Want to Make Millions? Get a Mentor – Kevin Harrington with Dave Asprey : 743

Bulletproof Radio. A state of high performance.

You're listening to Bulletproof Radio with Dave Asprey. Today you're going to hear from a guest who's going to help you through some of the weird, challenging times that we're all dealing with right now. And if you're listening to multiple episodes, which you probably are, you've noticed that I've brought a few people in this year who can really make a difference for you. Because my assumption is, look, you may have lost your job, you may have had a pay cut, you may actually be doing really well because you already had an online business or because you're focused on health and wellness or whatever else. But whatever it is, you're stressed and you're making sure you have something in your back pocket because, frankly, no one knows what's going to happen. And uncertainty drives fear, and fear makes it harder to think. So I'm bringing people in to say, hey, here's some tools, some facts, some knowledge to help you turn off the fear, even if the fear is unfounded. And maybe it's real because you're saying, how am I gonna pay for my next delivery? Right? So I get it and I'm here to help. And I'd love it if you just hit me up on the comments on Instagram, if you have specific things you wanna hear more about. And our guest today has a way to make sure your personal and your professional lives don't just do well, but they actually thrive. And it's a guy who's a very big name, and his name is Kevin Harrington. And you've probably seen him online or on tv. He's been all over, and he wrote a book after phenomenal success. He's the original shark on Shark Tank. He created the infomercial, he created the ad seen on TV brand, and he started a group called the Entrepreneurs Organization, or eo. And I'm actually a member of ypo, which is a close affiliate of the Entrepreneurs organization. YPO is for young presidents. And what Kevin's book is about, the reason he's on the show for you today is, is finding a mentor and what that can do for you. I would not be here today without mentors. We don't talk about it enough. And this show is going to be about how you can find a mentor or be a mentor. Kevin, welcome to the show.

Hey, Dave, thank you very much. Looking forward to it.

Do you ever feel really full of yourself when you introduce yourself and say, yeah, I'm responsible for $5 billion of global sales and I've launched 500 products. Do you ever just like look in the mirror and go, is that.

Well, I'll tell you this, it's great to have the big hits that work, but what people don't realize a lot of times is I might have had 10 or 15 or 20 bombs to get from one winner to the next. Okay? So it's very humbling to fail on a regular basis. Okay, so I've done about 700 projects. I failed on about 550 of them. So. And that's putting money against things that you think are going to win. You believe in them and, and they don't. So it's a very humbling experience. And by the way, some of the biggest winners weren't ones that I necessarily projected were going to be the big winners. They just, you know, like we would be shooting an infomercial. We say, hey, we got one, we're doing. Let's add another one to the tail end of that one. And the one that we were doing, we thought was the winner, the tail end one that we just threw in for the heck of it, ended up doing $200 million in sales. Like, it's, it's, it's crazy that how, how things work, but we don't have a crystal ball. We, you know, we do the best we can.

Wow. So you don't, you don't really know. I remember the Ginsu knives which you created. I had a set when I was probably 20 or something. Did you know that was going to be a winner?

So I mean, this is, this is what, how that came about, the Ginsu was somebody created it because in the early days, I didn't invent anything, I didn't own it. But I'm at a trade show, Philadelphia Home show, and this guy, Arnold Morris is cutting through a can and he's going through mufflers and sneakers and everything. And I'm like, what is he doing with that knife? And it's called the Ginsu. So I, I stopped him and I said, Arnold, I've seen you do this three times. You said the exact same words every time. And I said, I, I don't know if you know this, but I'm just talking to this channel called Discovery. And I was watching Discovery last week and they went dark for six hours. And I called them to see if there was a technical problem. And I found out that Discovery is only an 18 hour a day channel. This is the story of how I actually got this whole thing started back in the early days. So when I heard discovery is only 18 hours a day, meaning six hours. They're just going to put these colored bars up. I said, wait a minute, can I bring you something to put in there that we can both get some money on? Right? And they said, you come on down. If it's legal and clean, we'll do it. And there I was sitting with Arnold. And so I said to Arnold, let's film this, this presentation you've got. I've never filmed anything in my life. I'm not a video guy. I was actually at that particular moment of selling businesses. I was a business and a real estate brokerage. I sold pizza parlors and delicatessens. And so Arnold said, well, what do you call this? I said, I don't know what we. I don't know what we call it. It's just going to be a long commercial because they've got six hours to fill. And make a long story short, Arnold and I shook hands. We filmed it. I shook hands with Discovery, which led to a long term contract after we tested in Cincinnati, Ohio, where I'm from and where all my initial stuff started from. And then I moved to Philadelphia. I had a chance to get all this time on Discovery locally, but then I went to the national Discovery signed a multiple year deal to own that six hour block nationwide on Discovery, which was, that was a big breakthrough for me. And this was back in the early 80s and that time just that block on Discovery was generating tens of millions of dollars in sales annually and we weren't paying anywhere near that for that time. So it was a very profitable start.

You spotted an opportunity and you went for it. How many books have you written? That was almost 40 years ago. I mean, you have a pretty good track record over that time. How many books have you written during that time?

Only a few. My first book was actually in 1990 with Wiley and Sons. And the Gulf war had hit back then. I say I've had a little bit of experience with, with really bad situations like pandemics and the COVID crisis because I was sitting with a team, I've had about 50 employees and we were running infomercials all around the world in 1990. We were in Europe, we were in Asia, we were in Latin America and the United States. And when that war hit, boom, our sales just almost stopped. And so I wrote a book, that book. In fact, this is my very first book, if you don't mind me showing.

A few, 30 years ago. I love it.

30 years ago.

Oh my God, I had that book.

I recognize that Cover, that's me.

Wow. Like, I was just graduating high school and I had that book.

This was, it was six reprints. It was a big, it was a big release by Wiley. And, and, and it took off because I said, you don't have to quit your job. Get a side hustle. Right?

So I didn't call it that back then, but yeah, okay. Get a side hustle.

We didn't call it that back then. We called it a spare time business opportunity. Okay.

So that book, Kevin, I have had a side hustle since I was a senior in high school. And you did that. Wow. I didn't connect your name with that book, but that title, that cover, really resonates. Oh, amazing. Okay, so that was 30 years ago.

30 years ago. And then I didn't do anything for many years. And my next book was called Act Now. And this is a very interesting story because I was hanging out with. I've had a lot of mentors in my life, and I say my first mentor I got when I was 11 years old, happened to be my father, Charlie. But he was a bartender, saved up enough money to open up Harrington's Irish Pub. And he said, kevin, I'd like for you to help me out and come on in after school and on the weekends. But I wasn't just washing dishes and serving chicken wings. He would bring me back when he closed the books out and supplier meetings and had me at 11 years old, which was pretty impressive. My dad, he wanted me to be an entrepreneur, so I, he pushed me to start a business when I was in high school. And then when I was going from my senior year into college, he said, hey, look, you're number four of six kids and the bar business has been okay, but there's not enough there to pay for your college, so you need a full time business now. I started a heating and air conditioning company my senior year of high school, going into college, and by my sophomore year I had 25 employees. We had six trucks going out every day. And I had to drop out of college, but I was buying leads from the courthouse of all the new homeowner transactions. And again, this goes back about 40 some years ago, 45 years ago, something like that. And we would say, welcome to the neighborhood. We're gonna come out and clean your furnace absolutely free. And that business grew to over. At that time it was a million dollar plus business, but in relative terms that would be about 5 million today. But I was trained by my father to be an entrepreneur, and I say trained. He mentored me but he only had certain skill sets. And so I needed to. As I got out, I sold the heating and air conditioning business and I said I started selling businesses because I wanted to have access to all of the information about small businesses, the books and the records and the leases. And so as a business broker, I was selling hundreds of, of different companies at one time. Pizza parlors, delicatessens, restaurants, nightclubs, small manufacturing companies. But I had all the details, books and records and sales and percentages of food cost and labor cost and leases with the malls and things like this. It was an education all unto itself. And that is when I ran into Arnold Morris, because I used to go to a lot of trade shows as I would sell flowers, chops and home and garden stores. So I met the Philadelphia home show and there's Arnold Morris with the Ginsu knife. And again, in the early days, I didn't own the products necessarily or the trademarks. I mean, believe it or not, Warren Buffett owns the Ginsu knife. He, his factory in Fremont, Ohio was the company that was making it and I was buying it from them. And so they owned the name and I had the exclusive rights to it for some period of time and crushed it.

That makes a lot of sense.

So.

You'Ve had mentorship your entire life and then you became a mentor once you really got known. You got it known what you were doing, you understood it, and then you've taught a lot of people, but you've actually been very sparse in what you share about how you've done it. And you just came out with your book. This is the reason I reached out to you is mentor to millions. Just coming out is about that mentoring process. So you grew up with a mentor because your dad's like, hey, sit here and do this when you're 11. And what I like about the book right now for people is that there are so many people who just don't have a clue. And I'm going to tell you a little story because this is how important mentorship is. Back way back in the day when we didn't have the word E Commerce. I was 46 inch waist kid, sitting in my dorm room. I needed to pay for school and they jacked up my tuition by like 900% or something. And I'm like, how am I going to do this? My summer job putting parts in boxes at a warehouse isn't going to cut it anymore. And so I started selling T shirts and I sold them over this Internet thing before there was a web browser. And it turns out that was the first thing ever sold over the Internet. I got my fat picture in Entrepreneur magazine and all this stuff. And what I did though, is I said, you know what? I'm so tired of putting, like picking up checks, taking them to the bank. There was no E commerce payment mechanisms back then. First Virtual was the first one. And that was still two years away. And I said, you know, I'm just tired of putting T shirts in bags like I got studying to do. And I just quit. All I had to do was hop in a car and drive 80 miles to Silicon Valley and get funded. And this would have been before Amazon was funded. I mean, it was right there for me. And what I didn't do was ask anyone for help because I didn't know to do it. And then Mark Andreessen, same time, he's like, I'll make this browser like, I'm writing reviews of his browser that are published nationally. And he goes straight to Silicon Valley. And he gets a mentor, the CEO of Sun Microsystems who teaches him how to do it. And he's like a multi billionaire. And like, I'm not doing too bad, but he's like, you know, 100x better because of mentorship. And I, I tell this, this story maybe once a year on the show. So longtime listeners are like, dave, shut up. I'm like, sorry, guys, a lot of people haven't heard that. But the point there is that if someone had gotten through to me when I was 20 and just told me, get a mentor and how to do it, it would have been more important than having a side hustle. So your book is the manual on how to do this. And I want you to teach listeners now. How do you go out and find a mentor?

Okay, great question. So here I was and, and I'm going to go fast forward from my father into I was now in the business of selling products on TV. I owned as seen on TV Inc. As seen on TV.com and we had, we had thousands of products on these websites. And, and by the way, scedontv.com was an amazing business because I didn't have to spend one dime of advertising and we were doing tens of millions of dollars in sales because it was a, it's where everybody went. They just, they googled in into their Google search As Seen on tv and it would end up at our site. So, but the problem I first had, and this is going back to the early 80s, even during the Ginzu days, I was getting massive amounts of orders and I was sitting with 40,000 orders that I couldn't fulfill because I didn't have the capital for the inventory. So we cut the deal with Discovery. They're running these shows like crazy. Orders are flying in and oh, how am I going to, I got, I, I call the factory and oh, you know, now Ginsu came out of Toledo so we didn't have as much problem there because we could place an order and get a turnaround in about two weeks. But when we were doing these hand hammer Chinese walks out of mainland China, it was cash in advance up front and then you're going to get it 90 days later. So I, I, I, I went to five banks and I showed them my business and I said, I've got a nice business and this is a new business model, selling products on tv. And make a long story short, I, there was no assets behind this company. And the banks are like, look, there's nothing that we can really attach. You know, we need assets, right? So I got turned down by five different banks. And then I was very upset because I said if I just had money, this, we were doing $50 million a year at this particular time. I said, if I have money, we can take off. And so I reached out and this is, this is step one when you're looking for a mentor. I'm. And if you're in business, you write checks every week and every month to accountants, to lawyers for me, to phone centers, to fulfillment centers, to media companies, to payment processors. Dozens and dozens of checks and big ones to different people. So where do you start? Who you know who's going to benefit if you grow your business? Those people that you write checks to, the accountants, the lawyers, they're going to be dealing with a bigger business. More sales, more, more monthly fees that they can charge et but they also want to help you. So I say start from within your circle that you're dealing with. But don't be afraid to ask your accountant, hey, I need some help. Can you help me go raise some money? And oh, hey, yes. But as it turned out, my lawyer knew a guy, said, hey, I know a guy who retired. He's a retired banker. He's only 60 years old now. This is back a few years back in the 80s. But they said he doesn't, he's looking for something to do. Maybe you should give them a call. So this came through. My lawyer met with this guy and he said, Kevin, he said, your business is in its current state, is unbankable, but I know how to make it bankable. And this is the deal that I'm going to cut with you. You went to five banks. I'm going to help you. I'm going to take 90 days because we're going to have to shore up some of your contracts and your presentation. It's never going to fly. So let me work with you. I'm not going to charge you a dime. I'm going to get you a $3 million line of credit.

Wow.

He said, I probably will get it from someone that's already turned you down. And so I said. I said, well, I've got nothing to lose. Let's go. And he said, and then when I'm done, we're both going to sit down and we're going to see if there's some future relationship that we want to have. But it's based on the fact that I was willing to help you for nothing. No charge, no wow. Just be being a mentor to you. And I said, let's do it. We shook hands. 90 days later, $3 million in my account on a line of credit. We use that to build the business to 150 million. And after that, we got a $10 million line of credit that took us to over 500 million. So I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you right now if I had not found that gentleman that mentored me to go get the cash, or maybe I would have found someone down the road. But the bottom line is, entrepreneurs, you've got to raise your hand. You've gotta say, please, I need help. And then you start with the people that you're either doing business with or, you know, could be some friends, could be some family, some uncles that are long a part of your life. But also I say, in today's world, we all belong to different groups and clubs and organizations. And EO you mentioned, that was something we started in 1987. We're in 150 cities around the world. And. And so when you join eo, you actually get a group of mentors that meet you on a monthly basis. Right? So we said, this is important. Young and actually, EO started as YEO in the very beginning. And we said, you can't be over 40. And then when Vern Harnish and myself and a couple of us, Ted Leoncis, I don't know if you know Ted or Michael Dell, one of the guys we got up in our upper 30s, we said, well, we better change the Y E O to E O and make it 50 years old. So we did. So Yeo morphed into Eo and is now it's been great. But they give you mentors, and I.

Think a lot of people may not know about that group. What are the requirements? They get into eo, you have to have a business of some size, a.

Million dollars in sales, and, and which is, you know, it's a, it's a qualifier because they don't want people in there that are tire kickers and, and people that are thinking about starting a business.

The wantrepreneurs. Yeah.

Yeah. They want people that are in business.

And I will tell you, if you're listening to this, and you're entrepreneur, and I know there are a lot of entrepreneurs, because I kind of speak to entrepreneurs, because that's what I am. If you're not a member of either EO or ypo, which has a higher level requirement there, you're missing out, because I've learned so much from people. I remember one of the guys, I'm not going to call him out here because I don't know if he'd want me to.

He.

But I was having a problem with one of my employees, and I knew it, but I was also kind of like, you know, maybe I could fix it. And so he literally looked at me and he said, hand me his phone. And he said, are we going to use my phone or your phone to fire the problem employee? And I said, what do you mean? He said, look, how do you think I got to $500 million, Dave? He said, you have to do this, and the longer you wait, the more it's gonna punish your team. Like, it's not working out, it's no one's fault, et cetera, et cetera. All this stuff that every entrepreneur has to hear, right? And this is one of those things where I already knew it, but I wasn't acting on it for whatever my own psychological reasons were. But, man, you can't buy that, right? And he would have never let me buy it. It was literally an act of kindness and service from his perspective. But, man, it was something I needed to do.

Yeah, exactly.

I look back, it's so important.

The other places, Dave, like, you know, some of these, the Joe polishes of the world.

Joe's a dear friend. He's been on the show.

Yeah, yeah. Genius, right? So I, I, I hit a point where I said to Joe, you know, Joe, I don't know what to do. This ass in a TV business is, it's going downhill because television viewership is dropping. And he says, hey, you know, you probably would like to talk to a mentor. And he said, what are you doing in about six weeks? And I said, what do you got in mind? He said, why don't you come down to Necker island with me? I'd like to introduce you to Richard Branson. And so I said, dave, what am I doing in six weeks, I'm gonna be with you at Necker Island. So I went down there, and I'm sitting talking to Richard, and he's like, I've seen those as seen on TV spots and that Billy Mays guy. And Tony Little, he said, but, Kevin, he said, you built Billy May's brand. You built Tony Little's brand, But did you ever build your brand? And it, like, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Like, you know, I was like, yeah, I was making money on these deals, but, no, I never built my brand. But Tony Little's brand is worth. I don't know how much, but it's. He's done pretty well for himself, right? So I came out of there, and I said, I got to start writing books again. And that was the chance for me. I came out of there, wrote my next book with HCI International, the guys that did Chicken Soup for the Soul. And that book came out. It was called Act Now. And I started. I was doing a lot of radio shows, like, we're talking today, podcasts and stuff, but who was watching. Mark Burnett was watching some of this stuff out there, because I was creating content and getting out there. And so I say to myself that getting good advice, because I was up to this point, you said, how many books have I written? 1990. And then that book was. Act now was 10, 12 years ago. And so that was my. My next book was 20 years.

So three books in 40 years of success. So I. I would say you're. You're waiting until you have something meaningful to say. And. And look at how you went about getting, you know, Richard Branson as a mentor. Not that you call him all the time, but that you needed advice from someone. Has Richard Branson built his brand the same time he built many companies with Virgin in the name? Heck, yeah. Right? Like, he mastered that. Most people here, like, 46% of people, according to research. You talk about research in your book, say they have a mentor. The other 54% don't have a mentor at all. They don't. Or a coach or anything else. How are they going to get a mentor?

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Well, I mean first of all, I said raise their hand. They have to say yes, I need some help. And once you do that then, then the question is how high up the ladder can you go? So I like to go as high as I can. But I mean I can tell you stories that predate before I was ever known anywhere that I was aggressive enough to be able to go and make things happen. But I think, I mean, I'll give you one other example. A gentleman came in looking for some capital because this is what I say.

So you do a shark tank, right?

If people go on shark tank, they want money or they want some help, they want some advice, they want a mentor really.

Or publicity. I mean, let's face it.

Yeah, publicity on ABC Network. So, so this guy comes in, he sells products to the military. And I'm like, okay, so what's your problem? Because mentors focus on problems and solutions. And his problem was he had great products, but he would get to certain points inside the military and then he couldn't get any further and he was getting shut down. So I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, okay, how do you get to the highest level of the military? And so I live in Tampa, Florida, St. Pete, Florida. MacDill Air Force Base is here, Central Command. And they have retired generals out at McGill Air Force Base. So I said, why don't we do this? Let's find out if there's some retired generals that might have a business model to consult businesses and become mentors to companies. And by the way, that's what they do. A retired gen, right? Their business model is consult 8 or 10 companies, get on boards, become an advisor, get some fees, get some equity, build your. Build your. You know, they have a brand unto itself. So make a long story short, we did that. We got him on board. He became a consultant mentor to the company and opened up all the doors. I mean, it was just, it was mind blowing how fast and furious we were able to get to the higher levels inside the military down at the Atheist down in Dallas, by the way. So it's. It. I think one of the challenges entrepreneurs have is they're afraid to do it. They don't know what to say or where to go. And it's. And sometimes you just have to raise your hand and just go for it. And for me, that. That's kind of how it all started back in the early days. I mean, also I had Zig Ziglar as a mentor along the way too. And this was back long before I was ever on Shark Tank or anyone even know who in the heck I was. Right. So, because Zig was a good man. I mean, I'm sure you ran into Zig over the years.

Absolutely. Very famous guy.

Yeah. So, you know, but at the same time, you know, it's when, when I was going through this, this transition from, from as Seen on tv, and I actually realized, and I had a meeting and I called. This was another one that I called out of the blue, Russell Brunson. And long before clickfunnels, really before Russell became the kind of the guru that he is today, I sat with him, this is about eight years ago, and I showed him what I was doing. He said, Kevin, he said that TV stuff, he says, you've gotta be in the Digital world and you've got to be, you know, and he's talking about this funnel stuff and I didn't know what he was talking about. But make a long story short, I realized I've got to get out of as Seen on TV as my sole way of moving products. And so literally what I did, I put, I sold them. I sold as seen the TV Inc. I sold as seen the tv.com got out at a very nice number, way more than I had invested or paid for them. And so I was able to get a return on that, but then get out at the right time, because television time, it's the viewership, it's plummeting. I mean, I mean, it's no secret they're on Facebook, they're on Instagram, their Disney plus signed 100 million subscribers in its launch.

I mean, that's crazy.

Unbelievable what's happening out in the market. So make a long story short, with Russell, this is the beginning of what I started to do. And I actually tried to put a deal together with Russell to be in business with him in the digital way, but he was already, already encumbered with a bunch of different deals. But I brought on a team of very talented young. I mean, these were kids in their, like their low to mid 20s and that were just, you know, digital, you know, really gurus, so to speak. And we started, I started eight years ago in the world of Facebook and Instagram and digital and things like that that we were able to have some good success with.

It's been an amazing path. And I'm not sure that I quite hear though, how you, I mean, you had your first accountant, but how do you go out, let's say, as a 20 year old? This is the hardest time because I get some people who are, they just finished high school, they're a little bit of the way through college and they'll hit me up on dm, on Instagram and like, hey, will you be my mentor? And I'm like, actually no. And it's not that I don't want to help you. I actually really enjoy mentoring people. But it's that a. I don't know you, I don't know what you're working on. Your pitch sucked, right? And I'm probably going to say no anyway. Unless you've already got something you can show me that says you've done something different or you have this unusual ability. But those guys definitely aren't getting my time and attention just because my kids are getting it. How would you tell someone based on Your book about mentorship. How would you tell someone who doesn't have a lot of experience, they go out. How do they know how high up they're running to target? What do they say? What do they do?

Yeah, great question. I mean, I think it's gonna take some trial and error. For most of these folks. There is no just golden reveal of how it happens. But I'll tell you some people that have gotten to me in some pretty creative ways. I was out at. I spoke at Traffic and Conversion last year, and I think they had 6 or 8,000 people there. Pretty good crowd. And so busy. Busy the whole time. And I'm at the airport and getting ready to jump on a plane to go home, and this young kid comes up to me, and he looks at me and he says. He says, Mr. Harrington, he says, I know who you are. I've been following you. I was at the show today. You were so busy. I would have loved to have been able to get you, but I just want to know If I have $100 bill, and I'd like to give you that for 10 minutes of your time. And so this kid sitting there in the airport giving me this pitch, and he hands me the $100 bill. Okay. And my plane was. I still had about 15 minutes before we were boarding and whatever, And I just looked at him and. And I had a huge smile on my face, and I just said, you know what, son? I said, he was probably 20 years old. And. And so I said, take your hundred back. That was a great pitch. And let's sit over here and let's talk. And I've been giving him some. Some mentoring ever since then. And so I think it's you. You said it. It's got. You got to have a good pitch. And there's a couple things mentors want. Number one, they. I've mentored people that after the first session or the couple sessions, and I'm getting with them the next month. And how. How do we do with, you know, with updates? Can you give me an update from our last meeting? Oh, geez. You know, I've been so busy, I didn't get a chance to do some of those things that you said that I should be doing. And it's like, hey, look, if. Yeah, if I'm going to take my time and you don't have the time to do what I come up with, then I'm out. Okay. So I say a mentee should be the mentor's best student. And in the book, mentor to millions. Mark Tim we actually take a journey and Mark is. He's sitting in a driveway. The opening of the book. He's sitting in a driveway. He had the best day of his life in business. And it's 7:30 at night and he's going into the house. But he knows that the minute he walks in the house, everything's going to turn totally negative because why weren't you here for dinner? You're working too hard. What's this entrepreneurship all about? And he's like, I need some help.

Get a real job.

Yeah, get a real job. My mom used to say that. Right. And so Mark realized that his family wasn't fulfilled and he wasn't fulfilled on the family side. And so we have a journey and a transformation that we take. Mark reached out to me and. And he actually would bring his kids down to my office, down to my house, hang out. And that was part of the deal because he said he wanted to create a family business that was going to be the most important business in his life. And that's what he did. He brought the whole team in and they got business cards and they got titles and they got equity in the family business. And this was the transformation that he went through to. During his. The journey that we took during mentor to millions. And so Mark, he reached out to me, but I say he reached out to me. It actually was a pretty cool introduction because Mark was mentored by Zig Ziglar, I was mentored by Zig Ziglar, and Tom Ziglar knew both of us, and Tom reached out to the two of us and said, you guys should be talking, because I think my dad would have loved for me to put you together. And so that's. So our mutual mentor ended up creating the mentor mentee relationship between us. So I think that again, you need a good pitch. You're not gonna get a good pitch if you don't have a good pitch. Rather, you're not gonna get that mentor. So sometimes you need to appeal to a side of them that, you know that a lot of entrepreneurs like myself, I have lived the Zig quote, you can get everything in life you want if you just help enough other people get what they want. Because I have always been there for entrepreneurs that were pitching me stuff. And even if I wasn't going to help in the investment, I try to steer them in the right direction. Obviously, you can't do this every single time. But I think the bottom line is that entrepreneurs that are successful, that could be mentors, they ultimately want to be able to Provide some of this kind of giving back to the entrepreneurial community in a mentoring fashion, as long as you're a good student. And it's not too much aggravation and not too much of a pain in the process.

I look at how, how you approach that you need a good pitch. And it seems like the art of dating has been lost thanks to apps and whatever else, not to mention Covid. But I've talked to family members, I've talked to friends who are in their early 20s, and it's like, oh, my God, how do I ask this girl out? How do I tell this guy that I like him or whatever? I'm like, well, you just go up and you tell him. And if they don't reciprocate, it's sort of like, do you like pizza or tacos? And the answer is, oh, well, you like tacos, they like pizza, it's okay. It doesn't mean you're bad. It just means you're pizza. And they don't like it. But that sense of fear that's there, and the way you get over that is you just ask enough people out, eventually you're not afraid because some say yes, some say no, and it's good either way. And you also polish up your pitch. I'm not talking about the pua, you know, manipulative, you know, pickup artist kind of disgusting stuff, Right. I'm just talking about learning how to do it. And it feels like for asking for a mentor. Look, if you, if you do a pitch like that with a hundred dollar bill, most people who are successful don't care about a hundred bucks, but at least you're showing you value the other person's time. But it can also feel like a bit of a shtick, right? Especially now that it's just been on the show. So you can work on your pitch, but I would just say ask a few people because the worst you'll do is get a no. And you might get a yes.

Raise your hand, it all starts. Raise your hand and ask for help. Absolutely. The universe has a way of bringing things back to the people that do need them. But you can't just sit and when Covid first hit, a lot of people were burying their heads in the sand. That's the time that you have to get out and start connecting. And as I say, what did I do? I collaborated quite a bit in the early days. It's like, you know, let's connect and collaborate and do some things together. Because a lot of times that, you know, at times of Strife like that, it's important to, not to give up, but to see if there's opportunities and what problems can you solve right now.

It seems like asking for an intro is a good strategy too. We talked about Joe Polish a little while ago. He texted me the other day and he said, dave, you need to talk to this guy. He's the same age you were when I was 26. When I lost, I made $6 million. I lost when I was 28. He's like, this guy literally was worth nothing. And all of a sudden he's got a company doing almost $20 million a year in revenue and he doesn't know what to do. So I'm like, wait a minute. I get to get on the phone with this guy and tell him how to not lose all of his money the way I did. And for me, it's like, this is fantastic. What a great match. Thanks, Joe. Joe's like the ultimate business matchmaker that way. But so we've had like four or five phone calls just in the evening. Sometimes I'm like, oh, my God, you don't have this kind of insurance. You need to do this.

Right?

And, oh, don't do that. And just all these things that are now obvious to me. So the reason I'm sharing this, A, thanks, Joe, but, but B, it is so cool to be a mentor when it's someone who's going to really not step in a big pile of crap that you stepped in in your life.

Right. I gotta give you a good example. I got a call from Joe Polish. Hey, you gotta meet this guy. Nick Sonnenberg. I don't know if you've heard the name. Yeah, man, Nick is going on Shark Tank and he said, can you mentor him on how to deliver a good pitch? And so I, I mean, that's right down my alley, obviously, right? So, because I, I, I, I, I've gotten many folks on, been, been able to help them get on Shark Tank by teaching them how to make those pitches. Because I, I'm on the other side of taking the pitches. What is it that we look for in, in a good pitch and what are the producers looking for? Because we'd hear all the horror stories of, of people that weren't getting accepted and those that did. But make a long story short, Nick came back afterwards and said, kevin, thank you. I actually used your advice and got on the, got not only got the show, but got the deal. And well, I think the deal blew up eventually. But anyway, I love helping in areas that are specific to Me. So I think sometimes the question from a mentee is, is what is the problem or problems that you have and who might be best suited to help you with this? Because if it is in the skill set of the entrepreneur that you're approaching to be the mentor for me, hey, to help somebody get on Shark Tank, that's a pretty easy situation for me to do and one that I actually enjoy. And when I get people to call me that want help when it comes to getting on a show like that, I liked it. It's something I jump to because I have fun doing it.

And it's an era where you're uniquely qualified. Right. And so that asking for an intro is a powerful thing, I believe. But I wanted to gut check it with you. And then on the flip side, I look at the statistics for Bulletproof Radio and we're somewhere around 180 million downloads right now. And it's about 55% women, 45% men, which is pretty cool. So we're like right in the middle and it's a little bit weighted towards 25 to 35, but there's people from all the different age groups and all of that just because this, hey, I want my brain to work better, my body to work better, and I don't want to spend a lot of time on it. It's a universal appeal. So for the people who are over 35, most likely who are saying, you know what, maybe it's time for me to be a mentor to someone. I don't know how to do the flip side of that. So how do you raise your hand and say, I'm happy to help?

Oh, you know, that's a good question also. I mean, first of all, there are lots of organizations that could use good mentor. So you, you, we talk about the entrepreneurs organization they're looking for, and I get phone calls now from members that, that are asking me for help also. So I think I, I put myself out to different communities. I, I, I, I create content I'm on. So I, I don't mind helping mentor folks. And, and I think in my world, I do some mentoring that's just absolutely give back to the community and the entrepreneurial community. In other cases, I have mentoring kind of relationships where there might be some kind of a benefit for myself. So, for example, I joined the board. I mean, this is a crazy story. You may know this product. You're familiar with the company Celsius? Yep. The, the energy drink. Okay. It's supposedly there's clinical studies that have that talk about the ability of it to burn calories, 140 calories for, for somebody that drinks it. So I, they came to me. The CEO of this company used to work for me, and he, he reached out to me as a mentor to start. And can, can you help? Because we're just getting started. This is six years ago, and the company was a small public company. They had 5 billion shares of stock and the stock was $0.10 a share. And so I started looking at what they were doing and they were competing against Red Bull and Monster. And I said, the retail side of the business, that's going to be very competitive because you're talking about Publix and 711 and CVS and Walgreens and all the retail distribution. That's, that's one form you have to go after. But we have to also take a look at direct to the consumer and influencers, and by the way, fitness influencers, for example. So I brought in Flo Rida, who then brought in Khloe Kardashian. And now we started a whole separate path. And by the way, they then said, hey, Kevin, will you join the board? And we're going to give you a bunch of stock and all of this. And so, yes, I did. Well, let's fast forward now. The company had 5 million 50 million shares at $0.1. $5 million market cap. The company just hit $1.4 billion just this past week in market value. Okay. And so, I mean, and most of that growth, the stock was $5 a share in May of, of this year. But from May to September, it went from 5 to 20. Why? Because we were focusing and pivoting with engines on the direct to the consumer side of the business. So fitness influencers were just crushing it for Celsius. And so while Covid was hitting and people couldn't find product in stores that were shut down, the direct to the consumer, the Amazon channels, etc. And again, this is my skill set. So. And again, this happened from somebody that just reached out knowing that I would give some advice. But I took it to the next step and said, okay, maybe I'll join the board and now have some compensation. And by the way, I mean, when you talk about a Stock Going from $0.10 to $20, these, these sometimes mentors can end up with some very lucrative situations.

When it's all said and done, you certainly can. It's never been my motivation. One of the things that happened, I had a really strong employee who was relatively young, and she came to me one day and she said, I'm really sorry. I have to quit. I'm like, what are you talking about? You have a department. Your career is great here. And she said, I have this opportunity to take this cosmetics company that I've been just dreaming about and I've been working on. And I just got on Good Morning America. I. I have to do this. And she had tears in her eyes. And then, this is crazy. And she said, I've learned a lot working for you, Dave. Will you write me a check to invest in my new company so I can tell my other investors that I have your support? And I'm like, that is a baller ask right there, right? And I wish I'd have written a bigger check. The company is called Thrive Cosmeceuticals, and I think today it's worth as much as bulletproof is worth.

It's amazing, isn't it?

It's like, carissa, well done. Carissa Bodnar's her name. But that ask was so it was actually authentic, right? And it was not only, hey, will you mentor me? But will you actually put skin in the game? And normally I'm like, you put skin in the game because you're taking my time. But it was a good thing. And it also means that she is giving me stock at a low price or whatever, but, man, I wish I'd put another zero on that check.

Hey, I understand one of the other things I say that when people are approaching a mentor, they should do a lot of research on that person knowing. I mean, it's just like if you're going to go on Shark Tank, know what Barbara likes, know what Mr. Wonderful might like or don't like, or how they like to structure things. So I believe that the doing the research like that is. It gives you the knowledge on openings that giving you ways to approach. Because just like you said, that was a pretty bulgy move. Sounds like you made. You made a little deal and helped her out and it worked out.

It was at least 100x or something, I think, or 60x or something. I don't know, some giant amount.

You know, the more information you have on the people that you're going to be talking with and the things that they're. Maybe what their Twitter feeds are looking like and. Or their social media, their Instagrams, et cetera. Because the more knowledge, the closer you can connect with that potential mentor. Also.

I like that advice a lot. And the message for people listening is, all right, maybe it's time to be a mentor to someone and think about what are you good at? And if you're looking for that, one thing that we haven't talked about here is, okay, you and I are both entrepreneurs. And even when I was very young in my career, I was always an intrapreneur. I'm the guy who would start something new inside a bigger company and turn it into. At one point, one of the things I was a co founder of, we did 100 million a quarter in revenue in my mid-20s because someone had to do it. But the execs almost shut us down because they didn't know what we were doing until we showed them our own numbers. Like, oh, that's why the numbers are where they are. And then it got better because I was clueless. But along the way, I can think of three or four times in corporate America that a mentor sought me out. A woman named Carla Lindsay at 3com, she was Eric Benimuz. He's a big name if you're familiar with Google's history and all that stuff. She was his personal assistant or, sorry, his executive assistant. And she saw me in a corporate training thing and was like, we need to sit down and have coffee every week. And she taught me how corporation politics work. I'm like, thanks, Carla. But I didn't seek her out. She sought me out probably because I was just this noisy guy, noisy kid who needed sitting down or something. But I look through that and I would not be where I am without her and several others throughout. Throughout that. So in corporate America, you can also ask for a mentor or mentors will oftentimes find you. And so don't think this is only for entrepreneurs. If you're listening to this, if you have a job, even if you're on Skype, you say, look, we're going to set up a call once every couple weeks. I'm going to have specific questions for you. I want your advice. You're going to tell me where I'm screwing up and then you just listen and that's good. But something else has happened to me. I'm thinking now, guys like Joe Polish, he reached out. Actually, it was an introduction. J.J. virgin introduced me. But he reached out and really formed a relationship and gave me great advice. And then Jay Abraham, same thing. He called me up, said, dave, we need to sit down. I read your book when I was starting my company. Jay, this is just an epic marketing guy. He's been on the show, I think twice now. And he ended up talking to everyone in my company about how to make a big difference in people's lives. But he reached out, we become friends. He's a mentor. And then same thing. Dr. Barry Morgolan on more the energy medicine side of things, who's been on the show. But these are relationships where I don't feel like I sought them out as mentors. I feel like they almost did the heavy lifting. And what I want to know based on you, because you have more experience than I do. So is it because I'm weird or is it because they're like uber mentors? Like, what's going on there?

You know, I'll say this, I think. How many years ago was this? Was it five years ago?

Jay? Yeah, Jay and Barry, like five. Yeah, about five years ago or so.

So first of all, you've created something very unique in the marketplace. And as you've taken off some people, guys like Jay, I mean, Jay is a very smart guy. And so he's saying, I'll bet you that Dave is running into things that I've already seen and I can reach out to him. So there is, you know, that happens. Yes, Jay is an uber mentor for sure, because I received similar phone calls from Jay.

Okay. So you know, he's just a helping guy. Right.

But he said there are some people that are just very nice like that. Right. Jay happens to be one of them. But I think I'm a. I'm a big. In my direct response world. I have a formula that I use for pitching and it's called tease them, please them and seize them. Tease by starting with an attention getting problem, you please by solving the problem with some magical transformations and maybe some great testimonials, and then you seize by having an irresistible offer. So that process, tease them, please and sees them is I think if you're a mentee and you're trying to get to a mentor, you've got problems that you need solved. And so you appeal to the interest of that mentor to identify tease with that problem. Right? So, hey, here's a problem I have, and hopefully you, Mr. Mentor, can understand that I have that problem, but I'm inexperienced and I can't solve that problem yet. But I need some help and could you please help me with that? So I think that's a very. You're giving a specific situation. And for me, it was very specific. When I got the finance mentor, I said, I have a business, I've got orders, I need, I need inventory to be paid for, and I need capital. And so this guy, I don't know if he was looking to be a mentor or not, but I raised My hand. I asked him and I pitched him to help me. And then he came back with an amazing deal that was like, hey, I'm going to get it for you and not going to cost you anything, and you're going to have the money sitting in your bank in 90 days. So. But I, when I presented the problem to him, almost like, hey, is this something that you can solve? You almost appeal to his competitiveness of, yes, I can solve that and I'm going to do it. In fact, I'm going to get a guy that turns you down, give you the money. I mean, it was almost a game for him. And so I think some mentors like that game aspect, a little bit of helping and succeeding. And I have so many different stories of different people that I have mentored over the years and seen that really positive transformation. But I have just as many that didn't do what I said and just I had to cut them off and they're by the wayside now. So, yeah, raise your hand, go for it. And again, like, I think you're saying, hey, let's just. It doesn't have to be a formal pitch. Hey, do you like pizza? You like tacos? I like a little more structure to it. And for those that don't know how to do it with a little structure, they might have a better chance.

The structure is a good idea, and asking it never hurts. Because if they don't like you, it's not about you. You don't have to be wounded. And the other thing we talked about eo, we talked about ypo, there's a local chamber of commerce. You mentioned you did that early on, hanging out around people who do business. If you want business, mentorship is a pretty good idea. And the same thing, if you want mentorship for pro sports, hang around places where professional athletes go. You might meet one and hit it off and so that. Go to the right conferences, all those sorts of things. It sounds kind of obvious when I say it, but a lot of people aren't doing that because frankly, when I was 25, would I have gone to a chamber of commerce? Actually, I was in Silicon Valley. Probably not even if they have one of those. But most of the time I wouldn't have because I would have thought, I don't belong here, I'm not good enough. Would have been, especially back then. Like, who do I think I am? Showing up with all these experienced business people not knowing, wait, look what you just did. Like you already did the first E. Commerce and all that. But, like, you don't your self image may not be there. And so the message for you listening is go where the people who might mentor you are would be an obvious thing. But hey, like we got to talk about that.

Yeah, yeah. I mean it's it and you can use digital ways also. I mean LinkedIn, we do a lot of, we do a lot of stuff on LinkedIn now, so there's good, good connections there. But I also, I, I do a lot of business. I've talked about associations. You know, as part of starting eo, I started the ERA Electronic Retailing Association. I, I'm very like when I go to the Houseware show, for example, which is I've been 33 out of 35 years to the Chicago Houseware show and they just canceled last year because of COVID So this is why I missed one of the one I was deathly ill and the other was Covid. So but the bottom line is I network at high levels there. And this is before Shark Tank. I would network with the people that are the publishers of Homeworld magazine, for example. And so when you, when you start networking at the highest levels that you can, you, you start making the right connections. And so when you need help, these are the people that you can reach out to that tend to have some pretty good connections and good ideas on, on, on who they can get maybe to help you out. And, and sometimes it, mentoring isn't going to be necessarily for the next five years. It could be a, a quick fix of something that you need or you know, a six month or one year run or something so it doesn't have to last forever type of thing.

That's such good advice. And Kevin, I think your book is worth reading for any entrepreneur and especially for people who are getting going as an entrepreneur. And you talk about being the original side hustle guy, which I, given how much I recognize your book, I'm like, oh, wow, I hadn't put those together. If you have a job in corporate America and you're saying, look, I want to be an entrepreneur, I would just tell you, look, think about whether you really want to be an entrepreneur. You can have a side hustle and not be an entrepreneur and that's okay. And your side hustle may be working with an entrepreneur and that's okay.

Sure, right.

You can be in support of someone like that, but having a side hustle is something that is more important now than ever before. So you might as well start thinking about that. And I will just share with you as a listener, since my, since my teens I've always had a side hustle. As I was going Bulletproof, I actually had three other companies that I was incubating that I didn't pay much attention to at all. So that when I hired a CEO for Bulletproof and became executive chairman and founder and evangelist, what do you know? I have 40 years of Zen, and I have TrueDark, the glasses company and all that stuff, and they're all ready to go. Because even at a successful level, a side hustle is about doing what you want to do. Right. And could I have done those things if I didn't have good mentors? No. And one of my biggest regrets, seriously, biggest regrets of all, is not asking for and being willing to accept mentorship much earlier in life. And that's why I wanted you to be on and talk about your book, because three books in 40 years, and one of them is about mentorship. I think you learned something.

Yeah. I mean, I was an egotistical entrepreneur when I first started, and didn't, I didn't. I mean, I'll never forget having a conversation with my accounting firm when I was hiring a cfo. They're like, oh, you got to put a big budget on that because you're going to be a very big successful company. And I'm like, but I, I, they wanted me to pay him more than I was getting. And, and, and in hindsight, that was a smart move, probably for me, because, you know, it, I own the company. Right. My value isn't in my paycheck. My value is in the enterprise value of the company. Let me get the best guy I can in finance. But I, I didn't take their advice. And I found the guy that I hired had a big box in the corner of all my returns that were coming in and were supposed to issue credits. And he's like, they're just, you know, month after month, we had 60 plus days of returns, and the banks are screaming. And it's because this guy was so incompetent because I didn't want to give him the money that he deserved. But, I mean, not him.

But you don't want to pay for, pay for the position, right?

Yeah. So I'm totally the opposite now. I'm like, I want the best people that I can afford and, and, and the best mentors that I can bring on. And, and I, and I just say that the folks that are out, out there that are thinking, can I go get a really good mentor? I mean, you won't believe how many people approach the shark, okay? And Say, will you help me? And I've got dozens of people that I'm helping right now, not every single day, but on a schedule of time. And so it's different reasons that I pick some of these that are I'm just giving back to the entrepreneurial community and I get a charge out of, out of helping people and seeing their success. And I think that's ultimately what many mentors are looking to see.

That may be the biggest gift of this episode, is just that understanding that people who are doing mentoring, they are not doing it at their expense. They're doing it because it makes them happy, because it makes them better people, because they're paying it forward or they're paying it back for their mentor, but they want to help. And God, I wish I'd have just understood that people want to help you. Like, what a crazy thing. But it's actually how it works. So, Kevin, thanks for writing Mentor Millions. It is definitely worth a read if you like the show and you're interested in how to get that extra help and just how to get inside the mind of a shark and all that. It's absolutely worth your time and I wish you the best of luck and I'm going to probably have to reach out for my next book and see how you pulled off such a win with this one.

Thank you very much. The book has taken off. We're having a lot of success. I'm excited about it because it's only my third book in 40 years. So thanks for having me on today and I hope that you're going to share this with all of your folks, which you are, obviously. And I wanted to say this for those that buy our book, they're going to get 30 days of free mentoring. And it's very simple. You go to Kevin Mentor.com and 30 days of free mentoring. Myself and Mark, Tim, we have live coaching, live mentoring, we have virtual mentoring and lots of videos and all kinds of great content we've created. So, Kevin, Mentor.com and I want to thank you for having me and sharing this with your folks. Following you. Thank you, Dave. Appreciate it.

Kevin, thanks for your work in the world as an entrepreneur. Thanks for being on the show. Guys. Take advantage of a 30 day course from Kevin. That's a huge value and we have no financial relationship or anything like that. This is just about you getting value so that the things that are top of mind for you right now, we can address those and you can get the stuff that you need. I'll see you on the next episode.

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