Daymond John: Why Grit, Persistence, and Hard Work Matter

Daymond John is the CEO and founder of the iconic lifestyle brand, FUBU, which he started by selling handmade hats on the street and went on to have more than $6 billion in sales. You’ve seen him as the “snake in the grass” star on ABC’s Shark Tank, which is currently in its tenth season of filming. He released his first NY Times best selling book, Power of Broke, in 2016, and is just about to drop his second, Rise and Grind.

This is Daymond’s second time bringing his buttery soft hands and understated wisdom on the show and somehow we had even more fun than last time. Between jokes and anecdotes, Daymond drops some serious wisdom on how to keep your goals, habits, and pursuit of your dream life simple and effective.

In today’s episode:

• While writing Rise and Grind, Daymond found some killer recurring themes for living your most productive and best life. Most of them you’ve heard on the show before- meditation, importance of sleep, exercise- but he drops some new shared habits and techniques on prioritization and goal setting.
• Entrepreneurship is simple. It’s just figuring out each roadblock, each problem, one at a time and not getting comfortable with it.
• If you can’t answer why you want the success that you claim to, you probably won’t have the fortitude to keep going when the going gets tough. There’s power in defining exactly why you want the things you do, and revisiting your goals regularly to make sure you still want them.

Enjoy!

Discipline creates freedom

FOLLOW DAYMOND:
facebook | instagram | twitter | website

Listen to the Podcast

Watch the Episode

Subscribe
 

Some Questions I Ask:

• Take me back to your first entrepreneurial moment. How did it start for you? [4:48]
• Wasn’t there a side gig doing auto body or something? [6:33]
• How did you get from your many entrepreneurial experiments to what you really want to do? [9:16]
• Let’s talk about fear. [13:00]
• How did you overcome your dyslexia and are you an entrepreneur because of it? [16:15]
• How did you figure out your daughter was dyslexic and what did you do? [21:00]
• It sounds like schooling did not go well for you, is that fair to say? [22:48]
• How does the world that you grew up in differ from the world that you see today with respect to education and opportunity? [23:20]
• Why did you assemble all the great minds found in your book? [24:42]
• What is your morning routine? What are your answers to the questions you’ve asked in the book? [34:37]
• Anything in particular you like to do while you exercise? [38:35]
• Can you share one of your ten goals? [39:26]
• What are some patterns that you saw from Rise and Grind? [40:53]
• Do you feel like you have a life or have you made your life your work? [46:27]
• What’s with starting new habits at the new year? Why not now? [49:30]
• Besides your book, what else is a focus for you? [50:20]
• What’s hard for you right now? [54:52]
• What is something that people don’t know about you that they’d be surprised to learn? [58:53]
• Anything else you can share about Shark Tank? [1:01:20]

In This Episode, You Will Learn:

• Daymond’s new book, Rise and Grind, comes out January 23rd. Check it out! [1:00]
• The questions that Daymond asked a host of successful people, which led to his new book. [3:20]
• Daymond’s first gig was running a “gypsy van” service, stopping along bus routes and picking people up for less than the bus charged. [5:30]
• How Hollis, Queens shaped Daymond. [10:00]
• The three things that pushed Daymond to start FUBU and keep it going. [11:27]
• How to use fear to propel your efforts and your focus. [14:15]
• Daymond manages his dyslexia by doubling down on his strengths. [16:48]
• Out of the 12 sharks on Shark Tank, 8 are dyslexic! [19:20]
• Speaking of interactive learning, check out Daymond On Demand, an 8 hour series Daymond put together to help you solve your entrepreneurial problems. [24:00]
• How Daymond found out he had stage 2 cancer. [28:36]
• Check out the FUBU-Puma collaboration, to be released on January 26th. [31:05]
• “Discipline creates freedom.” [33:37]
• Daymond’s morning routine and how he uses his phone in the morning to stimulate his mind. [35:05]
• Daymond’s goal setting technique that he learned from Think and Grow Rich. [35:48]
• Why Daymond changed his exercise time from late at night to the morning. [37:04]
• A shining example of how to set a clear, quantifiable goal. [39:50]
• The story of how one of Daymond’s hairstylist friends found a way to create her dream life. [42:51]
• Entrepreneurship is simple. It’s just figuring out each roadblock, each problem, and not getting comfortable with it. [45:13]
• The importance of asking yourself why. [46:55]
• Check out these videos Daymond and CreativeLive did to help you wake up every day to rise and grind. [50:05]
• Daymond opened up a coworking space called Blueprint and Co for fellow sharks. [52:21]
• How Daymond is trying to get his message across by adding music to his speeches. [53:00]
• Party like Daymond John by getting early detection! [56:55]
• Daymond loves the outdoors. [59:00]
• How Shark Tank is business theater and the characters the sharks play. [1:00:00]
• Daymond gives a rundown on his relationship with all the fellow sharks. It’s a crack up! [1:02:00]

This podcast is brought to you by CreativeLive. CreativeLive is the world’s largest hub for online creative education in photo/video, art/design, music/audio, craft/maker, money/life and the ability to make a living in any of those disciplines. They are high quality, highly curated classes taught by the world’s top experts — Pulitzer, Oscar, Grammy Award winners, New York Times best selling authors and the best entrepreneurs of our times.