Timestamps:

0:36 - Welcome to today’s episode

0:57 - Introducing today’s guest, Guy Kawasaki

1:39 - How the accidental steps we take help shape the future of our lives

2:44 - Guy’s biggest sales tip

5:16 - Creating tiny, incremental habits in order to meet our goals

6:40 - What is evangelism and how relevant is it today?

9:20 - Evangelism vs. sales

10:25 - The most pressing issue for entrepreneurs

12:33 - Guy shares about his own podcast, Remarkable People

15:11 - The one piece of advice Guy would give his younger self

16:39 - Guy answers a rapid-fire round of questions

18:10 - Closing thoughts

Welcome back to the Inspired Execution Podcast! Each episode shares the experience and learnings of a world-class leader on their journey to success. Our guests are bold, brilliant, and not afraid to change. As you navigate your path, we hope you feel inspired by their stories, lessons learned, and vision of the future. Today, we hear from Guy Kawasaki, Chief Evangelist of Canva and a venture capitalist whose investments are known for turning everything into gold. He is also a New York Times bestselling author and the host of his own podcast, Remarkable People.

Guy was born and raised in Hawaii before studying psychology at Stanford. It may be easy to credit psychology to his success today, but he reveals that he chose the major because it was actually one of the easiest in the school. His work at a jewelry manufacturer gave him valuable sales skills and he now believes that everyone should know how to sell. Though we may not realize it, we are all constantly selling different things throughout our day-to-day life. Sales, he explains, is all about empathy, understanding what the person wants out of your product, and grit. This brings us to the most important experience for young people in sales: rejection.

Guy’s first book, The Macintosh Way, was published in 1989 after his role as an Apple evangelist. An evangelist, he explains, is someone who brings the good news of a company. He believed that Macintosh would make people more creative and productive. For developers, he brought the good news of Macintosh introducing the kind of software they always wanted to make for a market they could never reach. Now, at Canva, he brings the good news that users can be better communicators because now they can create their own graphic designs. Thus, the fundamental role of an evangelist is just as relevant today as it was 30 years ago. Evangelism is actually the purest form of sales because it eliminates self-interest. The purpose of an entrepreneur is to create customers but to do so you must first complete your product. The bulk of your entrepreneurial efforts should be focused on getting the product to market. Many tech entrepreneurs become distracted by raising money and lose sight of their fundamental responsibility.

As the episode wraps up, Guy shares about his own podcast, Remarkable People. At 67 years old, he now feels that he has finally found his true calling and that his entire career has prepared him for this moment. Simply put, he is on a mission to make people remarkable. Finally, Guy answers a round of rapid-fire questions before closing out with a valuable piece of advice.

Thank you for listening and please don’t forget to like and subscribe!

Links:

Learn more about Guy Kawasaki.

Find more episodes of Inspired Execution here.

Inspired Execution

Guy Kawasaki

Chief Evangelist, Canva

Mastering the Art of Rejection and Making People Remarkable with Guy Kawasaki

Episode Transcript