Asking Millionaire Homeowners How They Got Rich

Excuse me, sir. Sir, is this your house? Can I help you? Is this your house? Who are you? What did you do to be able to afford this place?

In 2003, I started a tech company, and I sold my last company for 235 million. 235 billion. That's right. Sir. Sir, is this your Ferrari? Yes. What did you do to be able to afford a Ferrari? I sold the biggest company in my industry in 2018. What type of company? It was a company. How much did you sell your company for? Almost 100 billion. 100 billion. Yes. Last year we did not do a billion. No, no, we did 850 million for the year. We did 850 million. Absolutely. We're going to do a billion this year.

How can somebody become a multi-millionaire in today's world? Oh my gosh. Everyone thinks Miami is where the money is. The flashy cars, the wild parties, the influencers everywhere. But if you really want to see where the old money is, the quiet wealth, the billionaires, well, you got to head about an hour north up to Boca Raton in Palm Beach, which is where we're at right now, guys. We're literally on billionaires' row out here, and I'm going to be going up door to door knocking, ringing the bells to be able to figure out if we can talk to these people to figure out how they made their money and built their fortune. Guys, I'm going to be cold approaching multi-millionaires and billionaires today to get their advice for you. So stay tuned from start to finish cuz this video is going to be insane. And with that being said, let's get this video on the way. [Music] Go. Excuse me, sir. Is this your house? I started a business media channel that I grew to 14 million followers. Thank you, sir.

You guys, this is the difficult thing about this video. Because we are in one of the richest neighborhoods, probably one of the richest areas in the entire country. It is very hard to get access to these people to do interviews with them. But all we can do is keep on going. And I always say that volume negates luck, and every no is a step closer to a yes. You guys come on. Hi, ma'am. My name is James, and I started a business social media channel called the school of hard knocks that I grew to 14 million followers. I go all over the world. We're not interested. Okay. Have a nice day. Hi. How you doing, man? Good. How are you? Question for you. Yeah. So, I grew a social media channel to about 14 million followers going all over the world asking homeowners what they did to be able to afford their houses. Is this your spot right here? Yeah. Not interested. Oh, man. Have a good one, brother. Have a good one.

Here we go. I'm feeling this one. Please wait while your call is connected. Hello. Yeah. Hey, question for you. So, my name is James. I started a business social media channel called The School of Hard Knocks that I grew to 14 million followers. I travel all over the world interviewing business owners. I've interviewed Tom Cruise, Shaquille O'Neal, Mark Cuban, and I'm doing a series where I'm going to nice neighborhoods to ask beautiful homeowners like two or three questions on their advice to the younger generation. I'm just not interested, but thanks for the opportunity. Absolutely. Have a great day, sir. Thank you.

All right, you guys. This is probably like a $20 million house out here in South Florida. We're going to go up see if the homeowners are here and what they did to be able to afford this place. Come on. How you doing, sir? So, I started the biggest business media channel in the world where I go all over the world asking beautiful homeowners their best advice to the younger generation. Could I get 30? What's that? What do you? What do you? What do you want? Just advice to the younger generation on how you were able to afford such a beautiful home. I go all over the world. Yeah. Thanks everybody. Well, so we we've interviewed? You can't get everybody, man. You can't get everybody. Hey, we tried, man. You heard the pitch. I thought it was effective, but it's tough out here, you guys. Yeah.

Question for you. So, I started a social media channel at the University of Texas. I grew it to about 14 million followers where I go all over the world just interviewing business owners and people for advice to the younger generation. I thought you had a beautiful house. Did you buy this house? Is this your house? My husband did. He did? Is he here? No. What did he do? He's on the way to Italy. He's in private equity. He's in private equity. I say work hard. Work hard. Follow your dreams. Okay. I'd love it. That's? Don't listen to what other people say. Any advice to somebody trying to find the right life partner? Values. You have to have things in common. What do you have to be aligned on? Like most importantly your interest and like values. I think values are very important. If you don't have values and morals, right? 100%. I hate to say it cuz morals today. Hey, she said it. She said it, not me.

All right, you guys. We are at our next sector of mansions out here in Boca Raton. I mean, look at these places right here. The house right over here. They just pulled up a G Wagon to the drive. We're going to see if we can go up and get some game for you guys. Come on. Excuse me, sir. Sir, is this your house? Can I help you? Is this your house? Who are you? I grew channel to 14 million followers. I started the biggest business media channel in the entire world getting advice for young entrepreneurs. What did you do to be able to afford this place? Yeah, I was in the electronic cigarette business. Ecigarettes? Yeah, ecigarettes. How long were you in the business? I built the world's largest brand in under 5 years for 10 grand. So, you started with 10 grand. 10 grand. And what's the most you made in a single year? Give me the biggest year you had. 100 million. 100 million. And could I? Yeah. Could I interview you for one minute real quick for the channel? I'll give you two. Is that okay? Yeah. How did you scale from a 10 to $100 million company? What was your secret to scaling? My secret was going store to store, mouth to mouth with my electronic cigarettes. I'd spend 20 hours on a line at 7-Eleven saying, "Hey, you smoke Marlboro, try my brand, cancer-free. You can do it anywhere. And by the way, your wife's going to love the way you smell, and your kids are going to be happy. You're not going to kill yourself in deadly cigarettes." So, it's like real gorilla. So, store by store, mouth by mouth, my son says, "Dad, tell the story." So, every week I log 140 hours. I'd have all those customers that went to go buy a cup of coffee, bought my Logic. The store made 40% gross profit. I got paid upfront. I always say no consignment commitment. Guaranteed the product and store by store I built my brand. Did you have anybody that doubted you? Everybody. Everybody. I was a personal trainer. I had 39 failed companies. You said you had 39 companies that failed, but that 40th one hit. It was a rocket ship. What was it about that 40th company that just enabled it to take off? It was at the moment that somebody blew smoke in front of me at a meeting and I thought it was real smoke, but then they said it's electronic cigarette, cancer-free smoking. I said this is what God has put me on the earth to do. Get millions of people off deadly cigarettes. And I went all in, and it was like out of a motion picture. We had a 100,000 points of distribution. We broke a 100 million in 18 months. We were the hottest brand in the nation. And we basically in less than 5 years we sold the company to Japan Tobacco through Goldman Sachs. It still feels like a movie. Were you ever afraid of competition? You know what? Competition fuels me. Messi wouldn't be as good without Ronaldo. They fuel each other. The ying and yang. So you see a competitive market. You're not afraid to go in there and? No, I love to beat competition. What do you do differently from everybody else when you identify a market? Okay, so this is what I did. This is a crazy story. I identified in the electronic cigarette market one is rechargeables were defective. Had a lot of returns. They were very expensive. How did you find that problem to identify? So I went in the stores asked questions and said what are your bestselling brands and what are the challenge you have? How important was it for you asking the right questions to the people that find the problems? No, the right questions are everything. I mean uh look at Tim Ferriss. Tim Ferriss talks about asking the right questions are everything. Going in giving the highest profit margin, giving them a product that we guaranteed always work. We knew we had to deliver the best product with the best experience. So, we went all in with disposable. We're really the only ones selling disposable for $9.99. Store paid $5.95. They made 40% GP. But how do you give them the right experience? There are four levels of nicotine. There was like 27815. Then we had a low below one. So, what I did as a scrappy gorilla marketer is I had these white boxes and I wrote on a Marlboro Newport Marlboro light. What did that do? It identified that smoker and which Logic they should choose because there were 30 40 different brands on the counter. We had a plain white box. I just wrote the brand of the cigarettes on them. This was so different because simplicity sells. Yeah. So, right away, oh, you want Marlboro, take Logic Platinum. Oh, you do Marlboro Light, Logic Gold Label. This was great. I'll tell you another thing I did. I dropped the secrets in some high ticket, call them masterminds that people hire me to speak in. So, I'll drop some bombs here. Trademarks. Trademarks are very powerful. You can make claims with trademarks. What is the one of the greatest trademarks of all time that I did for Logic? They said to me, "Howie, if you want to claim that you're the most trusted brand, you need to get a focus group." Focus group. I don't have 250 for a focus group. I started with 10 grand. How can you get out of the focus group and just claim something? It's like the 5-hour energy guy. He never claimed it was 5 hours of energy. He just called that that was the brand. That was his brand, right? People try to sue him. And he said, "No, that's my brand. All I say is feel in minutes last for hours." So, I took that concept for myself and I said, "Okay, I'm going to register under electronic cigarettes the most trusted brand." And it went through 2,000 taxis in New York. Logic, the most trusted brand. I was the first one on taxis in New York. I had 2,000 taxis, $150 a month advertising. I was in every bodega. I took over New York and the five boroughs. I didn't even go to the West Coast. I stayed focused on the East Coast. So, you mastered guerilla marketing? I mastered guerilla marketing by being in the streets, in the stores, talking to the managers, talking to the workers, and I still do it today. You do better than anybody else. I do it the best of my ability. I don't compare to anybody else. I just look at my results, and my results speak for themselves. You got amazing advice, my friend. All right, cool. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate you.

You guys, we just walked up to and interviewed a hundred million dollar entrepreneur at his compound. You guys, this is one of the craziest houses that I've ever seen in my entire life. And he made his fortune doing what? Inventing an ecigarettes company. He disrupted an entire market. And he did it by solving problems. He said that I got tired of seeing people die from cigarette smoke. So, he wanted to convert them over to ecigarettes. There you go. You can make money any way you want if you're entrepreneurial. This video just got off to a crazy start, but we got to go get this next one out here in Boca Raton, you guys. Come on. Excuse me, ma'am. Ma'am, is this your house? What did you do to be able to afford this place? What did you do to be able to afford this place? I'm a tech entrepreneur. So, I go all over the world interviewing the most successful people to help the younger generation. I'm going all over asking homeowners what they did to be able to afford multi-million dollar houses. I wanted to know if I could interview you for one minute real quick. Just a minute. It'll be worth it. It's? It's for the younger generation. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Is that okay? Yeah, sure. So, what business made you the most amount of money? In 2003, I started a tech company, and I sold my last company for 235 million. 235 billion. That's right. That's a lot of ES. Hey. Hey, that's a lot. That's a lot. That's why we live here. How did you get the money to start that business? Oh my gosh. My grandma gave me a $10,000 loan. You got a loan from your grandma? Grandma? She didn't even know what the internet was. How did you convince her to give you a loan? You know what? After nobody else would give me money, I knew she was the one person that would always make a bet on me. And I told her the internet was going to be huge. What did you see that early that inspired you to kind of go create a tech company in internet marketing? Cuz that when I think 20 years ago, that's in like the very early 2000s. That was when people were questioning whether that was going to be like a boomer sort of thing. What did you see that, you know, made you want to stand out and go build a company there? Well, I'd already worked for a company that did go bust, and they raised 100 million, and I thought, hey, I could think I could do this better myself. So, you got the $10,000 loan. Did you raise any more money at any point in time or? No, I didn't. I used the $10,000, and I bootstrapped it from my kitchen table. So, what were you doing? Like, who were you selling to? What were your customers? Selling to advertisers? I was trying to displace the billboards and the yellow pages. I mean, this is really early on. What was that thing that you did to be able to set up the exit for over $200 million? Honestly, it's innovation, market demand, timing, luck plays a lot to do with it. And the people, I had great people. No one's successful alone, especially in tech. I don't know how to code, but I definitely know how to find the number one person as a CTO that does. Were you a good saleswoman? Oh, yeah. The best. You sell well. Oh, yes, of course. First, give me a little 30-second-long sales master class right here. Somebody, they're struggling to close deals. They're struggling to bring that revenue into their business right now. What's your best sales advice for anybody in business? My best negotiation advice is not to let emotion come into a deal. So whether it's something good or something bad, the moment it gets emotional or you get emotional, you lose. How do you control that though? Cuz when tempers are flaring, when you're feeling a certain way inside, how did you control that when you're in that room? It takes time. It's it's a skill. It's a skill that you have to really focus on. And I think the best and most successful people I know don't let emotion control them, and they'll wait it out. Now talk to me about how you were able to scale the company because a lot of entrepreneurs they'll be lucky to get to a million in revenue. It's like.1% get to 10 million, and then let alone you went from 10 to 100 million. What was your secret to scaling this company? Oh my gosh. Having great mentors. And the easiest way to find a mentor I could be your mentor is saying these three words. Let's have coffee. Honestly, simple as coffee makes a huge difference because it's 15 minutes, and if you can get the mentor, your ability to multiply your success is significant. So, finding the right mentors. I cannot tell you if you don't have a mentor, you will not be successful either. Do you have a mentor? I do. Oh, good. See, that's why you're you. I I have a couple. Okay. It makes a huge I today have so many mentors depending on what business I'm running. I'm running a lot of them. I have a mentor in every single one that's already been successful. The mentor doesn't have to be someone 20 years ahead. It can be someone one year ahead. Just someone that has already been where you want to go, has done what you want to do, and actually cares about you and your growth. So, after exiting your tech companies, you're still building companies. Yes. Oh my gosh, I got four right now. You have four companies right now. Are they diversified or diversified? I got two tech companies. I got a web three company, a predictive intelligence company, a beauty company, and a beverage company. What's keeping you going? Cuz you're you're set for life. Like, you don't your your kids kids aren't going to have to work. Like, what is really keeping you going to be able to keep on building companies? Is it just the love of the game or what? I love the love of the game. I love to win, and I love to help people, and I love to help entrepreneurs. I've invested in over 150 companies because my grandma made a bet on me, and I want to pay that forward. What's your name? Kim Pel. It's great to meet you.

Guys, these Florida moguls are going crazy right now, and I'm headed to go get my next one. But I want to give you one of the best pieces of advice that I've ever received from a billionaire, which is that your ability to communicate will determine how far you go in the business world. But here's the problem. Writing clear and confident messages to heavy hitters isn't always easy, especially when it comes to professional emails, proposals, or even Slack messages. But that's where Grammarly comes in. Grammarly is an AI writing partner that works inside of your favorite apps like Gmail, Notion, and even Slack, helping you write better and faster without having to switch tools constantly. You can literally go from a rough draft to a polished message within minutes, not hours. You can rewrite, rephrase, and adjust the tone of your message, all with just one click. And it even tailors your writing based on the audience you're trying to reach and the goals of your message. So what you say lends the exact way you want it to. But you want to know the best part? It is completely free to use, and all you have to do is go down and click the link in the description of this video or go to grammarly.com/hardnock05 [Music], and you can use Grammarly today for free. With that being said, let's get back to the video. Sir. Sir, is this your Ferrari? Yes. What did you do to be able to afford a Ferrari? I sold the biggest company in my industry in 2018. What type of company? It was a specialty finance company. How much did you sell your company for? Almost 100 million. 100 million. Yes. Could I interview you for one minute real quick? Sure. I've got a few minutes. How long have you been a business owner? So, I've been an owner since 2000. So, about 25 years now. Over these 25 years. What's the greatest lesson that you've learned about entrepreneurship that you give to somebody about to start their first company in today's world? So, I've worked for three of the biggest companies in the world, and it was in a senior management position in those companies. And what I learned is it's a lot better to make money for yourself and the people that work for you as opposed to really big companies. So the best advice I can give is to start something on your own if you really want to make it big and take a chance and bet on yourself. Did you come from a lot of money? I did not. Blue-collar neighborhood, Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Dad was a Mason. Mom was a housewife. So what was your turning point to financial freedom? I worked at a big company and had a really good mentor. He taught me a lot, and he was the one who said, "If you really want to be successful and make a lot of money, it's not going to happen if you're working for a big company. You have to find different alternative ways to make money." So, I started a little side business while I was working full-time and realized that that was my passion. Again, the message is betting on yourself. And what was the biggest risk that you took throughout your career? Biggest risk I took is probably one that I took in my early 60s, which is where I am right now. And

That's raising a lot of money from people that trust me, millions of dollars, and being responsible for that. It was easy to do that when I was younger, but once things started to set in, the enormous responsibility to manage other people's money is something that's really important.

So, in your 60s, you're still taking risk. I'm still taking risk, and I'm not stopping. As a matter of fact, we're starting a restaurant in about 2 weeks. And some people see one restaurant, I see a chain of restaurants. Whenever I do something, I try not to focus on the present. Try to focus on the future and have a vision about what it's going to become in the future.

And you're in the top part of the top 1%. What are you investing in right now in today's world? So, they used to say it's 100 minus your age. I have a broker's license. I was on Wall Street. And 100 minus my age would mean I should only be 35% in equities. I'm 95% in equities. You're 95% equities in the stock market. In the stock market, but I've also invested in a cryptocurrency fund, and I put a pretty significant amount of business in there whereas, you know, Bitcoin is 40% of the holding.

So, you like crypto? I like crypto. I'm starting to really understand it and started to see that it's the next gen. Do you think people should buy some cryptocurrency? I do, but I think it should only be a percentage of their portfolio. So, if someone has a modest risk profile, it should probably be 10 to 15% of their profile. It's 25% of my profile.

What was the best financial decision you made throughout your career? Becoming an entrepreneur. No question. No question. Would you have done it any other way? I would not have done it any other way, and I wouldn't change anything. I'm happy sitting in a Ferrari right now, and I'm happy where it ended up.

All right, you guys. So, I have a special surprise for you all right now. Since we're in Boca Raton, it was only right that I hit up a good mentor of mine, my billionaire friend Shawn Mike, who built several nine-figure and billion-dollar companies. His company right now that he's running has done $5 billion in sales, and he invited us out to interview him at his house for you guys to give you guys the blueprint on how to become multi-millionaires in today's world. But let's go meet with him right now. There he is. What's up, man? How's it going, my friend? How are you, bro? Good, man. I'm excited to be here. We're ready. We're ready to drop some game for some people, man. No doubt about it, dude.

Remind the people right now, how much money did you make this last year? We did $850 million for the year. $850 million. Yes, sir. That's a lot of M's. It's a lot. It's a lot of work. Made a major difference in the world. A lot of people made a lot of money at the company, which is amazing. What are you going to do this year? We'll do a billion. It'll be the first time I've done a billion in a year. That's incredible. It is an incredible number. I come all the way out here to ask you how you got rich and how the younger generation watching can become wealthy in today's world. Can we make that happen? Absolutely. Anything for you, man.

What business has made you the most amount of money? Life insurance. That's an unsexy business, though. It's a very profitable business. Yeah. How is it profitable? Because I find need-based products, right? So, real estate was my first business that was very good to me. I did very well. Then I got into waste management, and then I had somebody introduce me to the life insurance business. So, when I can't run out of leads and it's need-based and I can't run out of people to get in front of and all I got to do is compete with everybody else that's out there. It's an amazing business.

Did you come from a rich family? Hell no. My mother worked three jobs. Me, my mother, my brother, and all the cats and dogs she had and birds she could get. Lived in a little one-bedroom place. I watched my mom struggle, and uh my grandparents didn't have any money. My father was from Iowa. My mom raised us. So, no man, we didn't have anything.

So, what was your turning point to financial freedom? If you've watched your mother struggle as a boy, I got a little brother. I watch my mom and I see the stress on her and I see how it almost breaks her and I see how hard she worked. And you know, I play baseball, basketball, football. My mom didn't go to my games. Not cuz my mom didn't love me. My mom was working all the time, morning, day, night, weekends. So, I was like, I want my mom to have a better opportunity eventually. I don't know who else going to provide it for, and I didn't want people to look at me and our family and I don't want them to look down on us. Not cuz I thought I was better than them, but I was just as good as they were. And so I just wanted to compete when I was a young age. So I watched the way people looked at us because what we didn't have, and I was like I'm not going to live the rest of my life that way. I promise you that.

In my last interview, you gave me a piece of advice that Arthur Blank gave you when you asked him. I'm going to challenge you again. Give me the best piece of advice that you've ever received from a mentor. Think about the billionaires that you've met. Give me a tactical piece of business advice that you've learned in the last few years of your life that have enabled you to drastically scale and become a better entrepreneur and just self-improve in general.

I was sitting in a meeting with a group of people, and we were looking at each other's businesses, and and there was a gentleman that walked in and he's a great guy, very successful. He's like, I want to be the most successful person nobody knows about. Like I just keep it moving. Billionaire many times over. And he looked at me and he said, "You know the problem you have in your business?" And I said, "I probably have multiple problems. I'm trying to scale it." He said, "You're not delegating enough." And I said, "Okay, what would you delegate?" He said, "Almost all of it. You need to continue to do what you're doing, but you need to build other people up by learning how to delegate." The art of delegation. So, he said, "Anything that you can teach somebody to do, even if they're half as effective as you at it, then you build something massive." And maybe if you get out of the way and delegate it and watch them grow, you'd be shocked what you can accomplish. That's how I'm on my way to a billion. Like, we'll do a billion this year. How? Because been able to delegate and have all these amazing people like, I can handle the lead gen part. I'm over here doing the marketing. Oh, recruiting. I got that. Oh, on the tech side, yes, Sean, we're doing these five things over here, and they have the ability, and they know I'm comfortable with them going and making these decisions. And guess what? They're going to make bad decisions on occasion. It's okay. Give them the leeway to know that they're going to fall on their face on occasion as well. So, that's been actually probably the best piece of advice I've gotten over the last number of years now to continue to scale my business. You can only go so far when you're trying to do too many jobs, fit too many roles, cuz there's people that are distant, they leave the business. And I think that's a problem. I've exited businesses. As I did in real estate, waste management, life insurance, the ones that have been successful, I stayed around it. When I sold my real estate company, they should have kept me around. They should have. They didn't. They're like, "I got it from here." I was like, "Okay." And a couple years later, the whole thing just fell apart. Waste management company. I sold it to a massive national company. They had the infrastructure, but some of the guys transferred over and still stayed. Life insurance, I stayed involved cuz I love the business I'm in, and I want to continue to take it to the next level. You're never the only person that can do it.

Are you a good salesman? I'm the best salesman you'll meet. Unlike the other guys that tell you they're the best salesman, I am the best salesman. Give a 30-second sales master class right here. At the end of the day, you have to have such great confidence, and you have to be so presumptive. No matter what you're doing, you can't ask for anything. You instruct somebody. If I have a need-based product and you're my lead-based client, you have to be in the lead selling. If I'm not going to cold call or cold knock, you'll fail. So, you have to get leads. You have to be presumptive. When you say presumptive, you mean assume the sale. Yeah. Like I'm at the airport yesterday, and the guy says to me, "Uh, he's stumbling." So, then he restates his thought and says, "Would you like to tip on the card or do you want to give me cash?" That's presumptive. I'm like, do do that. Don't go, "Well, um, and we have a tip cup." No. Would you like to tip on the card, sir, or do you want to tip with cash? And if I have a product that you've already said you need, all I have to do is cut through all the garbage and go, James, you understand. Tell people the truth. They're dying for the truth. What are clients afraid of? What are buyers afraid of? Being lied to. Their number one fear is being lied to. Not paying too much. They don't want you to lie to them. So, I'll give you I'll give you one statement. Change your life. No matter who you're selling anything to, you say, "Hey, James, may I ask you a question?" Yeah. Do I have your permission to be ridiculously, pathetically, brutally honest with you this entire time we're talking about the product? No matter what it is, you're totally fine with me telling you the truth no matter what. Yes. Okay. Done. So, if it's life insurance and I go, "James, it's going to cost this much because you're older in your health. James, your house, your roof's leaking, James, what's it going to cost?" A lot, James. The entire thing's leaking. Like, you've given me permission to be honest with you. And also, sales is just it's a marathon, not a sprint. People are not looking to be enamored or tricked. They want the truth. And if you're confident, I'm confident. If you're uncomfortable, I immediately think you're lying to me because you're uncomfortable. And my favorite line in sales is, "Here's what we're going to do because it becomes a joke. Here's what we're going to do." James, I hear you on all that, but here's what we're going to do. No, I understand what you're saying. Today's not a great day to do it. I here's what we're So, it's safe to say that you could sell water to a fish. Yeah. That like, and it's funny because when people tell me they're like, "I could sell uh snow cones to Eskimos and ketchup to white gloves." I'm like, "Dude, sales doesn't require talent." The reason I'm good at it is I'm very teachable. I look people in the eye, and I I'll I'll tell them no matter what they need to hear, I'm going to tell them the truth. I'm going to stand behind it. I'm going to work my ass off. I'm going to invest in leads, and I'm going to invest in me and getting better. So other people could beat me if they'd outwork me. Good. Doesn't require any talent. See, the biggest misnomer about sales, anybody that tells you they're a good salesperson because they're just good sales, they're lying. They just work harder and have more leads. Am I good at it? Yes. I've done it a lot. I've had plenty of reps. There's also guys in the UFC that have been fighting since they were six. They're good at it. Why? They've been fighting everybody their entire lives. They're starving, and they've been fighting everybody. They know where to put their hands. They train every day, 8, 10, 12 hours a day. I'm going to be real.

That's some of the best sales advice I've ever heard. Thank you, man. That's what you told me. You You doubted me. I could see in your eyes you're the best salesman. I was like, "The other people aren't." So, I had to step up. Awesome day right there, guys. $850 million in a single year. He said, "I'm doing a billion dollars this year." That entire interview was a straight masterclass. I can't believe we just linked up with the legend Shawn Mike once again. You know, he was going to bring a million dollars worth of game for you guys. Not a million, a billion dollars worth of game. But, let's keep this video rolling and go get another one, you guys. Come on.

This is one of the craziest houses I've seen in my entire life. I can't even call this a house. This is a compound. Let's see if we can get some free game. How you doing, sir? Good. Is this your house? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. What did you do to be able to afford this place? Yeah. So, so, so I I I grew a channel to 14 million followers. I go all over the world interviewing business owners and the most successful people to help the younger generation. I wanted to know if I could interview you for one minute real quick if that was cool. Okay. Okay. Come on. Is that okay? Could we do it out here for lighting purposes? You know what? Let's do it outside in the back. There's better lighting. Is that okay? Yeah. Okay. Thank you, sir.

What line of business were you in? I'm in real estate. Like multi-family. Multi-family. Why multi-family? It was an accident. It was like truly, it was like a one conversation in a family members'. They said they own one and they lived in the other three. And that's what I did. I bought my first fourplex. Actually, yeah. I lived in one and I, you know, rent the other three, and that's how I that's how it started. People say you have to have a ton of money to get started in real estate. Do you agree with that? Hell no. Hell no. That you don't need. When I bought my first fourplex, I bought it I spent $50,000 that I borrowed and I ran and you know sell all my cars. The second fourplex I bought with $5,000. The third one I bought with $3,000. The last deal I think I bought $72 million I bought with zero money.

What do you mean zero money? Zero money. Did you borrow money buddy or what? Nope. It's creative financing rather. Creative. Yeah. There's no banks, man. How does that work? Well, you got to have you got to build your reputation and you got to build the credit, and there's a people that want to give you the money all the time, and you just got to find the deals.

What was the most amount of money that you made in a single year? I can tell you there was a year that I lost $250 million. You lost and I remember I don't I don't learn [ __ ] from my successes. Like I can tell you how many millions I made. It's not about that. It's about the the lessons and the failure I made in my life. How did you lose $250 million in a year? Well, the market dropped, and so it was like a lot of equity and a lot of cash. So what did you learn from that? Like not put all your eggs in one basket or what was that lesson? No, no, this is exactly that I you know I play safe. You know when you get bigger you get more comfortable and comfortable, and then you overanalyze yourself and you forget about yourself because you got all the answers within you.

What was the lowest point in your life? It was 4 years ago when I almost committed suicide. You almost you almost committed suicide. Yeah. On this boat right there. That boat I almost took that to give my scuba diving gear went to the ocean and did the last dives. Why? Well because I was always looking for validation from the outside world. That's why you I'm so successful in the businesses cuz anything I touched turns to gold but I forgot about me. My businesses become my identity versus I'm I have my own identity yet to grow my businesses.

So you don't think money buys happiness. Oh, hell no. [ __ ] no. [ __ ] Oh, dude. Don't get me started. Money doesn't buy you. The only thing money buys you buys you time. And then what you do with that, you know, if you're a douchebag, you're going to be a bigger douchebag. You're a good human being. The money is going to give you more. Amplifies the person. Amplifies exactly who you are.

So, what is it that enabled you to find that true fulfillment and happiness? Like when you hit rock bottom mentally, when you almost took your life, what was that actionable step that you took? There's a lot of people that are at rock bottom right now mentally, physically, spiritually. What advice would you give to them, brother? Thank you. Thank you for asking the question. I appreciate that. What advice would you give to them? It doesn't matter how hard a time you're going through right now. It's going to pass. And it doesn't matter like you you're on the top of the mountains is also is going to pass. So connect with yourself, fulfill yourself, work on yourself. And you know what? Baby steps. You know, you don't have to win. You don't have to immediately get enormous huge wins. Just a little day at the time, 1% at the time, just little steps. And the most important, talk to somebody. Do not hide. Like, you know what we men do? We freaking hide. When we go through [ __ ] we don't tell anybody. And what you got to do, you got to really sit down with somebody and you got to make sure that you have trusted people. That's somebody at the bar. That's not what I'm saying. And really drug, not alcohol, all this [ __ ] doesn't take you anywhere. We have all the addictions because what happened is we're sedating with that. And I was sedating with work and then I was sedating with working out. I was an iron man, you know, then one through second winning them. So it's it's like this is just sedation you know workaholism work alcoholism alcohol is drugs everything gambling food all this stuff it's a sedation because we don't want to be in the present moment and you know connect with ourselves if you die tomorrow and all that was left was one guiding principle that you could give to somebody to become the best version of themselves what would that be the only message I still I'm not going to change we got everything like you got everything what you need already within you go deep search for it and work on yourself be selfish for a while. Do not get married too early and build this empire. You are the biggest asset in the world and you're the only one. Take care of it. Build a castle. Everything else is abundance will come. You are love. You are abundant and you got everything within you. Go enjoy the journey, not the destination. And the person you become on the journey because we all want a shortcut. You know what I mean? I always tell people, don't get any shortcuts. Take the detour because the person you're going to become is going to help you in life.

You got amazing advice, my friend. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time. All right, you guys, that's a wrap on today's video. He said, "Come on in." I said, "We want to do it out front." He said, "Now, we got to do it in the backyard." And he just gave an amazing, wholesome interview, man. Told us his full life story, the highs and the lows, but I need you guys to like and subscribe for amazing content we've got coming every single week. Guys, I'm going all over the world to interview the most successful and the wealthiest people for you guys to learn from and implement the information that they give you guys here on this channel, only on this channel at the School of Hard Knocks. And if you want to take it a step further and be able to get access to the millionaires and billionaires that I interview, well, you can cuz every week guys, I host live calls with the people that I interview, the eight nine-figure billionaire entrepreneurs you see me interview, I host live calls with them every week inside of my private entrepreneur community. If you want to join today, go down and click the link in the description to join. You can join right now for free. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get mentored from the biggest business owners in the world.

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