The School of Greatness - 38 Marc Ecko: How to Build a Memorable Brand Like a Billionaire

Episode Date: November 4, 2013

It takes guts and tenacity to grow a successful business and become your personal version of greatness. This week on the School of Greatness podcast we have an entrepreneur who has done this on a remarkable level. He's the creator of one of the most ubiquitous and great looking clothing brands in the world today. He did it all from humble beginnings in New Jersey and now runs a billion dollar business. Welcome to episode 38 with Marc Ecko.

This is episode number 38 with Mark Echo. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a 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. What is up, greats?

Thanks so much for tuning in today. And let me start off with the quote of the day. And it's by Steve Maraboli. And he says, the day. And it's by Steve Maraboli. And he says, those who have the ability to be grateful are the ones who have the ability to achieve greatness. And I loved seeing this quote, because I've been talking a lot about gratitude lately with a number of my guests. And it just seems like it's a great theme. Gratitude, The more grateful you are, the easier it is to achieve greatness. So hopefully you guys are expressing gratitude in everything that you're doing throughout

your day, your week, month, and all of your life. Gratitude for me is something I live by, I breathe by, I think about constantly, I'm constantly expressing. And I find when I'm ever in a bad mood that I turn to gratitude. And it always seems to get me out into a better mood, at least. Maybe I'm never fully back to myself, but at least it gets me out of my own way. It has me start thinking about other things besides what crap I'm going through that day. So those who have the ability to be grateful are the ones who have the ability to achieve

greatness. Hope you guys enjoyed that one for today. We've got a big, big, big show. It's with Mark Echo. And for those who don't know who Mark Echo is, he is an American fashion designer, entrepreneur, investor, artist, and philanthropist. And he is the founder of Mark Echo Enterprises, which is a billion dollar global fashion and lifestyle company. Yes, a billion dollar company. He's the man.

He's extremely creative, and he's got a book out. The book is called Unlabel, Selling You Without Selling Out. And I think that's awesome, especially with the whole online marketing, social media world, what everyone's doing about personal branding. It's all about selling yourself without selling out. And I think it's really cool what we go over today. I'm very excited to share with you this interview. You're going to talk about how to discover your unique voice and what that is. And in order to take action, one must overcome fear. We talk about what fear is and how to overcome fear. What Mark talks about overcoming fear. Mark also talks about some of his powerful mentors and how some mentors in your life may not be exactly who you think they're

going to be, but might just be someone you weren't even thinking about. Mark also talks about how to discover your weaknesses and your unfair advantages, and then your infinite truth in what that actually means and also all about living your authentic life. So I'm very excited to be tapping into Mark's wisdom throughout this episode and make sure to check out the book. He's going to talk about the book a little bit as well. Again, it's called Unlabel, Selling You Without Selling Out. With that guys, I'm super pumped about this episode. Mark Echo is a huge icon and I'm very

excited to introduce you to him. But in the meantime, I've got something I want to share with you guys at the very end of this episode. Make sure to tune all the way into the end because I've got a very special program I'm coming out with that's all about supporting entrepreneurs to making more money and living their ultimate lifestyle. recently. It's going to be coming out soon. And I want to share more with you at the very end. So stay tuned to the very end of this episode. I'm going to talk a little bit about that. And in the meantime, get ready and step up and let the class begin. Now it's time to bring in the master. Welcome back everyone to the school of greatness thanks for tuning in today super pumped about this interview because i got mark echo who is calling in how's it going mark what's up lois good to speak with you uh we met a couple months back at mastermind talks where you

were giving a keynote i was speaking as well and uh got to connect briefly but i'm glad we got to reconnect through our mutual friend ryan holiday so yes i really appreciate it and your new book unlabel selling you without selling out just came out and uh one of the most beautifully designed books i have to say and and i guess that makes sense because you're a designer i mean there are i knew in positioning the book as a product that there's a cohort of readers um that are maybe on the younger side or or their default position is to buy digital. And I wanted to make the print product, you know, like the ultimate in the value proposition, because I really felt like that would kind of be the real experience,

especially as I kind of took almost a school biology or anatomy book kind of layout, rather. And I think you lose some of that context without physically touching it so the design was indeed a big part of making it right but i wanted to do it in a way where we didn't um dilute or make it um uh you know dilute the text and make it a coffee table book it's not a coffee table book you know in that regard no the text and make it a coffee table book. It's not a coffee table book in that regard. No, the text is amazing still. It's not just like a visual image book where you're flipping through,

but you've got some great writing as well. Well, cheers, man. Thank you. I appreciate it. And I kind of want to just dive in and briefly let you share your background. I think a lot of people know about the brand you've built, the billion-dollar brand you've built, but maybe give like a 30, 60-second background of your story

of how you kind of all got started. Oh, I mean, it's kind of, you know, the kind of classic made in America story. You know, I am very lucky in life in two very material accounts. One, I'm a twin. I have a twin sister, Marcy. And my mother, who was carrying us as twins,

didn't know that she was going to give birth to twins. You know, it was 1972 and I guess access to, you know, whatever tests and they missed it. So when she complained of like kicking in her breast and then kicking in lower part of her stomach, the doctor was like, oh, it's just an echo in the fluid. of her stomach, the doctor was like, oh, it's just an echo in the fluid. So, you know, that me coming second and being the echo to my twin Marcy probably is one of the most material things that in my story, that's more of just the luck of, you know, God and right place, right time, right DNA and the right strand and the right sequence. So having a twin, uh, has shaped me and she's been the best advisor and kind of, um, consigliere that, you know, I could have ever

wished for or bought, you know, so that that's one, the other, uh other very material thing that kind of from an environment point of view that shaped me was to this day. It's one of the largest, like, Lubavitcher Orthodox Jewish populations, you know, outside of, like, Muncie, Brooklyn. And there it is, two hours out of Manhattan, in, you know, 15, 20 minutes from the Jersey Shore, surrounded by largely, you know, at least in the 80s, white suburban towns. And then here is this town where you had a big population of black and Latino folks that

really used the public schools and the public systems. And then there was this massive voting bloc that was very privately organized with like this Orthodox Jewish population. privately organized with like this orthodox jewish population so it's a really kind of strange place you know and strange and beautiful and kind of only in america kind of a place right um and then making it that much more kind of dynamic was the backdrop of the 80s and the emergence of hip hop culture, you know, pre, you know, the virus that was MTV and kind of the disintermediation of media. So, you know, hip hop was something you had to seek, you know, like you had to really seek it out. And if I wasn't in my environment there, I might not have been exposed to kind of the culture and the hustle and the

kind of dynamism that is hip hop. So, you know, those two things are really material in shaping my background. And then you blend those things with like a passion for art. Suddenly that nickname Echo becomes really useful because now like that's a handy graffiti tag name right right uh so that became real handy uh and then you know the you know the elements of you know um hip-hop you know they say like b-boying djing rhyming and graffiti well you know i was too fat you know uh to break dance too white to to you know i know plenty of white boys that try to rhyme, but it was a little early on the white emcees. But there were, they existed.

And then I was too not coordinated to DJ, you know, but I was artistic. But I was artistic. So graffiti was a way of framing the fact that I was just an expressive emo kid. And suddenly I was able to kind of engage in what I kind of I think of as the extreme sport of art, you know, the extreme sport of graffiti because all that macho other shit that guys get to do football you know if it was skating bmxing suddenly art had this kind of physical physical uh edge and um would allow me to be maybe more macho you know rather than kind of like the emo arty kid who's you know doing landscapes than kind of like the emo arty kid who's, you know, doing landscapes with charcoals or whatever. You were like the ultimate ninja warrior of street art. Yeah. Except, you know, in Lakewood, it's not like there were Scott, you know, high buildings where you could really get up and there were no, you know, it wasn't like the N or

the R train was running. It was like a freight line that cut north and south route nine and so like if you if ninja means you know you know escapading about shop right you know or like the skating rink yeah i presume i guess you could say i was a ninja you were the parkour i was yeah like like it's like nacho Libre was in the park. I was that. If you could visualize that. With the stretchy pants. Yeah, so that was the vibe. I love it, man.

Well, when did you really discover that you had this talent, this gift of, I guess, graffiti? Well, I don't know that I ever viewed it as like a gift for graffiti per se. Well, I don't know that I ever viewed it as like a gift for graffiti per se, because as graffiti artists go, I think I was pretty much a toy and pretty average to below average. But what I what I did have a knack for was just generally illustration. I think that's a more precise description of my skill and being able to kind of, uh, express through illustration. And I had that inkling at a pretty young age, my grandmother made a fuss, you know, uh, over any time that I would try to copy the pages of a comic book. Um, so that feedback, uh, and that currency of, you know, like the kind of cool factor that was my art coupled with this pursuit of wanting to kind of get up, like, which is the spirit of really graffiti is like, you know, making something from nothing and

trying to create awareness for you. It's a pretty selfish and pretty indulgent actually pursuit, right? It's kind of like beating your chest and, indulgent actually pursuit, right? Right. It's kind of like beating your chest and it has that whole element. So I kind of took the zig route and was like, okay, I could blend graffiti and class president. So, because my flyers would be so much more fly, no pun intended or pun intended, then my, you know, the kids I was running against, I would just crush them in terms of marketing. So my marketing savvy was there. And that need to kind of create a call to action and create a transaction, which in that instance was a vote, is when I kind of saw the power of blending my art with marketing or wanting to use my art to achieve yet another

goal beyond just like, you know, the art on paper and the art as an object, you know, that you just hang up or you, you know, you just admire. There was more of an intent to kind of tie it to a transaction. So that I think I couldn't articulate it in that way at 13 or 14. You know, I would just tell you how fresh it was and vote for me. You just wanted to make cool stuff. Yeah, it was reflecting on it. I do think that those were pretty material lessons subconsciously. So how did Mark Echo come about the business, the t-shirt business, and now the brand, the huge brand you have today? Well, it really started, you know, kind of simultaneously with me just making flyers and posters for running for president.

I also had an air compressor and airbrush back home in the garage. And I was kind of honing those skills, wax on, wax off. Come high school, I used my ability, my kind of ends with student government to be able to set up a folding table and sell airbrush t-shirts right there in school and kind of create this unfair advantage in marketing that service. You know, I did it all in the name of quote fundraising, but that kind of set the table for what I did as a service. And, you know, outside of Lakewood and, you know, in Ocean County there, you know, I was probably one of two or three people that were doing that in a meaningful way. Um, I was emulating these guys called the shirt Kings out of Jamaica Queens, who I talk about in the book and the fact that they were like airbrushing sweatshirts for like celebrities and rappers at the time. So that really served to position Echo Airbrushing. So those four years of high school and first couple of years of college was where I was really turning it into a trade. Come 1993,

turning it into a trade come 1993 when I you know I realized I'm like a below average student at pharmacy you know and and more importantly that I knew that it just made me feel it made me feel below average forget the you know the evidence in the testing you know that the forget that for a second in terms of my ability to comply to a testing standard. The notion of standing on my feet counting pills made me feel lesser about myself. The notion of doing something with my art, albeit I had no promise. I wasn't clairvoyant or there was nothing promised that I'd be able to parlay that into business. So that notion though of the art was like, it gave me the goosies. It was positive. It felt better. It made me feel better. So I took that leap of faith in 1993 and I left pharmacy school. I dropped out and I started the business with my sister Marcy and a guy named Seth Gertzberg was my former partner and really literally a $5,000 bag of cash in a dirty paper bag.

Seth was the brute force. Marcy was the governance. I was like the swagger, like the emotional kind of brand part of the conversation. Seth was the relentless commercialization guy. Marcy was kind of the mama-san, took care of production, coordinating early sales with Seth. I managed all the design, marketing, relationships. And we just grew it. We just grew it from six t-shirts and just kept the snowball going. I talk about it in the book, and it was not pretty.

It was not instant. The Rhino logo was not present at launch. That was an iterative part of the journey. And through it, we managed to beg, borrow, steal, get on the bleeding edge of potentially a BK and losing it all, you know, in more than one instance over the years. And we built it into a, you know, And we built it into a pretty big, sophisticated business. But it was a really entirely iterative thing. We didn't come from family money.

There were no insiders. There were no best practices to glean from uncle whomever or, you know, cousin Joe or whatever. So it was a lot of just, you know, um, learn by doing, uh, and a tremendous amount of, uh, failure, uh, and a, you know, kind of unrelenting, almost masochistic observation as to why we were failing, you know, and, you know, mixed with a little bit of mania that, you know, reflecting on it now, some of that naiveness is what helped position us uniquely, but it also created, you know, also always had us dangerously on the edge of losing it all. And when I reflect on, and I talk about in the book, building Echo versus building Complex. Complex, it wasn't even by design, but Complex Media, because of the financial crisis in 08, 09, I had to reorganize how I was financing Complex. And in that effort to

reorganize is really the first time in my professional career where I learned about institutional investors and really giving up equity. Because prior to that, I was an equity hoarder. Everything was like, all right, partner, 50-50. Yeah, me and you, 50-50. And me, you, Marcy, okay, 50-50-50, right? So there's some good that comes with that. It's a little mom and pop and folksy. But, you know, I prescribe now to distributing the risk, distributing the upside and not being so romantic and stubborn headed about just the numbers and where you sit in a cap table. I do believe that you should, you know, if there's certain aspects of your trade that you need to control and you have evidence that you're, you're, you, you, you are unique to control them and control those aspects. And I prescribe to, you know, inventors, creators, entrepreneurs, whatever, uh, startups, um, founders that they protect those, protect those controls, not necessarily through their equity position, but rather through voting rights and other, you know, there's other means to create

those protections so that you have, quote, control. In Echo, we didn't think that way. It was like I said, 50-50-50. And like I said, it was probably one part cuts both ways. It served us in making us unique to the market. Hey, these kids are just, they look different. They act different. They think different. They, everything's different. It made us kind of folksy in that way, but in some regard, it always made us, um, dangerously close to just losing it all. So tell me what's been the biggest fear over the last 20 years that you've had? I think the biggest anxiety or fear that I've dealt with, and I think this isn't unique to me. And that's why the story is interesting, but it's really

not about a memoir. It's really more about a framework for people to understand that the notion of fear relative to their discovery of their, quote, unique voice, as I say in the book, where our unique voice is action minus fear divided by the function of self, how selfish or selfless you are. Fear is an essential component of establishing an authentic experience, product, service, expression, right? And I don't think I'm unique in having a fear. And I think that the fear that I had as the book frames, and it's kind of maybe one part because I'm an artist is the kind of what and how will my peers accept the decision I'm going to make. Okay. A universal fear. by one's human and emotional way of thinking that they're, you know, building ivory towers

for themselves. You know, these ivory towers, these institutions we create are really built on the basis of a premise that, you know, we're right and that we know better because we have evidence. And therefore, we get into these zones of comfort. Right. And we become very, very comfortable. And the comfort is because you're certain that the way you're doing it, it's the right way. Right. And you don't want to move out of that comfort and you're afraid to. Sometimes you're afraid because the gatekeeper or that quote thought leader influencer is going to roll their eyes, is going to say no, is going to object. And you assign so much power to these kind of outside forces. And I've seen it as a pattern where I have been slightly kind of shut in and antisocial and I'm my own worst enemy in that it's like oh no you know I don't think I could do it and

you kind of get in your own head and I think that has consistently if I look at the pattern of a catalyst to a mistake that I've made it's typically been from the hubris that's created to preserve the comfort, you know, so that you don't really address it in an honest fashion and call it what it is, which is you're afraid. So how does someone learn to leverage that fear then to you talk about, you know, the fear of fire in the book and learning how to, like, create something great around this fire. So how does someone, an entrepreneur, maybe who's scared about putting something out there, a new product, raising money, whatever it may be, putting their brand out there and getting criticized and hated on, how does someone learn to leverage that fear

and maybe not overcome it, but maybe learn to feel the fear and do it anyways? Yeah, the fear is there by design, right? Like it's in our – it's built into our nerves. It's like in our fingertips. Like you cannot – you cannot be fearless. To be fearless, you are dead. I don't care if you're like Macho Man Randy Savage with like a M16. Like you're like, you know, Macho Man Randy Savage with like a M16, like you're still afraid.

OK, so I think that's a fallacy. And I think there is a archetype that's been painted in the kind of, you know, where entrepreneurs, the new black, you know, it's fashionable to like kind of paint this image of an entrepreneur who's just so relentlessly ambitious that he exhibits no fear like you know mark zuckerberg staring down the no the the rifle of a lawsuit and you know the facebook movie um you know i think that's a a load of and and i think it's a fallacy for us to kind of you know believe that those people in those instances didn't have stage fright. Of course they did. So you can't begrudge it. I think the way you harness it is to reorganize your expectations. actually, right, is not to, you know, you know, just meet the milestones, check a box,

you know, beat the quarter, check a box, you know, stay on plan, check a box, you know, it's, it's about coming to terms with the fact that failure, right, is your job. And success is merely the measure of the learnings that you accrue over small incremental steps of failure, right? Like a series of small events that are small failures, right? And being able to extract out from that, why? And managing your expectations, it's like, yo, that's the natural order, man. Like, people forget how they learn how to ride a bike. Failing. They fail. They f***ed up, man. It was scary as f***. Okay? It was scary, man. Like, go, like, you know, like, walking. Are you kidding me? You know how scary it is to walk? You know, and like that time, like, you know, I've seen it.

I now appreciate it more. You reconnect once you have kids. But you see you see it in your own kids when they go from crawl to walk. And that's the natural order. So the organization has to learn to tolerate that. Frame its expectations around arriving at the vicinity of success, at the vicinity, rather than this finite definition of what the finish line looks like. It's a number, it's a metric, how many f**ks, how many friends, how many followers, how much money, how many wins. We try to organize things in that fashion. And that's not really intellectually honest with like nature and the nature and nurture of success. Right. It's just really not really how it really happens. And we don't have those expectations when we're like playing in sports and learning the game, but somehow with,

um, business and creation, uh, it's like, Oh my God, I'm taking a risk. I could lose everything. You know,

well then don't bet everything. Right. Okay. Like, you know, like rather than designing a future. And I talk about this in the, in the book,

uh, towards the end, I framed the definition of future, because it's an essential part to the kind of the imagine factor, which, again, is a tenant of, of, you know, what it takes to be genuinely authentic is one's ability to kind of overcome your nostalgia. You do that by framing your future. But you have to define future, a vision of the future. You need not design a future that's like George Jetson flying cars. OK?

All right? We're taught to do that because we look at like, oh, God, I want to be like Steve Jobs. I want to make touchscreen phones that allow for streaming video. And no, no no no no that was an iterative you know over you know starting a company being fired by your own company bringing ball back on the on the you know the the of your ass about to shit the bed you know um a pre-ipPod. That was a long journey. Those were incremental frameworks for future. Your future, how about the future that's like 30 minutes from now? Do you have a good vision for what that is? You're so busy planning and setting your expectations to this watermark or this kind of destination on your gps of uh future

and it looks so glorious and the lights behind the building and it's just man cinematic it looks like a spielberg scene you know what i mean and you know what like it it's not like you don't you build to that you iterate to that and you iterate to that. And rather than being consumed with that, and then your expectations are always bound to that vision. So you're always setting yourself up to just be massively disappointed. Right? I mean, think about like, as a, for instance, like Justin Timberlake, right? Justin Timberlake today is viewed as like, oh, he's such an influential guy in music. And he is. I'm not trying to be snarky. But the dude is, he's made some massive records. But like, yo, go Google image Justin Timberlake and Lou Pearlman. You know what I mean?

Justin Timberlake and Lou Pearlman. You know what I mean? It was an iterative journey. And people in the music community were really just begrudged his music. You know, hardcore kind of, you know, pop R&B, like, thought leaders looked down their nose at Justin as like a fugazi. You know, and then, you know pop r&b like thought leaders look down their nose at justin as like a fugazi you know and then you know he does the video music video uh music award vanguard award he

wins that lifetime thing this last uh vmas and he just crushes and he basically suns everyone he's like look 20 years mother yeah a long time in the making. Yeah. Okay, you just watched it in 20 minutes. And how did you do all that in 20 minutes? Because I lived it in 37 years or whatever. How old he is? Right. Right? It's like the Picasso story.

You know, it's a great anecdote where a woman comes up to Picasso. And she's like, Mr. Picasso, will you autograph this napkin for me? So Picasso takes the napkin and he signs his name just as Picasso can, just flourishes and looks like it just oozes off this marker. And then he starts to draw and he's drawing like an illustration of one of his classic nude women right and the woman is just like oh she's gushing he hands it back to her he says that'll be ten thousand dollars wow she says ten thousand dollars i just wanted an autograph he says she says it only took five minutes he says i know it only took five minutes but it took me my whole life to learn how to do it. Okay.

So the point is, is, you know, expectations, you know, framing your expectations in more modest increments will help you manage your fear and harnessed it and if you think you're gonna be like loved and it's gonna be warm and fuzzy and kumbaya like you know what go be a peace worker okay yeah if you're trying to invent some next or trying to frame your product or service to the world um uh in a way where you want to be loved like Oprah, like, good luck, you know, good luck with that. Right. Because not even Oprah is loved like Oprah. Okay? So it's a fallacy that you're not going to have people begrudge you,

gatekeepers question you, and you have to learn that, you know what what being somewhat selfish and framing your unique voice and expressing an authentic product service you know uh um experience instance will typically lead to you know some people liking it and some people begrudging it you know but so now you have a better picture of who your audience is not right but if you want to do some big things you're gonna have some haters you're gonna have haters man haters is like you're doing something all right now if it's authentic to your core you know i talk about in the book like your core values really like your core values, really like your core deep guts to the skin brand. If, if,

as long as your creative expression and your intent is authentic, deeply and bound to your values, like in the way that you would define your values to a two-year-old or to an 82 year old, then you're okay. If you're being irreverent, just for reverency sake, just to kind of, you know, inflame an audience and create, you know, the tension of haters, you know, and it's not true to who you are, right? Then, you know, you're, you're, you're not being authentic. It's very simple. Interesting. Now I, uh, in your book, you talk about mentors. And I am a big believer in mentors, coaches, in order to help accelerate your learning curve and kind of get you to that success you want or to that level you want much faster. Now, can you talk about maybe one of your

early on mentors? And also, can you tell me, would you be where you are today without having a mentor? Well, my experience with mentors is not as organized as maybe in how you're defining it. In that some people have the governance in their life or had learned the framework early enough to know that to aspire, seek, quote, a mentor. And they call them that by name. I don't know that I had that education or that literacy to the high concept of what a mentor is. mentor is. I think what's more important is to allow yourself to be mentored, right? Meaning allow yourself to be open and know that school comes to you. You don't go to school. When you have that disposition, you learn in the most passive ways like osmosis. So some of my greatest learning experiences where I've, quote, been mentored have been through my ability to kind of my wantedness, a deep wantedness to want to solve for my problem right so so you you're able to extrapolate an education from the most disparate of places you know and that's why like you know what you do with your work and you yeah you're you're creating

these great quote entertainment products and but like yo there's a lot of shit people can learn by just keeping up with your podcast. Right, right. Okay. So in some ways that like you can't, because of the way that people organize a learning experience in a classroom, it doesn't have the same impact, the same level of intimacy. So someone hopefully right now is listening to this and extracting something being like, oh, yeah, I just got pay attention more i gotta you find that if the wantedness is there you can be mentored and because some people are stubborn about that you know like especially when you're young you know like i was reflecting someone asked me the other day what would like the the young mark echo the 16 year old angry you know slightly uncomfortable in his skin

kid in his garage painting sweatshirts say about the 41 year old mark echo shipping a book you know that's teaching someone how to sell without selling out right and i said to be in you know if i'm being completely intellectually honest I think what the young Mark Echo would probably almost probably would have a default disposition to dismiss him because he sounds kind of preachy like a teacher you know so I reflect on you know my openness at that time I don't know if it's a cultural thing, if it's a part of being just young. Maybe it was an emotional intelligence thing, maybe a capacity thing. Maybe it was a fashion thing. I'd almost look at the old Mark Echo probably and be like, oh, man, that old dude's trying to act like he knows something.

He's trying to act like he knows something, you know? And, you know, I think that there is that tension between the teacher and the student that's, I mean, goes back all the way to, you know, Socrates teaching Homer and, I mean, Plato, rather, and then Plato teaching Aristotle and Aristotle saying, yo, Plato, you're an artist. What you're saying is and like resenting what effectively Socrates taught, right? There's always that tension of like begrudging, having a healthy contempt for your teacher. But I think what I was apt to do was find mentors in really disparate places. And I talk about these kind of unlikely Yodas that don't necessarily look

or dress the part. They're not professorial. They might be dropouts. Okay. And they didn't necessarily drop out. They dropped in somewhere else because they weren't interested in the conventional way. So like I talk about Ken from Tahoe, Stoner Ken, who had a clothing company called Eighth Day, taught me how to do color separations in early Photoshop programs pre-layers. Now, I don't want to get all geeked out, but he saved me thousands and thousands of dollars per t-shirt by teaching me something that they weren't teaching in a college. Like there was no place to find out how to, like, so if you want to learn it, it's there to be learned. You have to know where to glean the knowledge from and, you know, ultimately be

grateful for those instances of those mentoring moments. I think this kind of framework of like, oh, I'm going to meet my mentor on Thursday at 3 p.m. We meet once a month or once every two weeks. You know, I haven't personally experienced that in my life in that kind of fashion. But I have had mentors that I've been able to parrot to or through emulation or through inquiry and a kind of call response even in these short wind sprint instances have had massive impact on me because i wanted to and

needed to learn you were seeking it i was i was open man it was open you know i was open. I was open and I wasn't discriminating where it was coming from. And I think it speaks to this kind of notion of labels, this taxonomy that we assign and project onto others that want to organize each other by the way we look, our interests, whatever, our labels. So I'm guilty of it. We're all guilty of that. We're all guilty of that. We're all guilty of projecting. But I have to say that if I were to line up the cast of characters in my life who taught me and mentored me, man, it looks like a motley bunch of motherfuckers.

I'm telling you, man, it looks like the lineup from Usual Suspects. It's crazy, right? King Fade from the Shirt Kings, Stoner Ken, Dean Calaisi from, you know, Rutgers College of Pharmacy. How would Dean Calaisi have been a mentor? I mean, how does that happen? I mean, the dude is the guy that's the gatekeeper for the very thing I disdained, which was pharmacy school. And he gave me some of the best academic advice in my career. How lucky in life was I for that? George Lucas, just from the outside, studying him, studying the framework of how he organized this tapestry of a branded narrative in this world and how he used licensing to kind of create, you know, financial independence and people begrudged him in the the the the the kind of

elite of hollywood rolled their eyes and looked down their nose at him being a whore about making money when all he was doing was building this massive church of independence okay so like i learned from more from studying lucas than i did calvin Right. So it's, it's kind of interesting in, in, for, for me and my career. I love it. What's, um, what's your infinite truth? Oh, infinite truth isn't, there's no finite, you know, um, single answer. I mean the, you know, the, the, the formula in the book, are you about, like how I frame it? Yeah, yeah. The infinite truth is the notion of two different components, what you do and what you say.

And it's an exercise. It's a very simple, really, concept in that what you do has to be greater than what you say. You talk about, yeah. you know, number, you know, infinite truth is greater than or equal to what you do divided by what you say. So you have to over deliver on what you say. Okay. So we are so consumed in a world of social media and kind of feeding the, the, the vomitorium pipe of talking and we and we we we consume our media with these kind of endless talking heads and pundits who so are so emphatic that it almost feels like what they are saying is action but it's not they're just talking right okay so you know the actually emphasis on execution is really at the heart of this formula. It's, you know, under promise over deliver the old, you know, adage, right? So what

you do, right. Divided by what you say, if, if you disproportionately saying more, right, and you're, you know, dividing, you know, and becomes a fraction versus a whole number, the likeness of your infinite truth being truthful is, you know, is not there. You want to always have the quotient of what you do greater than, right, and larger than what you say. And I think, you know, infinite truth is a commitment to just organize your speech and your promises in a fashion that you can confidently overachieve. And I could tell you that when people plan in their business plans and they say, oh, we comp 12% this year, we're up, let's aim for 20 for next year. They get indulged by the momentum versus saying, by the momentum or this versus like saying, you know what?

No, let's crush a number that we know we can crush. Right. And you, you frame the organization is working more towards a truth than a lie or the potential of a lie. Cause that's what ends up happening. Okay. Like you were just being intellectually dishonest when you go,

when you plan that 12 to 20 and you only end up at 15. When you should have planned at 14 and a half or something. Was it better to, you know, set the bar high and miss the mark? No. Or is it better to set it low, a low standard, and always reach it? I don't think it's about low or high. I think it's about intellectually honest.'t think it's about low or high. I think it's about intellectually honest. I think it's about truthful. It's about being truthful about the composition of your skill

sets, your organization skill sets, your collaborators, and rather designing into a number that envisions a quote perfect team right uh i i don't think it's setting quote the bar low i think it's setting the bar to an intellectually honest place one i'm very proud at complex you know every single quarter we crush our numbers and there are people on the board and there are people within the sales team that are like oh you're aiming too low and they but you know what it keeps the energy uh and the uh um the appreciation for what we do um uh it frames it in a way that that flies at a higher elevation than like lucky, right? And there's a rigor that comes with that and an honesty that comes with that. And we don't

do it to be like, oh, we're going to frame this so we could game our bonuses. No, that's ridiculous. You want to, you know uh um yeah i think you want to frame the uh um the bar and position the bar uh at a place that's intellectually honest and i think a lot of people might hear that and be like oh aim low yeah all right well i kind of i kind of like your theory on that just because you're you're almost always coming out on the win and building momentum and building this team bonding, team whatever it may be, momentum, I guess, that is inspirational as opposed to beating each other up or pointing fingers or taking on all this blame or guilt that you didn't reach your goal. Yeah. And I think that the culture is to try to drive towards, you know, often numbers that are just a bunch of people talking and defining success by finite numbers that might not be intellectually honest to one's capacity and the conditions in the market. And I don't think there's anything

wrong with being, you know, intellectually truthful. And that doesn't mean aim low. I've built like, we just, we just raised $25 million at Complex. You know, we were crushing it and we did, you know, we're, you know, by the time this thing goes live, we'll probably have our first month, we do a billion page views, a billion page views in one month. Okay, so we're not aiming low. We're just aiming at a pace and at in a fashion that is, you know, within, we think the achievement gap of our team and their skill set. Because we are honest that maybe we're weak over here or we're honest about our own skill sets. Right.

You know, as executives. But that doesn't mean that you, you know, have a bad self-image. Right. Right. A billion page views. That's pretty insane. Congrats on that side note. Awesome. Yeah. The cross the network and the 120 plus sites and, you know, the growth of video and it's, it's just been an amazing journey. And, you know, frankly, it's funny. We're at a place where now we talk about it. It's

like, we need to change the metric for our, or the formula that deems goals and our milestones to create better qualitative results rather than just quantitative. And so we're right in the midst of designing these new kind of, quote, algorithms, if you will, for our internal teams to incent the edit team, the sales, everyone to drive more qualitatively to success. Because in a world where, you know, the digital media space and really just media broadly, you know, the notion of quote ratings, you know, but I want ratings with like the right heat on those jets. You know what I mean? Like, I don't want it like just gaming the system, right? I'm not into gaming the ratings. And, you know, not that I'm implying that we gain the ratings. I just think that we don't have protections in the milestone schedule and the goal schedule that clearly articulates and inserts something that you cannot quantify by just assigning numbers to it.

Right. So we have these new measures that we're deploying. It's going to be interesting to see going into 14, the impact with the qualitative piece of the business, which is really, I think, essential to what we've done as a brand. Interesting. Well, I've got a bunch of questions left, but I really want people to get the book, Unlabeled, because specifically to learn about your marketing genius and what you've created in the sense of memorable marketing and publicity. You talk about some of that in the book. So I want people to go, instead of you spilling all the beans there, I want people to go get the book. it's at if you can go to unlabeled.me uh the website it's an amazing video you have on there congrats on that by the way it's unreal and the whole site is super interactive and unreal looking so unlabeled.me check it out you're selling the book everywhere amazon barnes and noble pretty

much every bookstore you can get it at go get the book and i'm going to leave you with one last question yes what i ask everyone and that, what is your definition of greatness? Oh, man. I don't know. I don't, I think, not to like evade your question, but, you know, I think that words are, you know, often, and I love words, I love etymology, but words kind of sometimes suffer from being defined by other words. And that was the motive to the slightly cryptic formula of authenticity. I was trying that greatness and a common thing that I see amongst the great ideas, innovations, thinkers, teachers um experiences is that there is a certain degree of madness that drives their creation and uh i i mean that's more of an observation i don't think it defines greatness i think obviously the greatness is like what you know what the outcome is but i do find that there is this pattern amongst greatness and in the pursuit of greatness that uh almost breeds and uh seeks a certain level of mania and madness to drive

the uh creation and um i don't think greatness is merely measured by numbers. I can tell you that. I can tell you what it's not. I don't think greatness is because you have the most valuable company or you're the richest or you're the most popular by way of numbers quantitatively, that that necessarily is great. And I also think history and time are, I think, probably on the curve of the measure of greatness somewhere. You know, they are essential, probably, components to be able to assign what greatness really is, because I think really greatness sustains. If it's an idea, a poem, a product that isn't even in existence anymore, the mere memory of it manages to give the goosies

and get you excited and exhilarated. I think that the measure, being able to stand and withhold, um, you know, uh, the, the brutality of time, uh,

I think is a great measure of, of if in fact something's great or not. Right. So, you know, I don't, I'm trying to like be overly intellectual or, or,

or evade the question. I don't have I'm not trying to like be overly intellectual or evade the question. I don't have like something that'll necessarily tweet well. No, it's all good. I think, I think you, I think you hit it. Greatness can't be tweeted. There's the tweet. What'd you say? I said, greatness can't be tweeted.

It knows you, yeah, greatness. I love it. You know, I don't care how hard you try, greatness cannot be summarized in a tweet that's a good enough answer for me Mark I appreciate it man where can we find you online besides unlabeled.me I'm at Mark Echo on Twitter

M-A-R-C E-C-K-O and check me out. Awesome, man. Yeah, man.

I appreciate it, brother. It's been, it's been fun. And I know people are going to love this one. So make sure to check out Mark out at Mark echo on Twitter. I know you're on Instagram as well. I just started.

Yeah. It's at being Mark echo on Instagram. I'd be Mark echo on Instagram. Oh, it's being, yeah. No, it's being. Yeah, being. B-E-I-N-G. Being Mark Gecko.

And also, go get the book. I know all the School of Greatness people love to buy the books from our guests on here, so make sure to go grab a copy of Unlabel and shoot a tweet out to Mark and let him know what you think of the book or what you like about it. So I know he'll appreciate that.

I will. I definitely will. And I appreciate you, Bruce. I appreciate this opportunity to share it. My pleasure, man. And thanks for coming on, bro. We'll talk to you soon. Peace.

Now it's time to bring in the master. well. Make sure to check out the show notes at schoolofgreatness.com and also go check out the book over on Amazon. We'll have all the links on the show notes at schoolofgreatness.com. I appreciate all of you guys' feedback. I keep getting so many comments, emails, messages online via social media, pictures uploaded to Instagram of where you guys are listening to this. And I'll tell you what, those comments are huge for me. It's the reason I create this podcast is to knowing that it leaves an impact and a positive impact in your business, in your life, in your relationships, in your health and everything. So please keep sending me feedback on how I can make the show better, what type of guests you

would like me to bring on and just other feedback and tips that you have for me. I'm super appreciative for every email and message that I get. So again, thanks for that. With that, guys, thanks again so much for tuning in. Stay tuned to the next episode. I've got some big names coming up soon, some important information, some amazing stories,

some incredible inspiration. So I appreciate all of you so very much. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Outro Music