The Iced Coffee Hour - Kevin O’Leary: “The BIGGEST Myth About Money That Keeps You POOR!”

Episode Date: May 27, 2024

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And sometimes, a smooth, silky latte just wins. It's exceptional but effortless. Like actually effortless. Simply press, brew, and explore. Nispresso, what else? Keep exploring at nespresso.com. It's a hobby that eventually should be taken behind the barn and shab. I'm the only shark that tells the truth, and I'm your best friend, because your idea does suck.

It's going to zero, and you're not going to waste your time on it any longer. If you have the skills, you have the desire, you have the interest, and you have the ability to execute. Within years, you'll be wealthy. AI is just another tool set and way overhyped. It's like the internet was in the early 90s. Where people are underserved in America is the opportunity to get educated, because that actually determines outcomes more than anything. What do you think the minimum wage should be? I don't believe in a minimum wage.

I think the market decides. Being married is not easy. It's a total pain in the ass. But it beats the alternative. The one thing I would have changed in my life if I could have. I would have... Kevin, thank you so much for coming in the ice coffee hour. We really, really appreciate it.

So I'm curious. We'll just start right off here because I know you're short on time. Who should not be an entrepreneur? And when do you know when to give up? About two thirds of America should not be entrepreneurs. And the reason you would know that is you're unable to make the first step. If you don't have the ability to take risk, you'll never be a successful entrepreneur because I'll give you an example.

In great business schools, I teach you practically all of them. Almost half the class become consultants. They don't have the guts. Because think about a consultant, they never make any decisions of consequence. You get paid a lot. It's great. If you go to the top of your consulting firm, maybe you make three, four million bucks a year. That's great.

Can't complain about that. But every decision you make is just a consultation so that an executive, who actually makes decisions, who's a real entrepreneur, can say yes or no to that idea. You're just making decisions of no consequence whatsoever. And the reason I don't hire consultants is after two years, they get that virus. They're just generating opinions.

They're not doing anything. And I don't mean to insult consultants. I would just never hire them. And so if you really, you know, jump off and become a consultant, you're going into a life of mediocrity. And I'm trying to define the difference between that life of mediocrity. and one where that same graduate says, I'm going to take a chance. I'm 28 years old. I don't have a family yet. I'm going to start a business. I don't know if it's going to work or not,

but I have the ability to just take that risk, not seeing what's on the other side of the chasm, and I'm going to forego a salary of $200,000 a year because I want something more. Those are the people who have become free one day because they make $5 million in a day because they're entrepreneurs. and that consultant that you use, they're back enjoying their lives, but in a sea of mediocrity. Do you think you're born like that, though? Because it seems as though there is a personality type that's more prone to becoming an entrepreneur who really pushes back against rules, against authority, and they want to take a different path.

I don't know if you're born that way. I think you have events that occur in your life that are jolting to you. And every entrepreneur I talk to that's been successful has that defining moment where they say, I remember this moment in my life, and I remember what happened to me, and it just changed my direction. It's like a meteorite in space. Knock it off course, a fraction of an inch. A hundred years later, it's a billion miles in a different place.

Well, that's the same thing with an entrepreneur early in their lives. For me, it was getting fired the first day I ever had a job. I realized that that was just somebody else had power over me. I couldn't even deal with that concept. And so that was the, I never worked again. And with all the hardships and everything, else, but it's very similar. There's some event that triggers somebody, so I'm not sure you're born with it. It's just something in your DNA says, I'm going to take that path of risk.

What do you think is more important for a successful entrepreneur to be hungry for money, to be focused on profits, increasing revenue, decreasing expenses, or to be very passionate about the product or service that you're trying to sell? Well, if you're hungry for money, I guarantee you'll fail. 100%. If you start into entrepreneurship and on a journey and all you care about it's getting rich, you will fail. You will fail miserably. Every entrepreneur, not some, every single one that achieved some massive liquidity event I've talked to, and I've met many of them, they don't even remember, you know, the day it happened. They just woke up and said, oh my goodness, I'm filthy rich. But they weren't calculating for that. It's because they created

something of such value that someone else said, well, we want to buy that business. And you own whatever you owned of it. And you, that's what happened to me. I woke up. one day and we sold the learning company for $4.2 billion. I was one of the founding members. I had founders' shares. I wasn't even thinking about that the night before when we were negotiating the deal. And then the funny thing was when we all came back to the office, the 10 of us that were founders, we didn't know anything else except to go back to work. We didn't even know what to do. So the only difference was we were filthy rich. And over time, people changed sort of their momentum and and their motivation.

But if you think that you can calculate the exit and that somehow you can start a business because you know you're going to sell it and make a lot of money, you will fail 100%. It's the second issue you talked about. It's the passion of loving what you do and getting up every day and willing to work 25 hours a day, eight days a week because you love it so much

and you love to compete. That's how you become free. It's not about the pursuit of capital. It's a pursuit of freedom, personal freedom. I don't have to work anymore. I work harder than I ever have. I really enjoy what I do. I love to compete.

I love to do what we're doing right now, talking about this so that others may learn from my mistakes. But the whole idea is personal freedom. That is the American dream. And you have to set your course on that. And there's one attribute you need to pull that off. And I've taught so many people. It's the ability to differentiate the signal from the noise every minute of the day.

People are going to chase you with stuff. you're going to get a thousand ideas. They're going to call you and ask you to do stuff. If it's not on task for the signal, it's noise. It's noise. And you have to just push it aside. Those are the great entrepreneurs. They don't deal with the noise.

Who are you competing against? It's when I start a business, for example, let's say watch insurance. I'm a big watch collector. I've looked at every single policy there is for watches. None of them work for me. Why? The problem with watches, if you go and get a rider on your home insurance, you know, you're going to notice when you actually read the fide print that you're going to end up in many cases

with the depreciated value of the watch 10 years later when you lose it or it gets stolen or you break it, except the majority of watches these days go up in value. And sometimes geometrically, certain brands quadriple in value. And your policy, a decade later when that watches out of production, can't even contemplate. market value. So I want a policy that actually scrapes market value every 24 hours, and I can ensure it for exactly what it'll cost to replace it. Or I can insure it for the purchase price. I can decide myself, but I'd much rather insure my watches for what they were worth last night. So I have a policy with Chubb, and it's a stated value. And I've started doing this with cars,

too. I noticed it becoming a lot more common, a stated value. And then if that watch gets lost or stolen, they replace that, I think, plus 50% up to the total policy amount. So let's say you have 100,000 in watches. Right. One of those watches is worth 20. You'll lose it. It gets stolen. They'll cover that up to 30, up to the total policy limit of 100 within a certain period of time.

Okay. What happens if that's a steel white face Daytona that you bought for $12,000? It's now trading for $58,000. Well, then you do a stated value of, you know, 30 or $30. And that eats up how much of what you've got left for the other five. Whatever you say. Right. So for my, I think I have five watches.

I stated values in all of them. And I stated the value based on what they're selling for in Chrono 24. So if I were to replace it. But there's few policies like that. No, I get it. But I'd rather solve for a different problem. I have many watches. I only want to ensure the 25 I travel with.

And I want to travel maybe for a month with these to go shoot Shark Tank, for example. I'm going to put them in a bank vault in L.A. I want the value of every one of those watches that day should it get lost. And I want to be able to turn that policy off when I swap out for another 25 watches. Maybe I only have three watches. I only want to wear one. It doesn't matter. I want a different kind of insurance product.

There's nothing wrong with what you've got, but it doesn't solve for me. If you think you're going to spend 1.72%, which is approximately what you're spending of the replacement value on your watches, I would want it to be accurate. I want to check the language regarding what theft is. theft and what loss is loss because I'm writing it specifically for watches. And lastly, does it work internationally? Because I travel a lot. And I've talked to thousands of people that are collectors of watches. And they all want the same thing and they can't find it. There's nothing wrong with Chubb. There's nothing wrong with Lloyd's of London. When you make something specific for just watch owners, maybe you've made a better mouse trap. The biggest challenge the watch industry

has in insurance is customer acquisition. I do not have that price. I do not have that. problem. There are millions of people who know I'm a watch collector. And when we tested this, I just put one 15 second ad out and got requests for 2,000 policies. No insurance companies ever been able to do that. So I'm pretty confident that a year from now, after I've launched this product, I'll be a great competitor. And I'll make this industry better by offering a better product that people have to compete with. That's why I like to be a competitor. I see a hole in the market. I see a need. I see something that's required. I go pursue it. For a young entrepreneur, maybe trying to impress some investors, or just a young motivated person that

wants to get into watches, what type of watch would you recommend they get as their first watch? And what do you think is the most overrated watch company that exists? Although, you know what? Before we go into that, let's do some quick math, because minimizing your business's expenses is also the same as maximizing your profits. And we all want profits, right, Jack? That's right. However, the bad news is that as prices rise for labor, materials, distribution, and borrowing, everything is costing more. So to reduce, costs and minimize headaches, smart businesses are graduating to our sponsor, NetSuite by Oracle. NetSuite is the number one cloud financial system bringing accounting, financial management,

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netsuite.com slash iced. Again, that's netsuite.com slash iced. Or you could use the link down below in the description. Thank you again to NetSuite for sponsoring today's video and let's get back to the podcast. For a young entrepreneur, maybe trying to impress some investors or just to young, motivated person that wants to get into watches, what type of watch would you recommend they get as their first watch? And what do you think is the most overrated watch company that exists? That's a great question because I've said to people countless times, never borrow money to buy a watch. A watch should mark a moment in your life as it has for me. I remember my very first watch, a Cartier Panther that I bought on my first deal. I think it cost me at that time $5,000, which back then was a fortune to me.

but I was able to afford it because I closed a deal. The journey of watch collecting is actually a disease because you don't really need a watch any more. You get better time off your phone. But because for men and for women, too, it marks certain points in their life. I have another watch that has on the back my first 500 million fund.

I cherish that because, you know, that's not a lot anymore, but it was my first, when I got 500 million to manage, there it was, and we got a lot watches. This is 2 million subscribers on it. See? On the back. Exactly.

So. Why don't you wear only my watch? I'm a dial guy. I want to work with every watchmaker. I'm a member of the New York Chorological Society. I want to support watchmakers, and I support, like a patron, new watchmakers like Simon Britt.

I'm one of his biggest buyers because I love his work, and he's got 10,000 people want to buy his watches and he respects his collectors. I'm one of them. Here's some watches that I think are remarkable in terms of value and entry-level pricing.

Tudor. In fact, I'm wearing a Tudor right now. Yeah, I noticed it. This is the Tudor of Miami me pink, this is a $7,000 watch, but that dial is absolutely spectacular. It's beautiful. So Tudor has watches down to $3,000 and the quality of a Tudor is remarkable. Grand Seco, spectacular. We were looking at this yesterday. Yesterday in Puerto Rico, we walked in in and the guy was talking nonstop about Grand Saco and their movements are fantastic. The Japanese

really have it down for watches. They actually started making watches before the Swiss. the quality of a Grand Seco piece is unbelievable. So if you're going to buy an entry level watch, go look at what Grand Seco, not Seiko, Grand Seco. Right. There's a difference. Grand Seco is extremely affordable. They make some amazing pieces.

And those are two brands that I feel, you know, Lengine for women is a fantastic brand. And I support them all. And I own them all. I mean, I'm a dial guy. It doesn't matter to me. I mean, look, this is a loose attack. It's covered in diamonds.

It's a really expensive piece. That's not why I bought it. I bought it because it's got a beautiful red band, which is my signature look, but also the dials spectacular. It's a crazy guy. But now, I would argue for entrepreneurs, they want something that's recognizable where the average person on the street looks at a watch and says that person is successful because they have that watch. I think Rolex is really the only brand that has that name recognition where if you're going into a meeting, unless you're watch, like watch people know Grand Seiko. They know tutor. but non-watch people, I think,

had their respect for Rolex as a brand of like, oh, they must be successful because they have a Rolex submariner. But here you're trying to impress as like a bidding entrepreneur. It is true that Rolex is 40% of the market in that sense, but there are other brands. I would argue that Patek Philippe,

if you talk about the horsemen of watches in terms of respect in a meeting, AP, Rolex, Potech Philippe. They're well, well known. They are the three horsemen. There's more to life than finding the perfect car. But finding the perfect car can help you get the most out of life. Like the SUV that handles everything from drop off to off road, and the car that hulls groceries and

hockey teams, or the van that's gone from just practical to practically family. Whatever you want, wherever you're going, start your search at ototrater.ca. Canada's car marketplace. Sorry. Investing, trading, that isn't a personality. You don't need the voice. You don't need the jargon. You don't need the podcast. You already know how to trade. You've done it your whole life. And TD Easy Trade taps into that instinct so you can build something real. No minimums, no monthly fees, 24-hour support, no investor personality required. Because you are made to trade. And TD Easy Trade is made to help. Download it now. Also, there's some brands that have come up in the last decade that are remarkable. F.P. Jorne. Even if you have all those watches, those are the F.P. Jorne collectors. They want a Jorn. Jorn. Jorn is a living Picasso of watchmaking. Everybody knows when he passes, all the watches are going to be worth way more. Everybody's trying to get any jorn they can get. It's transcended a micro brand. It's transcended an independent brand. It's become a brand. And that happened. So watch collecting is really about, for me, it's styles. But I love it, and it's a whole community of people. It opens stores all around the world for me. Royal families, European leadership, everybody loves watches. Last watch question, because we do have to move on.

Which brand do you think is overrated? That's a really tough question because... Do you want me to say? I'll say Hublo. Hublo. Yeah, I mean, I get that, but Hublo has just come with some dials in the last six months. You know, these brands go, they ebb and flow. Let me give you another example.

Mill. That was the hottest, hottest, hottest, hottest, hottest brand during the crypto craze. People were buying Richard Mills with crypto. And I could never wear one because they never were allowed on television. They were just too ostentatious. And then along comes their new titanium on one, thin, super stunning dial. And I am wearing that on Shark Tank season 16. So there's a brand that I couldn't touch now has become iconic in terms of style with this super thin titanium watch. So you can say that about who a little bit, just you wait six months and stuff happens. It's like talking about steel versus gold.

Six, seven years ago, nobody touched yellow gold. Now it's smoking hot. And just in Geneva a few weeks ago, the best of show was what Cartier did with the crash, a watch design back in 1921. They brought these skeleton crashes and everybody went ballistic.

And that's Cartier. And so that's a brand that you may thought was jewelry. Now I'd say for fashion, houture, when you see what's going to be on style for the rest of this year, you're going to see a ton of Cartier. Now, going back to topics when it comes to business and entrepreneurship, you talked about being comfortable enough to fire your mother.

What does that mean to you? When you start a business, you're no longer number one. You start hiring employees, they're on top of you. Your shareholders, your bankers, they're on top of you. On top of both of them are your customers. They're number one. They'll always be number one. You are at the bottom of the stack because even though you own the business,

and that's important, and that's how you'll be free one day, from that point on, you are working for everybody above you. If you use nepotism in your business and they don't perform, that's hurting all of the rest of the stack. So if you have your mother and she can't perform and she's only on there because you want to put her on payroll for some reason, and she doesn't deliver on her promise to the team, you got to take her up behind the barn, shoot her, you got to shoot her, because you're hurting the business. And it's the business that makes me. matters the most, not you, not any one individual. If they're not team members, they're cancer, surgery immediately, gone. The minute they're not on mandate, gone. I learned this lesson a long time ago.

You're either on board or you're not. It seems as though the trend is to be ruthless in business. Is there ever a time to show compassion in business, or would you say for the most part, that's giving away something that you don't need to be giving away. Let's get back to, you know, behind the barn. No, no, no. I'm very compassionate. I think great leaders are very compassionate. Great managers are very compassionate. They understand people are human beings. But in business, it's very measurable. It's very binary. You either make money or you lose money. There's no in between. When you break even business is not sustainable. It's not going to work. You either make money or you lose money. Most companies can't last more than 36 months losing money because they can't raise any more if they go out of business.

So you should understand what the goal is. And people tell me all the time, well, shouldn't we have a social mission? Sure, you should, as long as you can afford it. If you don't make money, you can't pay out any social mission. You can't support any charity because you're losing money. If you don't understand that, you're probably not going to make it because businesses, the DNA of a business is actually to make money. And lots of people say, well, no, it isn't.

It's to save some, you know, social cause. That's actually called a charity. And there's nothing wrong with that. You can't mix them up. I'm curious, how do you value your time? Although, you know what, while we're on this topic, AI could be the most important new computer technology ever. It's storming every industry and billions of dollars are being invested.

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oracle.com slash iced. Thank you so much to Oracle for sponsoring this episode and let's get back to the podcast. I'm curious, how do you value your time? In the segment with Logan Paul and Impulsive, you were talking about an entrepreneur who came and was making $5 million a year from his business and his fiancee was upset

that he was not spending enough time with her and you said, what's more replaceable, the business or her? And she, I guess at the end of the day, it was probably more replaceable, but how do you balance living life and enjoying things versus the pursuit of money. Well, you have to understand there's different phases

in an entrepreneur's life. There is no balance in the early days, and I think you're fooling yourself if you think there is, which is why I say you better love your idea, you better love your mission, you better love your product, you better love your customers,

because you're going to have to spend an annoying amount of energy on it and you're not going to have a balanced life. If you're successful, that's when you buy your freedom. And you can dial in your participation to your business by hiring more people that can execute for you. I'm a very fortunate guy today. I can do whatever I want, but it doesn't mean I didn't work like hell for it. I did. But now I pursue things that really matter to me. I think there is a

balance in life that you earn and you need it because you have to have the yin and yang. If all you do is do business all day, you will not be creative. You really, really have to balance it. You'll be creative when you have the yin and yang of chaos of art. Let me give you some examples. I love to learn from other successful entrepreneurs. I did a guest stint with Michael Rubin from Fanatics, very successful entrepreneur in sports, he was a guest shark and I was working with him and he said a few times, how big can this be when he was being pitched deals? And I really like that about him because he wasn't thinking small. He said, if I'm going to burn my time, it's got to be big. It may be very competitive, but it's got to be big. And I, you know,

great about Shark Tank. You meet these wonderful people and you have lunch with them and hang out and do everything else. Those five words really stuck in my mind. So I'm learning. I'm always learning from other entrepreneurs. That's one guy. How big can it be? Just think about how important that is to ask yourself in every opportunity you see. And the other one, Elon Musk, he hates wasting time. If you're engaged in a conversation with him and he thinks it's useless information, he'll just walk away. He doesn't care about the social impact of that. That's why he's so wildly successful. And so you've got to think about that. I've seen him do that. And so people feel nervous meeting him maybe

and they want to make small talk. That's not what he wants. What do you know that's useful information? That's what he wants. When does it become unhealthy? I want to give the example back in really from 2020 to 2023. I was in a phase where all I cared about

were what I'm doing every hour of the day. And I calculate the value of my time for an hour. And if someone were to say, let's go and grab lunch, let's go and grab a coffee. I would calculate how much that time is worth. and then think to myself, do I want to pay this amount to go and have coffee with this person? And I got to the point where like almost everything, it just nothing made sense for me to do other than work because my time was so valuable during those certain hours.

But also as a secondary example, Graham and I, we were considering getting a hotel room together or separate. And Graham was running the calculation of the cost per hour that he would have to pay if we got separate rooms and is it worth that premium? And I think about the other stuff, it's like, okay, well, we'd have separate bathrooms. Maybe we'd get a better night of sleep. Maybe this. And he's still calculating this. And this was probably four or five months ago. And he has plenty of money now. So at what level do you think it becomes counterproductive? It never becomes counterproductive. I'd say you've reached Nevada. All right. That was actually how you should operate. There's no question. Because when you have enough capital and you can start to say to yourself, well, I'm going to fly first class now because I've earned it for myself. But you earned it for yourself. You didn't borrow money to fly first class. In the beginning, we used points for everybody. We were in the back of the bus everywhere. Now, if I'm going to fly to Europe tonight, I'm going to fly first class because I earned it. I earned it. But I can afford to do that. But I am the same as you. I break my day into 30-minute segments. And I'm always looking with, you know, with the people that scheduled me, what's this? What's this thing in the schedule? What is that? Why am I doing that? What am I going to get from that that's

either of interest to me that I'll learn something or is going to help one of our businesses. I've wished they're now 54. Why am I doing that? And if it's, oh, well, they called up, they said they knew you. And I'll say, well, I don't know why I would. Amazon presents Jeff versus Taco Truck Salsa, whether it's Verde, Roja, or the orange one. For Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette with a flame. thrower. Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk. Habaniero?

More like habanier, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. Use my most valuable asset is my time. That's what you said earlier. You're right. It is your most valuable asset. Now, when you use it for your family, that's very valuable. But when you waste it, that is a crime because you'll never get it back.

When is it counterproductive? Because there are some things where I will deliberate for maybe 30 minutes price matching to save $50. And then I go through this other phase where it's my time is worth more than $50 and the time spent deliberating. I may as well just paid more. But then I feel internally that I shouldn't. I don't like, yeah, I like getting ripped off. I don't like, yeah, I like getting a good deal. And so when I think I'm overspending, I feel like I'm getting ripped off in a sense.

And I look at myself 10 years ago. And I'm thinking 10 years ago, me would look at that. and not want to get ripped off. I think that's a very good instinct. I don't think you should ever give up on that. I, you know, people ask me all the time, you just bought that watch for $250,000. Why would you spend $250,000 on that watch?

And I argue, and I have the empirical data to show it, that that is probably a better investment than putting it in the S&P 500, because that piece is a piece unique, and in 10 years will be worth materially more, and I'm making that calculated risk as an alternative asset. I actually have on my balance sheet in my portfolio,

mark to market value on every single watch because I don't want to get ripped off. I mark to market every 24 hours, the value of every piece. And I know that that's something I've learned. I can look at things that I study like watches and know when it's a bad purchase and I won't do it. So it's sort of keeping that in your DNA

is a good thing. I don't know why it's a bad thing. spending a lot doesn't mean that, you know, it's a bad investment. I think it's the value of your time versus the amount that you spend. Like even last night, the first thing I do when I look at a restaurant menu is the price. And then what it is second. And I'd rather get the item that's $18 in a better deal than the other one that I kind of want a little more if it's 25. But I feel like that's a bit overpriced for the fajita.

Like I'd rather the Mahi burger. I'm 100% the same way. Because I mean, you know, I also, you should, you should spend money on good food for your body because that actually makes you much more productive. I don't eat crap food anymore, none. So it's, it's, you'll see as you get older, you realize your energy levels are so much different. You know, either you treat food as medicine or food or one day you'll be taking medicine because you ate shit food. Sure. Like, that's really what happened.

It's bad. I mean, it's, you should think about what you're putting in your body. Why do you like making money so much? I don't need more money. I just like the only measure of business and success against competition is profitability. I'll run a business for three or four years. My wine business made no money for four years until we turned it profitable. And now it's wildly successful because we now ship direct to consumer in 48 states.

I think I ship 2.7 million bottles a year. I figured that business out and I don't know many people that ship that many bottles. And so I'm competing and I'm winning and I'm making money and I'm building a great team in wine and I enjoy wine. If you're not making money, what are you doing? It's a hobby. It's okay if you want to call it a hobby. But if you're actually burning hours, we've been talking about time.

Burning hours and making no money, why would you do that unless it's a hobby? Otherwise, you're just a loser. Now, what about when it comes to body language? Back to the Impulsive podcast, you said that there's some downtime when you're filming Shark Tank, where cameras will come in, get B-roll,

and the contestants are just standing there. And you said that you could tell from their body language how confident they are and if they're going to be successful and if they believe in the product. What do you look for specifically when it comes to body language? Mostly in the eyes.

If you stare at somebody, can they take it? You can stare at somebody on the shark tank set for four or five seconds and they just look away and they're looking around the room. They're going to fail. They have to have in their head

that moment before they've been talking. I am here for a reason. I've earned my way here. I'm really good at what I do. I'm going to deliver my message and nobody is going to trip me. That's the mentality you have to have And you're going to get fried in there, even though you've practiced, you know, 50 times in front of a mirror.

It's not the same for when the cameras are rolling. You've got all the sharks there and the dynamic that's going on. You have to be confident. And it's really in the eyes, I think. That's because I'm right almost 99% of the time. That's a loser. Hasn't even said anything yet. Sure enough, they're losers.

Because they just don't have what it takes to drive. You know, there are winners and losers. That's not my fault. It's just the way it is. And what about trusting your guy? Has that ever steered you the wrong way? Because you're very much lead by intuition and you kind of have a feeling

if this is going to work out or not. You don't have gut till you failed a lot. The intuition or the gut feeling is experience. That's what it is. And so I always tell this famous story about my last year of business school. This guy came in the class. Always in these MBA courses,

they start bringing in guest lecturers. And he was, came into the cohort that we were graduating a week later. And I was sitting beside a guy named Barry Nicole. Snowler, he passed away. It's really unfortunate, but I spent two years beside him. And this guy walks in, and he doesn't say anything. You know, the lecturer introduces him,

and he just starts walking at the bottom of the pit. It's like Harvard. It's a case study, 168 people in their room. He just walked around, and then he started walking up and down the aisles, and it was really uncomfortable for everybody. Like, why is this guy not talking? And then he goes down to the bottom of the pit and he looks up and he says,

you guys think you're such hot shit. You're going to graduate with your MBA. Aren't you smart? And you think you're going to go out and change the world. A third of you are going to fail in 36 months. You're going to get fired. A third of you are going to go into mediocrity as consultants. And a third of you are going to work like hell

for 10 to 15 years and maybe make it as an entrepreneur. And I leaned over to Barry. and I whispered, this guy's a real asshole. And I'm that guy today. I'm that guy. He is right. He was 100% right. That's exactly what happened.

He was 100% right. The arrogance you have when you're young and you've never felt the sting of failure is unbelievable. And only life can beat the crap out of you and make you have experience. That's the whole idea. And that's really what I learned.

And now when I go in and I get that same lecture to people, it's out of experience. And so when I see deals now and I meet entrepreneurs or I'm offered to invest in stuff, I have a pretty good spider sense whether it's going to be successful or not. Do you think it's better to tell them it's going to fail? I just say your idea sucks, you're not confident,

this is not going to work out, or do you think it's better to let them fail and go through that experience that they could learn from it? Well, that's what I do all day. That's why I'm the hated sharp. I always say that idea sucks. It has no merit.

It's going to go bankrupt. You're going to lose your house. Versus what Laurie and Barbara do. Oh, come by. you keep going. I admire what you're doing. I'm not going to give you any money, but you just keep on going. You go, girl, you go. I lean over to them. I say, what are you talking about? This idea is shit. It's going to zero for sure. It's disingenuous what you're doing. We have that debate all the time. And, and, you know, and I get the rapper being the guy that tells the truth. I'm the only shark that tells the truth. And I'm your best friend because your idea does suck. It's going to zero. And you're not going to waste your time on it any longer. You'll start something else. That's a whole idea of entrepreneurship. Maybe you try three times. You only need one success. What time were you most surprised by the pitch where you thought, okay, this is horrible. You're going to lose your house. But then it ended up being a success. And there was demand for that.

Before we get into that, here's a funny story, guys. I, for some reason, thought that I was a stock market investing genius. I put $20,000 into a Robin Hood portfolio and I brought it all the way up to $70,000 in like five months. Have you ever seen anything like that before? Those are the times, man. 2020 through 2021, anything you picked was going to go up in value. It's just, there was the market at the time. But guess what happened to my $70,000? It went down to $4,000.

I lost everything. It was devastating. The thing is, though, your intentions were good when it came to it. Like, you wanted to invest your money. You wanted to beat inflation. At the time, a lot of things were doing well. And it's simply a matter of just not getting the proper education to lock in profits and properly diversify.

Since then, I've made a lot of money investing. I'm investing for the long term in the. the right stocks, and same goes for Graham. And one of the places that I actually turn to for information happens to be sponsoring this episode, which is crazy, and that would be Yahoo Finance. Yahoo Finance allows you to read comprehensive financial news, analysis, or just learn more about investing in general. It's also the website that I personally visit every single day. I get some video ideas from them. It's just a great resource to go and learn about investing, see what's going on, and the best part about it, it's completely free.

So if you guys want to learn more about investing and make sure that you're making the right decisions unlike me check out yahoo finance there's a link down below in the description thank you so much yahu finance for sponsoring this episode and back to the podcast what time were you most surprised by the pitch where you thought okay this is horrible you're going to lose your house but then it ended up being a success and there was demand for that base pause i think it was 2020 or 2019 anna sky walks out says I have a cat DNA testing kit for $29. And I looked at her and said, I can buy a new cat for $5.

Why would I spend $29 on a DNA testing kit? What a stupid idea this is. She was so compelling. No one gave her dime except at the end of her pitch. I just thought, wow, this woman just does not stop. She is vicious. She is so focused on this. idea that she can help cats live longer and if people care enough about their cats that they'll

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S-UVW, German-Engineered for All. This episode is brought to you by Tellus Online Security. Oh, tax season is the worst. You mean hack season? Sorry, what? Yeah, cybercriminals love tax forms. But I've got Tellus Online Security. It helps protect against identity theft and financial fraud

so I can stress less during tax season, or any season. Plan start at just $12 a month. Learn more at Telus.com. slash online security. No one can prevent all cybercrime or identity theft. Conditions apply. I said, okay, I can't take it anymore. I'll give you, I'll give you the $250,000, whatever it was I gave her. And I said, I couldn't take it. I was not going to leave. 250 grand. Just to stop talking. She was not going to leave without a deal. And so finally I came. That was one of the, it was the highest IRA return in Shark Tank history. A matter of months later, she sold it to a giant pharmaceutical,

not because of the kits, because of the data. Right. She had the cat DNA data by the hundreds of thousands. And I thought to myself, wow, even though you think you know, you don't know. That's why you've got to invest in a whole bunch of deals because it's the ones that you think are going to be great that end up being turds. And the ones that are just insane like base paws. What about wicked good cupcakes? What a monster hit that was?

Cupcakes in a jar, nobody would give them a dime. Tracy and Danny, it was 12 years ago. It was the same situation. They were so compelling with their whole pitch and their story. I thought, okay, they're just so good at telling it. Maybe someone else will like it too. Sold to Hickory Farms. Huge hit.

Huge hit. Imagine putting a cupcake in a mason jar, shipping costs go up by three times. But that's not what their story was. It was gifting. And it was really, really. So I've learned that you just don't know. and you've got to cut a lot of slack in these deals. Who knows what last year's crop's going to do in four years from now?

Who knows what I'm going to see next week when we start again? That's why I have a lot of latitude. And I don't even have to like you. I just want to figure out can you execute? Like Anna in BasePause, she was a ferocious beast. Her past record of execution skills was insane. She just never fails. That's the other thing.

75% of the deals for me in 15 years have been the ones that were successful. run by women. What's different about them that makes the more focused on profit or better business? Well, we actually studied this. We went back and looked at seven years of data trying to figure this out. And what we learned was, you know, there's something to this adage. You want something done, give it to a busy mother, because they juggle a lot of things in a small startup company. But the real secret sauce was in setting goals, growth goals, that were attainable. So their average growth rate was only 17%. versus men in our portfolio, 30%.

But they only hit their target 65% of the time. And women hit them 95% of the time. And I thought, why does that even matter in manifesting itself for a better cash outcome? And the answer is nobody wanted to quit the New England Patriots when Brady was the quarterback because they had a chance of getting a ring, a quarterback that just delivered the championship year after,

a year at the Super Bowl. They win Super Bowls. So women entrepreneurs that set goals that everybody achieves, the culture gets very sticky and there's no attrition. There's nobody quits. A small business when you lose head of sales, the head of accounting, head of logistics, very disruptive. That's sort of what the secret sauce was. So now we really reduce our growth targets to make sure we can achieve them. That's what matters. How important do you think a morning routine is? You've got quite the Yeah, early morning routine, right? You're up at 4 or 5 a.m.? No, I got up this morning at 5.

I went down to the gym. I listened to three or four European feeds while I was working out, did some aerobics, did some weights. It's a constant routine. You need that just to clear your mind. But you're also, you know, gardening a lot of data. And so I was on the road at 7 o'clock. I gave a keynote today here in Miami,

to entrepreneurs, a room of 3,000 entrepreneurs. I really enjoyed that. And here we are now sitting talking about the same topic. So, you know, that routine is important, particularly around mental wellness and physical wellness. And you've got to be, you've got to, you know, I don't smoke, I don't take drugs, I drink wine. I like that.

That's my one curse. It's bad for sleeping. I wear an aura rig. And I've done something else, which is a little unusual that I learned it from a bunch of guys I'm involved in in longevity, I decided a couple of years ago to start wearing a glucose monitor, even though I'm not a diabetic, just to learn which foods spike my glucose, because every DNA is different. So I learned, for example, if you drink a beer, I love beer, you're trying to keep

your glucose range between 50 and 150 because there's a, it's not a theory anymore, it's a proven fact. If you spend your life spiking your glucose with sugar, your propensity to develop, you're develop dementia, not Alzheimer, goes up geometrically. In fact, they've been able to arrest dementia by reducing heavy glucose loading. Essentially, you're frying your brain with sugar. So if you understand that, you start saying, well, let's see what foods do that.

Well, for me, it's beer. I go from, you know, 88 to 280 after half a bottle of beer. Well, that's really dumb. Don't do that to yourself. Or if you eat like a lot of watermelon, boom, through the roof, a lot of grapes. You end up finding foods that you're much stabbler with in terms of this mandate to maintain the range. But what happens is you lose a ton of weight. You're not even hungry, and you're just losing a ton of weight. And I lost 30 pounds. And my energy level went up.

My blood pressure went down. And that's the kind of thing that is just maintenance in a routine. So I cycle every day, I work out. I really watch what I eat. And my only sin is I love my wine. How do you look the same age? Like, I feel like forever. Like, ever since I first found out about you, I don't even know how long ago it was, but you look exactly the same. You know, it's, I think,

and I was having this debate, I was in Washington, D.C. two nights ago at a fundraiser, and I got that same question. My mother was half, she was, she was Lebanese and my father was Irish. If you look at Mediterranean people and their diets, You look at blue zones, they're all over the Mediterranean.

Look at these islands off the coast of Greece or where I lived in Cyprus. People walk 40, 50,000 steps a day. They eat two meals a day of salad and fish and olive oil and olives. And they don't eat any sugar in their bread. And I don't know that's the secret, but I've lived, remember, I grew up that way. That's all I knew living in Nicosea, Cyprus, eating Lebanese food, cooked by Lebanese women. That, I didn't appreciate it back then,

but that diet's crazy, healthy. Like, you don't eat any shit. That's just not part of their culture. So the same with the Italians. If you see, go to Europe and see, it's so much about what you put in your body every day. Now look, if you want to take drugs, you want to smoke, you want to do all that crap,

well, you're going to look like shit. That's what's going to happen. So if you want to age out gracefully, think about what you put in your body and how you treat yourself. And the other thing, which sleep, get some sleep. I wear an aura ring. I try for seven hours and 11 minutes of sleep.

And I've learned one thing, and I'll tell you right now, you got to stop drinking three hours before you go to bed. You just kill your REM. You kill your REM. You kill your sleep. Look, I don't achieve that every day, but I'm telling you, I try not to drink during the week so that I had these great nights of sleep. And I think that just helps you for longevity.

Good food for thought for everybody. And all of this technology is so inexpensive now. Our rings are, this technology would have cost you 100 grand 10 years. They were a sponsor of our channel. I love the aura ring. It's fantastic. And the firmer updates are great. I wear it all the time and I'm always checking my sleep.

And I snooze in limos everywhere. When I'm going between gigs, I zone out, get 10, 15, 20 minutes of sleep. Yeah. And people say, oh, it's not valuable sleep. Every minute of sleep is value. It's funny you mention the diet. The U.S. diet is so terrible. that in January, I did the caveman diet.

So I just really... The keto? Yeah, not keto, the caveman. So it's just like whole food. It's kind of like paleo. Yeah, yeah, just one ingredient food. So like chicken, rice, broccoli. Yeah, you got to watch white rice.

That's a very big spiker. You should move to brown rice. Yeah, I do brown. But my point being, the first few weeks was actually really difficult because it was hard to find foods that were not processed, fried, or loaded with sugar. And when I got the diet down after about a week, and you had to be very careful, about what you eat. Like going out to a restaurant, I have to be, I look through what's in it. I'm thinking, oh, I can't eat that. I can't eat that. I can't eat that. In the first few months,

though, I lost 10 pounds. And it's just body fat. It's all the ones. And you feel great, right? You get energy goes out. Totally. And it was just that. What we screwed ourselves with in America that I've realized in the last five years is we put too much sugar in our bread. We dose our bread with cane sugar, which is insane because it's the worst thing you can eat. Europe, they do sour dough breads with no sugar. So when you eat a piece of bread here, you spike your glucose through the roof. You know, plain white bread is, in my view, it's my personal opinion is poison. I wouldn't touch that shit. It's poison. I have to go out of my way here to find bakeries in Miami that make sourdough bread with no sugar. I don't want any sugar.

I don't want any cane sugar. A lot of problems with cane sugar. There's too much of it. And slowly you'll see that the adoption of that kind of practice gets you in a much healthier place and reduces weight. But when you're in a restaurant, you're eating a loaf of bread or eating it before your meal comes, you're eating just cane sugar.

It's garbage. If you had to pick a number, how much would you pay to go back 20 years? Oh, that's a great question. I would like to do that because I would have... Local news is in decline across Canada. And this is bad news for all of us. With less local news, noise, rumors, and misinformation fill the void.

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Ooh, then it's the vacation of a lifetime. I wonder if my head of office has a forever setting. An IG Private Wealth Advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IGPrivatewealth.com. I did myself so much differently if I could have done that. The way, my lifestyle back then, the peak of being an operator, I was killing myself.

I was just killing myself. I was working 21 hours a day, flying all over the world, not eating well. I weighed almost 40 pounds heavier. I wasn't sleeping at all. It was, and I think to myself now, why was I doing that to myself? What did that cost me? Like, it can't have been free. And so if I could somehow, there would be value, how much it would be.

I don't know because I don't want to change anything in my life. I'm pretty happy with what I got right now. But if I could, if I, if I, my advice to anybody in their 20s is think about what you're doing to yourself every day. If you kind of get hip to this, you'll live to 120 years old and it'll be a really high quality life. if you really think about exercise and diet and smoking. What are you an idiot? I mean, I used to smoke, but you have to be a complete moron to do that.

You have to be beyond moronic. You have to want to die in a horrible way. That is the worst thing you can do to your body. It's insane to inhale tobacco smoke. It's fucking crazy. But, you know, 20, 30% of the population does it. You got to talk to Ben Mala. Got to get him to quit.

Do you know Ben Mala? Yeah. Look, it's such a dramatic change when you kick it. Within 90 days, you start to feel different. You start tasting things. Everybody I've talked to this, pulled it off. You've got to take anything you can to stop yourself from smoking. How much would you pay, though, to go back 20 years?

Now, let's just say everything is the same. It's just to you today, right here, right now. Nothing has changed, but you're 20 years younger. Yeah, it's priceless. I mean, there is no, I'd pay any amount, but can't do it. That's been, anybody would want to do that because, but it's, it's, I, the only way that deal makes sense is if I get to keep the knowledge I have today. You do.

Okay. You would give everything. Okay. That, that, if I could keep, if I could keep my portfolio, because that's, you know, your portfolio. I keep in the portfolio. Okay. I want everything I've, like, I work hard for this stuff, so I've got it now.

I don't want to lose any houses or anything like that. I want to keep my planes, all that stuff. The guitars, watches. I want all of that. I want everything. It's all coming back with me. But if I could get back the years, yeah, that would be, of course, that is, that's priceless. If anybody ever develops that technology, he'll be the most successful entrepreneur

on Earth. I'm curious for people that do self-sabotaging behavior, like smoking and drinking and eating bad food and stuff like that. Do you think that they're just kind of born into that? And they just, for some reason, have like a biological predisposition to not really think about things critically and how things may impact them in the future? Or do you think that's because they've just grown up accustomed to eating really poor foods, which then affects their brain into self-sabotaging? I think the food thing is because they were brought up on a very high

glucose diet, a high sugar diet, a high, because if you think about people in Europe, you look at France or Italy or Middle East. They don't have that propensity to overeat because they were never, even alcoholism in places like France where they introduce wine into children's diets at the age of 11. Many Europeans don't even drink at night. They drink during their main meal at lunch because they like to sleep better, not because they know, but they just don't, if you look at the European style of big meals at lunch and then there's a small repast in the evening.

much healthier. I think it's the way we've, our culture has probably made a mistake. The Japanese also, look at the way they eat. I mean, they do a phenomenal job. They eat lots of protein there. I visit Japan all the time. We have gone offside in our culture in terms of how we actually developed that, that culture in terms of eating and being obsessed with food and eating the wrong food. But no one's perfect. I mean, if I were really on message and if I was really, you know, going to my own mandate about what I eat. I wouldn't drink anything.

I'd stop drinking alcohol. I should, but I don't. So that's my one crutch. So I have to moderate how much I do it and when I do it. But there you have it. How often is it during a shark tank pitch that it's not the product or service at all and everything the person's personality that completely ruins it? Although you know what?

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And better yet, our listeners could get $1,000 off of Vanta at vanta.com slash iced. That's V-A-N-T-A-com slash I-C-E-D, or the link is also down below in the description. Thank you so much, Vanta, for sponsoring this episode, and let's get back to the podcast. How often is it during a shark tank pitch that it's not the product or service at all and everything the person's personality that completely ruins it? Everyone, every time. The reason you don't get a deal is not your product 90% of it. the time it's you you suck you suck you can't communicate you have a personality nobody wants to work

with it it doesn't look like you can take the idea and execute it i don't have to like you but i have to believe you can execute and the more you peel the onion you start to realize this person has no executional skills i'm the only guy tells them the truth i'll say look i don't think you can pull this off i don't think you're good enough and i don't think you've made enough mistakes to realize that yet and I don't think you've learned enough lessons. I have no interest in investing in you. I heard there's a therapist on set for people that have breakdowns

after they're told no. Is that true? It is true. How often does it get utilized every time? Every deal. Every deal, whether it's successful or not, people should understand the shark tank experience, what you see on TV is eight minutes,

but some of them are over an hour long and they're very traumatic. It's a very intense thing you're doing, to yourself. It's not easy. You cannot prepare for the real pitch. You can try, but it'll never be the experience you'll achieve when you're in there. And, you know, they do rehearse everything, but when you, those doors open for the real moment and the 20 plus cameras are rolling and the sharks are there and, you know, it's now, it's the moment. It's very traumatic. Isn't there a chance, though, that maybe somebody has a great idea. They have the skills. It's just they get so nervous in front

of all the cameras and knowing millions of people could see this. And maybe that just chokes them up a little bit. It's not them. It's just the situation that they've never been in before. Yes. And that's why we don't invest in them. That's the whole point. I mean, you have to understand when life offers you that moment, you got to step up. There's no optionality. There's no starting again. There's no second chance. You either deliver it or you don't. And I've seen it happen a thousand times. I mean, I mean, it's heartbreaking, but I get over. You know, you got to remember, and I say this to so many people, usually around valuation issues, they come in the shark tank.

They have a great idea. They've delivered a fantastic presentation, great executional skills, and we want to invest or I want to invest. And the valuation is ridiculous. It's just stupid. You know, they want $100 million and they have no sales, something ridiculous. And I say them, you know, something. think about the moment we're in.

Let's focus on this moment, just this moment. If I do your deal and you become part of the Shark Tank family and you start this journey with 100 million eyeballs of syndication for years to come and all of the aura of the shark tank,

the relationships with retailers and international sales and manufacturing and all of that, that could change your life. Forever. If I don't invest in your deal, I'm going to forget who you are in 30 seconds. You're not going to change my life. My life's already been changed. I'm done. Your deal is not going to change my life. No matter how successful it is, it's not going to change my life.

And that's our dilemma. Here I am. I can change your life, but you can't really change mine. And you're quibbling over valuation. Why don't you think about that for another 30 seconds? And if you're so dumb that you don't get what I'm telling you, I don't want to invest in you because you're too stupid. I don't know, I'm just getting a flurring. So much. Spam, an important man. Oh, gosh. No, no, this is.

The spam is awful. The spam is like these. I do the same thing. I have two numbers. A Vegas line is my personal line, and then I have another one. This is my TikTok phone. What's that mean?

It's a burner. You have a phone for TikTok? Yeah, we advertise a lot. TikTok's Chinese spyware. We all know that. Wait, really? So you have your own phone for TikTok. Yeah, but there's nothing on here that's real.

Just TikTok. Just, I have all. other apps I don't care about. But the real stuff is on my other phone, like all my banking information and all my personal contacts and everything else. This is full of fake shit. This is the tick. The Supreme Leader in China sees... Square knows that in hospitality, efficiency is everything. That's why the system lets you take payments. Track sales, handle inventory, manage staff, send invoices, and keep up with finances all in one place. Fly through orders with zero mistakes. Get the data you need and keep everything

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So it's, TikTok is spyware. There's no question about it. And that thing is going to go and get sold. I'm going to buy it, by the way. That's another.

So I'm curious. Pivoting really quick on the TikTok topic. I have the attitude and the belief that if they have my data, there's really nothing there that I'm worried about

or concerned about. I kind of think my data is already out there. Whatever I'm doing is already there. What could they do with it? If they want to track me across websites, if I'm served, you've got nothing to hide. Kind of.

I mean, as long as they're not like, you know, taking money from my bank account, then I kind of think, what's the, I'm not worried about. Look, you're about 30% of the population. Other people have a different opinion. Certainly governments and countries now, India was the first to turn it off,

just turned it off five years ago. 207 million users just turned it off. 48 hours later, nobody cared. Same thing could happen here in January. Our governments made a decision. The U.S. government said, this is spyware. It's illegal after January. The perverse situation that companies' management is in right now

is suing the people of the United States through their Congress. I feel sorry for that guy's resume down the road. How much of though do you think this is purely the United States doesn't want to compete with China and that they feel like China's maybe too much of a threat to the United States infrastructure. And maybe that's the reason why. Because I've seen people make the argument that Facebook is doing the exact same thing.

But we don't quite regulate Facebook to the same degree. I know national security. I kind of understand that. But Facebook also. I read it differently. I mean, I don't agree with your premise. I think what the United States wants

and certainly I want is a level playing field. I'm happy to compete with China. If I have the same level playing field on policy that they have. For example, I can't sue them when they steal my IP. I can't, if my business is being threatened to be shut down by Chinese, which they don't even allow in the first place, you can't do a TikTok in China. It has to be controlled by the government.

I can't sue them. There's no Congress to sue. There's only the Supreme Leader. And yet they have the benefit of bringing their companies and putting them on the NASDAQ or the New York Stock Exchange and they're opaque in accounting and compliance. I have to pay millions for my companies that are listed companies. I have to be compliant with the SEC and the regulator. I have to pay for that. they don't. I'm sorry. I'm come to the end of my tether on that one. My idea is that China understands

the stick. I don't want, I love the Chinese people. I don't trust their leadership at all because I've lived through what they've done. I want them to be treated the same as they treat us and I want it to be equal, level playing field. So I think that we should delist their companies until they comply under the same rules I have to. I say they don't have access to our courts if I can't have access to theirs. So this guy that's suing Congress, I think we should just say, nah, sorry, we can't sue the Supreme Leader. You can't sue us. I think that company will be shut down if it isn't sold.

I actually think they're going to shut it down in Canada, too. I think they're going to shut it down in Europe. They're going to shut it down everywhere. What do you think the role of the government should be? To provide a regulatory environment, I think we saw this happen with crypto, which is a good recent example, a level playing field where all competitors can compete. Now, people have different versions of,

of what they want from government, particularly around health care and other sectors. But when it comes to the largest, there's 11 sectors in the economy, and many of them are regulated, my preference is to simply set the rules so you can play the football game. That's it. What you want is policy that's pro-business, pro-job creation, and then let people compete, because that's what created the American economy over 200 years ago was this idea of capitalism and competition. I think we've swung too far the other direction where it's too much of a nanny.

state and I'm not pro-Trump, you know, or against Trump or it's not even, forget partisanship. I don't care. I don't care who you like as a politician. What I like is good policy. I've never made money in politics. I've made money understanding where policy will go. If I understand policy, I can make sectoral bets and I've been pretty successful, really reading policy.

Like, I read the Chips and Science Act. I read the IRA. Like, I actually read what the government's doing to understand who will benefit from that. and then go invest in those sectors. It's public information. And I spend a lot of time on the Capitol Hill. I mean, I spend at least a week a month now in Washington because I care so much about policy. It gives me a competitive advantage to understand policy. And I'm very fortunate. I have something called the Shark Tank Passport. It gets you in everywhere. I haven't met a politician on either side of the aisle that doesn't like American entrepreneurship. I haven't met a leader, a world leader anywhere that doesn't love

shark tank and entrepreneurship in their country. And I mean everywhere. It could be United Arab Emirates. It could be, you know, Doha in Qatar. It could be France. It doesn't matter. The shark tank passport has been given me an opportunity to really drill down into policy. And so the role of government is really to be pro-entrepreneur. That's what I believe, because that's where all the wealth of America came from creating jobs. And so it's very defined. I say, look, this policy's bad for a business. And I don't like it.

It doesn't matter if it's red or blue. It's bad policy. I think a lot of people make the argument, though, that the middle class is shrinking because some of these policies and that the rich keep getting richer. And these last four years, I think were a good example,

that if you had assets and you had investments, you did phenomenally well. And if you didn't, you were hit hard by inflation and policies that maybe made it more difficult for you to get ahead, more difficult to save money. Yeah, and the natural reaction of that is, well, we should tax those people more.

On their unrealized gains. Which every country that's tried that, including France and England, that was a miserable failure. I mean, people just took their assets out of the country, and it just crushed growth. I mean, you can't even measure it. It's so difficult.

It's very popular these days to say tax to rich, but the rich already pay all the tax. That's the truth. And so there's not enough rich people to tax them into prosperity anymore because you lose them. You should never penalize somebody for being wildly successful, creating millions of jobs. In the case of Elon Musk or in, you know, the case of Amazon, where, you know, Bezos, people want to pursue him. These guys created the American economy as we know it. And I don't know why we'd want to punish them for that. It's very a populist point of

view, but I'm against that kind of thing. The majority of us that are entrepreneurs just want to create a business and do well and keep our families well off if we can and educate our children. That is the American dream. And the more the government gets involved in it, the less it happens. Because government spending is very inefficient. I'd like to see less of it. So we ask this question to everybody, and I'd love to hear your take on this. If you're living in America between ages of 25 and 60, and you're poor. Is it your fault? And you're bored? Poor. Oh, poor. I thought you said poor. And you're poor. No, you got TikTok. If you're bored, I would say Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was just being shocked at that. No, it's not, it's a setting of your circumstance.

You know, it's, the answer to that question has been forever education. Where people are underserved in America is the opportunity to get educated. Because that actually determines outcomes more than anything else. If you find yourself poor, some large portion of that is because you didn't have the opportunity to be educated. We don't, invest enough in our teachers and our schools and the system of education. The most basic things in advancing reading and math scores, because that's the way we lock the door on you. If you can't read and you have low math scores, you can't go through the education system. I know that from my days in, you know, learning company, we spent so much time developing math and testing software. I think if you have to be poor, and you have to start, you land on the planet, the better way to answer your question. Which country are, you?

on earth would you like to land in if you start with nothing. You come out of space with nothing, no clothes even, and you just, it's like the Terminator. You're just, you're just there. I don't think there's any country better than the United States and America to just drop out of space being naked, because if you have the skills, you have the desire, you have the interest, and you have the ability to execute within years, you'll be wealthy. Why do you think common sense is not taught in schools of just budget? budgeting, finance, just being a good person, knowing how to take care of yourself, it doesn't

seem like any of these topics are taught. And that was one of my issues in school was that every topic that I learned, I had a really difficult time paying attention to because I thought to myself, this is never going to apply to me. I'm never going to be a physicist. If I'm interested in business, there was nothing for me in high school that piqued my interest. That's a good question. However, it is changing. Financial literacy, which is the weakest portion of our, you know, You're talking about going back to being poor. The number one reason for bankruptcy is you start taking on debt when you're in your late teens. Our system wants to give you a credit card when you're 18.

And you don't understand how that works and you end up building a big balance at a 21% interest. We don't teach people about that in schools. And I think the great news is it's changing. The state of Florida started introducing that in a high school curriculum, financial literacy. And other states are picking up Texas, New York, California. I think we can fix that problem. I think school is really trying to find out who you are and find out what you're passionate about.

Same with college. You've got to find something that really turns your crank to get up in the morning. Some people pursue a life of philanthropic work, you know, working with charities. That's fine too. Whatever you like, you want to be a writer, you want to be an artist.

We provide you with that opportunity in America because we have 11 sectors of the economy. One thing I have seen, for example, in the last five years is, I used to say if you want to get a job, just be an engineer, engineer, engineer or engineer. It's not true anymore. Our fastest-growing expense are artists,

people that tell stories on social media, videographers, sound editors, you know, story writers, cameramen, sound men. I mean, they, we spend millions every month across the gamut of our companies just producing content for social media. Those people I used to pay $38,000 a year,

now some of them make $250,000, because I'd have to compete against people that pull them aside, because they can make their own job and get $80 to $100,000 themselves as influencers. You know, obviously you figured that out. Yeah.

What about social programs? What do you think the government should offer to people who maybe don't have the capacity to work to that degree or maybe fall on really hard times and need something to hold them together? My definition of social programs is education. So if you're looking to change your life, you have to learn another skill. That's education. It's not really social work.

I mean, we have a lot of mental illness problems here. I get that. Education is the key is to train people to work in the new digital sectors. That's what the government should do with my taxpayer dollars. What do you think the tax rate should be? Imagine your president. You can decide what the tax rate is. Is it progressive?

Regressive? Is it flat? Yeah, it's flat. 29.5% for everybody. For everybody. 29.5. How do you come to that number? You know, there's two things I would do if I were president.

One is I'd go to the flat tax for everybody, including corporations. is 29.5. I don't think you have companies contorting and leaving at 29.5. Some people feel it's 22, but it's somewhere between 22 and 29.5. You don't want to put a three handle on it. It sounds too high. But the other thing I would do is take the lesson from Norway back in the mid-70s. They have vast resources of fossil fuels, as we do here. They simply put a royalty on it with one covenant. It could not be used for any other purpose except building up a trust fund. Could not be used for anything else. Could not be used for social programs,

could not be used by government to spend it. Alberta and Canada did the same thing. Norway did theirs with a covenant that could only be used to pay down national debt or build a trust fund. Today, Norway is the richest per capita country on earth. Canada, unfortunately, is the wealthiest per capita on earth in terms of natural resources per capita,

but it's run by idiots. So huge difference is what has occurred. It's two examples. They have a trillion-plus dollars sitting in their trust fund and they use it to develop their country and educate their people. In the U.S., what we should do is open up every source of gas and oil, including the ANWR, and put a 7% royalty on it with only one mandate. It has to pay off national debt. That's all you can do with it.

Do you think that would even make a difference, though? I worry. You do. It would. Oh, my goodness. The idea that we're going to transition out of fossil fuel anytime soon, I find laughable. There's no transition. There's just diversification. we'll be using fossil fuel for another 100, 200 years. So this is something we're talking to Peter Schiff about in terms of the national debt and then propping up the stock market and the housing market. Do you think that's the case? And do you think that we could essentially just in perpetuity continue printing money?

No, how long could that continue for it? No, we can't, but we also have a solution. We have to continue growth with a moderate tax rate. So we have a GDP growth of north of 3%. That's how you pay down your national debt, but also do what Norway did. Say, okay, we're going to do this mandate on fossil fuels. We're going to provide the world with fossil fuels and we're going to just pay down our debt with it. That's it.

You could take a big chunk of it, maybe 20% away in the next 10 years. You said most of the taxes paid by the ultra wealthy, and I'm sure that comes to a surprise to a lot of people. They're under the impression that, like, they hear, oh, Amazon only paid like an effective 2% tax rate or Elon must pay 8%, but he's got billions of dollars. How do you square that? It's not factual. You know, wealthy people pay billions of dollars in taxes. as well. And they also provide a massive amount of philanthropic donations because they're assented to do that on a tax basis. They pay it in capital gains mostly not an income. That's

the big difference. So they may go years paying no tax. And then when Elon Musk takes out $45 billion to buy Twitter, he paid a ton of tax on that because he turned it into cash and he finally paid his tax. And so that he probably was the highest taxpayer in the country that year. But it's big bursts of tax they're paying, but they still pay a ton of tax. If you could partner with one entrepreneur for a venture, who would it be? It'd be Mr. Wonderful. I love that guy. No question. That guy really understands deals. He's got it. Yeah. They're always saying, which shark do you want to partner with? I partner with a guy I love. He's Mr. Wonderful. He's the best. That's it.

What do you think of the $20, California minimum wage? Huge policy mistake. You're going to see a lot of restaurateurs shut down. You can't minimum your wage into success. all you do is push out business because they can't compete. That was also an unfair policy because certain restaurants, it really affected fast food. Certain restaurants had to pay it. Others didn't, which is such stupid policy. California is actually the worst managed state in the union. I would never invest there. It's a loser's staying. And it's been that way for a while. And you can see the collapse of cities like San Francisco and now LA. San Francisco is a war zone. I mean,

you don't walk around there at night. It's completely in disarray. And I think a good example of what happens when you don't have good management. What do you think the minimum wage should be? I don't believe in a minimum wage. I think the market decides. I don't, you know, people don't work if they can't make ends meet. They go find jobs where they get paid more. If you let the market decide, you get a much more efficient economy. The minimum wage is a concept that's foreign to me because all it does is contort business. I think you'd make more money without a minimum wage. You would. particularly if you're good at what you do. How do you feel like AI is going to be affecting that?

Because we noticed, even in New York, we went to a sushi restaurant, and it was almost entirely automated. They had a little iPad on the side, you press in what you want, and a conveyor belt brings out the food to you. And you can check out there. It's really efficient.

McDonald's in Japan. Go to the kiosk, you type in what you want, and just someone brings it to your table. I think a lot of people were always fearing, you know, that television would replace radio. Good analogy. Never happened. I mean, the next technology just advances.

It's just a tool. It's not going to wipe out mankind. I've always thought that narrative was ridiculous. It'll take boring jobs and make them redundant for humans and let humans do other things with more creativity involved. So I really think that AI is just another tool set and way overhyped. It's like the Internet was in the early 90s. It's being overhyped right now.

It will not deliver on all its promises and it'll get stabilized as a tool in many other platforms. Where do you see it going in 20 years from now? It'll just be, you know, an added thing. to the software you use every day. Maybe we have fully automated driving. Maybe we don't. Maybe it's some kind of a derivative of it. I see a lot of good use of it.

We're using it ourselves and our businesses, but I just think it's a tool and by then it'll be just normal day to day. I tend to think that it's going to eliminate a whole bunch of jobs. Like I was thinking the other day, how cool would it be if you're building a house? To type into an AI program, build me a house

or construct a house that conforms to code. It already knows what the city regulations are. it builds you the blueprints of a house that you could look through online and it just does it with AI and you could alter it a little bit and it knows it could source all the materials it could price them for you and all you got to do is give that to a person and they just build it so i think it could eliminate a lot of jobs in this building i think there's a lot of logistics being used in shipping we know that i think it's already a very useful tool and by the way it's been around longer than people think it's just been made famous because it's now in your cell

phone. But I don't see the dark, you know, ending of society because of AI. I just don't buy that crap. It's just another technology. Why does it seem like everyone is so bearish on civilization right now, especially in the United States? Like, everyone thinks that we're doomed to fail. It seems like, you know, mental illness is just skyrocketing depression, anxiety. It seems as though divorces are happening more often than not. I think it's like over 50% still, right? It's gone down. But those are for like second, third, fourth marriages. People are still financially suffering or seemingly so. What do you think is something that everyone is ignoring and just not thinking about that they should if they're trying to wake up from this? A lot of people blame social media, particularly with young people,

giving them anxiety. I don't really buy that. It's the same as Elvis shaking his hips on TV in the 60s. We go through different cycles in our society where the next generation shows up. Maybe this generation feels entitled because they actually grew up at a time when money had no cost, interest rates were zero. Now they're feeling the sting of a normalized Fed. That does impact all sectors. So probably it's a little bit of that. I don't really worry too much about, you know, the day-to-day, oh, I think we're all screwed and society's screwed and AI's going to wipe us out. I don't buy any of that. I really don't. I think that we're just in a cycle of change, constantly changing. And the one thing that has accelerated that change is the fact

that social media is ubiquitous. So when something occurs in some place, you're going to see it times a million times. It'll go viral in seconds. And I'm not concerned about that either. It's just what we have in our technology today. I just don't spend that much time worrying about this stuff because it's really, it's noise, as I said earlier.

It's not signal, just noise. It seems as though you're interested, at least from our last conversation, a few years back in relationships. That was what we actually talked about a lot off camera. I'm a single bachelor living in Vegas, 25 years old. Graham's getting married soon. Congratulations.

Very soon, actually. So he's got a lovely fiancé. Do you have any advice for either of us or for people listening right now that want to improve their relationship or find a relationship? I wrote a book a few years ago called men and women, money, and I did some research with some divorce lawyers trying to figure out why is it that 50% of marriages end in, you know, failure. And I thought it was about infidelity, but it's not. Most marriages can survive infidelity. What they can't survive is financial stress. So in marriage, what turns out to really matter is that you both share the same financial

goals and one doesn't outspend the other and go into bankruptcy. And I think a lot of due diligence is not done because people are in a euphoric state of love when they should be asking questions about where did you come from, how much debt you have is you bankrupt, are you bankrupt, or just asking what's, because you find that out anyways after you've been married a few years. But if you don't have a stable plan for building a family pillar around, stable finances, you're going to fail. You're already are failing 50% of time within seven years. So what are the questions that you should ask and how soon should you ask them? Because I'm guessing if you're on a

first date and you just ask, what's your credit score? That might be a bit of a turnoff to a lot of people. Definitely not for Graham. Graham would love to ask and answer that question. But when do you bring up these questions? Third date, second glass of wine. You have a marked out to a science. Third date, second glass of wine. I'll tell you why. By the time you've got to a third date, both sides are interested. And you really, you start to feel that way in the second date, but you don't want to press too, you know, hard issues on the second date. You're still kind of getting to know each other. The third date, now you're really starting to think, well, it's just a person going to be part of my life in one way or another. It's a great time to

introduce the idea that you care about that to see what reaction your significant other has. If you can't talk about money with them or they freak out, you're not going to have a fourth date. That's my guess. You've got to have something in common regarding, you know, financial stability. And that's the right time to have the conversation saying, you know, I'm really interested in you. I'm just wondering how you think about money. Like, let's talk about money. But don't you think it's a good thing if one person's really financially responsible? One person isn't and you can teach them because then it would be bad for everyone if just financially irresponsible people are just getting together and having kids and teaching that to them. And who cares?

Who cares more about financial responsibility? Do you find it's men or women? Yeah, they're smart. I understand it's not going to work if there's no money. I mean, it's that simple. I don't agree with that idea you can teach them. They may have bad habits, bad spending habits that came from years ago. You can't change.

You know, it's really worth doing diligence in that area because later when it affects you, it really destroys lives. You have, you know, collectors of debt, losing assets, losing houses. It's all bad. It's all bad. And so it's better to just resolve that saying, look, if you believe in the same way I do, I'd like to control our spending, maybe when they will move in together, whatever, any conversation you can have about money.

If they don't want to talk about it, that's a huge red flag, huge red flag. What if they have massive debt? Find someone else. And how do you know when to settle down? I think it just comes naturally. Really, if you want to have a family, you really don't want to go too late. I mean, you know, I didn't get married until I was 36. That's pretty late.

but we had kids right away. The one thing I would have changed in my life I could have, I would have got married a lot earlier, a lot younger, and had more kids sooner. That would have been better, because now I really realize the value of that, and the family is so important. But you don't know that when you're young,

and you keep pushing it off. But that's why you're seeing it reversal in trend. You're seeing a lot of people getting married in their early 20s now. They kind of figured it out. They want to go back to the way it was. Is it? So I'm getting married 34, and I don't want kids for another, like, few years at minimum,

Just because I kind of feel like I want to... How old is your wife? She'll be 26. Yeah, okay. So she can wait a few years, but you know, you also want to be alive when they make high school. It's sort of... Right. You want to kind of have...

Yeah, but if I could live until 120, I feel like I've got, like, plenty of time. Yeah, just in case you don't. It's the idea that you probably want to have some kids by the time you're 36. If you just look at the clock of how it works and the amount of energy it takes to raise two kids, It's even, you know, there's a lot of energy, particularly if the wife is going to stay home or maybe not, maybe you do. It doesn't matter. But the amount of energy is a lot, a lot, a lot.

People don't realize it until they're in that second, third year. You have one kid that's four and one that's two. That is maximum energy. Like, it is just a burden. What's difficult specifically about that? You need to take care of them 24-7, and they have a lot of energy and their personalities are growing and they're starting to explore the boundaries of you. The parenting is very tough for a lot of people,

and they don't get how this works, and they've never had the experience. The best thing is you can bring someone who knows, that's why grandparents are so important. They say, well, that's what you don't want to do about that, or you want to do about this. Families work, you know, that's why it's great to have kids in a broader family environment,

because you'll find a lot of knowledge from people who have done it before. And a lot of stress in marriages happen on that first child when you realize, wow, this is this person here every day. And we don't get to do this stuff we used to do. And you did forego that. You have sacrificed it, but for the benefits of gains down the road one day.

And what are those gains? Is it purely just personal enjoyment of the lives outside? Well, it's very enjoyable to work with wine. It's great to watch your kids grow up. All these things are things you don't know until you do them. And so, you know, it's just experience. You ask anybody. And sometimes you have a, you know, not a great family.

That can happen too. where, you know, kids go rogue or whatever, or they're entitled and it's a bad outcome. But generally speaking, it makes life interesting. And that's why money alone in later years without any family is kind of lonely. You can buy anything you want, but you have no family.

It kind of sucks. What advice would you give guys in relationships to keep the relationship steady, to keep your partner, you know, in love with you? Have you heard of the term mental load? Yeah. I have a single word, listen. Listen.

Listen. Yeah. If you don't listen to your spouse and you don't consider their ideas, you'll get divorced. Because if, you know, you just, that is a problem. You have to have a two-way street no matter what kind of relationship it is, gay, married, whatever. You got to listen. You got to let them be who they are.

You've got to listen to what they want. And they have to listen to you. If you can't do that, there's no mutual respect. It'll collapse for sure. The issue that I have with that is that sometimes I'll listen, but I'll listen. but I'll want to provide solutions. And I'm like, oh, that's an easy problem to fix. Just do this.

And it's like, no, but you, you know, I want to talk about it. That's a style. That's a style problem. That's a style problem. But really, listening does matter. You learn it the hard way. You've got to listen. And if, you know, the great thing about a long relationship is you don't suffer the traumatic

turmoil of divorce, which has monetary issues. It's got family issues. It's got all kinds of stuff. People don't consider what divorce is like five years later, particularly if there's kids. I've got lots of divorced friends. They're not that happy. And they almost reconsider going back

because they just realize it's nowhere near as good as it, even though it was bad. It's a weird thing. Divorce is quite traumatic. And I know people have been divorced three times. They're not good at being married. So they shouldn't do that.

Do you give advice to people who come to you and say, hey, we're thinking about getting divorced? Do you ever interject? I do. I get, you know, lots of people calling me. I try and give the advice that I think I should give.

I'm not really a divorce counselor, obviously, but I've seen it so much, and I've lived through it so many times, and every family has the same thing going on. I just give them pragmatic advice. It's a cool-down period, separate for a couple of years or maybe a year, and just get some space between you

and see how you like that. And then very often you'll see people get back together again. Look, being married is not easy. It's a total pain in the ass. I mean, but it beats the alternative. What's so difficult about it? It's the amount of work that is required to maintain the relationship that over time you may resent because, you know, you're not single anymore.

And if you resent it, it's because you're not helping each other enjoy each other's company. It should be fun to be together. And the minute it's not fun, you have to have to ask yourself, why is this not fun? Why am I loathing going home, sitting in this bar drinking and I'm not going home or I'm screwing around on the side? Why am I doing that? That's the real question you should ask yourself. What is it about my partner that I didn't see or I don't like or I don't want anymore? And very often that answer is financial.

You know what's interesting is we had a divorce attorney on the podcast a while ago. And he said that people never resent their dog. Even if their dog goes and poops on the carpet or throws up somewhere or is barking at night, like you never grow resentment. You're just like, oh, there's toodles, you know, be in toodles. But for some reason, we grow resentment for our partner. Even for our best friends, it's kind of hard to grow resentment for them because you just seemingly, there's like an inner peace, an inner bond. But with our actual partner, our soulmate, for some reason, resentment grows. Yeah, because people can talk to each other and say hurtful things.

Dogs don't talk. They generally like their owners because the owner feeds them. I mean, there's a great symbiotic relationship there of survival. It's different with men and women or men and men. or women and women, it doesn't matter. It's, it's, you know, you're in a constant dynamic all the time every day, 24-7, and sometimes, and this is true, a successful marriage should be defined by you, you want to be with your spouse 51% of the time.

That's a very successful marriage. If you only want to be with your spouse, 49% of the marriage or time, you're going to get divorced. It's that fine line of majority. And, you know, people tell me, I'm so happy all I want to do. is, you know, be with my spouse, I've been married 50 years. That's a complete BS. It's become part of your life. You're happy with that part of your life and you've come to the realization this is my fabric versus I'm so miserable. I'm always miserable and I'm just never happy the majority of the

time, which is when you're only 48, 49% happy, you should get divorced because you can get a better life. Kind of a random question, but I feel like for a lot of people that are in the current dating pool, they're under the impression that you need to go out and you need to date a bunch of people and gather all of these data points of what you like, what you don't like, and then apply that to a certain function. And then with that like function, you then can go out into the dating marketplace and find exactly who's right for you. Do you disagree with this notion and do you think that people are turning love too much into a science? Or do you think it's more so of like, hey, you find someone that's decent and you make it work? The latter. Find someone that's decent make work. I think that first

part's all bullshit. That's never going to work. When you find the right one, you'll know it. It's just, you know, It's just never, you know, passionately in love. You can't believe how lucky you are. That works for like a month. It's sort of like this is a relationship that I'm in that's better than being alone. And I'm going to stick with this. I'm going to make it work. And the significant other has to feel the same way.

It's an investment. You're investing in time. You're spending time and you're developing something together. And it's also money. You've got to start thinking about how are we going to financially support this union if it grows into a family. How do we do that? You don't have a plan for that. You're going to fail and you're going to get divorced. As I say, it's the majority are always financial stress, not fidelity issues. You know what's interesting is that I feel like relationships are very similar to businesses. They both require a lot of

attention to detail. You need to know it inside and out very thoroughly. And yet, I feel like entrepreneurs, a lot of the times, suffer in relationships. Why do you think that is? Well, it's true. They are. families are actually businesses. They really are. They're businesses. And some families are successful, some are. The person sitting at the table you never see is money. Because if you're sitting around the table, you don't have any money, you don't have a family.

Can't keep it together. It's very, very hard, very hard, because you have to provide. And so just to say that it's all about love and no money, it's a complete BS2, you have to plan to have some kind of financial stability. Otherwise, you'll fail. It's, you know, it's really, really tragic to see people that don't get that joke early on in their marriage and get divorced for the only one reason they just didn't have a financial plan that's it so you talk about being in the business of marriage

as well as or of divorce as well as the business of death right divorce so those are two businesses i do invest in marriage um it's what it's one time in your life where you don't care about gross margin on product services people overpay for everything at weddings it's just insane and also in death um it's another time when you're you don't know you're not you're not you you don't care so much about the price of something. If you want that coffin, you want that coffin. So I'm an investor in both sides. Coming and going, you know, I have this amazing business run by two women called Hello

Prenup. It empowers women to create their own prenups online. And it's been wildly successful. I knew when I saw them in Shark Tank that they would be, if I could help them get the message out and acquire customers. But they are the essence of success in marriage because what we're learning is when you go get the hello pre-up download. It forces you to diligence your partner. You can't do a pre-up without asking questions. And in that journey, in that process, you learn things you like or you don't like.

But it certainly gets you to a place where you have a pre-up in place, particularly maybe cohabitation agreement. If you're not going to get married, you move in. And many people that go through this dynamic, this process, realize that they're with the wrong person, which is, I feel like I'm doing a great thing for them to identify that early before they go through marriage and then get divorced. It's an amazing product to low pre-up. Every woman should use it because you should never go into a marriage with the assumption that you're going to, you know, be dependent on your husband's checking account. You should never give up your banking relationships. You should keep them your whole life. Women should have their own credit cards, their own bank accounts, their own credit

history because divorce happens enough that if you divorce after losing all your credit history and you're in your 40s, our society doesn't treat you well. It's very hard. What do you see to the people who say it's unethical to maximize profit on death? No, there's competition in death. There's thousands of funeral homes. Most people reach out to a professional. We have a company called Parting Stone, which takes over 50% of death now ends in cremation. And you end up with an urn. People want to have some of the ashes. So parting stone crystallizes the ashes into a stone, and you can hand out up to 60 these to your family members. That's really cool. Very successful. And it's really a product sold by funeral homes. So, you know, in fact, one of my good friends

died years ago, and every year we have a lunch for him, one of my bankers, and I'm the only guy left with his ashes. And everybody wants the urn all the time to take it away for a few weeks. whatever. And I said, yeah, I've got to solve this problem. Partingstone's the answer. Last question, what's the one thing that people don't know about you that you'd like them to know? I can't make everybody happy. So I don't try. I just don't try. It's, it's, you know, when you start to realize when you start getting a lot of people following on social media, the first million, the second million, the third million, I've over nine million now. I don't know how many I've got anymore. There's always the lunatic fringe of two and a half percent that are saying very,

you know, damaging things and being very crazy. I couldn't give a shit. I just don't care. Because I know there's nothing in my power that I can do to change their minds. And I shouldn't waste any energy trying to. And so that forces a certain purity in your messaging. And my strategy has been now, and just the way I lead my life is, here's the truth, you know, I'm just going to tell you what I think. You don't like it? I don't care. And the reason I don't care is it's still the truth.

It's going to be the truth in 10 minutes, in a month, in 10 years, in 20 years, but it's still the truth. And it comes from this lesson I learned decades ago from my mother, she said when I was a teenager. Always tell the truth and you'll never have to remember what you said. That made a lot of sense to me. And until I started telling the truth and getting people crapping all over me, and I thought, it's still the truth. Let's see what happens a year from now or two years from now. And then over time, I got that reputation as the guy that is really mean.

But that didn't change anything either. I don't want people to like me. I want them to respect me. So if you say I want everybody like me, you can never achieve that goal. But if you want people to respect you, all you have to do is tell the truth. And they will over time come to the realization that, well, I didn't like what he said. it was the truth. And so I don't have to worry about him

in the sense that he's going to lie to me. I don't like him, but he tells the truth. And that's kind of where I land. And that's, I think, where I sit in the continuum of, you know, personalities that people know. And by the way, it served me very well in business. It really has because I don't lie to people.

And when I'm negotiating with them, I say, well, I'm never going to do that deal. Here's why. And there's nothing to tell me that would change my mind. But if you do this and you know that I'm not, that I'm telling you the truth and I will do it if you you know it's sort of like

here's a bunch of things that I'll do and this is true that's a much easier way to negotiate with somebody way easier than stringing them along or giving them some BS story or telling it because you're going to get found out anyways

it's the best way to draw this analogy is this think about it this way this will serve you so well in in love which we were talking about so much when you first meet that person that you're so euphorically

madly in love with. The thought of cheating on them is not even remotely in your mind. And then you get married and seven, eight years go by. And one night you do that awful thing. You just cheat on them. You have a decision to make. And here's your decision. This person that I have 100% equity with that I've been in a marriage with and I have never cheated on, right? Do I lie to them by not telling what I did last night? or just hoping they never find out? Or do I wake up, call them and just hit them with the truth? Which is the better path?

And I'll tell you what the better path is because I'm going to draw the analogy for business. If you tell the truth, on your own incentive, you get up and you tell them, I did something crazy last night. I got drunk in a bar and I slept with another woman. I feel so bad about it. Because you have to tell the truth.

The reason you're making the call is you just realized that you broke that trust. that which is hard to do and you don't want to do it and you're looking at your phone oh, I don't want to call her, oh, I don't want to do it, I don't want to call him, whatever, versus I'm going to forget about it and I'm just going to hope that nobody finds out.

I guarantee you they will find out. It could be two years, could be three years, could be four years, could be two months. And when they find out that way, you will lose 50% of the equity in that relationship forever. They will never completely trust you.

ever again, ever. There's nothing you can do to repair that damage, all because you were so weak that you couldn't make the call on your own. If you had done that, yes, there would have been damaged, but the fact that you were honest with them built so much back that you can repair that marriage. You'll not necessarily get divorced just because you told the truth, but you will never have the same relationship with your significant other ever again. Same in business. The first time you lie to somebody and they catch you in that lie, whether it be someone in your company or someone you're negotiating with or some random person, they will tell others what happened. And your reputation is irreparable. There's nothing you can do to fix it because you are a liar. The hardest thing to

do is always tell the truth. But look at the path I just gave you for success on this. You have to pursue the truth because it protects you against damage you can never repair. That's the whole point. That's the whole point. You can't fix it once you lied once. There's nothing you can do. You will always be the liar to an ever-growing number of people you don't even know because that story will get around. Great business leaders, great business leaders are known for their honesty, even though it's painful.

People say, I trust them. I trust her. Same thing in marriage, same thing in business. That's the best way to end this. Wow. Thank you, Kevin. That was amazing. True.

Edge of my seat. Thank you so much. And you're getting married, you better listen. Of course. Thank you so much. I'll link to all of your information in the description. That's great. It's been a pleasure.

Thanks for inviting us into your home. It's lovely home, by the way. I mean, this view is, I mean, it's insane. It's hard for me not to look at the view. I never tire this view. I love to watch people on the beach, and I like to go on the beach. I'll be there later.

There's sand in the elevator here. I love it. Don't give out the address. No. Thank you. Until next time. All right.