The Resilient Mind - How Billionaires Think - Tilman Fertittia

Episode Date: December 13, 2024

Tilman Fertitta is a renowned American entrepreneur, businessman, and author, widely recognized as the Chairman and CEO of Fertitta Entertainment, which encompasses a vast array of businesses including Landry’s, Inc., one of the largest restaurant corporations in the United States. He is also the owner of the NBA’s Houston Rockets, a role that has solidified his place in the world of professional sports.Download Mindset App for free and listen to 5000+ of the World's Greatest Motivational Speakers and Thought Leaders: https://bit.ly/mindsetxTheResilientMind Take action and strengthen your mind with The Resilient Mind Journal. Get your free digital copy today: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Download Now⁠⁠This video was created in partnership with Tom Bilyeu. Subscribe to Tom Bilyeu’s channel for more inspiring speeches:https://www.youtube.com/c/TomBilyeu Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Resilient Mind podcast. In this episode, you will be listening to How Billionaires Think, with Tillman Fertisha. Get access to the Resilient Mind Journal by clicking the link in the show notes. Enjoy. You know, it's funny. And I guess when I first was really going in the 80s, you hit that horrible recession. And people talk about how did banks get so big? Because the government took a few of the big banks and said, you're going to take the

good assets and we're going to take all the bad assets and that's why you have banks that are too big to fail today because they're roll-ups of bank after bank. And the late 80s were tough and I was getting going and you just realized when other people were filing bankruptcy, you just got to keep punching and punching and punching and people don't realize how much you can take and if you just keep punching and find a way to get out of the mess. And you know what's funny? This is a great story And I talk about it in the book. I was doing business with like nine or ten banks in the late 80s in Texas. And it was really getting tough and to make payments or whatever,

starting to defaults on some by a few days. Every single bank that I did business with failed before I did. Is that not a crazy story? And I know that's hard to believe, but the FDIC would come in every Tuesday into Houston in the late 80s and closed down four or five or six. banks. So over about a, over about a six-month period, every single bank failed that I did business with. And you had, you would call and say, so what do I do with these payments? And there was such a

bureaucracy. I truly got a three, four-year reprieve. And then in 1990, I remember somebody calling my office and saying, Mr. Fratita, we have these notes of yours. We would like you to come in and talk to us. But in that time, I was able to go and keep building my company and was able to pay them 100%. Well, you just got to keep punching and just take care of your business. And you just realize until they come and shut you down or lock the doors or you can't get product or whatever until you can't make a payroll. You'd be surprised what you can take, though. And you just keep punching and punching. And believe it or not, times, you know, get good. And it goes back to what I once again preach, when times are really bad, we forget they're ever going to be good again,

and when times are really good, we forget they're going to be bad again. And we need to always remember that so the paddle doesn't get you. Yeah. Tell people your concept of the paddle. Well, there's a paddle for everybody's ass. We all know that. And every day you just get up and I don't fear anything, but I worry about everything. And the day you stop worrying in good times, the paddle will get your behind. And so as great as things are in life, I know you're only a few steps or a few incidents away from something bad happening. You can never forget it.

Did you have fear as a kid and you just got into enough business scuffles that you figured your way through things? Or have you always been fearless? I'm pretty fearless, but I do worry about everything. But, you know, once again, you know, the book, and this is why Harper's asked me to write the book, because of all my telmanisms, you gotta know what you know and what you don't know. And I knew that I understood business. Now don't ask me to go win an Emmy.

I took guitar lessons for four years and I still struggled playing a guitar. I can't draw a stick person very good, but I knew that I understood business. So I know what I know and I know how to do due diligence on a deal. I don't worry about making a bad deal because I feel like that's what I know.

So no fear when it comes to that. And how much of that is instinctive and how much of that have you had to teach yourself? I think I definitely got the DNA gene and understood business. But at the same time, I've been a sponge. And I'll look and watch everything and pay attention. And every day I get up, I look for mistakes and what I can learn that day. You don't ever think that you know it all because you don't. And so every day is still a learning process.

And you just, you can't ever get caught up with who you are, because you're worth a few billion dollars and you have an extremely large company. And because like I said, the day I don't look in the back of my head, that paddle's gonna get my ass. My father-in-law is a very successful self-made man came from a tiny-ass village in Cyprus, which I hadn't even heard of until I met his daughter.

And he gave me, I think, the best piece of business advice I've ever gotten and I still use it to this day, which is to know more about any situation anybody else in the room. And that has served me really well. I'm guessing, given your reputation and how people say you can spot a light bulb out at 40,000 feet and all the things that people say about you that you tend to know more about any deal, anything going on in your company than anybody else. I want to know how. How do you master it to that level? Well, I mean, I can't get into some details that people know that I don't know. But if you walk into my office for a meeting, I don't

care what department you're in, I will pick apart whatever you have. And you better know your numbers when you walk in there with a spreadsheet or you better have your ads right if you're the marketing person walking in. But you also, you know, you know if people know what they're doing. And but it's my job to make sure and bring everybody up to another level. And I think that's probably one of the greatest compliments I've ever gotten is that I'll take somebody good and make them better. Is that a conscious process for you? Like what are you doing? Is it just kicking people in the ass, inspiring them, leading by example.

All the above. I think I do. You always know where you stand with me. I have, all my top VP's probably have been with me an average of 25 years. My two assistants have been with me 27 and 26 years. And everybody will tell you that is the hardest son of a bitch

in the world to work for, but I would never work for anybody else. What would you have to see in them to think it's worth the risk? I think one of the best things that I ever did was I will, I will look at somebody's resume, and I can say, you know what, you've never been with the right company, and that's why you haven't excelled, and you are, that's why you're in here today.

And so many people choose the wrong company to go to work for it. And I look at people all the time, and I look at your resume and say, why did you go to work for this company? I knew they were screwed up when you went to work for them, okay? And so some people just are not good at choosing the right company, and also the person interviewing them makes promises. that never happened. And I think that's one of the biggest mistakes that people make is choosing the wrong company to go to work for. Curiosity, what makes something the wrong company to go to work for?

Is it different by person, or are there just certain things in a company people should look out for? Well, do they really have good liquidity? Are they going to be in business? Are they an acquisition target where all of a sudden they are and you're going to get bought and probably laid off?

You know, everything is... Do they have a product that is going to be around for a long time? So everything from liquidity to product, acquisition, target, growth, where are you going to go? Everybody should always ask themselves if they want to grow and they just don't want to just whatever is say, where can I be in five years? If I can't be at this position in five years, then this isn't a good career path for me. I think everything is career path. I'd love to talk about that.

So your career path is crazy. and awe-inspiring. So how much of that was mapped out? Like, when you had that single restaurant in Texas, how big were you dreaming, we were you already thinking aquariums? Like, how much of this is you're just going and you're taking a deal as it comes? How much of it is you discovered as you went?

Let's do it another way. Let's go back to 10 years old. I walked around with my business, my briefcase, full of business. There was no business in it. But I wanted to be a business guy, but you really didn't know what it was. By junior high, I was.

buying candy and reselling it at school. By high school, I was already trading on the stock market. So let's take these one at a time. So the candy sales, who gave you that idea? Did you just understand if I can buy it for less than I sell it, then I can make money? That's just, hey, doing whatever it took to make money. I always wanted to make money. I always had money, even when I was a kid, because I always worked, whatever job I could find, whether it was mowing somebody's yard or washing cars or selling lemonade to the construction workers. It was just always about making money. What made you good at selling? That is a very particular skill. You know, even today, it's all about, somebody said, why are you so successful? Because I sell.

And even when you go out and you raise billions of dollars in debt and you're meeting with debt holders, you're still selling yourself. That's what it's all about. You're not just selling the deal when I was public for 18 years, okay? And you're selling equity. I did five follow-on offerings the most of a restaurant company ever did

when I was public. And you are selling yourself. And, you know, you know your numbers, you know your business, and you make yourself let you know more than everybody else, even if you don't. So to dig beyond the sort of mythology of just the kid carrying the briefcase and oh, this comes naturally, at some point, this becomes

somewhat systematic. So if you're going to be a sponge, you have to put yourself in a position to be a sponge, you have to know who to listen to, who to ignore. How did you begin to formulate that? And what does that process look like now? Well, I knew how to make money. And so at 21, I sold by them as I start building homes, building shopping centers. By the time I was 26, I built my first hotel. By the time I was 25, I told myself I had my first jet at 35, and I did. So I was an investor in a restaurant,

and then when the world collapsed in the late 80s, you couldn't develop anything in Texas for the next 10 years. That's when every S&L failed, like I said, every bank failed. And I just started opening restaurants and did that between like 86 and 92 and then 93. I said, well, you know what?

I'll just build restaurants because I understand this big. business, since you can't develop anymore, and I'll take it public because that's when the whole big thing of restaurant chains going public. Did that for the next 17 years and then was an opportunist, which I always talk about, is that my stock crashed with everybody else in 08 and 09. When I took it public, I owned 100%. In 93, you wake up, you're worth $100 million. I took it private in 2009 and you're worth $500 million. It was very successful, bought it right. And then, you I could really grow then because I didn't have the handcuffs of being a public company.

And when you think about the fundamentals of a business, when you're going into a value a deal or whatever, what, like, key things do you look for? Well, everything is occupancy cost, a term of lease, do they own any real estate? What are their margins? I'm not real smart, but I know how to do that, okay? I can analyze the numbers of any business and tell you what your margin should be or whatever because my production cost is this. I have this many subscribers.

You should be doing this or that. And I don't care what the business is. So that's what I know how to do. And so I try to make the right deal, and I do heavy due diligence, and then hopefully you can continue to grow your network. And if somebody wanted to get good at what you're good at, what would you recommend they do?

You know, I think you know if you know business or not. And people ask me, should I go get my MBA? And you know what I usually tell them? You know if you need to go get your MBA. If you don't have it inside of you and you understand economics and finance and operations of business, then you need to go get it.

I knew that I didn't need it. It was just a God-given gift. But also, remember, I didn't get a lot of those other gifts. Don't ask me to play that guitar. I don't ask me to sing you a song and don't ask me to draw you anything. But you've got to know your God-given gifts. and everybody has it.

Everybody in this room has it right here. So do what you know was your God-given gift and find a way to use that as your path. So when you think about somebody stepping into career and building something, obviously there's an element of, okay, you need to figure out what you're good at, what you're not good at. Do you believe that people can improve the things

that they're not good at? Should they just entirely not think about that and partner with people that have a different skill set? You've said, do not partner with somebody that has the same skills. You read the book. You read the book. Absolutely.

But at the same time, I've made myself, you know, understand IT, information technology. And if you talk to any CEO of any company, they'll tell you that's the one department that you do not want to, because no matter who you bring in, everybody has their own way of doing it.

And I've just still made myself understand technology, even though I'm not a millennial. I try to at least know a little bit, about every single department, even if I don't know it, a lot. And so walk me through, you want to learn about IT, what do you do? You Googling it, or do you go sit down with the head of IT and say, teach me everything? No, I just, I want to know everything. I want to understand this, you know, malware, how people are getting into all of our systems

and hackiness. What's your process for learning, though? Sitting down and say, you've got to make me smarter on this. You've got to help me through these steps, because I don't get it. don't go into too much minutia because you'll lose me because I'm not that smart, but you've got to give me the steps of why this is happening or not happening. And that's something that everybody should do. You don't have to understand that I'm going to go and be able to program something

or write something, but we should all, if we're running a company, understand some portion of it. When I'm shooting a billion-dollar buyer, I know what all these different people do and exactly what they're doing and how important each person is. And it's just trying to understand what you do, and it makes you appreciate that person and how smart they are at that job too,

and how important they are to your company. All right, let's say I'm one of your kids. I want to take over the business one day. How are you going to help me absorb the business fundamentals? Is it just follow you around? Is it you're going to have me a list of Tillmanisms? Like, what does that process? This is a really great question that you just asked,

because I've had people say to me, why don't you let your kids work for me for a while instead of just working for you? And then other people say, you should put them in one department and let them learn that department. And you know what I've said? And I really think I'm doing it right,

and we'll see, only time we'll tell. There's so many departments. You're talking about a $4 billion revenue company with 60,000 employees and 700 million in EBITA that does everything from, you know, I have 25 biologists that work for me at aquariums. So everything from aquariums to amusement parks to five casinos to restaurants to an NBA basketball team, okay?

Just everything you can think of. I'm teaching them to make decisions because that's really what it's all about is learn how to make decisions, see how I make decisions every day about everything, whether it's a little decision, are a big decision. And they've been doing that with me,

and they're pretty smart. We don't know that we could run this without you. So it's kind of interesting, because it's just, it's them sitting in meetings and seeing how I make decisions is the best thing I can do for them instead of learning one little department. So if you were going to teach us

a few key business principles, what are some of the core principles of business that you really, Like, if you knew, if I die without my kids understanding these three to five things, like what would those three to five things be? Know your numbers. No matter what business you're looking at, always know your numbers. Number two, realize that we're not successful, if that consumer does not come to us,

whether they're eating in your restaurants, where they're playing in your casino, and whether if you don't have a good product on that basketball court, the fans are not going to come and buy those tickets, the sponsors aren't going to come, and therefore you're not going to have the money to pay for those good players next year. You're not going to be able to pay Russell, Westbrook, and James Horace in each $40 million a year. You've got to always remember, we're only as good as us taking care of that consumer. One of the things I teach everybody, and especially my kids, don't assume anything. People think if somebody walks in and gives you an answer that it's the right answer.

And even when I tell somebody to do something, I don't assume they went and did it. I'll ask them a week later. Did you do that that I asked you to do? Because that was really important to me. Oh my gosh, I didn't do that. And I think that's the biggest mistake people made, is don't assume that everything's running right,

don't assume anything. Do you see parallels between the game that you play in business and sports? Is that why there is a passion for you on both sides? 100%. I operate by the nine. 95-5 rule, 95% of everything we do in business, if we're doing anything is right, so look for the 5%. How do you find the 5%? This is so powerful, and reading it in the book, I was like, okay, here we go. So how do you spot the 5%? How do you know what 5% matters? How do you prioritize how you attack that 5%?

Okay, well, let me just say this. Okay, I walked into this studio, okay? and I've done a lot of interviews and as soon as I walk in, your people greet you, they introduce, you know, you come up here, here's some snacks. There's even a camera light, so if they're doing your makeup up there,

it's a perfect lighting. I could tell this guy has his act together. This guy, I'm having a hard time finding his 5%, because they're doing every, right. And I'm not just saying that, but you know everything I'm saying is true. That you have somebody meet us outside. We're not marking around lost. And so I hadn't found the 5% here. I'm sure before this show's over, I will. But it's there for sure. I think you're right. Everybody has...

But I judged you and your operation the second I walked in. And it's no different if I'm pulling up to a retail store or a hotel or a restaurant or whatever. And before I get to the front door, I'm pulling up in that. parking lot, was the parking lot in pretty good shape or their weeds out there or their cigarette butts in the parking lot or their lights burn out. The front door's got a bunch of smudges on it. I haven't even walked in yet and I can tell you this isn't a crisp operation. I can tell you everything how the operation is going to be inside before I ever walked in the front door. Because if they're not taking care of the outside, the inside's not going to be good.

And that's the same parallel that I used for the basketball team. We had a great year. again. We've won the most games we've ever won in a two-year period in my first two years of ownership. But I sat down with the general manager and the head coach and my top basketball people and said, all right, we did 95% of everything right, but we didn't beat Golden State again. So what do we need to do? How do we improve that 5%? And we kicked it around, and that's when we decided that maybe there's an opportunity to be a little more athletic and getting a great transition player who can speed the game up and make us a better team like a Russell Westbrook. And so that was the 5% we were looking for.

Changing out a few coaching positions, changing out a few other players. You're never going to be great if you don't look for the 5%. Yeah, as you were talking, I thought, okay, I'm beginning to get a very clear picture of what makes you work. So remember that I don't believe, and it's not that I don't believe that some people come with sort of hardwired gifts. It's that I don't find it very helpful. So if the sum total of your story is that,

you're either born with it or you're not, why read the book, right? So it comes down to there is an element of this stuff that can be taught. And hearing you talk, the part that sounds so interesting to me that I think can be taught is you've really fucking high standards. And more importantly than that,

you have high standards that when you look at where it's going wrong, it doesn't damage your sense of self-esteem. So you're willing to look at it. You're willing to what I call, staring nakedly at your inadequacies. You don't walk into a restaurant to clap for yourself. You walk into a restaurant to figure out what the fuck's going wrong. Not saying that it's bad,

you're just saying that if we want to, and this is my favorite concept of yours, separate ourselves from everybody else. It's the easiest thing to do. It's the easiest thing to do. And I tell everybody that, no matter what your job is, is that you can go to work every day and separate yourself from anybody else.

And it's no different than the sound guy on this set. If you pick up, you know what, this sound guy is really, really good. And he's worried about this and he's worried about that. Then all of a sudden you tell somebody you need a good sound guy this. And then they end up on this person because of a recommendation. All of a sudden, this guy's known as the best sound guy in L.A. because he's paying attention or she's paying attention to details that the other sound people don't. No, you know what?

I hear an ambulance out there. Let's cut it. You know, just the little, little, little bitty things. And I just think that it's easy to separate yourself from anybody else, no matter what your position is. If you go to work for a company and you don't go up the corporate ladder, it's your fault, it's nobody else. You're either with the wrong company where there's no upward mobility or you should separate yourself. Because I know one thing, if you work for me, I'm paying attention. Nothing goes unnoticed, okay?

And I tell people that all the time. If you want to separate yourself, it's easy to do because somebody above you. you is going to notice it, your peers are going to notice it, it is easy to separate yourself from anybody else. Yeah, that notion to me is one of the most critical things that anybody in a company can do, and I love what you're saying about personal responsibility, it's on you, man. If you're not, even if, like you said, it's just that you're in the wrong company, you're in the wrong company.

And so if you want to get somewhere where you can move, you either have to go somewhere else or get your skill set aligned. If somebody comes to you and is like, I want to improve, I get that it is specific to that case, but are there general things that somebody can do? Is there, is it start with shut up and listen? Is it the Tillmanisms? Is it getting those things ingrained in your soul or is there something else that give somebody the mental framework with which to propel themselves forward? You know, I think that you can pick up from talking to me that I'm not on a different level, okay? These are pretty simple, basic tools. And so nobody out there is listening to him and saying,

God doorn, he's just using words and he's just so much smarter than me, so I'm not going to become worth $5 billion. That book is bullshit, okay? He's just naturally smarter than me. I think you can see that I'm no smarter than anybody else in this room. I just use certain little basic tools to be successful every day. Take the word no out of your vocabulary. Worry about your customer, no spare customers. Use the 95-5 rule.

Separate yourself from everybody else. else, be the bull at whatever you do, and on and on and on. Can we know what you're good at? Know what you're not good at. I want to go back to the bull thing. So certainly I understand it when it comes down to an acquisition, being bullish. Basically, when there's blood in the street, that's when there's real opportunity. Like, I get all of that. Now give it to me, like, I'm a young kid. I'm trying to come up through the mail room, whatever. Like, how does one embody the bull? Is it about confidence? Is it it about audaciousness? Like, what is that thing? Whatever position you're at, you want to be the

bull. And I don't care if you're in the mail room or if you're the person behind that camera, that I'm going to be better than anybody else with that camera and I'm going to be the best mail carrier and the person who comes up and is the most organized and does it the most professional way. You can be the bull at any position you're doing. And it's just telling yourself, I'm going to do this better than anybody else. I don't care what the job is. I don't care what you do. You be the bull at what you do.

What drives you? Is it setting goals? Is it the conquest? Is it somebody that's an all-weather winner? There's something pushing them. Now it's the sport. It's just the sport of this is what I do every day. And people say, why do you do this?

And I just said, because what would I do? I mean, if I can't come to the office, and solve problems and fight with everybody and conquest and you know conquer then then what am I going to do with myself I'm going to sit home and die I mean that's what I enjoy doing this is my basketball this is my game that I play this is my pick-up a monopoly game whatever you want to call it okay this is I love going to the office and and and leading people and and trying to conquer something that's what I enjoy doing it's sport So when you were, it's so interesting because you once said that, you know, when I had my first restaurant and I was finally being successful and I think you were making like three or four million dollars a year and your dad was like, why do you keep putting this all at risk? And you said, that's basically how I think of myself now. Like you may think that I've gotten big, but to me this is like nothing compared to where I want to go. How do you dream big and how concrete are those dreams? Like do you, maybe you're not willing to say out loud, but do you already?

know like this is my next acquisition and this is where I'm headed and this is how I get the NFL team and totally that's you're exactly right this is this is steps to get to the next level now if I don't pull any of that off have I reached that point in life where I'm happy yeah I don't feel like after I bought the Houston Rockets and once again I you know who gets to own 100% of their team in their hometown there's probably not of all the major 100 sports teams there's probably not five. So I feel very fortunate. So if nothing else is accomplished, do I feel pretty good? I feel okay. I really do. I really do. And I thank the, you know, the good Lord and all the people that helped me accomplish it. But what you just said is happening. I'm taking the next steps right now to

get to the next level. Because that's my sport. Let's go play, pick up basketball. Let's go to the office and play business. And that's what I do every day. I go to the office and play business. I have weekends. If I'm not on vacation or on the boat somewhere or whatever and I'm sitting at home and it's Labor Day or Memorial Day and I don't have plans, I'm going nuts. I'm going to go to the office. I want to attack. Thank you for tuning in. Continue strengthening your mind by listening to our other episodes.