All right guys, how was the first day at FICON been? Awesome awesome. Well, we've had an awesome time having you here today We're really excited about the next two presenters. We're gonna have right on stage here I want to recognize more of our FICON sponsors because as a non-profit organization FICON is made possible by the people at Foundations and individuals who support us through donations and I recognized earlier the Diana Davis Spencer Foundation and Freedom Factor They are our two top sponsors for the event. I also want to recognize bitcoin.com You probably saw their outposts there in the Pre-function area, please visit them the Atlas Network. They also have a table inside the exhibit hall Retzel market urbanism marketers urbanism is very interesting because they're applying a market-oriented philosophy To the way in which cities are built. So they're very interesting if you have a chance to go into any of their sessions They're running the urbanism track I want to also recognize praxis praxis is an awesome organization You've probably seen people wearing praxis t-shirts all throughout the space. There's one right up here. They're actually One of their people is going to be presenting here in just a little bit and I'll introduce him when it's his turn But please see people in praxis t-shirts And go visit their table and actually their co-founder Isaac Morehouse is going to be running the social Activity that we do here next. So please look forward to that The last sponsor I want to recognize is educating for success another great organization in the expo hall Please visit everybody and you know another reminder We're all here to meet different people.  That's what this is all about So I have the auspicious pleasure of introducing Kevin Harrington who If you've ever seen that logo as seen on tv He is the guy who invented that he also invented the infomercial and i'm going to Stop before I say anything else because this upcoming video will explain everything. So let's queue up the video Meet Kevin Harrington with over 500 products launched and generating over five billion dollars in product sales in over 100 countries Kevin Harrington is the inventor of the infomercial as seen on tv pioneer And original shark on the emmy award-winning tv show shark tank Kevin creates massive brands by combining great products with superstar talent like kim kardashian 50 cent kathy in paris hilton christ jenner silo green george foreman montel williams jack lillain flowrida hulk hogan billy maize paula abdule and tony little My brand now is worth over three billion dollars So my advice to everybody if you even have an idea You'd want to go to kevin harry as a sought-after guest. Kevin has been featured on 2020 cnn fox business bloomberg jim kramer's the street mtv Good morning america the cbs morning news the today show cnbc squawk box Entrepreneur fox and france donny deutch big idea bethany the view and the daily double on jeffrey now back to the shark tank i'm kevin harry a renowned speaker kevin has appeared on stage for organizations like atn t microsoft united states postal service humana 3 m fedex arburn university harbert and mit kevin has authored several books Including act now how i turned ideas into million dollar products and the best seller how to become a key person of influence As a global influencer kevin has thrown out the first pitch for the tampa bay rays and produced movies with stars like kevin spacey and the father of invention kevin is a pioneer of the direct response industry And has risen to nearly iconic status over the years kevin helped to found eo the entrepreneur's organization and e r a The electronic retailing association receiving their lifetime achievement award kevin is now at the forefront of the digital marketing age As founder of quantum media a cutting-edge digital marketing agency kevin has built 20 businesses to over 100 million dollars each That's why he's the original shark from shark tank the billion dollar man kevin herrington Let's give kevin a warm welcome. Thank you First they've been great so far All right, thank you So how many entrepreneurs do we have in the room? Let me see a show of hands or future entrepreneurs? Let me see okay, but oh about two-thirds of the room. That's fantastic because that's exactly The kind of crowd i'd like to talk to those that want to be Entrepreneurs now do any of you want to maybe go on shark tank and get mr. Wonderful to get nasty no How many have seen shark tank right mr. Wonderful? Do you know why he calls himself that? Because nobody else will okay now he kisses the mirror every morning loves himself right now No, he's actually he's a great guy. He's a good friend of mine and we've had a lot of time that great times together Here we are at the The guitar convention and it's actually the national associations of music Manufacturers and we did a folding guitar together on shark tank So that's one of the projects that we did and i'm going to tell a little bit about shark tank today how i got on I'll tell you a little bit about how i got started as an entrepreneur And then i'm going to share with you four steps and some actually some tough times that i had because As an entrepreneur it's only fair for me to tell you also Some of the problems some of the challenges when they asked me to come I asked is it okay that i talk about how i had sort of a meltdown at one point in my in my career And i want to talk about that how i hit really a bottom point in my life and decided i had to do something To turn that around so If that's okay, i'm going to share that with you here today Also, so just starts real quick way back when i was young and my my father It was my first mentor and here's this is my presentation today as in tribute This is the third anniversary. He died three years ago the week of june 23rd, which is next week So um, let's give my father a round of applause for being a great service to this country He he flew 150 missions in world war two which was pretty amazing got shot down a couple times And you know he fought for our freedom and and this is a great place to be talking about freedom and economic Education so for me i got educated by my father about economics way back and one of the first things This is kind of a joke slide But i say i remember when at christmas time other kids would get regular gifts I would get the books like how the grinch stole your product idea Okay, and the cat and the hat creating another line of hats Okay, so that my dad was always teaching me and so i was very lucky to have a father that would show me I worked in his restaurants. In fact, um here I was in his herrington's irish pub way back and then he says you've got to be an entrepreneur And I started a driveway sealing business and then I had a heating and air conditioning company And I went on then to create a business brokerage company was called the small business center A one-stop center for small businesses I rented a whole floor of an office building in cincinati, ohio where i'm from and it and we had We had the business brokerage company. So we sold you the business But then you needed a legal structure. So we had a lawyer. We had an insurance agent We had an advertising agency and everything you needed on that floor to help you survive and thrive as a business owner So this was sort of like you see these we work spaces today, but it was all of the camaraderie all of us working together and Counting and graphics and you know, we did everything your books your records your brochures your ads Menus if you were in a restaurant business. So this got me really In tune to seeing lots of different businesses because as a business broker I had a couple hundred different businesses for sale Laundromats floral shops pizza parlors delicate tessins and I got the books and records of all these different companies So because we had to sell them we had to have all access to all their information So it was I call it a curiosity overload phase for me and a chance for me to really understand the inner workings of many businesses and so I used to go to a lot of trade shows and And I'm going to talk a little bit about tv because you know tv Back in the 80s and 90s and then when cable hit was different Back in the old days when there's only five channels when cable hit yet hbo movies and cnn sports But when I got to the discovery channel, I ordered a big cable package 1984 that was what was on the discovery channel Now this is how I got into the Informercial industry because this story is pretty cool and I I say that there were Three eureka moments in my life and I'm going to share each one of those with you today And the first one is coming up here in just a second because I I said to myself How I called the cable company. What's wrong with discovery channel? Why are there bars on the screen and they said oh, it's only an 18 hour a day network Six hours a day. That's what you're going to see and that's when the light bulb went off in my mind Think about this What you know, what can I put on that channel and make some money for me and discovery right six hours a day?  Okay. I mean think about that He said you could get the ginsu for 14 dollars and 95 cents But for the first 10 people i'm going to give you a second one absolutely free But wait There's more right you've heard that right 10 free steak knives. Okay, so he got attacked by me I got I was one of those 10 people and we all bought that ginsu knife set right? And so that's when the light bulb went off. This is eureka moment number one I said to aren't his name was arnold morris I'm going to show you what I did with arnold because I when arnold got on break I said arnold that is the greatest pitch i've ever seen And everybody attacked you when you were done and I watched him do it a few more times the same set of words And I said i've got a great idea. I said first of all, how long you've been doing this? He said kevin I go i'm here at the philadelphia home show next week I'm in the iowa state fair that i'm off to san francisco 40 weeks a year. I sell the ginsu knife And I said arnold i've got a great idea You know, I don't know if you've been watching tv, but you know that discovery channel It's got six hours a day bars on the screen What if we filmed your presentation put it up on a discovery channel give them a little cut of the sales And instead of you having to travel 40 weeks Every single year You can sit back at home because we're just going to tape it one time and take it all over the world And here is the original clip that we did Now you Now you take a tomato the weight of the knife alone cuts that tomato Let me ask you something how many knives you have at home this sharp you could drop the tomato on top pretty sharp, right? Do you know what one young lady said can you cut them thin? I said thin one tomato will last you all week long I don't know the crowd here is a little younger than normal But how many have seen arnold morris before on television? Maybe yeah, okay great Well, guess what this went on to do over 500 million dollars in sales. Let's give arnold morris a round of applause also You like that? All right Now with if we did it because we took it all around the world because it was if it if it worked in the us And there's bars on the screen on discovery channel I wonder if there's bars on the screen in england in africa and asia and latin america So we opened up offices around the world.  I said wow we're rolling we're doing Actually at 500 million a year in sales We were doing 10 million dollars a week In sales and it was just going like crazy. So I said to myself we need our own media company. We need our own fulfillment center. We bought our own production studio We had 80 000 square foot worth of fulfillment And yep, we were we had all the celebrities from billy maize and the kardashians and frankie avalanke george forman 50 cent You name it. They came in. We did the deal. We made big success but Little did I know things were about to change and and and this is this is where true entrepreneurs really learn how to deal with building their business but dealing with failure because there's there's a gentleman at winston churchill that says Success is being able to deal with failure after failure without the loss of enthusiasm, right? So think about that and so So this was the turning point that I realized something was really really wrong. Here's a I said look at all these celebrities Here's a video we did and it was after this that we really learned that we were doing the wrong things and watch this quick Little video. What happened to our video there?  Let me just go back to that It's up here Now you can put on your favorite music and have fun dancing all those extra inches and pounds away Presenting the one-of-a-kind low-impact calorie burning muscle toning total body exercise That's fun fast and easy the revolutionary new twister sizer from the man who got the whole world twisting chubby checker This is bad Now I highly recommend do not do a fitness product with a man named chubby. Okay? Okay, it didn't work now and because we were doing all we thought we were invincible, right? But what was happening was this there was this magazines and newspapers and tv were having huge declines all of a sudden And we're all now part of what's happening in this world today Brutal was the decline in television viewership morgan stanley did a report that said 50% fewer viewers today. This has been in the last 10 years now, and here's the worst part of that Analysis see the line straight across that's the revenue that goes to the tv station The green line is the viewership so while viewership was plummeting The stations were still getting the same amount of money And that was where guys like me couldn't I couldn't take it anymore because I needed viewership to sell product I'm paying the same amount to get half the viewers. I'm out of business And I mean it's no secret millennials were ditching their tv sets.  I thought I was at his house. He went to college last year first day He's getting the cable guy coming to the house the apartment he was renting rather and I said what cable package did you get and to nicklist my little my 19 year old? He says, oh, he says dad I'm sorry, but I'm only getting internet.  This is how it's getting paid for is the tv, right? So how can you do this to me? Right? So he's like, hey, but if you want basic, I get it. I said, well, yeah, we're getting at least basic cable Okay, so you know and so this is what was happening to me here. I have 500 employees I've got fulfillment centers and phone centers and all this stuff going on and We don't we things are plummeting and so literally this was this was a time I mean, I'm just gonna I'm going to show you the logo. We said as seen on tv What am I going to do? I said I've got a this this industry is turning tv viewership sales are dropping And and as seen on tv now you can put on your we already saw that guy here is this one right here The s this is what happened to me right at this time the as seen on tv industry right in front of my eyes Was burning to the ground Literally sales were plummeting. We owned as seen on tv.com And we used to have millions of monthly customers now it was 1.7 then it was 1.5 then it was 1.3 million Just dropping because people weren't watching as much television. So what are we going to do? What are we going to do? Well, I you know fortunately and I and I remember and this is kind of what I felt like when I came into the office because You know some campaigns that had gone through the roof They lasted for years now things if they did work they would go up and they would be down in 90 days And so we we started burning Lots of overhead said I have to change my business model I can't I don't have to own all of this and so this was now me being a resilient entrepreneur And and part of the lesson that I hope to teach today is that as as I was seeing the face of my whole Company go down. I said no, I got it. I'm going to sell the as seen a tv Business i'm going to sell the the the logo i'm going to sell the The the dot-com site and I said to myself I need to really tune in I need my father who was a great mentor to me said you've got to find some great mentors in addition to myself Kevin and get some wisdom because things are turning and so I went to a A big mastermind and has anyone heard of Richard Branson and necker island where he lives down in the down in the Caribbean beautiful island Richard hosts a handful of very select masterminds at his complex down there And there's Richard and I at at his at his necker island He it was a mastermind for digital marketing And he knew all about what I was talking about because we went there and I had private Three-day sessions with Richard and myself one-on-one hour here and hour there and hour there masterminds with some of the brightest minds in the world And they laid out a game plan for me because we said I can't just sit and allow All this big expensive overhead to consume me. I I need to get much smarter I need to do things a lot better first thing they said is go and find out by the way There's me in my sumo wrestling outfit. I'm the necker island sumo wrestling champ Okay, so that was a lot of fun. Richard said hey, we're going to have some fun while we're here too, right? So the the When I came back from from from that mastermind and again one of the things that I highly recommend you're here For education economic education, right?  We put together a four step process for me to turn my business around and he said Kevin You have a great background in television in producing those infomercials But you need to surround yourself with a dream team of new folks that can take you to the next level So you've got to build your dream team and this dream team should be coaches and mentors and career advancement experts finance operational experts See the last one digital advertising gurus. This is what you need It says I said digital. I said what why what's what's going on? I didn't know about all the world of digital yet and this is now going back about six seven years ago So our world was just starting to get into digital. So this is what I did I wasn't Too proud of myself to do this because I was seeing 50 percent Of my sales that I had before because as television dropped half So were my sales dropping to half and by the way It was it was the first half that that provided us the break even it was the second half of our sales That where we made the money so once we had all that overhead with half of the sales It was impossible to make money. So that's why we started selling off Assets and doing the things we needed to do so so part of this process was getting the right team And then that team said okay, this is what you need to do in the world of digital You need to also step two When you're on fire You need to rewire And that's you know what happened to the as seen on tv logo. It burned up. We were on fire We were burning down Our fulfillment center was empty some weeks because we weren't shipping products and our media company wasn't buying media And so we had to rewire so we had to get curious About how to take it to the next step So when when we when I say curiosity overload taking a survey of your passions and assets and exposing yourself to as many Opportunities as possible now. How many students do we have in here? Let me see show hands. Okay almost about over half the room Right.  I said no that's every day. Okay, so I get five newspapers every day. I'm exercising my curiosity I subscribed to trade journals. I go to trade shows. I go to 30 trade shows a year And this is what I started doing because I I said I need to rewire what I'm doing. I started going to these digital conferences sharpening my networking skills and increasing Every aspect of the digital world that I could And exploring strategic relationships and for anybody here You know internships could be very very powerful to get in on the ground floor of some great opportunities So, you know and for me this so this applies both ways students entrepreneurs and myself rewiring my own business, right and so You know I started doing I said trade shows. There's the top 100 trade show gold book There's the directory of mail order catalogs. It's got 1500 catalogs And now they all come digitally and I subscribed to 1500 catalogs on a digital basis And I get those sent to me on a monthly basis I get all the catalogs So I now have sectioned them off to have all the hardware ones the houseware ones the beauty ones the fishing The golf etc and and now when I when I'm looking at a fishing product I get to go through 35 fishing catalogs and see all the digital successes that are going on Ones that are going over and over and over so This is now again part of this curiosity overload if you don't get out there You can't just sit. You can't just go to class. You've got to have things after class that you're doing speaking networking And for me it also was Checking out all the websites. I had has anyone ever heard of a website. It's called the grommet by any chance Let me just see a show of hands anybody in a room one two three ten people out of five six hundred people I didn't even know about it either. I started seeing what they sell I'm doing about six million a year with the grommet now and it's because I was exercising my curiosity And group on qvc. Ali Baba Zulilli hsn I'm good. You know, I go to amazon every single day Not the byproducts to see what the top products are selling because this is my curiosity Overload because that's the business that I'm in is finding the greatest product. So so think about this digital disruption That's changing a lot of industries right now It's it changed the taxi industry with uber It changed the hotel industry with air b&b And you know, let's talk about this. Here's a slide that'll put it in perspective It took 50 It took 38 years for radio to get to 50 million listeners tv 13 years to 50 million viewers The internet for the ipod 3 facebook 2 But the pokemon go app got to 50 million downloads In 15 days Right, how about that now wait till you see the next slide billboard said that ed sheeran got 375 million downloads in one week That is amazing. Do you think the world's moving a little faster now? Let me hear it. Yes. Yeah, absolutely, right The world is changing so fast And to be able I mean when I started my business I started a drive way ceiling business and heating and air conditioning today Kids are they're putting apps out there two boys from auburn university started something called bell hops And it's the uber for moving and they just they were moving from one side of a dorm to another on the campus of auburn And they hired a couple students and thought wow this saved me You know $800 for the move and now they just raised 25 million dollars I don't know if you've heard of that but check it out.  They've got 37 magazine properties Look at all the properties. They've got entertainment people time time itself golf sports illustrated Every single year sales are going down And what did they do? Well, they finally said we have to get into this digital disruption They did something like I did when I went to Richard Branson They actually held a shark tank and they said we have to create an innovation challenge inside the company And you know why they did it because they realized the old guys that were running that business Didn't know about digital so they invited all the the young millennials in the company to come in to this challenge And teach the rest of the company About digital and now they're going to be they projected with the turning their old print assets into digital revenue streams It's going to be a billion dollars over the next Four years three years So this was just something this is by an article just about two months ago in the new york times And now let me tell you about a company that was in the magazine business. They didn't let this happen Forbes magazine and I love Steve Forbes is an amazing guy. I'm doing an event with him. How many have ever been to freedom fest by the way in las vegas? Yeah, okay about the 20 percent of the room It's coming up in july in las vegas Steve Forbes and I do something called pitch tank And I tuned into what steve was doing because forbs said it's 98 years old And they they they have 52 million monthly Readers of forbs.com While time ink was going like this Forbes was going like this. Why what did they do 1500 freelance contributors? That were contributing articles and I was one of them steve came to me and said would you write An article every week and he said yes, he said great the only condition You have to send it out to all of your followers You're you know hundreds of thousands of followers and that's what they do with 1500 freelance contributors And that's how they got 52 million monthly readers forbs.com So they went about it in a digital way very smart very very smart Highest readership in 98 years Forbes Forbes has so they didn't they didn't have the same problem that that time had time ink was 37 properties Forbes was one crushing it So this is what the smart people were doing now I'm going to talk about retail for a second because you've all heard retail is hurting all the retailers that are having a tough time, but You know sears is an example and sports authority and jimberee just filed for bankruptcy One that has not had a problem is best buy and the reason being there while all the other retailers are Literally going like this best buy just had a 23 increase in sales profits and stock price And the reason being is because they're tuning into digital They've got these these geek squad guys that are going out and giving counseling to people in the in-home situation And so if you read the last line here the stores Actually in the middle stores continue to be a great asset because they're utilizing their stores For for customer pickup and for distribution And they've got such a great footprint that they're going head to head against amazon and they and they match price So, uh, you know, they're actually they're not going to have the same challenges because they're confronting And not just surviving but thriving in the world of digital So Where are we this digital it obviously Hopefully will create some new opportunities for everybody here Also, and so that's when i'm going to move to the next the next step of this recovery for me because I got out of that conference at necker island and they said kevin You've built all these brands You you built tony little's brand you built billy maize brand you helped jack lillain george foreman All these people you know It's just amazing But did you ever build your own brand and i said no I never raised my profile really and and i said i think it's time now that i actually Build my own brand and so this was the next step for me was to to take my own brand and take it to the next step And so i started raising my profile and this was all part of a plan right now Again, I said how many entrepreneurs are there? How many want to be an entrepreneur 70 of the room? So you need a passion for taking your brand to the next step I i said to myself i need to do some podcasting and some radio interviews and speaking at the chambers of commerce and I did one chamber speech in tampa florida And she's the the tampa chamber person said you know kevin that was Great, I want to see would you be interested in getting together with all the chambers in the whole state of florida Next you know we once a year bring all 27 chambers in the state of florida And next uh month is going to be the one here in tampa florida for all 27 chambers So i got invited back to speak to that one So i put a conscious effort to start doing things start creating content Creating myself as someone that was out in the marketplace of building my own brand in fact I came out with my own book How to turn ideas into million dollar products and then i took that to radio stations and then i created another book How to become a key person of influence and then I created my own magazine a digital magazine And when you create all these brands around yourself Then you can keep customers get new customers enhance your reputation as an expert really This is about taking and putting a plan together for your business And I don't if you're in school right now That's okay when you come out of school you have the chance to do this for yourself But you got to find your niche and you find your niche by exercising your curiosity So now here I was and let me just talk about digital is anyone familiar with the digital magazines, right? I mean forbs. I said turned to digital because forbs.com. They had 1500 freelancers Well any business owner could create a digital magazine just like that and in fact here's a little clip on a digital magazine So so so time ink is doing this forbs is doing this I'm doing this entrepreneurs can do this because a digital magazine It's like collaborative marketing you get all the content from contributors It costs you nothing and it costs you nothing to send it out because it's all digital and you can actually sell ads So this is a highly recommended way to actually you can not only put information out But now you get to collaborate with the people that are giving you content to go to their list Also, then this is how forbs built the 56 million viewers So let me just talk a little bit about some of the mistakes I mentioned here that I wasn't building my brand college students You need to build your brand or you need to get out there. It's not just facebook and youtube You got to be checking out linkedin much more powerful and we put a concerted effort together to go after linkedin And we said we want to build a huge following on linkedin So what we did was we joined targeted groups and one of the groups that I joined was 900 plus thousand Entrepreneurs and I became a scheduling ninja by putting posts out in the morning in the evening And and then a lot of these people started following me and I became relevant and inquisitive And so there's every piece of the puzzle of building my brand was an execution Of coming out with books and podcasts and linkedin and yes some facebook and creating some content And so we call it digitally testing Before you invest and this I mean by the way, have anyone seen this product here the one with oliri in the toilet glow bowl Okay, is there anyone like it's a night light for your toilet bowl Okay, so if you haven't seen it you're going to see it because we're doing amazing things with this But again, we changed our strategy from the as seen on tv model To being able to now test digitally creating 30 second social media videos instead of 30 minute infomercials and then being able to test them on facebook and digital platforms instead of all over the expensive world of television and so people that have done this and just a couple examples of a couple young kids Michelle fawn And she built a 500 million dollar company for some reason her picture is not up, but How many recognize michael dubin from dollar shave club dollar shave club right he he shot a 4500 dollar video That created a billion dollar product line called Dollar shave club sold it to unilever for a billion dollars And so this was an amazing feat, but he did it digitally didn't have to run it on tv Really it was all in the internet. It was all viral. And so I said this is what I did I call it my 2.0 kevin 2.0 I said forget about all the big offices forget about fulfillment centers phone centers. I said i'm doing virtual Everything virtual phone taking virtual processing virtual shipment meaning I hired fulfillment centers I hired phone centers. I hired customer service centers. I didn't want all of these people So now we could take a product and put it out there create a 30 second digital spot test it digitally And then have it running in all these digital ways And maybe eventually on tv But the the beauty of this was that we actually in fact you're going to see wall street journal said There's this new thing called the gig economy the end of employees I mean google has equal number of outsourced sourced versus full-time employees And david cush down their former virgin america ceo says we outsource every job that we can that's not customer facing So this was the transition for me. I had the big overheads the big fulfillment centers and now i'm outsourcing All of it and when I outsource It's it's called access to assets without owning them in fact the Does anyone recognize the gentleman's face down there? He built a company snapchat and what did he do? He rented amazon's cloud when he started instead of developing his own He said to amazon you got all the money. Let's be partners He partnered with square on the finance and he built a in the beginning It was four billion dollars with only with in two years by the way With with only 20 employees Because he said I don't need hundreds and thousands of employees. I can do it all virtually And so I said to myself this these like I said I was doing drivly ceiling businesses when I was you know in my teens This guy in his 20s has created a 25 billion dollar company So the other part of that is he didn't have all the overhead and he wasn't spending all of his time Hiring and firing and dealing with human resources. He was able to scale the business and the process So so this is part of of of what I say you build your dream team Get a dream team. Don't be afraid to go for the best You know I I become part of dream teams now So here's a company a little company called Celsius. I brought in flow ride. I joined their board You can see the stock at where the star is was 10 cents a share 324 in january hit four dollars and 20 cents today And so I brought in flow ride it and russell simons and we raised money 16 million dollar celebrity investment that we brought into the company And we took this company from five million to 170 million So this is how entrepreneurs today can partner And join forces with people that can be part of the dream team part of where I started with Going down to necker island and meeting first with richard branson to put this plan together now It doesn't have to be all these fancy people though. It could be right in your backyard It could be a banker in your hometown. It could be an insurance agent You know Part of this dream team by the way is an insurance agent right in bokeh ritone florida And so we just created this massive group of people and then we said, you know what all these celebrities They want to be part of ventures. They're they're you know, you can bring in some of the From the flow ride is to the rianas to the katie parry's to the paula abduals They can be part of the future. And so my business model has changed now. It's it's we've got from Kat the ireland ventures to entertainment to horse racing apps to celcius to national business services I partner with companies without having to build all the infrastructures So it's it's taking the virtual aspect to the fullest And so now what happened along the way as I was doing things a lot smarter Finally some other big things started to happen for me And this is another one of these eureka moments one day on the other line is Mark brunette survivor and he's on the phone. He says hey kevin I want to talk to you about a new show that i'm doing and I said What's he called? He said look, i'm not going to tell you all about it over the phone I want you to come out to la i'll tell you all about it when you get out here And I said mark I said I know you you're one of the greatest tv producers does the Apprentice and Survivor and The voice now and he said I'll tell you when you get here. It's called shark tank. Just jump on a plane We'll pick up your airfare when you get here. So I got off the phone. I was all excited. I told my wife I said crystal I said you won't believe it mark brunette wants me to come out He wants me to maybe come talk to him about this new show He's doing called shark tank and and he wouldn't tell me anything about it.  She said do you know what he does to those people on the survivor island show You want to be on shark tank? I'm like, hmm. Wait a minute. I've what am what are they going to do to me, right? So, uh, no, he said no, it's a business show kevin. So, um, so when I I had a really loved getting involved with shark tank Here's another quick story Barbara corkman is amazing She's one of the sweetest sharks and then here's a wedding robert herchovic Now there's daemon and myself and robert and his wife kim johnson in the middle. So one day Shark tank we're producing and editing and going like crazy all all day the producers of dancing with the stars came over to um to shark tank because dancing with the stars is on abc also And they said we'd like to get one of the sharks to come on dancing with the stars Because it's cross promoting on the same network abc to abc And and who would like to do that my wife was there and robert's there We're all sitting around and robert says hey that sounds good. I'd love to do it And my wife's grabbing my hand. She says you're not going to go on that show Okay, and I'm like, well, what's why robert's going to go on why can't can I do it? She says no, she says I watched that show dancing with the stars and I see how close they get when they dance And she says I I'd be too jealous to have you on national tv dancing like that. So I said, okay Let's let robert do it. That's okay now robert by the way was married Just kind of in a rocky relationship at the time with his existing wife But this is the part of the story that gets crazy. See the girl in the middle. You know, that is kim johnson From dancing with the stars. Okay. He got married to her and I guess they did get a little close when they were dancing, right?  You know, I did 175 segments and they just keep rerunning them over and over and it's allowed me To do the things that I want to do to have freedom when I was doing a little interview out front for the camera They said, you know, why are you here and what are you going to be talking about?  You're going to be, you know Maybe you're going to write a book so you got to sell your idea to a publisher building websites There's three simple steps. This doesn't take a long time because I can do a whole day of building a perfect pitch But it's it's three simple steps tease Please and seize and those are the steps to follow when you tease you create an attention getting problem When you please you show unique benefits with supported with testimonials and when you seize you create an irresistible offer And one clip from shark tank and we're going to wrap this up and let everybody Rock and roll tonight because it's going to be a lot of fun here with this last one here. This is rebecca rascati Hi, i'm rebecca rascati founder of city kitty City kitty is seeking a hundred thousand dollars for 15 equity in our company For the 200 million cat owners around the world cleaning a litter box is a chore that we all dread litter boxes Our germ breeding grounds Kitty litter gets tracked everywhere. They stink up our homes They cost lots of money to continually fill and they cause fights and otherwise peaceful households because nobody wants to clean this thing It's disgusting and cat owners don't know there's any option But there is you can toilet train your cat with city kitty. Take a look here With city kitty the dirty litter box is gone. Your home is cleaner.  I mean it's crazy product. It's unbelievable. By the way, we've executed all the steps Building her dream team Creating her brand taking her to trade shows. We went to the house where show and got her into wall greens And we got her in all these different talk shows. She went on good morning america the today show When the view called barbara walters said I want to see city kitty on the view and and rebecca said, you know Kevin I don't think I want to do city kitty with barbara walters. Okay, because it's a little crazy, right? So I said, okay, I'll go on the view and I did and it was amazing because first It was a lot of fun whoopie goldberg barbara walters working with those kind of folks is amazing But I got off the show And um city kitty is a training device You throw the litter box away and you put this on top of the toilet and the cat jumps on the toilet And then each week a ring comes out until there's no nothing there and the cat keeps jumping on the toilet But as I'm leaving the studio, uh whoopie says kevin before you leave. I got to just tell you City kitty I tried it now I got a bone to pick with you because I took my cat oliver and I showed oliver Hey, look throw the litter box away city kitty on top of the toilet and jump on top of the toilet oliver Oliver took one look at me one look at city kitty ran in my bedroom jumped on my bed and crapped all over my bed Okay, I said, uh, don't say that on the air ever. Please. Okay, so Uh, so that's that's my my story with with city kitty But it it's been a great run and I just I want to summarize and thank you guys for for listening today and being part of The the the fecon program I think it's amazing that I have a chance to talk about Entrepreneurship for students for existing entrepreneurs because I built as seen on tv to hundreds and 500 plus million And then had a meltdown and then had to had to get mentors and coaches to bring me from the ashes And take me to the next step and that really was was what happened for me and and it and it turned my life around So I have for for anybody that would like We we've got some free books and stuff if my irresistible offer to everyone here If you text this you can get a free digital download of six of my books for some reason three of them aren't showing up there But um, I want to thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure to be here and good luck in the next two days Uh, I hope you have a great time. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. All right Oh I I have one one final comment Shark plug guys john, would you just stand up there? Say hello shark plug if anybody has any questions? They got a booth over there products development entrepreneurship. They're the guys who're part of my team They're right here in Atlanta by the way And uh, we've got a booth a couple stores next next one. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you


Now, these are the basic operations that we can do and there are many more we are not going to go into all you can explore, but you just see that how to do define variables and how to create least arrays and how to do addition, subtractions like basic operations not only on the numbers but also on the strings and then you saw that how to write conditions like e-files and how to do looping like for loop and a while. Now, we are often we have to deal with the data and that data may be coming in some files which we need to read and do operations on that. If you reading the files, Python has this very handy library called pandas and when we want so if you want to use it, again we need to first load it and also like it is not necessary that all the Python if you have just installed the basic version of the Python it has already this pandas inbuilt it, but maybe want to get that library in your installation and by the way I think if you install pandas and all sorry Anaconda and all maybe that will already have this packages readily installed. So, let us first get this pandas library imported as pd and now I have a file called pokeman underscore data so that I have stored here it is in the same directory where I am running this Jupyter notebook and here we have so many options available to play with our data. First thing is we need to read all the data and get into a data frame or like get it into some array so Python provides a very handy way of getting this data in terms of a data frames first I can read all the content of my CSV file and put it into a variable which I am denoting as df here to read this all I need to do is simply write pd dot read dot CSV read dot CSV is the function I need to call to read all the content of my file. Now suppose I want to see ok maybe let us clear all my cells here you know all the things are fine I have to only get started here now I have imported my pandas library and now when I read this all the data is now come into this variable df here and now in the df suppose now I can do various options one of the operations I want to see that I want to see what all the headers right ok maybe let us open this file here this is a file let me see I can open this ok let me not open like this let me first download and open it ok let me see if I can open it in Excel ok now you see that whenever I have such a data set the first row will be usually what type of column it has and then first row is what type column and usually the first column will be basically index indexing each of the rows and after that for each row you will have attributes for all of this columns ok. So when we have such a data loaded first we want to see that what are the headers in this what are data is stored in this file so we want to read this first row and here you see that so this is a Pokemon data set I do not know much I have not seen this Pokemon I think it looks like a famous cartoon there are famous very lots of pokemons and they come in different types maybe type 1 and type 2 and under type 1 also they have different values like grass fire water and all and under type 2 it is like a poison flying dragon and all and they have some other characters like what is their HP attack defense I do not know what is SP attack maybe special attack or special defense whatever all this information is stored here and now when I want to when I use this function dot head and give phi what is going to show me to show me the fall the fighter and you show me the first top five rows and the first five top row such this is this is like gives me a first immediate glimpse of what this data is containing like what kind of attributes it is like maybe I can read these are like attributes type 1 type 2 HP attack defense these are like attributes of the data and now in the defense in this DF variable I can now see that what are its columns ok now it shows it is simply going to see when you did this dot head it kind of nicely showed me in a little formatted way what are the columns and showed me information about this columns by displaying the first few rows but when you do this DF column it will simply showing me the first row ok so it will giving me some information about what the first row is about and now I can do a lot of operations all the data is saved in my variable DF now suppose I am only interested in the two columns which has this name and type 1 as their attributes and I want to see the first five rows of these two columns so I have to just use this function so this is the specifying how many rows I want to see and this one is shows in specifying which columns I would be interested in ok so here it is just showing me this column name column and type 1 column and only showing the first five rows and similarly if I want to see the first four rows and column ok so here 0 to 4 rows are shown so notice that here only integer locations are shown here and in our data he had the first row did not corresponded to an integer right it was like something hash here so the integer is starting from 1 here I think that is where it started and it is and it showed the next four rows ok and it showed me the first column here sorry here index is 1 that means it showed me the values from the second column similarly if I am interested in only particular value let us say I am interested in the index 2 on the row and index 1 on the column I can just specify that using my I lock function I lock here stands for I think integer location and that is in my data is simply when you saw ok. Now I may be interested in knowing for I am now let us say I am interested in only on one column here type 1 column and I want to see that in this column where the value this attribute type is taking value 5 so then I need to get this first when I do this df type 1 that means it is focusing on my column with the type 1 as the attribute and it is looking in that all where the value is matching to be 5 and it will show me only those. Now if you look into it is only displaying me those rows where type 1 is all 5 and this is happening in the rows 4, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 42, 43 like that ok. Now you can do sorting or maybe get some summary of your data and there is a very convenient function called describe. So, here this describe function gives me kind of all these basic statistics like count, mean, standard deviation, minimum value, first quartile, second quartile, third quartile and the max value of each of my attributes here which are numerical. So, notice that type 1 and type 2 features are not numerical wherever that the features that corresponds to the numerical values for this all these basic statistics is shown. And now you can also get the values in ascending and descending value by using this sort value function let us see what I get by executing this. So, here I am using the name attribute and I want it to be put in a ascending order. So, here 0 means it is going to going to put in a descending order 0 means descending order if you want it to be an ascending it is 1. So, here the variable is ascending, but its value is 0 or 1 based on that it is going to put it in ascending or descending. You see that even though the name has the the string value it has put them in a descending value starting the first one here has a z and as you go down you will see that things are ordered starting from z and all the way to a in additionary way. And you can also make changes to your data like we did it in our list. So, for suppose we have this many heads here like attributes here suppose I want to add another one let us say I want to add another one total which is basically the sum of all the values that are happening in this HP column attack column and defense column and all I can do this and if I do this now and when I see this now head now we will see that that total also. So, we have basically earlier this total column was not there, but I added this column and I got this information. Similarly, you can drop columns like this column I am dropping the new column I added total I am simply dropping by using this drop column and whatever the modification you do to your data now you can store it as a new file suppose like you have data this df now you have initially loaded it from a file now you have done a lot of modification or some modification on that now you want to save it as another CSV file. So, you can say this modified CSV and give index as true then it will show it as a new file. If I do this so that is what this modified file is what it gets just created just created just now it got created just now. So, there are many multiple things you can do like you can filter out your data. For example, in the type 1 you want to only look where the value is grass and only look for that's where the type 2 is poison and you can list them. So, if you look now type 1 is all grass and type 2 is all poison you can do various perpetuation in combination of this. You want to list only those columns where the type 1 is grass or type 2 is poison you can just use this LOC function and get them. See here if you see that I type 1 I type 2 at least one of them is grass or poison. So, you can do all the combinations here and yeah you can even check these conditions and get like here if what I have done is I have looked for type 1 to be grass and type 2 to be poison and when the HP value is greater than 70. So, you will see that in all the things I have there are all the HP values are greater than 70. I can also do some conditional changes like if I have if I want to let us say type 1 wherever it is value is fire I want to replace it by let us say flamer. I can do that by using this LOC function again. So, you will see that wherever that fire was there now it is got replaced by flamer and you can do the similar things here. So, there are other things like you can get some aggregate statistics I think you can just play around you just look into this function group by and you will get this. So, we will stop here and I think with this we have all the basics of how to create variables manipulate them not only the locally, but also read it from the another files and play around this. So, in the next session we will see that how we can use some of the statistical tools on data and see how some of the things we have learned in this course can be used. This will stop here.


Hey guys, what's up? We're here with a young Yankee stud, Clark Schmidt. Clark, of course, there's nothing like pitching in the big leagues, but along that journey comes some really cool things. And you just had one recently on Twitter. Yeah, so one of my videos got posted online and somebody tagged Pitching Ninja and said, I look at these pitches or something like that and then it kind of blew up and he ended up reposting it and made it a little clip of it. So yeah, it was pretty cool. That's right, so Pitching Ninja, one of the most popular Twitter accounts in baseball so far. Yeah, for sure. Adam Aduvino said that if you get up on his feet, it's almost like a rite of passage. Yeah. And that was your first one. Yeah, it's funny. Growing up, it was always ESPN like top 10, you know? Like everybody was like, oh dude, so you see so-and-so's on top 10. So it's kind of like that. That's how I see it at least. It's like, oh, this dude got on Pitching Ninja so he must be doing something right. So I think it's pretty cool. It's kind of funny how players and pitchers, especially in the majors or minors or whatever it is, they get excited over something like that. But yeah, I think it's cool.  So you even got a little bit of that in there. That's right. He gave me a little extra love. I don't think you can beat that. So yeah, it was good. With your reply, you said at mom. Right. I made it. I made it, yeah. I was like, I don't know what to say. I was like, I guess I'll just tag my mom. All right, I just tagged at mom, but it wasn't really my mom, but yeah. All right, well, we were watching Clark's bullpen just yesterday. So we got some cool video that we think that you robbed out there. We know you're watching that you get to work with and maybe make a couple more, but here they are. All right, so that was your first time pitching Ninja and hopefully a second and a third. And I'm sure many more will be on deck for you. Yeah, that's, you know, hopefully I'm on there. Every week I pitch, that'd be the goal for sure.


That's a little scary right because the first I was like, oh, I missed the window. He's already dead.  That's true. Yeah, and then it actually is like a Some sort of right of passage is like they think they think you died falsely and some people worry about you I'm relieved when they find out I was not sure when it just when I died. I sold another It was like one point three million albums sold and it just went to fight Like that people were like, I know this is the last one. I better pick this thing up My life is too short. I died Do you know how that happened was that just a rumor where you like look tell everyone I died Oh, they had specific reasons. It was always that I got Shot and it was always like inside of a crack house and I was like the actual crack hit like So you don't even have no beef no feud nothing because you made it through the biggie Tupac thing unscathed and then I made it through a lot of feuds because The guys that I ran with always hung out with I never really hung out with a lot of rappers So my crew was never hip-hop influenced and then they were the kind of guys that are like, you know To me they would be like you're like in a rap battle like it would be like the most ridiculous thing to come Back around the homies and go. I got a battle this guy. They like battle like wasn't supposed to rap battle like Like punch him or something like you are you mad at him talk about it? It went it went well with the homies. How come your crew was never the hip-hop rap crew Well, I have a lot of friends that are rappers Of course We're in the industry that are really good friends over the years but my immediate hardcore crew that I always hung out with was the guys that I came up around in Oakland and No matter where I went, you know, somehow I would involve my guys my main guys And we just kind of kept the same core friendship like you know all these years, but but um, I Personally like I would I would always see rap as my job So I got a life over here I'm gonna go to the studio from 12 known to 8 p.m. At 8 p.m. I'm gonna go hang out with these other people I put when we wanted to get some dinner and then we're going out and we're gonna do blah blah blah You know me like that. So I always had a I would not like this I would not separate the two unless it was like a too short show or something and Didn't work people come around the way from work people and a lot of times they didn't click So, you know, it was so what were the what was your crew listening to it's not rap where they like Oh, they love it. They just didn't make it. Okay rappers and they weren't guys. They were just homies, right and Something that a lot of us would agree or agree on when you do it when you deal with creative people a lot of There's a lot of weirdos a lot of yeah like lectic eccentric Behavior and people who are just down the earth blue-collar people Then they like man, don't bring it. Don't bring your weird friends around us And it's not even my weirdo in to mop to me. It's like we make music. We kick it We do things we we have to be creative But to them they're like me and boys weird man.  I don't know. Yeah stuff like that like just Things that didn't click socially so your crew wasn't as creative as some of your artist friends then they were just kind of It was a lot a lot of the guys that I made music with They didn't like the party like they they would go to the big party, but I would go to all the parties so When I left the studio, I always want to go to like some restaurant or some chick data something and something and then I'm going out and my guys who made music they were always like, you know, they like their own world You know to go back to their kids their wife and kids or something like that some but others just you know You have your own castle in your own world You know the people love you in your world if you go hang around with t-shirt and work all day And they go hang around too short at night. You're going to two shirts world. So everybody down world Yeah, I can I can understand that it seems a little bit of a little bit counterintuitive though Because when you look at when well when I watch movies because I don't hang out with them and your rappers either surprise surprise You see that's like studio the whole crew is there kind of like we when I walked in this guy's outside hanging out Looking at the equipment talking about probably what they're going to do tonight Whatever and you see all of these guys always going out in a group working as a group They probably live together when they're younger for all I know and you just kind of went not I got my job Which is rap and then I got my my career in with that And then I've got these other friends that have had forever that I'm always just gonna keep yeah I'm not buying one like that, but at the same time there are a lot of guys who They're together They in the studio they all make me together. They leave the studio. They all go out together They chase chicks. They chase chicks together. They go out of town. They go out of town together There are those guys. Yeah, I just I've always had like different pockets. Yeah I have like friends who like my my real friends who really high school You know, and I have this other group of friends that I met after the start I mean they're like a different breed of people that you know, I They probably have I'm like, let's go to Oakland. They're like, no Catch on the next trip. Sure So your what are your high school friends think about your career because I mean grew up decidedly middle class So some of your high school friends must be like, yeah, you know, Todd that guy went to high school with He's a rapper now. What yeah, well No matter where I Landed in life. My life was always a mixture of You know elementary school. I was really good student private school, you know, but We didn't live in a really great neighborhood. We live in a decent neighborhood on a good block where The drama was like a few blocks over or you know, not too far And then I had cousins and live all over the city and I spent a lot of time You know, you always get dropped off for your cousins. I did you dropped off for like Like we're gonna pick me up. Yeah So, you know, it's not a lot of time with the cousin. So I got it. I got it in all over the city and and When I moved to Oakland, you know, I went to free my high and it was just kind of I kind of ended up in in a different kind of environment where where You know, I had all these elements in LA of going to a Really good private school in ninth grade. I went to go to J. American.    No homework.  I had a lot of ingredients to where People wouldn't be surprised, you know. Yeah. Yeah, the only people that probably were ever surprised were people that went to They were the ones to be like Those guys did you still hang out with some of those guys I still see some of them, you know Like Chris Vincent went there.  Everybody's everybody who I know that went to that school is doing good life Did you pick up your own name?  Is you're not that short. Let's get that out of the way. You're not you're just not that short You're not well in my height people people said I'm about today. I thought she'd be shorter. I Was five to the day I turned 19 years old I was five to Okay, and then when I turned 20 by the time I turned 20, I was this song like five eight.    Yeah, like sir makes a lot era of hip-hop. Yeah Yeah, so I want to I never carried your sir too short into the rap career that much But you listen to some two short records and I have referenced it Enough times. Yeah, sir too short. I said I said in songs because people in Oakland. They know it So I went to the mall and got me a little baseball had got some iron-on letters. It says sir too short I said, um, I got the jacket to match With the two short somewhere on the jacket or something and I walked up to the school one day with the jacket and the hat on and And then they really didn't want to accept it at first forget like I already bought this jacket in his hat Man, it's not going anywhere. They didn't really know I never really caught me too short By the way, everybody calls me short. Anyway, but they didn't want to accept it at first and I went to this party With my brother and his friends one night to tag along a little homie that just they don't really want you with him with them and They get to this party and they tell me I couldn't go in as parties like on the Intersection it's in a house, but it's really close to the intersection of a main street There's a gas station on the corner. So I'm just like hanging at the gas station outside of a house party That's like two three houses down as people outside. It's you know, I'm just lingering Again to this long conversation with like this homeless guy, which is something that That I've been doing my whole life is just having conversations with homeless people because you know, just very interesting Really, I'll get to that. We'll come back to that. I mean, yeah, you can imagine. Yeah, but He asked me what my name was and I told him I told I said my name's too short.  My rap name was too short. I just kind of So with the jacket in the head, it sounds like you immediately you were good at branding somehow into my accident Yeah, yeah, but that was the thought process.  Yeah.   Yeah But I had a I was on a mission that anywhere I stopped You will see my name. So I stopped there other people start there.  I'm like, that was pretty Pretty slick to early on.  Well, you sold the tapes out of the trunk of your car, right?  I had a rap partner His name is Freddie be when we started selling those tapes. We either walked But we caught the bus. So the trunk was a longer.  How did you how long was that phase of just ramping up? That would have been like about a three-year period of that was strictly our hustle.    Yeah. Yeah, so only other job I did that on the side that was like randomly showed when you want to show up sure didn't show up for two weeks Nobody said, you know, yeah, you're out of here now. It's like, all right, whatever next so um, I had a buddy who uh Who was the assistant manager jack-in-a-box?   He came to me personally and said Angel to come to work six o'clock Saturday morning. That's Like that's like two o'clock in the morning for adults and you have to work with the boss. That's his shift So I'm already like You know not wanting to do this and when I got there, I knew I knew what the fuck's gonna happen. Yeah He handed me a Bristle pad like it would have handled. I know toilet cleaner and he said um, he said you take this solution He walked me outside to the drive-thru Did you take this solution you put on all the oil stains and then you take this brush and you rub it my Oh, and he gave me another chemical and a chisel. He said he take this when you put on all the gum You take this and you scrape it up. I was like, okay, okay Fast as you got out my sight.  I just left Yeah, cuz he was gonna basically haze you until you bounced Yeah, I didn't go for one. I didn't scrape one piece of gum.  I was out. I saw it a mile away. I knew it I gave him the whole okay. Okay. I'll do it But you were such a hard worker in other ways, right?  You just didn't want to do that Probably cuz he told you jack in the box was fun though man.   Do you eat there now? No one what goes on? Not really. I don't really eat fast food unless I need to eat really fast, right?  So shit's real. Yeah, and I hang out with friends who are who? Disrespect waiters and waitresses and I say remember Yeah server remember who do not talk him Yeah, remember I was polite and here's the one that was nice. This ain't I had this sound. It's not a good thing, right? That's funny. Well knowing now that you were running a business now and Being a business now. Do you look back at how you worked for that other business owner a jack-in-the-box and think like oh, man I hope nobody's doing that to me here.  Yeah a You know like some some guys Who have worked that way up in the rink as a fast food have become ambitious enough to become owners sure and entrepreneurs? It's like I just think that Some people are life-or-driven man.  Yeah, but you were you were such a hard worker in other ways Did you ever think about giving up with the the rap and everything you never think like man? I've been selling tapes on the bus off the bus with my in a paper bag out of this Dantronk for three years Now that was high school. We were in high school.  I would literally go out and sell tapes Just so that I'm like, okay. I'm gonna give me some new pair jeans shoes And we That was like my mission was to go right that much profit save the money so the next day I could buy more tapes And I was just you know, you check the check. I was living take the tape check Yeah, take to take take the tape early.    So, you know, I feel like I couldn't stay that route. I could have been This independent guy who just Worked his regional success and just milked it and shit, but at some point the way this game is they're gonna dangle that Then be carrot. Yeah, and you're facing you like, you know, I Was the pill to me was never The money that I would make it was always like the audience how we get that's why I went to the major labels for the bigger Audience that's just I knew it. I knew what I had. I knew what he did to people and I knew I Knew for a fact when I've never even had been in the studio People And you didn't have any did you ever have any doubt about it like man, you know This is getting harder or I gotta go with this label. I don't know if I want to do this or they're trying to change my music Maybe I don't I don't have a heart. I don't have a music heart and look story. No, that's good though That's real though because I feel like it's tempting to go.  I was born in 66 My mother drove was 66 with variable Mustang.     Yeah, that's scary. That's extremely scary. It seems like Your upbringing was pretty pretty normal pretty middle-class, right? I mean you were in SoCal down well down in LA and then up to over when your parents your mom worked for like the IRS, right?  I went to J.M. Murphy. That was a different kind of curriculum There's another school in LA.   That's you still got to get from Catholic school in the head to home in the head and it's like LA was like It's like the opposite of Disneyland like you going from a music part to music part You're going from situation to situation as a kid.   Yeah We saw a little dude ride my bike down the street. He stole it out of thrifties out the drugstore And I was only in that motherfucking at three minutes.  Come get it. It won't nobody show That's ridiculous. It's unbelievable and this is and this is your whole neighborhood So you're navigating this whole situation as a kid and this later on informed some of your music I would expect yeah, I was my only like real Extra curricular activity outside of solid music That I just did to be bad. I was a stealing bikes professional bike thief Oh, I had a chip on my shoulder because when I was in I was a kid People bigger to me always kept taking my bike. So we just took it as You supposed to take the people little and you take that man. You paid it downwards That's that's what I thought and it just that was just a ritual That's what we did. So, you know, I was that kind of city man. We're Well, I'm not gonna say LA just was that kind of life man.  What are you gonna do? This from a guy called to show you think would have a little little sympathy for for people who are smaller than a little guy No, nothing not a not a way man. It's it's I wasn't really a I Wasn't really like a You know like a person. Yeah, not a lot of It was all in my mind.  It was like fun.  I really like building bikes So I had a I had a parts thing going some guys I came across in life Yeah, like chop-chop It was it was some guys I came across in life that has something similar to a chop-chop and then I was this one of those guys I was like, I'm always gonna have wheels. I feel like I have that in me right now about cars Yeah, they said your Porsche outside the shiny one. I gotta have wheels. I gotta have Accessories like that too Yeah, well, but you bought that one outside Yeah, my bike all my bikes would have like accessories. Yeah, like what like mirrors and horns Shit and I would I would really think that I didn't overdo it or I didn't make it ugly Like I was like people like that's a nice bike like Thanks, I stole it from a kid smaller than me at a garbage. Well, I would never ride the bikes. I stole I Really like break him down.  You know when I was coming up in the rap game I'd have a component or something and I and somebody to have something other I might have to cassette decks And I'm like I'm gonna try to cassette definitely equalizer. Okay, just I was whatever Gadget guy from back in the day.    She was doing that That you know within the company the equal rights. Oh, yeah, sure I'm drawn a blank to your drone a blank. I'm drawn a blank. Yeah, she was really into that for a while I just trying to see people get the promotions and you know talking 70s 80s and Yeah, she was like real political on promotions. Yeah, of course Of course fast-tracked away guys and everybody's got a fight for a job.  All right, well my mother passed a year. I'm sorry Little over a year ago, but my mother was like really really good friend of mine A lot of people know that that when I didn't live with her for many many years We constantly saw each other talk to my just conversations and she was like a friend and then when she retired I moved to Atlanta.  So people like people know the relationship and know how it was and I feel like I'm You know, it's one of the best times in my life Atlanta, Georgia My I was living at the house always cooking gumbo and dinner always going down You know family visiting because of her She's kind of person that would keep the family together Versus if you check her out the equation, we don't really call each other You know, oh, yeah, so you but you move the center of the family into your own house Exactly. She was the glue and she was the one who's big old Christmas and holidays and degerating Everybody come down and then You have kids now though, right? No kids. No kids. Oh, why did I think that? I don't know why I thought that it's a lot of yeah, I guess bad research adopted step kids and then My fake wife on a Wikipedia. Yeah, I saw that too. I take it off. It's like he's putting back. Yeah, somebody Eric Erica or something. Yeah, not your wife Not my wife, and I wish I wanted to lose the lady in the picture like yeah, she knows Yeah, that's maybe she's the one doing it. Who knows? I'm two shorts wife That's weird.  Oh god. Okay, two shorts my daddy to short raisin a lot of kids like that Some step kids and you know in the wake Love step kids. What is your mom think?  I mean, she must have had an opinion you're close to your mom and then you go up on stage and she would be told Do you know your son is a nasty-ass rapper and he says really nasty stuff I heard that but I've never heard I heard people say that but I've never heard the music She's like I've never heard in curse ever. Well, she never heard the music never heard you curse ever She'd heard the radio version of every kind of a radio, right? Yeah So they were like cleaned up because I feel like if your mom ever came to one of your shows You'd be up there, and you'd have to think twice before you said anything She came to my show in Phoenix when she lived down Phoenix and I Knew she was gonna like come say hello or whatever whatever, but I Was I don't know if I told her or if I You know just just stay backstage.  Yeah, of course, you knew you were happy to oblige that she didn't not know I just say you do not want to see what I'm about to do Just walk away because I can imagine she would be pretty shocked. It's kind of like This is my this is what I think it must be like so if I'm rapping or something like that I got one of my black friends in the car, and then I know the next word is gonna be the n-word I will not I'm not gonna say it right and you get that feeling bubbling up in your stomach Where you're like it's coming next not just gonna not I'm just gonna hum And then keep going yeah, and that's how I feel like it must be but you can't do that cuz you're on stage And your mom's the front row and you're like, I don't want to say Maybe I should say riches or witches instead as a whole show and None of it can go down with her in the crowd. Yeah, you know one time. I was in about Maybe 11th grade 12th grade. Maybe I rap for a long time a long time before I told anybody my family I was like that was Popular in the streets, and I would never come on the stage. You know Kept it to myself my mother I Don't know. I don't know when we're how and why but one day I went to go You know one of my mini notebooks with rhymes. How's that? How you doing?  I was flippin through and I found a letter from my mother It was a long letter And she could have right in the middle some dirty-ass raps and it was a it was a whole letter about Just like how I was raised and Do I believe this stuff in these songs and oh so she went through the notebook and was like I need to intervene here She never said anything to me just the letter. Do you still have the letter? I Immediately Get rid of that. Oh my gosh. Yes. Yeah So did you have like an awkward dinner conversation like pretend you didn't see that her pretend you're right She laid it all on the line in the letter. She was just like she was just it was really saying What she said to me many more times in life and it was like need to Could travel around do a lot of music stuff and just sell them out and make fun She was she she wanted me not to be too sure But not so much didn't work out that way.  He had two different houses was like a almost it's like 15 years and She um Okay, she um She witnessed The real player in me like the real player like I I just couldn't hold it back like I just couldn't hide that from her to where And both houses we had I always made it where I had a separate entrance that I could just not pass her But somehow she would just see so much it just be like different chicks. It's mom.  Oh my god. Your mom mentioned this. I'm thinking I separate these rooms. So this you got your own wing I'm right the studio professionals insulating everything So she made a joke about me being a player and then um And then she would like like really be against me In my player world, she would really be against me I could I had to be careful if I left a chick alone on her Because she immediately starts giving them information on how to win She's like now Telling that she's got these other girls that come around But this what you gotta be gotta do this night Like she she would pick and choose the girls that she liked and then she would try to groom them To to win with me. Oh man.  So she made friends with the girl Okay, bringing this a pretty girl around the house who's who's very church wholesome and Wife material. I was not gonna work. Is she trying to I don't know what conversations they had but she's trying to tell me ain't she's pretty on yourself Like she's looks boring So then she she would pick like a girlfriend that I had That kind of might have not lasted longer whatever is somehow she links into this girl and after I'm doing other stuff They're working Um getting me back to her. Oh my gosh, like Like really like working like You should come go with us. She said I'm like, we're gonna go get our nails done You should come with us come to dinner with me and charlotte. So that's so crazy She was working on and her she's her main motivation was grandkids.  Yeah Yeah, so you basically you moved her in and then she was like no, this is my house And I'm gonna make sure that you get married. You got more than you bargained for there So how how was your career sort of matured with age?   I was like No, a lot of jewish people think I can make this happen. You're in show business, man. You know ton It was pretty easy, but but um, uh matured man Shit, I mean I just I just got older, you know, like You don't really 51 now, man. Yeah, you don't really want to like be like like Like an older funny daddy kind of I've tapped out on on living life kind of person But then you can't Do the wow shit like super wow So I'm somewhere in the middle somewhere in the middle. Yeah, I imagine I get a little wow, but I'm conservative compared to the bone short down, but I I still don't Sit around and watch television shows that come in at eight o'clock and You go to bed early. No, I mean if you're starting a recording session after this How long you to work like eight hours or something like that probably No, I never I never work past whatever time it is to go socialize I always like get out If I'm stuck in this motherfucker, I'll sit at work to two three and one if that's very rare Most of the time it's gotta be done by like It's gotta be done by like night 32 Yeah, and then you go out you go out every night No, but I do something Something every night every night.  I mean you're 30 years in the game.    You always gotta stay busy. Yeah, I can hear I hear you on that I can't relax my friend asked me How I relax and I told him basically I prepare for my show and they're like no no no But how do you relax? What do you do on vacation? I'm like Research people So I feel like we have that in common. It's the same. They're like no no no But what would you do if you had like this project right man? It's just dry.  So that became like one of your trademarks it became Essentially a staple in hip-hop, but looking at this with 2020 hindsight. What do you think of popularizing that word?  Right. It would just be mine. It wouldn't be That's a bit of a license before you say it have to check the legality. It would be fun. So for one, I think that um The journey that the word took with and without me And where it ended up at is amazing this to to to believe that to know that we Started this in a bedroom Yeah, it's your ringtone. I heard it on your phone My way was like that your ringtone.  Do you ever have any regret like should I use a different word or I should use a different concept? Because now you've been bringing a different message to local Oakland neighborhoods life's not all about sex and money But how do you put the toothpaste back in the tube on that one? So If you go beach Or if you take it out of snoop dogs face go beach Or if you if you say it, however you say it It wasn't like that with me. It wasn't like one dimensional like literally I would rap And in my raps I will always refer to this one person That every song is just like it's a just talking to one person And in that song I'd be like, oh man something something like I'm making I'm personalizing on purpose And I call y'all kind of like nicknames in the in the song But another thing I would do is I would say bitch a lot and it wasn't just bitch it would be like I'd say it to The chick I'm talking to in my song.   It was it was always like that bitch or that person and I think that all that combined is some of these that people will never ever realize Is what brought it home not just going bitch. That was the fun way to say it But I use it.   I think it's 232 bitches In the song Jason's right. He'll get on that my producer That'll be something you'll be like hold on.  I put up a thousand I'm going to get you a thousand if you can memorize the first verse Nobody won yet. I gotta come back next time and take your thousand bucks You'd be surprised I don't I went to law school. I memorized a lot of useless stuff Hell of a challenge. Hell of a challenge. Yeah, I'll give it a shot next time Tell me what's going on in Oakland. Why are you so interested in the homicide raid? Tell me what what's got you concerned over there Well, it's not just Oakland. It's just Our cities in general. It's just it's just the trickle down. Like I said, it starts with the improper education in preschool, kindergarten, first grade like you You set them up with that from failure right there on on other opportunities and That's a lot more to it man that that whole just reading A book like the new Jim Crow and just realizing the The bigger picture of what Donald Reagan's drug on water became and mixed that with crack cocaine in the hood and just those two things and everything they did Just fucked up the fabric of Of the order of the hood, you know, and when people Had an instruction that was That was allowing people to survive that it had an order, you know And then the crack being introduced the The laws that were applied the after effect of People killing over all the crack money People getting loan sentences for murders and and small amounts of drugs just totally left The 80s babies With no supervision. Nobody raised them talked to Tons of them and they go my grandmother raised me my mother's friend raising my Uncle raised me.      You want to fight me?  We ain't arguing man.   It ain't just the music. It's It's the environment.   I would try to show you opportunities give you opportunities and I would uh You know that you gotta you gotta Breathe that That Fire that drive you gotta somebody's gotta want it. It's so easy to get it.    You have a core group of older Hip-hop fans and older artists who don't like what's being made now and they just like cutting the line off like This is a line called real Real's over here fake is over there.    So that we know that limit So what's next is it? Somebody 55 gonna have a hit record like what's next like? I don't know if there's gonna be a limit one day Somebody 87 years old will have a hot rap record Might be you. I don't know but I'm saying the limit It will be set one day. It's gonna be like older to hit a rap record 103. I don't know is it gonna stop you with age right now It's approaching 50.  I don't make money off of it. Yeah, it's my job. This is the hustle So you'll rap it as soon as it soon as something flops. It's over the same thing that bought me tennis shoes And I was 15 is buying me tennis shoes at 51 the same exact thing Let's do it be We'll make some words Let's somebody hear it get paid What is it? I know that explaining hip-hop lyrics is like explaining a joke and it might just ruin it But I'm gonna ask anyway. What does it mean blow the whistle?  You're doing this negative.  It's some sort of undercover weapon And I was like damn it does mean that so Every now and then during the show I might ask an audience member.  It's been great.  All right. Thank you, man. That's great. Yeah, really good