Watch These 53 Minutes If You Want To Be A Millionaire In 2025 (ft. Patrick Bet-David)

today Patrick is going to share everything he knows about building million-dollar businesses and generating wealth Patrick Bet David is a Serial entrepreneur with a net worth of over $500 million Patrick founded value tainment the biggest entrepreneurship channel in the world and he owns several more multi-million do businesses one of which he recently sold for over $300 million today Patrick is going to cover the following topics number one how anyone can be a successful entrepreneur number two the four rootes to generating wealth number three p bulletproof sales process number four the foundations of building a successful

business and finally tips for starting a business with $0 and if you can't sit down and watch for 5 minutes I'm sorry you're probably not going to make it let's say you're 18 to 25 years old okay maybe you got some college okay and and maybe you don't you're undecided on what you want to do with your life you're highly ambitious you have fire you want to do something big with your life but no specialized skill sets okay you don't have anything right now okay so I can either go buy an online course and learn

it I can either go read a ton of books which I should do it anyways or the fastest way is I go Shadow somebody this is number one for me when I'm 21 years old I get out of the army I want to go be a bodybuilder okay I go to Mr Olympia in Las Vegas I realized I don't want to put everything in my body because I'm Too Tall I'm 6'5 so which means on off season I have to be 400 lbs and most guys that are 6465 bodybuilders they die at 35 to 45

years old so I don't want to do it so I realized this isn't for me on the drive back I get a call from Mr Dave Kirby Dave Kirby is work Morgan Stanley Dean wit's branch manager he offers me a job a day before 911 which is 910 2001 we all know what happened on 9911 day one in glendel I get into Financial Services industry because there's a couple things I knew I you need to know yours I love people I am curious about his story he showed me a video about your son Blown Away

by it 7 years old the way he speaks two I love numbers so these two to me very high priorities so the loving people is I'm curious the loving numbers I like stats so I go into Financial Services and I'm working on Morgan Stanley Dean Witter then I go and leave to Trans America because I want to see what I can do to be independent instead of being an employee doing sales there for seven and a half years I shadowed some of the best people in business girl named Jamie a guy named John who was

a former attorney a man named Rich another great guy Jeff became a good friend of mine another great mentor named Greg I'm watching all of these guys for seven and a half years while I'm taking courses while I'm reading books at 7year mark my temper is starting to annoy me because the people I was working there I asked this one guy that was supposedly the face of the company what is the vision of where this company is going we're in Hawaii he's sitting across from me I said I want you to look at me in

my eye when I'm talking to you I'm 29 years old he says the sun is on my eyes I said let's Swit these cuz you need to look at me he looks at me an hour later he tells me Pat you're right we don't have a vision for the company big mistake in business I can't be there exactly 6 months later after that on 923 209 I started an insurance company 90 days prior to this event I had an event together at JW Marriott called saving America doing the impossible I'm dressed as George Washington there's

a 40 foot mount rushar on the stage this pictures online you can find it my wife is dressed as Lady Liberty I get up and I said we're going to save America we're going to do the impossible that's what the theme of the event was 90 days later I start the company uh and then from there I said 20 years I will stay in one industry which was insurance and finance at the 20y year and 11th Mark I sold a business for $250 million and I owned 88% of the business if we look at it

right let's just say we're pursuing wealth I can be an entrepreneur which this is the one you want on your Twitter profile by the way you know what entrepreneur means for 9 % of people that they lost a job that they got fired when I was an entrepreneur 30 years ago when I first started out everyone would say to me you can't get a job right I'm like yeah that's basically it so I've had to start something my own well but but but there's true entrepreneurs and there's entrepreneurs that think they're entrepreneurs there's a big

difference the delusional people are you were a terrible employee and you're also a terrible entrepreneur then there is those that are terrible employees but they're great entrepreneurs and then there's the few that are great employees and great entrepreneurs so this will take a while for us to find out which one of those three you are there is another category by the way which is sometimes people you you've made a very important distinction you made a list of things you like to do and then you've got really good at them yes so you can be a

really good entrepreneur if you do that but a lot of people try to be let's say they try to be the salesp person for the company and they're rubbish but they don't know to hire the best sales person for example sure so because you're not good at sales but you might be good at numbers you might be good at other things right so I think people got to list out first step is list out what you love to do and get bloody good at it any you can right it's basically yeah for sure so entrepreneurs

entrepreneur is I work for you okay and let's just say you're more a CTO you're more a COO type or maybe you're a real Co coo founder right but I come in and I bring the technical side to you I come and I bring the operation side to you that you la you're not that organized I am right I bring the financial side I bring the strategy side I bring the creative side right or I get involved with you at the lowest level and I'm the one that keeps coming up coming up coming up and

eventually you're like wait a minute this guy is so reliable they at the number one quality of a person that eventually became a Fortune 500 CEO that started within that company Bob Iger was a guy that started as a regular employee eventually became the COO of Amazon and he was at ABC the number one quality that eventually reveals this person is going to be a CEO is reliability number one do what you say is reliability and out of all the seite positions you know what's the least likely of becoming a CEO you got the CTO

CMO CSO coo you know what's the least likely to become a CEO CMOS people that just don't say do what they say going to do but it's CMOS only 4% of CMOS become CEOs most CFOs on Coos become CEOs and like the recent guy that just became the CEO of U of U of Starbucks do you know the story of Brian Nicholls the share price went at 8% the day they quit of a guy yeah the old guy was a former Mackenzie guy yeah and it was a Pepsi guy he comes in and in an

interview says don't call me after 6:00 I don't need to talk to you after 6:00 wait till the CEO is telling don't this McKenzie Guy Brian niichel goes to um goes to Chipotle the day he gets hired as a COO of Chipotle in 2018 company's worth 7 billion the day he leaves Chipotle it's worth 71 billion the day he goes to Amazon not Amazon the day he goes to Starbucks and they give him his offer he gets $110 million contract that day Starbucks made $20 billion when the announcement was made so what does he do

differently that Mak he's a guy that knows how to bring people together rally them and drive standards creativity data he was able to create the online shop for Starbucks which was for not Starbucks for Chipotle in a way where like I'm just going to place the order go pick up I'm going to place the order and Starbucks lacks in that they their app absolutely sucks at Starbucks right so they want to bring a guy that specialized in that area however Brian Nicholl was a former CMO he was one of the four centers that eventually become

a CEO of Fortune 500 company and it was a CMI thing at pizza or Domino's Pizza one of those places that eventually came to the top so entrepreneur is the one that stick around and eventually you get Equity boom you become the leader make sure they get equity and by the way this part Andy jasse Andy jasse used to be the guy that worked for a guy named Jeff Bezos helping run WS AWS they're making 60 to 80% profit hosting Services right eventually Bezos is a stepping away he brings Jassie jasse runs Amazon same with

jobs jobs is running you know apple he brings in Tim Cook the day he hires Tim Cook to become the CEO apple is worth 100 billion jobs dies at 56 fast forward from 100 billion Tim Cook took the company from 100 billion to to three trillion Tim Cook's never been an entrepreneur he's a billionaire as an entrepreneur so then the next is just a pure sales just on this one just quickly on one thing I would say because sometimes people listening they got to come back down to like Earth for a lot of people this

is quite high brow the my wife was a graphic designer and when I met her I said you're an entrepreneur and she didn't think she was she said no I'm a graphic designer I said no you need to partner up with someone that you think is an entrepreneur so I'm the sales and the marketing guy you without you though why can't build a business create a business so I need you you do your creative thing but you're still an entrepreneur own Equity is part of my definition of an entrepreneur right don't necessarily need to be

the Persona of what people think is an entrepreneur she was an entrepreneur she worked hard she always delivered she would work through the night to get the work done she cared as much as I did she was good at her job she was an entrepreneur she just wasn't thinking she was because she thought she was just a graphic designer right so this entrepreneur thing she thought she was an entrepreneur at the beginning i' I've convinced her eventually not an entrepreneur she saw me as the entrepreneur but then you team up I couldn't do it without

her she couldn't do it without me listen there is this notion that this is sexier than this yeah not true but it's not true if you look at Balmer from uh from Microsoft who was the fifth employee Gates was the founder Balmer today is worth more than Gates is I think we need a new word by the way entrepreneur has completely misled people I think entrepreneurship is what you were just saying there it's it's a combination of you do what you say you're going to do you follow through you kind of don't give up unless

there's an obvious reason to give up and you have a vision and a mission that is drives you to go and do it to me that should be the new definition entrepreneurship there is levels to the game so sales let's go to the next one sales this right here for somebody who is a very independent personality look leave me alone I just going to want to go make my money do whatever I want to do be financially free have my own schedule I'm willing to work my ass off for 5 to 10 years then I

just kind of want to do my own thing this is the fastest way to make 250 to 2 million a year sales and it's a bad life for 5 to 10 years 10 years later you do it right it's a great life okay but that's sales that's one way to make money in in this in but again this right here may be the most important route to take to Shadow someone so it's almost like when people say what industry should I get involved in I'm like it's not about industry it's about who to work for

yeah you work for a guy who's a driver who is a killer for 3 years in an industry you do not want to be a part of is a 100 times more valuable than getting in an industry that you want to be a part of but you work for somebody that's a schle the person you learn from on a daily basis is way more valuable than the actual industry there's also a personal brand alignment who you work with will reflect on you over time the business Community I agree so then we have the next one

then the next one is I want to be an influencer okay I want to be famous I want to be an influencer I want to go that route okay cool being famous is overrated having the ability to do things he's underated for sure but but let's just say somebody says you know what I want to go be famous I want to go have you know a big following I want to walk into the market and for people to stop me and take selfies with me and all this other stuff and I'm going to get sponsorships

and that's what I'm going to be doing great so then in this part we have to ask if you actually have talent so you can look at are you funny are you interesting are you super smart are you a great Storyteller you know are you entertaining okay are you so brilliant in certain topics that you can go deep are you a good host do you have the way you analyze something that's different than everybody else's everybody can go and see a situation on Election or politics or business or restaurant or a sports team and everybody's

well I just think he's being lazy and another person may most people don't know about last night if you look at his Instagram story he was partying till 3:00 in the morning with a girl and he came in and his next story was this this guy just had 3 hours of sleep last night there's no way in the world you're going to come in and be able to like oh wow this guy actually did the research that's a good point I didn't even think about it whose party that's the part where you're analytical where people

want to know what your opinion is on an issue Rogan what does Rogan think people want to know what he thinks then there's a great host hey so what do you think so what do you think so what do you think so what do you think then there's a great interviewer okay some some interviewers people care about their opinion but most interviewers people don't care what they think they care about what the people they interview think so then you have a trifecta of a talent Trifecta of a talent is somebody that's a good host can

go deep on a lot of different topics and it's got a larger than life personality charismatic storytelling you got somebody like that now you're talking about somebody that can Garner a lot of audience but this people think this happens overnight that could take 5 to 10 years and it's not for everybody 99% of people shouldn't do this everyone can learn sales everyone can learn sales everyone just one form of it maybe not the right right roof and by the way as an influencer you know managing expectation with influence is also very important person with 2,000

followers in a specific Village that 20,000 people live in and your 2,000 followers are from that Village you're a massive influencer in that Village community so who is your audience that's following you as well is very critical but if this is coming from a noble Place do it go for it if it's coming from a place of you know uh arrogance and all that other stuff you can still do I'm not telling you don't do it but the purpose of it is the purpose of it will be disappointing long term unless unless you have a

vision and a mission back to what you were saying earlier to do it it's only useful then wise it can be a burden right being famous is actually a bur The Rock Dwayne Johnson goes and sits down with the managers at WME and he says look guys I want to be Will Smith but bigger I want to be Arnold but bigger I want to be this but bigger guess what he's saying I'm competitive and one day Dana White calls him and says hey Rock how come you're not on social media you'd kill it on this

thing says no I don't want to do anything with Instagram Dana White from UFC convinces The Rock to get on social media and Instagram today he's got 600 million I didn't know that that's back story I didn't know that at all that's amazing and at 600 million followers zoa energy papouille ter all these other things that he did with the social media back but people listening don't understand that what's the line people uh want the exposure but they don't want to do the work yes so Dwayne Dwayne Johnson he will actually have had to made

sacrifice to do that people don't understand he has his freedom sacrific too he goes out he'll be mobbed right you can't go walk the streets anymore you're working even hard he's doing the content himself like you do he not necessarily Outsourcing he's a monster he's a monster of a worker yeah so people don't understand even at that level he's working like a monster right so but you you're an influencer now do you describe yourself as that sometimes people consider me an influencer yeah and now I know how I'm using this for what I want to

do and it accelerates the process so on sales how did you get good at sales so again uh if we go back to it I'm very curious so my entire sales approach approach starts with a needs analysis everything I do I start with a needs analysis husband and wife come up to me where marriage is not working out really yes okay how long have you guys been feeling this way question number one uh 6 months okay how long have you guys been together 12 years have you guys gone through this before as well yes in

our fifth year of marriage when this happens what typically causes it well it's normally because of XYZ and T da okay both times was the same thing yes why did you guys get married to each other well but why else why did you why did she so needs analysis you know everything about them understand where they're going to buy of course so by the way this needs analysis approach then becomes a consultative sales approach not a closer you know how they say I can say ice to esim I'm not that guy yeah I can't do

that but if I start off with curiosity and needs analysis and my interviews my podcast there all needs analysis okay I want to get to the motive I want to find out what caused you to XYZ I want to find out what caused you to go and compete at the levels you did what caused you to I brought a guy once from UK who was the guy that would interview people who right after they killed somebody their spouse he would be the guy that would do the interviews that is Jim Clement lot questions I don't

think this is from us this guy from UK his name is Jim Clement a former FBI super supervisor SL profiler so imagine a guy just killed his wife he's one of the guys that's running and he comes in and he says oh my God I would really want to know who killed my wife he's the first guy that interviews him and I said Jim after all these years he did this what do you think causes these people to to do this again I want to know motive look what he tells me revolutionary he says to

me he says genetics loads the gun right it's in you already personality and psychology aims it right experiences causes you to pull the trigger it's the same in the S cycle in Reverse exactly but the point is I'm interviewing that guy because I want to know the motive what would cause somebody to do something like this got it that's why what causes somebody to become a so everything is my needs analysis approach number one number two is is a consultative approach questions so here's what I would do if I were you that is my recommendation

here's what I would do if I were you consultative selling versus hey you better get this I'm not that guy I've never like selling like that right so curiosity needs analysis consultative and then from here if you want to know like the Evergreen stuff that no matter what I know I'm going to beat my competitors most people are so lazy with followup m i was the follow follow up King is what I was I was the follow-up King I called up in my script when I noticed you wouldn't pick up I'd leave a message for

you I would say hey Simon Patrick B David he I don't know if you heard what happened or not but uh uh you were the first person I thought about uh I think you probably want know what just happened call my when to get this message da d d you'd get the message like what what happened Pat what happened rates just went down and let me tell you what the Market's been doing have you watched a stock market no what happened when are we going to get together and then now you're like okay now I

got you on the phone so instead of getting a 10% response on a call now I'm getting 50% call back so people like in sales never leave a message I leave a message and you got to call me back so I was a follow-up guy and eventually I would say I would say hey Sam let me just simplify for how would you like to be two years younger and people would say excuse me how would you like to be two years younger Pat yeah of course I'd like to be two years on I said fantastic

I said in the next two years you're eventually going to do business with me because I'm very good at what I do and I know this would be good for you that if I were you I would also take advantage of it I'd like to save you the two years of waiting for us to do business together now when can we get together that was a followup so i' get back together with you everything to me I knew this was going to guarantee My Success cuz I was going to keep following up with you then

unique experience I wanted you to leave leave me and say man nobody treats me like the way that guy treats me that guy was just different so I go we sit down with a guy named uh Eli uh who's a guy who who was one of my mentors early on I go to his place I'm like oh my God this guy was doing All-Star entrepreneurs where at the a hotel right down the street from LAX like this guy's phenomenal on stage the way he would sell was incredible so then I got close to him he

invites me to his 50th birthday party in uh uh Kanan road which is in Westlake California it's a high in place I go to the party I'm the brokest guy in the room okay I stay till 2:00 in the morning party's done his wife jelina I say hey can I help you wash it Julina go grab a seat it's been a long day for you I'll wash the dishes I'm washing the dishes and they're watching me 30 minutes I'm washing all the dishes and I'm talking to them 2:30 everybody's out the house now I got

to them one onone and we start talking he tells me about his son that he went to jail because he almost killed somebody and he went to jail for 9 years and he says no one wants to go visit is it my son I said I'll do it he said you'll do it said yeah he says it's a background chicken you going to US men's Colony it's not a good jail I said I don't have a problem get my Social 30 days later I go to the jail I go visit his son wadia okay I'm

there all day I spent eight hours with this guy I want nothing in return from Eli I come back he's emotional crying he says you know nobody want and visited my son Eli says how can I help you I said I don't know he says what do you do right now I said I started started an insurance Business Financial business he hands me the Rolodex 600 phone numbers he says call them and let them know I gave you their phone numbers he gives me the number one of the guys I called is a guy named

ed Wade he introduced me to another guy named George poo through this contact that he made I made somewhere between 30 to $50 million from this one contact so follow up unique experience unreasonable Hospitality going above and beyond for people eventually all of these things combined people say listen I'm just going to do business with this guy this is this is a ever green proven no matter what the product is you're going to do well in sales the big takeaway I take on this as well is the relationship side as well that you go deep

on the relationship side you you make it personal everyone says business isn't personal absolutely not true right you make it personal and and you you create a sense with these people that this is longterm cuz I think that's people will try to make moneyy quickly out people instead of build a relationship over the long term and and that's what I take away from this too you've gone deep with this person they then you've gone the extra mile in Hospitality they've then given you an opportunity and then you've gone and followed up again and again and

again and again till it's happened the luck happened mhm but it's a level of confidence that gives you because it's a proven method you're not winging it's not maybe this will work out this is going to work out okay this is going to work out behind the scenes I'm working 80 hours a week behind the scenes I'm the guy on Saturday when everybody would leave the sales office at 4:00 I'm 25 years old everybody wants to go party with me I would say five people are remaining I'd say guys are we going to the club

tonight we're going to the club tonight people I said great why don't we go after we make 50 calls and we each book five appointments let's roll so I would say that and by 5:30 the five guys were like hey guys I hear no way yes yes awesome I'm going to go get ready to go to the club I'm like guys how about we do this what's that let's go one more 50 calls and five appointments two guys are like no man I'm not doing this I'm going to go get ready no problem but two

guys are like BBD let's go round two 50 awesome appointments awesome now it's 7 o'cl guys no no no no one more no no no then they leave then I Stay 50 calls five more appointments now I show up to the club at 11:00 okay they left at 7:30 I know it's a given you're not going to beat me it's a numbers game again because I'm not going to stop the most intimidating quality you'll ever find in competition there's nothing more intimidating than than this nothing it's not size it's not strength it's not power it's

the fact that your opponent is not going to stop and you event eventually will those who continue and their opponents stop are the most hated people in the world Elon Musk when he used to be $2 billion they're like this guy's very smart then he continues at 100 then he continues at 250 you think Bezos likes that you think all these other guys like that why do you think they hate the guy cuz he's not stopping now as a business owner I value business security above anything else it's something I've often neglected in my life

it's a big mistake it's the foundation of any successful business one of the first things I adopted in a growing team was a password manager for our daily activities so we chose Nord pass an effortless password manager created by the Cyber Security Experts behind nordvpn do you know that people waste on average 11 hours per year resetting passwords and that many times cyber attacks happen due to weak passwords that people use and reuse such as 1 2 3 4 5 6 yes it's been the most most popular password for years and it takes just one

second to crack it imagine having to remember 20 passwords so you can put them on your notebook or reuse one password for all accounts if one gets compromised it's game over with Nord pass I'm able to easily generate and autof strong passwords across all my devices I can share credentials and credit card details safely with my team and collaborators with the ability to revoke access when required so no more doubts regarding who has access to what or tiring asks to reset passwords this is hugely beneficial as my team continues to grow another great feature is

the easyto use data breach scanner which alerts me if one of my credentials has been leaked this really gives me peace of mind that I want you to have to and I need to run my business without worrying about any of my personal information being shared on the dark web so what are you waiting for give it a try it's free secure your business today use the code Simon at norp pass.com Simon to get a free three month norpass business trial no credit card required so let's just go back a step sure you started an

insurance company y how did you do it for people listening that that know that story of how you built that company up and sold it for hundreds of millions how okay so when when I first started for seven and a half years and I was a broker in the other company right Trans America wfg when I was there I never produced one person that made $100,000 a year I was a great salesperson but I was an okay sales leader and one day I sit down and I ask why am I an okay sales leader and

I realized a few things one everything about being a great sales leader you have to be able to transfer skills so how do you transfer skills there's a there's a coach in America football coach is no longer with us his name is Bill Walsh he produced the most assistant coaches that went to the Super Bowl and everybody would ask what made this guy so special he was famous for always having listicles what's a listicle seven keys to do do do 12 keys to do do do so he had this manual he would give it over

to you as a coach you go coach another team and you're like Hey how do I fire a player okay page 228 12 keys to firing your quarterback da da da da da everything was a transferable skill set I did not have that my sales business as a sales leader was a personality driven business okay instead sales sales trans so my priority became systems so that was number one I needed systems everything to me was about systems I built some of the most legendary manuals in the insurance industry that people use how to put conferences

together how to write letters to your clients how to overcome objections how to sell any product in the insurance space and a lot of the people in the marketplace use that so it's systems but this didn't get us to a quar of a billion we're a half a billion dollar company right now when I sold it was a quar of a billion second thing was you have to know people and how to move people people are generally driven by four different things one is lifestyle okay two is uh uh purpose okay three is like next

step what do I need to do next like it's almost like a listicle you know what's the next step that I got to and then the next one is madness madness are the psychos they want to compete they want to correct an injustice they're very if you speak this language to this guy it will not work this guy just wants to be directed on whatever his next three to five moves this guy wants to know about the enemy this guy wants to know about who the opponent is this guy wants to know what's the record

to break that's this guy you know this guy is different he wants to know about the fact that we're making a difference on people's lives and positively impacting right this one wants the Ferrari this one wants to give the middle finger to his teacher in school this one wants the lambo the big house the watches so I had to learn how to communicate to my audience based on what drove them so learning how to drive people is very important this is very similar to your research piece earlier when you're talking about your sales process you

got to do the same with your team yes what drives them what's motivating them what do they really want you want what do they want for sure so that's that number three is you know I go to New York to meet with six investment bankers this was one of the best experien invest in the company invest in this insurance yeah to invest in the insurance company and I wanted to know my company was worth by the time I'm done I'm like so hey if my eBid is 10 million what am I worth everybody said what's

your business after 6 hours with all these guys I'm a 5x eida I said so let me get this straight I'm doing 10 million year and I'm just worth 50 million uh yeah that's it yeah I'm not interested in that I said tell me which insurance companies recently have sold at our 15 20x he starts giving me the names I said why did they sell for 15 to 20x they're Tech enabled tell me more I said I have technology he says is it yours or you renting it no I'm renting it but it's still I'm

using it he says no one gives you what's yours I said nothing we went back raised $10 million started a software called bamboo became Tech enabled sold the company for 16x eida owning the IP is so underrated people don't understand this this was the key for the big payday it made it scalable too right another form of system it's unbelievable what it did so part of it is being a good sales leader part of it was being systematic part of it was knowing how to communicate to different people in different ways and then it was

techn I can give you more I'm just giving you some of the basics right now when do you know to Outsource and when do you know to build it yourself like that whatever is going to help my business scale exponentially on valuation I'm going to do that if it's Outsourcing more than me building I'm going to do that but nine out of 10 times it's building than Outsourcing and so eventually I'm sitting there like I'm running all these softwares okay can I take my seven and put seven of them into two yes that's what we

did I'll rent this one but I'll take this six and make it one let rip and then it win I everybody in the insurance industry knows about our software who built their business like ours and by the way we never did leads we never gave leads 100% of our sales guys always got their leads themselves all our competitors were selling leads to their guys guys we never did that everybody had to do it themselves and what you're building today does it have the same structure no today is a very different story if you want to

erase I'll show you what I'm doing today just just before we go there so so when you started the business did you have money to start the business or did you raise half million do I had $500,000 you you saved up through past Endeavors and and that's how you started the company and then you rais money because you had 88% you sold some Equity gave some to staff I'm assuming right and that's how you built the business with half a million doll so was my $500,000 that's one then I raised the first million but this

was Revenue backed funding I paid 3 to get to revenue you got this to revenue before you rais money and I raised a million which was expensive money then three was 10 million then four I raised 35 to buy out all my uh what do you call it former investors then five we sold yeah it's very important just quickly for people that realize you didn't have experience at this point it was they didn't you because you've done it previously I've never raised money I've never been a SE comp no clue what I was doing what

do you think the did was it the discovery bit that got you the money did you research people before you pitched them or was it just what what by far if I if you were to ask me why I was able to pull this off is I recruited people very well I recruited a guy whom I was introduced to an ' 08 who is now probably my best friend and my business partner Tom Ellsworth this guy has raised and sold $2.2 billion of companies he was part of jamad it was the first video game on

phones he sold that for $680 million in 04 how did you convince him to join well we met our church first my pastor introduced me to him mobile code then our wife's introducing to him then he introduced me to vistage I was part of vistage for about a couple years vistage is like the largest CEO networking group you pay 1,500 bucks a month and eight nine people come together and they're from different Industries and you're processing issues together so then during this time him and I went to probably 20 or 30 events together Inc 500

we went to this we went to that and then whenever we go we' share room so we became very good friends then in 2014 I asked him I said hey what's your next thing he says what do you mean I invited him to one of my events on 2011 with Steve wnac he got emotional because he saw what we were doing he like this is amazing what you're doing 14 I said hey why don't you come and be the president of the company he said I don't have background and insurance I said who cares I

want to be teeken able he came in became the president for 6 months he was living in Texas when he would fly out in California he lived in one of my bedrooms in my house 6 months later we moved to Texas and then from there we've been doing business together since I love people doing business with friends so it's another thing it's a it's a misunderstanding don't do business with friends is one of those things that the EA actually it's very powerful if you get it right right you can literally hang out together have fun

totally underrated word as well and by the way this part the reason why this is important I've never raised money this guy had raised 2.2 billion so I needed a guy who was an operations guys he was a great pm he was a technology guy you know the last interview when Bill Gates and Steve Jobs did I don't know if you've ever seen that love that interv in red they have respect for each other they enemies of course there was 300 people invited to that meeting you know who was one of them Tom was one

of them he was in the room finally just going back to the beginning if someone's listening to this their mind's been blown about how you've achieved this all from those early days at 12-year-old kid if you were starting today you got no money no money you when to give three or four steps someone listening is ambitious has it what can you give him goal make a list of 20 people who are the biggest killers in your community that you admire and find a way to work for one of them and rank them number one is

this guy number two is this guy number three is this guy number four is this guy number five is this guy start here and then boom but every one of them you want to work for by the way 90% of it is this for me there's nothing about that recruit who you want to work for sell this person why you should go work for them and let them know how special of a guy you are a gal you are when you're working for their company relevant skill set like my team I've got 17 people working

in my team all of them have gone and learn a skill that is so useful to what I'm trying to do I think that's another thing is that maybe on your second thing learn a skill or bring some value to these people because if you just DM them if I DM you and say hey can I come and work you because it' be good for me you like get lost you know like so they got to bring some value to you so they say to you right I figured out the Tik Tok algorithm I know

exactly how to get you viral in Tik Tok um give me a chance let me do it for one one post for you for free they prove value to you how how do people get in the door on this I listen if I if if I know my basic rules that I follow are four things I know I'm going to outwork everybody but that's not enough that's how you tell people those I know if you if you if you come in I know I'm going to do this number two I know I'm going to out

improve you I just know I am okay I know I'm not going to stop number three is out strategize okay because you need this this is very valuable and the last one is the one we talked about earlier which is the most intimidating one I'm going to outlast you so if somebody comes in with this mindset no matter where you put us we're going to figure it out for me I went to Bali I didn't know how to sell but I read every book I could on selling I became obsessed about selling so for me

number two is I've read 2,000 business books this became my obsession purely you got one more now that's going to teach you so much what's your I love the title but I became obsessed with business books and the way I read wasn't based on what people recommended me this is how I read I have 600 books in my office I'm not planning on reading any one of them you know why because I choose what book I want to read at this phas of my life so for example I would I would read books based on

topics let's just say it's going to be sales I suck in sales right now I'd buy every book on Amazon with 500 Plus reviews that's four plus star and I would read those books every one of them at order that's all I'm reading I mean your book I mean to sit with you and have time with you is so expensive buy the book what's it cost that book probably 15 bucks I don't know you can get your knowledge all of your knowledge in one book 15 bucks why don't people buy all of the books of

all the successful people they admire like why don't they I don't know why they don't that's the great thing though you don't want them to buy that's what makes you special that you do they're not going to do it the reality is people are not going to do it so it was sales then it was negotiation then it was raising money then it was biographies then it was politics then it was Faith then it was I mean it was like one time when one of my enemies you know really uh uh tried to bully me

I read a book called 33 Strategies of War by Robert Green for 2 years straight was playing in my car on repeat everybody would sit in my car for 2 years and they would look at me like you're still listening to this yes why we're going to war okay period for 2 years straight this is all I ever listened to in the car Robert Green so it became part of you strategy and knowledge it's not even funny how much of maybe it's a little too psychological but it's it's definitely part of me so the books

three I if your language you're a friend or a relative and your language had words that I didn't like I couldn't be around you anymore if you if you spoke a certain language I just can't be around you you cut people out that weren't right that's what you're talking about young people people starting a business should think Cut Throat I'm out they're not bringing value to you gone I'm out fair I am out okay I am out I actually my mother I had to get rid of my mother in my life for that same reason

my own mother was poisoned in my life so I kind this that's how hard I I'm married to someone from Asia who Revere parents like look up to them no matter what so for me to tell my wife wife I can't talk to my mom anymore was a big deal right in their culture till the day I still don't speak to it yeah but that's so hard this bit because those people probably love you those probably seem like they care about you you know who else had a very you know a lot of people had

complicated relationships with their mother you know who was one of them George Washington you ever heard the story vely yeah okay so so that's this one you're ruthless about this though right I'm not even I'm not there's zero tolerance you could be blood I'm I'm not dealing with you I can't do it because you're you're you're you're getting in the way and do you tell them straight or you just straight up in a respectful way straight up in a more number four whatever is your addiction you got to give that up I gave it up

uh and I would say five if this is my brain and I had all these things that was consuming percentages of my brain I eliminated it to make me more focused on fewer things so if I was part of certain leagues F fantasy football whatever it was that I was doing I I don't have to time for this your so I eliminated anything that was consuming any of my brain power am out and I I I made it more focused how did you decide what to keep in your life that from a mind so for

example I don't own any property except for business because I think it distracts my brain If I'm renting out a premises and I have to deal with a tenant or even the company managing the tenant same here I don't bother I don't like and everyone will tell you as soon as I've made money in my company everyone told me to buy no this takes up your mind have no desire I have no desire for that any other example like that where you clear your mind you think I mean I I do think like Netflix and

stuff is part of this problem for a lot of people like addiction to like I give you an idea last time I listened to radio is' 03 I'm a big hip-hop guy like I'm a massive hip-hop guy R&B gangster rap I know all of it but my gangster rap and hip-hop ended in ' 03 the last time I listened to the radio was 03 I've not listened to the radio since 0 three so everything was about educational feeding me helping me grow that's my interest and if if if if all of a sudden you catch

yourself getting stuck in the swiping up type of business I'm like hey well no no go watch an educational video or listen to your audio book that's why you make content too right you're not consuming content you're making content I want people consuming a Content they need to switch their brains to making content not consuming it yeah that's watch straight out compon by the way have you watched that of course that is a whole that is an education program very I can I can tell you where I watch it and what happened I was on

Palm Springs on the way back from an event I had with a couple thousand people on the way back me Mario and Jennifer going to watch Straight Out of Compton I forgot I had a case of wine given to me in my truck and it was 110 Dees we walked Straight Out of Compton Tom ellsworth's on the car we come back every one of the wine bottles blew up in the rental car the car smells like crap with all the wine for two and a half hours we had the most fiery conversation on the drive

back from Palm Springs because we walked Straight Out of Compton in Palm Springs was the best I have that on Loop in the background whatever I'm doing uh there is one thing I personally want to add but I want I want to know if there's anything you've missed before I throw my own opinion and there's one more thing what do you think I'll tell you one last thing okay I just came from a meeting with my staff and I'm going to reveal to you something I've been talking about the last few months that is is

is purely an obsession of mine okay so let's play game for somebody that builds a trillion Auto Company versus a 100 billion Auto Company what is the biggest difference between these two guys for somebody that builds a 100 billion Auto Company versus a 10 Billion Auto Company what's the difference 10 billion to 1 billion what's the difference a billion to 100 million what's the difference if we go and and we size these five what do you think is the real difference between a trillion auto company and 100 billion AO company the story okay the vision

back to what you said earlier what else the people to actually make it happen what else it's crazy it's crazy you're thinking about it right now right let me tell you why had a meeting this last week with my CTO my chro my CSO my president and my CIO and I said listen guys I'm going on a 40-year run I'm 45 years old right now I'm going till I'm 85 and if I'm healthy I'm going to keep going but I'm going 40 a run I said I don't know if you're going to be with me

for 5 years 10 years 20 years you get to pick and choose how I'm going 40 right I said but regardless since I know I'm going 40 and regardless since we know we have all this stuff that we've built integrated businesses what's the difference between we're going to have to work hard anyways because you think the guys that build a trillion dollar company work harder than a billion doll 100 no I worked hardest when I had a gardening company like you know that small little company was a harder work cuz I couldn't go on holiday

so you're getting close yeah so what do you think is the difference it's infinite it's never ending it's not but but it's so simple though trust me you know it's not the people okay Walmart has 2.5 million employees some of these companies only have 100,000 and they're trillion a companies what is the difference between apple Nvidia Amazon Google you know name them say Facebook what is the difference between them and 100 billion L gratification no it's by the way it's it's actually so freaking ridiculous only way I can reverse engineer this question is to think

of someone who's doing it Elon Musk isn't just putting he's not competing with NASA he's literally saving the planet in his head okay right so so I can't help but say it's some form of vision it is but but think about that all he's doing is he's solving a bigger problem the only difference between these guys is the problem they're solving is bigger not smaller it's a bigger problem they're solving and the bigger the problem you solve the more money the market will pay you for example Amazon originally starts off to want to do what

books okay then customer say I wouldn't mind some wind scream wiper blade that's right and then what comes then they say well I wouldn't mind getting F basically right but then what comes up at this level technology then somebody says hey how about we have hosting company what are you talking about Amazon web services starts 60 to 80% margins you know who runs Amazon web services a guy named Andy JY you know what ends up happening to Andy Andy is now the SE of Amazon profitable margin business and all because they already have all this

stat so check this out check this out this wasn't intentional this became accidental and this is increasing the valuation the most right but while you're going You're for forcing everybody on your team to be thinking about a bigger problem to solve okay if you go to Apple same thing with them they build everything that's integrated right our our idea right now with our company that I had the conversation with them today is what I want us to do is to be thinking about because we're going on a run no matter what what do we need

to do to be a 100 billion auto company and what do we need to do to be a trillion Auto Company versus just because right now the way we're growing we'll be a 10 Billion Auto Company within 5 to 10 years that's not a it's not bragging we're not like Hey we're going to be a 10 million company no it's it's a given but man if we're going to be doing it what what do we need to do to go think like this or like this so now everyone leaves the meeting thinking what if we

solved that problem so for example back in the days Carnegie versus Rockefeller right Carnegie is what steel Rockefeller is what Railroad and oil and whatever you want to call it right this guy Carnegie was bullying this guy he's like who the hell are you I've been around the block I'm Carnegie he said excuse me no problem you want to talk to me and not get back to me that's great Mr Carnegie my railroads are no longer moving your steel oh we have a problem no Sherlock give me a call and they did you know who

that person is today musk everybody thought musk was trying to compete the car company car business no he wasn't robots he buildt battery plants Chargers all across the country guess who needs him every car company including the government that talks to him now they're knocking on his door see to him he just solved a bigger problem over and over and over again so for us what mindset we're at we've already solved this one we've already solved this one almost we're there we're going to solve this within 5 to 10 years but what do we need

for this and for this so for somebody that's watching this if you're continuously thinking about you know you're growing the business you know you're going to do the 80 hours a week you know you're going to do this part no matter what but you can do 80 hours a week and solve a problem that's a one versus solve a problem that's a 10 the work is going to be the same amount of work but the size of wealth that you create could be hundredfold for people listening I know the answer I think but I want

I want to validate this why if you're not going to sell a company does it matter that it's worth a trillion why if you're if you're not going to why care if it's a trillion it's not just about the trillion it's about how big you think because if I'm going to be working if I'm going to be working and driving why not think bigger about the problems to solve so I have resources to be able to make a bigger positive impact why just go for the small why why just going to be hey I want

to be a great basketball player in my city I want to be a great basketball player in my state I'm going to be a great basketball player in my country I want to be a great basketball player I want to be greatest basketball player in the world why not think bigger you know and in business you know part of it is you know you're like well in basketball and sports you need genetics in business maybe a little bit of genetics but in business if a culture is created to constantly thinking about a bigger problem to

solve and everybody's bought into the vision that if we run for this I'm going to be rewarded as well long term let it rip let's go see what we're capable of doing it's a level of excitement and enthusiasm and if you can get everybody bought in that becomes a movie that we all end up eventually watching and you know reading about plus you can attract any Talent when you're thinking that big I mean I always Lov the thing with Steve Jobs with the guy the Coca-Cola guy lik make fizzy drink or change the world you

know like which that's that that's basically also it isn't it like you can bring any talent in when you've got this sort of vision and that makes it happen it's self-fulfilling no question I loved it thank you so much for taking you are absolute rockar we're off now to have some chicken thanks very much for listening and remember use the code Simon at nordp pass.com Simon to get a free three month n past business trial