BILLIONAIRE Reveals Key Habits of THE RICH! Do This NOW to Make Money & Build Wealth | Michael Rubin

Today, we have an extraordinary guest who embodies resilience, innovation, and the relentless pursuit of excellence. Michael Rubin, the CEO of Fanatics and a serial entrepreneur, joins us to share his incredible journey from academic struggles to building a multi-billion dollar empire. In this episode, Michael reveals how he turned early failures into stepping stones for success, the importance of surrounding yourself with the right people, and his unwavering commitment to making a positive impact through his philanthropic efforts. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a seasoned business leader, or someone looking to be inspired, Michael’s story and insights are sure to motivate and empower you. In this episode you will learnHow Michael Rubin turned early academic struggles into a successful business career. The importance of resilience and learning from failures in entrepreneurship. Strategies for building and leading successful teams. Insights into living a life of service instead of scarcity and competition. The significance of staying humble and continuously striving for excellence. For more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1624For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:Patrick Bet David – https://link.chtbl.com/1547-podChris Anderson – https://link.chtbl.com/1584-podJohn Maxwell – https://link.chtbl.com/1501-pod 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  So here's the question. When I was 16 years old and I ran out of money and the sheriff showed up at my house every day with a new lawsuit. And then I turned that near bankrupt experience into being the largest closeout company in the world. Was that luck? Or was that hard work and just unrelenting personality?

• 0:16Speaker 01

  Global sports company Fanatics, you heard of it? Yeah, yeah. Founder and CEO that's-

• 0:20Speaker 02

  Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin. Very, very, very successful business guy. We got a special guest in the building. Michael Rubin.

• 0:26Lewis Howes?

  One and only Michael Rubin, come on. What are the three things you think about of launching into a space? And how to really take over market share?

• 0:34Speaker 00

  Great question. I'm gonna let you into my brain right now. This is like something like-

• 0:38Lewis Howes?

  Fascinating.

• 0:39Speaker 00

  I've definitely never talked about. And it's fascinating to even examine it myself. I've got lots of companies trying to kill me. So like, that's my normal day.

• 0:45Lewis Howes?

  You're about to lose it all.

• 0:46Speaker 00

  I was about to lose it all. Most importantly, and this is the most important thing. Every failure leads to your next success. How do you make better luck? I think be a better human. That's the truth. Like, be a good human, you'll create your luck. Hard work and be a good human.

• 1:00Lewis Howes?

  What would you say are the habits of the millionaires, billionaires who are successful that you know were actually healthy over the ones that are empty inside?

• 1:09Speaker 00

  I'll give you one example that's jumping to the top of my mind for me, which is, I really, I don't think I've ever talked about before, but it's super interesting, is-

• 1:19Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guests. We have the inspiring Michael Rubin in the house. Good to see you, sir.

• 1:25Speaker 00

  Hey, good to be here.

• 1:26Lewis Howes?

  The legendary Fanatics parties that I've been to, Super Bowl parties, have been an amazing experience, I was just telling you before. But everything that I feel like you do, from the people I know who know you, and what I've seen from the outside looking in, and being at some of your events, you do it at a world-class experience with world-class people. So I just want to acknowledge you, first and foremost, for having a vision of excellence and for constantly striving to live up to that standard in everything you do. I'm sure you'll say, "Well, we've got a lot of work to do and we're not there," and all these different-

• 1:58Speaker 00

  So you know me well already?

• 1:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly what I was thinking.

• 2:00Speaker 00

  I already know. We haven't done- Yeah, we've got a lot of work to do and we're just getting started. But look, we always want to put our best foot forward in everything we do. And we never think we do anything well enough and we always want to keep figuring out how to do it better.

• 2:10Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. Well, it's inspiring to watch and-

• 2:12Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 2:13Lewis Howes?

  Congrats and everything. One of the things that I've seen you talk about- Is that you were really bad in school, you know, you didn't read that well, just like me, I was.

• 2:21Speaker 00

  I don't read that well today.

• 2:22Lewis Howes?

  I still don't either. I had a 740 on my SATs. I'm not sure if that was the worst than yours.

• 2:27Speaker 00

  Wow, I finally met somebody who did worse.

• 2:29Lewis Howes?

  Let's go.

• 2:30Speaker 00

  I got a 780.

• 2:31Lewis Howes?

  I don't know if that's.

• 2:32Speaker 00

  I feel great.

• 2:33Lewis Howes?

  I don't know if that's something to celebrate. But I couldn't get into college because my SAT was so low. So I remember feeling very insecure around my abilities, my lack of ability from school. And it affected my self-worth. And I wanted to ask you this. You dropped out of college at one point, struggled in high school, probably all the way through school. Did you ever feel a lack of confidence, an insecurity, or a lack of self-worth? Because of school? Or did you always have confidence to go after what you wanted in business?

• 3:03Speaker 00

  Honestly, not really. You know, for me, everything you said was right. I consider myself to be an awful student. I barely graduated high school. I went to college for one semester. I actually posted my, somehow they went back and found my Villanova report card. I had a 1.87 in the one semester that I went to school. I couldn't then and still don't really read to that. I haven't read a full book since ninth grade. I haven't really read part of a book since ninth grade. And so like, we all learn different ways. And for me, the one thing I was good at was business. And I always loved it and enjoyed it. So I always, you know, kind of put everything I had into that.

• 3:44Speaker 00

  And so being a student, failing in school or college, didn't actually bother me. Because I always just had this huge desire to just give it everything I had in business. And even having failures in that didn't bother me.

• 3:58Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 3:58Speaker 00

  Because I just felt like, whatever, you get back up and do it again. And you were an athlete. What happened when you, you know, when something goes wrong, you just work harder. And I just felt like I could always outwork, out hustle, you know, everybody else. And so. Like, a lot of people, you know, are taking, like, failure's never bothered me. I've dealt with it my whole life in different things and I just like, I'm always like, I can, whatever, I can overcome it. I can keep pushing through it and that's just my personality.

• 4:23Lewis Howes?

  But did you ever tie then your self-worth to your business success or your net worth? As it went up or sometimes if it went down or you had failures, did you ever tie it to that?

• 4:36Speaker 00

  Again, this sounds weird, not really. Like, I've been through, even in somewhat recent times, I mean, I almost got margined out, which means like pushed out of my company in 2009 during the financial crisis. And I was like near business death. And I thought it was fun. I'm like, this is a adventure, man. Like, I like this. Like, I like the action. And it just didn't bother me. Like, I liked more playing the game. And that was what I really, you know, got me excited was figuring out, you know, how to try to get more wins than losses, how to try to put my best foot forward.

• 5:13Speaker 00

  You know, I don't know. I'm not like, I'm a pretty thick-skinned person. I've always been that way. And maybe it's like, you know, different people grow up with different different ways. Like, my parents always beat on me to do better. Like, it was like, you know, they'd be like, and when I mean beat on me, like, hey, you can do better. Not physically beat on me. I had two parents that were amazing. You know, amazing parents. Both were, you know, one was a veterinarian, one was a psychiatrist, but they'd always say like, you know, nothing was ever good enough. They were always pushing me. And so, like, I had that attitude of like, it didn't bother me to, you know, be, you know, picked on, you know, have things go wrong. I had every learning impediment. Like, I had a speech, you know,

• 5:50Speaker 00

  tutor and this tutor and that tutor. Like, because I had all these things. Like, I was like, I had a lot of learning disabilities, you know, like before people knew what ADD was. I had the worst ADD as a

• 5:59Lewis Howes?

  Dyslexia.

• 5:59Speaker 00

  10-year-old. And, you know, I'm very dyslexic today. And so, but all this stuff for me, it's just like, I don't know. I just had fun, like, playing the game.

• 6:07Lewis Howes?

  So when you failed, did you ever, like, get down on yourself? Or did you look at it as an opportunity of what you can do better next time?

• 6:15Speaker 00

  So, always what you can do better next time. I think anytime I've had like a really bad moment, I just say tomorrow's a fresh day. So like, I could have a like, if I just like, if everything went wrong for me in a day, or like something really happened in business, or something I really didn't like. I'd always be like, alright, tomorrow's a new day. So it might feel bad in that night, but then I, and by the way, things always, if you get, and I don't sleep that much, but even like, sleeping five hours, like, it's a new day, you feel like it's, things feel like less, you know, intense, you just go deal with the issue the next day, so. What was the biggest loss you had in business, would you say? I've had so many. Really? Yeah. I mean, it started, my first big loss in business was at 16.

• 6:59Speaker 00

  That was my first real loss, and I grew up as a, you remember, I was an entrepreneur before being an entrepreneur was cool, before it was normal, before technology, I mean, so I started with a, you know, Ski shop, right? Yeah, people know the story, I started with a ski shop, and, and, and, by the time I was 16, I had the ski shop, so I started with a little ski tuning shop in my parents' basement, like, you know, first, a couple thousand dollars when I was 12 in business, then when I was 13, I did like 25,000 dollars in business, by borrowing inventory from other ski shops on consignment, paying them for it as I sold it. But I opened my first ski shop when I was 14. That's crazy. And I had like, I killed it the first year, 14, killed it the second year at 15, then I got cocky at 16.

• 7:44Speaker 00

  And the way the story goes is, it didn't snow that year, and when the season was, when the season was over, I had 80,000 dollars of inventory and 200,000 dollars in bills. Wow. And I literally got sued that, that off-ski season, that spring, probably 100 times. The sheriff used to come, I've told the story a few times, but it's actually amazing, like, the sheriff used to come to my house, every Monday through Friday, she'd be there with lawsuits, every Monday, like, I would, before school, "Hey, Michael, here are your lawsuits for the day," okay, from the hundreds of vendors that I owed money to. And like, I thought my world was over, and like, I was, like, I completely failed, and like, I was a disaster.

• 8:24Speaker 00

  And I ended up hiring a bankruptcy lawyer, who actually told me you couldn't, you had to be 18 to incur debt legally. Wow. I didn't know that. I ended up settling my debts for 38,000 dollars. It was the only time, you know, I ever went to my parents for money, and by the way, that was a ton of money to my parents. Borrowing 38,000 dollars was like, you know, a huge amount of money, and they said one condition, you go to college. Well, like, but you have to be a normal kid afterward, and. You tried. I did try, and so. Was it one semester or one year? Well, first, what happened was, good fortune, so I settled my debts for 38,000 dollars, and.

• 8:59Speaker 00

  Literally weeks later, another ski shop, because everyone was going bankrupt because it didn't snow that previous season. They went bankrupt, they had $200,000 inventory, got auctioned for $13,000. So I went, I bought that inventory at like a government auction for $13,000. I went back to my dad, I said, "Hey, great news, I'm gonna be able to pay you back the $38,000 more quickly, but I need to borrow another $13,000." He looked at me, he's like, "Are you out of your [bleep] mind? You wanna borrow another?" I'm like, "No." Like, you know, your mom and I lent you $38,000, which is a huge amount of money, so you would agree to go to college and like get out of this business thing that doesn't make sense. I said, "Okay, but I'm gonna probably go to prison because like I made a commitment to like a government auction of $13,000." So I went door to door to my neighbors.

• 9:42Lewis Howes?

  Come on.

• 9:43Speaker 00

  Knocking, "Hey, got a great opportunity for you, I need to borrow $13,000, but I'll be able to pay you back with a lot of interest. Someone lent me the money at $1,000 a week interest." Which I thought was a great deal, okay? Now I'm like, "This is amazing." So what I do, I got the Yellow Pages, and literally went to ski shops, start calling every ski shop, saying, "Hey, I've got these Dolomite boots, these DynaStar skis, these Rosinol skis." And I was able to sell $17,000 of equipment within like three or four weeks, pay back all of the money, I had like 80, 90% of the inventory left.

• 10:15Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 10:15Speaker 00

  And that, literally, three years later, I was the biggest buyer and seller of closeout skis and footwear, doing a hundred million dollars a year in business and making 10 million dollars. So my point is, near-death experience, almost going bankrupt at 16 to a 21, number one in the world of buying and selling athletic footwear and closeouts and skis in the world, all from that near, you know, disastrous failure. So, it didn't bother me, like I kinda like, it was a fun ride. When I was getting sued every time, it was just like, "Okay, like, great, if I go bankrupt, like, maybe I'm an idiot, I don't know, I'll figure it out." And so, none of that bothered me.

• 10:51Lewis Howes?

  It's also like, if you didn't have that failure, you wouldn't have had the... I guess the opportunity, you wouldn't have seen the opportunity of like, oh, I can go and buy these things at discount and then sell them from war in the future and build a business that way.

• 11:03Speaker 00

  Hundred percent. And that's the way life is. And that's why I really believe every failure leads to your next success. And so we have, you know, we have things that don't work out every day. And, you know, yes, I was sitting in a Fanatics meeting, going through our quarterly review and our commerce business. And the guy who took over our international business, who's just, you know, doing a great job, you know, went through three things he tested that all didn't work. He was talking about, great, this didn't work, this didn't work, this didn't work. And here's what I'm doing about it. Cause that's like part of how you grow a business. So people, a lot of people are scared to take risks and scared to fail. And then if you do that, then you never go anywhere.

• 11:38Lewis Howes?

  Right. Wow. But, you know, someone might be listening or watching and thinking, well, that's easy to do as a, as a teenager to take these risks. Because you got your parents to support you. You're living at home, you know, they're going to take care of you if you fall. But what about a big risk when you had a lot to lose? What was the biggest failure in your 30s or 40s?

• 11:56Speaker 00

  So I'll, I'll, I'll give you the best story I think of off the top of my head. So in 2009, during the financial crisis, um, I never, you know, my company was a public company called GSI Commerce. And I was not paid, you know, I was paid a pretty small amount of money on a relative basis to run the company. What I actually did was I borrowed money against my public company's stock. And then I invested in a bunch of different investments. And that was great from 99 until 2008 till the financial crisis. When the financial crisis happened and our stock, my stock went from being worth 250 million personally, to being worth 25 million over a few months.

• 12:38Speaker 00

  And then the banks went from lending 50% to lending 15%. So I went from being able to borrow $125 million to being able to borrow, you know, whatever, $3.7 million. I basically, it's called almost getting margin down to your company. Okay? So I, I remember, so I, I, at one point, the most money I owed, it was actually, you know, one of the big banks. I don't want to name them to not embarrass anybody. But, you know, I, I owed $50 million at peak and it worked great for eight years. And now they keep, you know, saying, hey, you got to pay the loan down. You got to pay the loan down because the stock's going down and the rate that Ovansby is going down. And I got the loan down to about.

• 13:15Speaker 00

  Three million dollars, fighting with everything I could, couldn't get it, I was done. I was calling all my friends, "Hey, can you, you know, can I borrow a million here? Can I borrow?" Because I was running a big business. No one had, in 2009, no one was lending anybody money. So it was like, I was getting no's from everybody. So I sold enough investments to get the loan from 50 million down to 3 million. 3 million, can't, I'm done. No one else will give me money. You had no more cash. No more, nothing. By the way, my net worth wasn't at this point, you know, maybe at a 10 million dollar net worth. Again, this is only 15 years ago. Wow. And my stock that was worth 250 was now only worth 25 million dollars. I couldn't sell it. And so the bank was basically going to sell my stock and basically throw me out of my company. Push you out of your company. Push me out of my company. There was one person who I seeded in their hedge fund and I invested and I had like maybe

• 14:00Speaker 00

  four or five million dollars with them. I called him 50 times to get the money back and they wouldn't give, they said, "If I give the money back to you, I have to give it to other investors." Right. And on the 50th try, me calling saying like, "Hey, man, I need this money back. Like, I'm going to get thrown out of my company." And the 50th try, he said, "You're so annoying, I'm going to give you the money back. Don't call me ever again." Wow. And I got the money back, paid the bank off. They were to start selling the stock the next day. Come on. I sold the company 18 months later for 2.4 billion dollars eBay. Okay? So. So how much was the company worth at the time? Because your stock was 250. It was, it was down to, the company was, it was down to 250 million. We sold it 18 months later for 2.4 billion. Wow. To eBay. And you were about to lose it all. I was about to lose it all. And I'm, you wouldn't have me here today if that happened, by the way.

• 14:45Speaker 00

  Wow. Because I wouldn't have then sold my company eBay, had that be a great transaction, buy back Fanatics, turn it into what it is today, which was just in the beginning phases. But my point is like, um, you know, that was just like, I was just unrealigned to, I just wouldn't quit. Wow. And the funniest thing about the whole thing, it was almost a little bit like psychopathic. Um, like.

• 15:07Speaker 00

  I was never, during the whole period of time, I was calm as a cucumber. Like, I remember my now ex-wife saying to me like, "Michael, are we gonna be okay?" Like, you know, like, had I got thrown out of my company, I don't know. I couldn't afford the house I was living in. I couldn't, like, you know. I'm like, "We'll be fine, don't worry about it." She's like, "Like, how are you sleeping?" I'm like, "Wow." You know, "I sleep my five hours, I'm good. My four or five hours, I'm good."

• 15:29Lewis Howes?

  What do you think, I mean, most people would be stressed out, anxious and worried, you know, if they lose a little bit, let alone losing almost all of it. What do you think were the three skills that you learned growing up? Whether it be from your parents, or, you know, sports, or whatever it was. What were those three skills that supported you through the growth phases, through the losses, through the high stakes, last minute, lose it all? All of that, what were those three skills?

• 15:52Speaker 00

  Well, I just want to tell you one thing I'm thinking about, then you're gonna have to ask me that again because of my ADD.

• 15:55Lewis Howes?

  Go ahead.

• 15:56Speaker 00

  You know, I have a question that I love asking people. And the answer's like 50/50, okay? And I, you know, look, when you're in business, wow, you meet a lot of really successful people. And I always ask people who really made it big, you know, who've made tens of billions of dollars. If you could, if you could be 10 years younger, in the same health and give up everything you had 100% of your money, would you? And the answer I get's like 50/50.

• 16:26Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 16:27Speaker 00

  My answer's 100% yes. I would give everything up I have, okay? To just be 10 years younger, because I feel like I could do it again tomorrow morning.

• 16:35Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 16:35Speaker 00

  Okay? Now, a lot of people look at me like I'm, like, there's a screw loose in my head. They're like, "How would you possibly give up everything you have to be 10 years younger?" For me, I'm like, "Okay, I'm 51. If I can go from 51 to 41, I'm in, take it all." Zero hesitation.

• 16:49Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 16:49Speaker 00

  So that goes to my mindset of like, you know, I can always figure out how to do it. And that's just like, you know, that's a, I don't know, I'm, I'm, while I'm humble, I'm confident from that perspective.

• 17:00Lewis Howes?

  That's interesting. Speaking of that, that question, I'm 41. If you could go back to 41 right now, or if you could give advice to your 41-year-old self, with all the wisdom, experience you have now, what advice would you give him?

• 17:14Speaker 00

  I give advice to my 41 year old self.

• 17:16Lewis Howes?

  Where were you at 41?

• 17:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was really just beginning and building Fanatics. I would say, I think I've always known you need to get the best people in the world around you to really, like, I've always known that, but I didn't always practice as hard as I do today. So it's the unrelenting skill of getting the best people in the world to work with, and then making sure they work really well together. Because you can get a ton of really smart people, but then they don't work well together. You play football, right? It's a little better than football, but like, go to a basketball court, get three superstars to work together, not always easy.

• 17:50Lewis Howes?

  That's tricky.

• 17:51Speaker 00

  Okay? And so, you know, to me, I think it would be like, don't just say you're gonna get the best people in the world, make sure you get the best people, and get them to work together. The other thing, if I can give myself advice, in a consumer business, everything starts with the consumer, or in our case, the fan. Make everything, like, we've always thought about the fan, but I think I wasn't, the same way, like, you said certain things, but you weren't unrelenting enough. To be unrelenting, everything we need to do needs to make the experience better for the fan. And we've delivered on that sometimes, and not delivered on that other times. And I think being unrelenting and delivering that, which is something now that I'm, it's, I have so much excitement about it, like, you know, I feel like every day's a new day to just be better at what we do, and there's so many things we can do better.

• 18:33Lewis Howes?

  Wow, okay, so those two things. How did you, over the last 10 years, how did you learn to enroll, attract, convince the greatest people to come work with you? And how did you get them to separate their egos and work together?

• 18:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, first, I think when you're going to get great people to work together, you need to make sure you don't, like, you need to make sure you get people that don't have egos that are too big. Because if people have, you know, Tom Brady always says to me, like, you know, there's, you know, I've heard him say this so many times, like, there's only so many people you can pass the ball to, okay? And people need to know their role, okay? So to me, you need to get people who want to do what they do, and you need to get people who want to work well together. And some people you could find are amazing athletes, or amazing business people, but maybe they're not gonna be a great fit to us. That, to me, is about backdoor reference checking.

• 19:27Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 19:27Speaker 00

  Because I'm always, you know, if I meet someone I want to hire, I've never, I've never asked somebody for a reference once in my life. Why? Because the world's small. I'm always, if I'm interested in somebody, I'm gonna find five people that know them. Not one, I'm gonna ask five people or 10 people. And I'm gonna figure out what I need to know about them. And figure out like, it's only what you, when you meet someone, it's like 50% of it is, you know, kinda,

• 19:49Speaker 00

  you know, what you see in that interview. The more important 50% is what you're doing backdoor referencing.

• 19:54Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. How do you, I mean, how do you find the right people, first off? How do you even recruit them or know where they are? And then what type of conversation do you have when you first meet with them? Where you want to get them to buy into your vision and be a part of your team or your company? What do you say to them? What's the vision conversation?

• 20:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, so to start with, I'd say we have a...

• 20:17Lewis Howes?

  Especially like a big executive, a big, you know, leader.

• 20:20Speaker 00

  So I'd say first, the world is really small. And so we're always able, like, whenever we've got a key role, we'll do two things. One, we'll generally run a search with an outside search firm or our internal search team. But then we'll also do a lot of work on that search ourselves. Because to me, if you just hire a search firm, you just do it internally without working it hard, you're gonna get a less good result.

• 20:43Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 20:43Speaker 00

  To me, if you work out of it, okay? And then you also, and then you also have great professionals doing it. You merge those two together, you're gonna get a better result.

• 20:51Lewis Howes?

  That's smart.

• 20:53Speaker 00

  Generally for me, look, at this point, I think it's us more trying to figure out quickly whether someone's interesting to us. And then if we think they're interesting to us, then we'll go to start selling them. So generally, if you're in a, if I'm trying to get to know somebody, you generally see, I ask you a thousand questions first. Then if I'm interested, I'll start selling you.

• 21:11Lewis Howes?

  Got it.

• 21:12Speaker 00

  And then if anyone's listening to this and they see me, you know, in an interview, they'd say, that's what you'll see. I go from like, asking a lot of questions if I'm not interested. I quickly get myself out, you know, extract myself from that meeting. If I am interested, then, you know, you'll hear me, you know, getting you excited about the opportunity.

• 21:29Lewis Howes?

  That's cool. That's really cool. The thing that I feel like a lot of people know about you, at least from the outside looking in, is that you are one of the most connected people in the world to other successful business leaders and billionaires. You know, the world's greatest athletes, artists, musicians, and cultural icons. They see this from your Instagram and videos that you have out there online. And if people have been to your parties, they see that as well. You know, I went to your party a couple of times. It was just, who's who of everyone is there. I'm curious, a lot of people desire to have fame, success, and money.

• 22:08Lewis Howes?

  But not everyone knows how to be happy and have healthy relationships and have a healthy relationship with themselves while they acquire those things. You've been around all the wealthy, successful, and famous people. What do you wish people knew about fame, success, and money that you don't think they truly know about?

• 22:30Speaker 00

  Well, I think, first of all, I'm very lucky to have all the exposure that I have to so many great, different, interesting people. For me, that's how I learn, right? Because I don't learn from reading, because I really don't read. Okay, I learn from listening. And that's what I enjoy the most doing is getting so many people with different backgrounds together and always picking up different things from people all day long, okay? And so that's my, if you say different people, everyone's got their strengths and weaknesses. That's my strength, that's my superpower is the ability to just like be a sponge to other, you know, interesting people around me. And, you know, that happens every day in my life, that I'm just picking up data points that make me better.

• 23:15Speaker 00

  You know, look, last week, I'm sure you saw, we launched with Travis Scott and Cactus Jack, our collab with Mitchell Ness and Fanatics. And like, just flying with Trav, and Trav's a good friend of mine, but flying with Trav from LSU to Texas and then Texas to USC. And just the questions I'm asking and the conversation we have, we're each learning. And he's doing the same thing for me, by the way, we're each learning from each other. And I'm doing that in every interaction, no matter what someone's background. And it could be someone who just started a job at Fanatics and, you know, and by the way, I learned so much from my teenage daughter about how they, you know, consume information differently than how I consume information. So I'm always just picking things up from people.

• 23:58Speaker 00

  But I think, so I start from the place of, I'm very fortunate to have such great exposure that teaches me what I learn every day. I'd say, what I would say is, Some people really struggle with it more than others. Like, look, I've had, you know, you know, some of the financial success. You know, I'm the least well-known person of a lot of people we do business with.

• 24:23Lewis Howes?

  For sure.

• 24:23Speaker 00

  You know, some of the biggest athletes, artists, celebrities in the planet. I think for some people, it's really natural and for other people, it's hard to deal with it. You know, for me, I'm just always paying attention to studying. And even, look, in the last few years, I'm probably more well-known. But for me, it's like, I'm humbled by it. Like, you know, anyone who wants to stop and ask me a question, who wants to, like, I'm just like, I know how lucky I am.

• 24:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 24:47Speaker 00

  And so, you know, but I think it is, I think for, you know, to answer the question directly that you asked me, I think for some people, it's really hard. It's an adjustment. It's these, lots of times, this stuff can happen quick, too.

• 24:58Lewis Howes?

  I know.

• 24:59Speaker 00

  So, look, you saw, you, I mean, you know, you played at a really high level.

• 25:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:03Speaker 00

  Athletic perspective, some people can deal with this great and others can't.

• 25:06Lewis Howes?

  What do you think it is about? I mean, I know you probably, you don't need to name, I'm not asking you to name names, but I know you know people who are billionaires and super famous that are happy, that are truly happy and grateful human beings.

• 25:17Speaker 00

  And a lot that aren't.

• 25:18Lewis Howes?

  And a lot, probably more, that are stressed out, overwhelmed, bad relationships, you know, constantly living in fight or flight or competition versus collaboration. What would you say are the habits of the millionaires, billionaires are successful that you know, who are actually healthy, which is probably a smaller percentage, over the ones that are, have it all, but are empty inside?

• 25:44Speaker 00

  So, I'll give you one example that's jumping to the top of mind for me, which is, I really, I don't think I've ever talked about before, but it's super interesting, is, and all of my good friends know this about me, and you know, you could get, a lot of people would say they know this about me. I want all of my friends to do great and do better than me in any way they can, because like, I'm living my dream.

• 26:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 26:08Speaker 00

  Okay? So, why would I know when I want to do great around me? A lot of people feel like they're in competition. And it's one thing, like, you're playing football, kill your competitor.

• 26:15Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, right.

• 26:15Speaker 00

  You're playing basketball, kill your competitor. If I'm in business and there's someone I'm competing against, that's a different story. Okay? But I'm talking about in life, I want my friends to do amazing. I'd say like, I have certain friends who are like, hey, if you could make X, or I could make 50 times that, I'd rather you make X, because like, I'm good and I'm happy and I'm having a great time and I'm living my dream. So I think it's, I think it's the healthy people want the best for the others around them. One of the things I see a lot of time is like cultures of like people trying to bring people down. I hate that. And I'm always, I'm always saying this to like my daughter, cause she's 18 and she's like, you know, she's, you know, developing the same way I'm still developing. I'm always like, you like, you want, they always be inclusive, you know, bring everyone together. Have people want to do great. You know, that's what I say is, is an interesting observation is a lot of people don't want people to do great around them.

• 27:00Speaker 00

  And that's like really weird to me.

• 27:01Lewis Howes?

  You think that's what makes them, you know, stressed and miserable or unhappy or have broken relationships is because of that?

• 27:07Speaker 00

  Look, look, people think, it's just so hard to say, no one's, I'm going to get ridiculed for saying this, but people think money fixes things. It, it doesn't, okay? Um, you're either, you're either gonna make the most of your life or you're not. So obviously with money, you have more access to so many things, okay? But you know, I tell you, I outwork just about anybody. I'm still working 18 hours a day, 350 days a year, and I love it. And that for me is fun and I enjoy it and I'm learning and I'm growing from it. So it's not like I'm trying to like, I'm not like, you know, people see like, oh, they see the white party and that, you know, great. So I do, you know, three fun, you know, I do the white party, this fanatical party and together the reform alliance, which, you know, when the panel said we do the, you know, we started last year the gala. So we do three big events a year.

• 27:50Speaker 00

  So those are fun moments people see, but my life is about grinding day in and day out and I like that.

• 27:54Lewis Howes?

  That's not every day. Yeah, yeah, that's.

• 27:56Speaker 00

  The grinding's every day.

• 27:56Lewis Howes?

  No, I mean, the three days, the three days a year.

• 27:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, of course. Yeah. Do I do a fun Christmas vacation? You know, I used to be able to make fun of my friends publicly. Now we have to do it privately because I get ridiculed if I make fun of my friends now.

• 28:07Lewis Howes?

  What do you think is the energy of, you know, that, that drives people to, again, I think a lot of people that want to learn from you or someone that's like you with a, you know, massive net worth, big businesses, all these different things. I think a lot of people want to know, can, how can I do that? Or my own way of doing that in my life while also being healthy and happy? Cause I see a lot of people get burned out, celebrities who are young, not know how to manage the success of the fame. Billionaires go bankrupt, all these, or just do things that maybe don't align with the values. So I guess I'm curious about, do you think it's possible to be actually healthy and happy, have good relationships? With your family and friends and be uber successful.

• 28:51Lewis Howes?

  And if so, what does it take? What are the key habits that your friends who are that do on a consistent basis?

• 28:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think it's a hundred percent. It's a hundred percent doable and a lot of people do it. But some people, you know, look, the thing with a lot of really successful people is like what makes me. Also, it does make me a little bit different is, you know, barely having made it out of high school, not having gone to college, not reading like I'm not an intellectual. I'm like, you know, I'm kind of like a, you know, just like a street smart. You know, I still feel like a kid even though I'm not. So that's that like a lot of really successful people. They're naturally, they're awkward, they're not like, they just think they're a little uncomfortable in their own skin. You feel like, you know, you've, you've gone out, you've had all this success and you're not sure how to deal with it. Like to be like still like a normal, logical, rational person.

• 29:44Speaker 00

  I'm still like, you know, you know, if you listen to the conversations I have with my friends, we make fun of each other the same way we did 10 or 20 years ago. And you know, I take more from people. I take than I give, although I give a lot of it as well. You know, I think it's just like, look, you know, I, look, I see the greatest people in the world do great with handle it. I see a lot of people that get, you know, huge success and you know, it's really hard for them. I say like, you know, keep the eye on the prize, just like you were also like, you know, for the, for the way you're asking the question, it's a really small percentage of people. They're super lucky, like appreciate that. And like, look, I know it's easier to say that, but like, you know, people say to me all the time, like anyone who stops me, I always try to be as nice as could be. And people say like, why it was like that? I'm like, because I'm lucky. Like if I'm not, I'm a bad person. There's a problem if I'm not like that.

• 30:27Lewis Howes?

  That's probably what keeps you fulfilled and happy.

• 30:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, and like I'm, I'm rooting for everybody too. Like I'm rooting for everyone to do great.

• 30:34Lewis Howes?

  I think that's a key differentiator because most people that I think are unhappy with success or with what they have at a big level. They're competitive in terms of they don't want to see their friends and they think of more. It's win, I have to win and you have to lose versus how can we all win together?

• 30:51Speaker 00

  Yeah. Look, I know a fair amount of people.

• 30:57Speaker 00

  Who've gone down in business because you just you meet a lot of people, you know, and a lot of them have handled it great and some haven't, you know, and it just depends who it is, it just depends who that person is.

• 31:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:09Speaker 00

  The thing I like to see by the time is someone who can do something, who can do it two or three times, like you get one success, it could be luck. You get two or three successes, that's proven skill.

• 31:18Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 31:19Speaker 00

  By the way, you win one Super Bowl, you're really good, but you know, you win a couple, you're really special.

• 31:24Lewis Howes?

  That's another level.

• 31:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:25Lewis Howes?

  Speaking of Super Bowls, what do you think, you're close with Tom, I'm supposed to be interviewing him next week, out of the vent, what's something about him that makes him so unique that other people, other athletes don't have?

• 31:36Speaker 00

  He's one of the most unique individuals on planet Earth. Look, he's become a really close friend of mine in the last few years. I'll tell you that when you see his determination and grind, you see why he had the success that he had and, you know, he's very athletic, he's not the most athletic guy relative to, you know, whoever would be the most skilled or whatever, he did it based on will to win. And I see, when you, you're gonna text me after, you're gonna say, like, I fully get, this guy is a beast and he's gonna win whatever he puts his mind to, and so when I look at him having won seven Super Bowls, I'm like, yeah, I would expect that. Like, he's more determined, like, by the way, I talked to him at 5:30 in the morning, you

• 32:19Speaker 00

  know, more days than I talked to him at 9 o'clock in the night, he's so disciplined, he's so focused, and you see it in business too, and he's, he is one of the greatest human beings, one of the hardest working human beings, and I will tell you, there's no, he's had no luck, that's all.

• 32:32Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 32:33Speaker 00

  That's all, that's all will to win.

• 32:35Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 32:36Speaker 00

  Ask him to tell you the story of how he came back 28-3, you'll probably give you a little bit of a PG version of it.

• 32:41Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 32:41Speaker 00

  But tell him I told you to ask him.

• 32:42Lewis Howes?

  I will.

• 32:43Speaker 00

  But it's just like, it's his personality, like, I put in, we had a meeting with our biggest investors, and I asked him to come and interview him in front of our investors, and like, you just like, you literally, you're there, you're just like, wanna get up and go kill everyone, it's just like, he inspires you like that, and it's like, I know people are some of the greatest athletes in the world, they just don't have the heart, man, he's got the heart.

• 33:03Lewis Howes?

  But it sounds like you've got the heart in life and business. How did you develop that heart? Or is that from parents, is that from kids, is that from not being good in school? Like, where did the heart come from? And how did you sustain it for decades?

• 33:16Speaker 00

  I think it's a combination of...

• 33:20Speaker 00

  One, not being good at so many things. Like, I was the worst athlete always. I was always picked last on every team. Like, it was a joke. Like, you go to pick teams as a kid. I was always the last kid picked. I was that uncoordinated, okay?

• 33:34Lewis Howes?

  How did that make you feel?

• 33:36Speaker 00

  That a little bit, maybe angry.

• 33:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 33:39Speaker 00

  Okay? But that fire was good for me. It just made me want to work harder in business. Like, okay, if I was gonna be a loser in sports, let me be a winner in business. Let me go to what I do best.

• 33:49Speaker 00

  The school thing bothered me less. I thought it was like, I was like, I mean, I was like Ferris Bueller in, you know, high school. Just like, and by the way, I didn't-

• 33:56Lewis Howes?

  You could be out of here, yeah.

• 33:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, like, I did a co-op program in high school. Where in my 11th and 12th grade years, I got out of high school at 11 o'clock in the morning to work at the ski shop that I owned. And my grade, 50% of my grades came from

• 34:14Speaker 00

  the grade that my landlord gave me. He just said, "Pay my rent on time. I'll give you an A on your co-op." And I still almost didn't graduate high school because I couldn't pass chemistry. Like, I literally couldn't pass chemistry. And so, like, that stuff was all motivation to me. And even if, like, something, if something makes me mad or sad, it's motivation. Period of the story.

• 34:35Lewis Howes?

  Motivation.

• 34:35Speaker 00

  By the way, Tommy is exactly the same way. You're gonna see that next week.

• 34:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. But what makes you motivated, though? And how do you sustain motivation to be driven to overcome all the obstacles that come in your way every single day? You're working with big business challenges.

• 34:52Speaker 00

  People trying to kill me every day. Like, the bigger we get, people trying to kill me every day. That's just the reality. You know, you close one eye and there's someone coming for you behind. Yeah, 100%, that's, that's business.

• 35:01Lewis Howes?

  How do you stay calm, though, during the chaos and stay motivated when everyone's coming after you?

• 35:07Speaker 00

  Well, if you're not calm, you're gonna make worse decisions. So I think you need to be calmer during the most important times. Also, by the way, something I've always believed. You see, I actually put something out when I put Tom in front of our thousands of employees. We were talking about how do you deal with the most high-pressure situations?

• 35:24Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:25Speaker 00

  Always be calm is during these situations.

• 35:27Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 35:27Speaker 00

  Um, so, you know, it's, I, I, I, look, I think some of it, you're born with it. Some of it, you can just muscle to. But the most interesting thing, I guess, is-

• 35:37Speaker 00

  There's never a time I need to work less and I've never worked harder because to me, this is, business is my drug. Okay, that's what I love. Cause I'm overall good at it. By the way, there's lots of things I need to improve my game on, but I'm overall good at it. And that's how I, um, you know, that's how I, I don't know if you're, let me ask you a question. If you're a professional athlete, you want to stop playing sports, you want to play as long as you can.

• 35:59Lewis Howes?

  I wanted to play as long as I could. I got injured, which made me stop.

• 36:02Speaker 00

  And most athletes want to play as long as they can, right? For me, the great thing about being in business, I think I can do this sport for the rest of my life.

• 36:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. So you don't have to worry about, you know, injury, holding your back from playing. Yeah, yeah. You could still be injured and be on the phone and negotiate deals and.

• 36:15Speaker 00

  I worry about mental injury, which some might argue I have already, but.

• 36:18Lewis Howes?

  You and me both, man. One of the things that I, I really appreciate about you is that obviously you've built, you know, massive businesses, but you care a lot about philanthropy and giving back as well. Make-A-Wish Foundation, you guys have did a big partnership with them, which I think is really cool. But also the Reform Alliance, I think is really inspiring. It's really about criminal justice reform. Growing up, my older brother went to prison for four and a half years. And just watching what happens to inmates in prison, after prison is a, is a challenge.

• 36:49Speaker 00

  It's supposed to be rehabilitation.

• 36:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 36:52Speaker 00

  And a lot of cases, it's actually getting you stuck in the system. And I know there's a lot of people who will say, oh, someone does something wrong. They need to be in prison. That could be the right answer a lot of cases, but the point of prison is to help rehabilitate someone, not to entrap them for the rest of their life.

• 37:06Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. So I really acknowledge you for not just wanting to make the most money and build the biggest business, but also for trying to make change in different areas with kids, with prison reform, all these different things that you do. And a lot of these things are public and you have partners on all these things. But I'm curious, what's the thing that people don't know about you that you're most proud of? The stuff that's not out there online, the stuff that, you know, isn't public information. What's the thing about you that you're most proud of that people don't know?

• 37:36Speaker 00

  Well, first, let me, you know, you brought out the things that we try to do to make the world a better place. That's our responsibility. Like, if you're in the position that I'm in, you have a responsibility to try to make the world a better place. I don't think we can do enough of that. I really feel that way. I also will tell you something that I need to remember. I was a person, I've been very public about this. Until 2017, I would always give money to people that were important to me, causes that were important to me. Always helped financially, I never did the work. My work was just giving the money. And then, obviously, I went through the experience that everyone knows of my friend who went to prison for not committing any crime. And seeing that firsthand, being in a courtroom, watching somebody go to prison for two to four years for not committing a crime, for going for a probation violation, for popping a wheelie on a motorcycle.

• 38:20Speaker 00

  Like, I felt powerless and hopeless for what was happening to my friend for the first time, because I couldn't help him. And I think putting the work in for that changed my whole perspective, because upfront, people thought,

• 38:35Speaker 00

  and what everyone said to me is, "Don't get involved with this, it's gonna hurt your business." You know, everyone told me not to. I just went with my instincts of like, you know, I had to be there together with, you know, we had another friend that helped as well, to help make a, you know, to help fix this. And the most interesting thing was, a couple of years later, when the pandemic started, we did this giant,

• 38:55Speaker 00

  you know, kind of fundraiser called the All In Challenge. It was, you know, pretty spectacular. Raised $60 million for, you know, for food insecurity. And we were sure it was gonna hurt our business. And it ended up helping, like, we thought, hey, we're gonna be asking our customers to donate to this at a time when there's no sports, and we're a sports company, it's gonna hurt the business. What actually happened was it created a halo for our business. So one of the fascinating things, if you do the right thing, some way, somehow, you're gonna get paid back in karma eventually, and I didn't know that before. Really? So I will tell you, I just gave money my whole life until 2017. Then when we put the time, and I spend real money, like, I spend, I'm sorry, I spend real time, not money. I spend real time, in addition to money, trying to do things to make the world a better place.

• 39:38Speaker 00

  Those things, whether they pay dividends to yourself, how you feel, whether it's the people you help, it's whether there's overall just good karma that comes back to you, they always benefit in the long run. So I'm always saying to big business leaders, man, do the right thing personally, helping people, you'll get that paid back for sure. And I've seen that a thousand times over.

• 39:57Lewis Howes?

  And it may not happen this year or right away.

• 40:00Speaker 00

  You're just, you're building up chips. You're building up chips.

• 40:06Lewis Howes?

  So you used to give financially, but now you're giving more energy, time.

• 40:10Speaker 00

  I gave zero energy, only money until 2017. And to me, the question is, hey, you're someone that's important to me, you have something that's important to you, how can I write you the check as quickly as possible to get you out of my office, so I can go back to business?

• 40:22Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 40:23Speaker 00

  And then I had this life-changing experience with my friend, and that really opened my eyes. And then we've done so many charitable things since. So like, do we make a wish? Oh my God, what an honor. By the way, if you don't care about Make-A-Wish, I say this all the time, because Make-A-Wish is like, the greatest thing we're involved with. No one can say they don't like Make-A-Wish. You could say you don't believe in criminal justice reform. There are a lot of people would say, hey, they don't care about your brother, they don't care what happened to my friend, you know, they made a mistake, they should go rot in prison, okay? I've heard that a thousand times been said to me. Okay, I don't agree. I believe we should help people get a second chance, a third chance, but that's up for debate to who you want to debate it with.

• 40:56Lewis Howes?

  But helping kids who are terminally ill?

• 40:58Speaker 00

  Right. If you don't like that, you're a bad, I'll say right now, you're a bad person. If you don't like Make-A-Wish, you're a bad person. Like, tune me out of your life. Okay? So what an honor it is for us. Like, I remember I was at an All-Star game, and we had these kids, and, you know, we brought them to All-Star Weekend with Make-A-Wish. And, you know, we do all the sports things we do together, you know, with Make-A-Wish and Phoenix, you know, we do everything together in sports. And, like, I said to these kids, you guys are so gracious to me. Like, I want to thank you, because you're inspiring me, you're inspiring our company, all the people that get to work with Make-A-Wish, man, they're inspired by you. And it's such a, you know, it's such a great thing to do.

• 41:34Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful, man. But what would you say, is there a moment or something that you're most proud of that people don't know about?

• 41:40Speaker 00

  It's probably the, look, there's so many little things you do every day to help people that, you know, you never talk about. You just, you want to do it to make a difference for people. You know, and I care about that, because I think I'm lucky, and so if I'm lucky, I should be able to, you know, give back in whatever way I can.

• 41:57Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. How do you think someone creates more luck in their life?

• 42:03Speaker 00

  So I'm a, so I'm a pretty superstitious person, which might sound weird, but I'm a pretty superstitious person. By the way, I'm the type of person that can't like, if, if my team is winning, like I'm not moving. Like I'm weird, I'm weird, I'm weird like this. I'm just, I've got some weird superstitions. You know, don't switch seats. If I'm playing blackjack in a casino, you know, I'm not, I, you know, I don't want, I'm not switching off. Like I, I, I believe in keeping what's working going. How do you make better luck? I think be a better human. Like that's, that's, that's the truth. Like be a good human, you'll create your luck. Okay? Hard work and be a good human.

• 42:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Do you ever feel guilty for your luck?

• 42:42Speaker 00

  No.

• 42:44Lewis Howes?

  You ever feel like, oh, this-

• 42:45Speaker 00

  Feel appreciative.

• 42:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's good.

• 42:47Speaker 00

  Feel appreciative, but I don't feel guilty.

• 42:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 42:49Speaker 00

  What would I have to, you know, you know what I feel guilty, the things I would feel guilty about would be like, if I missed something, if I let somebody down, that's where I feel the guilt.

• 42:56Lewis Howes?

  Why do you think some people who, who have created more opportunities for themselves sometimes feel like bad for the success they've created? Have you ever seen that with anyone?

• 43:09Speaker 00

  Not much, to be honest. No, I, I think, look, at the end of the day, you make your own luck. Anyone who says like, you know, look, to be successful in business, you need to, you know, be smart, have a good strategy, get the right people, outwork your competition, and luck to that.

• 43:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 43:26Speaker 00

  You need luck to go with that. Okay? So it's a component, but I think like you make your own luck too.

• 43:32Lewis Howes?

  Do you think if, you know, you would have chose a different business model or a different industry, you'd be able to create what you've already created by now? Or do you think a lot of it is kind of timing, the luck, being in the right place, right time to get you launched? But obviously you have to keep sustaining it year after year, and you could go out of business like you almost did in 2009.

• 43:52Lewis Howes?

  But do you think you could also just do this in a completely different industry at this time as well?

• 43:56Speaker 00

  I do.

• 43:57Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 43:57Speaker 00

  I do. I know this sounds obnoxious and confident, but I do. And I'm not gonna lie about that. So here's the question. When I was 16 years old, and I ran out of money, and the sheriff showed up at my house, you know, every day with the new lawsuits for three months straight. And then I turned that near bankrupt experience into, you know, being the largest, you know, closeout company in the world at age 21, doing a hundred million dollars and making 10 million dollars a year. Was that luck? Or was that, you know, hard work and just unrelenting personality? You know, when I almost, you know, got margined out of my company, pushed out of my company in 2009, was that luck? Or was that, you know, my just unrelenting attitude?

• 44:40Speaker 00

  I would say I made my luck in those situations.

• 44:43Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 44:43Speaker 00

  Now, still, I'm good, like, like, I might leave here, look at my phone, and someone might tip me off to something that I need to know about competition or something. And like, that's, you know, something, but it's a, it's kind of like, again, great relationships. Build great relationships. That'll make good luck for you, too.

• 44:58Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that's great. A lot of people here who are watching and listening, there's a lot of entrepreneurs here. I see people struggle as they don't have a lot and they start to earn more and more. You know, if they go from zero to 100,000 in, in sales, and then to a million, then 10 million and beyond, you see people's energies start to shift as they earn more. Did anything shift for you energetically inside or emotionally when you went from your first million to 100 million to a billion?

• 45:29Speaker 00

  Yeah. I got hungrier.

• 45:34Speaker 00

  I was just being honest. And by the way, I shouldn't say this, but I think it's lame for the people that got more lazy and more complacent. Like, I have a friend who we will not name or give any hints to, but the person made tens of billions of dollars. And I was sitting with them once, we'll talk about where, so I don't call anybody out. And they were just like, they were done. They didn't want to do it again. I was so uninspired by that. I was like, this is lame, man. I left, like, I had no interest in that person.

• 45:59Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. But was there, besides hunger of wanting to create more, give more, all these different things, contribute more, was there an emotional energy shift of like, oh, this is more exciting, I have more money in my bank account or my net worth, now it's like, I've got a different feeling or identity about myself? Because I think a lot of people's identities shift when they hit certain financial marks or exit companies.

• 46:22Speaker 00

  So, so, so mine have never, people might call on that, go for it.

• 46:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:27Speaker 00

  I will tell you, because I'm always paranoid about, you know, what's going to go wrong. Okay? And if you stay paranoid and you stay hungry, then I don't think that you, you, I don't feel those things. Like, when we do, like, we, we

• 46:41Speaker 00

  Great things that we happen all the time. Like, I'll be like, okay, we can celebrate it for 60 seconds. Let's get right back at it.

• 46:46Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 46:47Speaker 00

  Okay. So, but I think it's more the fear of, I recognize like, you know, I built, we have three businesses today. Finax Commerce, I built it from a $250 million business to a $6.3 billion business. And now, and I look at that, and some people would say, oh, that's great. I'm looking, what are all the things we need to do to reinvent the business to get from where we are today? To get to, you know, our next chapter. For us, it's about, you know, we haven't been good enough from a consumer experience. We need to be great, not good. Okay. Getting 99% right, if you get 1% wrong, when you have 70 million transactions a year, that ain't good enough.

• 47:20Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 47:21Speaker 00

  Okay. And we're worried about how do we become just great at product where we haven't been great at product? So like, I'm always thinking about how do, like, I'm not worried about, I'm not saying, oh, this was some great accomplishment. I'm saying, man, here are all the things we don't do right, so we can be that much better in the future. You know, in our gambling business that we've just launched, we're now in 20 states with Finax Sportsbook. I'm like, hey, I got FanDuel and DraftKings that own 80% of the market. I want to figure out how I take real share from them. By the way, I'm friends with both of them, great, great companies, but like, we're playing a game. I want action, let's go, baby.

• 47:49Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 47:50Speaker 00

  Okay. In the collectibles business that I just got in three and a half years ago, you know, I got lots of companies trying to kill me. So like, that's my normal day, is people trying to get me from behind, you know, you know, all kinds of shit going wrong. So you just gotta be smart, be disciplined, be thoughtful, prioritize, and like, focus.

• 48:07Lewis Howes?

  Wow. So when you go into a new, I guess, business, like the gambling business, let's say, and there's already different market share leaders, there's a couple, two or three people that are kind of having the market share. What is the mindset you go into of like, we're going to launch into a new space? Uh, sure, we've got a big customer base already, a big brand, lots of money, resources, team, but they own the market right now.

• 48:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:29Lewis Howes?

  What's the thought process of saying, we're going to go into this? And what are the three things you think about of launching into a space? And how to really take over market share?

• 48:41Speaker 00

  So it's a great question. I'm going to let you into my brain right now. This is like, something like, I've definitely never talked about. And it's fascinating for me to even examine it myself every day, which I do. So when we started in the merchandise business that we call Finax Commerce, we were the third

• 49:01Speaker 00

  Player in the market and through you know a lot of hard work and innovation. We became the number one player still with so much to do like we have so much to be better in that business.

• 49:10Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 49:10Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 49:10Lewis Howes?

  But you're number one.

• 49:11Speaker 00

  We are and in the collectibles business.

• 49:15Lewis Howes?

  Side note there from how long did it take you to go from third to number one after launch?

• 49:20Speaker 00

  Third to one was probably only three or four years.

• 49:25Lewis Howes?

  Three or four years. Okay. Sorry. Go to next.

• 49:27Speaker 00

  By the way, 24/7 like I'm worried about everything, paranoid about everything, obsessed. Okay.

• 49:32Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 49:33Speaker 00

  And I think what's more interesting for me actually is where we are today. How do we completely reinvent ourselves because now we're only focused on how do we become the best consumer company in the world? Anytime someone gives us shade over something we screwed up or something that they go well, it actually hurts me. It bothers me like I sit up, I'm obsessive. I sit up and look at social media. I don't look for people saying great things. I look for the negative comments. Are they right or wrong? If they're wrong, I don't care. If they're right, how do I use that to be better? I'm sending notes to people all day long saying, how did this happen? How do we be better? Just to use it to make us a better business. Okay. In the collectibles business, we weren't in the business three and a half years ago. Now we're the top player in the business and we're innovating.

• 50:14Speaker 00

  And we're making the consumer experience, the collector experience so much better. And we're marketing that hasn't been done before. It's fascinating, but the interesting thing is we're the, you know, I'd say we're the, the leader in each of those two businesses. In gaming, I said, okay, look, gaming, online sports betting and iGame is going to be a really big business long-term. Okay. Potentially if we had that same type of leadership, it would be the best of the three businesses. Okay. But today we're not in it, but we have some real strategic advantage. We have 110 million customers. We do 70 million transactions a year offline and online. We can, you know, use that to kind of cross-sell customers in, into gaming. But now I'm a year into, I'm a year, well, I came up with the idea three years ago.

• 50:59Speaker 00

  We're now three, we launched a year ago. We're just as of today, we're in 20 states. 19 under the Fanatics brand, one under the PointsBet brand. We'll be all under the Fanatics brand April, our April 30th. Okay. It would be, everything will be under one brand. And what we've been focused on is obsessively building the best product. And then once we do that, getting great cross-selling. The most interesting thing is I don't know, sitting here today. I'm gonna win or not? Now, I have that confidence that I've done it in commerce, I've done it in collectibles. But I have that concern, hey, you got FanDuel, DraftKings, MGM, great companies, okay? That are really good competitors. But I love playing that game. That to me is so fun.

• 51:43Speaker 00

  And so, not knowing exactly what that, like, am I confident? Yes, but do I know? No. So what do I need to do? I need to build a great product. I need to have great relationships with my customers, okay? I need to leverage all the assets they have at Fanatics. And the relationships with 110 million customers. The relationships with thousands of athletes. And use that to build our business in a way that's great for everybody.

• 52:06Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 52:06Speaker 00

  But I don't know what the answer is yet.

• 52:08Lewis Howes?

  This is fascinating.

• 52:09Speaker 00

  So by the way, if you're listening, make sure you give us a chance. Go to Fanatics Sportsbook. Get on the app, try it out, I think you're gonna like it.

• 52:14Lewis Howes?

  There you go.

• 52:15Speaker 00

  My only pitch.

• 52:16Lewis Howes?

  I like it, I like it. So when you're thinking of like, a new space to launch into. You know, you did the commerce, you did the collectibles, you did, you know, now gaming. Are you thinking, this is a really interesting space. I could see it blowing up, we should get into this. Is that kind of part of the philosophy?

• 52:33Speaker 00

  So what I'm generally thinking about is, is it a big enough business to be worth our time?

• 52:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, which is probably a billion dollar minimum.

• 52:40Speaker 00

  I'd say at this point, we need to think it's a billion dollar profit business long term. Not revenue, profit, okay? So number one, is it a billion dollar profit business long term? That's actually our number. Number two, is it completely synergistic with the rest of our business? And most importantly, and this is the most important thing. Can we make it better for the fan? Okay?

• 53:01Lewis Howes?

  Then what's already out there?

• 53:02Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 53:02Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 53:03Speaker 00

  And by the way, in some cases, you have, what's out there has not been good enough. So better is, you know, still not good enough.

• 53:10Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, right. Still not great.

• 53:12Speaker 00

  Right, and we've been there certain times. But at this point, it's like, can I do something that's better for the fan? Is it completely synergistic? Is it a big opportunity? If we don't get yeses to all three, we're out.

• 53:23Lewis Howes?

  That's interesting. I love getting inside your mind now. Now, when you're thinking of like, okay, here's, you know, gaming, betting, all these different things, are you then checking out all the competitors that are out there?

• 53:34Speaker 00

  Maniacally.

• 53:35Lewis Howes?

  So you're downloading the apps, you're checking out, you're researching it, how many of their business model, everything?

• 53:41Speaker 00

  I'm talking to everybody known to mankind.

• 53:43Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 53:43Speaker 00

  I'm meeting with the companies, I'm meeting with the analysts, I'm meeting with employees, I'm interviewing people to learn, I'm learning everything I can.

• 53:50Lewis Howes?

  And how long?

• 53:51Speaker 00

  Well, I can't, I can't read.

• 53:52Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. So you're interviewing, you're doing a lot of researching. How long will you do that research phase for? Is that a few months? Is that a year before you decide, we're going all in?

• 54:00Speaker 00

  It depends. There's sometimes, like, I've researched media for years and said, we're not doing anything.

• 54:06Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 54:07Speaker 00

  I researched ticketing and said, we want to offer tickets to our customers, but we don't want to be a ticketing company. We just want to work to have them for our loyalty program, for our most important customers. So I do a lot of research that nets out of not doing it.

• 54:20Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 54:20Speaker 00

  Okay. For me, right now, we have three businesses. Fanatics's Commerce, Fanatics's Collectibles, Fanatics's Gaming. They're all massive opportunities. I don't want to do anything new. Anything I do is to support those three businesses, to be better in those three businesses, to make the fan experience better.

• 54:34Lewis Howes?

  Wow. And so you'll research yourself. I'm sure you'll have teams researching as well.

• 54:38Speaker 00

  But I'm a big, I will say, on something new, I'm the biggest researcher myself, always.

• 54:43Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 54:43Speaker 00

  That's always how I'm learning.

• 54:44Lewis Howes?

  You have to love it and be excited about it.

• 54:45Speaker 00

  Look, we just started a new business called Fanatics's Events, which is basically, you know, I went to, there's so many of these local trading card shows, and they look like they're, you know, they look like they're flea markets from 30 years ago.

• 54:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, mom and pop stuff, yeah, yeah.

• 54:57Speaker 00

  Then I went to Comic Con, I'm like, this is incredible, how do I do this for sports? And then we said, we're gonna launch this. By the way, I did that, and I walked into Comic Con, 10 minutes later, I said, I'm launching Fanatics's Events, and I'm hiring the CEO of Comic Con.

• 55:07Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 55:07Speaker 00

  And I called, get this guy in my office, and we hired this guy, and now, yeah.

• 55:11Lewis Howes?

  You hired him just like that?

• 55:12Speaker 00

  Just, just, I made the decision in 10 minutes. There are other times I'll look at something for three years and say, we're not doing it. Okay.

• 55:19Lewis Howes?

  How did you get the guy to leave Comic Con to come, you know, run your business?

• 55:22Speaker 00

  What would be more fun than building the biggest and best sports event in the world with Fanatics? I mean, think about this, do you want to, I mean, Comic Con, you know, Fanatics Fest, Fanatics Fest can be so much more fun.

• 55:29Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 55:30Speaker 00

  We're launching our first event, um, August, Javits, New York City. I bet you we have a hundred thousand people come to this with the best athletes in the world, best brands in the world, all the sports properties, doing incredible stuff.

• 55:41Lewis Howes?

  That's amazing.

• 55:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's exciting, it's fun. But I still sweat it, like, I'm worried, like, I worry every day, is everyone gonna show up? You know, is everyone gonna be, is everyone I need to be there, gonna actually be there? I mean, it's no different, like, you know, you still have these crazy, you know, thoughts.

• 55:57Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 55:57Speaker 00

  Each night.

• 55:58Lewis Howes?

  I wanted to ask you about the Fanatics Athlete Immersion Program, can you share more about that?

• 56:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, look, first, without the incredible athletes that play on the field, on the court, on the ice every day, we got no business, I got nothing, I'm in a different industry. So, we're super appreciative of that. One of the things that I'm always getting, you know, people reaching out to me and asking me from, you know, you know, current athletes, you know, professional athletes, is like, you know, hey, I'm interested in business, or hey, you know, I want to figure out what, you know, how I could build this business. So, we thought, like, we were the company perfectly positioned to create, like, the dream intern program. And so, basically, we've played around with it for several years, but in the last couple of years, uh, we said, we want to go on and do this. So, we're now taking sixty professional athletes, three classes of twenty.

• 56:45Speaker 00

  We got a class coming up in July that will be, um, NBA and NHL players, we did, um...

• 56:50Lewis Howes?

  I saw the NFL one you did.

• 56:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, we just did an NFL and WNBA, one of them, we did one in November that was, uh, baseball and WNBA. And we'll have, um, curriculum from having, um, you know, the CEO of Mitchell Ness talk to them about how to build their own brand, the person who runs our social impact talk about how to make the world a better place, to, you know, our CFO talking about how to build the business, to, you know, our strategy talk person talking about how, you know, how we decide what to do and what not to do. Then we bring in outside guests, we have the CEO of Verizon, the CEO of Anheuser-Busch, you know, the CEO of, uh, you know, the CMO of Visa, you know, Robert Smith, who's the richest, you know, black guy in the world. You know, come in and you'll talk to these players about how they built their businesses.

• 57:33Speaker 00

  So it's like Fanatics giving them, you know, kind of the day course of everything that we can show them. And then getting great outsides because it's amazing watching the look on players' faces. They're just like so, they love going through it. It's like, and we do it for one week and it's a great program.

• 57:46Lewis Howes?

  That's amazing. There's so much stuff people can find out about you. I've got two final questions for you, but I want people to follow you on Instagram. Michael Rubin on Instagram. Where else should we go to be of support, service to you and learn more about everything you're up to?

• 58:00Speaker 00

  Well, first, we love, like, we love, you know, look, we're in the consumer business. I mean, you know, go tell us what we do well and we don't do well. And by the way, you know, we like when you tell us we do well. We also like when you tell us we don't do well. That's helpful input that makes us better, you know?

• 58:12Lewis Howes?

  Where do they do that? Where do they send that message?

• 58:14Speaker 00

  You know, people, people, people a lot, people, people email you, they, they, they hit the company. Sometimes they hit social, but we're looking at everything and we're trying to fit anything. By the way, look, we're in the consumer business. We have so many transactions, we touch so many customers.

• 58:28Lewis Howes?

  Seventy million transactions a year?

• 58:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, and we don't get everything right. And so, you know, if we don't get everything, we own that, we want, we want to be better. So we love feedback, you know? So we love the good feedback. We love, like, I went out, you know, what we did last week with the launch, it was like the feedback was amazing. You know, you know, there are other things that, you know, we'll just, you know, look, you know, we'll have issues that go wrong with things. But we always want that feedback. That's how we get better and we learn and we grow. And but we care so much.

• 58:53Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful, Michael. Well, I want to, I want to acknowledge you before the final two questions for your drive, man. It's inspiring to watch your drive at this season of life with the success you have.

• 59:02Speaker 00

  What do you mean, I'm a kid?

• 59:04Lewis Howes?

  I mean, you're a little older than me at least.

• 59:06Speaker 00

  I don't, I don't believe that. Making me feel like an old man.

• 59:09Lewis Howes?

  You're a kid, you're, you're older chronologically, but biologically, you've got the heart of a kid and the drive of a kid.

• 59:14Speaker 00

  Always.

• 59:16Lewis Howes?

  But the, the thing I appreciate about you from our interaction is just your desire for feedback and your coachability and saying, how can we get better? We're not perfect, we make mistakes, we want to get better, send us feedback. And I think that's one of the things that if. People can take away a lot from this interview, but great athletes who sustain it for years are coachable. Just like in business, you know, great individuals, great people in relationships. And so I love that you say, I know I'm not perfect with all the things we do, but I want to get better. Give me feedback. And I'm not going to take it personally. I'm going to say, awesome, thank you. Now I'm going to go and prove it. And I think that mentality and mindset is one of the keys that has supported you continually in making a greater product, greater business, uh, greater teams and all these things. So I really acknowledge you for your drive.

• 1:00:01Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:00:02Lewis Howes?

  Your commitment, uh, just your, your passion for business. You make business look fun.

• 1:00:07Speaker 00

  It is.

• 1:00:08Lewis Howes?

  You make it look exciting.

• 1:00:09Speaker 00

  I don't make it look fun. It is fun.

• 1:00:10Lewis Howes?

  It is fun. Well, some people, it's exhausting.

• 1:00:12Speaker 00

  Well.

• 1:00:12Lewis Howes?

  And they're drained and it takes a life out of them, but you show a different side of it. So.

• 1:00:16Speaker 00

  Then you're missing the opportunity.

• 1:00:17Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 1:00:18Speaker 00

  By the way, when you played football, was it exhausting? But it was also fun.

• 1:00:23Lewis Howes?

  It was a lot of fun, Ben.

• 1:00:23Speaker 00

  But it was also exhausting. But I don't know.

• 1:00:25Lewis Howes?

  It's a lot of energy.

• 1:00:26Speaker 00

  One person could say it's exhausting. Another person could say it's fun. I look and say it's fun.

• 1:00:29Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 1:00:30Speaker 00

  It's exhausting sometimes, but I love it.

• 1:00:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:00:33Speaker 00

  But thank you. Look, I, look, I think that is, that is a strength of mine. And, um, and I got lots of weaknesses, but that's a strength of mine. And, and like, uh, you know, I'm loving every minute of what I do.

• 1:00:43Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful. Final two questions. Uh, this is a hypothetical question, so bear with me for a second. Um, imagine you get to live as long as you want in this life hypothetically. You can live hundreds of years old and you get to accomplish and create everything you want to create in your life. Uh, the businesses, the philanthropy, the success, all of it, it all comes true. But for whatever reason, in this hypothetical scenario, you have to take all of your content with you. So this interview is gone when you, you know, in a hundred years, anything you put out in the world of interviews or messages or social media, it's all gone. So no one has.

• 1:01:18Speaker 00

  Sounds peaceful.

• 1:01:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, but no one has access to your content anymore, the things you've said. But in the final day, you get to leave behind three lessons. And this is all we would have of your information and your content. I call it three truths. What would be those three truths for you?

• 1:01:36Speaker 00

  Rolling on this planet for so long. Maximize every minute, enjoy every minute. And to me, enjoying every minute is doing what I do, you know, at work for the most part. To get the right people around you. The right people take you everywhere. The wrong people take you down. Yeah. And so get the right people around you. And by the way, learn from each other. And third, you know, failure is an opportunity. Don't let it bother you. We all fail in life. We all have lots of failures. Take each one of them, learn from it, grow from it. Those three things would be three that I think of right off the top of my head. Those are beautiful, man. Final question, what's your definition of greatness? That's a really good question.

• 1:02:17Speaker 00

  I would say, I would think about two things for me, so I'm not giving you the exact answer that you asked me. One would be winning at the highest level. And the second would be, you know, doing it the right way every minute of the day.

• 1:02:33Lewis Howes?

  I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want more inspiration from our world-class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com/newsletter. And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.