928 Daymond John on How to Close any Deal and Achieve Any Outcome

This is episode number 928 with New York Times bestselling author and the Shark Tank Master, Damon John. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Benjamin Franklin said, an investment in knowledge pays the best interest. Welcome to this episode. I'm super excited about this. We've got my man Damon John on who's got a lot of knowledge and he's learned a lot over his years of turning a $40 budget into FUBU, a $6 billion fashion game changer. And throughout his career, Damon has continued to be an entrepreneur. in every sense of the word. He's not only a pioneer in the fashion industry, but a shark on the four time Emmy award winning Shark Tank, a New York Times bestselling author, branding guru and highly sought after motivational speaker, and also one of the best in the world at telling dad jokes. He loves to tell dad jokes every time I see him, and he's got some good ones on here today. So in this interview, we talk about Damon's new book and purpose behind sharing information about building wealth, the most profitable deals he's made on Shark Tank, the biggest lesson he's learned from other investors on Shark Tank. Damon also shares a story he never has before about his relationship with his father and his sisters. This was inspiring. That and so much more. Very excited. Make sure to share this out with your friends, lewishouse.com/928 text a friend who might be entrepreneurial minded, who maybe has got a side hustle, a business, or who is thinking about starting something on their own, or they just want to get some more inspiration and they're a big fan of Shark Tank, make sure to text in this link, lewishouse.com/928. And I'm so excited about this one with my man, the one and only, Damon John.

Well, welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast. We've got my man, Damon John, in the house.

Thank you, brother.

I think this is the third time you've been on.

I think so. And you know, you move.

We move, we blow it up, baby. We're building it up, we're shifting the power.

You are.

You know, we're creating the power shift.

Like a full staff when I came in here. Yeah, I don't know if those are props, but.

Yeah, you never know. Yeah, you never know. Yeah, you're trying to impress me. I appreciate you, man. It's been a journey for you.

I saw you in Greece, I guess.

A couple of years ago. When I was getting married. You were randomly there in Greece. Randomly there. I saw you. that you posted something on Instagram, I was like, oh, I'm here. I wonder if you're at the same place. And we're at the same club or something.

Yeah, yeah, it was fun.

And you also have been through some stuff in the last couple of years.

I have, I have. I've been through, yeah, all my life. I think all of us, everybody watching, YouTube, right? Of course. We get to see what life has for us and doesn't have for us.

But you went through some health stuff the last couple of years.

I went and got an executive physical. which a lot of people don't know what that is, you know, because usually we get physicals and I go to the doctor, he grabs something on me that's hairy and tells me to cough. Yeah, yeah. And that's it. Then I had a little nodule on my thyroid. I went to go and get it removed. It was a one hour surgery, turned to three and a half hours of state removing what I didn't know at the time was stage two cancer. The doctor knew what it was. It was the size of a golf ball, but thank God it was the slowest growing cancer, which is thyroid cancer, but. if you don't treat it, it can go to your lymph nodes and then move to your brain. And when they sent the, that rock that was in my throat, when they sent it away to get tested, it was about two weeks until I would get the actual test. So I had to really negotiate with myself. And I, I went to, I'm not gonna call it a dark place, but this is reality is that I said to myself, am I prepared to die? And I said, You know, listen, I've lived the life of 10 men and women, right? My oldest girls are beautiful, they're old, older now, my 27 and 22 year old, they're great contributors to society. My ex-wife raised them really well. My mother, let me be selfish, I don't want to see her die, right? So maybe if I die before her by something that was not in my power, I got a young daughter, she's three years old, guess what? She won't even remember me. you won't remember. And then my wife, my current wife, is super hot. She's gonna have another man with no problem after she gets over whatever it is. So I said, let me start, let me think about unraveling the businesses that I have, spending more time with my kids, and really accepting that whether two, five, or ten years, I won't be on the rock no more, right? But then the other negotiation was, no, no mother should bury her son. My two oldest girls, I want to still be around to protect them and maybe I'm going to have grandkids one day. My littlest baby, she needs to have the best father who loves her the most that can be there for her. And my wife is super hot and I get to go to sleep with a super hot woman every night of my life. And so one week out of the two weeks waiting for the diagnosis to come back had passed, but after I decided and I negotiated with myself, what's my why? Why am I doing this? What am I willing to put in to fight this thing? I forgot I even had it. I forgot that.

Really?

Yeah, in the one other week that I was coming, when the doctor finally called me and he told me that it was cancerous, but he said, let me come and check your lymph nodes and everything else. I forgot that I even had cancer. I forgot that I was even waiting for the call.

How'd you forget it?

I was so focused on resetting my goals and adjusting them. My goals have always been very aggressive. resetting them, adjusting them, telling the ones that I love how much I love them, and understanding that, you know, they loved me and they needed me. And I just started looking at all the best things in my life, the people that I get to motivate, the fact that a little brown boy who's dyslexic from Queens with no money, no nothing came up in the world and hopefully I can empower the next little brown boy, little brown girl, or anybody of any color, culture, or sexual preference to be not the next David JOns, be the next Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, Oprah Winfrey, or President Barack Obama. If I can do that, then maybe that's what my life was, you know, that's what God put me on this earth for. So it was a power shift. It was a mental power shift that I had to do myself. And I've always done that over the course of many years of my life, but I didn't realize that I was, there was a method to what I was doing. And so, When I met a couple of people, it happened in a very short period of time and they were telling me, I can't get nowhere in life or I don't have money, I have this and that. And I realized the only difference between me, them, or any of us is what we negotiate through life. If we're not born in silver spoon, how many born with silver spoon in them?

What?

5%? 2% of the world? 2% of the world. So the rest of us have gotten to a level of success or broken the cycle in our families or even just become a better person by purely negotiating with themselves and then with others.

How do we negotiate with our mind to achieve something we've never achieved?

Yeah, so the first thing to achieve is why do you want to achieve it? Like what is your outcome? Many of us walk into the room, even into the room we're talking to ourselves and they're not honest about the outcome. What is the outcome? Are you, why are you going through the motion? Is it because society has told you that that's what it should be? Or is it that your parents always wanted that from you? Or is it that you have been neglected in some way and you're trying to please a bunch of people that you can't stand? Or is it that you want to change the world? Is it that you know that you being healthier is going to be able to be around in your family's life much longer? Or are you going to be able to stop some social injustices? Like, what is your why, first of all?

That's the first step.

That's the first step. I always use this example is, but People always say, well, I want to be a millionaire. What are you gonna do when you get a million dollars? What are you gonna do with the money? Some people go, I'm just gonna keep making money. Well, how are, okay, you're gonna be a millionaire. So if over 65% of the Lotto winners are broke three years after winning Lotto, same thing with athletes. And football players, yeah. And football players, three years out of league. They didn't know their why. The football player knew his why or, you know, knew his why, oh, I want to get that ball or run that play.

I want to become part of a championship team.

'Cause I love it or 'cause it makes me feel good.

Filth or spawners.

I love going to the gym. I love, I love the, I love, I'm there for competition. You know better than I do because obviously you are an athlete. But if it was, if you don't know your wife for a million dollars, well, when you get the money, you're gonna buy a Bugatti. You're gonna buy 10 cars. And then what? Yeah, but, but then you just have the Bugatti, right? So now what else you need, right? Are you gonna buy 10 cars? Are you going to move to Bali and live off thirty thousand dollars a year for 10 years, carve canoes, save the turtles and invest in some stocks? because stocks are going to average out 12% every year and you're going to turn the $600,000 into whatever the case is. And then when you come back, what are you going to do? Are you going to buy investment properties and keep doubling down? Many people go through life without their why. And so when they're working at nine to five that they're sick of, they're going home and complaining. And I forgot what I was watching a show where a girl was, she was now living in nature. But she said, I lived in Ireland and I was fighting every weekend in clubs and bars and I realized I was working and I was so miserable. So that was my release. So I was working to fight because I was so damn miserable with my life. And then she started to find causes that she liked. She stayed the job, but she would go home at night and put some time into causes that she liked. And she got able to get out of that circumstance and moved to someplace else and now she's doing what she loves. But people don't know their why.

Yeah.

What's your why right now? You've been doing Shark Tank for 11 years now. 11 years.

11 years.

You've been investing in a billion businesses, helping entrepreneurs grow. You've got, you know, amazing kids.

Yeah.

So, so my why is, as I said before, first of all, you know, it's to take care of my family and my, my wife and my, my youngest daughter, because my oldest daughter, daughters, when, when When they were born, I was poor and all I knew was I gotta go out and make as much money as I can to give these, to get these girls in an area where they're more protected, where they can have a good education and have a medical and things in case something happens to them. And to break the cycle in my family of people who were just average people. My mother helped break that cycle by being one of the first to go to college. And me, I'm gonna break that cycle. Next, but then I said to myself, with the little girl, now that I have the resources available, it's more how much love can I give her? Because I never had experienced the wanting to come home purely for love. I was just so focused on trying to make money because if I wasn't successful, then like most parents, I'll sleep in a refrigerator box on the street if I have to, to make sure those girls had just one place to live. So that's one of my whys. Also, You know, I've been on a show for 11 years that has changed the way that people have understood or get to educate themselves on being entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs. I'm invested in various companies on these people's, you know, they allowed me to invest in their dreams, so who am I to give up? And also, I'm on the Petco board and Petco Foundation, you know, saving animals. I want to stop human trafficking. I have much more to do. and if I have a public platform that I can come and sit with you or go on GMA and stuff like that, and I can help change people's perception of whatever the case is, sex, gender, religion, whatever the case is, to make them realize that if I can do it, they can do it, then I'm doing my job, you know?

Where do you think you'd be had you not had your two oldest daughters? Do you think you'd have been as hungry to go earn, build a business, earn money grow, or do you think like, okay, well, I've got enough money.

For me, I don't know, you know what? I was worth many millions of dollars by the age of 30 years old. I was absolutely broke and poor and sleeping on the ground at 27. At the ground of my house.

How old were you when you had your daughter, your first daughter?

27. 26.

Got you. Right?

And because of my daughters and my ex-wife, I think that they leveled me to some extent because you don't give a 30-year-old guy from the hood millions of dollars in the bank at 30 years old because I think I would have, I never tried cocaine or any of that stuff, but if I didn't have my girls, I probably would have been a huge supporter of cocaine 'cause it looked like it was fun with the people having it. So I think that they governed me in a certain way.

In a positive way.

In a very positive way. And it made me also, it made me also want to live to leave my daughters, a legacy. I wanted them to be proud of their father. So I refrained from doing and having a lot of the temptations that I've seen a lot of people fall short and get caught up in nothing wrong with that. We're all human.

Sure, sure. So I've interviewed a lot of people and there's one side of the spectrum where the successful entrepreneurs say, you know what, Louis? The key to growing your business is going all in on one focus. that's the key, right? That's what some say.

Yeah.

But there's others like yourself who've invested in every business in the world, it seems like, and seen lots of them grow and been successful in that way. Do you feel like, is that just like your, your creative nature where it's like you want to invest. This is your part of your path right now where you want to invest in lots of Brands because you did so much in one thing for so long.

No, I think, I think I'm more towards the person here. so when I invest in brands and companies, I invest in them because they're, I'm allowing them to, they're allowing me to be part of their dream, but I'm also learning from them, which is in return, allowing me to go back to my special skill set and improve it. So I'll give you exactly.

You're learning from the people you invest in a lot.

I'm constantly learning every single day. So in Power Shift, I highlighted my investment, Bomba Socks. Now, these guys are the number one sock, the number one investment in Shark Tank history. The only, the only, the ring who did not get an investment went into really well.

They did a billion dollar.

They did a billion two sale.

Crazy, right?

Yeah.

And, and, and good for Jamie.

You were there when.

Yeah, I said no. And, you know, Jamie ended up becoming a guest shark one time, and he said, he said when he came in the tank, who's asking too much money. But I believe that because we tenderized him like that and he went out and raised money, I think we deserve 5%, but that's just, I'll leave it up to him.

Yeah, exactly.

But I think that that, I sent him an email every other day saying, Hey, just 5%. All right, I'm willing to go four and a quarter.

But the socks.

But the socks.

Is the best investment you made.

And it's the number one product in Shark Tank history.

Really, in terms of how much it's grown.

How much it's grown and how much it's grossed. Now, I want to make sure that you want to, 'cause I know you interview a lot of people. So if you ever interview the underachievers that sit next to me in the tank, I want to make sure that you remind them.

That you're the number one investor.

I am King Kamehameha in the tank. All right, just make sure it was clear. But let's give you that example.

What was that deal? What was that deal and how big has it grown?

They've done over $200 million. I think it's $280 million. More importantly, they're very, so their deal is a sock and every time you buy a pair of socks, they give a pair away to the homeless because they have a big challenge. And we don't normally talk about the number. It's more important that we've given away 30 million pairs of socks. That's really cool. Thank you. Thank you. And it's really, it's really, you know, Dave and Randy's company, and they've done it all. They've gotten very little to almost no advice from me because they're so great.

Yeah.

But I'm going to give you an example on the negotiation. They come into the tank, the only shark that doesn't want clothes, is somebody who has 10 clothing companies and eight are dead. My reason for being on a tank beside investing in other people is to diversify my portfolio. So when I talk to a retailer, I go, well, I'm already taking a real estate in the clothing area. I want real estate in electronics area. I want real estate in lotion, da-da-da. The last thing I want is socks. Also, I have, I don't know, 20,000 units of socks that I can't sell. You know, when I can't sell socks, I just send people over to people's houses. They steal one. And then you have to buy a pair 'cause you just think you lost it, right? So I still can't sell it. if I do the deal, I'm the logo whore. You can't if anybody in this room or in this building were in bomber socks, you couldn't tell. So how do I get the advertising out of it? But they managed to make me understand that today's generation wants to give every time they purchase instead of at the end of the year.

They want impact.

They want impact. And they don't want to buy from people who are just making money. They want to know what did you do for somebody else? So that's one thing I learned that I applied to all my businesses because You couldn't do that before social media, you could, but.

You can't get the word out that much.

And then plus you would have to advertise off of people's hardships, right? You wouldn't have self-generated content of people saying thank you, right? So I learned that. I also learned that because the consumer purchased and it was part of a movement, they talk about it at the dinner table, at the water cooler, and that's your advertisers. You don't need the traditional form of advertising because people want to brag when they're doing something well. And then last but not least, they were showing me how to sell directly to my consumer and not being at the mercy of a retailer who still doesn't know what they're doing. So they shifted the power in the room to get me to do a deal.

So you weren't interested.

I wasn't interested.

Everyone else was.

Everyone, no, not everyone else was interested, but I was the last shark to be interested because I'm too jaded by the fashion industry. Low and behold, I do the deal. And that's what a power shift is, being able to know your target, know what's beneficial for that person, know where you're willing to draw the line, and really know how to relate to that person and communicate with them.

What is it that they said that shifted the power inside of your mind.

And say, okay, I gotta get into this? Well, they showed me that the technology on the socks were really good because they didn't have the seam in the toe when me being a manufacturer, I didn't know how they did that at first. It was a simple change, but I used to get irritated in toes when doing that.

But more importantly, you have to put.

It on a certain way. Yeah, of course. Of course. More importantly, they've shown me that the data they received from their consumer was able to give them the ability to keep selling their consumer and keep talking directly to them and that they no longer were at the mercy of if a retailer makes the best decision or puts your socks out over here or advertises your socks or discounts them or anything else, right? So they were showing me how to control the business. It's very much like content sending it out and getting to know a dashboard of your consumer. And I learned so much from them. But it was them understanding that, Damon, I'm gonna take you out of the old way of you doing business and move you into the new way of doing business. And guess what? If it doesn't work out, we're gonna do another business together and we're gonna make some money or change the world and more than likely have some fun.

That's cool. Who has taught you the most in the last 11 years of the show? Them.

Them?

They have.

I learned, you know, I joke about my fellow sharks, but I definitely learned from them.

Is that just 'cause they pay you.

The most every month?

You get a check every month?

I see the business operating. I see them being laser-focused. I see a lot of things that they do. They have probably taught me the most.

Yeah. Who was someone that you didn't invest in that taught you the most? Whether it be like a good lesson or a lesson you're like, okay, that's not what, that's what not to do.

Somebody that I didn't, or maybe someone.

Inspired you, but you didn't see a right fit for you and they taught you something.

Listen, I learned, I learned, I'm not saying to be warm and fuzzy, I learned from every single one of these entrepreneurs how they operate the business or how they fail. A lot of times when they fail, it confirms theories that I have because, you know, whenever I fail, I look a checklist of all the things and I go, why did I do this? This is not what I do. Why did I not take my own damn advice? You know, so I can't name just one of them to tell you the truth, you know, but, you know, I look at entrepreneurs like Jeff Bezos and learn and go, as big as you are, you are affecting the world and you will still be scrappy enough to say, hey, Amazon workers, you want to make a couple extra dollars? When you're going home, you can take a package home and you let, why is that beneficial? Well, first of all, the worker gets to drive home and takes home a package and makes more money. You, you're a worker of Amazon, so Amazon trusts you with the Box and Amazon saves on shipping.

Like, takes a package home that you bought for something. No, no, meaning Just take anything you want.

No, take it and drop it off.

Oh, drop it off someone in your neighborhood.

Yeah, wherever. Hey, hey, I gotta drive two miles. I gotta drive 10 miles, but I looked in the system and seven houses on the way, the 10 miles.

Wow. Let me, let me make extra money doing that. You can make extra, yeah.

That's pretty smart. I'd be picking up whole truckloads. And it wins for everybody, right? But when I look at an entrepreneur like Jeff Bezos, who does stuff like that, I go, he's still scrappy. He's still thinking, you know what I mean?

All this money in the bank, but he's still trying to maximize it.

Yeah, he's still scrappy.

Who's someone that you've been a shark with, whether it be a consistent shark or someone who's come and gone, that maybe you weren't sure about in the beginning, but the power shifted over time where they did something or you did something to renegotiate the relationship where you started doing more together, you started to have a I respect more for, you.

Know, nobody's ever asked me that and I don't think I've ever even told her.

One of the school greatest, you know?

That's true. I didn't even tell her, but she's in the book, Bethany. Bethany Frankel. So I had met Bethany with one or two other sharks. I forgot when it was, like on Backstage at GMA. And I had already seen the show a couple of times and, you know, of course they're drinking and cursing at each other and we say hi and she just, like, brushes us off and walks by. And, and I remember saying to myself, I don't really like that woman. I don't get a good feeling from her. So when they casted her to come on as a guest shark, I said at first, listen, I don't want to be on the panel with her because I already have this kind of like you attitude to her and it may come off wrong because it'll look like I'm either beating up on a new shark or I'm being too aggressive to a female. By mistake, they scheduled me to be on with her.

By mistake or by purpose?

No, no, no, no on purpose. No, by mistake, by mistake. They scuttled me be on purpose. Oh, no, here's what I'm sorry. We all meet at one place for the Shark Dinner prior to production. I was like, you know, she seems all right, whatever. And then they scheduled me to be on with her. And when I was on with her, brilliant person. Like, she wasn't about herself. She really cared about the entrepreneur, which we all do, but we thought, I thought, I'm not gonna speak for other, that she was gonna come on and be self-absorbed and do to do the reality show thing from where she's at, she made fun of herself. She was very, you know, she had humbleness and humility. And then when we left that set, she went directly to Mexico for the earthquakes and various other things. And she called all her friends and said, if you got a private jet, do me a favor, pack it up for I got, I got supplies and food and whatever the case is, I need these jets for Puerto Rico, for Mexico. and she spent the next month going out and really being there hand to hand and giving people stuff. And I fell in love with her after that. Wow. And she's like somebody that I super admire.

Wow.

That's cool. Have you guys done deals together or are you.

We haven't done a deal together, but. And we're so busy, we can't always catch up. But, you know, she's offered me to stay over in her home in the Hamptons, and. And my wife loves her, and she's just. She's just an amazing individual that I walked in the room at first and I was like, she's an asshole.

Yeah, you wrote her off and then now you're inspired.

Now she inspired me, yeah.

And who is the person who's taught you the most, whether it be a consistent shark or someone who's come on for a couple episodes?

No single shark has taught me the most because I learned from all of them. They're all really, really, they all are really fascinating in their space. I think Barbara though, sometimes is the one that can influence me the most because, you know, I love marketing and branding. Yeah, but I'm a one-trick pony. You know, I'll get it on a celebrity, get it on a famous show, or get it on whatever the case is, and then I'll make inventory. Barbara will come with ideas out of nowhere.

Sure.

Out, I mean, she pulls it out of the air and they're brilliant ideas and they're not, they're very rarely are they similar. Really? Yeah, they're not a one-trick pony thing.

She's just, she's just so she'll think of a creative idea for a specific thing and not just say, oh, I've got this celebrity who'd be great for every time or.

Correct. She is.

She just.

She's a genius when it comes to that.

Yeah, we had her on.

She was great. Did she touch you? No comment. Okay. Yeah.

She's a predator.

Full, full pregnant. She's a sweet woman.

Her husband's right there when. And he's usually like this. No, I think I actually posted that she was on, and I think that.

Was the first thing you texted.

To me.

Yeah. Yeah, she'll touch. She'll touch.

She's great, though. I like her a lot. So power shift. How did you. I'm just remembering your text to me. I think you added the dad joke in there as well. What I like about this, I went through a lot of this.

You did?

And, yeah, I usually don't read anything.

But I say, yeah, but I went.

Through a lot of this, and I'm trying to find the bookmark that I had on one of these pages that I really liked.

Is this folding it in to the bookmark?

No. There's one here somewhere. I'll find it.

But what I like is that at.

The end of every chapter you talk about these kind of like little bullet points. To break things down.

Break things down. And I relate that in this book.

Now you've done a bunch of books in the past.

Yeah.

Why do you need another book? What's, you know, it's like, so, you.

Know, I think that's a good question. I don't write books to write books. And this is my third one in five years of me being dyslexic. sick. It is not an easy-- I know feeling, man. It's really not easy. I think that a lot of people out there are misinformed. They need information. And I think if you look at a lot of your books, my books, and various other people, and we happen to know each other, but I believe that if you read a vast amount of things and you start to see that all these people don't know each other, but they're all saying something very similar, and if you're applying that to your life, that's how it happened to me by reading Napoleon Hill thinking you can grow rich or the Greatest Salesman of Babylon or Blue Ocean Strategies, all these. And I started to see these things that come together. It gives you more power to go out and execute. So the reason I wrote this book is because a lot of people that came up to me and started saying, I can't take control of my life or I've heard people say or act like somebody else is supposed to issue them power or somebody took power away from them. And I realized that people always thought negotiation, first of all, you're negotiating every minute of your life. You're negotiating to get into the bathroom before your husband or wife or getting.

Your child to school bus.

Take yourself to the gym, whatever. Yeah, you negotiate, right? Getting healthy. And I realized that people always thought negotiation is purely transactional. When you get to the table, I'm sitting across from you, right? And it's not. It's about building influence. Then it's transactional, and the transaction needs to be what's in it for the person across the table. the table, not what's in it for you. And then more importantly, it's developing that relationship and letting it grow over the course of time and doing 10, 20, 30, 40 other deals or having 10, 20, 30, 40 other people telling other people how great you are to do other deals. And people always thought that it was like that.

So I influence, yeah.

Yeah. So I end up putting in the book, a lot of people I respect, a lot of people you may have never heard of, but Pitbull's in there, Billy Jean King.

I just texted Billy Jean before this.

And Billy Jean, Not Billy Jean King is in the book and Billy Jean, what's the last name?

Tennis player.

Yeah, but what's Billy Jean?

Billy Jean.

Marketing.

Oh, Billy Jean from San Diego.

Yeah.

Because I get, this is the stuff.

Billy Jean King is the tennis player. Billy Jean is who I just texted. Billy Jean is just a name. I am marketing.

I call him, yeah, I call him.

Billy Jean, but I texted him the page I was reading in here. And I have the other book I have is marked up. Now I'm remembering the two things I wanted to talk about in here. One is a story about 6X. Now you don't give yourself enough credit about how creative you are because you said you're a one trick pony. You'll just find a celebrity.

Yeah.

And put the merch on them and put it on a big show or something. But something you talked about was a story on how when you were getting started out, you started developing 6X t-shirts. Yeah. With your logo on the back. In fact, that was brilliant because it's.

The biggest real estate in the club. Yeah, so what happened was it's amazing.

So I guess that's a good point.

So the story goes that I didn't have, I didn't have a lot of money for shirts. And I wanted again, I grew up in Hollis Queens and everybody's from Hollis Queens. Eloku J. Rundim C. Ja Rule 50 Cents, Salt and Pepper, Trap Call Quest. Where's she from? She's from the Bronx. But a lot of these people from Queens, I couldn't. If I gave you a shirt, you. Everybody was approaching you. It's just like going up to an influence. They didn't want the shirt. I didn't want to give it to the kids with the funny mustaches and the skateboards because they would just wear.

It once and throw it away.

Right.

But I realized the big celebrities were probably had a. Oh, they had an entourage around. So what do I have to do? I had to build influence. And how did I do that? Well, I had 50 shirts that I could buy. So I bought 50 5x and 6x shirts. I realized the big guys never had fashionable clothes to wear because all they had was like big black shirt, big white shirt, or they'd have to pay a massive amount of money to get a custom-made. I bought 50 of these shirts. I handed them to all the big guys I knew, or I would see. Those big guys ended up being the guys in front of the red rope at the club, the guys who were the bodyguards for people, the guys who were just big billboards and joyous, right? And they would wear the full boost up, 10 times a month because they finally felt fashionable. What would happen at that point is after the rapper saw it on these guys for about a year, the rappers would go, Yo, what's up man?

Am I?

Where's my money? I couldn't get to you. Yo, you're too big of a star. Man, I ain't trying to ball. No, no, no, I wear it. Because then they would ask the big guy who normally is like the bodyguard.

And they don't have nothing to say to them.

They'd be like, Hey, where's that little dude at? And the big guy feels good. I'll see if I can get you one. I know a guy. I'll see if I can get you one. And that is how I started building influence internally, you know, with my customers.

That's smart.

Yeah.

When I read that, I was like.

You,'Re more creative than you think. No, I get it, but I generally narrow myself down to, I'm a numbers person. And then the day, it was numbers to me. It was like, they'll wear it 10 times every one time. I got somebody else to wear it. There's not many of them, and there are a selected number of group around.

A selected number of people.

More about the numbers.

When I read that story, I was like, okay, who are all the assistants of the most iconic people that I want to know that I want to interview?

Exactly.

What can I send them that will make them be reminded of me? And every time I want to call or say, Hey, is Oprah ready for the interview or whatever?

Yeah.

It's like they might push it in a little bit.

And take it even a step further, you know, some of your digital courses you give to them, you give to a bunch of people. You say, you,'re a part of a select community. I know you're the gatekeeper of these people, but I know that also if you find value in this stuff, not only am I enriching your life, but sooner or later you may say to the people that you work for, if it's powerful enough, and say, and if you don't say it to them, then guess what? Maybe you'll give me more information on how to make it better for you and give me some real criticism that I can do it because you're seeing everything across your plate.

Right. I like that.

Creating a select community.

The power of six acts. I like that story. And then I read, I think it was in the middle of the book, and one of the end parts. I think you were doing research from like all the top universities that said that you should lead with the offer first.

Yes.

When you're making a negotiation where I've always heard that you want to wait for someone to make the offer.

That is a very common.

Why don't you think that? It's like you never want to show your cards.

Yeah, they say that the one who says the number first is the one that loses and things that nature. I actually like the negotiation part of laying it on the table. Here's where I'm at with this. Here's what I seek.

Here's what I want.

Here's what I want. And here's what value I could bring to you. And I think it just takes the, it takes the question out of the room, you know?

What if you could have gotten more?

Well then you could have gotten more. But what if you say something to somebody, well, we're not even in that ballpark.

Right.

You can always upsell. You can always say, here's where I would like to be. And then someone says, and here's what I'm going to give. And they're like, well, we I want more than that. I'll be like, okay, but I gave you where I was at. But it costs me more. It costs me more time or energy or product or inventory or whatever the.

Case is, or relationships, you know?

Yeah.

You sounded like an online marketer, the upsell word here. Of course. Listen, you know, there's only, what do they say? There's only three ways to deal with a customer. Acquire a new one, upsell a current.

One, or make one buy more frequently. There's only three ways. Recurring, yeah. That's the best way right now. Exactly. What's the best negotiation you feel like you did? not where you gain the most, but where both parties won the most. Not where you're like, I got.

When I negotiated my deal with Bruce and Norman Weissfell over at Samsung, I negotiated out of ignorance, but I got the best deal at first. I, I was a young kid. I was 19 or 20. They, they interviewed me. They heard about FUBU. They were interviewing various other people because they were thinking about getting into, they were already in the outerwear space, but they want to get into the Denim, Ray to Wear's face. They interviewed a couple of people. Once I got interviewed, they said, We like you. We think we may do something with you. I called the guys for six months. They never picked up the phone. This is before cell phones out. I felt insulted, and rightfully so, but also they were looking at other opportunities. It's not their job to answer my call again after that, but I think they should have said, Hey, man, we're not interested. I go to the trade show, the Magic Trade Show, in Vegas. They're sitting at a table, and one of the big buyers from a store was like, Holy shit, is that the FUBU guys? And he talked to his book-- Right. And they said, you, better get those guys on board.

Power shift.

Right. Now all of a sudden, my phone's on fire the next day by these guys. I'm like, Hey, motherf***er. Remember me? You ain't never talked to me before, pimpin'! Yeah, I was hungry at the time.

That's exactly how you talk to you.

I was like, Yo, baby, what? So, so a normal, like a designer deal, I'll call it in, in fashion, is generally like, if I'm gonna put up all the money and all the resources, we're gonna split this thing 25 to you or 30 to you and 70 to me, because I may have a little inventory I gotta get rid of. You don't have any personal guarantees at hand. I gotta deal with all risk. I'm taking a lot of risk, but you're making clean money. But because they pissed me off so much, I had said, listen, if I come in tomorrow, we better sign a deal, and it better be a real distribution, 50 50 even split deal for the distribution. You guys had all the distribution financing, this and that, and then I'll go ahead and. And out of ignorance, that became the deal. We've been Partners for, you know, 25 years, and we've made massive amount of money, but we always felt where that we could see eye to eye, and it was just out of that ignorance. But I wouldn't suggest you calling people. Yeah, I would suggest that, but it happened to work in my favor. And yeah, that was the best deal that I've ever received, which helped. Now I had a powerhouse behind me that can manufacture and distribute my clothes, and I created a global brand with all my partners.

That's pretty inspiring.

Yeah.

What do you think is the greatest thing holding you back from the next level of Damon? Achieving your dreams, of achieving your success, results, fulfillment, what's holding you back?

I think time, because I know that I can do anything and accomplish anything I want, but when will I start a more aggressive part of that journey? You know? So it's like, it's kind of like, all right, I'm gonna start working out next month. You know what I mean? I know I'm going to be in shape by so forth, but I'm gonna start next month, and then I'll be like, ah, one more month, one more month. Don't get me wrong, I'm still knocking out a lot of other goals.

But then a year goes by, and you're like, oh, I said I was gonna do this.

Right, and then I go, Right, but it's the time of preparation to get me ready. Because once I go, like when I forgot about the cancer, once my mind is shifted, I'm done. There's nothing, nothing that can stop me. So I look at it like that. That's the biggest thing I'm holding it back because it's kind of like you're resting up before you run a marathon. And there's so many different marathons in our lives. There's the marathon of health, the marathon of spirituality, relationships, of am I doing enough? to stop some of these atrocities out in the world because I'm a public person. So a lot of those things are, you know, that's really it. It's the time.

If you could imagine the greatest version of yourself walking towards you, imagine Damon, perfect version of you that's literally walking up towards you. What would that, what would he look like? What would his energy be when you're looking at yourself?

His energy would be, he would be skinnier. his energy would be great. He would be. He would be kind but informative, but also Stern and.

And.

And. And tell you when you're, you know, when. When. If you ask or be very real with you about advice, you know, I'm. I think I'm. I I think I'm living the person I want to be right now. You know, I'm very happy with who I Yeah.

Just gotta start working out a little more.

Start working out a little bit more. Yeah, of course. But I'm getting no less. What happens is my blue, my shoulder. I gotta go and get some stem cells because that's the problem, right?

Yeah, man. It creates a vicious cycle. It takes time and you gotta heal and you gotta recover. Exactly. Yeah, man. Well, a couple final questions for you. And I think I asked you this last time, but I want to ask it again.

Yeah.

And see, we'll reflect back on and see if it's the same answers or not. This is called the three truths.

Yeah.

So imagine it's your last day on earth many, many years from now.

Yeah.

You're 500 years old.

You're as old as you want to be, but then eventually you gotta go.

Right.

And you've accomplished everything. You've seen your kids grow up to do amazing things. You've done amazing things. You've written every book you want to write. The business has been successful, but you've gotta take all the content you've created.

With you to the next place. I gotta take everything?

The books, this interview, it's gone.

Sure.

It goes you through the next place you go to, right?

The next world.

But you get to leave behind three things you know to be true from all the lessons you've learned that you would share with the rest of us here on Earth. And this would be the only three things that we have to remember you by are these three lessons for our life, what I like to call your three truths. What would you say are yours?

That I would leave with other people that they have to constantly educate, keep educating themselves. and that education means finance, health, you know, spirituality.

Keep learning.

Keep learning.

Yep.

Right. Number two is that they have to steal away time for themselves at any given moment with themselves and with their family. because you never know when you're gonna leave or if somebody else is gonna leave you. And number three would probably be just really learn as much as you can to forgive and to love.

I think.

I think those would be.

Why forgive?

Because people are growing all the time. And you may be. You may be in a situation where you have to forgive somebody who did something, but they didn't know that what they were doing to you or whatever the cases and or. you may, you want to be forgiven as well, right? And how can you have love if you can't forgive, right? And so, you know, so whether it's with your family or whether with your friends or something else like that, the harbor and the hate and things of that nature will just eat you alive, I think.

What was the thing that was the hardest for you to forgive in your life?

My father left when I was 10 years old. I never would see or speak to him again. And he came back in my life, well, he's around. about three years ago.

And but I'm- you- didn't speak to him until then?

Right, because my sisters who didn't know I was alive found me when I was so they're 27 years old. Oh, damn. She found out that I knew that they were alive, but they didn't know I was alive and now she's now I love her to death and I have a new form of love in my life. I never knew how I was an only child. I never knew the love of a sister and a brother, right?

You were an only child? A sister and a brother.

Two sisters.

This was three years ago?

Yeah.

You met them?

Yeah, we hang out all the time.

So for almost 40 years, you didn't... No. 40 years?

Yeah.

I forgave my father a long time ago by going, I wouldn't be the man that I would be if he was... Yeah, if I didn't have to do that.

That wasn't like true forgiveness fully, was it?

It was in a sense. I mean, even now, I don't speak to him. I told him, I said, There was really nothing for us to really talk about. Like you knew where I was all that time. But I'm also happy that you are, you raised these two women to be great women and maybe when you got divorced from my mother, it was just a different time in the world where you were growing up. I mean, it's just what had happened, right? My mother also has lived a really great life with, you know, and so she wasn't suffering per se. I mean, of course we suffered economically. But it was really about just not harboring something. If I see him, I don't have any ill will. Yeah, I don't have any ill will.

You'll need to hang out with him.

I don't really hang out with him. Yeah, you know. I think that that forgiveness was something that everybody should get to understand.

When did you feel like you were able to finally forgive and let go of that kind of anger or frustration towards him? How old were you?

Towards him? Well, that happened once I became no, no, I I I I I gave him probably about probably when I was 25. I didn't have anything at the moment. Still no money or nothing. But I realized that I still had all this opportunity in my life and that that's just what it was. People come, people go. You know what I mean? I held nothing against them in that case. You know, I could have found. I I could have. I could have hired a detective and found him for the last 20 years very easily.

You chose not.

I chose not to. I mean, he made a conscious decision to do that. Whatever led him to that decision was up to him. I have, you know, I, you know, and that's, that's one thing to think about with Powership, you know, whatever, whatever the case is, whatever circumstance you're in, if you're watching right now, that's a circumstance, you know, listen, I was born, I was born black and dyslexic. Neither one of those are going to change.

Right. Right.

So let me get over it and do what I got to do. So when you're making excuses that dad left or I got left back, in school or I didn't have any money or I'm black or I'm short or I'm a woman or I'm, I, I, I'm LGBT. It is what it is, right? So now you got to move forward, and now you have to, first of all, negotiate with yourself and understand why are you worth something and why are you special? Because every one of us are. And then how are you going to share that with other people? Make them go, I want you in my life. Because we're gonna, we're gonna make some money. We're gonna have some fun, or we're going to help grow a, grow a great family together. Make an impact.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's, that's what it I love this man. That's a great story.

Yeah, you know what? I never told anybody publicly.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's a powerful story. Thank you for sharing. Make sure you guys get this book. I got one question left for you. Make sure you guys get Power Shift. Powerful book. I truly don't read many books, but I went through this, went through a lot of it, didn't finish all of it, but I went through a lot of it. Thank you. I really like the stories.

Yeah.

Really like the stories. Really like the lessons.

Simple too. Dyslexic guys like us, we need to make simple things. You know, you can't complicate it.

I can't concentrate on the overly, Super scientific, technical books.

That's it.

Transform any situation, close any deal, and achieve any outcome by Damon John. Make sure you check it out. You can get anywhere books are sold. Is there also a link online we can get this or with any other resources?

Amazon, all that stuff. Yeah, everywhere.

And where's the book?

There's gonna be an audiobook too, just.

So for the people like you and.

I who... Yeah, are you reading it? Yeah.

The audiobook?

It's hard. Are you reading it out loud? No, no, no. This is my third audiobook. Sway. He reads all my books. I come on, exactly. I mean this guy is a legendary broadcaster, but I'm sprinkled throughout the books. So, the first, you'll always hear me say, listen, here's the first chapter. By the way, the reason I'm not reading it is because you would be here for nine weeks.

It took me like six days to read it. Even though I wrote it, it's like.

Over and over again. It is challenging.

That's great man. Well, I acknowledge Damon for constantly showing up, for making the decision to choose love, choose forgiveness, choose life, even when the situation with the cancer was a little scary. For choosing your family, for just constantly showing up with a big heart man.

I try man.

And I acknowledge you for your dad jokes as well. The final question, what's your definition of greatness?

Oh, the definition of greatness is, I think knowing that you had challenged yourself and you've gotten to wherever you are in life and you left nothing on the field and that you accepted who you are and sometimes unfortunately you could be ugly and you may have foul intentions and stuff. I can't, I'm not here to want to give you a moral code. I just want you to be the best or the worst, unfortunately, that you want to be because You're the only one who has a blueprint for yourself, and you're the only one who's gonna have to look yourself in the face.

When your time comes. Amen. Damon John, thanks brother.

All right. Appreciate you, man. Thank you.

Thank you.

There you have it, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this episode with the Shark, the New York Times bestseller, the inspiring entrepreneur, the motivational speaker, Damon John. If you enjoyed this, especially the last 15 minutes, Oof, I love how Damon really went deep and opened up at the end. For me, that was the most inspiring part. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend, lewishouse.com/928. Text someone, send it to a group chat, send it to anyone you can think of that would be inspired by this message. A friend, a family member, someone who loves Shark Tank, an entrepreneurial friend, some crazy person with a crazy idea, whoever it may be that you know, send them this link or just copy and paste the link over on the Apple Podcast or Spotify podcast and share it with them right there. Again, a big thank you if this is your first time here. Welcome to the School of Greatness. We bring you the greatest minds in the world from all walks of life to help you live a better life. This is our mission to impact humanity and living a better life. And I thank you for taking the time to be here. If you've been here many times before, you know the drill. Thank you so much. Your time, your attention is valued. I'm so grateful for you. I appreciate you so very much. As Benjamin Franklin said, An investment in knowledge pays the best interest. So congratulations on making a great investment in yourself. Knowledge, free knowledge to help you continue to pay dividends in the future. Hope you feel loved today.

I hope you feel supported.

I hope you know you are not alone. I'm so grateful for you and you know what time it is, it's time to go out there and do something great.