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Backstage Interview with Dale Stephens

I wanna come to call the intelligence on. We decide. Resource is people who want to learn out from the classic. So we do Gap Year programs. We do some consulting with colleges and universities, um, and provide communities for people who don't feel served by the educational system. So you were on creativelive for a three day workshop where we talked about a lot of the alternative opportunities to education, how to educate yourself outside of the sort of traditional university system in particular. And we're kind of kindred spirits in that alternate education paths for individuals. What have you been up to since you were on creativelive? Do I have to use this microphone? I have to use his microphone. So no one has heard a thing. I think I've said casual here in Studio D. I. I can still answer the Yes, the question of Teoh. Um so as we talked about during my course, I launched a book called Hacking Education That Penguin published in March. That came out. It was great. I did all kinds of ...

things. And on the Today show, I went to a couple different countries and was really awesome. And at the same time we launched applications for a Gap Year program that's launching this September. We got about applications for 10 spots. So so tell us a little bit more about what gap here is. I think it's a really cool program. Yeah, it's so we're taking 10 people through through the yearlong process of what not going to college actually looks like helping them figure out how toe how to find mentors. How to be self motivated have designed todo. There's a perception about what? Not going to college, right? Yeah, I mean, and we don't see this as taking time off rather taking time on. So the actual structure of the program is that the president spent three months together in San Francisco. They go abroad for three months, and they do an internship for three months and then to an independent creative project. And we say internship abroad. This is not backpacking through Europe, right? This is going in. Volunteering on an organic farm are going and living in a Tibetan monastery or going and be a being a deckhand on a ship, something that is intellectually in stimulating Andi engaging and for the time that they lived together For the three months in San Francisco. We've designed a very specific curriculum around meddling skills that make you a better and more effect upon a lot of the things that we talked about during my creative life sessions. So each week is themed around things like how to find mentors had to build relationships, how to keep yourself motivated, how to communicate effectively, all the kinds of things that will be useful both in school and for the rest of your life on But are the kinds of things that school's supposed to teach you and you're supposed to learn by extension of turning in that book report or doing that history paper? But no one ever bothers to actually teach you how to dio. Let's go to that a little more so these, uh, finding mentors and this is really, uh, something that I found when I got out of school is like I graduated with a university degree from a decent school, and then I got into the real world and I was completely incapable in my first couple jobs. It was almost sad. Um, you talk to us about that, that kind of Gap that the skills that you teach that aren't part of traditional education. You may be going to that a little bit more when you go and talk to employers on Do you look at the kinds of services that, like IBM and Accenture and Deloitte in the Kinsey, do you keep coming back to employers winning skills like people who are, like my creativity collaboration, being able to work well with each other, being able t find in determined goals? I mean, they're all the sorts of things that are helpful to get from Point A to point B. But that's not a process that you're ever required to do in school, because a teacher is giving you assignments all along the way. So we're trying to create people who, who could be given an assignment, are able to figure out what the steps are that are needed to get to the young goal, were able to find the resource, is able to parse and analyze the information, are able to go in to find mentors and ask for help along the way, and then deliver the product in a way that is that is meaningful and appropriate I've found that the process of asking for help for me personally was incredibly difficult, and it literally took me years, probably a decade before I was comfortable asking for help in not having the right answer. And that's one of the things that that school in grades in you, you're supposed to work by yourself. Study the book, memorize the material, and there is a a right or wrong answer. And if you don't know it, there is one person who you can ask for help the teacher, Um, whereas in the real world it's very different and and in fact you're you're rewarded in the real world for being vulnerable and admitting that you that you don't know and the incentive structures is totally flipped from the weight isn't school. So we're trying to take people and help them shift their shift. Their mindset onda paradigm structure to one that mimics the real world and is frankly healthier for people who want to be lifelong burners. And I think that is, you know, we talked about the secrets from Silicon Valley, which is what this event is all about. For me, that's one of the biggest secrets of Silicon Valley is that this is a an open network of people who actively share what they're working on their knowledge base and are incredibly proactive about asking for help. It's is pretty unbelievable. How is there any advice that you have for maybe the folks in the room or the folks you know? Watching virtually? How do you ask for help when you're in a learning process? When your discovery process, when I'm asking for help and when I see people asking me for help, it's most helpful if you could make you ask a specific as possible. Um, not uh, not You know, I'm dropping out of college. What do I do? But here I dropped out of college. I have a year. I have X amount of money. What might be some good ways to spend my time? If you can narrow the the request, it's it's much easier to answer it. And how do you go about identifying the right mentors eso for you know, myself. I run marketing here. It creativelive and I have a for an informal network of mentors that I have formed and I've targeted each person individually like okay, she is an amazing PR person. I'm gonna recruit her to be my PR mentor. Then this guy knows a lot about brand stuff. So I'm gonna go to him for the brand questions because that, you know, identified that you know where my gaps are. And I've like, actively recruited individuals. How? How? What are some of the recruitment techniques? These people, they're part of my networks. I'm very fortunate that I can get introductions, But how do you recruit someone who you might not have direct access to an interesting process for me over the course of the last even, say, six months. The process of writing a book was something that I was very much familiar with and very much had a network of contacts that we're able to support me in that process and now is we're going into launching gap here. It's a very different process and requires learning a lot of things that I haven't had a lot of experience with. I'm so I found myself being in that position of of reaching out to people for the first time to ask questions about insurance, for example, or dealing with lawyers or like payroll taxes or like lots of lots of fun stuff like that that is terribly engaging that everyone loves to talk about. Right? Um, but those are the questions that every entrepreneur has, right? Yeah. Yeah. And it's been it's been interesting, uh, to see which which types of people are able to answer those questions? Because there's a lot of people that I've talked to who simply outsourced that problem to someone else on people running. The companies don't actually know the answers to those questions, which I found fascinating. Um, and I've been I've been rageful. So it took me a couple tries of of, um, first figuring out what the right questions were to be asked. Right. So, you know, I found out like asking asking for someone with help with insurance was not very helpful. Right? Um, asking about you get a guy trying to sell you. Ah, car policy. Right. Exactly. So you need to ask about, you know, liability and Procter property and directors and officers, insurance and very specific things that apply to my business. Sure. And ah. And so when making that asked you just email people. Do you post stuff on Facebook? Like where have you found your, um Have you actually recruited the people individually? It generally starts with me reaching out to, uh, people who are, you know, in my network, via email toe. Ask if they can help directly. And if not if it came, direct me to someone else. Um, with with questions about insurance, it usually ends up with them. Directing me toe their insurance agents or something like that on Ben is frequently a process of them saying, like, we don't serve your type of business. Here's someone else who you can talk to who might eso without With that particular question. It's been, ah lot of passing between people to find the right person who can serve our needs. Sure. Um, let's kind of change topic a little bit and start to talk about the service side of what we both dio, which is trying to help provide alternate paths to education for people who might not be served by the current formal education structure. What does it mean? You see, you're someone who essentially, uh, dropped out of the formal education process. And now you yourself are an educator. What does that mean to you? Tell me about, like the population that you serve and why that's important to you. I think what's most important to me is seeing seeing people who have been alienated by the system who feel like they've been coerced into going to school, come toe in college and be part of a community that is a community of misfits. And that's a place where they fit on. And they're frequently not only misfits in terms of in terms of who they are in terms of their education. But maybe they're like, very different from their family in terms of religion. Or they are an immigrant to another country or something like this. I mean, it's really amazing to see people who have been so outside the system really be able to come together and and make friends. Um, over the course of a few days, Um, and I think the what. That's the That's the thing that keeps me doing what I do to see people who have been so humiliated and feel so alone and feel so unsupported to be able to make them feel like they have have a home is really special and give them a path to pursue their dreams in a way that they never would have thought possible. Yeah, and and to help them understand that that that leaving and system does not mean abandoning it but rather building your own. There's a very direct process on very attainable process that you can go through. Um, t afford that half by yourself. That's awesome. Um, any words of advice to, you know, our community of creative entrepreneurs who are in the room or are all over the world? I think that just just the fact that you've taken the time to show up to either be here or tow watch means that you're on the right track on. And I encourage you to keep doing that and to keep showing up to keep making progress, to keep motivating yourself. Um, and, uh, being self directed. That is fantastic. Um, I think, uh, do you have any questions for Dale from the folks in the room? That, uh not Yeah. This is a stick microphone. Over here. On the other was a stick microphone, but I stole it. It's on the other side over here. There we dio I haven't fully formed this question yet, so bear with me that you don't have to think casual room. It's a hang out right and you can throw questions to yourself. Uh, so I'm imagining there's this point. I'm not sure how long ago where you had the idea for it and you're ready to start the application process. Um, can you talk through you know, any concrete asks Or or just like how you broke on the process of going from the programs already figured out for research? And how do we find people? How do you convince people to apply? Let me find eso. It's It started out as a friend of mine, suggesting Michael State and he'll be here today. Has been a great mentor and friend was like, You should do a five year program and then I sort of had a connection fit like I'm 20. I can't commit myself for five years like what does that mean? So I was like, Let's do a gap Year Programs like I like I can commit to a year like that. Sounds reasonable on DSO. I wrote some copy for it and put it up on the website last fall, and by December, we've had like 400 people sort of fill out basic demographic information. Name, age, location, etcetera. Um and then I was like, Oh, I guess we should, you know, actually, like this one application for this. Um So we did that and put it up in January. And by the end of March, we had or so people fill out full applications, right? Essay the videos who are who are interested in joining us. And then since then, it's been a really fun process of figuring out what the actual logistics are. Joe Welch is right behind you is our house manager for the Senate location. You also have, ah, program director Dylan Evans Onda. Together we've been designing the curriculum and figuring out the actual logistics of getting it off the ground. And I'm really excited. It's we've We've done three day long workouts before, Both with creative liven. I'm as offline academic camps. It's it's amazing to see what comes out of those, and I'm really excited to see what happens when we put put people together for longer and and give them that safe space. There's there's something One of the secrets of getting started is getting started. Um, and is there something Teoh, Tim Ferriss and raw meats? 80. A couple of other instructors in the Creative Life Network have talked about that Putting something out in the world to create a sort of promise to your your community that having to live up to that is there. Is there something about that that you have seen is valuable for yourself? Is valuable for for sure. I mean, I think I think I think mostly what hold people back is the being being afraid of the consequences of what happens if you don't follow through. And the reality is that there aren't really many consequences. If you put something up and no one signs up and you take it down, maybe you'll get a couple of emails asking why, why it came down? And if they email, you answer honestly, say it didn't get traction, it didn't work. It wasn't a good idea. We're trying something else Now. On the flip side, if it does work and there is interest in the restriction and people keep talking about it, then do it. Try it. So what you're talking about is, I think, Ah, second secret of Silicon Valley is the, Ah, acceptance of failure and the willingness to try things. And it's okay if it doesn't work out putting out a smart test to gather interest in an information. Um, you know, maybe you could you could talk about that a little bit. I don't necessarily think that the way that failure has been glorified is a good thing. I mean, I think it's OK to have failures and talk about them as failures and not, like, pretend that all failures air just like wonderful learning experiences. And there wasn't anything that went wrong, like sure it was a failure and assure you learned from it. But you should recognize that it didn't work. It should. You should shouldn't be the goal. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Which is which is very autumn in many ways, that that has become the goals like Try the Startup that's gonna purposely fellow. But I think the I think I think the other secret is that there's there's, there's a bit of there's a bit of confidence that that's involved, right, um, and and having that confidence and willpower is something that can be built on. It's not just that people are aiming for failure, but but have the confidence to actually go out and try things to put something out into the world and say, I'm gonna try to do this thing and try Teoh. Gather interest people around you who are going to support your dreams and goals. Is there? Is there something specific that you are, you know, thinking about you are maybe trying to do and you're trying to gather a network or tell maybe a little bit more about your particular situation? I mean, my particular situation is I'm trying to find a community of people who I'm not a part of a very, very difficult to find. So I'm just curious. What community is that? So people who are looking for medical travel There's a lot of Seo traffic for this right now, but there's not communities for these people to go. It's just part of what I'm trying to build. So there's a lot of really inefficient ways that I'm looking now like you know, Craig's post hope someone happens upon it or Facebook groups linked in groups. Second, I think it's pretty slow process, so I'm just sort of collecting anecdotes of how people are getting their word out. How people are managing that process when you don't have an audience that we're gonna customers in is there s so one of the things that, um, you know, I've heard from so far other instructors. One of the best things about my job is I get to watch the best teachers and experts in the world come in and tell people are give people advice on how to do things. And then I get to regurgitate it later and sound like I have an idea. Um, have you ever any have you thought about looking for, um, comparable paths? So, for example, a friend of mine does. A is trying to build a community of people interested in foreign exchange programs that's called go overseas dot com. Mitch Gordon is the He's an entrepreneur in residence at the University of California, Berkeley, House School of Business and has built this from scratch. When there wasn't a community previously of students interested in travel abroad, you know he built a website in a resource for them. I don't know if maybe you confined similar corollaries, reach out to those people and how they, uh, built there, you know, kind of communities from scratch. Yeah, I think there's a lot to that. I think, um, the inbound marketing hub spot kind of thing is useful to like. But if there is one of the problems is that is not a place for these people to go. Then you know, it might be okay to spend a week put propping up a forum for people to go. Right? Um, I'm also looking into putting a sort of a landing page. Like we used to do this for games way. You know, we could even test, uh, arts or test titles by putting up a landing page and find some ads for it. You know, we assume that the Democrats gonna be Thies. This data put up five versions of the ads that late on certain landing pages compare how many people sign up at each of those options. So I'm thinking of I think the answer might be following something similar toe heated, which is put something online. See, people find it. Just keep experimenting, or I I wonder if there's any way to sort of reverse engineer the process and go towards like find out which find out which hospitals are the most popular destination hospitals and like, spend a week there talking to people in handing out flyers. It would be a very often way to do it, but I would imagine there are like a couple hospitals that have the most inbound. Most countries actually have one or two world class hospital. They're trying to attract the best doctors and patients from around the world to. But I had considered that as my own research. You know, I'll go get a dental procedure somewhere, but I like the idea of finding users that way in the first place to and then you'll you'll, you know. And Dale and I are a couple of you guys here, and this is great about Silicon Valley, and the entrepreneurship community is just talking with people who, you know, have an idea and may be able to help you with your idea but going and actually seen the place talking Teoh, if you can. Patients that were there about how they discovered it, how they made this choice, you will. It is a classic Steve Blank and Erik Reece kind of lean launchpad methodology of talking to the actual target population that you are interested in and, you know, learning as much as we can about them. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm trying to do. Next time, just limit the number of things I'm building before I find out what the problems really are for real people, right? But it I'm in a way, I'm so used to having these conversations. Like you said, we just people around and someone just has an idea that clicks. And you realized you realize they had no idea that saves you about a month sometimes, or or the trip to the hospital, you know? Yeah, exactly. And I think what we're talking about, you know, with failure isn't the it's okay, toe fail with your big concept, but it's definitely okay to fail with all your little tactics and to put up a page and test it and put a pads and test it and talk to people. But, hey, this is you know, our value proposition. What do you think about it? And they're gonna like crap all over it, or they're going to say that really residence resonates. And then you'll you know, you'll do more tests, and you kind of learn more along the way. We're constantly testing stuff, a creative life and trying to figure out, uh, you know what works? What doesn't work? What? What? Our community, our current community response to how to build new community and what they're gonna want. It's a changing environment all the time. And so, I mean, we're we way, Mrs Often. Aziz, we hit. Um, I saw another hand go up in the back. Do you have, Ah, question that will pass the microphone over and maybe, you know, tell us Ah, a little bit about this, your name and a little bit about you know who you are, What you do. Hi. Money Messiah. And I am a massage therapist and a photographer. Oh, my question is, how What did you find? The best source of creating traction for the young college. Uncommon has hasn't had an interesting life in its in its balance between traction on branding on. That's largely because my personal story is so interwoven with With on college, I quit school when I was 12. You are in college, right? Yeah. And so and I would even argue that my personal brand is larger than on colleges is. And so initially, people signing up for the program and wanted to participate in our programs had because has been because of these, they've seen me and what I've done and there and aspired to do something similar on. And so I've been I've been the branding in the marketing, the proof that someone can not go to school and still be articulating bounces a checkbook. And you're the charismatic founder are right type that we that we've seen so that that creates, you know, some initial interest in a NCAA lige. But I assume that there are there are other things that you've done as well, other than just like I'm Daelim. Awesome you are. But you know, so give it. Maybe go a little bit deeper. Yeah. Yeah. How you've gotten traction with your with us. So we first started by building a newsletter that was very actual on relevant to our user base that it came out every weekend. Initially, I would write columns about very specific problems that I would get by email about some piece of being self. How do I talk to my parents? How do I keep myself motivated. How? The way Choose which online courses I'm going to dio on. And that's and you and be taking maybe one step previously, you gotta incredibly well defined target population that you know incredibly well it's people misfits, which you it was word to use all the time who are don't fit in with the current education system, who are at the same time motivated and willing. Teoh improve their lives on the room. That is an incredibly well defined and target population that you can connect with on a really emotional level. And and by virtue of that, they end up being very self motivated on the fact that they take the initiative to reach out with us, reach out to us and engaged means that they want to improve themselves. So it started out with the newsletter we started. You provided a resource Very well defined target population. You essentially gave this away for free. Yeah. Okay. Um and then I ended up doing a lot of speaking at conferences over the course of the last two years to give that target population. Ah, chance to interact with me and learn more about what we're doing. So you provided access and more free information? Yes, and that took a lot of time. I mean, I flew, like, 200,000 miles in about a year and 1/2 which was not fun. But you look good. Frequent flier status. I did. I did so I don't care about that anymore. I did for a while, but that's beside the point. Anyway. Um and so then we started that we started taking that to the next level on doing actual workshops that we do weekend long academic camps which a version of became what we did for creative life. So you kind of take kind of built up a critical mass of people who are subscribing to your newsletter, showing up your conferences and that you're speaking events and you're like, Hey, let's take this to the next level by instead of me always going to people, bringing people to you together and bringing in other mentors and people who are self directed that they could learn from them and spend a weekend together with. And that's really how creative lie. One of the ways that we kind of found one another was, you know, I heard about the academic camps, and it was like, Wow, it's a really similar model to what we're doing here these three day long, deep engagements with a small population. Um, and we thought that could be translated pretty well. Teoh Video setting. And it worked out great. Yeah, it was fantastic. And so everything you do And then would you say that every thing you do in every person you talk to you, the more community build you kind of creates a critical mass for sure in and in many ways I mean is that the academic camps themselves actually started as a testing ground for Gap Year. I said, Okay, Before we go in market, a year long programme, let's go and see if we can. If we can get interest in a three day program, can we hang out with people and provide value over a weekend? Yeah, that's a great idea. Rather than just jumping into a Fleer, if that's the sort of thing that doesn't necessarily seem, it seems very intuitive. But it's not necessarily something that you're going to think of, like you have taking those small steps to build up Teoh, a much larger vision and it's ah, it's Ah, it's a version of a B testing, that is, that is very off line. Um, in Silicon Valley, where everyone has the tech products and to date on college does not have a technology product. You're not a technology company or an education company. We are a start up, but we do not have a tech product. Is there a particular scenario that you are working on that that you're trying to be in traction for? Um, yes, But I have another question before I can. I can. I just want I just want to A little time check would probably got about four or about four minutes left with Dale before we move on to our next segment. So but yet jumping. Um, I'm I'm curious about your personal story. Sure. Do you want to do that, or do you want something more specific and actionable? I think I think Dale's personal story is pretty well document. I don't mean toe cut you off there. It's really engaging. It's super interesting, and it's really easy to find on online, so maybe we can go to your second course. How about your strategy of personally branding yourself. That's I love that question. Um, I don't mean to be the question are, but that's a fantastic question. Um, it wasn't as a tunnel year old. How did you decide to brand yourself? I started using my middle initial when I was sure. Um, so some of it was intentional on, but it was unintentional, and some of it became intentional. After being unintentional, eso, for example, I started using a J in the middle of my name when I first signed up for the Internet because there were too many Dale Stephens online. And then that just became ubiquitous. Um, and my user name on pretty much everything. So if you ever want to reach me, it's always DLJ Stevens literally everything, um so that that became a great way to see, to see continuity across Facebook and Twitter and Gmail and so on and so forth. It was, uh, I got to a point. Um, probably about six months after starting on college about two years ago, where I really sat down and asked my friends for their feedback. On what? What? My best and worst qualities where on did an assessment of who were the people that I admired both both personally, that I knew personally and people who were out in the environment that I admired us as leaders who were just a couple of those names You might recognize it possible, did you? Did you those names, Dwayne the Rock Stevens? I don't think so. I actually have no idea. Okay, that that is the one of pop ups minus caliber with a Kelleher, the founder of, uh, Southwest. Okay, um, and then I an assortment of people that I knew from Silicon Valley and we're founders of companies and things like that and try to assess what their best worth qualities were and then compared those and tried to make some active changes in my life, Uh, in terms of how I was perceived. Um, And then you tried. I assume Teoh put those qualities out into the work product that you created the newsletter, the website, that you find your story, your personality and it sounds very deliberate, but it's also about becoming the person that you most want to be in, which is an important thing about entrepreneurship. And there were certain there was a certain things that I felt like I might be being disingenuous to myself by trying to change or like, purposely changed myself. But most of them were actually really, really trivial thing. So, um, 11 thing, for example, was that I really love English and grammar And, like, using big words, um, and came to adopt a bunch of the rules, like, never use a long word when a diminutive one will dio or never used never use cliches like the plague. Right? Awesome. Um, I think that we're about out of time with Dale. I just want to say thank you so much for stopping by being here for our launch event for sharing your knowledge and expertise with with the folks here. We get a hand for Dale. Get out again.