Favorite Shark, Importance of Mentorship & Power of Community | Daymond John DSH #231

What I realize is business people, what happens is we travel so much and there's no release.

And that's the habit of most of us as entrepreneurs.

And you have nobody to talk to.

You can't tell anybody what's going on because then they're going to either use it as a weapon against you or they're going to believe you're soft and they're going to try to manipulate you or break down your business.

Damon John in the building.

Hey you, I don't want to interrupt your drinking.

Sorry, guys.

2024, man.

What are you looking forward to this year?

I know you're doing a bunch of stuff in AI.

If you're getting into health, you're caring about your family a lot.

I see on your Instagram.

Yeah.

What am I getting into this?

So tell me more about your crowd, though, first of all.

Who's in this crowd right now?

Because you know, a lot of times there are a lot of entrepreneurs and then, as Cuba, call it wantrepreneurs.

I would say we try to limit the wandrepreneurs.

I'd say this crowd is very entrepreneurial.

I'd say they're successful business owners and looking to get to that next level.

Okay, cool.

And why are they in this room right now?

I want to know how many people out there drinking and talking sh ⁇ and they're like, oh, I wonder how to become successful.

Oh, these two guys are talking about that shit.

I'll That go be drinking.

Yeah, there's going to be those people, unfortunately, but I think the people at the front here, probably half the room is here, ready to learn.

Got it.

All right.

All right.

So let's

talk to the front row.

But I know how it is.

You know, we're partying, right?

So what am I looking at this year?

You know what a big thing that I'm looking at this year is the art of barter.

Because what I realize in business is too many people are transactional and they watch too much shark tank and they think that that's the only way that they can grow their business or become successful.

And they don't know, you know, the younger generation like you would call it collaboration, but they don't know that there's massive wealth that could come through barter.

Hence,

Richard Branson started Virgin Airlines through barter.

Mickey Arison started Carnival Cruise Line through barter.

I started Foo Boo through barter.

And a lot of people don't understand that.

They think you have to have $5 for something worth $5.

A lot of these young men and women, you have 11 million followers.

You may want to start a business, but you find a business that is an older business where they don't have any distribution.

They have a massive amount of inventory.

But you say, give me 50 cents or a dollar

per all this inventory you have, each one that I sell for $20, I just put my crowd to it.

And you sell $500,000 or 500,000 units and you make $500,000 because you bartered for it.

Somebody would say to you more than you, somebody with your type of problem would say, well, just give me $100,000 or $200,000 when you can make $500,000.

But people don't think like that.

I feel like bartering is a lost art.

I'm glad to see you bringing it back because that's something these days where everything is so transactional.

So it's cool to see you doing that on a high level.

You got to move away from the speaker.

All right.

Next question.

Come on, let's get to it.

I see you getting into health.

10x Health.

I'm a big customer.

Gary's been on the podcast.

Gary Reggae?

Yup.

Yep, great guy.

What made you spark that change in your life to get so into health?

I had cancer in 2017 and I realized that all the money I had was going to go to shit if I wasn't going to be here for my little girl.

So,

you know, as,

and I'm not joking about the people at the bar.

What happens is, yeah, what we do is sit right there next to my ugly ass face.

There you go.

What I realized is business people, what happens is we travel so much and there's no release.

So

if you're out at night and you can't go to the gym and you travel so much, what are you going to do?

You're going to go to dinner with two clients, two separate clients that you can't stand.

You got to get numb.

Then you're going to finally see some people you like.

You're going to celebrate because you have no release.

And that's the habit of most of us as entrepreneurs.

And you have nobody to talk to about any of your challenges because you got to hold it all in.

You can't tell anybody your challenges, but you got to listen to everybody else because they think you float on water or walk on water.

And you can't tell anybody what's going on because then they're going to either use it as a weapon against you or they're going to believe you're soft and they're going to try to manipulate you or break down your business.

So then, if you don't have a release, you go to things like food and liquor and drug and you turn around and the whole thing you work for to have a better life for you and your family, it's gone because you don't have help.

And a lot of us don't realize that until you're until it's too late.

I'm so glad you brought that up because entrepreneurship could be a very lonely road.

And like you said,

it's a weird situation to bring up your emotions.

And I got to the point where I was having panic attacks and collapsing at 21 years old.

At 21, having panic attacks.

Yeah.

And you know what, honestly, the beautiful thing about where technology is, when we were younger, we didn't know what it was to go get our blood checked or get body scans and stuff like that.

But the reality is as entrepreneurs, if you look at the data, 65% of the time, if you catch something in time, you can actually beat it.

But usually it's men, usually, that are a little bit older who say, I don't want to go get a colonoscopy or endoscopy or all that stuff.

And their ego gets in the way.

Well, what is your ego when you're no longer around to protect your family?

How is that going to work out?

Probably.

Yeah, and the other issue with entrepreneurs is we serve everybody else.

We're so busy listening to everybody else's problems and taking care of everybody else all all day long.

Got to take care of payroll.

I got to take care of my customer.

I got to take care of my family.

We don't stop to take care of us because the nature of an entrepreneur is to take care of others and solve problems except for our own.

We leave our problems for lax.

That's deep.

Now, I know you have super humble beginnings.

I want to talk about the importance of mentorship, what role that's played on your entrepreneurial journey, and how you're mentoring others now.

Mentorship is critical.

Mentorship is critical, but the only, the most important part about mentorship is getting mentored by somebody who doesn't need you.

Right?

If somebody needs you, they have a vested interest, right?

But if you get mentored by people who don't need you, the issue a lot of people don't realize is to get mentored by people.

What's in it for the mentor, even though they don't need you?

You come over to me and say, you're going to give me money.

I don't need money.

Right, but if you say, well, Damien, you, I will use this example.

You're on the board of the Petco Foundation.

I'm going to donate three hours a week to any charity that saves animal lives on behalf of you.

And I'm going to call you once a month.

Maybe you give me some advice.

Well, you know how many people on that line?

20 people.

You know how many people line up, hook me up, tell me what to do,

give me some money.

How can I help you?

And not tell me how they're going to help me.

That's a thousand people on that line.

I don't need nobody on that line.

So how do you choose who to mentor?

Because you get approached by, like you said, thousands of people.

Really good question.

They have to do so much research on me that they know what I need more than I realize what I need.

Or I watch them so much and I see them serving so many people that I say, you've earned my respect.

But it's never happens in a transaction the first time you see somebody.

It's always over the course of time.

You see somebody, you say, this person's always been consistent.

They never stressed me about shit.

They never came with me with their problems.

They've always tried to serve.

Yo, what can I do for you?

You know?

I want to touch up on community and your mastermind and why you decided to start it and how important masterminds and communities are to you.

You know what, why I decided?

Because you said the people in here are doing a million and up, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

When you're doing a million, five million and up, you have a critical issue of where am I going to go next?

And you cannot talk to the people who are doing 200,000 or 300,000 because they haven't solved enough problems to do a million and over.

But you can't talk to Barbara, Kevin, and Damon and Richard Branson because we got bigger issues we're solving and you're not at that level unless you have something that can plug into us.

So who are you going to talk to?

And you need to talk to people who have very critical issues that need to be solved today.

They can't around for the next two, three, four, five years at that level.

It's at the critical point where they have three to five years of

blood, sweat, and tears risked.

And if they don't make it past this point because they got everything on the line, they're going to go to zero.

So the whole thing of rise mastermind while we have these people in the room is because we want you in the room with like-minded people who have the same challenges in real time that you deal with.

But not somebody you're going to talk to in a passing right here and then never see them again because you don't know if they're worth anything.

You want to see them two times and, you know, in three separate quarters during the year because somebody else will say, yeah, I'm doing a deal with them too.

Or hey, they gave me bad advice.

Or they've been amazing.

Trust them in here, not in here.

And you want to be in a room simultaneously where you're getting those answers, because you don't got time for a nine-month course or a six-month course.

You got to get back to work.

Absolutely.

What are the qualifications?

I mean, that's why the people are here right now, mixing together.

They're getting fast, quick transactions, saying, I like this person.

That's probably why you're doing so well in regards to the following, because they can get what they need quick and then see you next month and the next month and follow up.

The mastermind is just a way more intense two days of it and make it at a certain level, That's all.

Absolutely.

Being part of Masterminds has changed my life.

What are the qualifications to get into this one?

This one you got to do an average of about 5 million and up.

You have to want to bring value.

If you come into the mastermind, you're just trying to sell a bunch of shit.

They'll be like, this is not for you.

Right.

And basically, you know, you have to be vetted and qualified.

And

we don't have to guarantee that you're going to be every single meeting, which is a total of six days out of one year.

If you don't show up at all, there's no need for you to be there then.

You're not adding value.

But that's really it.

You've got to be somebody that we think is going to add value, somebody that we know is on the cusp of making it, not somebody who's over-leveraged and a bunch of things, and they're just using everybody else's money, nothing like that.

Love it.

Other than yourself, who's your favorite shark?

I don't have a favorite shark, actually.

I love them all.

Be very honest,

everybody has a different talent or skill set.

Mark Cuban has really big pockets.

They got even bigger about two months ago.

So he can buy everything.

You know, Barbara Corporate is a genius marketer.

Robert Hershevik, one of the top 10 cybercrime experts in the world.

Lori knows products.

Out of the top 20 Shark Tank products, she has 12 of them.

Who did I pick at?

Mr.

Wonderful?

Okay.

With the show coming to an end soon, are you still going to be investing heavily into brands and companies?

Am I what?

Are you still going to be investing heavily into brands and companies?

Am I still investing heavily into brand companies?

With the show coming to an end.

The show ain't coming to an end.

Oh, I thought this was the last season.

No, Cuban has said he's not going to be on after next season.

A lot of people thought it was this season.

By the time he's not on, it'll be 2025.

That show, that show, that show, Dragon Then in London, the same format, it's on its...

26th year.

The show is endless, right?

I may not be on it, but that show is evergreen because you see real-time, real issues, right?

This year, you'll see people who are dealing with AI, dealing with should we work remote, not remote, dealing with interest levels are so high, right?

You know, years ago, we saw people dealing with crypto.

Years before that, we saw dealing.

It's in real time, and it's real issues that people, you don't have to have watched the pitch prior, the episode prior, and it's real people.

And that's why we love bringing guest shards on because you got real people who are growing massive businesses who have different ways of thinking about business.

You mentioned AI and how heavily are you going into that sector?

I'm decent in it.

I have some investments in it but I'm decent in regards to investing in it.

I'm heavy into learning everything from

you know AI automated video editing to newsletters to all the various other things to save me time.

to get me closer to the mark of what I want to accomplish without having all the people and I can take the people and use them for other skill sets that I think they can thrive in.

You know, AI assistants, AI salespeople.

I mean these things are closing at ratios of 4%

instead of 1.5.

When do you think the right time to start investing into private equity is?

There's people in here with money on the sidelines.

Where do you think they should go for information and deals?

I can't get financial.

It's all honestly, it's about, I love public markets for the most part, right?

I know that Shopify is, is, I bought Shopify at $30, it went up to $1,900.

I know Apple's not going anywhere.

I know people aren't going to start opening walls again.

Amazon is not going anywhere from the aspect of boxes to food to ring doorbell.

I happen to like those.

If you're looking at private equity and private markets, that's a...

That's too broad of a question at the moment, Kamitan.

It's a tough game.

I saw Mark Cuban in a clip just say on his shark tech investments, he's actually down on a lot of them.

Yeah, because he buys so many.

Mark needs the write-offs.

But Mark is also, he is a champion for entrepreneurship, and Shark Tank was going to be canceled the first three years, and all the so-called superstars of business, they didn't want to go on a show

where at that time nobody knew across the country, Damon, Robert, and everybody else.

And Mark, being a data person, saw that it was the top show.

Mark and the two adults that will watch kids 5 to 15, parents of kids together and taught in school.

And he said, I'm going to go on the show.

And because he went on the show, he took it on to Jimmy Kimmel.

He took it on to Ellen.

And the show started to pop.

And the only reason the show stayed on the air when ABC was going to cancel it is because Mark went on that show and he didn't care about the ego being bigger than the show.

And he made it a household

show.

Wow, so it was going to be canceled in the first three seasons, you said?

Yeah, the first three seasons wasn't hitting the numbers because it was hard to explain.

Who wins the money?

Do they get dumped in a shark tank once they lose?

Is it on Shark Week on Discovery Channel?

You couldn't explain the show.

And I wasn't popular enough at the time to go on Jimmy Kimmel or any of those shows.

So they were like, who the hell is this?

It was purely Mark Cuban coming on and saying, I'm going to help.

Wow.

Any of your investments in Shark Tank exited yet?

Any of the companies sell?

Yeah, I've exited plenty of little ones, but the biggest that,

oh no, we actually did exit a nice one.

One of the biggest arguments ever in Shark Tank history is over a kid named

Chris, a company called Scali.

I saw that one, Indian guy, right?

Young African-American kid comes on.

He had already raised 1.2 million in scholarships for himself.

Put out an app.

He wasn't a tech kid.

For people to understand how to buy or how to get scholarships for their kids

Robert's a tech guy.

Mark's a tech guy.

Kevin O'Leary's a tech guy.

Lori and I go in on the deal: $20,000 apiece on the deal, $40,000.

Robert and all of them said, You are, it is charity.

You're full of shit.

Get out of here.

And they get up and they leave.

Wow.

They said this, you're, and we know, I know how to say no.

I'm not going to say yes just because you're African-American.

He just sold the company for $18 million.

Yeah, that was a 60 exit for me.

Yeah, so it shows shows what Mark and

Robert and

Kevin know.

I love that, man.

Well, where can people find out more about the mastermind and more about what you're up to?

Where can we find out more about Rap?

Rise Mastermind.

You can find out about

hitting the QR code, right?

Or you can talk to Deanna right here about Rise Mastermind or Charlie right there.

Yeah, and pretty much that's it, man.

I'm a fan of yours.

I just became a bigger fan.

I was was a fan when they said, hey, come talk to this kid.

He's absolutely amazing.

But upstairs, we had a good conversation.

Thank you for what you're doing for entrepreneurs.

You never know.

Hopefully, somebody in here just met their next investor or partner or whatever the case is, colder or whatever the case is.

We got a lot of great people, and look how many people love you and support you and come during such a crazy time in Vegas where they could be everywhere.

Thank you, man.

All right, you got it, guys.

Thank you.