Learn. Share. Evolve…

0:00:08 you hear that oh paid and done that’s the sound of bills being paid on time but with the bemo
0:00:16 eclipse rise visa card paying your bills could sound like this yes earn rewards for paying your
0:00:22 bill in full and on time each month rise to rewards with the bemo eclipse rise visa card
0:00:27 terms and conditions apply there’s parts of your life where there’s these big question marks that
0:00:34 i’m hoping you can answer for me okay but i want the full truth now i’m nervous screwed up braun is the
0:00:39 man behind some of the biggest stars in the music industry and he built one of the most disruptive
0:00:44 entertainment empires on the planet i’ve never really said this out loud until right now at this
0:00:51 age i feel a lot of guilt because i worked with so many young artists and we were all kids living so
0:00:56 fast and we all wanted to succeed so bad and it wasn’t until i was 40 years old doing some intense
0:01:02 therapy that i realized i was so driven by the fear that i wouldn’t be enough so let’s go back
0:01:06 as a kid growing up i wanted to prove that i could be more than the privilege i was born with and i
0:01:12 created this character scooter because i didn’t think scott could achieve these things that mask made me
0:01:17 absolutely relentless faking it till i make it like i have no right convincing justin and his mom to be on
0:01:22 the first plane they’d ever been on and meet me so what were they starting on my ignorance but it was
0:01:28 also realizing that so much of insecurity drives us and makes us great like now that i’m here i can’t
0:01:32 fail because then everyone will see that i shouldn’t be here so let’s go for it and then we had such
0:01:38 extreme success the whole world thought i was crushing it but i built this mask so big i didn’t realize how
0:01:46 far away i’d gotten from scott so here i am the top of my game i wanted to kill myself it went to a very
0:01:54 dark place and i broke down crying because i spent so much time trying to impress people who didn’t love me
0:01:57 instead of realizing how many people already did
0:02:04 and i was so desperate to do the thing i had never done before what was that
0:02:10 quick one before we get back to this episode just give me 30 seconds of your time
0:02:15 two things i wanted to say the first thing is a huge thank you for listening and tuning into the
0:02:20 show week after week means the world to all of us and this really is a dream that we absolutely never
0:02:25 had and couldn’t have imagined getting to this place but secondly it’s a dream where we feel like we’re
0:02:31 only just getting started and if you enjoy what we do here please join the 24 percent of people that
0:02:36 listen to this podcast regularly and follow us on this app here’s a promise i’m going to make to you
0:02:41 i’m going to do everything in my power to make this show as good as i can now and into the future
0:02:45 we’re going to deliver the guests that you want me to speak to and we’re going to continue to keep
0:02:51 doing all of the things you love about this show thank you thank you so much back to the episode
0:03:00 scooter when i look at your life and i look at the things you’ve achieved
0:03:06 so much of it makes sense but then there’s these other parts of your life where there’s these big
0:03:10 question marks that i’m hoping you can answer for me and maybe the earliest question mark
0:03:18 that remains in my head is what it is that drives you because from an exceedingly young age there was
0:03:23 this dog in you there was something for me when i was going through the research it looked like a chip
0:03:28 on your shoulder or something to prove to someone and so that’s really where i wanted to start i want
0:03:33 to understand your earliest context so i can understand the cauldron that scooter was shaped
0:03:39 in and in the way that that made the boy turn to a man big question but that’s the um the starter
0:03:46 right out of the question in my head you know it’s funny because you started by asking scooter what drives
0:03:53 you and it took me a long time to figure out as an adult that it was actually scott my real name
0:04:01 that was the real driver and i i really created this guy’s scooter when i was an adult because i
0:04:06 didn’t think scott could achieve these things so i almost like created a mask and it wasn’t until i was
0:04:11 40 years old doing some intense therapy that i fell in love with my name again and realized
0:04:21 the answer to your question which is part of it was shame of why with my family’s background
0:04:30 am i getting all this privilege my father’s a refugee from hungary my mother her dad died when she was 11
0:04:35 you know and her mother struggled to to raise them with family help in the catskill mountains my
0:04:42 grandparents were holocaust survivors and here i am first generation born in america and i wanted to
0:04:49 prove that i could be more than the privilege i was born with and i so i had that chip on my shoulder i
0:04:53 wanted to prove my value i wanted to prove i was worthy of this who’s told you you had to
0:05:01 no one i think you know as a kid growing up i read it that way because you know you’re hearing the
0:05:05 stories of the holocaust and my dad every night before he put me and my brother bed would say hey
0:05:11 boys you’re different you’re special i hold you to a higher standard every night before we went to bed
0:05:16 and we started to really believe him of like we need to hold ourselves to this higher standard we need to
0:05:24 do more the idea of failing the idea of looking at my parents and and not achieving it that’s what drove
0:05:30 me and years ago i was on a podcast probably 10 years ago i was doing a podcast with complex with this
0:05:36 guy noah i watched it do you remember the baseball analogy i literally wrote it down in my notes well
0:05:42 i will tell it again but i will tell you on your podcast the difference i hold today okay they asked
0:05:48 me what it takes to be successful and i made up this analogy with baseball and i said imagine
0:05:54 cy young award winner cc savathia at the height of his career is the middle of yankee stadium and they
0:06:00 invite everyone to come hit a home run and they say you get as many a bats as you want and whoever
0:06:04 hits the home run wins like the you know billion dollars million dollars whatever it is
0:06:10 and you can imagine everyone flies in from all around the world people are fulfilling for new
0:06:14 york city the line is crazy and i said the person who’s successful is not only the person who finally
0:06:20 gets up to the plate and swings and misses but stays at the plate and now people are saying are you
0:06:24 kidding me there’s lines of millions of people waiting for their turn and you’re going to stay there
0:06:29 you’re going to stay there and swing again and they swing again and then everyone’s booing and
0:06:34 they swing again and they literally keep swinging as everyone is booing them and booing them and booing
0:06:37 them for hours they’re the most selfish person in the world you don’t deserve to be here get off that
0:06:42 plate this is not and then they finally hit that homer and everyone cheers because oh my god they did it
0:06:49 and i said that years ago and it wasn’t until recently that i realized there’s one difference
0:06:55 in the story i never understood who the crowd was i always thought the crowd was being able to shut out
0:06:59 the outside noise i always thought the crowd was the naysayers and all the people who in your life will
0:07:04 tell you you’re never going to achieve anything and that’s part of it but the crowd all those people
0:07:11 waiting in line is actually you that’s what i never realized till now that that’s the difference
0:07:17 i always thought when people ask me what drove you i thought it was all the outside noise i thought it
0:07:22 was the fear of failure the fear of letting them down all these different things and it wasn’t till
0:07:28 recently when i hit some hardships as an adult and really had to look inward that i realized everyone’s
0:07:33 got the same crowd and everyone has their own issues and everyone has their own stuff and what actually
0:07:39 brings you to success and self-worth and happiness is actually understanding how to stand at that plate
0:07:44 and shut out the noise that’s here not the millions of people around the millions of people are in your
0:07:49 head screaming at you telling you you’re not enough the deep deep lie from the most confident people
0:07:55 they have it so i’m glad i get to finally publicly say the difference because i’ve had it wrong all these
0:08:02 years and in that analogy you talk about how most people come up to the plate they swing once
0:08:07 they leave they hear the boo they leave they go back to their sofa or wherever they’re coming from
0:08:11 or they swing two three times everyone’s telling their selfish and they get you know oh my god and
0:08:16 they’re embarrassed and they leave it takes a lot for someone to stand there in the middle of the noise
0:08:21 shut out the noise and understand the opportunity was given to me i deserve this i’m going to keep
0:08:29 swinging going back to your early context scott yeah your dad irvin yeah he sounds like quite a tough guy
0:08:33 i was reading about some of the things he was saying to you when you were a kid and i was like
0:08:39 dad jesus like when he called you a liar yeah that day and told you about living with integrity etc
0:08:45 my dad grew up tough and it was almost like when you’re being raised by two people who live through
0:08:49 what they live through they were raising him for a world that took everything away from them
0:08:56 they were so loving they still raised him that way and then he was so loving but he still raised us
0:09:01 really tough and i was the first born son so i’m the oldest of all our kids all the kids so he was very
0:09:10 tough on me you’re referencing this time when i was i was probably 14 and he uh he caught me in like a
0:09:17 white lie and usually he would punish me and his punishments could be severe but this time he just said
0:09:21 hey come here i want to talk to you it’s not going to be a punishment this time i just want you to know
0:09:28 you got the gift for gab you could talk your way out of anything and in life i used to tell you if you
0:09:33 lie you’re not going to be successful i want to tell you the truth you’re so good at it you might be
0:09:38 successful but you’re going to be a liar and i’ll know you’re a liar and you’ll know you’re a liar
0:09:44 so do that with what you want and i was so beaten down and ashamed because it wasn’t like raining down
0:09:50 fists on me it was just like the guy i admired so much called me a liar and i walked away i was messed
0:09:55 up and i went back to him and i said dad i want you to know i’m not gonna lie i’m gonna be a man of
0:10:00 integrity i’m i yeah i could do that but i understand this opportunity what you’re saying
0:10:05 and he just looked at me he said okay good he walked away and it was one of the best lessons
0:10:13 ever you know because he was right like you you can win certain ways but you’re gonna know how do you
0:10:20 how do you want to win you want to do it the right way and um and that that tough love i’m appreciative
0:10:26 of it you go to college i went to college you went to college um you started a business at college
0:10:31 doing events yeah well i started selling fake ids that’s what i started first yeah yeah i sold fake
0:10:35 ids because my friend sold fake ids and i thought he had a bad business plan so i was like i’ll market
0:10:43 them you make them um and and quickly uh he broke my golden rule of not keeping in touch with people we
0:10:49 sold to so i stopped immediately because i didn’t want to get caught and um i walked by a nightclub
0:10:54 and said how much would you give me if i brought people here the next week and that was the beginning
0:11:00 of my atlanta party promotion days why did that succeed what is it about you as you look back in
0:11:05 hindsight your skill set your ability that made your party promotion days so successful which eventually
0:11:12 sort of parlayed into music but a combination of things i think one uh i wasn’t a threat to the
0:11:17 freshman girls i had a high school sweetheart at the time i was very committed to her i was a decently
0:11:23 cute kid and i could dance so i was a good person to go out with and have fun so uh that was one
0:11:26 thing number two i was playing sports so i had a lot of friends in different you know teams and
0:11:32 different arenas and three i was in the right place at the right time you know i uh that first party i
0:11:39 threw was successful and at that first party i was approached by a guy named jason weaver he’s an actor
0:11:42 and he was in this old michael jackson movie i used to watch as a kid where he played young michael
0:11:47 and he came in and he said this is crazy because atlanta at that time was very segregated in the
0:11:53 club scene so it was like if you were black you went to a party that you know a club that played
0:11:57 hip-hop and if you were white you went to a club they played techno but i didn’t grow up in the south
0:12:03 and i wanted to listen to hip-hop and rock and roll and we played that and when jason came in he was so
0:12:09 fascinated to see a mixed crowd listening to hip-hop that he was like you want to see how the other half
0:12:15 lives and jason brought me to a club called velvet room on tuesday nights in atlanta georgia it was ran
0:12:20 by a guy named alex gidawan alex was so fascinated to see me in the line he said you know let this kid
0:12:26 in here and alex taught me how to promote he taught me what the value of the door actually was what i should
0:12:31 be getting from the bar and i would start moving my parties and i would spend all my money that i made on
0:12:35 thursday nights at the college party on alex’s tuesday night meeting people meeting rappers
0:12:41 meeting singers meeting different people faking it till i make it and getting people to come back
0:12:44 and forth to my parties and that’s how i started that’s how i met germaine that’s how i met luda
0:12:51 that’s we all kind of came up together relationships why did he give you a foot up so many people are
0:12:55 early in their careers and they’re having these chance encounters but those those aren’t converting
0:13:00 into a relationship and when i look at your life there’s people you meet along the way who end up
0:13:05 being really really pivotal and it appears to me as an objective observer that you have
0:13:09 an ability to form good relationships loyal lasting relationships with people
0:13:16 one i think it’s important to pay people respect you know i came from a household where you respect
0:13:22 your elders and when i was coming up i was 19 so i was very respectful of the people that are giving me
0:13:29 an opportunity and i never forgot who helped me along the way i think the other thing there was a big part of
0:13:35 my philosophy was let your work be the reason they want to meet you i didn’t want to be that kid who
0:13:41 was going hey give me an opportunity and by the way sometimes that works but i wanted them to see
0:13:48 what i was doing and then say come over here i didn’t approach jermaine dupree to work at so so deaf
0:13:53 jermaine heard about me and my parties and he met me and he said you have more potential than parties
0:13:59 why don’t you come work for me i didn’t approach you know ludicrous who was coming up as a rapper and
0:14:03 say let me do that i didn’t a lot of people in my life i i never really approached them and then
0:14:08 even as my life changed and i got older i made a lot of relationships and i have a lot of relationships
0:14:13 now that i’ve never done business with and people go well you have that we can’t why don’t you and it
0:14:20 was because i never wanted anyone to feel probably my insecurity is i never wanted anyone to feel like
0:14:25 i needed them i never wanted to feel like a user it was like my own insecurities of how they might see
0:14:33 me but i think on top of that i just it was that same old thing of never wanting to be in a position
0:14:39 or you’re begging somebody for something i called jermaine and we spoke to him i listened to the
0:14:44 recording again just before you arrived but what jermaine said in that voice recording is also pretty
0:14:50 similar to what your dad said which is they both saw something in you you’re this young kid who doesn’t
0:14:56 have an extensive track record of decades of work but they’re all betting on you in some way as you look
0:15:02 back on your life what were they betting on because they all seem pretty sure that you had something
0:15:09 my ignorance i think i think uh no one told me i shouldn’t be there
0:15:15 and he offered you a job for working at his company which meant you had to drop out of college
0:15:22 i didn’t have to drop out of college i did because um i went to work for jermaine and now i’m traveling
0:15:26 all the time i’m still throwing parties you know we’re gearing up for usher’s album we’re doing this
0:15:31 we’re doing that i’m working with the youngbloods anthony hamilton like it’s and i’m 19 20 years old
0:15:37 and my grade point average went from a three point something to a one point something and they brought
0:15:44 me in on academic probation and they said um you know what’s going on with you is there a drug problem
0:15:49 are you being abused and i said no no no no i’m an entrepreneur i’m building this i want to build a
0:15:52 record label i’m working for jermaine duprey you know and this guy’s looking at me like i’m insane
0:15:58 and he’s this dean looks at me at emory and he says uh do you know the story of robert woodruff
0:16:03 and i said you know robert woodruff he goes yeah the founder of coca-cola the woodruff center
0:16:08 the largest endowment in emory and he tells me this amazing story of this entrepreneur
0:16:15 who created coca-cola who is the largest endowment at our university and i’m so hyped i’m like this guy
0:16:21 gets me he gets me he’s gonna help me i’m gonna be at the school and just when my hopes are really
0:16:25 high he looks at me goes you know we’re gonna do right because we’re gonna stop all the nonsense
0:16:29 you’re gonna focus on school you’re gonna get a degree because the chance of you being like robert
0:16:34 woodruff without an emory degree is like one in a billion and the moment he said it that’s when i
0:16:39 dropped out of school what did your father say before you ask me about my father i want to ask
0:16:45 you a question okay you made a face and you paused yeah because you have your own story of something
0:16:52 happening like this i just have a buy i just have a real hate for dream busters yet every great story
0:16:59 we have of success people tell of that pivotal moment whether it be this dean or michael jordan being cut
0:17:04 by his coach is the varsity coach when he was younger yeah we all talk about the dream buster
0:17:10 as a catalyst to our success and you know in life i’ve i’ve kind of feel like everything even you know
0:17:16 it’s like i have this tattoo amor fati you know from marcus aurelius it’s the concept love of one’s fate
0:17:22 in latin and it’s this concept that you have to love the sorrow as much as you love the joy you have
0:17:26 to love the pain as much as you love the success you know it’s if it wasn’t for that dean i wouldn’t
0:17:30 have had that chip on my shoulder in that moment i would just push you on the fact that like you hate
0:17:36 these dream busters but i am so grateful for them i’m grateful for the dream busters however and this
0:17:41 is actually something i was talking to my friends about in our group chat this morning is it okay in
0:17:50 your view to be driven by haters it’s so funny because if you’re only driven by haters no but i think that
0:17:57 everything plays its role at the time like um robert green he talks about this idea of embracing
0:18:04 your dark side and i think that there’s truth in that like you know if if you continue to fight
0:18:09 something that’s naturally inside of you you’re going to really struggle with it if you can accept
0:18:14 that’s part of you can use it as fuel and you can move right through it so yes there are things that
0:18:20 drive me my curiosity is a big driver for for where i go my children now are big driver for where i go and
0:18:26 how i live my life the people i love the joy that i find the introspective voice that now i can go to
0:18:34 when i’m meditating or you know working you know on myself but doubt from someone who dislikes me or
0:18:40 doubt from a hater i can pretend like i’m zen as much as i want but if i’m being really honest with
0:18:47 myself sometimes that’s the fuel that i need so i think if it’s if it’s solely one thing
0:18:53 it’s not healthy but i think if you can admit you get fuel and different influences from different
0:18:58 places and don’t try and be ashamed of the one that doesn’t fit in your narrative of how evolved you
0:19:05 are yeah you know then it’s okay you established sb projects i believe after leaving germain
0:19:13 when you were 24 25 years old 24 and i read that you’d kind of had this plan to sign three different
0:19:19 types of acts yeah first one asher roth who’s a very famous rapper yeah i wanted to sign three types
0:19:23 of acts and asher fit the mold for one justin for the other and the other one i never found
0:19:29 so asher for people that don’t know is a very successful rapper um what was the mold you were
0:19:36 trying to fit eminem was a very big rapper is one of the biggest rappers of all time and i was in
0:19:42 college and i’m watching all like these at the time these frat guys but they loved hip-hop and i don’t
0:19:48 think they had anyone who spoke to their life so i wanted a kid who could speak to college life who had
0:19:53 the skills to be credible within the world of hip-hop why did you think you could find talent
0:19:59 what did you believe ignorance i’m telling you every aspect of my life if we talked about every
0:20:02 little thing that i’ve been in you said earlier i’ve been in all these different things and probably
0:20:08 your listeners have no idea the hell i am so like what is he talking about but every time i put myself
0:20:16 in that next arena it’s this why not me i had no right contacting asher on myspace i mean at that
0:20:20 point i could say okay i came from so so deaf i was the youngest vice president music because of
0:20:25 germaine when i was at so stuff i was 20 years old so i had the right you know some credibility other
0:20:31 people didn’t have i definitely could do that but to tell him to drop out of college and move down to
0:20:36 atlanta georgia for be the first artist on my record label to you know find justin in canada and
0:20:41 convince his mom and him to be on the first plane they’d ever been on to come down to atlanta and meet me
0:20:50 i mean it was i was 25 years old 24 years old like these are i was insane like you know interesting
0:20:55 when we talk about belief we we ask if you know scooter did you have belief but in your case you had
0:20:59 the lack of limiting beliefs which shows up the same as having yeah there was just like nothing
0:21:06 it wasn’t even because i was so driven by also the fear that i wouldn’t be enough that back then i would
0:21:11 have lied i would have said oh i had such a deep belief in my in my conviction that i could do it
0:21:15 it was partially that but it was also
0:21:22 why not me and no one told me i can’t be here and also now that i’m here i can’t fail because then
0:21:29 everyone will see that i shouldn’t be here and so it was this this fear excitement fear excitement
0:21:34 conviction that’s why i always tell people when i meet them as young people i’m like you don’t have
0:21:39 kids you can starve a little bit your parents want you to go the easiest route because they don’t want
0:21:45 to see you suffer but now is the time when you should be suffering if you want to go for it now’s the time
0:21:51 when you don’t have anyone to support where you can really really go for it because later on in life
0:21:57 you got to think about other people and back then 19 years old to 24
0:22:07 i’m let’s go for it and the second artist that you signed was called justin bieber who’s justin
0:22:18 bieber justin bieber you were 26 years old when you came across justin 25 25 and he was 12 13 13 damn
0:22:25 you discovered justin by watching a so sick video by yeah i will i saw a bunch of videos
0:22:29 from his church his mom had posted and the one that moved me the most was so sick by neil
0:22:39 change my answering machine now that i’m alone because right now it says that we
0:22:45 can’t come to the phone and i know it makes no sense
0:22:59 you must have been asked this a gazillion times but the the actions you then took based on seeing
0:23:10 a kid on on a video are bizarre yeah they are bizarre yeah i like googled uh the background of of the
0:23:17 church to look up the businesses and then called the regions of canada school boards to figure out
0:23:22 where he was because his mom had a different name than him because her name was malette his was beaver
0:23:28 so i went a little crazy to find him within 24 hours once i saw him i kind of knew in person no i knew
0:23:33 when i saw online i was like this is the kid i’ve been looking for and i felt the same way about asher
0:23:40 i mean i relentlessly kind of pursued both of them i had a clear vision to like what i could do and what
0:23:45 he was capable of and it was funny because no one believed me i mean even after we met and we did the
0:23:50 deal and we started working together literally no one believed me and youtube was not a big thing back
0:23:56 then so when i took him from 60 000 views and we took him to like 60 million now he’s like one of the
0:23:59 biggest youtubers in the world and everyone’s like yeah youtubers don’t turn into musicians though
0:24:04 what were the first principles that you saw in him like what were this because i when i think about
0:24:11 having those moments where my intuition just says yes to something tone okay charisma um it was like
0:24:18 he had incredible tone and he had soul and he had charisma he was doing like there was one where
0:24:23 there was an instrumental and he was like jumping around and i just believed in him instantly and then
0:24:28 when i met him he had even more charisma he was funny and i was like all right this kid let’s go
0:24:35 and he was an athlete so he was competitive he was a very special special talent and a very unique
0:24:42 individual and uh those were special times and you flew in to meet him and his mother no they flew to
0:24:47 me oh okay i talked to her for like an hour and a half that night and uh first plane ride they ever
0:24:54 went on and i remember he was so excited that there was a fridge inside his hotel room his mother said
0:25:01 and speaking of you scooter really believed in justin from day one he put everything on the line for us
0:25:09 and they put it on the line for me too you know they believed in a 25 year old kid
0:25:18 and uh we were able to achieve some amazing things and i’m very proud of what we achieved and
0:25:22 always rooting for him
0:25:24 what’s your relationship with justin now
0:25:30 um not the same that it was i think you know these things go the ebb and flows i think
0:25:38 there comes a point where i understand he probably wants to go on and and show that he can do it i mean
0:25:44 we we worked together for so long and we had such extreme success and i think you get to a point as a
0:25:51 as a man where you want to show the world you can do it on your own and uh i completely respect that
0:26:00 and i think at this point that’s what he’s doing and myself and and everyone from the old team is rooting
0:26:06 for him but i stopped managing two and a half years ago and now i’m a cheerleader from the side and
0:26:11 you know i want everyone that i worked with to do well i think sometimes when you walk away from
0:26:16 management i’ve heard managers which i never understood they’d be like deep down when behind
0:26:19 closed doors they don’t want to see them do as well without them it’s almost like
0:26:23 you know them succeeding is is tarnishing your legacy
0:26:29 every artist that i worked with i believed in them because they were great
0:26:32 and if they continue to be great
0:26:37 i think that’s the best testimony to that belief
0:26:44 so to see justin move forward and succeed to see ariana you know with what’s happened with wicked in this past year
0:26:52 um to see tori kelly you know to see everybody that i’ve ever had a chance to work with
0:26:57 to see them go on and do great things on their own it’s awesome
0:27:03 is there anything that these individuals have in common at all these people that
0:27:13 pain pain yeah i think it’s pain personally i think um to be able to convey emotions on the level
0:27:19 that it touches people around the world you have to understand emotions and i think um
0:27:27 i think great artists great performers are able to draw from different places and sometimes
0:27:32 it’s joy and sometimes it’s pain and sometimes it’s just a natural god-given gift
0:27:39 how important is hard work oh it’s very important i think especially in the beginning in the beginning
0:27:48 you’re stepping into a pool where everyone talented wants to be seen and you have to work incredibly
0:27:56 hard to break out of the noise so i and by the way i don’t think that’s particular to artists or music or
0:28:02 film or tv or anything i’ve done with entertainment i think that’s every business i’ve ever been a part of
0:28:09 the first three to five years of any business i’ve ever built in any arena or worked with anyone who’s
0:28:14 ever achieved anything great those first three to five years are the most important sounds like something
0:28:15 i said to my girlfriend
0:28:21 um it sounds like you know same thing with relationship maybe but put in the foundation
0:28:25 those first three to five years and really be there together i really believe that i think
0:28:32 you put in that time in the beginning and you can break through the noise and set a foundation for everything else
0:28:40 when i think about justin’s career he he had a wobble um where he was involved in lots of sort of
0:28:46 uh and you know it looked like he was going through a bit of difficulty and i reflect on
0:28:53 one of my friends liam payne and he was on this podcast and who’s sadly passed away now but he also
0:28:58 around the same age was thrown into the public eye at a very young age he joined one direction went on
0:29:03 crazy crazy wild roller coaster ride that is one direction and he admitted on the podcast that he
0:29:07 struggled he struggled with addiction he struggled with lots of pain that he was dealing with
0:29:12 and his story has is a an inspiring one ultimately but also a tragic one in many respects
0:29:18 why does this happen to so many young artists childhood stars
0:29:27 you know when you asked me this question
0:29:36 at this age i feel a lot of guilt um i feel a lot of guilt because i worked with so many young artists
0:29:41 and like i told you i hadn’t taken the time to look at myself or
0:29:51 um do the therapy myself until i was older so i didn’t understand at 25 years old at 27 years old
0:30:01 at 30 years old that they each were coming from very unique backgrounds of their own stuff with their
0:30:07 own families and their own childhoods and growing up this way and being seen by the whole world and being
0:30:12 judged by the whole world at a very young age and i think it’s two things i think one human beings are
0:30:19 not made to be worshipped i think we’re made to serve and i think that when we worship human beings
0:30:25 it changes something within us it messes us up a little bit because that’s not what we’re built for
0:30:32 and i think that can be very confusing and i think being able to transcend the childhood of you know people
0:30:38 cheering your name and and everything else at that level and get to the place where the artists i’ve
0:30:43 worked with are where they are in healthy relationships and and with their families and
0:30:47 and still working through stuff but like having a human experience i think it’s a testament to their strength
0:30:53 so i think that’s part of it i just think the nature of of being on that stage you know that young
0:30:59 and people chanting your name and i didn’t realize that till you know i got older the other side of it is
0:31:07 i never understood even without me i didn’t have that childhood yet i broke and what i think also
0:31:14 is important is um i don’t think we can push everything i think adversity is important we
0:31:19 can’t just talk about mental health and say adversity shouldn’t exist but i do think i understand the
0:31:26 importance now of of really putting in the time to make sure mental health is addressed and that we have
0:31:34 an outlet to speak to someone outside of the crew um and there’s a lot of things that i learned within
0:31:41 myself that i wish i knew back then i met those one direction kids when they started they came to la and
0:31:46 actually the whole group because nile reached out to me they came to my house to hang out in the backyard
0:31:52 when they were first starting before they really blew up like their first u.s visit to la and i met liam back then
0:31:56 and i met the excited young kid with the with the voice
0:32:03 yet each one of them has had a different experience each one of them has had a different
0:32:12 story of perseverance and tragedy um and that’s the thing it’s like with kids like you just never know
0:32:23 what the cocktail is going to make of life um and i think i think you know that idea of we’re not made
0:32:30 to be worshipped that can play funny things on the mind the brain isn’t even developed until you’re 25
0:32:35 they tell me so i don’t even know if mine’s developed at 43 but i’ve sat here with so many neuroscientists
0:32:40 that have said that to me and it and also addiction scientists that say the brain is still learning and
0:32:44 building it sort of like dopamine receptors and stuff so liam was telling me that he he was up on
0:32:50 stage in front of a hundred thousand people in dubai huge adrenaline rush huge surge of dopamine then
0:32:54 they drive him back to his hotel he was like they lock the door and it’s just me in there with the
0:33:00 minibar and then the next day it’s the exact same thing stage car hotel and then without the stage you’re
0:33:10 looking for that dopamine hit yeah no it’s it’s uh like i said it’s i’m very proud of
0:33:16 the job that we did and how much we cared and how much the team cared for all the years that we did it
0:33:23 but it doesn’t mean i don’t look back and wish that i knew what i know now how would you have been
0:33:32 different i think i would have had a therapist on the road for all of us like you know i think that’s
0:33:36 the biggest difference i think i would have slowed down all of us i think i made would have made every
0:33:45 single one of us stop and do that hour you know because we were all kids and we were all moving so
0:33:52 fast and we all wanted to succeed so bad and we all wanted the excitement and we wanted to make kids
0:33:57 dreams come true and bring them down from the upper decks to put them in the front row and you know
0:34:03 to help justin get that number one and you know to help ariana do this and we all wanted it and we were
0:34:08 excited and we were doing something that was so unique and everyone in the world was so excited for us
0:34:14 you know oh my gosh you guys are a part of this this is so cool i didn’t know
0:34:20 i didn’t know to go inward for the dopamine hit
0:34:30 and i wish i would have known that and been able to share it back then when justin ultimately
0:34:36 said that he wanted to kind of go it alone and do it himself does that hurt no not at that point i
0:34:42 think i i was also at that point you know at that point it had been a couple years where i knew i
0:34:50 wanted to do something else and i i wanted to find out who i was i wanted to experiment with you know a
0:34:54 different career and we were both communicating enough with each other everyone the writing was on
0:34:59 the wall how many clients oh god that we would know a lot because when i was doing my research i was
0:35:09 like no surely not carly ray jepsen and then um martin garrick’s kanye yeah can you give me the top
0:35:15 10 off the top of your head that you worked i’d never say a top 10 a good manager knows i got to work
0:35:22 with a lot of incredible artists a long time i mean from zach brown band to black eyed peas to justin to
0:35:29 ariana to you know martin garrick’s we signed um while he was at club med with his parents we contacted
0:35:36 him because he had the song animals and we heard it um to dan and shay i mean just to so many over the
0:35:44 years it was pretty incredible to be a part and so close to so many incredible stories you know and to see
0:35:50 you know going to a coffee shop to see tori kelly sing to seeing her walk on a grammy stage it just
0:35:57 i got to see really incredible moments in people’s lives to you know demi telling me i want to sing
0:36:03 the national anthem at the super bowl you know and show me a tweet that she wrote this years ago to
0:36:11 see her actually perform you know you know uh at the super bowl you know so it’s it’s just been a really
0:36:15 cool experience but i got to see it in so many different arenas and and you’re only there for a
0:36:21 flash right you have this little tiny small moment here a little tiny small moment here but to get to
0:36:27 witness so many different rides it’s a really cool thing i remember as a kid i heard this great saying
0:36:33 don’t just read stories try to be a part of them try to be a story and i think i always try to take
0:36:38 that into my life crazy crazy why i was i was there was a second ago when you were talking and i was just
0:36:45 i stepped into your body for a second and i ran the highlight reel of your life just as justin’s um
0:36:52 sort of manager and i was thinking god like the places you must have been and the things you must have
0:36:57 seen just as his manager let alone working with all of these other great artists it’s not just a
0:37:04 lifetime of experience it’s multiple lifetimes of fortune to get to even see those things i met a guy
0:37:12 years ago and um i’ll name drop here so i got invited to meet charlie munger oh yeah the investor
0:37:18 yeah and everyone was asking him questions about business and i asked him a question about life
0:37:23 and afterwards his guy contacted me he goes charlie liked your question he wants you to meet this other
0:37:29 guy that he really likes he’s a brilliant businessman and i meet this other gentleman and he tells me he’s
0:37:34 a statistician by trade and the reason he’s excited to meet me is because people in my world who are part
0:37:40 of so many different stories live in dog years because they get to be a part of kind of so many other
0:37:49 people’s things yeah um but it’s uh it’s a unique thing but i told you it the biggest lesson i learned
0:37:57 from all of it is that at one point in my life i received so much praise and then the next moment
0:38:08 without me expecting it i received so much hate and on the other side of all these experiences i’ve come
0:38:15 to learn that both were not deserved the people who were praising me did not know me and the people who
0:38:20 hated me did not know me and it’s like one of my favorite uh i saw tom hanks say this on like
0:38:25 an actor’s table one time he goes this too shall pass remember that yeah it’s so great he’s like you
0:38:30 think you’re killing it this too shall pass he’s like you think it’s gonna be hard this too shall
0:38:38 pass like it’s true so what do you anchor in then if so much is transient at this point in life
0:38:42 generally what does one anchor in if everything is transient if you know this too you don’t have kids
0:38:48 yet i have a major anchor in three kids major anchor what if you don’t have kids if you don’t have kids
0:38:53 that’s when you should definitely do the self work because your anchors you and and the truth is i’ve
0:38:59 really gotten to a beautiful place of i fully expect to be misunderstood in the future i expect
0:39:04 tomorrow something can happen where especially because my life has been somewhat in the public eye
0:39:10 you get misunderstood all the time people make up stories they twist things someone’s hurt it comes out
0:39:14 this way that way i could get pulled into this stuff it’s happened to me already and so i’ve come to
0:39:20 terms with that what i’ve realized is being on the other side of it already happening to me all it does
0:39:28 is end up making room for something else so for me what anchors me is i no longer think i’m in control
0:39:33 but i think i’m participating in one hell of a game i can’t control the outcome i’m steph curry and
0:39:37 lebron could be at the height of their game but even they can’t control the game they can influence it
0:39:44 and so that for me it was like the first half of my life was i’m manifesting i’m manifesting i’m doing
0:39:50 this that youthful energy and then you turn 40 and this stuff happens and you start the other half
0:39:53 of your life you’re like you know michael singer i need to surrender you know you’re their surrender
0:39:58 experiment you know like everything surrender and then i realized there’s a balance there’s this balance of
0:40:06 i’m participating in an incredible game and i can bring what i bring to the table and i’m not going to be
0:40:11 able to control this game but maybe i should start enjoying the game a little bit i’m out here
0:40:19 i’m participating that’s pretty freaking cool and i think that is what anchors me at this point that i have
0:40:23 no idea what the next five to ten years of my life are going to look like i used to think
0:40:31 i did now i know it can change like that and i think i’m excited for love in the future i’m excited
0:40:37 for adventure i’m not looking forward to the pain but i know if it comes there’s a reason for it
0:40:44 so tell me about a an artist that you believed in you don’t have to name them of course but an artist
0:40:48 you believed and you were wrong about something you really just your first principles were off and
0:40:52 in hindsight i had an artist who was
0:41:00 honestly maybe the most talented artist i ever signed his name was spencer lee and
0:41:09 spencer lee got brought to me by a buddy my name freddie uh and we did a deal for spencer and dave
0:41:13 appleton who i told you about my buddy was trying to handle in management and dave started calling me
0:41:19 saying hey there’s some real addiction issues here and we’re really struggling and we put him into rehab and
0:41:22 and then he wrote one of the most incredible songs river water
0:41:25 river water
0:41:35 wash me clean uh
0:41:44 river water
0:41:47 take me down
0:41:54 show me the dreams that i never found
0:42:03 about
0:42:08 about addiction and when he got out we thought okay he’s gonna be clean and everything great we made this
0:42:13 video and we started getting going we made the spencer lee band and we started putting him out there like
0:42:18 paying for everything to kind of get it going and he started doing festivals and we started getting phone
0:42:22 calls of like hey people are coming to see this insane talent with this voice
0:42:34 and he went back to drugs and um he overdosed last year and uh he’s no longer with us
0:42:40 and we got the news because his grandmother who’s the sweetest she called to say thank you for trying
0:42:45 and everything else and that was the love of her life and she lost him and um
0:42:54 that one i got wrong because i thought you know maybe if we get the records right if we get the
0:42:58 music if he gets on the road you know he gets out of rehab like you know this would be enough
0:43:06 it’s one of the biggest tragedies because i i can’t tell you how good he was i mean he just a special
0:43:11 special talent you listen to this guy’s records sometimes i always say i want to like reach out
0:43:15 to his family and be like let’s just release the records like the ones that i have that the
0:43:22 the world’s never heard and i you know i all the money should go to you know a cause you know to
0:43:26 help people in a similar situation i wish we could do that i’d love to get permission to do that
0:43:31 um because he was one of the most special talents i ever came across
0:43:34 they don’t want to release the records it’s complicated
0:43:43 last week i was in new york interviewing one of the world’s leading addiction experts and if for
0:43:48 anyone that hasn’t been through addiction it’s a very confusing thing to observe because as an onlooker
0:43:53 you just go just stop that you’re self-destructing but if you’ve had friends that have dealt with
0:43:57 addiction you realize that it’s not an attempt to self-destruct it’s like an attempt to
0:44:04 it’s yeah it’s like it’s maybe the last attempt to do the opposite to survive to survive from something
0:44:10 when i was dealing with addiction with someone i managed um someone i really respect told me about
0:44:18 alan on uh alan on is for a support it’s like aaa but for the families and they recommend i go and i went
0:44:22 to two alan on meetings and it was very helpful at the time and one of the things i learned there
0:44:29 was one this concept of it is not your fault you this is not about you that you have to love them where
0:44:34 they’re at you can you know but the biggest thing i really learned was be a rock you know this person
0:44:40 said to me home doesn’t move around home is a constant place that someone can come back to
0:44:46 if someone beats addiction it is because of them you know they’ve made that choice and they deserve the
0:44:51 credit but if you want to be helpful this person said just try to be a constant place they know that
0:44:56 no matter what at the end they can come back and they’re and you’ll be waiting understanding your story
0:45:00 you stuck around with justin when he went through his his difficult times and people were calling for
0:45:07 you to drop him and to maybe move on yeah i think it was an interesting time but like i said if someone
0:45:12 beats that they deserve the credit so i don’t i don’t deserve any credit in that he does you ended up
0:45:17 posting that post on your instagram which sent a ton of headlines around the world saying that you were
0:45:24 quitting music management 23 years after 23 years there was a little bit of a question mark though because
0:45:30 i think you referenced in something you’d posted that part of your inspiration or a catalyst was a
0:45:38 particular artist had decided that they wanted to go their own way yeah who was that i prefer not to
0:45:44 say that there’s a bunch of legal stuff around that everything else but uh she yeah uh she informed me
0:45:49 and i respected the hell out of it that she was she felt that way and uh but i had had that conversation with
0:45:57 others too and and um i mean i wrote it all in 23 years the reason i posted that at the time was
0:46:01 i’d already made the decision a year prior but i’d never talked about it
0:46:06 and you know when you’re running a big company there’s all these you know legal things and we had
0:46:12 to wait till everything was in order and then i could say it and um and they were like well you’ve
0:46:17 already been out of it for a year why say it now and i just felt i need to say it for me but i also
0:46:23 need to say it so i hold myself accountable not to ever go back okay and i you know it was way too
0:46:28 long it was like 10 slides on instagram no it was incredible but it was uh i appreciate you saying that
0:46:36 but it was from the heart and i remember waking up posting it and then just like falling down because i was
0:46:42 like oh my god like this thing i’ve been doing since i was 19 is now over and what i wrote in
0:46:50 there is the truth my entire adult life that’s all i had known so not being in that situation i didn’t
0:46:55 know what a normal adult life was like i didn’t know you could have a weekend like i didn’t know
0:47:01 you know like that’s what it was i was on call all the time for 23 years and it wasn’t one it was a
0:47:08 lot and um finding out what a normal adult life was like was pretty wild to me and also really
0:47:13 interesting but i don’t i had some of the most incredible memories and i’m very grateful but if
0:47:19 you remember do you remember the barry gordy quote at the end no i don’t barry gordy is the founder of
0:47:26 motown records barry gordy is a kid from detroit michael jackson’s theater play barry gordy correct yes
0:47:32 so before barry gordy black musicians would make incredible music and a white person can come along
0:47:39 and just cover it and make it theirs and barry gordy took that back and gave us motown records and changed
0:47:47 the entire music industry and i was at a dinner and barry gordy was placed next to me and i was just like
0:47:53 freaking out barry gordy’s next to me and we start talking and this is years before
0:47:57 he said i’m gonna tell you a story and you’re gonna need it one day
0:48:05 and boy was he right and he said you know do you know what the motown 25 was and i said absolutely it
0:48:09 was the first time michael jackson did the moonwalk diana ross and he’s like oh you really are a motown
0:48:14 fan i was like yeah and he said well do you know i didn’t want to go i said what he goes yeah i didn’t
0:48:19 want to go at the time michael had left for cbs records diana left for cbs records and everyone
0:48:24 was saying that i took their publishing and i was like the bad guy for all these people that i had
0:48:30 supported and lifted and like i was so angry and i didn’t want to go i said well what changed he goes
0:48:34 my family made me go and i said yeah because i remember you were in the balcony and i kept cutting
0:48:39 to you and he goes you know the first i get there and diana ross is hosting michael’s going to perform
0:48:45 him he’s the biggest thing in the world i’m i’m mad but as the night went on i suddenly realized
0:48:51 little barry from detroit would have lost his mind knowing this was coming he said young man it will
0:48:57 never end the way you want it to but it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen and i didn’t know how much i
0:49:03 needed that in the years to come you can plan it you can try and control it as much as you want but
0:49:08 barry gody was right it will never end the way you want it unless you’re derek jeter on the yankees
0:49:15 but or you know you’re messy but um but most of us it’s not going to end the way we wanted however it
0:49:23 happened and how cool is that like how cool is that that like we get to do this and get to have this life
0:49:31 and i thought that’s the way i wanted to end 23 years because the me stopping managing and ending
0:49:36 managing and it didn’t end the way i necessarily wanted i would have wanted a giant concert where all
0:49:42 the artists come out we celebrate everything we did together and ended pretty abruptly of like oh this is
0:49:47 it and some want to leave and some want to stay and yeah i’m done i don’t want to do this anymore
0:49:54 and some people understood it and other people didn’t but it happened and no one could ever take
0:50:02 that away did you ever feel betrayed oh of course but i’m sure that goes both ways like as much as i
0:50:07 felt betrayed like music business can be heartbreaking management can be heartbreaking if you watch david
0:50:12 geffen’s documentary he says uh management is like move the mountain over here and they say it was supposed
0:50:20 to be there you know like but at the same time it must be heartbreaking the other way it’s such an
0:50:27 interdependent relationship and it’s such i don’t i you know the people always say stay on your side of
0:50:32 the street i try to do that it’s easier for me to move on with my life and be happy by staying on my
0:50:38 side of the street so yeah i’ve definitely felt betrayed a hundred times i’ve definitely felt misunderstood
0:50:45 so many times but i also try to give empathy of if someone is doing this to me they must be hurting
0:50:49 for some reason and maybe i did play a role in it even if i don’t know i did you know so
0:50:59 do you feel betrayed yes especially in a job of service yeah but yeah you’re right we all do have
0:51:08 a preconception of how how the run will end man we’re all the protagonists in our own story
0:51:14 now that there’s been some space between that decision yeah two and a half years two and a half
0:51:19 years since that decision wow two and a half years wow it feels like it was six months ago well it was
0:51:24 two and a half years for me okay it’s been probably a year and a half since i probably posted that okay
0:51:29 you’ve had some space since that decision correct decision yeah oh yeah even high conviction now
0:51:33 that it was the right thing yeah and like i said it happened in hindsight it was what it was supposed
0:51:37 to be at the time it was supposed to be i think the reason why i wrote 23 years and why i quit
0:51:42 i wouldn’t say i quit when i retired and stopped doing that when i moved on how about that when i moved
0:51:50 on to something else was because what exactly what i wrote it was i was too afraid to find out who i was
0:51:55 without it for so long that i probably should have left earlier but i finally got to a point where i
0:52:00 realized either you do it now or something bad you’re gonna have to learn the hard way again
0:52:08 you know so it was time and it was time for some of the most amazing artists that i worked with to
0:52:14 also spread their wings and do their own thing i think b2b marketeers keep making this mistake they’re
0:52:20 chasing volume instead of quality and when you try to be seen by more people instead of the right people
0:52:24 all you’re doing is making noise but that noise rarely shifts the needle and it’s often quite
0:52:29 expensive and i know as there was a time in my career where i kept making this mistake that many
0:52:35 of you will be making it too eventually i started posting ads on our show sponsors platform linkedin
0:52:39 and that’s when things started to change i put that change down to a few critical things one of them
0:52:45 being that linkedin was then and still is today the platform where decision makers go to not only to
0:52:50 think and learn but also to buy and when you market your business there you’re putting it right in front
0:52:55 of people who actually have the power to say yes and you can target them by job title industry and
0:53:00 company size it’s simply a sharper way to spend your marketing budget and if you haven’t tried it
0:53:06 how about this give linkedin ads a try and i’m going to give you a hundred dollar ad credit to get you
0:53:13 started if you visit linkedin.com diary you can claim that right now that’s linkedin.com diary
0:53:19 you sold your company for 1.1 billion dollars that’s what i read you can’t confirm or deny but
0:53:24 that’s publicly traded so i can confirm but i don’t like talking about it okay you sold your company for
0:53:31 1.1 billion dollars which i don’t think people realize it’s a lot of money um at 39 years old
0:53:37 roughly i was about to turn 40. you talk about laying on the beach yeah with your belly out yeah
0:53:42 i mean with a significant amount of money in your bank account without the same
0:53:47 job that’s sort of demanding your time seven days a week
0:53:54 a lot of people are scared of that but not not the money but the gap the uncertainty the space
0:53:59 honestly the timing of when it happened for me
0:54:08 i was in such a place like i said of surrender that i really wasn’t looking at it as like
0:54:14 achievement or money or something like that i more looked at it as what are you going to do now
0:54:18 are you going to try and control are you going to participate like i told you earlier and i started
0:54:23 to just be curious for the first time instead of i love this idea of a competitive mind versus
0:54:31 a curious and creative mind a competitive mind is what i had and it’s where i was of there’s always
0:54:35 something finite when you’re competitive you know it’s going to finish there’s going to be an outcome
0:54:42 and then what but when you’re operating from a curious and creative mind there’s no end you can
0:54:47 just continue to create you continue to build and i want i want to be in that place in my life now of
0:54:53 what how big can i think i saw this jeff bezos interview the other day and he just said one of the
0:55:00 biggest curses of an entrepreneur is not thinking big enough you know and i think you know think big
0:55:06 you know you only get one what ride around this thing think big have fun love your friends love your
0:55:17 family dance laugh cry you know do all the things and get to know yourself more and more every single day
0:55:22 just before that time we have this whole taylor swift incident what happened
0:55:28 is this the moment you’re talking about where you received bad press
0:55:36 oh bad yeah yeah that was that’s the when i bought big machine i thought i was going to work with all the
0:55:43 artists on big machine i thought it was going to be like an exciting thing i knew that taylor she and i had only
0:55:49 met three times i think in my life three or four times and one of the times it was years earlier it
0:55:53 was really a great engagement she invited me to a private party and we we respected each other we had
0:55:58 a great engagement in between that time since i’d seen her last i started managing kanye west i managed
0:56:05 justin bieber i knew she didn’t get along with them i had a feeling this is where my arrogance came in i had
0:56:09 a feeling she probably didn’t like me because i managed them but i thought that once this announcement
0:56:16 happened she would talk to me see who i am and we would work together and the announcement came out
0:56:21 and i’m calling scott borchetta and saying hey send me her number i’m i just talked to thomas rett
0:56:26 he’s excited and i just talked to you know uh this you know this person and they’re excited and i’m calling
0:56:32 you know florida georgia line next and oh and then this tumblr comes out and says all this stuff and i
0:56:42 was just like shocked um and it’s it’s been five six years i don’t need to go back into it but what i can
0:56:50 tell you is everything in life is a gift having that experience allows me to have empathy for the people i
0:56:55 worked with who i would always say yeah i understand but i never knew what it was like to be on the global
0:57:00 stage like that i never knew what criticism like that felt like and like i told you the biggest
0:57:05 gift that i got from that was understanding that all the praise i had received up until that moment
0:57:14 was not deserved and all the hate i got after that moment was not deserved because none of these people
0:57:20 knew me yeah she didn’t know me this person didn’t know me this person who met me three times they didn’t
0:57:25 know me i could show respect for all of them because i don’t know them so i can love them where they’re
0:57:29 you’re at but the gift of pain
0:57:34 was awareness
0:57:36 and
0:57:40 the other part i was going through very something very personal shortly after i was going through the
0:57:45 divorce my marriage and all these different things and it just felt like one after another
0:57:50 but i look back if those things didn’t happen i really think they’re all gifts because when when
0:57:56 something’s fair you don’t respect it when something happens to you that you feel is fair
0:58:02 you’re just like oh i i deserve that you move on you feel justified because you saw it coming
0:58:07 when something happens to you that feels deeply unfair and you can’t fix it
0:58:16 then you really got to look at everything and realize the role you played in this or maybe this
0:58:23 or that or who do you want to be or how so i’m grateful but how does one contend with an unfair
0:58:27 world and i use the word unfair as well because you know we’ve got investigative reach researchers
0:58:33 here who looked through everything relating to that particular deal and then we also looked at
0:58:36 what’s written on the internet and there’s this great disparity between what actually happened and
0:58:40 what people say happened yeah and there’s actually i think there’s a documentary out there which goes
0:58:44 into it in great detail which andrew schultz was talking talking about on a podcast which i saw so i
0:58:49 looked at that documentary as well i mean look i’m grateful for a couple of things one my kids were
0:58:54 really young when it happened so they didn’t feel it as much yeah it was very hard at the time it was hard
0:58:59 on marriage it was hard on our family you’re getting death threats yeah but i also don’t know what was
0:59:04 being said on the other side you know because i never got to have the conversation you know so i think when
0:59:08 people aren’t communicating and refusing to communicate a lot of things can get misconstrued
0:59:14 and you you know i don’t want to hold any hatred or like i don’t we everyone moves on you know so
0:59:19 yes i appreciate you saying that i appreciate actually doing the research but for me
0:59:29 i choose to see it as a gift i choose to see it as being able to have a perspective that very few people in the
0:59:39 world have of knowing what that’s like of feeling that on a global level pain yeah and also just what
0:59:45 does that mean in reality when you just felt unfair it felt like and but so much but of course of course
0:59:52 it happened to me right of course because here i was thinking my value was from all this praise
0:59:59 you know and i and everything was me making sure that i was living up to it and then this happens
1:00:03 and it’s unfair and i can’t control it and of course the universe was like screaming at me like god’s
1:00:10 screaming at me like hey wake up you’re not in control you can’t navigate all of this you don’t
1:00:16 get to decide what your legacy is and you you just get to decide who you are on a daily basis and who
1:00:20 you choose to see in yourself and how you treat the people that love you and the people you can
1:00:27 actually interact with surrender but surrender and participate you know that’s the big thing for me
1:00:32 it’s more than just surrender it’s surrender and participate and just enjoy the ride that’s
1:00:35 why i got the tattoo you know it was
1:00:43 i can’t worry about everyone’s niece being mad at me
1:00:51 you know like you know it’s what i gotta do is is show up for my niece you know and i gotta show
1:00:57 for my friends and my family and i wish everyone involved across the board whether i know them or not
1:01:03 nothing but good wishes when i say specifically that pain people don’t like i think about how
1:01:07 many people on earth have experienced such a thing and if you if i could be a fly on the wall that is
1:01:14 actually just has cctv for eyes and i was watching you at that moment in time just for seven days i
1:01:20 got to watch scooter what would i have seen like i said at that point i hadn’t really done the work
1:01:27 again um so resistance resistance trying to navigate it trying to understand it trying to
1:01:35 um figure out how to fix it and then i couldn’t but then i did financially like i couldn’t fix the
1:01:42 relationship that i didn’t have but then i was able to figure out okay you know what we will sell it
1:01:50 you know in in a world of streaming re-records will only help the old catalog as much as they help the
1:01:55 new catalog both will get a bump i presented that i showed you know how everyone can be a winner here
1:02:01 and i was able to sell the catalog and i don’t want to go into too much detail but i but i offered it
1:02:07 it’s that now come out very factually that i did offer it there’s evidence of that yeah multiple times
1:02:12 in that process they said no i sold it someone else and i washed my hands of it and moved on
1:02:18 and i actually sometimes look back at that and i go the universe was trying to teach me something
1:02:25 and i navigated out of it i found a way out so then the universe went oh man we tried to
1:02:30 try to give you a warning sign we try to like you’re you’re sailing by in the titanic and we’re waving
1:02:36 like iceberg and then the universe said okay you really didn’t pay attention and you still aren’t doing the work
1:02:45 like marriage because that one got me that one got me to pay attention losing my kids 50 percent of the time
1:02:56 that one changed everything and the world that still couldn’t move me i was still able to figure out
1:03:01 the chess board but my kids and my marriage
1:03:10 that one rocked me and woke me up what’s really crazy is when i told you i did this hoffman process
1:03:14 i won’t tell you the process because you’re not supposed to but i can tell you at the end of the
1:03:18 week they can you give it context for anyone that doesn’t know that the hoffman process is this one
1:03:26 week no phone no email um intense work on your early childhood to understand why you are the way you are
1:03:32 and give you tools to go out in the world and understand yourself the reason i went
1:03:39 october of 2020 my marriage was falling apart the whole world thought i was crushing it ariana’s
1:03:48 crushing it this justin’s all these people like we’re on fire and i had a suicidal thought for 20 minutes
1:03:53 where i was like if my marriage is going to fall apart i’m not going to be with my kids all the time
1:03:57 i can’t control this i’m not going to be this perfect image that i presented to the world
1:04:03 and if i can’t be this perfect image i don’t want to be here and it went to a very dark place and after
1:04:08 20 minutes i said what the hell was that that’s not me i would never leave my kids i don’t like leave
1:04:16 anybody like what was that and the next morning i was on the set of a video shoot and a friend of mine
1:04:21 called and he said you know what’s going on with you and i told him i told him about that night
1:04:25 before he called me back with another friend and they said you need to go to hoffman we did it it
1:04:30 changed our life they told me that they could get me in in two weeks because there was a cancellation
1:04:35 october 24th and that was the release of ariana grande’s dangerous woman album it was the busiest
1:04:42 week of the year for me at work and i started laughing in the parking lot of this video shoot
1:04:46 and she goes do you want us to pick another week i said no i said i’ve spent my whole life
1:04:52 pursuing these things doing this choosing this choosing scooter choosing that life choosing the
1:04:59 clients and i’m the top of my game yet i wanted to kill myself last night something’s got to change
1:05:07 and i chose to go to that place instead and the hard stuff actually came after i got out of hoffman
1:05:11 you know i ended up going through a divorce i ended up going through all this different stuff
1:05:17 but i never was depressed again and the most interesting thing that happened on the other
1:05:25 side of it is six years ago i was biggest manager and the perfect marriage and you know everything i
1:05:31 touched turned to gold and there was no negative press about me ever six years later i’m divorced
1:05:38 i don’t manage anymore i’ve had negative press and i couldn’t be happier it doesn’t mean it doesn’t
1:05:44 ebb and flow but i get to be the dad i’ve always wanted to be in the friend i’ve always wanted to be
1:05:49 and it doesn’t mean that things aren’t going to go you know be hard and i’m going to say suffer more
1:05:55 things and go through them but i’m in a place that i understand amor fati it’s like everything’s a gift and
1:06:02 i’m being super long-winded but that’s the story that phone call the day after that to your friends
1:06:09 yeah did you tell him the truth on the phone the full truth yeah i did and what was that full truth
1:06:16 that i had the night before thought about you know just shutting it all off it wasn’t even an idea that
1:06:21 i wanted to die i just wanted the noise in my head to go away i wanted the failure the disappointment
1:06:27 the fear i was going to fail in my mind i couldn’t control it i’d always been able to navigate out of
1:06:35 failure and head towards success a pit stop but i had left what i found at hoffman i told you is my
1:06:43 name the inner child the scott i had built this mask so big i wanted to feel like me again and i didn’t
1:06:50 realize how far away i’d gotten from that building up this armor building up the mask you know i want to
1:06:53 tell you something funny i usually don’t say names in these things but i want to give him credit because
1:06:59 i think it’s hilarious michael rapino is the ceo of live nation he’s an amazing guy i think he’s
1:07:02 one of the most impressive people in the entire entertainment industry because
1:07:07 he wields so much power but he also empowers other people so well
1:07:16 and after the divorce after you know the big machine and stuff that happened with that all these
1:07:20 different things and you know michael told me because i like you a lot more now because you seem
1:07:27 human you know and he told me he was like before he’s like nobody goes on like it’s like this he’s
1:07:30 like you know i just didn’t he goes he goes i didn’t think you were real i thought you were full of
1:07:37 and he was right i mean i didn’t know myself because i had no reason to do so and it wasn’t
1:07:44 until i had some real hardships and real pain and real scares and real rock bottom moments that i started
1:07:51 looking at myself and started figuring out who i was and then everyone got to know me my best friends
1:07:58 since i was 11 years old they’re the people i hang out with the most um two of them live out here mike
1:08:03 and vuk and i hang out with them all the time and people who know me they know these guys because
1:08:11 they’ve been my friends since we were 12 years old 11 years old and mike and vuk told me at 40 years
1:08:16 old when i was doing this work we’ve known you since you were 11 and this is the most we’ve ever known you
1:08:23 and i’m not surprised or insulted because they say you haven’t changed but we didn’t know you
1:08:31 because i was always even to them presenting what i thought they needed me to be perfect
1:08:37 and then i broke and then i said this happened and this happened when i was a kid this was going on
1:08:44 and this was and they were like we love you and i really became one of the boys for the first time in my
1:08:50 life i became one of the boys because the boys became vulnerable i thought it was the opposite
1:08:54 my whole life i thought you had to be cool you had to be tough to be one of the boys and it was funny
1:09:00 because they didn’t all the achievements not only did they not give a shit about i probably lost touch
1:09:06 with them more so and when everything fell apart they were the ones that were there the ones who knew
1:09:12 scott the ones who didn’t care about any of it and i’ve never really even said that out loud
1:09:16 to this extent until right now and i’m actually glad i get to say i’m here at both their names
1:09:18 because they
1:09:31 they picked me up and in a really really tough time and a time where i couldn’t even look at my
1:09:34 own brothers because i was too ashamed and um
1:09:40 and i never felt like one of the guys like i felt like i had those friends but i just couldn’t
1:09:45 let them all the way in because i felt well maybe i’m smarter maybe i’m this maybe i need to be perfect
1:09:45 and it wasn’t till
1:09:55 i really hit rock bottom that i realized that they always had my back and i made all these stupid ideas
1:10:05 in my head and they were they were there and they weren’t there for scooter you know they were there
1:10:10 for scott and i see you getting a little emotional too because you probably have the same type of friends
1:10:20 so i’ll i did it so you can do it too what are their names michael ash dom anthony and oliver
1:10:25 but they are they’re they’re the constant they’re they’re there through everything the up the down
1:10:31 the up the down the up the down again and they don’t give a crap about any of this in fact if your
1:10:39 friends are like mine they’re brutal about this stuff my friends rip me like if people saw the
1:10:46 text messages between us they would think we hate each other um but we love each other deeply and
1:10:52 and the best part about the messages is the random hey guys i love you you know it happens all the
1:10:56 time i get a phone call i’ll pick up i’ll just see paul hey brother i love you just want to call and tell you
1:11:02 i’m really grateful like i have so many different people i can name and what was really interesting is
1:11:10 before all this happened i don’t know if you can relate to this but i spent so much time
1:11:21 trying to impress people who didn’t want to love me instead of realizing how many people already did
1:11:27 i was just thinking what a great shame it is that the amount of units of energy we exert on as you said
1:11:33 like the external like the audience whereas when you ask me who would be there for me irrespective of
1:11:38 what was going on in my life i can name them and then i ask myself how much energy and effort am i
1:11:41 putting into these relationships and i’m embarrassed about how much energy and effort
1:11:44 i’m putting into these relationships i’m like embarrassed by it
1:11:49 like that makes me a scumbag and they’ll still be there yeah they don’t care yeah yeah and and
1:11:52 that’s the best part because when you do start putting energy it becomes even more fun
1:12:02 it’s really it’s really um it’s really difficult for me to understand and this is my naivety the part
1:12:06 that’s difficult for me to understand is you family meant so much to you didn’t you don’t you have a
1:12:13 a tattoo that says family first one yeah i was 18 you got a tattoo at 18 about your future family
1:12:21 correct so family has been this like dream and ambition of yours so it’s surprising to me as
1:12:28 someone who was naive in this context that some it had to be threatened for you to care enough to
1:12:35 you know i cared i just uh childhood trauma is a hell of a thing man yeah it’s um and we all have
1:12:39 it that was the thing the reason i didn’t think i had it is because i had friends who you know had
1:12:43 parents who were alcoholics i had friends who had parents who this so i always thought you know both
1:12:49 my parents are here they love me like the stuff i dealt with that’s not real you know i come from
1:12:54 an immigrant family like we can deal with this like we’re strong you know that’s not real and
1:13:02 what i realized is everyone has trauma that’s the human experience and the faster we value our own
1:13:07 trauma and stop trying to downplay it because we don’t think it equals someone else’s the more we can
1:13:12 work on ourselves because all you get to do is work on yourself you don’t get to work on the other
1:13:16 other person like you can really only work on yourself you can help the other person but the
1:13:26 work that’s only here and i think that i saw my life is perfect so why change anything
1:13:33 and that’s why you’re smiling stop calling me out yeah it’s so true because you see your life is
1:13:38 perfect and she’s screaming at you she’s screaming at you and trying to and you can’t see it she’s not
1:13:45 screaming just yet she is in her own way increasingly expressing to me and yeah in her own way that there
1:13:52 is an issue and i i’m going to be completely honest because this is why i started this podcast was the
1:13:59 diary of a ceo so this is what would be written in my diary the alarm is getting louder and i’m still in a
1:14:05 state where i think i’ve got a lot of time before the alarm is so loud that i can’t fix it i got you
1:14:10 i see you buddy trust me i see and here’s the funny thing i don’t want to go into details i have a lot
1:14:17 of respect we’re family forever it goes both ways it’s not like there was one thing happened it both
1:14:24 people have to play a role in where we got to you know things happen on you know both ways however
1:14:30 chris rock says something really special he goes relationships are actually quite easy
1:14:35 you know you ever try to pick up a couch with two people no problem pick up a couch by yourself
1:14:44 and that was the thing we we both went to pick up the couch at different times and we were made to be
1:14:48 amazing co-parents we were made to come into each other’s lives to help each other be better in different
1:14:53 ways through the heartbreak of our relationship ending and we were we were brought together to
1:15:00 make three incredible souls and now whoever gets me next is in for a treat
1:15:04 because i’m a better version than i was before
1:15:09 and in hindsight what are those warning signs for someone like me who might be
1:15:17 the choices that you make that you justify oh i got to do this because you know if i don’t do this
1:15:24 one it could all fall apart no it isn’t you know if i don’t if i don’t stop everything i’m doing and
1:15:30 choose this it could all fall apart or yeah okay you’re saying this to me but you don’t really mean
1:15:34 it because you don’t understand what i’m going through because i’m in this grind i’m in this hunt
1:15:39 that you no one can understand because only i can achieve this you’re smiling because you live
1:15:47 can i ask you some questions sure how long you guys been together uh six years now
1:15:53 and why are you smiling so big because how many times have you made those choices i just justify
1:15:57 bullshit and there’s always gonna i know logically there’s always going to be something else there’s
1:16:02 always there’s never going to be a perfect time so i know logically that i have to pick in perfect
1:16:08 moments and do you guys want kids yes do you use that as an excuse well the kids aren’t here yet
1:16:12 so i need to grind now
1:16:19 i’ve i’ve i’ve certainly thought it as a way to justify to myself to self-rationalize i don’t think
1:16:23 i’ve ever said that to her but i have said to her i’ve said internally yeah i’ve said it to myself
1:16:28 internally i’ve said to myself like this season of life up until i’m 35 i’m gonna go for it and then
1:16:36 you know she’s looking at you thinking i want to be able to trust you to have children yeah listen
1:16:45 a long time ago someone really smart ran this little exercise with me and i wish i would have
1:16:51 paid better attention to it other than just thinking it was a cool saying to like use in the office he said
1:16:58 if i told you someone you loved was sick and you had a billion dollars how much of it would you spend
1:17:08 to save them a billion dollars yeah correct and he says is your loved one is she healthy does she love
1:17:15 you is she here with you right now everything you’re working to achieve with that perspective
1:17:19 you already have it yeah and they said it to me and it sounds great i’m seeing it on your face you’re a
1:17:23 smart guy it’s logical you’re like yeah i get it and then you’re gonna go repeat the same stuff
1:17:29 because that’s what we do and what i realized when i went and did this work was it’s not going to
1:17:35 change between you and her or me and my ex you know that wasn’t what it was about it was actually
1:17:41 something deeper deeper underlying that had nothing to do with the current relationship it had to do with
1:17:47 that lie that i’m not enough that this person actually doesn’t really love me unless i do this
1:17:55 were you happy before the marriage fell apart i think so but i also didn’t know who i was i think
1:18:01 i was happy because everyone in the world told me i was doing great and i thought that that was enough
1:18:07 and i i feel like looking back now i feel like i was asleep at the wheel i feel like i didn’t know
1:18:12 myself at the time and but i had so much success at such a young age so everyone was telling me i was
1:18:17 doing great so i just chose to believe them and it wasn’t until i you know the foundation broke and
1:18:23 there was nothing underneath it that i was like oh shit i’m actually not happy and i never knew and
1:18:30 it’s like i wouldn’t go back to that before all the crap in a million years i want to stay here
1:18:35 because now i’m like i’m a i’m awake what is the um the practical advice you would give me because
1:18:40 you can identify where i’m at in your own story so what is the practical advice you’d give me now
1:18:47 to avoid myself getting to a situation where one day i have regrets because i didn’t listen to the alarm
1:18:54 a couple things okay number one turn the cameras off and go do some self-work stop being nudged just go
1:19:00 do it stop being with all due respect to pussy okay i appreciate it and um and i’m like my group chat
1:19:07 yeah yeah i mean it’s just there’s no good time in the future there’s no when i get to 35 when i get to
1:19:14 36 when i get to 40 there’s when i achieve this go do it one to two weeks out of the year will not kill
1:19:19 you it will only make you stronger because what you’re dealing with with what you’re telling me has
1:19:23 nothing to do with the two of you it has more to do with your stuff and she has to go do her stuff you
1:19:28 have to see if she wants to go do the same thing and and work on herself in the same way because it’s a
1:19:34 constant thing the second thing is go on vacations together and when the kids come go on vacation that’s
1:19:38 something i think we we forgot to do we did the vacations with the kids we did the vacations with
1:19:43 friends but we didn’t do vacations together because we were so we had three kids in five years yeah and i
1:19:49 think um you know that’s something i think about but then also just trust that like if it’s supposed to
1:19:54 be it’s supposed to be my journey was supposed to be exactly the way it was even the when i found out
1:20:01 things and she found out like about ourselves it was exactly when we were supposed to find out
1:20:07 so i just i’m a firm believer you know you’re here to learn exactly what you’re supposed to learn have
1:20:14 you read many lives many masters no by brian weiss no easy quick read on a weekend you’ll enjoy the hell
1:20:21 of it um brian weiss was the head of psychology at university of miami and he was recommended a nurse
1:20:25 from the hospital would he see her and he saw her and she had deep trauma and couldn’t figure it out
1:20:31 so he goes we’re going to do hypnotic regression she does hypnotic regression she goes into something
1:20:35 from like age zero to six that she couldn’t remember very traumatizing he’s like oh this will make a
1:20:39 difference she comes back the next week it’s even worse that makes no sense to him he does hypnotic
1:20:45 regression again and she goes into a past life he calls bullshit he does another hypnotic regression
1:20:49 she goes into another past life and he realizes her educational background could not know the
1:20:55 things that she’s saying that he’s looking up so what happens is he just writes a book about this
1:21:00 patient and how she changed his entire practice and what was really interesting about it is
1:21:07 it made me look at death differently and life differently we’re here to learn and then if we
1:21:11 don’t figure it out we leave and we come back again and if we learn that one we come back and this
1:21:18 transitions and but it’s never it’s not ending it’s all about coming here to learn but i feel like i
1:21:22 i have so much to learn and at least i know that and i’m such a mess and i’m figuring it out every
1:21:29 single day that if brian weiss’s book is right i’m not going anywhere for a while but it’s a really
1:21:33 amazing way to look and what was interesting is when i told my mom had read it when i told my dad
1:21:38 he actually goes well you know we’re jews we don’t believe in reincarnation and when i started
1:21:44 studying kabbalah i realized that actually kabbalah teaches reincarnation almost the exact same way this
1:21:50 woman was describing it which means judeo-christians actually believe in reincarnation but many of us
1:21:56 don’t know it um and it was just a really interesting way of looking at life do you believe in reincarnation
1:22:01 i do you do yeah i do especially reading this book and then studying kabbalah and i started studying
1:22:08 kabbalah about a year ago um i like some of the principles i’ve learned from kabbalah about this
1:22:19 idea of being a custodian that nothing is actually ours but we’re custodians you know that um god has
1:22:25 hashem is what they say in kabbalah but um this idea that we’re supposed to give 10 of charity but
1:22:31 no more than 20 you know because the belief is if god is giving you this he’s asking you to hold on to
1:22:36 it because he has a purpose for you but if he chooses to take it away you should be just as joyful
1:22:40 because it was never yours in the first place you are a custodian and i think that’s a really great
1:22:45 way of looking at materials looking at life and understanding like i said participating and i’m
1:22:52 getting to play in this game but you have your moments right yeah still today because you’re
1:22:57 someone that’s done so much work so it’s it’s interesting speaking to you because you’re someone
1:23:03 that i would seek advice on in everything in my life but you still have work left to do you said that
1:23:07 i still have things left to learn well i think i have a lot of things left to learn i find myself
1:23:15 sometimes needing to defend myself sometimes not defending myself when i should i feel like sometimes
1:23:20 i feel misunderstood or not loved and you know i have you know have that moment and then
1:23:23 even on the other side there’s times where you feel like oh you’re doing all this work and people
1:23:28 see you as someone who’s done the work and then you don’t want to be seen as someone who’s failing
1:23:34 at that work and the truth is that’s all part of the process it’s like a constant surrender to your
1:23:41 your human experience the work for me is life is going to throw the things you need at you so
1:23:46 like i said tomorrow something could happen that you know i’m being ridiculed again and i’m having
1:23:50 to learn again you know or a praise could come and i’m having to learn how to handle that like i don’t
1:23:55 know what tomorrow is going to bring it’s always a new experiment but it’s almost as if like when
1:24:01 you’re doing this work people call it it’s as you’re swimming in the waves and now you have the skills
1:24:06 to get through the wave the waves still come but you’re just going through them differently do you
1:24:15 wish they wouldn’t come hell no that’s life you know i i asked you said i had a company ithaca
1:24:23 do you know where it comes from no so some people think they’re like oh ithaca new york no it comes
1:24:33 from a poem by kafafi um i asked david geffen uh years ago with his extraordinary life and career when did he
1:24:40 feel like it was like enough i was 30 years old when i met him and i asked him that question the
1:24:46 first meal we ever had and he looked at me and he said that’s not how life works it goes up and down
1:24:54 this and he goes i want you to read a poem and he gives me ithaca by kafafi and i named my holding
1:24:58 company i had sb projects but then when i did the holding company and started doing other things too
1:25:04 i named it after this poem because i was so moved by it and the concept of the poem of ithaca is you’re
1:25:08 on the way to the island of ithaca and the greek islands and along the way you’re going to see so
1:25:13 many different things and you’re going to meet scholars and you’re going to you know learn wisdom
1:25:17 and all these different things and when you find ithaca finally if you find her poor she did not fool you
1:25:24 because it was never about the destination always about the journey and i think right now
1:25:31 if there if i get to this end game with you like that’s no fun then it’s over so like keep the waves
1:25:38 coming i made the biggest investment i’ve ever made in a company because of my girlfriend i came home one
1:25:44 night and my lovely girlfriend was up at 1am in the morning pulling her hair out as she tried to piece
1:25:50 together her own online store for her business and in that moment i remembered an email i’d had
1:25:56 from a guy called john the founder of stan store our new sponsor and a company i’ve invested incredibly
1:26:01 heavily in and stan store helps creators to sell digital products courses coaching and memberships
1:26:07 all through a simple customizable link in bio system and it handles everything payments bookings
1:26:12 emails community engagement and even links with shopify and i believe in it so much that i’m
1:26:19 going to launch a stan challenge and as part of this challenge i’m going to give away one hundred
1:26:23 thousand dollars to one of you if you want to take part in this challenge if you want to monetize the
1:26:30 knowledge that you have visit stephenbartlett.stan.store to sign up and you’ll also get an extended
1:26:35 30-day free trial of stan store if you use that link your next move could quite frankly change
1:26:44 everything i told danielek that i was interviewing you a couple of months ago and he sat me down in his
1:26:48 la office and was like i’ve got to tell you a story about that scooter brawn guy i’ve got to tell you
1:26:54 something he said that when he made the forbes under 30 list when he was a young man in i think stockholm
1:27:01 sweden he said he randomly got a phone call out of the blue from you and you had decided to call
1:27:07 everybody on the forbes 30 under 30 oh the billboard is billboard 30 under 30 i thought it was forbes and
1:27:12 you decided to call all every single person on the list just to introduce yourself yeah i when i heard
1:27:19 heard that i thought fucking wow you don’t want to know why why because every single time i met someone
1:27:27 very accomplished and successful and they wanted to help me they’d say well who are you trying to reach
1:27:32 and they’d say oh my gosh i’ve known them for 20 years 30 years and they would pick up the phone call
1:27:40 and their power was in relationship that was expansive and and long and they knew each other from the
1:27:46 beginning not that they had met some powerful club at the end and what i realized was
1:27:56 the real power is in community and i wanted to know my peers i wanted to grow with them that we didn’t
1:28:01 need to go and find someone who already had it we needed to support each other how old were you when
1:28:05 you did that 27 so you were 27 and you called everybody on that list yeah
1:28:12 such a cool thing to do so many people are now going to go do that but it’s such a cool thing to do
1:28:20 by the way i am an early investor in spotify because of that phone call he was just i’m sure he told you
1:28:24 this he was just a company in sweden he didn’t tell me this part oh yeah he was just and when i called
1:28:29 him he was you know they were talking about this new thing spotify but it was in sweden and
1:28:36 we met and i tried to get in right away after we met because i was like what is this and and he didn’t
1:28:41 let me in at first and then you know i went and met shack you know oh yeah i met shack in london we
1:28:48 walked around and then d.a wallick was like advising them and um i ended up getting to be a significant
1:28:54 you know investor at that point in my life in this you know new young company spotify and i have not
1:29:01 sold a share in probably 18 years you haven’t sold a share no i’m a firm believer in that company i’m a
1:29:07 firm believer in daniel and i and i think listen i hear all the time where people are like oh look you
1:29:17 know this is so unfair daniel eck with his bravery and his foresight saved the music industry he gave value
1:29:23 to our industry again he found a way to make us go from going in one direction to the most successful
1:29:29 we’ve ever been and i don’t think people realize that and give him enough credit for what he did
1:29:34 people don’t understand the machine they just think well record sales went away and now we’ve got the
1:29:39 streaming fee and it’s lower so what is the context we’re missing there what did he what did that company
1:29:46 do it gave value to our business it gave you know uh multiples on publishing and masters that we had
1:29:52 never seen before because now everyone’s music can be heard and heard for a long time you know at
1:29:57 the time daniel came along all i would hear going in the music business is man you missed the 80s and 90s
1:30:05 sorry kid you know this business is going down you know and daniel was streaming made it so that
1:30:10 you know these these major labels and these independent companies and you know these artists
1:30:15 are able to do things they’ve never been able to do before one on bringing that amount of revenue to
1:30:22 our business but two also bringing our global community together and uh and that was daniel’s
1:30:29 foresight and his vision and his uh i mean he didn’t have any relationships he didn’t know the
1:30:37 major labels crazy isn’t it you know he he he saved the music industry and i think now that you know he’s
1:30:43 the biggest thing in the music industry it’s easy to point at him as like the big bad oh and yes he’s
1:30:46 always trying to innovate and change but he has brought more money back into our industry than
1:30:53 we ever thought would be there and um and i’m grateful to him and i think he he saved a lot of
1:31:01 careers i also would like to add a couple of words to that just to say what an unbelievably humble smart
1:31:07 kind human being he is it’s an impossible story for it for to do what he did out of stockholm as well
1:31:12 not silicon valley and for it to be the dominant platform and still to be the best platform even as a
1:31:17 podcast that’s my favorite platform by far and they’ve just decided in the last two to three
1:31:21 months which is actually why i was over at spotify’s office to meet him that they’re going to start
1:31:24 paying podcasters revenue that we’ve never been paid before they’re going to cut us in on the
1:31:29 spotify membership fee which means that again it’s going to fuel this whole industry apple aren’t paying
1:31:35 us anything but spotify have decided to pay podcasters who upload on video which is going to mean
1:31:42 that people can quit their jobs and and daniel’s a very innovative guy and i remember him as the kid
1:31:48 i called on that list and who when he came to the united states a couple weeks later played me in ping
1:31:55 pong eight times you know and that’s how we became friends and um he’s incredibly humble incredibly
1:32:01 smart incredibly hard working and he has changed a lot of people’s lives
1:32:08 what’s next for you scooter should i call you scott or scooter either one i’m proud of both now okay i’m
1:32:15 gonna call you scott okay what’s what is next in if we sit here in 10 years time do you have any idea
1:32:20 what that chapter look like or do you have any idea what would have had to have happened for you to
1:32:27 consider it a success the only thing i want to make sure is that you know i stay i want to be the father
1:32:32 to my children right that i that i want to be that i continue that that’s the thing like that’s the one
1:32:36 consistent thing i want to make sure that i put them first that they are my priority because i get
1:32:41 them until they’re 18 and then you know they’re gonna be like dad we’re out yeah um and i’m still gonna
1:32:47 obviously look forward to the next chapter but um i got 10 years of that i think something i’m
1:32:51 excited about in the next chapter is like what does love look like what does relationship look like
1:32:58 um and then i’m excited to be a rookie again and try new things and get into industries because i said to
1:33:04 you before we started taping you know you asked me about ai and i said i feel like we’re in the
1:33:10 beginning of an industrial revolution and a cold war at the same time but there’s just so much opportunity
1:33:14 because things are shifting and things are moving and we’re becoming a more productive society
1:33:20 because like you i’ve gotten to see some of the things that are coming on the technology side and
1:33:26 it’s mind-blowing what’s coming and it’s mind-blowing what’s already happening that people a lot of people
1:33:33 don’t even realize and the innovation is going to get faster and faster and faster and i think the
1:33:40 one thing that will never go away is humans want for taste for human error for experiences
1:33:47 if anything during covid we saw national parks explode people had time for experiences i think ai
1:33:51 is going to make us more productive we’re going to have more time for experiences and i’m excited for
1:33:55 that and i’m excited for what that world looks like and i think there will always be growing pains when
1:34:01 there’s change but on the other side societies have always been measured by productivity not by wealth
1:34:05 how productive is that society we’re about to be the most productive society we’ve ever been
1:34:11 it’s quite it is quite scary but it’s also extremely exciting and i think i think both responses are quite
1:34:17 natural i think excitement’s often present where fear is and um i the choice that i’m personally
1:34:22 just making is to lean in and to mess around and to learn when we spoke earlier you were telling me
1:34:27 that you’ll stay up all night long like learning how to code with ai and you’re trying to understand all
1:34:31 the ai tools that are in front of us you can kind of be first because you feel like you know you
1:34:35 weren’t at the right place in the dot-com boom and you want to make sure that you’re in there
1:34:44 can i ask you what you consider success is it you don’t want to miss out like what what is the
1:34:49 success why do you feel like you want to not miss out what do you want to be first to if you if you
1:34:53 achieve something on the other side because you actually master ai and you are one of the first
1:34:59 what are you hoping happens so i think i’m trying i’m running from a fear and the fear is
1:35:09 i’m 32 now and i’ve i’ve been playing at the frontier my whole life so like my first business
1:35:13 was in social media i rode that wave into shore it changed my life i was relevant it made me feel
1:35:17 great i built on on that frontier as the wave came into shore then the blockchain came around started a
1:35:21 company called third web valued 160 million dollars amazing i was on the frontier then this ai thing
1:35:27 comes along and it feels like the wave is coming in and i’m i’ve got a surfboard and i’ve got to
1:35:31 decide whether i want to take this wave or not and if i i feel like if i miss the wave if i’m not
1:35:41 involved if i’m not building there then it’s quite existential it’s like then i don’t know what can
1:35:46 happen and i don’t like that i don’t like the unknown and it goes back to many things we talked
1:35:53 about but you’re swimming in the ocean yes i’m not the best swimmer in the world i’m saying but you’ll go
1:35:58 in the ocean yeah not just on the beach will you go out in the ocean and get in the water if i have
1:36:02 my floating vest on because i can’t i can’t swim which is interesting though you’ll get in though yeah
1:36:08 yeah 100 i have a top i wear to go in no i understand that but i i find that interesting
1:36:14 only because the ocean is a place where you have absolutely no control you know it’s the ocean can
1:36:18 do what we want you don’t know what’s in there you know a lot of people like i see when they want
1:36:23 control i realized there were years that i kind of just didn’t swim in the ocean i swim on the beach
1:36:27 but i didn’t really want to go into the ocean because i didn’t have control out there you know
1:36:31 i didn’t know what was in there i didn’t know what could get me at it like i couldn’t see it coming i
1:36:36 couldn’t control the outcome and you talk a lot about this like the need for control that makes you
1:36:43 feel uncomfortable but you are also a very big risk taker i mean you’re 32 years old you’ve achieved all
1:36:48 this you’re pushing yourself to find out more you’re defying all the odds you got the kid from
1:36:54 home who’s still talking crap because you know look everything what you’re doing and and i i guess i’m
1:36:59 intrigued because one you don’t give yourself the credit of how much you go into the unknown
1:37:05 it’s almost like you do it out of fear and necessity but i’m really pushing you on like
1:37:11 what does success look like for you because you’re on the surfboard you keep surfing i’m trying to figure
1:37:18 out like where where is what is success to you is it you’re you’re 90 years old and you’re looking
1:37:23 back at your life what are the things that you could not live without you’d be disappointed if
1:37:29 they weren’t there i imagine it’s going to be my kids i imagine it’s going to be my relationship with
1:37:34 my partner i think that’s the going back to this sounds like a crazy thing to say but if there was a
1:37:38 button on the table and i had to press it to kill myself or my partner i’d press to kill myself and that
1:37:42 was a really clarifying thought for me because i was like i would literally take my i’d give my life
1:37:49 to save this person this other human being my nieces my brother um my fam my fam my family
1:37:57 i’m confused because you haven’t named all the achievements of ai
1:38:02 you haven’t named you know all the things that you think you need to do
1:38:09 you know the um ithaca yeah part of what i think makes the journey exciting is being like slightly
1:38:14 terrified and having something that consumes you and that challenges you and that scares you a little
1:38:19 bit and and building and experimenting and leaning in like when i was a kid in my bedroom i’d turn my
1:38:23 bunk bed into a business it’d be a salon one week and then the next week i’d be
1:38:30 dismantling my brother’s radio and trying to sell the parts and like so i’ve always been extremely
1:38:37 curious extremely experimental i’ve always tried to build things so i think that’s my fun but i also
1:38:40 i these days the more i’ve done this podcast the more i’ve learned to like question myself
1:38:46 question what i’m saying listen i think you’re an incredibly intriguing guy that’s why i wanted to meet
1:38:52 at you and i love how much you push yourself and you question things but i find it very interesting
1:38:58 that when i asked you about your 90s and when you look back you name things that are very attainable
1:39:04 to you because you found someone that loves you and you love them yeah and then when we’re talking
1:39:10 throughout this entire conversation it seems that when you actually open about your personal life
1:39:18 you spend a lot of your time avoiding that thing and focusing on all these others that make you feel
1:39:25 worthy to experience that thing and i i guess like what i’m just trying to say to you for as a smart
1:39:29 a guy as you are this is coming from someone who literally suffered from the same thing
1:39:39 the thing that you want the most at 90 you got it’s true the building in your room and the building
1:39:47 with ai should be just fun it shouldn’t be terrifying anymore it should be fun because the terrifying
1:39:52 thing is turning 90 and not having the thing you really want that’s when i woke up
1:40:00 and so what does that mean for me and what what did for anyone that can resonate with that what
1:40:04 does that mean that they should do i know you said like turn off the cameras and but can you do both
1:40:09 i don’t know i think everyone’s journey is different i think everyone experiences things
1:40:13 in a different way some people are able to like you talked about with addiction some people are able to
1:40:18 say just stop and other people can’t and other people have to go through a different process to
1:40:22 get there so i’m trying to understand the balance though like how do i know if i’ve got the balance
1:40:27 right in that well i hate that word because uh someone i really admired said to me harmonize you
1:40:32 know um so how do i know jeff bezos was the one who said it he was like don’t balance things
1:40:36 harmonize why why weigh things that you love against each other you love building in your room
1:40:44 you love learning things and building things you love that you love your partner and you want to build
1:40:48 a family with her one day it’s not about balance it’s about putting them together
1:40:55 bring her into every aspect of it bring her into the fears that you have with this bring her into
1:41:00 you know that’s what i i you know i didn’t know that you know it’s it’s bring every aspect of your
1:41:06 life together and share and let them be with the up and downs and you do the up and downs and kind of
1:41:11 go across the board and then also like i said do the work to find out why you ask all these questions but
1:41:16 still with all the nudging that’s happened do the work to find out why you’re so afraid to actually turn
1:41:23 off the camera and just do it so are you saying then to get out of like competition and get into
1:41:27 that curiosity that you described you said about these two states that you can invest i mean look
1:41:33 i think being competitive is always a beautiful thing if used in the right way i love that but i will say
1:41:39 to you when you talk to me about where the ai staying up at night we’re building your company
1:41:47 came from it was a kid building in his room that kid wasn’t competing with anyone he was having fun
1:41:54 in his room he was building that’s when you’re at your best it’s when you’re actually just building
1:41:59 for the joy of building and i think along the way based on our fears based on the i’m not enough
1:42:04 based on all these different things we start to take that thing that brought us joy and we start to
1:42:10 think if i don’t crush it now that people are watching me do it i’m not good at it and
1:42:17 you’re asking me for like this question is almost if it’s like advice i’m trying to figure it out the
1:42:24 same time you are yeah you know so i guess i’ll pose it back to you you’ve done research you know
1:42:29 a little bit about my life what would you say to me what should i be doing next what do you think
1:42:44 i should be nudged to do i think what you’re what you’ve done today is some of the most valuable work
1:42:49 that you can do and what i say today i mean is as you’ve sat here and the vulnerability that you’ve
1:42:55 expressed the honesty the nuance to certain points i think it’s one of the most important things you can
1:43:00 do because many of us don’t get to climb up to the top of the mountain top and see what’s up there
1:43:06 and you’re choosing to go up there and then shout back down about your marriage about business about
1:43:10 your mental health and everything in between about mistakes you’ve made injustices all these kinds of
1:43:14 things probably one of the most powerful things you can do because as you you’ve identified there’ll be
1:43:21 a couple of kids maybe me being one who will not have to be burnt not have to hit the rock bottom to
1:43:25 learn the lesson and there’s actually very few people i do this for a living there’s very few
1:43:31 people that have both that experience and the ability to articulate it in a way that is resonant
1:43:38 in terms of this next season of your life i think you’re doing so much well like yeah it was so nice
1:43:42 actually hearing you on the phone to your kids yesterday when they came over it was like dad i want
1:43:46 a pencil or whatever he was saying and you’re like steven you said to me i’ve got to you hang up the phone and
1:43:49 you addressed your kid you call me back in 10 seconds and i thought there was something really
1:43:55 special and telling that you were willing to end a phone call with someone and put the phone away and
1:43:59 immediately be present with your child to have a conversation with him to have a conversation
1:44:02 then call me back straight away most people don’t do that so i thought okay he’s really this really
1:44:09 means a lot to him in this season you know when when you just said to me what i did here today yeah
1:44:14 i smiled because i was being really honest with myself and i really appreciated you saying that
1:44:19 but i also smiled because being honest with myself of how funny it is that when i leave here
1:44:27 all i’ve been doing lately when i’m away from my kids is thinking of what do i build next
1:44:33 so i can show my value i’m going back to that old habit because i’m excited to build something else
1:44:38 but when i’m being really deep honest with myself really going deep it comes from this place of
1:44:46 well if i can do it again then i’ll show them this time will be the one that i’m happy about
1:44:51 this time like it’s that same old thing that comes every single time and i still want to build something
1:44:56 because i get joy out of that but same while i’m giving you this advice when you said that to me i went
1:45:04 oh man he’s right this is the most valuable thing i could probably do but the reason i don’t do it
1:45:12 is because deep down i feel not worthy of it i feel like who am i to tell anybody anything you know all
1:45:19 of us we feel like a fraud when we’re giving any kind of advice and that creeps up in me and i i get
1:45:25 this very if i’m being very vulnerable it gets this place of i don’t even want to say oh thank you for
1:45:29 saying that at first because i’m like well if someone’s watching they’ll be like this arrogant
1:45:35 guy or you get all the voices coming back in your head but the truth is
1:45:44 i want to go and build something next i want to fall in love again i want to be present for my children
1:45:49 and i want to be someone who can give advice from a place of wisdom
1:45:56 and be proud that i give it but also receive it because i’ve learned just as much talking to you
1:46:03 and what i will tell you is you are way ahead of the game at 32 compared to where i was thank you
1:46:08 and i had a lot of success at 32 but i wasn’t asking these questions and i wasn’t pushing myself
1:46:13 the way you did and i think it is an incredibly cool thing that this is what you get to do as a career
1:46:21 because i think you get to help a lot of people um and don’t ever lose sight of the fact that the
1:46:27 kid who was building in his room is now building in a lot of other people’s rooms and it’s really
1:46:33 impressive thank you that means an awful lot coming from you i’ve been extremely excited by this
1:46:37 conversation and i’ve been telling everybody in our team up because of the conversations we have on the
1:46:43 phone and i knew that if those conversations or any reflection of the conversation we’d have on my
1:46:47 show it would be really pivotal for me and it has been it’s been the nicest punch in the face
1:47:02 you know people probably wonder why i say all this stuff in public but um what an unbelievable
1:47:07 opportunity it is to meet someone like you and get to get to learn from you genuinely to get to learn
1:47:12 from you like what an unbelievably crazy thing from this kid from botswana to get to meet someone like
1:47:18 you and learn from you to the point that my life has a chance of being better than i’ve spoken to you
1:47:22 and then to get to share that with people who i know are struggling with the same shit who are contending
1:47:27 with the same battles so that is why i make the decision to have these conversations in the way that i do and um
1:47:32 by the way just want just because i struggle with giving myself credit i want to say this to you
1:47:41 the kid from baswana is teaching me as well the kid from cascap you know it’s uh
1:47:45 as much as like that’s an incredible thing
1:47:52 i wanted to come on here because i’ve listened to your podcast before and i’ve been one of those listeners
1:47:59 who grew and learned from it so thank you honestly and continue to give yourself the credit you deserve
1:48:04 and continue to ask the questions i do want to blow a little bit of smoke up your ass for something else
1:48:09 that you’ve done because i don’t think people have the all of this information but when i looked at the
1:48:14 breadth of philanthropic work that you’ve done whether it’s the support you gave to manchester which
1:48:20 is the city that i consider my hometown after the um ariana attack ah oh my god you’ve got a bee
1:48:26 on your arm and the way that that brought the city together in that moment or the work that you’ve
1:48:33 done supporting the attack that happened in israel um but all these other foundations the list of
1:48:40 philanthropic work that you’ve done is so long that i that i would have to we’d have to do another podcast
1:48:43 just to go through all of these things and you don’t talk about it publicly i don’t see you posting
1:48:47 about it all the time so for me that’s always indicated that you’re doing it for the right
1:48:51 reasons but it’s incredible so thank you for doing that as well and you deserve credit that you never
1:48:57 you never get for doing all of these things and this inspired me as well because sometimes i think
1:49:01 as entrepreneurs we can fall into the trap of thinking we we cut down the forest then donate to
1:49:08 the bees you know my mom is the reason um she as i started building in college she said just promise me
1:49:16 you know you’ll do sadaka which is charity within our our culture to give back and i basically said
1:49:21 every aspect of my business will have a give back component and shauna nepp who runs our family
1:49:26 foundation like our job is to make the money her job is to help me give it away and um and sometimes
1:49:31 it’s with money sometimes it’s with effort but i’ve met so many incredible heroes unsung heroes in all
1:49:37 this work um people who really dedicate full-time their lives to this and i really always i always
1:49:43 say uh my grandfather before he passed he said if your glass is filling with water and you’re one of
1:49:48 the lucky people in this world that god continues to pour water into your glass well you better start
1:49:54 pouring it into other people’s glasses otherwise it’s just going to spill and make a mess and i never
1:49:59 forgot that even when you sold hype there was this tremendous amount of money that you turned around
1:50:04 and gave to all the employees which a lot of people don’t know about and you also gave money to several
1:50:09 of your artists and from what i’ve researched tens of millions were given to your artists as well and
1:50:12 you could have kept all that money to yourself so when i hear that someone’s gone around and given that
1:50:17 much money to 264 of their employees and artists that have worked with them you kind of get a picture
1:50:21 of who the guy is we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question
1:50:26 for the next guest not knowing who they’re going to be leaving it for and the question that has been
1:50:39 left for you is now i’m nervous why do people always get the question left for you is if you could
1:50:45 do one thing that fear of failure has kept you from doing what would it be and why has it kept you from
1:50:52 doing it man if i could do one thing that’s a really great question um
1:51:04 you know at first i was thinking it would be like oh say sorry to somebody or this that but i feel like
1:51:08 i’ve gotten to do that with people in my life for the last couple years for things that like i wanted
1:51:13 to kind of talk about and some things you realize like it’s just not the season for that you know it takes
1:51:22 two and i felt myself it was almost the fear of saying this out loud um write write a book oh thank
1:51:30 god yeah i’ve always uh i think it’s it’s my brother wrote a book a really great one called the promise of
1:51:35 a pencil and it was a new york times bestseller and i was always like that’s adam’s thing and i’ve always
1:51:39 wanted to write but i always feel like my mind and you know the things i’m working on myself all these
1:51:44 things they change like every week and i’ve always felt like deep down like oh yeah you should write a
1:51:49 book but like you’re really not going to write a great book if you do and i think it’s always held
1:51:54 me back from actually just sitting down and doing it i got goosebumps then because as in that silence
1:51:59 for some bizarre reason i swear on my mother’s i was thinking i hope he says he’s going to write a book
1:52:03 i swear to you that’s what went through my mind i went i hope he says he’s going to write a book
1:52:07 that’s why i went thank god well i didn’t say i was going to write it i said fear has been holding
1:52:11 me back but maybe maybe you’ll turn off the camera and go in your nudge and this will be the nudge for
1:52:19 me okay well we hope you do scooter because um i’ve been so shocked and blown away by your wisdom and your
1:52:24 ability to articulate things and the stage of life that you’ve you’ve arrived at is for me as an objective
1:52:30 observer just the perfect moment i appreciate that and uh we’ll keep doing the work together and this is
1:52:35 the beginning of a great friendship and i’m really honored to be here and really happy for all your
1:52:42 success thank you the feeling is mutual thank you brother thank you so much thank you this has always
1:52:47 burned my mind a little bit 53 of you that listen to this show regularly haven’t yet subscribed to this
1:52:51 show so could i ask you for a favor if you like the show and you like what we do here and you want to
1:52:56 support us the free simple way that you can do just that is by hitting the subscribe button and my
1:53:00 commitment to you is if you do that then i’ll do everything in my power me and my team to make
1:53:05 sure that this show is better for you every single week we’ll listen to your feedback we’ll find the
1:53:17 guests that you want me to speak to and we’ll continue to do what we do thank you so much