Build the Behaviors of a Champion

In today’s episode, I share the lessons that shaped my entrepreneurial journey, from chasing financial success to losing everything and rebuilding with a completely different perspective. I explain why faith matters when the evidence seems to be working against you, how being more interested than interesting creates better opportunities, and why your self image can determine what you believe is possible. I also break down the connection between thoughts, perceptions, meaning, intention, and behavior, and why consistent daily actions create extraordinary results over time. Success is not about waiting for the right circumstances. It comes from building the behaviors of the person you want to become. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I speak in over 200 cities around the world a year. And it's so rare to see this type of entrepreneurial community. So much opportunity, so many touches of favor that you should be appreciative of to be here at UCI. And their innovation in entrepreneur program. It's superb and to have someone like Ryan, who really cares. And it's so creative and enthusiastic. And you can see enthusiasm goes a long way as we saw in the pitch competition. Enthusiastic means in theos, which is closest to spirit or closest to your God. And I think there's a lot to do with faith in being an entrepreneur. Because the journey of an entrepreneur, and it has for me as I talk you through that.

• 0:44Speaker 00

  And I'll save time to answer questions and certainly will give you my contact information. So that can help each and every one of you. I have dedicated a minimum of five minutes to anybody every day that needs my help. So I'll give you my email address, my cell phone, whatever you need to reach out to me. I live here, close by, and so I can give extra help for people that are here. But faith is so important because every day as an entrepreneur, in fact, every day in your life, but especially as an entrepreneur, it's precarious because even in the stage that I am in my life right now, where I get to do what I want, when I want, with who I want for as long as I want. And that's more than just having a lot of money.

• 1:28Speaker 00

  You do need to have money to do that. But you have to design your life to be able to do what you want, when you want, with who you want for as long as you want. Trust me, I know a lot of people who have greater wealth than I could even imagine. And they can't do what they want, when they want, with who they want for as long as they want. But the interesting thing or the precarious thing about being an entrepreneur is every day you wake up and the evidence, the circumstances of the day, the evidence of every day of your life will be either nonexistent that you'll ever get to where you want to be as an entrepreneur. Or most of the time it'll be contrary. It'll be contrary to what I want to be. So as an entrepreneur, if you don't accept the fact

• 2:11Speaker 00

  that every day you're going to wake up with no evidence or the evidence is going to be contrary to your divine direction of where you want to be or better, then I don't suggest you be an entrepreneur. And if you don't have the faith that there's something bigger than you that understands there's no evidence or the evidence is contrary. And that evidence is actually protecting, promoting, loving and perfecting you into what you want to be or better. This is what faith is about. And if you don't have faith, you won't be persistent and you won't be consistent. And you won't pursue your potential. And so I'm here today to inspire you to hopefully give you not only the faith that you can do it,

• 2:55Speaker 00

  but the wisdom, not the information. You know, I went to law school, business school, they even gave me an honorary doctorate. So when my mom died, I satisfied her requirement. She told me when I was your age, you're either going to be a doctor, a lawyer, or a failure. Well, I'm all three. My mom told me before she passed, she said, and thank God, you're probably one of the best failures I know. I took that as a compliment. And some of you entrepreneurs will find out why. But it's wisdom today, not information. I went to law school, but yet it's a great law school. I did very well in law school. You could give today a legal question to all of us. And you all use technology.

• 3:36Speaker 00

  You would answer that legal question much, much faster and much, much better than I can with my law degree. So we're not looking for information anymore. It's available. You just know how to access the information, trust and vet the information. That's important. But what we're seeking as entrepreneurs is wisdom and faith. You're looking for people that have paid the dummy tax. People who have sit or do sit in a situation that you want to be in or better. But also take into account, you need to find people that you can help get to where you want to be, regardless of your age, experience, situational knowledge, relationship capital. If you don't know your who, you are creating interference, you're creating resistance to what you want to be and who you want to become.

• 4:20Speaker 00

  My journey started at a really young age as an entrepreneur by necessity. I grew up, my dad left when I was five. I lived in Akron, Ohio at the time. And my mom, single mom, when I was five, had six children, five boys and a girl. She was a second grade teacher. So education was extremely important if you didn't understand her motto, doctor, lawyer, or failure. And so her only objective was to educate her children. She believed the fetus wasn't fully developed till after graduate school. This is the type of mom that I had consistently every day, knowing that if I didn't get great grades, that I would not have the opportunity to leave the situation of being poor.

• 5:04Speaker 00

  Now, at five years old, I didn't really care about education. Like my siblings who went to Harvard, Penn, Columbia, did extremely well academically. Not that I did poorly academically, but my main concern was to make a lot of money. For the sake of one thing, my mom. I wanted to buy my mom a house and a car. That was it. I would do anything to provide financial security to my mom. And I worked through first trying to be a professional football player. Thank you for not laughing. But I ended up playing college football and very much new from the very first play. I was, believe it or not, a below average college football player,

• 5:49Speaker 00

  which I find funny because half the players that play college football are below average, but nobody admits it. I admit it. I was below, maybe I was very below average. That's why I'll admit it. But my very first play, my freshman year, I had this great entrepreneurial realization. So I wanted to be a professional football player. I was the fastest one and the smallest one on my college football team. So they put me as a bullet on the kickoff team. And I was screaming down. I figured I'd show everyone that I was going to be this amazing football player. And sure enough, first one down and I run and smash into the ball carrier. The next thing I know, he lifts me up with one leg and I'm flying backwards onto my back. And he actually steps on me and keeps on running.

• 6:33Speaker 00

  That's when I was lying there saying to myself, doctor, lawyer, or failure. My mom finally got it. That guy, by the way, his name was Christian Akoye. He was the AFC's top running back the next year in the NFL. His nickname was the Nigerian Nightmare. And trust me, a good nickname for him because I'm still having nightmares about him. But I decided at that time, I better be a doctor. My brother was a doctor. My other brother was in med school. That's my gig. I'm definitely going to make a lot of money. All the doctors I knew, they were making a lot of money. I could buy my mom a house and a car. And I go to the hospital to visit my brother. I'm 18 years old. Somebody, anybody here 18? Any 18, 19 year olds?

• 7:18Speaker 00

  So you'll get this. I go to the hospital and my brother says to me, what's the matter? I said, man, I hate hospitals. He goes, what? I go, I hate hospitals. He goes, you're pre-med and you hate hospitals. I'm like, yeah, I'm not going to be a hospital doctor. I'm 18. I'm going to be a sports doctor. So I'll be on sidelines and locker rooms. I don't need to be in the hospital. And he looked at me and he gave me one of the greatest piece of advice, wisdom for an entrepreneur. He said, David, you need to be more interested than interesting. And that has hit me every step of the way. Because with all the mistakes and lessons I've learned, it's because a lot of times I wasn't more interested.

• 8:04Speaker 00

  I wasn't trusting and vetting people appropriately, asking uncomfortable questions, going the empty mile every day to find out more about how the capabilities, skills, knowledge and desires I had aligned with what's doing well, what's stable, what I think is going to do well in the future. There were so many things that I learned once I became curious and interested instead of interesting. And some of you in your entrepreneurial journeys have already met people that are interesting. And they're not going to get to where they want to be or better. And they're not going to help you as well. So I decided I would be more interested in to achieve my goal of buying my mom a house and a car. I would go to law school, but I'd go to the law school that had the highest paid graduates

• 8:49Speaker 00

  in a certain profession or industry because I just wanted to be rich. I'm not one of those lawyers that was, I want to save the world. I'm going to work for legal aid and represent. I'm sorry, that's just not who I was. I was in, and I'm chairman of Napoleon Hill Institute. Anybody be thinking grow rich, winning the devil. So I'm the chairman of Napoleon Hill. And, you know, understanding Napoleon Hill, I had a definiteness of purpose. And I was unapologetic about it. My mom didn't like it. Nobody liked it around me because all I wanted to do was make a lot of money to buy my mom a house and a car. Now, I'm sure there was a lot of other things in my ego that were involved other than just buy my mom a house and a car.

• 9:31Speaker 00

  But I was that focused in on making a lot of money that I went to a law school where they had the top oil and gas litigator program, taught both international common law and civil law in Louisiana Tulane University. And I studied oil and gas law. And when I graduated, I did it. I got a job offer in 1992. Anyone here born in 1992 or before? Maybe Scott in the back, you were born before. Okay, sad, isn't it? So that's a long time ago, agreed? 1992? Okay, some of your parents may have been born then. Sad enough. But in 1992, I got a job offer for $150,000 plus bonus out of law school.

• 10:14Speaker 00

  That was unheard of in 1992. But because I was an entrepreneur at heart, because I had a definiteness of purpose, I kept my options open. And when you're an entrepreneur, you're constantly creating opportunities, options and touches of favor. So you could prioritize them with what's doing well, what's stable and what you think is doing well. So I got offered a job in technology to sell legal research on the internet in 1992.

• 10:43Speaker 00

  And that job paid $250,000 a year at plan. Plus, you could make more. My mom freaked out because I wanted to take the sales job. She even went as far as telling me, you need to be a real lawyer. You better take the bar. The internet's a fad. It's never gonna last. No one's ever gonna use the internet. Thus, another great entrepreneurial lesson. And this is especially true. Just because someone loves you, like your parents, that does not mean they give you good advice. Treat your parents' advice like a handful of sand. Always appreciate the fact that they love you so much that they're there to protect, promote, love, and perfect you. Just like God, your God, not mine.

• 11:28Speaker 00

  But yet, because they love you so much, they're giving you advice out of what? Fear, because they're just trying to protect you.

• 11:37Speaker 01

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• 12:05Speaker 00

  So you need to appreciate the fact that, Mom, Dad, I'm so glad that you love me so much that you're giving me this shitty advice not to take a job in technology because the internet's never gonna last. But I'm my own person and I'm gonna mitigate risk. I know my timing and risk tolerance. So I'm gonna try this out. I'll still take the bar, just in case you're right. But nine months out of law school, I was a millionaire. Three years later, in 1995, we exited for $3.4 billion with a B. Now, I know that's not impressive to all of you, but in 1995, $3.4 billion was insane money. Insane money. And I leveraged that into the Silicon Valley, where I learned technology and venture capital,

• 12:50Speaker 00

  raised hundreds of millions of dollars. 1999, married my dream girl from the fourth grade, who hated me up until almost the time I got engaged and was living my dream. I ran Samsung's phone division, their data phone division. They didn't even call them smartphones. It was a Windows CE device. And worked in Silicon Valley at 31 years old, married to my dream girl, and starting my family. And I thought I was happy. I had moved from that world of not enough, bought my mom a house, several houses, cars, boats, planes. And then, understanding entrepreneurship, noticed my life has all these different options and opportunities from professional football to doctor, to lawyer,

• 13:35Speaker 00

  to technology, to venture capital, to running a phone division. Well, lo and behold, I meet a man here in Newport Beach, a very famous man named Lee Steinberg. They had made the movie Jerry Maguire about his sports agency. It was the most notable sports agency in the world. And 48 hours after meeting him, he offered me the CEO position of the most notable sports agency. Now, I'm not a great lawyer, and I certainly wasn't a great sports agent. Why would Lee Steinberg hire me? Because he had a vision in the early 2000s that the future of sports was going to be in venture capital and technology, not in representing athletes. And he was absolutely right.

• 14:17Speaker 00

  And I was the only one capable and at a high level of raising that much money and understanding technology as it applied to the industry of sports. Ironically, the movie Jerry Maguire is a lot of people's favorite sports film of all time. Ironically, though, it mirrors my career because it's not a sports film. Jerry Maguire is a love story with a sports background. That's why so many women and men love it, because it's a love story. It gives men permission to love a love story, and it gives women permission to love a sports film. But it's really a love story. Well, that's what I learned about sports, is I always wanted to work in sports, but sports was just a backdrop. It was my capabilities that I constantly developed

• 15:02Speaker 00

  and aligned with what's doing well, what's stable, and I thought would do well. From the time I graduated or even went to law school, I was aligning, I was analyzing, being more interested than interesting. What is doing well today? What's stable today? And what do I think is doing well? And how does my capability, my capability, align with that to give me what? More options, opportunities, and touches of favor? It's just a statistical truth that the more options you have, the better you'll do. I had many options when I graduated law school, so I could take a big chance. And my fallback was 150 grand plus bonus. Not bad. But it came with the understanding that I was doing my best, learning lessons, and having fun, no matter what I did.

• 15:47Speaker 00

  Enjoying the consistent, persistent pursuit of my potential. Here's the funny thing. When I was running the most notable sports agency worth over $100 million, I end up losing everything. Now, there's an entrepreneur journey for you. I lost over $100 million and went bankrupt. Once again, the evidence was contrary to where I wanted to be or better. Now, here's the interesting thing. And some of you as entrepreneurs, I promise you, will lose everything. It's just part of what it takes to get to where you want to be or better. Most millionaires in America have gone bankrupt twice. Thank goodness, that has not happened to me. But when I went bankrupt, the one thing you learn about losing everything

• 16:32Speaker 00

  is you wait till the very last minute to tell your wife or your spouse. That's for sure. And then you pray that she or he stays with you. And then, you don't tell anybody else. Here's the problem with that. When I went bankrupt, lost over $100 million as a public figure. Remember, I'm representing guys like Warren Moon, Troy Aikman, Steve Young, Lennox Lewis, Evander Holyfield, Ramirez, Sebastian. The biggest, we bragged back then, I had $2 billion in management. I know that's only like four clients today. That was 1,000 clients back then. $2 billion in management. Warren Moon, the highest paid quarterback in the NFL, did his deal, it was $10 million. So imagine how hard it was to get to $2 billion. That's how big we were.

• 17:17Speaker 00

  But here I was, I had to go tell my mom, the only reason I wanted to be rich was my mom, to what? Buy her a house. So I had to go tell my mom that I lost everything, and she was gonna be extremely surprised. But I also had to tell her that I didn't take my name off of her title. So she now has an eviction notice coming her way, and I lost her home. This is the fun part of being an entrepreneur. When I'm walking up to my mom's house, I promise you, there was no evidence, or the evidence was contrary, that I would be here today, making more money than I ever had, helping more people than I ever imagined, and doing what I want, with who I want, when I want, for as long as I want, having fun every day of my life.

• 18:00Speaker 00

  I get to come to Irvine and literally on my way to dinner in Newport Beach with my wife and my son, stop by and help a bunch of you become millionaires or billionaires. How cool is that? Wasn't cool that day that I had to walk up to my mom's door, knock on it, and I broke down. I was 38 years old, broke down crying. I couldn't even speak. And my mom looks at me and goes, oh, my gosh. Is everybody okay? Are the kids okay? Is Julie, your wife, is everything okay? You know, like a four-year-old. If you have any little brothers or sisters, right? Use your words. That's the way I was.

• 18:36Speaker 00

  My mom's so, can I help you? What's the matter? Mom, I lost everything. I lost all of it, and including your home. You're gonna need to move. You're being evicted. And she looked at me. I thought, literally, she may have a heart attack. She would be so disappointed and stressed. But instead, she looked at me calmly and smirked at me and said, how can I help you? Mom, I don't think you heard me. I lost your home. You need to move. Sweetheart, I heard you. Do you need some money? Mom, you need to move. Why is God punishing me? So many entrepreneurs feel punished a lot of the time in the journey. They can't understand the evidence that's in front of them.

• 19:19Speaker 00

  And my mom looked at me and said, son, God does not punish. He's promoting you, protecting you, loving and perfecting you. You're almost 40 years old. It's time you figure this out and get to work. And I'm here to help you. As a 38-year-old, extremely disappointed in myself, embarrassed, living in shame, blame, and justification, all I could think of is, Mom, I just don't believe in God. And that's when she smiled at me, hugged me, and said, son, you believe in God, you just believe in the wrong God. Now, let's get to work. That's the kind of mom I had. So from that day on, I decided

• 20:04Speaker 00

  the evidence that was in front of me does not matter. What matters is the thoughts and the meaning that I give to the evidence, the past mistakes, failures, setbacks, defining moments, historical relevances, all the things that people do to limit their own self-image. And I promise you one thing. You will never overachieve your own self-image. And it will be the meaning of your mistakes, the meaning of your past, that will limit your self-image. So you have a power to change the meaning immediately of the evidence that is presented in front of you every day. You have the power to give meaning to everything you see. And that meaning is created by the thoughts that you have, the perceptions it creates. That's what creates the meaning

• 20:49Speaker 00

  that will provide you the intention of what you do, say, think, feel, and believe in a divine direction of where you want to be or better. And that's what creates the behaviors. I was with Nick Saban about three weeks ago. Anybody know who Nick Saban is? Alabama's coach, winningest coach in college football. Nick heard me talk about how thoughts create perceptions, perceptions, meaning, meanings create behaviors, and those behaviors are what create results, especially when you're consistent and persistent with your behavior every day. Two minutes a day equals two hours on a Saturday. I promise you. You show me a kid that studies Spanish 15 minutes a day, I will guarantee you that kid gets an A.

• 21:31Speaker 00

  You show me a kid like me that studies 15 hours on a Saturday, you got no guarantee, right? But you are justifying why you didn't get the A, because you say, I went the extra mile. I studied 15 hours before the test. You gotta be an empty miler and do it every single day, because your thoughts become perceptions, perceptions, meaning, meaning, intention, and intentions, behavior. Nick Saban said to me, Dave, I love that. He goes, that's exactly what I started doing. I said, what do you mean? He said, when I started coaching, I would do anything to win a championship, a national, anything it took. That's all I would do to win a national championship. He said, but I didn't start winning championships,

• 22:11Speaker 00

  and still I realized that my job was to take 85, 85 young men and build champions. Behaviors that create champions on and off the field. You know who won the national championship during COVID? Alabama. Because not one of those players had any behaviors that weren't aligned with, that weren't aligned with their divine direction of winning a championship. He had, everyone showed up to every meeting and did every workout, every behavior that it was gonna take to win a championship, when all the other schools didn't. You want to build yourself as a champion, and the championships will come. Champions win championships. Behaviors get results.

• 22:56Speaker 00

  You don't have to worry about, it's not happening fast enough. It's never gonna happen. Things happen, they accelerate, aggregate, and compound exponentially. There's no such thing as an overnight success. It just seems like it, because in the last period of time, it doubles and doubles. So now you're aware of the success.