Noah Kagan

speaker

66 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard May 2025 last heard May 2025

Noah Kagan’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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The School of Greatness · Asking for a Raise Beats Cutting Your Expenses | Lewis Howes · 23 May 2025 podcast

candidly i i don't think i always felt worthy of what of like having certain things like having a wife or having a partner or having a kid um and even with facebook and stuff like that i felt like well zuck fired me i'm not worthy of having a business really yeah i felt like oh this guy knows something better than i don't and i think a lot of us feel that way like oh these other people have these things am i actually worthy of this stuff and how do we you know you talk about gratitude and vision i think everyone can spend more time just being grateful for themselves

And how do we just actually give more kindness to ourselves? So one thing that I work on, anytime I'm kind of criticizing myself, it's like, all right, let's say one nice thing. And it kind of, what's crazy is you do that enough times, like criticize, nice thing, criticize. And we are literally the meanest people in the world to ourselves. Like, you know, your worst friend is yourself.

And so how do you change that relationship over time? And now it's just kind of like throughout my day, I'm like, dude, good job. Like, hey, you hung out with Louis, great job. And the more that we start doing those things, I think that's a way that, yes, you can manifest other things, but it's just really how do we work on being nice to ourselves? And that's really helped over time.

Literally until probably the past year, just very low. Like, let's talk about the book. No, no, this is good. Man, probably until literally like two years ago. Maybe fours, threes, fours. Threes and fours. Yeah, like I was getting partners that liked me just because that's what I got. And then with AppSumo, I think I had this fear I'm going to ruin this business.

So I try to pass it off and not do it. And even with this book, I had to go through my own journey of, okay, I'm going to hire Tal Raz, one of the best business writers in the world, and I don't have to face myself.

And when all of us face these hard things in life, whether it's writing a book, whether it's relationship, whether it's starting putting yourself out there a little bit and you face some of the fears and you start just even small, the smallest thing. And you're like, maybe I am worthy. Maybe I can do these things.

And with AppSumo, when the previous CEO quit and I came back to work, I definitely was like, I'm ruining this business. I'm messing. And I did make a lot of mistakes, but I just stayed with it. And I had great people around me. And so over time now, I'm like, and I get feedback.

One of the easiest things that anyone can do to improve right now, really literally right now is text someone, how can I get better? Whether it's in your relationship, just ask your partner, whether it's at work as an employee or as a founder. And so it's just through working with people, getting feedback over time now, I'm like, Pretty good at this.

I used to always, this is, I haven't really talked about this. It sounds small. I used to always call myself Chief Sumo because I never wanted to be a CEO. I never thought I was the right leader. And in the past 18 months, two years now, I'm the CEO. And so maybe for others out there, how are we labeling ourselves? Yes. And what are maybe small steps?

Not that I've been big, like I have to go some dramatic thing that I can just do that makes me feel good about myself. That moves me in that direction. Same with the relationship where I didn't, I went, I worked with Stephanie Rigg. She's a woman out of Australia. Great on Instagram, really great content.

And a lot of what we talked about was like, what are you doing that makes you feel good about yourself? Like you drank last night. How did that make you feel? Like you're doing this type of activity. Like you're going on this date with a girl you don't want. How'd that make you feel? Like you're showing now with my partner Mafe, it's like, how am I showing up for her?

Am I actually aligning my priority to my behavior? And every time I do that, I'm like, like I cooked her some food two weeks ago. I was like, I'm proud of myself. I'm glad I could take care of you. Yeah, I'm really proud of myself. And all of us feel these different ways. It's not like some exclusive club where everyone's always feeling happy. Yeah. Right?

But it's doing things that make us feel good about ourselves that, frankly, it's all within our control. I think over years, you realize it's not external validation. It's like, how do we get more of the internal validation? That internal person that's like, hey, I'm doing pretty damn good myself, and that's okay.

I've seen one or two. I don't know if I've seen three.

and around money, love and relationships. Different things, man. It doesn't happen all at once. Like even taking Million Dollar Weekend as an example, you know, I've worked for Zuckerberg. I helped start Mint.com. Like I've started so many different businesses that have made millions of dollars and I still felt afraid. Like, can I put a book out there that people actually want?

And can I actually even help them? And so I thought by hiring someone who's like the best around the world, I cold emailed him. Like, can you work on me with this book? He's like, sure. And so I paid him money. And I was like, okay, good. At least I don't have to do it. I don't have to face myself to see if I can actually write a book.

And then as the book got closer to having to submit the manuscript, as you know how it goes, I was like, this is not, I have to face myself with this book. I have to see if I can really do it. What did you not face? Actually writing a lot. We wrote the book together, but it was like, is this the book that I want to put my name on?

Is this a book that I can say, hey, if you're trying to start a business, there's some things about starting, building, and growing that I can help you with. And so I had to face the book. I had to face myself in actually writing the book. And yes, I worked on it lightly, but at a distance. And I think a lot of us do that. It's like, okay, well, let me avoid that thing.

Let me avoid the relationship. Let me maybe avoid the work. And so then I basically like, I don't know if I'd call it hermit mode, but basically like sat in my room and more or less for about a month, just like heads down, worked with beta readers. And then I was like working on the scripts and all these things. And I was like... And then I was going with people.

So every week we have five people going through the book. I had a guy living at my house about a month ago. And through doing it, I was like, oh, I can do this. I can do this. This works. And we all feel that. We all feel that in a lot of different ways. Maybe in a relationship. Maybe it's with work. Maybe it's with ourselves.

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