Gene Simmons Opens Up: Coming To America With Nothing, The Mindset That Built An Empire & The Man Behind The Makeup

Leave an Amazon Rating or Review for my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! When Gene Simmons tells me about surviving concentration camps through his mother's courage, I realize this isn't just another rock star story—it's an American dream forged in fire. The KISS frontman takes me on a journey from a Hungarian refugee who couldn't speak English to building one of the most recognizable brands on earth, more famous than Mount Rushmore itself. What strikes me most is his raw honesty about the price of success, from decades of reckless behavior to finally learning commitment at 62, and his mother's fearless escape to America that taught him the work ethic that built an empire. This conversation reveals how an outsider's perspective, unshakeable self-belief, and relentless pursuit of excellence transformed a poor immigrant kid into the demon who redefined what it means to be a rock star. Gene’s websiteIn this episode you will learn:Why feeling like an outsider became Gene's greatest advantage in building a global brandHow watching The Beatles on TV at 13 sparked a revolution that led to stadium domination in 18 monthsThe exact mindset shift that turned Gene from victim to victor in every situationWhy Gene believes the hunt for greatness matters more than achieving itHow to build unshakeable confidence that makes others want to follow youFor more information go to https://www.lewishowes.com/1780For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:Jon Bon Jovi – greatness.lnk.to/1608SCMatthew McConaughey – greatness.lnk.to/1022SCTeddy Swims – greatness.lnk.to/1611SC 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?

  Did you ever doubt yourself?

• 0:01Speaker 01

  Oh, hell, no. I know that I'm not the best-looking guy in the world, or the smartest or anything, but I will walk into any room and I will walk out with your girlfriend. There's no doubt in my mind.

• 0:12Speaker 02

  Simmons and Kiss revolutionized rock in the 1970s and 80s. One of the most influential rock bands of all time. 30 gold records, 14 platinum records.

• 0:20Lewis Howes?

  Kiss, Gene Simmons.

• 0:22Speaker 01

  Don't ever take from anybody. Just roll up your sleeves and go to work.

• 0:28Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 0:29Speaker 01

  What do all great champions do? They psych themselves up. I'm gonna win it. I am the champion. I am the greatest. I heard Muhammad Ali doing that. I'd never heard a human being talk like that publicly. Like, who is this guy? Actually, he was stating fact. It's our problem that we thought, well, you're not supposed to say that. Why not? Why not set greatness in front of you and then work towards achieving it?

• 0:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's true. What have you learned about fame that you wish everyone knew?

• 1:00Speaker 01

  If you become famous...

• 1:08Lewis Howes?

  And I heard an interesting story, or a very powerful story, that when you and your mother were trying to get to America and trying to come here and migrate to America, what was the lesson you learned from your mom? And the courage to get over...

• 1:25Speaker 01

  My father had gone, so the provider was no longer there because my mother stayed at home while he worked. So, once my father left, my mother was forced to go out there and, you know, while I went to school. So, when I'd come home from school at 3, 4, whatever it is in the afternoon, I was alone at 6, 7 years of age. And... You know, would cry myself to sleep because my mother would work until late at night. Six days out of the week. There was no such thing as five days, two days off. And in Israel, it's the Sabbath, Saturday, that you take off.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  Sunday, you go right back to work from 6:00 AM until, oh, 7:00, 7:30 PM. And so, both of my mother's brothers became successful in America. So they, and.

• 2:21Lewis Howes?

  They already came to America.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  Yes, right before World War II. My mother and my father went to Israel in 1949. And both brothers had already started working in America. And the stories I could tell you about my Uncle George, until the day he passed, he loved Wonder Bread. In those days, you could, for 29 cents, you could buy a whole loaf. He would buy a whole loaf with water and sit in a park bench in Central Park. And to him, it was like eating cake from kings. He would just eat the bread and drink water. Because you didn't have it in Europe. There was barely any. The fact that he could eat an entire loaf of bread by himself and nobody would kill him

• 3:06Speaker 01

  to get a slice of bread was a, was beyond anything. Because Europe never really recovered from the 1929 stock market crash. People were killing each other all the time and in concentration camps. If you had a loaf of bread, they'd kill you for that. It's a different world. In America, the land of plenty, even during World War II, people ate, you know, we grew wheat. So.

• 3:32Lewis Howes?

  So your, her brothers were already here.

• 3:33Speaker 01

  And successful.

• 3:35Lewis Howes?

  And successful. So she said, they said, hey, you come over and stay with us?

• 3:38Speaker 01

  That's right. That's exactly right. And.

• 3:41Lewis Howes?

  Was it that easy to kind of, you know, leave the country at that time?

• 3:45Speaker 01

  So.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  When my mother came to America, she she had to work, you know, the whole time and I was. I remember going into my Uncle Larry's house and they had their own house. With a basement and so I mean, I just couldn't and you'd look out the door and they were paved streets and cars going everywhere. And people were fat and I never saw a refrigerator. We had an I we had a box and if you had a piece of ice, you'd stuck it in there. So you can have milk. By the way, not branded. They'd give you a sheet of newspaper. And your week's piece of meat and your week's butter and you but that it was a new country. There was nothing. There are no stores. People can't fathom that. I remember all that.

• 4:29Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 4:30Speaker 01

  And I remember. Just everything was new. You know, you have branding cups and. And canned food. I never saw canned food. Until I got our first till we got our first care package from the U N and we opened up the box. And there was a. I get choked up when I.

• 4:53Speaker 01

  And there was a can of peaches.

• 4:55Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 4:57Speaker 01

  And I never saw a can. I know people are gonna think, well, he's exaggerating. No, I never saw a can of food. There were no supermarkets or grocery stores. Nothing. You lived in hills. And I remember taking the can and there were a full color. Picture of peaches dripping, you know, with the stuff. And I remember at about seven years of age, looking at it and my mother. Uh, you know, so grabbed that out of my hand and she took a big rock. There's no such thing as can openers. And she put it on the ground and. You know, banged into it and then peeled back, you know, the metal. So the sharp stuff was going there and she gave it into my hands and my little hands grabbed it and I'd looked and saw the.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  Yellow peaches inside and my mother said, you know, in Hungarian, because I spoke Hungarian, Hebrew, Turkish, Spanish and those stuff. And. I remember tasting it and I.

• 5:58Speaker 01

  Sorry, I'm getting a little verklempt here.

• 6:02Lewis Howes?

  That's all good.

• 6:03Speaker 01

  Uh, never tasted anything. I still, I still taste it.

• 6:07Lewis Howes?

  Mmm.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  Never tasted anything so sweet or anything, and I wanted to show my mother, and she was like, we were just amazed at this thing. And, and the fact that this, and it also had a Bugs Bunny book colored with these going down the road and all that. I didn't, never heard of Bugs Bunny.

• 6:25Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  And a sweater that was all torn. My mother put it on me and it was all, you know, too big, but it was colorful and all that. And my mother would read me the same Bugs Bunny book every night.

• 6:37Lewis Howes?

  Mmm.

• 6:37Speaker 01

  But she had to make up the words in Hungarian because she couldn't speak Eng- uh, uh, Hebrew, and the words were in English. So she'd make it up, and I'd just look at the pictures and I'd go to sleep with that. And, uh, as a matter of fact, Mel Blanc, a Jew, uh, who did all the voices for all the warrants.

• 6:55Lewis Howes?

  Ah.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  Did that, who did all the voices, Daffy Duck and Mel, you know, all that. Elmer Fudd told him the story, and he said, that, that is, that's one of the reasons why I wanted to do these voices for the children whose lives are changed. And

• 7:13Speaker 01

  which is why, as soon as I got some money, I, I made sure that, took a bunch of money and send it to kids in need. Originally through the Christian Child Fund, and then became the Child Fund, and I, to this day, support fourteen hundred kids in Africa.

• 7:30Lewis Howes?

  Mmm.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  Who, if they don't go to school, won't get clothes and won't get fed. That means you'll starve because there's nothing there. Zambia. You come to school, you get fed and stuff, so it teaches you that school has it. So I got lost, and what was the question? Uh?

• 7:51Lewis Howes?

  Well, really about like your experience when you got to America. You never saw anything like this before. You never experienced the taste, the foods, the, the refrigerator, all these things.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  I, I was in the kitchen with my Aunt Magda, who herself survived the camps and had some problems. And she married my Uncle Larry, who was my mother's brother. And we go into the kitchen, because there was always another room. There were bedrooms, like a palace. You can't believe, and there's this big white.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  Box or something and a metal thing and my Aunt Magda opened it. And I was, you know, as a little kid, I never saw anything like it. And it's just food. There's wrappers and food and cheese and things that get on the side. I'll never forget it. My Aunt Magda, I was attracted to the red because it was a jar of red. I later remembered it was Smuckers. With a name like that, it's got to be good.

• 8:52Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 8:53Speaker 01

  It was Smuckers jelly.

• 8:54Lewis Howes?

  Out of Ohio, yeah.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  And, and my mother said to me in Hungarian, you know, have some. And my Aunt Magda opened the can. I'd never seen that before. You don't understand. In Israel, they'd give you a slab of whatever butter, never jelly. And that would be it for the week. You'd have to make it, there was no refrigeration or anything. So.

• 9:17Speaker 01

  My Aunt Magda gave me a spoon. And in broken Hebrew, she must have said, taste it. Cause she was fascinated that I didn't, wasn't quite sure what it was.

• 9:33Speaker 01

  I'm only halting because if you weren't here, I'd start bawling. And I thought she said, eat it. Because she gave me a spoon. So I started like a Christmas goose. I just started my mouth full of jam with the jam falling all over, you know, just eating it. Cause I never tasted anything like that, the entire jar. And both my mother and my Aunt Magda were laughing so much, you know, they were in tears. And I didn't know what was going on. I was just that this is the best thing I ever had.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  And America just kept, and then I was afraid of crossing. I still have the marbles. I was afraid of crossing the street. Because cars were going by, ah, ah, you know, people crawling. I didn't understand it. So I walked around the block and I saw other houses next to each other. I said, this is like, where are all these houses? These is this, everybody's rich. Yeah, everybody's rich. And I went to the other side of the street. Then I had to come back and went a little further than eventually went around. I thought if I went around, I'd get lost. I didn't know that came around to this. I know it sounds.

• 10:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  And on the other side, eventually I saw some guys playing marbles on the grass, which would be, I don't know if you have a marble or something. And they're throwing it like this. It's not what we did in Israel. You stood up on two legs and you went like that. And you get really good because you can aim it on the ground. If you do the marbles like that, you know, the ground would make the marble not a thing. And what are you stupid? Can't you speak English?

• 11:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  I know, I don't know. God, it's an idiot. I play, I play. Yeah, here. They gave me a marble or two. I won all their marbles. They didn't last for long. Yeah. I still have all the marbles I won, about eighty of them.

• 11:30Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 11:31Speaker 01

  In an old Dutch Masters cigar box.

• 11:34Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  To remind me, don't ever take shit from anybody. Just roll up your sleeves and go to work.

• 11:42Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  Make them work for you.

• 11:44Lewis Howes?

  How did that make you feel though? When you didn't speak the language, you didn't have any friends. When you came to America, you're in this new world. How did that make you feel? Were you more excited or more scared?

• 11:53Speaker 01

  I've never been scared, not after my mother survived Nazi Germany, but I've always felt like an outsider. I still don't feel like an outsider. Uh, maybe that's okay. Maybe I want to be like everybody else. I want to be an ordinary guy. No, I don't want to be an ordinary guy. I want to be an extraordinary guy. I want to excel at anything that I try to do and I'm willing to work harder than you do. And the only thing that prevented me from getting into sports and everything else is because the pragmatism in me tells me that you've got a short life.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  When you enter sports or things like that, if you got an ankle, you're done. But I can be a banker, or a lawyer, or a teacher, think forever. It made more sense, and therefore more dollars. Yes, if you're lucky. Because every kid in every poor neighborhood wants to be the baseball player, or the football player, and stuff like that. Because fifty million, Carmelo Anthony made, and for a while I worked with Carmelo.

• 12:56Speaker 01

  They make all this money. You don't see the tens of thousands and millions of carcasses on the side of the road that wanted to, and put all their eggs in one basket and achieve nothing. You only see, you know, the tip of the iceberg. Yeah, the winners. Oh, that means anybody can do it. That's a fallacy.

• 13:15Lewis Howes?

  When you, so when did music start to come into your life? Because I heard a story that you saw the Beatles on TV when you were thirteen. Was music something you were interested in before then? Or did that open your mind to a world of, oh, dreaming that maybe I could be this one day?

• 13:31Speaker 01

  I didn't put the two and two equals four thing together. I was more an observer on life, because in America, there was so many attention deficit disorder. There were so many different things going by. There was sports, and television, and radio, and all that stuff going by. And so I worked, and when I was about thirteen, I came home. Yes, I worked on Sundays, and Sunday nights, I'm pretty sure it was the Ed Sullivan Show. Unlike any show that's ever been on TV. At that time, in nineteen sixty-three, sixty-four, population of America was a hundred and seventy million people, about that. Now it's doubled that, it's three hundred and thirty million.

• 14:17Speaker 01

  And that, and the Ed Sullivan Show was so big, they had pooping elephants, and comedians, and puppet guys, and, you know, one rock band for the kids.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  And I remember coming home from work and my mother got one of those TV dinners. People have no idea what that is. But you buy them frozen because poor mom had to go work. She couldn't. And it was like this uh uh kind of like old shoes crunched into like burgers with peas and some mashed potatoes and you pour the gravy and that was it. And I didn't know anything. I liked it. So I was eating it and ladies and gentlemen, the Beatles. She loves it. And I'm going, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what is that? And by the way, I met the biggest stars in the world, you know, especially musicians. They all point to that pivotal moment. Scientists call it a singularity.

• 15:11Speaker 01

  All of a sudden, these feminine looking guys with hair over their ears, because in those days, even shorter than your hair, you'd see the meat between the ear and the hairline above it.

• 15:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  Or like crew cuts. And these guys, oh, it's all like that. You know, I work my fingers to the bell and all that, like all, what is that? And they're small compared to Ed Sullivan and everything. You know, kind of feminine in a way because Americans were bigger and and fatter and stuff. And these guys were all, you know, like bone, bone thin. And spoke strangely. I didn't understand. I was watching and I thought, gee, they look weird. And I remember my mother coming in and saying, gee, I think they look weird. And bang out. At that moment, I said, no, they're cool. Because my mother thinks they're weird. You want your own thing. You don't want to do Lawrence Welk. You never heard of Lawrence Welk?

• 16:08Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. Kill me now.

• 16:11Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  Lawrence Welk was on every Sunday. And it was mom and dad music.

• 16:17Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 16:19Speaker 01

  Boy. And now we're going to do the polka. Yeah.

• 16:22Lewis Howes?

  So since your mom said it was weird, and you were like, that's cool then.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:27Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 16:28Speaker 01

  And but.

• 16:29Lewis Howes?

  And it's different. And different is, is better than.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  It's good.

• 16:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, different is good. But you were. I mean, you're a branding and marketing genius when it comes with.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  That word genius is not right. I've been careful, so I win.

• 16:42Lewis Howes?

  Well, you've been a branding and marketing master at studying and executing it.

• 16:48Speaker 01

  A success.

• 16:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, at studying and executing how to brand yourself. I mean, your book, Me, Inc., you built a personal brand before personal branding was a thing. You studied how to be unique and different from seeing the Beatles and other people, I'm assuming, and.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  Well, more specifically, how to be Disney without the overhead.

• 17:07Lewis Howes?

  Ah.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  But it's not as difficult as people think it is because unlike other countries, all information is available for free to anyone who wants to put in the time. And it was called, it's the House of God, otherwise known as the Library.

• 17:24Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  Don't forget that second R in the middle. It's not library, it's library. And I used to go to the library every day after yeshiva. I was setting to be a rabbi, but then I discovered girls. So I was in school, yeshiva, which means the sitting, the whole day. And afterwards, I'd go to the library, which was only a few blocks down. And I'm the only guy I've ever met or talked to who's actually read the Encyclopedia Britannica, cover to cover.

• 17:53Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  I am the corniest, most boring guy at a party.

• 18:00Lewis Howes?

  When did you feel like you were able to really monetize the artistic gift that you were developing?

• 18:07Speaker 01

  I was.

• 18:08Lewis Howes?

  Take it more either.

• 18:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:10Lewis Howes?

  In the country, globally, like, when did that start to happen? You said, oh, this is more than just weekend parties and.

• 18:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, in nineteen, um, even during college, I went to the State University, um, upstate New York, took out my own bank loan, paid for it myself and all that. So afternoons, I'd be the lifeguard at the Pines Hotel up in the Catskill Mountains, otherwise called the Jewish Mountains, literally. Because every weekend you'd have Jerry Lewis there and like all these guys, Milton Berle. And so I worked right after I'd finished classes and I'd go and make some more money. And on the weekends, the Wicked, not Wicked Lester, but what was it called? Bullfrog Beer.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  That was the college band and we played covers and some of my original songs, which by then I learned how to write my own songs, not very good. Two of them or so wound up being Kiss songs. And during one weekend, I'd make more money with the band, having fun with the chicks and the attention and all that than I would the whole week working. It started to make more financial sense. Yes, I had more fun. And then I graduated nineteen seventy-two from the City University at Richmond College and started teaching sixth grade in Spanish Harlem. Hmm.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  Segue to being the assistant to the editor of Vogue magazine, assistant to the director of the Puerto Rican Interagency Council, a government-funded research and demonstration project, where I saved twenty-three thousand dollars by the time I was twenty-three years of age. I lived at home, makes more sense. You want to meet in Chicago, go to the Holiday Inn, otherwise. Save your money. Yeah. Save your money. Lived at home when I didn't need to spend money, but of course I contributed a little bit. And we, I met another guy

• 20:25Speaker 01

  who shared the love of English music, which is really American music anglicized. We were Anglophiles, the Beatles and the Stones and Zeppelin and, you know, all that. And made our own pastiche, our own thing, like they did their own thing of American music. And by nineteen.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  1973, we got signed to Casablanca Records, a new record label.

• 20:57Lewis Howes?

  How old were you this time roughly?

• 20:59Speaker 01

  Just after college.

• 21:01Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 21:03Speaker 01

  Twenty-two.

• 21:04Lewis Howes?

  And this wasn't, was this called Kiss at the time or no?

• 21:06Speaker 01

  Yes, it was. We became Kiss.

• 21:08Lewis Howes?

  And you're doing, you got signed, but how big were the venues where you were playing before you got signed?

• 21:13Speaker 01

  We played clubs.

• 21:13Lewis Howes?

  Hundred people.

• 21:14Speaker 01

  From nothing to everything.

• 21:16Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 21:17Speaker 01

  Yes. We played New Year's Eve, fourth on the bill, at the Academy of Music in New York City, 1973, 74. And two months after that, the first album came out. We were fourth on the bill. Kiss, Teenage Lust, which was a local band, Iggy Pop, and Blue Oyster Cult. And on the first, by the third song, I'm spitting fire. If you're in full makeup, my hair catches fire. And we're on the covers of all the magazines and everything. New band out from Hellfire and you know, all this kind of stuff. I was just glad to be alive.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  But within a year and a half of coming out before MTV, before cell phones, we had still rotary calls. Superman was still going into that booth and changing, of course, people can't see him taking off his pants because he's in a phone booth.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  While all this was happening, within a year and a half, we're headlining Anaheim Stadium in Los Angeles.

• 22:18Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. Just that overnight thing. We had no hit singles, nothing.

• 22:23Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 22:24Speaker 01

  Yes. It became what the Germans called Zeitgeist, the water cooler conversation. The way you spread your brand in those days were rock magazines. Circus and Raves and all these colorful magazines that had posters. And we were always on the cover because the rest of the bands just.

• 22:43Lewis Howes?

  Boring.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're not visual. So our brand.

• 22:49Speaker 01

  And people, you know, the fans, we started selling out multiple days in arenas before we even had a gold record. It went ass backwards.

• 23:00Lewis Howes?

  So you guys developed a brand almost before you developed the music?

• 23:04Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 23:04Lewis Howes?

  It's like the, you were like, let's create the image of us. Let's create the persona.

• 23:08Speaker 01

  You're giving us too much credit. We didn't know anything.

• 23:12Lewis Howes?

  You weren't thinking about it?

• 23:13Speaker 01

  No.

• 23:14Lewis Howes?

  But that's what happened.

• 23:14Speaker 01

  You were just rock and roll gypsies.

• 23:17Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  You were glad you didn't have to do nine to five.

• 23:19Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 23:20Speaker 01

  And be in the same cubicle, doing the same thing.

• 23:23Lewis Howes?

  That's interesting. Did you intentionally think about, let's be so different?

• 23:28Speaker 01

  No.

• 23:28Lewis Howes?

  So that people pay attention? Or were you just like, let's have fun and just be playful? Or how did this character develop?

• 23:35Speaker 01

  None of that. Scientists either call it a singularity or an anomaly. We were rehearsing doing these songs that Paul Stanley and I wrote, Stanley Eisen.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  Or Eisenberger. And I started writing and then Ace Frayley contributed a song or two. And as we were rehearsing, you know, this kind of sounds pretty good.

• 24:00Speaker 01

  And we had Peter Chris on drums and everybody could sing, everybody could play.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  And then instead of doing a market analysis or anything, I recall clearly, because I never got high or drunk, one of us, and I can't tell you who, said, let's go down to Woolworth's, which was like a department store. And it was around Halloween, I believe, and they had a lot of gimmicky things like plastic ice cubes with fake flies in the middle that you could stick in your girlfriend's strings.

• 24:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  You know, or whoopee cushions. You know what a whoopee cushion is?

• 24:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah. Sit on it and make a part. Yeah, yeah.

• 24:39Speaker 01

  And we went down there and said, let's buy clown makeup.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  And we literally, almost like our hands were being directed, bought Steins Clown White, Steins Clown Black, Black Stick, Paul bought Red Lipstick, a few other things, and we went up to the rat-infested loft where we rehearsed and found ourselves hypnotically looking in the mirror and putting on makeup without anybody telling anybody what to do or what to think or do. It just happened. It sounds suspicious, and then when we looked around the room, we were fascinated by, wow, that kind of...

• 25:24Lewis Howes?

  The color's cool. Different.

• 25:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, different, kind of cool. So much so that, and because I'm kind of a make-a-list, check it twice, find out, I'm that kind of a guy, worked in offices all my life, there was no manager, so I was calling local gigs, clubs, to try to get us, and then booked ourselves in for, I don't know, thirty-five dollars a night to Coventry, and there was nobody there. We had my girlfriend, somebody else, there was like five people.

• 25:56Lewis Howes?

  Five people, yeah, yeah.

• 25:57Speaker 01

  But for us, we were at Madison Square Garden. And then the second show was at The Daisy in Amityville, where they had Jaws and all that, and the Amity Vihar and all that in Long Island. And shortly thereafter, we got signed. We barely played any shows.

• 26:23Lewis Howes?

  That's crazy to think about. And then a year and a half later, you're selling out arenas?

• 26:29Speaker 01

  Breaking, so much so that within two years of that, we're breaking the Beatles' record in Japan and playing five days, I think, at the largest arena, Budokan. And before bands were playing stadiums, we're doing multiple days in Australia in stadiums. Nineteen eighty, nineteen eighty.

• 26:49Lewis Howes?

  Where do you think you'd be if you guys didn't put makeup on that first day?

• 26:54Speaker 01

  You mean if I wasn't in a band or would Kiss have done as well without the makeup?

• 26:58Lewis Howes?

  Without the makeup. Like if you guys didn't go to that store and say, hey, let's start putting a makeup on. Where do you think the band would be? If you never did it like that, but you just said, we're gonna go out there and play and wear cool. You know, jeans and look like rock stars, but not. Put on the makeup or the.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, jeans is so boring.

• 27:19Lewis Howes?

  Like.

• 27:19Speaker 01

  If I'd have, if I'd have to say.

• 27:24Speaker 01

  Not as big.

• 27:25Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 27:25Speaker 01

  You could ask the Beatles, what would you have gotten as far with the same songs and everything? If you didn't have the matching haircuts?

• 27:38Speaker 01

  It's always. Pieces of the puzzle that somehow fit that make. The whole bigger than the sum of its parts, which are fancy words that says. All of it helps.

• 27:50Lewis Howes?

  It did, yeah.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  And if you take like a house of cards, if you take any one of those, it's just one card. Maybe all of it comes down.

• 27:57Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. It's so interesting to think about.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  I get paid a lot of money for this kind of stuff.

• 28:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's fascinating.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  I'm kind of a big deal.

• 28:05Lewis Howes?

  I know, I know you are. Now, when did it, when did you? Was there ever a, a moment in your? Career where you said, early on where you said? I'm actually gonna use this, this is working, you know, wearing the makeup, putting on the outfits in this way, it's working. I'm gonna make it a character, I'm gonna make it an alter ego or?

• 28:26Speaker 01

  I was always aware that character was not the right thing, it's persona.

• 28:30Lewis Howes?

  Persona, not alter ego or?

• 28:32Speaker 01

  Alter ego's, and by the way. I, I know people get so upset when I keep bringing up the Jew stuff. But the idea of the alter ego was created by them also.

• 28:43Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 28:44Speaker 01

  All the superheroes, Superman, yes, Batman, the Hulk, Fantastic, were all created by Jews. Who dress British, think Yiddish. The idea of the weak man.

• 28:58Speaker 01

  And the secret Superman. Der Uber Mensch, well, that's Nietzsche.

• 29:05Speaker 01

  And all created by disenfranchised people. Who never felt powerful. So the superhero was created by those guys who were never lifting weights. Couldn't dribble a basketball, but they owned the teams.

• 29:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, or they built the IP or whatever it might be, yeah. Did you, so did you think about building the persona or the alter ego as you were developing the, the band then?

• 29:31Speaker 01

  No, it happened very quickly and you react to market, the smart people react to the market.

• 29:38Speaker 01

  And immediately, we didn't think about it, but fans started to make homegrown T-shirts. Oh, they want T-shirt, let's make T-shirts. And they wanted.

• 29:48Speaker 01

  Oh, we were aware that if you were a.

• 29:53Speaker 01

  I don't know, a Joe Cocker fan or somebody, you didn't necessarily want to look like Joe Cocker. And Joe's a fantastic artist. It was music.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  And somehow we would, we didn't plan it. We want to be unique and all, that's true, but we didn't quite understand the cultural significance of the idea that you. You may not be able to be in Kiss.

• 30:25Speaker 01

  But you can feel like it. How many, how many more tennis rackets did we sell? Because people bought those and put on Kiss makeup and pretended when they were 13 that they were in a band. Cause just as soon as you, and I'll show you photos of. Lenny Kravitz when he was 13, like all down the line, these people going, what? He was kicked out of school for at 13, coming to school dressed like that.

• 30:52Lewis Howes?

  That's interesting.

• 30:53Speaker 01

  But he wouldn't be kicked out of school for coming to school dressed like George Harrison.

• 30:58Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, yeah. But that's not cool.

• 31:01Speaker 01

  No, it is cool, but it doesn't.

• 31:07Speaker 01

  There's nothing negative I can say about the Beatles, but market research, market research is a strange thing. It makes assessments based on the way things actually are.

• 31:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  So, Mount Rushmore, you've heard of it. Could you tell me who the four faces are?

• 31:27Lewis Howes?

  I've been there, I mean.

• 31:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, you've been there and you still don't know.

• 31:30Lewis Howes?

  Washington, yeah.

• 31:32Speaker 01

  It bears noting that market research says the four Kiss faces are more well-known on the entire planet than Mount Rushmore.

• 31:41Lewis Howes?

  That's great. That's great.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  You can go to Africa and as soon as they see one of the four faces, they say it's Kiss. If you show them one of Mount Rushmore's faces, they wouldn't know whatever.

• 31:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:54Speaker 01

  That's astonishing, isn't it?

• 31:55Lewis Howes?

  It is.

• 31:58Lewis Howes?

  Did you feel like you were becoming a different person when you would step on stage in that persona? And what did that feeling, what was that feeling experience like for you onstage in that persona versus Gene Simmons in life offstage?

• 32:15Speaker 01

  I was a regular, normal guy with regular appetites, you know, nothing out of the ordinary, and never veered towards self-destructive behavior, never.

• 32:25Lewis Howes?

  I'm curious about how you started to brand yourself even bigger because Kiss became something much bigger than a band. You know, after the first few years, it was big, obviously, but for decades, you elevated it to...

• 32:39Speaker 01

  I can't say you, it's not fair to call.

• 32:42Lewis Howes?

  The band elevated itself to another level.

• 32:45Speaker 01

  Because sometimes, of course, an idea will come from left field and they go, why don't you, yeah, you know, you're right, we should be doing that. So, no matter who you are.

• 32:55Lewis Howes?

  How did you, how did you all decide to continue to elevate the brand or maximize?

• 33:00Speaker 01

  Especially in light of the fact that times change, tastes change, and different generations come into it. Cool is a moving target.

• 33:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  So, I give ourselves kudos.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  To be able to be flexible and move around and do that stuff as hair metal, hair metal bands came in, thrash came in, new romance came, like all through all the different things. So we started co-branding.

• 33:35Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 33:37Speaker 01

  Like Hello Kitty. It's one of the largest brands on the planet for young girls, for little girls. So Kiss Hello Kitty had about fifteen hundred co-licenses, everything.

• 33:50Lewis Howes?

  That's amazing.

• 33:50Speaker 01

  From training bras to tissue paper to potato chips, you name it. And then we co-branded with Family Guy and Archie. We had Kiss Archie Comics and Astro Boy from Japan and just a lot of.

• 34:11Lewis Howes?

  What was the biggest licensing deal that Kiss did?

• 34:15Speaker 01

  Kiss?

• 34:16Lewis Howes?

  Beyond, beyond the band, what was the biggest co-branded or licensing deal?

• 34:20Speaker 01

  Oh, co-brand.

• 34:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, or deal beyond?

• 34:22Speaker 01

  Hello Kitty was probably the biggest, yeah, because it was endless. And then they changed CEOs. Actually, the CEO flew into LA and we had dinner and he and I were sitting next to each other and we're talking about the future. Okay, we're gonna ramp up, this clearly working and everything. And he said, as soon as I get back to Japan on Monday, it was the weekend coming up, I'm gonna draw up papers and we're gonna do some big, big, big stuff. And then he passed away. And the new CEO just, you know, didn't see it.

• 34:58Lewis Howes?

  Oh, that's a bummer. Where is the, the biggest revenue come from these days then? With the brand? Is it licensing? Is it still royalties? Is it still music?

• 35:10Speaker 01

  All of it. Music less because entire generations of fans don't pay for music. They download and voucher. Both of our kids, Nick and Sophie, are massive on Spotify and Schmodify and all the other childlike words.

• 35:28Lewis Howes?

  Yahoo!

• 35:30Speaker 01

  Google. And Sophie, for instance, is managers, co-writes.

• 35:39Speaker 01

  She's writing a, co-writing a song right now with the writer who wrote, "Do you believe in love?" You know, for Cher.

• 35:49Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 35:50Speaker 01

  What a small world. Yeah, it's just.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  And she's.

• 35:54Lewis Howes?

  No, Small World, that's, that's a Disneyland.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  It's a what?

• 35:57Lewis Howes?

  It's a Small World, that's a Disneyland.

• 36:00Speaker 01

  It's a small world after all. As a matter of fact, I recorded "When You Wish Upon a Star" for my solo record because of how emotionally Jiminy Cricket affected my life. I thought when that little insect in the movie goes, "Jean, when you wish upon..." I thought he was singing to me. I was 12.

• 36:22Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 36:22Speaker 01

  I went out there like in a religious epiphany going, "I can do great things." Goes, "Jiminy, your dreams come true." I went, "I can do it." And that's why I like, if you're not a bad guy, that's why I like guys like you. Because sometimes, some, someplace in Wisconsin, there's somebody who can, who's, who possibly might do great things and the only thing holding himself back is himself. And if you can just light that little fire in the belly that, you know, that,

• 36:59Speaker 01

  that puts the light on, they'll do amazing things.

• 37:02Lewis Howes?

  Did you ever doubt yourself?

• 37:04Speaker 01

  No.

• 37:05Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 37:05Speaker 01

  I couldn't afford it.

• 37:08Lewis Howes?

  So you never had any insecurity or self-doubt?

• 37:11Speaker 01

  Oh, hell no. But I'm delusional. I'm aware of it. I know that I'm not the best-looking guy in the world or the smartest or anything, but I will walk into any room and I will walk out with your girlfriend. There's no doubt in my mind. And part and parcel of that has to do with a mindset that's really important that I was only able to recognize many years later. You're a tightrope walker. And various ideas and ideals can come into your mind. Before you walk that tightrope, you might say, A lot of people have tried to walk this tightrope.

• 37:51Speaker 01

  There's a decent chance that like, oh, and you're here, you're hearing and thinking what you're saying. So all the negativity is contributing to the chances of you failing. And what do all great champions do? They psych themselves up. I'm gonna get out there and I'm gonna do, do, do, and who's listening? You're listening. I'm gonna win it. I am the champion. I am the greatest. I heard Muhammad Ali doing that, Cassius Clay at that point. I still think it's a cooler name.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  I never heard a human being talk like that publicly. I am the greatest. I'll sting like a butterfly. Like, who, who is this guy? Actually, he was stating fact. It's our problem that we thought, well, you're not supposed to say that. Why not? Why not set, why not set greatness in front of you and then work towards achieving?

• 38:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 38:48Speaker 01

  So I've spent time with Mike Tyson and I, you know, I hope he considers me a friend. I consider him a friend. And when you listen to Mike's story, there's no logical reason in the world why he would become the most dangerous man who's ever been in the ring. Nobody, yes, I know Foreman and, and everybody else. He's too short, his arms aren't long. He fuck like, you know, he hates it when people do that thing. All the negatives you can imagine, except his unwavering belief in himself and the will to win, the will. Doctors still talk about people who are on the deathbed and they can't explain why a week later they walk up and walk out the hospital,

• 39:33Speaker 01

  live another 10 years, except for the will to win. And there are other people who drop dead when they just give up. Yeah.

• 39:43Lewis Howes?

  How did you, how did you prepare your mind then or psych yourself up?

• 39:46Speaker 01

  There's no preparation.

• 39:47Lewis Howes?

  When you go on, when you went on stage, did you prepare, prepare or no?

• 39:51Speaker 01

  You just, the plane doors open.

• 39:54Lewis Howes?

  Go.

• 39:55Speaker 01

  What do you got to lose? In America, you cannot fail.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  You can't fail. If you lose all your money, you declare chapter seven or chapter 11, and you can start all over again. And when that first chick said, would you like to go out with me? And she says, no. Too many fish in the sea. There's tall, one's short, one's fat, one's thin, two. Just keep swinging that bat. You'll hit it. No means nothing.

• 40:23Lewis Howes?

  That's a good mindset.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  Well, what choice have you got?

• 40:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 40:27Speaker 01

  Soon as you say, no, soon as you say, well, I guess I'll give up. You're done.

• 40:30Lewis Howes?

  Why do you think so many people, though, live in self doubt or insecurity? And don't go for their dreams?

• 40:37Speaker 01

  There's no reason for it.

• 40:39Lewis Howes?

  But why do you think so many people live in that space?

• 40:41Speaker 01

  Well, it's safer. Your people are lemmings because it's safer in numbers. You know, you don't want to be that one person who said, but that's what leaders are. The leaders are the ones, you know, most people have a problem getting up on stage and speaking their mind because you will be judged. People don't like to be judged. Get over it. It's just like, it doesn't matter. Like, not everybody likes Jesus either.

• 41:08Lewis Howes?

  Did you ever care about being judged or being not liked?

• 41:11Speaker 01

  No, I think too much of myself.

• 41:15Lewis Howes?

  You think highly of yourself. It doesn't matter.

• 41:17Speaker 01

  Well, they're not qualified to have an opinion on yours truly. I'm qualified. I know where I've been, what I'm doing, what my dreams are, what I'm willing to work at. Anybody's other opinion is an opinion at first glance.

• 41:30Lewis Howes?

  Why do you think so many people care about other people's opinions? Because you don't, it sounds like. But why do you think so many of the world?

• 41:38Speaker 01

  Precisely, I could give a fuck.

• 41:40Lewis Howes?

  Right. But why do so many people care about others?

• 41:43Speaker 01

  It's safer. It's safer to be in a group. And, you know, when it's time to put Frankenstein on fire, when the guy didn't do anything, you know, there's a mob, you know, mob mentality.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  You don't even have to say anything. You can just let the mob carry you. It's tough to be that, but those are the leaders of the world.

• 42:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 42:07Speaker 01

  And they don't have to be the most qualified, by the way. Some of the people I see on television using Christ, you know, they talk, they're hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. Some of them are not very bright people, but they have this.

• 42:28Speaker 01

  Presence.

• 42:33Speaker 01

  If you take a look at the most powerful people in history, good and bad, they weren't super tall. They were usually pretty short guys.

• 42:43Lewis Howes?

  They had a presence.

• 42:44Speaker 01

  Excuse me?

• 42:45Lewis Howes?

  But they had a presence. Yeah.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  Some, some illogical belief in themselves.

• 42:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 42:52Speaker 01

  Whether it's Caesar, or Hitler, or Napoleon, they have no right to have this, you know, and

• 43:04Speaker 01

  some of them are real bad guys.

• 43:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 43:06Speaker 01

  Small people with, but on the inside giants, giant bad guys and giant good guys.

• 43:15Lewis Howes?

  I'm curious, with all the, you know, experience, the travel, the people you've met, who in your mind is one of the greatest musicians or the greatest leaders in the world that you've met? Or seen? Let's talk, keep it in the music world. Who's in the top in the music world that you're like, man, that guy or that gal's got it, or that group has got it. Beyond yourself and Kiss, who else have you seen or met or watched that you're like, wow, they really have it?

• 43:42Speaker 01

  Well, clearly the Beatles are beyond, above and beyond anything that anybody's seen in music over oh, 200 years, easily, not since the Renaissance, which is how you say it, not the Renaissance. You have to understand, they only existed seven years. And they came from a place that was a pool filled with liver, liver pool. Where nothing ever happened, high unemployment rate, no experience, no resume.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  Know nothing. And yet. Uh, I wanna hold your hand, um, what she loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that last chord, that minor ninth is as sophisticated a chord, if you know about music. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That thing is almost like a jazz chord. Hmm. Unheard of in, in rock music. And, okay, look, I'm gonna give you an, uh, something you'll be able to understand. Satisfaction is one of the great songs.

• 44:55Speaker 01

  Takes about forty minutes, forty seconds to get to the first thing. I can't get no. Yeah. Or anything. Sunshine of your love. I did it backwards, it's a.

• 45:14Speaker 01

  Takes about fifty seconds to get. I've been waiting so long and all that. Hmm. On and on and on. The Beatles. I just wrote a new song. What is it called? Uh, it's called Help. How's it go? It goes like this. Help, I need somebody, help. Not even an introduction, nothing. Got another one for you. Uh, what is it called? It's called Yesterday. How's it go? It goes like this. Yesterday, I got.

• 45:39Speaker 01

  Got another one for you, it's called Michelle. How's it go? Michelle, my. Got another one for you, it's called Hey Jude. Not only does it be, begin with Hey Jude, the word hey. It's before the music, right? Before the music. Yeah. Hey Jude, and then the chords come in. Those are what's called perfect songs. Not only that, but.

• 46:06Speaker 01

  The title of the song is the first word of the song. It's the most memorable song, and it's the last word in the song. Yesterday, last song, cause I believe in yesterday.

• 46:21Speaker 01

  Who writes songs like that? It's undeniable, they're, they're writing them. McCartney, especially, by far is the most successful songwriter in all of recorded history. There have been over a thousand different artists who've recorded just yesterday.

• 46:43Lewis Howes?

  Did you get to spend some time with them?

• 46:45Speaker 01

  With Ringo.

• 46:47Lewis Howes?

  What was that like?

• 46:49Speaker 01

  Well, there are two stories. In the Cher days, she used to have these disco roller skating parties where all the celebrities would go. And I didn't care. Not even, I mean, I appreciate you're lucky to be a celebrity, but oh my God, it's Ursula Andrews. I didn't care.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  I don't mean to be dismissive. Sure. Just, oh, there's that person from that commercial TV show.

• 47:17Speaker 01

  And I'm sitting, because I didn't, you know, Jews on roller skates is hilarious. So I didn't. I just sat on the sidelines watching them. Sat on top of the bowling, anyway, on the side with my legs going like this. And as everybody's roller skating, and then I saw two teenagers coming towards me. So I got up, because one of them's wearing a Kiss t-shirt with rhinestones. They're about 15. And they came up and one's got a, and a big fave, you know, speak with an English accent. Oh, it's okay. Sure. Doing an autograph. And then I look up and in back of them, Ringo Starr starts coming towards them. And I'm, you know.

• 48:03Lewis Howes?

  And you're big at this time. You're like Kiss is massive at this time.

• 48:06Speaker 01

  Oh, massive. But the Beatles, I couldn't shine their shoes.

• 48:11Speaker 01

  So Ringo comes up, puts his hand, puts his arms around them, and he says, I hope me boys aren't thinking, Ringo's sons are asking me for an autograph?

• 48:22Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 48:22Speaker 01

  To slap their little putz faces and say, how dare you talk to me. Your father's a Beatle. It happened again. We were playing, oh, one other time, we were having a party up in the Hollywood Hills, and Ringo had a LA manager at that time, gunner, Eric Gardner. And Shannon, my wifey and I are saying, and I'm eating salads. I hate salads. And I'm eating salads, and Ringo's coming up to say hello. And he sent me a birthday, said, oh, happy birthday, Gene. If you can't tell me, can't say how much that means to me. And I'm eating salads, so I give her a thing. And he comes up to me, and I'm much bigger

• 49:05Speaker 01

  than he is, so I didn't know what to do. So I picked him up. And his feet are dank. Ringo's about five, six, five, I don't know, or maybe five, I'm six, two. So I picked him up, you know, because I wanted to hold, I don't know what else to do. I didn't want to shake his head.

• 49:21Lewis Howes?

  Excited, yeah.

• 49:22Speaker 01

  And I'm smiling, I didn't even remember what I'm talking, and he said, would you put me down? So I put him down and he walked off. All right, and I'm smiling, looking at Shannon, she goes, you got Godzilla sized.

• 49:36Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 49:39Lewis Howes?

  Salad in your teeth, yeah.

• 49:40Speaker 01

  Like a big thing sticking out, I'm like, his face is right here. And, uh,

• 49:49Speaker 01

  yeah, just get over yourself, no matter who you, if you're the pope, I know you gotta poop, just like I do.

• 49:55Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 49:56Speaker 01

  Nobody's, I don't have that hierarchy thing. So I've met everybody from His Holiness to Dalai Lama, to Presidents Clinton and Bush and everything. And they've achieved greatness in their field, but we all fart.

• 50:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What have you, what have you learned about fame? That you wish everyone knew?

• 50:19Speaker 01

  If you become famous, not always, but by and large makes a good living. The rest is how you can handle it or not. Because

• 50:34Speaker 01

  there are, I would say lots of famous people, rappers, a lot of rappers, who surround themselves with yes men and yes women. A posse, so that, and I admire rap, don't misunderstand, so that when you go someplace, you have that cushion of support. So it says publicly, I am somebody.

• 50:59Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 51:01Speaker 01

  Whereas if you didn't have the fame, they wouldn't hang out. They're parasites and vampires. They're only around you because you have money in favor of it. And they get free booze and free chicks and free all that stuff. They're using you. You're using them also to say, look, I'm somebody. So why do rappers, a lot of rappers, some sports guys, why do they go to clubs with a group? To advertise that they're somebody. I won't, I won't play that game. I drive here myself. I wipe my own ass.

• 51:35Lewis Howes?

  You have no pasta. Yeah, you came alone here.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  No, I'm just happy I can uh earn a living, a good living.

• 51:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 51:42Speaker 01

  And the rest doesn't mean anything.

• 51:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I mean, you've made a lot of money, though, at this point.

• 51:47Speaker 01

  What's a lot?

• 51:48Lewis Howes?

  Made a lot more, ninety nine percent more than most of people in America, probably, right? Like the amount of money you made.

• 51:53Speaker 01

  I would say that's true. Ninety nine percent more, yeah.

• 51:56Lewis Howes?

  So you've made a lot.

• 51:57Speaker 01

  What number is a lot? Cause it's all relative.

• 52:00Lewis Howes?

  Of course. What, what is driving you at this season of your life?

• 52:04Speaker 01

  To make more money.

• 52:05Lewis Howes?

  What's driving you to make more money when you have made ninety nine percent more than most people?

• 52:09Speaker 01

  As an athlete yourself, if you've broken the, if you're the fastest human being on two legs. And after all the cameras are out and the chicks are gone and the awards are gone and the money people got, you're just there by yourself. Do you wake up at the crack of dawn the next day and try to break your own record?

• 52:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 52:29Speaker 01

  Of course, that's what made you a champion in the first place. So I'm gonna be seventy six, I'm seventy five now, I don't know about you. But the race is closer to being over than the beginning.

• 52:43Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 52:44Speaker 01

  I don't know about you, but when the, it looks like the race line, the finish line is coming, I run faster. Hmm. Don't you?

• 52:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, to finish, finish strong.

• 52:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, what are you gonna do? Just or sit back and watch somebody else's ballgame as they go by? No. That's if you appreciate life. If you love life, man, oh, man. I'm, I'm glad every day I can. Have a hot fudge sundae and a good back rub, a lap dance every once in a while. And then you die, that's all.

• 53:18Lewis Howes?

  That's it, yeah. Gee, this has been really powerful. We've been going for a while now, a lot of fascinating stories. I wanna, I wanna close with one final question with you. Before I ask the question, I want people to follow you, Gene Simmons on Instagram.

• 53:32Speaker 01

  Oh, I hate that.

• 53:34Lewis Howes?

  Where do you, where should we go follow you?

• 53:37Speaker 01

  Oh, gene Simmons dot com.

• 53:38Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 53:39Speaker 01

  You can do Instagram, but my kids take care that I never go on.

• 53:42Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 53:43Speaker 01

  Thirty seconds of somebody watching, thirty seconds of somebody showing how they can pick their nose and.

• 53:49Lewis Howes?

  So gene Simmons dot com has got all your information, because you're going, you're doing the solo tour. You've got different stuff, different businesses, projects.

• 53:56Speaker 01

  Home company and.

• 53:57Lewis Howes?

  All sorts of stuff.

• 53:58Speaker 01

  Restaurant chains and a lot of stuff.

• 53:59Lewis Howes?

  Crushing it still, you're finishing, you're going strong. Go start strong and finish strong. This has been fascinating, interesting, but I have one final question for you, and that's what's your definition of greatness?

• 54:13Speaker 01

  You will never reach greatness. You shouldn't think of it that way. The hunt is always what it should be about, not to kill. Once you kill something, or once you've finished the, you know, it's fine, but it's fleeting.

• 54:30Speaker 01

  But when you, when your blood's pumping, your heart's pumping, and it's always about the hunt. That's what life is about. And I'd like to think the very last breath I take is gonna be like, yeah.

• 54:45Speaker 01

  Been there, done that. In fact, I know what it's gonna say on my tombstone. Thank you and good night. Because I would imagine to lots of tombstones, I wish I could've, would've, should've, could've, and all that stuff. No regrets. Kissed a few girls, had a great family, made a good living, provided jobs for people, gave to charity and stuff. I was good for this planet. I made the planet just a wee bit better than it was before I was here. In fact, wouldn't it be great if all of humanity, and there's about eight billion of us before we drop dead?

• 55:29Speaker 01

  If we could make the world just this much better times eight billion, imagine the profound difference it would make. You don't have to give everything away, just little bits.

• 55:41Lewis Howes?

  Gee, Gene, thanks for the fascinating conversation.

• 55:46Lewis Howes?

  I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy. And if you're looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in your life, and you want to stop making money hard in your life, but you want to make it easier, you want to make it flow, you want to feel abundant, then make sure to go to makemoneyleasybook.com right now and get yourself a copy. I really think this is going to help you transform your relationship with money this moment, moving forward. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes

• 56:30Lewis Howes?

  with me personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.