The 8 SIGNS You WON'T Be Successful... | Lewis Howes

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.

How many times have you encountered somebody who is very successful?

And then everything is about the whole intuition part, right? You're sitting there, who you choose to befriend, who you choose to have relationships with, you know, and how you our.

Actions determine whether we will be successful or not. And in this video I bring you some of the greatest entrepreneurs to teach you what to do in order to be successful. I'm curious, what are the three things rich people do that poor people don't do?

Well, I can tell you they have the intuition of how they judge people because everything is about the whole intuition part, right? You're sitting there, who you choose to befriend, who you choose to have relationships with and how you water those relationships. Because if you and I have a relationship together and it's just take, take, take, nothing's going to happen. I remember I'm a 24 year old kid, I don't know nothing about business. I've done some stuff in sales, but I really don't know nothing about business. I'm a 22 year old kid. I go and I take this guy, I go to a job interview at the advertising group shout out to Jamie Hebb. And I watched this guy, he interviews me. I'm at that time working on Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, but I'm trying to see what else I want to do. So I got started day before 9 11, but I'm still interviewing. I sit with him in the interview and the way he interviewed me, I sat there and I said I will never work for this company because it's just not what I want to do. Because they were selling Xerox machines and business to business. I said, but I want to have a relationship with you. I said do you mind if I get your business card? He said yeah, sure. I said okay, great. So he gives me his business card. Year and a half later I get a job. I'm doing good at this point, I'm making some income, 23 years old. I call him up and I say, Jamie, you don't remember me, but I want to take you out to lunch and I want to pick your brain, if you don't mind. I told you a year and a half ago that I wanted to do this with you and you said yes. He says great, let's do it. So we go to Macaroni Grill somewhere in Culver City, right around here, like Victory Overland, somewhere around that area. So we go there. He brings this drop dead gorgeous girl that works for him. I think her name is Natalia or Natasha or something with Ann, right? And she's beautiful. Short skirt, perfect legs, flawless, beautiful face. She's sitting right there. And I know what he's trying to do. He's trying to woo me to go be one of his sales guys. And I said, look, with all due respect, you're beautiful, but I have no interest in you. My interest is in you. Is it fair if we just talk business for an hour? He says, yes. So I went, okay. Now, at this point, he's making a million. I'm making 50 grand a year. I'm a nobody. Okay? We have lunch again. I'm taking notes, taking notes, taking notes. I offer to pay. He doesn't let me pay. He pays. He says, I got it, no problem. When I leave, I send him a book. We had this meeting that we did every three to six months together at this restaurant, Argentinian restaurant called Bamboo, which they had this beautiful soup. Every time we would have dinner with them or we'd go to lunch, I would always send him a book. Ten years later, he says, every time I meet with Patrick, a book is on its way. Okay? So I value the relationship. I asked him, what do you need from me? How can I bring things to you? Years later, he gives me one referral. That one referral he gave me helped me open up Florida. If he doesn't give me that referral, that Florida office wouldn't have been opened up, right? One contact opens up a whole state. Okay? So another relationship I can tell you about is I was going to churches and I said, let me see what's going to happen with these churches. And I'm going to churches, and I'm going to these different places. I'm studying Scientology, I'm studying lds, I'm studying Jehovah, Judaism. I'm studying everything. At this point in the game, I was obsessed with religion. So all I want to do is study, study, study everything about religion, right? And I'm 24, 25. I eventually find this church called shepherd of the Hills, which is ran by a guy named Dudley Rutherford. And I go to this place and I'm an atheist. So it's not like I'm going in there. I'm just trying to see what's going on over here. I'm just trying to learn. I'm not trying to do it. I go to this place and I'm like, okay, I like this guy's style. Typically you go to church if you don't do this, you know, hell. I'm like, dude, I don't need to know I'm going to hell. I know I'm going to hell. I just want to know I have a shot in heaven. You know what I'm saying? So this guy's energy was, you have a shot out of heaven, right? I'm like, okay, cool. This is my tryout. I feel a little better, right? I know the scrubs. Let me see. Maybe I got a shot over here. So I go there and I'm sitting in the back. I watch him once, twice, three times, four times. I'm like, wow, I like this guy. So then I sent him an email. A little bit of an arrogant email. But I'll tell you what the email was. I sent him an email and I said, listen, my name is Patrick Bed David. You don't know who I am, but I'm going to be somebody in the world. And I know you are somebody in the world. But I promise you, if you give me your time, I will always bring value to you. It will not be a waste of your time. Okay? I'm not doing anything at that time. At 25, I got a small little office operation. Nothing crazy. We go have lunch together at Black Angus. Black Angus off Canoga or Topanga. We go to Black Angus. We sit down, we talk. After the meeting is over with, I said, what can I do for you? Nothing there. We go out again. What can I do for you? Nothing there. What can I do for you? Nothing there. Eventually says, something happened with my son at Moore park basketball, and I made a phone call to the coach and I spoke to the guy anonymously because I didn't like the way this whole situation was handled. He probably doesn't even know the story. I know the people may know, but he may not even know the story. So I make the phone call. We get closer. He marries my wife. We change our wedding to Friday. It was set up on Saturday to Friday so he can wed us anyways in 2008. 2009. 2008. He introduces me to Tom Ellsworth. You know how I talked about Tom earlier? He introduced me to Tom. Okay. And Tom comes. Okay. In 2009, he introduced me to Matt Seppala. Matt Seppala and Sheena. I got introduced to 09. They just got promoted this last week at West Palm beach to the Chief Distribution officer, php. Right. He is now the cdo. Okay. We've paid him in the first six months of the year. Over a million dollars. They're doing very good at what they do in the business here. But if I don't have that contact and I water him what his needs are, not what I can take. If I give the needs, you, I don't have those contacts. So I think too many times when, you know, you build a relationship with somebody, it's immediately, what can I do? You know, what can I. And by the way, what can I get from it? Yeah, and I remember how you were the first time we met. You know, when we were done, you and I went to Earth Cafe with Jen, and I think we even went and looked at some furniture and there was like a Google shop that we went there. I don't know if you remember that. Right across from Earth Cafe. And you said, pat, how can I help you? What do you need from me? You know, what can I do for you?

It was on the corner.

Exactly, exactly. So we walked. Babe, I really like this Lewis guy. I don't like this approach how he is. That's the dynamic that you don't see behind closed doors. People may see School of Greatness, people may see the books, but behind closed doors, the context is about, what can I do for you? So you ask three things. I'd say the biggest one is figure out ways to strengthen relationships and take them deeper. Because you never know. Just like everybody thinks you're one sale away or one opportunity away, you're one contact away from your life changing. If you start valuing your contact like a book of business, everything changes.

That's true. What I heard you say there was intuition, study, and relationships.

Sure, yeah.

Does that cover those kind of three things? And I think when you think about people that aren't making the money that they want and don't have a rich life, whether that be quality of life, they probably aren't discerning their decisions and being intuitive about who they should spend time with. They aren't researching more ideas and expanding their mind, and they aren't giving in those relationships. I would agree with that.

Yeah, I would agree with that. And I think sometimes it's also not knowing what something could lead into. You know, a guy one time came into Morgan, Sandy Dean with a Harley Davidson bike, and he had tattoos and he looked rough, very rough. No advisor would take him. He says, I'm looking for an advisor. No advisor would take this guy. Yeah, I need an advisor. And like, oh, there's a bank downstairs.

Financial advisor.

Financial advisor Rob Morgan, Stanley Dean Witter, Glendale. No one wants to take this guy.

This guy's got no money.

Yeah. So the guy comes out, he sees, he says, oh, just give him to somebody else, I'm good. The guy in the corner office that has a couple hundred million dollars under management, he leaves. Then the new guy takes him. Then a guy comes, have $50 million to invest. He got an inheritance. That One account was $50 million. Change his life, change his life. And he put the 50 in. The rookie broker got a 50 million dollar money under management. You're getting one or two points on that. Life changing for life, for life.

Every year.

Every year. Generational wealth. We're not talking about like a small thing here. So you can't just sit there and look at relationships that you never know the potential of a contact. You have to know. Every contact could take you to someplace that you don't know. It's like a movie, you don't know the next scene, you know. So you can't just assume what that contact's going to lead into. Sometimes the smallest contact can lead into something big.

One of the things I love about you, Patrick, is you remind me of my dad so much and my childhood, my dad, I think I told you my dad was life insurance salesman for 32 years until he got into a brain accident. He got in a car crash and he's still alive today. But he had to stop working and he also became an entrepreneur, launched the health insurance vertical in conjunction with Northwestern Mutual. And he does everything you do. And my whole business model and just the way that I live is based on what I witnessed him doing. And this was pre social media, pre Internet.

Wow.

He would just remember names like nobody's business. He was so giving, so thoughtful, and he was always thinking the long term. He wasn't like, how can I sell you now, but how can I give you now? He would do this every day. He would read the newspaper and he would cut out the newspaper every day and write long letters and put in envelopes and send it out to people that were clients and people that are not clients. If it was someone's kid in sports that, you know was, hey, they had their best game ever. Hey, I just wanted to send you this clipping of the newspaper to just.

People in the community. That's on a whole different level though, man, that's incredible.

Handwritten letters and just send it to him and say, hey, you know, if I can ever help it with anything, let me know.

Yeah.

And it was that kind of old school mentality. But he would always just show up for people, just take meetings to take them and wasn't always trying to sell, but just trying to serve. And that's really kind of how I built my business early on was when I had nothing at all. I was just like, what can I learn from someone? And how can I ask them what they need and then deliver on that need as fast as possible and not ask for anything in return? And I think that's one of the reasons why I've been able to grow, is because of the relationship building. Ben, our producer, I met him nine years ago when he was a student at Columbia Journalism school getting a master's right? And he was working on a documentary about handball. I was in handball at that time in New York City, and really liked the way he made the documentary and followed his journey over the last nine years, stayed in touch every year. We needed a head producer to really build our content. And I reached out to him, and the timing right, the sequencing was right, and we had a relationship where it made sense, at least for now. Maybe he leaves at some point, but it's been great so far in the last four months. And I think you never know where the relationship will go. Even if it didn't work out, it's still worth building relationships, no question, Even if we never work together, because you just never know who that person might introduce you to, who might say your name behind closed doors where it unlocks some opportunity. You'd never know. So you remind me a lot of my dad.

Well, that's a big compliment, man. I appreciate that. Thank you.

And I think if more people came from that place of how can I just care about people and help them solve their problems, you're going to gain a lot back in return, long term, whether it's with that person or not. And you talk about money a lot on your show, and you have an amazing video about your top. I think it's your top 20 rules on money. Curious, since we're going in the rich poor conversation, what would you say are the top three to five rules on money? If you could boil it down to.

Three to five, it's a game. The number one rule is it's a game. You're playing a game. It's that simple. You know, if you. If you look at it as a game, just like anything, you can get better at it, right? Like, I don't. Whatever game you play, if you play Uno, if you play Monopoly, if you play Clue, if you play, if you play fortnite, anything you play, you know you're gonna get good. I remember in my Time I was playing Fester's Quest. I played Zelda. I used to play Final Fantasy 1. And I would play, obviously, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat. But it was also. What was the Mario Kart? Is it Super Mario Kart? I say, you know how you would do the three jumps and bam, it's going fast. And I would beat this time, 32 seconds. I was so proud of it, but I played it 50,000 times, right? So the game with money, it's exactly what it is. Once you learn how to play the game with money, then it has to do with timing, Then it has to do with different kind of things. Like, you know, a year ago, I get a call from a guy who needs cash.

I said, okay, he needs an investment.

He has something he has to sell immediately to get cash in return, okay? Because he needs the money right away. So I said, okay, so what are you selling? He says, it's the two greatest Wayne Gretzky cards.

I said, okay, signed or unsigned?

No, this is a PSA 10, 1979 OPG tile signature, no sign, but it's the Holy Grail. So the OPG one sold in 2016 for $453,000. Okay? And just five years prior to that, it sold for $92,000. So from 92,000 to 451 in 2016. And he calls me, and the top sold in 2016 for $205,000. So two cars combined sold in 2016 for 600. And, you know, he has them both. He has them both. And he wants to sell it to me. And I said, okay, what do you want to sell it for?

He's like, 600,000?

Yeah, of course he wants. I said, I'm not going to pay you that. I mean, you know, he wants 650,000. I'm not going to pay you that. But we talked about it, and eventually he gave me a number, right? And it was still a number. I had to still cough up, you know, half a million dollar check to the guy. But we met at the PSA headquarters. Classy guy, total gentleman. We sat down, transaction happened. The CEO of PSA came, showed us the poster on the PSA headquarters. I think it's in Newport, of the card is on the wall. It's the most expensive hockey card in the world. Right? Okay, no problem.

You're a hockey fan.

I'm not a hockey fan. I'm an investment guy with hockey. But I've interviewed Wayne Gretzky six years ago. So I like greatness. I like anybody that just goes and Crushes it with their game. Right? So I buy this card. So I buy the card. I don't think much of it.

One card, not two.

Two cards. It's both of them. I bought both of them. Yeah. Wow. So the other guy who owns the card wouldn't sell his card for a million dollars if you paid it to him. So here's what I do know. Two guys own the card, me and the other guy. There's only two of us. Okay, you paid a million. He won't sell it to you. So that means there's only one in the market because it's me, because I'm willing to sell it. Right? So it's on ebay, right? If you go on ebay, right now, you type in Wayne Gretzky, opg, It's on market right now for a million dollars, right? One of them is on the market for a million. The other one's on the market for 400,000. So you asked me for rule of money. I had cash. If I don't have cash like that, I can't double my money that quickly. So we just talk about three of them. Money is a game. You need cash because opportunities are going to come up. And it's a doubles game.

So if I put a doubles game.

It'S a doubles game. Everything about money is a doubles game.

What's that mean?

A doubles game to me is I pay you $1,000. Can we double it in six months? No. How long? In 12 months. Okay, no problem. I'll do a double in a year. Here's $1,000. I get a double back. Right. So if you take 1,000 and you double it every year, what happens? 1,000 goes into 2, 4, 16, 32, 64, 256, 5, 2 of a million. $1,000 is nine doubles away from a million.

Wow.

Now you take a million and see what happens if we double it nine times. 1 million goes into 2 million. 4 million. 8 million. 16 million. 32, 64, 128,000. 256, 512 billion. A million is 10 doubles away from a billion.

But how do you find the doubles?

Well, that's the game. That's the part of the game. That's what I'm trying to tell you. So the doubles now becomes investment opportunities. You know what you buy into? Do you start a company where has a high value, you know, you can really scale it. And finding something that can scale. Do you invest into things that are going to give you 6, 8, 10%, or you're going to Go play ball and take the risk. That's the game that you're going to start learning that, you know, part of my money is going to be hedge, and I'm going to buy some gold because I'm not going to become a billionaire off gold. But I'm buying it because gold is money, and something happens to the economy, I'm protected with the gold. But you know what? I'm going to put some of this money in mutual funds because I know long term, I'm going to make 8 to 12% on this. I'm fine with that. I might do a real estate deal, because long term, I may do some money. Although right now, commercial real estate may be an interesting dynamic because I think. Zoom. Crushed commercial real estate. The commercial real estate model, it's been crushed. And by the way, it may never come back the same way ever again.

Commercial real estate 20 years from now or something. Who knows?

I don't even think. I think it's gone. Really. Here's what I mean. Look, we have this space, right? Okay. You got this space. Did you get in the last four months? How long have you had it before?

COVID Six months before. Yeah.

But if you get this today, if you get this today, right, right now, office space in Dallas, office space nationwide. Companies are looking at their business models and they're just saying, why do I need 100,000 square feet of office space? Why do I need it? But if you go out there and you look at the numbers, you're like, okay, I don't know if I'm going to do commercial real estate, you know, but if I find some small. If I team up with the investment banker, if I team up with a guy that's managing money and I go with a VC team, and this is a guy that's flipping opportunities fairly quickly, and I dump a million dollars with him, and within 5 years, he turns a million dollars into 5 million. That's 5x in 5 years. That may not be a bad idea. So you got to find those. And they're out there, by the way. They're out there. So Ray Dalio plays a game of doubles. Warren Buffett's a doubles game. All these guys are doubles. Game.

Dalio's investing in businesses.

Yes. I'm a business guy. I'm not a real estate guy. There are people that are. And by the way, that doesn't mean real estate doesn't work. I mean, it wouldn't make any sense for me to say there's real estate billionaires everywhere. Our president is A real estate billionaire. So for me to knock, real estate would have no value to it. But for me, I'm more about. I have an idea. What are you guys doing? Me and Tiffany are thinking about starting a marketing company. Okay. How can this thing scale? Well, let me tell you what we got. We got three packages. Boom, boom, boom. We're going to be target audience. We're going to be targeting people in this world. Okay, Interesting. How much are they going to pay? We foresee us doing $6 million in revenue within 24 months. What have you done to be able to earn this? I'm a Columbia guy. I'm a this. I'm a this. How much money do you need? I need $2 million. I can't give you 2 million. Can I come in for 100,000? I put $100,000. The next thing, this thing sells for $200 million. That $100,000 all of a sudden became $2.2 million. That's a victory. So those opportunities are out there. You just got to focus. And then the last one, I would tell you, with the money. So we talked about what we talked about game.

Money's a game. You need cash. It's a doubles game.

Doubles game. And I'll tell you one more would be, you have to be maniacally maniacal about being patient. I mean, you have to be patiently aggressive, you know, Patiently aggressive. It's so tough to do because you.

Want your money to double now.

Exactly.

It might take 10 years.

Yeah. But if you are willing to do the 10 years, it may double 40 times. It may double 30 times. You know, like when Bezos said, just hang tight. I'm not going to give you dividends. Just trust me on this. Trust me on this. Right? And at the beginning, if you've heard the story where he goes and raises $2 million, he gets $50,000 from 40 people. That's what, $2 million. And he gives them 20%.

Wow.

20%.

He gives up 20% of the 2.

Million percent just for $2 million. You know what that 20% is worth today? $200 billion. That's the point. So can you imagine 1994, Amazon gets started. Forget about you put 2 million. Just say you put 50 million, you put 50,000. What is a half a percent of a trillion dollar company right now? A half a percent. You're still half a billionaire.

Wow.

Your 50,000 is worth $500 million, give or take, whatever the numbers we're doing. Right. The point is, that is a massive victory. The guy who put $10,000. And he gave it to Berkshire Hathaway in 1974. I don't know if you've heard this story. You know, Warren Buffett is starting. He says, I'll give you $10,000. Never touches the money. Goes back to his regular job, makes 100 grand a year. You know how much that $10,000. Have you read this article?

No.

Tell me.

The $10,000, if you go on business inside of you, pull it up, is worth 780 today.

780 million. Million.

Never did anything to it. So that's the part about patiently aggressive. Yeah, it's very hard to do. But the doubles get bigger later on, not early on. The doubles are bigger. Your 15, 20, 25.

That's what Bubba talks about. Just like his success is he's lived longer, you know, he's just stayed around longer to let the money continue to compound. And that compounded interest is where it's at. 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 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 you're going to be able to stop some social injustices? Like, what is your why?

First of all, that's the first step. Figure out why you want that thing.

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 going to do when you get a million dollars? What are you going to do with the money? Some people go, I'm just going to keep making money. Well, how are you? Okay, you're going to 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 the 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 because I love it or.

Because it makes me fulfilled or it's.

Fun or I love going to the gym. I'm there for competition. You know, better than I do. Because obviously you are an athlete. But if you don't know your why 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 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 $30,000 a year for 10 years? Carve canoes, save the turtles, and invest in some stocks? Because stocks are gonna average out 12% every year, and you're gonna turn the $600,000 into whatever the case. And then when you come back, like, what are you gonna do? Yeah, right. Are you gonna buy investment properties and keep doubling down? Many people go through life without their why. And so when they're working that 9 to 5 that they're sick of, they're going home and complaining. And I forgot what I was. I was watching a show where a girl was. She was like. 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. And 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 move 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 what, 11 years now? Is that what it is?

11 years?

Going 12 years, you've been investing in a billion businesses, helping entrepreneurs grow. You've got, you know, amazing kids.

Yeah. So my why is, as I said before, first of all, you know, it's to take care of my family and my wife and my youngest daughter, because my oldest daughters, 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 get these girls in an area where they're more protected, where they can have a good education and have 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, but 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. I'm 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, make a, 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, 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 in 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 because it looked like it was fun with the people having it. So I think that they, they, they governed me in a certain Way.

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.

Yeah.

And get caught up in there. Nothing wrong with that. We're all human.

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. 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 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'm more towards the person here. So when I invest in brands and companies, I invest in them because 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.

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

I'm constantly learning every single day. So in Powershift, I highlighted my investment bomba socks. Now, these guys are the number one soc, the number one investment in Shark Tank history. The only. The only ring who did not get an investment when it did really well.

Did a billion dollar.

They did a billion two sale.

Crazy, right?

Yeah. 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 when he came in the tank, he was asking too much money. And.

But.

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, just 5%. All right, I'm willing to go four and a quarter.

But the socks.

But the socks was the best investment. And it's the number one. It's the number one product in Shark.

Tank history, really, in terms of how.

Much it's grown, how much is grown, and how much it's gross. Now, I want to make sure that you want to, because 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 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 pay 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 pretty cool. Thank you.

Thank you.

And it's really Dave and Randy's company, and they've done it all. They've gotten very little to almost no advice because they're so great. But I'm gonna 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 of 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 up 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 because you just think you lost it, Right? So I still can't sell it. Plus, if I do the deal, I'm the logo whore. You can't tell if anybody in this room or in this building wearing 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 couldn't get the.

Word out that much.

And then plus you'd have to advertise off of people's hardships, right? You wouldn't have self generated content of people saying thank you. So I learned that. I also learned that because the consumer purchased and was part of a movement they talk about 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 all, not everybody else was interested. But I was the last shark to be interested because I'm too jaded by the fashion industry. Lo 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 know, you know, 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 socks were really good because they didn't have the toe, 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. They then.

But more importantly, you have to put it on a certain way.

Yeah, of course. More importantly, they showed 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, it was them understanding that, Damon, I'm going to 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 going to do another Business together and we're going to 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 learn. I learn. You know, I joke about my fellow shows, but I definitely learn from them.

Is that just because 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'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 time 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. 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'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, meaning just take anything you want. No, take it and drop it off.

Oh, drop it off. Someone on your neighborhood?

Yeah, wherever. Hey, hey, I gotta drive two mile. 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'll be picking up whole truckloads and.

It wins for everybody.

Right?

But when I look at a. 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?

Got all this money in the bank, but he's still trying to maximize.

Yeah, yeah, he's still scrappy.

Do you think the greatest entrepreneurs are more focused on money or on the mission?

Look, I think without question, it's the mission, okay? Without question. And there's nothing wrong with pursuit of money. I mean, it's perfectly fine, and it's the engine of capitalism and a free market. But, you know, at a certain point, what I've found with the people I've interviewed is that money is really. At a certain point, there really isn't much more that it's going to. It's really not going to improve your life much more. Stuart Butterfield, the founder of Slack, has a great explanation for what it means to be wealthy. You can go to a restaurant, order anything you want. You can basically go on vacation or wherever you want, and you're not worried about debt. And those three factors. Basically, his argument is, once those are taken care of, you are essentially wealthy. I mean, you are a. And there really isn't much else that's gonna improve your, you know, your life or your anxiety or your feeling of security. And I think that most entrepreneurs, certainly the vast majority that I've interviewed, are 100,000% motivated by mission. I mean, here's. And here's actually the best piece of evidence for that. A lot of founders will eventually exit and sell their companies, right? And I think a lot of. A lot of people imagine that, okay, you. You have a company and then you sell it, and then you've got $100 million, and then you're gonna go lie on a beach in the Caribbean and sip pina coladas all day, right? The reality is if you did that, you would eventually become very depressed. You'd actually just begin to die, right? And wither. And most of the people I've interviewed, they want to work until the very end, until even. Even when they have enough money for three generations behind them. Because it isn't about the money. It's about a sense of purpose. It's about camaraderie. It's about community and a mission. You know, I mean, this is. This might be weird for some of your viewers and listeners to hear, but I used to be a foreign correspondent. I covered the Iraq war. I covered the Afghan wars, I covered Israel, Palestine. That's what I did before. You know, this is 15, 20 years ago. And I spent a lot of time in Iraq 2003, 2004, 2005. And every time I would ask soldiers, what is it that, like, why are you here? Why'd you sign up for this? You know, and they'd say, oh, you know, to serve our country and blah, blah. I said, no, but why are you here? What's keeping you here? Because, you know, this war is problematic. And it can't just be about the flag. It can't just be about. Because, you know, part of you knows that what you do here isn't necessarily gonna be recognized. You know, people in the US are. They don't even know what's going on here. What is it? And we get the same answer time and again. It's to protect the guy on the left and the guy on the right. I'm here to make sure nobody shoots him and nobody shoots him. It's about connection, camaraderie, mission, purpose. And it's the same thing with business.

So you think what motivates people most is the connection of the idea or the product or the service to the people you're working with or your customers or media, all of them.

I think it's, it's like a Maslow's hierarchy, you know, all of it. And it's, it's the people you work around. I mean, how many times have you, have you encountered somebody who is very successful and then they left their job or they retired and then they don't have that daily interaction.

They don't have what happens in sports.

A lot where you're, you know, as.

A former athlete, you, you see a lot of guys get depressed after they retire and they might have been an all star, an All Pro Bowler or whatever it may be a Super bowl champion, made 10 million dollar contract, but then within a couple years, they're very depressed. They're. They talk about missing the brotherhood or the, the locker room because of the camaraderie and the connection. And when you don't, when you have connection for so long and then you go in isolation, it becomes very lonely.

Yeah, I'm sure that's that. There's no doubt in my mind. I mean, just. I just watched that Michael Jordan documentary a couple months ago on ESPN is so, so beautiful. And, you know, seeing some of those old Chicago Bulls players, you know, the sort of lesser knowns, not the Pippins and the Jordans, but the lesser knowns. And yeah, I mean, you know, they're not that no one's hounding them for autographs. They're not getting on planes or not. I mean, some of that I'm sure they don't miss, but some of it is. It's Being part of a team, you know, being part of something bigger than yourself.

Yeah. I'm curious. What do you think entrepreneurs are afraid of? More fear of failure or fear of success?

I think that most of the people that I've interviewed, and I would take a sort of go on a limb and say most of us, I think, are more afraid of failure, which is actually not a good thing, because failure is especially manageable. Failure is something we all have to experience and embrace. I think that we all in our minds, have this idea of what it means to be successful. And the reality is that success is not. It's not an endpoint. You know, it's not like you do something and then you wake up and you say, you know, you blow the trumpet and say, da, da, da, da, I'm successful. And that's it. You know, it's like any. It's like exercise. You know, like, I exercise every day. I don't love exercising every day. It's not that fun. But I can't just, like, my kids will say, daddy, you're healthy. Why? I'm like, you can't just, like, get to a point and say, all right, I'm healthy. I'm done. Because then you start to decline the next day. And I think it's a sort of a similar concept, which is, you know, success is a constant process and a constant journey. You know, I think by nature, most of us are more oriented towards succeeding, and most of us fear failure, but of course, it's. That creates a whole other series of issues. You know, one of the things that I love about how I built this is the people I talk to is. And I've said this on the show, I think failure is just infinitely more interesting than success. You know, when we get a lot of. You know, you get a lot of pictures. I'm sure you get these two from people who are like, hey, my client. They were the Forbes 20 under 20. They were this. This. They were this. They were the Nobel Prize, you know, whatever. Like, all these accolades. And that's great, you know, like, I'm. I'm totally down with that. But want to learn from somebody who's like, here's where I screwed up. I'm going to tell you what a dumb idiot I was, right? Because that's when we learn. And I think that. And that's really where people are at their most generous, when they're really kind of talking about their failures. And it allows us to kind of get a window into their soul that we need to have to Help us when we are struggling with failure. With failure.

What would you say is your greatest failure then?

Well, I'll start by saying almost every day being in this profession, there's some failure, right? Whether it's people not wanting to be on the show or whatever. I mean, obviously now it's gotten much easier as I've grown. But, you know, my. My dream, my real dream in life when I was a younger reporter was to be the main anchor, news anchor on npr. I wanted to be the guy telling the news on All Things Considered or Morning Edition, you know, because I thought that was important. Like when I came to NPR as he, you know, as a younger man when I was 22, my parents didn't know what it was, you know, but I wanted, I think part of us, some of us are motivated by wanting to make our parents proud or whatever it might be. And so that was really what I thought I wanted to do. And I ticked all the boxes. You know, I was a foreign correspondent. I covered wars. I. I went to cnn and I was on television for two years covering Israel, Palestine. I covered the Pentagon.

I got the risk your life for this job.

I got the weekend job. I did a fellowship at Harvard. I ticked all the boxes. I was the weekend anchor for the news program, the weekend host.

You're so close. The weekend anchor.

So close. So close. But I wasn't chosen. And that was a real blow for me that happened in 2010, 11. And I thought, you know, maybe. Maybe it was time for me to find a new career. I mean, maybe. Maybe I wasn't cut out for this, you know.

Really?

Yeah. I mean, look, it was very, very hard because I really wanted that. And the reality is that in the news business, there are managers and programmers and executives, and they have their own vision. And it's a perfectly reasonable vision. And I wasn't part of that vision. And it was a time in my life where I really was trying to figure out what to do with it. And just very luckily, ted, as in the TED conference, people had approached NPR and wanted to collaborate on the show. And I heard about it and I raised my hand, I said, I'll do that. And so I kind of left the News World in 2012 entirely. Left it. And that was a failure. And, you know, that was like. I mean, I still have emails from, you know, really prestigious colleagues in Washington, D.C. when I used to live there, who were like, you're going to do a what? A podcast? What is that? Who listens to that?

Wow.

Why would you give up hosting the weekend news program.

You're so close to the main. The main show. Yeah.

Oh, they would say, what. You have a massive audience. And we did. We had 3 million people listening on the weekends on the radio. Now. That's changed a lot. Obviously, the radio audience has been in decline, but. So I kind of. I was kind of in the wilderness in 2012. You know, I kind of went into exile, and I didn't really know if TED Radio Hour was going to be successful. I didn't know.

And this was launching as a podcast.

Yeah, yeah.

Because I started in January 2013, so. You started in 2012.

The show. The show launched in March of 2013. Ted Radio. Well, it was a relaunch of the show, really. So.

So we launched about the same time in a space when. And this was before there was a million podcasts like there is now. I think we hit a million podcasts on Apple recently, and I think there was not even a hundred thousand shows or something, and it was something that you couldn't even find. It was like you had to go to an app on itunes, plug in your phone. Yeah, we were. We were getting on when no one was listening, essentially. There was a couple of that big people before us, the Joe Rogans and some other tech podcasts, but it wasn't a big thing yet.

Yeah.

So you said, I'm gonna leave npr, the biggest show that there is in this space, and go launch this little podcast thing with ted.

Well, I mean, I launched it. I was launching it within npr, so.

It was okay, gotcha.

Got collaboration. But I left the new side of npr, which was the most important part of npr.

Right.

It's the thing that everyone knows about. Listen, that's what.

And like, if you're a journalist, that was what you wanted to do, you.

Know, And I like the highest level of respect.

Highest level of respect. And it was Washington, D.C. and it's, you know, all these things. And here I am doing this podcast, and like, you know, it's like the. It's like the backwater of NPR at that time. You know, of course, now the tables have turned a little bit. But that. That was really an enormous failure. But here's the thing. As with almost every failure I've had, it's happened for a reason. It's like a hidden blessing. It's like, if that didn't happen and I pursued that path, I don't know how happy I would be doing the news, especially today. I think the news is just. It's really hard, you know, it's A hard time. In our country, news is really important. I have a lot of respect and admiration for my colleagues who do that, but that failure really kind of saved me.

One thing I realized is that at certain times in a man's life, he's either a fool, he's a victim, or he's a king. And when you're a fool, you're like, you goof it all up, you know, Ah, well, you know, but you. You think there are no consequences for your actions, but there are always consequences for every act you do everything good or bad. But then when you mess your whole life up being a fool, he become a victim. Now, oh, my God. Look, you know what? You know why? You know why I did that? Because I was black. You know why? Because I grew up in all that religion, and my father was an alcoholic. You know, he beat my mom. You know that, right? Or look at this, look at the situation. I'm from Flint, Michigan. Man, it's hard. It's hard for a black man in this. In this society. And this is the way we did it. I had. And let me tell you, the table is always full of excuses because they're valid. There's a lot of people against you. And you can say, oh, my God, this table is full. It's like, man, you know, this is the reason why I'm like this, and this is this. And, man, you never run out, and.

You always stay down.

Always. You always. But the king stage is when you realize, wait a minute, this is your table. Wait a minute. This is your room. You have to accept whatever you are letting into your life, good or bad. As a king, you can tell people, get out of your court. As a king, you don't have to accept any of those excuses. As a king, you have to know that you are responsible for your life, good and bad. You did that. So as a king, if something's not right, it's your responsibility to change it. Dude, it was like I had to go to rehab. I went to rehab. It was this place called Psychological Counseling Services. It was in Arizona. I mean. Yeah, in Arizona. In Phoenix. And man, how long did you go for? Oh, man. Well, you go for a full week. It's like an intensive where you don't do anything. You're there for like 16 hours a day. Day.

And this is 2010.

This was. Yeah, it was 2010.

Yeah.

So. And my wife told me she thought I would never, ever do anything like that, because again, I was not. Listen, we had been going to, like, therapy, but when you're not honest. It doesn't work. You know what I mean? Like, you just tell them the game and, you know, whatever, dude. I went in there and I was like, this ain't me. This ain't me. In like, the first couple hours, I'm like, come on, this is crazy. Then all of a sudden, I was like, oh, my God, this is me.

Wow.

This is me. This is the problem. This is what I. This is the issues. I was in tears. I was broke. I was like, I was toxic. Like, when you finally can turn the thing around and see yourself as ugly as you were, I was just so, so guilty. Let me tell you, it wasn't shame. It was guilt. There's a big difference.

What's the difference?

Shame says you are bad. Guilt says you did something wrong. The problem is when I was feeling shame since I was a kid. Yeah, you, You. It's you. It's you. And this is the thing. When you are a shamed person and when you try to motivate people through shame, what you're doing is constantly telling them you are a bad person. You are like this. You are wrong. You are messed up. So, you know what happens is no matter where you go, you go back to, I am messed up. But when you realize, wait a minute, wait a minute. It's not that I messed up, it's that I made a messed up choice.

Yeah.

That changed the framework for me. And I was like, it didn't excuse anything. Now, mind you, it did not. It was. You are. I had to say it. And the thing is, it's like courtroom, like a court, for you to actually be guilty, you have to say it. Think about it. There's nobody. If you never admit guilt, it will never be presented. You have to say, I am guilty. I did the crime. And it allows everyone to see you as you truly are. And I went through the process of guilt, of making sure I was guilty. I knew what I said. I put my wife through this. I put my family through this. I did this. I did this. Now let me correct it. But see, shame, you can't correct. Shame is incorrect. You can't. There's nothing. What happens is shame. You just cover. Shame is something you just put, you know, let's put some leaves over here. Put leaves over the body. You know what I mean? It's like there's no way you can really. You know, shame is one of those things where you just have to, like, color it. Image. Image covers shame. But when you are dealing with guilt, now you've been proven Guilty. Now there's punishments. You have to make amends, consequences. Right. You have to be accountable. There's all kinds of things, man. You have to come back. You have to forgive people who did things to you. You have to ask forgiveness for what you did to other people. Let me tell you. And I have to say this. The forgiveness that my wife showed me was a. Was when I say, a car carrying lesson for any person ever, because. And I understand why people get divorced. I do. First of all, I should be. But this woman, this is the thing. This is the intimacy that I always, always wanted because she saw me for who I was for real. And she said, terry, I love you anyway. Wow.

Wow.

That's all you want? Yeah, that's all I ever wanted. All I ever wanted was to be seen for who I was. And I was like, you love me? Like, I thought it was real. I was like. I thought she wouldn't come back, but she did. She said, but, Terry, I love you, man. That blew me away.

Yeah.

Because I was living this man life, and here I am. You see me as nothing. I'm like, I feel about myself like, I feel like I'm worth dirt. And she was like, oh, I love you. And, man, that changed everything. It was like the thing that I needed. I was running from the whole time, Louis. I was running from it the whole time. And I vowed. I said. After that, I said, my God, my God, I can correct this. This is fixable. This is fixable. This is not something. This is what I learned through counseling. And I continue to this day. I mean, it's been 10 years of constant, constant work. Constant. Just, hey, man, I can fix this.

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I don't think I'm the type of person that is brave enough to admit I've made a mistake, honestly, because I think things have not worked out along the way, where things just didn't work out as I had hoped or dreamed them to be. But I don't see them as a mistake. Because as quick as you're thinking, oh, poor me, you start to see the light of the door that it's opening that couldn't have opened without it. Okay? So I don't have, like, a regret of this was a big mistake or that was a big mistake. But I have to also say I have my whole life, been very cognizant of doing anything and exposing Myself to anything, even when I didn't want to do it, because I'm deathly afraid of feeling like I would regret, like, what if I don't do it? That's more of a motivation for me than doing, you know, just like, well, will I look back, you know, like, for example, with Dancing with the Stars, I did not want to do it. I'm an old babe. The last thing I want to do is practice four hours a day.

You were great.

You think I was so great? Not the judges. They didn't think so. I was the number one person on Dancing with the Stars last season. Number one rejected. Now there's a record. Okay, but so you might say that was a mistake. With all the work that that led up to, and it was a social embarrassment, I thought I'd be rejected, maybe number three or five or six. But number one, I never saw it coming. And so I was kind of a little mortified on that one. But you know what? I'm so thankful I did it. And the minute I recovered, by the next morning, I'm like, thank God I did it. Thank God it's over. It's a lot of work.

It's a lot of work.

Because I didn't want to. I said yes because I didn't want to wonder what it would have been like, you know?

So what did you learn from the experience about yourself?

I learned I'm not a good dancer. I swear. I've looked at the tapes. Now, one year later, when I thought same tapes I looked at a year ago, I thought, you know, I really got this. But I look at the one year later, I'm like, I'm stiff as a board. What was I thinking, missing steps. So what I learned from that is that I can't dance for well, but inside my body, I feel like I'm a good dancer. And I'll get out on any dance floor, do my own makeup steps, and people really smile as I'm dancing because I don't really give a crap and I look like it, you know? Yeah, but what did I learn? I learned that I learned the same lesson I learned again and again, which is, thank God I did it. Thank God. And the injury of, oh, God, you did so poorly dissipates quickly. But there's an echo to not trying something that's gonna sting you, I think. Not that I know that, because I really don't do that, but I'm afraid of it.

It's like.

It's like fear of a nightmare that might happen. I don't know why? Because I don't really have that in my life, but I'm fearful of it.

Yeah, I think that'll sting you for a long time too. That fear of regret of like, oh, I had the opportunity to do this Dancing with the Stars, and I didn't do it. How many years would you think about?

Not, you know, maybe a year, but still a bad year, you know? You know what regret does, I think, and, and why I've been able to build up my personality and whatever I can get out of and give to life as best I could. What regret does is it quietly takes down your confidence a notch because, in short, you're a coward. You shied away. Even if the right decision is to shy away. Once you shy away, you quietly, without even consciously thinking, think a little less of yourself. Now, I say that from experience because I've watched many people get stronger or people where life makes them weaker, and there's a lot that goes into that, but I really believe that that regret piece is not given enough due. You really have to try everything and try your best, because even. And listen, two out of three things I try don't work out, you know, but people just remember the success. That's what I want. But I know what the failures are. But still I got confidence out of failing. Each time a little notch up, a little notch up. So then you conduct yourself with more power in life because you feel better about yourself. And ironically, you have more to give. You're a better package to give more because you've. You've put a lot into that basket by just trying, trying, trying, trying.

You know, do you feel like you're more confident even though you're the first one out of Dancing with the Stars that you did it and you.

Absolutely, absolutely. I'm more confident. I got a lot of confidence out of that because every female friend and male friend I had that was even close to my age, I can't believe.

You even went for it.

They said you're at. They discouraged you out of your mind. Da da da da. But I won all their respect. And they constantly say, that was amazing. That was amazing. So even my friends, friends that kind of took me for granted think better of me. I went up a notch in their head.

You know, it takes a lot of courage to do that.

It takes a lot of courage to publicly fail. But I happen to be very good at public failure, really, because I've done it my whole life, and that doesn't bother me. I think what. I think what I didn't want to happen was that I would look foolish or old dancing with a 24 year old ripped stud on the floor. Until I realized it. It feels really good to lean in on that guy, let him spin you around that floor. And how my girlfriends are having to dance with anybody like that lately.

There you go.

That's a good way of looking at it.

Yeah.

What would you say? Why do you not. Why are you not afraid to fail publicly?

Because you know what I've learned? Nobody's really watching. Nobody gives a shit. Yeah, everybody's forget about it the next year or whatever, maybe even in the moment. Because the truth is that people most of all are thinking about themselves. So just when you think the limelight's on you and everybody's gonna say, God, is she stupid? God, why would she say that or do that? The minute they've given you that one moment of attention, they back onto their own problems, their own selves. So it's like overstatement of your ego to think you're really that important. You know, you could just move right on. We could distract people. You try the next thing, their eyes on that, if you're lucky. So no, it doesn't really amount to anything. It doesn't really amount to anything. Yeah, it's self ego. That is not really true.

That's interesting because you say that most people are focused on themselves. So when you mess up publicly or you fail publicly, they'll think about it for a moment, but they're on to their own thing.

If you're lucky and they notice.

If you're lucky and you notice, most people won't notice. It just feels like everyone notices.

Yeah, definitely.

Shame, right? Exactly. What about when you want people to have the attention on you for the things you're doing?

Good.

How do you keep the attention on you? The relevancy of yourself as an entrepreneur, an individual. When people are focused on themselves so much, how do you keep them thinking about you, your brand, your business, your work, your mission?

You have to think of a way to grandstand, you know.

What do you mean by that?

Good old fashioned grandstanding. Like, I built my Corcoran Group brand on the backs of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post. Without a doubt, I would think of all kinds of crap to get media attention. Okay. As long as my brand name was in there, really the best, single best thing I thought of, which was really just an attempt to get publicity when I couldn't afford advertising because it was a bad market, was my Corcoran report. And all that was is a. It was a one page report giving the average sale price of apartments in Manhattan is how I labeled it. I was too stupid to know that that was a wrong label. It was just my 11 sales but it was on the front page of the real estate section and I was quoted on the first line and boy, that was an eye opener. That's how I learned that publicity can build a brand. Today's version of publicity that I look for in all of the entrepreneurs I invest in is how good are you at social media? I don't care if you're in the sock business, if you're in the hardware or what's going on. How good are your social media? What's your following? Those are the key questions. Now how good are you at building attention through social media? Because that's the new free ride. Not really free, but to a large degree free. Just like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal were my free ride.

Okay.

So you have to be creative, I think in thinking of how you can grandson stand. And so what's like. I don't know, I'm thinking what's a business right today like? Well, I don't want to use cousins. We already talked about cousins like Grayson Lakes which is a start out as a baby sock company. Phenomenal entrepreneurs I have. Is it the long, like the long lady stocking? Yeah. With a little lace on top.

Some of those for a girl before.

Yeah.

And they make girls look sexy and they're well priced and they're beautifully made.

Nice. They're elegant, sexy.

Well now it's a full fashion line and It's I think $17 million in sales this year. But what are they particularly good at? There's a husband and a wife team. Melissa, the, the, the wife of the team has gorgeous long legs. You may remember her from Shark Tank. Her husband's more of a nuts and bolts guy, but great at business. What she does is she constantly models and talks directly the camera. She has so many people, people that love her. She has a limited edition. She sells out constantly. Constantly. She's great at social media. She knows how to primp herself, look sexy, talk to the ladies and get sales.

Okay.

So she uses her assets, her skills.

But she does on social media and that's built their entire business social media. And did I answer your question? Because I feel like I somehow got lost in my.

How do you stay relevant when things are going good? Good, because when your things are going bad, they'll look at you for a moment. Maybe where it seems like everyone's looking at you, but then they forget. How do you stay relevant while you're growing or while things are kind of going the same?

I'll give you another example. I have a company I just bought in this past season. I was out of my mind to buy into them. It was two guys with a product called Comfy. It was a sweatshirt, blanket. You slip into it, it's like a sweatshirt, but it's actually a blanket. Why I say I was crazy to buy into it. None of the sharks they were smart enough not to is because they're two loudmouth guys having a good time pitching their product. And they had no inventory. They had handmade their own product, two prototypes, had no idea what would cost to make, what they'd sell for, who they'd sell to. They had none of the answers. But they're great salesmen. And I said, oh, I'll take 15 or 40% whenever I got of it, boom. Just because they're great salespeople. And what they have done is they've done in their first year, $11 million in sales. They found a way to produce it and sell it. But a couple of weeks ago, it was very quiet. They have had social media coverage to the moon and back, but it was very quiet. And they hand delivered. And I wish I could remember the famous actress name. Sexy, cool, long legged actress. I'm so bad with names. Whoever she was, I think she was the same actress who closed the Oscars the other night. I might be telling.

I didn't watch it.

Ah, shame on you, my man. Oh, my God. Oh, come on. All right, well, anyway, I saw your.

Little party watch party on Instagram.

So lonely.

Yeah.

But anyway, they sent hand delivered to her front door. How? They found it in Holly with the package and she put on video her jumping on her bed in it. They quicker than a second start a social media campaign. People competing with the jumps. They're Johnny on the spot. That's smart business. Okay? They're causing attention. They made it happen. And then they're gonna write it again. And it's gonna be all over social media, all over. They're annoyed with me that I'm here because I don't have their product, because they want me jumping on the beds. You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna put the hood on. I have one girlfriend that has gorgeous long legs. I'm gonna photoshop my head into her long legs and I'm gonna win the contest.

Perfect. I like that. So grandstanding. Now is like more influencer marketing if you can find creative ways.

That's a fancy way to put it with an audience.

Maybe it's a micro audience or create.

An audience of your own one by one. But you really have to be able to grandstand.

Yeah, I know you talk about the keys to entrepreneurial success a lot, but for those who haven't heard you talk about it, what are, what are you think some of the smart ideas in business right now, the smart industries to go into, if someone's maybe talented, maybe they sold a company or they're trying to start as an entrepreneur. What's an industry you really like? A product section you really like? You know, it's software, Is it coaching, is it consulting, is it an agency, is it physical goods?

Food?

What's the type of category you really think you know?

Really? None of the above. Okay. It's not my cup of tea to think of an industry that's that you can. There's certainly leading industries. I don't believe that's what your head should be if you're thinking of going into business. I think your head should be, is what do you enjoy? What are you naturally inclined to be good at? What were you always good at? Things these days, these abilities don't change much. Whatever you're, you know, if you're gregarious as a young kid, you generally don't wind up as a bookworm. You know, when you get older and get a head on your shoulders, you're still gregarious. So I think what you have to do is think what would suit me? What could I visualize myself doing where I could picture a happy picture of myself? You know, And I think most people are capable of dreaming that up. I don't think it's an analytical kind of left brain kind of thing where you apply yourself to your best shot, like going and playing back blackjack and putting your chips on the right thing. No, I think you have to figure out you're the table. Where should you put your chips? What, what's on you? What's true to you? Okay. And so for me, it took me 22 jobs to find real estate. But the minute I was out open, opening keys, you know, opening the doors and chatting people up and it didn't feel like work. And I was the boss. I knew I was going to be the queen of New York real estate. I knew it as sure as I knew my middle name was Ann. I just could see it in my mind's eye. I never had that vision when I worked my other 22 jobs. And the other thing, it's sort of related to what you ask. I think it's such a, such wrong thinking that you have to choose your spot. I think it's like finding out what clothing you look good in. You got to go try a lot of on the rack and see what works with you. And then you kind of little by little, kind of get your look of what looks well with on your body type, your personality, the colors that are good. I think you find yourself little by little, it's very hard to sharpshoot. It's not that kind of a thing. And you know, often the people I know so many entrepreneurs well beyond, well before, before Shark Tank peers of mine in many industries that have succeeded, no one ever went out for that industry. And so that's what I want to do. But you know what made the biggest difference in a myriad of those, if that's a word, a selection of those people that made the biggest difference was they came along someone they worked for who believed in them. Getting one good boss that gives you an opportunity is worth a million intellectual, actual thoughts and Harvard MBAs grouped up in a pile because you kind of can sometimes need somebody else to see that light. Or you get into something you never thought you'd be interested in and you really love your job and then that winds up being what you do for a lifetime. And so I don't believe that you name the big industries. That's more Mark Cuban stuff. He's like high level investment strategy stuff. But I'll put my businesses against any day, one to one, because I think I'm so good at seeing who's got that talent that matches where they are.

You know, if, if someone's approaching you for investment or to partner with you and you could choose only three qualities that you would dream that they would have. Whether that's, you know, never giving up a grit, positive energy, whatever the quality may be. And you say if they had these three qualities, it doesn't matter what business they're in, maybe timing and the economy might play a little bit of part here and there. But like, if they had these three qualities they're most like, I would bet on them any day.

Yeah, well, that's what I do every day on Shark Tank. And I've gotten better at it because I've learned to hone in on those. I could think of two. Maybe I'll come up with a third if I keep talking. All right, number one is salesmanship. I have never succeeded with any business where the principal didn't know how to sell. I mean, sales is the guts of every business. If you don't have sales, you're not in business. Any business applies to everything. Okay, so, okay, if you're a technology nerd and really are in a technology space, but you better have a partner who could sell the out of it or it ain't going to go anywhere. Okay? So selling is number one. The other thing I look for for, and maybe it sounds weird to you, but I've learned it to be a great almost insurance policy. I look for injury, I look for anger in the individual. If I could find someone, and this is true of all my successful business, interestingly enough, if I could find someone who had injury at an early age and has something to prove, I got myself a winner. It's like insurance. Okay, so when I say injury, meaning they were dunce in school, like 3 out of 4, 3 out of 5 sharks were dunces at school. They're, they're out to prove, you know, I have, I don't want to out them, so I won't use them. Inclined to use the names, but I won't. I have entrepreneurs, usually successful, never had a father. And then when they went on Shark Tank, their father after 35 years was back into how insulting enraged them. Okay, I have entrepreneurs who were sports figures, almost going to be professional sports people had an injury but were fiercely competitive with someone who wound up in their space. They hate that person because they played against them in ice hockey. Crazy. All I have to do is name the other person, their sales go up. So I think anger improving is very much part of a lot of successful stories out there. It's an overcompensation over proving, over driving. Like, I'll show you. Give me the. I show you something that went wrong earlier and you've got a motivated person and it gets you through hard times really well. And then I'm coming up with a third. I can't. There's a million other ones, but none of them as serious as that. Oh, it's those two. You have to be able to sell. And if you have injury to prove something, it's a wonderful insurance policy.

How important is a positive attitude with those two things? Like if you were negative.

Oh, you don't let me tell you, you're not even going to get out of the gate. Well, there's negative people. All right. You know what?

I'd be trying to prove people wrong and always nasty about it.

You know, forget it. Let me tell you what's true. About a negative person. You won't meet them in the entrepreneurial space. You know why? Because they are far more comfortable criticizing the next guy than doing. Negative people are blood suckers. They just suck your energy away. You know the nicest thing I did for all the people that work with me over the years was get rid of negative people. The minute I spotted them, I didn't care if I had cause they were out. You know why? Because it's like, it's like letting the enemy quietly into your camp and giving them free reign. Negative energy is the enemy of all business. Especially I've always been in sales related businesses. You let a negative person into a salesforce, they have a pity party. All of a sudden they need one more person to feel sorry for them or point out what's wrong. It's terrible. I would spot them my way, feel their vibe. Do you have a few minutes on Friday? I'd love to have a chat with you because I felt like I was saving my good people, you know, they were good positive people. I don't mean criticism. It's invaluable in business. You need to have your criticizers to let you know when you're off and what you could do better. But I'm just talking about real blood suckers, you know. You know, everybody's met a few.

I hear you. Now sales is number one for you. If they're a great salesman, you would bet on them. If they're a great salesman with something to prove, that's like the golden ticket, it sounds like. So how does someone train to be a great salesman if they don't know how to? Is it something they can learn or is it something you just have to be a of part of your energy?

Well, you had question about positive. That's the blood that goes through a great salesman. Seeing the positive side of anything. And a lot of people see that as baloney. I don't. It's just like you show me a negative and I'll say, you know, you're right, it's a negative. But I can tell you what the upside of that negative is. So you have a bend toward being positive. So you must have that okay to be a salesman. If you don't, you'll never become a salesman. I don't care how hard you try. I think it's an intrinsic quality of personality trait. I know you're not supposed to say that. Everybody's supposed to believe you could become a salesman. I think if you're inclined to be outgoing and, and positive, you can become a better salesperson. But the real phenomenal salespeople that I have worked with and I've made my living my whole life in different venues with phenomenal salespeople. I am telling you, they come out of the gate, maybe not out of the womb, but they come out of the adolescent gate as salespeople. It's very hard to teach that it's an artistic gift to be able to sell really well because think of how complicated it is. You have to read the situation accurately. You have to read the person and think of how you can could use them in the way that they want to use themselves. And thank you in a thank you note 12 hours later, thinking it was their idea. That's a complicated little thing, right? And you need to think of how that person could be used for your long term goal or the picture you want to create. So that's very complicated math in the head. And that's what great salespeople do.

You.

Why do so many people make money? The enemy?

You know, first of all, like, I think I think about that all the time. I think as we grow up, a lot of the movies we watched as a kid, it's like the guy with the money on the hill was the villain, right?

Yeah.

And I was on a, I was on a boat with Richard Branson on the only reason, it's not because I'm really cool. It's because I helped raise a million dollars for his charity. And for that, Virgin unite. He invited me down to his island and he saw that I got up at 5. He got up at 5. So he said, hey, tomorrow when you get up, let's, let's sail. He's like, you know how to say? I'm like, oh, yeah, I had no idea. He's like, grab the f. I'm sorry, dude, I don't know. Just tell me what to do. But one thing he said, and it helped me a lot with money, he I said, I feel like I should be giving back more. And I said, he said that. I said that to him. I said, should I, should I donate more of my time? He said, well, the way I look at it is different. You were given a gift to know how to generate revenue. He said, and this is something that I'm paraphrasing, but this I'll remember forever. And it really shifted my mindset on money. He said, you could go to a charity, you go to a soup kitchen and you could work there for three days and that'd be wonderful. I know they need help. Or you could swing by there one day and drop off a check for 50 grand. The second one, that's what you're. You were given that gift, go make the 50. He goes, I was given a gift to know how to start and run companies. Now, at this phase of my life, I'm giving most of it all away. But that's my gift. And it kind of made me realize is like, I took the brakes off or took the brakes off. It's like, make as much as I want. I can give it all away. I can. You know, we just got done feeding 5 million. We just passed 5 million meals provided through Feeding America. We got all kinds of chairs. Like, now I have this, like, no limits. Like, because money has allowed me to retire, my parents, my money's allowed me to make it so my kids don't have to worry about their future. Not raising entitled brats, but I have to worry about their future. I get to be in better shape if my fiance needs something, my mom needs something, my dad needs something, cut a check for those problems, and I can help with charity. So for me, it's like, there's no limit. I want to just keep impacting lives and making money.

How can people shift the perspective of money? Is this bad thing? What's the quickest way for them to. If they've been conditioned with a belief for decades that money is the evil, or the money doesn't solve your problems, or how do they. How do someone. What's a perspective shift for people to understand? Like this. Really?

Yeah. That's a really good question. One of the things I think, because I've asked this question on stage, tens of thousands of people through the years, and then I asked them to raise their hand if it's this. And one that I never thought of was people feel in this, like. Like, intuitively somehow, that if they're making money, they're actually taking it away from someone else.

Wow.

And that's like, I don't know if any. Like. And as I say that somebody right. You know, so many people right now are going, wow, I feel that way. Like, if I'm getting wealthy, I'm hurting someone else, or if I'm getting wealthy, oh, my God, there's so many people starving in different third world countries. And it's. The fact of the matter is there's always the same amount of money in the world. Money is either flowing away from you or money's flowing towards you. And I just want to position myself in a place where money is flowing towards me. And then I Have the ability to give it away. Because if you really think about this, when you make money, I would bet the majority of the world not someone selfish, which is a rare thing, and I doubt someone really selfish would be listening to you. Louis is when you make money, what do you do? You end up hiring someone to do your lawn because you're making money. You can do that. You send out your dry cleaning, you go out to dinner more, you buy a bigger house, you buy more furniture. When you make money, you actually flourish the economy in your home, and then you flourish the economy around you. So, like, I just have this philosophy of, like, I, if I want to help the economy, if I want to help the environment, if I want to help the people I love, I make money and I get to help the economy, help the environment, help the people that need it.

Yeah.

And I just change that belief because, again, if you make money to, you know, sell drugs, if you make money to promote gambling, like, that's evil. That's bad. It's really just the byproduct, and in most cases, more money. The byproduct and more money is positive impact.

Yeah, right.

I mean, why is America, you know, such a lead in finding cures, in finding technology? Because a lot of the companies and money flow here to solve those problems. But America is also the biggest contributor to charities around the world. I mean, look what Bill Gates did. So I just found a way. And I'd encourage everybody listening, find a way to just change that. Whatever story you're telling yourself, it's most likely a lie. It's a story that someone else gave you. We know all this. I'm not sure on anything you don't know, but just prove that it's wrong. Go find wealthy people who've made a massive impact. Yeah. Because the last thing I'll say about money, I know we didn't plan on getting this, but I feel like we have a dysfunctional relationship with money. Like, if you're the therapist, you know, the therapist is sitting a third party over here, like, where your candle is and your money, and I'm the patient. It's like, I think we're like, if they're looking at us like a relationship, you're saying, money, I don't like you. I think you're evil. I think you're wrong. But simultaneously, I'm always stressed about money, and I want more. More of it, and I want to be able to help people. I want, like.

And I feel like I never have.

Enough, and I never have enough. Right. So it's like. It's the push and pull. It's like a. It's like a dysfunctional relationship. And I think if you have any hesitation around money, it's time to fix that relationship.

Wow.

And then, you know, I've had people write down five things they would do when they made more money and five problems that more money would solve. And most of the time, people write, I'd make sure my mom was okay. I would take care of my health. And none of them on the list is buy the Lambo, the new watch, and be, you know, selfish or. Or buy, you know, have more carbon emission. Like, nobody writes negativity. They write all impactful stuff for other people. And the last thing I'll say is this. And I've been using this analogy for myself for years, Lewis, is I look at when you first get on a plane, you know how they say if the oxygen mask drop, put yours on first and then help if you have a child with you? Right. I look at that with money, is when I put my oxygen mask on, when I'm secure, when. If you're listening right now, if you get confidence, if you have control of your life, if you have financial security, as soon as you feel stable, I. What happens every single time is you start putting oxygen masks on. When I was 26, I retired my mom. When I was 33, I retired my dad. Both of them worked their butts off to make nothing. I put oxygen masks on my mom and my dad. I helped my nephews go to college. I paid off debt for people that I cared about, that it was. It was crippling them with stress. I was able to help my stepdad when he needed a surgery and they needed 40,000 bucks. Immediately, I was like. So I just realized if I get secure and I obsess on making it, I don't have to hold it and hoard it and be this bad human. I could be a human that solves problems, puts oxygen masks on other people.

That's powerful. We were talking about. Briefly, we're talking about this, that it seems like there's a common denominator. For every millionaire or successful person that we know, they always had something dark happen or multiple dark things happen and something that drives them. Whether it's the greatest athletes in the world, the biggest, you know, billionaires in the world. There was something that defined them early on or some things that defined them. I'm curious, what were the three moments when you were a kid that really defined you to be this driven, hungry person, to originally like just be. Make sure that money wasn't an issue.

Yeah, really.

And want to continue to grow and, you know, reach a billion dollars in sales and all your businesses and impact the world. Because that doesn't happen. Just if you have a happy, normal life.

Yeah.

In my opinion.

You know, really great question, Louis. And here's what happens over time. Some of that goes away and you craft a new story. Of course, I did it because I wanted to change the world. I'd lie if I said that was.

True, but there's usually some. There's some defining moments that usually happen when you're 5, 10, 7.

I know some of them. One is my mom did work. This sounds like a. An infomercial story. My mom worked three jobs.

She was.

She was a hairstylist. She cleaned houses and then cleaned up after a painter.

Right.

And she did those three jobs. And I asked her to this day. She made about $90 a week because she didn't barely got a high school. She had dyslexia. That wasn't diagnosed. My mom's a beautiful woman inside now. Unbelievably gorgeous. Heart, soul, all of it. But she always felt dumb, like she. She failed every grade. She quit School in 11th grade. She was so embarrassed to go. And so she kept that stigma inside. And I remember being really young and watching her come home from work tired as hell at seven o'.

Clock.

O'.

Clock. My parents split when I was three, so we were living in a trailer park. My fiance's here. I took her to the trailer park that I was living in, and we'd come home latchkey kids when we were like, 6 and 8. Because, you know, my grandma would come a lot. My grandmother was amazing, so she was there a lot, too. So we weren't.

So you were just with your mom, your dad. Was your dad in the picture?

Every other weekend.

Okay. You saw him?

Yeah.

And just watching her, I can remember. Lucy, I don't want to exaggerate, but I moved in with my dad when I was 12. I think I look back at that. I was like 7 or 8. And I remember saying, I am. There's no way I'm letting this happen to my mom. I am doing this.

Wow.

My mom was my original. Like, I'm taking care of her. There's no way I'm letting her work this hard. And broke my heart. Like, if I look back, my heart was broken all the time watching her come home. And she wouldn't complain, but she was just tired, you know? So I remember thinking, I'm getting wealthy to solve that problem.

I mean, young at seven, eight.

Yeah. Seven years old. I mean, I had an Uncle Larry who was very. He went to college, his kids went to college. And I just didn't. I mean, from 9 years old, 10 years old, that's just the path. I. I knew I wasn't going to college. I didn't think I was that smart. My family didn't have money. I'm like, I'm just, I'm going. I just wanted money out of the way. Like, it wasn't like today's world has changed a little bit with social media. Right. There was no such thing as the Internet when I was that age. Right. This is 40 something years ago. Right. And I think money has gotten a bad rep a little bit more because I didn't look at, I didn't have, like, guys, you know, photos of everything. Yeah. Like driving the Lambo or in the, in the private jet or, you know, the. Look at me and the Rolexes, the champagne pop in the nightclubs. I didn't know that. I didn't even know that world existed. Louis. I. We didn't have much money. I lived in a blue collar town. Nobody I knew had money. So it wasn't like I was saying, I'm getting rich because I want to roll.

You just wanted to help your mom not suffer.

And, man, that's. And the one thing I love telling people, and again, you may have heard this, but maybe today is the first time you actually hear it. It's okay to be in pain over something. Just don't ignore it. The biggest plight we all do to ourselves, I think the biggest, like, negativity we do to ourselves is we avoid the things that bother us. When I say what I believe is let that pain sink in. If you, if you get moving to start your own business, to scale the company, you have to finally quit the job that's dry, you know, draining you. If it's because of pain, use it like so many times when people listen to you and all the amazing people you've brought to, to the world. Louis, I love what you do, man. I mean it. I'm really proud to be your friend. I love watching what you do. I love watching you grow. So many times. We'll get into personal growth and we start thinking compelling future. I got to look ahead. I got to stay positive. I got to be the man. I got to be this woman that keeps it in control and everything is good. I'm blessed. I'm blessed. I'm happy, I'm Alive. Like, sometimes that's just bullshit. Sometimes life sucks. And what I realized, what moved me as a kid, had nothing to do with a compelling future, nothing to do with aspirational quotes. It had nothing to do with. To do with meditation. Had to do with. I hated where the freak my life was. I hated watching my mom. And I was fixing that. And it bugged me every day.

Like, it bugged me until you were, like, 16, 18.

Yeah. And, like, I was. I was hustling. I. I 13, 14 years old. I used to go around the neighborhood and clean out people's garages. And then I take all that, and I do a massive garage sale.

Wow, that's cool.

So 13. And my gram was the bomb. My grandma would drive around, have her trunk up. I'd clean out the garages. It mostly was her friends. So I'd clean up like, oh, that's garbage. That's garbage. That's garbage. I'm like, you want to sell that? Like, I can't give that away. Like, I'll sell it. I'll give you half. Like, okay, this is before ebay. It didn't exist. That was ebay at my gram's front yard, right? So she lived a little bit off the highway. I'd put a sign, yard sale, man. I'd be out there on Saturdays learning how to sell because people had no mercy. I was a young kid doing it. Still come five bucks. I'll give you two. It's like, make it four, you know? So it's the negotiating that. And then at 16, I started a firewood company. I. Firewood company. I. I cut trees down, split it, stacked it in the back of a truck, and delivered it for $90 a quarter.

You chopping it with the chainsaw and.

Log splitter and not manual like, no, no, no, no. It wasn't. What do they call it? Like, just an axe. I wasn't big enough.

Exactly.

So that one motivator was my mom.

Okay.

For sure.

So that was the first thing. What was the second thing? Moment or defining experience?

I didn't have money in school. It's like when I moved in with my Dad, I was 12 years old. My dad, the. My dad's. My dad was the youngest of 12 and was physically and sexually abused his whole childhood.

Yeah.

And back in those days, there was no therapy, talk therapy, nobody not going to a counselor. Have the ability to talk. Like, you and I talked when we were jogging. Men back then didn't talk. My dad's 83 now. He didn't. He wouldn't go to his best bud. Oh, my God. You know, When I was 5 years old or 7, I was molested by my cousin. No one knew the old days, they'd be like, get away from, you know.

Yeah.

So he didn't talk about. So what he had, he had this built up anger his whole life and no one was able to take advantage of him. Like, if, if, you know, the waiter was rude to him, he'd be fist fighting on the floor with the waiter. Right. If, if we were in. We were driving in traffic one day and the flag guy during construction, he didn't wave to my dad. He was like looking at somebody else. My dad drove by and he goes, hey, asshole. Didn't you see me? My dad literally jumped out and just beat him. Oh my gosh. That was my dad road. Like, he was just. He was infuriated with everybody because he was this young kid who got abused and no one was there to protect him. And nobody was doing that now. So he lived with that. And he's an amazing place right now, and I love him dearly. But when I was 12, 11, it was so bad that I was, I was afraid. I was just afraid. Like, I was nervous for him and I wanted to help him. So at 11, I left my mom and moved in with him. And when I moved in with him, I legit. This is again, sounds like some infomercial story. I moved in the back. He. I literally had a house with no heat because he was remodeling and he ran out of money and he was working on it. So we had to literally drag a bed into a bathroom at night and plug in a little electric heater. Now, it wasn't forever, but it was for months. And when I moved in with him, I wasn't poor me, I didn't know anything different. It was fine. And I learned a lot by living with my dad. And the good, the bad. I learned how to negotiate and all those things. But some days I'd go to school without lunch money. And there was a point. And this is okay too. I'm not anywhere near that now. But there was a point where when I saw people with money or like when everybody turns 16, a lot of kids in school, their parents got them a new car and I. They had the new girl, the. The car. And then they'd get the cheerleader and I'm the guy going home every day. Working with my dad. I worked every single day. I worked on cars, I worked on construction. And like, I remember being like, you know what? You can't hear me now, but you'll hear me someday.

Wow.

In my. In my high school. High school yearbook, literally, my quote is like, I might be silent now, but someday, like, it'd be impossible not to hear me. Like, I gotta get the quote. I just found my yearbook. Damn it. It's old, from 1986. Like, oh, my God. But anyway, I want to read the quote. But it was something like, you don't hear me now, but someday you'll hear me roar. And that's. I had this, like, internal chip. Like, I was really shy, polite to everybody. I called every one of my parents friend, Mr. Or Mrs. I still do when I see him. Like, I just. That's like, I wasn't like, yo, I got this. It was more like, oh, yes. And I probably looked really, like, not weak. I don't even know the word. Like, just really. Like an introvert and shy and like, he's. But I was hungry with a chip on my shoulder on the inside. Like, you don't hear me now. You got the car, you got the girl. I got you. Like, and so that was probably another one, too. Is. And. And I say, like, envy is toxic. It's completely toxic. But it's a driver. It's a good driver. Right? Like, just. Just think, like, you can't putt with a driver, but it's okay to smash a ball off the tee, right? Yeah. So if you need envy to smash the ball off the tee, then use it. Like, again. Yeah, like, again. Personal growth is my life. I mean, I'll tell that story in a little bit, but personal growth is my life and self education. Tony Robbins, who's now one of my best friends in the world, he changed my life. When I was in my mid-20s, when I audited his course, like, I was already financially successful.

Yep.

Already had a car business, a collision shop, an auto sales. I had 21 apartments at 26. 24. 24. Yeah, 24. I had 21 apartments. I had a two tow trucks. Had a tow truck company. I was doing. I had enterprise and Hertz rental car account.

And how'd you have the money to fund all these things?

Yeah, I'll tell you that in a minute. So I got to that. But up until that point, I was suffering to get there. Like, working night and day, stressing all night. Not you. You know exactly what I'm talking about, man. When you're starting. When you were on your sister's couch and you're thinking of going, all of.

A sudden, you don't Stop.

You don't stop. And then you're up at 2 o' clock in the morning solving problems and you think that's the way you do. I got a competitive edge because I can stay up all night, I can stress more than anybody, I can get overweight, I worry more than anybody else. So up until that point, I. I was on my way to or already at a Millionaire from where I was a kid, but I was doing it through suffering. And, you know, I gave Tony Robbins money off an infomercial. It's the reason I went in the infomercial business. I gave him a check, he gave me information. Everybody told me I was nuts. Like you bought something off of some huckster on tv, which people probably have said about me in the past. I bought it, I went through it. I thought I was gonna listen to it over like a month. And I just obsessed over like seven days. I digested every piece. It was just so profound. No one I had ever talked to, and this is the true story, no one I had ever talked to in my entire life talked this way, talked about people this way, about obstacles, this way, about challenges, this way, about your past belief systems and belief system and limiting beliefs. And your past is designed for you, to make you strong. And you know what? I just believed him. Like, I didn't question anything because I saw my dad worked hard, but he wasn't rich and he suffered every day. If I take on my dad's thoughts, I get to work hard and suffer. If I listen to this guy, it just seemed like a different path. And then he introduced me to Wayne Dyer and Eckhart Tolle and John Wooden and all these other people. And all of a sudden life, you know, self education exploded. But let me go back to your original question. One was my mom. Two was envy. I would say the third, the third thing was probably and completely wanting control of my life. Like, I know I said that there's probably another one. I'm trying. I'm hoping something else comes to me. But I know for a fact what drove me more than anything was I hated not being in control. And I love my parents, but I just felt like they made bad decision after bad decision. I didn't want to listen to them on where I lived. I got my own apartment when I was in 12th grade. Like, I didn't, I didn't like their decisions. And I figured if I got money, no one can tell me how to live, no one can tell me what to do, how to talk. And the truth is still feel that way.

Yeah.

Like I don't want anybody to tell me when I can go pick up my kids from school or take them on vacation. I coach little league, I coach softball. Today I scheduled this at you at one I'm gonna jump on a plane because at 6:30 is my daughter's, my son's game and at 7:45 is my daughter's softball game. I'm not missing either one of them and there's nothing or no one that could tell me I'm not going to be there. Right. That's just an exaggeration of what my life is. But there was a point where money will allow me to make, you know, be in control of my decisions. And, and I still believe that. Yeah, I still believe that.

What feels better for you? Craving or curiosity? If you're curious about something, what feels better? Yeah. In your body.

Craving.

Curious about this question.

Curiosity feels better because craving feels like you're a slave to something. It's like you're a prisoner to this craving. I need it now. I'll do whatever I take to fulfill this emptiness that I need to fulfill. Give me the M&M's. Give me the ice cream. I want the pizza now. Postmates, let's go.

Right.

Ubereats doordash.

I'm in. Right, right.

And we can, we can have food instantaneously, almost show up at our door. Yeah.

Right.

And so we can reinforce those habits.

The curiosity feels better because you're exploring a different part of your brain. You're, you're interested in something different. You're like wondering what could something else be like?

But even that momentary experience, you used a, with your hand, you clenched your hand. So there's this contracted, close down quality to a craving. Does curiosity feel contracted or closed?

Yes.

What's the possibility?

Yes.

So which if you just took closed versus open or contracted versus expanded, which one feels better?

Expanded.

Yes.

So right there we can give our brain a very clear, bigger, better offer. Expanded. So for example, when we're caught up in ego and we're waiting for that next compliment, does it feel closed or open?

Closed.

Yes. How about when you're in flow, like when you're just totally killing it in sport or playing music or having a great conversation, feel closed or open?

Open.

Yes. Bigger, better offer.

Boom.

Okay, so you reflect on the bigger, better offer. Feeling expansive, feeling healthier, happier, more fulfilled.

Well, it's not even on what could be. It's right in that moment. We can tap into that superpower of curiosity.

What would the curiosity be as Opposed to the craving. What are you curious about?

We can get curious about the craving. Oh, what does this craving feel like in my body? And we flip the valence from this closed down feeling of craving, being caught up in a craving to, oh, wow, this feels like tightness or tension or, you know, I'm feeling my hand move to my phone to click on, you know, click on the food eating app or whatever.

Oh, wow.

Wow.

And we can just explore our experience in that moment. So we can actually hack craving with curiosity just by bringing it in.

Okay. And what if the craving is still there?

Then we can get curious about that.

Hmm.

How long is this gonna last? Is it changing? Is it moving in my body? We actually had people in our program saying, you know, I actually had a guy walk into my office. I was working at the VA hospital, and he walked my office and. And he said, doc, I feel like my head's gonna explode if I don't smoke. And, you know, I was young addiction psychiatrist.

I was like, oh, what do I do?

So I was like, well, if your.

Head explodes, just put the pieces back.

Together and call me. And he politely laughed. It was like, bad joke. But we actually got up and mapped out what head exploding felt like for him.

What's it feel like?

So he described it as like, tightness or heat or clenching, things like this. And we mapped it out on my. I remember mapping this out with it on my whiteboard where we watched that wave go up and then over. So typically, what somebody does is they'll smoke to make it go away. But he realized it goes up and it actually goes away on its own. And that was a big aha for him.

And I feel like. I feel like everything comes back to mindfulness and meditation. It's like to solve anything in life is mindfulness and meditation is what it all seems like it comes back down to. Over the last few years, I've done so much research on meditation myself. I've been to India retreats, Headspace, Calm, had all the meditation teachers on, and it feels like it's the solution to so many things. Is that true?

Well, I would say especially for habits, we can see how mindfulness helps teach us that awareness piece that can help our brains get that updated and accurate information. So there's actually a pretty good scientific basis around mindfulness, helping us with habits.

Okay.

So.

And those habits can extend beyond eating and anxiety and smoking. They can extend to getting caught up in, you know, in ego, as we talked about a little bit. Yeah.

Thank you.

They can also extend to Being attached to certain views. Right. So if there are political parties where one side says I'm right and the other part side says they're right and they just spend all their time fighting, how are we going to do anything? So what does fighting feel like? Closed or open?

Closed.

How does it feel when people actually collaborate and cross the aisle and say, hey, I want to understand your point of view, I really want to understand it so we can work together.

Open feels pretty good.

Yeah. Yeah.

So we can even see how mindfulness can help with these things where, you know, people are not having a good relationship or societies are fighting with each other, we can stop notice how unrewarding the fighting is and how rewarding it is just to remember each other's humanity.

Yeah.

What is the likeliness then of changing a negative habit without the use of mindfulness meditation?

Well, the, the Rescorla Wagner curve suggests that you really have to get that updated information to devalue the old things. So there isn't anything else scientifically suggesting that we can change things. You know, it's not about willpower, it's not about magical thinking.

You know, it's not positive thinking and hoping and wishing.

Hoping and wishing doesn't fit into the math.

The only research says meditation, mindfulness awareness, however it looks for you, that type of awareness is the only solution.

That's what the math is suggesting. So mindfulness helps teach us to be aware and awareness is what helps our brain get. Get that updated and accurate when we.

Have a bigger, better offer.

Yeah, well that. So the bigger, better offer can come in the form of curiosity or connection or kindness, which are often taught. Yeah, those are often taught as part of, part of mindfulness practices. But even feeling physically healthy, mentally healthy feels good. And so that's going to reinforce those positive habits. So eating healthily feels better than eating a bunch of junk food. I certainly know this myself. So when we can really clearly see that cause and effect relationship, it's just much easier to stay on a healthy habit.

What is the root of addiction in your mind?

You know, I like this really simple definition of addiction. Continued use despite adverse consequences. So I would say the root of addiction because, you know, continued justice despite adverse consequences can be anything from self being addicted to social media to a point of view. So I think the root actually comes in this survival mechanism that's just trying to help us remember where food is. But in modern day, when food is plentiful, most of us have a refrigerator and restaurants are open. You can find a restaurant open any time of Day, that mechanism, that survival mechanism is still in place. So I think that the root of addiction is actually, paradoxically, there is a survival mechanism. Yet in modern day, we refine coca leaves into cocaine. We make, we make synthetic opioids so that we can pop pills. We go on Instagram to look at cute pictures of puppies when we're bored. You know, all these different things that are. And food is literally engineered to be addictive now. So that process, that's natural survival process has gotten hijacked.

What is the amount of time it takes to break an addiction that's 10, 20, 30 years old? Is it possible to break it in a moment, a day? Does it take 30 days to break the habit or start a habit? What is the scientific research saying? Is it the longer you've been doing something, the longer it takes to break? Or you can still break it in 10 days once you hit that rhythm?

Yeah, yeah, it really depends. I'm remembering a guy that came into one of our early studies who was smoking 30 cigarettes a day day. And we started with the pay attention when you smoke, see what you get from it. Two days later he came back and he'd cut 20 cigarettes. And he realized, you know, I get up and I drink coffee and I don't like the bitter taste of coffee, so I smoke a cigarette to cover the taste. Oh, I could just brush my teeth instead. So, you know, so for some people, you know, really clearly mapping it out and seeing how unrewarding the old behavior is helps them change a lot of the habits pretty quickly. Okay, so, and as I mentioned in some of our now preliminary research, we're seeing with, using these mindfulness apps like the Eat Right now app or the Craving to Quit app that I mentioned, we're seeing after people are using these craving tools about 10 to 15 times. That significantly changes the value of that reward.

Right, 10 to 15 times, or is that 10, 15 days?

It really so depends on what the behavior is. So somebody could have their, their ice cream craving, and so they can't just like eat ice cream 15 times in one day and do the thing and have it? I mean, they probably feel pretty sick, but it really has to come as part of their natural experience.

So, so when you have the. That when the craving comes up and you're about to do the addiction, you open up the app, There's a guided meditation, there's steps.

The apps actually start with helping people map out their habit loops. And so this is some of my. Well, I learned the most when I fall on my Face.

Yeah, we all do.

So when I was first starting this research, I had this hypothesis that it would be these formal meditation practices that would help people change their behavior. I've been meditating for a while. I'd gone on long retreats, would sit and meditate for a long time. I was like, this is it. It was great for me. But it turns out when we looked at our data, that these informal practices in the moment practices where people were paying attention as they were smoking or paying attention as they were eating, where that's what was really helping to change the behavior itself in the moment, not.

Before the moment when you wake up in the morning, at night, in the moment.

Right.

So the formal meditation practices can certainly be helpful, but we actually start by helping people map these things out. Because I didn't know, you know, when I first started learning to meditate was like, pay attention to your breath and when your mind wanders, bring it back. I was like, okay, this makes sense. But when I went on, you know, I went on my first meditation, seven day silent meditation retreat. By like day three, I was crying uncontrollably on the shoulder of the retreat manager because I couldn't pay.

I was like, I made it through.

College, I made it in medical school, and now I can't.

I can't pay attention.

So I thought I was a failure. And it turns out it's not about forcing ourselves to pay attention.

Right.

The grit, that willpower certainly didn't work for me. It's really about understanding our mind.

I want you to imagine the greatest version of yourself standing right in front of you. And in that moment, I'd actually never heard the way he told it before. Then I was like, wow. I could see myself, like, with 100% confidence, calm, poised, like the best looking version of myself, whatever. Just like standing perfectly, not slouch, just every part of me, the best version. And I was like, wow, I can push myself to be a greater person by seeing it first and then taking the action steps to becoming that.

Yeah.

So I was like, that was a nice little.

As long as you build in this kind of sub clause, the. Because, like, people can set these kind of goals that last forever. Joseph Campbell, I'm sure, you know, big writer on Myth, said, you know, you can spend your life climbing a ladder and then realize you had the ladder against the wrong wall. You know, there's like. So there's. It's.

I mean, it's.

Why are we climbing the ladder?

Right.

Yeah.

Why are we climbing this? Or.

Yeah, well, we. Yeah. We spend a lot of time focusing on stuff like this. We have this image of this version of ourselves that we're moving towards, and it's always out there somewhere. And it's kind of like all those things that, like.

Well, that.

Look, it's helpful. Like, if you're gonna have a self image, of course, why not have a great self image? Because we tend to make terrible ones. But it's just an image. It's just a picture in the head. It might as well be a good one. Yeah, but in the meantime, there's also like the here and now. And there's like making.

Yeah.

Your relationship to the. To the parts of you that aren't right is. Or don't feel right. And making peace with that and understanding that in a different way. Like, you know, if you're in a relationship. And I heard this philosopher in England called Alaina Botton, I really love this. He said, if you go to sleep, if you go to bed twice a week with your partner and you're thinking, what am I doing with this person? This is terrible. That's normal. That is like a normal thing to start with. And that to me is much healthier. That kind of thinking is healthier than, I'm gonna have the perfect relationship. And I can visualize that perfect. And I'm make it happen. Because sometimes that's great. Besides, it just sets you up for a kind of. Why have, you know, an impossible standard? So there's a balance. Right. There's a. I think there's a sub clause that goes, if everything turns out brilliantly, then yes.

Right.

You know, but if it doesn't, then that has to be okay. There has to be a situation that's comfortable and also, you know, exciting. Why not? You know, why? There's, there's. There's. Why not also be happy with things where you are. Yeah, exactly. It's an important bit that gets missed.

Yeah. Appreciating and being. Gratitude and all those things. One is, do you have any regrets of all the work you've done or just anything in your life where you regret maybe something you did or something you didn't do or something. Something you wish you'd done? And I have no clue what you're gonna say here, but I'm just curious if you have regrets from whether your personal life, your career life?

Well, I.

Always.

It's difficult. I always think of, like, a friend said this, which I thought was great. Richard Wiseman, if you come across his work, is a kind of popular psychologist. It's great. So like, trying to pull out a, like a big jar with loads of different colored threads, you know, you just. So you try and pull one out, but of course it just all comes out together. So how you, how you go back and like, remove one thread from your life?

But.

So I'm gay, but I didn't. I didn't come out till I was like 30. So that's like. That's kind of late.

17 years. 17 years ago, right?

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So that's like. I do kind of think that's normally where my mind goes.

Really?

Do you regret anything? Because that's like a really long time. But I don't think I'd put half the energy into sort of doing the stuff that I do if I didn't. If I wasn't a. Desperately trying to avoid any conversations about sex and just like, basic, you know, human conversation. So that, like, you tend to get very good at, like, deflecting attention with, you know, dazzling, amazing things. Right. That's like a good strategy if you're trying to avoid that kind of subject. So, you know, weirdly, that kind of helped. And so, I don't know.

So you can justify these things as well. You're like, well, I wish I would have came out earlier. But at the same time.

Yeah. And you know what, it really. What it, what it really did. I think gay or straight, whatever, we often have things about ourselves that would be good to come out about.

Right.

Stuff that we just carry a lot of shame around about. I could never tell people and what's fascinating and why the coming out thing, regardless of what it's about, not necessarily about sexuality, anything, if it's something to come out about. And this is what I found, it's liberating. Not because you get to go, oh, I'm gay or I'm whatever, is that you realize, like, no one gives a fuck. No one cares.

Maybe two or three people or something.

Yeah, but they don't.

Yeah, but that's it.

We would.

What really settled into my head was this idea that we'd worry a lot less about what other people think of us if we realize how seldom they do. They really don't really get. So once you've done that with your big thing that you've carried all this shame around for, then you realize, oh, everything's fine. So because of that, other than I was probably a bit of a dick for a long time while I was like, struggling with all that stuff. But that's. I kind of, you know, you got to Forgive yourself.

That.

Yeah. So I don't have any regrets. It's fine. I'd like to be, you know, I kind of. I'd like to be a better partner and a better person. Those. Those are things that I think are, you know, good to engage with.

Is there anything you're struggling with right now? Is it like. Or what is the biggest challenge for you because you don't have anxiety?

Oh, no, hey, no, I have anxiety. Don't think I don't. I just mean my, my. I'm. I get so good at natural avoiding it. Yeah, I don't have anxiety. Like some people have anxiety, but I. There are, like, there are different patterns, aren't there? So you've got classically anxiety pattern and avoidance pattern. So, like, if there's a stress or if there's a challenge, if there's something in your life that comes up that's stressy, do you run towards it like a magnet and try and fix it like some people do? It's what my partner does is like the magic that makes it worse, I think. But are you drawn to stress or do you just naturally avoid it? I'm very good at avoiding it, but that isn't. Both sides have their ups and downs, right? But then it kind of, you know, it's kind of nice. We work well with each other because we. He makes me a little more engaged in things and I, you know, help him calm down a bit about other stuff. But I, you know, I'm kind of. What I find interesting at the moment is the tension between the urge. It was kind of like what you were saying about the, you know, Nietzsche kind of had this line of become who you are. That was his drive. Right. So there's that one idea of that there is a version of you that's out there somewhere that you want to clear everyone out of the way so you can just focus on that. And I think, as you know, you get married or you've kids and stuff, that kind of tension, that sense of, like, can be very strong. And then there's the other completely conflicting impulse, which is, well, maybe the best version of myself, rather than being out there somewhere, which I'm never going to reach. Right. Is naturally here. Maybe the self is something that extends and is sort of active and fluid and extends out into the relationships and that you're in now. But both are important. What's hard is. And I think this just generally in life is hard, is conflicts. Ambivalence is important. And again, real. It's part of life that Things conflict and things are ambiguous and things are messy and that's okay. And actually it's okay to let completely conflicting opposing ideas is settled. I mean, politically, you know, we're so like this now that we each think the other side is just, is just like mad and evil. And we've kind of forgotten that, which is kind of what sacrifice is about. We've forgotten that actually the dialogue between the sides, forgetting the personalities involved, but the dialogue between the sides is actually where you find humanity and where truth is ultimately going to be found. Right. You've got two very different narratives about the conservative Verge is essentially about protecting the group. It's about holding things together, hierarchies, holding that together. But it can happen at the expense of the weaker individuals. And then the left wing narrative is about protecting the weaker individuals.

Tearing down.

Yeah.

If that can happen at the expense of the overall structure, that's. They know that's fine. So you know, sometimes we think as. Sometimes we do have to think as a group and sometimes we have to think as individuals and we've, we've evolved like along both lines and both sides ultimately are gonna, are gonna be important. So you know, dialogue is important. And likewise in life, things are messy and they're complex and they're ambiguous and there is a, you know, growing up is tolerating ambiguity.

I think that's true. What is your greatest fear?

You're going to forget about my hand and give me a really hearty handshake at the end of this. I don't like spiders. I don't. Greatest fear. I don't know, I think.

Kind of.

You know.

Getting it all wrong. You know, maybe letting. I hate the idea of like letting, letting my partner down. Like, you know, just sort of letting things and people down, letting myself down. I kind of, I really, I really think about these things and try and get them right and I try and communicate them through the work that I do. And, and, and you can only ever be good enough. Right. Again, it's not about ever being.

You can give your best. Yeah. You can't control how people respond or react exactly. To the way you show up.

So it's not a kind of anxiety, fear, but in terms of the things that I think about, that part of me, as I said, wants everyone clear out the way. And I just want to pursue these things. But then what am I going to be? I think, I think I'd be coming as great, fascinating version of myself. I'd probably just become some weird old man. You know, we cross state don't we? We develop like a sort of a hard shell when we're on our own for too long. And what relationships do is they make you more conscious of all the things that are just mad about you because otherwise you're unconscious of them. And it's the things you're unconscious of that will own you and will come back and bite you. So relationships are so important because I'm naturally kind of a bit of a loner. It's like I'm really aware at the moment of that tension for me, in the kind of middle bit of life. That's what I find really interesting at the moment.

Since you are. You do like to be alone, it sounds like, and be kind of in your art and your crafts and your photography, like isolated in some sense of the word. But I'm hearing you say that you. When you are around people or you're a partner, you don't want to let those people down. Is that what I'm hearing you say?

Well, yeah, because that's a potential for sort of, right. Not only letting other people down, but just becoming this intolerable, horrible version. It's that. It's just trying to get that stuff, you know, trying to get this right. Are you like, how old are you?

35.

35. Okay, so you've probably got a while before those sort of things start to become. Start to become pressing.

Well, I think, you know, I've been talking a lot about this in just in my work, that and through all the people that I've interviewed over the years of different backgrounds and stuff. There's really three main fears that I've found that most of us have. The fear of failure. We don't go after something or pursue something or speak or do music or whatever it may be because we don't want to fail. That fear of like, I'm a failure, I'm a loser, right? The fear of success, where then we're leaving our pack, our community. Because if we're succeeding and they're not coming with us, then I'm alone and they're not going to accept me or the pressure that I have to perform again. I have to repeat the success, right? You might have felt that when you had this hit show. And it's like, it's got to be better, it's got to be better, right? And then the third one.

Spiders.

Spiders, yes, spiders and snakes and heights. The fear of judgment either way, you know, making sure that people like us, you know, fear of like. Well, either one, if I succeed or fail, are People gonna like me. And for me, the judgment was always the fear. Until I addressed it about five years ago. Because as an athlete, I was taught that you had to fail to succeed. And I was the youngest of four. I was the. I was this tall when I was, like, 11 and just, like, goofy and gangly. I wasn't like this stud athlete or whatever. I was the one that actually everyone made fun of. I was in special needs classes, so it was hard for me to read and write all through college. Almost flunked English in high school, all those things. So I had a lot of insecurities about the perception people had about me, like my image, my ego, what do they think about me? What do they say about me? Am I saying the right things? Like, I always thought was off. So that judgment was what drove me to be a great athlete, to succeed, to achieve, to perform well, and to win at everything. So it was, like accomplishment driven. And I realized that failure wasn't a fear for me because coaches taught me, you've got to practice. You're gonna miss shots. That's how you learn. So I was like, I'm gonna fail every day, and it's okay. That's the foundation for achievement. And that's all I wanted was the success. But it was like, did I slip? Did I look silly?

Did it.

You know, the fear of, like, what people think about me.

Yeah. So you're still living it out, though. That's what's interesting, isn't it?

What's that?

You're still living that out. That same fear of judgment. You're still living it out, but you've turned it into something.

I'm aware of it. Very aware of it. Well, I started to accept it. And five years ago, I opened up about being sexually abused as a kid. And I've talked about it many times on this show and wrote a book about all that stuff. And it wasn't until I fully opened up about all my fears, insecurities about that and many other things. It wasn't until I, like, opened up about it, and my fear was like, everyone's gonna judge me. Everyone's gonna. No one's gonna love me. No one's gonna accept me. Like, they're just gonna make fun of me even more.

Yeah.

And I had everything to lose. Right. I had a successful business and career and everything. I was like, no one can know about this stuff. Like, no one can know that you're gay. Whatever. Maybe that was a feeling. I don't know.

Yeah.

And for me, it was like the Most shameful thing that I held to for 25 years or until I was 30. And when it happened, I was like, man, this weight. Like, no one. No one cares.

Yeah.

And in fact, they cared more about me at that moment. They were like, I respect you more. I trust you more. Because I felt like something was. Your ego was in the way.

And when people are like that, when people have that thing that like people when they're closeted, for example, whatever it is, there's always a bubble around them. Like, I knew I had it around me, and I have friends that have come out since, and there's just a bubble, and you just can't quite get to them because they're.

Because they're something missing.

Right.

Something. And that was.

That was probably doing the same, as was I. And then. So people only. People only go. And they step in closer. It's a good experience.

And all of a sudden, everyone was telling me vulnerable things about them that I never knew. And I was like, wow, we can connect on a deeper level.

It's a whole.

It's an amazing thing to kind of discover, isn't it? It's such a simple thing for everybody else, but it's amazing to discover.

But once I kind of let go of. Listen, I still have an ego and, like, you know, I want to, you know, perform well and all these things. I want to do a good job and do all that stuff, but it's like, I care so much less about the way I look and the way people are judging me because I'm like, they're gonna judge me whether I'm doing nothing or doing something. Either way, the people are gonna judge me for a moment, and then they're gonna let go and judge someone else, like, whatever. And so I think I've come to the point where I've accepted myself and Because I used to not think I was enough, and that's why I was, like, constantly living in one of these fears.

Yeah.

And I think once we can start to just accept who we are, as opposed to saying, well, I'm not the perfect version of myself, like you were talking about. Let me be where I'm at right now and appreciate the moment.

And, you know, I think the most we can hope for often is just being conscious of these things.

There is a.

We can't always. You know, it's not easy just to go, oh, great, and then change anything. But being conscious means that it owes you less. So, like, from the word go, we are. We come into this world and we are given Powerful messages from our, you know, parents, our caregivers, our authority figures, kind of going, here is the relationship between you and the world. You are.

You are small.

The world is big. You have no power. The world has power. We learn very quickly what. What that is. What, what are. It's a skewed vision we have. You know, Jung talks about the greatest burden the child has to bear is the unlived life of its parents. How great is that? Yeah, yeah. So that's, like, right on us from the word go.

Putting the pressure. Yeah, yeah.

But we are adapting creatures, right? The thing that makes us so great at evolution, because we adapt, really starts to kind of fuck us up a bit with.

With.

With this sort of life thing because we. We adapt to that. We internalize it, and we go, okay, so I'll. I'll think of myself like this, and I'll think of the world like this. And we start to kind of live that out. We develop a template of what love means from our parents, which is entirely realistic, unrealistic, because you see all the nice stuff. Like, they presumably, hopefully, please, God, give us the best side of themselves. But we don't see the arguments they have when they're. You know, we know what it's like now as adults, what the experience of parenting is like. We don't see them screaming and arguing and losing sleep. Maybe. Well, yeah, maybe you did.

Yeah.

But very often, at least. So there's a. There's a sure idea of, like, this template of what love is that isn't. Isn't really, like, realistic. And we start to bring that into our. That becomes our template for our adult relationship. That's all we know. Right. And then we're projecting all of that stuff onto our.

And expecting certain things. Yeah.

And we live out these same patterns. Everything comes back again and again because we. We just. The stuff we're not conscious of is the stuff that rules us. And if we bury, you know, we bury one part of us. Like. Like, if you, you know, if you're the homophobic. I don't know, homophobic televangelist who, you know, preaches against all that and then gets, you know, caught in bed with some guy and there's like, a big scat. It'll come back and bite you if you bury these things. So the most we can do, I think, is become conscious of how we adapt in these ways to skewed messages, skewed. Our compasses are all over the place. We internalize it. We think that's the truth, and then we Go through life kind of looking for things that in a familiar way repeat that pattern so people can have the same problems with relationships again and again.

Because that's what they know.

Because that's what they know.

That's what it's supposed to be is true. How do you think, no matter where we're at in our lives, how do we rewire and master our mind?

How can we say, you're asking me, like I know. Bear in mind that the only reason why I have any language for this stuff is that it doesn't come naturally. And if it came naturally, if it was all sec, I wouldn't have the language for it.

That's why you're an expert, because you've studied this and with all the experiments you've done and all the people you've worked, worked with, just by observing people, how do you think I feel? Like you've had thousands of interactions with people where you've been able to set things up for them, tell a story or not tell a story to have them go in a certain direction. So how do we rewire our minds to at least be aware of what we want, what we don't want? And how do we become more of a master of our minds as opposed to it being a master of us?

I think we set our goals realistically. We allow for failure to be comfortable. We align ourselves with that X equals Y line and not try and crank everything up here. Because if we're trying to do that, we're just buying into someone's system somewhere and we're just making. We're going to make life miserable for us eventually and we're going to blame ourselves when that happens.

What do you mean failure?

Compromise.

Meaning be okay with failure.

Yeah. To let. To let. I mean, even. Is it even failure? I mean, I don't know, it's just a different experiences, isn't it?

Learning.

Yeah, yeah. How you make that, make your peace with the fact that life isn't going to always produce what you'd like it to and make that okay. That's huge. And as I said, become the best we can do is become more conscious of these things. So that can happen through psychotherapy.

Right.

Psychotherapist is going to hopefully like depth psycho, like psychoanalysis, that kind of thing increases your sort of dialogue with yourself, increases your consciousness about those things. But it's very expensive and it's long form and a lot of people aren't interested. But that's one way of doing it. Another way, I guess is to look honestly at your life and see, where are these recurring patterns? What keeps cropping up? What am I a bit obsessed by? What am I constantly trying to avoid? What just keeps coming back and biting me? What does life keep throwing at me that's bad and causing problems? And then we just trace that back, see where it goes back to. Are there any other possibilities? Are there any other ways of behaving? And it's not like it just goes great and then you change, but you become more conscious of it. And then it's like a little drip by drip feeding into the soul. That can make a difference, I think. You know, I think these are sort of modest, modest goals.

I'm curious, who is more influential in your youth, mom or your dad to you more?

Well, both. My dad may be kind of in a sort of negative sense. I mean, there was not like any bad blood, but this is quite common, I think, with, like, boys that are gay growing up, is that you tend to have the stronger bond with the mother and the father's sort of. It's just kind of a bit of a disconnect there, so. But of course, both end up being hugely influential because both of those impulses inform who you are as an adult.

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My biggest thing when it comes down to greatness is alignment. Once you're aligned with who you want to be and the life you want to live.