Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
The good news is that the most powerful biohacks are free.
In biohacking the definition and I thought really hard about this.
It's the art and science of changing the environment around
you and inside. Do you say you have control? So first,
what are the goals if you're a mom with four kids?
I have two kids, and I know the goals are.
I just want to have enough energy.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
I try to fail every day when I talk to
my daughter all night when we go to bed. When
she goes to bed, she's eight years old, I tell
her how daddy failed that day and how Daddy succeeded,
And I ask her how will she fail and how
did she fail that day? So she gets used to
understanding that failure is a part of the process and
that it comes along with successes.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
What happens when you bring together two visionaries, two disruptors,
two friends who have both mastered the science of success.
On my legacy, we're sitting down with Dave Aspiry, the
father of biohacking and the mind behind bullet Proof, and
Damon John Shark tank Icon and the self made entrepreneur
(01:03):
behind Fubu. From peak performance to business strategy. They reveal
the game changing insights they've gained along the way and
the best lessons they've learned from each other. And we're
joining them from the Lake Nna Impact Forum at the
KPMG Lake House Learning and Innovation Center in Orlando's Lake
(01:23):
Nona Community, a place where the brightest minds come together
to shape the future of health, wellness and medical innovation.
This is My Legacy, hosted by me Andrea Waters King
alongside my husband Martin Luther King the Third and our
good friends Mark and Craig Kilberger.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Let's dive in.
Speaker 5 (01:43):
Welcome to My Legacy. Today, we're joining by two groundbreaking
entrepreneurs who have reshaped industries in completely different ways. Damon
John turned forty dollars into Fubu, a six billion dollar
fashion empire, and has helped cauntless entrepreneurs find their footing
as an investor on Shark Tank. Dave Aspury is known
as the father of biohacking. He turned a simple blog
(02:05):
into a billion dollar series of businesses Bulletproof Coffee, Upgrade Labs.
The list goes on with four New York Times best
selling books. He's inspired millions who followed his journey spanning
more than a decade, as he explores new ways to
enhance health and longevity. Together, these close friends share a
deep personal passion for innovation, self improvement, and pushing boundaries
(02:28):
in both entrepreneurship and human performance. Welcome, Dave and Damon.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
I'm super happy to be here.
Speaker 5 (02:36):
We're very grateful. We're excited to be with icons who
have shaped America in the world in such interesting ways.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Absolutely, and I'm going to start with you, Damon, because
you know, I'm of a certain age that you know,
there was a certain part of you know, growing up
in the nineties that there was not one black person
that did not have a fo bou something in their closet. Yeah,
and so you always what you have done and inspired
(03:03):
me your entire career. If you can take us back
a little bit to when you first got started, is
there anyone in particular who really really influenced you.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
There are so many people influenced me. But of course
my mother influenced me, and then my stepfather or I
called my stepfather. You know, his I was selling people
earlier today. His brother was the lead attorney fighting over
here for Mandela's release, and he happen to be Jewish,
as I shared with you, and he was impactful in
(03:37):
so many ways. He always told me be pro black,
but never anti anything else, and never become the thing
you're fighting against. And I think after that it was
the black men in the community also who were businessmen.
And I had three mentors and they had small businesses.
But I always say, if you're able to keep a
business open twenty years, you're dealing with the same things
(03:59):
that you know Jeff Base was dealing with. You're dealing
with competition, inflation, you know products, you know, all kinds
of new technology. So you know, my life has been
just really a series of mentors.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
You know what, My husband almost kicked me when you said,
never become like that you're fighting against. Yeah, because my
co hosts have heard me say this many times. I
monitored hate groups and hate crimes for many years, the
klu Klux Klan, Neil Nazi skinheads, and on the wall
of my office I had the quote by Bill Hooks,
we must never become like that which we're fighting against, absolutely,
(04:32):
and that was my north star every day when I
was going into that basement in that work.
Speaker 5 (04:37):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
All right, well then they you have. I mean, I
wish more people would think that way. But you know,
we get so caught up with our passion that we
don't realize that we're becoming that Dave.
Speaker 6 (04:45):
When you think about the values that shaped you, is
there someone in your life, whether family or mentor, who
influenced you the most.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
It's hard to pick one person. In my mid twenties,
I was three inner pounds. My brain was failing. I
couldn't remember anything, and I had a job in Silicon
Valley as a tech entrepreneur, and I started hanging out
with people more than three times my age at one
of the first longevity nonprofits, and soon they asked me
(05:18):
to be president because I was the only guy under thirty.
And my friend Mike was eighty eight at the time,
and he would call me up at eleven thirty at night,
just bursting with energy and ideas and enthusiasm like he
was in his twenties. And it was my elders who
taught me that you could take old people and give
(05:39):
them the energy of youth. And since I was young
and I had the energy of old age, their techniques
helped me get my brain back, and there would be
no bioacing without my elders teaching me so Mike would
be that guy.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Wow, And I'm curious because I'm sure everything that you
have on is intentional. So are the glasses to Yeah,
for a blue light.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Glasses are one of my companies. It's called true Dark,
and they're blocking the bad part of blue and they
let the good part of blue through.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Because if you wear.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Blue blockers in the morning, you never wake up. But
if you have all these bright lights in you all
the time, by the end of the day, your brain's
kind of cooked.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
Beautiful, what about your the energy? Is that energy?
Speaker 1 (06:20):
This is a metea rte that fell in New Mexico,
where I was born.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
So I love meteorites. There's some kind of good energy
in them.
Speaker 5 (06:29):
Beautiful for those who are listening rather than our viewers.
I do love how your glasses have that little tint
of yellow, and the circular nature encompassing that meteorite is beautiful.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Oh, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
Damon good Craig as following along, I love it, Damn.
So many people shared with us and how excited they
were the opportunity to hear from you, partially because you've
inspired so many people who want to follow in your footsteps. Now,
one thing I don't know if you want to always
realizes was your journey wasn't linear, it wasn't always easy.
(07:04):
And one thing I love how you've been relating to
people by being very open about how when you were
younger you hadeslexia. School was not an easy pathway. It
was a bit of an unconventional journey in high school.
Can you take us back to that so that people
see today this billion dollar success, but they don't always
understand the origin story.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I mean, the origin is, you know, I think it's
an American dream. I think that it is. You know,
I was less fortunate than many, and I was way
more fortunate than most of the people on the planet.
I had a house, and I had clean drinking water,
right so, and I had access to food and electricity.
But you know, we only know what we come from.
(07:42):
It came from, you know, a place that was riddled
like most of the you know, American communities riddled with
crack and most of my friends became drug dealers. I
decided that's not a path that I wanted. But I
was dyslexic. Eight of the twelve sharks are actually dyslexic.
Speaker 6 (07:57):
And.
Speaker 5 (07:59):
It almost a lot of people to share that on
social media for the family.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
That's why he said, I it Branson is dyslexic, Barber's alexic,
Kevin's alexic, I believe Rohans and lexic and there and
because of dyslexic, I've got the other three. So you know.
So I didn't do well in school, like I left
back in the seventh grade. I didn't go to college,
but I applied myself and started working. But I did
(08:23):
realize I was hanging out as well because I grew
up in Hollis Queens and almost majority of at that time,
a lot of the famous rappers came from their local
Jay Salt and Pepper's trip coal quests and all that
I was on. I was on all these big tours
since I was fourteen years old. I became too cool
for school. But then I turned around. I was laughing
at the kids who were going to college in school.
(08:45):
I laughed at all the band geeks as they call it,
and the nerds. Well, those band geeks became people like
doctor Dre and Timblin right in Pharrell, and those nerds
became Zuckerberg and Baseo. I remember I was working at
Red Lobster right around twenty one years old. All those
kids I was laughing at, not that I knew zuckerberning.
Speaker 6 (09:02):
Of those people.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
And I'm just using an example. I remember all those
kids that I laughed at that were going to college
investing in their future. Well they were coming back now
and I was in Red Lobster serving them shrimp, and
I was like, well, I'm the idiot. And I started
to double down and try to, you know, get any
form of education I could. I would, and being dyslexic challenge,
but I would read a book a week, I would
(09:24):
find mentors, I would go and apply and do a
lot of different things. I was reading the sales sheets
that Red Lobster, finding out how this large corporation was
making money. Well they needed help back a year ago,
but they were making money back then. And then I
started investing things I love to do, which was this, this,
this fashion, and I used what I call the power broke.
(09:46):
I realized that you know, sixty five percent a lot
of winners and athletes that broke three years after leaving
the league because they don't know how to use the
tool of money, and another sixty or seventy percent of
four wealthy. This one thousand people are self made men
and women. That's like the men and women in this
room and listening to this podcast. So obviously money is
(10:07):
just a tool, and I started to use what was
around me as normal entrepreneurs. Well, I knew rappers, why
don't you wear that? You know? While I knew this,
why don't you do that? And it slowly grew. I
had a lot of challenges. I started fooling eighty nine.
I closed it three times from eighty nine to ninety
two because I ran out of money. I found my
beautiful three partners who believed in me. After that, now
(10:27):
there were ten people who believed in me, but most
of them didn't stay around. Was those three that believed
in me. And then by nineteen ninety nineteen ninety eight,
I was doing three hundred fifty million dollars a year. Now,
that's a long story. I started in eighty nine. In
nineteen ninety eight, I started making I started get public
recognition after failing three times. But you know, that's the
American dream. That's why when we look at you know,
(10:50):
people like me and all of us on Shark Tank,
we all went through that process.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
Have you failed since then?
Speaker 6 (10:57):
I failed?
Speaker 2 (10:57):
I try to fail every day. When I talked to
my daughter or night when we go to bed, when
she goes to bed she's eight years old, I tell
her how daddy failed that day and how daddy succeeded.
And I asked her, how will she fail and how
did she fail that day? They maybe I planned on
doing this and I didn't get to this, and I
was late for a meeting. And you should never be
late because when you're late, you make the other person
feel like they're not of value and whatever the case is.
(11:20):
So she gets used to understanding that failure is a
part of the process and that it comes along with successes.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
You know, the fact you do that with your daughter,
I didn't know that about you. I've done that with
my kids, where every night when they were little, I
would say, tell me three things you're grateful for, and
tell me one failure you had, and I would celebrate
the failure more than the things they're grateful for. So
they would look at it that way. And so few
(11:47):
parents know this.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Wow, what we do in our home are the roses
and thorns? Oh so like, okay, so what was your
roles for today and what was your thorn?
Speaker 4 (11:57):
Now?
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Our daughter is sixteen years old, so she journals every night.
We still have family dinners when we're together, and I
just saw her this new journal where in the morning
it you know, you talk about kind of your intentions
for today, what you're grateful for, and that night, before
you go to bed, you do what would you change, like,
what would you do things just a little bit different
or better. It's a way of looking the same way
at your at your failures, or what you would do
(12:20):
differently for your day every night before you go to bed.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Yeah, that's help. Reflection is extremely important.
Speaker 5 (12:25):
Yeah, absolutely, you're listening to my legacy. We'll be back
shortly with more of this inspiring conversation.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
They're back to my legacy, Daman.
Speaker 6 (13:10):
You've seen hundreds of entrepreneurs on Shark Tank make presentations.
So what is a surefire way to lose a deal
on shark Tank?
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Well, a little of the deal anywhere is and not
understand who you're talking to, and not to understand what's
in it for them, you know, I don't you know,
they say, don't tell anybody your problems. Twenty percent don't care,
and the other eighty percent are really happy you have them.
And so when you tell somebody your problems, then they
don't care what's in it for the person on the
other side. But if you're talking about Shark Tank, you
(13:46):
know you'd have to do a homework on the target.
A lot of people pitch me clothing brands on shar Tank.
The main reason I got on shar Tank is because
I had ten clothing brands and oh seven. Nobody's buying
clothes when they can't pay their rent. Want to diversify
my portfolio because out of my ten clothing brands, eight
of them were dead. The last thing I want is clothing.
(14:06):
You didn to do your homework. Robert himself, Robert has
done better in clothing on the show, well besides my
sock company. Robert has done better on clothing on the
show than mean he likes clothing companies. The next thing
is to not know your customer. Who is your customer?
Is it a person of this gender, primarily this ethnicity,
who wants to pay twenty dollars instead of twenty two?
(14:29):
Where do they live? If you don't know who your
customer is, I don't know who your customer is, well,
then you want to use my money for tuition, and
that's not going to work out. And the last one
is to think that it's my job. I'm an investor,
it's your business. Damon is not a crutch. I have
a day job, and if I wanted to actually put
(14:52):
more on my day job played well, I would bring
Foobuo back in a bigger level where I own all
of it. The true and the best pitch is you
tell somebody a story on qualifies why there was a
problem in the market, or you want to bring somebody joy,
because that's only two things that you're gonna ever do.
You're either going to solve a problem or bring somebody joy.
And if you bring somebody joy, you solve the problem.
You solve the problem. Brout somebody joy. And that how
(15:13):
that train is going to leave the station no matter what.
You want that investor on the train, but it's leaving
the station no matter what. Then you qualify why you're
the one to do that job. Whenever you have a business,
you have to ask yourself three questions, why me, why now?
And why this? If you can't answer all three of
those questions, well then you're a me too. Product.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Is that something that you knew instinctively? And that's what
I was curious. Is this something that you knew instinctively
or is this also garnered from all of your experience?
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Oh, it's by far as experience, you know. I thank
god social media wasn't around up until my thirty thirty five,
maybe even forties, because I look back and what was
wrong with you? Sure? But it's by getting the door
slammed in my face so many times and having to
go back. Now, we didn't talk about you know what
it takes to get to the pitch, To get to
(16:09):
the pitch on shark tank or to anybody in this room,
you got to kiss a lot of frogs. You can't
take it personal. You have to. When you leave a
room and you know somebody says no, you have to
say something like, well, did I study them accurately? Did
I ask enough questions that I communicated accurately? You know what?
Maybe they had a bad day, Maybe they were arguing
with this significant other. Maybe they don't have the vision.
(16:31):
And even if they invested about it, they weren't the customer.
I wanted it anyway, But you have to then kiss
another frog. You know, I got it backed by Samsung's
textile division. Does anybody know that Samsung had a textile division.
I never go to number one, two, three, four and
five in the market. I go to number two hundred.
Who wants to be number one, two, three four five
(16:51):
because one, two, three, four and five they'd good.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
Wow and Dave.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
You totally, I mean you totally started entire inty. Biohacking
did not exist before you came along, and I believe
that you actually did you somehow start the first person
to sell on the Internet a product.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Wait, before I started biohacking. Yeah, the first product ever
sold over the Internet was a T shirt that said
caffeine my drug of choice, and it has this molecule.
I've got a tattooed on my bicep.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
And the first product ever sold on it.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
It was yeah, before e commerce didn't have a name,
and there wasn't a web browser yet, so this was
before actually Mark Andresen was making the first web browser
right when I did this.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
It's cool.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
So I'm an entrepreneur magazine wearing a double extra large shirt.
People say, da if you weren't fat, I'm like, well,
here's my twenty fe year old fat picture an entrepreneur magazine.
I think that one counts. And at the time I
was just trying to pay for my tuition, right. I
didn't realize that that would be anything. And I was
on the internet early because I'm a nerd, and I thought, man,
(17:56):
I know the people I talk to every day and
they're in the car and so am I. So I'm
just going to make a product. And I in fact,
one of the article on Estrement magazine it said, if
you exploit it, it's gone. I said, there's a culture.
Don't just put ads up. Be a part of the
community and serve your community if you're going to put
something up there.
Speaker 5 (18:16):
But it was amazing you created a category. Well both
of you actually created it, Like Damon created a category
and Dave you created a category. If you actually stop
and think about it, and you took like mct oil coffee.
There was a lot of skepticism when biohacking came as
an idea.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
That was great.
Speaker 5 (18:33):
Well, I can ask what gave you the drive to
push through that skepticism to bring it to mainstream.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Well, I was pretty sick when I was young. I
had Asperger syndrome. It's a form of autism, a lot
of weird behavioral issues, fat at arthritis. Since I was fourteen,
and when I reversed all that with what is now biohacking,
my goal was I want five people to read my blog,
and if they don't go through the hell I went through,
(19:02):
I have done my active service. I thought about making
it a nonprofit. I didn't collect a list, I didn't
do anything. I made a quarter million a year. I
had stock options at a publicly traded computer security company
because I'm a computer hacker. I was a pretty good
one back then. So it was that I don't want
people to go through it. I went through, and then
after I recovered, like I'm not going to stop, and
(19:22):
I was you can make your brain work better than
you ever imagined, and you can reverse your age, and
you can. I'm six percent body fat and I was
really obese with a forty six inch waist, and I
feel so good. And when my brain works, I'm nice
to other people. And you give me MSG and the
wrong foods and I feel like I'm doing exercise with
my middle finger muscles, like I'm a jerk. Right, So
(19:44):
being HYPOGLIBITCHI was a problem for me. So I just
want to teach people, and I write all my stuff.
If I was nineteen or twenty and I just would
have known this. It would have saved me a million
dollars to recover, and the other million and a half
was for longevity. I'm happy with that, but the suffering,
all the times I was just a jerk to people.
It was not because I was a bad person. It
(20:06):
was because my hardware wasn't working right. And so every
time someone reaches out and says, you know, yeah, I
lost the weight, but my brain works so much better.
That was the why, and people say, oh, you're wrong, Okay,
then don't do it. But look who started drinking this
idea of butter and coffee. I didn't invent that.
Speaker 6 (20:26):
Well.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
I kind of did in coffee, but I was in
ti bed at Mount Kailash, the holiest mountain in the world,
had yact better team, like, what does this work?
Speaker 6 (20:33):
Right?
Speaker 1 (20:34):
So I this whole process I just wanted to share.
Speaker 5 (20:36):
So I was also a bet alside yack better tea.
I didn't have the brilliance and idea of scaling. So
I don't want to take away what you did was amazing.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Why were you into bed well after I exhausted all
the Western medicine that was supposed to make me well.
Speaker 6 (20:49):
I tried.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
I made and lost six million dollars before I was
twenty eight. Tried being rich, didn't make me happy. Tried
to getting married that didn't work very well in my
twenties didn't make me happy. And I was an Entrepreneur
magazine when twenty three, being famous didn't make me happy.
I'm like, I'm miserable. Nothing that's supposed to work works.
I'm gonna have to try all the stuff that I
don't even believe in, So I'll learn meditation from the
masters in Tibet, and I have since studied with gurus
(21:12):
all over the world. And I would say ancient practices
are as much a part of biohacking as the latest
gene therapy or the true dark glasses or anything like that,
because end of the day, once your body's working, everybody
wants to do things. We want to live a very
long time, longer than we're supposed to, because life is
so precious, and we want to be conscious, We want
(21:34):
our brains to work, we want to be happy. So
you can start by saying, you know, I don't arthritis
my knees anymore, or I want to fix this one
annoying problem eventually you're going to say, I'm gonna have
to work on becoming enlightened, whether I make it or not,
and I'm gonna have to work on being a good
human being. And once you get that, like man, I
don't want to stop. That's why I was there. I
(21:54):
wanted to learn from the people who studied it for
five thousand years because they probably knew something I didn't.
Speaker 6 (22:00):
So when you first started out, you were like your
own guinea pig. You went through that process. And in
going through that, what was the craziest thing that you did?
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Ah, Man, only one. There's a point of desperation if
you're obese and your brain is fogged out and you've
tried dieting. I went to the gym six days a week,
ninety minutes a day, without fail, for eighteen months. At
the end of that time, I had not lost one
pound and I had not lost an inch on my waist,
and I thought, maybe I'm eating too much lettuce. It's
(22:35):
all that's left. So the exercise didn't work, and I
just got really frustrated. So I said, I'm gonna try
the crazy stuff. One of the things I did that
comes to mind, I had the worst digestive problems. You
didn't want to be in a room with me after
I ate. So I bought this pill from Russia. It
was an electrical stimulator pill and you swallow it and
(22:57):
it shocks your intestines as it goes through you seconds
to muscle stronger. Well, it got stuck right here on
my leg, and so for about two hours I was
kicking like like what do I do? I'm just going
on a trampoline and all. And I do not recommend
this as a biohacking. That was a pretty crazy one.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
One of the things though, that I that I often
think about is that there's a certain privilege if you will,
to longevity or health. What advice would you give a
single parent with four children that she wants to be
as healthy as she can be, and she wants her
(23:35):
children healthy. But we all know it's much more expensive
to eat at I'm not going to say the name
of places, you know, versus getting a value mil at
x place. So what are things that she can incorporate
for the health of her herself and her children.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
The good news is that the most powerful bioacks are free.
In biohacking, the definition and I thought really hard about this.
It's the art and science of changing the environment around
you and inside you so you have control. So first,
what are the goals if you're a mom with four kids.
I have two kids, and I know the goals always.
I just want to have enough energy, right and I
(24:13):
got to make sure I put food on the table
and all these things. So you look at it from
that lens, and whether you gain or lose ten pounds
probably isn't your biggest goal. Of course, we all want
to lose the weight, but that's not most important. It's like,
can I show up right now the way my family
needs me? So what are the affordable or free things?
One of them is sunlight. Go outside without glasses on
for twenty minutes in the morning and it actually charges
(24:35):
your mitochondria and it sets you up to get better
sleep at night. Number two, turn off the lights at night,
get some dimmer switches, so sunlight in the morning and
darkness in the evening, and eating dinner a little bit earlier,
even if it's not the best dinner. And then you
look at Okay, what are the food choices I can
make for the same amount of money that are better choices?
(24:58):
And as an example, if you learn how to cook.
It doesn't have to be fancy French cooking. White rice
is really cheap and it's better for you than French fries.
Butter is not more expensive than many other foods on
a per calorie basis. It's cheaper than vegetables. So now
you're getting good fats instead of some canola oil. So
you didn't spend any more money, but you're more nourished,
(25:20):
and your kids are not having these blood sugar swings
that makes them into little monsters, right, And they say,
how do I get more protein? And I used to
say eggs, but man, they've gone expensive lately. And if
you go to a place like a Costco where you
get a big old hunk of meat, it still can
be two dollars a pound, And you say, but that's
a lot of work to cook it. It's not boil
(25:42):
some water, throw the rice in there, chop up the meat,
throw the meat in there, and add some spices. It's
called soup and it's highly nutritious. And you can do
that for less than you'll spend at Mickeydea's.
Speaker 5 (25:53):
You're listening to my legacy. We'll return in just a
moment with more stories. And more wisdom. M M.
Speaker 4 (26:39):
Now back to my legacy.
Speaker 5 (26:41):
I love the friendship the two of you have created.
And damon, what's one thing that Dave has brought into
your life that's helped with your own health and well being?
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Well? Dave and I were on a board of a
company that was now we talk about you know, things
that could be affordable, you know, a company with about
dental stuff, and and and and I remember I think
I was gonna call with him or somebody in there
where they were like, you know, you just got to
(27:11):
flush your teeth or get dental cleaning because you don't
realize that plaque goes into your system and that can
help cause strokes. Very simple for interesting concept. Right then
they started hearing about this stuff about probiotics and providicts
your gut. Well, then I heard, well you also, you know,
no matter how good your gut is, if you're drinking
tap water of various other waters with chlorine in it,
(27:34):
it kills your guts so you can't digest. The saying, well,
is that expensive. No, there's a bunch of springs where
you can go with big bottles and put it und there.
And I started hearing things that were very very like, uh,
you can, you can start down the path and see
if it's for you. And I think I reached out
to Day and said, hey, uh, I don't know. I
think i'll ask some something going to this conference, and
(27:54):
he was of such service because he just wants to
share the information. And then we started getting to know
each other besides sitting across from Zoom on those board seats.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
And I'm sure it's impacted too if you have your
daughter and so.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
To get this impact.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
My wife has always been in that world. But I
just try not to listen to her. I have to
listen to about everything else around the house. At least
I would go, this is my body. But then all
of a sudden I had to go listen to her too,
because she was right.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
I little thought on that too about our friendship. A
mutual friend of ours talks about categories of people.
Speaker 4 (28:31):
Oh yes, I read about this.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
In my new book Heavily Meditated and Doctor B And
category one people are people who are always win win
like they're always helping and they're not going to do
a deal where the other person loses. They might you
might win different amounts, but and the more consistent you
already call that a category one, and Damon is a
category one person's every everything I see you just you
(28:55):
talk about the security everyone.
Speaker 6 (28:57):
Do I help? How do I help?
Speaker 1 (28:58):
I respect that so much and I want to surround
myself with category ones.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
We share that friend in common.
Speaker 6 (29:05):
So Damon, certainly, financial literacy is an area where you
have a great deal of knowledge when we think about
our children, and you also are involved in helping maybe
the world become financial literate. What is the What are
some of the things that you would recommend that be
(29:26):
done for children to expose them to more financial literacy.
I'm aware of most or many communities of color are
not focusing. There are some, but we got a long
way to go. But what do you suggest as some
techniques that can be used.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
I don't know if that's a setup. I wrote a
book called Little Damon Learns to Earn became a New
York Times bestseller. It's the only book that teaches financial
intelligence for children. The reason I had created it is
not only just about community of color. Absolutely, community of colors.
How the gap is widened because we don't come from
legacy wealth, so we don't have anybody to share with us.
(30:08):
You know historically how to operate money and use money.
But it's America period. We're going off of an eighty
year old school system where we were at war and
we were teaching our children to build ships and to
be great workers for organizations and corporations, and we haven't
(30:28):
changed that. And so financial intelligence. When I advise a
lot of the teachers, they don't have financial intelligence. They
are absolutely amazing in science and history, and they're saying,
we don't know what to do. So I created a
little damion learns to earn for that purpose, because the
reality is a lot of stuff we're talking about here
comes from the lack of financial intelligence. You see, if
(30:49):
you don't get this and learn what interest is and
various other things and credit and all those things at six, seven, eight, nine,
ten years old, well then at fifteen, sixteen years old
you get marketed by predatory loan people who want to
sell you a seven hundred thousand dollars school. You know,
(31:11):
education for a career. You're not even sure you want
to have. Fifty percent of the kids graduating today will
retire with a job title that doesn't exist today. It's
like telling somebody twenty years ago you're going to be
a gamer, a social media expert, a pay per click
expert of AI. So now, all of a sudden, if you,
all of a sudden get out of school, you have
five six, seven hundred thousand dollars worth a student debt. Well,
(31:32):
it's expensive to eat healthy. So now you start eating
the cheapest things in this country. What are they made
out of? The cheapest thing in this country are made
out of butter, sugar, and salt. Right, so you consume
more bad things. So understanding financial intelligence at a young
age is extremely important. You know, I knew it. My
(31:53):
mother was cruel. She made She did so many tricks
on me. She would sit there and do big puzzles
with me, thousand piece puzzles, and I would say, I said,
I said, about ten years ago, Mom, let's do a puzzle.
She said, why do I want to do a puzzle?
I said, we used to want to do one, you
know when we came She's like, I hated puzzles. I said,
what do you mean you hated puzzles? Yeah, but damon,
(32:14):
if you were sitting there for three hours, you let
down your guard. And I would and she would say
you I would go, oh, where's Alfa that he's not
in school anymore? Albert brought a new car, Alfred brought
a new car.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (32:26):
And so she would pull information out of me. When
she had to go to work. She said, damn, I
gotta cook food for three days because I'm gonna go
to all these jobs. Do me a favor. Stand on
this little cabinet, right on this little thing here while
I wash the dishes and cook and read me the
Wall Street Journal. I don't have time to read it,
and she would have me do. She was a cruel woman.
Speaker 4 (32:47):
But I learned.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Financial intelligence, you know, through those things. When she said
the neighbor the meet, Now, neighborhood is always going to
be the worst meat ever. Just drive to that neighborhood
over there, and you're gonna get better meat, did a
better quality for a lower price. These are the things
that you dought me.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
And now, Dave, i'd know that you have faced some
controversy and criticism, right particularly like during the pandemic and
stance on vaccines and with the when we were talking
earlier about the privilege of health, and you gave some
very tangible ways in which we.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
All can have access to it.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
How do you kind of reconcile the vulnerable communities, particularly
black and brown communities.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Well, I did not have the privilege of health as
a kid. I was antibiotics every month for fifteen years.
I was pretty sick and so when I regained my health,
this is powerful and the whole idea of bioarching. We
change our environments so we become healthier. It's not about
(33:50):
going out and spending a bunch of money. It's about
just no one give us the manual for the body,
and if you just know what to do, you can
have leverage. One thing, I've done a couple of shows
on this, so I've mentioned on shows that just it
just makes me angry. So vitamin D is a longevity
sep one. It's five dollars a month. It's a very
very cheap drug.
Speaker 4 (34:12):
They're very critical, particularly for black children. Well there you
go more deficient traditionally, not just.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
For black children, for black parents. Yeah, these good parents
take their kids to the hospital because they're crying. And
then hospital says, well there's five broken bones. Which of
you beat the child? And then because this our child,
we love our child, we didn't beat him. And they say,
well you're gonna We're gonna take the child to CPS
unless one of you confesses. So then the guys confess
and they go to jail. And doctor Cannell from the
(34:40):
Vitamin D Research Institute has testified dozens of times to
help get black men out of jail for a nutrient
deficiency that has nothing to do with abuse. And the
more we're indoors, the less sunshine we get. I have
very pale skin. I don't get enough sunshine. If my
skin was darker, I would need it even a bigger dose. Right,
So teach that this very cheap supplement makes for better brains,
(35:04):
less risk of diabetes, cancer, all the bad stuff, and
that the darker your skin and the more north you live,
and the more your endoors, the more you need. This
is cheaper than one meal at McDonald's. And just the
knowledge is so critical? Is it just tell me what
to do with very little money or no money to
get results.
Speaker 4 (35:23):
You should have DMK together, correct, You should have d.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Have to have vitamin K because vitamin K stops the
tissues from getting all crusty as the age.
Speaker 4 (35:32):
Okay, so damon.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
You created Black Entrepreneurs Day to support up and coming
founders who was one of your biggest mentors, And what
was the best piece of advice they gave you for
business and for life.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
You know it'll be hard, but you know, I think
that a person named Jay Abraham great mentor, and Dave
knows them. I think that he had said to me
one day, and I talked about it several times. He say,
you never arrive. You know, every problem that you solve,
you create another problem. And that became very powerful. You know,
(36:10):
if I become an empty ness, you know I've solved
the problem. Right, hopefully my daughter is off living a
beautiful life. Well, now I have to rekindle that relationship
with my wife. All right, Once I saw that problem,
well how do I rekindle it? Where do we go
and what do we start to do? Now I saw
that problem, how do we do that more? You know?
So you know when you understand that. So, whether I
(36:34):
solve the problem of losing weight or just having more energy,
how do I either lose more or gain more muscle?
Maybe visually I'm losing weight from the outside, but how
do I kill visceral fat on the inside? You know?
So it and when you when you go to even
in love, right, if you fall in love, how can
you be of more value to your spouse, your children,
(36:55):
your family, or your God. So I think that that
was probably the best vice ever because you know, growing
up you think, I mean mine, I'm letta be rich,
I'm done. You know, I get a college degree, I'm
guaranteed a job, I get married, It's guaranteed to be
happily every after No, you have to work at it.
You have to work at every single thing. And if
(37:17):
you when you stop working, well, what's the what's the
reason to live at the end of the day. And
then that's what drives me that that that one statement.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
One of the things that I hold on to is
that life is about continual expansion and fuller expression. Yeah,
you know, that's kind of That's what we're here to do,
to continue to expand and express ourselves more and more fully.
Speaker 5 (37:38):
To both of you, it's been fantastic hearing the conversation,
the friendship that you have for each other, the mutual
admiration as you talk about health and well being and
innovation and getting an MBA sitt next to you. I
love it. We always invite our listeners and viewers to
take this wisdom on how they can live a life
of fulfillment and impact. I just want to underscore a
few of the things you said. One it's it's not
(37:59):
actual anything you said, but just together as friends. I
love that you are both titans in your own area
and you create this friendship to learn from each other.
It's actually remarkable and as a guy, frankly, there aren't
those friendships that you see in that way, and especially
leaders admire it. Number Two, how health is accessible to
us sunlight, you know, the food, we the sleep. It's
(38:20):
not only the elaborate things, but it's the simple things
that have such an impact. And so how our listeners
can share that wisdom in their life. And number three
fail fail every day. Be proud of the failures. Both
of you wouldn't be where you are without those failures,
and asking your kids how do they fail today and
therefore what are they learning today? Love it and so
we are deeply grateful to both of you for joining
(38:41):
us at the Lake Nona Impact Forum on the KPMG
Lake House Campus, Orlando, in the Lake Nona community. And
we're especially grateful to both of you for living your
legacies every day.
Speaker 3 (38:52):
And Greg, one thing too that I want to add
is that it's interesting we have a plus one. You know,
we have all of these wonderful conversations that we're having
and they're taking so many different forms.
Speaker 4 (39:04):
And I like you.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
I love when you have two men, because we don't
see that quite enough, I think. But this also not
that either one of you lead with this, but I
think is important, particularly in this day and age, to
elevate it. This is our first conversation with a black
man and a white man, and I want to highlight
that particularly, And you know, it's sad that we're at
a time that we still have to highlight it, but
I think it is important to highlight that as well.
Speaker 6 (39:28):
Thank you all so very much.
Speaker 4 (39:31):
Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 3 (39:33):
If you enjoyed today's conversation, subscribe, share, and follow us
at my Legacy Movement on social media. New episodes drop
every Tuesday. At its core, this podcast honors doctor King's
vision of the beloved community and the power of connection.
A Legacy Plus Studio production, distribute it by iHeartMedia creator
(39:55):
and executive producer Suzanne Haywood co executive producer Lisa Lyle.
Listen on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your
podcasts Until next time, May you find inspiration to live
your legacy