Ian Somerhalder is an award-winning actor turned entrepreneur. Ian starred on The Vampire Diaries and Lost before co-founding multiple businesses, including the supplement company The Absorption Company. Ian joins Adam to share his journey and his best lessons and advice. Ian and Adam discuss a wide range of topics: understanding and unlocking purpose; resilience and how to overcome significant obstacles, setbacks, and challenges; inspirational leadership; the most important step toward success; and much more.
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Read the full transcript of Adam’s conversation with Ian Somerhalder.
Episode Summary
Ian Somerhalder is an award-winning actor turned entrepreneur who starred on The Vampire Diaries and Lost and is a co-founder of The Absorption Company. He tells Adam how a kid raised on a Louisiana bayou, who describes his family as dancing with the poverty line, went from modeling to a global television platform and then to building businesses with purpose.
Ian describes a childhood in Covington and Mandeville, Louisiana, where his family lived off the marshes and the land. He recalls the campaign to Save the Lake, when his community came together to stop industry from destroying Lake Pontchartrain, and says it showed him that when people come together, things happen; from his parents, he learned that when you take more than you give back, there is an imbalance. He credits his mother, who spent a $10,000 severance check and borrowed money on modeling and acting classes so he would not have a ceiling on what he could do. He says he became the face of Versace at about 16, and he says he did his schooling through correspondence.
With The Vampire Diaries, a show he says has been seen by 1.2 billion people, giving him a global platform, Ian realized he could use entertainment to create change. He started the Ian Somerhalder Foundation, says he ran it for 10 years, and concluded that the better path is a for-profit business that funds nonprofit initiatives. His team, he says, conducted 1,100 interviews with young people around the world and found that the common thread was purpose, which he defines as marrying skill with passion.
Ian also shares a setback he has discussed publicly. He financed several companies with money he made from television, made personal guarantees to a bank, and fell into a deep hole when a key customer stopped paying and oil prices collapsed. He says the lessons were never to make personal guarantees and that your team is everything, and he repeats advice from a mentor that in business it is not what you see, it is what you do not see.
On resilience and leadership, Ian urges listeners to be stronger than their excuses, to rely on discipline when motivation fades, and to write down their pain points and goals. He says the best leaders combine compassion, kindness, grit, and inspiration, and that he never says people work for him, only with him. His final message is to identify what you love and what you are good at, and take the first step.
What You’ll Learn
- When people come together, things happen: Ian learned this growing up on a Louisiana bayou, where he watched his community come together to Save the Lake.
- Lead with compassion as well as grit, Ian says: the best leaders set their ego aside, and he never says people work for him, only that they work with him.
- Find purpose by marrying skill with passion, Ian says, a formula he says his team distilled from 1,100 interviews with young people around the world.
- If you want to change the world, Ian says, build a for-profit business that feeds nonprofit initiatives, a conclusion he says he reached after running his foundation for 10 years.
- Never make personal guarantees, and choose your team carefully: a costly business setback taught Ian that the people around you are everything.
- Be stronger than your excuses: Ian says motivation fades but discipline carries you through, and writing down your pain points and goals helps you take the first step.
About Ian Somerhalder
Ian Somerhalder is an award-winning actor turned entrepreneur. He grew up in Covington, Louisiana, and began modeling as a child and, as he recalls, became the face of Versace at about 16, before starring on The Vampire Diaries and Lost. He is a co-founder of The Absorption Company, a supplement company, and he founded the Ian Somerhalder Foundation in 2010, which he says he ran for 10 years and was active at one point in about 180 countries. Drawing on a global television platform and several business ventures, he speaks on entrepreneurship and the environment.
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