The School of Greatness - 647 Business Building Secrets From the Masters

Episode Date: May 30, 2018

"EVEN THE SKY IS NOT THE LIMIT." - NAVEEN JAIN We've had some incredible masters of business on the show over the years. For this next mashup episode, I selected 5 clips from some of the most impactful conversations I've had with these masters. I've learned so much about how to take my business to the next level by learning from these entrepreneurs. Each of them has a unique business and personality (and strengths), but each has achieved extraordinary success by following certain key patterns. Interested to know what they are? You'll hear from Rob Dyrdek, the mogul of skateboard products, MTV, and funding startups. You'll then hear from Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx and the youngest female self-made billionaire in the US. Then you'll hear from Naveen Jain, the founder of multiple wildly successful tech companies, including ones that are making private space travel a reality - and curing disease. Next is Lisa Messenger, the Australian multi-media entrepreneur who turned out an incredibly successful magazine when nothing supported her idea. And finally, we end on a note from Grant Cardone, the money master entrepreneur himself, who I recently spoke at his massive 9K person event in Vegas. This is a power-packed episode, so get ready to take notes and take your business to the next level after listening to Episode 647. In this episode you will learn: How to systemize your life to scale your impact (5:37) The way to get through massive obstacles in the start up phase (10:10) How to attract the very best talent in the world to your company (15:05) Why it's important to surrender to the process of building your business (20:19) How to think like a billionaire versus a millionaire (25:00) Plus much more...

This is episode number 647 with the Business Masters. 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. T.S. Eliot said,

Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. Welcome to another special edition of the School of Greatness podcast. I decided to bring on some of the most inspiring business masters that I've had on this podcast. People like Rob Dyrdek, Sarah Blakely, the billionaire from Spanx. We've got Naveen Jain, Lisa Messenger, and Grant Cardone. Some individuals who have taken their passion, their fuel, their energy into an idea, infused their light into it, and scaled a business in the process. And there's a common theme that you're going to be seeing and hearing throughout this entire episode. But I want to make sure you share this with your friends. Tag me as well, at Lewis Howes on social media, and let me know what

you think. If you're just coming here for the first time, we've had over 645 incredible mind blowing episodes on this podcast. Yet so many people have missed previous episodes and these powerful golden nuggets. So we decided to pull out some of the most unique insights on building and scaling a business and put it all in one episode. The previous mashups we've been doing on spirituality, the wellness masters, the relationship masters have been blowing up and people are loving them. So we wanted to do one on scaling and building a business. And even if you don't have a business right now, these principles are still very valuable for your own life or for

your own career or for your relationships. So make sure to take these in, whether you have a career, you're a new entrepreneur, you're building your business, you're growing your business. It's all powerful stuff. And I want to give a shout out to the fan of the week. This is from Lauren Sadler, who said, Lewis's podcast is my go-to for personal development in various areas. I listen during my commute daily, and the interviews and insights provided

keeps me informed and focused throughout the day. I always have something to think about and reflect on to better myself and become great. So Lauren Sadler, thank you for your review. You are the fan of the week, and if you guys want a chance to be shouted out on the podcast, go ahead and leave a review over on the podcast app or over on iTunes. We've got over 3,000 plus five-star reviews.

So go leave your review. Let us know what you think and get your chance to be shouted out. I live a completely systematic life. You know, it's – I think you know it well. It's the habit side, right? And now imagine if your habit level goes even further, right? Where now you only pick projects and build projects where you're part of it is only where you find energy. So now.

Doesn't take your energy. Right. And then now connect that to having a complete life plan and total purpose that's scalable. Yeah. Right? So now every aspect of your life has purpose and meaning. So your faith in your big ideas is always there because you believe in your plan. is it's always there because you believe in your plan and you're not getting outside your comfort zone because you've built your entire system around making sure you stay there. It's almost

impossible to drift out of it. Now, I have intangibles, like incredible love, right? I have the love of my life and the person that I was absolutely meant to live on this earth with forever, right? And create a family and build forever. And that's something that we all hope and dream for, but actually achieving it is the greatest of great unknowns and actually getting. And when you are already built around creating a systematic life plan on top of optimizing that and building it to evolve as you grow. you are fully aligned with in that purpose together and now your entire universe is built around the both of you it's something to be grateful for at an at an extremely fundamental level yeah you know what i mean because it's not many people i know could articulate it like that or actually live it and understand what it actually feels like.

Because it's especially relationships. It's peace. You know what I mean? And you get up each day. It don't matter how chaotic things are. You look at it half full. You just deal with it as it goes. And you've built your world in a way that nothing,

the stakes aren't so high in anything that you're doing. And at the end of the day, your family and your core relationship that's at the center people have to fight to find balance, right? Versus building an entire balanced system so that you live in balance. You never have to search for it. You actually live in it. And part of living in that balance is making sure that you live in the energy of everything and get up every day and look at it half full, right? Because you just look at, you're happy, you know, and that's, it's a difficult thing to achieve. It took me three years. I would say meeting Tony Robbins was a huge part of it.

When did you meet him? Two years ago, right? I had basically three years ago, I had just finally had enough of what I was doing. Which was? Everything, right? And if you- A little bit of everything. If you choose, because when you literally can do anything and you choose to do it all, you end up standing for

nothing, right? And none, I was always doing all these things thinking one of them was going to be the answer. And I finally stopped and said, no, let's decide what it's all for and what you actually want to do forever and begin to build that and transition into the rest of your life and a plan that is scalable to who you are. So it's put you in what you love to do the most. And that gives you that same sort of creative freedom to have a ton of variety so you can still do a ton of different things but not be burdened by any of them, right? It's sort of ultimately what it is. And then what can you master? What do you want to be a master of, right?

You have to decide what your mastery is so that you can spend the rest of your life getting better and better and better and better. Right. That was a really hard part is just I heard the word no for two years. Yeah. All the manufacturers, nobody thought it was a good idea. Wow. And also when you're just yourself trying to break into an industry like you mentioned, the manufacturers, it's not really in their best interest to slow down machines or try to give a girl with a couple

grand a chance. Unless you're going to give a bunch of money for a big order of something. Yeah. So that was the hard part. And then once I had it, I cold called Neiman Marcus and that was the first account I called on. Did you get it? Yes. Well, you were great at sales. So you could sell it. I was so excited. It was my moment. I flew to Dallas. I called them and said, if you give me 10 minutes of your time, I'll come and meet with you. And she said, all right. And this is a buyer? Yep. The buyer. I first called the Atlanta store. They're like, girl, we can't help you. We have a buying office. I'm like, well, where is that? Give me their number.

And I went in and halfway through my pitch, I could tell I was losing her. So I said, you know what? Will you please come to the bathroom with me? And she was like so buttoned up. I mean, Neiman Marcus, like her pen matched her belt that matched her shoes. And she was like, what? Like, what am I going to do in the bathroom? I was like, just follow me to the bathroom.

I'll show you my own panty line. And I went in the stall with Spanx in my pants and without it in my pants. And she was like, oh, I totally get it. It's awesome. And I'm going to put it in seven stores. Wow. Yeah. Just like that.

Just like that. It was so unbelievable. I was so nervous. And then, of course, I had to call Sam. I'm like, in the rental car on the way back to the airport, I called the owner of the manufacturing plant. I'm like, Sam, Sam, it's Sarah. I need airport. I called the owner of the manufacturer. I'm like, Sam, Sam, it's Sarah. I need more. I just landed Neiman Marcus. And he's like, what? He was in shock. He goes, Sarah, I thought you were going to give me this away as birthday presents for like

years. And I said, no, Neiman Marcus just bought it and I need more. And he patched me through to Ted. He goes, okay, you can talk to Ted. Okay. So Ted comes back in, he's on the phone and I go, Ted, I need more. And he goes, I go, I just landed Neiman Marcus. He goes, well, that's great, but what you can do about the crotches? The crotches? Yeah, exactly. That's what I said.

I go, what? Don't they come with crotches? We've been making them with crotches. He goes, well, yeah, but we only got one crotch machine. It's being used by somebody else. No way. Yeah. So what do you do then?

So I just landed Neiman Marcus and I have no crotches. Oh my gosh. You got a hole in your crotches? I don't know where to go for a crotch. I mean, where do you go? I actually looked in the yellow pages. Crotch making machines? I looked up crotch. Crotch machine. I looked up crotch. I don't even know how you spell crotch. Okay. Listen, this is what I learned. I'm going to teach you something. Okay. So I didn't know this. What's yellow pages again? Yeah. Oh my God. It's a big book. It's yellow. Hilarious. Um, and what's Instagram. Oh yeah. Okay. I just joined it seven days ago. All right. So, um, where was, Oh, crotch. Oh yeah. Crotch machine. So anyway, in the yellow pages, it's not under crotch. So I learned there's a fancy word for crotch name. Gus yeah. Crotch machine. Wicked up. Yeah. So anyway, in the Yellow Pages, it's not under crotch.

So I learned there's a fancy word for crotch named gusset. Gusset? Yes. What? Gusset. I never heard that word. So I started calling gusset companies. They were like FedExing me crotches from all over.

My roommate would come home and be like, you got another crotch in the mail. And then I ended up finding a man by the name of Gene Bobo that worked for a crotch company just 20 minutes north of where I lived in Atlanta and he saved the day and they made the crotches and then I could deliver Neiman Marcus. So you had the leggings, they made the crotches and then you sewed them together, is that how it works? Yes, apparently, yes.

Gotcha, okay. So then you had enough, how many did you print the first time? 3,000. 3,000? 3,000 pair of the first Spanx. One SKU, right? Yes, one SKU.

$20, one SKU. Three sizes or? Like four. Four sizes. Four sizes, yeah. 3,000 of them. Yes. And that's what Neiman's ordered.

And then I sent them to, they sent them to the seven stores. I had no packing and shipping department. So the semi-trucks were pulling up to my apartment in Atlanta and I was shipping them myself to Neiman's. This is amazing. And then I called every friend I had in those seven cities, like people I hadn't talked to in 20 years. Hey, go buy a few of these. Take your girlfriends there.

Hi, Christina. Remember me? I used to sit next to you all the time in grade school. Will you please go buy this product called Spanx I literally called them and I said and I'll mail you a check so I paid all my friends and friends of friends to go buy the product that is brilliant and I said to get some yeah I said go in I said I gave him a whole script I'm like go in and say I've been looking for this all my life I can't believe it's here and create all this excitement this is amazing and then of course a week later the knee I talked to the Neiman's buyer and she's like, Sarah, we are blowing out. I'm like, you don't say.

No way. Meanwhile, I was buying them all. Yeah. That's brilliant. You have to. Wow. You have to. You have to.

You have to ensure your own success. Absolutely. So then once I started running out of money, Oprah called and put it on as her favorite product of the year. of money Oprah called and put it on as her favorite product of the year. First thing you need to have to do is believe in yourself that it can be done. And people have to believe that with or without them, it's going to get done. It's happening.

It's happening. This train is leaving the station. So I, you know, when I started the first time and, you know, on the Moon Express, I said, people, every time in your life, you have had a chance to watch the history being made. How often in your lifetime you get a chance to make the history. Come join me and we can make the history together. Or you can watch on the sideline while we make the history and you watch. Right. And that's- No one wants to miss out. Nobody wants to miss that out. And another thing that I found really interesting is the bigger and the crazier the idea,

the easier it is to execute. Yeah. And here's the thing. So for example, if I tell someone, hey, I'm going to build an iPhone app that's going to be able to help you find a roommate. People say, good idea, great idea. Go do it, have fun with it.

When I tell them, I'm going to start something that's going to make illness as an option, you start to get the best and the brightest from around the world because now you have created a big magnet. It attracts the people who want to make this their legacy. They want to work on the hard problem. They want to solve the problem that changes the way people live their lives, right? And when I did that, I was telling you the head of the IBM Watson Research called and said, I can build an AI for you. I've been doing for 20 years. Just get me the data from inside the body and I can get the AI for you. Dr. Messier, PhD in microbiology, MD. She's working for Craig Venter,

who was in the cover of Time Magazine with the title, The Man Who Played God, making the people live forever. She calls me and says, what's the point of living longer? People are going to be sick. I love your vision. I'm going to quit my job and join you, right? Dr. Yusevich found us because he said, I have the technology that looks inside your body.

We did it for the national defense work. I think we can get that for you. The point was that single goal of what is possible allowed me to bring these people together. And when you have these people together, what happens? Every single venture capital wants to be investing in that because you have this amazing team, all-star team with a vision that could change the way people live their life what if i'm right this is not a 10 billion dollar company it's not a

hundred billion dollar company even sky is not the limit right the moon is not the limit even moon is the galaxy is not the limit even universe is not the limit. Even the universe is not the limit, right? Because it can be anything. It changes the way people live their lives. But the best thing is you did something that changed the lives of billions of people around the world. And that is the thing that people want to be. Nobody joins the company saying, oh, I will make a lot of money. People do it because they say,

I'll have serious impact. And I remind people, unlike the olden days, people did good or people did well. That means people started non-profit or people started for-profit. I really think the world had changed where people like you, Lewis, are changing the way people live. They're saying is you can be great, but you don't have to be mean. You can build amazing, great companies, not at the backs of people. And I really believe if you want to do the small good in the world,

you create a nonprofit, right? If you do want to do a large good in the world, you create for profit, because profit is the engine that drives you to scale, right? So never ever think that what you're doing, if it makes money, somehow you are letting yourself down. You see, if I'm ever going to be doing great stuff in the world, it needs to have an engine for profitability.

Yeah, resources. Resources. You know, people say to me, where are you going to be in five years? And I'm like, I don't know where I'm going to be in five days. Now, that's not to be facetious or complacent. But what I mean by that is I think so many people get attached to a specific outcome or they don't surrender to a process. They have, this is what it's going to look like and they spend, you know, they might write a business plan that's 100 pages and it sucks up all their time, energy, money and everything else. And then, you know, they're destined for a huge failure if indeed at the end of it

all there's no market. And so what I say is my, what I stand for, my vision is unwavering and it is absolutely 100% resolute until the day I die. And that is now to be an entrepreneur for entrepreneurs, living my life out loud and showing that anything is possible. And with the collective platform, it's all about showcasing inspirational brands and extraordinary individuals and empowering people to live their best life. So that will never change but what i really talk to people a lot about is it the platform now is completely irrelevant it doesn't really matter if we're delivering a print magazine if i'm doing a podcast with you if i'm doing a speaking gig if i'm writing a book if we're you, you know, yeah, it's social media. We do a lot of events and all that kind of thing.

And what I looked at, and I mean, I think, again, for listeners, don't think about magazine land, but think about how this applies to you. But I looked at the traditional magazine model, and luckily, I mean, doing books, I'd never had any advertising dollars in my life. So while traditional magazines were reliant on ad dollars, I was like, ad dollars were just a bonus for me. So from the very start, I thought very differently. And I was like, I just had no expectation about ad dollars. So I

came at it from a different angle. And most people, that's the 90% of the income, right? A hundred percent. And so like our, we sell a page in the magazine for $8,000, but, um, I thought, and you know, a lot of the time you have to discount to $5,000 or whatever. And so like our – we sell a page in the magazine for $8,000. But I thought – and, you know, a lot of time you have to discount to $5,000 or whatever. And so the print magazine in Australia alone costs me $350,000 an issue. So each month to put it out. So I was like, well, if we're selling individual ad pages at five to eight grand a page, That's going to take me a long time. And as you said, when you're an unknown, why are the Chanel's and the Nike's and all the big brands of the world even going to come near us? So I thought about it from a very different perspective to start with. And I went instead to big brands like big banks and people. And I said, I want you to give me

$50,000 a month. So it's kind of like so counterintuitive. But I said, for that, you know, you can have 5,000 copies of the magazine that you can use as premiums, incentives, gifts, rewards, get them out to your community. And, you know, well, I pre-sell everything. I never, ever do anything until I pre-sell. That's what I preach all the time for entrepreneurs. When you want to create an online course, which I've done many of them, I always say, do a webinar, sell it first. And then if people buy it, then give it to them in the next couple of weeks, but never spend three to six months developing something unless you know people are going to buy

it. Yeah. And that we sound like we're from the same gene pool. We're from different parts of the world but the same mindset. I love it. I love it. Yeah, so actually, I mean, I talk about this in my first book, Daring and Disruptive, but I actually probably knocked on 80 doors. And I'm sort of from the Lisa Messenger school of fail fast. That was kind of like not failing fast. But also when you know you're onto a good idea.

I just really believed in the magazine so much. And finally I went to Australia's largest bank and they had a campaign at the time called Can. It's all about, you know, you can. So I thought, well, they can't possibly say they can't. So that was my irrational logic. And I met with the chief marketing officer after stalking him for about three months and I said to him you know I you know this my vision and everything and luckily he was still a big advocate for print and also for entrepreneurs and so he said how much do you need so that

first deal I mean I had a couple of you know indicative pages of what I thought the magazine would look like and it has iterated many times since then. But I just said, look, I need 200 grand. And it was 50 grand an issue for the first four issues, which just gave me a bit of, you know, financial help. But also what it was, was that someone outside of me believed in me and I was suddenly accountable to someone else. And I felt like I really needed to deliver. And so, you know, that's how it kind of all started. I listened to my rich uncle. He was a millionaire uncle. I listened to my, my rich, my millionaire uncle had too much of an influence for too long over, over my life. I should have been

learning. I should have been watching what the billionaires do. They don't operate like millionaires. How do they operate differently? They throw down. Totally different. The think is completely different. They don't worry about quarters. The millionaires are worried about quarters.

He's a miser. They're misers. I know people worth $4 and $5 million. They're total misers. Total. Like degraded. They're as bad off as the freaking guy on the street corner you know won't give anybody anything won't share anything looks for every shortcut every sale well i know a guy that's a car dealer that he he must own 25 car

dealerships probably makes i don't know four or five hundred he's got to be worth a billion dollars. Really? He goes twice a year and gets one of his employees to get a new Macy's card. So he can get an extra 15% off. Really? Freaking complete insanity. You know, he's probably a billionaire on paper, but not a billionaire in his heart because the real players, the real guys,

they'll go out and buy a jet. That's why I bought a jet. I'm like, okay, my millionaire uncle would never buy a jet. That's a bad investment. But the billionaires, they'll go out and buy a jet. That's why I bought a jet. I'm like, okay, my millionaire uncle would never buy a jet. That's a bad investment. But the billionaires, they all own them. Why?

Because they value time more than money. Right? They want to buy time. Because it doesn't make sense financially for you. No. You're losing money on the jet. Totally. All jets go to zero.

So when you buy a jet for $60 million, you know that jet's going to zero. One day it's going to be in some salvage some joint somewhere being taken apart for parts so all jets go to zero so you know when you're buying it it's going down to zero it's not going to be worth more money but the things it brings you dude it buys you time it buys you a jet is not like a boat by the way a jet can get you to business. People go to boats. Jets go to people. And so I can just tell you, we bought that jet two years ago. I paid for it the first year.

From the deals you got, the time you saved. It got me to new places. And it got me a better quality of life because now my kids are with me, hanging out. Peace of mind as well. So big failures. I did business with a guy when I was 45 years old that I shouldn't have done business with. That was a huge, huge mistake. And a big lesson I got from that, though, was, you know, I'm not I'm not I know what's true. I know when I see the indicators on a dude, I don't need anybody to tell me he's all right or not. All right.

I know what I know. bam powerful stuff guys i hope you enjoyed this one again business building secrets from the masters let me know what you enjoy the most about this take a screenshot tag me on instagram or twitter lewishouse.com slash 647 and you can get the full show notes there with all the people we had in this episode so again let me know what you think. Again, every single Monday, Wednesday, Friday, we bring you inspiration, information, and entertainment to help you unlock your ultimate potential, what you were born here to do. And you've got to be willing to put yourself out there. You've got to be willing to learn the information and the tools that will support you. And then the next step is executing on that information. Most people have the information.

They have the tools where they can get access to them. But they're not willing to put themselves out there. And I want to challenge you to continue to put yourself out there. Because you were born here to do something magnificent. You weren't born here to just walk through life average. Not go on any adventures. Not take risks. Not listen to your heart and move forward in powerful ways. You are meant to do something meaningful with your life. And this is the time to find out what that is.

I love you so very much. I believe in you. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. you