Transcript of Daymond John: Why the Best Deals Are the Ones You Walk Away From

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to what I'm gonna say is the most personal, the most guided episode of Mic Unplugged in the history of Mic Unplugged.

In the history?

In the history of Mic Unplugged. Growing up, most people wanted to be like Mike. I wanted to be like today's guest. The way he moved, the way he built, the way he made us realize that it's not how you start, it's how you finish. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming the man, the myth, the legend, Mike Mentor. The People's Shark, Mr. Daymond John.

Thank you, man. Appreciate it.

It's not uncomfortable.

It's so serious to have an intro, man.

Because that's what you mean to me.

I appreciate it. Well, you literally mean that much to me too. Don't let me start introing how great you are.

Don't start lying. We don't, we don't, we don't have time for lies. But I mean, truly, when I was 16 was when I found out. 17. All right. 47.

Okay. So I have 9 years on you. Oh, there you go. 6. Yeah.

Yeah.

9 years on you. Okay.

Yeah. I'm sitting and I see this magazine and I see you and you're not an actor, you're not an athlete, you're not an entertainer. And I realized at that moment that I could build businesses. At 16, I wanted to be an attorney and I thought that's what I was gonna be in life was an attorney.

Right.

But when I saw you, I realized, okay, it's about owning and building business. It's about creating wealth. And then I got to meet you many years later and see all the great things that you're doing. And so my first question I ask all my guests, this is, what's your because? That thing that's deeper than your why. Like, I'm sure your why is your family, your employees, but there's a reason there, your why. And I kind of think—

I don't think I've been ever asked because. What's your because? So I guess my why, like you said, will be family. But what— that's a good question. So I guess the because forces you to say, well, I'm doing this because—

Right, right.

I've never heard that before. I appreciate that. You ever really guess that?

Absolutely.

My because is because I should. Now, that because question makes you go deeper, right?

Yeah.

I should because I've been given this opportunity by God. I should because I've overcome so much. I should because other people aren't doing it the right way that I, or more people should be doing this. And what is that, right? Alertness of things, empowering other people. I should because I'm setting the terms for the way I wanna live, not because I want more money. Because the more things you own, they own you. Not because I want boats. I could buy a boat. I don't want a boat. It's irritating. I don't want 7 homes. I can Airbnb, right? I don't want a staff of 200, 500, 1,000 because somebody's gonna be treated unfairly because of their gender, their color, their creed, their lack of education, right? Because somebody else is gonna want to take their credit and they're gonna push 'em down. And these people sometimes are not gonna be able to feel like they are rewarded for what they've done personally, or they didn't get there because they didn't do the this, they're going to say it's the system. So, I mean, I think those are the things, those becauses are really powerful things. You know, I don't think I've ever been asked that before.

Thank you.

I love it, man. I love it. So you talked about you've overcome things and not to make it personal or even to talk about all those, but—

You can make it as personal as you want. I don't care.

Nah, but it's what I've always appreciated about you from afar before I really got to even know you was life is never easy, right? Even as business owners, as business leaders, we start the year off with an amazing plan, but by the 3rd week of January, that plan is usually going out the door.

100%.

And that's what life is like for you. So what are, what are a couple of the things that you've overcome? And then I'm gonna talk about the Lexus story that—

The what story?

The Lexus story.

Overcome. Well, you know, what I have overcome, I wanna make sure that I, I manage people's expectations. What I have overcome is nothing in comparison to those who may be living in the Middle East right now, those who may be living here, who, who grew up with abusive parents or not enough food on the table.

Yeah.

So what I've overcome is child's play comparison, right? But I've overcome, you know, dodging the, the literal bullets and the figurative bullets in the community of not having the internet and these things and only trying to— only seeing things like drug dealers around me and saying, well, that's That's success. Because the people in Queens, they got on the train in the morning, they went to the city to work. You didn't see them. There wasn't no social media showing them. They looked like just people in suits.

Yeah.

But they were doctors and lawyers. They were feeding their family. They went to the Ideal Toy Factory where it used to be around our house. They were blue-collar workers. You didn't see them. Right? So I dodged that concept of fast life, easy money. Yeah, I dodged the concept. Once I started making money, what is he supposed to do with it? Well, I'm supposed to buy houses, cars, do drugs, and, you know, be like some of the people we see today on the news taking advantage of that power that they had because that power is addictive. It's a drug.

Yeah.

You know, I've overcome not having an education, a formal education, being dyslexic, walking in a room and people automatically doubting me, or my perception that they already doubt me doesn't mean that they doubted me. Yeah.

Yeah.

My perception.

Oh, 'cause I'm this.

Every person could walk in the room and say, I'm this. Wealthy people walk in the room and say, well, you think I got it easy? But, you know, I think all the trials and tribulations like we most, most of us have done, you know, finding that healthy balance, knowing your why and being very honest with you about your why.

I dig it.

Cancer.

There we go. You have on the Sharkgevity shirt. One of the things that, that you've got me doing is fasting.

Look like you lost a couple pounds.

More than a couple. I have been, and I was surprised at how easy it is. But you told me, Mick, you're gonna fail.

I'm surprised at how fast you— no joking. No, like, you're supposed to go intermittent fasting, intermittent fasting, intermittent fasting. We were sitting one night, you were like this. All right, I'm done eating for— how long did you— that one night you stopped eating for how long?

40 hours. 'Cause that's what you told me to do.

I didn't tell you to do 40 hours. I said I was doing 40 hours.

That same thing. You told me to do 40 hours.

What would your mama say? Somebody jump off the bridge, you gonna jump off the bridge? What's wrong with you? You're supposed to slow into it.

Yeah, but my mama didn't tell me to jump off the bridge though. You told me 40 hours is what you did. And I said—

All right, nobody do 40 hours right away because you're gonna fail. You're gonna get mad at yourself. You may not have the endurance. Like, I mean, he's a very special individual.

visual.

I'll get to him one day, maybe today. He's a very special guy. He's built a little bit different, a little, which is great. But he just went, yeah. Basically, what did he say? You can only do 2 things.

2 things at a time.

And so every time I talk to him, if he's like, yeah, I'm fasting, he'd be like, thank you. He'll just walk off and he'd come back fast, fasted already. He's just off. But that's, that's a great quality you have.

Again, I focus on 2 things at a time. You said fast, so I did. And then you said, oh, by the way, here's some supplements you can take that'll help you do it. And then you gave me some blueprint, like just drink black coffee. I don't, I don't drink coffee, but, or I do, but, but now I do drink black coffee.

Yeah. It helps you do it.

All the little things. So that version of you.

Yeah.

The— and you go in.

I'm the absolute opposite of you. I ease into things that in— all right, time is all perspective, right? But in fasting, I, you know, it usually takes me about a year, 6 months to a year to ease into things. So fasting— We'll get to this beautiful piece behind us. Took me about 2 years because it's a bigger concept art. Uh, Sharkgevity.

Yep.

That took me many years. I'm the kind of person that, you know, it's almost like when I go shopping or not shopping, when I'm out and I see something I like, I don't buy it. I go home. If I can't stop thinking about it, maybe I'll buy it.

Okay.

And it has to go. I have to stop. I can't stop thinking about it for a while.

Wow.

You seem to be able to just turn it on.

Yeah.

Now, once that point gets that turn, it turns on, I'm on. But I'm on only because I tried to rip that thing apart or think about it 100 different times. Do I still like this? Do I really like this? What am I doing? And once I'm on, that's it. No failure. Straight. Okay.

I appreciate that. And I think for me, it's because of what you meant to me in my life that when you tell me something, I just like, yeah, let's go do that.

But you're gonna end up like in Guyana with Jim Jones. Something like that.

If you tell me.

Don't, whatever you do, don't, don't follow this advice.

No, but, but Shark longevity, man. Like it's one of the things that for the last 3 months I've really been trying to dial into. My wife won't let me do the, the, what is it? Methylene blue. Because you told her it's gonna like stain everything. So I was on board till you said that, and now I can't do it.

I don't want, I don't want a problem with the wife, man. 'Cause that's, that's, that's the real boss.

But what made you go in on your health and all the things that you've transformed, not just for you, but the fact that you're sharing it with the world?

I think that it took me a long time. So I had cancer and I always tell the story of, I started to think 2 things. start winding it down. Do I really want to fight all this stuff? I got great kids, great wife. Let me just enjoy that time with them. And if it's 5 years, 10 years, like most of us, man, stick your head in the sand. I'll try to fight it, but there's nothing I can do.

Yeah.

If everybody could do something, why do all these people have cancer? It's not this cancer, it's going to be that cancer. And then like anything, like whether I started, you remember I always tell people when you start a business and your body's your business, you gotta just do more than anything else. You do your homework before anything, as much time you can in your homework. That doesn't cost you anything but time. Time, your most valuable thing, 100%. But if it means anything to you, whatever you're gonna do, then time is it. Whether it's time to understand your faith a little better, to understand this woman or this man, understand this child, right?

Mm-hmm.

So I started to look into it a little bit more, and thank God technology was just coming around. I'm starting to look at more feeds on my, you know, social. I'm starting to see people with real resolutions. We've always heard, you know, roots and this and that can solve anything created, something can solve it. But now we didn't have this 20 years ago. I'm seeing real people that have survived cancer.

Yeah.

Real people, like, and not one, Not 2, 40, 60. These people don't know each other. They're saying the same exact thing.

Yeah.

Wait a minute, there's something here. Now add that to— I'm starting to see a bunch of other people say, this is killing you, this is killing you, this is killing you. Showing real things, how dye number 5 is killing you, showing you things that we're realizing we're being tricked. We're being— and then me being the targets, Follow the money. I get it. Yeah, I get it. I'm gonna put out something. I'm gonna try to be healthy, but I'm seeing all these people who are unhealthy are eating it, a Twinkie. Who am I to tell them what to eat?

Yeah, right.

And by the way, government, let me make sure you, you're good, right? And let me sell more Twinkies. Yeah, they wanna— if they wanna eat healthy, don't buy a goddamn Twinkie. I don't wanna use the Lord's name in vain, but when I say that, it's about— it was about people, you know, not taking care of themselves. So anyway, I started going down the path and I started to do these little things to make these all the changes in my life. And a lot of times we do these things, we take a pill and makes us feel better immediately. But I started to see a slow change and I just started feeling good about it. Now I have a partner. Let me tell you something about my wife. She's the worst person in my life and the best all at the same time. I'll tell you why she's the best. I was drinking a lot.

Mm-hmm.

My wife never— and you know, a person like me, an A-type personality, don't challenge me. Don't be like, yo, you better stop.

Oh, you just gave me permission.

I'll have a double.

Right.

She said, you don't never got to stop. You just got to look what you're doing yourself and how is that going to affect your little girl and your family? That's up to you. And I slowly stopped, right? And then I started saying, what are you doing? Because you've been talking to me about this, but what are you doing? And I started going down that path and she was open to Here's what I'm doing. Do it at your speed if you want.

You know, they always have the right answers. They always have the right answers.

They do.

They do have the right answers.

They do.

What was it?

Just are you open to it?

Yeah. Yeah. What was it when we were with Chris Voss, Evening with the Shark? You said he gave you some advice or he told you something.

I went over with Chris Voss, top negotiator, known for his FBI negotiations, hostage Very serious matters. Chris, how do I negotiate with my wife? Eamon, there's a difference between a terrorist and wife. Terrorists are actually open to a negotiation.

My wife has used that against me since you brought that up. She's like, so you know there's no negotiation, whatever I say.

My wife, when she met Chris, she was like, He's finally got somebody in his life with some sense.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So speaking of someone in your life, you wholeheartedly taught me the power of mentorship. You know, we started with Game Changer meetings and then it just evolved into, hey Damon, I need to pick your brain about this one thing. But I know that mentorship has meant a lot to you.

Yep.

Personally. When did you realize that for you to get to where you wanted to be, that you needed mentors in your life?

No, I realized that when I turned around and looked at where I was, it was because of mentors in my life, right? Okay. The saying is you will only learn by 2 things, your mentors or your mistakes. Mentors can be in a book. Mentors, of course, could be our great, you know, underappreciated commodities in this country called the teacher. You know, and I just reflect on all the times that I have learned. My first mentor and all my greatest is my mother. But I just learned that, that, that's what, you know, and mentors usually are only gonna tell you probably about 3 things. They're gonna tell you in business is gonna be not to scale too quick, right? Not to move too fast.

Mm-hmm.

Right. In your life, not to scale too quick.

Yeah.

Learn the lesson, right? First step, second, exactly. They're gonna also tell you to not to spread yourself too thin in business and in life. Don't have a million friends, you know? And then they're also gonna say in business, same in life, don't take in money too soon. Don't take in partners too soon. I don't care if you're a kid. I tell my daughters this, and one of 'em did it the right way, and one is in between about to do it the right way. I always tell kids, do not get married from your 20s to your 30s.

Hmm.

Now, some will get married younger, no problem. I understand that. But the point is what I'm trying to say, and it makes them second, it makes them at least give it a good thought on if they're going to do it.

Why?

Because up until your 20s, you're somebody's daughter, you're somebody's son. Right. You're gonna live to 100, hopefully. So for 80 years, you wanna be somebody's wife, mother, you know, aunt, grandmother.

Wow.

Just get to know you for 10 years.

Wow.

Now, that being said, if you find somebody super quality, you've come up with them, no problem. They'll wait. And if that's the type of person that they would wait regardless, then fine, get married.

Right.

You know, no problem. But I'm really trying, you know, and, and what do you wanna do then? Maybe travel the world.

Yeah.

Right? I don't care if you want to go and be a party animal, go save the swimming pigs in the Bahamas. But until you really know yourself, you're very comfortable with yourself. Now, if you're the kind of person who doesn't want to be around a lot of other people, I get it. But you want that freedom to discover yourself because there's too many marriages that down the road somebody says, well, I was in a career like this because my parents told me to become a doctor. I hate being a doctor, but I would just rate, you know, you want to be a lawyer? We were growing up, you need to be a lawyer or a doctor. I'm not sure if you would've been happy as a lawyer. Maybe, maybe not.

Yeah.

And so when I say that, I don't even know how I got to that. Oh, it was about mentors taking in a partner or taking in people and committing to something so much that you don't get to know yourself.

Yeah. I want to unpack something you just said though. So People scale too fast, or they think they wanna scale quicker than they actually need to. So slow down. Talk to the, the business owner, the business leader, even the individual in their life about what you mean by don't scale too fast. Okay.

So if I'm talking to a person, don't scale too fast. Well, if you have an opportunity to travel, you know, don't scale your, don't, don't change your life so fast.

Okay.

Slowly change it, right? You know, 20% of this exciting thing you wanna do with this person, this place you wanna go, make it 20% and then it slowly moves 30, 40, right? You know, don't—

Yeah.

Gone. But in a business for sure, in a business you don't wanna scale too quick because, you know, when I started FUBU, I had 8 stores I sold to in New York. I could have sold to 12, I could have sold to 40 stores around the country. Well, before really technology came around, they always said that you need to have a business, especially in your local business. You should have all of your eggs within 5 miles of each other so you can easily, you know, utilize staff travel. Now all of a sudden you get this one store here. It's like somebody who wants to franchise. Now all of a sudden they got 2 franchises in California and some of the different rules. You're taking your eye off the ball. The scalability of having 8 stores and 12 stores, You're not changing your life, right? So if you're doing 8 stores and every one of the stores doing $20,000 a piece, let's do an even number, $25,000 a piece. All right, you're doing $200,000 out of the stores. And let's say you're making a 20% margin on $200,000, it's approximately $40,000.

Okay.

Going and adding another 8 stores around the country is not gonna relate to more of a net than 40, because now you're spending a lot of time and energy. It's eating up your initial 8 and it's expanding you a little bit. But what you're not doing, you're really not figuring it out instead of just concentrating on that 8.

Yeah.

I can say that when I was dating, I used to— I'm not a person who loves to date, you know, like one-night stands and all that kind of wild stuff. I mean, you know, when FUBU blew up and in between my First marriage and my second. Yeah, I was single when I realized when I was dating a good amount of people, just seeing them, you know, all over the place. I realized I wasn't getting any quality time with anybody. I was spending more time fielding calls and da da da da da. I didn't get any quality time with him. When you when I started to just really say, you know what? I just want to. I don't want my little girls to see me with other a lot of other people. I never want them to think that there's something more important than them. This and this and that. let me just chill. Let me just even not talk to anybody.

Yeah.

Or let me just kind of concentrate on this small little, you know, group, 1 or 2 people, and it works out. I am meeting a great woman, right? Because I, I wasn't spread all over the place, right? It's not about when you, when you bring people in your life and business and everything else, it's not that the fact that, you know, you want to change all that. You start to change and you start to accept I want to concentrate on this business, just do this for my customer. I want to concentrate on my relationship, just do this. You start to, you start to become that person that you hopefully want to be, you know?

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So I want to talk about one of the most brilliant pieces of advice you've ever given me. So last few years I've really been into investing, right? I run businesses and you said, you know, Mick, are you doing it from your heart when you're investing? Are you really concerned about MMH? And I was like, what the hell is MMH? And they were like, that's my money, homie. Talk to us about why that is so important for new investors, even seasoned investors, that you get caught up in the story that sometimes you gotta remember you're investing for a return most of the time.

Well, because, you know, investing is, and I'm, I'm the king of Like if I had to give my own self Shark Tank advice, I would have to change a lot of things. But I make a conscious effort of doing things where I'm doing it because I just want to do it. It's philanthropic in my field and then it becomes something great.

Mm-hmm.

But when you're looking at it from your money, like what is it? You know, I don't want to be Kevin O'Leary. Money doesn't lie. It's pretty simple, you know? And how are you— what are you really doing it for? If you want to do it for philanthropical reasons, fine. You want to do it because you want to give people an opportunity, that's great. I see a lot of athletes who, they go and do these great, what's it called, charity fundraisers. They spend $1 million to bring a bunch of people out and they raise $700,000. Why don't you just give the $1 million away to whatever, 100 different charities, $10,000 apiece, and you still get the notoriety for wanting to be somebody for the community, but you didn't have to deal with traveling people from all around the country for whatever the event is, right? It's— and then you write it off on taxes, right? You write off a certain amount, right? Because the government incentivizes you to do that. So again, what are you doing that actually for? What is your money actually? It's my money, homie. Like, how's my money working for me? The idea of generational wealth is that you, you, you, you, you have this business, whatever it is, you put away money as much as you can.

First of all, the first thing to do is you try to take advantage of the legal tax codes so that first of all, you don't pay as much in taxes because the government themselves say art foundations— I'll give you an example. I tell people all the time when COVID happened and the COVID bill passed, you got 100% write-off if you supported a restaurant for a business meal.

Mm-hmm.

Okay. You understand how that's working? And people always get mad when I tell them this. I have friends who did their decent businesses, $500,000 in business meals because they travel. If you went to— if you went to a hotel and you went downstairs and you put the meal in the restaurant, you had a big restaurant, you know, and you had it for 20 people. You put that on a hotel card, right? That's a 50% write-off because that goes underneath the hotel. If you just take out your credit card and put it down, that's 100% write-off, right? So let's say you spent $500,000 on that. It's $100,000. You gave away $50,000 by just not moving one card to the next.

Right.

Times that by 20 things that happen a year from the tax code.

Wow.

Right? So let's say you save an average of $200,000 a year due to tax codes. You then put that in your Bitcoin or your bonds or whatever the case is. And so after 10 years, think about what that is compounding and various other things. That's only $200,000 on what you save. We're not talking about what the business made.

Yeah.

Right? If you think about your business, then that's what's supposed to happen, right? Then you obviously can go and you educate yourself. I know you know insurance. You go get long-term health, life, right? So that by the time you're 70 years old or 80, if you want to go and live in a retirement home, it's not $300,000 a year because you paid it ahead of time and it's nothing to you.

Yeah.

But $300,000 a year, if you saved $3 million, you only got a 10-year runway. You can't even hand it down to your kids. So again, it's all these financial things that you think about as my money, homie. What am I doing?

Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I love it. So I'm looking at—

I actually should probably get Hillel on here. You got to meet Hillel. He's, he's a great attorney about asset protection, about these type of things.

I need to talk to him personally too.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Absolutely.

And we'll get him on the show. Yeah. You're part of the crew. I should have hit you up a long time ago.

All good. All good. I am the most colorblind person in the world. I can't even draw— I can't even draw stick figures either. I am colorblind.

Oh my.

Like red and green struggle, light blues and purples struggle.

Oh, you're like a dog.

Pretty much. Pretty much.

Okay.

But you, sir, as we look at this amazing backdrop that we have here, have shark art.

Yeah.

One, let's give a shout out to the artist.

So this, this artist named Daniel Mazzoni, I believe, is Canadian, or I'm not sure, or Long Island. But anyway, let me tell you the story about this. Yeah, this is a flag that was in 9/11. I believe it was either at a fire station or 9/11. They salvaged and they got the flag. If you look at the arms, the arms are actual uniforms from men who were, who were at, you know, 9/11 from the Brownsville fire department and that other one right there. And it's, you know, the, the, you know, justice, right? Um, you look at some images down there and it's glossed over. And it actually, when it hangs, it hangs and it hangs with the overalls of the fireman outfit. It reminds of 9/11, reminds of justice, you know, reminds of the people. And I think, you know, that artists— the reason why I do this stuff about art I love the art, but our artists, I think, are our last people with free speech. And they bring to light so many things of joy and pain and suffering in our lives. But the reason why I wanted to highlight ours especially, and thank you for putting this in back of us, is because I realized there's so many other things that we can do as people that doesn't cost us anything.

If I like Mick Hunt, I know he's doing a lot.

Let me just Tag them. You know, if I go to a restaurant, small restaurant, if you— if, if 200 people a day tag the bodega that they went to because they had a great sandwich, just tag it. Not just the sandwich, but tag it. How much— how, how, how high would their rating go on Yelp and various other things and change that family's life? It's a hard-struggling family. So what I did with, um, what I did with this was I realized that my— I had a backdrop damonjohn.com. Look boring. But a friend of mine said, hey, you know, artists, you know, if you are, uh, if you're an actor, if you're a musician and you're an athlete, hopefully you get to the big, big stage, right? You get ABC, you get Netflix, you get NFL, NBA. And if you don't get to that level— if you get to that level, you have great management and all these people. If you don't get to that level, you may even work in the system.

Maybe acting coach, you may be a nutritionist for the NFL, you may be a broadcaster, you may be somebody who works on the team. team, millions of positions. Artists will never have a position. And the addiction runs very high in art, the art community. And so even if you don't get to the NFL, you may go get a job as a stockbroker or something else. An artist, no matter what job they get, they're always gonna create art. And if they ever get anywhere and somebody buys their piece, now they want 'em to die.

Yes.

So I said to myself, why don't I just start highlighting artists and they will loan me a piece? I actually was sitting in here, I just saw randomly some other art up here. Yeah, I'm gonna highlight those pictures, post them, and that's it, man. You know, hopefully, and if we all did that, you never know, 1 or 2 artists or 5 or 20 or 100 go, hey, you know what, somebody picked up my piece. Hey, I got, I got highlighted in the museum. Yeah, and that's it. You know, it doesn't cost us nothing.

Again, you, you do so much For people. Did you know that this was who you were destined to be?

No, I'm an only child, and that's why I do so much.

Okay.

Because when everybody went in to play with their brothers and sisters, I had to find a way to convince people to stay outside and play with me. Hey, I'll let you play with my baseball. You like Tonka trucks? I got 3 of them. You know what I mean? Oh, would you come— why don't you come over my house? I got a twin, a twin brother. You ain't got no twin brother. Why don't you come on over and see? I got a dog. You want a grilled cheese sandwich? I can cook. So, you know, I was just trying to find friends.

Speaking of cooking, I'm, I'm going back into all my memory bank now. So there was a conversation you posted on Instagram, I think, when you ate like a year-old turkey leg or something from the freezer.

2.

2-year-old.

2-year-old. 2-year-old. Why?

Why not?

Why not? All right, let me break it down to everybody here.

Yeah, let's do it.

Like my wife who like, that's a leftover.

Well, it wasn't a, it was a 2-year-old leftover though. That's, that's a difference.

King crab season has not been open for 4 years. So anybody here eating king crab legs, it's 4 years old. So I gotta tell you something about food and all you people out there, all prissy. Let me tell you something. You know that chicken at the nice— you go, oh, that chicken looks dated. Right before that chicken rots, you know what they do?

What?

They cook it and then they put it in this round rotisserie. You go, ooh, wow, I'll take that chicken right there. And right after that chicken that they cooked before it gets old, They chop it up and put it in gravy and they put it in. So all of you people right now with worms, parasites, I promise you there is some person in the background of that food trying to make a profit. And you're eating it like, yeah, I don't eat leftovers.

Again, I'm fine with leftovers.

Somebody right now is running to the bathroom.

Yes. I'm fine with leftovers, but 2 and 4-year-old leftovers. I'm fine with leftovers, but 2 and 4 years old.

That's called dry age.

No.

As they put on your menu.

No.

Dry aged jerky?

No. I've never seen dry aged chicken on a menu though, or turkey legs.

They left out the dry-aged part. It's called jerky.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Yeah. All right.

All right. So you gonna be fasting for a week after this? I, I pretty much am. I pretty much am. I, I also wanna let the viewers and listeners understand this because again, you are my advice guru when I need something, because again, I can only do 2 things max. But you said, I was building social media and I said, damn it, man, I'm struggling on the content that I put out. I don't know if it should be under this brand, that brand. I don't know who I'm talking to. And you said, Mick, you're doing it wrong. You should always talk to 5 to 7 people. And then you broke it down to me, the 5 or 7 people that you do all your messaging for and you don't care about anything else. I thought that was the most profound thing and it changed my whole social media strategy so much so that I know you don't normally charge for this, but can you tell the people, the 5 to 7 people? Yeah, sure, sure.

So I have to only live with myself. Is my social media the greatest for everybody? No, not at all. I know people out there who are— I'm on I'm on CNBC 40 times a week, ABC, you know, I'll be on The View, I'll be on this and that. I got the same 1.2, 1.3, whatever on each platform, or LinkedIn's a little bit better. I'm not gonna do anything unless I, unless my, mine will only explode if another category or area I'm in, people discover me and they just like what I'm bringing to that area. The same way that I was a FUBU guy, but all of a sudden you see, you understand that you think I'm the fashion person, but then I, you want, you see, I understand the, the, the concept and the fundamentals of business. Now the business audience find me. Actually, the fashion audience doesn't really check with me. I'm cool with that. So I'll never explode or I won't explode past where I'm at. I've accepted that and I don't want to because honestly, if I do something crazy out there and I explode, well, those people are short-stayed because I'm not going to do it again.

Yeah.

Unless I turn it on there all the way and then I won't be happy with myself. So I'm pretty simple. You know, when I post something, you know, I post something that I'm a spiritual person and I don't like to push my beliefs on others. But would God appreciate what I'm posting or would he look at me as a, you know, a negative way? Then the next thing is my family. Will my wife be at the grocery store and somebody say, you know what your husband posts? It could be anything. It could be something that's disrespectful to women, disrespectful for religion, violence.

Yeah.

Now let's get to number 3, the people that I work with, my staff, my team, ABC. I don't want somebody calling ABC going, yo man, this guy's— I happen to like some stuff that may be off-color, we all do.

Yeah.

But ABC, they're gonna be like, is this your guy? You know, my staff, I don't want them saying— I don't want somebody to say to them, is this the asshole you work for every day? This person said something that was misogynistic, are you crazy? You know, like And then, you know, the next couple of people would be in there, young kids or entrepreneurs who are looking up to me, and I shouldn't do anything that makes them feel like I'm letting them down.

Yeah.

And then the forward-thinking ones are the ones who are checking for me. I want you to know who I am, right? So Chase, all these other people, all these big companies, this is what he's about. And the last but not least are the ones I want you to know why, 'cause this is what I'm not about. Don't come to me and you want me to do all this and that, because if you see all this, then I'm a hypocrite if I take your deal.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah. Amazing. Again, for everybody watching or listening, that strategy changed my life. And it's not even a strategy, it's just the way that I do things now. It's, I'm not trying to please everybody, but I also don't want to upset The people that matter the most to me. And so that really touched me.

You know, you can be very, you know, I think people think that you have to be so hard one way or another. Like I was telling my staff the other day, I said, you know, we have a lot of opportunity out there. We can drown in opportunity. That's my biggest issue and my biggest shortcoming. I want to do a lot of things. Now I understand that. I know how to cut it all out of the way, but if I don't do a lot of things on my own side, well, I'm going to do it for Shark Tank anyway, because that's my obligation. So why don't I have some of my vested interest in this kind of diversifying of the portfolio? However, don't wait around for deals that somebody's taking you, taking 2, 3 weeks, 6 months, and they're just messing around. This needs to be a, yo, you wanna do this or not?

Yeah.

Well, my lawyers are this and that. Well then your lawyer's the boss. 'Cause let me, you know, then, then, then, then I'm working with that person.

Yeah. Cut it.

And so I say that because, you know, why should you cut it? Well, they either don't value the opportunity, they don't have the money or the resources, they don't know what they should be doing. And at the end of the day, they're all— all of those people take a long time with these things. They're going to be the biggest pain in the ass when you get married. If somebody is very complicated on dating, that was the, that was the best they could be. Yeah. Oh, now you're about to really see their ass.

Yeah.

Get out of it.

It's okay.

And you know, when you get out of it, you know what happens? Like I said before, you make room for new opportunity.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

Be willing to walk away. Walk away is the most powerful thing you can ever do in your life. And you at least leave with your dignity. You feel comfortable about the situation and you go, it's not here because I've decided that it's I left everything on the field with them. I'm cool.

I'm good. There it is.

There it is. I know you're busy. I know you've been gracious with your time. I'm gonna get you outta here on my quick 5, 5 rapid-fire questions.

Sure.

All right. From Queens, the greatest rapper from Queens is?

LL Cool J.

Done deal. Done deal. The best athlete to come outta Queens is? I wouldn't know. Kenny Anderson.

Kenny Anderson. Yeah, I know, I know Kenny. I know them all. I know Ronald Tellez. I know them all. I just don't know what the greatest— the greatest athlete is Kenny Anderson, you think?

Yeah.

There's no famous, like, like big, big, big— I'm talking like statue.

No, no.

Okay, there's got to be.

Kenny Anderson. He was the GOAT.

No, Kenny's great. Kenny's great. I know so many of them though from Queens.

Kenny Smith.

Yeah.

Kenny Anderson. Bunch of Kennys. Mark Jackson.

Mark Jackson. I know Mark too. I know them all. I just forgot. Yeah. I've never been heavy into sports like that, but I know.

I know. Fermented pickles or fermented cabbage?

Pickles.

All day long. When you come off a fast, what's the first thing you eat?

Avocado.

You taught me that. I had to get used to it. I had to get used to it.

Yeah.

You don't want anything heavy.

Yep. The best advice you've received in the last 12 months?

The best advice I've received in the last 12 months? Oh, good question. So many things. Good question. The best advice I've seen in the last 12 months. It's something I already knew, but it's, it's, it's, it's cut more people off.

Mm-hmm.

You know, after COVID, I think we're looking at what's going on with people mentally after COVID, with social, with AI coming around. People are screwed up in the head.

Yeah.

And I think it's time to just cut as many as you can off and get narrow and deep because we're going to run around, we're going to run into some really big issues. And I think you need that really tight unit of people when it gets dark that you can rely on. Forget having 100 people. You have an army of 3. You're invincible.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You taught me that too. You taught me that too. For everybody listening or watching, what's one thing you want them to know that you have going on, you have coming up? selfless, shameless plug for my mentor, Daymond John, right now?

Well, first of all, I want to talk about this, man, How to Be a Good Leader. I, I want people to read that because that's important, you know, because, you know, leadership is important.

Yeah.

And, and when you learn this stuff, you, you learn a lot about yourself. Yeah. How to lead. What do I have going on? So I have Shark Jevity, where it is, uh, you know, I'm just talking to people about biohacking and very— and Biohacking, fancy word for longevity. And why am I the expert in this? Because I'm the weakest person on the planet when it comes to food, and I have a horrible travel schedule. And I'm— I hope— I don't think I'm intimidating looking like a lot of these guys who— that I love and respect. I get from like scientists like Gary Brecka's Body. I mean, guy looks like Superman, right? You know, they ask for Dr. Amen. So what I do is I that's the most important thing to me, is to share with people the, you know, what longevity is, how to slowly increase, um, your ability to live longer. And the way I do it is by showing you my faults, showing you what I'm going through. And I always say, if I'm putting 100 different— and you, I'm probably putting 100 toxins, bad toxins in my body a day, we all are—

Mm-hmm.

If I can reduce that to 60, It adds up.

Yeah.

I mean, if I can show people how to do that and then get people like you to say, hey man, I'm gonna start the fast, you're gonna go down your own rabbit hole of, of doing that. I highly doubt, knowing you, that you're gonna ever go back. If you, if you do it for a long period of time, you're gonna start saying, this is part of my life. You would feel horrible going back.

No, it is so easy the days that I'm not doing the 40 hours to do 18.

Yep.

Like, I don't even think about it anymore.

It's like, oh, try it again tomorrow if you fail. And tomorrow after that, eat a big-ass piece of chocolate cake, eat whatever you want, and reset it on Monday and just try again.

There you go.

Right?

That's it. There you go.

So that's what I think. So those are the 2 things that— oh, I said a bunch of things. So first of all, art, longevity. And then I'm still, you know, the person, I have a lot of, I have a lot of partners on Shark Tank and I hopefully am the, the face of entrepreneurship and show people that if I could do it, everybody else could do it.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, this has been my mentor, the legend himself, Mr. Daymond John. Thank you, brother.

Appreciate it, man. Right here, give my head.

There you go.

You've been plugged into Mick Unplugged. Don't just listen, take action. Rate and subscribe. Follow me on social and get the full experience at mickhuntofficial.com. Keep building, keep leading, and most importantly, keep dominating.