279 Daymond John: The Power of Broke to Build Your Business

"You are going to fail more than you are going to succeed." - Daymond John If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/279 Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 279 with the shark Damon John.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  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.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone to episode 279. Thank you so much for being here. And make sure to head back to the show notes at lewishouse.com/279 to check out all the notes we talked about, all the links and the information from this episode. And make sure to share this out with your friends to let them know what you're listening to right now. Again, lewishouse.com/279. We've got a great guest on today. His name is Mr. Damon John, and he's the famed founder and CEO of the global fashion brand FUBU and star of ABC's Emmy award-winning TV show Shark Tank, one of my favorite shows to watch. And he's got a new book out that's called

• 1:14Lewis Howes?

  The Power of Broke. And I'm very excited to dive into Damon's story about this book. And some fun facts is that FUBU is a $6 billion business. And every morning, he says, "Rise and grind." What we talk about and dive into today are about the beliefs that he built up early on that he could succeed in the fashion business and where that came from, what his biggest challenge was in scaling once his brand took off, what extremely wealthy people do differently than most every other type of individual, how easy it is to test your concept nowadays before you invest too much in it, and how you can launch your own idea at any moment, why Damon reads his goals five days a week, morning and night, and much,

• 1:58Lewis Howes?

  much more. I think you're going to enjoy this. Again, make sure to share this out with your friends, lewishouse.com/279. And let's go ahead and dive into this episode with the one, the only Damon John.

• 2:15Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast. Very excited about our guest today. He is the man, the myth, the legend, Damon John.

• 2:21Daymond John?

  Thanks for having me.

• 2:22Lewis Howes?

  Thanks for being here. Very excited about your book. It just came out. It's called The Power of Broke. Make sure you guys go grab this right now. Highly recommended. Bunch of my mutual friends are featured in here. So it was cool to see that we know some of the same people.

• 2:35Daymond John?

  Amazing people, big brains.

• 2:37Lewis Howes?

  Big brains, doing some big things and trying to all emulate what you've created. You've created a huge brand, obviously, and you're

• 2:45Daymond John?

  Thank you.

• 2:45Lewis Howes?

  You know, you've, since the FUBU brand, you've been, you know, well-known for being on Shark Tank. So congratulations for all the success of the show and all the opportunities that come.

• 2:54Daymond John?

  It's a fun ride. It's amazing.

• 2:56Lewis Howes?

  How many seasons is that now?

• 2:57Daymond John?

  Uh, seven. This is our seventh season, sure.

• 2:59Lewis Howes?

  Wow, it's crazy. What's been the craziest thing that's happened in the last seven seasons for you?

• 3:06Daymond John?

  The craziest thing for me personally, you're saying?

• 3:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, from Shark Tank, let's say.

• 3:09Daymond John?

  Well, because of Shark Tank love, I, um, you know, I got put on this, uh, public pedestal where, you know, people started to understand that, you know, as a, people started to understand that kind of, that Shark Tank carpet, that entrepreneur that stands on that carpet, uh, it doesn't discriminate against creed, color, religion, sex, you know, you, it's the ultimate equalizer, right? That empowerment is the ultimate equalizer and no matter who you are, and this is a great country that we live in, you have a shot. And with that acknowledgement, I was, uh, I was appointed as a presidential ambassador of global entrepreneurship,

• 3:47Daymond John?

  a page ambassador by President Obama in the White House, and I'm one of several, uh, people such as Tori Burch and Steve Case are on there. And, um, I, I had the privilege of, uh, going to Kenya with the president and, uh, and, and the White House and, and visiting Kenya and spreading the word of entrepreneurship of how it can empower you and it can, it can, it can, um, help you feed your family and help you, uh, you know, empower others when, you know, this unfortunately, the world we live in, when you don't have hope, other people. Tend to thrive off of that and ask you to to be part of whatever their cause is and you

• 4:30Daymond John?

  you feel that that's the only hope you have, but if now you know you can have a smartphone, you can open up a smartphone and make a couple of dollars and you can hopefully feed your husband, wife, kids and empower yourself, you're less likely to go and do some things that aren't in the best interest of humans.

• 4:46Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 4:47Daymond John?

  You know, and mankind.

• 4:48Lewis Howes?

  Right. Want to start from the beginning briefly and ask, who was the most influential person in your childhood, growing up, and what was the biggest lesson they taught you?

• 4:59Daymond John?

  That by far would be my mother. You know, I never, I never realized the lessons that she taught me until I ended up becoming, you know, a parent myself and realizing that I ended up following all the steps or all the mistakes I made, many of the mistakes I made, my mother had advised me that those were going to be mistakes, but she never stopped me from going down the path because she wanted me to make those mistakes on my own and learn. So she's always been the number one important mentor that I've ever had. And then, you know, life is a series of mentors. I went on from there and, you know, I had one great teacher and that's all you need is one really great teacher in school that

• 5:41Daymond John?

  makes you feel really special. And then I had a mentor who owned a corner store in my neighborhood and he would teach me and explain to me, you know, his business tactics. And then my mother ended up having a boyfriend who I call my stepfather, who was actually of the Jewish faith. And, you know, he taught me that love doesn't come in a color or a gender and that, and that, you know, for me to be very proud of my culture, but don't be anti anything else and respect everybody. So I think that gave me a broader look at life and I never walked in a room with a chip on my shoulder. I also never thought anybody else was better than me, but I never thought anybody had it better than me too

• 6:23Daymond John?

  because people of all colors have challenges in life, dreams and aspirations. So those things all led me, you know, to be the man that I am and I'm very happy of those experiences.

• 6:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And what got you into or being interested into the fashion world, into clothing world?

• 6:39Daymond John?

  Well, it was this new music that was coming out of the Bronx right around 1982, 83. It was called, you know, rap music and it made its way into Queens where I lived. And his music was amazing, it was fascinating. And before that, I would listen to music, you know, great, great people, like, of course, you know, rest in peace David Bowie and, and Rolling Stones, and Donna Summer, Stevie Wonder, Barry White. But all these people had this beautiful way of singing, they had this orchestra and everything else. And they, they touched on some of the political issues in the world, but this music that was coming out of the Bronx, named rap, it was kinda like our version of Twitter today, I always say. It was like a disruptive technology because I

• 7:24Daymond John?

  started to hear about other kids, their hopes and their dreams, their aspirations, their plight, so the neighborhood, things that I wouldn't be able to see on the news. And they were putting it in a rhythmic form, and it was starting to educate us. And it came with a way, not only to, to listen to music, but a way to walk, talk, and even dress.

• 7:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 7:42Daymond John?

  And you felt like you were part of this society if you wore your Adidas with fat laces on, or you knew how to break dance. And, and, and that's where I started to find my identity as a young man. So, that, that's really where fashion started.

• 7:55Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 7:56Daymond John?

  Um, with me. I wouldn't know till, you know, I was about 12 years old, I wouldn't know till probably about another 10 years, 15 years, that maybe we should all do something uh, that we love.

• 8:09Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 8:10Daymond John?

  I tried everything else.

• 8:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 8:13Daymond John?

  But I never thought about fashion. It's kinda like, you know, you bust your butt to go and, and, and work and make a living, and then you go out and on the weekends, you kinda snowboard and do all stuff like that, but you never thought about busting your butt, building snowboarding, or, or, or, yeah, or snowboarding and making money.

• 8:30Lewis Howes?

  Like Rob Dyrdek, your buddy, Rob Dyrdek.

• 8:32Daymond John?

  Exactly. Rob's, yeah, Rob's in the book as well, of course.

• 8:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's interesting. So how old were you when you sold your first article of clothing?

• 8:41Daymond John?

  How old was I? Um, how old was I? It was, I, I, I know the date, I know exactly the date. It was 1989, Good Friday, 3 o'clock in the afternoon, 37 degrees outside. I was still outside the Coliseum Mall in 1989, so I was 20 years old.

• 8:57Lewis Howes?

  Wow, okay.

• 8:57Daymond John?

  Yeah.

• 8:58Lewis Howes?

  Cool, 20 years old.

• 8:59Daymond John?

  20 years old.

• 8:59Lewis Howes?

  When did you have, uh, how old were you when you said you had the passion for?

• 9:03Daymond John?

  I had the passion at 10, 11, 12. I had a passion for fashion earlier on in my life, prior to that as well, but it was really my mother was dressing me because we didn't, you know, not, really when I was 4, 5, or 6, because we didn't have money, enough money to go buy clothes, so she would sell them.

• 9:17Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 9:18Daymond John?

  Yeah, somehow the pocket would be hanging up in the back somewhere, but it was okay.

• 9:21Lewis Howes?

  So what gave you, when did you decide that you had the permission to go create your own things? Or sew them in the basement and then go sell them? What gave you that, you know, belief in yourself that you could create this?

• 9:33Daymond John?

  I, you know what? Again, like, like most of us start, there was no belief that I could do it. But I remember walking into a store and I started to see cross colors everywhere. And then I walked in the store and I saw this picture of this guy who like, looked like a young Mike Tyson, hanging off a pair of jeans and it was a caulk and I. And then it just hit me. I thought prior to that, we always thought that you had to be from Italy and France to design. You had to be older and like a, you know, you know, the guys with the, with the tape around their neck? You know, the tailors, right? And so, or, or whatever the fashion designer had looked like in those days. And I thought I just, I'm just supposed to buy from them. When I saw that, I was like, wow, that's amazing. Okay, no problem.

• 10:18Daymond John?

  Uh, then I'm watching a De La Soul video, I remember, and seeing them wearing these hats. It almost looked like a ski cap, but it has like a tie on the top. And I couldn't find that hat, uh, anywhere in Queens. I finally find one uptown Manhattan. I, I paid for the, the hat. I come home, I show my mother, I say, look, ma, I, you know, I, I paid, you know, I always say a joke. I paid $6,000 gas, $900 in tolls and $20 for the hat. Check this out. And she goes, that's a piece of crap. But I could, Damon, I could show you how to sew hats like that. So you can sew as many as you want, so you can wear them. You don't have to do that. So go get $40 worth of fabric. I go to the store, get $40 worth of fabric. I come home, I give my mother the, the, the stuff, the, to sew the hats. And she says, I'm not sewing this. You're sewing this. I sew, crap, now I gotta work at this?

• 11:01Daymond John?

  I sew the hats and then all of a sudden, I have all these hats and only one head. Because it's not like I was too stupid or wasn't thinking, thank God, I didn't buy. Uh, forty dollars worth of different fabric. I bought forty dollars worth of the same fabric.

• 11:16Lewis Howes?

  You only made one maybe every three years.

• 11:17Daymond John?

  Yeah, so, so anyway, so that's when it happened. That's when I went out and sold those hats in the outside on that Good Friday. And I sold eight hundred dollars worth of hats in one hour. And that's when it just snapped. It just, I just said to myself, wait a minute. I made this with my own hands. I went and sold this to individuals and nobody was in my way. I didn't have to get a check from a boss. Nobody told me when or to come to work or go to work. I can't get fired from this because of my color creed or whatever the case is. I'm responsible for what's happening here. And I will either fail because every decision I make, I'll succeed because of every decision I make.

• 11:53Lewis Howes?

  Was that the first time that you made money on your own as an entrepreneur or were you?

• 11:56Daymond John?

  No, no, no, no. I made money on my own and lost money on my own as an entrepreneur. You know, I started my first business. It took me a long time to really decide what I want to do and what was my first business. It took me forever to decide my first business. My first business, I finally decided what I wanted to do when I was six years old. Took me forever, right? I was selling pencils in, in school.

• 12:18Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 12:18Daymond John?

  Uh, and then I would, then I would go ahead and, and, and sell candy. And then when I, when, when, when it snowed, I would shovel snow in the winter, rake leaves in the, in the fall. And, and then I remember when I used to shovel snow, I used to go and kids would want to help me because I started getting, you know, everybody in the blocks that I wanted to. I would travel about three miles and, and take care of it. Kids would want to help me, so I would tell them, okay, no problem. Here's what you're gonna do. If you're gonna help me, I'm gonna let you work. I'm gonna give you a couple, let's split the money with you. But you gotta do a, a spring cleanup for free so we can go back into spring. And then I would go to the, to the owners of the house and say, well, everybody else in the block, if you shovel, if they shovel your snow, they're showing you three dollars.

• 13:00Daymond John?

  If I shovel your snow three times during the, the winter, I'm gonna give you a, a, a free spring cleanup. So I was leveraging all those little guys in the neighborhood.

• 13:10Lewis Howes?

  I love it.

• 13:10Daymond John?

  Ah, man, that was a great business.

• 13:13Lewis Howes?

  Now, when did you realize that you kind of, you know, the $800 first day, it might have been a great first day, but when did you realize like, okay, I have something actually that is consistently getting results? I mean, was it just easy for you after that? For the next year, you were just making 800 bucks every day and then it just kept growing? Or was there like, oh, there's some dry spells here, or I need to change where I'm promoting it?

• 13:34Daymond John?

  Like anything in business, it was always a dry spell here, a dry spell there. But in all reality, you know, my friends and I, we love selling the hats. Why? Because there was a reason to talk to girls on the street.

• 13:46Lewis Howes?

  There you go.

• 13:46Daymond John?

  Right?

• 13:46Lewis Howes?

  That's why we do a lot of these, right?

• 13:47Daymond John?

  Of course we do it. Everything, right? If we didn't have women in the world, we'd all be walking around barefoot and just, you know, no teeth, right?

• 13:53Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 13:56Daymond John?

  And then I would start going to the Black Expos, where there was like a basically market on the road. And I would try to sell shirts there. Why? Because girls were there.

• 14:03Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 14:04Daymond John?

  But also, we started, we were really passionate about what we were doing. And, and we started getting that high when we sold stuff at a Black Expo, you know, and then we'd go to another one and we'd see somebody wearing it. I'd go, wow.

• 14:19Lewis Howes?

  That's pretty cool.

• 14:19Daymond John?

  And that's when they came back and started saying, man, you know, I tell everybody about this shirt and they asked before, so I need to buy three now because I gotta buy for everybody. And we started saying, wow. Right? And it just became so exciting. I, I would have normally paid to go to the Black Expo.

• 14:35Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 14:35Daymond John?

  To go around and buy stuff or see stuff. And then, you know, we happen to live in Hollis, Queens. There's a lot of music artists in Hollis, Queens, you know, obviously, Salt and Pepper, Run DMC, LL Cool J, Tribe of Quest, a lot of them come from there. We didn't really know them, but we knew all their friends. But then all of a sudden, we heard, we were saying, well, can we get something in a video? And they would go, yeah, come on down. And we'd go down to the video and there's craft services. It's free to eat as much food as you want. You get to see somebody like LL Cool J performing a song. There's video vixens running around.

• 15:06Lewis Howes?

  Girls everywhere.

• 15:07Daymond John?

  I would have paid to go there. Meanwhile, I'm going to go ahead, put on a shirt. And you put on a shirt and then I'd say, man, I don't have any money till, I have a small company, so I really can't afford to lose that shirt. Can I have it back?

• 15:18Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 15:19Daymond John?

  Yeah.

• 15:19Lewis Howes?

  You would take it back?

• 15:20Daymond John?

  And they would give it back, yeah.

• 15:21Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 15:22Daymond John?

  There's only one rapper who never gave the shirt back to me. Old Dirty Bastard, of course.

• 15:28Lewis Howes?

  Okay, awesome.

• 15:29Daymond John?

  If you expect to get anything back from a man named Old Dirty Bastard, there's bigger issues.

• 15:33Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. It sounds like, you know, what you did, when was this? What year was?

• 15:37Daymond John?

  This was, well, honestly, I opened FUBU in eighty-nine, I closed it three times because I ran out of capital from eighty-nine to ninety-two. So the story really goes from eighty-nine to around ninety-six.

• 15:50Lewis Howes?

  Okay, cool. So twenty years ago, you were essentially the true branding expert who was leveraging the Instagram influencers of today. You were leveraging the, you know, music stars, the MTV stars.

• 16:05Daymond John?

  Yes.

• 16:05Lewis Howes?

  And getting that social media out there on MTV.

• 16:07Daymond John?

  Sure.

• 16:08Lewis Howes?

  As opposed to on Instagram, which is what brands are doing today. They're trying to find the top influencers and get their clothing on them.

• 16:14Daymond John?

  Yeah, we always called FUBU the first hashtag of clothing, you know, so.

• 16:18Lewis Howes?

  I like it, I like it. What was, what would you say was the biggest challenge, once you started to really take off and grow? Obviously, as a small business owner, when a trend hits and everyone wants your product, how did you handle that and what was the biggest challenge?

• 16:33Daymond John?

  Scalability was very hard because it was, how do I go and finance and underwrite, you know, these things, you know, where? Where will I get the capital? What's the turnaround time? And I didn't have any financial intelligence at the time.

• 16:47Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 16:48Daymond John?

  So, you know, my journey.

• 16:50Lewis Howes?

  Sell and you could hustle and promote.

• 16:51Daymond John?

  I could sell, I could hustle, but, you know, my journey, I almost failed or lost everything several times throughout that journey because I just didn't know how to use the tool of money. And, and it's so hard to try to acquire all that knowledge within the same time. How do I acquire the knowledge of branding, marketing, distribution, manufacturing, warehousing, shipping, financial intelligence, customer support, you know, return on goods, you know, consumption, you know what I mean? It's so hard. So, of course, I had to start leveraging as well and creating a bunch of strategic relationships because I knew I needed that, I knew I needed that because, you know, listen, you know, when you tell somebody to stop smoking, you know,

• 17:34Daymond John?

  a couple of times and after the tenth time. They know they already have a problem with smoking. They don't want to listen to you. Listen, forget it. I'm not even going to address it. I'm only starting smoking. When you have a business, you have to answer the call or you're closed. Right. Right? So you have to plug the dam. And I knew I had to plug the dam. So I started just creating a lot of strategic relationships. And that's actually the power of broke. Because it is the fact that, you know, if I would have had money when I went to those video sets, I would have paid the director, I would have paid the producer, I would have paid the rapper, everybody else, right? If you gave me $20,000 at that time and I heard that LL Cool J will wear my stuff for $5,000

• 18:18Daymond John?

  and the director wants $5,000 to wear it, they're getting the money. Of course. Right? And then you're going to wear it. But I got into 30, 40 videos with $0, right? Because I had no way to do it. I had nothing to lose. You couldn't take anything from me. I didn't have anything. Yeah. Right? Exactly. So, so. You couldn't even give me your shirt. Right. You took it back. I took it back, right? And I said, I got you later, right? All dirty bets, so you got me now. But, you know, when you have, when you, when you, when you're working with the power of broke, it does a couple of things. Number one, it makes sure that you learn the process yourself. You can't afford to hire anybody else. So all those people out there who, who pay $40,000 for a website when it really costs five. Right. Right? Or you can leverage it by bartering or something.

• 19:03Daymond John?

  Whatever the case is, right? So you have to learn the process. And what happens during that period of time of learning the process is that when and if, and hopefully you get to the point that you are successful, nobody can tell you lies. You can't have somebody say, well, I'm not going to tell you about shipping because, you know, you're firing me and I got to go work it out yourself. I said, get the hell out of the way. I've been doing this for eight years myself, right? You, you know, you, you, you get and you learn the process, number one. Number two is because you don't have a lot of capital, you focus on the only thing that you can do. You don't drown an opportunity. You don't take a bunch of money and go. We should try a bunch of stuff.

• 19:46Daymond John?

  Here you go, here's 10,000, here's 10,000, here's 10,000, here's 10,000 here.

• 19:49Lewis Howes?

  Go.

• 19:49Daymond John?

  Yeah, you go. All right, what are we gonna do with this hat?

• 19:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:54Daymond John?

  Right now. You know, so that's the process. And that process is very, very important. Also, you learn and it brings out the character of who you have around you. When you operate the power of broke.

• 20:09Lewis Howes?

  What do you mean by that?

• 20:10Daymond John?

  Well, if you, if you, if you're busy, let's open a business today. Let's go take a 10,000, let's go take a hundred thousand dollar loan. Well, what happens when the money goes away? Because when I didn't have anything, people worked with me for free. And I, I saw who rose to the challenge. I saw who jumped ship, right? I saw who were problem solvers and problem creators. And, and that's the process of activating the power broke. Because to tell you the truth, the, the people who activate, activate the power broke more than anybody else are the people who are successful. Cause that's how they stay successful.

• 20:43Lewis Howes?

  Would you say that those individuals have a powerful vision and then are really great at enrolling others in that vision? Is that the key ingredient or?

• 20:50Daymond John?

  Well, well first.

• 20:51Lewis Howes?

  Getting the team to do it essentially for?

• 20:53Daymond John?

  Absolutely, but it's not that they have a powerful vision and they enrolled everybody in the vision. But there's no reason for everybody who is enrolling into it to jump on a sinking ship or a bad idea. You see, we're gonna get A on our report card, sometimes we're gonna get an F. So if my power broke concept, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm creating FUBU. They didn't wear it because I were giving the shirts away. They wore it because they had to dig in their pocket and they had to pull out their hard earned money and buy it. Now, if you go out and you give a hundred shirts away to all your friends and family, even if it's the nastiest looking shirt, somebody's gonna feel bad for you, usually your mother.

• 21:31Daymond John?

  And they're gonna come to you and say, boy, son, I wore this at the store and they loved my shirt. Right? Cause that's mom.

• 21:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, right.

• 21:41Daymond John?

  Go try to sell that shirt to a hundred people who couldn't give a crap about you.

• 21:44Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 21:45Daymond John?

  Who gonna dig in their pocket for $10. You wanna get a, a, a, you wanna get a, what do you call it? A, a focus group?

• 21:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:53Daymond John?

  Try going to Harlem like I used to and selling shirts and telling on the streets. Oh, they're gonna give you the focus group for free.

• 22:00Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. They're gonna love it or not. So would you say the power broke is more of a mindset or a way of being? What do you think?

• 22:08Daymond John?

  It is a mindset. It is an absolute mindset. It is a way to think and it is a way to know that, um, listen, if you really think about it, well, I can't come up with anything. I can't come up with any time, anything of substance in my life, relationship, whether it's personal relationship with family, friends, loved ones, you know, uh, that money ever was the reason the relationship worked. It never was. It was always a byproduct on a working relationship. You know, it's like you're going out and getting a, dating a hot girl, right? Your first day, you, hey, how you doing? Pull up to her in a Bentley. Next day, buying her roses. Next day, buying her, uh, everything, right? Jewelry all the time, right? Month later, you lose

• 22:52Daymond John?

  your, your job or you got sued for a billion dollars or whatever and you lost everything. She's probably gonna be like, well, I was so used to the roses. What happened? You know, but, and I'm not saying that just about women or, or men, but, but if, if things are built on a, on a poor foundation, there's nothing there.

• 23:08Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, right. Gotcha. So what about, you know, people say this is great and all. I'm a struggling entrepreneur, so I'm gonna instill this power broke, but what about you? Do you still have this with all the, the wealth that you've created? How do you create that when you have, you know, an abundance of income, essentially, what people may think? Uh, when you could put money into things and invest and try these different things, how do you?

• 23:30Daymond John?

  How do I exercise the power, bro?

• 23:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 23:32Daymond John?

  So.

• 23:33Lewis Howes?

  When you have the funds.

• 23:35Daymond John?

  Yeah, exactly. So it, it takes an average of sixty to seventy-five thousand dollars to create a clothing line, a first sample clothing line. It takes about nine months to, to get it fully done.

• 23:47Lewis Howes?

  How many samples? Like one sample?

• 23:48Daymond John?

  Uh, you know, a, a line of, let's say, twenty-four pieces. Um, it, I'm sorry. If you're paying a designer, you're not doing it yourself, I would say a hundred fifty thousand dollars, right? I don't do that. And so if I have something great logo, whatever the case is, I will go and get a tailor to maybe sew up four pieces and average about fifteen hundred dollars. Then I go and find an Instagram star or a video. If I could, I give them a thousand, a thousand, maybe three thousand. I put this stuff out and I go and watch the phone.

• 24:19Daymond John?

  Anybody calling? Anyone calling?

• 24:21Lewis Howes?

  Anyone want this?

• 24:22Daymond John?

  Alright, you liked it? You liked it? Alright, let's do another shirt.

• 24:25Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 24:26Daymond John?

  Nobody calling? We're good. Cut bait.

• 24:29Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 24:29Daymond John?

  I can do whatever I want.

• 24:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 24:31Daymond John?

  Alright? I could put out a book called, you know, Power Broke, and I can hire a lot of great publicists and take out ads and everything else like that.

• 24:39Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:40Daymond John?

  Or I can schedule nine times, reschedule nine times with you to come over here and beg you to be on your podcast and call another 10 guys like you, you know, Adam Carrow and all these people.

• 24:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:53Daymond John?

  And go out there and bust my butt and use the Power Broke myself and send it out to 100 ambassadors, call them personally and say, "Hey, what do you think about it? Any changes? What can I do for you?"

• 25:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 25:03Daymond John?

  Stop over at the store and start just signing out of nowhere. I just pull up in a Barnes and Noble and just start signing like crazy. I have to activate the Power Broke because you know what happens? When you have a sales staff and people, the number one person they're selling is you on how good of a job they're doing and how maybe you didn't give them the right materials.

• 25:19Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure. Yeah, okay. So how can someone learn this? Is this something that everyone can learn? This mindset?

• 25:24Daymond John?

  This absolutely is something that everybody can learn and that's why in the book, I don't want people to think that I have, you know, I have this magical touch, this secret sauce. And that's why, as you've seen in there, there are many people that you and I know that I've interviewed and I've learned from in that book, 15, over 15 people that have accomplished massive success in their life, you know? I love talking about the people. Rob Durdek, as you say, started off in the skateboarder, no money at all.

• 25:54Daymond John?

  Kevin Plank, the CEO of Under Armour, $4 billion annual sales, didn't have enough money to pay a toll when he started his company, so they wrote him a ticket at the toll booth.

• 26:04Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 26:05Daymond John?

  Or Mark Burnett, the head of my show, right? ABC Shark Tank. The man was Special Forces or one of those type of things in the military in Europe. He comes over here, first job, a nanny.

• 26:20Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 26:21Daymond John?

  He was a nanny. Second job, selling T-shirts on Venice Beach. Right? Or let's look at, I always joke about it because I put up a post about Steve Ioki. I say, "Oh, the Operation Power Broke, everybody hit me." You know, everybody judges things without reading. Steve Ioki's dad had Benihanas. He was rich. Yeah, well... That actually hurt him because when he went to the hood to play music and be down with the clique, the keep it real artist guys, they were like, take yo' rich butt home. Don't come around here, little rich boy.

• 26:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 26:57Daymond John?

  And then when he went to dad and said, I need some money to do this and that, dad said, what are you doing? I came to this country with nothing and if you don't work in this company with me, I'm not giving you a dime. So stop spinning those stupid little records. Now the man does thirty million dollars a year and he's the most touringest DJ in the world.

• 27:16Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 27:17Daymond John?

  Yeah.

• 27:17Lewis Howes?

  Amazing. I love it. Uh, so what do you recommend people?

• 27:22Lewis Howes?

  What's the first step in this process of, of learning this and understanding this? What do you recommend if people don't, don't know? Besides reading your book, obviously, but.

• 27:30Daymond John?

  No, no, of course, like, you know, and, and so first of all, let me, let me be very clear and I've had to make sure that I, I want to acknowledge one thing. I'm not glamorizing not having resources in your life.

• 27:40Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 27:40Daymond John?

  Right? Because we all want to be able to take care of our family and have medical and, and, and have the things and an education, things like that. So.

• 27:49Lewis Howes?

  That's why people go on Shark Tank.

• 27:50Daymond John?

  Exactly, right?

• 27:51Lewis Howes?

  To get resources.

• 27:52Daymond John?

  Exactly. So do not get me, don't make me say, oh, so I'm supposed to feel good about not having any money? Not at all.

• 27:59Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 27:59Daymond John?

  But make that hunger, if you're gonna be there, tap into that hunger instead of, instead of complaining or feeling sorry or thinking that something needs to happen, right?

• 28:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I was just gonna say it's more of an exercise of hustling essentially and using that hunger as opposed to, let me just throw everything I have at it and see what works.

• 28:15Daymond John?

  Right.

• 28:15Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 28:15Daymond John?

  And as I go through all those people, I want to show you that there's no one way to go to your, get to the level that you consider successful. But with this day and age of social media and technology, where there is no barrier to entry anymore of meeting and getting out to people, you can have what we call a proof of concept and test your idea. So I go through there step by step on what to do. So, so now in any business, no matter what, you need to have a proof of concept, meaning, hey, I may think that my cupcakes are tasty, but.

• 28:50Daymond John?

  Let me see how many people buy them.

• 28:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 28:52Daymond John?

  Now, if you can't even make a cupcake, I'm sure you can film a 30 second video on your phone and tell of you making it or telling people about it. And you can get proof of concept if you have 10,000 people views your video.

• 29:05Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 29:06Daymond John?

  Whatever, likes, whatever the case is, right? And then you take that and then improve on it and improve on it and start and start the process. Right? Before, it wasn't that easy necessarily.

• 29:18Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 29:18Daymond John?

  You know, before when I made a shirt, I had to go and either sell it on the corner, sell it to somebody. And then I had to find the person the next day to sell it to them again. Um, and then, or if I sold it to the store, who would they sell it to? Who walked by and picked it up? Unless I'm gonna sit in the store all day.

• 29:32Lewis Howes?

  See.

• 29:33Daymond John?

  Was it a woman? Was it a man? Was it a kid? Did they buy it for themselves? Was it a gift? Did they buy it to wash their car with? I, I have no idea. Did they haggle over the price? Now, you know. You're on the computer, you go, boop, oh, somebody bought it. It, oh, yeah, it's an 18 year old kid, lives in California, loves to skateboard, has a pitbull and has a bad case of dandruff.

• 29:52Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 29:52Daymond John?

  Right? So, so this is where we are today. So you can test your concepts very, very easily and you can then be more equipped to go out to the world. And you'll find funding. There's so many ways of getting funding now.

• 30:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah. Um, I'm curious, and I don't really wanna talk too much about Shark Tank, but just curious.

• 30:09Daymond John?

  Yeah, we can talk about all of it.

• 30:11Lewis Howes?

  Who has been the most, um, inspiring person to you from the seven seasons you've been on? The person that came on where you just like, they like blew you away, that you wanted to go talk and learn more from them? Or you were just inspired by their story so much that?

• 30:25Daymond John?

  Um.

• 30:26Lewis Howes?

  Maybe someone you invested in or someone you didn't in or someone?

• 30:29Daymond John?

  Yes. Very, very hard to say because there were so many. And I, and I truthfully, uh, the person who learns the most from Shark Tank, uh, whether the viewers or anybody else is me. I learned from, I joke about the other sharks, but all, all joking aside, I learned from them. And I learned from these young men and women who are coming up here and they're doing business an entire new way. Yeah. And there's some in the book, there's one or two in the book, but you know, let me, let me think of others. I mean, there was this young lady I did a ma- a deal with for, it's called, uh, fresh, uh, picked moccasins, leather moccasins. She went and I believe she, she took aluminum frame windows and I think she went and melted down solo aluminum to make one pair of moccasins and then sewed more and then made another

• 31:14Daymond John?

  pair of moccasins and now she's doing, you know, a couple, a couple of million dollars. Or Little Mo, he's in the book, Little Mo Bridges, you know, he came on the show, young man, very laser focused on making bow ties, him and his mother. I remember that, yeah. And I, I looked at them and remembered, and they remind me of my relationship with my mother. And he was gonna do a deal and takes Kevin O'Leary's offer, which is not wrong, because he came on the show to ask for, for, for capital and resources and Kevin O'Leary stepped up to the plate. But I, I told him that if he would have taken that thirty thousand dollars, you know, if I would have taken that back then with the FUBU days, it would have been worth a couple of hundred million dollars, right? Because of, uh, you know, the percentage. So, he, he decided to decline the deal, I became his mentor.

• 31:57Daymond John?

  And honestly, I barely helped the kid, he helps me more than I help him, because I, I turn on TV, he's the fashion correspondent on the NBA draft, right? Doing about three hundred thousand dollars in business. I go and I take him on to CNBC one day because I say, hey, I want to introduce you to Mo, and I want to take Mo out to Fashion Week in New York. Uh, um, oh, shoot, what did I, what's the name, what's the name of the big, big retailer in Dallas? That, uh, Neiman Marcus, the CEO of Neiman, the, one of the highest retail outlets in the world, calls the show, and I've never been in Neiman Marcus, and I pick up the phone, yeah, how can I help you?

• 32:39Daymond John?

  You know, you want my Coogee brand and all that, and she's like, uh, let me speak to Mo.

• 32:45Daymond John?

  All my life, I've never talked to this person. She wanted to speak to me all.

• 32:48Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 32:49Daymond John?

  So, very inspiring.

• 32:50Lewis Howes?

  That's very cool. What would you say is a ritual that you, is a non-negotiable for you every single day? Something you do in the morning, or at night, or throughout the day? Something every day that you do?

• 33:01Daymond John?

  I read my goals. I read my goals, not every day, but I read them five days a week. I read them in the morning. Be, uh, when I wake up and I read them at night, uh, before I go to sleep. I have, uh, nine goals. That range from, um, uh, business to health to family. Uh, six of them, uh, expire every six months. And, yeah, and two of them, um, uh, sorry, six of them expire in six months. Two of them expire in, uh, five years and one expires in 20. Um, and, uh, you know, they're, they're very, very detailed in, in what they are. And the reason is I just want, I want to read, I want to, I want them to be the last thing I, I think about when I go to bed.

• 33:41Daymond John?

  And, um, I reset them every six months. Um, but I noticed that as the date comes up, I start to have this, um, anxiety, alright?

• 33:52Lewis Howes?

  If you haven't achieved it yet.

• 33:53Daymond John?

  Yeah, if you haven't achieved it. And most of them, you're not going to achieve if you really set aggressive ones, but you're going to get there 50, 60, 70 percent.

• 34:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 34:03Daymond John?

  Bang, then reset it for a longer period of time with another, a higher, uh, goal to reach.

• 34:08Lewis Howes?

  Okay. What, what got you into setting goals? Or what's the process for you? And why is this so important?

• 34:14Daymond John?

  Uh, the third time it settled in, the third time, I, I read this book the first time when I was 16. The third time I read the book, I was 19. I read the book every year. Think and Grow Rich.

• 34:27Lewis Howes?

  It's a great book.

• 34:28Daymond John?

  Yeah.

• 34:28Lewis Howes?

  They're doing a documentary right now. Did they approach you?

• 34:31Daymond John?

  No, they didn't. I mean, they sent me some, um, leather bags, some really special ones.

• 34:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 34:36Daymond John?

  Uh, but yeah, they, um, Maybe they don't know how to get a home is pretty hard.

• 34:40Lewis Howes?

  Well, if you want, let me know.

• 34:41Daymond John?

  Yeah.

• 34:41Lewis Howes?

  It's up to me to do it.

• 34:42Daymond John?

  I would love it.

• 34:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's a great book.

• 34:45Daymond John?

  Absolutely.

• 34:46Lewis Howes?

  Got a couple of them up there, yeah.

• 34:47Daymond John?

  Yeah, so many additions.

• 34:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 34:49Daymond John?

  You know, if we can only be so lucky to be like Napoleon Hill, right?

• 34:52Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing.

• 34:53Daymond John?

  So that's where it is, and the ritual is pretty simple. It's, you know, if I say, hey, I need to lose X amount of pounds, you know, by this date, I'm going to, and then what's the process? Well, I'm gonna drink six bottles of water. I'm gonna drink one green drink today. I'm gonna do cardio in the morning, and if I can slip in some weight training at night, I'm not gonna eat out to 7:00 PM. I'm not gonna eat fried foods and/or meat. And in return for that, I will be healthier, and I will be able to live a longer prosperous life and be in my daughters' lives longer, and to make sure that I'm there for them.

• 35:29Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:30Daymond John?

  So, you know, what is the goal? How are you gonna get to that point? When does it expire?

• 35:34Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 35:34Daymond John?

  You know, and what is the reward for the goal?

• 35:37Lewis Howes?

  Sure. Why, you know, I do six and 12 months' goals myself. Why do you think six months? I think you said a year, or five years and then 20?

• 35:45Daymond John?

  Yeah.

• 35:45Lewis Howes?

  Why that timeframe?

• 35:47Daymond John?

  You know, the timeframe I picked. So, I think six months is a reasonable time to accomplish something and/or say to yourself, what's wrong with you? You've been talking this crap for six months, right? I think that also in six months, you can see the change, because if I sit there every morning, and I sit there and say, I'm gonna have a green drink or a banana for breakfast, then that's one less time that I'm gonna have that everything bagel with sour cream and, mm, salmon and all that stuff. And by, you know, by time, six months ago, I've probably done that 40 times, 90 times, and you start to see the difference in what it is. So, the five-year one, I wanna be somewhere in, you know, what are we gonna do in five years? I don't know.

• 36:31Daymond John?

  And then 20-year one is always gonna be about that kind of... As you look over, as I look over, my family and my health.

• 36:39Lewis Howes?

  Legacy.

• 36:39Daymond John?

  Legacy to some extent and hopefully, hopefully then I have to reset to 21.

• 36:44Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 36:45Daymond John?

  The 20 year goal.

• 36:46Lewis Howes?

  Can you share with us one of them or did he keep them pretty private?

• 36:49Daymond John?

  I share with you one a little bit, the, the, the losing weight.

• 36:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 36:52Daymond John?

  One, when I get back into my training mode, that's what I am, uh, that's what I do.

• 36:57Lewis Howes?

  Do you have a specific weight you want to get at?

• 36:59Daymond John?

  I, I, I always, I always, well, usually when I, when I shoot Shark Tank, I'm always at 168.

• 37:07Lewis Howes?

  Why 168? Is that just the weight you are?

• 37:09Daymond John?

  That's just where my body works, right? I get to 168 and then when I'm off season, I usually get up to about 185 during the winter. And then if it's, if I'm really, really like, uh, traveling too much, can't do it, I can get as high as 193.

• 37:23Lewis Howes?

  You like to hibernate?

• 37:24Daymond John?

  No, you know what? It's just being on, it's just being on the road, bad sleeping habits, you know what I mean? Um, it's just hard.

• 37:30Lewis Howes?

  I'm sure this book launch is not helping you either.

• 37:32Daymond John?

  Uh, no, not at all. Not at all.

• 37:34Lewis Howes?

  I love it. Uh, what is another ritual in the morning that you do? Let's say when you're in your home, you're in a good routine. You're not traveling. What's another part of the ritual that you follow?

• 37:44Daymond John?

  It's gonna be, it's gonna be getting up and it's gonna be, um, it's answering emails. I mean, you know, because you wanna.

• 37:50Lewis Howes?

  You've got so many opportunities.

• 37:51Daymond John?

  You wanna, no, you, no, you just wanna get them out of the way before you get to the office, cause you're never gonna get to them after that.

• 37:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:56Daymond John?

  Uh, my next book is probably gonna be called Death by Email. You know what I mean?

• 38:00Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 38:01Daymond John?

  I don't know. These emails, man, kill me.

• 38:03Lewis Howes?

  What do you think's, um, something that wealthy individuals or people that you've been around who have built multimillion dollar businesses or billionaires? What do you think are two or three things that they think or do differently than people that don't make that?

• 38:20Daymond John?

  Uh, the billionaires I've seen, they, first of all, I'm not saying it because of the book, but they, they, they use.

• 38:30Lewis Howes?

  The power bro.

• 38:30Daymond John?

  The power bro.

• 38:31Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 38:31Daymond John?

  They, they'll spend a billion dollars on a party, cause that's a party. But they're very disciplined and they won't spend that on launching a company. They will, they will act like they don't have anything. Uh, one mentality, number one. Number two is they write down everything. Really? They write down everything, um, you know, we got into this day and age where, uh, people are typing in their smartphones. They physically write down everything and I remember one of them said to me, uh, the dullest pencil will always remember more than the sharpest mind, which is a very, very, very, very well-known quote. And usually what they write, I noticed that they write, uh, how to save the most on taxes.

• 39:17Daymond John?

  Really? Yeah, they usually write that because tax codes change often, alright? And investments have certain tax benefits or not, whether philanthropy or whatever the case is. And I, and, and, and they, they look at it like this. They go, well, I can either start, I, I, I, I'm, you know, putting in my pocket, uh, 200 million a year, argument sake.

• 39:44Daymond John?

  I can either go and start a new business, right? That I need to go and, um, you know, and maybe I'll get up to 100 million, 200 million, then I pay taxes on it. Or how do I save on that 40 or 30% of taxes that I'm gonna have to pay away? Because I already have the money, why? Right. Why lose it? And they concentrate on that all the time and they, and they're looking at, you know, everything. And then, and then the last thing is when I always talk to them, um, when we have conversations, they think purely on a global scale. They'll, you know, we'll sit there and say, how many, um, how many people can I get to, to walk by my, uh,

• 40:25Daymond John?

  my, my plumber's, uh, you know, my service place, you know, in, in, um, in Manhattan on the street? And they'll sit there and say, how many cars are in the world?

• 40:38Daymond John?

  They're really thinking like that. They're like, how many cars in the world? How much exhaust comes out of them? Exhaust pipe, carry the Ford, that's how they are.

• 40:48Lewis Howes?

  Sure, okay, interesting. You talk about mentorships, life's about mentorships. You've had many great mentors over the years.

• 40:54Daymond John?

  Absolutely.

• 40:56Lewis Howes?

  Who have you yet to have mentorship from that you would love to be mentored by? Or is that not something you think about right now? If you could be mentored by anyone right now in the world, who would that be? That you're not already getting it from?

• 41:13Daymond John?

  Very, very tough, you know, I'm mentored by really amazing people, you know, Jay Abraham.

• 41:20Lewis Howes?

  Brilliant marketing guy.

• 41:21Daymond John?

  You know, so many really amazing people. I don't have a mentor, you know, maybe I met him once or twice, Richard Branson, I think. The reason why is because he said something pretty fascinating. I didn't know Richard Branson is dyslexic like I am.

• 41:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, me too.

• 41:39Daymond John?

  Nah, you're talking.

• 41:40Lewis Howes?

  Couldn't really read it all growing up.

• 41:41Daymond John?

  I'm saying, I'm saying, four out of the six shots are dyslexic.

• 41:44Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 41:45Daymond John?

  Richard Branson is dyslexic and he also somebody who, because I used to always say to myself, should I really focus on making FUBU Nike? And try to go there, set my goals for that? Or am I too close to it? And Richard Branson has 300 companies and he said, he's an entrepreneur that gets bored fairly quickly and he loves the process of new companies, bringing the fundamentals of what he knows over to a new process and the discovery of that. And as I looked at myself and I said, yeah, I have FUBU, I love it, don't get me wrong, amazing, but I have 10 other clothing brands and now I'm a shirt taking, I love this, this, this, this. I love, I'm dyslexic, I love the process.

• 42:27Daymond John?

  And I think that we have, I just, when I heard him speak, we just, I just realized I have so much in common with that guy.

• 42:37Lewis Howes?

  Why haven't you reached out to get the mentorship yet?

• 42:39Daymond John?

  Well, because first of all, I also do believe in mentorship that you should be with somebody who's extremely accessible. I don't know if he's accessible, but I know one thing, I'm not accessible because I'm so busy. So I don't want to get.

• 42:55Lewis Howes?

  Get the time to.

• 42:55Daymond John?

  Yeah. Hey, man, I'll be the mentorship and I'll be like, yeah, I'll schedule you.

• 42:59Lewis Howes?

  Six months.

• 43:00Daymond John?

  And he'll be like, didn't you just ask me for a favor? You know what I'm saying, why you so pushy? You know what I mean? Time is time, baby.

• 43:05Lewis Howes?

  I love that, I love that.

• 43:06Daymond John?

  You know, so.

• 43:08Lewis Howes?

  Okay, who's uh, who's been the most influential mentor for you? Through the business side of things?

• 43:14Daymond John?

  Uh, mm. Um, I would think Jay Abraham has been, yeah. Yeah, because you know.

• 43:24Daymond John?

  It's no, it's really, no, no.

• 43:26Lewis Howes?

  In terms of scaling or?

• 43:27Daymond John?

  Very hard, very hard. Really, all of them, I, I can't say that any, any one person uh, helped me more than the other, I can't say any one person didn't have the knowledge. My mother helped me in the beginning, my, my stepfather Steve, and then my amazing partners over at FUBU, you know, I have uh, my three, you know, friends who've been there all, all my life for me, they've helped me when the times are tough and I've learned from them. And then our other partners over on the other side of FUBU, so. I don't know, um, and I, yeah.

• 43:56Lewis Howes?

  They've all been great, yeah.

• 43:57Daymond John?

  Amazing.

• 43:58Lewis Howes?

  I'm curious about entrepreneurs that are looking to raise money and that, and you get pitched, I'm sure, every day.

• 44:04Daymond John?

  I do.

• 44:05Lewis Howes?

  By different entrepreneurs, whether it be email or in person, in the elevator or whatever, they're probably pitching you, right?

• 44:09Daymond John?

  Sure, uh.

• 44:10Lewis Howes?

  What's a couple of things that, one, turn you off, like every time it happens, you're like, no, not even gonna talk to you anymore, don't even open your mouth.

• 44:17Daymond John?

  Yep.

• 44:17Lewis Howes?

  And then what are a few things that are like, tell me more?

• 44:20Daymond John?

  Uh, things that turn me off is the fact that they don't have proof of concept. They just said, they just think it's a good idea and it's, and it's my job to help you create the proof of concept, so you're too lazy to do it. By the way, um, I have a hundred ideas in my head too, that I can own a hundred percent off, uh, of, so, why? Number one, number two is.

• 44:40Lewis Howes?

  So get a proof of concept.

• 44:41Daymond John?

  Proof of concept, right?

• 44:42Lewis Howes?

  Show that there's a buzz, something.

• 44:43Daymond John?

  Yeah, if you don't have proof of concept. And they go, well, I, I don't know how to get it started, well then, that's what you're gonna be telling me when, when, when it is started and you're not, you don't know how to take it to the next step. I got my own headaches, leave me alone.

• 44:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 44:54Daymond John?

  The next one is, um, well, this is a fifty billion dollar market. And if I only get one percent, oh my god. The bankruptcy market is a trillion dollar market and I promise you're gonna get one percent with that attitude.

• 45:13Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 45:13Daymond John?

  Um, those are the things that turn me off, uh, the things that uh, get me excited are. I tried this and I failed. I tried this and I failed. I tried this and I failed. And then I finally, bang, found out the best way to do this. And I found out because all these other things that I failed at doing in, in, in this area, this one, I knew I was on to something.

• 45:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 45:40Daymond John?

  Somebody who's willing to admit their failure, because any successful entrepreneur knows that you are gonna fail more than you succeed.

• 45:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 45:48Daymond John?

  Right? That one, of course, that's it. And then the other one is proof of concept.

• 45:54Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 45:55Daymond John?

  That's it. You know, you have the, the right to make up your own opinion, but not the right to make up your own facts.

• 46:00Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 46:00Daymond John?

  So, and you see that happen all the time. Kevin O'Leary will go, "Yeah. How many, uh, how many, how many did you sell that stupid thing right there?" And they're like, "One million dollars." He's like, "You're not too stupid now."

• 46:12Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. He's like, "Oh."

• 46:13Daymond John?

  Sales cure's all, right? You are not looking too stupid now.

• 46:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 46:17Daymond John?

  All of a sudden, there's a halo over that person's head.

• 46:19Lewis Howes?

  Right, but it sounds like for you, it would have to be proof of concept, uh, that they failed a bunch and now they hit something. But also it would have to be like something you're interested in for you, that you're excited about.

• 46:28Daymond John?

  Hun, yeah, yeah.

• 46:29Lewis Howes?

  If you're like...

• 46:29Daymond John?

  Yeah, no, no, I, I have to have an interest in it.

• 46:31Lewis Howes?

  You don't care about like women's dresses or something, or, you know, I don't know.

• 46:33Daymond John?

  I have to have an interest in it.

• 46:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 46:35Daymond John?

  Hundred percent, I have to have an interest in it. Because you know what? If I don't have a full interest in it, maybe I'm a customer.

• 46:40Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 46:41Daymond John?

  And, and, you know, listen, you know, the power brook theory is, don't spread yourself too thin. You can't do every single thing in the world. And people think, because I have access to capital, that people like us just walk around and buy everything. "Hey, how you doing? Oh, I like that locker. I wanna invest in the company." No. No, man, you, you don't have time for that. Because in, investing is the, you then gotta answer the phone call every time. And so, you know, I get all the time when I start thinking, "Oh, that person had some great idea. Why didn't you invest in the company?"

• 47:14Lewis Howes?

  Only time.

• 47:15Daymond John?

  Yeah.

• 47:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah. So how much of your time is managing other entrepreneurs that you partner with, whether through Shark Tank or off of Shark Tank that you've, because our friend Nathan, you've invested in CrossFit gyms and other things like that. How much of your time every day is picking up the phone and just being an advisor or setting up meetings for people?

• 47:34Daymond John?

  Yeah, I look at, besides my companies, I really look at, it takes me about, it takes about six months out of my life, all the investments.

• 47:44Lewis Howes?

  For the year.

• 47:45Daymond John?

  Yeah, and I have really, really amazing partners that allow my businesses to run. And again, you know, I could probably do more business in my business if I do, but these other opportunities that I'm in, whether I win or lose, they're teaching me about an entire new way of doing business. If I wasn't on Shark Tank, or if I didn't do investments like Nate in CrossFit, I would never have an insight on the new way that the world is operating. I would have still been the FUBU guy going, hey, you know, JCPenney's or Macy's, please buy my shirt. Hey, how you doing on social media? I don't know. You know what I mean?

• 48:30Daymond John?

  You know, and I'd have been at the mercy of everybody else.

• 48:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, okay. Couple of questions left for you. That's cool. What's a question no one ever asks you that they wish, that you wish they asked?

• 48:43Lewis Howes?

  Or is there a question?

• 48:44Daymond John?

  Oh, you know, I've been, I've been asked some really tough questions throughout these podcasts lately, because, you know, you know, guys like you have been talking, talking to Tony Robbins and, and guys with enormous brains. So your brains get bigger as you speak, and I've been asked a lot of tough questions. So I'm not asking for somebody to answer.

• 49:06Lewis Howes?

  Okay, perfect.

• 49:09Lewis Howes?

  What's the biggest piece of advice besides the power of broke, which I want everyone to make sure to go get? What's the biggest piece of advice that you would give yourself just starting out? On top of this.

• 49:21Daymond John?

  Oh, yeah, listen, I trust me, you and I do in the podcast, I'm not trying to make it a big wet kiss. I'm fine, I want to make sure that I didn't put in the book, or I did put in the book, and whether I did or not, the advice that I would give the younger Daymond John is make sure you have financial intelligence. I don't care even you're gonna be an entrepreneur, intrapreneur, working for a company, whatever the case is. I don't care if you have money or you don't have money. Money is so hard to make, and it's 10 times harder to keep, and it's a tool. And I almost lost too many times because I was so eager to make the money, and I didn't have financial intelligence.

• 50:04Daymond John?

  And many people say, well, Damon, you didn't go to school or college, and should I? And the fundamentals of business are the fundamentals of business. And you need to go and study finance no matter what. And a perfect example of that is all the, all the athletes that three years out of the league, over 60% of them are broke, right? How the Powerball people, some of them are going to be broke fairly quickly, three years, right? And it's because just, you know, if you really look at anatomy of bankruptcy, it's something that like, you know, if you and I, if I had, you know, $300,000, I'm gonna probably buy a $50,000 house. I'm gonna buy a little car for $20,000, whatever the case is. If an athlete has $50 million, they're gonna buy a $7 million house. And they're gonna buy a bunch of cars, but it's the same house, it's just a bigger bill.

• 50:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 50:48Daymond John?

  And, you know, they're not gonna understand about compounding interest, and all, all the things that they need to do in life to make it, because money is just a tool.

• 50:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, what's the best book you would recommend for someone to be more financially intelligent? If there was one book to read to hopefully understand a lot of these principles when they didn't know them?

• 51:04Daymond John?

  Well, I, I think that, I haven't read it yet, everybody's talking really amazing about Tony Robbins.

• 51:10Lewis Howes?

  It's a great book.

• 51:11Daymond John?

  New book, right?

• 51:11Lewis Howes?

  Master of the Game, yeah, Money Master of the Game.

• 51:12Daymond John?

  Okay, I haven't read that. And again, dyslexic, I, uh, so I'm sure you listen to audiobook, probably, alright? You gotta get the audiobook. Um, of course, you know, Think and Grow Rich. I know, no, not Think and Grow, Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

• 51:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, okay.

• 51:26Daymond John?

  Rich Dad, Poor Dad, it's a, it's a staple for a reason.

• 51:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, awesome.

• 51:33Lewis Howes?

  Three final questions.

• 51:34Daymond John?

  Yeah.

• 51:35Lewis Howes?

  What are you most grateful for recently in your life?

• 51:38Daymond John?

  What am I most grateful for recently in my life? Um.

• 51:44Daymond John?

  You know, in my, in my personal life, I'm grateful that everybody has their health. I haven't had any, um, any loss. You know, I've seen a lot of, I've seen a lot of loss in my life, growing up in the neighborhood that I grew up in.

• 51:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 51:59Daymond John?

  Whether people were incarcerated, or they lost their lives at a very early age due to violence or drugs. And that, eh, you know, hasn't been an issue with anybody in, in my life. So, and I know it's inevitable, right?

• 52:13Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 52:14Daymond John?

  And so, so that's what happened. So, I think, I think on that, on a personal issue. Um, on a, recently on a business tip, um, I don't know, you know, of course, my appointment to the White House, I never thought I would be meeting and sitting with the president. I've met the last three presidents of this great country.

• 52:34Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 52:35Daymond John?

  And who would ever thought that, right?

• 52:37Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 52:37Daymond John?

  Um, so business wise, I would say that is one of them. And then, another really great year of Shark Tank. For the reason though, that when I see that it's, it's one of the top shows watched from kids five to 15, and one of the top shows watched, parents and kids together. And when I see people come up to me and say, you know what? My daughter wants to be a, she wants to open, be a shark as much as she stopped caring about being an actress, a singer, and a dancer, or, you know, an athlete, nothing wrong with that. Um, she wants to be a shark. Or when a mother comes to me and says, my son finally came to me and said, mommy, I know what you do now at work.

• 53:18Daymond John?

  You know, when, when you, when you see that, or people say, I decided to start a business and I'm empowering myself. And you see that a show like that, that everybody said would never work, got almost canceled, um, you know, seven years in, and people are religiously following it. And when you see it's changing lives, that's, that's, I mean, that's why Mark Cuban does it. People always wonder, why does Mark Cuban do it? He don't, he don't need investments, right? He, he doesn't need any more TV time. You always see him on basketball, right? He does it because it's, it's, it's really empowering. As you, what am I talking about? You, I mean, this is what you do. You empower people and, and it's, it's just amazing.

• 53:54Lewis Howes?

  That's great. That's cool. And what would you say is your biggest fear moving forward?

• 53:59Daymond John?

  It's always gonna be health related. It's always gonna be, why has, um, uh, God has really, really blessed me for too long. Right? You know, I was a kid, I was hanging out, I don't know how many times I was doing things that kids do. Right? And, um, why am I still just cranking along? Right? You know, I'm almost 50 years old right now, right? And, um,

• 54:22Lewis Howes?

  Still a young man.

• 54:23Daymond John?

  Yeah, yeah, I am, but I, again, I've seen people, not because of now, I'm talking about violence or anything else like that, I've seen people just curl over and have a heart attack. I mean, I know last year, I think I, I think I remember counting within three months, 11 people that passed away. And they, and they did not realize it, whether it was unfortunately, in the beginning of the book, I dedicate something to, uh, my venture capitalist, who's an amazing man named David Freshman. And he's the one that all my Shark Tank people had to, once they, once we did the deal, they had to vet the deal with David. Right? And David truly believed in entrepreneurship ever since from day one. And he, he's always somebody who was a venture capitalist, but one who taught kids and people of color

• 55:07Daymond John?

  on how to get into this business and amazing guy. You know, he called me and said, hey, I'm, I'm, I'm ready to fight the biggest battle of my life. You know, right now, and I found out I have pancreatic cancer and in, within, you know, very short time, you know, he, he's no longer with us. And I met about, I, I know about 11 people that faced that last year. So you never know when we're gonna be, you know, when the good man's gonna call for us. You know, and hopefully Dave is down here protecting me now. Now he's my ultimate venture capitalist protector, you know?

• 55:37Lewis Howes?

  Right, exactly. Final couple of questions.

• 55:42Lewis Howes?

  It's the end of the day of years, we're talking about that.

• 55:44Daymond John?

  Yeah.

• 55:44Lewis Howes?

  Many, many years from now, and all of your books have been erased, Shark Tank has been deleted. All your brands are gone.

• 55:53Daymond John?

  Yeah.

• 55:53Lewis Howes?

  And your closest friends and family are there, and you've got a piece of paper and a pen. And they say, there's nothing else to remember you by except for this piece of paper and what you write down. And they ask you to write down three truths, the three things you know to be true about your experience in life and what they could see as a roadmap for their lives moving forward. What would you put down as those three truths for what's coming up for you right in this moment?

• 56:18Daymond John?

  Treated everybody, uh, with respect that deserved it.

• 56:22Daymond John?

  Um, knew that it was, realized that it was my job to help inspire and or move people forward and never compromised any of, any of my beliefs, good, bad, or indifferent.

• 56:37Lewis Howes?

  I love that. Um, final question before I ask you, I want to make sure everyone goes and gets the book, check it out, Power of Broke by Daymond John. And where can we connect with you online? Where are you hanging out with the most? Your website or?

• 56:49Daymond John?

  Uh, I'm on, I'm on, you know, uh, powerbrook.com. I'm on DamonJohn.com. And social media wise, I am on Twitter at the Shark Damon, um, Snapchat at the Shark Damon, Facebook at the Shark Damon and IG.

• 57:02Lewis Howes?

  Instagram. Which one's your favorite one to hang out? Where do you spend more time on?

• 57:06Daymond John?

  Uh, you know, listen, I, uh, you know, I listen to Gary Vee and I, I, I wear, I wear a different outfit when I'm in different ones, you know? When I'm in Facebook, I'm at the family reunion. I'm in Instagram, I'm wearing the, you know, the skinny jeans with the curly mustache. I'm all, I'm all hipsterish. Uh, you know, I'm on Twitter, I'm just kinda out in the park rolling around and I'm on, I'm on Snapchat. I don't really know what I'm doing just yet on Snapchat.

• 57:27Lewis Howes?

  I saw you post a photo of Gary Vee on your Instagram, uh, promoting his Snapchat. He sent me that same text with the photo. I saw everyone's posted that. I was like, this guy's a hustler.

• 57:39Daymond John?

  He's a, oh, he's a, he's a monster.

• 57:41Lewis Howes?

  He's a good buddy of mine too. And he's got a book coming out in a few months.

• 57:44Daymond John?

  Absolutely.

• 57:44Lewis Howes?

  He's probably hitting you up for that already.

• 57:46Daymond John?

  Not yet, but I'm, I'm waiting. I'm waiting, man, cause I'm here.

• 57:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course. Um, okay, cool. Well, I want to ask the, the final question then. Um, before I do, I want to acknowledge you, Damon, for your incredible service to the world. I think it's incredible what you've created as an example. You're really a symbol of inspiration for so many people.

• 58:04Daymond John?

  Well, thank you.

• 58:05Lewis Howes?

  From, you know, when you were 20 hustling in your, your basement sewing up hats to consistently over 30 years, being true to who you are and sharing your message and voice with the world, not just keeping it to yourself, but sharing your wisdom through your books, what you say on TV, really inspiring people. So I want to acknowledge you for showing up in a powerful way every single day.

• 58:28Daymond John?

  I know it looks like that, but I, I definitely appreciate it. And I think that I, I'm humbled by it, but I think that I'm very, very little comparison to so many people we meet.

• 58:38Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 58:38Daymond John?

  You know, Mother Teresa and so many amazing, amazing people. Our everyday teachers who are not recognized and underpaid, who take care of our kids. I hung out with my kids for a week, I wanted to kill myself. They hang out with our kids for, you know, eight months.

• 58:53Lewis Howes?

  Right, exactly.

• 58:54Daymond John?

  But thank you.

• 58:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course. My final question is, what's your definition of greatness?

• 59:00Daymond John?

  Oh, definition of greatness? I don't know. You know, I would say my definition of greatness is, you know, I guess it's greatest of all time, shocking the world, making people think that, surprising everybody and doing something that everybody thought you couldn't do, you know, and feeling good about it. Just, you know, testing yourself. I mean, I really, I read a really great quote the other day, and it said, "The only person that you should try to be better than is the person you were yesterday." And I think that's greatness, testing yourself, knowing you left it all on the field and you gave it your all, and not complaining about whatever happened.

• 59:43Lewis Howes?

  Love it. Damon John, thanks so much for coming on, man.

• 59:46Daymond John?

  Thank you, man.

• 59:46Lewis Howes?

  Appreciate it.

• 59:47Daymond John?

  Appreciate it. Thank you, Damon.

• 59:49Lewis Howes?

  Thank you all so much for listening and checking out this interview with Mr. Damon John, the shark himself. Super pumped about this. Make sure to head back to LewisHowes.com/279 to see how you can get access to more information on Damon, how you can follow him online, on social media, check out his incredible site, and make sure to get his new book, The Power of Broke. Again, share this with your friends, LewisHowes.com/279, and let Damon know what you thought of this interview over on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. Thank you, guys, so much for joining. This has been incredible. We've got amazing guests coming up very soon. Gosh, we've done some great interviews lately, and I'm super pumped about everyone that's coming on soon.

• 1:00:31Lewis Howes?

  So if this is your first time here, make sure to subscribe over on iTunes. Just go to iTunes and click on the School Greatness Podcast, and then click Subscribe so you can listen to this during your morning workout or during... During your run, or when you're making food, or when you're going to sleep, you can pop it on, and especially when you're commuting to work. Thank you guys again so much for being here. I love you guys. I appreciate you. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.