Dana White: This Generation Thinks You Can Build A Business From Home, It's Impossible!

Key Takeaway

Choose one meaningful goal, write down the next concrete move, and take it today before waiting for certainty. Dana White’s practical test is simple: compare the downside of trying with the long-term cost of wondering “what if?” Treat a setback as information—not a verdict—and make sure your ambition is paired with daily execution. A vision without action goes nowhere; consistent movement turns a stated intention into a real opportunity.

Episode Overview

Dana White discusses the mindset and operating principles behind building the UFC into a global sports brand. He argues for decisive risk-taking, relentless problem-solving, focus amid distraction, hiring high-performing people, and staying close to the customer experience. He also reflects on resilience, health changes, loyalty to employees, and building a life around work that genuinely energizes you.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Dana White: This Generation Thinks You Can Build A Business From Home, It's Impossible! from Diary of a CEO. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

As a founder building a business when I was in my early 20s, I think I always had a deep sense of imposter syndrome because there was something that I wasn't good at and that thing was finances. Finance and understanding your financial position as a small business is the great enabler of all of your dreams. I was running from it until I discovered a platform called Xero. Xero is an accounting and financial management platform specifically for small businesses and it brings accounting, payments, payroll and analytics all into one place even for people that don't love doing finances.

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Thank you for sponsoring this podcast but also thank you for helping me to scale my business as somebody that quite frankly has never loved finances that much. I've already built the biggest fight brand to ever exist. The UFC was purchased for two million dollars and if the Lakers sold for twelve and a half billion then the UFC is worth fifty billion. And every day that I show up here I'm here to win. When I'm dead it's going to be impossible to beat what I've built and I am addicted to chaos and if there isn't any, I create it.

From UFC fighters to CEOs of multi-gazillion pound companies to world leaders, I see in you a man that is truly obsessed. Early on I knew exactly who I was and I knew that I wanted to be involved in fighting. That's what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Was there any athlete that you sort of put in the class of their own? Conor McGregor, Khabib Nurmagomedov and Ronda Rousey but I didn't want women in the UFC Ronda Rousey grabbed me and said can I get 15 minutes with you and she came in with the whole fucking bravado and I'm like holy shit I think I'm gonna do this and she's the one to deal with.

If there were principles that you would most attribute to the success of the UFC what would it be? When you decide who you are, what you want to do, what you're going to accomplish and you work toward it, it is impossible for you to fail. Do not be afraid to take the risk but some of these kids that think they want to be entrepreneurs they don't know what it really takes and there is a formula and guess who has it and we can talk about this.

And then this is a book your mother published about you unauthorized as a biography. She's critical of you at certain points. I don't go on shows to speak negatively about my mother but I mean that's one of the grossest most disgusting things you couldn't even imagine possible until it happens to you and sometimes family is the worst and that was the beginning of the end with me and her. Have you forgiven her? Guys I've got a favour to ask before this episode begins. The algorithm if you follow a show will deliver you the best episodes from that show very prominently in your feed so when we have our best episodes on this show the most shared episodes the most rated episodes I would love you to know and the simple way for you to know that is to hit that follow button but also it's the simple easy free thing that you can do to help us make this show better and I would be hugely grateful if you could take a minute on the app you're listening to this on right now and hit that follow button.

Thank you so so so much. Dana you know more than anybody that to become a great fighter oftentimes you have an anomalous upbringing and I have some of these fighters in front of me like Khabib and Islam and Mike Tyson and when you look at their backgrounds and where they came from they have atypical origins and when I look at you I consider you to be a great fighter in your own regard so that's my question is what is that early context that's made you the fighter that you are?

I don't know uh you know I I always have trouble when we start talking about me and my upbringing and psychoanalyzing me I I don't know how to really answer those questions um I don't know it's not like I grew up like these guys grew up but early on I knew exactly who I was and I knew that I wanted to be involved in fighting that's what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. In terms of your mom and dad I listened to you talk about your dad and his absence and his difficulty with alcohol divorced eight years old left with your mother and that was also a turbulent relationship as you as you grew up is there anything from that early context that you look back on I know you don't like being psychoanalyzed I've heard you trying I've heard you respond to like Piers Morgan and others who have talked about your childhood before but is there anything from that early context that you think did shape you into this sort of like relentless you know I always say that you know you see these people that play the victim you know the victim mentality it's like oh I didn't have any role models when I was growing up yes you did you just didn't look at it the right way when you grow up everybody who's involved in your life they're all role models in good and bad ways like I used to look at you know some of my uncles and and and my dad and so I was like yeah we don't want to go in that direction let's let's go in this direction and in America you can start drinking when you're 21 I quit drinking when I was 21 I believe that that I wouldn't be able to accomplish all the things that I wanted to accomplish if I was drinking and I saw a lot of you know family members and other people where drinking had had been detrimental to their life and and uh you know I thought I think I had some pretty talented you know family members that could have lived a different life had they not drank you and your sister yeah that's me and my sister if I was a fly on the wall during that period of your life what would I have seen I don't know I I don't really remember me and my sister you know now that we're getting older we talk about this stuff a lot me and my sister are super close you know both our parents are dead and it was just us so yeah my mom was an animal my mom worked her ass off and you know if she wasn't working you know and picking up extra shifts she was a nurse she was going to school and she effectively raised you on her own definitely because your dad was he he was absent I remember he reciting a story of you him taking you to the cinema drunk yeah and just I mean what I got from that was I guess carelessness the story of him taking you to the cinema telling you asking you if you wanted something throwing twenty dollars your way telling you to go get it for your sister yeah I'm embarrassing you one of those moments and you know you have these these things that you remember from your young life and I have a few with my dad but you know the movie was Beverly Hills Cop and it just come out and it was like the biggest movie in the world and we got there late he showed up drunk to pick us up and take us to the movies you know so getting there was was a whole you know scene on its own and then we get there the place is packed there's no seats he walks in and screams we're gonna have to start moving some people you know and throws money at me to go get food and popcorn and whatever in my opinion my dad was a very selfish guy and uh you know he lived the life that he wanted to live and everybody else didn't matter did you ever understand him as you people always say that when they get older they understand their parents better well what I understood was once I became a parent I was like holy shit this is the way you're supposed to feel about your kids and this is the way you're supposed to you know so yeah I think that my parents made me a better parent you've got a very atypical drive in you there's a certain relentlessness that I've seen I mean I've seen it all and one of the sort of defining traits I think of Dana White is this sort of relentless insatiable ambition so my line of questioning isn't really to psychoanalyze it's really just to understand like where how that comes to be the case one would guess that there's some kind of chip on your shoulder in to some degree yeah it's true but I try to focus on I like to win winning is fun and everything in life but uh you know I also make sure that the obligations that I have you know I pay attention to those too like listen nobody's perfect but I've tried to do the best I could to be the best at everything I could at work at home with the kids you know and if I'd asked you when you were a young boy like some of these photos what you're going to be when you grow up would you have had an answer for me I didn't really know that until I was in my late teens you know literally walked out of a job that at the time and in the place a lot of people would kill for and had checked all the boxes and made cash every day got a paycheck every week 401k full dental and medical and you know all the things that people are looking for but I didn't like working for other people I always felt like working in the hotel industry was incredibly disrespectful the way that they would treat you and talk to you and and uh I never liked it was never for me so I walked out one day and I said I'm going to get into the flight business at the time I didn't know exactly what that meant or you know at what level but that was my goal have you always had a problem with well an issue with dare I say authority you have yes very very much so yeah it was never for me where does that come from do you know I don't know I honestly don't know the answer to that but I never liked it I never liked working for other people I never liked being told what to do and and I don't treat my employees like that did you think you were going to be successful in your life when you were I don't know 14 15 I did when I was younger I I believed that I would be yeah based on sort of had these you know these ideas in my head which at the you know at that time you don't know exactly what it means or at what extent but let me tell you what so when we worked when I lived with my mom me and my sister were just talking about this the other day so my mom worked all the time or was at school and me and my sister were home alone all the time but we had chores that we had to do I mean we were mow the lawn you know cleaning the pool and trimming the bushes and all that and I was like let me tell you what the day I make a dollar I'm never doing this shit ever again so that's probably an important lesson she taught you hmm no doubt about it and I you know I try to do this with my kids too my kids have been great and done everything the right way and I've told this story before but my son Aiden my youngest son flies home from college one week and says I don't want to stay in school I have an idea for this business that I want to do and whatever I said he lays it all out for me I'm like this is a pretty good idea I get it I like it but you're not going to quit school and just try to do this this doesn't this won't chew up eight to ten hours of your day you're going to go out and you're going to get a job and you're going to put out you're going to go put in applications and you're going to try to get a job because if I die tomorrow that's what you're qualified to do and he did it and he went and he worked at U-Haul and you know you got to have those kind of jobs my son right now my oldest is getting his master's degree in Boston right now and when I lived in Boston I used to work for EJ paving company they pave roads I actually want my son to go do some days at this paving company what is it you're trying to teach him well what hard work really is so people like I run around I don't sleep much and everybody's like oh you work so hard no no no I'll show you what hard work is construction hard work is concrete right up the street here I don't know how many days this summer were 115 degrees out these construction guys are out there working in 115 degree week like hard work real work and then in the winter people don't realize this in Vegas but it gets down into the 30s these guys will be outside working when it's 30 degrees out so and hard physical labor every day and then you go home you eat and you go to bed you start get up the next day and you go do it again in your life to figure out what you want to do you have to figure out what it is you don't want to do I have a bunch of quotes here that you've said if you just want to look at the first one there's no such thing as a day off when you run your own business you know there's no birthdays there's no Christmas there's no thanksgivings bad shit will happen every single day that you need to deal with but when you like what you do it's fun a lot of people especially young people these days want to be entrepreneurs but you know I'd really like to work for myself and own my own business because I'd love to plan my schedule how much you're you're going the wrong way what you need to do is find a nine to five job where you have weekends and holidays off and you know that's that's your move if you're looking to start your own business because you want more time to yourself you are picking the wrong thing to do I promise you that the key to becoming a good uh entrepreneur is you have to find solutions to problems every day the universe was trying to fuck with me the other day I got out of bed I had to be at a board meeting at nine o'clock right I go in I got a shave both my razors died I use electric razors they both died get through that I get in the car and I'm driving and and the sensor says your back right tire is low stop the vehicle immediately I said yeah no we're not fucking stopping we're going that's just life right when you get up and it's life standing there to kick you in the face and you got to get through all this shit then you get to work and there's a laundry list of problems and things you got to deal with and this younger generation that think you can work from home and build a successful business it's impossible you can't do it I'm in the office from 8 30 in the morning and I don't leave the office till 7 8 9 10 sometimes still to this day there are times when I go to work and my schedule is planned out for the day but people will pop in my office and we start talking about things and you know when you have people a good group of people like I have at the UFC and we get in a room and you start talking things pop up that you would never expect and things happen and a lot of good ideas come from everybody being at work has been kicked in the face by business over the last couple of decades changed you definitely I don't freak out the way that I used to I've been through it all and I'm way more calm now I see this with a lot of guys you become uh I don't want to say you get weaker but you do get weaker as you get older there's there's a softer side to you than you had when you were in the early days of building your business and I don't ever want to be that guy you know what I mean I try not to be that guy, but you do relax and chill out and you don't, the things that you used to flip out about when you were younger, you don't, when you're older.

I mean, I went through a phase where I ripped through like 10 secretaries in two years. Like I need people around me that can keep up. You got to have people that can keep up and can handle, handle the load of work. You know, it's probably the busiest year for me this year. Cause I have Zufa boxing, power slap in the UFC that I'm, I'm running these three companies and then there's a ton of other things that I do too. So we'll be on the road.

You know, I think we just got off the last two months. We were home for like four days in the last two months. Then I get home and I don't stop. I just, I go out and I do things and you know, these guys that are with me, they have to, they're with me and it's tough, nobody owes you anything. So, you know, we talked a little bit about my parents and whatever. I had this kid that I grew up with and you know, this, we, we were 12, 13, 14 years old and I remember his dad had done really well and you know, they had a beautiful house, they had cars, you know, he had all the shit that you, you would want growing up.

And I remember him telling me one time, his dad ran into hard times and his dad had put a million dollars away for him and an account and then his father ran into hard times and his father took the money and he's like, my father stole a million dollars from me. And I remember thinking, are you out of your fucking mind? The fact that your dad even thought of you that way, that he would put that money away from, for you is incredible, but that was never your money.

You didn't earn that money. That wasn't yours. I remember thinking that way when I was 12, 13, 14, right? I'm like, that is definitely the wrong type of mentality. Entitlement. Brutal. And that guy grew up exactly the way you would expect that guy to grow up. He's just, you know, nobody owes you anything. Nobody listened to, to, to be set up in a position where somebody can make some phone calls for you and do some things. But then once they do that, you have to go in and deliver.

It's going to be a ton of people listening that want to be entrepreneurs. Do you, do you think most people are cut out for it? No, no. To be an entrepreneur is very, a very unique thing. I mean, you have, it's hard enough for a lot of people to get up every day and depend on themselves to take care of themselves. When you're an entrepreneur, lots of people depend on you. Lots of people feed their families. And, and I take that, that role very serious. I mean, when I got into this business, not a lot of people believed in it.

That's why we bought the UFC for $2 million, right? Let's be honest. The UFC was purchased for $2 million and if the Lakers sold for 12 and a half billion, then the UFC is worth 50 billion. Okay. So the people who did believe in this and did, you know, when I was trying to hire production people, production people don't want to live in Las Vegas, Nevada, especially 25 years ago, they want New York or LA, right? I was trying to hire sponsorship people, New York and LA, they don't want to live here.

And then I had a group of people, Craig Borsari, who is my, you know, my head of production, who is an absolute rockstar, the best in the business. He was a rising star at Fox. He left Fox and came here because he believed in the vision and what was happening here. When you think back on that journey of buying it for $2 million, it was a When you think back on that journey of buying it for $2 million and then let's say it's worth $50 billion now, if it was valued, you know, relevant to the Lakers.

If there were principles, if there were like a couple of principles that you would most attribute to the success of the UFC, when at the time nobody wanted to put on the fights anywhere, everybody thought it was like too barbaric. Matchmaking. Matchmaking, yeah. It's number one, the live event production and the television production. And then on the business side that you think, you know, if we'd gotten that wrong, we definitely wouldn't be here. The big problem, if you look at how 25 years ago when we bought this, you're never going to compete with boxing.

Boxing's too established. It's been around too long. It's this and that. Boxing became a going out of business sale. Every time these guys would put on a fight, they try to grab as much money as they can and run. I am now involved in boxing. I have the only global television deal, right? On Paramount. All these other guys are on a streaming service called literally every promoter. What they've done is they've chased everybody out of the business. Television networks don't want to deal with it anymore.

Sponsors don't want to be a part of it anymore. What we have done over the last 25 years is built a brand that not only the consumer trusts, but sponsors, television networks, list goes on and on. So I make sure that when people show up to my live event, which is super important, the people who pay to come to the live event, spend way more money than the people on TV. And they got to buy flights and rooms and pay for their dinners. Every time we put on a live event, I want the people walking out of there going, God damn, that was a good time.

I'm so I'm glad we did this tonight and I would love to do this again. And how'd you make sure that's the case? I heard somebody say one time, Dana acts like there's a formula to this. If you look, if you went back, I don't know the actual number, but it's a, it's a long list and a big number of guys with a lot of money who are really smart and have done good things in life that have tried to get into this business and couldn't do it, couldn't make it work.

There is a formula and guess who has it. One of the things I've learned as I've gone through my business career that I didn't know at the start of my business career was how much of success is actually determined by the people you're able to assemble. I think at the start of my career, you think if I work weekends and I work really hard and have good ideas myself, then I'll be successful. And somewhere along the way, I realized that it's really about like assembling people and binding them with the right, like philosophy or culture, whatever they call it.

And the question I have for you is, have you noticed the same? Have you, have you noticed that one of the like obvious, but seemingly unobvious things about business building is the quality of people you hire? There's no doubt about it. No one guy does everything. When we first bought the company, I was the everything guy. There was like two employees, me and somebody else. And you know, you wear all the hats when you start, then you start going out and you start building a team.

And there are people who fit and people who work and people who don't. And you have to be really good at figuring out who fits and who works and who doesn't. And over the last 25 years, if there's a superpower that I have, it has been picking the right people to surround myself with and I knew when there wasn't. We had a, we made a big decision when we sold on people that we brought in and I knew right away, the people that didn't fit and I fired them.

What are you looking for in great people? First of all, you have to have talented people. You have to have talented people that are not only really good at what they do, but are hard workers too, and have the drive, but everybody has to be on board with the vision and has to be on the same page. I am at a place right now with my production team, when we do spots and we do vignettes and we do they'll bring them into me and there are very few changes.

What is your talent there? Like if I asked the people that work closest with you, and I know this is a little bit of a weird question to answer, what is Dana's three skills that are rare relative to other people? I am a fight fan to the core. 25 years later of doing this, I am still a hardcore fight fan. And when we put something together and we nail it, I know we got it. And now what I do is I push my team, whether it's production, matchmaking, sponsorship side, whatever it is, I push all these guys every day to get us to where I know I want to be.

You are the customer. Yeah, I am the customer. Yeah. And you have been since I saw in your sort of early, sort of mid twenties, you were captivated with boxing at the time, I believe. Yep. Every time we go to an event, there's a red phone on the, on the table where I sit and it goes directly to the, to the truck. And there's our producer's name is Zach. The truck where the producers are. Yeah. Zach runs all the shows. He has the freedom to do what he wants and he tries.

So I'll pick up the phone and go, Oh, what was that? And he was like, I thought we tried that. I say, yeah, let's never fucking do that again. Okay. Bye. And there's no hurt feelings. There's no whatever, or we'll do something. I'm like, that was incredible. Yeah. Congrats. That's incredible. And you know, once you get to that level with your team, there's a woman sitting out here, her name is Linnea. She's the head of PR. I don't really make a move without talking to her anymore.

I trust her so much and she's so smart and she's so talented that she's involved in a lot of different aspects of my life. Craig Borsari, who I talked about, who is the head of production, my head of sponsorship, once you build this like rockstar team, it's all just like, it becomes a well-oiled machine where everything just starts to work the right way, like when we were going through COVID, these people that I'm talking about, you know, when you go through something like this, who the hell knows how long this is going to last and as crazy as the world was during that time.

Here, here's one thing that wasn't going to happen. I don't give a shit. We were not going to lay off our employees. These people that have been here with me and that I'm super close to, saw this quote from, I don't know who the CEO was, but it says, anybody that's trying to sell you that we're a family and it's full of shit, this is transactional. And it says that, I don't know who wants to run through a fucking wall for that guy, but he's full of shit.

Okay. My team, that is the way I feel about my team. And I do care and I will never pick money over people, ever. Scariest time in our lifetime was COVID. You're looking at the numbers and going, oh shit. You know, we, uh, we got to let go of some people. We got to, what? During the scariest time in human history. No, your job as the CEO is to figure out how to keep your business running and to take care of all your people, right? Here's what you don't do.

Oh, we're looking at hard times. Let's just start plucking, putting bullets and people who have missed their kids' first step, didn't go to a fucking game, missed this and missed that to help build this company. It is your job as the CEO to take care of these people and figure out how to make money. That's the way that I look at it. And that's what we did. The reason why people have a problem with this whole, like, uh, you know, my team and my family thing is because they always say, well, you don't fire your family and what you're saying is actually those that have been loyal to you are the ones that you treat like family.

I'm hearing. Yeah. If you don't have loyalty, what do you have? Right. If you work in a place where you feel like the rug could be pulled out from under you at any minute for no reason other than, Ooh, the numbers don't look You think you want to be an entrepreneur and you think you want to be the CEO of a company every day when your foot hits the floor out of bed, you're going to war. There's people trying to take what you have. There's people trying to screw you over.

You know, people are coming after you every day. And the more successful you become, the more people that are coming after you. And I look at the UFC and other businesses that I run as a battleship. And me and my team are going to war and we either all go down together or we don't go down at all. I guess in that context, if you are at war, then you need, you know, your brothers in arms, you need, you need soldiers. Yeah. You need soldiers. And I'll tell you this.

So I know lots of different stories coming out of COVID. The day that everything started to shut down, I literally got all my employees in a room together downstairs at our dining room. And I said, listen, I don't understand this. I don't know what's going on, but if any of you feel unsafe or feel that, you know, you have loved ones at home that could be unsafe from this whole thing. You can go home. Nobody walked out. I said, we're going to figure this out. We're going to get through this together.

And, uh, you know, every week I had weekly FaceTime calls with all my employees and it sounds weird now, but I was like, if you need anything, if you need groceries, toilet paper, uh, you know, loved one of yours, get sick, make me the first call. We'll get through this together. And, uh, and then, you know, it was only a couple of weeks and I said, we're going, we're going to work. And everybody, men, women, they all said, we're with you. Let's roll. Do you know what's interesting is the last time I heard a founder, a CEO of a company say this to me, um, they also had a very turbulent childhood where they didn't have a family.

And, and, and he ended up admitting to me, he goes, you know, I guess to some degree as an adult, I've been able to build my own, my own community family that I really never had. And so I, I was just wondering, as you were speaking there, if there's, if there's a link there at all, between how you treat people. Here's the link for me. If I, again, psychoanalyzing me, I've worked for companies that you go in and you give your time and your energy to, and they treat you like you don't even fucking matter.

Right. It's like, well, if you don't like it, there's 10 other people right behind you that would love to have this job. Wow. That's so much you value me and what I do here. Yeah. It goes both ways. Right. I I've been in those positions before and I've, yeah. That red phone, um, reminds me of another quote that I read from you, which is that you are always in the weeds and one would think, you know, Dana, you're 57, 57 years old. Very, very successful. Made a lot of money in your life.

Peak of your powers. One would assume that by this time you'd be a little bit out of the weeds. And dare I say, even, I don't know, delegating and enjoying yourself a little bit more. I mean, that's presumptive, the word. Yourself, but would be out of the weeds by now You ever hear the saying it's easier to get to the top than it is to stay on top True words were never spoken when you're when you're at the top Everybody's gone in for you and everybody's looking at your blueprint and saying how do I?

How do I use what he's done and how he's built this to beat him? How do I still his people? It's like being a world champion So you become a world champion and then everybody starts studying you and how you fight or how you play or how you do Trying to figure out how to beat you and I love that shit How do you respond to that because I love it because it's easy to get distracted when there's that many people gunning for one guy and don't get distracted, you know get distracted on you get into a business like this right and and lots of Goofy shit starts coming at you.

Like hey, we want to do a movie about this Hey, we want to do a thing on your life. Hey, we want to And If there's three things that I focus on every day, and I'm not gonna say it, but you're not gonna say it No, well, there's three things that I focus on every day. And if I don't fuck this up You can't you can't mess it up. Why wouldn't you tell me it's part of the formula? Part of the formula Three things you focus on every day There's lots of ancillary things that come around the brand of the UFC Right that if you start diving into all that, you know Can you get one and let your ego take over you let your ego get into you know, all this bullshit that you can't mess it up because I've seen other companies that are so big and massive and have been around for a hundred years and you make a couple of mistakes and Then somebody else's is coming trying to eat your lunch man and and nipping at your heels.

Mm-hmm Nobody's nipping at my heels All these other guys that are out there. We are not the same. Okay This thing has gotten to a level now. My competitors are the NFL major league baseball the NHL and the NBA we did an $8 billion deal With Paramount right now. I don't know this for a fact, but I know this for a fact The NFL are a bunch of animals, right? Soon as that deal was announced All the powers that be at the NFL got in a room and said there was eight billion dollars out there that we didn't get We'll do games on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, you know what I mean?

And if you look at me now We're sitting in my arena Next door. I have the Performance Institute and our headquarters We have everything that the NFL and the Major League Baseball these guys have we are part of them the four major sport Organizations in the United States Dana. Can you give me one of these three things? No No No, no No It's as part of the formula But you know We have gotten to a level now where we are one of the top four major all these other Promoters and all these other guys putting on fights and all this shit They don't matter but on this point of being in the weeds Hmm, is that important?

So, you know people out there that are so here's what can happen You know and people say this to me all the time. We did the seven point seven billion dollar deal with Paramount. No, like wow That's incredible that you know, you didn't fucking make it you never make it you don't make you Do you know why Paramount did a seven point seven because they believe that we can impact their business Now my job over the next five years is to make sure we do that because guess what I want I want ten billion After we get out of this deal, right and the way that you do that is you added value to their company and you know Is it not tiring though?

Constantly having to be in the weeds for 25 years and now you're rich And you've made all this money like is it not I could understand for some people maybe but not me I mean, I'm 57 and I'm sure to a lot of young people that seems old but 57 isn't that old and and and what the hell would I be doing? I am addicted To chaos and and you know, and if there isn't any I create it. It's it's a weird thing, but I'm definitely an addict.

Yeah There's a particular quote in this pile of quotes, which I think is really relevant Yeah, I Love the haters the haters are the best man. There's nothing better than haters Haters will lay out what they think is wrong with your business and how you're not, you know doing this or doing that and you know What this used to be called was, you know, the critics or the whatever now these days They're called the haters and and I love the haters. Do you listen to the haters?

Yeah. Yeah It's not like you don't listen to the haters, you know, it's not like you don't you know, you know what? You know what is real and you know, what's just bullshit they're just you know But you have to have these guys that they they sort of keep you on your game Now most people would say I drown that what I drown out is like the media that covers our sport I don't look at them as haters I look at that every fucking thing they say is wrong.

And when I look at what they say, it's like It's amazing that you could be involved in this business for 25 years and know nothing about it, you know but I guess that's why you know, we've never had any real competitors because When you think about what we're doing, it's never been done before so What I'm thinking and what's coming next? These guys could never know so I'll literally all the guys that cover our sport. I block them out of my feed I don't want to hear they're all wrong and everything they say is wrong and It's a it's a waste of my time to even listen to anything they say but the hardcore fans, you know And the people who hate and the people who say we're great and all this I like that information I like hearing what they have to say The two points you just made this one in the point before and brought to mind this point of focus You talked about these three things you talked about blocking out the haters when you're at the top There are so many things screaming for your energy So there's a everybody's going to look over here Dana.

Give me five minutes of your thoughts and energy Then you've got a journalist over here. Then you've got this fighter saying coming out with making a comment over here And so I wanted to understand what your relationship with like focus and how important this idea of focus has been to your success Yeah, that's why you have to like I was saying you have to figure out What You pay attention to and what you don't pay attention to Kevin O'Leary called this signal and noise Yeah, tell me about that.

Yeah the noise. Yeah. Yeah, you got to block out a lot of the noise The problem is these days anybody with a fucking phone All right can consider themselves an expert and and I'm criticizing what they do But it's it's just it's always wrong and it's always just such a waste of time. I Want to hear what the fans think I don't want to hear what these guys who are trying to start a podcast or a website or a fucking Instagram account, you know on the business think I want to hear what the real fans think and when you Have been doing this long enough You can sort of go through and tell what's what and who's who right?

So when when I feel like somebody has made a really good point or an opinion on the show or the match me It's like when we put together a fight and I've been saying this since day one. They're like this card sucks You can't say the card sucks Until it's over Right because these are obviously all really talented people that are on the card maybe some of them are you know are younger and haven't proven themselves yet, but You can't judge a card until the cards over and believe me if the card sucks I'll be the first one to say that the card sucked.

So there's just lots of things that are That makes sense and things that don't what has made the biggest difference to you in terms of your energy your health in making sure that you can show up really well every day because I'm You're the reason I heard about Gary Brekker Yeah I bought him on the show and he did really really well on the show and then it was that watching you talk about Some of the impact he had on your life He's a health expert that transformed your life, but I say all this to say that in my life I noticed this variance between my good days and my bad days in terms of energy level my ability to articulate myself And so I'm longing to like get up to a high baseline.

So I'm wondering for you. Like what has that been for you? Yeah, he completely changed my life when I hit 50 Gary Brekker changed everything. So I have two doctors one in Vegas one in LA. They're both great doctors So when I started the whole Gary Brekker thing, they called me up together. I'm like Dana. What are you doing? What are you doing with this shit? And I said listen man, the guy said give me 12 weeks. I'll change your life We'll see what happens in in six weeks I Was like wow, I feel incredible and all these things that they couldn't fix They just kept switching up the pills and all this shit.

And one of them that was real bad was sleep apnea. I Was waking up Almost every night and throwing up from from from sleep apnea, right and How did you meet him? Someone referred him to you and you carry case him Carry case him was like I want you to meet this guy. I'm telling you he'll do this and that I didn't want to meet him and then the weirdest thing ever is that My son turned 21 and I had his 21st birthday down in Miami and Gary Brekker lives in Miami And he says well we do IVs so we could do all the IVs for you guys down there.

Whatever. I saw a cool So we would go out and drink and you know then do the IVs and then one day we're doing the IV and he says Let me let me take your blood. Let me uh, let me do your blood work for Gary said though Yeah, and Gary had this thing that he could predict You know when you would die and then I became obsessed with that. I said he gave me 12 years 10 He gave you 10 years. So then so then he he said, uh, give me 12 weeks.

I'll change your life It's gonna be hard and I said it won't be hard once I set my mind to it I'll do exactly what you tell me to do. It took six weeks six weeks in I was like, I never felt better and Clarity legs and all these other problems I have and then sleep apnea gone me and my wife truly believe That he's wrong. I didn't have 10 years we thought I had less because of the way that I would sleep and all the shit that was going on with me and And You know, this guy is a life changer.

I wouldn't be doing All the things I mean, I'd probably still be doing UFC But I wouldn't be doing all this other stuff that I'm doing I wouldn't be able to run at the level I run at right now without him. I Hear another one of your quotes here Yeah, it says you either have the killer instinct or you don't and it's so true So this happened with the end Gary, you know, I saw your interview I felt like in Gary in that fifth round you have this opportunity you're fighting Possibly the greatest fighter of all time and you did a damn good fucking job for four rounds and you know He was battered his whole right side was busted up.

His face was busted up But he was beating you as far as rounds go Now you're the younger bigger range your fighter you just fought four incredible rounds get out there and put it on you go out and start shaking his hands and hugging him and Do that when they're strapping the belt on you show Islam all the love you want when the fights over This is the fifth round you have five minutes To shock the world and and you know Everything you ever fucking dreamed of and work for can happen in this next five minutes And you didn't do it.

Does that mean he doesn't have the killer instinct? I don't know You know, he's a classy really nice guy But that's not the time or place To be it you you have to go out and you have to you have five minutes left You know, he didn't show it if he does have it. He didn't show it any any guy Company or person that wants to be a sponsor of ours I'm not a logo slap guy. You just take your logo and slap it in and let's hope this works out No, I want you to win when you're with me and your name is on our canvas.

I want this to be a Mutually beneficial deal For both of us. I want you to win. I want you to go damn. Thank God I spent my money on the UFC and you have to get up and you have to kick ass every single day not just for you not just for your employees, but for your sponsors the network and You know, you're never out of the weeds. I guess the answer You have to be an absolute savage in business. I Mean that goes right along with what I was just saying.

You you are you a savage? I don't like to I don't know. I would let other people do it I would let other people judge whether I am a savage or not. But yes, I will tell you this I absolutely positively have killer instinct and every day that I show up here. I'm I'm here to fucking win You'd think the former president of Nespresso would be a pretty hard person to convert to a new coffee company But just one sip of committer coffee made him invest But let me tell you the reason why I became an investor so I had a big box of this arrive on my desk in the London office and Then I'd say within about an hour and a half the slack channel that we have starts blowing up with people asking What the hell is that thing that's been left in the kitchen?

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That's committee.com slash Stephen. I Want to speak to the business owners listening and watching right now? I know what it's like to be personally responsible for every decision I founded my own business Responsible for every decision I founded my first company at 21 years old and honestly the pressure can be immense It's the kind of mental load that takes its toll below the surface I recently did some tests through our sponsor function which got me thinking about that invisible impact I found that I had low levels of omega-3s.

I had deficient levels of vitamin D probably because I sit inside this dark room all day and That has totally changed how I construct my day going forward. I get up in the morning and the first thing I now do is I go for a walk outside in the sunshine, in part to help my vitamin D levels increase, but also because it helps to reset my circadian rhythm. With Function, you can check your brain health, your aging, your stress, and so much more. They provide over 160 lab tests for what is equal to a dollar a day and member pricing on advanced imaging.

Head to functionhealth.com slash DOAC to join and use code DOAC25 for a $25 credit. There's going to be some people listening that are at the start of their careers and that they'll be inspired by you. They'll want to win like you've won. They'll want to climb to the sort of peak of the mountain in whatever pursuit they go after. And the question I'm kind of wondering is like, is there a way they can learn this savagery, this killer instinct? Have you ever seen someone go from not having it to having it, whether they're a fighter or someone else?

Hmm. That's a good question. I don't know if I've ever experienced somebody who didn't have it and got it. I don't think that I have, but here's what I do know. If you want to get into business for yourself, you have to have a certain mindset and you have to be a killer, man. You have to, and you have to not just think about yourself. There's a lot of other people that you have to think of more times than less before you. Do you think you have to have a chip on your shoulder?

I don't know if you have to have a chip on your shoulder, but most guys you see do, but it's because you get up every day and it's you versus the world. I mean, everybody's coming at you and the more successful you get. I mean, if you look this up, I mean, every business that's ever been successful, right? There's an army of scumbag lawyers out there that will find a way to figure out how to sue you because you did something wrong. The other thing that happens is people that are involved in your business that don't become successful, it's never their fault.

It's somebody else's fault on why they weren't successful. And there are groups of lawyers, like companies out there, massive companies and smaller ones too, that actually fund. You can go in and you can invest in a lawsuit with them and be a part of it. So, every day when you get up, there's just scumbags, regular people, good people that are all coming after you. Of all the entrepreneurs and killers you've met, which one would you not like to compete with as it relates to business? I don't think I want to compete with them all.

But is there anyone? I like it. Listen, we're at a level now where I was saying to you, the NFL and Major League Baseball, these guys are all, first of all, they've been around for a hundred years or more or less or whatever it is. And I'm at a level now where we're competing with the elite of the elite in sports. Who is the most badass entrepreneur you've ever met? Uh, I don't know. That's a tough one. There's guys that I like and respect, like the Michael Jordan's Carl Icahn.

I like guys like that. What about athletes that you've worked with? Was there any that you sort of put in a class of their own in terms of them? Conor McGregor, Habib Nurmagomedov, Chuck Liddell when it was his time, Ronda Rousey. People want to talk shit about Ronda Rousey now. Let me tell you what, Ronda Rousey came to me. I didn't want women in the UFC, right? And the reasoning is I was trying to sell men to networks and sponsors. And they were like, Oh, this is too, whatever women Ronda Rousey grabbed me at an event said, Hey, I'm Ronda Rousey.

Can I get 15 minutes with you? We went into my room at the arena and I don't know, minutes into the conversation. I'm like, Holy shit. I think I'm going to do this. And she's the one to do it with, you know, and she came in with the whole fucking bravado. You want to talk about a chip on your shoulder. I mean, she had it, you know, so many people now want to hate on her. She is a fucking unicorn. What do these people have? The Conors, the Khabibs, the Rondas, what is it?

Conor McGregor. I went to dinner with him when we signed him. I left that dinner, I called Lorenzo Fertitta and I said, dude, I don't know if this guy can fight or not, but if he can even throw a punch, he's going to be a massive superstar. He's he's incredible. What was it? Well, the number one factor in this business, can you fight? How good are you? Number two is that, is this, this mentality of manifesting and just sitting there and you're telling me what you're going to do and how it's going to happen and how it's all going to play out.

And I've only had a handful of these meetings in 25 years. A handful. Do you believe in manifestation in that regard? Manifesting is real and I'm a big believer in manifesting. When you decide who you are, what you want to do, what you're going to accomplish, and you get up every single day and you work toward it, it is impossible for you to fail. Some people just take one side of that bargain. They'll say, I'll just sit here and think about it. I'll make my vision board, but then they won't get out and press the pedal.

Right. It's kind of like getting in a car in your garage and setting the sat nav, but not, you know, putting your foot down. That's exactly right. Not stepping on the gas. You're right. You go in there and you program your fucking, you know, your GPS system and then you never step on the gas. Fucking go anywhere. But yeah, if you lay out your plan, you know who you are, you know what you want to do. It's impossible to fail. And then what does failure mean?

What does failure mean? My thing about success in life is, are you happy to get up every day and love what you do? You know, I know a lot of billionaires that are miserable, miserable human beings. Why? I don't know why. It's just, listen, being happy is a choice. Do you love what you do? Do you want to get up? Do you want to be happy every day? And to me, that's the key to success. I actually, I'll tell you a story. My son, my oldest son called me the other day and he's like, dad, I need some direction.

You know, I'm thinking about this and I always tell my kids, I want you guys to be happy. He goes, dad, don't give me your fucking happy speech. I need some fucking direction and help me figure this out. So I think we had a good conversation and he seemed happy when we got off the phone, but yeah. What did he want direction on? You know, just, just life choices that he's, he's looking down the barrel of right now. Don't be that guy that's laying in the hospital bed, dying, saying, I wonder what would happen if I tried.

Yeah. I don't want any regrets. I don't want to be, you know, I don't want any regrets and I don't right now. I don't regret anything. If you, if you push me hard and said, tell me one thing that you regret. I don't believe that I have any. I know you don't like it when I go here, but I wanted to, I wanted to ask you if you have any of that, your parents have passed away a couple of years ago. Well, that's the thing. When you, when you talk about like, you know, this podcast diary CEO, I don't think that, that it's all, you know, cookie cutter stamp.

Everybody has their own things. You grew up different than I grew up. All you grew up different than we grew up. And there are things that, you know, obviously had big impressions on you when you were young, but I hate the past. I don't, I don't like the past and it's not just my childhood or anything like that. Fuck the rear view mirror. It doesn't matter. Whatever happened yesterday means nothing today. And some of these kids, you can never let the past affect your future. Right?

So people say to me, Hey, do you ever look back and go, wow, we did this and no fuck that. Cause whatever we did back then got me to here. Right. We're here. What just happened a few hours ago doesn't mean shit anymore. It's gone. Right. What's next. What's next. What's next. I don't ever look back and let, you know, you learn some things and you learn some lessons and you know, good and bad or whatever happens. But these people sit around and go, you don't understand my dad did to my mom and fucking who gives a shit.

Fucking everybody went through that stuff. Shut up. That doesn't matter anymore. Don't let the past affect your future. So people will say, do you ever just sit around and reflect fuck? No, I don't reflect. I'm thinking about what's happening tomorrow and what's going to happen. And you know, who's going to come after me in the next fucking few days. And you know, how do we build and how do we get bigger and how do we get better? You know, I'm 57, but I want to be better tomorrow than I was today in every way that you can possibly be better.

Have you always been like that? I think so. I think I've always been that way. Yesterday never mattered to me. You know, you took whatever lessons you had from that good or bad, right? It's like, it's like these kids that grew up and said they didn't have any role models, you know? Oh, yes, you did. Does that mean tons of them? Does that mean that you can't, you're not hurt by things? Never. You're never hurt. Never hurt by things. Really? Never hurt by things. Yeah. And people always, I, you know, people that are close to me, but when's the last time you cried?

Fuck. I don't even know the last time I cried. What does crying do? What does, how does crying fucking help in any way, shape or form? And yeah, maybe for some people crying is great. Crying doesn't fucking work for me. I'm not a crier and it's pretty fucking hard to hurt my feelings. And I'll give that to my mom and dad, my uncles and aunts. I mean, we have a fucking tough crew. When people who were supposed to love you would say the things that these guys would say to you, you know, what is fucking this guy over here?

I think I give a shit what this guy thinks. It's like, when we talk about getting canceled, who can really cancel you, right? Oh, the New York times doesn't like that. I fuck the New York times. Give a shit about the New York times. I have a group of people in my life that mean something to me, right? That I care about their opinions. You know, my relationships with them, whatever mean a lot to me. And if one of them went away, that would, that would bother me.

Right. Other everybody else, I give a shit what, you know, three guys on the fucking internet think, or, you know, some guy who writes for something or the fucking New York times, which, you know, through COVID New York times was on my ass like crazy, but this, this is what I always think about. And are you saying that came from the fact that people that were supposed to say nice things and be super affectionate and cushy when you were younger, they were saying horrible things. So it kind of built a resilience in you.

No fucking doubt about it. No doubt about it. They built me for this, for this life and this, uh, you know, and I always say I wouldn't take back one thing from my childhood or want different parents or a different family or a different setup. It was incredible. What were they saying to you? Uh, I don't know. Listen, I I'm a ball buster. I like to bust balls and whatever, even with my friends and my crew. And that's the way my family was. My family was a hard group.

Like my grandmother, which I love both my grandmothers on both sides were incredible. You know, there's nothing better in life when you're young than to have great grandparents. I mean, everybody watching this right now, everybody thinks of their grandparents. I'm like, ah, yeah, your grandparents were the best and all that shit. Like my grandmother, my Irish grandmother on, on my, that you say, Hey, I love you, Graham. Fucking nothing bad. Good to see you. See you later. Yeah. Yeah. There was none of that type of shit growing up.

Yeah. Yeah. There you go. I, when I heard about this, I thought, oh shit. So this is a book that your mother actually never seen the actual fucking book. This is a book your mother published about you unauthorized as a biography and put a bunch of pictures in here. Me when I was a kid and all this shit. But I think, you know, this happens a lot. I mean, she put my fucking wedding pictures in here and shit. And she didn't ask you to publish this book.

No, put fucking wedding pictures in here and all this fucking shit. I mean, I, you know, I saw some Kobe Bryant stuff where Kobe had to like Sue his mom. She was selling his shit from his bedroom. And, and, you know, it happens, man. It happens. It's unfortunate. And then it's, I've actually never seen the books for some, I've ever seen the book. I'm not going to read it out or anything, but I'm in the book. She's critical of you at certain points, specifically the last page, which I read, she, she says critical things.

And I was wondering where along the way did that happen? Well, I've never read it. And that's the first time I've ever seen it. And I was just flipping through like the pictures, like, you know, it's, it's batshit nuts, batshit nuts. Where along the way did that happen that you fell out with her? I was on a trip one time, you know, this, this was before, uh, um, you know, I didn't have emails and all that shit on the road. And I was with Lorenzo Fertitta, my partner, and we were in London for like two weeks.

And when I got back, I checked my emails and I have like a bunch of emails from her like threatening me. You're going to send me this much money by, you have two options. You can give me this all up front, or you can pay me payments over the next fucking whatever I'm looking to buy a bar or whatever it was. And then she wasn't getting responses because I was in London. And then the email started getting nastier and nastier and nastier by the end. And I was like, I fucking just blew up.

And that was the beginning of the end with me and her. Yeah. So these things happen when you, when you become successful, it's not just, uh, listen, sometimes family is the worst. Sometimes family's worse than, you know, like, like when we talk about things that are being said in newspapers and things like that pale in comparison to what you can get from some family members. But I have a whole nother group of family, like cousins and, you know, me and my sister are super close. I mean, listen, I say this all the time.

We all fail at certain things in life. In my opinion, if you fail as a parent, it's the ultimate failure. It's the, it's the ultimate failure. My mom passed away without me or my sister talking to her. My sister had her own set of issues, you know, with me, it was money with my sister. It was other things. So we didn't, we didn't talk to either one of my parents. Have you forgiven huh? Um, yeah, listen, I didn't I don't go on shows to speak negatively about my mother, you know I was telling you earlier I wouldn't change anything and you know people say do you think you are where you are today because your parents absolutely 100% You know good bad, whatever.

However, you want to look at it, you know, my parents passed away I don't want to tell bad stories about my parents, but I mean that's one of the grossest most disgusting things that You couldn't even imagine possible until it happens to you and you know What are you gonna do, you know fucking cry about it? And oh, you don't understand my fucking it Yeah, well, you've got you got an opportunity happened and and it you know It is what it is. The thing that that's bad about that and what she did is a lot of other people.

I Think she hurt in that book. She didn't hurt me but other people that you know a Lot of Things that aren't true and a lot of people that didn't do anything to her in that book that you know and again I've never read it, but I've had lawyers tell me but it's shit like that and in the you know The the personal private pictures that she just threw out there that you know, she really didn't have the right to do You know, it's just it's just it's one of those things that When you become successful This type of shit happens to you You have a wonderful partner like I do You took on p.s.

Morgan. You talked about her psychoanalyzing you my fiancee does the same thing I think my fiancee deep down thinks I must be fucked up and is Concentration of evidence that I am fucked up in part because she knows of my childhood and my relationship with my parents So she assumes that I must be fucked up and it's like everything is confirmation of it Well, she'll get into this thing where she'll start telling me she's like she'll try to talk about my feelings She's like, how do you feel about this?

And that's why when Pierce Morgan was quite I said you sound like my wife You know, it's impossible For you not to be able. Yeah, I said it's not impossible and no you're wrong And then and then once you do an interview like that and it'll happen in this interview, too It's like then people start going. Oh Guys gotta be a psycho not to fuckin, you know, and maybe maybe that's true. Maybe you're right I don't know He didn't a different but I don't like to talk about this kind of shit Cuz it doesn't matter at the end of the day.

It doesn't matter Like I said, the rearview mirror means nothing, right? Let me tell you what's not gonna you're not gonna get rear-ended in fucking life unless you did some horrible things in your past That are gonna come back and fuck you at you or whatever The rearview mirror means nothing to me. I learned from it I I had these experiences some incredible some not incredible, but they all built Who I am today and and and that's all that matters I think therefore it does matter because a lot of people think they go through life thinking that if this happened to me I can't possibly have a future be successful.

I can't possibly move forward and so hearing someone that went through in my view an Objectively very tumultuous very difficult upbringing and has been able to Separate themselves from it and and look forward. I think means it does matter because it shows that it's possible Well, I don't ever want to sit down and talk about things where I'm like some victim I'm the furthest thing from a victim and I think that especially if you grew up in the 70s and 80s a Lot of bad shit happened to you in a lot of different ways it just it was a different time a different place and I think that My parents and my grandparents before them they grew up in a different world in different times and you know Things things weren't easy for them either.

They went through some shit that got them, you know To where they were and I don't blame them. I don't have any Ill feelings toward, you know, me and my sister will talk about my mom and we'll be like how the fuck did she do it? She was a single mom. My dad was what he was Single mom worked her ass off, you know did all this stuff and and she did it. She break she raised two kids, right? No matter all the bad things or whatever that happened the book and all that.

She raised Two kids by herself and moved across country from Boston to Vegas, you know with two kids and a dog in a car We drove cross-country You know, I remember we were going through the Midwest and there were tornadoes coming in shit and like all the stuff that we did And we went through she did it She did it by herself and and my sister and I even though we didn't talk to her for years, you know at the end of her life We credit her and respect what she did And is a little bit right, isn't she because my partners is a little bit, right?

I didn't tell her. Yeah, she's Italian Yeah, you know they're all together all the time and you know, but when you have that That type of a family structure, which is the complete fucking opposite of what mine was It's cool to see so I've sort of the best of both worlds and her family's great You know anytime while I was building this business Her family was helping with the kids and they all work together and they all did all this So, you know, I've been lucky that I've been able to experience both There should be a button just down below here and if it says subscribe you already subscribed if it says subscribe bar That means you're not yet.

And if you're not subscribed, please could you do us a favor and hit that button? It helps to show more than you know, and according to the algorithm, you're someone that watches our show, but you haven't yet hit that button Thank you so much Okay, we've got two more. Here we go Trust your gut not the focus groups Yeah, everything that I've ever done has been off based off my gut and what I felt would I mean the power slap thing I mean you want to talk about the critics?

I mean, you know UFC huge sold all this money and I remember seeing people he's gonna He's gonna destroy his legacy by by doing this and that and all the shit that they said about the UFC They then said about power slap anything new that people don't understand or or don't get that they attack and go after But sometimes your gut is wrong now Sometimes you sometimes you get things wrong. You think something will be yeah, there's no doubt Well, luckily not not in business. It hasn't yet.

So not the big things Yeah, but I think that sometimes because I'm quite weary of the fact that we sit here and we give people Advice to trust their gut but like some people's gut is like not good. Yeah, but if your gut is wrong Here's what I always that what's the worst-case scenario. Yeah, the worst-case scenario is you go back to work you learn something as well I guess right if your gut is wrong, or if you don't make it and you don't want to your worst-case scenario Is you go back to work?

It's not a bad worst-case scenario. They're speaking of work, right? I used to think the day that I walked out of that hotel. I was 19 If this whole thing doesn't work out I'll have some great experiences but If I have to go back and go back to work, I tried I Gave it a shot. I Can't wake up when I'm 40 and that was the thing when I was a bellman. I was making great money, right? I was able to have a good life for myself But then I saw these guys that worked with me.

One of the guys was 45 years old He made the same money I made He had the same benefits that I had. He had the same schedule that I had So what's the worst-case scenario? I'm 45 and I come back and I you know, I Do the same thing It's not a bad worst-case scenario. The worst-case scenario is you never try you don't try to do it And then you wake up and you're 45. I'm like fuck man. I wonder what when I had no kids No, no, no, nobody depended on me for anything and I never gave a shot If you're only in it for the paycheck you've already lost Yeah, it's absolutely true Nothing I ever did was based on money because if I did Base it on money.

I'm still standing in the hotel lobby because that was the much better option at the time For a 1k, right all the check all the box dental medical cash Checks all these fucking things at 19 If the money was the deciding factor, I'm still standing in the lobby of the hotel Now when I left and said I want to be in the fight business. Everybody told me it was fucking stupid Right, and when you say that what does it mean? It doesn't mean where I am right now and what's going on right now You could never predict that you could never you couldn't even fucking dream it up the shit that I've done and the things that I've Been a part of did your wildest dreams?

This wouldn't be it. Where does luck fit in this equation a lot? I think a lot and I wouldn't call it luck. I'd call it timing Everything and life is about timing. So there was this kid His name's Adam Corrigan. I went to high school with him And he was a rich kid in high school I Was not and I didn't have a car all that shit. This guy would pick me up and drive me to school every day right and Think about this and and this is the way I always think for him to come get me He had to wake up 45 minutes to an hour earlier Get ready drive over get me and then we both had to be to school on time And I had this blanket part Like I told you I quit drinking when I was 21 and I also had this blanket policy in my 20s I didn't go to anybody's way Everybody you ever knew was getting married when you were in your 20s heading toward your 30s, right?

and It first of all, you have to fly somewhere, you know, I lived in Boston, you know, you had to fly somewhere Takes a bunch of time out of you that to go to so I would know I wouldn't go to anybody's wedding. So then Adam Corrigan is getting married How am I not gonna go to Adam Corrigan's wedding with all the things that he did for me when we were in high school? I Go to his wedding and who do I run into at his wedding?

Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta Who you end up I hadn't seen in 10 years or more So Lorenzo comes up to me at the wedding and says hey How you doing? I just got on the on the Nevada Athletic Commission and I heard you're you know, you got a boxing gym You try it. I want to come in and train with you He came in on Monday And me and Lorenzo have been together ever since and Frank and you bought the UFC together for two million dollars sometime thereafter Mm-hmm.

So if you hadn't been loyal to your friend from school and gone to his wedding then I mean, who knows? Yeah Sliding doors moment. So everything in life is about timing. Do you believe in karma? I do I don't believe in much like I'm you know, I'm not religious I don't believe in God the devil ghosts goblins. I don't believe any of this shit But I believe in karma because I've seen it play out good and bad. I've seen karma There is a there is a big fight coming up a big UK fight coming up between AJ Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury One of the biggest fights in boxing, you know the last at least the last decade for definitely in the heavyweight division.

Yeah. Yeah Who do you think is gonna win? They both had tune-up fights that were very very sketchy so we'll see, you know It's not like either one of them completely dominated and and their tune-up fights So it's an interesting fight to see and obviously, you know two of the biggest most famous most popular Heavyweights to ever come out of the UK. So if you have to pick If I had to pick I don't pick You were about yeah, you didn't tell me the three things you can tell me this I Guess so there is this empty one.

I wanted you just to write one more That's front of mind for you. And again, this is just a principle for all my audience who are Various ages that are thinking about how to be successful in their own whatever they're doing in their lives It can be anything Okay, what did you write do not be afraid to take risk, okay You will never Accomplish or achieve anything that you want out of life if you're not willing to take the risk you know and It's always easier to do it when you're younger before you get married before you have kids, but Don't be afraid to do it then either.

What is your worst-case scenario to me? the worst-case scenario is always Laying in your deathbed and going I wish I would have and when I built my house here in Las Vegas, right? I was like, this is the last fucking house I'm gonna build on a and you know what? I don't want to do I don't want to wake up some morning go damn I wish I would have so I went way over budget The whole deal and I wake up every day in my fucking house and I love it And I've been there eight years and I've never said damn I should have never you know I mean, I'm just saying it and everything that I do in my life I don't want to wake up and wish that I had you know, do not be afraid to take risk You know, and if there's something out there that you feel like you want and you you know fucking go go go get it What's the worst thing that can happen you end up back at work?

All right That's the worst-case scenario and it's not a bad worst-case scenario in a way We kind of do live like we're gonna live forever when you think about like is really, you know Neither of us know how long we have left So there's a movie that really impacted my life when I was a kid was called vision quest and it's a wrestling movie You know the kids in high school and he feels like he never really accomplished something He's you know, he wanted to leave his mark in high school So he's gonna drop a couple weight classes and try to beat the greatest wrestler and like the country or something The shoot was the guy's name but he's in class and There's this, you know, it's like his poetry teacher his English teacher Whatever it is is telling a story about a poem and he says what does this mean to you?

And the kid Loudon Swain is his name Loudon Swain says, you know This little girl's walking through the park and all the leaves are dying and falling off the tree And then she realizes that she's gonna die someday, too And then there's this this one of the greatest scenes in a movie of all time So he works at a hotel in high school. He works at he's a room service waiter The head chef that works with him every night is always like he's cutting weight and doing all this stuff and every time he's around This guy this guy's negative like what are you doing this for?

Pick up the fucking thing and eat it eat some food do this and that and it's always like shitting on him so he gets to a place where he's getting ready to wrestle to shoot and He meets this girl falls in love with her And all this shit and he's willing to blow it all and give it all up And she leaves because she sees that this is happening and she leaves him and he's all fucked up. So where does he go? He goes to the chef who's always shitting on him because he knows He'll talk him into quitting fuck it.

You don't have to do this. You don't have to do that He goes to work and the guy's not at work He's supposed to be working So he goes to his apartment knocks on his door and the guys dressed up with a fucking dress shirt and a tie and he's like What are you doing? What's going on? You're not work. He's like, well, aren't you wrestling to shoot tonight? And he's like, yeah, but you're gonna they're gonna dock you a day's pay work and this guy goes into basically I'm fucking sitting in this apartment alone one night and I'm watching TV and there's a guy named Pele Have you ever heard of him?

And he says I watch this guy He flips upside down and backwards and kicks the ball into a net and rips his shirt off and runs around the place And the fucking crowds going crazy is rough. Look I get goosebumps telling you the story. So he says a human being a Species that I'm actually a part of you know, I'm sitting here alone in my apartment and I start crying You know It's not the six minutes. It's what happens in that six minutes that matters but basically this movie spoke to me like nothing it ever spoke to me before and I got it.

You know, we don't have time. There's not a lot of time It does seem like we're gonna live forever, but we're not and to these younger people like 30 years old Seems so fucking old to me when I was 18 You're 30 like that Don't waste your time. Don't be afraid to take a risk Don't be the guy sitting home alone at whatever his age was at that point in your fucking apartment thinking I could have done more than this. I could have been bigger than this.

I could have been better than this That is that's that's the fucking worst thing that can happen to anybody You don't want to be that guy and listen, not everybody is built that way or for that I told you some people listen, they want that city job For a 1k the benefits and all that shit. They want weekends off and they want holidays off and there's nothing wrong with that We need all types of people in swivel it but if you believe That you are an entrepreneur you believe that in something that you want to build Do not be afraid to take the risk It's gonna cost you though It's funny I was thinking about you talking about your big house in Vegas But then also the fact that you were there for four days in the last two months yeah, that's actually that behavior that got you the big house and Sure.

Yeah, and I wouldn't change a second of it. I love this shit I still get up every day and I'm fired up to get in here and get to the office and I love like You don't want me to get into this bullshit. It's too long or whatever But you know, I'm working on something right now that just became fucking obsessed with I became obsessed with it And I got these guys Tucker at my office I I got this kid merriman at my office and all these guys that are really talented creative people and I I get them in a room with me and we start talking about it and I should tell them what my vision is and Then they get into it and then they start doing what they do and building this and then it's just like fuck it Mmm, it's just I love it, man The team that I have built, you know when I get in a room with these guys and we start talking It's incredible what you what you can build and what you can do and what what's available and what you can accomplish an aria manual Aries this guy, you know the ultimate all-time super agent You know he came in and did the deal for the UFC got the WWE and many many other things and people he's built in his lifetime and he's the guy that when I come up with something creative and I call him and I'm like I Need 30 million dollars.

I Want to do this? It's like I'll get you the money so I've gotten to a point now where I've all these people that are part of my fucking team and And When I come up with something we all get together and then we make it fucking happen. Is there a destination in your mind? No, there's no destination bigger bigger bigger bigger and then what right? Well think about this then I die Then I die Who gives a shit, right it's this I can't picture myself like hey, I made a bunch of money I'm gonna fucking retire and do what?

And do what you know, I I probably take for I'm not this year I'm fucked this year, but I take four great vacations a year Right, and if my wife had her way it'd be 15 days, but I you know her and I are battling over over a vacation this year, but I Couldn't imagine by the time I'm done with my vacation. I can't wait to get back to work I'm so excited to get back to work and do enjoy your vacations. Yeah It takes me a couple days, right?

I mean anybody who who runs a big business and Understands this you get there and you're shaking off the shit that's going on and all the stuff and then by like day three I'm in you know, I enjoy myself I enjoy hanging out with my kids and then by the end I'm back on the phone going I'm coming home. Everybody get fucking ready. I'm coming home One of the things that is obvious speaking to you is that self-awareness really is the advice that you've you've sort of given today because I Imagine a lot of people wouldn't like your life.

They would find it miserable Whereas you find it so exciting and I think that's very true It's a really important point of nuance when we have these conversations Which is you're not necessarily saying from what I hear that everybody should have your life You're saying just like be aware of like who you are and this is who you are 100 is given everything to what who you are Yeah, and even when we hire at the UFC like the woman on the other side of this wall right here Linnea Breckenridge animal Animal and brilliant and and just fucking I have so much respect for her.

Then I got Craig Borsari I I got a hunter Campbell. I have all these guys that work for me and they are all killers, right? Then you go and there's people that come in and they work nine-to-five and they it takes all types I'm not looking for 650 fucking killers, but the ones that work close to you. Yes You can't be within a fucking a mile of me if you're not a fucking killer. Yes But it takes all types and and and I and like you said, I'm not saying my life is the life for everybody It's the furthest thing from it So that's why I say some of these kids that think they want to be entrepreneurs.

They don't know what it really takes and There's plenty of guys who have been entrepreneurs and made that, you know, the kids call it the bag They made the bag and they fucking run and they that's it That's a wrap and they they go do other things that what they want to do but the but this beautiful thing so I'm big motorcycle guy, right and I Remember I always used to say When I get to a certain point, I'm gonna get my buddies together I'm like cousins and we're just going these incredible rides all around the United States and then I started getting older I'm like fuck I'm in my 40s.

When do I think I'm gonna do this? So every year I don't give a shit I carve out and we go to a destination and we fucking ride motorcycles now everybody that I've known Once they get to a certain age when I say men start to get So often when I go they feel like they can't handle the bikes anymore, right and and they stop riding If and when I get to that point, I don't know if that will happen to me, but if it does I don't like 30 fucking motorcycles.

I'm gonna ship them all to Italy. This is Italy I'm gonna ship them to the top of Italy I'm gonna have a truck have all my bikes in it and I'm gonna ride them all the way down to the Amalfi Coast and Then I'll just leave the keys and I'm gonna leave them on the side of the fucking road in Italy I'll leave them all there. That's gonna be my last fucking ride of my life Send me a text when you do that and I'll be I'll be waiting down Dana we have a closing tradition this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next not knowing who they're leaving it for the question left for you is If you could only complete one more major goal, what would it be and why?

I've already built the biggest Fight brand to ever exist, you know Now I'm getting into boxing. I got power slap My goal over the next it's a seven-year goal because I have seven years and my paramount deal To build the biggest combat sports brand that is already dead but to a level That that it just can't be replicated again. It's just like when I'm dead It's gonna be impossible to beat what I've built by the time my life is up speaking of haters There's a lot of people saying that you can't do it in boxing.

It's different I've heard them all say this is 150 years old. You can't do what you did in UFC in boxing How about power slap? Yeah, right I mean you want to see something that people think doesn't work and isn't right and isn't possible But again that that's that's I love it That's all the fuel that I love hearing that and people telling me What you can't do and everybody who's watching this right now is going to deal with some level of People telling you what you can't do and what's impossible nothing is impossible and literally At UFC headquarters.

The only thing you can't say is no, I Don't accept. No, don't tell me this can't happen. You know on Craig. We're sorry again. I dropped Tom Brady hit me up and says hey, I'm in town. You want to go to YouTube? I'm like you do where's you take the sphere there first? I went to the sphere and I saw it and I was like, holy shit. The star of this show is a sphere. I Called we're sorry. I said, I don't know what you're doing next weekend, but cancel it you and the crew are coming to the YouTube concert come I want to do this and we did it President leans over to me and says we should do a fight at the White House Yes, sir, I agree we should do a fight at the White House and then now Craig Borsari came to me With his own idea that I think is fucking brilliant and I'm working on that one now, but we don't say no at the UFC It's just we always whatever people think is impossible and can't be done.

Not only will we do it Do it a little level that? Just blows people's minds. Why will you win at boxing first of all? Boxing was my first love and I knew the sport was broken and as it started to decline and I Just I know how to fix it. I know what to do You and I got to get together again in like five years and talk about boxing again and and watch what we do Watch we do over the next five years I mean I'm already two years ahead of where I Thought I would be because this the guys that are doing it right now are just so bad at doing it And I should have known that going in but you know I I give everybody the benefit of the doubt and I don't look at anybody and say oh Yeah, let's not take this guy.

Serious. I take everybody serious and And I love to compete and if you say you want to compete with me, I look at competing as a fight Are you talking about Eddie Han talking about all of them? Every one of them Eddie Hearn is weak I'm Eddie Hearn His dad built that business his dad's a real guy like his dad's as I get deeper into this thing His dad is the his dad is the guy and I see it in Frank Warren Frank Warren just came out recently He hasn't talked any shit.

He hasn't said anything, you know, he's he's been completely silent to this thing he said and I just saw an interview with him the other day Frank Warren is like a Frank Warren's the real guy Eddie's Eddie's dad is the guy and I'm not saying this to shit on Eddie I'm just being honest and I and I don't dislike Eddie. I don't dislike him But he's not the guy his dad's the guy and Frank Warren Frank Warren. I just saw this interview with him I was like fucking love it.

Why will make you just like you know what all this fucking talking and all this fucking bullshit Let's fucking fight. Let's start. All right, you know, he's like I'm like, yeah, that's the guy And a few other things that I've seen with Frank Warren Frank Warren's like a fucking real guy Eddie Hans work rate is Impressive. I just remember seeing him one day in New York And I remember him standing there for like six seven hours with the media just doing like every single blog I mean, what the fuck is he doing?

He just did every on this rooftop in the he's responding to every little fucking thing that's going on and it's just like the truth is Nobody's done more To try to hurt the AJ Fury fight than Eddie Hearn. It's like he's he's I don't know man. I hope AJ owns a piece of matchroom Eddie Hearn status Barry Hearn is a real fucking guy. He's the guy and Frank Warren these old-school fucking hard dudes that you know when I when I see them talk Yeah, I get it.

I See through all the bullshit and I know who's who and what's what Having interviewed both of you. What I find exciting is you're both absolutely relentless and So there's it's funny because there's the fight business and then there's this other fight business going on above the fight business Which I think is quite interesting as a fight fan Dana thank you so much for being so generous with your time I've been a fan of the UFC for the longest longest ever time and it's from remarkable what you've done And so it's super inspiring for me as an entrepreneur, but also yeah, you expand the paradigm of what is possible So thank you so much for taking the time and giving me the privilege Wait, you see what we do in the next seven years.

I can't wait me too As I found a building a business when I was in my early 20s I think I always had a deep sense of imposter syndrome because there was something that I wasn't good at and that thing was Finances finance and understanding your financial position as a small business is the great enabler of all of your dreams I was running from it until I discovered a platform called zero zero is an accounting and financial management platform Specifically for small businesses and it brings accounting payments payroll and analytics all into one place even for people that don't love doing finances Zero wants to do the financial work for you, but its core ambition is to go beyond keeping the financial record, because Zero wants to help you understand what's happening in your business, and increasingly, and this is maybe the most important thing, is help you make decisions.

Finally, we have a partner who can enable us in a simple way for those people that are both left brain or right brain, and enable our dreams. You can learn more about Zero by going to zero.com. Thank you to Zero. Thank you for sponsoring this podcast, and also thank you for helping me to scale my business as somebody that, quite frankly, has never loved finances that much.

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