Dana White: This Generation Thinks You Can Build A Business From Home, It's Impossible!

Are you letting the past or fear of failure hold you back from achieving ultimate business success? Dana White, the relentless CEO behind the UFC, reveals the exact psychological frameworks and savage business tactics required to dominate your industry and build an empire. Dana White is the President of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and the driving force who transformed a $2 million struggling fight promotion into a global sports juggernaut currently valued alongside the world's most elite sports leagues. Now expanding his empire into Power Slap and Zuffa Boxing, White has mastered the brutal mechanics of scaling businesses in highly competitive, chaotic environments. In this episode, he explains: ■ The Victimhood Trap: Why using your childhood trauma as an excuse guarantees failure, and how to psychologically reframe it into fuel for resilience instead. ■ The Loyalty Mandate: How treating business like a literal war requires building a tight-knit team of absolute "killers". ■ Biohacking as an Asset: The radical 12 week protocol of cold plunging, fasting, and targeted supplementation reversed his debilitating sleep apnea and fundamentally rewired his baseline energy for peak performance. ■ The Myth of "Making It": Why true entrepreneurs must become addicted to solving daily chaos to stay ahead of competitors and reach the top of your industry. ■ Weaponizing Your Gut: The exact mindset shift required to take massive risks when everyone else claims your vision is entirely impossible. Chapters 00:00:00 Intro 00:02:17 What Made Dana White a Fighter 00:04:37 What His Childhood Really Looked Like 00:06:07 How His Relationship With His Dad Changed 00:08:05 Why Dana White Has Always Challenged Authority 00:10:18 What He’s Trying to Teach His Son 00:11:11 Why There’s No Such Thing as a Day Off 00:13:25 How Getting Kicked in the Face by Business Changed Him 00:14:46 Why Nobody Owes You Anything 00:16:06 Why Most People Aren’t Cut Out to Be Entrepreneurs 00:17:45 The Principles That Made the UFC Successful 00:19:55 Why Who You Hire Can Make or Break a Business 00:21:51 The Rare Skills Behind Dana White’s Success 00:27:41 Why He Built a Family Through Business 00:32:09 Why Great Leaders Stay in the Weeds 00:33:22 I Love the Haters 00:35:17 How Extreme Focus Fueled His Success 00:37:29 What Transformed His Energy and Health 00:39:54 Ads 00:39:55 Why You Either Have the Killer Instinct or You Don’t 00:42:01 Why You Have to Be a Savage in Business 00:44:43 Can You Learn the Killer Instinct? 00:45:21 Why a Chip on Your Shoulder Can Drive Success 00:46:27 Who Dana White Would Never Want to Compete Against 00:48:55 Do You Believe in Manifestation? 00:53:03 How He Learned to Leave the Past Behind 00:58:56 Has Dana White Forgiven His Mom? 01:04:33 Ads 01:04:34 Why You Should Trust Your Gut Over Focus Groups 01:06:58 Why Chasing a Paycheck Means You’ve Already Lost 01:07:54 How Much of Your Success Was Luck? 01:11:14 Why You Can’t Be Afraid to Take Risks 01:18:11 What Are You Still Chasing? 01:22:13 The One Last Goal He Has to Accomplish 01:24:40 Why Dana Believes He’ll Win at Boxing Follow Dana White: YouTube - https://link.thediaryofaceo.com/Fgajy25 Instagram - https://link.thediaryofaceo.com/6pRqwZs Facebook - https://link.thediaryofaceo.com/GmEyz0C Twitter/X - https://link.thediaryofaceo.com/Ddv4Kda UFC - https://link.thediaryofaceo.com/F71pA3 The Diary Of A CEO: ◼ Join DOAC circle here - https://doaccircle.com/ ◼ Buy The Diary Of A CEO book here - https://link.thediaryofaceo.com/BWjLTZK ◼ Shop The Diary Of A CEO collection: https://thediary.com/collections/shop ◼ Get email updates - https://link.thediaryofaceo.com/5IB1H6E ◼ Follow Steven - https://link.thediaryofaceo.com/AGU9QP4 Sponsors: Cometeer - https://cometeer.com/DOAC use code DOAC for $20 off Function Health - https://functionhealth.com/DOAC

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Steven Bartlett?

  As a founder building a business when I was in my early twenties, I think I always had a deep sense of imposter syndrome because there was something that I wasn't good at, and that thing was finances. Finance and understanding your financial position as a small business is the great enabler of all of your dreams. I was running from it until I discovered a platform called Zero. Zero is an accounting and financial management platform specifically for small businesses, and it brings accounting, payments, payroll and analytics all into one place, even for people that don't love doing finances. Zero wants to do the financial work for you, but its core ambition is to go beyond keeping the financial record because Zero wants to help you understand what's happening in your business and increasingly, and this is maybe the most important thing, is help you make decisions.

• 0:45Steven Bartlett?

  Finally, we have a partner who can enable us in a simple way for those people that are both left brain or right brain and enable our dreams. You can learn more about Zero by going to zero.com. Thank you to Zero. Thank you for sponsoring this podcast, but also thank you for helping me to scale my business as somebody that, quite frankly, has never loved finances that much.

• 1:04Speaker 01

  I've already built the biggest fight brand to ever exist. UFC was purchased for $2 million. And if the Lakers sold for 12 and a half billion, then the UFC is worth 50 billion. And every day that I show up here, I'm here to [bleep] win. When I'm dead, it's going to be impossible to beat what I've built. And I am addicted to chaos. And if there isn't any, I create it.

• 1:23Steven Bartlett?

  From UFC fighters to CEOs of multi-gazillion pound companies to world leaders, I see in you a man that is truly obsessed.

• 1:30Speaker 01

  Early on, I knew exactly who I was and I knew that I wanted to be involved in fighting. That's what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

• 1:41Steven Bartlett?

  Was there any athletes that you'd sort of put in a class of their own?

• 1:43Speaker 01

  Conor McGregor, Habib Namurghamadoff and Ronda Rousey. But I didn't want women in the UFC. But Ronda Rousey grabbed me, said, can I get 15 minutes with you? And she came in with the whole fucking bravado. And I'm like, holy shit, I think I'm going to do this and she's the one to do it with.

• 1:58Steven Bartlett?

  If there were principles that you would most attribute to the success of the UFC, what would it be?

• 2:03Speaker 01

  When you decide who you are, what you want to do, what you're going to accomplish, and you work toward it, it is impossible for you to fail. Do not be afraid to take the risk. But some of these kids that think they want to be entrepreneurs, they don't know what it really takes. And there is a formula, and guess who has it? And we can talk about this.

• 2:19Steven Bartlett?

  And then this is a book your mother published about you unauthorized as a biography. She's critical of you at certain points.

• 2:24Speaker 01

  I don't go on shows to speak negatively about my mother, but I mean, that's one of the grossest, most disgusting things you couldn't even imagine possible until it happens to you. And sometimes family is the worst. And that was the beginning of the end with me and her.

• 2:41Steven Bartlett?

  Have you forgiven her?

• 2:47Steven Bartlett?

  Guys, I've got a favor to ask before this episode begins. The algorithm, if you follow a show, will deliver you the best episodes from that show very prominently in your feed. So when we have our best episodes on this show, the most shared episodes, the most rated episodes, I would love you to know. And the simple way for you to know that is to hit that follow button. But also, it's the simple, easy, free thing that you can do to help us make this show better. And I would be hugely grateful if you could take a minute on the app you're listening to this on right now and hit that follow button. Thank you so, so, so much.

• 3:21Steven Bartlett?

  Dana, you know more than anybody that to become a great fighter, oftentimes you have an anomalous upbringing. And I have some of these fighters in front of me like Habib and Islam and Mike Tyson. And when you look at their backgrounds and where they came from, they have atypical origins. And when I look at you, I consider you to be a great fighter in your own regard. So that's my question is what is that early context that's made you the fighter that you are?

• 3:47Speaker 01

  I don't know. You know, I always have trouble when we start talking about me and my upbringing and psychoanalyzing me. I don't know how to really answer those questions.

• 4:00Speaker 01

  I don't know. It's not like I grew up like these guys grew up. But early on, I knew exactly who I was and I knew that I wanted to be involved in fighting. That's what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

• 4:13Steven Bartlett?

  In terms of your mom and dad, I listened to you talk about your dad and his absence and his difficulty with alcohol, divorced at eight years old, left with your mother. And that was also a turbulent relationship as you, as you grew up. Is there anything from that early context that you look back on? I know you don't like being psychoanalyzed. I've heard you try and I've heard you respond to like Pierce Morgan and others who have talked about your childhood before, but is there anything from that early context that you think did shape you into this sort of like relentless?

• 4:41Speaker 01

  You know, I always say that, you know, you see these people that play the victim, you know, the victim mentality. It's like, oh, I didn't have any role models when I was growing up. Yes, you did. You just didn't look at it the right way. When you grow up, everybody who's involved in your life, they're all role models in good and bad ways. Right? I used to look at, you know, some of my uncles and my dad and so I was like, oof, yeah, we don't, we don't want to go in that direction. Let's, let's go in this direction. And in America, you can start drinking when you're 21. I quit drinking when I was 21. I believed that, that I wouldn't be able to accomplish all the things that I wanted to accomplish if I was drinking. And I saw a lot of, you know, family members and other people where drinking had, had

• 5:24Speaker 01

  been detrimental to their life and, and, you know, I thought, I think I had some pretty talented, you know, family members that could have lived a different life had they not drank.

• 5:37Steven Bartlett?

  You and your sister?

• 5:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's me and my sister.

• 5:40Steven Bartlett?

  If I was a fly on the wall during that period of your life, what would I have seen?

• 5:44Speaker 01

  I don't know. I don't really remember. Me and my sister, you know, now that we're getting older, we talk about this stuff a lot. Me and my sister are super close. You know, both our parents are dead and it was just us. So, yeah. My mom was an animal. My mom worked her ass off and, you know, if she wasn't working, you know, and picking up extra shifts, she was a nurse, she was going to school.

• 6:04Steven Bartlett?

  And she effectively raised you on her own?

• 6:09Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 6:10Steven Bartlett?

  Because your dad was, he, he was absent. I remember he reciting a story of you, him taking you to the cinema drunk.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:16Steven Bartlett?

  And just, I mean, what I got from that was, I guess, carelessness. The story of him taking you to the cinema, telling you, asking you if you wanted something, throwing $20 your way, telling you to go get it for your sister.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:28Steven Bartlett?

  Him embarrassing you.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  It was just one of those moments and, you know, you have these, these things that you remember from your young life. And I have, I have a few with my dad, but you know, the, the movie was Beverly Hills Cop and it had just come out and it was like the biggest movie in the world. And we got there late. He showed up drunk to pick us up and take us to the movies, you know? So getting there was, was a whole, you know, scene on its own. And then we get there, the place is packed, there's no seats. He walks in and screams, we're going to have to start moving some people, you know, and throws money at me to go get, to go get food and popcorn and whatever. In my opinion, my dad was a very selfish guy and, uh, you know, he lived the life that he wanted to live and everybody else didn't matter.

• 7:11Steven Bartlett?

  Did you ever understand him? As you, people always say that when they get older, they understand their parents better.

• 7:16Speaker 01

  Well, what I understood was, once I became a parent, I was like, holy shit, this is the way you're supposed to feel about your kids and this is the way you're supposed to, you know? So, yeah, I think that my parents made me a better parent.

• 7:31Steven Bartlett?

  You've got a very atypical drive in you. There's a certain relentlessness that I've seen. I mean, I've seen it all. And one of the sort of defining traits when I think of Dana White is this sort of relentless, insatiable ambition. So my line of questioning isn't really to psychoanalyze, it's really just to understand like where, how that comes to be the case. One would guess that there's some kind of chip on your shoulder in, to some degree.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's true, but I try to, I try to focus on, I like to win. Winning is fun and everything in life, but, uh, you know, I also make sure that the obligations that I have, you know, I, I pay attention to those too. Like, listen, nobody's perfect, but I've tried to do the best I could to be the best at everything I could, at work, at home, with the kids, you know?

• 8:17Steven Bartlett?

  And if I'd asked you when you were a young boy, like some of these photos, what you're going to be when you grow up, would you have, would you have had an answer for me?

• 8:23Speaker 01

  I didn't really know that until I was in my late teens, you know? Literally walked out of a job that at the time and in the place, a lot of people would kill for. Um, and had checked all the boxes and made cash every day, got a paycheck every week, 401K, full dental and medical and, you know, all the things that people are looking for. But I didn't like working for other people. I always felt like working in the hotel industry was incredibly disrespectful, the way that they would treat you and talk to you. And, and I never liked it. It was never for me. So I walked out one day and I said, I'm going to get into the fight business. At the time, I didn't know exactly what that meant or, you know, at what level, but

• 9:08Speaker 01

  that was my goal.

• 9:09Steven Bartlett?

  Have you always had a problem with, well, an issue with, dare I say, authority?

• 9:13Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 9:13Steven Bartlett?

  You have?

• 9:14Speaker 01

  Yes, very, very much so. Yeah, it was never for me.

• 9:17Steven Bartlett?

  Where does that come from? Do you know?

• 9:19Speaker 01

  I don't know. I honestly don't know the answer to that, but I never liked it. I never liked working for other people. I never liked being told what to do. And, and I don't treat my employees like that.

• 9:30Steven Bartlett?

  Did you think you were going to be successful in your life when you were, I don't know, 14, 15?

• 9:34Speaker 01

  I did when I was younger. I, I believed that I would be. Yeah.

• 9:38Steven Bartlett?

  Based on more evidence?

• 9:38Speaker 01

  I sort of had these, you know, these ideas in my head, which at the, you know, at that time, you don't know exactly what it means or at what extent, but let me tell you what, so when we worked, when I lived with my mom, me and my sister were just talking about this the other day. So my mom worked all the time or was at school and me and my sister were home alone all the time. But we had chores that we had to do. I mean, we were mow the lawn, you know, cleaning the pool and trimming the bushes and all that shit. And I was like, let me tell you what, the day I make a dollar, I'm never doing this shit ever again.

• 10:14Steven Bartlett?

  So that's probably an important lesson she taught you.

• 10:18Speaker 01

  No doubt about it. And I, you know, I try to do this with my kids too. My kids have been great and done everything the right way. And I've told this story before, but my son, Aiden, my youngest son flies home from college one weekend and says, I don't want to stay in school. I have an idea for this business that I want to do and whatever. I said, he lays it all out for me. I'm like, this is a pretty good idea. I get it. I like it, but you're not going to quit school and just try to do this. This doesn't, this won't chew up eight to 10 hours of your day. You're going to go out and you're going to get a job and you're going to put out, you're going to go put in applications and you're going to try to get a job. Because if I die tomorrow, that's what you're qualified to do. And he did it. And he went and he worked at U-Haul.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  And you know, you gotta have those kind of jobs. My son right now, my oldest is getting his master's degree in Boston right now. And when I lived in Boston, I used to work for EJ paving company. They pave roads. I actually want my son to go do some days at this paving company.

• 11:21Steven Bartlett?

  What is it you're trying to teach him?

• 11:22Speaker 01

  Well, what hard work really is. So people like I run around, I don't sleep much and everybody's like, oh, you work so hard. You work so hard. No, no, no. I'll show you what hard work is. Hard work is construction. Hard work is concrete. Right up the street here, I don't know how many days this summer were 115 degrees out. 115 degrees out. These construction guys are out there working in 115 degree week, like hard work, real work. And then in the winter, people don't realize this in Vegas, but it gets down into the thirties. These guys will be outside working when it's 30 degrees out. So, and hard physical labor every day. And then you go home, you eat and you go to bed, you start, get up the next day and you go do it again.

• 12:05Speaker 01

  In your life, to figure out what you want to do, you have to figure out what it is you don't want to do.

• 12:12Steven Bartlett?

  I have a bunch of quotes here that you've said. If you just wanted to look at the first one.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  There's no such thing as a day off. When, there's no such thing as a day off when you run your own business. You know, there's no birthdays, there's no Christmas, there's no Thanksgivings. Bad shit will happen every single day that you need to deal with. But when you like what you do, it's fun.

• 12:37Steven Bartlett?

  A lot of people, especially young people these days, want to be entrepreneurs.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  You know, I'd really like to work for myself and own my own business because I'd love to plan my schedule. How much, oh, you're, you're, you're going the wrong way. What you need to do is find a nine to five job where you have weekends and holidays off. And you know, that's, that's your move. If you're looking to start your own business because you want more time to yourself, you are picking the wrong thing to do. I promise you that. The key to becoming a good entrepreneur is you have to find solutions to problems every day. The universe was trying to fuck with me the other day. I got out of bed, I had to be at a board meeting at nine o'clock, right? I go in, I gotta shave. Both my razors died. I use electric razors, they both died.

• 13:25Speaker 01

  Get through that, I get in the car and I'm driving and, and the sensor says your back right tire is low. Stop the vehicle immediately. I said, yeah, no, we're not fucking stopping, we're going. That's just life, right? When you get up and it's life standing there to kick you in the face and, and you gotta get through all this shit. Then you get to work and there's a laundry list of problems and things you gotta deal with. And this younger generation that think you can work from home and build a successful business? It's impossible. You can't do it. I'm in the office from eight 30 in the morning and I don't leave the office till seven, eight, nine, 10 sometimes still to this day. There are times when I go to work and my schedule is planned out for the day.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  But people will pop in my office and we start talking about things. And you know, when, when you have people, a good group of people like I have at the UFC. And we get in a room and you start talking, things pop up that you would never expect. And things happen and a lot of good ideas come from everybody being at work.

• 14:26Steven Bartlett?

  Has being kicked in the face by business over the last couple of decades changed you?

• 14:31Speaker 01

  Definitely. I don't freak out the way that I used to. I've been through it all and I'm way more calm now. I see this with a lot of guys. You become, uh, I want to say you get weaker, but you do get weaker as you get older. There's, there's a softer side to you than you had when you were in the early days of building your business. And I don't ever want to be that guy. You know what I mean? I try not to be that guy, but you do relax and chill out and you don't. The things that you used to flip out about when you were younger, you don't when you're older. I mean, I went through a phase where I ripped through like 10 secretaries in two years. Like I need people around me that can keep up.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  You gotta have people that can keep up and can handle, handle the load of work. You know, it's probably the busiest year for me this year because I have Zuffa boxing, power slap in the UFC. That I'm, I'm running these three companies. And then there's a ton of other things that, that I do too. So we'll be on the road, you know? I think we just got off, the last two months, we were home for like four days. The last two months, then I get home and I don't stop. I just, I go out and I do things and you know, these guys that are with me, they have to, they're with me and it's tough.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  Nobody owes you anything. So, you know, we talked a little bit about my parents and whatever. I had this kid that I grew up with. And you know, this, we, we were 12, 13, 14 years old. And I remember his dad had done really well. And you know, they had a beautiful house, they had cars, you know, he had all the shit that you, you would want growing up. And I remember him telling me one time, his dad ran into hard times. And his dad had put a million dollars away for him in an account. And then his father ran into hard times and his father took the money. He's like, my father stole a million dollars from me. And I remember thinking, are you out of your fucking mind?

• 16:31Speaker 01

  The fact that your dad even thought of you that way, that he would put that money away from, for you is incredible. But that was never your money. You didn't earn that money, that wasn't yours. I remember thinking that way when I was 12, 13, 14, right? I'm like, that is definitely the wrong type of mentality.

• 16:48Steven Bartlett?

  Entitlement.

• 16:49Speaker 01

  Brutal. And that guy grew up exactly the way you would expect that guy to grow up. He's just, you know, nobody owes you anything. Nobody. Listen to, to, to, to be set up in a position where somebody can make some phone calls for you and do some things. But then once they do that, you have to go in and deliver.

• 17:10Steven Bartlett?

  There's going to be a ton of people listening that want to be entrepreneurs. Do you, do you think most people are cut out for it?

• 17:16Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  To be an entrepreneur is very, a very unique thing. I mean, you have, it's hard enough for a lot of people to get up every day and depend on themselves to take care of themselves. When, when you're an entrepreneur, lots of people depend on you. Lots of people feed their families and, and I take that, that role very serious. I mean, when I got into this business, not a lot of people believed in it. That's why we bought the UFC for $2 million, right? Let's be honest here. The UFC was purchased for $2 million. And if the Lakers sold for 12 and a half billion, then the UFC is worth 50 billion. Okay?

• 18:00Speaker 01

  So the people who did believe in this and, and did, you know, when I was trying to hire production people. Production people don't want to live in Las Vegas, Nevada, especially 25 years ago. They want New York or LA, right? I was trying to hire sponsorship people, New York and LA. They don't want to live here. And then I had a group of people, Craig Borsari, who is my, uh, you know, my head of production, who is an absolute rock star. The best in the business. He was a rising star at Fox. He left Fox and came here because he believed in the vision and, and what was happening here.

• 18:41Steven Bartlett?

  When you think back from on that journey of buying it for $2 million and then let's say it's worth $50 billion now. If it was valued, you know, relevant to the Lakers. If there were principles, if there were like a couple of principles that you would most attribute to the success of the UFC. When, when at the time, nobody wanted to put on the fights anywhere. Everybody thought it was like too barbaric.

• 19:03Speaker 01

  Matchmaking?

• 19:04Steven Bartlett?

  Matchmaking, yeah.

• 19:05Speaker 01

  Is number one. The live event production.

• 19:09Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 19:10Speaker 01

  And the television production.

• 19:11Steven Bartlett?

  And then on the business side, that you think, you know, if we'd gotten that wrong, we definitely wouldn't be here.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  The big problem, if you look at how 25 years ago, when we bought this, you're never going to compete with boxing. Boxing is too established, it's been around too long, it's this and that. Boxing became a going out of business sale every time these guys would put on a fight. They try to grab as much money as they can and run. I am now involved in boxing. I have the only global television deal, right? On Paramount. All these other guys are on a streaming service called literally every promoter. What they've done is they've chased everybody out of the business. Television networks don't want to deal with it anymore. Sponsors don't want to be a part of it anymore.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  What we have done over the last 25 years is built a brand that not only the consumer trusts. But sponsors, television networks, list goes on and on. So I make sure that when people show up to my live event, which is super important. The people who pay to come to the live event spend way more money than the people on TV. And they gotta buy flights and rooms and pay for their dinners. Every time we put on a live event, I want the people walking out of there going, god damn, that was a good time. I'm, I'm glad we did this tonight and I would love to do this again.

• 20:35Steven Bartlett?

  And how do you make sure that's the case?

• 20:37Speaker 01

  I heard somebody saying one time, Dana acts like there's a formula to this. If you look, if you went back, I don't know the actual number, but it's a, it's a long list and a big number of guys with a lot of money. Who are really smart and have done good things in life that have tried to get into this business and couldn't do it. Couldn't make it work. There is a formula. And guess who has it?

• 21:00Steven Bartlett?

  One of the things I've learned as I've gone through my business career that I didn't know at the start of my business career was how much of success is actually determined by the people you're able to assemble. I think at the start of my career, you think if I work weekends and I work really hard and have good ideas myself, then I'll be successful. And somewhere along the way, I realized that it's really about like assembling people and binding them with the right like philosophy or culture, whatever they call it. And the question I have for you is, have you noticed the same? Have you have you noticed that one of the like obvious but seemingly unobvious things about business building is the quality of people you hire?

• 21:33Speaker 01

  There's no doubt about it. No one guy does everything. When we first bought the company, I was the everything guy. There was like two employees, me and somebody else. And, you know, you you wear all the hats when you start. Then you start going out and you start building a team. And there are people who fit and people who work and people who don't. And you have to be really good at figuring out who fits and who works and who doesn't. And over the last 25 years, if there's a superpower that I have, it has been picking the right people to surround myself with. And I knew when there wasn't, we had a we made a big decision when we sold on people that we brought in. And I knew right away

• 22:17Speaker 01

  the people that didn't fit and I fired them.

• 22:19Steven Bartlett?

  What are you looking for in great people?

• 22:21Speaker 01

  First of all, you have to have talented people. You have to have talented people that are not only really good at what they do, but are hard workers too and have the drive. But everybody has to be on board with the vision and has to be, you know, on the same page. I am at a place right now with my production team, when we do spots and we do vignettes and we do, they'll bring them in to me and there are very few changes.

• 22:47Steven Bartlett?

  What is your talent there? Like, if I ask the people that work closest with you, and I know this is a little bit of a weird question to answer, what is Dana's three skills that are rare relative to other people?

• 22:58Speaker 01

  I am a fight fan to the core. 25 years later of doing this, I am still a hardcore fight fan. And when we put something together and we nail it, I I know we got it. And now what I do is I push my team, whether it's production, matchmaking, sponsorship side, whatever it is, I push all these guys every day to get us to where I know I want to be.

• 23:28Steven Bartlett?

  You are the customer.

• 23:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I am the customer.

• 23:30Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah. And you have been since I saw in your sort of early, sort of mid twenties, you were captivated with boxing at the time, I believe.

• 23:38Speaker 01

  Yep. Every time when we go to an event, there's a red phone on the on the table where I sit, and it goes directly to the to the truck. And there's our producer's name is Zach.

• 23:49Steven Bartlett?

  The truck where the producers are.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. Zach runs all the shows. He has the freedom to do what he wants. And he tries. So I'll pick up the phone and go, what was that? And he's like, I thought we tried that. I say, yeah, let's never fucking do that again. Okay, bye. And there's no hurt feelings. There's no whatever. Or we'll do something. And I'm like, that was incredible. Yeah, congrats. That's incredible. And, you know, once you get to that level with your team, there's a woman sitting out here, her name is Lanay, she's the head of PR. I don't really make a move without talking to her anymore. I trust her so much and she's so smart and she's so talented that she's involved in a lot of different aspects of my life.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  Craig Borsari, who I talked about, who is the head of production, my head of sponsorship. Once you build this like rock star team, it's all just like, it becomes a well oiled machine where everything just starts to work the right way. Like, when we were going through COVID, these people that I'm talking about, you know, when you go through something like this, who the hell knows how long this is going to last. And as crazy as the world was during that time, here's one thing that wasn't going to happen. I don't give a shit. We were not going to lay off our employees. These people that have been here with me and that I'm super close to saw this quote from, I don't know who the CEO was, but says

• 25:17Speaker 01

  anybody that's trying to sell you that we're a family and is full of shit. This is transactional and it's the I don't know who wants to run through a fucking wall for that guy. But he's full of shit. Okay. My team, that is the way I feel about my team. And I do care. And I will never pick money over people, ever. Scariest time in our lifetime was COVID. You're looking at the numbers and going, oh shit, you know, we uh, we got to let go of some people. We got to, what? During the scariest time in in human history? No, your

• 25:55Speaker 01

  job as the CEO is to figure out how to keep your business running and to take care of all your people. Right? Here's what you don't do. Oh, we're looking at hard times. Let's just start fucking putting bullets in people who have missed their kid's first step, didn't go to a fucking game, missed this and missed that to help build this company. It is your job as the CEO to take care of these people and figure out how to make money. That's the way that I look at it. And that's what we did.

• 26:27Steven Bartlett?

  The reason why people have a problem with this whole like, you know, my team and my family thing is because they always say, well, you don't fire your family. And what you're saying is actually those that have been loyal to you are the ones that you treat like family, I'm hearing.

• 26:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. If you don't have loyalty, what do you have? Right? If you work in a place where you feel like the rug could be pulled out from under you at any minute, for no reason other than, oh, the numbers don't look good. You think you want to be an entrepreneur and you think you want to be the CEO of a company. Every day when your foot hits the floor out of bed, you're going to war. There's people trying to take what you have. There's people trying to screw you over. You know, people are coming after you every day. And the more successful you become, the more people that are coming after you. And I look at the UFC and other businesses that I run as a battleship. And me and my team

• 27:26Speaker 01

  are going to war. And we either all go down together or we don't go down at all.

• 27:30Steven Bartlett?

  I guess in that context, if you are at war, then you need, you know, your brothers in arms, you need.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  You need soldiers.

• 27:37Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, you need soldiers.

• 27:38Speaker 01

  Yep. And I'll tell you this. So I know lots of different stories coming out of COVID. The day that everything started to shut down, I literally got all my employees in a room together downstairs at our dining room. And I said, listen, I don't understand this. I don't know what's going on. But if any of you feel unsafe or feel that, you know, you have loved ones at home that could be unsafe from this whole thing, you can go home. Nobody walked out. Nobody walked out. I said, we're going to figure this out. We're going to get through this together. And, you know, every week I had weekly FaceTime calls with all my employees. And it sounds weird now, but I was like, if you need anything,

• 28:22Speaker 01

  if you need groceries, toilet paper, a loved one of yours gets sick, make me the first call. We'll get through this together and then, you know, it was only a couple of weeks. And I said, we're going, we're going to work. And everybody, men, women, they all said, we're with you. Let's roll.

• 28:44Steven Bartlett?

  Do you know what's interesting is the last time I heard a founder, a CEO of a company say this to me, they also had a very turbulent childhood where they didn't have a family. And and he ended up admitting to me, he goes, you know, I guess to some degree as an adult, I've been able to build my own, my own community family that I really never had. And so I was just wondering, as you were speaking there, if there's, if there's a link there at all.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  Well.

• 29:10Steven Bartlett?

  Between how you treat people.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  Here's the link for me. If I, again, psychoanalyzing me, I've worked for companies that you go in and you give your time and your energy to, and they treat you like you don't even fucking matter. Right? It's like, well, if you don't like it, there's 10 other people right behind you that would love to have this job. Wow. That's so much you value me and what I do here?

• 29:31Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, it goes both ways, right?

• 29:32Speaker 01

  I I've been in those positions before and I've, yeah.

• 29:36Steven Bartlett?

  That red phone reminds me of another quote that I read from you, which is that you are always in the weeds. And one would think, you know, Dana, you're 57.

• 29:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, 57.

• 29:45Steven Bartlett?

  57 years old, very, very successful, made a lot of money in your life, peak of your powers. One would assume that by this time, you'd be a little bit out of the weeds. And dare I say, even, I don't know, delegating and enjoying yourself a little bit more. I mean, that's presumptive, the word enjoying yourself, but would be out of the weeds by now.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  You ever hear the saying, it's easier to get to the top than it is to stay on top? Truer words were never spoken. When you're when you're at the top, everybody's gunning for you and everybody's looking at your blueprint and saying, how do I, how do I use what he's done and how he's built this to beat him?

• 30:19Steven Bartlett?

  How do I steal his people?

• 30:20Speaker 01

  It's like being a world champion. So you become a world champion and then everybody starts studying you and how you fight or how you play or how you do, trying to figure out how to beat you. And I love that shit.

• 30:33Steven Bartlett?

  How do you respond to that?

• 30:34Speaker 01

  Because I love it.

• 30:35Steven Bartlett?

  Because it's easy to get distracted when there's that many people gunning for one guy.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  And don't get distracted. You know what get distracted on? You get into a business like this, right? And and lots of goofy shit starts coming at you like, hey, we want to do a movie about this. Hey, we want to do a thing on your life. Hey, we want to uh uh. There's three things that I focus on every day and I'm not going to say it.

• 30:57Steven Bartlett?

  But you're not going to say it.

• 30:59Speaker 01

  No.

• 30:59Steven Bartlett?

  Why?

• 31:00Speaker 01

  There's three things that I focus on every day. And if I don't fuck this up, you can't, you can't mess it up.

• 31:07Steven Bartlett?

  Why wouldn't you tell me?

• 31:08Speaker 01

  It's part of the formula.

• 31:11Speaker 01

  Part of the formula.

• 31:12Steven Bartlett?

  Three things you focus on every day.

• 31:16Speaker 01

  There's lots of ancillary things that come around the brand of the UFC, right? That if you start diving into all the, you know,

• 31:22Steven Bartlett?

  Can you give me one?

• 31:23Speaker 01

  And let your ego take over, you let your ego get into, you know, all this bullshit, that you can't mess it up because I've seen other companies that are so big and massive and have been around for a hundred years. And you make a couple of mistakes and then somebody else is is coming trying to eat your lunch, man, and and and nipping at your heels. Nobody's nipping at my heels. All these other guys that are out there, we are not the same. Okay. This thing has gotten to a level now. My competitors are the NFL, Major League Baseball, the NHL and the NBA.

• 32:05Speaker 01

  We did an eight billion dollar deal with Paramount, right? Now, I don't know this for a fact, but I know this for a fact. The NFL are a bunch of animals, right? Soon as that deal was announced,

• 32:22Speaker 01

  all the powers that be at the NFL got in a room and said, there was eight billion dollars out there that we didn't get? We'll do games on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. You know what I mean? And if you look at me now, we're sitting in my arena. Next door, I have the Performance Institute. And our headquarters, we have everything that the NFL and the Major League Baseball, all these guys have. We are part of the the four major sport organizations in the United States.

• 32:51Steven Bartlett?

  Dana, can you give me one of these three things?

• 32:54Speaker 01

  Um, no.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no. It's it's it's part of the formula, but, you know, we have gotten to a level now where we are one of the top four major, all these other promoters and all these other guys putting on fights and all this shit. They don't matter.

• 33:12Steven Bartlett?

  But on this point of being in the weeds, is that important for, you know, people out there that are?

• 33:17Speaker 01

  So here's what can happen. You know, and people say this to me all the time. We did the seven point seven billion dollar deal with Paramount and they're like, wow, that's incredible. You know, you didn't fucking make it. You'll never make it. You don't make, do you know why Paramount did a seven point seven? Because they believe that we can impact their business. Now, my job over the next five years is to make sure we do that. Because guess what I want? I want 10 billion after we get out of this deal, right? And the way that you do that is you added value to their company and you and you know.

• 33:54Steven Bartlett?

  Is it not tiring though? Constantly having to be in the weeds for 25 years and now you're rich? And you've you made all this money like, is it not?

• 34:02Speaker 01

  I could understand for some people maybe, but not me. I mean, I'm I'm I'm 57 and I'm sure to a lot of young people that seems old, but 57 isn't that old and and and what the hell would I be doing? I am addicted to chaos and and, you know, and if there isn't any, I create it. It's it's a weird thing, but I'm definitely an addict. Yeah.

• 34:25Steven Bartlett?

  There's a particular quote in this pile of quotes, which I think is really relevant.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:32Speaker 01

  I love the haters. The haters are the best, man. There's nothing better than haters. Haters will lay out what they think is wrong with your business and how you're not, you know, doing this or doing that. And, you know, what this used to be called was, you know, the critics or the whatever. Now, these days they're called the haters and and I I love the haters.

• 34:53Steven Bartlett?

  Do you listen to the haters?

• 34:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. It's not like you don't listen to the haters, you know? It's not like you don't, you know, you know what?

• 35:01Speaker 01

  You know what is real? And you know what's just bullshit. They're just, you know, but you have to have these guys that they they they sort of keep you on your game. Now, most people would say, I drown that. What I drown out is like the media that covers our sport. I don't look at them as haters. I look at that every fucking thing they say is wrong. And when I look at what they say, it's like, it's amazing that you could be involved in this business for 25 years and know nothing about it, you know? But I guess that's why, you know, we've never had any real competitors. Because when you think about what we're doing, it's never been done before. So what I'm thinking and what's coming next, these guys could never know.

• 35:45Speaker 01

  So I'll literally all the guys that cover our sport, I block them out of my feed. I don't want to hear, they're all wrong and everything they say is wrong. And it's a it's a waste of my time to even listen to anything they say. But the hardcore fans, you know, and the people who hate and the people who say we're great and all this, I like that information. I like hearing what they have to say.

• 36:11Steven Bartlett?

  The two points you just made, this one and the point before, brought to mind this point of focus. You talked about these three things. You talked about blocking out the haters. When you're at the top, there are so many things screaming for your energy. There's a, everybody's going, look over here, Dana, give me five minutes of your thoughts and energy. Then you've got a journalist over here, then you've got this fighter saint coming out making a comment over here. And so I wanted to understand what your relationship with like focus and how important this idea of focus has been to your success.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's why you have to, like I was saying, you have to figure out

• 36:44Speaker 01

  what you pay attention to and what you don't pay attention to.

• 36:47Steven Bartlett?

  Kevin O'Leary called this signal and noise.

• 36:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:50Steven Bartlett?

  He told me about great.

• 36:51Speaker 01

  The noise, you you gotta block out a lot of the noise. The problem is, these days, anybody with a fucking phone, all right, can can consider themselves an expert and and I'm criticizing what they do, but it's it's just, it's always wrong and it's always just such a waste of time. I want to hear what the fans think. I don't want to hear what these guys who are trying to start a podcast or a website or a fucking Instagram account, you know, on the business think, I want to hear what the real fans think. And when when you have been doing this long enough, you can sort of go through and tell what's what and who's who, right? So when when I feel like somebody has made a really good point or an opinion on the show

• 37:32Speaker 01

  or the match, it's like, when we put together a fight and I've been saying this since day one, they're like, this card sucks.

• 37:41Speaker 01

  You can't say the card sucks until it's over, right? Because these are obviously all really talented people that are on the card. Maybe some of them are, you know, are are younger and haven't proven themselves yet. But you can't judge a card until the card's over. And believe me, if the card sucks, I'll be the first one to say that the card sucked. So there's just lots of things that are that make sense and things that don't.

• 38:06Steven Bartlett?

  What has made the the biggest difference to you in terms of your energy, your health and making sure that you can show up really well every day? Because I'm I'm you're the reason I heard about Gary Brekka. And then I brought him on the show and he did really, really well on the show. And then it was that watching you talk about some of the impact he had on your life. He's a health expert that transformed your life. But I say all this to say that in my life, I noticed this variance between my good days and my bad days in terms of energy level, my ability to articulate myself. And so I'm longing to like get up to a high baseline. So I'm wondering for you, like, what has that been for you?

• 38:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, he completely changed my life. When I hit 50, Gary Brekka changed everything. So I have two doctors, one in Vegas, one in LA. They're both great doctors. So when I started the whole Gary Brekka thing, they they called me up together. And like, Dana, what are you doing? What are you doing with this shit? And I said, listen, man, the guy said, give me 12 weeks and I'll change your life. We'll see what happens in in in six weeks. I was like, wow, I feel incredible. And all these things that they couldn't fix, they just kept switching up the pills and all this shit. And one of them that was real bad was sleep apnea. I was waking up almost every night and throwing up from from from sleep apnea, right?

• 39:24Steven Bartlett?

  And how how did you meet him? Someone referred him to you and?

• 39:28Speaker 01

  Kerry Kasem. Kerry Kasem was like, I want you to meet this guy. I'm telling you, he'll do this and that. I didn't want to meet him. And then the the weirdest thing ever is that my son turned 21 and I had his 21st birthday down in Miami. And Gary Brekka lives in Miami. And he says, well, we do IVs, so we could do all the IVs for you guys down there and whatever. I said, all right, cool. So we would go out and drink and, you know, then do the IVs. And then one day we're doing the IV and he says, let me, let me take your blood and let me, uh, let me do your blood work for you.

• 40:00Steven Bartlett?

  Gary said that.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. And Gary had this thing that he could predict, you know, when you would die. And then I became obsessed with that.

• 40:10Steven Bartlett?

  He gave you 12 years?

• 40:12Speaker 01

  10.

• 40:12Steven Bartlett?

  He gave you 10 years to live?

• 40:13Speaker 01

  So then, so then he he said, give me 12 weeks. I'll change your life. It's going to be hard. And I said, it won't be hard. Once I set my mind to it, I'll I'll do exactly what you tell me to do. It took six weeks. Six weeks in, I was like, I I never felt better. And clarity, legs and all these other problems I have. And then sleep apnea gone. Me and my wife truly believe that he's wrong. I didn't have 10 years. We thought I had less because of the way that I would sleep and all the shit that was going on with me. And, uh, you know, this guy is a is a life changer. I wouldn't be doing

• 40:50Speaker 01

  all the things. I mean, I'd probably still be doing UFC, but I wouldn't be doing all this other stuff that I'm doing. I wouldn't be able to run at the level I run at right now without him.

• 40:58Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, another one of your quotes here.

• 41:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. It says, you either have the killer instinct or you don't. And it's so true. So this happened with Ian Gary, you know?

• 41:12Steven Bartlett?

  I saw your interview.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  I felt like Ian Gary in that fifth round, you you have this opportunity, you're fighting possibly the greatest fighter of all time. And you did a damn good fucking job for four rounds. And, you know, he was battered, his whole right side was busted up, his face was busted up, but he was beating you as far as rounds go. Now you're the younger, bigger, rangier fighter. You just fought four incredible rounds. Get out there and put it on, you go out and start shaking his hands and hugging him and do that when they're strapping the belt on you. Show Islam all the love you want when the fight's over. This is the fifth round. You have five minutes

• 41:56Speaker 01

  to shock the world and and, you know, everything you ever fucking dreamed of and worked for can happen in this next five minutes. And you didn't do it.

• 42:05Steven Bartlett?

  Does that mean he doesn't have the killer instinct?

• 42:07Speaker 01

  I don't know. You know, he's a classy, really nice guy, but that's not the time or place to be it. You you have to go out and you have to, you have five minutes left to, you know, he didn't show it if he does have it. He didn't show it. Any any guy.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  Company or person that wants to be a sponsor of ours. I'm not a logo slap guy. You just take your logo and slap it in and let's hope this works out. No, I want you to win. When you're with me and your name is on our canvas. I want this to be a mutually beneficial deal for both of us. I want you to win. I want you to go, damn, thank God I spent my money on the UFC. And you have to get up and you have to, you have to kick ass every single day. Not just for you, not just for your employees, but for your sponsors, the network and you know, you're never out of the weeds, I guess is the answer. You have to be an absolute savage in business.

• 43:09Speaker 01

  I mean, that goes right along with what I was just saying. You, you.

• 43:11Steven Bartlett?

  Are you a savage?

• 43:13Speaker 01

  I don't like to, you know what I mean? I don't know. I would let other people judge whether I am a savage or not, but yes, I will tell you this. I absolutely positively have killer instinct and every day that I show up here, I'm, I'm here to fucking win.

• 43:30Steven Bartlett?

  You'd think the former president of Nespresso would be a pretty hard person to convert to a new coffee company. But just one sip of Cometier coffee made him invest.

• 43:45Steven Bartlett?

  But let me tell you the reason why I became an investor. So I had a big box of this arrive on my desk in the London office. And then I'd say within about an hour and a half, the Slack channel that we have starts blowing up with people asking, what the hell is that thing that's been left in the kitchen? It is unbelievable. So instead of trying to make it yourself at home and balance the flavors, they flash freeze it at the perfect moment. So all you have to do is pop it out of here into a cup, pour hot water on it. And it tastes like nothing you've tasted before. You can also make delicious iced coffee drinks as well. Just pour it in. No machine, no brewing with plastic and all that nasty stuff. And you can get $30 off your first order at cometeer.com/steven today. That's cometeer.com/steven.

• 44:31Steven Bartlett?

  I want to speak to the business owners listening and watching right now. I know what it's like to be personally responsible for every decision. I founded my first company at 21 years old. And honestly, the pressure can be immense. It's the kind of mental load that takes its toll below the surface. I recently did some tests through our sponsor, Function, which got me thinking about that invisible impact. I found that I had low levels of omega threes. I had deficient levels of vitamin D, probably because I sit inside this dark room all day. And that has totally changed how I construct my day going forward. I get up in the morning and the first thing I now do is I go for a walk outside in the sunshine. In part to help my vitamin D levels increase, but also because it helps to reset my circadian rhythm. With Function, you can check your brain health, your aging, your stress, and so much more.

• 45:16Steven Bartlett?

  They provide over 160 lab tests for what is equal to a dollar a day and member pricing on advanced imaging. Head to functionhealth.com/DOAC to join and use code DOAC25 for a $25 credit. There's going to be some people listening that are at the start of their careers and that they'll be inspired by you. They'll want to win like you've won. They'll want to climb to the sort of peak of the mountain in whatever pursuit they go after. And I'm kind of, the question I'm kind of wondering is like, is there a way they can learn this savagery? This killer instinct? Do you, have you ever seen someone go from not having it to having it? Whether they're a fighter or someone else?

• 45:54Speaker 01

  Hmm. That's a good question. I don't know if I've ever experienced somebody who didn't have it and got it. I don't, I don't think that I have, but here's what I do know. If you want to get into business for yourself, you have to have a certain mindset and you have to be a killer, man. You have to, and you have to not just think about yourself. There's a lot of other people that you have to think of more times than less before you.

• 46:24Steven Bartlett?

  Do you think you have to have a chip on your shoulder?

• 46:26Speaker 01

  Ah, I don't know if you have to have a chip on your shoulder, but you know, I, most guys you see do. But it's because you get up every day and it's you versus the world. I mean, everybody's coming at you. And the more successful you get, I mean, if you, if you look this up, I mean, every business that's ever been successful, right? There's a army of scumbag lawyers out there that will find a way to figure out how to sue you because, you know, you did something wrong. Or the other thing that happens is people that are involved in your business that don't become successful, it's never their fault. It's somebody else's fault on why they weren't successful.

• 47:06Speaker 01

  And you know, there, there's always a, there are groups of lawyers, like companies out there, massive companies and smaller ones too, that actually fund, you can go in and you can invest in a lawsuit with them and be a part of it. So every day when you get up, there's just, you know, scumbags, regular people, good people that are all coming after you.

• 47:30Steven Bartlett?

  Question then, which person would you, of all the entrepreneurs and killers you've met, which one would you not like to compete with as it relates to business?

• 47:40Speaker 01

  Hmm. I don't think, I, I want to compete with them all.

• 47:43Steven Bartlett?

  But is there anyone?

• 47:43Speaker 01

  I like it. Listen, we're, we're at a level now where I was saying to you, the NFL and.

• 47:47Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 47:48Speaker 01

  Major League Baseball, these guys are all, you know, first of all, they've been around for a hundred years or more or less or whatever it is. And I'm, I'm at a level now where we're competing with the elite of the elite in sports.

• 48:01Steven Bartlett?

  Who is the most badass entrepreneur you've ever met?

• 48:05Speaker 01

  Ah, I don't know. That's a tough one. Like there's guys that, there's guys that, that I like and respect, like the, the Michael Jordans, Carl Icahn. I like guys like that.

• 48:15Steven Bartlett?

  What about athletes that you've worked with? Was there any that you, you sort of put in a class of their own in terms of?

• 48:20Speaker 01

  Conor, Conor McGregor, Habib Nurmagomedov, Chuck Liddell, when, you know, it was his time, Ronda Rousey. You know, and people, people that, you know, want to talk shit about Ronda Rousey now. Let me tell you what. Ronda Rousey came to me. I didn't want women in the UFC, right? And, and the reasoning is I was trying to sell men to networks and sponsors and they were like, oh, this is too whatever. Women, Ronda Rousey grabbed me at an event, said, hey, I'm Ronda Rousey. Can I get 15 minutes with you? We went into my room at, at the arena and I don't know, minutes into the conversation, I'm like, holy shit.

• 49:00Speaker 01

  I think I'm going to do this and she's the one to do it with, you know? And she came in with the whole fucking bravado. You want to talk about a chip on your shoulder. I mean, she had it. You know, so many people now want to hate on her. She is a fucking unicorn.

• 49:15Steven Bartlett?

  What do these people have? The Connors, the Khabibs, the Rondas? What is it?

• 49:18Speaker 01

  Conor McGregor, I went to dinner with him when we signed him. I left that dinner. I called Lorenzo Fertitta and I said, dude, I don't know if this guy can fight or not, but if he can even throw a punch, he's going to be a massive superstar. He's, he's incredible.

• 49:34Steven Bartlett?

  What was it?

• 49:35Speaker 01

  Well, the number one factor in this business, can you fight? How good are you? Number two is that, is this, this mentality of manifesting and just sitting there and you're telling me what you're going to do and how it's going to happen and how it's all going to play out. And I've only had a handful of these meetings in 25 years. A handful.

• 49:59Steven Bartlett?

  Do you believe in manifestation in that regard?

• 50:01Speaker 01

  Oh, manifesting is real and I'm a, I'm a big believer in, in manifesting. When you decide who you are, what you want to do, what you're going to accomplish, and you get up every single day and you work toward it, it is impossible for you to fail.

• 50:17Steven Bartlett?

  Some people just take one side of that bug and they'll say, I'll just sit here and think about it. I'll make my vision board. But then they won't get out and press the pedal.

• 50:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:23Steven Bartlett?

  It's kind of like getting in a car in your garage and setting the sat nav, but not, you know, putting your foot down.

• 50:28Speaker 01

  That's exactly right. Not stepping on the gas. You're right. You're going in your, your program, your fucking, you know, your GPS system. And then you never step on the gas and you're not fucking go anywhere. But yeah, if, if you lay out your plan, you know who you are, you know what you want to do. It's impossible to fail. And then then what does failure mean? What, what, what does failure mean? My, my thing about success in life is are you happy? To get up every day and love what you do. You know, I know a lot of billionaires that are miserable, miserable human beings.

• 51:01Steven Bartlett?

  Why?

• 51:02Speaker 01

  I don't know why. It's just, listen, being happy is a choice. Do you love what you do? Do you want to get up? Do you want to be happy every day? And, and to me, that's the key to success. I actually, I'll tell you a story of my son. My oldest son called me the other day and he's like, dad, I need some direction, you know? I'm thinking about this, da, da, da, da, da. And I always tell my kids, I want you guys to be happy. He goes, dad, don't give me your fucking happy speech.

• 51:28Speaker 01

  I need some fucking direction and help me figure this out. So I think we had a good conversation and he seemed happy when we got off the phone, but yeah.

• 51:38Steven Bartlett?

  What did he want direction on?

• 51:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, just, just life choices that he's, he's looking down the barrel of right now.

• 51:45Speaker 01

  Don't be that guy that's laying in the hospital bed dying, saying, I wonder what would happen if I tried. Yeah, I don't want any regrets. I don't want to be, you know, I, I, I don't want any regrets. And I don't right now. I, I, I don't regret anything. If you, if you pushed me hard and said, tell me one thing that you regret. I don't believe that I have any. I don't believe that I have any.

• 52:11Steven Bartlett?

  I know you don't like it when I go here, but I wondered, wanted to ask you if you have any of that. Your parents have passed away a couple of years ago.

• 52:17Speaker 01

  Well, that's the thing. When you, when you talk about like, you know, this podcast, Diary of a CEO, I, I don't think that, that it's all, you know, cookie cutter and stamp. Everybody has their own things. You grew up different than I grew up. Oh, you grew up different than we grew up. And there are things that, you know, obviously had big impressions on you when you were young, but I hate the past. I don't, I don't like the past. And it's not just my childhood or anything like that. Fuck the rearview mirror. It doesn't matter. Whatever happened yesterday means nothing today. And some of these kids, you can never let the past affect your future.

• 52:57Speaker 01

  Right? So people say to me, hey, do you ever look back and go, wow, we did this? And no, fuck that. Cause whatever we did back then got me to here, right? We're here. What just happened a few hours ago doesn't mean shit anymore. It's gone, right? What's next? What's next? What's next? I don't ever look back and let, you know, you, you learn some things and you learn some lessons and, you know, good and bad or whatever happens. But these people sit around and go, you don't understand my dad did to my mom and fucking, who gives a shit? Fucking everybody went through that stuff. Shut up. That doesn't matter anymore. Don't let the past affect your future.

• 53:40Speaker 01

  So people will say, do you ever just sit around and reflect? Fuck, no, I don't reflect. I'm thinking about what's happening tomorrow and what's going to happen. And, you know, who's going to come after me in the next fucking few days? And, you know, how do we build and how do we get bigger and how do we get better? You know, I'm 57, but I want to be better tomorrow than I was today. In every way that you can possibly be better.

• 54:03Steven Bartlett?

  Have you always been like that?

• 54:04Speaker 01

  I think so. I think I've always been that way. Yesterday never mattered to me, you know? You took whatever lessons you had from that, good or bad, right? It's like, it's like these kids that grew up and said they didn't have any role models, you know? Well, yes, you did. You had tons of them.

• 54:21Steven Bartlett?

  Does that mean that you can't, you're not hurt by things?

• 54:23Speaker 01

  Never.

• 54:24Steven Bartlett?

  You're never hurt by?

• 54:25Speaker 01

  Never hurt by things.

• 54:26Steven Bartlett?

  Really?

• 54:26Speaker 01

  Never hurt by things. Yeah. And people I was, I, I, you know, people that are close to me would go, when's the last time you cried? Fuck, I don't even know the last time I cried. What does crying do? What is, how does crying fucking help in any way, shape or form? And, you know, maybe for some people crying is great. Crying doesn't fucking work for me. I'm not a crier. It's pretty fucking hard to hurt my feelings. And I'll give that to my mom and dad, my uncles and aunts. I mean, we have a fucking tough crew. When people who were supposed to love you would say the things that these guys would say to you, you know? What, what, what is fucking this guy over here? I mean, think I give a shit what this guy thinks? It's like when we talk about getting canceled. Who can really cancel you?

• 55:09Speaker 01

  Right? Oh, the New York Times doesn't like that I fuck the New York Times. Give a shit about the New York Times. I have a group of people in my life that mean something to me, right? That I care about. Their opinions, you know, my relationships with them, whatever, mean a lot to me. And if one of them went away, that, that would bother me. Right? Other, everybody else, I give a shit what, you know, three guys on the fucking internet think, or, you know, some guy who writes for something or the fucking New York Times, which, you know, through COVID, New York Times was on my ass like crazy, but

• 55:49Speaker 01

  this, this is what I always think about.

• 55:50Steven Bartlett?

  And are you saying that came from the fact that people that were supposed to say nice things and be super affectionate and cushy? When you were younger, they were saying horrible things. So it kind of built a resilience in you.

• 56:01Speaker 01

  No fucking doubt about it. No doubt about it. They built me for this, for this life and this, uh, you know, and I always say I wouldn't take back one thing from my childhood or want different parents or a different family or a different setup. It was incredible.

• 56:17Steven Bartlett?

  What were they saying to you?

• 56:19Speaker 01

  Uh, I don't know. Listen, I, I, I'm a ballbuster. I like to bust balls and, and whatever, even with my friends and my crew. And that's the way my family was. My family was a hard group. Like my grandmother, which I love, both my grandmothers on both sides were incredible. You know, there's nothing better in life when you're young than to have great grandparents. I mean, everybody watching this right now, everybody thinks of their grandparents. I'm like, ah, yeah, your grandparents were the best and all that shit. Like my grandmother, my Irish grandmother on, on my, that. You say, hey, I love you, Grandma. Fucking nothing bad. Good to see you. See you later. Yeah, yeah. There, there was none of that type of shit growing up. Yeah, yeah, there you go.

• 56:59Steven Bartlett?

  I, when I heard about this, I thought, oh shit. So this is a book that your mother?

• 57:02Speaker 01

  I've actually never seen the actual fucking book.

• 57:05Steven Bartlett?

  This is a book your mother published about you unauthorized as a biography.

• 57:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. And put a bunch of pictures in here of me when I was a kid and all this shit. But I think, you know, this happens a lot. I mean, she put my fucking wedding pictures in here and shit.

• 57:18Steven Bartlett?

  And she didn't ask you to publish this book?

• 57:20Speaker 01

  No, put fucking wedding pictures in here and all this fucking shit. I mean, I, I, you know, I saw some Kobe Bryant stuff where Kobe had to like sue his mom. She was selling his shit from his bedroom and, and, you know, it happens, man. It happens. It's unfortunate. And then it's, I've actually never seen the books. First time I've ever seen the book.

• 57:39Steven Bartlett?

  I'm not going to read it out or anything, but um, in the book, she's critical of you at certain points, specifically the last page, which I read. She, she says critical things. And I was wondering where along the way did that happen?

• 57:51Speaker 01

  Well, I've never read it and that's the first time I've ever seen it. And I was just flipping through like the pictures, like, you know, it's, it's bat shit nuts. Bat shit nuts.

• 58:03Steven Bartlett?

  Where along the way did that happen that you fell out with her?

• 58:06Speaker 01

  I was on a trip one time. You know, this, this was before, uh, um, you know, I didn't have emails and all that shit on the road. And I was with Lorenzo Fertitta, my partner, and we were in London for like two weeks. And when I got back, I checked my emails and I have like a bunch of emails from her, like threatening me. You're going to send me this much money by, you have two options. You can give me this all upfront or you can pay me payments over the next fucking whatever. I'm, I'm looking to buy a, a bar or whatever it was. And then she wasn't getting responses because I was in London.

• 58:47Speaker 01

  And then the email started getting nastier and nastier and nastier by the end. And I was like,

• 58:54Speaker 01

  I fucking just blew up. And that was the beginning of the end with me and her.

• 59:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. So these things happen. When you, when you become successful, it's not just, uh, listen, sometimes family is the worst. Sometimes family's worse than, you know, like, like when we talk about things that are being said in newspapers and things like that, pale in comparison to what you can get from some family members. But I have a whole nother group of family, like cousins and, you know, me and my sister are super cool. I mean, listen, I, I say this all the time. We all fail at certain things in life. In my opinion, if you fail as a parent, it's the ultimate failure. It's the, it's the ultimate failure.

• 59:43Speaker 01

  My mom passed away without me or my sister talking to her. My sister had her own set of issues, you know? With me, it was money. With my sister, it was other things. So we didn't, we didn't talk to either one of my parents.

• 59:59Steven Bartlett?

  Have you forgiven her?

• 1:00:01Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, listen, I, I didn't, I, I don't go on shows to speak negatively about my mother. You know, I was telling you earlier, I wouldn't change anything. And, you know, people say, do you think you are where you are today because of your parents? Absolutely. 100%. You know, good, bad, whatever, however you want to look at it. You know, my parents passed away. I don't want to tell bad stories about my parents. But I mean, that's one of the, one of the grossest, most disgusting things that you couldn't even imagine possible until it happens to you. And, you know, what are you going to do? You're going to fucking cry about it and, oh, you don't understand my fucking?

• 1:00:39Steven Bartlett?

  Well, you've got, you've got an opportunity.

• 1:00:40Speaker 01

  It happened and, and it, you know, it is what it is. The thing that, that's bad about that and what she did is a lot of other people. I think she hurt in that book. She didn't hurt me, but other people that, you know,

• 1:00:57Speaker 01

  a lot of things that aren't true and a lot of people that didn't do anything to her in that book that, you know? And again, I've never read it, but I've had lawyers tell me about it, shit like that. And then the, you know, the, the, the personal private pictures that she just threw out there that, you know, she really didn't have the right to do. Um, you know, it just, it just, it's one of those things that

• 1:01:21Speaker 01

  when you become successful, this type of shit happens to you.

• 1:01:28Steven Bartlett?

  You have a wonderful partner like I do. On Piers Morgan, you talked about her psychoanalyzing you. My fiance does the same thing. I think my fiance deep down thinks I must be fucked up and is in constant search of evidence that I am fucked up. In part because she knows of my childhood and my relationship with my parents. So she assumes that I must be fucked up and it's like everything is confirmation of it.

• 1:01:50Speaker 01

  Well, she'll get into this thing where she'll start telling me, she's like, she'll try to talk about my feelings. She's like, how do you feel about this? And that's why when Piers Morgan was quiet, I said, you sound like my wife. You know, it's impossible for you not to be able to. I said, it's not impossible and no, you're wrong. And then, and then once you do an interview like that, and it'll happen in this interview too. It's like, then people start going, oh, this guy's got to be a psycho not to fucking, you know? And maybe, maybe that's true. Maybe you're right. I don't know.

• 1:02:20Steven Bartlett?

  He didn't need different.

• 1:02:20Speaker 01

  But I don't like to talk about this kind of shit because it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter. Like I said, the rear view mirror means nothing, right? Let me tell you what's not gonna, you're not gonna get rear ended in fucking life unless you did some horrible things in your past that are gonna come back and fuck you at you or whatever. The rear view mirror means nothing to me. I learned from it. I, I had these experiences, some incredible, some not incredible, but they all built who I am today and, and, and that's all that matters.

• 1:02:53Steven Bartlett?

  I think therefore it does matter because a lot of people think they go through life thinking that if this happened to me, I can't possibly have a future be successful. I can't possibly move forward. And so hearing someone that went through, in my view, an objectively very tumultuous, very difficult upbringing and has been able to separate themselves from it and, and look forward, I think means it does matter because it shows that it's possible.

• 1:03:16Speaker 01

  Well, I don't ever want to sit down and, and talk about things where I'm like some victim. I'm the furthest thing from a victim. And I think that especially if you grew up in the seventies and eighties, a lot of bad shit happened to you in a lot of different ways. It just, it was a different time, a different place. And I think that my parents and my grandparents before them, they grew up in a different world and different times. And, you know, things, things weren't easy for them either. They went through some shit that got them, you know, to, to, to where they were. And I don't blame them. I don't have any ill feelings toward it. You know, me and my sister will talk about my mom and we'll be like, how the fuck did she do it? She was a single mom.

• 1:04:01Speaker 01

  My dad was what he was. Single mom, worked her ass off, you know, did all this stuff. And, and she did it. She, she raised two kids, right? No matter all the bad things or whatever that happened, the, the book and all that, she, she raised two kids by herself and moved across country from Boston to Vegas, you know, with two kids and a dog and a car. We drove cross country. You know, I remember we were going through the Midwest and there were tornadoes coming and shit and like all the stuff that we did and we went through, she did it. She did it by herself and, and my sister and I, even though we didn't talk to her for years, you know, at the end of her life,

• 1:04:41Speaker 01

  we credit her and respect what she did.

• 1:04:44Steven Bartlett?

  Anne is a little bit right, isn't she? Cause my partner is a little bit right. I don't tell her.

• 1:04:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's Italian.

• 1:04:51Steven Bartlett?

  Your wife, Anne.

• 1:04:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, they're all together all the time and, you know, but when, when you have that, that type of a family structure, which is the complete fucking opposite of what mine was. It, it's cool to see. So I have sort of the, the, the best of both worlds. And her family's great, you know? Anytime while I was building this business, her family was helping with the kids and they all worked together and they all did all this. So, you know, I, I, I've been lucky that I've been able to experience both.

• 1:05:18Steven Bartlett?

  There should be a button just down below here. And if it says subscribe, you're already subscribed. If it says subscriber, that means you're not yet. And if you're not subscribed, please could you do us a favor and hit that button? It helps the show more than you know. And according to the algorithm, you're someone that watches our show, but you haven't yet hit that button. Thank you so much. Okay, we've got two more. Here we go.

• 1:05:40Speaker 01

  Trust your gut, not the focus groups. Yeah. Everything that I've ever done has been based off my gut and what I felt would, I mean, the power slap thing. I mean, you want to talk about the critics. I mean, you know, UFC huge sold all this money. And, and I remember seeing people, he's gonna, he's gonna destroy his legacy by, by doing this and that. And all the shit that they said about the UFC, they then said about power slap. Anything new that people don't understand or, or don't get that they attack and go after.

• 1:06:11Steven Bartlett?

  But sometimes your gut is wrong, no? Sometimes you'll, sometimes you get things wrong. You think something will be.

• 1:06:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's no doubt. Well, luckily not, not in business it hasn't yet. So.

• 1:06:22Steven Bartlett?

  Not the big things.

• 1:06:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:24Steven Bartlett?

  But I think that sometimes because I'm quite wary of the fact that we sit here and we give people advice to trust their gut, but like some people's gut is like not good.

• 1:06:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, but if your gut is wrong,

• 1:06:36Speaker 01

  here's what I always think, what's the worst case scenario? The worst case scenario is you go back to work.

• 1:06:42Steven Bartlett?

  You learn something as well, I guess.

• 1:06:43Speaker 01

  Right? If your gut is wrong, or if you don't make it and you don't want to, your worst case scenario is you go back to work. It's not a bad worst case scenario.

• 1:06:54Steven Bartlett?

  And speaking of work.

• 1:06:54Speaker 01

  Right? I used to think the day that I walked out of that hotel, I was 19.

• 1:07:00Speaker 01

  If this whole thing doesn't work out, I'll have some great experiences, but

• 1:07:06Speaker 01

  if I have to go back and go back to work, I tried. I gave it a shot. I can't wake up when I'm 40. And that was the thing, when I was a bellman, I was making great money, right? I was able to have a good life for myself. But then I saw these guys that worked with me. One of the guys was 45 years old. He made the same money I made. He had the same benefits that I had. He had the same schedule that I had. So what's the worst case scenario? I'm 45 and I come back and I, you know, I do the same thing. It's not a bad worst case scenario. The worst case scenario is you never try. You don't try to do it.

• 1:07:49Speaker 01

  And then you wake up and you're 45 and you're like, fuck man, I wonder if what, when I had no kids, no, no, no, nobody depended on me for anything. And I never gave a shot. If you're only in it for the paycheck, you've already lost.

• 1:08:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's absolutely true. Nothing I ever did was based on money because if I did base it on money, I'm still standing in the hotel lobby because that was the much better option at the time. 401K, right? All the, you check all the boxes, dental, medical, cash, checks, all these fucking things at 19. If the money was the deciding factor, I'm still standing in the lobby of the hotel. Now, when I left and said, I want to be in the fight business, everybody told me it was fucking stupid, right? And when you say that, what does it mean? Does it mean where I am right now and what's going on right now? You could never predict that.

• 1:08:48Speaker 01

  You could never, you couldn't even fucking dream it up, the shit that I've done and the things that I've been a part of. In your wildest dreams, this wouldn't be it.

• 1:08:55Steven Bartlett?

  Where does luck fit in this equation?

• 1:08:57Speaker 01

  A lot, I think a lot, lot. And, and I wouldn't call it luck. I'd call it timing. Everything in life is about timing. So there was this kid, his name's Adam Corrigan. I went to high school with him. And he was a rich kid in high school. I was not. And I didn't have a car, all that shit. This guy would pick me up and drive me to school every day, right? And think about this, and, and this is the way I always think, for him to come get me, he had to wake up 45 minutes to an hour earlier. Get ready, drive over, get me, and then we both had to be to school on time. And I had this blanket policy, like I told you, I quit drinking when I was 21. And I also had this blanket policy in my twenties.

• 1:09:43Speaker 01

  I didn't go to anybody's wedding. Everybody you ever knew was getting married when you were in your twenties, heading toward your thirties, right? And it, first of all, you have to fly somewhere, you know, I lived in Boston, you know, you had to fly somewhere. Takes a bunch of time out of you that to go to, so I would, I wouldn't go to anybody's wedding. So then Adam Corrigan is getting married. How am I not going to go to Adam Corrigan's wedding with all the things that he did for me when we were in high school? I go to his wedding and who do I run into at his wedding? Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta.

• 1:10:17Steven Bartlett?

  Who you end up.

• 1:10:19Speaker 01

  I hadn't seen in 10 years or more. So Lorenzo comes up to me at the wedding and says, hey, how you doing? I just got on the, on the Nevada Athletic Commission and I heard you're, you're, you know, you got a boxing gym. You try, I want to come in and train with you. He came in on Monday and me and Lorenzo have been together ever since and Frank.

• 1:10:38Steven Bartlett?

  And you bought the UFC together for $2 million sometime thereafter. So if you hadn't been loyal to your friend from school and gone to his wedding, then, I mean, who knows?

• 1:10:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:48Steven Bartlett?

  Sliding doors moment.

• 1:10:50Speaker 01

  Everything in life is about timing.

• 1:10:53Steven Bartlett?

  Do you believe in karma?

• 1:10:54Speaker 01

  I do. I don't believe in much, like I'm, you know, I'm not religious. I don't believe in God, the devil, ghosts, goblins. I don't believe in any of this shit. But I believe in karma because I've seen it play out, good and bad. I've seen karma.

• 1:11:10Steven Bartlett?

  There is a, there is a big fight coming up, a big UK fight coming up between AJ Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury. One of the biggest fights in boxing, you know, of the last, at least the last decade for sure.

• 1:11:20Speaker 01

  Definitely in the heavyweight division, yeah.

• 1:11:21Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah. Who do you think is gonna win?

• 1:11:25Speaker 01

  They both had tune up fights that were very, very sketchy. So we'll, we'll see, you know, it's not like either one of them completely dominated in, in their tune up fights. So it's an interesting fight to see. And obviously, you know, two of the biggest, most famous, most popular heavyweights to ever come out of the UK. So.

• 1:11:43Steven Bartlett?

  If you had to pick.

• 1:11:45Speaker 01

  If I had to pick, I don't pick.

• 1:11:48Steven Bartlett?

  You were about to pick. You didn't tell me the three things you can tell me this.

• 1:11:53Speaker 01

  You're getting nothing from me that you actually want in this interview. What a waste of time.

• 1:11:59Steven Bartlett?

  I guess, so there is this empty one. I wanted you just to write one more.

• 1:12:04Steven Bartlett?

  That's front of mind for you. And again, this is just a, a principle for all my audience who are various ages that are thinking about how to be successful in their own, whatever they're doing in their lives. It can be anything.

• 1:12:17Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, what did you write? Do not be afraid to take risk. Okay.

• 1:12:23Speaker 01

  You will never accomplish or achieve anything that you want out of life if you're not willing to take the risk. You know, and it's always easier to do it when you're younger, before you get married, before you have kids, but don't be afraid to do it then either. What is your worst case scenario? To me, the worst case scenario is always laying in your deathbed and going, I wish I would have. When I built my house here in Las Vegas, right? I was like, this is the last fucking house I'm gonna build on. And you know what I don't wanna do? I don't wanna wake up some morning and go, damn, I wish I would have. So I went way over budget and the whole deal. And I wake up every day in my fucking house and I love it.

• 1:13:06Speaker 01

  And I've been there eight years and I've never said, damn, I should have. Never. You know what I mean? I'm just saying, in everything that I do in my life, I don't wanna wake up and wish that I had, you know? Do not be afraid to take risk. You know? And if there's something out there that you feel like you want, you know, fucking go, go, go get it. What's the worst thing that can happen? You end up back at work. Right? That's the worst case scenario. And it's not a bad worst case scenario.

• 1:13:38Steven Bartlett?

  In a way, we kinda do live like we're gonna live forever. When you think about like, cause really, you know, neither of us know how long we have left.

• 1:13:44Speaker 01

  So there's a movie that really impacted my life when I was a kid. It was called Vision Quest. And it's a wrestling movie, you know, this kid's in high school and he feels like he never really accomplished something. He's, you know, he wanted to leave his mark in high school. So he's gonna drop a couple of weight classes and try to beat the greatest wrestler in like the country or something. The shoot was the guy's name. But he's in class and there's this, you know, it's like his poetry teacher, his English teacher, whatever it is, is telling a story about a poem. And he says, what does this mean to you? And the kid, Loudon Swain is his name. Loudon Swain says, you know, this little girl's walking through the park and all the leaves are dying and falling off the tree. And then she realizes that she's gonna die someday too.

• 1:14:28Speaker 01

  And then there's this, this, one of the greatest scenes in a movie of all time. So he works at a hotel in high school. He works at, he's a room service waiter. The head chef that works with him every night is always like, he's cutting weight and doing all this stuff. And every time he's around this guy, this guy's negative. Like, what are you doing this for? Pick up the fucking thing and eat it, eat some food, do this and that. And it's always like shitting on him. So he gets to a place where he's getting ready to wrestle the shoot.

• 1:14:57Speaker 01

  And he meets this girl, falls in love with her and all this shit. And he's willing to blow it all and give it all up. And she leaves because she sees that this is happening and she leaves him and he's all fucked up. So where does he go? He goes to the chef who's always shitting on him because he knows he'll talk him into quitting. Fuck it, you don't have to do this, you don't have to do that. He goes to work and the guy's not at work. He's supposed to be working. So he goes to his apartment, knocks on his door and the guy's dressed up with a fucking dress shirt and a tie. And he's like, what are you doing? What's going on? You're not at work? He's like, aren't you wrestling the shoot tonight? And he's like, yeah, but you're gonna, they're gonna dock you a day's pay work. And this guy goes into basically, I'm fucking sitting in this apartment alone one night

• 1:15:43Speaker 01

  and I'm watching TV and there's a guy named Paylay. Have you ever heard of him? And he says, I watched this guy. He flips upside down and backwards and kicks the ball into a net and rips his shirt off and runs around the place. And the fucking crowd's going crazy and it's rough. Look, I've got goosebumps telling you the story. So he says, a human being, a species that I'm actually a part of, you know, I'm sitting here alone in my apartment and I start crying. You know? It's not the six minutes, it's what happens in that six minutes that matters. But basically this movie spoke to me like nothing had ever spoke to me before. And I got it. You know? We don't have time.

• 1:16:27Speaker 01

  There's not a lot of time and it does seem like we're gonna live forever, but we're not. And to these younger people, like 30 years old, seemed so fucking old to me when I was 18.

• 1:16:39Speaker 01

  You're 30 like that. Don't waste your time. Don't be afraid to take a risk. Don't be the guy sitting home alone at whatever his age was at that point in your fucking apartment thinking, I could have done more than this. I could have been bigger than this. I could have been better than this. That is, that's, that's the fucking worst thing that can happen to anybody. You don't wanna be that guy. And listen, not everybody is built that way or for that. I told you, some people, listen, they want that city job, 401k, the benefits and all that shit. They want weekends off and they want holidays off. And there's nothing wrong with that. We, we need all types of people in this world, but if you believe that you are an entrepreneur,

• 1:17:22Speaker 01

  you believe that in something that you wanna build, do not be afraid to take the risk.

• 1:17:30Steven Bartlett?

  It's gonna cost you though. It's funny, I was thinking about you talking about your big house in Vegas, but then also the fact that you were there for four days in the last two months.

• 1:17:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:37Steven Bartlett?

  And it's actually that behavior that got you the big house and.

• 1:17:41Speaker 01

  True. Yeah. And I wouldn't change a second of it. I love this shit. I still get up every day and I'm fired up to get in here and get to the office. And I love like, you don't want me to get into this bullshit, it's too long or whatever. But you know, I'm working on something right now that I just became fucking obsessed with. I became obsessed with it. And I got these guys, Tucker at my office, I, I got this kid, Merriman at my office and all these guys that are really talented, creative people. And I, I get them in a room with me and we start talking about it and I tell them what my vision is and then they get into it and then they start doing what they do and building this thing. And then it's just like, fuck it. It's just, I love it, man. The team that I have built, you know?

• 1:18:26Speaker 01

  When I get in a room with these guys and we start talking, it's incredible what you, what you can build and what you can do and what, what's available and what, what you can accomplish. And Ari Emanuel, Ari's this guy, you know, the ultimate all time super agent. You know, he came in and did the deal for the UFC, he got the WWE and many, many other things and people he's built in his lifetime. And he's the guy that when I come up with something creative and I call him and I'm like, I need $30 million. I wanna do this.

• 1:18:59Speaker 01

  He's like, I'll get you the money. So I've gotten to a point now where I have all these people that are part of my fucking team. And when I come up with something, we all get together and then we make it fucking happen.

• 1:19:13Steven Bartlett?

  Is there a destination in your mind?

• 1:19:15Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:19:15Steven Bartlett?

  There's no destination?

• 1:19:17Speaker 01

  Bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger.

• 1:19:19Steven Bartlett?

  And then what?

• 1:19:19Speaker 01

  Right? Well, think about this, then I die.

• 1:19:23Speaker 01

  Then I die.

• 1:19:25Speaker 01

  Who gives a shit? Right? It's this, I can't picture myself like, hey, I made a bunch of money, I'm gonna fucking retire and do what?

• 1:19:34Speaker 01

  And do what? You know, I, I probably take four, not this year, I'm fucked this year, but I take four great vacations a year. Right? And if my wife had her way, it'd be 15 days, but I, you know, her and I are battling over, over a vacation this year. But I couldn't imagine by the time I'm done with my vacation, I can't wait to get back to work. I'm so excited to get back to work and.

• 1:20:00Steven Bartlett?

  Do you enjoy your vacations?

• 1:20:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. It takes me a couple of days. Right? I mean, anybody who, who, who runs a big business and, and understands this, you get there and you're shaking off the shit that's going on and all the stuff. And then by like day three, I'm in. You know? I enjoy myself, I enjoy hanging out with my kids. And then by the end, I'm back on the phone going, I'm coming home, everybody get fucking ready. I'm coming home.

• 1:20:28Steven Bartlett?

  One of the things that is obvious speaking to you is that self-awareness really is the advice that you've, you've sort of given today because I imagine a lot of people wouldn't like your life. They would find it miserable, whereas you find it so exciting. And I think that's.

• 1:20:42Speaker 01

  Very true.

• 1:20:43Steven Bartlett?

  It's a really important point of nuance when we have these conversations, which is you're not necessarily saying, from what I hear, that everybody should have your life. You're saying just like, be aware of like who you are. And this is who you are.

• 1:20:53Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 1:20:54Steven Bartlett?

  And you're just giving everything to what, who you are.

• 1:20:55Speaker 01

  Yep. And even when we hired the UFC, like the woman on the other side of this wall right here, Linnae Breckenridge, animal. Animal and brilliant and, and just fucking, I have so much respect for her. Then I got Craig Borsari, I, I, I got Hunter Campbell. I, I have all these guys that, that work for me and they are all killers. Right? Then you go, and there's people that come in and they work nine to five and they, it takes all types. I'm not looking for 650 fucking killers.

• 1:21:25Steven Bartlett?

  But the ones that work close to you.

• 1:21:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:21:27Steven Bartlett?

  They need to be killers.

• 1:21:28Speaker 01

  You can't be within a fucking, a mile of me if you're not a fucking killer. Yes. But it takes all types. And, and, and like you said, I'm not saying my life is the life for everybody. It's the furthest thing from it. So that's why I say some of these kids that think they wanna be entrepreneurs, they don't know what it really takes. And there's plenty of guys who have been entrepreneurs and made that, you know, the kids call it the bag. They made the bag and they fucking run and they, that's it. It's a rap and they, they go do other things that they wanna do. But the, but this beautiful thing, so I'm a big motorcycle guy. Right? And I remember I always used to say, when I get to a certain point, I'm gonna get my

• 1:22:13Speaker 01

  buddies together and my cousins and we're just going on these incredible rides all around the United States. And then I started getting older. I'm like, fuck, I'm in my 40s. When do I think I'm gonna do this? So every year, I don't give a shit. I carve out and we go to a destination and we fucking ride motorcycles. Now, everybody that I've known, once they get to a certain age, when I say men start to get softer, when they go, they feel like they can't handle the bikes anymore. Right? And, and they stop riding.

• 1:22:45Speaker 01

  If and when I get to that point, I don't know if that will happen to me, but if it does, I own like 30 fucking motorcycles. I'm gonna ship them all to Italy. Like this is Italy. I'm gonna ship them to the top of Italy. I'm gonna have a truck, have all my bikes in it and I'm gonna ride them all the way down to the Amalfi Coast. And then I'll just leave the keys and I'm gonna leave them on the side of the fucking road in Italy. I'll leave them all there. That's gonna be my last fucking ride of my life.

• 1:23:13Steven Bartlett?

  Send me a text when you do that and I'll be, I'll be waiting down. Dana, we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next, not knowing who they're leaving it for. The question left for you is, if you could only complete one more major goal, what would it be and why?

• 1:23:30Speaker 01

  I've already built the biggest fight brand to ever exist, you know. Um, now I'm getting into boxing. I got power slap.

• 1:23:43Speaker 01

  My goal over the next, it's a seven year goal because I have seven years in my paramount deal.

• 1:23:51Speaker 01

  To build the biggest combat sports brand. That is, it already did, but to a level.

• 1:24:00Speaker 01

  That, that it just can't be replicated again. It's just like when I'm dead. It's going to be impossible to beat what I've built by the time my life is up.

• 1:24:09Steven Bartlett?

  Speaking of haters, there's a lot of people saying that you can't do it in boxing. It's different. I've heard them all say this is 150 years old. You can't do it what you did in UFC in boxing.

• 1:24:17Speaker 01

  How about power slam?

• 1:24:19Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:19Speaker 01

  Right? I mean, you want to see something that people think doesn't work and isn't right and isn't possible. But again, that, that's, that's, I love it. That's all the fuel that I love hearing that and people telling me what you can't do. And everybody who's watching this right now is going to deal with some level of people telling you what you can't do and what's impossible. Nothing is impossible. And literally

• 1:24:44Speaker 01

  at UFC headquarters, the only thing you can't say is no. I don't accept no. Don't tell me this can't happen. You know, on Craig Borsari, again, I dropped. Tom Brady hit me up and says, hey, I'm in town. You want to go to U2? I'm like, you do? Where's you to the sphere? Their first, I went to the sphere and I saw it and I was like, holy shit. The star of this show is the sphere. I called Borsari and I said, I don't know what you're doing next weekend, but cancel it. You and the crew are coming to the U2 concert. Come, I want to do this. And we did it. The president leans over to me and says, we should do a fight at the White House. Yes, sir. I agree. We should do a fight at the White House. And then now Craig Borsari came to me

• 1:25:27Speaker 01

  with his own idea that I think is fucking brilliant. And I'm working on that one now, but we don't say no at the UFC. It's just, we, we always, whatever people think is impossible and can't be done. Not only will we do it, we'll do it at a level that just blows people's minds.

• 1:25:42Steven Bartlett?

  Why will you win at boxing?

• 1:25:44Speaker 01

  First of all, boxing was my first love. And I knew the sport was broken and as it started to decline and I, I just, I know how to fix it. I, I, I know what to do.

• 1:25:58Speaker 01

  You and I got to get together again in like five years and talk about boxing again and, and watch what we do. Watch what we do over the next five years. I mean, I'm already two years ahead of where I thought I would be because this, the, the guys that are doing it right now are just so bad at doing it. And I should have known that going in, but you know, I, I, I give everybody the benefit of the doubt and I don't look at anybody and say, oh, yeah, let's not take this guy serious. I take everybody serious and and I love to compete. And if you say you want to compete with me, I look at competing as a fight.

• 1:26:34Steven Bartlett?

  Are you talking about Eddie Hearn?

• 1:26:36Speaker 01

  Talk about all of them. Every one of them. Eddie Hearn is weak. I'm, I'm Eddie Hearn. His dad built that business. His dad's a real guy. Like his dad's, as, as I get deeper into this thing, his dad is the, his dad is the guy. And I see it in Frank Warren. Frank Warren just came out recently. He doesn't, he hasn't talked any shit. He hasn't said anything, you know? He's, he's been completely silent through this thing. He said, and I just saw an interview with him the other day. Frank Warren is like a, Frank Warren's a real guy. Eddie's, Eddie's not the guy. Eddie's dad is the guy. And I'm not saying this to shit on Eddie. I'm just being honest. And I, and I don't dislike Eddie. I don't dislike him. Um, but he's not the guy. His dad's the guy.

• 1:27:19Speaker 01

  And Frank Warren, Frank Warren, I just saw this interview with him. I was like, fucking love it.

• 1:27:24Steven Bartlett?

  Why? What, what made you?

• 1:27:25Speaker 01

  He's just like, you know what? All this fucking talking and all this fucking bullshit. Let's fucking fight. Let's start, you know, he's like, I'm like, no, that's the guy. And a few other things that I've seen with Frank Warren. Frank Warren's like a fucking real guy.

• 1:27:40Steven Bartlett?

  Eddie Hearn's work rate is impressive. I remember seeing him one day in New York and I remember him standing there for like six, seven hours with the media, just doing like every single blog. And we go, what the fuck is he doing? And he just did every, on this rooftop in the, in the heat.

• 1:27:54Speaker 01

  He's responding to every little fucking thing that's going on. And it's just like, the, the, the truth is nobody's done more to try to hurt the AJ Fury fight than Eddie Hearn. It's like he's, he's, I don't know. I hope AJ owns a piece of Matchroom. Eddie Hearn's dad is, Barry Hearn's a real fucking guy. He's the guy. And Frank Warren, these old school fucking hard dudes that, you know, when I, when I see them talk. Yeah, I get it. I, I, I see through all the bullshit and I know who's who and what's what.

• 1:28:34Steven Bartlett?

  Having interviewed both of you, what I find exciting is you're both absolutely relentless. And, um, so there's, it's funny because there's the fight business and then there's this other fight business going on above the fight business, which I think is quite interesting as a fight fan. Dana, thank you so much for being so generous with your time. I've been a fan of the UFC for the longest, longest ever time and it's remarkable what you've done. And so it's super inspiring for me as an entrepreneur, but also yeah, you expand the paradigm of what is possible. So thank you so much for taking the time and giving me the privilege.

• 1:29:01Speaker 01

  Wait to see what we do in the next seven years.

• 1:29:03Steven Bartlett?

  I can't wait.

• 1:29:04Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 1:29:29Steven Bartlett?

  As a founder, building a business when I was in my early twenties, I think I always had a deep sense of imposter syndrome because there was something that I wasn't good at. And that thing was finances. Finance and understanding your financial position as a small business is the great enabler of all of your dreams. I was running from it until I discovered a platform called Zero. Zero is an accounting and financial management platform specifically for small businesses. And it brings accounting, payments, payroll and analytics all into one place. Even for people that don't love doing finances, Zero wants to do the financial work for you. But its core ambition is to go beyond keeping the financial record because Zero wants to help you understand what's happening in your business. And increasingly, and this is maybe the most important thing, is help you make decisions.

• 1:30:14Steven Bartlett?

  Finally, we have a partner who can enable us in a simple way for those people that are both left brain or right brain and enable our dreams. You can learn more about Zero by going to zero.com. Thank you to Zero. Thank you for sponsoring this podcast, but also thank you for helping me to scale my business as somebody that quite frankly, has never loved finances that much.