Money Expert: If I Was Broke Today, This is EXACTLY What I'd Do! | Patrick Bet David

Patrick Bet-David 0:00 What is at the top? What is number one above all? Is it being the richest man in the world? No. Is it being a billionaire? No. Is it being the smartest? No. It's one thing. And by the way, when I figured this thing out, my life changed. Patrick Bet-David! [cheering] Money and success is not attractive to people that talk down to them. Money wants to be respected. What do I need to do to get more of it? Well, guess what? Oh, man, what a question you're asking.

Lewis Howes 0:24 You guys grab a tissue if you got a tissue box out there.

Patrick Bet-David 0:27 Frank, you know, I do a million interviews and this never happens.

Lewis Howes 0:30 If you had to start all over again with nothing in your pocket, what would be your first three moves?

Patrick Bet-David 0:35 Trying to really think about this because in, in my mind...

Lewis Howes 0:42 Welcome back, everyone, to The School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Patrick Bet-David, who is the founder of Valuetainment, and, uh, now best-selling author of Choose Your Enemies Wisely: Business Planning For The Audacious Few. Good to have you back on, sir.

Patrick Bet-David 0:57 Oh, man. Great to be on. Thanks for having me on.

Lewis Howes 0:58 Great to see you. I'm very excited. My audience is pumped, and we did a poll, and we a- have said, "What do you want to hear the most from Patrick?" And they asked, and I'm sure you've answered this before,

Lewis Howes 1:11 but they said, "If you had to start all over again", because you are an audacious guy.

Patrick Bet-David 1:15 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:16 Let's say, for some reason, everything goes bust one day.

Patrick Bet-David 1:18 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:19 You saw Elon talking about this the other day. I hope everyone's, you know... What if it all goes bankrupt? I'm gonna go for bigger moves. And if you had to start all over again with nothing in your pocket, what would be your first three moves?

Patrick Bet-David 1:31 So if I'm 25, I would be less concerned about the industry because back then, I may have been cocky, but I wasn't yet certain if my philosophies were right or wrong.

Lewis Howes 1:43 Mm-hmm.

Patrick Bet-David 1:43 Because there's not validation in the marketplace yet. You wrote a book about this, where you're kind of covering the facade to kind of impose you got, but you don't know.

Lewis Howes 1:51 And if you're 25 today, though, with all the chaos that's happening, and insecurities, and uncertainties, and you've never made money before, really, what would you be thinking about then?

Patrick Bet-David 2:01 I'm go- I'm, I'm fi- I'm making a list of 10 people-

Lewis Howes 2:03 Mm

Patrick Bet-David 2:04 ... and 10 circles I wanna be in, and I would make a draft pick of these 10 circles. I would say, "Okay, what's my number one circle I want to be a part of?" Then I would go all the way down to number 10. I would research. I would look at guys that I like, guys life that I admire, the way they carry themselves, the way they handle themselves. So this circle, I would say, "Oh, those guys are really close to each other. I like the way they are." Boom, that's one circle. Boom, "I really like this circle. That's pretty cool how these guys are always... They've known each other for all these years. They're so tight. It looks like they're enjoying it." Boom, boom, boom. Then I would make individuals because I have more odds. So if I got 10 circles I can get in, I wanna work for number one first. So I reach out to number one, then I go to second draft pick, third draft pick, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, because I'm more interested in working for a guy to... Like, for example, the, the girl I promoted to be the president of our insurance company, today, Moral, she's been with me for 13 years. She used to be my banker at WAMU, and when I would go to her, she handled me very well. If I was upset, if I was annoyed, if I was unhappy with something, she knew how to bring me from a nine to a five, and I like that skill set. So I'm like, "If this is how you are with me, I want you in my company." So I brought her in, and over the last 12 years, obviously the last year she got promoted to become the president of the insurance company, but the 12 years, she spent the most time in the rooms negotiating chaotic moments, conflict-

Lewis Howes 3:26 [laughs]

Patrick Bet-David 3:27 ... about to go out of business, finances, all these things that we gotta do. She saw so much of that, that now when those things come up, she's not even thinking about it. She's like, "Yeah, here's what we're gonna do. Here's what we're gonna do. Here's what we're gonna do. Here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna do this," because she's seen. She's seen how to manage that. So the edge is working under somebody that's a killer, and you're able to get behind closed doors, not just the front, because the front is an act, but I want to get in the room with five people we're negotiating.

Patrick Bet-David 3:56 For example, like let's just say we're about to negotiate a big deal. Typically, if we're doing a big negotiation deal, we'll debrief be- debrief before to prepare. And we'll say, "Okay, guys, what do you think he's gonna say? What do you think she's gonna say? What do you think is gonna be their concerns? Let's write it down. Da, da, da, da, da. What do you think is gonna be their objection? What do you think they're gonna want? What do you think they're not gonna want? Where do they have leverage? Where do we have leverage? How are you gonna answer this? How are you gonna answer this?" Boom. "Anything I'm missing? What's my blind spot?" As anyone, "What do you think about what he just said?"

Lewis Howes 4:25 Wow.

Patrick Bet-David 4:25 "Do you agree with him? Do you agree with her?" So if you're in these types of meetings for 1,000 times and then we go into the real meeting, then when you're in the real meeting and the guy says, "Uh, hey, uh, Lewis, do you mind if we ask you to step out?" And you're like, "Yeah, no problem," because we've role-played it. What if they ask you to step out? Totally fine. You don't wanna, "You want me to step out?" We would role-play. Don't be offended. Just very nice, "Absolutely." Get up and walk out 'cause it shows we're not insecure, we're not worried. "Oh, wow, they were comfortable about it. Hey, Patrick, you mind if you step out? Totally fine. I'm gonna go in and use the restroom." Shows confidence. They're okay with not being in the room. And then after the meeting, "Okay, so how did we do? You did this, you did that, you did this. This was good. I liked the way you said this. How do you think you could have said this better? Maybe you could have said this. Do you think... Well, I like what you said. Fantastic. Okay, great. What's the next step? We're now gonna follow up. We'll wait for 48 hours, and then I'm gonna send the email first. They asked for this. Make sure you send that."

Lewis Howes 5:17 Mm-hmm.

Patrick Bet-David 5:17 "Send them a box of this. Remember when he talked about his daughter has a birthday coming up? Let's make sure we send that birthday present. Go on the wife's Instagram account and see what she likes and send them that gift." Boom, boom, boom. "Okay, great. We move on." Okay. So that situation you're in, you know how much inventory that is?

Lewis Howes 5:34 Wow.

Patrick Bet-David 5:34 You're not gonna get that in a college degree or an MBA. You go get two, 300 case studies. So that's the guy then, okay? The 25, 22-year-old.

Lewis Howes 5:41 Work at finding someone you respect that you wanna go work with and learn from.

Patrick Bet-David 5:44 Get into the right circle and go work under a killer. By far accelerate your amount of learning by a decade. It's not even close.

Lewis Howes 5:52 Right.

Patrick Bet-David 5:53 But if I'm 45 today and I lose everything, I'm not worried about it at all. I'm not worried about it at all.

Lewis Howes 5:58 [laughs]

Patrick Bet-David 5:58 Because my, uh, the way the market works is in the following way. It's mathematically impossible, mathematically impossible- For the market to not pay you what you are worth, period. It's mathematically impossible. You could lose it all. The market will say, "He's going through a bad season. She's going through a bad season." Within a year, two years, three years, the market's still gonna come back and give you that money. Now, if you've made a fatal mistake-

Lewis Howes 6:30 Mm

Patrick Bet-David 6:30 ... if you've made a royal mistake, what does that mean? If you lost your money over the last 20 years because the way people saw who you were for 20 years was a profile of a guy who did this, this, this, this, this. Great. And then all of a sudden you flip, and you all of a sudden start doing something dumb that has not been part of who we've known you for 20 years, then yes, the market is not gonna pay you the same thing.

Lewis Howes 6:53 Mm.

Patrick Bet-David 6:54 You just ruined your reputation in the marketplace, and you're gonna take a hit, and you're gonna have to come back and-

Lewis Howes 6:58 Rebuild

Patrick Bet-David 6:59 ... try to rebuild that.

Lewis Howes 6:59 Right.

Patrick Bet-David 7:00 You can still do it, but it's gonna be a lot of work. But if you lost it because of a business decision, if you lost it because something happened to the market, the money's gonna come back up.

Lewis Howes 7:08 Really?

Patrick Bet-David 7:08 No question about it. People fear that too much. No question about it. If you're still willing to tee it up or if you're still willing to go out there and, you know, improve

Patrick Bet-David 7:17 yourself. You know, earlier today I wrote something in my notes, the, this temptation of falling for a few trap. You know, like, the moment you start thinking you've made it, plateau's around the corner. The moment you fall for the trap of, you know, flattery. Now, flattery's a very dark thing, and it's used in a very eloquent way by your opponents, and you don't even know it. They use-

Lewis Howes 7:43 Can you give me an example?

Patrick Bet-David 7:44 So for example, "Hey, Lewis, I gotta tell you, man."

Lewis Howes 7:46 Mm.

Patrick Bet-David 7:46 "These other guys, I know you and Jay are good friends, but dude, Jay's not at your, Jay's not at your level. You're 10 times better than Jay."

Lewis Howes 7:51 [laughs]

Patrick Bet-David 7:51 "You know you're better than Jay, and I think Jay kinda picks some of the stuff that you're doing," da da da. Now, you and Jay are friends.

Lewis Howes 7:56 Yeah, yeah.

Patrick Bet-David 7:57 What an [censored] move.

Lewis Howes 7:58 Right.

Patrick Bet-David 7:58 That's flattery.

Lewis Howes 7:59 Yeah. Interesting.

Patrick Bet-David 8:00 Okay, so I'm pinning you against somebody.

Lewis Howes 8:02 A friend, a peer, yeah.

Patrick Bet-David 8:03 A friend. So now you're gonna walk away saying, "Oh, but he's right." And the next time you see Jay and you're talking to him, you kinda like are drugged up and you don't even know it because somebody... So, so you have to be v- and by the way, this happens in marriages, this happens in relationships.

Lewis Howes 8:16 Really?

Patrick Bet-David 8:17 People will say things like, "Well, look, let's face it, you know, Lewis, she's lucky she's got a guy like you. You know, any woman would be lucky to marry a guy like you."

Lewis Howes 8:26 Right, right, right.

Patrick Bet-David 8:27 And then guess what people are telling her? "Hey, he's lucky to have a girl like you. Him, he's super lucky to have a g- you can have any guy you want." This is a form of flattery, you know? And then when you're winning, "I think, I don't, I don't think they appreciate you enough."

Lewis Howes 8:40 Eh.

Patrick Bet-David 8:40 "I don't think the company appri- I don't think they appreciate you enough."

Lewis Howes 8:43 Deserve more, yeah.

Patrick Bet-David 8:44 "You know what?" You know, how many times you see these wide receivers, divas, they flip against the team or the quarterback. "Your quarterback doesn't throw you the ball."

Lewis Howes 8:49 They wanna trade, yeah, yeah.

Patrick Bet-David 8:50 "The team doesn't do this to you," right? So you have to be like this.

Lewis Howes 8:54 Right.

Patrick Bet-David 8:55 And understand all this gamesmanship.

Lewis Howes 8:57 Wow.

Patrick Bet-David 8:57 And keep telling yourself, "I'm not there yet." If this [censored] gets to your head, oh, fall is around the corner. Look what happened to Scottie Pippen. You went from being a top 50 greatest players of all time. Your book comes out, the guy asks you, "How do you wanna be remembered?" "I wanna be remembered as the greatest." You ain't the greatest.

Lewis Howes 9:13 Mm.

Patrick Bet-David 9:13 You played with the greatest. Why are you undermining Michael? Well, The Last Dance wasn't about us, it was only about Michael, because Michael's the GOAT. We watched The Last Dance for Michael. We didn't watch it for you. You're the best flat carrier ever. You're the best Robin ever. But someone behind closed doors told Scottie, "Michael would've never won because of you. Michael doesn't give you enough credit. Michael doesn't do this." Whoever fed that flattery into him is what caused him to lose his reputation. Now, when people watch Scottie say stuff, he's got a lot of credibility 'cause he's one of the greatest of all time, but you kinda look at him and say you're a little bit delusional if you think you're better than Michael.

Lewis Howes 9:50 Right.

Patrick Bet-David 9:50 You're not. So flattery's a very, very dangerous, um, element you gotta be aware of.

Lewis Howes 9:58 With Choose Your Enemies Wisely: Business Planning for the Audacious Few, this book I want people to get, um, do you think Elon is choosing the right enemy with Disney and all these, you know, other brands and advertisers?

Patrick Bet-David 10:12 Yes, because I think Elon is choosing his vision over wanting to cave to these guys who have ESG money from BlackRock, from State Street, from Vanguard, and he's telling them, "No, I don't need your money." There's power in saying no to sponsorship. Can you imagine a guy-

Lewis Howes 10:35 Right

Patrick Bet-David 10:35 ... comes and says, "I'll give you a million dollars for you to do a one-minute whatever, and I need you to do this," and you say "No." "I'll give you two million." "Brother, you can give me 20 million, I'm not gonna do it." You know how much power there is in the no? You know how much power there is in a guy to say, "Don't do it. Don't do it," and a New York Times interview is like, you know, "What did you say?" But, but, but, but go F yourself. Don't do it. Yeah, Bob, don't need your money. So what is Bob gonna do? Bob came out today and said he's, he's stepping down in 2026.

Lewis Howes 11:08 Mm.

Patrick Bet-David 11:09 Sky writes one of the best books of all time in business.

Lewis Howes 11:11 Great book.

Patrick Bet-David 11:11 Ride of a Lifetime.

Lewis Howes 11:12 Great book.

Patrick Bet-David 11:13 He has been probably the best executive we've had in the last 40 years. I don't think we've had a better executive. I didn't say founder. I didn't say founder. Founder is different, but he's probably the best non-founder executive we've had in the last 40 years. Maybe you take Welch in that category, but he's one of those guys.

Lewis Howes 11:29 But running and building the business.

Patrick Bet-David 11:30 Th- this, he, no one's been a bigger deal maker than this guy, you know, Star Wars and Fox and-

Lewis Howes 11:36 Marvel

Patrick Bet-David 11:36 ... you know, Mar-

Lewis Howes 11:36 Yeah

Patrick Bet-David 11:37 ... Pixar. All the stuff that he's done.

Lewis Howes 11:38 Yeah.

Patrick Bet-David 11:38 It's just fascinating what this guy's done. He goes from Ride of a Lifetime to putting Bob Chapek, then he has to come back, five movies back to back to back flop. They lose $195 billion in market valuation, like a year, year and a half. Their stock is down 56%. He's trying to divide the companies into two or three so he can sell them at pieces. There's only one company that can buy 'em, and that is Apple, and Tim Cook is brilliant. They're sitting on a bunch of money, of cash, nearly a couple hundred billion dollars of cash. And get it, guess what Tim is gonna do? Tim's like, "They're still gonna go down. They're still gonna go down. They're still gonna go down. They're still gonna go down. They're still gonna go down." He's gonna buy 'em at a discount. And then this is gonna be under Apple, and Apple's gonna be the most powerful company in the world, if not they already are

Lewis Howes 12:16 Wow

Patrick Bet-David 12:17 ... they're gonna be the most powerful company in the world. And he made a few mistakes. The mistakes Apple made, uh, I'm sorry, Bob Iger made, he forgot who his customers were.

Lewis Howes 12:27 Mm.

Patrick Bet-David 12:28 Whoever controls the remote control is your customer. He thought the kids are his customers. Your, the kids are not your customers, buddy. I control the remote. I'm your customer. Well, no, no, no. No, I'm your customer. I can say, "We will never watch Disney ever again. Unsubscribe, 'cause you're imposing certain movies on my kids that I don't like. We're done with Disney, okay?" Whoa, so his allies were a 1% sect of America to please them to increase his ESG score or DEI score, CI score, and he forgot there was these all, all the other parents that all they want is for their kids to be entertained, not to be getting all these other messages. He forgot this, so he chose this as the ally. He chose the parents as an enemy. He got destroyed.

Lewis Howes 13:18 Wow.

Patrick Bet-David 13:19 He lose $200 billion. Blockbuster, you know who Blockbuster's enemies were? Blockbuster's enemies, they're like, "We're Blockbuster. Netflix, can you buy us for 50 million?" "No, we're Block- who are you guys?" "We're Blockbuster." "Are you kidding me? We're..." "But your customers, this is late fee." "I'm sorry I haven't returned it for 18 days. It was in the bottom of my car." "I don't care. 18 days times 30, 3.99, you gotta pay us 72, $72." "This movie's worth 19 bucks. Why?" "But it's late fee, but..." "Can you really make a break?" "No, I'm not gonna m-" I mean, when you did that, customers are like, "Screw you. We're out of here." An $8 billion empire falls because they were their own enemies. They didn't think there were threats from smaller companies coming up. Boom, Blockbuster's gone. How many movies did you wanna go rent at Blockbuster?

Lewis Howes 14:04 Honestly-

Patrick Bet-David 14:04 That was like Friday night, Saturday night. Let's get two, let's get three. You'd come back, you'd watch it. There's so many of these situations of choosing the wrong enemy. I think Elon, the market is gonna dictate whether it's the right enemy or not. That's gonna take a minute. But I think Elon is feared and envied by all these guys because all these guys, they can go in and get whatever they want by throwing around some money. And when you can't buy people or win people over by throwing around money, you don't like that, and they do not like that. And Elon doesn't give a ... The leverage goes to him.

Lewis Howes 14:44 Wow.

Patrick Bet-David 14:44 Now he's gotta prove his argument right, though.

Lewis Howes 14:46 Now you gotta... It might have some pain for a few months.

Patrick Bet-David 14:48 That's right.

Lewis Howes 14:48 Yeah.

Patrick Bet-David 14:49 That, or years, by the way, or years.

Lewis Howes 14:51 Yeah, and then how are you gonna shift and adjust and-

Patrick Bet-David 14:53 And that's on him. He chose this life. He chose this vision. Guess what? Go.

Lewis Howes 14:57 What do you think's gonna happen in the next 12 months?

Patrick Bet-David 14:58 I think he's gonna win. I don't know about 12 months, but I think, I think Elon's gonna win, and I think Elon's gonna be a target, and I think Elon's just getting started with the enemies he's creating. He's just getting warmed up. Like, this is the begin- like Elon, when did Elon start having enemies? Year and a half ago. Think about when Elon started having enemies. Year and a half ago. And Elon doesn't care if he'll never be invited to those parties ever again, because he's been to those parties and more.

Lewis Howes 15:24 Right.

Patrick Bet-David 15:24 He's dated all of the girls. Every one of them, he's hooked up with all of them that we don't even know about. Elon's dated some of the hottest girls in the world. He's partied, he's had a blast, he's played the video, he's done everything. You think Elon's sitting there saying, "I wanna be invited to your flipping party"? I don't care if you never be... There is so much power and liberation in not caring to be invited to those groups anymore, because you know how you're doing a, like, like, a- and let me bring it to our level. You know how you got a certain guest that you wanna interview, okay? And you have your list of guests you wanna interview. Okay. So what do you do with these guests you wanna have? You have to protect them. You can't say bad things about them. So you have to almost match the values they got, because if you don't, they may not come on your show and all this other stuff, and then, you know, maybe this happens, maybe that happens, maybe this happens. But what are you doing? It's not a real show then.

Lewis Howes 16:26 Mm.

Patrick Bet-David 16:27 They own you. Y- y- I don't wanna be owned. I wanna be fair. I wanna tell you how I live. This is what I stand for. Bro, if you don't like it, totally understand. Sometimes I don't like myself. I don't blame you. But at the same time, if you wanna have a real conversation with a guy that's not gonna fake it and just gonna talk to you like a brother and is still gonna give you love and is gonna give you opinions that maybe you disagree with, let's sit down and have the conversation.

Lewis Howes 16:51 Yeah.

Patrick Bet-David 16:51 If that's not what you like, I'm not your cup of tea.

Lewis Howes 16:54 Mm.

Patrick Bet-David 16:54 And I'm okay. By the way, the day I made that decision to, no, I don't care if I interview those guests, we blew up.

Lewis Howes 17:01 Really?

Patrick Bet-David 17:02 I swear to God.

Lewis Howes 17:03 Wow.

Patrick Bet-David 17:03 We blew up. I'm like, "You know what? I don't care. I'm good. Yeah, I'm good. I don't care."

Lewis Howes 17:07 And you may never get those guests, but you'll have other great things too.

Patrick Bet-David 17:10 By the way, I will end up getting all of them.

Lewis Howes 17:12 Oh, wow.

Patrick Bet-David 17:13 You know why? Because in the market, when-

Lewis Howes 17:17 When you're the biggest

Patrick Bet-David 17:17 ... in a market, if you're able to prove that you can have real conversations, and then that one person who doesn't wanna come, 75 people around them say, "You have to go-

Lewis Howes 17:30 You have to

Patrick Bet-David 17:30 ... there," then that guy's being pressured by the people that love him to say, "You gotta go there."

Lewis Howes 17:35 Right.

Patrick Bet-David 17:35 That would be the way. By the way, this doesn't mean they're gonna be here, but the point is, this kind of a position gets the market to say what? They're gonna say, "You gotta at least respect, like, yeah." Look at Howard Stern. You think Howard Stern did easy interviews? Like, what do you think Howard does? Eventually everybody went to Howard. So, and, and he's caving now a little bit. He's playing a different game now. But he's obviously got all the money, he's playing a different life. But for me, um, when that happened to me when I no longer cared, I raised tens of millions of dollars.

Lewis Howes 18:08 Wow.

Patrick Bet-David 18:09 Business blew up. I let everybody around me better. I interviewed better. I got better guests. I got better opportunities. I got... Everything changed. Y- but you can't be- You can't be a jerk. You can't be arrogant. As long as you're not having that, you'll be forgiven eventually for the values you believe in. You just can't have this.

Lewis Howes 18:33 Right.

Patrick Bet-David 18:34 I don't know if that makes sense.

Lewis Howes 18:34 You, you gotta be kind, you gotta be nice-

Patrick Bet-David 18:36 Yes

Lewis Howes 18:36 ... you gotta be considerate, respectful.

Patrick Bet-David 18:38 You do. You do.

Lewis Howes 18:39 You can have your opinion and be honest.

Patrick Bet-David 18:41 No problem.

Lewis Howes 18:41 Right.

Patrick Bet-David 18:42 No problem.

Lewis Howes 18:42 But you can't be a jerk.

Patrick Bet-David 18:43 No, you cannot be, because the- then, then you're just not attractive as a personality.

Lewis Howes 18:47 Right. Right.

Patrick Bet-David 18:47 It's like, you know what? I just don't wanna deal with a personality like that.

Lewis Howes 18:49 Right.

Patrick Bet-David 18:49 That's a different story, you know? But if you double down on your values, kinda like Elon is, Mark is like us, and we love or hate him, man.

Lewis Howes 18:56 Yeah.

Patrick Bet-David 18:56 Freaking guy is telling you who he is.

Lewis Howes 18:59 You've had some big moves in the last, you know, couple of years, but in the last year it just seems like things keep exponentially growing for you in every area of life. What has been the biggest lessons in the last year you've learned that have helped you with that exponential growth?

Patrick Bet-David 19:18 Compounding efforts works, man.

Lewis Howes 19:19 Mm-hmm.

Patrick Bet-David 19:19 Keeping your head down and, you know, minimizing distractions, minimizing dumb mistakes, minimizing falling for the trap of flattery, falling for the trap of you've made it already, you're successful, you're rich, look at this, look what that guy said about you, look what this guy said about you. Um, no. I, I have one fear. I have one big fear, and my biggest fear I got as a man is losing favor of God.

Lewis Howes 19:49 Mm.

Patrick Bet-David 19:49 Nothing I fear is a bigger fear than that. When I tell you nothing, I don't fear anything more than that. I fear losing favor from God. So how do you lose favor? Think about how you... Like, imagine if you're the head coach of a football team, 52 kids, okay?

Lewis Howes 20:06 Mm.

Patrick Bet-David 20:07 And I'm, uh, the running back, but I'm the backup running back, but you like me 'cause I, I bust my ass, I stay practice, I do this, I do that. In the locker room, I'm a good guy.

Lewis Howes 20:17 Got a good attitude.

Patrick Bet-David 20:17 I got a good attitude. I'm like, "Yes coach. Hey Johnny, come on man, you got it. What are we doing, bro? Let's get it." I'm like nonstop the entire time. I'm training, I'm there with you, I'm watching the tape, I'm on time, everything. So I'm your guy, okay? So I have your favor.

Lewis Howes 20:32 Not the most talented guy.

Patrick Bet-David 20:33 I'm not. I'm not at all. But I have your favor, okay? So I'm setting a good example for you to say, "Look at Patrick. Look at Patrick. Look at Patrick." So what do you do? Boom. "Hey, Bet-David, get in there." "Get in there, coach?" "Get in there." Boom, I get six yards. Come out. Boom. "Great job, PBD." Okay. All right, get in there. Boom. Boom, get the first down. Get in there. You gotta... Got the pass, 11 yards, great job. Okay. Game ball, boom. "But PBD, great job today." "All right, man. Hey, thanks coach." And he comes afterwards, "Hey, I wanna see you in my office afterwards." "What's up, coach?" You play like this, you're gonna have big things happen to you. You keep doing this, no problem. Three games, four games, five games. Then the sixth game I'm like, "How come you're not putting me in, Coach? What a freak- You should've put me in. If you would've put me, I would've gotten the first down. Why didn't you put me in? You should've put me in." And then, "Oh, really?" Yeah. Okay. Then you come in, you sit all the way in the back, and you're not even taking notes.

Lewis Howes 21:36 Grumpy.

Patrick Bet-David 21:36 You're on your phone. You show seven minutes late. You're talking back to the trainer. You're talking [censored] . He hears, one of the leader offensive line hears you talking [censored] about the coach, and the offensive line that's a veteran, been there for 12 years, goes and tells, "Hey coach, I think you're losing Bet-David, man. He's saying such and such to the other running back, and I, I don't think he's good for the locker room anymore." Guess what happens? I'm being traded or dropped, and I'm done 'cause I lost favor.

Lewis Howes 22:03 Mm.

Patrick Bet-David 22:04 This concept of losing favor applies to the people you work with, it applies with your clients, it applies with your audience, it applies with your customers, it applies with God, it applies with all of it. But remem- remember, number one to me in life is to be a leader, right? To lead, to be a leader amongst leaders. So that's number one. And number one fear is losing favor of God. Not losing favor from mainstream media, not losing favor from YouTube, not losing f- favor from, you know, X, Y, Z people. It's losing favor from God. When I put those two at the top, so, you know, it's, it's very, uh, you know, so when all of a sudden it's like, "Hey, look what you got." "Oh, do you see what I'm doing, man? You see how much of a big deal?"

Lewis Howes 22:50 How do you-

Patrick Bet-David 22:51 No, no, no

Lewis Howes 22:51 ... how do you keep, how do you manage your ego-

Patrick Bet-David 22:52 Very hard

Lewis Howes 22:53 ... or your, when-

Patrick Bet-David 22:54 Very hard

Lewis Howes 22:54 ... when, okay, I'm, you know, part owner of the New York Yankees.

Patrick Bet-David 22:57 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 22:57 This has been my dream my whole life.

Patrick Bet-David 22:59 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 22:59 How do I talk about it in a positive and empowering way to, to showcase how far I've come and acknowledge my hard work, but also not just brag about it every day that, "Look at me, I'm a New York Yankees owner," all these things. Here's a big multi $100 million exit, here's this thing, we're number one. How do you promote it and market it for business opportunity and momentum-

Patrick Bet-David 23:20 Yeah

Lewis Howes 23:20 ... but not allow ego to consume you-

Patrick Bet-David 23:23 Yeah

Lewis Howes 23:23 ... to think you've got, your [censored] doesn't stink?

Patrick Bet-David 23:26 So here's where the contradiction comes in, so brace for impact, 'cause it's gonna get very confusing very soon.

Lewis Howes 23:31 [laughs]

Patrick Bet-David 23:32 So for me, you know, uh, uh, we've gotten away from the life of the rich and famous. A- as kids, we used to be like, "Oh my God, one day I wanna be picked up in a limo."

Lewis Howes 23:41 Yeah.

Patrick Bet-David 23:41 What happened to limos, by the way? They're, they're gone.

Lewis Howes 23:43 Dead.

Patrick Bet-David 23:43 Can you see... When's the last time you saw a limo?

Lewis Howes 23:45 Dead. Yeah.

Patrick Bet-David 23:45 Dead, right? Imagine all these Armenians were in the limo business. They're like, "What are they doing with the li-" They're driving their kids to school in a limo-

Lewis Howes 23:51 [laughs]

Patrick Bet-David 23:51 ... and no one cares today, right? So but it was like, "Oh my God, you know, that guy's got a helicopter. What if I can have a swimming pool? Rodeo Drive, going shopping."

Lewis Howes 24:00 Mansions.

Patrick Bet-David 24:00 "And the shopper takes me in the mansions, and the, oh, my god, this bedroom is so big," and you got all this stuff. So we went from the life of the rich and famous to now the life of the poor and the victims. Now we're turning that into heroes.

Lewis Howes 24:14 Mm-hmm.

Patrick Bet-David 24:15 So it's like, "Oh, if I complain, I get 88,000 likes. But if I talk about how I took responsibility and I went out there and did this, 2,200 likes." So I'm gonna cry more and complain more because it's gonna 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.

Lewis Howes 24:38 Mm-hmm. It's like victim credibility.

Patrick Bet-David 24:40 It is disgusting for me. I mean, and 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 wanna also go out there and win and have the life that you have." You have to also show that you can, how 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-auto car. I like having my 10-million-auto car collection. I like having my both parked outside.

Lewis Howes 25:16 Wow.

Patrick Bet-David 25:16 Where on the weekend I, 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, I like all of that. I like being pampered and taken care of. It's one of the reasons why I work so hard, because I wanted phenomenal service. I can't stand bad service. If you want great service, you have to pay premium to get great service. You can't expect premium from McDonald's when you're buying a 399 Wop- a, a 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.

Lewis Howes 25:51 Why?

Patrick Bet-David 25:52 'Cause how, what are you expecting from me? They're not paying me a lot anym- 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 Nobu's in the right places. See what kind of food they... Go to Catch. Last night we're at Catch. We ordered this Wagyu, you know, tomahawk thing the guy brought with the salt on top of it. Oh my God.

Lewis Howes 26:12 Gold, yeah. [laughs]

Patrick Bet-David 26:13 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.

Lewis Howes 26:30 Mm.

Patrick Bet-David 26:30 From the standpoint of, listen, if you got big dreams, here's what I did. It 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 winning, who the hell am I gonna emulate?

Lewis Howes 26:57 Yeah.

Patrick Bet-David 26:58 I need somebody to emulate.

Lewis Howes 26:59 Wow.

Patrick Bet-David 26:59 So I need to know what it's like when you win.

Lewis Howes 27:01 Who's the dead mentor that gives you the best advice most frequently?

Patrick Bet-David 27:06 Who's the dead mentor that gives me the best advice? Mm.

Lewis Howes 27:11 Who tells you you're just a man?

Patrick Bet-David 27:13 Oh, that's Marcus Aurelius. Oh, oh.

Lewis Howes 27:15 He's whispering that into your ear-

Patrick Bet-David 27:17 Oh, Marcus Aurelius-

Lewis Howes 27:17 ... as you're walking down the street?

Patrick Bet-David 27:18 I mean, the greatest emperor Rome ever had from 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 going on. He was a legend. I mean, meditation's the m- 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. That is a must read for any man, human, to read, you gotta read Meditations. The way he... It was a journal, it was not even supposed to be a book, it just kinda coupled 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, in a country with chaos and put it all together, and he was a synergist that didn't buy his own hype. Um, not easy to do. This is why my favorite movie is probably Gladiator.

Lewis Howes 28:17 It's an amazing movie, man.

Patrick Bet-David 28:19 Sh-

Lewis Howes 28:19 Make you weep every time, huh?

Patrick Bet-David 28:20 Oh my God. That's just freaking, that's just such a great movie.

Lewis Howes 28:22 I'm watching that this weekend after I watch, uh, Chosen. Is that it? Or what was the, the AI one you're talking about?

Patrick Bet-David 28:27 Oh, Creator.

Lewis Howes 28:28 Creator.

Patrick Bet-David 28:28 Oh, dude, you're gonna love it.

Lewis Howes 28:30 Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna watch that this weekend.

Patrick Bet-David 28:30 You're gonna love it.

Lewis Howes 28:31 Yeah.

Patrick Bet-David 28:31 It's gonna make you think.

Lewis Howes 28:32 Yeah.

Patrick Bet-David 28:32 It's gonna make you think.

Lewis Howes 28:34 So he's the one that, that speaks to you and tells you, "I'm just, you're just a man."

Patrick Bet-David 28:39 Yes.

Lewis Howes 28:39 What does God say to you?

Patrick Bet-David 28:43 Uh, you know, man, I t- I 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, why are you doing this right now? Like, what, what, what's the purpose of this right now? What do you want me to learn from this? [laughs] Like, tell me what I'm supposed to take away from this, 'cause I'm confused. Can you please clarify for me what this is all about?" And some of the things, you're not gonna find out for decades, which kinda sucks, but I wish I would get a text back and saying, "Here's the seven reason I'm doing that."

Lewis Howes 29:12 [laughs]

Patrick Bet-David 29:12 He doesn't do that. He makes it hard for you. But no, you're, it, it, it-

Lewis Howes 29:15 What do you say to him and what does he say to you most frequently?

Patrick Bet-David 29:18 What do you want me to do at this phase of my life? I wanna 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 in my belly I can't get rid of. 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 cri-" We would do 20-minute clip, we would delete the video-

Lewis Howes 29:44 Wow

Patrick Bet-David 29:44 ... and never go live because it would say, "Pat, you talked politics." And I would be pis- pissed at Mario. We're arguing. It's 12:00 at night, midnight. I'm like, "But it wasn't politics, Pat." "That's politics. Look at what you just said here." Five years we're 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's about to lose everything. You know, this guy's gonna go from entrepreneurship and he's gonna lose everything because you never talk politics, and he's gonna collapse. And, you know, there's no way in the world his... You know, you go doing PBD podcast, talk all this politics, you take the clips, you put it on Bite Me, and your audience is gonna get so pissed off. It's done. It's the kiss of death." Okay. We grew. It did the complete-

Lewis Howes 30:25 It grew a lot

Patrick Bet-David 30:25 ... opposite thing that we thought it was gonna do, but it was a risk. But the reason why I did it is because- And he gave me comfort

Lewis Howes 30:32 Wow

Patrick Bet-David 30:32 I'm like, "Man, 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 wanna 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. Why 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 communist, dad's family imperialist, 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 I'm like, "You know what? What? I trust. Let's go. You made me like this. This is your doing. It's not my doing."

Lewis Howes 31:17 Right, right.

Patrick Bet-David 31:17 "So guess what? I'm gonna do whatever best I can with me, but this is your creation. It's not my c- I didn't create PBD, you created PBD."

Lewis Howes 31:24 Yeah.

Patrick Bet-David 31:25 "So if you created me with the help of Diana and, and Gabriel, this is either your right doing or your mistake."

Lewis Howes 31:32 Yeah.

Patrick Bet-David 31:32 "So if it's your mistake, hey man, I didn't do it, you did it."

Lewis Howes 31:35 Right, right.

Patrick Bet-David 31:35 "But I'll do the best I can with this guy, and I'm gonna try to make you proud," because that's the ultimate thing. You wanna make him proud.

Lewis Howes 31:40 What if you had that fire again 5, 10 years away where it was you felt like you were supposed to be doing something else, but you thought, "Oh, this is gonna ruin everything. My... Like, literally my business will end," right? "Everything that 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 it and deleting and cutting, the next thing, whatever that is,

Lewis Howes 32:05 how would you feel if you lost it all but you had the favor of one?

Patrick Bet-David 32:09 I don't care. I'm good. I, I don't care. I don't care. Oh, man, what a question you're asking me. [sighs] If... Yeah. [sighs] Yeah.

Lewis Howes 32:42 All the money, all the business, all the-

Patrick Bet-David 32:43 Oh, wait. Let me tell you, man

Lewis Howes 32:45 ... the Yankees, the everything you dreamed.

Patrick Bet-David 32:46 Dude, you know, um, when my wife and I... What the hell is this all about? Fricking A. I do a million interviews and this never happens. Um, no. It's changed my life. Uh, [sighs] ah.

Lewis Howes 33:05 You guys grab a tissue if you've got a tissue box out there.

Patrick Bet-David 33:15 No, man. Ah. This is so annoying. But you know, man-

Lewis Howes 33:22 It's real, man. I mean, it's not annoying, it's, it's, it's how you feel.

Patrick Bet-David 33:25 No, but I'm-

Lewis Howes 33:26 And I think it's a beautiful thing to, for people to know that y- what 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 it, for people to know how much you care about God and your relationship to God, and how much you love-

Patrick Bet-David 33:47 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." "Okay. You want a fourth? I thought you said you're done." When 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, and 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 wanna talk about it right now." She says, "No, we gotta talk about it." Says, "I just want that gift from you. I don't want any more. This is too much for me."

Lewis Howes 34:24 You said this?

Patrick Bet-David 34:25 She's saying it to me.

Lewis Howes 34:26 Yeah.

Patrick Bet-David 34:27 And I said, "Huh, interesting." So I have a hard time receiving that because we talked about five kids before we got married.

Lewis Howes 34:38 Right.

Patrick Bet-David 34:38 101 questions to ask before you get engaged.

Lewis Howes 34:41 So she'd already made an agreement, commitment.

Patrick Bet-David 34:42 Already made the agreement.

Lewis Howes 34:43 And now-

Patrick Bet-David 34:43 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.

Lewis Howes 34:58 Wow.

Patrick Bet-David 34:58 First time Senna. I held Senna was fricking life-changing. It was different. So then she tells me this in, 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, I, I'm... You wanna go right now? Like, what do you wanna do? I'm, I want a fourth.

Lewis Howes 35:24 [laughs]

Patrick Bet-David 35:25 I want a fifth. So then she's pregnant. She says, "Babe, I'm pregnant." "No way." "Yes." We go to the doctor. Pregnant, yeah. Awesome. Then we go to kinda 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, uh, is, uh," what do you call it? Not, um, could potentially be, um, not fully developed.

Lewis Howes 36:15 Yes.

Patrick Bet-David 36:15 What's the word for it where, uh-

Lewis Howes 36:17 De- deformation or-

Patrick Bet-David 36:19 Yeah. There, it's, it's not gonna be... It's g- it's gonna be a kid you're gonna be having problems with for the rest of your life.

Lewis Howes 36:23 Mm.

Patrick Bet-David 36:25 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, it could be this, it could be that, it could be this. Like, okay, interesting Then we go home, and it still hasn't hit us whether this is gonna happen or not. And then we sit down and we start watching videos, raising a ch- a child that is, you know-

Lewis Howes 36:50 Uh, disabilities of some type or, yeah

Patrick Bet-David 36:52 ... disabilities and all this stuff, and then how it affects kids. And 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?

Lewis Howes 37:01 And she's, like, what? Two, three months pregnant at this time, or-

Patrick Bet-David 37:03 Yeah, she's two, three months pregnant at- pregnant, 11, 12 weeks pregnant at this time. And, uh, they said, "You know, you're gonna have a problem with this, and you have to accept, do you wanna do this?" And doctor's recommending, "Hey, my recommendation is, you know, if you guys don't risk it, you know, you m- the average person would abort because it's gonna affect your family. This is gonna affect this. It's gonna affect... You're 42 years old. You're no longer 35 years old or 32 years old." So then we go in and we finally accept the fact that, you know, it's God's doing. We're good. Let's roll. We go in. Two weeks later, one of them doesn't make it.

Lewis Howes 37:39 Hmm.

Patrick Bet-David 37:39 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 till the baby's born.

Lewis Howes 37:49 Really?

Patrick Bet-David 37:49 Yeah. So we're like, "Well, you know..." And they're giving these percentages and all this stuff. "I, we suggest you do this, and we research, and no, you shouldn't do that because it can hurt the kid that's left, and that kid can get hurt if you go and try to do this procedure with the needle that..." All this stuff they got. I'm like, "Do it." Just... So anyways, eventually we're just praying, and Brooklyn is born, Brooklyn Ivy Bet-David. Brooklyn is the most animated kid we have in our family, and, uh, her twin, the brother, didn't make it, but Brooklyn is the most animated kid in the family, and she changed everything. I can't imagine Lewis living life never meeting Brooklyn.

Lewis Howes 38:25 Wow.

Patrick Bet-David 38:26 I can't imagine that. Like, you know, to me, when people say, "Well, we just wanna have one," I said, "Dude, you don't even know. You got two more. You can't wait till meet. Life's gonna 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. We're moving people. I'm by myself. Did I make the right decision? Should I have stayed? You're leaving a 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 kid, they're living in here in this house. You're renting, and your 100 employees at PHP are in Addison, Texas. You're in Bo- So every night at 11:00 Mario and I would walk. He can tell you stories himself and give you a complete different perspective. And I would listen to Amazing Grace by this lady that sings it. And the, it's a picture, the thumbnail of the video, and I would listen to Amazing Grace. Got, like, 70 million views.

Lewis Howes 39:20 Wow.

Patrick Bet-David 39:20 And I would just listen to it on repeat. Um, and-

Lewis Howes 39:22 It's a photo on YouTube

Patrick Bet-David 39:23 ... it's, it's a, it's a photo, but it's a song.

Lewis Howes 39:25 It's a song, but it's with a photo, yes

Patrick Bet-David 39:25 ... it, the, but the thumbnail is just a photo, right? And he starts with the sound of rain, and then she sings. It's the best voice for Amazing Grace for me. There's a lot of great ones. Nothing comes close to this lady here. I'll give you her name afterwards.

Lewis Howes 39:36 Yeah.

Patrick Bet-David 39:36 Matter of fact, I wanna give it because if the audience wants to listen to it, I don't want them-

Lewis Howes 39:39 Yeah

Patrick Bet-David 39:39 ... to miss out on this great opportunity. So I listen to this thing every day for one hour while walking, and Lewis, I'm in tears. 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 till she starts singing and the rain sound comes, but worth listening to it. So I'm crying, and I'm, uh, I probably talked to God the most during that month, and I said, "God, I think I made the right decision, but, uh, 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 owe my entire life to him.

Lewis Howes 40:20 Wow.

Patrick Bet-David 40:20 Are you kidding me? Like, you, He can take me today. That's my weak spot. Uh, He, He's, uh, He's done a lot for me.

Lewis Howes 40:28 Wow.

Patrick Bet-David 40:28 My life's been a great life. Iran was tough, you know, all these other things was different, but, um, life's been a great life.

Lewis Howes 40:35 Wow.

Patrick Bet-David 40:36 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 40:36 I wanted to ask you kind of... I'm loving this part of the conversation, by the way, but I, I feel like people are gonna wanna 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. You know, 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.

Lewis Howes 41:01 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?

Patrick Bet-David 41:12 Well, I mean, i- one of them is, uh, whatever you hate, uh, or you don't respect, you're not gonna get. So if you don't respect rich people, you're not gonna be rich. If you don't respect people who make a lot of money and you always talk trash about them behind their backs, you're, you're not gonna 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, uh, m- money and success is not attracted to people that talk down to them, just like anyb- anything else. They're not attracted to you. They, they want to be, uh, respected. Money wants to be respected. Uh, not loved, but money wants to be respected. 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?" "Well, guess what? Right now your market value is $68,000 per year. You wanna improve it?" "I do." "Here's what you gotta do. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom." Okay, great. And, and the way of making money, for the longest time, you know, everybody wants to say entrepreneurship, entrepreneur- entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship. There's many other ways of making it. You can... That's one way to go. You can be a creator. You know, MrBeast has proven the fact that you can be a billionaire by being a YouTuber. The guy's got three, 400 million subscribers. Probably by the time this video comes out, he's at 500 million subscribers-

Lewis Howes 42:32 Right

Patrick Bet-David 42:32 ... the way he's growing. You can make a lot of money being a YouTuber, talent, creator, behind the scenes, you know, growing a company to the next level, sales, you know, 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.

Lewis Howes 42:54 Mm. What are those skill sets?

Patrick Bet-David 42:56 What is that? Let's talk about that. So one is leadership, okay? In every environment... Like, we had a, a, a, we have a team of 30 people in our production team at the office, right? And there 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. This 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 is kinda 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 an ex- as much of an expert as this person, but this guy knows how to bring everybody together and get, you know, all the productions to be done on time, delivered high quality thumbnails, everything. That guy's a better leader, even though technically he's not as good as this. The market pays for great leaders. So whether I'm a assistant, whether I'm an executive assistant, whether I'm a, a salesperson, whether I'm a coder and editor, whether I'm a, you know, in the military, whether I'm a cop, firefighter, politician, a, 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 'em over. You 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 'em, you know, challenge 'em, 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 till God knows what time.

Lewis Howes 45:01 [laughs]

Patrick Bet-David 45:02 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. I want everybody here to keep this one word as their MO, is to recreate yourself going into 2024." And I gave them goals, what I want Valuetainment to happen, what I want Valuetainment Comedy do, what I want this to do and that to do and this to do and 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.

Lewis Howes 45:33 Mm.

Patrick Bet-David 45:34 Nobody likes that because whenever you get good at the level you're at, you kind of have this warm, fuzzy feeling. You're getting the accolades.

Lewis Howes 45:40 Yes.

Patrick Bet-David 45:40 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 here cares about my success. I am so small here." But that's what... You're not good enough for the next level.

Lewis Howes 45:50 Right.

Patrick Bet-David 45:50 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, you know, very sincere direction?

Lewis Howes 46:05 Yeah.

Patrick Bet-David 46:05 Do I need to hire somebody to, you know, uh, give me feedback? What do I need to be doing? Do I need to-

Lewis Howes 46:10 What, what is that for you? What do you need to reinvent next year for yourself?

Patrick Bet-David 46:13 For me?

Lewis Howes 46:14 Yeah.

Patrick Bet-David 46:14 Oh, it's, it's just hiring tens. What do I need to do to hire tens? I, I read, uh, this book by Stephen Schwarzman. Uh, I think it's called Whatever It Takes or s- it's a blue book, blue, uh, uh, 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 falling out, and that's how BlackRock and Blackstone got started. One of them wanted to give equity to all their employees. The other one kinda didn't wanna do it. They wanted different structures. Both of them are very successful. But Schwarzman talks about what happened to their company when they started hiring tens.

Lewis Howes 46:48 Mm.

Patrick Bet-David 46:49 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 eight and a half, but in your world, you've never hired an eight and a half.

Lewis Howes 46:57 They feel like a 10 for you, yeah.

Patrick Bet-David 46:58 So to you, that's a 10. But that's an eight and a half in a Blackstone.

Lewis Howes 47:02 Yeah. [laughs]

Patrick Bet-David 47:02 That's an eight and a half in maybe, you know, uh, in Apple or something like that. But in your company, they're, they're a 10 today. So I, 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. That 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, uh, I, I just see a big opportunity with Bet- David Consulting. We have the first three phases are squared away. The last two phases are gonna come here the next 24 to 36 months. Very excited about that. And, uh, so, 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 'cause then you'll Google who it is, and it's that person. You know, executives at Apple who are very happy with what happened, but they wanna be part of a company that's gonna go from zero to, you know, the next level, and they wanna bring that value to it, and they see it, and they kinda like some of the philosophies that we stand for. But now it's about, do we wanna spend the money to get these guys?

Lewis Howes 48:11 Mm.

Patrick Bet-David 48:12 How do we got to create... Uh, 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, 401 [k] , 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-

Lewis Howes 48:32 Mm-hmm

Patrick Bet-David 48:32 ... that's probably my biggest obsession.

Lewis Howes 48:34 Right climate meaning the right climate and culture, kind of that type of environment?

Patrick Bet-David 48:37 Cli- climate like-

Lewis Howes 48:38 The whole environment?

Patrick Bet-David 48:39 Yes, culture, benefits package. So one of the reasons why I moved away from Dallas and I went to Fort Lauderdale instead of even going to Tampa, 'cause at first I was looking at Tampa, then I was gonna go to M- uh, uh, um, Manalapan and Palm Beach, and I was gonna go to Miami. And then I said, "We're gonna make Fort Lauderdale the Burbank of East Coast, is what we're gonna do."

Lewis Howes 48:58 Wow.

Patrick Bet-David 48:58 We're gonna make Fort Lauderdale the Burbank of East Coast. So-

Lewis Howes 49:01 That's cool

Patrick Bet-David 49:02 ... I chose that because it's easy to recruit people to Florida. It's not that easy to recruit creatives to Dallas. But you can recruit creatives to LA. Why are people still in LA?

Lewis Howes 49:12 Mm-hmm.

Patrick Bet-David 49:13 Give me a better weather than a place like this, and a climate, and water, 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

Patrick Bet-David 49:29 to move there.

Lewis Howes 49:30 Okay. So that's leadership is the-

Patrick Bet-David 49:33 Yep

Lewis Howes 49:33 ... skill set, number one skill set. What would be another skill set or two to help people increase their value in the marketplace?

Patrick Bet-David 49:44 What is the better thing they can do to increase their value in the marketplace? So-

Lewis Howes 49:49 'Cause you said market pays for great leaders first. What would be another skill or two?

Patrick Bet-David 49:57 I mean, I would put within leadership, uh, sales negotiation and conflict resolution, because a great leader typically knows how to sell a vision. A 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, and, and Ste- and, and Steph Curry's been missing all these threes. He says, "Hey son, I wanna 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? He kept shooting."

Lewis Howes 50:35 Wow.

Patrick Bet-David 50:35 He said, "You keep shooting, son. Keep shooting. We 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.

Lewis Howes 50:50 Oh.

Patrick Bet-David 50:50 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 and conflict resolution. This is, this is all leadership, so, you know-

Lewis Howes 51:00 And that's why you get paid the big bucks

Patrick Bet-David 51:01 ... that's why you get paid the big bucks. So if you choose, if you choose your number one thing to become ver- 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, you're ahead of the game.

Lewis Howes 51:20 Wow.

Patrick Bet-David 51:20 But the pillar has to be leadership.

Lewis Howes 51:23 Mm.

Patrick Bet-David 51:23 That's the pillar.

Lewis Howes 51:24 Yes.

Patrick Bet-David 51:24 If the pillar is the leader, everything else comes from there. Um, and a market's gonna 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 ba, ba, ba, ba, ba." "Okay. Jack, do you agree with Mary?" "I mean, I understand what Mary's saying, but I, I kinda like Mario's point, but I think we're missing the point here." "What's that, Jack?" "Do you mind if I get onto a, a, a, a stage here and just kinda 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?" "I think he's got a good point." "What do you think about what Jack just said?" "I, I can see what he's saying." He just became a leader.

Lewis Howes 52:37 Mm.

Patrick Bet-David 52:38 He just became a leader in that meeting right there.

Lewis Howes 52:40 Right.

Patrick Bet-David 52:40 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, we can rely on. You're somebody that's gonna come through. You're the guy that's gonna come through with the words when he said, "We're gonna hit the deadline," we hit it. You're the guy that brings people together. So I don't wanna give too many things. I would much rather have the audience obsess over one thing for 2024, and that's leadership.

Lewis Howes 53:08 Wow. 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

Lewis Howes 53:20 book. If someone's in their 20s and they wanna give it a shot in business, they wanna start their own business, be an entrepreneur-

Patrick Bet-David 53:26 Yep

Lewis Howes 53:27 ... 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? "I'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." If they said, "My goal is to make my first million dollars." If they set out to make a million dollars-

Patrick Bet-David 53:54 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 53:55 ... 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?

Patrick Bet-David 54:13 Yeah. Great question. So to me, you're asking, the, there's a logical component to this and there's an emotional component to this.

Lewis Howes 54:19 Mm.

Patrick Bet-David 54:19 So let's address both. For the long... Today I visit my old office in Granada Hills, and I, my, pointed out my office that I used to have in the corner right off the 405 freeway, and I said, "That was the first time I ever did a real business plan." 'Cause you know, most of your life-

Lewis Howes 54:33 Right

Patrick Bet-David 54:33 ... we're, we're, we're generally wingers. We wing a lot of stuff, right? If you think about it, right?

Lewis Howes 54:38 Go in here, we try this thing.

Patrick Bet-David 54:39 You, we-

Lewis Howes 54:39 Dabble

Patrick Bet-David 54:40 ... yeah, we're winging. And by the way, you may, 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?

Lewis Howes 54:51 Right.

Patrick Bet-David 54:52 So-

Lewis Howes 54:52 So how old are you during this time when you create this?

Patrick Bet-David 54:53 I'm 25 years old at Granada Hills. I've re- leased this office space. It's 30- 3,660 square feet. At Buck 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 got this health issue, so I'm gonna go to Costa Rica. Got- I gotta do surgery." I said, "You're going to Costa Rica to do surgery? And how long are you gonna be there?" "Nine months." What? So I gotta pay the rent now? No help. What? Anyways, so I said, "Okay, Pat, you're either about to lose everything, or you gotta figure this thing out." So I sit down, and I do a real business plan, and 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.

Lewis Howes 55:34 Mm.

Patrick Bet-David 55:35 I wanted to go through it over and over and over again. Then I realized a couple things. I had a guy I was working with that on paper he would've 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 great market, all this stuff, and then 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? This guy was like, "Yeah, I think if I do this much sales and this much, I'm gonna make $100,000, and here's what's gonna happen, and I'm planning on buying a house for my wife when her and I get married, and we're gonna do this," da, da, da, da, da. Okay, so but why are you doing this? "I just think the ma- I'm at a place in my life that I need to be doing this. I'm, I'm, I'm at that age."

Lewis Howes 56:23 No emotion.

Patrick Bet-David 56:24 No emotion.

Lewis Howes 56:24 Mm.

Patrick Bet-David 56:25 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 'cause I don't know yet. I'm only 25.

Lewis Howes 56:32 Right.

Patrick Bet-David 56:32 So I'm like, "This guy sounds more convincing," 'cause I would buy from this guy. But man, this guy's embarrassing. If you put him in front of a client, he may scare the crap out of the client, 'cause he has no clue what he's talking about. He talks slang, he's ghetto a little bit. Who the hell is gonna win here? And then you kinda size it up and you realize neither one of them are gonna win, because one without the other is not gonna happen.

Lewis Howes 56:51 Mm.

Patrick Bet-David 56:52 So then I said, "You need, you need both. You need emotion and 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..." There any- I, I can talk about a leadership book, you'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 lead, read, and they can put a plan together. You, 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, are 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 gonna 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 gonna take it. I don't know how you're gonna 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, what is my differentiator, all this other stuff you gotta be thinking about. On the other side is which reality's gonna set, which is when you write out the plan, you're all excited. You're like, "Let's go. Let's go. We're gonna take over the world." Boom, right off the bat it's like, you know how you watch the movie Gladiator? Ah, boom, guy's killed, right? Right off the bat you come out and a guy hits you with like a, you know-

Lewis Howes 58:48 A hammer or something like that

Patrick Bet-David 58:49 ... a hammer. Oh, I'm dead already. So-

Lewis Howes 58:50 So you got all this excitement and drive-

Patrick Bet-David 58:52 That's right

Lewis Howes 58:52 ... and passion, but then boom.

Patrick Bet-David 58:53 Boom. You're gonna get hit, rejection first week, first day, first second, first call. Then you'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. It's guaranteed. If you don't have a real reason, and it's typically the right enemy, you're not gonna tolerate that pain. So one day on a, on a flight back from Chicago, I take my notepad, blue no- uh, 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, and da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. I don't just 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 flight and I'm like, that one time that ex said this. Ha ha ha ha. And she also said this. And 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? Well, then you rank them. This is my number one. This really doesn't do anything. I'm over it.

Lewis Howes 1:00:22 Oh, no.

Patrick Bet-David 1:00:22 Oh, this is the other one, two. Four, three. Yep, I got my five, boom. Imagine you start your day with that.

Lewis Howes 1:00:30 Mm.

Patrick Bet-David 1:00:30 Got it. Then you read that.

Lewis Howes 1:00:32 That's fire.

Patrick Bet-David 1:00:32 Oh, you kidding me? Somebody rejects you. Yeah, okay. No problem. Totally fine. Because if I feel sorry for myself, these guys are gonna be right. So unless if you don't wanna 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 kinda 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. But you need to know why you're gonna go through the pain, and if you don't spend time with this part, you're gonna quit on this one in no time.

Lewis Howes 1:01:24 Wow. So you need to know

Lewis Howes 1:01:26 that. And what's the difference between an enemy and a competitor?

Patrick Bet-David 1:01:29 Competitor's logical. Like for example, you know, we're competitors-

Lewis Howes 1:01:33 Mm

Patrick Bet-David 1:01:33 ... but you don't drive me, I don't drive you.

Lewis Howes 1:01:35 Right

Patrick Bet-David 1:01:35 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? Do 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.

Lewis Howes 1:01:51 Right

Patrick Bet-David 1:01:51 It's not a... But you have to study the competition.

Lewis Howes 1:01:53 Yeah. I look at it more like collaborators, but yeah.

Patrick Bet-David 1:01:56 Totally fine. But what I'm, or the word we use is competitors-

Lewis Howes 1:01:59 Uh-huh

Patrick Bet-David 1:01:59 ... is you look at the entire marketplace, but they don't produce anything.

Lewis Howes 1:02:03 Emo- There's not an emotional trigger

Patrick Bet-David 1:02:05 Nothing. There's nothing. You and I, every time we spend time together, and you know, some people would say we're in the same space 'cause we're doing interviews, I've never once looked at you as a person that's gonna drive me, and I'm sure, uh, you've never looked at me as a person-

Lewis Howes 1:02:17 No, no

Patrick Bet-David 1:02:17 ... that's gonna drive you, right?

Lewis Howes 1:02:18 I celebrate your success. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Patrick Bet-David 1:02:19 It's a likewise. It's a likewise, uh, uh, you know, 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'm 20, 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, uh, my, 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 kinda get down a little bit and he laughed. You know the laugh like you laugh at yourself-

Lewis Howes 1:02:56 Mm-hmm

Patrick Bet-David 1:02:56 ... but it's like, you know which laugh I'm talking about, right?

Lewis Howes 1:02:58 Yeah.

Patrick Bet-David 1:02:58 We did it as kids when we were 13, 14 years old being punked. And I look at the guy in the face. I'm like-

Lewis Howes 1:03:05 But did it feel good for him?

Patrick Bet-David 1:03:06 Oh, no way. I look at my dad and I'm like, and I look at that man, and I'm... The, 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." He said, "What are you talking about?" I said, "We're leaving."

Lewis Howes 1:03:21 Wow.

Patrick Bet-David 1:03:21 He said, "What do you mean?" I said, "We're leaving. We're not gonna be here. We're gonna, we gotta go home right now." He says, "You're not gonna leave. We're here. We just got here. It's Christmas." I said, "Dad, telling you right now we're leaving." We'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."

Lewis Howes 1:03:44 Mm.

Patrick Bet-David 1:03:45 I said, "Number two," I brought my sister and my brother-in-law over to the house. I said, "They're gonna have to kill me, but the world's gonna know your last name."

Lewis Howes 1:03:54 Wow.

Patrick Bet-David 1:03:54 "The world is gonna know your last name." Do you know that's when I started working 80 to 100 hours a week?

Lewis Howes 1:04:00 Wow.

Patrick Bet-David 1:04:00 I dropped clubbing, I dropped everything. I said, "The world is going to know your last name. You'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?"

Lewis Howes 1:04:10 Wow.

Patrick Bet-David 1:04:11 It's game over. Do you know that scene from 20 years ago till today still fires me up? Do you know that?

Lewis Howes 1:04:16 Wow, man.

Patrick Bet-David 1:04:16 And by the way, I've told this story multiple times.

Lewis Howes 1:04:18 I've heard it, yeah.

Patrick Bet-David 1:04:18 It still fires me up till today. So-

Lewis Howes 1:04:22 So that's your enemy.

Patrick Bet-David 1:04:23 Th- My enemy is th- my dad was the... You know how certain people you can use the word sweet? Like, he's a sweet man.

Lewis Howes 1:04:30 Mm.

Patrick Bet-David 1:04:31 My dad's a sweet man, and he was so good to everybody.

Lewis Howes 1:04:35 Mm-hmm.

Patrick Bet-David 1:04:35 He was very good to everybody. You don't, you don't talk to my dad that way. You just don't t- talk to-

Lewis Howes 1:04:40 Yeah

Patrick Bet-David 1:04:40 ... call me whatever you wanna call 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 gotta 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 y- 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 kinda wanna 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. They're married 15 years later, they got two kids. You see her at the mall and you're like, "Hey."

Lewis Howes 1:05:16 Mm.

Patrick Bet-David 1:05:17 And she says, "Hey. Did... Yeah."

Lewis Howes 1:05:21 Yeah.

Patrick Bet-David 1:05:23 Uh, "Did you know that I was at..." You would say yes? Yes.

Lewis Howes 1:05:27 Ah, could have been a completely different life.

Patrick Bet-David 1:05:28 Crazy, right? Okay. So when 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-

Lewis Howes 1:05:44 [laughs]

Patrick Bet-David 1:05:44 ... that I'm saying, right? To me it's use it and see if it's something that's temporary that's gonna bring the ugly side of you, or keep it and say, "No, this is, this is fuel for 20 years." The 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.

Lewis Howes 1:06:14 Yeah.

Patrick Bet-David 1:06:15 But then it's a level nine and a half for 20 years, you're part of the lucky few. If, if you read Elon's book, I don't know if you've read Elon's book. You read Elon's book? The-

Lewis Howes 1:06:24 I haven't yet, no

Patrick Bet-David 1:06:25 ... Walter Isaacson? You will realize why this guy's as driven as he is.

Lewis Howes 1:06:30 Really?

Patrick Bet-David 1:06:30 Oh, no question about it.

Lewis Howes 1:06:32 I'm excited. I read Bob Iger, I thought it was a great book. Amazing book.

Patrick Bet-David 1:06:35 You'll be blown away by Musk. Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:06:36 I'm gonna check this one out too. After people check this one out, make sure you get the, uh, the Musk book as well. Uh, and Meditations, which was your number one recommendation.

Patrick Bet-David 1:06:46 We're just selling a lot of books today.

Lewis Howes 1:06:47 I sell a lot of books today.

Patrick Bet-David 1:06:48 We're book salesmen today.

Lewis Howes 1:06:49 Choose Your Enemies Wisely: Business Planning For The Audacious Few. If you guys wanna 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, uh, then make sure to get a copy of this Follow you everywhere. VT.com now, is that right?

Patrick Bet-David 1:07:09 Yes.

Lewis Howes 1:07:09 Congrats on that. Um, your podcast on YouTube is the main place, I think. I see clips everywhere, but I'll follow you there. Where are you spending the most time for people to con- try to, like, get in your comment section or your feed? Where do you see and notice comments the most?

Patrick Bet-David 1:07:24 Well, Minnect is the only place where I respond to 100% of the messages. Minnect 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.

Lewis Howes 1:07:35 [laughs]

Patrick Bet-David 1:07:35 And I called the lawyer, I said, "Well, do you charge by the minute?" And he says, "No lawyer charges by the minute."

Lewis Howes 1:07:41 Right.

Patrick Bet-David 1:07:41 I said, "One day I'm gonna build an app." So Minnect is do you have a minute to connect? Let's minnect. On Minnect, 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 a 15-minute FaceTime. If you minnect me, 100% I'm responding back to you.

Lewis Howes 1:07:59 Really?

Patrick Bet-David 1:07:59 Yep.

Lewis Howes 1:08:00 Wow. How much does a ma- minnect call you?

Patrick Bet-David 1:08:01 It varies. If you wanna do a text, a video call, or a FaceTime, it varies. And there's a bunch of guys on there that you can minnect. Like, we had a guy came in, he asked 20 different real estate experts the same exact question, [laughs] and they all gave different strategies. And he took that, he'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.

Lewis Howes 1:08:22 M-E... Wha- what's the-

Patrick Bet-David 1:08:23 M-I-N-N-E-C-T, Minnect. Do you have a-

Lewis Howes 1:08:26 Minnect.

Patrick Bet-David 1:08:27 Minnect.

Lewis Howes 1:08:27 Minnect.com.

Patrick Bet-David 1:08:27 Minnect.com.

Lewis Howes 1:08:28 You guys should check that out.

Patrick Bet-David 1:08:29 You can get the app on, uh, app on Android and Apple.

Lewis Howes 1:08:31 Love that. Uh, couple final questions for you. Uh, but is there anything on your heart that you wanna share before I ask those couple final questions?

Patrick Bet-David 1:08:37 Yeah. I mean, listen, like, on my heart, you got me to cry today, bro. What else you want me to do for you today?

Lewis Howes 1:08:42 [laughs]

Patrick Bet-David 1:08:43 You, you kidding me? I do interviews and I... Y- you asked the one question, like, no one asks me, my relationship with God. It's like-

Lewis Howes 1:08:49 I don't think I've ever seen you cry in an interview.

Patrick Bet-David 1:08:50 No, no. God, to me, is a very emotional place to go.

Lewis Howes 1:08:54 Wow. Yeah.

Patrick Bet-David 1:08:54 This is life-changing for me there. I don't cry about... But that one area, man, you hit it.

Lewis Howes 1:08:58 Oh, man.

Patrick Bet-David 1:08:59 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:08:59 I wasn't trying. I was just-

Patrick Bet-David 1:09:00 No

Lewis Howes 1:09:00 ... curious, you know?

Patrick Bet-David 1:09:01 Listen, it was a great conversation.

Lewis Howes 1:09:02 It wasn't a strategy. It was just curiosity. Um, I've asked you about your three truths before, so I wanna not ask you that this time. Maybe the next time around I'll see where you're at with that. Um, but I do wanna a- ask you about, uh, something that is on your heart, which is God. Um, 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 can extend your life.

Patrick Bet-David 1:09:30 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:09:31 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?

Patrick Bet-David 1:09:58 I'm proud of you, right? I'm proud of you. Um, he's probably gonna critique me and say, "That one time," or, "That two times," or, "That three times," or, "That one time you did this."

Lewis Howes 1:10:09 But what do you hope he really says?

Patrick Bet-David 1:10:11 I, I... It's really the, um, "I'm proud of you." You know? "I'm proud of, uh, you know, what you did with your life. I'm proud of the example you did your best to set."

Lewis Howes 1:10:21 Totally.

Patrick Bet-David 1:10:22 Um, that you didn't waste the time here, you know? You were able to enjoy... It's very important to also enjoy, like, because you can't just be in grind mode.

Lewis Howes 1:10:31 Yeah.

Patrick Bet-David 1:10:31 You gotta enjoy. So many things to enjoy. We sometimes forget to do that as well. But yeah, it's simply, "Good for you." Like, "I wasn't expecting you to do this."

Lewis Howes 1:10:41 [laughs]

Patrick Bet-David 1:10:42 "But you were not on my list of guys that were gonna do X, Y, Z. But guess what? You showed up, and I respect it. I'm proud of you."

Lewis Howes 1:10:48 Oh, that's cool.

Patrick Bet-David 1:10:49 It's almost like a, you're a 199 draft pick and you win seven Super Bowls, where it's kinda like, you know, and your name is Tom Brady.

Lewis Howes 1:10:57 Yeah.

Patrick Bet-David 1:10:57 "I, I don't know if I thought you were gonna be one of my guys, but respect."

Lewis Howes 1:11:02 Yeah.

Patrick Bet-David 1:11:02 That's the, the moment.

Lewis Howes 1:11:04 That's what you want.

Patrick Bet-David 1:11:05 I'm looking forward to it.

Lewis Howes 1:11:06 That's beautiful.

Patrick Bet-David 1:11:06 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:11:06 I wanna acknowledge you before the final question, Patrick, for the way you consistently show up as a leader in life. I 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, to just watch, to learn from, and to, to gain value from. So I'm grateful for you. I'm grateful for you leading the way, and, um, appreciate your, your wisdom constantly. It's a lot of fun, and I can't wait to have you back on in the future. Uh-

Patrick Bet-David 1:11:46 Appreciate you.

Lewis Howes 1:11:46 Of course.

Patrick Bet-David 1:11:46 Very kind words, man.

Lewis Howes 1:11:47 Yeah, of course. Final question: What's your definition of greatness?

Patrick Bet-David 1:11:53 Uh, definition of greatness. It's, it's the same for me. It's been the same for me for, I wanna say, 15, 14 years. It's purely alignment. Like, if you are living... I- if your life matches your values and principles, I think you're, 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, the more that... Sometimes we go out of whack, and we kinda 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-

Lewis Howes 1:12:35 Yes

Patrick Bet-David 1:12:35 ... and very happy.

Lewis Howes 1:12:36 Yes.

Patrick Bet-David 1:12:36 So I would say alignment.

Lewis Howes 1:12:39 PBD. Appreciate you, man. Thanks so much.

Patrick Bet-David 1:12:41 My man, appreciate you.

Lewis Howes 1:12:42 Great stuff.

Patrick Bet-David 1:12:42 This was great.

1:12:43 Then he says, "Ma'am, how much do you make?" And she says, "$50,000." So he writes $50,000 underneath the million, and then he subtracts it and it says $950,000. He looks at her, he says, "Every single year," he said, "you pay life $950,000 for not knowing how to make a million dollars."