Julien Smith on Building Breather and Practice
b'Julien Smith is the Co-Founder and CEO at Practice. Previously, he was also the Co-Founder of a company called Breather. Additionally, he was a New York Times Bestselling Author of 3 books. He is somebody who\\u2019s been a speaker and a writer. Creative would be the word I use to best sum up Julien.\\n\\xa0\\nJulien had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:\\n\\u201cOne of the ways to have the biggest impact on the world is to work with a team of people that will care about a common purpose\\u201d (7:15).\\n\\u201cHow much of a mercenary are you vs a missionary?\\u201d (8:15).\\n\\u201cI was a hard employee\\u2026 I wanted a level of autonomy that I never earned\\u201d (11:35).\\n\\u201cI felt that I had a value in myself that I saw that was very difficult for me to show other people. I had to step completely out of the system\\u201d (13:00).\\n\\u201cPeople make everything happen. When it\\u2019s not people, it\\u2019s culture\\u201d (23:00).\\n\\u201cI\\u2019m more deliberate about people now than I ever was\\u201d (23:15).\\n\\u201cTo be deliberate with the people that you work with has got to be the most valuable thing that you can possibly do at a startup, especially at the early stage\\u201d (24:15).\\n\\u201cThe number one thing that I care about today is making sure the team is amazing and making sure the team is all aligned together\\u201d (26:00).\\n\\u201cI\\u2019ve been working to empower solo people for as long as I can think\\u201d (30:15).\\n\\u201cThe challenge is to scale beyond your own thing\\u201d (41:15).\\n\\u201cThere\\u2019s hundreds of coaches out there, but no one knows how to find them other than by referral\\u201d (43:10).\\n\\u201cI like the intimacy of the relationship in coaching\\u201d (44:00).\\n\\u201cCEOs have almost no opportunity to be their honest self, they\\u2019re always on. To be able to give them an opportunity to not be on\\u2026 and to allow them to authentically be themselves is incredibly rewarding\\u201d (44:30).\\n\\u201cCoaching lets me step out of my own company, which is really rewarding\\u201d (44:50).\\n\\u201cNo matter who you are or how you get it, you do need a connection to something greater than yourself\\u201d (50:45).\\n\\u201cAs much as possible, I try to connect to things that are bigger than myself to remember that there\\u2019s a lot of stuff out there in the world\\u201d (51:10).\\n\\u201cI feel that you\\u2019ve got to know what you\\u2019re getting into\\u201d (54:25).\\n\\u201cTo me, what venture really means is access to money and access to a really strong density of talent\\u201d (55:20).\\n\\u201cVenture brings together incredibly smart and talented people\\u201d (55:50).\\n\\u201cMy identity was absolutely attached to being the CEO and Co-Founder of Breather, and to a degree it\\u2019s attached to Practice, but less so than the people who have done nothing before that at all\\u201d (58:00).\\n\\u201cLet\\u2019s build a business that will support the next 1,000, 10,000, or 100,000 people like this\\u201d (59:15).\\n\\u201cI really believe that in 5-10 years we can be one of the most successful companies in the world. To do that right, from the very beginning, you have to have that intent\\u201d (1:00:45).\\n\\u201cOne of the things that you\\u2019ve got to do when you get into venture-backed businesses, you have to know that you can build something for a customer that you love, and you have to know that you can do it for 10 years\\u201d (1:01:15).\\n\\xa0\\nAdditionally, make sure to check out Julien on Twitter. You can also purchase any of Julien\\u2019s books (The Flinch, Trust Agents, the Impact Equation; Companies: Practice, Breather) anywhere where you normally buy books! If you want to learn more about Practice, feel free to give the website a look. I would also encourage you to check out the website for Peter Shallard, known as the Shrink for Entrepreneurs.\\nThank you so much to Julien for coming on the podcast!\\nI wrote a book called \\u201cShift Your Mind\\u201d that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter:\\xa0@brianlevenson\\xa0or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.\\nThanks for listening.'