Don’t Forget to Be Awesome – Hank Green (Entrepreneur, YouTube Maverick, and Musician)

Hank Green is an entrepreneur, musician, YouTube Content Creator, and co-founder of the Nerdfighteria Community. In 2007 he and his brother John began a YouTube channel called Vlogbrothers, today the channel has more than 1,800,000 subscribers and has created a dedicated community of global viewers. Hank has a myriad of projects and accomplishments to his name, such as the Emmy award-winning web series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, the invention of 2D-Glasses, and the VidCon conference for online video. He’s produced videos for NASA and written for publications such as The New York Times and Scientific American.
At the heart of Hank’s work is a philosophy he shares with us in his Paper Napkin Wisdom. In the words of Wil Wheaton, Hank reminds us: “Don’t be a dick”.
It’s a seemingly easy idea but as Hank notes, it’s not as self-explanatory or easy as it seems. In our drive for cultural norms of success, it’s all too easy to forget to live by that simple phrase. “It’s not a default state,” Hank says. It is something that requires energy and that’s a finite resource, especially for entrepreneurs who have so many things to put focus on. It’s dangerous to use a ruthless management style, Hank explains. “People don’t what to work with that,” he says “unless you bring something really amazing to the table, people won’t want to deal with you and the word will spread.”
So what’s the answer? How do we avoid being a dick? Part of it is trying to remain aware of when you find yourself slipping away from your core values, but part of it is accountability; the kind of accountability built through people and relationships. When you stay really value based around the change you want to be in the world, you attract people who are going to be really dedicated to it. When you focus on those values, you create a culture where people feel comfortable and when people feel comfortable, they’re a lot more likely to admit when/if they make a mistake and they’re more likely to work at fixing the mistake rather than trying to deny responsibility or shift focus off of themselves.
For Hank, business is about much more than money; it’s about accomplishing goals, doing interesting things, and making the world a more accessible thing. Impact is what has value to him and for him, that’s the true measure of success.
Hank doesn’t believe in the idiom “Nice guys finish last.” He says, “If you look at someone who has a healthy, happy family, and they’re working hard, you can’t say that person is finishing last because they’re doing what they want to do and having the life that they want; there’s so much value in that.”
Hank’s message is one that is complicated in its simplicity. It’s about more than making sure we aren’t acting badly, it’s about reminding ourselves to take a step back, looking at the big picture and aligning with our values.
Really, it comes down to impact, what kind of impact are we having? What kind of environment do we create and what impact do we leave behind us? As entrepreneurs, we all started wanting to make some kind of impact, it’s important we don’t lose that focus because without it, are we successful? Really?
Listen to the conversation with Hank here: