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Tee up Hot Tea by Goose.  For me, the song of 2022.  The proper opening.  A light and fun dance party awaits.

 

Dripfield is my favorite album this year -- its been in regular rotation for months now -- and for me, it just hits the spot.  They're hard to categorize as a sound, there's a lot of complexity and range.  It's light, you can dance to it, and they adhere to the jam band vibe.  But it has flares of depth and serious and emotion.  It floats and it cuts.  A killer combo that is hard to find. 

 

If Thrice, MGMT, and The Grateful Dead had a baby, it would be Goose.

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I'm on an airplane to Norway.  I'm going to play disc golf and go hiking for a few weeks. 

 

I tried to get super tired and anchor my sleep on the first part of the plane flight, but only made it 2 hours.  My brain is hazy. I'm staring at a blank document in Evernote entitled "Book".  A bit daunting.  

 

Today is August 26th, the three year anniversary of my employment at Wefunder.  And the first day of my three month sabbatical.  I started thinking about my sabbatical at the start of this year.  I've been keeping a list of different chapters I would like to take on.  It's not much of a plan and I'm nervous going in.  I just want to actually go through with it and I want it to be good. 

 

I suppose the key is to just start writing.  I have no idea what direction I'm going but I trust that it will eventually all come together. 

 

The first proper sit down for this book, let's fucking go. 

 

Stay Positive

 

It was early in the day in March, a friend called me asking to check on my friend Andrew.  Andrew lived in my house, he was a theater kid, and he was late for his rehearsal.  I checked Andrew's room and he was lying in bed.  Something was clearly not right.  His skin was off tone.  His body was in a funky position.  Arms crooked and disheveled.  Extreme energy sat heavy in the room.  A wave of panic took over my body.  I stood there frozen for 10 seconds.  My life changed in that moment. 

 

It's hard to describe what death looks like, but you know when you see it. 

 

Outside of my grandfather passing when I was too young to really know what was going on, this was my first experience with death.  And I had experienced it in a very unique and fucked up way.  Andrew was 20 at the time, and he was one of my dudes.  We had gone to a Pink Floyd laser light show earlier that week.  Andrew was a metal head.  We would dip out of parties late night and jam to Metallica, just us.  He was the dude that was always having a good time.  A chiller.  One of the homies. 

 

A true tragedy, and a freak and random medical condition that took him from this world unfairly.  But his passing had a profound impact on the way in which I looked at life, and for that I will be eternally grateful.  His legacy lives on through Stay Positive. 

 

::

 

I was a dick for a long stretch of college.  My frat had "anointed" me to be the "enforcer", the guy you turn to when you want to kick someone out of a party.  I loved confrontation.  I was looking for trouble.  Things got particularly bad earlier that year.  I had broken my ankle playing tackle football and for 8 months I was in a wheelchair (no crutches for me).  It fueled my persona as the dick head of the house.  A 20 year old blacked out Justin (literally) rolling around the frat party starting fights.  Not my proudest year, but I hope you can appreciate the comedy around it – it's an honest portrait.  That phase was luckily a phase. 

 

I gained a new and valuable perspective when Andrew passed away. 

 

Funerals are interesting -- raw, unfiltered, honest -- heavy and sad -- with a dose of hope and optimism.  A unique environment for storytelling.  The person you were is articulated by those you were closest to.  It's generally the best pieces of you that come out.  It's a beautiful thing in many ways.  For that same reason, it's incredibly sad.  A heavy dose of sadness, honesty, reflection, and hope all bundled together. 

 

Everyone spoke to how positive Andrew was in life.  He was fun, encouraging, light -- always in good spirits.  Stories of positivity cycled – through good times and bad -- his attitude was the steady baseline.  Positivity was the consistent theme. 

 

Shortly after the funeral, I remember having my first really honest and deep conversation with myself.  I sat on a bench in front of the ocean, alone, for hours.

What would they be saying about me if I died today? 

Probably not what I would want.  I was a dick.  I felt that deeply, sharply.  And it prompted a change. 

 

My friends painted "Stay Positive" on their living room wall after Andrew passed.  It was a motto that resonated, and it made its rounds.  I loved the energy, the feeling, the tone, the spirit of the message.  So we made Stay Positive t-shirts and sunglasses.  The crew rocked the vibe and I wanted to be the champion of that vibe. 

 

Tucson summer nights were different, a ghost town with seemingly no rules.  Too hot to be outside during the day unless you were at the pool (which I crushed).  The nights were primed for fun.  It was a very comfortable heat.  Sandals, bathing suit, cigs, keystones, light up frisbee was all you needed for a good time.  One night, we went out to tag "Stay Positive" around our neighborhood. I still have the stencil.  We probably covered a few mile radius around our house, tagging whatever made sense. 

 

I would start to see random people on Facebook post selfies with those stencils.  Things snowballed -- positivity drove more positivity.  You became consumed in it.  It was a blanket of new energy around me, and I liked it.  The message became more and more internalized.  

 

I carry that with me to this day. 

 

Stay Positive, Round 2

 

I started my career in phone sales.  Talk about a grind.  After 2 years I decided that inside sales was not for me and I needed to try something new.  I had no fucking clue what that was going to be.  At that time, I was clueless and confused. 

 

So I quit my job and picked up screen printing as a side hustle.  Time to run this whole "Stay Positive" thing back. 

 

My homie Ryan worked with me at LinkedIn, had his own screen printing side hustle.  Ryan was in my fraternity when Andrew passed away, and had loose ties to the Stay Positive thing.  

 

Ryan was an acquired taste. In college he ran for president of our fraternity and made t-shirts with a huge stencil of his face with the words "REGRESS".  He didn't come close to winning. But he kept hustling t-shirts and sweatshirts with his big ugly face -- not just in college -- but into his life outside of college.  He literally had a drawer full of REGRESS swag that he was selling to the folks that rocked with him at LinkedIn.  If you rocked with him, you got the REGRESS swag.  Still can't make sense of it, and that was the beauty of it. Branding at its finest.

 

Ryan buddied up with the people at San Franpsycho on Divis in SF and we would go in after hours to print sweatshirts.  He got me setup with the frame, design, paint, and sweatshirt supplier.  He hooked it up and we rocked the side hustle game together. I remember late nights screen printing with Ryan very fondly.  I had an Etsy shop and hustled it amongst my network.  It was fun.

 

I consider Stay Positive to be my first stab at entrepreneurship -- and the thing that led me to Kiva. Something about entrepreneurship, coupled with the energy and intention of the brand -- the stars aligned – and that was a huge deal at that time.  Kiva came into my life when I was truly lost professionally.  A very important and positive inflection point.

 

My favorite memory of that time period was seeing one of my sweatshirts at Outside Lands being worn by someone I didn't know.

"well, that means I'm legit"

 

I was legit.  

 

In some ways it didn't last long, I probably made and sold a hundred sweatshirts, but the vibe has been a steady roll for 15+ years.   It's now a part of my identity. 

 

Stay Positive = Justin Renfro

I branded myself. 

That brand brought good energy.  It was a magnet for the right people to come into my life. 

It gave me perspective.  I had a guiding light when I really needed it. 

I learned a lot.  It was my first taste of entrepreneurship and branding.  It led me to Kiva. 

It was all good. 

 

Growth Mindset

 

If I could sum up what Stay Positive means to me today, it's all about having a growth mindset.

 

Life is hard, for everyone. No exceptions.

 

The bigger the challenge, the bigger the opportunity for learning and growth.  Embrace the challenges life throws you. 

 

It's about the important stuff.  You wanna get the important stuff right.

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