How To Take Advantage of Your Luck In Business and Create Success

I believe 50% of all success is luck. The other 50% is knowing how to take advantage of your good luck.

You know, an entrepreneur is not a man, not a manager. I mean, an entrepreneur is somebody who is great at conceiving ideas, starting ideas, building ideas.

Focus is the most important requirement for success in our fast moving world today. If you can focus, you can succeed. And if you cannot, you cannot.

It's interesting, I've been reading some of the comments. One of them was unique ability is a myth. And of course, that's not at all a accurate statement because unique ability. If I had not learned about the concept of unique ability, God knows how much time I've. I've built literally a multimillion dollar business around interviewing people, bringing people together and connecting people. Something I do even when I don't get paid for it. I just figured out a way to do it. Secondly, how much of this is chance? How much of this is luck? How much of this is being in the right place, the right time? People will say things like, it's not what you know, it's who you know. Which is a sort of interesting statement when we talk about who, not how. And it's not even about knowing them, it's about how you utilize it. I believe this conversation will fall on. And it has. I mean, there's many people here that have talked about how many copies of the book they've bought, how it's changed. There was one comment about, you know, I've read 15 page, the first 15 pages, and it completely changed my life.

Joe, can I make a statement about luck? I believe 50% of all success is luck. Okay, yeah. You're born at the right time, you're born healthy, you got a good enough brain. I think that's luck. I mean, you didn't have anything. The other 50% is knowing how to take advantage of your good luck.

And so I believe people can fashion their own futures and design their futures. And certainly I deal with some people in very broken states with the work I do in addiction recovery. And I've seen people crawl out of the worst places in life ever. I mean, heck, people that know my story. When I was 18 years old, in my worst state, I weighed 105 pounds from free basing cocaine. I nearly killed myself when I was a drug addict. So. So people can certainly change their lot in life. And there's certain obstacles that people overcome. So what I want to be able to do is have people that are thinking like, okay, I get the concept, I understand it, but how Can I actually do it? And by the way, Ben Hardy wrote, willpower doesn't work. Personality isn't permanent. I mean, we got some serious brain power here from you guys being able to direct and guide people. Because between all of you, I mean, think about this. Dean Jackson in 1997, invented the squeeze page, where you enter your name and email to go to the next page. I mean, think about how many hundreds of millions of people that one idea has influenced how it, you know, so, you know, you guys have done a lot of stuff. There's a lot of people saying, well, I've not. I didn't invent the squeeze page. I didn't create Strategic Coach. I'm not the number one writer in the world on medium.com. these guys have some great talent that I don't have. You know, there's that sort of thing. But the truth is, you know, I know the stories between all three of you. You've had to overcome some incredible adversities. You know, dad, you were bankrupt and divorced on the same day when you were 34 years old.

Is that what, 34? Yeah, yeah. I did the divorce in the morning so could keep my credit card for lunch before I had to give. Because when you go bankrupt, you have to give in your credit card. So two things. One is that we established a no receivables business in 1984, and I based it on the movie industry. I said, when I go to a movie, when do I pay for the movie? And I said, you don't pay for a movie on the way out. You pay for the movie on the way in. And it increases your dedication to the movie that you probably paid for it. So since 84 we go, everything's up front. We never do anything. And the other thing is I needed a great partner in both sides of my life. I needed a partner in my personal life. And on the day I was divorced, I wrote down the eight characteristics of the relationship. Not who the person had to be, but the what the characteristics would be. And one year later to the date, I was at a weekend conference and there was one seat left. I sat down and Babs was sitting next to me. And that's. And I started talking to her. And everything resonated with the sheet that I had put together about what the relationship had to be. And, you know, it's really been very magical for me to be in collaboration with Babs and Dean. You and I are great collaborators. Joe's a great collaborator. Ben's a great collaborator. And I don't ask Anybody to do except the thing that they're uniquely good at and what they love at what they love doing.

Well, you said also when you met Babs, you said this one thing. You said you had made a decision that I didn't want to work on a relationship. I just wanted a relationship that worked.

Yeah.

And that doesn't mean you were not going to put, you know, I want to give the proper context because, you know, you are constantly working on your life, but you don't do it by bleeding to death. You don't do it by swimming against the grain, per se. I mean, you've learned and created a lot of thinking tools and a lot of methodologies to take adversity and turn it into usefulness. I mean, you're one of the best. I mean, I always say this all the time. Dan's the smartest entrepreneur thinker that I've ever met. I mean, I. I've been Richard Branson's largest fundraiser. I've interviewed Richard probably more than anyone. I've spent six weeks on Necker island, and 30 minutes with Dan Sullivan is more useful than a week with Richard Branson in terms of business advice. Not that he hasn't built successful businesses, but the ability to teach and translate that to other people, and that's what these guys do so well. Dean is a great simplifier. Ben's an incredible writer. Dan, with coaching all the entrepreneurs he has. So that's why I wanted to do this conversation. What makes a successful producing entrepreneur?

And I'll let Marie do the honors.

Ah, gosh.

What makes a successful entrepreneur? I'm not sure that somebody will know that they're an entrepreneur from the beginning. I think they will have a desire to make a difference to other people's lives, and they'll see that, you know, something's frustrating them. There's a gap in the markets. They feel they can do it better themselves and they'll try to, you know, fill that. Fill that gap in the market. And, you know, that's, you know, and then. And then they almost become an entrepreneur by, you know, by default. You know, I don't think. I don't think you can sort of set out to become an entrepreneur. I think you've got. You've got to set out to make it make a difference to other people's lives.

Well, what are the business principles that have stood out for you, that just.

Have worked really well for.

For Virgin and for even building any sort of organization or cause?

Well, again, I. I don't necessarily think of them as business principles. And I think the word, you know, I, I think the word business, it becomes the business. But what, what you're doing is you're, you're, you know, painting a picture. You're, you're, you're, you're, you're trying to, you're trying to create something to make a difference to other people's lives. You have a blank canvas and you're filling in every little bit of that canvas to get every single little detail right. And if that canvas sings out at you at the end and it's a beautiful picture, your business is going to be successful. If bits of the canvas are not quite right, your business may fail. So if you set up a, if you set up to change people's lives, you've got to get every single little detail right. You've got to make sure that the people that you're working with 100% believe in what you're trying to do. And you've got to make sure that what you're trying to do is worthwhile spending your time on. And, and the end of the day, you want to be sure that, you know that the people's lives you've affected, you've, you've really been, you've affected them and benefited them. And, you know, if you get all that right, you know, hopefully you'll be able to pay the bills at the end of the year.

Well, you know, I know you've started.

So many businesses, Richard.

I mean, you have, I think 300.

Some companies right now and, you know, so many entrepreneurs. I work with a lot of entrepreneurs.

Who are startups, who are in their.

Growth phase, who are even in their.

You know, legacy phase.

And if, if you're in a startup.

Mode, I mean, you just talked about this painting the canvas. That's really incredible.

What is there, like one tangible piece.

Of advice that, that you wish that.

You had when you were just starting your, your first business.

I mean, the absolute key and I, and, and I like it's old stuck gramophone record that existed in my day is how, how good you are with people. And if you, you know, if you genuinely care about people, if you can surround yourself with people that, you know, genuinely excited about what you're doing, if you, you know, if you can draw out the best in people, if you're, you know, if you're good at, you know, praise, lavishing praise on people and not criticizing your people and, and inspiring your people, you know, that's, that's something you just have to do from day one. You Know, never use the I word. I mean, it's, you know, you're a team, we're doing this, we're doing that. Just never ever, you know, let it sort of center on yourself and, and just be a great, great leader of people. And you know, if you can do that from, from day one, even if you've got one other in person working with you or two other people working with you, then you know, you can enjoy the good times together. But there will be bad times and your people will pull around for you. They'll work day and night to try to keep whatever it is you're creating alive and make sure it survives. So the number one lesson is be a great people person.

That's great. And I got a quick follow up.

And the follow up would be.

So now you've started to, to make it as a business owner. So now we work with a lot.

Of seven figure eight, figure nine figure business owners. What did you do to take it to really the whole, whole next level? Well, I think the next stage is to be a great delegator and not try to do everything yourself. Try to find people who are better than you all the time. Try to find people who are better than you to put you out of business effectively. So whatever you're spending all your day doing, try to find someone who's better than you to do that, to replace you at it so that you can go off and think about the next big picture. An entrepreneur is not a manager. An entrepreneur is somebody who is great at conceiving ideas, starting ideas, building ideas, but then handing over to really good managers to manage the businesses. You know, the moment you've got more than one business, you can't be hands on doing everything. You know, if on the other hand you are, you know, you're not really a great entrepreneur, but you're a really good manager, you know, then fine, just immerse yourself in the business. You know, worry about every, every detail. Don't worry about having to, you know, move on to other businesses. So it slightly depends on what kind of person you are. You know, in a strange way, Steve Jobs was more a manager than an entrepreneur. I mean, it sounds slightly strange to say that because, you know, but I mean, he, he was somebody that, you know, focused on, you know, you know, almost specifically on, on one subject matter, you know, immersed himself in that business. He second guessed everybody with everything. No bit of artwork could go out without his approval. And he built a formidable business, but pretty specific business in one area. And it worked very well for Him. But if you want to be a true entrepreneur and build a lot of different businesses, you've got to be a great delegator.

It's easy to ask what makes a successful entrepreneur? How have you been successful? But what I'd like to delve into, because you, you're totally open about talking about stuff, is how have you fucked up? How have you. Like, like, what are the mistakes you've made? What are the.

We only got 25 minutes.

Yeah, yeah, we're gonna. The three days we're gonna spend talking here starts right at this moment.

Now, let me. Let me do some paraphrasing really quick. So I was born in a small town in Saskatchewan. My mother was a social worker. My dad was a car salesman. And that's why I sometimes describe myself as a capitalist with a heart. Finished high school when I was 16 years old. Been bullied a lot, picked on, went off to university, first year of engineering. I'm looking around and these guys are absolute dorks. They've got jeans that are torn, shirts that are dirty, glasses that are taped. And for the first time in my life, I fit in.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video. And I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out, and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link below the description. Or you can wait till the end of this video, or you can Simply go to joe'sfreebook.com and you can get a copy there.

And it was great. And I ended up getting involved with student politics. I had seven elected positions in my last two years on campus. From residence to central student body to the senate. And I started building self confidence, probably more than I needed, but certainly lots. And ended up working as an engineer for a few years up in the Arctic, across Canada. Some extraordinary experiences. Then I ended up doing a business degree. I did an MBA at the University of Calgary. My specialization was in entrepreneurship. And I really, truly fell in love with the world of entrepreneurship. A place that I'd been afraid of. My dad had bought a grocery store when he was younger, and it had failed quickly. And so my parents didn't speak glowingly of anything entrepreneurial, was, how do you pay the bills? We have a job. And so that was really my focus. Then the world of entrepreneurship stumbled along. I spent five years with one of the biggest investment banks. It was associated with Shearson Lehman. And I had some extraordinary experiences in investment banking, in Energy Partners. And I built an investment bank from scratch. We put up 2 million of capital. It was valued at over 300 million. Ten years later, we were doing 100 million of revenue. And you can imagine that in an Investment Bank, 95% goes to salary, and the partners took most of that. So we were coining it left, right and center. Everything that you ever want to celebrate in terms of recognition. I got listed as one of the top M and A specialists in the country. I got listed as one of the top 20 deal doers in the country. Recognition and philanthropy, left, right, and center. But to jump to probably the pivot point, I still remember the night vividly where I was stuck at home babysitting. And that sentence in itself tells you almost the whole story. Stuck at home, babysitting. I was parenting, not babysitting, because it was my own kid. And being stuck at home, in hindsight, was a huge mistake in my mind. Made a lot of money. So we had a big house, and the bigger your house is, the more you can spread your family out, so the less you have for connection and communication. That was really important to me at that time. And the reason I was stuck at home that night was that I had wanted to be at an art auction. There was a particular artist whose piece of art was up that was going to change my life. So I had to be there. But I decided to call in by phone. That's fine. Anyway, the phone rang regularly that night. I was in the office. I had a couple of kids in two of the other bedrooms at the way at the other end of the home. And I finally phoned the auction house and said, where are you at with this, Lindner? And they said, well, we've already sold it. I was pissed. And I said, well, Peggy, I told you I wanted to call. She said, I called three times. And a little girl said, you weren't home. So now I've got every right to be pissed, and I'm going to rage at this little girl for what she did to me. I remember going up to Rebecca's room, opening the door, and she's lying on the bed, crayons, coloring, whatever she was doing. Nine years old. I don't remember what I said to her in the two minutes that I was standing there. Three minutes. But she crawled under her bed. She was so afraid of this vicious prick standing at the door. What I remember the most was the last sentence, which was, what the fuck are you doing telling someone I'm not home? And she looked up at me and said, well, you never are. That was the first time I'd ever cried Standing without a reason to think it undermined everything I'd ever done in the previous. I mean, the reason I worked hard was to show my family how much I loved them. How is that? Anyway, I sat down in another room and I just realized how screwed up things were. Everything I just told you about in terms of success and the recognition was absolutely meaningless given what I'd accomplished. And I ended up through a circuitous route, discovering a place called the Meadows, Wickenburg, Arizona. And I checked in for a month. My partners at the investment bank thought I was gone for a forever, that I was going to bow out and be done. I left the Meadows after a week with the encouragement of my counselor. She said, you know what you got to do. And my book really speaks to this. The book's entitled Redefining Success. And the full title would have been if they'd had room for it. Redefining Success in a wealth Obsessed world. And we live in a wealth obsessed, obsessed world. I've heard many speakers, many coaches challenge that and I appreciate that greatly. I've loved what I've heard in the last day and a half, but we do live in a wealth obsessed world. Your first words when you define success is the size of the house, the size of the wallet, the size of the party, the size of the your office, the size of the desk, the size of everything that's based on the shallow and superficial trappings of wealth. Anyway, and the subtitle on the book, by the way, is Still Making Mistakes. And I remember negotiating with HarperCollins or whoever my publisher was in terms of. I wanted the longer name. And they said, well, why don't we just call the book Still Making mistakes? I said, look, my life's not that I want the headline is still Redefining Success. And let me tell you, I just spent two weeks in Hawaii with the daughter I raged at. I just spent two weeks in Hawaii with her husband and their six month old baby. The four of us were there and there was tears when we went our separate ways. So trust me, I've recovered the gap that I created that night. But a lot of it was, oh, thank you. But it really came down to resetting priorities. And someone else has made the comment, it might have been Derek, but he was talking about how do you define success? And that's a really interesting question because most people define it by accomplishment. And ultimately, I'll jump to the closing line right now is my daughter who coached me and she's heard me tell this story exactly as I told you. She's been in the audience a couple of times and she just waves and.

I love you, dad.

But her comment is, why can't we define success by the size of the smile instead of the size of the wallet? And it really drives home for me the importance of how I've evolved my life. I've been to more than 50 countries with each of my daughter and my son. I've been to 30 countries with my oldest daughter. I have three kids, two girls and a boy. They have amongst them three husbands. I couldn't be more in love with all three of the husbands. I'm struggling with my relationship with my oldest daughter right now. She's just like her mother, but that's another story and I'm learning. And actually, Amy Chan, wherever the hell you are, you gave me a couple ideas, so thank you for that. Okay, thank you. You know, my, the daughter I'm struggling with, I work with a coach. I have a full time coach and he came to me 10 or 12 years ago and we did not like each other. That's because he asked the tough questions and tough guy pissed me off. Anyway, he, we got, we, we stuck it out and he actually offices in my offices now looking after other people. And anyway, my daughter reached out to him about three months ago to get coached on how to get through to me. So we're working on it and it's just something I'm again, I'm working on because I care. And that goes back to the definition of success, the size of the smile, going back to definition of priorities. And that became, you know, if the night that I was stuck at home babysitting, my priorities would have been wealthy art, the car. The cars, the house, the holidays, the jet, the visits, all of those things that would have been my priority list.

Why?

Because those are the things I did to make sure my family knew I loved them. Coming out of the Meadows, my priorities shifted. Very simply, number one, health. A lot of people talk about physical health. Well, as you know, there's sexual health, physical health, emotional health, spiritual health, there's the relationship health. There's a lot of things about health. And the reason your health is so important is that without it, you've got nothing to give the others in your life. So that became my number one priority. And a lot of us try to prioritize other people in our lives, but if you don't have your health, I mean, I'm a four time and I heard the word cancer survivor and I've evolved that to the word cancer graduate. First Time I got cancer scared the out of me. I was the C word meant I was going to die. And I still remember driving in a car I had. A friend of mine was driving at a 15 passenger van. We're taking all our kids up to the lake and I'm writing out my funeral plans. I'm crying, the kids don't know I've got cancer. And all of a sudden, someone from the backseat, my son taps me and says, dad, oh, all right, we'll close the book and we're done. And I thought I was going to have to tell him something because I was afraid he had read something in my notes. He said, dad, I have to pee. Well, that was the end of my pity party. And we stopped peed and kept going anyway. So there was a fear factor embedded in cancer. Round one. And it, it led to the meadows. It led to a lot of different things. But the second round of cancer was 14 years later. And that was just a learning moment. And round four was around three was three years ago, and round four was a year ago. And to be blunt, round five is next Thursday. And because of targeted therapy, I'm completely unafraid of the cancer I deal with, so there's no problem there. But I really do believe I became a better person because cancer may have saved my life. The death spiral I was in, in terms of work, life balance and family. Cancer gave me every reason to rethink that. That's that fear factor, that scare factor. But it can wax. So the number one priority would be health. Number two is family. And I've screwed that up a few times, but it is a priority. Number three is friends. I live for friends. I absolutely love my friends. I enjoy spending time with friends. I put a higher priority on friends than the charities I support. And I'm working on that more and more. Number four is education, and that's your learning. Whatever you choose to do, how you learn, whether it's online or books or university or college, I don't care. It's learning. So that's number four. Number five is the career. You got to pay your bills somehow. And number six is community. But there's many things I do that engage all six. And that's the fun factor. Whether it's taking 60 people to Mexico to build homes. Well, that sounds like charity. No, it's the, it's the best team building work I do with family and friends. It's extraordinary. We happen to build some homes, people benefit, but our benefit is multiples. And the guy who runs this Program in Mexico. Sean Lambert, Homes of Hope, as he calls it. It's mutually transformative. So there's a bunch of work there. So, anyway, reprioritizing my life allowed me to redefine success.

So let's talk about. You sing, you dance, you've been on Broadway, you're a parent, you're involved, you're an advisor, you have your own company. How do you manage all? How do you manage your time?

Gosh. Okay.

And you do burpees, too.

I do. I love. It's so efficient, and you can do them anywhere. But I love things that are efficient. So it's funny, I have a bit of a personal mantra. Work, life, balance just doesn't exist. I'm sorry, it doesn't exist. Nothing I've ever done that I'm proud of have I done when I was being balanced. So my mantra is work, sleep, family, friends, fitness. Pick three, and you get a different three every day.

But when you say those again, I want people to write them down.

Family, friends, fitness. Pick three. You cannot pick all five of those and do them all well every single day, every day. And every day when I wake up tomorrow, I can pick a different three, and the next day a different three. And the hope is that a balance is out over the long run. But you just. You cannot accomplish anything of value if you try to do all five of those things in one day. So I think, you know, for me, when I started to give myself permission to be lopsided, I guess instead of being balanced, that was when just really things started unlocking for me an incredible way in business.

Yeah.

Yeah. You know, what I think about with sharing things in Genius Network is I believe, really accomplished entrepreneurs can come up with better ideas sitting by themselves, you know, with a napkin or a notepad than going to most seminars. So if I'm going to share ideas with, you know, some of the greatest thinkers, I want to share elegant ideas. And not just how do you solve a problem, but what's one thing that, if you solve this one thing, solves a hundred other problems. Like, for instance, sleep, as an example, if you're sleep deprived, if you fix sleep, there's like dozens, if not hundreds of other things in your life that will improve. What are you. Some rituals or things that you have done or involved yourself in that just. You get so much bang for the buck. Like, is the juice worth the squeeze? You know, that sort of thing. Like, what are some things that just move the dial?

Oh, my gosh. So one thing that I started doing a few Years ago was I started taking the month of either March or April and trying to dedicate the entire month to putting myself in an uncomfortable situation that I had never done before. Now, again, that's a very. You know, I have the luxury of doing that because I work for myself, because, you know, I've made enough money in the past that I can do that. But a few. So a few years ago, I started off this by going and living in Tokyo for a month.

Wow.

And because I was like, I just want to immerse myself somewhere that I've never been, do something uncomfortable. Three years ago, I joined the cast of a Broadway show for a month. That was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. It was the scariest experience, hands down, of my entire life. But I got cast in one of the leading roles in Rock of Ages, an 80s rock musical on Broadway. And just walking a mile in someone else's shoes like that gave me such a deeper appreciation when I went back to my own business and I did that. So I just. I try to think of what is uncomfortable, what's scary, and just try to go do that.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, it's like even doing this event is nerve wracking for me. It's incredibly fulfilling.

Because you care, you know?

Yeah. It's funny you say that, because I think when a speaker gets to the point where they don't get like a little nervous, not, you know, I don't get like, oh, my God, I can't speak in front of an audience. Although there was a time where it was. I would literally sweat profusely. I mean, it was so uncomfortable. But I heard this saying years ago that that which you fear and don't face controls you. But that which you fear and you take steps to face, you can control it or at least get a lot better with it. So I do put myself into situations that challenge me. The question is when you do it to where it's so stressful, like, there's a difference between. Hugh Downs was a friend of mine, and I interviewed him when he was 87 years old. And he said, you know, the difference between stress and distress, you know, stress will actually build you up and make you better, like working out and stuff. But if you overdo it and you get into a state of distress. And so a lot of entrepreneurs like you talked about the five things they're trying to do so much.

They never choose sleep or they never choose fitness. And that's not good for anyone either.

Right, Exactly. So for fear, I mean, I Think the entrepreneurial mind is willing to take risks that non entrepreneurs do not take. How does one increase that stamina? If you have any suggestions for it? And sometimes it might be not trying to push yourself, sometimes it's just pull back. I mean, I love the idea of go living. I'm sitting there thinking, maybe I should move to Tokyo for a month. That would be like a freak show.

It was amazing. And I lived in an area where it was, like, not touristy at all, so no one looked like me. It was fabulous. I loved it. It was just such a different, open mindset. But I think back to your question. How do we build our tolerance for that is getting used to failing. For me, I feel so lucky that I did so much theater as a young girl because I got rejected. You know, when you do theater, you get rejected for 10 roles for every role you get cast in. And so. So even though my mom used to say to me, like, hey, honey, I hope you're not gonna do this with your life, she'd be like, you know what? I think it is so awesome that you are doing theater because at 8 years old, if you could get rejected from a part, pick yourself back up and still have enough faith in yourself to audition for that next one, you can handle anything that business throws at you.

Totally. That's great.

So I think for me, I just. When I went into business and entrepreneurship, I already knew how to fail. Like, I already knew I had it in me to pick myself off the floor and still think I was the best person for that part. And I think that's half of what entrepreneurship and risk taking is about.

I mean, there's that cliche which is, what would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail? I've had that on computers. I have this little metal thing that has it etched in there. It says, what would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail? And of course, the way my brain works is business deals. Who would I ask out on a date, what sort of, you know, all that sort of stuff. And it's interesting how much fear, actually, for things that most people are capable of doing, but they don't do because of, like, rejection or what other? And so how do you deal with criticism? How do you deal with rejection, which, as public as you are, you've heard everything under the. The sun.

So everything. I mean, and also, I can't tell you how many brainstorms I sit in where people withhold their best ideas because they're so afraid of even the three Other people sitting in the room saying, that's not a good idea or squashing it. And so that's why. I mean, that's why I love the hackathons that we did at Facebook, because people who felt afraid during the day and guarded of their ideas, like, suddenly that created a safe space, space to have wild and crazy ideas. And I think creating those spaces in our lives and in our businesses are really important for me. I mean, gosh, the first project that I took on after I left Facebook and started my own company, NBC, asked me to do a show on Bravo, a documentary about Silicon Valley startups, follow six entrepreneurs. And it got a ton of hype. It was, you know, like, really buzzed about, about and all the tech and media press. And then the show just didn't do well. After the second episode, it got moved to a 3am time slot, and then it was a marathon at the same time as the Super Bowl. So that's, you know, where a show goes to die. And I thought, oh, my gosh, how am I going to pick myself up off the floor from that? That is the first project that I did after leaving Facebook. Like, how am I ever going to have any credibility ever again? And it took me a while to kind of get myself off the floor for that one. But two years later, when I put out my children's book.it was that same executive who called me on the phone and said, you know what? Our first show didn't work, but I liked working with you, and I have a feeling this next one will. And now dot is in 30 countries, 100 episodes of our animated show. And that wouldn't have happened without that failure.

No, that's the thing. What Dan calls it is a strategic byproduct that if you start pursuing something, things that happen off to the side end up, in many cases, being more valuable than the original thing you're pursuing. Like, if you sign up to run a marathon, what ends up happening is, yeah, your goal is to run a marathon, but all these other life changes happen off to the side. Like, maybe you start eating better, you start sleeping, sleeping better, you start getting in better physical shape, but you plan your time better.

Exactly.

And then all these little things happen. And so my pursuit in life is the strategic byproducts that come out of it. I mean, this group genius network is really. I want the strategic byproducts of it. You know, for me, I want to change the. We've talked about this on our podcast interview. One of my projects is changing the global conversation about how people view and treat addicts with compassion instead of judgment. And I know that I will figure out the best ways to go about doing that within genius networks. So the strategic byproduct is I can do all this other stuff in the addiction field.

I think another thing, though, that you're so good at and so many is you have to be willing to have people give you advice and then reject it. Like, you have to really be able to stay true to who you are. Because I know from When I was 2 years old, my biggest dream in life was to sing on Broadway. Like, I just knew it from the first moment I could create memories. And when I got to Silicon Valley, all my mentors, who I respected told me, like, randy, stop singing. Don't do anything that is distracting from working here, because you already have it harder than the men as a woman. Women, like, people already want to say that you don't deserve it, so don't do anything that's gonna distract from that. And so for 10 years, I didn't sing a note. I didn't perform. I buried something that was in my soul basically to fit in. And a few years ago, when I ended up getting cast in the Broadway show after all, it was like a Pandora's box of my soul opened up, and I realized, like, what was I doing listening to bad advice all those years to, like, be less interesting, you know, to not. I mean that actually, it has been one of my biggest advantages in business is the theatrical knowledge that I have in that work. So I think also you have to be willing to kind of look great people in the eye who think they're giving you great advice, but aren't.

Yeah.

And also, and just even asking, you know, whose life is it anyway? I mean, what am I really trying to do? So many people, even if they get like, again, a Dan Sullivan saying is, success traps are harder to get out of than failure traps, you know? And when you've reached a certain level of success and you're making a lot of money and you have a big company and you may hate it, you may be miserable. It's like we talked about on the podcast. I told the story of this crazy guy. I learned marketing from where he had a guy come to one of his seminars that had 56 hardware stores that he owned, and he had not talked to his children in a couple years. He was 60 pounds overweight. He was drinking heavily. His cholesterol was through the roof, and his number one goal was to open up his 57th hardware store. And it's Kind of like, at what point do you know what is enough.

Enough, like, focus on yourself.

Exactly. How do you. How do you follow what is so damn important to Randy and Drop? I mean, because you're in situations where you get. Because of who you are, you get thrown opportunities that are amazing all the time. So. But you have so many amazing opportunities. You, you know, you got opportunity in digestion, you know, so that's a good.

I like that.

Yeah.

I mean, I think a lot of people in this room, that's one of their biggest challenges, is not, you know, I need an opportunity. No, I, like, I need less of them. I'm buried in opportunities. Which ones do we say yes to? Which ones do we say no to?

I mean, I think that's the hardest thing of all of us because as entrepreneurs, we always have our eyes open for that next thing, that next opportunity. You know, we are in a mindset to create our own luck rather than let luck happen to us. So. But it can be so distracting if you're constantly having shiny objects dangled in front of you and you want to say yes to everything. So I think for me, I just often just have to clench my teeth and remind myself of my ruthless priorities. What are the three things that I want to do this year? And that doesn't mean that you should close down to outside opportunities, because you. You might find that amazing thing out there that is worth latching onto. But I have found that when I create things, when I create IP or create business, and then people come to you, they slot into what you're doing, whereas if you just kind of go on coffee meetings or lunch meetings or phone calls, people don't really understand. And that's when you're at the risk of distraction.

Right.

Give us a bit of history about you, you know, have you always been driven to succeed? And I know that you and your mom mortgaged your house for a hundred grand to start FUBU in the beginning. So talk about that.

Talk about have I always been driven to succeed or the mortgage at home.

Yeah.

What was it?

Yeah, well, both.

Well, you know, I've always been driven to succeed. I've always been driven to create some form of an income, but the income was really the afterthought of creating some form of an idea that was executed from beginning to end. So, you know, I opened my first business when I was 6 years old. It was in the first grade. I would, you know, the boys, the boys, when they liked girls in the first grade, they would. They would kick them. They'd pull their hair. So I. I saw a way to make a profit off of this. And I would go and I would find pencils, and I would spray, scratch, scrape the paint off the pencils, and I'd paint the names of the prettiest girls in school on the pencils. And then I'd say, don't kick her. I would sell the pencils to them to then give to the girls. That was going pretty well, actually. The girls, because women are so vain, they bought all the pencils of their own names. But I was making a lot of money. And then my principal made me close the business after, like, one month, I think, because he didn't have any vision. He found out that I was stealing the pencils from the guys I hated in school as well. So my cost of goods was zero.

Right.

That was my first business, and I always wanted. After that, I just kept going.

You know, it's funny when you. If people that are willing to admit it, there's always kind of a little criminal background in many successful entrepreneurs.

Absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah.

You know, until you kind of learn integrity, or at least learn that once you know how to do things, you can actually. It's more sustainable. So borrowing money to mortgage the house, doing that sort of stuff, I mean, did it almost not work?

It did almost not work. You know, it was one of those, you know, how us entrepreneurs take affordable next steps and we dream big. And I was one of the people who were fortunate enough to come out of it. But that was a very dangerous time in my life. I had gotten turned down by 27 banks, and I didn't have any financial intelligence, but I had orders for $300,000 worth of goods. Not knowing that cash is a huge choke and the credit system and everything else like that. We took out a mortgage on the house for $100,000, you know, moved out everything, slept in sleeping bags, and turned the house into a factory. And that was all good.

Right.

And we figured we'd sell the $300,000 worth of goods and we put the extra. We put the hundred back into the house. But of course, you know, about six months later, I'm looking at three months later on the mortgage. They're about to take the house from me. I have $500 in the bank. I'm selling the goods. But my lack of financial intelligence at that time, you know, I didn't understand that paying three months in advance for raw goods to come from overseas was going to take that cash and paying for my utilities and my staff and shipping and Everything was going to take that cash, and I had to give the store's terms of 60, 90, 120 days. So my ignorance in that sense. I was fortunate enough to take out. My mother took out an ad in a paper for Strategic Partners, and she said, money's always available. Sales aren't available. So she took out an order, took out an ad, and said something to the effect of million dollars in orders need financing. And of course, she knew how to romance the truth a little herself. I'm not saying that I was a thief and my mother was a liar, but maybe that's what it was. But 33 people call that ad, and one was Samsung, and 30 of them were loan sharks, and three of them were real, and one was Samsung's textile division.

Okay.

You know, it's funny, Dan Sullivan, who's in the audience, says that there's two things you need when starting a business. Ignorance and courage.

Yeah.

Yeah. Because.

Yeah, totally.

So what's the best piece of business advice you've ever received and how did it change your business path and your direction?

I think it was. Well, I received a couple of them. The first one was somebody said, don't spend all your money, kid, because it's really, really hard to make money and it's 10 times harder to keep it. I think that was one of them. And I think the other one was, you know, it's all about the numbers. There's only two ways to do business. Increase sales or decrease cost. That's it. And don't do anything because it's an ego play. Increase sales or decrease cost. That's it. And those things probably have been the ones and everybody else knows all the other ones. Of course, do what you love. Of course, do your research and everything else. But the room knows that already, so.

So Fubu has. It's had 6 billion in global sales. What are the key elements, secrets and requirements of building like a $6 billion brand that people here can utilize?

Well, in the days that we built it, I think that there are a couple of things. First of all, you know, in business, it's purely about distribution. I think that you can have the greatest idea in company or whatever the case is, but you don't have a way to distribute it. It's a pipeline. It's a challenge. I think that to understand and don't fall in love with your product where you think that you're creating something new, because we will never create anything new. It will only be a new position or a new angle on it, a new Price. You know, I always say Twitter was, as I shared with you before, it was a note on a pigeon's leg a million years ago. And I didn't put three sleeves on a T shirt. I just created a movement around it. So it's always a different. Different positioning. And I think those are the ways. And then after you get to a certain level where you have brand equity, I think it's creating a large amount of really amazing strategic partners. You know, licensing, whether it's a territory or licensing a different angle of your product is important. I'm not going to understand what they necessarily want in Japan, even though they want Fubu in Japan. It's a different culture. As well as I can do my men's business. But you and I were two guys. If you wear a 32 and I wear 32, there's two sizes, 32, there's 32 long, 32 short. If I sell a pair of seven or a pair of eight jeans to a female, there's 17 sizes because the thighs are too big, the butt's too this, the gaps over here. So I would license that business to an expert in that area because I don't have a lifetime to learn the ladies business as well. So I think that strategic part partners are very valuable.

Okay, so your friend Kevin Harrington was here earlier and he was talking about Shark Tank, and he said that Kevin O', Leary, Mr. Wonderful, was a far better, more intelligent negotiator than you.

I don't know your thoughts on that.

He didn't say that. I'm totally kidding. I would say I should have just let that go.

No, no, no.

I knew.

I knew that.

Kevin's a great guy, and I'm actually representing him in the speaking, and I would absolutely make sure he doesn't get any more gigs after that.

Yeah.

If you were to get in a fight, a physical fist fight with Kevin o', Leary, you think you could take.

Him with Kevin o' Leary or Kevin Harrington?

Kevin o'.

Leary.

Well, both actually be interesting. Kevin, Celebrity death match.

Well, so Kevin o'. Leary. I could take Kevin Harrington. Crack my head to the white meat. It was just one day.

I don't.

You know, I think he's like a hundred years old, but one day we all did push ups on the set, and I think I was on my 19th and he was on his, like, I'm 107th.

No, he's. He's a maniac.

He is a problem.

He came to Necker island and he was like in one of those sumo suits and Everything. And I swear to God, he was like knocking everyone down.

It was bizarre.

You know, if you've ever been in his office, he does not have chairs in his office.

He's too neurotic.

He just has a table right there and a bunch of crap all around.

Yeah.

Can I get a timer up here too, so I know where we're at. What are the little talked about factors that most successful people want, wouldn't want to publicly share that drive growth and success?

Well, anybody that's really successful, such as yourself, such as Jay Abraham, and the people in this room that I respect, have always shared every single aspect of success. That's probably one of the things that you end up forgetting to share is that the opportunity to give somebody this knowledge only comes back to you. But I think other things that people don't share in success is. I really wouldn't know. Honestly, I don't come from that model. Any and everything that I can share in success, I will. So I don't want to. I don't want to take up time trying to think of something.

Okay, well, you have to be all hurtful about it.

Hey, I love the whole 10 minute thing. You know what? Because I was thinking over here, all of us as public speakers, if you gave me 10 minutes, I would be uncomfortable.

Right.

And I'd ramble through it. But you know what? I would have been uncomfortable and it would have tested me. So I want to stay on the. Even though I got 30. I like that idea.

Yeah. Okay. In 2009, you joined Shark Tank. How have your investments worked out on the show? And you know, if a business owner. These are the questions I have. Doing over a million a year was going to investor wealth, what would you recommend they look at, analyze and try to do so?

All right, so in the investments on the show, I want to make this quick. So the first three years, I think I lost 750 the first year, 500 the second, and I think I made it all. I lost about 200 the third, and I made it all back in the fourth year up of one deal called Jamba Juice. Talbotiz, we sold to Jamba Juice. Here's the reasoning. You know, people really didn't know what Shark Tank was at first, so the deal flow was poor. Second of all, the producers are really producers. So in the first season of vetting people, whatever people said was whatever people said. And the producers didn't know any better. After sitting on sets for three years watching, you know, 150 people, people per year pitch and two hour pitches, the producers became more savvy towards this, so the deal flow became much better. And the closing ratio went from only closing 30% to now we close approximately 95%.

Also.

The sharks themselves have become very astute. We've all put the right resources around us after making those mistakes. So I didn't make anything up until that point. And then only one deal itself paid for everything. And now we have found ways to convert sales. And I've had a license, individual and everything else. Taking that and going into the model of having a million dollars, you want to know where should somebody invest that?

Yeah.

Like if they were going to invest the wealth, what would you recommend they look at, analyze deals and try to do so.

We're not talking about going to public markets or anything. We're talking about looking at venture that's out there in the market and angels, things of that nature.

Correct? Yeah.

Tell you the truth, if it was me, first of all, I would invest in what I'm seeing is a large shift in business where many people in this room are doing this already in regards to online curriculums and things of that nature. But I'm seeing that there are kids at home and people at home that are going into these networks and into these forums and they're speaking the voice of other people and people are prepaying for goods or whatever it is, and they're doing 2, 5, 7, $10 million worth of business. The entire business model is shifting now. You know, so they always say retail is messed up or bad. Or let's say my business is 20 billion. It's not a 20. It's not that it's not 20 billion dollar business no more. It's just that these big guys like us aren't doing it. It's 10,000 kids doing a million dollars out of their home. So that is how business is shifting. And it's about social media and it's about continuity and transparency.

You read a lot.

I read a lot, but I don't get to read a large amount because I'm dyslexic. So reading a lot means three pages to me. But it may take two years and usually the three pages are one of Jay Abraham's emails.

That is actually funny with every adjective. Every now.

So I'm reading that, then I gotta go to the dictionary. Then I gotta read that. Go back to the dictionary. What the hell did he say?

What? No, I mean, he has the most expansive vocabulary of any human being I've ever met.

Yeah, he's like the Muslim guys that Come out of jail with kids and they just start saying everything because they studied the dictionary.

No, I always let Jays like talk about engineer reciprocity and stuff like that.

Amazing. But that's why he's my mentor.

Yeah.

And yeah.

So what are the key things to look for and do when growing and developing talent and stars in an organization?

Good idea. I mean, you know, when I speak, I can only speak off of my experiences and what's worked best for me. So people can't object. What I've learned about in talent is first of all, I don't pay a high price for talent coming aboard. I want people who are willing to bust their butt and prove themselves. And I think we both then are a little uncomfortable. And this is how I structure it with anybody in my company. Number one, you have an obligation to the team that you must do. And this is in your silo. Number two is if you are able to contribute to part of the team, there is some form of compensation, a percentage or whatever the case is. And number three, if you do well enough, we will start this business together and we will be partners. Now why do I do that? Number one, you have to have a dedication to something. Number two, you have to show, show that you're a team player, but you're compensated. And number three is great. People are very hard to keep and sooner or later they will either leave and be your competition or they will just leave or they will be such a large cost. So if you make them a partner here, you basically take them off the market, you increase your margin and your revenue, they start teaching everybody else down the line and it becomes a pyramid and domino effect. And that's the way that I've always run my business.

Okay, cool, cool. So this is always a complex one. How do you manage your time? And what's the biggest time management lesson you could share with the super busy.

Entrepreneurs, which is most people here, that is, that is going to be the biggest challenge ever. And I am, you know, I think that I'm in a room full of, you know, people just like myself. And I've been having an enormously hard time with that this past year about time management. And that's the biggest struggle I think we all have because you have the time management challenge of first of all being with the ones you love, because that's why we work. You have the time management challenge of staying up with your health and then you have the time management challenge of not going out and putting out fires, but starting fires. So learning the new way that Things are shifting and time management is very, very hard. So my basic practice, as much as I can, has been to quit the work out and get the things out of the way daily. That needs to be done immediately. I have a goal setting process to keep me on schedule. And those have been the biggest challenge. I'm having a big challenge with it now. I was just sharing that with you and where I think the biggest challenge I have is if you don't create a solid form of communication. I've noticed the 2040, 60 rule is getting worse every day. No matter what what I say to my team, if they say to somebody else, 20% is gone, they say to somebody else, 40% is gone. By the time you know it, you are adding on 2, 3, 4 hours to your day of fixing things you said and you thought it was done. And the two aspects, the problem is this. Am I going to talk to somebody like a child and say do this, this, this, this, this, this, or am I going to fire them if they do something wrong or am I doing something wrong? And it's just, it is a big, big challenge. And I know somebody in here probably has a book or a curriculum I can fix that. And talk to me later about that.

Okay, so what do you see as the biggest opportunity right now in the marketplace that you may not want to fully share, but you just know there's huge opportunity for entrepreneurs who can take advantage of it. That would be worth 10 times the 10,000 to 25,000 people invested to be in this room.

I think that. And I don't mind sharing, I think that there are influencers and people all around the world right now that have become, become, you know, pseudo celebrities. And I think that we are going back to the days of the proprietor. You feel like you're dealing directly with the proprietor. No longer is there three, three forms of separation between you and something you're consuming. You can consume something from a proprietor. And I think that the days that I grew up of needing the rappers and the artists to wear something and talk to the manager and do this and that, and then needing the TV to air it, I think it's a different time now where there are kids in the middle of Australia sitting there on Instagram with 10 million followers, but they're not moving anything but content. And then if you have something else, whether it's a pen, a jacket, a book, a cup or something like that, and you brand that, you branded to that kid, and the average is a half percent or 1%, go aheads and converts you can sell something every single week. And if you end up creating. Creating infrastructure where you have 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 of those kids, you can create a total movement.

Awesome.

So who do you privately turn to for advice, if anyone? And why you, Jay?

Who else? You know, I turn to my kids because, you know, I've gotten to the point where, you know, these. These little brats of mine were on Snapchat. They were talking about Uber. They were talking about this and that. And as adults, we ain't going, what the hell you doing? You should go, no, what the hell are you doing? Because, you know, that's just where it is.

You know, that's actually really good.

Okay.

What is your business model and model for living as successful of a life that you can, and what's the most critical single element you focus on within it?

Having fun by far. And I've gotten to that place in my life where it is, and many people in this room may say, well, you know, you have enough money to have to have fun what you're doing. But I really look back to the days, and even when I started fubu, when I started fubu, even due to the frustration of the fact that we have felt, nobody wanted to support this community. Most of my friends where I grew up were drug dealers and things of that nature. And at that time, to be a designer, in 1989, 1990, the perception of a designer was they're either Italian, older white, Caucasian individuals, or they were gay. And I have no issue with anybody's sexual preference, but I decided that I love to draw dress, and I wanted to do it, and I had fun doing it. So now, even when I'm at this stage in my life of having fun, I'm excited about people I work with and people I have fun with. It's not because I have the wealth, because once I stopped chasing my friends and hanging out and wanting to be cool and make the money and get the girls, and I just stopped and told some, tell a bunch of rough guys, hey, I want to make a couple of little hats. It wasn't easy, but when I did that, when I did that, I found success and I found peace. And then, you know, and that's just why I operate business. And hopefully that answered it. And I'm sure everybody up here has said the same thing.

What are the biggest dark sides of success and fame? I mean, you have people that write scathing things about you if you become famous. You know, that criticism.

I think the darkest side of success and fame is number one, you don't change. But the people around you say that you've changed. And they, you know, they. Certain people around you have said you change and you can't be yourself no longer with your friends and some of your family. I think that the challenge of knowing that you haven't watched your daughters grow or you're, you know, you weren't there for your wife when something happened, and you weren't physically there due to the lack of time. You never know what that costs you. Now, I do know individuals who are making minimum wage who still are not home. Like, I'm not home. So it all is the balance of, I'm not there, but I can afford the finest doctors and the things for you in life. I think also the other challenge of success and fame is if you're a true entrepreneur and you're a business person, when you get home, can you come cut it off? No matter what, are you talking to your husband or wife like they are somebody who is employed by you and your children, and can you get that soft side of you back? And I think that those. And again, that becomes a time management situation. Time's the only thing that we can't change.

Yeah, gotcha.

So knowing everything you know and have experienced, what's the one question I didn't ask that I should have, and what would your answer have been then?

You know, I think that. I think that all of us are probably workaholics by nature. And I think that one of the biggest challenges are at what point do you either sell the business, stop the business, share the business with somebody else, or, you know, at what point do you make that transition that that tends to be the entrepreneur struggle. Can I make more? Should I sell out? Should I bring on partners? And I found that the businesses that I was more successful at or the businesses that I didn't miss were the businesses that I actually had to think about what to do with the business. I wasn't excited. I wouldn't say, what, are you crazy? You know, we love sharing information. And, you know, you said to me, come on out here and hang out. And I said, all right. And then it turned into me speaking, and then it turned into a bunch of other stuff. And I was happy. If it was about something else, I, you know, if I had to think, man, do I want to do this? I should stop doing that altogether. So it's just that pivotal moment of when do we pivot and use what we have to still be successful? Because I've learned in my time, in my life that People thought I was a designer. I'm not a designer. I'm a distributor and a manufacturer. So I don't love designing. I love the art of distributing, manufacturing and branding. And a lot of times we get stuck in the area of no, we're supposed to do this, and this is our business. That may not be your business.

So you have to say no a lot, especially when you reach a certain level of fame. And it's interesting what the world, who the world admires and how they put some people on a pedestal and the sheer volume of people that are simultaneously trying to tear you down while beg from you for money. It's interesting to see it's very much of an anti capitalistic society too. A lot of jealousy, a lot of envy. How do you cut that stuff off? How do you mentally deal with, with it? How do you say no to things when people are just, you know, hitting you from all angles? And I know it's hard. I mean, it's not a perfect answer for this.

Well, first of all, you know, well, if it's somebody that I don't know and they come and pitch me, you know, all black guys look the same. So I tell them I'm either Ceelo or Ashy Larry from the Chappelle Show. They stop pitching me, right? So I'm not worried about them.

Does that actually work?

Yeah, it works. Okay. The challenge is the ones you do know. The issue is I've learned to become very comfortable with my gut. And the first couple of years of success and money, I've handed out a lot of money and I lost a lot of friends and never got it back. So I'm very, you know, I'm very quick to say, hey, this is what I believe in. Number two is that I just, I've now created something where people have to go through a lot of hoops and not, not to demean them. They have to make sure that what they're bringing me is so special and it's thought out so right that it works for me. And then I've also learned to say no to other things and say, guys, I tried it. I lost money. I don't know that area. No. Yes, you do. Trust me. I don't know. I've just learned to not become, you know, not drown in opportunity and think I know everything. I know a very specific area and I try to stay there.

No, you're very good about that. I've noticed that a lot about you. So how would you describe the successful entrepreneur? What are the characteristics of these People that truly make it, they make money, they make impact, they do it with integrity versus the ones that just flounder and kind of have jobs but call themselves business owners or entrepreneurs. I mean, what's the key difference between. I mean, there's a lot of differences. I know, and you've done this for many years, but like, what are some of the things that you see is just what makes a great entrepreneur?

Yeah, well, you know, you've got the kind of standard stuff everybody talks about, which is you've got this huge vision. You know, you're able to think 10x over everybody else. You've got this tremendous ability to be both disciplined and focused. And I don't think a lot of people think of entrepreneurs is being disciplined, but those that knock it out of the park have a lot of both of those kind of things. But what was interesting is this executive program I founded and ran for 15 years. I just made it a game to see if I could predict who coming out of that course would build the biggest, fastest companies. And I could. And it came down to something very simple. And that was those who were the hungriest that had this really thirst for learning. It's the thing we were talking about where Mark Cuban in his book, and I'd known mark for 30 years, but I didn't realize he's had this fundamental routine, this habit, this daily focus of reading three hours every day. And he talks about it in his book, Warren Buffett, 500 pages a day. Bill Gates, who we talked about in the greatest business Decision, his famous think weeks, where you know, his record, 112 books, manuscripts, PhD thesis, white papers. Mark Zuckerberg this year in 2015's Focus, to read a book every two weeks. Eric Schmidt saying on the stage there at the Milken conference, you know what was key to him really helping scale up Google. We think he's going to say some really big fancy stuff. He said, no, shut my BlackBerry off every weekend and read a book or two. And so it's this. You can't have anything come out of your brain that you don't get in first. And it's this intense ability to learn and then act on it. Bias for action.

Well, so the key there, acting on it. Because there's a lot of people that will go to seminars, they'll read a lot of stuff, they'll consume things, but they spend a lot of their time consuming and reading and less doing. So what is the action element? I mean, there are these unicorns that you can, some of the People you mentioned people could be thinking, well, I can never do what Warren Buffett does or Zuckerberg. I mean, I'm just whatever. I'm a normal person. How do I apply that? Should I really read that much? I mean, what would be your response to that?

Well, first of all, I want to come back to this bias for action. Tom Peters, who is my idol, he wrote the very first really popular business book, In Search of Excellence. And he was kind enough to endorse the first, first book on the COVID And he said, looking back on the eight things that he found were key to building these significantly excellent companies. He said the only one of the eight that still holds, he believes, is this bias for action. And that's what most people miss. They have these dreams, but they don't really have visions. Vision is a dream with a plan that then you act on and then you have these fundamental routines like reading, like going over for three hours every day like Steve Jobs did when he was launching his retail store. It's what an Olympic athlete has to do that reaches to the gold level, is committing to getting up at 4 o' clock in the morning and practicing for three hours before they go to school. It's Jordan Spieth, who we've just witnessed have the most amazing year in 2015 that doesn't happen by accident. He had a big, hairy, audacious goal. I want to not only go to the Masters, I want to win the Masters. And then he had this discipline and focus to practice. Did you read some of the stories about where when he'd go over to his family store, he would pick yards between then and he'd hit the golf balls from yard to yard to yard. I mean, this is crazy, this obsession, but that's what's necessary.

Well, and it is the thing that gives the edge. Well, you said something earlier today when you were talking to the EO group about having the, you know, not reading is no different. Something along like having ability. Yeah.

Those who can't read, I mean those who don't read barely have an advantage over those who can't. And I think we've lost a lot of that. Gotta wanna to learn.

Yeah, yeah. So how do you have four children?

We do.

What are you doing as a parent? Do you try to instill entrepreneurial values in them or do you just kind of let them be their own person, see if they kind of fall into that or what are some of how does this apply to how you're a.

Parent, some of the things you learn? I've Always seen again. That's why I love being an educator. The word education educare means to draw out the genius. Your whole thing that's within everyone.

And you know what?

I'm purposely not focused on them being entrepreneurs. The founding fathers of the US said something interesting.

Interesting.

We're soldiers so our children can be farmers, entrepreneurs so their children can be poets. And what I'm finding is interesting is all of our children have kind of gravitated towards the creative arts side, which, by the way, is the one thing robots can be. Kind of the last things that robots are going to take over almost every other job. Accounting, lawyer, doctor. The kind of things that our generation focused on is being automated. So, you know, I think they've got to go with their own trends and just. I just want them to have this thirst to learn.

Now, one thing I want to get into is the entrepreneurial mindset. But I want to. I want to ask you and Dean something as a way to kind of frame what we're talking about. One of the things I've been doing with my team is asking everyone to share daily what. What's the results that they're producing? And I'm seeing how difficult it is for some of them to articulate what is actually a result. So what was going on? You know, we had this daily activity report, and I wanted everyone to produce results. And then I realized, well, I'm calling it a daily activity report, not a daily result report. Maybe that's why they're reporting activities. Right, Duh. You know, I mean, words have a lot to do with it. Dean's always talking about if you couldn't get paid for what it is that you do anymore. Like if there was some sort of law tomorrow that said you can no longer charge for your products or services or experiences or whatever the heck it is you're selling, and you could only get paid for a result, what would the result be? And I've been talking a lot about thought leaders. Everyone talks about thought leaders, but I like result leaders because anyone can come up with a thought, right? So, Dean, how would you define a result? And I'd like to hear the same thing from you, Lee. How would you define a result? Because everyone here, they want to produce results in their life. And in order to produce a result, they need capability. So I think they're here with us today to see what sort of inspiration, encouragement, how to ideas, that sort of thing. And then of course, you know, Ben Hardy here with the who, not how this is a great thing to you know, frame this conversation. I want to hear what is a result? What does a result mean? So that we know if we're doing it or not. So you go first, Dean.

Okay. So I'm going to tie that back to what we were talking about. These groups. If you look at just, just what we've been talking about, I see in our screen right here, me and you and Lee and Ben, you were talking about those. Between the four of us, there's over half a million dollars a year that we've already just talked about between Strategic Coach and Genius Network of Investment annually in our growth. Right. And if you don't come into something like that with a clear understanding of what is the result that you're looking for from it, then it's easy to get lost. It's easy to look at something like that as an expense. But when you look at it as an investment, that's what I look at it as, a capital investment that's sanctioned by the government that gives you a tax break for doing it. To invest in ideas and contacts and relationships and being in what I call an abundance neighborhood. You know, when we talk about this idea of surrounding yourself with the people who are going to be, you know, moving forward in the same direction that you're moving forward over the next 25 years. And I'm surrounded in three environments like that with Genus Network, with Strategic Coach and with Peter diamantes with abundance. 360. I look at those three abundance neighborhoods as where I want to hang out for the next 25 years. And so what I'm looking for is what is the ROI that my participation in those neighborhoods and that investment that I'm making going to yield. And the truth is that I've been playing with house money in those, in those environments for years. It doesn't take long before you get to a point where they're self sustaining. I'm going to show an infographic because I'm super excited about it, that if everybody can see this, this is a seven year case study that I just got the results for last week for September, September of 2013 till September of 2027 years that we were doing a case study with one of our real estate clients in Toronto. And this just to illustrate how I think about playing the long game on investments that you're making, both in capital, time, energy, relationships, environments, everything that you're doing, I'm looking for what's going to drive this so the components of it. And you can use this as a model for how you evaluate anything you're doing. Along the bottom are all the months from September 2013 to September 2020. The red dots along the bottom here represent the cumulative investment in postcards, newsletters, following up with the people who respond to the postcards. These green dots going up and to the right and gaining exponential traction. Here are the cumulative commissions that he's earned from people who have responded to the marketing that he's been doing along the way. And these yellow dots connected by these lines here represent when people first responded to the postcards that we sent out. If you look here, this was exciting this year. The top line, somebody responded in September of 2013 and in September of 2020 sold their house with Tony. And so that. And you can see every month in between here people are going, and if I zoomed in, he took. It was five months before he did his first transaction. But when he did that first transaction, he reached escape velocity and he's been self sustaining. All of this has been self funding ever since that fifth month. Over time now it's been over 1,300,000 on $148,000 ad spend or investment at a 9.1 times ROI. When you start looking and evaluating your involvement in any sort of network, any sort of a mastermind, any sort of an educational thing, you start looking at how much have I invested in this over time and then you really pay attention and look what were the ideas that I got or the people that I met or the relationship that I forged or the supplier that I learned about the generated a real result in this. An ROI. And ROIs of money are the easiest thing for you to track. That's really why we're in this game of business. That's how we keep the score for things like that. So that kind of mindset, if you look at it for something in strategic coach, how can you point back if you're honestly reflecting on things that you're learning and saying what was this? That what freedom did this bring me? Or what result did this bring me? Or what insight did this bring me? Or who did I meet that led to this decision that got me into this outcome where I ended up with money. So that is certainly one of the ways that we keep scoring. If you start evaluating the relationships that you get into and you start looking at them and driving that roi, not just passively sitting in there to learn and to just take it all in, you've got to actually do something. You know, you gotta, you gotta do it. You gotta find a who or tell your, who's telling to do what you learned? I surround myself in those environments to be exposed to what's and who's that I can deploy to get a result. I don't want to do anything.

Love it.

Love it. Thank you. So Lee, follow up on that one. What are your thoughts?

I love it because Dean and I think a lot alike. Of course I'm going to look at return on investment in dollars, time, passion and relationships. Right. For me personally, the roi, I'm fully content with the ROI I have in my companies already. So now it's just adding extra value, adding extra ideas. But the relationship piece, that's the most important piece to me in the communities. Like Joe, if you look back to my first Genius X meeting with you, very first founders meeting, people that I met in that group are lifelong friends. And not just that we're doing business together. We're talking behind the scenes. We're talking about what's really going on in our life and how do we improve and support each other through it. So I think that, you know, the connections is really the most important to me. I'm looking at return on investment on connections, but also what can I give? I'm more of a giver. I usually come into the meetings not needing anything, but I love giving and sharing and giving people public relations ideas and just building relationships. And so that's my most important piece.

No, totally. Well, you're a giver. So, you know, like my book Life Gives to the Giver. I mean, this is really about being a giver and it's about making an investment. I mean, the graphic that Dean just showed is really a visual representation of an investment in learning ideas, applying them, taking certain actions. And so, I mean, I think we all look at this from an investment standpoint that the deeper you go with anything that is producing a result, the better the results tend to be, especially in the long term.

Something really important though. Dean said he's looking at this and I am and Dan Sullivan teaches us this also, which is looking at it in a 25 year relationship. This is not just about one year. This is about building over time.

Time.

And I think about my tenure in Genius Network from the first year to now. I mean, these are deep relationships that I have now, but it took years seeing each other, sharing problems, having hot seats, being in the meetings, going to Arizona. It took years to get to this point. And so now you can really see the difference between people just starting out and building those relationships versus already having them. So I think the ones of us that have been in Genius Network for years, I. We actually get to be mentors to the new ones coming in and shortening their learning curve and letting them know, which are great contacts for them. And I think that's one of our abilities to help blossom this group even more, is looking at it almost like big brothers, big sisters to the next generation, coming in and really connecting and being part of that. I see Ben doing that all the time. Ben is so great about sharing those little things that inspire people. And they're like, oh, they feel so much more included and so much more seen because he does share that with them. So I think we can all do that.

A little story that was in the papers recently. Warren Buffett, who is one of the richest men in the world, and Bill Gates, who is the richest man in the world, and Bill Gates Sr. Were at a dinner party and the three of them are good friends. And they were talking and a gentleman came up to them and said, you know, I was looking at you, and you gentlemen are very successful. What would you say is that the most important quality of success? And all three, according to a bystander, all three broke off their conversation and turned and simultaneously said, focus. Focus is the most important requirement for success in our fast moving world today. If you can focus, you can succeed, and if you cannot, you cannot. It's almost a black and white thing. Well, I thought that was interesting because the way Joe and I met is I put together a program some years, years ago called the Focal Point Program, which basically brought in business owners like yourselves and taught them to focus. And we spent three years going through every single aspect of Life. We had 82 exercises that dealt with family and business and marketing and product and service and competition and positioning. And it was focus, focus, focus. And my offer, which is not as good as Joe's, but my offer was that you will double your income and double your time off within 12 months or there'd be no charge for this program. And I never had to give a refund. In fact, many people doubled or tripled their income within 30 days just by learning to focus and just by thinking in terms of focus. So it's really, really important. I read an article about myself. It was a very successful entrepreneur in New Zealand. And the article was sent to me last week. I'm reading this article. And he said the turning point in his life was when he went to a Brian Tracy seminar and learned how to focus. He was broke, he was unemployed, he had no money. And he walked out of the seminar a completely different person. And he had written Goals. He then looked around and as it happens, he saw an article on coffee shops and Starbucks success in the United States. And it said coffee shops are a good business to be in because more and more people like the idea of a specialty coffee shop. And if it has a WI fi, then they go there, it becomes a social center and so on. He knew nothing about coffee, and before the dust had settled, he owned 80 coffee shops in Australia and New Zealand. And then he says he got into a divorce and had to sell it for $50 million to share the proceeds with his wife. But he didn't share. He did not sell off the worldwide rights to it. So he's rebuilding. Anyway, his point was at the end of the article, they said, well, what would you say to aspiring entrepreneurs who want to be successful? And he said just two things. He said, focus and fail fast. Focus and fail fast. Learn quickly, try something new. And I thought I would just pass that on because it's sort of what I have discovered over the years is the faster you fail and learn, the faster you succeed. You actually learn to succeed by failing. You know Thomas J. Watson's famous line, if you want to increase your rate of success, you must double your rate of failure, because success lies on the far side of failure.

Chip, in your world, you've had to encounter things that most people in business probably don't at the level that you have, from PR that wants to attack you to people that simultaneously are begging money from you, while also envious and want you to go down to ruthless business deals. And you, you just seem like such a, you know, I mean, I met you and at TED for the first time, you know, several years ago and then again a couple years later. And you just sort of, you know, your demeanor, your tonality, you're just a kind, friendly person. Is this, is this the chip that everyone sees or to what level? I mean, you just seem like a much nicer person than a lot of very high level people. And I've interviewed quite a few and many are friends and some are just acquaintances. And I gauge who becomes my friends and who's in my inner circle or how are people that are more powerful treat people that are less powerful than that. And I've seen people with power can become really hardcore and really arrogant. And I'd love to get your perspective on navigating this world of not only financial success, but I mean, you do have tremendous influence, but you've also, from everything I can tell, the positivity that you've put throughout the world and how much you change it is pretty spectacular. And I mean you don't sell poisonous food that kills people. You actually are one of the people that openly speaks about the things that are damaged. So I want to kind of get your perspective on power and just who you're being as a person.

It's very difficult for me to. I have this American like loud marketing side to me and I have this very reserved Canadian side to me. And the Canadian side I think overtakes. I would never self promote myself in any kind of way. I think that it's all about the company or the people or the product. And I think, you know, I've always been in the, tried to be in the background of all of that. Now there's times when things happen and I wouldn't know what was happening to me and what I learned in the business part of it is that there's the business of making a product and being with people and supplying solves for people and really being happy with all that and how the business works and the mechanics of it. And right from one creativity right to the customer. And then there's also then the business of business which is governance, finance, public and private equity and all that type of thing. And other people wanting control but putting a facade up in front like they're.

Really out for the best of the.

Company as a marketing tool for them to get what they want to get personally in life. And I'd say my demeanor is one.

Is I trust everybody.

And so my life has been one where I'd rather leave my keys in the car and trust everybody and every now and again my car stolen and that's fine with it, you know, because I, I can't spend my brain power not trusting people, right? But there are 4% of the people in the world that are sociopaths and then there's a whole group of people that it, you know, like they've got a winning formula on how to make money. And it's very different than I'd call.

What I'd call a very west coast peace, love dove, Hare Krishna, all you.

Groovy cats, loving everybody, you know, and being out for the best for everybody. It was, it's. And so what am I getting at there? I'm getting at that. I would find myself at times when.

I was like upset, I was mad.

I didn't know what was going on and what was happening. And it just was too hard for me to believe that people had an agenda that was different than what they said it was. And so once I really got the context that everyone's an entrepreneur and these people aren't bad, they've just got a business formula. And now I have to go, oh, I have to deal with that business formula. Right, right. And I think that had me be super calm about business.

I wanted to talk with you about business, about time, about overwhelm, about the future and where you see it going and that sort of stuff. We just had a meeting yesterday with some of the top marketing minds probably in the world and it was pretty cool. And both of us have a, you know, a deep understanding of marketing amongst many other things. I mean, I'm very interested in the field of addiction and how to help people with it. I tell you tell a lot of my own story. And of course you have a big background. So for people that don't know who you are, how would you describe modern day Eben Pagan? The past and current.

Let's see. So I'll just start kind of in the business front maybe. I mean, I'm a child of hippie parents who dropped out of society and moved to the backwoods of Oregon when I was a little kid, two or three years old. So I kind of grew up in that reality. And then in my 20s I was a long haired rock and roll guitar player and that didn't work out for me. So I decided I wanted to be successful. So I got a real estate license. That didn't work out for me very well, but when I was doing real estate, I realized I needed to get clients. So I found sales and marketing and I started listening to tapes back in the day and reading books about sales and marketing. And when I finally realized that you could take a message and broadcast it out into the world and then get people to come and buy stuff from you, it was a game changer. Like it was for you, right?

Totally.

For a lot of us. And then I went through a phase in my late 20s where I was socially awkward and I didn't have any success with women and dating. So I went and made friends with a bunch of guys who were really successful at meeting women and learned how to do that, got an amazing girlfriend, then wrote a book of dating advice and took my marketing knowledge and my dating advice and learned Internet marketing. And our mutual friend Dean Jackson showed me some great stuff he was doing. And I built a business called Double youe Dating. Built a really successful company, taught a lot of relationship and dating advice to men and women. And then as I built that business and became successful in business because I'm a learner and I, you know, like, you like to learn about a lot of different areas. As I was building the business, people were asking me, how are you doing that? I showed, showed them. That went on to me starting to teach business and entrepreneurship and time management and productivity. Started investing in technology companies about, I don't know, seven or eight, nine years ago as well. So I've done maybe five or six of those. Got married. I have a little daughter now and putting a lot of my attention onto learning about parenting. And that's helping me go back and revision all the things I learned about dating and, and the things that happened with my own family and looking at the future a lot nowadays.

I don't know. That's a little bit.

Yeah, no, that's good. That's good. So for me, of course, I'm still doing my whole thing with trying to help entrepreneurs become better versions of themselves. Heavy emphasis on marketing and influence and using my marketing skills to now deliver hopefully some of the, the best solutions and ways of understanding, thinking about and treating addictions. And that's become a very interesting, complicated, exciting sort of journey because I am meeting a lot of people in pain, but I'm also meeting a lot of people and learning a lot about how to get people out of it and looking at my own life and how many, you know, how many of the years that had I known what I'm learning now would have made a big enough difference in being able to maybe help people shave a few years or in some cases a few decades off of the learning curve to get to a better place. So out of all the different interviews that we've done, and we've done quite a few, and you've been at my events, I've been at your events. And we always, you know, share, typically to rooms of entrepreneurs, sometimes just men and women just wanting to do better. You're a huge student of the world.

I mean, you read whatever I can find.

Yeah, you read a lot of stuff. You do read a lot of stuff and you observe a lot of stuff and you have really unique insights. What are the things, things that cause a person? You know, I'm going to use words like successful, for lack of a better word. Yeah. What are the things that really cause people to have success and failure in business? I mean, what causes the failures? What causes successes from your experience, because you've literally, I mean, millions of people have read, listened, studied stuff that you've put out there and you've read probably, I'm sure, in the thousands of books, articles, videos, you name it.

Yeah, well, the way I look at it right now, I kind of divide success. You said success in business, but the way I think of it is there's kind of success for yourself and then there's success for your relationships, your family, your friendships, your community. And these are two different things. And one of them is about doing things for you to make you strong, you healthy, you energetic, you happy, you growing, you actualized, you have meaning and purpose in life and you success physically, money. Live where you want to live, have the lifestyle you want to live, not have any hassles in your life. That's kind of, you know, individual or personal success. And then, you know, social success, having relationships that really work, having, you know, good bonds with people, good long term friendships where, where you feel like you support each other, where you, if you needed the person and they needed you, feeling like you're part of a community that is stable and that takes care of the people that are within it. And to do that, in a lot of senses you have to kind of put your own needs aside and you give to your family or you give to your friends, or you give to that community. And I think that real success, like I would call capital s success is where you balance those two things where you take and you get and you kind of create and then you also give and you're kind of generous. And if you get those two things in balance, which is more art than science, if you get those two things in balance, you can have more fulfillment and more joy and more happiness, I think. Do you want me to talk individual?

Yes. Yeah. Because I mean, here's the thing. Most of the business stuff is viewing successful people from either fame, materialistic aspects, how much money they have, and there's a real sense of contribution where you can. I am a big fan of whatever you want as long as it doesn't hurt somebody. And preferably it really helps helps others pursue it, achieve it, get it, go after it, don't feel bad about it. At the same time, not all money is created equal and there are trade offs that people will make in order to success is literally waking up and feeling excited about what you're doing, feeling proud, knowing that. I mean, I've always loved the saying if you haven't, if you think money can't buy happiness, you haven't given enough of it away. Because you can make a lot of people happy with things that you can do that they don't have resources or they've not, you know, something happened to them, they lost their Health or something, and you're able to step in. And in some cases, I mean, that brings me a tremendous amount of joy when I'm able to do those things. And I think anyone watching feels the same way, you know, wanting to take care of, you know, as many people, they're barely sustaining, paying their bills and surviving from a financial standpoint. And then they have their parents and when their parents get to. And so when you're able to have that level of success, that's different than I bought a Lamborghini, it's a much different sort of thing. So, yeah, talk about it as deeply as you want.

Yeah. A question that I ask myself, and I've been asking myself recently, years is what is value? What does the word value actually mean? And when you get down to it, each of us has a different way that we value things and a different way that we get value from things. And if you take a more like a triune brain model, there's like physical bodily senses and like physical pleasure, the kind of pleasure you get from eating food or from having sex or from being in a hot tub or from exercising or being in the sun or doing something that physically feels good. And then there's more of the emotional, like what your emotions are, whether you're feeling happy or feeling joy or gratitude or compassion or some of the more elevated kind of emotions. And then there's mental again, like having meaning and purpose and learning things and growing conceptually and having the world make more sense. And these are different things, but they're all part of one complex of happiness, I think, is to have as much of that growth and that pleasure and joy as you can. And you mentioned a great thing to be as successful as you can without hurting another person or without necessarily making someone else pay for it, in a sense. And I think a lot of us that. That are interested in success and really studying it. A lot of us come from backgrounds where we were poor or where we had less than other people, or where we felt afraid like something bad was going to happen. And so there's a lot of fear that drives the creation of a lot of success. But there's also in a lot of cases, I mean, this is sometimes cultures and religions and families and things, they make it wrong when you're a child to take what you want. So you're three and you're grabbing the cookie and someone's not just saying we can't have cookies right now, they're saying you're bad for having taken that cookie or you're Bad for having grabbed that thing. And so I think it's really important for us to be able to go through a phase of our lives as humans as we're growing, where we can take what we want without guilt and without shame, to be able to just purely take what we want and to have that be okay. And then later, when we get to the age where we can start understanding, wait, taking that thing for yourself, you just took someone else's thing and they're gonna feel bad because of that, and you can understand why that is. That's when I think it's more appropriate to have, you know, maybe an adult or a parent or a culture start teaching you about guilt and shame and so forth. But a lot of us got guilted and shamed and manipulated when we were so young. So then you kind of get this obsessiveness about it. And a lot of us, and I know probably you and me and a lot of our friends when we first started having success, there's this like, I gotta get as much of this as I can because I might not be okay. There might not be any later. And so. And I say this because I really believe that people, People should go through a phase of their life where they make themselves very successful. I think every person should go through a phase where they essentially focus on themselves, develop themselves into their highest potential, develop themselves and to be able to create lots of value and get lots of value in return, produce value for others in the world and make money and get success and learn all of those things. But I give that little kind of. That intro to it or that frame because we have to remember not to let our shadow or our demons from the past control us and have us believe that that's going to be the whole game. If you're going to come into a phase of your life where it's like, success time, maybe it's a decade or some phase of your life or maybe 20 years or something. Don't forget the relationship in the family and the community. You know, Maybe you go 80%, but you make sure and keep in mind other people and stay in relationship to other people and make sure you're doing things that are kind of ecologically and socially sustainable. Because if you get too far off in this, just get for yourself and get more money and more success and more sex, more power and more of these kinds of things. You go through that cycle you were talking about earlier where you, you have another big win and business or you have another big success in your life, but then you go through that despair moment and you feel empty even though you got the success. And then you got to go get a bigger success. And then before you know it, you know, people don't like you, or socially, your family's falling apart, or you find yourself now, you know, not feeling good about what you do, so, you know, success, all for it. I think all of us need to go through life and go through a phase where we learn. Learn all the success principles and we learn the ways to do it. And we learn to create success for ourselves without having a lot of guilt and shame doing it in a way, of course, where we're not harming other people, but we're really learning how success and how generation works. And then, of course, I think we also need to go through a key phase of our life. Maybe it's first for some people where we create social and community success and we learn those skills as well.

Okay. I hope you found that video awesome and useful. So if you want to get a free copy of my book, I want you to click here. And if you want to watch some more videos that will be useful and awesome, click here.

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Come on.

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