This video might be a little over the top, so my ask of everybody, especially my long time subscribers, is to maybe protect me from myself and let me know whether or not this is the type of content you'd be interested in. Let's calibrate together. You can say, hey dude, you're, you're, you know, you're sharing a little too much. Why don't you peel it back and talk more about Google Ads? That said... I have a topic that I was inspired to write about on my Twitter thread and now I'm shooting a video on it which is one of the most important lessons I've ever learned as an entrepreneur is the ability to reframe and I'll give you my journey towards learning that lesson and then, and then maybe some other examples that might be a little more sterile. I was raised by a blind single mother on social security disability in Albuquerque, New Mexico. And I've probably said that sentence a hundred million times. Because I, was obsessed with that narrative. Me and my little brother were effectively welfare babies and I loved telling people about it. I loved telling people how poor we were and, how hard things were and, it was my identity. I was wrapped up in it, and it was wrapped around me, and I used it as a shield and a sword and because I was a poor kid, there were just things I couldn't do, and it held me back in ways that I'll never even begin to articulate, probably in a bunch of ways I don't even understand still it was my excuse, It's amazing opportunity that was thrust upon me. I ended up I was 19 years old and I made friends with a gentleman Who's my now business mentor of 20 years and he and his wife took me to Egypt for a wedding He had a friend who's getting married and he said hey, why don't you come with me? I'd never traveled internationally and barely traveled out of the southwest And all of a sudden I find myself in Cairo sitting at This little table outside of a bazaar having amazing tea, but I'm surrounded by while a beautiful country, Egypt doesn't have the strong social safety nets that the United States has for various reasons. This isn't an indictment on anybody, but, you know, there are these little five and six year old kids running up to us asking for money, and they're literally sleeping on the streets. And I realized right away, oh, I'm not... I never was poor. maybe we were beans and rice or ramen family, but we never went to bed hungry. Never slept outside. And it shattered my illusions immediately. It was such a blessing. Just to realize how lucky I was and that was the reframe that was the reframe any one of those kids could have been and probably was smarter than me more industrious than me More capable than me and they didn't have what I had. I had Effectively a trust fund Maybe not in the traditional sense But the United States Social Security Administration was a trust and an entire nation of people had more or less voted on Providing for me and my little brother and giving us the opportunity to have opportunities and that was a massive reframe that led to so Many I couldn't have done anything that I've done since without first understanding that and that's the funny thing about entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship is a contradiction in terms Entrepreneurship It's about solving problems. In order to do that, you have to perceive the opportunity within the problem. And for most of us, we're trained to see problems as problems. And rightfully so, by the way. That's how problems should be perceived by most people. But most people aren't entrepreneurs. And if you want to be a really good entrepreneur, every problem has to be an opportunity. First. Every problem has to be an opportunity first before you can go and solve that problem. And before you can, build a business grow and expand and make money and be successful. So learning to reframe Might be the most important skill you can cultivate as an early stage entrepreneur And i've got a couple of really specific examples that maybe aren't as sad or depressing as mine the first one is airbnb the founders of airbnb Were having trouble paying their rent I mean you want to talk about an amazing reframe here are a couple of guys who are like, We don't know where we're going to live. But you know what? Other people have this problem too. And I've been couchsurfing for the last couple of weeks, and that's actually really... Helped you scratch that itch. I wonder if we don't build a website that lets people rent off the the spare room or their spare couch Like what an amazing way to make lemonade out of lemons slack same thing In terms of the reframe slack was an internal communications tool built by a gaming company To keep the remote employees engaged. Here's what's funny the gaming company failed So, imagine you're the owner of that company Stuart Butterfield, and your company goes down in a ball of flames. Most of us would just sit there self flagellating in a bathtub of gasoline lighting matches like, woe is me. But this cat was like, you know what? We sure do talk good. You know, like, wow, reframe to take something out of the embers and the ashes and turn it into such a powerful tool that literally everybody uses. Not literally. I gotta stop using that word. So incorrectly Instagram, Instagram was a pivot. Instagram started as a failing location based social platform, never gained traction. And then Kevin, I don't know, I'm going to pronounce his name right. Kevin Systrom turned it into a photo sharing platform, perfect reframe. And I think that if you and I, and the rest of the entrepreneurial world can begin to cultivate this, ability, and you already have it by the way, it's why you're an entrepreneur. You wouldn't be an entrepreneur without this ability being innate. But you want to, find it and you want to isolate it and you want to build it like a muscle. Every, every setback is an opportunity. Every disadvantage is a potential strength to draw from. And if that sounds like hoorah horse shit, then I don't think you're paying attention and I think you're wrong. Like, you really have to believe that. You have to integrate it on a cellular level. Get excited about challenges. Like, train yourself to get excited about problems. And if you can do that, you'll start to see the opportunity in literally every problem. And I'd love to know if you agree or disagree. You know what I'd really love to hear, especially because I was super vulnerable at the very beginning and I gave you more than I usually share. I'd love to hear yours. What are the reframes? What brought you here? What are the things that you thought were challenges but actually ended up proving to be massive, amazing opportunities? I'll add to mine, having grown up poor, Relatively poor. I'm amazing with money. I really value it. Not obsessively. Not, like in a Scrooge McDuck way. I don't have it all in an empty pool that I swim in. But there's just things that I don't need that a lot of my friends really seem to need. or, a minimum, there are things that I can go without. And, I don't know that I would have gotten this far had I not been really good at the game of money. and I've seen some people that early stages were making way more than me and were way more successful than I, than I was. But they had a, a lifestyle threshold they had to maintain that kept them from being able to invest and reinvest and go without. Really set me ahead. you know, there's another reframe there. There's a problem that became an amazing source of strength. And I want to know what yours are, truly. You'd make me feel better about what's going on with this video. Hit me in the comments. Let me know what your reframes are. Let me know the struggles that turned into successes into strengths. And, if this video was helpful like and subscribe, and I'll see you tomorrow.