Nate Ishe Lappegaard is an entrepreneurial activist, and owner of The Kite + Dart Group, a company that provides business development strategy and coaching for impact-driven entrepreneurs. On top of that, he is also a successful DJ, producer, and promoter.

In this episode we talk about:

• Nate’s business, The Kite + Dart Group, and how they are changing the conversation in business from profit to contribution 

• The tragic event that caused him to take a stand with his beliefs and inevitably caused his business to explode

• How music has played a part in his journey as a human, and as a coach who supports impact-driven entrepreneurs

• A tried-and-true method for handling self-doubt when it rears its ugly head

• Finally, he shares a very powerful and heartfelt message to entrepreneurs 

SHOW LINKS:

http://kiteanddartgroup.com/

thecontributionsolution.com

https://penroseinstitute.com/
(Penrose tiling named after mathematician and physicist Sir Roger Penrose, who investigated non-periodic tiling generated by an aperiodic set of prototiles in the 1970s)

http://www.nealstephenson.com/anathem.html

http://www.coheedandcambria.com/

TRANSCRIPTION:

Nate Lappegaard: 00:00:00 It still occasionally will pop up and what I do is I just start to think about, you know, is this action, is what I'm doing really a maximum of service to others, or even then like I start thinking about who I could help, it makes a big difference. You know, once I stopped thinking about me and I started thinking about the difference I'm trying to make, I'm pulled out of those spaces and I would go so far as to say that if you're an entrepreneur and you are struggling with self worth, self doubt, all that stuff, get out of thinking about yourself and get into action working with clients and prospective clients. Fill up your schedule helping folks.

Gabe Ratliff: 00:00:43 Welcome to the vitalic project podcast where you'll learn how to find your own voice in a world filled with noise. I'm Gabe ratliff. I'll be your host as I sit down with fellow artists, creators and entrepreneurs to learn more about their work and how they serve others so that you can tap into your creative purpose and live a life that's drawn, not traced. All right, I'm stoked. Let's get to it.

Gabe Ratliff: 00:01:11 Hey Gang. It's that time again, the Vitalic Project. Yep. Time for a new episode. This is episode five. In this episode, I sit down with my buddy, Nate Ishe Lappegaard. He and I know each other from the DJ scene as well as professionally and, uh, I'm just super excited on this anniversary of Nate's business to share him and his story with you. I just saw on LinkedIn today that is his, a three year anniversary, so super excited about that. He now had been working together on some coaching for the last several months and I just really love his story. It's so akin to Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey and I love the act that he is in a, at this point because this is definitely his rise is the hero. And uh, I just love it. I really appreciate the power of, of change and how someone who is devoted as he is to his cause and his purpose can actually bring that to fruition, uh, in such a way to create that change on just a large, large scale. During our conversation, Nate talks about his business, the Kite + Dart Group, where the name came from, why he does what he does and how he got here. And it's a very spirited conversation. Uh, I just, I love listening to Nate speak because he really believes what he says and he does what he says and he really means it and he really wants to make a difference with the impact of his work and in and therefore helping impact driven entrepreneurs to do their work. We talk about the conversation in business that he and his team are, are pushing out there that's focused more on contribution than profit and how that can really empower you as a human, but moreover, as or as a business owner, but moreover as a human and how that can really drive your business. Uh, he shares the tragic event that caused him to take a stand with his beliefs and could have been the demise of his business, but inevitably caused it to explode. And he talks about how music has played a part in his journey as a human and as a coach who supports impact driven entrepreneurs. Then he offered some advice on how to handle self doubt when it rears its ugly head, which we all have dealt with. And finally he shares the very powerful and heartfelt message to entrepreneurs out there knowing full well that he can't support all of them. Uh, and you know, some people may listen to this episode and not connect with his, his message or his purpose and some will. And so that's how we all have to be. Some people won't like this podcast and some will. So, you know, this is an experiment and it means a lot to me. His means a lot to him and I'm really glad to share that with you. So let's dive in man, because, uh, this is a good one. All right nate, thank you so much for being on the show, brother. It is so, so great to have you here.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:04:49 Well, thanks for having me, Gabe. Thanks for spending the time and, I just hope I bring something of value to folks. You know?

Gabe Ratliff: 00:04:58 You can't do anything but that man, every conversation we've had over the last several months has just been value. So I'm so glad to share that message that you have and just your story with the Vitalic audience because you're definitely aligned with this mission, brother.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:05:15 Well, it's an honor to be here. Thank you for having me.

Gabe Ratliff: 00:05:18 So I thought, you know, first of all, maybe you could just tell us a little bit about yourself and what you're up to and we'll just take it from there.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:05:27 So my name's Nate Ishe Lappegaard and I own a business called the Kite + Dart Group. And we provide coaching and business development strategy for impact-driven entrepreneurs. That's what I do. I'm also a DJ and a musician, a person in recovery. I'm a husband. I'm a self identified social justice warrior, a card carrying social democrat. What I'm about is using small business and then eventually large business to cause a institutional transformation in the way that our culture distributes money. Um, I see that it is a fundamental symptom or the fundamental cause of any quality inside of our culture that I feel like the, the voice, the power in our culture has been cooptive by a certain type of person who has a certain type of relationship with money and I don't like what they're doing with the place. So right now my life's work really involves looking and working with entrepreneurs that care about more than money and giving them the tools they need to take market share from the more greedy part of our culture. It's a entrepreneurial activism really

Gabe Ratliff: 00:06:45 Hear! Hear! One of the things I really liked about the survey that you filled out for the show was your why. And I was wondering if you could share that with everyone, with what your why is your, your purpose because that really, I mean, you, you just started to expound on it. But I'd love to hear you talk a little bit more. Yeah,

Nate Lappegaard: 00:07:04 I love this - why? Right? Cause, cause for me, like I do everything because I fucking say that's what I'm doing. I don't, I don't need to justify it. And it's important that people understand is all right if I swear because I swear. Okay, good. There's been asked before I dropped the first step. It's, I get it. I, I can't do business in a way. Supports things that I see that hurt other people. So I, I can't, I won't. I'm a reluctant entrepreneur. I'm a reluctant capitalist and saw what I'm not going to do is get up in the morning and fuck other people over to get mine this stall. It's not how I live my life. I mean I'd be dead if I lived my life that way, you know? So I can't, I can't do things in a manner which other people don't benefit and I do. It just doesn't work for me. So you know what it is about my why, what is it about. Let me ask you a question. What is it that I wrote that you liked? And I'll expound on that. You remember?

Gabe Ratliff: 00:08:25 Yeah. You said to advance the position of marginalized people in the US was totally the short and sweet of it.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:08:33 That's perfect. Yeah. So I could speak to that directly. So the way that I have, and I'm not saying that I have it like it's the truth, but here's how I have it, is that the nature of the system, that the biggest flaw or the problem we have in the economic system we operate inside of the world today, is its inability to distribute wealth evenly. As a matter of fact, it's the necessary have uneven distribution of wealth that causes a problem. And so if we look at the myth of economic mobility in our culture, which is worth researching, if you're out there about how much economic mobility there really is

Gabe Ratliff: 00:09:10 Mhmm.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:09:13 I think that basically that our culture would change if the, if the voices that were that had power were more diverse and so, and I know that in our culture who we listened to in the perfect. The president right now is a perfect example, that we value business people over any culture regardless of their aptitudes abilities or how many billions of dollars they inherited. We listened to entrepreneurs in this culture,

Gabe Ratliff: 00:09:44 Mhmm.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:09:45 and, and I did that, the, that, the voice of entrepreneurs, the voice of entrepreneurship be more diverse, more diverse than what it is now. And look, I'm fully aware that I'm a white dude. You know, you're hearing more about my story. You'll get that I'm not the typical entrepreneur and I'm just, I have it. Like if we can make nontraditional entrepreneurs more successful, give them more voice in our culture that will shift the way things were headed. And I think that if we can ship the converse for business and entrepreneurship at a fundamental level in our culture that we can cause social change. Yeah. And I think it's also a better way to run a fucking business. Yup. Yeah, and I'm committed that people that get access to that are people that are open to this conversation. So I'll throw this in. So if you.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:10:36 Black lives matter is racist or that people should be able to choose what bathroom to use or that, that, that other immigrants don't deserve the right. That your ancestry, if you're, if you're anything but a native American, if new immigrants don't deserve the same opportunity that old immigrants deserve, you should probably at this fucking thing off right now because I don't want you to know what I know. Yeah. I don't want them to know. Just go do Adam Smith and don't listen. I, I trust me clearly because I'm a liberal. Now I have to know nothing about business. So you're okay to. Oh, okay. Good. Now that all those people left, I'm not committed that everybody gets a seat at the fucking table, man. I'm not. And we have to move past some of these old ideologies of racism and sexism and fascism that are holding human culture back. And so for me, like my wife is like everything I do, I need to be able to relate to it like I'm doing something to put forward or move forward. That to advance the position of people who are more committed to a workable human culture while human society that distributes the wealth that we have in a war. Even Justin Fairway and I just have to know like that everything I'm doing is part of that and right now it looks like this work I'm doing is that. That's what, that's my why. My why is like 'cause fuck them.

Gabe Ratliff: 00:12:09 Right.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:12:13 They've had the mic for too long. Gabe, you know, like I was going to say, Donald Trump had a show where he was like convincing people that he knew how to run a business and the numbers, man, the numbers speak that you could have just put all the money he had in the stock market and made more than that guided, you know, he's a joke and, and rich white dudes like that are succeeding on privilege and not on merit. And I want a system that people can succeed on mirror, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that good enough? You've got to really social justice right out of the gates, man. Thank you.

Gabe Ratliff: 00:12:56 That's what I love about it

Nate Lappegaard: 00:12:57 I'm that guy.

Gabe Ratliff: 00:13:00 And it's, and it's unrelenting. It's not being sheepish at all. It's, it's being completely unrelenting and coming at it from a strong business side, but with this very strong ethical side. You know, like you said, coming from merit and you know, one of the things I love about that, you already know this, but that I love about your messages that comes from changing a and I don't want to, I don't want to steal your message, but just I love how you are changing this conversation from profit to contribution.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:13:38 Right? Right. Which I think is more realistic assessment of what motivates people anyway. Right. You know, I mean we can talk about it, but I don't know if you want to talk about it now, but the idea is we have about people's motivation and business and markets is that those ideas are just, they're fucking antiquated. That's all it is. It's just old shit. You know, like they're based on assumptions about human behavior that are incomplete. They're just incomplete. And I'm not saying that people would operate from greed, but this idea that people only act in their own self interest. It's just not true. This idea that, that people are only motivated to make choices in business by selfish reasons is just incomplete. It's incomplete.

Gabe Ratliff: 00:14:25 Mhmm. One of the other messages that really appreciated that you had on your, on your website is you're talking about how you're using capitalism to transform the planet. Can you speak to that for me?

Nate Lappegaard: 00:14:34 Yeah. I mean, I, I think that when we say that that that language is tricky. There's a way that we can run businesses and there's a way that we can create economic systems that reward certain behaviors that will, that will promote a way of being inside a business where everyone benefits and, and I think and I think I'm not sure we've had access to that way of doing it until we've had the technology and the resources that we have right now or maybe we did and we didn't do it, but regardless, all we have is right now and yeah, I think that if we can create so good, I mean like try on that consumers are ready to reward businesses for good behavior. Now we just have to come up with the tools and the strategy to establish that amount of trust and that we have access to that through the transparency that social media has brought to the world, whether we like it or not.

Gabe Ratliff: 00:15:40 It's so interesting to have seen this, this arc that social media has gone on where you know it used to be few and far between where sites would even have commenting and things where you could review them or your experience or the product and now it is the rule, not the exception.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:16:02 You you. You could make a fucking website and you could put whatever you want to put on there, but people are going to google you and what's going to show up is all that. Yeah. Not to mention that depending on the level of business that you're talking about, just like your perception of me was informed through my social media behavior,

Gabe Ratliff: 00:16:23 Mhmm.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:16:23 people are going to be much more informed through the way that we're interacting in in that medium than they are through any one sided advertising. We want to create. We just don't understand this yet because of the cultural lag created by. Because social media just got that powerful, right? I mean recently, five years. Yep. Where you could build businesses without websites.

Gabe Ratliff: 00:16:49 Yeah. It's interesting. I just saw a piece the other day on the news about Facebook changing that algorithm or changing their algorithm around businesses and the now what's happening to these businesses that built up essentially what's become our revenue to be able to even be, you know, take the side hustle to a proper business is now getting. I mean, I saw this woman who they interviewed, I think her profits dropped like 60 percent from this algorithm change overnight.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:17:25 Yeah. It's interesting, right? Because. Yeah, I mean, I'm going through it with a client right now. We do. And the music side of it. I do social media marketing for events. We ran up against a video that we'd been using that was taken at burning man that, that, uh, that didn't meet some new standards and guidelines and it, uh, it, it 10 x the cost per click for our client. The reason why I'm not in that business that often, and I know one of the reasons you know last year, is it last year still? Yeah, it was last year. We really looked at, at doing social media marketing for folks and the challenge with that is, is that the rules of the game changed so quickly through facebook's choices that it's really hard to make a promise and keep it. Yep. Yeah. And there are a lot of money. Don't get me wrong. There was a lot of money to be made. It actually easier than what we're doing now. And it was just that it was really hard to make promises.

Gabe Ratliff: 00:18:21 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then they're just doing it overnight and I mean, like she said in the interview, she just woke up the next day and massive drop and she was just asking. I just let people see what they want to see and stop trying to guide the conversation and

Nate Lappegaard: 00:18:40 I'm glad. I'm glad. I'm glad I'm not in charge of that. And I think about Mark Zuckerberg is an entrepreneur and, and there's no way that he could have expected to have to make the choices that he makes everyday and the impact it would have on people's lives. Yeah. Um, yeah, I don't, I don't, uh, I don't envy that choice and it occurs to me like is taking it seriously and a business does have a right to protect their proprietary tech technology and the way they do things. And I get small business owners wanting to have access to the y that facebook changes algorithms in order to provide relevant content. But I don't know man. I mean you make a, a, a, a bunch of code that produces that many billions of interactions. They're definitely doing the keeping content relevant, right? Yep. And businesses ought to have diversified revenue streams and they ought to work to own their own customer base and it shouldn't be dependent on third parties to find prospective clients entirely. Yeah. And I, and I get it and it sucks when you find something that works and you hit that goldmine and then facebook comes and takes it away. Good enough. Job of taking any sides there. I know it's tough, man. It is. I get it. And you know, and facebook needs both subscribers and revenue. Yep.

Gabe Ratliff: 00:20:08 Well Youtube went through a similar growth, right. You know, that went through a change and now the early adopters who are now famous youtubers. I mean I just, I felt like it was an interesting thing to kind of touch on for a second because we're talking about entrepreneurs and, and putting things out there with merit and also, you know, being able to be quote unquote successful, um, around what you're doing. And I think that is a really great conversation to be had because it's also tied to other people and what they're doing, you know, like are like us who were out there with businesses and how we use it and how it works and, and it's a really impactful business.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:20:48 Yeah. So it's interesting. I think it's a thing. Yeah. I mean and it's like with great freedom comes great responsibility, right. You know, and, and, and what it is to be in. You're dealing also with the inherent risk of entrepreneurship, which we don't talk about that much. Right. That, you know, it might not work, right? Yeah.

Gabe Ratliff: 00:21:07 One of the other things I wanted to also kind of call out here early on is just the name, the Chitin dark group. I really appreciated the thought that you put into where this came from and I thought it'd be great if you could share that with the audience.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:21:22 Yeah, it's great. I mean, first of all, if you're a startup entrepreneur, you're starting a business or you're a solopreneur or anything like that, I recommend having a name that's much more relevant and easy to understand that ours are really speaking all coach folks to, uh, have the name of their business really kind of what they're up to without, without significant research or obscure mathematical knowledge. So basically there's a mathematician that works in the UK named Penrose and he does a lot of work with a periodic sets and I'm not a mathematician, so there's any in the audience. My apologies for the butchery, but basically he has a formula that he illustrates with two shapes. Want a kite and one's a dart and basically when you can combine these two particular shapes and you can never create a repeating pattern so the patterns will never repeat. And what's interesting too is if you change the position of one of the tiles, it say like the 300th position, about 450,000 moves down. You can only place one no matter what you do in the middle. And it was also Penrose Tiles are featured in one of my favorite books, which is, oh man, Anathem by Neal Stephenson. Okay. And so that was cool for me and it resonated. And basically the idea is is we want to really accentuate this idea that there is no one way to run a business and that any modality or business course or coach that teaches people that there's one way to do it is an incomplete way of looking at it. We feel like at our in our coaching that the key to success for entrepreneurs is to wrap themselves in a business that uniquely caters to their characteristics and their commitment. And that doing. Saying that there's one particular way to do a thing, takes out the person doing it and for us if we're in a conversation about results, it's not just the right actions that produce results, it's the right actions and the way that those actions interface with a person taking them that produce results. Essentially we are saying that every business owner is unique and that the your best business is the one that's unique to you and we're so our name is really kind of throwing out or a little bit of a play against this idea that you can just like, I don't know, spend 20 grand on Facebook and by business model that worked for someone else and you're going to do it and it's automatically going to work. Right. You know, that's that. That would be really nice and it's, it's, it's bullshit, right?

Gabe Ratliff: 00:24:09 I kind of see that space currently. The space I'm about to touch on that is trying to fill that is now as the affiliate marketing space and I see that it's so diluted now because of so many people jumping on. I just was listening to a podcast the other day and they were talking about how, you know now if you try to do that and follow that model and just put stuff on Amazon and sell it, you know that you within by the time you're ready to wrap up your product, there's already five to 10 competitors that are gonna beat you out.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:24:48 You want to play the commodity game. You're not. You want to build your base, build your business on fucking strategy or something. Right? Yeah. Strategy. Like I'm like, you're not trying to win a game of chess here, right? It's your life and the least easily duplicatable thing as you. Alright. You know what I mean? And I always tell people too have like regardless of your spiritual viewpoints in all, in all of existence, which pretty big [inaudible] you are, the only you there's ever been, you know, which is, which is wild to think about. And so you might as well base your business on that.

Gabe Ratliff: 00:25:34 Yeah.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:25:36 Plus there's also this other thing which is like we have to run them. We don't want the experience of creating a business that's so easily stolen. Yeah. I don't want that for my client. It's either, you know, I just, I mean it's a, that's a, that's a, that's a terrible result to get after pouring all you have and do something is to have a constant fear that someone's going to come up behind you and steal your ideas and do them cheaper and you're going to lose everything. Yeah. I am committed by two to not having people have that experience and they not only the experience of it happening, but even the experience of being afraid that it's gonna happen. What a great way to ruin a good thing. You know, you could make whatever you want in a business. Why would you make some boring shit that anyone else could make any sense?

Gabe Ratliff: 00:26:25 I want to kind of start pulling back around to you and your story and the, the, the starting this business and I'm curious, when did you realize that you wanted to be a coach and you know, where, where you take us back and tell us that story. How did that come about?

Nate Lappegaard: 00:26:41 You know, coaching happen to us, it was just a thing that happened and you know, um, you know, we had an opportunity to, to pick up some ip from some coaches that my wife had worked with before. And so it was just this weird, serendipitous thing, you know, I had quit a job, I was working in cannabis startup here in Colorado and that did not turn out to be the industry didn't turn out to be the way I thought it could be. And uh, and, and it was time for me to go. And so my wife Emily would runs a very successful real estate business here in Colorado called Lux Denver. Ever heard a partner Aaron, and they had worked with these coaches before they approached us and said, we have a pilot program and uh, in what, you know, and we're in, it's basically a business model and do you want to become part of that? And we said yes. So we, we got involved really early on in their business is and, and, and, and through that relationship with the original Ip and how fast and how quickly we moved off of it that those conversations really informed, you know, a lot of what you're hearing from me now and I'm, I'm satisfied with my purchase and I use none of what I bought.

Gabe Ratliff: 00:28:02 It's yours.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:28:05 Yeah. Yeah, Yup, Yup.

Gabe Ratliff: 00:28:08 Speaking to that, how did you come to that conclusion that you wanted to, you know, because you're very specific about who you want to serve with the being impact driven entrepreneurs now. How did you get to that place? Because that's part of what makes sure it's very unique and I'd love to hear that story.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:28:28 So it's pretty personal and I'll get. It's emotional for me now I'm noticing with the question. So I, I often, and it's been a year in Charlottesville, broke me.

Gabe Ratliff: 00:28:40 Yeah.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:28:41 And it's a complicated thing for me to talk about. Um, I still notice a little bit of shame that as a white person, it was a white person getting killed by another white person that really pushed me over the edge and I'm not sure I'm responsible. I have always looked at my allyship and I have always looked at how I can use the advantages I have to help other people. And, and, and what Charlottesville really stood out to me was what was the normalization of, of Fascism, fascism and racism and Nazi-ism in all of these nasty things about our society that just needs to be done. They need to be done. And the way that our president tweet made that tweet, you know, about how they were good. There were bad people on both sides. Yeah. And I just, I just, I was, I'm done. I'm done with this normalization of, of right wing of right main racism and fascism and I'm done with that type of business. And it broke me and I got on facebook and I was like, if you think the black lives matter movement is racist, you're a fucking racist. And, um, and if you don't acknowledge the existence of privilege, you're racist. And I started adopting this, um, this mentality with my dialogue on, on facebook that was, that I'm not here to convince if you don't meet this bare minimum standard of understanding what's really happening in our culture. It is not my job to convince you and I would rather use my bandwidth on social media to talk to people that I know feel the way that I do and motivate them to take action and that conversation. And it was scary, right? Because I have this business and I didn't have what I have right now and I, and I, and I, and I knew that by saying those things. I mean, you call other white folks out on their privilege. Man, this is an unpopular position for a white guy. Yeah. And that's what started it. And then, uh, I'm an amazing discovery happened and you know, my business exploded. It exploded. And I wasn't even talking about my business and that. And, and so what happened was, is that by, by necessity, if I was going to have the kind of business where I was free to take a stand against those things, I was by, by default I had to fight to work with that. We're open to that conversation and those are impact driven entrepreneurs. Yeah. And, and, and that's Kinda how it all came up was from me being unwilling to censor myself on social media in an effort to potentially not lose clients. And I think that's something we all deal with as entrepreneurs and I and I was in that early stage in my business, have, have a scarcity mindset. And I mean I think it's always part of the conversation, but you know, and I was scared. I was scared. I was like, am I going to, are people not going to do business with me because I am calling other white people racists. And it turned out to not be the case. Turn out to be the best move I ever made. Yeah.

Gabe Ratliff: 00:32:15 You mentioned the discovery that you found. I wonder if you could speak a little bit more to what that was specifically like what, and then when that tide sort of turned and you started to see this wasn't what you expected, what was that like?

Nate Lappegaard: 00:32:31 So it took me a while to put the piece together. Um, but I read what I realized is that people buy based on shared commitments.

Gabe Ratliff: 00:32:44 Mhmm.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:32:46 In that, in that people who agreed with me saw my actions on social media as courageous. Maybe a little annoying, but certainly courageous and I receive a lot of private messages from folks in disenfranchised communities that were extremely appreciative of how I was using my voice and privilege to further their cause. I did receive some other criticism from white allies that I was co-opting the message and then people started coming and people started buying

Gabe Ratliff: 00:33:18 Mhmm.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:33:20 and man, it was just and I, and, and, and, and it was like people, whether they agreed with me wholeheartedly are not on the political views. They connected with me on the fact that I was willing to take a stand.

Gabe Ratliff: 00:33:33 Yeah.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:33:36 And that was really cool because I have not and don't get it. Not everyone. My wife isn't a social justice warrior like I am and she is, but she's not like, I mean few ours. Every fear of my friends on Facebook, you know, I'm like, I am definitely outspoken. Yep. And, and, and I would say that not, not very few of my clients are as outspoken as I am and very few of them agree completely with my opinions on this matter. But we all share a common cause. We share a common commitment like as our source commitments, which is languaging we use are the same in we're committed to contribution and transformation and taking a stand. Am I, I don't have to agree with the stand. You're taking entirely respect the fact that you're taking a stamp. And that's, and that's what I got. I got that, that our prospective clients need to see us being our commitments first. They need to be able to take a look at our us, our lives, what we're doing in our business and see that we are being what we're committed to. And so that. And that became the, the, the source, the genesis of what we call now now are calling commitment based marketing. Yeah.

Gabe Ratliff: 00:35:04 And that, that's actually kind of where I wanted to sort of turn that around to how you work as a coach and kind of speaking to what people can expect working from you in that kind of capacity. Knowing that.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:35:21 So that's a, it's a great question. And I'm so what, what I'm, what I'm, I'm working at the level of. All right, let me think about how it is through that. So, um, what I'm interested in is that people can get what they want out of their life and their business and that they operate inside of a context that, that there's a way that the compromise is they're making are hurting them, not helping them. Okay. So, and I operate from a context that anyone who is an entrepreneur in this culture and is doing well enough to afford to buy coaching is pretty much already won the freaking race. It's not like it's easy. It's like super hard, right? How many of you look at this historic, they're staggering failure rates of businesses. This is not an easy thing we're doing, and so the first thing I think I do is I operate from a context with my clients that they're already powerful people, okay. That they're already very talented at what they do and that they're extremely committed to making a difference in the world. And I start from there and that's a challenge because then you're like, well, then if somebody like that, what can you offer? And so what I noticed was is that what I could offer is new contexts from which those entrepreneurs can understand their businesses, new ways to look at what their business is for, who it's to be used with. That we found through experimentation in our cohorts were directly correlate to resolve results being or performance really in performance for us being the relationship between what you said you want and what you got from the action. Right? So as a coach, I'm always listening for those things. First and foremost, what is it? What, what got people into this in the first place? What are they add slowly, incredible at what can they do that no one else can. You know, we work inside of a context called unique maximum deviation where we're really helping entrepreneurs discover what array of products and services they can offer. That is literally the single greatest contribution they could make to the world.

Gabe Ratliff: 00:37:52 Yeah.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:37:53 So as a coach, that's where I'm working from. I'm working for contribution as a motive force in business, not profiteering. I'm working from that. These things, these businesses are here as tools to enable us to make a difference in the lives of others. They're nothing more, nothing less than that. You're here. I love you, brother. Yeah, glad to be here.

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Gabe Ratliff: 00:38:50 So I want to step back a little bit here now and ask you this other question that is really interesting to me as a fellow musician and producer and Dj am curious how you know you're, you're a successful producer and Dj, you've been in the scene long time and I'm curious how, how that plays a part, you know and what you know around music and the things that we do as, as creatives and how that's played a part in your coaching.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:39:26 It's a, it's, it's played a huge part. And thank you for that kind description. I've been very lucky to have have had a lot of supportive, a lot of great people and and it's just, it's, it's been a good thing to participate in, in a wonderful part of my life. Being part of the electronic music community. And what I would say is this. I'd say that it, it, it being a Dj, that time that I was a DJ, a way that I understood being a Dj was a conversation for aesthetics.

Gabe Ratliff: 00:40:01 Mhmm.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:40:03 And you know, for me what I, when I came up, the behaviors that were rewarded and dj I who got the most whatever gigs, talent, bookings, money, whatever you want to call it, the spoils went to the best curators,

Gabe Ratliff: 00:40:22 Mhmm.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:40:24 And, and the best djs were able to take a, what could initially be a dissimilar, a not dissimilar, a group of songs and coordinate them in such a way of oven a static that the listener was, was left with a particular experience that lived beyond language. Yes. So, you know, for all you people out there that think that we just press buttons, you know, that's not true. Some. And you can get away with just pressing buttons and there's a lot of folks out there, a lot of guys out there that women that aren't just pressing buttons, you know. Yup. Oh fuck you Joel. So, so, uh, I don't even know. Um, you know, I'll curse them out. So this idea that there's this, I, this way that a really good dj could pick all these different songs from all these different producers and somehow like weave them to get or inside of a, of a undetermined set of aesthetic values that produces a viable experience for the listener. I mean that was what I did. That's what I trying to do. Yeah. And it calls into question taste and it calls into question, you know, the similarities of the songs and what works and what doesn't. And like, you know, what people will deal with and what they won't inside of a set. Like how far can you push it before you can clear floor. Right. And I, and I, and I don't want to get too woo, but I think all those years of deejaying I came to understand that as an energetic level and, and by energetic I mean a level outside of language because, you know, people have asked me as a Dj, like, you know, why do you play these particular tunes? Or why do you play these particular songs? And I, and our, how do you know, right. My, I teach people, if a dj you students, how do you know what to play? And I'm like, I just know. Right? And, and I think it was a development of that, like intuitive sense of aesthetic that really. And so when we, when I started, and this was before I even had and Darla was always just interested in what are the mechanisms by which we can create businesses that anyone who brushes up against that employee, consumer, a coworker or contractor, that anyone who brushes up against this is left with a certain feeling or vibe. And I just got fascinated with that when I started in, when I worked for other people, even in business, even while I was deejaying, it was a big thing for me. And now as a coach like that, that fascinates me. It fascinates me like can I create a business that operates with such a high degree of alignment that no matter who touches it, they're left with exactly who I am and exactly what I'm up to. Yeah, yeah.

Gabe Ratliff: 00:43:12 That definitely comes through. I speak from experience.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:43:18 Not only am I, your interviewer, but I'm also a client

Gabe Ratliff: 00:43:24 that's funny. Well speaking, which one of the things that I love about your offering is your free workshops, which I found through, you know, being your friend on Facebook or you know, through being friends on facebook and you post it to that platform. And uh, I, I'd love for you to maybe share a little bit with the audience about, you know, your workshops and the types of value that you look to offer in them and what those are like for people.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:43:53 Yeah, that's a great question. That's cool. Thank you. So what, what I'm committed to is that people's financial choice doesn't, doesn't determine whether or not I can be a contribution to them or not. So I refuse to let you spending money be the barrier between I make a difference for you or not. And so what we do to grow our businesses, we have these workshops in. And so what's interesting about this is, is a, for years we didn't have workshops, we had introductions. Okay. And so an introduction was like you would come and I would talk to you about what, what us, I talked about talk to you about what we did, what we knew, how we knew it and in an effort to convince you that you would be benefit from buying from me or us. And it wasn't like super pressure. It wasn't, it was great. We didn't give people an opportunity to register and we did a really good job of trying to explain our products and services and it just never felt quite right. So what we did was my wife had it in her business. They did a, she has a real estate business in. They did a free workshop for any real estate agent for a beginning of the year planning workshop and, and, and it was extremely well attended. And so I stole hers and Aaron's idea and I did a workshop called business planning workshop for socially conscious entrepreneurs and where I'd been getting like five to seven responses, I got like 100 responses on Eventbrite well. And, and I just was like, all right, I'm going for it. So instead of talking about what we're doing, I put together a, a plan, a, a planning session, and I use all of my best shit, man, like everything I know and I looked at it from this context of this will be the only, this could be the only two hours that I ever have these people and I am going to make a difference for them whether they pay me or not, straight up. This was my mentality, right? And it was a shift from what I'd been doing. And so, you know, our workshops are designed to leave prospective clients with one value right then and there, something they can take, something tangible, something they can take with them that's going to make a difference in their business whether they buy or not. And to the experience of what it's like to work with us in is such that they're left free to choose

Gabe Ratliff: 00:46:14 Mhmm.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:46:15 Right? So, and, and that's what our workshops are for. So for people out there that are ever considering doing business with us, now I, my commitment to you is this. If you come to any workshop we ever do, you're going to get value that's not dependent upon you buying something later. You're getting it whether you buy or not and you're going to be left with all the information you could ever need to make an intelligent, informed decision about whether or not we're the right coaches for you.

Gabe Ratliff: 00:46:43 Mhmm.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:46:46 yeah. All our coaches, we, we, we are all entrepreneurs. We don't take on the responsibility to our clients give us lightly and we're more committed that people have the information they need to choose freely than to convince them to say yes, I don't want to commence anybody. Right. You know, I just want to do a really good job of letting them know who I am and what our business is about and our, who our coaches are and what they're about and the difference we can make it. Then they're free to choose. Yeah. We don't pressure folks know and there's no convincing. And, and, and I mean if you, if, and that's just some old crazy idea that that is an inaccurate description of how sales actually works. Nobody ever convinced anybody. Yeah. And if you want to run your business on a core value like, or source commitment, like there's a sucker born every minute. Good for you. I'm not the coach for you. Right. I'd prefer you didn't have access to what we know,

Gabe Ratliff: 00:47:54 you know, the other thing that I can say from my experience is also the network that comes from being in that community and then those workshops, you know, just getting those connections to fellow entrepreneurs that are, that are impact driven and that have a lot of the same things going on that we're all dealing with as this type of entrepreneur.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:48:21 Yeah. You can watch it happen in the room. You know, it's awesome. Yeah. Everybody introduced themselves and, and people get pumped because they're like, I am. I am a stay at, as the increase for people to be a part of these introductions because we're so forward about our commitments that when people show up at our things, it's an affirmation of who they are too. Yeah, yeah.

Gabe Ratliff: 00:48:43 Yeah. And then all the sudden you go, oh, you do that. Oh, I do this. We should.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:48:49 Yeah, totally. And there is an. And there's like a level of, of trust that's already built because of that, you know, it takes, not everybody's coming to these things because not everybody agrees with everything we agree with and we're very, very vocal about what we, what we're pushing right from the beginning so that you know, that a certain type of person shows up and not another type of person for all kinds of reasons, you know, for all kinds of things.

Gabe Ratliff: 00:49:14 One of the things I'm curious about is what's your biggest pain point that you're dealing with as this type of you being yourself and impact driven entrepreneur and coach? What is your big pain point and how are you solving for that?

Nate Lappegaard: 00:49:31 I mean, I think for me the hardest part is like I really, I really see any profit is secondary

Gabe Ratliff: 00:49:42 Mhmm.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:49:43 you know, we, our community, all the people that contribute to the work that we've developed, every single one of them are clients. Myself, my wife, Emily, Simone, I mean all the people that have worked with us. You know, Ashley, anyone that works in this with us in this business are operating from an honest no shit, no kidding. We're here to help entrepreneurs and we're committed to creating the work that's the most effective at that and, and to be out in a marketplace full of people that are selling coaching that sells and not coaching that works and cutting through that and getting the listening of people is the hardest thing. It is an I didn't know this when I became a coach about what coaches are like and how they're regarded. I didn't know that, you know, and so that's the, that's the thing and I wouldn't call it a pain point because I think we're doing a successful job dealing with John Davey is a big part of our marketing strategy is a genius when it comes to understanding these things and John and I, we, we really work to, to create a message that's authentic and able to be heard by folks before they have come to trust us that we're authentic. So I wouldn't say it's necessarily a pain point, but it is definitely like my, my favorite strategy problem right now, like our strategy challenge, you know, which is how to really get hurt, how to really get heard amongst roves of competitors before people know enough about us to know where completely fucking different. Yeah. Because no matter how different I am, man, you know, like, no matter how different our businesses, our from our competitors, clients, prospective clients, they can't see that until they, until they choose to invest the time to find out. Right. So we gotta we gotta figure out how to get that through without requiring them to do a bunch of recent fascinating gay shit is fascinating to me. I can hear that. It is like, I'm like man, because I get, you know, like we're over marketed to and we exist in a culture where business owners that have come before us have no con. No, absolutely no problem lying, lying and businesses. It's become such a fucking commonplace thing. Like you don't believe me, you think I'm some fucking liberal activists. Go to the fucking grocery store in a cereal aisle and tell me how many of those pictures look like what's in the fucking box, right? What it's like to be a not liar in a world of liars, man. Yeah, and we're so programmed to resist marketing. Oh, especially now, right? The sum total of your responsibility. You know, people choosing like I'm fear over contribution in business is all that happens. People feeling like they, like their products aren't good enough so that like they have to lie. Like fucking Cheerios isn't good enough. You got to put a fake picture of a fucking Cheerio, like a Plato's form of a Cheerio, like a higher vibrational level. Cheerio. Crazy shit. Crazy when I see it in so many industries where that's pervasive.

Gabe Ratliff: 00:53:20 Like Hollywood I think is a really great example where you know now the, the mob is effecting storytelling and the machine itself is being affected. And so the story has gotten really complex story between how we're marketed to, how stories are told, how the mob is now kind of echoing back to Rome and that empire of like being able to know now the, the mob has a platform to be able to even talk back and change that, you know, and then it and then you get that kind of a, a change in what we're seeing. Like on the cover of a cheerios box, right? Like how it's like we're telling them, hey, I need you to do this for me and then I'll buy it.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:54:14 Right? It is starting to happen and we can make plenty of money. Having businesses that operate that way, you know? And it doesn't all have to change for us to be able to be successful doing it that way. Like cheerios doesn't have to change their box to make cereal like authentic cereal manufacturers successful. Like they're, they're fucking compliance is not necessary. Like I don't need their sign off. Like we don't need sign off from existing business, you know, I don't need Cheerios to sign off on what my cereal does. They can either do it authentically or they'll lose market share, you know, we don't, I don't need a head nod from my competitors. Well, and nobody does. You don't need your competitors to sign off on what you're doing to succeed, you know, and I think we should look at that as business owners, how often that we're looking for permission from our competitors to do it a certain way. Yeah. Oh, I fuck you guys.

Gabe Ratliff: 00:55:17 No, yeah,

Nate Lappegaard: 00:55:19 you're, you're gonna. You're going to. Tony Robbins is going to get a ham fist, a woman halfway across a stadium, you know, to, to prove a fucked up, irrelevant point about the #MeToo Movement. You know, I don't, I don't need him to agree with what I'm saying and take market share. You know, these people, they do just a good enough job getting complacent and not and not being authentic. No, I'm not for that. No. And I agree with what you're saying. Like I don't need. I just need my clients to get the results. I don't need to sell everybody on what I'm doing. I don't want it. I don't need their agreement. It's better if they disagree, right? Yeah. Yeah. Separates you even further. It gets out of my funnel, man. I gotta run. I don't see people in here who are going to discover that I'm, uh, you know, uh, um, I'm trying to use business to transform the fundamentals. Our economy distributes wealth and then leave. They got to know that, like they ought to know I'm an activist before they get man and I can choose plenty of coaches for white people who want to manage their fucking money mindset.

Gabe Ratliff: 00:56:37 Speaking of success, I'm curious, how do you define success? What does that for you?

Nate Lappegaard: 00:56:42 Success I think is, is a relationship. Yeah. Between what I create that I want and what I get and it's, It's come, it's completely. To me, it is a, it has nothing to do with societal standards of success that it has nothing to do with what other people would view as successful or what I think I should be successful. All success is like whatever I say success is whatever anybody says. It's whatever you say. It's in a kite dirt. We say it's the relationship between. It's like performance, we don't talk about success. If we talk about performance, what is performance? So that's the relationship. It's the space between what you said you wanted in the and what you got from the actions you took and success is a tricky one, right? Like what does it mean to be successful? I mean Shit, you know, probably it's a low standard. Success is probably a shitty way to keep score in a business are for things like contribution, but I feel like they keep, they keep us going. They keep, they keep us motivated. Yeah. It's your beautician is a way for non greedy people to stay engaged in their business once their financial needs a re met.

Gabe Ratliff: 00:57:59 This may be an interesting question then based on your response, but, but I'm also kind of curious about times where, based on your, your personal definition of success. Maybe if you could talk about a time when you sabotage your own success or sabotage your own.

Nate Lappegaard: 00:58:15 Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I mean that's Kinda like we always do that, right? I mean, that's part of it and we'll always do it and I've probably sabotaged myself four times in this video and in this podcast and in continually work to sabotage, sabotage all, all. Let me, let me clarify what I mean by sabotage. What I mean is sabotage, sabotage to me means to act, act from a limiting belief that's not supported by reality and, and that, and that's how I'll define it. And I mean, I brought up an example early on like doing introductions and trying to prove to people that I knew what I was talking about instead of just contributing to them. Right? Right. Or um, you know, waiting, waiting too long to bring new team members on or I mean recently I had a price increase. I affected a 33 percent increase in my rates, you know, and nobody even complained once, man, nobody even blinked. Not a prospective client. No one even set a thing. They were like, yeah. And then I was like, man, I probably could've done that a time ago and people would have listened to me more. Right? Because that's the thing about rate increases is like, you know, people tend to listen when the, there's the impact of their financial choices tangible today. Like when what they spend means something to them, they tend to listen more, at least in coaching. That's what I've discovered, you know. So those are the things like, you know, standard stuff. Every entrepreneur does not charging not raising prices when we are worth it or not trying to be country contribution, trying to do strategy, worrying too much that people don't take us seriously, you know, all that stuff.

Gabe Ratliff: 00:59:57 Yeah. Yeah. We talked about the workshops that you do. I know that you also have a, a new offering that's coming out soon. I was wondering if you could talk to us about that.

Nate Lappegaard: 01:00:11 Yeah, The Contribution Solution. So it's our first online course. It's um, you know, we say what would it, what would it be like to make twice as much money in half the time and have everyone, whoever supported you in being an entrepreneur or be proven. Right. And I, and I stand by that statement and you know, what we're really working inside of is like really improving the entrepreneurs experience of operating their business and we have it like when you can make more money and actually do shit you like doing in your business, you're going to make better choices. So that product is, is, um, I just wrapped on Friday the fourth module and it was really cool to kind of take everything that we've learned over the last three years in business and it get the major talking points into a course that we could offer to people at a price that's accessible to pretty much anybody now we're going to be at, somewhere between $100 and $300, you know, which is for a four week course. And that's informed by, you know, a lot of really successful over 100 successful businesses that have used this stuff. Uh, mine included, you know. So it's, it's cool to roll that out. Yeah. Yeah. Super Cool. It's the first time I ever did one.

Gabe Ratliff: 01:01:37 And um, when is that going to be available to the public? Do you have a date?

Nate Lappegaard: 01:01:42 We did not have a launch day right now, but by the end of next month. So by the end of. Yeah, be on a podcast and not know what fucking month it is.

Gabe Ratliff: 01:01:53 October.

Nate Lappegaard: 01:01:54 It will be live by the end of October.

Gabe Ratliff: 01:01:56 Okay. Yeah. I remember you had said something along this lines the other day. I just wanted to check in and see where we were sitting on that.

Nate Lappegaard: 01:02:03 And you can and people can find it at www.thecontributionsolution.com.

Gabe Ratliff: 01:02:09 Okay.

Nate Lappegaard: 01:02:10 Or www.kiteanddart.com. So that's available.

Gabe Ratliff: 01:02:15 Nice.

Nate Lappegaard: 01:02:17 Yeah, that's gonna to be really cool. It's really to. It's. It's interesting to think about the delay too, so we're recording this now and then it's gonna come out later and by then what I would. Can I talk about the Beta, how we did the data, please stick. It's really cool because we're just getting out of Beta now. By the time this comes out, we will have. We will not be in Beta, but the way that we did the Beta is I. I had people like Gabe, you're part of the Beta and a bunch of other entrepreneurs that I love and respect came on the Beta course before we really had this specific content and we had all the principals, right because we've been coaching for a while, but we didn't have it in this form, so we went and asked them what do they need and and it and then literally just gave them what they needed and the and those people became the kind of like the core, like the formative group, like it was a coed creation, so awesome. Right? It wasn't just like me talking into a camera, it was like me talking to the camera, getting client feedback, incorporating that in the course in an attempt to make the most effective thing we could make and we you see it as a really powerful, viable way for people to come and experience the coaching. Kind of like we were talking about with the introductions earlier away for people to really experience what we have to offer and then choose whether or not to move into other other products. The problem with online products is there's a question of their efficacy and one of the things that I've committed to is if I'm really committed to creating economic mobility for potential clients that share the same source commitments I do, that I had to be responsible at meeting them at any price point that they're willing to listen

Gabe Ratliff: 01:03:54 Mhmm.

Nate Lappegaard: 01:03:55 This means that I have to be able to offer a product itself paced like The Contribution Solution that people could come in it no less than $300 and really get huge impact in their business and I have to be able to meet high dollar clients that, that, that are a demand for effectiveness and efficiency inside of time

Gabe Ratliff: 01:04:14 Mhmm.

Nate Lappegaard: 01:04:16 and in order for me to really accomplish what I'm up to, I need to meet entrepreneurs at all those different levels of their business. In the contribution solution course is the way that we eat can do that. Any entrepreneur, no matter where they're at in their business, kept by this course and do this work and get a whole different understanding of who they are, what they're committed to. They can understand that the products and services in their businesses that what they're offering is literally the best contribution, the biggest contribution they can make to the world, and they can get new insight into understanding the way that this complicated interaction between prospective client and their business works.

Gabe Ratliff: 01:05:01 Mhmm.

Nate Lappegaard: 01:05:02 Super Cool. Yeah. Oh, a lot of fun making it. I was just constantly moved by how many people have contributed to me and how many people have contributed to our business and our early adopters in everyone that's had that generosity to let us coach them and let us learn what we know now. Just really cool. Cool. To get it all. To get it down on paper, so to speak.

Gabe Ratliff: 01:05:25 Yeah. And make it this tangible thing that is effecting change.

Nate Lappegaard: 01:05:31 Right. And like you said, in an in an effective way. And it's not limited by my schedule, my time, my needs. Right. Like it gave, it gives entrepreneurs the power to take this contribution based model and into their own hands.

Gabe Ratliff: 01:05:47 Yeah. Uh Huh. Well, that's why I'm so excited to share that with the Vitalic audience and I also want to just clarify with people that, uh, I'm not an affiliate of this program. I'm just, um, uh, a Beta tester and I'm a huge fan of what Nate and Kite + Dart are doing. Um, so I just wanted to make sure that was clear. I'm pushing this a purely out of my appreciation for what I've gotten out of it and what I'm continuing to get out of it and I'm just let that be known.

Nate Lappegaard: 01:06:16 Very cool of you. Thank you Gabe, by the way, for doing that.

Gabe Ratliff: 01:06:19 Absolutely. Absolutely. Before I kind of shift gears here, is there anything else that you would love to say around the course or is there anything else that we may have missed?

Nate Lappegaard: 01:06:33 I think we, I think that last, that last bit we really got it nice that we got to talk about, you know, I just want people to know that like, like I'm out here and I'm just trying to get this stuff we've learned as a community, a palatable and usable that doesn't involve them. Make a huge commitment upfront. You know, it's like four weeks. Less than $300. Yeah. You know, I encourage people to really take on these ideas that it may sound like a pipe dream, but I, I mean, I, what I've discovered is that running a business from contribution so more people think about profit, the less profitable they are, and if we can get people to start thinking about contribution instead of profit as a way to make choices in their nice, you're going to be so much more successful. And I get. It sounds like a pipe dream, but I'm not kidding you. Like this shit actually works. See now you're, we're back to that pain point, right? Yup. And the thing is, I know that in a sales interaction, enthusiasm often sounds like desperation.

Gabe Ratliff: 01:07:36 Hm. Meanwhile, it's totally comes from a place of passion and purpose.

Nate Lappegaard: 01:07:43 Yeah. I mean, what are you going to do? What are you gonna do?

Gabe Ratliff: 01:07:50 Share your message, have you on the podcast?

Nate Lappegaard: 01:07:54 Some people do, some people will.

Gabe Ratliff: 01:07:56 Yep. Right.

Nate Lappegaard: 01:07:57 Yeah. So it goes. Yeah. So it's the hardest part too. That's a hard part too. It's like not being able to help everybody.

Gabe Ratliff: 01:08:04 Yeah. Right. Well, and then also knowing that it's a divisive conversation, you know, like some people don't understand from that place of contribution. Whereas there are also so many people that do.

Nate Lappegaard: 01:08:21 Right. It saddens me that they're missing. There's just such a missing, you know, that when, when people relate to their businesses, like, like there's any particular way to do it, like they're not free within reason. I mean the market does restrict us somewhat, but not to the degree that I think a lot of people think. And I mean for me, like what kills me is, is just, is to constantly bob up against entrepreneurs who just cannot believe that if they're just their authentic selves, their business will work better and you just go to work every day and a structure they created suffering. I can't touch them, you know, and I get that. I have a lot of respect for the way that, that, how powerful, not this type of business, the how powerful that message is for some people. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Gabe Ratliff: 01:09:18 So as we of start to wind down here, I've got a few sort of quicker response questions

Nate Lappegaard: 01:09:26 You think? You wish.

Gabe Ratliff: 01:09:27 I know we'll see one of these, I've already asked you previously in that, in that survey, but, uh, I really liked what you, and this totally makes sense what you spoke to, but I just really wanted to share this with the audience. So the question is, if you were in charge of the Bill Gates Foundation, but could only spend the funds tackling one issue, what would it be?

Nate Lappegaard: 01:09:54 What did I put originally?

Gabe Ratliff: 01:09:56 You said I'd address systemic, uh, economic oppression at the national and global level. We have the power to eliminate global poverty right now. No one needs to starve in the modern world.

Nate Lappegaard: 01:10:09 Yeah. So. And I think, yeah, so if I had all the money in the world, that's what I'd be doing. I'd be, I'd be investing in education for entrepreneurs in prospective entrepreneurs. I gave him the tools and resources that they needed to succeed inside of the market that they're in. I'd, uh, I'd, I'd, I'd press this idea that you can have a business that's authentic to you, you'd have to compromise your values and make money and uh, in really, I'd, I'd also really be looking at a way to certify people through that work that doesn't cost what college costs, you know, and provide capital to entrepreneurs that are committed to starting a business and provide education and resources in a, in a way that that just really opens up availability. Yeah. And that's. And that's what I'm for. I think right now it's like I can't redistribute wealth, but I can redistribute opportunity and that's, that's the first step. So first step in it the way it needs to be. Yeah.

Gabe Ratliff: 01:11:16 Yeah. Well, and I find that this conversation around the entrepreneur in all of its different iterations, whether it's solo or it's the "wantrepreneur" or the "solopreneur", all these different "preneurs", I find that that conversation is becoming far more relevant in today's world. The modern world that you mentioned,

Nate Lappegaard: 01:11:37 It's interesting, right? Because we have that capacity and the, and the and that there is a potential for opportunity. Yeah. I mean, it's a double edge sword, right? So on one hand what's happening is, is that our industry is failing to provide in a general way the kind of opportunities that people really want for their life. I mean people moving into the workforce now or the most intelligent and informed people we've ever had in the history of the world at the literally two generations now. Folks that, that any question they ever had, they had the answer to at their fingertips and they went and they learned it. I and I and I, I totally got that. And and seeing, you know, what happened at generations before when they pledged their life to accompany only to get completely screwed over and the CEO gets a golden parachute, that that's a sign of intelligence. That there's trepidation that people don't want to move and volunteer to become a wage slave for a corporate master that'll fuck them over. That's not laziness. That's intelligence. You know what I'm saying? And it's unfortunate that that enterprise, that firms are doing such a bad job of providing the type of cultures that allow people to get what they want without having to take on the risk of entrepreneurship. That's the bad side. It's like businesses are fucking doing it wrong and there's such a lack of good jobs that people are forced in entrepreneurship. That's not good either. The other side of it is, is that because of how well we're using the fucking internet as a culture, like the divide, the design, the Apps, the resources that we're putting together, what's being made available as tools is getting so good that it's never been easier to step into the field of entrepreneurship. Yeah. And that part of it is amazing to me. You know, I, um, I don't think entrepreneurship is for everyone and May and it's a hell of a time of being offered an entrepreneur. Yeah. I've never been one at any other time though. So I don't know if it's better or worse, but right now it feel like it's time. Yeah. I'm enjoying it. I'm enjoying it. Yeah.

Gabe Ratliff: 01:13:56 I'm in the same boat. I was, I was actually a corporate guy until two years ago and similar story, you know, where I was laid off and here I am, but way more fulfilled and it stems from contribution.

Nate Lappegaard: 01:14:13 Yeah, I got that. Cool.

Gabe Ratliff: 01:14:15 What surprises you most about where you've ended up in life?

Nate Lappegaard: 01:14:22 You know, what, what does it surprise me about where I've ended up in life? You don't have a shoe. Well, 42 year old, you know, I'm a recovered alcoholic. I don't, I don't come from money. My Dad's an alcoholic. I was at all I wanted to be, was a DJ until I was like 40, you know, 35. There's nothing that doesn't surprise me in a not very grateful for, for what I, what I have in my life. The thing that surprises me the most inside of that though is how everything that has ever happened to me, you know, some things that we would consider very bad and some things that we considered very good all play an equal part in my ability to make a difference for other people when I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing.

Gabe Ratliff: 01:15:17 Mhmm.

Nate Lappegaard: 01:15:19 That's, that's what the most surprising thing is, is like things I learned where I learned them from and, and what ends up being effective. Yeah, yeah,

Gabe Ratliff: 01:15:32 yeah, yeah. When you're, you know, we go through so much as creatives and entrepreneurs, you know, self doubt, you know, selling yourself, being a perfectionist. I mean there's so many things we go through, you know, and we get into these places where sometimes we can get really introspective and go into a deeper, darker place that generally you can also create really great art. Um, I'm curious, when you get into those spaces, what do you, what's your trick to get back into a place of, you know, in your power center or to, to like to, to compete against those lows.

Nate Lappegaard: 01:16:09 So some will argue that our entire coaching methodology is designed to fix that, right? That, that giving a impact driven entrepreneurs have the tools to succeed is really only that. And so what I noticed, what works for me is really putting whatever I do inside of the plane of contribution. So, you know, I don't like to think about me very much and it happens because it happens naturally, so I'm not like encouraging said behavior and I'm pretty sure it's not hyper productive. So what I start to get stuck in, you know, I don't deserve this or I don't know what I'm doing or I'm a fraud or whatever, you know, whatever landmine my brain decides to throw me. Luckily it doesn't happen as often as it did in the past, you know, but it's still occasionally will pop up and what I do is I just started to think about, you know, is this action, is what I'm doing really a maximum of service to others. Or even then like I start thinking about who I could help. It makes a big difference. Yeah. You know, once I stopped thinking about me and I start thinking about the difference I'm trying to make, I'm pulled out of those spaces and I would go so far as to say that if you're an entrepreneur and you are struggling with self worth, self doubt, all that stuff, get out of thinking about yourself and get into action. Working with clients and prospective clients, fill up your schedule, helping folks, it's good for the paycheck too, the pay is a lot better than sitting around thinking about yourself.

Gabe Ratliff: 01:17:50 Hear! Hear! On a lighter note. As a fellow musician, I'm curious, is there any piece of music or an artist, an album that has directly influenced your life?

Nate Lappegaard: 01:18:04 Oh yeah, dude, and it's funny, so I'm not the world's hugest Coheed and Cambria fan, but I'm a really, really big Coheed and Cambria fan and Claudio Sanchez is. It is a huge inspiration to me and so basically if you don't know anything about this band, they are. It's a concept band and Claudio has been telling the story of the Amery wars and all kinds of other events that are happening in this other universe. It's this totally elaborate while science fiction tale and every single piece of music that they do with the exception of, uh, of the, of the last album, which might not be the last album by the time this comes out has been in around that universe and telling the story of these characters and what's happening. And it's an incredibly intricate and a creative mythos. It's just so cool to me that instead of just coming out and making all this music about whatever people wanted, Claudia goes, I want to ask him. I got to meet him some day, I want to know how it went. When they go to the record label and they say, okay, look, instead of making this kind of music, we want to do all these albums that tell the story of, of all this crazy science fiction things, and then we're going to give names in the story of the same names as things and nobody's ever going to be really able to know what we're talking about. And they're going to have to get these comic books and go online and interact with other people to really get the story well, just ballsy. Yeah. And it works. Right? I just saw all of them. I just saw them in Denver and I saw this guy and we were talking about like, it was so funny. It was me and this dude and I, we, we say one among defense, right? Which is like how you identify and it was this other guy who was there to see taking back Sunday who opened and, and me and this dude like we, we both know the story and we were talking about the story and then when the band plays the songs come and we're just like screaming at the top of our lungs because there's just, it's degree of fucking relatedness and it's just, it's awesome. So that's, that's, that's my favorite band period. Wow, that's an awesome story man. This is a massive contribution in terms of art. I love that stuff. Well,

Gabe Ratliff: 01:20:28 do, do you know the, the name of the album?

Nate Lappegaard: 01:20:31 Okay. So that first. So they coast Cambria is the band yet if you want to start getting involved in Amery wars, you start with the first album was a Second Stage Turbine Blade and then the next album is uh, In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth Three. And there's. Yeah, and I mean that's, that's where to start. And then you, there's a great compendium on online and a killer, killer fan group. A subreddit called, uh, the fence on reddit. So that's it. You want to start getting into Coheed and Cambria, like get, you know, open up Spotify, listen from the beginning, listen in order and go online and then you can buy the comic books. A lot of them are rare, but there's enough information online that you can really start getting into the story and seeing the way that they interact. That's crazy. That's super cool that he did that. So fun. What a great show too.

Gabe Ratliff: 01:21:35 And I'm, I'm, I'm a huge fan of that type of storytelling across media, various media where you're doing that kind of thing. You've got this interactive fall with your following and love that. I love that. Well, thank you for sharing. That's a great story. I'm curious, um, you know, is there anything else that you'd like to say or share before we tell people where they can find you on the interwebs?

Nate Lappegaard: 01:22:03 Yeah. You know, in the spirit of what we were talking about before, I'm aware that there are folks that are out there that are entrepreneurs or considering being entrepreneurs that will not do business with us and that will, will not buy our products and services. And that this will be the only interaction with the only opportunity I ever have to say anything to you. And I want to say this, is that, first of all, I want to tell you that there's nothing wrong with you, no matter where you come from, no matter what's happened to you, no matter what you've done, other people or what other people done with to you. There's nothing wrong with you and there's nothing inside of you that disqualifies you from being successful as an entrepreneur and anybody that tells you that you need to know something more or be someone different or think differently than you think in order to have a business that works is totally full of shit and that the degree and that there's nothing wrong with you. And that the key to success in business is not to fit yourself into a structure that someone else made up. But attitude. Go on an inquiry like to go on a journey to find the structures and the clients and the messages that work for you. Good luck.

Gabe Ratliff: 01:23:23 Thank you.

Nate Lappegaard: 01:23:26 Yeah,

Gabe Ratliff: 01:23:27 Thank you for that.

Nate Lappegaard: 01:23:28 Yeah.

Gabe Ratliff: 01:23:28 So, um, so where can people find you on the interwebs? www.kitedart.com And www.thecontributionsolution.com.

Gabe Ratliff: 01:23:39 Fantastic.

Nate Lappegaard: 01:23:39 Perfect.

Gabe Ratliff: 01:23:41 Alright kids. Well that is Nate Ishe Lappegaard and uh, Nate, thank you so much brother. I really gave a shit what you're doing and uh, I really appreciate your time to be on the show today.

Nate Lappegaard: 01:23:52 Honor to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Gabe Ratliff: 01:23:56 Hey Gang, thanks so much for listening. If this is your first time checking out the show, then thank you so much for being here. I hope you enjoyed it. The Vitalic Project podcast comes out bi-weekly and is available every other Thursday for your enjoyment. The show notes for this episode can be found at vitalicproject.com/005. And all the links from this episode will be in the show notes. If you haven't yet, please subscribe to the show and feel free to leave a rating or review on itunes. If you'd like to be a guest or know someone that would be a great fit, please go to vitalicproject.com/guest. Please feel free to share this or any other episode with your friends and family and thank you so much for listening. Until next time, keep being vitalitic!