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New Year's is here, and with it brings the possibility of change.

As one behavioral scientist put it, first starts are really powerful.

So as you head into 2023, LifeKit is a great resource to help you plan your life and tackle changes, both big and small.

Listen to the LifeKit podcast from NPR.

So what happened to the business?

It was over. I didn't have the cash flow, and the phone started ringing, and it was the landlord of that building saying, you know, rent hasn't been paid.

You know, all of my vendors started calling me. My house was under foreclosure, and my wife and my mother-in-law ended up pawning their wedding rings to save the house.

Wow.

You know, and with me, I never considered suicide, but I know why people do.

From NPR, it's how I built this, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.

I'm Guy Raaz, and on today's show, How Troy Carter went from the rough streets of West Philly to launching the career of one of the biggest pop stars in the world, Lady Gaga.

So it usually takes a bit of instinct, some failure, and a lot of luck to figure out what customers are going to want to buy.

Seth Goldman, he figured a lot of people would want a barely-sweetened iced tea, and with honesty, he turned out to be right.

Herb Keller, he thought people wanted cheap flights with no frills, and, well, we got Southwest.

But for Troy Carter, it wasn't just that he thought Lady Gaga would be huge, it's that he had no choice, because at the time he met her, and this is just 10 years ago, he had lost all of his money, he was totally broke.

But somehow, over the next few years, Troy essentially built a company, you could call it Lady Gaga Inc., a sprawling empire of writers, dancers, choreographers, costum artists, roadies, musicians, producers, engineers, marketers, publicists, you get the idea.

And Troy built that without any family connections, or money, or formal training. In fact, much to his mother's disappointment, Troy dropped out of his high school in West Philadelphia in 1990 to pursue a dream.

And that dream was to become a rapper.

We had this idea that we were going to be this rap group, you know, called Tutu Many, and it was me and two of my best friends. And we called ourselves Tutu Many because it was, we only had enough money for one of us.

So it was always Tutu Many of us. And my best friend said, if we ever meet Will Smith, Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince, they're going to give us a record deal. So that we had this sole focus and sole purpose of meeting Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince.

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