992 Money Mindset and How to Win in Business w/Patrick Bet-David

“You’re one contact away from your life changing. If you start valuing your contacts like a book of business, everything changes.”Lewis is joined by entrepreneur, investor, and content creator Patrick Bet-David to discuss his new book, “Your 5 Next Moves: Master the Art of Business Strategy.” They talk about the essential rules of money, why cultivating relationships is key to building wealth, how to know if you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur, and more. Daymond John on How to Close any Deal and Achieve Any Outcome: https://link.chtbl.com/928-podSara Blakely on Writing Your Billion Dollar Story: https://link.chtbl.com/893-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.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 992 with Patrick Bet-David.

• 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.

• 0:31Lewis Howes?

  Iconic newscaster David Brinkley once said, "A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him." And Steve Jobs said, "If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time." My guest today has built a business empire from scratch while routinely overcoming the criticism tossed his way. Patrick Bet-David is a prolific content creator, investor, producer, author, and CEO of both PHP Agency and ValueTainment Media with a fan base of over 10 million followers across five media platforms.

• 1:12Lewis Howes?

  And he's getting set to release a new book, "Your Five Next Moves: Master the Art of Business Strategy." And in this episode, we discuss the rules of money so that your wealth can continually grow. How to know if you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur, because most people may or may not. Why cultivating relationships is the most important part of business. This is something I learned from my father at an early age. The first thing that you can do after you lose your job, this is huge for so many people right now, and so much more. Patrick and I have been friends for a while, and he truly tells it like it is. Share this with someone who needs to hear it. Make sure to spread this message far and wide,

• 1:54Lewis Howes?

  because you have the power to change and help someone's life today by sending them this link. And a quick reminder, if this is your first time here, make sure to subscribe to the School of Greatness on Apple Podcasts, as well as give us a rating and review. And coming up in just a moment is Patrick Bet-David.

• 2:14Lewis Howes?

  We have my man Patrick Bedd David in the house. Good to see you, brother.

• 2:17Patrick Bet-David?

  Good to see you.

• 2:18Lewis Howes?

  We met, I don't know, probably three years ago.

• 2:20Patrick Bet-David?

  Three years ago.

• 2:21Lewis Howes?

  Three years ago, where you interviewed me for your show. And I remember seeing your content blowing up before that, and it's blown up even more. And I think you do an amazing job of expressing your opinion through your experience and really evaluating the whole landscape of a topic and then giving a great, you know, experience or answer on your stuff. So I love your content and you've got a new book called Your Next Five Moves, Master the Art of Business Strategy. So we're talking about business, we're talking about money, we're talking about these things. I'm curious, do we need to know the next five moves or do we need to know the first move?

• 2:59Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, very good question. So the whole premise behind this book, how this came about was, you know, everybody talks about what is the key to success, you know, the key to success is marry the right person, save money, work hard, go to school, get a degree, love people, faith, God. You hear so many different things and we were having this debate one time. And I would ask everybody, it's just a basic question, everybody, what's the key to success? What is it? I'm like, you know what? Years later, I said, I, in my mind, the biggest key to success, almost anybody I see that takes it to a whole different level, the highest levels. The difference between them and other people is their sequencing. And what I mean by sequencing is the following, so you and I may have the same vision of what we want to do in life, okay?

• 3:43Patrick Bet-David?

  You want to get here, I want to get here. This could be anything. We both want to build a billion dollar company, fine. We both want to be building a company that does a hundred million a year. We both want to go into football. We both want to go play at the highest level. We both want to go out there and be great sales, whatever it may be, that's the ultimate, right? If my order of steps I take to go here isn't as efficient as yours, because your sequencing is better, you're going to get there faster than I am, and I may not even, never even get there. Because I'm trying to do move 14 on move three, and that's the most common thing that you see. One day I woke up. I was in a relationship and this is I'm twenty six years old, twenty seven years old,

• 4:25Patrick Bet-David?

  twenty six, twenty five years old and I'm trying to get my business going. I wake up six o'clock in the morning. I get a text, babe, I have to tell you this, as much as I love you, I don't see this relationship going anywhere. One of those texts because I think my mom is right. You love your business more than you love me and I barely see you. I only see you once a week. You're working so hard. First text, then message. I press the message to listen to it. My mom, you know, there used to be a time they used to love me and you would call me and tell me you love me. What happened to those? What happened to my little son that used to love his mother?

• 5:03Lewis Howes?

  Call me every day, hug me.

• 5:05Patrick Bet-David?

  So now I got a breakup on the line. I got a guilt trip for my mom. That's still six oh two right now. Then I get an email.

• 5:12Lewis Howes?

  You haven't even gotten out of bed yet.

• 5:13Patrick Bet-David?

  I haven't even gotten out of bed yet. Then I get an email that's been in the box for a while and I look at it. It's from my number one client that I was about to expect like a fifteen thousand dollar commission and that's a lot of money at that time. And my number one client says he's leaving me for the following reasons. And then at the same time, the next email is my agent saying I resign. My number one agent resigns. This all happens before six oh five, six ten. So I'm in bed, anxiety is high, panic is high. I have no idea what to do. In that moment, all I thought about is what are my next five moves? What do I need to do next? From that moment on, everything I did with business, I would ask myself. I want to do this next, my next ten, fifteen moves. What would this guy do?

• 5:59Patrick Bet-David?

  This guy that built an empire, what would he do? What are we going to do here? What can I do to be better than this guy? What can I do to be more efficient and what can I do to speed up the process to get here? But everything came down to your next five moves. So you're asking the question, is the first move the most important? Absolutely it is. If you don't know your next move, your next move can hurt the chances of you even getting to the fifth move.

• 6:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 6:19Patrick Bet-David?

  So it's always your next move that matters the most.

• 6:21Lewis Howes?

  What is the next move that everyone should be thinking about?

• 6:25Patrick Bet-David?

  So the first thing you have to do is you got a last night I'm at Rafi's place. And I'm having dinner with my three buddies. None of us are supposed to do anything alive. One of them is Steven Offo. They're running a $300 billion a year business. Steve was the Michael Jordan of our high school. Okay, he's a great basketball player, but we're all 2.0 GPA kids. Right. And Armon was. He's a great salesman. Yes. 2.0 guys. Yes. And Armon was always a fighter. He would always get in trouble. Like he was a guy that. He's a 5'6" guy. You don't want to fight. Like you go to a party, you know the smallest guy go to a party and this 5'6" guy would go to a party. And he would stand there and he would say that guy's looking at me. I'm like, bro, he's not looking at you. No, I know he's looking at me.

• 7:05Patrick Bet-David?

  He's looking at me. I'm like, I promise you he's not looking. He's the kind of guy that would walk up and just punch the guy in the face. Just for no reason. Just for no reason. What is the matter with you? Right? That's his wiring. Yeah. But we're all together yesterday. Now, we all have kids. We have two, three, and Armon has four kids. We're sitting, we're talking. Armon runs Rafi's place. If you've been to Rafi's place, the restaurant in Glenda, if you've not been, you gotta go. It's the best Middle Eastern restaurant. We're just, we're sitting there yesterday. We're having all these conversations. Challenges men go through, whether it's marriage, money, health, what happens at 41. Oh, everything that you don't want to talk publicly that men are insecure about, we just talk about it right there, right collectively. And the biggest thing that I talked with one of my friends yesterday is, listen.

• 7:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Your number one move is you identifying who you want to be. Not, not who Tiffany wants to be, not who, it's who do you want to be? Not, not what Patrick wants to be, not what Bobby want, not what your older brother, sister, mom, dad. Who do you want to be? If you and I can figure out who we want to be. And it's as transparent and as clear as possible, I don't have to compare myself against your success. Now, here's a problem though. Say for instance, I sit there and I say, honestly, I just want to be a person that's just a regular person and I'm glad if I make 80 grand a year. 100 grand a year. I have a nice place. I'm married. I'm happy. My kids are with me. I have good relationships. I'm totally happy. If you say that. If that's what you want to be. If you say that's what you want to be.

• 8:33Patrick Bet-David?

  If you say I want something else. And you're not doing it, then what? Exactly. But watch this one here. If you say that's what you want to be and you're content with that life. But behind closed doors, your buddy Lewis Howes. Is making millions, he's doing great, he's all over the place, people are talking about it. If an ounce of envy or jealousy comes in, you either weren't being honest with yourself because that's not exactly who you wanted to be, or you got to ask the decision, am I living my life or his life? That's the toughest thing to do, right? Toughest thing to do. Now, the other side of it is that, let's just say you got a big upside. You know, in sports, a lot of times, you know, Stephen A. Smith did an interview the other day and they asked him about Vince Carter and it was the toughest question what that was asked.

• 9:16Patrick Bet-David?

  They said, "So Vince Carter, he just announced 23 years of retirement. He's leaving the NBA. Stephen A., what can you say about Vince Carter's legacy?" Okay, now, I don't know if you guys know Vince Carter is. This guy dumped over the seven footer in the Olympics, the guy retired afterwards. Dunk contest with the elbow. Dunk contest with the elbow. Sick what he was doing in Toronto, McGrady. It's just beautiful when you watch this guy play. I remember one time he dropped 50 in the playoffs. You thought this guy's gonna win the championships and he came from Tar Heels, North Carolina. He's gonna be the next Mike. But here's what Stephen A. said about Vince Carter. Very difficult. He said, you know how Stephen A. does his thing, he's just kinda like... And you know, he typically is quick to give the answer.

• 9:58Patrick Bet-David?

  One second goes by, two seconds goes by, five seconds goes by. He still hasn't said a word. Then all of a sudden, he says, "Well, I gotta tell you, this is a good brother. I love this man, he's a great man, you know, he goes into building him up." And then he says, "But it is the most unfulfilled talent we've ever seen in the history of the NBA." Really? He says, "This man should have been competing with the Kobe's of the world, the LeBron's of the world, the Jordans of the world, but we never saw it. I wish I would have seen the best of him." And you, it's like a minute and 13 seconds, it's so awkward. If Vince Carter watches that and it doesn't bother him, more power to you because you were happy to be in the NBA and you were cool with that. But if you watch that and it bothers you, you know deep down inside he could have done more.

• 10:43Patrick Bet-David?

  So you, as the individual, have to make a decision. Either I'm going for all the, I want all the marbles and I'm willing to go be embarrassed, lose, public humiliation after another one after, until I get there, or I'm gonna live a simple life and I'm okay with this. But you have to be clear about that. That's step number one. Wow, okay, what's step two? Once you're identifying that part, then it's figuring out your own talents that you have. And once I know my talents, where can my talents be used? You know, if you're a numbers guy, what industry can use your talents? Well, maybe it's finance, economy, investment banker. You know, maybe it's on that side. If it's a creative side, maybe I'm gonna go be on the marketing side. Maybe I wanna be behind the scenes. I don't wanna be in front of camera. I wanna be the support person. Then you say, well, I'm not a good number one guy. I'm a good number two person.

• 11:28Patrick Bet-David?

  I'm a number three person. Then you have to find out your positioning at the point of your life. Tom was the former president of our company, PHB. One of the best decisions was hiring this guy. When I hired Tom and brought him on board, he introduced me to Vistage years ago. Vistage is kinda like a YPO, EEO, you're familiar with YPO. So Vistage is an element of that. It's very similar, but it's a little bit older crowd. YPO is a little bit younger. Vistage has 50, 60 year olds, right? And I wanna be around 60 year olds. So introduced me to Vistage. And over the years, we became very good friends before I hired him. And I said, so Tom, let me ask you a question. In your life, you got so jammed at for 780 million. You got a massive exit, but you were the number six guy. How come you don't wanna be the number one guy? He says, good question.

• 12:12Patrick Bet-David?

  He gave me the best answer. He says, you realize I'm 54 years old at the time we were talking. He says, it took me 54 years to realize I'm not a good number one. 54 years? 54 years to realize I'm not a good number one. Would've happened if you'd have realized that at 30. That's the point. Every one of his biggest checks he ever got, he was a number five, the number four, or the number... Every time he was number one, the company didn't do well. So sometimes we wanna be number one, but maybe you're not a number one. Sometimes you wanna be MJ, but maybe you're Scotty. Sometimes you wanna be MJ and Scotty, but maybe you're John Paxson and Steve Kerr. Maybe you're somebody that later on is gonna be the general manager of the, you know, Chicago Bulls. Your name is John Paxson. Maybe you're gonna be a great coach, years later winning three out of five championships. Your name is Steve Kerr.

• 12:57Patrick Bet-David?

  But you gotta play your game with your strength, so... And in the season of life. Exactly, and in the season of life. Because you may be a number six right now, but you may eventually be a good number one. Maybe it's just not time. In a different role, in a different package, in a... Yes, but it's the sequencing, man. Everything is sequencing. What does sequencing mean for you? What is that? Sequencing to me means, okay, if you wake up every day, you have a sequence of what you do. Okay, like what's the first thing you do when you wake up? Mostly meditate. Okay, what's the next thing you do? Make my bed. And what's the next thing you do? Brush my teeth, shower. Okay, that's a sequence. Okay, so that, now what if I wake up and the first thing I do is I shower first? Okay, then I go eat, then I put my clothes on, then I go to work and I say sometime throughout the day I'm gonna meditate.

• 13:42Patrick Bet-David?

  I just messed the whole sequence up. What is the foundation of what I'm starting the day with, right? Yeah. What is the sequence of what I'm gonna be doing next? If every decision you're about to make next, whether it's marriage, having kids, business partnership, a joint venture, if everything you did, you stepped away from the world, your girl, your mom, your dad, your peers, your family, you went to a restaurant, you sat there with a piece of paper saying, okay, I'm thinking about marriage, what do I need to do next? What's the next move I need to make? Then you go, I don't know if that's number one, I think that's number three. And you play that game, it's fascinating. It's fascinating, it's like playing chess. It's like, you know, these master chess players, they know their next 10 to 15 moves.

• 14:24Patrick Bet-David?

  The amateurs were like, uh, shit, here we go, this is what I'm gonna do, you know? And these guys are like, Yeah, yeah. What are you doing? Yeah.

• 14:32Lewis Howes?

  They see it in the future.

• 14:33Patrick Bet-David?

  It's all sequencing.

• 14:34Lewis Howes?

  But it takes the steps to get to the future, you can't just jump to the future.

• 14:38Patrick Bet-David?

  I mean, it's the story of Bob Iger, it's the story of Ted Turner, it's the story of Kirk Krikorian. You know, how Kirk Krikorian went from being a regular guy in Bakersfield who didn't graduate past 8th grade, you know, goes and pays a guy a dollar to let him fly a plane and eventually becomes a pilot for Bugsy with the mob and eventually goes and becomes a pilot, buys TWA, turns it into a big company, sells it for a few hundred million dollars, then decides to go to Vegas, then he decides to buy a couple hotels, then he buys 80 acres of property across the street from Tropicana, then he buys MGM, he's not the founder of MGM, he turns it into what it is, dies at 98 years old as a multi-billionaire, gives a billion dollars to Armenia after the earthquake of 1988. This is all sequencing, man. This is all sequencing, when you go through it, everything is sequencing. Yeah.

• 15:23Patrick Bet-David?

  And when you look at it that way, you tend to make better decisions.

• 15:27Lewis Howes?

  What was the time in your life where you tried to sequence, but it was the wrong sequencing and you got bad results? And what has been the time where you had the best sequencing? Where you actually mapped it out in your mind, this is the sequence, you did it, and you created those results?

• 15:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, so there's two answers to that. I'll give you, I'll give you both of them. One, I tried to sequence to get married at 23 years old. You tried it. It would have been catastrophic. Now, I love the girl. Great girl. We have a friendship till today. My wife sold her a policy. Wow. I mean, we met, when we met, me and my girl would double date with my wife and her boyfriend. Very weird story. Switched, switched. We just switched. They should have switched as well, but we switched, right? Five and a half years later, she's single, I'm single, I'm like, let's go on a date. But at the time, I was forcing marriage because, you know, you're looking at everybody saying, ah, everybody's getting married and I think it's my time and family and I'm Armenian, I'm Assyrian, this, that.

• 16:23Patrick Bet-David?

  One day, I'm like, dude, you are not ready. I asked the question, I said, would you let your daughter marry you? I said, hell no. You asked a question to yourself. I asked the question to myself, would you let your daughter marry the 24-year-old Pat right now? I said, absolutely not. I said, you ain't ready to get married. And we got the ring, married, the whole thing was lined up. You got married, you were getting ready to get married. We were getting ready to get married. The whole, she wasn't ready, I wasn't ready. It would have been catastrophic for both. But that journey of going that direction, it set me back three years. Completely set me back. Because I was dead set on wanting to live a life of other people. I was dead set on making the decision that's gonna please the people that want me to get married. Yet, I don't even know what marriage means. I don't even know the complexities of marriage.

• 17:05Patrick Bet-David?

  I don't even know if I'm done being single. I don't even know the fear about like, if I get married, so do I still? That, that's, that's a lot of challenge and stuff. And it set me back, like I said, three years.

• 17:16Patrick Bet-David?

  The other part is, Louis, that when you say, when did you do it? I've also done it where I've said, here's what I'm gonna do, that maybe was premature of a decision. But then, in that moment, it's fight, flight, or freeze. You rise to the occasion. You rise to the occasion. Yeah. Then, like, when I started a company, I shouldn't, you know, at that time. You weren't ready. I was not ready. There's no way I was ready. Had a half a million dollars in the bank. I'd been around for seven and a half years. I don't know what it is to get insurance contracts. I don't know what it is to get E and O. I don't know what kind of things insurance companies want. I don't know what I'm gonna face. We started it, and I went in without knowing anything. No website, no product, no nothing. Wasn't the smartest decision. One night, I come home, my wife has the miscarriage, it's 1:30 in the morning, my bank account's at $13,000.

• 18:02Patrick Bet-David?

  I have no idea what to do. When I tell you I have no idea, I have no idea what to do. I came back, I said, listen, you put yourself in this position. Now it's too late.

• 18:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 18:10Patrick Bet-David?

  So some people may be watching, they're saying, "Well, I have to have a fresh start with my marriage or my business, or this and this and that, and let me just close shop." Well, no, that's also not the case. Also, the case is maybe, what's the best thing you can do with the current situation you have? And in that moment, have to make the best of it. And we made some right moves and we did get some, you know, we experienced some luck and we worked hard and the next thing you know, things grew.

• 18:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 18:32Patrick Bet-David?

  From having a few hundred agents to now fifteen, sixteen thousand agents in forty-nine states. We weren't expecting that. We were not expecting that. And I'm not talking about being in a company having salespeople. This is having to hire CFOs, raising money, founding. It's very complex without a four-year degree, without a two-year degree, without a finance. It's very complicated.

• 18:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 18:52Patrick Bet-David?

  But somehow it happened. So yes, I would say sometimes, there are many times where the sequencing wasn't right, but there are times that also wasn't right, but you had to make the best of it.

• 19:01Lewis Howes?

  You made it work.

• 19:01Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, you had to make it work.

• 19:02Lewis Howes?

  And what's the difference between entrepreneur versus intrapreneur? And how do you know if you should be entrepreneur and entrepreneur? Or if you should be entrepreneurial?

• 19:12Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 19:13Lewis Howes?

  With a team and a mission that has funds and resources and it's not all on your shoulders?

• 19:17Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, that's a great question. So, you know, one of the things we talk about in this book, Your Next Five Moves, is knowing, you know, when you decide how you want to create your wealth and who you want to be. Meaning, okay, so who do you want to be? I want to be an intrapreneur. I want to be an entrepreneur. I want to be a solopreneur. I want to be a content creator. I want to be an influencer. I want to be an inventor. I want to be an investor. So you, you kind of figure out what angle you want to go and who you want to be.

• 19:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:39Patrick Bet-David?

  And then you figure out which one you want to do next. You may want to be an entrepreneur, but intrapreneur may make sense next, right? You wanted to be an intrapreneur may make sense next. So this movement of entrepreneur got a lot of people to become entrepreneurs who should have never become entrepreneurs.

• 19:53Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 19:53Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, they just should have never become entrepreneurs because they did not experience the element of being an intrapreneur. An intrapreneur thinks, works, is wired, looks at money, people, talent, recruits, sells, sells the dream. Everything an intrapreneur does is identical to the entrepreneur. The only difference between the intrapreneur and the entrepreneur is the entrepreneur put up the money. That's it.

• 20:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 20:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Meaning, there is nothing else that's different there. The same amount of sacrifices this guy's willing to make, this guy's willing to make. He just didn't put up the money, right? Which is a whole different level of sacrifice. Whole different level. Pressure, stress. You got it. Yeah. And that's one of the reasons why the entrepreneur respects the entrepreneur. It's like the hidden code, listen man, I'm willing to do everything you're doing, but I didn't put up money. Salute. Right, right, right. I respect you. This is why you're number one, I'm number two. But I salute you, what do we need to do, right? And there's that element of respect for one another. Now, the entrepreneur has to be willing to allow an entrepreneur to exist. So for example, Bob Iger's story. Bob Iger starts off with ABC years ago, young guy coming out, doesn't know what he wants to do. Accidentally gets a job. He starts working at ABC.

• 21:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Then he works his way up, then it's his dream to be a CEO of Disney. Then eventually becomes a CEO of Disney. He's the CEO of Disney for fifteen, sixteen years. He ends up closing George Lucas and buy Star Wars. Right. He ends up buying Marvel. He ends up buying Pixar from Steve Jobs. And he ends up buying Fox. You do these four trends. His salary was sixty-seven million dollars a year. Wow. Not net worth, salary. Never was an entrepreneur. Right. Bob Iger was never an entrepreneur. Clippers, right here, Ballmer. Ballmer's worth fifty-six, fifty-seven billion dollars. He's not an entrepreneur. Wow. He was an employee, number five or number six. Yeah, he's never, he was, he was an employee at Microsoft. Wow. And then eventually, Paul Allen didn't want to do it anymore.

• 21:49Patrick Bet-David?

  He kind of wanted to step down. Bill Gates comes and gets Ballmer. Ballmer takes it to the next level. Ballmer now owns the Clippers. So there are many entrepreneurs that started the company, that own a hundred percent their business, but they're making eighty grand a year. Right. They're making six hundred grand a year. Because they wanted a hundred percent of control. Ballmer's like, listen, I'm good. Gates started it, but I'm worth fifty-eight billion. Yeah. So the road to what you're solving for. You don't have to say, "I have to be an entrepreneur." No, you don't. Maybe the better option for you is go find, if you can find a killer on the way up. If you can find a killer on the way up. So, you know, if you looked at everybody as a stock, let's just say we started looking at everybody as a stock, okay? So you have small cap, mid cap, large cap. What's the difference between a small cap, mid cap, large cap?

• 22:34Patrick Bet-David?

  It's a dollar amount, you know, five billion less, five billion two and nothing. And then you have the large cap, you know, all these Disney's, Walmarts, these are large cap, right? But the key is if you can figure out when they're a small cap. The key is if you're at the PayPal mafia group and you see somebody who says, "That guy's gonna start Yelp." "I'm gonna go run with that guy." "That guy's gonna start, you know, Tesla." Uber. Uber. "That guy, Peter Thiel, I'm gonna go do something with him." "I don't care if I'm as number two or number three, I'm gonna go with this guy." "He put half a million dollars into Facebook, worth a couple billion dollars." "This guy's coming up, I wanna go with..." Like Maverick Carter is gonna be somebody in the next 20 years, right? If you can figure out a way to run with him because you are one contact away from LeBron.

• 23:18Patrick Bet-David?

  So if a guy wants to get into media and let's just say you wanna do something in the African-American community, figure out a way to go work for Maverick Carter. His stock's gonna be high 20 years from now. Right. I mean, it's big today, but I'm talking really high. So if you can make a list of guys where you can have an eye for it, it's almost like picking a husband or a wife. You know, because picking a husband or a wife, there's a risk factor. You go to dinner, you say, "Baby, I love you so much." "You're so beautiful. You make my day." "When I see you, I'm just like I'm in heaven." It's like, "I don't see anybody else. It's just clouds around me and angels." "You know, and I see birds when we're together." And then the marriage conversation comes up and your brain, you become a mathematician all of a sudden. "I gotta know, I say 72% chance we get a divorce, but I'm willing to take that 28% chance risk."

• 24:02Patrick Bet-David?

  So there's an element that we get judged for our friends, we get judged for who we marry, we get judged for our girlfriend, our boyfriend, we get judged for career, industry. You also get judged on who you decide to lock onto and run with as a right-hand person or as the person that you wanna be their right-hand person. But if you can look at people as stocks and you saw somebody that has a big upside and you lock onto them early, it's gonna be a wild ride.

• 24:27Lewis Howes?

  When did you know your wife was gonna be your wife? And what did you see in her? That made you say, this is gonna be my next move in this area of my life?

• 24:35Patrick Bet-David?

  That's a great question, so. I, I, for the five and a half years that we weren't together, every friend I ever had, I set him up on a double date. Every friend I ever, I would say, dude, go ask her out.

• 24:47Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 24:47Patrick Bet-David?

  She's a wife. You said you want a wife, go ask her out. You think so? You think she'd be interested? Call her. Call her up, go talk to her. Everybody, I would say, go talk to her. Why? Etiquette, high. Okay? Temperament, calm. Very easygoing. Accommodating, but disciplined, worker. Has her own identity. Not a pushover. Strong. But at the same time, it's just so gentle to be around her. Now, myself. So, originally, I thought I wanted to marry myself. So I did. I, I ended up dating someone that was me. We were both Libras, okay? She was my former boss. And we almost killed each other.

• 25:31Patrick Bet-David?

  I mean, I would have been, one of us would have been dead because it was like, fire versus fire and she is so competitive and we're going, just craziness, right? And then, uh, one day I sat down and I read this book, 101 Questions to Ask Before You Get Engaged. And this book I read, I went through all these things and I said, wait a minute. Who I thought I wanted as a wife is not really a wife. Who I wanted as a wife, these are the 18 things that I'm, I can't compromise these things. So. Yeah, there's, that's definitely not gonna work out. This is definitely not gonna work out. Here's what I need. And I'm sorry, people can say that's chauvinistic, this is what matters to me. I can't try to please you because you think it's chauvinistic. This is what matters to me. Here's what I'm willing to make a decision. So then, uh, we were at Palm Springs and my wife and I,

• 26:14Patrick Bet-David?

  at that time, she was in a different relationship and, uh, she's sitting across from me, her relationship had ended, my relationship had ended. And I said, who are you seeing right now? She says, I'm not seeing anybody. I said, you're not seeing anybody? She said, no. The guy sitting in that corner, his name was Rusty. I said, Rusty, let's switch seats. So I go sit next to her. I said, so what are you looking for in a man?

• 26:33Lewis Howes?

  Just like that.

• 26:33Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, I said, so what are you looking for in a man? So she says, you know, I'm looking for somebody that's tall, strong, you can't push him over. And so I'm like, okay, either she's a great recruiter on what she's saying, or she's just saying, I don't want somebody that's a pushover because I want somebody that can protect the family. I said, okay, great, let's go up wine afterwards. We went downstairs, I had a glass of wine, she had a glass of orange juice. And then we spent a whole weekend together. Then we drove back from Palm Springs back home. It was a two and a half hour drive and we talked in the car the entire time. She went to Pasadena to visit her family. But before she did that Monday night, I said, meet me at Jerry's Deli. You know, the Jerry's off of Ventura. She meets me at Jerry's Deli at 10 o'clock. And she says, so Pat, tell me, when you sell this policy?

• 27:18Patrick Bet-David?

  How do you sell it? What do you say when they say this? And she goes an hour asking questions about sales. Huh. I said, do you know why you're here? She says, yeah, because you're helping me with my business. I said, not at all. I'm here because I like you and I think you like me too and I think we should date. And she gets up and walks out. She just gets up and walks, we're friends. This doesn't make any sense. I can't see. She walks up, gets out, leaves Jerry, gets in the car, goes to Pasadena, Houston, Texas. I'm like, there's no way in the world this is what's happening right now. So I go home, I said, Dad, I want you to look at this MySpace page because it was MySpace back then.

• 27:55Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 27:56Patrick Bet-David?

  And her song was Let the Drummer Kick. Do you remember the song? Let the, Let the Drummer Kick, Let the Drum, you know. So I'm listening to this Let the Drummer Kick 24. So I'm telling my dad, Dad, this is your future daughter-in-law. He says, how many more? You've told me hundreds of women are going to be my future. I said, no, this is the one that I'm telling you. So I call her up, she's not answering. I send her a message on, she's not answering. Yeah, MySpace. And she finally sends me a message saying, look, my only concern without stating is the fact that we're friends. I don't want to risk losing our friendship. So I respond back, I said, aside from risk losing our friendship, what other concerns do you have?

• 28:29Lewis Howes?

  None.

• 28:30Patrick Bet-David?

  So she doesn't answer for a few hours. It was Christmas Eve, we got on the phone, the five and a half hour conversation. She came back December 29th. We went to PF Chang's off of Sherman Oaks in Sepulveda. If you know, right by the four or five freeway. So we went there, we sat down and that night, our waitress was, waiter was coming up to me. And I said, can I talk to you? We're having a big problem here because we were the last ones left. He says, what's the problem? I said, you know, my wife and I have been married for a long time. She's not my wife, she's just somebody. We did, I said, my wife and I have been dating for quite some time. And her parents don't like me because I'm from Iran. What could you tell her? This poor guy sits down next to us for fifteen minutes, starts talking about, but do you love him? Because that's all that matters.

• 29:14Patrick Bet-David?

  Don't worry, he starts getting emotional. And at this point, I'm feeling guilty. Because I'm like, this sucks, because this guy's really trying to be sincere. Anyways, after that night when we went home, I said, we're probably gonna get married. Next day, we went to church, then we went to Santa Monica stairs, then we went to Earth Cafe, then we went to Borders, when there used to be a Borders. And I bought her the book, A Hundred and One Questions to Ask Before We Get Engaged, on our second date.

• 29:38Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 29:38Patrick Bet-David?

  I said, we need to go through this together. A week later, we were at her place. Six hours of going through all the questions together. A year and a half later, we got engaged and we got three kids. And we're married eleven years. By the way, this is what I will tell you, that's a very weird answer I give people. People ask me, so, man, do you know for a fact this thing's gonna work out forever? Absolutely not. We take it one year at a time. Marriage is very risky, because you can't control people. I can't control how, what kind of emotions you're gonna have, what's gonna happen to you. She can't do it to me. But from day one, we said, babe, one year at a time. No pressure perfection. The pressure perfection of marriage ruins everybody. You're always worried about, what if this doesn't work out? What if this, what if I become like my parents? What if all that stuff? And that pressure doesn't allow you to enjoy your marriage.

• 30:21Patrick Bet-David?

  So we said, babe, I think we can be married one more year. We've been saying this for eleven years. So we'll see how many more times we're gonna say this.

• 30:28Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 30:28Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, slightly different.

• 30:30Lewis Howes?

  Where do you think you'd be if you were single over the last eleven years? Weren't married, didn't have kids? Would you be farther along in your financial?

• 30:39Patrick Bet-David?

  No way.

• 30:39Lewis Howes?

  Success and fulfillment success? Or does this bring you more financial and inner fulfillment?

• 30:45Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, the, the, the, look, when you're married, there is just as much of a target on you when you're married, when you're single. You have to understand, how so? Because you're a target. You're somebody that's taken, it's a challenge.

• 30:58Lewis Howes?

  It's desirable for other women.

• 30:59Patrick Bet-David?

  It's a challenge. It's a challenge.

• 31:01Lewis Howes?

  You have to check yourself all the time and constantly.

• 31:03Patrick Bet-David?

  I have a formula. Last week I was at West Palm.

• 31:05Lewis Howes?

  Tell me this.

• 31:06Patrick Bet-David?

  And I can't tell you the formula on camera, but the formula I can tell you privately. But I'm at West Palm and I started sharing this formula with our married guys. I said, guys, listen, I sat down with three guys, I said, you guys are all good looking. Okay. One guy's name is Andrew.

• 31:19Lewis Howes?

  You got money, you're good looking.

• 31:20Patrick Bet-David?

  You're good looking, these guys are all like, good looking. One guy went to APU, the other guy's a butcher from Jersey who had a Broadway show in New York. And the other guy was a Calvin Klein model, 6'4", courtesy man. I'm sitting there, I'm like, guys, you're very good looking. Now, good news is, you guys all married well, you have beautiful wives. I said, but don't get it twisted.

• 31:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:39Patrick Bet-David?

  You know, when you're by yourself and you're a target as well, I said, you gotta have a system. So I told them the system. When I told them the system, they sat there, they're like, it was the uncomfortable moment. And I said, yeah, this is very effective. It gives you two hours of savings, okay, if you do this exercise that I'm telling you. And while I'm telling them, their faces turning red and then their wives come. So what are you guys talking about? I said, yeah, Andrew, why don't you tell your wife what we're talking about? No, babe, you don't want to. But you know, so, you know, the difference if I was single, it would have been more women, it would have been more dating, it would have been more relationship, it would have been more trying to please her and her and her and consuming my time and the desire to try

• 32:22Patrick Bet-David?

  to please, you know, however many relationships you have, it's too much of a...

• 32:25Lewis Howes?

  Getting into a relationship, ending all the relationships, managing the energy.

• 32:29Patrick Bet-David?

  The energy of trying to, you know, like, everybody you date for the first time, you're like, heaven on earth. I wish the last one was like her. Oh my gosh. And then, one's issue is, she bites her nails. Another one's issue is, she doesn't like to floss. So when you're making out at night, there's a little bit of, I'm like, give me a freaking break, go floss already.

• 32:53Lewis Howes?

  Always something.

• 32:54Patrick Bet-David?

  Another one is, her mother, and her mother is like, so annoying, she wants to tell you what to do and you're so sick of it. Another one is, her dad is, the opinions on how you should do everything, and she listens to her dad and... You're number two as a man. There's so many things. So you have to eventually make a decision which one, what are the most annoying things that you're willing to work with because they're not going away. Everyone's gonna have something. You gotta be willing to accept something.

• 33:17Lewis Howes?

  I'm curious about, you've built a very rich life, not just financially, but in your marriage and your, your, your family, your friendships, your client relationships, you've built a rich life. I'm curious, what are the three things that poor people do that rich people don't do? Or you can reverse it, where three things rich people do that poor people don't do?

• 33:38Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, I, I can tell you, they, they have the intuition of how they judge people because everything is about the whole intuition part, right? You're sitting there, who you choose to befriend, who you choose to have relationships with, you know, and how you water those relationships. Because if you wanna have a relationship together and it's just take, take, take, nothing's gonna happen. I remember I'm a 24-year-old kid, I don't know nothing about business. I've done some stuff in sales, but I really don't know nothing about business. I'm, I'm a 22-year-old kid, I go and I take this guy, I go to a job interview at the advertising group. Shout out to Jamie Hep, and I watch this guy, he interviews me. I'm, I'm at that time working on Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, but I'm trying to see what else I wanna do, okay?

• 34:23Patrick Bet-David?

  So I got started the day before 9/11, but I'm still interviewing. I sit with him in the interview, and the way he interviewed me, I sat there and I said, "I will never work for this company because it's just not what I wanna do." Because they were selling Xerox machines and business to business. I said, "But I wanna have a relationship with you." I said, "Do you mind if I get your business card?" He said, "Yeah, sure." I said, "Okay, great." So he gives me his business card. Year and a half later, I get a job, I'm doing good at this point, I'm making some income, 23-years-old. I call him up, and I said, "Jamie, you don't remember me, but I wanna take you out to lunch and I wanna pick your brain if you don't mind. I told you a year and a half ago that I wanted to do this with you, and you said yes." He says, "Great, let's do it."

• 35:05Patrick Bet-David?

  So we go to Macaroni, Macaroni Grill, somewhere in Culver City, right around here like Victory, Overland, somewhere around that area. So we go there, he brings this drop dead gorgeous girl that works for him. I think her name is Natalia or Natasha or something with N, right? And she's beautiful, short skirt, perfect legs, flawless, beautiful face. She's sitting right there and I know what he's trying to do. He's trying to woo me to go be one of his sales guys. And I said, look, with all due respect, you're beautiful, but I have no interest in you. My interest is in you. Is it fair if we just talk business for an hour? He says, yes. So I went, okay? Now, at this point, he's making a million. I'm making fifty grand a year. I'm a nobody, okay? We have lunch again. I'm taking notes, taking notes, taking notes. I offered to pay. He doesn't let me pay.

• 35:50Patrick Bet-David?

  He pays. He says, I got it. No problem. When I leave, I send him a book. We had this meeting that we did every three to six months together at this restaurant, Argentinian restaurant called Bamboo, which they had this beautiful soup. Every time we would have dinner with him or we'd go to lunch, I would always send him a book. Ten years later, he says, every time I meet with Patrick, a book is on its way. Okay? So I valued the relationship. I asked him, what do you need from me? How can I bring things to you? Years later, he gives me one referral. That one referral he gave me helped me open up Florida. If he doesn't give me that referral, that Florida office wouldn't have been opened up, right? One contact opens up a whole state, okay?

• 36:32Patrick Bet-David?

  So another relationship I can tell you about is I was going to churches and I said, let me see what's gonna happen with these churches. And I'm going to churches and I'm going to these different places. I'm having, I'm studying Scientology. I'm studying LDS. I'm studying Jehovah, Judaism. I'm studying everything. At this point in the game, I was obsessed with religion. So all I wanna do is study, study, study everything about religion, right? And I'm twenty-four, twenty-five. I eventually find this church called Shepherd of the Hills, which is ran by a guy named Dudley Rutherford. And I go to this place and I'm an atheist. So it's not like I'm going in there. I'm just trying to see what's going on over here. Trying to learn. I'm just trying to learn. I'm not trying to do it. I go to this place and I'm like, okay, I like this guy's style. And typically go to church. If you don't do this, you don't know hell. And I'm like, dude, I don't need to know I'm going to hell.

• 37:17Patrick Bet-David?

  I know I'm going to hell. I just want to know I have a shot in heaven. You know what I'm saying? So this guy's energy was, you have a shot out of hell. Right, I'm okay, cool. I'm a this might try. I know this screw up. Let me see, maybe I got a shot over here. So I go there and I'm sitting in the back, I watch him once, twice, three times, four times, I'm like, wow, this, I like this guy. So then I sent him an email, little bit of an arrogant email, but I'll tell you what the email was, I sent him an email, I said, listen, my name is Patrick, baby, you don't know who I am, but I'm gonna be somebody in the world. And I know you are somebody in the world, but I promise you, if you give me your time, I will always bring value to you. It will not be waste your time, okay? I'm not doing anything at that time at twenty five. I'm I got a small little office operation, nothing crazy.

• 38:01Patrick Bet-David?

  We go have a lunch together at Black Angus, Black Angus off Canogo or Topanga. We go to Black Angus, we sit down, we talk. After the meeting is over with, I said, what can I do for you? Nothing there, we go out again, what can I do for you, nothing there, what can I do for you, nothing there. Eventually, it says something happened with my son at Moore Park Basketball. And I made a phone call to the coach and I spoke to the guy. And anonymously, anonymously, because I didn't like the way this whole situation was handled, he probably doesn't even know the story, I know the people may know, but he may not even know the story, so. Um, so I make the phone call. We get closer, he marries my wife, we we change our wedding to Friday, it was set up on Saturday to Friday, so he can wed us.

• 38:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Anyways, in two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, two thousand and eight, he introduces me to Tom Ellsworth, you know, I talked about Tom earlier? He introduced me to Tom, okay? And Tom comes, okay? In two thousand and nine, he introduced me to Matt Sapala. Matt Sapala and Sheena, I got introduced to O nine. They just got promoted this last week at West Palm Beach to the Chief Distribution Officer, PHB, right? He is now the CDO, okay? We've paid him in the first six months of the year over a million dollars, they're they're doing very good at what they're doing in the business here. But if I don't have that contact and I water him, what his needs are, not what I can take. If I give the needs you, I don't have those contacts.

• 39:21Patrick Bet-David?

  So I think too many times when, you know, you build a relationship with somebody, it's immediately, what can I do, you know? Uh, what can I? What can I get from you? Yeah, and I remember how you were the first time we met, you know, when we were done. You and I went to Earth Cafe with Jen and I think we even went and looked at some furniture and there was like a Google shop that we went there. I don't know if you remember that.

• 39:40Lewis Howes?

  Walked around.

• 39:40Patrick Bet-David?

  Right across from Earth Cafe. And, and you said, Pat, how can I help you? What do you need from me? You know, what can I do for you?

• 39:46Lewis Howes?

  It was on the corner.

• 39:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Exactly, exactly. So we walked, babe, she's like, I really like this Lewis guy. I don't like this approach, how he is. That's the dynamic that you don't see behind closed doors. People may see. School of Greatness, people may see the books, but behind closed doors, the context is about what can I do for you? So you ask three things. I'd say the biggest one is. Figure out ways to strengthen relationships and take them deeper because you never know, just like everybody thinks you're. You know, one sale away or one opportunity away. You're one contact away from your life changing. If you start valuing your contact like a book of business.

• 40:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 40:21Patrick Bet-David?

  Everything changes.

• 40:22Lewis Howes?

  That's true. What I heard you say there was intuition. Study and relationships.

• 40:26Patrick Bet-David?

  Sure, yeah.

• 40:27Lewis Howes?

  Does that cover those kind of three things? And I think when you think about people that aren't making the money that they want and don't have a rich life, whether that be quality of life. They probably aren't discerning their decisions and being intuitive about who they should spend time with. They aren't researching more ideas and expanding their mind and they aren't. Giving in those relationships. I would agree with that.

• 40:49Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, I, I would agree with that. And I think sometimes it's also not knowing. What something could lead into. You know, a guy one time came into Morgan Stanley Dean Wood and a Harley Davidson. Bike and he had tattoos. And he looked rough. Very rough. No advisor would take him. He says, I'm looking for an advisor. No advisor would take this guy. Yeah, I need an advisor. And like, oh, there's a bank downstairs.

• 41:12Lewis Howes?

  Financial advisor.

• 41:13Patrick Bet-David?

  Financial advisor, Morgan Stanley, Dean Wood or Glendale. No one wants to take this guy.

• 41:17Lewis Howes?

  This guy's got no money.

• 41:18Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, so the guy comes out, he sees, he says, I'll just give him to somebody else. I'm good. The guy in the corner office that has a couple hundred million dollars under management, he leaves. Then the new guy takes them. Then a guy comes have fifty million dollars to invest. He got an inheritance. That one account was fifty million.

• 41:34Lewis Howes?

  Changes life.

• 41:35Patrick Bet-David?

  Changes life. And he put the fifty and the rookie broker got a fifty million dollar money under management. You're getting one or two points on that. Life changing.

• 41:44Lewis Howes?

  For life.

• 41:45Patrick Bet-David?

  For life.

• 41:46Lewis Howes?

  Every year.

• 41:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Every year, generational wealth. We're not talking about like a small thing here. So you can't just sit there and look at relationships that you never know the potential of a contact. You have to know every contact could take you to someplace that you don't know. It's like a movie. You don't know the next scene. You know, so you can't just assume what that contact's gonna lead into.

• 42:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 42:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Sometimes the smallest contact can lead into something big.

• 42:07Lewis Howes?

  One of the things I love about you, Patrick, is you remind me of my dad so much and my childhood. My dad, I think I told you, my dad was life insurance salesman for thirty-two years until he got into a a brain accident. He got in a car crash and he's still alive today, but he had to stop working and he also became an entrepreneur, launched the health insurance vertical in conjunction with Northwestern Mutual. And he does everything you do. And my whole business model and just the way that I live is based on what I witnessed him doing. And this was pre-social media, pre-internet.

• 42:40Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow.

• 42:41Lewis Howes?

  He would just remember names like nobody's business. He was so giving, so thoughtful, and he was always thinking the long term. He wasn't like, how can I sell you now, but how can I give you now? He would do this every day. He would read the newspaper and he would cut out the newspaper every day and write long letters and put in envelopes and send it out to people that were clients and people that are not clients. If it was someone's kid in sports that, you know, was, hey, they had their best game ever. Hey, I just wanted to send you this clipping of the newspaper to just people in the community.

• 43:11Patrick Bet-David?

  That's on a whole different level though, man. That's incredible.

• 43:13Lewis Howes?

  Handwritten letters and just send it to them and say, hey, you know, if I can ever help with anything, let me know.

• 43:18Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 43:19Lewis Howes?

  And it was that kind of old school mentality, but he would always just show up for people, just take meetings to take them. And wasn't always trying to sell, but just trying to serve. And that's really kind of how I built my business early on was when I had nothing at all, I was just like, what can I learn from someone and how can I ask them what they need? And then deliver on that need as fast as possible. And not ask for anything in return. And I think that's one of the reasons why I've been able to grow is because of the relationship building. You know, Ben, our producer, I met him nine years ago when he was a student at Columbia Journalism School. Getting your masters, right? And he was working on a documentary about handball. I was in handball at that time in New York City and really liked the way he made the documentary.

• 44:04Lewis Howes?

  And followed his journey over the last nine years, stayed in touch every year. We needed a head producer to really build our content. And I reached out to him and the timing right, the sequencing was right. And we had a relationship where it made sense, at least for now, maybe he leaves at some point. But it's been great so far in the last four months. And I think you never know where the relationship will go. Even if it didn't work out, it's still worth building relationships.

• 44:26Patrick Bet-David?

  No question.

• 44:27Lewis Howes?

  Even if we never worked together. Because you just never know who that person might introduce you to, who might say your name behind closed doors, where it unlocks some opportunity, you never know. So you remind me a lot of my dad.

• 44:39Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, that's a big compliment and I appreciate that. Thank you.

• 44:42Lewis Howes?

  And I think if more people came from that place of how can I just care about people and help them solve their problems? You're going to gain a lot back in return, long term, whether it's with that person or not. And you talk about money a lot on your show. And you have an amazing video about your top, I think it's your top 20 rules on money. I'm curious, since we're going into the rich poor conversation, what would you say are the top three to five rules on money? If you could boil it down to three to five?

• 45:09Patrick Bet-David?

  It's a game. The number one rule is it's a game. You're playing a game. It's that simple, you know? If you, if you look at it as a game, just like anything, you can get better at it, right? Like I don't, whatever game you play, if you play Uno, if you play Monopoly, if you play Clue, if you play Jenga, if you play Fortnite, if anything you play, you know, you're going to get good. I remember in my time, I was playing Fester's Quest, I played Zelda. I used to play Final Fantasy I and I would play, obviously, Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat. But it was also, what was the Mario Kart, the Super Mario Kart? And you know how you would do the three jumps and then bam, it's going fast? And I would beat this time 32 seconds. I was so proud of it, but I played it 50,000 times, right? So the game with money.

• 45:52Patrick Bet-David?

  It's exactly what it is. Once you learn how to play the game with money, then it has to do with timing, then it has to do with different kind of things like, you know, a year ago, I get a call from a guy who needs cash. I said, "Okay." He needs an investment. He has something he has to sell immediately to get cash in return. Okay, because he needs the money right away. So I said, "Okay, so what are you selling?" He says, "It's the two greatest Wayne Gretzky cards." I said, "Okay." Signed or unsigned? No, this is a PSA 10, 1979 OPG top. Signature? No sign, but it's the Holy Grail. So, the OPG one sold in 2016 for $453,000. Okay? Wow.

• 46:35Patrick Bet-David?

  And just five years prior to that, it sold for $92,000. So from $92,000 to $451 in 2016, and he calls me. And a top sold in 2016 for $205,000. So two cards combined sold in 2016 for $600,000. He has them both? He has them both, and he wants to sell it to me. And I said, "Okay, what do you want to sell it for?" He's like, "600,000?" Yeah, of course, he wants to... I said, "I'm not gonna pay you that." I mean, you know, he wants 650,000, I'm not gonna pay you that, but we talked about it. And eventually he gave me a number, right? And it was still a number. I had to still cough up, you know, half a million dollar check to the guy. But we met at the PSA headquarters, classy guy, total gentleman. We sat down, transaction happened, the CEO of PSA came,

• 47:17Patrick Bet-David?

  showed us the poster on the PSA headquarters, I think it's in Newport, of the card is on the wall. It's the most expensive hockey card in the world, right? "Okay, no problem." Are you a hockey fan? I'm not a hockey fan, I'm an investment guy with hockey. But I've interviewed Wayne Gretzky six years ago. So I like greatness, I like anybody that just goes and crushes it with their game, right? So I buy this card. So I buy the card, I don't think much of it. One card, not two? Two cards, it's both of them, I bought both of them, yeah. Wow. So the other guy who owns the card, wouldn't sell his card for a million dollars if you paid it to him. So here's what I do know. So two guys own the card? Me and the other guy, there's only two of us, okay? You paid a million, he won't sell it to you. So that means there's only one in the market, because it's me, because I'm willing to sell it. Right? Yeah. So it's on eBay, right? If you go on eBay right now, you type in Wayne Gretzky OPG,

• 48:02Patrick Bet-David?

  it's on market right now for a million dollars, right? One of them is on the market for a million, the other one's on the market for 400,000. So you ask me for a rule of money, I had cash. If I don't have cash like that, I can't double my money that quickly. So we just talked about three of them. Money's a game. You need cash because opportunity is going to come up and it's a doubles game. So if I put it down, it's a doubles game. Everything about money is a doubles game. What's that mean? The doubles game to me is I pay you a thousand dollars. Can we double it in six months? No. How long? In 12 months? Okay, no problem. I'll do a double in a year. Here's a thousand dollars. I get a double back, right? So if you take a thousand and you double it every year, what happens? Thousand goes into two, four, eight, 16, 32, 64, 250, 65, 12, a million. A thousand dollars is nine doubles away from a million.

• 48:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow. Now you take a million and see what happens if we double it nine times. One million goes into two million, four million, eight million, 16 million, 32, 64, 128, 250, 65, 12, a billion. A million is 10 doubles away from a billion. How do you find the doubles? Well, that's the game. That's the part of the game. That's what I'm trying to tell you. So the doubles now becomes investment opportunities. You know, what you buy into? Do you start a company where has a high value? You know, you can really scale it and finding something that can scale. Do you invest into things that are going to give you 6, 8, 10%? Or you're going to go play ball and take the risk? That's the game that you're going to start learning that, you know, part of my money is going to be hedged and I'm going to buy some gold because I'm not going to become a billionaire off gold, but I'm buying it because gold is money

• 49:32Patrick Bet-David?

  and something happens to the economy, I'm protected with the gold. But you know what? I'm going to put some of this money in mutual funds because I know long-term I'm going to make 8 to 12% on this. I'm fine with that. I might do a real estate deal because long-term I may do some money, although right now with commercial real estate, maybe an interesting dynamic because I think Zoom crushed commercial real estate. The commercial real estate model has, it's been crushed. Yeah. And by the way, it may never come back the same way ever again. Commercial real estate. Maybe 20 years from now or something. Who knows? I don't even think. I think it's gone. Really? Here's what I mean. Look, we have this space, right? Okay, you got this space. Did you get it in the last four months? How long? I got it before COVID. Six months before, yeah. But if you get this today, if you get this today, right, right now, office space in Dallas, office space nationwide,

• 50:17Patrick Bet-David?

  companies are looking at their business models and they're just saying, why do I need 100,000 square feet of office space? Why do I need it? But if you go out there and you look at the numbers, you're like, okay, I don't know if I'm into commercial real estate. You know, but if I find some small, if I team up with the investment banker, if I team up with a guy that's managing money, and I go with a VC team, and this is a guy that's, you know, flipping opportunities fairly quickly, and I dump a million dollars with him, and within five years, he turns a million dollars into five million, that's five X in five years, that may not be a bad idea. So you gotta find those, and they're out there, by the way. You have to, they're out there. So Ray Dalio plays a game of doubles. Warren Buffett's a doubles game, all these guys are doubles game. And Dallas investing in businesses. Yes. I'm a business guy, I'm not a real estate guy. There are people that are, and by the way,

• 51:02Patrick Bet-David?

  that doesn't mean real estate doesn't work. I mean, it wouldn't make any sense for me to say. There's real estate billionaires everywhere. Our president is a real estate billionaire. So for me to knock real estate would have no value to it. But for me, I'm more about, I have an idea. What are you guys doing? Me and Tiffany are thinking about starting a marketing company. Okay, how can this thing scale? Well, let me tell you what we got. We got three packages, boom, boom, boom. Who are we gonna be target audience? We're gonna be targeting people in this world. Okay, interesting, how much are they gonna pay? We foresee us doing six million dollars in revenue within 24 months. What have you done to be able to earn this? I'm a Columbia guy, I'm a this, I'm a this. How much money do you need? I need two million dollars. I can't give you two million, can I come in for a hundred thousand? I put a hundred thousand dollars. The next thing, this thing sells for two hundred million dollars,

• 51:46Patrick Bet-David?

  that hundred thousand dollars all of a sudden became 2.2 million dollars, that's a victory. So those opportunities are out there, you just gotta focus. And then, the last one I would tell you with the money, so we talked about what? We talked about game. Money's a game, you need cash, it's a doubles game. Doubles game? Yep. And I'll tell you, one more would be, you have to be maniacally, maniacal about being patient. I mean, you have to be patiently aggressive. You know, patiently aggressive. It's so tough to do. Cause you want your money to double now. Exactly. It might take 10 years. Yeah, but, but if you are willing to, in the 10 years, it may double 40 times. It may double 30 times. You know, like when Bezos said, just hang tight, I'm not gonna give you dividends,

• 52:31Patrick Bet-David?

  just trust me on this, trust me on this, right? And at the beginning, if you've heard the story, where he goes and raises two million dollars, from, he gets fifty thousand dollars from 40 people, that's what, two million dollars? And he gives them 20%. Wow. Twenty percent.

• 52:49Lewis Howes?

  He gives up twenty percent of that two million.

• 52:50Patrick Bet-David?

  He gives them twenty percent just for two million dollars. You know what that twenty percent is worth today? Two hundred billion dollars.

• 52:57Lewis Howes?

  My gosh.

• 52:57Patrick Bet-David?

  That's the point. So can you imagine nineteen ninety-four, Amazon gets started? Forget about you put two million. Just say you put fifty million. Just put you, you put fifty thousand. What is a half a percent of a two, of a trillion dollar company right now? A half a percent? You're still a half a billionaire.

• 53:13Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 53:14Patrick Bet-David?

  Your fifty thousand is worth five hundred million dollars. Give or take whatever the numbers were doing right. The, the point is, that is a massive victory. The guy who put ten thousand dollars and he gave it to Berkshire Hathaway in nineteen seventy-four, I don't know if you've heard this story. You know, Warren Buffett is starting, he says, I'll give you ten thousand dollars. Never touches the money, goes back to his regular job, makes a hundred grand a year. You know how much that ten, have you read this article?

• 53:35Lewis Howes?

  No, tell me.

• 53:36Patrick Bet-David?

  The ten thousand dollars, if you go on business insider, you pull it up, is worth seven eighty today.

• 53:41Lewis Howes?

  Seven hundred eighty?

• 53:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Million.

• 53:42Lewis Howes?

  Million.

• 53:43Patrick Bet-David?

  Never did anything to it. So, so that's the part about patiently aggressive.

• 53:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 53:47Patrick Bet-David?

  It's very hard to do. But the doubles get bigger later on, not early on. The doubles are bigger, you're fifteen, twenty, twenty-five.

• 53:54Lewis Howes?

  That's what Buffett talks about, just like his successes, he's, he's lived longer. You know, he's just stayed around longer to let the money continue to compound. And that compounded interest is where it's at. What's the three greatest investments you've made in yourself? And would you recommend those same investments in other people? Or what should they be doing in their life right now?

• 54:11Patrick Bet-David?

  So, you know, I will tell you, I went to a Harvard OPM program one time and I spent.

• 54:15Lewis Howes?

  OPM?

• 54:15Patrick Bet-David?

  OPM is Owner President Management Program. So if you run a business that does ten million or more, you get to go to it and it's three years of three weeks living on campus, right? I went there, but I, uh, uh, didn't go afterwards for different reasons. But I went there, when I spent that fifty thousand dollars and I was on campus for three weeks, you spend three weeks with a hundred and forty-four people from sixty-four different countries. So watch what happens. I'm sitting there and at this point of the game, I don't have no idea what it is to be a CEO. I've gone from being an employee to a salesperson, to a sales leader, to a good manager, but I don't know what it is to be a CEO. I have no idea what it is to be a CEO. So I sit next to this guy, he becomes my teammate, my partner. He, uh, he owns the Victoria's Secret of New Zealand and Australia.

• 55:00Patrick Bet-David?

  The reason why I'm laughing is because the last day, eight of us were chosen to go present a business opportunity. So he keeps telling me, Patrick, I'm gonna kill it. Just watch what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna scare the hell out of Lynette. I think the lady's name is Lynette, cause she's the main person that does it. Watch what I'm about to do. So he goes up on stage, Louis, it's a very simple guy, I mean, good-looking guy, but he's not charismatic, anything, he just goes up on stage. He says, "Let me tell you why you ought to invest a million dollars into my new lingerie line." He says, "Here's a PowerPoint, here's a PowerPoint, you see all the sexy women here? You know what? I think it's more important for you to see this face-to-face. Ladies?" No way, brings them in. Seven models come in, half-naked, wearing the lingerie.

• 55:42Patrick Bet-David?

  The entire place, all the entrepreneurs are going crazy, but the teachers are furious with them. The ladies running up, takes their jacket off, is trying to cover all these women. It was phenomenal, right? To see this here. But the point is- On Harvard stuff. On Harvard's campus, right? Think about it. Here's the part, five years goes by, I'm talking to you about it. That's called marketing, right? You remember it. I remember it. But when I was sitting next to him, I said, "Listen, man, I'm trying to, I'm trying to learn how to be a good CEO. What do you suggest about being a good CEO?" He says, "Man, I got 7,000 employees and have seven CEOs that report directly to me." I spent three weeks with this guy telling me stuff that he does with his CEO. He's not a motivational speaker. I don't even think he's got a thousand people following him on Instagram. He's worth a couple billion.

• 56:27Patrick Bet-David?

  He's not an influencer. But those three weeks of talking to, I was like a kid in a candy store, trying to pull information out of this guy, and it was all technical stuff. It wasn't motivational stuff. "What time do you wake up? What's your daily routine?" None of that stuff. It's, what do you do when you're trying to hire a person? And you know you gotta give them equity, but you're afraid if you give him too much equity and he leaves early, and you protect yourself that if you fire him, does he still get the other two-thirds? Does he still? How do you do this? Well, you set it up this way. What do you do to make sure your attorney that you have, that attorney that you have, who is negotiating with the other attorney, and he doesn't really want to go to court? So behind closed doors, they're settling, and he's not really working on your side. He's working on the other side to kind of speed it up. And he, how do you get him to? Well, you got to get another attorney who holds him accountable.

• 57:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Like, these are the things that he said to me that you can read about in places. So you said three investments, that's one of them. Vistage was 100% a great investment because we met once a month, for three, four years, with a man named John Morris. John Morris is a local guy, Santa. Monica, a guy would be grateful you get connected with him. We're sitting in a meeting one time with John Morris and one of the entrepreneurs going out of business. And he says, guys, I got bad news. Because you would start the meeting and they would say, here's my personal life, here's my health, here's my marriage, here's my business, here's my kids, and we would all talk amongst each other. Everybody had to sign an NDA so you don't tell your story. But one guy gets up and he says, guys, I got bad news, I'm about to go out of business. Why? If I don't get a half a million by this Friday, we're shutting down. If I get it, I'll last another year and a half and I think we'll make it, but I'm shutting down. This is what John does.

• 57:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Tell me, what do you need for half a million? What are you willing to give up for the half a million? What are you willing to do this? So give me a second. In front of all of us.

• 58:03Lewis Howes?

  Why are the money?

• 58:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Calls a guy, no, calls a guy who is in his business, same industry, says, here, take this call, go talk to him. Terms, boom. Guy comes back ecstatic. By Friday, half a million was in his account.

• 58:16Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 58:17Patrick Bet-David?

  This is the kind of guy John Morris is, right? So Vistage to me was watching people from different industries every month for nine hours for one day. Nine hours and everybody would share their problems. It was fifteen hundred bucks a month, some number like that. A hundred percent well worth. If you get qualified to go in because Vistage you have to do.

• 58:34Lewis Howes?

  Is this like Tiger thirty? Have you ever did this thing called Tiger thirty-three, I think it's called? It's kind of like you've got to have fifty million.

• 58:39Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, there's, there's, there's things like that everywhere. This is one of them.

• 58:43Lewis Howes?

  We got to reveal kind of your financial plan.

• 58:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Network to have to know who you are. There's a lot of that happening right now and I think it's great. I think it's great if it's by real business people, not social media influencers. And let me explain to you what I mean by this. What's social, like for example, if somebody wants to learn how to create a podcast. I want to go learn from somebody that's running a six. Like I remember, I think you taught a bunch of people how to monetize webinars and podcasts. Like you were the guy that taught people how to do the webinars.

• 59:11Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 59:11Patrick Bet-David?

  And then you made people millions, by the way. You made a lot of people a lot of money with what you were doing with webinars. A time that people didn't think webinars had money.

• 59:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, five, six, seven years ago.

• 59:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, I mean, at a time that nobody was thinking about it, right? So, so I'd go on, you're doing webinars, why are you doing webinars? Oh, Lewis taught me how to do this. Lewis, Lewis, yeah, Lewis House. Oh, no shit, webinars, yeah, okay. So, but this is not webinars. This is not, this is about these guys, how did you go from?

• 59:37Lewis Howes?

  Bigger strategy on everything, yeah.

• 59:39Patrick Bet-David?

  This is stuff that you sit there and you're like. Wow, you guys are doing how much per year? Eight hundred and twenty million dollars. How many employees you got? Nine twenty-two. How many people on your board? Seven of them. How do you handle conflicts? Like, this is the stuff that you talk with these guys, right? At Vistage. So, I recommend the OPM program. I recommend the Vistage program. And then I'm a obsessive reader, man. I mean, I don't know how many articles and stuff I read. So, I would recommend subscribing to, when there's like Business Insider, they can pay ninety-nine dollars per year, pay for it. If there's a Wall Street Journal that you pay six hundred dollars per year, pay for it. If there are these handful of stuff that you can get, that's not just the general news. If you spend a thousand, two thousand dollars on these news sites that are sending the elite articles

• 1:00:24Patrick Bet-David?

  that's different than the main ones, don't hesitate. Pay for it. Because everybody's going to talk about the general stuff, but that additional stuff is written by-

• 1:00:32Lewis Howes?

  Advanced stuff.

• 1:00:32Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, it's advanced. So, imagine like-

• 1:00:34Lewis Howes?

  Insider.

• 1:00:34Patrick Bet-David?

  It's the insider stuff written by the CFO of Snapchat that's telling you nine ways to protect yourself against cybersecurity that will be boring to other people. But you're looking at it saying, "Damn, this was freak- this was legit." So, those kinds of investments is what I would say to you.

• 1:00:49Lewis Howes?

  And if you lost your job right now, what investments should you make in your stuff?

• 1:00:54Patrick Bet-David?

  If I lost my job right now, and I don't have a job lined up within four weeks, that means I have a very weak contact list. So, the problem is a long-term problem. So, you are the long-term- if you cannot replace yourself with a job within four weeks, you have a terrible contact list.

• 1:01:10Lewis Howes?

  Relationship contact.

• 1:01:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, exactly. Because you should be able to replace your job within four weeks if you got a solid contact list. Why shouldn't you be? You should like, you know, a person gets like, we fired a guy named Mark, and he was with AIG for twenty-two years, and I loved this guy. But he just wasn't a fit. So, I talked to Mark. I said, "Mark, this is not going to work out, but I'm telling you right now, I got a job for you lined up at Columbus." He says, "Seriously?" I said, "Interview's set up. CEO of Columbus calls me for a review." I said, "No question. This guy's a phenomenal guy for you." He gets hired like this within two- you should, if you have the contacts, like this you ought to be. So, if you don't, it means the problem is you either don't have enough value in a marketplace, or your contacts are weak.

• 1:01:51Lewis Howes?

  When you think about someone you want to connect with, what goes through your mind of the sequencing of, "How do I reach out to this person?"

• 1:01:58Patrick Bet-David?

  I do a lot of research on the person. I do a lot of research on the person.

• 1:02:01Lewis Howes?

  You're really good at that, yeah.

• 1:02:01Patrick Bet-David?

  A lot of research on the person.

• 1:02:03Lewis Howes?

  I think people don't- Know how valuable understanding who someone is and what their history is and what makes them tick.

• 1:02:08Patrick Bet-David?

  I agree.

• 1:02:08Lewis Howes?

  How meaningful that is when you do that.

• 1:02:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, I agree.

• 1:02:12Lewis Howes?

  You did this when you first interviewed me, you just knew a lot about me. And you did research and I'm like, man, it takes so much time and energy. And when you're running a business with a thousand employees, you're doing 10 sales calls a day, you're, you know, a husband, you're a dad, how do you manage? Building relationships when you have so much going on though? You have no free time.

• 1:02:32Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, so, so this, this goes into at what level you want to go to in life. Meaning, there is levels in this game, right? Like, listen, Gary Payton is alpha, but he's not alpha when Michael's in the room. When Michael's in the room, Michael's the alpha.

• 1:02:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, he's a little.

• 1:02:51Patrick Bet-David?

  Kobe's an alpha, but not when Michael's in the room. But anybody else in the room, Kobe's the alpha, including Magic Johnson. Including Shaq.

• 1:02:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:59Patrick Bet-David?

  But when Barkley's in the room with Shaq, who's the alpha? Shaq's the alpha. Okay, but when Barkley's in the room with a Carmelo Anthony, Barkley's the alpha. Everything's about levels, right? So what level do you want to go to? So if you want to go at the next levels, it's going to require you to be a little bit more meticulous and detailed about your strategy, about the kind of help you're going to need, the kind of research you're going to need, the kind of relationships you're going to need. You know, and then figuring out like your scheduling. Sometimes people want to have the four hour work week. I'm not a four hour work week guy, but some people want that lifestyle. And you have to give credit to Tim Ferriss because Tim Ferriss started a movement with a bunch of laptop entrepreneurs all over the world. And guess what? They love it.

• 1:03:43Patrick Bet-David?

  When I talk to these people that read Four Hour Work Week and I'm in Malaysia and looking at my life.

• 1:03:48Lewis Howes?

  And I'm making a few hundred grand a year or a few million a year, whatever it may be.

• 1:03:51Patrick Bet-David?

  Good for you. I could never, I'm a terrible vacation guy after three days. I'm a three day guy.

• 1:03:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:56Patrick Bet-David?

  But I know myself, if I go to, to Bora Bora, if I go to Greece and we have to go after three days, my wife will say, babe, you good? Like babe, it's three days, babe. She says, I get it babe, just kind of. And we're typically go because we're entertaining people. We're not going this like, we're taking 500 people, 400 people, so we're entertaining people. It's not like, you know, you're going. Because it's when we go, we go, we get our stuff done and we come back and we have a great time together because now we have a system. When you have kids, it's different because you can go longer with kids.

• 1:04:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:22Patrick Bet-David?

  Because you're vicariously living through them. I like going to Universal Studios. I can go with my kids to Universal Studios. Because I see how he looks at Harry Potter and you know, these spiders and this stuff. It's beautiful when you see their imagination, right? But going back to the question you're asking, so how do you find time to do research? How do you find time to do all this other stuff? If you want to compete in the top one percent of one percent of one percent of one percent, the price is a bigger price. And Louis, there's no way to describe how to do it. There isn't a formula for it. You just have to figure out a way how to do it. If it means I come home and I have to watch a person's interview from eleven o'clock to two o'clock in the morning.

• 1:05:01Lewis Howes?

  You do.

• 1:05:02Patrick Bet-David?

  And I come to the office at eight AM to do my interview and I have to come and go read through twenty pages of notes. I have to do that. And if I don't do that, you can tell in the interview. If I do do it, you're like, how does he know that guy's date?

• 1:05:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:13Patrick Bet-David?

  How does he know when this happened at this time? How do you know when this happened? It's a lot of research.

• 1:05:17Lewis Howes?

  The level of detail and attention, people will remember for decades. They'll remember and they'll always think back to, you know, that person really cared. That person was really thoughtful. That person was genuinely interested in me. And they'll just continue to remember that and good things will come to you when you come from that place. When you constantly do that extra work to care about someone. So I agree there. What's the question you wish everyone asked you more that they don't ask you?

• 1:05:45Patrick Bet-David?

  I think the, the, the, the understanding of knowing that, you know, if I really want to do something big, what do I do when I'm having the guilt? That I get from my wife, my kids, my family. How do you manage guilt?

• 1:06:00Lewis Howes?

  For example, something big. What do you mean by that?

• 1:06:02Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, so for example, you, you really aspire to have your own talk show. Which you should. I mean, you look like a guy that you ought to have it one day. You're that kind of a guy. You need to be on the big screen. You belong on the big screen. You need to have something like that happen with Louis House. I've said this to you from the first time we sat down. You look like the guy that has something like that going for himself. Montel Williams meets Oprah Winfrey meets, you know, Michael Strahan meets, you know, like Ellen DeGeneres. Combine those combined. Okay, Louis House show on TV, right? Okay. So now if we're together and, you know, it's like, oh babe, you're working too hard. All this, this is research, all this other stuff and you know, you're not doing this with your kids and you're not spending time with this, you're not spending, like. The guilt. The guilt, man. So how do you handle the guilt?

• 1:06:48Patrick Bet-David?

  The guilt works in a few different ways. Ted Turner understood who he was. And Ted Turner, his personal life, he'll be the first to say it was in shambles. You know, he married Jane Fonda, didn't work out because Jane Fonda wanted to go. And Jesus changed her life and she became all spiritual. Ted's like, I don't want to talk about God. I'm just, I'm playing ball, man. Let's go buy the horses. Let's go to the Montana place. And Ted had so much pressure on his life. When Time Warner brought him out and all this other stuff. But then the guilt comes out, right? Well, you didn't do this and you didn't do that and you didn't do this and you didn't do that. Yeah, but I wanted to do this with my life. So, you know, that, that stuff is, can you live without finding out your full potential?

• 1:07:31Patrick Bet-David?

  And not going there. Are you okay? Like, there's a story one time I read in a book written by John Maxwell. This, I read this like 16 years ago. One of his small books with his affirmations that he had. He said, one day a guy goes to heaven, he dies and he goes to heaven. He's meeting with Saint Peter's. And he was always a military guy, right? And he always wanted to be a general. And he wanted to be a great general. He wanted to be a general, go in the military, be a leader. But he never did it. But he followed everybody's history. So he goes to Saint Peter and he says, hey, question for you, Saint Peter. I've got one question for you. He says, what's that? Who's the greatest general of all time? He says, I'm sorry? He said, who's the greatest general of all time? You really gonna ask me that? Yeah. Was it General Patton? No. Was it Grant? No. Who was it? You. He said, me?

• 1:08:16Patrick Bet-David?

  Yes. When the recruiter came to you for you to join the army? And if you had the courage to go in, you would have been the greatest general. I have it right now. You would have been the greatest general the world had ever seen. But you were afraid. I mean, listen, either that story makes you so nervous where you're kind of like, I can't do that to myself. Or that story gets you to be like, wow, it's okay if I don't go there. Fine. But you're gonna have to deal with that. And whatever you decide to do that's big, there's gonna be sacrifices and there's gonna come with guilt. So. It's like you either have guilt or regret. Yeah. How do you manage both?

• 1:08:59Patrick Bet-David?

  Exactly. How do you manage both? So, so the formula there becomes if the person you're marrying, like Jenna and I, when we were dating, I told her, I said, babe, I'm not a nine to five guy. So we went and sat down with a marriage counselor. Because I highly recommend meeting with somebody before you get married. Because I've met with so many therapists, counselor. I think I recommend it for everybody. Because you can talk with a non-involved person in your life and let it out. And they're just gonna listen to you. So we met with this guy, his name is Danny. Nice guy, sweetheart of a guy. So we sit down. I said, Danny, let me ask you a question. You've been married to your wife thirty-three years. What's been the main thing that's helped you guys make this work? He said, we have one rule. Every night at six o'clock, this is the one rule we don't break. You have to be at the dinner table. Everybody has dinner together.

• 1:09:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Like, what'd you do for a living? I was a school teacher. What did your wife do? We were both school teachers. I said, Danny, thank you so much for your time. Here's the two hundred dollars. No, we just got started. I'm good, buddy. Thank you. Pick up gems, I pay, it's a little bit disrespectful. I said, I'm not disrespectful. Now, I paid the two hundred dollars. We got up, we walked out. So we got in the car. She says, babe, why'd you just do that? That's disrespectful. I said, it's not disrespectful. Neither one of us are school teachers. So this, whatever he says is not gonna help us. It's not gonna work. What do you want me to do with? This is not the life we're choosing to live. So then I had her go meet with Dudley's wife. Okay? And they meet together. Now, here's what she says. She says, are you comfortable knowing that his time is gonna be taken by everybody? Are you comfortable knowing

• 1:10:29Patrick Bet-David?

  that you have to put everything into calendar, including your date night? Are you comfortable knowing you're gonna have to remind him with every birthday? Are you comfortable, are you comfortable, are you comfortable knowing? And she goes through the ten affirmations. And her number eight is, are you comfortable knowing that there's gonna be days you really don't feel like it? Because you've had three kids and you're so tired because of food. You still have to find time to have sex with your husband. Wow. And she went through, I didn't even know this stuff. Then I'm like, man, I love you so much. You're such a great human being, you know? It's like life-changing. But we came back and said, and then I took her to meet with the, uh, uh, for her to know like with me. And I said, hey, what do you think about me? And Dudley looks at me and says, listen, I'm not worried about her. I'm worried about you. Because are you comfortable knowing that you also have kids?

• 1:11:14Patrick Bet-David?

  You have to put them priority as well. You still gotta find the time. You gotta do this, you gotta do that. And he put the onus on me too. So it can't be her only or him only. But then they said, here's what you both have to be comfortable with. And you can make it work. And it's gonna be hard. But if you bought into it upfront, then it's fine. It's when you don't buy into it upfront. Three years later, after being married, you're like, damn. And she says, but you never said you wanted to do this. Now it's a problem.

• 1:11:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Wow. Do you think if you guys wouldn't have been, I mean, it's already hard enough, even if you are bought into it.

• 1:11:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Very hard. Marriage is the hardest thing you'll ever do.

• 1:11:45Lewis Howes?

  You already have ten checked off the list, both agreed. It's still challenging.

• 1:11:49Patrick Bet-David?

  It's very hard.

• 1:11:50Lewis Howes?

  You're still one year at a time.

• 1:11:51Patrick Bet-David?

  You know why marriage is the hardest thing you'll ever do?

• 1:11:53Lewis Howes?

  Why?

• 1:11:53Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, so let's just say this relationship doesn't work out. Ben, right? Let's just say a relationship with Columbia doesn't work. He's been here for four months, right? He says, we need to have Louis Vuitton masks. I don't like the fact that you don't have Louis Vuitton masks. He gets offended. He gets upset with you, right? He says, screw you, Louis, and goes and writes a negative review on Yelp. You're pissed. You're like, dude, what are you doing, bro? But you can go find somebody else. Let's say you. Come one day, you chew his ass out. You piece of, and you just put all your frustration. He can leave and say, dude, screw you. I'm gonna go find a different boss, right? You have a choice. Let's say you have a business partner. He steals two million dollars from you. Okay?

• 1:12:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:32Patrick Bet-David?

  You're devastated. You're like, what a thief. But you can go find a better business partner, okay? Let's say you have a girlfriend. You guys have the worst fight ever. You do some stupid, she does some stupid.

• 1:12:44Lewis Howes?

  Breaking up.

• 1:12:45Patrick Bet-David?

  You're breaking, you're breaking up. It's gonna be like, I know when you're gonna go to the bar, hang out with your friend, all this other stuff, and then you're gonna miss her, text her middle of the night, I made a mistake, I love you, I miss you. Okay, whatever.

• 1:12:53Lewis Howes?

  Let's move on, yeah.

• 1:12:54Patrick Bet-David?

  Let's say you have kids. See, that's why you never have one kid. You gotta have two or three kids, because you have options. You never wanna have one kid. My recommendation, never just have one kid. But you got one wife. You got one husband. Very annoying. Very annoying. Because if we're buddies, you and I are friends. Let's just say you and I talk, we have a big debate over LeBron and Kobe, and it's bad. It's bad. Dude, whatever, man, you're such a, all you do is follow Kobe when you're LeBron. I, you're a match. And we have a heated, we have a debate over Biden-Trump. We have a debate over politics. We have a debate over sports. I'm pissed. You're pissed at me. We can go six weeks without talking. That's cool. You can't do that. You're gonna see her that night. Yeah. And you're laying in the same bed. You don't lay in the same bed with your best friend.

• 1:13:38Patrick Bet-David?

  Right, right, right. Like, hey, bro, how you doing, bro? You good? Yeah. You know, it's not how it works. It's very difficult. Yeah. Very complex. So, you know, this is what I say, man. Just don't get married with the number starting with two. Take your time, man. When you do the married stuff, do it with the number three, especially men. More than women. Look, when I, I've never been- What do you mean, the number two or three? Don't do twenty-eight years old, twenty-seven years old, twenty-six years old. Starting with a three in front of it. Thirty-three, thirty-eight, thirty-nine, thirty-four, not two. And the other part is also, like, I've never been, I was never single with Tinder. I have no idea what it is to have access to, you know, Tinder or- It would've been bad news for me. That's what I'm saying to you. It could be terrible. If I had a dating app. Option after option after option. I would've been down a rabbit hole.

• 1:14:22Patrick Bet-David?

  That's the point. But that's what's available today. Yeah. So if that's available today- This is a time waster. Times suck. Not only a time waster in the times, but even bigger than that. You know, you, you're really gonna go through a lot. And today, you know, sex is no longer what it used to be. Because sex is so easy today. It's not intimate. It's not- Not bad. You know, you got like, we had to go and say, hey, what's your name? Hey, you know this? Hey, can I buy you this? And you just message someone and lets me know. Yeah, DM. Hey, you put an emoji. You don't even need to say anything. The emoji describes everything else, right? So and then it's like, oh, you got one girl here, one girl here, one guy here, one guy there, and it's on both sides. So now the value of that goes. So you have to almost get that out of your system.

• 1:15:06Patrick Bet-David?

  And then you say, you know what? I'm so burned out. I'm so, I'm good. My dad said this, and this may be bad advice, but this is what my dad said. He said, go out there and be with every kind of woman you desire in every single place. Do every crazy thing you wanna do. Get it out of your system, then think about marriage. Again, don't blame this on me. Send a message to my dad if you're upset with him, okay? Gabriel42 is his handle on Instagram. But, uh, he said this, but, but his point was, his point was, temptation's never going away. And if you win in life, you're gonna have more opportunities, more things are gonna come up.

• 1:15:40Lewis Howes?

  More temptation.

• 1:15:41Patrick Bet-David?

  You have the opportunity to screw up. But he's just trying to say, you don't ever wanna be the person that you were a geek in high school, you were a nobody, you only dated one girl, and then you meet this one girl, you marry her, and then at thirty-eight years old, you're this hotshot lawyer making six hundred grand a year, and everybody knows, you know, you got millions of options, but you got married at twenty-five, you couldn't have waited till thirty-four to experience what it is to be a hotshot guy, and then you marry, wait till the hotshot phase. So it's, it's the-

• 1:16:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I think someone said, a mutual friend of ours that you know, I won't say his name here, but he said, "You're only as loyal as your level of options." He's like, "If your options are low, then you're gonna be pretty loyal to that one person, but then when options become, wow, look at all these options, you gotta be really loyal and be committed."

• 1:16:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Not easy, very hard today. Yeah, everybody can act hard and say, "Well, you know, you have to be, you have to do this and you have to do that." No. We have one of our guys that went through a bad marriage, okay? Very ugly breakup that they had. I got calls, and everybody said, "Did you hear what about what he did, and what he did this, and da-da-da-da-da? I can't believe he did this, do you know he did that part?" And the whole story was, there was another girl in the picture, but he was married, okay? So the guys who were talking a lot are smack. I said, "I want you to come to my house." They said, "Well, I'm gonna talk to you guys today, come to my house right now." They came to my house. I said, "Okay, come on, guys, let's go," I said, "we're gonna do a project together." So then we go outside. I said, "Guys, everybody line up by the pool, everybody lined up by the pool." I said, "Guys, lined up, you ready? We're gonna play a game, and I'm gonna see who's gonna win this one." So, "Okay, we're ready, we're, we're a very competitive environment." "You ready, you ready, you ready?"

• 1:17:09Patrick Bet-David?

  "I'm ready, let's go." "Okay, so here's the game, what is it? Let's see who can walk across the water the fastest." "Go, go ahead, ready on three, everybody walk across, walk on the water, across the pool to the other side." "But on three, you guys ready? One, two, go."

• 1:17:25Patrick Bet-David?

  I said, "What happened?" "Oh, you can't walk on water."

• 1:17:30Patrick Bet-David?

  I got it. So if you can't walk on water, don't judge another person's mistake they made. Learn from it, try to figure out a way to respect them and move on. If they decide they can't go on because a mistake is that hurtful to them, that is their business. You do whatever you can to support because one day when it comes down to your turn of screwing up, you're gonna make sure the world doesn't want to judge you the way you judge everybody else. So be patient. Be patient with what you're doing.

• 1:17:55Lewis Howes?

  I want to ask you the final question. This has been really inspiring and powerful. And before I ask them, where can we follow you on social media the most? You've got amazing YouTube, amazing Instagram. Where do you like to hang out the most?

• 1:18:06Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, I'm probably, if you message me on Twitter, I will most likely respond back on Twitter. YouTube, if you go to Value10, you'll see the content that's there. And then the website to go to is YourNextFiveMoves.com. And if you buy a copy right now, we're sending you a chapter to read of the book. And if you buy three copies, we're sending you an hour's strategy that I put together on four different strategies to what to do in 2020 post-pandemic. But yeah, you can go on Amazon and buy the book. You can go on Barnes & Noble, buy the book, Your Next Five Moves. And once you do read it, I can't wait to hear your thoughts on what your next five moves are gonna be.

• 1:18:42Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely, yeah. This question is called "The Three Truths." I ask everyone at the end, imagine you've accomplished every dream you could ever imagine. And it's your last day on earth, many, many years from now, and it's all come true. But you gotta take all your body of work with you, all your words, your videos, your audios. It's gone to the next place, wherever you go. Hopefully you get to that heaven spot, right? And you can share three things with the world, only three things. These three things you know to be true in the world that you've learned, these three lessons. What would be your three truths that you would share?

• 1:19:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Three truths, truths to share for me?

• 1:19:15Lewis Howes?

  To share to the world as these lessons, but they would have nothing else from you. No other content, nothing else.

• 1:19:20Patrick Bet-David?

  Number one, learn how to process issues. Learn how to process issues, not just solve problems. Learn how to process issues because if you learn how to process issues, you'll make better decisions as a husband, as a wife, as a father, as a business owner, as a leader, as anything, processing issues. Uh, second thing I would say is figure out a way to, for me spiritually, you know, uh, uh, I have a very unique relationship with the man upstairs and it's played a very, very big part of my life. You have to realize, I'm not the guy that's the, uh, uh, I'm the skeptic believer, but I'm somebody that a lot of miracles have happened in my life for me to know that without God and the man upstairs, I wouldn't be where I'm at today.

• 1:20:05Patrick Bet-David?

  And I'm not just saying, I'm not one that talks a lot about God. You don't see me talk a lot about my faith, but you're asking me the last things to say? It would be that. So number two would be? Whatever it is you believe in, seek your own truth when it comes down to your faith and then practice it. Practice it because it, it is gonna give you a different kind of a strength that all the money in the world cannot give you. It's very important when you're making decisions that you're at peace with many of your decisions because the moment you're in anxiety and panic, you're not gonna be enjoying life too much. And then, you know, the last one, go make your money, whatever way you can. Set the money aside for yourself, set the money aside for your husband, your wife, your kids, and then figure out a way to give back to public service,

• 1:20:49Patrick Bet-David?

  whether it's gonna be through charity or politics. But do that last part. If you say have no desire to get into politics, like your dad, sounds like he would've been great in politics, by the way. Either go do public service, mayor, congress, senate, governor, involvement, advisor, or, you know, clergy, in a clergy church, nonprofit, figure out a way to give it back after you set yourself up financially so you don't have to worry about that anymore. That's powerful.

• 1:21:18Lewis Howes?

  I want to acknowledge you Patrick for the way you've shown up your entire life and how you constantly grow, constantly improve and care about people first. That's what I see in you the most. Just before we got on, you did a little video. You remind me a lot of myself because you did a little video, send it to Robert Greene to say, "Hey, we're thinking about you." That's stuff I do all day. And I just know that your GPA doesn't determine your self-worth and your value. And what you struggled with growing up doesn't determine it. What I acknowledge in you is how you show up for other people and how you think deeply about how other people can grow and be better human beings. So I acknowledge you for that. And you have no ego. You have a little ego, but you really don't have much ego because you're always willing to learn and see if there's a better way to improve, which I think is the way we should all be.

• 1:22:03Lewis Howes?

  It's like, how can I always learn? And even if I think I know it, I'm still gonna ask people, you know, who are better than me, what I need to do to get to that next spot. So I really acknowledge that in you.

• 1:22:13Patrick Bet-David?

  I appreciate that.

• 1:22:14Lewis Howes?

  And I think everyone should get this book. It'll be really powerful for people to check this book out. My final question is, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:22:22Patrick Bet-David?

  Alignment. It's purely alignment. If I'm aligned with my values and principles and my goals and dreams, and those two are aligned, I'm the most fulfilled, happiest person alive. It's when you're unaligned when you are miserable. When, one time we're in Hawaii, my wife and I come back up to the room and I said, "Babe, we have to decide what values and principles we want to build a life on." This is pre-kids, so we go through, we made a list of 43 of them. I said, "Okay, out of these 43, you can't have all these 43, right? You gotta choose some of them." So you have to cut some of them out. And you know, our family, the David family, we lead in every possible situation we're in. We respect people because you can learn something from everybody.

• 1:23:05Patrick Bet-David?

  We improve because it's the one thing that'll give you peace of mind knowing as long as you improve, everything's gonna work out. And then we love because everybody has some issue they're dealing with. The four things we pray for is courage, wisdom, tolerance, understanding. So courage, because if you're ever gonna be doing something big, you're gonna face enemies that you are gonna be afraid, you're gonna have to have courage. Wisdom, if you're gonna lead people older than you, you need to have wisdom to be able to lead them. Tolerance, to be able to deal with annoying people. And understanding to know that everyone's got a different story. And then we don't bully, but we also don't get bullied, right? So, once you have your values and principles and they're aligned with the way you live... You're good.

• 1:23:45Patrick Bet-David?

  If you don't panic, anxiety, depression, regret, misery, and it's all an act. It's all an act. So my biggest thing when it comes down to greatness is alignment. And that's why in the book, when you asked me, what's the first move is who do you want to be? Once you're aligned with who you want to be and the life you want to live, you start enjoying this thing. When you don't, it's like, time is going by, you're not enjoying it. Relationships are fake, a lot of things are fake. So alignment's number one on my list.

• 1:24:15Lewis Howes?

  My man, Patrick.

• 1:24:16Patrick Bet-David?

  My man. Appreciate you.

• 1:24:21Lewis Howes?

  Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed it, make sure to share it. The best way you can help me is to spread this message far and wide. And you're not only helping me, you're also helping millions of people improve their life. And you have the power to change one person's life today by just taking a copy and paste of this link that you're listening to and texting it to them, posting it in a WhatsApp group chat, posting it on social media and spreading the message to help people improve their business and their life. And if you enjoyed this, please leave a five star rating and review over on Apple Podcast and click that subscribe button because when you subscribe, it really helps us get the message of greatness out to more people. And if you want inspirational messages from me every single week sent to your phone via

• 1:25:06Lewis Howes?

  text, then text the word PODCAST to 614-350-3960 and be a part of a community of people that are only getting messages direct from me to help motivate and inspire you every single week. And I want to leave you with this quote from Abraham Lincoln, who said, "Let no feeling of discouragement prey upon you, and in the end, you are sure to succeed." You know, business, entrepreneurship, creating an idea and launching an idea, being a freelancer, all these things take time and energy and they're skills that you need to learn. I didn't think that I was going to be able ever to be an entrepreneur as a kid growing up. I didn't think I had what it took. I didn't think I had the skills. I didn't think I was smart enough, but I'm telling you, when you have a desire to do

• 1:25:50Lewis Howes?

  something, you will be hungry to start to learn. What those skills are and making it come true. And that's what I had. And if you're in that position right now, this could be the perfect timing for you to really launch and grow your business, your brand. Find the problems that the world has and be the solution. The problem is the solution. Lean into that. And I want to remind you, if no one's told you lately, you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And as always, make sure you go out there and do something great.