Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Daniel Lubetzky - KIND Founder & Shark Tank Investor | The Son of a Holocaust Survivor Who Built KIND Snacks Into a $5B Company From His Basement

Transcript

Daniel Lubetzky - KIND Founder & Shark Tank Investor | The Son of a Holocaust Survivor Who Built KIND Snacks Into a $5B Company From His Basement · Success Story with Scott Clary

• 0:00
  Your father survived Dachau.
• 0:02
  What did he teach you about kindness that most people still don't understand?
• 0:06
  I think that he taught me that kindness is a choice and an attitude that every one of us has the power to make.
• 0:14
  He chose light.
• 0:16
  He chose to see the kindness in everybody.
• 0:18
  Today's guest is Daniel Lubecki, entrepreneur, investor, philanthropist, and founder of Kind, which he built from his basement into a multi-billion dollar brand.
• 0:27
  In this conversation, Daniel shares the lessons behind building Kind, taking bold risks, creating purpose-driven businesses, and why solving problems together matters more than choosing sides.
• 0:36
  You said empathy is one of our greatest tools of business that is most underused.
• 0:42
  Why don't founders use it more?
• 0:43
  empathy, both in terms of also human interactions, connecting people, looking at their eyes, connecting with their humanity, being liked.
• 0:49
  These are really, really valuable skills that we don't teach enough.
• 0:52
  Somebody who's built a $5 billion company, how do you approach it?
• 0:56
  How do you do it differently?
• 0:57
  The no is a step towards yes.
• 0:59
  You do not need to accept the no.
• 1:01
  Now, don't be a jerk about it, but find the elegant way to turn it into a yes.
• 1:06
  Whatever you do, don't give up.
• 1:09
  My fitness pal is a success story partner.
• 1:11
  Now, there's this thing that happens when you start paying attention to what you eat.
• 1:15
  And I think we can all agree that we wanna care about our health and our wellness and our nutrition.
• 1:19
  But more often than not, we just kind of think we eat clean.
• 1:22
  We think we eat healthy, but we're not really, really paying attention to every single meal and what makes up every single meal.
• 1:29
  But just by paying attention and starting to log and track what you eat, you start making better choices without really trying.
• 1:37
  And that surprised me because when I first started using the MyFitnessPal app, and I've been using it for a while now, it's a nutrition tracking app.
• 1:43
  And I started logging what I was eating.
• 1:46
  It started showing me my macros, which means how much protein, carbs, and fats I was getting.
• 1:50
  And then I started to understand why some days I felt good, high energy.
• 1:54
  Some days I felt like garbage because
• 1:56
  Those three things, proteins, carbs, fats, that's what your food is made out of.
• 2:00
  And the balance between them affects everything.
• 2:04
  So MyFitnessPal app truly changed my life when it came to managing my food, which managed and helped everything else.
• 2:11
  Now, on the premium version of the app, it breaks down those numbers by meal.
• 2:16
  So I'm not just seeing one calorie number for the day.
• 2:19
  I can see what's happening at breakfast versus lunch versus dinner, where my protein actually lands, whether I'm eating enough earlier in the day or piling everything on at night.
• 2:27
  And all of a sudden,
• 2:29
  When I'm crashing at 3, 4 p.m., well, I can take a look and see, it's not so surprising anymore based on what I ate or what I didn't eat.
• 2:36
  So that's what I mean when I say that MyFitnessPal is a great app for awareness.
• 2:41
  It's not obsessive, it's not stressful, it's not time-consuming, it's actually the opposite.
• 2:45
  Guessing is stressful.
• 2:47
  When you have all the information, the food you eat, your nutrition, the food you eat,
• 2:51
  becomes way easier to keep up with.
• 2:53
  Also, a lot of people stress out that logging food is going to be very time consuming.
• 2:57
  It's not.
• 2:58
  And if it was annoying, I'd stop.
• 2:59
  But what I love about the app is that they've made it super, super simple.
• 3:03
  They've removed all friction in food logging, right?
• 3:06
  They have the largest food database out there.
• 3:08
  So whatever I'm eating is already in it.
• 3:10
  I can voice log so I can just say what I'm eating.
• 3:13
  They have a barcode scanner that handles all the
• 3:16
  They have a tool called MealScan, which lets me point my camera at my plate and it breaks down all the macros and then logs it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, whatever.
• 3:24
  And the app remembers my regular meals.
• 3:26
  And I'm really just in and out of the app in seconds.
• 3:29
  And on top of that, it connects with over 40 fitness apps and wearables.
• 3:33
  So my workouts, my nutrition, they're all in one place.
• 3:36
  See, food is the foundation of everything.
• 3:38
  everything, your energy, your sleep, your weight, your recovery, your performance, at work, at home.
• 3:43
  And I really believe that when you start to pay attention to what you eat, every single part of your life improves.
• 3:48
  And to be honest, for me, it's the most useful tool because when I see the information, when I see what I'm eating,
• 3:54
  and I feel the effects of having good nutrition and good food at the right time, the decisions on what to eat become obvious.
• 4:02
  Not because someone told me to eat better, it's because I have the data.
• 4:06
  And the data makes it super, super easy to stay on track.
• 4:09
  So please do yourself a favor, go to podcast.myfitnesspal.com and use code SCOTT.
• 4:13
  That's S-C-O-T-T, all uppercase letters, for 15% off MyFitnessPal Premium.
• 4:19
  That is podcast.myfitnesspal.com, code SCOTT for 15% off.
• 4:24
  MyFitnessPal Premium.
• 4:30
  Daniel, first of all, thank you for coming on.
• 4:32
  It's a pleasure.
• 4:33
  I'm excited for you to come on my show.
• 4:36
  I'm also excited for your podcast, Build or Break, to launch.
• 4:39
  It's going to be a fun adventure.
• 4:41
  I want to start off, just for people who don't know you, your father survived Dachau because a guard handed him a rotten potato.
• 4:50
  And then you named a $5 billion company after your father.
• 4:54
  What did he teach you about kindness that most people still don't understand?
• 4:59
  I think that he taught me that kindness is a choice and an attitude that every one of us has the power to make.
• 5:08
  Because like you said, Scott, he could have had a narrative that everything was dark and horrible, because he had the right to really, you wouldn't complain.
• 5:16
  A lot of Holocaust survivors that went through that how couldn't overcome that bitterness.
• 5:23
  It's normal and understandable, but he chose light.
• 5:27
  He chose to see the kindness in everybody.
• 5:29
  And even at one point, my cousin was dating a German girl and the whole family was worried and my dad accepted her.
• 5:38
  And he treated every human being as a human being.
• 5:41
  And I think kindness is also a choice that we cannot take for granted.
• 5:49
  It doesn't happen on its own.
• 5:52
  Every single one of us, every single day,
• 5:56
  uses heuristics to arrive at quick conclusion.
• 5:59
  Heuristics is how our brain sometimes takes a couple data points and then generalizes.
• 6:05
  And it's a really good tool for business and for life, but it can sometimes get it wrong.
• 6:10
  And so you can generalize about people and stereotype people and assume that the other is your enemy, that individual that did nothing to you
• 6:20
  But you can be scared of them because they feel like another.
• 6:23
  And in the world we're living, there's a lot of that, right?
• 6:25
  Like nobody would be blamed for thinking that that one is the other because social media is telling us that they're the other.
• 6:31
  So...
• 6:32
  It's an active choice we need to make every single day to expunge those stereotypes, to expunge both biases, and to give the chance to every human being to be judged by how they act.
• 6:44
  Are they kind?
• 6:45
  Are they respectful?
• 6:46
  Are they treating others with dignity?
• 6:48
  Are they trying to build rather than tear apart?
• 6:50
  And by the way, if somebody's trying to destroy you, then stand up to the bully.
• 6:54
  Don't let people stand up to you, but don't judge the other without getting to know them first.
• 7:01
  Do you feel like when people are ambitious and entrepreneurial, they try and shut down their own kindness?
• 7:09
  They too often than not default to being hard and aggressive.
• 7:14
  I don't think it's the right thing to do, but I feel like people use it as a safety, almost protection mechanism.
• 7:20
  There's definitely a lot of that, but the most successful people don't have that.
• 7:25
  The people that have achieved the most
• 7:30
  know how to be more long-term oriented, relationship oriented, not be transactional, build trust, build enduring values.
• 7:42
  So everybody that I've had on Build or Break is a builder, one of the most extraordinary people, right?
• 7:47
  Like Mark Cuban to Matthew McConaughey, from Chef Jose Andres to Farid Zakaria, from Andrew Yang to Kendra Scott.
• 7:57
  Barbara Corcoran, Chippa and Joanna Gaines, every single one of them in their hearts wants to make this a better world.
• 8:07
  Every single one of them is a builder.
• 8:08
  Every single one of them, the journey is as important as the destination.
• 8:14
  They understand that you create more value through that approach.
• 8:17
  There are some exceptions of people that are absolute jerks that have created extraordinary value, but the vast majority of highly successful people, I'm thinking about conferences that I attend, whatever, whatever,
• 8:28
  The most down to earth are the more successful ones.
• 8:31
  You said, this is one of my favorite quotes, empathy is one of our greatest tools of business that is most underused.
• 8:39
  Why don't founders use it more?
• 8:41
  So in a builder's mindset, and we study this a lot on Build or Break, there's four C's to becoming a builder, whether you want to build kind snacks or build a movement with a million Israelis and pastillas fighting extremism, as I helped do, or the builder's movement.
• 8:57
  There's curiosity, compassion, creativity, and courage.
• 9:00
  These are the four C's that helps builders build.
• 9:04
  compassion, which is a cousin of empathy, is about being able to put yourself in other people's shoes.
• 9:13
  And if you do that, you're much more likely to get the deal done because you understand where they're coming from.
• 9:19
  So if it's us versus them, I need to get this, much harder to get a deal done.
• 9:24
  If you understand where they're coming from, what they need to achieve, you're like, oh, wow, this is what you wanted?
• 9:30
  You got it.
• 9:30
  Let me get this.
• 9:31
  And-
• 9:32
  So much easier if you understand the other person and where they're coming from.
• 9:36
  And so empathy, both in terms of also human interactions, connecting people, looking at their eyes, connecting with their humanity, being liked.
• 9:44
  These are really, really valuable skills that we don't teach enough of.
• 9:47
  And they have to be natural.
• 9:48
  You have to authentically like people and care about people.
• 9:52
  And it's not something you should fake.
• 9:55
  You should fake.
• 9:56
  feel.
• 9:56
  People can tell when you fake.
• 9:58
  People can tell when you fake it.
• 9:59
  Was there, when you're building kind, was there, was this always the way you approached business or was there a lesson or something that happened that helped you understand the superpower of some of these skills?
• 10:11
  First of all, it's very important to understand that before building Kind, I had 10 years of building pieceworks, which was two steps forward, two steps back.
• 10:20
  I had a Stanford Law education.
• 10:21
  I was paying myself $24,000 salary.
• 10:24
  I barely could make ends meet.
• 10:26
  And I was making every mistake in the world.
• 10:29
  So...
• 10:32
  I always, even today, I'm absorbing what I did wrong, how I could do better, particularly in my early years.
• 10:41
  It was a long journey to learn.
• 10:43
  I was a confused Mexican Jew selling a line of spreads made by Arabs and Israelis called Moshe Pupik and Ali Mishmumken's world-famous all-natural gourmet foods.
• 10:55
  I still don't know why it didn't work out.
• 10:58
  But...
• 11:00
  But the lesson of that taught me to call it kind next time around.
• 11:04
  And there's thousands more lessons like that.
• 11:06
  I'm curious when you think about all the different sort of mental models that you speak about on your show, just when you teach young entrepreneurs, you speak about empathy, you speak about kindness, you speak about curiosity a lot.
• 11:23
  What do you think is the skill that is most difficult for people to use to build the business?
• 11:30
  What's the thing people struggle with the most?
• 11:34
  Do you mind if I actually elevate the question because I really like something you said that triggered something.
• 11:39
  The reason why I focus on curiosity, compassion, creative courage, introspection, critical thinking, critical listening is that these are the tools for becoming an amazing leader.
• 11:51
  And of course, you need to learn revenue growth management and accounting and marketing.
• 11:56
  managerial skills.
• 11:57
  It's super important.
• 11:58
  By the way, on BuilderBreak, we also go about how to manage others, how to manage yourself, how to process the creative process.
• 12:03
  But the most important things is how to work on yourself.
• 12:07
  Because if you can be introspective and self-analytical,
• 12:11
  Every single day you're going to grow.
• 12:13
  And so if you develop those skills, everything else comes after.
• 12:16
  So that's why I focus on those things.
• 12:19
  So a lot of the macro skill, the first principle is introspection.
• 12:25
  And then everything is downstream from that.
• 12:27
  A hundred percent.
• 12:27
  I can hire, and I've seen it happen with my friends and others, the person that's coming from behind, but it's constantly wanting to improve,
• 12:36
  will surpass the person that has the raw skill, but is content with where they're at.
• 12:41
  And they think they have all the answers.
• 12:43
  And by the way, with companies too.
• 12:45
  There's incredible companies where the CEO is surrounded by sycophants that just want to tell the CEO, you're right, you're right, you're right, because there's a culture of fear.
• 12:54
  And everybody's telling the CEO they're right.
• 12:57
  sell their short, shorter stocks, sell their stock.
• 13:00
  They're not, it might take a year, two years, three years, but the mediocrity will eventually bring them down.
• 13:08
  It's a culture of mediocrity.
• 13:10
  You need a culture of hearty, respectful debate where you're challenging each other, when you're debating things, when you're questing constantly for improvement.
• 13:20
  And it could be exhausting too, by the way.
• 13:22
  Poor Sarah and my team, when they work with me,
• 13:26
  I'm stretching myself and I'm stretching them and we're constantly, constantly, constantly challenging ourselves to get better.
• 13:32
  Right now when we launch Builder Break, it's like the same as with Kind.
• 13:35
  Like what can we do better?
• 13:36
  How can we grow?
• 13:39
  You've had success with Success Story.
• 13:42
  Yeah.
• 13:42
  I'm in awe of what you do.
• 13:45
  It's not easy.
• 13:46
  It's much harder.
• 13:48
  But part of an entrepreneur's journey and of an entrepreneur's approach to life is to put yourself in uncomfortable positions, to stretch yourself, because eventually that's what's going to help you grow.
• 13:59
  How do you create that culture where people are okay putting their hand up?
• 14:03
  They have that psychological safety to challenge you.
• 14:06
  Because I want that.
• 14:08
  We have the same management principles, call it that.
• 14:10
  I love when people challenge me.
• 14:12
  I was telling Jackie, a videographer earlier, you're the boss.
• 14:17
  You say when the shot sucks.
• 14:18
  You tell me if the questions are good, the questions are bad.
• 14:20
  I love that feedback.
• 14:21
  I think that that's uncomfortable for some people to step up and put their hand up and say, what we're doing is not working.
• 14:28
  I don't think that's the norm for somebody who you bring in.
• 14:30
  How do you create that safety?
• 14:32
  First of all, it's easier said than done that we like that.
• 14:36
  Anytime somebody tells us something about safety.
• 14:40
  that we're doing wrong.
• 14:41
  It's not enjoyable.
• 14:42
  I mean, it's not that you enjoy people.
• 14:45
  And you also don't want to just create a culture of complainers.
• 14:48
  That doesn't help anybody.
• 14:50
  But creating a culture where people are thinking critically about how to improve things and they can challenge you is really, really valuable.
• 14:57
  The best way is to model that behavior and to celebrate that behavior.
• 15:01
  In other words, if Pepito...
• 15:04
  challenges you, and then you challenge Pepito back because you don't disagree, before you end that meeting, you say, Pepito, you were the most valuable person today.
• 15:13
  Thank you so much.
• 15:15
  Thank you.
• 15:16
  Whether Pepito won the argument or didn't, the fact that Pepito put himself or herself could be Pepita too, but I always use Pepito for some reason because I'm from Mexico.
• 15:26
  But whoever puts themselves out there and dares to speak up with a thoughtful contribution that you may agree or disagree with, celebrate that.
• 15:37
  I think that's one very, very important thing to do.
• 15:39
  So it's like people, they celebrate the wins.
• 15:43
  Sometimes they call people out on the negative things in the company.
• 15:46
  But you're saying celebrate like the pushback.
• 15:50
  Celebrate when people put their hand up and say, hey, this isn't working out the way it should be, or I see a problem there.
• 15:56
  By the way, if somebody...
• 15:58
  push us back and they come up with something that everybody can agree on and that I hadn't seen, celebrate that the most.
• 16:04
  Because you don't want to just celebrate people that are always raising their hand to complain and maybe have really bad ideas.
• 16:09
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 16:10
  But as a general principle, first and foremost, celebrate the challenges that bring value.
• 16:17
  Second, bring the challenges that could have brought value, even if you're a good designer.
• 16:21
  And make sure that people, you create the space for people to fill ownership.
• 16:27
  What I did at Kind is every quarter, we'd gather all the new team members.
• 16:33
  We're going so fast.
• 16:34
  I wanted to preserve the culture.
• 16:35
  So we would...
• 16:39
  Every quarter we'd meet like the last 50 people we hired.
• 16:43
  And I would sit down with them in person.
• 16:46
  It was a meeting in person for about two hours.
• 16:49
  And the first thing I would tell them is like, you are the most important people in this team because you are now seeing everything with fresh eyes.
• 16:58
  And particularly now that you don't know anything about our culture.
• 17:01
  I want you to look critically and challenge everything.
• 17:04
  And if we're doing something not right that you learned in school or in your prior job that you think they were doing better, please teach us.
• 17:11
  But it wasn't just performative.
• 17:13
  It was authentic because we're learning as we were going along.
• 17:16
  We're building the plane as we're flying it.
• 17:17
  And so we learned a lot from best practices from others or from new ideas.
• 17:22
  And so I wanted people to teach us to become better and create the license and the responsibility.
• 17:27
  Like you have an obligation to challenge us if you notice something we could do better.
• 17:31
  It also changed the culture from one of like, oh, let me just complain and commiserate.
• 17:35
  No, you don't like it?
• 17:37
  Fix it.
• 17:39
  You were building for 10 years through failures and things that weren't working super well before kind.
• 17:44
  Not super well, but figure it out.
• 17:47
  Figuring it out.
• 17:47
  I mean, I literally was making, barely making ends meet.
• 17:50
  Like I was...
• 17:52
  At PeaceWorks, my salary was $24,000 for many, many years, and I could barely pay my other team members' salaries.
• 18:01
  I wouldn't say that I was doing a genius job, but I was learning.
• 18:05
  What's the point?
• 18:06
  You know, you've had Kevin O'Leary on your show.
• 18:09
  He has a saying, right?
• 18:10
  Like, when should you take it behind the barn and shoot it?
• 18:13
  How do you make that decision?
• 18:14
  Hardest question out there.
• 18:16
  And Kevin sometimes is right.
• 18:18
  And honestly, I'll give you a confession.
• 18:19
  We're in the tank and the idea seems really bad, but we feel bad because the entrepreneur has such a beautiful story.
• 18:25
  And guess what?
• 18:26
  He does, he has the courage of telling them, but sometimes it's wrong.
• 18:30
  And how to know is super difficult because kind almost didn't come about.
• 18:35
  Are you aware about this?
• 18:36
  Like we were sitting around the table in 2003 where I just lost my father.
• 18:43
  where we lost a piece of our business during the PeaceWorks years that was like more than half our business.
• 18:49
  I think we had gotten to $3 million, all of a sudden we're now back to $1 million in revenues.
• 18:54
  In revenues and profits barely any.
• 18:58
  And I almost gave up and we had the idea for what would become kind.
• 19:01
  We sat around the table and we took a vote.
• 19:05
  And part of me almost wanted people to give me the chance to just quit.
• 19:10
  I don't know ultimately if I would have quit
• 19:14
  because I never give up.
• 19:17
  But I was exhausted.
• 19:18
  It was 10 years of seeing my friends drive on their black cars to these fancy dinners at Le Cirque for the legal jobs.
• 19:27
  And I had a Stanford law education and I was buying one falafel and splitting and into eating half one day, half that night.
• 19:36
  And, uh...
• 19:38
  Fortunately, we said, all right, let's try this out, and then kind of took off.
• 19:42
  But what if I had quit right before?
• 19:44
  It's so hard.
• 19:45
  It's hard to know.
• 19:47
  It's so hard because, like, what if it didn't work?
• 19:50
  Okay, so this is the right answer.
• 19:51
  The right answer is you keep trying things.
• 19:54
  You keep listening to the universe, and you keep putting yourself out there.
• 19:57
  That's in Build or Break, whether it's a conversation with Chipo and Joanna Gaines or Matthew McConaughey or anybody, everybody, the common theme is –
• 20:07
  Get comfortable putting yourself in uncomfortable positions.
• 20:11
  Try things out.
• 20:13
  Don't give up.
• 20:14
  If you were going to look at like the amount of time it took you to make Kind successful, do you think that you should have changed something earlier?
• 20:26
  And I'm asking you because now you're starting a podcast.
• 20:28
  You're building BuilderBreak.
• 20:29
  You're launching BuilderBreak.
• 20:31
  Would you go through 10 years of it not working again, or would you pivot and move quicker?
• 20:36
  That is one of the most fundamental questions.
• 20:40
  I'll make it harder.
• 20:41
  Had I known everything I know, but up until the first 10 years when I was running PeaceWorks, would I have started PeaceWorks, knowing how hard it would have been?
• 20:52
  Perhaps not.
• 20:54
  And that would have been a huge miss because it was what?
• 20:57
  Not only would PeaceWorks not have happened, kind would not have happened.
• 21:00
  Those failures come along with those successes.
• 21:04
  And Stephen Bartlett, who has the diary of a CEO, said it beautifully.
• 21:08
  He said, successes, failure are a dichotomy that dances together.
• 21:12
  It was beautiful the way he said it.
• 21:14
  And I really agree with him.
• 21:17
  Like, you cannot have the most extraordinary success if you're not comfortable risking the most extraordinary setbacks.
• 21:24
  Life at the Speed of Play is a success story partner.
• 21:27
  Now, this is a book by Mark Pincus, the guy who founded Zynga.
• 21:30
  I've actually had him on the show.
• 21:31
  I met him in person and Reid Hoffman wrote the foreword, calling him one of the best idea people in Silicon Valley.
• 21:37
  The book is Life at the Speed of Play, Launch Products People Love.
• 21:41
  About 170 pages.
• 21:42
  It's already a national bestseller.
• 21:44
  It's his framework for figuring out whether an idea is actually worth going after before you put serious time and money into it.
• 21:51
  not theory, the way he actually does it.
• 21:52
  And he's repeatedly built successful businesses.
• 21:55
  On top of that, you can read it in a weekend.
• 21:57
  It can change your entire life and give you the right direction if you're an entrepreneur.
• 22:00
  So right now, if you go to getmarksbook.com slash success, you get two copies for $32, that's $16 each.
• 22:07
  Mark is paying for the second copy himself because he wants you to give it to somebody, a friend who's been sitting on an idea, someone who needs to push, whoever.
• 22:13
  That's getmarksbook.com slash success.
• 22:16
  Mark with a K, buy one, second one's free.
• 22:19
  My Fitness Pal is a success story partner.
• 22:21
  Now, a quick story.
• 22:22
  A few weeks ago, I was in the middle of a very heavy recording week.
• 22:24
  So five episodes back to back.
• 22:27
  By Wednesday, I could feel it.
• 22:28
  I felt tired and I pulled up my food log in the My Fitness Pal app and I could see why I felt tired.
• 22:35
  I was heavily under eating.
• 22:38
  I was not keeping up with my meals.
• 22:39
  My macros were all off.
• 22:41
  On weeks like that, staying on top of your fuel and your food and what you eat is the difference between being sharp on episode five and being flat.
• 22:49
  And that's the kind of thing you only catch when you're paying attention.
• 22:52
  And that's why I keep logging every single meal I eat in the MyFitnessPal app.
• 22:56
  It's not because I'm obsessing over numbers.
• 22:58
  It's not because I'm trying to diet.
• 23:00
  Because I'm trying to have an awareness
• 23:02
  about what I eat in the day.
• 23:04
  And the app makes it so easy to maintain that awareness.
• 23:07
  I can point my camera at a plate with MealScan.
• 23:10
  It'll tell me exactly what I'm eating, all my macronutrients, proteins, fats, carbs.
• 23:14
  There's an intermittent fasting tracker.
• 23:17
  If I want an intermittent fast, it keeps my eating window honest.
• 23:20
  And it all syncs with my watch and all of my fitness apps.
• 23:23
  And it just runs in the background.
• 23:25
  See, food is a foundation for energy, sleep, recovery, performance.
• 23:28
  It is the one input that you cannot skip.
• 23:31
  So do yourself a favor, track what you're eating.
• 23:34
  It'll make you feel better, perform better in everything that you do.
• 23:38
  Go to podcasts.myfitnesspal.com and use code Scott, all uppercase for 50% off MyFitnessPal premium.
• 23:45
  That's podcast.myfitnesspal.com, code Scott.
• 23:48
  I used to ask the question like...
• 23:50
  You could go back and tell your 20 year old self something so that they could do something differently.
• 23:57
  Right.
• 23:57
  Would you would you tell that person the piece of advice or would you change something that you did?
• 24:01
  And the answer was from the smartest people I've ever spoken to.
• 24:05
  No, because everything that went wrong is what led to who I am today.
• 24:10
  Yeah, and if you ask that question to somebody that didn't have that break, because my success is because I worked really hard, because I put myself out there, and also because I was lucky.
• 24:19
  Luck plays an element.
• 24:21
  Let's just be clear.
• 24:22
  If I was wrong, and it was purely hard work and wit and all that,
• 24:27
  Why are there not that many people that have started more than one multibillion dollar company?
• 24:33
  You can count them with your hand.
• 24:35
  The people that have serially created more than one megastar hit from the scratch.
• 24:40
  By the way, Jeff Bezos, amazing person.
• 24:43
  I really admire him.
• 24:44
  But his true success is Amazon.
• 24:46
  And then Amazon created the web business and this, but it was starting from a platform.
• 24:51
  There's very few people, I know a handful,
• 24:54
  that have started from scratch in a new industry and built something insane.
• 25:00
  It's very hard.
• 25:01
  It's very hard, too, for lightning to strike twice.
• 25:03
  And so we need to all have the humility that some of it is luck.
• 25:07
  But also some of it is putting yourself out there, trying things out, and having the attitude that you can do it and that you're going to get it done.
• 25:15
  Because there's like two kinds of people, right?
• 25:17
  There's the people that will never start.
• 25:18
  And then there's the people that are too stubborn to stop.
• 25:22
  I think that I've been both at some point in my life, to be quite honest.
• 25:25
  I love that statement.
• 25:26
  And I think that neither of them are perfect.
• 25:30
  But people that will for sure never get there.
• 25:34
  People that will never stop need to modulate.
• 25:40
  Mark Cuban said,
• 25:43
  in our Art of Failure exhibit and in our Build or Break podcast, talks about how he got a quarter million dollar fine for being too passionate and screaming at the referee or whatever.
• 25:56
  And passion is a very important tool for you to get stuff done, but it can also get the best of you.
• 26:04
  And so you need to modulate it.
• 26:06
  And honestly, our greatest strengths
• 26:10
  can also be our greatest weaknesses.
• 26:12
  So in my case, one of my greatest strengths is creativity.
• 26:15
  I'm really able to think up crazy stuff that nobody's thought up and think ahead and all that.
• 26:21
  That is a big strength that helped me create Kind, the Builders Movement and dozens of other things.
• 26:26
  It's also what can kill a company because if you allow your creativity to be unbounded and only try to do a thousand things,
• 26:36
  you won't get it done.
• 26:38
  You're going to dissipate your execution power.
• 26:40
  And so in my case, I surround myself with highly disciplined people that know how to execute.
• 26:47
  And so whether it's Ellie Lanning or Juliana Cohen or Jessamine Rodriguez or it was John Leahy at Kind or Justin Marvis, these are all people whose skills it is,
• 27:00
  execute with excellence, be a very good operator, be a very disciplined doer.
• 27:07
  And that's the yin yang.
• 27:08
  And all of us as fellow entrepreneurs instinctively look for someone that's like us, but you actually need to look for somebody that complements you to actually put the picture together.
• 27:22
  I think this is a Jeff Bezos quote.
• 27:24
  If I'm misquoting, I apologize, but the idea is still strong.
• 27:29
  He is a creative too, and he has all these ideas.
• 27:33
  And Andy Jassy, I think he said the job of a second in command at the time is to filter which ideas to focus on.
• 27:42
  And I'm going to give you too many ideas, and you have to tell me which ones that we can't do right now.
• 27:46
  A hundred percent.
• 27:47
  I don't know if Jeff said that, but that's really very well.
• 27:50
  It's one of those big, I think it was him, but it was somebody who, it's just the mind of a creative.
• 27:58
  founder, CEO, there's so many things they can focus on all at once.
• 28:02
  By the way, they're both essential.
• 28:04
  Yeah.
• 28:04
  Like a bad CEO or president or executor thinks, I need to contain the founder and creative.
• 28:13
  That's dumb.
• 28:16
  they need to unleash it in a constructive way.
• 28:19
  They need to, because that creativity is essential for you to win and beat others in the marketplace, but it needs to be managed, contained, and channeled.
• 28:28
  And similarly, by the founder, if they think that they're God's gift to humanity, they're going to destroy the company.
• 28:34
  They need their partner, and they need to respect the president or the CEO that has the discipline to know how to keep the trains running.
• 28:44
  So much of your story are lessons and influences from your father.
• 28:51
  We spoke about kindness.
• 28:53
  Talk to me about risk because you've learned lessons from him about how you look at risk.
• 28:58
  I love when people ask me a question that has never been asked.
• 29:00
  And I think you got one there, Scott.
• 29:02
  I don't think anybody's asked me about my dad and risk.
• 29:06
  I get so turned on when I get challenged with a question that...
• 29:10
  Soto, in a positive way, in a positive way.
• 29:15
  Get over it, dudes.
• 29:18
  Yeah, it's really cool.
• 29:20
  I think my dad was a risk taker, but I never saw him that way.
• 29:30
  It's a fascinating question.
• 29:31
  I need to think about it a lot.
• 29:32
  He was definitely an entrepreneur.
• 29:35
  He worked really, really hard.
• 29:37
  He was very resourceful.
• 29:39
  He made everybody love him.
• 29:40
  He was, in a very positive and platonic way, had the most seductive personality.
• 29:46
  It was like everybody fell in love with my dad.
• 29:49
  Until today, when I go to San Antonio, Texas, to visit my mom, and I meet the person on the airline counter, and they see my name is Blubetsky, they start crying.
• 29:58
  say, you're Roman Lewetzky's son, and they get emotional.
• 30:02
  I swear, I go to the bank teller, they see my name, and they're like, you're Mr. Lewetzky.
• 30:06
  Like, he had an impact that you have no idea how much people loved him.
• 30:10
  He was such a kind...
• 30:12
  I've never met somebody like him before or after.
• 30:16
  And...
• 30:18
  For sure, it was a risk sticker, even though I didn't relate to it like that.
• 30:21
  I think it was, I would call it a calculated risk sticker.
• 30:26
  Even when I built Kind, there's a story that people tell, which is true, that I bought back my shares from these investors.
• 30:34
  And they had invested...
• 30:37
  $16 million, 5.2, 5 million in the company and 10 in buying, or 11 in buying shares from others and five in the company.
• 30:48
  And I had to pay them $227 million, four and a half years later, to buy them back.
• 30:56
  And it was very intimidating.
• 30:58
  It was very hard and it involved sleepless nights.
• 31:00
  But even that, there was calculated risk taking.
• 31:04
  I knew where the company was heading.
• 31:07
  I had enough pattern recognition to feel good about the decision.
• 31:11
  It could have turned out wrong, but it turned out pretty well.
• 31:15
  But an entrepreneur should not be a cowboy.
• 31:19
  They should be a calculated risk taker.
• 31:21
  I think that was my dad.
• 31:23
  My dad taught me a lot about safe investments and about his portfolio had coupon returns.
• 31:30
  And he didn't want to just throw away what he built.
• 31:34
  But honestly, my dad had a very interesting story because...
• 31:38
  very different from you or me.
• 31:40
  I mean, he arrives to Mexico after surviving the Holocaust, after being liberated by American soldiers, after six months of being in a hospital, after six months of being in a refugee camp.
• 31:53
  And then he stops being a refugee and comes to Mexico and Mexico welcomes him.
• 31:59
  And he and his dad, he starts working double shifts in factories, sometimes three shifts, not sleeping, but eventually raises enough money that he and his dad start a small jewelry shop.
• 32:12
  And he starts educating himself, reading books,
• 32:15
  morning, nights, weekends, used encyclopedias, the entire encyclopedia, volume A cover to cover, volume B cover to cover, reading book after book after book, learning languages.
• 32:24
  He spoke nine languages when he passed away.
• 32:27
  He was the most erudite person.
• 32:29
  People come to him for advice, and he had nothing but a third grade education.
• 32:34
  And there is no way that you can build what he built, where he eventually got the rights to sell timepieces, watches all over the world.
• 32:45
  He got the rights from Rolex and the Montpiguet and Piaget, all self-made.
• 32:49
  So there's no chance that he would have done that without an element of boldness and risk.
• 32:55
  But it was, I think, calculated risk-taking.
• 32:58
  He was not like a wild guy.
• 33:02
  So you technically, when you put over $200 million back into a company, it's calculated.
• 33:09
  There's pattern recognition, but that's significant.
• 33:11
  When I didn't have that money, it wasn't my money.
• 33:14
  I took a loan from the bank.
• 33:16
  Risky enough.
• 33:17
  Yes, it was very risky.
• 33:19
  We looked at our financials.
• 33:20
  The company was growing a lot, and we leveraged it a little bit.
• 33:24
  And then eventually we bought, months later, we...
• 33:27
  We brought in an incredible investor, BDT, that was a great partner till today, very, very good friends with Byron Trott and others who helped us take Hank to the next level.
• 33:38
  So I didn't keep $200 million of debt at all times.
• 33:43
  But it took a year of worry, like let's land on the beach, let's get there and...
• 33:52
  I guess where I was taking that idea was, do you think a level of risk is required for success?
• 34:02
  And I mean that, like, let's take a look at the podcast that you're building right now, Build and Break.
• 34:08
  It's a low-risk thing to start a podcast.
• 34:12
  So how do you up the risk to lead to the high?
• 34:14
  Do you think it's true?
• 34:15
  I think it is.
• 34:16
  I think it's a low risk.
• 34:16
  I think it's high risk.
• 34:18
  Explain.
• 34:18
  No, go ahead.
• 34:18
  Let me first say, the smarter people than me in the finance world find a way to take no risk and make a ton of money.
• 34:26
  All the power to them.
• 34:27
  That's not my strength.
• 34:28
  But there are people that are able to do the arbitrage and the this and they create options and have friends that I'm like, I listen to them.
• 34:34
  I'm like enthralled because they find a way.
• 34:38
  to have no risk, no downside, and a lot of upside.
• 34:45
  It's very rare, but it's incredible when they do that through their financial engineering without screwing another person.
• 34:50
  The next level is to have...
• 34:53
  very small downside and a lot of upside.
• 34:56
  I can do that.
• 34:57
  I've been taught how to do that.
• 34:58
  People do that in investment instruments.
• 35:00
  Hey, God forbid goals, we protect our downside.
• 35:04
  We still have a lot of upside, but we fine-tune it a little bit.
• 35:07
  It's fine.
• 35:08
  Those things can be done and you can negotiate that.
• 35:12
  Um,
• 35:13
  Going back to what you said about, but the best thing is to be an entrepreneur and start something and have a lot of risk, but a lot of reward, like exponential reward.
• 35:22
  You know, when we started PeaceWorks and then Kind, the people that invested as a return was the highest return on investment that I have known in mankind.
• 35:38
  We only brought in, how much do you think, to get to a billion dollars in revenues plus?
• 35:43
  How much do you raise?
• 35:44
  How much do you think we've raised?
• 35:45
  Lifetime for kind.
• 35:47
  More than 100 million or less than 100 million?
• 35:49
  More than 200 million?
• 35:49
  Now, after you've said it, I think a lot less than 100 million.
• 35:53
  How much do you think?
• 35:54
  50?
• 35:55
  Five, 5.2.
• 35:56
  Get out.
• 35:57
  5.2 million dollars.
• 35:58
  And we didn't even use the 5 million when they stayed on our balance sheet.
• 36:01
  We grew because of my piece of yours.
• 36:03
  I had learned how to tighten my belt and we're very disciplined, we're cashflow positive.
• 36:09
  profitable and growing triple digits and grew just organically.
• 36:13
  But other than flexing, why was I telling you this story?
• 36:20
  You can create so much value if you start something from nothing and risk it all, the returns.
• 36:29
  And my friends who trusted me, $75,000 they gave me,
• 36:34
  That became in value, I don't know, tens of millions or more.
• 36:38
  I mean, 40 million, I haven't calculated, but they got a 3,000x return.
• 36:43
  My original advisory work makes a piece of roll over to crime, got a 5,000x return.
• 36:51
  It's crazy.
• 36:52
  We were made 3,500.
• 36:55
  So it doesn't- But I think, Bill, a podcast is- Okay, so this is my point.
• 36:59
  So I think that what I believe is
• 37:03
  A little bit of risk, but I think it's more psychological than anything.
• 37:06
  I don't think you need to take on huge amounts of risk to be successful.
• 37:10
  I actually don't think a podcast is risky, and I'll explain.
• 37:13
  You mean dollars-wise?
• 37:15
  I think however you define it.
• 37:17
  What's the rarest resource that you have?
• 37:19
  Reputation.
• 37:20
  And time.
• 37:22
  And time, yes.
• 37:23
  Time is finite.
• 37:25
  Reputation, very hard to rebuild if you get it wrong.
• 37:28
  So...
• 37:30
  If you get it wrong, you spent a lot of time.
• 37:35
  And if you, and you do, because I, for example, how did I get Matthew McConaughey, Mark Cuban, Kendra Scott, Kevin O'Leary, all of these incredible icons to come on my show.
• 37:46
  They trust me.
• 37:47
  They, Stephen Bartley, they're at the beginning, they're doing me a favor.
• 37:51
  I need to do a good job.
• 37:52
  I need to, and you know what I love when they tell me this was the best interview I've ever had.
• 37:57
  It gives me so much confidence.
• 37:59
  meaning because it's really hard by the way what you do
• 38:03
  When I was, as I am right now, listening and being asked and I can go where I can and drive you nuts, it's so easy for me to do that because you need to keep the trains running and I'm taking you in all these different directions and you want to take us somewhere and be mindful of your audience.
• 38:18
  It's much harder to be on your seat.
• 38:19
  I had never realized how exhausting it is to be an active listener.
• 38:25
  By the way, this is, let me now, because she would try to tell them, we're punking you.
• 38:29
  She wanted me to take you in all directions.
• 38:31
  But it's very hard because I have ADHD.
• 38:34
  I'm going in all these directions and you're like, what the hell is this guy taking?
• 38:36
  I know exactly.
• 38:37
  But I get it.
• 38:38
  So you have like the destination you want to end up at.
• 38:41
  And I'm, you know, talking about, I'm trying to create tension in the conversation.
• 38:45
  I'm trying to challenge your ideas a little bit because that creates great content.
• 38:48
  I'm trying to make sure they learn at the same time.
• 38:50
  We have to end up where we have to end up and land the plane at some point where you want to land it.
• 38:54
  And it's an interesting job.
• 38:56
  It's I didn't.
• 38:57
  grow up learning how to do this.
• 38:58
  Were you always a good active listener?
• 39:03
  I think so.
• 39:04
  But I think it's because, I think it's a little bit because selfishly, I want to learn from you.
• 39:09
  Let me tell you, for someone who's severe ADHD, this bell door break has stretched me and grown me so much.
• 39:20
  And if you're in an important meeting...
• 39:25
  And you're there with smart people.
• 39:27
  And after an hour or two, you're not mentally a little bit tired or very exhausted.
• 39:32
  You're not listening actively.
• 39:35
  The active listening that I do on Build or Break, when I'm done, I need a nap.
• 39:41
  I need to just, it's as if I worked out.
• 39:44
  Something really cool.
• 39:45
  Now I have the Apple Watch, but I used to do the Oura Ring.
• 39:49
  And I noticed this.
• 39:51
  I would go on a talk with...
• 39:54
  town hall with all my kind team or a presentation with a couple hundred entrepreneurs.
• 40:00
  And when I would come back, he would say that I had worked out.
• 40:03
  I burned like tons of calories.
• 40:05
  And I was like, this thing is wrong.
• 40:07
  It's not wrong.
• 40:09
  You are intensely engaged with people.
• 40:12
  Your brain is working.
• 40:13
  Your mind is working.
• 40:15
  And after an hour on stage,
• 40:18
  It's like a workout.
• 40:19
  You burn calories.
• 40:21
  And I don't think it's like, even for me, I guess I don't get as distracted naturally, but I still find this super tiring.
• 40:29
  Like after like an hour, if I do two of these in a day, I'm spent.
• 40:34
  Because you're so, because I think it's also a sign, by the way,
• 40:37
  that you're doing the right thing if you care that much that having the conversation?
• 40:41
  I'd like to think so, but it's, but it's, again, it's putting yourself in uncomfortable positions for you to stretch yourself.
• 40:45
  I love Shark Tank because it's very hard for me.
• 40:49
  I stretch myself every time and I'm trying to give it the best I can and be as witty as Kevin and be as nurturing as Laurie and be as insightful and as Barbara and be as funny as Damon and like, and be as Devoneros, Robert and,
• 41:06
  everything and I'm like trying, always committed to excellence, but it's hard.
• 41:10
  I'm stretching myself, I'm stretching myself as I grow.
• 41:13
  Build or break, I'm stretching myself.
• 41:14
  And so if you go back, you grow by putting yourself in those situations.
• 41:20
  But it doesn't mean that it's easy.
• 41:22
  I want to bring it back to what you're, we were talking about risk and you said, well, I don't think starting a podcast is risk.
• 41:28
  But then you said, well, I said that and you said, I think it might be because what are your most precious resources?
• 41:34
  And one of them is time.
• 41:35
  Time, reputation.
• 41:37
  And by the way, in terms of enriching, it's so enriching.
• 41:40
  And I hope people will go to Build or Break and experience it and enjoy it as much because these are the most extraordinary people telling you about their most vulnerable moments and helping you grow.
• 41:51
  But it's kind of like this.
• 41:55
  When I launched Kind, I wanted to create a different product that was
• 42:00
  Delicious, but when you finished eating it, you felt like you were doing something in your body.
• 42:04
  Similarly here, I want to create a podcast that is engaging and entertaining and you're laughing a lot and you're crying sometimes.
• 42:13
  But when you're done, you feel like you grew.
• 42:16
  But the podcast world is even more competitive than the nutritional bars category.
• 42:22
  There is so many out there.
• 42:23
  There's so much competition for attention.
• 42:27
  HubSpot is a success story partner.
• 42:28
  Now, every entrepreneur, founder, CEO is listening right now needs to pay attention.
• 42:33
  I have a question for you.
• 42:35
  When a buyer asks AI for a solution or a product that your business sells, does your business come up?
• 42:43
  The answer is that most companies have no idea.
• 42:46
  They don't know if their name shows up in any of the AI tools, chat, perplexity, clod.
• 42:53
  And by the time they find out, they have lost tons of traffic and tons of deals to someone who did show up.
• 43:00
  HubSpot AEO.
• 43:02
  It helps you show up in those moments with the right answers that your customers and your buyers are looking for when they go type in a question.
• 43:09
  It's before the first click.
• 43:11
  It's before they fill out some form on your website.
• 43:14
  That is the moment that HubSpot AEO is built for.
• 43:18
  So if you want your company to show up in AI searches when your customer is looking, check out HubSpot.com.
• 43:24
  They are the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.
• 43:28
  NetSuite is a success story partner.
• 43:30
  Now, you probably know NetSuite already.
• 43:31
  It's a software that a ton of companies use to basically manage everything.
• 43:35
  Their finances, their inventory, their HR.
• 43:38
  It's just all in one place.
• 43:39
  Now, they just came out with NetSuite Next.
• 43:41
  This is the AI version of all of that.
• 43:44
  So now you can ask it a question the way you'd ask someone on your team who just knows everything about your business.
• 43:49
  It gives you the answer.
• 43:50
  It keeps you up to date on all the things you need to know about your company and your business without you having to go digging for them.
• 43:56
  And it has these AI agents that take care of all the routine work in your business that eats up everybody's day.
• 44:02
  Now, the bigger picture here is that AI is starting to change how teams actually work together.
• 44:07
  It's happening incredibly fast, and most companies don't have a plan for it.
• 44:11
  NetSuite does.
• 44:12
  They have a free guide called Aligning for the Agentic Era, how AI is changing everyday work.
• 44:18
  It breaks down how AI could reshape the way your whole organization works and what your business should be doing to get ahead of it.
• 44:23
  If I needed a tool like NetSuite, it's what I'd use and you should too.
• 44:26
  So if your revenues are at least in the seven figures, get our free business guide, Aligning for the Agentic Era, How AI is Changing Everyday Work at netsuite.com slash scottclary.
• 44:35
  The guide is free to you at netsuite.com slash scottclary.
• 44:39
  That's netsuite.com slash scottclary.
• 44:41
  Monarch is a success story partner.
• 44:43
  Now, quick question.
• 44:44
  Do you know where your money went last month?
• 44:46
  Not roughly, but exactly.
• 44:48
  And most people don't.
• 44:49
  And I didn't for years.
• 44:50
  And that is most of our money stories, right?
• 44:52
  When we first start our career, we have one income and one account, and you can kind of wing it.
• 44:56
  But once you're running businesses, once you're investing, once you're carrying 50 different subscriptions that you stop paying attention to, winging it gets super expensive.
• 45:04
  Monarch fixed that for me.
• 45:05
  It is the personal finance app that tracks
• 45:07
  Everything.
• 45:08
  So that means accounts, investments, savings goals, spending all on one screen.
• 45:12
  The first week I had it, it fired recurring charges I've been paying for months without realizing.
• 45:16
  And every single week, the AI recap tells me if spending spiked, if my net worth moved, and what bills are coming.
• 45:21
  And I can just ask it, hey, can I afford this trip without touching my savings?
• 45:25
  And I can get a real answer to that.
• 45:26
  based on my actual numbers.
• 45:28
  It is a financial advisor in your pocket.
• 45:30
  It costs less than an hour with a real one.
• 45:32
  So write your own money story with Monarch.
• 45:34
  Use code success at monarch.com and get your first year of Monarch Core half off at just $50.
• 45:39
  That's 50% off your first year at monarch.com with code success.
• 45:43
  So somebody who's built a $5 billion company
• 45:47
  You look at the podcast like a new company you're starting.
• 45:50
  How do you approach it?
• 45:50
  How do you do it differently?
• 45:51
  How do you, how do you do it so that there's this asymmetric upside?
• 45:56
  So even though it's a risk on your time and your reputation.
• 45:59
  Anything I approach, I want to do it the best I can, my team to do the best I can.
• 46:03
  So as an example, um, Pepito Johnson, we want to book him on the show.
• 46:09
  And he said, no.
• 46:12
  I'm like, Tim, you think I got into Walmart overnight?
• 46:17
  You think I got into Costco overnight?
• 46:19
  The no is a step towards yes.
• 46:21
  I was with Gayle King earlier today and she said, you know, I think no in reverse is you're on.
• 46:27
  I love that.
• 46:29
  And Barbara Corcoran initially got declined for Shark Tank and she wrote to Mark...
• 46:38
  Burnett and said, this is why you're hiring me.
• 46:41
  And guess what?
• 46:42
  He hired her like something entrepreneurs need to understand is.
• 46:50
  You do not need to accept the no.
• 46:54
  Now, you don't be a jerk about it, but find the elegant way to turn it into a yes.
• 47:00
  Like.
• 47:01
  When I applied to Stanford Law School.
• 47:05
  Was it Stafford?
• 47:06
  One of my applications, I got deferred.
• 47:10
  And I kept working.
• 47:10
  And I wrote information about updates and information.
• 47:16
  Try the very best to put your best foot forward.
• 47:19
  Whatever you do, don't give up.
• 47:21
  The no's are going to come, but you need to get that guest booked.
• 47:25
  You don't give up until you find a way.
• 47:28
  You need to get, you know, on Scott, like, success story.
• 47:32
  The motherfucker didn't say yes for 10 times.
• 47:35
  But, like, you need to work.
• 47:37
  Whatever you do, you need to do it to the best of your abilities.
• 47:40
  I can exhaust my family, my team members, because I'm always driving.
• 47:46
  But ultimately, I think it's the only way that you're going to ultimately...
• 47:49
  build what you want to build, is to stretch yourself and put your best foot forward.
• 47:53
  Because every morning, there's a Scott trying to do the best he can with Success Story or a person making the Nutrition Bar.
• 47:59
  Whatever you're doing, somebody else is focused, giving it their best.
• 48:03
  So you have to give it your best.
• 48:05
  You mentioned when you walked in, you were late to the game when it comes to podcasting.
• 48:11
  I don't think so.
• 48:12
  And I say that because there is always room for somebody that is obsessed about the thing.
• 48:19
  I think that if you started a podcast in 10 years from now, you'd still find a way to make it successful if you were obsessed with it.
• 48:25
  Even when I started, Tim Ferriss was around for 10 years already.
• 48:30
  Joe Rogan was around for 10 years.
• 48:34
  Obsession and having obsession weeds out all the people that just half-ass it.
• 48:40
  And if you are obsessed about it, I'm sure you feel this way to a degree with any business you start.
• 48:46
  Any category you get into, it's going to be crowded to a degree.
• 48:49
  I agree and...
• 48:51
  I think you need to have the grit, the perseverance, the tenacity, and you also need to have the wit.
• 48:59
  What do we need to do different that others are not doing?
• 49:01
  How do we evolve?
• 49:03
  Because...
• 49:04
  What is podcast?
• 49:05
  It's a conversation with tools that didn't exist 50 years before to reach directly to everybody.
• 49:12
  How do we make it more engaging?
• 49:14
  How do we get the community to connect with us?
• 49:16
  What are the next steps?
• 49:18
  So because 10 years from now, the most successful podcast will be different than today.
• 49:22
  So how do you evolve?
• 49:23
  Because we are, I think, late to the game.
• 49:26
  Yeah.
• 49:26
  How do you evolve to get better and to continue to leapfrog by coming up with creative models?
• 49:32
  So it's a combination of grit and wit and everything else.
• 49:36
  There's the three it's for a product or venture or service to win.
• 49:42
  Grit, wit, and fit.
• 49:45
  I don't know if it works without my accent, but grit, the tenacity, don't give up, wit, the creativity, do it different, find a way to do it better than others, and fit.
• 49:57
  There has to be a need and a demand for the product or service that you're offering.
• 50:03
  And if not, pivot to make sure that that fit exists.
• 50:06
  Why build or break?
• 50:08
  What does the name mean?
• 50:10
  I'd means that first of all,
• 50:15
  Did you ever read the poem from Rudyard Kipling, If?
• 50:19
  No.
• 50:20
  Tonight when you get home and everybody listens to you, I promise you, read the poem If by Rudyard Kipling.
• 50:28
  Kipling was a bit of a controversial fear because of colonialism, but that poem is one of the best poems you will ever read.
• 50:36
  Incredible poem.
• 50:38
  And one of the things he talks about is how both families
• 50:42
  failure and success are myths of society, that they're not true, that they're imposters.
• 50:49
  He says that they're imposters.
• 50:52
  And what he means to say is, what the hell does failure mean?
• 50:54
  What the hell does success mean?
• 50:57
  And honestly, you and I talked about this earlier, without PeaceWorks, there would have been no kind.
• 51:03
  And PeaceWorks had a lot of mistakes.
• 51:06
  Without those mistakes, I literally can trace from...
• 51:10
  No discipline to discipline, from trying to be everything to everybody to being focused, from trying to be in every store to being in the best stores, from trying to develop a ton of products and be on the shelves to trying only the right products on the shelves, from having motion, poop, pecan, alim, smokers, world famous, all natural gourmet foods, to kind, from having no quality control to obsessive quality control.
• 51:30
  Literally everything made kind great came from the mistakes we made at PeaceWorks.
• 51:38
  A lot of things that almost broke you are things that ultimately make you.
• 51:44
  And Build or Break is about exploring, talking to the most successful, quote unquote, successful people and asking them, how did you get here?
• 51:54
  What almost broke you?
• 51:55
  How did you handle it?
• 51:56
  What built you?
• 51:57
  And then going in.
• 51:59
  For example, with Robert Rodriguez, we talk about his craft editing movies and creating movies and working with talent.
• 52:05
  And with every person, we talk a little bit about their craft and they give us very practical advice about how they became great at what they do and what they learned.
• 52:14
  And a little bit of philosophy, a lot of practical tools and a lot of storytelling about their journey.
• 52:20
  So build or break because it's like something could have almost broken you, but ultimately it's helped what built you.
• 52:28
  I want to understand how to do this properly because this is something that you mentioned before about other popcorn eaters.
• 52:36
  That, you know, they're just listening to the content and maybe they're not achieving what they should be achieving in their life.
• 52:45
  When you think about being an educator and a teacher, and now you were before, but now you definitely are because you're unpacking all these stories.
• 52:55
  How do you make sure that people don't just consume the content, but they take it and they use it to change their life?
• 53:05
  Because that's a constant struggle.
• 53:07
  That's a beautiful question.
• 53:08
  You're ahead of me to ask it.
• 53:11
  I'll tell you how I'm approaching what I'm approaching.
• 53:15
  The reason I'm doing Builder Break is I want to create a whole ecosystem of builders' media where people...
• 53:23
  People come to our content to grow, but being a builder does not just mean building kind or building a school or building a bridge.
• 53:34
  It also means being a builder and building together against those that would want to destroy society as we know it.
• 53:43
  We're living through a time and age where there really is a challenge for civilization.
• 53:49
  We're destroyers that deny the humanity of the other, want to tear apart, divide, demolish, diminish, diminish humanity, divide us from one another, try to help people think that they're victims versus oppressors rather than builders versus destroyers.
• 54:10
  And it's very dangerous because literally there are
• 54:16
  people and politicians today that think that private ownership doesn't make sense.
• 54:21
  And it's fascinating because it's been tried for hundreds of years in other societies and it's never worked.
• 54:26
  But we're going through a lot of difficult challenges for a lot of the young.
• 54:31
  And a lot of people are listening to that and thinking that that's a good idea.
• 54:35
  And even if it's a tiny amount of people that have extremist attitudes,
• 54:41
  They are very passionate.
• 54:43
  And the vast majority of people that are building their jobs and their careers don't take the time to go out and vote.
• 54:50
  And they're very low primary participation levels.
• 54:56
  And there's a lot of gerrymandering, which means...
• 54:59
  Almost all decisions are reached by a tiny minority of people.
• 55:03
  The tiny minority that go to the primaries were the decisions that the general have been already gerrymandered away.
• 55:09
  So meaning, you're in New York City, the vast majority of districts have already been so gerrymandered that it's clearly going to be...
• 55:16
  Democratic or Republican.
• 55:17
  So whoever wins that primary is going to win the general.
• 55:21
  90 plus percent of these districts across the nation are no longer competitive at the general election.
• 55:27
  Whatever it's going to be in November, it's preordained in most congressional districts.
• 55:32
  It gets decided at the primary.
• 55:35
  And in the primary, almost nobody shows up, but the extremists show up.
• 55:38
  So very tiny minority of extremists are deciding who are going to be the people that
• 55:42
  that rule for us.
• 55:43
  And then on top of it, all these political parties, I've seen it very up and close, both political parties, Republicans and Democrats, they care more about power than about solving problems.
• 55:55
  They care more about turning these issues into wedge issues than actually solving them.
• 56:01
  What is the solution?
• 56:01
  The people.
• 56:02
  Who are the people?
• 56:03
  The builders.
• 56:04
  So in my method to my madness, it's empower, create an army of small businesses, of entrepreneurs, of people that care about these issues to join forces and become builders and us help them.
• 56:21
  not just build their careers, but build an understanding how they need to be involved civically.
• 56:26
  So it's not just the challenge of helping people get off the couch and pursue their dreams, whether it's trying to improve their careers or start something.
• 56:36
  It's also helping them connect the dots.
• 56:38
  They need to protect the value system that helps them
• 56:44
  have the freedom to have freedom of expression, economic freedom and all that.
• 56:48
  And so the challenge is daunting, but I am in the process of building an ecosystem for builders that were we, and we means you're now part of it, Scott.
• 56:59
  I know.
• 57:00
  You and I and thousands of other mentors are going to be there for millions of people
• 57:07
  But we need to help them be our partners in being part of showing up and voting, showing up and standing up against hate and division.
• 57:17
  I've always said that building and doing something challenging is the best personal development course education you can ever get.
• 57:27
  Entrepreneurship, if you try and build a company, you're going to learn more about yourself and you're going to learn more about your weaknesses and all the things you can do to improve yourself than listening to any podcast to be quite honest if you actually built something.
• 57:42
  And I don't use the word entrepreneurship because I don't want people who are in companies to think that they are not builders because they are.
• 57:48
  But my concern always is that people who are builders who bet on themselves, they check out of the civic process.
• 57:57
  100%.
• 57:58
  We tend to think that we have to put all of our energies just building our own careers.
• 58:05
  And we do not have the luxury to forget that we also have a duty to preserve business.
• 58:12
  the American dream by holding politicians accountable to solve the will of the people.
• 58:18
  And by the way, this is not theoretical.
• 58:20
  Anybody that has a small business that feels like all the trademarks are being abused and the patents are being abused and Chinese companies are destroying small business in the U.S. because they go on Amazon and come up with a copycat.
• 58:35
  That's because the government is not doing their job to protect it.
• 58:38
  All the social media claims that are not provable, that are destroying trust, where we don't understand what to believe, what not to believe, and people are praying over other people's identities, that's because the U.S. government has not done a good job to fine-tune the social media 230 regulation.
• 58:55
  telehealth, healthcare, voting rights, immigration, even these seemingly most important wedge issues like gun rights, gun safety, all of these issues, 80% of Americans can agree on 80% of the issues, but politicians don't wanna solve them because they raise money off of it, they empower off of it.
• 59:16
  Enough is enough.
• 59:16
  We as builders need to join forces and hold politicians accountable to remind them who's the sheriff in town, the people.
• 59:23
  When people listen to BuilderBreak, you want them to improve.
• 59:27
  BuilderBreak is predominantly about building your career and your profession.
• 59:32
  But to the point that you were saying, Daniel, what's your essence?
• 59:35
  My essence is the bigger picture.
• 59:38
  Build your career, build your community, build your business.
• 59:41
  And remember that all of us need to join in also building our society.
• 59:45
  It's all within your power to accomplish.
• 59:48
  If you, I think this is like the message just by chatting with you and listening to a couple episodes, it's about self-empowerment.
• 59:55
  It's self-empowerment and it's connecting the dots to the little things that every one of us can do to make a difference in society.
• 1:00:03
  Builder Break, it's live now.
• 1:00:05
  You can listen to it, Apple, Spotify, YouTube.
• 1:00:08
  You haven't picked a platform yet, so you can listen to it everywhere.
• 1:00:10
  All of them.
• 1:00:12
  Sign up on all of them because we need all the help we can get.
• 1:00:15
  When you get the $100 million Netflix deal, then maybe you have to pick a platform.
• 1:00:19
  But until then, it's everywhere.
• 1:00:23
  When people listen to it, what do you want them to take away from it?
• 1:00:28
  I want them to enjoy it and feel that they've grown and stay with us because it's the beginning of the journey and we have a lot of work to do together to build yourself and build all of us together.
• 1:00:39
  Where can people connect with you?
• 1:00:40
  All the socials, website?
• 1:00:42
  Daniel Lubetzky on all the socials.
• 1:00:44
  Last question.
• 1:00:46
  And I mentioned it.
• 1:00:46
  I alluded to it before, but I'll ask you as well.
• 1:00:49
  If you could pass on one piece of advice to 20-year-old Daniel Lubezki, you're not going to do anything different because you've already realized that failure is a prerequisite for where you are today.
• 1:00:59
  But what would be one thing that you wish 20-year-old Daniel knew?
• 1:01:04
  Spend more time with your dad.
• 1:01:07
  You're going to miss him a lot.
• 1:01:07
  Yes.
• 1:01:10
  I often wish he was around to meet his grandkids and, uh, and to be with my mom and to meet Michelle, my wife.
• 1:01:19
  And, um...
• 1:01:23
  You never know.
• 1:01:23
  I mean, we lost him.
• 1:01:25
  He was 72.
• 1:01:27
  I saw him a week before.
• 1:01:28
  I hugged him, laid down in bed with him.
• 1:01:30
  He's a big man, but he was very huggable like a teddy bear.
• 1:01:34
  That hug, I still find comfort in that hug that I gave him.
• 1:01:38
  Then I went running.
• 1:01:39
  I was training for the marathon, or I had just done the marathon.
• 1:01:42
  I was running a lot back then.
• 1:01:43
  Yeah.
• 1:01:45
  And I could have done a one-hour loop, but I chose to do a 30-minute one and spend 30 minutes saying goodbye to them.
• 1:01:54
  And they were the last 30 minutes that I...
• 1:01:56
  So my dad, it's just fascinating.
• 1:01:59
  I could have done that one hour and not say goodbye to him.
• 1:02:03
  And I didn't know that was the last time I was going to see him.
• 1:02:05
  For people who listen to this, they're very focused on what they're building.
• 1:02:11
  And I think too often they forget about what's actually important in life.
• 1:02:16
  Just leave them with one last message because you've achieved more success than most people ever know.
• 1:02:21
  Look, when I was building Kind, I was not sleeping.
• 1:02:24
  I was...
• 1:02:25
  four or five hours a day of sleep.
• 1:02:28
  I was not working out.
• 1:02:29
  I looked like a phantom raccoon because I was like pudgy and had like these black eye bags.
• 1:02:35
  I was working like crazy.
• 1:02:37
  And it's easy for me to say, now try to get some sleep, try to spend time with family.
• 1:02:42
  But it really is important because you should work super hard when in your early years, put in the work, build your career, build your journey, tighten your seat belt, tighten your belt.
• 1:02:54
  But don't sacrifice family life.
• 1:02:57
  Like try that.
• 1:02:59
  That's one area where I feel relatively good that I, I find a way to prioritize my kids and my wife and take care of your parents.
• 1:03:08
  Because that's when, when you're 80 years old and you look back, that's what matters the most and what will matter the most today, tomorrow, and the day after.
• 1:03:17
  And still give it everything you can, even if you have to look like a phantom raccoon.