The School of Greatness - 124 How a Distance Runner Turned a Shoe Company Into a Billion-Dollar Brand with Angel Martinez

Episode Date: January 12, 2015

"If you don't understand what it takes to live a life with some integrity, you're not going to be successful in business." - Angel Martinez If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes and more at www.lewishowes.com/124.

This is episode number 124 with Angel Martinez. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Thanks everyone for joining me today on the School of Greatness podcast.

I'm very excited to introduce you to Angel Martinez. Now for those that don't know who Angel is, he is the CEO of a billion-dollar company called Deckers, which owns a brand called UGG and runs multiple different shoe brands, but UGG being one of the most popular that most people would know. Now, I had an awesome interview with Angel a few months back, actually, at the headquarters of Deckcker's in Santa Barbara, California. And we covered a lot of different things from his youth growing up in humble beginnings to what it's been like now, having a vision from a very young age to running a billion-dollar brand and being one of the leaders and a visionary in the shoe industry. We talk about how he early on took Reebok when it was only $13 million in sales, took to $300 million in sales a year and a half later. It's a very interesting story about how he took it there and the thing that catapulted that success. We cover a lot

about his dreams growing up. We talk about how he keeps from getting comfortable once you've become so successful. I know a lot of entrepreneurs listening are achieving a lot of success, but how do you stay from getting too comfortable once you get there so that you can continue to grow? We also talk about his most valuable mentor growing up. And as a distance runner, he was a very successful distance runner. We talked about the principles from running into business and which ones really work in the business world as well. We also talk about how great leaders continue to have a huge vision and be successful when they go through an extremely

emotional experience. And Angel went through one of those as an adult. And we talk about that and we dive into that as well. Very excited about this one. I think you guys are going to get a lot out of this. Make sure to stick around to the very end and check out all the show notes back at lewishouse.com slash 124. Without further ado, let's go ahead and dive into this episode with the one and only Angel Martinez. Angel Martinez. Well, let's start off with the, I'm really interested in, you know, your childhood. You kind of just talked about it right there, but you were born in Cuba, correct?

And then what happened? You were three when you left to the Bronx. Is that right? So your father shipped you away and sent you away to be with extended family, and he stayed back, and your mother stayed back. My sister stayed back. Your sister stayed back. So you're the only one to leave.

Why did they send you? Well, because my father, I'd been living with my guardian from when I was three months old. My mother and father split, split up. He worked for the railroad. He was a conductor. So he was on the train six days a week up and down the country she just didn't want to be a mom anymore so she just split so my sister went to live with my grandmother and i went to live with my grandmother's sister and her kids who are my parents age had been emigrating to the U.S. since 1952.

Okay. And so by 1958, they wanted their parents with them and my guardians. Now I've been with them since I was three months old, so my guardians said, well, yes, we'll go, but if he doesn't go, we don't go because they've grown attached to me. So that's how it happened. My father agreed to their guardianship and it was before the revolution.

So in those days the flight from Havana to New York City was $60. Really? So it wasn't a big deal. People would fly to Miami or fly to Havana from New York. You can go to Miami or Key West and take the ferry.

And so it wasn't my God. My father thought, well, he'll get an education in the U.S., which is what every Cuban wanted. It's the dream, right? Yeah. Get high school education in the U.S. and then go back to Cuba to go to the university if you could get in. And so it didn't work out that way because of the revolution. Right. So what was it like growing up in the U.S. with your extended family? It was tough when I was a kid because it was being raised by grandparents and he was disabled.

And we didn't have a car or anything. And in New York, you didn't we didn't have a car or anything so and in new york you know didn't you know we need one yeah need a car but um you know it was one of those things that um you know he couldn't play baseball with me or throw balls because he had had a bad motorcycle accident in 52. so i would always i sort of took care of him and then And then she was a little old lady. So it was just like taking care of your grandparents. When I was in high school, I really felt... Well, he passed away when I was a freshman.

But when I was in high school, I really felt like I was taking care of her more than she was taking care of me. How old was she when you were in high school? 80-something. Yeah. So when you were a kid growing up, were there other kids around in the house, or was it just pretty much you? Well, we lived in a big apartment.

A big apartment, gotcha. Well, yeah, a big, you know, bedlam type apartment. Right. So there were kids. You know, it's New York, so there's kids everywhere. But there was no family kids. It was just like neighbor kids. Well, my cousin, my guardian son lived in the same, but he had a son who was about my age.

So we're still to this day. And then my other guardian son lived there, too, and he had a son who was about my age. So we're still to this day. And then my other guardian son lived there too, and he had a daughter a couple of years younger. So, you know, there was a little, there was a little. Okay, cool. So you basically didn't grow up in the best circumstances, though. You were on some government support and food stamps, I think. Right. So what was the dream for you growing up?

Well, I mean, you know, the thing, my guardian, my guardian was a very, he was highly educated guy. He had come to, his name was Albert O'Neill, Irish Cuban. So he had come to, in 1912, he came to live in Syracuse, New York, from Cuba, because his brother, who was 10 years older than him, sent for him and he went to high school. He went between 12 and 17 years old. He lived in Syracuse, New York. Went to high school in Syracuse, graduated from high school, and spoke English flawlessly with no accent of any kind.

With a name like Albert O'Neill, you wouldn't think he would have an accent, but the rest of the O'Neills in the family did. He was basically an engineer without the degree, I'd say. He worked for the U.S. Navy in the Port of Havana during the war. You know, lots of stuff like that. But the most important thing was education to him. Yeah. So step one was, you know, you need to take advantage of all of the educational

opportunities. So that was ingrained in me early on. And I don't really remember ever needing to be told to do my homework or anything like that. I was always a very good student, you know, for whatever reason. So did you know you wanted to be in the shoe business or No. Did you want to be an all-star athlete? Because I know you were a great runner. Well, no, I wanted to play Major League Baseball. Okay. I was a Cuban kid.

But when I was a freshman in high school, I think I was about 5'3 and 112 pounds. I couldn't hit the ball out of the infield. Right. Couldn't throw the ball out of the infield. I could field well, but that was about it. I could throw the first and second. Right. It was okay when we were playing Little League,

but when we got to high school, it was a whole other thing. And I was just really small. Yeah. But PE class, I could run. And it became kind of obvious after a little while that I had some – not in the very beginning. I was super slow in the beginning, but I wasn't going to quit. So I

think I had a lot of tenacity for it. And by the end of my freshman year, I was running pretty well. And that's kind of where it started. You became a distance runner, right? Not as much a sprinter? No. What was your main event? What was your specialty? The mile and two-mile

in high school. What was your best time in the mile? 4.19. Wow. That's 1,600, not the 1,500? That was a mile. Wow. 4.19.

Yeah. My best, I was a decathlete in college, and my best was a 4.55, 1,500. But I ran 9.06 in the two-mile. Wow. That's moving. That was in high school? Uh-huh. And then you went on to do college as well? Yeah, I ran 906 in the two mile. Wow. That's, that's moving. So that was in high school. Uh huh. And then you went on to do college as well.

I ran in college and, uh, I ran the five and the 10,000 and cross country. Yeah. I ended up running four or nine. Oh, I like, I thought it wasn't a minor. Yeah.

By the time I got to college, it wasn't a minor. There was some, there was some sub four minute miles. Some freaks out there. Yeah. But I ran four or nine in college and, uh, eight 53. But my ran 4.9 in college and 8.53.

But my strength was the longer distances, 5,000. Because you could keep that up. Yeah. Yeah. So longer and road races and marathons and things. Yeah. Did you ever have aspirations of being in the Olympics or? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I remember watching in 1968 Kip Kano and Jim Ryan in the mile in Mexico City. Yeah. And that race ended and I cut off some slacks and put my sneakers on and went out for a run. I was so inspired. So it was, yeah, it was every kid who was a runner, their dream was to run in the Olympics. Yeah. But more than anything, after a while you start to learn what running actually is.

And it's that constant confrontation of a challenge every day. Some days you don't feel that good. Some days you feel great. Some days you're not inspired. Other days, you know, it's pouring rain and freezing cold and you still have to go run. And as a kid, that's an incredibly important lesson to learn that it takes commitment. Yeah. And you have to believe in yourself and you can actually do whatever the hell you want.

Yeah. There's no, there's no limit to what you can do. I, you know, you, in high school, I probably could have run faster looking back on it. But when I was in high school, it was doing everything it needed to do for me. It was fulfilling for me. What did it fulfill? Well, I wanted to be an athlete. I always liked sports.

I wanted to show to myself that I had what it took to be successful at sports. And then the lesson of running is that it's about, you know, that's what you learn to be successful in life. All those lessons are, it's about more, it's not really about running. So running was a metaphor for lots of things that you need to learn. And interesting today, you see that in high school, colleges love to recruit cross-country kids because they're always the kids that sail through college.

They know issues. Because they're consistent on a long term. Well, because they've trained themselves in their minds how to do that. I don't know if that's because that's the kid who comes to running in the first place or if that's running. I think it's a combination. But the cross-country kids, and I coached cross-country in Massachusetts after I retired from REBA for a few years.

And the same thing. Those kids were, you know, we had no behavioral issues or motivational issues. They all wanted to be successful. What they lacked was confidence, and they lacked. They need mentorship, and they need all the things that kids need. But if you point them in the right direction, they're self-directed young people. And runners tend to be like that. Yeah.

So it's something about that sport and something about those personalities that come to that sport. Sure. Very introspective, self-aware. Yeah, self-directed, highly motivated. You can't get very far in the sport if you're not that. No, you get, you know, get exhausted, you'll give up. Who wants to run that far in the first place?

I remember when I first started running, several of the older guys on the team said, we only have one rule. You can't stop. That's it. You can go as slow as you want. You can go as slow as you need to go, but you cannot stop. No walking.

At least a jog. No walking. And then in a race, the rule was you can never drop out. That's the cardinal sin is to drop out of a race. Even if you can't run any faster, you slow down, everybody's passing you, you have to finish. So those were actually pretty important rules that you learned. I had those rules are still with me. No walking and you can't drop out. Did you ever drop out of a race? Never. Never. Now, do you feel like, do you take that same principle and apply it to your

businesses? I don't do it in a conscious way, but it's a subliminal subconscious orientation that I have. Yeah. That is how I approach it. I approach, I just approach life that way. It's not just business. It's just, this is just an extension of who you are. You know, if you have a shitty life, you're going to have a shitty business, frankly. Yeah. You know, if you don't understand what it takes

to live a life with some integrity, you're not going to be successful in business. It really just starts with that. Doing what you say you're going to do and, you know, driving yourself to a vision and goal that you may have. Overcoming obstacles, treating people the way you'd like to be treated. And people respect that. And I think that they aspire to work in that kind of an environment

where people are pretty straightforward. And so I try to emulate that here. That's what I'm about. So I don't tolerate deviation from that because everybody can do that. It's like don't drop out. I can say that to any bunch of runners. And it doesn't matter if you're talented or not talented. You can live by that rule.

Let's say about physical injury. That's different. Sure. To give you an example, my son, Julian, who ran cross country, he's 24. He ran cross country for Claremont McKenna his senior year. And he'd always heard me, and I'm not a drill sergeant, believe me, I'm not. But he'd always heard me say this. And senior year in college, his league meet, when he knew the team was depending on him,

and he was like the number two or three man on the team. And it's a five mile cross country race at the two and a half mile mark he felt this really sharp pain in his leg and his thought in his uh shin area lower leg but he was not going to drop out and he and he started slowing down i could see something was wrong and we're out there jillian what's the matter and he was grimacing and it turns out he finished the race and he had a broken leg oh my gosh he finished the race he had fractured his leg at the two and a half mile mark and still finished the race wow and he couldn't even walk at the end and the next you know two hours later he's in a cast so now would you have advised him to no drop out i would have said julian you should have dropped out and he goes goes, I don't drop out, Dad. But he's like, you told me, Dad.

No, he wasn't even that. He said, no, I don't do that. Wow. He doesn't do that. I would have dropped out. I would have dropped out. So, you know, I mean, these are the kind of kids, people there. And it's no surprise that they're, generally speaking, quite successful in business.

So what attracted you to distance running in the first place? Do you think it chose you or you chose him? Remember, I was like 5'3". In distance running, there's no coach that's going to bench you. There's no coach that tells you you can't play. And then the clock never lies. There's no subjectivity. It's all the same playing field, same race.

The clock does not lie. That's true. So that's what attracted me is absolute. I could be as good as I wanted to be. It was up to you. It was up to me. It wasn't up to the coaches. It wasn't up to the coach who didn't like me.

Putting you in the game. Exactly. And, you know, doing me a favor and letting me play in any. Yeah. No, none of that. So that's what attracted me to it. Just the idea that it's all up to me. I like that.

I like it. So what attracted you in the footwear business in the first place? Well, that was a natural extension of loving running. I mean, when I got in, I graduated from high school in 73. And at that time, you know, there's a startup company in Oregon called Nike. And it really wasn't even called Nike. It was called Blue Ribbon Sports. And we were buying shoes from Blue Ribbon Sports in Berkeley in some guy's basement.

Really? And the shoes they sold were Onitsuka Tiger. They were these shoes from Japan. But there were no other running shoes except Onitsuka Tiger back then. So we wanted running shoes. So we'd go to Berkeley and we'd buy the shoes. And the distributor called BRS, Blue Ribbon Sports,

was Phil Knight. And they were importing those shoes from Japan. And that later became Nike when basically they absconded with Honotuka Tiger's patterns and names of product and just relabeled it all Nike. Right. Which is interesting. People don't talk about that, but that was fact.

And anyway, so by the time I was in college and graduating in 77, the Nike, the running boom had happened or was happening. And I saw people that I had known making a living from running. And I, you know, I was a rhetoric major. So I was always good at logic and business and the logic of business. And I can do basic arithmetic really well. Don't ask me to do calculus. I got through two years of calculus in college, but I haven't used it since. Business math is arithmetic.

Pluses and minuses is pretty much it. You could argue that it's different now with IT, etc., but I'll persist in that opinion. And so when I saw these people making a living from it, I thought, you know, why not me? I can make a living from my passion, which is what everybody would want to do. And so I wanted to open a running shoe store.

I was well-known in the Bay Area, San Francisco Bay Area, for running and racing, and I won a lot of races, a pretty well-known runner. Was Area, San Francisco Bay Area, for running and racing. And I won a lot of races. Pretty well-known runner. So people... Was this college or after college? After college. Okay.

So you were like semi-professional then? Yeah. Like amateur? You couldn't be professional. It was just like amateur? If you got caught taking any money or any payment, you would be, quote, banned for life. Gotcha. Okay.

It was a thing called the AAU. Guys, the Athletic Union. And there's a bunch of old men. I'm talking old men. These are 70- to 80-year-old guys who maybe ran a race in 1923, and then they joined the AAU to protect the integrity of amateurism. Right. So it was the foundation of how the Olympics were.

It was total nonsense even then. Right. Because you can't be an athlete and devote all that time and not get paid and not get at least remunerated for showing up right yeah you know if you want to compete in a race somewhere across the country and and you don't have a job or you have a part-time job because you need to train how are you going to afford a plane ticket to do that yeah so anyway so we were were getting paid under the table as expenses on occasion. Sure.

Travel or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. People would occasionally, you'd get like a ticket to a meet and they'd send you a first class ticket and you could cash it in for a coach ticket and keep the difference. Right, right. Or you'd get hotel stipend and you'd pack six guys in a room and you'd split the money that sure gave you know so that was just the way you had to do it right and so yeah so after college um i went to work for

the department store chain called carter holly hill i used to own uh neiman marcus and um important capwell's up in the bay area some other stores and uh so i learned retail i was there for about 18 months or something like that. And my goal there was to learn basic retail methodology. And then I left that job and went to work for Runner's World magazine to run the store that they were opening in Mountain View. And this is one of the first kind of running stores. This was actually the first running shoe specialty store on the West Coast.

Well, let me, yeah, I'd say it was the most advanced running shoe specialty store on the West Coast. Well, let me... Yeah, I'd say it was the most advanced running shoe specialty store on the West Coast. There was one more in Gainesville, Florida, called Fidipides. That was owned by a famous runner. But we had starting line sports, which was owned by Runner's World. And so then after a year or two,

I struck a deal with them to buy half the store that decided they didn't want to be in retail. We had a mail order business too. And then about a little or two, I struck a deal with them to buy half the store. They decided they didn't want to be in retail. We had a mail-order business, too. Then, about a little after that, I opened a second store in Alameda, which I own. I had those two stores. I was running, still racing, still training. I had stores open seven days a week. I had a running club.

We had a running club with 300 people in it. We had a big road race we put on still going on in Alameda and uh you know it was it was pretty intense I mean talk about burning the candle at both ends I mean it was the racing went out the window because I did not have time to train and then I took a job these two guys came in my store one day one of them was uh quite heavy and the other one was a chain smoker and uh it was obvious that neither of them had ever run a step in their lives. And they're selling this brand of shoe from England called Reebok. And I knew Reebok because I had a pair in high school, and I'd ordered them from England.

It was a small company then. It was a tiny company. They made handmade shoes for the high-end elite British athletes. So it was a couple million dollars a year in business or less? Yeah, tiny. I mean, I'd be surprised if it hit a couple million. I mean, it was really small. Sure.

But it was a super geek brand, you know. The only people knew about it. They were famous for their shoes being ridiculously light. There was nothing to them. Talk about minimalist. These were the original minimalist shoes. And they were made of kangaroo leather. They were cool looking. And the were made of kangaroo leather. They were cool looking.

And the track spikes were pretty cool looking. And only the top level people had them. So if you had a pair of those, you better be running fast. So anyway, these guys came in store. They were selling Reebok. They had just acquired distribution in the U.S. for Reebok. And they didn't know anything about it. They knew nothing about running. They really

didn't know what the hell they were talking about. So one thing led to another and I ended up becoming the sales rep for Northern California, Oregon, and Washington. Because what prompted me to do that was I remember seeing all the reps that used to come in to call on me. They were all driving BMWs. They didn't seem to work. All they did was take me to lunch and they were home by three. And I kept thinking, you know, what am I doing wrong? I'm obviously on the wrong side of the wall here. Right. Working all day, all night. Yeah. And so I thought, why don't, I think I'd rather get on that side, figure out, figure that out. So the opportunity came up and I had two store managers that I hired to run the stores.

And then I went on the road selling Reebok in Nike's backyard, actually. Right, right. And then there's a famous story about how you kind of were a champion for the aerobic shoe. Right, I did that shoe. And that's kind of what took Reebok from whatever few million or nothing to kind of like a few hundred to millions, right? Basically. Right. Yeah. We pretty much went from $13 million to $300 million in a year and a half. Wow. Because of this one shoe. Pretty much. Yeah. And so how did this come about? I think it was a story about with your

wife was taking- Yeah. My wife was taking aerobics and uh i whenever i wasn't i was on the road three weeks every month and home one week which is horrible because we just got married yeah not good so so whenever i was home i i wanted to do aerobics and do whatever she was doing so i noticed all the women in the aerobics class were barefoot on either carpeted floors or concrete or wood and some of them were wearing big, bulky-looking running shoes. And I also noticed that if on Monday the instructor was wearing a pink headband, by Wednesday everybody was wearing a pink headband. Interesting.

So it occurred to me that two things. Number one, that we needed a shoe for aerobics. And I knew exactly what it needed to look like because I had a pair of track spikes at home. They were kangaroo leather. they had an open toe box, and white. And they almost, they looked kind of like a jazz dance shoe, Capizio, which is a shoe that was famous back then. And so I thought, that's the shoe, now we just need to make that into a sort of a court shoe. More comfortable. Add a little cushioning.

Yeah. And so that's what we did. So how did you make it happen? Did you talk to the CEO and say, let's create a shoe? Yeah, I called him up and said, I want to do an aerobic shoe. And he said, what's aerobics? He wasn't exactly in the thick of fitness. Right.

And so then there was another guy who worked for the company who was in charge of development and product. So he and I got together. I brought him the half pair of my track spikes, which I never got back. And I drew it on a napkin. I said, look, it's got to look like this. It's got to have this open toe. It's got to have some cushioning and some foxing like this particular racquetball shoe. Racquetball was big back then, so racquetball shoes had some foxing and a heel on the toe

area. And so I said, but the most important, it's got to look like a jazz shoe. It's got to look super soft. I wanted to use kangaroo leather, but at the time kangaroos were an endangered species, which is hard to believe now because they're eating half of Australia. But at the time, you couldn't import kangaroo leather to the u.s and uh all of the best shoes in the world for performance were kangaroo you know all even to this day all the best soccer shoes that you see the soccer players and the world-class level are all wearing kangaroo shoes because kangaroo is incredibly thin very very light and super strong yeah and when it's exposed

to water it doesn't dry up so it actually just forms to your toes so what a soccer player does is you buy the shoes a half size or a size too small and then you kind of get them wet leave them on your feet and when they dry you have a shoe that's formed to your foot perfect you could feel the ball because they're so light. The leather is so thin and super strong. But same is true of track spikes. So all these old Adidas sprint spikes were kangaroo. Interesting. So you worked with this guy.

The CEO kind of laughed at you. Yeah, he didn't think there was much to that. And then you worked with the development product developer guy. Yeah. And so you just worked with him behind the CEO's back or he know about it? Pretty much. Yeah. Behind the back.

Wow. Okay. Well, we were, you know, look, I remember stopping after one of my trips and calling him up from a place up on I-5 in those days, stop at a pay phone, call back to Boston. I was pissed because I just spent three weeks on the road and lost $130, you know, and I'd been eating at McDonald's and not training and sleeping in Motel 6, and I lost $130. And the reason for it was that people were canceling orders because the running shoe boom was plateauing.

And so we were not in the top five brands in any store. And, you know, retailers are saying, well, I got to cut back to five brands for running shoes. And you're not in them. So I don't care how nice a guy you are. I don't care how good you run. Yes, we come into town. We run together. You take us to lunch, blah, blah, blah.

People aren't buying them. But business is business. And you guys are not. Even though we had a runner's world five-star rating and all that stuff you needed at the time, it just wasn't happening. And if I couldn't do it, no rep in the country is going to do it. Because I was able to talk to running stores coming from running. So I knew we were in trouble. So when I talked to the product guy, I said,

look, man, I'm not going to be getting paid much longer anyway. So what's the difference? I'm either going to lose my job because I said, look, man, I'm not going to be getting paid much longer anyway. So what's the difference, right? I mean, they're going to lose my job because I quit or I'm going to lose my job because I get fired, but either way, I'm not getting paid. So we got to figure out something and let's take a shot. I want to take a shot at this aerobics thing because the other, the other important point besides the fact that, you know, aerobics was all women. Who buys shoes? Women buy, I came across this little nugget. I came across a little nugget back then because I was doing a little research in the library. And the nugget was that women bought eight times as much footwear as men at the time. Eight times. That's true. That's true. And I wouldn't be surprised if the ratio

is about the same today. And if it's not the same, it's only tailed off because of athletic footwear. Because back then, most guys had one pair of Jack Purcells or Chuck Taylors, and that was it for their athletic footwear. And women had, and to this day, they buy outfits. They buy color. They buy season. Guys buy a pair of shoes and wear them until they can't wear them anymore. And that's still true.

So if you're in the shoe business and you're not selling shoes to women, you've got a big problem. And I'd already known that because Reebok, we were doing a good job selling women's shoes, women's running shoes, only because we put some color into them, really. And so the fact one was that women were doing aerobics. The instructor was super influential because of the pink headband thing. And so I said to this guy, and I said, look, what I'm going to do, you just get me some shoes.

Give me a couple hundred pair of shoes. I'm going to put them on the instructors. And it's an aerobic shoe, the first of its kind, and we'll see what happens. And that's what I did. In the meantime, I created a program. I had shown the sample around to women instructors, and I said, look, this is an aerobic shoe. Here's why it's an aerobic shoe.

And they didn't even hear a word I was saying because they loved the shoe. It was so cute. Wow. It made your feet look small, it looked great with outfits, and it came in a bunch of colors. Right.

That's all they cared about. And so, well, it isn't that people are superficial. It's just that women have a different perspective for buying footwear. It needs to match up to the outfit. It doesn't need to be functional. You needed to make pink aerobic shoes to match the pink leotards. Right. Or light blue

aerobic shoes to match the light blue leotards. So we made shoes that match the color of the clothes. It was not brain surgery, you know. But it was a revolutionary thing in the athletic world. Because back then, women, this is pre-Title IX, so women were not

supposed to sweat. It was not considered feminine to sweat in public. The other thing that was not considered good was muscles on women was considered butch. This is all before you were born, probably. So women were not supposed to have muscles. You look all dykey.

Pardon my French. That's what people were saying. And I remember when Jane Fonda came out with the Jane Fonda workout, and Jane had guns. She had biceps. She had deltoids. And women were saying, I don't like that. She looks so butch. Well, little don't like that. That looks so, she looks so butch.

Well, little do you know that, you know, now years later, that's considered as feminine as anything. And, but back, this is 1980, and that wasn't the case. Yeah. So, you know, effectively, I saw an opportunity to kill all those birds with one stone, you know, introduce a product line that women wanted to buy because women were buying the majority of footwear. And I knew that if we gave them athletic footwear, they would be buying the majority of athletic footwear. And there was an emerging opportunity to create a movement among women that was already starting. And Jackie Sorensen, who was an aerobics person, Jane Fonda, and a few others were starting this thing. And it

was really about women discovering the power of physical activity and how it influenced your self-awareness and your feeling of power, if you will. So no different than running had for me. So I thought for me aerobics was about much more than aerobics and it was about much more than selling shoes. Aerobics was a vehicle for women to discover the power that they could get through physical activity and what that does for you, the confidence it builds in you.

It's not just physical strength. It gives you emotional strength, you know, because I knew that because it had done that for me. For running? For running, yeah. And so I figured, you know, and I saw it. I saw it happening. Women were really getting into it.

And this was an environment where they could be themselves and not worry about what men thought and have a lot of fun and get stronger. And you could see people transform. They'd lose 40 pounds. Suddenly they were strong and fit. And then they started running. All that stuff happened because of what we did with aerobics, what we contributed to very greatly. And that was the purpose of doing it, to tell you the truth.

That really was the purpose of it. That was Reebok. That was the purpose of Reebok. To empower women. Through physical activity. That was the purpose of Reebok. Until we stopped letting that be our purpose, Reebok was bigger than Nike. Wow. Reebok was bigger than Nike Wow

Reebok we went blowing past Nike in about 1984 85 suddenly we went past went six hundred million dollars you know they didn't know what hit him they didn't understand you're like ten million four or five years before that three years Wow yeah so way it was the fastest growing company in the history of American business until Microsoft came along Ree It was the fastest growing company in the history of American business until Microsoft came along. Reebok was the fastest growing company in the history of American business. Because of this one shoe idea you had. Pretty much.

Wow. Yeah, that was it. We did some other shoes too. That was the most successful shoe. Well, it was what launched the company. Sure. But people don't understand. It was never about aerobics.

It was never about shoes. So it was about power. That idea of feeling in power. Sure. Wow. Who's your most valuable mentor growing up? And what lesson was the big lesson that they taught you? My guardian, Albert O'Neill, was probably the number one.

He was very smart. Very smart, man. Very practical. What he always said to me is, don't be a fool. He always said that. Don't be a fool. What he meant by that was, know what you're talking about. At least study things.

Don't be taken down a path by people who don't know what they're talking about. And then I had, I'd say my high school coach was pretty important for me. He was there for me after my guardian passed away. So he was a bit of a father figure. I used to go, he used to let me go hang out at his house, have dinner over there, and, you know, just kind of be around his family. I had a little crush on his daughter, too, by the way. She was pretty much my age.

But the point is that he was really a great guy in that respect. What's the biggest lesson you learned from him? That you don't, you know, he was a super soft-spoken guy. Like when you'd be at a track meet and you hear everything that's going on. People are yelling. Sure. And I could always spot his voice because he'd never yelled. He would just say, oh, yeah, go Angelo.

Just about like that. I could always hear his voice. But he was that kind of a person. So, you know, he didn't need to be loud to get his point across and get people to perform. And just watching that, I think I'm a lot that way. I don't yell at people. I don't lose it with people.

Never have. But I do get from people what I need them to do. Sure. And how do you do that? But I do get from people what I need them to do. Sure. How do you do that? Try to just, first of all, make sure they understand why we're doing something. If you understand why you have to do something, then it's easier to do it. Right.

If I don't understand why I'm doing something, then what I have is the military. You know, I just point to a hill and say, you know, we're going over there all those machines we're going right nobody says why right i'd be a horribly bad you know soldier because i would always ask well why are we doing that right that's stupid or i'm not a fool i'm gonna run over there and get shot isn't there a better way to do this yeah you know i mean i'd really make a terrible soldier. I feel like, you know, let's talk more about Reebok because you took that company, it was the biggest shoe company in the world or the biggest athletic shoe company?

It was bigger than that. For a little while, we were the biggest athletic brand. We weren't bigger than Adidas. Adidas was globally the powerhouse. Yeah. But we were bigger than Nike and we blew by them like they were standing still. It was very much akin to what happens in a race, you know, where you're the unknown.

Sure. And the champion's out there prancing around, and you just go blowing past him on the lap, and he doesn't know what hit him. Wow. And that's what happened. And it was actually really fun to do that. Wow. Because Nike wasn't known for their humility.

So how long were you with Reebok? 21 years. 21 years. Yeah. And why did you end up leaving? What happened? Well, I mean, I was really exhausted by it all. Secondly, Reebok lost its way.

You know, I mean, we had too many changes in direction, too many presidents that were brought in. The only reason I was there that long was I was always operating in sort of the exile environment. I mean, I was in Southern California for nine years running the business development center, which I started. And then for five years, I ran the Rockport company, which was 45 miles away from Reebok Corporate Air Corps, and they left me alone. And I could run my business. Wasn't that business going down, and then they brought you in to be the…

The Rockport company? Yeah, the Rockport company. Yeah, we doubled it. We doubled it in four years. Almost doubled it. No, we did double it. And I didn't do anything. I mean, I didn't know anything about the quote-unquote brown shoe business. I knew about shoes.

I knew about selling shoes. I know about that. But the making of brown shoes was very different than making athletic shoes, especially then. So that was an education for me because we had so many incredibly talented shoemakers at Rockport. We never talked about shoemakers at Reebok. Shoemakers were athletic shoes. We never talked about shoemakers at Reebok. Shoemakers were athletic shoes. I don't know. It's basically one construction.

A lot of the shoes weren't even using leather. You were using nylon materials, so you don't get the leather craft involved. The laths are a little more forgiving and on and on. So when I got to Rockport and discovered shoemaking and really learned about shoemaking and got involved in that, it opened up a lot of insight for me. So we combined some of the marketing tactics and line-building tactics from the athletic world with the celebration of the shoemaking

from the Rockport world. The best of both worlds came together, and we were over double the size of Rockport. And then Stuart told me a story about you starting another company. I can't remember if it was during Reebok, but it was like a fathead product.

Yeah, it was fathead before there was ever fathead. Right, right. And then you sold that to M3, right? 3M, yeah. 3M. So why did you come up with that idea? Just because we wanted to decorate my son's room. Really? I thought it would be cool to do this border motif.

So I did it. I drew all the – it was cars. He loved cars. So we did – the border was like a street with a center line and mailboxes and stop signs and streetlights. And then the cars, you could – they were all made from contact paper, colored paper, vinyl, and he could move them around. So we thought that was cute, so I did that.

And then it occurred to me once I did it that this is an idea that if we had an adhesive that would come off the wall like Post-it, that it would work as a room decor system. To put on, take off, move around, put in a different room. Put on your furniture. Sure. And, you know, our kids like to do that. They like to put stuff on walls.

Right, right, right. And this, you could put on your furniture. And it was no big deal. Parents just come over and peel it off, put it somewhere else. It left no residue. It was post-it notepads for the wall, basically. So I got a patent on it, and then we went. And I developed it with my wife. She for the wall, basically. So I got a patent on it, and then we went. And I developed it with my wife.

She was the president, actually. And we built it up a little bit, had a group that we hired to help us manage it. And then we sold it to 3M. Which is, you know, scotch tape and everything, right? They invented Post-it notepads. Post-it notes. So I had a – they didn't have – this is crazy. I think this is where they realized, oh, because I named it – the company was called Decorate It.

Oh, nice. And they didn't know that – they didn't realize their trademark protection didn't extend to anything besides Post-it. So I just said to them, you know, sorry, you didn't have that protected, but I went and got it. So they ended up kind of being a little bit impressed by that. A little guy comes along. It was a $13 billion company at the time. Wow. protected, but I went and got it. So they ended up kind of being a little bit impressed by that. A little guy comes along. It was a $13 billion company at the time. So then we ended up striking a deal and they

bought the brand. And it is now that same technology is now Fathead. No way. Wow. The Fathead is probably the same patent. The patent expired now. The Fathead patent is my patent. I don't even think fat head has a patent anymore.

My patent was the fat head because we had also done, I licensed NFL. We had licensed Disney. We had licensed NASCAR. I had all those. Those were all decorated. Yeah. Yeah. licensed NASCAR. I had all those. Those were all decorated. I had all the NFL team helmets that you could use in a room. And then the border was a

gridiron. What year was this? So Adrian, my oldest, he was, I don't know, 86, 87. Okay, that's cool. So let's talk about challenges and crises. I think that every big leader goes through lots of different challenges

because they have to overcome them in order to stand out from the crowd. What are some big challenges or things that you've gone through, either personally or in business, that really kind of shaped who you are as a person? Well, I mean, there's always a challenge if you don't see yourself as a conventional person. Or in other words, you don't really want to march down the same path as other people do in a lockstep fashion. Then you're making harder on yourself. So that's a challenge. And I didn't willingly want to make it harder on myself but I was also unwilling

to go down that lockstep path so you know it just created and there were more hills to climb yeah but I was a good hill runner you know so the hills didn't bother me yeah and but that was an an issue. Then the other issue was just the idea of just being able to project yourself into a future that you had no reference point for. So if you grow up in a well-to-do middle class, solidly middle class family, where every few years you get in a car, you live in a nice house, you take a nice vacation every once in a while. I'm not talking about anything exotic. I'm talking about the middle class arc of dream, right? Sure. For me, growing up, that was absolute fantasy land.

That was something I saw on TV. I saw that on Leave it to Beaver. Yeah. And that house on TV was the nicest. It was like a house on that house on tv was the nicest it's like a palace to me so to it's a challenge to actually convince yourself that you belong there too that that why how come what's keeping you from projecting yourself into that so i came up with something that years and years ago when i was a kid i'll never forget this either because i was

playing with a telescope, you know, and I realized, like kids all do, you look through both ends and you say, wow, this looks totally different. When I turn the telescope around, it looks totally different. Right. And, you know, I remember we would make a joke about somebody not knowing which end of the telescope to look through, you know. And my guardian would actually say that. And one of the things that I've always said is, you know, you should look through the other end of the telescope.

And by that I mean, you know, you just might be looking at your life through the wrong end of the telescope. You might, to you, in that view, things might seem very, very far away. But if you just turn it around, you realize that's not true, you know. So what I really sort of came to was this idea that it's easier to come from a place than go to a place. And by that I mean, to give you an example, when I was a kid, the school record in the mile in high school was 422. And broken by a very talented runner in 1967. So it wasn't really that long before.

But it was considered a record that wouldn't be broken. Sure. Because back then we didn't have a track. And the tracks we ran on. Cinder track, right? No, we didn't have a track. Wow. We used to run around the goalposts at the football field.

On grass. Yeah. And every track we went to compete on was a cinder track, maybe. Those were the good tracks. Most of them were dirt tracks with rocks on them and rutted in the fast lane. So they weren't conducive to running fast. So a 422 was considered, wow, that was really a fast time. Then there was Jim Ryan, who was a god. That was a whole other thing. But, you know, so I remember thinking to myself, I wonder what this guy does every morning that I don't do. I wonder where he eats. I wonder how much he sleeps. I wonder, you know, and so then

I started, as I got more into running, I started observing all these other really good runners that were not high school runners. They were older. And I said, why can't I be that guy? So why don't I just decide I am that guy? I'll immediately overnight become that guy. And then I'll just project back on where I am from there. So in other words, let's say that you want to be, and my goal at the time was also to break nine minutes or two miles in high school,

which was really super fast. So then I said, well, what would a nine-minute, two-miler, how do they train? What do they eat? How do they behave? How do they act? How do they view life? And so I decided I'm already a nine-minute, two-miler. I just haven't run nine minutes yet, but I'm a nine-minute two-mile.

And I just started looking at it that way. And, you know, you become what you envision yourself being. Right. And that's been the way that I've always managed my whole life since then. Reebok, it wasn't to me a surprise that we went blowing past Nike. I thought we were better than Nike. Wow. We just hadn't done it yet.

Deckers, I thought this was, this building that we're in, I knew this. I saw this. I didn't come to Deckers because I wanted to stay in this funky place we were at. I was already on the other end of the telescope for this company. I saw this as a multibillionillion dollar company because of the quality of the people and the products and the brands.

You came in when it was around 200 million. That's 1.6. I think Forbes has it wrong right now. That was two

years ago. So you've been here for six or seven years now? No, I've been here nine years. Nine years. Yeah, that's

pretty good. Growing over a billion. A billion and four. That's pretty good. That's not bad. Wall Street must love you. No, they don't. Wall Street doesn't love anybody. They love Wall Street. That's all they do.

For those listening, we're sitting in a brand new space. Huge. I don't know what you call this place, a foundation or headquarters that it used to be on the other side of Santa Barbara, but it's this beautiful space right now. So congrats. It's amazing here. What about, you know, I know you've been through some personal, you know, some really hard personal experiences with family. And what I'm curious is how does a great leader continue to have a huge vision and be successful when they go through an emotional experience or,

you know, extremely, you know, emotional experiences, the one that you had and how does someone, how does someone continue being a positive force in the world, being of service, giving back the way you do? Well, first of all, it was my son we're referring to, my son passing away, our oldest. And Adrian was a wonderful person. People talk about, oh, he's an old soul. This kid, I distinctly had the feeling that he was my

dad in a previous life or something, even when he was a little tyke. He was just one of those people that everyone was attracted to. He never said a bad thing about anybody. I never ever, ever remember him. He never lied, not once not once in the you know ever which isn't little white lies

from little kids you hear all the time never not once just one of those he was a beautiful person and yeah when this happened mean, I think we realized that what we really need to do is to honor him and everything he was about and everything he stood for for the rest of our lives. Because he was an example for us and everyone he met for how to live your life and how to be in the world. and how to be in the world. And so we became, as a family, I think, even more focused on living a quality life like you did. And so, because it was never about him. You know, see, the thing about him,

Adrian was the type of person that had a gift for math. He was a gifted math mind. And so he never had to study, graduate from Williams College. He had a gift for math. He was a gifted math mind. And so he never had to study, graduate from Williams College, he had a math degree. He just graduated. And he never needed to study math, ever. People would be shocked that he would,

you know, these are high-level math courses, and he would just show up, take the test, get an A, and walk out. So what would he do? And all the time he wasn't studying, he would go around to all of his math major friends and help them with their work until they understood or they got it. Or if somebody was really stressed out, he'd take them bowling or he'd take them to go find a burrito somewhere.

No consideration for anything other than trying to help somebody who needed help. Yeah. But that's the kind of person he was, you know. So we really became much more aware of that. We got to look through that end of his telescope, you know, and really kind of understand that it's not about us, it's not about me. This is not about... Deckers is about all of these people that work here,

and all the people that work for the company around the world, having the kind of opportunity that I have. You know, to live a life that maybe is outside of your expectations, or your practical reality, or you can dream about it, but you don't have the vehicle. Here's the vehicle. And I really feel that that reflects itself in the products we make and how much success we have because we're not,

I don't believe we're a greedy organization. I think in my mind greed is probably the single thing, biggest problem we have as a society and a culture, is that this infusion of greed in just about every aspect of life, particularly in how we operate our business and how we operate our government. Right. And I think I'm pretty proud of the fact we're not a greedy organization. Yeah.

Yes, we're here to serve our consumers, number one. Then we're here to serve our employees, because without the great employees we can't serve our consumers. Then we're here to serve our shareholders, number three, because without great employees and great consumers, we won't have any shareholders. Right. It's pretty logical.

And I've had pushback from people telling me, well, you know, you should have shareholders' interests first. No, I'm sorry. I vehemently disagree with that. Shareholder interests come third behind the other two, which are more important. So if you have happy consumers who love everything you do, shareholders are going to be happy. If you have great employees who can deliver against what consumers need, shareholders are going to be happy. If you have happy shareholders first, you may not have the other two.

Right. Yeah, interesting. I can make a lot of decisions that would make shareholders very, very happy in the short term, but destroy this company in the longer term. Sure. So what's the biggest challenge as a leader to stay at the top when everything you've touched seems to double, triple, quadruple? How do you not stay comfortable or how do you not get in this comfort zone that allows you to continue to grow with each thing that you get into? Because the process is what's important. It's not the product.

It's not the end. How do you know that you're at the end game of anything? The whole idea is, in my mind, is just have a good process for living your life. Just live your life. Learn and do things that are consistent with what you've learned and strive to do them better all the time every day until you can't walk around until you're done you know and you should make progress every day against increasingly clear

goals that may in the beginning be about economic realities you want to buy a house you want to buy a car, you want to take a vacation, you want to educate your kids. But over time, if you keep going down that path, become about things that are bigger than you. You've handled some of those things. Basic needs. Or you've put them in some perspective.

Sure. And now you're on to what do other people need. And then the more you give away, the more you get back, which is the craziest thing. That's the craziest thing of all. Yeah. And you're a big believer in giving back in the community. I think you have a program with all of your employees, right? You match up to a thousand dollars. A couple thousand.

A couple thousand dollars. The company will match to any of their charity that they want to. That's inspiring. Why do you do that? Why not? It's the right thing to do. Right. why not? It's the right thing to do. People, because I want to inspire in people this idea that the more you give,

the more you're going to get back, you know? So we have, the other thing we do is we have a competition among all of our departments for who's going to donate the most number of hours to charities in a year. No, no. So like two years ago, we were at the... Three years ago,

I think it was. The total number of hours that our employees donated to local charities was 4,500 hours. I think last year it was over 10,000. Wow.

And I require all of the people on the executive leadership team to be on a... Advisory board, right? A local charitable board, if they can, you know. Because they have a lot to offer. Right. And these boards need them. Right. So we try to do they can you know because they have a lot to offer and these boards need them right so we try to do that you know and when did you first learn this lesson of the more

you give the more you get back did that just come to you one day or did you someone teach you that or did you experience it you know we all are taught this when we're growing up whatever religion you're in or whatever you you know, you're sort of, you see movies and the fables and the this and the that. And yet we sort of turn a blind eye to it for whatever reason, because I think we get greedy because we want it for ourselves. Yeah. It's normal.

Sure. But I don't know what happened. I think it happened when I was reflecting on the fact that when I was a little, when I was a kid and we didn't have anything and we had to have, you know, I was a kid, I was a little kid, so I was, what could I do? So we needed food stamps and we needed, in New York City they used to give away these big cheese blocks and these giant tins of peanut butter. And you went and got in line for those things.

And you know what? We needed that. Right. And I remember as a kid saying, you know, I hate this. I hate that we have to take this. And I remember saying to myself very clearly, I'm going to pay this back someday. So, you know, I pay a lot of taxes, so I've paid it back many times. But the thing that really distressed me a little bit is

when people say that all of these people are freeloading on the system and that they're takers and that they're the makers and then they're the takers. Well, what about the givers? Where are they in the mix? Let's just stop talking about that and start saying, well, why not have some more givers here? And you won't have to worry about takers. And the makers will make more.

You know? So it's just a ridiculous conversation. So I've become very adamant about this. It's almost militant about it. So what do you recommend for people who are listening, maybe who have a job or are entrepreneurs, that either they're just getting by or maybe they're making a decent salary to have a vacation every year or something like that, or maybe they got a little extra cash. What do you recommend and how to give?

Is it through time? Is it through donations? Is it through? You know, most people have time. Time is the most precious commodity if you're running a charity. You need help. Yeah.

You need people to volunteer their time, whether it's a boys' and girls' club where you can coach basketball, or take kids out on a field trip to the Natural History Museum, or, you know, you can have a cooking class for the kids. You know, kids need that. And a lot of the problem you have in so many communities

is that you have parents who have to work two or three jobs just to put food on the table. So what happens to the kids? The kids are left on their own to wander around the neighborhood and get influenced by all kinds of people, do all kinds of stuff they shouldn't be doing. And, you know, a few adults every once in a while just say, hey, I care about you. How would you like to cook spaghetti? Right, right.

You know? It would be great. It does a lot for kids. It's all that, it isn't about what you're doing with them. It's that you're doing something with them. Yeah. And, you know, that's what's important. So time. People say, well, I don't have any money.

I can't get. Well, actually, do you have, how about two hours a week? You splitter away two hours a week watching some stupid thing on TV. Right. You can always DVR that. Right. And, you know, go, I'm not trying to be holier than thou or anything. I'm just saying that people need to think about it a little differently.

And we all need to become more givers, not just takers and makers. Yeah, I like that. It's really important. I like that. A couple of questions left for you. I feel like every big leader has blind spots. Steve Jobs is an amazing leader. Martin Luther King, amazing leaders, but they all have their own blind spots, their own weaknesses. What do you feel like some of your blind spots are, or maybe some of your weaknesses that you may have? I tend to be a little impatient.

I tend to be sometimes a lot impatient. I'm not impatient as much with people as I am with motivations. You know, in other words, I do like to know why someone is how they are, why they're doing something. And then you can have a conversation about what they're doing. Sure. First, understand why. There's this great book that this guy named Simon Sinek.

I just had him on the podcast. Okay, he's great. Yeah. I mean, I thought I'd start with why. It's a big idea. Yeah. a podcast okay he's great yeah i mean i thought i'd start with why is a big idea yeah and i i i kind of wish you know that i had written that book many people because i've always thought that way i've always thought that way he has the insight to write that book it's fantastic yeah

i've circulated it all over the this company yeah i was going to bring you leaders you last but then i just got that stewart told me you gave it away i gave that to everybody that's why i didn't bring it so you know that to me um i i get i get very impatient with people who i feel have the wrong motivations if you're here for yourself i don't want you here you know we kind of refer to it as my no shithead rule you know to be coarse it can't help it there's a certain coarseness that comes from the bronx that i can't seem to understand it's okay but but it is true you know there are people and what i mean by that is there are people who are selfish there are people who are greedy there are people who are obstinate and don't want to acknowledge another point of view and those people can't work here they just can't and i have an obligation to not

allow them to it's this is also a place where if you've had that in your background and you're looking to change and have a different place then we welcome you with open arms come on in and be part of our tribe right and because what we're trying to do is something that is a little bit different from the standard corporate motif that has emerged over the last 20 years. Yeah. And I'm a big believer that we have every right to do that as a company, public company or not. Right. Because it's allowing us to attract the right kind of people, and those people create the

best kind of products and the best kind of brands and the best kind of marketing and on and on. Yeah. Because they like what they're doing, and they appreciate doing it where they're doing it and why they're doing it. Yeah. And so all these things we do as a company to enhance the community and to provide educational opportunities for employees and to, you know, this facility, this campus, we have a little health club, we got a great cafeteria, we'll soon have a third of a mile jogging path over

there, we got a soccer field and two basketball courts, all that. Well, why do we do that? So that you're free then to appreciate what you've got and work hard to protect it. Yeah. So how do you empower and inspire other people in your company or around you to step into their own greatness or become great leaders themselves for, you know, their departments or their lives, their families? Well, what we try to do, and I don't know, this is always very difficult, is first things first, you've got to eliminate the fear component.

Because the biggest step that people have to overcome is fear, right? Most people are afraid to try something. They're afraid of, I don to try something they're afraid of i don't know what they're afraid of you know they could be afraid of the consequences it could be afraid of failure you could be afraid of not being seen as capable or competent it could be afraid to make that presentation because they don't speak well yeah or they're afraid to speak in public and you know on and on and on we all have all these fears and um what we try to do and we i i try to do it you know and every way i can is try to eliminate fear from the mix i can't live a person's life for them i can't get in their head right but we try to create an

environment where you know somebody could actually work here in a in a fearless way which is better for everybody yeah you know so in in corporate environments the bigger they get the more fear tends to infuse itself and then people use fear as a control mechanism you know they use it as a as a weapon and then fear becomes wrapped up in power and so then power uses fear as a as a weapon and then fear becomes wrapped up in power. And so then power uses fear as a, as a key element of its, of the weapon. Right. And,

and I find that to be incredibly destructive, you know? So, I, you know, anybody can walk into my office anytime we talk about anything. I'm, I walk around the business.

I'm a, I'm an introvert. i tend not to i've never been the back slapping guy right but that doesn't mean i don't want to talk to you i just that's not me you know sure and i love that i love it to be around people who do that um that's why they make tequila i guess but the point is that I really feel we can create an environment where people can be themselves and then we can harness the collective genius of the organization that we can do anything we want so what's your biggest fear then well I don't have any fears tell you the truth the worst thing could ever happen to me has happened yeah my son passed

away I I don't I really must tell you I don't fear anything. Must be nice. You know, you arrive to this place through pain and suffering. Sure. You've gone through a lot of fear. Yeah, all the things you go through, you're still here. Right. So what's there to be afraid of?

Right. I really don't I don't have so what's your big vision for the rest of your life what do you want to see in the world I want to see some grandkids that would be good I want this to be a leadership company

not just our industry and I believe we already are in our industry but I want it to be a leadership company that people aspire to work for and respect because of who we are and they respect our products around the world. I don't know how

big that is. It doesn't even matter how big in terms of revenue it is. But if it's a leadership company that's well respected, then it will create opportunities for that many more people yeah you know and someday I'd like to be able to do business in Cuba yeah which would be wonderful thing because this absurd

anachronism called the embargo is keeping 11 million people from pursuing their passions the way that everyone else in the world should be able to do and it exists for no apparent reason. I'll get out. That's my one political soapbox. Oh, you're fine. This thing has to end. It's heart and soul destroying.

And it makes us lesser as a people for continuing it. This is not American to do this to a country like that for no apparent reason anymore. So was that part of your vision then that you want to be supporting? Yeah. We'd love to make shoes in Cuba.

Yeah. And why not? Yeah. You know, it's a, it's a great 90 miles off the coast. We could make footwear there. We could make it there easier than we make it in China or Vietnam or El Salvador. We make shoes in LA. We make over a million pair of shoes in LA. I heard.

Yeah. You know, so we'll make shoes in LA. We make over a million pair of shoes in LA. I heard. Yeah. You know, so we'll make shoes all over the world, but a shoe factory puts a lot of people to work, gives them self-respect, gives them pride. Yeah. You know, that's the first step toward, you know, leading a positive life. Yeah. Nice. Well, final question. It's what I ask all my guests, and it's what is your definition of greatness? Well, just being there for other people. That, to me, is greatness. Living a life that's other-oriented is greatness.

When you arrive to that point, you can start to see some great things happening, and great things come your way, and then you get to rub greatness all over yourself. It doesn't mean you're great, but you get to rub greatness all over yourself. It doesn't mean you're great, but you get to rub some greatness on you. Right. But if you don't do that, I have a hard time seeing how greatness would ever come your way. Right, right. Awesome.

Well, I appreciate it. If there's anywhere you'd like to send people online, I know they can check out all the brands at deckers.com. If there's anyone who wants to you'd want to send them, feel free to let them know. Or if you have a Twitter, are you on the Twitter? Are you on Twitter? I don't know. I'm not a Twitter. Well, thank you. Really appreciate it.

I appreciate it. Thank you. you. Thank you guys again for joining me on today's episode. If you enjoyed this, please go head back to the show notes at lewishouse.com slash 124 and make sure to share this with your friends online over on Twitter and Facebook and Google Plus. Also tag a picture where you're listening to this episode over on Instagram at Lewis Howes over there and hashtag School of Greatness. I hope you guys enjoyed this. We had a lot of fun doing this together and I'm very excited to thank you guys again for all you do. We've got some other amazing interviews coming up soon. So make sure to subscribe over at iTunes.com slash School of Greatness. Again, thank you guys so much for joining and thanks to Angel for sharing his wisdom of all the success he's created over the years

as the CEO of Deckers. And you guys know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. សូវាប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបា Thank you.