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Robert Herjavec on Mindset Shifts That Turn Entrepreneurs Into Millionaires · Earn Your Leisure

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Your journey as far as being an immigrant come into
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: this country being extremely successful in business. What mine set shifts,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: if any, did you have to make to kind of
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: have this success that you've had United States of America.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: You know, we sharks always talk about this, like what
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: makes one person successful and another one not successful? And
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  Speaker 2: I remember one night we were having dinner with Mark
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Cuban and we got into this topic, like I said, Mark,
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: when you were twelve years old, did you know you
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: were going to be successful? And Mark said, yes, I
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  Speaker 2: knew I was going to be very wealthy and I
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  Speaker 2: was going to buy a basketball team one day. And
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: I remember how much that affected me because at twelve
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: years old, I just didn't want to be poor. And
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  Speaker 2: so this mind set of fear and simply getting by
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  Speaker 2: is what I have to change. I think, if you're
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: going to build a great business, or you're gonna do
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  Speaker 2: anything great in life, you have to have the ability
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  Speaker 2: to believe in yourself. And most people have this fear
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: what if I don't make it? What if people make
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  Speaker 2: fun of me? Especially as an immigrant, you know, people
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  Speaker 2: are always making you feel less than you are. And
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  Speaker 2: I think that that was the big mind shift for
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  Speaker 2: me because I wasn't born like that. I wasn't born
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Mark Cuban. I wasn't born confident. When I was twenty,
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  Speaker 2: I was afraid of my own shadow. I couldn't speak
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: in front of a group of people, and so that
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  Speaker 2: was really hard for me to get out of that shell.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, you spoke about something, and I'm sure that everybody
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: can resonate in here. And that's that idea of like,
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: I just don't want to be poor. And so when
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: people go to business, and a lot of people here
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: are entrepreneurs, the first thing they think is how can
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: I make money? And I think that's kind of a
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  Speaker 3: mind shift, that mindset shift that we need to change.
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  Speaker 3: One of the things we recognized earlier was money wasn't
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  Speaker 3: the goal, it was really the value. Talk about how
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  Speaker 3: you have to have that mindset shift, because if you're
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  Speaker 3: going into just trying to make money and then you don't,
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  Speaker 3: then you give up on it.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to disagree with you just a little bit,
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  Speaker 2: Just a little bit. I think there's two phases of
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: starting a business, just reality. I think the first phase
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  Speaker 2: is survival. I think a lot of people start a
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: business to get out of a condition they're in or
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: at least I did. I just wanted to start my
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: business in order to make enough money to pay my
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: mortgage and maybe pay off my house one day. I mean,
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: my dream was to make one thousand dollars for my life.
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  Speaker 2: So if I was fifty, to make fifty grand a year,
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: buy a used corvette and maybe path part of my
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  Speaker 2: house one day, because that's something my parents had never done.
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  Speaker 2: So in the realm of my ability to dream, that
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  Speaker 2: was man, that was it. But to your point, I
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: did that. And then if you do that and your
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  Speaker 2: goals are really small, you look around and you realize
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  Speaker 2: it's pretty empty. Because if you're only doing it for
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: the money and you have some level of success, you're
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: going to get very lonely. Money doesn't keep you warm
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  Speaker 2: at night. Money doesn't inspire you to keep going. So
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  Speaker 2: when you make a million, if that was your goal,
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  Speaker 2: what makes you go to ten million or twenty million,
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: or a hundred or a billion. And I think eventually
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  Speaker 2: you have to have a great purpose. Eventually you have
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: to look at yourself and say, all right, forget the money.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Why am I working my ass off twenty hours a day?
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  Speaker 2: Not getting in his sleep sacrificing everything, what's my why
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  Speaker 2: in doing it?
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: So for entrepreneurs, I'm sure everybody watching Shark Tank, and
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: you know, when people come in front of you, guys,
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  Speaker 1: you ask them a lot of questions as far as
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: their profit margin, the addressable market, their marketing plan, all
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: that stuff. What do you think is the key the
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  Speaker 1: number one thing as far as on a business bottom
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  Speaker 1: line that entrepreneurs needs to focus on and completely understand
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: fully in their business.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: Wow, that's a great question. I think. Uh, First of all,
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  Speaker 2: every business is slightly different. I think everybody out here
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  Speaker 2: who has a business, you have to figure out what
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: the heartbeat of that business is, and it's different for
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  Speaker 2: every business. So I know in my business, I had
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: to know what the recurring revenue was, what our margin was,
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: and what our cash flow was on a daily basis.
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  Speaker 2: So if you woke me up at two o'clock in
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  Speaker 2: the morning and said, what was the cash flow from yesterday?
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  Speaker 2: I could tell you that. Now I couldn't tell you
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  Speaker 2: a bunch of other things because they have to learn
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  Speaker 2: along the way. But I think you have to figure
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  Speaker 2: out what the heartbeat of your business is, and it's
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  Speaker 2: usually only two or three things you know, people make
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  Speaker 2: the mistake of trying to do too much, but there's
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  Speaker 2: two or three things that advanced the ball every single day.
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  Speaker 2: It's not about maintaining, it's about growth, and what are
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  Speaker 2: the things that are growing your business.
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  Speaker 3: You talked about fear just earlier, and a lot of
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  Speaker 3: people have that fear and they start to question the why. Right,
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  Speaker 3: I wonder, at what point did you realize this is
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  Speaker 3: my why? Because sometimes people get passion and purpose confused,
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  Speaker 3: and that could sometimes be hurtful in business. When did
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  Speaker 3: you discover the why?
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  Speaker 1: Oh?
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  Speaker 2: Man, that's that's such a great point. And I think
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  Speaker 2: that's such an individual thing for everybody, and I think
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  Speaker 2: I was very fortunate to figure that out really early,
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  Speaker 2: because I think a lot of people don't. They kind
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  Speaker 2: of drift along and fear can be all consuming. Everybody
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  Speaker 2: in this room is going to wake up one day
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  Speaker 2: and have a crappy day and question why am I
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  Speaker 2: doing this? Why is this so hard? Why? Why isn't
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  Speaker 2: it easy for me? So for me, I started my
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: first business, and you know, man, I'm working like eighteen
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: hours a day. I'm not making enough money in my
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  Speaker 2: business to support myself, so I'm working nine to five
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: at the business. I'm waking up at five in the
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: morning to read about cybersecurity because I'm not an engineer
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: and I'm competing with engineers. And then from eight at
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: night to one in the morning, I'm working as a
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: waiter to make enough cash to pay my rent. And
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: I'm doing this every day. And I come home one
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  Speaker 2: day and I'm like, this sucks. And I go, this
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  Speaker 2: is really hard. And my mom is in the room
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  Speaker 2: and I'm telling her how hard it is, and whoe
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  Speaker 2: is me? My life sucks? And my dad comes home.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: He's working at the factory sweeping floors, and he comes
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  Speaker 2: home to take a shower and get some food before
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  Speaker 2: he goes back to the factory to work a second
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  Speaker 2: shift to pay for them to exist. And I look
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  Speaker 2: at him and I say, I will never in my
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: lifetime work as hard as that man is right now.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: And that was it. And what I realized is they
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  Speaker 2: gave up everything thirty seven years old. They came to
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  Speaker 2: a foreign country, didn't speak the language, didn't know anybody. Well,
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: leave them someone's basement for eighteen months in order to
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: give me an opportunity. How do I then not acknowledge
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: and justify that sacrifice, and that was my why, and
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: I realized, stop complaining. Nobody cares. Nobody cares, And from
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: that moment on, like customers would say to me, Robert,
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: how you doing today? And I'm a pretty happy guy
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  Speaker 2: ninety percent of the time, but everybody in this room
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  Speaker 2: has a crappy day where you don't feel good and
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  Speaker 2: something's going on. My customers ask me, Robert, how are
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: you doing today? You know how I'm doing. One hundred
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  Speaker 2: percent of the time. I'm wonderful because I get the
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: opportunity to live out my dreams. And somebody gave up
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  Speaker 2: everything in their life to give me that opportunity. So
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  Speaker 2: if you're not going to if I'm not willing to
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  Speaker 2: work hard enough for me, I'd better be willing to
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  Speaker 2: work hard enough for them,