MULTI-BILLIONAIRES Share The 8 Simple Steps To SELF-MADE SUCCESS | Lewis Howes

whatever success i had came more from my knowing how to deal with i had no option in my mind i was like i am scripting a new life for myself success is how well do you do what you do when being successful in business is not easy yeah but that's why i talk about just simple tools in here today is the day you start becoming more successful than ever before because i'm bringing you in this video some of the richest billionaires in the world to give you the tools in order to transform your life you're just like i'm so hungry and i'm willing to sacrifice to stay competitive and you were telling me that most people aren't willing to stay competitive for a long time and that's what's really i've seen admired about you is how you're able to buy you know the houston rockets how are you able to do these big projects and buy these things because you're so competitive consistently over decades where most people go in for three to five years something doesn't work out and then they stop their competitive edge so how do you keep that edge you know it's really interesting because i i did an interview yesterday with somebody who's really popular right now and and they're very young and yet they said they already have those those valleys where they went into a funk like they were burned out right after like two years of working hard yeah yeah and i just said you know what's funny is i've never had a burnout ever i've been and i've been i've been going like this for for uh a long time decade 35 40 years even i mean i started going at it in my teens hard and and uh i never had that burnout and i think that's kind of a state of mind that if you you're going to get burnt out if you want to get burnt out but but i always was going like this and so i just kind of felt like i'm so fortunate to to have it going why should i ever let the momentum go the other way and then of course you know one of my great sayings is there's positive people and negative people and and when you're with a negative person or you're with a positive person one of two things is going to happen the negative person is going to make the positive person negative yeah or you're going to take the negative person and make them positive so i've always paid attention to who i've always been around also and and i never wanted to be around people that didn't want to achieve right and but i've never even come close to saying i'm done i'm burned out i'm not doing this anymore right how do you spot the people who are truly wanting to achieve and who have that positive energy because sometimes people you could bring people on your team and they could have that in the beginning but they could kind of lose that or they could spin off a negative cycle do you are you very loyal to the people that you have on in your companies you know if you give them multiple chances or is it like okay enough is enough like what a great question that is because uh i even list a bunch of people at the front of this book really who really helped make me become who i am because even though i'm the leader on the bull you are dependent on people when you build a company my size of 60 000 people that's it and pretty small and and i truly i truly uh probably have 25 vice presidents that average 25 years wow okay i and i tease my people about this all the time wow i go i never ever in the last 35 years have probably lost direct answers to me maybe one or two people and so why are y'all losing them every year right that's right and and and so if when people ask me what what are you most proud of and i think it's the people that truly deal with me on a day-to-day basis even my assistants i have one for 27 years and i'm one for 26 years you know they truly grew up with me you know that were young girls and and and and so and i think it is if they tell you they say that's the hardest assumption to work for in the world but i would not work for anybody else wow i think that's what they would all take i mean in a world where it seems like everyone wants to change jobs every year or two because they want something new and exciting how do you cultivate that uh culture or environment where they're like still excited every year is it because you're acquiring new companies i think that's part of it is that they know that that we're the bull and and that you know even in tough times if i call them into my boardroom it's not hey we're getting bought out it's who are we buying because we eat the week in bad times so wow so it's i think it's leadership you know respect it's it's it's knowing that that that we're the bull out there in our industries and and for those who don't know what you mean by the bull whoever read the book what does that mean to be the bull just you're the ones all ways that everybody else is worried about it's we've bought a couple of companies in the last week right and it's because we were opportunist and we are the ones who can always deliver wow and and we're the ones who have the funding the due diligence to do it quickly we outwork people we you know a lawyer of mine who handles all the m a he was at the office from 9 00 a.m sunday a week ago till monday night at 9 00 pm 36 straight hours getting a deal done okay it's just it's just a culture of we are the best and and uh not that there's not great companies out there and you know we're just still in the whole world you know a company right but but uh and and what we do and and doing mergers and acquisitions in the rest of business or gaming business or whatever aquariums amusement parks but we outworked everybody to get the houston rockets i mean my team during hurricane harvey when everybody was flooding was still at the office trying to get that contract signed because we wanted it done by monday of labor day and and uh during the big flood in houston yeah 100 and and but the houston rockets went on the market on july 17th and we signed the deal up on september the 5th for the most money ever paid for a professional sports team and so it's it's just saying we're going to get it done before anybody else can now why pay the most premium why not try to like create the win-win get the best deal for yourself why say i'm gonna overpay maybe it's not an overpay in your mind but why do that and when everyone's telling you oh maybe that's a little too much you know because i i listen i listen and i'm going to tell you what i heard i heard from some very very smart people and this is one of the reasons that the book's titled shut up and listen is because i do listen and and i had some really smart people who know a lot of people who went after sports franchises say they quit too soon it's the biggest regret they ever had i mean they sold them no no no no no they went after say the la clippers they went after the golden state warriors they went after and and they and people that could afford to do it and and they just said oh i'm not going to pay that extra 100 million or 200 million or whatever and then they had to go buy a team in the years to come somewhere else not in their hometown right now whatever and and so i was told there's you know there's never been a team sell for less in sports and and it's just a mistake you don't make and so i listened to people and said you could regret this and and it's kind of funny but i already knew i was not going to lose okay i was not going to lose this opportunity and when other people i even had the tad brown who who i've known for years who runs the business side of the team even today called me at one point and said y'all aren't in the room kicking tires like some of the other people are you losing interest i said no ted i haven't lost interest at all i said everybody else is in there trying to justify how do you pay 2 billion because they made it really clear that they wouldn't sell it for under 2 billion wow they're all trying to figure out how you pay that for it i was out there making sure i could raise the money and so i like that and no seriously because you weren't even thinking you were saying i'm going right i knew that the team on a bad year is going to make 40 million and on a good year is going to make 90 million okay i knew that okay and i'd known tad for 15 years but if you start trying to say okay if it makes 40 million or it makes 80 million do you pay 1.9 million billion or 1.8 billion or 2.2 billion it has nothing to do with it okay okay and and so while everybody else and and was doing due diligence that way even people that have a lot more money than me okay they're trying to get there and they missed that they missed the box okay they they they were looking at the wrong thing instead of realizing this is a 10-year play and i can promise you one thing i bought this team in 2000 and what 16. yep in 2026 it'll be worth three billion dollars okay yes okay it's already moved up in value so so it's it's just it's it's just the feel and and and knowing what to do and not getting caught up in the due diligence that doesn't matter and i think one of the reasons i've been successful is because nobody does due diligence on an acquisition more than my team does but it's it's just don't get caught up in the things that don't matter like price of a few hundred and then and you know what's so funny and then you know how it got their attention everybody else wrote letters they said okay we want everybody's letter of intent today everybody had all the kind of irons and all the potential bars everybody had all kind of ins and outs and everything and you know what i did i said i'm gonna put up a hundred million dollars non-refundable no financing contingency no nba approval contingency and if something happens i'll walk away and lose it okay so that's the previous owner yeah yeah wow no one else would go in nobody else would do that and you were well that's the second time i've done that and it worked for me because of my great casino in lake charles right outside of houston i did the same thing 50 million right 40 million 50 million yeah so it's worked for me twice what did i hope i had the opportunity to do it again i want that bad what is the things that people should be looking at you mentioned people are looking at the wrong things they're thinking about the price or the other things what should they be thinking about if they want to acquire something whether you're a small business owner that wants to acquire something for a hundred grand or you're you know a billionaire like yourself trying to acquire something for 2.2 billion what is the thing they look for well if it's something that you really really want and you can afford and it doesn't really matter uh you should just go get it okay if it's why is that for the peace of mind it's just for the peace of mind and so you never regret it okay i uh i can go back 20 25 years ago and i've been asked this the last few days what is i had a chance to buy this unbelievable car collection about 25 years ago that had great muscle cars right when they were it was unbelievable and i was really buying it at a bargain because the father had died the sun was selling it didn't give a damn and and and i lost a deal over a couple hundred thousand dollars that today if i own that i would just walk in there and say this is mine i just love it and and i've and i learned a lesson and and 25 years later that's the one deal that comes back and haunts me because i negotiated a little bit too hard for something that really mattered now now let's look it in a box of a real business deal you can't get caught up emotionally there's always another deal and i walk away from deals all the time really all the time because there's there's always another deal but you know what there's only so many great car collections there's only one nba team in your own hometown okay and so there's certain things you don't worry about and that's where you have to be smart and say there's always another casino to buy or another restaurant company to buy but but but keep keep it right know what's in the box and know what's out of the box i'm glad you said that because i i acquired something a couple years ago that i was i did this move without knowing i was doing a tillman move greatness.com was available and it was probably overpriced what was it greatness.okay okay in my space you know there's only one word for domain and my my word is greatness with the school right so greatest podcast i wanted to build something bigger than just this show i wanted to build a media engine around this word that every athlete uses when i see them talking about on social media and press conferences 100 brands about it in their slogans built for greatness pursuit of greatness i was just like this word i don't want anyone else to have the word i want to own it there's only one domain in the world you know it's like a franchise of one and i was just like i want that and were you able to get it i bought it yeah for i know but i'm surprised you could get it trademarked because it's a word okay just a domain so i can podcast or anything i want to build on it for my media engine okay or yeah content for okay all that stuff my books everything that i have i can build around that word but it gave and i haven't used it yet i just have it it just redirects to my personal site because i want to build it the right way it gives me peace of mind that no one else can build something and confuse my audience no because it's such a strong word strong and it's something that we we we all are after every day right you know the people who want to be exactly okay and and so i love that yeah so i gotta learn how to continue to level up and what success really means i'd like to share with you in your audience i'm working at stewart's cleaners i come there one day after john marshall high school that's was my job after high school i swept the floors i brushed the blankets i put the little drapes on the hangers and all that good stuff so i came there and stuart who was tight this guy was so tight he squeaked when he walks really a tight one he had to pay me a dollar and a quarter an hour because it was required for young people you could not pay him less than that okay or he'd pay me 50 cents an hour so late 50s now this is now going into the late 50s yeah it would be the late 50s early 60s late 50s anyways stewart said to me i want to talk to you johnny that's what they call me in those days okay i said oh my god what did i do wrong you know he says last night i was working late and that little mezzanine where we have the cod upstairs i wanted to rest a bit so i went up there took my wash off put a little table and it dropped on the floor now this is a cot where those old spring cots that are open on the bottom a little mattress on top he says i reached down to get it and i noticed under the cot there wasn't any dust he said i just moved it so easy to move this thing and the filing cabin's behind there was no dust he says you move everything when you clean it as if i'm watching you all the time i said stuart i like my job my mom growing up had my brother and i cleaned the house we would do dishes everything we were part of it you hired me for a job i'm going to do whether you're looking or not he says i've never ever had anyone work for me that does that well i'm gonna give you a raise you're now making a dollar fifty an hour now where i went to high school for those kids that even were lucky enough to have a job i probably was the highest paid kid at the time but it showed me this what is success success is not how much money or how much power you have success is how well do you do what you do when no one else is looking and keep on doing it successful people do all the things unsuccessful people don't want to do and my two biggest suggestions to people that are entrepreneurs working for someone or working for yourself as an entrepreneur is two things one be prepared for a lot of rejection you're gonna get it selling encyclopedias the average lifespan is three days it's door-to-door commission only all working no leads and everyone says no oh no they say no oh god but they told me and i believe them that when you do it if you knock on 50 or 100 doors and they slam it in your face it's a guy said have that energetic attitude to keep on going and don't let it get you knock on door number 100 just as enthusiastic as door number one and you'll succeed and he was right i don't know if it was 100 doors 150 doors nobody would let me in funny let me in did i make the first sale no but eventually after a week made a sale and i believe what they said so one of the great things is if you're ready for rejection whether it's your parents your friends that say you're you don't have enough money you don't look like this you're not that no one's going to like you we hate your idea no matter what it is you're going to get rejection when people say no no no no no you know you're going to get it be prepared for rejection if you're prepared it's not going to hurt you as much the second thing we already covered go into the reorder business have the quality of your product or service so darn good people going to reorder use it again yeah why do you think now especially so many people are afraid of rejection i feel like people don't want to launch something their business idea their book a podcast whatever it is because they're so afraid of what might happen wrong that is an unbelievably perfect question what world are we looking in today okay an example politically no disrespect so you know where i stand politically i am an independent i'm not a democrat i'm not a republican i actually give to both parties but only individuals that i like are thinking to do some so i'm in the middle right but what do i see around me this is not america if you're for example god forbid someone that puts up a trump sign not that i agree with them okay but someone puts up a stop sign it's oh you're a racist oh my god you don't believe in freedom you don't believe in ecology what no wait wait hold on you don't have to say that to people they may be wrong you may believe differently or vice versa you know oh no we should be socialistic everybody should have everything free it's like well wait a minute why are you segregating america is we the people of the united states of america i don't care if you're to the left to the right express your opinion and don't put somebody down for their opinion but whether someone is right or somebody is wrong we've got to stick together we can't have a split nation and i think if we go forth with love and realize that it's going to be good in everything we do sure yeah is that why you think people are afraid to to say something to put to launch a business to create something in the world because they're going to get so much hate or backlash or rejection that is correct because they're just afraid of the the world a lot of people are afraid because they look at both sides how everyone is putting everybody down as this one is saying if you vote for them you're going to start losing jobs the economy is going down now whether that's right or wrong who knows right the other side if you vote for this guy again whatever you know look at all the misery that's going to happen wars everyone hates us i mean it's one against the other yeah well of course you'd be afraid and then we're through a time that in our lives where a lot of people aren't working a lot of people are are saying a lot of things about other people one of the great rules of life and this guy wrote this great book of god was it the four and five agreements agreements one of them in there is the most important agreement of it all and it is this do not spread gossip or put anybody down you start spreading the wrong information to people and all of a sudden you find out you were wrong they told someone they told someone else they told somebody else you're destroyed now you thought oh no it wasn't true one of them is don't be around people that gossip stay away from that if there's bad news don't give it out look at the higher side the positive side because you tell one person and if they're low on the tone scale they're gonna tell another and if someone's really down they're low or angry or upset they're gonna say oh yeah this is the truth and tell others to kind of agree with how they're down how everyone should be down because look how bad things are opposed to no no no no things aren't that bad that's why i'd love to share this story with you and your podcast you let people see the truth by people knowing i started paul mitchell was 700 my partner threw in 350 my mom put in some money not even knowing that's what she was doing i put a little bit america still works it's we the people all this negativity don't pay attention to it look at the higher side yes there's things wrong there have been things wrong with our lives for millenniums my god maybe for lifetimes okay but each time we're getting better each time whether you like that present or not that's in there there's something good you could find out that's been done to please all of us sure look at the upper side look at the past people there's something good that's being done and when you move forward if you move forward with a positive attitude no matter who becomes president you help our country become better instead of stalling well i'm not going to do anything because i don't like that president it's we the people of the united states of america it's we the people on business don't be afraid put your message out there put it out there it's okay so many people are afraid to put their message out because well that might be too much this way too much that way ooh people may consider that instead of solar energy it's a new form of energy i've been only talking about solar energy otherwise i'm going to be big in trouble you know right be free god wants you to be free he created you in his image he wants you to be free to speak your word if someone doesn't agree that's their problem but don't put anybody down for saying their word or their products or their slu and don't be afraid to start something people we started paul mitchell when it was the worst scenario ever with no money we weren't afraid we believed in ourselves with all the doors closed we kept on going forward when the going's tough the tough get going that's true yeah it seems like people are are more afraid of the fear of rejection and actually they're actually being rejected it's like they've never even been rejected but they're just afraid that it might happen in the future how does someone learn to overcome the fear of potentially being rejected great question okay first of all what is fear fear is the unknown it's the only reason people are afraid they're afraid because they don't know what's gonna happen they don't know what this person's gonna do they're afraid they don't know the outcome so if you're fearful find the problem or find the unknown even in a problem there's an unknown when the unknown is exposed there's no longer a problem find the unknown and go forward and don't create things because they don't exist were you ever afraid of rejection personally or since you uh were just doing door-to-door for so long and tried so many different things that you would experience so much rejection that you embraced it is that how you got overcame the fear of it i can tell you the one that is the funniest of them all i'm 11 years old i'm in atwater california walking up uh boise street i think it was with my friend michael view she was sold in sac who sold uh papers with me and we came up with the greatest idea let's make a song we'll go together with our newspaper now we'll go door-to-door we'll split the orders we got a dollar for every new order by the way that was a lot of money when we were kids right we'll split it you know uh and together we'll present it and we came up with a song and the song was good evening good evening we're the examiner boys if you'll subscribe to the examiner we'll sing a song for you like that right so michael and i never did this before we went to our first story knocked had our papers the video doors we started singing the minute we were done we looked at each other and just ran away this guy thought we were nuts we just ran away that was the only time after that we can do anything and yes you get a lot of rejection but when i actually got out there and door-to-door sales cycling encyclopedias it struck it with me you must knock on all the doors overcome that rejection i would say i learned more about overcoming rejection for the uh four years i sold encyclopedias door-to-door commission only they woke up yep four years average guy last three years so yeah and when i got the navy and uh 64 to 65 66 67 three years three years old books after the navy yeah what was the big lesson you learned while being in the navy the greatest lesson i learned is uh when i was in washington a couple years ago and i received the lone sailor award i gave the lesson out being in the navy i was a normal everyday human being okay uh and i became an officer many years after i got in the navy in an admiral but that's a whole different story but being in the united states navy as an enlisted man what i learned was i graduated from high school i was a common person how a bunch of common people could get together and be trained properly but as a team they achieve extraordinary results boy do you like that lesson mean that you can't do it alone i'm a common person but let's get us ordinary people together be taught properly and as a team we achieve extraordinary results that i learned out of the navy and i thought it was a great thing to do and of course how to really be neat with my clothes you know really need to package them and how to listen to people when you may not agree with them but there you have no choice when they say do something you just do it but i learned how to do that easily so it was an easy segue for me to go along with other people i didn't agree with but i would listen to them and i learned the famous word selling encyclopedias when someone said no or even not selling somebody had a we were talking about something and someone has a different viewpoint than mine i learned the magical words i could appreciate that however so you could tell me that oh this is white i say well no no it's black we're not going to go back and forth i'm going to say you know i can appreciate that i can say however from my viewpoint with the mind lens it turns out to be black you know but we all see things a little differently and here's why through my lens is doing it i'm agreeing with you i i'm not saying you're wrong sure it's like even in selling would you like this no sorry we have too many lines well you know i could appreciate that i really can however if you would just take half of this order i will not only guarantee it'll be one of the greatest things you'll ever have but within one month anything you haven't sold out the door or used we'll take back and give your money back now that's fair enough isn't it no i'm sorry no why should i push your line you're an unknown line and i have all these other lines the big ones i could appreciate that however i know you're going to succeed with this there's no way you can lose money i'll come back hold the class with you i would do that three times and in most cases by the third time they at least bought one or two bottles from me sometimes they bought nothing from me okay like for a whole week i made 12 sales and i think i'm pretty good at presenting something it was tough but i stuck with it and then i made more and more as time went on i'm curious about what you learned in the navy and how you applied it to business from this teamwork mentality was just something you learned in the navy that actually you saw within the first year five years of paul mitchell that you were able to apply that accelerated the growth definitely is give normal people that are ordinary people an opportunity to achieve on their own jp i own you so much so to go to the next step i need to loot jacob ellis i need a gym i need henrietta i need more people to know what the heck they're doing okay because i don't but i know if we get together as a team we'll be able to succeed and that's where i learned and it was the hardest lesson to learn because i wanted to do everything be in charge of this and that and that in the late 80s i couldn't do that anymore so getting into 1989 1990 it was let's bring the others in and work together as a team well along the way i was lucky some really brilliant people that had already done something great already got involved with us but that's where i learned it you know you can't do it all you need a team to work with [Music] for those that don't know spanx can you share how it all started so we have an understanding of what it is and how you got into it absolutely it actually started with my own butt because i couldn't figure out what to wear under white pants and i'm sure you've had this problem when you're getting dressed all the time so what ended up happening was there was you know our underground options were no good there was underwear that left a panty line and then there was the girdle that was way too thick and heavy and so then they came out with the thong which just put underwear exactly where we've been trying to get it out of wedgie and so spanx was born out of just being a frustrated consumer i wanted to wear my clothes i wanted a smooth canvas i didn't want to see lines or any kind of things going on underneath so um by taking the hosiery material which was meant to be seen on the leg until spanx sort of looked at it with a different lens and said no no no i want the hosie material to actually be what i create the undergarment out of and it was wild trying to convince the hosiery manufacturers to help me make this product with that in mind because for so many years they've been using the material to be seen on the leg right i said no it's just it's the perfect material to create the perfect canvas for women under our clothes and it opened up my wardrobe it opened up so many other women's wardrobe we could start wearing colors we didn't feel comfortable wearing and you know the models get airbrushed we get spanx there you go there you go i love it and when was this one this was in um well i cut the feet out of my pantyhose in 1998. wow yes i was 25 years ago am i doing my math yes i was 27 and then um i spent the next two years getting it made i worked at night and on the weekends on the idea while i was selling fax machines door-to-door and then the company was launched in 2000 when i was 29. wow yeah selling fax machines door-to-door where were you living in clearwater florida okay where i grew up fax machines on clearwater beach machines anymore around no i mean thank god i'm not still doing that i don't know what would have happened there are no more fax machines just like no one watches the movie airplane anymore i cannot believe it i need to know is is he the only one on the planet who's not seen a movie airplane i was quoting airplane as soon as they put the headset on i'm like striker you're too low you're too low and you just stared at me like what is she i apologize that's it guys so how long are you selling the fax machines i sold the fax machine sorted or for seven years seven years yes i know and before that i wanted to be a lawyer but i failed the lsat not once but twice and i wanted to be a lawyer that was your i wanted to be a lawyer i was like i'm going to be a lawyer but you wanted to be a lawyer but it didn't work i want to be a lawyer i failed the else out not once twice so then instead of going to law school i drove to disney world and tried out to be goofy but you have to be five eight and five six i didn't wear heels and so i was the height of a chipmunk oh so you got the chipmunk i got the chipmunk part but i didn't end up doing it i put people on rides in a brown polyester spacesuit at the world of motion and horizons at epcot epcot center and i would see people that i hadn't seen in a while and come through yeah i'm walking on the moving sidewalk putting people on rides and they'd go hey blakely is that you didn't you graduate from college and my big mickey mouse here said sarah blakely and i'd be like let's get on the ride oh my god but that's what i did and then i sold fax machines door-to-door for seven years seven years did you wake up every morning and say this is my dream to sell fax machines door-to-door were you thinking no what am i doing in my life exactly so what happened was a lot of people think that spanx started when i cut the feet out of my pantyhose but actually it started long before that it started when i was selling fax machines door-to-door and getting my car business card ripped up in my face being escorted out of buildings all day every day that i woke up one day and just thought i'm in the wrong movie like how did this happen this is not my life cut scene director like call the producer and i got out a piece of paper and i wrote down what am i good at and the only thing in the good column was sales and i thought okay what am i going to do with that and i ended up writing in my journal i'm going to invent a product and sell it to millions of people that will make them feel good and then i asked the universe for an idea and i was very specific and it took two years and i only cut the feet out of my pantyhose one time and i was not going to squander any idea the universe gave me because i had really asked for it and then the minute i cut the feed out i started trying to make it i started looking up manufacturers on the internet this is before alibaba wasn't it yes because i joined this i did this about eight years ago and i used alibaba for something and it was easy to find like a manufacturer in china and yeah test different things but how did you find a manufacturer at that time a website called thomasregistry.com and it lists all the manufacturers in the country based on category and that's when i found out that a lot of hosiery and undergarments were being made in north carolina oh really yeah so you got it local yes yeah so i called and called and no one would take my call and they'd either hang up on me or say they weren't interested so i took a week off of work and drove around in person and just showed up and i just showed up yeah i want to create a sample yeah because if they weren't going to get a big order for something they're probably like what's i'm not going to do a little sample for you right i showed up with my lucky red backpack from college it's always with me you still haven't yeah of course and i didn't bring it here come on it's with me it's with me in l.a yeah oh wow yeah so um anyway i went into the host the manufacturing plants and they asked me the same three questions and you are let's say sarah blakely and you're with like myself and you're financially backed by and i was like sarah blakely so you can imagine how those went like well have a nice day honey and good luck and um about you know a few weeks after i made all those rounds i got a call from a guy in north carolina who had took pity on me and said sarah i have decided to make your crazy idea wow i'm going to ask him why the change of heart he said i have three daughters yeah so he ran the idea by them and they're like dad that sounds interesting you got to give that girl a chance amazing so he called you back you didn't follow up with these people oh yeah i was following up but to no avail but he he fought up and said yeah we'll give it a shot yes we'll make this so what was the next step was he just making a sample for you or testing different models or sizes or yeah so um it just set up to make the garment while i was making it with his manufacturing plant i was also wanting to patent the idea and i was also trying to come up with the name for the invention so i was doing those three things simultaneously driving up on the weekends and working with ted in the back of the manufacturing plant that i'd become very close with and driving to north carolina from florida no from atlanta i was living in atlanta time what's that about eight hour drive six hour drive um about four and a half well it's not bad yeah it's not bad and so anyway um ted ted became my buddy and i went to get it patented but all the patent lawyers went wanted between three and five thousand dollars and i had five thousand dollars set aside to do this that's it yeah so i wrote my own patent i went to barnes and noble no way and i bought a book called patents and trademarks and i wrote the patent and then i called one of the patent lawyers that was the nicest to me and said please please please rewrite the claims over the weekend for a discounted price i've done all the other rest of the patent the legwork you've done yeah you just kind of need to button it up yeah you need to do that the legal part and so he did he actually admitted to me that when i came to visit him he thought i'd been sent by candid camera which let me put it in your word camera i don't thought he was being punk of course of course wow yeah he thought he was being punked okay and he thought where's dashan where's ashley yeah exactly he thought that his friends were playing a joke on him no way yeah he goes who's this girl i mean like you're not the typical person who walks in the door saying i've got a product and i want a patent so anyway he did that then at the same time i'm trying to think of the name i had horrible names written on scrap pieces of paper all over the place in my apartment in my car in rental cars on the back of like avis agreements and um you want to hear how bad the runner-up name to spanx was yeah open-toed delilah no way yes i cannot believe that was even an option it was it was the runner-up like how bad is that open-toed delilah i so wouldn't be sitting here with you right now if i named it that is the horrible yeah it's so bad wow yes so anyway okay so what does that stand for well it's all about the butt and it makes your mind wander a little bit nobody ever forgets it i had no money to advertise it was risky it was fun at the time listen now it's become a household name but when i first invented it i would call people and say hi i'm sarah from spanx and they would hang up right because i was probably like a porn yeah they thought i was pranking them i'm called i'm like no really i'm sarah my company really is called spanx and i had department stores across the country that wouldn't sell it they thought it was too risque of a name yeah and um my mom sent her whole lunch into the wrong website when i first started i was like mom it's with an my god it's super important it's with an ex so yeah anyway i hadn't ended up buying the word spanx from a man who said he was holding out from the porn industry funny enough that you say that i bet yeah i paid for price with an i paid money for that but um anyway yes so amazing named it spanx it came to me because i narrowed down my thinking i knew that kodak and coca-cola were the two most recognized names in the world at the time and i thought what do they have in common i like to think about words and phrases a lot they both had a strong k sound in them and the man that created kodak liked the k sound so much took a k and put it in the beginning and the end of the word and played with letters in the alphabet so and i also had a bunch of friends who did stand up comedy and it's this weird trait c secret among comedians that the k sound will make your audience laugh so i put all that together and i'm like okay i want my product name to have the k sound in it for good luck and literally spanx came across my dashboard in my car in my mind and i pulled off the side of the road i wrote it down i went home that night i typed it in my computer for 150 dollars with my credit card and at the last second i backspaced the k and the s and put in an x and hit so it was accident kind of with the no idea i know i you backspace catch i backspaced because i stared at it for a while and i had done research that made up words do better for product than real words and they're easier to trademark yeah so then then i had the name and i had the the um patent in the works got my prototype and my patent lawyer said sarah i need to know what's in this garment in order to write the patent i said okay no problem we'll call ted so i get ted on the phone i'm like ted can you talk to the manufacturer yeah like in the back in the back i'm like ted can you talk to my patent lawyer he's like yeah so we're all talking and he goes i go can you tell him what's in it he's like yeah well it's 70 percent nylon and 30 lacquer and i'm like all right and so i'm taking notes my patent lawyer's taking notes and that night i could not sleep i'm up all night and the next morning i wake up i'm like how is there lacquer in this product what is lacquer just saying i'm aware or something okay so i called 30 paint thinner so i called ted i go ted can you spell lacquer he's like yeah l-y-c-r-a i'm like oh my god lycra oh yeah yeah i was like got it don't all change on lacquer immediately i'll change my uh that lawyer was laughing you know how fast you would have gotten a patent if you um tried to make this out of paint thinners like they would be like sure so was it challenging to get it did you get the first try the pattern i did wow usually it takes a few turns doesn't it i got the patent the first try and i got the um trademark name spanx amazing yeah so it didn't seem like there was that many challenges once you submitted it or whatever you kind of got the things you needed in place you got the the orders in was was there a lot of challenges after that once you got the patent the trademark that was a really hard part it's just i heard the word no for two years yeah all the manufacturers nobody thought it was a good idea and um and also when you're just yourself trying to break into an industry like you mentioned the manufacturers it's not really in their best interest to slow down machines or try to give a girl with a couple grand a chance unless you're gonna give them a bunch of money for a big order of something yeah right so that was the hard part and then once i had it i cold called neiman marcus and that was the first account i called on did you get it yes well you were great at sales well you could sell it i was so excited it was my moment i flew to dallas i called them and said if you give me 10 minutes of your time i'll come and meet with you and she said all right was the buyer oh yep the buyer i first called the atlanta store they're like girl um we can't help you we have a buying office i'm like well where is that give me their number and um i went in and halfway through my pitch i could tell i was losing her so i said you know what will you please come to the bathroom with me and she was like so buttoned up i mean neiman marcus like her pen matched her belt that matched her shoes and she was like what am i going to do in the bathroom i was like just call me the bathroom and show you my own panty line and i went in the stall with spanx and my pants and without it in my pants and she was like oh i totally get it it's awesome and i'm going to put it in seven stores wow yeah just like that just like that it was so unbelievable i was so nervous and then of course i had to call sam i'm like in the rental car on the way back to to um to the um airport i called the owner of the manufacturer i'm like sam sam it's sarah i need more i just landed neiman marcus and he's like what he was in shock he goes sarah i thought you're giving these away his birthday presents for like years and i said no neiman marcus just bought it anymore and he patched me through to ted he goes okay you need to talk to ted okay so ted comes back in he's on the phone and i go ted i need more and he goes i go i just landed neiman marcus he goes well that's great but what you can do about the crotches the crotches yeah exactly that's what i said i go what don't they come with crotches we've been making them with crotches he goes well yeah but we only got one crotch machine it's being used by somebody else no way yeah so what do you do then so i just landed neiman marcus and i have no crotches oh my god you got a hole in your crotches i don't know where to go for a crotch do you i mean i don't know where do you go i actually looked in the yellow pages crotch making machines yeah i just well i looked up crosstalk watch machine i looked up crosstalk how you spell crotch okay listen this is what i learned i'm going to teach you something okay so i didn't know that it's yellow pages again yeah oh my god it's a big book it's yellow it's what we used to look things up hilarious um and what's instagram oh yeah you just got off it seven days ago all right so um where was a crotch machine yeah so anyway in the yellow pages it's not under crotch so i learned there's a fancy word for crotch named gusset gusset yes what gusset never heard that word so i started calling gusset companies they were like fedexing me crotches from all over my roommate would come home and be like you got another crotch in the mail and then i ended up finding a man by the name of gene bobo that worked for a crotch company just 20 minutes north of where i lived in atlanta and he saved the day and they made the crotches and then i could deliver neiman marcus so you had the leggings they made the crotches and then you sewed them together because that's how it works yes apparently yes gotcha okay okay so you had to know how many did you print the first time um three thousand three thousand three thousand pair of the first spanx one one uh skew right or yes one skill twenty dollars one sku three sizes or like four four four sizes yep and 3 000 of them yes and that's what neiman's ordered and then i sent them to the they sent him to the seven stores i had no packing and shipping department so the semi trucks were pulling up to my apartment in atlanta and i was shipping them myself to neiman's this is amazing and um then i called every friend i had in those seven cities like people i hadn't talked to in 20 years say hey go buy a few of these yeah take your girlfriends there hi christina remember me i used to sit next to you all the time in grade school will you please go buy this product called spanx i literally called them and i said and i'll mail you a check so i paid all my friends and friends of friends to go buy the product that is brilliant and i said to get some money yeah i said go in i gave him a whole script and like go in and say i've been looking for this all my life i can't believe it's here and create all this excitement that's amazing and then of course a week later the new i talked to the neiman's buyer and she's like sarah we are blowing out i'm like you don't say no way i was buying them all yeah brilliant you have to wow you have to you have to ensure your own success absolutely so then once i started running out of money oprah call and put it on as our favorite product of the year how long was that for until the time was enigma marcus to oprah calling like a month it just happened like a month or a month and a half how did she even hear about it i sent it to her in a gift basket and her andre who dresses her put it in her dressing room and she put them on and has basically worn them every day since shut up i'm not kidding it was so unbelievable i had no money to advertise in the back of my apartment i was selling fax machines like a month before that but i have to say i was working every night and on the weekends for two years quietly trying to get this man building this thing yeah building it i had no option in my mind i was like i am scripting a new life for myself and was this movie about you that came out a year ago joy yeah is that about you my dad called me go sarah i just saw a movie it's basically your life except for the dysfunctional family part yeah right i was like yeah right daddy okay sure yeah that i could really relate to her i'm sure it was like a hustle and yeah but when i got neiman marcus i think a lot of people think that's when you've arrived that's when i double timed i mean i i got um on a plane and was gone for two years straight and i went to every department store in the country that sold spanx every neiman sacks nordstrom and bloomingdale's and i would go before the store open and do an all store rally and tell them what my product was explain it to them do a demo give out free product and then stand there in the department for you know eight hours a day and tell customers what it was because i didn't have any money averages i was selling it for them but what i didn't realize i was doing was i was building a sales force not on my payroll because all these people started to become so ambassadors ambassadors and they were rooting for me and they loved the product and so that was a really important part of the formula and then i learned what my next products were going to be because i was standing right there with customers and let's say what they need what the challenge is i can't do this but they told me what they wanted amazing yeah [Music] what would you say is the difference between a wealthy or rich mindset versus a poor mindset is it a way of thinking is it a way of acting and being and doing what's the difference between rich mindset and poor mindset i i mean in an ideal world it would be those that are wealthy got wealthy because they did a tremendous job of helping helping others you invented a cure for cancer i mean you say well we don't want anybody to be wealthy well don't you want people to invent things and come up with ideas don't you want thomas edison to be successful who invented all these things that make our lives better what we don't want is people to get wealthy by rigging the system by trying to limit innovation limit competition all those things that we see going on in our system which is what what we call cronyism and protectionism that's what we're against all of it even if it makes us money we want a system as i said a system of equal rights and mutual benefit where people succeed by assisting each other yeah and and so ideally that's the difference but that potential is in everybody so for many people today it's because they were throwaway people no one believed in them with this top down okay we're going to tell you we're going to come in and tell you how to live your life and we'll give you money and you'll be all right so your poverty will be less painful where's our job if you empower people everybody can get out of poverty because everybody can contribute so how do we find a way to help people contribute and we've done this my wife and i started an organization here in wichita called youth entrepreneurs 30 years ago it was in one one school here in wichita that was in a poor area i mean and these kids well i'll tell you a story of one named april this is after we've been doing just a few years and well let me tell you this the program here is what we call three-dimensional education that is it's hands-on it isn't just classroom it's doing and it starts with helping them find their gift turning it into value skills and then use it to succeed by contributing and and they and they start we help them start their own small business and then the ones that have the best business plan then we give them some seed capital not a lot maybe a thousand dollars or even a few hundred so they can start and they start doing it and and so then the top performers speak at graduation and this this girl april i'll never forget her talk she said i grew up in a terrible area my mother was an addict my my brother was had been shot my sister was in prison and i thought it was hopeless so i was failing everything in in high school and she said and then i heard about this class where i could get some money she said well i'd like to get some money and she said i got in there and i found wow i've got to have a winning business plan and a successful business wow so uh i've got to to learn to read and write and present so i better start doing that and then if i have a business i got to do math to know what's working and what's not and then if i gotta if i want customers and employees i've got to learn to treat them with respect so she said it changed my whole life and i went from failing everything to getting straight a's and then she got a scholarship to college and and i've kind of lost track of her but she had a successful business of our own so that's we that we see that story i can tell you dozens of stories like that so that's the difference these people who grow up in these in these areas where they have bad educational system a bad criminal justice system all other problems people in the community hurting each other drive-by shootings and stuff so they're everybody's scared so they could join gangs out of self-defense i mean we've got to help them we have to have and we do we have social entrepreneurs working this that are transforming lives as a former athlete i'm a big fan of visualization of seeing the results i want to create on the football field in the basketball court in the future but i've always been a big fan of visualization every morning thinking about what what do i want to create for the day how do i want to show up when something happens how do i want to respond and react and for me i find that visualization has been really powerful for my life is this something that you do in business relationship or deal making when you're about to negotiate a deal do you visualize the outcome how is that in your life if it's yeah but i don't not with not i mean in in football it'd be the image or like a chess player to visualize okay the moves tend down what if it does yeah does this so that's a different i don't have that but i have one for okay what are the principles involved here what are the concepts and okay what do we need to do to apply those concepts apply these principles and we've because we find when we violate these basic principles of human progress we fail we don't think we're doing it because we're going through the motions and we're using the right words and all stuff but we're not really doing it and so that's we need constantly have these checks and and why we need this challenge continue to challenge culture from everybody and so it like if your supervisor here and your people aren't challenging you we'll go help you now you're you're not getting their knowledge so you cannot succeed if you're only using your knowledge those people out there doing the work see waste and see better ways that that i do i will never see and even you as their immediate supervisor won't see i mean the thing to visualize is how do we better empower our people so they come up with answers rather than me and so those are the things i think about when you're in your you know late 20s and 30s did you ever dream or imagine that this is where your life would be now and this is where your business and uh visions and and uh non-profits would be at is that something was that ever a dream are we just like make some money and have a good family and that's that's why i say this philosophy these concepts have enabled me to achieve more than i ever dreamed and totally transformed my life and it's and we raised our children with this philosophy which i i i talk about in the book i mean this is so powerful and then to have the the luxury of seeing what it's done for so many other people's lives is just i mean as you can tell i'm pumped up about it yeah how do you you talked about your kids i know you have a great relationship with them how do you not for all the parents listening and watching who have generated some some success or some financial abundance in their life how do you not screw up your kids when you have wealth how do you keep them humble and grounded and hardworking and committed to growth and self-actualization when they essentially have everything at their fingertips if they wanted it well that's i mean i learned that lesson for my father he exemplified integrity humility treating others respect hard work lifelong learner like he would say things like son learn everything you can you never know when it'll come in handy and on every one of these issues he would he would talk about and he would do it i mean he worked all the time just like i do and he boy when we didn't treat somebody with respect or like we were waiting in line for a movie together and we'd say okay there it's kind of crooked here maybe we can move up well he would come and grab us you go back to the end of the line wow i mean he was a bear and you if you bragged about anything boy you would get smacked down and if you talk bad about any person oh man i got the belt a few times so he was pretty disciplined so we i mean we weren't we weren't as tough on our kids but we talked about this every day for example the school had had the kind of the five values love courage faith honor and loyalty so every night at dinner i would have each one just they could you could pick any one of these five and and then you would you you need to tell me how you exemplified that with a specific example and at first they refreshed they'd cry this was starting in the first grade and so it was a little intimidating but after they got into it it's just like with our employees okay you go help others succeed you go create value for others and and obviously our best customers are those who reciprocate and who reward us for it so that changed them and then every sunday evening i would take them in my library and play a tape for like 10 minutes whether it's maslow aristotle hayak all across all these disciplines that i had learned i had tapes on them and played for about 10 minutes and i knew that was their attention span max and so then we'd just have a discussion and my daughter picked up on it i mean she was eager she was doing my son wasn't he was more like me he was let me go play dad yeah yeah i got i got important things to do but then he's gotten it and he and now because of this and this business of uh finding your gift and then developing and using it to help a boy they are both doing that like my son has has started a business here called coke disruptive technologies and he's now has investments in 10 companies and we do that through the philosophy of mutual benefit because there's all this money rushing in for hot technologies but we're a preferred partner because we say we have all these businesses and and some of them it will be a good pilot area where you can apply it and then our people will work with you to show you how to make it work better because they'll be the ones applying it and that's what we call coke labs so our whole all our businesses we look at laboratories coke labs and then in stand together he's he's built these relationships with all these technology uh entrepreneurs and so now they're working with us on stand together because they've made money and they want to have meaning in their lives so we can help them find what they're passionate about and where they can make the biggest contribution so he's done that way beyond what i could at his age and then her daughter well she she was frustrated for a long time like i was couldn't find her way now she she started an organization called unlikely collaborators and they get together and she finds people who who are frustrated about something have a hang up maybe they're better so they go through these sessions well she starts it with telling about all her problems and her failures and of course then that opens them up and they talk about it and she's totally dedicated to helping people and she's working with us she's helping show us how how what she's learned out on helping people in ways that we haven't used i'm curious about your non-negotiables on a daily basis do you have a list or things that are non-negotiable that you do maybe it's you get up at a certain time or you always take a walk or you eat a certain way is there anything like that you do or you always give your wife a hug and a kiss is there something you always do non-negotiable yeah i work my mind and body every day every day i'm going to learn something that i will help me contribute i'm going to find a way to contribute and i'm going to work out because i've got to stay in shape to do all the things i'm doing yeah so those are those are my primaries and that's what keeps me alive what do you what do you feel is missing in your life the ability to move our society better in a direction of equal rights and mutual benefit where people assist each other because it's gotten so divided and these ad hominem attacks and no one talking about as we said about okay let's find ways to work together to empower people help people rise particularly those who are starting to nothing rather than like an occupational licensure okay will all the business people in the community get together we're going to make these rules so tough that these people starting out can't compete with us i mean that's monstrous yeah so that's one of our our key issues we got to get rid of these regulations like that that these protectionists cronius regulations that keep people back and slow down innovation undermine competition undermine opportunity yeah that's yeah it's hard to hard to overcome all that and hard to make it all happen in a powerful way yeah so that that's my biggest frustration i'd like to wave a wand and bring it on i'll figure that out i'm not a utopian i mean we'll never be perfect yeah if we move 10 in that direction like reading history this this would make a massive change just 10 improvement in those principles of human progress yeah and i'm curious what do you think is the biggest fear you've had to overcome in the last 40 years and what is the greatest fear you still face today well my my fear is always that tomorrow i won't be able to contribute i lose my which i mean as you get older you you lose some of your capacities and then i'll lose it and i won't be able to contribute because then i might as well you might as well just throw me in the ditch and and cover me up how do you manage that fear well i the way i manage it is every day contribute yeah and if i contribute and i'm i can still offer something to help and i'm still making a difference then okay i'm good to go yeah now i gotta now i gotta work on how i do that tomorrow and maybe next year god willing so i started my business in 1975 investing and it's you know it's easy to be wrong in investing that's part of the game um but in 1980 81 i calculated that american banks had lent a lot more money to countries than those countries were going to be able to pay back and that they would therefore have a big debt to fault and that would cause an economic crisis and it got a lot of attention because it was a controversial view and then in mexico defaulted in august 1982 so that prediction sort of wow came right and some countries did and i got a lot more attention because of that was right and i thought we were going to go into an economic um spiral a depression a big debt crisis and i couldn't have been more wrong and um i i was exact that was the exact bottom in the stock market yeah and i lost money i lost money for myself i lost money for my clients i had to let everybody in my company go and i had to i was so broke i had to borrow four thousand dollars for my dad wow some of my family bills so i mean i was it it was a lot of pain this was 82 yeah so you're broke then 82. broke totally no money no money no wow and that was one of the best things that ever happened to me it was very painful but it was one of the best things for because it gave me uh the fear of being wrong without me losing my audacity in other words um it gave me an open-mindedness it made me start to think um what how do i deal with what i don't know so i it made me find the smartest people i could find who disagreed with me to start to understand their thinking it made me think about how i could maintain that uh that upside you know risk goes with return so i didn't want to uh have an ordinary life so i still wanted the big upside return but how could i do that without less risk that's right and i so that was a problem that that was part of my reflection and that reflection led me to understand how i could diversify better how i could stress test my thinking better and so on then i brought in the smartest people i could find who were independent thinkers who would disagree with me and then i and and and i did that and that was the exact bottom financially and so on in my life from that point up to um you know not long ago fortune described bridgewater as the fifth most important country private company in the country in the u.s and so it was that pain and reflecting well on that pain that gave me a greater ability to deal with what i don't know and i learned this is an important thing to learn that i learned that whatever success i had came more from my knowing how to deal with my not knowing than from anything i knew in other words what you know in your head is only a small percentage of what the important things and the right things to know is and so to be able to go outside of one's head and to take in the best of the best of the best wherever it comes and then use that to make decisions and all of that came from that painful very painful mistake where do you think you'd be today if in 82 you didn't go broke and have that massive pain i'm sure i'd have a you know a very uh ordinary i don't know life i don't know you know because i wouldn't have known how to have great upside while having acceptable risks right in other words like like i at the time i reflected it i i felt it was like like the following i'm on one side of a jungle and i'm on this one side of a jungle and i and you could go in in order to imagine you could have great success if you can cross the jungle alive to get to the other side but in the jungle are all sorts of terrible things that could kill you and and so on and you have a choice you can have this bore boring or you could have this ordinary life or you can try to cross the jungle now each one of us would approach that differently for me i had to have the greatest life i could have so i had and i have a little bit of a taste of adventure so how would you cross that jungle and what i learned was that the best way to cross that jungle would be with a team of people people who i cared about they cared about with me who could see things that i couldn't see and i could see things that they couldn't see and that way you could be effective together and when i and so that's what i did that's how it worked and what i also learned through that thing is like i don't want to get out of the jungle i don't want to get to the other side because the actual act of being in it with them and to do those things is itself rewarding so i i'm i'm confident that i wouldn't have learned that if i didn't have that kind of experience so you're still in the jungle today yeah i'm in my ju but my jungle all everyone's jungle um is a life arc there's a life arc right um you have to recognize the life arc you know zero to i don't know 80 85 or something is the life arc uh something like that i'm 71 i know where i am on that journey okay it's important to know where are you on your journey and then when you start to think about that like where will i be in 10 years i'm going to be a different person in 10 years okay where will the people i love be think about yourself where will you be in 10 years and where will the people you love be it could be your kids it could be your parents where will they be and what will their experiences and the journey that they're going through and you're going through and this script in the journey by the way is is is pretty well known right like um i think i'll give you example i think it comes kind of in three phases uh the first phase is when you're dependent on others and you know you're learning okay then what happens is you get out of school and you become independent and you go to work and then it's entirely different you're in the second phase of your life when others are dependent on you and you're working and you're trying to be successful and then you and but there are the arcs and you could see it the markers along those lines you know do you get married when do you have a kid when like i i realized like when my kids have kids i'm now in my third phase okay so so you see these things you know yeah and so you have to see that so what i want at this phase of my life at 71 i'm in tr in transition from my second phase in which i've uh worked and i've won and i've you know i've played you know it's like had my battles and it was great and so on and now i'm in a mission to pass along the things that were valuable to me i want to pass them along to others and then i'm going to go quiet and then i'm in that other phase you know but you learn things and so this is kind of a mentor personal long phase how do you stay confident in transition from kind of one identity to a new identity that's something new that's something unknown whether it be in your personal transition life or in the financial world where things are unknown things are transitioning or it might seem like it how do you personally stay confident in the transition first of all um you're really talking about comfort with ambiguity yeah okay um and the way the way that i feel it is uh life is like an adventure i mean if you knew everything it wouldn't be nearly as good right and so the ambiguity is part of it it's part of the game it's just the way it is and then so to then experience that and and and to know how to deal with ambiguity because the same rules apply you know feel it feel it what's it like how does it feel where are the pulls to how do you learn how do you learn how to approach it what's it like speak to others who have been in there in that spot before um you know taste it and so on our preferences change you know as you're going through all those things so you feel it out you learn about it you go to the things that you feel the pull toward i'm curious you have your feelings you've been talking about for a few moments but i know you're a very thoughtful human being you create algorithms for your entire work your team everything is based on algorithms kind of thoughts and ideas but i'm hearing you say you're a deep feeler as well are you would you say you're more led by thoughts or your feelings and i think it's the alignment of them okay here's the facts of pertaining them there is a subliminal mind that we have and there's a conscious mind freud discovered that there's a subliminal mind so we have and in that subliminal mind um we we just don't see it because you know because it's not conscious but it it has a big effect and so feelings and those things are coming through that subliminal mind and it really has a big control and then there's a conscious logical mind so they for everybody and so they're in your mind they're like everybody's mind they're these kind of two minds that are working now i i find that when i align them meditation has had a big effect on me i've been meditating since uh 1969. wow so so for a long time because what that does literally it's an exercise where you repeat a mantra the sound and then you lose sort of a consciousness and you go into the subconscious mind but in any case to reconcile feelings with thoughts to recognize feelings with logic and align them like each has to double check for me like if my feelings i'm yes i'm a big feeling person the the most important things in life for me are what inspiration love um you know what what is it about i mean what are you doing it for but at the same time to be able to get their logic and be able to express oneself and you know in algorithms or so is it is a good thing so when they're aligned it's kind of a double check and it works at both levels so i think that's most important when you doubt a decision or maybe just a moment in your life personal or business related doesn't matter when you when you're in doubt of something what is your personal mantra to get you back to a kind of a centered aligned place where you can make a better decisions well um on the doubts you know the question is always like how big of a deal is it and what is this type of bed and so on and uh you know little doubts no okay that's no big thing um you know life and death decisions uh those kinds of things they're big you know those are the big questions um and what i um what i realize um on those is um a doubting is part of that process you can only be sure a certain amount how do you get to the best triangulation in other words take in from the smartest people and your own thoughts and so on so that you're making that understand how reality works and then try to make sure that none of your um decisions are the ones that knock you out of the game in other words like i've got an expression for people who uh who work for me you can scratch the car but you can't total the car you know you could so realize okay you don't win at all you you know you you make your best bets but don't have the one so you have to eliminate the the killer ones because you have enough killer ones um and one and odds are one of them's going to get you right so so you know i approach it basically uh that way you know try to make the diversification try not to have any killer eliminate all of those that are unacceptable and then go for the upside and and doubt but you know i'm used to doubt i doubt you know there's there's everything every time you put on a position in the markets for example i am never sure if it would be easy if i knew so there's a lot of doubt right so so doubt is part of it but you know don't have don't put yourself in a position that you can have unacceptable when you go broke hanged around a little bit is okay yeah right so how do you have confidence when you're doubting yourself and you're like i think this is gonna do well based on all the math and historical evidence and feelings how do you have confidence when you you know place that bet i have enough bets that uh i make the bet so that none no one of them i i won't allow anyone that'll kill me and then i raise and i'll typically only want to make bets that i feel good about and i will have them stress tested my bets by having other people stress test it so yeah just imagine i don't know you're playing a chess game okay now okay maybe you're a chess master but okay what are you gonna do you have to still make a move so okay what's the best thing to do now imagine you could ask the best chess masters in the world what you do and think about the pros and cons and make your decision and and just not make it that also one's going to knock out of the game so it's that you mention a team going through the jungle with you and supporting you whether it be mentors or hiring how have you learned to bring together this great team that you've assembled where people are going to disagree with you it sounds like people have different thoughts and be able free to disagree with you on certain things how do you know when the disagreement becomes toxic when you can look at it from a point of view of like okay i need this disagreeing thought but when does it become toxic where you actually need to let go of that person in your life or on your team well what's so interesting to me i think is that you immediately your question about the disagreement is toxic um that's the first thing that people go to somehow they think disagreement is toxic and supposedly um it's because the part of our brain which is the amygdala which is this fight or flight takes disagreement as the equivalent of a fight and so it anyway gets triggered that way now instead imagine it's a curiosity in other words i view it as a curiosity i mean i could tell if somebody's uh wanting to disagree with me or i'm disagreeing with them because i want to hurt them i mean that's a different thing if you want to hurt them okay then that's a different thing but i mean like disagreement should be a comfortable thing that prompts curiosity and so on and mutual respect like if like how could i ever get along with you if i couldn't disagree with you i like how many times you know i mean you're gonna disagree like you might one thing another then that's the beginning of trying to find out what's correct in the past so a good partner is going to disagree with you and you have to get past it so the fact that you're asking that question the way it is which is a normal question that everybody would ask so reflects the fact that there's a hesitancy for disagreement like it's a bad thing and it's a fight and it's nastiness rather than just a disagreement that needs to be figured out and how have you personally learned how to disassociate the maybe personal attack against your ideas or your position on a on a a stance or whatever between someone personally attacking you and just oh this is a curious idea that they have let me ask them more about it how have you learned how to do that and what advice would you have for others first of all i learned by it because it you know like it works i i mean uh you know like i'm afraid of the opposite and and how can i have it helps my decision-making it helps our relationships what are they gonna do bottle it up and i'm gonna bottle it up is that smart i mean you know that that sounds stupid to me you you don't even know what's true you can't figure it out so everybody's confused because nobody knows what each other's really thinking and then also like uh you know you won't get to the right answer and i mean that just is too stupid a path for me for me to do it it's too risky to pass and it's so much rewarding so much more rewarding to do the other the three things that every wannabe entrepreneur should think about before they start their own business be ready for rejection make sure your service your product is the best thing is so people want to reorder and be prepared to do all the things unsuccessful people don't want to do which are what work as many hours as you have to as many doors as your approach to and they say no as many people are no and then once you have a product once you have a product how do you make it better all the time and paul mitchell all year long we have many people working on the next generation of products or how to make our existing products better we never let that go paul mitchell's been in business 40 years and i think with the exception of one maybe two years we've grown every year those other years those other couple years something went on like what was going on right here within this epidemic in our country and throughout the world where maybe we went down but only a little bit little teeny bit so we've been on strict high growth for 40 years but we also look at what can we do to help salons how can we help beauty salons and now paul mitchell schools how we can have dressers become more successful we started paul mitchell schools 20 years ago we're a hairdresser not just got a license but they learned in cosmetology school the paul mitchell schools how to be a better person how to love yourself how to love others how to get along with people personal growth oh personal growth oh yeah it's taught and how to be a successful hairdresser in her paul mitchell schools which people come out loving one another some i mean it's fabulous if people come out of our schools and i think we have about 16 15 16 000 students now graduating we're coast to coast we have over 100 schools coast to coast and people just shine but we take a different attitude one of love how to love yourself and love is one that's around you not many businesses can say they've been growing year after year for 40 years except for a couple maybe smaller years what do you think has been the reason that you've been able to do that and you haven't made mistakes where it's gone down in a big way or gone bankrupt why have you been able to sustain that for 40 years and we make booboos along the way but we correct them i think the main thing is people because we love our people our people love who they're doing business with who they're doing this is for and who their business is around salons know that these guys kept their word oh my god in 1980 when they started a to present day they say we're never going to desert you this will always stay in the professional beauty industry so no matter where paul mitchell is sold somehow it goes back to the salon so they receive something whether it's in the salon or it's always in this industry no other one yeah yeah everyone says that well what happened since that time a lot of the big businesses at that time went out of business a lot of my competitors big good competitors sold to big conglomerates right and they did whatever they did but that's their world not my world we kept on saying we're only staying the professional beauty industry and people wanted glue on that how committed is this people in 2004 a hairdresser raised her hand at one of the lectures i was giving at a hair show and said mr jp you're the only one that hasn't sold out all your competitors sold another company you're still here and you say you'll always support this industry what if you die again we're going for longevity right i said good point so i had my attorneys and my accountants search everywhere in the united states where could i park my controlling interests i own more than 50 percent of paul mitchell where could i park it so even if something happens to me it stays in professional beauty industry they found a 360-year u.s trust i could put it in so even if something happened to me it stays intact now i could have 50 beneficiaries their percentage goes to it but it stays intact in the professional beauty industry and you know like michael lane my daughter's a genius okay mikey you oversee it for now and along the way we find other people oversee it alexis john anthony you find people that are responsible worst thing you do is turn over your business to your family and there's people in your family are not responsible well you're gonna go downhill okay if there's turning it over they are in there helping people out okay not saying i'm in full control like an ego thing at all so i set it up or was set up no matter what happens it stays in professional beauty industry my family can help pick certain people out okay and direct it but it's got to stay professional and there was a law you had to put in there where you got to have something if it goes down right then they can't sell well the down in there our worst year is so little i mean that's almost like a start-up year for sure i mean that's never going to hit that right so it made it all legal now and in the years to come and we have about 340 somewhat years left on it sure so when i'm long gone and others are long long gone and the profession they had a guy that made a promise that had nothing along with my partner paul mitchell at the time right we made a promises industry and we kept our promise that even though we're gone it's gonna stay in the professional beauty industry that's cool that's commitment that's great not many people do that nope no one did i think we're the only in the industry that i know right now that's ever done something like that because why what if we sold out and made all this money that's what the others did yeah i read somewhere i don't know if this stat is correct or not but i read that you're the third richest shark that's been on shark tank with your net worth i'm not sure if that's accurate or not but you've got billions in net worth and i'm curious your point of view what's the difference between someone who's worth a million dollars and someone who's worth a billion dollars what's the mindset that separates a millionaire and a billionaire i would say the mindset i could give you my case was how to keep what i have and what i give away and part of the giving pledge okay goes to a good result because where all of my companies give we give personally and i have a foundation jp's peace love and happiness foundation helps also it's where do those dollars do that do the greatest good for the greatest numbers that help them reach the next step where can we put money not to give away but invest money not ever wanting in return as a charity that'll have somebody reach the next stage the next stage the next stage i'm a firm believer that on this planet we come with absolutely nothing okay and whatever we get we're blessed with it's like paying a rent a little bit for our time on earth and if we're lucky enough to have that abundance share it with others so the big thing is in my case where does it go it has nothing to do with do i have power do i have this do i have that is where can i go with it and of course you can pay your bills on time or pay them off on time right but it's worthy when you go after you get into the millions is where can i secure my family for the future but after i secure my family when i do these other investments how can i affect hundreds of thousands of people hopefully millions in my life so they have a good life long after i'm here and a good life while i'm here the animals sea shepherd included the animals world wildlife i mean the animals as well as the humans anything with a soul in it the trees that have living souls in them you know what can i do to keep this whole thing going on if i was lucky enough to enjoy it at this time so would you say for you personally it's more of a giving mindset that separates the millionaire and the billionaire yes i would say you've got to have it in there the giving amount yeah and not just give me give me give me greed green green how can i one time release i have what i have and let's just make sure it's shared with others and the businesses i have we have bonuses we have affected paul mitchell first thing i did was remembering how i didn't have free lunch is when we could afford to give everybody free lunch we still do wow we're still getting free lunch because i could remember when i had one dollar and you couldn't get a lot for a dollar for lunch you know i'm sure you've got a lot of wealthy friends is that a similar theme that you see with your billionaire friends of they now think how can i contribute make impact give back or is this something just you and a few people do that you know uh mostly it's with my friends that are part of the giving pledge and some that aren't part of the giving pledge are very very big givers you know but the giving pledges i think there's about a hundred and seventy hundred eighty of us that are u.s citizens warren buffett is one of them and the gates i go on and on it's good people that say we've done so well we appreciate this goodness that while we're alive or after we die or a combination of the two we're to give half our wealth to making the world a better place to live why did you decide to be a part of that that that pledge why was that important for you we were invited to join warren and bill uh for a very small dinner in dallas texas we live in austin we have to ellison first time i met the two of them very gracious people they talked about not what they should do with their money but here's the giving pledge here's what we're doing and we'd like to invite you to join us if you want to what is the advantage like minds are all together we never solicit business off one another and we don't do that it's we have our seminars that the gates foundation puts on and regardless of whether you agree with what they do with their money or not that's up to an individual but they put on a seminar and during that couple of days we see the various ways people have contributed like okay in education how do we do it better what are the pitfalls what should we look for in human welfare in water what are the different things we learn from one another how to really get the most out of what we're giving and the most joy out of it yeah and then and of course we have a camaraderie we get together and appreciate one another i love this idea of this collective mind i call it a mastermind in my industry it's where where other great minds get together in our space and we try to collaborate and share ideas how important is that for an individual who is working at a job to have their own personal advisory board or mastermind group of other smart people or for entrepreneurs to have a mastermind of people in the industry they connected how powerful is that if you can it's great i was asked once a question when i was one of the two finalists for inc magazines entrepreneur of the year right and i remember in the final interview or with everyone the audience they said well how about consultants what do you feel about consultants and this the company was just starting but doing pretty good you know we're five years six years in business and my answer was the dumbest one in the world we don't need consultants we're doing it our own we'll probably do it a different way anyways worst answer i could ever give and i thought about it afterwards are you kidding i just never had anybody consult with me other than my friend john mccormick who gave me some advice that was it are you kidding i would have loved to have a consultant or someone around me that really knew what was going on so if in your business you could find people like that even one or two that have done it before or even a segment it could be in a different industry god go to them for advice it's priceless they know even if they failed at that business they know some of the shortfalls [Music] what would you say are the three most important tools that you've learned whether at 27 40 85 what were those tools three tools you wish you would have known sooner that supported your growth at the highest level for me to feel good about myself and that's true today at age 85 is how do i contribute and the way i contribute is to use my gifts focus in areas that for which my capabilities can make the biggest contribution okay so then how do i develop them so i wish i mean i wasted 20 years there if i had if i had developed a passion at age 10 or something or age 18 rather than age 27 to find these conceptual tools that i could use because as soon as i'd learned one of these principles the principles i saw through history really empowered people and moved society toward one of equal rights and mutual benefit i found that worked wow these these these these ideas work so the first thing is that and then you then you need to realize that okay you're good at this that doesn't mean you're good at a bunch of other stuff so don't start thinking you're just smarter than other people or anything and i mean this is another thing i studied multiple intelligence theory that we have these discrete they're these discrete intelligence there which i i mean i don't agree quite the way it was written but but there was element of truth in it and so if you realize that then you say okay i'm good at certain things and i'm not good at others and if i want to contribute i can't be doing it all or i'll make a mess of it so i've got to go partner with people and whenever i found the right partners who were good at all the other things that needed to be done then i wasn't then i've succeeded and when i haven't had good partners that i've tried to do myself i failed i mean for me but i i mean a lot of people have much broader capabilities than i do but mine are pretty darn good in this one area if i just if i just stick to it to really contribute you focus on creating value for others you focus on bottom-up empowerment and so that's what we've done with our employees for example in our company the first job of every supervisor at every level including me is to help your people self-actualize as a matter of fact in our guiding principles number eight is is self-actualization yeah i love that you have that so we're not great yeah so we're not kidding around about this stuff and we find when we do that and with technology now it's much easier to do it because it's easier to give them tools so they can be entrepreneurs so they can be self-starters and now we're fine i mean every meeting now i'm the first thing i want to tell okay what are the innovations where are they coming from and they're coming from frontline people doing the work i mean not from you not from the leader no well in a matter of fact what i do if i get an idea of what we ought to do okay we want to make this acquisition or we need this strategy or something the first thing i do is say okay i got the concept and this is the popper's theory of the scientific methods true science is coming up with a testable proposition and then not going around trying to find things that will support it but go around and find things that will undermine it show the flaws in it and so that's what i we i get a group of people who together for on all the the different drivers of success with this venture i have in mind to point out the flaws from their perspective and we always come up with a better answer than i started with and so this empowers everybody and then every supervisor is supposed to help each employee find their gift and then when they find their gift then work with them to design a role around that rather than okay we got these roles we're going to stick you in it and so typically somebody in a roll they're good at half of it and then they struggle with the other you give them feedback and so on that's like if i if i work for an opera company and i was a business manager i might do pretty well but then the tenor got sick and they made me sing tenor they could train me give me feedback till the end of time i would fail and the opera company would fail so that's what we've learned and then give them the tools and the authorities to practice this and get turned on and make innovations were you a baritone i'm a note cone you're no singer you leave that to your wife huh yeah my yeah my daughter i'm curious why emphasize self-actualization so much with your culture in your in your businesses and how else do we learn to self-actualize if we're not looking for it how do we how do we encourage it for someone if they're not looking to grow looking to discover their gifts if they just kind of want to keep doing the thing they've done how do we encourage and cultivate that no that's that's a great question and that goes right to the heart of it what what we all do if we if we've learned a way to do things and it isn't working well we tend to double down what we're gonna do more of this thing that doesn't work the only way people are willing to take the risk and and put in the effort to learn a new way is if you can convince them this is a better way this will make your life better give more meaning to your life you'll be more successful it's worth the effort and so we we recruit on basically two dimensions the first is are you contribution motivated or can we get you to be if you're negatively motivated and you want to get ahead by maneuvering and and showing the other employees are bad or you're better than they are all of that and or are fudging the figures or stuff we've had a boy boy that is poison it's a cancer right it's a it's an absolute boy that's a good way to put it it's an absolute cancer so the first thing is are they contribution motivated and then the second do they have a talent not credentials not where they went to college or if they went to college we couldn't care less do you have a talent that's going to enable us to do a better job of creating value for all our constituencies starting with our customers our employees our suppliers our communities and society as a whole and then to help us continually transform ourselves to do better and better at that um that's a beautiful way of recruiting oh yeah no i we get people here and they get into this and you know we we talk about self-actualization a lot with our employees and they say when they really get the bug and they start innovating and and and getting the the authority to to do more and experiment more try new things wow now my job is fun right i'm loving it rather than drudgery and technology's really helping with that now you can automate and so then they can figure out how to use the automation better and how to do new things and we can stop doing that because we can do it we can cut out two steps now i mean it's fabulous well you can tell i get pumped up about this and then this is the same approach we use in our philanthropic community stand together once again we don't say okay we stand together got all the answers we go find social entrepreneurs who have lived through a problem or been close to a problem whether that's addiction in prison in poverty in a bad education system in a bad school and they found a better way a way to really empower the students rather than turn off turn them off against this this uh one-size-fits-all schooling teach to test stuff to help empower them and the same things and across the board all the key institutions where we're working to find these social entrepreneurs and then empower them to do even more and then to scale because as i said i think earlier that that what's changed societies in the past is whether there are enough of these people who have transformed themselves and become social entrepreneurs and when you get enough of them showing there's a better way showing that the person who's just a worker can have ideas and start a business and do amazing things i mean look at the wright brothers yeah the government was supporting a big project to build airplanes and the wright brothers bicycle mechanics figured it out way before and way cheaper than this well-credentialed effort this is the problem with this top-down stuff you okay think okay we know who's smart and who's not and we're gonna give them the authority to do it the rest of you just shut up and go do your work and we'll feed you some stuff and we find you don't know in advance look at einstein he wasn't accepted at university he became a patent clerk you could go through example through example through history and that's what's so fabulous and this is why i'm so excited as i see this every time i see somebody becoming empowered and transforming their lives okay this is validation of my whole life yeah and i can't tell you the number of former employees who've who have either written me or come in to see me and say that what i learned here and and what not more than just learning it academic but actually practicing and seeing that focusing on creating value for others rather than always what's in it for me because if you help others they're going to help you absolutely if you don't help others everybody wants you to fail when you're helping them they want you to win so you develop this culture of mutual benefit and mutual assistance i love it you're speaking my language you're talking about the wright brothers i'm from i'm from a small town in ohio so you're speaking close to home to me there talking about personal growth personal development within a workplace what are the what are the main keys to self-actualization starting with believing in yourself and how does someone believe in themselves when all they do is doubt all the time they find okay and that's the way i was yeah so it took me 20 years and that's why we wrote this book to help it not take 20 years for people so we need schools to or be oriented we need businesses to be oriented and the way they do it is they have some success wow if i when they see other people wow who weren't doing well and they got in the right role and and with the right supervisor who's helping empower them and so it's bottom-up empowerment yeah that's what social entrepreneurship is all about like scott strode who was an addict and for 10 years and he found by going to the gym and others there who had the problem and they helped each other and he says well i'm going to set up an organization to do this and it's called the phoenix i mean which is rising it's tremendous success rate i think it's doubled the success rate of any other method that we're aware of wow for for healing addiction and it's this combination of community and mutual support and they go on hikes they do rock climbing together they'll do boxing together do gymnastics together so that people can see they can do it right and then there are people there to help them not just talk about it but do it that's that's the key and do it in a community and then you have a support community who's really supporting you to go out and live yeah not just exist yeah so so believing in yourself is the first thing and really finding your gift and then finding success within your gift will help you believe in yourself more what's a what's another main key to self-actualization well it's having it's having mentors having having people these social entrepreneurs who are dedicated to empowering you it's like chad hauser i don't know what you've read about him the all these are in the book yep he was very successful chef and restaurant owner and he he came in touch with some of these kids in the juvie who were called throwaway kids and he said that that's offensive to me nobody is throw away he said so i'm going to create a restaurant totally staffed by these kids wow after they get out of juvie and i'm going to show them that they can succeed and then what what will happen when people come there and they get great service great food and a great atmosphere from these throwaway kids then it changes their mindset and so you open people's minds and that's that's how society's changed we've got to show a better way and so we have that in area after area going on and we just need to scale it yeah and celebrate it more so more and more people see this because we find as you can see people who endorse this book it isn't just one group it's people across from all walks of life all different persuasions yeah i'm not sure how accurate this is but i think i read online that forbes lists you as a 11th richest person in the world i'm sure that goes up and down how does someone i don't believe it i don't believe how does someone stay humble of being having that much money and being on a list of whether it's 11 or 100 or whatever how does how do you stay humble when you've accumulated so much wealth and built a company with 130 000 employees around the world how do you do that well i i'm like martin luther here i stand i can do no other to me the first person you've got to please is yourself and all this external stuff oh you had all this money you've accomplished all this well big deal what i'm interested is what i'm going to accomplish tomorrow am i going to help somebody tomorrow it's what maslow said is that to self-actualize there has to be synergy a merger of the selfish and unselfish that is you okay i'm gonna dedicate my life to helping others improve theirs but i'm gonna focus people on where there's a spirit of mutual benefit and it may just be my own self-worth that's benefiting but that's i mean that's all i need now i don't i don't need more money or anything i need but i need money to to better help people become empowered so that's how i use it look all the criticism i get you think i'm doing all this stuff so i can get praise well i found it doesn't get your praise people are threatened by it or they're envious or whatever all you get is more attacks but we're also finding as people learn this works and if they do it they feel better about themselves and they have a better life it's what victor frankel said ever more people have the means to live but no meaning to live for or bob dylan said those not busy being born or busy dying so if you're just sitting around counting your money i mean what's that about that's not a lie how do you handle all the criticism and attacks and judgments about decisions you make or are going to make how do you personally internalize and not allow it consume your self-worth i internalize uh karl popper's scientific method and that is you you want criticism now you you would hope that it would all be constructive to help it but i realize a lot of it is just try to shut me down shut me up and go hide in the corner somewhere that doesn't seem to work for him but but even then even then when they're attacking okay why are they attacking and so i'd like it maybe we can find common ground like with van jones he led the demonstration against our first event in palm springs i mean he was out there physically leading it and he hated this and so when we started working on criminal justice reform we were looking for people across the spectrum that would work with and he was interested in it so we approached him and he says yeah i'll i mean like like frederick doll united with anybody to do right i'll even work with you and so he became good partners with our general counsel who is leading our effort in there and they were on tv together telling what a great partnership we had and he said on that he said i used to think all the people on the other side of these issues were evil of issues that i was passionate about and everybody on my side was good he said i find good and evil people on both sides there are good people on the other side they just have a different perspective on how to help people so that doesn't make them evil that means we should work together put our heads together because different ideas i as i say i find all the time complementary capabilities you share ideas and you come up with a better solution that's how innovations are made i mean that's what newton said if i see feathers because i'm standing on the shoulders of giants he said i didn't invent all this stuff i found new ways to put it together i love this you're you're in the flow before we continue this video make sure to subscribe below and turn on the notification bell right now so you don't miss out on these great videos every single day [Music] i've never borrowed money or raised money but you talk about the importance of getting cash when you already making a lot of money why should someone like myself or a business owner get a lot of credit get cash out even if they're already thriving and doing well they've got cash in the bank what's the importance of that well everybody does different things and you got to do with what you're comfortable with and and and i've always been comfortable with borrowing money but but but i talk but that's also my success because the way you look at every unless you're a tech baby again the world was created because of leverage finance okay there's the reason that you had you know all the tech companies and the media companies and and the great big casinos in vegas the things that cost billions of dollars a lot of money you did it with leverage finance with my good friend in california michael milken really came up with but that's why there was such an explosiveness in the 80s because of leverage finance i've always been scared of debt but i haven't been scared of debt i never had a problem with using it but i talk in my book is this is the problem that we all do is say you you have a small business and you want to go out and and borrow some money and you do a performer for the bank a budget you know to keep it simple for people people always give a budget that is the best case scenario and they start to drink their own kool-aid and think that's what they're going to do well one of the things that objections in three and what i've always done is i've done that for the bank but even today in a deal that i bought last week i want a worst case scenario the world's coming apart okay and all of a sudden all your expensive counts are gone and are people still going to eat steaks and i run a budget and a performer based on that wow so best case scenario worst case scenario because you know what happens 80 of the time the worst case scenario really yes that's just life right and and and and that's a tool that i've always used because you what happens is they give that to the bank or to whoever and all of a sudden you start drinking your own kool-aid like that's easy to do it's not easy to do being successful in business is not easy yeah but that's why i talk about just simple tools in here when harper collins came to me they didn't say we want a life story we see you on your show we see you on these business talk shows we read these articles we want you to write about your tools why you've never failed and you've made it through all these recessions whether you're a carpet person or or you're an entrepreneur why did you get to go like this it never really went like this right right so i want to go back to your family for a second is there anything that you do with your kids like a ritual or a gratitude practice or something over a dinner table or is there anything you say to them at night maybe not anymore because they're more grown up but when you're when they were growing up was there something you said to them every night or every morning or was there a practice that you had as a father with your kids i i never did i've never i've never been one to try to make my kids something that they aren't and so you're going to play baseball or you're going to take piano lessons or or you're going to we've always kind of let them do whatever they wanted to do but at the same time you know i've taught them it's nice to be important it's more important to be nice and and i've taught them even today i just said y'all have learned they've learned a lot too where i'm very observant they've learned a lot by watching other families that have money and and i've told them you see what all these people do they go and the next generations become recluses and really don't want to be bothered because they don't want people asking them and and and they've lost their power and their juice okay y'all can have this power and juice in this city and this state and this country for the next 100 years don't give it up don't become a recluse just because oh you don't have to do something every day and and stay relevant sure so many rich families you go look at all your great wealthy wealthy families and look at the generations below them that just kind of live in a cave live off the or yeah and they're not relevant anymore why is it important to stay relevant i just think it's important to stay relevant i think it's it's relevant to to to continue philanthropy and give back to your community and there's nothing wrong with being a leader in your community and just because i i'm still on boards that i was on you know 10 15 years ago and and and uh it's just well now that i'm i'm worth a few billion dollars i should change why should i change my ego that oh well you shouldn't be on the better business bureau board that's no big deal that's when you're up and coming you know or i've just never changed i just i've just never changed you've evolved but you're 100 but i'll you know i'll still be in this in this dining room and if i see something i don't like i don't have a problem with going over there and telling the busboy hey remember those people there they deserve that table where their feet go just as clean as the table on top you know i don't i've never changed you know i'm not going to embarrass them but i don't have any problem in talking to people and and training people today how long you married for uh 30 years 30 years is that a that's a true question pop quiz 30 years do you think you'd be where you are today in business without being married to your wife for 30 years uh i think a wife is very important and very supportive uh pro you know you could easily be married to a wife that wanted to go out and spend money and you didn't put the money back in your business and uh uh paige always was very supportive of everything i never once was not supportive really not one time wow do you think you'd be where you're at today without that marriage without that relationship i don't know i just know she was always very supportive to support him that's great that's great now what is the thing that is missing in your life because it seems like you have everything you've got the family you've got the businesses you've got your sports franchise now i mean honestly nothing honestly nothing you know honestly nothing i have to you know i'm very fortunate but i know that too though i mean uh you always want more you're always working on the next deal you but but but i cannot complain i mean uh but as we all know there's a paddle for everybody's ass every day yeah and is there anything you're afraid of fear nothing but worry about everything yeah beer nothing though i love this uh i've got a few questions left for you and this has been really inspiring is your show on still or because not not this year and london i know but the problem is and you should understand this with production and everything is they they want to shoot 12 shows because you bring the crews together and the first year i shot six shows and then we shot 12 shows and then we shot 12 shows and so they want to shoot 12 and i want to shoot six yeah i just can't give up four months and then another and then the fifth month going back and re-editing and green screen so it truly takes a lot of work it is truly full-time basically you know four days a week for for for five months and yeah i love going to the basketball games and all of a sudden i'm sitting here playing the lakers of the clippers at home this year and i have to be on the other end of the united states you know to shoot a show so yeah so i'll do six but i'm not doing twelve yeah i hear you it's a great show though if you guys want to go watch out ninja it's a lot of fun you do an amazing job of educating the viewer of how to run business it is simple that's but that's the gift that god gave me he didn't give me a lot of other talents but he gave me knowing numbers i love it uh i want you to that's one of my final questions uh i want you to imagine that it's your last day on earth far off from the future okay it could be 100 years it could be 200 it could be whatever but you get to choose the day that you get to die right you get to choose the day that you move on and imagine that you've accomplished everything you want every dream you have now or later you've accomplished it you own the league you own every league whatever it is you want to do you own every restaurant you've created it you see your family grow and flourish you see everything you want but for whatever reason you can't leave any of the messages you put out to the world behind you have to take all your messages and all your work with you so there's nothing left for people to see that you've created in the world just hypothetical uh but imagine you get to leave behind three lessons to the world three things that are your truths that you know to be true for you that would be lessons that you would want to leave behind and this is all people would have as access to your information lessons that you would share with the world what would you say are three truths that you have um always try to do the right thing um always never give up you know don't you find out what what take out the never give up always do the right thing find out what you're good at and i don't care if if you're an interviewer or the greatest chef or whatever find out what you truly enjoy doing and do it it's not always about just making money but take that god-given talent that he gave you because i believe everybody has a talent that they're better at some by at that than the majority of the other people okay and and and then probably uh third just remember you can always separate yourself from everybody else if you want to if you're looking for more greatness in your life make sure to check out this video right here and also check out our free pdf the three secrets to unlock the power of your mind to help you change your life download it right here

Channel: Lewis Howes

Views: 147,526

Keywords: Lewis Howes, Lewis Howes interview, school of greatness, self help, self improvement, self development, personal development, success habits, success, wealth, motivation, inspiration, inspirational video, motivational video, success principles, millionaire success habits, how to become successful, success motivation, billionaire habits you can copy, simple habits for self mad success, ray dlaio, john paul dejoria, sara blakely, millionaire habits, success advice

Id: 732WjjVn35w

Length: 122min 16sec (7336 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 28 2020