Phil and I are so happy to be joined by our good friend Rajesh Setty. Raj is an engineer by trade, serial entrepreneur, author and speaker who dances with rejection and failure. In today’s episode, Raj helps us to extract lessons when things go wrong and shares his 7 beliefs to help us bring our ideas to life, with love.
Share Some Shut Up Love –> It’s like God had a quota on failures and I ran up the quota rather quickly. – @RajSetty @_TheShUTUPShow #shutupshow (click to tweet)
Fun Facts:
- Raj is an entrepreneur, author, speaker and alchemist.
- He has started 7 companies and written 14 books.
- He read 700 books by the age of 10 and published his first book at 13 years old.
- Raj is currently writing his next book with the working title From Smart to Successful.
- Raj lives in Silicon Valley with his wife Kavitha and son Sumukh working on meaningful projects with smart people.
- Raj has suggested a new tagline for The SHUT UP Show: “Where smart people speak up on their shut up moments.”
Defining Shut Up Moment:
I read 700 books by the time I was 10. Mysteries, novels. I used to play a game. I’d figure out what happens in the novel before finishing the book and would end up being wrong. The only way the protagonist will do what I want it to do is if I write my own book. It took me 8 months and 200 pages to write my first novel. My parents thought I was a little bit off on my mental skills because I kept writing and writing. I wouldn’t stop. I thought I’d write for 8 months. It should take 4 to 6 weeks and my book would be published. I started pitching to publishers and something very unexpected happened. I was getting rejection letters faster than I was sending pitch letters.
Over 3.5 years my first book was published when I was 13. I got rejected 160 times. I got immune to being rejected. I have an engineering degree and a PhD in how to get rejected. Me being Indian, my mom starting getting really worried I would end up becoming a writer, which meant she would have failed as a mom if I didn’t become an engineer or doctor. I was not good at drawing so I picked up engineering. And then I thought, I’m good at writing, I’m good at studying, I should be good at entrepreneurship. So I started a company immediately after engineering. That totally bombed big time…
Shut Up Tips:
It took me 8 months and 200 pages to write my first novel. – Raj
Over 3.5 years, my first book was published when I was 13. I got rejected 160 times. I got immune to being rejected. – Raj
I have an engineering degree and a PhD in how to get rejected. – Raj
Studying and writing are generally solo sports. Building a company is a team sport. It’s like God had a quota on failures and I ran up the quota rather quickly. – Raj
I just live every single day as if today’s the last day and have fun with it. – Raj
Serendipity has played a huge role in what I do. – Raj
Tim Sanders told me, “You can’t manufacture relationships over night.” – Raj
If I can connect people on overlapping things they care about, it will be a long lasting connection. – Raj
If I’m open to everything–whatever goodness is coming my way–good things will happen. – Raj
It’s not easy but I’m an engineer so I look at everything in mathematics. Every time I go wrong, I try to spend that time to extract the lessons I learn from the failure and nothing else. – Raj
I would rather produce less of something that’s great quality than more of something that sucks. – Phil
If I do things that look like work, I run away from it. – Raj
Raj Recommends:
Raj’s 7 Beliefs:
- Business is pleasure.
- If you do something you’re very passionate about, intense work is rest. (from Swami Rama Tirtha)
- The best relationships are lifetime relationships.
- Small is the new big.
- Detach yourself from the outcome. (from Bhagavad Gita)
- Payback is directly proportional to the level of immersion.
- Good and timely help is expensive but it costs less than what you will pay for not having it.
Resources mentioned:
Why Plans Are Overrated in My Life by Raj (read post)
Lasting Relationships by Raj (download here)
Beyond Code by Raj (download here)
Find Raj:
Find Raj’s portfolio, books and blog at RajeshSetty.com.
Simply email raj@wittyparrot.com and mention “#shutupshow” to set up a Pro account FREE for one year with WittyParrot.com.