#407 Bruce Springsteen Repairs the Hole in Himself

**David Senra** (0:00)
I've been dancing around with this book on and off for probably like six months, maybe even longer. So I'd read parts of it, I'd put it down, I'd pick it back up. I wasn't even sure how to make an episode about it, or even if I should make an episode about it. But what kept me coming back was that Bruce is able to describe ideas that have been in my head. There's stuff in this book that I have believed, that I have experienced, especially with the way he views his work, that I have been unable to articulate before. I have been unable to put into words the exact same feeling that Bruce describes in the book. And what is great about this book, and this is where I was really unsure, is he's unbelievably honest about things that most people hide. He is writing the book as a nearly 70-year-old man full of experience and hard-earned wisdom that only comes from time and from living a full life. And so I want to tell you what made me pick up the book to begin with. I've told you over and over again that one of my favorite documentaries, one I've watched, I don't know, 10, 15 times, it's called The Defiant Ones. It is a four-part series on the partnership between Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre. To me, it's one of the best documentaries about entrepreneurship. And Bruce Springsteen and Jimmy Iovine are very close friends. They work together. And in that documentary, I heard Bruce Springsteen say this. He said, I didn't want to be rich. I didn't want to be famous. I didn't even want to be happy. I wanted to be great. And what drew me to Bruce Springsteen was when in the documentary, Jimmy Iovine said it was Bruce Springsteen that taught Jimmy about work ethic. And so I'm going to read a few quotes from Bruce Springsteen that's in the documentary that made me pick up his autobiography. And so he says, if you want to accomplish what hasn't been accomplished before, you have to be relentlessly and unapologetically determined. When you're trying to push the boundaries on things and when you're moving into different types of frontiers, you need to be surrounded by people who really believe in what you're doing. We were just very, very determined. If you were new to our club, the relentless pursuit of our idea would have exhausted you. It was simply understood that you're there because you believed what we were doing was worth it. And he's describing working on the album that changes his life. It is his third album. It's called Born to Run, which is also the name of his autobiography in the book I'm going to talk to you about today. Now this work ethic never left him. So even though he wrote this autobiography by hand, this book is almost 600 pages. It's huge. He hand wrote the entire manuscript in his notebook and then he rewrote it again and again in longhand. He was editing not just for accuracy, but for tone. He wrote it like he was composing a record. And you feel it when you read the book. I think the lesson there for you and I is when you pour a lot of love and dedication and obsess over details and take the time to get it right in the product or service you're building, even if the customer or the person that's using your products or service can't articulate it, they feel it. And so that's what drew me to pick up the book. And the reason I was going back and forth on this, because if I just focus on his work ethic, which was originally the idea, I was gonna name the episode, you know, the relentless work ethic of Bruce Springsteen, that would make perfect sense for an episode of Founders. But then I'd be ignoring the most important part of the book, which is this insanely talented musical genius, hardworking obsessive, getting everything that he ever wanted and being plunged deep into depression. I got to go to Jimmy Iveen's house. I spent a few hours at his house in Beverly Hills recently. It was remarkable. And to this day, Jimmy and Bruce are very close friends. Before I left, Jimmy is like, you need to go see the new Bruce Springsteen movie. It's called Deliver Me From Nowhere. I didn't even watch the trailer before I saw the movie. Jimmy Iveen says, go watch the movie. I'm going to go watch the movie. But what I was shocked, it wasn't about, I thought it was going to be an overview of his career. It wasn't about that. It was about a lot of the dark things that Bruce speaks about in this autobiography. And so what I'm going to do is this. I'm going to go through the book in chronological order. His life story unfolds in chronological order. And I think that's a really important part of the book. And I think you'll identify, learn and benefit from the way that Bruce Springsteen describes his life, the experiences that he had, what he learned from that, and how he changed over time. And so I also want to do something different with regards to the sponsors of this podcast. Usually I try to weave the sponsors into the actual story of the podcast. I see no way to do that with the subject matter we're about to talk about. So I'm just going to tell you about the three very important partners that I have. Right now up front. And then obviously if you get value from my work and you need these services, these are the people I recommend that you use. And so the first one is obviously Ramp. Ramp is the presenting sponsor of this podcast. As we are about to go through, I just told you this guy hand wrote his autobiography by hand. He's obviously obsessed with details. That is something that a lot of history's greatest founders have in common. They know their business from A to Z and their costs down to the penny. And Ramp makes doing this effortless. Ramp gives you easy to use corporate cards for your entire team, automated expense reporting, bill payments, accounting and cost control. These corporate cards are fully programmable. You can set limits so the spending of your team never gets out of hand. Most companies only find out about excessive spending after the fact. With Ramp, you can stop it before it happens. The Chief Accounting Officer of Notion just said this about Ramp. Ramp is the only vendor that can service all of our employees across the globe in one unified system. They handle multiple currencies seamlessly, integrate with all of our accounting systems, and thanks to their customizable card and policy controls, we're compliant worldwide. Matt Paulson, who's the founder of MarketBeat, recently switched to Ramp, and this is what he said about it. Ramp is the best. The amount of money you'll save from unwanted renewals and employees who think company credit card equals buy whatever you want, will far exceed the best credit card rewards program. Matt just sent me a message and said Ramp helped him save $420,000 a month. Take the time to set up a demo of the product and you'll see why many of the world's top founders are running their company on Ramp. Go to ramp.com to learn how they can help your business save time and money today. That is ramp.com. The second partner I want to tell you about is Vanta. Vanta helps your company prove you're secure, so more customers will use your product or service. Customers trust can make or break your business. This is one of the things that's most interesting to me about Bruce, by the way, is the fact that the trust that he earned and never violated with his customers, with his listeners, have compounded for decade after decade to the point where he's almost 80 and he's still touring. He's still selling out giant stadiums. You should do everything in your power to make your customers trust your business the way that Bruce's customers or fans trust him. Customer trust can make or break your business. And the more your business grows, the more complex your security and compliance tools will get. That can turn into chaos, and Vanta helps you tame that chaos. You can think of Vanta as your always-on AI-powered security expert who scales with you. Vanta automates compliance, continuously monitors your controls, and gives you a single source of truth for compliance and risk. So whether you're a fast-growing startup like Cursor or an enterprise company like Snowflake, Vanta fits easily into your existing workflows so you can keep growing a company your customers can trust. Vanta will help you win trust, close deals, and stay secure faster and with less effort. Go to vanta.com/founders, and you'll get $1,000 off that is vanta.com/founders.