October 24, 2025 • 37 mins
In this episode of Earn Your Leisure, we sit down with Robert Herjavec, the legendary entrepreneur and investor best known for Shark Tank. He breaks down the two key phases of launching a business and explains why every entrepreneur must find the heartbeat that drives their company if they want to survive. From his early struggles to his rise as one of the most respected business minds in the world, Robert shares lessons that will reshape how you think about purpose, growth, and execution. Robert opens up about the moment he discovered his true purpose, how he maintains peak performance, and the importance of building the right team to scale effectively. He also takes us behind the scenes of Shark Tank, revealing the real secret to the show’s success and what separates true entrepreneurs from “wannapreneurs.” Beyond business, Robert gives his raw take on today’s economy — calling AI the greatest economic shift of our generation, warning that consumers don’t care about cybersecurity, and reflecting on how social media has distorted the meaning of success. This conversation is packed with gems, mindset shifts, and stories that prove success starts from within. #EarnYourLeisure #RobertHerjavec #SharkTank #Entrepreneurship #BusinessTips #AIMoney #CyberSecurity #StartupAdvice #Leadership #Motivation #EYL #MarketMondays #WealthBuilding #SuccessMindset #FinancialFreedom
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
This episode is brought to you by P and C Bank.
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Speaker 2 (00:43):
I like that.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
I like that such it's about the money. This is
another vote for the live band. Clap it up with
the live van.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Y'all.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
This is elevated. It feels like prime time.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
This is prime Tom. This is beautiful. How's everybody doing?
Feeling good?
Speaker 4 (01:00):
So we have your favorite shark tank shark. Yeah, we've
interviewed with a few sharks already.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Yeah, we've gone down the list of sharks. We started
out with Mark Cuban. Everybody you know Mark Cuban. Of course,
we had our good friend of our Damon John. I'll
be honest with you, our favorite, Well, probably today's gonna
pass it. But Barbara Cochran was amazing. Clap it up
with Barbara. But there's one guy who conds and resonates
with us a little bit. You know, the way he
(01:30):
carries himself, the way he dresses, the way he conducts himself,
and when he talks about marketing.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
And that's Robert. Her Jane and I hope you're excited,
because we're excited.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
This is the first time we're getting to talk to him,
and we got a lot of questions and we're gonna
do it from the entrepreneurial mindset. How many entrepreneurs in here? Oh,
this is great, we know a thing or two about that.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Huh sure for sure?
Speaker 4 (01:57):
All right, Well, without further to do, list, queue it
up for Robert and let's uh, let's get it going.
Speaker 5 (02:16):
I was born in Gratia. I think what makes me
different than the other Sharks is I'm an actual immigrant.
That shapes a lot of how I think and who
I am.
Speaker 6 (02:25):
There is no certain day in life.
Speaker 5 (02:26):
My dad came here at thirty seven on the boat
didn't even speak the language. What I look for is
people that can land on their feet and adapt.
Speaker 6 (02:35):
So you have a great degree.
Speaker 5 (02:36):
Harvard sendsraally fancy, but you missed one school. You didn't
go to the school of hard knocks.
Speaker 6 (02:42):
Well, the matters is that the world becomes a better
place to live.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
The world cannot become a better place to live if
you don't contribute to it.
Speaker 6 (02:49):
There is no rearview mirror in my life. You gotta
let go. This is the deal in front of you
right now.
Speaker 5 (02:57):
Let's go.
Speaker 6 (02:57):
Are you breathing.
Speaker 5 (03:00):
Question?
Speaker 6 (03:04):
Freedom is the ability to control your own life.
Speaker 5 (03:06):
No one can fire you, no one's gonna tell you
what to do.
Speaker 6 (03:09):
It's all up to you. I'd like to be part
of the journey.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
If you're gonna dream, let's dream big, baby.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
I told you about the style.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Right.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
Hey, everybody, thanks for having me. How great is the band?
You guys are killing it?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Give it up for the band, all right?
Speaker 5 (03:36):
All right?
Speaker 2 (03:37):
If you guys are excited for this conversation, make some
noise for sure. So Robert, let's get into it.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
So you know your journey as far as being an
immigrant come into this country, being extremely successful in business,
what my set shifts, if any, did you have to
make to kind of have the success that you've had
the United States of America.
Speaker 5 (04:01):
You know, we sharks always talk about this, like what
makes one person successful and another one not successful. I
remember one night we were having dinner with Mark Cuban
and we got into this topic, like I said, Mark,
when you were twelve years old, did you know you
(04:23):
were going to be successful? And Mark said yes, I
knew I was going to be very wealthy and I
was going to buy a basketball team one day. And
I remember how much that affected me, because at twelve
years old, I just didn't want to be poor. And
(04:45):
so this mindset of fear and simply getting by is
what I had to change. I think, if you're going
to build a great business, or you're going to do
anything great in life, you have to have the ability
to believe in yourself. And most people have this fear
(05:06):
what if I don't make it? What if people make
fun of me? Especially as an immigrant. You know, people
are always making you feel less than you are. And
I think that was the big mind shift for me
because I wasn't born like that. I wasn't born Mark Cuban,
I wasn't born confident. When I was twenty, I was
(05:27):
afraid of my own shadow. I couldn't speak in front
of a group of people, and so that was really
hard for me to get out of that shell.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
You spoke about something that I'm sure that everybody can
resonate in here, and that's that idea of like, I
just don't want to be poor. And so when people
go into business, and a lot of people here are entrepreneurs,
the first thing they think is how can I make money?
And I think that's kind of a mind shift, that
mindset shift that we need to change. One of the
things we recognized earlier was money wasn't the goal, it
(06:00):
was really the value. Talk about how you have to
have that mindset shift, because if you're going into just
trying to make money and then you don't, then you
give up on it.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
Yeah, I'm going to disagree with you just a little bit.
Just a little bit. I think there's two phases of
starting a business, just reality. I think the first phase
is survival. I think a lot of people start a
business to get out of a condition therein, or at
(06:32):
least I did. I just wanted to start my business
in order to make enough money to pay my mortgage
and maybe path my house one day. I mean, my
dream was to make one thousand dollars for my life.
So if I was fifty, to make fifty grand a year,
buy a used corvette and maybe path part of my
(06:52):
house one day, because that's something my parents had never done.
So in the realm of my ability to dream, that
was man, that was it. But to your point, I
did that. And then if you do that and your
goals are really small, you look around and you realize
(07:14):
it's pretty empty. Because if you're only doing it for
the money and you have some level of success, you're
going to get very lonely. Money doesn't keep you warm
at night. Money doesn't inspire you to keep going. So
when you make a million, if that was your goal,
what makes you go to ten million or twenty million,
(07:35):
or a hundred or a billion? And I think eventually
you have to have a great purpose. Eventually you have
to look at yourself and say, all right, forget the money.
Why am I working my ass off twenty hours a day,
not getting into sleep, sacrificing everything? What's my why in
(07:56):
doing it?
Speaker 4 (07:57):
So for entrepreneurs, I'm sure everybody watches Shark Tank. And
you know, when people come in front of you, guys,
you asked them a lot of questions as far as
their profit margin and addressable market, their marketing plan, all
that stuff. What do you think is the key, the
number one thing as far as on a business bottom
line that entrepreneurs needs to focus on and completely understand
(08:20):
fully in their business.
Speaker 5 (08:22):
Wow, that's a great question. I think. Uh, First of all,
every business is slightly different. I think everybody out here
who has a business, you have to figure out what
the heartbeat of that business is, and it's different for
every business. So I know in my business, I had
(08:43):
to know what the recurring revenue was, what our margin was,
and what our cash flow was on a daily basis.
So if you woke me up at two o'clock in
the morning and said, what was the cash flow from yesterday?
I could tell you that. Now I couldn't tell you
a bunch of other things things because they have to
learn along the way. But I think you have to
(09:04):
figure out what the heartbeat of your business is, and
it's usually only two or three things. You know, people
make the mistake of trying to do too much, But
there's two or three things that advanced the ball every
single day. It's not about maintaining. It's about growth, and
one are the things that are growing your business.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
You talked about fear just earlier, and a lot of
people have that fear and they start to question the why.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Right. I wonder, at what point did you realize this
is my why?
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Because sometimes people get passion and purpose confused and that
could sometimes be hurtful in business.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
When did you discover the why?
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (09:45):
Man, that's such a great point. And I think that's
such an individual thing for everybody, and I think I
was very fortunate to figure that out really early, because
I think a lot of people don't. They kind of
drift along and fear can be all consuming. Everybody in
(10:07):
this room is going to wake up one day and
have a crappy day and question why am I doing this?
Why is this so hard?
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Why?
Speaker 5 (10:16):
Why isn't it easy for me? So for me, I
started my first business, and you know, man, I'm working
like eighteen hours a day. I'm not making enough money
in my business to support myself. So I'm working nine
to five at the business. I'm waking up at five
in the morning to read about cybersecurity because I'm not
(10:39):
an engineer, and I'm competing with engineers. And then from
eight at night till one in the morning, I'm working
as a waiter to make enough cash to pay my rent.
And I'm doing this every day. And I come home
one day and I'm like, this sucks. And I go,
(10:59):
this is really hard. And my mom is in the
room and I'm telling her how hard it is, and
woe is me? My life sucks? And my dad comes home.
He's working at the factory sweeping floors, and he comes
(11:20):
home to take a shower and get some food before
he goes back to the factory to work a second
shift to pay for them to exist. And I look
at him and I say, I will never in my
(11:41):
lifetime work as hard as that man is working right now.
And that was it. And what I realized is they
gave up everything thirty seven years old. They came to
a foreign country, didn't speak the language, didn't know anybody.
(12:03):
We leave in someone's basement for eighteen months in order
to give me an opportunity. How do I then not
acknowledge and justify that sacrifice? And that was my why?
And I realized, stop complaining. Nobody cares nobody cares, and
(12:27):
from that moment on, like customers would say to me, Robert,
how you doing today? And I'm a pretty happy guy
ninety percent of the time, But everybody in this room
has a crappy day where you don't feel good and
something's going wrong. My customers ask me, Robert, how are
you doing today? You know how I'm doing one hundred
percent of the time. I'm wonderful because I get the
(12:49):
opportunity to live out my dreams. And somebody gave up
everything in their life to give me that opportunity. So
if you're not going to if I'm not willing to
work hard enough for me, I'd better be willing to
work hard enough for them.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
I believe one time you said, strategy without structure is
just a wish. So can you explain that because a
lot of people put together the business strategy quarterly or
at the beginning of the year. But how talk about
the structure part of that and even for your personal routine,
like how do you how discipline are you in making
(13:33):
sure that the strategy goes from idead ideation?
Speaker 5 (13:38):
Man, great question again, So I think it's fluid. I
think everybody in the room has a business realizes there's
a lot of fluidity in business. Everything you think is
going to happen, it's probably going to happen differently. So
most businesses controlled chaos. And strategy is really important, and
(14:03):
planning is really important, and scale is really important, but
execution is better. I think too many people make really
well laid plans and they are kind of like deer
in the headlights when their plan doesn't work out. I
love that Mike Tyson quote. Right, everybody has a plan
(14:25):
until they get hit in the face. Running a business
is getting hit in the face every day. So I
think if you're running a business, it's chaos. You have
to execute every day. But eventually you get to a
point where if you're the one executing on everything, and
(14:47):
and I went through this, I used to you know,
one of the things I used to say is I'm
the best salesman in my company, and I'm the best
this in my company. Then one day I realized, if
I'm the best i me and my company, how am
I ever going to grow? Who's ever going to buy
this business? So eventually you have to get to a
point where you shift from being the best doer to
(15:12):
being the best enabler. And if if you want to
build a five million dollar business, ten million dollar business,
you go out there and be the best everything in
your company. You want to build one hundred million dollar business,
you better be a great leader and a great enabler,
because your number one job becomes making others successful.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
He can't just go a little bit into that because enable.
I feel like enabler has a bad connotation to it.
Speaker 5 (15:41):
Yeah, you're right, that was a bad word.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
But I mean, I guess it can be good too,
right as far as like you know, just well nurturing,
nurturing people on their journey to kind of oversee it.
Speaker 5 (15:54):
Somewhere along the way, I realized I've got to amplify me, right,
Like I have to leverage and make more of the
things that I'm not good at. And you know, it
gets easier in some ways where you get bigger, the
dynamicism and the energy becomes harder the bigger you get.
(16:15):
I mean, my last company at the end, we had
you know, twelve hundred employees. And so I get in
the elevator and I'd be like, does this person work
for me? Do I like, should I know who they are?
And that was odd for me because in my company,
I knew everybody like we were like whoa one team go.
(16:36):
But when you're starting out, you can't afford to hire
somebody with five years of experience in marketing. So instead
of hiring for experience, you hire for aptitude. And you've
got to look at those people and say, what are
they missing to make them great? How can I teach
(17:00):
lead give them the experience to become better at marketing
than I am or somebody who had the experience. You know,
when you have money, you hire for experience with aptitude.
When you don't have money, you hire incredible aptitude and
give them the experience.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
That was a jewel.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
That was a jewel I'm looking out and the shark
ting theme. It was speaking to me when we walked in.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
I'm soory. Everybody that walked in recognized it as well.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
One of the things that you know when you watch
the show that I know you're keen on it big
on this authenticity and why that's important in storytelling. There's
a lot of entrepreneurs in here. They want to get
to the next level, but people don't know about their
business right And one of the things earners, what's up
you ever walk into a small business and everything just
works like the checkout is fast, or seats are digital,
(17:53):
tipping is a breeze and you're out the door before
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(18:14):
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One of the things we love most is seeing neighborhood
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(18:34):
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(18:56):
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To see how Square can transform your business, visit Square
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(19:19):
don't hesitate. Let's Square handle the back end so you
can keep pushing your vision forward. Things that they have
at the advantage is that there's only one of them
in this world. Talk about the role that authenticity plays
in marketing and growing your business.
Speaker 5 (19:34):
Yeah, it's such a great point. You know, why does
Shark Tank work? Because you would think you're gonna launch
a business show that's gonna entertain Also, let's get a
bunch of celebrities. Wouldn't that be your knee jerk reaction.
Let's get a bunch of celebrities that are entertaining and interesting.
(19:57):
But to the incredible credit of our producers and the
people that put on Shark Tank, they didn't do that.
They got authentic, real business people and when you see
the show, it's really us. I mean Barbara not being
able to do math. That's really Barbara. You know, Kevin
(20:20):
calling somebody a cockroach. I've been at dinner where he's
called people a cockroach. I mean, it's really him, and
so it's very, very authentic, and I think that's why
the show works. We are not actors, We are not scripted.
When we get mad, when we get excited about something,
(20:43):
we're mad and we're excited. And you know, to your point,
you cannot fake authenticity on a long term basis. You
can spike authenticity, you can go viral once for some
BS thing you did or you staged. But consumers today
(21:04):
are too smart and they see through that. Some of
the best investments we've had on the show that I've had,
sand Cloud, Tipsy Elves, I mean, these people are so authentic,
it's in their blood. Everybody in this room is great
at something. Greatness doesn't come from you changing who you are.
(21:32):
Greatness comes from discovering what it is that you bring
to this world that nobody else can and leveraging that.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
The biggest topic of discussion right now is artificial intelligence.
So I'm interested to hear your take on how you're
currently using AI for your companies and any advice for
entrepreneurs that may be a little intimidated or they don't
fully understand, they're not fully educated on AI.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
So let me start by saying AI is the greatest
technological shift in everybody in this room's lifetime. If you
don't think that, you've got the wrong mindset, so you
have to run to AI, not walk or dottle or
go gingerly into the night. You have to sprint towards AI.
(22:33):
And if you don't know about AI, go to YouTube
University and learn everything you can about AI. So it
is going to change the dynamics of everything we do.
First of all, the simplest application of AI for any
business is taking any redundant task and changing it with AI.
(22:59):
So if you have a customer service business and you
want to hire more people to do customer service, one
of your competitors is hiring less people and using AI
to do customer service. If you're doing logistics with human
beings and you've got people doing simple tasks, that's going
(23:20):
to be replaced by AI. And it's not about getting
rid of people or laying people off. It's about upscaling
your workforce to do higher value tasks. The one task
that AI will never get rid of is human interaction.
So the one thing we're always telling about our businesses.
(23:41):
You know, in Disney has a great saying every time
you touch a client in a physical interaction or an
online interaction, they call those moms moments of magic. Because
every client interaction or a can consumer interaction is an
(24:02):
opportunity to create magic. So use human beings to create
that magic, because that's what we're really good at. We're
really good at relationships and talking to each other. AI
is not going to replace you, guys. It's not going
to replace me. But if you have somebody typing into
(24:24):
a keyboard every day repetitive tasks, that's going to go away.
And then the third part of it is how can
I feed AI to give me creativity in my business.
A good friend of mine is an e commerce online expert.
He does about six hundred million a year. He just
saw product slippers that are trending well online. So he
(24:48):
used AI and created in two hours an entire video
to promote it and then put it out there and
is selling it. I mean you can do that with
your business us absolutely.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
I like that you said you got to run swort
it because most people think, yes, we have to use it.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
And it's funny.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
I just heard of lat enf said ten years ago,
every company that is a publicly traded company is a
tech company because it needs a tech component. This week
he said every company will be an AI company in
the next five years.
Speaker 5 (25:22):
So true.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
The other part of AI is the protection of it.
And that's kind of a sweet why for you, because
cybersecurity is something that is going to be vastly needed
because the more we create apps and the more we
create and give task to AI, we still need protection
from it. Talk about the role that cybersecurity is going
to play in their future.
Speaker 5 (25:41):
So this is gonna sound funny coming from me, but
I think the security risk of AI is overwrought. I
think we're making too big a deal out of it.
So I've been in cybersecurity for forty years. I'm probably
one of the top people in the world on cyber
The Wall Street Journal did a study a number of
(26:02):
years ago where they stood on a street corner and
set to people, I will give you a free McDonald
hamburger for your name, date of birth, and a copy
of your driver's license. How many people you think said yes, hamburger?
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Happy mil not even a cheeseburger.
Speaker 5 (26:28):
I forget what the meal was it was, but it
was free food. So consumers have want to talk about security,
but there's an expectation that the company will take care
of security. Meaning if I'm buying from this company and
they get hacked, you know what I'm going to do.
(26:50):
I'm just going to go buy from another company. So
consumers care about it if it's simple. But if you're
forcing me to do two factor authentication, if you're forcing
me to buy off your website and I have to
click here and are you a robot? And then I
have to go here, you know what that consumer is
going to do. They're going to go the path of
(27:11):
least resistance and go to somebody else. What really drives
and will drive AI security is compliance. That's what drives
most security. So today, if you're a publicly traded company,
you have to have a certain level of security because
the onus of proof goes to the companies as opposed
(27:34):
to the consumer. So I'm not really worried about it
that much because I think it'll become a competitive feature.
And if the three of us have a company and
my company's more secure, more consumers are going to buy
from me? If you're getting hacked. Guess what consumers aren't
going to buy from you today. It's very fluid. People
(27:54):
can buy from you today somebody else in an hour.
So and I also think them, so I will make
some of the security easier and harder.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
You've had an amazing career.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
You've done a variety of different things on television, off television.
You talk to us backstage about bringing Shark Tank to Egypt.
What's the highlight of your business career so far? Like,
what's the most exciting fun story that you think about
and reminisce on when it comes to you know, some
accomplishment that you've done in business?
Speaker 5 (28:24):
Easy? Getting on Dancing with the Stars makes sense, I mean,
I am you know. It's so funny. The dots of
your life never connect until you look back, you know
(28:46):
what I mean? Like, we all have these plans and
then we have this opportunity and we're like, is this
a good opportunity? Should I do it? And then when
you get older and you look back and you're like, wow,
that connect to that and it all made sense. So
years and years before I was on Shark Tank, my
(29:10):
mom loved dancing with the Stars, like, you got to
picture this little Eastern European woman. That show was everything
her life wasn't It was beautiful, It was glamorous. Like
if you called my house on a Monday when the
show was on, my mom would answer the phone and go,
(29:32):
why you call?
Speaker 3 (29:34):
You know?
Speaker 5 (29:35):
Show on. So my mom ends up getting ovarian cancer
and she goes to the hospital and I would go
there every Monday and with all the other ladies in
the ward and we would throw a Dancing with the
Stars party. And one day my mom looks at me
(29:59):
and she goes, Robbie, you so beautiful. Why you not
beyond dancing? Now, think about this. This is at least
ten years before being on TV was even in my universe.
So of course I look at my mom and I say, Mom,
(30:21):
if they ever ask me, I'll do it for you.
So my mom passes away. Ten years go by, Shark
Tank starts. Thank god for the producers for getting me
on the show. We've become successful. The producers are Dancing
with the Stars call me without before they finished a sentence,
(30:42):
I'm like, yes, Like would you like to know? No,
I'm at a real low point in my life, like
probably the hardest point in my life at that point,
like like you know when you're struggling and it's not
like a good struggle. It's like a struggle where you
(31:04):
don't you can't see tomorrow. Like there are struggles, but
you see the light and you're like, oh man, I
was going through a point in my life where I'm
like it's just hard and there is no light. And
then the call comes, I walk in, I meet my
dance partner. All of a sudden, my life is full
(31:27):
of joy. We get married. Eleven years later, we have
seven year old twins. Like, think about how those dots connected, right,
And I think I think that is the magic of
beauty in life. We all have the opportunity to write
(31:51):
our own book. You know, if you're not happy with
your life, turn the page right the life that when
you look back you're going to be happy with.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
Absolutely. Yeah, life is a beautiful struggle.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
When you were speaking earlier, it made me think about
the entrepreneurs that are sitting in this room.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
A lot of them are solopreneurs.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Right when we start businesses, we want to take everything
and do everything. And then I heard a quote the
other day say you can't do everything you only have
two hands, right, So this beautiful struggle, like you talking
on the personal side, but the beautiful struggle of entrepreneurship.
What are some words or some tips that you would
give to people to get through that moment because it's
(32:37):
going to happen, right Everybody looks at social media and
it looks glamorous. We know in this room, like tab said,
you and the shower like, oh my gosh, what are
some of those tips that you would give people who
are in that moment right now?
Speaker 5 (32:49):
It's so funny because you know, you look on social media.
Everybody's got a yacht, everybody's got a jet, and you're like,
everybody's beautiful, and you're like, why am I not on
those things? We social media has demystified success in some
ways and made it seem like it's so attainable, but
it's hard. It's really hard. And the sad reality is
(33:16):
when you start, you are going to be a solopreneur.
You cannot outsource the startup phase, like unless you're gonna
Silkham Valley and raising a ton of money and you're
going to hire the top people. You know what, at
the beginning, you're gonna have to do sales and guess
what you're gonna have to do accounting? And guess what
(33:37):
you're gonna have to sweep the floor if somebody spills
coffee on it. And if you don't like that and
you think that's below you, you're probably gonna fail. And
so what I will tell you is that all goes
away when you start. You gotta be the solopreneur. You
have to be the best at everything in your business.
(34:00):
But if you're still that person three years from now
or five years from now, you're doing something wrong because
you're never gonna grow. You only have two hands.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
Well, I want to thank you for your time, and
I'm sure that the crowd got a lot from this.
Any last word of encouragement to any entrepreneur that you
know is coming for this three day conference, because we're
actually kicking this conference off. This is the first first
programming and they're going to be here tomorrow and I
believe tuesday. Also, So what networking advice or what you know,
(34:39):
advice to soak in information can you give people that
are on this journey for the next three days.
Speaker 5 (34:47):
You know, first of all, congratulations for making the effort
to be here. Right, how many how many of you
we talked about solopreneur, let's talk but a w entrepreneur.
How many of you have friends that, oh, yeah, I
(35:07):
would have, I should have. Oh yeah, I was going
to go to that conference, but oh you know, I
had a hair appointment. Right Like, every every dream you
have is on the other side of a convenient excuse.
(35:32):
Everything you want to achieve, somebody is making an excuse
not to do. You had a friend that you probably
thought about bringing to this. You know, one of the
most motivating people I've ever met and I had a
chance to work with, was Tony Robbins. I went to
(35:54):
the first Tony Robbins seminar when I was like twenty two,
and it costs two hundred dollars. I had five friends
that were going to go with me. How many you
think actually came only me? You know what the other said,
why would it two hundred dollars to some guy talk?
(36:18):
You want to know where those other four friends are.
I don't know either, because I don't hang out with them.
That's the other thing I would tell you. One of
the greatest advantages of being at a conference like this,
it's the five person rule, and it's really true. You
are the product of the five people you hang out with.
(36:39):
You are in a room right now with five hundred
people that want to be successful, don't want to do something.
Feed off that energy and you can achieve anything in life.
Speaker 4 (36:53):
There you have it, Ladies and gentlemen, Thank you for
your time. Enjoy the rest of the conference.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Whoo whoo I thank you guys.
This episode is brought to you by P and C Bank.
A lot of people think podcasts about work are boring,
and sure they definitely can be, but understanding of professionals
routine shows us how they achieve their success little by little,
day after day. It's like banking with P and C Bank.
It might seem boring to safe plan and make calculated
(00:21):
decisions with your bank, but keeping your money boring is
what helps you live or more happily fulfilled life. P
and C Bank Brilliantly Boring since eighteen sixty five. Brilliantly
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the PNC Financial Service Group, Inc. P and C Bank
National Association Member FDIC.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I like that.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
I like that such it's about the money. This is
another vote for the live band. Clap it up with
the live van.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Y'all.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
This is elevated. It feels like prime time.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
This is prime Tom. This is beautiful. How's everybody doing?
Feeling good?
Speaker 4 (01:00):
So we have your favorite shark tank shark. Yeah, we've
interviewed with a few sharks already.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Yeah, we've gone down the list of sharks. We started
out with Mark Cuban. Everybody you know Mark Cuban. Of course,
we had our good friend of our Damon John. I'll
be honest with you, our favorite, Well, probably today's gonna
pass it. But Barbara Cochran was amazing. Clap it up
with Barbara. But there's one guy who conds and resonates
with us a little bit. You know, the way he
(01:30):
carries himself, the way he dresses, the way he conducts himself,
and when he talks about marketing.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
And that's Robert. Her Jane and I hope you're excited,
because we're excited.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
This is the first time we're getting to talk to him,
and we got a lot of questions and we're gonna
do it from the entrepreneurial mindset. How many entrepreneurs in here? Oh,
this is great, we know a thing or two about that.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Huh sure for sure?
Speaker 4 (01:57):
All right, Well, without further to do, list, queue it
up for Robert and let's uh, let's get it going.
Speaker 5 (02:16):
I was born in Gratia. I think what makes me
different than the other Sharks is I'm an actual immigrant.
That shapes a lot of how I think and who
I am.
Speaker 6 (02:25):
There is no certain day in life.
Speaker 5 (02:26):
My dad came here at thirty seven on the boat
didn't even speak the language. What I look for is
people that can land on their feet and adapt.
Speaker 6 (02:35):
So you have a great degree.
Speaker 5 (02:36):
Harvard sendsraally fancy, but you missed one school. You didn't
go to the school of hard knocks.
Speaker 6 (02:42):
Well, the matters is that the world becomes a better
place to live.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
The world cannot become a better place to live if
you don't contribute to it.
Speaker 6 (02:49):
There is no rearview mirror in my life. You gotta
let go. This is the deal in front of you
right now.
Speaker 5 (02:57):
Let's go.
Speaker 6 (02:57):
Are you breathing.
Speaker 5 (03:00):
Question?
Speaker 6 (03:04):
Freedom is the ability to control your own life.
Speaker 5 (03:06):
No one can fire you, no one's gonna tell you
what to do.
Speaker 6 (03:09):
It's all up to you. I'd like to be part
of the journey.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
If you're gonna dream, let's dream big, baby.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
I told you about the style.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Right.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
Hey, everybody, thanks for having me. How great is the band?
You guys are killing it?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Give it up for the band, all right?
Speaker 5 (03:36):
All right?
Speaker 2 (03:37):
If you guys are excited for this conversation, make some
noise for sure. So Robert, let's get into it.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
So you know your journey as far as being an
immigrant come into this country, being extremely successful in business,
what my set shifts, if any, did you have to
make to kind of have the success that you've had
the United States of America.
Speaker 5 (04:01):
You know, we sharks always talk about this, like what
makes one person successful and another one not successful. I
remember one night we were having dinner with Mark Cuban
and we got into this topic, like I said, Mark,
when you were twelve years old, did you know you
(04:23):
were going to be successful? And Mark said yes, I
knew I was going to be very wealthy and I
was going to buy a basketball team one day. And
I remember how much that affected me, because at twelve
years old, I just didn't want to be poor. And
(04:45):
so this mindset of fear and simply getting by is
what I had to change. I think, if you're going
to build a great business, or you're going to do
anything great in life, you have to have the ability
to believe in yourself. And most people have this fear
(05:06):
what if I don't make it? What if people make
fun of me? Especially as an immigrant. You know, people
are always making you feel less than you are. And
I think that was the big mind shift for me
because I wasn't born like that. I wasn't born Mark Cuban,
I wasn't born confident. When I was twenty, I was
(05:27):
afraid of my own shadow. I couldn't speak in front
of a group of people, and so that was really
hard for me to get out of that shell.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
You spoke about something that I'm sure that everybody can
resonate in here, and that's that idea of like, I
just don't want to be poor. And so when people
go into business, and a lot of people here are entrepreneurs,
the first thing they think is how can I make money?
And I think that's kind of a mind shift, that
mindset shift that we need to change. One of the
things we recognized earlier was money wasn't the goal, it
(06:00):
was really the value. Talk about how you have to
have that mindset shift, because if you're going into just
trying to make money and then you don't, then you
give up on it.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
Yeah, I'm going to disagree with you just a little bit.
Just a little bit. I think there's two phases of
starting a business, just reality. I think the first phase
is survival. I think a lot of people start a
business to get out of a condition therein, or at
(06:32):
least I did. I just wanted to start my business
in order to make enough money to pay my mortgage
and maybe path my house one day. I mean, my
dream was to make one thousand dollars for my life.
So if I was fifty, to make fifty grand a year,
buy a used corvette and maybe path part of my
(06:52):
house one day, because that's something my parents had never done.
So in the realm of my ability to dream, that
was man, that was it. But to your point, I
did that. And then if you do that and your
goals are really small, you look around and you realize
(07:14):
it's pretty empty. Because if you're only doing it for
the money and you have some level of success, you're
going to get very lonely. Money doesn't keep you warm
at night. Money doesn't inspire you to keep going. So
when you make a million, if that was your goal,
what makes you go to ten million or twenty million,
(07:35):
or a hundred or a billion? And I think eventually
you have to have a great purpose. Eventually you have
to look at yourself and say, all right, forget the money.
Why am I working my ass off twenty hours a day,
not getting into sleep, sacrificing everything? What's my why in
(07:56):
doing it?
Speaker 4 (07:57):
So for entrepreneurs, I'm sure everybody watches Shark Tank. And
you know, when people come in front of you, guys,
you asked them a lot of questions as far as
their profit margin and addressable market, their marketing plan, all
that stuff. What do you think is the key, the
number one thing as far as on a business bottom
line that entrepreneurs needs to focus on and completely understand
(08:20):
fully in their business.
Speaker 5 (08:22):
Wow, that's a great question. I think. Uh, First of all,
every business is slightly different. I think everybody out here
who has a business, you have to figure out what
the heartbeat of that business is, and it's different for
every business. So I know in my business, I had
(08:43):
to know what the recurring revenue was, what our margin was,
and what our cash flow was on a daily basis.
So if you woke me up at two o'clock in
the morning and said, what was the cash flow from yesterday?
I could tell you that. Now I couldn't tell you
a bunch of other things things because they have to
learn along the way. But I think you have to
(09:04):
figure out what the heartbeat of your business is, and
it's usually only two or three things. You know, people
make the mistake of trying to do too much, But
there's two or three things that advanced the ball every
single day. It's not about maintaining. It's about growth, and
one are the things that are growing your business.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
You talked about fear just earlier, and a lot of
people have that fear and they start to question the why.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Right. I wonder, at what point did you realize this
is my why?
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Because sometimes people get passion and purpose confused and that
could sometimes be hurtful in business.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
When did you discover the why?
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (09:45):
Man, that's such a great point. And I think that's
such an individual thing for everybody, and I think I
was very fortunate to figure that out really early, because
I think a lot of people don't. They kind of
drift along and fear can be all consuming. Everybody in
(10:07):
this room is going to wake up one day and
have a crappy day and question why am I doing this?
Why is this so hard?
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Why?
Speaker 5 (10:16):
Why isn't it easy for me? So for me, I
started my first business, and you know, man, I'm working
like eighteen hours a day. I'm not making enough money
in my business to support myself. So I'm working nine
to five at the business. I'm waking up at five
in the morning to read about cybersecurity because I'm not
(10:39):
an engineer, and I'm competing with engineers. And then from
eight at night till one in the morning, I'm working
as a waiter to make enough cash to pay my rent.
And I'm doing this every day. And I come home
one day and I'm like, this sucks. And I go,
(10:59):
this is really hard. And my mom is in the
room and I'm telling her how hard it is, and
woe is me? My life sucks? And my dad comes home.
He's working at the factory sweeping floors, and he comes
(11:20):
home to take a shower and get some food before
he goes back to the factory to work a second
shift to pay for them to exist. And I look
at him and I say, I will never in my
(11:41):
lifetime work as hard as that man is working right now.
And that was it. And what I realized is they
gave up everything thirty seven years old. They came to
a foreign country, didn't speak the language, didn't know anybody.
(12:03):
We leave in someone's basement for eighteen months in order
to give me an opportunity. How do I then not
acknowledge and justify that sacrifice? And that was my why?
And I realized, stop complaining. Nobody cares nobody cares, and
(12:27):
from that moment on, like customers would say to me, Robert,
how you doing today? And I'm a pretty happy guy
ninety percent of the time, But everybody in this room
has a crappy day where you don't feel good and
something's going wrong. My customers ask me, Robert, how are
you doing today? You know how I'm doing one hundred
percent of the time. I'm wonderful because I get the
(12:49):
opportunity to live out my dreams. And somebody gave up
everything in their life to give me that opportunity. So
if you're not going to if I'm not willing to
work hard enough for me, I'd better be willing to
work hard enough for them.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
I believe one time you said, strategy without structure is
just a wish. So can you explain that because a
lot of people put together the business strategy quarterly or
at the beginning of the year. But how talk about
the structure part of that and even for your personal routine,
like how do you how discipline are you in making
(13:33):
sure that the strategy goes from idead ideation?
Speaker 5 (13:38):
Man, great question again, So I think it's fluid. I
think everybody in the room has a business realizes there's
a lot of fluidity in business. Everything you think is
going to happen, it's probably going to happen differently. So
most businesses controlled chaos. And strategy is really important, and
(14:03):
planning is really important, and scale is really important, but
execution is better. I think too many people make really
well laid plans and they are kind of like deer
in the headlights when their plan doesn't work out. I
love that Mike Tyson quote. Right, everybody has a plan
(14:25):
until they get hit in the face. Running a business
is getting hit in the face every day. So I
think if you're running a business, it's chaos. You have
to execute every day. But eventually you get to a
point where if you're the one executing on everything, and
(14:47):
and I went through this, I used to you know,
one of the things I used to say is I'm
the best salesman in my company, and I'm the best
this in my company. Then one day I realized, if
I'm the best i me and my company, how am
I ever going to grow? Who's ever going to buy
this business? So eventually you have to get to a
point where you shift from being the best doer to
(15:12):
being the best enabler. And if if you want to
build a five million dollar business, ten million dollar business,
you go out there and be the best everything in
your company. You want to build one hundred million dollar business,
you better be a great leader and a great enabler,
because your number one job becomes making others successful.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
He can't just go a little bit into that because enable.
I feel like enabler has a bad connotation to it.
Speaker 5 (15:41):
Yeah, you're right, that was a bad word.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
But I mean, I guess it can be good too,
right as far as like you know, just well nurturing,
nurturing people on their journey to kind of oversee it.
Speaker 5 (15:54):
Somewhere along the way, I realized I've got to amplify me, right,
Like I have to leverage and make more of the
things that I'm not good at. And you know, it
gets easier in some ways where you get bigger, the
dynamicism and the energy becomes harder the bigger you get.
(16:15):
I mean, my last company at the end, we had
you know, twelve hundred employees. And so I get in
the elevator and I'd be like, does this person work
for me? Do I like, should I know who they are?
And that was odd for me because in my company,
I knew everybody like we were like whoa one team go.
(16:36):
But when you're starting out, you can't afford to hire
somebody with five years of experience in marketing. So instead
of hiring for experience, you hire for aptitude. And you've
got to look at those people and say, what are
they missing to make them great? How can I teach
(17:00):
lead give them the experience to become better at marketing
than I am or somebody who had the experience. You know,
when you have money, you hire for experience with aptitude.
When you don't have money, you hire incredible aptitude and
give them the experience.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
That was a jewel.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
That was a jewel I'm looking out and the shark
ting theme. It was speaking to me when we walked in.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
I'm soory. Everybody that walked in recognized it as well.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
One of the things that you know when you watch
the show that I know you're keen on it big
on this authenticity and why that's important in storytelling. There's
a lot of entrepreneurs in here. They want to get
to the next level, but people don't know about their
business right And one of the things earners, what's up
you ever walk into a small business and everything just
works like the checkout is fast, or seats are digital,
(17:53):
tipping is a breeze and you're out the door before
the line even builds odds are they're using. We love
supporting businesses that run on Square because it just feels seamless.
Whether it's a local coffee shop, a vendor at a
pop up market, or even one of our merch partners.
Square makes it easy for them to take payments, manage inventory,
(18:14):
and run their business with confidence, all from one simple system.
One of the things we love most is seeing neighborhood
businesses level up. Business West Indian spired writing our community
that started with a small takeout counter. Now with Square,
they've been able to expand into a full sit down
restaurant and even started catering events across the city. That's
(18:34):
the kind of growth that inspires us, and it's powered
by Square. Square is built for all types of businesses,
from the corner bagel shop that turned into a local chain,
to the specialty market with thousands of unique items, to
the stylist who's been holding you down for years. If
you're a business owner or even just thinking about launching
something soon, Square is hands down one of the best
(18:56):
tools out there to help you start, run and grow.
It's not just about payments, it's about giving you time
back so you can focus on what matters most ready.
To see how Square can transform your business, visit Square
dot com backslash, go backslash ey l to learn more
that Square dot com backslash, go backslash eyl. Don't wait,
(19:19):
don't hesitate. Let's Square handle the back end so you
can keep pushing your vision forward. Things that they have
at the advantage is that there's only one of them
in this world. Talk about the role that authenticity plays
in marketing and growing your business.
Speaker 5 (19:34):
Yeah, it's such a great point. You know, why does
Shark Tank work? Because you would think you're gonna launch
a business show that's gonna entertain Also, let's get a
bunch of celebrities. Wouldn't that be your knee jerk reaction.
Let's get a bunch of celebrities that are entertaining and interesting.
(19:57):
But to the incredible credit of our producers and the
people that put on Shark Tank, they didn't do that.
They got authentic, real business people and when you see
the show, it's really us. I mean Barbara not being
able to do math. That's really Barbara. You know, Kevin
(20:20):
calling somebody a cockroach. I've been at dinner where he's
called people a cockroach. I mean, it's really him, and
so it's very, very authentic, and I think that's why
the show works. We are not actors, We are not scripted.
When we get mad, when we get excited about something,
(20:43):
we're mad and we're excited. And you know, to your point,
you cannot fake authenticity on a long term basis. You
can spike authenticity, you can go viral once for some
BS thing you did or you staged. But consumers today
(21:04):
are too smart and they see through that. Some of
the best investments we've had on the show that I've had,
sand Cloud, Tipsy Elves, I mean, these people are so authentic,
it's in their blood. Everybody in this room is great
at something. Greatness doesn't come from you changing who you are.
(21:32):
Greatness comes from discovering what it is that you bring
to this world that nobody else can and leveraging that.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
The biggest topic of discussion right now is artificial intelligence.
So I'm interested to hear your take on how you're
currently using AI for your companies and any advice for
entrepreneurs that may be a little intimidated or they don't
fully understand, they're not fully educated on AI.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
So let me start by saying AI is the greatest
technological shift in everybody in this room's lifetime. If you
don't think that, you've got the wrong mindset, so you
have to run to AI, not walk or dottle or
go gingerly into the night. You have to sprint towards AI.
(22:33):
And if you don't know about AI, go to YouTube
University and learn everything you can about AI. So it
is going to change the dynamics of everything we do.
First of all, the simplest application of AI for any
business is taking any redundant task and changing it with AI.
(22:59):
So if you have a customer service business and you
want to hire more people to do customer service, one
of your competitors is hiring less people and using AI
to do customer service. If you're doing logistics with human
beings and you've got people doing simple tasks, that's going
(23:20):
to be replaced by AI. And it's not about getting
rid of people or laying people off. It's about upscaling
your workforce to do higher value tasks. The one task
that AI will never get rid of is human interaction.
So the one thing we're always telling about our businesses.
(23:41):
You know, in Disney has a great saying every time
you touch a client in a physical interaction or an
online interaction, they call those moms moments of magic. Because
every client interaction or a can consumer interaction is an
(24:02):
opportunity to create magic. So use human beings to create
that magic, because that's what we're really good at. We're
really good at relationships and talking to each other. AI
is not going to replace you, guys. It's not going
to replace me. But if you have somebody typing into
(24:24):
a keyboard every day repetitive tasks, that's going to go away.
And then the third part of it is how can
I feed AI to give me creativity in my business.
A good friend of mine is an e commerce online expert.
He does about six hundred million a year. He just
saw product slippers that are trending well online. So he
(24:48):
used AI and created in two hours an entire video
to promote it and then put it out there and
is selling it. I mean you can do that with
your business us absolutely.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
I like that you said you got to run swort
it because most people think, yes, we have to use it.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
And it's funny.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
I just heard of lat enf said ten years ago,
every company that is a publicly traded company is a
tech company because it needs a tech component. This week
he said every company will be an AI company in
the next five years.
Speaker 5 (25:22):
So true.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
The other part of AI is the protection of it.
And that's kind of a sweet why for you, because
cybersecurity is something that is going to be vastly needed
because the more we create apps and the more we
create and give task to AI, we still need protection
from it. Talk about the role that cybersecurity is going
to play in their future.
Speaker 5 (25:41):
So this is gonna sound funny coming from me, but
I think the security risk of AI is overwrought. I
think we're making too big a deal out of it.
So I've been in cybersecurity for forty years. I'm probably
one of the top people in the world on cyber
The Wall Street Journal did a study a number of
(26:02):
years ago where they stood on a street corner and
set to people, I will give you a free McDonald
hamburger for your name, date of birth, and a copy
of your driver's license. How many people you think said yes, hamburger?
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Happy mil not even a cheeseburger.
Speaker 5 (26:28):
I forget what the meal was it was, but it
was free food. So consumers have want to talk about security,
but there's an expectation that the company will take care
of security. Meaning if I'm buying from this company and
they get hacked, you know what I'm going to do.
(26:50):
I'm just going to go buy from another company. So
consumers care about it if it's simple. But if you're
forcing me to do two factor authentication, if you're forcing
me to buy off your website and I have to
click here and are you a robot? And then I
have to go here, you know what that consumer is
going to do. They're going to go the path of
(27:11):
least resistance and go to somebody else. What really drives
and will drive AI security is compliance. That's what drives
most security. So today, if you're a publicly traded company,
you have to have a certain level of security because
the onus of proof goes to the companies as opposed
(27:34):
to the consumer. So I'm not really worried about it
that much because I think it'll become a competitive feature.
And if the three of us have a company and
my company's more secure, more consumers are going to buy
from me? If you're getting hacked. Guess what consumers aren't
going to buy from you today. It's very fluid. People
(27:54):
can buy from you today somebody else in an hour.
So and I also think them, so I will make
some of the security easier and harder.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
You've had an amazing career.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
You've done a variety of different things on television, off television.
You talk to us backstage about bringing Shark Tank to Egypt.
What's the highlight of your business career so far? Like,
what's the most exciting fun story that you think about
and reminisce on when it comes to you know, some
accomplishment that you've done in business?
Speaker 5 (28:24):
Easy? Getting on Dancing with the Stars makes sense, I mean,
I am you know. It's so funny. The dots of
your life never connect until you look back, you know
(28:46):
what I mean? Like, we all have these plans and
then we have this opportunity and we're like, is this
a good opportunity? Should I do it? And then when
you get older and you look back and you're like, wow,
that connect to that and it all made sense. So
years and years before I was on Shark Tank, my
(29:10):
mom loved dancing with the Stars, like, you got to
picture this little Eastern European woman. That show was everything
her life wasn't It was beautiful, It was glamorous. Like
if you called my house on a Monday when the
show was on, my mom would answer the phone and go,
(29:32):
why you call?
Speaker 3 (29:34):
You know?
Speaker 5 (29:35):
Show on. So my mom ends up getting ovarian cancer
and she goes to the hospital and I would go
there every Monday and with all the other ladies in
the ward and we would throw a Dancing with the
Stars party. And one day my mom looks at me
(29:59):
and she goes, Robbie, you so beautiful. Why you not
beyond dancing? Now, think about this. This is at least
ten years before being on TV was even in my universe.
So of course I look at my mom and I say, Mom,
(30:21):
if they ever ask me, I'll do it for you.
So my mom passes away. Ten years go by, Shark
Tank starts. Thank god for the producers for getting me
on the show. We've become successful. The producers are Dancing
with the Stars call me without before they finished a sentence,
(30:42):
I'm like, yes, Like would you like to know? No,
I'm at a real low point in my life, like
probably the hardest point in my life at that point,
like like you know when you're struggling and it's not
like a good struggle. It's like a struggle where you
(31:04):
don't you can't see tomorrow. Like there are struggles, but
you see the light and you're like, oh man, I
was going through a point in my life where I'm
like it's just hard and there is no light. And
then the call comes, I walk in, I meet my
dance partner. All of a sudden, my life is full
(31:27):
of joy. We get married. Eleven years later, we have
seven year old twins. Like, think about how those dots connected, right,
And I think I think that is the magic of
beauty in life. We all have the opportunity to write
(31:51):
our own book. You know, if you're not happy with
your life, turn the page right the life that when
you look back you're going to be happy with.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
Absolutely. Yeah, life is a beautiful struggle.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
When you were speaking earlier, it made me think about
the entrepreneurs that are sitting in this room.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
A lot of them are solopreneurs.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Right when we start businesses, we want to take everything
and do everything. And then I heard a quote the
other day say you can't do everything you only have
two hands, right, So this beautiful struggle, like you talking
on the personal side, but the beautiful struggle of entrepreneurship.
What are some words or some tips that you would
give to people to get through that moment because it's
(32:37):
going to happen, right Everybody looks at social media and
it looks glamorous. We know in this room, like tab said,
you and the shower like, oh my gosh, what are
some of those tips that you would give people who
are in that moment right now?
Speaker 5 (32:49):
It's so funny because you know, you look on social media.
Everybody's got a yacht, everybody's got a jet, and you're like,
everybody's beautiful, and you're like, why am I not on
those things? We social media has demystified success in some
ways and made it seem like it's so attainable, but
it's hard. It's really hard. And the sad reality is
(33:16):
when you start, you are going to be a solopreneur.
You cannot outsource the startup phase, like unless you're gonna
Silkham Valley and raising a ton of money and you're
going to hire the top people. You know what, at
the beginning, you're gonna have to do sales and guess
what you're gonna have to do accounting? And guess what
(33:37):
you're gonna have to sweep the floor if somebody spills
coffee on it. And if you don't like that and
you think that's below you, you're probably gonna fail. And
so what I will tell you is that all goes
away when you start. You gotta be the solopreneur. You
have to be the best at everything in your business.
(34:00):
But if you're still that person three years from now
or five years from now, you're doing something wrong because
you're never gonna grow. You only have two hands.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
Well, I want to thank you for your time, and
I'm sure that the crowd got a lot from this.
Any last word of encouragement to any entrepreneur that you
know is coming for this three day conference, because we're
actually kicking this conference off. This is the first first
programming and they're going to be here tomorrow and I
believe tuesday. Also, So what networking advice or what you know,
(34:39):
advice to soak in information can you give people that
are on this journey for the next three days.
Speaker 5 (34:47):
You know, first of all, congratulations for making the effort
to be here. Right, how many how many of you
we talked about solopreneur, let's talk but a w entrepreneur.
How many of you have friends that, oh, yeah, I
(35:07):
would have, I should have. Oh yeah, I was going
to go to that conference, but oh you know, I
had a hair appointment. Right Like, every every dream you
have is on the other side of a convenient excuse.
(35:32):
Everything you want to achieve, somebody is making an excuse
not to do. You had a friend that you probably
thought about bringing to this. You know, one of the
most motivating people I've ever met and I had a
chance to work with, was Tony Robbins. I went to
(35:54):
the first Tony Robbins seminar when I was like twenty two,
and it costs two hundred dollars. I had five friends
that were going to go with me. How many you
think actually came only me? You know what the other said,
why would it two hundred dollars to some guy talk?
(36:18):
You want to know where those other four friends are.
I don't know either, because I don't hang out with them.
That's the other thing I would tell you. One of
the greatest advantages of being at a conference like this,
it's the five person rule, and it's really true. You
are the product of the five people you hang out with.
(36:39):
You are in a room right now with five hundred
people that want to be successful, don't want to do something.
Feed off that energy and you can achieve anything in life.
Speaker 4 (36:53):
There you have it, Ladies and gentlemen, Thank you for
your time. Enjoy the rest of the conference.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Whoo whoo I thank you guys.
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