What It Really Takes To Reach The Top And Stay There - With Daymond John - I Love Marketing With Joe Polish And Dean Jackson Episode #234

I'm dean jackson, he's joe polish and.

This is the I love marketing podcast.

Hey everybody, it's Dean Jackson and Joe.

Polish and we have a friend and a special guest who's going to be joining us on this episode of I Love marketing. And it's Mr. Damon John, who most people know from Shark Tank. And Damon, where are you at?

Right. Hey, what's happening? Joe Dean, I am in New York Empire State Building here and just hanging out. Thank you for having me.

Yeah, well, yeah, great to have you here. We've actually put episodes with Dame and John in the past on I Love Marketing and this is going to be a full episode talking about what he's been up to, including a new book that he has coming out called the Power of Broke. And typically I would share a regular bio, but I actually want to read something that is listed on the Amazon page. And then we're going to get into some questions with Damon that will be incredibly helpful and useful to all of our listeners. So let me read this. Daymond John has been practicing the Power of Broke ever since he started selling his home sewn T shirts on the streets of Queens. With no funding and a $40 bud, Damon had to come up with an out of the box ways to promote his products. Luckily, desperation breeds innovation. And so he hatched an idea for a creative campaign that eventually launched the FUBU brand into a six billion dollar global phenomenon. But it might have not happened if he hadn't started out broke with nothing but a heart full of hope and a ferocious drive to succeed by any means possible. Here, the FUBU founder and star of ABC Shark Tank shows that far from being a liability, broke can actually be your greatest competitor. Competitive Advantage as an Entrepreneur why? Because starting a business from broke forces you to think more creatively. It forces you to use your resources more efficiently. It forces you to connect with your customers more authentically and market your ideas more imaginatively. It forces you to be true to yourself, stay laser focused on your goals and come up with those innovative solutions required to make a meaningful mark. Drawing from his own experiences as an entrepreneur and branding consultant, peek behind the scenes from the set of Shark Tank and stories of dozens of entrepreneurs who have hustled their way to wealth, John shows you how you can leverage the Power of Broke to phenomenal success. You'll meet Steve Aoki, the electronic dance musician DJ who managed to parlay a series of hundred dollar gigs into becoming a global superstar who has redefined the music industry. Gigi Butler, a cleaning lady from Nashville who built a cupcake empire on the back of a family recipe, her maxed out credit cards and a heaping dose of faith. And 11 year old shark tank guest Mo Bridges, who stitched together a winning clothing line with just his grandmother's sewing machine, a stash of loose fabric and his unique sartorial flair. When your back is up against the wall, your bank account is empty. And creativity and passion are the only resources you can afford. Success is your only option. Here you'll learn how to tap into the power of broke to scrape, hustle and dream your way to the top. And you know, I want to actually read this book immediately because what's kind of funny is we haven't read it yet because the book hasn't come out yet at the time that we read doing this. So I can't wait to read this book, Damon. So let's, let's get into it and talk about this book and everything else you're up to and just give all of our, I love marketing listeners some, you know, great, you know how to, so that they can, you know, build and grow their, their bigger futures. So I'm ready, man.

I'm, you know, thank you for having me because obviously, you know, that that's what, you know, you've exercised a power broke. I know your story quite well. I don't know if everybody else does, but you know, that's, that's the reason why people follow you because, you know, they may not have a jillion dol need to know how to empower themselves. So you know, you give them the mindset. So my mother used to always say, you know, you know, being broke is temporary, but poverty of the mind is permanent. And I'm not sure where she got that quote and who told her that. But it's, it's this, it's this thinking of that we grew up on because the media has told us many years or what is television shows, that you need money to make money or you need this huge expensive education or you need to know somebody. But you know, I don't believe that's true. If you, if over 50% of the top richest people in the world came from nothing, then that means they were broke. And if it was you need money to make money, then the top hundred percent of the people in this world, the Forbes 1000 inc 1000, they should have all been rich and remain rich. It's the power of broke. So thank you for having me.

Absolutely. You know, you said something that reminded me a lot of that whole saying, you know, you need money to make money, and it's not who you know, it's what you know, that sort of stuff, which to a certain degree, we can always point to things where that's helpful. But I can point to a bazillion examples where if you give somebody money that is literally not a strategic thinker going into it, really not knowing what they're doing, what happens is having money becomes a disadvantage because they can be incredibly promiscuous with money, especially if it's not their own. And I've seen people blow through money and in the process blow through relationships and hurt people along the way. And, you know, like you have written here in what I wrote, you know, necessity is the mother of invention. And we've all been through that process. Most people that listen to this podcast know my story. I started out as a dead broke carpet cleaner living off credit cards. I learned marketing, never thinking I would be doing, you know, one of the top marketing podcasts in the world, or teaching people marketing or writing courses or doing seminars or running Genius Network. I mean, I just needed to get jobs. And being in that position, literally I was hungry and given the choice of starving or eating, I wanted to eat. And so in that position, I did certain things. And I know Dean has very much a similar story, starting out as a broke real estate agent in Canada. And so, yeah, I mean, so I guess, Damon, I want to mention this, you know, before I ask you the first question, I just want to mention that I think talking to you because we've done a couple of interviews, you've spoken at Genius Network events, we've become friends. We first met each other in 2012. I came to your office, where you're at right now in the Empire State Building in New York, which is super cool where you're located. You have literally sat with probably thousands of people being on Shark Tank, people pitching their ideas, seeing, you know, all kinds of excited entrepreneurs and not only listening to their ideas, but directing them funding what you think is best. So you have such a unique perspective that most human beings never have. So I think, you know, listening to you and reading your latest book, because you've written a couple of books in the past. Display of Power, the brand within. You know, I think it's super cool that you have written the Power of Broke and are taking this whole, you know, this whole mindset and sharing it with other people, because there's very few people that have the business knowledge that you have. So having said that, what is the big idea concept and message behind the book and that you're conveying in the book.

Yeah. So the big idea and the message is, first of all, in this book, it's not just myself. I basically interview and tell the story of various different people in all different walks of life. So, you know, so for those who may think the power broke is my right to what we may call success or the fact that I have the secret sauce, it's not. I. I interview people such as Mark Burnett, the fame reality producer Steve Aoki, as you said, the EDM dj, Kevin Plank from Under Armour. The man is, you know, probably his business is going to do 3 or 4 billion this year. And, you know, he took on, or is still currently taking on Nike, Adidas, Reebok, when they said that nobody can come into this market and do such as, things such as that Rob Dyrdek, the skateboarder who now has a lot of intellectual properties and shows on television. And so the concept of the book is the fact that you look at all these people and many more and in various different fields of expertise, and they've all risen to the top through exercising a certain amount of strategies and disciplines. And you'll find that they all will have basically the same, different concepts and disciplines. They just took different paths to get to, to where they are. And I don't want to just make it a you can win type of story. So at the end of every chapter, I clearly leave things for, for people to learn from. At the end of the entire book, I try to give everybody a breakdown on, step by step, what needs to happen, the exact precise steps you need to take to go out there and keep this mindset and acquire this mindset. Also, what I try to do in there is this is not just for people who may not have resources. This is for the people out there who are now running a successful company or moving on to successful companies, because those are the people that remain successful. I made my biggest and most costly mistakes once. I had millions of dollars and 200 employees working for me and money to spend on advertising and marketing. And those were the times where I made the most crippling mist. So this is for the people out there who want to get somewhere. And these are for. This is for the people out there who also are operating their businesses and they're in this new digital space or this place in time, with things are changing so fast that they need to go back to the fundamentals and remind them what got them here.

Well, you know.

Your mom, you know, said being broke is temporary, and it struck Me that, you know, having for people who are coming from that position where, you know, being broke is temporary and thinking often that if I just had money, that would solve my problems. But it seems like for those people, we've seen it so many times that if you get money without having solved the problem that got you in the broke situation in the first place, having money is a temporary situation too.

Having money that really temporary situation. Yeah.

The thoughts that got you to, you know, that didn't, that kept you from the money are the ones that are going to make you lose it.

Yeah. I mean, let's look at the product. Let's look at a prime example. Okay. It goes through school for a period of time, they teach him how to read every single playbook in the world. He is the best physical specimen that, that you can ever have because he's in the gym every single day and then all of a sudden he's 20 years old, getting 2 million dollar checks, you know, every month. You know, his career, you know, lasts a good fair amount of time. Let's say 10 years, he goes after 100 something million dollars. Three years outside the league, he's filing bankruptcy. Now you may think this is one time situation, but this is over 70% of professional athletes are physically broke three years outside of the league. Now why is that? Because it's not that the kid intentionally took a shortcut in life, but he went from being the best physical specimen in his life. He's not a person who managed money. So they go out there and they spend the money because they made mistakes that they can recover from, because their job was to catch a ball or to throw a ball and do whatever they did. And because they don't have a lack of financial intelligence because they think money can cure it all, they go out and spend it. And once they spend it, they can't recover from it. So I mean, we've seen this with a lot of winners. We've seen it with kids, you know, who are athletes. We see in our personal life, you know, if you ever go out there and you are a guy or a girl and you go out there and start a relationship, let's say I'm a guy and I love this beautiful lady and, and the day I meet her, I take her shopping and after that we're always going to find restaurants and I buy her clothes all the time and things that nature. When the money's gone in a year, do you think she still will be there? I doubt it. I mean, you know, the, the, the relationship was Built off of money. It wasn't built off of trust, effort, energy failure, setbacks, things of that nature. The same thing with the woman. You know, you go and meet a guy and every day you're in six inch heels and your makeup is great and all that stuff. And that goes on for six months. But the day that you, you end up unfortunately being sick because you're human and you're not looking that great and you know, a lot of things are going on. He's gone, hey, where's, where's all that stuff you had around you? All that shiny stuff? It's really about no shortcuts. It's about just. There's nothing in life that I believe that money can actually buy for you because of, you know, because it's going to make you better. I believe money is an afterthought. And I know that because I've experienced it.

That's very interesting and true. What you said in the beginning is the thing. Of all the different people that are interviewed and profiled in the book, what they have in common is the same concepts and discipline. And that you teach people not only how to acquire the mindset, but how to keep the mindset and doing it on a regular basis. Which is why what you're doing, what you're basically teaching people in the book, is how to not only become successful, but remain successful. And I also like that you mentioned that you made your most used the word crippling mistakes after you had money. Because once you can raise up really high and financially can prop you to a certain place. But there's a huge difference between making money and managing money. And anyone that has been in business for a long period of time learns that. And most people don't learn it in advance. They usually learn it by very painful, painful ways. And so what I wanted to ask you about that is how would you define the way that you describe mindset? What does you know to Damon John? What does mindset mean and why is it so important?

Yeah, great question. So the power of broke mindset is this. Number one, when you look at a project or you look at a way or direction you want to go in business, you have to really come up with a formula of three things that I've highlighted. Number one, is there a passion about this product that and or company or brand that you have? Are you doing it because you have a true love and need? You see a need in the market, you want to change somebody's life, or do you, are you doing it because you want to make Money. Now, once you understand that you're doing it for a passion, you highlighted the purpose and the passion, then you start to do your homework on what do I need to surround myself with to get this out to market or to people, the vehicle, what are my assets? Because of course, your assets feed you and your liabilities eat you. Now, your assets don't have to be physical things. Your assets could be the way you think, where you live, the people around you, the education you take, the education you don't want to take. Your liabilities can be the same thing. The fact that you have the wrong people around you advising you, the fact that you think you can buy this education by saying, you know what? I want to learn online marketing. So let me go and hire online marketing company. Don't hire an online marketing company. Start to learn the process yourself. Because even if it works, what did that person do to get it out there? And if it doesn't work, you're already a step back and you don't know how to recover. And then the third and most important besides all of that is the product and, or the thing that you're going to go to market, how you're going to zig instead of zagging when everybody, when everybody else is. You're going to think outside the market. You're not going to go and put yourself into the one space where everybody value, we all know blue, blue ocean strategies or, or any of those things that show you, you know, don't go into a crowded space because I don't care how much money you have, you cannot compete with the big boys and girls who will drown you. You have to create a following. And how are you going to do that? So those are the, those are the couple of things that you're going to need to do to exercise the power. But more importantly, an entrepreneur's mindset is this. They take affordable steps, they learn and then they repeat and they keep doing that till they get to be perfect in what they're doing. And that's. I love it.

So how would you. Go ahead, Dean?

No, I was just gonna say those words, affordable steps. I've never heard it put like that before, but I often see people come and they've got a product or a service that could serve such a huge market, but they don't have the capacity to go out to that whole market right now. And I often advise them to pick a local, pick a market where they can have an impact, where they can afford to start. Because if they're going to cure all of the problem that their product does in the world can certainly start with all of the. All the people in Winter Haven, Florida, that have that problem, and that makes it much more affordable for people. Very interesting.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we see. And why is it easier now than ever before? Because, you know, when I started, I went after the people that I could approach, and those are the local kids in the community. And I started to get their feedback. And those were the kids in Queens, you know, Queens, New York. I kept dressing as many as I could, and then the kids, Brooklyn will come and say, let me buy a shirt. Hey, I'm the FUBU guy. The FUBU girl in Brooklyn. And then the FUBU people, you know, with people who would come from Maryland and D.C. and I started to create this army that I couldn't have paid for because they started to speak for me. And then it started to blossom. But I worked on those people just from the kids in Queens. Now, people always say, well, how do you get LL Cool J? Well, he lived in the neighborhood. I didn't know him that well, but if I would have just went up and knocked on L's door, he would have thrown me down the stairs. But when I went up to. By the time I went up to him, 50 people in Queens said, oh, my God, you got to see this guy. This guy is the truth. And LL Cool J was more like, well, you know what? I'm a rapper, and I speak, you know, about all the hip things. And wow, the hip thing in. In the rap world is right around the corner from me. So it's a win, win for me, because now there was a community co signing on me. Now, at that time, truthfully, you would have gave me a million dollars. I wouldn't address anybody in the world. I would have went over to LL Cool J's house, and I would have gave him a million dollars to do a commercial. And it would have been one commercial. Those other 50 people or 500 people wouldn't have been out there speaking, L.A. would have taken the money. He was done one commercial, and then that would have been it. He would have never wore it again, and I still would have been broke. Yeah, that's.

See, there you go. That was the whole thing about money.

Yeah, he would have been.

It would have been an external motivation. That's the whole. That's really pretty cool. Because you had to build something. The reason that fubu, it seems in the story, really took off is because it was growing from people's internal passion for it, not because you spent A lot of money on a marketing program to get the brand out there 100%.

I mean, you will get to the point, the business will call you, and you may get to a point where you are ready for investors, financial institutions, things of that nature. But if you don't create the. The following or you don't create this drive, you are basically, you know, putting this thing on steroids. It's a superficial high. So whether you're a kid in. In Harvard who wants to put a couple of people in Harvard on this one platform called Facebook, you just want a couple of friends, and then you. Then you slowly move into Ivy League, and then you move into, you know, whatever the case is, and now you got 1.2 billion friends. You started off with a desire to put just all these kids at Harvard on your Facebook. Yes.

Examples of that, too.

Yeah, what I was going to say. You know, Damon, one of the main things that we teach on I Love Marketing, you've maybe heard me talk about this, but we have a report that is a free report on I Love Marketing. It's called Breakthrough DNA. And basically it doesn't sell anything. It's literally just the eight profit activators that me and Dean talk about on episodes of I Love Marketing. And it's all built around this model that Dean created called before, during, and after. So we look at all businesses as having three different units. The before unit, which is what do you do to generate a lead, a customer, a prospect, and once you start interacting with the person, there's the during unit. What do you do during the interaction? If you're like a real estate agent and someone's you're doing a tour of a home, you're in the during unit. And then after somebody buys something from you and gives you money, then they're in the after unit. So how do you develop repeat business and orchestrate referrals? There's three stages of every business. The before, during and after unit. And the very first profit activator is select a single target market. Very similar to what you were saying of how you started FUBU and how you targeted something layering on this mindset of the power of broke into this sort of thinking totally fits extremely well. And what I'd like you to kind of talk about, Dean, for all of our listeners, is how would you take this, you know, the methodology of before, during and after and the eight profit activators and layer it on what Damon's talking about right now? Because I see it fitting in.

That's what I was fascinated When Damon was saying, like, starting out, do you do what you can of those words, affordable steps? Because, you know, you can't afford to start a national or international fashion line, even though that's what some people think they really want to do. And that if I just had money, I could do that. But, you know, what Damon was saying is starting out with what he could do right there in his neighborhood in Queens. And, you know, if you're going to be the coolest fashion brand in the world, you gotta be the coolest fashion brand in Queens first. And if you're gonna be Oprah Winfrey, you're gonna be the biggest TV show and star in the world, you gotta start by being the biggest TV show in Chicago.

You know what? You know what? You know what? Industry practice the power, bro, for a long, long time, the record industry. Because we all know, you know, Bruce Springsteen is from Jersey, Billy Joel's from Long Island, Biggie Smalls is from Brooklyn, and wherever it is, couldn't become an artist and be a superstar in your town. Don't even try to talk to the record label because the record label wanted to know that your acid test was the fact that the people right next door to you, the place where you live, that they want to scream and shout over you know who you are. And then that would go on to an artist, and that would. That would follow that artist with the history of their career. So whether it's Bob Marley from Jamaica or anybody else, they always talked about their local. Their hometowns, because they want. If you're not a hometown hero, then why should I respect you anyplace else? Yeah. That's fascinating.

So that put new. Thanks for sharing that, because that gave me a new distinction. Affordable steps that just layers on top of our, you know, our concept of choosing a target market that you can dominate. You know, it's easier to dominate Queens than it is to dominate all of the United States.

Right. But. And then, you know, as you guys obviously so eloquently put it, the three stages, you know, when you get to the second stage, you're actually within the business. I mean, what do you think is better? You know. You know, when you go out there and you can, you know, pay all these individuals and you start paying people because you don't think you need to learn anymore. I think the power of broke mentality is more needed then, because you want to see who in your team passes the acid test, who cracks on the pressure, who jumps ships, who takes advantage, you or who has your back, Who's A problem solver or who's a problem starter, you know, tough times reveal your team's character. But if you go out there and say, oh, guys, oh, make me many mistakes, you want, I have more money, I have more money. Let's buy, buy this, let's buy this. Your team, honestly, to tell you the truth, you know, business is all very simple. It's sell more or reduce your cost. Right. And all of our employees are somebody who is a salesperson and customer service. That's who everybody is. But what an employee's number one job, you know who their number one job is? To sell the number one target, the boss. You employees are not going to go there and tell you, oh, you know what, give me less money, because I think we should do this a certain way. They're not going to say, they're going to say, give me more money. Oh, blame sales over there. Well, blame marketing. Blame design. No, no. Start with you. How did you solve this problem? How are you going to solve the problem? Yes, we're going to have setbacks, no problem. But are we going to solve this problem? And money, a lot of times can and will, you know, camouflage mistakes and players in your on your team. You know.

Rodriguez, the filmmaker, Robert Rodriguez, he did, he made a movie, you know, his first movie, El Mariachi, made for $7,500 by, you know, he raised the money by checking into research hospital and doing some, you know, tests and stuff on him. And he took the money and made his first movie and took that out to Hollywood. But this whole idea, he's a big proponent of this thinking broke like that. Like he, you know, you got a way you can. He'll say, you can solve a problem two ways. You could solve it with money. Just, you know, put the money hose on it. Or you can solve it with creativity. And it's always better to solve the problem with creativity and less expensive, you know. That's really interesting.

Yeah, yeah. So the question is, you know, why do you think the power of broke works so well to increase creativity and innovation compared to having large sums of money to work with? I mean, you've already spoken to that, but I'd like you to maybe go deeper with it. Because I think the biggest thing is there's probably a lot of people that are listening. They're like, wow, you know, I've never really heard it this way. I mean, I think I need to go invest and get investors money and I need to get partners and stuff. And what you're really saying is you just like, Literally need to learn what to do first before you just start going out and using money or the concept of it as a crutch.

Yeah, correct. I think that there are several reasons why it's invaluable to exercise the power of broke first. So, first of all, you know, when you don't have any money, you don't have any choice. You have to put your back up against the wall, and you're gonna have to get it done. Now, the power broke brings out your own character first. Number one, are you really passionate about what you're doing? You know, if you don't have any money and you can't foresee money ever happening, why are you still doing it? I think it's because you really love it. You know, I ran out of money three separate times with FUBU, so I closed it down from 89 to 92 three separate times. I ran out, though, $2,000, $3,000. But I couldn't get that thing off my mind. And every time I saw somebody out there wearing one shirt that I sold them, it was. It brought me the greatest joy, and I would address people for the rest of my life for free. And that insight came purely because of the power broke. Because the business was generally dead. It was gone. Why go back into it? It's almost like visiting an old, you know, boyfriend or girlfriend. You know, there's nothing there. But I couldn't get over my mind. I was obsessed.

So.

So one thing it does is it makes you really decide if this is for you and where you want to go, because you can't. You can't. You just can't even sleep at night without thinking about this area, number one. Number two is you make your mistakes small. You know, the funny thing is Mike Tyson, I love to use his quote, he always used to say, everybody has a plan until they get in a ring and they get punched in the face, you know? Well, we got our. When we have our $50,000 loan that we took from the bank, and we know, 10,000 to build this, 10,000 to operate the store, 10,000 for staff, 10,000 inventory. Oh, we got it all planned out. We allocated the $50,000 to a T. And if we only sell X amount of dollars, no problem. Like, you know, there's not going to be gas shortages, competition, inventory that came in, you know, messed up a kid who's stealing happier stuff, you know, A. If we only sell this amount, we will, no problem, be millionaires within six months. That's your plan. But the reality is life's Supposed to punch you in the face. Now if you operate a business with 2,000, 4,000, you get a couple of jabs in the face, you're okay. By the time you get to that point where you're doing big business, your face was a punching bag. But what you did was you've learned what not to do. You're not the person who comes in the ring who, who didn't fight, you know, a bunch didn't fight, you know, know at all. And then Mike Tyson punches you in the face, then you have a problem. So it gives you this rejection muscle that you start to understand that you're not making your mistakes big, you're making them small. And you learn from those little mistakes because the day you want to take out the 50,000, 100,000, $200,000 loan, you don't want to make those mistakes so you won't recover from them. I was able to Recover from a $2,000, you know, bill on my credit card. But if I would have taken out that hundred thousand dollars that I ended up taking out seven years later, if I had a rule, if I would have taken that out, I would have ruined my credit, I would have ruined my reputation with my friends and I would have had absolutely no business. So, so that's what it makes you do. Makes you, it makes you think outside the box and learn these mistakes. And those are two of most valuable things that it really does for you. And it also helps you create a team of like minded people that are not getting paid to be yes men and yes women. They're coming around because they believe in something. You have something that they believe in.

You know what you just said there, that last part is, I want to highlight that because it is so critical. And when, when you get to a certain level of status or fame or financial success, you end up attracting that want to ride that wave. But when there is no wave, then you're really dealing with reality because a lot of it is a fantasy land. And if you're one of those individuals that just comes right, it kind of goes back to lottery winners. The average lottery winner that wins millions of dollars within a two year period statistically, not only has lost all the money, but is deeper in debt than they were before they won the lottery. Because giving money to somebody that has not developed either the skills or a strategy in order to acquire it, doesn't know what the hell they're doing. And they create. They not only lose it all, but they blow up and leave shrapnel everywhere. They hurt People in the process. Not intentionally, but they attract all kinds of people. Kyle, what was that story about the guy that won the lottery? He won a man. I mean, we can find it online. But he won millions of dollars. And what he ended up doing is he really thought, okay, what's going to happen tomorrow when I now have all of this money? So he ended up calling a bunch of relatives and friends and asked them if he could have like a $10,000 loan. And before any of them knew he won this money. And most of the people said no, and a couple said yes. And so at that point, once he cashed in the lottery ticket, he knew that once everyone was going to try to hit him up, he knew the people that really would have been there for him had he been in that position. And he literally protected himself from the onslaught of hanger ons that would immediately come on to play. But it's an interesting illustration to what you said about all the. Yes, but because, I mean, the type of people that come into my world today and the Facebook messages that I get every day, would you fund this? Will you support this? Will you do that? You know, it's just like, you know, man, what do you do with it all in the power broke mindset?

Got our own little Shark Tank going over here.

Yeah, it's a great. It's a great insulator from. From that level of nonsense that. That comes into your life and keeps.

Things, I think, I think, insulator in a couple of different ways. You also, like you just said, you know, listen, there's people out there who will all of a sudden be your friend, but even when you want to invest in people, I know Joe and I know Dean. You guys are the same way. Especially when I want Shark Tank, it's the same thing when somebody wants me to invest in their business. And I see that they won't even do the things that I would do because I went through it. I got punched in my face a bunch of times. If I see they're not even wanting to do that, I immediately shut off because I know what I've been through to get where I am today. And I can highlight other people and they better be. They better be people who are problem solvers. They work harder than me. They're in the office in the beginning of the day, they at the office at the end. They constantly doing their homework and researching. So you start to be. You start to be able to highlight other people and other people who have the same way of thinking as you, other people who are great Strategic partners, great partners. And you start to highlight the other people you want to be around. And I hate to bring this other part up that. To get the people who are yes sirs and all that kind of people. All those type of people, you know. Yes.

Many.

Yes. Women. The con men and the con women in this world, they're working twice as hard to get your money as you are to make it. So you're not gonna. You're not even gonna see them coming, the ones who actually have bad intentions.

Right. That's interesting. Yeah.

You know.

There'S so much to be said in the lessons here. I want to ask you this question because what you just said makes me think about it. With the power of broke mindset, how do you say yes and how do you say no? Meaning what do you say yes to? What do you say no to? Because in your particular situation, Damon, you know, being on Shark Tank, you're constantly having people that are pitching and they're wanting to present their idea, and they want you to fund their existing business or their dream and looking to you or one of the other sharks to help make it a reality. And you're a guy who has more opportunities thrown at you, probably by 8am every day than most people get in their entire lifetime. How have you developed the filtering mechanism of what to say yes and what to say no to? And how does the book teach people how to make decisions?

Great. So, you know, so let's look at the decision I have to make when somebody stands up in front of me. So I have to look at. I have to tap into my power broke and go. Let me look at the formula here. Number one, has this person failed more than they succeeded? What did they learn from those failures? Number one, that they will never take no for an answer. And no is an absolute maybe. Number two is that they fail. So that varies different times. So if there was or 10 roads to go down, they know these eight aren't the roads to go down because they've already tried it and they have failed at it. So they know these two are the magic roads, that something's going to happen there, you know. And number three, did they have the discipline and did they have the courage to keep moving on through that? So that's about the person itself. Then I look at the business model or the idea, whatever the case may be, you know, is it scalable? Because when I looked at all these businesses, I have, if I don't see a scalability in it, and if you're operating the power broke, it's just like that. If you don't, if you're trying to service a sub segment of a market, of another market of another market, and you have to be seven steps away from the money, you have to create something to then sell it to somebody else to hopefully get it to somebody else to hopefully get it to somebody else. Before you know it, you saw there's only 500 customers around the world. Unless you're selling something for $10 billion, you probably won't be successful. Let's look at the scalability of the company and then finally, you know, you know, where is the proof of concept? Don't give me an idea. I need to know that you went out there and you made some form of sales. And what can sales be? Sales can be, you have an item for a dollar and you go outside and you sold 50 of them in 30 minutes. Minutes. That's huge to me. Or it could be you create a video on your iPhone asking people, you know, do they like this or something stupid. And you, you've got 10 million views or you know what, a hundred thousand views. Or you open up a certain Twitter account and you're a mompreneur and you're sharing with mothers other stories, but you have 5,000, 10,000 people that religiously support you. Proof of concept doesn't have to be, you sold a million dollars tomorrow. So those are my, those are my levels of how I look at a person that's pitching me. Then the final decision I have to make is in myself. Do I love this product and. Or feel that there's a need for it? Will I be excited about it and work on it every day and will I do my homework on this? Because I need, I know it needs to be out of the market. When I see all those things, that's when I go, this is something for me. And even then, it's a small chance of being a success. And I know that, but I'm happy to take that route with that person.

No, I love it. I love it. Some of the things we can spend an hour on each one of these subjects, is it scalable? Have I gone through the roads before the proof of concept and will I work on it every day? When you encounter all these different ideas and all these different entrepreneurs, do you bet on the jockey versus betting on the horse or how do you think about that, the idea versus the person behind the idea? Because for my, you know, just to be, you know, open, I always think of it's the individual behind the product, the service, the idea the concept and it is the thing. I mean, what are your thoughts about it?

Yeah, you know, by far, you know, the jockey I've been on, that's why I said, you know, the first thing I look for is the person. Because, you know, every business, we're not going to be successful or get an A on our report card. And the worst scenario was the fact that me and this person will create a relationship where we're gonna do something else or that this, this business that we have tried and, or hope to be the best that is just opening to something big, something huge. You know, when you have a partner or you're investing in somebody, it is like a marriage. You may talk to this person, especially in the same office, you know, eight hours a day for, you know, 200 and some, some odd days a year, that you probably with them more than you with your family. So, so, you know, you have to know that you're ready to invest in this person and this person has your back. So having the power broke, you don't just hire people. Because when I picked the people that were around me at first and they picked me as well, it was purely because we had a mindset and a way and a common goal in mind. And we all agreed and we all, you know, worked as a team.

That's so funny because I've seen you on Shark Tank even walk away from or go out on a deal where even though it may have been a good deal, the person you've even said it. I just, that that would drive me crazy to deal with that person, make.

The decision to go out just because.

You don't want to take their call.

Every day, you know, you know, it's funny, you know, who operates the power broke every single day and they don't realize it. Well, many who operate the power broke every single day. Parents, mothers, you know, mothers to me are the ultimate entrepreneur. I don't care how many children books you read and how many shrinks you go to and gives you advice when you have a baby. And we all have children, you know, a lot of us have children out there. There's no blueprint to how this, how you're going to raise this child in the course that life is going to present you. But we have to figure it out. Yeah, okay, maybe you are a parent who hires a bunch of nannies and great schools and you're flying around on the private jet when you come back. You know, those are, those are that, that, that, you know, over 60% of the kids that had money that now don't have it. And they're no longer on the Forbes 1000 because they. You didn't go through the power broke. You didn't do it. You know, every single day, personal care, affordable steps, learn, you know, and then act and then repeat. And you know, mom, moms and mompreneurs, they are the ultimate startup. They operate the power broke every single day. So, you know, it's the same way with your business. Your business is like your business baby, your child, you know, they go to the air doctor or the, you know, the emergency room three times a month because they have an earache at 4 o' clock in the morning. You know, you don't give the child up for adoption. Well, Kevin, Olivia would. But, you know, most of us wouldn't give the child up for adoption. You figure it out. And that's what a business is. That's what the power broke is. You know, if we had to just put it in a, in a simple way.

No, that's, that's a great point though. I mean, you're, I love that analogy. So how, how do you deal with or transform setbacks and failures into growth and success? I imagine the book is filled with that and I'd like to kind of hear your perspective on it.

Great question. So when you learn a lesson and you have to go back and sit and analyze what happened, it's kind of like in the. Which you guys know all too well, the copycat game. You know, you putting together 10 different ads with the same objective in mind. And you're, you know, back in the days you put them out on newspapers, but maybe today we're putting them out on Facebook, Instagram and all social media. And you are learning why this copy is working better than the next. And when I went out, you know, with a shirt, I would sell someone a kiosk. I'd sell someone standing on the corner. I would go to video sets and sell some. I would go to clubs and sell some. And I would change the logos, change the names or how to deal it, the colors and the sizes. And then I would start to learn where my customers were, what they wanted, and I would start to cut out. We know business is 80, 20, 20% of your customers, 8% of your business. And I started to cut the fat out, cut where I was wasting time. And when you start to do that, you start to put yourself and put your business in various categories. And so you put it in your marketing, you put it in branding, you put in sales, you put in distribution, product design, financing, you know, and things of that nature. And then you start to scratch out what isn't working. And that's in the book how you start to scratch out what isn't working and you start to come up with the best practices for your business. And everybody's not the same because there's so many different markets. There's a super luxury market, there's a regular market, there is the economy market and there's so many different markets out there that you have to start seeing what works best for you.

Yeah, that's what are a few actionable specific steps or habits that a business person or an entrepreneur listening to this can take action on now to grow, to innovate and to make money.

Okay, well a couple would be number one, you know, can you put yourself in two to five words? And your objective, put yourself first of all in two to five words. Apple think different. Nike just do it. Fool for us Bias White Castle what you crave, whatever the case may be because you have to understand personally who you are. You have to be very honest with yourself and why you are in business and what do you want to accomplish out of it. Because when you walk into a room or when you're on social media, if you don't Understand what your 2 to 5 words are, what they stand for for, then you leave it up to everybody else to interpret. They're your mission statement. Then put your mission statement in regards to your company. The next thing is you're going to then start to write down a set of goals, timeline, what you want to hit and how you're going to go about it and what are you going to do to repay those goals and acknowledge it. Because if you have a bunch of goals and markers that you're going to hit and there is no reward or is there, there is no way to repay it, you're never going to be satisfied. Then who is your team? Are they like minded people? Now you have two different levels of people in your team. You have number one, it should be a mentor. You should have go find a mentor, a local mentor. Somebody has no interest in your business at all. Also, no matter what, it's a two way street. What are you doing for the mentor for the mentor to mentor you? Because somebody who's operating a small business in a community for the last 20 years they still went through competition, gas shortages, recession, everything. It takes the same mindset to run that business as it does to run Apple. So you need to go find a mentor and what are you doing for the mentor? Okay, the Mentor has money. Maybe not giving money to the mentor. Maybe the mentor loves to save animals. Well then go say you're going to spend four hours at a dog pound every single, you know, week to show your appreciation for the mentor. And then the other side part of the team is the like minded team member around you. And you know, you guys have a common goal. Then you're gonna look at your assets and your liabilities in regards to your resources. So what are your resources? You know, what do you have in front of. You can't. Do you have, are you a great looking guy that has a good humor or do you know a bunch of, you know, people who are part of a community? Are you, you know, somebody who's a great designer? What's your, you know, are you a great people person? Are you great in mathematics and strategics? You start to look at that and then you look at your liabilities and then you look at the product. What do we have? Because how are you going to get this? How are you going to create a communication around this product that people are going to gravitate towards and how are you going to find these communities? And then you start going out to the communities and I think that I have it, I think I have 10 steps in the book, but those approximately six of them.

No, that's great, that's fantastic. Dean, I've got more questions but I want to give you an opportunity because I know you probably have.

I mean, I'm looking, man, we could just talk forever. But you know, the interesting thing, I was thinking about the assets, what you were saying there. One of the assets that people can really have is the proof of concept idea that they actually can show that it works on a small scale. And I mean even the smallest scale, I think, I think that's really, you've amplified that for me here today. And you realize if something's going to work on a big scale, it's really, it's going to work on a small scale too. And treating that as the asset. When you were talking about the idea of making mistakes when you had money, that some of the biggest mistakes that you made were then what were? What are some of the things that, that you're kind of talking about there? Some of the traps that we can fall into by, by having not absolute broke mindset 100%.

So you know, we got to a certain point where, you know, we had several brands underneath the Fubu umbrella, many clothing brands and we wanted to diversify our portfolio. So we saw that there was a company named Heather at these are two amazing designers, two guys that were making things for. For women. And they were the talk of the town when seventh on six, the big fashion show, Fashion Week in New York came around. Everybody would model their clothes for free. Naomi Campbell, Tyra Banks, Kamara Lee Simmons. They would have these huge halls where, you know, they would do their. Their fashion. Their fashion was super edgy. It's something like, like a, like a Cyndi Lauper would. Would, you know, is kind of like the face that. That type of angle. And these two guys were brilliant. And I looked at this and I said, you know what? Marketing and branding is like a black hole when it comes to, To. To anything. You know, you don't know where to spend the money necessarily. But you know what? These guys are all over the newspaper, the television show. Naomi Campbell, who would charge normally 100,000, $150,000 to walk the Runway, walks for free. I said, so let me look at this as being 25 to 30 of my initial startup in this company is free. Nothing, no cost. We go and acquire the company now. We bring the two guys in. I've never really created women's fashion. We're really good at men's fashion. Anytime we created women's fashion, it was a licensed product out to, you know, another company to understand women's fashion. So we go. Then we find out now that because we're backing them, the fashion show was $250,000 each one, and there is two a year. Why? Because we couldn't go as fubu to you, the head of the fashion industry, and say, oh, we need a break. But these guys, people loved them so much that prior to coming with us, they gave them everything for free because they were the sizzle and the buzz. So now that costs money. Now we want the guys to go out and promote. So let's hire a staff. We hire people who have been in the fashion industry for years, but they're a little more mature, they're not millennials, and they start running the company. And then we do a little bit of advertising, B2B advertising. So what happens after of fashion shows at $250,000 a pop two times a year? So right there you have, you know, a million dollars being spent. You have another million and a half in inventory. You have probably after three years, another million and a half in payroll. What we realized after that was this. Those guys who designed Richard Rich and Traveler Reigns, they are amazing costume designers. So they can put a woman like Tyra Banks, you know, they can take her behind, you know, the screen at a fashion show and they can hand cl. Craft something and then put this beautiful hat on her head and spray painter and put all those clips on her, make her walk down the fashion show. Fashion runaway. But nobody wants to buy that in the store. You need to make ready to wear clothes in the store. But that's not their level of expertise. Right? So. So now you have them, you know, and they never said they were experts at that, but what did we do? Because I don't know how to sew women's clothes and I know never took some time and rolled up my sleeve and went into their office. The other individuals who were running the company for us, they really didn't know what the millennials like. These people were great at making. Maybe denim, but not dresses. But we had these high priced salaries and before you know it, I'm out of $6 million and it hurt. You know, I don't know what level you're at. Spending $6 million and more importantly, spending three years of my life. Life was probably the biggest loss because if I look at that and I was starting something else new, I could have probably been more profitable. So it's almost like getting a fine artist to make a cartoon strip. You know, somebody who nice. Who's a sculpture or they make beautiful paintings and say, hey, make me a comic book. And they go, that's not what I do. But we tried to force that, you know, you know, square peg into a round hole when we bought Heather up, because I didn't roll up my sleeves and go in there and sit in the business and go, this is wrong, this is right. This is wrong. This right. I thought I was paying everybody $6 million. Later, it's gone. Wow.

Yeah.

That's why.

Thanks for sharing that. Because that's something I think even on, on at any level, people can relate to that. Very cool.

I don't know how cool that is, but you know what?

No, no, not, not great that you blew up.

How cool is that?

Let's celebrate.

I learned my lesson and I don't, I don't do that anymore. I will start off any company if it's not an acquisition. I will start off a company at my level. I will start it off with $5,000, $10,000. I will not go out and do that again.

Here's one of the things that. Because I've thought a lot. I mean, we've all been asked, you know, what's the secret of success? And how do you do this and how do you do People are trying to learn all kinds of stuff all the time. And I think unlearning is far more important than learning in many cases. And I think your not to do list is more important than your to do list. And I have a lot of opinions and a lot of philosophies and a lot of strategies and things that I utilize in my business and in my personal life that came through a lot of, lot of effort. And one of the things that I believe is the very best thing that I did early on, when I was a dead broke carpet cleaner, I went $30,000 in debt on credit cards. And I really didn't know what the hell I was doing in the beginning. But I remember a quote from Anthony Greenback in the Book of Survival where he said, and I'm not going to get it exactly right because, because I'm doing it off the top of my head. But he said, in order to get through an impossible situation, you don't need the mind of an Einstein, the reflexes of a Grand Prix driver, or the muscles of a Hercules. You simply need to know what to do. And when you learn what to do and know how to do it, you can get through pretty insane sort of situations. And when I didn't have money, what I did have was a hunger and a desire to actually learn what to do. And when someone takes their life experience and puts it into a book or puts it into a conversation and they start directing other entrepreneurs and they start teaching other people, people really would be well served to pay attention to that. Because, I mean, you take your book, what is the retail cost of this book? Let me go to Amazon right now and even see what Amazon is selling it for. You can get the Kindle version if you pre order it for $13.99, or you can get the hardcover for 1779. And this is like, how many years you been in business, Damon?

You know, I've probably been in business now 30 years.

30 years. And out of all of your brands and everything, how many billions of dollars has just your own companies generated?

Retail wise? I would say now probably about 8 billion.

8 billion. And out of the, you know, how many years you been on Shark Tank?

I've been on Shark Tank seven years. Going on seven.

Seven years. And you have literally advised, funded, directed just millions of people in business and have created numerous success stories. And you profiled some amazing people in this book. And they can literally get this book for next to nothing. And it's not about buying a book. Everyone that's listening to this, you should immediately go and pre order the book the Power of Broke. And if you're listening to this episode after it's already come out, you should buy the book. I mean, that's obviously a given. If someone is not willing to do that, this is idiotic thinking. Why wouldn't you do that? The bigger thing, though, is the person that actually understands the importance of why you would do that and why you want to get a roadmap of someone that has had enormous successes and has gone through a lot of failure. Failure. And has learned lessons and has laid it out and has taken the time to document this and create a blueprint. So that's one thing. One, read the book and get the book. The second thing is a lot of people that listen to I Love marketing are authors and they're speakers and they're coaches or they want to be in that business. And what me and Dean have always done is we're like, you know, some of the best times to actually learn marketing is to watch someone when they're right in the middle of launching a business or a campaign. And so here you are, you got the book the Power Broke, and we're doing this podcast interview with you before it comes out, which means that you're a smart marketer. You work with our dear friend Jay Abraham, who we've interviewed on I Love marketing and I've known Jay for many years. He's an amazing guy. And I know you and Jay are really great friends. And I've talked with Jay about the campaign and everything that you're doing. And I want to recommend to all of our I love marketing listeners that if you actually want to learn a lot about not only reading the book, but Damon is in the midst of launching this book. You should go watch what he's doing. Because I'm at the site right now, which is powerbroke.com and when you go there, you literally can see. You can see what it is you're doing. And I'd like you to talk about some of the ways that you're positioning this right now. Because people literally can get all kinds of stuff if they pre order the book, if they buy five books, or if they buy 25 books or 50 books, there's a whole series of things. And I like to actually talk about this because some of the people listening would probably want to get a copy of this book for anyone that is an entrepreneurial friend or family member, someone that they're like, wow. I'm sure everyone listening could think of someone that would probably be well served to read this book that's either starting a business or in business. So I want to talk about some of the marketing stuff that you're doing to market the book the Power Broke since we're on. I love marketing and a lot of people, people listen to this because they want to actually know how to market books and they want to know how to get their message out. And you're in the midst of doing that. So what are some of the things like to go backstage, what are some of the campaigns that you're actually doing right now and you're offering people that want to support the Power of Broke?

Well, so I think those really good points you brought up. So of course we want to sell books, but I want to be very honest about it. You know, authors have offered me, you know, 10 times the amount, I mean publishers have offered me 10 times the amount of money to talk about my history with the Kardashians, pit bull, you know, blitz glamour and things that I guess the public rather see. And I at no point was interested because the books that I want to write really are the ones to empower everyday people. And I try to answer the most commonly asked questions of the thousands of people I met, whether through Shark Tank or whether, you know, in my private life. So the reason I put the book together is if it changes one or two people and the next person to read this book becomes the next Dean or Joe Polish or Damon John. I don't even want you to be me, become the next Steve Jobs. I think that we will hopefully do our job as entrepreneurs who've been blessed to pass this on. Now I also want to make sure that people understand that my marketing through this book, I'm exercising the power of Broke as well. I would not be able to sit on a pedestal and try to tell you how to go out and market your new book of your product if you didn't see what I was doing. And I'm also learning as I go along. I, of course ads will be purchased, but I'm personally calling on my friend Joe Polish who, you know, I, I've tried to put a like minded team around me and meet a Joe Polish or you know, Orion Dice or, or, or go after Jay Abraham six, seven years ago and say, hey man, I need you to mentor me. The same things that I'm talking about in the book when I was still on a public stage. But I said I want to find people that are smarter than me. So I go out and I look for the Joe Polishes Jay Abrahams, Then I need proof of concept. So what do I do? I go into. I go and look for a hundred ambassadors on Instagram and go on Twitter. I go try to find them. I say, read my book, please tell me what you think. How can you become an ambassador? People may think 100 people to launch an entire book is very small. It's huge because these people are going to give me the real data that I need and tell me what they like, what they don't like, like. And then I'm going to go and do the normal things where we say, you know, you buy 4,000 books for your entire, you know, your staff, and you give it to them, Will that increase your bottom line by, you know, 1%, 2%, 20%? And if you do that, I'm going to come and I'm going to come to your company maybe and show up and talk to you guys. I'm going to do that. If you buy five books, I'm going to give you content that I'm not going to give to everybody else. So I'm exercising the power broke. None of those things I'm paying for, all those things are going to take more and time out of my day. I'm going to sleep even less. So now instead of four hours, I'm sleeping three. But nobody else is going to do it like me. And I'm going to learn from the mistakes, and I'm also going to get rewarded for the people that are going to tell me, wow, this worked. Hey, this didn't work. You should have done this. You should have done that. And I'm exercising the power broke, getting it out there. So I thank you for even allowing me on the podcast. I know you're. You're very busy, and, you know, that's. That's basically the route that I'm taking by. By wanting to get a message out to people to hopefully change lives and to get it out the exact same way that I'm trying to recommend in the book. And, you know, and that's. That's where I'm at with. And I'm very, very excited about this project.

No, awesome, awesome.

Are you, Are you. Are you charging people to watch over your shoulder as you do this?

Am I what?

Or can they do it for free?

Do what? Watch them like, oh, no, they could do it for free. David.

Joke about that.

People talk about, you know, how we market something. We don't even charge for that.

You can watch us do it.

You can watch that all day. Are you going to say Listen, I need to. I need to be part of what this guy is doing. Because it's infection.

No, no, exactly. I mean, and it's like, if you want to really learn how to, you know, how to market, I mean, watch, watch an orchestrated marketing campaign because see what people don't realize. It's one thing about writing a book and put it together, Most people don't do it because it requires an enormous amount of work. Secondly, the stuff that you have to do along the way in order to get them, it's like creating the product is one thing. People are not going on Shark Tank because they're looking for a product. People are going on there like, how the hell do we make money doing this? Here you have a whole system that's put together. I want to recommend to our listeners to go to powerbroke.com we will put links on ilovemarketing.com so anything that is related to the launch of Powerbroke that we think you should take a look at and see, we'll go ahead and do that. Damon has a couple of videos that you can also watch on powerbroke.com that are related to this and we will drip those out to our listeners just as extra things that we think will be useful for everyone. And if you want to buy a bunch of books, I think at the beginning, beginning of the year, an upcoming new year, this is like the perfect time to take this sort of mindset and utilize it in order to make next year, in this upcoming year, your best year ever. And if you're someone that literally wants to offer something to your clients, to your friends that will be very beneficial to them, pick up copies of this book. I'm going to buy many copies for my genius network members and things like that because I know it'll be really helpful. And I haven't even read the book yet. I just know Damon, so I know it's going to be kick ass. And I've already talked to Jay quite a bit about this, so I'm really excited about this and I'm really glad that we had an opportunity to do this interview. And I do want to mention, because me and Dean get this all the time, how do we do what you guys do? How do we start a podcast? How do we run seminars? How do we run groups and events and consult with people and get paid to be an advisor? Damon, your role is you literally are cherry picking who you want to do deals with, and you're in a position being on Shark Tank where you're advising all kinds of people through Shopify and all of these organizations that reach out to you to mentor entrepreneurs, to guide them. What I would like to remind people of is if you read the Power of Broke, you're getting one of the world top advisors to entrepreneurs and small business owners. His methodologies and strategies. And one of the ways that you become a Daymond John is you actually learn from a guy like Damon John. Not saying that you're going to end up being a host on Shark Tank, but maybe you will one day or something similar to that. This is the same route that I ended up becoming in the world that I am.

I just learned a lot.

I've read over a thousand business books. I went to seminars. And one of the very best things that I did because when I was broke is I had to actually learn what to do. I had to go out and figure out what to do. And had I just had money, I probably wouldn't have been as motivated to read books or to go out because I had to. And if your business is not succeeding, then there's something that you don't know what you're doing. And this may very well guide you on what to do and how to do it. And the most important thing is a mindset. I mean, me and Dean say it all the time. We can teach people the best marketing strategies all day long, and we do that for free. On I love marketing. They don't need to pay us anything. We give them the best strategies. One thing that is more important than that is understanding the importance of marketing. See, because most people undervalue how important and critical marketing is. It's the oxygen that allows your business to work. So reading this book is just going to enhance your abilities to do that. So, Dean, before we wrap up, is there anything else you'd like to ask Damon before we wrap up this episode or anything else you'd like to say? And then I'll say the same thing to you. Damon, any famous last words?

Yeah. Damon, thank you. We appreciate you coming in and sharing all this. I know that there's a lot of people that are going to be affected by the message. A lot of people are going to listen to this. And some of them, it's just the message that they need to hear, that they maybe get discouraged, that they think of being broke as a detriment. And here you are talking about it as a competitive advantage. And for $13 or $17, somebody can figure out how to really activate the power. And it's a superpower. The way you describe it so thank you so much.

No, I appreciate it. You know, in the end of the day, you know, people see me on this public stage and they think that I may be smart or brilliant and it's not the case. I'm. The reason I write the book is I'm a conduit. I'm somebody that calls a dean and Joe Polish when I need to know more about marketing or what they're doing today. Because what they're doing today may not work tomorrow, the fundamentals will. But it's a whole new different way that we're approaching business. You know, at the end of the day, you're never going to create anything new in this world again. The only difference is marketing, branding it and distribution and finding a different audience. Right. And positioning of it. So, you know, as I do this and I write this book, you know, I find myself, you know, thinking a certain way. Like, you know, when I remember when I read Think and Grow Rich, maybe for the 15th time, and it said in the beginning, you may not get it, today you may not get it, whatever this word is, a hundred times in the book, I got that word the 15th time of reading it. That means I probably saw the word 1500 times. Maybe this book is going to reinstate what you've already learned. Maybe this book is going to finally kick you in your butt when you've been hearing, you know, this theory for many years in different ways. But more importantly, what I like about Shark Tank and the stage I'm on. And I remember asking myself a question one day, why is Mark Cuban on Shark Tank? The guy has more money than, you know, than God, right? He has more TV time than God, right? Why is he on Shark Tank all the time? And I remember him saying it's one of the top shows watch from kids 5 to 15 years old. It's one of those top shows watch with parents and kids together and the family. Yeah, it's a family show. And when you see a six year old, seven year old want to be a dean, a Joe Polish, a Damon John, or they finally say their mother and dad, I know what you do at work and they ask them questions and they don't no longer want to necessarily be an actor or a sports figure, not that anything wrong with that. When they want to be a shark more than they want to be anything else and they respect what their parents do. I realized why Mark Cuban does this and then I realized why I should write this book. Because it's going to educate families. And when Your child is 12, 1314 years old. And you say read this book because that's why I put a Steve Aoki, which is EDM or Rob Dyrdek, all the way up to a Mark Burnett where it covers all ages and all type of industries. When they do that and they end up seeing that the child is understanding it and it's no longer a pipe dream and they're going to go step by step by step towards this, this word called success. That's why I do it and that's why I think most of us do what we do. So I'm very happy for you guys to highlight my stuff and I've learned a lot from you, Joe. I've actually taken, you know, it's no secret, I've taken trips out to you to say help me, teach me. And I'm constantly learning. And I tell everybody put themselves in two to five words. Mines are I'm on a quest. I'm constantly learning. I will probably learn more from this book and this launch of this book than my readers will. But yeah, I'm not sitting there and exercising the power, bro.

That is awesome. That's as always, Damon. Thank you. And after, you know, after we see a few months of this, maybe we'll do a follow up episode just and I'd love to have all of our listeners not only comment what you thought of this episode, please share it. I'd love to have you share this with other people that you think could benefit from hearing what Damon has to share and give us your comments. We will leave links@ilovemarketing.com you can go to powerofbroke.com and you can see a video from Damon and you can look at the different ways that you can get the book if you want to buy additional books and get additional goodies. And the name of the book is the Power of how empty pockets, a tight budget and a hunger for success can become your greatest competitive advantage. So I want to wish all of our listeners an amazing new year. Thank you so much, Damon. And we will talk to everyone on the next episode of I Love Marketing.

Thank you guys. Sam.