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Excerpt
Join us in uncovering the growth journey of the Marvin Germo. Here we talk about his learnings, his mentors, and his unique mindset of ignoring positive and negative criticism. Before you think that this is bad, listen in on what It really means in this podcast!
Part of Marvin’s growth journey involved reading books in the past. But since in-demand knowledge is incredibly accessible with YouTube, Spotify, and other streaming services, he tends to take advantage of those.
Currently, Marvin tends to look for various economic reports to study like a trade war and its impact on the U.S. or China. In-demand knowledge helps him absorb the wisdom that he wants to get on a certain day.
He doesn’t look for books or audiobooks that can sometimes give you insights on a broad scale, instead, Marvin wants to learn things at his own pace, so he only looks for things that he wants to learn at any given day. He would rather take his time to research on the things he wants to understand.
Most of the time, Marvin watches speeches and interviews of the people that he follows, Mark Cuban, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Kevin O’Leary, etc.
He also enjoys the show Shark Tank, because it’s not only the pitches that he sees but the business philosophies of the people in the show—which to Marvin, can bring tremendous amounts of insights.
The start of Marvin’s journey to success started slow and steady. Right after he graduated, he went out and interviewed different businesspeople and executives. He just asked them for their time, sometimes just for coffee, and he’d have a whole list of questions at the ready.
Marvin also shares that the biggest mistake of a lot of people is that they go to their rich relatives or friends asking for money—and that’s something that you should never do.
Instead, go to your rich relatives, and ask them how they pulled it off.
The money you asked from them will be gone in a matter of time, but the wisdom that they’ll give you will last a lifetime.
Marvin emphasized the importance of trying to learn from the success and failures of your friends and family, particularly the ones that have made it big.
Steve Jobs was an innovator that liked to challenge the status quo, and he is someone that you rarely see nowadays. For Marvin, Apple is not as good as before solely because Steve Jobs is no longer there. Marvin loved Steve Job’s foresight—the fact that he thought of things that were decades ahead of his competition, is something that Marvin admired.
Steve Jobs may not be an investor, like Marvin, but he is still an incredible inspiration. The way he thinks, and the way he does things, were amazing.
That being said, Marvin believes he has a similar mindset with Mark Cuban because he’s a businessman, a great investor, a public speaker, and a basketball fan. In some cases, they have very similar likes and routines.
A lot of people questioned Marvin’s choice to not pursue a career in Engineering. For those people who thought he was wasting opportunities, he just told them that it’s much more of a waste if you do something that will eat you up every single day. That’s why Marvin chose to do something different and risky. Something that was harder, but gave me happiness.
Different people find happiness in different places. Some people find joy in working 8 hours a day and earning six figures, while others just want to grow and expand their business.
For Marvin, social media somehow counteracts this because most people compare their lives to others, and when you compare there is almost always a clear winner and loser.
In Marvin’s words:
“The moment you start comparing yourself with others is when you’ll start becoming jealous, or boastful.
The best thing that you can do is to know what you’re supposed to do, know what you’re calling is, know what your plans and goals are, and don’t compare it with other people.”
Marvin has learned to ignore what other people have to say about him—both the positive and the negative. He believes that too much positive feedback can lead to complacency, while even just one negative comment can destroy a person’s dream.
It’s very interesting how people in the world are more likely to spread negativity than positivity.
As Marvin said, when there’s a whiteboard that has a small dot on it, people will focus on the dot instead of the whiteboard.
People seem to be wired to be more negative instead of providing a positive remark.
Marvin believes that a lot of people think that social media is destroying our ecosystem by letting people become bad.
But what people don’t know is that social media doesn’t change people—it just exposes who you truly are.
Social media provides a platform for people to say things while being under a veil.
To some extent, I think this will make it fairly easier to spot when a person is ranting about their work, or about some other facet of their lives. However, it also makes it so that more and more people become aware of what they’re doing.
The same goes for influencers or anyone that has a social media following. No matter how bad your day gets, when someone recognizes you, you have this obligation to be as nice as you can because it can have a massive effect on your online reputation.