, that is impossible.” He said, “Okay, I understand that. Go do it.” Six months later, they came back. “Mr. Ford, it can’t be done.” “Okay. I respect that. Go back and do it.” This happened in four or five iterations at literally over the course of years. Finally, they came back with a major breakthrough. Obviously, they made it happen. And then Ford just looked at them and he goes, “So I thought this was impossible?” Obviously, they had nothing to say back to him. I mean it’s just that dogged persistence of beating the odds and making possible the impossible and I just love that theme. Let’s use that, Scott, to transition to our next topic, which is failure, which are challenges or obstacles that seem like they can’t be overcome, but you keep doing it and you keep striving and we do overcome these obstacles and these challenges and these failures. Take Fire Nation back to some point in your journey when you failed, when you just came against this obstacle that you didn’t know if you’d be able to overcome it and share with us how you did overcome this obstacle, Scott.
Scott Dinsmore: I guess the most relevant example is just as I was building Live Your Legend, which before then was called “Reading For Your Success” and it was mainly a personal development book review site I had started because I had read this book by Scott Fox called “Internet Riches.” I had just quit my job and it said you could start a website without knowing any code. I said I don’t believe that, but I want to try and prove myself wrong. So I hacked together this terribly hideous-looking website, which I was very proud of at the time, but now I look back on the screenshots and I can’t believe it, but it was mine and I was so proud of it. I was just kind of doing this as a 5% project and it literally just wasn’t growing at all and I was about to shut it down after four years just because it’s frustrating. I wanted to get this message out. I wanted to help people on this topic, but no one was listening.
I don’t know if anyone else, any of the listeners have had this situation where you have an idea or a passion or a hobby that you so desperately want to call a business, but nobody’s paying attention and it doesn’t make a dime. That’s kind of where I was. I’m like, okay, we got to call a spade a spade here. But right around that time is when I moved to San Francisco and I started to meet dozens of people who were supporting these unbelievable lifestyles with their blogs and their websites and these online tools that were helping people in genuine ways and allowing these people, the entrepreneurs, to lead these great lifestyles. One friend of mine supports a family of eight with his blog that he writes on like twice a week and this stuff blew my mind because I just didn’t even know this whole industry and this whole space existed.
So I couldn’t even really dream there because my mind hadn’t been there, but as soon as I started hanging around these people, that’s when things started to go kind of vertical with the business, but I think the only reason that happened is my thinking shifted from four years of I don’t know anybody in this space, I don’t know anyone with a blog. I didn’t even know what a blog was. Apparently, that’s what I had, but I didn’t know that was what it was called. My thinking went from how could I possibly do this to all of a sudden, how could I possibly not because everyone around me is doing it and it’s totally normal. I mean it’s just like if you want to run a marathon, don’t hang out with people who just sit around and drink beer every day. I mean hang around with people who run 10 miles before they start their day, and all of a sudden, you’ll be like, “Wait, why couldn’t I do that?” or watch one. Go to a marathon finish line and watch how many people – the shapes and sizes and ages of people who finish under four hours. If that won’t motivate you to get your ass running, I don’t know what will. It’s crazy to see the people doing the things you thought couldn’t be done.
John Lee Dumas: That is so true, and that just goes back to your initial quote with Jim Rohn about surrounding yourself with the right people and that is just such valuable information. I was in a very similar place as you. I mean I’m 32 years old. We’re pretty close in age. I think four years ago, I thought a blog was like a bad horror movie or something. I mean I had no idea. It’s just interesting to see how that revelation happens over the years to where we are now and to what we think and how we breathe every single day and it’s just so inspiring. Scott, let’s use that and transition now into the next topic, which is the other end of the spectrum. You shared with us challenges that you had to overcome. Now share with us an aha moment when this light bulb just went off and you said, “Wow! This is going to resonate well. This is what I’m meant to do. This is my passion,” and then how did you turn that light bulb moment into success.
Scott Dinsmore: I’ve been for a long time just feeling like this is such an important topic of getting people to do work they really enjoyed that I think it really changed individuals, but also then as a result it changed the people around and they can just ripple in this wild way. So that had been in me for a long time. Really ever since my dad gave me a copy of “What Color Is Your Parachute?” by Dick Bolles. He actually happens to be from our hometown where we got to know him. The book has been in print for like 41 years and it just kind of showed me that doing work you love is a right if you want to take the time and do the research and the discovery on yourself and have the right surroundings that are in your control, but I guess as I saw these people doing it and these were like online businesses and things like that, I said, okay, this is a great platform to really share this message because at first I’m having lunch with people and you only have so many lunches with folks where even like a year or two ago, I was doing one-on-one coaching with people and that’s fantastic and it’s really exciting and rewarding and helpful for people, but you can only do that with so many people.
So I wanted to get this message out on a larger scale because I just want to change that statistic of 80% of people not liking their work. Just switch it out on its head, and to do that, you can’t do it one-on-one. You’ve got to create a community. So I really wanted to build a movement at Live Your Legend that is not about Scott Dinsmore at all. It’s about people coming together and feel like they’re in a place where people believe what they believe. That they’re encouraged and they’re accepted and that they are thinking of taking a robust travel and doing things differently because if we can empower people and inspire people that it’s possible and that they have a place they can go where they belong, you almost don’t even need to show them the tools to make it happen because once people shift that in their head that they know it can be done, it’s off to the races.
Now of course at Live Your Legend, we also provide the tools and 95% of them are totally free to people because I think this is something everyone should have access to, but you create this community of people that feel comfortable and you just kind of watch it take its own shape. It’s been neat. In the last year probably alone, we’ve started to have people hosting Live Your Legend meetups all over the world in all different countries and just getting groups together could not preach some certain messages more just like, “Listen, we’re all here because we want to be intentional about doing things that matter to us and to other people around us. Let’s get together and hang out and see what happens.” Just to see that happen has been really surreal.
John Lee Dumas: Scott, have you had an I’ve made it moment?
Scott Dinsmore: Interesting. I actually think I had that like a few months ago.
John Lee Dumas: Wow!
Scott Dinsmore: It was a wild experience. I was out walking around the Palace of Fine Arts which is near our house in San Francisco, this gorgeous lake and building. We had just launched our most recent flagship course called “How To Connect With Anyone” which was really designed to get people to create those surroundings that make the impossible possible. It’s this very intensive, in-depth course with a bunch of – we have all kinds of videos and experts and things and all these stuff and I just worked my face off for like six months building this thing. It really felt like the work I could not do. I feel like it almost killed me because I was working so hard on it, but it felt so good. We launched it. It sold out and people were getting awesome results.
I had just given this TEDx talk in San Francisco. I saw all over the world these, like I was saying, these meet-ups happening that had nothing to do with me. I wasn’t there facilitating them and I just had this realization like, wow! Like we have a base here that I think at this point, this movement becoming something meaningful to people is inevitable. Not that oh, we’re done. Let’s go to the beach. No. Like there’s plenty of hard, important, big work ahead, but now it’s like we’re in a spot where if we just keep building that and keep that snowball rolling, I see it inevitable that we’re going to build something to magnitudes this size in terms of the people that end up becoming a part of this movement and really do things positive for themselves.
John Lee Dumas: I love the question about have you had an I’ve made it moment because every entrepreneur answers it differently. Some entrepreneurs seem to have I’ve made it moments every single day. Others swear they will never have one until the day that they die because they just feel like that will denote the end of the journey. I mean for me, it is about the journey. It’s about these milestones that you’re hitting and it just seems that you are enjoying the journey, Scott. That you are hitting these milestones and you’re really taking a step back and breathing in and enjoying your surroundings and everything that you’ve created. What are your thoughts about the journey?
Scott Dinsmore: I was actually just having a conversation with a good buddy of mine. He has that zenhabits, if you’re familiar? We were having tea in San Francisco, talking about this. He’s kind of all about this goal-free living way of life, and for me it’s so hard to adjust the idea of not having goals and I think it’s more of like a semantic thing, but the point is like you got to be careful. You have these big goals and all you’re focused on is hitting these huge goals, you might totally forget about how cool it is to be in the process of hitting the goals. And also, all kinds of neat things could come up that you could miss if you’re only focused on this one thing. That’s the coolest thing about this. When you’re doing things that excite you, every bit of it, every email that you get or every card in the mail that says thank you or shares a success story, I mean all that stuff is what it’s about. Unfortunately, the things too that are most easy to track are things like – who knows? Revenue or like subscriber numbers or website traffic growth, which are good indicators of things, but it’s not nearly as important as knowing that somebody is now doing the work that inspires them because of the work that you’ve done. That happens just day-to-day that no one can really see it directly, but you got to be listening and soaking it in.
John Lee Dumas: So Scott, our next topic is about your current business or just what’s going on in your life that’s really exciting you right now. Before I ask you that question, I want to ask a question that I just know that Fire Nation will get a lot out of. On your website, you have a blog post about your TEDx talk and the title of that blog post is “How to Get Invited to Speak at TEDx and Get 40,174 views in 5 Days.” Can you take Fire Nation through that blog post audibly and just share with us your insights on that?
Scott Dinsmore: Absolutely. It’s been a very exciting last week or so since that really only went live about 10 days ago and it’s got so many traction. The reason it’s so exciting that it’s gotten traction is because it’s a message that I believe can really help and it can change people, but I wrote this because it’s so easy for people to look at somebody that does something that is noteworthy or maybe it’s something that they’re very proud of, like I had wanted to give a talk like this. They say, “Oh yes, of course. Like Scott’s got this big following and there’s a lot of people in his corner. Of course he got a ton of views really fast and of course he got invited to speak.” I think it’s easy for people that maybe are just getting started to dismiss things that have happened to people who have maybe been around longer and just say, “Oh that happened to them, but it’s not going to happen to me” type of thing and just kind of give that as their excuse not to do the work.
So really, what this article was I stepped through everything that I saw that’s gone on really since three years when I first learned about the TED community and the steps that I’ve gone through to really make it happen that I got chosen to speak at this thing and how it happened. It seems like very coincidental, but there must be 25 steps that I told out and different things that have gone on. Even after I went live, I spent probably 30 hours sending notes to people that I know, not saying, “Hey, please, just share this,” but “Hey, listen, this is a talk I’m proud of. If you think it can help people, I’d love for you to spread the word.” So it didn’t go live and just go off to the races. Not at all. Like I spent a lot of time. I bet I spent more time than most anyone has to get the word out about something like that, but it’s because I saw this unbelievable 80/20 relationship that of all the things I’ve worked on, this is probably maybe the best opportunity for me to spend a few days and some hard work to maybe get a message out that can help people for years to come.
So that’s the point. Just not to dismiss or to realize the things that you can control and to control everything that’s in your control and then be okay with the stuff that you know you have to leave out to chance.
John Lee Dumas: That’s a really powerful insight. On this blog post, you really talk about the last three years and just different steps that you took. Can you just go through that real quickly right now for Fire Nation? Exactly the process that you took to see this dream become in fruition?
Scott Dinsmore: Yes. So simply put, I got exposed to TED a few years back. I fell in love with it immediately. I mean these talks were unbelievable. So I was watching it on my iPad almost every day on the way to work in the bus. I was just inspired. I remember writing down like a 10-year stretch goal. Like I would love to give a talk at a TED-related event because what that meant to me is that I was seen as some type of an expert. Like I knew something well enough because they don’t just have anyone speak at those things and it was just kind of a fun way to put that. So I wrote that down and then I just kept listening and I ended up meeting a number of people just through friends of friends through going through different events and surrounding myself with people who inspired me. I ended up meeting somebody who was the founder of TEDx San Francisco. We became friends.
And then one thing after the next, a year or so later, I spoke at a couple of events. One was for a dinner party and then one of them from the dinner party introduced me to people who have this TEDx Golden Gate Park, which is another TEDx group in San Francisco. They introduced me and they said, “Scott, you should speak at this.” Well they had already had their speakers a year in advance or something or nine months in advance, but I was going to go as a participant. And then they ended up calling me like six days before and said, “Hey, we’ve seen your talks. We actually had someone bail out. We’d love for you to be the alternate. Could you step in?” Actually, I was the second one because someone had already bailed out two weeks before and they said, “Scott, could you be our second alternate just in case?” and I said, “Okay.” And then six days before, they asked me and I thought, wow!
I actually almost said no because we were launching How To Connect With Anyone two days before the talk and I just knew how crazy launches can be and I knew how crazy it would be to prepare for one of these talks, but I just thought there are certain things that go on that if you had a shot at them, you should do it, and this one, I decided, was one of those. So I said yes, but to me, I approached it I think in a different way than maybe some might something like this. It was last minute. I thought, okay, the goal could be let’s just get through this and I’m obviously very scared. I mean I’m excited in all these and inspired by it, but I’m also very nervous. This is a serious venue. I could just say, okay, the goal is to get through this without looking like an idiot, but I thought instead, well, I want to create a talk that I think is worthy or that is most in my power as possible to be worthy of being a part of the main TED community that tells a message very succinct with stories and just everything. I’ve watched hundreds of talks. I’ve seen people who have done this. And so I went to town with that being my goal and of course I can only control so much, but I decided to control what I could. Then I gave the talk, which was a total party. It was a ton of fun. And then I really went to work on how can we best get this out to the world.
John Lee Dumas: I love how you phrased it. Your nerves completely evaporated and your passion took over when you stepped up onstage. That was just a very powerful statement.
Scott Dinsmore: [Laughs] Thank you. It’s wild! For me, like I love giving talks. It’s really fun and really energizing, but man, the preparation, it was not quite as fun. I get pretty nervous about things, but right when I’m up onstage, then it’s more like, “Alright, here we are!” Like this is going to be fun, and then it really is a total blast.
John Lee Dumas: Great stuff, Scott. So you have so many exciting things going on and you just had that launch. You had TEDTalks one week ago. It was just a lot of great traction from that. What’s one thing that’s really exciting you right now, looking forward?
Scott Dinsmore: To feel like I have a handle on understanding like how to really build this movement and give people the power to build it on their own and their own talents and their own communities and to really spread that out. Knowing that we have a set of tools that is directly in line with that, a lot of them being free tools and then a couple ones that are more in-depth, paid courses like this How to Connect with Anyone course, that I really think – I mean there’s no bigger indication of being able to do work you love or accomplish your goals than those people who are in your corner. So to be able to help people build that, I think it would have just a wild ripple effect. I mean if we start getting people to understand how to create their surroundings and then they teach others, it can create some real change. So those things combined for next year are super exciting, but most importantly, more than anything, it’s just to embrace it and just to have some fun and not be totally focused on building, building, building and relax a bit. I spent some time in Thailand with my wife and did some of that.
John Lee Dumas: Thank you for sharing that with us, Scott. So we’ve now reached my favorite part of the show. We’re about to enter the Lightning Round. This is where I get to ask you a series of questions and you come back at us, Fire Nation, with amazing and mind-blowing answers. Does that sound like a plan?
Scott Dinsmore: It sounds like some pressure. Let’s do it!
John Lee Dumas: [Laughs] You’re good at pressure!
Scott Dinsmore: [Laughs]
John Lee Dumas: What was holding you back from becoming an entrepreneur?
Scott Dinsmore: Believing it was possible. I thought that was the kind of thing that the lucky few, you just read about the people who did that stuff. I didn’t know how doable it could be and how it doesn’t need to be starting that it’s Facebook. You could be starting a business that makes $50,000 a year, which can be great and is so within your reach. Maybe you just become a consultant on a certain topic or whatever it is, but just knowing that this is something that’s available to a lot of people, and certainly to me if I put my head down and find the right friends to inspire me.
John Lee Dumas: What is the best business advice you ever received?
Scott Dinsmore: I’m going to keep banging the drum on this one. Control your surroundings. If you’re hanging around people who bring you down, you absolutely have to fire those toxic friends, as I say, and surround yourself with people who inspire possibility. It is 100% in your control. I don’t care if you want to build a business, lose 50 pounds, to find a wife. It’s all the same.
John Lee Dumas: Absolutely! Extricate yourself from that situation. If you could only choose two websites to obtain all the information you needed to succeed, Scott, what would they be and why?
Scott Dinsmore: Wow! That’s a very good question. The first one that comes to mind to me is it would need to be a website that is constantly growing and adding new content, and a lot are these days, but the TED website I think is huge because it allows you, even if you don’t feel like you have people you can go have a beer with who bring you to that new level, at least you can through your screen or through your iPad or whatever, you can have those surroundings and just see what’s possible and just learn unbelievable things. So that’s one for sure. And then – oh, it’s so hard! I mean there’s some different blogs and websites I pay close attention to, but I think possibly Wikipedia or something like that. I don’t spend a ton of time on Wikipedia, but if there was only a few sites left, I think that would probably have to be high up there.
John Lee Dumas: Do you have an Internet resource like an Evernote that you’re just in love with that you can share with Fire Nation?
Scott Dinsmore: I’ve tried Evernote a number of times and I’m giving it another shot, but I’ve got [Unintelligible] example, but “Things” is the name of this app. It’s this to do app that has blown my mind. It syncs with my MacBook Air, my iPad and my iPhone and with the cloud. Like I just went through my kind of hour-and-a-half weekly planning process before doing this call where I go through all the ideas I’ve thought of throughout last week, categorize them and think about what I’m going to pursue this week and kind of build through it. It’s just been a fantastic system and what is it? It was like 20 bucks or something. It’s been awesome.
John Lee Dumas: If you could recommend a book to Fire Nation, what would it be?
Scott Dinsmore: What kind of book? I’m looking at my bookshelf right now. Oh, that’s so hard! I give probably 20 copies of “The Alchemist” out every year. I mean it’s technically a fiction book, but I feel like it’s almost like “The 4-Hour Workweek” but in fiction form. It’s just about this boy, Santiago, who goes on this quest to pursue his personal legend, which is the work and the journey that he can’t not pursue. It’s all that he feels drawn to. That’s what I named Live Your Legend after. It was Santiago’s journey. I read this book every year when I go international on a trip. It’s a very quick read. So for all you guys expecting a very focused hardcore business book, maybe this will switch up your pattern a bit and get you to enjoy something different that will have as profound an effect as any other business book you’ve read.
John Lee Dumas: I couldn’t agree more. It’s one of those books you can’t not finish. You have to finish this book when you start it because it is such a nail-biter.
Scott Dinsmore: It really is.
John Lee Dumas: So Scott, this is the last question. It’s my favorite. It’s kind of tricky, so take your time, digest it, and then come back at us with an answer. Imagine you woke up tomorrow morning in a brand new world, identical to earth, but you knew no one. You still have all the experience and knowledge you currently have, your food and shelter is taken care of, but all you have is a laptop and $500. What would you do in the next seven days?
Scott Dinsmore: Yes. I would go out and see what new things existed that maybe didn’t exist on earth and the people who were building them and just learn as a result and just probably get obsessed pretty quickly with one or two different kind of areas of thinking or something that someone’s built and then just get to work on kind of adding my own ideas to it and that kind of thing. I don’t even know if you need any money, to be honest, but that’s the cool thing. It’s like even $500 is like a lot to start a business. Like Live Your Legend cost like $67 or something to start.
John Lee Dumas: Scott, you’ve given us incredibly actionable advice this entire interview and we are all better for it. Give Fire Nation one parting piece of guidance, then share with us how we can connect with you, and then we’ll say goodbye.
Scott Dinsmore: Indeed. Well we got to hit the core of what you and I talked beforehand, and this is my other – well probably the most powerful career quote and Warren Buffett coined it.
John Lee Dumas: Yes!
Scott Dinsmore: He says, “Taking a job just to build up a resume is like saving up sex for old age.”
John Lee Dumas: [Laughs] I love it!
Scott Dinsmore: Of course the most brilliant investor of our time of course has the best career quote as well, and you really think about that. It’s just like time is short. Like there’s no sense in just doing things just because you think they’re going to get you someplace else because first of all, you never end up getting there anyway, no matter what there is. So just do things that matter to you right now and that’s going to give you way more experience and better results and all these things than trying to build a resume. So I live by that as a daily practice.
John Lee Dumas: How can we find you?
Scott Dinsmore: Find me at LiveYourLegend.net. It’s where the community and our [Unintelligible] really lives. We have actually a passionate work tool kit which is totally free to the folks who decide to join the community and subscribe. I mean an unbelievable set of free tools that we’ve put together, including how Warren Buffet plans his week and a goal-setting action workbook that I launch every year and just a bunch of different downloads to hopefully get you guys closer to doing the things that matter most.
John Lee Dumas: I want that.
Scott Dinsmore: [Laughs] It’s yours!
John Lee Dumas: Yes! Scott, thank you for being so generous with your time, your experience and your knowledge. Fire Nation salutes you, and we’ll catch you on the flipside.
