One of the things that I really learned from many different mentors is having recurring revenue streams. So I have, over the last few years, set up my business to have multiple reoccurring revenue streams. I think you gotta have a dream.

The school of greatness. Yeah. Please welcome, Melissa Pout.

For those that don't know my story about 12 years ago I didn't have any money. I had no clue how to make money. I had some odd jobs here and there. I was a truck driver for a few months. I was a bouncer at a night club on the weekends. And I really wasn't making much money. Maybe $1,000 a month, in between one career playing arena football and then transitioning into the rest of my life. And I didn't know how to make money.

I was afraid of money. I wasn't an entrepreneur. I didn't think people would give me money. I was scared to talk about it. And I'm letting you know that if that feels like any of that feels like you that there is room for growth and improvement and I'm gonna talk about some of these habits that can support you in your life. And I want you to get a a piece of paper and a pen, take some notes or at least take some mental notes and let me know your thoughts on the things you're learning as well over on social media. And one of the first questions that I wanna talk about is what shift in your life that helped you go from broke to actually having money? And the biggest thing for me was overcoming the fear of money. And I didn't understand how money worked.

I just was like okay my parents paid for things. You know there was food on the table. The the house was paid for. The rent every month. I just showed up into the world and I had no understanding of how to make money, the language around money, accounting, saving, investing. I just didn't know. And so I was afraid of it. I was afraid of it and the things we fear we usually wanna run away from.

So if you don't understand it, if you don't have a sense of peace when you hear about money and we talk about money when money is in your hands. If you feel afraid, then why would more money come to you? So some of the things that that I did and I recommend doing is number 1, is to surround yourself with people that have more money than you. Usually when you're around people that have it, you can start to learn okay what are they doing differently that allows them to get money? You can ask those questions. And number 2 would be to talk about it consistently. And I just remember I didn't talk about it much because I was afraid about it. So if you start having conversations it doesn't become as scary anymore. You can have more peace of mind, more ease the more you talk about it. When you resist something, when you don't wanna talk about something you're saying I don't want this in my life.

I'm afraid of this so I'm not gonna talk about it. Or we don't talk about these things because it's private conversations. It's private to me personally. So if you're hoarding something that's private to you as opposed to being open and flowing and talking about it consistently then it's gonna be harder for money to come and go into your life. So you want to be willing to have conversations consistently and talk about it. Number 3 would be to read about it. Learn about it. Money is a language.

The terminology, the way people communicate about it is a language just like the English language, just like playing a sport, just like working at a company. There's languages and terminologies that people use in different areas of their life. And money is no different. So you wanna learn about as much as you can. Read books about it. At the end of this I'll talk about some of my favorite books that I have right here that I'll go into about money and how to earn more and how to attract more money in your life. But I started to consume a lot of books. I started to listen to podcasts, watch videos and just try to learn from people who were already making money and hear the language.

And even today, there are still terms that I don't fully understand around money. They're still part of the language that I don't get that I don't fully understand so I'm constantly learning at different levels and different seasons of my life. Number 4. A mentor of mine early on said his name is Chris Hawker. I said, I was doing like an internship for him for a number of months. And after a while I was sick and tired of being broke and I wasn't making any money. And I said, man I could really use some money right now. And he said money comes to you when you're ready for it.

And I always remember this line because we were going on a walk and I remember the feeling of overwhelm and stress and not having enough to pay for things and feeling like, you know, am I ever gonna make any money? Is it ever gonna come to me? And he said money comes to you when you're ready for it. And I remember saying vividly I was like I feel pretty ready to make some money right now. Like I could use this money, like it help me like pay for rent and food and have more opportunities. I can't buy clothes, gas, money, all this stuff. And looking back a couple years later after that, I realized that I wasn't ready for it then. I needed it but I wasn't ready for the abundance of money to start coming in because I wasn't educated enough. I didn't know how to manage money. I was afraid of it.

I wasn't talking about it. I wasn't doing these things I just talked about. And so therefore, if money came to me, I would probably do the wrong things with it. I wouldn't know how to invest it. I would spend it poorly. Or maybe I would hoard it because I'd be so afraid, but I wouldn't know how to let it flow in and out of my life. And so money comes to you when you're ready for it. And it means you've gotta be prepared for it.

You've gotta learn about it before it comes to you. You gotta study it. You gotta talk about it. You gotta do those things. And the the 5th thing would be to learn how to earn it, spend it and invest it to work for you. And when you're just starting out it's gonna be hard to do that. You're not gonna know, well how do I invest this when I'm only making a little bit every month. But at least learning about investing.

Learning about what's the best way to spend my money. You know people earn it and then they spend it on dumb things. They spend it on things they think are smart but they're not the best things. So you just wanna learn as much as you can in the process and that'll support you in really setting yourself up for the next step. And the next question is what mindsets around money did you have to overcome? And one of the big things for me was am I worthy of money? Do I deserve money in my life? Am I a good enough human for money to come to me? And I think am I enough is something that so many of us ask ourselves or we've asked ourselves at different moments in life. Am I enough for this relationship? Am I enough for this opportunity? Am I enough for this job? For this this accomplishment? Am I enough? Do I belong? Do I fit in? And so realizing that you are worthy is one of the biggest things that I had to overcome in terms of I've never made money and now how am I gonna start making money. It's realizing that I'm worthy of receiving it. And I also had to overcome the challenge of would anyone ever pay me for skills that I don't have? When I was transitioning from 23, 24 year old from football into kind of the the business and career workforce, I didn't know what skills I had.

So the limiting belief of would anyone give me money for a skill that I don't have. I don't know what they are so I have to figure out what they are or I have to develop new skills. I also had a mindset that was I'm too young. Why would anyone pay me if I'm too young, I'm too inexperienced, I'm not qualified, etcetera. These were all limiting beliefs that held me back early on. But when you can flip these things into I'm too young, but I have energy. I have youth. I have passion.

Something that maybe older people don't have. And when you use it to your advantage and not your disadvantage that's when you can really start to accelerate things. So I'm not experienced but I'm more passionate than anyone else. I'm willing to try new things. I'll say yes to anything to gain the experience. Or someone else with a lot of experience will probably say no to a lot of things because they've already worked their way to get there. I'm not qualified. Well I'm not qualified but I'm willing to take on multiple different projects to get qualified.

I'm willing to do what it takes to gain the skills. So having that energy, that willingness, that passion, that hunger, people are inspired by that. People wanna have people on their team. They wanna hire people in that position. So make sure that you figure out what your limiting beliefs are and use them towards your advantage not your disadvantage but those were some for me. Next question is what do you do differently now than when you were poorer that makes you more money? And one of the things that I really learned from many different mentors is having recurring revenue streams. So I have over the last few years set up my business to have multiple reoccurring revenue streams and I didn't have this for the 1st 6 or 7 years. It all relied on me showing up every day selling something to earn money and then paying the team, paying the expenses.

But it all relied on me showing up every day, every week, every month to sell something to then bring in money to help pay for things. And it's hard if it's all relying on you every single day to help pay for everything. So instead I started transitioning our business to make money to be able to take care of our team and the expenses so I don't have to be the only one that is relied on to earn revenue and bring it in. And we did that through setting up reoccurring revenue streams in our business. Things like the podcast, things like YouTube, things like a membership sites, things like a coaching program that has reoccurring payments and these reoccurring revenue streams, they rely on me to create but more from an evergreen place Not from a place of I need to do this now today in order to generate sales, in order to generate revenue. So how can I spend my time today so that we generate revenue consistently based on those efforts? And that's just something that took time. It took time for me to develop skills, to get experience, to build confidence, to make mistakes in order to figure out how to do that. And that's I think something that people would wanna learn about in the future.

So what are the best investments that I've made? The the best investment is always the ones in myself and back into my business. I've made multiple different investments in in lots of different ways that never worked out. And if you wanna hear another episode about all the investments I made that were bad investments, then let me know in the comments below if you want me to do a solo episode on what not to invest in, and we'll we'll do that. But the ones that have always paid off are the ones in I've invested in building team, building tools for my team, building investing in software and things to automate things within our team. Anything investing back in our team at greatest media, that has always been a great investment because it allows us to reach more people, allows us to help and impact more lives and allows us to generate more revenue for the business. So I can continue to pay the team, pay myself and build the mission. That's number 1, putting in a business. The second thing is like really back into myself and I think this is the greatest investment you can always do is back into yourself.

So health being number 1. Without health it's hard to build wealth because there's some type of saying out there that a wealthy man has a million problems. A sick man has one problem. And when you're sick, nothing else matters except for how do I get healthy? How do I get back on my feet? How do I get rid of this disease, this sickness, this thing that's holding me back? The other problems in the world don't matter until you get your health right. If your health is not right, that's gonna be the only thing. So for me I'm investing in nutritionist. I'm investing in coaching and trainers for my health and wellness for my physical body. I'm investing in quality foods, organic foods.

I'm at a stage where I can invest in those things now but when I was younger I was investing in ramen noodles and ice cream. You know that was like all I could afford. So now it's optimizing health and thinking about that. I'm investing in skills. For me, I'm all about how can I maximize more skills because the more skills I have, the more potential I can connect with other people? I can relate to other people. I can build my business in that way as well. And it's just more fun and enjoyable enjoyable for me. And I think a rich life comes down to more than financial riches.

It comes down to having a rich fulfilling life doing the things that you enjoy. Doing the things that that bring you more love, that bring you more fulfillment, that that inspire you, that make you feel more alive. For me, that's a rich life. And just having money and not having that is a poor life. So So I'm thinking about how can I enrich myself with activities, hobbies, adventures, magical moments that bring me more joy, that bring me more freedom, fulfillment because that is where the riches lie personally for me? So skills that I'm investing in. Going back into salsa dancing classes. Spanish lessons cause I really wanna learn Spanish. Learning about businesses, learning new ideas about investing like skills that excite me, that that light me up.

Investing in friends and loved ones. Whether it be just taking a friend out for lunch or coffee and investing financially with with that there by paying for the tab and also investing my time and energy into them and loved ones. Taking care of the people when I can when it works for me as well. And then also I like to invest in experiences and adventures. I was thinking about this last night with a friend of mine. I was reflecting on travels of my past and I was like wow, I've really been to a lot of countries. I've really experienced so many different cool moments in my life because I invested in travel, I invested in experiences, I invested in trips and adventures with good people. And it's cool to be able to have these memories and be able to experience these moments on a consistent basis.

So that's what I like to invest in personally for me. Next question is what are the 3 most important things to do to start building wealth? Something I wanna always go back to is surround yourself with a mentor who's done it and learn from them. It's really hard to do something that you've never done before without having a model or a mentor who can guide you. Or at least someone you can watch from afar and learn from. You can watch their content or YouTube or books or something. It's hard to do it on your own if you don't have that. So I really try to surround myself with the people who are the masters of the skills that I'm trying to learn, who are masters in business if I'm trying to build my business and and learn more from them because they're at a place that I'm not at yet. So I wanna surround myself with them and then learn and apply it.

The second thing would be to create a game plan with structure and processes around how to build your wealth from these mentors, from this information you're learning from. So really get clear on okay what is it that I want and why do I want this? Whether it's a financial goal or any type of goal in your life, you wanna get clear on what you want, why you want it, and then put a date around a goal of when you wanna accomplish that goal. For me, that will allow you to have structure. It'll allow you to have time and space to create and reflect on. It allow you to have moments where you can create processes in place. It allow you to break down goals. It allow you to see what's working, what's not, all these different things. But if you just say I wanna make more money and you don't have a date, you don't have a game plan behind it, it's gonna be hard to accomplish that.

So really create a structure around learning this and give yourself some time and space to grow. And the third thing would be, I just think it's so important for me, it's so important to be joyful and service focused. Joyful and service focused. When you're trying to build wealth, or trying to generate more revenue for your business, people wanna be around those who are joyful. No one wants to be around someone who is negative, someone with low energy, someone who is distracted, someone who is complaining. No one wants to be around that person They want to be around positive energy Joy Someone who's happy, grateful. Now you're not gonna be this all the time but I'm telling you the more you can be in that space the more you will find financial opportunities coming your way. So it's it's kinda like the pre step, the pre habit to all the habits of of building wealth and the millionaire mind is coming from a place of joy.

Even when you have nothing because there are people that I wanna be around. There's people that I've met in the past who have nothing but they bring joy to the moment. And I'm like I wanna be around that girl. I wanna be around that guy because they just bring more energy to maybe a challenging day. If you have joy it's one of the greatest currencies you can have. Even if you don't have other skills you don't have opportunities to bring someone. Joy can be your your ticket, The key to unlocking the door to riches. And so thinking about I think it was Zig Ziglar who said if you wanna accomplish your goals find a way to help everyone else accomplish their goals.

I'm paraphrasing this here. But find a way to help everyone else accomplish their goals and by doing so it will come back to you. You'll be surrounded by the right people to help you accomplish your goals. Another question is how can someone 10 x their income if they run their own business? And you want to think about these key things. Increasing your prices, increasing your prospects, increasing products, increasing process, and increasing your personal brand. So if you've got a business right now and you've got a product or a service, the first thing you can think about is of these five things. How can I increase my rates? How can I increase my price on this product or this service? That's a way you can start earning more right there. Is your product amazing? Can you make it better? If so, then you can increase your prices.

Is it getting incredible results for people? Awesome. Increase your prices. Is your coaching or consulting helping people? You over delivering? Awesome. Think about increasing your prices. Number 2, prospects. This is how are you getting more leads to come in to sell your products or services? So you gotta think about how can I increase my prospects? If you want more results, you need more people to be aware about you. Number 3, increasing products. Maybe you've only got one offering right now.

Can you offer something else to reach a different demographic? Maybe people can't afford a certain price you're at but they could afford something a little bit lower. Or maybe there's a tier up that you could charge for people and right now you're only offering a lower number but you should be charging something else for a different service or product. So increasing the amount of products in your product suite can support you in 10xing your business. Number 3, the process. If you haven't optimized the process for your business. Meaning how can I streamline things? How can I save time? How can I get software and tools to support me in automating things so that I can invest my time back in prospects, back in products etcetera? And start thinking about how can I optimize the process for myself and for my team? Number 5, I've got one more for 6. Number 5 is is increasing your personal brand because the evidence is showing more and more that people with CEO's with personal brands or individual personal brands in general are more trustworthy and more likely to get opportunities. So finding ways to build your personal brand.

Whether that's creating free content online, showcasing your skills and talents. Whether that's doing collabs with people. Whatever it might be but putting your personal brand out there with your wisdom, with your information, with your knowledge, with your skills, with your talent, with your teaching, building your personal brand. And I'd say the 6th thing if I was gonna add one more thing there is increasing the quality of the people you're surrounded by. The people on your team. So we've got prices, prospects, product, process and personal brand. And then the 6th thing would be building a quality team of people around you and making sure that the people are supporting this as well. As we have increased our team our opportunities for growth has come financially as well.

And that takes time, that takes energy, that takes training, it takes you know onboarding, teaching, all these things but that process alone by bringing in great people will support you in your growth. Next question. If someone is an employee, how can they start to make more money? Well I really like to think about the first thing is here. What's the value you're bringing to the current company that you're with? If you're creating a current value right now, can you approach the leadership team or the CEO or your boss and say hey listen, I've been here for a certain amount of time and here's the value I've created. I would like to create a game plan for creating more value and creating bigger results. Results that can save the company money, results that can make the company money or save the company time. And here's my game plan. So you taking the time because usually when you go to a job, you're gonna get a set rate and you're expected to get results that you're paid for that rate.

So you gotta go above and beyond to really be considered for a raise and or a significant raise for most companies. And what I would do is say listen, I really value my time here. I love what I'm creating here. I love where I'm at but I wanna grow and I wanna help this company grow with me showing you how I can create more value in this process. And then give a game plan to your boss or your leadership team or whoever and say here's what I'd like to create. Here's what I propose. I propose I step into this role. I step into this new role where I could get a raise and here are the results that I could create for the business.

Here's how it's gonna make the business more money, here's how it's going to save time, and here's how it's going to save money. If you can show that you can do all three of those things with a clear game plan and you can actually execute it without taking more resources necessarily or time of the the leadership team or your boss or whoever it might be. That will set you up for a greater chance of earning more if you're working for a company right there. Showing that you care, showing that you wanna do just more than the bare minimum will set you up for success in that way. But you've gotta be the one to take charge to make that proposal. You've gotta be the one to step up and say here I've got the game plan mapped out. Here's what I'm thinking. I wanna go do it.

Let me test it for 3 months. And if we get these specific results then I'd love to be rewarded or considered for a raise or considered a bonus whatever it might be. So that's something I would think about right there is really approaching that and I don't know if most employees are thinking about it that way. But if you can think about how can I earn help the company earn more, save more time or save more money then you should definitely be considered for that? And I want you to think about like consulting at nights on the weekends. Listen you've got your full time thing and that's bringing your full time check that's great. So you've got extra time at nights and on the weekends. So if you wanna earn more you've gotta be putting in extra time of thinking about okay how can I use my skills, how can I use my knowledge, how can I use my collaboration skills, whatever it might be to either consult, to coach, to launch a product or a side hustle, and to start earning more on the side? All things take time and you gotta build your personal brand, you gotta build your contacts, you gotta build your content, whatever it might be that your skill is in and start doing that at nights and on the weekends if you wanna earn more. How can I use the law of attraction to build wealth? Well, another one of my mentors said that the the world makes room for passionate people.

The world makes room for passionate people. So how do you wanna use the law of attraction to build wealth? Is to be passionate. Is to be joyful like we talked about before. I'm really clear on setting my intention in a daily basis. When I wake up, I say thank you. I say thank you for another day because we don't know if we're gonna wake up tomorrow. We don't know. We we hope.

We we've woken up for so many years for now so we assume it's gonna happen, but we just don't know. And there are people that will go to bed tonight that won't wake up tomorrow. In the world, this will happen. We don't know. It could be me. It could be you. And we don't know. And every breath we take right now is closer to our last breath we will ever take.

So I really think about my intention in the morning. Thank you, I'm here another day. I get to help someone else today. I get to make an impact today. I get to use my skills and talents with where I'm at in my life right now to make a difference. Whether that's smiling at someone, whether that's giving someone a hug, or using your skills to support someone in their life. So set your intention and think about it daily and act on it daily and let people know what your dream is in the process of helping them. So when you're clear on your intention and every morning you think about it, you're thinking about it.

I like to write down my goals, I hang them up so I'm looking at my goals. They're in my eyesight so I'm not distracted thinking about everything else. And then daily acting on it. Set your intention, think about it, look at it, daily action and while you're supporting other people accomplish their goals you let them know what your dreams are in that process. For me that's the recipe. That's the recipe for the law of attraction and and attracting things by you thinking it, looking at it, acting on it daily. And then while you're helping other people through your skills and talents, you're talking about what your goals are, what your dreams are that you've been acting on daily. Not just, oh this is something I wanna do in the future and I'm thinking about it and and I haven't done anything for years about it.

But you're actually putting in the work on a daily basis to build reps, to build material, to build skills and to build confidence. That's something to think about on the law of attraction. We also have a number of videos and interviews about wealth and the law of attraction. So if you're over on YouTube right now, make sure to check out. We should have some stuff linked up where you can see more videos on the law of attraction and generating wealth for your life. Next question is what are the best books to learn about making money? There are a number of books that I like and I actually had a a few books on my bookshelf. These aren't all the books that I would recommend. There's definitely more but I just wanna share a few of them that I have here on my shelf that I really like.

The first one is Think and Grow Rich. If you haven't checked out this book yet, make sure you check it out. I do this thing it's got timeless wisdom and some great stuff. This is a book I read when I had no money. And I went through this and there was some incredible ideas that just helped me overcoming the fear of money. Help me overcome help me understand money a little bit more from a philosophical understanding. So this helped me take action, it helped me get clear, it helped me think differently, it helped me overcome fears. So think and grow rich is definitely one that I recommend.

The richest man in Babylon, this one has sold millions of copies. I think it's a great story again to help you being more inspired. So the Richest Man in Babylon. I really like this. This is a big book but I read this thing cover to cover and for me it's hard for me to finish a book cover to cover. But I was really inspired because, like I said, there's a language about money that can be daunting, that can be confusing, that can be scary because you don't know what these words are in the terminology in our languages. This book by Tony Robbins, money master the game, the 7 simple steps to financial freedom freedom. I've done an interview with Tony on this book.

We'll link it up somewhere so you can go check that out as well. But this was a powerful interview that I did where Tony dives in deeper about this. So I recommend getting the book but it's like I don't know 600 something pages. So you can start with the video or the episode first on the audio or YouTube but this is a game changer. It's really teaching you about how to invest your money in a powerful way so so that you can be financially free for the rest of your life with the right investment strategies. Really good one. I like that a lot. Money, master the game.

This is by my friend David Bach. David Bach's got a number of New York time bestsellers, but this is a short, book, his most recent book called The Latte Factor, Why You Don't Have TO BE Rich TO Live Rich. And I think this kind of goes into what I was talking about at the beginning of this episode where for me a rich life is not about having all the money in the world. Having all the money in the world can solve a lot of problems but it doesn't solve every problem. It can pay for your rent, it can pay for trips, it can pay for nice things and food, it can help people, you can pay for your health insurance bills like it can do things to definitely help you in a big way. But it doesn't mean you have a rich life if you have a lot of money. Doesn't mean that. There is someone I I live in a building here in Los Angeles and there's someone who committed suicide last year who is reportedly worth 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars who is so well connected in Hollywood, connected to presidents and looked like he had it all.

Had all the money, had the success, had the fame. For whatever reason, he committed suicide and it just made me reflect that like there might be some stuff inside of us that if we don't feel rich inside, it doesn't matter how rich we are on the outside. And this is all about why you don't have to be rich to live rich. And I think if you can understand this principle first about building the riches within you Not thinking about how can I create wealth outside? But when you build it on the inside first then when you have it you can understand it more. It doesn't consume you, it doesn't control you, it doesn't manipulate you, it doesn't own you. Because I've seen it for too many people that money becomes an obsession that then owns them and controls them. You hear the term more money more problems. This is real if you don't know how to manage it.

This is also why some people sabotage themselves because I make a lot of money then everyone has their hand out and says give me give me give me give me. I want money. Can you help me here? You've got it. So why can't you just pay this 5,000 from here? 10,000 here? Can you pay off my debt? Can you pay for this? Can you pay for this? And it becomes overwhelming because people feel like they're getting taken advantage of. It feels like they're being used and abused. They feel like people are only in their life because they have money. And so this is why some people become, you know, jerks or distant or whatever they might be going through because they don't feel like your relationship or your connection with them is coming from appreciation or from true friendship. And that's a challenging thing.

So you've gotta understand if you don't have money and someone who does have it and you're acting and you're saying well why aren't they doing this and why aren't they doing that and why are they acting weird? Because they probably have everyone asking them for something as opposed to asking them, you know what? How are you doing today? How are you feeling? What can I do for you? Everyone's always asking what can they do for them? Right? They always want something from them. So you gotta be aware of that. Make sure you build a rich life from within a like David Bach's book. Again he's got many other great books around money, but this one is a recent one that I really like that was on my shelf. These last 2 that I have on my shelf that I like that I pulled off, both these guys have interviewed. We've got Ryan Serhant, Big Money Energy, How TO Rule at Work, Dominate at Life and Make Millions. Guys don't know Ryan Serhant, make sure to check him out. Just did a full interview about him in this book.

Again, it kinda goes back into big money energy. The energy you bring to deal making, to getting a job, to building a business. Like the energy you bring to attracting. Talk about the law of attraction and it really is an energy thing. It stems from your attention, your joy, your level of passion, your level of enthusiasm, your positivity. That's where the rich life starts. If you have nothing but you have big energy, that's a rich life and that's where you can start to attract financial riches as well. So check out big money energy and then I saw Chris Hogan, Everyday Millionaires.

How ordinary people built extraordinary wealth and how you can as well. He surveyed a bunch of millionaires and learned about the strategies they used to generate their millions and he talks about this in this book. We did a full interview with him as well, everyday millionaires. Wanna check that out. These books are for people at different stages. You know, maybe you don't wanna start with Tony Robbins if you have no money to even invest. This might be okay, I've got some money. I need to learn how to invest.

What should I do with it? So check out the books based on the stage that you're at. If you're if you're kinda just getting started then I would go back to this one, Think and Grow Rich. So you make sure you check this one out as well. This has sold a lot of copies over the years. And that is my my strategies, my books, my insights and I'll and I'll leave you with this. And also if you want more episodes like this, more solos like this. Then please let us know in the comments over on YouTube, below this video and let us know what topics you'd like me to cover and go into. But here's what I will say, money is definitely an energy and a journey.

Money comes and goes. The more you hold on to it the less more is gonna come to you. The more you're willing to invest it in things and spend it and let it flow, the more will flow to you. So you gotta learn the balance. You don't wanna spend it all the time so you have none. You wanna make sure you're willing to invest it in certain things that make sense. And the more free you feel about it inside, the less scarce you feel about it, the more will come to you and you also just feel more at peace. This takes time.

For me, I didn't have a good relationship with money growing up. I didn't understand it. I didn't get it. I was afraid of it. I was afraid to talk about it because I was ignorant to how it worked. When you learn about how money works which could be a lifelong journey. This isn't just like okay I read a book and I get it now. This is a lifelong journey based on the season of life you're at with your money And at different seasons you're gonna need to learn new lessons.

You're gonna need new mentors and friends to support you in learning about this. You're gonna need new books, new tools to learn about investing, saving, taxes, all these different things are to come to you. Accounting, just dealing with it all. It can seem overwhelming and this is why when things are overwhelming sometimes people don't even wanna look at it. And if you don't understand it, I'm telling you its gonna be hard for it to keep coming your way or you're always gonna feel like you're behind. I'm behind on payments. I'm behind on debt that I gotta pay off and you're never gonna feel caught up. So this is a this is a skill you wanna master.

Money's gonna be a part of your life for the rest of your life for probably 99.9% of the the population and gonna be something you're gonna need to learn how to continue to evolve into understanding. And the more you do that, the more you talk about it in a positive way, the more positive it'll be with you. So think about these things. Leave a comment below of what you thought was the most powerful part about this. And what I wanna do right now is actually add a couple of clips more about wealth, the law of attraction around money, millionaire habits and how you can really start earning more wealth for yourself And the habits of what some of the richest people in the world do right here on the school of greatness. So thank you guys for watching. We'll dive right into these clips right now.

Everything is about the whole intuition part. Right? You're sitting there who you choose to befriend, who you choose to have relationships with

Mhmm.

You know, and how you water those relationships. Because if you wanna have a relationship together, and it's just take take take, nothing's gonna happen. I remember I'm a 24 year old kid. I don't know nothing about business. I've done some stuff in sales, but I really don't know nothing about business. I'm I'm a 22 year old kid. I go and I take this guy. I go to a job interview at the advertising group.

Shout out to Jamie Hebb. And I watch this guy. He interviews me. I'm I'm at that time working on Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, but I'm trying to see what else I wanna do. K? So I got started day before 911, but I'm still interviewing. I sit with him in the interview, and the way he interviewed me, I sat and I said, I will never work for this company because it's just not what I want to do. Because they were selling Xerox machines and, business to business. I said, but I wanna have a relationship with you.

I said, do you mind if I get your business card? He said, yeah. Sure. I said, okay. Great. So he gives me his business card. Year and a half later, I get a job. I'm doing good. At this point, I'm making some income, 23 years old.

I call him up. And I said, Jamie, you don't remember me, but I want to take you out to lunch. And I want to pick your brain if you don't mind. I told you a year and a half ago that I wanted to do this with you, and you said yes. He says great. Let's do it. So we go to Macaroni Macaroni Grill. Someone in Culver City right around here like, Victory Overland.

Some somewhere around that area. So we go there. He brings this drop dead gorgeous girl that works for him. I think her name is Natalia or Natasha or something with Anne. Right? And she's beautiful. Short skirt, perfect legs, flawless, beautiful face. She's sitting right there and I know what he's trying to do. He's trying to woo me to go be one of his sales guys.

And I said, look, with all due respect, you're beautiful. But I have no interest in you. My interest is in you. Is it fair if we just talk business for an hour? He says, yes. So I went. K? Now at this point, he's making a million. I'm making $50 a year. I'm a nobody.

Okay? We have lunch again. I'm taking notes, taking notes, taking notes. I offered to pay. He doesn't let me pay. He pays. He says, I got it. No problem. When I leave, I send him a book.

We had this meeting that we did every 3 to 6 months together at this restaurant, Argentinian restaurant called Bamboo, which they had this beautiful, soup. Every time we would have dinner with them or we'd go to lunch, I would always send them a book. 10 years later, he says every time I meet with Patrick, a book is on its way. Mhmm. Okay? So I value the relationship. I asked him, what do you need from me? Mhmm. How can I bring things to you? Years later, he gives me one referral. That one referral he gave me helped me open up Florida.

If he doesn't give me that referral, that Florida office wouldn't have been opened up. Right? One contact. Opens up a whole state. Okay. So another relationship I can tell you about is I was going to churches, and I said, let me see what's gonna happen with these churches. And I'm going to churches, and I'm going to these different places. I'm having I'm studying Scientology. I'm studying LDS.

I'm studying Jehovah, Judaism. I'm studying everything. At this point in the end, I was obsessed with religion. So all I wanna do is study study study everything about religion. Right? And I'm 2425. I eventually find this church called Shepherded Shepherded Hills, which is ran by a guy named Dudley Rutherford. And I go to this place, and I'm not I'm an I'm an atheist. So it's not like I'm going in there.

I'm just trying to see what's going on over here. Trying to learn. I'm just trying to learn. I'm not trying to do it. I go this place and I'm like, okay. I like this guy's style. It's if you could go to church. If you'll do this, you need all know a hell, any of them.

Dude, I don't need to know I'm going to hell. I know I'm going to hell. I just want another shot in heaven. You know what I'm saying? So this guy's energy was you have a shot out of heaven. Right? I'm okay. Cool.

Alright. How

much this might try out. I feel a little better. Right? I know the screw ups.

I like that. In my

life. Let me see. Maybe I got a shot over here. So I go there, and I'm, sitting in the back. I watch him once, twice, 3 times, 4 times. I'm like, wow. This I like this guy. So then I sent him an email.

A little bit of an arrogant email, but I'll tell you what the email was. I sent him an email and I said, listen. My name is Patrick Babe. You don't know who I am, but I'm gonna be somebody in the world. World.

Mhmm.

And I I know you are somebody in the world, but I promise you if you give me your time, I will always bring value to you. Wow. I will not be waste your time. Okay? I'm not doing anything at that time at 25. I'm I got a small little office operation. Nothing crazy. We go have a lunch together at Black Angus. Black Angus off Canoga or Topanga.

We go to Black Angus. We sit down. We talk. After the meeting is over with us, so what can I do for you? Nothing there. We go out again. What can I do for you? Nothing there. What can I do for you? Nothing there. Eventually, he says something happened with my son at Moore Park Basketball.

And I made a phone call to the coach, and I spoke to the guy And anonymous anonymously because I didn't like the way, this whole situation was handled. He probably doesn't even know the story. I don't know. The people may know, but he may not even know the story. So, so I make the phone call. We get closer. He marries my wife. We we change our wedding to Friday.

It was set up on Saturday to Friday so he can wet us.

Mhmm.

Anyways, in 2,008, 2009. 2,008 he introduces me to Tom Ellsworth. You know how I talked about Tom earlier? Mhmm. He introduced me to Tom. Okay? And Tom comes. Okay. In 2009, he introduced me to Matt Sapala. Matt Sapala and Sheena.

I got introduced to 09. They just got promoted this last week at West Palm Beach to the chief distribution officer, PHP. Right? Mhmm. He is now the CDO. Okay? We've paid him in the 1st 6 months to do over $1,000,000. They're they're doing very good at what they do in the business here. But if I don't have that contact and I water him what his needs are, not what I can take. Yep.

If I give the needs, you I don't have those contacts. So I think too many times when, you know, you build a relationship somebody, it's immediately what can I do, you know, what can I and by by by by the What

can I get from here?

And I remember how you were the first time we met. You know, when we were done, you and I went to Earth Cafe with Jen. And I think we went and looked at some furniture, and there was like a Google shop that we went there. I don't know if you remember that. Yeah.

Yeah. I walked around.

Right across from Earth Cafe. And and you said, Pat, how can I help you? What do you need from me? You know, what can I do for you?

It was on the corner. I Exactly. Exactly.

So we walked around. Babe. She said, yeah, I really like this Lewis guy. I don't like this approach, how he is. That's the dynamic that you don't see behind closed doors. Yeah. People may see School of Greatness. People may see the books, but behind closed doors, the context is about what can I do for you? So you ask 3 things.

I'd say the biggest one is figure out ways to strengthen relationships and take them deeper because you never know. Just like everybody thinks you're, you know, one sale away or one opportunity away, You're one contact away from your life changing. Mhmm. If you start valuing your contact like a book of business

Yeah.

Everything changes.

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

Sure, yeah.

Does that cover those kind of 3 things? And I think when you think about people that aren't making the money that they want and don't have a rich life, whether that be quality of life, they probably aren't discerning their decisions and being intuitive about who they should spend time with. They aren't researching more ideas and expanding their mind and they aren't giving in those relationships. I would agree with that.

Yeah. I I would agree with that. And I think sometimes it's also not knowing what something could lead into. You know, a guy one time came into Morgan Stanley Dean with her in a Harley Davidson, bike and he had tattoos. And he looked rough. Very rough. No adviser would take him. He says, I'm looking for an adviser.

No adviser would take this guy. Yeah. I need an advisor. Uh-huh. And like, oh, there's a bank downstairs.

Financial advisor.

Financial advisor. We're at Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter, Glendale. No one wants to take this guy.

This guy's got no money. Yeah.

He comes out. He sees. He says, oh, just give him to somebody else. I'm good. The guy in the corner office that has a couple $100,000,000 under management, he leaves. Then the new guy takes him. Then the guy comes, I have $50,000,000 to invest. He got an inheritance.

That one account was 50,000,000. Changed his life. Changed his life. Yeah. And he put the 50, and the rookie broker got a $50,000,000 money under management. You're getting 1 or 2 points on that. Life changing. So the for life.

For life. Every year. Every year, generational wealth. We're not talking about like the small thing here. So you can't just sit there and look at relationships that you never know the potential of a contact. You have to know every contact could take you to some place that you don't know. It's like a movie. You don't know the next scene.

You know, so you can't just assume what that contact's gonna lead into. Yeah. Sometimes the smallest contact can lead into something big. One of the

things I love about you, Patrick, is you remind me of my dad so much and my childhood. My dad, I think I told you, my dad was a life insurance salesman for 32 years until he got into a a brain accident. He got in a car crash and he's still alive today but he had to stop working and he also became an entrepreneur, launched the health insurance vertical in conjunction with Northwestern Mutual and he does everything you do and my whole business model and just the way that I live is based on what I witnessed him doing. And this was pre social media, pre internet. Wow. He would just remember names like nobody's business. He was so giving, so thoughtful, and he was always thinking in the long term. Wasn't like how can I sell you now but how can I give you now? He would do this every day.

He would read the newspaper and he would cut out the newspaper every day and write long letters and put in envelopes and send it out to people that were clients and people that are not clients. If it was someone's kid in sports that you know was, hey they had their best game ever, hey I just wanted to send you this clipping Wow. Of the newspaper to just people in the community That's not a whole

different level though man, that's incredible.

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

Yeah.

And it was that kind of old school mentality, but he would always just show up for people, just take meetings to take them, and wasn't always trying to sell but just trying to serve. And that's really kind of how I I built my business early on was when I had nothing at all, I was just like, what can I learn from someone and how can I ask them what they need and then deliver on that need as fast as possible and not ask for anything in return? And I think that's one of the reasons why I've been able to grow is because of the relationship building. You know, Ben, our producer, I met him 9 years ago when he was a student at Columbia Journalism School, getting your masters right? And he was working on a documentary about Hamble. I was in Hamble at that time in New York City and really liked the way he made the documentary. And followed his journey over the last 9 years, stayed in touch every year. We needed a head producer to really build our content and I reached out to him and the timing right, the sequencing was right and we had the relationship where it made sense at least for now maybe he leaves at some point but it's been great so far in the last 4 months months and I think you never know where the relationship will go. Even if it didn't work out, it's still worth building relationships. No question.

Even if we never worked together, because you just never know who that person might introduce you to, who might say your name behind closed doors, where it unlocks some opportunity you'd never know. So you remind

me a lot of my dad. Well very, that's a big compliment man. I appreciate that, thank you.

And I think if more people came from that place of how can I just care about people and help them solve their problems, you're gonna gain a lot back in return long term? Whether it's with that person or not. And you talk about money a lot on your show. And you have an amazing video about your top, I think it's your top twenty rules on money. I'm curious since we're going to the rich poor conversation, what would you say are the top 3 to 5 rules on money if you could boil it down to 3 to 5?

It's a game. The number one rule is it's a game. You're playing a game. It's that simple, you know. If you if you look at it as a game, just like anything, you can get better at it. Right? Like, I don't whatever game you play. If you play Uno, if you play Monopoly, if you play Clue, if you play Fortnite. Jenga, if you play Fortnite, if anything you play, you know, you're gonna get good.

I remember in my time, I was playing Fester's Quest. I played Zelda.

Zelda. Yeah.

I used to play Final Fantasy 1, and I would play, obviously, Street Fighter Mortal Kombat. But it was also, what was the Mario Kart? Is it Super Mario Kart? I and you know how you would do the 3 jumps and a bam, it's going fast. And I would beat this time 32 seconds. I was so proud of it, but I I played it 50,000 times. Right? So the game with money, it's it's exactly what it is. Once you learn how to play the game with money, then it has to do with timing, then it has to do with different kind of things. Like, you know, a year ago, I get a call from a guy who needs cash. I said, okay.

So Okay. He needs an investment.

He he has something he has to sell immediately to get cash in return. Mhmm. Okay. Because he needs the money right away. So I said, okay. So, what are you selling? He says, it's the 2 greatest Wayne Gretzky cards. I said okay.

Signed or unsigned?

No. This is a PSA 10 1979 OPG top.

Signature?

No sign. Uh-huh. But it's the holy grail. So the the the OPG one sold in 2016 for $453,000. Okay? Wow. And just 5 years prior to that, it sold for $92,000. So from 92,000 to 451 in 2016, and he calls me. And the top sold in 2016 for $205,000.

So 2 cars combined sold in 2016 for 600 and, you know He has them both. He has them both, and he wants to sell it to me. And I said, okay. What do you want to sell it for?

He's like, 600,000.

Yes. Of course. He wants to I said, I'm not gonna pay you that. I mean, you you know, he wants 650. I said, I'm not gonna pay you that, but we talked about it. And eventually, he gave me a number. Right? And it was still a number. I had to still cough up, you know, a half a $1,000,000 check to the guy.

But we met at the PSA headquarters. Classy guy, total gentleman. We sat down. Transaction happened. The CEO of PSA came, showed us the poster on the PSA headquarters. I think it's in Newport. The card is on the wall. It's the most expensive hockey card in the world.

Right? Okay. No problem. So And you're a hockey fan? I'm not a hockey fan. I'm an investment guy with hockey. But I've interviewed Wayne Gretzky 6 years ago. Wow. So I like greatness. I like anybody that just goes and crushes it with Mhmm.

Their game. Right? So I buy this card. So I buy the card. I don't think much of 1 card.

Not 2.

2 cards. It's both them. I bought both of them. Yeah. Wow. So the other guy who owns the card wouldn't sell his card for $1,000,000 if you paid it to him. So here's what I do know.

The 2 guys own the card?

Me and the other guy. There's only 2 of us. Okay. Okay? You paid a 1,000,000, he won't sell it to you. So that means there's only 1 in the market. Because it's me. Because I'm willing to sell it. Right? Yeah.

So it's

on eBay. Right? If you go on eBay right now, you type in Wayne Gretzky, OPG, it's it's on market right now for $1,000,000. Right? Wow. What the the one of them is on the market for a 1,000,000. The other one's on the market for 400,000. So you asked me for rule of, money, I had cash. If I don't have cash like that, I can't double my money that quickly. So we just talk about 3 of them.

Money's a game. You need cash because opportunity is gonna come up, and it's a doubles game. So if I

put a

down It's a

doubles game. It's a

doubles game. Everything about money is a doubles game. What's that mean? A doubles game to

me is I pay you a $1,000.

Can we double it in 6 months? No. How long in 12 months? Okay. No problem. I'll do double in a in a year. Here's a $1,000. I get a double back. Right? So if you take a 1,000 and you double it every year, what happens? Thousand goes into 2, 4, 8, 16. 32, 64, 2565 to a 1,000,000.

A $1,000 is 9 doubles away from a 1,000,000. Wow. Now you take a 1,000,000 and see what happens if we double it 9 times. 1,000,000 goes into 2,000,000, 4,000,000, 8,000,000, 16,000,000, 32, 64, 128, 25,652, a 1000000000. A 1000000 is 10 doubles away from a 1,000,000,000.

But how do you find the doubles?

Well, that's the game. That's the part of the game. That's what I'm trying to tell you. So the so the doubles now becomes investment opportunities. You know what you buy into. Do you start a company where has a high value, you know, you can really scale it and finding something that can scale? Do you invest into things that are gonna give you 6, 8, 10%, or you're gonna go play ball and take the risk? That that's the game that you're gonna start learning that, you know, part of my money is gonna be hedged, and I'm gonna buy some gold because I'm not gonna become a 1000000000 off gold, but I'm buying it because gold is money and something happens to the economy. I'm protected with the gold. But you know what? I'm gonna put some of this money in mutual funds because I know long term I'm gonna make 8 to 12% on this.

I'm fine with that. I might do a real estate deal because long term I may do some money. Although, right now, the commercial real estate may be an interesting, dynamic because I think Zoom crushed commercial real estate. The commercial real estate model has it's been crushed.

Yeah.

And by the way, it may never come back the same way ever again. Commercial real

estate years from now or someone. Who knows?

I don't even think. I think it's gone. Really? Here's what I mean. Look. We have this space. Right? Okay. Mhmm. You got this space.

Did you get it in the last 4 months?

How how

long can you have?

Before COVID. Yeah. 6 months before. Yeah.

But if you get this today if you get this today, right right now, office space in Dallas, office space nationwide, companies are looking at their business models, and they're just saying, why do I need a 100,000 square feet of office space? Why do I need it? But if you go out there and you look at the numbers, you're like, okay. I don't know if I'm on the commercial real estate. You know, but if I find some small if I team up with the, investment banker, if I team up with a guy that's managing money and I go with a VC team, and this is a guy that's, you know, flipping opportunities fairly quickly, and I dump $1,000,000 with him. And within 5 years, he turns $1,000,000 into 5,000,000. That's 5 x in 5 years. That may not be a bad idea. So you gotta find those and they're out there, by the way.

Yeah.

You have to they're out there. So Ray Dalio plays a game of, doubles. Warren Buffett's a doubles game. All these guys are doubles game. And

All of us investing in businesses.

Yes. I'm a business guy. I'm not a real estate guy. There are people that are by the way, that doesn't mean real estate doesn't work. I mean, it wouldn't make any sense for me to say. There's real estate billionaires everywhere. Our president is a real estate billionaire. So for me to knock real estate would would have no value to it.

But for me, I'm more about I have an idea. What are you guys doing? Me and Tiffany are thinking about starting a, marketing company. Okay. How how can this thing scale? Well, let me tell you what we got. We got 3 packages. Boom. Boom. Boom.

We're gonna be target audience. We're gonna be targeting people in this world. Okay. And interesting. How much is it gonna pay? We foresee us doing $6,000,000 a year in revenue within 24 months. What have you done to be able to earn this? I'm a Columbia guy. I'm a this. I'm a this.

How much money do you need? I need $2,000,000 I can't give you $2,000,000 Can I come in for a 100,000? I put a $100,000 The next thing, this thing sells for $200,000,000 That $100,000 all of a sudden became $2,200,000 That's a victory. Mhmm. So those opportunities are out there. You just gotta focus. And then the last one I would tell you with the money. So we talked about what? We talked about game.

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

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

Because you want your money to double now. Exactly. It might take 10 years.

Yeah. But but if you are willing to do the 10 years, it may double 40 times. Mhmm. It may double 30 times. You know, like when Bezos said just hang tight. I'm not gonna give you dividends. Just trust me on this. Trust me on this.

Right? And at the beginning, if you've heard the story where he goes and raises $2,000,000 from, he gets $50,000 from 40 people. That's what? $2,000,000. And he gives them 20%. Wow. 20%.

He gives up 20% of

that $2,000,000. 20% just for $2,000,000. You know what that 20% is worth today? $200,000,000,000.

Oh my god.

That's the point. So can you imagine 1994, I was I'm getting started. Forget about you put 2,000,000. Just say you put 50,000,000. Wow. Just put you, you put 50,000. What is a half a percent of a 2, of a trillion dollar company right now? A half a percent, you're still a half a billionaire. Wow.

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

You know how much that 10 have you read this article? No. Tell me. The $10,000 if you go on business inside of you pull it up

is worth 780 today. 780.

1000000. 1000000. Never did anything to it. So so that's the part about patiently aggressive. Yeah. It's very hard to do. But the doubles get bigger later on, not early on. The doubles are bigger year 15, 20, 25.

That's what Papa talks about. Just like his success is he's he's lived longer. You know? He's just stayed around longer to let the money Exactly. Compound.

Yeah.

And that compounded interest is where it's at. How do we negotiate with our mind to achieve something we've never achieved?

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

That's the first step. Figure out why you want that then.

That's the first step. I always use this example is, but people always say, well, I want to be a millionaire. What are you gonna do when you get a $1,000,000? What are you gonna do with the money? Some people go, I'm just going to keep making money. Well, how are okay, you're going to be a millionaire. So if if over 65% of the lotto winners are broke 3 years after winning the lotto, Same thing with athletes.

And football players. Yeah.

And football players, 3 years early. They didn't know their why. The football player knew his why or, you know, he knew his why. Oh, I wanna get that ball or run that play. I wanna become part of a championship team.

Because I love it or because it makes me fulfilled or

spun or

I love going to the gym. I love I love the I love I'm there for competition. You know better than I do because obviously you're an athlete. But it was if you don't know your why for a $1,000,000, well, when you get the money, you're gonna buy a Bugatti. Mhmm. You're gonna buy 10 cars.

And then what?

Yeah. But but then you just have the Bugatti. Right?

So then

now what else you need. Right? Are you gonna buy 10 cars? Are you going to move to Bali and live off $30,000 a year for 10 years, carve canoes, save the turtles and invest in some stocks because stocks are going to average out 12% every year and you're going to turn $600,000 into whatever the case is. And then when you come back, what are you going to do?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Right. Are you going to buy investment properties and keep doubling down? Many people go through life without their why. And so when they're working at 9 to 5 that that they're sick of, they're going home and complaining and and, you know, I I forgot what I was I was watching a show where a girl was she was like, she was now living in nature, but she said, I live in Ireland and I was fighting every weekend in clubs and bars and I realized I was working and I was so miserable, so that was my release. So I was working to fight because I was so damn miserable with my life. And then she started to find causes that she liked. She stayed the job, but she would go home at night and put some time into causes that she liked and she got out of that circumstance and moved to some place else, and now she's doing what she loves. But people don't know their why.

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

11 years? Yes. It's going 12 years now.

You've been investing in a 1000000000 businesses, helping entrepreneurs grow. You've got, you know, amazing kids.

Yeah. So so my why is, as I said before, first of all, you know, is to take care of my family and my my wife and my my youngest daughter, because my oldest daughter daughters, when, when when they were born, I was poor, and all I knew was I gotta go out and make as much money as I can to give these to get these girls, in an area where they're more protected, where they can have a good education and have, medical and and things that in case something happens to them. And to break the cycle in my family of people who were just average people. My mother helped break that cycle by being one of the first to go to college. Me, I'm going to break that cycle. Next, but then I said to myself with the little girl, now that I have the resources available, it's more how much love can I give her because I never had experienced the wanting to come home purely for love? I I was just so focused on trying to make money because if these if I didn't if I wasn't successful, then like most parents, I'll sleep in a refrigerator box on the shoot if I have to to make sure those girls had just one place to live. So that's one of my whys. Also, you know, I've been on a show for 11 years that, has changed the way that people have under understood or or or they get to educate themselves on being entrepreneurs and intrepreneurs.

I'm invested in various many companies on these people's, you know, they allowed me to invest in their dreams, so who am I to give up? And also, I'm on the PECO board and PECO Foundation, you know, saving animals. I wanna stop human travel. I I have much more to

do. Mhmm.

And if I have a public platform that I can come and sit with you or go on GMA and stuff like that and I can help change people's perception of whatever the case is, sex, gender, religion, whatever the case is, to to make them realize that if I can do it, they can do it, then Mhmm. Then I'm I'm doing my job, you know?

Where do you think you'd be had you not had your your 2 oldest daughters? Do you think you'd have been as hungry to go earn, make a build a business, earn money, grow, or do you think like, okay, well I have I've got enough money for me.

I don't know. You know what? I I was worth many 1,000,000 of dollars by the age of 30 years old. I was absolutely broke and poor and sleeping on the ground at 27, at the ground in my house.

And

how old were you

when you had your daughter, your first daughter?

20, 27. 26.

Got you.

Right?

And because of my daughters and my ex wife, I think that they leveled me to some extent because you don't give a 30 year old guy from the hood 1,000,000 of dollars in the bank at 30 years old. Mhmm. Because I I think I would have I never tried cocaine or any of that stuff. But if I didn't have my girls, I probably would have been a huge supporter of cocaine because it looked like it was fun with the people having. Right. So I think that they they they they governed me in a certain way. In a positive way.

In a

very positive way. And it made me also it made me also want to live to leave my daughters a legacy. I wanted them to be proud of their father, so I refrained from doing and having a lot of the temptations. I've seen a lot of people fall Yeah. Fall short and

Yeah.

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

So I've interviewed a lot of people and there's one side of the spectrum where these successful entrepreneurs say, you know what Louis? The key to growing your business is going all in on one focus. Mhmm. That's the key. Right? That's what some say. Yep. But there's others like yourself who've invested in every business in the world it seems like

Yeah.

And seen lots of them grow and been successful in that way. Do you feel like, is that just like your your creative nature where it's like you want to invest, this is your part of your path right now, where you want to invest in lots of brands because you did so much in one thing for so long?

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

you're learning from the people you invest in

a lot? I'm constantly learning every single day. So in PowerShift, I highlighted my investment on Bombasox. Mhmm. Now, these guys are the number one sock the number one investment in Shark Tank history. The only the only Ring who did not get an investment went and did

really well. Right. He did

a $1,000,000,000

He did a 1,000,000,000. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and sale. Crazy.

Right? Yeah. And and and good for Jamie. And you

were there when

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

I'll I'll leave

it up to him.

Yeah. Exactly.

But I think that that I I send him an email every other day saying, hey, just 5%. Alright. I'm I'm only going 4 and a quarter. But But but the socks But the socks was

the best investment you made.

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

In terms of how much it's grown?

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

That you're the number one investor.

I am King Kamehameha on the tank.

Alright? Just make

sure it was clear. But, let's give you that example.

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

the They've done over $200,000,000. I think it's $280,000,000. More importantly, they're very, so their deal is a sock, and every time you buy a pair of socks, they give a pair away to the homeless because they have a big challenge.

That's cool.

And we don't normally talk about the number. It's more important that we've given away 30,000,000 pairs of socks. Alright?

That's pretty cool.

Thank you. Thank you. And it's really it's really, you know, Dave and Randy's company, and they they've done it all. I they've gotten very little to almost no advice from me because they're so great. Yeah. But I'm gonna give you example on the negotiation. They come into the tank. The only shark that doesn't want clothes is somebody who has 10 clothing companies and 8 are dead.

I my my my reason for being on a tank beside investing in other people is to diversify my portfolio. So when I talk to a retailer, I go, well, I'm already taking a real estate in the clothing area. I want real estate in electronics area. I want real estate in lotion. The last thing I want is socks. Also, I have, I don't know, 20,000 units of socks that I can't sell.

And, you

know, when I when I can't sell socks, I just send people over to people's houses. They steal 1.

Yeah. Yeah.

And then you have to buy a pair because you just you lost it. Right?

So I

still can't sell it. Plus, if I do the deal, I'm the logo whore. You can't if anybody in this room who runs this building were wearing bomber socks, you couldn't tell.

Uh-huh.

So how

do I get the advertising out of it? Mhmm. But they managed to make me understand that today's generation wants to give every time they purchase, instead of at the end of the year.

They want impact.

They want impact. They and they don't want to buy from people who are just making money. They wanna know what did you do for somebody else. So that's one thing I learned that I applied to all my businesses because you couldn't do that before social media. You could, but Okay. If it weren't out that much, yeah. And then plus, you would have to advertise off of people's hardships.

Yeah.

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

So you weren't interested.

I wasn't interested.

Everyone else was.

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

What is it that they said that shifted the power inside of your mind to say, okay, I gotta get into this?

Well, they showed me that the technology on socks were really good because they didn't have the toe the seam in the toe when me being a manufacturer, I didn't know how they did that at first. It was a simple change, but I used to get irritated and toes when they're doing that. They then but more importantly

you have to put it on a certain way. Yeah.

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

That's cool. Who has talked to the most in the last 11 years of this show? Them. Them?

They have. I learned I learned I, you know, I joke about my Photoshop, but I definitely learned from them.

Is that just because they pay you the most every month? You get a check every month of the

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

Yeah. Who is those someone that you didn't invest in and taught you the most? Whether it be like a a good lesson or a lesson you're like, okay, that's not what that's what not to do. Someone that I didn't Or maybe someone inspired you, but you didn't see a right fit for you and they taught you something.

They listen, I learned I learned I'm not saying to be warm and fuzzy. I learned from every single one of these entrepreneurs, how they operate the business or how they fail. A lot of time when they fail, it it it it confirms theories that I have because, you know, whenever I fail, I look at checklist of all the things and I go, why why did I do this? This isn't this isn't this is not what I do. Yeah. Why why did I not take my own damn advice? Mhmm. You know? So, I can't name just one of

them Sure.

To tell you the truth. You know, but, you know, I I I look at entrepreneurs like, Jeff Bezos and learn and go, as big as you are, you are affecting the world, and you will still be scrappy enough to say, hey, Amazon workers. You wanna make a couple extra dollars? When you're going home, you can take a package home, and you let why is that beneficial? Well, first of all, the worker gets to drive home and takes home a package and makes more money. You you're a worker of Amazon, so Amazon trusts you with the box. And Amazon saves on shipping.

Like takes a package home that you bought for something? Or No. No. Meaning Just take it as you want.

You no. Take it and drop it off.

Oh, drop it off to someone on your neighborhood.

Yeah. Wherever. Hey, hey, I gotta drive 2 mile I gotta drive 10 miles, but I looked in the system and 7 houses on the way to 10 miles. Wow. Let me let

me So you

can make extra money doing that.

You can make extra yeah. That's pretty smart.

I'll be picking up whole truckloads.

And it wins for everybody. Right? But when I look at a when I look at an entrepreneur like Jeff Bezos who does stuff like that, I go, he's still scrappy. He's still thinking. You know

what I mean?

He's got all his money in the bank, but he's still trying to

Still maximize. Yeah. Yeah. He's still scrappy.

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

Look. I think without without question is the mission. Okay? Without question. And and there's nothing wrong with the pursuit of money. I mean, it's perfectly fine. And it's it's, it's the engine of capitalism in a in a free market. But, you know, at a certain point, what I've found with the people I've interviewed is that money is really at a certain point, there really isn't much more that it's gonna it's really not gonna improve your life much more. You know, Stuart Butterfield, the founder of Slack, has a great his great, explanation for what it means to be wealthy.

You can go to a restaurant order anything you want. You can basically go on vacation or what wherever you want, And you you're not worried about debt. And those three factors basically, he his argument is once those are taken care of, you are essentially wealthy. I mean, you are a and and there really isn't much else that's gonna improve your, you know, your life or your anxiety or your feeling of security. And I I think that most entrepreneurs, certainly the vast majority that I've interviewed are a 100000 percent motivated by mission. I mean, here's and here's actually the best piece of evidence for for for that. A lot of founders will eventually exit and sell their companies. Right? And I think a lot of a lot of people imagine that, okay, you you have a company and then you sell it and then you've got a $100,000,000 and then you're gonna go lie on a beach in the Caribbean and sip pina coladas all day.

Right? The reality is if you did that, you would eventually become very depressed. You'd actually just begin to die, right, and wither. And most of the people I've interviewed, they wanna work until the very end, until even even when they have enough money for 3 generations behind them. Because it isn't about the money. It's about a sense of purpose. It's about Mhmm. Camaraderie. It's about community and a mission.

You know, I I mean, this is this might be weird for for some of your viewers to to and listeners to to hear, but I used to be a foreign correspondent. I covered the Iraq war. I covered the Afghan wars. I covered Israel, Palestine. That's what I did before. You know, this is 15, 20 years ago. And I spent a lot of time in Iraq, 2003, 2004, 2005. And every time I would ask, you know, soldiers, what is it that like, why are you here? Why did you sign up for this? You know? And they'd say, oh, you know, to serve our country and blah blah.

I said, no. But why are you here? What what is what's keeping you here? Because you know this war is problematic and it can't just be about the flag. It can't just be about because you know part of you knows that what you do here isn't necessarily gonna be wrecking you know, people in the US are are are they don't even know what's going on here. What is it? And and you get the same answer time and again. It's it's to protect the guy on the left and on the guy on the right. I'm here to make sure nobody shoots him and nobody shoots him. That's that's it's it's about connection, camaraderie, mission, purpose, and it's the same thing with business.

You think what motivates people most is the connection of the idea or the product or the service, to the people you're working with or your customers or media?

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

This happens in sports a lot where you're,

you

know, as a former athlete, you you see a lot of guys get depressed after they retire, and they might have been an all star, an all pro bowler, or whatever it may be, a Super Bowl champion made $10,000,000 contract, but then within a couple years, they're very depressed. They're they they talk about missing the brotherhood or the the locker room because of the camaraderie and the connection. And when you don't when you have connection for so long, and then you go in isolation, it becomes very lonely.

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

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

I think that most of the people that I've interviewed and I I would take a a sort of go on a limb and say most of us, I think are more afraid of failure, which is actually not a good thing, because failure is, especially manageable failure, is something we all have to experience and embrace. I think that that we all in our minds have this idea of what it means to be successful. And and the reality is that success is not it's not a it's not an endpoint. You know? It's not like you do something and then you wake up and you say, you know, you you blow the trumpet and say, ta ta ra. I'm success and it's like exercise. You know? Like, I exercise every day. I I don't love exercising every day. It's not that fun.

But I can't just like, my kids will say, daddy, you're you're healthy. Why why why are you I'm like, you can't just, like, get to a point and say, alright. I'm healthy. I'm done. Cause then you start to decline the next day. And I think it's a sort of a similar concept, which is, you know, success is a constant process and a constant journey. You know, I I think by nature, most of us are more oriented toward towards succeeding and and and we most of us fear failure.

Mhmm.

But, of course, it's that creates a whole other series of issues. You know, one of the things that I love about how I built this is the people I talked to is, and I've said this in the show, I think failure is just infinitely more interesting than success. Mhmm. You know, when we get a lot of, you know, we you know, you get a lot of pictures. I'm sure you get these too from from from people who are like, hey. My client, they were the Forbes 20 under 20. They were this to this. They were this.

They were the Nobel Prize. You know, whatever. Like, all these accolades. And that's that's great. You know, like, I'm I'm I'm totally down with that, but I wanna learn from somebody who's like, here's where I screwed up.

Mhmm. I'm

gonna I'm gonna tell you what a dumb idiot I

was. Right.

Because that's when we learn. And I think that and and that's really where people are at their most generous when they're really kind of talking about their failures. And it allows us to kind of get a window into their soul that we need to have to help us when we are struggling with with failure.

What would you say is your greatest failure then?

Well, I'll start by saying almost every day being in this profession, there's some failure. Right? Whether it's people not wanting to be on the show or or whatever. I mean, obviously, now it's gotten much easier as I've grown. But, you know, my my dream, my real dream in life when I was a younger reporter was to be the main anchor, news anchor on NPR. Mhmm. I wanted to be the guy ring telling the news on all things considered or morning edition, you know, because I thought that was important. Like when I came to NPR, you know, as a younger man when I was 22, my parents didn't know what it was, you know, but I I I wanted I think part of us some of us are motivated by wanting to make our parents proud or whatever it might be. And, so that was really what I thought I wanted to do and I I I ticked all the boxes.

You know, I was a foreign correspondent. I covered wars. I I went to CNN and I was on on television for 2 years covering Israel, Palestine. I covered the Pentagon. I got You

risked your life for this job. Right.

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

so close the weekend anchor

close was so close, but I wasn't I wasn't chosen, you know, and that was a real blow for me that happened in in 2011 and I thought you know, maybe maybe it was time for me to find a new career I mean, maybe maybe I wasn't cut out for this, you know. Really? Yeah. I mean, look, it was very, very hard because I really wanted that. And the reality is that in the news business, there are managers and programmers and executives and they have their own vision and and it's it's a perfectly reasonable vision, and I wasn't part of that vision. And it was a time in my life where I I really was trying to figure out what to do, with it. And just very luckily, TED, as in the TED conference people, had approached NPR and wanted to collaborate on the show. And I I heard about it, and I raised my hand. I said, I'll do that.

And so I kinda left the news world in 2012, entirely left it. And that was a failure. And, you know, that was like I mean, I still have emails from, you know, really prestigious colleagues in Washington, DC when I used to live there, who were like, you're going to do a what a podcast? What is that? Who listens to that?

Wow.

Why would you give up hosting the weekend news program? It's

so close to the main the main show. Yeah.

Oh, they

would say what? You have a massive audience that we did. We had 3,000,000 people listening on the weekends on the radio. Now that's changed a lot. Obviously, the radio audience has been in decline, but so I kind of I was kind of in the wilderness in 2012. You know, I kinda went into exile, and I didn't really know if TED Radio Hour was gonna be successful. I didn't know.

And this was launching as a podcast. Yeah. Yeah. Because I started in January 2013 till you started in 2012.

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

we launched about the same time in a space when and this was before there was a million podcasts like there is now. I think we hit a 1000000 podcasts on Apple recently, and I think there was, I don't not even a 100000 shows or something. And it was something that you couldn't even find. It was like you had to go to an app on Itunes.

Plug in your phone.

Yeah. It was

Yeah.

We were we were getting on when no one was listening, essentially. There was a couple of that big people before us, the Joe Rogan's and some other tech podcasts, but it wasn't a big thing yet. Yeah. So you said, I'm gonna leave NPR, the biggest show that there is in this space, and go launch this little podcast thing with Ted.

Well, I mean, I launched it I was launching within NPR. So it was Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. Collaboration, but I left the news side of NPR, which was the most important part of NPR.

Right. It's the thing that everyone know knows about, listens to.

And, like, if you're a journalist, that was what you wanted to do. You know? And and I It's like the

highest level of respect,

credibility. Respect, and it was Washington DC, and it's, you know, all these things. And here I am doing this podcast and like, you know, it's like the it's like the backwater of NPR at that time, you know? Of course, now the tables have turned a little bit, but that that was really an enormous failure. But here's the thing, as with almost every failure I've had, it has happened for a reason. It's like a hidden blessing. It's like if that didn't happen and I pursued that path, I don't I don't, you know, I don't know how happy I would be doing the news especially today. I think the news is just It's really hard. You know, it's a hard time in in in in our country.

News is really important. I have a lot of respect and admiration for my colleagues to do that, but that failure really kinda saved me.

One thing I realized is that at certain times in a man's life, he's either a fool, he's a victim, or he's a king. And when you're a fool, you're like, you goof it all up. You know, I well, you know what? But you you think there are no consequences for your actions, but there are always consequences for every act you do. Everything. Good or bad. But then, when you mess your whole life up being a fool, you become a victim. Now, oh my god. Look, you know what? You know why I did that? Because I was black.

You know why? Because I grew up in all that religion. And my father was an alcoholic, you know, he beat my mom. You know that, right? Or look at the situation. I'm from Flint, Michigan, man. It's hard. It's hard for a black man in this society and this is the way we did it. I had And let me tell you, the table is always full of excuses Mhmm. Because they're valid.

Yeah. There's a lot of people against you. And you can say, oh my god, this table is full. It's like, man, you know, this is the reason why I'm like this. And this is this is this is and and man, you never run out.

And you always stay down.

Always. You always and but the king stage is when you realize, wait a minute, this is your table.

Mhmm.

Wait a minute, this is your room. You have to accept whatever you are letting into your life, good or bad. As a king, you can tell people get out of your court. As a king, you don't have to accept any of those excuses. Yeah. As a king, you have to know that you are responsible for your life, good and bad. You did that. So, as a king, if something's not right, it's your responsibility to change it.

Dude, it was like I had to go to rehab. I went to rehab. It was this place called Psychological Counseling Services. It was in Arizona. I mean, in, yeah, in Arizona in Phoenix. And man

How long did you go for?

Oh, man. Well, we we you go for a full it's like an intensive Yeah. Where you don't do anything. You're there for, like, 16 hours a day.

And This is 2010?

This was yeah. It was 2010.

Yeah. So

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

This is me. Wow. This is me. This is the problem. This is what I this is the issue. I knew I was in tears. I was broke. I was like, I was toxic.

Like, when you finally can turn the thing around and see yourself as ugly

Mhmm.

As you were, I was just so, so guilty. Let me tell you, it wasn't shame. It was guilt. There's a big difference.

What's the difference?

Shame says you are bad. Guilt says you did something wrong. The problem is when you I was feeling shame since I was a kid.

Yeah.

You, it's you, it's you, it's you. And this the thing, when you are a shamed person and when you try to motivate people through shame, what you do doing is constantly telling them, you are a bad person. You are like this. You are wrong. You are messed up. So you know what happens is no matter where you go, you go back to I am messed up.

Mhmm.

But when you realize, wait a minute, wait a minute, it's not that I messed up. It's that I I made a messed up choice.

Yeah.

That changed the framework for me. And I was like, and it didn't excuse anything. Now, mind you, it did not. It was you are. I had to say it. And the thing is it's like courtroom. It's like a court. For you to actually be guilty, you have to say it.

Think about it. There's nobody if you never admit guilt, it will never be presented. You have to say, I am guilty.

Wow.

I did the crime. And it allows everyone to see you as you truly are. And I went through the process of guilt, of making sure I was guilty. I knew what I said, I put my wife through this. I put my family through this. I did this. I did this. Now, let me correct it.

But see, shame, you can't correct. Shame is incorrectable. What happens is shame, you just cover it. Shame is something you just put, you know, let's put some leaves over here and put leaves over the body. You know what I mean? It's like there's no way you can really

Yeah.

You

know, shame is one of those things where you just have to like color it. Image image covers shame. But when you are dealing with guilt now, you've been proven guilty. Now there's punishments. You have to make amends.

Conquences. Yeah.

Right. You have to be accountable. There's all kinds of things, man. You have to come back. You have forgive people who did things to you. You have to ask forgiveness for what you did to other people. Let me tell you and I have to say this, The forgiveness that my wife showed me Mhmm. Was a was what I say, a car carrying lesson for any person ever because and I don't understand why people get divorced.

I do. First of all, I should be. But this woman, this is the thing, this is the intimacy that I always, always wanted because she saw me for who I was, for real. And she said, Terry, I love you anyway. Wow. Man. Wow. That's all you want.

Yeah.

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

Yeah. Because I was living this man life, and, here I am. You see me as nothing. I'm like, I feel about myself. Like, I feel like I'm worth dirt. And she was like, oh, I love you.

Wow.

And, man, that changed everything. It was like the thing that I needed, I was running from the whole time, Louis. I was running from it the whole time. And I vowed. I said after that, I said, my god. My God, I can correct this. This is fixable. Mhmm.

This is fixable. This is not something this is what I learned through through counseling, and I continue to to this day. I mean, it's been 10 years

Wow.

Of constant, constant work, constant just, hey, man, I can fix this.

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I don't think I'm the type of person that is brave enough to admit I've made a mistake honestly because I think things have not worked out along the way where things just didn't work out as I had hoped or dreamed them to be. But I don't see them as a mistake because as quick as you were thinking, oh poor me, you start to see the light of the door that it's opening that couldn't have opened without it. Okay? So I don't have like a regret that this was a big mistake or that was a big mistake. But I have to also say I have, my whole life, been very cognizant of doing anything and exposing myself to anything even when I didn't wanna do it because I'm deathly afraid of feeling like I would regret. Like what if I don't do it? That's more of a motivation for me than doing it.

Me too.

You know, just like, well, will I look back? You know, like for example, with Dancing with the Stars, I did not wanna do it. I'm an old babe. The last thing I wanna do is practice 4 hours a day.

You were great.

You think I was so great? Not the judges. They didn't think so. I was the number one person on Dancing with the Stars last season. Number 1 rejected. Now there's a record. Okay. But so you might say that was a mistake with all the work that that led up to, and it was a social embarrassment. I thought I'd be rejected maybe number 3 or 5 or 6.

But number 1, I never saw it coming. And so I was kind of a little mortified on that one. But you know what? I'm so thankful I did it. And the minute I recovered by the next morning, I'm like, thank God I did it and thank God it's over.

It's a lot

of work.

It's a lot of work.

Because I didn't wanna I said yes because I didn't wanna wonder what it would have been like, you know. So What did you

learn from the experience about yourself?

I learned I'm not a good dancer. I swear, I've looked at the tapes now 1 year later when I thought, same tapes I looked at a year ago, I thought, you know, I really got this. But I look at the one year, I'm like, I'm stiff as a board. What was I thinking? Missing steps. So so what I learned from that is that I can't dance well, but inside my body, I feel like I'm a good dancer. And I'll get out on any dance floor and do my own makeup steps, and people really smile as I'm dancing because I don't really give a crap. Right. And I look like it.

You know? Yeah. But what did I learn? I learned that I learned the same lesson I learned again and again, which is thank God I did it. Thank god. And and the the the injury of, oh, god. You did so poorly, dissipates quickly, but there's an echo to not trying something that's gonna sting you, I think. Not not that I know that because I really don't do that, but I'm I'm afraid of it. It's like it's like fear of a nightmare that might happen. I don't know why because I don't really have that in my life, but I'm fearful of it.

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

Maybe a year but still a bad year. You know, you know what, regret does, I think, and and why I've been able to build up my personality and whatever I can get out of and give to life as best I could. What regret does is it quietly takes down your confidence a notch. Because in short, you're a coward. You shied away. Oh, wow. Even with the right decisions to shy away. Once you shy away, you quietly, without even consciously thinking, think a little less of yourself.

Now, I say that from experience because I've watched many people get stronger or people where life makes them weaker. And there's a lot that goes into that. But I really believe that, that regret piece is not given, enough due. You really have to try everything and try your best because even and listen, 2 out of 3 things I tried don't work out, you know, but people just remember the success. That's what I wanna but I know what the failures are. But still, I got confidence out of failing each time. A little notch up, a little notch up. So then you conduct yourself with more power in life Mhmm.

Because you feel better about yourself and ironically, you have more to give. You're a better package to give more because you've you've put a lot into that basket by just trying, trying, trying, trying, you know? Do you feel

like you're more confident even though you're the first one out of Dancing with the Stars that you you did it and you

Oh. I'm more confident.

I got a lot of confidence out of

that because every female friend

and male friend I had that was even close to my age.

They were like, I can't believe you even went for it. Right?

Basically, you're at They would discourage you.

You're out

of your mind. But I won all their respect and they constantly say, that was amazing. That was amazing. So even my friends that kinda took me for granted think better of me. I went up a notch in their head, you know.

It takes a lot of courage to do that.

It

takes a lot of courage to publicly fail but I happen to be very good at public failure. Really? Because I've done it my whole life and I'm That doesn't bother me. I think, what, I think what I didn't want to happen was that I would look foolish or old dancing with a 20 4 year old ripped stud on the floor until I realized it feels really good to lean in on

that guy. Oh, there you go.

Let him spin around that floor and having my girlfriends are having to dance with anybody like that lately?

There you go. That's okay. That's the way of looking

at it.

Yeah. What would you say, why do you not why are you not afraid to fail publicly?

Because you know what I've learned? Nobody's really watching. Nobody gives a shit. Yeah. Everybody's so Like, we're gonna

about it the next year or whatever.

Well, no. Maybe even in the moment Because the truth is that people most of all are thinking about themselves. So just when you think the limelight's on you and everybody's gonna say, God, is she stupid? God, why would she say that or do that? The minute they've given you that one moment of attention they back on to their own problems, their own selves. So it's like overstatement of your ego to think you're really that important.

Right.

Know, it could just move right on. We could distract people. You try the next thing in their eyes on that if you're lucky. So no, it doesn't really amount to anything. It doesn't really

anything. Right.

Yeah. It's self ego that is not really true.

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

If you're lucky and they notice.

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

Yeah. Definitely. For shame.

Right. Exactly. Yeah. What about, when you want people to have the attention on you for the things you're doing good, How do you keep, the attention on you, the relevancy of yourself as an entrepreneur, an individual, when people are focused on themselves so much?

Mhmm. How do

you keep them thinking about you, your brand, your business, your work, your mission?

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

What do you mean by that?

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

How good are your social media? What's your following? Those are the key questions now. How well, how good are you at building attention through social media because that's the new free ride, not really free but to a large degree free just like the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and my free ride. Okay. So you have to be creative, I think, in thinking of how you can grandstand. And so what's, like, I don't know. I'm thinking what's a business right today? Like, well, I don't wanna use cousins. We already talked about cousins like, Grayson Lakes which is a started out as a baby sock company. Phenomenal entrepreneurs I have.

Is it the long, like the long

Lady stocking? Yeah. With the little lace

on top?

I've bought some of those

for a girl before. Yeah.

And they make

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

They're nice. They're elegant.

They're sexy. Well now it's a full fashion line and it's, I think $17,000,000 in sales this year.

Wow.

But what are they particularly good at? There's a husband and a wife team. Melissa, the the the wife of the team has gorgeous long legs. You may remember her from Shark Tank. Her husband's more of a nuts and bolts guy but great at business. What she does is she constantly models and talks directly to cameras. She has so many people that love her. She has limited edition. She goes out constantly constantly.

She's great at social media. She knows how to primp herself

Right.

Look sexy, talk to the ladies, and get sales. Okay?

So she uses her assets,

her skills.

Set, but she does on social media, and that's built their entire business, social media. Wow. And did I answer your question because I feel like I somehow got lost in my

How do you stay relevant when things are going good?

Mhmm.

Because when your things are going bad, they'll look at you for a moment, maybe, where it seems like everyone's looking at you, but then they forget.

Mhmm.

How do you stay relevant while you're growing or while things are kind of going the same?

I'll give you another example. I have a company I just bought in this past season. I was out of my mind to buy into them. It was 2 guys with a prodigal Comfy. It was a sweatshirt blanket. You slip into it, it's like a sweatshirt but it's actually a blanket block. Why I say I was crazy to buy into it, none of the sharks, they were smart enough not to, It's because they're 2 loud mouthed guys having a good time pitching their product and they had no inventory. They had handmade their own product.

Two prototypes, had no idea what it would cost to make, what they'd sell for, who they'd sell to. They had none of the answers, but they're a great salesman. And I said, ah, I'll take 15 or 40% whatever I got of it. Boom. Just because they're great salespeople, all right? And what they have done is they've done in their 1st year $11,000,000 in sales. Wow. They found a way to produce it and sell it. But a couple of weeks ago, it was very quiet.

They have had social media coverage to the moon and back but it was very quiet and they hand delivered And I wish I could remember the famous actress name, sexy. Cool, long legged actress. I'm so bad with names. Whoever she was, I think she was the same actress who closed the, Oscars the other night. I might be telling her.

I didn't watch it, but

Shame on you.

My man I like

that movie. That plane. So Oh, come on. Alright. Well, anyway

I saw your little party watch party on Instagram.

That's so long. Yeah. But anyway, they sent hand delivered to her front door, how they found it in Hollywood, the package. And she put on video her jumping on a bed in it. They quicker than a second started social media campaign, people competing with the jumps. They had Johnny on the spot. That's smart business. Okay? They're causing attention.

They made it happen, and then they're gonna ride it again, and it's gonna be all over social media all over. Yeah. They're annoyed with me that I'm here because I don't have their product because they want me jumping on the beds. You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna put the hood on. I have one girl from that gorgeous long legs.

There you go.

I'm gonna Photoshop my head in to her long legs and I'm gonna win the contest. Perfect. I like that.

So grandstanding now is, like, more influencer marketing. If you can find creative ways

That's

a fancy way to put it.

With an audience. Maybe it's a micro audience or Or or large audience.

Or create an audience of your own 1 by 1. But you really have to be able to grandstand. Yeah.

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

think You

know, really none of the above. Mhmm. Okay? It's not my cup of tea to think of an industry that's that you can, the certainly leading industries. I don't believe that's where your head should be if you're thinking of going into business. I think your head should be is what do you enjoy? What are you naturally inclined to be good at? What were you always good at? Things these these abilities don't change much. Whatever you're, you know, if you're gregarious as a young kid, you generally don't wind up as a bookworm,

you know, when

you get older and get a head on your shoulders, you're still gregarious. So, I think what you have to do is think what would suit me? What could I visualize myself doing where I could picture a happy picture of myself? And I think most people are capable of dreaming that up. I don't think it's an analytical kind of left brain kind of thing where you apply yourself to your best shot like going and playing back blackjack and putting your chips on the right thing. No. I think you have to figure out you're the table where should you put your chips. What Mhmm. What's on you? What's true to you? Okay? And so, for me, it took me 22 jobs to find real estate, but the minute I was out opening keys, you know, opening the doors and chatting people up and it didn't feel like work and I was the boss. I knew I was gonna be the queen of New York real estate.

I knew it as sure as I knew my middle name was Anne. I just could see it in my mind's eye. I never had that vision when I worked my other 22 jobs. And, the other thing, it's sort of related to what you asked. I think it's such wrong thinking that you have to choose your spot. I think it's like finding out what clothing you look good in. You gotta go try a lot of shit on the rack and see what works with you. And then you kinda, little by little, kinda get your look on what looks well with on your body type, your personality, the colors that are good.

I think you find yourself little by little. It's very hard to sharpshoot. It's not that kind of a thing. Yeah. And you know, often the people I know so many entrepreneurs well beyond or well before Shark Tank, peers of mine in many industries that have succeeded. No one ever went after that industry, and so that's what I wanna do. But you know what made the biggest difference in a myriad of those, if that's a word, a selection of those people that made the biggest difference was they came along someone they worked for who believed in them. Getting one good boss that gives you an opportunity is worth a 1000000 intellectual thoughts and Harvard MBAs grouped up in a pile.

Because you kind of can sometimes need somebody else to see that light, or you get into something you never thought you'd be interested in, and you really love your job. And then that winds up being what you do for a lifetime.

Yeah.

And so I don't believe that you've named the big industries. That's more and more Cuban stuff. He's like high level, investment strategy stuff. But I'll put my businesses against this any day, 1 to 1. And because I think I'm so good at seeing who's got that talent that matches where they are, you know?

If, if someone's approaching you for, investment or to partner with you

Mhmm.

And you could choose only 3 qualities that you would dream that they would have.

Mhmm.

That's, you know, never giving up, a grit, a positive energy, whatever the quality might be.

Mhmm.

And you would say, if they have these three qualities, it doesn't matter what business they're in. Maybe timing and the, the, economy might play a little bit of part here and there, but like if they had these three qualities,

they're

most likely I would bet on them any day.

Yeah. Well, that's what I do every day on Shark Tank.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I've gotten better at it because I've learned to hone in on those. I could think of 2. Maybe I'll come up with a 3rd Sure. If I keep talking. Alright. Number 1 is salesmanship. I have never succeeded with any business where the principal didn't know how to sell. I mean sales is the guts of every business.

If you don't have sales you're not in business. Any business applies to everything, okay? So, okay if you're a technology nerd and really are in a technology space, but you better have a partner who could sell the shit out of it Right.

Or it

ain't gonna go anywhere, okay? So selling is number 1. The other, thing I look for, and maybe it sounds weird to you, but I've learned it to be a great, almost insurance policy. I look for injury. I look for anger in the individual. If I could find someone, and this is true of all my successful business interestingly enough. If I could find someone who had injury at an early age and has something to prove, I got myself a winner. It's like insurance, okay? So when I say injury, meaning they were dunce in school, like 3 out of 4 or 3 out of 5 sharks were dunces at school. They're they're out to prove, you know.

I have I I don't wanna out them. So I I will use I'm inclined to use the names, but I won't. I have entrepreneurs, usually successful, never had a father. Mhmm. And then when they went on Shark Tank, their father, after 35 years, was back into how insulting it enraged them. Okay? I have entrepreneurs who were sports figures, almost, going to be professional sports people, had an injury, but were fiercely competitive with someone who wound up in their space. They hate that person.

Wow.

Because I played against them in ice hockey. Crazy. All I have to do is name the other person, their sales go up. Wow. So, I think anger improving is very much part of a lot of successful stories out there. It's an overcompensation, over proving, over driving, like I'll show you. Give me the I show you something that went wrong earlier, and you've got a motivated person, and it gets you through hard times really well. And then, I'm coming up with a third.

There's a 1000000 other ones, but none of them as serious as that. It's those 2. You have to be able to sell. And if you have injury, to prove something, it's a wonderful insurance policy.

How important is a positive attitude with those two things?

Like, if

you were negative negative. Oh, you don't let me tell you.

Out of the gate.

You're not even gonna get out of the gate. Well, there's negative people. Alright. You know what's

I've been

trying to prove people wrong and always nasty about it. You know?

Don't get it. Let me tell you what's true about a negative person. You won't meet them in the entrepreneurial space. You know why? Because they are far more comfortable criticizing the next guy than doing. Negative people are blood suckers. They just suck your energy away. You know, the nicest thing I did for all the people that work with me over the years was get rid of negative people. The men and I spotted them.

I didn't care if I had cause. They were out. You know why? Because You know why? Because it's like it's like letting the enemy quietly into your camp and giving them free reign. Negative energy is the enemy of all business, especially I've always been in sales related businesses. You let a negative person into a sales force, they have a pity party, all of a sudden they need one more person to feel sorry for them or point out what's wrong. It's terrible. I would spot them my way, feel their vibe. Do you have a few minutes on Friday? I'd love to have a chat with you.

Wow. Because I felt like I was saving my good people.

Mhmm.

You know, they were good positive people. I don't mean criticism. It's invaluable in business. You need to have your criticizers to let you know when you're off and what you could do better. But I'm just talking about real blood suckers,

you know. Mhmm.

You know, everybody's met a few.

I hear you.

I hear you.

Now sales is number 1 for you. If they were great salesman

Mhmm.

You would bet on them. If they were great salesman with something to prove, that's, like, the golden ticket, it sounds like. So how does someone train to be a great salesman if they've if they don't know how to? Is it something they can learn? Or is it something you just have to, be a part of your energy?

Well, you had question about positive. That's the blood that goes through a great salesman. Seeing the positive side of anything and a lot of people see that as baloney, I don't. It's just like you show me a negative and I'll say, you know, you're right, it's a negative. But I can tell you what the upside of that negative is so you have a bend toward being positive. So you must have that, okay, to be a salesman. If you don't, you'll never become a salesman. I don't care how hard you try.

I think it's an intrinsic quality of personality trait. I know you're not supposed to say that. Everybody's supposed to believe you could become a salesman. I think if you're inclined to be outgoing and positive you can become a better salesperson. But the real phenomenal salespeople that I have worked with and I've made my living my whole life in different venues with phenomenal salespeople, I am telling you, they come out of the gate, maybe not out of the womb but they come out of the adolescent gate as salespeople. It's very hard to teach that. It's a artistic gift to be able to sell really well because think of how complicated it is. You have to read the situation accurately.

You have to read the person and think of how you could use them in the way that they wanna use themselves and thank you in a thank you note 12 hours later thinking it was their idea. That's a complicated little thing. Right. Right.

Right?

And, you need to think of how that person could be used for your long term goal of the picture you wanna create. So, that's very complicated math in the head. And that's what great salespeople do.

Why do so many people make money the enemy?

You know, first of all, like, I I think I I think about that all the time. I think as we grow up, a lot of the movies we watch as a kid, it's like the guy with the money on the hill was the villain. Mhmm. Right? Yeah. And I was on a I was on a boat with Richard Branson, on the only reason it's not because I'm really cool. It's because I helped raise a $1,000,000 for his charity. Uh-huh. And for that, for Virgin Unite, he invited me down to his island.

And he saw that I got up at 5. He got up at 5. So he said, hey. Tomorrow when you get up, let's, let's, sail. And he's like, you know how to sail? I'm like, oh, yeah. I had no idea. He's like, grab the f one.

I'm

like, I'm sorry, dude. I I don't know. Just tell me what to do. Yeah. But one thing he said, and it helped me a lot with money, he I said, I feel like I should be giving back more. And I said he said You

said that

to him.

I said that to him. I said, should I should I, you know, donate more of my time? He said, well, the way I look at it is different. You were given a a gift to know how to generate revenue. He said, and this is something that I'm paraphrasing, but this I'll remember forever, and it really shifted my mindset on money. He said, you could go to a charity, or you go to a soup kitchen, and you could work there for 3 days, and that'd be wonderful. I need I know they need help. Or you could swing by there one day and drop off a check for 50 grand. The second one, that's what you're you're given that gift.

Go make the 50. Because I was given a gift to know how to start and run companies. Now at this phase of my life, I'm giving most of it all away, but that's my gift. And it kinda made me realize is, like, I took the the brakes off or took the brakes off. It's like, make as much as I want. I can give it all away. I can you know, we just got done feeding 5,000,000. We just passed 5,000,000 meals provided through Yeah.

Feeding America. We got all kinds of chairs. Like, now I have this, like, no limits. Like, because money has allowed me to retire my parents. My money's allowed me to make it so my kids don't have to worry about their future. Not raise entitled brats, but I don't have to worry about their future. I get to be in better shape. If my fiance needs something, my mom needs something, my dad needs something, cut a check for those problems, and I can help with charity.

So for me, it's like there's no limit. I wanna just keep impacting lives and making money.

How can people shift the perspective of money is this bad thing? What's the quickest way for them to if they've been conditioned with a belief for decades that money is the evil or the money doesn't solve your problems or

Yeah.

How do they how

do someone what's a perspective shift for people to understand, like, this really

Yeah. That's a really good question. One of the things I think because I've asked this question on stage to tens of thousands of people through the years, then I asked them to raise their hand if it's this. And one that I never thought of was people feel in this, like, like, intuitively somehow that if they're making money, they're actually taking it away from someone else. Wow. And that's so like, I don't know if any like and as I say that, somebody right. You know, so many people right now going, wow. I feel that way.

Like, if I'm getting wealthy, I'm hurting someone else. Or if I'm getting wealthy, oh my god. There's so many people starving in different third world countries. And it's the fact of the matter is there's always the same amount of money in the world. Money is either flowing away from you or money's flowing towards you. And I just wanna position myself in a place where money's flowing towards me, and then I have the ability to give it away. Because if you really think about this, when you make money, I would bet the majority of the world, not someone selfish, which is a rare thing, and I doubt someone really selfish will be listening to you, Louis, is when you make money, what do you do? You end up hiring someone to do your lawn because you're making money.

You can

do that. You you send out your dry cleaning. You go out to dinner more. You buy a bigger house. You buy more furniture. When you make money, you actually flourish the economy in your home, and then you flourish the economy around you. So, like, I just have this philosophy of, like, I if I wanna help the economy, if I wanna help the environment, if I wanna help the people I love, I make money and I get to help the economy, help the environment, help the help the people that need it. Yeah.

And I just changed that belief because, again, if you make money to, you know, sell drugs, if you make money to promote gambling, like, that's evil. That's bad. It's really just the byproduct. And in most cases, more money, the byproduct of more money is positive impact. Yeah. Right? I mean, why is America, you know, such a lead in finding cures, in finding technology? Because a lot of the companies and money flow here to solve those problems. Yeah. But America's also the biggest, contributor to charities around the world.

I mean, look what Bill Gates did. So I I just found a way, and I'd encourage everybody listening, find a way to just change that. Whatever story you're telling yourself, it's most likely a lie. It's a story that someone else gave you. We know all this.

I'm not

sure on anything you don't know, but just prove that it's wrong. Go find wealthy people who've made a massive impact.

Yeah.

Because the last thing I'll say about money, I know we didn't plan on getting this, but I I feel like we have a dysfunctional relationship with money. Like, if you're the therapist you know, the therapist is sitting a third party over here, like, where your candle is, and your money, and I'm the patient, it's like I think we're like, if they're looking at us like a relationship, you're saying, money, I don't like you. I think you're evil. I think you're wrong. But simultaneously, I'm always stressed about money, and I want more of it, and I wanna be able to help people. I want like

And I feel like I never have enough.

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

Wow.

And then, you know, I've had people write down 5 things they would do when they made more money and 5 problems that more money would solve. And most of the time, people write, I'd make sure my mom was okay. I would take care of my health. And none of them on the list is buy the Lambo, the new watch, and be, you know, selfish or or buy you know, have more carbon emission. Like, nobody writes negativity. They write all impactful stuff for other people. And the last thing I'll say is this, and I've been using this analogy for myself for years, notice, is I look at when you first get on a plane, you know how they say if the oxygen mask drop, put yours on first and then help if you have a child with you. Right? I look at that with money is when I put my oxygen mask on, when I'm secure, when if you're listening right now, if you get confidence, if you have control of your life, if you have financial security, as soon as you feel stable, I what happens every single time is you start putting oxygen masks on.

When I was 26, I retired my mom. When I was 33, I retired my dad. Both of them worked their butts off to make nothing. I put oxygen masks on my mom and my my dad. I helped my nephews go to college. I paid off debt for people that I cared about that it was it was crippling them with stress. I was able to help my stepdad when he needed a surgery and they needed $40,000 immediately. I was like, so I just realized if I get secure and I obsess on making it, I don't have to hold it and hoard it and be this bad human.

Mhmm.

I could be a human that solves problems, puts oxygen masks on other people.

That's powerful. We were talking about, briefly, we're talking about this that it seems like there's a common denominator for every millionaire or successful person that we know.

Mhmm.

They always had something dark happen or multiple dark things happen, and something that drives them. Whether it's the greatest athletes in the world, the biggest, you know, billionaires in the world, there was something that defined them early on or some things that defined them. I'm curious what were the three moments when you were a kid that really defined you to be this driven, hungry person to originally, like, just be make sure that money wasn't an issue. Yeah. Really good question. To continue to grow and and, you know, reach a $1,000,000,000 in sales and all your businesses and impact the world because that doesn't happen just if you have a happy normal life

Yeah.

In my opinion.

And you know what? A really great question, Louis. And and here's what happens over time. Some of that goes away. You craft a new story.

Of course.

I did it because I wanted to change the world. I'd lie if I said that was true.

But there's usually bullshit. Some there's some defining moments that usually happen when you're 5, 10, 7, whatever.

I I know some of them. One is, my mom did work this sounds like a an infomercial story. My mom worked 3 jobs.

Mhmm.

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

Right?

And she did those 3 jobs, and I asked her to this day. She made about $90 a week because she didn't she barely got a high school. She had dyslexia that wasn't diagnosed. My mom's a beautiful woman inside now.

Mhmm.

Unbelievably gorgeous heart, soul, all of it. But she always felt dumb. Like, she she failed every grade. She quit school in 11th grade because she was so embarrassed to go. And, so she kept that stigma inside. And I remember being really young and watching her come home from work tired as hell at 7 o'clock. My parents split when I was 3, so we were living in a trailer park. My fiancee's here.

I took her to the trailer park that I was living in, and we'd come home, latchkey kids when we were, like, 6 and 8 because, you know, my grandma would come a lot. My grandmother was amazing.

So she

was there a lot too. So we weren't

So you

were you were just with your mom.

Your dad

was your dad in the picture?

Every other weekend.

Okay. Saw him,

but it

was yeah.

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

Wow.

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

At 7, 8 years old.

Yeah. 7 years old. I mean, I had an uncle Larry who was very, he went to college all his kids went to college. And I just didn't I mean, from 9 years old, 10 years old, that's just the path I I knew I wasn't going to college. I didn't think I was that smart. My family didn't have money. I'm like, I'm just I'm going I just wanted money out of the way. Like, it wasn't like today's world has changed a little bit with social media.

Right? There was no such thing as the Internet when I was that age. Right? This is 40 something years ago. Right? And I think money has gotten a bad rep a little bit more because I didn't look at I didn't have, like, guys, you know Photos of everything. Yeah. Like driving the Lambo or in the in the private jet or, you know, the look at me and the the Rolexes. Yeah. The champagne pop and the night clubs. I didn't know that I didn't even know that world existed.

It was I we didn't have money. I lived in a blue collar town. Nobody I knew had money. So it wasn't like I was saying, I'm getting rich because I wanna roll.

You just wanted to help your mom stop suffering. Yeah.

Suffer. And, man, that that's and the one thing I love telling people and, again, you may have heard this, but maybe today is the first time you actually hear it. It's okay to be in pain over something. Just don't ignore it. The the biggest plight we do all do to ourselves, I think, the biggest, like, negativity we do to ourselves is we avoid the things that bother us. When I say what I believe is let that pain sink in. If you if you get moving to start your own business, to scale the company, have to finally quit the job that's dry you know, draining you, if it's because of pain, use it. Like, so many times when people listen to you and all the amazing people you've brought to to the world, Louis, I love what you do, man.

I mean it. I'm I'm really proud to be your friend.

Thank you.

I love watching what you do. I love watching you grow. So many times we'll get into personal growth and we start thinking compelling future. I gotta look ahead. I gotta stay positive. I gotta be the man. I gotta be this woman that keeps it in control. And everything is good.

I'm blessed. I'm blessed. I'm happy. I'm alive. Like, sometimes that's just bullshit. Mhmm. Sometimes life sucks. And what I realized, what moved me as a kid had nothing to do with a compelling future.

It had nothing to do with aspirational quotes. It had nothing to do with meditation. Had to do with I hated where the freak my life was. I hated watching my mom, and I was fixing that shit. And it bugged me every day. Like, it bugged me.

Until you were, like, 16, 18.

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

Wow. That's cool.

So 13 and my gram was the the bomb. My gram would drive around, have her trunk up. I'd clean out the garages. It mostly was her friends.

Right. Right.

So I'd clean up, like, oh, that's garbage, that's garbage, that's garbage. I was like, you wanna sell that? Like, I can't give that away. Like, I'll sell it. I'll give you half. Like, okay. This is before Ebay. It didn't exist. I was Ebay at my gram's front yard.

Right? So she lived a little bit off the highway. I put a signed yard sale, man. I'd be out there on Saturdays learning how to sell. Because people had no mercy.

I I

was a young kid doing it. If you still come, $5, I'll give you 2. It's like, make it 4, you know? So I was negotiating that. And then at 16, I started a fire wood company. I a firewood company. I I cut trees down, split it, stacked it in the back of a truck, and delived it for $90 a quarter.

Wow. You are you chopping it with the

Chainsaw and log splitter.

Wow. Not manual, like No.

No. No. No. It wasn't the what do they call it? Like, yeah, the

Just the ax.

Yeah. It wasn't the ax. I wasn't big enough. Exactly. So the one motivator was my mom. Okay. For sure.

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

I didn't have money in school. It's like when I moved in with my dad, I was 12 years old. My dad, the my dad's, my dad was the youngest of 12 Uh-huh. And was physically and sexually abused his whole childhood. Yeah. And back in those days, there was no jogging. Yeah.

Men back

then

have the ability to talk like you and I talked when we were

jogging. Yeah.

Men back then didn't talk. My dad's 83 now. He didn't he wouldn't go to his best bud. Oh my god. You know, when I was 5 years old or 7, I was molested by my cousin. No one knew. In the old days, they'd be like, get away from you know?

Yeah.

So he didn't talk about so what he had, he had this built up anger his whole life, and no one was able to take advantage of him. Like, if if, you know, the waiter was rude to him, he'd be fist fighting on the floor with the waiter. Right? If if we were in we were driving in traffic one day and and the the flag guy during construction, he didn't wave to my dad. He was, like, looking at somebody else. My dad drove by and he goes, hey, asshole. Didn't you see me? My dad literally jumped out and just beat him. Oh my gosh.

That's

that was my dad. Road like, he was just he was infuriated with everybody because he was this young kid who got abused and no one was there to protect him, and nobody was doing that now. So he lived with that, and and he's in an amazing place right now, and I love him dearly. But when I was 12, 11, it was so bad that I was I was afraid. I was just afraid. Like, I I was nervous for him, and I wanted to help him. So at 11, I left my mom and moved in with him. Mhmm.

And when I moved in with him, I legit this is again, sounds like some infomercial story. I moved in the bat he I literally had a house with no heat because he was remodeling and he ran out of money, and he was working on it. So we had to literally drag a bed into a bathroom at night and plug in a little electric heater. And that wasn't forever, but it was for months. And when I moved in with him, it wasn't poor me. I didn't know anything different. It was fine. And I learned a lot by living with my dad, and the good, the bad.

I learned how to negotiate and all those things. But some days I'd go to school without lunch money. And there was a point and this is okay too. I'm not anywhere near that now, but there was a point where when I saw people with money or, like, when everybody turns 16, a lot of kids in school, their parents got them a new car. Yeah. And You got lunch money. They had the new girl the the car and then they'd give him a cheer leader. And I'm the guy going home every day working with my dad.

I worked every single day. I worked on cars. I worked on construction. And, like, I remember being like, you know what? You you can't hear me now, but you'll hear me someday.

Wow.

In my in my high school high school yearbook, literally, my quote is, like, I might be silent now, but someday, like, it it'd be impossible not to hear me. Like, I gotta get the quote. I just found my yearbook, damn, and it's old, from 1986. Like, oh my god. But, anyway, I wanna read the quote, but it was something like, you don't hear me now, but someday you'll hear me roar. Wow. And that's I I had this, like, internal chip. Like, I was really shy, polite to everybody.

I called every one of my parents' friend, mister or missus. I still do when I see him. Like, I just that's like, I wasn't, like, yo, I got this. It was more like, oh, yes. And I I probably looked really, like, not weak. I don't even know the word. Like, just really, like, an introvert and shy and, like, he's but I was hungry with a chip on my shoulder on the inside. Like, you don't hear me now.

You got the car. You got the girl. I got you. Like and so that was probably in another one too is envy. And and I say, like, envy is toxic. It's completely toxic.

But it's

It's a driver.

It's a good driver. Right?

Like,

just just think like, you can't putt with a driver, but it's okay to smash a ball off the tee. Right?

Yeah.

So if you need envy to smash the ball off the tee, then use it. Like, again Use

it to get you going.

Yeah. Like, again, personal growth is my life. I mean, I'll tell that story in a little bit, but, personal growth is my life and and and self education. Tony Robbins, who's now one of my best friends in the world, he changed my life when I was in my mid twenties when I ordered his course. Like, I was already financially successful.

Yep.

I already had a car business, a a collision shop, an auto sales. I had 21 apartments.

At 26?

At 24. 24. Yeah. 24. I had 21 apartments. I had a tow I had 2 tow trucks at a tow truck company. I was doing I had enterprise at Hertz Rent A Car account. And how's the money to

fund all these? Yeah.

I'll tell you that in a minute. So I got to that. But up until that point, I was suffering to get there, like, working night and day, stressing all night. Now you've you know exactly what I'm talking about, man. When you're

starting when

you were on your sister's couch and you're thinking of going, all of a sudden you get

going. Stop.

You don't stop and then you're up at 2 o'clock in the morning solving problems and you think that's the way you do. I got a competitive edge because I can stay up all night. I can stress more than anybody.

I can over weight

and just yeah. Yeah. I worry more than anybody. So up until that point, I I was on my way to already at a millionaire, from where I was a kid, but I was doing it through suffering. And, you know, I gave Tony Robbins money off an infomercial. That's the reason I went in the infomercial business. I gave him a check. He gave me information.

Everybody told me I was nuts. Like, you bought something off of some huckster on TV, which people probably have said about me in the past. I bought it. I went through it. I I thought I was gonna listen to it over, like, a month, and I just obsessed over, like, 7 days. I digested every piece, and it was just so profound. No one I had ever talked to and this is a true story. No one I had ever talked to in my entire life talked this way, talked about people this way, about obstacles this way, about challenges this way, about your

past.

Belief systems.

Yeah. And belief system and limiting beliefs, and you and your past is designed for you to make you strong. And you know what? I just believed him. Like, I didn't question anything because I saw my dad worked hard, but he wasn't rich and he suffered every day. And if I take on my dad's thoughts, I get to work hard and suffer. If I listen to this guy, it just seemed like a different path. And then he introduced me to Wayne Dyer and Eckhart Tolle and John Wooden and all these other people and all of a sudden, life, you know, self education exploded. But let me go back to your original question.

1 was my mom, 2 was envy.

Mhmm.

I would say, the third the third thing was probably and completely wanting control of my life. Like, I I I know I said that, and there's probably another one I'm trying I'm hoping something else comes to me, but I know for a fact what drove me more than anything was I hated not being in control. And I I love my parents, but I just felt like they made bad decision after bad decision. I didn't wanna listen to them on where I lived. I got my own apartment when I was in 12th grade. Like, I didn't I didn't like their decisions. And I figured if I got money, no one can tell me how to live, no one can tell me what to do, how to talk. And the truth is I still feel that way.

Yeah.

Like, I I don't want anybody tell me when I can go pick up my kids from school or take them on vacation. I coach Little League. I coach softball today. I scheduled this with you at 1. I'm gonna jump on a plane because it 6:30 is my daughter's my son's game, and it's 7:45 is my daughter's softball game. I'm not missing either one of them, and there's nothing or no one that could tell me I'm not gonna be there. Right? That's just an exaggeration of what my life is. But there was a point where money will allow me to make you know, be in control of my decisions.

Mhmm.

And, and I still believe that. Yeah. I still believe that.

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

Curiosity feels better because craving feels like you're a a slave to something. Yes. It's like you're a prisoner to this craving. I need it now. Yeah. I'll do whatever I take to fulfill this emptiness Yes. That I need to fulfill. Give me the M and M's.

Give me the ice cream. I want the pizza now. Postmates, let's go. Yeah. Alright. Uber Eats, DoorDash, I'm in.

Right. Right. And we can we can have food instantaneously almost show up at our door. Yeah. Right? And so we can reinforce those habits.

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

But even that momentary experience, you used to with your hand, you clenched your hand.

Yes.

So there's this con contracted closed down quality to a craving. Does curiosity feel contracted? Yes. What's the possibility? Yes. So which, if you just took closed versus open or contracted versus expanded, which one feels better? Expanded. Yes. Yeah. So right there, we can give our brain a very clear, bigger, better offer. Expand it.

So for example, when we're caught up in ego and we're waiting for that next compliment, does it feel closed or open? Closed. Yes. How about when you're in flow? Like when you're just totally killing it in sport or playing music or having a great conversation, feel closed or open? Yes. Bigger, better offer. Boom.

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

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

What would the curiosity be? What as opposed to the craving, what are you curious about?

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

Oh, wow, wow, Wow. And we

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

Okay. But what if the craving is still there?

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

what do I do? So I was like, well, if your

head explodes, just put the pieces back together and call me.

And I was like and he politely laughed.

You know, it's like bad joke. But we actually got up and mapped out what head exploding felt like for him. What's it feel like? So he described it as like tightness or heat or, clenching and things like this. And we mapped it out on my I remember mapping this out with this on my whiteboard where we watched that wave go up and then over so typically, what somebody does is they'll smoke to make it go away, but he realized it goes up and it actually goes away on its own. And that was a big for him. Mhmm.

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

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

Okay.

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

Thank you.

A little bit. Yeah.

Thank you.

They can also extend to being attached to certain views. Right? So if there are political parties where one side says I'm right, and the other part side says they're right, and they just spend all their time fighting, how are we gonna do anything? So what does fighting feel like closed or open? Closed. How does it feel when people actually collaborate and cross the aisle and say, Hey, I wanna understand your point of view. I really wanna understand it so we can work together. Open. Feels pretty darn good.

Expensive. Yeah.

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

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

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

It's about positive thinking and hoping and wishing.

Hoping and wishing doesn't fit into the math.

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

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

We have a bigger, better offer. Yeah.

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

What is what is the root of addiction in your mind?

You know, I like this really simple definition of addiction, continued use despite adverse consequences. So I would say the root of addiction because that, you know, continued just despite adverse consequences can be anything from self being addicted to social media, to a point of view. So the I think the root actually comes in the survival mechanism that's just trying to help us remember where food is. But in modern day, when food is plentiful, you know, most of us have a refrigerator. Yeah. Right. And restaurants are open 20 you can find anytime of day. That mechanism, that survival mechanisms mechanism is still in place.

So I think that the root of addiction is actually, I I mean, paradoxically, there's a survival mechanism. Yet, in modern day, we refine, you know, cocoa leaves into cocaine. We make we make synthetic opioids so that we can pop pills. We we go on Instagram to look at cute pictures of puppies when we're bored. You know, all these different things that are and food is literally engineered to be addictive now. So that process, that natural survival process get has gotten hijacked.

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

Yeah. Yeah. It really depends. I'm remembering a guy that came into one of our early studies, who was smoking 30 cigarettes a day. And we started with the pay attention when you smoke, see what you get from it. 2 days later, he came back and he'd cut 20 cigarettes. And he realized, you know, I get up and I drink coffee, and I don't like the bitter taste of coffee, so I smoke a cigarette to cover the taste. Oh, I could just brush my teeth instead.

So, you know, so for some people, you know, really clearly mapping it out and seeing how unrewarding the old behavior is helps them change a lot of the habits pretty quickly.

Okay.

So and as I mentioned in some of our, now preliminary research, we're seeing with using these mindfulness apps like the E Write Now app or the Craven to Quit app that I mentioned, we're seeing after people are using these, these craving tools about, you know, 10 to 15 times, that significantly changes the value of that reward. Right.

10 to 15 times or is that 10 to 15 days? What is

that like?

It really so depends on what the behavior is. So somebody could have their, their ice cream craving. And so they can't just, like, eat ice cream 15 times in one day and do the thing and have it I mean, they probably feel pretty sick.

It might help.

But it really has to come as part of their natural experience. So So when

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

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

Yep. We all do.

So Yeah. Yeah.

So when I was first starting this research, I had this hypothesis that it would be, you know, these formal meditation practices that would help people change their behavior. You know, I've been meditating for a while. I'd gone on long retreats and, you know, would, would sit and meditate for a long time. I was like, this is it. It was great for me. But it turns out when we looked at our data that these informal practice, these in the moment, practices where people were paying attention as they were smoking or paying attention as they were eating, where that's what was really helping to change the behavior itself.

In the moment, not before the moment when you wake up in the morning at night, in the moment. Right.

So the formal meditation practices can certainly be helpful, but we actually start by helping people map these things out. Because I didn't know you know, when I first started learning to meditate, it was like, pay attention to your breath, and when your mind wanders, bring it back. It's like, okay. This makes sense. But when I when I you know, I went on my first meditation 7 days silent meditation retreat by, like, day 3, I was crying uncontrollably on the the shoulder of the retreat manager, because I couldn't pay. I was like, I made it through college. I made it into medical school, and now

I can't pay But doctor.

I can't pay attention.

So I thought I was

a failure. And it turns out it's not about forcing ourselves to pay attention. Right? The the grid, that willpower doesn't certainly didn't work for me. It's really about understanding our

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

So I

was like, that was a nice little

As long as you build in build in this kind of sub clause

Uh-huh.

That because people can set these kind of goals that last forever. Joseph Campbell, I'm sure you can think, right on myth said, you know, you can spend your life climbing a ladder, and then realize you had the ladder against the wrong wall. You know, there's the

like, so there's it's I mean it's Why

are we climbing the ladder, right? Yeah. Like why are we climbing this or

Yeah, well we, yeah, we spend a lot of time focusing on stuff like this, we have this image of this version of ourselves that we're moving towards, and it's always out there somewhere. It's kinda like all those things that like Well that look, it's helpful, like if you can have a self image of course, why not have a great self image? Because we tend to make terrible ones, but it's just an image. It's just a picture in your head, it might as well be a good one. Yeah. But, in the meantime there's also like the here and now, and there's like making Impressive. Yeah. Your relationship to the, to the parts of you that aren't right is, or or don't feel right, and making peace with that, and understanding that in a different way. Like, you know, if you're in a relationship, and, I heard this as a philosopher in England called Alain de Botton, I really love this, he said, if you go to sleep, if you go to bed twice a week with your partner and you're thinking what am I doing with this person? This is terrible.

That's normal. Right? That that is like a normal Right. Thing to start with. And that's to me is much healthier, that kind of thinking is healthier than I'm gonna have the perfect relationship, I can visualize that perfect, I'm gonna make it happen. Because sometimes that's great, besides it just sets you up for a kind of why have, you know, an impossible standard. So that there's a balance. Right? There's a I think there's a sub clause Yeah. That goes, if if everything turns out brilliantly, then yes.

Right.

But, you

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

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

I always it's difficult because I always think of like, a friend said this which I thought was great. You know Richard Wiseman, if you come across his work as a kind of popular psychologist. He's just great. So, like, you know, it's like trying to pull out a a, like a big jar with loads of different kind of threads, you know. You just suddenly you try and pull one out, but then of course it just all comes out together. So how you how you go back and like remove one thread from your life. But, so I'm I'm gay but I didn't I didn't come out till I was like 30. So that's like that's kinda late.

17 year 17 years ago. Right?

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

oh, do you Really?

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

So you

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

Yeah. And you know what it really what it what it really did, I think it would gay or straight or whatever, there it we we often have things about ourselves that would be good to come out about. Right? Stuff that we just carry a lot of shame around about. Oh, god. I could never tell people. And what's fascinating and why the coming out thing, regardless of what it's about, not necessarily about sexuality, just anything, if it's something to come out about, and this is what I've found, it's liberating not because you get to go, oh I'm gay, or I'm whatever. It's that you realize like no one gives a fuck.

Yeah. No one cares. Maybe 2 or 3 people or something.

Yeah. But they don't, yeah. But

That's it.

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

Came to peace with it. Yeah.

Yeah. So I don't I

I don't know.

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

to be in

the present. Yeah.

Is there

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

Oh, no. Hey, no. I have anxiety. I'm just don't don't think I don't. I just mean my my I'm I get so good at natural Avoiding it. Yeah. I'm I'm I don't have anxiety like some people have anxiety, but I there are, like, there are different patterns, aren't they? So you've got classically anxiety pattern and avoidance patterns. So like if there's a stressor, if there's a challenge, if there's something in your life that comes up that's stressy, do you run towards it like a magnet and try and fix it? Like some people do.

It's what my partner does. It's like, you're absolutely, like, that makes it worse, I think.

Yeah.

But are you drawn to are you drawn to stress?

Yeah. Yeah.

Or do you just naturally avoid it? I'm very good at avoiding it, but that isn't both sides have their ups and downs. Right? I like but we then it kind of, you know, it's kind of nice. We work well with each other because we, he makes me a little more engaged in things, and I, you know, help him calm down a bit about other stuff. But I, you know, I'm kind of what I find interesting in at the moment is the tension between the urge It was kind of like what you were saying about the the is that the you know, Nietzsche, he kind of had this line of become who you are. That was his drive. Right? So there's there's that one idea of that there is a a version of you that's out there somewhere that you want to clear everyone out of the way so you can just, you know, focus on that. And I think as you know, if you get married or you've got kids and stuff that that kind of tension, that sense of like can be very strong. And then there's the other completely conflicting impulse which is well maybe the best version of myself rather being out there somewhere which I'm never gonna reach.

Right? Mhmm. Is actually

Right here.

Yeah. Maybe the self is something that extends and is sort of active and fluid, and extends out into the relationships that you're in now, but you know both are important. What's what's hard is, and I think this, you know, is just generally in, you know, in life is is hard, is is, like, you know, conflicts, ambivalence is important and again, real. It's part of life that things conflict, and things are ambiguous, and things are, you know, messy, and and that that's okay, and actually it's okay to let completely conflicting opposing ideas settle. I feel, look, I mean look politically, you know, we're so like this now, that we each think the other side is just, is just like mad and evil and we've kind of forgotten that, which is kind of what sacrifice is about. Oh man, yeah. We've forgotten that actually the dialogue between the sides, forgetting the personalities involved, but the dialogue between the sides is actually where, where you find humanity, and where truth is ultimately going to be found. Right? You've you've got 2 very different narratives about, you know, the conservative urge is essentially about protecting the group.

Right? It's about Mhmm. Holding things together, hierarchies holding that together but it can happen at the expense of the weaker individuals. And then the left wing narrative is about protecting the weaker individuals.

And it

doesn't Paring down the

Yeah, and letting it doesn't if that can happen at the expense of the overall structure that's you know, that's fine. So, but you know sometimes we think as we do have to think as a group and sometimes we have to think as individuals and we've we've evolved like along both lines. Yeah. And both sides ultimately are gonna are gonna be important. So, you know, dialogue is important, and likewise in life things are messy, and they're complex, and they're ambiguous, and there is a, you know, growing up is tolerating ambiguity, I think.

That's true. What is your greatest fear?

More fears.

If you're

gonna forget about my hand and give me a really hard handshake, if you have this. I don't like spiders. I don't. Greatest fear, I don't know. I think I

think kind of you

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

You can do

your best. Yeah.

Yeah. You can only

You can't control how people respond or react

Exactly.

Exactly. To the

way you show up.

Right?

Yeah. So it's not a kind of anxiety fear, but in terms of the things that I think about that, you know, I I part of me, as I said, wants, like, everyone clear out the way, and I just want to pursue these things, but then what am I gonna be? I think I I think I'm becoming this great fascinating version of myself. I'd probably just become some weird old man. You know, we we cross state don't we? We develop like a sort of a hard shell when we're on our own for too long. And what relationships do is they make you more conscious

of

all the things that are just mad about you. Because otherwise you're unconscious of them, and it's the things you're unconscious of that will own you, and will come back and bite you. So relationships are so important. But because I'm naturally kind of a bit of a loner, it's like like I'm really aware at the moment of that tension. That that for me, in the kind of middle bit of life, that's kind of that's what I find really interesting at

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

I it's well, yeah. Because that's a potential for sort of

Right.

Not only letting other people down, but just becoming this intolerable, horrible version of

myself. Gotcha.

It's that, it's just Gotcha. Trying to get that stuff, you know, trying to get that stuff right. Are you, like, how old are you?

35.

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

Well, I think, you know, I've I've been talking a lot about this in in, just in my work that, and through all the people that I've interviewed over the years of different backgrounds and stuff, there's really three main fears that I've found that most of us have. Yeah. The fear of failure.

Mhmm.

We don't go after something or pursue something or speak or do music or whatever it may be because we don't wanna fail. Yeah. That fear of like, I'm a failure, I'm a loser. Right? Yeah. The fear of success where then we're leaving our pack, our community because if we're succeeding and they're not coming with us then I'm alone and they're not gonna accept me. Or the pressure that I have to perform again. Mhmm.

I have

to repeat the success, right? Yep. You might have felt that when you had this hit show and it's like it's gotta be better. It's gotta be better. Right? And then the third one Spiders. Spiders. Yes. Spiders and snakes and heights. The fear of judgment.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Either way, you know, making sure that people like us. You know, fear of like, well, either one. If I succeed or fail, are people gonna like me? And for me, the judgment is always was always the fear until I addressed it about 5 years ago. Because as an athlete I was taught that you had to fail to succeed. And I was the youngest of 4, I was the the I was this tall when I was like 11, and just like goofy and gangly. I wasn't like this stud athlete or whatever. I was the one that everyone made fun of.

I had a, you know, I was in special needs classes, so it was hard for me to read and write all through college. Almost flunked English in high school, all those things. So I had a lot of insecurities about the perception people had about me. Right. Like my image, my Yeah. Ego. Yeah. Like what do they think about me? What do they say about me? Am I Sure.

Am I saying the right things? Like I

always Yeah.

Thought was off. So that judgment was what drove me to be a great athlete. To succeed, to achieve, to perform well and to win at everything. Mhmm. So it was like accomplishment driven. And I realized that failure wasn't a fear for me because coaches taught me you've gotta practice. You're gonna miss shots, That's how you learn.

Mhmm. So I was

like, alright, I'm gonna fail every day and it's okay. That's the foundation for achievement. And that's all I wanted was the success. Mhmm.

But

it was like, did I slip? Did I look silly? Did I did? You know, the fear of

like Yeah.

What people think about me. Yeah. So you're still living it out though. That's what's interesting.

What's that?

You're still living that out, that same fear of judgment. You're still living it out, but you've turned it to something I'm aware of it. Yeah.

Very aware of it. I well, I started to accept it. And 5 years ago, I I opened up about being sexually abused as a kid, and I've talked about it many times on this show and, you know, wrote a book about, all that stuff. And it wasn't until I fully opened up about all my fears and insecurities about that and many other things.

Mhmm.

It wasn't until I like opened up about it and my fear was like everyone's gonna judge me. Everyone's gonna No one's gonna love me. No one's gonna accept me. Like they're just gonna make fun of me even more. Yeah. And I had everything to lose, right? I I had a successful business and career and everything, but I was like, no one can know about this stuff. Like no one can know that you're gay or whatever. Mhmm.

Maybe that was a feeling, I don't know.

Mhmm. Yeah, totally.

And for me it was like the most shameful thing that I held on to for 25 years

Yeah.

Or until I was 30. And, but when it happened I was like, man, this weight, like, no one no one cares.

No one cares.

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

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

Yeah. Something, and that was

was my

And you're probably doing the same as as was I. And then So people only people only go, and they step in closer. It's a nice

it's really

a good experience.

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

level. Yeah. It's a whole it's amazing thing to kind of discover, isn't it? It's such a Yeah.

I'm a

little Simple thing for everybody else.

I'm a

little old. Amazing thing to discover.

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

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

But I

think, you know, I think the most we can hope for often is just being conscious of these things. Yeah. There is there is a we can't always it's, you know, it's not easy just to go, oh great, and then change anything, but being conscious means that it Yes. Means you less.

So like

we Yeah. From the from the word go, we are We come into this world, and we are given powerful messages from our, you know, parents, our caregivers, our authority figures kind of going, here is the relationship between you and the world. You are you are small, the world is big. You have no power, the world has power. We learn very quickly what what that is. What what are It's a skewed vision.

Mhmm.

We have, you know, Jung talks about the greatest burden the child has to bear is the unlived life of its parents. How great how

great is that? Yeah. Yeah.

So that's like right all this from the word go.

Putting a pressure. Yeah. Yeah.

But we are adapting creatures, right? The thing that makes us so great at evolution, because we adapt, really starts to kind of fuck us up a bit with with with this sort of life thing, because we we adapt to that, we internalize it, and we go, okay, so I'll I'll think of myself like this, and I'll think of the world like this. And we start to kind of live that out. We develop a template of what love means from our parents, which is entirely realistic. Unrealistic because Mhmm. You see all the nice stuff like they presumably hopefully, please God give us the best side of themselves. We don't see the arguments they have when they're, you know, we know what it's like now as adults Yeah. Yeah. What the experience of parenting is like.

We don't see them screaming and arguing and losing sleep.

I saw

that. Maybe Well, yeah. Yeah. Maybe you did.

Yeah. Yeah.

But very often at least, so there's a there's a

Sure.

Idea of like this template of what love is that isn't isn't really like realistic, and we start to bring that into our that becomes our template for our adult relationships.

Our story. Yeah.

Because that's all we know, right? And then we're projecting all of that stuff onto our

And expecting certain things, yeah.

And we live out these same patterns. Everything comes back again and again because we we just The stuff we're not conscious of is the stuff that that that rules us. And if we bury, you know, we we bury one part of us, like like if you're, you know, if you're the the homophobic, I don't know, homophobic televangelist who, you know, preaches against all that and then gets, you know, caught in bed with Right. Right. Some dying. There's like a big sack. It'll come back and bite you if you if you bury these things, you know. So the most we can do I think is become conscious of how we adapt in these ways to skewed messages.

Skewed, you know, our our compasses are all over the place. We internalize it. We think that's the truth, and then we go through life kind of looking for things that in a familiar way repeat that pattern. So people can have the same problems with relationships again and again.

That's what they know.

Because that's what they know.

That's what

they're supposed

to be

is true. How do you think, no matter where we're at in our lives, how do we rewire and master our mind? How can we

say You're asking me like

I know that bear in mind that the only reason why I have any language for this stuff

is To study

that it doesn't come naturally and I became Right. Naturally if it was all sec, I wouldn't have the language for you.

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

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

you mean failure comfortable? Meaning be okay with failure?

Yeah. To let, to let, I mean even is it even failure? I mean, I don't know. It's just a difference. It's just experiences, isn't it? Learning. Yeah. Yeah. How you make that Make your peace with the fact that life isn't gonna always produce what you'd like it to, and make make that okay. That's huge, and as I said become The best we can do is become more conscious of this.

So that so that can happen through psychotherapy. Right? A psychotherapist is gonna hopefully, I'd like depth psycho, like psychoanalysis that kind of thing increases your your sort of dialogue with yourself. Increases increases your consciousness about those things, but it's very expensive and it's long form Yeah.

Of course. And a lot

of people

are interested but that's one way of doing it. Another way I guess is to is to look honestly at your life and see where are these where are these recurring patterns? What am I What keeps cropping up? What am I a bit obsessed by? What am I constantly trying to avoid? What am I, what just keeps coming back and biting me? What does life keep keep throwing at me that's that's like that's bad and causing problems? And then we just trace that back. See where it goes back to. Are there any other possibilities? Are there any other ways of behaving? And it's not like it just goes great, and then you change, but you become more conscious of it. And then it's like a little drip by drip feeding into the soul that, you know, can can make a difference. I think I think, you know, I think these these are sort of modest

Sure. Sure. Sure.

Modest goals. Yeah.

Of course. Important. I'm curious, who is, more influential in your your your youth? Mom or your dad? To you, more importantly.

Well, both. My dad may be kind of in a sort of negative sense. I mean, there was not like any dad blood that this is quite common I think with like boys that are gay growing up, is that you tend to have the stronger bond with the mother, and the father's sort of, there's just kind

of a bit

of a disconnect there. So, but of course both have not been hugely influential, because both of those impulses inform who you are as an adult.

And people ask, well, what are the easiest and most important habits to start building? Going back to the basics, making your bed, drinking water. This first thing I do is I drink a tall glass of water. Most people drink coffee right away or tea, tall glass of water. The brain needs to get activated.