Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Undefeated Founder James Bond on Risk, Creative, Being Real

Episode Date: August 25, 2016

James Bond, co-founder of Undefeated, is one of the most recognized and well-curated sneaker boutiques in the world. In This Episode: -Growing up mixed race in a tough Philadelphia neighborhood -The impact his grandpa had on his sense of style -Abusing alcohol & drugs from the early age of 11 -Dealing with anger growing up -Wanting to be someone he wasn’t -Moving from Philadelphia to LA and his introduction into sneaker heads -How he got into show business -Evolving from shoes to a designing a clothing line -What triggers his creativity -The importance of valuing family_________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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And, you know, we're wanting to understand the inner, the mental skills and the way that they understand how to refine the mental part of the game to refine their craft. And these conversations, they're rich. And because of that, we've also opened up another podcast called Minutes on Mastery, which are insights and applied gems from those on the path of mastery and sent to you, you know, under three minutes a day. And it's just a way to stay fresh and current with some of the past conversations and some of the current ones as well. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high-performing environment that I've been part of, from elite teams to executive boardrooms, one thing holds true. Meaningful relationships are at the center of sustained success. And building those relationships, it takes more than effort. It takes a real caring about your people. It takes the right tools, the helping you find the right people that are ready to engage,

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origins of it, entrepreneurship. He talks about the origins of it, entrepreneurship. He talks about how much he cares about helping others become their very best and how he builds culture around it. And his path is windy and it's beautiful. And it's gone through rugged times and it's gone through dark times. And he openly talks about who he's becoming, who he wants to be and the path that he's taken to get there. And I just feel every time I'm around James, I feel better for it. And so thank you, James. And that's a really special trait that is almost an intangible that I don't know how

to measure it or quantify it. However, it's true. And so there's a spirit about him that I hope translates in this conversation. If you're interested in risk-taking, if you're interested in the thinking that supports risk-taking, this conversation will be there for you. And if you want to understand strength and like real strength, the strength to be open, the strength to be vulnerable, the strength to go forward, That's what he represents. And, you know, the transparency that he honors in that process is beautiful and wonderful.

And he's just a flat out creative, creative period. And so honored to know you, honored to have this conversation and share with you. So let's jump right into it with James Bond. James Bond. Here we are. Yes, finally. Finally. All right.

So I feel like, I don't know, I'm a little bit cooler now that we're doing this because like, you're the cool guy. I don't know if I'm the cool guy, but thanks. I knew you were going to say that. And like all the cool kids say that, right? But I imagine like you've created a brand and you represent street wear. And I don't know if that's exactly the right way to describe it. But seriously, cool kids wear your stuff that you created. And I don't know if that's like, I don't know if I'm thinking too shallow.

But after knowing you for a while, you certainly see the world differently. You're authentic. You've got a clear philosophy or philosophies that guide you. And you've made a big influence on urban wear. And is any of that feel unfair to say? Because that's the way I've seen and learned you as we've known each other. Well, I mean, thanks. I mean, that's always nice to, you know, when mean, thanks. I mean, that's always nice to, you know, when people have good thoughts about you, it's, that's always a positive, you know, my book. But, um, I mean, I think there have been so many pioneers in our industry and I think to

add a piece to it, you know, I don't have to write the whole book, but it's nice to have a chapter in that book, in my opinion. So what's the book in your mind you know if there's if the is is it a urban urban wear is that the book is it i think it's more uh culture you know like uh the anti-establishment culture you know from we're in that section of hip-hop fashion streetwear by default you know sportswear kind of collab. Then, you know, you have people that have the punk category, you have the, you know, there are so many different categories of kind of the anti-establishment is kind of how it was started, right? You know, with hip hop was anti-establishment, you know, they couldn't even get on MTV, you know, and then all of a sudden it became popular culture. So by default, we've become popular culture because

people are, want to be a part of that anti-establishment because if they feel like oh i'm not part of the system even though we are now part of the system ironically what was that like as soon as you know i think volcom which is a surf company like that's what they stand for yeah yeah but i don't think that they are they're like mainstream now you know they started with a bit of that well it started with uh you know danny kwa was one of their investors so he was coming from a really big established machine which was quicksilver but he still was rooted in kind of that newport beach subculture you know so like alex nost and jeff yokohama and all those guys were always on the

fringe they so they were turning these company they're small companies to big companies because big companies were gobbling them all up. But then they always kind of kept their little projects and kept them core. And over time, people just kept gravitating to them because they were authentic and they were true to what they were doing. So let's start, I want to go through this whole progression because you started, I love the word core. I grew up with that as being a really important word for me as well. And so you grew up, I want to know how you grew up and I want to know like what were the influences that shaped you to see the world just a little differently and to have that counterculture vibe. And then what was it like going from counterculture with all of that chip on your shoulder? And I'm putting that word, that phrase and then, and then becoming the brand and then becoming the go-to for big brands like Nike and Adidas and, you know, I think a six as well, like you, you've become a go-to for them. So I want to follow that journey. And then I also want to know like, what are you up to next? And you know, what's driving

you. So let's go way back. Like, what was it like growing up to just to set the framework a little bit for us? Well, growing up, I grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. My parents are mixed. So my dad is black. My mom's white. What do you identify with? I don't know, to be completely honest with you. And it's kind of one of those things that, you know, not to put myself out there, but I go and see somebody to help me work through what that is.

Like how do I identify with who you are today? I would not have known looking at you that dad was black yeah you probably get that a lot uh you know when I was younger people would ask me they were like you're not are you mixed are you Italian are you I would have thought Italian yeah um even when I go to Italy people speak to me in Italian that's amazing so I'm gonna go move to italy in my older life and pretend to be italian but uh you know i grew up with um because of the section i grew i grew up in germantown which predominantly black neighborhood i went to predominantly black school growing up it was one of those scenarios where when i grew up, race really didn't matter in the city of Philadelphia where I grew up because everyone was the same. It was Germantown.

It wasn't the greatest neighborhood. What was it called? Germantown. German? Germantown. Oh, German, like as in the country? Yeah, like the country. So just growing up, you just kind of, this is what I see.

This is the six to ten blocks that I'm in. This is what I see. This is the six to 10 blocks that I'm in. This is what I see. This is what I am. OK. Brother and sister. They to this as they're adults and have children, they relate more to if they have to pick a side, more my dad's side than my mom's side. My brother's more involved in the culture. He's a barber, lives in Wilmington, Delaware.

My nephews both go to Lincoln University. My sister, she married a black gentleman and they have a daughter. So it's like they really kind of, you know, they more, they affiliated themselves. They felt more like this is where I'm at. You know, my grandmother was a huge influence on both my brother and sister. I grew up more on the influence while my grandfather was Quaker, built his Quaker meeting house in Downingtown. He was a big influence because he was more nature based. Is that on mom's side? Mom's side. Mom's side. Yeah. Okay. And you're older? I'm the oldest. You're the oldest. Okay. All right. So I kind of, I was more, you know, I gravitated more to him because of who he was as an individual.

Not so much race, but more of just his ethos in life. Oh, okay. Which was what? What was that? He was a peaceful guy. He was very man of the land. He built his home that my mom and I grew up in. No hardware.

It was all joints and carvings. He had a real special, unique way of working with his hands. Okay, hold on. Pause now. This is really cool because that's kind of how I see you right like okay what okay I'm gonna pause on my thought but when when did you first get attracted to to your grandfather how old were you uh I mean it was a young age because you know we'd go out and see him and you know he had a house with all this land and we'd be in the their creek, we'd be, you know, kind of taking walks with him. And he just, he would stop in the middle of a walk and break down a tree and or break down like the foliage around it, like all those things. So he knew his stuff.

He knew he was a man of the land, so to speak. And what always attracted me to kind of his style, which leads me to who I am today, is the general store. You know, he went to the general store every season and got like the three to four shirts, the two suits, the two pairs of shoes. Like everything he bought was in a general store at that era, late 60s, early 70s. So I was always attracted to the fact that he, to this day, his color palette is my color palette in life. You know, it's all those things i can kind of point back to my grandfather okay and the age again was like this was like six seven eight i was yeah i was probably in my guess like eight nine ten eleven do you remember what it felt like when

you were learning about the trees and you're around your grandfather like what what captured you i think the vastness of that there was more to life than the six to eight blocks that I saw in Philadelphia. Oh, that contrast. Exactly. So it was like, you know, we were, it was hard. Like, I'm not going to, you know, I don't want to glamorize poverty, but you know, it was hard, but you know, I think my parents definitely loved this. I didn't feel neglected or not loved. It just, you knew that you could tell that there was a difference of the haves and have nots where we were at. so when you said poverty it's strong word and that's what it was like growing up i mean we had clean clothes we had food but it wasn't like we were balling out you know that's definitely

setting you like yeah okay i'm thinking of my dad right now yeah and so i don't my dad didn't grow up in poverty but um it was it was hard for him and um so i want to tell you a funny story if i can yeah is it so dad says uh mike you have no idea what it's like to grow up on a wish sandwich yeah yeah do you know what that is i do you wish you had some meat between this bread oh my god so did you have is that what i was like never had a wish sandwich but i mean you know, it was like my dad had worked in the clothing industry. You know, he had a store called Zwickles and then I was, what was it called? It's called Zwickles. It was named after an older gentleman.

They took over the store when he passed away. And then they had a couple other stores called Kicks and Lids, which basically was footwear and can go hats or different, you know, Stetsons or whatever it was. Um, so growing up in that industry, you know, the, the margin is what it is and you're only going to make so much money. My mom was a nurse. Um, you know, so, and there were three of us, there were five total people to, to, to take care of. So, you know, they, they stretch what they could and do what they did. Okay. Got it. Okay. All right. So, um, attracted to your dad and, uh, it was different than the six blocks you grew up in and the six blocks were, you know, poverty, low, lower income. Yeah. Lower income. Okay. No row houses, you know, some regular Philadelphia

nonsense. Okay. All right. And then what were some of the other people or events that began to shape your way of viewing the world for just from a young age? Because I never would have known that your grandfather's color palette and the intrigue that you had that he understood things deeply and used his hands was kind of the origins of what you're creating now. Yeah. Okay. So what were some of the other of what you're creating now. Okay. So what, what were some of the other events that shaped your life? Other events? I mean, it's,

it's hard. I mean, I'm 21 years sober. You know, some of the early events was that I was using, you know, drugs and getting drunk at an early age. It's 12, 13 years old when I started.

So it's like those events, those kids that I went to school with, um, or some of those events, you know, like, uh, we moved out of the city when I was 12. Um, you know, for my parents felt like the city was getting really harsh for us to live in. And, you know, Philadelphia was a really hard city at that time with the city was bankrupt. There was no work. Um, so we moved out to rural Pennsylvania to a place called Oxford. And that juxtaposed to the Philadelphia, whereas being a mixed family in the early 80s was kind of like you might as well be in Mississippi in the 60s. Like, you know, it's the first time in my life I was ever called a nigger. Wow.

You know, it was the first time where I heard my mom kind of spit at and yelled at in the grocery store. It was really, it was a crazy, crazy change. What was that like? Do you remember the moment when somebody called you that? I was more like shocked that people got away with that. I was like, wow, there's no one going to say anything? Because like no one got my back here. Like, are we going to go?

Like, what is, I don't even know what to tell you. Yeah. You know. How old were you? Was that 12, 13? Like, what is, I don't even, I don't even know what to tell you. Yeah. You know, how old was that? 12, 13. Yeah. I was about 12 years old. I mean, we'd heard it before we would go on family vacation and we'd go to Disneyland

and Orlando all the time. Okay. And, uh, we would, my dad loved to do road trips. So we would drive down and you would hear that shit. You're just like, you would be shocked, you know, but I was like a kid, you know, it's like, well, what are you going to do? And my dad was very calm about it. He's like, well, we can't fight the whole world.

And we start something. I got the kids with me as i get older and i have killed children i realized like you get you can only escalate something and go with it but so far okay um so it is what did you want your dad to do you know my dad he was he was a large man he's you know about six four two hundred some pounds he was a big guy how big are you about five ten maybe two hundred you carry yourself bigger you know yeah i mean it was out of like what i don't know fear or something yourself i guess what i always wanted for him or for myself uh was him to kind of just flex like yo you got a big afro you're a big dude you're power like let's let's knock somebody down like i got you you know um i got your back

put him up dad i'm way back here yeah yeah uh but he just he was never that dude you know so it's it is what it is you know okay and then um when mom was hissed at or pissed um spit on was it that did you say that she had she had or spit on, was it that? Did you say that? Yeah, she had people spit on her. She had people say horrible stuff to her. My God. In front of the kids.

You're just like, whoa, that's crazy. And so then go back. I want to learn your response there. The response there was more like just bummed. I don't even think I could put like look back and point up like what was that emotion that i had i think it was just beyond shock you're almost like uh you it's like you block like you kind of block it out like most people probably you know it's like man that didn't happen you know in your mind you just push it away and then over you just build

new memories on top of that i guess okay cool um, cool. Um, I can't imagine, I really can't imagine the, what that's like, you know, like I, I, I never had that experience. I know what it's like to feel helpless and feel embarrassed and feel like bad for another person, but I'd never had that. Um, I never had that experience. So, um, this is me just trying to be curious about how did you use that? How has that helped you hurt you? How have you facilitated or used your early experiences to be one of the most successful culture builders in the world? I mean, sadly, anger was our, was my energy. Okay. So that, so things like, you know, anger, know anger uh hate like i would learn even you know in recreational sports i stopped playing a few years ago but even in sports like i can tune into

something and hate it so much that that would be the energy that would let me play that sport at a high you know at a high rate like whether it's football soccer whatever we were doing it was like okay i hate that dude that's my goal is to i want him to feel the hurt that i feel but in another way you know on top of like i said i wasn't you know i was using till i was 25 26 a lot of that was um kind of suppressed self-medicated so it was a lot of also unnecessary anger that when I finally sobered up that I just never dealt with and realizing a later, you know, maybe 10, 15 years ago where it was like, man, there's a lot of stuff in here that I need to not push on to other people because that shit has nothing to do with anybody else. Yeah. One of the, I think we'll accept the

truisms in addiction is, you shame are things that keep people drunk. You know, like that piece there. And when did you first start using? I was probably, I was about 11, 11. Whoa, pretty young. 12 when it was pretty consistent. How'd you get exposed that early? Just because my neighborhood, a friend of mine on my block in Philly, his mom was suffering glaucoma.

And she would leave, you know, joints around the house and we'd snatch one here or there. We'd smoke a little bit. And then, uh, it wasn't, I moved out to the country, had a couple of friends that he had an older brother. So we always had a little bag here, a little bag there. And there was always some beer in the, in the fridge, in the garage. And, you know, you just kind of did your thing throughout the course of the day. It's like, again, we're living in rural Pennsylvania. There's not a lot of stuff to do. If you're not on a sports team, you know, there's some downtime.

And then when did that become problematic? It never really – I was kind of like a functioning drunk at that point, you know, through my high school years. And it wasn't until it really – I would say when I moved out of my parents' house and was on my own and I moved back to Philadelphia. When I moved back, that's when it really started to become an issue, like work, party, work, party. It was just like continuous. And it was like a string of like bartending jobs, waiter jobs, like just stuff you do when you're 18, 19, 20 years old. Somehow I think you're 18, 19, 20 year olds. Yeah. All

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Just head to FelixGray.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at FelixGray.com for 20% off. Okay. Did you always know that you were on the creative spectrum? I wouldn't say I knew I was on the creative spectrum, but I knew that. And even when I, I'd never really worked for anybody. I always had like a nit, like fringe jobs. And, and I was talking about this this morning with somebody, I said, when I, when the going got tough, I just said, you know what? It's not that important. I'm out. And I would, I'd never really stuck with anything. And I don't know if that was due to lack of maturity or just really not standing for anything at that time, because I hadn't found really what I wanted to stand for. And then over time, um, you know, I got to build

up a tolerance to like the shitty manager at, you know, soup plantation or whatever at the university of Pennsylvania. He's like, dude, you got to change the soup that's burning. And I was like, I don't give a shit. You know, it's like, I'm a stoner. What do you want me to do? So, you know, just endless job after endless job after endless job. And in between all of that, you know, I lived on Christian Street, which was a big kind of the dividing line between heroin and crack in Philadelphia, Christian and Broadway or Broad Street. So on one side was heroin, the other side was crack. And it was just a war every day. You were an adult?

I'd moved there when I was about 19. This is after you moved out of the house? Yeah, after I moved out of my house. And you chose to live there? I had a friend who lived there, and he said, oh, I've got a couple of bedrooms. You guys can crash with us. He went to the Philadelphia College of the Arts, which was right in that neighborhood. Okay, got it.

So a good friend of mine from high school, one my best friends he and i moved there together and then uh we we had a job at tower records we worked at o'hara's fish house like we just had crap jobs but we were going to punk shows we were punk rock you know we would go to punk shows we would travel to see bands and it was just working to go on the next little vacation you know we were just trying to do as much as we can and see as much as we could because we hadn't at that point in our lives you know did you study did you study your craft i studied life and you know that makes sense you know like what everything i learned after that point was either okay how to be a gentleman was uh i read in a magazine or i read in a book like you know things like make sure you, how you, how you,

how you present yourself, you know, the etiquette, like, wait, I sit at a table. How do you eat? How do you open the door for the woman? Like all these things that I just kind of was like, I want to be that person because I don't want to be this person that I am. Ooh, I want to understand that. Yeah. So I want to understand like that discourse, because I think that that is so common for that's universally common is that there's a part, there's something I want to be, but I'm this guy or I'm this woman, right? That sounds weird. Me saying that out loud. But like there's, there's, there's a version of me that I want to experience. But the gap between those two is, I think this, this is the place that I

want to understand better because I think that's universally true. There's a better, and I'm not sure, like for me, um, even when I use the word version, it's like for a long time, for a long time, I've said, okay, what does 3.0 look like for you? What does version 3.0 look like? And in me, that, that for me, that's meant to be a, um, an honorable thing, like we're growing and there's a progression there's, there's more to install or update or reveal is actually the way it is. So did you have this idea that it was something outside a person outside of you that you wanted to be, or was it you expanding from within to touch those things about chivalry or honor or gentleman-ness? Well, I mean, I think it sounds weird when I say it out loud, but it's kind of like manifest your, you know, there's like a quote or something.

But anyway, it's like manifest your destiny. Yeah. So in my mind, I always thought, you know, one captain of your soul that, but it's also my early morning runs. Like I worked out a lot as a kid, like I ran a lot and, um, not a lot of weight training, but I did a lot of like meditation stuff without knowing I was doing meditative stuff, like long walks. I love to walk. I love to drive. So sometimes I would just get in my car and just drive for hours because it was such a freedom, you know, it's like freedom I never had growing up. Um, and I'd always think of like, I need to get to this point you know whether it's like

with anything right I know I'm bigger than this waiter's job that I'm doing so maybe I want to be the chef so let me learn how to cook so I taught myself how to cook or you know I never thought of where I'm sitting today I've exceeded my expectations I never thought I would get this far but it was always in my mind knowing that there is a bigger picture out there for me I just don't know what it is so let me just go with what I'm going with and make the best of every opportunity that I'm given. So except for soup plantation, except for soup plantation, because that guy was, he was a dick. He was the worst guy ever. Okay. But that'd have to do with like, was that thought, um, a predominant thought while you were using as well. And when you got sober, like it was, I mean, let me decode it really quickly.

Let me, let me, I want to make sure that we're saying the same thing is that there's, I want to grow. I'm not sure in what direction. If I'm in the, if I'm in the restaurant business, I want to go from waiter to chef. Cause that's the guy that's doing some cool stuff that I don't know how to do yet. The chef part was like the creative part. Like, it's like, what is it that you're feeding someone's soul is, was my thought, right? So as I worked in O'Hare's fish house, I'd watch the line chefs and I'm like,

you guys can make this look better. And at a point I ended up being on the line with those guys and I ended up cooking in those restaurants over time. But again, it's back to, I got to a certain point where even the drugs and alcohol, it's still for me, it was like, it became a part of my personality. Not that I wanted to wake up and puff and drink and then go to work. It's like it became like a task. Like, oh, fuck, I got to get up and smoke some weed and do this.

I just didn't have the maturity to stop or say, you know what, let's pump the brakes and cool out. You don't need to do this every day. So I base it all really on maturity. Like I could have stopped well now i say it in hindsight but i wish i could have stopped much earlier because i feel like i wasted some blocks of time just being a knucklehead where it was like oh that's what's expected of james is to really didn't graduate high school on time that's what's expected of me let me just keep manifesting this craze but knowing that i just wasn't interested in what they were teaching. I just wasn't interested in the nonsense that they were teaching at this school and how they segregated the kids in that school because the population of black kids were so small that, you know, they were just like, oh, just just put them in the back.

They're not going to go anywhere, anywhere. They're just going to work at the mill or they're going to work the mushroom houses or, you know, it's it was rough. It was hard to watch, you know it's it was rough it was hard to watch you know and then looking the way i'd look i would hear if you didn't know i catch people saying some outlandish stuff sometimes you know you're just like whoa that yeah because you look you're that dude you look you look italian or romantic in that way and so you'd hear people talk about you'd hear people saying some outlandish about everybody black people mexicans whatever and then you're just like, okay, cool. I know where you're at now.

So I want you to school me up a little bit on what is the right, what is the right way to reference as a white man? Is it black African-American? Like, I don't know if there's one way to say it, but it feels like, um, I don't know, white, black, African-American, Caucasian. That feels really formal. And then one of my friends, he says, brother, I'm not from Africa. I'm from the Caribbean.

And so like maybe originally, but I identify with the roots there. So I don't know. I'm just asking like what – You know, I don't know. I mean it's really the individual you have the conversation with. You have some people that are hypersensitive and really want that kind of that pro whatever and for me it's like i am what i am i you take me as as is there's no hidden agenda you know and i think as people know me they also they know that there's no hidden trap doors anywhere it's like

if you ask me i'll tell you i'm really not kind of trying to hide from anything or anybody so is transparency value that uh a character value that you have it's something i've learned to do you know i've been married 15 almost 16 years have two kids and i'm very transparent with my kids but i think also i've learned over time that you know it's it's easier on my relationship with my wife to be born like you know this know, this is what's up. You know, this is where my head's at. There's no mystery. Cause then I think I've learned over time that going into that mystery zone with her, it causes her to be uncomfortable. And I don't, I don't really want my wife to be uncomfortable.

And when it's something that can be easily solved by just having a conversation. There you go. Okay. All right. So it's taken a long time to learn that. Seriously. So anyone listening, don't think I have all the answers. All right. So if we go back, then you had, um, you wanted to grow, you weren't sure what direction and then keep going. Cause this is great. Yeah. Because that takes courage is like, that's what I was asking. Like, was that pre-drugs and post drugs? Cause that takes a lot of courage. It was still using a lot. Um, and then I moved to California the first time in the early nineties. Why?

Cause there was nothing really going on in the city for me. Um, I kind of felt like, Oh, let's just go, let's, let's go do this. So I moved out to California. Packed up with how much money? Uh, I probably had a, you know, I probably had a couple grand in my pocket. I had a credit card. Um, I had a friend who lived in Santa Monica. Came out, hung out with her for a bit, and then I fell into a job at Nana on the promenade. Walking down the alley, kind of just cruising for the day, and I got hit with a box accidentally.

And the kid came out. I was like, oh, man, I'm sorry. Are you okay? Because they were throwing boxes out the back door because they had just moved into this new warehouse. And I was like, yeah, yeah, I'm good, I'm good. And he was like, oh, you need a job? And I was like, yeah, yeah, I'm good. I'm good. And he was like, oh, you need a job? And I was like, actually, yeah, I do need a job. Do I look like it?

I think it was more like, oh, you look like one of us. Come on in. We need some dudes to come in and work. And then I helped him move the warehouse from. Did you look like a sneakerhead? Did you look like a. No, at the time, no, no. When I worked there, I had a shaved head and was wearing Vans, Dickies, white shirt.

I looked like a L.A. kid, you know. Did you have that wear back in Philly or did you say did you. Yeah, I had the same style. I mean, I was based on my grandfather's kit. You know, it's kind of that Brooks brother, Philadelphia preppy. I worked for a real estate company very quickly in Philly and that was, they sent me to Brooks Brothers to buy clothes because I had to deliver like documents and stuff back and forth from the city to the office. So they gave me a stipend to go buy a few shirts, a couple of pairs of pants, some loafers. So I looked like a young preppy college kid. Wow. So real estate just

threw me off, right? Because like it was like bouncing around job to job, puffing and drinking a little bit directionless. You found a couple of things that you wanted to you identified the creative aspiration, like from the to get onto the line for cooking. And then I thought you're kind of going down that path. So somewhere in there, you said, let me try on. Well, I worked for a friend of mine who had a part of Valley Parking Company and we parked cars. I did that on the side. I was worth a lot of money just like tips we did really well we're a veteran stadium for the eagles phillies um and a lot of clubs in the city he had a parking garage where he had us work uh work there two days a week uh just watching the garage paying people paying us to park there for one of the buildings

in that building was that real estate firm the guy's car that i took care of washed and everything he was like oh you'd be a good assistant a good runner for me a couple days a week so that's i kind of again many inclinations of falling into something that taught me like oh man there's bigger there's bigger and better things got it so each move you made it sounds like at some point each move you made was it sounds like at some point each move you made was. It became strategic at some point. Yeah. And it was up. It wasn't lateral or down. It was like to a bigger something.

I always figured if I'm going to do something, let me at least take a couple steps up so that at least I'll learn a new greeting or a handshake or just little subtle things that as I get older, I find that are helpful for me in different situations. Wow. Okay. So this is, I was trying to kind of in my mind, map out like a theme or almost like a chapter headings, you know, for the first part of your books, you know, or what our collection here. And it feels like it's, I don't want to put any words there. Maybe, maybe you can spark that a little bit, but this, it feels like this is the beginnings and the origins of, of growing this want to grow, not exactly what direction, but just wanting to grow. And it's also having to deal with the multiples of people. So part of the thing is where I feel like the advantage of being biracial is that I'm comfortable with everybody. Like I don't feel

uncomfortable with somebody specifically. So, you know, I had an employee that now is a coach at the University of Connecticut, I believe. Main or Connecticut. Anyway, he was always a student graduate coach of football. And one day we were talking and he goes, the one thing about you is like you can sit in a room with anybody and converse with anybody. And there's no like feeling of weird. You can sit in a room with a bunch of homeboys, a bunch of Mexican cats people and it's all equal you know if you went to jail right now you got the three kind of segregated spots yeah i don't know if this is a fair question yeah you gotta think about that sometimes yeah

you know i i don't know i don't know what would happen to be honest with you yeah and it's ironic because i again part of my life oh there's I worked in a spot where I worked in a factory. And in that factory, there was, this is back on the East coast. Yeah. Before you came west, before I came to west.

Yeah. Where it was segregated. There was black side of the locker room, a white side. And because I didn't know, I just kind of posted up wherever. And the older white guys were like, what's wrong with you,

man? Like, don't you know, like what's up? And I was like, well, I don't know. I'm new. I'm from Philadelphia older white guys were like what's wrong with you man like don't you know like what's up and i was like well i don't know i'm new i'm from philadelphia and they're like oh that makes sense you're northerner okay so you go over there by yourself until you figure out where you want to participate and this was working i won't say the name of the factory because they're still in business but it was like at a place where you're like holy smokes like that's crazy yeah Yeah. It's still happening. Yeah. There's some heavy stuff going down in our country right now about race and tension. And do you have a point of view about it that is clear? Not, I mean, the point of view is that it's sad that in 2016, that there's still so much fear that people just immediately react.

Like there's no – it's not so much a life and death situation every single time. But because there's so much tension that it's a powder keg. It's bound to happen. It happens so much now just driving down the street. People just immediately go right on the attack because you just don't know if that person is loaded, if he's what he's doing. So you're just, you're reacting based out of fear, you know? Yeah. Fair. Okay. And part of like, you know, to just one small part of that is that a lot of the training that I'm doing today, you know, currently, is it really to teach me how to not be that person training physical or mental both physical and

mental yeah or on the physical side because i think knowing that if you can walk in somewhere and handle your business and take care of yourself you're not as quick to react out of fear you're more looking let me assess the situation entry exit and who's the players and so on and so on that gives you an extra minute to go like you know what it's not worth it i can pump my brakes and walk out and that's um mma stuff or is that specifically jujitsu specifically jujitsu yeah okay um how long you been training not long uh since the top of the year was given to me as a gift with the at a at a private space that was really you know kind of like i cannot say no now okay yeah so somebody in that uh private space, I was really, you know, kind of like, I cannot say no now. Okay. Yeah. So somebody in that private space, welcome to it. A partner of mine gave me the invite to train with Chris. And I was like, I got to go.

You want to give him some love? Because we have a mutual friend. Maybe he doesn't want the love on air, but we have a mutual friend that's also there. And it feels like it's a really special place. Yeah. It's not, I mean, you see a lot of amazing, interesting guys in there. Normally people that you would never, you know, like you wouldn't think about. And then all of a sudden you're like, man, a lot of these guys are pretty amazing. What's it like? I don't know. Are you 40s?

I don't know how old you are. 47. 47. What's it like to learn a new skill at 47? And it's a hard skill. It's hard. It's physical. Yeah.

You know, I'm a little sore today, but, uh, it's one of those things where I think it's just part of the whole, where we've been going. It's a constant learning experience, right? I think the minute you stop affording yourself the ability to learn something, it's, it's over, you know, in my mind. I love it. That's a, that's a big statement there. Yeah. Okay. So let me go back to Los Angeles. Yeah. Now you're in LA and you had a box thrown at you. You looked kind of like the guy that threw the box.

He said, you need a job. I did look like this kid. His name was knob. Ironically, I bumped into him about two months ago as a barista. He owned his own coffee shop. He's had so many different sets of life as well. So it's just pretty interesting. Okay. So then how do you settle in on wanting okay go go to that place you're bouncing around a little bit you're you have this appetite to grow you finally found

a home it sounds like with um with clothes or or shoes or so urban wear it sounds like and maybe i'm feeling i was like uh in the 90s was punk wear so it was like dr martin's monkey boots um ska was kind of like uh early grunge days so we were selling a lot of flannel and stussy was kind of blowing up at the time yeah we won the first one of the stores at stussy um and met a really one of my best friends to this day um i met him there and uh we got a place in silver lake what's met his last name uh ray campbell he's an actor now yeah yeah um he was actor then too but you know everyone's an actor and you're a designer no i was still i hadn't really designed it

still was like trying to figure out what i was going to be so you had no idea that you were going to design and you're you're now 1920 21 in 21 in that, in that range. I'm in my early twenties. Um, at that point, I don't know what I'm doing. Right. I'm still hanging out. I'm still partying. And LA was like the wild West in the early nineties, you know, the clubs, uh, you know, I remember seeing Nirvana with like five people in the room at Jabberjaw and Pico where it was like, no one went below down on Pico was a huge gang neighborhood. just having fun you know enjoying myself you didn't slip into gangs um i don't know yeah just never i never did i mean i'm not a big crowd person i'm not i'm good with like two three homies that's about it i'm not like one to

i know a lot of people i'm cool with a lot of people but i have like a very small core group of friends you could kind of paint that that picture where you could go that way yeah but you didn't there's something unique about uh maybe your your spirit of who you are you know like wanting dad to flex that that that beginning seeds of like stand for something you didn't see it you had some homies that would want it to flex and then before you know it you're sucked into initiation i don't know maybe that's part of the truth is i didn't like to get hit i've been in plenty of fights you know like everyone has a plan to get punched did you fight as a kid there was a not so much as a kid but more like teen and you know older teen years what did you learn from that i'd like to i'd like to i mean the famous

what mike tyson quote is everyone has a plan to get punched in the face yeah and it's true like you know everyone's puffed up and then all of a sudden somebody gets smacked. You're like, oh, wait a minute. You know what I value? I don't, I'm not ascribing violence by any means, but the moment where it's about to happen and there's no turning back, you could run. Right. times I'm not saying that that's a good, good, uh, the worst decision, but that moment where you drop your hips, you drop your weight and you stand your ground that moment. And I don't know, I haven't had any other life experiences that have allowed that type of commitment to be felt other than something that scares me out in the ocean. And maybe I'm missing something,

but do you remember those moments? I remember those moments. And part of like your point of where there's no turning back. Yeah. I couldn't run because that just wasn't who I was. And I knew that that would eat at me. You know, there's conversations that I should have had 20 years ago that eats at me to this day. This right here, right here. It's this thing right here that we're talking about, which is that philosophy, the awareness of your philosophy, that if I turn my back, it's going to be more painful. And I use that as a metaphor. We're talking about fighting right now, but I use that metaphor for love. I use that metaphor for business.

I use that metaphor for risk-taking. And I feel like you're on the same same idea with this i want to cut my losses to like the least amount right like i want to have the least amount of regrets at the end of the day and i hate having like regret like ah i wish i just stood up for myself in this situation it would have been so much better in the long run you know even to and even to this day, even like in business or whether, you know, my team is designing something and I'm very much, this is how I need it to be. I'm going to give you my piece. I'm going to give you my thoughts. And from that, I want you to put it through your lens.

And, but I'm saying it from the beginning, not after the fact, you know, I didn't waste someone's time. I didn't disrespect their process. Um, cause I think that's the hardest part is people feeling respected, heard or seen. I think when you don't say what you want from the beginning to come at it at the end, you haven't respect their lead up to that process, the process that lead up to that process. There's a lot of wisdom on what you just said. People don't say it again. People don't, the hard part is when people are not seen, felt, felt heard. Like, so you're, that, felt, heard. Yeah. Like, so you're, that's part of your guiding philosophy. It sounds like to honor other people, but you say your piece up front so that you're

not backdooring opening traps every time. But part of back to that, turning your back is kind of that philosophy where like, I don't want to turn my back anymore. Let me tell you what's on my mind, tell you what's up front. So, you know, if you know where I'm coming from, then the mistakes, the opportunity for loss or any of those other things are completely cut out of the mix okay so i want to understand how you become aware of the vision that you're going to articulate to share with others and i also want to know are you approaching success in life or are you avoiding failure that's a good point yeah is it no no regrets or is it be bold well i think you want to be bold

i want to be bold but why did you just change that word there you to i oh because i guess well well as i if i say you is because that's how i would talk to my that's what i would say to my children okay yeah i say i myself because well now in the moment I'm going to say from my perspective, you're going to like own that almost instead of distance yourself from it. I'd rather be bold and lose than be quiet, meek and not ever try. Okay. So the philosophy, so, so now we're sharpening this. The philosophy is not to mitigate risk. It's not to avoid regret. That's part of it. Well, you don't learn anything if you don't try. Right. And if there's going to be some risk and failure, that's the only way you continue to grow. Right. And I'm not afraid to fail. Come on. And that's why I've continued.

Look, I've done tons of things that have failed, but I'm still here. It hasn't killed me. You know, okay. I'm not going to go drive on the freeway and try to do 200 miles an hour, but like, that's, that's just, that's crazy. I'm going to fail, but I'm not going to go drive on the freeway and try to do 200 miles an hour. That's just crazy. I'm going to fail, but I'm also going to die. Whereas I'm not afraid to, if we're talking about just apparel, put out something that I was like, you know what? Let's try it. I'm feeling it. Let's plant the flag. It didn't work. It's like, well, it didn't put me out of business. And you know what? If it did put me out of business, I'll learn that lesson and I'll do something else. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't

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for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. Okay. So I was just kind of doing like a jerk move, like, come on, you know, like, but, but really that's honest to you that,

that, that, um, you're not trying to avoid failure. You're trying to live boldly and be inspired and go for it and put chips in. Yes. The failure would be if I didn't try, the failure would be if I didn't walk through the door every day and go,

what do we got on the docks today, boys? Let's, let's make this happen. You know, it's i don't think there's i think most people think that yeah of course me too however there's like this lack of awareness or this discrepancy between the intellectual romanticizing of going for it and thinking that the person goes for it but really they're holding back and they're finding all the traps and all the things that could go wrong. And it just takes too long before them to go. And then all of a sudden it, the windows vaporized and they say,

see, yeah, I'm glad I didn't go. Think about how many conversations you've had with somebody that's given you so many reasons why it won't work when it's like, I've spent an hour with you telling me, and I've done this as we've tried to raise money for Undefeated numerous times, why Undefeated won't work. And I'm saying, why don't you spend 20 minutes and tell me the one way that it will work? Is this like VC or angel? Or just anything. We always are interested in meeting people to expand our business or meeting someone that is strategic, right? It's all about relationships in our business um and our word

and you know it's like who's honorable and so on and so on are you in a relationship-based business or an apparel business we're in both apparel because at the end of the day you have to have something tangible that you can sell to somebody but relationships will help give you product you know whether it's with a specific brand or somebody at nike or adidas or underarm or wherever they're at um that will allow you that competitive advantage over the other person you know it's like when you work out with troll you know he's going to give you what's up troll yeah exactly he's going to give you certain advantages to beat the other man whether it's a one-on-one sport or a team sport, or just individually walking out the door. Like I've gone in there and he's crushed me. But the minute I got my car, I felt amazing.

And I was like, okay, nothing can defeat me today because I just did this and not everyone is doing this. And that's the kind of the mentality of like the relationship of like, okay, I just met this guy. He's going to give me that one sentence. That's going to lead me through the rest of the day. That's going to trigger a lot of other things that will in turn, I'll go back to my pod and my cell and teach my guys. And then they're going to continue to do the same. Is that how you move through relationships? Like you're learning from others and then you bring it back to the family? Of course. And I mean, I mean, that's part of like, as we get older, as we kind of, as I say, I kind of purge my phone book every year of like you know relationships that

aren't necessarily needed well it's like you know people come in and out of your life yeah sometimes you know they're just casual acquaintances or whatever and you don't wish anyone will ill will but you know you just i clean out my phone book every year i just did it quietly i just did it yeah yeah it felt really good it's a little weird because you feel like i have like you know i have a phobia of like deleting my kids pictures on my phone because I'm just like I don't want them to disappear because of the phone. Like, I don't know, it sounds weird, but I got like 20,000 photos in my phone. But but phone numbers, I kind of started doing that a couple of years ago where I was like, cool, man, let me it's still on my desktop. I still have all their info, but on my physical phone, I've deleted a lot of contacts. Do you think that you think differently?

I don't know if it's, I don't, I don't know if I think differently. I mean, I think, you know, whether it's head trauma or whatever over the years, is that real? I don't think, I don't know. I don't know if I think differently. I mean, I definitely have my own viewpoint and how I see things. You got a really strong point of view, but I don't know if it's that I'm thinking differently. Maybe I have the courage to say a little bit more because of the work I've done on myself, um, compared to somebody else. And I know there's people that say more than I would say, you know, because they just feel more free, confident with their thoughts. When you say, so i want to ask god there's some i love

this conversation bro okay that's good yeah thank you um you've done a lot of work on yourself what what i i can i've got images of what that means you know which is like insight-based work yeah and is that with somebody is it just by learning and reading and meditation yeah it's a little bit of everything i've been fortunate to uh well one i do have a therapist that i go and see a really good solid guy that i just started seeing maybe about two and a half three years ago maybe two years ago just i wanted to be a better parent i want to be a better husband and i felt if i conquered the two most important things in my life everything else will be a breeze and i I'm fortunate to have a couple of really close friends that also are, are sober as well, but also are just compelling in their own way that I, you know, it's like, Oh, I aspire to be where you're at in that space. You know, whether it's my, you're

saying that to them. Yeah. My mind, it's like, whether it's my jujitsu partner who I'm like, man, he's got, he's such a compelling guy for what he does and who he is. And, you know, a friend of mine who has an equipment business where it's his life, we're kind of paralleled as we grew up and his wife, I think cut my hair once. Exactly. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a crazy small world. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and he's a really good close friend of mine and it's, it's like everyone just makes everyone else better in my opinion. And I think that's why I keep a lot of close friends because it's – well, I have a few close friends, not a lot, but where it's – like I can trust that they're there for me. I'm there for them. How do you build those relationships with – when you've got your family, how much time do you spend between work, friends, and family?

Or do you merge those three in some kind of way? It's ebbs and flows. It merges through work relationships. It merges through my kids' sports teams. What kind of stuff do you talk about with your friends? We talk about everything from raising kids to business advice to one another because everyone's pretty successful in their own right. Marriage advice or there was like a blowout somebody had

a blowout and you're kind of like talking your friend off the ledge of like kind of being bummed and a lot of it's physical base you know so whether it's a training partner or you know you're at the gym it's kind of like you know you're just having a lot of different stream of conscious conversations so say one to ten one is like we're talking about i don't know pizza and and the weather you know i mean like it's just really really surface stuff and then 10 is like we're talking about soul we're talking about life passion we're talking about our hearts we're talking about like rich political points of view you know spiritual stuff even where is where are you talking with your friends most of the time where on that scale are you i think they're all pretty compelling. I mean, I think it's everything from, you know, yeah, what we, a great restaurant we went to, to, you know, last night at dinner, I was with a really good friend of mine and we were talking about the shooting in Minneapolis and, you know, like how crazy that was.

And then the funny story about my kid and him, when they first started hanging out, how my son would always rag him and be rough house. But my kid was five. So you toggle between one, two, three, four, five. Yeah. So you go back and forth. Yeah. I mean, I'm pretty fortunate. I've had a really fulfilling, rich life through all the craziness, good and bad.

And I think when you resonate at a high level, you also attract people at a high level and you maintain those relationships. It's so true. And so I'm really fortunate that way. So what do you, I want to go to the, how you do the insight work and then how you resonate. Okay. Yeah. So I can start with either one of those. Like how do you do that?

Um, I mean for the longest time, like, you know, we said earlier, like a lot of the stuff that was built inside as it gradually, you know, kind of like, uh, being constipated, you know, eventually shakes itself loose and then they'll just, the shit comes out. Right. And that kind of happened over life. And I felt that my wife shouldn't be the one that has to be the toilet paper. Right. That's a bad analogy, but I love it, dude. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I wanted to go see somebody to make that better.

And I think just allowing that commitment, that day, that commitment, that weekly commitment, whatever it is. Weekly commitment. Even sometimes I would just be like, I'd argue about the money I lost on Sunday from Eagles, just not covering the line or whoever, right? Do you gamble? I have in the past. I don't as much anymore. Yeah. Ever since we redid our house, It's not a lot of disposable income.

The slush fund is dried up. The slush fund is on the couch. And you, you like gambling? It just, you know, there's an excitement. It's part of, I think the alcoholism, right? It's like, there has to be another little tidbit that has to make it exciting. You know, like it's gotta be something kind of knowing that you're, you know, it's like, oh, it's, it'll be so much better if I got an emotional and physical tie to this.

Okay. And then just going to my guy, just having, I'm kind of knocking all that stuff loose, but then having a place to put it, not necessarily and put it in the right place, not in the wrong place. You know, it's kind of where it's been. Can you, can you riff between these two words for you? Vulnerability and openness. Can you, can these two words for you, vulnerability and openness? Can you play with those? Are they the same to you? Are they different?

Is one? I think they're different. I think there's the vulnerability is like the real raw tire meets the road. what that vulnerability and pull what you need and kind of, let me, let me narrate this for you, but I'll interpret it in a way that I know I'm not going to offend you or hurt you or freak you out. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Awesome. Well said. Okay. You can still say the same thing, but I don't have to give you the dirty details of where, how I got to being open. Okay. Got it. Because you are open. Uh, I try to be. Do you? Would your friend say that you're open? Yeah. I think so. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So then

you got a box thrown at you. And then so then take us to a place where you said, you know what? I got something to do here. Like I can draw. I can stitch. What was the craft? I'll do a quick timeline. I ended up meeting a girl. She and I lived together.

I wasn't very present because of who I was at the time. I thought I was, but I wasn't. We were just different. She was coming from like work first grind. She worked probably 18 hours a day. Like she was a nonstop working, um, trying to save money, uh, to one day, uh, she was like, Oh, I'm going to my sister's wedding in Taiwan. Take me to, could you take me to the airport?

And I was like, Oh yeah, sure. And then all I could think about was all me and the homies are going to barbecue and drink this weekend. I didn't realize that loaded like five or six bags in my car you know i'm driving lax and i'm still not computing all i'm thinking is like i'm gonna rush back get down with the homies and then i was like oh you haven't told me when i'm picking you up what's up and she was like dude are you serious like all my shit is in the car i'm going to taiwan i'm never coming back like this is over you're asleep while i'm at the tom bradley airport like she's breaking up with me and i was like holy shit i can't believe this just happened

so i was on my couch for a while kind of bumming um i'd left nana um and my next door neighbor was a lead man on uh dr quinn the medicine woman and he had just gotten sober himself so he kind of talked to me got my head right and then um i was like okay i'm going to paris you know i'm just gonna move to paris i'm gonna call it a day and on my way to paris i stopped in new york to see my friend ray who i lived with who had moved to new york to be really a stage actor and so on and never made it to paris two days in the new york city i was on uh keith murray's uh. Two days in the New York city, I was on, uh, uh, Keith Murray's, uh, most beautiful thing in the world video as a PA. He was like, his friend was like, Oh, I need some PAs. Can you help me out? And then it, uh, Diane Martell was a director.

She liked me. She was like, Oh, I want this kid on my next job. Cause he was a great PA worked my way up the ranks from PA. I met a art director, a production designer, um, who in turn ended up getting me sober i was and i was assistant for about four or five years um he basically is the him and his wife are the kind of the people that put me on this path of he we grew up the same way and he was like oh he has a beautiful loft in new york's got the beautiful wife. He's got a kid. He's making a great living. I aspire to be at that point. At some point in my life, I need to be at that point. And then cut to chase my wife now, Karen lived next door to him. We met in her elevator. I was watching their place while they went out to the Hamptons. And, you know, 15,

you know, we were there three or four years in New York. I sobered up in New York. About five years later, we went on an eight-month trip to the South Pacific surfing, kind of learning a new thing, camping, hanging out, just Karen and I. Ended up in L.A. again in 99, and we've been here since. Married, kids, house, business. So what was the first part of your business craft? Did you start small, like side jobs, before you opened up shop? How did that transition? Well, we opened up a store called K-Bond.

The creative process started back in New York with the music videos and commercials. Being on set, really getting the creative juices flowing. And then still kind of being a consumer where I was buying my stuff, buying sneakers at that point. It was New York City. It was big business at that time. Kind of that street urban fashion supreme was taking off. Stussy was taking off. You started getting all these brands.

You know, Good Enough, Neighborhood, all these brands started coming around. Excuse me. And then I became a huge consumer of the culture you know just and just apparel and footwear base but knowing like where it came from like oh man i grew up in that 70s that sweet soul that kind of urban environment in philadelphia to not being a student but being aware of of the surroundings so when we came out to california time, I convinced my wife to like, let's open a clothing store. And we opened up kind of a haberdashery for men. Do you remember that conversation?

Yeah, because she was kind of like, well, she's an artist. My wife's an artist. She had a career in New York. She still has a career, but she was like really doing stuff. And I convinced her to be like, let's sell everything in New York and let's go on this crazy once-in-a-lifetime trip. And if we come back to New York, we do. Or if we come somewhere else, we're too smart individuals. We can figure it out.

Whoa. Okay. Hold on. So this is really cool. So that is that your base of why you can take a shot because of you've got the ability to figure things out. I think it's to be completely honest. Then it was purely like, let's just try it. We're thirties. We're in our early thirties. What's the worst that can happen? I think it was purely like let's just try it we're 30s we're in our early 30s what's the worst that can happen i think it was a lack of was ignorance ignorance is bliss right you're like i don't know what the fuck's gonna happen we could get eaten by sharks in australia like who knows you know so this is part of that other skill that you have is to see something like a shop and say i could see me doing that to see that that gentleman with two kids like i could see me

doing that i want that we tried to open up a uh i want i always wanted to be in the restaurant business so before when i was still doing the music videos and things i wanted to open a sandwich shop on the lower east side and i was like you know i had my envisioned how i wanted the rolls and could see it i could smell the colors i could do all those type of things like i have a knack for that smell the colors like i know what it's going to look like okay um when i got to where karen and i were like nah let's just bounce we left when we came out here we kind of went through a bunch of you know conversations when we were traveling and i was like we should really open up a men's store because i think that's an untapped resource in los angeles you know there was mentors but they were always small

little kiosks in fred siegel Barney's. They always had like one floor, a little back corner or something. And I wanted something where I was the muse of it in theory. What does that mean? Meaning like I was wearing suits, little cropped with Converse or

I would wear the Lacoste or Fred Perry homage back to the skinhead days. We had a little bit of everything. So we went to Florence and bought beautiful tailor-made shirts where we'd drop a monogram on it that you would wear with the blazer and then like a pair of kites. We just tried to really envelop all the culture from APC denim to Avicii suits. And, you know, we had a little bit of everything. And my wife curated books, art, and the visual along with me. In the shop? Yeah, in the shop yeah in the shop

how many square feet we had a pretty big store was probably like 2500 square foot yeah um people still kind of reference that now but it was it failed financially miserably for us because we were not retailers by nature you know we knew how to make something look cool we knew how to like this is going to work like we took chances that normal stops wouldn't take and at the time people just weren't ready for that you know it was still i mean you remember in los angeles in the late night late 90s 2000s it was still kind of it was corny sorry yeah it was fluorescent for men um but nike at the time saw like there was something different in your store, in the shop and a lot of the Nike European, uh, employees and they would come over and we had a lot

of tourists in our place. Were you in Santa Monica? We were in Hollywood on Alta Vista and Beverly. Okay. So kind of the design district. We weren't even where there were no other retail stores. There were just design stores. Um, and there was a great, um, when photography was not

digital, there was a great house across the street that, uh, was a print house for really great photographers. Um, so we had a really interesting, unique clientele. Um, so, you know, David LaChapelle, a lot of his photographers who use this place as a print house would come in while they were waiting for their prints so cut to nike guys were coming in and they offered us like hey look we want to try this shoe out we're going to send them to you tell us how they work and you know we'll go from there and just before the internet before you know things were created i mean there was the internet but it's before they were yeah what we have now shoes sold out never had never had the type of frenzy that i had you know ever

before um and so all of a sudden we're like oh wait a minute we're on to something okay so nike comes in because they they liked your vibe some people that were they like your vibe and they said could you create a shoe for us no they already created the shoe we need they wanted to find out how to get to that pinnacle customer got it okay at half a percent okay and that's what we sold and what kind of shoe it was a woven uh it was an air mock it was like a woven moccasin okay hiroshi designed them okay um and so it was it was craziness we got a bunch of colorways we had a couple hundred pairs and it was just this frenzy of kids that we'd never seen before customers i was like holy shit like, holy shit, that customer could care less what else is on the shop. They just want that shoe that's sitting in the front window.

Over time, I met my partner today through that experience, Eddie Cruz, who had Union and Stussy down the street from me. And he was like, look, I have this shop with nothing in it. You have the relationships. And a mutual friend put us together and we started hanging out and then we're like oh you know let's do this you know it's you're a good dude you know how to make he knew how to make retail work i couldn't make retail work to save my life and i needed to kind of he needed me i needed him okay you know and it worked out great you know

it's like we're still here 15 years later and you know you know, through that process though, the, um, out of necessity, we became designers, you know, like we need to design our own stuff to manifest our own destiny back to that. Um, there's only so much you could do with just sneakers. We need to be able to put apparel into play. We need to put footwear into play. We need to make our shops compelling. Um, we need to really make this so forward that it's just not your usual mom and pop sneaker store. So when did you start? Did you start with clothes or did you start with designing shoes? It was kind of both at the same time.

We did a couple collabs. So we would veneer the shoe. What does that mean? Veneer is like basically you're not redesigning the shoe. You're just kind of coloring it. You're kind of giving material ideas, things like that. And you need some sort of licensing rights with the shoe company? No, usually the brands come to you.

Oh, they do? Now you propose stuff to them. But before in the beginning, they would just be like, oh, do you want to do a shoe? And you'd be like, yeah, can I do this shoe? And they're like, yeah, of course. Give us your ideas. Was that a James Bond shoe for Nike? No, that would always be undefeated.

Yeah, it was undefeated. Okay, so an undefeated shoe for Nike. Yeah. Okay. Where'd you get the name undefeated? Uh, undefeated was a, uh, multiple conversations between myself and Eddie. Um, he was kind of like underfoot and cause it was a play on words and then it was like undefeated spelled with both E's. And then we're like, nah, that's too literal. And then we were both laying and sitting on the couch in my office, having conversation I was whatever it is we need to be undefeated we need to like be knocking fools out and we both were like that's it done that's the name my friend Adam Levitt did the logo the five strikes yeah was that for fighter pilots

that was a combination of pilots and how kids kept score so we wanted that intenseness of survival and victory but we also wanted the playfulness of how the kids kept a very rudimentary strike it's cool yeah because you're not i'm never sure um not knowing what i just said it always feels um well exactly that like it could be playful like the the ticks with the cross through it but it also is like it notches on a belt and we try to make like the apparel have a playful sense but then we'll sneak in a quote somewhere that'll bring you back to like no this is some real man stuff happening here it's real men doing it it's not a bunch of little kids um you know we we try to sprinkle in little bits and pieces that constantly have you looking for the answer or constantly going on that quest to go like

i need to know more about what these guys are about. When you think about your life and as a businessman, as an addict, as a young kid, as a, um, an artist, like those are the kind of the four things that we've talked about and a family man, maybe those are the five, um, phases and roles, if you will. What has been your greatest adventure? You've done a lot now. I think the greatest adventure is still going as being a parent. You know, I look, you know, it's like, you know, you have kids, it's crazy to like to watch them grow. And, you know, I have their complete opposites, my two kids and managing both of their expectations in life. And then also

just like really kind of growing with my wife, you know, it's like, we've been married 15, 16 years. It's like, there's a lot of ebbs and flows and you know, how people grow. And sometimes you, well, somebody's growing faster than the other. It's like, how do you constantly stay on the same path on the same page without kind of destroying someone else's kind of thought process or their spirit, you know, and that's a really hard, how would you know that that's important? Because I mean, I built a life with the, with Karen, you know, and we have, you know, two awesome kids. I couldn't imagine not being, having to be an apparent now. It's just really kind of, I like to think I have a little bit of intuition where it's like, I want to make sure I'm not doing anything that would not want to make my

wife not happy. You know, I, I asked that because my wife and I've been married a long time and that is, that, that's an important thought for us as well. It was, we met really young and we didn't know how to support each other to be completely free. Yeah. And so we've had to unlearn some ways to be able to make sure that we're doing just that. Did you have anything similar to that? Or was that a thought that was early for you that you wanted to make sure that you honored?

No, you know, I think it's, you know, it's been a lot of things, you know, and I think the biggest one was having a conversation once with my wife where she was like, I don't at some point in my life, not want to be in love with you. And it really stopped me cold in my tracks because I thought like, damn, I'm taking that for granted, you know, and I'm so on a quest to be successful business guy and the dad and, but I'm neglecting the fact that I'm a parent, I'm a husband as well and a friend to my wife. And so it came down to being like, I really need to recalibrate that. And even to this day, like I, we still have that, a check-in where I'm like, Oh, I'm kind

of messing up. Like I gotta, I gotta retool how I'm thinking about this. I have to consider other things as we get older, that those are more important than things I've been in the past. And sometimes I don't know. And we have to get through it whereby, whether it's an argument or a conversation that's uncomfortable, but then it's like, shit, her point is absolutely right. I'm, I'm fucking up. Forgive my language. I got to get on the ball. Where is – could you give us a pearl of – an applied pearl of wisdom about how to develop a beautiful relationship? I don't. I'm still working on that to be honest with you.

I'd be lying if I thought I knew. I guess somebody once said to me a long time ago, it's honesty is the true intimacy, you know? And I always thought that, yeah, you're absolutely right. Like there's no mystery. It's like, you're both open. You're both comfortable to being comfortable is where you're at, you know? Jeez. All right. I'm putting that one in the books. I don't know where you got it, but that's a real, you started off by saying, I don't know. And then you said, but so honesty has gotten you and the courage to be honest. The courage to be honest. And sometimes it's that honesty will hurt that other person's feelings. Um, but at the end of the day, it's like, you're both laying in bed

at night. You have to be comfortable. You got to fall asleep together and you gotta be, know that, you know, we're comfortable together. We're're good together we spend our time together do you guys ever go to bed mad at each other i'm sure we've gone to bed mad at each other yeah i try not to be um but yeah there's been times where you know do you say good night to each other every night oh yeah it's always good night it's always a kiss whether you know even if she's mad or something she'll still say good night to me and kiss yeah when you guys are mad like you still have that agreement yeah yeah okay i'd like to have that but sometimes you know sometimes you know i've never watched where i was like i'm sleeping on the couch or anything it's like that's ridiculous like even if i try to be that guy i'm now at that point i'm just fighting the fight for the fight um she'll come out and be like okay come on let's bedtime and i'm like all right fine thank god yeah okay

all right um what are there any habits that you have or kind of ways that you train to create a creative output and i i know i just took a very like linear logic kind of structured thing to create something beautiful different and creative like but i'm wondering how you structure your your thunk you're thunking you're thinking or you're doing to create more often or more frequently or more beautiful beautifully it kind of comes from everywhere you know whether it's uh taking a walk in griffith park with the kids and snapping pictures of like the bark the different bark that how the color palette and it looks like a camo or uh just hanging Park with the kids and snapping pictures of like the bark, the different bark, how the color palette looks like a camo or just hanging out with my kids sometimes. You know, both my daughter, she's really into, she's getting into fashion and design as a 13-year-old

and just watching her explore and then kind of talking to her about, you know, the stuff that I brought back on my trips for her or, you know, my son just putting on stuff and how he puts it together where you're like, oh, you look kind of crazy, but it works. So that's your personality and your style. It's like all those things kind of lead to kind of a conscious stream of thought that eventually filters into like a, a process. Is it always working? Are you always working? Is it always running in the background? I think we're always working. I think anyone in the creative field is always working, whether it's a conversation you're learning or driving in your car, seeing something like gallery, a bookstore, a clothing store,

you might stop and just go, what's new? Let me just go in and peep, see what's going on. Or I see like colors and whole foods, like I'll go into whole foods and just looking at the vegetables where you're like, oh, these are kind of cool. And my wife is constantly snapping photos for her process. So I think as creative, you're always, always working. Yeah. It feels that way for me too. And I'm not saying I'm a creative, but I'm saying that you are in your mind. I mean, you just create it like you're thinking out of way. No, no. I mean, you're creative for the mind.

Like you're thinking like, how do I make people better? No, what, what, yeah. But I'm, what I'm saying is like, it's always kind of running in the background. Like how do I deep understand more deeply? How do I, how am I, how can I listen better? How can I be more present and, um, inspired by sound smells, people, environment, textures, all of that is, is. Which is even like to ask him the questions like that's, I think a creative way as well, like to get certain answers or lead a conversation in a certain way. I think that's, that's all creative thinking. What's been the hardest question we've had so far? I think the early stages,

because I wasn't expecting to talk about where I grew up and that type of stuff. Or no, the hardest one, I think, honestly, was what do I associate more with? Ethnicity-wise? Yeah, I think that was the hardest one, because I don't know what that answer is, even as a 47-year-old man.

And is it hard because you're supposed to know? No, I think it's hard because for so long I never wanted to think about it. And then when I was forced to think about it, I didn't want to think about it because I didn't feel that either side would want me because I could be considered too much of a high risk as a trader. That's a spy. because I could be considered too much of a high risk as a trader, you know? Yeah. So, you know, so, okay. And there's, it's like this where each one of us is an N of one, right? And we're completely unique and of our, of our, of ourselves, but there are groups and tribes that we feel more familiar or part with. Is it that part that you're, you're not sorting out yet, which is like, what tribe am I part of?

Cause it feels like you're, you have your own tribe, like you've created a lot of our friends and families. There's a lot of mixed by, you know, mixed race families in our circle of friends. Um, so now it's the norm. Now it's normal to think that way. So I think part of it is just by default. I'm like, I'm not even thinking about it anymore. Um, but yeah, I don't think I could even pick one if I had to. That, that, that actually seems really feels right to you. And I would hate to be forced to act like you got to pick a or B it's like, you know, Sophie's choice. It's like neither one's the right choice. So I'm good. I love it. Okay. Um, is there a word or phrase that guides your life?

My partners hate what I say, but it's scared money. Don't make money. Scared money. Don't make money. Yeah. Meaning that I was thinking that, I mean, it's like, if you're, if you're never going to take the risk, you're never going to know, you know, why do you say it's scared money? Don't make money. As opposed to if you're never going to take the risk, you're never going to know, you know, why do you say it's scared money? Don't make money as opposed to if you're never going to take the risk, you'll never know. Because I think that was somewhere along the line.

I don't know what song it was. I heard that. And it's always resonated in my mind, you know, what is the music that you vibe with most or is it a little bit of everything lately? It's been a lot of, um, like old punk lately, you know, kind of just that pure bad brain stuff, bad brains, misfits, um, you know, kind of just that pure bad brain stuff, bad brains, misfits, um,

you know, like a lot of, uh, even older, you know, things like, uh, what were we listening to today?

That was, uh, before like buzzcocks, a lot of like Henry Rollins has a really great music podcast that, uh, somebody turned me on to that. Oh, cool.

Yeah. I haven't heard it. There's something like pure about like the three chords, kind of that angst ridden with distortion and yeah just super simple you know okay um i can't get into like i mean i love all types of music but there's you know it's ebbs and flows you know is there a word that cuts the center of what you understand most i don't think there is okay how about a word or phrase that cuts to the center of what you do the best? Try.

You know. Rad. And then how about a word or phrase that cuts to the center of who you are as a man? In progress. It's two words. Never ending progress, I guess. It's always a process for me. It feels like there's a lot of freedom when you say it. There's just so much space when you say it.

Well, because I think I'm just open to the fact that I'm not perfect. I have a long ways to go. I feel like when I close my eyes for the final sleep, I think at that point I can say like, okay, you know what? I'm good to let it go. So you came early 2000s is when you started building Undefeated? Yeah, 2002 is when we started. Do you think that 20 years, 30, 50, 60, 100 years from now, when people look back at the 2000s, that your stamp will be recognized? Or do you not give a rat's ass about that? That's not important.

It's not important. I think the stamp will be what legacy my children left. or do you not give a rat's ass about that? Like that's not important. You know, it's not important. I think the stamp will be what legacy my children left. You know, like was I a good enough parent? You know, and I'd leave this to my wife as well, where it's like you're the matriarch. Like from here on out, you're the pinnacle of what this family stands for.

And I just want to make sure that when we do, it's like as a two and three generations down, are the grandkids like my people did this. They built this. They were part of this. Whether it's the culture or that they're on the better and bigger things in their life, that we were the beginning of that. That's what I prefer to see than whether or not Undefeated is still in business or what we are on the books for Undefeated. So that's your vision for the future? Yes. Which is,

let me see if I can put it in my own words. It's like building a family legacy. And then I don't know what to say after that. Yeah. It's like, I'm, I'm not defined by what I do. I'm defined. I'd like to be defined by who I am. Okay. And I think that's more important to me than anything else. And what I'm learning right now, like who you are is rich. And I mean financially, but rich in experience and a trier, a risk taker, a creative and open. Yes. I like to think. Yes. Yeah. We'll just, I'll leave it at that okay all right um okay so let's

let's jump into some like kind of quick is there anything that like god i could keep going with you but like is there anything that you thought we're going to talk about that um i'm just kind of not glossing or i'm not hitting uh and i was right before we came over i was saying to my friend i was like man i hope he leads the way because i've had to do a talk before where it was all me and it was a complete shambles it feels it feels like a tag team here because you're saying things that are like whoa what what is that and then so i'm just kind of pulling on a little bit deeper all right um so okay how about finish this phrase? It all comes down to your effort. Okay. So if you work hard and it's ugly, you work hard and it doesn't work out. You work hard

and it's off mark. What do you, what do you do with those types of scenarios? I think you'll, you'll learn very quickly whether or not you have the ability to do what you're trying to do. And I think if, you know, I always say to myself and to my guys in the office, like at the end of the day, if you lay your head down and say I had an honest day's work, that's all I'm good with that. At some point, the rubber does meet the road. I'm going to say whether you have the talent or not to be able to stay in your seat. We'll cross that when we come to it. But I think if we keep working together and growing together as a team, we're all going to work and be successful because each guy's going to help everybody. And that's kind of the environment we're trying to build in the

office. Is that like, so that's the culture, like a growth build? Yeah. All our guys get along pretty well. Um, and it's certain guys are leaders and certain guys are kind of like part of the team. And then we're like teaching those leaders to pull those guys closer to them and be like, this is really what the guys need to get across when we're doing certain things. That being said, so it's really kind of concrete, like we're going to keep coaching and building until it's obvious that it's not working. Yeah. Yeah. And that's actually the same model that coach Carol works at the Seattle Seahawks is that we're going to coach them as long as they'll allow us to coach them. And they'll tell us when they don't want to be coached, you know, as a a kind of a general rule. Yeah. And people do tell you.

Well, I think it's also, they're not going to tell you maybe with specific words, but they tell you by their actions and their energy. Yeah. So I'll know when a guy's checked out. Cause I know when I check out, you know, so I'm very aware of like guy A is checked out. It's like, okay, we need to now think about how we replace that person. Gotcha.

Okay. You know, let's be respectful about it. And I appreciate all the energy and effort, but it's just, we're not going to win the chip the way we're doing it right now. So I have to move on. There's a better fit somehow. Yeah. Some way.

So that being said, it leads me to this thing that we all do. The inner critic, that, that dialogue that it's not good enough. It's not working to work out. It's not going to work out, man. What was wrong with me? How come it doesn't work? Whatever that inner critic is and how, because what that is, the inner critic is and how because what that is the inner critic is meant to be some sort of self-preserving mechanism yeah so that we we don't find ourselves in perpetual

failure we cut ourselves to somehow think that we're going to be sharper because of it but we end up just bleeding out is the case of it but how loud is your inner critic it has moments you know has moments where i'm like oh man we can't critic? It has moments, you know, has moments where I'm like, oh, man, we can't do that. It has moments where I'm like, I don't care. Let's just do it. I think it'll be hilarious. It's some days he's louder than others, you know. And what do you do when it's when he's loud?

Turn the music up. Oh, so you drown it with other stimulus. Exactly. Yeah. So literally music for you music or you know if it's my office i have a flat screen we watch a lot of sports so it'll just i'll just turn the tv up and dial into that have you ever tried like the other strategy which is like all right i see you little man like okay i know that you're that's happening for you but um

okay listen that's not really productive right now. So I'm just going to literally turn your volume down and I'm going to come back to doing now. Did you ever work like with that kind of thing? Nah, I'm not, I'm not evolved enough in my mind to battle myself. That's so good. Okay. Um, all right. So, uh, it, it, we say it all comes down to trying and then pressure comes from pressure comes from yourself within. Yeah. Yeah. And what, what is, can you just talk on that just a little bit more, you know, uh, pressure from, you know, things that, you know, I need to travel more with my kids to, you know, the safety of their wellbeing, like when I'm not with them, um, how do I, you know, put pressure on my team without stressing them. So it's like, you know, the safety of their wellbeing, like when I'm not with them, um, how do I, you know, put pressure on my team without stressing them? So it's like, you know, it's a lot of different,

it's a lot of different touch points. How do you like, you know, the perfect example is jujitsu. It's like, there's a point where on your body that you use as your pressure point and how to manage, how to like Matt, Matt, you know, manage that as well as, you know, conquer that. Okay. Got it. Are you street smart or analytical? Street smart. Do you prefer a slow paced environment or fast? I prefer fast. Rule follower, risk taker. I bet I know the answer.

Yeah, I'm not following the rules too much. And that's just because of ignorance most of the time. How much ink do you have uh waist covered wait for my waist up covered covered like two full sleeves front back chest full back and then you've got two barking growling dogs on your knees oh those are panthers yeah and then so uh beautifully done they're facing each. Yeah. What can you talk me through some of that? That was more like symmetry, you know,

when I did it. And then, uh, I kind of, I know it sounds weird, but it's like, I don't, I don't really feel comfortable kneeling for anybody.

So I feel like by putting those on my knees, that's kind of going to cause me a certain type of pain. So I'm not going to kneel on them. So it's kind of like a metaphor in life, you know, not to, and it's so hard because a lot of my initial training in jujitsu is being on that knee and being in your base and having

posture. And that's such a hard position for me that, you know, my guys constantly like, you know, dude, your posture is the worst in the studio. You have to get it together. But it's like, it's mentally, it's like, I can't be on my knees. Oh, so that's going to challenge that philosophy for you. It's going to challenge my whole life. What are some other arts, pieces of art that you have on your body that matter to you?

My kids' portraits. Everything else is just really the opportunity to work with Mr. Cartoon. Is that who does your work? He's done about 90% of it. Wow, he's legendary. If I know him, he's legendary if i know him yeah you know he's legendary yeah just i mean a very interesting same craze like you know somebody you wouldn't expect on the surface you're like oh just a tattoo artist but you know another really super good guy very close friend

oh is he one of those guys that sometimes i just go to the studio just to kind of mind meld where can people find like what he's doing that might not be exposed to his art uh for the most part i think everything is pretty much on that his instagram feed and on his and his website yeah phenomenal he's pretty good at marketing that artwork if you um how do you define success it's hard it's hard for me to really define success because there's so many levels of it, you know? So for me personally, it's just that my family's happy,

you know, they're fed, they're being educated, they're being, you know, given so much, not just financially, but given so much of life and really enjoying it,

taking full advantage of it. That would be success for me. Do you have a spiritual framework? No, I'm not, you know, well, I do believe in a higher power, but I think that higher that would be success for me do you have a spiritual framework no i'm not you know yeah well i do believe in a higher power but i think that higher power would be nature okay you know so i know it's hard to say because i drive a v8 four by four so i'm not really respecting spiritual crisis i'm having a spiritual existential crisis but um yeah it's like when i'm if i'm getting on a plane you know i say a couple

minutes of like look you know higher power you know give us the strength to get where we got to go protect the families here and there um just kind of paying homage to something that's not necessarily and i'm not a believer in god but i do believe there is something that's brought us all here um i just don't know if it's as tangible as like seven days and this was created and all those type of things. I don't know if that's – What happens when people die? They live on through other people's thoughts and dreams and their spirit. There you go. Okay.

Love. What do I think? What is love? Yeah. Just how do you play with that word? I don't think that's a word that you can play with right well yeah as i said i was like how's the hell is he gonna answer that but um like when i say the word what does it mean to you i think love is that that uh that um it's like that un

it's that feeling that you just can't control you know like when i and i'll keep going back to him because i love them dearly it's like my kids when i see them i'm just like oh like as no matter how angry you get it it leaves right away because you're like i just i can't be mad at these guys like i just i don't know it's crazy it's undefined for me how about that yeah do you feel it or do you do it or is it a thought love i could feel it you feel it feeling yeah where do you feel it i feel in my stomach and then it'll go there to my brain what would make me dizzy seriously yeah come on yeah i'll get a little like oh god you know like you know i've looked sometimes i just stare at both of my kids and sometimes my wife i'm just like holy smokes i can't believe this is my life you know

it's weird i don't think i've ever said this out loud is I love watching just the rising and falling of my son's breath, you know, just like, and, and like, I'll go in at night, you know, whatever, and give him a kiss good night before I go to bed. I just love watching him sleep, you know, not in a weird way by any means, but like looking at him, like that, that is beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't slept through the night since I've had kids. And sometimes in the middle of the night, I just get up and go climb in the bed with them and just kind of hang out. And I know it's creepy. My kids are probably going to have like issues when they're adults, but, uh, yeah, it's crazy. I still put my son down a lot at nine, you know, I still put them down, read and hang out and shoot the shit. But, uh, my guy's eight. I still, I definitely do it.

I'm going to have a hard time giving that one. He's going to camp next week for two weeks. I don't know how I'm going to deal. Seriously. My wife's already a wreck. And she's like, I know you're going to do it because I'm not a big crier. But I was like, yeah, man, I'm going to train myself now to not let these tears come out. Okay. What do you see for your industry in the next five years? Our industry is going to change a lot by going to a lot of direct-to-consumers. We're going to see a lot of people opening their own branded stores.

Wholesale business is really not what it was. A lot of stores are going out of business. The economy isn't really holding the structure of what was multi-brand businesses anymore. We just can't compete in the wholesale environment, no matter how big you are. So how will you pivot? We'll open more stores and have our own branded stores. Okay, so more undefeated stores coming to a place near you yeah right yeah yeah so and will you go out and get vc funding or will you sell funding

a lot of it's we've been self-funded forever yeah um we are in a unique position that we do have a two-headed monster where we do still have a wholesale business yeah people are interested but it's really what are you willing to give up for you know peace of mind of successful like future business and money in the bank will you still make sneakers with brands oh yeah we'll always be doing that you always do that how much do they sell for like what are the crazy sneakers that you do well i mean the crazy we do have the highest uh we have a jordan 4 out that's the highest shoe jordan what a jordan 4 okay um that goes for $25,000 if you can find it. There's only 62 pairs out there in the world.

And there's a pair in downtown LA, a Rift, that's got a price tag of 25 Gs on it. So anything can be... And then there's been other crazy that are higher than that, but not necessarily a Nike or Adidas. But you can find some super rare ones for $10,000, $12,000, some original Jordans. To Yeezy resales are $1,ales or a thousand fifteen hundred dollars it just depends you know in our store shoes go from vans 39 59 bucks to the highest maybe a lebron for 180 and they're all uh branded undefeated no no no we're multi-brands i mean it's very rare like our collabs are very uh maybe two to three times a year oh that's okay so what the shoes in your store are not on Nike. No, no, no, no. Everyone has access. Well, not everyone, but a large part of, uh, you know, there's different segments of the business.

So there's basics, there's a, you know, pinnacle accounts, there's lifestyle accounts, sportswear accounts, things like that. How do you compete with uh we don't i can't compete with amazon yeah i don't think i mean their margins are razor and but are they a competitor of yours no i don't even think that'd be like me having you know trying to say i'm playing an nba with lebron james it doesn't exist yeah so the online space is not important to you no we have a good online store but we're not um we don't have the capability, logistics, or even the customer service that Amazon would have. We have a good web business. You do.

But it's not to that level. Undefeated.com? Yeah, undefeated.com. Spelled all out? Yeah, spelled all out. It's not the shorthand? Okay. And then this is like the real last question.

How do you articulate mastery? I want to know, I'm trying to sort out a theory or a definition, but like, how do you talk about mastery? I mean, I don't know too many people that do talk about mastery. I think they talk about ways to become better. But then, you know, like we said earlier, it's that the never ending quest to like find perfection. Right. You know, it's like whether it's a 10,000 hours, is it lifting the Stanley Cup? Is it lifting the, you know, the Lombardi trophy?

It's like, is that have you mastered your your existence in that moment? You know, I tell the story where I worked for David Beckham for a couple of years working for doing his line for Adidas and you know we had a big opening of the first season that came out and I remember driving there going like okay I've I've hit it this is it this is the top this is where I'm at and you know where do I go from here like you know at that moment like we sometimes you see the guy who won the championship staring off in the space he's like fuck what's next like I mean I've hit it but there's another level and that's kind of how I see it right so i'm driving home and you know karen went with me she was taking a nap on the ride home and i was thinking like there's another level because i'm sitting at home watching sports center at 11 eating a bowl of cheerios because i didn't get

to eat in my event because i was you know walking around and being social oh my god there's still more work to do and i think that's mastery God, there's still more work to do. And I think that's mastery. It's like, there's always something to do. I don't think you ever really can master what you, what you're trying to do. James, you know, I didn't even ask your name. Oh, James Bond. Yes, that's true. Yeah. How'd you, how'd you get that? Like, it's a family name. I'm named, you know, my grandfather, I didn't know him very well, was named James Bond. My dad and my nephew and now my son. So you kept it.

So is that four or five? Ace would be the fifth. You call him Ace? Yeah, yeah. That's his middle name? His middle name, yeah. Ace? Ace.

Oh, cool. But if you ask him, he'll tell you his name is James Bond. He's kind of learning. He's moving into that now. It depends on where he's at. And was that before the original Jamesames bond i don't know my timelines but uh yeah because my grandfather you know he was probably born in the 20s that was before the movies obviously came out yeah it's a cool name now isn't it

yeah it's all right i mean it's you know it's not bad i could have been wearing name something worse right all right i i i absolutely love knowing you and I know we don't see each other often, but you take up a lot of space. Like when I think about, um, you know, just cool. And I think about being authentic and I think about entrepreneurship and standing for something, even though that you don't say it loudly. Um, so I really appreciate knowing you. I've loved this conversation. Yeah, it was an honor. I was, you know, I was blown away when you asked me.

I was like, oh, what am I going to talk about? You know, what's funny is I think a lot of people say that. And then the amount of insight and wisdoms that people hold and the courage to reveal and share it. You know, here's what I wish. I wish I had on like social media or whatever. I wish I had 10 million people following because it's like, and I don't know how to do it. I really don't know how to do that because that's not where my skill is. But what you've just talked about and shared in your message and your, and your story and

your insights, why are we not amplifying it? And it's just because I don't know how to do it better. So get married Kardashian. You'll be doing it. Oh, geez. Yeah, be done it. Oh, geez. Yeah, that's true.

Yeah. No, it was an honor. Thank you. It was like therapy session. I feel good. I got a second session in this week. Classic.

That's not how it's supposed to be. It was about me trying to learn. Yeah. Okay. Um, all right. All that being said, where can people find you on social,

whatever? I have no social media handles. I'm kind of an old dude when it comes to that, but you know, undefeated has their, we have Instagram undefeated Inc. That's the Instagram. And then is this undefeated spelled out? Yeah. Undefeated Inc. Oh, I N C undefeated. I N C. And yeah, that's, I mean, we're pretty low key with our social media as well. I think, you know, both Eddie and I being like late forties, you know, it's not really kind of our world, but we have younger guys that run the social media,

so they're keeping it in check. All right. So, um, undefeated.com undefeated ink on Twitter. Is there a Facebook? Uh, no, but that's also the Twitter and Instagram. Okay. All right. Perfect. Um, so would you, can we do a little contest for some, for something? You know, I don't even know what that means. I've asked a couple of people that and I feel like I need to sort out what that would be. But if we can figure out. We can email you their favorite quote and we can send them like a nice juicy gift. There we go. Gift box.

I love that. That's what we'll do. Okay. Not a gift box. Like something. I'll send them something nice. Yeah. Cause you sent me a box before and I was like, Jesus.

You're a special guy. All right. So, uh, James, something nice. Yeah. Cause you sent me a box before and I was like, Jesus, you're a special guy. All right. So, uh, James, thank you. Yeah. My pleasure.

Thank you. Yeah. And, uh, for, for more information, hit us up on finding master.net. If you want to be part of the community,

finding master.net forward slash community, where people are vibing and supporting each other on the conversations around mastery. And then at Michael Gervais for Twitter. And then, oh, we've launched Minutes on Mastery, which is insights, gems. And if you want those, punch over to iTunes and you can download Minutes on Mastery. You'll send insights from Masters of Craft in under three minutes. And after listening to this and being part of this conversation, James, my hope for people listening is that they follow their authentic path.

And for me, that's what you stand for. And so that's my hope. Do you have any hopes for people that are connecting? Just a little more tolerance, respect of each other. I think we're losing respect for one another. Especially in Los Angeles, people flip each other off all the time in the car. It's like, come on, man. It's like we all got somewhere to be.

Let's just respect each other's time and space. You know, I love it. Right to the center. All right, brother. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us.

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