Put Yourself In A Room With People Better Than You

Newsletter · May 11, 2025

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An entrepreneur's recipe for sweet success

3.5min Read

I was sitting at a table in a boutique hotel in Laguna beach surrounded by success. To my right was a a guy in the oil and gas industry in Texas. To my left was a dude running a home service hub closing in on $1M revenue. Across from me was the man, the myth, the LEGEND, Nik Hulewsky. He’s exited multiple times for MULTIPLE millions and now shares the juice through his podcast and Twitter.

And here I am, just a cop with dreams bigger than I can even wrap my head around sometimes. Ambition POURING out, but cash flow dry. I genuinely didn’t belong… but at the same time, I ABSOLUTELY did. I’d go as far as saying that if I was in a room with people at my same level, THAT might actually be the room I didn’t belong in.

What I’m saying here is that you are selling yourself short if you’re not constantly putting yourself in situations that put you out of your league. This goes for everything— Work out with a vest on, read books that challenge you, play sports with people better than you, take on more than you can currently chew… push your barometer and you’ll be amazed of how much you become capable of.

Because this is an entrepreneurial newsletter-- the main takeaway here is to surround yourself with people that are more successful, wealthier and better at business than you. Find people that are living the life and doing the things that YOU want to do.

As the weekend came to a close and we sat in the private room of one of the fanciest restaurants in Laguna Beach, I sat next to the founder of the mastermind as we ate Wagyu beef and Caviar fries (seriously) he looks over at me and says:

“why aren’t you doing more with your wife’s bookkeeping business? If I were you, I’d lean into that hard, grow it in the next couple years and exit for life changing money.**”

**— I sat there with my mouth open for a sec… then I pulled myself together and pretended I was still munching on the beef (even though I didn’t have any in my mouth). To be honest, I didn’t really have a great answer for him. But I was blown away that he had been thinking that. It completely shifted my paradigm.

And that’s the point I’m making. You literally don’t know UNTIL you either figure it out for your self OR someone who’s been there and done that tells you.

Find rooms with those people and fight your way in. You belong not by the money you have in your bank, but by the ambition that fires you up in side.

BITES 🍩

BITE 1 — Stop waiting for permission

BITE 2 — I’m building an app to take down Docusign

BITE 3 —Mysterypreneur Link

BITE 4 — AI Juice

BITE 1
— Stop waiting for permission.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this idea of waiting for permission.

You know the feeling:
You’ve got an idea… but you start asking questions like:
“Am I qualified?”
“Will people take me seriously?”
“Do I need to wait until I have [X] before I go for it?”

Let me save you some time:
The answer is no.
The people who build big things? They never waited. They just started building.

Here are 3 of my favorite stories of people who didn’t ask for permission—because deep down, they knew they were meant to do it anyway.

Sara Blakely –

She had no fashion background. No investors. No clue how to even file a patent.

So she Googled it, used $5,000 of her own savings, and literally cut the feet off pantyhose to create the first prototype of Spanx.

She even convinced a buyer at Neiman Marcus to follow her into the women’s bathroom so she could show her how the product worked.

Takeaway: You don’t need permission. You need a problem worth solving—and the courage to be a little weird about it.

Oprah –

They told her she wasn’t fit for TV. Literally took her off the news desk.
So she did it her way—HER style.

She ended up owning her own production company, her own network, her own empire.
All because she stopped asking how to “fit in” and started asking how to stand out.

Takeaway: You don’t need the spotlight handed to you. You just need to start shining in your own corner of the room.

Jay-Z –

Every record label turned him down. So he built Roc-A-Fella Records himself.

Then he bought his masters, built Roc Nation, invested in liquor, tech, art—and a ton of other things.

He went from selling CDs out of his trunk to becoming a billionaire.

Not because someone opened the door. Because he kicked it in.

Takeaway: If no one gives you a seat, bring a folding chair and a blueprint for your own table.

BITE 2
— The Docusign Killer

Update on some app development:
The progress is real. It is absolutely mind blowing what we’re capable of now that you can use AI to code. While I have a few apps going in the background, this one I think will be extremely useful. I’m calling it SnapNDA right now, but that domain is taken so it’s just a place holder. The concept is to be able to create, send and/or sign an NDA in 30sec, EASILY on your phone.

Agreements shouldn’t be complicated and they should be accessible and ready to go whenever you need them.

THIS is the solution.

I’ll be looking for beta users fairly soon as we get this up and going and I’m sharing it with you first!

Stay tuned for more as I roll this out.

BITE 3
— Mysterypreneur Link

BITE 4
— AI Juice 🧃

Microsoft just introduced new laptops with AI built in, no internet required.

Here’s what it’ll feature:

Recall
AI file search
AI snipping tool
Setting assistant
Offline AI performance

While those are seemingly small things, this is HUGE because it marks the beginning of AI being directly integrated into consumer tech.

BONUS:
I used this prompt to find out about the permissionless entrepreneurs. I picked my favorite and summarized the stories.

Until next time...

Stay in the fight,

My best tweet this week:

@kevinasrx

If you’re not playing up a level, you’re in the wrong room.

This weekend I had the opportunity to be in a room with rockstar entrepreneurs MULTIPLE levels above where I’m playing.

The beauty of this was that it was a reality check.

Not that I didn’t belong but the opposite—

https://twitter.com/trentjhughes/status/1919424358831063260

Trenton Hughes

@trentjhughes

What a weekend!

18 entrepreneurs coming together in Laguna Beach for amazing conversations, meals, workshopping and fun

It's incredible see this play out. We built TRIBE thinking one day we'd host cool experiences like this, and here we are

Heck of a weekend!

@ellieintech

2:57 PM • May 5, 2025 ↗