Be somebody worth believing in

Heath and I were best friends all throughout grade school. Huge fans of the St. Louis Cardinals, too. 

I’m guessing my dad took this photo of us back in 2009. 

When we weren’t at the stadium, we were playing Ps2 at his house, riding four-wheelers, or being kids. 

It was every weekend. 

By the time we got to high school, we started to drift apart. 

He played football. He spent time with football players. 

I played soccer. I spent time with soccer players. 

We were always friendly to one another, though. 

In January, I talked to Heath for the first time in several years. 

Called me out of the blue to tell me how cool he thought Thrive was. 

I was shocked when I saw his name pop up on my phone.

We spent almost 90 minutes catching up. 

He talked a lot about how awesome it was to see someone from our tiny town do something cool. 

Perspective is a crazy thing. 

In my mind, I hadn’t done anything cool yet.

Thrive had barely launched. 

I made a Facebook post about it so that my friends would know what I was up to. 

We barely had any members. Certainly no traction yet. 

And I didn’t even know what Thrive was, or what I wanted it to be. 

But somehow Heath understood it perfectly. It made sense to him. 

I remember when he called me, I was having a tough couple of weeks. 

I truly had no idea how to sell the value of Thrive. Felt like I was taking it in the teeth every time I opened LinkedIn. 

But hearing him say he was proud of what I was doing made me believe in myself more than I did at the beginning of that call. 

It made me want to work harder because I knew he really did believe in me.

Over the past year, Heath and I have kept in contact quite a bit. He actually called me yesterday (I missed it), so I’m looking forward to ringing him back after work today. 

Perspectives like his remind me that this community is bigger than me. 

You don’t have to be a bootstrapper to know that getting the right people in your corner is important. 

That’s there’s nothing cool about trying to figure out this entrepreneurship thing all alone. 

Everyone wants to help. Not a lot of people know how. 

Sometimes, you don’t need a 20 hour course to get back on track. 

You just need reminded that what you’re doing matters. It has impact. People are inspired by your story. 

When I’m having a shi^^y day, I remind myself that if I ever gave up, it would make my next call with Heath a lot tougher. 

What would I tell him? 

That I didn’t believe in myself as much as he believes in me? 

No thanks. 

Be somebody worth believing in. 

Believe that what you’re doing has purpose.

And I promise, members like the one’s in Thrive will show up in numbers to help you win. 

If you don’t have a Heath in your corner, ping me and I will personally help you find them. 

Let’s Thrive. 

— Eric 👋