Lessons - From Refugee to $300 Million Empire | Patrick Bet-David - Valuetainment Founder

In this lessons episode, explore how to transform job insecurity into opportunity by adopting an entrepreneurial mindset inside any organization, discover why thinking like an owner drives career growth and equity, understand how entrepreneurship creates leverage for leadership roles and lasting value, and uncover practical steps to build personal brand and stand out even in uncertain times. What's what's the game plan? What's the playbook for people in organizations that for just like were just shocked recently, they lost their jobs, never thought they're going to lose their jobs, how do they adopt an entrepreneurial mindset, even though they're working within an organization, build the brand, you know, 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 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 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 to feel like I'm really maximizing my talents, I have to leave the company to start a company or can I still stay at the company I'm at? So I said, look, you're you're making a very good point and you're asking very reasonable question. So if when I say entrepreneur to me, it has two sides to it. I have entrepreneur, I have intrapreneur. 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 intrapreneur 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 on 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. They everything's the same. Everything's the same. This is why an intrapreneur within a company 100% of time, if he's a real intrapreneur, she's a real intrapreneur that's working. They're going to end up owning equity and they eventually end up being one to see sweet 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 intrapreneur and Steve Jobs is a great example of somebody who went from being an entrepreneur to back being to an intrapreneur. When he started Apple, he was an entrepreneur. When he started Tixar, he was an entrepreneur. When he went back to Apple, he was an intrapreneur. He was no longer an entrepreneur. The second time background 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 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 marketplace is going to pick you up. I guarantee you, someone in the marketplace is going to pick you up. My CFO was a guy that was with another company making it 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 much if I match 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 win 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 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 consume your content, when they listen to content that is traditionally like you focus on entrepreneur. 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 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, this 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 you're currently at. Laws of Success is probably not the number one book on my list at this phase 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 content's being shared on an audio book or book. So, you know, that book was critical for me at that phase 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 wanted to know about book advice or things like that, I always asked 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 a team? Oh, look at, 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 dollars 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 of my list. So let's let's talk about that getting started. So your your story is like, uh, you know, the traditional core tenants of American dream, like you built yourself from literally coming over as a as an immigrant. What drove you at the beginning to be this, you know, obviously you didn't see yourself becoming this eventually. It's I think it's hard to see the forest of the trees, but you you pushed yourself and you kept pushing yourself. And what drove you to to do that? That's a good question. So for me, uh, 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 living until I was 23 years old. And in one day, my dad has a hard attack. I go to the hospital. I'm 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 the 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 and 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. I'm going to take you to it. So that was the beginning of it, right? So now for everybody else that's listening, there's four faces 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 comes 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 into 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 purposes 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? 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 and start thinking about purpose. You start asking weird questions and 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? I 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 king purpose. Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode and if you want to dive deeper into this conversation check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.