Digital Social Hour

But I also read a book when I was there and called The Million Next Door.

And I believe in practicing frugality in certain ways.

So if you're just starting your business, if you're trying to save some money, if you're trying to be responsible and like set a foundation for your future, I don't think it's a bad thing to drive around into Toyota.

I don't think it's a bad thing to have a Honda.

A lot of people hate Michael Lewis because Michael Lewis has been like a little overly positive about Sam.

It's Robert J.ldini's in his book Influence. He says, true influence is not what somebody thinks about you. It's what you make them think about themselves.

Right now I'm deep into Elon Musk's book, Walter Iason's book on Elon Musk.

this this book is called For Love of Country leave the democrat party behind and uh I left the democratic party a couple years ago um And I go into in each chapter in this book really the the detailed reasons of Why I left the democratic party and the experiences that that I had had Um, I served in congress for eight years. I was a vice chair of the democratic national party Uh, I ran for president in the democratic primary in 2020

The reality is that today's democrat party is led by this elitist cabal of woke war mongers who were doing everything that they possibly can to destroy all that We who truly love this country care about and as as depressing as that can be and as hopeless as hopeless as um Our situation and our future can seem at times Uh, the the call to action really at the end of the book is is about What we can do each of us as individuals To save our country

I recorded the audiobook and uh I tell a lot of stories in there about my experiences that that people probably haven't heard anywhere else And I think it'll be a very eye-opening thing to see What goes on behind the curtains.

I have [read it], I read it a long time ago when it first came out.

I think there were lessons to be learned.

I think of Trump much more as a marketer than a negotiator.

I like picked up Living with Seal and I read Living with Seal. And part of Jesse's story is he would just cold call people.

But also, you know guys like Richard Branson and people that knew how to build brands and systems and processes and just a student of it So I did that and I was having the time of my life I started my first company when I was 24 years old and had no idea what I was doing I had no resources didn't know how to raise money as matter of fact I never raised money my way of raising money was just to sell and Just go out and sell all day and if we needed more capital that meant I needed to close more deals But after I started my first business I kind of got into cadence and every time I had a fun idea It seemed like I was starting a new company and you know I remember people ask me kind of early in the process maybe five six years in hey Do you ever plan to sell your business? And I'm like this is the most fun anybody could ever have I mean, I'm finally making money having a good time And I was like, you know, I don't think I don't think I really ever want to sell these businesses I want to do this forever and through really a unique set of circumstances I had a a business partner that was not actively involved in the business, but was just a fantastic partner and He had a big business and three unique series of events In 2015 all of my operating companies were acquired by Berkshire Hathaway and And got to carry that awesome flag of being a Berkshire Hathaway company and you know, I think it was it was fun I mean, it was an amazing time and it was a great accomplishment But what I think it was really mostly impactful for is all the people on my team I had all these people like my buddies when I'm 24 years old that I'm like, man, I'm gonna go start this business I can't really pay you anything and we're gonna go sell into this industry and they're like Vic You're crazy, but I'll go do it and the ones that stuck around which were most of them. Yeah in 2015 All of a sudden, you know, we went from just Energetic passionate people that were selling into an industry and building companies to you know, we kind of had this stamp of maturity Of having that great, you know mantra and slogan and probably the most powerful brand in the world in my opinion Yeah under our brand which said, you know a Berkshire Hathaway company So it was fantastic. I think the the path of how we got there Was by no accident. It was really just all about the people that I surrounded myself with You know, I was one of these guys that when I was a young man You know, I took notes from people that were successful and one that I always heard people say is surround yourself with people smarter than you right and And I thought they meant it and so I really spent, you know all those formative years to build my businesses Just trying to find people. It wasn't all about IQ. Sometimes it was about EQ I mean just people that had a lot of passion and drive and understood how to be You know, compassionate and what they did and right up about it and next thing you know We've we've built a series of companies and Man, it is it's the funnest thing ever for me is to build businesses. I kind of love it And you know if I always tell the story of somebody invited me to go play You know around a golf on a Saturday morning at the most fantastic golf course in the world And I love to play golf every once in a while Yeah, but if they asked me to do that or said, hey Let's get in a room and let's figure out how to build massive enterprise value. Let's scale a business Let's build a great team and let's take something to market. It's like a love story I mean, I just fall in love with the process of helping people build businesses and hey That's really what I get to do. So I love that a lot of fun. What do you build in this year?

I had read a book that a dear friend of mine today, I didn't know him then, James Frey, he wrote a book called A Million Little Pieces.

He turned that into a movie.

It made it onto like Oprah's Book Club.

But I looked at his outline and it was 12 chapters.

There's an entire book about this called Jaws. It's fantastic.

The curriculum stuff, like what's that one?

The Catcher in the Rye?

You know, I started to realize if I could really bring them revenue, if I could bring them customers to their story, they'd pay attention.

In Tony Robbins' new book, it was like two years ago, he cited this as one of the cures to all of his long-term injuries, his shoulder injury or his back injuries.

If those watching or listening haven't checked out his autobiography, it's amazing.

There was this nurse in Australia, she was a hospice nurse, and so she took care of patients when they were about to die. The question was, do you have any regrets? And she even wrote a book about something like the five regrets of dying.

The number one regret was not living the life I could have lived.

If you go check out Who Is God? RFK Jr., to me, he has the best description because he doesn't get into a denomination or a type of church. It's just his viewpoint of God.

And there's also a great book about this. It's more modern day, Napoleon Hill. He's dead but still. And it's how to outwit the devil. And it's very practical.

He has a book called We Want To Live where it just laid out in very detailed terms why raw foods are better.

My book is out now, The Soul Way by me, Soul Brah. It's a collection of how I view the world philosophically, spiritually, biologically. So that's on Amazon, The Soul Way.

And, um, early on, I read the book by Chet Holmes, The Ultimate Sales Machine. And he says, you got to hire people with an ego so big that they're hard to keep in check.