The School of Greatness - 992 Money Mindset and How to Win in Business w/Patrick Bet-David

Episode Date: August 12, 2020

“You’re one contact away from your life changing. If you start valuing your contacts like a book of business, everything changes.”Lewis is joined by entrepreneur, investor, and content creator Patrick Bet-David to discuss his new book, “Your 5 Next Moves: Master the Art of Business Strategy.” They talk about the essential rules of money, why cultivating relationships is key to building wealth, how to know if you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur, and more.Daymond John on How to Close any Deal and Achieve Any Outcome: https://link.chtbl.com/928-podSara Blakely on Writing Your Billion Dollar Story: https://link.chtbl.com/893-pod

This is episode number 992 with Patrick Bett David. 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. Iconic newscaster David Brinkley once said,

a successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him. And Steve Jobs said, if you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time. My guest today has built a business empire from scratch while routinely overcoming the criticism tossed his way. Patrick Bett David is a prolific content creator, investor, producer, author, and CEO of both PHP Agency and Valuetainment Media, with a fan base of over 10 million followers across five media platforms. And he's getting set to release a new book, Your Five Next Moves, Master the Art of Business Strategy. And in this

episode, we discuss the rules of money so that your wealth can continually grow. How to know if you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur because most people may or may not. Why cultivating relationships is the most important part of business. This is something I learned from my father at an early age. The first thing that you can do after you lose your job, this is huge for so many people right now, and so much more. Patrick and I have been friends for a while and he truly tells it like it is. Share this with someone who needs to hear it. Make sure to spread this message far and wide because you have the power to change and help someone's life today by sending them this link. And a quick reminder, if this is your first time

here, make sure to subscribe to the School of Greatness on Apple Podcasts, as well as give us a rating and review. And coming up in just a moment is Patrick Bett David. We have my man, Patrick Bett David, in the house. Good to see you, brother. Good to see you. We met, I don't know, probably three years ago? Three years ago. Three years ago.

Yeah. Where you interviewed me for your show. Mm-hmm. And I remember seeing your content blowing up before that and it's blown up even more. And I think you do an amazing job of expressing your opinion through your experience and really evaluating the whole landscape of a topic and then giving a great experience or answer on your stuff. So I love your content and you've got a new book called Your Next Five Moves,

Master the Art of Business Strategy. So we're going to be talking about business. We're going to be talking about money. We're going to be talking about these things. I'm curious, do we need to know the next five moves or do we need to know the first move? Yeah, very good question. So the whole premise behind this book,

how this came about was, you know how everybody talks about what is the key to success. You know, the key to success is marry the right person, save money, work hard, go to school, get a degree, love people, faith, God. You hear so many different things. And we were having this debate one time, and I would ask everybody, just the basic question everybody, what's the key to success? I'm like, you know what? Years later, I said, in my mind, the biggest key to success, almost anybody I see that takes it to a whole different level, the highest levels, the difference between them and other people is their sequencing.

And what I mean by sequencing is the following. So you and I may have the same vision of what we want to do in life. You want to get here, I want to get here. This could be anything. We both want to build a billion dollar company. Fine. We both want to be building a company that does 100 million a year. We both want to go into football.

We both want to go play at the highest level. We both want to go out there and be great sales, whatever it may be, that's the ultimate, right? If my order of steps I take to go here isn't as efficient as yours because your sequencing is better, you're going to get there faster than I am. And I may never even get there because I'm trying to do move 14 on move 3, and that's the most common thing that you see. One day I woke up, I was in a relationship, and this is I'm 26 years old, 27 years old, 26, 25 years old,

and I'm trying to get my business going. I wake up 6 o'clock in the morning. I get a text. Babe, I have to tell you this. As much as I love you, I don't see this relationship going anywhere. One of those texts. Because I think my mom is right. You love your business more than you love me, and I barely see you.

I only see you once a week. You're working so hard. First text. Then message. I press the message to listen to it. My mom, you know, there used to be a time they used to love me and you would call me and tell me you love me. What happened to those? What happened to my little son that used to love his mother? Call me every day. Hug me. What happened to my little son that used to love his mother? Call me every day, hug me. So now I got a breakup on the line.

I got a guilt trip for my mom. That's still 602 right now. Then I get an email. You haven't even got out of bed yet. I haven't even gotten out of bed yet. Then I get an email that's been in the box for a while. And I look at it. It's from my number one client that I was about to expect like a $15,000 commission. And that's a lot of money at that time. And my number one client says I was about to expect like a $15,000 commission, and that's a lot of money at that time.

And my number one client says he's leaving me for the following reasons. And then at the same time, the next email is my agent saying I resign. My number one agent resigns. This all happens before 6.05, 6.10. So I'm in bed. Anxiety is high. Panic is high. I have no idea what to do. In that moment, all I

thought about is, what are my next five moves? What do I need to do next? From that moment on, everything I did with business, I would ask myself, I want to do this next, my next 10, 15 moves. What would this guy do? This guy that built an empire, what would he do? What are we going to do here? What can I do to be better than this guy? What can I do to be more efficient? And what can I do to speed up the process to get here? But everything came down to your next five moves. So you're asking the question, is the first move the most important? Absolutely it is. If you don't know your next move, your next move can hurt the chances of you even getting to the fifth move. So it's always

your next move that matters the most. What is the next move that everyone should be thinking about? So the first thing you have to do is you got to, last night I'm at Rafi's place and I'm having dinner with my three buddies. None of us are supposed to do anything in life. One of them is Steven Offo. They're running a $300 billion a year business. Steve was the Michael Jordan of our high school. Okay.

He's a great basketball player, but we're all 2.0 GPA kids. And Armond was- He's a great salesman. Yes. 2.0, he was a great basketball player, but we're all 2.0 GPA kids. Right. And Armond... He's a great salesman. Yes. 2.0, yeah. Yes. And Armond was always a fighter. He would always get in trouble. Like, he was a guy that, he's the 5'6 guy, you don't want to fight. Like, you'd go to a party, you know the smallest guy, you go to a party, and this 5'6 guy would go to a party, and he would stand there, and he would say, that guy's looking at me. I'm like, bro, he's not looking at you. No, I know he's looking at me. guy's looking at me. I'm like, bro, he's not looking at you. No, I know he's looking at me. He's looking at me.

I'm like, I promise you he's not looking. He's the kind of guy that would walk up and just punch the guy in the face. Just for no reason. Just for no reason. What is the matter with you, right? That's his wiring. Yeah. But we're all together yesterday.

Now, we all have kids. We have two, three, and Armand has four kids. We're sitting and we're talking. Armand runs Rafi's Place. If you've been to Rafi's Place, the restaurant in Glenda, if you've not been, you've got to go. It's the best Middle Eastern restaurant. We're sitting there yesterday and we're having all these conversations. Challenges men go through, whether it's marriage, money, health, what happens at 41.

Oh, everything that you don't want to talk publicly that men are insecure about, we just talk about it right there. Right? Collectively. to talk publicly that men are insecure about, we just talk about it right there, right, collectively. And the biggest thing that I talked about with one of my friends yesterday is, listen, your number one move is you identifying who you want to be. Not who Tiffany wants to be, not who, it's who do you want to be. Not what Patrick wants to be, not what Bobby wants, not what your older brother, sister,

mom, dad, who do you want to be? If you and I can figure out who we want to be, and it's as transparent and as clear as possible, I don't have to compare myself against your success. Now here's a problem though. Say for instance, I sit there and I say, honestly, I just want to be a person that's just a regular person and I'm glad if I make $80,000 a year, $100,000 a year, I have a nice place, I'm married, I'm happy, my kids are with me, I have good relationships, I'm totally happy. If you say that...

If that's what you want to be. If you say that's what you want to be. If you say, I want something else, and you're not doing it, then what? Exactly, but watch this one here. If you say that's what you want to be and you're content with that life, but behind closed doors, your buddy Lewis Howes is making millions. He's doing great. He's all over the place. People are talking about it. If an ounce of envy or jealousy comes in, you either weren't being honest with yourself because that's not exactly who you wanted to be, or you got to ask the decision,

am I living my life or his life? That's the toughest thing to do. Right? Toughest thing to do. Now, the other side of it is that, let's just say you got a big upside. You know, in sports, a lot of times, you know, Stephen A. Smith did an interview the other day and they asked him about Vince Carter and it was the toughest question that was asked. They said, so, Vince Carter, he just announced 23 years of retirement.

He's leaving the NBA. Stephen A., what can you say about Vince Carter's legacy? Okay, now I don't know if you guys know who Vince Carter is. This guy dumped over the seven-footer in the Olympics. The guy retired afterwards. He got a contract for it. He dumped contests with the elbow. Sick what he was doing in Toronto.

McGrady. It's just beautiful when you watch this guy play. I remember one time he dropped 50 in the playoffs. You thought this guy was going to win the championships. He came from Tar Heels, North Carolina. He's going to be the next Mike. But here's what Stephen A said about Vince Carter. Very difficult. He said, you know how Stephen A does his thing. He's just kind of like, you know, he typically is quick to give the answer. One second goes by, two seconds goes by, five seconds goes by. He still hasn't said a word. by, two seconds goes by, five seconds goes by, he still hasn't said a word. Then all of a sudden he says, well I gotta tell you, this is a good brother, I love this

man, he's a great man, you know he goes into building them up and then he says, it is the most unfulfilled talent we've ever seen in the history of the NBA. He says this man should have been competing with the Kobe's of the world, the Lebron's of the world, the Jordan's of the world, but we never saw it. I wish I would have seen the best of him. And you watch, it's like a minute and 13 seconds. It's so awkward. If Vince Carter watches that and it doesn't bother him, more power to you because you were happy to be in the NBA and you were cool with that. But if you watch that and it bothers you, you know, deep down inside, he could have done more. So you as the individual have to make a decision.

Either I'm going for all the, I want all the marbles, and I'm willing to go be embarrassed, lose public humiliation after another one, until I get there, or I'm going to live a simple life and I'm okay with this. But you have to be clear about that. That's step number one. Wow. Okay, and what's step two? Once you're identifying that part, then it's figuring out your own talents that you have.

And once I know my talents, where can my talents be used? If you're a numbers guy, what industry can use your talents? Maybe it's finance, economy, investment banker. Maybe it's on that side. If it's the creative side, maybe I'm going to go be on the marketing side. Maybe I want to be behind the scenes. I don't want to be in front of camera. I want to be the support person. Then you say, well, I'm not a good number one guy, I'm a good

number two person, I'm a number three person. Then you have to find out your positioning at the point of your life. Tom was the former president of our company, PHP. One of the best decisions was hiring this guy. When I hired Tom and brought him on board, he introduced me to Vistage years ago. Vistage is kind of like a YPO, EO, you're familiar with YPO. So Vistage is an element of that. It's very similar, but it's a little bit older crowd. YPO is a little bit younger. Vistage has 50, 60 year olds. And I want to be around 60 year olds. So he introduced me to Vistage. And over the years we became very good friends before I hired him. And I said, so Tom, let me ask you a question. In your life, you guys sold Jamdad for $780 million.

You got a massive exit. But you were the number six guy. How come you don't want to be the number one guy? He says, good question. He gave me the best answer. He says, you realize I'm 54 years old at the time we were talking. He says, it took me 54 years to realize I'm not a good number one. 54 years.

54 years to realize I'm not a good number one. What would. 54 years to realize I'm not a good number one. What would have happened if you'd realized that at 30? That's the point. Every one of his biggest checks he ever got, he was a number five, the number four, or every time he was number one, the company didn't do well. Interesting.

So sometimes we want to be number one, but maybe you're not a number one. Sometimes you want to be MJ, but maybe you're Scotty. Sometimes you want to be MJ and Scotty, but maybe you're John Paxson and Steve Kerr. Maybe you're not a number one. Sometimes you want to be MJ, but maybe you're Scotty. Sometimes you want to be MJ and Scotty, but maybe you're Jon Paxson and Steve Kerr. Maybe you're somebody that later on is going to be the general manager of the Chicago Bulls. Your name is Jon Paxson. Maybe you're going to be a great coach, years later winning three out of five championships. Your name is Steve Kerr.

But you've got to play your game with your strength. And in the season of life. Exactly. And in the season of life. Because you may be a number six right now, but you may eventually be a good number one. Maybe it's just not time. In a different role, in a different package. Yes.

But it's the sequencing, man. Everything is sequencing. What does sequencing mean for you? What is that? Sequencing to me means, okay, if you wake up every day, you have a sequence of what you do. Okay, like what's the first thing you do when you wake up? Mostly meditate. Okay, what's the next thing you do? Make my bed. like what's the first thing you do when you wake up? Most of it is meditate. Okay, what's the next thing you do?

Make my bed. And what's the next thing you do? Brush my teeth, shower. Okay, that's a sequence. Okay, so that, now what if I wake up and the first thing I do is I shower first, okay? Then I go eat, then I put my clothes on, then I go to work, and I say, sometime throughout the day I'm going to meditate. I just mess the whole sequence up. What is the foundation of what I'm starting the day with? What is the sequence of what I'm going to be doing next? If every decision you're about to make

next, whether it's marriage, having kids, business partnership, a joint venture, if everything you did, you stepped away from the world, your girl, your mom, your dad, your peers, your family, You went to a restaurant. You sat there with a piece of paper saying, okay, I'm thinking about marriage. What do I need to do next? What's the next move I need to make? Then you go, I don't know if that's number one. I think that's number three.

And you play that game. It's fascinating. It's fascinating. It's like playing chess. It's like, you know, these master chess players, they know their next 10 to 15 moves. The amateurs were like, oh, here we go. This is what I'm going to do. And these guys are like, what are you doing?

They see it in the future. It's all sequencing. But it takes the steps to get to the future. You can't just jump to the future. I mean, it's the story of Bob Iger. It's the story of Ted Turner. It's the story of Kirk Kerkorian. You know how Kirk Kerkorian went from being

a regular guy in Bakersfield who didn't graduate past eighth grade, you know, goes and pays a guy a dollar to let him fly a plane and eventually becomes a pilot for Bugsy with the mob and eventually goes and becomes a pilot, buys TWA, turns it into a big company, sells it for a few hundred million dollars, then decides to go to Vegas, then he decides to buy a couple of hotels, then he buys 80 acres of property across the street from Tropicana, then he buys MGM. He's not the founder of MGM. He turns it into what it is, dies at 98 years old as a multi-billionaire, gives a billion dollars to Armenia after the earthquake of 1988. This is all sequencing, man. This is all sequencing when you go through it. Everything

is sequencing. And when you look at it that way you tend to make Better decisions. What was the time in your life where you tried to sequence? But it was the wrong sequencing and you got bad results Yeah, what has been the time where you had the best sequencing where you actually mapped it out in your mind? This is a sequence you did it and you created those results. Yeah, so there's two answers to that I'll give you I'll give you both of them. One, I tried to sequence to get married at 23 years old. You tried it.

It would have been catastrophic. Now, I love the girl. Great girl. We have a friendship till today. My wife sold her a policy. Wow. I mean, when we met, me and my girl would double date

with my wife and her boyfriend. Very weird story. Switched. We just switched. They should have switched as well, but we switched, right? Five and a half years later, she's single, I'm single. I'm like, let's go on a date. But at the time, I was forcing marriage because, you know, you're looking at everybody,

saying, man, everybody's getting married, and I think it's my time, and family, and I'm Armenian, I'm a Syrian. One day, I'm like, dude, you are not ready. I'm one day. I'm like dude. You are not ready I asked the question. I said would you let your daughter marry you? I said hell no You asked the question to yourself. I asked the question to myself. Would you let your daughter marry the 24 year old Pat right now? I said absolutely not I say you ain't ready to get married and we got the ring married The whole thing was lying. You got married you were getting ready to get married We're getting ready to get married the whole she wasn't ready, I wasn't ready.

It would have been catastrophic for both. But that journey of going that direction, it set me back three years. Completely set me back. Because I was dead set on wanting to live a life of other people. I was dead set on making the decision that's going to please the people that want me to get married. Yet I don't even know what marriage means. I don't even know the complexities of marriage. I don't even know if I'm done being single I don't even know the fear about like if

I get married so do I still that that's that's a lot of challenging stuff and it set me back like I said three years the other part is Louis that when you say when did you do it I've also done it where I've said here's what I'm going to do that maybe was premature of a decision. But then in that moment, it's fight, flight, or freeze. You rise to the occasion. You rise to the occasion. Yeah. Then like when I started a company, I shouldn't, you know, at that time. You weren't ready. I was not ready. There's no way I was ready. Had a half a million dollars in a bank. I'd been around for seven and a half years. I don't know what it is to get insurance contracts. I don't know what it is to get E&O. I don't know what kind of things insurance companies want. I don't know what it is to get insurance contracts. I don't know what it is to get E&O. I don't know what kind of things insurance companies want. I don't know what I'm going to face.

We started it, and I went in without knowing anything. No website, no product, no nothing. Wasn't the smartest decision. One night I come home, my wife has the miscarriage. It's 1.30 in the morning. My bank account's at $13,000. I have no idea what to do. When I tell you I have no idea, I have no idea what to do. When I tell you I have no idea, I have no idea what to do. I came back, I said, listen, you put yourself in this position, now it's too late. So some people may be watching, they're saying, well, I have to have a fresh start with my marriage

or my business or this and this and that, and let me just close shop. Well, no, that's also not the case. Also the case is maybe, what's the best thing you can do with the current situation you have? And in that moment, had to make the best of it. And we made some right moves and we did get some, you know, we experienced some luck and we worked hard and the next thing you know things grew. From having a few hundred agents to now 15, 16,000 agents

in 49 states. We weren't expecting that. We were not expecting that. And I'm not talking about being in a company having sales people. This is having to hire CFOs, raising money, founding. It's very complex without a four-year degree, without a two-year degree, without a finance. It's very complicated, but somehow it happens. So yes, I would say sometimes there are many times where the sequencing wasn't right, but there are times that also wasn't right, but you have to make the best of it. You made it work. Yeah, you have to make it work. And what's the difference between entrepreneur versus intrapreneur and how do you know if you should

be entrepreneur and entrepreneur or if you should be entrepreneurial yeah with a team and a mission that has funds and resources and it's not all on your shoulders yeah that's a great question so you know one of the things we talk about in this book your next five moves is knowing you know when you decide how you want to create your wealth and who you want to be. Meaning, okay, so who do you want to be? I want to be an entrepreneur. I want to be an entrepreneur. I want to be a solopreneur. I want to be a content creator. I want to be an influencer. I want to be an inventor. I want to be an investor. So you kind of figure out what angle you want to go and who you want to be. And then you figure out which

one you want to do next. You may want to be an entrepreneur, but entrepreneur may make sense next, right? You want it to be an entrepreneur, but intrapreneur may make sense next. You want to be an intrapreneur, it may make sense next. So this movement of entrepreneur got a lot of people to become entrepreneurs who should have never become entrepreneurs. They just should have never become entrepreneurs because they did not experience the element of being an intrapreneur. An intrapreneur thinks, works, is wired, looks at money, people, talent, recruits, sells, sells the dream. Everything an intrapreneur does is identical to the entrepreneur. The only difference between the intrapreneur and the entrepreneur is the entrepreneur put

up the money. That's it. Meaning, there is nothing else that's different there. The same amount of sacrifices this guy's willing to make, this guy's willing to make. He just didn't put up the money, right? Which is a whole different level of sacrifice. Whole different level of sacrifice. Pressure, stress.

You got it. And that's one of the reasons why the intrapreneur respects the entrepreneur. It's like the hidden code. Listen, man, I'm willing to do everything you're doing, but I didn't put up money. Salute. I respect you. This is why you're number one, I'm number two. But I salute you. What do we need to number one, I'm number two. But I salute

you. What do we need to do, right? And there's that element of respect for one another. Now, the entrepreneur has to be willing to allow an entrepreneur to exist. So, for example, Bob Iger's story. Bob Iger starts off with ABC years ago, young guy coming out, doesn't know what he wants to do, accidentally gets a job. he starts working at ABC, then he works his way up, then it's his dream to be a CEO of Disney, then eventually becomes a CEO of Disney, he's the CEO of Disney for 15, 16 years, he ends up closing George Lucas and buy Star Wars, he ends up buying Marvel, he ends up buying Pixar from Steve Jobs, and he ends up buying Fox.

You do these four trends. His salary was $67 million a year. Wow. Not net worth. Salary. Never was an entrepreneur. Right. Bob Iger was never an entrepreneur.

Clippers, right here, Ballmer. Ballmer's worth $56, $57 billion. He's not an entrepreneur. Wow. He was an employee, number five or number six. Yeah, he was an employee at Microsoft. And then eventually, Paul Allen didn't want to do it anymore. He kind of wanted to step down. Bill Gates comes and gets Balmer. Balmer takes it to the next level. Balmer now owns the Clippers.

So there are many entrepreneurs that started the company that own 100% of their business, but they're making 80 grand a year. They're making 600 grand a year because they wanted 100% of control. Palmer's like, listen, I'm good. Gates started it, but I'm worth 58 billion. So the road to what you're solving for, you don't have to say, I have to be an entrepreneur. No, you don't. Maybe the better option for you is go find,

if you can find a killer on the way up, if you can find a killer on the way up. So if you looked at everybody as a stock, let's if you can find a killer on the way up. So, you know, if you looked at everybody as a stock, let's just say we started looking at everybody as a stock. Okay? So you have small cap, mid cap, large cap. What's the difference between a small cap, mid cap, large cap? It's a dollar amount, you know, five billion less, five billion to another. And then you have the large cap, you know, all these Disney's, Wal-Mart's.

These are large cap, right? But the key is if you can figure out when they're a small cap. The key is if you're at the PayPal mafia group and you see somebody who says, that guy's going to start Yelp. I'm going to go run with that guy. That guy's going to start, you know, Tesla. Uber. That guy, Peter Thiel, I want to go do something with him.

I don't care if I'm his number two or number three. I want to go with this guy. He put a half a million dollars into Facebook worth a couple billion dollars This guy's coming up I want to go work like Maverick Carter is gonna be somebody the next 20 years right if you can figure out a way To run with them because you are one and contact away from LeBron So if a guy wants to get into media and let's just say you want to do something the african-american community Figure out a way to go work for Maverick Carter. His stock's going to be high 20 years from now. I mean, it's big today,

but I'm talking really high. So if you can make a list of guys where you can have an eye for it, it's almost like picking a husband or wife, you know, because picking a husband or wife, there's a risk factor. You go to dinner and say, babe, I love you so much. You're so beautiful. You make my day. When I see you, I'm just like I'm in heaven. It's like I don't see anybody else. It's just clouds around me and angels, you know, and I see birds when we're together. And then the marriage conversation comes up and your brain, you become a mathematician all of a sudden. I don't know.

I say 72% chance we get a divorce, but I want to take that 28% chance risk. So there's an element that we get judged for our friends. We get judged for who we marry. We get judged for our girlfriend, our boyfriend. We get judged for career, industry. You also get judged on who you decide to lock onto and run with as a right-hand person or as the person that you want to be their right-hand person. But if you can look at people as stocks and you saw somebody that has a big upside and you lock onto them early, it's going to be a wild ride.

When did you know your wife was going to be your wife? And what did you see in her that made you say, this is going to be my next move in this area of my life? That's a great question. So, for the five and a half years that we weren't together, every friend I ever had, I set them up on a double date. Every friend I ever had, I would say, dude a double date. Every friend I ever had, I would say, dude, go ask her out. She's a wife. You said you want a wife, go ask her out. You think so? You

think she'd be interested? Call her. Call her up. Go talk to her. Everybody, I would say go talk to her. Why? Etiquette, high. Temperament, calm. Very easy going. Acating, but disciplined, worker, has her own identity, not a pushover, strong, but at the same time it's just so gentle to be around her. Now myself, so originally I thought I wanted to marry myself, so I did. I ended up dating someone that was me. We were both Libras, okay? She was my former boss. And we almost killed each other. I mean, I would have been,

one of us would have been dead because it was like fire versus fire. And she is so competitive. And we're going, just craziness, right? And then one day I sat down and I read this book, 101 Questions to Ask Before You Get Engaged. And this book I read, I went through all these things and I said, wait a minute.

Who I thought I wanted as a wife is not really a wife. Who I wanted as a wife, these are the 18 things that I can't compromise these things. So, yeah, that's definitely not going to work out. This is definitely not going to work out. Here's what I need. And I'm sorry. People can say that's chauvinistic. This is what matters to me. I can't try to please you because you think it's chauvinistic. This is what matters to me. Here's what I'm willing to make a decision. So then we were at Palm Springs and my wife and I, at that time, she was in a different relationship and she's sitting across from me. Her relationship had ended. My relationship had ended. And I said, who are you seeing right now? She said, I'm not seeing anybody. I said, you're not seeing anybody? I said, no. The guy sitting in that corner

was named Rusty. I said, Rusty, let's switch seats. So I go sit next to her. I said, so what are you looking for in a man? Just like that. Yeah. I said, so what are you looking for in a man? So she says, you know, I'm looking for somebody that's tall, strong, you can't push them over. And so I'm like, okay, either she's a great recruiter on what she's saying, or she's just saying, I don't want somebody that's a pushover because I want somebody that can protect the family. I said, okay, great. Let's grab wine afterwards.

We went downstairs. I had a glass of wine. She had a glass of orange juice. And then we spent the whole weekend together. Then we drove back from Palm Springs back home. It was a two-and-a-half-hour drive. And we talked in the car the entire time. She went to Pasadena to visit her family. But before she did that, Monday night, I said,

meet me at Jerry's Deli. You know, the Jerry's Deli off of Ventura. She meets me at Jerry's Deli at 10 o'clock. And she says, so Pat, tell me, when you sell this policy, how do you sell it? What do you say when they say this? And she goes an hour asking questions about sales. Huh? I said, do you know why you're here she says uh yeah because you're helping me with my business I said not at all I'm here because I like you and I think you like me too and I think we should date and she gets up and walks out she gets up and walks we're friends this doesn't make any sense I can't see it she walks up gets out leaves Jerry gets in a car goes to Pasadena, Houston, Texas. I'm like, there's no way in the world this is what's happening right now.

So I go home, I say, Dad, I want you to look at this MySpace page, because it was MySpace back then. Sure, sure. And her song was Let the Drummer Kick. Do you remember the song Let the Drummer Kick? So I'm listening to this Let the Drummer Kick 24-7. I'm telling my dad, Dad, this is your future daughter-in-law. He says, how many more? You've told me hundreds of women are going to be my future. I said, no, this is the one that I'm telling you. So I call her up.

She's not answering. I send her a message on, she's not answering. Yeah, my space. And she finally sends me a message saying, look, my only concern with us dating is the fact that we're friends. I don't want to risk losing our friendship. So I respond back. I said, aside from risk losing our friendship, what other concerns do you have? None. So she doesn't answer for a few hours. It was Christmas Eve. We got on the phone, the five and a half hour conversation. She came back December 29th. We went to P.F. Chang's off of Sherman Oaks and Sepulveda, if you know, right by the four or five freeway.

So we went there, we sat down and that night our waitress, waiter was coming up to me and I said, can I talk to you? We're having a big problem here. Because we were the last ones left. He says, what's the problem? I said, you know, my wife and I have been married for a long time. She's not my wife. She's just somebody. I said, my wife and I have been dating for quite some time and her parents don't like me because I'm from Iran. What could you tell her? This poor guy sits down next to us for 15 minutes, starts talking about, but do you love him? Because that's all that matters.

Don't worry. He starts getting emotional. And at this point, I'm feeling guilty. Because I'm like, this sucks, because this guy's really trying to be sincere. Anyways, after that night when we went home, I said, we're probably gonna get married. Next day we went to church, then we went to Santa Monica Stairs, then we went to Earth Cafe,

then we went to Borders, when there used to be a Borders, and I bought her the book, 101 Questions to Ask Before We Get Engaged, on our second date. Wow. I said, we need to go through this together. A week later we were at her place. Six hours of going through all the questions together. A year and a half later we got engaged and we got three kids.

And we're married 11 years. By the way, this is what I will tell you. That's a very weird answer I give people. People ask me, so, man, do you know for a fact this thing's going to work out forever? Absolutely not. We take it one year at a time. Marriage is very risky because you can't control people. I can't control what kind of emotions you're going to have, what's going to happen to you. She can't do it to me. But from day one, we said, babe, one year at a time. No pressure of perfection. The pressure of perfection in marriage ruins everybody.

You're always worried about what if this doesn't work out, what if I become like my parents, what if all that stuff. And that pressure doesn't allow you to enjoy your marriage. So we said, baby, I think we can be married one more year. We've been saying this for 11 years. So we'll see how many more times we're gonna say this. Wow. Yeah, slightly different. Where do you think you'd be if you were single over the last 11 years? Weren't married, didn't have kids. Would you be farther along in your financial success and fulfillment

success? Or does this bring you more financial and inner fulfillment? Well, look, when you're married, there is just as much of a target on you when you're married, when you're single. You have to understand how so, because you're a target. You're somebody that's taken. It's a challenge. It's desirable for other women. It's a challenge. It's a challenge. You have to check yourself all the time and constantly. I have a formula. Last week I was at West Palm. Tell me this. And I can't tell you the formula on camera here, but the formula I can tell you privately.

But I'm at West Palm and I started sharing this formula with our married guys. I said, guys, listen. I sat down with three guys. I said, you guys are all good looking. Okay. One guy's name is Andrew. You got money. You're good looking.

You're good looking. These guys are all good looking. One guy went to APU. The other guy's a butcher from Jersey who had a Broadway show in New York. And the other guy was a Calvin Klein model, 6'4", Curtis Eatman. I'm sitting with them. Guys, you're very good looking. Now, the good news is you guys all married well. You have beautiful wives. I said, you got to have a system. So I told them the system. When I told them the system, they sat there, they're like, it was the uncomfortable moment. And I said, yeah, this is very effective.

Just so it gives you two hours of savings. Okay, if you do this exercise that I'm telling you. And while I'm telling them, their faces turning red and then their wives come. So what are you guys talking about? I said, yeah, Andrew, why don't you tell your wife what we're talking about? No, babe, you don't want to. So the difference if I was single, it would have been more women.

It would have been more dating. It would have been more relationship. It would have been more trying to please her and her and her and consuming my time and the desire to try to please however many however many relationships you have it's too much I'm getting into a relationship any other relationships managing the energy the energy of trying to You know like everybody you date for the first time you're like heaven on earth. I Wish the last one was like her. Oh my gosh, and then

One's issue is she bites her nails and then one's issue is she bites her nails. Another one's issue is she doesn't like to floss. So when you're making out at night there's a little bit of that. I'm like give me a freaking break go floss already. Another one is her mother is like so annoying she wants to tell you what to do and you're so sick of it. Another one is her dad has opinions on how you should do everything and she listens to her dad and you on how you should do everything. And she listens to her dad. And you're number two as a man. There's so many things.

So you have to eventually make a decision. Which one? What are the most annoying things that you're willing to work with? Because they're not going away. Everyone's going to have something. You've got to be willing to accept something. I'm curious about, you've built a very rich life. Not just financially, but in your marriage, in your family, your friendships, your client relationships. You've built a rich life, not just financially, but in your marriage and your family, your friendships,

your client relationships, you've built a rich life. I'm curious, what are the three things that poor people do that rich people don't do? Or you can reverse it. What are the three things rich people do that poor people don't do? Well, I can tell you they have the intuition of how they judge people. Because everything is about the whole intuition part, right? You're sitting there, who you choose to befriend, who you choose to have relationships with, you know, and how you water those relationships. Because if you want to have a relationship together and it's just take, take, take, nothing's going to happen. I remember I'm a 24-year-old kid. I don't know nothing about business.

I've done some stuff in sales, but I really don't know nothing about business. I'm a 22 year old kid. I go and I take this guy, I go to a job interview at the advertising group. Shout out to Jamie Hepp. And I watch this guy. He interviews me. I'm at that time working at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, but I'm trying to see what else I want to do. So I got started the day before 9-11, but I'm still interviewing. I sit with him in the interview, and the way he interviewed me, I sat there and I said, I will never work for this company because it's just not what I want to do, because they were selling Xerox machines and business to business.

I said, but I want to have a relationship with you. I said, do you mind if I get your business card? He said, yeah, sure. I said, okay, great. So he gives me his business card. Year and a half later, I get a job. I'm doing good at this point. I'm making some income, 23 years old. I call him up and I said, Jamie, you don't remember me, but I want to take you out to lunch and I want to pick your brain if you don't mind. I told you a year and a half ago that I wanted to do this with you. He said, yes.. He says great, let's do it. So we go to Macaroni Grill, somewhere

in Culver City, right around here like Victory, Overland, somewhere around that area. So we go there, he brings this drop dead gorgeous girl that works for him. I think her name is Natalia or Natasha or something with an, right? And she's beautiful. Short skirt, perfect legs, flawless, beautiful face. She's sitting right there and I know what he's trying to do. He's trying to woo me to go be one of his sales guys. And I said, look, with all due respect, you're beautiful, but I have no interest in you. My interest is in you. Is it fair if we just talk business for an hour?

He says, yes. So I went. Now at this point, he's making a million. I'm making 50 grand a year. I'm a nobody. We have lunch again. I'm taking notes, he's making a million. I'm making 50 grand a year. I'm a nobody. Okay? We have lunch again. I'm taking notes, taking notes, taking notes.

I offer to pay. He doesn't let me pay. He pays. He says, I got it. No problem. When I leave, I send him a book. We had this meeting that we did every three to six months together at this restaurant, Argentinian restaurant called Bamboo, which they had this beautiful soup.

Every time we would have dinner with him or we'd go to lunch, I would always send him a book. Ten years later, he says, every time I meet with Patrick, a book is on its way. Okay. So I valued the relationship. I asked him, what do you need from me? How can I bring things to you? Years later, he gives me one referral. That one referral he gave me helped me open up Florida. If he doesn't give me that referral, that Florida office wouldn't have been opened up. One contact opens up a whole state. So another relationship I can tell you about is, I was going to churches and I said, let me see what's going to happen with these churches. And I'm going to churches and I'm going to

these different places. I'm studying Scientology, I'm studying LDS. I'm studying Jehovah Judaism. I'm studying everything. At this point in time, I was obsessed with religion. So all I want to do is study, study, study everything about religion, right? And I'm 24, 25. I eventually find this church called Shepherded Hills, which is ran by a guy named Dudley Rutherford. And I go to this place. And I'm an atheist.

So it's not like I'm going in there. I'm just trying to see what's going on over here I'm just trying to learn I'm not trying to do it I go this place and I'm like okay I like this guy style it typically go to church if you don't do this you don't know a hell and I'm like dude I don't need to know I'm going to hell I know I'm going to help I just want another shot in heaven you know what I'm saying so this guy's energy was you have a shot at heaven right I'm okay? So this guy's energy was, you have a shot at heaven, right? I'm like, okay, cool. I'm like, this is my tryout. I feel a little better, right? I know to screw up what I've done in my life. Let me see. Maybe I got a shot over here. So I go there and I'm sitting in the back. I watch him once, twice, three times, four times. I'm like, wow, I like this guy. So then I sent

him an email, a little bit of an arrogant email, but I'll tell you what the email was. I sent him an email and I said, listen, my name is Patrick Bedevi. You don't know who I am, but I'm going to be somebody in the world. And I know you are somebody in the world, but I promise you, if you give me your time, I will always bring value to you. It will not be a waste of your time. Okay? I'm not doing anything at that time at 25.

I got a small little office operation, nothing crazy. We go have a lunch together at Black Angus. Black Angus off Canoga or Topanga. We go to Black Angus. We sit down. We go have lunch together at Black Angus. Black Angus off Canoga or Topanga. We go to Black Angus, we sit down and we talk. After the meeting is over with, I said, what can I do for you? Nothing there. We go out again. What can I do for you?

Nothing there. What can I do for you? Nothing there. Eventually, something happened with my son at Moore Park Basketball, and I made a phone call to the coach, and I spoke to the guy, anonymously, because I didn't like the way this whole situation was handled. He probably doesn't even know the story. I know the people may know, but he may not even know the story. So I make the phone call.

We get closer. He marries my wife. We change our wedding to Friday. It was set up on Saturday to Friday so he can wed us. Anyways, in 2008, 2009, he introduces me to Tom Ellsworth. You know how I talked about Tom earlier? He introduced me to Tom, okay? And Tom comes, okay? In 2009, he introduced me to Matt Sopala. Matt Sopala and Sheena, I got introduced to 2009. They just got promoted this last week at West Palm Beach to the Chief Distribution

Officer, PHP, right? He is now the CDO CDO okay we've paid him in the first six months of the over a million dollars they're doing very good at what I do in the business here but if I don't have that contact and I water him what his needs are not what I can take yeah if I give the needs you I don't have those contacts so I think too many times when you know you build a relationship with somebody, it's immediately, what can I do? What can I get from you? Yeah. And I remember how you were the first time we met. When we were done, you and I went to Earth Cafe with Jen. And I think we even went and looked at some furniture. And there was a Google shop

that we went there. I don't know if you remember that. I walked around. Right across from Earth Cafe. And you said, Pat, how can I help you? What do you need from me? What can I do for you? It was on the corner. Exactly. So we walked in. Babe, I really like this Lewis guy. I like his approach, how he is.

That's the dynamic that you don't see behind closed doors. People may see School of Greatness. People may see the books. But behind closed doors, the context is about what can I do for you. So you asked three things. I'd say the biggest one is figure out ways to strengthen relationships and take them deeper because you never know. Just like everybody thinks you're one sale away or one opportunity away, you're one contact away from your life changing. If you start valuing your contact like

a book of business, everything changes. That's true. What I heard you say there was intuition, study, and relationships. Sure. Yeah. Does that cover those kind of three things? Oh, yeah. And I think when you think about people that aren't making the money that they want and don't have a rich life, whether that be quality of life, they probably aren't discerning their decisions and being intuitive about who they should spend time with.

They aren't researching more ideas and expanding their mind and they aren't giving in those relationships. I would agree with that. Yeah, I would agree with that. And I think sometimes it's also not knowing what something could lead into. You know, a guy one time came into Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter and Harley Davidson bike and he had tattoos and he looked rough.

Very rough. No advisor would take him. He says, I'm looking for an advisor. No advisor would take him. He says, I'm looking for an advisor. No advisor would take this guy. Yeah, I need an advisor. And like, oh, there's a bank downstairs. A financial advisor. Financial advisor.

Morgan, Stanley, Dean, Witter, Glendale. No one wants to take this guy. This guy's got no money. Yeah, so the guy comes out. He sees. He says, oh, just give him to somebody else. I'm good. The guy in the corner office that has a couple hundred million dollars under management, he leaves.

Then the new guy takes them. Then the guy comes to have $50 million to invest. He got an inheritance. That one account was $50 million. Changes life. Changes life. Yeah. And he put the $50 million.

The rookie broker got a $50 million money under management. You're getting one or two points on that. That's great. Life changing. For life. For life. For life. Every year. Every year.

Generational wealth. We're not talking about like a small thing here. So you can't just sit there and look at relationships that you never know the potential of a contact. You have to know every contact could take you to some place that you don't know. It's like a movie. You don't know the next scene. You know, so you can't just assume what that contact's going to lead into. Yeah.

Sometimes the smallest contact can lead into something big. One of the things I love about you, Patrick, is you remind me of my dad so much and my childhood. My dad, I think I told you, my dad was a life insurance salesman for 32 years until he got into a brain accident. He got in a car crash and he's still alive today, but he had to stop working. And he also became an entrepreneur entrepreneur launched the health insurance vertical in conjunction with Northwestern Mutual and He does everything you do and my whole Business model and just the way that I live is based on what I witnessed him doing and this was pre social media pre internet Wow, he would just remember names like nobody's business

He was so giving, so thoughtful. And he was always thinking in the long term. He wasn't like, how can I sell you now? But how can I give you now? He would do this every day. He would read the newspaper and he would cut out the newspaper every day and write long letters and put in envelopes and send it out to people that were clients and people that are not clients. If it was someone's kid in sports that, you know, was, hey, they had their best game ever. Hey, I just wanted to send you this clipping of the newspaper to just people in the community.

That's on a whole different level though, man. That's incredible. Handwritten letters and just send it to them and say, hey, you know, if I can ever help with anything, let me know. And it was that kind of old school mentality, but he would always just show up for people, just take meetings to take them.

And it wasn't always trying to sell, but just trying to serve. And that's really kind of how I built my business early on was when I had nothing at all, I was just like, what can I learn from someone and how can I ask them what they need and then deliver on that need as fast as possible and not ask for anything in return. And I think that's one of the reasons why I've been able to grow is because of the relationship building. You know, Ben, our producer, I met him nine years ago when he was a student at Columbia Journalism School. I'm getting a master's, right? And he was working on a documentary about handball. I was in handball at that time in New York City and really liked the way he made the documentary and followed his journey over the

last nine years, stayed in touch every year. We needed a head producer to really build our content and I reached out to him and the timing right, the sequencing was right and we had the relationship where it made sense, at least for now. Maybe he leaves at some point, but it's been great so far in the last four months and I think you never know where the relationship will go. Even if it didn't work out, it's still worth building relationship question even if we never work together because you just never know who that person might introduce you to who might say your name behind closed doors where it unlocks some opportunity you never know so you remind me a lot of my dad that's a big

compliment and I appreciate that thank you and I think if more people came from that place of, how can I just care about people and help them solve their problems? You're going to gain a lot back in return long term, whether it's with that person or not. And you talk about money a lot on your show. And you have an amazing video about your top, I think it's your top 20 rules on money.

I'm curious, since we're going into the rich-poor conversation, what would you say are the top three to five rules on money, if you could boil it down to three to five? It's a game. The number one rule is it's a game. You're playing a game. It's that simple. If you look at it as a game, just like anything, you can get better at it. Whatever game you play, if you play Uno, if you play Monopoly, if you play Clue, if you play Jenga, if you play Fortnite, anything you play, you know, you're going to get good at. I remember in my time, I was playing Fester's Quest. I played Zelda. I used to play Final Fantasy 1, and I would play, obviously, Street Fighter or Mortal

Kombat, but it was also, what was the Mario Kart? It's a Super Mario Kart. And you know how you would do the three jumps, and then bam, it's going fast? And I would beat this time, 32 seconds. I was so proud of it. But I played it 50,000 times, right? So the game with money, it's exactly what it is. Once you learn how to play the game with money, then it has to do with timing.

Then it has to do with different kind of things. Like, you know, a year ago, I get a call from a guy who needs cash. It's okay. He needs an investment. He has something he has to sell immediately to get cash in return. Okay, because he needs the money right away. I said, okay, so what are you selling? He says, it's the two greatest Wayne Gretzky cards.

I said, okay. Signed or unsigned? No, this is a PSA 10 1979 OPG Topps. Signature? No sign. But it's the Holy Grail. So the OPG one sold in 2016 for $453,000. Okay.

Wow. And just five years prior to that, it sold for $92,000. So from $92,000 to $451,000 in 2016, and he calls me. And a top sold in 2016 for $205,000. So two cars combined sold in 2016 for $600,000. He has them both. He has them both, and he wants to sell it to me. And I said, okay, what do you want to sell it for?

He's like, $600,000. Yeah, of course he wants to. I said, I'm not going to pay you that. I mean, you know, he wants $600,000. I said, I'm not going to pay you that, but we talked about it. And eventually he gave me a number, right? And it was still a number. I had to still cough up, you know, a half I'm not going to pay you that, but we talked about it. And eventually he gave me a number, right? And it was still a number.

I had to still cough up, you know, half a million dollar check to the guy. But we met at the PSA headquarters. Classy guy. Total gentleman. We sat down. Transaction happened. The CEO of PSA came, showed us the poster on the PSA headquarters. I think it's in Newport.

The card is on the wall. It's the most expensive hockey card in the world, right? Okay, no problem. And you're a hockey fan? I'm not a hockey fan. I'm an investment guy with hockey. But I've interviewed Wayne Gretzky six years ago. Wow. So I like greatness. I like anybody that just goes and crushes it with their game,

right? So I buy this card. So I buy the card. I don't think much of it. One card, not two? Two cards. It's both of them. I bought both of them, yeah. Wow. So the other guy who owns the card wouldn't sell his card for a million dollars if you paid it to him. So here's what I do know. So two guys own the card?

Me and the other guy. There's only two of us. Okay. You paid a million, he won't sell it to you. So that means there's only one in the market, because it's me, because I'm willing to sell it. Right? Yeah.

So it's on eBay, right? If you go on eBay right now, you type in Wayne Gretzky, OPG, it's on market right now for a million dollars. Right? Wow. One of them is on the market for aky OPG, it's on market right now for $1 million. Wow. One of them is on the market for $1 million, the other one is on the market for $400,000. So you ask me for a rule of money, I have cash. If I don't have cash like that, I can't double my money that quickly.

So we just talked about three of them. Money is a game. You need cash because opportunity is going to come up and it's a doubles game. So if I put it down, it's a doubles game. Everything about money is a doubles game. What's that mean? A doubles game to me is I pay you a thousand dollars. Can we double it in six months? No. How long in 12 months? Okay, no problem. I'll do a double in a year. Here's a thousand dollars. I get a double back, right? So if you take a thousand and you

double it every year, what happens? Thousand goes into two, four, eight, 16, 32, 64, 256, five, 12, a million. A thousand000 is nine doubles away from a million. Now you take a million and see what happens if we double it nine times. One million goes into 2 million, 4 million, 8 million, 16 million, 32, 64, 128, 2, 56, 5, 12, a billion. A million is 10 doubles away from a billion. How do you find the doubles? Well, that's the game. That's the part of the game. That's what I'm trying to tell you. So the doubles now becomes investment opportunities. You know, what you buy into. Do you start a company where it has a high value? You know, you can really scale it and finding something that can scale. Do you invest into things that

are going to give you 6, 8, 10 percent? Or are you going to go play ball and take the risk? That's the game that you're going to start learning. That part of my money is going to be hedged and I'm going to buy some gold because I'm not going to become a billionaire off gold, but I'm buying it because gold is money and something happens to the economy, I'm protected with the gold. But you know what? I'm going to put some of this money in mutual funds because I know long term I'm going to make 8% to 12% on this.

I'm fine with that. I might do a real estate deal because long term I may do some money, although right now commercial real estate may be an interesting dynamic because I think Zoom crushed commercial real estate. The commercial real estate model has been crushed. And by the way, it may never come back the same way ever again. Commercial real estate- Maybe 20 years from now or something.

Who knows? I don't even think. I think it's gone. Really? Here's what I mean. Look, we have this space, right? Okay, you got this space. Did you get in the last four months? How long, Kevin? I got it before COVID.

Okay, so six months before, yeah. But if you get this today, if you get this today, right now, office space in Dallas, office space nationwide, companies are looking at their business models and they're just saying, why do I need 100,000 square feet of office space? Why do I need it? But if you go out there and you look at the numbers, you're like, okay, I don't know if I'm into commercial real estate. You know, but if I find some small, if I team up with an investment banker, if I team up with a guy that's managing money, and I go with a VC team, and this is a guy that's, you know, flipping opportunities fairly quickly,

and I dump a million dollars with him, and within five years he turns a million dollars into five million. That's five X in five years. That may not be a bad idea. So you got to find those. And they're out there, by the way. They're out there. So Ray Dalio plays a game of doubles. Warren Buffett's a doubles game. All these guys are doubles game. All that's investing in businesses. Yes. I'm a business guy. I'm not a real estate guy. There are people that are. And by the way, that doesn't mean real estate doesn't work. I mean, it wouldn't make any sense for me to say there's real estate billionaires everywhere. Our president is a real estate billionaire. So for me to knock real estate would have no value to it. But for me, I'm more about, I have an idea. What are you guys doing?

Me and Tiffany are thinking about starting a marketing company. Okay. How can this thing scale? Well, let me tell you what we've got. We've got three packages. Boom, boom, boom. We're going to be target audience. We're going to be targeting people in this world. Okay, how can this thing scale? Well, let me tell you what we got. We got three packages. Boom, boom, boom. We're going to be target audience. We're going to be targeting people in this world. Okay, interesting. How much are they going to pay? We foresee us doing $6 million in revenue within 24 months. What have you done to be able to earn this? I'm a Columbia guy. I'm in this, I'm in this. How much money do you need? I need $2 million. I can't give you $2 million. Can I come in for $100,000? I put $100,000. The next thing, this thing sells for $200 million. That $100,000 all of a sudden became $2.2 million. That's a victory. hundred thousand I put a hundred thousand dollars the next thing this thing sells for 200 million dollars that hundred thousand dollars all of a sudden became 2.2 million dollars that's a victory

so those opportunities are out there you just got to focus and then the last one I would tell you with the money so we talked about what we talked about game is a game you need cash it's a doubles game doubles game yeah and I'll tell you one more would be you have to be maniacally maniacal about being patient I mean you have to be patiently aggressive you know patiently aggressive it's so tough to do because you want your money to double now exactly my take ten years yeah but but if you are willing to do the ten years and may double 40 times and may double 30 times. You know, like when Bezos said, just hang tight.

I'm not going to give you dividends. Just trust me on this. Trust me on this, right? And at the beginning, if you've heard the story where he goes and raises $2 million, he gets $50,000 from 40 people. That's what, $2 million. And he gives them 20%. Wow. from, he gets $50,000 from 40 people. That's what, $2 million. And he gives them 20%.

Wow. 20% He gives up 20% of that $2 million. He gives them 20% just for $2 million. You know what that 20% is worth today? $200 billion. Oh my gosh. That's the point.

So can you imagine 1994, Amazon get started. Forget about you put $2 million. Just say you put $50 million. You put $50,000. What is a half a percent of a trillion dollar company right now? A half a percent? You're still a half a billionaire. Your $50,000 is worth $500 million, give or take whatever the numbers we're doing right. The point is, that is a massive victory. The guy who put $10,000 and he gave it to Berkshire Hathaway in 1974. I don't know if you've heard this story.

You know, Warren Buffett is starting. He says, I'll give you $10,000. Never touches the money. Goes back to his regular job, makes a hundred grand a year. You know how much that $10,000, have you read this article? No, tell me.

The $10,000, if you go on Business Insider, you pull it up, is worth $780 today. $780? Million. Million. Never did anything to it. So that's the part about patiently aggressive. It's very hard to do.

But the doubles get bigger later on, not early on. The doubles are bigger year 15, 20, 25. That's what Papa talks about. Just like his success is he's lived longer. He's just stayed around longer to let the money continue to compound. And that compounded interest is where it's at. What's the three greatest investments you've made in yourself?

And would you recommend those same investments in other people? Or what should they be doing in their life right now? So, you know, I will tell you, I went to a Harvard OPM program one time, and I spent- OPM? OPM is Owner-President Management Program. So if you run a business that does 10 million or more,

you get to go to it, and it's three years of three weeks living on campus, right? I went there, but I didn't go afterwards for different reasons. But I went there, when I spent that $50,000, and I was on campus for three weeks. You spent three weeks with 144 people from 64 different countries. So watch what happens. I'm sitting there, and at this point of the game, I have no idea what it is to be a CEO. I've gone from being an employee to a salesperson to a sales leader to a good manager, but I don't know what it is to be a CEO. I have no idea what it is to be a CEO. So I sit next to this guy.

He becomes my teammate, my partner. He owns the Victoria's Secret of New Zealand and Australia. The reason why I'm laughing is because the last day, eight of us were chosen to go present a business opportunity. So he keeps telling me, Patrick, I'm going to kill it. Just watch what I'm going to do. I'm going to scare the hell out of Lynette. I think the lady's name is Lynette because she's the main person that does it. Watch what I'm about to do. So he goes up on stage. Lewis is a very simple guy. I mean, good looking guy, but he's not a charismatic anything. He just goes up on stage, he says, let me tell you why you ought to invest a million dollars into my new lingerie line.

He says, here's a PowerPoint, here's a PowerPoint, see all the sexy women here? You know what? I think it's more important for you to see this face to face. Ladies? No way. Bring some in. Seven models come in, half naked, wearing the lingerie. The entire place place all the entrepreneurs

are going crazy but the teachers are furious with them the ladies are mad takes her jacket off is trying to cover all these women it was phenomenal right to see this year but the point is on Harvard stuff on campus right think about it here's the part five years goes by I'm talking to you about it that's called marketing right you remember it I it. But when I was sitting next to him, I said, I said, listen, man, I'm trying to, I'm trying to learn how to be a good CEO. What do you suggest about being a good CEO? He says, man, I got 7,000 employees and have seven CEOs that report directly to me. I spent three weeks with this guy telling me stuff that he does with his CEO. He's not a

motivational speaker. I don't even think he's got a thousand people following him on Instagram. He's worth a couple billion. He's not an influencer. But those three weeks of talking to, I was like a kid in a candy store trying to pull information out of this guy. And it was all technical stuff. It wasn't motivational stuff. What time do you wake up? What's your daily routine? None of that stuff. It's what do you do when you're trying to hire a person and you know you got to give them equity, but you're afraid to forgive him too much equity and he leaves early, and you protect yourself that if you fire him, does he still get the other two-thirds? How do you do this?

Well, you set it up this way. What do you do to make sure your attorney that you have, that attorney that you have who is negotiating with the other attorney, and he doesn't really want to go to court, so behind closed doors they're settling, and he's not really working on your side, he's working on the other side to kind of speed it up. How do you get him to, well you've got to get another attorney who holds him accountable. These are the things that he said to me that you can't read about in

places. So you said three investments, that's one of them. Vistage was 100% a great investment because we met once a month for three, four years with a man named John Morris John Morris is a local guy Santa Monica guy it'd be great for you get connected with them we're sitting in a meeting one time with John Morris and one of the entrepreneurs going out of business and he says guys I got bad news because you would start the meeting and it would say here's my personal life here's my health here's my marriage here's my business here's my kids and we would all talk amongst each other body had to signDAs so you don't tell your story. But one guy gets up and he says, guys, I've got bad news.

I'm about to go out of business. Why? If I don't get a half a million by this Friday, we're shutting down. If I get it, I'll last another year and a half and I think we'll make it. But I'm shutting down. This is what John does. Tell me what do you need for a half a million. What are you willing to give up for the half a million?

What are you willing to do this? He says, give me a second. In front of all of us. Why are the money? Calls a guy. No, calls a guy who is in his business, same industry, says, here, take this call, go talk to him. Terms, boom. Guy comes back ecstatic. By Friday, half a million was in his account. This is the kind of guy John Morris is, right? So Vistage to me was watching people from different industries every month

for nine hours for one day. Nine hours and everybody would share their problems it was 1500 bucks a month some number like that a hundred percent well worth if you get qualified to go in because Vista's you have to do this it's like tiger 30 favorite of this thing called tiger 33 I think it's called it's kind of like you've got to have 50 million yeah there's there's the there's things like that everywhere this is one of them we got a reveal kind of your financial plan yeah there's a lot of that. This is one of them. Where you got to reveal kind of your financial plan. Network, you have to know who you are.

There's a lot of that happening right now. And I think it's great. I think it's great if it's by real business people, not social media influencers. And let me explain to you what I mean by this. What social, like for example, if somebody wants to learn how to create a podcast, I want to go learn from somebody that's running a six.

I remember I think you taught a bunch of people how to monet a podcast. I want to go learn from somebody that's running a six-month. I remember, I think, you taught a bunch of people how to monetize webinars and podcasts. You were the guy that taught people how to do the webinars. You made people millions, by the way. You made a lot of people a lot of money with what you were doing with webinars. A time that people didn't think webinars had money. Yeah, five, six, seven years ago.

At a time that nobody was thinking about it. So I'd go on, you're doing webinars. Why are you doing webinars? Oh, Lewis taught me how to do this. Lewis, yeah, Lewis House. Oh, no shit, webinars, yeah, okay. So, but this is not webinars. This is not, this is about these guys, how did you go from-

Bigger strategy on everything, yeah. This is stuff that you sit there and you're like, wow, you guys are doing how much per year? $820 million. How many employees you got? 922. How many people on your board? Seven of them. How do you handle conflicts? Like this is the stuff that you talk with these guys, right? At Vistage. So I recommend the OPM program. I recommend the Vistage program. And then I'm a, I'm a obsessive reader, man. I mean, I don't know how many articles and stuff I read. So I would recommend subscribing to, when there's like Business Insider that you can pay $99 per year, pay for it.

If there's a Wall Street Journal that you pay $600 per year, pay for it. If there are these handful of stuff that you can get that's not just the general news, if you spend $1,000, $2,000 on these news sites that are sending the elite articles that's different than the main ones, don't hesitate. Pay for it. Because everybody's going to talk about the general stuff, but that additional stuff is written by. Advanced stuff. Yeah, it's advanced stuff.

So imagine like. It's the insider stuff written by the CFO of Snapchat that's telling you nine ways to protect yourself against cybersecurity that will be boring to other people. But you're looking and you're saying, damn, this was legit. So those kinds of investments is what I would say to you. And if you lost your job right now, what investment should you make in your stuff? If I lost my job right now

and I don't have a job lined up within four weeks, that means I have a very weak contact list. So the problem is a long-term problem. So you are the long-term, if you cannot replace yourself with a job within four weeks, you have a terrible contact list. Relationship contact. Exactly. Because you should be able to replace your job within four weeks. If you got a solid contact list, why shouldn't you be? You should like, you know, a person gets like, we fired a guy named Mark and he was with AIG for 22 years, and I love this guy,

but he just wasn't a fit. So I talked to Mark. I said, Mark, this is not going to work out, but I'm telling you right now, I got a job for you lined up at Columbus. He said, seriously, I said, interview set up. See if Columbus calls me for a review. I said, no question. This guy's a phenomenal guy for you. He gets hired like this within two weeks. You should, if you have the contacts like this, you ought to be. So if you don't, it means the problem is you either don't have enough value in the marketplace or your contacts are weak. When you think about someone you want to connect with, what goes through your mind of the sequencing of how do I reach out to this person? I do a lot of research on the person.

I do a lot of research on the person. You're really good at that. A lot of research on the person. I think people don't know how valuable understanding who someone is and what their history is and what makes them tick. I agree. How meaningful that is when you do that. Yeah. And I think you did this when you first interviewed me. You just knew a lot about me and you did research. And I'm like, man, it takes so much time and energy. And when you're running a business with a thousand employees, you're doing 10 sales calls a day, you're a husband, you're a dad, how do you manage building relationships when you have so much going on though? You have no free time.

Yeah. So, this goes into at what level you want to go to in life. Meaning, there is levels in this game, right? Like, listen, Gary Payton is alpha, but he's not alpha when Michael's in the room. When Michael's in the room, Michael's the alpha. Kobe's an alpha, but not when Michael's in the room. But anybody else in the room, Kobe's the alpha, including Magic Johnson, including Shaq. But when Barkley's in the room with Shaq, who's the alpha? Shaq's the alpha. Okay. But when Barkley's in the room with aq, who's the alpha? Shaq's the alpha. Okay? But when Barclay's in the room with a Carmelo Anthony, Barclay's the alpha.

Everything's about levels, right? So what level do you want to go to? So if you want to go at the next levels, it's going to require you to be a little bit more meticulous and detailed about your strategy, about the kind of help you're going to need, the kind of research you're going to need, the kind of research you're going to need, the kind of relationships you're going to need, you know, and then figuring out like your scheduling. Sometimes people want to have the four hour work week. I'm not a four hour work week guy, but some people want that lifestyle. And you have to give credit to Tim Ferriss because Tim Ferriss started a movement with a bunch of laptop entrepreneurs all over the world. And guess what?

They love it. When I talk to these people that read 4-Hour Workweek, and I'm in Malaysia, and look at my life. And I'm making a few hundred grand a year or a few million a year or whatever it may be. Good for you. I could never,

I'm a terrible vacation guy after three days. I'm a three-day guy. Yeah. But I know myself. If I go to Bora Bora, if I go to Greece and we have to go after three days,

my wife will say, babe, you good? Like, babe, it's three days, babe. She says, I get it, babe. Just kind of, and we're typically go because we're entertaining people. We're not going, it's like, we're taking 500 people, 400 people. So we're entertaining people. It's not like, you know, you're going because it's when we go, we go, we get our stuff done and we come back and we have a great time together because now we have a system. When you have kids, it's different because you

can go longer with kids because you're vicariously living through them. I like, I like going to Universal Studios. I can go with my kids to Universal Studios because I see how he looks at Harry Potter and, you know, the spiders and this stuff. It's beautiful when you see their imagination, right? But going back to the question you're asking, so how do you find time to do research? How do you find time to do all this other stuff? If you want to compete in the top 1% of 1% of 1% of 1%, the price is a bigger price. And, Lewis, there's no way to describe how to do it. There isn't a formula for it. You just have to figure out a way how to do it. If it means I come home and I have to watch a person's interview from 11 o'clock to 2 o'clock in the morning.

And I come to the office at 8 a.m. to do my interview. And I have to come and go read through 20 pages of notes, I have to do that. And if I don't do that, you can tell in the interview. If I do do it, you're like, how does he know that guy's date? How does he know when this happened at this time? How do you know when this happened?

It's a lot of research you need to do. Detail and attention, people will remember for decades. They'll remember and always think back to, you know, that person really cared. That person was really thoughtful. That person was genuinely interested in me. And they'll just continue to remember that. And good things will come to you

when you come from that place, when you constantly do that extra work to care about someone. So I agree there. What's the question you wish everyone asked you more that they don't ask you? I think the understanding of knowing that, you know, if I really wanna do something big,

what do I do when I'm having the guilt that I get from my wife, my kids, my family? How do you manage guilt? For example, something big, what do you mean by that? Okay, so for example, you really aspire to have your own talk show, which you should. I mean, you look like the guy that you ought to have it one day. You're that kind of a guy. You need to be on the big screen.

You belong on the big screen. You need to have something like that happen with Lewis House. I've said this to you from the first time we sat down. You look like the guy that has something like that going for himself. Montel Williams meets Oprah Winfrey meets, you know, Michael Strahan meets, you know, like Ellen DeGeneres, combined those combined. Okay, Lewis Howe's show on TV, right?

Okay. So now if we're together and, you know, it's like, oh, babe, you're working too hard, all this is research, all this other stuff. And you know, you're not doing this with your kids and you're not spending time with this, you're not spending like, ah. The guilt. The guilt.

The guilt, man. So how do you handle the guilt? The guilt works in a few different ways. Ted Turner understood who he was. And Ted Turner, his personal life, he'll be the first to say it was in shambles. You know, he married Jane Fonda, didn't work out because Jane Fonda wanted to go and Jesus changed her life and she became all spiritual and tells like, I don't want to talk about God. I'm just, I'm

playing ball, man. Let's go by the horses. Let's go to the Montana place. And Ted had so much pressure on his life when Time Warner brought him out and all this other stuff. But then the guilt comes out, right? Well, you didn't do this and you didn't do that and you didn't do this and you didn't do that. Yeah, but I wanted to do this with my life." So, you know, that stuff is, can you live without finding out your full potential and not going there? Are you okay, like, there's a story one time I read in a book written by John Maxwell. This I read this like 16 years ago, one of his small books with his affirmations that he had. He said, one day a guy goes to heaven, he dies and he goes to heaven, he's meeting with St. Peter's, and he was always a military guy, right? And he always wanted to be a general,

and he wanted to be a great general. He wanted to be a general, go in the military, be a leader, but he never did it. But he followed everybody's history. So he goes to St. Peter and he says, hey, question for you, St. Peter, I got one question for you. He says, what's that? Who's the greatest general of all time? He says, I'm sorry? He said, who's the greatest general of all time? You really going to ask me that? Yeah. Was it General Patton? No.

Was it Grant? No. Who was it? You. He said, me? Yes. When the recruiter came to you for you to join the Army, and if you had the courage to go in, you would have been the greatest general.

Oh, I just got chills. I have it right now. You would have been the greatest general the world had ever seen, but you were afraid. Wow. I mean, listen, either that story makes you so nervous where you're kind of like, I can't do that to myself. Or that story gets you to be like, wow, it's okay if I don't go there. Fine. But you're going to have to deal with that. And whatever you decide to do

that's big, there's going to be sacrifices and there's going to come with guilt. So it's like you either have guilt or regret. Yeah. It's one of the two. How do you manage both? Exactly. How do you manage both? So, so the formula there becomes if the person you're marrying, like Jen and I, when we were dating, I told her, I said, babe, I'm not a nine to five guy. So we went and sat down with a marriage counselor because I highly recommend meeting with somebody before you get married because I've met with so many therapist counselors. I think I recommend it for everybody because you can talk with a non-involved person in your life and let it out and they're just going to listen to you. Involved person in your life and let it out and they're just gonna listen to you. So we've met with this guy His name is Danny Nice guy sweetheart of a guy. So we sit down. I said Danny. Let me ask you a question. You've been married to your wife 33 years What's been the main thing that's helped you guys make this work? He said we have one rule every night at 6 o'clock This is the one rule. We don't break you have to be at the

Dinner table everybody has dinner together Like what'd you do for a living? I was a school teacher. What did your wife do? We were both school teachers. I said, Danny, thank you so much for your time. Here's the $200. No, we just got started. I'm good, buddy. Thank you. Pick up Jim's up, babe. It's a little bit. I said, I'm not disrespecting. I paid the $200. We got up. We walked out. So we got in the car. She says, babe, why'd you just do that? That's disrespectful. I said, it's not disrespectful. Neither one of us are school teachers.

So whatever he says is not going to help us. It's not going to work. What do you want me to do? This is not the life we're choosing to live. So then I had her go meet with Dudley's wife. And they meet together. Now here's what she says. She says, are you comfortable knowing that his time is going to be taken by everybody? Are you comfortable knowing that you have to put everything into calendar, including your date night? Are you comfortable knowing you're going to have to remind him with every birthday? Are you comfortable knowing?

And she goes through the ten affirmations and her number eight is, are you comfortable knowing that there's going to be days you really don't feel like it because you had three kids and you're so tired because of food you still have to find them to have sex with your husband and she went through I didn't even know this stuff then I'm like man I love you so much you're such a great human being. It's like life changing but we came back and then I took her to meet with the for for her to know, like, with me. And I said, hey, what do you think about me? And Dudley looks at me and says, listen, I'm not worried about her.

I'm worried about you. Because are you comfortable knowing that you also have kids? You have to put them priority as well. You still got to find the time. You got to do this. You got to do that. And he put the onus on me, too. So it can't be her only or him only.

But then they said, here's what you both have to be comfortable with, and you can make it work, and it's going to be hard, but if you bought into it up front, then it's fine. It's when you don't buy into it up front. Three years later, after being married, you're like, damn. And she says, but you never said you wanted to do this. Now it's a problem. Wow. Do you think if you guys wouldn't have been, I mean, it's already hard enough, even if you are bought into it. Very hard.

Marriage is the hardest thing you'll ever do. You already have 10 checked off the list, both agreed. It's still challenging. It's very hard. You're still one year at a time. Do you know why marriage is the hardest thing you'll ever do? Why? Okay, so let's just say this relationship doesn't work out. Ben, right? Yeah.

Let's just say relationship with Columbia doesn't work. He's been here for four months, right? Yeah, yeah. He says, we need to have Louis Vuitton masks. I don't like the fact that you don't have Louis Vuitton masks. He gets offended. He gets upset with you, right? He says screw you Louis and goes and writes a negative review on Yelp. You're pissed. You're like dude. What are you doing, bro? But you can go find somebody else Let's say you Come one day you choose us. I you piece of pop up and you just put all your frustration

He can't even say, dude, screw you. I'm going to go find a different boss. Right? You have a choice. Let's say you have a business partner. He steals $2 million from you. Okay? Yeah.

You're devastated. You're like, what a thief. But you can go find a better business partner. Yeah. Okay? Let's say you have a girlfriend. You guys have the worst fight ever. You do something stupid.

She does something stupid. You're breaking up. You're breaking up. It's going to be like annoying. You're going to go to the bar, hang out with your friend, all this other stuff. And you're going to miss her. Text her middle nine. I made a mistake. I love you. I miss you. Okay. Whatever. Move on. Yeah. Let's say you have kids. You see, that's why you never have one kid. You got to have two or three kids because you have options. You never want to have one kid. My recommendation, never just have one kid. But you got one wife. You got one husband.

Very annoying. Very annoying. Because if we're buddies, you and I are friends. Let's just say you and I talk, we have a big debate over LeBron and Kobe, and it's bad. It's bad. Dude, whatever, man. You're such a, all you do is follow Kobe.

Well, you're LeBron, you're the match. And we have a heated, we have a debate over Biden-Trump. We have a debate over politics. We have a debate over politics We have a debate over sports. I'm pissed you're pissed at me. We can go six weeks without talking. That's cool You're gonna see it that night. Yeah, and you're laying in the same bed You don't lay in the same bed with your best friend, you know, which is right, right? Okay, bro. How you doing, bro? You good? Works it's very difficult. Yeah, very complex. So, you doing, bro? You good? Yeah, I'm good. It's not how it works. It's very difficult.

Very complex. So, you know, this is what I say, man. Just don't get married with the number starting with two. Take your time. When you do the married stuff, do it with the number three. Especially men. More than women. Look, when I've never been.

What do you mean the number two or three? Don't do 28 years old, 27 years old, 26 years old. Oh, start it with a three in front of it. 33, 38, 39, 34. Not two. And the other part is also like I've never been, I was never single with Tinder. I have no idea what it is to have access to Tinder. It would have been bad news for me. That's what I'm saying to you. Terrible. If I had a dating app, I would have been down a rabbit hole. That's the point. But that's what's available today.

Yeah. So if that's available today. This is a time waster. Times suck. Not only a time waster in the times, but even bigger than that. You know, you're really going to go through a lot. And today, you know, sex is no longer what it used to be. Because sex is so easy today.

It's not intimate. It's not. You It's not bad. You know, you got like, we had to go and say, hey, what's your name? Hey, you know this. Hey, can I buy you this? Hey, you want to go to this? Just message someone and let's meet up. DM, hey, you put an emoji. You don't even need to say anything.

The emoji describes everything else, right? So, and then it's like, oh, you got one girl here, one girl here, one guy here, one guy there. And it's on both sides. So, now the value of that goes. So, you have to almost get that out of your system. And then you say, you know what? I'm so burned out. I'm so, I'm good. My dad said this, and this may be bad advice, but this is what my dad said. He said, go out there and be with every kind of woman you desire in every single place. Do every crazy thing you want to do.

Get it out of your system, then think about marriage. Again, don't blame this on me. Send a message to my dad if you're upset with him, okay? Gabriel42 is his handle on Instagram. But he said this, but what his point was, his point was temptation's never going away. And if you win in life, you're going to have more opportunities, more things are going to come up. You have the opportunity to screw up. But he's just trying to say, you don't ever want to be the person that you were a geek in high school, you were a nobody, you only dated one girl. And then you meet this one girl, you marry her. And then at 38 years old, you're this hotshot lawyer making 600 grand a year. And everybody knows, you know, you got millions of options, but you got married at 25. You couldn't have waited till 34 to experience what it is to be a hots shot guy. And then you marry.

Wait till the hot shot phase. So it's there. I think someone said, a mutual friend of ours that you know, I won't say his name here, but he said, you're only as loyal as your level of options. He's like, if your options are low, then you're gonna be pretty loyal to that one person. But then when options become, wow, look at all these options. You've got to be really loyal and be committed. Not easy.

Very hard today. Yeah, everybody can act hard and say, well, you know, you have to do this and you have to do that. No. We have one of our guys that went through a bad marriage. Okay. Very ugly breakup that they had. I got calls. And everybody said, did you hear what about what he did and what he did this and da, da, da, da.

I can't believe he did this. Do you know he did that part? And the whole story was there was another girl in the picture, but he was married. Okay. So the guys who were talking a lot of smack, I said, I want you to come to my house. They said, well, I want to talk to you guys today. Come to my house right now. They came to my house.

I said, okay, come on, guys. Let's go outside. We're going to do a project together. So we go outside. I said, everybody lined up by the pool. Everybody lined up by the pool. I said, you guys lined up? You ready? We're going to play a game, and I'm going to see who's going to win this one.

I said, okay, we're ready. We're a very competitive environment. You ready? You ready? I'm ready. Let's go. Okay, so here's the game. What is it? Let's see who can walk across the water the fastest. Go ahead. Ready? On three. Everybody walk across, walk on the water, across the pool to the other side, but on three. You guys ready? One, two, go! I said, what happened? Oh, you can't walk on water. I got it. So if you can't walk on water, don't judge another person's mistake. Learn from it, try to figure out a way to respect them and move on. If they decide they can't go on because a mistake is that hurtful to them, that is their business. You do whatever you can to support because one day when it comes down to your turn of screwing up,

you're going to make sure the world doesn't want to judge you the way you judge everybody else. So be patient. Be patient what you're doing. I want to ask you the final question. This has been really inspiring and powerful. And before I ask them, where can we follow you on social media the most? You've got amazing YouTube, amazing Instagram. Where do you like to hang out the most? Yeah, I'm probably, if you message me on Twitter, I will most likely respond back on Twitter. YouTube, if you go to Valuetainment, you'll see the content that's there. And then the website to go to is YourNextFiveMoves.com. And if you buy a copy right now, we're sending you a chapter to read of the book.

And if you buy three copies, we're sending you an hour strategy that I put together on four different strategies to what to do in 2020 post-pandemic. But yeah, you can go on Amazon and buy the book. You can go on Barnes & Noble, buy the book, Your Next Five Moves. And once you do read it, I can't wait to hear your thoughts on what your next five moves are going to be. Absolutely, yeah. This question is called the three truths. I ask everyone at the end, imagine you've accomplished every dream you could ever imagine.

And it's your last day on earth many, many years from now. And it's all come true. But you got to take all your body of work with you. All your words, your videos, your audios. It's gone to the next place wherever you go. Hopefully you get to that heaven spot, right? And you can share three things with the world. Only three things. These three things you know to three things with the world, only three things.

These three things you know to be true in the world that you've learned, these three lessons. What would be your three truths that you would share? Three truths to share for me? To share to the world as these lessons, but they would have nothing else from you. No other content, nothing else. Number one, learn how to process issues. Learn how to process issues, not just solve problems. Learn how to process issues because if you learn how to process issues, you'll make better decisions as a husband,

as a wife, as a father, as a business owner, as a leader, as anything, processing issues. Second thing I would say is figure out a way to, for me, spiritually, you know, I have a very unique relationship with the man upstairs. And it's played a very, very big part of my life. You have to realize I'm not the guy that's the, I'm the skeptic believer. But I'm somebody that a lot of miracles have happened in my life for me to know that without God and the man upstairs, I wouldn't be where I'm at today. And I'm not just saying, I'm not one that talks a lot about God. You don't see me talk a lot about my faith. But you're asking me the last things to say. It would be that. So number two would be? Whatever it is you believe

in, seek your own truth when it comes down to your faith and then practice it. Practice it because it is going to give you a different kind of strength that all the money in the world cannot give you. It's very important when you're making decisions that you're at peace with many of your decisions because the moment you're in anxiety and panic, you're not going to be enjoying life too much. And then, you know, the last one, go make your money whatever way you can. Set the money aside for yourself. Set the money aside for your husband, your wife, your kids. And then figure out a way to give back to public service, whether it's going to be through

charity or politics. But do that last part. If you have no desire to get into politics, like your dad sounds like he would have been great in politics, by the way. Either go do public service, mayor, public service, mayor, congress, senate, governor, involvement, advisor, or you know clergy, in a clergy church, non-profit, figure out how to give it back after you set yourself up financially so you don't have to worry about that anymore. That's powerful. I want to acknowledge you Patrick for the way you've shown up your entire life and how you constantly grow, constantly improve, and care about people first. That's what I see in you the most. your entire life and how you constantly grow constantly improve and care about people first That's what I see in you the most just before we got on you did a little video You remind me a lot of myself because you did a little video send it to Robert Greene

Just say hey, we're thinking about you that's stuff I do all day and I just know that your GPA doesn't determine your your self-worth and your value and What you struggle with growing up doesn't determine it What what I acknowledge in you is how you show up for other people and how you struggle with growing up doesn't determine it what what I acknowledge in you is how you show up for other people now you think deeply about how other people can grow and be better human beings so I acknowledge you for that and and you have no ego you have a little ego but you really don't have much ego because you're always willing to learn and see if there's a better way to improve which I think is the way we should all be it's like how

can I always learn and even if I think is the way we should all be. It's like, how can I always learn? And even if I think I know it, I'm still gonna ask people who are better than me what I need to do to get to that next spot. So I really acknowledge that in you. I appreciate that. And I think everyone should get this book. It'll be really powerful for people

to check this book out. My final question is, what's your definition of greatness? Alignment. It's purely alignment. If I'm aligned with my values and principles and my goals and dreams, and those two are aligned, I'm the most fulfilled, happiest person alive. It's when you're unaligned, when you are miserable. When one time we're in Hawaii, my wife and I come back up to the room and I said, Babe, we have to decide what values and principles we want to build a life on. This was pre-kids.

So we go through, we made a list of 43 of them. I said, Okay, out of these 43, you can't have all these 43. You've got to choose some of them. So you have to cut some of them out. Our family, the David family, we lead in every possible situation we're in. We respect people because you can learn something from everybody. We improve because it's the one thing that will give you peace of mind, knowing as long as you improve, everything's going to work out.

And then we love because everybody has some issue they're dealing with. The four things we pray for is courage, wisdom, tolerance, understanding. So courage, because if you're ever going to be doing something big, you're going to face enemies that you are going to be afraid. You're going to have to have courage. Wisdom, if you're going to lead people older than you, you're going to face enemies that you are going to be afraid. You're going to have to have courage, wisdom. If you're going to lead people older than you, you need to have wisdom to be able to lead them. Tolerance to be able to deal with annoying people. And understanding to know that everyone's got a different story.

And we don't bully, but we also don't get bullied. So, once you have your values and principles, and they're aligned with the way you live, you're good. and principles, and they're aligned with the way you live, you're good. If you don't, panic, anxiety, depression, regret, misery, and it's all an act. It's all an act. So my biggest thing when it comes down to greatness is alignment. And that's why in the book, when you asked me, what's the first move is, who do you want to be? Once you're aligned with who you want to be in the life you want to live, you start enjoying this thing. When you don't, it's like, it's like time is going by. You're not enjoying it. Relationships are fake. A lot of things are fake. So alignment's number one on my list. My man, Patrick. My man. Yes. Appreciate you.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed it, make sure to share it. The best way you can help me is to spread this message far and wide. And you're not only helping me, you're also helping millions of people improve their life. And you have the power to change one person's life today by just taking a copy and paste of this link that you're listening to and texting it to them, posting it on WhatsApp, group chat, posting it on social media, and spreading the message to help people improve their business and their life. And if you enjoyed this, please leave a five-star rating and review over on Apple Podcast, and click that subscribe button, because when you subscribe, it really helps us get the message of greatness out to more people. And if you want inspirational messages from me every single week sent to your phone via text, then text the word podcast to 614-350-3960 and be a part of a community of people that

are only getting messages direct from me to help motivate and inspire you every single week. And I want to leave you with this quote from Abraham Lincoln, who said, let no feeling of discouragement prey upon you. And in the end, you are sure to succeed. You know, business, entrepreneurship, creating an idea and launching an idea, being a freelancer, all these things take time and energy and their skills that you need to learn. I didn't think that I was going to be able ever to be an entrepreneur as a kid growing up. I didn't think I had what it took. I didn't think I had the skills. I didn't think that I was going to be able ever to be an entrepreneur as a kid growing up. I didn't think I had what it took.

I didn't think I had the skills. I didn't think I was smart enough. But I'm telling you, when you have a desire to do something, you will be hungry to start to learn what those skills are and making it come true. And that's what I had. And if you are in that position right now,

this could be the perfect timing for you to really launch and grow your business, your brand. Find the problems that the world has, and be the solution. The problem is the solution. Lean into that. And I want to remind you, if no one's told you lately, you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. As always, make sure you go out there and do something great.