9-Figure CEO: To Go Global, You NEED to Change This (PETER DIAMANDIS)

Hi, it's Alison Maslin. My friends call me Ally. Welcome to Ally and you'd the Business Success and Lifestyle show. Today we have a very special treat I am going to be sharing with you the most amazing interview. Really one of the highlights of my life, where I interviewed Peter Diamandis, the CEO of of X Prize.

Hi, Allison.

Hey, Peter. How's it going?

It's good. How you doing?

Thanks for stopping by.

Pleasure. I was sort of flying over.

Oh, I know. I want one of those little Jetsons.

It's time for a flying car.

I know, I know. Did he just blow your mind? Seriously? Yeah, I was out there. I had to watch. I didn't want to miss a second, so just I wanted to ask you a few questions. You touched on this a little bit, but, I mean, you had this dream since you were a kid to go into space and there wasn't anything happening with NASA. And so you had this idea to do this private space travel and it took 10 years to get the funding, right? And people are just. It's the crazy idea. Are you kidding? This is never going to work. Right. And so when everyone was telling you no and. And you committed to this $10 million prize and you didn't have a dime of it, right? So that's pretty gutsy. So what inside you kept you pushing through and keeping everybody excited? Like, what is that? It's that ingredient inside that just kept you going forward and not giving up.

So it's a mix, Right. In reality, to be honest, I had no idea how hard it would be to raise the money. Had I known it was as hard as it might be, I might not have announced the competition as confidently as I did just to share the truth. Right. But I had high hopes. I mean, the reality is, I tell people and I teach this, it's critically important for you to do something that you connect with with great passion either. Like, this is like the most important thing I can do in my life. It's your mission, your purpose, the term I use, your massively transformative purpose, or the negative side of energy. You are so pissed off. You're so angry that this is there and that no one sees this injustice that you do and no one is solving it. And that, damn it, if no one else is going to do it, I'm going to do it. It's one of those two ends of the emotional spectrum, but it's really connecting with that emotion because otherwise you're going to give up. If it's just for the money or because it was like, oh, that's a cool idea, cool idea, or for the money isn't good enough. It's really got to be driven inside you. It's got to be your calling, your purpose, your mission. And that will fuel you at 3 o' clock in the morning when other people are giving up.

Right. And so for those people out there that have these crazy ideas, no, that's insane.

You know, you might be knocked off your pedestal, but if you've got a couple of co founders and you're developing the idea together, you start resonating, you start gathering evidence for why the idea could work, it becomes harder and harder, you get more and more momentum to knock you off your course. I think that's really, really important.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. I agree. It helps me tremendously. The CNN crisis network, so much negativity out there. How do we make, how can we make that shift to get complaining about problems and start solving?

Yeah, it's so. Great question, Allison. And it's something I'm speaking to all the time because we're now living in a time where you can stop complaining and can start solving. So we just launched a company, a spin out of Xprize called HeroX. It's HeroX.com if you're interested. And it's a platform play where you can launch incenterprises. It could be a $5,000. It can be what's called a karma prize. It's no money. Or typically we're going to be seeing a couple of million dollar Facebook prizes launched on there, but the typical prizes are 10,000 to 100,000. And it's a platform where if you see a problem or you want a new product or feature or capability, you can launch a platform and ask the world to help you solve it or create it. Because there's so much cognitive genius out there. And you know, a guy named Bill Joy, who was the co founder and chief scientist of Sun Microsystems, had a very famous quote. He said, no matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else. Right. I mean, interesting. And a lot of smart people out there. And so how do you tap into that genius and you can go and launch it on Herox and have people help you solve those problems. It's just there are tools out there for doing these kinds of things.

Right. I think we're just in that age of taking responsibility.

Exactly, exactly right. And so don't complain about a problem, fix it. Totally agree.

Right now. And you're a master of achieving whatever you go after. And you talked about why grow 10% when you can 10 times? And that's what this event is all about, right?

Perfect.

So what do you say to the entrepreneurs that, you know, it's sometimes beyond the realm, like, we all have that ceiling and then there's the fear. So how do you go from that playing small to playing big and break through that fear?

Here's the secret, right? The fear is there, period. I've got fear in taking on these things. I have no guarantees, but that causes me that I harness that energy and I just work harder. It's like that fear is healthy. So don't worry that you have fear on taking on big things. Harness it and start when in doubt. Think is one of my favorite phrases. Most people stop and paralyze and don't think. And it's also, it's talk to as many people as you can. There's a lot, you know, you're not in this alone, no matter what you think and have those conversations, right? But I've had many times in the past where stuff was, you know, crashing and burning and it was just like, okay, it's like I stop everything else. I focus and I have plan A, B and C, and I have plan D, E and F and G, H. And I, you know, I write about Elon Musk as an investor in one of my companies on my board. I write about him and he's got a great biography on him that just came out, you know, in 2008. You know, everybody says, my God, he's amazing. He's on every cover and so forth. You have to remember in 2008, he had just had his third launch failure of Falcon 1. He was out of money. Tesla had not gotten his financing. Solar Cities had not gotten its financing. He was going through a divorce and he was borrowing money to fund himself. He had bet every single dollar he had. And the fourth flight, which he scraped money together on, Falcon 1, actually finally worked. He got a billion dollar contract from NASA. The financing came through, but it was, you know, it was probably days away from an alternate universe.

I think it's the universe's way of saying, how badly do you really.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, it's like testing us.

It really is. And you'll be amazed. You have to ask yourself the question, okay, I know this shit is really hitting the fan. Things are really bad. I have to believe that there is a way out and I need to find it. There is some calculus, there is some way, there is some path that I can make this happen. I mean, I guarantee you when I was in 2001, you know, 9, 11 is happening. Everything is going bad. X Prize is going on. I'm out publicly everywhere about this $10 million prize. Teams have registered, and it's like, where the hell am I going to get this money? And, you know, after you've pitched 150 people and they've said no, it gets kind of demoralizing, right? And it was one more person. One more person. And I met Anush Ansari, and in a microsecond, the world changed.

Now, are we so glad that he hung in there? That's amazing.

I mean, that's an important point, right? We would not be having this conversation had I not hung in there, right? I mean, and it's important for you guys all to realize that, right? You fail when you give up. Now, there are times when you should give up. If it's not your highest calling, if it's not what you. If it's causing you pain or it's disrupting your family or whatever the case may be, if it's your highest calling, if it's your purpose in life, it's like, if it's the thing you're gonna be proudest of in your life, give it everything you've got.

Right? Stay the course.

Yeah.

All right. And so my last question is, how do you do it all? I mean, just reading your bio, like, I was getting exhausted.

So I've got amazing teams, right? I serve typically as executive chairman of all my companies, so I'm involved in. But I've got a great CEO or a great president, and going from one to the other is actually refreshing for me. So if the shit is hitting the fan in one place, something else is going up, and it's a chance to really keep revitalized. And it's really. It's tapping into that energy, and it's just. Honestly, it's pinching myself that I get a chance to lead this life. I feel so much gratitude and so much joy and so much honor in being able to play the things that I've got and a chance to be here with you, Alison, and the whole group here.

Well, thank you. This has just been really such a blessing. Thank you so much. Let's give him a hand. Hi, it's Alyson Maslin. And, you know, some years ago in my company, I remember having this aha moment where things were going a little haywire in the company. I was frustrated because things weren't happening as fast as I wanted them to. I wasn't getting the performance that I was desiring and I realized that it was my fault. You see, as the company began to scale, I was still in that role of being a boss, not a leader. And if I wanted everyone to be excited about the passion and the vision.

This life, I feel so much gratitude and so much joy and so much honor in being able to play the things that I've got and a chance to be here with you, Alison, and the whole group here. So.

Well, thank you. This has just been really such a blessing. Thank you so much. Let's give him a hand. Hi, it's Alison Maslin. And you know, some years ago in my company, I remember having this aha moment where things were going a little haywire. And in the company I was frustrated because things weren't happening as fast as I wanted them to. I wasn't getting the performance that I was desiring. And I realized that it was my fault. You see, as the company began to scale, I was still in that role of being a boss, not a leader. And if I wanted everyone to be excited about the passion and the vision and really be the engine behind it, then I needed to step into that role of leader and lead this company and help to bring in other leaders around me. And when I finally owned that role, there was a whole new evolution in my company. I went from seven figures to multiple seven figures in one year. Once you've been in business for some time and you really start to see some growth in the higher six figures and towards the seven figures and beyond, it's not business as usual anymore. The strategies that worked when you were just starting out are not working. As you grow, right? You've got to have a lot more stuff, systems and higher level strategies in place to take your business to the next level. Frankly, being a leader of your business, where you're at right now can feel lonely and isolating because you have so many decisions to make and there aren't many people around you that get you right what you're going through. And that's why it's so important, crucial really, that you surround yourself with other leaders that are going through the same thing or that have done it before you, right? And that's how you learn, that's how you get to the next level. Where I'm so excited because I am announcing and opening the doors to the CEO Success Network Retreat. Just imagine yourself on the beach in beautiful city Diego, surrounded by leaders from the most dynamic businesses across the country. For a high level think tank and training, you will be able to network and get this 30,000 foot view of your business. Get the strategies that you need at this level to take your business to a whole other place and you will walk away with a plan. If this calls to you, I invite you to apply to the CEO Success Network retreat. And I look forward to working with you in San Diego this summer.