928 Daymond John on How to Close any Deal and Achieve Any Outcome

“You’re the only one that has a blueprint for yourself.”QUESTIONSHow do we negotiate with our mind to achieve something? (5:16)Where do you think you’d be if you weren’t a father? (10:06)Do you think it’s better to focus on one thing or diversify? (12:05)Who has taught you the most in the last 11 years of Shark Tank? (17:35)Who is someone you’ve been a shark with that impressed you over time? (20:00)Why do you need another book? (24:31)What’s the best negotiation where both parties won the most? (32:06)What was the thing that was the hardest thing to forgive in your life? (39:41)YOU WILL LEARNThe mindset shift Daymond had when he got cancer (3:15)The main reason Daymond chose to be on Shark Tank (14:35)What a powershift is (16:25)How staying scrappy helps your business (19:21)How much we are already negotiating in day to day life (26:00)How Daymond built FUBU as a massive brand (29:23)The ratio of profit to keep to yourself when starting a business (33:36)Why constantly keeping educated is so important (38:00)If you enjoyed this episode, show notes and more at http://www.lewishowes.com/928 and follow at instagram.com/lewishowes 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 928 with New York Times bestselling author and the Shark Tank master Daymond John. 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. Benjamin Franklin said, "An investment in knowledge pays the best interest." Welcome to this episode. I'm super excited about this.

• 0:43Lewis Howes?

  We've got my man Daymond John on who's got a lot of knowledge and he's learned a lot over his years of turning a $40 budget into FUBU, a $6 billion fashion game changer. And throughout his career, Damon has continued to be an entrepreneur in every sense of the word. He's not only a pioneer in the fashion industry, but a shark on the four-time Emmy Award-winning Shark Tank, a New York Times bestselling author, branding guru, and highly sought-after motivational speaker, and also one of the best in the world at telling dad jokes. He loves to tell dad jokes every time I see him, and he's got some good ones on here today.

• 1:26Lewis Howes?

  So in this interview, we talk about Damon's new book and purpose behind sharing information about building wealth, the most profitable deals he's made on Shark Tank, the biggest lesson he's learned from other investors on Shark Tank. Damon also shares a story he never has before about his relationship with his father and his sisters. This was inspiring. That and so much more. Very excited. Make sure to share this out with your friends. LewisHowes.com/928. Text a friend who might be entrepreneurial-minded, who maybe has got a side hustle or business, or who is thinking about starting something on their own, or they just want to get some more inspiration and they're a big fan of Shark Tank. Make sure to text in this link, LewisHowes.com/928.

• 2:11Lewis Howes?

  And I'm so excited about this one with my man, the one and only Damon John.

• 2:22Lewis Howes?

  Well, welcome back and one of the School of Greatness Podcast. We've got my man Damon John in the house.

• 2:26Daymond John?

  Thank you, brother.

• 2:26Lewis Howes?

  I think this is the third time you've been on.

• 2:28Daymond John?

  I think so. And, you know, you moved.

• 2:30Lewis Howes?

  We've moved, we've upgraded.

• 2:32Daymond John?

  You're blowing up, baby.

• 2:33Lewis Howes?

  We're building it up, we're shifting the power.

• 2:35Daymond John?

  You are, you are.

• 2:36Lewis Howes?

  Creating the power shift.

• 2:37Daymond John?

  Like a full staff when I came in here.

• 2:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, something like that.

• 2:40Daymond John?

  I don't know if those are props, but...

• 2:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you never know.

• 2:42Daymond John?

  Yeah, you never know.

• 2:43Lewis Howes?

  Just trying to impress you.

• 2:43Daymond John?

  Yeah.

• 2:45Lewis Howes?

  I appreciate you, man. It's been a journey for you. I saw you in Greece, I guess, a couple of years ago.

• 2:49Daymond John?

  When I was getting married, you were randomly there in Greece.

• 2:52Lewis Howes?

  Randomly there. I saw you, you had posted something on Instagram, I was like, "Oh, I'm here. I wonder if you're at the same place." And we're at the same, like, club or something.

• 3:00Daymond John?

  Yeah, yeah, it was fun.

• 3:01Lewis Howes?

  And you also have been through some stuff in the last couple of years.

• 3:05Daymond John?

  I have, I have. I've been through, yeah, all my life. I think all of us, everybody watching, you too.

• 3:10Lewis Howes?

  Right, of course.

• 3:11Daymond John?

  We get to see what, you know, what life has for us and doesn't have for us.

• 3:15Lewis Howes?

  But you went through some health stuff in the last couple of years.

• 3:19Daymond John?

  I went and got an executive physical, which a lot of people don't know what that is, you know, because usually we get physicals and I go to the doctor, he grabs something on me that's hairy and tells me to cough.

• 3:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:31Daymond John?

  Yeah, and that's it. Then I had a little nodular. My thyroid, I went to go and get it removed. It was a one-hour surgery, turned to three and a half hours of removing what I didn't know at the time was stage 2 cancer. The doctor knew what it was. It was the size of a golf ball, but thank God it was the slowest growing cancer, which is thyroid cancer. But if you don't treat it, it can go to your lymph nodes and then move to your brain. And when they sent that rock that was in my throat, when they sent it away to get tested, it was about two weeks until I would get the actual test. So I had to really negotiate with myself. And I went to, I'm not going to call it a dark place, but this is reality is that I said to myself, "Am I prepared to die?" And I said...

• 4:15Daymond John?

  You know, listen, I've lived, I lived, I lived the life of ten men and women, right? My oldest girls are beautiful, they're old, older now, my twenty-seven and twenty-two year old, they're, they're great contributors to society. My ex-wife raised them really well. My mother, let me be, let me be selfish, I don't wanna see her die, right? So maybe, if I die before her by something that was not in my power, I got a young daughter, she's three years old, guess what? She won't even remember me. She won't remember me. And then my, my wife, my current wife, is super hot. She's gonna have another man with no problem after she gets over whatever it is. So I, I said, let me start, let me think about unraveling the businesses that I have, spending more time with my kids,

• 4:58Daymond John?

  and really accepting that whether two, five, or ten years, I won't be on the rock no more, right? But then the other negotiation was, no, no mother should bury her son. Um, my two oldest girls, I wanna still be around to protect them, and maybe I'm gonna have grandkids one day. My littlest baby, she needs to have the best father, uh, who loves her the most, that can be there for her. And, my wife is super hot, and I get to go to sleep with a super hot woman every night of my life. And so, so one week out of the two weeks waiting for the diagnosis to come back had passed. But after I decided and I negotiated with myself, what's my why, why am I doing this? Um, what am I willing to put in to fight this thing?

• 5:42Daymond John?

  I forgot I even had it. I forgot that.

• 5:44Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 5:45Daymond John?

  Yeah, in, in the one other week that I was, when they finally, the doctor finally called me, and he told me that it was cancerous, but he said, let me come and check your lymph nodes and everything else. I had forgot that I even had, I, I forgot that I was even waiting for the call.

• 6:00Lewis Howes?

  How'd you forget it?

• 6:01Daymond John?

  I was so focused on resetting my goals and adjusting them, my goals have always been very aggressive. Resetting them, adjusting them, telling the ones that I love how much I love them, and understanding that, you know, they loved me and they needed me. And I just started looking at all the, the best things in my life, the, the people that I get to motivate, the, the fact that a little brown boy who's dyslexic from Queens with no money, no nothing, came up in the world, and, and hopefully I can empower the next little brown boy, little brown girl, or anybody of any color, culture, or sexual preference to be. Not the next David John, be the next Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, Oprah Winfrey, or President Barack Obama.

• 6:42Daymond John?

  If I can, if I can, if I can do that, then maybe that's what my life was, you know, that's what, that's what God put me on this earth for. So it was a power shift. It was a mental power shift that I had to do myself. And I've, I've always done that over the course of many years of my life, but I didn't realize that I was, there was a method to what I was doing. And so, when, um, when I, when I met a couple of people, it happened in a very short period of time, and they were telling me, "I can't get nowhere in life," or "I don't have money, I have this and that." And I realized, the only difference between me, them, or any of us is what we negotiate through life. Hmm. Right? If we're not born in a silver spoon, and how many born with a silver spoon in our world? Five percent? Two percent of the world? Very few. Two percent of the world.

• 7:23Daymond John?

  So the rest of us have gotten to a level of success, or broken the cycle in our families, or even just become a better person by purely negotiating with themselves and then with others. How do we negotiate with our mind to achieve something we've never achieved? Yeah, so, the first thing to achieve is, why do you want to achieve it? Like, what is your outcome? Many of us walk into the room, even into the room, we're talking to ourselves, and they're not honest about the outcome. What is the outcome? Are you, why are you going through the motion? Is it because society has told you that that's what it should be? Or is it that your parents always wanted that from you? Or is it that you have been neglected in some way, and you're trying to please a bunch

• 8:08Daymond John?

  of people that you can't stand? Or is it that you want to change the world? Is it that you know that you being healthier is gonna be able to be around in your family's life much longer, or you're gonna be able to stop some social injustices? Like, what is your why, first of all? That's the first step. Figure out why you want that. That's the first step. I, I always use this example, is, but people always say, "Well, I wanna be a millionaire." Well, what are you gonna do when you get a million dollars? What are you gonna do with the money? Some people go, I'm just gonna keep making money. Well, how are, okay, you're gonna be a millionaire. So if if over sixty five percent of the Lotto winners are broke three years after winning Lotto, same thing with athletes.

• 8:44Lewis Howes?

  And football players, yeah.

• 8:45Daymond John?

  And fo- football players, three years out of league. They didn't know their why. The football player knew his why, or, you know, he knew his why of, I wanna get that ball or run that play. I wanna become part of a championship team.

• 8:57Lewis Howes?

  Cause I love it, or cause it makes me feel, it's fun, or.

• 9:00Daymond John?

  I love going to the gym. I love, I love, I love, I'm there for competition. You know better than I do because obviously you are an athlete. But it was, i- if you don't know your why for a million dollars, well, when you get the money, you gonna buy a Bugatti? You gonna buy ten cars?

• 9:14Lewis Howes?

  And then what?

• 9:15Daymond John?

  Yeah, but, but then you just have the Bugatti, right? So now what else you need, right? Are you gonna buy ten cars? Are you going to

• 9:23Daymond John?

  move to Bali and live off thirty thousand dollars a year for ten years? Carve canoes, save the turtles and invest in some stocks because stocks is gonna average out twelve percent every year? And you're gonna turn the six hundred thousand dollars into, uh, whatever the case is, and then when you come back, like, what are you gonna do?

• 9:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:40Daymond John?

  Yeah, right, right. Are you gonna buy investment properties and keep doubling down? Many people go through life without their why. And so when they're working at nine to five that that they're sick of, they're going home and complaining and, and you know, I, I, I forgot what I was, I was watching a show where a girl was, she was like, she was now living in nature, but she said, I live in Ireland and I was fighting every weekend in clubs and bars and I realized I was working and I was so miserable, so that was my release. So I was working to fight, cause I was so damn miserable with my life. And then she started to find causes that she liked. She stayed the job, but she would go home at night and put some time into causes that she liked. And she got able to get out of that circumstance and move to someplace else. And now she's

• 10:24Daymond John?

  doing what she loves. But people don't know their why.

• 10:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What's your why right now? You've been doing Shark Tank for what, 11 years now? Seven, 11 years?

• 10:32Daymond John?

  Going 12 years now.

• 10:33Lewis Howes?

  You've been investing in a billion businesses, helping entrepreneurs grow. You've got, you know, amazing kids.

• 10:38Daymond John?

  Yeah, so, so my why is, as I said before, first of all, you know, is to take care of my family and my, my wife and my, my youngest daughter. Cause my oldest daughter, daughters, when, when, when they were born, I was poor. And all I knew was, I gotta go out and make as much money as I can to give these, to get these girls in an area where they're more protected, where they can have a good education and have a medical and, and things in case something happens to them. And to break the cycle in my family of people who were just average people. My mother helped break that cycle by being one of the first to go to college. And me, I'm gonna break that cycle. Next, but then I said to myself, with the little girl, now that I have the resources

• 11:23Daymond John?

  available, it's more, how much love can I give her? Cause I never had experienced the wanting to come home purely for love. I, I was just so focused on trying to make money because if these, if I didn't, if I wasn't successful, then like most parents, I'll sleep in a refrigerator box on the street if I have to, to make sure those girls had just one place to live. So that's one of my whys. Also, you know, I've been on a show for 11 years that has changed the way that people have understood or, or, or get to educate themselves on being entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs. I'm invested in various amount of companies. I'm these peoples, you know, they allowed me to invest in their dreams, so who am I to give up?

• 12:05Daymond John?

  And also, I'm on the Petco board and Petco Foundation, you know, saving animals. I wanna stop human trafficking. I, I have much more to do. And if I have a public platform that I can come and sit with you, or go on GMA and stuff like that, and I can help change people's perception of. Whatever the case is, sex, gender, religion, whatever the case is, to make them realize that if I can do it, they can do it, then then I'm doing my job, you know?

• 12:29Lewis Howes?

  Where do you think you'd be had you not had your two oldest daughters? Do you think you'd have been as hungry to go earn, make, build a business, earn money, grow? Or you think like, okay, well, I've got enough money for me?

• 12:41Daymond John?

  I don't know, you know what? I was worth many millions of dollars by the age of thirty years old. I was absolutely broke and poor and sleeping on the ground at twenty-seven. On the ground in my house.

• 12:53Lewis Howes?

  How old were you when you had your daughter, your first daughter?

• 12:56Daymond John?

  Twenty-seven, twenty-six.

• 12:58Lewis Howes?

  Got you.

• 12:58Daymond John?

  Right?

• 13:01Daymond John?

  And because of my daughters and my ex-wife, I think that they leveled me to some extent because you don't give a thirty-year-old guy from the hood millions of dollars in the bank at thirty years old. Because I think I would have, I never tried cocaine or any of that stuff. But if I didn't have my girls, I probably would have been a huge supporter of cocaine because it looked like it was fun with the people having it. So I think that they governed me in a certain way.

• 13:27Lewis Howes?

  A positive way?

• 13:28Daymond John?

  In a very positive way, and it made me also it made me also want to live, to leave my daughters a legacy. I wanted them to be proud of their father. So I refrained from doing and having a lot of the temptations that I've seen a lot of people fall fall short and get caught up in it. Nothing wrong with that, we're all human.

• 13:48Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 13:49Daymond John?

  Yeah.

• 13:50Lewis Howes?

  So I've interviewed a lot of people and there's one side of the spectrum where the successful entrepreneurs say, you know what, Louis? The key to growing your business is going all in on one focus. That's the key, right? That's what some say.

• 14:05Daymond John?

  Yeah.

• 14:06Lewis Howes?

  But there's others like yourself who've invested in every business in the world, it seems like, and seen lots of them grow and been successful in that way. Do you feel like, is that just like your creative nature where it's like you want to invest? This is your part of your path right now where you want to invest in lots of brands because you did so much in one thing for so long?

• 14:26Daymond John?

  No, I think I'm more towards the person here.

• 14:31Daymond John?

  So when I invest in brands and companies, I invest in them because they're, I'm allowing them to, they're allowing me to be part of their dream, but I'm also learning from them, which is in return allowing me to go back to my special skill set and improve it. So, I'll give you-

• 14:48Lewis Howes?

  So you're learning from the people you invest in a lot?

• 14:51Daymond John?

  I'm constantly learning, every single day. So, in Power Shift, I highlighted my investment on Bamba socks. Now, these guys are the number one sock, the number one investment in Shark Tank history. The only, the only, the ring who did not get an investment when it did really well-

• 15:09Lewis Howes?

  Did a billion dollar-

• 15:10Daymond John?

  Did a billion two sale.

• 15:12Lewis Howes?

  Crazy, right?

• 15:13Daymond John?

  Yeah, and, and, and, and good for Jamie.

• 15:15Lewis Howes?

  And you were there when-

• 15:16Daymond John?

  Yeah, I, I said no, and you know, Jamie ended up becoming a guest shark one time, and he said, he said, when he came in the tank, he was asking too much money. And, but, but I believe that because we tenderized him like that, and he went out and raised money, I think we deserve 5%, but that's just, I'll, I'll leave it up to him.

• 15:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 15:34Daymond John?

  But I think that, that, I, I sent him an email every other day saying, just 5%. Alright, I'm, I'm only go four and a quarter, but-

• 15:40Lewis Howes?

  But, but the socks-

• 15:42Daymond John?

  But the socks-

• 15:42Lewis Howes?

  It's the best investment you made.

• 15:44Daymond John?

  And it's the number one, it's the number one product in Shark Tank history.

• 15:47Lewis Howes?

  Really? In terms of how much it's grown or-

• 15:49Daymond John?

  How much it's grown and how much it's grossed. Now, I want to make sure that you want to, because I know you interview a lot of people. So if you ever interview the underachievers that sit next to me in the tank, I want to make sure that you remind them-

• 16:02Lewis Howes?

  That you're the number one investor.

• 16:04Daymond John?

  I am King Kamehameha on the tank. Alright, just make sure it was clear. But, um, let's give you that example.

• 16:11Lewis Howes?

  What was that deal? What was that deal and how big has it grown?

• 16:14Daymond John?

  Uh, they've done over $200 million, I think it's $280 million. More importantly, they're very, so their deal is a sock, and every time you buy a pair of socks, they give a pair away to- The homeless because they have a big challenge. That's cool. And we don't normally talk about the number. It's more important that we've given away thirty million pairs of socks, right? That's pretty cool. Thank you, thank you. And it's really, it's really, you know, Dave and Randy's company. And they, they've done it all. Um, I, they've gotten very little to almost no advice from me because they're so great. Yeah. But I'm gonna give you an example on the negotiation. They come into the tank. The only shark that doesn't want clothes is somebody who has ten clothing companies and eight are dead. I, my, my, my reason for being on a tank beside investing in other people is to diversify my portfolio.

• 16:58Daymond John?

  So when I talk to a retailer, I go, well, I'm already taking up real estate in the clothing area. I want real estate in electronics area, I want real estate in lotion, dah dah dah. The last thing I want is socks. Also, I have, I don't know, twenty thousand units of socks that I can't sell. You know, when I, when I can't sell socks, I just send people over to people's houses, they steal one. Yeah, yeah. And then you have to buy a pair because you just think you lost it, right? So I still can't sell it. Plus, if I do the deal, I'm the logo whore. You can't, if anybody in this room, we're in this building, were wearing Bama socks, you couldn't tell. So how do I get the advertising out of it? But they managed to make me understand that today's generation wants to give every time they purchase, instead of at the end of the year. They want impact. They want impact. They, and they don't want to buy from people who are just making money.

• 17:43Daymond John?

  They want to know, what did you do for somebody else? So that's one thing I learned that I applied to all my businesses because you couldn't do that before social media. You could, but. You can't get the word out that much. And then plus you had to advertise off of people's hardships, right? You wouldn't have self-generated content of people saying, thank you, right? So I learned that. I also learned that because the consumer purchased and was part of a movement, they talk about it at the dinner table, at the water cooler, and that's your advertisers. You don't need the traditional form of advertising because people want to brag when they're doing something well. And then last but not least. They were showing me how to sell directly to my consumer and not being at the mercy of a retailer who still doesn't know what they're doing.

• 18:28Daymond John?

  So they shifted the power in the room to get me to do a deal.

• 18:33Lewis Howes?

  So you weren't interested?

• 18:34Daymond John?

  I wasn't interested.

• 18:35Lewis Howes?

  Everyone else was.

• 18:36Daymond John?

  Everyone, no, not all, not everybody else was interested, but I was the last shot to be interested because I'm too jaded by the fashion industry. Lo and behold, I do the deal and that's what a power shift is, being able to know your target, know what's beneficial for that person, know where you will draw the line and know, you know, really know how to relate to that person and communicate with them.

• 18:55Lewis Howes?

  What is it that they said that shifted the power inside of your mind and say, okay, I gotta get into this?

• 18:59Daymond John?

  Well, they showed me that the technology on the socks were really good because they didn't have the toe, the seam in the toe, when me being a manufacturer, I didn't know how they did that at first. It was a simple change, but I used to get irritated in toes when they're doing that. Um, they then, but more importantly.

• 19:14Lewis Howes?

  You have to put it on a certain way.

• 19:15Daymond John?

  Yeah, of course. More importantly, they showed me that the data they received from their consumer was able to give them the ability to keep selling their consumer and keep talking directly to them and that they no longer were at the mercy of if a retailer makes the best decision or puts your socks out over here or advertises your socks or discounts them or anything else, right? So they were showing me how to control the business. It's very much like content, sending it out and getting to know a dashboard of your consumer. And I learned so much from them, but it was, it was them understanding that, Damon, I'm gonna take you out of the old way of you doing business and move you into the new way of doing it. And guess what? If it doesn't work out, we're gonna do another business together and we're, we're gonna make some money and, or change the world and more than likely have some fun.

• 19:58Lewis Howes?

  That's cool. Who has taught you the most in the last 11 years of this show?

• 20:02Daymond John?

  Them.

• 20:03Lewis Howes?

  Them?

• 20:03Daymond John?

  They have. I learned, I learned, I, you know, I joke about my fellow shop, but I definitely learned from them.

• 20:07Lewis Howes?

  Is that just because they pay you the most every month? You get a check every month?

• 20:11Daymond John?

  I see the business operating. I see, I see them, I see them being laser focused. I see a lot of things that they do. Uh, they have probably taught me the most.

• 20:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Who was the, someone that you didn't invest in that taught you the most? Whether it be like a, a good lesson or a lesson you're like, okay, that's not what, that's what not to do.

• 20:29Daymond John?

  Somebody that I didn't.

• 20:32Lewis Howes?

  Or maybe someone inspired you, but you didn't see a right fit for you and they taught you something.

• 20:38Daymond John?

  Uh, you bet. Listen, I learned, I learned, I'm not saying it to be warm and fuzzy. I learned from every single one of these entrepreneurs how they operate their business or how they fail. A lot of time when they fail, it rea- it, it, it confirms theories that I have. Um, because, you know, whenever I fail, I look at checklist of all the things and I go, why didn't, why did I do this? This isn't, this isn't, this is not what I do.

• 21:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:01Daymond John?

  Why, why did I not take my own damn advice?

• 21:03Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:04Daymond John?

  You know, so, um, I can't name just one of them, to tell you the truth. You know, but, you know, I, I, I look at entrepreneurs like, uh, Jeff Bezos and learn and go, as big as you are, you are affecting the world and you will still be scrappy enough to say, "Hey, Amazon workers, you wanna make a couple of extra dollars when you're going home, you can take a package home." And you let, why is that beneficial? Well, first of all, the worker gets to drive home and takes home a package and makes more money. You, you're a worker of Amazon, so Amazon trusts you with the box.

• 21:34Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 21:35Daymond John?

  And Amazon saves on shipping.

• 21:37Lewis Howes?

  Like takes a package home that you bought for something?

• 21:39Daymond John?

  No, no, meaning...

• 21:40Lewis Howes?

  Just take anything you want?

• 21:41Daymond John?

  You, no, take it and drop it off.

• 21:44Lewis Howes?

  Oh, drop it off, someone in your neighborhood?

• 21:45Daymond John?

  Yeah, wherever. Hey, hey, I gotta drive two mile, I gotta drive ten miles, but, I looked in the system and seven houses on the way, the ten miles.

• 21:53Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 21:53Daymond John?

  Let me, let me...

• 21:54Lewis Howes?

  So you can make extra money doing that?

• 21:55Daymond John?

  You can make extra, yeah.

• 21:56Lewis Howes?

  That's pretty smart. I'd be picking up whole truckloads.

• 21:58Daymond John?

  And it wins for everybody, right? But when I look at a, when I look at an entrepreneur like Jeff Bezos who does stuff like that, I go, "He's still scrappy. He's still thinking," you know what I mean?

• 22:08Lewis Howes?

  All this money in the bank, but he's still trying to maximize it.

• 22:11Daymond John?

  Yeah, yeah, he's still scrappy.

• 22:12Lewis Howes?

  Who's someone, um, that you've been a shark with, whether it be a consistent, uh, shark or someone who's come and gone, that maybe you weren't sure about in the beginning? But the power shifted over time where they did something or you did something to renegotiate the relationship, where you started doing more together, you started to have a respect more for...

• 22:36Daymond John?

  You know, and nobody's ever asked me that, and I don't think I've ever even told her.

• 22:40Lewis Howes?

  One of the school greatest, you know?

• 22:41Daymond John?

  Yeah, that's true. I didn't even tell her, but she's in the book, Bethany, Bethany Franco, so... I had met Bethany with one or two other Sharks, I forgot when it was, like on backstage at GMA. And I had already seen the show a couple of times and, you know, of course, they're drinking and cursing at each other. And we say hi and she just like brushes us off and walks by. And, and I remember saying to myself, I don't, I don't really like that woman. I don't get a good feeling from her. So when they casted her to come on as a guest Shark, I said, I said at first, listen, I don't want to be on the panel with her because I already have this kind of like attitude to her and it may come off wrong because it'll look like I'm either beating up on a new Shark or I'm being too aggressive to a female.

• 23:25Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, wow.

• 23:27Daymond John?

  By mistake, they scheduled me to be on with her.

• 23:30Lewis Howes?

  By mistake or by?

• 23:31Daymond John?

  No, no, no, on purpose. No, by mistake, by mistake. They scheduled me to be on per- oh no, here's what I'm, sorry. We all met at one place for the Shark Dinner prior to production. I was like, you know, she seems all right, whatever. And then they scheduled me to be on with her. And when I was on with her, brilliant person. Like, she wasn't about herself. She really cared about the entrepreneur, which we all do, but we thought, I thought, I'm not gonna speak for others, that she was gonna come on and be self-absorbed and do the reality show thing from where she's at. She made fun of herself. She was very, you know, she had a humbleness, a humility. And then when we left that set, she went directly to Mexico for the earthquakes and various other things.

• 24:16Daymond John?

  And she called all her friends and said, if you got a private jet, do me a favor. Pack it up for, I got, I got supplies and food and whatever the case is. I need these jets for Puerto Rico, for Mexico. And she spent the next month going out and really being there hand to hand and giving people stuff. And I fell in love with her after that.

• 24:36Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 24:36Daymond John?

  And, and, and she's like somebody that I, I super admire, you know.

• 24:40Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that's cool. Have you guys done deals together or are you?

• 24:43Daymond John?

  We haven't done a deal together, but, and we're so busy, we can't always catch up, but, you know, she's offered me to stay over at her home in the Hamptons and, and my wife loves her and she's just, she's just an amazing individual that I, I walked in the room at first and I was like, she's an asshole.

• 24:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you wrote her off and then now you're inspired.

• 25:01Daymond John?

  Now, and now she's inspired, yeah.

• 25:02Lewis Howes?

  And who is the person who's taught you the most, whether it be a, a consistent Shark or someone who's come on for a couple of episodes?

• 25:12Daymond John?

  No single shark has taught me the most, um, cause I learned from all of them. They're all really, really, they all are really fascinating in their space. I think Barbara, though, sometimes is the one that can influence me the most because, you know, I love marketing and branding.

• 25:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 25:30Daymond John?

  But I'm a one-trick pony, you know, I'll get it on a celebrity, get it on a famous show, or get it on whatever cases, and then I'll make inventory. Barbara will come with ideas out of nowhere.

• 25:41Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 25:42Daymond John?

  Out, I mean, she pulls it out of the air, and they're brilliant ideas, and they're not, they're very rarely are they similar.

• 25:49Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 25:49Daymond John?

  Yeah, they're not a one-trick pony thing. She's, she's just...

• 25:52Lewis Howes?

  So she'll think of a creative idea for a specific thing and not just say, "Oh, I've got this celebrity who'd be great for it every time," or...

• 25:58Daymond John?

  Correct. She is, she's just, she's a genius when it comes to that.

• 26:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, we had her on. She was great.

• 26:01Daymond John?

  Did she touch you?

• 26:03Lewis Howes?

  No comment.

• 26:04Daymond John?

  Okay, yeah. She's a predator. Full, full predator.

• 26:08Lewis Howes?

  She's a sweet woman.

• 26:09Daymond John?

  Her husband's right there when, and he's usually like this.

• 26:13Lewis Howes?

  No, I think I actually posted that she was on, and I think that was the first thing he texted me.

• 26:17Daymond John?

  Yeah, she'll touch, she'll touch you.

• 26:20Lewis Howes?

  She's great, though. I like her a lot. Um, so power shift. How did he?

• 26:26Daymond John?

  What are you laughing about?

• 26:28Lewis Howes?

  I'm just remembering your text to me.

• 26:31Lewis Howes?

  I think you had a dad joke in there as well.

• 26:35Lewis Howes?

  What I like about this, I went through a lot of this.

• 26:38Daymond John?

  You did?

• 26:38Lewis Howes?

  And, yeah, I usually don't read anything.

• 26:40Daymond John?

  I was gonna say, yeah.

• 26:41Lewis Howes?

  But I went through a lot of this, and I'm trying to find the bookmark that I had on one of these pages that I really liked.

• 26:46Daymond John?

  Is this folding it into the bookmark? No.

• 26:47Lewis Howes?

  Um, there's one here somewhere. I'll find it.

• 26:51Daymond John?

  Yeah.

• 26:52Lewis Howes?

  But what I like is that every, the end of every chapter, you talk about these kind of like, uh, little bullet points.

• 26:58Daymond John?

  To break things down.

• 26:59Lewis Howes?

  To break things down, and I relate that in this book. Now, you've done a bunch of books in the past.

• 27:03Daymond John?

  Yep.

• 27:03Lewis Howes?

  Why do you need another book? What's, you know, it's like...

• 27:06Daymond John?

  So, you know, I think that's a good question. I don't write books to write books, and this is my third one in five years, and me being dyslexic, it is not an easy. I know, feeling bad. It's really not easy. Um, I think that a lot of people out there are misinformed. They need, they need, um, they need information. And, uh, I think if you look at some, you know, a lot of your books, my books, and various other people, now, we happen to know each other. But I believe that if you read a vast amount of things and you start to see that all these people don't know each other, but they're all saying something very similar, and if you're applying that to your life, that's how it happened to me by reading, uh, Napoleon Hill thinking of growing rich, or The Greatest Salesman of Babylon, or Blue Ocean Strategies, all these.

• 27:47Daymond John?

  And I started to see these things that come, come together. It gives you a, a, uh, it gives you more power to go out and execute. So, the reason I wrote this book is because a lot of people that came up to me and started saying, I can't take control of my life. Or they, or I've heard people say, or, or act like somebody else is supposed to issue them power, or somebody took power away from them. And I realized that people always thought negotiation, first of all, you're negotiating every minute of your life. You're negotiating to get into the bathroom before your husband or wife, or getting your child on the school bus. Take yourself to the gym, whatever. Yeah, you're negotiating, right? Eat something healthy. And I, and I, and I realized that people always thought negotiations purely transactional. When you get to one, you get to the table, I'm sitting across from you, right? And it's not. It's about building influence.

• 28:31Daymond John?

  Then it's transactional, and the transaction needs to be what's in it for the person across the table, not what's in it for you. And then more importantly, it's, it's developing that relationship and letting it grow over the course of time and doing 10, 20, 30, 40 other deals, or having 10, 20, 30, 40 other people telling other people how great you are to do other deals. And people always thought that it was like that, so. Influence, yeah. Yeah, so I ended up putting in the book, all, a lot of people I respect, a lot of people you may have never heard of, but Pitbull's in there, Billie Jean King. I just texted Billie Jean before. And Bill, and Billie Jean, um, um, not Bill, Bill, Billie Jean King is in the book, and Billie Jean, what's the last thing? Tennis player, right? Yeah, but what's Billie Jean, um? Billie Jean. Marketing, um. Oh, Billie Jean. From San Diego.

• 29:17Daymond John?

  Yeah. Because I get, this is

• 29:19Lewis Howes?

  I'm getting mixed up, yeah, yeah.

• 29:20Daymond John?

  Yeah, this is

• 29:20Lewis Howes?

  Billie Jean King is the tennis player.

• 29:22Daymond John?

  Right.

• 29:23Lewis Howes?

  Billie Jean is who I just texted.

• 29:25Daymond John?

  Right.

• 29:25Lewis Howes?

  Billie Jean is just a name.

• 29:26Daymond John?

  I call him, I call him, yeah, I call him Billie Jean, but.

• 29:29Lewis Howes?

  I texted him the page I was reading in here and I have the, the other book I have is marked up. Now I'm remembering the two things I wanted to talk about in here.

• 29:39Lewis Howes?

  One is a story about 6X. Now you don't give yourself enough credit about how creative you are. Because you said you're a one trick pony. You'll just find a celebrity.

• 29:46Daymond John?

  Yeah.

• 29:47Lewis Howes?

  And put the merch on them and put it on a big show or something. But something you talked about was a story on how when you were getting started out, you started developing 6X t-shirts.

• 29:55Daymond John?

  Yeah.

• 29:55Lewis Howes?

  With your logo on the back. In fact, that was brilliant because it's the biggest real estate in the club.

• 30:00Daymond John?

  Yeah, so, so, so what happened was.

• 30:02Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing.

• 30:03Daymond John?

  And so, so, so I guess that's a good point. So the story goes that I didn't have, I didn't have a lot of money for shirts. And I wanted to get, I grew up in Hollis, Queens and everybody's from Hollis, Queens. L O K O J Run DMC Ja Rule 50 Cent, uh, Salt and Pepper, Tribe Called Quest.

• 30:19Lewis Howes?

  J O, whatever.

• 30:20Daymond John?

  Yeah, well, J O is not from Queens.

• 30:22Lewis Howes?

  Where's she from?

• 30:22Daymond John?

  She's from the Bronx.

• 30:23Lewis Howes?

  Bronx, yeah.

• 30:24Daymond John?

  But a lot of these people from Queens, but I couldn't, if I gave you a shirt, you, everybody was approaching you. It's just like going up to an influencer. They didn't want the shirt. I didn't want to give it to the, the kids with the funny mustaches and the skateboards because they would just wear it once and throw it away.

• 30:38Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 30:39Daymond John?

  But I realized that the big guys.

• 30:40Lewis Howes?

  And the big celebrities were probably had it.

• 30:42Daymond John?

  Oh, oh, entourage. They had an entourage around. So what did I have to do? I had to build influence and how did I do that? Well, I had 50 shirts that I could buy. So I bought 50 5X and 6X shirts. I realized the big guys never had fashionable clothes to wear because all they had was like big black shirt, big white shirt, or they'd have to pay a massive amount of money to get it custom made. I bought 50 of these shirts. I handed them to all the big guys I knew. Where I would see, those big guys ended up being the guys in front of the red rope at a club. The guys who were the bodyguards for people. The guys who were just big billboards and joyous, right? And they would wear the FUBU stuff 10 times a month because they finally felt fashionable. What would happen tha- at that point is after the rapper saw it on these guys for about a year,

• 31:27Daymond John?

  the rappers would go, "Yo, what's up, man? Am I chomping at the mouth?" "Yeah, where's mine?" I'm like, "I couldn't get to you. Yo, you're too big of a star." "Man, I ain't trying to, I ain't trying to bother." "No, no, no, I wear it." Because then they would ask the big guy, who normally is like the bodyguard, and they don't, they don't have no, nothing to say to them, they'd be like,

• 31:42Lewis Howes?

  "Hey, where'd you get that?"

• 31:43Daymond John?

  "Where's that little dude at?" And the big guy'd feel good. "I'll see if I can get you."

• 31:46Lewis Howes?

  "I know a guy."

• 31:47Daymond John?

  Yeah, "I'll see if I can get you on." And that is how I started building influence internally, you know, with my customers.

• 31:52Lewis Howes?

  That's smart. Yeah, when I read that, I was like, "You're more creative than you think."

• 31:56Daymond John?

  No, I get it, but, but I generally narrow myself down to, I'm a numbers person, and at the end of the day, it was numbers to me. It was like, they'll wear it 10 times every one time. I got, somebody else will wear it. There's not many of them, and there are a select number of group around a select number of people.

• 32:10Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 32:10Daymond John?

  I was more, more about the numbers, yeah.

• 32:12Lewis Howes?

  When I read that story, I was like, "Okay, who are all the assistants of the most iconic people that I want to know, that I want to interview?"

• 32:18Daymond John?

  Exactly.

• 32:18Lewis Howes?

  And what can I send them that will make them be reminded of me? And every time I want to call or say, "Hey, is, you know, is Oprah ready for the interview?" Or whatever.

• 32:27Daymond John?

  Yeah.

• 32:28Lewis Howes?

  It's like, they might push it in a little bit.

• 32:29Daymond John?

  And, and I take it even a step further, you know, some of your digital courses, you give to them, you give to a bunch of people, you say, "You're a part of a select community. I know you're the gatekeeper of these people, but I know that also if you find value in this stuff, not only am I enriching your life, but sooner or later you may say to the people that you work for, if it's powerful enough, and saying, "If you don't say it to them, then guess what? Maybe you'll give me more information on how to make it better for you, and give me some real criticism that I can do, because you're seeing everything across your plate."

• 32:58Lewis Howes?

  Right, I like that.

• 32:59Daymond John?

  Creating a select community.

• 33:00Lewis Howes?

  The power of success. I like that story. And then I read, I think it was in the middle of the book, in one of the end parts, I think you were doing research from like all the top universities that said that you should lead with the offer first.

• 33:13Daymond John?

  Yes.

• 33:13Lewis Howes?

  When you're making a negotiation, where I've always heard that you want to wait for someone to make the offer.

• 33:19Daymond John?

  That is a very common.

• 33:20Lewis Howes?

  Right? Wouldn't you think that? It's like, you never want to show your cards.

• 33:23Daymond John?

  Yeah, I, I, they say that the first, the one who says the number first is the one that loses, and things of that nature. I actually like the negotiation part of laying it on the table. Here's where I'm at with this, here's what I seek.

• 33:37Lewis Howes?

  Here's what I want.

• 33:38Daymond John?

  Here's what I want and here's what value I could bring to you. And I think it just takes the, it takes the question out of the room, you know.

• 33:46Lewis Howes?

  But what if you could have gotten more?

• 33:49Daymond John?

  Well, then you could have gotten more, but what if, what if, what if you say something and somebody will, we're not even in that ballpark. Right? You can always upsell. You can always say, here's, here's where I would like to be and then somebody, and here's what I'm willing to give. They'll be like, ah, well, we want more than, I'd be like, okay, but I gave you where I was at, but it cost me more. Cost me more time or energy or product or inventory or whatever the case is or relationships, you know?

• 34:12Lewis Howes?

  Sounded like an online marketer, the upsell word here.

• 34:15Daymond John?

  Of course. Listen, you know, there's only, what do they say? There's only three ways to deal with a customer. Acquire a new one, upsell a current one, or make one buy more frequently. So, three ways.

• 34:24Lewis Howes?

  Recurring. Yeah, that's the best way right now.

• 34:27Daymond John?

  Exactly.

• 34:27Lewis Howes?

  What's the best negotiation you feel like you did? Not where you gained the most, but where both parties won the most? Not where you're like, I got more.

• 34:36Daymond John?

  When I negotiated my deal with Bruce and Norman Weisfeld over at Samsung. I negotiated out of ignorance, but I got the best deal. At first, I, I was a young kid. I was nineteen or twenty. They, they interviewed me, they heard about FUBU. They were interviewing various other people because they were thinking about getting into, they were already in the outerwear space, but they wanted to get into the denim, ready-to-wear space. They interviewed a couple of people. Once I got interviewed, they said, we like you, we think we may do something with you. I called the guys for six months, they never picked up the phone. This is before cell phones out. I felt insulted and rightfully so, but also they were looking at other opportunities. It's not their job to answer my call again after that, but I think they should have said, hey, man, we're not interested.

• 35:19Daymond John?

  I go to the trade show, the Magic Trade Show in Vegas. They're sitting at a table or, and, and one of the big buyers from like a store was like, holy shit, is that the FUBU guys? And he talked to his, and they said, you better get those guys. Right. Now all of a sudden, my phone's on fire the next day by these guys. I'm like. Hey motherf- Remember me? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, talk to me, fool, pimpin'.

• 35:44Lewis Howes?

  You know what I'm saying?

• 35:44Daymond John?

  Yeah, I was hungry at the time, and-

• 35:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, sure. That's exactly how you talk to me.

• 35:49Daymond John?

  That's how I was like, yo, baby boy. So, um, so a normal, like, a designer deal, I'll call it, in, in fashion, is generally like, if I'm gonna put up all the money and all the resources, we're gonna split this thing twenty-five percent to you, or thirty percent to you, and seventy percent to me, because I may have a little inventory I gotta get rid of, you don't have any personal guarantees at hand, I gotta deal with all this shit. I'm taking a lot of risks. But you're making clean money. But because they pissed me off so much, I had said, listen, if I come in tomorrow, we better sign a deal, and it better be a real distribution, fifty-fifty even split deal for the distribution. You guys had all the distribution financing, this and that, and then I'll go ahead and then- and out of ignorance, that became the deal.

• 36:33Daymond John?

  We've been partners for, you know, twenty-five years, and we've made massive amount of money, but we always felt where, that we could see eye to eye, and it was just out of that ignorance, but, um, I wouldn't suggest you calling people motherfuckers and all that stuff. Yeah, I wouldn't suggest that, but, uh, it happened to work in my favor, and, um, yeah, and that was the best deal that I've ever received, which helped. Now I had a powerhouse behind me that can manufacture and distribute my clothes, and I created a global brand with all, with all my partners.

• 37:01Lewis Howes?

  That's pretty inspiring.

• 37:02Daymond John?

  Yeah.

• 37:02Lewis Howes?

  What do you think's the greatest thing holding you back from the next level of Damon? Achieving your dreams, of achieving your success, results, fulfillment, what's holding you back?

• 37:14Daymond John?

  I think time, because I know that I can do anything and accomplish anything I want, but when will I start a more aggressive part of that journey? You know, so it's like, it's kinda like, alright, uh, I'm gonna start working out next month? You know what I mean? I know I'm going to be in shape by so forth, but I'm gonna start next month, and then I'll be like, ah, one more month, one more month. Don't get me wrong, I'm still knocking out a lot of other goals.

• 37:37Lewis Howes?

  But then a year goes by, and you're like, oh, I said I was gonna do this-

• 37:40Daymond John?

  Right, and then, and then I go. Right, but it's the time of preparation to get me ready, 'cause once I go, like when I forgot about the cancer, once my mind is shifted, I'm done, there's nothing, nothing that can stop me. So I look at it like that. That's the biggest thing we hold in the back because it's kind of like you resting up before you run a marathon. And there's so many different marathons in our lives. There's the marathon of health, the marathon of spirituality, relationships of, am I doing enough to to stop some of these atrocities out in the world because I'm a public person? So a lot of those things are, you know, that's really it. It's the time.

• 38:19Lewis Howes?

  If you could imagine the greatest version of yourself walking towards you. Imagine Damon, perfect version of you that's literally walking up towards you.

• 38:29Daymond John?

  Yeah.

• 38:29Lewis Howes?

  What would that, what would he look like? What would his energy be? When you're looking at yourself.

• 38:36Daymond John?

  His energy would be, he would be skinnier. His energy would be great. He would be, um,

• 38:44Daymond John?

  he would be kind, uh, but informative, but also stern and, and, and, and tell you when you're, you know, when, if you ask, uh, be very real with you about advice. Um, you know, I'm, I'm, I think I'm, I, I think I'm living the person that I want to be right now, you know? Um, I'm, I'm very happy with who I am. Yeah.

• 39:04Lewis Howes?

  Just gotta start working out a little more.

• 39:05Daymond John?

  Start working out a little bit more. Yeah, of course. But I'm getting old. What happens to my, blew my shoulder. I gotta, I gotta go and get some stem cells. Because that's the problem, right? It creates a vicious.

• 39:15Lewis Howes?

  Take time and you gotta heal and you gotta recover.

• 39:17Daymond John?

  Exactly.

• 39:18Lewis Howes?

  I get you, man. Um, well, a couple of final questions for you, and I think I asked you this last time, but I want to ask it again.

• 39:23Daymond John?

  Yeah.

• 39:24Lewis Howes?

  And see, we'll reflect back on and see if it's the same answers to that. This is called the three truths.

• 39:29Daymond John?

  Yeah.

• 39:30Lewis Howes?

  So imagine it's your last day on earth many, many years from now.

• 39:34Daymond John?

  Yeah.

• 39:34Lewis Howes?

  You're 500 years old. You're as old as you want to be, but then eventually you gotta go.

• 39:38Daymond John?

  Right.

• 39:39Lewis Howes?

  And you've accomplished everything. You've seen your kids grow up to do amazing things. You've done amazing things. You've written every book you want to write. The business has been successful, but you've got to take all the content you've created with you to the next place.

• 39:52Daymond John?

  I gotta take everything?

• 39:53Lewis Howes?

  The books, the, this interview, it's gone.

• 39:55Daymond John?

  Sure.

• 39:55Lewis Howes?

  Goes you through the next place you go to, right? The next world. Um, but you get to leave behind three things you know to be true from all the lessons you've learned that you would share with the rest of us here on earth. And this will be the only three things that we have to, to remember you by are these three lessons for our life, what I like to call your three truths. What would you say are yours?

• 40:20Daymond John?

  That I would leave with other people that they have to constantly educate, keep educating themselves. And that education means finance, health.

• 40:33Daymond John?

  Uh, you know, spirituality. Keep learning. Keep learning. Yep. Right. Number two is that they have to steal away time for themselves at any given moment with themselves and with their family.

• 40:51Daymond John?

  Because you never know when you're gonna leave or if somebody else is gonna leave you.

• 40:56Daymond John?

  And number three would probably be just really learn as much as you can to forgive and to love.

• 41:03Daymond John?

  I think, I think those would be the three. Why forgive? Because people are growing all the time and you may be, you may be in a situation where you have to forgive somebody who did something, but they didn't know what they were doing to you or whatever the case is and or you may, you, you wanna be forgiven as well, right? And how can you have love if you can't forgive, right? And so, you know, so whether it's with your family or whether with your friends or something else like that, the harbor and the hate and things of that nature will just eat you alive, I think. What was the thing that was the hardest for you to forgive in your life?

• 41:38Daymond John?

  Uh, my father left when I was 10 years old. I never would see or speak to him again. And he came back in my life, well, he's around, uh, about three years ago.

• 41:49Daymond John?

  And but I'm. You didn't speak to him until then? Right, cuz my, my sisters who didn't know I was alive found me when I was, so they're 27 years old. Holy cow. She found out that I was, I knew that they were alive, but they didn't know I was alive and now she's, now I love her to death and I have a new form of love in my life. I never knew how, I was, I was an only child. I never knew the love of a sister and a brother, right? You were an only child and now you have a sister and a brother? Now I have two sisters. This was three years ago? Yeah. You met them? Yeah, we hang out all the time. So for almost 40 years you didn't? No. What? Yeah.

• 42:23Daymond John?

  I forgave my father a long time ago by going, I wouldn't be the man that I would be if he was, yeah, if I didn't have to do that.

• 42:31Lewis Howes?

  That wasn't like true forgiveness, fully, was it?

• 42:33Daymond John?

  Yeah, it was in a sense. I mean, even now, I don't speak to him. I told him, I said, there was really nothing for us to really talk about. Like, you knew where I was all that time. But I'm also happy that you are, you raised these two women to be great women, and maybe when you got divorced from my mother, it was just a different time in the world where you were growing up. I mean, it's just what had happened, right? My mother, my mother also has lived a really great life with, you know, and she, so she wasn't suffering per se. I mean, of course, we suffered economically. But it was really about just not harboring something. If I see him, I don't have any ill will. Yeah, I don't have any ill will.

• 43:10Lewis Howes?

  You don't need to hang out with him.

• 43:11Daymond John?

  I don't need to hang out with him, yeah, you know. I think that that forgiveness was, was something that everybody should, should get to understand, yeah.

• 43:20Lewis Howes?

  When did you feel like you were able to finally forgive and like go with that kind of anger or frustration towards him? How old were you?

• 43:27Daymond John?

  Towards him? Well, that happened once I became, no, no, I, I, I, I forgave him probably about, probably about when I was 25. I didn't have anything at the moment, still no money, nothing, but I realized that I still had all this opportunity in my life and that that's just what it was. People come, people go, you know what I mean? I held nothing against him in that case, you know. I could have found, I, I could have hired a detective and found him for the last 20 years very easily.

• 43:55Lewis Howes?

  You chose not to.

• 43:56Daymond John?

  I chose not to. I mean, he made a conscious decision to do that. Whatever led him to that decision was up to him. I have, you know, I, you know, and that's, that's one thing to think about with power shift. You know, whatever, whatever the case is, whatever circumstance you're in, if you're watching right now, that's the circumstance. You know, listen, I was born, I was born black and dyslexic. Neither one of those are gonna change, right? So let me get over it and do what I gotta do. So when you're making excuses that dad left, or I got left back in school, or I didn't have any money, or I'm black, or I'm short, or I'm a woman, or I'm, I, I, I'm LGBT, it is what it is, right? So now you gotta move forward, and now you have to first of all negotiate with yourself and understand why are you worth something and why are you special, because every one of us are?

• 44:41Daymond John?

  And then how are you gonna share that with other people, make them go? Fuck, I want you in my life because we're gonna, we're gonna make some money, we're gonna have some fun, or we're going to help grow a, grow a great family together.

• 44:51Lewis Howes?

  Make an impact, yeah.

• 44:51Daymond John?

  Yeah, that's, that's what it is.

• 44:53Lewis Howes?

  I love this, man. That's a great story.

• 44:55Daymond John?

  Yeah, I, I, you know what, I never told anybody publicly.

• 44:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's a powerful story. Thank you for sharing. Make sure you guys get this book. I got one question left for you, but make sure you guys get Power Shift. Powerful book. I truly don't read many books, but I went through this, went through a lot of it. Didn't finish all of it, but I went through a lot of it. I really like the stories.

• 45:12Daymond John?

  Yeah.

• 45:12Lewis Howes?

  Really like the stories, really like, um, the lessons. Simple too, you know, dyslexic guys like us, we need to make simple things.

• 45:19Daymond John?

  You don't, yeah.

• 45:20Lewis Howes?

  End of the world. You can't complicate it.

• 45:21Daymond John?

  I can't concentrate on the overly super-scientifical, technical books.

• 45:26Lewis Howes?

  That's it. Transform any situation, close any deal, and achieve any outcome. Like Daymond John, make sure you check it out. Uh, you can get it anywhere books are sold. Is there also a link online we can get this or with any other resources?

• 45:38Daymond John?

  Amazon, all that stuff, um, yeah, I mean, everywhere.

• 45:40Lewis Howes?

  And, uh, where, where's this?

• 45:42Daymond John?

  There's gonna be an audiobook too, just so for the people like you and I who...

• 45:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, are you reading it?

• 45:46Daymond John?

  No. The audiobook?

• 45:47Lewis Howes?

  It's hard. Are you reading it out loud?

• 45:49Daymond John?

  No, no, no, I, this is my third audiobook and, um, Sway.

• 45:53Lewis Howes?

  Oh, he's reading it.

• 45:54Daymond John?

  He, he reads all my books. I come on there, I come, yeah, exactly. I mean, this guy is a legendary, uh, broadcaster. But I, I'm, I'm sprinkled throughout the book.

• 46:02Lewis Howes?

  That's great.

• 46:03Daymond John?

  So the first, you'll always hear me say, listen, here's the first chapter. By the way, the reason I'm not reading it is because you would be here for nine weeks. So...

• 46:09Lewis Howes?

  It took me like six days to read it. Even though I wrote it, it's like over and over.

• 46:13Daymond John?

  It is painful, man. It is, it is, it is challenging.

• 46:15Lewis Howes?

  That's great, man. Well, I acknowledge you, Damon, for, uh, for constantly showing up. For making the decision to choose, uh, love, choose forgiveness, choose life. Even when the situation with the cancer was a little scary, for choosing your family, for, uh, just constantly showing up with a big heart, man.

• 46:33Daymond John?

  I try, man.

• 46:34Lewis Howes?

  And I acknowledge you for your dad jokes as well. The final question, what's your definition of greatness?

• 46:40Daymond John?

  Oh, the definition of greatness is, uh, I, I think knowing that you had challenged yourself and you've gotten to wherever you are in life and you left nothing on the field. And that you accepted who you are. And sometimes unfortunately, you could be ugly and, and, and you may have foul intentions and stuff. I can't, I, I'm not here to want to give you a moral code. I just want you to be the best or the worst unfortunately that you want to be because you're the only one that has a blueprint for yourself and you're the only one who's gonna have to look yourself in the face when your, when your time comes.

• 47:16Lewis Howes?

  Amen. Damon John. Thanks, brother. Appreciate you, man.

• 47:19Daymond John?

  Thank you.

• 47:23Lewis Howes?

  There you have it, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this episode with The Shark, the New York Times bestseller, the inspiring entrepreneur, the motivational speaker, Damon John. If you enjoyed this, especially the last 15 minutes, ooh, I love how Damon really went deep and opened up at the end. For me, that was the most inspiring part. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend, lewishouse.com/928. Text someone. Send it to a group chat. Send it to anyone you can think of that would be inspired by this message. A friend, a family member, someone who loves Shark Tank, an entrepreneurial friend, some crazy person with a crazy idea, whoever it may be that you know, send them this link or just copy and paste the link over on the Apple Podcast or Spotify Podcast

• 48:08Lewis Howes?

  and share it with them right there. Again, a big thank you. If this is your first time here, welcome to the School of Greatness. We bring you the greatest minds in the world from all walks of life to help you live a better life. This is our mission, to impact humanity in living a better life. And I thank you for taking the time to be here. If you've been here many times before, you know the drill. Thank you so much. Your time, your attention is valued. I'm so grateful for you. I appreciate you so very much. As Benjamin Franklin said, "An investment in knowledge pays the best interest." So congratulations on making a great investment in yourself. Knowledge, free knowledge to help you continue to pay dividends in the future.

• 48:50Lewis Howes?

  Hope you feel loved today. I hope you feel supported. I hope you know you are not alone. So grateful for you and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.