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34–Dustin Ryen: The Empire of the Coconut Shucker
20 Plays13 days ago
Eric Pratum sits down with Dustin Ryen—entrepreneur, marketer, and yes, professional coconut shucker. Dustin shares his journey, from early entrepreneurial lessons learned while selling sandpaper to becoming known as "The Coconut Guy."
Dustin reveals how personal struggles and early life experiences shaped his entrepreneurial spirit, his willingness to embrace change and risk, and why authenticity has been central to his lasting success. He discusses the importance of emotional resonance in business, insights gained from difficult experiences—including being fired by Eric—and why finding joy in your work matters so much.
This conversation explores themes like taking control of your career, the evolving landscape of AI-driven change in business, and why personal connections remain irreplaceable. It’s an episode rich with stories, insights, and practical advice for anyone navigating their career and life.
Topics Explored:
- From Sandpaper to Coconuts: Lessons learned from Dustin's unconventional career path.
- Entrepreneurship and Risk: How Dustin’s early life shaped his attitude toward risk and opportunity.
- Being Fired (by the Host!): Reflections on turning challenging career moments into valuable life lessons.
- Emotional Resonance in Business: Why creating authentic connections matters more than ever.
- Adapting to AI and Automation: Preparing yourself for the evolving career landscape and embracing personal responsibility.
- Joy and Authenticity in Work: Why true passion and a sense of authenticity can define entrepreneurial success.
Links:
- Connect with Dustin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dustinryen/
- Check out Dustin on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realcoconutguy/
- Rob Croll on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rcroll/
- How I Built This with Guy Raz: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297
- James Read’s LinkedIn post about ChatGPT blessing his study: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jameseread_has-ai-told-you-to-be-blessed-yet-recently-activity-7327866330798325760-RJCM
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Transcript
Dustin Ryan's Journey into Entrepreneurship
00:00:00
Speaker
Coming up on the Unfolding Thought Podcast. Literally been a professional coconut sucker for gotta be seven or eight years. Started out with basically a folding table at a farmer's market.
00:00:12
Speaker
We made gross $25,000, right? In a 10 day span. There's other events I've done where it's closer to $100,000. This year, we've already kind of blown the doors off now. And I've got, I'm probably booked out for two months straight.
00:00:25
Speaker
Big scale events. We're talking like, I grossed a couple hundred grand with just two events. Like my last two events were like, don't know, maybe a quarter million dollars or somewhere in that range. Large scale events, tens of thousands of people,
00:00:40
Speaker
Welcome to the Unfolding Thought Podcast. My name is Eric Kratom. Today's guest is someone I've known and respected for a long time, an entrepreneur whose career path is anything but conventional.
00:00:54
Speaker
Dustin Ryan, also known as the Coconut Guy, has done everything from selling sandpaper at woodworking shows and promoting zombie fun runs to founding restaurants using his and his wife's own unique talents.
00:01:09
Speaker
As we get into Dustin's story, you'll see he's not your average worker. He's a born entrepreneur who has always been driven to do and try something new that rarely fits within an existing mold or model.
00:01:24
Speaker
I think you'll find Dustin's energy and stories inspiring. So without further ado, now I bring you Dustin Ryan. Dustin, thank you for joining me. I'm really looking forward to this because we've known each other for so long and we've talked quite a bit over the years about our different journeys and what we're working on. So I appreciate you being here and I'll just start with, would you mind telling me about yourself?
00:01:54
Speaker
Sure. Um, maybe go back. I'll go back since we have known each other for probably at least a dozen years. Um, actually probably longer than that, man. It's been a long time.
00:02:04
Speaker
Um, maybe start with some of the younger stuff that you may not know. just you're not bored to tears with my story, but, uh, I would say so for me, I grew up poor, not like, you know, third world poor anything. American poor is very different, but, you know, McDonald's was a treat. And so definitely was raised in environment with very little money.
00:02:28
Speaker
But a very rich environment, right? Like I think a lot of people that don't have a lot of money maybe have a more rich upbringing. So my dad's always like, you know, we weren't poor. And like, well, we were kind of poor. Like I remember getting 50 cents per hour digging stuff in the backyard. Like we were poor.
00:02:47
Speaker
But um but that was I'm grateful for that. i don't That's not like something I'm working out. with my therapist. I think it was something that I'm trying to replicate for my kids in a, like we're in a different income tax bracket than I was growing up way. Um, I don't want them to do without, but I also like really don't want them um to not be hungry.
00:03:12
Speaker
That makes sense. Uh, and so, um, so yeah, I w I did that, um, kind of fast forward a bit. One of my formative jobs, um i've been have I've had a job since i was 11 because we were poor. So like if you wanted money, you had to go earn it. And so it wasn't like I worked for my parents. I had an actual paycheck.
00:03:35
Speaker
Granted, it was like you know soccer reffing, but I literally had a paycheck and a real job since I was 11. And so um my resume is like heavily redacted at this point. I mean, I don't really need a resume of self-employed, but heavily redacted even on the LinkedIn because it's just too much to put. But ah one of my formative jobs, um oddly, was selling sandpaper all across the United States. So I was brought in as a trade show rep. It ended up kind of being one of my first businesses.
00:04:06
Speaker
by accident because it was like 1099 situation. But essentially, this woodworking show would travel all over the US and they would, um they had a major sponsor in 3M. And so 3M Sandpaper, which is about the least sexy product at woodworking show.
00:04:24
Speaker
Like literally the most boring thing um ah to the point that my demo was like, I'm going to say kind of like the ShamWow guy. Like that was my job. But I had a microphone on.
00:04:35
Speaker
Didn't know what I was doing, but actually was really good at it. So I would sell tens of thousands of dollars in a weekend of sandpaper. And I really think that the old road dogs that, I mean, some of these guys would do a quarter million dollars in like jigs or something in a weekend.
00:04:52
Speaker
Like those guys sort of seeing a young guy trying hard because I was... 18, 19 years old, you know, like they, they sort of like, you know, mentored me, oh, we got a sale in the back. And like, you know, it's not really dishonest if you say that because somebody in the back probably is going to buy one. Right. But it was just, there's this like crowd selling mentality that like I learned so much and it really helped me become like a really good salesman.
From Corporate to Coconuts: The Business Evolution
00:05:20
Speaker
um And so so I had that job. I wanted another job that was pretty formative for me was a technology company Lockheed Martin funded. It was like a software that tied in like the old way to book travel and orbits and stuff because that was like new at the time. And so companies weren't able to like account for it and make. So I...
00:05:41
Speaker
Found myself at a very, very young age, selling into Walmart, doing corporate sales and like really like high level business development that wasn't necessarily qualified for, but it was an epithetism hire because I'd help my best friend's dad move. And he was looking for some like, I'm sorry, uncle, not dad, best friend's uncle move in San Francisco. And he was just like, randomly it was like, hey, you're a talker. I need some people in my boiler room. Essentially, it's kind of the offer. But mean, he made it more, more.
00:06:10
Speaker
sophisticated than that but yeah i kind of went from that and then my sales and kind of experiential marketing journey um now you know sort of started off my entrepreneurial career and then i'm really my marketing career and that's um that's where we met actually is uh towards the later stages of my like formal work for agencies marketing career But um all in, we're talking a ah quick fast forward through, you know, 20 plus years of career.
00:06:41
Speaker
um and it sort of, you know, have been a self-employed entrepreneur ever since my twenty s And now you're bowl known in some circles as the coconut guy, right? Yeah. yeah And now I make a living with a machete selling nuts around the country. So go figure.
00:06:59
Speaker
Yeah. I've literally been a professional coconut sucker for... I was thinking about it. It's got to be seven or eight years. on ah Something like that. It's crazy that that's like been like full-time focus and ah I've been in my family for the last seven or eight years.
00:07:15
Speaker
What does the life or, I guess, work, what does the day-to-day of a coconut shucker, of the coconut guy, look like? Yeah, my real fake job. Well, um...
00:07:28
Speaker
To explain that, it's probably easier to go into like a ah mini version of the origin story. So um started out with basically a folding table at a farmer's market and essentially like, um like,
00:07:43
Speaker
a beverage upgrade, sort wanted to like change ambiance or one of these like pop up tents. was running about 50 mobile food stands a month at the time. And so this was really just a way to make one more popular.
00:07:58
Speaker
um And then it was like, my first exposure in an accidental business. So all that to say, it's been a journey. um Right now, I'm still figuring it out. It's probably the longest I've ever spent, especially mentally, like trying to figure out a business model. I've already sort of like planned on doing a business, had an idea of what the business model was, but This business came at a really kind of like pivotal inflection point in my life. I mean, I became a dad six months into opening my first restaurant and, you know, my wife's like crying in the
00:08:35
Speaker
her broom closet while she pumps press milk. It was really, really, really hard. And um so I didn't really want to do this business. So I'll have to say, like it took me a long time to figure it out because it was an accidental business. And I found a lot of joy and maybe because I was having a hard time adjusting and and the struggles we went through were very, you know if you want to talk about that, we can. But um we're very real and we're very hard and I was a new dad and you know my girls are eight now so it's kind of a big thing but essentially my girls have never known me to not be uh actually I do know how long it's been it's been eight and half years because I've told my eldest so she's never known her daddy when he wasn't but I started doing it a little bit but it's really been kind of like a full-time thing well like seven and a half years but I started doing about eight and a half so today fast forward sorry um will
00:09:26
Speaker
well Basically you make most of my money part of the year. So I have a season, I call it. It's going to sound crazy, but I sort of liken it to like ah like going on tour or for a band.
00:09:40
Speaker
So I have found a niche in large community events. I mean, I started real humbly with an ice chest and like a folding cable and that took off into... um ah both doing spirits companies, so like liquor companies, um like activation of the bars, um but then also like larger community events. And so that, you know, fast forward into being good at that and quitting all the restaurant pop-ups and I go on tour. So it's a combination of both the spirits, um, spirits like activations, like I'm going to be at a fancy resort in Napa, uh, for a business development meeting about maybe like ah a event series or what I would call residency, um,
00:10:25
Speaker
Sorry, i I did do concerts for a living professionally. And so that's like the only way I know how to think about it because there's no coconut instructors online sharing their business plans or anything. But yeah, i essentially have a VW surf bus trailer and I sell tens of thousands of coconuts. If I go to like a small second tier, third tier fair, we may gross $25,000, right?
00:10:50
Speaker
in a ten day span Um, there's other events I've done where it's closer to a one hundred thousand dollars. So it's really about kind of creating a route and then you do these stops, uh, and you sort of has a season. So for me, it can start as early as now. Typically it's, you know, at the earliest April. Um, and then now it's a little quiet. June is when it's supposed to be like blow the doors off. But this year we've already kind of blown the doors off now. And I've got I'm probably booked out for two months straight and I'm just trying to negotiate to see if some of those people are willing to change dates.
00:11:25
Speaker
But, but yeah, so we've got a, a tour. i do that. i either bring people with me or I hire them there when I'm doing 25 grand. That's a lot of coconuts. I usually have staff to help me unwrap and move them. Um, coconuts are very heavy.
00:11:42
Speaker
It's like 200 pound ice sheds and I'm an old man. So i like to get a little help from the young bucks, uh, lifting them or teach them how to share coconuts. Um, but yeah, I do a combination of sort of like activations, um, catering, even corporate events, but really the bulk of my money comes from the coconut circus at the fair.
The Creative Side of Entrepreneurship
00:12:05
Speaker
You know, I think you had already had ah fair amount of success, at least in however I might define that.
00:12:18
Speaker
You seemed on a journey already. Like you had, you'd seen some results from coconut shucking before I can remember even really being aware of it.
00:12:33
Speaker
However, I think you explained it as being an evolution or something of that nature of some of the things that you were already doing. So I'm going to recount some of what I think I recall from your background.
00:12:49
Speaker
Yeah. Around about the time that you and I met, or maybe even before that, you were hosting events like fun runs, themed runs, whatever, you know, zombie runs or yeah whatever else.
00:13:04
Speaker
And then, know, You took a turn into the corporate world where we work together. And you fired me. Yes, we should. for For anyone listening, in case you didn't catch that, I did fire Dustin, which I still feel terrible about. Any entrepreneur is not really scared of telling those stories. I think once you reach a certain point, you're definitely designed. I suspect.
00:13:32
Speaker
for different reasons, perhaps, um, a learning experience, a long learning experience for both you and for me, but I can definitely say you were the first person to fire me, Eric. So it's fine so so later in my career, much less frequently, but, uh, early on when I was young, i certainly got like a couple of times. Um,
00:13:58
Speaker
deservingly and undeservingly, truthfully. but But sorry, I didn't mean to break in at this. I just i thought I'd make that joke. yeah Go ahead. Well, thank you. Then then you I don't know the whole history after we were working together, but after a number of years, I believe you did open your restaurant, as you mentioned, and you've worked with your wife.
00:14:27
Speaker
And I think, did I hear you correctly that you were doing around 50 mobile food stands a month? Yes. At some point? Okay. and so our yeah um but If you want, I can kind of just like rewind yeah and and go over that. so um i yeah my careers no crazy so Yes, I did. I i i made a living with runs like a zombie mud run where the participants would, we called it the running dead for obvious reasons because of a hit TV show. right
00:14:58
Speaker
And in news, big scale events, we're talking like I gross a couple hundred grand with just two events. Like my last two events were like, don't know, maybe a quarter million dollars or somewhere in that range. I forget. It's been so many years, but it was large scale events, tens of thousands of people. um Definitely a lot of my marketing experience and background is a combination of that sort of like experiential And but it built upon the same sort of business that I did while my wife was in college. And I was actually ended up going back to school because I proposed and realized a concert promoter is not not like a real job. like
00:15:40
Speaker
Like I was 25 and I didn't know what was cool as much as I used to. And so I figured that had a self life. And so that's how we met is that I was getting an internet marketing degree while i was working as a car website technology company. um And ah I think you were like a guest lecturer one of my teachers. And so inadvertently, I didn't meet you at that time.
00:16:07
Speaker
But I think after maybe... because I still have a relationship with that professor Rob Kroll shout out to him he's amazing and now he's in charge of the whole program which is even better from what I hear than when I got there but yeah I had done concerts professionally for a couple years ah one of those firings that we talked about I got let go at a carpet sales company um actually no I quit that job that's right I quit I could not take another day of selling carpet like reading a carpet manuals about as much fun as It sounds.
00:16:38
Speaker
So and the only time I've not given notice was like, y'all can get get two weeks. But like, if I were you, I'd just let go of me now. So it worked out that way. But sorry, I digress. So, so yeah, so I did that.
00:16:52
Speaker
And then um i we we moved back. to Sacramento when she had graduated. She got a job and I tried to sell the concert promotion business. That's a hard one to sell because it's kind of like, you know, tied to the last concert you did. But I made a living doing EDM concerts and it all kind of came from a thousand dollar loan from my cousin and a how to start an internet business for dummies business. So we had a nightlife website and that sort of like naturally organically grew into putting on the events that we were taking photos at already. So that was that business. And then
00:17:32
Speaker
I went back to SAC and we did the runs as a sort of ah like a new version of having done concert promotions. So we had some business partners. My wife and I have been in business together ever since the ripe old age of 20. So I just say partner. It's really convenient that that's like a thing to do now because she's quite literally my business partner still and life partner.
00:17:56
Speaker
um ah It's less amusing when I'm saying yes, chef at home, but You know, it's ah it's it's definitely shaped me into who I am. And I'm very grateful for that experience. I think it's a different layer that a lot of people don't see with their significant other um in a good way and in a bad way. So it's ah it's it's a good one, but helped me along my journey. um So yeah, so we did that.
00:18:23
Speaker
And then there was a point in which we were just in it for the money. Like we were making good money and it was successful, but had come along with enough businesses. Cause there's some I'm not talking about. won't bore you to death with all my background, but we had, we had done enough that I,
00:18:44
Speaker
There's something more to being an entrepreneur than just like the American dream and making money. Like, ah you know, like ah that's a very, very real part of why I do it, but it's not the end goal, right? Like,
00:18:59
Speaker
Money is ah ah a form of keeping score. um So for the like competitive game aspect of it, um that that that makes me, you know, super into like growth and all that stuff.
00:19:11
Speaker
There's really, I think, kind of a creative component for me. Creating businesses are almost like I'm an artist and I paint and stuff. Not as much as I should, but it was...
00:19:23
Speaker
told by a lot of people that could have a career in it, like I'm good at it. And I've just never had any desire to like let my capitalist self like monetize something that's a purely emotional outlet for me.
00:19:37
Speaker
And so, um so business kind of became that a little bit for me as worried as that sounds. But a lot of our businesses have been kind of art space that consider like events and experience a form of art, like um not, not as much as like the culinary arts, which is the restaurant that you spoke of and I'll get into, but it's, it's like to me, like,
00:20:01
Speaker
I'm like a builder, but it's it's a it's harder than regular art because you come up with an identity, you come up with a logo, you come up with a, like, ethos and, like, what you're trying to say to the world. um But then you also have to make it make money. And so that's, like, you get to grow this thing off of a, like, napkin drawing, right, into, like, a real thing that, like, creates jobs and, like, employs people.
00:20:24
Speaker
And that's the, like... part that i like so like that founder part which is arguably the most stressful and shittiest part is also like sorry i don't know don't know to cuss on this but like truly is like a shitty part in in ways is like is like my favorite part like i love that once it gets to be maintenance like it's it's definitely better for my mental health and i've learned um or and ah always still learning to be a better manager and so the employees been run stuff and i I'm not in the part that makes me bored and makes me look for something shiny and new to start. But yeah, so we had basically just decided and and it was ushered along a little bit because my mom um went through
00:21:09
Speaker
for breast cancer and my dad at the same time had hip surgery and so i was about to start another business and i wasn't really sure what that was going to be ah just knew that I couldn't couldn't do it for just the money anymore um with the runs and so I even though it was really fun business like I'm not
Balancing Business and Family Life
00:21:27
Speaker
a runner. I used to be, you know, skinny and on track, but I'm not, that's not my like hobby. Right. Like, and so i I, I didn't want to do it for the money, but I didn't know what I was going to do.
00:21:37
Speaker
And so being able to take care of my parents for your really helped me like figure out what I wanted to do. And so um my, my wife continued working during that time. We were fortunate enough that we had enough, you know, save that I could kind of take that like life sabbatical and figure out what was next. And I believe that I, I think I got into Cause I did the runs and then, then we met, I think I got into marketing again. So i just took a job cause I didn't know what project I wanted to start.
00:22:05
Speaker
And so, um, through a friend sort of working again in marketing and at some boutique agencies. And then we met and y'all like Rezard flew me out, uh, to Glendale and,
00:22:22
Speaker
It's like you knew my wife loves Christmas so much that I was like going to have to say yes to whatever you put across the table because I did want to work for you. But I wasn't sure if I wanted to completely change everything again. like We had gone through that a lot. We lived in one place, had a business, swapped it for like all new ideas.
00:22:43
Speaker
business and a brand new location already, like coming back home to Sacramento where I grew up. And then Glendale was like, let's go to l LA. And I didn't really want to go to LA, but I did really want to learn from you and get mentored because I thought that I was never going to get to be a better marketer if I didn't get to play with bigger ad budgets. And the reality is, is that most small businesses, even though I built something out of a thousand dollar loan into like multiple employees and like a like a legit income, like that is not even close to the multimillion dollar ad budgets that albeit we were working on nonprofits, but it's still.
00:23:21
Speaker
It's still marketing and it's, you know, organizational marketing at a level that I was not going to get to buy for myself. Because a lot of what I learned from marketing was as much working on other people's stuff. it was probably more experience or a lot of what I did for people was crafted off of my own, like ad buys and like what I did. You know, I was, I was, of the I'm an elder millennial. So a lot of that social media stuff, like,
00:23:44
Speaker
kind came out as I was young and I just sort of like naturally turned that into like business promotions and stuff for the nightlife thing. So, so that's how we met. And then I'm so slowly getting there. I'm sorry, but we did, um, we did start a restaurant. So, um, uh,
00:24:04
Speaker
we We can talk about our experience if you want or not, but we we worked and I am very grateful for that. And i basically was deciding between on if I wanted to take a job for a, it was ah like a nonprofit, but it was like events and entrepreneurship and throwing events for entrepreneurs. And so I had no doubt that Besides an amazing six-figure income, which is much more than I had been making at the previous employment, so ah our our former our both are both of our former employer was not as generous as other marketing agencies, right, or whatever.
00:24:40
Speaker
I think because it's somewhat in the nonprofit space, but whatever. It does doesn't matter. No water under the bridge. But um but I had a really, really high job offer.
00:24:51
Speaker
was only reportable to the... bored. But there was something in me that like, even though that job was like my dream job, like on paper, i really just wanted to like sleep on my mother-in-law's couch and start a restaurant and like pray that I made $30,000. a year fun based off of the business plan. And like, like that was the most I knew for sure I could make when I wrote that. So while I was in l LA, I did see the last little bit because I was like trying to get work and my wife was still employed there.
00:25:24
Speaker
And so I was looking at it and was deciding on that. And on a whim, we went home to visit her mom. And saw this open space in Davis for a restaurant and thought about the poke restaurant that was down the street from my wife's work. And actually, I guess down the street from our work and Glendale.
00:25:43
Speaker
um And we thought that would work because we had always talked about it. Restaurants were always something as good as we were interested in, but we had no experience. So. i was just sort of like a random fortuitous, uh, trip that turned into a permanent stay. And I'm still, still, uh, owner operator of that restaurant and we've been on the food network and all kinds of stuff. So.
00:26:06
Speaker
Thank you. and There are a couple things that I want to ask you about, but since we've referenced it, I think we can talk about working together and probably explore some of the you know, how you develop or evolve in experiences where I think you are a born entrepreneur, you know, and so there were things, there were really good things that came along with that in being, having you as part of a bigger organization.
00:26:44
Speaker
And then there are also those things like, you know, at what point have you quote unquote learned enough that you can learn from big business or any number of other things. But so the story there for everyone is that we were connected.
00:27:03
Speaker
i was looking to build a small team. And so Dustin was someone that if I could get Dustin, I wanted Dustin on my team, basically.
00:27:16
Speaker
And so you, i don't recall all of the details, but thinking back on it, I'm some of this must have been what was in my head so you didn't have the industry experience because like you were saying you know I was newly gaining it I think I was basically right-hand guy for boutique agency so I had not worked at large agencies I had done enough marketing stuff because I started my career so early that I had marketing experience in a degree and you know um
00:27:51
Speaker
Internet specialist stuff. I think you were looking for somebody who was a little bit more code based and I knew enough, but it was a weird position that you were hiring for. yeah I don't think it was like, I think even at the time or remember you saying, I'm not sure if this is like the right bit, but I need want you on my team and it was fine. I had enough experience with it. It was sort of like an in-between coder slash internet strategist slash like account.
00:28:17
Speaker
manager support ecrm specialist is not something i've ever seen on anyone else's um resume so don't really know if it existed anywhere outside of grisard probably not but um but yeah was it was a small team and i think that was it so oh yeah i said christmas and that's part of why it affected us getting uh getting there is because there's The Glendale Galleria is like a mall amongst malls.
00:28:44
Speaker
I think the highest grossing Apple ah store in the country, if I recall. It's probably not changed. um My wife did some like benefit behind the scenes government, whatever.
Reflections on Corporate Experience and Management
00:28:56
Speaker
program that said that but yeah there's a moment that i remember specifically where we had had a conversation about don't if this is for you man but i think we can make this work and then um looking up and there's fake snow coming down off of the gallery atop and it is like a magical wonderland with santa and like all this stuff but we're in the middle of la right like it's not it's not uh but yeah that um Yeah, and it was flattering. You guys flew me out. it was You gave me the offer. I got to interview with Glenn, probably. I forget who I interviewed with, but I assume Glenn. Or maybe just you. Or maybe it' was just like a foregone thing. I forget.
00:29:36
Speaker
but Yeah, I do remember that there was real sort of consideration of, are we hiring the right person? You know, what are the alternatives sort of? and yeah maybe it wasn't with me in the room.
00:29:54
Speaker
You know, so I don't recall who you interviewed with exactly, but, you know, at the time i was going through a multi-year process myself of learning to be ah manager and any version of that word or related words that you might put to that, you know, leader or mentor or whatever you want to group all together. I'm just going to call manager right now.
00:30:23
Speaker
And You know, I can think of the one sort of longer experience of, you know, the tension that you have around something's not working, but sometimes when you have that tension,
00:30:40
Speaker
It's not because you're on a path to, well, you're not going to work here anymore. Sometimes it's because you're doing the right work, you know, and like you're pushing against the same sort of things that as an entrepreneur, you teeter on the edge often of like one bad month and this business could be gone. Right.
00:30:59
Speaker
Or that sort of thing. And So there was ah ah long drawn out sort of tension. And that's not to say that it was all like this isn't working, but rather as a manager, I was evolving through that.
00:31:15
Speaker
And then I can also remember one conversation that I'm going to bring up in large part because I think it's illustrative of a an opportunity to develop both as an entrepreneur or as someone who's just a more creative out-of-the-box thinker and also for someone who the decisions that you make affect people's livelihoods, you know their careers, their happiness.
00:31:46
Speaker
You know, as they say, people don't quit jobs, they quit managers sort of things. And like I was learning that I remember one time we were talking about some direction for a client. I forget exactly what it was.
00:32:00
Speaker
And you you kept pushing on like, well, we really need to do this or that. And for some reason it wasn't in the budget or it wasn't in the grander plan. And I don't even really remember how I was handling it, but that I didn't know what else to say other than to exert power, basically. Right. Like to exert force and basically say, my job is that as a strategist, your job is to get the thing done or whatever.
00:32:28
Speaker
And it embarrasses me, but that, that,
00:32:33
Speaker
I did that, but I bring it up because you know when you have a choice between exerting power over someone in in any relationship, it could be a friendship relationship, it could be with your spouse, it could be anything, versus coming to agreement, you know, helping the other person in dialogue, come to see that we, we both want to go to the same place, right? right Like you, you should,
00:33:06
Speaker
do your best to come alignment rather than to just say it's my way or the highway sort of thing. And there was this experience that, you know, as part of our experience together, i remember this one time um and that one conversation, but I also bring it up in part because I suspect being more of a free thinker, you know, and somebody who had previously,
00:33:33
Speaker
you lived or died based on not just did you have the idea, but probably even more so, did you go and do anything about it? And, you know, running your own business, there most of the time people are just going to wait for you to go and find the potential business partner before they're willing to work with them or to go and find the sales opportunity before they're willing to work on it or any number of other things.
00:34:01
Speaker
And I think you were pushing on whatever this idea was that to me was clearly not in scope or didn't make sense or whatever. And, um, and I suspect that whether you remember this conversation or not, yeah even just as a, an example of you know, for, for someone who's listening to this, who maybe is struggling in their career, like nobody listens to me or I have all these ideas and my business is going the wrong direction or whatever, you know, I'm part of a bigger business that's going the wrong direction.
00:34:42
Speaker
Like, um, you might take it as a sign. If yeah you always have the idea and people aren't listening to you or whatever, it might be a sign. I'm not saying it always is, but it might be a sign that you need to take those ideas and take the ADHD mind or whatever it is.
00:35:04
Speaker
And if you're willing to act upon it, and if you're willing to take the risk, maybe take that experience of your manager saying, I'm a strategist and your job is to execute her. However it was that I phrased this, no maybe take that as a sign of, maybe I can do it on my own.
00:35:22
Speaker
Yeah. Well, it's interesting to bring it up because I don't remember the conversation, but it's a great segue into how I felt at the time. So for me, it was very strange. Like having been a job creator since I was like 18, I forget what age I was at this, you know, at this juncture. But, you know, much later in life, married, you know, a career level for a lot of people, um you know.
00:35:48
Speaker
from zombie runs to whatever mine hasn't exactly followed the traditional path so it's harder to put dates on stuff sometimes but um but there was i didn't feel like I was putting on airs five by this but I really felt like I had something in common with C-level management in terms of like how I thought.
00:36:10
Speaker
And I didn't mean it like I should be in C-level management or like up and above, but you really are like the CEO of your small business. Now I wouldn't necessarily put CEO on my, I've never have really put CEO on my job title or why I had something before it. When I was very, very young, I think I maybe did once all the jobs that publish a look at all the business cards i' had over the years.
00:36:36
Speaker
because It make me laugh. But um yeah, it is a mindset of like, you know, responsibility for an organization that I you didn't have in that role, right? Like I was very much a cog in a very large wheel, right?
00:36:51
Speaker
As you were, as your manager was, um you know, Glenn, Glenn, love Glenn. Glenn taught me a lot. It was frustrating at the time, but I think he Also talked to a lot. i remember you sort reinforcing some of this stuff or helping me to understand the experience as it was happening in a way that was that was very helpful to me and formative. I've i've used it now in my own sort like career. But yeah, it was very hard for me to fit in.
00:37:18
Speaker
Now, in some ways, I think that organization needed somebody wild and crazy like me because it was a stagnant organization and it ultimately was on its way out um is what we found through the you know the history of the company.
00:37:31
Speaker
I remember you telling me once, and this was not why you were firing me, so you're not a poodle dick by saying this, but you were like,
00:37:40
Speaker
businesses will survive after employees leave, right? And I think you were really like encouraging me to look because i sort of learned what I could learn from you at that time. And this was before there was any sort of like issues. if my My memory, fold maybe maybe not, because I imagine that I was a tough, tough person to manage. I wouldn't want that job.
00:38:05
Speaker
I remember that and I remembered it because Especially as an employer and like now my teams are much bigger and I found my right size of employees. It doesn't drive me crazy because i have limitations as a manager, great leader. But terms of management, that is a skill set and it's separate from leadership.
00:38:23
Speaker
And you don't always know that when you're first starting out. But yeah, it um it was hard to to do that. Grizzard needed it because it was like transitioning from like direct mail into direct mail plus digital, but they didn't really value digital. And so I think you were probably trying to find a fit because I was probably a pain in the ass to like take skills. Like obviously he's got skills, but doesn't quite fit in the box.
00:38:46
Speaker
But once I got on, it's like sort of like an entrepreneur is what I would call it, even though that wasn't formally discussed. But essentially every brand new digital project was my problem.
00:38:57
Speaker
And I was responsible for it. And they did not give me the support I needed to get it done because I had no authority over the people. But I still had the deadline and was answerable to VP. So Glenn, bless his heart, ah taught us the the wonderful skill of go back there and you ask them the date and time in which they will know when they can tell you the date and time that's going to be delivered.
00:39:21
Speaker
And then come back to me if that doesn't happen. i can talk to their, you know, their manager or whatever it was. It's like this, this, you know, find a way under, over, but you're never going to be stopped by the wall attitude that I was not familiar with having not been in the, you know, multitude of ranks at a company that size. I mean, we're not talking a huge business. i was,
00:39:41
Speaker
30 million, 50 million a year, I think. So relatively small. I think it got ah mention on Omnicom's website just because it did nonprofit related marketing work. But, you know, that's for those of you that don't know, that's like the second largest holding company in the world or first, maybe I don't forget what it size, but it's one of the two biggest ones that owns all the agencies that do all the biggest brands. So there's a couple of companies that kind of own everything and they're one of them.
00:40:09
Speaker
um But yeah, we, yeah it was interesting. Very interesting, very good thing. You know, it says a lot that I was basically...
00:40:20
Speaker
Like what I got, I got a lot of things out of that and I got a lot of, uh, a lot out of our working relationship and I knew I wasn't the greatest fit and I didn't kick it personally. Like it was hard cause I hadn't been fired, um, in a long time. Like most of the the times I had been fired when I was, when I was younger and, you know, going on a journey or whatever. But, um,
00:40:42
Speaker
But it was it was good for me because I realized I didn't want that job that I was offered ah that was like six figures and like, you know, sort of like ah I could have taken it out of a like, see, I am worth it, right? Like way.
00:40:56
Speaker
um And that that probably helped ease the blow a little bit, truthfully. um but But I knew, like I knew very early on and I was very miserable at that job because I'm just not a cog in a wheel. I need to be the mastermind destiny. And The fact that we would be in meetings and people would be like in the same meetings with us all day. And you're like, bring your laptop.
00:41:18
Speaker
You've got to get work done because they won't give you time to work. And by the end of the day, I've been with the same people and they're asking me if I've done work from earlier in the day. And I'm like, we've been in the same eight meetings together. Like, get the fuck out of here. Right. Like, there's no, like, there's no, there's no, when was I supposed to do it? Like, I'm sorry. But like, ah I was more professional. You guys are all going to think I got fired for cause real easy, but it really was like, I was very professional about it. But I mean, I was there at like 6am and like leaving too late. And it's like, cause there's never enough hours in a day.
00:41:50
Speaker
And like, you know, I haven't even read the whole book, but like, I'd recommend the five minute um mastering a five minute meeting book or whatever. I think you told me about that thing because like you really can't bog down an organization and like shut people down. But yeah, it's not just me. Every entrepreneur, there's there's like so I listen a lot to a podcast because how I built this and with Guy Raz and he essentially like interviews.
00:42:16
Speaker
extremely prolific entrepreneurs. So big companies and everything from, I think the first one I did was like Dave's Killer Bread was the first one listened to, but we're talking like the Oprah's of the world, right? and There's probably even an episode on her. i' I'm not sure, but but just a who's who, amazing, some of the sharks from Shark Tank, all that.
00:42:37
Speaker
And one of the things over years of listening to that that I've noticed that's ah that is a common thread among entrepreneurs is Possibly bad at school or just mediocre because they didn't fit in and like you're talking about. Right. And then um so not not very successful at school. Sometimes that's not the case. But there's generally speaking, struggled in school and then also struggled in work until they became their own boss.
00:43:07
Speaker
And so I think, and I think also there's, you know, you mentioned ADD. I definitely have ADD. There's, there's also, i hear that maybe I pick up on that cause that's my paradigm, but I, I want to say that my wife, who is like a amazing, you know, walking, talking example of seven habits of highly affected people.
00:43:29
Speaker
Like I'm pretty sure she also like has mentioned to me that that's like one of the things she heard and like, kind of like, made it a little easier to deal with my, you know,
00:43:41
Speaker
if It's that ADD spouse or whatever, um because she has attributed that. um i'd have I'd have to look it up. But I think that those things kind of go hand in hand, right? And so when I was in that position, and I won national awards, right? Like I was invited to a top, to like under 40, and we beat all the biggest ad agencies, and I was one of the speakers. So wasn't like I was bad at the job, but I probably wasn't great at the job.
00:44:08
Speaker
the job that I was hired for and not what it turned into. And so on paper, like I did that fine. I don't think I was like horrible. don't think I was great. I definitely sucked at office politics, like huge.
00:44:19
Speaker
um But it was that part, knowing, knowing internet, stuff supporting the team I was great at that was fine at the like mar um marketing automation know automation stuff that we did but yeah I always felt out of place and I always felt like I struggled and um I've got a lot of inner confidence um so you know I'm sure some of my ideas that people roll the eyes out like it didn't really phase me but um it it There is there.
00:44:50
Speaker
I think I've heard some really successful like CEOs talk about if everything's going right and there's harmony in the office, then you're not doing the testing right. Right. Like if you're a, if you're doing testing for a software and you're like, everything is like, like not failing, you're, you're failing.
00:45:11
Speaker
Because you're not challenging yourself enough. You're not doing the right tests. and And I think that that's the case with some
The Impact of AI on Careers and the Future
00:45:19
Speaker
organizations. And I would argue my tenure there was a little bit of that, that they needed a little bit of challenging.
00:45:24
Speaker
Now, was I the right guy Should I have been on upper management? Probably not. But like... But they needed somebody like me and and to embrace that. And I think ultimately they tried to, but it was too late if we want to go back to the history of it. Like they got absorbed by a sister company because that specific branch, which was bigger than the sister company or equal to,
00:45:46
Speaker
Fast forward five, seven years, it failed. Well, it's because they didn't put value in the internet. They were a direct mail company that refused to evolve quickly enough. So ah I wasn't myd um it wasn't my product ideas, but I helped launch some of those ideas that could have saved them.
00:46:06
Speaker
and have they taken you know myself or somebody who came into my role more likely um because I'm sure I would have like quit for something at the brown the time that like we I was on that like that was about the amount of time that I could spend somewhere and not want to do something new or start my own thing to be honest but I was going to give it longer i had a lot of respect for you so and I was still learning um even though it sort of petering out but Yeah, it was a good, it was a good experience for me because it it was like, that's not for me. I can't do that. An office environment is like killing me.
00:46:43
Speaker
You know, something that has been a good portion of your career, i think even when you have worked for other people, is creating your own opportunities.
00:46:59
Speaker
You know, like I suspect that with the sales jobs that you had, there was a lot of like, if you don't work today, you don't eat.
00:47:10
Speaker
and yeah ah po now so I laugh because one of my best friends, he's an entrepreneur now. So somebody, there's definitely somebody to it. he also grew up poor, much more poor than me, lived in a car. He's a like real, he would be a good guest.
00:47:26
Speaker
You should talk to him. But he is ah Jason, one of my best friends. um ah He's older than me. We're more peers now, but when we first met, I was selling water door-to-door for an Alhambra Delivers Water Company. and you don't know how to sell until you've sold door to door. Let me just tell you like yeah to go from get that F off my lawn to like signing up for a monthly service is a skill that he was much better at, but that it, um, you know, it, uh, it helped me, but, but yeah, it was very much do or die. And so I do, I do appreciate all those because if you can go sell water door to door,
00:48:09
Speaker
But yeah that um yeah, that was a wild job. Sorry. now and that as what I digress. but But yeah, it is 100%. You got to hunt that day to eat.
00:48:20
Speaker
And then you start to see it too. You start to see the opportunities once you've had some success and you've sold and you've learned from bigger companies. I mean, learned a lot too from our time at Grisard and that wasn't like the only place that I learned.
00:48:31
Speaker
a lot. ah But seeing how a big business does it and then you digest it into something small, like, that can help you find those opportunities because there's a reason it got big, right? Like I was saying that if you don't work that day or however it was that i phrased it, you don't eat.
00:48:49
Speaker
i
00:48:52
Speaker
I wouldn't say that I hesitate to make predictions, but, you know, I think that most predictions you make about the future are likely to not bear out to be true.
00:49:09
Speaker
And yet, I have a fairly strong feeling that the best opportunity that will exist for what I'm going to broadly term the average person in The next 10 to maybe 100 years in the Western world will be for people to find the things that they're willing to work really hard at.
00:49:41
Speaker
and that they're not expecting that someone like a boss or a bigger business will serve up to them. Here's your salary and here's your benefits and do you have job security and now we're just going to tell you what to do and you just keep doing that and you will continue to have job security. I feel like in particular with artificial intelligence, but a lot of stuff that is tangential to that, that, you know, you have a restaurant, for example, and there are many ways in which it's easier to protect your restaurant from artificial intelligence, you know, because there's an in-person experience, there's
00:50:28
Speaker
physical labor. The cost of the robots isn't going to replace people in my lifetime for the size of restaurant I have. It will. I'm sorry. It will in my lifetime, but not likely when I care and I own it. Right. That's a low, it's a low tech industry. So.
00:50:46
Speaker
Well, and, you know, i mean, I think that as technology encroaches upon what is uniquely human, that we start to question, you know what is really valuable about our time and whatever else. And I think that is one reason that your coconut experience is so valuable is that it's hard to replicate going and having a real live experience, whether we talk about music or sports or festivals or something of that nature.
00:51:24
Speaker
yet, yeah
00:51:27
Speaker
For me to become the next coconut guy or whatever the iteration might be, i have to have an idea. I have to be willing to take some action.
00:51:41
Speaker
And for the last, what, 70-ish years, if not maybe 120
00:51:49
Speaker
it has progressively become easier and easier to not have to have an idea or willingness to take action and instead to come out of college and let someone else figure out what I'm supposed to be doing. I'll just wait to be told.
00:52:06
Speaker
And so, again, while I do generally hesitate to make predictions, I feel like in large part because of AI, but, you know, tied into that robotics and automation and so on. There are a ton of fields in the Western world where people will realize that there is so little value in the work that most X people do. And you can pick any number of roles, but let's just say medical coders
00:52:43
Speaker
You know, you go to the doctor and they treat you for something or they make some sort of diagnosis. That treatment gets coded a certain way so that it can be billed in a certain way.
00:52:54
Speaker
There are so few of those people or accountants or it could be lots of different roles, strategists even, that do such great work.
00:53:06
Speaker
that they are better than a so-so artificial intelligence. And, you know, so if I can go to chat GPT and I can say, here are the last five emails I sent and here are the results.
00:53:22
Speaker
What do you think I should send next? And then I'm willing to spend 20 minutes with it going, ah, not really like that. Then 20 minutes of my time and $20 for the month. is likely to get me a result that is at least good enough.
00:53:38
Speaker
Now, it might not be amazing. It might not make my business stand out. But would I rather do that or maybe pay one of my existing employees to do that?
00:53:50
Speaker
Or would I rather take the risk on hiring yet another person to do the job with no guarantee? that they will be amazing and better than the AI.
00:54:03
Speaker
And I feel like increasingly, you know more and more people are going to have to come to a realization that you are more and more responsible for figuring out what you're supposed to be doing in your career and taking action on it.
00:54:21
Speaker
Much like you have done throughout your career, in large part, I have an idea and I'm willing to go and do something about it. And, you know, you have some level of risk tolerance, which not ohio not a lot of principle or you go now a lot of people are you know ah I mean, i wouldn't say that I'm like jumping off of buildings like risk lover, but when it comes to like an idea, i will risk everything I own. um And it's ah it's a confidence built on more wins than losses. So there's ah there's an element of that.
00:54:58
Speaker
Right. You have to have the failures, though, to like properly do risk assessment and start a business. So also my biggest failure arguably should have told me to just go work for somebody was my my one of my first businesses lost my best brand and was poor. So it was like 14 grand seemed like on credit cards to seem like an insurmountable mountain. and now I got I look at that as like such a cheap lesson. Like, I've lost so much more money than that doing far less bad ideas or, like, a bad team or whatever, right? But, like, that, um yeah, I think it's partly you become more comfortable with things that you're familiar with. So,
00:55:40
Speaker
if you are constantly risking money or you've had bad experiences as a like entrepreneur where you have to borrow little bit of money from somebody that gets close to you to like make payroll and pay them back two days later so that your employees don't realize that you were like broke.
00:55:57
Speaker
Um, and maybe you're not broke, you're just bad at cash flow management, whatever, but like, it's very, it's, it is, it's a different mindset. I would argue that the f**k,
00:56:08
Speaker
Feeling on the outside, but you're inside an organization leads a lot of entrepreneurs. are Like I wouldn't give myself a high five for taking a risk. It's like, I'm just born different. And like, I need to do that.
00:56:20
Speaker
Right. Like, are there times when I wish I was in an office or I would have taken that office job? Absolutely. Right. Like, like I touched on earlier, like, It was a very hard experience to open a restaurant for two people that didn't know what they were doing.
00:56:35
Speaker
We had to find $130,000 six weeks before we opened or we were going to be out of business before we even started. So I figured out a payment plan.
00:56:46
Speaker
um I had put money in a business plan to like do it, but i had an experienced contractor who told me the whole time that it was $100,000. Awesome and on budget. And he wrote this, hadn't done the math. So he tells me and he's on 30 grand. i' like, well, we're gonna have to make payments. Right.
00:57:02
Speaker
And I found it. I found actually that amount of money and I still make pigments. Um, but that's a huge stressor. And then you go into that too.
00:57:13
Speaker
I'm going to learn how to be a dad and like strap my kid to my chest while I like do dishes. And my wife is an absolute wreck, even though she's Wonder Woman and holding this place together to um building up and had just like being successful enough that we were able to like like basically sell twice as good as anyone else, our like footprint size to the point where we're able to maintain that like expensive debt that was incurred from the very beginning.
00:57:41
Speaker
And so like, that was the only thing that saved us is we just outsold, we outsold and we out hustled. And so a portion of my desire to turn, you know, one farmer's market stand at, um, into 50 stands a month was like out of desperation. And I essentially created like two businesses in one.
00:58:00
Speaker
Um, and it was a lot cheaper to buy a tent than another food location, but it made me a much better entrepreneur. was like, I had, There weren't all the different concepts, but let's just say 50 different mini restaurants, right? So um so that that that definitely um shaped my journey and was a very good thing. and And like just this last year, we were on the Food Network, right? So you could argue that that's sort of like the stamp of like you made it, right? And that's post-COVID and we're still doing like...
00:58:31
Speaker
ripples in post-COVID. But I think what people need to realize, and I'm sorry to share so much of my story in relation to that, but it's like ai is coming for your job because your job is not what ah what it is today.
00:58:45
Speaker
So you have a responsibility and to figure out your own career, but you also have a responsibility right now. We are at such a major inflection point. I mean, this is like I would say you could liken this to like electricity.
00:58:58
Speaker
It's that big of a deal. And like you can like you know laugh it off. like I definitely like think of, like I'm a nerd, so I think of like Terminator and Skynet. there's little bit truth there's a little bit of truth in like in that fear even though that's like not a real fear but like actually james reed who we both worked with did a post about how his ai prayed for him or was like talking about sort of like using christians uh church speak because he's a christian guy and uses it sometimes to look up stuff for like his bible study whatever and so like he's having an interaction with a like non-sentient being but like
00:59:36
Speaker
It's a very human interaction, right? Like it's a very human interaction with the algorithm based like form of intelligence that we're just not like ready for. Like my kids grew up cause I'm a technologist despite being a hook low tech coconut sucker. And so I do stuff like, like, like Google voice all through my house and this predates AI.
00:59:58
Speaker
But I remember them learning how to talk at the same time that I had Google. And so they have a, like a, like a, personal relationship with Google. They get mad at Google and they like have assigned a personality and they love Google when Google does what they want.
01:00:11
Speaker
But they so quickly learn the commands to do that, that I can't help but look at that moment in my life and think, what are their kids and what is their careers going to look like? Because they're going to have a relationship. These like agencies that do like agents for AI, like it really is like even me and my job, like I'm, I'm doing some reporting right now for a spirits company. And I'm like, this is, this is an AI thing. I got to like figure out how to do this AI faster and better than I have. I've done a lot of listening to like thought leaders on it, but like, I really got to buckle down and put in the hours.
01:00:45
Speaker
Um, even though I have zero interest in going back into the marketing agency world, like it is relevant to me. And it's especially hyper relevant to me because I ended up as a accidental,
01:00:56
Speaker
influencer through this coconut shenanigans that I do, right? Like this, this business, there was a component of it that is influencer driven. And my success, if you really wanted to deep dive on what kind of time you got, but like my success in that, it took me a long time to realize I'm just now realizing eight years later,
01:01:14
Speaker
why it works so good, right? It's not because I'm that charming. What I realized is, is that this coconut business, like shucking with the machete and selling water at a farmer's market, the reason people loved it is that there was an emotional resonance to what I did. Like it's there, that emotion is what I somehow tapped into because it's not an emotion for a vacation, but it's a bunch of emotions that have sort of like Burn those memories and the number of stories in the thousand. I mean, I've done over half a million coconuts at this point. Right. And I talked to every single person that I'm selling that coconut to.
01:01:48
Speaker
Those are all personally handled by me. And I could tell you that I've heard the same story many times of. I was in Hawaii or I was, you know what I mean? Like that is a part of it.
01:01:59
Speaker
And that is the emotion because it is an experience that that's going to keep that, that emotional resonance, um you know, influencers, these things that are uniquely
Creating Emotional Connections in Business
01:02:10
Speaker
human. Like there's some part of you need a human to direct it and we need a safeguard against just letting them free.
01:02:18
Speaker
Like you're going to have to figure out as an employee, how, how your job will become redundant, one aspects of it And it'll evolve. I think the best way to think of it is you have this amazing power now to put all this knowledge to work for you and this like ability to calculate and all that.
01:02:39
Speaker
And when you get And when you get accustomed to things like that and aren't willing to, as I've sort of said, like you, actually go and do something about it.
01:02:52
Speaker
yeah I have an idea. i have a thought in the back of my head. And you don't take the time to do something about it. Yeah. you become less valuable than the ai by itself, because at least the AI, the, the return on investment becomes so much more obvious and it's only going to improve over time because. Oh, it's, it's, it's gone so fast in like the two years I personally interacted with it that it blows my mind. And I'm sure it's faster for people like yourself or probably more thick in it. Right.
01:03:28
Speaker
There's, a lot for us to keep going on. However, we are very close to time. So one thing that I want to encourage people to do is to go and check you out because think it's really interesting to have so many people around the world who have you know, successful businesses or they have some level of influence. Influence in the type of influencer is what I mean at the moment. I don't mean influence of terms of politics or whatever else. yeah
01:04:04
Speaker
But I think it's really interesting that you can have people who are in certain crowds. They're celebrity, right? or it is bizarre, yeah.
01:04:17
Speaker
Yeah. And then you you can have people who, whether they're, they could be considered a celebrity or not. There are so many people out there who are able to run their own business or do whatever it is that they do and they can care for their families or they can make money and then they give back to the community and you just never hear about all these people.
Connecting with Dustin Ryan
01:04:42
Speaker
And because you know, you as the coconut guy would otherwise be outside of my circle, so to speak. yeah And yet if I get exposed to that's a possibility, you know, then at least in the argument that I would make about the future, that people need to be more like the CEO of their their careers. You don't actually work for anyone. You work for yourself, even if someone else is writing your paycheck every month. I think that's going to be a greater and greater need over time. And so if I get exposure to you
01:05:20
Speaker
I realize there's another option for me. So I encourage anyone who's here to go and check you out. And I know to send people to Instagram.
01:05:32
Speaker
I don't know if there are other places, but I suppose the question ultimately is, where do people go to find you? How do they connect with you, Dustin? so my, you know, strongest, uh, channel on social is my Instagram at real coconut guy. That's still probably the best up to date information.
01:05:51
Speaker
Um, That's a curated feed, right? Like, ah you know, see me in a and my surfy hat. That doesn't mean that I'm not like somebody who's lived near the beach and that aren't like a California kid with a California lifestyle who grew up in the waves, right? Like that's definitely like part of my story too.
01:06:07
Speaker
but um But if you want the like business me, hit me up on LinkedIn, ah the whatever it is, in slash Dustin Ryan, D-U-S-T-I-N-R-Y-E-N.
01:06:18
Speaker
I'm a very authentic person. I just, choose not to share, ah you know, thoughts on business. Uh, I don't really share family on LinkedIn either, but I, very much just do the coconuts and do the events and kind of like what I think people are there for right on, uh, on Instagram. I've had a personal one in years, but if you want more of the business side, uh, if you're struggling entrepreneur or if you're a successful entrepreneur in use, want to talk about anything, I,
01:06:51
Speaker
Strongly encourage it. I'm big on the networking and getting know people and really paying it forward because I have a lot of people help me out early on in my career. And so I like to do the same for people.
01:07:02
Speaker
You know, I'm a coconut shucker. I might not be the best mentor for you. But if if any part of my story resonated and you'd like like help, let me know. Or if you just think that it's fun that I shed coconuts, you want to my friend. I'm always looking for those two. So I'd be super stoked to meet you on either platform.
01:07:20
Speaker
But those are probably the best way to have a website. But. that's like kind of more formal book me stuff. So I would say LinkedIn, ah send me a message, uh, Dustin Ryan. I'm sure if you looked up coconut guy, and Dustin, it would come up.
01:07:33
Speaker
Um, and, uh, same for, um, for my Instagram. And I still do all my own work just by having worked at agencies and knowing how to, uh, uh, you know, automate everything ah behind the scenes, including all the posts and some of the interactions on the direct messages. People don't realize a lot of that's like bot driven drip, whatever. ah It's me. So I will look at it.
01:07:57
Speaker
It does get a little overwhelming when you're over a hundred thousand followers. So it may take me a little bit, but I do, i do actively check that. And I respond personally to anyone who is interested enough to contact me.
01:08:09
Speaker
Oh, thank you, Dustin. And I will have links to all of these places in the show notes. So anyone that didn't catch it or doesn't find you on Google or LinkedIn search or whatever, you can check the show notes.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
01:08:22
Speaker
Thank you. I'm honored to be on here and appreciate what you're doing and the thoughtfulness that you approach. This major inflection point in our society and in business in general, I think is a viewpoint that should be heard. And so I was, you know, i was grateful that you thought of a little coconut sugar like me.
01:08:41
Speaker
And I thought I was worthy of being on your deeply intellectual and ah resonate resonates with me podcast, ja man. I like it. I dig it.
01:08:52
Speaker
i love what you're doing here. thank you, Dustin. I appreciate it. And yeah, you were on my list from the beginning. so I'm glad that we had the time. Well, I'll say it again and we can leave it here, but thank you for joining me. I really appreciate it, Dustin.
01:09:07
Speaker
Mahalo to man. Take care. Hey, thank you for listening. I hope you got a lot out of today's conversation. If you enjoyed the episode, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe, and please share it with someone you know who'd appreciate this kind of information.
01:09:26
Speaker
If you want to bring this kind of thinking to your own business, check out mine at inboundandagile.com. We specialize in helping leaders with challenges around marketing, communications, and leadership so they can inspire real action in their people and audiences.
01:09:44
Speaker
Thanks again for listening, and I hope you'll come back for future episodes.