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LIVE THE LIFE YOU PROMISED Y… — Motivation2Study shadowing | TryShadowing
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Motivation2Study
LIVE THE LIFE YOU PROMISED YOURSELF
LIVE THE LIFE YOU PROMISED YOURSELF
Motivation2Study
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1:40:58 · Oct 6, 2025
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0:01
You know, I think anybody who's listening right now,
0:03
if you want to set yourself up for success,
0:05
ask yourself how much risk you've taken in the first 10, 15, 20, 30,
0:09
40 years of your life.
0:11
When I started talking about business on Twitter, every single comment in 2009 was,
0:18
"Shut your mouth, wine boy.
0:20
Stay in your lane."
0:21
I'm telling you right now,
0:22
you want to talk about why
0:23
so many of you aren't exactly where you want to be,
0:26
look deep inside yourself on what your expectations of others are.
0:32
Ask yourself how much you've been succumbing to peer pressure.
0:36
Like, if you've always wanted to be cool to the popular kids in your
0:39
high school,
0:39
you're in trouble.
0:40
The amount of people in here
0:42
that have a job they hate
0:43
and they buy things they don't care about to impress people they don't give
0:47
a about scares the out of me.
0:50
Most people spend money on dumb things
0:55
which then forces them to do things they don't want.
0:59
Long before I became the wine guy on YouTube and Twitter,
1:01
I was a businessman.
1:03
And I think if it's your truth,
1:04
there's a very big difference between being an entrepreneur and a successful entrepreneur.
1:09
I can say that I'm a football player.
1:12
Doesn't mean I'm going to get paid to do it.
1:14
And so I think the truth I I think it's unbelievably uh exciting for
1:19
me. feels warm in my heart
1:21
that the thing that I've seen consistently analyzing this every second of my breathing
1:25
day for the last decade has been whatever your truth may be
1:29
as long as it is actually your truth you will always overindex
1:33
and people told me to not curse on stage you know my agents who
1:36
like stop cursing on stage cuz we're losing
1:38
so much money I'm like I can't I have to be me
1:42
and wherever the chips fall
1:43
and I think for everybody a it's fun cuz it's easier
1:46
and b audiences audiences are smart.
1:50
To your point, you can smell
1:52
when that person wants to put their agenda through.
1:54
>> And so I think the truth,
1:56
which is a very exciting answer to this question, the truth is undefeated.
2:03
>> My friends, accountability, giving with no expectation in return, playing the long game.
2:09
Every single person's business
2:11
or ambition will grow exponentially tomorrow
2:14
if they spend the next 13 years giving away free content forever. seems super
2:21
non-natural.
2:22
When do you monetize?
2:23
How do you do this?
2:24
The person that holds the breath the longest wins.
2:28
Some of you are interested in this work
2:30
and you like telling people you do it.
2:34
It make you feel good, but you not you're not 120 though.
2:40
Some of you are committed, but this like your side hustle.
2:45
I'm just being real y'all.
2:47
I was fully committed.
2:48
I left everything and started doing it.
2:50
And because I was fully committed, the world responded to that commitment.
2:57
But you just interested, you're not really committed to it.
3:01
You're not putting in 50, 60 hours.
3:05
When my wife got diagnosed with MS,
3:07
I never quit doing the work because I wasn't doing it for people.
3:11
I was doing it for the kids that I was doing it for.
3:13
So even with MS, she had to quit her job.
3:16
I had to take it to another level.
3:20
Some of y'all are negotiating not because of the company.
3:23
You negotiate because you're not the best at what you do.
3:25
And I need y'all to go back
3:26
and be the best at what you do.
3:28
And then I need y'all to come together
3:30
as the best and
3:31
then take this thing to the next level.
3:34
And there are some of you, you know what you want.
3:38
You know what you want,
3:39
but you are not personally willing to do the work it takes to get
3:43
it.
3:43
What you're trying to do is do what you've done on this level
3:46
and get the next level.
3:50
You're trying to do exactly what you doing on this level.
3:52
You're like, I'm getting up every day.
3:54
I'm putting in two and a half.
3:55
I'm putting in three and I'm not getting the opportunity.
3:57
The opportunity might require three and a half.
4:01
I'm lifting weights.
4:03
I'm eating right and I'm not getting the opportunity.
4:05
It might require getting up and working out three and a half.
4:08
It might require you saying no to your friends.
4:10
It might require you changing your diet.
4:12
It might require you moving to another city.
4:14
Whatever it takes, you got to be willing to do it.
4:17
And you keep saying you're not there because of something else.
4:19
Because it's easier to blame somebody else
4:24
because now you don't got to do no work.
4:25
When you blame somebody else, guess who got to do the work?
4:27
They got to do the work.
4:28
But guess who got the power?
4:31
They got the power.
4:33
How many of you are tired of other people having the power?
4:35
Let me see your hand.
4:36
You want the power?
4:37
I'm just being real.
4:38
Hands down.
4:38
Hands down.
4:39
Think about what I just said.
4:40
How many of you want the power?
4:41
Let me see your hands.
4:43
Good.
4:43
Write down.
4:44
Write down next to your crazy idea some of the things
4:47
that you know you doing wrong that's messing up what you're doing actually being
4:57
successful or like moving out of our mom's basement
4:59
or whatever.
5:00
We put so much energy
5:02
and time into the presentation of not looking like that's the situation instead of
5:08
putting the energy and time into actually finding a solution to
5:12
that issue.
5:13
And so at that point it was like, okay,
5:16
I've been putting a lot of time
5:18
and effort trying to pretend things are good instead of actually trying to find
5:22
solutions.
5:23
And then that's when I started to do everything I needed to do to
5:28
try to make money
5:29
and just really when I say embrace,
5:31
it's not necessarily like accept it for what it is.
5:33
It's almost like, okay, this is real.
5:36
I need to figure this out.
5:38
Take in your surroundings.
5:39
You take in the people around you.
5:40
You see how they're making money.
5:42
And I just didn't like begging people for money.
5:44
And so I respected the guys that were like figuring out hustles, right?
5:49
And so, for instance, there was a ao right down the street from me.
5:53
And so, I would go there and I would wash windshields and make money,
5:56
just try to save up enough money to just be in a motel for
5:59
the night.
5:59
And I mean, like the nastiest motel, but for me,
6:02
it was just taking in my environment, seeing how other people hustled,
6:06
how I can do it better.
6:08
Um, someone taught me how to play drums on buckets and things like that.
6:11
And so, you know,
6:12
I just tried to do any type of hustle um that I could.
6:16
I just started to learn how others were moving
6:19
and kind of adapted um throughout.
6:23
For me, it's it's opening your mind and opening yourself to people.
6:28
I think a lot of people they are ignorant.
6:32
They are like rejecting change.
6:35
Travel.
6:36
Get out of your comfort zone.
6:37
Meet people from all different types of backgrounds.
6:39
If you want to build a product
6:41
or service or company
6:42
that you want to build at scale
6:45
and your friends are only the homies
6:47
that you've been hanging out with since,
6:49
you know, middle school, probably should meet some more people.
6:52
Get to know them.
6:53
Travel the world, you know,
6:55
and even if you don't have the resource to travel the internet,
6:57
learn about different cultures, learn about different people.
7:00
You're at that computer, you tell me what you want to do.
7:03
I tell you, this is how you search.
7:05
This is this is how you find those resources.
7:08
Now you got to actually go and learn.
7:11
>> You have to be able to show people that there's other options.
7:15
And that's what spreading seas is all about.
7:18
Showing people that they can actually do something different.
7:26
>> There's one thing being homeless,
7:28
but there's another thing having everything taken away from you.
7:39
I was literally living out of my car.
7:41
And so even though I was homeless,
7:43
I was still trying to uphold the appearance of everything being okay.
7:49
When that moment happened, it was like, wo,
7:52
this is rock bottom
7:53
because now all my clothes are gone. all the cool shoes,
7:58
all the things that were material um
8:00
that you know I tried to fake it until I figured things out were
8:04
gone now.
8:05
And not only that, all the the the elements.
8:09
So now rain and snow and all these things would get in the car.
8:12
So it was like mildewy and smelly and so I smelled right.
8:16
And so for me in
8:18
that moment I understood
8:20
that wow this is I thought things were bad
8:23
but things are really really bad at this point
8:26
and now I can't pretend anymore.
8:28
I just have to really embrace this.
8:30
I think a lot of times
8:31
when we're going through things we kind of try to figure out how we're
8:36
going to finesse our way into people not knowing
8:38
that things are things are wrong instead of just saying this is my life.
8:43
This is real.
8:43
Now, you have like these brief moments of kind of peace until like the
8:49
next accident happens,
8:50
right?
8:51
Um, and that's just life in general.
8:53
You know, it's never going to be complete smooth sailing.
8:56
One of the things
8:57
that I've noticed about a lot of people is
8:58
that they let the hardships
9:00
and the things that happen in their life,
9:02
failure, stop them from like Aaliyah says, you know,
9:06
dust yourself off and try again, right?
9:08
And for me, I've just never let anything
9:12
or anybody prevent me from achieving what I want to achieve.
9:16
And so, I've always had this relentless mentality.
9:19
And if you say I can't do something, if I fail, if I,
9:23
you know, mess up, it just motivates me even more.
9:25
I just become even more hungry.
9:27
And so, I've always just had this, you know, relentless mentality.
9:31
I don't take, you know, no for an answer.
9:33
I don't take failure or accept failure at all.
9:36
And it's just always been kind of in my heart to not give up.
9:40
It's the rose that grew from concrete, right?
9:42
It's like no matter how terrible a situation is,
9:47
no matter how bad it is,
9:49
there's still going to be a rose that grows from that concrete.
9:52
And I feel like I was that, right?
9:54
No matter what my situation was, I was built for this.
10:00
I was not going to let myself fail, right?
10:04
And I have that mentality.
10:06
And I understand that now that I grew from that concrete,
10:10
I'm starting to plant my seeds.
10:11
And there's more roses growing.
10:17
>> You don't have to be perfect to be remarkable.
10:19
>> You know, aim high, but manage my expectations of of success.
10:24
People see the 30%.
10:25
They don't see the 70% of not making it
10:28
or not getting what you want.
10:31
And the interesting thing is that when you are honorable to achievement,
10:37
the wealth and that kind of thing comes automatically.
10:40
My story is all about agility and being able to be flexible.
10:46
The 5year 10ear plan that most CEOs ask,
10:49
my plan has always been kind of unhinged.
10:53
It's just like I go where my passion leads me
10:56
and and I feel free.
11:00
>> Performance mattered, not fame, not money.
11:04
How well did you do at something is what mattered.
11:08
>> I've got to get through it.
11:11
I've got to take a snapshot of the really great moments
11:16
and carry those with me through the really bad ones.
11:19
And the trick is taking your blinders off
11:23
and remembering to look at those photos.
11:26
And it changes the brain, changes the wiring.
11:30
And I try to breathe.
11:32
Breathing changes the wiring.
11:34
But it's conscious.
11:36
You have to just slow down.
11:40
You have to cut out all the noise.
11:43
You have to respect yourself. young fans with a tattoo of Danny Zuko
11:49
or or Vincent Vega on their arm
11:51
and you and you say this somewhere I made a difference in their life.
11:56
Were they were was someone glad that you were alive?
12:00
Were you valuable to someone uh by being here?
12:05
And you you want to be valuable, you know,
12:07
otherwise you're kind of wasting your time uh
12:10
if if you don't find your niche to be valuable to something.
12:17
You have to be grateful for what what you can get.
12:22
Plain and simple.
12:23
Like be grateful for what you have
12:24
because that's like we're lucky to even be here.
12:28
I think it's that feeling to be just lucky to be on the stage
12:31
playing in front of people.
12:31
Lucky to be sitting with you and talking about this.
12:34
>> It's just important for people to understand that complaining has no value.
12:40
And if you complain about not having enough money, work more.
12:43
If you complain about not having work life balance,
12:46
spend more time on vacationing and your family.
12:49
It's super simple.
12:50
Let your actions dictate instead of sitting there
12:53
and feeling like you're not in control.
12:55
>> Poor people say, "I can't afford it.
12:57
I can't do that.
12:58
I don't have time."
13:00
It's an escape.
13:00
You know what I mean?
13:01
It's easy to say, "I can't afford it.
13:03
Oh, I I'm too tired.
13:04
Oh, I can't go to the gym."
13:06
You know, when you could go to the gym, but no, I can't.
13:10
Truth is, I'm just too lazy to go to the gym.
13:13
>> My first shows I was playing for five people.
13:15
Like some of them didn't even want to be there, honestly.
13:19
But I was pretending like it was like like a big deal.
13:21
When I started DJing, I was playing.
13:24
I remember when like five people would be like, "Yeah."
13:26
And there was like everyone else just doesn't give a I'm like,
13:28
"Those are my five people.
13:30
I focus on them."
13:31
And after I talked to them, hang out with them.
13:33
I used to do that at every show when I was in a band.
13:36
We would tour across the United States.
13:38
And we would drive like 10 hours
13:41
and we would we show up I remember in like uh Albuquerque
13:44
or something and there was 12 people
13:45
that showed up and after the show I like hung out with all of
13:48
them and one of them the guys let us stay in their in their
13:50
house cuz we were sleeping in our van the whole time.
13:53
Man I was excited after the whole tour I was like
13:55
when are we going to go back again
13:57
and it's like you know you have to start in
14:00
that mindset.
14:01
It's like you can't That's the problem with social media right now is
14:04
that you're comparing yourself to people
14:05
that have like this large success
14:07
and you're like I want to play there.
14:09
But you first have to go with what you have in front of you
14:11
and make that meaningful.
14:14
You can't forget that life is an art.
14:16
It's why Oprah and I connected immediately
14:19
because you know we did a whole episode one time on enlightening people
14:24
that didn't have money on how they can live art our said very easy.
14:28
I said, "Can the average fellow go to Walmart
14:32
and afford a it's like a tray?"
14:34
Yes, it might be $3.
14:36
Can you afford a cup instead of a paper cup?
14:38
Might be a dollar.
14:39
It's fine.
14:40
Now, can you put your favorite coffee in that cup?
14:43
Can you Can you go to a market
14:47
or something and get a nice blueberry muffin?
14:49
Can you make that look pretty?
14:50
Put a flower on that tray.
14:52
Now, can you go give it to your husband or your wife?
14:54
They'll think they're at the Four Seasons and you have minimal money.
14:58
It's how you approach it, you know.
15:01
It's it's the art of life.
15:07
Someone wants wealth or they want want fame.
15:10
It it's harder for
15:11
that to happen because it's not based on anything
15:15
that has a a bean exchange to it.
15:18
You know, I always say
15:19
if you want to be uh wealthy on on just money,
15:23
uh get into the money business, uh investments, uh banking, you know,
15:28
uh but if you're in the arts,
15:29
I would do it for art's sake first and then hopefully others will follow,
15:34
but not make it a prerequisite,
15:36
but just keep doing the right thing and the good thing it'll happen.
15:42
>> We all make mistakes.
15:44
We all struggle. this like unconscious feeling
15:48
that I need to prove to my dad
15:51
that I'm gonna make it
15:52
because that's like what I grew up with.
15:54
I grew up with this like I need to make it cuz he kind
15:57
of he implanted those subliminal messages towards me,
16:02
you know, like when I was a kid growing up throughout my life,
16:04
you know, let's say some parent
16:06
that doesn't want their kid to play the violin,
16:09
okay?
16:10
And they're antagonistic, you know, you've got to be an accountant.
16:12
You've got to be an accountant.
16:14
You go, "Okay, Dad, I love you, but if I become an accountant,
16:21
I'm becoming what you want me to be,
16:25
and I have a good chance at having a not so happy life.
16:30
Even if I fail at being a violinist,
16:32
at least I failed on my own terms,
16:34
and I failed doing something I loved.
16:37
So, you got to let up on me,
16:39
dad or brother or sister or what,
16:42
whoever that character is that has a counter intention to you.
16:46
You have to get with them and get real and say, "Look,
16:50
it's my life.
16:51
It's not your life.
16:52
And this is how I need to do it."
16:55
Why are you so hungry?
16:56
Like, why do you keep doing this at this level?
17:01
Because at the end of the day, you know,
17:04
that's what you you have as evidence of a a life well-lived,
17:08
a a contribution to people.
17:11
You know you you know
17:12
if if if let's say I have 70 movies
17:15
and each one delivers a a kind of joy to a certain audience the
17:22
collage or the mosaic of your career has this blanketed effect
17:28
that suddenly you can go away with pride
17:31
that you it was a job well done
17:33
and you you maybe made a difference in a lot of people's lives.
17:39
When you do something because you love it, it's being an amateur.
17:44
And if you're a professional,
17:45
you have to do it regardless of whether you love it
17:48
or whether you feel like it
17:50
that night.
17:52
The trick is to keep both.
17:56
Because if you if you don't love it, then it's empty, >> you know.
18:03
But we're getting there.
18:04
What's crazy is that we're actually the dreams I had as a kid,
18:07
they're actually happening, which is it's bizarre and wild.
18:10
I really want to showcase to all the young people
18:15
that the shy kids
18:17
that the kids are like,
18:18
"Yeah, I I will not be successful like that.
18:22
I will have to like sit in a cubicle and do, you know,
18:26
the boring stuff."
18:27
Which is actually what my dad told me to do.
18:29
He's like, "That's real life. you have other ways to look at your scenario
18:35
and you know it's it's like I'm I'm trying to speak to to to
18:40
that to that demo to those kids to those people to the young people
18:45
out there like that even to the older people
18:47
that are like maybe I need to stop my job
18:50
and like pursue something else
18:51
or maybe I need to re-evaluate what I'm what I want to do with
18:56
my life.
18:58
I'm learning now, I think, to try to go with the flow,
19:02
to enjoy things, um, not to worry so much.
19:07
>> If you always do good work from your standards,
19:12
whether you're in a project that fails or succeeds, you can live with that.
19:20
Think of I'm 40.
19:22
Do you know how young we feel?
19:25
It's When you were 26,
19:28
did you ever think that this is what 44 felt like?
19:32
>> No.
19:32
>> You thought that that was finished?
19:34
>> Yeah.
19:34
>> How old are you?
19:37
>> Like, you think a 40-year-old like when I was 25 years old,
19:40
I thought a 40-year-old was finished.
19:42
I don't even feel like I'm starting.
19:44
And so, I'm giving real advice.
19:46
And real advice looks like this.
19:48
When you're 19 and you can spend seven full years learning your craft,
19:54
meeting people that are mentors, being patient,
19:57
and you wake up and you're 26 years old,
20:01
you have your entire life in front of you,
20:02
and you've done great foundational work to go on and then be successful.
20:13
If you want to be the best at something,
20:15
you're going to find a way to push through those challenges
20:17
and make sure you do what you need to do to be successful.
20:21
It's all about work ethic.
20:23
It's all about what you choose to do in life.
20:26
What is important to you?
20:28
What is that goal that you're going to identify and go after and say,
20:32
"I'm going to go after this thing wholeheartedly.
20:36
It doesn't matter what other people say.
20:38
This is what I feel is positive.
20:40
I love it.
20:41
You know, the whole world disappears when I do it.
20:43
And I'm going to channel this thing so I can help myself,
20:47
so I can help other people.
20:52
I put the work into this, like every day, all day.
20:57
And then when I'm done with it, guess what I do?
21:00
I dream about it.
21:02
I visualize it.
21:04
I see myself being successful.
21:06
I see myself hitting those shots with no time on the clock,
21:11
with a little time on the clock.
21:13
And anytime I was successful in those situations, I mean, you know,
21:17
I would always let people know it's through dedication, through your hard work,
21:20
and through mental preparation and visualization.
21:23
If you do those things,
21:24
if you can see yourself being successful in your mind,
21:28
then it will appear in the physical reality.
21:30
If you're calm and collected when you get the opportunity,
21:36
if you want to be great, oh man,
21:38
prepare to get up off that mat.
21:40
You're going to get knocked down over and over and over.
21:45
And even when you feel like, "No,
21:47
nobody it I can't be hit this hard."
21:51
Or if you're down there thinking,
21:52
"It's no way I can get up from this."
21:56
That's when you're just starting.
21:59
That's when it it it really kind of that's
22:02
when your your survival skills have to kick in
22:05
and hopefully you've trained enough in in in your mental preparation
22:10
and really believe enough in yourself to get up
22:14
because you know everybody I think we always um said the easiest thing to
22:20
do is hold that trophy.
22:21
That's the easiest thing to do in this process
22:25
and that's only going to be for a very short amount of time. the
22:30
work,
22:30
the will, the commitment.
22:33
Like I said, getting not getting up when you're knocked down.
22:37
I mean, there's always going to be these struggles
22:44
that or or challenges
22:45
that you have to get over.
22:46
And the hardest part is in you trying to be one of the best
22:50
in the game,
22:51
there's going to be a tension with it.
22:53
You have to live it.
22:54
You have to want it
22:55
so bad to where you'll sacrifice those Saturday nights
22:59
or Friday nights with your friends.
23:02
This is what I'm going to put my time into
23:04
because this is what I want.
23:10
The most critical piece of advice
23:12
that I've ever gotten
23:13
and I won't name who was from a coach one day.
23:17
He just all he said
23:19
and and I'm going to paint the picture for you.
23:20
I was a rookie.
23:23
I'm 19 years old.
23:25
I'm playing with guys old enough to be my dad.
23:28
I'm getting thrown around.
23:30
I'm I'm just I'm I'm playing a level of basketball
23:33
that I I'm barely hanging on by a nail with,
23:37
but I'm one of our best players, so I'm playing every night.
23:40
I want to go home.
23:42
I'm not used to the cold.
23:44
I'm getting beat up, but I wouldn't quit.
23:49
And I was looking for this piece of advice from someone
23:52
and all they told me was just like they would always tell me,
23:55
"Hey man, keep going.
23:59
Just keep going all the time, every time."
24:03
And you know, I got
24:04
so mad cuz I'm looking for
24:07
that euphoric that euphoric feeling from the piece of information
24:12
that they're about to give me,
24:13
right?
24:14
That's I think we all kind of struggle sometimes looking for
24:17
that and putting too much pressure on the situation.
24:21
But as I got older, as I continued to train,
24:26
as I continued to not give up
24:28
and not let a loss define me
24:32
or my character,
24:33
I kept going.
24:36
Lose or win, I kept going.
24:38
And and then it really started to click.
24:40
What he was telling me was he didn't have anything to tell me.
24:45
I cannot, you know, I can't I can't sugarcoat this ass whooping.
24:51
It is what it is.
24:52
You're going to take your lumps, but if you keep going,
24:56
if you don't quit, you're going to get better.
24:59
And you're going to get better.
25:00
And you're going to get better.
25:02
Hey, keep going.
25:04
And then after that, you keep going.
25:07
And then after that, you keep going. because it's about what we do.
25:12
It's about how we handle the situation.
25:14
It's not it's not about what happens to us cuz things are going to
25:18
happen.
25:19
How are you going to separate yourself from everybody else?
25:23
And I always thought anytime it got really incredibly hard,
25:28
I would think about all the people quitting right now
25:32
and how they're going to feel in a few years
25:35
that they're just going to say,
25:36
"Man, what if I hadn't have given up?
25:40
What if I would have kept going?"
25:41
Don't say, "What if?"
25:43
Please, please, please, please, please don't have the whatifs down the road.
25:49
You keep going now and I'm telling you,
25:52
you'll be in a better place than you would be if you quit.
25:58
Yeah.
25:58
Back when I was playing, my edge was my intensity.
26:02
My edge was my focus and my commitment.
26:06
You know, I put everything into the game.
26:08
I prepared.
26:10
I dreamt about it.
26:11
I visualized it.
26:13
I always prepared myself mentally for whatever is coming.
26:18
And I felt that that was my edge.
26:21
I read books.
26:22
I felt that was an edge as well.
26:24
You know, I've read these different books on mental toughness
26:28
and I'm going to take nuggets from each one to may
26:33
and and maybe it'll help me
26:35
because I know I'm going into a tough situation
26:38
and it's going to be extremely hard,
26:39
but I'm not going to give up.
26:41
And it doesn't even matter if the other side knows that about me.
26:45
They're in trouble before they even lace it up.
26:47
That's how I felt every single match.
26:49
I didn't care who I was playing.
26:52
And um you know, it kind of spills over into this day.
26:54
Um you know, it's all about work ethic.
26:57
It's all about what you choose to do in life.
27:00
Uh what is important to you?
27:03
What is that goal that you're going to identify and go after?
27:09
>> Speaking about your career, greatness, two NBA championships,
27:14
and then it's cut short. take us into the emotion.
27:18
>> Oh man, it sucks.
27:19
It's heartbreaking.
27:20
Um, it's surreal.
27:22
Unbelievable.
27:23
And I don't mean in a good way.
27:26
Um, and for a while I I fought that notion, you know, not me.
27:29
It couldn't have happened to me.
27:31
This is not fair.
27:33
I haven't done anything wrong.
27:36
I came back from it.
27:39
You know, it happened twice to me.
27:40
I came back from the last time I was in the hospital laid up,
27:45
you know, fresh out of surgery
27:47
and I had to I was in the hospital for two weeks with tubes
27:49
in my chest,
27:50
you know, and and and I overcame that, man.
27:55
Not this not just in a regular appointment with some doctor telling me
28:01
that it's over.
28:04
You know, it took it took a very long time to get over that.
28:06
It was crushing.
28:07
It was heartbreaking, you know,
28:08
and I and I blew off steam at the time by, you know,
28:12
um trying to get back in the league.
28:14
I worked out vigorously, trying to stay ready.
28:18
Uh but eventually I came to the realization that it wasn't going to happen.
28:22
And um you you know, it just sucks.
28:25
You know, there's no other way to put that.
28:27
Um I thought I thought and I say it in the book as well.
28:30
I thought winning a championship was the hardest thing I'd ever do.
28:33
And we say that, you know,
28:34
that was like a mantra in the locker room. this is going to be
28:37
the hardest thing you've ever done,
28:39
this goal right here.
28:41
And it was true up until a up until a point,
28:43
but it didn't last very long.
28:46
Um, the true challenge was being able to see
28:49
that uh or or you know,
28:52
while I'm in the weeds, getting out of the weeds of saying, "Okay,
28:56
basketball doesn't define me.
28:57
I'm not a basketball player anymore.
29:00
I once was, but that's not all to me."
29:03
I didn't want to hear it at first because, you know, like you said,
29:07
I'm on the top of my game.
29:08
I have at least three
29:10
or four more years to play at a high level
29:12
and I'm not going to waste it cuz I almost died.
29:16
You know, I'm going to make sure I put everything into this game.
29:20
Was able to get I was able to get back to all-star level
29:24
and still be,
29:26
you know, not only myself, but a better version of my new self.
29:28
And, you know, that was cut short.
29:30
And you know, you have to go through the stages of grief.
29:34
Um, you know, we're all human.
29:36
There's nothing you can do about that.
29:38
But I'm just happy
29:39
that I was able to have a beautiful outlook on it at the end
29:43
and eventually work through all
29:44
that pain and get to this point.
29:51
>> You know, I found myself writing out my pain.
29:55
And after I got through all of um uh uh Pat Riley likes to
30:00
call it mental diarrhea.
30:04
Got all the mental diarrhea out writing every morning.
30:07
I then saw that I was appreciative at the end of the day.
30:11
I still had my life.
30:13
Um, you know, my thing was, hey,
30:16
if I'm going to have 13 years at at this thing,
30:20
I thought I was going to have 18 or 19,
30:22
but if I'm going to have 13, boy,
30:24
I don't think I left a stone unturned.
30:26
There's nothing else that I could have done.
30:28
I put my all into it.
30:31
I dedicated myself to it.
30:34
And, man, that's a hell of a that's a hell of a piece.
30:36
And I can look back and be proud of that.
30:53
Unbelievable is the stupidest word in the dictionary.
30:56
Should never come out of our mouth.
30:57
Think about it.
30:58
To say, "Oh, wow.
30:59
What an unbelievable play.
31:01
Uh, it was an unbelievable book, an unbelievable film,
31:04
an unbelievable act of courage." really it may be spectacular.
31:10
It may be phenomenal, most excellent or outstanding, but unbelievable.
31:17
Uh-uh.
31:17
Give others and yourself more credit.
31:20
It just happened.
31:21
You witnessed it.
31:22
You just did it.
31:23
Believe it.
31:24
Give your obstacles credit. you know,
31:28
once you do find your frequency on something is go forward
31:34
if you're a non-tyrant
31:35
and don't ask permission
31:37
and that's the not giving a damn part.
31:39
I found that the world will actually acquies and go, "Yeah,
31:42
I'll give you a green light on that."
31:44
If you actually go forward
31:45
and mean it like you're
31:46
and you're going to do it by hook
31:47
or by crook and not ask permission.
31:50
Life is not easy.
31:51
It is not.
31:52
Don't try to make it that way.
31:53
Life's not fair.
31:54
It never was.
31:55
It isn't now and it won't ever be.
31:56
Do not fall into the trap,
31:59
the entitlement trap of feeling like you're a victim.
32:03
You are not.
32:04
Get over it and get on with it.
32:05
And yes, most things are more rewarding
32:08
when you break a sweat to get them.
32:10
Sit here in that discomfort long enough to go, "Okay,
32:15
until you come out the other side to go, all right,
32:18
I'm good with me again.
32:19
I don't want to leave a place I traveled to until I get to
32:23
the point of going,
32:24
ah, I could live here. this could be my existence.
32:27
As soon as I get to that point, then I'm like, okay,
32:30
you can go now.
32:31
I can go.
32:32
That's the same thing in the personal journeys.
32:34
Stick with it till you get through the discomfortable to uncomfortable times until you
32:37
go,
32:38
you know what?
32:39
I can spend time with myself.
32:40
I could do this.
32:41
I could do this forever.
32:42
Well, then it's okay to go re-engage, pick up your phone,
32:46
go see your friends, go have a drink, what have you.
32:48
Go look for those things that are other relationships in life.
32:52
But hopefully not until there's great value in not doing that until you go,
32:56
I'm good with me and me for right now.
33:00
So to any of us, whatever those things are,
33:03
whatever it is we look up to,
33:05
whatever it is we look forward to and whoever it is we're chasing,
33:08
to that I say amen.
33:09
To that I say, all right, all right, all right.
33:14
I say just keep living, huh?
33:16
Thank you.
33:22
You see, happiness is an emotional response to an outcome.
33:27
If I win, I will be happy.
33:29
If I don't, I won't.
33:30
It's an if then cause and effect,
33:32
quidd proquo standard that we cannot sustain
33:36
because we immediately raise it every time we attain it.
33:40
You see, happiness demands a certain outcome.
33:43
It is resultant.
33:46
And I say if happiness is what you're after,
33:48
then you're going to be let down frequently
33:51
and you're going to be unhappy much of your time.
33:54
Joy though, joy is a different thing.
33:57
It's something else.
33:58
Joy is not a choice.
33:59
It's not a response to some result.
34:02
It's a constant.
34:04
Joy is the feeling
34:06
that we have from doing what we are fashioned to do.
34:11
It is just as important where we are not
34:16
as it is where we are.
34:19
Look, the first step
34:21
that leads to our identity in life is usually not I know who I
34:27
am.
34:28
I know who I am.
34:29
That's not the first step.
34:30
The first step is usually I know who I am not.
34:34
Process of elimination.
34:37
Defining ourselves by what we are not is the first step
34:40
that leads us to really knowing who we are.
34:44
South of New Orleans uh a few years ago
34:46
and I went to a voodoo shop uh
34:49
and they had this this this wooden partition against the wall with these columns
34:53
and and in these columns were all these vials of these magic potions,
34:58
right?
34:58
And the headings above each potion defining what they would give you were things
35:03
like fertility,
35:04
health, uh, family, legal health, energy, forgiveness, money.
35:12
Guess which column was empty?
35:20
Money.
35:20
Let's admit it.
35:20
Money is king today.
35:21
It's what make the world makes the world go round.
35:23
It is success.
35:24
The more we have, the more successful we are, right?
35:29
Now, I would argue that our cultural values have even been financialized.
35:35
Uh, humility is not in vogue anymore.
35:37
It's too passive.
35:39
It's a get-richqu on the internet richest 15 minutes of fame world
35:42
that we live in
35:43
and we see it every day.
35:45
But we all want to succeed, right?
35:47
So, the question that we got to ask ourselves is what success is to
35:51
us?
35:51
What success is to you?
35:54
Is it more money?
35:55
That's fine.
35:55
I got nothing against money.
35:59
I don't.
36:01
Maybe it's a healthy family.
36:03
Maybe it's a happy marriage.
36:04
Maybe it's to help others, to be famous, to be spiritually sound,
36:08
to leave the world a little bit better place than you found it.
36:12
Continue to ask yourself that question.
36:15
Now, your answer may change over time, and that's fine.
36:18
But do yourself this favor.
36:21
Whatever your answer is, don't choose anything that will jeopardize your soul.
36:27
Prioritize who you are, who you want to be,
36:30
and don't spend time with anything that antagonizes your character.
36:36
Don't drink the Kool-Aid, man.
36:38
It tastes sweet, but you will get cavities tomorrow.
36:41
All right?
36:41
Life is not a popularity contest.
36:44
Be brave.
36:45
Take the hill.
36:45
But first, answer that question.
36:47
What's my hill?
36:53
there's a responsibility to freedom and that there is freedom in responsibility, you know,
37:01
and that earn your way there.
37:04
We remember the stuff we earn,
37:06
the stuff we experience more than what the teacher tells us
37:09
or what someone gives us for free.
37:11
We just do.
37:12
We broke a proverbial sweat on it,
37:14
whether it was mental or physical or whatever.
37:15
We we we we built it.
37:17
We we understand. and we felt how we got it, how we achieved it,
37:21
how we got what we wanted.
37:22
Those stick with us whether we forget them intellectually,
37:25
they were written in our lineage
37:27
and they build resilience
37:28
and they and and
37:29
and they build a healthy true optimism going forward to know
37:33
that,
37:33
oh no, I've I've I've worked for something before and achieved it.
37:36
Delayed gratification.
37:38
Oh, there are choices I can make today for myself
37:40
that will pay me back later in life.
37:44
So, there are choices we make.
37:45
If you're going to say right now, I'm going to lie, cheat,
37:47
and steal to get what I want.
37:48
And I got it.
37:50
I got an immediate green light for me.
37:54
That's a battery powered green light.
37:56
That's not a solar powered green light.
37:59
Why?
37:59
Because now everywhere I go,
38:02
I got to look over my shoulder to see
38:04
if someone's there that I lied,
38:06
cheat, and stole from.
38:08
And when I'm doing that, I'm stealing whose time?
38:10
My time.
38:11
I'm not free.
38:12
I don't have the freedom.
38:13
I didn't create freedom in my future
38:15
because I chose to be an make an irresponsible act
38:18
that I left crumbs.
38:21
I've now got reasons to look over my shoulder.
38:23
And the more things we do to create in our in our future
38:26
that we got to look over our shoulder,
38:27
the more of our most precious thing we have in our lives,
38:30
time that we're stealing from ourselves.
38:32
So, it's not puritanical.
38:35
It's just like it's actually self- serving.
38:36
It's a very selfish choice.
38:39
And and I'm a fan of the word selfish.
38:41
I've re helped redefine it.
38:43
Um, but I believe
38:44
that there are selfish choices we can make
38:46
that are the most selfless.
38:47
That there are selfless choices
38:49
that we can make
38:51
that are the most selfish choices.
38:52
Those two are not a contradiction and we see them that way.
38:55
Responsibility is is appreciation of a past.
38:58
It's building of a lineage.
39:00
It's investing in ourselves.
39:01
It's investing in something we started to build yesterday
39:03
that we want to take into tomorrow.
39:05
There's a respon that gives us freedom.
39:12
So be brave, have courage.
39:14
And when you do, you get stronger, you get more aware,
39:18
you get more respectful of yourself and that which you fear.
39:33
I want you to tell us what those lowest moments of childhood felt like
39:37
in one word. temporary.
39:46
Absolutely temporary.
39:46
There was just no way I was going to let
39:48
that person beat me again.
39:49
And there was just no way I was going to stay comfortable in this
39:52
negative place.
39:54
Just a matter of time.
39:57
Some things are just destiny.
40:00
You know, look, everybody goes through a moment in their life where everything you
40:06
thought up to that second vanishes
40:10
and you realize that there's an opportunity to change the story
40:16
that you've written in your head for the last two three decades.
40:22
And I think it's universal.
40:25
I think there are very few people who don't get to a point at
40:30
year 20,
40:31
30, 35 that don't start debating, wait a minute, is this what I want?
40:38
Is this where I'm going?
40:39
Is this how it's playing out?
40:40
And you know, to me,
40:43
that is one of the most important moments in one's life.
40:47
You know, many people look at it
40:48
as a moment to start to get upset
40:51
and say,
40:52
"Wait a minute, this is not what I signed up for. and others,
40:56
regardless of what's happened,
40:58
use it as an opportunity to write the next chapter. >> 3 2 1
41:08
full power and lift off.
41:11
>> They need to be things that excite and inspire people.
41:14
>> Yeah.
41:14
>> You have to be, you know, reasons why you get up in the morning.
41:17
It can't just be solving problems.
41:19
It's got to be, yeah,
41:20
something something great is going to happen in the future.
41:23
Well, well, first of all, I'd say I actually feel fear quite strongly.
41:26
Um, so it's not as though I just have the absence of fear.
41:31
I feel it quite strongly.
41:32
Um, but there are just times when something is important enough,
41:37
you believe in it enough that you you do it in spite of fear.
41:42
There's always a chance of failure.
41:43
So, I think it's important that you really like whatever you're doing.
41:47
If you don't like it,
41:48
life is too short.
41:49
and and and also
41:50
if you if you like what you're doing,
41:52
you think about it even when you're not working.
41:55
I mean, it'll just it it's it's something that your mind is drawn to.
41:59
Um and and if you don't like it,
42:01
you just really can make it work.
42:03
I think >> when you're building something new, there's going to be mistakes.
42:09
>> Um and it's important to to recognize those mistakes, acknowledge them,
42:14
and take corrective action.
42:15
>> Okay?
42:16
U and the success of a company is very much more about how quick
42:20
are you to fix the mistakes not will you make mistakes
42:23
and if you see the difference between a startup
42:25
that is successful and one
42:26
that is not and it's
42:27
because the successful one they both made mistakes
42:30
but the successful one recognizes mistakes fix them very quickly
42:35
and the the unsuccessful one tries to deny
42:37
that the mistakes exist.
42:40
You know a lot of life in general in any job there's like you
42:43
have to do your chores.
42:45
I think to be successful at almost anything,
42:47
you can't you have to do the tough stuff
42:50
and as well as the enjoyable stuff.
42:52
You have to do the boring stuff as well as the non- boring stuff.
42:55
Um, and if you don't do your chores, then bad things will happen.
42:58
But if they don't do the things that they don't like to do,
43:00
then the company will be in trouble.
43:02
>> Like you have to you basically like it's more fun to cook the
43:06
meal than to to clean the dishes.
43:08
Okay.
43:08
But you need to clean the dishes.
43:10
>> You need to do both.
43:11
>> Yes, you need to do both.
43:12
Exactly.
43:15
Now is the time to take risk.
43:19
You don't have kids.
43:20
As you get older, your obligations increase.
43:22
And once you have a family, you start taking risk, not just for yourself,
43:26
but for your family as well.
43:27
It gets much harder to uh do things that might not work out.
43:31
Um so now is the time to do
43:33
that uh before you before you have those obligations.
43:37
So I would I would encourage you to take risks now.
43:40
Do something bold.
43:41
Um you won't regret it.
43:46
When starting SpaceX, I thought the odds of success were less than 10%.
43:50
Um, yeah, same with Tesla.
43:52
I thought the odds of a car company succeeding were extremely low.
43:56
And I just accepted that actually probably I would just lose lose everything.
44:01
Um, but that maybe we'd make some progress
44:04
if we could just move the ball forward.
44:06
Even if we died,
44:07
maybe some other company could pick up the baton
44:09
and move and keep moving it forward.
44:16
I first of all I really need to give some thought to like how
44:19
can I provide advice
44:20
that would be most helpful
44:21
and I'm not sure I've given enough thought to to to
44:24
that to give you the best possible answer
44:26
but I think um I think certainly uh being focused on something
44:33
that you're confident will have high value to someone else um
44:37
and just being really rigorous in making
44:40
that assessment A natural human tendency is wishful thinking.
44:45
Um so a challenge for entrepreneurs is to say well what's the difference between
44:49
really believing in your ideals
44:51
and sticking sticking to them versus pursuing some unrealistic dream
44:56
that doesn't actually have merit.
44:57
And it's it's that is a
44:59
that is a really difficult thing to to tell you.
45:01
Can you tell the difference between those two things you know?
45:03
So you need to be sort of very rigorous um in in your self
45:07
self analysis.
45:08
I think certainly extremely tenacious.
45:11
Uh and um and then just work like hell.
45:15
I mean you just have to put in you know 80our 100 hour weeks
45:20
every week that all those things improve the odds of success.
45:24
>> Okay.
45:24
Um, >> I mean,
45:26
if if if other people are putting in 40hour work weeks
45:29
and you're putting in 100 hour work weeks,
45:31
then even if uh you're doing the same thing,
45:35
you know that you you will achieve in 4 months what it takes them
45:40
a year to achieve.
45:44
The I one of the biggest mistakes people generally make,
45:47
and I'm guilty of it too, is wishful thinking. you know,
45:51
like you want something to be true even if it isn't true.
45:54
Um, and so you ignore the things
45:57
that uh you you ignore the real truth
46:00
because of what you want to be true.
46:04
This is a very difficult trap to avoid.
46:06
Um, and like I said,
46:07
certainly one that I find myself in having problems with,
46:12
but if you just take
46:14
that approach of you're always to some degree wrong
46:17
and your goal is to be less wrong
46:20
and and solicit critical feedback particularly from friends. like friends particular
46:26
if friends if somebody loves you they want the best for you they don't
46:29
want to tell you the bad things um
46:33
so you have to ask them care you know
46:35
and say really I really do want to know
46:39
and and then they'll tell you the way I tend to view problems is
46:43
is from a from a physics standpoint
46:46
and I think I think physics is a good analytical framework um
46:50
and one of the key things in in physics is to reason from first
46:54
principles.
46:55
Um this is contrary to the way most human reasoning takes place
46:58
which is by analogy.
47:00
Um, reasoning from first principles just means
47:03
that you you figure out what what are the fundamental what are the fundamental
47:06
truths or or things
47:08
that are pretty people are pretty sure are fundamental truths
47:11
and and can you build up to a conclusion from from
47:14
that uh you know from those principles
47:17
and um uh and
47:19
then certainly if you come up with some idea
47:21
and it appears to violate one of those fundamental truths
47:25
then you're probably wrong um
47:28
or you should get a really big prize
47:29
or something like that.
47:31
Um, so, uh, this may seem like, I don't know,
47:34
it maybe may seem sort of obvious when it's explained,
47:36
but it's actually not what people do.
47:39
Reasoning by analogies is helpful cuz it's a shortcut.
47:42
>> Um, and and it's and it's mostly correct, but but uh,
47:45
it tends to be most incorrect
47:47
when you're dealing with new things
47:49
because it's hard to analogize to something really new.
47:54
when you were in college
47:55
and developing these skills,
47:56
you wanted to do some things that were of benefit to humanity.
48:00
Why why did you think that?
48:01
Well, >> because not everyone does.
48:03
>> Yeah.
48:03
No, uh I I guess it was um I I had sort of a
48:07
existential crisis uh of like what does it all mean
48:10
and what's the meaning,
48:11
you know, what's the meaning of life
48:12
and probably goes back to to high school,
48:14
I guess.
48:14
Uh um I don't want to give a laboriously long answer,
48:18
but I I was uh yeah, I had sort of a dark childhood.
48:24
It wasn't good.
48:25
Um probably partially brought on by by by reading some of the philosophers like
48:30
don't don't ever read Schopenhau
48:32
if you're 14.
48:33
It's it's not good.
48:35
Um I was just trying to find figure out what you know what does
48:38
it all mean?
48:38
And um when I read The Hedgehog's Guide to the Galaxy,
48:41
which I think is a great work of philosophy.
48:43
Um that sort of highlighted the point
48:45
that very often the issue is understanding what questions to ask
48:49
and if you can properly frame the question
48:51
then the answer is the easy part.
48:53
Um so I thought things
48:55
that uh expand the scope
48:57
and scale of human consciousness um
48:58
and allow us to better ask questions
49:00
and you know and
49:02
and and achieve greater enlightenment,
49:04
those are good things.
49:05
And so that's sort of what what can we do that's going to um
49:09
most likely lead to
49:10
that outcome.
49:14
>> You went to IU right now.
49:15
You got a lot of people that >> uh say forget about school, you know,
49:20
drop out of school.
49:21
So you think they're idiots.
49:22
Tell me why.
49:23
>> Um if you're going to have and run a business,
49:26
if you don't understand accounting, you're already behind the eightball.
49:30
>> Can't you hire a guy that's
49:30
that knows how to >>
49:31
then they they still have to communicate to you,
49:33
right?
49:34
I mean, there's people that don't understand the the concept of, you know,
49:38
the difference between profits and cash, you know, oh,
49:41
your accountant might tell you you're profitable, but your cash is going down,
49:45
you know, not understanding um the breakdown.
49:48
And and when you don't, you think you need college to learn that?
49:51
Yeah, I think you do.
49:52
Right.
49:52
Because it it may not for some people, look,
49:54
if you're so self-motivated
49:56
that you can take an online course in accounting
49:58
and teach yourself everything,
49:59
you're way ahead of the game anyways.
50:01
But most people aren't.
50:02
And I'm not saying you have to go to Indiana.
50:04
I'm not saying go to an expensive school.
50:05
I don't care if you go to a community college
50:07
and take accounting and
50:08
and spend 99 bucks for the class.
50:10
Just, you know, spending the money forces you to be more obligated to do
50:14
it.
50:15
But accounting, finance, lesser extent, marketing, sales, if the school offers that,
50:20
these are all the that's the language of business.
50:22
And so while it's possible to teach yourself these things
50:25
and while it's possible to hire them,
50:27
when you're starting your own company,
50:29
you don't want to have to spend money hiring an accountant.
50:32
And so your cost of opening up a business drops.
50:35
But even more important than all that, that's that's the blocking and tackling.
50:38
That's the language of business.
50:39
You know, the thing I learned at Indiana
50:41
that was more important than anything else,
50:42
I learned how to learn.
50:44
And learning became far more important to me
50:46
because the one certainty in business is
50:49
that it's always going to be changing. the
50:51
if if you're not always learning,
50:53
if to this minute if if I'm not continuously learning,
50:56
if I'm not just absorbing as much as I can absorb,
51:00
someone else is going to kick my ass, right?
51:02
So, you talk about paranoia.
51:03
The the greatest source of your paranoia should be knowledge.
51:07
If someone else knows more than you do, and if you're not learning,
51:10
if you don't know the learn, if you don't know how to learn,
51:12
if you don't have a thirst for learning and acquiring information,
51:16
you're you're so you know, people like to say, you know,
51:20
the only stupid questions are the one you don't ones you don't ask.
51:23
And that's not right.
51:24
Right.
51:24
Because the questions you ask tell me,
51:26
tell whoever more about you than anything else you do
51:29
because in particular tells me about your preparation.
51:32
If you ask me questions about just basic things
51:34
that you should have known
51:36
and you should have down to a science,
51:38
that's going to disqualify you almost more than anything.
51:42
>> Do you think there needs to be a healthy level of paranoia?
51:46
Absolutely.
51:46
There needs to be >> Oh, yeah.
51:47
I mean, I always say, you know, for every one of my businesses,
51:50
I I said, "What would I do to kick my own ass?"
51:53
You right.
51:53
So, whatever business you have, there's somebody trying to put you out of business.
51:56
There's somebody trying to to take a bite out of your business.
51:59
and it's better for you to figure out how they're going to do it
52:01
rather than they do it.
52:02
Um, and so yeah, that's being paranoid.
52:04
And so you have to be paranoid.
52:06
You have to anticipate other people's next moves.
52:08
And you can't ever, you know, downplay the competition.
52:13
Um, I was at a business plan competition this morning for at a college
52:17
and they were kind of being dismissive of the competition
52:20
and you can't ever do
52:21
that. you know,
52:22
they're out there trying to take you down.
52:24
And they're not just going to sit still.
52:26
And if you're good, really, really good,
52:28
you're going to inspire them to work even harder, faster, better.
52:30
And so, you have to be, you know,
52:32
very self-aware of what you're good at
52:34
and what other people are good at.
52:35
And, you know, a healthy dose of paranoia makes a big is very helpful
52:47
if you're not always learning. to this minute,
52:50
if if I'm not continuously learning,
52:52
if I'm not just absorbing as much as I can absorb,
52:55
someone else is going to kick my ass.
52:59
The the greatest source of your paranoia should be knowledge.
53:02
If someone else knows more than you do, and if you're not learning,
53:05
if you don't know, if you don't know how to learn,
53:07
if you don't have a thirst for learning and acquiring information,
53:11
you're you're so there's certain guys
53:14
that have the genetics to jump out of the gym,
53:16
right?
53:16
There's >> certain guys, you know, that, you know, when they golf,
53:19
they have the muscle memory and and the discipline.
53:21
You know, Dirk, um,
53:23
the Visky may not be the most talented guy in the NBA,
53:25
but his discipline and his focus to do what's necessary to be successful.
53:29
He's willing to do and combine it with being 7t tall and being skilled,
53:33
you know, makes him an amazing basketball player.
53:36
So, it's it's understanding what your skill set is,
53:39
finding the right place to use those skills, and then going for it.
53:43
You know, will that make you 250 grand?
53:45
It depends if you pick the right industry.
53:47
But whatever industry you pick, if you outwork everybody,
53:51
if you try to be a little smarter than everybody,
53:53
if you try to be a better salesperson than everybody,
53:56
if you try to be better prepared than everybody,
53:58
you've got your best chance
53:59
because if you don't do it
54:01
and somebody else does,
54:03
you know, I have the saying,
54:04
work like someone's trying to take it all away from you.
54:06
You know, work actually work like someone's spending 24 hours working 24 hours to
54:10
take it all away from you.
54:11
And that's kind of the way I look at it.
54:15
What would you say is the number one reason why people fail,
54:18
not necessarily why they make it.
54:19
The complete opposite, >> right?
54:21
Lack of brains, lack of effort.
54:23
>> Lack of brains, lack of effort.
54:24
>> Yeah.
54:24
They just they don't do the work.
54:26
They don't learn.
54:26
You know, when you walk in the room,
54:28
when you start a business and you start to talk about somebody,
54:30
you're you're never in a vacuum with no competition.
54:32
And if there's going to be competition,
54:34
that means somebody else knows your business
54:36
as well as you do
54:36
when you get started.
54:38
And if you walk into a competitive environment
54:40
and they still know more about the business than you do
54:43
and more about your customers,
54:45
you're going to lose.
54:46
And but most people don't consider that.
54:48
They don't do the work.
54:48
They don't learn more about their industry.
54:50
They don't know even about their business.
54:52
I mean, and so you've got to put in the effort to know more
54:55
about your industry than anybody else.
54:57
Um, and that's that's the brains part
54:59
and that's the effort part
55:01
as well because look,
55:02
if you're competing with me,
55:03
you you better know what you're doing otherwise I'm going to kick your ass,
55:07
you know, and you're not going to outwork me.
55:09
And so, you know,
55:10
the combination is usually what kills businesses early on more than anything.
55:15
But my dad was always like, if you want something,
55:17
you have to earn it.
55:19
And to his credit, he never said, no, you can't do that.
55:22
So whether it was selling garbage bags, baseball cards, stamps, whatever it was,
55:26
he he never held me back.
55:28
And so I think that was as important as anything.
55:30
And you know, sometimes being young and trying things,
55:33
you're so naive and you don't know any better.
55:35
All you do is learn.
55:36
And if you fail, it doesn't matter.
55:38
And so whether I was 9, 10, 12, 16, 21, the failures were irrelevant.
55:44
And you know, whether you're, you know, 9, 12, 16, 21, 22, 24,
55:49
you know, I'm sleeping on the couch. you know,
55:51
I have a car with a hole in the floorboard.
55:53
You know, I'm I'm I'm living like a bum
55:55
and and like a student
55:56
and so what did I have to lose?
55:58
And so I think that influenced me as much as anything.
56:01
So it you know, my dad it was like go for it, you know,
56:04
don't why not?
56:06
What have you got to lose?
56:11
>> Go.
56:11
>> So, so do you think like let's just say
56:13
if we put 10 guys here,
56:14
you interview them.
56:14
Okay. you could within a 5- 10 minute minute minute interview say this dude's
56:18
not going to make it
56:19
as an entrepreneur.
56:20
>> Yeah.
56:20
I mean, I can I can typically tell, right?
56:22
I can tell um by um their passion.
56:26
I can tell by their focus.
56:29
I can tell by their preparation.
56:31
You know, there there's a whole realm of things in any business here.
56:34
You know, here's here's the business you're in
56:36
and here's a thousand things
56:37
that influence whether or not you're going to be successful. you know,
56:41
through my experience in businesses, I can put myself in his position and say,
56:44
"Okay, here are 900 of the thousand things he has to be aware of
56:47
and then go through
56:48
and ask and by how many of those
56:50
or her um issues they've been able to address already."
56:53
That kind of gives me a sense of how hard they're willing to work,
56:56
you know, and I can tell by the questions they ask me.
56:59
So, all I have to do is say, "Okay,
57:00
what do you want to know?"
57:02
But I'm curious.
57:03
If if you and I were buddies in high school,
57:05
say we're 14 years old, 15 years old, and we know each other,
57:08
>> would I bet on you being who you are today?
57:10
No chance.
57:11
>> Really?
57:11
>> No chance.
57:12
>> Tell me why.
57:12
>> I mean, I had my I had my good friends and, you know,
57:15
we we hung out and I was a hustler.
57:18
There's there's no question.
57:19
I was a hustler.
57:20
>> Even in high school.
57:20
>> Oh, yeah.
57:21
And into business in a big way.
57:23
Um, but I don't I don't think people saw me.
57:25
It wasn't like people looked at me and go, "Oh,
57:27
he's he's destined to succeed."
57:29
>> So, in high school, you were a fun guy.
57:31
Were you Were you Were you always the the guy that made people laugh?
57:34
Were you very competitive when you're sports?
57:36
I was always competitive.
57:37
I was into sports.
57:38
Not I wasn't great at it.
57:39
I was just decent.
57:41
Um wasn't technology guy.
57:43
I mean, I I was into learning.
57:44
I was I was I was a business guy.
57:46
I was I was the guy reading about business all the time,
57:48
reading business books all the time, you know, going to Junior Achievement.
57:52
I was a junior achievement geek.
57:53
Um >> why though?
57:54
Why were you reading business books?
57:55
>> Because I want that's what I knew.
57:56
I mean, I was wired that I always, you know,
57:58
I started my first business when I was 12.
58:00
I was buying and selling um baseball cards, buying and selling stamps,
58:05
anything I could do to make money,
58:06
I I was hustling and trying to do so.
58:08
I was in the business,
58:09
but I not so much where it was all my friends were into it
58:13
with me so they wouldn't know.
58:16
Do you think there's a proven formula that if a brand rookie guy,
58:20
he's got a lot of ambition, he's got a lot of disrupt,
58:22
but not a lot of knowledge on how to.
58:24
Do you think if he follows a formula,
58:26
he's guaranteed to make it as an entrepreneur?
58:28
>> No.
58:28
No.
58:28
>> Okay.
58:29
So you don't believe there's a guarantee to make it.
58:31
>> No.
58:31
Because who knows who you're going to be competing with.
58:33
So if you put two two people both following the same formula,
58:37
both in the same industry, right?
58:39
Which one wins?
58:40
You know, maybe they both can win and both be successful, but you know,
58:43
so I don't I don't think there's a default default template for success.
58:46
But I think there's things
58:47
that you can do to put yourself in the best position to succeed.
58:52
>> All right, I'm going to tell you the story.
58:53
I got to get out of here.
58:54
And the story is about, you guys have probably heard about this before.
58:57
It was a it was a young man who, you know,
58:59
he wanted to make a lot of money.
59:01
And so he went to this guru, right?
59:03
And he told the guru, you know,
59:04
I want to be on the same level you on.
59:06
And so the guru said,
59:07
if you want to be on the same level I'm on,
59:09
I'll meet you tomorrow at the beach at 4:00 a.m.
59:14
He like, the beach?
59:15
I said, I want to make money.
59:17
I don't want to swim.
59:18
So the young man got there at 4:00 a.m.
59:20
He all ready to rock and roll.
59:22
Got on a suit.
59:23
He should have wore shorts.
59:25
The old man grabs his hand, said,
59:26
"How bad do you want to be successful?"
59:28
He said, "Real bad."
59:29
He said, "Walk on out in the water."
59:31
So he walks out into the water.
59:32
Watch this.
59:33
When he walks out into the water, it goes waist deep.
59:35
So he like, "This guy crazy."
59:37
Adrian, he like, "I want to make money."
59:38
He got me out here swimming.
59:40
I didn't ask to be a lifeguard.
59:42
I want to make money.
59:43
He got me.
59:44
So he said, "Come out a little further."
59:46
Walked out a little further.
59:46
Then he had it right around this area, the shoulder area.
59:51
So this old man crazy.
59:52
He making money, but he crazy. said, "Come on out a little further."
59:56
Came out a little further.
59:57
It was right at his mouth.
59:58
My man like, "I'm about to go back in here.
60:00
This guy is mine."
60:01
So the old man said, "I thought you said you wanted to be successful."
60:04
He said, "I do."
60:05
He said, "Walk a little further."
60:06
He came, dropped his head in, held him down, hold him down.
60:09
My man didn't scratching, holding him down.
60:12
He had him held down.
60:13
Just before my man was about to pass out, he raised him up.
60:17
He said, "I got a question for you."
60:19
Somebody answer the question for me.
60:20
He said, "When you were underwater, what did you want to do?"
60:24
Said, "I wanted to breathe."
60:28
He told the guy, he said, "When you want to succeed,
60:32
as bad as you want to breathe, then you'll be successful."
60:37
I don't know how many of y'all got asthma in here today,
60:39
but if you ever had an asthma attack before, you short of breath.
60:43
The only thing you trying to do is get some air.
60:46
You don't care about no basketball game.
60:49
You don't care what's on TV.
60:50
You don't care about nobody calling you.
60:52
You don't care about a party.
60:53
The only thing you care about
60:55
when you're trying to breathe is to get some fresh air.
60:57
That's it.
60:59
And when you get to the point where all you want to do is
61:02
be successful as bad
61:03
as you want to breathe,
61:04
then you'll be successful.
61:06
And I'm here to tell you number one
61:08
that most of you say you want to be successful,
61:10
but you don't want it bad.
61:11
You just kind of want it.
61:13
You don't want it bad than you want to party.
61:15
You don't want it as much as you want to be cool. you.
61:18
Most of you don't want success as much as you want to sleep.
61:23
Beyonce said once she was on the set doing her thing,
61:26
three days had gone by.
61:27
She forgot she didn't eat cuz she was engaged.
61:30
I never forget uh when 50 Cent was doing his movie.
61:34
I did a little research on 50.
61:35
And 50 said that when he wasn't doing the movie,
61:38
he was doing the soundtrack and they said, "When do you sleep?"
61:42
50.
61:42
Sleep.
61:43
He said, "Sleep.
61:44
Sleep is for those people who are broke.
61:47
I don't sleep.
61:49
He said, "I got an opportunity to make a dream become a reality."
61:53
Most of you won't be successful because when you're studying and you get tired,
61:56
you quit.
62:01
And I'm here to tell you today,
62:02
if you got a Somebody came in my office the other day crying.
62:05
I said, "Look, don't cry to give up.
62:07
Cry to keep going.
62:09
Don't cry to quit.
62:11
You already in pain.
62:12
You already hurt.
62:13
Get a reward from it.
62:15
Don't go to sleep until you succeed.
62:18
Listen to me.
62:19
I'm here to tell you today that you can come here.
62:21
You can jump up.
62:22
You can do flips.
62:23
You can be excited when we give away money.
62:24
But listen to me.
62:25
You'll never be successful until I don't have to give you a dime to
62:28
do what you do.
62:32
You won't be successful until you say,
62:33
"I don't need that money cuz I got it in here."
62:37
But listen to me.
62:38
Emit Smith said this at the end of the commercial.
62:40
Emit Smith said, "All men are created equal.
62:43
Some work harder in preeason.
62:46
I'm going to say it again because you might have missed it.
62:48
All men are created equal.
62:51
Some work harder in pre-season.
62:54
So that means that there are some people who are going to see the
62:57
professor.
62:58
Going to see the TA.
62:59
And even when the professor says, "I don't meet with you.
63:02
My TA meet with you."
63:03
You say, "I don't want to talk to your TA."
63:06
>> I don't pay the TA.
63:08
I pay you to teach me.
63:10
So, you going to have to find some time to meet me.
63:12
If I got to meet you at the mall,
63:14
if I got to meet you at your house,
63:16
you are going to see me.
63:18
Listen to me.
63:18
All men are created equal.
63:20
Some work hard in preseason.
63:21
When I went to college, guys were way smarter than me.
63:24
4.0's, 3.0.
63:25
They went to the Ivy League high schools.
63:27
Came to Oakwood from these great high schools.
63:29
Most of them are not doing what I'm doing.
63:31
Why?
63:31
Cuz it's not about where you come from.
63:33
It's about hearts.
63:35
You come to a place where, you know, being smart ain't enough.
63:38
You got to have hearts.
63:39
That's number one.
63:39
Watch number two.
63:41
The important thing is this.
63:42
You're writing why I'm saying it.
63:43
The most important thing is this.
63:46
To be able at any moment to sacrifice what you are for what you
63:52
will become.
63:56
That's the number two thing.
63:57
You got to catch that one.
63:59
To be able to listen to me at any moment.
64:02
Some of you, you can make sacrifices when Monday Night Football is not on.
64:06
You can make a sacrifice.
64:07
But when the game come on, for some reason you just attached to it.
64:12
For some of you, when your favorite show come on,
64:14
you you can be you can make sacrifices on Sunday
64:16
when ain't nothing going on.
64:18
But when your favorite show comes on Monday, bam.
64:21
Some of you, you focus until the phone ring and then you like,
64:23
I got to answer it.
64:24
If I don't answer the phone, I'm going to die.
64:27
I'm saying to you today that there are some of you,
64:30
if you give up your cell phone, you would be successful.
64:34
But your cell phone is more important to you than your success.
64:40
I'm going to say it again.
64:41
I'm going to hurt somebody.
64:42
I'mma hurt somebody.
64:44
Some of you need to give up your cell phone
64:46
because the time you spend on your cell phone could be used for your
64:50
success.
64:51
The time you could be using to be successful,
64:54
you're using it on the sale.
64:55
And the cell phone is not bringing you nothing but a bill.
64:58
And somebody has told you you couldn't live without it.
65:01
I'm talking about going deep now. giving up stuff.
65:03
Watch what it says.
65:05
To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we
65:09
could be.
65:10
I don't do well in math.
65:11
You're right.
65:12
You ain't never studied.
65:16
I'm not good in writing cuz you have never written before.
65:21
But I dare you to fail in writing for a whole year to see
65:24
if you can get to the end.
65:25
I dare you to fail.
65:27
I dare you to take that same class over and over again.
65:29
I I dare you to stop dropping classes like you soft.
65:41
The way you begin the day profoundly sets up the way your day unfolds.
65:46
If we recite our excuses long enough, we actually believe they're true.
65:50
We are built to change.
65:52
We are built to grow.
65:53
We are built to own our heroic nature.
65:55
And society has brainwashed us
65:58
and heartwashed us into thinking
66:01
that the great ones are cut from a different cloth.
66:05
And it's not it's not true.
66:06
As a matter of fact, in the 5M Club, I say, you know,
66:09
genius is less about genetics and and much more about your daily habits.
66:13
Every visionary is initially ridiculed before they're revered.
66:18
>> And look at Yonas Sulk, Elon Musk right now.
66:21
I mean, >> Martin Luther King Jr., Look at Nelson Mandela.
66:26
Look at Mary Cury.
66:27
Look at Edison and Einstein.
66:29
Look at Galileo.
66:31
These were all ordinary people who followed their joy,
66:35
who came up with a vision.
66:37
And the very nature of a great vision means you're going to disrupt the
66:40
status quo.
66:41
It's going to scare people who are card carrying members of the status quo.
66:47
And ask yourself, how can I fortify my mindset?
66:51
How can I insulate my heart set?
66:54
How can I optimize my health set?
66:56
How can I escalate my soul set?
66:58
The four interior empires
67:00
that I've introduced in the 5 a.m. club
67:03
so that when I walk out in the world,
67:05
I'm creative.
67:06
I'm productive.
67:07
I'm compassionate.
67:09
I radiate positivity and I have resilience in case I get knocked down.
67:13
I would say give it a try.
67:14
I don't just give it a try for for a week, you know.
67:17
Give it a try for three weeks, four weeks, the 66 day minimum.
67:21
It's judged by your results.
67:24
We all have the ability
67:26
as human beings to arrive at our own original form of greatness.
67:31
Mhm.
67:32
>> We have not been schooled.
67:35
We have not been taught.
67:37
A lot of us have not been mentored on the mindsets, hard sets, routines,
67:42
rituals that will create and allow us to live our personal genius.
67:48
But you know, if you look at the greatest women
67:50
and men who have ever graced the planet,
67:53
these were so-called ordinary people who just set up their lives in such a
67:58
way that their native gifts saw the light of day.
68:04
And so according to University College London,
68:07
if we do any practice or habit for 66 days,
68:11
we reach a point of automaticity where it becomes easier to do
68:13
that new habit than not do the new habit.
68:16
Once you wire in the new habit for the first 20 minutes,
68:20
5 to 520, you move because you can release BDNF, brain derived neurotrophic factor,
68:26
which promotes neurogenesis.
68:28
It optimizes your brain.
68:30
Uh if you move first thing in the morning, you release serotonin,
68:33
which makes you feel good.
68:34
You release dopamine, which you know sets you up for inspiration.
68:38
Second, we can get into it more deeply,
68:40
but second pocket from 520 to 5:40 is reflect.
68:44
You know, while the rest of the world is asleep,
68:46
there's such quietude in the air.
68:48
This is where you can pray, you can meditate, write in a journal,
68:52
sit in quietude so
68:55
that you're focused living your life
68:57
and your priorities through the day.
68:59
And then the final pocket of the 2020 formula
69:02
that I talk about in the 5 a.m. club is grow.
69:04
You'll never get old if you grow.
69:06
You'll never become obsolete in your business, even in a time of great volatility.
69:11
If you're growing, you'll always stay happy if you grow.
69:15
I've had a lot of great a lot of night owls who have said,
69:19
you know, I could never be a morning person.
69:21
I've had a lot of people who've said, you know,
69:24
grandma couldn't get up early, grandpa couldn't get up early,
69:26
my parents couldn't get up early.
69:28
I don't have early rising jeans, you know.
69:30
And what I would say is
69:32
if you don't read
69:33
that book you've been resisting
69:35
because you don't think it's for you,
69:37
you might just miss your new favorite book.
69:42
If you fall in love with your most closely cherished beliefs
69:48
and you're not open to trying new things,
69:51
you might miss your new fa trying your new favorite food.
69:55
If you say, "Well,
69:55
here's the kind of friends
69:56
that I hang out with
69:58
and I'm not open to anyone else."
70:00
You might miss that new friend
70:03
or that new mentor who will transform the way you run your craft
70:07
and live your life.
70:09
And it's the same for the morning routine.
70:11
So there are times to be productive and there are times to rest.
70:16
Now I I very much believe in the 5 a.m. club in the 2020
70:21
2020 formula.
70:22
I very much believe
70:23
that it will create a pharmacy of mastery within your brain.
70:26
It's been proven by science.
70:28
You know even just the the simple idea of starting your day with some
70:32
sweaty exercise.
70:33
Why sweaty exercises?
70:34
Because sweat reduce when you sweat it'll release the BDNF
70:38
which John Ry at Harvard calls miracle growth for the brain.
70:43
But just that IDF exercising first thing in the morning will help you become
70:47
more resilient,
70:48
peaceful, strong during the day.
70:51
So yes, do your morning routine.
70:53
Yes, run the 2020 2020 formula and then judge by results.
70:58
Having said that, if you've been up at 3:00 in the morning
71:03
because you've lost your job,
71:06
>> because you're just picking up on the energy of the world right now
71:10
where there's so much fear,
71:12
selflove, personal care requires that you rest, recover,
71:19
and do what you need to do.
71:22
And I think, you know,
71:23
that's one of the things I say this with great respect,
71:26
but when I read the books
71:28
or see people saying you must be like a robot
71:33
and follow a morning routine
71:35
or nightly ritual or whatever your your your best habits are.
71:40
I believe there must be room for the hard seasons of life, you know.
71:45
And and here's what what I I would al also say is my ego
71:49
because a bad day for the ego is a great day for the soul.
71:52
My ego says, Robin, you're not being productive.
71:57
You're not on your aame.
71:59
You're not a warrior.
72:01
But you know what I've realized?
72:03
I might not be creatively productive according to the definition of society during those
72:09
cycles or seasons of suffering,
72:12
but am I not spiritually productive?
72:15
Am I not emotionally productive?
72:18
>> I mean, when does a human being crack the shell of the ego
72:23
that covers their hearts
72:25
and learns human virtues?
72:29
Nelson Mandela learned how to be Nelson Mandela in his Robin Island season.
72:34
You know, I would say the 2020 2020 formula is minimum viable morning routine.
72:40
>> And you're a biohacker.
72:42
I'm a biohacker.
72:43
I'm a productivity hacker.
72:45
I'm a life hacker.
72:46
And so I would say do what's right for you.
72:48
You know, it's like this whole field of personal mastery
72:50
and leadership that we inhabit.
72:52
I I'm I'm not one to say you must do this
72:56
because we all have different learning types.
72:59
We're all on different journeys.
73:01
I think we have to find the routine
73:03
that the morning routine
73:04
that works best for us.
73:05
When I was a kid, I wasn't believed in by a lot of people.
73:09
I had a different way of seeing the world.
73:13
I was very sensitive, creative.
73:16
I didn't fit in with the cool crowd.
73:19
And in grade five,
73:21
I had a history teacher and her name was Kora Greenaway.
73:25
And she was one of the first people in my life who believed in
73:28
me.
73:29
All it takes is that one person who coincidentally shows up in our life.
73:35
And maybe it's a book,
73:36
maybe it's a podcast episode to introduce us to a new frame of reference
73:43
and a new way of living.
73:44
Might even be that's why I love reading so much.
73:46
You know, it's it could be one idea in a 300page book
73:50
and that idea opens you up to a new galaxy of possibility
73:54
and the hand that puts down the book is a fundamentally different hand.
73:58
I mean all it takes is one new insight to change the way you
74:01
see the world.
74:03
>> Transformation is the most powerful word in any language
74:07
because without it we don't develop,
74:10
prosper or grow.
74:12
And if your company isn't transforming is dying
74:16
and the best way to control the future is to invent it.
74:21
My life's work has been focused on creating innovative companies by building high performance
74:25
teams that challenge the status quo
74:27
and empowering them to pursue opportunities
74:30
and accomplish things they never imagined possible.
74:35
I believe the team with the best people wins
74:38
and that diversity of thought is the catalyst for genius.
74:46
Change is rarely easy.
74:49
So when you set out to achieve transformational change of that magnitude,
74:54
I found trust is the essential element.
74:57
Whether it was in the 1980s grown GMF into the largest manufacturer of industrial
75:01
robots even to this day
75:03
or in the 1990s
75:05
when Rasna's breakthrough mechanical design software forever changed the way engineers work
75:12
or 20 years ago
75:14
when Arie invented B2B e-commerce to move business at light speed
75:18
and whose network transacts $3.7 trillion per year more than Amazon,
75:26
eBay and Alibaba combined.
75:30
I've certainly learned that whenever you're starting companies from scratch,
75:34
people have to trust you.
75:37
They have to trust your product, they have to trust your processes,
75:40
and they have to trust your company.
75:43
What What's the life lesson?
75:45
Like what's the thing you'd want anyone who's kind of grown up right now
75:48
to really hear from you?
75:50
I've been doing transformations my whole life, right?
75:54
uh I I I can't do anything without kind of stirring up the the
75:57
pot.
75:58
And I think my the thing
76:01
that I want to get across is the world needs more transformational leaders than
76:05
ever before to deal with a fragmented world.
76:10
You know, the the the rate of change is happening so much.
76:13
We need principal leaders who can uh solve complex problems.
76:19
Um, and you know,
76:21
I think the only way to do
76:22
that is to jump in water over your head.
76:26
You know, you know,
76:28
that's something I've been doing my whole life
76:29
because if if trust is the most important word in any language,
76:36
then change is the most powerful one because without change, you don't develop, prosper,
76:42
or grow.
76:43
And um, in the business world, you're either changing or you're dying.
76:48
And the best way to uh deal with the future is to invent it.
76:57
Trust is the basis of every relationship, whether it's business, personal, or otherwise.
77:05
And you partner with people you trust.
77:07
You do business with people you trust.
77:08
You buy from people you trust.
77:11
And you love people you trust.
77:15
And so it all boils down to trust.
77:18
And if you think about it, um, you know,
77:21
what's your most valuable asset if you're starting a company?
77:24
Well, it's your trusted relationships.
77:27
So what's one of the most important skills?
77:31
It's building trust.
77:35
And everything in the business world is divided by time.
77:38
So the most important skill is how fast can you build trust?
77:42
So for those who are, you know, student, young professional thinking, okay,
77:48
I buy into this idea of trust,
77:49
but how do I do like on a Wednesday,
77:51
how do I start to build trust?
77:52
I show up to work tomorrow.
77:54
What do I do to build trust?
77:55
Like what does that actually look like?
77:56
>> Yeah.
77:56
First of all, you got to trust yourself.
77:59
>> Um, and you know,
78:01
that's cuz you can't trust anybody else unless you trust yourself.
78:05
And you know, I found a way to build
78:08
that trust is keep jumping in water over your head. you you go into
78:11
a new environment,
78:11
go into a new company, uh something like that.
78:14
So, how do you how do you build trust?
78:16
Well, you do it oneonone.
78:18
And so, the question is, can you build trust at a launch?
78:21
Can you do it at a dinner?
78:22
And what I found,
78:24
one of the things
78:25
that that works is you can't be afraid to be vulnerable
78:29
because when you're vulnerable with somebody about 95% of the time,
78:34
they'll reciprocate in kind.
78:36
And when both sides are vulnerable, that forms a connection.
78:41
My transformational journey has been at high velocity with diverse adventures every few years.
78:48
By living on the edge,
78:49
I've experienced plenty of adversity and lots of opportunities to learn from my failures.
78:56
And if there's anything I've learned, that's when you learn the most.
79:01
Each new chapter builds on the last one
79:04
and involves the risk of jumping in water over your head.
79:09
After a while, that adrenaline rush becomes
79:12
so addicting that I can't imagine my life without it.
79:18
I call it scary fun.
79:23
To quote one of the greatest transform transformational leaders of our time,
79:31
the biggest risk of all is that we stop taking risk at all.
79:37
You know, I've had the good fortune of uh living the American dream.
79:44
Uh and I feel really really really uh blessed.
79:49
And so I think that was one of the things my parents, you know,
79:52
obviously I I my drive comes from my upbringing
79:56
and it's about paying it forward
79:58
and giving it back.
79:59
And so if you look at the things whether it's uh what I did
80:05
in higher education or in the business world
80:07
or in uh public service,
80:11
it's all about that next generation.
80:14
If if you ask me, okay,
80:16
so what would be your big uh legacy you want to leave behind?
80:20
I think back of what my dad would always say about fatherhood.
80:23
He goes, you never know
80:24
if you're a good father until you see your children's children.
80:27
So I would say, you know, it's all about my mentees mentees.
80:33
You never know if you're a good leader until you see your mentees mentees
80:37
because you're teaching them how to cascade
80:39
that down.
80:40
And I've had some great mentors in my life.
80:42
You know, there's a genealogy out here in Silicon Valley
80:45
because this stuff's not written in a book,
80:47
>> right?
80:48
So, you learn from the previous guy.
80:49
My mom would always say the best way to learn is OP,
80:52
other people's experience.
80:53
She would always say best way to learn is from your mistakes.
80:55
She goes, "Learn from other people's mistakes.
80:57
You have time enough to make your your own, right?
81:02
>> It's not graduating from Harvard that matters.
81:05
It is the ambition and drive.
81:08
If you were a 17-year-old and you decided,
81:11
I'm going to apply to Colombia, Harvard, Yale, whether you get it or not,
81:15
you have ambition and drive and that's what takes you forward.
81:19
There there are lots of different opportunities,
81:21
but you got to try to find these new fields,
81:23
these new things which are emerging.
81:25
Now, here's the good news, right?
81:26
According to futurist Peter Diamandis, between 2022 and 2026,
81:33
the world will see as much change as between the year 1900 to 2000.
81:39
In 4 years, we're going to see
81:41
as much change as between the years 1900 to 2000.
81:45
New technologies, new opportunities, new things are going to emerge.
81:48
The whole field of web 3 is is is emerging right now.
81:53
And this means there's going to be so much opportunity for disruption.
81:58
But if you're an entrepreneur, aspiring entrepreneur,
82:02
it's good news cuz there's going to be
82:04
so much change and
82:05
so much opportunity for you to disrupt the established players.
82:10
Don't don't glorify this stupid attitude.
82:13
I got to strike it out on my own.
82:15
I got to be an entrepreneur.
82:16
It's okay to have a job as long as you're learning, you're growing,
82:20
you love what you're doing.
82:21
And and especially if you're young,
82:23
a good job is really powerful because you're going to learn so much.
82:28
So you really want to ensure
82:29
that the companies that you join are companies
82:31
that are going to be investing in educating you,
82:33
that your managers care about your growth, that the company gives you, you know,
82:37
a budget to invest in in books, in online courses, and so on.
82:42
Every time you have a massive failure,
82:45
there's a spark of wisdom in there like waiting waiting to be discovered.
82:51
And and if you can take that and inject it into your business,
82:54
you become stronger because of it.
82:56
Don't quit your day job.
82:58
You got to make sure that you have income, that you have safety,
83:02
that you have food on the table.
83:03
Don't get desperate, and don't put yourself under
83:06
that stress. when I was working on my day job,
83:11
it still gave me 2 hours a night to work on my side hustle
83:15
and of course I had the weekends,
83:17
right?
83:17
You might have to sacrifice evenings.
83:19
You might have to spend less time on Instagram or Netflix.
83:22
You might have less weekend time.
83:23
If you can dedicate yourself
83:25
and if you can ensure
83:26
that you're constantly learning
83:28
and learning and learning,
83:30
odds are you're going to be successful.
83:34
I decided I'm going to be an entrepreneur.
83:36
I don't want to work for anyone.
83:38
And so for one year,
83:39
I tried to launch business ideas
83:41
and I failed and failed
83:42
and failed and failed
83:43
and failed again until I blew through all my money
83:45
and I had nothing left.
83:46
And then the economy tanked, the dotcom bubble burst.
83:49
So this was 2002.
83:53
Um like millions of people were laid off.
83:55
Um and then September 11 hit.
83:57
So it was a devastating time
83:58
and that's how I ended up broken
84:00
and on a couch.
84:01
Um uh not able to afford rent.
84:04
Uh it was a stupid situation.
84:06
And then I wised up and I realized, look,
84:08
why do I have this stupid hang-up about getting a job?
84:11
Maybe if I find the right job
84:13
and someone who can help me learn
84:15
and grow,
84:15
I'll be better off.
84:16
And I was lucky.
84:17
I did find a job.
84:17
And I found a really great mentor who taught me marketing and sales.
84:22
Now, I was an engineer.
84:24
Um, engineers build things, but engineers often look down on sales and marketing.
84:27
And this is why all my other ideas had failed.
84:30
I had great ideas for tech.
84:31
I didn't know how to sell it.
84:34
And so I found a I found a job with a great mentor.
84:38
I learned about marketing and sales.
84:39
And the next idea I I launched two years later was Mind Valley.
84:44
But I knew how to position it, how to market it.
84:47
So I would tell myself,
84:49
don't wait to know what your company is going to be about before registering
84:53
your company.
84:54
I had no idea what the company was going to be about,
84:57
but I knew I was going to start a company
84:59
and I knew the first clue is
85:00
that we were going to be selling a meditation product on Adwords,
85:03
but there could be other things we were doing as well.
85:05
I had a web 2.0 software application
85:07
that I was going to build
85:08
and sell as well.
85:09
Um, and I needed a name.
85:11
And so I got online and I found two really good names.
85:14
One was called Rainbridge and the other one was Mind Valley.
85:18
I am so glad I picked Mine Valley over Rainbridge.
85:21
And so I created this this company called Mind Valley.
85:23
And then Mind Valley launched several products.
85:25
One of our early products was actually it's so painful that this product failed.
85:29
It was an early version of what today would be Instagram.
85:32
We called it Blink Life.
85:34
It was a way to take pictures from your from a phone
85:37
and then share these pictures with your friends.
85:40
Interesting statistic. 40% of the success of the company is timing.
85:44
Our timing was too early.
85:46
Like phones didn't have cameras.
85:48
Cameras were not really good.
85:50
Uh this was 2005
85:53
when we attempted to launch Blink Life
85:55
and it it very rapidly fizzled out
85:58
and died.
85:58
But we kept testing
86:00
and trying and testing
86:01
and innovating and um um I kept experimenting with different ideas
86:05
and eventually one idea really started exploding
86:09
and that was basically selling meditation online
86:13
and that's how Mind Valley started.
86:16
The first thing is you must put your personal growth first.
86:20
Okay?
86:20
So you must take your meditation practice, your personal growth, your reading, your gym.
86:25
That must come number one.
86:26
It must be more important than your business.
86:29
And you got to spend around an hour a day.
86:31
Now if you can't half an hour a day works,
86:33
but you got to spend at least half an hour a day dedicating yourself
86:38
to exercise,
86:39
meditation, spiritual growth.
86:43
As you grow, your business will grow.
86:46
Now, this advice doesn't come from me.
86:47
This advice comes from Sri Kumar Rao,
86:50
the the the great MBA professor um at Kellogg and London Business School.
86:54
And he says the biggest thing
86:55
that MBA students are not being taught is
86:59
that their life shouldn't be about their business.
87:02
Rather, their life should be about their personal growth.
87:05
Their business is nothing more than the greatest vehicle for that growth.
87:09
Your business, in short, is like a gym.
87:12
It teaches you leadership.
87:14
It teaches you perseverance.
87:16
It teaches you stress resilience.
87:17
It teaches you how to plan.
87:19
But it is not you.
87:21
You are you.
87:22
Your personal growth is what should be number one.
87:24
Your business is just a vehicle.
87:26
Ralph says if your business gets to a billion dollars, it doesn't matter.
87:30
The question is, did you grow?
87:32
If your business fails, it doesn't matter.
87:34
The question is, did you grow?
87:35
Now when you take that attitude, you become far more successful as an entrepreneur,
87:40
far more successful uh in business.
87:43
I cannot tell you the number of businesses I've had that have failed.
87:47
I shared one, the early version of Instagram that was so painful,
87:50
but I learned from it
87:52
and it gave me the wisdom to go on to the next one
87:54
and the next one
87:55
and the next one.
87:56
And so when you focus on your personal growth,
87:59
what happens is that even if a business fails, even if an idea fails,
88:04
you emerge from it with new knowledge, new data points,
88:08
new a new version of yourself
88:10
that can do better on the next idea
88:12
or the next business.
88:14
That's rule number one.
88:15
The second rule is is a rule called unity.
88:19
It means see yourself
88:20
as as a part of a larger whole of a larger human species. uh
88:26
do not cheat,
88:27
do not manipulate, go into any rel all relationships with a win-win attitude.
88:32
Never take advantage of people.
88:33
Create products that deliver true value and are not just sold by by salesiness.
88:38
So the unity rule is a key driving force in how I operate everything
88:42
in my life.
88:43
I have I have no enemies.
88:45
I have no ill will towards anyone.
88:47
And I practice forgiveness every single day.
88:50
I forgive every person, everything, everyone that has wronged me.
88:54
Forgiveness is actually a superpower.
88:56
Studies have shown that when you practice radical forgiveness,
89:00
your life seems to get luckier.
89:02
Your health improves, your peace of mind goes up, your sleep gets better.
89:06
And so the unity rule is a key piece of that.
89:09
It is the idea
89:10
that unity is one of the most powerful value systems uh anyone can have.
89:19
It's we've almost gone bankrupt like at least three times.
89:23
But these type of moments they they they are soul crushing.
89:26
They they they keep you up at night.
89:28
But you got to you got to be prepared to go through them on
89:33
your journey.
89:34
But again, if you adopt the attitude
89:36
that the number one thing is your growth is how much you're learning.
89:41
You're better able to go through these ups and these downs.
89:45
Like the ups don't go to your head and the downs don't destroy you.
89:50
Well, so okay.
89:52
So firstly, the word entrepreneur is a bull term, right?
89:55
It's one of the most overused nonsense terms out there.
89:58
I can teach anybody to become an entrepreneur in 2 minutes flat.
90:02
All you got to do is go to fiverr.com, open an account,
90:06
and offer to make videos or images for someone.
90:09
Boom, you're self-employed.
90:10
You're an entrepreneur.
90:11
It's a bull term.
90:12
You have that, and then you have at the end of the spectrum,
90:15
probably the greatest living entrepreneur today, Elon Musk.
90:18
But the spectrum is so wide it's it it's a bad definition.
90:22
So there are other definitions that you got to look at, right?
90:25
You got to look at are you working in a job where you can
90:30
earn the money you need to live the life you want
90:33
while being fulfilled and happy doing the work you do.
90:36
I think that is the definition.
90:37
You don't have to be an entrepreneur for that.
90:39
Many of the people creating the biggest changes in the world are not entrepreneurs.
90:43
Think about the engineers at NASA.
90:45
Think about the people who are inventing uh new technologies.
90:48
Think about the people who um come come up with new with with new
90:53
medicines that are changing lives.
90:54
Many of these people are working for companies that they are paid well.
90:58
They love their jobs.
90:59
They're making a contribution to humanity.
91:02
And it is enough if you're that.
91:04
This idea that you got to be um working for yourself is so outdated.
91:10
Rather, you got to look at three things.
91:12
Number one, can I exercise what I'm really good at doing?
91:16
Number two, do I love what I'm doing?
91:19
Number three, am I making money doing this?
91:26
Until this room redefineses success into waking up in the morning
91:30
and being happy versus money,
91:32
we will be in a bad place.
91:35
>> Think about two core things in my opinion.
91:37
One, you have to at all costs not beat your own self up with
91:43
yourself.
91:44
At all costs.
91:46
It's huge.
91:47
You need to really be your own biggest fan instead of critiquing everything.
91:52
Number two, moments in time.
91:56
You've got to wrap your head around how young you actually are.
91:59
You have to wrap your head around how early in the process this is
92:03
and how this is just a very small moment in time. 400 trillion to
92:08
one.
92:09
I just want everybody to hear this.
92:10
This is the reason I'm happy 24/7 365 for the rest of my life.
92:15
400 trillion to one.
92:18
The odds of becoming a human being.
92:20
You might not like the human being situation you ended up in,
92:23
but let me tell you this.
92:25
Your mom might have grabbed another glass of wine
92:27
and you never would have been.
92:30
I mean, 400 trillion to one.
92:34
I've never seen anything
92:36
that scares me as much
92:38
as sitting with somebody in their 80s
92:39
or 90s who spends all their time talking to me
92:42
and not about not what they did,
92:44
but what they wish they did.
92:47
And in that, there's something that I think could really work here.
92:50
And here's what I mean by that.
92:52
I believe that if everybody in this room had a better relationship with understanding
92:57
time,
92:58
they could be much happier.
93:00
I feel like people are grossly impatient.
93:02
I don't think that people
93:03
that are 55 years old realize they have 20 more years of executing in
93:09
a world where they grew up
93:10
as kids and 55 seems
93:11
so old and people were dying at a different age
93:13
and retiring at a different age.
93:16
I think if you actually saw regret up close
93:19
and personal for one day
93:21
that a lot of the things
93:22
that you're not doing
93:24
that it could scare you into doing it.
93:26
I live a life already where people email me on a tactical level the
93:34
regret that they wish they listened to me around this
93:36
that or the other thing three
93:37
or four or five years ago.
93:41
Um, you know, it's funny.
93:43
It's really hard to ask a giraffe to be a penguin or vice versa.
93:48
And so, one thing
93:49
that has become much more obvious to me
93:51
as I've gotten older,
93:52
it's like, wow, DNA is powerful.
93:54
Like, I'm so comfortable with no and losing and fear.
93:59
But I'm so empathetic to people that aren't.
94:02
I, and this will surprise a lot of you that maybe follow me,
94:06
I'm unbelievably comfortable with aggressiveness and cander and binary talk on stage,
94:13
but one-on-one,
94:15
I've really struggled over the last 25 years
94:17
as an executive with radical cander
94:19
and shooting it straight
94:21
because I'm so optimistic
94:22
and I'm always trying to fix it.
94:24
And so that's taken me a lot of work.
94:26
And through that work, it I'm like, okay, you know,
94:29
there's the things that come natural and the things that aren't.
94:32
If you grew up in a framework with parents
94:35
or customs that really desperately overvalue outside affirmation,
94:42
the opinions of your parents' parents
94:46
or siblings because you come from a let's call it what it is,
94:49
an immigrant background where there's a huge commonality there. um school.
94:54
You were so deeply bought into school
94:56
that the short-term affirmation of every 90 days with grades
95:00
and report cards made you comfortable.
95:02
It's very hard to then go into, hey, hey,
95:06
this is what you should learn from entrepreneur land.
95:08
Like, don't worry about it.
95:10
It's all going to be fine.
95:11
That's very hard.
95:12
You've fully built yourself
95:13
as an animal to completely value outside judgment
95:17
that is not based on the market,
95:19
but based on another human being.
95:22
That's what I'd like people to learn, which is like, hey, like,
95:26
what are we doing here?
95:27
You've won the 400 trillion to one lottery of being a human being.
95:30
Do you really want to live with regret?
95:32
Like, do you not understand
95:33
that the internet is the greatest optionality in the history of mankind?
95:37
That our grandparents and everybody behind them had nowhere close to the options you
95:40
sit with today?
95:42
And really, like, what are you valuing that's making you conform into doing something
95:46
that doesn't make you happy?
95:47
Your current overhead.
95:49
So, sell your home and rent.
95:51
That sounds crazy.
95:52
You know, when I started talking about like, "Hey, in the pursuit of happiness,
95:56
would you consider selling your home and renting?
96:00
I mean, I got destroyed in the comments sections and and like like that.
96:05
I'm some horrible person."
96:06
I'm like, "How is living your life to pay the bills
96:10
that you've created for yourself?"
96:12
That's all humans all
96:13
that humans do are create their own jails
96:15
and then live within it.
96:17
That's all we do.
96:19
So, so knowing that that's very hard in a human way,
96:24
the situation you have with your parents, all that stuff.
96:27
The professional one feels like I have a prayer of communicating
96:31
that and letting people
96:32
and here's my point.
96:33
If you want to be a professional skier
96:35
or if you want to start a a blog
96:37
or podcast around cooking,
96:39
my big thing is if you jump and start swimming, you know,
96:44
this is riding a bike,
96:45
kissing a boy or girl or or or you know, swimming.
96:48
This is it seems super scary until you do it
96:51
and then you just laugh about why it felt
96:53
so scary.
96:54
Like if you go do that thing and live more humble, live with judgment,
96:58
you could always get a job again.
97:02
Like I don't know.
97:03
Like I just my great fear is regret
97:06
because it is the obvious thing I see in people
97:08
that are 80 to 100 years old
97:10
that seems super scary.
97:12
Nobody was thrilled that they played it safe.
97:16
It just you don't see it.
97:18
And I think people should spend more time with 80 to 100 year olds
97:20
that aren't their grandparents.
97:22
I mean it.
97:23
I mean it.
97:23
I think people need context on life a little bit.
97:25
I think people have a horrible relationship with time.
97:28
Do you know how many people in this room are scared shitless of 30?
97:33
Like it's some thing.
97:34
It means nothing.
97:36
But our societyy's decided to tell you
97:38
that you have to figure it out
97:39
and married and children
97:41
and what are you talking about?
97:43
98% of the 59year-olds I know don't have it figured out.
97:47
The hell are we supposed to have it all figured out at 30, 25?
97:50
Like people are making terrible decisions getting married
97:54
because they think they're supposed to by this age,
97:56
you know?
97:57
like buying homes because they think they're like the rules of modern society have
98:05
led to.
98:06
Everybody wants to blame technology, you know, and drug companies for, you know,
98:13
all our problems.
98:14
We need to blame our norms, our expectations,
98:19
our ridiculous north stars that have make no sense.
98:24
We're living, when I look at this young of a crowd,
98:27
they're living to 110.
98:29
There's an enormous amount of people in here
98:31
that are going to live to 110
98:33
and are freaking out
98:34
that they don't have it figured out by 30.
98:37
You're not even a quarter of the way there yet.
98:39
Heat.
98:39
Heat.
98:39
Heat.
98:39
Heat.
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