EntreLeadership - #262: Rise and Grind with Daymond John

Episode Date: May 14, 2018

Daymond John knows from experience that there is no such thing as a shortcut to the top. The entrepreneur and New York Times best-selling author, who first found success after turning $40 into the six-million-dollar FUBU brand, says the secret to his success is simple: good old-fashioned hard work. But don’t for a minute think that any of it has come easy. Tune in as Daymond shares his advice for outperforming and outhustling everyone else—even when unexpected obstacles like cancer get in the way. entreleadership.com/podcast All Rise Free Chapter from Rise and Grind from EntreLeadership Work Life Balance from Infusionsoft Want expert help with your business question? Call 844-944-1070 and leave a message or send an email to [e-mail]. You could be featured on a future podcast episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is Andre Leadership. Now, here's your host, Ken Coleman. From the Music City, this is the broadcast of leaders, by leaders, for leaders. Thank you so much for joining the conversation. Our feature interview this episode is with Damon John. You know him from ABC's Shark Tank and maybe from Fubu and many other brands. He's the true entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs.

It's got a new book out. We'll tell you more about that shortly. Also, a special update, a news bulletin, if you will. We have some great content coming your way. We'll tell you more about that a little bit later and, of course, some free resources. But let's get right to it. You come here for the conversations. And I got to tell you, you know, you meet some of these people who you see on TV. And you have the chance to interview them, as I do. We talk to them before you actually hear or see what we show you. and then after, and we're two for two with good experiences here at Entree Leadership, the sharks. Robert Hershevec was a guest last year or so, and also joined us at our summit in 2017. And so it was great to have Damon John on the program again. Just a great guy, this new book, Rise and Grind, Outperform, Outwork, and Out hustle your way to more successful and rewarding life.

Just a refreshing conversation that will challenge you. Here is Damon John. Why this book? I mean, you've got a lot of opportunity coming your way. This message is great. It jumps off the shelf when you're looking at it. Why this message? You know, I didn't go out to write a book and put this message out. It was just that I went out and I was trying to find a way to be more effective in my daily routine because, you know, at this point in my life, I'm nine years on Chart Tank and 60 companies and a brand new baby girl at home. And, of course, I'm not getting any younger and all my other regular companies. I wanted to try to find some tips and some. strategies on people that I respect that I think extremely effective and how to use them. So when I started doing that, and I started asking people like, what's the first 90 minutes of your day look like? What's the last 90 minutes of your day? Hey, give me some ideas, some things that I can do to make myself more effective. I started to say, wait a minute, people need to know about this stuff.

And even through the course of doing this, I noticed that most of the subjects in my book, they all really went after the same, you know, 12 things basically in life to make themselves more successful, but they all just did it in different ways. And throughout that course, I would find out one of those things of health and the fact that I wasn't asking enough questions about my health. I was a standard person of getting a checkup every once in a while, every year, and this and that. And through that, I've discovered I actually had stage two cancer in my thyroid through this journey. And I'm cancer-free now, but I say all that to say that I started to realize a lot of other things that I may have been neglecting within my daily routine that now I need to address.

Yeah. And that's what I love about this. You're already a wild success, but you want to keep going. And that is a really common quality among high achievers. They're constantly learning, growing. And so you go out with some other successful friends, and you're trying to grow yourself and what you do with this book is take us behind the curtain, if you will, and give us some great insights, some great people in this book.

Russell Simmons, the actress, Catherine Zeta Jones, Gary Vaynerchuk, has been a guest on the show many times. Carlos Santana, a living legend. What a great artist he is, and the list goes on and on and on. I want to make sure that people don't think it's just these superstars that we all know, and I love and value them. I think some of the lessons are learned by, you know, this woman named Lola Alvarez, who has two kids that are, you know, challenged with dyslexia, and what does she do every day to give them the edge as well as my favorite subject in the book is Cal Maynard. He climbed Mount Kilimanjaro with no arms, no legs, no prosthetics. That's how he was born with no arms and no legs. And he climbed that mountain. So he makes me feel like a loser every time I read this chapter.

It's so true. What's your problem, right? Yeah, exactly. I had a hard time doing a couple of push-ups today. So, you know. Hey, I'm actually glad. I was going to get to this later, but I'm glad you mentioned dyslexia. I have a personal connection to this. And you talk about your dyslexia and how you have overcome it. And, you know, Richard Branson, well-known, dyslexic, Stephen Spielberg, Ted Turner, and you mentioned some of these folks in the book, but I want to stay here for a moment. Because I think... Yeah, you know, out of the 12 sharks, if you look at the guest sharks, eight of us are dyslexic. I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah.

I did not know that. So this is really cool. And the reason I'm bringing this up, Dame, is my oldest son has dyslexia, and we didn't realize it until the third grade. And very similar to your personal story and, again, the lady that you highlight in the book. I want for just a moment for people to hear your personal struggle there, because it's not something that you can ever really get. get away, you've now managed around it. And obviously, dyslexia has some challenges. What irritates me is we don't realize how much of a gift dyslexia is. It really is a gift in so many ways, even though it has some challenges. Just tell your personal story there and how you have

powered through that. Well, my personal story is, you know, 40 years ago when I was a student going through school, I just would struggle with anything where it came to history and reading, but I would Excel and math and science and anything with numbers and things of that nature. I didn't really know I had dyslexia at the time. My mother made me feel very, very special about who I was and my ability to accomplish things. But my workaround really would be work. You know, I got to the point where, you know, I went to high school and they had a

co-op program, meaning that I can go to work one week someplace and then go to school every other week and get credit for it. So to avoid the ridicule from the kids and avoid the challenges of reading and the ridicule from the teachers, not ridicule, but I didn't feel like getting Fs. Sure. You know, that would be my workaround. Later on in life, I would find out that I'm dyslexic, and I would understand also the power of dyslexia.

You know, I would read books as well as I could, but due to dyslexia, and I knew I didn't maybe absorb it enough. I would go out and actually try to take action on what the book said, because I didn't know if I absorbed it properly. Reading it, that would, in turn, make me the person I am to be an entrepreneur and act and learn and repeat and take small steps because I didn't know if I absorbed. the information from the other side. And I would just grow up to understand this. And then I would later on be diagnosed with dyslexia. And I would have the same challenge you have. My daughter, who got expelled

in school on purpose, I didn't even notice the dyslexia in her. I was pretty hard on her, too. You know, I thought that she was lazy or this or that. And I would find out that more people have dyslexia than we think. You know, 20% of the entire world has dyslexia. But then I also realize the talented people, the great people that have it, there was seven president that have it, Einstein was dyslexic and over 40% of entrepreneurs are dyslexic. I want to bring this up to people because unlike and nothing wrong with, you know, obviously we all have challenges, but dyslexia can't be fixed with a drug like you may be able to hopefully help some people suffering from ADHD. And so when a kid says they have dyslexia, the only cure for it is to work harder.

They're not saying it because they need attention, right? They need to just work harder. And if you don't address it, a lot of kids who may not have a supportive father like you or parents like yours or like my mother, they don't want to raise their hand in school and go, huh? Yeah. In the third grade, because, you know, kids are kids and they're going to say, you dummy, you're idiot, whatever the case is. And the ones who don't have a great supportive family, they may end up, you know, being approached by people who don't have that system around them and say, I don't think you're

dumb. Why don't you come stand on this corner and you can make some money with us because, you know, we accept you over here. Right. So I try to bring that to people's attention because also, So unfortunately, the jails are filled with people who may have shunned away from school and society due to dyslexia. That's exactly right.

And as you point out early on in the book, it's one of your power facts, which is a great feature throughout this book, that there are some tremendous entrepreneurs who are dyslexic because of the way they see things. I mean, you have 60 companies. The very things that cause challenges for you, Damon, in school, are actually what make you such a great entrepreneur now, your ability to see things. differently. That's what I want people to understand. And I know what you meant, and I can say this boldly, and I know you'll appreciate my heart. There's nothing wrong with you. There are some challenges that you have, but the, yeah, like anybody else. Right. I got my own challenges. I'm not dyslexic, but I can't do an algebra problem to save my life, but I can read really well, you know. So I'm terrible with numbers. I want you to talk about the early days for you, because I think a lot of people know your story, but I love the early days for you because we have a lot of entrepreneurs that are listening in, and they've got some.

or want to be entrepreneurs. And they've got something burning in their chest, Damon. There's a lot of fear. There's almost this equal amount of fear associated with the passion that you have as well. What would you say going back in the early days when you didn't have any support? You just had an idea and you had a passion. I'm sure you had to face some fear as well. Oh, you know, I've always faced fear, you know, but taking affordable steps and these small steps forwards, my goal with the things that help me, because then I look back and, you know, I'm still like, a numbers person and I looked at all the building, the corporations, the trucks and everything else that are around here, around us every single day. And I said, well, somebody started this.

You know, it's not one person, right? And what makes them any different than I? I think a lot of times the fear of the unknown, of course, is going to be intimidating, but also a lot of people have been misdirected. And I had wrote this in my earlier work, the power broke. A lot of people have been misdirected. They have to take this big jump in this big leap of faith to become successful and that's exactly wrong. Like don't quit your day job. Just put in some more hours on your homework, right? And don't quit your day job. Don't risk it all. The number one reason why small businesses fail is overfunding because somebody goes out and tells you you needed $100,000 to start a business because you need a $50,000 website when you only need a $1,000 Facebook page

and you need all this inventory. When you don't need all that inventory, you need to sell one, right? Like Mark Zuckerberg, start off with one friend. Right? And I think that fear, as well as the people around them who may for the reason of loving them, or maybe they hate them, they tell them all the things that they can't do. And they won't be able to do, you know? Maybe it's the parents or grandparents who grew up in the time and age and day where, you know, they were able to have one person work and the other person stay at home. And then you retired because, you know, somebody was able to give you this great package.

But today is not necessarily like that. And two parents have to work. But these people will tell you, listen, don't do this because they grew up at a different time. I think the fear is just the fear of the unknown, but if you take small affordable steps, you'll find out it's not scary. You know what's scary? Being a parent, that's scary. Yeah, come on with that. Amen to that, man. You know what? I want to stay here, because I think you just said something that's really, really wise. You just said something that's almost countercultural. It's not almost. It is. You know, you don't have to take this big leap.

So I want you to speak to people about the power and the wisdom with testing something. something and trying something, you could be super bold if it's a little test, right? Because if you're trying something and it doesn't work, you didn't bet the farm on it. 100%. You don't go to Vegas and the first time you play black check, you sit at the $1,000 a hand table. You don't do that, right? You go to the dollar a hand table and you play a thousand times. That's right. Until you start to understand and learn it. You know, and people think that corporations are such big visionaries and all that stuff, and that entrepreneurs are just fly by the seed of your pan, and, you know, you're just crazy.

It's the exact opposite. Corporations, they look at ROI, but ROI is a lie, right? You know, because look at Blockbuss's ROI or Kodak's ROI or Toyzer Rus's ROI or BlackBerry's ROI. But you look at an entrepreneur, and an entrepreneur really goes up with facts. I have $10 to gamble. I have one hour a week that I can put into this. I have 10 pieces of inventory.

I have X amount. And they're not visionaries either. You know, what entrepreneurs do is they get up and they do the best they can do today for their customers and themselves. And they'll repeat it tomorrow. And before you know it, you've built a machine. But the machine just takes a long time. But throughout that course, you solve things. You know, entrepreneurs are the people who just said, there's got to be a better way.

And they just figured somebody else is going to build it until they said, you know what? Holy crap. I just built it. You know? Yeah, I love that. Curious to know, I want to ask you some questions. I want our entrepreneurs and business leaders to follow along here because I think this is going to be fun. I'll tie this in in a second.

Damon, what would you say, after all of the experience you've had, what would you say your top two or three skills are? Just you, the man. Not so much the leader. I don't care if it's a leadership skill, but just what you would rank is your top two or three. I think my top two or three skills would be, number one, I'm ready to take risk, fail. and get the door slam in my face. Number two, I will research it till the cows come home and I'm going to figure this thing out one way another because there's got to be a way to do it.

And number three, I have a talent of picking really, really amazing people to be partners in personal life and in business and in staff or whatever the cases because I allow them to fail. I see through all the crap that other people say, well, I don't like this person because this, because of this, because of that. No, I say, here's why I do like this person. And I have a bunch of people around me who are just a bunch of Swiss Army knives. They're going to figure this thing out around me, no matter what, we're going to figure it out together, you know?

All right. Now, that's what he does best? Now, what do you love to do most? So top passions, top two or three things, that when you are engaged, you are most alive, most fired up. I love the process learning. I love the learning process. We're figuring it out and I'm learning it and it's unraveling and then a wall comes and it unravels again and we start to see the benefit or the production of whatever we've challenged ourselves with, whether it's making a new t-shirt or coming up with a new technology or finding a new way to convert to the world or something of that nature. I love that drive of that. And then I also have realized and I think it was a friend of mine who brought it to my attention and I never thought of myself like this, but I love to the empowerment of others. A friend of mine said,

listen, you know, you've been empowering people all your life. And I said, why? I said, well, you didn't have to name it Fubu. You could have named it Damon John. You know, like most designers name it. You didn't have to name your first book, display of power that we all have the same power in us.

You didn't have to tell people to activate the power broken. You didn't have to go into Shark Tank to invest in other people. And I started to realize that I think that's infectious when you see other people empowered as well as my staff. When you see a staff member that you know started with you in Queens, and now they have kids in college and they've lived the life that they never thought they would have, but they busted their butt. I mean, I think it's empowering. Yeah, I love that. So there it is. That's the simple little test of the sweet spot,

how you use your top talent to do what you love most. You certainly embody that. You really have just laid out what an entrepreneur is. And I think that's a really good concept for people as they're looking into this. You have been intentional whether or not maybe you sat down every morning and said, I've got to do this. But you, I imagine, spend most of your time. doing those things that you love, correct? 100%. 100%. And I love it. Every day, people ask me why do I travel 200 and some odd days a year because it's infectious

and I love what I'm doing. I'm figuring out things. I'm learning things talking to everybody and I'm empowering people. And in return, in a selfish way, it's empowering me. Yeah. Okay, so 2018, what's the environment for entrepreneurs? Is it better than it's ever been in America? I think it's better than it's ever been in America personally.

I just think that you've got to be really stupid if you can't raise money these days out here in the market, right? I think technology has given you every single aspect. You could touch your entire world with a device that's in the palm of your hands. With technology is just amazing. So if you're an entrepreneur who's ready to get up before everybody and go to sleep after everybody, then you can't be stopped. But unfortunately, the platform also has a million other people like that on it. So you're just going to have to figure this thing out. And I think that we're in a world where you can also give at the same time.

A lot of times, you know, in the past, I've said you had to make it and then master it and then try to matter. But now you can make it master it and matter at the same time because, you know, people want to invest in companies that are giving every single time they purchase from you. It's giving to somebody else. And I think that that's a great ecosystem and it's beautiful. So I think it's a really good time to be an entrepreneur. And look what's going on out there in the markets with gender equality and bringing it to light

about everybody else's challenges. And I think the playing field has become equal. If you look at it in the past, you know, let's look at just venture being distributed. 95% of it was distributed from three separate places, California, Boston, and New York. And less than 5% of that went to minorities and females. But then you go and look on something like Kickstarter when they say over 45% of companies backed on Kickstarter are female-owned and operated companies because technology took the face out of it. And now you're starting to see some great things happening.

So amazing time to be an entrepreneur. I want you to weigh in on another. massive shift that I know you're very well aware of. And I want you to just kind of tell us what you think about it. Millennials last year in 2017 became the largest demographic in the workforce. There's more American workers that are millennials than any other generation. That's a big shift. And they are driven, Damon. Top two, this is a CBS study. Top two factors for their career choices are, am I good at the role? Okay, that speaks to strength. And then is this work? Is it meaningful to me? Salary or income would be third on that list. I'm just curious

what your take is on that and how that shapes the future of the economy where a worker is driven, right? You're going to see more and more workers that are driven by more than just how much they make. That's fascinating. I didn't know the stat about are they good at the role. I think that's fascinating and very amazing because, you know, we look at the millennials and so many of us say, well, they just think that they're owed something and things that nature. And this fact that you've given me is obviously opposite of that thought process. I think that's amazing if people are saying that they want now to make sure that they're good at the role and make sure that they're doing the best. So, yeah, that's taking responsibility. And a lot of times, you know, in the past,

the theory of working for a company was, it's all on the company. I'm going to do exactly what I'm told. And a lot of corporations in the past, it used to be you get punished if you don't do something right, but you don't get rewarded if you do something, you know, really great, right? And step outside the box and take chances. So I think that's absolutely amazing. And I'm very proud of our millennials. You know, these kids, they're passionate about something. They'll overthrow a government with Twitter. They won't support you unless they know that every single time they're buying from you, you're helping somebody else. And they're on the clock 24 hours a day. You and I, we grew up, man, you know, listen, don't call me after seven. I'm not at the desk because the phone didn't

sit on my hip, right? But these kids are really amazing. So thank you for that information. Yeah. And I'm curious of how you are looking at the future with 60 companies and I know you're always into something new and you've got that entrepreneurial radar that's just constantly going. What are you looking for in the future? What type of new ventures? If Damon John is going, all right, I might get into this. And I'm not really talking about Shark Tank. I'm talking about just the guy we don't see on TV. What's your process, I guess, for filtering new opportunities? I think sometimes entrepreneurs, the biggest mistakes they make, Damon, are saying yes to something that may not be the right opportunity. It's knowing when to say no. I think that's probably part of your formula, is it not? Yeah, but, you know, I had to learn that the hard way, you know, and I'm into education. I'm into trying to, you know, look at things that I can get information to people, which is digestible at the touch of a button and information of things that really need to be known. I mean, I think there's a lot of information out there that is taking advantage of people's insecurities and teaching the wrong things. But, you know, be very honest, I'm also looking at

you know, the shark tank process is a company doesn't really start to see if they're going to be something of substance, you know, until three, four years after they're air in a shark tank. And, you know, still going into season 10, I take it very serious about being allowed to invest in these other individual dreams. So I still am really thinking about a lot of the shark tank stuff because, you know, these people are depending on me to hopefully push them over the edge. So information on one side, health, anything that I think could benefit myself in regards to

health and the world and then my shark tank partners. I want to come back to something you shared with us that many people may not have known that you did survive thyroid cancer and we're really excited about that and happy that you're healthy right now. But I know that had to be a real wake-up call. I don't understand. It won't even try to act like I might understand what that was like. But I'd love for you to share and what could we leaders when it comes to our health and sometimes you can't control that. You know, that was just a stop sign that life threw at you. How'd you You know, I went out and found out about it because I got an executive physical after I was interviewing Wendy Williams. She was talking about her thyroid challenges. And I realized that in business,

you know, I'll ask every single question. The P&L looks good. And we could be 20% up this year or we could have sold a crap load of something. And I won't just be, yeah, wee, and jump up and down. I'll say, all right, how can we do this better? How could we increase sales and decrease costs and do whatever else I needed to do? And I keep asking questions. But I wasn't asking that. about my health. I'll go to the doctor every year and I'll get a check up in a physical like everybody else will, they'll draw blood, they'll touch my throat to feel if my lymph nodes are swollen. You know, they'll obviously do some other things. But I just still wasn't feeling right. And what's wrong with me? Why am I still sluggish? What's wrong with me? But I wouldn't ask

any other questions like I would in business. And I started to dig deeper and deeper and deeper and found out I had a nodule on my thyroid. So when I went and got this nodule removed because they said it could be cancerous and not, I didn't actually know I had stage. cancer until they had already removed it from my body. And two weeks later, they said, we tested this mask that was in your throat and it was staged due cancer. The scary part about it is not that that happened. The scary part about it was after that.

They said, well, we're not sure if it traveled to your lymph notes or nothing else like that. And you have to keep coming in to get checked and get these cultures taken. And throughout that process, we found that it was almost there, but it never went past my lymph notes and then I'm okay. Wow. Yeah. So it was a scary moment. And I decided at first I wasn't going to tell people about.

it but I figured you know entrepreneurs don't take care of themselves they're so busy trying to pay the bills take care of other people they're too busy they won't get back to it and I realized that the early detection the and the fact that I caught early is the reason why I didn't suffer as much and that I need to make people aware of don't put your head in the sand go out there and get mammograms pap smears colonoscopies endoscopies and the things you need to do or nudge your father your sister your brother to go do it and as I started sharing that with people, you know, in some of my speaking engagements and publicly, I would start getting all these

letters back that somebody would say, I caught something in time because of you. And I realized that maybe that's why I have a public stage. You know, it's to show people, unlike you see other people and they're sick already and you feel bad from me, you see they pass away like my dear friend, Big Ange, if you can see me enjoying myself and still going out there and just working 24 hours and enjoying life 24 hours, that maybe if you get an early detection and you just go there to the doctor and you get yourself checked out, maybe you can be around another 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years for you and your family. That's why I decided to share it with everybody because I want people to be here. We need you. As you've seen your businesses grow, you go from 10 to 20 to 30, 40, 50, 50, 60 now. And then, of course,

your television star, you're writing books. You're all over the place. How do you carve out downtime to make sure that you're not overheating? Because your why is very clear and your passion is very clear. But there's only so many hours in the day that your body and your mind can go at the speed you're going. Yeah, you know, those are the tips I was looking for in Rise and Grind. And my techniques have often been, you know, listen, I travel the world by the age of 35 years old. I travel the world three times. And the entire world was an airport, a boardroom, a hotel, and a restaurant. Wow. And, you know, I started to understand that, you know, like today, I'm going to go running a walking around Texas for quite some time. The rodeo's in town. I may go see some cowboys, you know.

And I'll carve out time every place I can. You know, if I go to L.A., I don't. necessarily stay in a hotel. I go get an Airbnb on the beach and it's not much more than a hotel. And I would go and run and hang out on the beach for three hours in the morning and then two hours in the evening. I'll make my calls while doing that. So I'll always carve out someplace and some time wherever I'm at. I do my goal setting. And then I make sure that I also carve out time for my family. As I share in the book, Rise and Grind, you know, we'll get up in the morning. We'll kiss our kids and then we'll say we'll see them later and kiss our wife and before you know your kids are 25 years old they have their own family and your mom and your parents may have you know lived a great life but they're

no longer around instead i'll carve out time to call my mother and tell her i love her and i'll i'll make sure that you know i take my daughter on a date once every six months because you know how is she going to know how a man should treat her when she first goes on a real date at 17 or 16 or 18 years old, right? I schedule the loved ones in my life. And I know it used to sound cold to me, but if I don't schedule them, guess what I schedule? I schedule the plane. I schedule the conference call. I scheduled the dinner meetings at 8.30. I scheduled the other meetings, and I never scheduled the time to be with my family. And as I started doing that, I've had way more, way more time with them, and I've been able to really enjoy life a little bit more.

Love that. I want to ask you. Didn't ask you this last time I had the chance to interview you. who are the men or women that have had huge influence on your life? You know, it's no secret. My mother, I'm a self-proclaimed mama's boy, and mom is great. And a local person who owned a corner store, a mentor of mine, his name is Tim. I don't even know where he is now. I haven't seen him for many, many years. But I used to go in the store as a kid, and I used to sweep up before I knew what interning was.

And, you know, I used to see how he dealt with his customers, his inventory, you know, dealing with business. And I try to tell everybody out there who wants to try to find these mentors and don't go after the big people you see on TV, go after the local people who've been running businesses and doing things in your community because they know the fundamentals of business. So they've been around 20 years of a successful business in the neighborhood. When my mother got divorced, then my father, I never saw my father after I was 10 years old. And my mother had a boyfriend. And I call him my father even till today. He came my life. And, you know, he happened to be of the Jewish faith, a white man named Steve.

and he became a great mentor to me as well. You know, he opened my eyes to make me realize that love doesn't come in a color or a gender. And he also made me realize that white people are crazy too, you know? Yes, we are. We are. Yeah, because we're all human, right? People think that other people don't have problems, and he just made me understand that we're all human,

and he opened my eyes to so many different things. And even until today, Jay Abraham mentors me. Yeah. I reached out to Jay Abraham to be a mentor. and my staff, you know, the millennials that are coming up who are the smart members of my staff, they show me different ways of working that 20 years ago I would have never even thought of. So I learned from so many people around me, but those were the instrumental mentors in my life. That's really great.

Well, I'm going to give you the last word. I love to ask this question of our guest and just whatever's on your head and heart. We've got an audience full of men and women, 25 to 55 entrepreneurs, business owners, leaders, just personal growth junkies, if they could all sit down and have this big lunch with Damon and you could only say one thing to them to encourage their heart. What would you say to them? I would have to say that mastery is something that you'll realize you never master, and it's a good thing it puts you on a journey, and to make sure that you can learn from every single aspect, every single person around you. We're at a terrible time in one sense in

our country where people are pointing the fingers at everybody because of maybe their color or things of that nature. And I found the most information, the best way that I've had personal growth in my life is from the steves of the world or from the people of the world of other cultures and made me think other ways. Obviously, I've been in my own skin for the last 49 years. So the people around me that grew up, but I already know how we think. I want to learn about the rest of the world and the way the other people think. And that makes me more powerful. So I would say, to understand what mastery is, is if you're a master of something you actually never, ever understand it all, right?

So I try to say that, you know, listen, Muhammad Ali, when he was stripped of his title, when he came out to fight George Foreman, he was no longer the Muhammad Ali that could have danced all night. So he had to learn the rope adobe to fight a different way. If you were Bruce Lee and 30 years old or 35 years old, you were a master of karate. Do you think Bruce Lee at 80 years old would fight the same way? His muscle's not the same. His speed is not the same. So he's going to find another way to be one of the deadliest martial artists in the world. And if you are really taking your craft serious and the craft of life serious, you're constantly learning and do not believe that a name on a card, a number of a bank account, the size of a house, determined success and mastery. That's not mastery.

Mastery is to continue to learn and to continue to empower yourself. Folks, that is a good word. You know him as a shark, but you can tell by listen to him. He's not. not a shark. He's a good man, great heart, great businessman, father, and just an all-around nice guy. I really, really enjoy the conversation. He's Damon John, the book, Rise and Grind, outperform, outwork, and out-hustle your way to a more successful and rewarding life. I like to read books that are titled like that by people who've actually done it, and Damon has done it. Damon, we know you got a lot going on, brother. Thank you for your modeling the way of an entrepreneur, and thanks for hanging out with us.

I appreciate you. Thank you, man. Well, I hope you enjoyed that as much as we did in bringing it to you. And how do you like the free content? Do you like the free content? Well, thanks to Damon and Entree leadership, we're going to bring you the first 3,200 words from this book. The section we're going to give you is entitled All Rise, and Damon's going to charge you up and fire you up to be your best and attack each day.

This is fun. He's going to take you through his shark, acronym. He's got a great little teaching acronym there and more. So all that coming to you free, here's how you get it. You can text the word, Damon, that's his name, D-A-Y-M-O-N-D. Damond. D.D. Text that word to 33-444, or you can get the link in this episode show notes at Entreeleadership.com. Well, I want to continue to pull some great content out of our conversation with Damon John and lead you into a great resource from InfusionSoft. You heard Damon talk candidly about his health care and how it changed his schedule. Now, we know that balance is really not

achievable, and it really has become a myth. But changes are important from time to time, and on a consistent basis, are you assessing where you're at? And InfusionSoft has got a great tool for you this episode. They're going to help you with harmony. I like that. Harmony makes a whole lot more sense than balance, and I think it can be achieved. This resource is going to give you actionable tools, some apps and techniques from people who have figured this out. What are best practices in this area of harmony in your life? How do you work smarter? How do you make the most of your time?

Our friends at Infusionsoft are going to do it for you. The resource is available for you at infusionsoft.com slash worklife balance. That's infusionsoft.com slash worklife balance. All right, I told you at the top of the program that we had some breaking news, some bulletin. Can I get some breaking news sounds here? Can I get something? All right, very nice, gentlemen. Thank you to Will and Tim for that sound effect.

I know it's just made everybody's life better. So what is this breaking news? And by the way, this is not fake news. Okay? This is real coming your way. Next week, hard to believe. The Entree Leadership Summit from San Antonio, Texas is coming your way. And they work me like a pack mule.

We're going to be getting all kinds of content each day coming to you from the summit. And you're going to love this. We did this last year, right, Will? That's right. We're turning it around again. So Will the producer, Eric, the director now. He's a big shot.

He's got a new title. And Chris Wright, who is the producer of the Business Boutique program, they're going to be working together to bring you four episodes next week. That's Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. And it's coming from Summit. This isn't prepackaged.

This is fresh. It's not on a delivery truck. It's coming to you right off the counter. How do you like that? So we're going to bring you exclusive content for free because we love you. And so make sure you're subscribed. Tell people about it. You're going to get your normal podcast episode as you do every Monday morning.

So you're going to get really five episodes in one week. Give you four bonus episodes coming to you from the Entree Leadership Summit. So be aware of that. Well, that's going to do it. On behalf of Will the producer Tim, the engineer in the entire on Tray Leadership Team. Thank you for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon.