Tracy has a nontechnical background that was in fine art. Through her 20s she backpacked and it wasn’t until she was around 30 that she wanted “more security” in her life. Naturally, she pursued entrepreneurship. There is a degree of irony here.
She started a marketplace for weddings and used it as an experience to upskill herself with all the knowledge she needed. Tim may have used the term auto-didact.
She started Tradesy while living from paycheck to paycheck and securing funds from sites like AirBnB as secondary income. Tim mentioned how you can use other startups to help fund your own means while you’re in a growth phase.
Tracy has a unique last name and I use her last name to help recall the content on complaining. DiNunzio sounds similar to a nonsensical phrase “De none, ze growth.” For me, that triggers a thought that if you complain, you aren’t a source of growth (none growth), instead, you are a source of destruction.
Interestingly, on my own entrepreneurial pursuits, I have learnt that people complaining are a source of finding an audience with an unmet solution to a problem they have. So you could say that entrepreneurs love people with problems as they see opportunity. But I get Tracy’s point because if we are a source of complaining to others in our circles, that is unattractive and will lead to future disconnection.
A better strategy is to see benefit and opportunity, which is a sentiment Tony Robbins echos in Personal Power 2. James Clear, author of Atomic Habits also suggests to make a habit attractive by seeing the benefit rather than the pain-point.
When I hear Tracy I think of trace. We can trace over images to copy them which has some link to art. That’s her non-technical background and she needed great pitching skills with that background.
A useful tidbit to take away from this point is to “suck in front of the people you don’t want money from first.”
This refers to lowering the stakes thus lowering your desperation.
Tim suggests to book your A-List after your first 10 crappy pitches.
The last bit to mention is the idea of distilling your offering down into its most succinct form.
Tracy makes mention to a misquoted Mark Twain reference that suggests that “I would have written you a shorter letter if I had the time.”
I believe Winston Churchill may have been the one to suggest this but I will need to check, or maybe you could for me if you’re reading this!
Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss
Tools of Titans is book that organises and categorises identified themes and patterns of Tim’s podcast guests. He has sifted through the information to serve up recipes and the need-to-know information that can be reproduced by people like you and me. Tony Robbins suggests that the shortcut to success is to model people who have already done what you seek to do. So this book is a wonderfully targeted sequence of steps and procedures to help you model your action on the world’s top performers.
If you’ve found this content valuable and are interested in this book, then you can help support this blog by getting the latest price at Amazon at no extra cost if you decide to purchase.