Lessons - The Man Who Turned Beyoncé Into the Biggest Artist on Earth | Dr. Mathew Knowles - Music World Entertainment Founder (450M+ Records Sold)

In this lessons episode, discover the core traits that separate high achievers from everyone else and why passion is the foundation of lasting success. Learn how purpose fuels exceptional work ethic, explore practical ways to identify genuine passions without overcomplicating the process, and understand how environment and early experiences shape long-term achievement. So I think about performance and, again, like the DNA of the highest achievers in the world. Or we can talk about marketing, brand. Both of those are super interesting topics. What do you think is more relevant to what you're working on right now in terms of like messaging and what you want to teach over? You know, I'm a public speaker. I all over the world speaking, and that's really my focus today and really my passion. So I love talking about the DNA of achievers. What are the traits? And let me tell you, Scott, how I that was my first of five books that I've written. I was just on a plane one day and Back then, people don't do it as much now, Scott, but 15 years ago, people in first class, I finally got to move from coach to first class. And you ask somebody, what do you do? Well, people don't even talk to each other now because they're either watching a movie or only listening to music. But people will be engaged and excited to tell you what they did. And I started thinking, man, All of these people are always so excited to tell me, but they are seeing basically the same traits. And I thought about myself and how my small success was, and I said, wow, so it starts with passion. What is that thing that you've identified, because that's the challenge I've got. Most people haven't identified their passion. But passion is the fuel that energizes you. It's the thing that you go to bed at night thinking about and you wake up in the morning. It's the thing you prepare for because you just love what you're doing. So I realized that passion is where success all starts from. Without passion, there's no possibility of extreme success because what coexists with passion, like a glove, are work ethics. And those folks that are passionate realize when you live your passion, you never work a day in your life. And when you see people like Venus and Kobe Bryant, God bless his soul, and LeBron and Beyonce, these Tiger Woods, these people that are the best in the world at it, what people don't see are their work ethics. You know, Kobe Bryant has something called, I love it, it was called 666. And what that stood for is in the offseason, he would, for six months on the offseason, that's how much time he had, he would go to the gym six days a week, practice six hours a day. Think about this. It is off time that's what he did. And you look at Stephon Curry, he shoots 1,000 three-pointers every day of practice, 1,000. And most people don't understand how passing and work ethics go together. That's why these people are so successful. It's kind of like Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers, and he talked about the 10,000 hours that are required. You see, I'm getting excited now, Scott. Yeah, I got you. No, it's good. I lose my shit, man. This is my shit. I'm all for it. Let's go. Let's go. But you would be saying that and you see those work ethics and then you understand that these people are risk takers. Also, they take risks. They they they outside the box. They're not box-in thinkers, and by box-in thinkers, most of us have been conditioned, Scott, that we have to do things a certain way. Since childhood, we were conditioned, like someone whispering in our ear why we can't do it. Well, you can't do it because you're poor. You can't do it because you're black. You can't do it because you're part of the LGBTQ community. All these reasons why you can't do it. And what we do is we're inside a box hitting walls all day long. We just bounce against walls because we believe we can't do it. And if we invited someone in our box, they would be just like us, a bot-send thinker. So the key in that analogy, if I'm a hater, then I'm going to want another hater in my box. You know, it bounces. But when you step outside of that box, there's no boundaries at all. So part of success is how we condition ourselves to think and not to be boxed in where we think. Like part of, I think, my success is I never did it the way everybody else did it. No, when we came into the music industry, they were in the record industry. I was in the branding and a branding part of the business. They didn't understand branding and endorsement. And how I'm saying, okay, Destiny's Child's marketing budget is a million dollars, but if I got L'Oreal and Sam's song, now their marketing budget is already a million dollars. And so I understood that coming from corporate America. You know, there's only any of those ten traits, you know, it's about gulling a team. And then building a team, you have to have an amazing leader, someone that motivates people, someone that knows how to communicate, someone knows how to listen, that holds people accountable and responsible. Scott, you get me going, man. Bro, I love it, though. No, I know, because this powers. Because I want to unpack what you experience and the way that you look at the world and the way that you unpack passion and the way that you found passion. You're a multi-generational entrepreneur. and your parents are entrepreneurs, and your grandparents are entrepreneurs, and your daughters are entrepreneurs, and they're on everyone's entrepreneurial. Everybody's found their passion and nailed in, like zeroed in on it, and then doubled down on that again and again and again. That's why you're successful. But I guess then the question is, say everyone's bought into this concept, and they should be, but the question is, how do they find that? How do they find that? Because you went through multiple iterations. You went through things that you were probably less passionate about before you found your passion, I'm sure. I'm sure your daughters did too. I don't know at what age. I'm not as into their life history as I'm sure a lot of people are, but I'm sure there's other things they tried that weren't as great as what they actually ended up doing as a family. You're wrong on both accounts. Am I? We're killing. I was very focused on knowing what my passion was. I knew I wanted to be the number one sales rep in the world. That was why I love selling. I love marketing. I still to this day love selling and marketing. I'm selling now. I'm marketing now. Yeah, you're right. I always knew that. So you're saying that passion, that passion is, it's not that the industry was the passion. It's like the activity was the passion and you just pivot where you focus that energy. Well, sometimes, you know, we make it very complicated. I'm a guy that believes in simplicity. It's just because I talk about, you're right, most people don't know their passion. How about we take a pen and a piece of paper and just write down the things we love to do? How about you just start right there, just a pen and paper and write down everything? What do you love doing? Because what most people, and you know a lot of successful people, Scott, their success is often in things that are not the norm, not the major name type of stuff, the art brand kind of stuff. And people look at them like, that's what you do? Oh, yeah, you know, I stole this. I'm making up something, this type of widget for the oil fields. Well, that's not sexy, but they could be making a billion dollars with this product, right? But so oftentimes people get persuaded rather than persuaded to do something because it's the cool thing. And if it's not the cool thing, then they're embarrassed to even tell people it's their passion. They're really, literally like, I'm not going to tell anybody I really love that because they don't look at me like I'm crazy. Well, that thing is probably the thing that you could be most successful with because you love it so much, and you'll put in the work. You'll get the research done. You'll go back to school. You'll go to seminars. You'll do all of that stuff that's required to be really successful. People just overcomplicate the shit out of it, and they just spin their wheels. Most people overcomplicate stuff. Life can be real simple if we allow it to be. No, I love and I appreciate, you know, I just assumed that day one, you didn't know exactly what you want to do. Because I feel like that's again, I think that's more me imprinting. That's day one. I didn't know what I want to do. And sometimes I'm trying to teach over the thing for the average person that isn't so laser focused on. on exactly where they want to be. I think that's a blessing, actually. And, you know, if the goal is to, it's a blessing when you get it and you're focused on it, but, like, let's say the goal of this is to, like, get people to that spot and feel comfortable and just hang out in that spot. And that's where excellence is. A lot of it, though, Scott, is parenting skills. Like, for example, with Solange and Beyonce, we exposed them when they were kids, and I'm talking about five, six, seven years old. We exposed them. We would take them to science fairs. We would take them, because we're in Houston, we would take them to NASA. We would take them to the medical center. We would take them to plays. We would expose them to all sorts of things. And then we would just be quiet as parents and watch what they gravitated toward. And it was always entertainment. It was always singing and dancing. What they gravitated. So once we knew that, and I always tell parents, how do you know it's a kid's passion? It's very simple. The day you have to tell them that. to go to practice or remind them to go to practice, it's a hobby, not a passion. It's a hobby and that's okay. It's okay to have hobbies. A lot of people are confused about hobbies versus passion, but we knew that was Ikea's passion. See, and so then we put them in their struet. And then, they got more exposure. And then someone came and said, hey, we'd like to put Beyoncé in this girl group. And so it just organically happened. Beyoncé and Solange have never, ever, ever, ever said they wanted to do anything other than being. Because, yes, I loved it. Okay, so then... And tell you what, I guarantee it's never said anything different. And Serena, I guarantee it's never said anything different. Think about it. These people have never wanted to be anything other than what they are. And they knew it at an early, early age. So my parents always instilled entrepreneurship. And they were, you know, they weren't highly educated. But they knew sales. And so I always enjoyed the opportunity to sell people. On me, I had to. The black kid at the white school, I had to sell you. Like, don't beat me up today, please. Right. I can't stop. I can't stop. I can't stop. Scott, I finally understood at junior high school, man, if I play basketball, man, these white people are treating me differently. So I started really focusing on being a really good basketball player by the time I was a senior and all these scholarships. Yeah. But I always do. I always knew Selsa Barthedema was my thing. 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.