Brennan Costello

Engler Entrepreneurship Author

11/18/2017 Added

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Haley Ehrke interviews Engler's Chief Business Relations Officer and former Engler student, Brennan Costello

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[00:00:00.362]Welcome to Inspired by Engler, I'm Haley Urke
[00:00:02.960]and I'm a student at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.
[00:00:06.048]Here with me today I have Brennan Costello.
[00:00:08.438]Brennan Costello is an employee of the Engler program.
[00:00:11.516]He is the chief relations business officer.
[00:00:14.266]Thanks for coming in today, Brennan.
[00:00:15.626]Absolutely..
[00:00:17.060]Can you tell me about yourself in 25 words or less?
[00:00:21.564]Sure, I grew up in agricultural background,
[00:00:26.005]very passionate about entrepreneurship,
[00:00:28.762]helping others start their businesses.
[00:00:33.540]So what's the essence of your story?
[00:00:35.958]I would say I think that's a real interesting question,
[00:00:39.490]not something I really think about much.
[00:00:41.324]A lot about what I think about what I've learned
[00:00:44.587]is to really grow into what I'm passionate about
[00:00:47.540]which is the ideation side of starting a business
[00:00:50.543]and that's something I'm just really passionate about.
[00:00:53.206]I know that I want to start my own business
[00:00:54.734]and my experiences have kind of helped lead up to that.
[00:00:57.491]Tell me about the most transformative experience
[00:01:00.039]you've ever had.
[00:01:01.368]I would actually say, thinking now,
[00:01:04.213]maybe it wasn't the most transformative experience
[00:01:06.082]like while I was in it.
[00:01:07.399]I was actually showing sheep when I was a kid.
[00:01:09.229]Because it was the first time
[00:01:10.062]I'd had to work at something like really hard.
[00:01:12.577]To take care of an animal
[00:01:14.585]that was very, very fickety,
[00:01:15.955]it was my job to like take care of the sheep.
[00:01:17.671]So it was kind of, Dad helped me get started
[00:01:20.777]but after that it eventually became kind of my own thing
[00:01:23.177]that like I worked at so.
[00:01:25.487]And that kind of set me up for a lot of the stuff I do now.
[00:01:27.408]So that was probably the most transformative experience.
[00:01:30.775]Can you tell me how it was transformative?
[00:01:33.074]To be in charge of my own thing,
[00:01:34.160]it was like my own responsibility.
[00:01:36.424]I learned a lot about myself
[00:01:38.884]and taking care of those animals.
[00:01:41.769]Just like, had to do things I'd never done before,
[00:01:45.136]like having to take care of those animals
[00:01:47.521]and having to learn how to do that
[00:01:49.180]like very much played into just other things I wanted to do
[00:01:53.889]and I think eventually my desire
[00:01:55.474]to like have my own business.
[00:01:57.175]Okay, can you walk me through the route
[00:01:59.117]that got a kid who liked showing sheep
[00:02:01.529]to the point of pitching a business concept
[00:02:03.519]on three different continents?
[00:02:05.424]Sure, so it was kind of a journey of
[00:02:09.395]learning a lot about agriculture
[00:02:10.981]and then I did that through like college
[00:02:16.055]and my experiences as a state and national officer.
[00:02:18.726]I learned a lot about Ag so I knew I wanted
[00:02:20.102]to do something with Ag.
[00:02:21.056]And then I think showing sheep like I said
[00:02:25.485]kind of got the basics of like what I wanted to do
[00:02:27.633]in an actual business.
[00:02:30.153]I didn't know it probably until I graduated college
[00:02:32.515]that like that's something I really wanted to do.
[00:02:35.667]And so I kind of like,
[00:02:42.046]It wasn't until
[00:02:42.879]I graduated college that I think I got super intentional
[00:02:44.983]about what I wanted to do.
[00:02:46.795]I think college is the time when you're supposed to
[00:02:48.152]really refine what you're interested in
[00:02:50.770]and you need to find what path you want to go down.
[00:02:54.626]And then just get super intentional
[00:02:55.827]about going down that path.
[00:02:57.842]So I used college and those experiences
[00:03:02.089]to learn a lot and see a lot of different things
[00:03:03.993]and trying really crappy internships
[00:03:05.561]to find what I liked and didn't like.
[00:03:06.938]And once I finally hit on, and you'll know when you hit it,
[00:03:11.158]like I really liked this idea of starting something new
[00:03:15.870]or helping other people start towards a start-up path.
[00:03:21.259]That's where I kind of wanted to focus in
[00:03:23.795]so that's what I'm doing now
[00:03:24.910]is trying to be really intentional
[00:03:25.976]about moving towards running something myself
[00:03:28.533]and moving towards being able to help other people do that.
[00:03:30.690]Can you kind of tell me how you are an entrepreneur?
[00:03:34.216]You talked a lot about sheep and how that's made you start.
[00:03:37.785]But I know you started various other businesses
[00:03:40.140]besides just sheep and helping people
[00:03:43.771]start businesses.
[00:03:45.035]Sure, so like I did sheep as just kind of an SAE
[00:03:50.468]project through FFA, but I wouldn't consider that
[00:03:54.199]like a real business.
[00:03:56.110]The first thing I really ran on my own was in college
[00:04:00.629]I had kind of a franchise business
[00:04:03.097]for a business called Corner Booth
[00:04:05.139]where you took pictures at different Greek events
[00:04:10.807]kind of in a photo booth type setting.
[00:04:12.566]And so I took pictures, hired people to take pictures
[00:04:16.078]and then grew the business from a brand new brand
[00:04:18.815]on UNL's campus to $15,000 in sales in a semester.
[00:04:23.421]So that was really big
[00:04:26.225]and that was kind of my first experience
[00:04:27.175]really, really enjoying running my own thing
[00:04:30.294]and not having to work for anybody.
[00:04:32.523]Now I work as a co-founder of a business called
[00:04:36.535]Farmafield that's still pretty young
[00:04:39.152]so I wouldn't really consider that a real business yet.
[00:04:41.566]So it's kind of an idea right now we're working on
[00:04:44.432]but in the future, definitely want to like
[00:04:46.632]have my own kind of lifestyle type of business.
[00:04:49.663]Something or a couple of things that I have on the side
[00:04:52.281]that I can do that are mine and I'm going to work on
[00:04:55.014]and I'm very passionate about them, so, yeah.
[00:04:57.370]What is the hardest and even painful part about being
[00:04:59.165]and entrepreneur?
[00:05:01.163]I think some people would say things like no set path.
[00:05:03.476]So it's not like, you don't go
[00:05:05.106]to college to be an entrepreneur.
[00:05:07.049]Or you don't go to, there's not like a set number
[00:05:09.902]of things you need to do to be an entrepreneur.
[00:05:12.172]But I kind of like that, that you can kind of find out
[00:05:14.993]and figure out how to do it.
[00:05:16.055]I think the hardest thing is like you have to
[00:05:17.712]for me it's that being accountable to myself.
[00:05:22.734]So like you have to set things up to be accountable
[00:05:25.531]to really get started and to work on things.
[00:05:27.355]So just working every day at something
[00:05:30.518]and being okay with not making any money for a while.
[00:05:33.961]I think that risk component is a hard thing for me.
[00:05:38.941]It's just like not making any money
[00:05:39.891]but you need to work at something,
[00:05:41.374]getting the drive to do that.
[00:05:43.371]How do you keep yourself accountable?
[00:05:46.052]I don't do it very well,
[00:05:47.200]so like I'm figuring out how to do that right now.
[00:05:50.232]Hired a coach and have some other things in place
[00:05:52.408]to help hold me accountable to make sure
[00:05:54.626]that I'm kind of tied to people
[00:05:56.673]so that it actually gets done.
[00:05:58.661]I'm very passionate about doing it
[00:06:00.066]and it drives me crazy that I don't.
[00:06:01.186]I just have to build some systems, I would think
[00:06:04.750]and I'm in the process of doing that now
[00:06:06.132]to help hold me accountable.
[00:06:07.553]So in your words, what is the most rewarding experience
[00:06:10.207]that comes from being an entrepreneur?
[00:06:12.959]I don't know if I can super answer that so well
[00:06:15.588]because I haven't been an entrepreneur very long,
[00:06:17.542]or I don't really consider myself an entrepreneur right now
[00:06:20.148]since I don't have a company that's actively making money.
[00:06:23.381]But I mean the part that is really exciting about me
[00:06:27.573]I can get to make the own decisions, my own decisions
[00:06:31.369]and I am the ultimate decision maker for a business
[00:06:35.224]so I have to be responsible for how this business does.
[00:06:42.091]That feeling and then being able to do that
[00:06:44.079]is really rewarding.
[00:06:45.797]And then when other people work for you
[00:06:47.004]that's also super rewarding to just be able to,
[00:06:49.916]be able to give them a paycheck as well is satisfying.
[00:06:54.748]Do you think it's okay to fail?
[00:06:56.385]Yeah, I think it is, okay is kind of a weird word.
[00:07:02.405]It's not necessary to fail, but as long as you are learning
[00:07:05.324]and you failed for the right reasons.
[00:07:10.416]If you fail because you didn't take time
[00:07:12.306]to figure out who your customer was,
[00:07:14.595]you didn't figure out who something is.
[00:07:17.850]If you fail because you didn't do your due diligence
[00:07:19.327]that's not a good thing.
[00:07:21.054]Failure is good when you learn from it.
[00:07:26.692]And you didn't waste a whole lot of time
[00:07:27.871]before you got to that failure.
[00:07:29.375]And failure's really good
[00:07:30.449]when you go after something really big.
[00:07:34.492]If you fail because you're going after
[00:07:36.211]a huge, ridiculous challenge and you fail, good.
[00:07:39.714]If you fail because you're just lazy, super bad.
[00:07:43.208]I know that a mantra of the Engler program
[00:07:44.374]is fail forward, fail fast, fail cheap.
[00:07:46.446]Okay, do that, but like make it for the right reasons.
[00:07:49.743]Don't just be satisfied with failure
[00:07:51.771]'cause then that's wrong.
[00:07:52.657]You gotta learn from it, you gotta do it
[00:07:53.884]because you're trying to do something big.
[00:07:56.479]I've been really thinking a lot lately
[00:07:58.265]about trying to do some really difficult physical challenge,
[00:08:02.130]an Iron man or some race or something
[00:08:05.238]so that it's like there's more challenge involved in it
[00:08:09.482]and it's not just failure because of complacency.
[00:08:14.770]Was there an experience
[00:08:15.647]that made your view of failure change?
[00:08:22.659]Not necessarily, I mean I've failed plenty of times.
[00:08:25.711]I've had bad experiences but it wasn't like,
[00:08:29.358]it was more I think of just like learning from successes,
[00:08:33.146]learning from failures and just talking to a lot of mentors,
[00:08:35.923]who I've seen do it and read a lot of books
[00:08:38.493]to get a healthy view of what failure means.
[00:08:41.514]Why do you think most people fail as entrepreneurs?
[00:08:44.525]I don't know, I guess I honestly haven't talked
[00:08:46.587]to too many people that have failed.
[00:08:50.860]That's probably because I'm young
[00:08:51.711]and new into this industry
[00:08:53.965]and so I haven't seen a whole lot, or seen the trends
[00:08:58.165]or knew enough people that like tried something
[00:09:00.191]or didn't try something.
[00:09:01.837]What I've seen just with working with students
[00:09:03.541]and young entrepreneurs,
[00:09:04.696]it's because they don't set up the right accountability
[00:09:10.919]and systems that they never get started enough
[00:09:16.207]to fail in a big way.
[00:09:17.833]It's like they never took the risk,
[00:09:19.477]they have to jump to continue an idea along far enough
[00:09:22.979]to really make it happen or not.
[00:09:23.999]So I've seen more people not start
[00:09:25.312]then actually start and fail.
[00:09:27.029]And I think that's a bigger issue to me.
[00:09:29.322]Who is your biggest inspiration?
[00:09:31.814]So it's not, when I think about this question
[00:09:33.306]I don't really necessarily think of one person
[00:09:37.854]as being an inspiration
[00:09:38.994]because I don't really want to be someone else.
[00:09:43.428]Or what someone else has done, that's their path.
[00:09:46.086]I want to take my own path, so when I think about myself
[00:09:47.969]I'm stealing this a little bit
[00:09:48.937]from Matthew McConaughey who has a great speech on this
[00:09:51.462]but think about like who I want to be in the future
[00:09:54.680]or like what my life looks like in five or 10 years,
[00:09:59.312]that's what my inspiration is
[00:10:00.734]because that's where I want to be at,
[00:10:03.148]like leading skills that I have, what I'm doing,
[00:10:06.905]what my relationships and family looks like.
[00:10:09.930]Basically, my envisioned future is my inspiration
[00:10:12.907]'cause that's what I want to get,
[00:10:13.946]so that's why I set up things to do,
[00:10:17.250]you know day to day or things right now.
[00:10:18.643]That's because my inspiration is
[00:10:20.075]this is the envisioned future that I want.
[00:10:23.037]So that's what I want to get to.
[00:10:26.355]Inspiration is only good enough that it causes you to act.
[00:10:31.654]And so it's not really a person that causes me to act,
[00:10:34.521]but it's like what I want in the future.
[00:10:37.866]So do you read a lot of books that inspire you
[00:10:40.670]or is it more of podcasts or TED talks, or.
[00:10:45.822]So inspiring I think is the wrong word with that.
[00:10:48.344]I consume a lot of books and a lot of podcasts.
[00:10:53.003]But I do those because they either entertain me
[00:10:56.201]or they add to my knowledge base or they make me think.
[00:11:00.461]I'm trying to learn from them,
[00:11:01.513]so I listen to religious podcasts when I work out
[00:11:05.448]'cause that's like an area I'm trying to learn,
[00:11:06.828]or I'll listen to a lot of homilies
[00:11:08.099]because I'm trying to learn in that area.
[00:11:09.669]They're not really like inspiring me
[00:11:11.044]but they help me become better
[00:11:13.999]so I eventually can get to that envisioned future.
[00:11:16.095]I like to read a lot of books
[00:11:17.227]and they help me grow the way that I'm thinking.
[00:11:20.046]But I'm just adding to my repertoire of what I know
[00:11:24.407]so that I can get to this envisioned future.
[00:11:26.306]Because that's what inspires me to act.
[00:11:28.291]Where do you see yourself in ten years?
[00:11:30.977]Figuring a lot of that out right now.
[00:11:32.604]But I see myself with growing a business,
[00:11:35.042]a couple of businesses,
[00:11:36.335]working on some really exciting projects on the side.
[00:11:39.965]I see myself teaching in some capacity,
[00:11:41.344]whether that's at a university
[00:11:42.920]or just with a group of people.
[00:11:46.367]I see myself with a really awesome home
[00:11:48.798]and having a family that has started
[00:11:53.640]with a couple of lifestyle type of businesses
[00:11:56.074]that have some income that gives me the freedom
[00:11:57.920]to do what I want and to have a boat,
[00:12:00.799]'cause I really want that,
[00:12:03.237]have a great group of friends and family
[00:12:05.023]that I'm very close to with the great physical condition
[00:12:08.501]and that's kind of a rambling answer
[00:12:11.097]but that's the kind of vision that I think about and I want.
[00:12:15.097]Business, healthy, great relationships,
[00:12:17.465]that's what I'm seeking after.
[00:12:19.241]How is that different than the Brennan Costello brand
[00:12:21.551]a decade from now?
[00:12:25.121]So how does that look different than it does right now?
[00:12:31.070]It's more disciplined, better more meaningful relationships,
[00:12:35.150]and I'm better at being like a friend and a father
[00:12:37.304]and an employee.
[00:12:39.913]I have my own business that I'm up and running
[00:12:41.910]and doing by myself and it's rolling
[00:12:44.076]and it's doing really well versus now,
[00:12:45.967]I don't have one.
[00:12:46.880]So like adding that would be a big thing.
[00:12:51.630]Better shape, eating healthier,
[00:12:53.382]having more knowledge about entrepreneurship
[00:12:54.701]and be able to be more impactful
[00:12:56.646]in how I'm teaching that.
[00:13:02.983]It doesn't have this huge change, it's just elevated.
[00:13:07.873]Thank you for tuning in to Inspired by Engler.
[00:13:10.334](soft music)

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