It got real spicy as John Santos, founder & CEO of Santos Studios and creator of From the Ground Up, talked about the steps you go through being an entrepreneur with Ieuan Thomas over the world's hottest wings. As the wings got hotter, so did the questions.
Traditionally, Hot Ones is a show hosted on YouTube with Sean Evans. In this show, he interviews celebrities/influencers about their daily lives and projects they've worked on as they feast on wings made with some of the worlds’ hottest sauces. For viewers it can be entertaining to see their favorite celebrities in the chair across from Sean Evans, testing their ability to handle spice. Watching the show sparked us with the idea to create our own version while also teaching entrepreneurs about steps you’ll grow through when starting your brand.
Here were some key takeaways:
1) Learning from your past experiences is necessary to move forward.
Not just in regards to your personal life but in business as well. John opens up about what happened to one of his first businesses Revive Brand Co. that he had in collaboration with a really good friend of his.
In all reality, the brand didn’t disintegrate because they had given up. In fact, it was the exact opposite. John knew that to move forward in growing a lasting business and brand, he had a choice to make. That choice was to continue with Revive and the mission of that company but continue to accrue debts or to leverage his new outlet of YouTube to create something larger.
He handed the remains of the business to his business partner and continued to pursue educating entrepreneurs on how they can build their brands from the ground up. Since then he’s been able to create a community on Youtube of 266,000 entrepreneurs.
2) You need to be able to adapt and leverage the challenges and change that life throws at you.
There’s a saying that I feel fits perfectly with what’s discussed in the video and that is “ You can’t choose what happens to you but you can choose how you react to it.”
In this case, John became a father. In February of 2020, his daughter was born. This appeared to him as a sign that he needed to continue to move forward. It provided him with clarity in regards to what he needed to do to advance his business. It not only was a massive change in his life but a challenge of how to balance life and running a business. He let this change motivate him to reach the goals he had for his business which were securing an office space, expanding the team, and pushing out more content.
Last but surely not least,
3) Don’t be afraid to ask for something even when you think the answer might be no.
It never hurts to ask. As silly as it seems to have derived this from John being in a Spanish movie as an extra, it’s something to consider. He simply asked the question “ can I be in the movie?” The answer was yes. Would he have gotten that opportunity had he not asked the question? The answer is probably not. Ask the questions. They can often open doors of opportunity that you wouldn’t have if you were too afraid to ask the right questions.
This video provides so much insight into the life of an entrepreneur. Building a brand goes way beyond business. It often intertwines with your personal life as well.
I encourage you to check out the video below as this post only touches the surface of the information presented.
