The MONEY Expert: If I Was Broke Today, This Is EXACTLY What I’d Do | Patrick Bet-David

The moment you start thinking you made it, plateaus around the corner. The moment you fall for the trap of, you know, flattery. Now, flattery is a very dark thing, and it's used in a very eloquent way by your opponents, and you don't even know it.

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Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness.

Very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Patrick Bet-David, who is the founder of Valuetainment and now bestselling author of Choose youe Enemies Wisely: Business Planning for the Audacious Few. Good to have you back, man.

Great to be on.

Great to see you. I'm very excited. My audience is pumped. And we did a poll and we said, what do you want to hear the most from Patrick? And they asked, and I'm sure you've answered this before, but they said, if you had to start all over again, because you are an audacious guy, let's say for some reason everything goes bust one day. You saw Elon talking about this the other day. I hope everyone's, you know, what if it all goes bankrupt? I'm gonna go for bigger moves. And if you had to start all over again with nothing in your pocket, what would be your first three moves?

So if I'm 25, I would be less concerned about the industry because back then, I may have been cocky, but I wasn't yet certain if my philosophies were right or wrong because there's not validation in the marketplace yet. You wrote a book about this where you're kind of covering the facade to kind of impose you got, but you don't know.

And if you're 25 today though, with all the chaos that's happening and insecurities, and uncertainties and you've never made money before, really, what would you be thinking about that?

I'm fine, I'm making a list of 10 people and 10 circles I want to be in. And I would make a draft pick of these 10 circles. I would say, okay, what's my number one circle I want to be a part of? Then I would go all the way down to number 10. I would research, I would look at guys that I like, guys life that I admire, the way they carry themselves, the way they handle themselves. So this circle, I would say, those guys are really close to each other. I like the way they are, boom, that's one circle, boom. I really like this circle. That's pretty cool how these guys are always, they've known each other for all these years. They're so tight. It looks like they're enjoying it. Boom, boom, boom. Then I would make individuals because I have more odds. So if I got 10 circles, I can get in. I want to work for number one first. So I reach out to number one. Then I go to Second draft pick, third draft pick, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Because I'm more interested in working for a guy to like, for example, the girl I promoted to be the president of our insurance company today, Morrell. She's been with me for 13 years. She used to be my banker at Wamu. And when I would go to her, she handled me very well. If I was upset, if I was annoyed, if I wasn't happy with something, she knew how to bring me from a nine to a five. And I liked that skill set. So I'm like, if this is how you are with me, I want you in my company. So I brought her in. And over the last 12 years, obviously the last year she got promoted to become the president of the insurance company. But the 12 years, she spent the most time in the rooms negotiating chaotic moments, conflicts, about to go out of business, finances, all these things that we got to do. She saw so much of that that now when those things come up, she's not even thinking about it. It's like, yeah, here's what we're going to do. Here's what we're going to do. Here's what we're going to do. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to do this because she's seen how to manage that. So the edge is working under somebody that's a killer and you're able to get behind closed doors, not just the front because the front is an act, but I want to get in the room with five people who are negotiating, for example, let's just say we're about to negotiate a big deal. Typically, if we're doing a big negotiation deal, we'll debrief before to prepare. And we'll say, okay, guys, what do you think he's going to say? What do you think she's going to say? What do you think is going to be their concerns? Let's write it down. What do you think is going to be their objection? What do you think they're going to want? What do you think they're not going to want? Where do they have leverage? Where do we have leverage? How are you going to answer this? How are you going to answer this? Boom. Anything I'm missing? What's my blind spot? Is there one? What do you think about what he just said? Do you agree with him? Do you agree with her? So if you're in these types of meetings for a thousand times and then we go into the real meeting, then when you're in the real meeting and the guy says, Hey, Louis, do you mind if we ask you to step out? and you're like, yeah, no problem, because we've role played it. What if they ask you to step out? Totally fine. You don't even like, you want me to step out? We would role play. Don't be offended. Just very nice. Absolutely. Get up and walk out because it shows we're not insecure, we're not worried. Oh, wow. They were comfortable about it. Hey, Patrick, you mind if you step out? Totally fine. I'm gonna go in and use the restroom. Shows confidence. They're okay with not being in the room. And then after the meeting, okay, so how did we do? You did this, you did that, you did this. This was good. I like the way you said this. How do you think you could have said this better? Maybe you could have said this. Do you think, well, I like what you said. Fantastic. Okay, great. What's the next step? We're not going to follow up. We'll wait for 48 hours, and then I'm going to send the email first. They ask for this. Make sure you send that. Send them a box of this. Remember when he talked about his daughter has a birthday coming up? Let's make sure we send that birthday present. Go on the wife's Instagram account and see what she likes and send them that gift. Boom, boom, boom. Okay, great. We move on. Okay. So that situation you're in, You know how much inventory that is. You're not gonna get that in a college degree or an MBA. You go get 200, 300 case studies.

So that's the guy then, okay? The 25, 20, 25.

Finding someone you respect that you wanna go work with and learn from. Get into the right circle and go work under a killer. By far accelerate your amount of learning by a decade. It's not even close. Right. But if I'm 45 today and I lose everything, I'm not worried about it at all. I'm not worried about it at all. Because the way the market works is in a following way. It's mathematically impossible, mathematically impossible for the market to not pay you what you are worth, period. It's mathematically impossible. You can lose it all. The market will say he's going through a bad season. She's going through a bad season. Within a year, two years, three years, the market's still gonna come back and give you that money. Now, if you've made a fatal mistake, if you've made a royal mistake, what does that mean? if you lost your money over the last 20 years, because the way people saw who you were for 20 years was a profile of a guy who did this, this, this, this, this, this, great. And then all of a sudden you flip and you all of a sudden start doing something dumb that has not been part of who we've known you for 20 years, then yes, the market is not going to pay the same thing. You just ruin your reputation in the marketplace and you're going to take a hit and you're going to have to come back and rebuild that. You can still do it, but it's going to be a lot of work. But if you lost it because of a business decision, if you lost it because something happened to the market, the money's gonna come back up.

Really?

No question about it. People fear that too much. No question about it. If you're still willing to teed up, if you're still willing to go out there and improve yourself, you know, earlier today I wrote something on my notes, this temptation of falling for a few traps. You know, like the moment you start thinking you made it, plateaus around the corner. The moment you fall for the trap of, you know, flattery. Now, flattery is a very dark thing, and it's used in a very eloquent way by your opponents, and you don't even know it. Give me an example. So, for example, hey, Louis, I gotta tell you, man, all these other guys, I know you and Jay are good friends, but, dude, Jay's not at your level. You're 10 times better than Jay. You know you're better than Jay. And I think Jay kind of picks on the stuff that you're doing out of. Now you and Jay are friends. Yeah, yeah. What an a** move. Right. That's flattery. Yeah, yeah. You're saying, I'm pinning you against somebody. A friend, a peer, a friend. So now you're gonna walk away and say, oh, but he's right. And the next time you see Jay and you're talking to him, you kind of like are drugged up and you don't even know it because somebody. So you have to be, by the way, this happens in marriages, this happens in relationships. People will say things like, well, look, let's face it, you know, Lewis. She's lucky she's got a guy like you. You know, any woman will be lucky to marry a guy like that. Right, right, right. And then guess what people are telling her, Hey, he's lucky to have a girl like you. Him, he's super lucky to have a girl. You can have any guy you want. This is a form of flattery, you know? And then when you're winning, I think, I don't think they appreciate you enough. I don't think the company, I don't think they appreciate you. Is there more? Yeah. You know what, how many times you see these wide receivers, divas, they flip against the team with a quarterback. They do your quarterback, they don't throw you the ball. The team doesn't do this to you, right? You have to be like this, right? And understand all this gamesmanship. Wow. And keep telling yourself, I'm not there yet. If this gets to your head, it falls around the corner. Look what happened to Scotty Pippen. You went from being the top 50 greatest players of all time. Your book comes out, the guy asks you, how do you want to be remembered? I want to be remembered as the greatest. You ain't the greatest? You play with the greatest. Why are you undermining Michael? Well, the last dance wasn't about us. It was only about Michael because Michael's the goat. We watched the Last Dance 4, Michael. We didn't watch it for you. You're the best flag carrier ever. You're the best Robin ever. But someone behind closed doors told Scotty, Michael would have never won because of you. Michael doesn't give you enough credit. Michael doesn't do this. Whoever fed that flattery into him is what caused him to lose his reputation. Now when people watch Scotty say stuff, he's got a lot of credibility because he's one of the greatest of all time. We kind of look at him and say, you,'re a little bit delusional if you think you're better than Michael Jordan. You're not. So, flattery is a very, very dangerous element you've got to be aware of.

With Choose youe Enemies Wisely, business planning for the audacious few, this book I want people to get. Do you think Elon is choosing the right enemy with Disney and all these other brands and advertisers?

Yes, because I think Elon is choosing his vision over wanting to cave to these guys who have ESG money from BlackRock, from State Street, from Vanguard, and he's telling them, no, I don't need your money. There's power in saying no to sponsorship. Can you imagine a guy comes and says, I'll give you a million dollars for you to do a one minute, whatever, and I need you to do this. And you say, no, I'll give you 2 million. Brother, you give me 20 million, I'm not going to do it. You know how much power there is in the no? You know how much power there is in a guy to say, Don't do it. Don't do it. And a New York Times interview is like, you know, what did you say? But go F yourself. Don't do it. Yeah, Bob, don't need your money. What is Bob gonna do? Bob came out today and said he's stepping down in 2026. Sky writes one of the best books of all time in business. Right. Right of a lifetime. Great book. He has been probably the best executive we've had in the last 40 years. I don't think we've had a better executive. I didn't say founder. I didn't say founder. Founder is different. But he's probably the best non-founder executive we've had in the last 40 years. Maybe you take Welch in that category, but he's one of the best. We're running and building the business. No one's been a bigger deal maker than this guy, you know, Star Wars and Fox. and Marvel, Marvel, Pixar, all this stuff that he's done, it's just fascinating what this guy's done. He goes from right over a lifetime to putting Bob Shaye back, then he has to come back, five movies, back to back to back flop. They lose $195 billion in market valuation, like a year, year and a half, their stock is down 56%. He's trying to divide the companies into two or three so he can sell them at pieces. There's only one company that can buy them and that is Apple and Tim Cook is brilliant. They're sitting on a bunch of money of cash. nearly a couple hundred billion dollars of cash and guess what Tim is going to do? Tim's like, they're still going to go down. They're still going to go down. They're still going to go down. They're still going to go down. They're still going to go down. He's going to buy them at a discount. And then this is going to be under Apple and Apple's going to be the most powerful company in the world. If not, there already are. They're going to be the most powerful company in the world. And he made a few mistakes. The mistakes Apple made, I'm sorry, Bob Iger made, he forgot who his customers were. Whoever controls the remote control is your customer. He thought the kids are his customers. The kids are not your customers, buddy. I control the remote. I'm your customer. Well, no, no, no, no. I'm your customer. I can say, We will never watch Disney ever again. Unsubscribe. Because you're imposing certain movies on my kids that I don't like. we're done with Disney. Okay? Whoa. So his allies were a 1% sect of America to please them to increase his ESG score or DEI score, CI score, and he forgot there was all these other parents that all they want is for their kids to be entertained, not to be getting all these other messages. He forgot this. So he chose this as the ally. He chose the parents as an enemy. He got destroyed. Wow. He lost $200 billion. Blockbuster, you know who Blockbuster's enemies were. Blockbuster's enemies. They're like, We're Blockbuster. Netflix, can you buy us for 50 million? No, we're Block— who are you guys? We're Blockbuster. Are you kidding me? You buy your customers. This is late fee. I'm sorry you haven't returned it for 18 days. It was in the bottom of my car. I don't care. 18 days times 33.99, you got to pay us $72. This movie is worth 19 bucks. Why? But it's late fee, man. Can you really make a break? No, I'm not gonna— I mean, when you did that, customers are like, screw you, we're out of here. An $8 billion empire falls because they were their own enemies. They didn't think there were threats from smaller companies coming up. Boom, Blockbuster's gone. How many movies did you and I go rent at Blockbuster? That was like Friday night, Saturday night, let's get two, let's get three, you'd come back, you'd watch it. There's so many of these situations of choosing the wrong enemy. I think Elon, the market is going to dictate whether it's the right enemy or not. That's going to take a minute. But I think Elon is feared and envied by all these guys because all these guys, they can go in and get whatever they want by throwing around some money. And when you can't buy people or win people over by throwing around money, you don't like that. And they do not like that. and Elon doesn't give it. The leverage goes to him.

Wow.

Now he's got to prove his argument right though. Now you're gonna, it might have some pain for a few months.

Yeah, that's, or yours, by the way.

Or yours. Yeah. And then how are you gonna shift and adjust?

And, and that's on him. He chose this life.

He chose this vision. Guess what? Go. What do you think is gonna happen the next 12 months? I think he's gonna win. I don't know about 12 months, but I think, I think Elon's gonna win. And I think Elon's gonna be a target. And I think Elon's just getting started with the enemies he's creating. He's just getting warmed up. Like this is the beginning. Like Elon, when did Elon start having enemies? year and a half ago. Think about when Elon started having enemies. Year and a half ago. And Elon doesn't care if he'll never be invited to those parties ever again because he's been to those parties and more. He's dated all of the girls. Every one of them, he's hooked up with all of them that we don't even know about. Elon's dated some of the hottest girls in the world. He's partied, he's had a blast, he's played the video, he's done everything. I think Elon's sitting there saying, I want to be invited to your flipping party. I don't care if you never, there is so much power and liberation in not caring to be invited to those groups anymore. Because you know how you're doing it, like, let me bring it to our level. You know how you got a certain guest that you want to interview, okay? And you have your list of guests you want to interview, okay? So what do you do these guests you want to have? you have to protect them. You can't say bad things about them. So you have to almost match the values they got. Because if you don't, they may not come on your show and all this other stuff. And then, you know, maybe this happens, maybe that happens, maybe this happens. But what are you doing? It's not a real show then. They own you. I don't want to be owned. I want to be fair. I want to tell you how I live. This is what I stand for. Bro, if you don't like it, totally understand. Sometimes I don't like myself. I don't blame you, but at the same time, if you want to have a real conversation with a guy that's not going to fake it and just going to talk to like a brother and he's still going to give you love and he's going to give you opinions that maybe you disagree with, let's sit down and have the conversation. If that's not what you like, I'm not your cup of tea and I'm okay. By the way, the day I made that decision to know I don't care if I interviewed those guests. We blew up. Really? I swear to God. Wow. We blew up. I'm like, you know what? I don't care. I'm good. Yeah, I'm good. I don't care.

And you may never get those guests, but you'll have other great things too.

By the way, I will end up getting all of them.

Oh, wow.

You know why? Because in the market, when- When you're the biggest. In a market, if you're able to prove that you can have real conversations and then that one person who doesn't want to come, 75 people around them say, you have to go there. Then that guy's being pressured by the people that love him to say, you got to go there. That would be the way. By the way, this doesn't mean they're gonna be here. But the point is, this kind of a position gets the market to say, what? They're gonna say, you gotta at least respect like, yeah, look at Howard Stern. You think Howard's turned to easy interviews? Like what do you think Howard does? Eventually everybody went to Howard, and he's caving now a little bit. He's playing a different game now, but he's obviously got all the money. He's playing a different life. But for me, when that happened to me, when I no longer cared, I raised tens of millions of dollars. Business blew up. I let everybody around me better. I interviewed better. I got better guests. I got better opportunities. I got everything changed. But you can't be, you can't be a jerk. You can't be arrogant. As long as you're not having that, you'll be forgiven eventually for the values you believe in. You just can't have this. I don't know if that makes sense.

You got to be kind.

You got to be nice. Yes.

Considerate, respectful.

You do. You do.

You can have your opinion and be honest.

No problem. Right.

But you can't be a jerk.

No, you cannot be. Because then, then you're just not attractive as a personality. So, you know what? I just don't want to deal with a person like that. That's a different story, you know? But if you double down on your values kind of like Elon is, Marc is like, I don't want to love or hate him. Fricking guys telling you who he is.

You've had some big moves in the last, you know, couple of years, but in the last year it just seems like things keep exponentially growing for you in every area of life. what has been the biggest lessons in the last year you've learned that have helped you with that exponential growth?

Compounding efforts works, man. Keeping your head down and, you know, minimizing distractions, minimizing dumb mistakes, minimizing falling for the trap of flattery, falling for the trap of you've made it already, you're successful, you're rich. Look at this. Look what that guy said about you. Look what this guy said about you. No, I have one fear. I have one big fear. And my biggest fear I got as a man is losing favor of God. Nothing I fear is a bigger fear than that. When I tell you nothing, I don't fear anything more than that.

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I feel losing favor from God. So how do you lose favor? Think about how you like, imagine if you're the head coach of a football team, 52 kids, okay? And I'm the running back, but I'm the backup running back. But you like me because I bust my, I stay practice. I do this, I do that in the locker room.

Got a good attitude.

Got a good attitude. I'm like, yes, coach. Hey, Johnny, come on, man. You got it. What are we doing, bro? Let's get it. I'm like nonstop the entire time. I'm training, I'm there with you, I'm watching the tape, I'm on time, everything.

So, I'm your guy.

Okay? So, I have your favor. Not the most talented guy. I'm not at all. But I have your favor, okay? So, I'm setting a good example for you to say, Look at Patrick, look at Patrick, look at Patrick. So, what do you do? Boom. Hey, David, get in there. Get in there, coach. Get in there. Boom, I get six yards. Come out. Oh, boom. Great job, PBD. Okay. All right. Get in there. Boom. Boom. Get the first down. Get in there. You got to get the pass. Eleven years. Great job. Okay. Game ball. Boom. But PBD, great job today. All right. Hey, thanks coach. And he comes afterwards, hey, I want to see my office afterwards. What's up coach? You play like this. You're gonna have big things happen to you. You keep doing this. No problem. Three games, four games, five games. Then the sixth game, I'm like, how come you're not putting me in, coach? What a friggin' you should have put me in. If you would have put me in, I would have gone the first down. Why don't you put me in? You should have put me in. And then, oh really? Yeah. Okay. Then you come in, you sit all the way in the back, and you're not even taking notes. From B, you're on your phone, you show seven minutes late, you're talking back to the trainer, you're talking, he hears one of the leader offensive line hears you talking about the coach and the offensive line that's a veteran been there for 12 years goes and tells a coach, I think you lose him by David man, he's saying such and such to the other running back and I don't think he's good for a locker room anymore. Guess what happens? I'm being traded or dropped and I'm done because I lost favor. This concept of losing favor applies to the people you work with, it applies with your clients, it applies with your audience, it applies with your customers, it applies with God, it applies with all of it. But remember, number one to me in life is to be a leader, right? To be a leader amongst leaders. So that's number one. And number one fear is losing favor of God, not losing favor from mainstream media, not losing favor from YouTube, not losing favor from you know, XYZ people, it's losing favor from God. When I put those two at the top, so, you know, it's very, you know, so when all of a sudden it's like, Hey, look what you got. Oh, you see what I'm doing, man? You see how much of a big deal.

How do you manage your ego?

Very hard.

Okay, I'm, you know, part owner of the New York Yankees. This has been my dream my whole life. How do I talk about it in a positive and empowering way to to showcase how far I've come and acknowledge my hard work, but also not just brag about it every day that, Look at me, I'm a New York Yankees owner. All these things. Here's a big multi-hundred million dollar exit. Here's this thing. We're number one. How do you promote it and market it for business opportunity and momentum, but not allow ego to consume you to think you've got, your shit doesn't stink.

So here's where the contradiction comes in. So brace for impact because it's going to get very confusing very soon. so for me, you know, we've gotten away from the life of the rich and famous. As kids, we used to be like, oh, my God, one day I want to be picked up in a limo. Yeah. What happened to limos, by the way? They're gone. Can you see? When's the last time you saw a limo? Right? Yeah. Dead. Right. Imagine all these Armenians were in the limo business. They're like, what are they doing with the? They're driving their kids to school in a limo, and no one cares today, right? So. But it was like, oh, my God, you know, that guy's got a helicopter. What if I can have a swimming pool? Rodeo Drive going shopping. And a shopper takes me in the mansions and the, oh my goodness, bedroom is so big and you got all this stuff. So we went from the life of the rich and famous to now the life of the poor and the victims. Now we're turning that into heroes. So it's like, oh, if I complain, I get 88,000 likes. But if I talk about how I took responsibility and I went out there and did this 2200 likes. So I'm gonna cry more and complain more because it's gonna get me more eyeballs. Oh my God, I can't stop crying. Why am I crying? Why am I crying? Why am I crying?

Dylan, stop crying. Why am I crying?

Oh my God, stop, it's disgusting. It's like victim credibility. It is disgusting for me. I mean, my skin hurts watching this kind of stuff that we got. So there's an element of this whole thing that we have to also sell why you ought to win, why you ought to go out there and set the example for others to say, I want to also go out there and win and have the life that you have. You have to also show that you can how to manage it together, how you're not arrogant about it yet at the same time, I like a nice car. I like driving a nice million auto car. I like having my 10 million auto card collection. I like having my both parked outside where on the weekend, I like having my few watches here and there. I like having my nice clothes and I like going to nice restaurants. I like it. I like all of that. I like being pampered and taken care of. It's one of the reasons why I worked so hard because I wanted phenomenal service. I can't stand bad service. If you want great service, you have to pay premium to get great service. You can't expect premium from McDonald's when you're buying a $3.99 Big Mac. You can't expect it. This is a reason why 90% of McDonald's nationwide, you go on Yelp, they're all one and a half stars. There's a reason for that. Because what are you expecting from me? They're not paying me a lot anyways. Go to a three Michelin star restaurant and see what they're doing. Go to an Eleven Madison, go to a Casa D'Angelo, go to some of these big places and nobles in the right places, see what kind of food they go to catch. Last night where I catch, we ordered this waggle, you know, tomahawk thing the guy brought with the salt on top of it. God. it was insane, the food and the service was phenomenal. So there's an element of selling that and where this is a possibility that you can have this if you work very hard, but not from the standpoint of show off, I'm better you're not. From the standpoint of, listen, if you got big dreams, here's what I did. It was hard. If you stick it out, it can't happen to you as well. That's the concept of you know, capitalism that most capitalists today don't know how to sell entrepreneurship like they used to back in the days. Today they're embarrassed, they're ashamed. We have to be comfortable selling that as well because the next generation like we had need the right heroes to emulate. If you don't talk about you winning, who the hell am I gonna emulate? I need somebody to emulate. So I need to know what it's.

Like when you win. Who's the dead mentor that gives you.

The best advice most frequently? Who's the dead mentor that gives me the best advice? Mm. Who tells you you're just a man?

Oh, that's Marcus Aurelius.

Oh. He's whispering that into your ear as.

You'Re walking down the street.

He's probably the greatest emperor Rome ever had, 62 to 69 AD, and he had a slave telling him in his ear, you,'re nobody, you're nobody, you're just a man, you're nobody, you're nobody when he's gone. He was a legend. I mean, meditation is the mandatory reading for any man any man, drop everything you're doing, pause the video, go order meditations before you order Choose youe Enemies Wisely and go read the book. That is a must read for any man, human to read. You got to read meditations. The way it was a journal. It was not even supposed to be a book. It just kind of a couple of the writings that took off, but probably him because again, for me, my number one goal in life is being a leader amongst leaders. And that guy was a leader amongst leaders. You know, he was able to bring peace in a country with chaos and put it all together. And he was a synergist that didn't buy his own hype. Not easy to do. This is why my favorite movie is probably Gladiator. It's amazing movie, man.

Make you weep every time, huh?

Oh, God, it's just freaking, it's just such a great.

I'm watching that this weekend after I watched Chosen. Is that what was the. the AI one you're talking about?

Oh, creator. Creator.

Oh, dude, you're gonna love it.

I'm gonna watch that this weekend. You're gonna love it.

It's gonna make you think. Yeah, it's gonna make you think.

So he's the one that speaks to.

You and tells you, I'm just, you're just a man.

Yes. What does God say to you? I talk to him the most. That's why I didn't say dead mentor, because to me, I don't consider him dead. He's alive. So, but he's number one. Nothing is more than that where I'm like, Hey, am I doing the right thing? What's going on with this? Why are you doing this right now? Like, what? What's the purpose of this right now? What do you want me to learn from this? Tell me what I'm supposed to take away from this because I'm confused. Can you please clarify for me what this is all about? And some of the things you're not going to find out for decades, which kind of sucks, but I wish I would get a text back and saying, Here's the seven reasons why I'm doing that.

He doesn't do that. He makes it hard for you.

But no, you're- what do you say to him and what does he say to you most frequently? What do you want me to do at the space of my life? I want to do this with the vision. I think I'm on the right track. I think the world needs this. I think you've given me this weird life of experiences and put this fire on my belly. I can't get rid of. I fought not talking about politics on YouTube for flipping five years. I kept saying, Mario, don't let me talk politics. Don't let me create. We would do 20 minute clip. We would delete the video and never go live because it would say, Pat, you talk politics. And I wouldn't be pissed at Mario. We're arguing it's 12 o'clock at night, midnight. I'm like, but it wasn't politics, Pat. That's politics. Look at what you just said here. Five years we're cutting, cutting, cutting all the political clips. And I'm like, why'd you put this in my heart? Why are you putting this in my heart? Everybody's saying, watch, PBD is about to lose everything. You know, this guy's gonna go from entrepreneurship and he's gonna lose everything because you never talk politics and he's gonna collapse. And, you know, there's no way in the world is, you know, you go doing PBD podcast, talk all this politics, you take the clips, you put it on YouTube, your audience gonna get so pissed off. It's done. It's the kiss of death. Okay? We grew. It did the complete opposite thing that we thought it was going to do, but it was a risk. But the reason why I did it is because he gave me comfort. I'm like, hey, man, if it's in my heart, I'm going. You know, if he put that here, why'd you put it here? Take it out. Why is it an obsession? I don't want to think about this. Life's a lot more peaceful if I'm not dissecting every policy and thing that person is doing and destroying this great state and destroying that thing, why are you doing this to me? Let me just be a business guy and go do what I'm doing with the business. Nope. The fire gets bigger and bigger and bigger and mom's family, communist dad's family imperialist. And then boom. And you're living in a refugee camp and you're coming from this chaotic environment of 10 years in Iran. And then eventually, you know what? What? I trust. Let's go. You made me like this. This is your doing. It's not my doing. So guess what? I'm gonna do whatever best I can with me, but this is your creation. It's not my... I didn't create PBD. You created PBD. So if you created me with the help of Diana and Gabriel, this is either your right doing or your mistake. So if it's your mistake, hey man, I didn't do it. You did it. Right, right. But I'll do the best I can with the sky and I'm gonna try to make you proud because that's the ultimate thing.

You want to make him proud. What if you had that fire again five, 10 years away where it was you felt like you were supposed to be doing something else, but you thought, oh, this is gonna ruin everything. Like literally my business will end, right? Everything I've built will be over if I choose to do what I feel God is telling me to do. After years of resisting and pushing in and deleting and cutting the next thing, whatever that is. How would you feel if you lost it all? But you had the favor of one.

I don't care. I'm good. I don't care. I don't care. Oh man, what a question you're asking me. Hell. Yeah.

All the money, all the business, all.

The... Oh wait, let me tell you, man.

The Yankees, everything you've done.

Drew, you know, when my wife and I, what the hell is this all about? Freaking A, I do million interviews and this never happens. Um, no, it's changed my life.

You guys grab a tissue if you got a tissue box out there.

No man. Ah, it's just so annoying.

But real man, I mean, it's not annoying. It's how you feel. And I think it's a beautiful, thing for people to know that when you care about so deeply, yes, you are a killer in business and yes, you are a media, you know, you're building a media empire and yes, you're talented, but for people to know how much you care about God and your relationship to God and how much you love...

You know the gifts he's given me. My wife and I, we have three kids at the time and she comes home and she says she wants a fourth. I said, Really? Yeah, okay. You want to Ford? I told him, you,'re done. When she was pregnant with Senna, we're having dinner at Flemings in Preston Hollow, Highland Park, and we're out on her birthday, February 14th, Valentine's Day. And she says, Babe, I want one gift from you. I said, what's that? I don't want you to pressure me to have any more kids. I said, Babe, I don't want to talk about it right now. She says, no, we got to talk about it. He says, I just want that gift from you. I don't want anymore. This is too much for me.

You said this.

She's saying it to me. And I said, huh, interesting. So I have a hard time receiving that because we talked about five kids before we got married. 101 questions to ask before you get engaged.

So she had already made an agreement.

She already made the agreement. So this is a problem. So watch what happens because you're not in charge. God is in charge. So then we have Senna, first daughter, first kid I ever cried. My two boys were born, I was very happy, but Senna cried. First time Senna cried, I helped Senna, it was freaking life changing. It was different. So then she tells me this, in the house on Plano she says, I want a fourth. Do you want a fourth baby? I do. You want a fourth baby? I do. Huh? You sure? Yeah. Positive. Yeah. And she's crying. I mean, dude, you wanna go right now? Like, what do you wanna do? I wanna for it. I wanna fit. So then she's pregnant. She says, Baby, I'm pregnant. No way. Yes, we go to the doctor. Pregnant. Yeah. Awesome. Then we go to kind of see where it's like week eight or nine, whatever. so I got news for you. What? You're having twins? No. Yeah. I'm laughing so hard. She's crying because we said five and we're gonna have five.

So.

Ecstatic. We come back testing every week, all this stuff, and at week 10, we go and the doctor says we have a problem. One of the kids is, what do you call it? Not, could potentially be, not fully developed. What's the word for it? Where?

Deformation.

Yeah. It's not gonna be a kid you're gonna be having problems with for the rest of your life. And we're like, oh my God, what do you want us to do? And so they come in and they're having a meeting and they're telling you all this stuff, you know, could be this, it could be that, it could be this. Like, okay, interesting. Then we go home and it still hasn't hit us whether this is gonna happen or not. And then we sit down and we started watching videos raising a child that is, you know, disabilities and all this stuff and how it affects kids. And every night for four weeks we're dealing with this. What do we do? What do we not do? do we go through this? Do we go through that?

And she's like, what, two, three months.

Pregnant at this time? Yeah, she's two, three months pregnant, 11, 12 weeks pregnant at this time. And they said, you know, you can have a problem with this and you have to accept you want to do this. And doctors recommending, hey, my recommendation is, you know, if you guys don't risk it, you know, the average person would abort because it's going to affect your family. This is going to affect this. It's going to affect you're 42 years old. You're no longer 35 years old or 32 years old. so then we go in and we finally accept the fact that, you know, Scott's doing, we're good, let's roll. We go in, two weeks later, one of them doesn't make it. Now we don't know which one didn't make it. So they're saying there's most likely the one that didn't make it isn't the healthy one, but you don't know till the baby's born.

Really?

Yeah. So we're like, well, you know, and they're giving these percentages and all this stuff. We suggest you do this and we research it. No, you shouldn't do that because it can hurt the kid that's left and that kid can get hurt if you go and try to do this procedure with the needle that all this stuff they got. I'm like, dude, just show me. Eventually we're just praying and Brooklyn is born. Brooklyn Ivy Beth David. Brooklyn is the most animated kid we have in our family and her twin, the brother, didn't make it. But Brooklyn is the most animated kid in the family and she changed everything. I can't imagine Lewis living life Never meet in Brooklyn. Wow. I can't imagine that. Like, you know, to me, when people say, well, we just want to have one, I said, dude, you don't even know you got two more. You can't wait to meet life's gonna change you. Go for the three and four.

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Quince.Com Lewis why am I giving you that story? Because, you know, when we moved to Boca, Florida, the first month I was going through a lot. We're moving people. I'm by myself. Did I make the right decision? Should I have stayed? You're leaving a company. You haven't even sold yet. all you're doing it for is because of this, that you make the right move, your wife and kid, they're living in here in this house, you're renting and your 100 employees at PHP are in Addison, Texas, you're in Brook. So every night at 11 o'clock, Mario and I would walk, he can tell you stories himself, he'll give you a complete different perspective. And I would listen to Amazing Grace by this lady that sings it. And it's a picture, the thumbnail of the video, and I would listen to Amazing Grace, got like 70 million views. and I would just listen to it on repeat. It's a photo on YouTube. It's a photo, but it's a song. It's a song, but it's with a photo. But the thumbnail is just a photo, right? And he starts with the sound of rain, and then she sings. It's the best voice for Amazing Grace. There's a lot of great ones, nothing comes close to this lady here. I'll give you her name afterwards. Matter of fact, I want to give it, because if the audience wants to listen to it, I don't want to miss out on this great opportunity. So I listen to this thing every day for one hour. while walking and Lewis, I'm in tears. Amazing Grace, it's called Best Version by Far, the Hour I First Believed is what it says on the COVID It's five minutes and 14 seconds. It takes about 45 seconds till she starts singing and the rain sound comes but worth listening to it. So I'm crying and I probably talked to God the most during that month and I said, God, I think I made the right decision but you know, I need your help right now. I need you to be here with me. The amount of times this man's done what he's done for me, I owe my life to him. Are you kidding me? Like, he can take me today. That's my weak spot. He's done a lot for me. My life's been a great life. Iran was tough, you know, all these other things was different, but life's been a great life.

Wow.

Yeah.

I wanted to ask you kind of I'm loving this part of the conversation, by the way, but I feel like people are going to want to learn about money and the mindset of money in a big way because I feel like you've been pretty fearless in how you've approached money. And I've heard your story, you know, many different times about, you know, the bodybuilding days being broke and getting on a sales job and all these different things. But what is it you think that blocks people from making money the most? Is it mental? Is it an emotional thing that blocks them? What holds people back from earning more or making more?

Well, I mean, one of them is whatever you hate or you don't respect, you're not going to get. So, if you don't respect rich people, you're not going to be rich. If you don't respect people who make a lot of money, you always talk trash about them behind their backs, you're not going to be that person. You're just not. admit somebody that's a great executive and an earner and recreating themselves, then guess what? You'll eventually make that money. So, you know, money and success is not attracted to people that talk down to them, just like anything else. They're not attracted to you. They want to be respected. Money wants to be respected. Not loved, but money wants to be respected. It wants you to say, you know what? I respect what we can do with money and how much power you can bring to my family. I respect What do I need to do to get more of it? Well, guess what? Right now, your market value is $68,000 per year. You want to improve it? I do. Here's what you got to do. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Okay, great. And the way of making money for the longest time, you know, everybody wants to say entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship. There's many other ways of making it. You can-- that's one way to go. You can be a creator. You know, Mr. Beast has proven the fact that you can be a billionaire by being a YouTuber. You guys got 3, 400 million subscribers. Probably by the time this video comes out, he's at 500 million subscribers. the way he's grown. You can make a lot of money being a YouTuber, talent, creator, behind the scenes, you know, growing a company to the next level, sales, you know, communication, executive leadership. But no matter what you do, I don't care what you do. Whatever business you're in, I'm interested in learning skill sets that are evergreen to 100% of industries.

What is that?

Let's talk about that. So one is leadership. okay, in every environment, like we had a, we have a team of 30 people in our production team at the office, right? And it was a lot of chaos two weeks ago, three weeks ago, and I held a meeting in a meeting I held, I'm watching to see who's showing signs of leadership and what's going to happen. This is an opportunity for them to show who's the leader. And then the person you weren't expecting stood up and the person you were expecting to lead It's kind of like quiet not saying anything. Well, maybe this guy is not a leader. He's a technical expert, but he's not a leader. This person is not technically as much of an expert as this person, but this guy knows how to bring everybody together and get all the productions to be done on time, delivered high quality thumbnails, everything. That guy is a better leader, even though technically he's not as good as this. The market pays for great leaders. Whether I'm a assistant, whether I'm an executive assistant, whether I'm a salesperson, whether I'm a coder and editor, whether I'm a, you know, in the military, whether I'm a cop, firefighter, politician, an athlete, it does not matter. Steve Kerr wasn't technically the best player but he's one of the best coaches in the league today, right? So why is he where he's at? Because of leadership, right? So leadership is what? Getting people to do things they wouldn't do on their own and setting a great example. Great. So that means you have to be able to do what? You have to learn how to build relationships with people to win them over. You have to be able to give tough news, bad news, direct news in a gentle way where it's received. You have to be able to bring people together. you have to be able to challenge people, poke them, you know, challenge them, have the tough conversations with them, manage expectations with them, challenge them to recreate themselves when they hit a plateau. We had a talent dinner this week two nights ago at the house. I brought everybody over and I brought my chiropractor. Everybody got adjustments at the end until God knows what time. But we're sitting there with the talent dinner and I said, guys, there's one word I want you to be thinking about going into 2024. I want everybody here. to keep this one word as their ammo is to recreate yourself going into 2024. And I gave him goals. What I want by teaming to happen, what I want by teaming comedy do what I want this to do and that to do and this to do all this other stuff that we got. But what's the most annoying thing about recreating yourself? The most annoying thing about recreating yourself is you have to accept the fact that the current you is not good enough for the next level. Nobody likes that because Whenever you get good at the level you're at, you kind of have this warm fuzzy feeling. You're getting the accolades, you're getting the respect, you're getting the fame. You're like, Look at me, I'm so special. But to go to the next level, oh my God, nobody here cares about my success. I am so small here. But you're not good enough for the next level. So what do I need to do to recreate myself to get to that next level? Do I need to read more? Do I need to study more? Do I need to watch myself more? Do I need to sit down with other people that know me well and ask them to give me very sincere direction. Do I need to hire somebody to give me feedback? What do I need to be doing?

What is that for you? What do you need to reinvent next year for yourself?

For me?

Yeah.

Oh, it's just hiring tents. What do I need to do to hire tents? I read this book by Steven Schwartzman. I think it's called Whatever It Takes. It's a blue book, billionaire, 20-30 billion dollar guy. This is the Blackstone guy. phenomenal, phenomenal. They used to be partners with Larry Fink and they had a falling out and that's how BlackRock and Blackstone got started. One of them wanted to give equity to all their employees, the other one kind of didn't want to do it. They wanted different structures. Both of them are very successful. But Schwarzman talks about what happened to their company when they started hiring tens. And there's a difference between you think a person is a 10 and then a person is a 10. That person could be an eight and a half, but in your world, you've never hired an eight and a half.

I feel like a 10.

So to you, that's a 10. But that's an eight and a half in a black stone. Yeah, that's an eight and a half in maybe, you know, an apple or something like that. But in your company, they're in. They're 10 today. So I. I know the power of getting people that are smarter and sharper to bring them in here. So right now we're hiring a lot of people. That means we have to pay bigger salaries. That means we have to be creative on our comp. That means we have to have a better offering. we have to bring better brains. And right now, I just see a big opportunity with Beddington Consulting. We have the first three phases are scored away. The last two phases are going to come here the next 24 to 36 months. Very excited about that. And so to me is we're getting the most random people right now applying at Valutainment. People that are super qualified from executives at Disney that are, I wouldn't give the position because then you'll Google who it is and it's that person, you know, executives at Apple who are very happy with what happened, but they want to be part of a company that's going to go from zero to, you know, the next level and they want to bring that value to it and they see it and they kind of like some of the philosophies that we stand for. But now it's about, do we want to spend the money to get these guys? How do we got to create, how do we need to create the environment to have the upside for them to come here? do we have the climate? Our benefits plan right now, solid, very good benefits package that we're offering 401k health insurance. But everything's about creating the right climate to attract and retain them with us long term to take the companies to the next level. So that's probably my biggest Obsession.

Right climate, meaning the right climate and culture, kind of that type of climate.

Whole environment.

Yes.

Culture benefits package. So one of the reasons why I moved away from Dallas and I went to Fort Lauderdale instead of even going to Tampa, because at first I was looking at Tampa, then I was gonna go to Manalapan and Palm Beach, and I was gonna go to Miami. And then I said, we're gonna make Fort Lauderdale the Burbank of East Coast is what we're gonna do. Wow. We're gonna make Fort Lauderdale the Burbank of East Coast. So let's go. I chose that because it's easy to recruit people to Florida. It's not that easy to recruit creatives to Dallas, but you can recruit creatives to LA. why are people still in LA? Give me a better weather than a place like this and a climate and water, water, all this stuff. But Florida, if Texas and California had a baby, it's Florida. Florida gives you the best of both worlds. So that part was intentional to be able to recruit talent to move there.

So that's leadership is the skill set, number one skill set. What would be another skill set or two? to help people increase their value in the marketplace.

What is the better thing they can do to increase their value in the marketplace?

So, as you said, market pays for great leaders first. What would be another skill or two?

I mean, I would put within leadership sales, negotiation and conflict resolution because a great leader typically knows how to sell a vision, A great leader typically knows how to communicate. A great leader typically knows how to negotiate. A great leader typically knows how to resolve conflict. A great leader knows how to bring people together. To me, a great leader is a multifaceted person, period. Steve Kerr, there's a scene where he's sitting there and Steph Curry's been missing all these threes. He says, Hey son, I want to tell you something. You know what happened that one time when Michael went such and such when we were playing together? You know what he kept doing? he kept shooting. He said, you keep shooting, son. Keep shooting. We trust you. Right. So what is that? He's selling him. Trust yourself. Trust yourself. That is selling. That is selling. When he's calling out the refs, what is he doing? He's negotiating, right? When he's going into media and they're trying to pin the team against each other with Draymond Green and Poole, he's negotiating in conflict resolution.

This is, this is our leadership.

So.

And that's why you get paid the big bucks.

That's why you get paid a big buck. So if you choose, if you choose your number one thing to become very, like, if you become maniacal on one thing in 2024 and you only order, everything is on leadership, strategy, planning, all of that. You're, you're ahead of the game.

Wow.

But the pillar has to be leadership. That's the pillar. Yes. If the pillar is the leader, everything else comes from there. And a market's gonna know it very quickly. We'd be in meetings, right? And we're trying to, you know, there's a conflict that happens, unpredictable conflict that happens, right? And then all of a sudden you're like, huh, instead of you solving it, you kind of back down a little bit because this is how you filter people out. And say, Mary, what do you think about what John just said? I disagree with them. Why is that? Well, because I don't think that John sees blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. okay, Jack, do you agree with Mary? I mean, I understand what Mary is saying, but I kind of like Mario's point, but I think we're missing the point here. What's that, Jack? Do you mind if I get on the stage here and just kind of write something on the board? Absolutely. Can I grab the marker? Here's a marker. See, we're all focused on this, but we're not thinking about the real problem and what we're solving for. Pat, six months ago, you said this was our goal for 2021. Yeah? If we're trying to do this, we have to look beyond this and go to da-da-da-da-da. What do you think about what he said? I think he's got a good point. What do you think about what Jack just said? I can see what he's saying. He just became a leader. He just became a leader in that meaning right there. Right. So that's the dynamic of being a leader. You automatically are seen amongst a group of a hundred, bingo, you're spotted, you're different, you're a leader, you're somebody that we can rely on, you're somebody that's going to come through, you're the guy that's going to come through with the words. When he said, we're going to hit the deadline, we hit it. You're the guy that brings people together. So I don't want to give too many things. I would much rather have the audience obsess over one thing for 2024, and that's leadership.

Mom. The book Choose youe Enemies Wisely, business planning for the audacious few. I want people to get a copy of this book. But something I'm curious about on how you would apply the message from this book. If someone's in their 20s and they want to give it a shot in business, they want to start their own business, be an entrepreneur, which I don't think is for everyone, but give it a shot. But if someone wanted to start their own business in their 20s and they said, I've never really made any money, right? I've never really made any money. I'm just getting started. There's so many options in 2024. There's so many different industries and sectors and all these different things. If they said, my goal is to make my first million dollars, if they set out to make a million dollars, how long should they be thinking about making that first million in sales? How many years, months, whatever it might be? And should they be choosing enemies from the beginning? Also, should they hate their enemies? or should they be friends with their enemies?

Yeah, great question. So to me, you're asking that there's a logical component to this and there's an emotional component to this. So let's address both. For the long, today I visited my old office in Granada Hills and I pointed out my office that I used to have in the corner right off the 405 freeway and I said that was the first time I ever did a real business plan. Because you know, most of your life, we're generally wingers. We wing a lot of stuff, right? If you think about it. No one has ever tried this thing.

Dabble. Yeah, we're winging.

And by the way, you may be a prolific guy in one area, but we're still winging 19 other areas in our life. You don't need to be prolific in every aspect of your life, by the way, right? Right. So how old are you during this time? I'm 25 years old at Granada Hills. I leased this office space is 30, 3,660 square feet. At $70, I get this from a guy named Shane Pugh, who was a countrywide guy. And I take the office space. I go in. One day, my partner's like, well, I got this health issues. I'm gonna go to Costa Rica. I gotta do surgery. I said, you're going to Costa Rica to do surgery? and how long are you going to be there? Nine months. What? So I got to pay the rent now. No help. What? Anyways, so I said, okay, Pat, you're either about to lose everything or you got to figure this thing out. So I sit down and I do a real business plan. And that was the first time I wrote out a plan where I believed it, I was excited about it, and I wanted to read it constantly. I wanted to go through it over and over and over again. Then I realized. a couple things. I had a guy I was working with that on paper, he would have been the best insurance agent out there. Guy had a Northrop Grumman background. He had an M, he had a master's degree. He had this, he had that, he had a great market, all this stuff. And then I had another guy who was super emotional, super big reasons to win. No education, no eight year, no four year, nothing. But this guy was emotionally charged to prove people wrong and to win at the highest level, right? this guy was like, yeah, I think if I do this much sales and this much, I'm going to make a hundred thousand dollars, and here's what's going to happen. And I'm planning on buying a house for my wife when we hear and I get married, and we're going to do this. Okay, so. But why are you doing this? I just think to make. I'm at a phase in my life that I need to be doing this. I'm. I'm at that age. No emotion. No emotion. So who's right? Is it this guy or is it this guy? So then I'm like, well, let me kind of test this out. I don't know yet. I'm only 25, right? So I'm like, this guy sounds more convincing because I would buy from this guy. But man, this guy is embarrassing. If you put him in front of a client, he may scare the crap out of the client because he has no clue what he's talking about. He talks slang, he's ghetto a little bit. Who the hell is going to win here? And then you kind of size it up and you realize neither one of them are going to win because one without the other is not going to happen. So then I said, you need both. You need emotional logic. The best people have both. in the book, there's 12 building blocks, six are logical building blocks, six of them are emotional building blocks. This whole concept on why I wrote this book when I talked to the CEO penguin, I said, there's not a single book out there on there. Any. I can talk about a leadership book. You'll give me 20 recommendations. I can talk about a sales book. There's plenty of recommendations. I can talk about a strategy book. Plenty of them. There's not a single book on Amazon you can go find right now on business planning that is simple. that a billionaire can read, a brand whose person can read, a politician can read, a military person can read, and they can put a plan together. You will literally see this today. There's not a single business planning book on Amazon. So, the answer to your question, 25 years old wants a million bucks. Number one, industry, product, average sale per commission, are you the only one that's selling it? How many other people can you get to sell it? What is your method of getting clients? If you're going to do digital, what is the ROAS? How much cash do you have? How soon can you get access to cash? So the road to a million, it's a mathematical formula on how are you going to take it? I don't know how you're going to take it. I don't know the industry. I don't know the product. Is it real estate? Is it insurance? Is it courses? Is it, you know, solar? Is it, you know, being a lawyer where you're dealing with cases? What is it? All of that? is the mathematical formula and how many hours I need to be working, how much do I need to be prospecting, following up the right habits, being different than the guys that are out there. What is my differentiator? All this other stuff you got to be thinking about.

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New York State Department of Financial Services. On the other side is which reality is gonna set, which is when you write out the plan, you're all excited, like, let's go, let's go, we're gonna take over the world. Boom, right off the bat, it's like, you know how you watch the movie Gladiator? Ah, boom, guys killed, right? Right off the bat, you come out and the guy hits you with like a, you know, hammer, I'm dead already.

So you got all this excitement and drive and passion, but then boom, you're.

Gonna get hit, rejection first week, first day, first second, first call. They're like, maybe this business plan is bad. It's not the business plan. The reason why enemies are the most important element of the 12 building blocks, because something has to get you to tolerate the pain that you're going to go through. It's guaranteed. If you don't have a real reason and it's typically the right enemy, you're not going to tolerate that pain. So one day on a flight back from Chicago, I take my note pad, blue yellow note pad, and I'm writing down not the typical affirmations we write, which is what 'I'm the greatest, I'm a leader, You're a this, and that da, ra, ra, around this going No, it's rightte down twenty things if you can come up with most painful piercing things any one's ever told you before. What a weird exercise so I start writing it down and I'm on this floor. I'm like that one time that ex said this. And she also said this. And at one time, Miss Rose, my Ceramics teacher said this. And at one time, that cousin said this, or this kid said this, or that teacher said this, or that one guy in the Army said this, or that one relative said this. And then you're gone. And then you read it and you say, which one gets you emotional the most? Oh, then you rank them. This is my number one. This really doesn't do anything.

I'm over it.

Oh, this is the other one too. Four, three. Yeah, I got my five. Boom. Now you start your day with that. God. And you freak out.

Fire.

Oh, you kidding me? Somebody rejects you. Yeah, okay, no problem. Totally fine. Because if I feel sorry for myself, these guys are going to be right. So unless if you don't want to go through the pain of getting to the number that you want, that's a million bucks, don't do it. These guys will forever be able to say, I'm right and you're wrong. You quit. You're a quitter. For the rest of your life, you have to live the fact that you quit and you prove them right. How do you feel about that? Then you have to kind of answer that question. So for me, you know, that person, you have to have the mathematical, logical formula on how many calls, how many contacts, how many appointments, how many employees, how many salespeople, how much money you need to have to be able to do the ads and software and technology and tools and all this other stuff. But you need to know why you're going to go through the pain. And if you don't spend time with this part, you're going to quit on.

This one in no time.

Wow.

So you need to know that.

And what's the difference between an enemy and a competitor? Competitors logical. Like, for example, you know, we're competitors, but you don't drive me. I don't drive you. Right. Like, I you're not an enemy to me. I'm not an enemy to you, but we're competitors. So, hey, what do your data look like? What's looking like? Let me see what you're doing on Social Blade. What's going on with this? What's working for these guys? Do you notice how they're doing this? Look at the greatness Instagram account. Look at how there's competitors say it's friendship. It's not a, but you have to study the competition. Yeah, I look at them more like collaborators, but yeah, totally fine. But what I, the word we use as competitors is, you look at the entire marketplace. But they don't produce anything. There's not a thing. You and I, every time we spend time together, and you know, some people would say we're in the same space 'cause we're doing interviews. I've never once looked at you as a person that's gonna drive me. And I'm sure you've never looked at me as a person that's gonna drive you, right?

I celebrate your success.

Yeah. So likewise, it's a likewise, you know, relationship that we have. But now you go through this exercise, and then all of a sudden you're like, no, man. That's an enemy. I remember one time I'm 20, 25 years old. 24 years old, we're in Glendale at this Christmas party and my dad and I are there and while we're at this Christmas party, one of my dad's relatives makes a condescending remark to my dad. Nothing bad but it's condescending and I saw my dad's shoulders and his back kind of got down a little bit and he laughed. You know the laugh like you laugh at yourself but it's like you know which life I'm talking about, right? We did it as kids when we were 13, 14 years old being punked. And I look at the guy in the face. It didn't feel good for him.

Oh, no way.

I look at my dad and I'm like, and I look at that man and I'm... The level of rage I felt here, I can't describe you. So I look at my dad and I said, Dad, we're leaving. So what are you talking? I said, We're leaving. So what do you mean? I said, We're leaving. We're not gonna be... We're gonna, we gotta go home right now. He says, you,'re not gonna leave. We're here. We just got here. It's Christmas. I said, Dad, telling you right now we're leaving. We're fighting. Eventually it's so bad that we have to leave. So we tell everybody we're leaving. The walk to the car, we're fighting. We get in the car, we're screaming at each other. I said, Dad, that man can never talk to you like that ever again. I said, number two, I brought my sister and my brother-in-law over to the house. I said, They're gonna have to kill me. But the world's gonna know your last name. -RB: Wow. -CB: the world is gonna know your last name. Do you know that's when I started working 80-200 hours a week. I dropped clubbing, I dropped everything. I said, the world is going to know your last name. You've been such an incredible father to me. Without you, I wouldn't be the man that I am. Who the hell is he to talk to you like that? It's game over. Do you know that scene from 20 years ago till today still fires me up? Do you know that? -RB: Wow, man. -CB: And by the way, I've told.

This story multiple times.

I'm pretty sure, yeah. Still, fires me up till today.

So that's your anime.

My enemy is my dad was the, you know how certain people can use the word sweet? Like he's a sweet man. My dad's a sweet man. And he was so good to everybody. It was very good to everybody. You don't talk to my dad that way. You just don't talk to him. Call me whatever you want to tell me. Go for it. I don't have a problem with it. But that moment, and by the way, sometimes in life you don't even know that's what drives you, but you got to use it. You can't miss that opportunity. Like, you know, you're at a place and you see a girl and she's looking at you, you're looking at her, and you know who she is because at a different event, they were trying to introduce you to each other. You know, she's a good girl and you kind of want to date her, but then you don't go talk to her and you walk away. And 20 minutes later, another guy goes talks to her. They're married 15 years later. They got two kids. You see her at the mall. and you're like, Hey. And she says, Hey. Yeah. Did you know that I was, you would say yes, yes.

Could have a completely different life.

Crazy, right? Okay. So when an emotion comes and you feel it and it does something to you, don't. walk away. And I know some people say, well walk away. It's a very different philosophical thing that I'm saying, right? To me it's use it and see if it's something that's temporary that's going to bring the ugly side of you or keep it and say, no, this is fuel for 20 years. The way I measure the right enemy is lifespan of the emotion and the fire and the level of the fire. So it's a lifespan. It could be as 30 seconds. I can hit it longer than you. I did it. It's gone. Yeah. But then it's a level nine and a half for 20 years. You're part of the lucky few. If you read Elan's book, I don't know if you read Elan's book. You read Elan's book?

Never yet.

Walter Isaacson. You will realize why this guy's as driven as he is. Really? Oh, no question about it. I'm excited.

I read Bob Iger. I thought it was a great book.

Amazing book. You'll be blown away by Musk.

I'm gonna check this one out too. After people check this one out, make sure you get the the Musk book as well. And Meditations, which was your number one recommendation.

We're just selling a lot of books.

I sold a lot of books to salesmen today. Choose youe Enemies Wisely, business planning for the audacious few. If you guys want to learn these 12 tennis, these 12 strategies to help you really launch your business to the next level, and have a clear game plan and know which enemies to choose wisely, then make sure to get a copy of this. Follow you everywhere, vt.com now, is that right? Congrats on that. Your podcast on YouTube is the main place I think. I see clips everywhere, but I'll follow you there. Where are you spending the most time for people to try to get in your comment section or your feed? Where do you see and notice comments the most?

Well, Menect is the only place where I respond to 100% the messages. Menect is an app we developed seven years ago. I talked to a lawyer of mine for seven minutes and he charged me for 30 minutes and I was upset at him. And I called the lawyer, I said, what do you charge by the minute? And he says, no lawyer charges by the minute. I said, One day I'm going to build an app. So Menect is, Do you have a minute to connect? Let's Menect. On Menect we have thousands of experts and influencers and consultants. You can ask for any questions, you can DM them, you can get back, or response in text, audio, video, or you can do 15-minute FaceTime. If you Minnect me, 100% I'm responding back to you. Really? Wow. How much does a Minnect call cost? It varies. If you want to do a text, a video call, or FaceTime, it varies. And there's a bunch of guys on there that you can Minnect. We had a guy came in, he asked 20 different real estate experts the same exact question, and they all gave different strategies. And he took that, he's like, okay, this guy's winning. That guy's winning. This could work in my market. It's a great tool to use to ask experts questions.

M-E, what's it?

M-I-N-N-E-C-T. Minnect. Minnect.

Minnect.com.

Minnect.com. You can get the app on Android and Apple. Love that.

A couple final questions for you, but is there anything on your heart that you want to share before I ask those couple final questions?

No, I mean listen on my heart, you got me to cry today, bro. What else you want me to do for you today? You kidding me? I do interviews and I, You asked the one question like no one asked me. My relationship with God. I don't think I've ever seen you cry in an interview. No, no, God to me is a very emotional place to go. It's a life changer for me that I don't cry about, but that one area, man, you hit it. Oh man. Yeah. I wasn't trying, I was just curious.

No, no, listen. It was a great conversation. It wasn't a strategy, it was just curiosity. I've asked you about your three truths before, so I want to not ask you that this time. Maybe the next time around, I'll see where you're at with that. But I do want to ask you about something that is on your heart, which is God. And say you get to live as long as you want and live all these dreams that you have. And you're 85 and then you're 105 and however long you'd extend your life. You got the family there, you got everyone with you. You got the annoying in-laws, whatever it might be, they're all there, but you're having this dream life of yours. and you're looking back and you're realizing all that you were able to create, accomplish, overcome, reinvent, all these different things that you did at every stage and season of life. But then it's over and you meet your Maker. What are the three things you hope God would say to you in that moment?

I'm proud of you, right? I'm proud of you. He's probably gonna critique me and say that one time or that two times or that three time or that one time he did this.

But what do you hope he really says?

It's really the, I'm proud of you. You know, I'm proud of, you know, what you did with your life. I'm proud of the example you did your best to set. That you didn't waste the time here. You know, you were able to enjoy. It's very important to also enjoy it, like because you can't just be in grind mode and not enjoy so many things to enjoy. We sometimes forget to do that as well. But yeah, it's simply good for you. Like, I wasn't expecting you to do this, but you were not on my list of guys that were gonna do XYZ. But guess what? You showed up and I respect it. I'm proud of you. Oh, that's cool. It's almost like a, you're a 199 draft pick and you win seven Super Bowls where it's kind of like, you know, and your name is Tom Brady.

Yeah.

I don't know if I thought you were gonna be one of my guys. but respect. Yeah. That's the. The moment.

That's what you want.

I'm looking forward to it. Yeah.

I want to acknowledge you before. I love watching your content. I love the times we get to connect or text, because you show up with a set of values, principles and energy that is caring, that is giving, that is courageous. and that is clear. And I'm just grateful for the example that you set for myself and so many people to just watch, to learn from, and to gain value from. So I'm grateful for you. I'm grateful for you leading the way and appreciate your wisdom constantly. It's a lot of fun and I can't wait to have you back on in the future.

Appreciate you. Very kind words.

Of course. Final question, what's your definition of greatness?

Definition of greatness. It's the same for me. It's been the same for me for, I want to say 15, 14 years. It's purely alignment. Like if you are living, if your life matches your values and principles, I think you're experiencing greatness. So you first have to figure out your values and principles, what it is, and then your behavior on a day-to-day basis on everything you do matches that. The more that sometimes we go out of whack and we kind of lose ourselves and we come back in. the goal is to make those two be as aligned as possible. I found myself when that's out of whack, I am bitter and unhappy. And I have found when those two are 100% aligned, I am at peace. Yes. Very happy.

Yes.

So I would say alignment.

PBD, appreciate you man. Thanks so much.

My man, appreciate you. This was great.

I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links.

And I want to remind you if.

No one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.

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