Speaker 1: Welcome everybody to the first episode of Big Money Energy,
Speaker 1: where I speak to very successful, self made people to
Speaker 1: learn exactly how they did it. We cover the stories
Speaker 1: in between the paths of their successes and how they
Speaker 1: overcame the obstacles in their way. And specifically, I talked
Speaker 1: to people who not only have big Money Energy, but
Speaker 1: those who started with nothing, because I really really want
Speaker 1: to learn how you went from nothing to something, because
Speaker 1: big money Energy is the vibe you get from someone
Speaker 1: who is succeeding at life in every direction. And today
Speaker 1: we have Damon John. And in this episode, if you
Speaker 1: were interested in anything relating to entrepreneurship, building wealth, and
Speaker 1: learning from failure, you need to stick around. We go
Speaker 1: through his first business, selling pencils and getting beaten up.
Speaker 1: We talked about his bankruptcies. We talked about dealing with morons,
Speaker 1: how to be a shark, and most importantly, how you
Speaker 1: go from forty bucks to six billion. All Right, today
Speaker 1: is an insanely, insanely special day because my guest is
Speaker 1: none other than Damon John. Hey, Damon, how are you?
Speaker 1: I'm good man? Now you look good with like the
Speaker 1: leather and the Yankees had, and I'm trying to be cool. Now.
Speaker 1: If you don't know Damon, I don't know who you are,
Speaker 1: and I don't know why you're even listening to this,
Speaker 1: because you should. Damon is a serial entrepreneur, investor, TV personality,
Speaker 1: five time best selling author. He's got his new book
Speaker 1: out right now, Power Shift, which is incredible. He's also
Speaker 1: on a little TV show, Um, I can't remember, it's
Speaker 1: a fish the fish Hit the fish Bowl, Shark Shark Tank.
Speaker 1: That one nominated for fifteen Emmy's one four of them,
Speaker 1: which is amazing. Damon, thank you for being here, Thank
Speaker 1: you for having me. Yeah, man, how's your day? So
Speaker 1: for it is great? It's Monday. I'm calling it more
Speaker 1: on Monday. Yeah. There's a lot of morons on the world, man,
Speaker 1: there are, dude, It's amazing. So I'm really excited about
Speaker 1: that because that means I can make more and more money,
Speaker 1: and so that everybody listening can make more and more
Speaker 1: money because morons buy more stuff. Well, morons and idiots,
Speaker 1: and if you have common sense and you're willing to
Speaker 1: work hard and bust your ask for the morons won't.
Speaker 1: So it's more on Monday. I gotta gotta got it
Speaker 1: right because you can outwork everybody else who's just because
Speaker 1: they're just not doing getting information from one source and
Speaker 1: or they're idiots. I mean, it's really More on Monday.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you now. You know, it's funny. I moved
Speaker 1: to New York City in two thousands six when I
Speaker 1: graduated college, and a way to make money for me
Speaker 1: when I first got here because I was trying to
Speaker 1: be an actor, and I was before I ever got
Speaker 1: into real estate. In two I would do little things
Speaker 1: like I passed up flyers on the street for gyms,
Speaker 1: like I would do odds and end jobs. And one
Speaker 1: of the things that I got was like a stock
Speaker 1: photo job modeling Fu Bou nice. Yeah. I don't know
Speaker 1: where those photos are because I think they were burned.
Speaker 1: But I was probably the worst Foo Boo model not
Speaker 1: anyone has ever seen. Do you remember those? Do you
Speaker 1: remember those? I didn't remember yours? No? Maybe not? I
Speaker 1: mean thinking about that, that that was probably about fifteen years ago.
Speaker 1: I mean, but we always had really attractive and people
Speaker 1: we felt fit the part. And you know what, I
Speaker 1: think a good point of it is that a lot
Speaker 1: of times, you know, talking about More on Monday, A
Speaker 1: lot of times people thought that food was only for
Speaker 1: people of a certain color, and we wouldn't have used
Speaker 1: obviously not not the color that they're thinking, different color,
Speaker 1: and obviously we had probably used the photo because you know,
Speaker 1: we we used people of bolt colors and our ads.
Speaker 1: We thank you man, thank you for being part of
Speaker 1: the brand. So listen, one thing I want to start
Speaker 1: with this. I'm gonna keep it super simple and let's
Speaker 1: see how you respond. Okay, how did you go from
Speaker 1: nothing to something? And what does that mean to you? Um?
Speaker 1: I went through it through massive amount of failures. Um,
Speaker 1: but I was failing small and quick and now learning
Speaker 1: from them. I went through life as a series of mentors.
Speaker 1: So I went through so many different mentors to try
Speaker 1: to obtain the information that I didn't know I had
Speaker 1: that I didn't know what to do, because when you
Speaker 1: start out and anything, you don't know what you don't know.
Speaker 1: I went through a lot of soul searching and realized
Speaker 1: what was my why and why was I doing this?
Speaker 1: And what did I want to get out of it?
Speaker 1: And what was my line in the sand and what
Speaker 1: I would agree upon or not agree upon. I went
Speaker 1: through a lot of common sense too. You know, I
Speaker 1: looked around, and everybody said you can't do what I was.
Speaker 1: I was like, well, why all these buildings here, in
Speaker 1: all these cars here? Who who did it? You know?
Speaker 1: Was it was it the gods who did it? Or
Speaker 1: was it one person with one idea that took one action.
Speaker 1: I was like, this common sense, you can do this something.
Speaker 1: And I just read a lot. I read, I read
Speaker 1: a lot, and I and I and I noticed that
Speaker 1: the things that I would read if I found the
Speaker 1: same underlying truth in these twenty or forty books that
Speaker 1: were written by different people at different times in their life,
Speaker 1: in different times in history, what are they all lying
Speaker 1: to me? Like? It's it's right there, it's right there.
Speaker 1: Just a lot of common sense and drive. So so
Speaker 1: you saw success from other people and that's what drove you.
Speaker 1: That was your kind of your wire driver? What was
Speaker 1: the what was the why? My why initially was get
Speaker 1: some funky sneakers from for myself because mom wasn't making
Speaker 1: any money. Why why make her work for mine? Uh?
Speaker 1: Then it was supporting a household of me and dressed
Speaker 1: my mother honestly, but I didn't want to be on
Speaker 1: the streets. And then then then I made mistakes going
Speaker 1: through their own businesses to try to make money, thinking
Speaker 1: that you know, I was going to be a bazillionaire
Speaker 1: by twenty and I was in and I was broke
Speaker 1: by twenty because I was doing it only for money
Speaker 1: I had. I had no passion to drive for it,
Speaker 1: so sure I didn't want to work on it. Then
Speaker 1: my wife became wait a minute, it's an untapped market
Speaker 1: that that we're being neglected by all the big designers.
Speaker 1: They think that hip hop kids are like, you know,
Speaker 1: or rappers or whatever or not a value. And I
Speaker 1: want to make clothes for people who I love the
Speaker 1: genre music, you know. And that's when I created Foobu
Speaker 1: and it was forced bias was by the culture. I mean,
Speaker 1: I would I would dress the beastie boys. I would
Speaker 1: address at local J run D M C, Salt and Pepper.
Speaker 1: And that was my wife then. And then my wife
Speaker 1: would change over the lives over my time of running
Speaker 1: a business to say, Okay, everybody's gonna laugh at me
Speaker 1: if this thing fails, uh, and they're gonna think I
Speaker 1: hit the lotto or that one by the Apple. I
Speaker 1: gotta keep going because my egos in place. And then
Speaker 1: I had two little baby girls and my wife, and
Speaker 1: then employees, and my wife just kept changing. What was
Speaker 1: your first business? You mentioned cars, and my first business
Speaker 1: was selling pencils at six years old. My pencils at
Speaker 1: six Was there a good return on those pencils? Amazing return?
Speaker 1: Because what I what I realized when the boys like
Speaker 1: the girls in school at that age, they would try
Speaker 1: to knock their teeth out. So I think there's gotta
Speaker 1: be a way I can make a profit over this, right,
Speaker 1: So I would out to find these pencils. I would
Speaker 1: scrape the paint off the pencils, and I'd paint the
Speaker 1: names of the prettiest girls in school and the pencils,
Speaker 1: and I walk over the guys and go, you don't
Speaker 1: want to knock or teeth out. If you buy this
Speaker 1: box of pencils from me with your lunch money, you're
Speaker 1: gonna be able to sit with the girls and give
Speaker 1: them the pencils. I get to talk to them, and
Speaker 1: then the guys would try to knock my teeth out.
Speaker 1: So I was about to throw the pencils away, and
Speaker 1: I remember one of the girls saying, Hey, that's my
Speaker 1: name on that pencil. Is that mine? I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it is. The girls paid me two times the amount
Speaker 1: of money that I was trying to sell it to
Speaker 1: the guys for. It's a market idea right there, But
Speaker 1: my principle made me close that business after one month.
Speaker 1: What where's that principle right now? And what do they do?
Speaker 1: She had no vision. That's exactly the problem, because one
Speaker 1: of the boys squealed on me and told her that
Speaker 1: I was stealing the pencils from the guys that I
Speaker 1: hated in school. So my cost of goods with zero
Speaker 1: I think. I think it was a good business, but
Speaker 1: there was some personal risk involved in in the selling
Speaker 1: pencils to two people business when you're six, right, Uh,
Speaker 1: as far as it us. If they punched your lights out, right,
Speaker 1: if they knocked you out, but then they're still a
Speaker 1: return I guess if the girls. But listen, I practiced
Speaker 1: the oldest form of self defense there is running. Yes,
Speaker 1: you can never cash me. I was really short and
Speaker 1: really fast. The question, though, like, was your and I
Speaker 1: know your why has changed over the years, but you know,
Speaker 1: don't go back to when you're ten years old. I'm
Speaker 1: just thinking, like what motivates you to come up with
Speaker 1: different business ideas and think about different ways to make money.
Speaker 1: I know back then it was like sneakers and make
Speaker 1: some cash, But was it al also to do something different?
Speaker 1: Like where you was there a hunger for you to
Speaker 1: create something instead of just you know, making money. Because
Speaker 1: we talked to a lot of people too. It's it's
Speaker 1: just the money, right And you can see it on them,
Speaker 1: you can smell it when they walk in the room. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the people that I've always met that have been really
Speaker 1: successful entrepreneurs. Okay, yeah, if you're in the financial trade
Speaker 1: market and the systems like that, and it is money,
Speaker 1: but they still love to kill. They still love the game,
Speaker 1: the game, They still love the way that their mind works,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I don't care if you're
Speaker 1: a professional gambler. It money is the outcome, but they
Speaker 1: still love the chase, the game, the way they break
Speaker 1: things down, the way they see opportunity. My real y
Speaker 1: came around with Foo and that was when I found
Speaker 1: my love. I love fashion ever since I was ten
Speaker 1: years old, and I loved hip hop ever since I
Speaker 1: was ten years old. I blended them together when I
Speaker 1: was nineteen, not realizing that I can make money off them,
Speaker 1: and then I failed a bunch of times up until
Speaker 1: nineteen and I would I would still fail with Foobo
Speaker 1: from nineteen to twenty two. I would close it three
Speaker 1: times by running out of capital. But then I started
Speaker 1: it again and that's where the real love came. They
Speaker 1: came around, like when I close it, but then people
Speaker 1: saw us saying, I have what that shirt from you,
Speaker 1: and I really want to it again. I started again.
Speaker 1: I closed it and I kept closing it, but it
Speaker 1: kept calling me back. And that's when I found my
Speaker 1: real love and my really my real why. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: was just giving people what they want. You know, it
Speaker 1: did a lot of things. It gave people what they want.
Speaker 1: I would I would make a shirt and then somebody
Speaker 1: wear it and I would and they would wear it
Speaker 1: a certain way, and I would go I never thought
Speaker 1: about it like that, that ship is hid I love,
Speaker 1: you know, or somebody when they boughted, I felt like
Speaker 1: they said, and you know, I know that you feel
Speaker 1: this way. You know you have to feel this way,
Speaker 1: and being successful what you do is I made them
Speaker 1: feel like they've arrived in some way or another, even
Speaker 1: if it was that one moment that they took a
Speaker 1: girl out or they were out with a guy and
Speaker 1: they were wearing their brand new food blue shirt, right
Speaker 1: like statement piece. But yeah, for that moment, they felt
Speaker 1: like they arrived and I would I would address people
Speaker 1: for the rest of my life for free if I
Speaker 1: could have. I just loved it. So what happened in
Speaker 1: what was that shift? I mean what? Because you shut
Speaker 1: it down a couple of times and brought it back
Speaker 1: and I've read and we know you know how how
Speaker 1: important your mom was to a lot of this, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and ninety two, I realized that I was going to
Speaker 1: make a stand and I was not going to quit
Speaker 1: this thing, and I need to educate myself more. And
Speaker 1: I brought in uh partners, my three other partners that
Speaker 1: are still my partner still today. And I had already
Speaker 1: made all the mistakes prior, so now I knew what
Speaker 1: I didn't need to do. You know a lot of
Speaker 1: people who were successful in business, they go to things
Speaker 1: and they may have five or ten businesses. The first
Speaker 1: business they didn't have enough funding, so they shut it down.
Speaker 1: The second business they had enough funding, but they didn't
Speaker 1: have distribution. They shut it down. The third one they
Speaker 1: had funding distribution, but they're legal wasn't in order. Boom boom,
Speaker 1: boom boom by by business and attend. They're like, holy
Speaker 1: sh it, I you know, I may have something here.
Speaker 1: I think that's super important to all the listeners that
Speaker 1: are watching and listening now who are growing up or
Speaker 1: are learning how to start a business. And they are
Speaker 1: They've got Instagram, they've got Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok. How
Speaker 1: do you get the word out about clothing? Um the
Speaker 1: way you guys started in the early nineties, without millions
Speaker 1: and millions and millions of dollars to spend and commercials
Speaker 1: and magazine ads. How do you do that? You know?
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what I know. We'll get into power
Speaker 1: ship about. It's about the building of influence prior and
Speaker 1: that's what we're talking about. I'm gonna tell you now,
Speaker 1: if I if social media was out when I started,
Speaker 1: Bubu would have not been a six billion dollar brand.
Speaker 1: It would have been a hundred billion dollar brand over
Speaker 1: the years, because like you look at a Nike right
Speaker 1: now doing about thirty billion a year, right, we would
Speaker 1: have probably done about ten billion dollars a year annually.
Speaker 1: For how had you started now? Had I start it now,
Speaker 1: I mean I had to literally I sold your shirt,
Speaker 1: I had to find you. The Internet did not exist,
Speaker 1: cell phones didn't exist. I had to find where you
Speaker 1: lived to sell you another shirt. And how did you
Speaker 1: keep track of all those customers and to be able
Speaker 1: to build your fanily school. I used to keep their
Speaker 1: phone number. I used to tell them book like literally
Speaker 1: at a book. I had a book. I used to
Speaker 1: tell them, you know, listen Friday nights. You know I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be in the corner of the Apollo Theater at
Speaker 1: twelve o'clock when that thing lets out. I'm telling you now,
Speaker 1: you better be there to get your shirt first, because
Speaker 1: I'm gonna sell out that. Not only was I giving
Speaker 1: them consistency of where I was going to be, I
Speaker 1: was telling I knew their aims, and I was telling
Speaker 1: them where to find me. I promised. I kept that promise.
Speaker 1: I don't care if it was ten degrees. I was
Speaker 1: there that day so people could expect you at night. Also,
Speaker 1: I was getting feedback. Here's the best thing. You want feedback.
Speaker 1: You stand on the corner of the Apollo Theater at
Speaker 1: midnight when those drunk people let out, and they would
Speaker 1: tell me about what they thought about my and my mother.
Speaker 1: You want feedback, Oh my God, and it grew us
Speaker 1: safer behind Instagram in person, much safer. But I had
Speaker 1: to work with my partner and I we worked it
Speaker 1: for about eight years like that, and I don't care
Speaker 1: eight insistency. Yeah, it had to be consistent. When did
Speaker 1: you get into office space? When did you first kind
Speaker 1: of take a step back and realize, you know, what,
Speaker 1: things are gonna be okay, and they might be better
Speaker 1: than okay if we keep doing this. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: never gonna be okay. It was either gonna be guys,
Speaker 1: all right now the real journey is starting, right, we're
Speaker 1: playing at a big level. Nineteen nineties seven, UH Samsung's
Speaker 1: textile division and this guy named Bruce and Norman gave
Speaker 1: me a call and they gave us an opportunity um
Speaker 1: to to come up there and were the agreement. I
Speaker 1: think we had to sell five million dollars worth of
Speaker 1: clothes and five in in three years to keep this
Speaker 1: distribution deal that they were going to distribute our clothes.
Speaker 1: It's like a record label getting a record, you know,
Speaker 1: million and three years. Yeah, but I did thirty million
Speaker 1: dollars in three months. And because we had already built
Speaker 1: up this influence for ten years or nine years, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, they gave you a megaphone, gave us
Speaker 1: a megaphone. They were like, okay, now we can manufacture
Speaker 1: and distribute, do what you do best. And that was it.
Speaker 1: We were dressing everybody in every single video. We were
Speaker 1: every place, we want, every corner, and those ambassadors that
Speaker 1: we had built that influence with, somebody would say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm the Foobu guy who I'm the fooble
Speaker 1: girl in Detroit And we would have a hundred of
Speaker 1: the holes in Detroit, a hundred of those in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: a hundred of those in Carolina Organic. And this is
Speaker 1: viral before was viral, right, we build this relationship with
Speaker 1: l J. He goes and puts Foobu in the gap ad,
Speaker 1: he does a gap at and he puts for us
Speaker 1: by us on the low in the gap at. Gap
Speaker 1: spends thirty million dollars airing that commercial. It's a Foolbu commercial.
Speaker 1: They're basically airing um. So many big things had happened
Speaker 1: at that time for us, But it was a culmination
Speaker 1: of if you really think about it, I started in
Speaker 1: eighty nine. By that time, nine years or whatever, the
Speaker 1: cases of just just pounding the ground. Now, it's going
Speaker 1: back to what you talked about. You know, one of
Speaker 1: the things I think people don't really understand these days
Speaker 1: when they like when they look at somebody like you
Speaker 1: and they say, okay, successful, Yeah, I know he's got
Speaker 1: some sort of backstory. But is the red lobster working
Speaker 1: red Lobster? That is a hustle that people just don't
Speaker 1: get anymore. Like what you said, your your job when
Speaker 1: you started was you worked at Red Lobster. The majority
Speaker 1: of your day was working Red lobster, right, and then
Speaker 1: it was getting food off the ground, watching it failed,
Speaker 1: getting it back off the ground, watching it fail. What
Speaker 1: was the red Lobster to you? Yeah, just like you
Speaker 1: with the flyers, Red Lobster was my basis. I had
Speaker 1: to keep the lights on. And everybody talks about, you know,
Speaker 1: burn the bridges and quit your day job there. Whoever
Speaker 1: said that's an idiot, because if you look and I
Speaker 1: worked the Red Lobster for five years and I got
Speaker 1: paid thirty thousand dollars a year, I had medical I
Speaker 1: was taking all the food home, so now I didn't
Speaker 1: have to pay for food anymore. I was having an
Speaker 1: entire staff of red Lobster come to flea markets with
Speaker 1: me on Saturdays and helped me. I was trying to
Speaker 1: sell the customers right if they bought their shrimp, do
Speaker 1: you want a T shirt? You know? And then at
Speaker 1: the same time my house, I was renting out all
Speaker 1: the rooms in my house. I had four rooms, so
Speaker 1: I was renting a while out for twenty five dollars
Speaker 1: a week to strangers. And I was sleeping on the couch.
Speaker 1: So now I had some of the mortgage paid. I
Speaker 1: was working all those hours of red Lobster, and I
Speaker 1: had to do that for five years. I would have
Speaker 1: to do two million dollars in sales and food to
Speaker 1: take the same money away from there, and I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have done two million dollars of sales. I was sleeping
Speaker 1: next to sewing machines, you know, I was. I had
Speaker 1: a old eat up car gelopy. I mean that thing was.
Speaker 1: I don't know where it is, but you should find
Speaker 1: that car. It's not trust me, it's not around anymore.
Speaker 1: It's not around anymore. It can't be. And now you're
Speaker 1: successful and everybody knows it too. Why shark tank, I mean,
Speaker 1: is it just because you're you're hungry for more. You
Speaker 1: want to meet more people, you want to help more people.
Speaker 1: You invest in all these different businesses. You know, that's
Speaker 1: it sounds almost like a stupid question, but it's kind
Speaker 1: of not because you've You've lived so much life and
Speaker 1: had so much business that people could only even dream of.
Speaker 1: Why Shark Tank is? Why? Why has changed on Shark Tank?
Speaker 1: You know? Initially when I turned down the show because
Speaker 1: they said I couldn't do any of the show while
Speaker 1: doing Shark Tank, and I was representing the Kardashians and
Speaker 1: I was doing various things with the Kardashians, so I
Speaker 1: said no. Chloe Kardashian fired me off the show because
Speaker 1: she heard that I was turning down Shark Tank because
Speaker 1: of her. Then I heard that on Shark Tank you
Speaker 1: have to use your own money. I'm like, these these
Speaker 1: guys in Hollywood a pimps. You suppose to get paid
Speaker 1: to be on the show. Are you crazy? And then
Speaker 1: somebody said to me, well, Daman, you're only getting pitched
Speaker 1: clothing ideas. And I had ten clothing comings at the time,
Speaker 1: and eight of them were dead. This is oh, seven
Speaker 1: oh eight, when retail not working. I said, I'll go
Speaker 1: on the show because if I'm talking to a retailer.
Speaker 1: I want to take a more real estate in their
Speaker 1: in their area, and I only have clothing. So I'll
Speaker 1: go and get some lotions I'll get I'll get electronics,
Speaker 1: I'll get whatever. So then when i'm talking to you,
Speaker 1: I'll go can I be in these other departments? And
Speaker 1: because we have a nurtured relationship, like we always talking about,
Speaker 1: you'll say yes. I'm more comfortable with you because I
Speaker 1: know you're a good vendor. You've been a good vendor
Speaker 1: record for years. Something goes wrong, you'll take it back.
Speaker 1: We have a good relationship going there. Then I start
Speaker 1: to realize the power of it the show, and I
Speaker 1: start to realize I'm learning more on the show than
Speaker 1: the people on the show. I don't learn too much
Speaker 1: from the Morons on the Other Sharks, they're the chairman
Speaker 1: of Moron. But I learned from these other kids who
Speaker 1: are coming up now. All of a sudden, they're selling
Speaker 1: clothes a different way, their online, they're doing social media conversion,
Speaker 1: they're doing this, they're doing that, And I'm learning all
Speaker 1: these other industries and I'm applying it to myself. I
Speaker 1: wasn't thinking about what we do now content creation. I
Speaker 1: wasn't thinking about all these other things. I would have
Speaker 1: been like my old up like some of like colleagues
Speaker 1: in the industry, would have been the same old guy going,
Speaker 1: let me make a shirt. Hopefully a buyer buys it.
Speaker 1: Hopefully they put it on the rack in a dying
Speaker 1: retail environment, and maybe somebody walks by the rack and
Speaker 1: buys it. I would have been that same person. But again,
Speaker 1: shark Tank has grown to something else and it changed
Speaker 1: my Why Yeah, so how many different businesses are you
Speaker 1: involved with? Now? You remember I would say that a
Speaker 1: shark town by eight um. But and I know it
Speaker 1: sounds daunting. So let me clara, let me my jaw
Speaker 1: just dropped. Let me clarify that one third of them
Speaker 1: are the walking dead giving them the money, or we've
Speaker 1: done a deal and they're dead and or they are
Speaker 1: trying to come around. There's nothing for me to do.
Speaker 1: They call them up and ask them for the money. Now,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm a partner, right and things may work out,
Speaker 1: it may not. Another third of them, like bomba Socks,
Speaker 1: are brilliant. They don't need me. If I call them,
Speaker 1: I may suck it up. They don't need me at
Speaker 1: all to call them and say, Yo, you should make
Speaker 1: the locals bigger. They'd be like, thank you, Damon click.
Speaker 1: So now the ones I got a concentrar on the
Speaker 1: ones right on the fence, they're gonna move either over
Speaker 1: to one of those other lay means, and they call
Speaker 1: me when they need me, and we work it out
Speaker 1: and they need your help if they need my help. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And I'm here. What's your favorite business you're working on
Speaker 1: right now? My favorite business? Well, of course, because we're here,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna talk about the book. But other than that
Speaker 1: because content. But you know, I I like my I
Speaker 1: like my curriculum, my Damon on demand. I give step
Speaker 1: by step lessons and and the information people need to
Speaker 1: know to run a business and understand the difference between
Speaker 1: if you need a trademark or you need a patent,
Speaker 1: or you need a d b A or you need
Speaker 1: a design trademark against a utility patent or whatever the cases.
Speaker 1: Because in financing, when you get financing, how do you
Speaker 1: get financing? Who do you get financing from? So I
Speaker 1: like that one because it helps people. It saves them
Speaker 1: from the mistakes that I made. When did you put
Speaker 1: that course out? I put the course out about a year.
Speaker 1: It's you can go to gaming on Demand dot com
Speaker 1: and get that course. And you know, I'm starting to
Speaker 1: see the students come back who are growing their business
Speaker 1: or starting a business and saying, this is actually working.
Speaker 1: So it's your it's your whole life and everything you
Speaker 1: know and all if you're experts and people you work
Speaker 1: with all boiled down in eight hours, so you can
Speaker 1: get it. Basically, you can get your business degree. I'll
Speaker 1: give example right now. Everybody always wants a patent. Patent
Speaker 1: can cost anywhere from seventeen that if you do it yourself, right,
Speaker 1: a utility patent in one of the cases, you do
Speaker 1: it just yourself, no attorney. Of course, you maybe three
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, but but you could probably you know, an attorney,
Speaker 1: seventeen thousand all the way to a hundred because how
Speaker 1: many claims you have in a pattern. I have a
Speaker 1: hundred patterns. I haven't been able to defend that one
Speaker 1: of them. However, a trademark f you be you cost dollars.
Speaker 1: You can't put foubu on anything. That's it now per category,
Speaker 1: then you get more categories at three hundred four hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: That means you have it in category twenty four and
Speaker 1: the category seventeen and twenty five maybe clothing. But think
Speaker 1: about it like this. Somebody right now who has been
Speaker 1: told they need a patent has spent fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: when they just need to spend trademard what they really
Speaker 1: they didn't know what they needed yet. If you could
Speaker 1: go back in time and stand in front of your
Speaker 1: twenty year old self, to go back to in right
Speaker 1: on that corner, that inflection point, that aha moment when
Speaker 1: that happened, you yourself right now, right, you take the
Speaker 1: delore and you go back there, What do you say
Speaker 1: to him without fucking him up? Funny? I watched the
Speaker 1: Generous of the day, Do Alive not comedy. She was
Speaker 1: just doing her speech or her whatever, Q and A,
Speaker 1: she says. She She says she wouldn't tell her older,
Speaker 1: her younger self anything because then she wouldn't be who
Speaker 1: she is today. Me on all this hand, I get it,
Speaker 1: you're right, um, but I would have I would have said, damon,
Speaker 1: you've got to learn financial intelligence. You've gotta learn how
Speaker 1: money works. Man, You've got to learn how money works.
Speaker 1: The system has not been set up to let you
Speaker 1: know how money works. You are and you're the only
Speaker 1: thing you're not gonna learn in the school system, or
Speaker 1: not the only thing, but you're not gonna learn how
Speaker 1: financial intelligence works, because then you can't get three hundred thousand,
Speaker 1: four hundred thousand dollars worth of loans on the education.
Speaker 1: You're not certain if you want, I need a financial intelligence,
Speaker 1: I would go i'ld go home with bankrupt three times
Speaker 1: after that. Now, two of the times I almost went bankrupt,
Speaker 1: I didn't have anything so bankrupt. Wasn't you know, wasn't
Speaker 1: that you know, wasn't that much of a law it was.
Speaker 1: It was it was almost like a you know, break even.
Speaker 1: But after that I would I would blow about. I
Speaker 1: would not blow because it wasn't on stupid things, but
Speaker 1: I would go through about ten million fairly quickly. Thank god,
Speaker 1: I'm not an athlete of somebody who peaks at the
Speaker 1: beginning of their career. But you know, I had many
Speaker 1: more bites to the apple and I was fine. But
Speaker 1: I learned from that. I said that with a ten
Speaker 1: million go now, I just didn't know how it worked.
Speaker 1: Become financially literate. That's what you'd say to your financial
Speaker 1: work on finding I'm still working on finding every you know,
Speaker 1: the richest and wealthiest people. I know, billionaires. I mean,
Speaker 1: guys are big money. They walk around with and they're
Speaker 1: just older, but they walk around a book and all
Speaker 1: they do generally is discuss or when they hear about
Speaker 1: different ways to legally save on taxes, that's what they write.
Speaker 1: And I always say why do you? And I noticed
Speaker 1: like it was four different guys and said why do
Speaker 1: you do that? He said, Well, I can either risk
Speaker 1: at all and start a whole new business to hopefully
Speaker 1: do two hundred million dollars a year, or I can
Speaker 1: just save two hundred million that I already made. Why
Speaker 1: the hell do I need to do this? Instead of
Speaker 1: do this? But I gotta pay a billion all the taxes.
Speaker 1: I'd rather only pay six hundred million dollars in tax
Speaker 1: seven hundred million dollars And why start a whole new business?
Speaker 1: Pretty smart? That already made it exactly. I love that man,
Speaker 1: because you also because you have your course and you're
Speaker 1: learning every day. Education has been such a big part
Speaker 1: of your life every day as you go on every day.
Speaker 1: You said big money there, What does big money energy
Speaker 1: mean to you? If I just said that phrase to you,
Speaker 1: what would you think about? I can interpret in different
Speaker 1: ways I've ever heard before until you said, a big
Speaker 1: money energy to me means either you know, you think
Speaker 1: of the big money Wolf of Wall Street energy, like
Speaker 1: in a room like that where I'm not sure that's good.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that, or you think of big money.
Speaker 1: They come in when a person just has that thing
Speaker 1: that they think big. They operate big. You know, they
Speaker 1: just think big. You know. When I'm out with those
Speaker 1: guys a lot of times there they're talking about you know,
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna rule wealthy people and super wealthy people.
Speaker 1: The difference between wealthy and super wealthy is the wealthy
Speaker 1: people that I see or the rich. I don't want
Speaker 1: to say wealth because wealthy is a lot of different
Speaker 1: things in life. They talked about how big their parties are,
Speaker 1: how big their houses are, and stuff like that. They
Speaker 1: really really rich people. They talk about how much money
Speaker 1: they gave away this year. So I was in the
Speaker 1: house a little while back, and I remember this woman
Speaker 1: walking walking to us all around and she's like, look
Speaker 1: how big this house is, Look how big this is.
Speaker 1: And then she just came into money and I remember
Speaker 1: somebody who having an OVC said, wow, you live really well.
Speaker 1: You live better than Warren Buffett. She shut the funk
Speaker 1: up after that. So you know, big money energy is
Speaker 1: just you know, really really really just thinking big and
Speaker 1: being humble. I think also, I think, sure, talk to
Speaker 1: me about your book, power Shift. Power Shift book number five.
Speaker 1: All right, So I wrote this book because it was
Speaker 1: like one week that a lot of people came to
Speaker 1: me and they were asking me about or trying to
Speaker 1: get advice about changing their lives and various other things.
Speaker 1: And I'd asked them what did they do? And they
Speaker 1: a lot of people felt that they were inundated, or
Speaker 1: they did know where to start, or they needed a
Speaker 1: lot of money, or they needed this, they needed that,
Speaker 1: when it was really their mentality of how to change
Speaker 1: your life, of what they can do with what they
Speaker 1: have right now. And uh, and then I also started
Speaker 1: to realize that people think that power shift and shifting
Speaker 1: power is either taking it away and being just just
Speaker 1: massively mean personal lots of time. Power shift is passing
Speaker 1: the power onto you on the all the side of
Speaker 1: the table. You appreciate it, and and and I wanted
Speaker 1: people to understand how uh to become powerful. It's a
Speaker 1: three step process. First, you have to build influence, like
Speaker 1: you and I were talking, right, You have to build influences,
Speaker 1: Then you negotiate what you want for both parties, and
Speaker 1: then you nurture the relationship afterwards. But people are so transactional,
Speaker 1: they're so just like this. So what do you do
Speaker 1: when you run into a Ryan in the elevator and
Speaker 1: you have a nineties second pitch and you didn't have
Speaker 1: time to build influence with them? Well, if you have
Speaker 1: the pitch and I do a lot of pitches in
Speaker 1: here that are rock solid, Ryan, and damon, we're gonna
Speaker 1: look at you or at your Instagram later on, did
Speaker 1: you build influence through there to the right way? Because
Speaker 1: I'm gonna look at the language and everything you're doing
Speaker 1: and how you're representing yourself. If you happen to be
Speaker 1: taking pictures with a massogic race and racist friend all
Speaker 1: the time and you're wondering why I'm never calling you back,
Speaker 1: Well maybe because I've just followed all the things around
Speaker 1: you and realized that it's a facade you're putting out
Speaker 1: there and this is actually where you believe nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with that. Maybe you'll find somebody else who's a racist, massageist,
Speaker 1: the pick who wants to be down with you. But
Speaker 1: you know, it's all about this, this this form of
Speaker 1: taking power back. Because people think that they'd be the
Speaker 1: lost power. Somebody had to give it to him. That's
Speaker 1: why I told you that good Friday. I realized nobody
Speaker 1: had to give me power. I was in charge of myself.
Speaker 1: And so I have a lot of subjects in here,
Speaker 1: from Chris Jenner to uh, clay you Bill a guy
Speaker 1: who is you know, Mark Vannette. But Clayton new Bill
Speaker 1: is the producer of our show. He's had to see
Speaker 1: thousands of pitches to get people to come in front
Speaker 1: of the Sharks, probably like ten thousand, Right, what got
Speaker 1: you pass clay new Bill to go to the Sharks?
Speaker 1: I got Mark Cuban in there. I got pit Bull,
Speaker 1: I got people you won't know in there who are
Speaker 1: extremely successful people and how they have used power in
Speaker 1: their lives. Look at the Kardashians. It's a subtle power
Speaker 1: that they use, but it's in the book on how
Speaker 1: they have built influence over the course of their lives
Speaker 1: and how they're so powerful. Right, So it's a blueprint.
Speaker 1: It's a powerfue print. It's a movement. The reason why
Speaker 1: I put so many different subjects in there because I
Speaker 1: got I got in there Billy Jean King, who changed
Speaker 1: the face of tennis. You know what I mean. This
Speaker 1: is not all about money. This is about power and
Speaker 1: movement and giving. And that's why I put the blueprint
Speaker 1: in by Barris different people, because you'll start to see
Speaker 1: something that underlines other things, from body language when you're
Speaker 1: discussing with people, to negotiation tactics to pitching. And if
Speaker 1: you just take one or two of them, you're not
Speaker 1: gonna absorb the whole thing. And maybe not it's not
Speaker 1: for everybody, but you take one or two of them tomorrow,
Speaker 1: and it starts making you better and stronger. You keep
Speaker 1: adding to your artillery. You're gonna realize. I mean, the
Speaker 1: only difference with anybody in the world is what we
Speaker 1: have ever negotiated. That's it. Yeah, man, I live my
Speaker 1: dad negotiating. Oh day long. Yeah. The first person you
Speaker 1: got to go sha is a one year old Yeah, exactly. Well,
Speaker 1: your he is manipulative. You will see you will see
Speaker 1: that in her. I mean I'm sure you're seeing it now,
Speaker 1: like but when when they're two. They know how to
Speaker 1: play daddy against mommy, against caretakers, against teachers, against everybody.
Speaker 1: It's a natural thing that we have. But a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't realize how to master A two year
Speaker 1: old knows how to master it. They just forget it
Speaker 1: because people move them into a corner or they don't
Speaker 1: get what they want. But two year old was learning.
Speaker 1: They're learning. Yeah, you know how you learned super early
Speaker 1: on how to how to manage people and manage expectations. Absolutely. Yeah, awesome, man,
Speaker 1: I'm super excited about the book. I want to wrap
Speaker 1: up one minute. You got it for me? Yea, guys,
Speaker 1: super quick. What's your favorite movie? I don't know. Tropic Thunder.
Speaker 1: That's a good movie. What you mean you people? Um? Well,
Speaker 1: what's the worst job you ever had? Running b X
Speaker 1: cable and burned down buildings in the Bronx? Yeah that's
Speaker 1: pretty bad. That's pretty bad. Do you have a favorite quote?
Speaker 1: One is a great slave with a horrible master. That's
Speaker 1: a good one or no way? Wait wait, wait, don't
Speaker 1: tell anybody your problem. Don't care that all are really
Speaker 1: happy you have them. What's your favorite word? Fuck? Yeah?
Speaker 1: If you could be any animal, what animal would you be.
Speaker 1: Come on, you know what I gotta say on that one.
Speaker 1: But maybe it's not that one. Maybe it's a different one.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's like a platypus or like something weird no
Speaker 1: one ever thought about. You're like, dude, no one knows this,
Speaker 1: but I really, really, really uh um. I would have
Speaker 1: to say a shark, I guess because I'm on Pisces
Speaker 1: as well. I've always related to it, good old Pisces.
Speaker 1: If you can live anywhere in the world other than
Speaker 1: New York Miami, Yeah, what's your favorite song from the nineties?
Speaker 1: Paid in full? I don't know if that's that's eighties,
Speaker 1: actually Rocky, I'm paid in full nineties? I don't know. Sorry,
Speaker 1: what's the last lie you told? The last lie that
Speaker 1: I've told. I'm not going back to Golden Corral again.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Mann, Thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 1: You're the best, Damon John. Your book Power Shift everywhere
Speaker 1: the course everyone knows where to get it. Uh, You're
Speaker 1: the man. You've got big money energy. Thank you, dude.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. If you're ready to take action today.
Speaker 1: Based on Damon John's entire blueprint for how he got
Speaker 1: to where he is, go to Big Money Energy dot
Speaker 1: com slash podcast to download an action plan I put
Speaker 1: together for you, as well as the show notes. That's
Speaker 1: Big Money Energy dot com slash podcast. Find more podcasts
Speaker 1: like Big Money Energy on the I Heart Radio app
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. Big Money Energy is
Speaker 1: hosted by me Ryan Sir Hint and it's produced by
Speaker 1: Mike Coscarelli and Joe Loresca and executive produced by Christina
Speaker 1: Everett