38 Marc Ecko: How to Build a Memorable Brand Like a Billionaire

It takes guts and tenacity to grow a successful business and become your personal version of greatness. This week on the School of Greatness podcast we have an entrepreneur who has done this on a remarkable level. He's the creator of one of the most ubiquitous and great looking clothing brands in the world today. He did it all from humble beginnings in New Jersey and now runs a billion dollar business. Welcome to episode 38 with Marc Ecko. 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.

• 0:01Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 38 with Mark Echo.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  What is up, greats? Thanks so much for tuning in today. And let me start off with the quote of the day. And it's by Steve Mariboli. And he says, "Those who have the ability to be grateful are the ones who have the ability to achieve greatness." And I loved seeing this quote, because I've been talking a lot about gratitude lately with a number of my guests. And it just seems like it's a great theme, gratitude. The more grateful you are, the easier it is to achieve greatness. So hopefully you guys are expressing gratitude in everything that you're doing throughout your day, your week, month, and all of your

• 1:14Lewis Howes?

  life. Gratitude for me is something I live by, I breathe by, I think about constantly, I'm constantly expressing. And I find when I'm ever in a bad mood, that I turn to gratitude. And it always seems to get me out into a better mood, at least. Maybe I'm never fully back to myself, but at least it gets me out of my, my own way. It has me start thinking about other things besides what crap I'm going through that day. So, "Those who have the ability to be grateful are the ones who have the ability to achieve greatness." Hope you guys enjoyed that one for today. We've got a big, big, big show. It's with Mark Echo. And for those of you who don't know who Mark Echo is, he is an American fashion designer,

• 1:58Lewis Howes?

  entrepreneur, investor, artist, and philanthropist. And he is the founder of Mark Echo Enterprises, which is a billion dollar global fashion and lifestyle company. Yes, a billion dollar company. He's the man. He's extremely creative. And he's got a book out. The book is called Unlabel: Selling You Without Selling Out. And I think that's awesome, especially with the whole online marketing, social media world, what everyone's doing about personal branding. It's all about selling yourself without selling out. And I think it's really cool what we go over today. I'm very excited to share with you this interview. You're going to talk about how to discover your unique voice and what that is.

• 2:42Lewis Howes?

  And in order to take action, one must overcome fear. We talked about what fear is and how to overcome fear. What Mark talks about overcoming fear. Mark also talks about some of his powerful mentors and how some mentors in your life may not be exactly who you think they're gonna be, but might just be someone you weren't even thinking about. Mark also talks about how to discover your weaknesses and your unfair advantages, and then your infinite truth in what that actually means. And also all about living your authentic life. So I'm very excited to be tapping into Mark's wisdom throughout this episode. And make sure to check out the

• 3:24Lewis Howes?

  book. He's going to talk about the book a little bit as well. Again, it's called Unlabel: Selling You Without Selling Out. With that, guys, I'm super pumped about this episode. Mark Echo is a huge icon, and I'm very excited to introduce you to him. But in the meantime, I've got something I want to share with you guys at the very end of this episode. Make sure to tune all the way into the end because I've got a very special program I'm coming out with that's all about supporting entrepreneurs to making more money and living their ultimate lifestyle. Again, it's something I'm coming out with really recently. It's gonna be coming out soon, and I want to share more with you at the very end. So stay tuned to the very end of

• 4:06Lewis Howes?

  this episode. We'll talk a little bit about that. And in the meantime, get ready and step up and let the class begin.

• 4:23Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness. Thanks for tuning in today. Super pumped about this interview because I got Mark Echo who is calling in. How's it going, Mark?

• 4:34Speaker 01

  What's up, Louis? Good to speak with you.

• 4:36Lewis Howes?

  We met a couple of months back at Mastermind Talks where you were giving a keynote. I was speaking as well and got to connect briefly, but I'm glad we got to reconnect through our mutual friend Ryan Holiday. So

• 4:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 4:50Lewis Howes?

  I really appreciate it. And your new book, Unlabelled: Selling You Without Selling Out, just came out. And one of the most beautifully designed books, I have to say.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  Well, thank you.

• 5:02Lewis Howes?

  And I guess that makes sense because you're a designer.

• 5:06Speaker 01

  I mean, there are, I knew in positioning the book as a product that there's a cohort of readers that are maybe on the younger side or or their default position is to buy digital. And I wanted to make the print product, you know, like the ultimate in the value proposition because I really felt like that would kind of be the real experience, especially as I kind of took almost a school biology or anatomy book kind of low out layout, rather.

• 5:42Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  And I think you lose some of that context without physically touching it. So the design was indeed a big part of making it right, but I wanted to do it in a way where we didn't dilute or make it, you know, dilute the text and make it a coffee table book. It's not a coffee table book, you know, in that regard.

• 6:07Lewis Howes?

  No, the text is amazing still. It's not, it's not just like a visual image book where you're flipping through, but the, you know, you've got some great writing as well.

• 6:15Speaker 01

  Well, cheers, man. Thank you.

• 6:16Lewis Howes?

  I appreciate it. And I kind of want to just dive in and briefly let you share your, your background. I think a lot of people know about the brand you've built, the billion dollar brand you've built, but maybe give like a 30 to 60 second background of your story of how you kind of all got started.

• 6:36Speaker 01

  Oh, I mean, it's kind of, um, you know, uh, the kind of classic made in America story. Um, you know, I, I am very lucky in life, uh, in two very material accounts. One, I'm a twin. I have a twin sister, uh, Marcy. And, uh, my mother, who cat was carrying us as twins, um, didn't know that she was gonna give birth to twins. You know, it was nineteen seventy-two and I guess, uh, access to, um, you know, whatever, uh, tests and, um, they, they missed it. So when she complained of like kicking in her breast and then kicking in lower part of her stomach,

• 7:21Speaker 01

  uh, the doctor was like, oh, it's just an echo in the fluid. So, you know, that me coming second and being the echo to my twin Marcy, probably is, is one of the most material things that, in, in, in my story. That's more of just the luck of, you know, God and right place, right time, right DNA and the right strand and the right sequence. So, having a twin, uh, has shaped me and she's been the best advisor and kind of, um, consigliere that, you know, I could have ever wished for or bought, you know, so that, that's one.

• 8:01Speaker 01

  The other, uh, very material thing that kind of, um, from an environment point of view that shaped me was, um, being a white Jewish kid, growing up in a very, you know, ethnically diverse, you know, town in Lakewood, New Jersey. I mean, Lakewood, New Jersey is kind of like a fa- a fascinating kind of anomaly. It still is to this day. It's one of the largest, like, Lubovitcha Orthodox Jewish populations, you know, outside of like Muncie, Brooklyn. Um, and there it is, two hours out of Manhattan, in, uh, you know, fifteen, twenty minutes from the Jersey Shore, surrounded by largely,

• 8:41Speaker 01

  you know, um, uh, at least in the eighties, white, uh, suburb- suburban towns. And then here is this town where you had a big population of black and Latino folks that really used the public schools and the public systems. And then there was this massive voting block that was very privately organized with like this Orthodox Jewish population, so. It's a really kind of strange place, you know, and strange and beautiful and kinda only in America, kind of a place.

• 9:12Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 9:13Speaker 01

  Um, and then making it that much more kind of dynamic was the backdrop of the eighties and the and the emergence of hip hop culture. You know, pre, you know, the the virus that was MTV and kind of the the disintermediation of media. So, you know, the hip hop was something you had to seek, you know, like you had to really seek it out. And if I wasn't in my environment there, I might not have been exposed to kind of the culture and the hustle and the kind of dynamism that is hip hop. So, you know, those two things are really material in shaping my background.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  Um, and then you blend those things with like a passion for art. Suddenly that nickname Echo becomes really useful because now like that's a handy graffiti tag name, right?

• 10:05Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 10:06Speaker 01

  Uh, so that became real handy. Uh, and then, you know, the, you know, the elements of, you know, um, hip hop. You know, they say like b-boying, DJing, rhyming and graffiti. Well, you know, I was too fat, you know, uh, to break dance.

• 10:22Lewis Howes?

  Too white.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  Too, too, you know, I know plenty of white boys that try to rhyme, but it was a little early on.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  White MCs, but there were, uh, they existed. Um, and then, uh, I was too dis- uh, not coordinated to DJ, you know, uh, and, but I was artistic. So graffiti was a way of framing the fact that I was just an expressive emo kid. And suddenly I was able to kind of engage in what I kind of, I I think of as the extreme sport of art. You know, the extreme sport of graffiti because all that macho other shit that guys get to do, football. You know, if it was skating, BMXing, suddenly art had this kind of

• 11:12Speaker 01

  physical, a physical, uh, edge and, um, would allow me to be maybe more macho, you know, rather than kind of like the emo arty kid who's, you know, doing landscapes with charcoals or whatever.

• 11:28Lewis Howes?

  You were like the ultimate ninja warrior of street art.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, except you know, in Lakewood, it's not like there were sky, you know, high buildings where you could really get up and there were no, you know, it wasn't like the N or the R train was running. It was like a freight line that cut north and south route nine. And so like if you, if ninja means, you know, you know, escapading about shop right, you know, or like the skating rink. Yeah, I presume. Yes, you could say I was a ninja.

• 11:58Lewis Howes?

  You were the parkour of street art.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, like it's like Nacho Libre was in the park. I was, I was that. If you could visualize that, that.

• 12:09Lewis Howes?

  With the stretchy pants.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. So that was the vibe.

• 12:12Lewis Howes?

  I love it, man. Well, when did you, when did you really discover that you had this talent, this gift of, I guess graffiti?

• 12:20Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know that I ever viewed it as like a gift for graffiti per se, because as graffiti artists go, I think I was pretty much a toy and pretty average to below average. Um, but what I, what I did have a knack for was just generally illustration. I think that's a more precise description of my skill, uh, and being able to kind of, uh, express through illustration. And I had that inkling at a pretty young age. My grandmother made a fuss. You know, uh, over any time that I would try to copy the pages of a comic book. Um, so that feedback, uh, and that currency of, um, you know, positive affirmation

• 13:06Speaker 01

  from family was there at a pretty young age. I think I, I realized that I had a intuitive sense for marketing in middle school years when I ran for like class president and blended my understanding for like the kind of cultural, you know, like the, the kind of cool factor that was my art, coupled with this pursuit of wanting to kind of get up, like, which is the spirit of really graffiti is like, you know, making something from nothing and trying to create awareness for. You, it's a pretty selfish and pretty indulgent actually pursuit, right?

• 13:44Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  Kind of like beating your chest and you know, it has that whole element. So I kind of took the zig route and was like, okay, I could blend graffiti and class president. So, cause my flyers would be so much more fly, no pun intended, or pun intended. Then, then my, you know, the, the, the kids I was running against, I would just crush them in terms of marketing. So my marketing savvy was there and that need to kind of create a call to action and create a transaction, which in that instance was a vote, is when I kind of saw the power of blending my art with marketing or wanted to use my art to achieve yet another goal beyond just like,

• 14:29Speaker 01

  you know, the art on paper and the art as an object, you know, that you just hang up or you, you know, you just admire. Um, there was more of an intent to kind of tie it to a transaction. So that I, I think in, I, I couldn't articulate it in that way at 13 or 14, you know, I would just tell you how fresh it was and vote for me.

• 14:49Lewis Howes?

  Um. You just wanted to make cool stuff.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, uh, reflecting on it, I, I do think that the, those were pretty material lessons subconsciously.

• 15:00Lewis Howes?

  So how did Mark Echo come about, the business, the T-shirt business and now the brand, the huge brand you have today?

• 15:05Speaker 01

  Well, it really started, you know, come that eighth, you know, kind of simultaneously with me just making flyers and posters for running for president. I also had an air compressor and airbrush back home in the garage. And I was kind of honing those, those skills, you know, wax on, wax off. Come high school, I used my ability, my kind of ins with student government to be able to set up, um, a folding table and sell airbrushed T-shirts right there in school and kind of create this unfair advantage and marketing that service. You know, I did it all in the name of quote fundraising, but that kind of set the table for what I did as a service and you know,

• 15:49Speaker 01

  outside of Lakewood and, you know, in Ocean County, there, you know, I was probably one of two or three people that were doing that in a meaningful way. Um, I was emulating these guys called the Shirt Kings out of Jamaica, Queens, who I talk about in the book and, and the fact that they were like airbrushing sweatshirts for like celebrities and rappers at the time. So that really served to position Echo Air Brushing. So those, you know, four years of high school and first couple of years of college was where I was really turning it into a trade. Come 1993, when I, you know, I realized I'm like a below average student at pharmacy school, you know?

• 16:31Speaker 01

  And, and more importantly, that I knew that it just made me feel, it made me feel below average. Forget the, you know, the evidence in the testing. You know, that, the, the, forget that for a second in terms of my ability to comply to a testing standard. It just, the notion of, you know, standing on my feet counting pills made me feel lesser about myself. And the notion of doing something with my art, albeit like I had no promise. I wasn't clairvoyant or there was no, nothing promised that I'd be able to parlay that into business. So that notion though of the art was like, you know, it gave me the goosebumps, you know? I got, it, it was positive.

• 17:17Speaker 01

  It felt better, made me feel better. So I, I took that leap of faith in 1993 and I left pharmacy school, dropped out. And um, I started the business with my sister Marcy and a guy named Seth Gertzberg was my former partner. Uh, and really, literally a $5,000, you know, bag of cash, you know, and a dirty paper bag. Seth was the brute force, Marcy was the governance. I was like the, the swagger, like the emotional kind of brand part of the conversation. Seth was the relentless commercialization guy. Marcy was kind of the momma-san, took care of production, uh, coordinating early, you know, sales with Seth.

• 17:59Speaker 01

  Uh, I managed all the design, marketing, relationships and, you know, we just, we grew it. You know, we just grew it, you know, from six T-shirts. Uh, and just kept the snowball going. And, you know, talk about it in the book and it was not pretty. It was not, uh, instant. I know logo was not present at launch. You know, that was an iterative part of the the journey. Um, and through it, we managed to beg, borrow, steal, get on the bleeding edge of of potentially a BK and like losing it all. You you know, in more than one instance over the years. Um, and we built it into a, you know, a pretty big sophisticated, um,

• 18:45Speaker 01

  you know, business. But it was a really entirely iterative thing, you know, we didn't come from uh, family money. We, there were no insiders, there were no, um, you know, best practices to glean from like Uncle whomever or, you know, Cousin Joe or whatever. So it was a lot of just, you know, um, learn by doing. Uh, and a tremendous amount of uh, failure. Uh, and a, you know, kind of unrelenting, almost masochistic observation as to why we were failing, you know, and, you know, mixed with a little bit of mania

• 19:28Speaker 01

  that, you know, reflecting on it now, the some of that naivety is what helped position us uniquely. But it also created, you you know, also always had us dangerously on the edge of, um, losing it all.

• 19:41Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  And when I reflect on and I talk about in the book, building Echo versus building Complex. Complex, it wasn't even by design, but Complex Media, because of the financial crisis and, you know, oh, eight, oh, nine, uh, I had to reorganize how I was financing Complex. And in that effort to reorganize is really the first time in my professional career where I learned about institutional investors. And really giving up equity. Cause prior to that, I was an equity hoarder. Everything was like, all right, partner, fifty fifty. Yeah, me and you fifty fifty, you know, me, you, Marcy, okay, fifty fifty fifty, right? So there's some good that comes with that. It's a little mom and pop and folksy.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  But, you know, I prescribe now to distributing the risk, distributing the upside and not being so romantic and stubborn headed about just the numbers and where you sit in a cap table. I do believe that you should, you know, if there's certain aspects of your trade that you need to control and you have evidence that you are unique to control then and control those aspects, then I prescribe to, you know, inventors, creators, entrepreneurs, whatever, startups, founders, that they protect those controls, not necessarily through their equity

• 21:06Speaker 01

  position, but rather through voting rights and other, you know, there's other means to create those protections so that you have, quote, "control." In Echo, we didn't think that way. It was like I said, fifty fifty fifty. And like I said, it was probably one part cuts both ways. It served us in making us unique to the market. Hey, these kids are just, they look different, they act different, they think different. They, everything's different. It made us kind of folksy in that way, but in some regard, it always made us dangerously close to just losing it all.

• 21:44Lewis Howes?

  So tell me, what's been the biggest fear over the last 20 years that you've had?

• 21:47Speaker 01

  I think the biggest anxiety or fear that I've dealt with, and I think this isn't unique to me, and that's why, like, the story is interesting, okay? But it's really not about a memoir, right? It's really more about a framework for people to understand that the notion of fear relative to their discovery of their, quote, "unique voice," as I say in the book, where our unique voice is action minus fear divided by the function of self, you know, how selfish or selfless you are. Fear is an essential component of establishing an authentic experience, product, service, expression, right?

• 22:32Speaker 01

  And I don't think I'm unique in having a fear and I think that the fear that I had and as the book frames and it's it's kind of um maybe one part because I'm an artist is the kind of uh what and how will my peers accept the decision I'm going to okay and

• 22:55Lewis Howes?

  A universal fear.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  It's a universal fear that is designed by one's human and emotional way of um thinking that they're you know, building ivory towers for themselves. You know, these ivory towers, these institutions we create are really built on the basis of a premise that, you know, we're right and that we know better because we have evidence and therefore we get into these zones of comfort, right? And we become very, very comfortable. Uh, and the comfort is because you're certain that the way you're doing it, it's the right way, right? Uh, and you don't

• 23:39Speaker 01

  want to move out of that comfort and you're afraid to. Sometimes you're afraid because the gatekeeper or that quote thought leader, implementer is going to roll their eyes, is going to say no, is going to object and you you assign so much power to these kind of outside forces. And I've seen it as a pattern where I have been slightly kind of shut in and antisocial and I'm my own worst enemy in that it's like, oh no, you know, I don't think I could do it. And you kind of get in your own head. And I think that has consistently, if I look at the pattern of a catalyst to a mistake that I've made, it's typically been

• 24:24Speaker 01

  from the hubris that's created to preserve the comfort, you know, so that you don't really address it in an honest fashion and call it what it is, which is you're afraid.

• 24:37Lewis Howes?

  So how how does someone learn to leverage that fear then to you talk about, you know, the fear of fire and you in the book and learning how to like create something great around this fire. So how does someone, an entrepreneur, maybe who's scared about putting something out there, a new product, raising money, whatever it may be? Putting their brand out there and getting criticized and hated on. How does someone learn to leverage that fear? And maybe not overcome it, but maybe learn to feel the fear and do it anyways.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  Fear is there by design, right? Like it's in our, it's in, it's built into our nerves. It's like in our fingertips. Like you cannot, you know, you cannot be fearless. To be fearless, you are dead. I don't care if you're like, you know, Macho Man Randy Savage with like a M16. Like you're still afraid. Okay, so, uh, I think that's a fallacy. And I think, uh, there is a archetype that's been painted in the kind of, you know, where entrepreneurs, the new black, you know, it's fashionable to like, kind of, paint this image of an entrepreneur who's just so relentlessly ambitious that he exhibits no fear.

• 25:48Speaker 01

  Like, you know, Mark Zuckerberg staring down the no, the rifle of a lawsuit in, you know, the Facebook movie. Um, you know, I think that's a, a load of [BLEEP]. And, and I think it's a fallacy for us to kind of, you know, believe that those people in those instances didn't have stage fright. Of course they did. So you can't begrudge it. I think the way you harness it is to reorganize your expectations. And right, and to understand that your job actually, right, is not to, you know, uh, you know, just meet the milestones, check a box, you know, beat the quarter, check a box.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  You know, stay on plan, check a box, you know? It's, it's about coming to terms with the fact that failure, right, is your job. And success is merely the measure of the learnings that you accrue over small incremental steps of failure, right? Like a series of small events that are small failures, right? And, and being able to extract out from that, why? And managing your expectations, it's like, yo, that's the natural order, man. Like people forget how they learned how to ride a bike.

• 27:11Lewis Howes?

  Failing.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  They fail, they [BLEEP] up, man. It was scary as [BLEEP]. Okay, it was scary, man, like go like, you know, like, walking? Are you kidding me? You know how scary it is to walk? You know, and like that time like that, you know, I've seen it. I now appreciate it obviously more. You reconnect once you have kids. But you see, you see it in your own kids when they go from crawl to walk. And that's the natural order. So the organization has to learn to tolerate that. Frame its expectations around arriving at the vicinity of success. At the vicinity, rather than this finite definition of what the finish line looks like. It's a number, it's a metric.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  How many, how many friends, how many followers, how much money, how many wins? Like, we try to organize things in that fashion. And that's not really intellectually honest with like, nature and the nature and nurture of success. Right? It's just really not really how it really happens. And we don't have those expectations when we're like, playing in sports and learning the game. But somehow with, um, business and creation, uh, it's like, oh my God, I'm taking a risk. I could lose everything. You know, well, then don't bet everything.

• 28:35Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  Okay, like, you know, like, rather than designing a future, and I talk about this in the, in the book, uh, towards the end, I framed the definition of future because it's an essential part to the, kind of the imagine factor. Uh, which again is a, a, a tenant of, of, you know, what it takes to be genuinely authentic is one's ability to kind of overcome your nostalgia. You do that by framing your future. But you have to, let's, we have to define future, a vision of the future. Like, you need not design a future that's like George Jetson flying cars, okay? All right, like, we're, we're taught to do that because we look at like, oh God, I want to be like Steve Jobs.

• 29:18Speaker 01

  I want to make touchscreen phones that like, you know, allow for streaming video and it, no, no, no. No, that was an iterative, you know, over, you know, starting a company, being fired by your own company, being bought back, on the, on the, you know, the, the of your ass, about to the bed, you know, um. Uh, pre iPod, like that was a long journey. Those were incremental frameworks for future. Your future, you know, how about the future that's like thirty minutes from now? Do you have a good vision for what that is? You're so busy planning and setting your expectations to this,

• 30:01Speaker 01

  you know, watermark or this kind of destination on your GPS of uh, future. And it looks so glorious and the lights behind the building and it's just ****ing man cinematic. It looks like a Spielberg scene, you know what I mean? And you, you know what, like it, it's not like you don't, you build to that. You iterate to that. And rather than being consumed with that and then your expectations are always bound to that vision. So you're always setting yourself up to just be massively disappointed. Right? I mean, think about like as a, for instance, like Justin Timberlake, right?

• 30:41Speaker 01

  Justin Timberlake today is viewed as like, oh, he's such an influential guy in music and like he's, you know, like, and he is, I'm not trying to be, uh, I'm not trying to be snarky, but like the dude is, you know, he's made some massive records. But like, yo, go Google image Justin Timberlake and Lou Pearlman. You know what I mean? That is like, it's like, it was an iterative journey. And people in the music community were really just begrudged his music.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  You know, hardcore kind of, you know, pop R and B like thought leaders look down their nose at Justin as like a fugazi. You know, and then, you know, he does the video music, video uh, music award, Vanguard Award. He wins that lifetime thing, this last uh, VMAs and he just crushes and he basically suns everyone. He's like, look ****. Twenty years, mother.

• 31:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's a long time in the making.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay, you just watched it in twenty minutes. And how did you do all that in twenty minutes? Because I lived it in thirty seven years, or whatever her oldie is.

• 31:52Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 31:52Speaker 01

  Right? It's like the Picasso story.

• 31:57Speaker 01

  You know, it's a great anecdote where a woman comes up to Picasso. And she's like, Mr. Picasso, will you autograph this napkin for me? So Picasso takes the napkin. And he signs his name, just like Picasso can, it flourishes and it looks like it just, you know, oozes off this marker. And then he starts to draw. And he's drawing like an illustration of one of his classic nude women, right? And the woman is just like, oh, she's gushing. He hands it back to her, he says, that'll be ten thousand dollars.

• 32:31Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 32:32Speaker 01

  She says, ten thousand dollars, I just wanted an autograph. He says, she says, it only took five minutes. He says, I know it only took five minutes, but it took me my whole life to learn how to do it.

• 32:43Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 32:44Speaker 01

  Okay, so the point is, is it, you know, expectations, you know,

• 32:54Speaker 01

  framing your expectations in more modest increments will help you manage your fear and harness it. And if you think you're gonna be like loved and it's gonna be warm and fuzzy and kumbaya, like, you know what, go be a peace worker, okay? If you're trying to invent some next or trying to frame your product or service to the world,

• 33:21Speaker 01

  in a way where you want to be loved like Oprah, like, good luck, you know, good luck with that.

• 33:28Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 33:29Speaker 01

  You know, because not even Oprah is loved like Oprah. Okay, so it's a fallacy that you're not gonna have people begrudge you, gatekeepers question you. And you have to learn that, you know what? Being somewhat selfish and framing your unique voice and expressing an authentic product, service, you know, experience, instance, will typically lead to.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  You know, some people liking it and some people begrudging it, you know, but so now you have a better picture of who your audience is not.

• 34:06Lewis Howes?

  Right, but if you want to do some big things, you're gonna have some haters.

• 34:09Speaker 01

  You're gonna have haters, man. Haters is like, you're doing something, all right. Now, if it's authentic to your core, you know, I talk about in the book, like your core values, really, like your core, deep guts to the skin brand. If, if, as long as your creative expression and your intent is authentic deeply and bound to your values, like in the way that you would define your values to a two-year-old or to an eighty-two-year-old, then you're okay. If you're being irreverent, just for irreverency's sake, just to kind of, you know, inflame an audience and create,

• 34:48Speaker 01

  you know, the tension of haters, you know, and it's not true to who you are, right? Then, you know, you're, you're, you're not being authentic. It's very simple.

• 34:59Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. Now, I, uh, in your book, you talk about mentors, and I am a big believer in mentors, coaches, uh, in order to help accelerate your learning curve and kind of get you to that success you want or to that level you want much faster. Now, can you talk about maybe one of your early on mentors or, um, and also can you tell me, would you be where you are today without having a mentor?

• 35:25Speaker 01

  Well, my experience with mentors is not as organized, uh, as, you know, maybe in how you're defining it, in that some people have the governance in their life or had learned the framework, framework early enough to know that, to aspire, seek, quote, a mentor, and they call them that by name.

• 35:51Speaker 01

  I don't know that I had that education or that literacy to the high concept of what a mentor is. I think what's more important is to allow yourself to be mentored.

• 36:10Speaker 01

  Right? Meaning allow yourself to be open and know that school comes to you, you don't go to school. When you have that disposition, you learn in the most, you know, passive ways like osmosis. So some of my greatest learning experiences where I've quote been mentored have been through my ability to kind of my wantedness, a deep wantedness to want to solve for my problem.

• 36:47Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 36:48Speaker 01

  So you're able to extrapolate an education from the most disparate of places. You know, and that's why like, you know, what you do with your work and you're creating these great quote entertainment products. And but like, yo, there's a lot of people can learn by just keeping up with your podcast.

• 37:06Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 37:07Speaker 01

  Okay, so in some ways that like you can't because of the way that people organize a learning experience in a classroom. It doesn't have the same impact, the same level of intimacy. So someone hopefully right now is listening to this and extracting something and being like, oh, yeah, I just got to pay attention more. I gotta, you find that if the wantedness is there, you can be mentored. And because some people are stubborn about that, you know, like especially when you're young, you know, like I was reflecting. Someone asked me the other day, what would like the the young Mark Echo, the 16 year old angry, you know, slightly uncomfortable in his skin, kid in his garage painting sweatshirts.

• 37:51Speaker 01

  Say about the 41 year old Mark Echo shipping a book, you know, that's teaching someone how to sell without sounding out. Right?

• 38:01Speaker 01

  And I said, to be, you know, if I'm being completely intellectually honest, I think what the young Mark Echo would probably, almost, probably would have a default disposition to dismiss him because he sounds kind of preachy, like a teacher.

• 38:16Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 38:17Speaker 01

  You know, so I reflect on, you know, my openness at that time. I don't know if it's a cultural thing, if it's a part of being, you know, just young. Maybe it was an emotional intelligence thing, or maybe a capacity thing, maybe it was a fashion thing. But I'd almost look at the old Mark Echo probably and be like, oh, man, that old dude's trying to like, he's trying to act like he knows something, you know? And, uh, you know, I think that's, that there is that tension between the teacher and the student that's, I mean, goes back all the way to, you know, Socrates teaching Homer, and, uh, I mean Plato, rather, and

• 38:56Speaker 01

  then Plato teaching Aristotle, and Aristotle saying, yo, Plato, you're artist. What you're saying is and like resenting what effectively Socrates thought. Right? There's always that tension of like begrudging, having a healthy contempt for your teacher. But I think what I was apt to do was find mentors in really disparate places. And I talk about these kind of unlikely Yodas. They don't necessarily look or dress the part. They're not professorial.

• 39:29Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 39:30Speaker 01

  They might be dropouts. Okay? And they didn't necessarily drop out. They dropped in somewhere else because they weren't interested in the conventional way. So like I talk about Ken from Tahoe, who, Stoner Ken, who had a clothing company called Eighth Day, taught me how to do color separations in, you know, early Photoshop programs, pre quote layers. Now, I don't want to get like all geeked out, but he saved me thousands and thousands of dollars per t-shirt by teaching me something that, you know, they weren't teaching in a college. Like there was no place to find out how to, like, so if you want to learn it, it's there to be learned.

• 40:12Speaker 01

  You have to know where to glean the knowledge from and you know ultimately be grateful for those instances of ment- of those mentoring moments. I think this kind of framework of like, "Oh, I'm going to meet my mentor on Thursday at 3pm. We meet once a month or once every two weeks." You know, I haven't personally experienced that in my life.

• 40:34Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 40:34Speaker 01

  In that kind of fashion, but I have had mentors that I've been able to parrot to or through emulation or through inquiry and a kind of call response, even in these short wincebrant instances have had massive impact on me because I wanted to and needed to learn.

• 40:56Lewis Howes?

  You were seeking it.

• 40:58Speaker 01

  I was, I was open, man. It was open. You know, I was open and I wasn't discriminating where it was coming from.

• 41:07Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 41:08Speaker 01

  And I think we, it speaks to this kind of notion of labels, this kind of this taxonomy that we assign and project on to others that want to organize each other by the way we look, our interests, whatever, our labels. So I'm guilty of it. We're all guilty of that. We're all guilty of projecting. But I have to say that if I were to line up the cast of characters in my life who taught me and mentored me, man, it looks like a motley bunch of motherfuckers. I'm telling you, man, it looks like the lineup from Usual Suspects. It's crazy, right? King Fade from The Shirt Kings, Stoner Ken, Dean Calaisi from, you know, Rutgers College

• 41:52Speaker 01

  of Pharmacy. How would Dean Calaisi have been a mentor? I mean, how does that happen? I mean, the dude is the guy that's the gatekeeper for the very thing I disdain, which was pharmacy school. And he gave me some of the best academic advice in my career. How lucky in life was I for that? George Lucas, just from the outside, studying him, studying the framework of how he organized this tapestry of a branded narrative in this world and how he used licensing to kind of create, you know, financial independence. And people begrudged him and the, the, the kind of elite of Hollywood rolled their eyes and looked down their nose at him being a whore about making money when all he was doing was building this massive church of independence.

• 42:35Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  Okay? So like, I learned from- More from studying Lucas than I did Calvin Klein, right? So it's it's kind of interesting in in for for me in my career.

• 42:48Lewis Howes?

  I love it. What's um, what's your infinite truth?

• 42:52Speaker 01

  Oh, infinite truth isn't, there's no finite, you know, um, single answer. I mean, the, you know, the, the, the formula i- in the book you're talking about, like how I frame it?

• 43:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 43:07Speaker 01

  Uh, the infinite truth is the notion of two, two different, you know, components, like what you do and what you say. Right? And and it's it's an exercise. It's it's, it's very, it's a very simple, really, concept. In that, you know, what you do has to be greater than, you know, what you said.

• 43:32Lewis Howes?

  You talk about, yeah.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  Right. So, you know, the, you know, to keep the quotient in a positive, um, you know, uh, uh, um, number. You know, infinite truth is greater than or equal to what you do divided by what you say. So you have to over deliver on what you said. Okay, so we are so consumed in a world of social media and kind of feeding the, the, the vomitorium pipe of talking and we and we, we, we, we consume our media with these kind of endless talking heads and pundits who so are so emphatic that it almost feels like what they are saying is action.

• 44:19Speaker 01

  But it's not, they're just talking.

• 44:20Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 44:21Speaker 01

  Okay, so, you know, the actually emphasis on execution is really at the heart of this formula. It's, you know, under promise, over deliver. The old, you know, adage, right? So what you do, right, divided by what you say, if if you disproportionately saying more.

• 44:44Speaker 01

  Right? And you're, you know, dividing, uh, you know, uh, and it becomes a fraction versus a whole number, your, the likeliness of your infinite truth being truthful is, you know, is not there. You want to always have the, the quotient of what you do greater than, right? And larger than what you say. And I think, you know, uh, infinite truth is a commitment to just organize your, your speech and your promises in a fashion that you can confidently overachieve.

• 45:25Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 45:26Speaker 01

  And I could tell you that when people plan in their business plans and they say, oh, we comp 12% this year, we're up, let's aim for 20 for next year. They get indulged by the, the momentum or this versus like saying, you know what? No, let's crush a number that we know we can crush.

• 45:47Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 45:48Speaker 01

  Right? And you, you frame, the organization is working more towards a truth than a lie, or the potential of a lie. Cause that's what ends up happening. Okay. Like you were just being intellectually dishonest when you go, when you plan that 12 to 20 and you only end up at 15, when you should have planned at 14 and a half or something.

• 46:10Lewis Howes?

  Was it better to, uh, you know, set the bar high and, and miss the mark?

• 46:16Speaker 01

  No.

• 46:17Lewis Howes?

  Or is it better to set it low, a low standard and always reach it?

• 46:21Speaker 01

  I, I don't think it's about low or high. I think it's about intellectually honest.

• 46:26Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 46:27Speaker 01

  I think it's about truthful. It's about being truthful about the composition of your skillsets, your, your organization skillsets, your, you know, your, um, collaborators.

• 46:42Speaker 01

  And rather designing into a number that envisions a quote, "perfect team," right? Uh, I, I don't think it's setting quote, "the bar low." I think it's setting the bar to an intellectually honest place.

• 46:57Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 46:57Speaker 01

  One, uh, I'm very proud at Complex. You know, every single quarter, we crush our numbers. And there are people on the board and there are people within the sales team that are like, "Oh, you're aiming too low." And they, but you know what? It keeps the energy, uh, and the, uh, um, the appreciation for what we do. Um, uh, it frames it in a way that, that flies at a higher elevation than like Lucky, right? And it, it, it, there's just a, there's a rigor that comes with that and an honesty that comes with that. And we don't do it to be like, "Oh, we're gonna, we're gonna frame this so we could game our bonuses." That, no, that's, that's ridiculous.

• 47:42Speaker 01

  You want to, you know, uh, um, yeah, I think you want to frame the, uh, um, the bar and position the bar, uh, at a place that's intellectually honest. And I think a lot of people might hear that and be like, "Oh, aim low."

• 47:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 48:00Speaker 01

  All right.

• 48:01Lewis Howes?

  Well, I kinda, I kinda like your theory on that just because you're, you're almost always coming out on a win and building momentum and building, uh, this, you know, team bonding, team, you know, whatever it may be, momentum, I guess, that is inspirational as opposed to beating each other up or pointing fingers or taking on all this blame or guilt that you didn't reach your goal.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, and I think that the culture is to try to drive towards, you know, often numbers that are just a bunch of people talking. And defining success by finite numbers that might not be intellectually honest to one's capacity and the conditions in the market. And I don't think there's anything wrong with being, you know, intellectually truthful. And that doesn't mean aim low. I've built like, we just, we just raised 25 million dollars at Complex. You know, we were crushing it and we did, you know, we're, you know, by the time this

• 49:04Speaker 01

  thing goes live, we'll probably have our first month, we do a billion page views, a billion page views in one month. Okay? So we're not aiming low. We're just aiming at a pace and at, in a fashion that is, you know, within, we think the achievement gap of our team and their skillset. Cause we, we are honest that maybe we're, we're weak over here or, or we're, we're honest about our own skillsets.

• 49:34Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  You, you know, as executives. So, but that doesn't mean that you, you know, you, you, you're, you know, have a bad self-image.

• 49:43Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. A billion page views, that's pretty insane.

• 49:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:48Lewis Howes?

  Congrats on that. Side note. Um, awesome.

• 49:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, the cross the network and the hundred and, you know, 20 plus sites and, you know, the growth of video and it's, it's just been an amazing journey. And, you know, frankly, it's funny, we're at a place where now we talk about it. It's like, we need to change the metric for our, or the formula that, that deems goals and, and our milestones to kind of create better qualitative results rather than just quantitative.

• 50:20Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  And so we're right in the midst of designing these new kind of quote.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  Algorithms, if you will, for our internal teams to incent the edit team, the sales, everyone to drive more qualitatively to success. Because in a world where, you know, the digital media space and really just media broadly, you know, the notion of quote ratings, you know, but I want ratings with like the right heat on those jets. You know what I mean? Like, I don't want it like just gaming the system, right? I'm not into gaming the ratings. And, you know, not that I'm implying that we game the ratings. I just think that we don't have protections in the milestone schedule and the goal schedule

• 51:12Speaker 01

  that clearly articulates and inserts something that you cannot quantify by just like assigning numbers to it.

• 51:20Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 51:21Speaker 01

  So, we have these new measures that we're deploying. It's gonna be interesting to see, uh, going into 14, uh, the impact, uh, with the qualitative piece of the business, which is really, I think, essential to what we've done as a brand.

• 51:39Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, interesting. Well, I've got a bunch of questions left, but I really want people to get the book, Unlabeled, because, uh, specifically to learn about your marketing genius and what you've created in a sense of memorable marketing and publicity. You talk about some of that in the book. So, I want people to go, instead of you spilling all the beans there, I want people to go get the book. It's at, if you can go to unlabeled.me, uh, the website, it's an amazing video you have on there. Congrats on that, by the way.

• 52:06Speaker 01

  Thank you, yeah.

• 52:07Lewis Howes?

  And the whole site is super interactive and unreal looking. So, unlabeled.me, check it out. You're selling the book everywhere, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, pretty much every bookstore you can get it at. Go get the book. And I'm gonna leave you with one last question.

• 52:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 52:23Lewis Howes?

  What I ask everyone, and that is, what is your definition of greatness?

• 52:28Speaker 01

  Oh, man, um, I don't know. I, I don't, I think, not to like evade your question, but, um, you know, I think, uh, that words...

• 52:47Speaker 01

  Are, you know, often, um, and I love words, I love etymology and, um, but words kind of sometimes suffer from being defined by other words. And that was the motive to the slightly cryptic, you know, formula of authenticity. I was trying to take a [BLEEP] and put a philosophical framework together of like components of, of authenticity. And I would probably presume that greatness, if I were to, you know, contemplate greatness, I would challenge that it's not so easily defined.

• 53:24Speaker 01

  Um, I do think that greatness and a common thing that I see amongst the great, um, ideas, uh, innovations, thinkers, teachers, um, experiences, is that there is a certain degree of madness that drives the creation. And, uh, I, I mean, that's more of an observation. I don't think it defines greatness. I think obviously the greatness is like what, you know, what the outcome is. But I do find that there is this pattern amongst greatness and, and in the pursuit

• 54:07Speaker 01

  of greatness that, uh, almost breeds and, um, seeks a certain level of mania and madness to drive the, uh, creation. And, um, I don't think greatness is merely measured by numbers. I could tell you that. I could tell you what it's not. I don't think greatness is because you have the most valuable company or the, you know, you're the richest or you're the most popular, you know, by way of numbers quantitatively, that that necessarily is, is great. And I also think history.

• 54:49Speaker 01

  Um, and time are, uh, I think probably on the curve of the measure of greatness somewhere. You know, they are essential, probably components to be able to assign what greatness really is. Because I think really greatness sustains. You know, if it's an idea, poem, um, a product that isn't even in existence anymore. The, the mere memory of it manages to, um, you know, give the goosebumps and get you excited and exhilarated. I think that the measure, being able to stand and withhold, um, you know, uh, the, the brutality of time,

• 55:33Speaker 01

  uh, I think is a great measure of, of if in fact something's great or not.

• 55:39Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 55:40Speaker 01

  So, you know, I don't, I'm trying to like be overly intellectual or, or evade the question. I don't have like something that'll necessarily tweet well.

• 55:49Lewis Howes?

  No, it's all good. I think, I think you, I think you hit it.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  Tweeted. There's the tweet.

• 55:54Lewis Howes?

  What'd you say?

• 55:55Speaker 01

  I said greatness can't be tweeted. Knows you, greatness.

• 55:59Lewis Howes?

  I, I love it.

• 56:00Speaker 01

  You know, I don't care how hard you try, greatness cannot be summarized in a tweet.

• 56:08Lewis Howes?

  That's a good enough answer for me.

• 56:11Lewis Howes?

  Mark, I appreciate it, man. Where, uh, where can we find you online besides unlabeled.me?

• 56:15Speaker 01

  Uh, I'm at Mark Echo, uh, on Twitter, M A R C, uh, E C K O. And, uh, check me out.

• 56:26Lewis Howes?

  Awesome, man.

• 56:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 56:27Lewis Howes?

  I appreciate it, brother. It's been, uh, it's been fun and, uh, I know people are gonna love this one. So make sure to check, uh, Mark out, at Mark Echo on Twitter. I know you're on Instagram as well. I just started following you there.

• 56:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's at being Mark Echo on Instagram.

• 56:42Lewis Howes?

  At the Mark Echo on Instagram.

• 56:44Speaker 01

  No, it's a being.

• 56:45Lewis Howes?

  A being.

• 56:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, B E, B E I N G, like being John Malkovich.

• 56:50Lewis Howes?

  Being Mark Echo. Got you.

• 56:51Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 56:52Lewis Howes?

  And, uh, also go get the book. I know, uh, all the School of Greatness people love to buy the books from our guests on here. So make sure to go grab a copy of Unlabeled and, uh, shoot a tweet out to Mark and let you, let him know what you think of the book or what.

• 57:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 57:06Lewis Howes?

  What you like about it. So I know, I know he'll appreciate that.

• 57:10Speaker 01

  I will. I definitely will. I appreciate you, Lewis. I appreciate this opportunity to share it.

• 57:14Lewis Howes?

  My pleasure, man. And, uh, Thanks for coming on, bro. We'll talk to you soon.

• 57:19Speaker 02

  Peace. Now it's time to bring in the master.

• 57:31Lewis Howes?

  And I hope you guys enjoyed this very special interview with Mr. Mark Echo. Super powerful guy, very wise, and some amazing stories as well. Make sure to check out the show notes at schoolofgreatness.com and also go check out the book over on Amazon. We'll have all the links on the show notes at schoolofgreatness.com. I appreciate all of you guys' feedback. I keep getting so many comments, emails, messages online via social media, pictures uploaded to Instagram of where you guys are listening to this. And I'll tell you what, those comments are huge for me. It's the reason I create this podcast is to knowing that it leaves an impact, a positive impact in your business, in your life, in your relationships, in your health, and everything.

• 58:16Lewis Howes?

  So please keep sending me feedback on how I can make the show better, what type of guests you would like me to bring on, and just other feedback and tips that you have for me. I'm super appreciative for every email and message that I get. So again, thanks for that. With that, guys, thanks again so much for tuning in. Stay tuned to the next episode. I've got some big names coming up soon, some important information, some amazing stories, some incredible inspiration. So I appreciate all of you so very much. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.