The Power of Being Broke with Guest Daymond John: MakingBank S1E40

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Summary

When Daymond John first decided to start FUBU, he wanted to infuse the culture of hip-hop into affordable apparel.

As his idea expanded, it sparked a wave of empowerment with intercity kids and the hip-hop community—a wave that said: we are incredible, and we’re going to show you why.

Today, FUBU—a company started by a kid who wanted to dress people in fashionable, affordable clothing—has exceeded more than six billion dollars in sales.

Daymond John is a mentor, role model, key investor on the hit TV show Shark Tank, and an explosively successful entrepreneur, one we’re absolutely thrilled to have joining us on Making Bank.

In today’s episode, we’ll talk about how successful businesses start with nothing but hustle, and slowly work their way to the top.

How the self-made men and women who had to fight to pay their bills, are now that ones leading the world of business today.

Sharing stories from his new book, Power of Broke, Daymond will give evidence to the power of hitting rock-bottom, and offer key insights into business that no aspiring entrepreneur will want to miss.

We’ll also discuss:

·        The story of FUBU and how Daymond started the company with $40

·        What types of businesses succeed

·        What it’s like to be an entrepreneur today, and the online hustle

·        Daymond’s 5 SHARK points to bring you massive success

·        Insights into the new book Power of Broke

·        Treating your business like your child

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Transcription

I am Josh Felber. Welcome to Making Bank where we  uncover the secrets of the 1% so you can live the life that you want, build  the business that you’ve ever dreamed of as well as have the time and the  freedom to do what you want, spend it with your loved ones. Welcome to the  show today. I am super pumped. We have an awesome show. We’re going to cover  a little bit about how to get out there, what do you in the hustle and make  it happen? One of the biggest things, one of the biggest breakthroughs for me  as I look back, I’ve owned 15 different companies since I was 14 years old,  and one of the biggest things that I found that has become successful for  myself and has driven me day in and day out as an entrepreneur to create and  to build and create value for others is the power of being broke and I’ve  been there.

I’ve been in the position where I was in Dallas building  my business, not having more than a couple bucks to scrape together and  trying to create this entity that I had, that vision in my head, I had it in  my heart, I had the passion for it, just like so many of you out there. You  have that passion, something that you love so much that you want to do or  that you are doing right now and you have that vision on where you want it to  go, but you procrastinate. You sit down and watch TV. Maybe you go out to the  clubs or the bars. Whatever that may be. You just don’t have that hustle,  that drive, that relentlessness in you right at that moment. I’m here to tell  you, “You got to get it. You have to get the hustle. You have to feel  that power of broke. You got to feel that. You got to utilize that as a  strength to help you get out there and make it happen.”

As I was building my business in Dallas I just thought,  “Man, I have to continue everyday. I got to get out there. I got to be  out there. I got to be up early. I got to get out and hustle. I got to knock  on people’s doors and build this merchant services business.“ The great  thing about it, five and a half years later, we were able to sell this and I  was able to hit one of my dreams and my goals that I set when I was 14 years  old to be a millionaire by the time I was 25. That was the greatest thing  about it. The whole theme goes almost along with every company that I’ve  started. There was another company, we created a mint that weight loss  ingredients in it so it was like an Altoids but it would help you curb your  hunger and lose weight and everything. A couple other partners and I, and I  didn’t know a thing about getting into retailers, and the coolest thing was  we ended up putting in in over 38,000 retailers and across the world globally  in 20 to 30 different countries, something like that.

We barely had any money to put in. We had enough money  to start the business, have the R&D done and have the mints created and  testing and everything else. That was it. Now it’s like, “Okay, how do  you get out there? How do you start connecting with other people?” I was  knocking on doors. I was picking up the phone every single day making 20, 30,  50, 100 different cold calls to retailers, to buyers that had no idea who I  was and who the company was. I did this day in and day out, day in and day  out for at least 13 months straight before finally I got the first  appointment, then the second appointment, then the third appointment, then  the fourth appointment. About 18 months in, we got an appointment with  Walmart. It took about three or four appointments to actually finalize and  get a deal done, but that consistency, that hustle, that drive, that knowing  that, “Man, I am broke or I will broke here really quick if I don’t continue  to put out that effort to drive, to grind, to make it happen.”

That’s one of the biggest things is most people that  look at the news out there, the internet, and they see these different  companies popping up here and popping up there and they think, “Man,  that’s an overnight success. It just happened,” but they don’t see that  hustle. They don’t see that grind for the 300 days before that. They just see  that 301st day and then that success. I’m here to tell you that’s not the way  it works. It is not the way it happens. There’s been times that I’ve started  businesses and all I have are my credit cards and funding it off my credit  card. You get to the day that you got to make all these different minimum  payments and there’s barely any money coming in. Somehow you just keep  driving, have determination and keep going after it that you have enough to  pay it off and then the next month and the next month.

Before you know it, then all of a sudden that momentum,  that drive that you’re creating, the flood gates open up and then big things  happen and it just takes off for you. If you’re out there right now and  you’re in that position and you’re trying to really get your business up and  going, take a look, ask yourself, “Am I doing whatever it takes? Am I  doing and hustling day in and day out? Do I have that relentless drive in me  to get out and crush it and make things happen?” If the answers are no,  no, no, no, you got to take a look man. “Is this really something that  you love? Is this something that you’re passionate about? Is this something  that you’re willing to give up and do whatever it takes to make this happen  for you?”

I’m so honored and excited for my interview today. We  have a great mentor that is coming on with my here shortly. He started from  nothing. He grinded. He hustled. He went after it. He’s been broke before and  he’s created massive businesses from FUBU to being on Shark Tank. He’s just  created so much momentum in his life and now he has all these different  branding deals. He’s just become a phenomenal entrepreneur, an unbelievable  mentor and now is trying to give back, is launching today his new book  “Power Of Broke” where he interviews multiple different  entrepreneurs to social media internet stars and what they did, what their  hustle was, how did they go after it and how did they make it happen, so  please stick around for me right after this break to jump on with Daymond  John. I’m excited for him to be here. I am Josh Felber and you’re watching  Making Bank. Get out and be extraordinary.

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Josh: I am Josh Felber and you’re watching Making Bank. I’m  extremely excited that we have an awesome guest. Think Shark Tank. He has a  new book coming out, founder of FUBU, Daymond John is the New York Times  Bestselling Author for the Power Of Broke. He also is the CEO and founder of  FUBU, a much celebrated global lifestyle brand with over $6 billion in sales.  As one of the stars of ABC’s Shark Tank, he is one of the country’s most  visible and respected entrepreneurs. He’s also the recipient of more than 35  awards including the Brand Week Marketer of the Year and Ernst & Young’s  Master Entrepreneur of the Year.

As CEO of the marketing firm Shark Branding, Daymond  stands out among the same cutting edges as one of Corporate America’s leading  branding consultants. He also was recently named a presidential ambassador  for global entrepreneurship and his two previous books Display Of Power and  The Brand Within were bestsellers. For more information, make sure you check  out Daymond’s new book, powerofbroke.com is the website for that. Daymond,  welcome to Making Bank.

Daymond: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Josh: I’m excited to have you on here. I watch Shark Tank all  the time so I get to see you on there. I’ve read all your other books. I was  traveling the last few weeks and got home and the Power Of Broke was sitting  finally in my mail so we’ll be diving into that this week. Welcome to the  show. Just maybe real quick for our audience, most people probably know you,  but let’s just say there’s a few that don’t. Give us a real quick background  of how you started FUBU, the struggles you went through a little bit in the  beginning because I know that plays into your new book now.

Daymond: Absolutely. I started FUBU. It was a clothing line that  was really made for a segment of the market, a culture, not a color. People  often think that FUBU, the acronym is For Us By Us, and they often thought  that it was made for basically a certain race of individuals when that wasn’t  the case. I was somebody who grew up in the world of hip hop. It was a trend  at the moment. People thought it would never last. We were wearing a lot of  brands that honestly the people how made the brands, they didn’t respect hip  hop. They would say, “We don’t like rappers. We don’t like intercity kids.  We don’t like African Americans. We don’t like Latino.” Whatever the  case was. I come from a time when the proprietors of a store or anything  else, you loved your customers because that’s who pay the bills and that’s  who supported you and why wouldn’t you give love back to them?

I was frustrated and I came up with a brand called FUBU,  For Us By Us. It wasn’t only because of the people that didn’t necessarily  love the culture, but if you were a kid and you were living in New York City  and you wanted a really great colorful jacket, you didn’t need to buy a  $2,000 ski jacket with vortex and all kinds of things. You just wanted a  colorful jacket. We made it affordable, $400, $300, whatever the case was. As  I did that, basically a lot of the performers in the music industry, they  latched on to it and then a lot of the athletes latched onto it and it became  this snowball effect that started to empower the entire generation and then  you had your P. Diddy’s and your Jay Z’s and everybody else who decided to come  out with their own brands.

We weren’t the first. There were two other brands, Cross  Colors, Karl Kani, and maybe a couple other ones that inspired us. It just  became really an amazing empowerment for the hip hop community. This was the  first time you started seeing actually music artists who started to come out  with brands, other than music, that started to monetize themselves and here  we are today.

Josh: Cool. I know when I was looking through and reading some  of your books and everything, basically you started FUBU with no funding. You  didn’t go out, have venture capitalists, have all these backers and  everything. You were grinding it out day in and day out, right?

Daymond: Yeah and that’s obviously the theory to the book the  Power Of Broke because I started FUBU with $40. I remember it was 1989, Good  Friday, 3:00 in the afternoon when I stood outside a mall by house and I sold  $800 worth of hats that I made with my own hand and the light went on like  this. It was like, “Wow, I can really empower myself.” Then I  gradually grew the company, but from ‘89 to ’92, I closed the company down  three times because I ran out of capital, but I only ran out of $1,000,  $5,000 and often people think that you need money to make money, but actually  the most common reason why startups fail is actually over funding. They go  out and they raise $100,000 when they only sold $800 worth of hats and then  they blow $100,000 on fancy websites, opening those store fronts and things  of that nature and they’re not concentrating on the bottom reason why you’re  in reason, sell, sell, sell. I was able to start my business over and over  again because I only made affordable mistakes.

Josh: That makes sense because as entrepreneurs, we’re out  there grinding it day in and day out and everybody sees what’s happening in  Silicon Valley with all the huge valuations and all these big funding that  are happening and they think, “I have to do the same thing.” Like  you said, you get the money and you just don’t know what to do with it.

Daymond: It’s absolutely bull crap because no matter how much  money Zuckerberg may or may not have raised, he started off with one friend.  Now he has 1.5 billion of them, but it doesn’t matter how much money you  have. I’ve seen more companies collapse because they thought, “We have  great funding around us.” Now I’ve seen more companies succeed because  of very common reasons. They have a mentor somewhere around that doesn’t have  any kind of investment in the company. They are making affordable mistakes.  They have proven their concept first and foremost with little to nothing.

If they did it with little to nothing, when they have a  dollar, they’re really going to be more powerful. They have like-minded  people around them and they set their goals. They leverage their assets. They  don’t use OPM. OPM is other people’s money. OPM is other people’s marketing,  other people’s manpower or other people’s mind power and you can make money  off of other people’s mistakes.

Josh: Those are some awesome points. Guys, make sure you’re  taking notes right here. Daymond is dropping some great nuggets of wisdom for  you. Now moving forward and moving past FUBU then, what did you start to dive  into after that?

Daymond: FUBU is and was a really great part of my life and it  still is, but I didn’t want people to think that I bit the right apple or I  got struck by lightning one time so I went out there with my partners and we  acquired several other brands and that’s when I really understood what the  power of broke was because I made my biggest mistakes when I had the most  money. I acquired brands and I blew $6 million on a brand that I didn’t know  much about but I thought I can buy the fancy CMO, the fancy CEO, advertising  and marketing, before I turned around I realized that as long as I was paying  people, they would tell me what I wanted to hear. After I stopped paying  people, you started to find out the real character of who was around you, the  ones who jump ship, the ones who are problem solvers. I realized that the  power of broke is really activated more by people who are successful.

That’s why you look at things like athletes and lotto  winners who three years outside the league of athletes over 60% of them are  bankrupt because they have this certain skill set that they focus on as an  athlete, to become the best product in their world, but then when they have  money, they don’t take the same skill set and put it in to wherever they’re  investing in. What happens? The money goes. I learned that after a while when  we acquired various companies and then we started to really have some success  once I took all the money away from it and started concentrating on my brands  Cool G and things like that and then I just wanted to start giving back and I  started going on to shows such as yourself, such as Donny Deutsch, CNBC and  Mark Burnett, the producer of various shows from Survivor to Contender,  Apprentice, the Voice, had a show called Dragon’s Den that was popular in  London, Japan and Canada

He was bringing it to America and he wanted it to be  called Shark Tank and he had four people on there who were really, really  morons. They didn’t know what they were talking about and he needed a very  smart shark. He decided to ask me to help become the lead shark and teach  everybody what I know and that’s how I became Barbara and Robert and Kevin’s  daddy.

Josh: That’s great. Being on Shark Tank, how does that help  you an entrepreneur really refine your skills as well as also know when  you’re valuating and looking at companies to know what to look for?

Daymond: Being on Shark Tank has been absolutely amazing for  various reasons. Number one, the valuation and what I’m looking for in  companies, it hasn’t changed much, but what it has done is make me basically  hire and surround myself with people that I know can take on the task of the  industry that I’m trying to go into. One part of it is the fundamentals of  business. The other part is getting people who are trained, who understand  how to run those companies. More importantly, as much as I joke about the  other sharks, I learned more than anybody else in the show. I am sitting next  to four or five individuals that have a vast amount of knowledge in various  different industries and I learn from them. More importantly, I learn from  all the entrepreneurs that are coming up there who are anywhere from 10 years  old to 75 and they’re doing business in a whole new way.

They’re doing business where they’re converting people  online. You and I, we know the traffic conversion conference that we went to  where this world is changing. If I wasn’t on Shark Tank, I probably would be  like a lot of my colleagues who are, “Let me make it. Let me beg a store  to buy it. Let me put in the store. I don’t know who’s going to buy it when  they get to the store. I don’t know why they bought it. I can’t upsell them.  I don’t know why they didn’t buy it.” It’s a different world now. Not  that we don’t need retail stores anymore, they’re very important, but now I  know how to support the retail stores, driving traffic through them in another  way and I know how to sell it online and convert it on social media if the  stores don’t want to buy it.

Now is a great time. People are empowered way more than  we were 10, 15 years ago. The only challenge is there’s also another million  or two million people with the same power so you got to hustle.

Josh: That’s definitely the case. I remember my first business  at 14 years old and it was a computer business and there was no internet. You  had to get out there and talk to people and hustle. Now the flood gates of  being able to connect with people has just dramatically increased so much.

Daymond: It has, but the fundamentals are still the same. You  have to get your butt up before everybody and you better go to sleep after  everybody and out hustle them because there’s somebody out there trying to  eat your lunch.

Josh: That’s the case. Can you stick around for another  minute? We just got to take a quick break.

Daymond: I’m here.

Josh: Awesome. I am Josh Felber and you’re watching Making  Bank and we’ll be right back. I am Josh Felber. You’re watching Making Bank.  We’ve been speaking with Daymond John about how he started his businesses  from the position of not having any money and almost shut the company down or  shut the company down several times during that first several years and how  that has now catapulted him into success with his company FUBU as well as  taught him valuable lessons as an entrepreneur to continue to grow his  businesses and also expand his brand overall. Daymond, welcome back to Making  Bank.

Daymond: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Josh: We weren’t just talking real quick, you were talking  about Shark Tank and being on Shark Tank and everything. What are maybe two  or three valuable things that you’ve picked up from being on Shark Tank,  working with all these different entrepreneurs, that we can help teach our  audience?

Daymond: I’ve learned a couple of things. First of all, if you  don’t have the knowledge of converting online and/or reaching your public  online, that is where the entire world is going. We’re at a point now where  we sell things full margin to somebody that is going to support you and you  can also upsell and keep selling them if the product is right and if they  still want your stuff. I’ve learned the power now is purely talking directly  to your customer. I’ve also learned and I always knew that it’s not money.  Money is not going to get you there really. It’s about hustle. It’s about  grind. It’s about surrounding yourself with the right people. It’s about  finding that vein and creating that genuine following. You can go out and buy  a following all you want, but as soon as you lose the money, you lose the  following.

You can burn through money fairly quickly. The people  that I see on Shark Tank and in the private sector that have really made it  have been people that have used their intellect and their grind and they  connect and things like that and they have not used money. Those are the two  things. Then it’s the art of the pitch. It’s the fact that I see that we don’t  invest in Shark Tank. We don’t invest in companies. We invest in people.  Simple as that because you’ll see often people up there who have really  amazing numbers, really amazing businesses and will say, I think I said it  the last week I was like, “You know what, I don’t really like you but  I’ll give you $2.5 million now and I’m going to license the company.”  That basically sums it up. I don’t like you. I’ll give you the money. As soon  as I get the company, I’m going to license it because I don’t want to talk to  you again.

Then you’ll see somebody else up there who is crying and  they’re all upset, they failed a million times and you know they’re never  going to stop, no matter what, whether this company works or not, we’re going  to do something together and we’re going to make a lot of money because you  believe in the same things I believe in and you’re not going to go to sleep,  I’m not going to go to sleep and we’re going to make some money. I’ll let  Barbara give you the money and then you and I will do the business.

Josh: That’s awesome. Those are all three valuable points. You  got to be out there hustling. A lot of people, especially who I’ve done  consulting with, they think, “Okay, I can do so much and that’s just  going to get by.” As we discussed earlier, there’s millions of people  coming online. I think there’s three billion people in the next four years  that are coming online as start to connect globally, even more. They’re  either going to be starting businesses. They’re going to be looking to buy  products. You got to be able to serve them and deliver to them.

Daymond: That’s the whole point of the book that I wrote Power Of  Broke. In the book, I don’t just talk about myself. In the book, you have 15  really globally recognizable people such as Kevin Plank, the CEO of Under  Armour. He’s doing $4 billion a year in sales. When he was starting his  company, he didn’t have enough money to pay a toll when he was going over a  bridge and they had to give him a ticket. I have on there, Linda Johansen,  who started with one kiosk and now, I don’t know, she’s gotten up to I think  1,500 kiosks. She sold $1.7 billion worth of proactive. Started off with one  kiosk. I have a lot of other people. I have influencers like Acacia Brinley  who started off at 14 years old being bullied. Now she has I think 16 million  people that follow her online. She’s the one who they said created the  selfie. People like McDonald’s in the Olympics reached out to her. Everybody  on there activated the power of broke. When you tell me that you can’t do it,  you got to look into the book and see the people that can.

Josh: I know when I was skimming thought it real quick, some  of the things that you touched base on that I pulled out of there is how the  lack of capital forces you to think creatively, when your back’s against the  wall. It makes you think, “How can I get funding or how can I come up  with money next week to make sure I make payroll?”

Daymond: Absolutely. Listen, my friend said it the best way. He  said, “You’re going to go out and gamble.” Again, when you are  selling a product or anything like that, it’s a gamble. How much time do you  want to invest? How much are you willing to lose? How are you going to get  access to capital? How are you going to get customers? If you’re gambling, do  you go to the Black Jack table with $1,000 minimum first when you start  playing Black Jack or do you start off with $10? It’s the same thing. We like  to joke around and say, “I know you have a plan.” I’ve seen so many  business plans that are really amazing. Mike Tyson said it very, very  eloquently. “Everybody has a plan until I punch him in the face.”  In business, you’re going to get punched in the face so don’t worry about the  plan, the plan is nice, but reality is going to hit you.

Josh: Totally different, for sure. Also you listed in there  five shark points and how to apply them towards massive success. Maybe you  can give us one or two of those to key us in on some awesome stuff.

Daymond: My five shark points is SHARK of course. The first one  is set goals. You have to set goals. You have to set goals on how much time  you’re going to put in this. You should not go out and quit your day job and  then just start a whole new business. That’s not the right thing to do. I  understand people have to pay the bills so don’t quit the day job, but are  you going to put in two hours a week, four hours a week, nine hours a week?  Are you going to revisit it in six months, I’m talking about on your new  venture, and say, “After I put in this amount of time, what’s the  milestone that I want to hit to then move on to do another six months?”  If you don’t set goals, you’re going to let other people set goals for you.  They’re going to tell you that you can’t do this, you can’t do that, you’re  going to embarrass yourself, you’re going to embarrass us. You have to have a  mile marker no matter what. Personal goals as well as business goals.

Another thing in there, another one of my shark points  is about you have to absolutely love what you do. You as a broadcaster, I’m  sure that you love empowering people. Anybody out there right now, anytime  they’ve been successful whether in their relationship or whether in business,  they were doing something they absolutely love. I would make clothes for the  rest of my life for free and dress people for free if I could because I get a  high off of seeing people wear something that I created for them and made  them feel like they finally arrived. You have to absolutely love what you do.  If you do it for money, you most likely are never going to make the money.  You may end up in the wrong place for the money or when you make the money  you’re going to blow it.

Josh: Yeah, for sure. Those are very valid points. I know my  wife started her business when we had our first daughter and it was about a  necessity of trying to create skin care products that didn’t have all the  crap in them. We started it in 2008 and then re-branded in 2012 into the  paleo and it just took off. Last year we did over $1.2 million. She’s cried  about it everyday and hustling.

Daymond: It’s like Christmas everyday when you think about the  new product you made or you found another ingredient that is natural and safe  and you’re like, “Wow, I can improve this.” You like to tell  everybody. It’s fun.

Josh: That’s what she has everyday. It’s just fun for her to  go do it and to see the people when she gets those responses back like,  “Wow, this is amazing.“

Daymond: When you run a business, it is like your child. The  three times a month that you have to show up to the ER because your child has  a hearing infection, an ear infection at 2:00 in the morning, you don’t just  give your child up for adoption. Maybe Kevin O’Leary does, but other than  that, most of us don’t give our child up for adoption and that’s the same thing  as a business. You’re going to find aches and pains and you’re going to  figure out how to solve it. I always say that mothers are the ultimate  startup. They bring this beautiful being into the world and they figure it  out. I don’t care how many books you read on parenting. It doesn’t work. You  have to figure it out because each beautiful child is different.

Josh: Definitely. That’s the truth. Let’s jump into your book  a little bit. I want to dive a little bit more in the Power Of Broke and how  as entrepreneurs we can utilize that to help understand and learn and grow  our businesses. I know you mentioned some different people that you’ve  interviewed in the show. It looks like Steve Aoki, master DJ and producer.

Daymond: Yeah, let’s look at Steve Aoki because somebody like  Steve Aoki, his parents had money and everybody would say, “You need  money to make money.” Well, when he started to tell his father that,  “I’m going to play records for a living,“ his father said, “I  came over here from World War II fighting the war. I started with absolutely  nothing. Unless you sit your butt in this business, in this company that  we’re doing, that we built as a family, I’m not giving you one red  cent.” Then Steve goes, “All right, no problem.” He goes over  to New York City and he starts spinning records with all the cool kids and  they said, “Get out of here you little rich boy. We’re keeping it real  out here.”

Actually money was the biggest problem he had because he  didn’t have any from his father but the other kids thought he had some so he  couldn’t find his way, but then he decided to fly all the way from California  to New York to do a gig for $100. He had to go and get a job to go do the  gig. That’s how much it was costing him, but he had to go buy a plane ticket.  It shows that no matter where you are, it’s all about the hustle, the grind  at the end of the day.

Josh: Definitely. Let’s see. Jay Abraham.

Daymond: Jay Abraham. We all know Jay Abraham. If you don’t know  him, he’s a massive marketer. He is somebody that I sorted out to be a  mentor. I saw Jay about eight years ago. I called him relentlessly and I said  that, “Is there any way …” I told him who I was and he wasn’t  impressed. Jay has met presidents and everybody else. I told him my intent to  educate and empower other entrepreneurs and Jay stuck to that and he’s been  my mentor ever since. He’s done legendary things like create the brand Icy  Hot when it comes to marketing. They say $9 billion worth of business has  been attributed to Jay’s mind alone when he consulted everybody from GM to  the President. Jay Abraham is in there.

Listen, the Power Of Broke, I exercise the power of  broke in this book because I show you how I go out to mentors no matter what  level I get to in life. I’m reaching out to you, Josh, to help me get the  word out because I can go out, I have enough money to advertise and market,  but unless it’s original and people like you that are respected, you’re not  going to interview me if it’s a bunch of crap. I’m on social media doing live  broadcasts with my people. It’s really about creating a genuine following.

Josh: Now with the internet and being able to connect with  people, if you’re out there delivering the value and creating content that’s  going to help empower people like you mentioned, that’s how you’re going to  build that genuine following of people.

Daymond: Absolutely.

Josh: You’re out there hustling. You’re making it happen all  the time. I see you’re flying from coast to coast in different book tours now  and everything. How do you make that happen day in and day out and still be  able to keep your energy and keep yourself healthy and just keep hustling  like that?

Daymond: It’s a constant grind. I think the biggest challenge  that I face as well as everybody else out there faces is that it’s time. Time  is the biggest challenge we all have. I even put it in the book. That’s the  only thing we’re selling everybody else is time and a more efficient way to  do something. It does take a toll on my health and things of that nature. I  set my goals and my reset and I think that’s the biggest thing though because  whether it’s time with our family that we need to spend time, time that we  spend on our health, time that we spend on our education and furthering  ourselves, that is the biggest challenge we all have. If you don’t schedule  these things, it doesn’t happen. I try to surround myself also with much  smarter people than me so I don’t have to figure it out myself.

Josh: Definitely.

Daymond: Again, I don’t have an answer to everything. Also the  book itself, it’s not going to make you successful because if your product is  crap, it’s crap. It’s only going to give you the path to get there and find  out that it’s crap sooner than later or find out it’s successful sooner than  later so you can fail fast if you need to. I also don’t give you an answer to  time because that’s the biggest challenge I face as well.

Josh: Definitely. It’s really trying to make that time for as  much as we can that’s important in our lives and really start to define those  pieces. I think once we have that definition of what is important to  ourselves and our lives, they can really then start to structure our days and  our weeks and stuff around that to make it happen.

Daymond: Absolutely.

Josh: Cool. Tell me one thing, what is one thing you can’t  live without from a technology side of things?

Daymond: From a technology standpoint, it’s purely just the phone  all around. I don’t have anything specific, but 10 to 15 years ago, we were  chained to the desk and we pick up the phone from 9:00 to 5:00 or 9:00 to  7:00 and that was it. Now you can have access to anybody and everybody and it  makes me mobile. I couldn’t take this mobile and as you said flying around  the world and everything else like that if I didn’t have this digital leash  with me. There’s nothing specific that I love about it, but it’s just in  general. I have a full fledged computer next to me all day.

Josh: I know. It’s a tool that helps you get business done and  run your operations and stay connected.

Daymond: You can watch a lot of stupid videos on it as well.

Josh: That’s the truth. What’s the one best piece of advice  you’ve ever received?

Daymond: One best piece of advice I’ve ever received was money is  a great slave but a horrible master. It goes back to my theory of don’t do it  for money. I understand people are like, “Yeah, okay buddy. You got  money now so that’s what you’re saying now.” It’s not. Anything that  I’ve ever done for money, I never made it. When I came up with the concept of  FUBU, it was when I decided to stop doing all these business ideas that I had  that were just about money and I just wanted to start dressing people. Before  I knew it, that hobby turned into a way to feed my family and keep the lights  on. The concept of the Power Of Broke is I’m not glamorizing when you don’t  have resources because I think that is very important for us to be able to  have those things to feed our families and get great medical and education,  but if you are in that situation, there’s only two things to do.

It’s either cry and moan about it or tap into that power  that you have and kick your butt into gear like we all have had to do sooner  or later and monetize it. I think the stats show. If you look at Forbes Top  1000 or Inc Top 1000 over 60% of those individuals, the wealthiest people in  the world, over 60% of them came from nothing. They are self-made men and  women. That means they were all broke. I guess if you needed money to make  money, then all the people that were on the list prior to that, they would  still all be in the list and there would be no room for the 60% or the 65%  now that were broke. The stats have shown that you don’t need money to make  money.

Josh: Cool. Awesome. Last question, what’s one habit that  you’ve contributed to your success?

Daymond: Setting goals. Purely setting goals. I read this amazing  book when I was young. I was 16 years old. It’s probably the book that  attributed to most of the people … More people that are successful have  read this book than any other book. It’s called Think and Grow Rich. I’m sure  Josh you’ve read it. It’s by Napoleon Hill, the original one. When he talked  about goal setting in there, I didn’t understand it at first, but because I’m  dyslexic, I read the book every year. After about the fourth time reading it,  I absorbed the information the right way and I started setting goals when I  was 16. They started to kick in when I was about 22. Before you know it, I  had what most people would call a level of success that everybody attributes  to by the age of 27 or 28 I was worth several million dollars. I attribute it  to that book and that book alone.

Josh: Definitely. I have to agree 100%. I was 14 when I read  that book with Toby Robbins’ Unlimited Power. I took out a legal pad and just  sat there and wrote and wrote and wrote.

Daymond: I’m sure you read all the ones that really have done it  for you. Tony Robbins, all those books, Think and Grow Rich, Jay Abraham, Who  Moved My Cheese, One Minute Manager, The Lean Startup. The Power Of Broke is  just another version of The Lean Startup. All these books are really amazing.  Ryan Deiss’ The Invisible Selling Machine, all these great, great tools are  out there and people just to need to find them.

Josh: Cool. Where’s the best place for people to go find the  Power Of Broke?

Daymond: You can go find the Power Of Broke on powerofbroke.com.  You can also get it on Amazon. You can get it in Barnes & Noble. I’m  going around the country. This Power Of Broke thing is just like Shark Tank.  It’s bigger than me. I’m going out and I’m seeing 500, 700, 800 people at  these book signings and more importantly than getting a book, they’re out  there meeting like-minded people like themselves and networking because  they’re sitting there or standing next to an investor or somebody who’s a  coder or somebody who’s a designer or a manufacturer or a vendor and it’s  becoming something much bigger than me which I’m more than happy and I’m  proud to be part of the system. You can get it anywhere and everywhere.

Josh: Awesome. Is your schedule as well on powerofbroke.com?

Daymond: We will be posting that. I’m going to be New York, New  Jersey and Connecticut and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area for the next month  and a half. I will be doing probably about 15 to 20 signings in this area.

Josh: Awesome. Thank you for writing that book. I know it’s a  huge contribution to other entrepreneurs out there like myself and being able  to dive into the information and learn more from all these different people  as well.

Daymond: Thank you, Josh. Thank you for what you do because the  information needs to be out there for people to empower themselves. At the  end of the day, people just want to feed their families and empower  themselves. They think entrepreneurship is rare. It’s not. 90% of the world  doesn’t have access to big companies, big jobs and they’ve been bartering and  trading since the first day that we were created. They just don’t call it  entrepreneurship. We’ve had a bad rep over the last many years as an  entrepreneur. We’ve been told that an entrepreneur is somebody who sets your  house on fire and then come sell you a water hose. That’s not the case so  thank you for what you’re doing.

Josh: Thank you, Daymond. I really appreciate your time today  and coming on Making Bank. It was an honor to have you.

Daymond: All right. Thank you man.

Josh: I am Josh Felber. Thank you for watching Making Bank.  Get out and be extraordinary.