Brent Beshore
Opening Remarks from Main Street Summit 2025
Video Transcript
Main Street Summit Welcome Speech
Hey, welcome everyone. Man, it is full in here. This is fantastic. Thank you all so much for being here. I am so grateful you took time away from your families, from your communities, to come to Columbia, Missouri. What are you doing here? This is crazy.
Speaking of that—if you came from outside of Columbia, just outside of Columbia (you can still be in the state of Missouri), raise your hand right now. Yep, there we go. Look at that. If you came from outside the state of Missouri, keep your hand raised. All right. If you came internationally, keep your hand raised. Yeah, we have people from 15 countries here with us, and I haven't confirmed it, but I think we either have 49 or 50 states represented here as well. It's absolutely incredible. And I'm just so grateful. This is a dream come true.
Before becoming an investor, I was an operator. I've talked about it as eating glass, talked about it as like a knife fight where you just try not to get stabbed, get back into bed, and then try not to get stabbed again. It's hard. Running a business is difficult, and it can be lonely. The thing for me that was a salvation was community—the people I met who I could lean on when things got hard. And my dream was to bring people together and to have community. And this is what you all are.
Two Ways to Live
The thing I want to talk about is community. It's interesting because when I think most people go to a business conference, you're there to transact. You're there to get something from people. And I think there are basically two ways to live life: you can use people to get stuff, or you can use stuff to help people. Every person you chat with, you have to enter into that conversation either wanting something from them or wanting something for them.
And at least for me, it's really difficult. I get in an environment where all these successful people—like the people in this room—are here, and oh man, I feel insecure. I think about all the ways that I know I'm not enough, and it makes me want to say, "Okay, I need to get something from them. I want to transact." I would really encourage you this week if you can—let's be a community of people who befriend, not transact.
Practical Steps
Practically, what does that look like? I think it first looks like asking people, maybe when you meet them, instead of "What do you do?"—which by the way, I do it too, give yourself grace, it happens. If you do it, just be like, "Oh, I said the thing. I did the thing. Hold on, let's start over again." But maybe you can ask people, "Hey, what should I know about you?" And see what people lead with.
I find when I ask that question, "What should I know about you?" usually the most important things bubble up to the surface. Maybe somebody—I was just backstage with one of our speakers and he said, "Hey, I just moved houses." I said, "What's the most... you just moved houses, I just moved cities." It's really interesting. Key in on that. Maybe it is a work issue that the person says, "Hey, the biggest issue right now or the thing that I want you to know about me is that I'm looking to move careers, or maybe I'm looking to start something, or looking to buy a business, or hey, I need help operating my business." Let's be people who ask each other, "Hey, what's important? What should I know about you?"
To me, when there's this feeling inside of me that wells up that I need to transact, I start looking past people. I start looking at people as the tools that I need to use. And the opposite happens when you think about people as being the people themselves that you're interested in, as being for them. And when you think about that, what you really want to do is get to know them.
So practically—get to know people's names. I'm terrible with names. It's so terrible. People walk up to me and I'm like, "Hey Jim," and then I'm like, "Oh, I cannot remember his name." Then I feel awkward the next time I see him. Let's just keep reminding each other what our names are, because names humanize people. Names are who we really are.
Welcome People In
Another thing that we've said in the past about Main Street Summit is that there are always going to be people on the edges, right? And people are coming into this wounded and maybe frustrated. When people are on the edges, we want to be a community that welcomes people in, right? And by the way, if you're showing up here and you're wounded, hey, same here, same as the rest of us. Don't think you're any different.
If you see somebody who's standing on the outside, maybe on their phone looking like they're really important, doing emails, right? Because you got to do emails at 7:30 at night when everyone else is having fun. Be that person who walks up and maybe welcomes that person in. Be the person who, if you're talking with a group of three or four people and somebody's walking by and kind of doing the, "Oh, I don't know who I should talk to," just grab them and bring them in. Let's be a community that embraces people and is inclusive of everyone here.
My Friends Are Your Guides
One of the things that I have the great privilege of is having my family in town here. They're down here in the front row. It's awesome. But I also have dear friends. And one of my favorite things about this event is my friends becoming friends.
So just a show of hands real quick. If you consider me a friend, if we have a personal relationship, will you just raise your hand right now? Raise your hand and keep it up if you don't mind. I want you to look around. If you don't have a relationship with me and you don't know anybody here, look at these people. These are people who I have a relationship with and who care for me and I care for them. Maybe just one more time, keep your hands up, look around, just maybe eyeball a couple of these people.
And if you don't know anybody here, if you're feeling lonely and lost, just eyeball one of these people and walk up and be like, "Hey, you're a friend of Brent's. What are you doing here? How can I help? What should I know?" These are maybe the guides. I didn't—they didn't know they were going to be deputized—but those are the guides to be here.
Challenge: Make Friends, Not Transactions
So I just want to say again, thank you so much. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to the next 48 hours. I've said this to a few of you all: if you're bored or if you're hungry, you're doing something wrong. You should be well-fed and stimulated, to say the least. And I can't be more excited about the people we're going to have on stage. We've got an incredible variety of things off of this stage. This is like, by the way, one of many stages I'm sure you all know.
I really encourage you to go out, to get into conversation in small groups. And also though, I would encourage you—if you're in a conversation and you're just having a blast and things are great and you're like, "Oh man, I got that thing coming up in five minutes," and I do this too, I start sweating. I'm like, "Okay, am I going to have to make the decision to bow out of this conversation? I really want to stay in the conversation." I would just say: stay in the conversation. The purpose of you being here is maybe find a friend.
And in fact, I want to challenge you. Maybe instead of coming out of here with a new transaction, maybe I challenge you to come out of here with at least two or three new friends. Think about it—that's like a friend a day, right? You're going to make a friend today. And if you're in conversation, in relationship with somebody who you're like, "Man, I think this might be my new best friend," that's way more important than going to the next talk, than going to the next activity. The whole purpose of why we're here is to be people in community with other people.
So I just want to really encourage you: focus on that. Focus on being for people, not wanting something from people. And let's have a blast over the next 48 hours. So I'm really grateful. I'm super excited to kick things off with our first speaker who I think you'll be amazed by as I am. So let's kick it off.
