The MONEY Expert: If I Was Broke Today, This Is EXACTLY What I’d Do | Patrick Bet-David

24:22But if I talk about how I took responsibility and I went out there and did this 2 ,200 likes, so I'm going to cry more and complain more because it's going to get me more eyeballs. Oh, my God, I can't stop crying. Why am I crying? Why am I crying? Why am I crying? Dylan, stop crying. Why am I crying? Oh, my God, stop. It's disgusting. It's like victim credibility. It is disgusting for me. I mean, my skin hurts watching this kind of stuff that we got. So there's an element of this whole thing that we have to also sell why you ought to win, why you ought to go out there and set the example for others to say, I want to also go out there and win and have the life that you have.

25:03You have to also show that you can have to manage it together, how you're not arrogant about it, yet at the same time, I like a nice car. I like driving a nice million-dollar car. I like having my$10 million-dollar car collection. I like having my boat parked outside. We're on the weekend. I like having my few watches here and there. I like having my nice clothes, and I like going to nice restaurants. I like it. I like all of that. I like being pampered and taken care of. It's one of the reasons why I worked so hard because I wanted phenomenal service. I can't stand bad service. is if you want great service, you have to pay premium to get great service.

25:41You can't expect premium from McDonald's when you're buying a$3.99 Big Mac. You can't expect it. This is a reason why 90 % of McDonald's nationwide, you go on Yelp, they're all one and a half stars. There's a reason for that. Because what are you expecting from me? They're not paying me a lot anymore. Anyways, go to a three Michelin star restaurant and see what they're doing. Go to an 11 Madison, go to a Casa D 'Angelo, go to some of these big places and no booze in the right place to see what kind of food they go to catch last night where I catch we ordered his wagyu you know tomahawk thing the guy brought with the salt on top of it oh my god it was insane the food and the service was phenomenal so there's an element of selling that and where this is a possibility that you can have this if you work very hard but not from the standpoint of show off I'm better you're not from the standpoint of, listen, if you got big dreams, here's what I did.

26:36It was hard. If you stick it out, it can happen to you as well. That's the concept of, you know, capitalism that most capitalists today don't know how to sell entrepreneurship like they used to back in the days. Today, they're embarrassed. They're ashamed. We have to be comfortable selling that as well, because the next generation like we had need the right heroes to emulate. If you don't talk about you're winning, who the hell am I going to emulate? Yeah. I need somebody to emulate. Wow. So I need to know what it's like when you win. Who's the dead mentor that gives you the best advice most frequently?

27:07Who's the dead mentor that gives me the best advice? Mm-hmm. Who tells you you're just a man? Oh, that's Marcus Aurelius. Oh. He's whispering that into your ear as you're walking down the street. Marcus Aurelius, I mean, the greatest emperor of Rome ever had, 62 to 69 AD, and he had a slave telling him in his ear, you're nobody. You're nobody. You're just a man. You're nobody. You're nobody when he's gone. He was a legend. Meditation is the mandatory reading for any man. Any man. Drop everything you're doing. Pause the video. Go order meditations. Before you order, choose your enemies wisely. And go read the book.

27:44That is a must read for any man, human. To read, you've got to read meditations. It was a journal. It was not even supposed to be a book. It was just a couple of the writings that took off. But Probably him. Because again, for me, my number one goal in life is being a leader amongst leaders. And that guy was a leader amongst leaders. You know, he was able to bring peace in a country with chaos and put it all together, and he was a synergist that didn't buy his own hype. Not easy to do. This is why my favorite movie is probably Gladiator. It's an amazing movie, man. Make you weep every time, huh?

28:22Oh, my God, it's just frickin' such a great movie. watching that this weekend after I watched Chosen. What was the AI one you were talking about? Oh, Creator. Oh, dude, you're going to love it. I'm going to watch that this weekend. You're going to love it. It's going to make you think. It's going to make you think. So he's the one that speaks to you and tells you you're just a man. What does God say to you?

28:46I talk to him the most. That's why I didn't say dead mentor because to me I don't consider him dead. He's alive. So, but he's number one. Nothing is more than that where I'm like, hey, am I doing the right thing? What's going on with this? Why are you doing this right now? Like, what's the purpose of this right now? What do you want me to learn from this? Tell me what I'm supposed to take away from this because I'm confused. Can you please clarify for me what this is all about? And some of the things you're not going to find out for decades, which kind of sucks, but I wish I would get a text back and saying, here's the seven reason why I'm doing that.

29:13He doesn't do that. He makes it hard for you. But no, you're... What do you say to him and what does he say to you most frequently? What do you want me to do? the space of my life. I want to do this with the vision. I think I'm on the right track. I think the world needs this. I think you've given me this weird life of experiences and put this fire on my belly. I can't get rid of it. I fought not talking about politics on YouTube for flipping five years. I kept saying, Mario, don't let me talk politics. Don't let me create. We would do 20 minute clip. We would delete the video and never go live because it would say, Pat, you talk politics.

29:48And I wouldn't be pissed, pissed at Mario. We're arguing. It's 12 o 'clock at night, midnight. I'm like, but it wasn't politics, Pat. That's politics. Look at what you just said here. Five years were cutting, cutting, cutting all the political clips. And I'm like, why'd you put this in my heart? Why are you putting this in my heart? Everybody's saying, watch, PBD is about to lose everything. You know, this guy's going to go from entrepreneurship and he's going to lose everything because you never talk politics and he's going to collapse. And you know, there's no way in the world is, you know, you go doing PBD podcasts, talk all this politics.

30:17You take the clips, you put it on by a time and your audience is going to get so pissed off. It's done. It's the kiss of death. Okay. We grew. It did the complete thing that we thought it was going to do, but it was a risk. But the reason why I did it is because he gave me comfort. If it's in my heart, I'm going, you know, if you, if he, if he put that here, why'd you put it here? Take it out. Why is it an obsession? I don't want to think about this. Life's a lot more peaceful if I'm not dissecting every policy and thing that person is doing and destroying this great state and destroying that thing?

30:54Why are you doing this to me? Let me just be a business guy and go do what I'm doing with the business. Nope. The fire gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and mom's family coming, his dad's family, imperialists, and then boom, and you're living in a refugee camp and you're coming from this chaotic environment of 10 years in Iran. And then eventually, you know what? What? I trust. Let's go. you made me like this this is your doing it's not my doing right right so guess what i'm gonna do whatever best i can with me but this is your creation it's not my i didn't create pbd you created pbd yeah so if you created me with the help of diana and gabriel this is either your right doing or your mistake yeah so if it's your mistake hey man i didn't do it you did it right right i'll do the best i can with the sky and i'm gonna try to make you proud because that's the ultimate thing.

31:41You want to make him proud. What if you had that fire again, five, 10 years away where it was, you felt like you're supposed to be doing something else, but you thought, oh, this is going to ruin everything. Like literally my business will end, right? Everything I've built will be over if I choose to do what I feel God is telling me to do. After years of resisting and pushing in and deleting and cutting the next thing, whatever that is, How would you feel if you lost it all But you had the favor of one I don't care, I'm good I don't care I don't care Oh man, what a question you're asking Hey

32:36Yeah.

32:42Yeah. All the money, all the business, all the... Oh, wait, let me tell you, man. The Yankees, the everything you drew. You know, when my wife and I, what the hell is this all about? Frickin' AI, do a million interviews and this never happens. Um, no. It's changed my life.

33:05Ah. You guys grab a tissue if you got a tissue box out there?

33:17no man ah it's just so annoying but real man i mean it's not annoying it's it's it's how you feel and i think it's a beautiful thing to for people to know that when you care about so deeply yes you are a killer in business and yes you are a media you know you're building a media empire And yes, you're talented, but for people to know how much you care about God and your relationship to God and how much you love. You know, the gifts he's given me, my wife and I, we have three kids at the time. And she comes home and she says she wants a fourth. I said, really? Yeah. OK. You want a fourth? I thought you said you're done.

34:01When she was pregnant with Senna, we're having dinner at Fleming's in Preston Hollow, Highland Park. and we're out on her birthday, February 14th, Valentine's Day. She says, babe, I want one gift from you. I said, what's that? I don't want you to pressure me to have any more kids. I said, babe, I don't want to talk about it right now. She says, no, we got to talk about it. She says, I just want that gift from you. I don't want any more. This is too much for me. You said this. She's saying it to me. Yeah. And I said, huh, interesting. so I have a hard time receiving that because we talked about five kids before we got married 101 questions to ask before we get engaged so she had already made an agreement commitment so this is a problem so watch what happens because you're not in charge God is in charge so then we have Senna first daughter first kid I ever cried my two boys were born I was very happy but Senna I cried first time Senna I helped Senna was freaking life changing It was different.

35:04So then she tells me this in the house in Plano. She says, I want a fourth. So you want a fourth, baby? I do. You want a fourth, baby? I do. Huh. You sure? Yeah. Positive? Yeah. And she's crying. I mean, dude, you want to go right now? Like, what do you want to do? I want a fourth. I want a fifth. So then she's pregnant. She says, baby, I'm pregnant. no way yes we go to the doctor pregnant yeah awesome then we go to kind of see where it's like week eight or nine whatever so I got news for you what you're having twins no yeah I'm laughing so hard she's crying because we said five and we're gonna have five so ecstatic we come back testing every week all this stuff and at week 10 um we go and the doctor says we have a problem one of the kids is uh is what do you call it not um could potentially be um not fully developed what's the word for it where uh deformation yeah there is it's not going to be it's good it's going to be a kid you're going to be having problems with for the rest of life and we're like oh my god what do you want us to do and so they come in and they're having a meeting and they're telling you all this stuff you know could be this it could be that it could be this look okay interesting then we go home and it still hasn't hit us whether this is going to happen or not and then we sit down and we start watching videos raising a child that is you know disabilities disabilities and all this stuff and how it affects kids.

36:56And every night for four weeks, we're dealing with this. What do we do? What do we not do? Do we go through this? Do we go through that? And she's like, what, two, three months pregnant at this time? Yeah, she's two, three months pregnant, 11, 12 weeks pregnant at this time. And they said, you know, you can have a problem with this and you have to accept you want to do this. And doctors recommending, hey, my recommendation is, you know, if you guys don't risk it, you know, the average person would abort because it's going to affect your family. This is going to affect this. It's going to affect you're 42 years old.

37:25You're no longer 35 years old or 32 years old. So then we go in and we finally accept the fact that, you know, Scott's doing, we're good, let's roll. We go in, two weeks later, one of them doesn't make it. Now, we don't know which one didn't make it. So they're saying there's most likely the one that didn't make it isn't the healthy one, but you don't know until the baby's born. Really? yeah so we're like well you know and they're giving these percentages and all this stuff but we suggest you do this and we're researching now you shouldn't do that because it can hurt the kid that's left and that kid can get hurt if you're going try to do this procedure with the needle that all this stuff that you got i don't like do it just show me eventually we're just praying and brooklyn is born brooklyn ivy bit david brooklyn is the most animated kid we have in our family and her twin the brother didn't make it but brooklyn is the most animated kid in the family and she changed everything.

38:23I can't imagine Louis living life, never meet in Brooklyn. Wow. I can't imagine that. Like, you know, to me, when people say, well, we just want to have one, I said, dude, you don't even know you got two more. You can't wait to meet. Life's going to change you. Go for the three and four. If you're able to do it, if your doctor says you're healthy, go for it. Why am I giving you that story? Because, you know, when we moved to Boca, Florida, the first month I was going through a lot when moving people, I'm by myself, did I make the right decision, should I have stayed, you're leaving the company, you haven't even sold yet, and all you're doing it for is because of this, did you make the right move, your wife and kids, they're living in here in this house, you're renting, and your 100 employees at PHP are in Addison, Texas, you're in Brooklyn.

39:05So every night, at 11 o 'clock, Mario and I would walk, he can tell you stories himself, he'll give you a complete different perspective, and I would listen to Amazing Grace by this lady that sings it. and it's a picture, the thumbnail of the video, and I would listen to Amazing Grace, got like 70 million views. Wow. And I would just listen to it on repeat. It's a photo on YouTube. It's a photo, but it's a song. It's a song, but it's with a photo, yes. But the thumbnail is just a photo, right? And it starts with the sound of rain, and then she sings. It's the best voice for Amazing Grace. There's a lot of great ones.

39:34Nothing comes close to this lady here. I'll give you her name afterwards. Matter of fact, I want to give it because if the audience wants to listen to it, I don't want to miss out on this great opportunity. So I listen to this thing every day for one hour while walking, and Louis, I'm in tears. The Amazing Grace, it's called Best Version By Far, The Hour I First Believed is what it says on the cover. It's 5 minutes and 14 seconds. It takes about 45 seconds until she starts singing and the rain sound comes, but worth listening to it. So I'm crying, and I probably talked to God the most during that month.

40:09And I said, God, I think I made the right decision, but, you know, I need your help right now. I need you to be here with me. The amount of times this man's done what he's done for me, I only turn life to him. Are you kidding me? He can take me today. That's my weak spot. He's done a lot for me. My life's been a great life. Iran was tough. You know, all these other things was different, but life's been a great life. Wow. Yeah. I wanted to ask you kind of, I'm loving this part of the conversation, by the way, but I feel like people are going to want to learn about money and the mindset of money in a big way, because I feel like you've been pretty fearless in how you've approached money.

40:55And I've heard your story, you know, many different times about, you know, the bodybuilding days, being broke and getting on a sales job and all these different things. But what is it you think that blocks people from making money the most? Is it mental? Is it an emotional thing that blocks them? What holds people back from earning more or making more? Well, I mean, one of them is whatever you hate or you don't respect, you're not going to get. So if you don't respect rich people, you're not going to be rich. If you don't respect people who make a lot of money, you always talk trash about them behind their backs.

41:29You're not going to be that person. You're just not. If you admire somebody that's a great executive and an earner and recreating themselves, then guess what? You'll eventually make that money. So, you know, money and success is not attracted to people that talk down to them. Just like anything else, they're not attracted to you. They want to be respected. Money wants to be respected. Not love, but money wants to be respected. it. It wants you to say, you know what? I respect what we can do with money and how much power you can bring to my family. I respect it. What do I need to do to get more of it?

42:05Well, guess what? Right now, your market value is$68 ,000 per year. You want to improve it? I do. Here's what you got to do. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Okay, great. And the way of making money for the longest time, you know, everybody wants to say entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship. There's many other ways of making it. You can, that's one way to go. You can be a creator. You Mr. Beast has proven the fact that you can be a billionaire by being a YouTuber. You guys got 300, 400 million subscribers. Probably by the time this video comes out, he's got 500 million subscribers.

42:33The way he's growing. You can make a lot of money being a YouTuber, talent, creator, behind the scenes. Growing a company to the next level. Sales, communication, executive, leadership. But no matter what you do, I don't care what you do. Whatever business you're in, I'm interested in learning skill sets that are evergreen to 100 % of industries. What is that? Let's talk about that. So one is leadership, okay? In every environment, like we had a team of 30 people in our production team at the office, right? And it was a lot of chaos two weeks ago, three weeks ago. And I held a meeting. In a meeting I held, I'm watching to see who's showing signs of leadership on what's gonna happen.

43:18This is an opportunity for them to show who's the leader. And then the person you weren't expecting stood up, and the person you were expecting to lead was kind of like quiet and not saying anything. Well, maybe this guy's not a leader. He's a technical expert, but he's not a leader. This person is not technically as much of an expert as this person, but this guy knows how to bring everybody together and get all the productions to be done on time, delivered, high-quality thumbnails, everything. That guy's a better leader, Even though technically it's not as good as this, the market pays for great leaders.

43:53So whether I'm an assistant, whether I'm an executive assistant, whether I'm a salesperson, whether I'm a coder, an editor, whether I'm in the military, whether I'm a cop, firefighter, politician, an athlete, it does not matter. Steve Kerr wasn't technically the best player, but he's one of the best coaches in the league today, right? So why is he where he's at? Because of leadership, right? So leadership is what? Getting people to do things they wouldn't do on their own and setting a great example. Great. So that means you have to be able to do what? You have to learn how to build relationships with people to win them over.

44:37You have to be able to give tough news, bad news, direct news in a gentle way where it's received. you have to be able to bring people together. You have to be able to challenge people, poke them, challenge them, have the tough conversations with them, manage expectations with them, challenge them to recreate themselves when they hit a plateau. We had a talent dinner this week, two nights ago at the house. I brought everybody over and I brought my chiropractor over. Everybody got adjustments at the end until God knows what time. But we're sitting there with the talent dinner and I said, guys, there's one word I want you to be thinking about going into 2024.

45:09I want everybody here to keep this one word as their MO. It's to recreate yourself going into 2024. And I gave them goals. What I want Vite Tame to happen. What I want Vite Tame to comedy to do. What I want this to do and that to do and this to do. All this other stuff that we got. But what's the most annoying thing about recreating yourself? The most annoying thing about recreating yourself is you have to accept the fact that the current you is not good enough for the next level. Nobody likes that because whenever you get good at the level you're at, you kind of have this warm, fuzzy feeling.

45:41You're getting the accolades. You're getting the respect. You're getting the fame. You're like, look at me. I'm so special. But to go to the next level, it's like, oh, my God, nobody cares about my success. I am so small here. But you're not good enough for the next level. So what do I need to do to recreate myself to get to that next level? Do I need to read more? Do I need to study more? Do I need to watch myself more? Do I need to sit down with other people that know me well and ask them to give me very sincere direction. Do I need to hire somebody to give me feedback? What do I need to be doing?

46:12What is that for you? What do you need to reinvent next year for yourself? For me? It's just hiring tents. What do I need to do to hire tents? I read this book by Stephen Schwartzman. I think it's called Whatever It Takes. It's a blue book. Billionaire,$20,$30 billion guy. This is the Blackstone guy. Phenomenal, phenomenal. They used to be partners with Larry Fink, and they had a Fallen Out, and that's how BlackRock and Blackstone got started. One of them wanted to give equity to all their employees. The other one kind of didn't want to do it. They wanted different structures. Both of them are very successful.

46:45But Schwartzman talks about what happened to their company when they started hiring 10s. And there's a difference between you think a person is a 10 and then a person is a 10. That person could be an 8.5, but in your world, you've never hired an 8.5. I feel like a 10. So to you, that's a 10, but that's an eight and a half in a black stone. That's an eight and a half in maybe, you know, an apple or something like that. But in your company, they're 10 today. So I know the power of getting people that are smarter and sharper to bring them in here. So right now we're hiring a lot of people. That means we have to pay bigger salaries.

47:21That means we have to be creative on our comp. That means we have to have a better offering. We have to bring better brains. And right now, I just see a big opportunity with David Consulting. We have the first three phases are scored away. The last two phases are going to come here the next 24 to 36 months. Very excited about that. And so to me is we're getting the most random people right now applying at Valuetainment. People that are super qualified from executives at Disney that are, I won't give the position because then you'll Google who it is, and it's that person. And, you know, executives at Apple who are very happy with what happened, but they want to be part of a company that's going to go from zero to, you know, the next level.

48:05And they want to bring that value to it and they see it. And they kind of like some of the philosophies that we stand for. But now it's about do we want to spend the money to get these guys? How do we need to create the environment to have the upside for them to come here? Do we have the climate? Our benefits plan right now is solid. Very good benefits package that we're offering, 401K health insurance. But everything's about creating the right climate to attract and retain them with us long term to take the companies to the next level. So that's probably my biggest obsession. Right climate, meaning the right climate and culture, kind of that type of environment, the whole environment.

48:40Yes, culture, benefits package. One of the reasons why I moved away from Dallas and I went to Fort Lauderdale instead of even going to Tampa, because at first I was looking at Tampa. Then I was going to go to Manalapan and Palm Beach, and I was going to go to Miami. And then I said, we're going to make Fort Lauderdale the Burbank of East Coast is what we're going to do. Wow. We're going to make Fort Lauderdale the Burbank of East Coast. So I chose that because it's easy to recruit people to Florida. It's not that easy to recruit creatives to Dallas. Well, you can recruit creatives to L.A. Why are people still in L.A.?

49:14Give me a better weather than a place like this and a climate and water, all this stuff. But Florida, if Texas and California had a baby, it's Florida. Florida gives you the best of both worlds. So that part was intentional to be able to recruit talent to move there. So that's leadership is the skill set, number one skill set. What would be another skill set or two to help people increase their value in the marketplace? what is the better thing they can do to increase their value in the marketplace? So you said marketplace for great leaders first. What would be another skill or two? I mean, I would put within leadership sales negotiation and conflict resolution because a great leader typically knows how to sell a vision.

50:07A great leader typically knows how to communicate. A great leader typically knows how to negotiate. A great leader typically knows how to resolve conflict. A great leader knows how to bring people together. To me, a great leader is a multifaceted person, period. Steve Kerr, there's a scene where he's sitting there and Steph Curry's been missing all these threes. He says, hey, son, I want to tell you something. You know what happened that one time when Michael went such and such when we were playing together? You know what he kept doing? Kept shooting. He said, you keep shooting, son. Keep shooting.

50:40We trust you, right? So what is that? He's selling him. Trust yourself. Trust yourself. That is selling. That is selling. When he's calling out the refs, what is he doing? He's negotiating. Right when he's going into media and they're trying to pin the team against each other with Draymond Green and Poole, he's negotiating in conflict resolution. This is our leadership. And that's why you get paid the big bucks. That's why you get paid the big bucks. So if you choose your number one thing to become, like if you become maniacal on one thing in 2024 and you only order, everything is on leadership, strategy, planning, all of that, you're ahead of the game.

51:21Wow. But the pillar has to be leadership. That's the pillar. Yes. If the pillar is the leader, everything else comes from there. And a market's going to know it very quickly. We'd be in meetings, right? and we're trying to, you know, there's a conflict that happens, unpredictable conflict that happens, right? And then all of a sudden you're like, huh. Instead of you solving it, you kind of back down a little bit because this is how you filter people out. And say, Mary, what do you think about what John just said? I disagree with him. Why is that? Well, because I don't think that John sees blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

51:56Okay. Jack, do you agree with Mary? I mean, I understand what Mary is saying, but I kind of like Mario's point, but I think we're missing the point here. What's that, Jack? Do you mind if I get on the stage here and just kind of write something on the board? Absolutely. Can I grab the marker? Here's a marker. See, we're all focused on this, but we're not thinking about the real problem and what we're solving for. Pat, six months ago, you said this was our goal for 2021. Yeah? If we're trying to do this, we have to look beyond this and go to da-da-da-da-da. What do you think about what he said?

52:32I think he's got a good point. What do you think about what Jack just said? I can see what he's saying. He just became a leader. He just became a leader in that meaning right there. Right. Right? So that's the dynamic of being a leader. You automatically are seen amongst a group of 100, bingo, you're spotted. You're different. You're a leader. You're somebody that we can rely on. You're somebody that's going to come through. You're the guy that's going to come through with the words. When you say we're going to hit the deadline, we hit it. You're the guy that brings people together. So I don't want to give too many things.

53:04I would much rather have the audience obsess over one thing for 2024, and that's leadership. Mom. The book Choose Your Enemies Wisely, Business Planning for the Audacious Few. I want people to get a copy of this book. But something I'm curious about on how you would apply the message from this book. If someone's in their 20s and they want to give it a shot in business, they want to start their own business, be an entrepreneur, which I don't think is for everyone, but give it a shot. But if someone wanted to start their own business in their 20s, and they said, I've never really made any money, right?

53:40I've never really made any money. I'm just getting started. There's so many options in 2024. There's so many different industries and sectors and all these different things. And if they said, my goal is to make my first million dollars, if they set out to make a million dollars, how long should they be thinking about making that first million in sales? How many years, months, whatever it might be? And should they be choosing enemies from the beginning? Also, should they hate their enemies or should they be friends with their enemies? Yeah, great question. So to me, you're asking that there's a logical component to this and there's an emotional component to this.

54:21So let's address both. So today I visited my old office in Granada Hills, and I pointed out my office that I used to have in the corner right off the 45 freeway, and I said that was the first time I ever did a real business plan. Because, you know, most of your life, we're generally wingers. We wing a lot of stuff, right? If you think about it. Going here, we try this thing, dabble. Yeah, we're winging. And by the way, you may be a prolific guy in one area, but we're still winging 19 other areas in our life. You don't need to be prolific in every aspect of your life, by the way, right? Right. So how old are you during this time?

54:55I'm 25 years old at Granada Hills. I leased this office space. It's 3 ,660 square feet. At$1.70, I get this from a guy named Shane Pugh, who was a countrywide guy. And I take the office space. I go in. One day, my partner's like, well, I've got this health issue. I'm going to go to Costa Rica. I've got to do surgery. I said, you're going to Costa Rica to do surgery? And how long are you going to be there? Nine months. What? So I've got to pay the rent now? No help. What? Anyways, so I said, okay, Pat, you're either about to lose everything or you got to figure this thing out. So I sit down and I do a real business plan.

55:29And that was the first time I wrote out a plan where I believed it. I was excited about it and I wanted to read it constantly. I wanted to go through it over and over and over again. Then I realized a couple of things. I had a guy I was working with that on paper, he would have been the best insurance agent out there. Guy had a Northrop Grumman background. He had an M, he had a master's degree. He had this, he had that, he had a great market, all this stuff. And then I had another guy who was super emotional, super big reasons to win. No education, no eight-year, no four-year, nothing. But this guy was emotionally charged to prove people wrong and to win at the highest level, right?

56:07This guy was like, yeah, I think if I do this much sales and this much, I'm going to make$100 ,000. And here's what's going to happen. And I'm planning on buying a house for my wife when we're here and I get married. And we're going to do this, da-da-da-da-da. Okay, so but why are you doing this? I just think I'm at a phase in my life that I need to be doing this. I'm at that age. No emotion. No emotion. So who's right? Is it this guy or is it this guy? So then I'm like, well, let me kind of test this out because I don't know yet. I'm only 25. Right. So I'm like, this guy sounds more convincing because I would buy from this guy.

56:38But man, this guy is embarrassing. If you put him in front of a client, he may scare the crap out of the client because he has no clue what he's talking about. He talks slang, his ghetto a little bit. Who the hell is going to win here? and then you kind of size it up and you realize neither one of them are going to win because one without the other is not going to happen. So then I said, you need both. You need emotional logic. The best people have both. In the book, there's 12 building blocks. Six are logical building blocks. Six of them are emotional building blocks. This whole concept on why I wrote this book when I talked to the CEO of Penguin, I said, there's not a single book out there on, I can talk about a leadership book.

57:14You'll give me 20 recommendations. I can talk about a sales book. there's plenty of recommendations. I can talk about a strategy book, plenty of them. There's not a single book on Amazon you can go find right now on business planning that is simple, that a billionaire can read, a brand new person can read, a politician can read, a military person can read, and they can put a plan together. You will literally see this today. There's not a single business planning book on Amazon. So the answer to your question, 25 years old wants a million bucks. Number one, industry, product, average sale per commission.

57:49Are you the only one that's selling it? How many other people can you get to sell it? What is your method of getting clients? If you're going to do digital, what is the ROAS? How much cash do you have? How soon can you get access to cash? So the road to a million, it's a mathematical formula on how you're going to take it. I don't know how you're going to take it. I don't know the industry. I don't know the product. Is it real estate? Is it insurance? Is it courses? Is it, you know, solar? Is it, you know, being a lawyer where you're dealing with cases. What is it? All of that is the mathematical formula and how many hours I need to be working, how much do I need to be prospecting, following up, the right habits, being different than the guys that are out there.

58:26What is my differentiator? All this other stuff you've got to be thinking about. On the other side is, which reality is going to set, which is when you write out the plan, you're all excited, like, let's go. Let's go. We're going to take over the world. boom right off the bat it's like you know how you watch the movie gladiator oh boom guys killed right right off the bat you come out and the guy hits you with like a you know hammer or i'm dead already so you got all this excitement and drive that's right passion but then boom you're gonna get hit rejection first week first day first second first call they're like maybe this business plan is bad it's not the business plan the reason why enemies are the most important element of the 12 building blocks because something has to get you to tolerate the pain that you're going to go through.

59:15It's guaranteed. If you don't have a real reason and it's typically the right enemy, you're not going to tolerate that pain. So one day on a flight back from Chicago, I take my notepad, yellow notepad, and I'm writing down not the typical affirmations we write, which is what? I'm the greatest. I'm a leader. You're a this. I'm not that. da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, I don't know, let's go. No, it's write down 20 things if you can come up with. Most painful, piercing things anyone's ever told you before. What a weird exercise. So I start writing it down. And I'm on this fly, and I'm like, that one time that ex said this, and she also said this.

59:55And at one time, Ms. Rose, my ceramics teacher, said this. And at one time, that cousin said this, or this kid said this, or that teacher said this. or that one guy in the army said this, or that one relative said this, and then you're going, and then you read it, and you say, which one gets you emotional the most? Oh, then you rank them. This is my number one. This really doesn't do anything. Oh, this is the other one. Two. Four, three. Yep, I got my five. Boom. Now she starts your day with that. Got it. That's fire. Oh, you kidding me? Somebody rejects you. Yeah, okay. No problem. Totally fine.

1:00:40Because if I feel sorry for myself, these guys are going to be right. So unless if you don't want to go through the pain of getting to the number that you want that's a million bucks, don't do it. These guys will forever be able to say, I'm right. And you're wrong. You quit. You're a quitter. For the rest of your life, you have to live the fact that you quit and you prove them right. How do you feel about that? Then you have to kind of answer that question. So for me, you know, that person, you have to have the mathematical, logical formula on how many calls, how many contacts, how many appointments, how many employees, how many salespeople, how much money you need to have to be able to do the ads and software and technology and tools and all this other stuff.

1:01:20But you need to know why you're going to go through the pain. And if you don't spend time with this part, you're going to quit on this one in no time. Wow. So you need to know that. And what's the difference between an enemy and a competitor? Competitor is logical. Like, for example, you know, we're competitors, but you don't drive me. I don't drive you. Like, I don't, you're not an enemy to me. I'm not an enemy to you, but we're competitors. So, hey, what do your data look like? What's looking like? Let me see what you're doing on Social Blade. What's going on with this? What's working for these guys?

1:01:46Do you notice how they're doing this? Look at their greatness, Instagram account. Look at how there's, competitors say it's, it's friendship. It's not a, but you have to study the competition. Yeah. I look at it more like collaborators, but yeah. Totally fine. but the word we use as competitors is you look at the entire marketplace, but they don't produce anything. There's not an emotional trigger. Nothing. There's nothing. You and I, every time we spend time together, and some people would say we're in the same space because we're doing interviews. I've never once looked at you as a person that's going to drive me, and I'm sure you've never looked at me as a person that's going to drive you, right?

1:02:20I celebrate your success. It's a likewise relationship that we have. But now you go through this exercise, and then all of a sudden you're like, no, man, that's an enemy. I remember one time I was 25 years old, 24 years old, we're in Glendale at this Christmas party. And my dad and I are there. And while we're at this Christmas party, one of my dad's relatives makes a condescending remark to my dad. Nothing bad, but it's condescending. and I saw my dad's shoulders and his back kind of got down a little bit, and he laughed. You know the laugh like you laugh at yourself, but it's like you know which laugh I'm talking about, right?

1:03:00We did it as kids when we were 13, 14 years old being punked. And I look at the guy in the face. It didn't feel good for him. Oh, no way. I look at my dad, and I'm like, and I look at that man, and the level of rage I felt here, I can't describe you. So I look at my dad, and I say, Dad, we're leaving. I said, what are you talking about? I said, we're leaving. He said, what do you mean? I said, we're leaving. We're not going to be here. We've got to go home right now. He says, you're not going to leave. We're here. We just got here. It's Christmas. I said, Dad, I'm telling you right now we're leaving.

1:03:32We're fighting. Eventually, it's so bad that we have to leave. So we tell everybody we're leaving. The walk to the car, we're fighting. We get in the car, we're screaming at each other. I said, Dad, that man can never talk to you like that ever again. I said, number two, I brought my sister and my brother-in-law over to the house. I said, they're going to have to kill me, but the world's going to know your last name. Wow. The world is going to know your last name. Do you know that's when I started working 80 to 100 hours a week? I dropped clubbing. I dropped everything. I said, the world is going to know your last name.

1:04:07You've been such an incredible father to me. Without you, I wouldn't be the man that I am. Who the hell is he to talk to you like that? It's game over. Do you know that scene from 20 years ago till today still fires me up? Do you know that? Wow, man. And by the way, I've told this story multiple times. I'm pretty, yeah. still fires me up till today. So that's your enemy. My enemy is, my dad was the, you know how certain people can use the word sweet? Like he's a sweet man. My dad's a sweet man. And he was so good to everybody. He was very good to everybody. You don't, you don't talk to my dad that way.

1:04:40You just don't talk to me. Call me whatever you want to tell me, go for it. I don't have a problem with it. But that moment, and by the way, sometimes in life, you don't even know that's what drives you, but you got to use it. You can't miss that opportunity. Like, you know, you're at a place and you see a girl and she's looking at you, you're looking at her and you know who she is because at a different event, they were trying to introduce you to each other. You know, she's a good girl and you kind of want to date her, but then you don't go talk to her and you walk away. And 20 minutes later, another guy goes, talks to her.

1:05:11They're married 15 years ago. They got two kids, you see her at the mall and you're like, Hey, and she says, Hey, did, yeah. Yeah. Did you know that I was, you would say yes. Yes. Ah, could have been a completely different life. Crazy. Right. Okay. So when an emotion comes and you feel it and it does something to you, don't walk away. And I know some people say, well, walk away. It's a very different philosophical thing that I'm saying, right? To me, it's use it and see if it's something that's temporary that's going to bring the ugly side of you, or keep it and say, no, this is fuel for 20 years.

1:05:58The way I measure the right enemy is lifespan of the emotion and the fire and the level of the fire. So it's the lifespan. It could be as 30 seconds. I can hit it longer than you. I did it. It's gone. Yeah. But then it's a level nine and a half for 20 years. You're part of the lucky few. If you read Elon's book, I don't know if you read Elon's book. You read Elon's book? I've read that, no. Walter Isaacson? You will realize why this guy's as driven as he is. Really? Oh, no question about it. I'm excited. I read Bob Iger. I thought it was a great book. Amazing book. You'll be blown away by him.

1:06:38I'm going to check this one out, too. after people check this one out, make sure you get the must book as well, and Meditations, which was your number one recommendation. We're just selling a lot of books. I'm a book salesman today. Choose your enemies wisely. Business planning for the audacious few. If you guys want to learn these 12 tenets, these 12 strategies to help you really launch your business to the next level and have a clear game plan and know which enemies to choose wisely, then make sure to get a copy of this. Follow you everywhere. VT.com now. Is that right? Congrats on that. Your podcast on YouTube is the main place, I think.

1:07:15I see clips everywhere, but I'll follow you there. Where are you spending the most time for people to try to get in your comment section or your feed? Where do you see and notice comments the most? Well, Manect is the only place where I respond to 100 % of the messages. Manect is an app we developed seven years ago. I talked to a lawyer of mine for seven minutes, and he charged me for 30 minutes, and I was upset at him. and I called the lawyer. I said, what do you charge by the minute? And he says, no lawyer charges by the minute. I said, one day I'm going to build an app. So Menecht is, do you have a minute to connect?

1:07:46Let's Menecht. On Menecht, we have thousands of experts and influencers and consultants. You can ask for any questions. You can DM them. You can get back a response in text, audio, video, or you can do 15-minute FaceTime. If you Menecht me, 100 % I'm responding back to you. Really? Yeah. Wow. How much does a Menecht call you? It varies. If you want to do a text, a video call, or FaceTime, it varies. and there's a bunch of guys on there that you can manage. We had a guy came in. He asked 20 different real estate experts the same exact question, and they all gave different strategies, and he took that.

1:08:17He's like, okay, this guy's winning. That guy's winning. This could work in my market. It's a great tool to use to ask experts questions. M-E-N-E-C-T. M-I-N-N-E-C-T. M-I-N-N-E-C-T. M-I-N-E-C-T. M-I-N-E-C-T. M-I-N-E-C-T.com. M-I-N-E-C-T.com. You can get the app on Android and Apple. Love that. A couple of final questions for you, but is there anything on your heart that you want to share before I ask those couple of final questions? No. I mean, listen, on my heart, you got me to cry today, bro. What else do you want me to do for you today? You kidding me? I do interviews, and you ask the one question like no one asked me.

1:08:49My relationship with God. I don't think I've ever seen you cry in an interview. No, no. God, to me, is a very emotional place to go. It's a life-changing for me there. I don't cry about it, but that one area, man, you hit it. Oh, man. Yeah. I wasn't trying. I was just curious. Listen, it was a great conversation. It wasn't a strategy. It was just curiosity.

1:09:09I've asked you about your three truths before, so I want to not ask you that this time. Maybe the next time around, I'll see where you're at with that. But I do want to ask you about something that is on your heart, which is God. And say you get to live as long as you want and live all these dreams that you have. And you're 85, and then you're 105, and however long you extend your life. You got the family there You got everyone, you know, with you You got the annoying in-laws Whatever it might be They're all there But you're having this dream life of yours And you're looking back And you're realizing all that you were able to create Accomplish, overcome, reinvent All these different things that you did At every stage and season of life But then it's over And you meet your maker What are the three things you hope God would say to you in that moment?

1:10:00I'm proud of you, right? I'm proud of you. He's probably going to critique me and say that one time or that two times or that three times or that one time you did this. But what do you hope he really says? It's really the I'm proud of you. You know, I'm proud of, you know, what you did with your life. I'm proud of the example you did your best to set. That you didn't waste the time here. You know, you were able to enjoy. it's very important to also enjoy it, because you can't just be in grind mode. You have so many things to enjoy. We sometimes forget to do that as well. But, yeah, it's simply good for you.

1:10:41Like, I wasn't expecting you to do this, but you were not on my list of guys that were going to do XYZ. But guess what? You showed up, and I respect it. I'm proud of you. Oh, that's cool. It's almost like you're a 199 draft pick, and you win seven Super Bowls, where it's kind of like, you know, and your name is Tom Brady. Yeah. I don't know if I thought you were going to be one of my guys, but respect. Yeah. That's the moment. That's what you want. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah. I want to acknowledge you before the...

1:11:13I love watching your content. I love the times we get to connect or text because you show up with a set of values, principles, and energy that is caring, that is giving, that is courageous, and that is clear. And I'm just grateful for the example that you set for myself and so many people to just watch, to learn from, and to gain value from. So I'm grateful for you. I'm grateful for you leading the way. And I appreciate your wisdom constantly. It's a lot of fun. And I can't wait to have you back on in the future. Appreciate you. Very kind words, man. Of course. Final question. What's your definition of greatness?

1:11:55Definition of greatness. It's the same for me. It's been the same for me for, I want to say, 15, 14 years. It's purely alignment. Like if you are living, if your life matches your values and principles, I think you're experiencing greatness. So you first have to figure out your values and principles, what it is, and then your behavior on a day-to-day basis on everything you do matches that. The more that sometimes we go out of whack and we kind of lose ourselves and we come back in, but the goal is to make those two be as aligned as possible. I've found myself when that's out of whack I am bitter and unhappy and I have found when those two are 100 % aligned I am at peace and very happy so I would say alignment PBD appreciate you man, thanks so much appreciate you, this was great

1:12:56you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.