Lessons - Unlocking the Entrepreneurial Mindset | Patrick Bet-David - Author, Speaker & Podcaster

What's the game plan? What's the playbook for people in organizations that were just shocked recently? They lost their jobs, never thought they were going to lose their jobs. How do they adopt an entrepreneurial mindset even though they're working with an organization? Build the brand, branch out. That's a phenomenal question. We addressed it on multiple of our episodes. I got a guy from IBM that made me think about your question. He asked me a question three years ago. He says, listen, Patrick, I follow all your content. I love what you're talking about. You keep talking about entrepreneurship. You have no idea how bad I want to be an entrepreneur, but I feel guilty to the fact that I don't want to leave my job. I'm making 280 a year. I got a wife and two kids. And we went back in forces, should I? Am I feeling the wrong way that you feel like I'm really maximizing my talents after leaving the company or to start a company or can I still stay at the company I'm at? So I said, look, you're making a very good point and you're asking a very reasonable question. So when I say entrepreneur to me, it has two sides to it. I have entrepreneur. I have entrepreneur. The only difference between an entrepreneur and an entrepreneur is who started the company, but they think the same. Let me say this one more time. The only difference between the entrepreneur and the entrepreneur is who took the risk to start the company, which is the founder. Everything else, they think identical, meaning they don't work regular nine five hours. They're not the kind that's just the business as usual. Hey, am I going to get my 401k benefits or my expenses and my, you know, they don't think that way. They think equity. They think valuation. They think about profit sharing. They think about growing the company. They think about recruiting the right talent. They think about scaling. They think about differentiation. They think about a blue ocean to have in the company. Everything's the same. Everything's the same. This is why an entrepreneur within a company, 100% of time, if he's a real entrepreneur, she's a real entrepreneur that's working, they're going to end up owning equity and they eventually end up being one of the C-suite executives in the company. So when the company gets acquired or sells or gets bought out, they're one of the bigger shareholders and they get a fat check. This is why Steve Balmer's work 40, 50, 60 billion dollars, depending on when his network's being calculated. He's never been an entrepreneur. He's an entrepreneur and Steve Jobs is a great example of somebody who went from being an entrepreneur to back being to a entrepreneur. When he started Apple, he was an entrepreneur. When he started Tixar, he was an entrepreneur, but when he went back to Apple, he was an entrepreneur. He was no longer an entrepreneur, the second time backer on at Apple. So people don't have to feel guilty, but if you're going to stay within a company and you're going to say, I want to go out and take this company to the next level, you got to be thinking about somebody that owns the entire company. What would you be doing to grow on the company? And eventually, you'll be asking for equity. And if you prove that you own, you bring enough value to get equity to the company, you will, if you don't, I guarantee you somebody in the market place is going to pick you up. I guarantee you someone in the market place is going to pick you up. My CFO was a guy that was with another company making the salary. And we picked them up. We brought them on board. He is a very well known CFO in the local area. We brought them on board because he wanted to find an equity position in the company. So I said, listen, you're working like that. And how about you find Matt, your salary and I pay you a little bit more on your salary. And I give you a percentage of the company. And we go take this thing to the next level. He says, I'm all in and he came on board. So if somebody is an entrepreneur and the company you're with, mistreats you and takes you for granted as an entrepreneur, I guarantee you someone's going to recruit you away. So it's a way to win. I love it. I love it because not enough people, not enough people hear that. And I think that people get stuck and they get depressed and they get sad and they're, man, it's, I love that you're saying that because I agree with 100% of that. And I think that that's what I want people to understand when they, when they consume your content, when they listen to content that is traditionally like focus on entrepreneurs. It's not, it's not just focus on entrepreneurs. It's, it's, it's content oriented, like it's oriented at their success. And they have to internalize that and, and realize that they can be more than just, I don't know, like a pond in, in a, in a corporate environment. And I think that a lot of people get stuck in that. And that's really what I wanted to bring out because that's hitting a lot of people hard right now. But no, so that's now one other thing that I wanted to bring up. I was, I was doing a little bit of research as I try and do before I do these podcasts. And on your, on your website, you mentioned something. The Pauline Hill's book, the laws of success and 16 lessons is the best book for entrepreneurs to read. Can you go through why some of those lessons are so important? Yeah, I think, look, you have to realize everything is based on the face of your life, your currently at, laws of success is probably not the number one book on my list at this face of my life. But it was the number one book, when I was about to get my company going and I'm 30 years old and I have to, you know, study how to concentrate. And he spends a lot of time explaining concentration in a way that others don't talk about. And some of the biggest challenges that a lot of people that started business or want to take their game to the next level is they don't know how to concentrate. They're always distracted. You know, they're, they're, they're caught up in notification world. Every single notification keeps them keeps them keeps them keeps them keeps them they can't even read a book or listen to an audio book because the notifications distracts them of what the contents being shared on an audio book or book. So, you know, that book was critical for me at that face of my life. Today, you know, I'm reading stuff that people would be bored out of their minds if they read it back then. And I would be bored out of my mind if I read it back then. So, many times when you're asking questions and wanting to know about book advice or things like that, I always ask the question, tell me what phase of career you're at. What are you worth right now? What was your top line revenue last month? How many team members do you have? How liquid are you? How much cash do you have? What did you make last month? What's your EBITDA? You know, how big is the team? Oh, look, then I know based on your face to make a recommendation that's suitable for your level. Then if you're somebody that's saying, I just did $28 million last year. I'm at 73 employees from dealing with some compliance issues. And I'm trying to get my technology going and my cyber securities have some challenges. And the general counsel that I have is not the best one. I feel like he's overcharging me by this many fees. Then it's a complete different book. I'd be recommending to you, but laws of success for any entrepreneur that's just getting started. It's number one on my list. So, let's talk about that. Getting started. So, your story is like the traditional core tenets of American dream. You built yourself from literally coming over as an immigrant. What drove you at the beginning to be this obviously you didn't see yourself becoming this eventually. I think it's hard to see the force of the trees. But you pushed yourself and you kept pushing yourself. And what drove you to do that? It's a good question. So, for me, you're talking to a guy that was a hardcore party animal. I partied seven days a week. And I was at bars every night. And this is what I did for a living until I was 23 years old. And in one day, my dad has a hard attack. I go to the hospital at Medical UCLA Medical Center. And I see him being mistreated at the hospital. I have a fallen out with the doctors. They kicked me out of the hospital. I'm sitting in my car emotional as hell. Don't know what's going to be happening. Made a decision that night. I woke up the next day and nobody recognized me because my eyes changed. It went from the eyes of a guy that was his target was every woman I could come across to. I couldn't even see women anymore for 17 months. My entire focus was this man is not going to die. He is never going to worry about money ever again. He's going to leave that 99 cents store. He's working out at Inglewood. And that's exactly what happened. He left. I took him to Hawaii. We went and traveled the world. I said, whatever you want, you just tell me what are your dreams. I'm going to have your dreams become a reality. I want to go watch Kobe play. We're going to go sit right next to Kobe. You're going to watch him playing. You're going to hear him talk trash from the bench. Now, I want to go to Europe. I want to go to, you know, US Open. I want to go to Derby. You just tell me what you want to do. I want to take you to it. So, that was the beginning of it, right? So, now for everybody else that's listening, there's four phases you go through about, you know, making money and being financially free. Number one is survival. A lot of people are making money to survive. They're barely trying to pay their bills. A lot of the people that are struggling right now in America or around the world who didn't prepare for some kind of an event like this, a pandemic, they're driven by survival. They've not been prepared. So, they're going to go through a very difficult time right now because they don't have a lot of choices. Whatever opportunity to come up, they got to take you to pay their bills to survive. And when you're surviving, it's kind of like being underwater. You're trying to catch breath. And every time you come up, another wave hits you, another wave hits you, you don't even have time to think about dreams because all you're thinking about is the next breath. Then the next phase of status. Now you're above water. Now the waves stop. Now you look around and you say which direction you want to swim. I'm going this way. So, status is your sister about a house. You don't own a house. I want to also go buy a house because my sister has a house. Your friend from high school, bottom Mercedes S class, you're driving a Toyota Corolla. You also want to go buy a Mercedes. So, it's about status because people around you are driving you to compete. And it's a good place to be because it comes to the next level. Then eventually, after you're done with the status part, then it becomes about freedom. And freedom is about how much money do I really need in the bank? You know, I need a million dollars in a bank. Okay, great. I'm going to go get a million dollars in a bank. How much money do I have? So, nobody can bully me around with a job or a position or money or any of that stuff. I'm sick and tired of being bullied around simply because I don't have enough resources and finances in order. Well, I'm going to go get free financially. Then comes purpose. And purpose is when you now are above water, you decided to swim this way, then you build your little town, then you have some resources, some money, the right contacts. Now you say, is this really life is what life is all about? And we're 2.8 million. I have a nice car. I've been all over the world. I've had dinner with the most incredible people. I kind of have an idea about politics and faith and marriage and relationship and money. If this is all life is all about this is kind of boring. What do I want to do next? Then you come start thinking about purpose. You start asking weird questions. When you start visualizing what life is going to look like with your wife and kids and family and husband and peers and mom and dad and you know, what kind of a person you want to be? How do you want to contribute back to society based on what the life in the world has given to you so far? And then you go into bigger picture. Most people don't really make a run at that part because it takes a lot of work and effort, but some do. So when you're asking that question originally, it was just the chip on my shoulder to make my dad no longer have to be pushed around. Then it was about freedom and then came purpose. I love that. And I think that it's unfortunate because not a lot of people get to many of those stages. Unfortunately, I think like you mentioned a lot of people are just struggling surviving. So much out of this. Okay. When you when you see people come out of this on the other side, what do you think is going to change about people's perception on life, security, money, value? Do you see massive changes or do you see people defaulting to the way they acted before pandemic? Oh, you're talking about the pandemic. Yeah, yeah, in particular. Because this is a major major shift in what's here. What's safe? Well, let me tell you, here's what's going to happen. Just like always. Okay. When you get punched in the face the first time, there's a couple things that's going to happen to you as a boy. You're either going to be scared the rest of your life, or you're going to come out and swing and you're going to get your ass kicked. And then you're going to go to your mommy and say, mom, I think I got to go to take some take want to class on fighting classes. Then you're going to go train for six months. Then you're going to go find that kid that punched you in the face. Then you're going to go knock his ass out and then you're going to say, I'm good to rest in my life because you can't have that kind of a nightmare to rest your life. You know, you have a girl you go to a club. You ask a girl out. She says, I'd never date an ugly girl. Ugly guy like you. Then you walk away and you feel like crap and I do it. I'm ugly. That's what she said. And then you go to the car. Then your friends don't know why you want to leave because somebody dumped you or rejected it and it felt bad. And then you never ask a girl out. Then you're single to your 27 years old and all you're doing is swipe and write and you're just trying to get hook up. But you ain't got a serious girlfriend, right? Okay. So if you're going to sales in real estate, your family doesn't sell their home through you. Your cousins don't sell it through you. Your auntie who loves you doesn't sell it through you. Your own mom doesn't have you as a real estate agent. Your friend's dad who loved you and looked up to you because you play good sports and you always liked you. You were the favorite friend. He didn't put his house through you. Six months into it, you've not made a single sale. Then you say real estate doesn't work and sales don't work. And then you give up and you go back to being average and ordinary. This is the part of life, man. I mean, this is this is when heroes are born. You know, my dad and I were talking and he called me, says, Pat, what do we do with this pandemic? I said, what do you mean? He says, uh, how come you're not worried? I said, you want me to be worried? He said, yes, I said, what do you mean? How come I'm not worried? So every time I watch you, you're not, you're not looking worried. Why are you not worried? I said, you worried. So I'm a little bit worried. I said, okay. So let me ask you a question. He says, what's that? I said, when we were in Iran, how old were you the first time you got a bomb, though? This is what you mean? Let me ask you one more time. How old were you when an enemy of the country you lived in bombed your city that you lived in? He says, I was 44. I said, okay. Prior to that, it happened and did you ever read a book or a manual 27 steps on how to handle being bombed on? He said, no. I said, I was seven years old when we got bombed on. He says, okay. I said, when we went under the stairs because the bomb dropped right next to our house and our building shook because we knew the next bomb, if the whistle was coming, it could be ours, but it skipped us. Do you remember that? I do. You know how much I remember the look you had when I looked at your face? He says, what do you mean? I said, I was glued to your face. He says, why would you glue to my face? I said, because your poise gave me confidence. Every time I looked at mom, I thought we were going to die. Every time I looked at you, I thought we were going to make it. He says, so what's your point here? I said, what's the first time in your life you've experienced a pandemic that's killed so many people. It's a 77 years. I said, that I'm going through that 41 and a lot of people are relying on me to be poised. And if we made it through war, we're going to make it through this. If America made it through a John F. Kennedy assassination and everybody thought it was going to be over with, we made it. Then his brother died, then his Martin Luther King, then Reagan attempt that assassination, then 9 or 11, then 2008, then this is this, this kind of stuff's not going to stop. So when you're asking me a question, you think what's going to happen now moving forward with people, post this event, you're going to see some people that used to be scared, but they're going to be 100 times more scared. You're going to see some people who were nobody's, who are about to become rock stars, heroes, war time heroes, the types of people that families rely on, the types of people that relatives rely on, the types of people that communities rely on, and the types of people that around the world are going to listen to their voice and say, man, I just bring a lot of comfort to me. And I'm confident. When the guys, I don't agree with everything he says, but every time I listen to him speak, I just feel a little bit more confident. So those that are scared are going to be more scared and those who are looking for an opportunity to become a hero. This is the training ground for them. These are the only times you need for heroes to be born. Heroes are not born during good times. Heroes are only born during strange scary times. So if you ever wanted to be one, this is called the training ground.