This is Why I 'Called Out' the "Sharks"

In March 2013, I called myself out.

It was 2am, I was sitting in the living room of a pretty sweet condo in the heart of San Francisco with a beautiful view of the Bay Bridge. I had just spent an hour responding to comments and messages on my personal blog - the #besomebody blog. Talking to people around the world about their dreams and their fears and their passions. About overcoming the excuses that were holding them back. About getting off their asses and going for it. Whatever IT was. No matter how scary it sounded.

I was feeling so inspired after those conversations..

Then I started to feel full of shit.

I realized that, while I was trying my best to push and inspire people to do what they love and follow their passions, I hadn't even done it yet. I was too scared to leave a life of comfort and stability and pleasantry. I was afraid of failing. I was afraid of what people might think. I was afraid of letting people down.

My dream was to take my side project of "#besomebody", and turn it into a global platform that made people FEEL something. Something that sparked them and inspired them, and soon - with technology that we would build - enabled them to go do whatever their "IT" was. I felt my purpose was to help people live their passion. But I had no clue where or how to start. I just knew that I would never start if I never made the decision to go for it.

So that night, I scribbled a proclamation to myself. I called it "Bullshit." And I called myself out. Two weeks later, I walked into my CEO and mentor's office - Nick Woodman - and resigned. A week later, I moved back to Austin, Texas to work with my brother, Rick Shaikh, and lay out an 18-month plan to travel the world and build our movement. We wanted to build it through art and music and adventure and education and inspiration. We wanted to have fun and be real. We wanted to be bold, even if it ruffled some feathers. But first, we climbed up to the top of Mount Bonnell, and called ourselves out again. That post/piece became the early anthem of our movement. (Watch it here: https://besomebody.com/videos/we-re-calling-you-out)

Today, our movement reaches 10 million people. We still have yet to figure out yet the best way to construct the "enable" part of our dream. We still are learning how to build and grow the business side of this dream (without sacrificing the purity of the original purpose), but we are working hard on it. So many people have joined this mission, and plenty of people have hated on it. Life has gotten tougher, but it's also gotten much more meaningful. And tonight, as many of you saw in a quick little teaser this week, when I walk into the Shark Tank, I get to recite some of that original post again. It's television, and it's a short segment, so I honestly don't know how much of it the producers will choose to show and share. But I know that I walked into The Tank with a secret, sentimental purpose: to call myself and our community - and the Sharks lol - out, just like I did back in 2013. I thought that would be pretty cool. (Even if Kevin O'Leary aka Mr. Wonderful didn't think so. lol).

Everything comes full circle when you're following your passion.

Much love to everyone who's helped us grow this community, movement and platform around the world. Tonight is just another memorable step in this wild journey. We've come a long way, and we have a very long way to go. But I promise you one thing: we aren't stopping until we build a platform that truly helps people live their passion. Thanks very much for your support.

We are building this together. #besomebody.

Kash.

ps - check us out on ABC's "Shark Tank" on Friday, November 4th, at 9PM EST/PST.

besomebody.com