Daymond John: The Brutal Truth About Entrepreneurship (Most People Can’t Handle This)

Key Takeaway

Success isn't about needing money to make money—it's about putting in the work. 65% of Forbes' wealthiest 1,000 are self-made, meaning they started broke. The game-changer? Most successful entrepreneurs fail 3-4 times before succeeding. You need a strong rejection muscle to open a business again after getting kicked in the teeth. Focus on building that resilience muscle daily.

Episode Overview

Damon John discusses entrepreneurship, AI disruption, and personal transformation. Key themes include the myth that anyone can be an entrepreneur, the reality that money doesn't guarantee success (65% of lottery winners go bankrupt), and why he'd be wealthier focusing on his own businesses versus Shark Tank investments. He reveals his biohacking journey post-cancer, emphasizes building systems over throwing money at problems, and warns about massive societal disruption from AI eliminating jobs within 5 years—predicting guaranteed minimum income as inevitable.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Daymond John: The Brutal Truth About Entrepreneurship (Most People Can’t Handle This) from The Ed Mylett Show. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

So, can anybody be an entrepreneur? Uh, no. So, I do not believe everybody can be an entrepreneur. Do I believe everybody can, and they do, work for an entrepreneur? Yeah. Every Batman like me needs a Robin. You listen to this driving in your car today that are doing HVAC and roofs, you're in good shape probably for a while. while. while. You're in great shape. If your child is in the 10th grade and they're looking at a college, you know, you're going to go and borrow $5 to $600,000 worth of student debt for a job that may not even be here in 2 years.

Well, no. Maybe your kid is going to realize that, you know what, I'm going to learn that part of it. But all the baby boomers are going out of business and selling their businesses. They don't have a kid to hand their business down to. So, I'm going to acquire 1,900 HVAC companies. I'm going to be a gajillionaire, but I'm going to know it from this standpoint. And then I'm going to roll into it and get money from other places. and I'm going to then hire this industry cuz nobody's kid wants to be an HVAC person or a plumber when those people are going to be making two $300,000 a year.

It's just how you twist it. Welcome back to the show everybody. So today, let's see, I don't know, all of you already know him, so I'm not going to do a long introduction. Literally, all of you know who this man is. Uh, I think he is one of I was thinking about this morning as I was, you know, feeling so good about getting a chance to chat with my friend here. I think he's 10 of one of the 10 most important entrepreneurs of this century. Can you imagine that?

One of the 10 most important important important I think this guy's about to uh interview Henry Ford or something. you are for a variety of reasons and you know that he's uh you know him from Shark Tank, you know him from Foo, but uh here's what I'll tell you that you don't know. He is a tremendous human being. He's a really good man. Uh been really good to me. When I was shooting a pilot for my TV show, I made a couple phone calls to some people and said, "I need your help." He said, "How can I do it, brother?" Immediately jumped on and helped me film some stuff for a pilot I was doing.

And uh so not only is he a really successful person, I think he's really grown into, you know, somebody that he feels good about and that I admire very very much. So Damon John aka Henry Ford, welcome to the show to have you back. you back. you back. You know, um thank you. Thank you. You know what? It is a truly an honor that you said that you you are truly one of the most amazing people and the only other person that says something in that realm like that made me feel inadequate even though I know you're giving me love and and I know you you're not somebody to say something you don't believe is uh there was this young this young man he's running for president name is Barack Obama and I was at a an event and he had just got the the party nomination and then you know I hey I hey hey how you doing and this is my Fubu days.

I was like, "Hey, I'm Damon John from FU." He said, "Are you kidding me? One of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time." That's awesome. That's awesome. That's awesome. And I was like, "This guy's full of crap." And then later on, he would say, "Uh, we're going to make this country for us, by us." And I was like, he's on to something. Either he is a he's a politician for sure. I was like, he he knows what he's doing. But thank you so much for the the really amazing intro.

And I, you know, the respect is mutual and I can't say that I'm like that with most people because, you know, you can only pick a couple of people that you can be like that with. And I appreciate being like that with you. Thank you, my brother. And uh I'm glad that I could finally validate 44's sentiments with you today. So, first things first, I was saying this off camera. You look good. What are you doing? you doing? you doing? Hey, man. Hey, man. Hey, man.

I saw you a few weeks ago. We I saw you a few weeks ago. We we spoke at the same event together and I thought the same thing. You walked up, got real close, you hugged me. like he looks younger or better. What are you doing? doing? doing? I'm doing everything. You know, I'm I'm I'm a biohacking enthusiast. I am not a scientist doctor or anything that nature. You know way more about health than I do cuz you get very granular, but I call myself now more like the um uh uh what was the guy who used to travel the world eating food?

Anthony Bourdain of biohacking. I'm trying everything. I'm doing everything. I started going down the rabbit hole. I had cancer in 2017. I really didn't I thought I I thought that was a wakeup call. I didn't take care of myself. Uh because then CO came around. I was drinking more than ever. And my wife who was an amazing strategic partner, she didn't she didn't make it a deal breaker. She just kept looking at me and and saying, "Are you okay?" And I I saw the disappointment in her eyes.

Uh, and then, uh, you know, I started following some of her protocols and before you know it, I was I was red betting and talking to ass one minute and Gary Brecker the other and Dr. Aean the other and Greenfield the other. Before you know it, every single thing I was looking at, I was like, "This is going to kill me. I'm going to still eat it, but this is going to kill me." My red bed's right here. There's my red bed. bed. bed. There you go.

I just I just I just I got the light system behind me. I got the biocharger over here. It's infectious. You know, when you start doing it, the team starts doing it. You know, know, know, I just injected my peptides I got from Ben Green Greenfield about I don't know 30 minutes ago and Dr. Aean was the last guy I interviewed on the show. So, we're very similar on this. What's working here? Tell the audience something though and not everybody can afford all of these things either unfortunately.

I think the more and more people get access to medicine over time hopefully it becomes something that everybody has access to. there something you've done you're like look if you can afford this or you can do it I recommend X or Y something definitively that's worked and you know man you've been on this for a while 95% you know if you get out of this conversation a bunch of gadgets you've wasted your time 95% of the things that we do have absolutely zero to do with technology you know drinking as much water as you can with no chlorine in it uh uh eating pickles and anything naturally fermented with all of the protein, but more importantly, I fast 30 hours a week.

Uh, that doesn't cost me anything, right? Um, I I do intermittent fasting. And, you know, that's why I slip up. I'm not an expert. And that's what I say like, you know, I don't have great bodies like Ed or or Gary Brea. I'm not going to talk high level. Um, I I look at it, we're putting a 100 poisons in us a day. Can I get it down to to 60? you know, can I go and can I can I do flossing and making sure the plaque are not going into my system and get thorough about that?

Can I put on the blockers so I reduce the blue lights in my home at night? You know, these very simple things that I'm doing is making the big difference because I can't take a biochar on the road with me and I travel 250 days a year. Travel that much. You uh you know, if you have you on, I got to talk business with you. the 95% thing you just said, is there something that you used to really believe about business that you just you're like, "Not anymore.

That's that's irrelevant now." I mean, like an overall philosophy like I had a conversation with a realtor in Boston this weekend. His name is George Sarcis, number one dude in Boston. I love this kid. And uh he knows a lot of people in Boston, right? And I said, "George, here's what you're limited by. Business used to be about who you know. Now it's about who knows you." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You got to get the who knows you part down. Something like that. Anything like that that occurs to you.

Like this used to work or I used to think it and I don't anymore. don't anymore. don't anymore. Well, two things. I think that uh you need money to make money uh was one of my philosophies when I didn't have money. And then how did that reverse on me is that when I had a lot of money and fubu was coming up and I was able to acquire things acquire things acquire things and and do new businesses, I felt throwing money at the business was going to solve it because my ego got in the way.

I could throw six million $6 million at the business. My name is Damon John. Uh and those are the two things that things that things that I learned. Number one, you have to love what you do and you have to be able to roll up the sleeves. If you don't want to be in it yourself, you have to find an amazing partner, distributor, strategic relationship and whatever the case is and somehow reward that person and know that that person had 20 years in the business or that person will will work 24 hours on this business and figure this out.

Uh so you you can throw as much money at you want but if you ask that question money makes money can uh you know you need money to make money and having money is great. Well I always say 65% of lotto winners and ath uh and athletes are bankrupt 3 years after leaving the league or winning the lotto. That means money didn't work for them. Uh and if money worked for everybody well then Blockbuster Blackberry and Kodak would still be in business in Party City. It doesn't work for everybody.

But you look at Forest's top wealthiest 1,000 people. 65% of them are self-made men and women. That means they were broke like you and I. How we started out. So it's not money. It's putting in the work. There is no shortcuts. Getting a partner that's going to put in the work. But no matter what, you got to put in the work. The second part about the ego was I thought that my name is just going to get me places. No, you have to work on that name and everybody is going to sit there and go, "Yeah, you'll go with you'll go with clothing, with clothing, with clothing, right?

You you're going to be a you're going to be an author now. You're dyslexic. You can barely even read. That's not going to work. Oh, you're going to be an investor. You didn't go to Harvard and Yale. You didn't work at a venture firm for all these periods of time." They will always doubt you. And until you prove your name and your name walks in that room before you, people are just going to push you back. And you have to constantly improve on your name and it takes you one second to destroy it.

destroy it. destroy it. Yeah. Gosh. Yeah. Gosh. Yeah. Gosh. You know, so you know it it it those are the two things, name and money, you know. You know, IP and money. How you been with rejection? I I was with uh I was so excited to talk to you because you know you and I get asked like the same 25 questions most of the time. So time. So time. So and stuff. and stuff. and stuff. So I was with my daughter this thing to Boston I was just talking about and she has graduated from Clemson.

she's going to go into business and congratulations, man. congratulations, man. congratulations, man. Yeah, thank you. I'm I'm happy to not be paying for it anymore. And uh that's the best part. But yeah, I was talking to her about this. I said I said, Bella, one of the things that she I said, I don't know whether you'll make it. You're smart. You work really hard. You don't have that rich kid thing like she's a grind, you know? She she she's willing to, you know, get after it and hustle.

But I said, I don't here's what I don't know. I don't know whether or not you can handle rejection in mass. Like I don't know. And I I said that's one of the things that isn't really talked about that much is how does does rejection not only affect you like knock you out but like wind you slow you down make you flinch a little bit? What about that element? Like if you're giving advice to just entrepreneurs in general, business people in general, did it bug you real deep in the beginning and did you have to get over that or or do you think that's one of your like quiet superpowers of all the rejection you kept steamrolling through it or did you have to learn to Well, first of all, I'm married, so rejection is something I face every single morning and every single night.

But um But um But um you [clears throat] know coming up I was able to power through it because I I looked around and what I what I accomplished I thought I I didn't I didn't I didn't there wasn't social media. I never saw anybody accomplished at that level. And so I kept going through things and it wasn't an it wasn't a rejection to me. It was like holy crap out of the 20 times somebody said no. It was like, "Holy crap, somebody said yes. Now it's game on." game on." game on." Um, and I and I and I qualified the rejection.

Well, why did they reject me? Well, Well, Well, is it because I'm African-American? Is it because I got left back in school? I don't have a history as a designer. And it made me want to give them more reasons to say why why this this will work. And I had to make it, as they call in Hollywood, an undeniable package, showing them all the things that could work for them. But I'm human, you know, as I came up in in the business and now all of a sudden I have a massive business.

I'm in I'm doing $350 million a year, this and that, this and that. It seemed like the rejection became more painful and hurt more because I was like, well, I did this already. Yes. Yes. Yes. No, man. we you did that and you know what you were lucky and the rejection hurt for about about four or five years but then I I I I found ways to change that around and go you know what if they knew any better then they would be doing what I'm doing um you know um it it you know if it was that easy then every would but he would be doing it.

So again, you know, I had to start really proving it. But it's funny. I saw I saw one time the Obama and he was um interviewing Mark Zuckerberg and Mark was like, "I still hear no." I was like, "Mark Zuckerberg still hear no." He said, "Damon, not Damon." He said to he said to Barack, he said um when I came out with something and I was like, "All these kids in Ivy League schools are going to be on this platform." Everybody said, "No way. These kids are too, you know, uppidity." Then when he heard, uh, you know what, it's going to grow and I'm going to have all kids in university on, they were like, the Ivy kids are definitely not going to deal with these kids.

Then when they heard that high school kids are going to be on it, oh, that's it's over. Then when they heard a high school kids going to find out his nana is on the same or her nana's on the same platform, no way. Then they said, well, you know what? When you we we're moving from desktops to little phones, nobody's going to be riding around the B, you know, on this little thing. It's nobody's going to be on it. Then they said knowing other country he still hears no.

And he said I kept thinking somebody's going to build it bigger and better than me and nobody did and I said it I'mma do it. So you know um I still deal with rejection a lot. You know you're only a guy on TV. people that would surprise people. You know, I I you know, it's funny being a a public person, the cheers the cheers the cheers are big are big are big and it's not deserved. That's wrong. And the failures are deep and that's not deserved.

That's wrong. It's somewhere in the middle. You know, the rejection is in the middle. The praise is in the middle. And that's where you find or I find that I'm very comfortable with it. Hey guys, new year, new systems, right? This is the time we all look at everything we're doing, the messier parts of our business, and we think, man, there's got to be a better way. And there is, by the way, and it's Quo. Streamlining your communications is one of the quickest and easiest ways and quickest upgrade you can make as well.

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quo.com/mylet. quo.com/mylet. That's quo.com/mylet quote. No miss calls, no miss customers. You have more humility than when I met you. And it's not to say that you didn't have it, but it was a long time ago that I met you the first time. It was backstage somewhere. I don't remember where it was. You were already very well known. But it feels to me like the more success you've had, ironically, like almost the more humble you've become. You think that's fair assessment? fair assessment? fair assessment? Yeah, I think so because it comes with age.

You know, you may have met me. You know, Shark Tank has started 17 years ago and, you know, I looked at the show maybe one or two seasons and realizing that nobody's going to know who we are as a business show. And, you know, still hopefully that was the humble aspect. And then now, you know, 17 years later, I've uh every single living president has called me for advice and not for money. Every single living one. Um, and um I've I've met, you know, I've met so many great people, but also I've lost so many great people.

I lost 28 people in this last uh 16 months. You know, a couple of them. John Amos, uh Mr. C, Herb, Gotti, Bumbo, and uh you know, I got too and then I'm just the realist. You know, why would somebody respect me? Is it money? Well, then you looking the wrong guy. Cuz if Mark Cuban woke up with my money, he gonna think he a crackhead. And if if Basos woke up with Mark's money, he gonna think he a crackhead. And if if Elon woke up with Basil's money, he going to think he a crackhead, right?

So there's always going to be somebody with a bigger wallet and a bigger brain and a more popularity with you. So again, if you walk in the room and you disarm people and just say, "Yo, I'm a human being." Then it's cool. If they don't respect you and value for who you are right there, they're not going to you're not going to make them respect and value. They're the wrong person to deal with anyway. They don't respect people or they respect people for the wrong reasons.

reasons. reasons. You're so right. I literally just had this conversation this weekend about the levels and what literally use about three of the same names you just used. So, here's what I like about Shark Tank. Obviously, it's made entrepreneurship a front and center topic. It's uh made it sexy. It's given it hope. There's I think there's more young people aspiring to be entrepreneurs than ever. And I think that show has a lot to do with it culturally. That's why I say you were one of the 10 most important people.

You know exactly what I meant. culturally to have somebody who looks like you with your level of success on TV every single week in the entrepreneurial space is an important thing plus all of the success you've had on top of that. So what I said is actually how crazy is that? It's actually true. It's a fact and but having said all of that I also think it's almost made people think two things. things. things. Anybody can be an entrepreneur number one. So, I want you to address that.

And the other thing is once guys or ladies get a little bit of money, everybody's become an angel investor. And the vast majority of them aren't very good at it. So, one ask I want I want you to speak to the entrepreneurship thing. And two, honestly speaking, had you not invested in any of these deals you found on Shark Tank, but just invested in businesses you you you d you drove that were your businesses, would you be wealthier had it just been your money in businesses that you could control and move yourself?

No. No. No. You know, I don't I don't I don't that last one that last question ain't nobody asked me that one before. So, and probably about two of these other questions you haven't. So, can anybody be an entrepreneur? Uh, no. Um, no. As simple as that, you know, and that's the that's sometimes the beauty of life, you know, that a lot of people can't be entrepreneurs, but they don't need to be. They're built differently. You know, there are just a lot of people who are not risktakers.

They don't have the vision. They have been brought up a different way where their parents told them that this is what success was, and they won't learn that until later on in the their life. And they're just built, they're not risktakers. Um, so I do not believe everybody can be an entrepreneur. Do I believe everybody can and they do work for an Osbor? Yeah, every Batman like me needs a Robin. But I always joke and I say I need a cap. I need I'm Captain Kirk and I need Spock cuz Robin was 100% a groupy.

Anything Batman did. Holy buttermilk Batman. How do you know you were going to drink poison? Right. Right. Right. You know, um but Spock, you know, I I always say I say that, you know, I'm Captain Kirk. You know, Captain Kirk was wild. He was a wild boy. He was running around. He was doing every Oh, we're going to do this. Sure. Spock be like, "Listen here, Kevin. There's 4,997 reasons why this is not going to work. Shut up, Spock. I'm doing it." And you know what Spock could do?

He put his ass to sleep. to sleep. to sleep. And you you need the person And you you need the person who's going to check you. You know, you need that person who's going to be that perfect ying and yang. You know, the person who's going to get detail orientated and say, you know, I know you're doing a lot of stuff. and then really hit you sometime and say now we got to really look at what's working. And so I think that there is a a mass I think there's a massive amount of people who can support entrepreneurs but I do not think a lot of people could be entrepreneurs because it's a I I haven't met any I've met very few entrepreneurs that were successful on their first venture.

They're usually successful on their fourth or fifth and you have to have a strong rejection muscle to open up a business again after you've been kicked in your teeth. Fact. All right. Now the bigger one. Would you be wealthier had you just deployed the same capital? So you did no Shark Tank deals. You took your capital and put it into businesses that you drove that you control that were primarily under your influence. Would you be wealthier had you done that? 120% I would Fubu would be back at at least the two to$400 million annual mark now if I did that.

And it's about learning again as we opened up. You know, when we first started uh Shark Tank, nobody knew the show and the casting agents were casting agents. They didn't sit there and watch hundreds of hours of Kevin and I and the sharks all negotiating. So, you know, it's like you Ed, they brought you in somebody, you know, now somebody brings somebody to Ed and you're a casting agent. They go, "Yeah, I'm doing $30 million of business. I have two employees." You're going to say, "Where exactly are you selling crack?" You know, that that's that's what you're going to ask, right?

They didn't know what to ask. So they brought us poor deals. And as they brought us poor deal, then we also did not know how to deploy money right away. We give money right away. Give money right away. We didn't say, "What are the use of proceeds? We're going to give you x amount of money if you hit this mark. X amount of money you hit this mark." I paid $750,000 in legal fees just to vet about 10 companies the first year in Shark Tank when I didn't know there was a, you know, this software.

whatever VC just put it in and you know so we were learning ourselves how to be true angel investors uh and and we also then I started to say well you know what I can either deploy let's say a million dollars a year or I can uh pay $150,000 two or three salaries for somebody who's a licensing person a salesperson and I can then get different software deploy that for about $200,000 and that's able to handle Shark Tank investments and other investments. So when you come to me, I can basically break down what you need uh and negotiate the points and options and various other things, the triggers instead of just giving money.

One of our guys on Shark Tank the first year gave $500. The lady went off, paid all her bills and bought a Mercedes. She never said he never she said, "Listen, I'mma take money off the table." table." table." Is she wrong? you know, so we we grew to be who we are, you know, on the show and every day we're learning how to deploy money different ways. I want an advisory seat. I'm not trying to have K1s for 900 companies. I'm going to take an option, you know, so a lot of different things, you know, changed over the years.

So true. On the K1s, I'm just I just got my last K1 right now for last year. I'm like, dude, it just messes up your taxes. Anyway, that's inside baseball. It does. But I love I love selling to the people. Listen, you don't hand them in. I'm going to help you out. I'm going to call the IRS for you. Exactly. That's what I was saying. We'll straighten all that up right now because you're not messing up my stuff. Yeah. Then I get audited because you didn't send me to K1 on time.

Correct. Correct. Correct. Now we're in a new world like and I don't even know what it's going to look like. I you know, people ask me all the time, I wish I knew you. I'm talking about this now. We're in a we're in an AI world, you know, not that we haven't been already. Is there some ad is there something you're thinking doing advice you'd give to entrepreneurs just about navigating this time? I mean are you familiarizing yourself personally pretty deeply in different you not just chat GPT but you know sales AI or ask elephant or all these other things that are out there like what's your whole view on where we're going?

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And there's a couple of different common uh discussions that are be h are happening now. Of course, talent, what are you doing with talent? Uh how are you reducing your cost and uh increasing your sales? And somebody said to me, so what do you do for a hobby? And I said, you know, I just thought about it for the last two years. I haven't done any of my hobbies cuz all I'm doing is studying AI. All I'm doing is studying uh biohacking and I'm studying live selling.

Those are the three things that I'm studying. I said because I need to get I need to have a foot up on everybody uh because um this is moving so fast that every as a dyslexic and eight of the 12 sharks are dyslexic. So, uh, now I'm trying to see how can I be more efficient in my communication. How can I look at my legal and, uh, and and and professional service costs and how can I reduce those every single month as AI is moving around, you know, trademark searches, uh, design, designing things, decks, this and that, legal.

How can I bake more of that information and how can I teach my team and my team teach me to be more proficient? you have a bunch of questions for attorneys, but if you have you're using a lot of the AI uh AI technology, you have a better pointed question for pointed answers. So, how am I utilizing all that? How can I mimic myself and come up with avatars and great content and editing? So, I'm doing that all now. Um, and yeah, I'm going to be looking at reducing uh not reducing my workforce.

Most of my friends have reduced their workforce by 30%. I don't want to reduce my Yeah. 30% due to AI. I don't want to reduce my workforce. workforce. workforce. I want to triple my business with my current workforce. I want my 30 to 50 people to now do this because this is where all of the the opportunity is and then take that 30 to 50 people and then have uh you know, five more divisions that are running really well because I love my people. I think this is a great time for people and opportunity.

So yeah, I'm full out on AI in this sense. I'm also preparing myself. I'm going to be totally honest. I'm preparing myself for massive disruption in this in in this in this uh you know in this country and the world when the have not start uh you know when most of these jobs for for males are operating uh heavy machinery and trucking and things of that nature or cars and they're all going autonomous. when retail is all going, you know, uh and for a lot of women who of course are CEOs and executives, but a lot of the services are now going to be AI, um you know, retail and various other things and factories.

Where are these people going? you know, when we're when we're when we're when you can go and get a Tesla robot for $30,000 and to get it for your home, but you use that as your uh uh landscaping business cuz you have three of them. Where are these people going? We're going to we're going to turn into California. I know you live in California, California, California, you know. So I'm also trying to find ways to protect ourselves because you know there know there know there you know you know what they say when uh uh when when there's no uh supplies you know conflict will rise you know that's why I bought an island.

Um I left California but I just left but I I everyone I want you to lean in. This is one of the smartest people in the world and you just heard what he just said. I mean I uh do you think guar Alain calls it a postwork society? I don't know about that but what do you think about and I'm and this isn't even in my notes but since you brought it up you think guaranteed minimum income is like an inevitability what Yang used to talk about or actually I do think it's inevitability I do think it's inevitability you do how long of a window but do you really believe that we're going to have a guaranteed minimum income at some point?

I know you're not positive, but if you were looking at it and you think that's within the next 5 years, 10 years, years, years, I think it's within the next 5 years. And I don't think it's something going to be positive. I think if we looked at what happened when we were, you know, when we were stuck at CO and there's a big money dump. I see that, uh, you know, drinking went up, uh, you know, and and and we have too much entertainment on these things right here.

And I see that everybody was online for luxury goods. That's the only thing that kind of really uh you know increased. I think that the idle minds in that period of time in that bridge uh is going to be very very dangerous. I think uh you know um you know there's going to be a lot of problems. I I think you got to idle mind with a lot of times for people to think and and get upset. Um Um Um I think it's a problem. Here's what I think.

I think in five years you all could go back and watch what we just talked about. And unfortunately I completely agree with him on the wealth disparity and on it becoming um a cultural societal real dramatic issue that may lead to a very dangerous point. Let's be real. if uh if Let's be real. if uh if the jobs are going to decrease and the government's not going to catch up in time and we're talking about from a state level all the way up to the a higher level, don't you think when and they have the data on how we're moving and what we're talking about and the sentiment, don't you think they're also going to many people going to use that to their benefit?

I really would love to say like all the people here hopefully are great people, but there's some bad people in the world and they're and they create these campaigns andor ways and propaganda and they know how to tap into what we're doing emotionally now than ever before. And I just think that there's going to be a lot of the when the have nots don't have anything and you know there's 20 pe there's 20 homes on the block and these 17 homes don't have jobs anymore, they're coming for those three.

I was out with Joseé Andreas in uh Abico when the hurricane had hit maybe about uh 10 years ago and I remember we were feeding the people and I remember somebody said, "Oh my god, that's that person. That person owns this business. That person owned this business. That person's own this business." And I was like, "Well, why are they online? Why aren't they helping to feed the people?" And they're like, "Oh no, the water came up. The gangsters all went into their homes and took their homes and they're the homeless ones.

It's not the gangsters. they they're the ones who are homeless now. now. now. So again, you know, I know we're getting into a very dark area and I hope none of this zero uh happens, but just be aware, you know what I mean? Uh I'm not going to put my head in the sand and I hope that somehow things are going to move along in in a in a more uh you know uh positive way for all of us. But as entrepreneurs, you and I, we look at not where is it positively going to go, but where is any of the potential, you know, roadblocks, hiccups, hurdles that we may face in business, whether it's life with our health or whether it's, you know, business like that.

Well, this is good for everybody. This is what two real entrepreneurs talk about privately when we're not just trying to be rosy on camera to sound good. good. good. And this is going on in every single major corporation room right now. I was in another room. You know what they said? They said that um these these are the real estate investors. They said, you know, the biggest problem we're going to have, it is not going to be the have not is not going to be the super wealthy.

It's going to be that middle compressed, highly educated person that was an attorney that was making 150 to $200,000 a year that has a two or fouryear lease and they know legally how to squat. to squat. to squat. Brother, this is so true. this. So, everyone, you can just do a SWAT analysis on your life and your company. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. If you're not doing this, you're not a thinker. I mean, this is what we're really rifting on right now. I'll give you an idea, you guys.

Like, I just did a big estate plan for my family. It's something you'll all do once you acquire small. I'm changing mine. And I spent a bunch of money to do it. The guy just sent me this big pack of information. My next door neighbor here, I'm looking at his house, did the exact same thing, except he just dunked his his documents into an AI that put out the entire plan for him. So, if you think this isn't coming, this dude's an estate planning attorney. My neighbor's like, "You're still using a human to do that?" No offense to all the state planning attorneys, but I had someone who sells insurance the other day say to me, "Well, I'm safe because people I don't know.

I don't know." So, you know, we should just be these are the conversations you should be having. And by the way, educating yourself about it, trying to get on the other side of it. And you know what? Society and culture, everybody has a way of sort of organizing itself sometimes, and hopefully it does. But you ought to be ready if it didn't, and you ought to get your family ready, and you ought to get your money ready, and you ought to get your career ready. So anyway, you are I mean, you know, end of the day, I mean, the insurance person, you think that down the road Uber is not going to offer insurance for private owned vehicles.

You think that the hospitals and what are not going to use AI to say you know if you like this and that here click these buttons and look at your best and then they'll just they'll just compress the insurance uh you know companies down. You know what I mean? It just depends on you know it's amazing how much you and I agree Damon. So I was just saying this to somebody. It may not eliminate you but it's going to compress your value to the market. market.

market. Compress what it's worth. Even in real estate, look at even some of these online search engines like realtor.com or reh redfin or you know these other ones, Zillow. They haven't eliminated the industry, but they've compressed the value to some extent of what an agent can charge already. And so this is just the stuff to be thinking about you guys. And by the way, how to get on the other side of it, how to take advantage of it. You listen to this driving in your car today that are doing HVAC and roofs, you're in good shape probably for a while.

while. while. You're in great shape right there. Right. And you know what? If you're somebody who your child, we all grow up a different way. If you're like you said, you thank God you had you you're not paying anymore. But if your child is in the 10th grade and they're looking at a college, you know, you're going to go and borrow five to $600,000 worth of student debt for a job that may not even be here in two years or will your job potentially, you know, go and do HVAC or like my buddy with uh uh uh uh Crash Champions go and get paid 75,000 to $80,000 a year to learn a trade.

Well, oh, is my kid going to do crash cars or HVAC? That's what you want them to do for a living. Or no, maybe your kid is going to realize that, you know what, I'm going to learn that part of it. But all the baby boomers are going out of business and selling their businesses. They don't have a kid to hand their business down to. So, I'm going to acquire 1,900 Hback companies. I'm going to be a gajillionaire, but I'm going to know it from this standpoint.

And then I'm going to roll into it and get money from other places. and I'm going to then hire this industry because nobody's kid wants to be an HVAC person or a plumber when those people are going to be making $200 $300,000 a year. It's just how you twist it. twist it. twist it. That's exactly right. By the way, I just literally told this kid yesterday who's graduating business school at a very very prominent school, maybe the most prominent one that you'd all know. And uh I said, "Hey man, don't be opposed to being a plumber because that's where the money's going to be at and owning a bunch of plumbing businesses." Anyway, this is such good stuff.

Um, this is why I told you guys what happened when we put Damon and I together. So, speaking of that, connecting. There's a thing you're doing I want to know more about because I really don't understand it and I want you to tell us what it is. What is CEO access? Because I think you're connecting these CEOs, help them expand their brands. Am I right about that? Like, what is exactly that you're doing? Whether you're a founder, CEO, or an HR leader, building a global team usually means you got to decide to set up a local entity or not.

And that's exactly why Pebble is here. So, you don't have to hire the world instantly. Quick question. Are you hiring another country right now? Because once you do, things get complicated very fast. Trust me, I know. But that's where Pebble can help. You can send offers in minutes to anyone around the world and get them onboarded fast. One thing no one tells you about hiring globally, and I know is how unclear the cost can be, and it looks simple at first, and then the fees start stacking up.

Pebble helps with all of this. Pebble brings clarity with upfront, all-in hiring costs, enables you to hire around the world. Pebble is an AI powered global human resources platform built for founders or HR leaders, operators who are hiring and supporting teams around the world. Our new standard discounted pricing at $3.99 US per month per employee helps you contain costs. Go to highpbble.ai to get a free estimate. That's high pbl.ai pbl.ai pbl.ai for a free estimate. It It's funny. So, you know, I I learned I evolved.

You know, one day I was uh I was talking to one of my CEO buddies and he said, "Hey, you want you you want to help me brand myself because you know what? I'm finding out that I I need to brand myself." I said, "No, this guy's doing like $4 billion a year." I said, "You don't need any help. I'm here, you know, I'm here for I'm the people shark. I'm here for the people." And he's like, "Yeah, okay." Now, I know this man and this man has adopted many children.

He's done a lot of stuff in life and he is one of the purest people you'll ever meet, you know. And he said, "But if you help me, then I can help more people." And I said, "Holy, I'm becoming what I'm fighting against somebody, you know." And I said, you know, I I'll work with you. And so what I decided is like we only have limited amount of time. If I go on a My Life podcast, you know, Ed doesn't need me, you know, next week or next month.

But who and Ed is sitting there going, "Who do you have?" And I I know everybody would love to be with you, but you like, "Who do you have in your rolodex that can talk on this topic on a granular level?" Because I need to bring real doubt. Okay, I got this person. If I go on CNBC, MSNBC, I show people that I'm not the smartest person in the world, but I got the Henry Ford thing, but I know the smartest person in the world, and I bring on this person, and what happens is I share stages with them.

So a lot of my cos I've gotten them on cover of success magazines and various other things but for the right reasons. Guys who are walking and girls who are walking in the room and the room needs to know who they are before they get in. And like I tell people if you're not in charge right now we're we're in the day and age is no longer make it they will come. They want to know who's making it why you're making it. But CEOs today they can't go to their executive uh uh you know assistant and say make me famous for the right reasons.

Well do you hire a publicist? Do you hire this and that? Who's the one who talks to him about estate planning when you now have a billion dollars in your bank? Who's the one who talks to them about being non-colctible? So, there's a lot of real estate brokers. There's only one Barbara Corkran. There's a lot of uh basketball team owners. There's only one Mark Cuban. There's a lot of real estate developers, the most powerful man in the world. Not talking religion or politics here. here. here.

There's only one Donald Trump. Uh there's only one, you know, Damon John. I just put a couple foos on a shirt. You have to be able to brand yourself now because if not, you're at the mercy of the kid in the mail room who has 200,000 followers who decide to say you're a racist or a misogynistic pig. You got to go and get spin doctors. Your business is over. And you had to cut 40% of that hardworking staff because you never had a microphone. And so I, you know, CEOs need to need to brand themselves.

So I've created like a management company for CEOs managed by me and my team and my staff. I'm not only their president, I'm a client, you know. So, that that that's what it is. They treat everybody like they treat me. So, um that's what CO Access is. And anybody you think uh anybody out there who is interested could potentially qualify. We can only take two a year. Check out CEO.com. Very good. You guys, by the way, it's what I said earlier. It's not who you know, it's who knows you.

It's actually both, but this helps with the who you know. Let me ask you this last. By the way, this has been a tremendous conversation. I didn't even know we were going to go in some of these directions and I'm really grateful that we did. I love that you have such depth and range of topic. I love that about you. What about this idea of community and brand? I'm just trying to think of something that, you know, not everyone's thinking about right now. So, you just said for that CEO, obviously them building a brand matters.

I feel like I don't know that that's just limited to a CEO. Like I in real estate here, I'm in I'm in Pawn of Eater Beach. There's a couple there's a billion realtors, but there's a couple people online that are kind of like become like the mayor of Ponavidra type brand. You know what I mean? And I can honestly say if I was to go sell a house, I'm probably this is it's the person I see the most regularly, I would probably go to them. So, what about brand building for anybody?

Maybe you don't think it needs to be for everybody and that's completely fine. And then also community. This two things are correlated to me a little bit. How buil important is it for a company to build a community as it builds its brand like like FUBU did like Starbucks has it's kind of a community right those two things for your everyday entrepreneur out there should they still be working themselves on building a brand and a community themselves community themselves community themselves yeah absolutely you know we talk about the CEOs I talk about that because that just happens to be where I you know where I am and where I can add the most value but I I mean I wrote a whole book on it right the brand within it is Every single person is a brand.

So two things. Number one, you are a brand. You are a business. Whether you think of brands as the crest on you know the shield representing uh you know a royal family or a family here or you uh you know you being a brand of a family in a church or a family who loves food. You're everybody's the brand and you are personally a brand. you know, uh, you have to be I always say people have to be able to put themselves in two to five words.

Now, it could be 10 words, but if you can't define the two to five words who you are, well, then you walk into the room, you leave it up to other people to interpret. And why is that more powerful now than ever before? Cuz we're no longer shaking your hand and looking you in the eye and call your references. We're all looking at you through this. So, we're checking you out before you walk into that room. and who is working for you as a as a founder or in your family when I'm following them.

I don't know if they're talking on their personal time or your time. Do we have we have you know the the freedom of speech in this country but when your child is talking about you or talking about their life I'm looking at the family's brand right the child is brilliant the child is smart the child is nice the child is is is cordial or the child's an animal who who the hell it's their parents let me see what's going on at home so you are personally brand community 100% the number one product in Shark Tank history and it's mine out of all 54 shark tanks around the world is Bombas socks.

It's a sock. They do $2.7 billion dollars this year. Uh hit that mark. And why? Every pair of socks they make, product is king. But they give a pair away to those in the in the in the homeless community. Now, they don't just give them away. They're in the communities. They know the directors. They know the people. And so, you know, as a community, brands are community. Don't think that your brand has to be or your community has to be polished and great. Old dirty bastard was an old dirty bastard and he knew his community.

Wu Tang was a certain way. But, you know, you have a brand. Let's let's talk about brands really quick. Well, you have this one that's in Bloomale or or or Louis Vuitton. It's the greatest brand. You're only going to see one of these white shirts ever. shirt. Meanwhile, they got a hundred in the back and you pay $200 for that white shirt. All right, you go to Macy's. Well, I want this white shirt. It has a polo horse. It looks like a guy playing horse and I'm going to look like I'm sexy.

You know, a horse on a yacht. You pay about $70 for that. And that brand, you see other people wearing it. You know where they're from. And then there's the person who's like, I don't care about all that stuff. I'm a slob and I'm going to buy three white t-shirts for a pack in a pack for $20. And when I spill crap on it, I don't care. By the time you bought that one Louis Vuitton one, I got a hundred shirts and I give it away to those in the homeless community.

Even the people out there who you live, you are you in California. I'm a tree hugger. Don't don't get me wrong. I'm a tree hugger and I'm about to save the planet. But you're going to still see me around with my Land Rover, my Yeti bucket, uh you know, my North Face. I'm going to be hugging trees looking good. It's still a brand. So again, we are all communities and brands. and brands. and brands. Was this good you guys or what? Like sometimes at the end of the show I go, "Hey, share the episode." I don't need to ask anybody to do that today.

This is going to several million people. I guarantee you. This is like why I do the show. By the way, everyone, you won't see this then, but it's he and I, we're 4 days before Christmas and we're both still in the hunt right now. Those of you that are on your three-week, whatever trip you're on, just so you know, maybe success leaves clues. We're both grinded on the week of Christmas. Damon, this was so good. I I'm really grateful that you did this. This was We had a great show the other times.

This is awesome right here, brother. So, thank you so much. much. much. I love you, man. I wish we get to spend more time. We're always in passing and I I check on you and we ask all our friends. I'm going down to Dan Flechman's over at the Cassa Center handing out 30,000 toys to kids right now. I'm going to head down there, man. But I really I I'm always really impressed by you. you are just such an amazing human being and such a powerful powerful speaker, communicator and man um any anytime and let's let's I don't want to do the Hollywood let's just try to get together but let's just try to get together whenever we can brother I love you brother God bless you all right thank you everybody share the episode max out.