if you want to do great things you need
to be surrounded by greatness so I hope
you’ll put this on in the background and
absorb the wisdom from these great
people to hopefully help you go out and
accomplish something great yourself we
think we ain’t about how hard you hit
how do you succeed if you don’t try the
time is now to be great you gotta love
it too gotta have passion you really can
make what you want failure gave me an
inner security that I had never attained
by passing examinations failure taught
me things about myself that I could have
learned no other way I discovered that I
had a strong will and more discipline
than I had suspected I also found out
that I had friends whose value was truly
above the price of rubies the knowledge
that you have emerged wiser and stronger
from setbacks means that you are ever
after secure in your ability to survive
you will never truly know yourself or
the strength of your relationships until
both have been tested by adversity such
knowledge is a true gift for all that it
is painfully one and it has been worth
more than any qualification I ever
earned this done we didn’t take on a
project just to take it on and the
couple of times and we did that like it
always just backfired like terribly
so the lesson a was just stay loyal to
the class and I’ll stay loyal to your
creativity because it’s a gift when I
was a kid my parents said anything that
you want you can achieve you just have
to work really really hard for it I
spent a lot of time in my head
fantasizing about being a superhero and
about being somebody else and what would
it be like to live someone else’s
reality there weren’t so many women that
were action stars I thought that it
would be really cool to be able to kick
some butt in only 21 years cunning Zech
has come from nowhere to be one of the
highest regarded hyper car manufacturers
being counted alongside Ferrari
Lamborghini and McLaren how have they
pulled that off well we have to work
hard be a little bit innovative and
don’t believe in the hype that it’s
impossible but it’s you know every day
we we strive and push and and learn and
adapt and when you do that for 20 years
with the great focus within the group
you can do pretty much anything I think
that’s the simple answer but for sure
it’s not easy you have to be prepared to
work hard for it you have to think about
the point of impact if you’re running a
business with a hundred people the point
of impact for the leader is very
different than if it’s a thousand people
or ten thousand four hundred thousand
and so that’s the frame of reference
that I’ve always used is to say okay if
I’m leading this organization what are
the things that actually I can do to
cause it to be successful if it’s a
thousand people it’s very very different
than it is for me today so today I’m a
lot more focused on strategy because
that’s the point of impact on 110,000
person company 100 person company
you’re sort of doing any job in the
organization you’re doing every job in
the organization you know potentially
and that might be okay at that point I
was on the train from manchester to
London and it came just came kept
something with that ever happened to you
before yes truthfully I mean other ideas
had just come to me because I think
you’re a writer and that’s what you
spent a huge amount of time doing you do
ideas who come to you but nothing had
ever come so with such a high hannahs I
thought I’d love to ride that and when I
got off the train I went straight home
when I study much well I remember being
in high school for 20,000 kajillion
years and I just when we were given the
opportunity you know a lot of my
teachers of course because they weren’t
really well versed in like the music
industry as it was a foreign business to
the area they’re like well you know make
sure you get your education and that
would that they were right about but if
it they went a little bit beyond and
went more it went more toward the side
of and besides you know that only lasts
for this long or that long I’m up here
talking to you guys right now so it just
goes to show you what curiosity can do
for fully individually if you’re curious
you keep chasing it that’s why you know
the mantra for adult is feed your
curiosity the resistance that anybody
has whether you’re a man or a woman to
your idea should do nothing but drive
you forward and I’ll and force you to
really hone in on your idea and give you
energy and if it actually holds you back
and makes you second-guess yourself then
maybe you shouldn’t be doing it um
creating a business is impossible at
times it feels impossible and so you
really have to be
I’m just so passionate about it and you
know really don’t take no for an answer
if anything can like deviate you from
your patch then maybe it’s it’s not
necessarily the right one so make sure
it is what you want it to be stay
focused and and allow all that
resistance along the way to really give
you energy and fuel your engine to move
forward from a personal perspective of
my ambitions always been to build cars
that’s why I started my company 22 years
of age 15 16 years ago that’s all I’ve
been doing since then and then this
opportunity presented itself to be able
to build crossing in with larger scale
with a brand that was very dear to me
and we jumped on this opportunity and
here we are today so the Koenigsegg
group we consists of entrepreneurs and
if you look at all our track records
whatever we started we still have and
continue with them and work with to make
it prosper and we have the same ambition
with Psalm we have gotten into this
because we want to live with solvent
work resolved for a very long period of
time it’s not something we do short term
it’s a long-term ambition and basically
we don’t do it because it’s easy we do
it because it’s a challenge it’s a real
challenge and it’s a worthwhile
challenge where we can make a difference
one of the things I see in new
businesses they’re often looking for
perfection and I think this is a really
big mistake I think I think you ought to
be looking for experiments and and you
know quick experiments and it’s okay to
have little failures and what you want
to do is learn as much as you can very
quickly and try things and you know
certainly when we were a small business
you know we’d go out and try all sorts
of things to find what would work and
we found something work we’ll do that
one hundred more times or a thousand
more times we still to do it today as a
large company it is one of the amazing
and wonderful things about literature as
about film and music is it’s utterly
subjective so somebody’s that point of
it you know that’s the point of course
you won’t you move in that world if you
expect us to just stand under a shower
of perpetual praise there’s something
wrong with exactly that you know you
will get criticism I knew that going in
and then the funny thing is I’m not
particularly I was never a very
confident person in their areas in my
life in which I’m very thin-skinned but
not in this area in this area I I think
it’s right and proper I should be
criticized and that’s that and cannula
individuality and just appreciating like
the way I think in the way I feel and
and having you know letting that have
some value and work and and and
depending on that so you know what if
everybody else is you know what was what
it’s the four or five mmm I got like
twenty nine million highways out here
yes sir right take a different route if
everything y’all got traffic there this
isn’t that what you guys do did you get
off on the next X you go somewhere else
you rather sit in the traffic with a
stoplight than to be on the 405 trapped
right I’m saying and I think that like
individuality is a is a wonderful thing
is the reason why I drake is so good
it’s the reason why Lord is so good you
know it’s the reason why you know the
west coast on
highlighted created our future and
Kendrick Lamar like these are all like
none of those guys sound alike yet until
they’re all out at the same time right
doing there you know prospective things
right so it’s betting on yourself and
betting on your difference and
appreciating the rarity of how you think
I always help you know I think I do unto
others what they what I would want them
to do into me at the end of the day my
parents always taught me that and so I
treat people the way I wanted to I want
to be treated and and that’s kind of the
standards that i live by well as i
mentioned i have this I saw this
Norwegian movie when I was about five
years old god this guy who built the
really interesting sports car and I
remember saying to myself that when I
grew up that’s what I want to do as well
I want to build my own car cars and sell
them so
that dream never left me so when I was
19 I started my first company which was
a trading company to make little bit
money with the ambition to use that
money to build my own cars and I went
when I was 22 i had made little bit of
money and then i started the car company
in that was in 1994 which was 18 years
ago when i was 16 i got this job working
for a newspaper in houston and my job
was to sell subscriptions to the paper
on the telephone and i realized two
things when i was doing this i realized
that people that were buying the
newspaper generally had two things in
common either they were moving to a new
residence where they were getting
married and turns out that you could go
find information about both of those
things in enormous quantities so the
state that i lived in in Texas when you
get when you want to get a marriage
license you have to file with the state
and it’s public information particularly
the address that you want the license
sent to once it’s issued so I hired all
my friends and went to every county in
the surrounding 16 counties
captured the addresses of all the people
would applied for marriage licenses and
sent them a direct mail offer to offer
them the newspaper for a free trial in a
subscription and ended up making a make
an affair sum of money for a teenager
you rocks in here mm-hmm this is really
the room where I finish Philosopher’s
Stone here this is really where I turned
my life around completely I mean my life
changed so much in his flat I feel I
really became myself here in everything
stripped away I’ve made such a mess of
things but that was all that was freeing
so I sort what i want to write so i
write the book and what what is the
worst that can happen it gets turned
down by every publishing rhythm thing to
you so you know it’s really back to the
whole time here my bedrooms are locked
were my bedroom me bedroom it’s a lot
tidying up god
yo that’s mad this was a tip when I have
to all that Harry Potter books now that
is really freaky there for years now I
felt like if it all disappeared and some
days I do feel like it is it real then
this is where I would come back to you
know this would be my body baseline I’d
be back in Leith and obviously if I’d
known that tenant well was it two year
10 years on I come back here with a film
crew and there would be my published
books in someone else’s bookcase in this
room I mean it’s really incredible to me
you really did I mean yes because it’s
such a well-worn part of my story now
it’s a big yard to hear how I wrote it
as though it was all some sort of
publicity stunt I did for a year but it
was my life and it was very hard and I’d
know this could be this fairytale
resolution I might I’ve coming back hits
just below ghosts oh this is a free
world this is a free world now it’s
different and there are some
restrictions but there’s no restriction
in you being exposed to the world to
be discovered as an artist I would say
believe in your direction and and do it
spend less time talking about it and
more time trying to like perfect it and
put it out there and you know this fire
the kids will sniff it out they always
do and they’ll turn you all the way up
if they feel like that’s where you
belong that’s all you have to do is be
true to your craft and they see that
when they see you going inward and being
proud of who you are and what you are
and you know there’s some good attention
they’re going to support you it’s a
numbers game though right seven billion
people on the planet less than a third
online you know it’s a pretty
significant number which raises the odds
for you to become heard I mean even the
like most boring person on twitter has
100 followers right hundred people don’t
know you from a can of paint why because
everything is about numbers so there’s
benefit you just have to make the
numbers work for you you know we have
direct access to our customer because I
I’m into social media and I want to hear
feedback from parents how they like our
products and what they would like to
change and how they would like to
innovate on these products to have like
a brand that’s for parents that you know
was made by parents and then we’re
listening to parents on how to to change
and grow and evolve koenigsegg are fully
independent and manufacture their cars
entirely in-house we ask that this
independence is a benefit to them I do I
do for example with the Riviera I don’t
see any of the other established super
hyper car brands daring to remove
shifting of gears it’s such a
fundamental thing to take away from a
sports car that I think it’s only
Koranic say that could make that
decision and I’m very confident about
the decision I’m very confident when
people experience that direct power that
instant control you get and directness
that that they will quickly understand
why that’s a very good alternative to
shifting even though shifting is fun
nice and part of driving a sports car so
so for example yeah we have more
freedoms like that or take more freedoms
like that you know in our situation
where we were creating a new way of
doing business that was actually part of
our culture as well and as we wanted to
attract people from let’s say related
spaces you didn’t actually want them to
bring you know the culture of the other
companies we might want some insights
from their experience and that sort of
thing but we had to be very explicit
about what the dell culture was really
all about what the values are
particularly as we expand around the
world they say no these aren’t
necessarily American values these are
the dell company values and this is
incredibly important and this is the way
we operate our business I remember once
and it was like it was like
well like I’m going to call it clapper
flash of clairvoyance now obviously if I
hadn’t come true I would just be around
and crazy thought you had but I do
remember one day writing Philosopher’s
Stone I was walking away from the cafe
where I’ve been working Philosopher’s
Stone which became which became
sorceress foaming exactly so that’s the
first novel and I had this moment where
I suddenly thought it was like another
voice speaking to me in the voice said
the difficult things gonna be to get
published if it’s published it will be
huge Wow and that is exactly what it was
so there was some hint that the voice
had said to you well the thing is you’ve
got to believe haven’t you yes you know
I was I was not the world’s most secure
person um I wasn’t someone with an
enormous amount in fact I’d say I was
someone with not much self belief at all
and yet in this one thing in my life I
believed that was the one thing in my
life I felt I can tell a story we all
have egos and it’s a it’s okay to have a
sense of self-awareness and identity but
it’s not okay to have an ego because
what an ego does is the ego is a funny
it’s a funny it’s a funny entity within
the human brain it is on your side when
you are doing great but have you ever
noticed when you when you think you’ve
failed it’s the ego in your mind that
tells you it’s so bad everyone’s looking
at you you start to sweat across your
forehead and you’re like oh my god I
can’t believe this is happening the
whole entire world is watching and none
of it is true when you’re doing great
you shouldn’t listen to that voice when
you’re not doing as great you shouldn’t
listen to that voice because it’s not
good when you’re doing great it’s going
to get you hooked on that feeling so
that when you come down and you because
we are life is a rollercoaster there’s
valleys and Peaks when you hit that
Valley if you can’t deal
and you won’t make it I think the thing
the big differentiator with our company
versus the other companies out there is
you know they spend millions and
millions of dollars on product
development to make a product for one
cent they want to make the cheapest
product as humanly possible and they
don’t really look at the health
ramifications on or the healthiness of
it it’s really just how cheap and
high-volume and we’re exactly the
opposite and so we spend a lot of money
on product development on high
performance on the best ingredients the
healthiest ingredients but really honing
in on performance of course we want to
infuse some with good spirit and kind of
make people really look forward to go to
work and they can they feel that they
can make a difference it’s basically
about empowering people solve this from
mechanics a perspective from mechanics
is super part company perspective a very
large company but still it’s its people
and they’re developing cars on a larger
scale so we still think we can get that
kind of family feeling going but it’s
mostly important to empower people to
know they can make a difference and
really work together from one of the
things that people do instinctually when
our tough times they kind of do nothing
and you know they they don’t know it
kind of hunkered down this is frozen
ground ahead yeah you know it’s kind of
just just complete stunned into inaction
and I think that’s actually the worst
thing to do I think times when everyone
is confused and kind of stunned present
you know the most enormous opportunity
because nobody’s really doing anything
so you know I think this is a time where
the seeds of really successful new
businesses will be created in fact if
you look in our industry which i’m most
familiar with you know the greatest
companies kind of came out of and were
formed in some of the most difficult
times in the industry but no one was
really looking and everyone thought the
whole thing was going to go south all
the sudden and whole new breed of
companies you know merge so for example
if you look at that you know the twin
Dell was formed in the early 1980s 1984
this was a pretty dark time in the US
economy the person computer industry had
just gone through a big down cycle and
the prevailing wisdom was that all
electronics would be dominated by the
Japanese yep you know and and that we
had this big boogey man called the the
Japan Inc and that no one who compete
with japanic and in especially in
something like computers but turned out
to be completely wrong and there you
know enormous opportunity and huge waves
of productivity were unleashed with the
computer industry in a flourishing
there’s always trepidation I mean I
think that people might be surprised to
know that I felt trepidation every time
I produced a Potter book you know the
weight of expectation there was was I
won’t say crushing it was extraordinary
and wonderful to have that weight of
expectation but a TDY yourself yeah and
with the expectations laterally of
millions of fans all of whom were very
invested in the story and wanted to see
what they wanted to see and I knew where
I was going and I had to put on mental
blinkers a lot and just think I know
where I’m going I must not be influenced
by this we put out the video on November
21st all of a sudden boom boom I mean
when I say boom you mean balloons
yeah and we were like what’s happening
okay first of all people are putting up
their own videos it was like no longer
my song yeah I think I actually take can
we roll the tape of that when people
started putting videos around the world
of themselves getting happy in my crazy
by the way
if you feel like happiness
happy
you feel like
what you want
ah makes me cry too makes me cry too ah
you know I was just thinking about your
grandmother I bet you didn’t even
imagine that no though but she didn’t
even imagine that I know I know I know
it’s beautiful beautiful beautiful why
am i crying on Oprah you know it’s it’s
being used for something that’s greater
than yourself I get that it’s
overwhelming because it’s like I love
what I do and uh I just appreciate the
fact I like people that believed in me
for so long that I could make it to this
point to feel to feel to feel that I
think it’s important or there’s really
no bureaucracy here everyone has a voice
I encourage people to be creative and
inspired um no matter what position
you’re in here everyone has an equal
playing field making this company the
best company it can be so whether it’s
someone in our warehouse who isn’t a
fantastic artist and he brings his art
to some of our customers by spending you
know he spent 12 hours this one employee
of ours Dylan he’s a rock star and he
spent 12 hours customizing a box a month
for one of our customers whether he’s
doing a dinosaur robot whatever it is it
just we want to bring delight and
happiness to people outside our
customers but also inside so we do
whatever we can we have karaoke nights
we have what do you what do you think
would be the best thing in the whole
world that you would want this company
to do days which is every day and you
know I’m an actor so I really approached
it from like a more playful creative
kind of mentality and I really want
people to be inspired and have fun and I
want them to really challenge themselves
to push the limits I see the company as
a part of my family I guess I see our
cars like my children okay I have two
sons chela very very very much but also
the cars are my baby somehow I really
care a lot about them
it’s like a part of myself something I
don’t I don’t separate my phone being
from the company or the cars were really
connected together it’s my life I don’t
see my work as well I don’t say that yes
yes Who I am what I do be willing to
experiment and fail you know a lot of
people go into business in there they’re
looking to never make any mistakes
that’s not the way to succeed you have
to be willing to try things experiment
ask a lot of questions don’t be stuck on
any one position and you know most
importantly to listen and look for
breakthroughs and you know ideas that
haven’t been haven’t been out there
given a time turner I would tell my 21
year old self that personal happiness
lies in knowing that life is not a
checklist of acquisition or achievement
your qualifications your CV are not your
life though you will meet many people of
my age and older who confuse the two
life is difficult and complicated and
beyond anyone’s total control and the
humility to know that will enable you to
survive its vicissitudes Graeme should
also be known as a preservation society
we don’t get recognized for our
expensive our videos are we don’t get
recognized for you know the superficial
aspects and all the other ancillary
things that come along with being in
this business you recognize for the
first and foremost important thing and
that’s the music and I’m just so
incredibly humbled and honored and
appreciative to be part of you know this
year’s consideration on any level and to
even be doing it’s been interview
because as I often say I could be just
back home in my room with a with a demo
or not could be even worse no music at
all and just a bunch of ideas that I
could be frustrated to get out but with
no outlet but instead it’s the complete
opposite in fact I’m doing what I love
to do well I was 12 so I didn’t really
have any idea of anything other than
what I was doing and I you know I just
hustled and I tried to be professional
and tried to learn from my mistakes and
just try to stay two steps ahead of
everyone and get those jobs did you know
that at that age this is what you want
to do for the rest of your life because
a lot of people get these jobs when
they’re young and they think okay this
is good for high school or whatever but
when did you make that decision this is
going to be a life she got dark angel
because I didn’t want to be a struggling
professional in anything my parents you
know financially they didn’t have a lot
and they struggled a lot and so I just
wanted to make sure that I was going to
be set and I wasn’t going to struggle
and when I got dark angel that was like
okay maybe that I can do this for a
living and and maybe it could be a real
career for me I think it’s one of our
strengths I mean there are strengths of
being a big car corporation with all the
resources you have at hand but there are
also strengths for a small founder
driven sports car company that we have
to utilize to compensate for the lack of
size as a business grows the natural
tendency would be to take fewer risks
and to be cautious and have contingency
plans but in a business that’s changing
very quickly or one that you want to
grow you actually need to be explicit
about accepting risk one of the people
who work with me kind of describes it
this way that you know I was sort of
encouraging this person hey you know
let’s try this when we do this how about
this and some point he kind of came back
and said so what you’re telling me is
you want me to try to do 10 things and
if I only get eight of them you know
you’ll be okay with that if I don’t get
all you know all 10 versus you know
having five things and doing all five
perfectly that’s exactly right
you know we want to accept some
experiments I often get asked by younger
readers what I would advise if you want
to be a writer this is the way I did it
so that’s the only advice I can give
you’ve got to read as much as you
possibly can because that’s the best way
to recognize good writing and to learn
what makes bad writing and those are
very good things you probably go through
a phase where you imitate your favorite
writers that’s perfectly okay that’s
another learning process you resign
yourself to writing lots and lots of
rubbish you just got to write that out
of your system and sooner or later
you’ll hit what you know you really
should be doing and what is your genre
and perseverance you’ve got to persevere
because it is a it’s a career with a lot
of knockbacks but the rewards are huge I
don’t mean in the sense that if that’s
what you really want to do to be able to
do it lifelong is the best thing in the
world very rewarding but it’s not a
career for people who are easily
discouraged that’s for sure and to their
parents don’t tell them it’s unrealistic
never to never say that because even if
they’re not published writing well
writing is the passion of my life so
it’s an important thing to do you have
to be sort of open and i’m not sure that
you know it’s cool to be like super
open-minded you know and then when you
are or when you see people that are
everyone like rolls around like you know
coining them geniuses and really all it
is is just like being open to other
things in the world and i guess that’s
it I mean because I didn’t I didn’t plan
these things I mean now you know in the
last few years when I started to catch
on and started to make sense I’m like
okay this is now goes you sort of set
out these goals and then you have
long-term goals and then you have
short-term goals and somewhere within
you know you find your hobbies and then
you find the things that you are
interested in
which are two separate things because
what your what your hobbies are which
you naturally and readily go to and what
you’re interested in are the things that
you don’t mind studying a little more
and researching a little more than you
would anything else in somewhere at the
50-yard line is what you should be doing
with your life I was lucky enough to
stumble across that I look at every
opportunity as something it cements the
next block in your sidewalk it’s just
important that like you know don’t look
over your shoulder every 5 minutes if
anything just continue to stand on your
tippy-toes to see how far you can see
what’s in the horizon being intuitive is
important and then surround yourself
with really smart business people that
can support your weaknesses know what
they are I know I don’t know how to
create an e-commerce platform I’m I’m
well aware of that so I surrounded
myself with people who can’t and who do
do that um and then as far as mentors go
countless I really I was not shy about
making phone calls too many people I’ve
been fortunate enough to know people
like Tory Burch and Diane von
Furstenberg and they you know got lots
of emails and phone calls for me along
the way with tears in my eyes say I
don’t know if this is possible why is
everyone telling me know what do I do
what does it even mean to go to to get
venture cap of what is venture capital
what’s a board like I just didn’t know
all these business terms and so they
helped me understand it so of course we
heard that all the big brands in the
industry we’re creating their next level
super hyper car hybrid cars and we were
not sure what they were coming out with
we were assuming they want to trump our
car the Pagani the Bugatti in every
aspect and at simultaneously we started
developing the one-to-one program so we
we want to make sure we overshot what we
already did by quite a margin and maybe
we we brought it a little bit higher
than we needed to we will see but I
it will compare quite favorably to these
new hybrid hypercars but when it comes
to us competing with the big boys I
think that’s what we’ve always been
doing so that’s nothing new it’s really
a David against Goliath kind of scenario
that we’re pretty used to and and are
fine with them and enjoy at the same
time I would say if you just dissect the
the IT sector look at the whole thing
you’ve got roughly three three and a
half trillion dollar industry and there
are about ten companies that have more
than one percent of the three trillion
we have two percent but nobody has like
more than five or six percent so it’s a
it’s a actually quite fragmented space
so we work extensively with partners
across the ecosystem and it’s a big part
of how we evolve rapidly go quickly
reach new customers gain access to the
latest you know ingredient technologies
whether it’s in semiconductors for
software ingredients and so the
partnerships and alliances are
incredibly important part of how we grow
always always always wanted to be a
writer and obviously you want to be a
writer you want to your dream of
supporting yourself through writing
definite
but it is a bit of both because I was
very much aware that children’s books
you do not the possibility of supporting
yourself solely by writing children’s
books is slim that’s that’s the reality
of it which I was fully aware of that so
in that sense this has all come as a
huge enormous shock I’m delighted
because I always wanted to write and
always have written but my realistic
side have not allowed me to dream of
half of what’s happening to me
truthfully when you say that you come
from nothing you’re saying you’re saying
I come from nothing where I got you know
act nothing you know what nothing is
nothing is a void nothing is deep space
with no stars nothing is
it’s not possible for you to exist in
nothing so there’s no such thing as
nothing it’s all relative so when you
say you know this explaining this to you
know an old friend the other day who is
saying you know I have it so hard it’s
so tough and it’s so crazy and you know
I don’t have anything whoa sure you do
you have the same things that Bill Gates
has because just like him when he dies
you know what you’re going to take with
you that’s exactly right so while the
apartment may smell funny while there
may be pests and rodents because that’s
what people generally relate to nothing
right come from nothing and the car is a
hande if there is car or there’s bus
tickets so our trains train and free
lunch nothing right it’s not true
imagine the people who live out in
remote villages that have never heard of
the ipod
but they’re happy and they would argue
with you when you tell them that they
have nothing nothing is a perception so
if your reality is is merely just your
perception and a perspective these
things are interchangeable so first you
need to when you say you come from
nothing you should probably reevaluating
that and think about it because if
you’re not cancer-stricken and you don’t
have aids and you have your legs and
your fingers I’d say you have a bigger
chance that some words you have a huge
advantage over people who are amputees
who are really doing good at night and
people who had AIDS for 10 years we’re
really succeeding and people who have
cancer that are fighting every day but
still they are working at the things
that they love to do in life I would say
you have a little bit more than what you
thought was nothing I needed people
telling me no I needed people to not get
it and look at me cross-eyed for me to
really figure out exactly what I was
gonna do and how I was gonna do it it’s
something I had to learn as a woman in
business is a to ask for help and to not
be afraid of criticism um and and when
you don’t know what to do to be okay
with not knowing but learning and also
to not be defined by your mistakes
there’s challenges there’s roadblocks
there’s mountains and you just have to
figure it out you just have to be
malleable you have to surround yourself
with really smart people and I didn’t
think I was smart for a really long
time to take your smart now yeah I think
I’m where we agree you know I’m not the
smartest but but I try so the motivation
to create the one to one even though we
already had a superbly fast car that
also was good for track use was that
some of our customers really wanted a
more of a cup car GT car just
specifically developed for the track but
they also came with the demand that you
should have full road usability and fool
homologation and that was a big bit of a
challenge because what we ended up
building was more or less a car that
looks and feels like a GT one car on the
track but then you push the button it
raises up and you have all the creature
comforts air conditioning satellite
navigation bluetooth telephone air
conditioning whatever that our normal
cars have but we have to say wait and we
have to have more downforce we have to
have a stiffer chassis setting when
needed on the track and also lighter
weight so yeah that was that was the
motivation and that was the challenge if
you really don’t know you know what it
means to be an entrepreneur you know
maybe art one you know so I think
there’s a bit of kind of self initiative
and self-starter you know that that is
incredibly important part of
entrepreneurship me no one can sort of
tell you how to do it you have to so
have an instinctual you know feeling or
an idea about about something and you
got to be passionate about it and I
think people that look for great ideas
to make money you know aren’t nearly as
successful as those who say okay what I
really love to do what am I excited
about what I knew something about
if you choose to use your status and
influence to raise your voice on behalf
of those who have no voice if you choose
to identify not only with the powerful
but with the powerless if you retain the
ability to imagine yourself into the
lives of those who do not have your
advantages then it will not only be your
proud families who celebrate your
existence the thousands and millions of
people whose reality you have helped
change we do not need magic to transform
our world we carry all the power we need
inside ourselves already we have the
power to imagine better how many times
have you guys you know NSU in a
situation of need a moment of need yo
you know what I need I need a job right
and you blow it off and in three years
later there’s a guy you know on an
infomercial describing exactly your idea
and he’s showing you how great your
product works you have to be unafraid to
listen and unafraid to think that’s
something that you have is a good idea
now you also can’t believe in it so much
that you that you have deaf ears toward
like reason and reality because you can
have the most brilliant idea in the
world but you got a bet on yourself you
can’t think that like that one idea and
the way that you think is supposed to
happen is the only way that it can
happen you know don’t wait for the stars
to align reach up and rearrange them the
way you want create your own
constellation I say that all the time
you just have to be smart enough to know
that like you know there’s so many ways
that like things can turn out you know
and there’s so many people in their
lives that meant man if I would have
just made that left her know if I would
have just stayed in the house five more
minutes or whatever like what I coulda
shoulda if we would bet on ourselves but
at the same time taking consideration
what this moment will mean to us 10
years from now it could be different but
listen I haven’t made all the best
decisions in the world either i
definitely fell on my ass a million
times but i learned on my way down and i
definitely taken a strike getting back
up I had this idea on how a family brand
can be built that was honest and
convenient the thing that drove me was
wanting the best in setting the bar
really really high there’s always a way
to do it better people looked at me like
I was not you wanted to do all of this
like it’s too big of an idea they’re
like why don’t you just do an
endorsement it would just be so much
easier and it was about money for them
and I was like but this isn’t about
money for me I needed to do this for my
daughter I need to do this for other
families there was no way that I could
give up until I gave it my all well I
remember when I started that first of
all there were many
some people starting car companies
extreme car companies are not succeed in
doing it for different races I remember
saying to myself I have to start for
home young we be very difficult it’s
going to take very long time that I am
determined to do it even if it’s almost
impossible and I expect that I was
coming from Sweden only 22 years old I
expected everyone to say maybe not
racism is impossible you will ever
succeeded just agreement so I expected
that so when I got that response from
anything we did not push me down because
I was ready for that peace amongst I it
kind of is that triggered me even more
to say yes I understand that you think
that but i will show you that it is
actually possible i get a lot of now
feedback from people around to see this
who are doing other things in other
areas not only card but they say since
you could do that it anything must be
possible so you made me believe in my
dream and now I’ve done this as exceeded
and kind of thank you whatever and that
is so great because it actually proves
that even hypercars can be very
beneficial to society because it shows
dreams are possible
so when we have had failures those have
ultimately resulted in some of the
greatest successes we’ve ever had you
talk about those particularly when
someone comes to see you and they say
yeah feeling really bad because this
didn’t work out okay well let me tell
you about some other things that didn’t
work out that we learned a lot from and
you know let’s pick ourselves back up
and let’s figure out what what we what
we learn from this and how we go apply
that next time you know when you’re in
the zone of doing things that no one’s
ever done before if you’re only
succeeding you’re not taking enough risk
thank you so much for watching this
episode of environment I love to know
what you think if you want to leave a
comment below thank you for watching go
out and do something great today
continue to believe and I’ll see you
soon
to be surrounded by greatness so I hope
you’ll put this on in the background and
absorb the wisdom from these great
people to hopefully help you go out and
accomplish something great yourself we
think we ain’t about how hard you hit
how do you succeed if you don’t try the
time is now to be great you gotta love
it too gotta have passion you really can
make what you want failure gave me an
inner security that I had never attained
by passing examinations failure taught
me things about myself that I could have
learned no other way I discovered that I
had a strong will and more discipline
than I had suspected I also found out
that I had friends whose value was truly
above the price of rubies the knowledge
that you have emerged wiser and stronger
from setbacks means that you are ever
after secure in your ability to survive
you will never truly know yourself or
the strength of your relationships until
both have been tested by adversity such
knowledge is a true gift for all that it
is painfully one and it has been worth
more than any qualification I ever
earned this done we didn’t take on a
project just to take it on and the
couple of times and we did that like it
always just backfired like terribly
so the lesson a was just stay loyal to
the class and I’ll stay loyal to your
creativity because it’s a gift when I
was a kid my parents said anything that
you want you can achieve you just have
to work really really hard for it I
spent a lot of time in my head
fantasizing about being a superhero and
about being somebody else and what would
it be like to live someone else’s
reality there weren’t so many women that
were action stars I thought that it
would be really cool to be able to kick
some butt in only 21 years cunning Zech
has come from nowhere to be one of the
highest regarded hyper car manufacturers
being counted alongside Ferrari
Lamborghini and McLaren how have they
pulled that off well we have to work
hard be a little bit innovative and
don’t believe in the hype that it’s
impossible but it’s you know every day
we we strive and push and and learn and
adapt and when you do that for 20 years
with the great focus within the group
you can do pretty much anything I think
that’s the simple answer but for sure
it’s not easy you have to be prepared to
work hard for it you have to think about
the point of impact if you’re running a
business with a hundred people the point
of impact for the leader is very
different than if it’s a thousand people
or ten thousand four hundred thousand
and so that’s the frame of reference
that I’ve always used is to say okay if
I’m leading this organization what are
the things that actually I can do to
cause it to be successful if it’s a
thousand people it’s very very different
than it is for me today so today I’m a
lot more focused on strategy because
that’s the point of impact on 110,000
person company 100 person company
you’re sort of doing any job in the
organization you’re doing every job in
the organization you know potentially
and that might be okay at that point I
was on the train from manchester to
London and it came just came kept
something with that ever happened to you
before yes truthfully I mean other ideas
had just come to me because I think
you’re a writer and that’s what you
spent a huge amount of time doing you do
ideas who come to you but nothing had
ever come so with such a high hannahs I
thought I’d love to ride that and when I
got off the train I went straight home
when I study much well I remember being
in high school for 20,000 kajillion
years and I just when we were given the
opportunity you know a lot of my
teachers of course because they weren’t
really well versed in like the music
industry as it was a foreign business to
the area they’re like well you know make
sure you get your education and that
would that they were right about but if
it they went a little bit beyond and
went more it went more toward the side
of and besides you know that only lasts
for this long or that long I’m up here
talking to you guys right now so it just
goes to show you what curiosity can do
for fully individually if you’re curious
you keep chasing it that’s why you know
the mantra for adult is feed your
curiosity the resistance that anybody
has whether you’re a man or a woman to
your idea should do nothing but drive
you forward and I’ll and force you to
really hone in on your idea and give you
energy and if it actually holds you back
and makes you second-guess yourself then
maybe you shouldn’t be doing it um
creating a business is impossible at
times it feels impossible and so you
really have to be
I’m just so passionate about it and you
know really don’t take no for an answer
if anything can like deviate you from
your patch then maybe it’s it’s not
necessarily the right one so make sure
it is what you want it to be stay
focused and and allow all that
resistance along the way to really give
you energy and fuel your engine to move
forward from a personal perspective of
my ambitions always been to build cars
that’s why I started my company 22 years
of age 15 16 years ago that’s all I’ve
been doing since then and then this
opportunity presented itself to be able
to build crossing in with larger scale
with a brand that was very dear to me
and we jumped on this opportunity and
here we are today so the Koenigsegg
group we consists of entrepreneurs and
if you look at all our track records
whatever we started we still have and
continue with them and work with to make
it prosper and we have the same ambition
with Psalm we have gotten into this
because we want to live with solvent
work resolved for a very long period of
time it’s not something we do short term
it’s a long-term ambition and basically
we don’t do it because it’s easy we do
it because it’s a challenge it’s a real
challenge and it’s a worthwhile
challenge where we can make a difference
one of the things I see in new
businesses they’re often looking for
perfection and I think this is a really
big mistake I think I think you ought to
be looking for experiments and and you
know quick experiments and it’s okay to
have little failures and what you want
to do is learn as much as you can very
quickly and try things and you know
certainly when we were a small business
you know we’d go out and try all sorts
of things to find what would work and
we found something work we’ll do that
one hundred more times or a thousand
more times we still to do it today as a
large company it is one of the amazing
and wonderful things about literature as
about film and music is it’s utterly
subjective so somebody’s that point of
it you know that’s the point of course
you won’t you move in that world if you
expect us to just stand under a shower
of perpetual praise there’s something
wrong with exactly that you know you
will get criticism I knew that going in
and then the funny thing is I’m not
particularly I was never a very
confident person in their areas in my
life in which I’m very thin-skinned but
not in this area in this area I I think
it’s right and proper I should be
criticized and that’s that and cannula
individuality and just appreciating like
the way I think in the way I feel and
and having you know letting that have
some value and work and and and
depending on that so you know what if
everybody else is you know what was what
it’s the four or five mmm I got like
twenty nine million highways out here
yes sir right take a different route if
everything y’all got traffic there this
isn’t that what you guys do did you get
off on the next X you go somewhere else
you rather sit in the traffic with a
stoplight than to be on the 405 trapped
right I’m saying and I think that like
individuality is a is a wonderful thing
is the reason why I drake is so good
it’s the reason why Lord is so good you
know it’s the reason why you know the
west coast on
highlighted created our future and
Kendrick Lamar like these are all like
none of those guys sound alike yet until
they’re all out at the same time right
doing there you know prospective things
right so it’s betting on yourself and
betting on your difference and
appreciating the rarity of how you think
I always help you know I think I do unto
others what they what I would want them
to do into me at the end of the day my
parents always taught me that and so I
treat people the way I wanted to I want
to be treated and and that’s kind of the
standards that i live by well as i
mentioned i have this I saw this
Norwegian movie when I was about five
years old god this guy who built the
really interesting sports car and I
remember saying to myself that when I
grew up that’s what I want to do as well
I want to build my own car cars and sell
them so
that dream never left me so when I was
19 I started my first company which was
a trading company to make little bit
money with the ambition to use that
money to build my own cars and I went
when I was 22 i had made little bit of
money and then i started the car company
in that was in 1994 which was 18 years
ago when i was 16 i got this job working
for a newspaper in houston and my job
was to sell subscriptions to the paper
on the telephone and i realized two
things when i was doing this i realized
that people that were buying the
newspaper generally had two things in
common either they were moving to a new
residence where they were getting
married and turns out that you could go
find information about both of those
things in enormous quantities so the
state that i lived in in Texas when you
get when you want to get a marriage
license you have to file with the state
and it’s public information particularly
the address that you want the license
sent to once it’s issued so I hired all
my friends and went to every county in
the surrounding 16 counties
captured the addresses of all the people
would applied for marriage licenses and
sent them a direct mail offer to offer
them the newspaper for a free trial in a
subscription and ended up making a make
an affair sum of money for a teenager
you rocks in here mm-hmm this is really
the room where I finish Philosopher’s
Stone here this is really where I turned
my life around completely I mean my life
changed so much in his flat I feel I
really became myself here in everything
stripped away I’ve made such a mess of
things but that was all that was freeing
so I sort what i want to write so i
write the book and what what is the
worst that can happen it gets turned
down by every publishing rhythm thing to
you so you know it’s really back to the
whole time here my bedrooms are locked
were my bedroom me bedroom it’s a lot
tidying up god
yo that’s mad this was a tip when I have
to all that Harry Potter books now that
is really freaky there for years now I
felt like if it all disappeared and some
days I do feel like it is it real then
this is where I would come back to you
know this would be my body baseline I’d
be back in Leith and obviously if I’d
known that tenant well was it two year
10 years on I come back here with a film
crew and there would be my published
books in someone else’s bookcase in this
room I mean it’s really incredible to me
you really did I mean yes because it’s
such a well-worn part of my story now
it’s a big yard to hear how I wrote it
as though it was all some sort of
publicity stunt I did for a year but it
was my life and it was very hard and I’d
know this could be this fairytale
resolution I might I’ve coming back hits
just below ghosts oh this is a free
world this is a free world now it’s
different and there are some
restrictions but there’s no restriction
in you being exposed to the world to
be discovered as an artist I would say
believe in your direction and and do it
spend less time talking about it and
more time trying to like perfect it and
put it out there and you know this fire
the kids will sniff it out they always
do and they’ll turn you all the way up
if they feel like that’s where you
belong that’s all you have to do is be
true to your craft and they see that
when they see you going inward and being
proud of who you are and what you are
and you know there’s some good attention
they’re going to support you it’s a
numbers game though right seven billion
people on the planet less than a third
online you know it’s a pretty
significant number which raises the odds
for you to become heard I mean even the
like most boring person on twitter has
100 followers right hundred people don’t
know you from a can of paint why because
everything is about numbers so there’s
benefit you just have to make the
numbers work for you you know we have
direct access to our customer because I
I’m into social media and I want to hear
feedback from parents how they like our
products and what they would like to
change and how they would like to
innovate on these products to have like
a brand that’s for parents that you know
was made by parents and then we’re
listening to parents on how to to change
and grow and evolve koenigsegg are fully
independent and manufacture their cars
entirely in-house we ask that this
independence is a benefit to them I do I
do for example with the Riviera I don’t
see any of the other established super
hyper car brands daring to remove
shifting of gears it’s such a
fundamental thing to take away from a
sports car that I think it’s only
Koranic say that could make that
decision and I’m very confident about
the decision I’m very confident when
people experience that direct power that
instant control you get and directness
that that they will quickly understand
why that’s a very good alternative to
shifting even though shifting is fun
nice and part of driving a sports car so
so for example yeah we have more
freedoms like that or take more freedoms
like that you know in our situation
where we were creating a new way of
doing business that was actually part of
our culture as well and as we wanted to
attract people from let’s say related
spaces you didn’t actually want them to
bring you know the culture of the other
companies we might want some insights
from their experience and that sort of
thing but we had to be very explicit
about what the dell culture was really
all about what the values are
particularly as we expand around the
world they say no these aren’t
necessarily American values these are
the dell company values and this is
incredibly important and this is the way
we operate our business I remember once
and it was like it was like
well like I’m going to call it clapper
flash of clairvoyance now obviously if I
hadn’t come true I would just be around
and crazy thought you had but I do
remember one day writing Philosopher’s
Stone I was walking away from the cafe
where I’ve been working Philosopher’s
Stone which became which became
sorceress foaming exactly so that’s the
first novel and I had this moment where
I suddenly thought it was like another
voice speaking to me in the voice said
the difficult things gonna be to get
published if it’s published it will be
huge Wow and that is exactly what it was
so there was some hint that the voice
had said to you well the thing is you’ve
got to believe haven’t you yes you know
I was I was not the world’s most secure
person um I wasn’t someone with an
enormous amount in fact I’d say I was
someone with not much self belief at all
and yet in this one thing in my life I
believed that was the one thing in my
life I felt I can tell a story we all
have egos and it’s a it’s okay to have a
sense of self-awareness and identity but
it’s not okay to have an ego because
what an ego does is the ego is a funny
it’s a funny it’s a funny entity within
the human brain it is on your side when
you are doing great but have you ever
noticed when you when you think you’ve
failed it’s the ego in your mind that
tells you it’s so bad everyone’s looking
at you you start to sweat across your
forehead and you’re like oh my god I
can’t believe this is happening the
whole entire world is watching and none
of it is true when you’re doing great
you shouldn’t listen to that voice when
you’re not doing as great you shouldn’t
listen to that voice because it’s not
good when you’re doing great it’s going
to get you hooked on that feeling so
that when you come down and you because
we are life is a rollercoaster there’s
valleys and Peaks when you hit that
Valley if you can’t deal
and you won’t make it I think the thing
the big differentiator with our company
versus the other companies out there is
you know they spend millions and
millions of dollars on product
development to make a product for one
cent they want to make the cheapest
product as humanly possible and they
don’t really look at the health
ramifications on or the healthiness of
it it’s really just how cheap and
high-volume and we’re exactly the
opposite and so we spend a lot of money
on product development on high
performance on the best ingredients the
healthiest ingredients but really honing
in on performance of course we want to
infuse some with good spirit and kind of
make people really look forward to go to
work and they can they feel that they
can make a difference it’s basically
about empowering people solve this from
mechanics a perspective from mechanics
is super part company perspective a very
large company but still it’s its people
and they’re developing cars on a larger
scale so we still think we can get that
kind of family feeling going but it’s
mostly important to empower people to
know they can make a difference and
really work together from one of the
things that people do instinctually when
our tough times they kind of do nothing
and you know they they don’t know it
kind of hunkered down this is frozen
ground ahead yeah you know it’s kind of
just just complete stunned into inaction
and I think that’s actually the worst
thing to do I think times when everyone
is confused and kind of stunned present
you know the most enormous opportunity
because nobody’s really doing anything
so you know I think this is a time where
the seeds of really successful new
businesses will be created in fact if
you look in our industry which i’m most
familiar with you know the greatest
companies kind of came out of and were
formed in some of the most difficult
times in the industry but no one was
really looking and everyone thought the
whole thing was going to go south all
the sudden and whole new breed of
companies you know merge so for example
if you look at that you know the twin
Dell was formed in the early 1980s 1984
this was a pretty dark time in the US
economy the person computer industry had
just gone through a big down cycle and
the prevailing wisdom was that all
electronics would be dominated by the
Japanese yep you know and and that we
had this big boogey man called the the
Japan Inc and that no one who compete
with japanic and in especially in
something like computers but turned out
to be completely wrong and there you
know enormous opportunity and huge waves
of productivity were unleashed with the
computer industry in a flourishing
there’s always trepidation I mean I
think that people might be surprised to
know that I felt trepidation every time
I produced a Potter book you know the
weight of expectation there was was I
won’t say crushing it was extraordinary
and wonderful to have that weight of
expectation but a TDY yourself yeah and
with the expectations laterally of
millions of fans all of whom were very
invested in the story and wanted to see
what they wanted to see and I knew where
I was going and I had to put on mental
blinkers a lot and just think I know
where I’m going I must not be influenced
by this we put out the video on November
21st all of a sudden boom boom I mean
when I say boom you mean balloons
yeah and we were like what’s happening
okay first of all people are putting up
their own videos it was like no longer
my song yeah I think I actually take can
we roll the tape of that when people
started putting videos around the world
of themselves getting happy in my crazy
by the way
if you feel like happiness
happy
you feel like
what you want
ah makes me cry too makes me cry too ah
you know I was just thinking about your
grandmother I bet you didn’t even
imagine that no though but she didn’t
even imagine that I know I know I know
it’s beautiful beautiful beautiful why
am i crying on Oprah you know it’s it’s
being used for something that’s greater
than yourself I get that it’s
overwhelming because it’s like I love
what I do and uh I just appreciate the
fact I like people that believed in me
for so long that I could make it to this
point to feel to feel to feel that I
think it’s important or there’s really
no bureaucracy here everyone has a voice
I encourage people to be creative and
inspired um no matter what position
you’re in here everyone has an equal
playing field making this company the
best company it can be so whether it’s
someone in our warehouse who isn’t a
fantastic artist and he brings his art
to some of our customers by spending you
know he spent 12 hours this one employee
of ours Dylan he’s a rock star and he
spent 12 hours customizing a box a month
for one of our customers whether he’s
doing a dinosaur robot whatever it is it
just we want to bring delight and
happiness to people outside our
customers but also inside so we do
whatever we can we have karaoke nights
we have what do you what do you think
would be the best thing in the whole
world that you would want this company
to do days which is every day and you
know I’m an actor so I really approached
it from like a more playful creative
kind of mentality and I really want
people to be inspired and have fun and I
want them to really challenge themselves
to push the limits I see the company as
a part of my family I guess I see our
cars like my children okay I have two
sons chela very very very much but also
the cars are my baby somehow I really
care a lot about them
it’s like a part of myself something I
don’t I don’t separate my phone being
from the company or the cars were really
connected together it’s my life I don’t
see my work as well I don’t say that yes
yes Who I am what I do be willing to
experiment and fail you know a lot of
people go into business in there they’re
looking to never make any mistakes
that’s not the way to succeed you have
to be willing to try things experiment
ask a lot of questions don’t be stuck on
any one position and you know most
importantly to listen and look for
breakthroughs and you know ideas that
haven’t been haven’t been out there
given a time turner I would tell my 21
year old self that personal happiness
lies in knowing that life is not a
checklist of acquisition or achievement
your qualifications your CV are not your
life though you will meet many people of
my age and older who confuse the two
life is difficult and complicated and
beyond anyone’s total control and the
humility to know that will enable you to
survive its vicissitudes Graeme should
also be known as a preservation society
we don’t get recognized for our
expensive our videos are we don’t get
recognized for you know the superficial
aspects and all the other ancillary
things that come along with being in
this business you recognize for the
first and foremost important thing and
that’s the music and I’m just so
incredibly humbled and honored and
appreciative to be part of you know this
year’s consideration on any level and to
even be doing it’s been interview
because as I often say I could be just
back home in my room with a with a demo
or not could be even worse no music at
all and just a bunch of ideas that I
could be frustrated to get out but with
no outlet but instead it’s the complete
opposite in fact I’m doing what I love
to do well I was 12 so I didn’t really
have any idea of anything other than
what I was doing and I you know I just
hustled and I tried to be professional
and tried to learn from my mistakes and
just try to stay two steps ahead of
everyone and get those jobs did you know
that at that age this is what you want
to do for the rest of your life because
a lot of people get these jobs when
they’re young and they think okay this
is good for high school or whatever but
when did you make that decision this is
going to be a life she got dark angel
because I didn’t want to be a struggling
professional in anything my parents you
know financially they didn’t have a lot
and they struggled a lot and so I just
wanted to make sure that I was going to
be set and I wasn’t going to struggle
and when I got dark angel that was like
okay maybe that I can do this for a
living and and maybe it could be a real
career for me I think it’s one of our
strengths I mean there are strengths of
being a big car corporation with all the
resources you have at hand but there are
also strengths for a small founder
driven sports car company that we have
to utilize to compensate for the lack of
size as a business grows the natural
tendency would be to take fewer risks
and to be cautious and have contingency
plans but in a business that’s changing
very quickly or one that you want to
grow you actually need to be explicit
about accepting risk one of the people
who work with me kind of describes it
this way that you know I was sort of
encouraging this person hey you know
let’s try this when we do this how about
this and some point he kind of came back
and said so what you’re telling me is
you want me to try to do 10 things and
if I only get eight of them you know
you’ll be okay with that if I don’t get
all you know all 10 versus you know
having five things and doing all five
perfectly that’s exactly right
you know we want to accept some
experiments I often get asked by younger
readers what I would advise if you want
to be a writer this is the way I did it
so that’s the only advice I can give
you’ve got to read as much as you
possibly can because that’s the best way
to recognize good writing and to learn
what makes bad writing and those are
very good things you probably go through
a phase where you imitate your favorite
writers that’s perfectly okay that’s
another learning process you resign
yourself to writing lots and lots of
rubbish you just got to write that out
of your system and sooner or later
you’ll hit what you know you really
should be doing and what is your genre
and perseverance you’ve got to persevere
because it is a it’s a career with a lot
of knockbacks but the rewards are huge I
don’t mean in the sense that if that’s
what you really want to do to be able to
do it lifelong is the best thing in the
world very rewarding but it’s not a
career for people who are easily
discouraged that’s for sure and to their
parents don’t tell them it’s unrealistic
never to never say that because even if
they’re not published writing well
writing is the passion of my life so
it’s an important thing to do you have
to be sort of open and i’m not sure that
you know it’s cool to be like super
open-minded you know and then when you
are or when you see people that are
everyone like rolls around like you know
coining them geniuses and really all it
is is just like being open to other
things in the world and i guess that’s
it I mean because I didn’t I didn’t plan
these things I mean now you know in the
last few years when I started to catch
on and started to make sense I’m like
okay this is now goes you sort of set
out these goals and then you have
long-term goals and then you have
short-term goals and somewhere within
you know you find your hobbies and then
you find the things that you are
interested in
which are two separate things because
what your what your hobbies are which
you naturally and readily go to and what
you’re interested in are the things that
you don’t mind studying a little more
and researching a little more than you
would anything else in somewhere at the
50-yard line is what you should be doing
with your life I was lucky enough to
stumble across that I look at every
opportunity as something it cements the
next block in your sidewalk it’s just
important that like you know don’t look
over your shoulder every 5 minutes if
anything just continue to stand on your
tippy-toes to see how far you can see
what’s in the horizon being intuitive is
important and then surround yourself
with really smart business people that
can support your weaknesses know what
they are I know I don’t know how to
create an e-commerce platform I’m I’m
well aware of that so I surrounded
myself with people who can’t and who do
do that um and then as far as mentors go
countless I really I was not shy about
making phone calls too many people I’ve
been fortunate enough to know people
like Tory Burch and Diane von
Furstenberg and they you know got lots
of emails and phone calls for me along
the way with tears in my eyes say I
don’t know if this is possible why is
everyone telling me know what do I do
what does it even mean to go to to get
venture cap of what is venture capital
what’s a board like I just didn’t know
all these business terms and so they
helped me understand it so of course we
heard that all the big brands in the
industry we’re creating their next level
super hyper car hybrid cars and we were
not sure what they were coming out with
we were assuming they want to trump our
car the Pagani the Bugatti in every
aspect and at simultaneously we started
developing the one-to-one program so we
we want to make sure we overshot what we
already did by quite a margin and maybe
we we brought it a little bit higher
than we needed to we will see but I
it will compare quite favorably to these
new hybrid hypercars but when it comes
to us competing with the big boys I
think that’s what we’ve always been
doing so that’s nothing new it’s really
a David against Goliath kind of scenario
that we’re pretty used to and and are
fine with them and enjoy at the same
time I would say if you just dissect the
the IT sector look at the whole thing
you’ve got roughly three three and a
half trillion dollar industry and there
are about ten companies that have more
than one percent of the three trillion
we have two percent but nobody has like
more than five or six percent so it’s a
it’s a actually quite fragmented space
so we work extensively with partners
across the ecosystem and it’s a big part
of how we evolve rapidly go quickly
reach new customers gain access to the
latest you know ingredient technologies
whether it’s in semiconductors for
software ingredients and so the
partnerships and alliances are
incredibly important part of how we grow
always always always wanted to be a
writer and obviously you want to be a
writer you want to your dream of
supporting yourself through writing
definite
but it is a bit of both because I was
very much aware that children’s books
you do not the possibility of supporting
yourself solely by writing children’s
books is slim that’s that’s the reality
of it which I was fully aware of that so
in that sense this has all come as a
huge enormous shock I’m delighted
because I always wanted to write and
always have written but my realistic
side have not allowed me to dream of
half of what’s happening to me
truthfully when you say that you come
from nothing you’re saying you’re saying
I come from nothing where I got you know
act nothing you know what nothing is
nothing is a void nothing is deep space
with no stars nothing is
it’s not possible for you to exist in
nothing so there’s no such thing as
nothing it’s all relative so when you
say you know this explaining this to you
know an old friend the other day who is
saying you know I have it so hard it’s
so tough and it’s so crazy and you know
I don’t have anything whoa sure you do
you have the same things that Bill Gates
has because just like him when he dies
you know what you’re going to take with
you that’s exactly right so while the
apartment may smell funny while there
may be pests and rodents because that’s
what people generally relate to nothing
right come from nothing and the car is a
hande if there is car or there’s bus
tickets so our trains train and free
lunch nothing right it’s not true
imagine the people who live out in
remote villages that have never heard of
the ipod
but they’re happy and they would argue
with you when you tell them that they
have nothing nothing is a perception so
if your reality is is merely just your
perception and a perspective these
things are interchangeable so first you
need to when you say you come from
nothing you should probably reevaluating
that and think about it because if
you’re not cancer-stricken and you don’t
have aids and you have your legs and
your fingers I’d say you have a bigger
chance that some words you have a huge
advantage over people who are amputees
who are really doing good at night and
people who had AIDS for 10 years we’re
really succeeding and people who have
cancer that are fighting every day but
still they are working at the things
that they love to do in life I would say
you have a little bit more than what you
thought was nothing I needed people
telling me no I needed people to not get
it and look at me cross-eyed for me to
really figure out exactly what I was
gonna do and how I was gonna do it it’s
something I had to learn as a woman in
business is a to ask for help and to not
be afraid of criticism um and and when
you don’t know what to do to be okay
with not knowing but learning and also
to not be defined by your mistakes
there’s challenges there’s roadblocks
there’s mountains and you just have to
figure it out you just have to be
malleable you have to surround yourself
with really smart people and I didn’t
think I was smart for a really long
time to take your smart now yeah I think
I’m where we agree you know I’m not the
smartest but but I try so the motivation
to create the one to one even though we
already had a superbly fast car that
also was good for track use was that
some of our customers really wanted a
more of a cup car GT car just
specifically developed for the track but
they also came with the demand that you
should have full road usability and fool
homologation and that was a big bit of a
challenge because what we ended up
building was more or less a car that
looks and feels like a GT one car on the
track but then you push the button it
raises up and you have all the creature
comforts air conditioning satellite
navigation bluetooth telephone air
conditioning whatever that our normal
cars have but we have to say wait and we
have to have more downforce we have to
have a stiffer chassis setting when
needed on the track and also lighter
weight so yeah that was that was the
motivation and that was the challenge if
you really don’t know you know what it
means to be an entrepreneur you know
maybe art one you know so I think
there’s a bit of kind of self initiative
and self-starter you know that that is
incredibly important part of
entrepreneurship me no one can sort of
tell you how to do it you have to so
have an instinctual you know feeling or
an idea about about something and you
got to be passionate about it and I
think people that look for great ideas
to make money you know aren’t nearly as
successful as those who say okay what I
really love to do what am I excited
about what I knew something about
if you choose to use your status and
influence to raise your voice on behalf
of those who have no voice if you choose
to identify not only with the powerful
but with the powerless if you retain the
ability to imagine yourself into the
lives of those who do not have your
advantages then it will not only be your
proud families who celebrate your
existence the thousands and millions of
people whose reality you have helped
change we do not need magic to transform
our world we carry all the power we need
inside ourselves already we have the
power to imagine better how many times
have you guys you know NSU in a
situation of need a moment of need yo
you know what I need I need a job right
and you blow it off and in three years
later there’s a guy you know on an
infomercial describing exactly your idea
and he’s showing you how great your
product works you have to be unafraid to
listen and unafraid to think that’s
something that you have is a good idea
now you also can’t believe in it so much
that you that you have deaf ears toward
like reason and reality because you can
have the most brilliant idea in the
world but you got a bet on yourself you
can’t think that like that one idea and
the way that you think is supposed to
happen is the only way that it can
happen you know don’t wait for the stars
to align reach up and rearrange them the
way you want create your own
constellation I say that all the time
you just have to be smart enough to know
that like you know there’s so many ways
that like things can turn out you know
and there’s so many people in their
lives that meant man if I would have
just made that left her know if I would
have just stayed in the house five more
minutes or whatever like what I coulda
shoulda if we would bet on ourselves but
at the same time taking consideration
what this moment will mean to us 10
years from now it could be different but
listen I haven’t made all the best
decisions in the world either i
definitely fell on my ass a million
times but i learned on my way down and i
definitely taken a strike getting back
up I had this idea on how a family brand
can be built that was honest and
convenient the thing that drove me was
wanting the best in setting the bar
really really high there’s always a way
to do it better people looked at me like
I was not you wanted to do all of this
like it’s too big of an idea they’re
like why don’t you just do an
endorsement it would just be so much
easier and it was about money for them
and I was like but this isn’t about
money for me I needed to do this for my
daughter I need to do this for other
families there was no way that I could
give up until I gave it my all well I
remember when I started that first of
all there were many
some people starting car companies
extreme car companies are not succeed in
doing it for different races I remember
saying to myself I have to start for
home young we be very difficult it’s
going to take very long time that I am
determined to do it even if it’s almost
impossible and I expect that I was
coming from Sweden only 22 years old I
expected everyone to say maybe not
racism is impossible you will ever
succeeded just agreement so I expected
that so when I got that response from
anything we did not push me down because
I was ready for that peace amongst I it
kind of is that triggered me even more
to say yes I understand that you think
that but i will show you that it is
actually possible i get a lot of now
feedback from people around to see this
who are doing other things in other
areas not only card but they say since
you could do that it anything must be
possible so you made me believe in my
dream and now I’ve done this as exceeded
and kind of thank you whatever and that
is so great because it actually proves
that even hypercars can be very
beneficial to society because it shows
dreams are possible
so when we have had failures those have
ultimately resulted in some of the
greatest successes we’ve ever had you
talk about those particularly when
someone comes to see you and they say
yeah feeling really bad because this
didn’t work out okay well let me tell
you about some other things that didn’t
work out that we learned a lot from and
you know let’s pick ourselves back up
and let’s figure out what what we what
we learn from this and how we go apply
that next time you know when you’re in
the zone of doing things that no one’s
ever done before if you’re only
succeeding you’re not taking enough risk
thank you so much for watching this
episode of environment I love to know
what you think if you want to leave a
comment below thank you for watching go
out and do something great today
continue to believe and I’ll see you
soon
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