How Patrick Bet-David Went From Refugee Camp to a $1B Empire

In Germany at the refugee camp, kid got shot. We're running around and hiding in a bathroom to make sure we don't get shot.
What do you think that period of your life taught you that's been invaluable for you as an entrepreneur today? You're one decision away from ruining your life. One night I came home.
We were expecting our first. Jennifer's in tears.
It's 1.30 in the morning. She tells me she had a miscarriage.
And I'm like, God, what are you doing? That anger, is it still there? Oh, my God. I've made a lot of stupid mistakes in my life, but as you're going, you're just hoping you don't make the same mistake twice.
But why should people be thinking billion? It's not a job for everybody. It's not.
So for me, why do I need to make a billion dollars? Welcome to the Martell Method. I went from rehab at 17 to building a $100 million empire and being a Wall Street Journal bestselling author.
In this podcast, I'll show you exactly how to build a life and business you don't grow to hate. My bestselling book, Buy Back Your Time, is out now.
Grab a copy at buybackyourtime.com or at any of your preferred online retailers. Welcome everybody to the show.
I'm here with Patrick Bet David, PBD. Patrick, my first question, I was just actually with Adam at the vault.
In the vault. I'm sorry for you.
I know. He's like, who are you? I recognize this.
He looked at us with the logo. I said, well, we do some content.
But I asked him when I was leaving, I said, I'm about to go have a conversation with Patrick. What's a question I should ask that most people don't ask? And we were talking about some of the work I do at risk youth.
Yep. And he goes, Patrick, essentially, is who you just described.
If you don't mind, I know you've shared the story about, you know, coming from Iran and stuff. But like, you know, a guy asked me once, he said, what did your childhood smell like? And I thought that was an interesting way, you know, to...
Eh, you know, Middle Eastern, they sweat a lot. What do you want me to tell you about what the childhood...
No, but I would tell you. So for me, till 10 years old, mom and dad lived together.
And my dad was always my hero. Since I was six years old, when the teacher asked me, who do you want to be when you grow up? I said, I want to be a dad one day because i just want to be like the guy when they got a divorce germany refugee camp i experienced what it was to not trust everybody and you can't think everybody wants what's best for you and i got stabbed the first time with a fight with a couple afghani kids and we were with czech kids and yugoslavia myodrag and anna maria and polish and all these guys i'm I'm like, okay, I'm by myself now.
It's me, my sister, who's six years older and my mom. And then came to the States, lived in Glendale and refugee, you know, welfare, all this.
We never had a car. We would always go different places.
My mother got a car at the tail end of it. So I would always walk to school and back then you're around gangsters you know all these different guys that are in gangs drug dealers and all these guys and i didn't touch drugs i only i never touched drugs because i was afraid of a god my mother even though i didn't believe in god she would always tell me the one thing that very effective she would say i may not know what you're doing but god knows if you use drugs okay my best friend was the number one guy selling weed in Glendale.
He's no longer with us. I took him to rehab, and his drug that took him out was Vicodin, 50 a day.
Yeah, I took him to Bible study. We took him to Tarzana Medical Center, Rehabilitation Center, and boom.
Love that guy. probably my favorite guy to just hang out and talk and enjoy just a real guy we liked you know he was a tupac guy anyway so that's that part so at 14 years old my dad's trying to kind of change my life and he introduced me to this guy named vladimir who's now pastor in torlock a syrian guy whose father was like my guy who I wanted to be like.
I wanted to be an entrepreneur, Luther Al-Jose, who had a house in Upland, California, San Antonio Boulevard, right next to Snoop Dogg. And I would go to this guy's house, 7200 square feet.
I'm like, what a freaking house. One day I went, he would have pictures of his family in the white pool table, picture with Al Gore, liberal guy.
I'm like, okay, so office here, bedroom, had a jacuzzi, big pool, basketball. Like, I don't understand any of this stuff.
And I want a life like this. He would sit there with his kids, always push them.
Jesus wasn't real, even though he believed it. Let me tell you, money is bad.
And like, what are you talking about? You do good with money. And it was always heated heated debates with his kids and i loved it his son uh brought me to a league called the new century city basketball association in echo park it's guys from blood crypt uh ms 13 uh black diamonds i believe all these guys we were all just you know hoodlum kids one time there was a shooting My dad was there.
A kid got shot. We're running around and hiding in a bathroom to make sure we don't get shot.
So then after high school, I'm like, dude, nothing's going to happen. I'm working at Burger King.
It's not like I got a straight path to doing something big. I said, I'm going to go to 20 years in the military.
And military is when I flipped. Drill Sergeant Green got a hold of me.
And there's a famous picture with me standing like this next to my drill sergeant and my dad. And after that, I'm like, yeah, I can't live life like this anymore.
And then boom, 180. What do you think that period of your life taught you that's been invaluable for you as an entrepreneur today? Before we get back to the episode, if you want to jumpstart your week with my top stories and tactics, be sure to subscribe to the Martell Method newsletter.
It's where you'll elevate your mindset, fitness, and business in less than five minutes a week. Find it at martellmethod.com.
You're one decision away from ruining your life. We're watching a movie the other day, the kids and I.
We were watching Ray Allen's movie with Denzel, the basketball game. What is the Ray Allen movie with uh uh you got game is it you got game or he got game something like one of those things you got game and the back and forth on how the father ended up in jail and the governor comes in wants him to recruit his son to go to the local school and if you do I will I will reduce your sentence.
And some guys are following him and we're just sitting there. We're like, look at this guy.
So he's dating this girl that, you know, he's hooking up with all the time and she's trying to get paid to get him to a certain school. And one by one by one, you're realizing that some of the people don't want what's best for you.
And some of all the motives of certain relationship, right? And there's nothing wrong with people having a motive with you. Your wife has a motive with you.
You have a motive with your wife. Your kids do with you, you with them.
There's motive here. There's motives that selfish for him versus you versus me.
This here, there's motive both sides, but you have to know, is the motive coming from a negative place? Is it coming from a positive place? You just did an event with John Maxwell. One of the best quotes I heard John Maxwell once say, he says, when you learn to persuade, be very careful to not flirt with using that ability to manipulate.
Because when you learn how to persuade, can also manipulate right because manipulation is what

me when you lose and so that's the motive where you got to learn with all the other guys and i was blindsided like oh that guy wants what's best for me you don't want what's best for me no this guy doesn't like yeah this is lopsided i gotta figure this stuff out with human nature and motives and all this stuff and that took many years to figure out but that was probably the case because it was so chaotic.

It's like, ah, so much going on.

I'm like, yeah, no, I'm good. I got it.
So a lot of the chaos between my mom, my dad, refugee camp, you know, Glendale, all this stuff is why in business you can kind of be like, oh, it's going to be fine. We're going to be good.
We got this. You don't get trained that later on in life.
Musk handles chaos well. Why? Because his upbringing was way more chaotic than what he's going through today.
So today for him is a very safe place to be. So that's probably what it taught me at that time.
What was the scariest moment as a child for you? Oh, no longer seeing the footsteps of my dad coming upstairs. So we lived in Iran and we lived on the fourth floor, Khebanohou Jet.
And my favorite part of the day was he would come home around 8.20, 8.30, and I would see his head go like this. And there was a glass door that we had glass was like this and it was blurry

you couldn't see it through but when he would come up i would see a head go like this it was the best part of my day that means dad's home and he would open up we'd run up wrestle hang out and had 15 minutes with him because he always wanted us to go to sleep at 8 30 boom you got to go to sleep but uh the last time i saw that head coming up uh stairs i was 10 years and some eight months old nine months old that's probably the scariest part that's the last time i saw it i was afraid of no longer having that man in my life and who am I gonna learn from being a man so in Germany at

the refugee camp I didn't have any men around me it was just my mom and my sister and I gotta

so I had to age very quickly to protect my sister and my mom and then when I came here I saw my dad

two days a month for six years and then I joined the army and then when I got out of the army I'm

like listen if I'm gonna be roommates with anybody at 21 years old my dad and I became roommates

Let's go. a month for six years and then i joined the army and then when i got out of the army i'm like listen if i'm going to be roommates with anybody at 21 years old my dad and i became roommates that's crazy so we made up for all the years we didn't live together as a kid i lived with them from 21 to 28.
you know my dad was my roommate from 21 to 28 years most people don't know this my dad and i were roommates from 21 to 28 what is it about your dad that you admire emulate today yes why did you love him so much so you asked me a question when i'm interviewing and i ask sometimes tough questions of people or i'm you know challenging or me, when I ask it, I don't think I'm being a bad guy. And I don't think I'm trying to, you know, disrespect the person.
It's very natural to me. Why? Because that's how he was.
So he had a very interesting way of unbelievable unconditional love, but straight up accountability.

And it's like, as a boy growing up, holy moly, you need that.

Like if a boy has unconditional love, but also you're getting your ass handed to you,

never physically, it was always like making your ass handed to you. Never physically,

it was always like making excuses. Why are you being so lazy? Why this? And then it's like this, right? So like, dude, this guy, one of the most annoying things he set the example of as a father, if he told you he was going to do something, take you to the bank.
I'm 45 years old. I'm going to be 46 in two months.
Till today, when I tell you this, I'm not being sarcastic. My dad has never once told me he's going to do something that he's never done.
Tell me that's not weird. That's crazy.
It's annoying. Honestly, even more than crazy crazy it's annoying because I got four kids now so I can't have the kids see this because kids if you see this I'm joking it's a joke so don't hold that same accountability to your dad but a part of it is that standard gets with you and either you hate it and you say I don't want to live by that standards and I'm going to make sure my kids get everything so easy and they don't have to earn everything.
Or you're going to be like, it works. I'm going to pass it down.
So that's the part about this guy that this man that today, now he lives with us. He's downstairs.
He's been with me now, living in our house for three years. And my kids are super close to him my brooklyn tico dylan he he takes uh my oldest to kickboxing every night he used to take them to jiu-jitsu for two years now he wants to do kickboxing he's involved 82 years old still drives on his own and happy as can be but uh yeah he very influential in my life you tell a story often about how your dad was in the hospital and they weren't treating him right and that was a moment that anger because i used as a kid i used to get in these moments where i felt slighted and it was just like i saw red did that propel you to then build and then did you have to figure out how to work through those emotions because obviously you can't show up like that and like have you worked through that is it still there do you use it for good god i just know my story my journeys i'm curious you told me your story it's unbelievable yeah but uh yeah you know what it's likeziest analogy here for you, whether this makes sense or not.
What button does a president have access to? The nuclear button. What happens if he presses that button? What can he do to the world? Mayhem, chaos, destruction, World War III.
Why has no president ever pressed it?

So the thing with anger is some of us have more, some of us have less, but we all have it, right?

You can use that button.

But whenever you use the button, you better be ready for what comes with it as well.

Chaos, if a president does that, you indirectly lose trust with other countries that are allies you cause division between other countries your own people who believe in you are no longer going to trust you with the button you ain't getting re-elected your family will question some of your decisions that you made it may kill some of your family members if you press that button because the backfire coming back to you. So those are the things as a kid, you don't think about that as you get older, you think a little bit more before you press that anger button.
Okay. We all sometimes maybe not an anger button.
Maybe it's just kind of like a small little thing that you do. That's, you know, temperament goes up and down.
It's not like we're going to stay here for the rest of our lives. There's going to be some interesting moments.
But the more you look at the, you know, reasons why we get angry, you know, am I having a conversation with somebody and we have a debate? All of a sudden I'm cornered with an issue. Well, you're an idiot.
Why'd you call him an idiot? Because you don't have a rebuttal. Oh, so your lack of knowledge led to being afraid of not having a rebuttal to look like an idiot.
So the immediate reaction was anger. And that anger led to danger.
You just lost a relationship. You look like a clown.
Got it. So guess what? Let me do some research.
Can, can we verify what you just said? Okay. You sure about what you're saying? Let me go do some research and get back to you.
I got to go get better on this topic because I don't have enough intel yet. So then when we ask, why do we get angry? You're not controlling the situation.
You're cornered because you don't have the information, you're getting caught lying, they're identifying a move that you have that maybe they're exposing and your anger reveals that they're right instead of staying calm. The more situations like this you're in, hopefully eventually become more aware that this is what typically happens for you when you get angry now anger is a god-given you know he gave you gave why'd you give it to us what's the why'd you give it to me if it's so bad why'd you give it to me right there's a took my kids to go watch this movie deadpool i don't know if you've seen people can't stop talking about it i gotta go 12 year old So I said, let me take.
So my son finally convinced me to take him. So we go there and there's this scene.
Ryan Reynolds. Frick, we're talking about it, right? What a stud of a guy.
Yeah. There's a scene.
By the way, you know his wife's in a movie as well. Oh, I didn't know she was in it.
Yeah. So the other good looking guy, good looking Deadpool that shows up is apparently his wife.
And Jennifer Lawrence is in the movie. And apparently and apparently matthew by the way ridiculous they spend 200 million i think it's at 1.1 billion right now give or take there's a scene in the movie that he says look the human body has 206 different bones and if i'm watching such and such show i officially have 207 bones and my 10 year old son looks at me says dad do i have have 207 bones.
And my 10-year-old son looks at me says, Dad, do I have that 207

bone? And then Tico says, Dad, I got that joke. That's hilarious.
He's 12. And Tico's Dylan says,

which bone is that? You'll know in about two years. And I'm sitting there laughing my ass off.

What a hilarious situation. You're right.
But what's funny is when these guys were six and

Thank you. And I'm sitting there laughing my ass off.
What a hilarious situation. You're right.
But what's funny is when these guys were six and four years old, one day we're in the shower. I'm like, hey, whose is that? Whose is that? Whose is this? I said, this is mine.
That's yours. That's yours.
God gave it to you for you to play with it. Okay.
Nobody else plays with it because you're teaching them like in school, they're doing some stuff. One day, maybe a girl will play with it till then you get to only play with it.
Does that make sense? And, and Jennifer runs out. She's like, I said, okay, now I play with mine and you know, One day you're going to find out who else plays with that because you guys are here.
Who? I'll tell you later. That's a different story.
I said, for however, and so we're kind of going through this process. Where am I going with this? This is a weapon as well.
I can do good with it. I can do bad with it.
Anger. God gave me this.
You got one. I got one.
God gave us this. Why did he give it to us? It's a weapon.
It can do good, bad. It can do a lot.
If used properly, it's for pleasure. It's for procreation.
It's for a lot of different things, but it can also ruin a lot of different things, right? Anger, same thing. So as you're going through life, man, and by the way, I'm not a guy that walks on water.
God knows I've made a lot of stupid mistakes in my life but as you're going you're you're just hoping you don't make the same mistake twice when my guys in the companies i run or operate or my kids make a new mistake i'm like okay listen this is a pretty bad mistake this is a royal f-up we just lost a lot of money but it's your first time doing it second time you do it you're fired but this is the first time you're going to be fine same with kids but we have to sometimes hold ourselves to that standard as well and and over the years i know i used to use my anger to try to get change in my life and it but it created emotional shrapnel and i know you talked once about having people on your team there's different types of people you talk about drivers. And some people might be good at one thing, but you want a guy that can go into a room, diffuse the situation, but also agitate sometimes.
Like, is that kind of how you think of the emotional side when it comes to leadership? Like, talk about what a driver. Because you have a unique perspective that I'd love the audience to understand.
Because some people think, well, I've got to be calm all the time. No.
No, I'll give you a perfect analogy. And I hope none of my guys see this video.
No, let's go. But if the few of them that will see me, they're going to text me and they're going to say, you mother, you know, what about, I'm like, I get it.
I have a role to play. Before we get back to this episode, if you prefer to watch your content, then go find me on YouTube.
I have this episode on YouTube. I'm Dan Martell on YouTube on YouTube just subscribe to the channel turn on the notification bell because then you'll get notified in real time it'll tell YouTube to tell you got a new episode so you'll never miss anything let's get back to the episode so you walk into a negotiation you're sitting with a team think the movie Air.
Air, Sonny Vacario, Phil Knight, they're trying to negotiate to get Michael Jordan to not go to Converse, or is it Puma? It's Converse and Adidas, and instead sign with Nike. They have a meeting to prepare for the negotiation, okay? The shoe designer's there, Sonny Vacario is there, Phil Knight is there.
The team is there. They invite Michael to come to the headquarters.
Luckily, because he goes, visits them, Michael, Michael's mother and father all show up. They're sitting at the table.
First guy gets up and they say, Phil, you have to show up late. I'm not showing up late.
I'm the CEO of Nike. If you show up on time, it means that you don't have a lot of business.
If you show up late, that means you have a lot of business. Show up two minutes late.
Okay. So he shows up two minutes late.
So I'm so sorry. Got all these other business meetings I'm doing.
I'm so sorry about being late. Oh, it's totally fine.
Great to meet you. No, totally fine.
We just having a record break in here. It's so great to meet you guys.
You haven't seen the scene, right? Have you seen a movie? No, I've seen it, but I don't remember the scene. You got to see it.
So then, so then they say, you're going to show the video and this guy's showing this video and a minute, two minutes, the video goes, it's the worst video ever made to recruit Michael. So finally the whole thing is falling apart.
Sonny says, stop the video, stop the video. He looks at Michael, he says, Michael, I just got to tell you, look, at the end of the day, if you go to Converse, it's this, if you go to Adidas, it's this, this entire thing is about you.
Here here's what we believe you can be i believe you're the greatest player in the world and i believe you're going to be the greatest player this game's ever seen he says but all the mvps are going to win all the all-stars are going to win all the all-star mvps are going to win all the championships are going to win you're going to fall and when you fall and all the people are going to come after you, the critics, we're going to be there in your corner. Because we know what, I mean, I watched this scene.
I'm like, I had to, first week the movie comes out, I watched it three times. I took all our leadership team here, employees here.
We went and rented out the theater. We watched it together, rented out a theater.
And I took 300 of my guys in my insurance company. And the first week the movie came out, we did that with the movie.
There's only a couple of movies I've done that with. This was one of them.
The other one I did it with was Ford versus Ferrari. So I'm like, look at this scene, how prepared they are when they go into this meeting.
So let me give you the whole stage here. I'm in Vegas last week.
I'm at this insurance conference. Could very likely be my last one ever.
I'm the founder. I love these guys.
Absolutely love these guys. Now, we go in the first meeting.
I call a meeting for all my runners who know who they are. Without them, we would have never built this company.
Every one of them knows who they are there in the room. And I go through a list of mistakes they can make and potential things to look for in the future.
And I poked them in the most logical way possible, and I straight up told them, here's the mistakes you're going to make. You all need to know this.
If you do, this is the results. Period.
Gave them each a deal toy. A deal toy when you sell a company with a group,

you know what a deal toy is. You've done many.
So I give them each a deal toy. The room is emotional.

We're crying, talking. Great moment.
My role is to make sure the new buyers are being handed over a business that's going to continue and they're not going to quit because I'm the founder. Founder always wants their business to grow because you can say I was the founder to help XYZ, right? Now, I'm also aware when a founder leaves, the people that are in the company, there are three different camps.
There are those who secretly can't wait for you to leave because they're sick and tired of your bullshit and driving and agitating and disturbing and getting them to be like this guy never stops i'm so sick and tired of this bullshit and vision knock it off right there's the guys in the middle that are kind of like you know we'll um be like yeah i'm gonna get to work no matter what and the guys that are always going to be grateful for you guys that also when you leave, they're going to be like, now that I'm no longer making money with you, I don't need you anymore. I'm going to be here.
I don't care what my relation with you is going to be. I'm going to go here.
So they revealed themselves that it was all about money with you anyways, the relationship I had. A founder can't be emotional and offended by that.
Some people are going to do that that but a founder's affinity is going to be with certain people that long term are going to always say we would have never gone to what we got to without this guy that relationship is 45 years right so then it goes award ceremony at award ceremony he's got we had a great lineup ludicrous opens it up with a concert he just posted it on his instagram saying i've never been to a concert at a corporate event that was this wild this energetic never you should see ludicrous couldn't believe it says thank you he couldn't stop thanking us for the event that we have together when you see his instagram post if he goes on it right now looks at it room packed standing up singing to area code singing to all these weird songs right then bill belichick hits the stage great conversation will back with bill backstage he goes up there then you got a couple other guys that are at the event then it's my turn to come up so i tell all the guys when my turn comes up this can't be about me I'm not sitting here being like oh sentimental crying nope this has to be about hey matchmaker you're now married you guys got to find a way to work together and you're edifying both and you're challenging the people that the new buyer cannot challenge right now because I can be the bad cop they need to be the good cop because they're going to be doing business together so i go in a 30 minutes message calling out every single biggest ego in the room that needs to be called everybody in front of nearly 10 000 people in the room recorded it's like by name by name looking at them one by one by one by one by one calling out all their names i leave record-breaking amount of registration to their next event 12 000 tickets sold for an event that's nearly a year from now seven months from now and they've come out of the event record--breaking way of leaving an event, guess what?

Here you go.

You know, it's like your daughter got married to a man. You can't try to be the man for your daughter or else she's going to leave her husband to come to you.
This is your new husband. Go make it work.
I'm always here. As long as you respect me, I'm always here.
I love you. I respect you.
you go so very uh interesting question you asked that sometimes you know we're so concerned about us being the hero all the time that we're afraid to make the tough calls of agitating and pushing that we need to be doing and that's because we're we're too much about i have to be liked by everybody and i'm a leader amongst leaders and leaders amongst leaders make different types of decision that's not a popularity contest and but it's interesting is i've seen you do that the pushing and then you have this beautiful way that i don't i don't do it as well as i should of asking people's opinion you do it on your podcast like controversial i'm like i know what patrick's thinking but you don't say it first you're like what do you Adam, what do you think? And it's just, it's really cool to see because you build that consensus and then you, and, but it allows everybody to feel heard and seen. So it's, that's why I say like some drivers being one dimensional is just not, I'm talking to people that can produce the 10 million, a hundred million in your organization, like real leaders.
They have to have those other skills that you talked about. Why a billion dollars? We just had a conversation.
You kind of challenged me a little bit, a lot, which I love. But am I right? 100% you're right.
We have a, by the way, we have a, I can't tell you what it is. Yeah, five years.
Five year. It's beautiful.
But why should people be thinking billion? Because like people right now, it seems like it started at the 10K, but why a billion? They don't have to be thinking billion. And so here's how life works.
Okay. And I had to learn this the hard way.
Before we get back to the episode, if you actually want to know what my real life looks like and see the people and the businesses and the companies I buy and my family and just like how I make it all work, go follow me on Instagram, Dan Martell, 2Ls and Martell on Instagram. It's where I show the behind the scenes, the real deal, real time.
I'd love to see you there. Have an amazing day.
You know, when I was coming up and at 27, 28 years old, my wife would tell you, that's when we started dating first. I was 28.
I'd known her for five and a half years, but we were always in different relationships. The only time we were single for a two-week period was the time when I asked around.
And that's when we were together for a year and a half and then we got married. But in 2007, 2008, it's a very weird year for me.
Talk about temper. My temper was out of control because I was trying to figure out what I'm going to do in the next 20, 30, 40 years.
So I had a meeting with my pastor, with one of my advisors, with a handful of guys in business I respect a lot. And I flew him in and we had a meeting at the office.
And I said, so what should be my next move? I've learned how to make money I'm in financial services I'm gonna make a lot of money in this business and I'm very good at what I do but it can't be just for money it's not gonna drive me so I said Pastor Dudley you think I'm supposed to be a pastor he says no I don't think you're meant to be. He said, I think you can make a bigger impact in business than wanting to be a pastor.
I said, okay, great. Boom.
Off the list. What do you think I'm supposed to be doing? What do you think I'm supposed to be doing? You think I'm supposed to go into politics? You think I'm supposed to go into, what do you think I'm supposed to be doing? And I'm kind of like at that phase that I know I'm going to go until 80, 90 years old.
I just have to make sure I know my next move is crystal clear so i leave i go i have dinner with george will at miramar hotel santa monica march of 2009 he's speaking pat boone is at the event all these guys are at the event george will gets up talks about how lawyers are ruining america and then right afterwards a man named bill vogel introduced me to to George Will and says, George, Patrick wants to find out what his next cause is for his life. You know, what do you think you should focus on? And he says, so tell me about your background.
Where are you from? Iran. Tell me about your parents.
Tell him something. Why don't you study capitalism and find out why so many people come to America? Why does America have 40 million immigrants coming here and not other countries? Why is there only the American dream? Why is there no Russian dream? Why is there no China? Look, all right.
So I leave. The next day I'm giving a sales meeting at Northridge off of Balboa Boulevard in my office, 8550 North Balboa Boulevard.
I get up, I'm giving a talk. Everyone's looking at me saying, what the hell is wrong with this guy? Like we're in an insurance office.
Why are you talking like you're running for office? That's March. Three months later, I get married, June 26th of 09.
July 15th, I put an event together at JW Marriott Palm Desert, saving America, doing the impossible, Stephen's in name. And I'm dressed as George Washington.
My wife is dressed as Lady Liberty. This picture's all over online.
40 foot Mount Rushmore, 40 American flags. Ronald Reagan's son is speaking.
Larry Greenfield from Claremont Institute is speaking. And Dudley Rutherford is speaking about the same pastor that told me not to be a pastor.
He's speaking and he's talking about the Star Spangled Banner. I come out.
Three months later, we start the company. The company's crusade is called Saving America by bringing back the free enterprise system and hope to American families.
We go from 66 agents to 50,000 agents nationwide, a few hundred offices. We sold the company a couple of years ago.
So, okay, why do I need to make a billion dollars? For us to build that company, it doesn't happen without my wife. I told her this the other day first time i told her this because you know i

wanted to mean a lot and she broke down crying i said it's me and tom we're backstage and i'm

telling these guys to their faces i say hey guys we build an incredible company look at the amount of people's lives we've changed this is a very special company look at all their faces look at their kids we're looking at all their kids the The smiles. The kids so happy.
It's so awesome. Seeing Rodolfo with his kids backstage.
You know, seeing all these guys. Just awesome when I see these guys, right? Seeing Jose just choked up when I'm looking at Jose and my Hector's Erica and all these guys.
I'm watching these guys. I'm like, look at what we built.
This is awesome. I said, well, I got to tell you guys.
I said, who do you think are the top five most important people that helped me do what we did here?

And Jennifer says, field or home office?

I said, doesn't matter.

Field or home office.

So they start giving names.

I said, no.

I said, no.

I said, let me tell you number one.

Who's number one?

I said, you.

I've never told her this. Oh, man, this should have been recorded.
So Jen is like, wow, Mike. She's like, you know, breaking down.
I said, babe, you were freaking doing payroll a day after our first son was born in hospital while you're in the freaking bed. Yeah.
Second kid is born. You're at the office the next day.
He's on the floor. You're at the office.
You've always had an office right next to me for 15 years. The only year you've never worked is when our fourth baby, Brooklyn, was born.
You asked if he can stay home for a year. And now today, her office is right next to my office.
I said, we've moved 12 times in a house, 13 times in an office, and we have four kids born in three states. Both states we moved to, Texas and Florida, we were five months pregnant every single time we moved.
Yeah, we wouldn't be able to do this without you, okay? I told Tom, you helped me raise the first million dollars. You helped me raise the second 10 million dollars.
I don't know how to raise money. I said, you played such an important role for bringing a million and a $10 million in.
What if you don't? The sales process, you closed the deal when we went through it. I gave you the MVP.
I gave you that Rolex watch. I gave you that Ayrton Center in front of everybody to tell you without you, that deal doesn't close.
While we're in Monaco, you're going on four hours of sleep in a week. You did that.
And Tom's emotional. And then I'm going through the sales process with the Sopalos that Sheena Matt Sopala, what Rodolfo Mbargis said, Palio being the first, Caetan being a cruiser, all these guys you go through, but it's the role you've been chosen to play.
The billion is purely if there is a cause behind it, where you are the guy that has to have the highest level of pressure. It's not a job for everybody.
It's not. There's a lot of people that would love to have that.
That's simply not your part to have. Paul George one time said the most craziest thing I talked about on the podcast today.
Paul George, he's made a few hundred million dollars in the NBA. And MVP, you know, candidate every year

and broke his leg when he was going for a dunk

when he's playing for the Indiana Pacers.

I say he'll never make a comeback.

Came back, killed it, became another MVP candidate.

He said this two years ago on his podcast

with Dallas Rutherford.

He says, you know what I learned?

What's that?

I'm never going to win a championship being the number one. Who says that? AI never won as a one.
Westbrook never won as a one. You know how many named? Carmelo Anthony never won as a one.
Even Kevin Durant never won as a one. It was still Steph Curry when he was at the Golden State Warriors.
Kyrie's never won as a one. We can go, Jimmy Butler, as amazing as he is, he's never won as a one.
So, it's so hard for somebody to finally sit there and say, dude, you're not a one. You're going to keep trying to be a number one.
You're not a one. You're a great two.
Yeah. At a two, you're a nine.
When you play a two, you're a nine. When you're a one, you play three.
Yeah play three. You only bring out the three in you.
You do so well when you're a two or six or an eight. And trust me, sometimes being a one, it's kind of like, I don't want to be a one.
I never wanted to start an insurance company. Never.
The only reason I did is because three people offended me in the former company. I wanted to be the CEO of that company.
I don't want to be a founder. I had a great life.
I didn't need to deal with lawyers and lawsuits and losing carriers and business and six months of travel every year. I could have leveraged other people traveling to my offices all the time.
Now I have to do this six months away from my wife and my kids. I don't want to do any of this stuff.
I want to, so I didn't want to be a founder. I was forced to be a founder.
Now that I am, I take the responsibility very seriously. So for me, the conversation of the billion isn't because my life is going to change dramatically.
Everything I want to buy and have, I pretty much have. My dream wasn't to have a jet or have a million dollar car or live in a, you know, 30 million dollar house.
I live in a 40 million dollar house. I have a great life right now.
Everything is within a three-mile radius. We bought this place.

This place was empty for how long?

A year?

Nothing.

We just bought it.

We're like, we don't even know what we're going to do with this.

One day I'm like, let's turn this into a club.

Let's put two bars here.

Let's build a cigar lounge in the back.

Let's build a VIP.

Yeah, let's do this.

And let's have a production team back.

Yeah, let's see what happens here.

RFK's down a town hall here. Vivek's down a town hall here.
Dennis Quaid was here last week. Was that Wiener interview here? Yeah, Anthony Wiener was here.
Giuliani's been here. Dave Smith and Chris Cuomo debate was here.
Candace Owens and Chris Cuomo was here. You know how many stuff we've done here? We've done so many different things.
But so now, are you going fully go for vision, or was it really all about money? If I slow down now internally to myself, it was really all about money. It wasn't about vision.
I can't do that. No.
Last question. I want to land the plane.
I was just with John Maxwell. You brought his name up, and we were sitting down, and we were talking about our faith.
And he has friendships with people from different backgrounds and yet he was talking about a um an atheist friend of his and he said to her he says you know i know you don't believe in god but i bet you sure do miss him and it got me what does god mean to you yeah well mean, highest level of my confidence where I'm at to, so, you know, visionaries are like, oh, here's what we're going to be doing. Okay.
Maybe where you want to go is clear, right? But you've never been there before, right? You never know what challenges you're going to face, what new enemies are going to come after you. And the bigger the vision gets, the enemies get more formidable.
The enemies get stronger. The enemies have better phone calls to make to ruin your life.
The enemies have better publications to call to write a hit piece on you. The enemies know better executives at bigger companies to make algorithms.
The enemies get more powerful. Political enemies, financial enemies, regulation enemies, a lot of weird enemies.
So how are you going to become those enemies? What am I going to say? I'm going to rely on people I know? No. I'm only going to rely on the man upstairs, period.
Every time I hit a wall that I didn't know how it was going to get solved next, because I was loyal to the cause and I was loyal to him, he somehow, someway introduced me to the right person, introduced me to the right person, introduced me to the right person, and things just happened. night i came home we were expecting our first jennifer's in tears it's 1 30 in the morning she tells me she had a miscarriage and she's all emotional in the room i'm like oh my god i'm down to my last 13 000 we're living at the summit in woodland hills marriott i go out i walk around i'm listening to my 80s playlist foreigner Foreigner.
I want to know what love is. It's a weird song to listen to, but I love that song.
And I'm like, God, what are you doing? If you don't like what I'm doing, make this whole thing bankrupt. If you don't want this thing to work, take it away.
I'll go get a job and work at Bally's. I don't care.
If you think this is that bad and I'm working 80 hours a week to make this, if you honestly think this is that bad, please, I'll stop right now. Make it go bankrupt.
I'm still going to work 80 hours every single week, but if you don't think this is going to happen, don't put the right people in my life. Don't have a miracle.
Don't do nothing. I'm okay with that because you don't think this is a worthy company to build.
But I'm convinced it is because I think the values and principles we're teaching,

what we're doing with families, what we're doing with bringing husband and wives to build a business together

in an industry that's not focused on women, that's not focused on teaching the right values.

We are encouraging people. We go to take all these people to church.

We baptized nearly 3,000 people at this local church here over a 20-year span. I'm like, i think we're doing the right thing but you tell me what do you want me to do what do you want me to do and it's like a father and son having a you know private uh you know argument and i walk away like i don't know i'm still gonna go up to work early in the morning i'm gonna do my best but you tell next week tell me.
Next week, it was like a $50,000 or $100,000 bonus check we got from AIG.

I'm like, oh, we needed that.

And then boom.

Oh, we needed that contract.

Oh, that is so true.

So it was like the weirdest miracles would keep happening that I had.

And then the confidence came about as long as I'm being aligned

and the purpose is the right purpose, he's got my back.

Thank you. PBD, appreciate the time.
Really enjoyed it. Really enjoyed it.
Yes. Everybody follow this stuff.
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