Louder with Crowder - PBD Goes From Atheist To God-Fearing Man | Ash Wednesday with Patrick Bet-David

00:00:04.000 All right, glad to be with you.

00:00:05.000 Ash Wednesday, which I don't know if this is going up on Wednesday because we have to pre-tape with my guest today because he's busy.

00:00:13.000 He's running like nine companies or something, but he has a new book, Choose Your Enemies Wisely, Business Planning for the Audacious Few, and you can actually pre-order it on Amazon.

00:00:23.000 It's available December 5th, and I've done his show a few times, and he's been around here.

00:00:27.000 Mr. Patrick Bette David, how are you, sir?

00:00:30.000 Very good.

00:00:31.000 Very good.

00:00:31.000 Yeah?

00:00:32.000 Is there some inside lane here that I know?

00:00:34.000 Is there something that, like, why so very good?

00:00:37.000 Why very good?

00:00:37.000 Because, you know, no matter how crazy things may be that, you know, not everybody knows about, at the end of the day, man, if you're living in America, if you can go out there and, you know, voice your opinion to the best of your abilities, live your life, you're in the arena competing You know, getting shots taken at.

00:00:56.000 You got, you know, allies, enemies.

00:00:59.000 It's exciting.

00:01:00.000 This is all exciting to me.

00:01:01.000 Well, you said things that maybe people don't know.

00:01:02.000 I feel like you like the inside lane on things.

00:01:04.000 You're like, some things that maybe people don't know.

00:01:06.000 In business, that's a big thing, right?

00:01:08.000 Like, knowing something that someone else doesn't know.

00:01:10.000 I think it is.

00:01:10.000 Having a trick.

00:01:11.000 I think, you know, surprises.

00:01:13.000 I'm a surprise guy.

00:01:14.000 You know, it's funny.

00:01:14.000 Last night, I'm in Glendale at Rafi's place having a dinner with my friend Steven Offal.

00:01:20.000 And Afua says, I don't know how you do it.

00:01:21.000 I said, what do you mean?

00:01:22.000 He says, I can't keep surprises.

00:01:23.000 The other day I'm paying off my house for paying off my daughter, my sister's house, and I want to surprise her at the house party.

00:01:30.000 I couldn't hold till the weekend.

00:01:32.000 I had to tell her on the phone.

00:01:34.000 How can you hold so many surprises?

00:01:35.000 You didn't tell us what you're doing with the Yankees.

00:01:37.000 You're not like that.

00:01:38.000 My dad is all about surprises.

00:01:40.000 I love surprises.

00:01:41.000 Yeah.

00:01:41.000 And an element of competing in a marketplace is surprise and you know that no one's expecting what to happen.

00:01:49.000 That's exciting, that's exciting.

00:01:50.000 Yeah, there's some people who hate surprises.

00:01:52.000 Like Johnny Boy, you've met him.

00:01:54.000 I mean, if I come around a corner, he... Not a fan of it.

00:01:56.000 No, he wets himself.

00:01:57.000 But guess what, you've got to surprise him even more.

00:01:58.000 I know, I do it all the time.

00:02:00.000 If he happens to go in a door, I'm just like, well, I guess I'm hiding behind the door now.

00:02:03.000 And I just lean out and he's like... It's like gullible people.

00:02:05.000 Yeah, he's just jumpy.

00:02:06.000 The best people in the world are gullible people.

00:02:08.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:02:09.000 You can practice jokes on them, pranks on them, they're the best.

00:02:11.000 I mean, you can clear out their savings account by pretending to be a Nigerian prince.

00:02:15.000 You know, of course, that's a felony though.

00:02:18.000 Didn't a guy just do that and steal eight billion dollars and he's going to jail for maybe a hundred years or ten years and his mother wrote a paper from Stanford.

00:02:25.000 She was a Stanford Law professor.

00:02:27.000 The responsibility, like, you know, we have to not pay that much attention to responsibility.

00:02:33.000 What's his name?

00:02:33.000 Sam something, right?

00:02:34.000 Sam Bankman Freed.

00:02:35.000 Oh, Sam Bankman Freed.

00:02:36.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:02:37.000 No, he didn't fake being a Nigerian prince.

00:02:39.000 No, he did a whole bunch.

00:02:40.000 It was the FTX scandal.

00:02:41.000 Yeah, the FTX scandal.

00:02:42.000 Yeah, no, the problem with the internet is it's too easy to sometimes, you know, there's a generation gap.

00:02:47.000 So, I mean, my grandmother, you know, rest in peace now, but she used to have her home office, she would say, this is where I do my forwarding.

00:02:54.000 I was like, oh, that's why I get 15 emails from you. 0.98

00:02:58.000 Before this, you never walked up and physically handed me a picture of Michelle Obama with what appears to be a penis. 0.98

00:03:04.000 Like, there was a level of propriety that you didn't do that. 0.96

00:03:07.000 Grandma gave you pictures of Michelle Obama.

00:03:09.000 Well, she's like, you know, she's a man, you know, that kind of thing. 0.59

00:03:12.000 And you're like, she's a forward.

00:03:13.000 But she treated it like a job.

00:03:15.000 And because they think, like, this is all news.

00:03:17.000 And so it does happen on both sides with the fake news.

00:03:21.000 So you've been around for a long time.

00:03:23.000 Do you actually, is it nine companies that you run?

00:03:25.000 Nine companies right now, yeah.

00:03:27.000 How does that happen?

00:03:28.000 I mean, how do you run nine companies?

00:03:31.000 Because I want to get to your origin story, I guess, if you will, but that is something that right away on its face just sounds shocking to people.

00:03:39.000 So I don't recommend it, by the way.

00:03:40.000 It's not something I recommend.

00:03:42.000 When I say nine companies, you don't start like that.

00:03:46.000 Well, you know, when I went into financial services with Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, I left.

00:03:51.000 I went to Transamerica World Financial.

00:03:53.000 I was with them for seven and a half years, and then at the tail end of it, I watched Jerry Maguire, literally.

00:03:59.000 After Jerry Maguire, I write a 16-page, you know, what we ought to do to take this company to the next level, with nine ideas that I have, and I emailed it.

00:04:07.000 Nobody responds.

00:04:08.000 Back then, I emailed it to the CEO of Agon.

00:04:11.000 And he responds back and he sends it to a guy named Jack and Jack calls everybody that didn't respond to me to fly out to Orange County, have a meeting with me for 7-8 hours and I proposed everything and then nothing happened.

00:04:22.000 So I went back and I said, okay, no problem.

00:04:25.000 If that's the case.

00:04:27.000 If you don't value these ideas, maybe I'll go do it myself.

00:04:30.000 And I had a meeting in Atlanta with them, in a room with 15 people around the room.

00:04:35.000 I wish I was recorded, by the way.

00:04:36.000 All the lawyers are there, presidents, everybody.

00:04:38.000 I said, I'm here to make one of four decisions.

00:04:41.000 I'm either going to stay here, be the CEO.

00:04:43.000 I'm either going to sell my business.

00:04:44.000 I'm either going to go to another industry, or I'm going to resign and go start my own company.

00:04:48.000 They said, you'll never resign and start your own company.

00:04:50.000 I said, you don't think I'll do it?

00:04:50.000 He says, nope.

00:04:51.000 For the last 20 years, people like you come here threatening to leave.

00:04:55.000 They don't.

00:04:56.000 They want a check, we give them a check, and then they never leave and they had never plans of leaving anyway, so we don't believe you.

00:05:02.000 I said okay fair enough I think that's a fair assessment so a month later I had an event in JW Marriott Palm Springs called saving America doing the impossible this is 09 and I'm dressed as George Washington you can actually find this picture it's pretty funny my wife is dressed as Lady Liberty this is three weeks after we got married 40-foot Mount Rushmore four or five hundred people in the audience the events called saving America doing the impossible I bring a Larry Greenfield from Claremont Institute to talk about the history of capitalism.

00:05:33.000 I bring Dudley Rutherford to talk about the Star Spangled Banner.

00:05:36.000 And then boom, we launch that.

00:05:38.000 Three months later, I resign.

00:05:40.000 I start our own company.

00:05:42.000 Ph.D.

00:05:43.000 agency with 66 agents, insurance company.

00:05:46.000 And we grew that from 66 to 45,000 agents.

00:05:49.000 We sold it last June to Integrity Marketing Group that's Dallas-based and Silver Lake.

00:05:56.000 Nice exit.

00:05:57.000 It was exciting.

00:05:58.000 It was great.

00:05:59.000 But then throughout that process, I'm producing content with Valuetainment purely for entrepreneurs and business owners.

00:06:05.000 And the entire time, you know, my audience is small business owners, salespeople, executives, C-suites, founders, and my content is how to raise money.

00:06:13.000 You want to raise $10 million, here's how I did it, here's 10 things to look out for.

00:06:17.000 You want to sign a lease, I have a half a million square feet of office space nationwide, these are the 20 things you should be looking out for, this is what that guy's thinking, this is what you're thinking, here's how to negotiate with them, boom.

00:06:28.000 You want to fire somebody, hire somebody, hire C-suites, so that was my content for 5, 6, 7 years.

00:06:33.000 And then my interest became, I get a call from somebody from Peru, a booker saying, you know, I heard you on KRLA with Bill Martinez and, you know, I think you need to interview this guy named Michael Francis.

00:06:46.000 I said, the mobster?

00:06:46.000 He says, yes.

00:06:47.000 I says, I'm a business content guy.

00:06:49.000 He says, I think it'll blow up.

00:06:50.000 I said, I'm not going to do that.

00:06:51.000 It's not content for me.

00:06:53.000 A year and a half later, we do the interview.

00:06:55.000 It gets 20 million views.

00:06:56.000 Then I interviewed Samuel Del Bocarano, all these mobsters, Phil Leonetti.

00:06:59.000 They all started calling me because I always watch Godfather.

00:07:01.000 It was an always interesting power play, you know, what they did.

00:07:06.000 And then we did a bunch of CIA interviews, you know, business interviews, bodybuilding interviews, and then we found different niches.

00:07:12.000 Then my interest was always politics because I started seeing the more money you make, how they abuse you.

00:07:17.000 Matter of fact, today I was looking at the data, crazy data from tax Foundation.

00:07:21.000 Do you know what percent of the income tax that the government gets the top 1% pays?

00:07:27.000 The top 1%?

00:07:28.000 The top 1%.

00:07:29.000 I think they pay somewhere around 60-something percent, but I've seen as high as 80.

00:07:31.000 It's like 20% pays 80% in taxes.

00:07:32.000 20% pays 80%, but this is specifically 1%.

00:07:34.000 20% pays 80% but this is specifically 1%. 1% crowder pays 42.3% but do you know what

00:07:41.000 the bottom 50% pays in taxes? 2.3%.

00:07:45.000 Yeah well 47% of Americans.

00:07:47.000 That's what got Romney in trouble.

00:07:48.000 Yeah.

00:07:48.000 Or maybe it was 43.

00:07:49.000 It was either 43 or 47, don't pay any federal income tax.

00:07:52.000 Yeah.

00:07:53.000 And he said it in a way that was, you know, obviously wildly unpopular, but it was a fact.

00:07:58.000 That whole door was open when he made that comment, yeah.

00:08:00.000 He said, binders full of women. 1.00

00:08:01.000 Where he really screwed up was he said, put the dog on the roof of his car.

00:08:04.000 That's where it... Yeah, that's when you... That was a bridge too far.

00:08:06.000 Yeah.

00:08:06.000 People were like, what?

00:08:07.000 Well, not this, but, you know... Are you out of your mind?

00:08:10.000 You cannot, you're not ready to be president.

00:08:10.000 This is it.

00:08:12.000 Well, no one likes him anyway.

00:08:14.000 And then I started noticing how, when we're appointed in 49 states, how, I'm in Texas, but I'm still paying taxes in California, and I'm paying taxes in all these other states because insurance money.

00:08:24.000 So I'm like, okay, this is interesting what's going on.

00:08:26.000 More and more and more I got into it.

00:08:28.000 I said, no, I want to talk about this stuff.

00:08:30.000 Let me ask you, why do that?

00:08:31.000 In other words, people will ask, because I've been around some people who are incredibly wealthy, right?

00:08:35.000 Oh, it's still, I thought you might have to relight it.

00:08:38.000 the BidDev consulting, then we have a product development site with Manect app and Vault

00:08:43.000 Drink, then we have the shows, then we have the cigar lounge, then we have the comedy

00:08:47.000 club.

00:08:48.000 Let me ask you, why do that?

00:08:49.000 In other words, people will ask, because I've been around some people who are incredibly

00:08:52.000 wealthy, right?

00:08:53.000 Oh, it's still, I thought you might have to relight it.

00:08:55.000 Incredibly wealthy and then they often still, and I don't think this is the case with you,

00:08:59.000 but they still want more notoriety or fame.

00:09:01.000 In other words, you don't need to have a podcast, right, to make a living.

00:09:05.000 It's not like you were drawn to it because you wanted the big checks.

00:09:09.000 Why do it?

00:09:10.000 It makes sense to have a smaller podcast on investing.

00:09:12.000 A lot of people do that, right, for their investors or their money managers, etc.

00:09:16.000 What made you say, okay, I want to take this risk?

00:09:19.000 And that's a lot of work to do.

00:09:21.000 The podcast or the company?

00:09:22.000 Well, the more entertainment-centric companies as opposed to insurance.

00:09:25.000 Oh, there's no question.

00:09:27.000 That's a whole different story.

00:09:28.000 You know, a pastor of mine, Dudley Rutherford, who married my wife and I, one time he gave a talk saying there's seven pillars in America to climb.

00:09:39.000 It was military, family, church, entertainment, media, and he's got a list of sports, all these things he's listed, and I said, the most powerful one to climb is media.

00:09:49.000 But it's also the hardest one.

00:09:51.000 And I always thought about this.

00:09:52.000 He said this in 2009, 2010.

00:09:53.000 I'm like, media is the hardest one but the most powerful one.

00:09:56.000 Why is that?

00:09:58.000 And then you start noticing what's going on with media and what the messaging is, who's giving it, who's telling it, what they're doing, the level of trust in media today, how it's declining.

00:10:06.000 It's the lowest it's ever been.

00:10:07.000 The numbers came up last week.

00:10:09.000 And the trust in U.S.

00:10:10.000 government and media is at the lowest.

00:10:11.000 It started off being very high.

00:10:13.000 Right pre-JFK, we're at 70-72%.

00:10:16.000 Now we're at 27%.

00:10:17.000 You don't trust mainstream media when you're watching it.

00:10:20.000 And if you think about these guys, they got a teleprompter there.

00:10:23.000 Somebody's writing for them.

00:10:25.000 These comedians that are doing what they're doing.

00:10:27.000 The Kimmel's, the Fallon's.

00:10:28.000 Fallon's actually pretty talented, but you're watching all these guys.

00:10:31.000 They're reading the teleprompter.

00:10:32.000 When writers went on that strike, these guys couldn't do anything for four weeks and they came out with a podcast.

00:10:39.000 And you're watching, you know, mainstream media with MSNBC, with Fox, Murdoch on his way out, you don't know what his sons are going to do, Ted Turner.

00:10:46.000 At the end of his book, when he writes the book, you know, he claims how disappointed he is with what the product of CNN turned into.

00:10:53.000 If you've never watched or read the book Ted, highly recommend it.

00:10:57.000 And at the end there's an interview being done with him that this was not the product I produced.

00:11:01.000 CNN, the idea wasn't to be this.

00:11:03.000 Right.

00:11:04.000 So I saw a very... This is the guy who created the WCW with Eric Bischoff, so it must be really bad.

00:11:09.000 Yeah, he's disappointed in CNN.

00:11:12.000 I mean, he's had some misfires.

00:11:14.000 So that says a lot.

00:11:15.000 Oh, yeah, he did.

00:11:17.000 No doubt about it.

00:11:17.000 But he's a heavyweight in media the last 50 years and he revolutionized the game.

00:11:22.000 So even he's not happy with what's going on with CNN.

00:11:25.000 So I saw an opening and I said, OK.

00:11:27.000 I don't like bullies.

00:11:29.000 I don't like gamification.

00:11:30.000 I was a kid that was caught in between a mom and a dad.

00:11:34.000 Mom's side family, they were communists. 0.98

00:11:36.000 Dad's side family, they were imperialists.

00:11:37.000 They kept fighting every day.

00:11:38.000 They divorced twice in 20 years.

00:11:40.000 Each other, by the way.

00:11:41.000 They got married.

00:11:42.000 My sister's born.

00:11:43.000 They got divorced.

00:11:44.000 Family pressured for them to get remarried because in Middle Eastern, you know, culture, you don't get divorced.

00:11:49.000 So they got remarried.

00:11:50.000 Then I'm born.

00:11:51.000 Then they got divorced.

00:11:52.000 Okay?

00:11:53.000 Every night was a fight over two concepts.

00:11:56.000 Dad's side said poor people are lazy.

00:11:59.000 Mom's side, rich people are greedy. 0.98

00:12:00.000 Who's right?

00:12:01.000 I don't have a clue.

00:12:02.000 I love both of them.

00:12:03.000 So I'm going through this process to see, is mom right?

00:12:06.000 Are rich people truly greedy?

00:12:08.000 Is dad right?

00:12:09.000 Are poor people really lazy?

00:12:11.000 Maybe they're both right.

00:12:12.000 Maybe they're both wrong.

00:12:13.000 Let me kind of figure it out for myself.

00:12:15.000 And then today, from having been in business and watching people that, the more you did for this guy, The more he hated you later on, because you stopped doing for him, he was expecting you to do forever.

00:12:28.000 The less you did for this guy, and he independently, you gave him a little bit, he won, he was more grateful.

00:12:34.000 You had a better relationship with him.

00:12:36.000 So, that dynamic happened over and over and over again, and one time, I'll never forget, one of our guys in our company who was a socialist.

00:12:44.000 And he hated capitalism and all this stuff, but he wanted to sell insurance because he wanted to make more money.

00:12:49.000 Every time he would send me a book about the dark side of capitalism, the history of capitalism, slavery, all this stuff he would send me.

00:12:55.000 One day he got a $20,000 bonus.

00:12:57.000 And I called him up.

00:12:59.000 I said, hey man, I just want to congratulate you on your $20,000 bonus, but I got a great idea.

00:13:02.000 He says, what's that?

00:13:04.000 I said, did you do this by yourself or was this the help of you and your 50 guys?

00:13:08.000 He says, no, this is the help of me and my 50 guys.

00:13:10.000 I said, so here's what I wanted to do.

00:13:12.000 I'm sure you're going to be in on this one.

00:13:14.000 I'm thinking about taking this $20,000 that you earned, but you really didn't because it's you and the 50 guys, giving your 50 guys $400 a pop.

00:13:22.000 And telling him that because you're so noble, you want to give these guys the $400.

00:13:27.000 He says, that's not fair.

00:13:28.000 I said, wait, I'm sorry.

00:13:30.000 He says, that's not fair.

00:13:31.000 I said, you're right.

00:13:32.000 It's not fair because you earned it.

00:13:34.000 He says, I got you.

00:13:35.000 See, those moments as a... Did he have an Ebenezer Scrooge moment?

00:13:39.000 Did he turn from his ways?

00:13:40.000 He actually did.

00:13:40.000 He did.

00:13:41.000 He actually, I wouldn't say he's, but at least he came center.

00:13:45.000 So, business brought him from far left to left to center, where he's sitting there saying no.

00:13:51.000 There are people that are going to do more than others, and they earn the right to get paid more than others.

00:13:56.000 Yeah, it's one of those things, they always say it's beautiful in theory, until they actually meet that theory in practice.

00:14:04.000 And you cannot force someone to do work if they don't want to.

00:14:07.000 And of course they're probably helped.

00:14:08.000 Of course people deserve a living wage. 0.97

00:14:11.000 But I have found, in my experience, I was raised in Quebec, which is basically a socialist province.

00:14:16.000 For lack of a better word, it's like its own country.

00:14:17.000 A lot of people will tell you this.

00:14:18.000 Quebec in relation to the rest of Canada.

00:14:20.000 So I didn't really know many wealthy people at all.

00:14:23.000 You know, you'd be like, oh, look at that.

00:14:25.000 That's Mr. Hines.

00:14:26.000 You know, it's like a big deal.

00:14:26.000 He makes $100,000.

00:14:29.000 And in my experience, the most generous people who I've met in my life, and I know this isn't always the rule, have been people who've been very successful and very wealthy.

00:14:37.000 And some of the most selfish people that I've met and entitled have been poor people.

00:14:42.000 Where I did realize, just being around these folks, I was very fortunate, I realized, okay, it just amplifies character.

00:14:47.000 Money amplifies character.

00:14:48.000 And if you're a bad character, it'll amplify it.

00:14:50.000 So we, as Christians and as conservatives, are beholden to try and perform ethically.

00:14:56.000 Like I always say, with what I do, this is business, but it's not just business.

00:14:59.000 If it was just business, there would be ways to squeeze more money out.

00:15:04.000 We have to behave ethically, but I have met a lot of wealthy people who have been incredibly generous, where I probably wouldn't be here today if they didn't help.

00:15:10.000 You know, bring me on to consult early on with social media, you know, when I have a small YouTube channel.

00:15:15.000 And these weren't donors.

00:15:16.000 These were people who said, hey, I could use someone like you to help me kind of learn how to do these things and market.

00:15:20.000 But before we get to that, I think because we're getting into business, a lot of people don't realize, you know, they would think, You're someone who went to, you know, Stanford, or some expensive school of business, you know, Ivy League.

00:15:29.000 You're a guy, you were originally from Iran.

00:15:32.000 And English is, you learned English later, right?

00:15:34.000 Fifth, fifth language.

00:15:35.000 Your fifth language.

00:15:36.000 Right, so Armenian first, Assyrian second, that's my dad's, Aramaic.

00:15:40.000 Then Farsi third, I lived in Iran ten years.

00:15:42.000 Germany fourth, I lived in Germany for two years, a year and a half.

00:15:45.000 Then English fifth.

00:15:46.000 Right, so Aramaic.

00:15:47.000 So, was the Passion of the Christ anti-Semitic?

00:15:50.000 Because you know what they were saying.

00:15:53.000 Did it say the stuff they said that it said?

00:15:54.000 By the way, I could understand everything that we're saying in Passionate Christ, because you can understand what they're saying.

00:15:59.000 What are they just saying, like, watermelon, peas, and carrots, like, extra dialogue, and everyone's like, he's anti-Semitic!

00:16:02.000 Funny, the other day watching a video from Netanyahu from 2001 in a small group setting where he's talking about, don't worry about Americans, we can convince 80% and they're on our side if we want to do anything we want to do, and we're sitting there saying, is this really what he's saying?

00:16:15.000 We've got to kind of find out, because we're just reading the, you know, captions.

00:16:19.000 But yeah, no.

00:16:20.000 So, nine businesses, five languages.

00:16:24.000 Very quick way to humble brag, but I'll allow it.

00:16:27.000 And you were, then you were, obviously you moved to Germany, then the United States.

00:16:30.000 You were in the military for a period of time, then went into business.

00:16:34.000 But a big part, you know, when we were out at your, I guess, compound in Florida, you told me kind of your testimony, too, about becoming a Christian, that you were an atheist.

00:16:41.000 And it was almost George Foreman-esque, as far as your conversion.

00:16:45.000 It wasn't like, ah, I guess I'll be a Christian.

00:16:48.000 Tell me kind of what that's like, because I think a lot of people may not necessarily know that about you.

00:16:52.000 They know you're a Christian.

00:16:54.000 They know that you're more conservative in your values, but they may not know what that transition was like.

00:16:59.000 Yeah, so when you live in Iran, you have a hard time believing in God.

00:17:01.000 I would always get kicked out of Bible study.

00:17:03.000 My dad and mom would come in and say, why can't you just sit there?

00:17:06.000 I'm like, I don't believe this stuff.

00:17:08.000 I said, why is it?

00:17:09.000 Were your parents Christians?

00:17:10.000 They're Christians, both of them.

00:17:11.000 I said, why is it that if we're getting bombed in Iran, the parks I'm going to, that building we used to go to, the whistling sound, tabajo, tabajo, alamate kermes, attention, attention, the sign of red means that planes have crossed the border, and boom.

00:17:25.000 So all of these thoughts that stay with you Yeah, I don't believe in God.

00:17:29.000 We go to Germany, my parents get a divorce, I even get less, you know, desire to want to have any kind of closeness to God.

00:17:35.000 12 to 18, zero church, zero anything.

00:17:38.000 You couldn't get, I was a guy at church making fun of the pastor.

00:17:41.000 And I go to the army, I'm in boot camp.

00:17:44.000 And in boot camp and AIT, I had one to hire a PT score, so they gave me and a few other guys the opportunity to go spend time at this one camp for two days.

00:17:53.000 And this guy had the swing from trees into the lake and pool table.

00:17:57.000 I'm like, this is great to get away from all the stuff we're doing.

00:18:00.000 But with one caveat, every night we have to listen to him do Bible study.

00:18:03.000 And by the way, even then, that's 97, the military, 20, 26 years ago.

00:18:07.000 So I was sitting in the back and I would play with the billiard balls in the back.

00:18:10.000 I would just kind of do my thing and he's doing his thing.

00:18:13.000 And then at the end of it, he comes up to me and says, Hey son, my parents gave me this Bible as a gift in 1974, December 24th of 1974.

00:18:21.000 I'll never forget.

00:18:22.000 I have it till today.

00:18:23.000 He says, I think you need this more than I need this.

00:18:25.000 I said, I'm telling you, I'm the wrong guy to give this to.

00:18:28.000 This is your parents.

00:18:28.000 It's a waste.

00:18:29.000 It's a gift.

00:18:30.000 He says, son, I've been watching you.

00:18:32.000 I've been listening to you.

00:18:33.000 You need this.

00:18:34.000 Just take it for me.

00:18:35.000 Trust me.

00:18:36.000 So I finally take it.

00:18:37.000 I leave.

00:18:38.000 Why is this guy giving it to me?

00:18:39.000 I don't read the Bible.

00:18:41.000 But I sit there and started praying three times a day.

00:18:43.000 My prayer started like this, God, I don't believe in you.

00:18:45.000 I think it's fake.

00:18:46.000 I think it's for weak people.

00:18:48.000 But if you're out there, great.

00:18:50.000 I want to know something.

00:18:51.000 But if not, I'm talking anyways.

00:18:53.000 Here's what's on my mind today.

00:18:55.000 And I would kind of do my thing.

00:18:57.000 Fast forward with that, I get out of the army and I'm the one that's going around and, you know, get involved in world financial.

00:19:05.000 The people I was working with, they were Mormons.

00:19:08.000 And Scientologists.

00:19:09.000 So Scientologists are trying to get me to become a Scientologist, and I'm going to their facility in Hollywood, and in Mormons, I'm reading all this stuff about Gordon B. Hinckley, the virtues, all this stuff.

00:19:18.000 There was actually great things, and I watched Mormons, how united they were.

00:19:21.000 One day, I'm in the office, this girl comes in, she says, I just watched the greatest movie of all time, this is probably gonna win an Oscar. 0.99

00:19:29.000 I'm like, no shit, yeah. 0.88

00:19:30.000 What's the movie's name? 0.99

00:19:31.000 Napoleon Dynamite.

00:19:33.000 I said, no point.

00:19:34.000 Dynamite?

00:19:35.000 Yeah.

00:19:36.000 Well, I do think it got like MTV Movie Awards.

00:19:38.000 I went and watched the movie the entire time.

00:19:41.000 I am annoyed.

00:19:42.000 Really?

00:19:43.000 Because she told me this is going to win an Oscar.

00:19:45.000 I said, this was one of the worst movies I've ever seen in my life.

00:19:45.000 I come back.

00:19:48.000 What was this all about?

00:19:49.000 And eventually one of the guys that wasn't a Mormon says, the actor is a Mormon, so they support each other.

00:19:55.000 I'm like, okay.

00:19:55.000 I respect that.

00:19:56.000 I didn't despise, but I can understand if you went in, you were expecting the prestige, whereas there's going to be some big moment.

00:20:03.000 So that's the worst.

00:20:03.000 Yeah.

00:20:04.000 So anyways, but then I respected the fact that Mormons were united.

00:20:07.000 And then, so at this point, I'm like, you know what, whatever.

00:20:11.000 I start going on a journey.

00:20:12.000 And I started going to everything I can.

00:20:14.000 I knew Muslim because I grew up in Iran, so I understood Hezbollah, Muslim, their beliefs, Prophet Muhammad.

00:20:20.000 I've gone through that route.

00:20:22.000 I started looking at Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics, you know, what he believes in, what their ideas are.

00:20:27.000 I started looking at... Did you test your SEDIN levels?

00:20:29.000 I went through a lot of it.

00:20:30.000 By the way, ASIST and all these things you got to do, very interesting.

00:20:34.000 It reminded me of a Freemason model, like you can go up and move up and all this stuff, plus a few other ancillary stuff.

00:20:41.000 Anyways, and then eventually I became a Christian at 25 years old.

00:20:41.000 Yeah.

00:20:46.000 January 21st or some date like that in 2004, I become a Christian.

00:20:49.000 I go to this church of Shepherd of the Hills.

00:20:52.000 27 churches I went to.

00:20:53.000 One church I went to was called the Los Angeles Church of Christ.

00:20:55.000 This guy sits me down, a guy named Edward, never forget. 0.74

00:20:58.000 I'm sitting there with my girlfriend who's an actress in Hollywood and beautiful girl and he says, so when's the last time you guys had sex? 0.80

00:21:06.000 I said, right before this meeting, he says, you can't come to church if you're not going to commit to, you have to drop sex. 0.89

00:21:13.000 I said, brother, we're good.

00:21:14.000 Yeah.

00:21:14.000 Are we good?

00:21:15.000 And I walked away.

00:21:16.000 Did he shake your hand or did he ask you to wash your hands?

00:21:17.000 Well, I mean, he shook my hand, whether he believed what I did with my hand, that's up to him.

00:21:22.000 That's his risk, not my risk.

00:21:23.000 So I walked away, and I'm like, nah, not going to happen.

00:21:23.000 Exactly.

00:21:23.000 All right.

00:21:26.000 Anyways, this girl and I, who we're about to get married, I love her, I want to marry her.

00:21:31.000 Is this the same one you were sleeping with?

00:21:33.000 Same girl, absolutely.

00:21:35.000 And I say, listen, I want to test something with you and I. Because if we're going to get married, I want to know if this is more than sex. 0.59

00:21:41.000 She says, okay, what do you want to do?

00:21:42.000 I said, I want to go one month no sex.

00:21:44.000 She says, you're serious?

00:21:45.000 I said, yeah.

00:21:45.000 She says, do you have someone else on your life?

00:21:47.000 I said, no. 0.83

00:21:48.000 I just want to know what we're going to do on a Friday night when we're in the Expedition without having sex.

00:21:53.000 And she says, you sure about this?

00:21:54.000 I said, yes.

00:21:55.000 Great.

00:21:55.000 First night, Friday, we're going out.

00:21:57.000 By the way, you kind of undersell that.

00:21:59.000 Like, it makes it easier to say, yeah, one month, no sex in the Expedition.

00:22:02.000 You weren't necessarily romancing the situation.

00:22:04.000 Listen, when you're broke, Expedition is a bedroom.

00:22:07.000 That's true.

00:22:08.000 It is, yes.

00:22:08.000 It's a full three-seater.

00:22:09.000 Best part is when the police puts the lights on you.

00:22:11.000 It's like, stop, get out of here.

00:22:13.000 And the steam is like, oh, we're out of here.

00:22:15.000 Thank you so much, officer.

00:22:16.000 Appreciate you for not giving us a weird ticket.

00:22:17.000 Every time you hear a siren, you get flushed.

00:22:19.000 That's bad conditioning, but okay.

00:22:21.000 So anyway, so she thinks I'm weird.

00:22:22.000 We go to church.

00:22:23.000 She's uncomfortable, and then Billy Graham comes to Pasadena, and he gives a talk in November of 2003.

00:22:31.000 I go to every single one of his services.

00:22:32.000 This is after her, except for Saturday.

00:22:35.000 I missed the service.

00:22:36.000 I went to three of them, not on the one on Saturday, because I had training.

00:22:39.000 So we go for a month.

00:22:40.000 Doesn't happen.

00:22:41.000 Afterwards, I say, it's not going to work out.

00:22:44.000 She found another guy.

00:22:45.000 We had a bad breakup, but we're civil.

00:22:47.000 We're good, we move on.

00:22:49.000 And I'm like, you know what?

00:22:51.000 I don't know what I'm doing here.

00:22:52.000 So eventually I get baptized, I become a Christian, and then I start doing Bible study Friday nights at Pasnas, Pasadena, from 6 p.m.

00:23:01.000 to 2 in the morning.

00:23:02.000 Every other Friday night, we're doing Bible study.

00:23:04.000 From 6 to 2 a.m.

00:23:07.000 And we're talking on philosophy, debate, all this stuff.

00:23:09.000 Eventually, the crazy thing, most people won't even believe this if I say this, I was the guy in Old Pasadena in front of nightclubs at 1 o'clock in the morning holding a John 3, 16 sign at 25 years old.

00:23:20.000 That was me.

00:23:21.000 So I just got on fire.

00:23:23.000 I went 17 months.

00:23:24.000 I said, I'm not touching any sex, nothing.

00:23:26.000 That was my thing because I was in Vegas all the time.

00:23:28.000 I was a very good guy to party with.

00:23:29.000 Six days a week, I was that guy.

00:23:30.000 So eventually, I changed my habits.

00:23:32.000 And that's very typical of Iranians if they're not Muslim. 1.00

00:23:36.000 It's like either they're Muslim or they just love to party. 1.00

00:23:38.000 And like, when I went to your house, I was not surprised at the amount of marble.

00:23:46.000 But that was it.

00:23:47.000 And then eventually, one of the nights that maybe it's the story you want to know is my girl and I were at Universal Studios City Walk.

00:23:55.000 She'll remember this vividly.

00:23:56.000 We're in the car.

00:23:57.000 We're having a big fight.

00:23:58.000 I don't have any money. 1.00

00:23:59.000 I feel like shit. 0.99

00:24:00.000 I'm like, dude, I can't have $49,000 and I can't even afford to pay nine bucks for movies for this girl. 0.99

00:24:04.000 I felt like I was just, I was not a man at that.

00:24:08.000 My dad would always say, when men don't have money, They're not good for society, so you have to be able to contribute to have your manliness.

00:24:15.000 We're in the car, we get into a big fight, and then we break it off, and she leaves.

00:24:20.000 I'm in the car, expedition, this is 1.30 in the morning at this point, we finished the movie, and I say, God, I haven't spoken to my mom for five years, but if you exist, I would love to talk to my mom.

00:24:31.000 30 seconds later, my next tell, I get a call from a block number.

00:24:35.000 Brother, this is like a, I've told this story, it's a very weird moment of my, scariest moment for me.

00:24:40.000 I don't want to answer the phone, and it's one of those flip phones, and I flip it, and it's my mom crying.

00:24:47.000 I said, why are you crying?

00:24:49.000 She says, I got the feeling you were in pain.

00:24:51.000 How'd you get this number?

00:24:52.000 She says, you know, I just got it six months ago.

00:24:56.000 I said, but do you know what I'm going through right now?

00:24:58.000 What are you going through?

00:24:59.000 I said, no, nothing.

00:25:00.000 But I don't know how to talk to her.

00:25:01.000 I hang up the phone.

00:25:03.000 I sat in that car that night, top of the hills, chills all over my body.

00:25:07.000 I'm like, oh my God.

00:25:09.000 Either this is ironic or this is real, but the level of coincidence is a little too real.

00:25:16.000 I could have chosen to say it's ironic.

00:25:18.000 I chose to believe it was God and He has my back and He's had my back from day one.

00:25:24.000 That level of confidence I got from that moment that somebody was watching me and had my back is the reason Why I am where I'm at today.

00:25:35.000 I make my decisions purely knowing he has my back.

00:25:38.000 And if you ask me what's one of my biggest fears?

00:25:40.000 One of my biggest fears in my life is losing his favor.

00:25:44.000 I can't tell you how much that scares the hell out of me.

00:25:46.000 Because to me, in life, when you get a person that has your back, And they have your back like you've seen endless times they've had your back.

00:25:57.000 You take that for granted and you lose it? 1.00

00:26:00.000 You're a fool. 1.00

00:26:01.000 So you've had my back? 1.00

00:26:04.000 You've given me this life?

00:26:07.000 The four kids, my wife, my dad now living with me, my biggest fear at the time when I was not a Christian was my kids never meeting my dad because I never met his dad, my grandpa.

00:26:18.000 They are best friends with him now.

00:26:19.000 They love him.

00:26:20.000 My son plays violin with him.

00:26:23.000 My two-year-old daughter's best friend is my dad, where they're together all the time, and now she goes to school.

00:26:28.000 She was going five days.

00:26:29.000 We took her out two days, so she can be around my dad all the time.

00:26:32.000 And my nanny, who's been such an amazing woman in our lives for 14 years, her mom is 85 years old.

00:26:37.000 She was worried about her mom, so she wanted to retire and go to Mexico.

00:26:40.000 I said, bring your mom with us. 1.00

00:26:41.000 She lives with us.

00:26:43.000 We got her a nice place in the house. 0.53

00:26:46.000 And, man, I'm the luckiest man alive, but because I have that favor.

00:26:50.000 So imagine you have that kind of an untouchable favor.

00:26:53.000 Do you want to compromise that favor?

00:26:55.000 So it's such a, it's a unique... That's your biggest fear.

00:27:00.000 Oh, I can't even describe it to you.

00:27:02.000 Mine's bull sharks.

00:27:04.000 Yeah, yours is?

00:27:05.000 Bull sharks.

00:27:05.000 I respect it.

00:27:06.000 They can swim in fresh water.

00:27:07.000 I respect it.

00:27:08.000 No, I actually, very similar fear.

00:27:10.000 But you had the expedition detailed, right, after all that?

00:27:14.000 Not all the time.

00:27:16.000 Mine is, not necessarily losing favor, but I do understand that, you know, I do have, one thing I'm very fortunate, I can certainly relate with that, you know, you've met Johnny Boy and Gerald.

00:27:16.000 All right.

00:27:26.000 These are, you know, I've been friends with Johnny Boy since I was 12 years old, and I make sure to never take that for granted.

00:27:31.000 And Gerald now for 16, 17 years.

00:27:33.000 I have lifelong friends, but certainly standing, you know, before the throne of God, And at some point he's going to list your talents, right?

00:27:44.000 We've all read the parable of the talents.

00:27:45.000 I know it's a different term, talent, but that's the word that's used.

00:27:49.000 And him showing a list of what I could have done with it.

00:27:52.000 that I was expected to do with it and I didn't and throw it away. And that's what keeps me

00:27:58.000 doing it. Look, I don't run nine companies, but there were years I was working 80 hours

00:28:05.000 for years. And I just thought, I never want to throw it away. Once there was momentum, I thought,

00:28:09.000 well, it is my duty to do as much with this as I can. This is a very hard business as well.

00:28:15.000 Yeah.

00:28:16.000 But I understand that.

00:28:17.000 You do if you believe that there's accountability, too.

00:28:20.000 And some of it comes from fear.

00:28:21.000 Some of it comes from love.

00:28:23.000 But I'm going to say this as well.

00:28:24.000 To me, a part of it is not perfection.

00:28:28.000 To me, it's like I don't set the standard of myself of walking on water and having that.

00:28:33.000 I'm not that guy.

00:28:34.000 Because, you know, when I got married, At the end of the wedding, we're in Glendale, California, and I get up and I give, we've got 500 people at the wedding, and I said, hey guys, on one side is all the green-eyed, blue-eyed people, on the other side is all the hairy people, because it's Middle Easterners and Caucasians, because my wife is from Texas.

00:28:34.000 No.

00:28:53.000 So, and by the way, one of the best jokes one of my friends told me, one of my groomsmen who was so hammered, he was so hammered it's not even funny.

00:29:00.000 He gets up, he says, so look, I can tell none of you guys want to dance because you're concerned whether this marriage is going to work out or not.

00:29:07.000 I am also concerned.

00:29:09.000 Because he's from Iran and she's from Texas. 0.82

00:29:11.000 Why would this marriage work?

00:29:12.000 He says, but I finally figured out they have a very good chance of this thing working out.

00:29:17.000 It's because of two things.

00:29:19.000 She's Texas, he's Iran. 1.00

00:29:20.000 They have two things in common.

00:29:21.000 They both love weapons of mass destruction and oil.

00:29:23.000 This is a perfect marriage.

00:29:25.000 Everyone laughs, gets up, they start dancing.

00:29:27.000 I said, listen, two things I want you to know, and I'm talking to my family and friends.

00:29:27.000 But I said something.

00:29:32.000 If you ask my wife one time if she's pregnant or not, you will never see us again. 0.81

00:29:37.000 Don't put the pressure on my wife being pregnant or not and saying, does your body work? 0.99

00:29:39.000 Does his body work?

00:29:40.000 It's none of your business, so don't ask.

00:29:42.000 Number two, I don't know how long we're gonna be married.

00:29:45.000 But I believe we can be married at least one year.

00:29:47.000 And we're going to take it one year at a time.

00:29:49.000 That's it.

00:29:50.000 I don't have the pressure of, no matter what, because what if she all of a sudden changes?

00:29:54.000 Right.

00:29:55.000 What if all of a sudden life changes?

00:29:56.000 That pressure, by the way, this is controversial.

00:29:59.000 Every time I say this in my Christian community, how could you say that?

00:30:02.000 Your vows and all this other stuff.

00:30:02.000 Didn't you?

00:30:03.000 Yeah, they're missing the point.

00:30:04.000 To me, the point is the outside pressure that people want to impose on you to live this

00:30:04.000 No, no.

00:30:11.000 perfect life, that a, you know, perfect, what do you call it, what is that thing, that microscope

00:30:19.000 that just kind of watching every single move you make, I'm not living for you, man.

00:30:23.000 I'm living for God.

00:30:24.000 I'm living for my family.

00:30:25.000 I'm living for the vision.

00:30:26.000 I'm living for what's been put on my heart.

00:30:28.000 At the same time, if we can find people that are good running mates, even go at it.

00:30:32.000 One thing in a book that we talk about, you said, you know, Gerald, and you said John, Johnny boy.

00:30:35.000 So one of the things we talk about in the book, because as a person who runs a company and you run a business, you eventually want to have a circle of people you trust.

00:30:46.000 So one day, one of my guys that wants to be in that inner circle, I'm picking them up from jail.

00:30:52.000 It's 4am in the morning.

00:30:53.000 I'm in a parking lot, maybe not the best community, best neighborhood parked outside.

00:30:58.000 Okay.

00:30:58.000 I go in a suit.

00:30:59.000 They think I'm his lawyer.

00:31:00.000 I'm not his lawyer.

00:31:01.000 This guy's been in my life for 14 years.

00:31:03.000 I've known him since he was 18 years old.

00:31:06.000 He comes out.

00:31:07.000 I get him out of jail.

00:31:08.000 He's sitting in the car.

00:31:09.000 We're driving.

00:31:10.000 I have nothing to tell him.

00:31:12.000 He says, how come you're not telling me anything?

00:31:14.000 I said, brother, I have nothing to tell you.

00:31:16.000 He says, Pat, I need to hear something.

00:31:18.000 I said, nothing.

00:31:19.000 If you haven't heard anything I've told you, what do you think you're going to listen to me now?

00:31:23.000 He says, I'm telling you, I need to hear something from you.

00:31:25.000 I said, I'll tell you two things.

00:31:26.000 One, you lack gratitude.

00:31:28.000 Two, you lack perspective.

00:31:30.000 You're not grateful for the people God's put in your life, and you lack perspective to realize you can change.

00:31:36.000 I can't do that for you, but one thing I can tell you.

00:31:38.000 There's zero chance you can be in my life if you drink liquor moving forward.

00:31:42.000 You can't.

00:31:42.000 You can't be in the inner circle.

00:31:44.000 You can be in my life.

00:31:45.000 You can be somebody that's doing this, but you want to be here?

00:31:47.000 So, in the book, I mapped out six things you've got to look at and then scored the people in your life.

00:31:47.000 It's not going to happen.

00:31:54.000 To be your running mates because anyone that ever did anything big look at Musk if you look at Musk would who he

00:32:00.000 trusts Why does he always lean on David Sachs?

00:32:03.000 That's one of the guys he trusts if you look at any athlete any coach any businessman any pastor any content creator

00:32:11.000 There's people behind closed doors that you can go to to say

00:32:14.000 What do you think and you can pitch put your feet up the documentary about Tiger Woods?

00:32:20.000 one of the best things about Tiger Woods documentary was when they said how Michael Jordan said how Tiger and and

00:32:25.000 him started hanging out together and He says Tiger would come and it would be relaxed with me.

00:32:30.000 Why because goats understand goats. Mm-hmm I understand the pressures of being a goat. He's saying

00:32:36.000 that yeah, Michael He doesn't say goat, but he says I understand the pressure

00:32:39.000 comes with being who he is But you need people around you that you can relax with that

00:32:43.000 You know if you want to do something big specifically you need to choose your running mates

00:32:47.000 So as you get bigger, choosing running mates becomes a very important thing.

00:32:50.000 And obviously if you're explaining about Gerald and Johnny Boyd, you need guys like that.

00:32:54.000 No, it's definitely pivotal.

00:32:54.000 Yeah.

00:32:57.000 Especially in an industry like this.

00:32:59.000 Look, we also live in a world where loyalty doesn't mean a whole lot.

00:33:02.000 And the thing is, I think sometimes people get it wrong when they talk about loyalty.

00:33:05.000 That doesn't mean yes, man.

00:33:08.000 Someone explained it to me this way.

00:33:09.000 She's a clinical psychologist.

00:33:11.000 She said, yeah, men or women attempting to do great things.

00:33:14.000 Didn't use the term goats.

00:33:16.000 They don't need yes men, but they need corner men. 0.89

00:33:19.000 So they need someone, you know, these guys are out there, they're taking the blows, they're in the fight, they go back into the corner, and if you're winning, if you're doing well, you need a pep talk, great, keep doing what you're doing, maybe some advice, some improvements.

00:33:29.000 If you're not, they need to put the ice on the swelling on the eye, put some Vaseline in the cut, try and get you back out there.

00:33:36.000 Because not everyone can be out there actually taking the blows.

00:33:38.000 Not everyone, there's one prize fighter, but it takes a whole team.

00:33:41.000 And a yes man is useless, and we saw that, for example, that's what happened with Mike Tyson, perfect example, with Buster Douglas that night.

00:33:47.000 They forgot to bring the Enswell. 0.80

00:33:48.000 I don't know if you know that story.

00:33:49.000 They had a surgical glove, and they were putting ice in it, and trying to put it on his eye.

00:33:54.000 They didn't bring a basic Enswell, you know, the steel that you haven't bought yet.

00:33:56.000 They didn't bring it because at that point he just had an entourage of yes-men.

00:34:00.000 Customato, you know, wasn't around anymore.

00:34:02.000 These people kind of got their hooks in, and it was the most embarrassing corner job.

00:34:06.000 They spilled ice everywhere.

00:34:08.000 And when she said that, it clicked.

00:34:10.000 Because even, by the way, if you're the prize fighter in your company, you know, at some point you're going to be older, and you're going to be the corner man for your son.

00:34:17.000 You know, we all transition in those positions.

00:34:20.000 And it made a lot of sense because I think sometimes people think loyalty or someone

00:34:24.000 who values loyalty wants a yes man.

00:34:27.000 And they don't.

00:34:28.000 They need a corner man.

00:34:29.000 Everyone, sometimes, you know, look, you run nine companies.

00:34:31.000 I'm willing to bet, outside of the people who you discuss, like who you trust, who you

00:34:36.000 know really closely, you probably don't get a lot of pats in the back.

00:34:39.000 You have to give pats on the back, right?

00:34:40.000 You have to do that as a leader of your company because those people have to feel appreciated.

00:34:44.000 I'm willing to bet you don't get that as much.

00:34:46.000 So you need some people around you who kind of give you that feedback so that at least you know what you're doing is either correct or it's not and some, you know, you're not shooting the dart.

00:34:53.000 There's also part of it where, you know, I'm talking to Brad Lee the other day.

00:34:56.000 Brad Lee's a good content creator, very good content creator out of Vegas.

00:35:01.000 And I'm talking to him that as you're moving up, you have to be very careful to filter out flattery.

00:35:06.000 Right.

00:35:07.000 Because flattery is actually a terrible thing.

00:35:10.000 You know, the whole concept with Marcus Aurelius who's sitting there having a slave ride behind him telling him, you know, you're not as important as you think you are.

00:35:17.000 You're not as important as you think you are.

00:35:18.000 You need people like that in your life.

00:35:20.000 But no, I agree.

00:35:21.000 I agree the people to process with, the insurance company, You've read Meditations, I'm sure.

00:35:28.000 Marcus Aurelius is fascinating to me, too.

00:35:32.000 To me, Stoicism is almost practiced Christianity in the absence of grace.

00:35:38.000 It's about doing the right thing, not for earthly riches, but for doing the right thing's sake.

00:35:42.000 But at the end of the day, you do it and you die.

00:35:45.000 And we obviously believe in eternal salvation, and there's a purpose as to why you're also doing the right thing, why you're following that prescription.

00:35:50.000 But Marcus Aurelius was certainly, by all accounts, a good man, and then became addicted to opiates.

00:35:55.000 He didn't know.

00:35:55.000 You know, he said you mustn't consume strong drink.

00:35:58.000 Like, he really believed in being disciplined.

00:36:00.000 But that's bad advice.

00:36:01.000 Someone going, here's a tincture.

00:36:02.000 It'll make you feel better.

00:36:03.000 And you read his later writings and see this is a guy who didn't know he became addicted to painkillers.

00:36:07.000 So great people actively doing good things can still make mistakes.

00:36:12.000 He's one of my most, to me, fascinating figures in history and a wonderful study.

00:36:18.000 Yeah, so that takes it to a whole different angle as well.

00:36:22.000 Almost anybody that does anything very big that we admire, they're complicated people.

00:36:27.000 They're not simple, boom, in a box.

00:36:30.000 They're not like that.

00:36:31.000 They're complicated people.

00:36:32.000 It takes a complicated person to tolerate the amount of pain and responsibility that comes with it.

00:36:38.000 The credit you're probably going to get is going to happen when you die, not when you're alive.

00:36:41.000 Are you okay with that?

00:36:42.000 Can you imagine like, hey, the biggest credit you're ever going to get is when you die.

00:36:45.000 And what kind of recognition is that?

00:36:47.000 Well, that's the best kind of recognition.

00:36:48.000 You want to do that?

00:36:49.000 Well, no, I want the credit now.

00:36:50.000 Doesn't work that way.

00:36:51.000 Those guys, you know, comes afterwards.

00:36:54.000 Criticism when you're alive, credit after you die.

00:36:56.000 Do you think that's why you're able to also get these interviews with these very high profile people because you're empathetic to that?

00:37:03.000 You're empathetic to people trying to do something big?

00:37:05.000 Absolutely.

00:37:06.000 Look, in our insurance company, I'll never forget one thing that happened.

00:37:08.000 In 2013, one of our guys did something, and he was the face of the company, and he went through an ugly divorce.

00:37:15.000 Very ugly.

00:37:17.000 We're in Tuscany, Italy.

00:37:19.000 And in Tuscany, Italy, moments happens where wife comes out, she hears news, she's crying, this is an incentive trip, and I'm like, you gotta be kidding me.

00:37:29.000 Here, all this money we spent, this is gonna, oh my God.

00:37:32.000 So I said, okay, maybe there's a reason why this is happening.

00:37:34.000 When that happened, people behind closed, I can't believe he's going through this.

00:37:38.000 I can't believe he's going through that.

00:37:40.000 I can't believe he's going through this.

00:37:41.000 And I told everybody, I said, guys, here's all I'll tell you, okay?

00:37:44.000 Be very careful.

00:37:47.000 Very careful judging with somebody else's personal life that you don't have all the intel to.

00:37:52.000 Be very, very careful.

00:37:54.000 Because when it comes back and happens to you, trust me, you're going to want grace.

00:37:58.000 No, you don't know da-da-da.

00:38:00.000 Just be careful.

00:38:01.000 Boom.

00:38:02.000 Two years later, it happened to other people in different ways.

00:38:06.000 And then I sat down with a couple of those guys and said, now you see what I was talking to you about?

00:38:09.000 By the way, they're still all around the company.

00:38:11.000 We have an incredible relationship.

00:38:12.000 They're doing very well for themselves.

00:38:15.000 My parents, my upbringing, my own flaws, my own big fall in my early 20s, massive fall, and I'm a 21-year-old guy giving speeches on yachts for a billionaire named McNulty who has a $65 million house, and I'm the guy that's giving this, and I'm making money, and I'm like the superstar coming up, you know, poster child type of a guy, and then all of a sudden, boom!

00:38:36.000 Crash, crash, crash, crash.

00:38:38.000 And I'm like, dude, I'm going back in the Army.

00:38:40.000 I was about to join back in the Army in just 20 years.

00:38:42.000 I would have retired three years ago, four years ago.

00:38:44.000 Got my benefits.

00:38:45.000 I was in the Army 20 and a half years.

00:38:47.000 I love the Army.

00:38:47.000 101st Airborne.

00:38:48.000 Go back and do that.

00:38:48.000 Great.

00:38:49.000 You'll be a SAR Major.

00:38:50.000 Worst case, First Sergeant.

00:38:51.000 You're going to have a good life.

00:38:52.000 You'll go to DLI.

00:38:54.000 You'll go to all these other things.

00:38:55.000 You know, you speak these languages.

00:38:56.000 You can go to Special Forces, 18 Delta, all these things.

00:38:59.000 And I know.

00:39:00.000 And I had grace.

00:39:01.000 I stuck around that one.

00:39:02.000 So then later on in my life, yeah, I think interviewing people that will come with me and they'll feel safe talking to us.

00:39:09.000 What am I judging you for, man?

00:39:10.000 No one's perfect.

00:39:11.000 We all have our own issues.

00:39:11.000 Let's just talk.

00:39:12.000 We could have a discourse and ideas.

00:39:14.000 Like Cuomo and I are friends right now.

00:39:16.000 I can't believe, you know, if you would have told me this, like Chris Cuomo and I are having talks and laughing.

00:39:20.000 I'm in Sag Harbor having lunch with him.

00:39:22.000 Then I go to his house with his boys.

00:39:24.000 They take us to the airport.

00:39:26.000 Sitting there, he's FaceTiming me with Robert Downey Jr.

00:39:29.000 saying, hey, I watched the podcast.

00:39:31.000 I'm like, Robert?

00:39:32.000 I say, hey, Dylan Tico, come here.

00:39:34.000 Take a look at who this is.

00:39:36.000 Oh my God, Iron Man is alive!

00:39:38.000 He's not dead, because their reaction is different.

00:39:40.000 I'm like, oh my God, they're getting emotional.

00:39:42.000 Because kids don't know anything.

00:39:44.000 When these guys watched him die, they were actually emotional.

00:39:47.000 So I said, no, guys.

00:39:48.000 We might need to circle back.

00:39:48.000 That might be bad parenting.

00:39:53.000 Santa Claus is alive and they're 24 years old.

00:39:56.000 He's real.

00:39:56.000 And he's not Tim Allen?

00:39:59.000 We're pretty soon going to have to go to Mug Club here. 0.97

00:40:02.000 Did you always mean to go, when you were in the Army, was it always part of the plan to go into business?

00:40:08.000 Was that your plan?

00:40:10.000 I wanted to be a bodybuilder.

00:40:10.000 No, not at all.

00:40:12.000 My plan was to be Arnold.

00:40:13.000 The old Arnold, not the new Arnold.

00:40:15.000 My plan was to be Arnold.

00:40:16.000 My plan was to go- No one wants to be 75 Arnold!

00:40:19.000 No, not the old Arnold.

00:40:19.000 What I mean by that is screw your freedom, that's not the Arnold I admire.

00:40:22.000 I admire the Arnold that came here, won Mr. Olympia, became a star, married a Kennedy, became a governor.

00:40:28.000 That guy may have one of the greatest American dream stories of all time, minus The comments you made about screw your freedom.

00:40:35.000 I wanted to be that guy.

00:40:36.000 Also screwing Minster out of the 81 Olympia, I believe.

00:40:38.000 But that's a conversation for a whole other day.

00:40:40.000 It's an interesting one.

00:40:40.000 That's a different conversation.

00:40:41.000 He probably doesn't like that, but that's a different conversation.

00:40:43.000 But Weider was on his side.

00:40:45.000 Weider loved him, you know, so he had to do it.

00:40:48.000 I mean, there's a lot of politics in bodybuilding.

00:40:50.000 So you wanted to be a bodybuilder.

00:40:52.000 How do you go from that to, OK, nine businesses?

00:40:55.000 I mean, because at some point something must have clicked.

00:40:58.000 Did you just realize, I'm good at this?

00:41:00.000 Well, no, I'm good at sales.

00:41:02.000 I was selling when I was in Germany, you know, Super Nintendo comes out, and I can't afford to buy the Super Mario Bros.

00:41:02.000 I'm a good sale.

00:41:10.000 2, and I have to find a way to make money.

00:41:11.000 I go to a local swimming pool in Erlangen with my girlfriend, Katarina Staff, and we go and we say, hey, what can I do to make some money here?

00:41:19.000 She said, well, you know, can you collect this beer bottle?

00:41:20.000 Because Germans are famous for drinking. 1.00

00:41:23.000 So I started collecting beer bottles.

00:41:24.000 That's not the only thing they're famous for, historically.

00:41:26.000 That's right.

00:41:26.000 Forgive me.

00:41:27.000 There's a lot of things they're famous for.

00:41:28.000 And they're also tough to sell.

00:41:29.000 They're very skeptical people.

00:41:31.000 Yes, we've heard this.

00:41:31.000 Yes, they are.

00:41:32.000 Okay, you know.

00:41:33.000 You're not going to fool me.

00:41:34.000 They're the worst crowds for comedy, too.

00:41:37.000 Like, mm-hmm, right.

00:41:38.000 We get to laugh.

00:41:39.000 If you can make them laugh, you're good.

00:41:40.000 That's a good point.

00:41:42.000 But no, I would say, you know, that's the first time I've made money on my own.

00:41:44.000 I'm like, okay, if I can make this kind of money at 11 years old and go to Kaufhauf and buy Super Mario Bros.

00:41:49.000 and be the only kid that's got that at a refugee camp, and I'm the coolest kid here because of it, frickin' awesome.

00:41:54.000 I can make money.

00:41:55.000 So, that's kind of... Coolest kid in a refugee camp?

00:41:57.000 That's so sad!

00:41:58.000 Listen, when you have a Super Nintendo... I'm just picturing all the other refugees like, oh, he's in Patrick Kuhl! 1.00

00:42:05.000 He has Yoshi's Island!

00:42:08.000 I don't know, they could be white.

00:42:10.000 No, they were from Yugoslavia, Albania, Czech, Polish, Afghanistan, everywhere.

00:42:16.000 So you found that out, but then you went in the army after that, so it was in the back of your mind.

00:42:20.000 So then I meet a girl named Jean Vier who's working at Morgan Stanley Dean where we start dating.

00:42:24.000 I'm a numbers guy, I love numbers, so I'm like, wait a minute, how can I work at Morgan Stanley Dean?

00:42:29.000 would say, well, you need a degree and all this stuff.

00:42:30.000 I'm not going to school.

00:42:31.000 I'm not going to get a college degree.

00:42:32.000 I said, I'm going to find a way to get a job there.

00:42:34.000 Back then when you would fax, I faxed my resume to 100 different places, Goldman, Merrill,

00:42:38.000 Smith Barney, Morgan, every one of them.

00:42:41.000 And I put a joke on my cover letter and at the bottom of it, I said, if you like me,

00:42:46.000 this is exactly how my clients are going to feel doing business with me.

00:42:48.000 They're going to love me.

00:42:49.000 If you want somebody like this part of your team, give me a call.

00:42:50.000 I got 30 calls. 0.99

00:42:51.000 15 of them said it was a very unique approach, but your resume sucks. 0.99

00:42:55.000 Häagen-Dazs, Bally's is not enough for them. 1.00

00:42:57.000 That's my resume.

00:42:58.000 It's Häagen-Dazs, Bally's, Bob's Big Boy, and Military.

00:43:01.000 That's all I had.

00:43:02.000 I couldn't brag about anything else.

00:43:04.000 But fifteen others asked me for an interview.

00:43:06.000 Three offered me a job.

00:43:07.000 Dave Kirby.

00:43:08.000 From the Glendale branch, gave me a job to be a financial advisor, changed my life, I started a day before 9-11, 9-10, got my Series 7, 66-31, 26 life and health, and boom, the rest is history.

00:43:20.000 This is Dean Witter?

00:43:21.000 Dean Witter, yeah, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.

00:43:22.000 That's what happened with my dad.

00:43:24.000 My dad didn't finish school, he was playing hockey.

00:43:26.000 Sales, numbers and people.

00:43:27.000 Three things I like.

00:43:27.000 Stop chasing a hockey puck around, you know.

00:43:30.000 But he wasn't really into it.

00:43:31.000 He just happened to be good at it.

00:43:32.000 And he ended up working at Dean Witter, then EF Hutton, you know, both riddled with scandal.

00:43:35.000 Or really EF Hutton towards the end of it.

00:43:37.000 But he just kind of – he was good at sale.

00:43:40.000 He charmed his way in.

00:43:41.000 And that is something that they value.

00:43:42.000 It used to be very performance-based.

00:43:44.000 But all right, I want to – so that makes sense.

00:43:46.000 You had a natural inclination for it.

00:43:48.000 And then you kind of took – Sales, numbers, and people.

00:43:51.000 Three things I like.

00:43:52.000 Sales, numbers, and people.

00:43:53.000 So your book goes, Choose Your Enemies Wisely.

00:43:56.000 Yep.

00:43:56.000 We have it right there.

00:43:57.000 Business Planning for the Audacious Few.

00:43:58.000 Before we go to Mug Club, why the book centered around... I know you can pre-order it at Amazon.

00:44:03.000 It's available December 5th though, right?

00:44:04.000 December 5th, yes.

00:44:05.000 Why center the book around choosing your enemies wisely?

00:44:09.000 So, I'll tell you this.

00:44:12.000 45,000 agents, you do a lot of business plans.

00:44:14.000 And you watch who makes it and who doesn't make it, okay?

00:44:18.000 And you'll watch a guy that comes in, one guy came in from Northrop, you know, master's degree, everything proper, looked so good, but I could never get him to go and nothing got him, you know, to go compete at the highest level.

00:44:30.000 But logically, on paper, everything made sense.

00:44:34.000 And then I would recruit guys that emotionally, they really wanted to win bad, but logically they had nothing, no substance, okay?

00:44:41.000 So then I realized, you know, when I'm doing business planning, at first I would only do, don't you want a dream?

00:44:45.000 Don't you want this and that?

00:44:46.000 But no plan.

00:44:47.000 And then I flipped.

00:44:48.000 I'm like, here's the plan on what you got to do first quarter, and second quarter, and third quarter, and all this other stuff.

00:44:53.000 And then I realized you needed both.

00:44:54.000 So eventually it was two blocks, then six blocks, then eight blocks.

00:44:57.000 It was 12 building blocks to do the proper business planning.

00:45:02.000 But the biggest factor, biggest factor was the following.

00:45:06.000 I noticed any of the guys that ever did anything really, really big, and I said this to Tom Brady when I was talking to him at the vault two months ago.

00:45:14.000 One, they've experienced unconditional love from one person.

00:45:19.000 From one person at least.

00:45:20.000 This is a person that no matter what you do wrong, this person's okay with loving you.

00:45:26.000 Mom, I'm in jail.

00:45:27.000 You're bailing me out.

00:45:28.000 But I love you.

00:45:29.000 I can't believe you're here.

00:45:30.000 Wait a minute.

00:45:31.000 I screwed up.

00:45:31.000 This is my fault.

00:45:33.000 I'm making your life hell and you still love me like this? 1.00

00:45:36.000 Damn, this is awesome. 1.00

00:45:37.000 This exists, unconditional love. 0.99

00:45:39.000 Number two is a person you loved that you really, really wanted to win over that betrayed

00:45:48.000 you and backstabbed you.

00:45:51.000 Because no matter what you do, no matter how much money you make, you'll never win them

00:45:54.000 over.

00:45:55.000 No matter how many six-packs, how many houses you buy, how many cars you have, how many

00:45:58.000 subscribers you have, you're never going to get there saying, hey, good job.

00:46:02.000 of saying, hey, good job, you're just not gonna get it from him.

00:46:04.000 You're just not going to get it from them.

00:46:06.000 So hardcore pain.

00:46:07.000 But a lot of people have those two.

00:46:09.000 Then you need the last one.

00:46:10.000 And the last one to me is choosing your enemies wisely.

00:46:14.000 Brady, he had his own enemies over his career.

00:46:15.000 Brady, he had his own enemies over his career.

00:46:18.000 Jordan has had his own enemies.

00:46:20.000 Musk has a very unique enemy that's been driving him for 40 years, not just 10 years.

00:46:25.000 Because some enemies drives you for six months, some it's a month, some it's 30 seconds.

00:46:29.000 They cut you off, you want to get back at them.

00:46:31.000 But if you're able to choose the right enemy, it brings out a side of you that's getting

00:46:36.000 you to tolerate pain in ways others are not willing to tolerate that'll help you compete

00:46:43.000 at the highest level.

00:46:44.000 So once I saw this format and I saw which people were the ones that were winning at

00:46:48.000 the highest level and which ones weren't, the ones that typically won had the first,

00:46:51.000 the second, and they chose their enemies wisely.

00:46:54.000 And we put the business plan structure for them, and they were on fire.

00:46:58.000 So you're almost more so picking like, do you mean like friendly competition or do you mean like animus?

00:47:02.000 No, not competition.

00:47:03.000 As you study and everybody else, you do spreadsheet.

00:47:05.000 Here's 20 channels that are my industry.

00:47:07.000 You know, Cenk has 4 million subscribers.

00:47:10.000 I'm at 50,000.

00:47:10.000 My name is Steven Crowder.

00:47:12.000 This person's got 2 million.

00:47:13.000 That person's got a million. 0.99

00:47:14.000 I'm going to kill everybody, right? 0.99

00:47:15.000 That's competition. 1.00

00:47:16.000 Enemy is somebody said something to you.

00:47:18.000 Like, you know, sometimes we write affirmations of good things about us.

00:47:22.000 Sometimes the most powerful affirmation is, I'm with Dana White two days ago in Vegas.

00:47:27.000 I'm in his place.

00:47:28.000 I want to read this from the book.

00:47:28.000 And it's crazy.

00:47:30.000 I tell him, Dana, I got a book coming out at the end of the meeting.

00:47:33.000 He says, what's the book called?

00:47:34.000 I said, Choose Your Enemies Wisely.

00:47:36.000 He starts laughing.

00:47:37.000 I said, why are you laughing?

00:47:38.000 He says, look behind me.

00:47:39.000 We're in his office in Vegas.

00:47:40.000 A 30 minute meeting turns into two hours.

00:47:42.000 He says, look at the wall.

00:47:44.000 I said, I can't see the wall.

00:47:45.000 He's got this weird picture and he's got to explain it to you what it is.

00:47:47.000 It's great.

00:47:48.000 He says, look at the wall.

00:47:50.000 I come around to look at the wall.

00:47:51.000 It's a quote.

00:47:53.000 He says, may God have mercy on my enemies because I won't.

00:47:59.000 General Patton.

00:48:01.000 Then he says that and I said, you know, you're quoted in the book.

00:48:04.000 He says, I'm quoted in the book.

00:48:05.000 I said, yeah.

00:48:06.000 He says, what have you quoted me in the book? 0.70

00:48:08.000 He says, when you said, **** bet against me.

00:48:11.000 Tell me it's not going to happen. 0.92

00:48:12.000 Tell me it's going to fail.

00:48:14.000 I love it.

00:48:15.000 I love every minute of it, right?

00:48:16.000 This idea of Dana taking UFC, he's given the middle finger to boxing, to people that wanted to shut it down with COVID.

00:48:25.000 That drive that he keeps going and going and going, it's a very unique thing.

00:48:30.000 I'll read this beginning of the book that'll kind of explain this whole concept.

00:48:35.000 It says, you have no enemies, you say.

00:48:38.000 My friend, the boast is poor.

00:48:40.000 He who has mingled in the fray of duty that the brave endure must have made foes.

00:48:47.000 If you have none, small is the work that you have done.

00:48:51.000 You've had no traitor on the hip.

00:48:53.000 You've dashed no cup from perjured lip.

00:48:55.000 You've never turned the wrong to right. 0.99

00:48:57.000 You've been a coward in the fight. 0.98

00:48:59.000 Charles McKay. 0.97

00:49:00.000 Okay, to me, Brother, when I read that, oh, if I tell you stories of moments where somebody drove me to go to levels that got the best out of me, sometimes the best... I think we're going to have to go in my office after.

00:49:14.000 You'll see some plaques that I have in there.

00:49:17.000 But the point with that is, writing on a piece of paper, not positive, things people said to you, and you just read it.

00:49:25.000 And you start realizing, wait a minute, this emotion I'm getting, I'm willing to take the rejection.

00:49:29.000 I'm willing to take this, you know, late night, I got to get my degree for whatever you're working.

00:49:33.000 I'm willing to go through the six hours after the kids are asleep to take that course online to get my real estate license.

00:49:37.000 I'm willing to pay the price because I'm going to go out there and do something big, prove the people that believed in me right, and prove the people that doubted me wrong, and then eventually, my dreams are going to become a reality.

00:49:48.000 Yeah.

00:49:49.000 Yeah, it is important.

00:49:51.000 I used to pick my enemies poorly. 0.99

00:49:52.000 I'd just be like, look at this dipshit with a tiny umbrella. 0.99

00:49:56.000 And then I'd usually hit a puddle. 1.00

00:49:59.000 But that was petty.

00:50:01.000 And now I know to pick them wisely.

00:50:04.000 Because I pre-ordered the book.

00:50:05.000 So, all right.

00:50:06.000 It is Choose Your Enemies Wisely, Business Planning for the Audacious Few. 0.55

00:50:10.000 You can pre-order it at Amazon.

00:50:11.000 You can go to the website.

00:50:11.000 I'm sure you can follow Patrick Bet-David anywhere he does his show.

00:50:15.000 I mean, you're obviously not just on YouTube, but I would imagine Spotify, Apple, all these places.

00:50:20.000 And we're going to continue right now on Rumble.

00:50:22.000 Hey, an enemy that I've picked.

00:50:24.000 Thank you, Rumble.

00:50:25.000 We're going to Mug Club YouTube. 0.84

00:50:27.000 Piss off.

Louder with Crowder - November 15, 2023

PBD Goes From Atheist To God-Fearing Man | Ash Wednesday with Patrick Bet-David

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