So if you have little ones around, grab your headphones now.

Hey, it’s Marie Forleo and you are watching MarieTV, the place to be to create a business

and life you love.

And if you’ve been thinking about starting your own business but you just don't think

it’s possible because you don't have enough money, you don't have the right connections,

or any other limitation, this episode is for you.

Daymond John is an entrepreneur in every sense of the word.

He’s the CEO and founder of Fubu, a celebrated global lifestyle brand and a pioneer in the

fashion industry with over 6 billion in product sales.

He’s also one of the Sharks on the Emmy Award winning TV show Shark Tank.

His ability to build successful brands has made him a highly influential consultant and

motivational speaker.

In 2015 he was named by President Obama as a Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship.

He’s also the author of the New York Times bestseller, The Power of Broke.

Daymond, thank you so much for the time to be here.

I am happy.

It’s been too long.

I know.

We’ve been wanting to make this come to life.

So I want to start off with – in The Power of Broke you share that “desperation can

breed innovation.”

So I want to go back to the early days in Hollis, Queens.

From when I was researching you even more, you didn't know that you had dyslexia in school.

There’s a little bit of struggle there.

Right?

Yeah, I didn't know I had dyslexia till I was probably about 35.

Because when – at that time prior to that your communication was generally through paper

and a teacher marks it up as a zero.

Right?

Well, when these things called two-way pagers came out and I started communicating with

people externally and they started going, “You okay?”

I didn't know what they were talking about.

But emails and all that stuff, we started communicating externally, and then people

started saying, “Why are things backwards?

You don't make any sense.”

So that’s how I started to really find out about it.

So back when you were still in high school and figuring out what you wanted to be when

you grew up, was fashion a long-held dream, or was that another entrepreneurial idea?

Like you just started coming out?

Because I know you sold pencils.

I mean, you did so much stuff.

Yeah.

It was never an entrepreneurial dream, but fashion was my love.

You know, because hip-hop really started to take place, you know, and spread right around

when I was 10 or 11 years old.

Right?

And hip-hop at that time, I like to say it was kind of a disruptive technology.

It was a way that the kids were communicating through the music very similar to a Twitter

or a Snapchat today, because we didn't know what was going on in the streets of Detroit

or Compton.

You didn't see that on the news.

The internet wasn’t out and they weren’t writing about that in the papers.

So how was I gonna find out about what was going on over there?

It was this new music that was made by kids who didn't have to sing and they didn't have

to be able to play an instrument.

All they were doing was communicating through it.

When they were communicating through it, there was a way to dress, there was a way to walk,

to talk, ebonics.

There was everything else that came with it, and I had a love for fashion.

But I would only think about it as something that I was a consumer of, a purchaser of,

because my mind was very closed that, you know what?

If you’re gonna get fashion, it’s from a funny talking person with a beret on that

lives in Paris.

Right?

That’s the only person that’s gonna make fashion for you.

So I didn't have a passion in regards to selling it at the time.

I didn’t think I could do it.

And so what gave you the inspiration?

I think it was caps that you started out with.

Right?

Yeah, there was – at that time we started to see a lot of brands that were being supported

by the hip-hop industry, and they didn't care about us.

And I started to see these one caps that were kinda made on the street and I said, “Wait

a minute.

This is not an Adidas or Avila.

This is just regular people making this.”

And then there was a company that came out called Cross Colors and another guy named

Karl Konai and I started to see that, “wait a minute, these people look like me.

They go to the same clubs.

They act like me.

This is not the Wizard of Oz in Paris who talks funny and eats croissants all the time.”

I said, so I can do this myself.

And there was a stigmatism too.

At that time in our community, they thought that if you did fashion or were a fashion

designer, you were gay.

And I wasn’t.

And all my friends were drug dealers.

So when I started telling my friends I’m gonna go sell hats on the corner, they kinda

like pushed me aside and said, “Hey, you’re one of those.”

And I said “I don't know what you’re talking about.

I’m just selling hats.”

But it wasn’t easy.

It was the kind of, you know, I got kinda like pushed out of my group.

Your social circle.

But I found a new group, which that’s what happens when you find something that you have

a passion about, a goal.

You find the group that has the same goals.

Right?

I felt that way when I was like working at magazines and having the steady paycheck,

and all my friends were climbing the corporate ladder and doing all that stuff, and I wanted

to do my own thing, but I felt like a freak because no one else I knew was doing their

own thing.

And it is so important to find that crew that gets what you’re trying to create.

And at every single level.

A friend of my mother’s is somebody who’s in the interior design sector, and she’s

about 55 years old.

She’s not doing that well in interior design right now, and unlike our history of our parents

growing up and they really didn't have to re-educate themselves in their current business.

Today you have to re-educate yourself.

And I said to her, I said, “Well, why aren’t you understanding about technology and Instagram?”

And she said, “Well, all my friends who are doing bad, we can’t believe that anybody

will ever hire an interior decorator off of Instagram.”

And I said, “That’s why you have the problem you have right now.

You’re doing exactly the same thing you’ve been doing since ‘08.

You think somebody in the world, government, something or that is going to save you, and

you’re not changing at all and you’re not finding new friends that are doing things

a different way.”

So it’s not about no longer when we were kids, when we were 18 years old.

It’s about everybody in the world has to reprogram the way they think.

Yeah.

And constantly reinvent yourself.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Because what worked even – especially I think as technology continues to advance at

more increasing and rapid rates, you have to reinvent quicker and quicker.

You have to.

This is no longer the days when you were doing one job – you know what?

It’s like a doctor in the 1900’s trying to be a doctor right now.

If you show up at my house with a hacksaw and some opium to cut off my arm, there’s

a different – there’s a problem we have right now.

You know, why don't you just give me an x-ray first?

Yes.

So I want to go back to the point where when you were, again, in the early days, at one

point you only had 10 shirts.

How did you utilize the power of broke to get the word out?

So when you – Jay Abraham, who is really my mentor.

He loves to say OPM is other people’s manufacturing, manpower, marketing, mentors, and you can

make money off of other people's mistakes.

And I took inventory on myself and I knew I wanted to get into this area of business,

but my inventory was that my liabilities were I knew nothing about manufacturing.

But my assets were that everybody was shooting these little videos around the neighborhood.

They weren’t like these big Diddy videos at a million dollars.

I mean, this guy, this was like a guy with a little camcorder or something.

And I knew that these people wanted, they needed clothing.

And when they would have the Nike send stuff to them, Nike didn't appreciate them.

So I would go to the set and see an LL Cool J, and I would ... I would sit on the set

18 hours, I’d get kicked off of three or four of those sets, but the one time that

somebody allowed me to put a shirt on them, I’d put a shirt on them and then I’d take

it back.

And I’d keep putting it on different rappers and different rappers and taking it back,

and I made sure that I didn't dry clean these things, so they made sure they gave them back

because they stank.

Right?

So I knew that…

You gave some stanky ass shirts.

I gave them some stanky ass shirts.

You’re goddamn right.

Now…

I love it.

But these videos started to rotate and corporate America didn't understand the power of videos

at that time.

And I started becoming known as a huge clothing company.

Meanwhile, I’m still a waiter in Baldwin, Long Island and I have these 10 little stinky

t-shirts in my basement.

But I was doing something I loved.

I would’ve went on those video sets for free.

I was talking to a video chick, I was eating the free food over there, I was watching Old

Dirty Bastard be Old Dirty Bastard.

So, you know, I would’ve paid to be on those sets.

I was doing something I loved.

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

You’re bringing me back.

I still cannot get past how much I love the hip-hop of the 90’s and early days.

And that’s what – I actually want to talk about this, because a lot of people in our

audience and I’ll meet entrepreneurs out, they have this idea that even when they start

getting their business out there and maybe have some modicum of success, that they should

be able to do it full time.

And for you, when LL Cool J and some famous artists started to wear your clothes, you

were still full time at Red Lobster.

I was full time, you know, because we’ve seen too many movies where it says “go balls

to the wall, burn every bridge.

Oh, by the way, other people’s money, it’s wreckable.”

That’s bullshit.

Right?

Totally.

The bottom line is don't quit your day job.

Alright?

Because here’s what was happening.

As a waiter at Red Lobster, maybe I made 30 or 40 thousand dollars.

Right?

But if I did that, which I did for 5 years, and I would work my 60 hours at Red Lobster,

then I’d put in another maybe 15 or 20 hours working on Fubu.

But if I had to pay myself for those 5 years, that would’ve been 200 thousand dollars.

Now I’m 200 thousand – I had 200 thousand dollars, I had medical, I was eating as many

shrimp as I would like, I was using my network at Red Lobster to get things.

I was learning from the network, the Red Lobster network of their corporation, their books,

on how they do business.

And I was able to do my business longer and go through the pitfalls of it, and the business

started to call me.

I started to now work 20% on the business, 80% on Red Lobster, then all of a sudden 80%

on the business and 20% there.

But all these people who hear all those stories about take out large loans and just go for

it?

It’s a lie.

They should never do that.

I didn't do that.

I always tell people, I don't know what I was thinking, but I’m real happy I did it.

When I started my coaching business at 23, which was nuts, I bartended and waited tables

and taught fitness and taught all kinds of things for seven years before I had the confidence

and the revenue to be able to say, “Okay, now I’m gonna shift and go full time online,”

and it's been almost 20 years.

But so many people, they want these instant results and it’s like that’s not the way

to do it.

Listen, every overnight success has taken 15 years, and that’s just the way it goes.

And they’ve just watched too many people – you know who tells them all this?