In a world that values self-reflection, sometimes we undervalue the power of momentum. To find your direction, you have to start walking— and no one embodies that transformative mindset quite like this week’s guest, Kara Goldlin.
Complacency = Death (ft. Kara Goldin)
The power of momentum on the path to purpose
OPENING QUOTE:
“So often people sort of get stuck, I guess it's the goal. Go find your purpose, go find your mission. But sometimes in order to find that purpose and mission, you just have to start with not staying complacent.”
—Kara Goldin
GUEST BIO:
Kara Goldin is the founder of Hint, best known for its award-winning and industry-leading Hint Water. She’s also the bestselling author of Undaunted: Overcoming Doubts and Doubters. She’s been named to InStyle’s Badass 50, Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business, Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs, Ernst Young Entrepreneur of the Year in Northern California and one of the Huffington Post’s six disruptors in business alongside the likes of Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg.
Links:
CORE TOPICS + DETAILS:
[4:32] - What’s the Worst that Can Happen?
A simple question with powerful implications
To become undaunted, you have to boldly confront the worst-case scenario and determine that it’s not enough to derail you from your path. If you ask yourself what’s the worst that can happen, then when the worst happens you are entirely unphased.
[11:27] - Turning Setbacks Into Momentum
How Kara turned a devastating blow into renewed focus
When Hint water was dropped from Starbucks stores after a new buyer switched up their strategy, Kara was devastated. But instead of languishing in frustration, she listened. She networked. She didn’t stay complacent, and she kept moving forward. Then she got an email from Amazon about a grocery business they were starting…
[33:54] - Sometimes Purpose Begins with Fun
Can’t find what you love? Start with what you enjoy
Not everyone gets a bolt-of-lightning flash of insight about their purpose when they’re still a teenager. For many, the only place to begin is with the things you enjoy. Love playing music? Follow that. Love being an entrepreneur? Go that way. You can’t know your direction until you set off toward some goal, even if it doesn’t ultimately become your destination.
[44:37] - Misery Loves Company
Feeling lost? Consider the greats
Steve Jobs felt lost. Da Vinci felt lost. Throughout history, some of the great geniuses and innovators experienced stumbles and roadblocks. When you’re feeling stuck, look to them for inspiration— not to revel in their wins, but to see that even the most worthwhile ideas and innovators have experienced bumps (or massive, inescapable craters) on their road to success.
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The WHY Institute
Are you ready to find your ‘why’? Our partners at the WHY Institute have created the single most high-impact assessment for finding your personal why in life and work. In just five minutes, discover more about who you are, how you think, and why you do what you do than any other personal assessment available.
The best part? It’s completely free for Playmakers listeners. Are you ready to find our WHY in just five minutes? Take your assessment now.
ABOUT PLAYMAKERS: ON PURPOSE:
The Playmakers: ON PURPOSE podcast is an all-access pass to a purpose-centered tribe of leaders in business, sports, and life who are on a mission of meaning and impact. The show takes purpose from an out of reach North Star to a practical and tactical exploration of how we can step into each day, ON PURPOSE, where life no longer happens “to us”, it begins to happen “for us”.
From the Why Coach of the San Francisco 49ers to your coach, take a seat at the table with sports industry executive, #1 bestselling author, personal transformation expert, turned senior leader, advisor to PurposePoint and The Why Institute, and Success Magazine's Top Global Thought Leader, Paul Epstein, in this inspiring, yet immediately actionable podcast.
From formative stories pre-purpose to personal and professional transformation’s post-purpose, each show will share a high-energy, prescriptive blueprint to ignite impact and drive inner success, fulfillment, and purpose no matter your starting point.
It’s time to meet Paul at the 50 and get ready to live and lead ON PURPOSE.
Learn more at: PlaymakersPod.com
ABOUT DETROIT PODCAST STUDIOS:
In Detroit, history was made when Barry Gordy opened Motown Records back in 1960. More than just discovering great talent, Gordy built a systematic approach to launching superstars. His rigorous processes, technology, and development methods were the secret sauce behind legendary acts such as The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross and Michael Jackson.
As a nod to the past, Detroit Podcast Studios leverages modern versions of Motown’s processes to launch today’s most compelling podcasts. What Motown was to musical artists, Detroit Podcast Studios is to podcast artists today.
With over 75 combined years of experience in content development, audio production, music scoring, storytelling, and digital marketing, Detroit Podcast Studios provides full-service development, training, and production capabilities to take podcasts from messy ideas to finely tuned hits. Here’s to making (podcast) history together.
Learn more at: DetroitPodcastStudios.com
ABOUT THE HOST:
Paul Epstein may not be a hard charging running back on the actual football field, but his list of high-profile wins in the world of sports will have you thinking that he could be.
Paul has spent nearly 15 years as a pro sports executive for multiple NFL and NBA teams, a global sports agency, and the NFL league office. He’s transformed numerous NBA teams from the absolute bottom in league revenue to top-two in financial performance. He’s broken every premium revenue metric in Super Bowl history as the NFL’s sales leader. He opened a billion-dollar stadium, helped save the New Orleans NBA franchise, and founded the San Francisco 49ers Talent Academy.
He's since installed his leadership and high-performance playbook with Fortune 500 leaders, Founders and CEOs, MBAs, and professional athletes.
Now, as a global keynote speaker, recognized by Success Magazine as a Top Global Thought Leader, #1 bestselling author, personal transformation expert, turned senior leader and advisor to PurposePoint and the Why Institute, and host of the Playmakers: On Purpose podcast, Paul explores how living and working with a focus on leadership, culture, and purpose can transform organizations and individuals anywhere to unleash their full potential.
Learn more about Paul at PaulEpsteinSpeaks.com
CREDITS:
Kara Goldin:
So often people sort of get stuck, I guess it's the goal. Go find your purpose, go find your mission. But sometimes in order to find that purpose and mission, you just have to start with not staying complacent.
Paul Epstein:
Welcome to Playmakers: On Purpose. I'm your host, Paul Epstein, 15 year NFL and NBA business exec, widely known as the 49ers wide coach, now your coach. In this transformational podcast, it takes purpose from an out of reach north star to a practical and tactical exploration of how we can take action on purpose every day. This is your all access pass to a tribe of leaders in business, sports and life who are ready to share their playbook, where purpose becomes the igniter of the impact and the performance that we're all after. As we ramp up toward today's episode, pull out your notepad so we can plays and level up on purpose together. Playmakers, it's about that time to welcome Kara Goldin into the conversation. Kara is a proud founder of hint, best known for its award-winning and industry leading Hint Water. Now generating north of a quarter billion dollars annually.
Paul Epstein:
She's also the bestselling author of Undaunted: Overcoming Doubts and Doubters. Accolade wise, let's just say she's got a few. How about being named to InStyle's Badass 50, Fast Company's Most Creative People in Business, Fortune's Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs, Ernst Young Entrepreneur Of The Year in Northern California. Even the Huffington Post listing her as one of six disruptors in business alongside Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. I hope you're as fired up for the conversation with Kara as I am. And as a reminder, many of today's top takeaways can be found in the show notes on playmakerspod.com. With that let's welcome Kara Goldin into the Playmakers podcast. Kara, welcome to Playmakers. How are we doing?
Kara Goldin:
I'm great. Thanks for having me.
Paul Epstein:
Of course, we are so fired up to have you. And by the way, I was just mentioning off camera Undaunted, which every single Playmaker needs to pick this up. Wow, would be in understatement. So we are certainly going to unpack that, of course talk about your Hint journey, but to bring all Playmakers in many folks may know you because of what you do, where I really want to kick us off is more about who you are and why you do what you do given that this is Playmakers: On Purpose. So going back, I open up Undaunted. I'm seeing some of your childhood journey and I love that, and I'm going to quote here, for you no means maybe, and maybe means yes. Which is awesome. Where did that mindset come from?
Kara Goldin:
Yeah. So my poor parents. I mean, I was that kid that was, so I was the last of five kids and my parents got really good by the time I rolled into the scene at saying no. And so my goal was always to get them to not say no. And I thought if once I got them to maybe then I had them. And it was always my goal to get them to at least maybe. And it was very rare, I had a pretty good batting average of once I got them to maybe it was done. And so that was definitely my childhood, I think, definitely good development for being in sales, which I guess I have been to some extent at being an entrepreneur my whole life, whether it's trying to raise money or sell product into Target or Costco or whatever it is. I definitely have, I learned a lot of things just through those negotiations as a child with my parents that helped me later in life.
Paul Epstein:
For sure. And another thing that I captured from the childhood journey is the power of the question, what's the worst that can happen? So we're going to zoom out and eventually we're going to talk Hint journey and we're going to talk about the book Undaunted, but it seems like this question has been this powerful force in your life. Because if you're going to be Undaunted, if you're going to be brave and courageous enough to persevere and launch what many considered a crazy idea that eventually leads to Hint Water, you got to be asking the question about what's the worst that could happen. So talk about why that question is so important to you and how it has served you since you've really applied it to helping you navigate life.
Kara Goldin:
Yeah. Well, what I've found is that it's easier to look back on situations where you, maybe you stressed out about something. I mean, maybe you remember taking that test when you were a kid and you thought, oh, it's going to end up really bad. It's rare that it actually ends up as bad as you ever thought. Right?
Paul Epstein:
Fact.
Kara Goldin:
And I was a gymnast growing up and I used to very much stress out about meats and all of those things that I thought were going to happen. I'd fall off the bars and it'd be terrible. I'd be laughed at. I'd have nightmares about it, and those never happened. And so I think that that is something that I think a lot about around business as well, where you don't actually tend, or most people don't tend to take risks because they think that it won't work.
Kara Goldin:
And I mean, this sort of goes to another thing that I'm fond of sharing with people, which is that if you think too much about the end, that you'll never get past the beginning. It's just, it's because you're so worried about hitting that goal, that you got to take those steps along the way, in the case of Hint, to make the product, you got to take those steps. There's not shortcuts along the way. And so they're all really important things that I think people kind of forget about. And again, there's all these stages in life that maybe you never ended up doing those things because you thought, oh, they're too hard. I don't have the right experience. I could look really stupid. I could lose my job. I could, whatever the excuse is, but it's very rare that it actually does.
Kara Goldin:
If you look back on history, whether it's your own history or someone else's history. And that's why I love reading about entrepreneurial journeys because it's just, they all went through something. All those entrepreneurs and yet-
Paul Epstein:
Countless. Yes.
Kara Goldin:
So often we think, Steve jobs, he founded Apple. It's a trillion dollar thing now, but there were so many dark days where there were things where he doubted, he got fired from his role. All of those things yet we don't actually think about those things or hear about them on a, what that entrepreneurial journey was all about. So again, asking what's the worst that could happen, maybe even, here's another thing that I get people to think about. Maybe even something happens and that actually changes course for you. That those things happen, one of the stories, if you don't mind, if I share this.
Paul Epstein:
Of course. Please.
Kara Goldin:
One of the stories that I think a lot about and share as an example in my own life that I have is, we were in Starbucks, Hint. And that was a big day when we got into all the Starbucks, we're in 6,500 Starbucks. I was so prepared. We only had one flavor. It was the blackberry flavor. I was super excited. We were only supposed to go into 300 and then they changed the plan, we went into all 6,500 locations. And so I wanted to make sure we stayed in there, that we didn't get kicked out of there. And so it took us about six months to kind of reach the level that I knew that they had told me that they would be happy with, volume wise. And by the time, an hour, an hour, a year and a half into this relationship, that's when, I mean, we were killing it.
Kara Goldin:
We were doing 3x, what we were supposed to be doing. There was no way in my mind that we were getting kicked out of there. It was about 40% of our overall business, because I just sat there. I was so confident in that business. And then there was a buyer change and that buyer wanted to change the whole strategy. She had her own agenda and she wanted to put food in the cases at Starbucks, higher margin businesses, all the right reasons why she wanted to do what she wanted to do, but she needed space. She only had so much space in that case. So Hint Blackberry was out. I'm like, "Wait, what? I mean, how can this happen? We're killing it. We're doing 3x. And when is this happening? Next week?" I'm like, "Next week. No."
Paul Epstein:
Oh my goodness.
Kara Goldin:
Right?
Paul Epstein:
Yeah.
Kara Goldin:
I mean, I'm dying at this point. And all I'm thinking in my head is I hate her. Why did you take the job? Go away. Where do you live? No, I'm just kidding. But it's all of these things, but then I'm also thinking, I have investors, I have product that's going to go bad in the warehouse, and this is 40% of my overall business and I'm dead. This is bad. I don't cry very often, but I cried. I got off the phone and I just thought, "Oh my God, what am I going to do?" So when I resurfaced, after a couple of days, I thought, "Okay, we have to figure something out." I had this product that was going to go bad in the warehouse. I had to share this news with investors.
Kara Goldin:
And I always believe that it's during those times when you really have to believe that the stars will align, you have to listen maybe a little closer. You have to network, you have to figure out what do you have to be doing. You can't stay complacent. You have to keep moving in some direction. So I get an email from Amazon, and Amazon was starting this grocery business. And the buyer, I get on the phone with the new buyer and want to know a little bit more about it. He loves Hint Water. He has Blackberry Hint every morning with a Starbucks' latte. And I'm like-
Paul Epstein:
The irony in that. Yes.
Kara Goldin:
"Do I tell him that we've been kicked out of Starbucks?" And I thought, "Well, I mean, we'll see how the conversation goes." And then he said, "Listen, I need product like yesterday. How fast can you get it for me because we're moving really fast?" And I said, "If you wire me the money, you can have three truckloads now." And he said, "You're kidding. Oh my God, you just solved the biggest problem for me. This is amazing." So my inventory was gone, Starbucks owned it. Or sorry, Amazon owned it now. And I was like, "Phew, okay, one problem solved. This is amazing. I hope it actually gets bought. I hope it does well." We became one of the number one products on Amazon. It was huge. And so going back to the Starbucks situation, something I learned when that turmoil hit is that I had too many eggs in one basket.
Kara Goldin:
Starbucks was 40% of our overall business. When things are going great, that's the time not to sit on your pedestal and chill out. That's the time when you need to figure out opportunities because that's why it hurt so bad, and that was my fault. Starbucks needed to do what was right for their business. I wasn't happy about it. I wish she never would've taken a job at Starbucks, but regardless it was really my fault and I needed to own it because it was 40% of our overall business. But also being open to those possibilities, who was out there that we could do business with to sort of put a bandaid on my current situation. All of a sudden that bandaid became a great business, overtook the business that we were going to be missing from Starbucks.
Kara Goldin:
But in addition to that, a year after being in Amazon, the buyer shared with us that the consumer that was buying Hint was unique compared to other beverages that they had on the service because they were crossing over into areas, like they were buying things in sports or in health. So they were buying diabetes monitors, where somebody who was buying Pepsi, wasn't buying diabetes monitors. And so they said, it's really interesting because you're creating this healthy halo, this consumer that we didn't used to see in beverages. And I was like, "Wow, that's so interesting. Can you give me their email because I really want to reach out to them?" And the buyer said, "No. I mean, that's Jeff Bezos' email. There's no way he's going to give you the email, we own the inventory. Does Starbucks or Whole Foods or Target give you emails?" I'm like, "No, but you're Amazon. You're an online, I mean, that's what you're supposed to be doing. Right?" And they're like, "No, we're not going to going give that to you."
Kara Goldin:
So it was at that point when I decided the only way I'm going to get the emails is to start drinkhint.com. And it's fascinating because I always think about this as a visual where I thank Starbucks for really allowing me to be open to other opportunities. And I thank Starbucks and Amazon and ultimately, I mean drinkhint.com is 35% of Hints overall business now. That never would've come to be if I wasn't willing to go and take those risks. If I wasn't willing to kind of open new doors, new opportunities, where the entire beverage industry when we were going online in 2012 was like, "Cases are too heavy. Why would you do that? That's not the way beverages are sold." And I'm like, "Okay, that's fine. You guys can think that, we're going to do what we're going to do for different reasons. We want to have that relationship with the consumer." Anyway, so long-winded story of how that all goes back.
Paul Epstein:
Yeah. And I love where you're bringing us because bringing every single Playmaker into this, while we all have our independent stories, think about this piece of life. And where your message connects to mine deeply. Kara as you know, I talk about playing defense versus playing offense. And it starts with the mindset, but the mindset means nothing unless it inspires action. And so when you have this offensive mindset, think back to the early days of the pandemic, everybody thinks that was such a difficult time to hit the gas, so to speak. And sometimes hitting the gas is a side step. Sometimes it's the cliche of one step back to take 10 forward, but you're always moving. And where I love that you made it human and vulnerable Kara is, you didn't lie about for one. You told us how you felt about, and I know you're half joking about the lady at Starbucks, but where I love you brought us is, it took you a couple days.
Paul Epstein:
It wasn't perfect. It was painful. You needed to process. You needed to recover. You need to prepare your game plan and you didn't even know what the game plan would lead to. You didn't have a crystal ball that would say, Amazon's going to hit you up the next day, the next week, the next month, the next year. You didn't know that there's a future business opportunity that will eventually be 40% of the pie through this online piece that might not ever get invented if Starbucks doesn't need more space in their shelf. So for all Playmakers, what's happening in your life right now that may seem like it's out of your control but as you process it and you set an offensive game plan for not only the recovery period, but now how you can actually grow from it. And I know you brought up Steve Jobs earlier.
Paul Epstein:
I've heard you another podcast talk about how he has shared, and this is knowledge that now we're aware of. When you look back at life, not only the power of your question of what's the worst that could happen, but Steve Jobs always says, it's easy to see how things connect to one another in retrospect. And so this is less about making the perfect step today. It maybe imperfect action, but at least you're taking steps. And as time progresses, you can reflect back and say, how has all of this served me? How have I grown because of this? For Playmaker, how are we living more on purpose?
Paul Epstein:
So Kara, I appreciate that you brought us there. And that's something that I want to stay on the topic of Hint because now the world sees this quarter billion, correct me if I'm wrong about it, $250 million annual business and highly successful, and you can tap into the origin story. And also where I found the most fascinating part of your journey was when a Coke executive challenged you and essentially said, "This ain't going to work. It ain't going to work. This flavored but unsweetened water, it doesn't exist." And so I'll let you tell the story, but where I want you to bring us is you said, and that's the moment that something clicked. So, a, for Playmakers, tell us about that experience with the Coke executives and then what clicked because of it?
Kara Goldin:
Well, it was at a time, it was about, I guess, a year into the journey of Hint. And there were so many problems, but probably the top two problems, which really could have shut down the company was we couldn't figure out how to get a longer shelf life for the product. I felt like every time I walked in the door at Whole Foods, I would feel like I had achieved something, we were doing well. And then they would say, "Oh, well you need a longer shelf life." And they kept raising the bar. I'm like, "I just met the bar last week. Can't we just hang out here for a little while?" And they were like, "No, you can't, you got to do it sooner or you're going to get kicked out of here." So that was just this ongoing conversation. And then the other piece of the conversation that was really hard was distribution because I was living in San Francisco.
Kara Goldin:
I could run around town in my Grand Cherokee and deliver cases, but they didn't want a bunch of us running around, us, meaning our entrepreneurs running into stores. So we needed a distributor. So somebody who consolidated product and brought it in. And so I didn't know how to really solve that problem. And I also didn't know how to solve the problem of getting our product without shipping it to like Denver. That was too far for me to do in a day from San Francisco, drive my Grand Cherokee over there. So a friend, I had connected with a friend who knew this executive at Coca-Cola. And when I ended up getting on a call with him, as my dad said, thank God you weren't meeting in person, because that would've been a really uncomfortable conversation. I shared with him for the first 15 minutes, how we had grown in San Francisco. That I had no idea what I was doing.
Kara Goldin:
I mean, I had come from the tech industry. I wasn't a beverage executive, but what I found was that there was this audience just like me that had given up drinking diet soda, diet Coke in particular. Of course, I'm talking to the Coke executive. He probably was like, "I wish she never came into this call." And same feelings I had about the Starbucks person. But it was about 15 minutes in, he interrupted me and said, "Sweetie, this business isn't going anywhere. Americans love sweet." And I thought, "Did he just call me sweetie?" I mean, this is, I've never been called sweetie, I've been called a lot of things, but I've just never been called sweetie before. And I was really, really surprised. And I went on to keep listening, I think maybe to figure out whether or not I had misheard him in some way. But then the longer he talked, the more I realized that he believed in this strategy, this take on the consumer and that's what he did every single day.
Kara Goldin:
And he kept saying the same thing over and over again. And so his idea of the consumer was quite different than what I believed the consumer was. And I wasn't going to sit here and tell him, no, actually I was that consumer and you wouldn't have kept me if you would've sweetened the product, but got the calorie count down because I was onto you because I was not getting as healthy as I wanted to. Instead, I was thinking that, but I didn't say that to him, and instead by the end of the conversation, after we were on the call for an hour, it was pleasant enough. I hung up and I thought, I have a choice. I can either close the company down because he's clearly not going to help me figure out how to get a longer shelf life or he's not going to distribute the product for me.
Kara Goldin:
He doesn't even think that I should have a product or a company. He's laughing about it. Or I know my consumer, I think the consumer used to be his consumer and is coming here. And so what I need to do before he figures out that his consumer's coming here is throw the gas on. And I need to focus on my consumer because he has one thing that I don't have, which is a lot more money. And so if I educate him on who this consumer is, and let's just say that he might believe me, I mean, I didn't have any experience. Why should he believe me other than the fact that I was a consumer. I knew enough that it was going to take him a while to turn the cruise ship. His cruise ship.
Paul Epstein:
Yeah. [crosstalk 00:25:44].
Kara Goldin:
And so I thought I needed to just hit the gas and go as far as I could, and along the way, maybe our worlds would intersect. Hopefully, he wouldn't figure out this about the consumer, because again, he had a lot more money and he could crush me like a bud. But I think for me it was, it's funny because so many people have picked up on that story and they would say things to me like, "Why didn't you correct him? Why didn't you hang up the phone? Weren't you really discouraged when he called you sweetie? I mean, here, he has a lot more experience than you do." But I think it's a story about, if you really believe that, first of all, you're doing something that can actually help people and you see the consumer and you're so sure that that consumer that you're looking at you've got a good read on them.
Kara Goldin:
It doesn't matter how much experience somebody has. They're just reading the consumer differently. And I knew I was the consumer. I had been a diet Coke drinker for many, many years and I had left. I was a loyal consumer. I didn't drink diet Pepsi. I only drank diet Coke and I drank, some days 10 to 12 a day. I was diet Coke. You could give it to me from my Circle K or cans or, I was diet Coke. People would say, "Do you want diet Pepsi?" "Nope, I'm good. I'm going to find that diet Coke." And so you have people like that who are so loyal and they're out and they were few and far between 17 years ago, but I was starting to find them. And I was starting to find them when I would hear from consumers early on, I would get on my customer service lines and also answer emails from these consumers.
Kara Goldin:
And there were consumers just like me who were doing it because they wanted to get healthier. And they realized that the word diet, they had been marketed to. And it was exactly like me but different, for different reasons. I remember the first time I ever heard from a consumer who really loved Hint, they shared this new disease with me that I was fascinated by called type two diet diabetes. I had never heard of type two diabetes. And they were convinced that diet sweeteners was actually causing spikes. And yet diet sweeteners, everybody was saying 17 years ago, they don't do that. They don't cause spikes in sugar level. And I'm like, "I get it. I don't know, maybe no one's talking about this. I have no idea, but in the meantime, I just don't drink diet sweeteners anymore."
Kara Goldin:
And again, this was just a guy who found our product and started drinking it. He was walking into Whole Foods. But again, just going back to sort of the core of it is, if you can find, that was my purpose, from day one was to develop a product that helped people. And when you have a North Star like that, it doesn't matter. You're going to have a little bit of imposter syndrome, from these other people who are sort of in your industry that have a lot more experience, more money, whatever it is. But I think the most important thing for you to do, and the only thing you can control is to really understand, are you servicing a consumer? Are you servicing an audience in some way?
Paul Epstein:
All right Playmakers, it is now time to find your why. In collaboration with my partners at the Why Institute, you have access to the most high impact assessment to find your why that will help you know who you are, know how you think and know why you do what you do. I believe in this assessment so much that I invested in one for every Playmaker out there, consider it a gift from me to you on purpose. To take your assessment now, head over to whyinstitute.com/playmakers. It only takes five minutes and the best part, it is absolutely free. If you've already taken it, share it with somebody you know that needs to ignite more purpose in their life. It all starts by finding our why at whyinstitute.com/playmakers. Let's get back to the show.
Paul Epstein:
So let's double click on this. And of course we're all in on purpose. So in this case, it was, there was a deeper burn, a deeper mission, a deeper purpose, but it was packaged around a company. So in this case, Hint as a platform because of your personal mission, that eventually launches into an enterprise. So for you you found purpose. I don't want to say you found purpose, but you activated a sense of purpose through your organization. If somebody listening in says, that's not in my cards, I'm not looking at the entrepreneurial path. I'm concerned with my individual purpose. How can I show up today and tomorrow with a greater sense of purpose, if it doesn't necessarily to starting a company or a nonprofit or whatever it is, what perspective or advice would you have for our Playmaker community that are just looking to tap into their why, their purpose and just take it one day at a time?
Kara Goldin:
You know it's interesting. I was just talking to my son about this who's in college actually. And we were having this whole conversation because I think that so often people sort of get stuck, I guess it's the goal. Go find your purpose, go find your mission. But sometimes in order to find that purpose and mission, you just have to start with not staying complacent. Going out and trying things. Figuring out what you enjoy doing. And when you go and take those little steps, that's when you actually figure out, how can I actually tie this into something that I really care about? And I think when, I even think about this big statement of what you really care about, it's what you like doing every single day. I mean, that's really what it boils down to.
Kara Goldin:
And I think a lot of times when you figure out what you really like doing every day, I mean, people often say, oh, it's really easy for me. Actually, when things are so easy for you, that you don't actually have to struggle in the beginning to figure it out, then you're not going to stick with it necessarily. You're not as impressed with yourself that you've been able to figure something out. I mean, people, for example, I know you do a lot of public speaking. I've talked to many people who have done public speaking, including myself, even though I was always a social person growing up, I never thought I was very good at it. And so I think when you can actually go back and connect the dots, as Steve Jobs said, and look at that you went from here to here.
Kara Goldin:
Those are the things that you start to figure out, how do I tie purpose into that? What is it, how I got better at that? And that makes it that much more fun for me. And so I think that it doesn't have to be tied to a company at all, but it can be. And I think that if you start to look at things that you really enjoy doing first, rather than thinking, okay, well, I can't do anything right now because I don't know what my purpose is, that's not a good answer.
Paul Epstein:
Yeah. And so to pull our audience in something that I always do leading up to this, and this is part of a bigger mission of mine as I'm writing my second book, which we'll launch next year, the title of On Purpose. And really that's when we align our head to our heart, to our hands and in the playbook of how I'll illustrate that in the book is there's core values that are synonymous with people that are living and leading on purpose. And so what I do, so Kara, you know this, you got this in your inbox over the past few days, I said, "Hey, which of these values resonate most with you? And just reply with two or three of these dozen." And it's amazing the diversity of responses that I'll get depending on who's coming on the show or who's at my network. And one of the ones you said, and it ties into where, a, going to go next and b, what you just said, one of the few that you responded with was curiosity.
Paul Epstein:
And I have also in different conversations heard you talk about curiosity, quote, you say, satisfying, your curiosity is living. I have heard you say that, which is so beautiful. So amazing. And so whether it's a conversation with your son or right now, you're talking to all Playmakers where you're bringing us, because the number one lesson I've taken is you can't stay complacent. That is straight from your playbook. Don't stay complacent, take a step. And so what if, if the end game is purpose, what if the kickoff is curiosity? Because curiosity can spark one step and then another. So there's some actions that are taking place and you're figuring it out.
Paul Epstein:
Does this align with my skillset, my gifts and my talents and my passions and all those things. But I often say curiosity can bring you to a place of discovery of passion because you just have that sense of enjoyment and inner fulfillment and that energy that is uncommon. And then you say, huh, curiosity gets me into passion. And once I'm playing in a space of passion, there's a whole lot of hints about your purpose in there, but you can't just open up a can and say, there's my purpose. Sometimes it starts with curiosity. So how does that land with you, the connection between curiosity and purpose?
Kara Goldin:
Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. Because curiosity takes you, I think curiosity often takes you to places where maybe you didn't have time to check things out. Maybe you were too afraid. Maybe you didn't know anyone who was headed in that direction. And I think that once you start to immerse yourself in it, then you start to figure out whether or not it's something that you're interested in, whether or not you're good at it. Whether or not you can actually see progress in some way. And I think that that is what ultimately develops passion and starting to figure out those things. And I think it's so hard too, because I think people just, especially as you get older too, people only do the things that are easy for them, that they know that they're good at. And they're not really looking for things that they're curious about. And yet, I was just having this conversation with somebody earlier today.
Kara Goldin:
I think that the most interesting articles that I read or the most interesting podcasts that I listen to are things where, or articles or podcasts that tell me something I don't know. That pick my interest. And yet I think most people when they're going through life don't actually look for things that they don't know how to do, because they're hard. They could fail. And yet we know that about ourselves. I mean, if you happen to, you watch a movie and it ends a different way than you thought it was going to, it becomes a great movie. And yet it really is counter to how people live typically yet the people, and in fact, I'll even go further to say that if people don't take the easy way, then all of a sudden they're considered risky.
Paul Epstein:
Yes.
Kara Goldin:
Or risk takers.
Paul Epstein:
I hear it all the time. Yes. "Oh, Paul, you left sports. Is Jerry McGuire leap. Oh my gosh. The courage." And in reality, I just tapped into who I was. And it actually was one of the easiest decisions of my life. But I hear you. I've been called too bold, too risky, crazy. All of the above. Yeah, because it goes against the grain. But yeah, to your point, if there's a movie about your life, we all love that surprise ending. And I'm not saying that go out and be irresponsible tomorrow, but hmm. Is vanilla really the flavor of life you want? Is it?
Kara Goldin:
Right. And I think that that's the thing. And you ended up, I mean, I bet at some point you didn't know you were going to be heading in this direction, but you [crosstalk 00:40:03] started winding down that beautiful country road. And then all of a sudden you're here. And I think that-
Paul Epstein:
100%. Yeah. And we're having this conversation. Yeah.
Kara Goldin:
And I think that that's the way the best lives are, that's how they play out. And yet, most people didn't know that they were going to end up in that direction until they're there. And I think that who's to, if you sit there and listen to the people with more experience or the people that are basically telling you that you shouldn't go do something or that's going to not work out or it's going to be impossible. I'm a huge believer that people project what they believe about themselves and about what they've seen in their own life and versus actually allowing you to go and take risks. Family and friends are the worst, by the way. When you're starting a beverage company, you've been in the tech industry and you're starting a beverage company. I mean, my family was worried about me. They're like, "Wait, what? You're-
Paul Epstein:
They'll get you back to the safe road. They want the food on the table. They want the roof over their head, which again, emotionally, heart based, you understand. But I feel you on that. Friends and family, sometimes you almost need to keep it, you need to make sure that you're aligned and connected before you invite others into that journey.
Kara Goldin:
"Paul are you okay? You're leaving an incredible team." And it's hard. I'm not going to say it isn't. We've all been there. Right?
Paul Epstein:
We have.
Kara Goldin:
It's tough because especially when you care about those people and they're judging in some way. They don't intend to be doing that, they're just giving you their thoughts. But they're still saying, "I think Paul lost it." Right?
Paul Epstein:
Yeah. If I could have a nickel for every time I heard that. Yeah.
Kara Goldin:
And so I think that's the thing that you have to kind of go back to think that I don't think anybody, when they placed us on this planet, they didn't sit here and say, go play it safe, go ... I mean, you should be, go find those new experiences, go pave those new roads. I mean, that's the most interesting journey out there. And that doesn't mean that you're not going to have hurdles to overcome. It's really trying to figure out how to differentiate, how to enjoy, how to learn, how to find that passion, that makes the most interesting lives.
Paul Epstein:
Absolutely. So to close this out here, because I know we're coming close to time. I want to come down this home stretch and hear your response because while curiosity got us on this thought pattern, and I love where you've brought us, another one of the values you responded with was grit. And as I listened to, let's say, I tap into the Kara Goldin Show and an amazing podcast, please, all Playmakers, check it out. And I think Playmakers, she's going to have you at hello, because literally in the 15 or 22nd intro of the show, one of the sayings and it reminds me of this famous Mike Tyson quote of everybody has a plan till they get punched in the mouth. In this case it's, you can get knocked down, but don't get knocked out. And that's part of your intro. And I'm like, "Yes." So it feeds into, a, one of your childhood superpowers that I learned through your book, undaunted and perseverance, but it also leads into grit.
Paul Epstein:
So if someone listening in, closing question for you, they're in a tough spot right now. Grit is a part of the solution, but they don't know how to take the first step. Whether it is pandemic related or family related, or work related, there's just a lot of stuff that they're processing right now. Or maybe to the point of your book of Overcoming Doubts and Doubters, maybe there is self-doubt. Maybe there are external doubters. So kind of a universal perspective, but what is one thing that all Playmakers can do to express and cultivate more grit in their life so that they can be in a closer position to live on purpose tomorrow? So what one step would you recommend?
Kara Goldin:
So I think actually listening or reading about entrepreneurs, or people that have been through journeys that are taught, because, look, misery is company. If you can see Steve Jobs get back up and figure out what his next move is and not stay down on the floor, you can do it too. And when everything looked so dark, they weren't anymore. And I always like to sort of read and listen to people's stories and understand what they went through. Understand when they're faced with Starbucks, for example, there are so many people that said, "I would've just shut the doors at that point," but you can't. That's the thing. You have to figure out how to get back up again.
Kara Goldin:
And I think there's, whether it's in your personal life or your business life, or a little bit of both, you can take a break, but I go back to, and it's a constant reminder for, for me throughout my life is, you can take small breaks, but you can't stay complacent. Because if you stay complacent, you're dead. And you really have to figure out exactly, and it really does apply. So taking those steps, going and listening to other people's stories and figuring out how they did it, but also know that just taking it full circle, it's rarely as bad as you thought it was going to be. And so there's no reason to, what's the worst that could happen? I mean, there's no reason to just stop. And I think that's the most important thing.
Paul Epstein:
A million percent. So the mic drop moment is, if you stay complacent, you're dead. All right. Playmakers, you heard it here. First Kara Goldin thank you so much. Where can we find you? Where can we follow you? How would you like for Playmakers to engage?
Kara Goldin:
Yeah. So Kara Goldin, all over social, and you mentioned my podcast where I interview great entrepreneurs and CEOs with amazing stories as well. It's called the Kara Goldin Show and hopefully you'll get a chance to pick up my book, Undaunted or get it on audible-
Paul Epstein:
Right here. Undaunted.
Kara Goldin:
And I read my book and so you'll hear all kinds of good stories along the way and hopefully you'll reach out and let me know what you think.
Paul Epstein:
One million percent. I promise there are countless Playmakers out there that are all over everything you just said. So from the bottom of all of our hearts, Kara, thank you so much for being on Playmakers.
Kara Goldin:
Thank you.
Paul Epstein:
Loved what you just heard, subscribe to Playmakers: On Purpose on Apple Podcasts or wherever it is you tune in from. And for all of today's show notes, head over to playmakerspod.com, where you cannot only enjoy resources from this show, but all previous episodes as well. And last call, if you haven't already, you can now take your personal why assessment in under five minutes for free at whyinstitute.com/playmakers. Playmakers is produced by Detroit Podcast Studios in collaboration with Purpose Point. See you next time as we continue to make plays on purpose together.