Kind: captions
Language: en
[Music]
people hop because they don't stick to
it they don't
go through the pain they don't go
through the fear
and then they end up in a cycle that
goes over and over and over again right
and the ones that are successful and i
don't just again mean financial but the
successful and fulfilled they fight
through the pain they
stay later they work through it they
sacrifice and then they feel proud
because it works it will work when you
do the right thing and you struggle and
you don't give up
hey everybody welcome to another episode
of impact theory today i am joined by
uber entrepreneur wildly successful
and the star of undercover billionaire i
am with glenn stearns glenn thank you so
much for joining me today hey nice beer
tom dude i'm really excited to talk to
you what you've accomplished is really
impressive it would be really impressive
if you'd come from
a wonderful upbringing wealthy family
but i know that things were a bit of a
struggle in the beginning
i'd love for you to walk people through
that but in the context of answering
this question is the american dream
alive or is it dead
absolutely alive i look at
my life and i look at a lot of people
that i know because i'm very interested
in helping
children of adversity and so
there is still a clear pathway to be
able to make it you know i grew up in a
household that had struggled with
addiction and alcoholism and
my
my uh
father
worked the graveyard shift my mom
cleaned homes and it was a checker at a
grocery store you know so uh
um
i didn't know
any different right didn't know that
there was just you know i knew there was
a great big world out there but you know
we grew up struggling and what town was
this this was in silver spring maryland
so it was kind of the outskirts of dc
and and we had bars on the windows and
you know brick
apartment buildings and um it was
just a lifestyle that i again like i
said i didn't know any different i i
failed fourth grade uh by the time i
made it to eighth grade i had a child
yeah so
that was
again a normal for me
and then uh once i got probably about
that age about
14 15 i started realizing
you know there was more to life i was in
a lot of um
pain i guess you could call it over
emotional pain yeah
just
having a child and that was a weird
adjustment
and
so i was falling in my father's
footsteps i had an intervention in my
own high school with my
teachers and my mom playing with drugs
and alcohol drinking and crazy yeah what
age did you start drinking
14 whoa yeah
and so you know i'm just doing what my
dad did i'm doing what my uncle my aunt
my grandfather you know everybody else
did right and then
um
ended up
deciding to go to college no one in my
family had ever gone
and i went not because i'm this
brilliant high achiever it was because
my girlfriend was going you know
and
and i found that to be the case a lot of
times where
you know it's not how you start it's how
you finish and so
by being
in a place that
you know gave me opportunity
being in college
was this wonderful first step of getting
out of my neighborhood and out of my old
life you know and
and i'd love to say again that i just
quickly
adapted but i was still the party kid
you know and
and um but anyway then it just quickly
one day right after college ended i
i remember being in a bar in the middle
of the night laughing hysterically at
something very juvenile and
in the middle of that laugh i remember
thinking
i laughed at the same dumb stuff last
night and the night before and it just
was boring what age are you at this
point i'm probably uh
22.
just out of college or still in just the
week yeah right after graduating yeah
just what am i going to do i guess i
keep partying and having fun you know
what did you study
uh economics okay yeah in business
and uh yeah and then i just that day
that night
and i've said this but it's in the
middle of my deepest fog i had my
clearest you know kind of
aha moment of i don't want to do this
anymore you know i just want to why do
you say deepest fog i was in the middle
of the bar at late at night you know so
literally literally literally yeah
and that next morning i said to my
roommate i said hey why don't we
drive across country let's go to
california
he said all right let's go you know and
so we got in the car and drove and
before we get to the bench and the sort
of you know how do i get this part of
the story define for me what the
american dream is
um you know i think it's really about
having
the ability to
realize that you can do almost anything
right that you're not constrained by a
government or a religion or anything
that keeps you in a place that can find
you you know and so i i mean happiness
to me is not about money right it's
about the satisfaction that you are
doing something larger with your life
and feeling very confident in the fact
that you are
leaving a mark in the world you know and
we've gone all over the world and i've
seen very very happy people
um
and
yet they don't have a lot you know so i
don't think it's defined by by money
yeah i think it'll be important in this
to really for people to understand your
story to tease out two concepts so one
you've got sort of happiness fulfillment
you've got the sort of eye opening
moment that you have with your health
battles which of course we will get into
but then you've also got what you just
defined which i am personally um
intoxicated by this idea of you can
build whatever life you want it can be
bigger than your circumstances where you
came up and i think part of why because
i i
think that right now the prevailing idea
is that the american dream is dead or
it's non-functioning or something right
and so defining it i think becomes very
important i think your definition is
fantastic
why though isn't the truth that
it worked for you only because you came
up before it broke
yeah well i also believe that old adage
whether you think you can or you think
you can't you're right you know and you
know i think there's been a lot of
uh
hype or or there's been kind of this
sway in in our
culture that
leads to
people feeling
that they are a victim and i don't
really fall for that um yeah okay i'm a
white male
you know and so you go okay you don't
have it well i didn't grow up with a
silver spoon you know again i had a
wooden spoon upside my head maybe but
that's about it
and so
i don't think that
um
and yes it is harder for minorities and
yes it is harder for a lot of different
groups but
if you decide you want to make something
i think in this country there is a
pathway to do that you can look at
anybody from barack obama you know to
our vice president today right that if
you are a female or if you're an
african-american or whatever that it may
be hard i'm i'm not
putting that out but there is a path if
you really surround yourself with the
right people and don't
you know keep in your head that you're
you can't do it if you think you can i
believe you can so
let's drill into that so obviously an
undercover billionaire you do something
that's very very impressive and not just
for the cameras but you're stripped down
to a hundred dollars you're dropped off
in a town where you know nobody you
don't have your phone you don't have
your contacts and you're given 90 days
which let me tell you as somebody that's
built multiple companies that's absurd i
have literally
no desire to have to try to pull this
off in 90 days with cameras on me um
what is that path so
when i think about
i'm most interested in the people that
have the deck stacked against them the
hardest and i want them to understand
right that there is a path out of that
so i was giving a talk at google one
time there's an african-american guy in
the front and he asked me do you think
it's harder for me and i said it seems
self-evident to me that it's harder for
you but now what
and getting focused on that idea that
you're talking about
that first it's what i call the only
belief that matters so if you think you
can you can because your behaviors are
going to follow that belief but if you
think you can't you can't because your
behaviors will follow that belief right
but now let's assume that they're able
to believe
how what is the path and is there a path
is there a gazillion paths like what
does that mean well when i look at my
career and i started i didn't understand
where i'd end i didn't you know i didn't
know i didn't have a lot of mentors i
didn't have this idea that i want to
achieve this certain goal i and as i
grew and i found people that
could mentor me and be a part of my
success i began to really
formulate a plan that says i want to how
did you get your mentors i
grew you know again i came out to
california where
i just started looking around and seeing
names of people on buildings and all
this and i started seeing them in the
paper and i would literally go hey you
want to go to lunch you know out of the
blue out of the blue i'd go to charity
events and try to meet them
and just want to just say hey i just
want to ask you some questions a lot of
them were in their 70s
and the interesting thing that i have
found because i've become uh the
membership chairman for so many
charities now because i've kind of was
in this middle ground i wasn't the old
guy and i wasn't the new guy i wasn't my
20s or 30s when i was in my 40s i was
membership chair for every charity you
could ever imagine but it was bridging
the gap right and what i found that
these older successful people they want
to give back they want to tell their
story but a lot of people when they're
young they think oh they don't want to
talk to me they're too big they're too
important they're
too busy right and it could be farther
than the truth if you just ask you never
know and i'd love to just pick your
brain just love to know your story how
you got there and what happens they say
absolutely
did that seem self-evident to you like i
just need to talk to because i know so
you're on in fact now is probably the
time to tell the bench story
you see the big beautiful house i think
that'll help people understand that step
well yeah i don't know if
yeah i think over time
asking became much easier right and an
example is when i first
drove out to california i literally
found myself on a bench over the pacific
ocean in corona del mar beautiful homes
beautiful cars people everything you
could ever imagine and i thought
i want this life you know like you know
i again grew up pretty hard and i'm
thinking
wow like how do you get this and there's
a man in the yard and he's
trimming his rose bushes and i went up
to him i just said what did it take
to get this house you know i said i'd
love
to have something like this i think i
can do it what is it what did you do
that's when he politely told me he was
the gardener and he was not the owner
but he said i thought the man he said i
think the man's in real estate so i want
to get into real estate right i have no
clue but i just thought if if real
estate can get you here i want to get
into real estate and but the point to
that story more is just asking right
just going up to people and saying what
do you do how did you get this and then
is that something i'd be interested in
you know and i've asked a million
questions by the way and i've had people
turn me down on answers or have people
give me answers that i wasn't interested
in or whatever right but but it's just
you slowly start to build your own idea
of what you want you know and
and um
you know and i've i found what i found
interesting a lot of times is i also i
was young and i'd say i'm gonna be the
hard charger that's i saw it in wall
street that's what they did and i'm like
i'm not real good at being a dick you
know
so okay i'm going to be the soft you
know and what you got to do is be good
at being you right you don't have to be
somebody else and your transparency or
your authenticity should i say
it it
it will reveal itself and then people
will come into you if you are who you
really are right if you're a good person
you have morals you have integrity all
those things that we really need if you
believe in karma and you believe the
fact that good things happen to good
people then
you will
if you are again if you're out there and
open i think you'll attract people and
when you attract the right people right
then you know you can go faster you can
do the things that you're really
interested in doing all right so step
one is believing that you can do it
right so you thought i might as well ask
because i think i can actually pull this
off i don't know what this is quite
frankly but i think i can do it and i
just need somebody to say something show
you that step one because we're talking
to people that maybe
haven't gone to step one right you have
to believe i if i just convince myself
that if i keep thinking this way it will
happen because by the way the first few
times you might get thrown back on your
butt and go okay
it didn't work for me no you have to get
you have to be you have to keep doing it
right it's not always going to be okay i
have confidence in myself i had a
a lifetime of not having a whole lot of
confidence yeah i wanted to ask you that
so did did you because you're dyslexic
right so i imagined that that wasn't
easy to establish a mental vision of
yourself that was positive so
did you ever worry that you weren't
smart enough to pull this off
all the time
okay and what what happened was whether
it was being young
and you know again just take failing
fourth grade i can look at two things
worst thing that ever happened to me
it's embarrassing i'm at the age where
everybody knows i'm a dummy or wow i got
whole new friends you know i've got this
whole new set of friends which ended up
happening to me which
in two weeks i'm gonna have 45 of them
come out to my ranch this is from eighth
grade so i'm still friends with these
people right i have a child in 14 worst
thing in the world right oh my god my
life is over or
wow i've got a beautiful young
child you know and it's about how you
think did you know to think of it like i
didn't think of it like that
in the beginning that's my point when
did that change it just as life went on
i realized what i thought was horrible
became wonderful
and why do i spend energy on things i
cannot control
i had to fail fourth grade why am i
going to be upset about it
again i think about this after the fact
and realize don't spend energy on things
you can't control so as my life got as i
moved along i started
wasting less energy on things like that
and then realizing find the silver
lining what good came out of this
issue you know and i've had a lot of
them right so okay so i can't change the
things that
i could probably cry over so what what
lesson did i learn you know and then and
now my life in the last 15 years 20
years
has been really
focused on all the
the learnings you know and not the
woe is me stuff because we all got those
yeah that that's a pretty radical
transformation so i i really want to
make sure that people don't look at you
as the after picture and think this is
the before so obviously we've talked
about the hardships dyslexia is an
ongoing thing so how do you
how do you think about your weaknesses
and address because speaking for myself
so my big fear was that i wasn't smart
enough to be successful like that was at
some point in my life almost crippling
right and
so i really had for me i had to learn
about the brain i had to learn about
brain plasticity and that that gave me
the get out of jail free card of not
needing to tell myself that i was too
dumb anymore because it was like well
maybe you are too dumb right now and
that's fine because you can get better
did you
do you have a strategy for dealing with
something like dyslexia
i
i think
you look at the whole
scarcity and abundance kind of concept
right
and
i
found that when i
would
instead of
focusing again on
the fact that maybe i'm not the best
reader maybe i don't retain a lot very
you know
a lot of things well
instead of that
the fact that if i find smart people and
it's very cliche but it's very true and
i surround myself with them
that i end up looking smarter
right because and and you watch some
people and i would it can give you so
many examples of people
but i won't okay that that are in fear
that if i surround myself with someone
smarter than me it'll make me look dumb
right and and so they surround
themselves with people inferior and then
your whole
company or division or whatever you're
in
fails right versus people that have
enough confidence to say wow you can
fill in the
you know the blind spot i don't
have or my weakness and you fill it all
in and your whole company rises or
whatever you're doing your whole project
rises because all of you
combined to make this uber
you know quick fast smart
um
project go right and so
that became pretty evident to me because
i didn't have a lot of the skills that
why don't i let those people do it you
know why don't i bring in more people
and the more talent i brought in the
quicker we went you know and the less
time we wasted and i went all right i
think i'm onto something here you know
and then to admit it hey i'm not the
smartest guy in the room you know i'm
the chairman of my company i hate
running the meetings i don't i don't
like being the one that has to tell
people what to do i'm not good at that i
have i like the the vision right i like
i got an idea let's march up this hill
that's fun to me but the details let's
let people that like to do that better
than i do do it it's interesting i would
put you into a certain um category of
entrepreneur if i didn't know what you
did on undercover billionaire because
there are people that have like a really
extraordinary ability to galvanize a
team to gather talent to surround
themselves and then it's basically like
all right hey i'm the one that sort of
raised the money and put everybody
together and now you guys go and
actually build this thing
but
you have that
very striking ability but then you also
have the ability to
create a vision
to march forward to put very strategic
steps into place take us back to the
beginning of undercover billionaire
you're sleeping in your truck
you're not even sure what business to do
how did you begin to cobble those
ideas together so that you can actually
get something done so let me take you
back a step on that too for a second if
you don't mind so here i am doing my
business for a long time and become
um
fairly large
and successful and all the things i
thought were wonderful and then
i get hit with cancer
and at that point
my focus became a completely different
focus what's the most important thing
right and that's my family
so i said i'm going to sell my business
and i
sold it to a very large private equity
group and
i
focused on the family and by doing that
i was
then able to realize that when i got
back into business
the the problems weren't
very large in business no matter what
compared to cancer compared to
your life right so now it's just problem
solving right so let's get in the room
let's figure it out and then if you look
at it because i remembered 2007-8 which
was the worst financial crisis in our
lifetimes and i was dead center of it
and when i got cancer because i used to
say i never in my life want to go back
to that and when i got the cancer i went
what i would do to go back to that
because that was fun i just didn't i
wouldn't have called it fun back then
very painful we're going to lose
everything but it was all about getting
in people's faces let's figure this out
together going to new york and all the
wall street guys and all the every
lawyer and everybody that was out there
but it was
living right it was it was doing things
so when then you take that and you and
you realize
we're not dying it's just problem
solving now all of a sudden the fear i
guess that business had on me for a
while while i lose everything you know
you know and and i don't know if you've
ever had it you know you build something
and you're feeling great one day and the
next day you know these lawyers are
gonna come and you know and and there's
always what can
us what can bring us down
well once that went away and i started
realizing that's just part of the game
then the fear of that went away so now i
can go out and create and do things so
when it came to undercover billionaire
and i went out what had happened was
people kept asking if i wanted to do a
show my wife and i did a show 15 years
ago and by luck someone called if we
wanted to do it we did it it's called
the real gilligan's island
um i ended up winning it she came in
second place
long story but for years after that
people kept calling hey we want you to
do another show do you want to do a show
and i said look i'm a business guy you
know
i did that for fun but it's okay i'll
tell you a show i would do
strip me from everything take away my
name my money my contacts i bet i could
rebuild it again because i was getting
tired of hearing
that
you know that the
american dream was dead and whatnot
and i also wanted to do it because i
wanted my children to see
that you
life is not easy
that when you do get into a hole it's
not about
laying there and
feeling like the victim it's about
getting up and
pulling yourself up out of the hole and
figuring it out and so i wanted
that and i would say if you want to do a
show with me
strip me of everything and throw me in
the middle of nowhere and i would do
that over and over again to these
production houses that would call me and
then discovery called back and said if
you really want to do that show you put
your money or your mouth is i said sure
and they and they've put some little
constraints around well how about 90
days i'm going well it's kind of tight
you know i said well how about if we
start with like five thousand dollars is
it how about a hundred dollars
and it kept getting tighter and i said
okay let's see what happens you know and
um so off i went i did it i didn't think
much right which is the story of my life
right i didn't plan i just thought i'll
just show up and see what happens and um
and i like that you know i like having
my back against the wall and i like that
feeling and
we all i think we all do well at
being um
successful right we walk around we give
our money to charity and you know we we
do things that make us feel like we're
good who are we when everything is taken
away from us and in 2007 and eight when
everything was taken away in that moment
i was in the darkest hole
you know and looking around and thinking
the whole community and in history is
looking at me who am i now i kind of
like that feeling
why
because that's the real you
that's interesting it's it's when when
you are
not
built up on
the fakeness of
money and people kissing your ass and
all those things who are you as just a
human being
and so
that moment when i was at my darkest in
2007 and eight
literally
it's a longer story than we have right
now but i
stood up and said let's let's go and
literally went in front of everybody's
face and never hid and said how are we
going to get ourselves out of this what
do you mean it's your problem glenn i go
no
you say oh you're 30 million bear
stearns i said how are we going to get
out of this
because i don't believe i owe it to you
you know and and we would go over
battles over the loans let's say i gave
them stated income loans they said it's
my problem because they failed
how am i supposed to
check the income when you told me it was
a state you know so we would battle over
the stuff and little things like that
would happen and and instead of
digging my head in the sand it'll go
away
let's just fight it out right now and so
we did that on everything and it worked
and so when it came to
now we move forward and it's undercover
billionaire
i said i want to be stripped of
everything
and i want to be in a hole again and i
want to show my children what it's like
to climb out and i will tell you in the
middle of that hole
i didn't realize that there'd be
millions of eyeballs on me like i didn't
think that part out and i can see myself
when i've watched the show staring off
and i'm realizing at that time i know
exactly what i was thinking like
maybe i can throw the show because it'll
never be on
because i am going to fail
and the whole world is going to watch me
fail which means what i did in the past
was luck it was all the things you fear
in life of going you know am i really
that good or it wasn't luck right and so
it was a moment where i said i want to
run i want to hide i don't want
to face these demons and these things
because i'm gonna look bad
and um
and again that was the moment when i go
this is the time to stand tall right and
so digging out and it worked really well
and everything turned out to where i'm
very proud of the show
it became probably one of my proudest
moments of my life because
the fear and having that devil on your
you know give up give up just
you can throw this you can you know they
they won't ever have to make the show
all those kind of things we all face
that in our lives it's just not with
millions of people watching right it's
just we i don't this job wasn't what i
thought it would be maybe but the job
over across the street's better the
career over there is better and people
hop because they don't stick to it they
don't
go through the pain they don't go
through the fear
and then they end up in a cycle that
goes over and over and over again right
and the ones that are successful
and i don't just again mean financial
but the successful and fulfilled they
fight through the pain they they stay
later they work through it they
sacrifice and then they feel proud
because it works it will work when you
do the right thing and you
struggle and you don't give up right and
so
it all became very uh
meaningful because it my children then
got to see this and that's all i cared
about and then when it got bigger than
that and then the whole world i've had
thousands of people say wow so inspiring
thank you it got me to think about what
i need to do i didn't even
dream that that would happen you know
and i'm so thankful to hear other people
who have been touched by
by that
that's so incredible to
it's so easy to look at somebody else
and think well
they could do it but i wouldn't be able
to do it because they don't have the
kind of fears or the self-doubt or the
limitations that i have right and that's
part of what makes your story
so incredible is a you're honest about
like i was actually thinking about
taking a dive and just like making sure
that the show never came out right
and then you don't and i want to know
is grit something that comes naturally
to you or have you developed tenacity
over time
i would say that
it has
developed over time
and i didn't understand it in the
beginning you know i didn't know
what would was happening to me right
again i all of the hard things that
happened in my life i'm very grateful
for because it did
lead me to a place where now it doesn't
seem to be that hard and so i happen to
have a podcast called grid happens right
and it's very but it's about that grit
and it's about the determination not
giving up feeling
um that you're not alone and what you
touch on
i i love that's the best part of why i
like to tell my story i don't like to
lead with
success i like to lead with
vulnerability right i like people to go
god that guy can do it i got a 2.1 in
college
i did a little better than he did right
or whatever right or i didn't go to
college okay you know i
barely went to college you know i mean
you know i learned about paying the
bills through college i didn't really
learn you know much in terms of
you know economical statistics or
whatever you know
how do you your
you've got the mental fortitude that
you're building up over time you're
learning really powerful lessons at a
time this is mostly i'm sure
pre-internet
so you're cobbling all of this stuff
together yourself
how then do you begin to get what
is on display in undercover billionaire
where you're pivoting where you're
asking things like who's my buyer
instead of just what business do i find
interesting like when do you begin to
learn these business lessons yeah
there's been a lot of hardship in
my career as well as successes right and
and
so when i look back on everything that
happened to me i always
thought this was the end and then there
was aha right and then something would
just take me to another level you know
and i mean like a million things i would
sit in the meeting with the government
with all of these contractors and i
would be one of the contractors and
they'd be complaining
we can't do this anymore because they
would all be yelling about some little
you know issue
and i'll give you an example real quick
they would they would notarize deeds
they said we cannot notarize the
government's deeds anymore unless the
government comes and signs in front of
us and this is illegal
and they would just you know and they're
all complaining and i
see i agree with i thought so when the
meeting ended i got up and said why
don't i bring my
notary in every day at lunch to just
sign the deeds so we end up signing tens
of thousands of deeds a year
making all the money and i paid her you
know an extra
you know
whatever to come in on our lunch time
right and
our company thrived off of that it was
just they're just little things that
other people see as problems and you can
go but it's
pretty
clear that there's a opportunity right
here that's one of the more interesting
things to me about your mentality so
it's like with investing they say you
know when there's blood in the streets
that's when you buy
um and when other people are
you know just like trying to gobble
things up that's when you sell
at a time where everybody else was
closing down you were opening up how do
you find the opportunity i've always ran
into the fire you know literally when i
was a kid
i remember uh
my
sister
ran into the laundry room in our because
they would like five times they caught
the laundry room on fire whoa
and one time
my sister had run in there she was like
three
and i was out there and everyone was
like the fire was coming out of the
building right and no one was doing
anything about it and i ran in there and
crawled on the floor and found her and
dragged her out whoa and it would be
like why didn't anybody else do that
like i did i remember always
for some weird reason running against
the crowd i don't know why right but it
would just go the opposite way
i can
you know my dog ate the little
you know electric cord and it was
flopping around and everyone ran they
were afraid and i i ran over there and i
pulled it out of the wall right like i'm
going why doesn't anyone else they
always run away and i i don't know why
but then i began to like the fact
that when
people
ran away i'd run the other way and so
then business that would happen and
became very clear to me when everyone
dove out the window
i thought look at all of this
opportunity look at all this talent
nobody's gobbling up this talent i could
never get these people in normal world
and so i opened
five offices of failed companies
november 07 opened five more with each
with like 20 to 50 people in each office
and i did that the next year and then we
shot to the moon you know because
everyone else
had
sat on the sidelines for two years and i
gobbled up all the talent
yeah that to me so it's very interesting
that that started out very early for you
um that definitely did not start early
for me but you do begin to realize okay
in in disruption there is opportunity
and one of the things that given the way
you talk on undercover billionaire i'm
guessing that this is true for you as
well so what ray dalio calls principles
that you do something in life and you
realize okay that worked that didn't
work and so you begin to formulate these
things the next time i encounter this i
will act in this way right and one of
the like hard and fast beliefs that i
have is in disruption there is
opportunity so you want to look for that
moment where everybody else is
either annoyed that a change is coming
along so think of social media so one of
the the key elements to my success was
recognizing social media was a business
tool when everybody else just thought it
was a
you know distraction right and so when
people get annoyed or pissed off about
something it's like that's the very
thing i want to go look at because
there's something that's causing a
disruption in their life which is why
they don't like it let me tie this to
the horatio alger award
that a you're a recipient of but you're
also part of that committee that looks
for people that have overcome
extraordinarily difficult situations
people that can see an opportunity and
difficulty to me that's like the thing
right like i said earlier the only
belief that matters is that you can pull
it off so
somebody that's in that gnarly gnarly
gnarly situation how
what is it that allows some people to
see the opportunity
and stops other people from seeing it
because i know that in you guys have had
i don't know if you call them students
recipients whatever that
they did well but their brothers and
sisters imploded
right and we have studied that tried to
figure out why why
in the same family
you'll have three brothers and sisters
that are in jail or die of drugs and one
that just uses education as their way
out right and they say i don't want to
be anything like this family what is the
difference they've gone through the same
hardship they've been and endured so
much adversity why do they stand out and
i don't know if we've ever found this
answer yet you know but what i do know
is
that person
that young person that has said i'm
going to
take tools and better myself to get
myself out of this situation
i want to invest in that person
and so that's where i put my energy
personally
and the horatio alger association
does that right we get 40 000
applicants a year
to
help and these are all people who have
gone through a lot of severe adversity
and we help maybe thirty five to four
thousand thirty five hundred four
thousand
students a year
by giving them scholarships to college
and then we have a um when we go through
our
award ceremony we have about 110 or so
scholars that are national scholars that
we bring in and we we meet we mentor we
spend three or four days with them every
year in washington dc
and then my wife and i have gone and
done other events with them
outside of the association
but i'm fascinated with that person i
feel like i've
led a
similar life but i did it by accident
right like i didn't say education was my
way out
i fell in the education
barely graduated but i learned lessons
along the way right i learned how to get
a pell grant how to you know these kind
of things these kids are determined
these kids are focused on knowing that
you know if i
you know can get myself
a good education i will be able to get a
great job and i'll be able to live a
different life and so
i
absolutely
am fascinated by those people and
they'll be tomorrow's leaders because
they also you got to think right when
i've had
many friends but one especially that i
can tell you he never touched adversity
his family you know had really
helped
make sure he had a very easy life and at
the age of 40
leading his business it had a very big
turn and he couldn't get out of bed for
two weeks right
and thought the world was over
and yet
once he got through all that he really
got some thicker skin and he learned
that's
you know he had lived a pretty
extraordinary life never to face any
real adversity here are these kids that
face so much adversity early on that
when they hit a business issue or
something it's gonna be like yeah this
is this is nothing did you ever ask him
what he was most concerned about like
when the world is ending quote unquote
like what that really means yeah in this
case
he ran his family's business and he
thought he'd let his whole family down
because the family business
got attacked with a lot of lawsuits
because of a situation and he thought it
was over you know and
and i took him to an event
uh where we had a young girl who had
frederick's ataxia to attack the nervous
system and we were doing
a fundraiser and i put my arm around him
i said
that girl she's got real problems like
you got a few lawsuits like what do you
think he says
don't have a big deal do i go yeah i
think you're gonna get by you'll be okay
yeah no joke and he
you know crushed it in his business you
know he got nervous he opened another
business worrying about that now he's
got two great businesses you know i mean
yeah you just he led to some wonderful
things for him but so when you're
you have time with these horatio alger
um scholars what are like a few key
ideas that you try to impart on them
well what i what i i do is i
again i lead with my vulnerability i
explain situations that happened to me
when i was young
that um
i think they can relate to
my dad falling asleep
drunk at the wheel and i'm driving and
wrecking the truck right you know things
like that right and so i'm driving the
truck while he's asleep i wrecked it but
um
and uh but you know like things and they
go i i can relate to that you know i
remember talking to the girl i said you
got something in your eyes she goes no
my
my mom's boyfriend stuck a hypodermic
needle in my eye you know and you're
like i shouldn't ask that question you
know and
and uh you hear these these things but
so i will lead with
you know having a child at 14 failing
fourth grade things like this and then i
think they break down a little and go
well he's kind of like me and then they
go maybe i can
keep going you know and they
they already know they're on the right
path by the way you know they they're
they've got
you know scholarships to amazing
colleges and now they're here you know
justice clarence thomas
is there to greet them at the supreme
court you know he's a member of horatio
alger
and
there's a lot of very
successful horatio alger i mean ronald
reagan to
condoleezza rice to colin powell you
name it you know
um
have been members
of the association and uh or our members
and so they're
pinching themselves you know and so yeah
we get together and just try to
get them to realize they are
extraordinary people you know
and and because that's what the world is
again is we
find
people that don't want to give up when
it gets hard it'll get hard for
everybody you know yeah that to me is
one of the most interesting things in
terms of what's the idea that you want
to get across with somebody is
if you don't give up you've got a chance
to figure it out right i tell my
business students it's not about how
often you're wrong it's about the
duration
that you're wrong because if you make a
lot of little mistakes but you quickly
adjust and get on the right track then
fair enough but if you
stay wrong out of willful willful
ignorance because you don't want to look
stupid or whatever so you tell people
not to bring it up and
uh then you're going to go out of
business
and so yeah one of the key things for me
for entrepreneurs anyway i'll say this
benefits everybody but don't value
yourself for being right
value yourself for identifying the right
answer faster than anybody else
and certainly an undercover billionaire
that was something you were really good
at how do you think about that pivot
like how do you not let emotions get in
the way how do you like because at one
point you guys were going to be
a micro brewery and then you end up
being a barbecue joint and like how i
mean with so much writing on it so
little time
how do you
go up i was wrong and then just
immediately focus on something else well
it's funny because i was nervous about
how that could look to people because i
don't want the answer to be when it gets
hard you give up right because that is
not the right answer
but in my case what the people around me
didn't realize is i had 90 days
i couldn't get it you can't even tell
them that no
interesting no one knew why i was
driving and pushing so hard right and so
but i knew i just could not do that so
if there is an if you're in a dead end
and there is no way then you know and
you need to pivot what i learned through
that is i thought i still love the idea
of beer but why don't i take the best
beers because this is there they had the
um
local breweries all
that's the hub was eerie there were so
many of them i thought why don't i just
go out i can highlight all the local
breweries and it seems like barbecue is
the answer because i've seen people
lined up down the road at this one
barbecue house so if they like barbecue
and erie let's make a barbecue rust and
then there's a 50 000 person barbecue
event coming up in the month so let's
get into that event if we can let's open
up a restaurant and let's take the beers
from everywhere and bring them all into
one location and then the light bulb
came on and
let's run up that hill everybody wow
that's incredible yeah
in that the 90 days to get your business
off there is this idea of being
unreasonable
i don't know if you've heard the quote i
love this quote so much i'm going to
paraphrase because i can't remember the
exact quote but basically the reasonable
man conforms to the world the
unreasonable man forces the world to
conform to him therefore all progress
depends on the unreasonable man
and that
strikes me as you you seem like the
person that's able to make those
unreasonable demands but in a way that
where you've got your team excited they
believe in what they're doing
how do you pull that off and how do you
think about being unreasonable so i uh
i learned a few things from a good
friend of mine
that um richard branson who happens to
been in the news lately
and i might have heard of him yes
and a couple things i'll just give you
two real quick stories one is we're
having dinner at my house
and uh it got to be really late and
he said all right looks like it's time
to go we had a
bunch of wine and
he's ready to go and so we walked out to
the car and
the driver gets out very nervously and
says
sir i must have left the lights on
because i just tried to start the car
and the battery's dead
and so as i see
richard who is mr cool under all normal
circumstances when nobody's watching and
he has a little buzz now let's see what
mr cool does so i'm like you know in the
matrix i'm like
going around him is he gonna is this you
know cheek moving is he gonna to a big
size he gonna rip this poor kid a new
one what's he do
and richard immediately gets the news
you're screwed your car doesn't go
anywhere and he turns to me he goes
looks like we need another bottle of
wine
right and i'm like wow like that's the
way you
handle people right that poor kid
already feels bad enough right
and um
and then
another thing that um i learned is he
and i bought an island together is
called um
mosquito island and i had one point and
he had the other point and
i went there to look at how he was
building his house
and he said i'm gonna be in there
by christmas
and he must have a hundred workers in
there and i went there we couldn't get
in the piles of boxes and trash and
everything and it was just a zoo
and i began to doubt his ability as an
entrepreneur and everything i thought
he's insane there's no because down the
road
not the road but another island over oil
nut bay they were pristine not a nail on
the floor as they built they were proud
of their here he had boxes and you know
i mean and people and i thought this is
insane what he's doing and
you know it just
didn't understand it well
five months later
christmas he was in his house wow and
three months after that
all the other little details were done
and his house is beautiful right and
what i learned is that those homes
take four or five years to build on an
island because you island all the
political stuff that goes on and
getting things on and off islands
and
he understood that you make an
unreasonable demand and you press people
and you hold people that he will get
things done and you know what even if it
got done i bet you by spring he would
have been a lot happier than three or
four more years right
and he's lived on that island he's lived
on necker forever and he understands the
pace he understands things that i didn't
know until later but what it got me to
realize is that when you two things that
i realize one that's even more valuable
than
placing
unreasonable demands and pushing people
is telling people you believe in them
there are so many people out there that
don't realize their own ability
and to say i know you can do this
and when you first give them that power
that they will that you believe in them
the power of confidence for them
they they will
do so much more than they ever dreamed
they could do when you do when you plant
that seed people will
shine and they will they will prove to
themselves wow he was right he believed
in me and i'm going to do my best you
know and so those are i think that's the
the um
important part is making sure you
allow people to understand your belief
in them you know and then
you can move mountains that you never
thought were possible i love that
glenn where can people follow along with
you join you as you build more
incredible things uh you know everything
is pretty much glenn stearns at glenn
stearns g-l-e-n-n-s-t-e-a-r-n-s-o
instagram
facebook whatever the other ones are out
there you know we uh
we're all glenn glinster so i love it
man
guys trust me when i say that this is
somebody that you're going to want to
follow learn from it is absolutely
extraordinary what he's built multiple
times in front of cameras even so
there is so much to be learned with the
attitude that you can do it it really is
pretty extraordinary and his example
proves that if you're able to get people
around you and not worry about being
wrong there really is no limit to what
you can achieve and speaking of things
you can achieve if you haven't already
be sure to subscribe because we will
help you move forward and until next
time my friends be legendary take care