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Hello and welcome to the Tony Robbins Podcast.
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It s Mary B. The episode you re about to hear with Chip Wilson of Lululemon is the last one in this three-part business mastery special series.
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So at the end, you ll hear the round table panel discussion and the Q&A with Tony and the other CEOs offering their own lessons and mentorship to the live studio audience.
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Before we jump into it, I just want you guys to know that this year s Business Mastery is coming up.
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So if you re interested in finally taking your business to the next level with Tony s help, then please come join us at Business Mastery 2023.
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The dates this year are August 15th through 20th.
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Come get down to business with us in person here in beautiful Palm Beach, or if you prefer, you can attend right from the comforts of your own home through Zoom.
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Just for you, our brilliant podcast listeners, go to tonyrobbins.com forward slash business podcast to get your ticket.
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We cannot wait to meet you this summer.
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Okay.
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Here s Tony.
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When you decide you re going to be best in the world at something, you can t just be for that, end up being on that one product because it pervades throughout the whole business.
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So your logistics have to be best, your manufacturing has to be best, your delivery has to be, marketing has to be best in order to not let any competition slightly move into that market.
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So last but far from least, we have our third interview.
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Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Chip Wilson, Blue Lemon.
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Chip, it s so great to have you.
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You ve had a wild journey, a beautiful journey, a challenging journey like any great entrepreneur.
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I understood you worked in the oil fields in your 20s.
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And then at 25, you started your first company.
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And if I understand it correctly, that was originally oriented towards what was happening in the surf community, correct?
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Tell us a little bit about that journey with your first company, if you would.
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Yeah, so I actually started in triathlon clothing.
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I was a big guy.
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I mean, not as big as you, but you know, and almost all clothing had seams on the inside that would, you know, like were open.
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And so, especially in salt water, the rashing, and I just couldn t, nothing fit me.
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And you know, you were probably in the same situation.
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So, you know, my mom s a sewer, my dad s a phys ed teacher.
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I think genetically I came through it all.
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So, got in the surf business, and that s what I learned, really, is that there s this seven-year arc, you know, between something starting off at nothing, becoming, like, going from three companies to 500 companies, mergers and acquisitions, and then too much competition, dumping a product, and then there s three companies left.
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And so, I saw that happen in skateboard, and I saw it happen in surfing, so I got to know when the right time was to get in and right time to get out.
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And snowboarding, right?
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Wasn t that the last version of that company in Westbrook?
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Was it snowboarding?
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Oh, snowboarding, yeah.
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That was the last part of it, yeah.
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And you started anticipating in each of those cases.
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So you built that business over 17 years, if I understood correctly, sold it for $15 million.
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You were, what, 42 years old at that point?
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Yeah, so it worked out to about $6 an hour.
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Well, that s most entrepreneurs.
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You break us down to our hourly wage.
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It humbles us, doesn t it?
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Well, when you pay banks off and private equity and partners, yeah.
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Yes, I get it.
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But at that point, you had a certain level of cash, and you d sold your business.
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So one question is, why just sell it at that time?
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And then the second question is, I understand that year, you read 100 of the best business and personal development books out there and came up with a philosophy of,
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giving without an expectation of return.
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So, tell us first, why did you sell the business?
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And tell us about your journey before you built Blue Lemon and how it affected you in building it.
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Well, why did I sell the business?
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One, I did 18 years of really not making any money.
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I mean, we got one big hit at the end and otherwise it was poverty all the way through.
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Yeah.
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So, but... By the way, I want to interrupt.
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I hope everybody hears that.
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Remember Airbnb?
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Remember Joe talking about eight years, nothing.
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And then eight years later, 50 billion.
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It takes time, right?
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And 30% of the snowboard business was in Japan.
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And if everyone, nobody remembers this, this is like me coming to you and telling you.
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But, you know, the Japanese in the middle 90s were buying up the whole world.
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I mean, the yen was very high.
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And then, you know, that whole economy started to collapse.
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And this whole, you know, Japanese are very, very brand driven and image driven.
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And they just decided that snowboarding was finished.
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And I could kind of see that through the trees.
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So I said, this is a good time to sell.
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Okay, that makes sense.
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And tell me about that year before you built Lululemon.
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You read all these books.
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Tell me what your intention was and tell me what you pulled from that and how it shaped your building a business going forward.
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Yeah, I mean, I sold it to a public company in Salem, Oregon.
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So I traveled from Vancouver back to Vancouver.
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My two boys were in Vancouver.
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So I had six hours there and six hours back twice a week.
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And I know from the hundred books that I read when I was 18 years old living on the Alaska oil pipeline that I had something nobody else in the world had.
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I had all this knowledge and a whole bunch of money at the age of 18.
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And so when I sold Lululemon, I had some money.
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I knew I had to reinvent myself.
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And I d been through a lot of personal development and looking at all these things, but I went, it was just kind of the type where you could put an audio tape in and start to listen to books.
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And I listened to 100 of them, and probably out of that 100, probably three of them came to the top, seemed to encompass what all the other three did.
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And it was Good to Great by Collins.
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It was Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
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And it was The Psychology of Achievement by Brian Tracy.
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Really goal-setting there was the key part of that.
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You mentioned once, so that triggers me, I think I read you said,
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All it really takes is a clear vision and execution, but most people don t execute.
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Obviously, they have lots of vision, lots of talk.
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I think it s genetic.
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When I look around, I m very, very thankful that I have financial people that don t want to risk.
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They don t want to go into their own business.
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They want to work.
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They want to do their job.
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It s just, I think risk inherently is a genetic makeup like anything else.
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Yeah.
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We ve actually talked about that here, talking about not everybody s made to be an entrepreneur.
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It s not a negative, it s just if it s against your nature taking risk.
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And these days in our culture, people have been so conditioned to even be afraid to be near a human breathing on them for risk.
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You think about what our founders of this country would think about modern Americans, it s a little crazy.
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Tell me, so you, I think when you were 32, you were diagnosed with a form of muscular dystrophy.
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Right, right.
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Yes.
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How did you deal with that?
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And then as I understand it, you found yoga when you were 43, 42, and then it became, that was the trigger for Lululemon.
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You were trying to take care of your back pain.
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Tell us a little bit about that if you would.
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Right, so it s a little bit of a journey.
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I mean, I was, I d say, quite a good competitive swimmer.
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But when it came to actually surfing, skateboarding, I wasn t that good.
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And I really didn t understand why.
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And I just didn t have a sense of balance.
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I m missing a whole bunch of like little muscles here and there type of thing.
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So yes, I was diagnosed.
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I went, oh, my back s really bad, but part of it is the muscular dystrophy again.
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So they went, okay, well, there s nothing you can do about it.
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You ve got this disease.
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But at... Why did you not let that stop you?
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Why did you not let that depress you?
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Most people would turn that into a story about my life s over and you didn t.
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Well, quite honestly, I think it s like ignore it.
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I was a pretty powerful guy at the time.
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And OK, I diagnosed it.
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But Jesus, I mean, I just finished an Ironman two months ago.
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I feel OK.
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But as I got to be 43 and I d gone through and I d fallen so much in skateboarding and surf and skateboarding that there was a real problem.
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I started doing yoga.
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I found that little tab on the side of the telephone post and went to the first class that was ever in Vancouver.
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And it was me and six girls.
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And you were hooked for life.
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Well, after a life of dealing with and being with 14 to 18-year-old boys in the surf to skate industry, I have to tell you that it was a breath of fresh air.
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So you it really helped you yoga did but but you it was more than that wasn t it?
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You saw this as a social physical movement You saw this as something that could take off like snowboarding or likes of you know, surfing.
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Is that true?
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right the I saw the same thing that the amount of growth in that 30 days was even more than surfskate snowboarding and of course the market could is infinitely bigger and and
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And I was always out to make components for people to live a longer, healthier, and more fun life.
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That was my vision, mission in life.
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So I looked at this and I went, I m out of the surfskate, snowboarding industry, and it was really hard for me to bring
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self-development and leadership into that because 14 to 18 year old boys aren t into that this time.
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But this new market of what I saw is a 32 year old single professional woman who owned her own condo, who traveled, who was stylish and physically active.
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was a massive market.
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And it had never existed before, because up until that time, women got married at 23 and had children.
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And suddenly, there was a gap of 23 to probably 35 of a group of women that were, I mean, maybe you fell into that, but who were a lot of disposable income and fanatic.
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And they were open to self-development, where men weren t, actually, at the time.
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Yeah, that s interesting.
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And as you saw that pattern, you also saw the opportunity in terms of the clothing side of it.
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What did you see that other people didn t see at that time?
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Well, I think through surf, skate, snowboarding, there was a technical reason for all that clothing, or maybe not skateboarding as much.
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You know, definitely surf, you needed, like, stretch shorts, you needed a higher rise on the back because you re squatting, and lower front because you re bending over, you know, smaller waist to bigger thighs.
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There was a real technical part to that, which I took into snowboarding too.
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And of course, on snowboarding, you ve got top of the mountain, it s life or death at the top of a mountain, and especially in Whistler.
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And then when I started to look at yoga clothing, well, there was nothing there.
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Really at the time, and this is 1998 now, 1997, it was a badge of honor to wear your worst clothing to the gym.
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And there weren t that many women in the gym, quite frankly.
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And, you know, women kind of spent more time looking at the studio classes where men were more in the weight room.
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But I could sense that in yoga that
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This was terrible clothing, especially for stretch and movement and sweating.
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And so I, from snowboarding, I had the perfect first layer piece of fabric and clothing, and I redeveloped that for yoga.
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So what was the innovation in that area?
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Was it like dry, the moisture taking away from the body, or was it design, or was it?
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A couple of things.
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One, Danskin made tights at the time, but they were, I mean, there were only a few angstroms thick, and it was very, very see-through, very transparent, and looked like a light bulb on your butt.
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And if you can remember Jane Fonda, you know, she wore tights, but then wore a leotard over top.
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Because, I mean, the fact of the matter is that seam just went right through the middle of the crotch, and it was unusable outside of the studio, especially if a woman went out studio and went out into the world.
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So I knew from surfskate snowboarding that it wasn t just the technical fabric, but where those businesses really made a lot was taking that look, that feel, and wearing it out on the street.
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which is why he ended up with all the tech guys in San Jose wearing the hoodies and you know that type of thing is that kind of feeling.
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So I knew that that s where the big money was and that s where the big growth was.
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And did you come across or did you create the term, what do they call it, athletic leisure or leisure athletic?
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Did that already exist?
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I m curious.
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Well, I had developed that name at West Beach probably in the 80s, but I called it Street Technical and I called it Streck.
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Nobody, it didn t catch on.
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It wasn t that phonetically great a name.
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And I tried a couple other names, but it never really worked.
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And I mean, if you re out on the West Coast, the whole, what I d call the athletic way of dressing athletic all day long existed 20 years before it did on the East Coast.
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And when the Vogue magazine finally caught on to it as a trend, they called it athleisure.
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And to me, that s a 45-year-old woman in New Jersey in a mall with pink leotards on or something.
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It didn t relate to what I d call West Coast way of dressing was.
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One of the things we teach people here is at a fundamental basic level is that if you want to grow your business, the first thing is discover who is your ideal client, not your current client.
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And then fall in love with them, understand everything they love, they hate, they excite, what their problems are, what their challenge is.
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Don t fall in love with your product, fall in love with your client.
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and then come up with that irresistible offer and then over-deliver it as a fundamental way of growing business.
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I know from the very beginning, you mentioned it, I forgot her name, you got a name for this 32-year-old woman, Ocean.
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Tell us, she hasn t aged in all these years that you worked on Lululemon.
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Tell us a little bit about how you were so clear about who the ideal client was and how that kind of shaped the way in which you approached the marketing and the growth of the business.
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Hey, business people, you just heard Tony ask Chip to explain Lululemon s ideal customer.
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You ll notice that they don t mean their average customer or their one-time customer.
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They re talking about the importance of knowing everything there is to understand about what makes your ideal customer tick.
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What they want, why they want it, what they don t want, so you can anticipate their needs and know how to serve them and, better yet, how to keep them.
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With all the choices that consumers have today and all the competition in every industry, there s one thing you can count on.
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Business as usual just doesn t cut it anymore.
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That s why attending Business Mastery is a must.
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Come join us this summer at Business Mastery where Tony Robbins himself and our team of niche business experts will train you in the seven critical forces of business and show you how to articulate your ideal customer and your x-factor and your irresistible offer
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so that your business can thrive in today s uncertain world.
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So what are you waiting for?
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Make this your summer of success.
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Come join us August 15th through 20th this year to get the tools and strategies for 30 to 130% growth in your business guaranteed.
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Look, I have a college degree from a business school and I can honestly say I learned more practical business tools in six days with Tony than I did in all four years of university.
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Come see for yourself.
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You can t afford not to know this stuff.
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And just for you, our podcast listeners, now if you go to TonyRobbins.com forward slash business podcast, you can secure your ticket to this summer s conference.
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I will see you there.
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I can t wait.
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Okay, now back to Tony and Chip.
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I see it happen in every company, even the companies I m involved with now I go in there and go, who s your target customer somewhere between a 23 and 49.
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You know, like kind of makes this kind of money.
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I had no idea.
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And I was like super, super clear.
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And I think this is one of the great successes of Lou Lemon.
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It was exactly that 32-year-old single professional woman who was just about to get married, you know, just about to have children, highly disposable money, and very fashionable athletic.
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So, and that... What did she want?
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What was her desire that you were fulfilling?
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Well, I think, well, on the West Coast for sure, she wanted, the number one thing that was the most important to her was time.
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So for a woman to be able to get up in the morning and take her kids to school, then hit the gym or the studio, then go to coffee, then go
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shopping and then get home without having to stink, without having to change your clothing and still looking good was a, was a, I mean, if you look at that woman, I kind of called her, she made $200 an hour.
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So every 15 minutes was costing her, well, you could work it out, you know, $66.
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Yeah.
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So I think that it was not just a matter of we hit the home run on every level from fashion, style, fit, lifestyle, and everything else.
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But subconsciously, I was always thinking about what drove that woman.
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And I think time, looking good, wanting to get married, wanting to have children, I think these are fundamental to who we are as human beings.
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That s beautiful.
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And when your marketing was very different, you were going to go compete with Nike and Adidas and people like that.
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And you had a different approach to marketing.
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Tell us a little about what your approach was there.
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Well, I think a little bit of a funny story behind that is when we were basically out of money, but we knew we had something phenomenal.
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We only had 12 employees.
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I sat them down, and this is our first kind of company meeting, and I said, look it, Nike s our competitor.
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And if we do what we re doing here, we re going to pass them by 2030.
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And so that was my vision.
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That s quite a vision for a brand new company.
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Give me a hand for that.
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I love that.
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But we had amazing people, amazing people who kind of did it on their own.
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Now I ve forgotten the question.
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How did you market differently?
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Because you didn t go head to head with them in the traditional way.
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You built relationships.
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You worked with key influencers, as I understand.
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Tell us a little bit about the marketing.
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Well, I can t say enough about working from no money.
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I d say almost everything I learned was really out of West Beach and having 18 years of not making any money.
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So I had to figure out how to do everything differently.
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And of course, probably the big one is inventing vertical retailing.
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But at the point, you re in surfskate, snowboarding, and these other companies are spending a million dollars for a snowboarder because they need to sell the clothing in Japan.
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And they re very influenced that way.
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But I went, wow, I have like $30,000.
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What am I going to do?
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So I figured out I could go to, let s just call it snowboarding, I could go to a mountain
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And I could pick out the top three people who couldn t be sponsored.
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They weren t good enough to sponsor, but everyone in the community loved them.
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And so I would give them clothing, but I wouldn t sponsor them.
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I d go, you re now a tester.
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Like your whole thing is tell me everything you can about this product, where the world is going, how snowboarding is changing, what needs to happen, and then bring it back to me.
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And so when I got into
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To yoga, after I paid taxes on my million dollars, I m down to $750,000.
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I got to buy these three Japanese flat lock machines, so I don t have this thing inside of the seam.
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I had to buy maybe $200,000 to $300,000 of fabric, because you ve got to buy economy of scale and that end of things.
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I had to hire two employees.
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There s another $100,000.
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I m left with $120,000.
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Let s call it that.
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So I go, well, now I ve got to open up a store, because I m going to be vertical.
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I ve got to open a store.
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I can t do it on the main street, because I can t afford it.
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So it s got to be the second story.
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OK, well, if that s what I am, second story, and people have to find me through the back alley, what can I do?
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So it came then to, like, I had the clothing store.
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So well, we ll have yoga classes in our room.
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So we had everything on wheels.
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We put it to the side.
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We d crank the temperature up to 110.
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And we d have yoga classes, and then the woman would... Oh, that created the foot traffic.
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Yeah, yeah.
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So it was kind of like a... And we gave the space to the yoga teachers, so they made money.
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The price was lower for the yoga people doing yoga, because they didn t have to pay for the overhead of a yoga studio, and we got exposure to our product.
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Wow.
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And you have these local heroes, basically, that were wearing your clothing, obviously, and people being role models to people for that experience.
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That s amazing.
2
SPEAKER_01
What did you learn?
2
SPEAKER_01
I think, if I m correct, you made a mistake, I think, on your snowboarding days.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think you talked about, you made these baggy pants of some sort, and they didn t sell for squat.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it really taught you a lesson that affected you later, if I remember correctly.
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, it was actually the opposite.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, it was the opposite?
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
So thanks.
2
SPEAKER_00
I know you re trying.
2
SPEAKER_00
That didn t come out very well.
2
SPEAKER_00
My wife is very used to things not coming out of her.
2
SPEAKER_00
Anyway, no, I had an ego around me.
2
SPEAKER_00
I was 32 years old.
2
SPEAKER_00
I designed a line of snowboard clothing for these 14 to 18-year-old boys.
2
SPEAKER_00
I showed them the line, and they went, no.
2
SPEAKER_00
I went, what do you mean, no?
2
SPEAKER_00
And of course, at that time in my life, I knew subconsciously I was trying to manipulate them.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, you love it.
2
SPEAKER_00
You hear I m showing it to you.
2
SPEAKER_00
You love it.
2
SPEAKER_00
You go out and tell other people about it.
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SPEAKER_00
It ll all work out perfectly.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then I went, well, why not?
2
SPEAKER_00
And what do you want?
2
SPEAKER_00
He said, we want clothing that is this big.
2
SPEAKER_00
And they call it fat clothing and big hoodies.
2
SPEAKER_00
And of course, I m 32 years old.
2
SPEAKER_00
I have no idea that kind of rap and hip hop is coming down the pipe.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I have no idea why it s designed that way, because it doesn t make any sense for me.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s not how athletic clothing is built.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so we built that clothing.
2
SPEAKER_00
And what was great about it is because it wasn t tight, I didn t have to have stretch clothing.
2
SPEAKER_00
And you could tighten it up, but you could have air underneath.
2
SPEAKER_00
It actually worked quite well from a technical point of view.
2
SPEAKER_00
But because we came out with a line that was so different than everyone else in the world that we kind of took the whole snowboard business away.
2
SPEAKER_01
So they rejected you, it wasn t the wine, you changed the wine and you made it successful.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but here s my mistake, and what I learned is that next year I went to them again with, you know, this big bag of clothing, and they went, no, no, no, no, now we want it like slimmed down, we want a little logo, and I went, you re crazy, I got another year of this for sure.
2
SPEAKER_00
Anyway, I made a mistake and it taught me when I got into snowboarding, I had to have like 10 women of 10 groups and I had to talk to them all the time.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, tell me, tell me, tell me.
2
SPEAKER_00
I know nothing.
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SPEAKER_00
Constant feedback from the customer.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that s where our community and all that really came from.
2
SPEAKER_01
You know, I read that in the first five years of Lululemon, you grew to 3 billion, is that correct?
2
SPEAKER_01
Three billion?
2
SPEAKER_01
I would have liked that.
2
SPEAKER_01
No, maybe three million.
2
SPEAKER_01
Three million in the first five years of Lululemon?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, 98.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I d say, you know, maybe like 10 million.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, 10 million.
2
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
2
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
2
SPEAKER_01
So during that time, you must have had some challenging times.
2
SPEAKER_01
I love hearing from entrepreneurs.
2
SPEAKER_01
What are one or two of the more challenging times you face where maybe it was really, really concerning and how d you turn it around?
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, I did.
2
SPEAKER_00
I ran out of money multiple times.
2
SPEAKER_00
And finally, because I was so keen on economy of scale from being an economist at university that I figured the only way I could do that was to have only black fabric.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then I d make 2,000 pieces of everything.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I went and made 5,000, 2,000 pieces, owned up in my store.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then six people would walk in a day.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I could cover the overhead because not only did I didn t have vertical retailing, but I actually owned my own manufacturing too.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I had two markups nobody else in the world had, and that was manufacturing and wholesale.
2
SPEAKER_00
Where was I again?
2
SPEAKER_00
Let s talk about the challenge.
2
SPEAKER_00
So after about eight months, we ran out of money, and I went, well, I got about 90 days left, so what am I going to do?
2
SPEAKER_00
So I did the very thing I hated to do more than anything, and I wholesaled.
2
SPEAKER_00
There was an account that wanted a whole bunch.
2
SPEAKER_00
I could give them like $30,000 worth, I knew,
2
SPEAKER_00
that if I did that and I got the money in, it was going to, you know, they say they re going to pay in 60 wholesalers, or they say they re going to pay in 30 wholesalers paying 60.
2
SPEAKER_00
And, and I said with that,
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SPEAKER_00
then I know I can kind of get over the hump.
3
SPEAKER_00
No, they went bankrupt.
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SPEAKER_00
Woke up one morning.
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You didn t get anything.
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SPEAKER_00
And it was, that was my very, very last resort for money.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so then, like an entrepreneur, you got to go, well, what s my very, very, very last resort?
3
SPEAKER_00
And at Vancouver at the time in 99, Hong Kong had just changed over to China.
3
SPEAKER_00
Hong Kong is a lot like Vancouver.
3
SPEAKER_00
They all moved to Vancouver.
3
SPEAKER_00
Housing prices went up 25%.
3
SPEAKER_00
I went and borrowed for my third time on my house because I could do it.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then we got through another like seven months, and then I couldn t make payroll in about another week.
3
SPEAKER_00
I, in desperation, I d gone back and worked for my old company, West Beach, that moved from Salem, or Portland, back to Vancouver, and they fired me.
3
SPEAKER_00
Because they were combining Sims skateboards with Celeste Beach snowboards, and they took that CEO, and they gave me $57,000 to leave.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it was a godsend for Lou Lemon.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it was just before Christmas.
3
SPEAKER_00
We opened up a new store on the street.
3
SPEAKER_00
My wife was basically the CEO at that time, and we just took it.
3
SPEAKER_00
And from that moment on, it was a rocket ship.
3
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
3
SPEAKER_01
How, when did you know, I was asking this question for each of you, when did you know this business was really going to take off and how many years into Lululemon before you knew you really had it?
3
SPEAKER_01
And how did you know?
3
SPEAKER_00
Because moving from technical in the studio and onto the street, I knew, was the big part of it.
3
SPEAKER_00
I would say, let s see my, I d say it s 2002 in the summertime.
3
SPEAKER_00
My wife and I were walking down the street.
3
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I married her, very smart.
3
SPEAKER_00
Didn t let any competition kind of get in.
3
SPEAKER_00
Good move.
3
SPEAKER_00
I know.
3
SPEAKER_00
Corner designing for your competition.
3
SPEAKER_00
But we were walking down the street, and we were both like this, and we saw a girl walking towards us in tights.
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SPEAKER_00
And because we d solved this problem with this diamond gusset in the crotch, a girl could now wear a pair of tights out on the street.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so she kind of walked by, and we kind of looked at each other, and then we turned around to look, because we decided we never wanted anyone to look in a mirror and see the logo on the front.
3
SPEAKER_00
We always wanted our logos on the back, and in athletics, they let you allow to have logos on them.
3
SPEAKER_00
So we had this, we turned around like this, and then we went, and went, oh my God, that s our, and of course, the girl turned around at the same time.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I don t know what she was thinking.
3
SPEAKER_00
But at that moment, we both knew that we had exactly what we wanted.
3
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
3
SPEAKER_01
As you talked about, yeah, give a hand for that s amazing.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, Berlin s essay on the fox versus the hedgehog kind of related, mentioned earlier.
3
SPEAKER_01
I know that s one that s very familiar as well.
3
SPEAKER_01
Fox has a million ways, it knows a million things, right, to Hedgehog One.
3
SPEAKER_01
Tell us how that philosophy helped to shape you.
3
SPEAKER_00
I can t say enough about the Hedgehog, what you re best in the world at, what you re passionate about, what your economic engine is.
3
SPEAKER_00
So we decided we were gonna be best in the world at black Lycra tights.
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SPEAKER_00
And when you decide you re gonna be best in the world at something, you can t just be for that, end up being on that one product, because it pervades throughout the whole business.
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SPEAKER_00
So your logistics have to be best, your manufacturing has to be best, your delivery has to be, marketing has to be best in order to not let any competition slightly move into that market.
3
SPEAKER_00
We were passionate about athletics and our economic engine was, I think today is still unbeatable, that big
3
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ball is still rolling down the hill.
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SPEAKER_00
And that is, you know, we don t have a middleman.
3
SPEAKER_00
And we, you know, unfortunately, the board kind of moved the manufacturing inside, which I think was one of the biggest mistakes ever.
3
SPEAKER_00
But we still nobody s been able to replicate the muscle of this vertical retailing model, which costs so much money to get into this.
3
SPEAKER_01
You built a manifesto that if I understood what I read, you said was the main reason why someone would work
3
SPEAKER_01
at Lululemon.
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SPEAKER_01
I mean stay at Lululemon.
3
SPEAKER_01
Can you share with us just a little bit about what that manifesto was about and what those values were?
3
SPEAKER_00
There s this packaging and it s like virtually free.
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SPEAKER_00
You re already making it and you re already printing it.
3
SPEAKER_00
Why don t you do something with it?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
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SPEAKER_00
So I
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SPEAKER_00
So what people don t know is we had probably about 80 sayings on the outside of the bag.
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SPEAKER_00
And you know, friends are more important than money, live in the moment, you know, sweat so that you can, you know, there was, the more I think about it, the more I forget all the ones that are in it.
3
SPEAKER_00
But it, I really got it from, my dad was,
3
SPEAKER_00
one of those original hippies in Eston, you know, Big Sur, California, and living on, you know, the... What was that ranch down there, just south of... I know what you re talking about, yes.
3
SPEAKER_00
Del Mar, yeah, anyway.
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SPEAKER_00
Anyway, so, he was an original hippie, and always kind of looking for the meaning of life, and never wanting to find it, because if he found it, then he would have no meaning, you know, type of thing.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I got a lot of that, you know, like that kind of Steve Jobs, you know, like commune, eating, self-development.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I was 18 years old when my dad came home from Est and said, you know, Chip, I think the meaning of life is living in the moment.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I got the craziest dad in the world and, you know, just wanted nothing to do with any of that.
3
SPEAKER_00
And of course, we all turned into our parents, you know.
3
SPEAKER_01
Turned into our parents.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s like that commercial they say with the insurance company, we can t keep you from becoming your parents.
3
SPEAKER_01
Tell me, when you look at the growth of the business, there s a point in which you decided to sell 50% of the business.
3
SPEAKER_01
Why did you decide to do that at that point, if you would?
3
SPEAKER_01
And then later on, you sold just a small percentage of the business for about tenfold of what you did the first time.
3
SPEAKER_01
Tell us why you made the first decision at that time, and then a little bit about the second one.
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, I was an older entrepreneur, so I was maybe 52 when my wife and I started having children.
3
SPEAKER_00
So we had three within two years.
3
SPEAKER_00
We had twins.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh, wow.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I had two older children from my first marriage, and I went, this is all that s important now, is my family and my children.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I thought maybe the company s worth 25 million and my CFO and GM went out and told me that it was worth 225 million I went how many how many years into it was this that was probably 2006 so maybe eight years into eight years into it and I mean we
3
SPEAKER_00
My wife and I, we both came from very, we didn t even know how to, we d only go to the store to buy one tube of toothpaste, two would be like a big stretch for us, you know?
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh God, now I forgot.
3
SPEAKER_01
But I want people to get 25 years into your entrepreneurial career before you really got to see a reward, and you sold half of it for, what, 90 million or something like that?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I sold for, let s call it 100 million.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it was about family, but it was also about, you know,
3
SPEAKER_00
It was already an international business, and I knew I couldn t be on the plane.
3
SPEAKER_00
And Dan can do it after probably his kids grew up, but I couldn t do it while my kids were young.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so I went, well, if I m going to prioritize family, then that s number one.
3
SPEAKER_00
And two, I was really looking for expertise in how to go into the US and win it.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I wanted to know retail locations.
3
SPEAKER_00
I wanted to understand that realm of things.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so, yeah, so we sold for $100 million.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it wasn t the right move.
3
SPEAKER_00
If I had to kind of go back to it, Lou Lemon was a cash cow.
3
SPEAKER_00
We were making so much money because I was missing these two middlemen that I could have just taken a loan unencumbered from the bank for $40 million and be the happiest guy in the world.
3
SPEAKER_00
If I had to do it in
3
SPEAKER_00
retrospect, I would have stayed the CEO, but I would have got a rock star of a COO to manage it so that I could control the culture, the self-development part of our business.
3
SPEAKER_00
We weren t in the
4
SPEAKER_02
business, we were in the people development business.
4
SPEAKER_02
Tell us about the values that you really tried to include, not just on the packaging and so forth, but within the culture with the people that worked with you.
4
SPEAKER_02
What were the most important values you tried to engender and how did you do it?
4
SPEAKER_02
How did you build your culture, is I guess what I m really asking, because we all know culture is really in the end what makes a business go or not, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, part of it was in the first three weeks you had to listen to the good to great, the seven habits, the psychology of achievement.
4
SPEAKER_01
You had to do your goals.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then we, because you weren t around at the time, I didn t even know you, we d start in on the landmark course.
4
SPEAKER_01
And because it came out of the S, I understood standing in the moment, there s no past, there s no future, and create from the present.
4
SPEAKER_01
So when I had people set goals, which is the way we kept the culture going,
4
SPEAKER_01
It s really a difference when you re setting a goal from the unknown future as opposed to a known past.
4
SPEAKER_01
And they re far more expansive, they re far stronger, and so it kept our culture so, so strong.
4
SPEAKER_01
And we had them all posted up in the back rooms of the stores and in the office.
4
SPEAKER_01
Everyone knew what each other was doing.
4
SPEAKER_01
Everyone would help each other get to their goals.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it wasn t me.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, we had a group of about eight women who came into Lululemon shortly after we started it, who just took it and ran with it.
4
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
4
SPEAKER_01
And really, a lot of that came from the book, The E-Myth, where my job is to develop and train people and get the hell out of the way.
4
SPEAKER_01
And that worked incredibly well.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so we started getting probably the financial people in.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I think Dan was talking about that.
4
SPEAKER_01
Again, it s a killer of every company.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I d say Lulam would easily pass Nike if it wasn t for that.
4
SPEAKER_02
And you re, so you at one point brought in the CEO, I think it was a Starbucks, right?
4
SPEAKER_02
And then gradually, you became unhappy with the direction things were going as you stopped having some responsibilities in the company, it sounds like.
4
SPEAKER_02
And so tell me a little bit about what happened in that area.
4
SPEAKER_02
Because then later on, you sold, I think 14% of the business, a little more than that for almost $850 million.
4
SPEAKER_02
It s a pretty huge jump.
4
SPEAKER_02
And then you eventually not only left the company, but you put out a public letter about your unhappiness that the company was no longer aligned with those values.
4
SPEAKER_02
So tell us a little bit about those stages in the business for you.
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, I think it s like Dan says, and I m going to go to this book I m just reading right now about Boeing, and how it was engineering-driven, and it was a family, and everything was about safety.
4
SPEAKER_01
It was all about the passenger.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then, when you have a company that starts to be run by accountants and financial people on Wall Street, then it becomes about everything but that.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s true.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so what happens on a board of directors is you end up with nine people because you needed to run the three different committees.
4
SPEAKER_01
Those people are generally not creative people.
4
SPEAKER_01
Creative people can t stand being in a board of directors.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so eventually it ends up with me and eight
4
SPEAKER_01
financial Wall Street people who are trying to deliver value for shareholders.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yes, good job, you can do that for three years.
4
SPEAKER_01
So, it was palpable in the board meetings, it was just, it was me like going, like, somebody s got to stand for the employees, somebody s got to stand for the quality of the product.
4
SPEAKER_01
Nobody in here cares about it.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I think you should all fire yourselves.
4
SPEAKER_01
And they fired me.
4
SPEAKER_02
And how big was the company at that time?
4
SPEAKER_02
What were sales at that point, revenues?
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh, billions, billion and a half.
4
SPEAKER_01
Billion and a half.
4
SPEAKER_01
What are they today, by the way?
4
SPEAKER_01
I think five, six, seven billion.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_02
So you retracted yourself, you put out the public letter, and what happened to your own psychology?
4
SPEAKER_02
Did you say, I m just done with this?
4
SPEAKER_02
Were you frustrated, pissed off?
4
SPEAKER_02
Did you say, I m just going to go create something new?
4
SPEAKER_02
It s a different stage of life.
4
SPEAKER_02
How did you look at things at that stage?
4
SPEAKER_02
Because what a journey.
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, I don t know if you ve ever had the love of your life leave you.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s devastating.
4
SPEAKER_01
My whole, everything I was from the very core of my body was Lou Lemon.
4
SPEAKER_01
Everything about it.
4
SPEAKER_01
So to, it, and I d like to be, you know, I ve listened to you Tony, I go and I, you know, others and I go, put the past behind you.
4
SPEAKER_01
I can put it behind you and move forward, but...
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, if that love of your life has left you, the conscious mind to think about only the future and negate the past doesn t occur at three o clock in the morning when you re sleeping.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I think time has to go by to let that go.
4
SPEAKER_02
So Steve Jobs was taken out of his company and came back later and took it over and built the most successful company in the history of the world.
4
SPEAKER_02
Would you ever go back to Lululemon?
4
SPEAKER_01
No, because I don t think, I think it took the culture in a different direction anymore.
4
SPEAKER_01
So far away.
4
SPEAKER_01
So it s too tough to probably go into a big company now and change it.
4
SPEAKER_01
But I have bought into Amr, which owns Atomic Skis, Salomon, Peak Performance, Wilson Balls out of Chicago, and Arcteryx out of Vancouver.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I believe we re in the crux of it now, taking that same culture and then putting into these other brands.
4
SPEAKER_01
And of course, then I have big goals of these brands passing, you know, Lou Lemon.
4
SPEAKER_01
Even though I m the largest shareholder of Lou Lemon, I m slicing my own throat.
4
SPEAKER_01
But it s the game for me now.
4
SPEAKER_02
It s a beautiful game.
4
SPEAKER_02
So you look at your journey from oil fields
4
SPEAKER_02
to 17 years building the first company, to Lululemon, to changing the industry, changing the world in that area.
4
SPEAKER_02
You ve obviously done extremely well since then.
4
SPEAKER_02
You ve got your own private equity firms and pieces that you do, all the things you do with your foundation.
4
SPEAKER_02
If you have two or three lessons about this journey that you d want to pass on, what are two or three of the most important ones to you?
4
SPEAKER_01
Put family first.
4
SPEAKER_01
Nothing, nothing at the end.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then I put, well, I guess, and I know family doesn t mean anything unless you have your health.
4
SPEAKER_01
So, I mean, I m kind of reiterating Dan.
4
SPEAKER_01
I kind of go, oh, no, no, I got to put my health before family.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it s true, I think.
4
SPEAKER_01
You actually have to put your health first to enjoy your family.
4
SPEAKER_01
So, yeah, that would be really important.
4
SPEAKER_01
I d say surround yourself with great people.
4
SPEAKER_01
Delegate, train, develop, let people go, but you better dang well have some controls so that those people can report into you and they have parameters so they can t go beyond and wreck the culture or wreck their business.
4
SPEAKER_02
Beautiful.
4
SPEAKER_02
What you built, you have to be, I know it s been a wild up and down journey as most have, but you have to be incredibly proud of what you and your wife have built together.
4
SPEAKER_02
It s extraordinary.
4
SPEAKER_02
People all over the world light up when you say Lululemon.
4
SPEAKER_02
That started from your vision.
4
SPEAKER_02
Give it a hand for him, it s unbelievable.
4
SPEAKER_02
Let him hear ya!
4
SPEAKER_02
Thank you.
4
SPEAKER_02
Let s sit down together and let s take a few questions from around the world if that s okay between the three of you.
4
SPEAKER_02
So you can ask questions for any one of the three.
4
SPEAKER_02
And let s do it.
4
SPEAKER_02
Some people at home, get your hands up and we ll select some there.
4
SPEAKER_02
Let s start in the room right here.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yes, sir.
4
SPEAKER_00
First of all, thank all three of you and Tony for having brought such amazing people.
4
SPEAKER_00
I think we will all learned so much.
4
SPEAKER_00
Thank you.
4
SPEAKER_00
This question is for Gail.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m in the ice cream business, manufacturing, with my brother, who s here as well.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I d like to ask you, Gail, who did you consider, or who was the hire you made that when you hired that person, you were like, this is it, we re going forward?
5
SPEAKER_03
What a great question.
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I would say in the food business, one of the key hires, I think for me, was our chief operating officer, who basically oversaw all the operations of the company as it related to manufacturing.
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And, you know, when you create products, when you create new flavors, when you develop innovations,
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That is the heartbeat of the company.
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That is what you are showing to the world who you are.
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The boxes, such a great point, absolutely.
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But the products also speak about who you are.
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So to me, that role is so important, and it s really important to have someone that has incredible operational experience in order to bring those products to life.
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Thank you.
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Let s go for another question.
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Let s take somebody at home.
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We have somebody from home who s got their hand up.
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I am a fresh entrepreneur in real estate markets.
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I have always thought innovations, so many projects, and I struggle with choosing among these projects.
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Do you guys have any suggestions about
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How can I proceed with choosing?
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What you re going to innovate about when you have several choices.
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Okay.
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Yeah.
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That s an interesting question.
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I d like to take it.
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I would respond this way, that I think innovation is really about fresh ideas that are applied toward a new solution.
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And by that I mean, look for a broad range of possibilities.
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When you think about food services as an example or a recipe, you know, great chefs, there s no new ingredients.
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It s really just about a fresh combination.
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And so when we think about innovation, it s really a fresh combination of really some, maybe some very principled ideas that have been around for a long time.
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But you ve come up with a unique recipe, combination of some things that are applied toward a marketplace problem that creates a remarkable solution.
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I think we have to do a lot of incubation, a lot of measurement.
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You ve got to have something that s going to really be welcomed.
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by the marketplace, but continue to prototype, prototype, prototype, test, test, test, test, test, begin to incubate it out and never try, here s the big, never try to scale an idea that s bad DNA.
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If there s any bad DNA, you wanna know it before you start scaling it.
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Because once you start scaling it, if there s some bad DNA in it, you gotta train wreck, it s just gonna be a matter of time.
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It hurts your brand.
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Yeah, it s true.
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Good feedback.
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Anything you d like to address?
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The only thing that I would add, I think that s spot on, the only thing that I would add is data and research.
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You really need to take a look at the market.
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Now, obviously, having your own data is very expensive, but there s so many resources out there now that you could get really inexpensive research into the market, talk to consumers.
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What s missing?
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What can you do better or easier or cheaper or more efficiently?
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So I would say, I always say most of the answers to entrepreneurs questions are data, data, data.
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I mean, those are two great answers.
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I only have to add that, you know, what part or what business would you go into that you would think about 18, 20 hours a day for fun?
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And I think it comes back to Dan, what are you meant to be doing?
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Because I think if you can find that out in one of those innovations, then life will become very easy and your subconscious will come up with a lot of the answers.
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It s beautiful answers.
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I d add just one other piece, which is what does the customer care most about?
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What is their biggest pain?
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What is their biggest desire?
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Not yours, because I think the biggest mistake a lot of entrepreneurs make is they fall in love with the product or service they want.
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They don t really fall in love with the product or service that their ideal client wants.
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So you ve got a list of things to consider and you might tackle them all, you might test them all.
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But if you re looking for priority, which you have to rigorously do because you only have so much time, cash, capability and energy, it s to say, where is the greatest pain, where is the greatest desire out of all these pieces?
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That s where you re going.
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Even if you re wrong, you can then adjust and you can still meet that need.
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But I think you ve got to know what that need is to guide the innovation.
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That s what I mean by strategic innovation versus just innovation.
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You can keep innovating.
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You know, as many of you here are more artists, some are more manager leaders, as we ve described.
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Some of you are more truly entrepreneurial, meaning taking risks.
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Everybody s entrepreneurial.
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But when you re an artist, you tend to really fall in love with what you want.
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And so very often you re going to miss what the audience wants.
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So don t just innovate to innovate.
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strategically innovate based on what is really needed and desired and don t expect that it s gonna work the first time, right?
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I mean, all of us have learned, you just gave the example with the clothing.
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It s like, okay, I wanna know when it doesn t work because that points me there.
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So many people don t make the decision to innovate or do anything because they re not certain.
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And what every great entrepreneur knows is you can t wait till you re absolutely certain, because it s like investing.
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If you absolutely know everything about the investment and everything that s possible, the opportunity is gone.
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When I talk to the greatest investors on earth, that s why I say a lot of smart people are terrible investors, because they re wearing absolute certainty.
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Well, by that time it s over.
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But what you have to do is take calculated risks, and you ve got to test, test, test.
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And you ve just got to adapt, adapt.
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Because if you keep adapting, you re going to find a way to meet the need.
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Does that make sense?
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Yeah.
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Give her a hand.
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Thank you so much.
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Give it up.
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How about right here?
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Yes.
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What s your question?
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Who s it for?
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One of my, it s for everyone, one of my limiting beliefs is that being an entrepreneur and owning a bunch of businesses is stressful and can be chaotic.
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And this is my question to everyone.
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Can you actually live a peaceful life, an abundant life and have time to spend with your family, owning a bunch of different businesses and always doing a bunch of stuff?
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Is that actually achievable?
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Because my experience has been no.
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So I just, I need to hear
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you know, obviously experienced investors perspective.
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Well, I m going to go first.
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I have this line that an entrepreneur is someone too incompetent to work for anyone else.
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So I think that, so it almost limits the choice.
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You have to go into the business.
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And then I go back to the book, The E-Myth, how really read it and how can you set your business and life up so that you ve got documented processes, you know, training, development, quality control, everything else so that you can have some semblance of normality and you as the entrepreneur can be thinking four or five years into the future.
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Either of you.
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It s such an important question.
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I wish I had asked it.
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So I suppose that s kind of a short way of saying certainly not initially.
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That s right.
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And initially, you wake up thinking about it at 4 a.m., and you go to bed thinking about it at midnight.
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And it is all-consuming.
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It is literally all-consuming, and it is hard to think about anything else.
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I would say there s two good parts to that.
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Isn t it wonderful to have something that you care about so much?
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Yes.
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That s a great one.
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I mean, I always call Kali Power my third child.
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And it s wonderful to have another entity to love that much.
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And then I d also say, it s not always going to be like that.
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And there are a number of things that you can do to achieve peace.
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So for me, my kids were young when I started Kali Power, certainly younger, and I really
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struggled with how to manage that, how to find peace.
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And what I did is I really engaged them in the business.
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They became my taste testers.
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They became my booth workers.
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We talked about it at dinner every night.
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So is it perfect?
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No.
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Is it the hardest thing you ll ever do?
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Yes.
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Can it be a wonderful bonding experience for your family to achieve something so meaningful?
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Absolutely.
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Yes.
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I would respond maybe from a spiritual standpoint.
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I mentioned earlier in our conversation about the embracing inadequacy that we all are going to be faced
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with inadequacies in our life, in our own view.
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Maybe we don t live up to expectations of family members or business associates or even in the marketplace, perhaps, or shareholders or investors.
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And we go through a lot of self-doubt, disappointment.
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But at some point, we have to embrace that sense of inadequacy.
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And that s where I feel like it s fair game to ask God for his favor, for his blessings, for his anointing.
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I love the story where
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you know, the disciples came to Jesus and there s 5,000 people out there, it s a food service opportunity, and how are we gonna feed all these people, you know?
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And so they almost jokingly say to Jesus, well, we got two fishes and five loaves of bread, you know, is that gonna feed 5,000 people?
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Well, Jesus said, well, you just step back, watch what s getting ready to happen.
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And he performed a miracle.
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And I think there s a God in heaven that loves us, that does want to perform miracles in our life, where his favor makes these things just incredibly, unbelievably, just kind of take off it.
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You know, there s a lot of work, there s a lot of personal sacrifice on and on and on.
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You know, families that are going to have to engage, you know, with us on this journey.
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But what does the man gain, or lady, what does the man or woman, what do they gain of the whole world, but they lose their own soul?
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or lose a marriage, or lose an estranged child.
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And so I think, for my sake, I ve been able to ask God, please give me wisdom.
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You know, if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God who giveth to all men liberally.
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Let s ask God for wisdom, let s ask for his favor and anointing, and see him do miracles in our life.
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It s beautiful.
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I d add,
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I d add that, um, you know, sometimes people I d ask people when we do these seminars, um, you know, to fill out a form.
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And one of the questions would be, why, why d you get into business?
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I remember sitting in Fiji and these people are all coming for an event, and this person wrote down, I m getting into business so I can have more free time.
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And I thought to myself, that s like saying I m going to have a child so I can have more free time, right?
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So you don t want to delude yourself, but also you re responding at the early stages.
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In the early stages, as you heard earlier, at Airbnb, I mean, they couldn t pay his rent.
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That s how he started, eight years.
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Now Joe himself is worth $5.8 billion.
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You know, in the early years here, 25 years before we really saw a result here, your father worked for probably more than two decades before he saw it.
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You re the young chick here at seven years into the process and crushing it, right?
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So, you know, I remember years ago, I met with a gentleman who started MTB, and we had this really cool conversation, but part of what came out of it was he said, you know, it took me seven years, he said, to just get that thing from scratch to where it was a foundation.
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And he said, you know, Tony, and I was doing that too.
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I had a lot of small businesses.
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And he said, Tony, you know, I came in and did a speech for him.
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He had taken over AOL and he just taken before that Century 21.
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And he wanted me to come speak, and they d offered me $125,000 or some ridiculous fee.
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And I said, why won t you do it?
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He said, well, because it s half my fee, and I don t have the time anyway.
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But I said, I ll do it for you for free.
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I did it for him for free just because he s a good man.
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I said, because I d love you to teach me, coach me.
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I d love to learn from you in some way.
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I m not asking every day.
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Just, I ll go do this for you, and then let s have a lunch, and you teach me the most important things you learn.
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And he said, listen, these seven-year cycles, I realize only have so many of those.
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So, Tony, you came into Century 21, and I don t remember the real number, but, you know, he said, I didn t realize you re like a rock star.
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You know, he knew Paul Tudor Jones and Ray Dalio and people that he respected that were fans of mine.
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But he goes, like, these middle America people in their gold jackets, I mean, they worship you.
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But he goes, more importantly, do you know what happened to our sales?
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And I don t remember the real number, but they went up, whatever it was, 30% over the next 90 days after that event.
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And he goes, Tony, we ve never seen that kind of number change.
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He said, but you got nothing, and I got a multiple on that.
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He said, and here s what I did.
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I no longer start the companies.
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I go to companies that momentum and I do what you do.
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I bring the strategy.
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I bring the inspiration.
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I bring the tools.
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I bring the training.
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I bring the new vision to it.
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And then I sell those for a multiple.
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And so the last 10 years of my life, I went from a lot of small businesses, but I learned like all of us here over a 20 plus period of time.
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I made all kinds of mistakes.
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I tried to learn from other people.
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I had times when I was near bankruptcy, it looked like, but I was, I had something to my benefit that all three of these people have.
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It was my mission.
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You said doing a lot of businesses and doing a lot of stuff.
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That s very revealing.
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That s not what this is.
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This is a mission.
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This is a mission to honor her father.
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This is a mission to take care of her children.
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This is a mission to give people joy and happiness and pleasure.
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This is a mission to have people feel like they re their best, like not mediocre.
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This is a mission for people to feel like they re loved and kind and there s a place they know who they are.
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Mine was a mission, so it didn t matter if I made money or not.
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It was stressful, but I integrated that because there is no work-life balance.
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Not if you re gonna be an entrepreneur.
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Anybody tells you that s lying.
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There s worth life integration, right?
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I remember talking to Mary Callen Erdos, who s the number two person at JP Morgan, incredibly human being, manages $2.7 trillion, trillion with a T, and I asked her about work-life balance.
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She goes, Tony, it s absurd.
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She goes, I ve read your stuff too.
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You think the same thing.
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And she goes, I integrate my family.
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And she said, you know, she, when she was young, she came, like, did you hear some common patterns here?
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She came to work.
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with her daddy, who was in the financial business.
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And she sat behind his desk, and she saw what was going on, and she developed an unconscious vision from all those things.
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And now she does that with her children.
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She brings them into the environment.
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And I did that with my kids.
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So I didn t have to give it up.
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But it was hard, especially when I was on the road.
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In the beginning, I took my kids with me.
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And I thought, you know, school s great, but an education s more valuable.
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They re going to travel the world, meet the most incredible people.
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But then, if you re honest, you see kids need consistency.
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So I bring them home and I miss them.
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So it was hard, but it was worth it.
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And my kids also got to see what it takes.
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You know, today they re humans of contribution because we did so much giving besides our work.
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You know, most of you know, right?
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I m closing in on a billion meals right now, 978 million meals just in the last 10 years.
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So they would go out and do those things when they did.
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They would go out and come to the seminars.
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So I didn t have that choice between family and this.
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I had to work my tail off.
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But then there s a point where you start to understand how to get leverage, where all the knowledge that you ve accumulated starts to hit.
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And that s when the Airbnb goes from 8 years of nothing to 8 years to 50 billion.
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That s where I went to, OK, now I have 110 companies.
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I m not around managing them all.
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There s 12 that I m actively involved with.
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But I m strategic in all of them.
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That s $7 billion in business.
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I have no business background.
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I learned it all.
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But I have a whole lot more time because I m a business owner.
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I m not a business operator, which you currently are and we all start out as.
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As an operator, you do everything.
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You don t leverage month because you re the best at it.
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You don t want anybody else to make the mistake.
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But then you never grow.
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And the operators are always stressed.
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So you re in the early stress stage saying, will it ever be any different?
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It will not if you don t have a clear mission.
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It will not if you don t know what you re doing this for beyond the money.
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And there s nothing wrong with the money.
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You deserve the money.
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But it s got to be more than that, especially in the beginning.
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There s not enough reward to keep you going and you go, I m going to go back to work for somebody else.
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And there s nothing wrong with working for somebody else.
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A lot of people, that is going to give them a better quality of life.
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It has to be, are you that person that has that bug that says, I have something I want to bring to the world?
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If you have that bug,
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And I wouldn t be focusing on multiple businesses.
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That s like people that do a terrible job with their first child and then they have three more.
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That s a lot of entrepreneurs do.
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I d find the one thing, the one thing you re most passionate about, the one thing you can make that difference about, and then I d say, this
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This is the cost.
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This is what I tell people to do.
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Write down everything you wouldn t want.
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What s something you really want?
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And then write down everything you might have to do that you don t want to have to do to make that happen.
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And then look at each one at a time and decide if you re really willing to do it.
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And if you are, there s something happening psychologically in your brain.
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It s like all of a sudden you won t need to do all those things if you just face it.
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There ll be some you will.
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But there is no free lunch.
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So there has to be a deeper fuel for you, a deeper meaning, which is a purpose for this business.
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Otherwise, you ll be one of the many.
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And one of the many, most people, if they stay in business, half are gone in a year, 80% are gone in five years, 96% are gone in 10 years, 4% make it.
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That doesn t mean they re profitable.
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So if you re going to make it, you need a different fuel.
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And I would pull back and say, what is it that I really love?
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What am I really about?
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What is it that will give me meaning?
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And then you ll find you won t be as stressed, and you ll learn from the stresses.
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And there s a period of time where it ll be a huge pull.
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And then there s a pull of time where, I don t know if it d be fair to say, all of us at this stage
7
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without exaggeration, and probably do more with our pinky than it used to take us 24 hours a day, because we know so much, we have the relationships, we have the business, we have the principles, so we can do things quicker, faster, more, and it s actually easier.
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But you ve got to build to that place.
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It s like saying, I want to be a doctor, and you re not going to put in the 12 years or 10 years to get to that point, much less the time you re going to operate.
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So I really call to all of you, it isn t right for everyone to be an entrepreneur.
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And if it scares you, don t do it.
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Don t do it.
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But if it scares you and you re hungry for something more, then you have no choice but to do it.
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Find your purpose.
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Give him a hand.
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Thank you so much.
7
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How about in the gray sweatshirt there?
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Give him a hand.
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I ve recently taken over a company in August that I really loved the mission.
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And I was an early investor, and that company is called Kinergy.
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It s a dance movement app.
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And we ve been blessed to start the turnaround.
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We ve launched an app.
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We have great culture, raving fans.
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But to really to chip in the whole thing, how do we now scale and grow?
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What can I be thinking about?
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I m almost going to pass on it.
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I feel like at a digital end, I m not that sure.
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But I do know that it sounds like you have a market that s very passionate about what you re doing.
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And I think it s not that difficult to reach them on a digital level to find out who they are.
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I guess it s kind of going back to the 2000s, how you almost give your product away for free until you have economy of scale, and then start putting a price structure on it.
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But I think I m the worst person in the world to talk about this.
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So I m babbling.
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I don t even want to do it.
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Any thoughts?
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I like scale.
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My dad was the entrepreneur.
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We were talking earlier that once he got to the first 100, 200 restaurants, it became almost too complicated for him.
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He didn t know everyone as well as he did at one time.
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And I became kind of the builder explorer.
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I love scaling things.
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I love growing them.
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But as I mentioned earlier, I think it s really, really important to make sure you got good DNA before you start scaling something.
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I mentioned earlier that we just put together some staff for Asia, that s down in Singapore.
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We ve got seven people on our payroll right now.
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I can t tell you how much time we spent with each one of those individuals, because if we don t have the DNA right in Singapore, and we start scaling something that doesn t reflect our culture, doesn t reflect our values, doesn t reflect our principles of owning and unown, then we got some bad DNA.
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So just my overall word to you is make sure you got really great DNA before you start scaling it.
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Good.
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Anything else?
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I was just looking at the screen here, and you have some great consumer love for Kinergy.
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Yes, we do.
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Isn t that fantastic?
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How are you going to wrangle that?
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How are you going to market that?
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How are you going to tell your story?
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People today, particularly when it s something so personal, whether it s food or our health or how we engage or how we work out, they want to understand what your brand stands for.
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What does it stand for?
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It sounds like you have a great story to tell.
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So I think a lot of, I think your advice was spot on.
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But I also think taking a minute and figuring out how you re going to articulate what you stand for is a really important step to do even before you scale.
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Thank you.
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I think I d add one last thing, which is if you re looking to scale something, if you know the values and you have something of that nature, now it s about getting people to a larger number of people to have the experience.
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So, you know, you, you, you coordinate with, and I try to help you guys with this, coordinate with Oprah so that when she did her concert or her, her event, boom, all these women get exposed to it and they do the exercise.
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To me, it s like, how do you create an associated market?
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Who owns the market?
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I already, the one I want, who owns that market?
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who I could associate with, who I could add value to them.
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And in adding value, I get a mass audience.
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Most of you know that these last three years, I ve been doing this event since COVID started.
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And it s like, I really want to help people stuck in their homes.
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And I thought, what keeps people from doing this stuff?
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Well, travel and money.
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Well, they don t have to travel.
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They don t have money.
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Let s do it in their home.
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And now we ll have, this will be the third year, we have a million people for five days.
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And a million people having that experience of transformation is so huge and there s no better marketing because now the word of mouth of that goes literally around the world.
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So I d be looking to see
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Once you ve got your act together, how do I get myself in environments that get enough experience?
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Because the experience of your pizza is it.
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The experience once you go to a Chick-fil-A.
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The experience of putting on that clothing the way you feel.
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People are really gonna be moved by the experience, not just the concept.
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And I do my best to give the experience for free multiple ways and times to build that audience and then make sure you ve got a model that obviously you can monetize in an effective way and scale in an effective way.
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Give him a hand.
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Thank you.
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Last two questions we ll do here.
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For the last two questions, I d like to see if you guys have a question for each other, because you re all brilliant in your own right.
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And so it d be wonderful to see what you might pull from each other, if you have one.
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If you don t, it s no problem whatsoever.
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But is there a question any of you have for each other?
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I guess my question would be to both of them who have such great wisdom.
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Did you ever feel like giving up?
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Good question.
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Feel what?
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Did you ever feel like giving up?
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Did you ever think, I just, I can t do this anymore.
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I don t want to do it anymore.
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I m done.
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Not for me.
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Again, I would have done it for no money.
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Interesting.
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Okay.
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I didn t feel like giving up with Chick-fil-A, but I ve had some other entrepreneurial things that I ve done that I did have to come to a point that I had to give up.
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A Chick-fil-A example is we opened three Chick-fil-A restaurants in South Africa between 1996 and 2001.
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Three of them.
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One in Durban, two in Johannesburg.
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And this is the country s
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Song goes, you gotta know when to hold them and know when to fold them.
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And we had some restaurant metrics that were not working.
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The food cost was okay, the labor cost was really good in South Africa, but we didn t have the sales volume we needed.
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And to open up 20 more restaurants where the financial metrics did not work was gonna be a bad decision.
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And so we had to close all three of those restaurants.
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Another entrepreneurial deal I got involved with was a business called Kefi.
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It was a children s playtainment business, opened up a location in Buckhead, and we worked on incubating it for about two years.
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We finally opened it, and we were open for about 18 months before we had
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to close it.
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So you gotta be willing, there s such a thing as, Henry Cloud says, there s such a thing as necessary endings.
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And so sometimes we do have to tuck our tail, acknowledge that this is not working, and we have a failure, but I tell you what, the only redemption you have is knowing one day I m gonna win back my self-esteem by learning so much.
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that when we do expand Chick-fil-A internationally, we re gonna make sure it s a winner.
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And so you can be vindicated even if you ve had a failure.
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That s wonderful.
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Do you have a question for him?
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Well, I know I m a G1.
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I know you re a G1.
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I was going to call you a G2, but you re like a 1.2.
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I m G2.
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I m G2.
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You got in there so young.
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We re talking about generation two.
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Yeah.
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And I m wondering if you kind of like look back at your life, Dan, and you went, you know, if you would have been a G2, your parents had already built out the company.
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You d had some wealth in your family and everything there as your G3 is now coming in.
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Would you be the same person you are?
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Did you need to go through all that when you were 9, 10, 11 to be the person you are, to have Chick-fil-A be what it is?
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Well, as parents we know that we
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have to teach some life principles.
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We have to let children struggle.
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We have to let them deal, that s the only way they can muscle up, is to deal with the weight, the struggle, the responsibilities, and let them deal with the consequences of choices and decisions that they re making.
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That s the only way we re gonna curate wisdom, you know, in the next generation.
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And that is the long play.
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I love what John Maxwell says, that success is about succession.
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I d say for all of us here, everyone that s listening to this, from day one, we have to start, what s the second act?
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Who s going to be my successor?
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Who am I grooming?
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Who am I mentoring?
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Who is picking up on this vocabulary, institutional knowledge all along the way?
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Because it s so tragic.
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And we often see this in entrepreneurs and family businesses.
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They built this incredible thing, but there were no
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there were no successors that could continue it on.
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And so I just encourage everybody to really pour into that next generation, pay it forward, let people ride it with you, and that way it can go on for a long time.
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Last question.
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First of all, I also just want to thank all three of you for so much time.
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We went way over on time, but you were so interesting and we went so deep.
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So first of all, thank you.
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Really, really appreciate you sharing our wisdom with all of us here.
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It s been fantastic.
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Our last question is you can pick one of two or three.
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I ll give you multiple choice.
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What s next for you?
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Could be a question like what s there or what are you most grateful for or proud of about the journey so far?
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And or a third question, what s the best business advice that was ever given to you?
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A piece of advice that was invaluable that still you d pass on today.
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I ll jump into that.
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I sat down with a lady that s a real estate attorney, Jenny Pruitt.
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She s kind of the Mary Kay of Atlanta market.
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She s a big real estate.
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I was sitting at the varsity with her.
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And she s getting ready to come up on her birthday.
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She wouldn t tell me which birthday it was, but it was a big one.
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And I love what she said.
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She says, as I get older, I m getting bolder.
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Oh, I love that.
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That s beautiful.
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And so as we get older, we should be getting bolder.
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I mean, it s about to all be over with.
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Let s just go for it.
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That s awesome.
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Let s cash in the chips.
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Let s leverage all these relationships that we ve built up over time.
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I got 23,000 people in my hip pocket over here on my iPhone.
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I got all these contacts and I m going to cash it all in and I m going to go for it.
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And so I m doing the biggest BHAG stuff I ve ever done in my life alongside Chick-fil-A.
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I ve got a studio business now and operate the largest
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soundstage operation in North America.
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We got 23 stages.
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We got eight more that are under construction.
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We re the home of all the big Marvel stuff that s going on now and Disney streaming shows that are going on.
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And then my next big deal that I got is I m building a park over the downtown connector, over 14 lanes of traffic in downtown Atlanta, a park over all that traffic in downtown Atlanta.
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And then building a remarkable
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a pavilion on top of it for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra to perform.
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We need more green space.
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Clyde Warren Park in Dallas, Millennial Park in Chicago, Rose Kennedy Parkway in Boston.
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If we want to bring a resurgence of vitality in downtown Atlanta, in any downtown area, we have to have green space, much like Central Park in Manhattan, of course.
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And so it took my entire life
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to get to the point that the city of Atlanta, the State Department of Transportation, the federal folks, the private sector would have enough followership.
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you know, for me to take this thing, oh, and I say to me, I don t take this from an egotistical standpoint, but sometimes it has to be somebody with boldness and courage to say, this is my final Shangri-La.
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I m gonna go for it.
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Will you join me?
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And you re all in.
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And so I m just gonna go out on a flame.
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So.
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I love it.
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That s awesome.
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That s awesome.
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I love that.
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Go out with a flame, burnin  bright, that s gorgeous.
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How about for the two of you?
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Who wants to go next?
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Well, my wife and our family is in a very fortunate position because, you know, I don t know how the tax structure works in the U.S., but every time we sold Lululemon to go into real estate, we had a big tax bill, and you end up putting a lot of money into a trust, so we ve got quite a large trust.
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And we re behind this goal of turning 30% of Canada into parkland by 2030.
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Wow.
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The federal government s behind it, our provincial government, BC, and our province of BC makes Texas look small.
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So just so you know the size of it, but only 3% of it is inhabitable.
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So we can buy with like $1 million, what was it again?
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1 million acres for $4 million.
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That s how, it s so rugged, it s unlivable, but.
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We can now buy these mining and forestry rights from the government, turn it over to the First Nations, and they will run it.
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And it s a win-win for everybody.
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That s gorgeous.
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Beautiful.
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Beautiful.
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But you also have donated, if I m correct, $100 million to help with muscular dystrophy, that type of thing as well, right?
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To solve this issue.
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That s correct.
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And I have another.
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I also got $30 million to the $101 million age reversal prize that Peter Diamandis has.
8
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Wow, that s exciting.
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That s beautiful.
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I know we re connected that way.
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Yes, we are.
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Yes, that s beautiful.
8
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How about for yourself?
8
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Well, I m still in my journey, so I m not going anywhere.
8
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I think what I m most proud of is the fact that since the very first pizza we sold back in 2017, we ve given a percentage of our sales to help build teaching gardens and underserved schools across the country.
8
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And I love that because, you know, we re really trying to create
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a world where kids are eating healthier and feeling better and that s how you contribute to society.
8
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So that s probably what I m most proud of.
8
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And I think the best advice I ever gave was when I made the decision to start Kali Power.
8
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And I was very nervous, but I knew it was almost like a calling.
8
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And someone said to me something that is so true, and I ll leave it with everyone today in case it s helpful, and that is, well, she said, it s better to say oops than what if.
8
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And it was great advice, great advice.
8
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And so whatever you do in life, in business, it is about taking risks, it s about taking calculated
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risk, but you owe yourself a life with no regrets.
9
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Give a hand for that.
9
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That s absolutely beautiful.
9
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Very good.
9
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Well, this has been beyond what we could have possibly imagined.
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All three of you are extraordinary souls, extraordinary human beings, besides being extraordinary business people.
9
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And thank you is not strong enough words, but I hope you feel our deep appreciation for your example.
9
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for your love and for your vulnerability and for all that you ve built and all that you ve pushed through to show people what s possible.
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Blessings to all of you and thank you for being here.
9
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Let s hear it from them from around the world, ladies and gentlemen.
9
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Give it up for all of them.
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The Tony Robbins Podcast is inspired and directed by Tony Robbins and his teachings.
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It s produced by us, Team Tony.
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Copyright Robbins Research International.