Mission Daily

“You have to pick and get to the core of what makes you the most uncomfortable, what makes you cringe when you are sharing it, what makes your palms sweat - that is what you have to work on.” - Chad Grills Our greatest fears can become our greatest sources of strength if we are willing to face them… and facing them with friends by your side makes that transformation a lot easier. Unfourtantly, as hard as it is admitting a personal fault or problem to yourself, it’s even more difficult sharing it with someone close to you.  In today’s episode, Chad discusses the importance of talking to a friend when you are in need of an outside opinion. He also opens up with listeners about a time he reached out to a friend for advice on something he’s been struggling with for years. — Don’t forget, we have a new partnership with b8ta! B8ta.com gives you access to some of the most innovative and cutting edge consumer tech products. This week, we will be giving away one Neo Smartpen 1. Enter the giveaway for a chance to win! — Mission Daily and all of our podcasts are created with love by our team at Mission.org We own and operate a network of podcasts, and brand story studio designed to accelerate learning. Our clients include companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra who work with us because we produce results. To learn more and get our case studies, check out Mission.org/Studios. If you’re tired of media and news that promotes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and want an antidote, you’ll want to subscribe to our daily newsletter at Mission.org. When you do, you’ll receive a mission-driven newsletter every morning that will help you start your day off right! Email us -> info@mission.orgWork with us -> https://www.missionsponsors.com/Follow Stephanie -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepostles/

“I’ve always been an entrepreneur. I’ve always had a side hustle no matter what it was.” –Steven Galanis  Steven Galanis’s career has spanned from options trader, to film producer, to now CEO and Co-Founder of Cameo, a platform where fans can book personalized video shout outs from their favorite celebrities. Founded on the idea that “selfies are the new autograph,” Cameo has more than 15,000 notable talents on the platform today, making it larger than any agency on earth.  Cameo is changing the way the entertainment industry has traditionally worked. It used to be that an agent represented the talent and booked work for them. Now, Cameo provides talent the ability to opt-in only to opportunities they want, which creates an authenticity Cameo can thrive on. Big names such as Cassius Marsh, Brett Farve, and Snoop Dogg have joined and love the platform, which just raised their $50 million dollar Series B round and are hiring new staff. Prior to founding Cameo, Steven was an options trader for the Chicago Board of Trade, where he quickly realized that the trading pit was hierarchical and slow to adopt technology.  “Everybody was always talking about what had been,” Steven said. “When I moved to tech, everybody was talking about what could be.”   Steven didn’t settle on the trading floor for long. He quickly found his way into the film industry, where he produced movies and television shows and eventually was introduced to his co-founder of Cameo.  “You hear about product market fit a lot,” Steven said, “but founder market fit might be even more important.” Each founder filled an important role with specific skill sets that worked well together for founding Cameo.  In this episode, Chad and Steven discuss the founding of Cameo, how the company is changing the way the entertainment industry has traditionally worked, and the importance of founder market fit.  — Don’t forget, we have a new partnership with b8ta! B8ta.com gives you access to some of the most innovative and cutting edge consumer tech products. This week, we will be giving away one Qwerky Keyboard and one Muse Brain Sensing Headband. Enter the giveaway for a chance to win! — Mission Daily and all of our podcasts are created with love by our team at Mission.org We own and operate a network of podcasts, and brand story studio designed to accelerate learning. Our clients include companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra who work with us because we produce results. To learn more and get our case studies, check out Mission.org/Studios. If you’re tired of media and news that promotes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and want an antidote, you’ll want to subscribe to our daily newsletter at Mission.org. When you do, you’ll receive a mission-driven newsletter every morning that will help you start your day off right! Email us -> info@mission.orgWork with us -> https://www.missionsponsors.com/Follow Stephanie -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepostles/

“Comedians build up the tension so that you can release it.” — Hannah Gadsby After leaving her promising career in the tech industry, first at Yahoo then Google, Sarah Cooper realized she needed something more. Sarah wrote 100 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings, while at Google and when it went viral, it gave her the confidence to leave the corporate world and break into comedy.  She quickly realized that comedy would act as her guide for finding her own personal mission. Today, we are surrounded by nuances that are hidden beneath the oftentimes suffocating world of “politically correct.” Sarah wanted to stay true to herself on stage and online, so instead of hiding behind these rules, she saw it as her mission to dig up the nuances and present them in a humorous, tasteful way.  In today’s episode, Chad and Sarah discuss why she left Google, where she finds inspiration for her comedy and writing, and how she got her start in stand up comedy. She also shares how she developed her voice and found her niche audience.  — Don’t forget, we have a new partnership with b8ta! B8ta.com gives you access to some of the most innovative and cutting edge consumer tech products. This week, we will be giving away one Qwerky Keyboard and one Muse Brain Sensing Headband. Enter the giveaway for a chance to win! — Mission Daily and all of our podcasts are created with love by our team at Mission.org We own and operate a network of podcasts, and brand story studio designed to accelerate learning. Our clients include companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra who work with us because we produce results. To learn more and get our case studies, check out Mission.org/Studios. If you’re tired of media and news that promotes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and want an antidote, you’ll want to subscribe to our daily newsletter at Mission.org. When you do, you’ll receive a mission-driven newsletter every morning that will help you start your day off right! Email us -> info@mission.orgWork with us -> https://www.missionsponsors.com/Follow Stephanie -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepostles/

“We’re living in a story-based world. We’re hard-wired to process things through the lens of stories which are linear narratives.” - Neal Stephenson Writer and futurist Neal Stephenson sees mythology everywhere; from the stories we tell ourselves, to the stories the media tells the masses, to the stories about the future of humanity. These “myths” define our past, outline our present, and will build our future… so what can we do to make them realistic, optimistic, and (capital “T”) True? Neal walks this line of thought in his latest book, Fall, where he asks the reader to question how close we are to emerging technologies that will allow us to learn and evolve more quickly.  In this episode, Chad and Neal discuss the concept of ‘islands’ online, the impact of social media on our collective imagination and our ability to live out our agreed upon realities. Neal also shares how he came to be the first employee at Blue Origin, a company founded by Jeff Bezos, which is committed to advancing space travel. Currently, Neal serves as Chief Futurist of Magic Leap, a company working to bring transmedia projects such as AR and VR to the masses.  You can catch Neal on his book tour here as he is traveling the next few weeks across the United States! — Don’t forget, we have a new partnership with b8ta! B8ta.com gives you access to some of the most innovative and cutting edge consumer tech products. This week, we will be giving away one Qwerky Keyboard and one Muse Brain Sensing Headband. Enter the giveaway for a chance to win! — Mission Daily and all of our podcasts are created with love by our team at Mission.org We own and operate a network of podcasts, and brand story studio designed to accelerate learning. Our clients include companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra who work with us because we produce results. To learn more and get our case studies, check out Mission.org/Studios. If you’re tired of media and news that promotes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and want an antidote, you’ll want to subscribe to our daily newsletter at Mission.org. When you do, you’ll receive a mission-driven newsletter every morning that will help you start your day off right! Email us -> info@mission.orgWork with us -> https://www.missionsponsors.com/Follow Stephanie -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepostles/

“The thing we’re really excited about is bringing automation to the masses. We see so many small businesses and so many individuals inside businesses using automation to level up their own skills.”  –Wade Foster Wade Foster is a unique founder for many reasons. He started Zapier as a side project with his two co-founders while working a full-time job. They worked late nights and weekends as they bootstrapped the business until they hit an inflection point. Having only accepted a little over $1 million in funding, Wade kept his focus on customer development and solving for the customer's problem, which made all the difference. Zapier is now doing the job of trained developers, connecting back end applications (aka ‘Zaps’) for small businesses that would otherwise have to outsource or hire help to complete the task.  All along, Wade had one idea for the business, “Let’s make something cool that solves some people’s problems.” At the time of Zapier’s founding, Wade lived in Missouri and didn’t want to start a company using the Silicon-Valley route, which dictated you borrow huge amounts of capital to achieve a higher and higher valuation. Instead, Wade stayed focused on the customer and delivering a solution that would make sense for them.   Wade recalls the first customer who paid for a single ‘Zap.’ “The first customer we had was a huge ‘Aha’ moment for me,” he says. Wade explains how that customer needed help beyond the initial Zap that Wade had connected for him. It was in that moment that Wade and his co-founders realized Zapier could be so much more than just a side hustle. Zapier was growing fast and the only way for Wade and the team to keep up was to build out the developer platform. It was this decision that proved to be a massive inflection point for the company's growth. Zapier now has more than 1,600 apps on their platform and more than 220 employees worldwide. The company — which has always been remote — is still a 100% fully distributed team, meaning Zapier does not have an HQ. But the lack of offices hasn’t had any negative impact on the success of the company. In fact, Wade has made it a point to help other remote teams figure out how best to achieve their goals. (Check out Zapier’s Ultimate Guide to Remote Work, in which Wade and his team have laid out the fundamentals for successful remote work here!) Zapier continues to change the way companies scale by allowing small businesses to act like a much bigger company. Where small businesses would normally need to hire a couple of developers to reach their goals, Zapier is filling the gap with a product used by virtually all online businesses today. — Don’t forget, we have a new partnership with b8ta! B8ta.com gives you access to some of the most innovative and cutting edge consumer tech products. This week, we will be giving away one Qwerky Keyboard and one Muse Brain Sensing Headband. Enter the giveaway for a chance to win! — Mission Daily and all of our podcasts are created with love by our team at Mission.org We own and operate a network of podcasts, and brand story studio designed to accelerate learning. Our clients include companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra who work with us because we produce results. To learn more and get our case studies, check out Mission.org/Studios. If you’re tired of media and news that promotes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and want an antidote, you’ll want to subscribe to our daily newsletter at Mission.org. When you do, you’ll receive a mission-driven newsletter every morning that will help you start your day off right! Email us -> info@mission.orgWork with us -> https://www.missionsponsors.com/Follow Stephanie -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepostles/

“In the modern world, there are still many event horizons left to have the courage to go through and discover, and the only things worth doing are the things you currently think you can’t.” In today’s episode, Chad and Stephanie review last Monday’s newsletter where Chad dives into three key themes that we’re going to be integrating into our current and future episodes on Mission Daily. Those three themes are: extinction, evolution, and event horizons. What do these mean and why are we focusing on them?  Extinction - 99% of all life on earth has gone extinct. We are an extremely adaptable species, however, it’s important for us to think about existential threats to humanity. How can we make this a daily conversation so that we are progressing humanity towards evolution and not towards extinction? Evolution -  In order to evolve, we must accept the next biological singularity or our own species may be at risk. Think Elon Musk and Mars. We must embrace our own evolution and step forward into the future.  Event Horizons - The emergence of human language was the first singularity that humans faced. We often fall into the trap of near term thinking. But what does the future hold thousands of years from now and how are you helping to create the next event horizon for humankind- good or bad?  Check out the full newsletter here and sign up for our daily newsletter here if you haven’t already! — Don’t forget, we have a new partnership with b8ta! B8ta.com gives you access to some of the most innovative and cutting edge consumer tech products. This week, we will be giving away one Qwerky Keyboard and one Muse Brain Sensing Headband. Enter the giveaway for a chance to win! — Mission Daily and all of our podcasts are created with love by our team at Mission.org We own and operate a network of podcasts, and brand story studio designed to accelerate learning. Our clients include companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra who work with us because we produce results. To learn more and get our case studies, check out Mission.org/Studios. If you’re tired of media and news that promotes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and want an antidote, you’ll want to subscribe to our daily newsletter at Mission.org. When you do, you’ll receive a mission-driven newsletter every morning that will help you start your day off right! Email us -> info@mission.orgWork with us -> https://www.missionsponsors.com/Follow Stephanie -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepostles/

In the words of artist and graphic designer Paula Scher: “If you’re not in a state of play, you can’t make anything.” As creatives, the moment we take our work too seriously and lose our sense of play is the moment we hit artist’s block. The world is your playground; emotions are the jungle gym, relationships the merry-go-round, your career the swings... and humor is the cushy rubber under it all.  Comedian Alex Weber is a big believer in humor and its power to transform lives. From participating in American Ninja Warrior to speaking at TEDx to being an award-winning TV host, no matter the project, Alex always incorporates humor and humility. “Humor is just an express route to being very honest about where we are, where we want to go and how we’re gonna get there.” From a young age, Alex understood the power of comedy and he used it as a way to overcome struggles, take on bigger challenges, and express himself. For Alex, humor is “an effective means for success;” one that keeps you from taking yourself or your work too seriously. In today’s episode, Chad and Alex discuss the importance of humor in our daily lives, why being unafraid of failure is key to achieving greatness, and what healthy competition has taught Alex about life. — Don’t forget, we have a new partnership with b8ta! B8ta.com gives you access to some of the most innovative and cutting edge consumer tech products. This week, we will be giving away the Misfit Vapor 2, a sleek touchscreen smartwatch that puts everything you need to stay on top of your day, right on your wrist. Enter the giveaway for a chance to win! — Mission Daily and all of our podcasts are created with love by our team at Mission.org We own and operate a network of podcasts, and brand story studio designed to accelerate learning. Our clients include companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra who work with us because we produce results. To learn more and get our case studies, check out Mission.org/Studios. If you’re tired of media and news that promotes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and want an antidote, you’ll want to subscribe to our daily newsletter at Mission.org. When you do, you’ll receive a mission-driven newsletter every morning that will help you start your day off right! Email us -> info@mission.orgWork with us -> https://www.missionsponsors.com/Follow Stephanie -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepostles/

“People, when you arm them with the right information, the right insights, and the right systems and processes, can make great things happen.” What do you think of when you hear the word “boss”? Do you imagine someone like Bill Lumbergh from Office Space? Or maybe your mind does cartwheels and immediately jumps to Bowser and the Koopa squad from Super Mario Bros 3.  However you define “boss,” Jennifer Tejada has a new definition for you: someone who sacrifices, who works tirelessly to build a sense of community, who puts in those early mornings and late nights to make ends meet. Jennifer is the CEO of PagerDuty, a digital operations management company. Its cloud-based platform manages real-time operations for any type of business to ensure its digital services are always on. Since its founding, PagerDuty has drawn a lot of attention from investors, raising over $173 million over the course of several funding rounds. The company went public earlier this year and at one point was valued at $1.8 billion dollars. That valuation, and the relative success of PagerDuty in such a short amount of time, is thanks in no small part to Jennifer’s leadership. Her unique brand of management style was inspired by her father, who ran and operated a hospital when she was young. Growing up, she spent a lot of her free time in that hospital - doing everything from selling Girl Scout cookies and serving pancakes to the night shift, to filing papers and making copies. Those experiences left their mark and today, she’s turned those lessons of community and leadership into inspiration for how she runs PagerDuty. In today’s episode, Jennifer joins Chad to discuss her work with PagerDuty, how she uses her father’s “serving others” mentality on a day-to-day basis, and what she foresees PagerDuty doing in the future. — Don’t forget, we have a new partnership with b8ta! B8ta.com gives you access to some of the most innovative and cutting edge consumer tech products. This week, we will be giving away the Misfit Vapor 2, a sleek touchscreen smartwatch that puts everything you need to stay on top of your day, right on your wrist. Enter the giveaway for a chance to win! — Mission Daily and all of our podcasts are created with love by our team at Mission.org We own and operate a network of podcasts, and brand story studio designed to accelerate learning. Our clients include companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra who work with us because we produce results. To learn more and get our case studies, check out Mission.org/Studios. If you’re tired of media and news that promotes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and want an antidote, you’ll want to subscribe to our daily newsletter at Mission.org. When you do, you’ll receive a mission-driven newsletter every morning that will help you start your day off right! Email us -> info@mission.orgWork with us -> https://www.missionsponsors.com/Follow Stephanie -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepostles/

“Every technology has great things that it can do and horrible things that it can do.” Douglas E. Richards is a New York Times bestselling science fiction author. Douglas frequently uses the world of scientific fact to influence the creation of his fictional worlds. He’s authored over a dozen different novels, both for adults and children. Prior to working full-time as an author, he was a biochemist at a number of different pharmaceutical companies.  In a time when so many works of sci-fi and fiction take a dystopian view of the future, Douglas prides himself on being optimistic about the future of humanity. In today’s episode, Douglas explains how he transferred his experience in labs and the business world to being an author, how he aggressively researches his books and why the best way to break into the world of publishing is to go at it without an expectation of success. Don’t forget, we just announced our newest partnership with b8ta! B8ta.com gives you access to some of the most innovative and cutting edge consumer tech products. This week, we will be giving away two Misfit Vapor Smartwatches, a sleek and user-friendly smartwatch that helps you monitor heart rate, check emails, play music and so much more. Enter the giveaway for a chance to win! Mission Daily and all of our podcasts are created with love by our team at Mission.org We own and operate a network of podcasts, and brand story studio designed to accelerate learning. Our clients include companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra who work with us because we produce results. To learn more and get our case studies, check out Mission.org/Studios. If you’re tired of media and news that promotes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and want an antidote, you’ll want to subscribe to our daily newsletter at Mission.org. When you do, you’ll receive a mission-driven newsletter every morning that will help you start your day off right! Email us -> info@mission.orgWork with us -> https://www.missionsponsors.com/Follow Stephanie -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepostles/

“You can choose to play it safe and still fail, so why not go after what you want?” Lisa Wentz is an author, voice coach and motivational speaker. She recently published her first book Grace Under Pressure: A Masterclass in Public Speaking. In addition to her writing, Lisa’s taught public speaking to executives and leaders at Salesforce, Adobe, Oracle, Fitbit and countless others. And, because that’s apparently not enough to keep her busy, she is also the founder of the San Francisco Voice Center, which provides a place for business leaders of all levels to practice and master public speaking and articulation. In today’s episode, Chad and Lisa sit down to discuss her new book, how experiences in your childhood can shape your ability to speak and articulate clearly and how to overcome any speaking inhibitions you may be harboring today. Don’t forget, we just announced our newest partnership with b8ta! B8ta.com gives you access to some of the most innovative and cutting edge consumer tech products. This week, we will be giving away two Misfit Vapor Smartwatches, a sleek and user-friendly smartwatch that helps you monitor heart rate, check emails, play music and so much more. Enter the giveaway for a chance to win! Mission Daily and all of our podcasts are created with love by our team at Mission.org We own and operate a network of podcasts, and brand story studio designed to accelerate learning. Our clients include companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra who work with us because we produce results. To learn more and get our case studies, check out Mission.org/Studios. If you’re tired of media and news that promotes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and want an antidote, you’ll want to subscribe to our daily newsletter at Mission.org. When you do, you’ll receive a mission-driven newsletter every morning that will help you start your day off right! Email us -> info@mission.orgWork with us -> https://www.missionsponsors.com/Follow Stephanie -> https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepostles/