How to Have the Mindset of a Champion, with Gerard Adams.

Episode 149

Gerard Adams is the co-founder of Elite Daily, the No.1 news platform for Generation Y, is an experienced angel investor, millennial thought leader and social entrepreneur who overcame early adversity to become a self-made millionaire by the age of 24. Now 30, he has built, backed, or invested in nine businesses and trades across multiple industries that have all delivered over seven-figure profits. While he continues his role as an investor and influencer, his mission in life is to mentor and inspire young entrepreneurs on what it takes to be successful and how to turn dreams into reality.

Click to tweet: Gerard Adams shares his outstanding experience and insights on Onward Nation!

 

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Secret – timesaving technique

Gerard takes down notes every night of what he learned that day and what he wants to accomplish tomorrow — hold yourself accountable, be self aware, and have a good mindset. ONWARD!

Daily habit that contributes to success

Have a regular process — Gerard firmly believes in using quarterly reports.

Could have ruined your business – but now – an invaluable learning experience

Gerard was a month away from not making payroll — and Gerard tells the whole story here.

Most influential lesson learned from a mentor

“I’m no expert of any one thing — I’m an expert of experts.”

 

Final Round – “Breaking Down the Recipe for Success”

 

What systems would you go back and put into place sooner?

I wish I had realized how important how important it is to have a process — you can’t just wing it.

What one strategy or “recipe” would compound into big wins for business owners?

Consistency, consistency, consistency — you and your team need to be consistent as possible in every area.

What strategy would you recommend new business owners focus on to best ensure success?

1. Be proactive, not reactive — don’t wait for something to happen

How best to connect with Gerard:

• Website: gerardadams.com

Transcript:

Get ready to find your recipe for success from America’s top business owners here at Onward Nation with your host, Stephen Woessner.

Stephen W.: Good morning, Onward Nation. I’m Stephen Woessner, and we all know that building and scaling a business is hard work, but when you have the right strategy, the right recipe for success to follow, the action steps become more like ingredients and can be added systematically into your business one ingredient at a time, and that’s why I am so excited to introduce our guest today, Gerard Adams. Gerard is the co-founder of Elite Daily, the number one news platform for Generation Y. He is an experienced angel investor, Millennial thought leader, and social entrepreneur who overcome early adversity to become a self-made millionaire by the age of 24. Now 30, he’s built, backed, or invested in nine businesses and trades across multiple industries that have all delivered seven figure profits.

While he continues his role as an investor and influencer, his mission in life is to mentor and inspire young entrepreneurs on what it takes to be successful and how to turn dreams into reality. Welcome to Onward Nation, Gerard.

Gerard Adams: Thank you, Stephen, for the pretty awesome intro. I’m excited to be here.

Stephen W.: Well, I’m excited to have you here and I know how compressed your schedule is. It means a lot to me that you would take the time to come onto the show, to be our mentor, and to teach these great lessons we’re gonna be able to hear from you. So, I’m grateful for that. But Gerard, I’ve only given Onward Nation really a brief glimpse into your background, so take a couple minutes. Take us behind the green curtain of the bio, the intro if you will, and tell us more about you and your business, your experience, and then we’ll dive in with the questions.

Gerard Adams: Sure. Wow. I mean, it’s been an amazing journey and I feel super blessed to continue to have every day, to continue to push forward and also continue to strive to be greater and better and achieve more. But it started about 12 years ago. Since I was growing up in a small town in New Jersey with an amazing family, I still owe it all to my mother and father for instilling so many great values at a young age that I still carry today and I think that really built me to be the entrepreneur that I am today. And I ended up pretty quickly, right out of high school, I grew up kind of with a hustle mentality in high school. I wasn’t always the smartest kid, I was more of a street smart kid, you know. Was an athlete, loved sports, always had that competitive nature.

Started small businesses actually in high school, and then once I kind of graduated and went into college, because my family basically told me the road to success was get good grades, go to college, get a college degree. That was really the path to success. And pretty quickly, seeing how the Internet was really starting to really boom and social networks were starting to boom and how much the Internet was becoming such an amazing tool to get educated, pretty quickly once I went to my first semester in college, I was like, “You know what, I look at this as just a really big business.” And they were telling me what classes to take, and it was expensive, and you had to get a lot of college debt to be able to fund it, and I didn’t really feel like I was able to get the knowledge that I was looking for to be an entrepreneur, to start a business, and to … So, I dropped out my first semester.

I decided, “You know what, this isn’t for me. If there’s ever a time for me to take a risk and be an entrepreneur and maybe use the Internet as a tool and use mentorship as a tool to kind of become an entrepreneur, this is the time to take that risk.” And fortunately, I grew up with a mother and father that said, “Look, you know what? You’re on your own. This is your life and that’s your risk you’re gonna take, but if you fail, you are on your own. You need to figure it out, you need to get back up and you’re most likely gonna have to go back to school.”

So, it put pressure on me definitely at an early age, but I was excited for the challenge and that kind of led me to forming my first business early on and my initial interest was actually around the stock market, so I really wanted to learn how to invest, how to understand researching these new upcoming companies, how I could find out, find the new and discover the next Apples of the world and Facebooks, and what I realized was quickly through the Internet, trying to find places that I could learn and find gurus in this space, I realized that there was an opportunity. There was a gap in the market and there was a lot of different chat rooms and forums, but there was something missing that kind of gave a forum credibility. It had a rating system.

So, I was like, “You know what, I see something that I’m looking for and there’s gotta be other people out there that are looking for a similar community where you can discover people that understand investing, are teaching investing, and each individual who signed up and had a username actually had a rating next to them, so you actually knew that this person was credible, if he was a good investor or not.”

And I had build this rating system, I found a partner who knew how to code, and I took all the money that I had saved, which wasn’t much. I think initially was a couple grand, and we started building it. It was called Stock Spot, and you know, I worked tirelessly till 3:00 in the morning every day, waking up early. My friends were partying in college and I felt like I was missing out, but that was when I first found my first passion, first passion in a project, and built that out and was able to get 10,000 initial subscribers, and I basically learned a lot from that business. I ended up finding a mentor who from that forum hired me to work with him and teach him how to use digital marketing for investor relations for his nanotechnology company back then that was reinventing the battery.

And then I got my first experience with failure. That kind of led to me working with this nano company, you know, also at the same time building my forum and I was helping him, he taught me basically about investor relations and I was helping him actually learn how to use digital marketing, and my forum, and other means of digital marketing to get exposure to his company, and what happened was pretty crazy. I ended up working with, helping him for about a year. Built him to have the largest shareholder base out of any small cap company, loved it because they were reinventing the battery, and to this day I still don’t understand why we’re still charging our iPhones like two, three times a day. Everything else is evolving so quickly, but I feel like battery technology has been evolving a little bit more at a slower pace.

So, I was super interested int he company and one day I decided we should host the first ever demonstration of this nano battery. And I’m going way back. So, I apologize if I’m taking some time. But I’ll never forget this. Everything is going great. There’s so many people paying attention to the development and RND of this nano battery. We had a partnership at Lucent Bell Labs, and so I loved it. I enjoyed going to the lab, seeing how this thing was being created, and seeing how we had created this patented wafer structure that separated the electrodes and the electrolytes in a battery, creating essentially an infinite shelf life battery, and what we were demonstrating was that we had this battery and it wasn’t using any energy whatsoever until a device was turned on, then it would trigger this reserve battery and turn on a device. And it had never been done before.

So, we host this demonstration. I handled everything from soup to nuts, the stage, the venue, invitation list. I invited all these brokers, investors, retail, bankers, you name it. I had people coming from all over. Media, coming to this demonstration. And it was the first time ever I had a chance to public speak, introduce myself, I was the one who had been writing a lot of releases, speaking to many of these people over the phone. I was so nervous. I’ll never forget that day. The CO came in when I was in the bathroom before going on with cue cards and he was like, “Gerard, you did this. You helped get everybody in this room,” and I was only, I think 19 at the time. And he was like, “You did this.” I looked like a baby. And he was like, “Get out there. Just be yourself.”

So, I went out there and introduced myself. I explained why I believed in the company and how I’d been helping them and introduced then the chief science officer, Dr. Fred Allen. Dr. Fred Allen comes up and he gets ready to unveil this nano battery. Everyone’s on pins and needles to see it turned on and it was showing on these screens that no energy was being used, he was gonna turn on this device, you’re gonna see how energy’s then being used, and the device turns on and proving the concept of the infinite shelf life nano battery.

This guy goes, he hits that button, and crickets. This thing doesn’t work.

Stephen W.: Oh, no.

Gerard Adams: It was devastating. So, I was like, “Oh my god. My career is over. I can’t believe this.” And basically, they didn’t test it. I mean, it was like the simplest thing, and this just goes to show like how important management is and being prepared for a situation like this. If they would have executed, they would have raised tens of millions of dollars to take this product into production.

Stephen W.: Geez.

Gerard Adams: There I am, devastated, thinking that my career is over, but I quickly learned you have to fight through adversity and that happens. You’re gonna have things that you can’t plan for and little by little, I was able to get cards from some people in that room that said, “Hey, kid. Good job. You got me in this room and you did your job,” and I realized that I had a passion for helping small startups, small companies and help marketing them. So, I took that experience and then I started my first ever marketing agency to help startups and small cap companies, and that was like the first real taste of success I had.

I took that forum I had, built up this agency, and then by the time I was 24, we were doing about $10 million a year in revenue, and it was amazing. I love it. I was flying all over, meeting all these great, new, innovative companies. And then I had a taste of seeing how 2008 was coming. And the market was changing. And I had to prepare myself, and me understanding the markets a little bit more, I kind of foresaw how we were gonna have a big economic downturn in 2008. And now, coming up unto this point in time, all my friends are getting ready to graduate college and now they have all this college debt. They can’t get a job. My parents get laid off. I mean, everything is going and around here. And now, all my clients are leaving, just my business was getting hurt. And I decided at that point in time to get involved more in content.

I loved being a writer. I was writing for all these companies, helping them get exposure. So, I decided to start making some documentaries around the economics of this country, to kind of play my part and help educating the younger generation to what’s truly happening in the economy, to position them to not only survive, but to prosper during that time, that they were able to invest in the right way.

And the last documentary I made was called College Conspiracy. It was an amazing experience. I took almost a year, I was traveling the country, doing interviews, meeting professors, meeting people, and it was all about showing how the government was making it so easy for students, and my friends even, to be able to get student loans and then accumulating so much college debt that by the time they were gonna be graduating college, they had all this debt, $50,000, $100,000 plus accumulating interest, like they couldn’t even catch up to paying it off, and they had a degree where they couldn’t even get a job. It was almost worthless.

And I’m pro education, but I was really trying to expose how the government was making it so easy with these student loans that it was causing tuition prices to go through the roof during a time where education should have been extremely inexpensive for kids to be able to get educated and be able to help the economy turn around. So, I exposed that. Got on Fox Business. Got on Bloomberg. Got some exposure with that. Grew a passion for content. And then that kind of led me into my next venture, which was my latest venture, Elite Daily. I had an intern working for me, he was more of like a initial friend who was looking for guidance and I started mentoring him. And he came to me one day during the time I was doing this and working with me and he said, “You know what, I really want to build a new platform for this next generation, the Millennials.” And I said, and he wanted to kind of tailor it around finance at that time, initially. And I said, “You know what, no way. It’s tainted right now. Wall Street’s tainted right now. We need to do something bigger. Look at all the publications that are out there that have been handed down to our generation.”

You know, you think of the Times, you think of so many, even like Huffington Post, and growing up in New Jersey it’s The Ledger. There were so many publications that have been around for generations that were handed down to us. We felt that there was another opportunity to fill the gap with becoming a publication that was written for Generation Y or Millennials, written for us by us, and covering every vertical from business to health, to dating, to you know, humor and so on and so forth. And this was something I really became extremely passionate about and we said, “You know what, let’s build it.” And that’s what we did.

David was, David Arabov was the person I was mentoring who we co-founded it with another gentleman called Jonathan San Pedro who was a little bit more tech savvy, took over the president role. We made David, who was, at the time he was my age when I first started my first company, 19, so it was amazing to see him blossom into an amazing CEO. Jonathan was the COO. Couldn’t have asked for a better, harder worker. And that was a whole nother story of lessons, but luckily we were able to get an acquisition to the Daily Mail, earlier in 2015 for $50 million. And from that point forward, it’s been about getting out and continuing to live my life of passionate mentoring young entrepreneurs and continuing to build.

Stephen W.: What a great story. And a story that encapsulates risk and opportunity, and leveraging and creating content because you understand the value of it, and then really going all in Onward Nation, and such a cliché to say now the grind, but it is what Gerard what was doing till 3:00 in the morning and putting in the hours. So, let’s dive in, Gerard, this is gonna be an awesome conversation. I like to call this first section focus and preparation. Preparation because it’s so true that greatness is available to all of us if we’re willing to do that common things uncommonly well, which is a powerful lesson I learned from one of my mentors, Don Yeager. So, Gerard, is there a secret or maybe a time saving technique that you can share with us that helps you focus and prepare to tackle your most vital priorities each day?

Gerard Adams: You know, for me, I don’t think there’s any real secret sauce out there. I think it really comes down to for me holding yourself accountable, being self aware, and having the mindset. The mindset is so important. For me, every day, for me to focus, it’s every night before going to sleep, I take down notes of what I want to accomplish, what I learned that day, what I envision the next day. Every morning, I wake up, I envision what I’m gonna accomplish that day. What do I need to prioritize. And then it’s about getting into this mindset. I almost wake up every morning and I give myself a pep talk. It does not matter what has happened to me, if something negative happened, every morning I’m saying to myself, “This is a blessing. You need to get up. You need to think like a champion. You’re gonna better yourself. You’re gonna really make use of this day.”

And I just pep talk myself to get in that mindset where I’m gonna really kill it that day, and then it’s about taking and prioritizing and just going into action mode, you know. And that’s kind of like my initial, my thought about what I do as my first habit when I wake up every day.

Stephen W.: Love it. So, let’s keep this momentum going here. I love how you’re giving us the, you’re being so bold to say, “Think like a champion today.” That is awesome to get yourself really motivated, really plugged in and ready to accomplish a lot of great things that day. So, let’s think about that now from the perspective of habits. Is there a habit or two you strongly believe contributes to your success?

Gerard Adams: For me, definitely, the habit of holding myself accountable, having like a process, making sure that I hold myself accountable to deadlines. What are the goals that I want to set out to accomplish that day, that week, that month, that quarter. Quarterly reports is something that’s really big for me that I hold within all my investments, within the companies that I co-found. And it’s really just again, setting those deadlines, really making sure that I’m executing on my goals, and making sure that I have the right team around me that I’m leading to help accomplish that.

Stephen W.: Wow. This is great. I’m just really feeling the momentum in this conversation. So, now this is gonna feel sort of like maybe an abrupt transition because now we’re gonna talk about overcoming obstacles, and as you know, everybody loves stories. You’re a great storyteller. Your marketing background and so forth. So, tell us about that challenging time, that situation that could have devastated, maybe even ruined your business, but you persisted, you made the tough decisions and now that once painful memory serves more as an invaluable learning experience. Gerard, tell us that story.

Gerard Adams: Geez. Where do I start? There are so many. You know, that’s part of being an entrepreneur. That’s part of being a business owner, a founder. It’s constantly solving problems, it’s overcoming obstacles. I think that’s why you have to be able to have that mindset to fight through adversity, because so many times you can turn those obstacles to opportunity. To dive into one specific one that’s probably the most recent, with Elite Daily, we bootstrapped it from the early going. I was the one who was kind of like really initially funding with my co-founders, and we eventually, because you know, your company’s growing. We knew we had a format that was starting to really click. The traffic was really starting to boom. Once we started getting to like 20 million, 40 million unique visitors per month, and growing, we were like, “Wow, this is really working, and in order for us to continue to scale and grow, we need to be able to raise capital.”

And I remember during that time, a big challenging moment for me was having the right strategy to go out and seek out the right strategic investors and raise capital when we were wanting to scale so much and build our team so much to sustain that growth that we didn’t realize that so quickly we got to a point where we almost weren’t gonna make payroll. So, we were like a month away, slowly time is just like diminishing, we don’t know if we’re gonna make payroll. And we had to do whatever it took by any means to say, “Hey look, we’re gonna do whatever it takes to make sure that we can fund this company, make sure that we can make payroll, and close this financing.” And luckily, we stayed the course and it was really important to us. We were able to get some of the initial strategic investors that believed in us, that extended their round and [inaudible 00:20:50] that helped us get that runway.

And if it wasn’t for them, and that’s why it’s so important to have the right strategic partners from the very, very beginning that believe in you long term, because you may come to that point where you need to … raising capital is difficult a lot of times, and it’s time consuming, and it takes you away from the focus of growing your company. And luckily we were able to fight through that, really be able to show the value in our company quickly to the right investors that came in, and that eventually led us to an acquisition.

Stephen W.: Wow. Congratulations. ‘Cause in that story, Gerard, it would’ve been so easy to quit. Maybe there were moments where you questioned whether or not it was worth it or not. But how did you muster the courage? Because that’s really what’s required there when you’re in the pit like that. I mean, how did you push past that?

Gerard Adams: You know, as a team, you really need to just believe and have the faith, and know that you’re gonna have to stay with it. You gotta fight through the adversity. You have to believe in your team and just really be able to have that mindset that you’re gonna get through it. You gotta believe in it. You’ve gotta know that you’re willing to do, I mean, I’ve seen a interview with Elon Musk and he even said it. Some times you may not be able to make rent. You just gotta, you believe in what you’re doing and you’re willing to do whatever it takes by any means to continue to see it through. And you know, I wholeheartedly believe in that, especially if you’re gonna be an entrepreneur.

Stephen W.: Well, that’s so great that you bring up Elon, because I think most people, and I would certainly put myself in this category, too, that we hear about Elon and we hear about how he sold PayPal and we think billions of dollars and this and that. And I think most people don’t know that after PayPal, he thought of what’s gonna be next, and it was gonna be Tesla and Space X and all these things, but that he went all in, just like you have in your ventures, he went all in on Tesla to the point where he was broke. I mean, he was broke. If that company did not turn a corner soon, he would’ve, he was sleeping on the floor in an apartment.

Gerard Adams: Yeah. It’s amazing, yep. Yep.

Stephen W.: And he had the grit and the tenacity, like what you did, in order to really dig in and say, “No, this is not over until I say so.” And that is really, really rare, Gerard.

Gerard Adams: Yeah, 100%. And I think it comes down to as being a founder, you gotta really instill the leadership as a founder into your full team. I say that, we wouldn’t have made it through those times if it was not for every one of those soldiers, every one of those people that stayed late, that worked extra hard, that put the time and passion in our team. And I remember when it was initially under 10 people, and luckily now it’s over 200 people, but when you have a good team, a collaborative team where you can align those values, and those goals, and those leadership skills, again, it’s amazing how obstacles will become opportunities. And luckily we were able to build that type of team and culture.

Stephen W.: Indeed, my friend. This is great. So, let’s now talk about mentorship. So, tell us about the most influential lesson you ever learned from one of your mentors, and how that lesson helped you become the business owner you are today, Gerard.

Gerard Adams: For sure. Man, I have been blessed to have some great mentors throughout my life and I believe that you need to be able to find those people that are gonna push you, that are gonna make you better, that are gonna lead you. And first and foremost, shout out to dad, you know what I mean, he was the first mentor that growing up, he was the one who, I’ll never forget, instilled in me leadership. Shout out to mom. My mom, I saw her have the work ethic more than anybody. She worked six, seven days a week, every day. My mom and dad were a team, and I saw it with them doing whatever they had to do to be able to provide for me and my sisters.

So, that to me really again instilled those initial values. And then one of the great business mentors that I had, he said something to me, and he said, for some reason it’s this one that always sticks with me, and he said, “I’m no expert at any one thing. I’m an expert of experts.” And I said to myself, you know, over time, going through different businesses, founding different companies, working in different atmospheres, different environments, failing and I’ve failed many times. And then having success. You learn a lot about yourself. You become more self aware. Now at this time, at my age, like still feel very young, but I’ve become a lot more self aware than when I first started and understanding my strengths and weaknesses. And that, him telling me he’s not an expert of any one thing, he’s an expert of experts, I realized how important it is to surround yourself with the people that are gonna supplement your weaknesses, add value to you and your team.

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.” I’ve continued to be able to find people that could help me build my business, that could help me be a better person individually, that can help add to my network and I can say now that I’ve been blessed to continue to surround myself with people that made me better, and I always said like quality over quantity, you know?

Stephen W.: Wow, that’s fantastic. This has been some really great mentorship that you’re giving to us, Gerard. So, I’m grateful for that. So, let me ask you to think back from when you started your business, and if there was a magic reset button, what systems would you go back and put into place sooner rather than later, and why?

Gerard Adams: When I, as an entrepreneur, I’m a victim, I’m so guilty of this, even to today. I’m the type that I have no fear. I’m like, “Let’s go.” I’m a risk taker, and I want to go and I want to move. And I love the fact of making mistakes. I feel like if you’re making mistakes, and I instill this in the teams that I work in, the environments that I work in. If you’re making mistakes, it means you’re moving forward. And that to me is what’s so important. If you’re not doing that, if you’re not making mistakes, you’re not moving forward, that is what scares me. But at the same time, if I had a reset, and what I’ve learned over time is that you have to have processes. You have to have a process.

As much as as an entrepreneur you want to go, you want to like, you know, try different things and adapt and overcome, and that’s all part of it. But if I had the reset, even when I first started Elite Daily, we quickly learned how important it was to have a process. That process that can really holster all of that determination and that passion, and hustle, and grind, and energy. You know, if you have the right process and protocols for your organization that will help you hold people accountable, it really is what’s gonna make you an efficient business, and that is such a critical component to scaling your business.

Stephen W.: So very true. So very true. So, this next question is gonna be challenging, because I’m asking you to distill it down to one if you can, but what one strategy that if business owners and their teams could consistently apply every day do you think would compound into big wins for them.

Gerard Adams: I think it’s actually interesting, ’cause from the question, I think you kind of nailed it, and you said that they can consistently do it, and if there’s anything to take from that, that I think is so important, is that consistency, consistency, consistency. You know, that is like such an integral part of the recipe is that make sure that your team is consistent in their work ethic. Make sure that your team is consistent in meeting their goals. Make sure that they’re consistent in hitting deadlines. Make sure there’s consistency in the communication of your team. Make sure that, you know, again, you’re consistently making mistakes ’cause you’re moving forward. No matter what, building a company is 24 hours a day, 365. There’s no room for slacking.

So, the more that you instill that strategy of making your team as consistent as possible, it’s amazing what you can see. And that is really important to instill into your team culture.

Stephen W.: Fantastic. Yeah. Consistency, Onward Nation. That is what ignites the compound effect. Fantastic book by one of my mentors, Darren Hardy, publisher of Success Magazine, incredible book.

Gerard Adams: Awesome.

Stephen W.: So, Gerard, here’s my last question for you. Imagine you’re standing in front of a room of brand new business owners, people just like you when you were starting out. So, they’re battling their way through the fears, and the worries, and the doubts, and the struggles to try and find their footing. So, what would be two or three strategies you would recommend that they focus on to best ensure success?

Gerard Adams: I think one definitely is to be proactive, not reactive. I always tell people around me to be proactive. Don’t sit back and wait for something to happen, to react, to then kind of like solve something. Be proactive. Try new technologies. Try to, just constantly thinking, and this kind of is like the second thing. Constantly think, not just be proactive, but think outside the box. I think you have to do that. You have to be able to stay ahead of the curve. You have to be able to push the limits, push the boundaries. That’s how you become great. That’s how you’ll be able to differentiate yourself from what else is out there, and that’s how you stay ahead.

I mean, you know, you’re not gonna, with the last company, Elite, we had so many people that were, as soon as we came out with Elite Daily, you know how many people that tried to come out with a Millennial blog, a Millennial publication to compete with us. What gave us the edge was that we kept going, we kept pushing boundaries, we kept being proactive. We were staying ahead of the curve. We thought outside of the box. You gotta do all that to stay innovative. And that is what will, I think, will build you to ultimate success.

Stephen W.: Gerard, this has been an excellent conversation and your mentorship, the wisdom that you’ve shared here really, truly, the ingredients for success. But before we go, before we close out the conversation, is there any final advice that you want to share, anything that you think we might have missed? And then tell us the best way to connect with you, my friend.

Gerard Adams: Sure. Again, Stephen, thank you so much. I mean, this is awesome call for sure. I’m super happy that I’ve been able to get on here and share my story. I appreciate everyone for listening. I would leave it with like three main things. And again, remember that the first thing it’s mindset is everything. Like I said earlier, have the mindset of a champion. Once you’re able to master your mind state, keep yourself inspired, learn how to turn adversity to advantage. Understand that you gotta hustle. Have no fear. Take those risks. Again, be a leader. Lead your team. Mindset is everything.

Second thing I would say is like understand, be self aware of yourself and your habits. I think the faster you’re able to understand and master your habits and change your habits to become more effective, you’ll become a better executor. And the third, I would definitely say again, don’t have fear. Lose the fear of failure. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. That means you’re moving forward. Remember, the key is to keep moving forward. Don’t stop.

And as far as getting in touch with me, after the sale of the company I really had this like, you know, a big moment in my life where I know I’m young, but I started really thinking about legacy and what I’ve been able to go through throughout my entrepreneur career and how much I was impacting a younger Millennial generation to go and chase their dreams, so I really wanted to take a step forward in being a leader for a generation and being able to share my mentorship, share my knowledge, bring as much value as I can to the people around me. So, I decided, and I have not actually announced this yet, but I’m gonna be launching my own podcast and platform in the coming months to be able to do that and interact with people. So, you can for now follow me and sign up to GerardAdams.com. I have a newsletter keeping everybody up to date, you know, with all my content and my speaking and everything else. And I look forward to launching that platform and podcast this quarter. And I’m excited. This is what it’s all about for me, getting on Onward Nation and living my passion and sharing all this with you guys.

Stephen W.: Well, I’m excited to know that, too. I didn’t know that. That is news to me, too, Onward Nation, and big news. So, when you get your launch date and you get that scheduled and everything falls into place, please do let me know. I want to let Onward Nation know when that goes live so we can help spread the word for you. That’s fantastic. Congratulations. Kudos.

Gerard Adams: Thank you so much. I mean, I couldn’t be more excited. 2016’s a big year for all of us and I recommend everyone out there, you know, never stop. Like I said, keep chasing your dreams and thank you guys for the support.

Stephen W.: Amen to that. And Onward Nation, these were invaluable insights. These were valuable blueprints and recipes on building your business, taking it to the next level that Gerard was kind enough to share with you, but no matter how many notes you took or how often you go back and listen to these words of wisdom, the key is you have to take action on what Gerard was kind enough to share with you and be proactive and apply it into your business in order to move onward to that next level.

And Gerard, we all have the same 86,400 seconds in a day, and I’m grateful that you would take time out of your compressed schedule, your travel schedule, meetings and so forth to be able to come onto the show, to be a great mentor to us this morning. Thank you so much, my friend.

Gerard Adams: Thank you. Thanks, Stephen. Onward Nation, peace.

Speaker 1: This episode is complete, so head over to OnwardNation.com for show notes and more food to fuel your ambition. Continue to find your recipe for success here at Onward Nation.