Dan Peña: If You Want To Know How Billionaires Think, Try THIS!

What's up everybody? Welcome to another YouTube Hangout. Super excited to be here. I have a special guest with me, Mr. Dan Peña, known as the $50 Billion Man because the people who he has coached have went on to create $50 billion plus in wealth for themselves in the world. He is a coach, he is an author, he is a speaker. He's got a speaking tour right now. He's sometimes controversial, so we'll see what we get into today. Mr. Dan Peña, welcome aboard!

Thank you for having me. It's nice to see your face other than on a website, more or less in person. Thank you very much for having me.

I love it. So for the people who may not have heard of you yet, we've done some videos on you, but for the people who still don't know Mr. Dan Peña, a little bit beyond the intro I gave you, how would you introduce yourself? What do you want to say?

Well, I'm a A barrio bad boy, came from the barrio of East Los Angeles as an adolescent, got in a lot of trouble, who got flunked out of university 3 times, arrested 5 times, went off and the military made a man of me. In fact, today is a very special day. 50 years ago today, 1 June 1967, by an act of Congress of the United States of America, I was deemed an officer and a gentleman, a second lieutenant. So, all right, that was a high-performance thing that I ever achieved because I didn't think flunking out of school and getting arrested was much of an achievement, although my buddies thought it was cool. Um, and, uh, that's why I tell kids, um, show me your friends and I'll show you your future. I went on, uh, came back from the military, came back to school, graduated with honors, uh, ultimately, uh, finished 4-year degree in 2 and a half years. Went on, had a scholarship to go to law school I never used, and went on to Wall Street, and the rest is more or less history. And I've created since 1993, my 24th anniversary was last week when I gave my first seminar, and my kids, like you, have created over $50 billion in equity and value in those 24 years. And I was just on the phone with one of them who has created billions, and he wishes you all well, and he says you'll need it under the whip. I'm the whip. And yeah, and the— I just started a tour in the United States and Canada, and I'll be visiting your hometown in a few months where I go to speak at universities for free, pro bono. They don't pay for me to get there or anything like that. They don't put me up in a hotel. And I got the idea, Evan, when Oxford University called me last year and I had facetiously said, oh, it must be my Rhodes Scholarship 50 years late. But I went to speak there and it was a very successful event. And then I got the idea, well, I mean, if Oxford liked it, maybe a lot of other people would like it. But I was booked up all the rest of last year. And so I only started giving these talks to schools But everything I have on my website is free. 99.9% of all the kids that I created the $50 billion with, I've never met because all my product's free. I don't sell anything other than the Castle Seminar, and then I mentor you for a year free. But I mean, the great thing about today is information is almost instantaneous. Actually, it is instantaneous. Like this, you're in Canada and I'm in Scotland. And we're able to do a show like this, and I think it's terrific, and I take my hat off to you. I love it.

So let's get to the topic. I always have my guests pick the topic. I don't really cover politics a lot on this channel. You know, I always feel like entrepreneurs, we're the ones who's gonna solve all the problems of the world, not to rely on the president or the government, or not to blame the president for your not having success, right? Like, I'm not a success because of Trump or because of Obama or because of anybody else. I think is ridiculous. And so this is interesting to cover politics on this channel. I'd love to know why you picked this topic and what your thoughts are.

Well, on November 8th, I announced when he was elected— now, full disclosure, I knew President Trump in a different life. I knew him in the late '80s and early '90s when I was partners with people that he knew in New York. But I haven't seen President Trump in 25 years. So, okay. But on November 8th, I said that this was the greatest transformation of wealth in the history of the world since World War II. And the reason why he was elected, in my judgment, and I was one of the first to endorse him publicly, is that the United States is fed up. You know, I'm not here to talk bad about Obama, although I didn't think he did much. But anyway, and it was fed up. And just like Brexit in the UK and various other votes. But I know what he's capable of, both good and bad. And I know most people listening here, if they're US citizens, have no idea what it really means if we get from 35% to 15% or 20% corporate tax rate. You have no conception of what that means, I mean, in the trickle-down effect. So I mean, the Trump era— and he may only stay in one term— but the Trump era, he's already made tremendous changes. And he's done nothing more than— we can have change if the people rise up. We can have change if the people rise up. Now, as another aside, I knew the first Trudeau back in the day, probably before you were born. And I had the pleasure of meeting him. And just as I also have met 5 presidents, 5 Secretaries of State, and I also met as a little boy General de Gaulle. So when you've been around a million years like I have, you met a lot of people, and that's why the perspective that I give, and I believe why I was so successful at Oxford and I'm going to be successful at these other schools, and that's why the kids come here. My demographics for this seminar, Evan, has changed. 10 years ago it was, uh, mid-30s to late 40s. The demographics for the seminar now is late teens to late 20s. Late teens to late 20s.

And why the shift?

Um, two things I believe. One, the kids can make money on the internet to pay for it, although we give students a big discount and we give military, active duty military, a big discount. That's number 1. And number 2, they know that they're pissed off earlier now. They know they're not happy. And people only make the change for 1 or 2 reasons, you know, inspiration or desperation. And to come to me, because I'm really hard, to come to me, you have to have tried everybody and their dog. You have had to— I've had kids come here that have read 700 books. And in 700 books, they couldn't figure out what the fuck to do. So they come to me. And the most important aspect of my coaching, teaching, mentoring is the 1-year free mentor program. And I give it free because I want to be able to throw you out if you don't measure up. And I take exception to people that say it's a boot camp. Most of these kids have never been to a fucking boot camp. They wouldn't know a boot camp if it bit them in the butt. And but I mean, we're hard here. Like the kids can't go to the gymnasium until they earn it. I have two gymnasiums here at the castle. They, you know, I mean, it's like, it's hard, but I find life hard. And, and the, if you look back upon the Elon Musks, etc., of this world, the current day, they're tough guys. They're not, you know, wusses. You know, they're not snowflakes, I think is the word. I had to look that up. I wasn't sure what that meant, but they're not snowflakes. And most people come here, I'm told, because I'm the alpha male dad model that they never had. I'm not asking for any kids. I got 3 lovely children. I don't need any. But one of the reasons that I have admiration for President Trump, look at his kids. They should be spoiled brats. Now, I'm not saying they're not spoiled in a certain way, but they're Got their heads on their shoulders, they got their own business. My kids should be spoiled brats, but they're not. They're successful on their own. I didn't get any of my children jobs. I didn't make one phone call. And they went to good schools. You don't have to go to school. We have kids that come here that didn't get out of high school. The point is that I make you accountable. I'm the only, that I know of, and correct me if you know anybody else, that makes their seminar attendees and post the seminar for 1 year to be 100% accountable. 100%, not 98%, uh, through their weekly reporting and their monthly Zoom calls. That, um, and the, um, it's, uh, it's, it's very much like the military. And, um, the only thing is I don't hit them anymore. In the '90s, I hit you. Now I don't. I still like to hit you, but now for obvious reasons, everybody's got an iPhone. Although we don't let you have your iPhones in the room, but anyway, be that as it may, right now there's a whole room full of them sitting over in the main castle waiting to come and meet, give them a beating or a beatdown. And we've even got some Canadians. The Canadians love me. I don't know why, why they should. I normally don't have anything good to say about Canada, but other than I've made a lot of money there, and yourself, who's been kind enough to talk about me over the years in like my 10 Secrets, etc. I think it's a very unique concept that you have, and I think you're bringing a lot of service to the kids. But at the end of the day, they've got to take action. They can watch all the YouTubes, podcasts from now until they're, you know, they bury them. And if they don't take action, it's all BS. The Dalai Lama had his 80th birthday last year. Were you invited, by the way?

I was not invited.

Well, neither was I, but some of my high performers were. And at the end of his speech, he says meditation is great, prayer is great, contemplation is great, but if you don't take action, action, action, All the rest is wasted. And what the kids today have trouble with, they conflate reading a book to taking action.

All—

and I'm not saying you shouldn't read because I've read the classics, I've read Shakespeare and, you know, all that stuff, uh, but it's not taking action. Taking action is pulling the trigger, going out and making something happen. And even if you fail— and, uh, the kids have problems with that and they come to me And I show them the way through the maze, as it were, how to learn how to take action.

So let's talk about that. You got the guys reading 700 books, you got people just watching video after YouTube video after YouTube video, but they're not doing anything. They show up to you. How do you get that person who read all the books but hasn't pulled the trigger to do something?

Well, first of all, they paid me a whole bunch of money to come here, and there's no refunds. I mean, so they paid me a lot of money and I shamed them. I embarrassed them. If even yourself, high performer, and by the way, I call everybody kids because I'm either old enough to be your father or grandfather. A kid like you, if you had to keep track of 7 days a week, 24 hours a day what you do, you would be shocked. Astounded, overwhelmed, or as they say in Britain, gobsmacked, how much time you waste. And I make them keep track of every minute of the day. Every minute of the day. And it's not easy. It's not easy. And when you find out the— I have people that have come to the seminar that spend 20 hours a day walking in the fresh air and meditating 20 hours a week. Excuse me, not a day, 20 hours a week. And they don't get anything done and they don't feel relaxed. Now, I've never meditated one second in my life. I've walked in the fresh air, but unless I'm sweating and I'm running up a hill, I don't think that, you know, I'm accomplishing much, uh, from a cardio point of view. At my age, I should be strolling up the hill or not even going up the hill. So, we make them accountable. We give them the templates. We give them the tools. For those that even didn't read 700 books, they read 7 books or 20 books, you read about all the various financial instruments. But here we teach you how to play the entire financial orchestra. For the first time. Money is almost free the last 8 or 9 years, yet it's hardly I find a snowflake that has done anything about it. Free. The money's free right now. 10, 20 years from now, Evan, the guys on this call are gonna— their kids and grandkids are going to ask them, what the fuck did you do during when the money was being given away free, Dad, Granddad? I did nothing. I just kept my finger up my ass. And read another book. I mean, we're not gonna, you know, I'm not, I don't know how much longer this is gonna last, free money, but right now there is so much money out there, it's unbelievable. What the problem the kids have when they come here, and not just when they come here, they don't know what a real deal looks like. They really don't know that free cash flow has to cover debt service. They don't understand that concept. And they come in here with PhDs, MBAs, they're certified financial analysts, you name it, we've had them here. And they just don't understand. As I say, they wouldn't know a deal if it bit them in the butt. And they spend most of their time on deals that intellectually sound good, but financially they're no good. And so, once you learn the difference between a deal and not a deal, And once you learn for real and we show you, um, the templates to use, how to get the money out of the banks, um, your, your life is never, never the same. It's just never the same.

And why now? So you say free money right now, it's not going to last next generation. Like, what's so special about right now where it's free money?

Are so damn low. I mean, interest rates are giving it away. I mean, I was making money, millions, when interest rates were 15, 18, 20%, not 2, 3, 4%. I mean, they're literally— the only thing they're not doing is setting up like the Bank of America founder, the picture you've got in the back. He set up, if I remember correctly, after the Great Fire, uh, San Francisco Fire of 1906 or '05, whatever it was, He set up a card table outside the bank, or what was left of the bank, and were making loans. And people still didn't even come up to him. He didn't even do all the paperwork like now. I mean, oh God, I'd take a jet plane to be the number one in line to do business with that old-timer. But I mean, it's not that easy, but I mean, it's really easy. Another thing in America, The Small Business Administration, the SBA, recently, in recent years, has gone from a $1 million limit to a $5 million limit, meaning the government guarantees your damn loan. And there's talk under Trump, I don't know if it's true, that it's gonna go to $7 or $10 million. If you, I mean, if you can't do a deal when the government's gonna guarantee 100% of the goddamn thing, you ought to blow your brains out. You ought to commit a super coup, I think it's called. As Elon Musk said, he would rather commit a super coup, which is a hairy carry, than fail. And I mean, it's— I mean, there's, you know, I don't know how long it's going to last. I don't. But I do know that it's here now. And God Almighty, I don't know why you wouldn't want to take advantage of it as long as it's moral, ethical, and legal. Moral, ethical, and legal. Those are my only backstops.

Because I like it.

Yeah, but if you don't want to be more ethical, legal, God Almighty, it'd be the mafia.

I like that you know your history. Most people have never heard of A.P. Giannini, and being able to pull that story out was great. It was actually across two barrels, two barrels and a plank of wood, and he would make money. He He would lend money to people based off of a handshake and a look in their eye. That's how you gotta deal with A.P. Giannini. He wanted to judge a man by the calluses on his hand. That's how he made a decision whether to give a loan or not, so.

Well, there's no place for you. All they have is calluses on their fingertips maybe from being on the laptop.

Let's talk about that. So I mean, I got A.P. Giannini behind me. I love learning from successful people, trying to apply it to my life, my business. I see behind you, you've got this giant wall called The Influencers, and on there you have some controversial figures. You've got— I saw Winston Churchill and Jesus Christ and JFK. You have Adolf Hitler, Einstein, Trump, Ted Turner. Talk to me, you're pulling from a wide range of people who are—

I've got Stalin, I've got, uh, oh, Walt Disney, uh, Jack Welch, uh, you know, I mean, uh, McNamara from the Vietnam era who I actually knew, but All those people, now when they ask me what have I read, I read them. What did I look at last night to get fired up for today, for tonight? I read, I watched the 2.5-hour movie, 1963 movie, Zulu, with Michael Caine. Which depicted 1779, I believe, Africa, the British Army, where they fought off 5,000 Zulus, 150 guys, and they did heroic stuff. That's what fires me up because it's tough to keep your energy high and fired up because I've done just about everything known to man. I have. Not all good shit, but I mean, I've done just about everything known to man. But the reason I have these people is because I learned something from everybody. You know, Hitler believed in practice, practice, practice. He had over a million photographs of him to do his promotional stuff when he was selling Mein Kampf and when he was selling to become chancellor of Germany in the '30s. A million pictures. He was the first guy being advised by Goebbels that, you know, if you're going to influence the masses. I studied when I was learning, when I was a poor speaker 30+ years ago, I studied JFK, I studied Winston Churchill, I also studied Hitler, his mannerisms, but I couldn't understand what he said, and I studied to be a world-class speaker that I am today, or at least I'm told I am. I study Harry Truman, who's up here, who was the president that took over from Franklin Delano Roosevelt when he died in office, and he was the guy that made the decision to drop the atomic bomb— bombs. Can you just imagine the heaviness of that decision? The heaviness that you're going to kill God knows how many people. I studied— in current day, I study Secretary of Defense General Mattis, Mad Dog Mattis. And I have some friends from my military days that actually know the Secretary. So I, but I, these are all high-profile people. You may not like them, but they're high-performance people, every single one of them, every single one of them. And quite frankly, in my judgment, 85 to 95% of the people that write books aren't high performance. They're also rants. Why do the kids read them, Evan? Because they say it's easy. And I mean, high performance is anything but easy, and staying on top is even harder than getting to the top. Now, I've been on the top of my game arguably for 3 and a half decades. I haven't had to work in 35 years. People ask me, how do I get up in the morning? I get up fired up. I'm fired up. I've been high on life since 1974 that I thought about it, and actually since I got out of OCS 50 years ago today, where failure is not an option. And I do fail, but when I do fail, I am so fucking I can't believe it. There must be an error. There must be a typo because I'm so used to winning. And I've had the pleasure, the good fortune to have been mentored by some real, real world, world, world-class guys. And the world-class guys like me. And they often say, you have the energy I had 50, 60 years ago. This is when I was younger. And, you know, I went where the action was. I went to New York. They said that Wall Street would eat me alive, 'Barrio bad boy.' They were wrong. And I run towards the gunfire and I kill everybody, metaphorically speaking. I look for problems. I look for the— because from chaos comes order. From chaos comes order. And I've done that successfully for 50 years. And I'll be 72 in a few weeks. I don't feel 72. I don't believe I look 72. And I've had, if you've noticed on my websites, I'm called the bionic man because I've got so many artificial parts in me. My knees, my hip, my shoulders, my collarbone, my right bicep. I mean, I'm running out of parts to replace, and that's because I do everything to the maximum, and I do a lot of physical stuff, more in the past than now, where I got hurt a lot. I got busted up. And, but, you know, I'm looking to be all I can be every single day. I mean, there's no question. And that, and getting back to your original question, how do I change their mindset, is because I require the kids to be they can be every single day for 1 year. I change, I have 100% track record for changing lives for the better. It's much less for billionaires, it's more for hundreds of millions and more even that than tens of millions. And if I can't make you a millionaire, I ought to blow my fucking brains out. But I mean a million, the average little dumpy house in America, in Los Angeles, it costs a million bucks now. I don't know about Canada, but it's getting there.

Toronto's pretty expensive.

And when I'm in Toronto, I'll probably stay at Trump Tower, which I stayed there last time I was in Toronto, not because of President Trump. And I don't know how close that is to the university. I don't know. Close enough. I'm making two speeches in Toronto, one to a group of lawyers, I think, Financial, excuse me, financial people and one to the university. And I'm looking forward to it. I'm expecting different kind of questions in Canada than I normally get.

I look at one guy on the back of your wall, you got Ray Kroc, who's the guy who built McDonald's and he really started that in his 60s. And at an age when most people were thinking about retiring, that's when he's just getting started to go off and build this huge empire. People look at you, a guy 72 years old, still tons of fire, still tons of energy. What is it that gets you pumped up to continue to do this? I mean, you've got your castle, you've got all the material possessions you want. Why do you wake up every day and do what you do?

Because I'm glad you asked that question. Because I want to take as many of you across the goal line before they put dirt on me. My wife says I have a bad back because I'm carrying all you fuckers for 25 years. Okay, I want to take as many of you across the goal line, and that's why I give all my product away free, because I want to take the last excuse. I went from the most expensive product, high-performance coaching product on the net, to free. And I got calls from guys that you know their names. Some Canadian, what the fuck, you're killing us, Dan, why are you doing that? Because I'm not doing it for them, and everybody's got the right to make a living. I don't want to take that away from them. But if you can find anybody that's even done remotely what I've done, that's coaching, I'll quit today. If you can find anybody that even remotely has made the kind of money that I've made for others I'll quit today. Nobody talks about numbers, Evan, because nobody's created any numbers. And I know it's gauche, and money's not the only thing in life, and I realize that. If you want to save the world, go make a ton of money like Bill Gates and then save the world. Like a lot of the big guys, they're saving the world now. Some say, Evan, because they're paying for the sins that they committed creating that wealth. Now, I'm not here to point the finger because, you know, you know, I support a lot of orphanages. I have 250 nuns praying for me every single day. Every single day. I mean, I do it because I want to— you, you want to call it giving back? I don't call it that. I'm selfish. I want to be known when they put dirt on me as the greatest high-performance coach that ever walked the fucking planet. I don't even want them to think about Napoleon Hill, only as an afterthought. And currently I am, and I'm not done yet. You know, I plan on living to 100, at least 120. I may not be mentoring at 120, but I'm 6'1", 225 pounds, and a twisted, stealing panther piss. I'm still a formidable guy, and I don't plan on being any less formidable during my 70s. Now, will I be doing this in my 80s? I don't know. I don't know. But I have no outside investments. I don't do anything other than coach the kids. And why do I not have any outside investments? Because anybody that's got a portfolio that thinks that he can devote to you kids and over your own investments is a lie. I have no investments. All I have is cash. Because I never even remotely want to be conflicted. You show me one other person that does that, I can already tell you there aren't any. What about inflation, Dad? What about deflation? Bullshit. As Bunker Hunt told me 30 years ago, one of the real billionaires, he says, Danny, if you're worried about paying taxes, you ain't making enough fucking money. Am I still fired up? Yeah. And I'm calmed down too. I've calmed down in my old age. In the '90s, I loved it because I beat the kids. I used to— oh God, the good old days. The good old days. What's next?

Well, I love the fire and energy that you still have for us. We're wrapping up. We're almost at time. It's crazy how quickly half an hour can go. For people watching, where can they learn more about you? Where do you want to guide them to? You got your website, you have the success test, your YouTube channel. What's the—

Thank you for reminding me. DanPeña.com. All the stuff's free. I've got hundreds of pages, podcasts, et cetera. But if you want to separate the men from the boys and the girls from the old women, take my success test. It's on the front page of the landing page. And it's only got a 95% accuracy rate of correlation to you being successful. Only 95%. That's all. And you take that test and then you tell me how your programs worked up heretofore. And I want to thank you, Evan, for this opportunity, and I look forward to hopefully seeing you when I'm in Toronto. A couple of the universities I'm speaking at have told me I should be concerned about my security. Toronto didn't tell me that.

I wouldn't worry too much about Canadians. We're usually pretty nice, so I think you'll have a great time.

Okay, well, I look forward to it. I look forward to it, and I look forward to hopefully meeting you.

Cool. Well, Dan, thank you so much for spending the time with us. Guys, go check out danpeña.com. Check out that Success Test if you want to learn a little bit more. Good luck on your tour, Dan, and again, thanks for spending half an hour with us today. We appreciate it.

Okay, thank you for the opportunity. Thank you very much.