So I encourage you to take chances, take risks, fall in your face, and embrace those faults, because that is what takes true bravery. And that's what's gonna set you apart from everybody else.
What's your advice to all the people out there? Who are nervous or fear, trying something new and say, Gosh, I'm going to make fun of me if I do this, I shouldn't do this. How do they get the courage to go ahead and do it?
You've heard that story enough times to know that it's the risks that you take in life that are rewarded. If you color within the lines, you're just gonna blend in with everybody else. And nothing extraordinary happens with blending in.
What's your message to everyone out there, who again, are just afraid to reach out that person is never going to call me back. I'm never gonna get the meeting with that person. Every call
that you don't make every chance that you don't take is a missed opportunity. You're listening
to part two of my awesome interview with Jason Derulo, one of the most successful singer songwriters in history. He's sold more than 250 million singles worldwide and has more than 300 million followers on social media. If you haven't yet listened to part one, be sure to check that one out first. Now, without further ado, here's part two of my awesome interview with Jason. I think having a medical scare is a big wake up call. I had a medical scare was 44 years old.
I was in great shape. I go to SoulCycle three days a week right next to David Beckham. And I'm trying to compete with David but I was I was a machine wasn't feeling well. Heart attack and you're wondering, gosh, I got the pain can't breathe a call 911 I come in your house. They freak out in the ambulance.
You're looking around, you know, and I'm like, man, you know you guys can see these guys are worried they're calling in the time we got 12 minutes 10 minutes, eight minutes you get their whole team waiting for me like er the show they put you on the gurney, everyone's waiting a rush when having a heart attack. That is not possible. Why? Why is it possible? So I said, because I go to SoulCycle three days a week. And the guy says I'm the head of cardiology telling you that you're having a
heart attack. So you're just freaking out right? I got three young kids try to call my ex wife didn't answer try to call my mom didn't answer try to call a doctor friend of mine in Detroit, it didn't answer you want to if you're gonna die. And so they get in there and they run all these tests. And there's something in 1% of the cases less than 1%. It presents like one and if somebody called myocarditis, so you're in this room, they were putting in the stamp. And I said, Am I gonna
die? And I said, No, you're not gonna die. So okay, you know, tears flowing. And I said, But the bad news is just something called myocarditis, which is an infection of the heart. And so I said, Well, what can we do? They said nothing. So some people die. Some people live. Go to the ICU. I'm 44 years old. I'm the youngest person in there by 30 years, you know, everyone around me dying, and you could see everything hooked up. And it was one of these wake up moments I
live in. The weird thing about this is I used to be a lawyer. And I was friends with this woman, Christina, where she was two years younger, we go to lunch every day, and I get out hospital. And my kids went to school in San Marcos, I chopped them off, we'd all have coffee, and some of the parents said we got to work. And one of the guys in there said on Monday morning, I'd been out of the hospital for like four days, something like
that. And he said, Hey, did you hear about Christina said no one ever said she died last night. I said what? How? Said I didn't know. So I go to a funeral. And I'm thinking gosh, this could have been me and I'm looking at this you got five year old twins husbands crying It's just a mess. And you know, I'm I'm crying probably more than most people because that literally could have been me a week before and the crazy thing is I later found out she died in myocarditis. Wow, that's crazy.
It's crazy. But it was a wake up call for me and people say you got to have some kind of scare to change your life around and my life was crazy at the time working 80 hours a week, 90 hours a week I'm here I'm living my dream, right? I made money. I got a great house. The only thing that was missing was finding an amazing woman to spend my life I did Madison his best thing that ever happened to me. But how did the wake up call of you falling and break your neck affect your life?
You know, it forced me to to think about family more. Because when you feel like you are against the ropes. Like who? Who is still in your corner? You know, like, who is still rooting for you? Like, who can you turn to the people that are closest to you? You know, so I really put things in perspective for me from a family
perspective. So that was that was like, my main main main thing is like I need to be with my family more I need to, to make sure that my family, my my relationship with my family is thriving, as well as my career is thriving. So that's still something that I'm striving to do. Because you know, you can, life is short man, and you can have all the things that you've ever dreamed of. But what's it all worth if if your relationships are rotten?
We'll fast forward a little bit. At some point, your career wasn't going that well. And there was something online called musically, which I think people forget about which ultimately became tick tock. Tick tock was considered this online platform for people to post weird videos or 12 year old kids posting on that, that's where it kind of came up. And that's where the popularity started. And then the virality happened. And tell us about your girlfriend Jen at the time and you hanging out
experimenting with Tik Tok? What happened then?
Yeah, so I was really early on musically. This guy, I y'all, that was working at the label that I was with at the time Warner Brothers. He was like, get on this app, you know, we'll do like a promotion with them. It's their brand new. I was like, I cool. Kid on this app, I do a couple of promotions with them. And I start to hear about it more from my nieces and nephews, they were looking into this app. So I, you know, do a couple of lives on there. And like, there's like a real fan
base on there. Then this thing is called musically. And still, I don't really put any time and energy into it, because I'm just so consumed with music, you know, I'm just not really, I can't be bothered with social media, honestly. And the pandemic happens. And I was like, this is a perfect opportunity for me to learn how to social media, because I was just the worst. Like, I just couldn't figure it out. I couldn't do it, you know, everything, musically was everything in my music career.
Was was was great. And I can write a song, and that was my world. But when it came to connecting the dots on socials, I just didn't know how to do it. So when the pandemic hit, I was like, I'm going to give myself a routine. Again, with the routine. I'm going to post six times a day and see what makes people tick. Like what is going to get people's attention. And in posting six times a day, as you can imagine, like how the hell am I going to figure out six things to post, I started
posting anything. And it's through that freedom that I was able to realize that it didn't really matter what I was posting, like it was certain things would connect and certain things wouldn't. So I started to to learn my audience. I started to figure them out, you know, I was doing anything from cooking videos, to special effects videos, to dance videos to anything. But when the pandemic hit, and this thing was called tick tock, it was only dancing
going on. There was no other things going on except dancing and lip syncing. Those were the only two things because musically was a lip syncing act. Dancing came with tick tock. I was posting any and every fucking thing because I was trying to figure it out. Cooking Yeah, anything
you can cook? Not really.
But I made some pretty amazing desserts, I must say. But yeah, it's through that through that exploration man. I was able to just like really figure out social media and it took some time but I'm I'm pretty sure I I got it. I remember like people were like joking about me like being on this kid's app, like what the hell is Jason roll on doing? You know, like, he's supposed to be like this big star. And he's
making a fool of himself. And then like the, and then I watched every single other person, jump on the app, like it was the craziest thing to watch.
So that's something that we were going to go to next people were making fun of you. And what's your advice to all the people out there? Who are nervous or fear, trying something new? And say, Gosh, I'm going to make fun of me? If I do this, I shouldn't do this. How did he get the courage to go ahead and do it?
Honestly, think that you've heard that story enough times to know that it's the risks that you take in life that are rewarded. If you color within the lines, you're just gonna blend in with everybody else. And nothing extraordinary happens with blending in. So I encourage you to take chances, take risks, fall in your face, and embrace those faults, because that is what takes true bravery. And that's what's gonna set you apart from everybody else.
I want to talk about some of the things that make us successful. And one of the things is reaching out to people. I think, same thing, many people are very fearful, Gosh, I really want to get some advice. I'm not going to pick up the phone, you call the head of strategic partnerships and Media Relations at tick tock, and you had this woman come to your house? How influential was that? And what's your message to
everyone out there? Who again, are just afraid to reach out that I was personally never gonna call me back? I'm never gonna get the meeting with that person. Yeah,
I mean, every every call that you don't make every chance that you don't take is a missed opportunity. I mean, I never know what the outcome was going to be, man, I just go for shit, you know? And it's, it's done really well, for me, I, I couple my life into two things, right. And I think it's a beautiful way to live. Like being a legend is a very special thing. And I think a lot of people would want to be a legend in one way or another at
something. And I think that you're either doing things to build that legendary status, or you're doing something to recover. So your eat so even when I'm in the gym, right? So like every single rep, I'm thinking about, like, like, how can I how can I reach legendary status? What would a legend do here? Like, like, if a camera crew was watching me right now? Like, what would this look like? So either has to be a part of that legendary journey, or it
has to be a part of recovery. So even so like me having having a drink, right? I consider that recovery from my mind. You know, me, me going out and letting my hair down. That's recovery. But when you get to too much recovery, then then you know, you just fallen off the wagon. But I believe that there needs to be a balance between those two things.
So it sounds like tick tock became as big a business or bigger business than your music business, you learned a lot of lessons on tick tock, and you wrote this incredible book, you read the book. At some point, you wrote this incredible book. Tell us about the title of book and what it means.
Um, so you name out loud. I wanted to write this book because there's a lot of dreamers out there that are giving up their dreams for going to college, or doing something that their parents think that they should be doing or because somebody told them that their dream is too lofty or too crazy, or they think that they're too
old. So I wanted to write this book, because in looking at my life, there were specific things that I did that I feel like, we're the difference makers, and there was a specific mindset that I had, that I felt like was a difference maker for me. Because when, when when I was thinking about like, what made me successful. There was just so so many things, but I think mindset was the most pivotal thing. So I just want to teach people How to re configure their brain and kind of just think
like a winner. So I decided to write this book. And I didn't know whether anybody would read it. But I was like, I have to do this because I feel like it would help a lot of people. And thankfully, you know, that it's been really successful. And people come up to me all the time. And I expect them to say something about my music, but then they say something about the book. And I'm like, Holy shit, this is incredible. And, yeah, man, you know, I wrote the
book for the right reasons. And I feel like that's why it's connecting. So well.
So number one, take risks. Failure is good. How is failure? Good?
Failure is good. Because, like, I think you got to learn to be comfortable with falling on your face. It, you're more unsuccessful than successful. You know, every entrepreneur knows that. You're gonna be way more unsuccessful at things. And you are to, like, the success rate is super low. You know, and even like, with releasing songs, right, like, I believe Drake released like, 188 songs, and only 30 Something of
those songs are hit songs. You know, I've released something similar, they have released around 200 songs. And I have I have 22 Platinum songs, right. So like, most of what you do is not going to be successful. So I think you just need to get comfortable with, with with falling on your face. It's a great thing. I think it's it's character building, and you just got to get used to it.
Lesson number four is my favorite. Success is for rent. That's just awesome line. What does it mean?
Yeah, it's awesome. But also not so awesome. Because I think we all have, we all have to deal with it. It's kind of like going to the gym, right? Like, it's the craziest shit like you, you can all of a sudden get your dream body, right. But you can lose it in an instant. Right? All you got to do is stop working out and just stop working at the same intensity, start eating bad again, and that body goes away.
The same thing for success. You know, the moment you let up the moment you take your foot off the gas, somebody can come and take that away in an instant. So success is for rent. You don't you're not just successful and like, it just stays there. You have to pay that rent, every single every single month.
He said also that find what comes easiest to you and lean into that I think we advice that's counter to what most people say is hey, tackle the most difficult problem first. So which one is right? Yeah, I'm
a firm believer in like, do what you know. So for instance, when I was in, in high school, and I was, you know, in these choirs, I noticed that my falsetto was like a little better than everybody else's falsetto. So I was like, I should lean into that. That should be like my my shtick, that should be my thing. And I think it's paid off. You know, like, I think, like when you it's better to be great at one thing than to be good at a lot
of other things. So if you're closer to being great at one thing, you should probably go after that. Also think that success begets more success. And when you become successful at one thing, other things just kind of fall into place.
We also talk about knowing who your competition is there, I think all of us look around and say, Alright, I want to be better than that person or that person. But you, you view it as a whole different level. So how do you view competition? What's your advice to help people who want to be great? How they should view competition?
Yeah, I mean, I try to give this advice all the time. I mean, even to my like nieces and nephews, because I think we get so wrapped up in our circles and where we live in like, the people around us that we think that those people are our competition. But the truth of the matter is, statistically, those people are not going to be successful. So you got to dream bigger. You have to be able to think outside the box and pick somebody that you're competing with. That's at the top of their
game. You know, so like, if you play basketball, don't don't compete against the kids that are just cool, because the chances are, none of those kids are going to the NFL to the NBA, right? So just statistically, it's just not likely, right? So you need to pick somebody in your mind. That's going to make you up your game up to Somebody sent me a you shouldn't be looking at what how many shots, curry is taken and, and do exactly the workouts that he's
doing. You shouldn't be doing the workouts that that Johnny from down the street is doing because Johnny is gonna probably live down the street for the rest of his life. I know it sounds harsh, but it's the harsh truth.
So I want to talk about ingredients of success. We're talking about work ethic, which I teach I coach, I mentor, and I think work ethic is most important determinant of our success, you show up to a regular job, I mean, your job is not as a non traditional job, most people are going to work, you show up first person, the morning last, personally, you do that your whole career, you're going to be very successful, whatever you do make the most important determinant of our success.
Ah, I think the harder you work, the better chances, you have to be successful. But I do think that there's some people that don't work as hard. And they still become successful. I think there's something to be said about people working smarter as well. Right? So you can take the long way. And I can take the short way because I just understand things better. And we can still end up at the same place at the same time. But you worked way harder than I did. So
I do believe in work ethic. And I do believe in working hard. Because you just want to you just want to have the best chance possible. But working smarter, I think is is even more important. I
think one of the most important determinants of our success is also the value of a team talk about collaboration in this dude wallpaper and you giving these amazing opportunities for the songwriters to get to work with you.
Yeah, man, I believe there's talented people all over the world. And some people have just never been given an opportunity. And a lot of my biggest songs even are from producers that never had a hit before. And yeah, wallpaper being one of them. You know, just heard this beat. And it was from an unknown producer. But it didn't need to be from a named producer. Because if I like what I'm hearing, then that's all
that I care about. You know, I just I don't have to work with the biggest producer in the world. For the product to be good. So I'd go from from talk dirty to marry me. Trumpets, John Bailey yawn. That was his first hit as well. I mean, there's so many of us. I mean, obviously, savage love all of these producers, they'd never
had a hit before. And yeah, I mean, like, I continuously want to work with people that are that are talented, you know, from the top level to the bottom level, I actually would rather work with people that just need an opportunity.
One of the core ingredients of my success, if not, the core ingredient is something called extreme preparation. So I always want to be the most prepared person in the room. That means if someone's preparing one hour for a show, or podcast, I'm doing 20, sometimes 30 of that, and I
could tell the shows, thank you,
for sure. How important is extreme preparation been in your success?
Man, if people knew how much preparation could save you in a room, I think a lot of people would just work way harder. People asked me if I get nervous before I go on stage. And the answer is no, I don't. Because I know exactly what's going to happen when I get on out there on stage. It's not, I'm not guessing. I've done that show. For hundreds of hours, my rehearsals are eight hours long. So I know exactly what I get on the stage. I know exactly what I'm gonna sound like I know exactly what I'm
going to look like. How can I be nervous? I've done it so many times. And except I just started my residency in Vegas.
Everyone about it where it is how many nights a week that's promoted here. Yeah, so
my residency in Vegas just started I just had my first weekend. It's at Voltaire and the Venetian resort in Las Vegas. And I wanted to create this 360 show where the entire room is the stage, you know, from where the audience sits. So the actual stage the entire room is the stage. Now this is a totally different kind of show. You know what I'm saying? And it's going to be the first of its kind and I I'm going out and doing it for the first time. Now
I'm shitting my pants. I'm like, damn, like, I never do this shit before this is totally different. I actually have no idea what's gonna happen because now we're dealing with the fans in the room. You know, there's an element of, there's a whole nother element that doesn't even involve me. But it ended up being incredible. I think it's my favorite show that I've put together so far, man, and I'm really excited about it. People have been through the roof about how they how much they enjoyed
the show. Congrats. Thank you, brother.
I'm gonna go please do man. I'll buy get some good tickets. Absolutely. I got to what one of the things that every famous person is successful person I know. And we've talked about famous, I'm talking about online social media has haters. Right. There's a negative respondent bias that people have as well, a bitch and they moan. And there are sometimes not as easy or happy to say positive comments. So you've had a lot of haters online, but you say, not all
this is bad. Some of the haters have actually helped you change your music. So what what's your view on the haters? And then how, especially after your first album, that the one of the haters or some of the haters actually helped you? Yeah.
So social media is can be social media can be a really, really tough place. And it's definitely not for the faint of heart, especially when you start to have success. When you're on the come up, it feels like people are way more amenable, and way more. They're more, they're root for you more. And as you the bigger you get, the more hate that comes. And I think you should embrace the comments, you know, and, and
learn from some stuff. You know, I remember when I put out the first album, and you know, what you say had, you know, all this auto tune on it, right? And like, people were like, Oh, he can't sing. It's like, auto tune on it. So like the next project, I was like, Oh, shit, like, maybe I shouldn't be putting on his auto tune. Like, maybe I need to, like, show my voice, you know what I'm sayin? And without those those words, without, you know, those comments that, you know, felt
hurtful at the time. I probably, you know, would have done the same thing again, you know, and not not knowing that people wanted to hear something totally different. So I embrace all comments. You know, if, if, if, I mean, obviously, certain comments are just like you throw away, but you might find some some gold within, within a mean comment. So
lots of celebrities. Well, we'll switch gears. I want to talk about business. Now. You've been a very successful businessman. investor, you found a great partner in a collab, I want I want to talk about, tell us about the car wash business. And is your shirt really worth $2 billion?
Yes. So the company is worth $2 billion. Not my share.
But you're doing okay. I'm doing great.
There's only three of us in within the company. So that's myself, Danny white, and Chris Erickson. So
VC funding or no VC funding? No, it's all self. That'll work. 2 billion divided by three. Yeah, man. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah,
it's it's really a special, special company. And you know that, like I said, call just to tell people what's called the model. It's called Rocket carwash. And the model is, you know, obviously, it's, it's when you go to a carwash, usually, you know, you pay for your carwash, you go home, and then you wait for your car to be dirty, and you come back again, when it's filthy. With this model, you pay a membership, and
you can wash your car. Anytime, you know, whether you feel like you got one little scratch or one little, little bird due to join your car, you can just go and get that cleaned up, you know, the next day and not have to pay anything extra. I mean, it's really, really a value add. Right. And, yeah, it's that the membership model, I think is the best model. And I think that everybody is moving towards the membership model, not in just car washes and not just streaming services. But
everywhere. Everybody is trying to move towards the membership model because it's fixed income. And when people are looking to buy large companies, it's way it's way better to buy something that you know exactly how much that company is making. And it It's fixed. You don't have to worry is it gonna go up? It's gonna go down? No, for the last three years, it's been this, you know, people have a membership. It doesn't doesn't waver very much, right?
We love investing in these unsexy businesses, people already love technology. And the margins are so great while the carwash industry is $28 billion, your globally it's grown at historical growth rate of 3.1% people wash their cars. So they do
even in the pandemic. You know, it's like, like, how are we still thinking about washing our cars independent? Cars are people's prized possession. Right? It's like, this is like the one thing that I like, really, really care about, it's like, it's a, it's a symbol of me. And that's how a lot of people think,
or, but as you said, you want to be a billionaire. What's why,
um, I want to be able to there's not a lot of black billionaires in America. And I think the the billionaires that we do have, most of which are our entertainers and made their money doing that I really want to make the majority of, of my money doing something totally different. And I want to show a
different path. I think it's important for me, but I think it's important from the community that that I come from being in the community in Miami, but also the community in Haiti and show that no matter where you're from, you can have a huge impact on the world. And not just music and not just sports. But there's other things that we can do as well, to be successful. So
when you were trying to meet people and get mentors, you wrote to a bunch of black billionaires, and you were asking for five words of encouragement. And nobody responded. So are you going to respond to people asking you for five words of encouragement? How do they get a hold of you? And what are 10 words of encouragement that
responded to be fair, but that Tyler Perry responded, okay,
so one out of how many, like seven? That's not a good response rate.
That's not a good response rate.
So when what how are people gonna get a hold of you? Not that you got 300 million fans or followers around the world? But what, what kind of advice do you have for a young black man who wants a mentor, and for you to give them 10 words of encouragement that you were looking for when you were younger? So
already, I'd put my money where my mouth is. So the top people within my, my circle, are, are African American as well. So I already you know, doing that, right. And I just think I want to give people opportunities that wouldn't normally get opportunities. And when I walked in here, and you talked about the internship program that you have here, I think it's a beautiful thing, because I come from the same model, and I do
the same thing. And it's all about giving people that you think, want it bad enough, an opportunity, because all it takes is an opportunity. Like today when I was playing basketball today, right? It was five in the morning. I came late, they were already past the first quarter. And I came in I shot to Air Boss five in the morning. Yeah, five in the morning is fucked up to air boss
who was playing the five in the morning. First of all, so it's
a really competitive game that I play here is like, all like former Hooper's, like either from from the polls or, or like that played in college, you know, like, they're, they're, you know, they're good. They're good, great, but but people so we play before the crowd comes. Okay, so I'm really early. So I come in excited. It's been a while since I played to wearables. But I didn't get a chance to warm up so the whole room is like, ah, take him out. Like he
probably needs to come up. Then I got an easy lay in sometimes you just need to see go in one time. And one of the guys on the team. He just kept feeding me the ball like he kept giving me the opportunity. Even though it wasn't looking good. He just gave me the opportunity. The game winning shot. At this point, I'm I'm like, one for five. Not my best game. Two for five, two. A game winning shot, the guy that's been carrying this on his back has a shot that he can take, instead of taking
that shot. He gave me the opportunity. I'm like way back. But I'm wide open, leaving me open at this point. You gave me the opportunity. I felt so good coming off. Rolls around rim. Boom, boom head. But all they needed was the opportunity. I needed someone to believe in me. You
also want the ball in your hands to win the game? Absolutely. I think every successful person i Every successful person wants a ball in their hands to control the outcome.
Absolutely. And if you can help change somebody's life, man, I mean, I think that's the greatest reward.
At some point, you're in Omaha, Nebraska at a restaurant, you gave a waitress a $5,000 tip? How important are acts of service for you? When you think about your legacy? What do you mean by acts of service? And is that what motivates you these days?
I'm almost shocked sometimes by people's service, because I think of myself and what I would, what I would do if I was a waiter, or like who like who I would be if I was a waiter, and how I would treat people. So living in Los Angeles, and being from Miami, I'm used to a certain level of service, which is very, very low.
But you're famous, you probably get good service most of the time.
Yes, but you'd be surprised still, you'd be surprised. And every time I get great service, I think about hiring that person. Because it's so few and far between to receive exceptional service. Like good service is cool, but exceptional service is rare. And in Omaha, man you get exceptional service is kind of the norm. And I hadn't been in Omaha for a while. And like going there, I was just so refreshed by the service there.
I was just like, I need to bless this person because I want them to understand how much I appreciate what they did today. So I gave him $5,000
How pay for that person's College? Did you know that? Yeah,
I saw a post that they did afterwards.
Must feel pretty good. That was a beautiful thing. Absolutely. So you brought your three year old son Jason, but
he wasn't he wasn't happy when I asked for the $5,000. But
no, I think he the MTU Okay, $5,000 more I gotta pay for next year. So you brought your that is my life, by the way? Well, that's what happened, by the way when you become wealthy. And I had a similar situation that you talked about before making a lot of money and lots of people come after you and you know, ask for things and some of its appropriate family family members, but a lot of it's not and puts a lot of responsibility, a lot of pressure on you as well.
Definitely not not fun. But let's talk about fun and life changing. You brought your really cute three year old son here, Jason King, how has been a father changed your life and change your entire outlook on life.
Man has been extraordinary. I have recently been seeing on social media. People have been doing a post saying like, I don't have any kids and I'm living, I'm living the best my best life. And there's no like you shouldn't frown on people that don't have kids. I don't frown on people that don't have kids. But I think that they're missing out on feeling what real love is, and learning what real love is. Because my relationship with my parents has even changed from
having a son. Because I'll understand love in a totally different way than I ever have. And everybody won't get the opportunity to have kids. But I I would implore people to, to if it's right for your life, to try it because it's really really transformed my life in a way that I mean even words can't describe
one of the grave honor statements that someone told me one of my best friends Rick Rivera, who had four kids when I when I met him they were very young 432 and one was you'll understand the meaning of life when you have kids and I got five kids, as we talked about before the show my message to four year old and her birthday is tomorrow and my daughter, Bianca, I have twin girls, one graduated Wisconsin two weekends ago, my daughter graduated Cornell this past weekend. And all the parents had
to get up there. You know, she has a house with 10 Girls, they've been best friends forever. And then they had a little party with a food truck with all the parents and friends and all the 10 Dads had to get up and say something about their kids. And I went, I went last. And as I was talking about my kids, like I do, I cried like a baby. And it's just like such a. And, you know, I'm a crier. Whenever I talk about my kids, it's, it's, you know, they've seen it in here a few times as
well. But it's so emotional. And and my advice to you on this, I'm sure you have it is just take every single moment with your son that you possibly can, no matter how busy you are. And I know for sure he's he's here today. Couple more things. I just want to talk about his philanthropy. You had a foundation that helped people in Haiti for a while you've done things like the Make a Wish Foundation. What are you doing
now? And you feel a tremendous responsibility, not only with your money over these 300 million followers to have an impact on massive amounts of people?
Yeah, so my new goal is within interested in are we talking about kids, because my new philanthropic goal is to help really young kids learn. And I'm developing a TV show, not for profit TV show that'll help kids learn through song. And that's been like the big project, you know, for the last year, as well as doing children's books. So so, you know, in the nonprofit sector,
I always have a show with something I called, fill in the blank to. Excellent. So we're going through one by one question. So here we go. The biggest lesson I've learned in my life is how is it supposed to be one sentence, it can be whatever you want. The biggest lesson I've learned in my life is
the biggest lesson I learned in my life is that success is rented. It's never owned, I'm sorry, that it's one that we talked about today.
That's one of my favorite ones. And all the research I did on you, I'm gonna I'm gonna think about that one for a long time.
It's really poignant. And I think once once people have reached a point in their life, I think it's important information for them.
Number one personal goal is
my number one personal goal is to be the best role model for my son. Number one professional goal is my number one professional goal is to my number one professional goal is to make sure that I'm having fun and every is making sure I'm having fun on the journey. I think I get so caught up in the dollars and cents sometimes that it stops being fun. And again, I talk about life being short, and I don't want to do things that
will bog down my life. And a lot of times people will meet me, they'd be like, you're just such a happy guy, like you're so happy. I think that's really important to protect your peace and protect your happiness. So it's not all about dollars and cents for me.
The craziest thing that happened in my career is
the craziest thing that happened in my career is when I was finally able to get out of the deal. My first record deal I had been trying to get out of it for years and ended up having to like threaten them and also pay my way out and then I was able to get out. I thought the whole world would be my oyster and I thought that every level would be clamoring to have me I had sold 200 million
records at that point. And I went out into the circuit and I did not receive the the red carpet like I thought that I would. So I decided to go independent and released savage love as an independent artist as well as take you down As an independent artist, and I didn't know what to expect, but I took a chance. And as you can imagine, after the release of those songs, all those same people that said, No, we're clamoring for for a situation. But I took a chance on myself. Amazing.
The funniest thing that's happened in my career is funniest
thing that's happened in my career was I was performing at Wembley Stadium. Early, very early on in my career, it was my first time, first or second time performing at Wembley Stadium. So legendary venue, obviously, and it was like the summer time jam thing was hot as hell, and had this leather jacket on. And I was trying to take the jacket off, it was hot, I was sweating, and couldn't get it off, like the leather was sticking to my skin.
And I'm like, looking over to one of the dancers like, hey, like, Help me take the shirt off. And she's just in her own worlds, dancing. And she was going hard. And she finally notices me. And as she's like, trying to take it off, like she gets the arm off. And then the mic is in his hand and the mic drops on the floor. And I was like, damn it in front of 80,000 people. So that was like the funniest moment.
But one thing I've dreamt about doing for a long time, but haven't is.
Oh, no, I have one of those. Yeah, I can't think of anything.
The one person in the music business that I haven't met, but I would like to is awesome. Don't have one of those. You don't have one of us. If I could go back and say one thing to my 21 year old self, what would it be?
I would say be yourself. When I was 21 years old, I was trying to find myself within other people. And I was trying to find success by looking at other people's success and trying to mirror what they were doing. And I didn't understand that I could just be myself and be in my own skin. Especially in that time period of my life. I felt like I was trying to emulate other people's success. So I would tell myself, just do your own thing. My
biggest regret in life is
my biggest regret in life Zion come on the show sooner
than I could cry for a moment here.
This has been fantastic man. I think you know, someone doing a lot of interviews. I've talked to a lot of people across the world. But you've like really dug deep and you did your homework and like, you know this shit like the back of your head to thank you for it.
I appreciate you. La Pacino. I want to thank him for setting us up. You know so many people you meet in your life help you in a seminal moment having you on my show is huge for me. So I appreciate it. I've had a lot of guests like Mike Tyson and Mark Cuban but super pumped to have you on my show. I'm grateful for you being here. I know you had a very long day and you got along with a couple of shows. So thank you hope we can get to know each other. Yeah. You're an incredible guy. Congratulations
on all your success. And again, thanks for being here.
Thanks, Ron. Appreciate you