How to Build a Killer Business Mind Like Gene Simmons in 14 Minutes

'Cause once you give up, you're just waiting to die. You know, you want nice, quiet, stay at home with Grandma, pour another glass of water and put her false teeth in it. In that way, 1 and 1 can equal 3. That it doesn't matter who you are, your dreams can come true. Everybody's in one business: the people business. It says music business. It doesn't just say music. Give me a new maze every day. My most profitable venture is Gene Simmons. I wanna I want it all. We all have our crosses to bear. So fucking what? Get over it. He's a rock star, singer-songwriter, entrepreneur, and television personality. He was known as the Demon and the co-lead singer of KISS. He has an estimated net worth of over $300 million. He's Gene Simmons, and here are his top 10 rules for success. Because you want inspiration, look to your mother. You bet. Don't listen to the self-help gurus and the people stuff, even though I get paid a lot of money to do this stuff myself. Turn around and look at your mom. That's the most inspiration. That's the reason you should go out there and strive. I remember the first $10 million check I ever made, and it came in at one lump, $10 million check, and I gave it to my mother, and I said, "Mom, look," 'cause, you know, I want my mom to be— really proud, and she said in her broken English— hold on a second— and she said in her broken English, "Wonderful," because she's Hungarian. "Wonderful." Tikanes. That's Greek. "Wonderful. Now what are you going to do?" That's precisely the point. You did well. Now go on. If you're the fastest human being on the face of the planet, when all the cameras leave and when the girls stop kissing you and you put the award away, are you gonna get up the next morning when the sun is just coming up and all by yourself try to break your own record, even though you're the fastest on Earth? The idea is, shouldn't life be about striving? There is no such a thing as winning. There's only doing better than you did before. 'Cause once you give up, you're just waiting to die. Staying power means hard work. Staying power means every day you get up and you try to stay away— stay ahead of the pack and sort of march to the beat of your own drummer. This notion that music becomes homogenized— in other words, there are lots of successful rappers that have short careers because if you can replace one rapper for another, you're done. The more unique you are in what you do, the better your chances of continuing on. So when you take a look at bands— sometimes it's musical— take a look at a band like AC/DC. You hear it, you immediately know what it is. That's what they serve up. You want ballads, go to another band. They serve up straight up, that's what you do. KISS serves up spectacle. We will not sit around on stage on a Persian carpet light candles and sing about, "Oh, the flaxen-haired lass on the English countryside." Kill me now. We don't do that. You know, you want nice quiet, stay at home with Grandma, pour another glass of water and put her false teeth in it, let the spinach rise to the top. That ain't what we do. We blow stuff up with a drummer and a backbeat. And don't sing about the secret of life because there is none. Here's the secret of life: you're alive, and then you're not. That's it. That's the secret. Be glad you're alive. While you're alive, you're allowed to shake the world up a little bit, and that's what you do. Partners are one of the most important assets— not detriments, assets. Partner up with somebody who knows something you don't. In that way, one and one can equal three. Hang out with smarter or better-looking or more successful people than you are. They'll take you up. You think Paul Stanley's better looking than you? Paul Stanley? Stanley's a much better looking guy than I am, much more creative, and knows things I will never know. And likewise for myself in regards to him. One and one equals three. We've been together over 40 years, and where we sit now, KISS outsells the Beatles and Elvis. We have more licensing and merchandising products than almost any band out there, which is to say we have a KISS golf course in Las Vegas, and we're going on a KISS cruise in about a week. When I first came to America, of course I couldn't speak any English, and I went to see Pinocchio. I thought the music was great, and this little puppet boy, I immediately connected to him, this Pinocchio kid. All of a sudden, this little cricket, this Jiminy Cricket character, comes in like the Messiah and looks at the movie screen and starts singing "When You Wish Upon a Star." <LYRICS>Your dreams come true.</LYRICS> I thought he was singing to me. I thought, "Oh, shh, Gene." This is from me to you. And I could understand the words enough that it doesn't matter who you are, your dreams can come true. How do you know what's right to create for, in a sense, the merchandising world? How do you know what's gonna work, what's not? Where have the success stories— You don't, you don't. You learn to listen. People will tell you what they like, which is why it's an— there's an interesting example of what I'm talking about. Steven Spielberg, who I've met and, uh, listened to, obviously, is the most successful filmmaker of all time. He makes— every single one of his movies has made at least $100 million without fail. Nobody has equaled that record, and he's done everything from Jewish concentration camp stories to aliens from other worlds. To Color Purple, to all kinds of stuff. Every single one has made $100 million north. What he does is he makes a movie his way. He's also part owner of DreamWorks. Nobody's gonna tell him what to do, how to think, how to edit. But he does a strange thing. After he gets his movie exactly the way he wants it, he will take his movie and go to Ypsilanti, Michigan, and he'll sit down with people who are completely unqualified pretty much to do anything, especially tell him how to edit his movie, and he will listen to them with what's wrong with his movie. They'll say, "I didn't like the ending. I don't like that person. I don't like that actor." Then he goes back and he changes it. He listens to the most unqualified people because ultimately you, PBS, KISS, everybody is in one business. The people business. And no matter what we think of them, whether they're the great American, you know, uh, populists or the unwashed masses, you can make any point of reference you like. They are the bosses. We just work here. The history of KISS pretty much started like any other band— 4 knuckleheads off the streets of New York who had big dreams of becoming sort of the American version of the Beatles on steroids. I was always trained as a young child to go to school and to learn and to read voraciously, even subjects I wasn't interested in. So when we first started putting the band together, I read Billboard magazine and Record World and Cashbox, the weekly bibles of the business of music. And if you believe in full disclosure in advertising, it says so right away. It says music business. It doesn't just say music. So I recognized that it was a business, and I was curious. How does it work? What's the price of goods? Where's the profit margin? What's the distribution method? Who was when, where, and how. My mother continues to be the greatest inspiration, which is if you take away all your stuff, could you do it again in a different field? See? So I'm in a band and I have a restaurant chain called Rock and Brews, which is at Los Angeles and Nashville and Kansas City, Maui, Cabo, every— it's exploding. And I own a football team, the only one in Los Angeles, called LA Kiss. We're on CBS Sports, ESPN. And all that stuff. Branding, licensing, merchandising. KISS is celebrating our 40th anniversary, and boy do I look good. We continue to tour the world. I leave Friday from New York and go to Mexico City where we're going to be playing the stadium there. The day after, I go to Phoenix to continue with, uh, Me Inc. promotion and stuff, then hop on to the Bahamas for the KISS Cruise where 4,000 or 5,000 crazy KISS fans pay about 5 grand apiece. Let me see, that's $20 to $25 million gross. We take 70%, and then that goes into a Vegas residency. In other words, the band would be enough for anybody, but I'm voracious. That's a big word like gymnasium. I want to, I want to read everything. I want to learn stuff I don't know because You know, the mouse, when it first starts to learn how the maze works, is alive, 'cause you don't know where you're going and it's the hunt, not the kill. And that's a killer mouse that's gonna finally get to the cheese. Now, unless and if that maze continues to change, that mouse is gonna take its time and get fat, bloated, and lazy and finally get to the cheese, 'cause it knows where it's going. Give me a new maze every day. I don't want to, I don't want to get, I don't want to lose my killer instinct, you know. So every day, as far as I'm concerned, should be a new me, Inc. New me incorporated, because I am the business. What would you say your most profitable venture is right now? My most profitable venture is Gene Simmons. Investing in yourself. Yes. Know your product well, they say. I invest in myself. I never use capital to invest in other areas. I mean, I'm in the stock market and so on, but I'm very conservative. But with myself, anything I'm passionate about, I'll throw capital at. And any new venture I'm involved in, I'm totally committed to because I know I never look at the clock. How do you juggle the acting and the musical careers? Which takes precedent? I don't think I take president, whether it's now or later. I mean, there's time to do everything. A lot of people don't understand it, but that's okay because other people don't have— they have limited visions, limited dreams. People sometimes only want to be a successful doctor, or so that's all I want is to be a doctor. Well, I want to— I want to— I want it all. You went to school in South Williamsburg. Have you been back recently? Oh, I did worse than school there. I went to yeshiva. I was a Hasidic Jew. You know, Hasidim but I don't believe 'em? Those guys? Yeah, I know I don't look like I come from Sweden, but when I first came to America, my mother wisely wanted to keep me off the streets because in Williamsburg, there was the Williamsburg Dragons and it was a street gang made up of guys. And I never heard of Christ or anything like that. And I started in broken English and stuff, At night, if I stayed out there longer than 10 PM, I'd hear, "Christ killer." Never heard of Christ. Didn't know what they were talking about, but they were coming after me, you know, trying to do some harm just because of my religious beliefs. You know, I was a Jew. Wasn't popular then. Still not a popular thing. But by the way, it's not popular to be a woman. Everybody picks on you. It's not popular to be black. Black, Hispanic, we all have our crosses to bear. So fucking what? Get over it. Get over it. Cry over there. There's a puddle of water where everybody takes their turn to say, "Oh, it was a good— everybody picked on me." You're right. The world is an unfair place. It's prejudiced. It's biased. He will think, "I'm a Jew. He's gay. Fuck all of you, okay?" Get over it. Now, of course, it's tough when you're black, gay, Jewish, and, you know, like a lot of stuff, Mike. Then you got a lot of stuff. And you can get over that too. Everybody's got their stuff. At least America gives you a shot. In this biased, racist world, we have an African-American president. So you can do any— we may even have a female president next time. So cry to your mommy. I don't really give a shit. Just Get out there. And you know, the military's got a great phrase: Shame on you if you don't get up and be all that you can be. Can you imagine if you don't live up to your potential? And I guarantee you that there's greater greatness in you than you ever imagined. Because once upon a time when you were a little child, did you ever— I'm making it up, you're making $100 grand a year— did you ever envision More than that? Okay, 300 million. 100 million a day. I don't know. 100 million. But could you ever imagine? When you were a kid, you couldn't imagine. If I found a dollar on the floor— so perception of wealth and how you're doing in life is all based on where you are and what you can perceive. And I'm telling you that the future can be so much bigger and so much greater for you Thank you so much for watching us. We made this video because Partner Office asked us to. If there's someone that you'd like us to profile next, please let us know in the comments below and we'll see what we can do. We'd also love to know which one of Gene Simmons' top 10 rules meant the most to you. Leave it in the comments below and we'll join the discussion. Thank you so much for watching, continue to believe, and we'll see you soon.