The Fastest Way to FREEDOM (From Any Starting Point) | Sam Zell

There is nothing more relevant than freedom.

An entrepreneur is someone who thinks differently.

I think you need to know what your limits are or what they're not.

As I've said oftentimes, my head only works straight.

Hello, Believe Nation, it's Evan. My one word is believe, and I believe in people more than they believe in themselves. And my sincere hope is that if you see in yourself what I see in you, you'll be able to change the planet. So to help you on your journey today, we're gonna learn from billionaire entrepreneur Sam Zell and my take on his top 10 rules for success. Rule number 4 is my personal favorite, and I'd love to know which one you guys like the best. Also, as you're watching, if you hear something that really resonates with you, please leave it down in the comments below and put quotes around it so other people can be inspired by it as well. And if you leave it within the first couple hours of this video going live, you have a chance to win one of 2 daily prizes.

I've been taking on challenges. I've been trying to find out how good I could be, how well I could do it, and in the end, I The real benefit of being a successful entrepreneur is freedom. There is nothing more relevant than freedom. Being able to get up every day and respond to what's out there, to accept the challenges, to constantly find out how good you are. And with it comes a lot of freedom.

An entrepreneur is someone who thinks differently, someone who recognizes and understands opportunity, but combines that recognition of opportunity with solutions. And then in the end, It's all about curiosity. I've never met an entrepreneur who was successful who wasn't extraordinarily curious. From my perspective, I start every potential investment focused on what's the downside. And frankly, from my opinion, from my perspective, If we do a deal and we identify the downside and we're correct, then I view that as a successful endeavor, even if the transaction didn't work.

I think you need to know what your limits are or what they're not. I answer people that my whole life has always been about testing my limits.

So you'd almost say that the one thing is knowing what your limits are not so that you can push yourself.

Well, another way to put it is, uh, the definition of someone who's reached his goals is he's a schmuck. Uh, I've spent my whole life trying to make sure that I never reach my goals. I love it. And that I keep adjusting, uh, the bar to make sure that I can never say I'm there.

None of this could possibly have happened without Uriel Reichman and without his basic abhorrence of conventional wisdom. In many respects, he and you both share an extraordinary common concept, and that is neither one of you knew what you couldn't do. And by virtue of not knowing what you can't do, you just try and do it. And that's what entrepreneurship is all about. First of all, I think optimism is a condition. I think you— I think being optimistic is just a wonderful gift that unfortunately not everybody has. And if you are optimistic and you can see the silver lining rather than the black cloud, I think it gives you self-confidence and makes you a more effective player.

I think that more than anything else, I have been willing to tackle almost anything that came down the pike. When you think about all the businesses we did, all the different disciplines that we are confronted with, there were 100 times where I could say, You know, not me. But the answer is that as opposed to trying to be a maven on different companies or different strategies, I think the key has always been to simplify everything, to never forget that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.

Line. And your job is to help people see that straight line.

Exactly. And you know, you worked for me for a while, and you know that I spend my entire day listening to my people pitch me ideas. And it all starts with, if you can't tell me what you want in 2 sentences, then my attention span is over. And so I've gotta make people distill their ideas and simplify them to a point where the delivery of the idea itself is the essence of simplicity.

The business schools, and I think they're beginning to change, but particularly in the '80s, the business schools focused on, if you could just turn the page, there's the formula that tells you how to do it. And the answer is there are no formulas. And, and success and failure are a combination of judgments and external events. But it starts and ends with a simple idea and your gut.

But your gut has played a very key role, though, in your business and in your success.

I think that I have been willing to have an opinion and then execute accordingly. I'm a voracious reader. I mean, the idea that I'm sitting up here without something to read is kind of against my nature. And somehow or other, and I can't explain it, I've developed the ability to read and, quote, seek out anomalies. If you read as much as I do, things start to follow patterns. And then something peculiar happens and something gets entered into the equation that doesn't fit. I mean, I was— I gave the example about the fact that I've been reading all this stuff and, and I had numerous repetitious references to Williston, South Dakota. And I looked it up and Williston was 20,000 people. And I just couldn't figure out why it kept coming up in my reading. And obviously the Bakken Shale and all that stuff, but still I basically got on a plane and went to see it. And from that emanated a lot of other things, but that's just kind of typical. I went to India in 2003 because outsourcing kept coming up in my reading, and I didn't know any— I didn't understand it, so I had to go see it. I think philosophically, I've always been someone who has to go see it. I think that, you know, part of the definition of an entrepreneur is an extraordinary observer. I've never met an entrepreneur who wasn't a very good observer. Because it's those observations that all come together and lead to conclusions. And so I try my best to be as knowledgeable as possible and yet try and do the best I can to not clog my capabilities with information that— useless isn't the right word, but maybe conventional and doesn't really give me a perspective.

Tribune LBO, which you helped lead, was effectively, they argue, fraudulent because Tribune Company was already, already insolvent when you took it over. How are you going to settle that? You negotiated with them?

Well, I think the answer is that, you know, many of the bankruptcy cases have fraudulent conveyance arguments made. Most of the junior creditors in most of the scenarios will allege a fraud in a conveyance. In the end, it's very difficult to prove, number one. Number two, in this particular case, I don't think it's valid, but ultimately it becomes a basis for negotiation.

Is it an option on the table for you to, to give up your warrants to buy 40% of Tribune for $500 million in the negotiation? Is that an option that you're willing to consider?

I don't think that that structure and that original plan will survive the bankruptcy. Can we ask you if you regret this decision?

I mean, is this the worst business decision you ever made?

Yeah.

I mean, I mean, it's certainly the most amount of money I've ever lost in a single deal. But so the answer is turn back time. Yeah, but, you know, if you could, you know, you know, it's like maybe I should have married somebody else or— I hope your wife isn't listening. Oh, but she is, I'm sure. But the answer, you know, the answer is that You can't look back. As I've said oftentimes, my head only works straight. So the answer is, if we made a mistake and/or it didn't work out, so it didn't work out. What happened in the past stays in the past. My head only looks forward. It doesn't turn backward. A lot of shit in the history of the LA Times in a lot of different places. I'm really sorry about the past, but there isn't anything that I can do about it. All I can do is address the future.

Thank you guys so much for watching. I made this video because Silver Mint asked me to. If there's someone you'd like me to profile in a future top 10, please check out the link down in the description below and you can cast your vote on who we should do next. I also wanna give a quick shout out to Roberto Latini. Thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word, and taking that awesome picture and posting it. It's amazing to see that you found your one word outstanding as well, and I hope you're applying it to your life and your business to get outstanding results. Thank you guys again for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love, I'll see you soon.

I think it was between my junior and senior year in college. I got a job as a traveling salesman for Elaine Curtis Industries. I sold Suave and Spray Net, Endon shampoo, And because I was a summer employee, I got the worst accounts. And I spent the entire summer having people just beat the shit out of me. I'd walk in, I'd say, "Hi, I'm from Elaine Curtis." And these people would just ignore me or send me down in the basement. And basically, said no all day long. And what I learned from that was that I finally invented an answer when I said, "Hi, I'm from Elaine Curtis." And they said, "So?" And I said, "So it keeps me off the street." And, you know, there is no greater lesson to be learned than rejection. And I doubt that anybody can be a successful entrepreneur if they haven't dealt with rejection. And the more you deal with it, the better you get. There's guys out at Wrigley Field who get paid $35 million a year to get a hit 1 out of 3 times. So I only try to be right 60 or 70% of the time. The real challenge is when you're wrong, that you've calibrated the risk so that you can survive to play the next day.

I always viewed myself differently. I marched to a different tune. I had just— and still to this day have, you know, just enormous self-confidence, maybe not justified, but sometimes it doesn't matter because if you believe, that's all that counts. But that's always been part of my characteristics when I teach entrepreneurship. I talk about how true entrepreneurs ultimately have this innate self-confidence. I mean, they never fail. Sometimes it doesn't work out, but they never fail. And they can get up off the floor, whether it's Sam Walton or Fred Smith at FedEx or any others, they have just an unequivocal belief in their ability to solve problems.