Tom Monaghan: The Life-Changing Lesson That Will Transform Your Commitment Forever!

Welcome to another Famous Friday. I believe that whatever goal you have, whatever challenge is in front of you, somebody has already solved it, and the best way to accomplish your goal is to model the success of people who've already reached those goals before you. So today we're going to learn from Tom Monaghan, the founder of Domino's Pizza, and his lesson is commit. Now, when Tom Monaghan was growing up, he had a lot of commitment issues. When he was 4 years old, his father died on Christmas Eve, and his mother felt like she couldn't support him. She couldn't have kids. She couldn't handle the stress and all the work involved, so she gave him up for adoption. And he bounced from orphanage to orphanage to foster home to foster home. Never was able to really commit to a family, and nobody committed back to him. When he was in high school, his freshman year, he couldn't commit to high school, and he said, "You know what? I don't think this is for me. I'm gonna go and become a priest." And so he joined the seminary school, but he couldn't commit to that either, and he got expelled after a year. So he went back to high school, and he finished, and he got his degree, but he didn't really commit to it. He— there were 44 people in his graduating class, and he finished 44th of everybody. On his yearbook, under his picture, he wrote, "The harder I try to be good, the worse I get, but I may do something sensational yet." I love that because it's got a little believe in it there, right? Even though he's sucked and failed and couldn't commit to anything yet, he still believed that something sensational was about to happen. So he graduated from school and he thought about going to university. Instead, he didn't commit to that. He joined the Marine Corps and he saved up a little bit of money to start a business. And he bought this business off this snake oil salesman that went under. It was, uh, the guy just basically stole his money. And he ended up being broke, having $15 to his name, being in San Diego, and having to hitchhike back to his home in Ann Arbor, Michigan. That's where things started to change for him. He went back home, he met his brother, and he decided to get into the pizza business. Right, just another thing to try, 'cause that's been the story of his life. Bounce from one thing to another thing to another thing to another thing and never fully committing. So they start a pizza business. They borrow $900 together, they buy a failing pizza business, and they decide to take it over. And for the first time in his life, Tom Monaghan really applies himself. He's working 100-hour weeks to get this business off the ground. He's killing himself. He's committing. He's really putting everything he's got into this business, but it's not taking off. And you know, you know, as an entrepreneur, when you're starting up a company, you're full of excitement, you're full of energy, you're so pumped for how great everything's going to be, and then the wall hits you, right? When you realize it's going to be way harder than you thought it was going to be. And 6 months in, working 80-100 hour weeks, his brother tells him, "I can't do this anymore. This is way too much work. We're not making enough money. I'm gonna, I'm gonna move on. I'm gonna do something else." And this was the turning point in Tom Monaghan's life, because it would have been so easy for him to say, "Yeah, you know what, you're right." I'm gonna do something else too, this isn't working, and just bounce to another thing. Because that's all he did his whole life is bounce to another thing. Instead, Tom Monaghan, for the first time, decided that he was going to really commit himself to something. And he gave up the only thing, the only thing he had of value, the only asset he had was his Volkswagen Beetle. And he traded his only asset, that car, to his brother in exchange for his brother's shares in the business. So he would own 100% of the company. And in doing that, he said, "I made the decision to commit myself heart and soul to being a pizza man. My purpose was clear, and the knowledge that the future success or failure of the business rested on my shoulders alone was welcome." So finally he committed himself to something, and that's when the business started to take off. He turned his one location around. He started franchising, opening up more locations, and eventually built a brand name that people know that is across the country. He had every excuse in the world not to do it, right? You think as entrepreneurs we come with a lot of excuses not to take action, and he had a lot of them, right? I didn't have a family that supports me. I didn't have a father figure in my life. I bounced around from family to family, orphanage to orphanage. I didn't really get a great education. I was the last in my class. In high school, I never went to university, I didn't have a lot of money, I put whatever money I had into a business and it didn't work out, right? All the excuses in the world not to be successful as an entrepreneur, and yet he plowed through, and by committing himself, built an empire. So look at yourself in the mirror, look at the excuses you're telling yourself for not taking action, for not getting started, for not really fully committing yourself to your business. And if you can decide to take that step, then you too could be on your path to building your empire. Believe. You guys like this video? You want to see more? Subscribe to the channel. Thank you so much for watching. I'll see you soon. 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