Money & Wealth : A Master Class w/ Will Packer

of Healthy Arrogance and Dreaming Big. And that's a big title. And we're going to get into why and the who. But my guess is, in many ways you are breathing life and everything you do as a direct reflection of growing up in Saint Petersburg with your mom and your dad. So I want to get into that in a second. For the audience who loves potentials, I got some. This is money and well, so let's talk about the money first. His combined filmmaking collection that he's produced himself responsible for

over a billion dollars in receivables worldwide. That's US currency, that's.

Forest Films. You've got Will Packard Productions, which did films that you remember like Think Like a Man, Ride Along, Girls Trip. You know, these are iconic films that you may not have known the guy behind them. He has produced the Academy Awards. That was the ninety fourth annual in twenty twenty two. He has most recently become one of four limited partners in an NFL team, the Atlanta Falcons.

Glad you pointed that out. Not a lot of people do, but I had a two parent household, right, and a dad and a mom loved each other work together. I was born into a world where I knew I had a dual foundation of support from Mom from Dad, balancing each other out and telling me. I always like to say, when I came into the world, my parents lifted me into the air like Simba and the lion king, and they said, you see that, they took me to the highest point they can find. Say, everything the sun touches

is yours. We have to start doing that to our children. We have to start doing that to that next generation. Everything that you see is possible. And I had the audacity to believe my parents when they told me that, when they told me you can go out and you can do anything. That's the only way A little black kid from Saint Pete, Florida, about as far as you can get from Hollywood on a map. Yep. I didn't know where Hollywood was. I didn't know anything about the entertainment.

But that little kid was told you can do and be anything you want if you set your mind to it and you're willing to work. And I believe that. I believe it.

so there's no reason to not believe it. That is not one answer your self esteem, to quote Quincy Jones, that depends on someone else's acceptance of you.

that I just used to me embody your spirit. So when you write a book call the Art of Healthy Arrogance and Dreaming Big, I know every word was intentional. Some of them had to trigger a little bit. So the book comes out by the way, February eighteen. I want everybody to go buy it. I want you to send Will a note on social media saying that you purchased it. I want you to leave a review once you read it, or listen to it online where you

bought it. We've got to as people a color. I want everybody to buy the book, but I certainly people are color.

said about the power belonging to the consumer. Hollywood, like any consumer facing industry, operates under an economic comparative. People get it confused. Sometimes they think, oh, well, Hollywood is trying to promote a particular agenda. They only want to see this type of person win or that type of person. Hollywood is a business. Hollywood is driven by its consumers, not the other way around. Hollywood is reactive, not proactive,

and so the power always is in the consumer. And I tell people all the time, there's content out there that's being made, and you don't like it, or you want to see more of a different type of content, Go find that content and spread the work problytized like you would something that is very important to you in another area. Let people know. Because when you do that, folks like myself and also the people that are financing projects in Hollywood, they have to pay attention. They have to.

So you're absolutely right about that. I title the book so the title of the book is who Better Than You? And then the subtitle is the Art of healthy arrogance and Dreaming Big? And the title who Better than You clearly states, clearly states the question that each of us need to ask ourselves, not once a year, not once a month, not once a week, every day, every day, ask yourself, look yourself right in the mirror, and affirm that there is no one better than you to achieve.

And I don't mean achieve like mediocre dreams, right, I don't mean achieve things that are kind of good. I

mean great, I mean huge, outsized John. At the end of the day, the folks in this world that you and I know that have been extremely successful are people that believe not only that they could do it, but that they were going to do it and that they were meant to do And when you walk into a room and I've been right there with you, you and I've been in some powerful rooms, brother, in those rooms, yeah, don't believe that. In those rooms sometimes I'm like, what

am I doing here? And then I see you. I said, well, let me go talk to my friend John, because he's the only what I know here and everybody else knows him. You know what I mean? What I will say is that you walk into those rooms and we've all been in those positions, and you're around people, and you know, you may have a little bit of trepidation. What am I doing? Here do I belong? Once you have that confidence, you walk into the room, and that confidence manifests itself

in ways that you don't even realize. You don't walk in and say what am I doing here? You walk in and say what can I add to this room?

talking about me. Now you talk about me exactly exactly right, Nutherboue, you were about me. I work in an industry that created unsubstantiated humors, right, I'm not talking about that. Healthy arrogance is that supreme confidence in yourself that helps you to understand what true leaders understand, which is that I'm successful when I can get you and the other persons around us to realize that our success is tied together. Right, So it's not about tearing anybody else down. It is

about lifting yourself and everybody else around you up. True leaders are able to get people to row in the same direction. It is not until you get the folks that are either on your team and your network and your family and your relationships to understand that your success

benefits them and vice versa. That's what true leaders do, and that's when you get people saying, oh, you know what, I need John Hope Framing to win because I don't rind the win because I'm working with him, because his success is my success right because he is the person that is helping to unlock success for all of us. And so too many times we get in these silos and that's where that arrogance comes in, tearing everybody else down. If you win it, I'm losing. No, you can't think

like that. It's about first that internal self confidence, and that self confidence is a muscle that you can build over time, you can build up right. I know there are people that may be watching that aren't you know, work born with the outside as confidence that that maybe John and myself have That's that's okay. You can build it up, and you do it by doing small things and by succeeding at small things, and by looking yourself in that mirror every day and giving yourself the credit

for it. And you go on to something bigger, and then something bigger, and before you know what, you got some momentum. So that's that's where my concept of healthy arrogance came.

When I go into a room, I'm acknowledging sometimes it's a little bit of a of a wondering whether you're worthy of being in that room, a little bit of insecurity. That's that's okay. It goes away as natural. It keeps you from being obnoxious, right, It is a humility. But then you with rainbow's after storms, then you buck up and you say, yeah, I really, I'm God's child, I am somebody. I'm different from everybody here, and I add value and all of a sudden, that warmth, that authenticity

attracts people to you. And you look up and Will's got ten people around him, pulling seats around him, as we were at the last I saw of the Magic Johnson reception in Atlanta. You look up and there's a half dozen people centering around him, trying to pull off of his energy because he's the strongest energy in that room. That healthy, I'm gonna call it at the moment, confidence that comes from self esteem.

are better prepared. You are undergirded to go out and face the challenges of the day. Too often we give our power away to people because they may have a fancy title, they may have access to resources. Nothing wrong with interfacing with folks that are in positions of power at all, Nothing wrong with taking in what they said, what they say in their perspectives. You said is a little love in every note. Right. What I see people doing, especially in my industry, John, is they're giving their power

to people who aren't them. I sent my script to Will Packer and Will Packer said no, he said he's not going to produce it. I said it to Sony and they said no. I said Paramount and they said no. All right. Audition for a Will Packer movie and I didn't get the role. That's just that person's perspective opinion in this decision being made based on their unique set of experience.

to hire you. That's okay, that's that person's opinion. But don't give your power to say that your dream is not over until you say it's over. Don't get that to anybody. I don't care what their timele is. I don't care what access to resource they have a rich day are, I don't care. That is your power. That's

why you're the most important person. You gotta affirm that daily, you really really do, because that's the thing that gets you get used to hearing, and then you start to expect yourself to perform that way, just like it works in the opposite direction. If you have that drum beat and negativity always tell you I'm not ready, I'm not worthy, I don't have it, I'm not prepared. If you're constantly telling yourself that, that drum beat gets louder and louder,

it works the other way. It's the positive cycle, just like we talked about before, Just like John you talk about all the time. That's that positive cycle, that cycle of positivity that you can create within yourself. We're talking about you having an internal conversation. You don't need anybody else to help you with this. You don't need any money, you don't need any mentor. This is something that you can do. Start with yourself. Don just said adopt yourself.

I love that mantra. I love that right because it requires you to love yourself. It requires you to nurture yourself. It requires you to take care of yourself and give yourself what you need. That's where you gotta start, and not enough of us do that. That's where that question who better than you? Come from.

flip full, not half empty. The way I see you now is and we share this trait and never said this to you publicly, but we're both ruthless about our time.

gonna get into some tactical stuff from the book. But once you drop a few girls of wisdom that people can expect from this book that are tied to your or they won't Maybe they won't get it in this book your life philosophy, What are half of the rules two, three, four, six that you'll packer lives by that comes that was between your parents raising you and becoming massively successful. That piece in the middle is what people's people are missing. Yeah, and what we're going to give them the day in

this podcast is hope with the business plan. So if we get into tactical questions about that, that are that are lessons from the book and lessons for life and people listening? What are those values that differentiate you that have made you thrive and not just survive?

I know now, I wouldn't have done it. Because I'm I'm analytical, I'm intelligent, and I would have said this is an unlikely The aperture for success is too small. I need to find something else to do, and I want to.

prepared though, because I'm climbing a mountain. Mountain is big, and you spend all your time and all your energy preparing to climb the mountain and you never climb the mountain. We all know somebody like that. It's natural. Sometimes you just gotta climb the mountain. See what happens is we go out and it is that fear of the unknown and that fear of failure that allows us to settle into a comfort level. How many of us know folks that are like I'm about to. They're always about to.

I'm about to. I'm about to write next year. Next year's the year I'm gonna start the business. Next year is the year I'm gonna get the master's degree. Next year's right about to Because they feel like I'm not ready yet, I'm just not ready. That's preparation paralysis. What you have to do is realize that you can go out and you can have the right shoes to climb

that mountain. You can have the repelling gear, you got the rope, you got your backpack, you got the canteen you know, fill with your water, and I can have all that. But until you actually get up on the side of that mountain and you plan to go right and you reach your hand up in the rock slips, now you got to go left. You get up there, you feel the sting of the cold air on your face. Right until you're actually there climbing the mountain, you don't

know what to expect. You don't know what it's going to be like because you never climbed the mountain before. So sometimes you actually got to get out there and just start climbing the mountain in order to do that. Climbing the mountain is just like swallowing a whale, one bite at a time. The first thing you have to do, and this is the second thing, So don't allow yourself to have preparation paralysis. Get out there and climb the mountain. Yeah,

the second thing, death of the good. That's right, that's right. The second thing that I described subscribe to is the belief that when you are getting ready to do something big right, don't care what it is, sometimes you have to fabricate momentum. He follow me. Okay, So many times folks get stuck on that first wrong, John. When I was making my very first movie after college, I said, We're going to raise seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, A lot of money for a movie, especially back then.

Seven hundred and fifty would give us what we needed to go out and get the cameras and lights and go and shoot this movie. John, for the life of me, I could not raise. I couldn't get anywhere close to raising that money. I wasn't rich, I didn't know anybody

rich to know anybody in Hollywood. I was out banging my hand on doors trying to raise seven hundred fifty thousand dollars right, So I said, Okay, instead of a financial goal, I'm going to set a date goal, and I'm going to say whatever I'm able to raise at the end of three months, give myself three months. Whatever I raised the end of those three months, that's gonna be the budget. Of the film. That's how much I praised.

At the end of those three months, I did not It wasn't seven hundre fillion dollars, but it sure wasn't seven thousand dollars. I raised seventy five thousand dollars. That's what we were able to raise. Guess what. We shot a tiny movie for seventy five thousand dollars. That was the budget of the movie. Okay, very small, but we did it. We completed that movie, and it said to

other people that I could do it. But you know what it did most importantly, it said to me that you could do it, that I could do it, that I could do it. So many times people are going, okay, step one, complete the task. No, if the task is monumental, that's not step one. Going back to climbing the mountain analogy, Step one is buying the shoes. Just buy the shoes right. Step two, just get the rope. Step three, don't clout them out, drive by the mountain. You know what I mean.

Do those because before you know what, you've accomplished five things towards your goal. Now you're telling yourself, I can do it. I can do things towards my goal. Sometimes you've got to fabricate that momentum for yourself because it's hard. Don't allow yourself to get stuck on that first rung. Get going just doing something, Just do it. Give yourself an opportunity to get some momentum. That has worked well for me, and.

get out there and do it. By the time you figure out what the perfect is, the opportunity is gone.

to receive you, how they're gonna perceive you. But you can control how hard you are working, right, So you've got to put the energy into the things you can control. So many times we spend we each have a finite amount of energy. You can't forget that, Okay, none of us have limitless energy. Got a finite amount of energy, So up to you where you decide to expend that energy.

Oftentimes we're spending the energy on things we can't control because I am worrying, I am feeling myself with anxiety about things that I cannot control that people are doing around me. You know what you can't control the work, put your head down and grind, and especially in today's world, we're so consumed with letting everybody know what we're doing every step of the way. One of my mautras is is the work you put in when nobody is watching

that makes everybody pay attention later. The work you put in when nobody's watching makes everybody pay attention later. And so you've got to put your head down and grind and don't worry about what everybody else is doing because you can't control it. You know what you can't control your work ethic can control how much energy and effort you're putting into whatever that goal is that you're trying

to accomplish. I mean, you're going to accomplish it right away, but you still got to make sure that that energy that you got, that finite amount of energy, you're putting it towards something that you can control.

success attainable. Now this show is Money and Wealth. Before I pivot to some practical questions in the book, I want to give some folks here a bit of a cheat sheet. I've talked about some real estate, real estate deals I've done, some that did well, some that were a bust. I talked about business deals. I've talked about building brands. At some point I'm going to walk through how to build a global nonprofit and all this stuff.

I try to to show people how they can build wealth and not just give them a bunch of happy talk.

everybody's a star. Everybody's got a social media platform. Hollywood, the music industry, media companies at large are all trying to find brands that have an authentic connection to audiences. Because they don't. They need you. You are the conduit to get to those audiences. Here's where people mess up

and misstep. You think that you need the support of a major media brand in order to reach those consumers, and you really don't, especially now right now, because everybody's got a YouTube channel, and everybody's got to Instagram, everybody's got TikTok. You got to have scale, You have to be able to build a brand that has not just hundreds, not just thousands. You got to have millions of folks that are subscribing to whatever it is that you are pitching,

selling and presenting. Right, So what I say to people is, you make money without Hollywood, That's when Hollywood will come knocking. You make money without the music industry, That's when the music industry will come knock. So what you should focus on is what is the thing that you have that connects authentically with audience? Right, Don't worry. Don't spend that time trying to knock on a Hollywood door. I literally could not get a return call from Hollywood until I

had independently distributed my own film, all my own. I drove from city to city to city, right, I literally, I remember I went from Atlanta to Jackson, Mississippi, to Birmingham, Alabama, to Charlotte, North Carolina, Greensboro, North Carolina, the Memphids, Tennessee, the National Tennessee. I can keep going, I remember, because I drove every one of my I stayed in a little Motel six or Super eight, whatever I could afford

to every market. That was my version. Absolute hustle, that was my version of building my brand at that time was my early movie project. You ain't have to do that right now because you can hit sin, you can hit post, but everybody can hit sin, everybody can post. So you got to do something that stands out. Focus your time and energy on building that personal brand. That is where you can derive wealth from within the media landscape.

Everybody's trying to knock on the door to major media companies to say, yeah, but I just need to I need a bigger platform, I need to be in theaters, I need to be on streaming. No, what you need is a brand that is valuable enough so that the folks that have those platforms say, come on over here, let me use your platform and your connection to an audience to help enrich my platform. That I've invested all this money in over here and I need you in

order to help sustain my platform. So spin that energy, honing whatever that is that boys, and I'm not selling everybody go out and be an influencer, because that's these days. That's like you know, being an NBA you know what I mean. I'm not saying that, but they're gonna be folks that need to manage those influencers they're gonna be folks that need to facilitate what they're doing with their money, right, because these folks are very focused on being in front

of the camera. I've never been in front of the camera person. I mean very successful because I have been good at going out and finding Kevin Hart when he was finally ready to break out and give him his first movie, right, just breakout movie Indris elba Its first movie after the Wire was my movie Tiffany Hatch or breakout role in Girls Trip. That is what I have been able to do. So that absolutely and that's what you need, right. It's just just like you mentioned the

Atlanta Falcons and the ownership. It's not just about who can run the fastest or jump the highest. It's not just success on the field. There are levels to this, right, That is what you talk about, Dohn, So understand because there are levels to this. I have been fortunate enough to work hard build my own personal brand to the point when Arthur Blank, the majority owner of the Falcons, was looking for people to bring into his inner circle, my name rang out. I made that cut, right. So

now I am in sports without my jump shot. Ain't nothing, I tell you that right now, I ain't getting enough to spencerman eastify ye old knees. It ain't happening. Brother. I'm not racing anybody, but I am now in sports, so there's other opportunities to do it. So I'm not saying you have to just be in front of the camera. The aspects around the folks that are do you know, people who are talented know how to do it. And you go in and say, I'm gonna manage you. I'm

going to help you before we go to Hollywood. I'm gonna help you go from a thousand subscribers to ten thousand suscribers to a million subscribers. Then we'll go and see who's interested in talking to.

so they see that you're better together. In banking, the joke is the bank will lend you money when you prove you don't need it.

a lot of credit, I personally guarantee that. So your analogy works in every example, that when you bring value to a situation, and that people want to be associated with those who have value that bring to the association versus somebody come and begging and saying will you hook me up? You just sell like everybody else correctly, So life is about selling. We just talked about selling without selling. That's the example we just gave. You're presenting yourself. You're

not selling yourself. But in your book Healthy Arrogance, How does the approach you have with this book help people make the sale?

answer their calls. I need to pick up you know, respond to their text. I need to invest in them. Could be various levels of value, but you're doing that from day one. That's important because, especially now, a lot of gen z will say, you know what, I haven't found my passion yet. I'm not into this thing. I

don't want to work at this particular job. I haven't found the thing that's going to really kind of ignite my spirit, you know, awaken the internal voice in me that says, I wake up every day and I go do this. I don't subscribe to the belief that you know, you find the thing you love and then you never work another day in your life. That's not how things work. My opinion. What you do is you go out number one. If you're doing it, you're putting your name on it.

You're busting your ass. You work hard. I don't care. Like I I before the movie stuff was happening, I was delivering newspapers for the Atlanta Journal Constitution. I was answering phones on the weekend for Chlorox. I was selling newspapers door to door. Like I was working hard. It wasn't something I was passionate about. But my name was on it, so I was kilding my boy free time. If your name is on it, you gotta work hard and give it one hundred and ten percent period, absolute

pride in your name. It's all you have at the end of the day. That is your personal brand. That is what you have. Is the most valuable thing that you own is your brand, right, So you gotta work hard, no matter what it is. Don't wait to find the thing that you are passionate about. Work hard today. Whatever you put your name is on it, If my name is on it, some respect percent period. If you don't put respect on it, nobody else is. Nobody else is going to put respect on.

Brothers on a movie they were shooting in Jacksonville. Floor Wow. I immediately immediately went from being big man on campus to me the lowest on the total. Immediately, my job was to unwrangle the cables, make sure the cable cords never got twisted. So I was running around set all day untangling cable cords, and then I was also getting people coffee and tea and whatever they wanted on set, right,

everybody told me what to do. I was the lowest of the low, but I also busted my ass and I was the hardest working intern on that set because my name was on I was building my player. I didn't want to do that. I'm want to unrangled cables for the rest of my life, but at the time, and that was my job to do it. Guess what, I was going to be the best damn cable wrangler you ever saw. And that's what I did. And that

was my mentality. And some people on that set treated me like I was just a young brother that was chasing my dream, trying to come up and do something, and they would encourage me. Other people on that same movie set would treat me like I was the lowest of the low and in the way, and would yell at me and you know, say mean things and all of that almost to a man john and a woman. Since that time, and I've had the success I've had in this business. Almost every person on that set has

asked me for a job. And I remember, I remember those that treated me with respect. I remember those that treated me like I was the lowest of the low. So you just never know. But the point is you're building your brand, so you're putting your name on it. You go hard. There's no excuse, right. So if you work and you continue to stack those bricks right, one by one, no matter what it is, whether you found your passion or not, you continue to stack your bricks

because you're putting your name on it. That is selling, That is building your brand. Everything is selling. I'll never forget. I graduated from college and I told my dad, you know I didn't I had an engineering degree. I went going into corporate America because I wanted to chase this film dream. And I had this opportunity to be selling Atlanta Journal Constitution newspapers door to door. And I said,

I don't want to do sales. Sales sound like people that's flying across the country selling copy machines, the people that don't need copy machines. And my dad said, and it stuck with me. He said, son, everything is sales. Everything, he said, World leaders are selling themselves all the time. They're selling their agendas, they're selling to their constituents, they're selling to the to the governmental bodies. They're always selling. Everything is sales. He said, he you're good at it.

You're good at it. So lean into what you're good at. Go out there and until you're able to make this Hollywood dream come true, do this so that you can feed yourself. And I used to go out there and I knock on people's doors and try not to get shot in the face, and I would offer them an amazing deal on a Friday, Saturday Sunday version of the Atlanta Journal Constitution newspaper. That's what it.

people are bad. Right, there's good capitalism and there's bad capitalism, right, and good capitalism is where I benefit you benefit more, and bad is where I benefit you Bad A price for it, and you're saying it's healthy arrogance, and there's toxic arrogance. There's healthy self esteem, healthy self confidence, healthy set which it allows you to become the product. That's what I'm hearing you say. Yes, deliver yourself with confidence

to the marketplace. The marketplace finds value in you. You've been the first in many sectors, which is both good news and bad news because you've got to be pioneering.

You know, soul trade was on, whatever it might be. But we grew up a lot of us in homes that were very passionate, right, passionate with a lot of energy, and many of us learn that and it gets ingrained in us, and it holds us back when it comes to business. Okay, at the end of the day, Hollywood is one of the most adversarial, topsy, loud, yelling in your face industries out there. I have a practice that I call taking the thunder out. When I am in

an adversarial situation. Oftentimes I'm going to get somebody day yelling the other person's yelling. I might be yell everybody's yelling. Right. Nobody is accomplishing anything as a producer My job is not to win arguments and win fights. My job is to keep my eye on the main thing, which is getting the project done. My secret to that is take

the thunder out. So the first thing I do I tell the story in my book about a movie that I made, and it was called Takers, and Takers was about a heightst crew, good looking guys that all dressed up. It had interest Celba, Paul Walker, God bless him, t I was in it, Matt Dillon, Michael Eely, Haiti Christiansen,

Oh yeah, great, great, great cats. And the first day on set this movie almost didn't happen because you look at the movie Takers, all the guys they got on suits and ties and they wear pocket squares, and everybody is very well dressed. Because part of our thesis was that even though it was an action movie, a heist movie,

we want to also get young women. And we had all these good looking guys, you know, Paul Walker and inter Selden, Hey, Christiansen and Michael Ealy come on right, Chris Brown, right, So we wanted these good looking guys to be dressed to the knives. And Paul Walker showed up the first day all said God bless him and Paul Walker some of other hippie and he showed up and he had his hair long, and he had on

his ripped jeans. And that's fine because listen, let me tell you, people actors on a movie said they show up looking all kinds of crazy before y'all see them. Trust me, ifore I had my whole team get their hands on they you would not recognize some of your favorite starts. So Paul showed up, you know, dingy jeans, long hair, you know, scruffy. The problem was that Paul wanted that to be his look for the film. He did not want to change. He said, this is my

best look. And the head of the studio was there because it was day one, and the head of studio immediately tore into him. This is not what we talked about. We talked about this and we had a plan, and you're gonna mess it up and you can't look like that. Get in there. They gotta cut your hair. They got it, and Paul, who was an easy, soft spoken guy, he stood his ground. He said, no, I'm not doing that. He said, I'm not doing that. That's not the look. I don't like that. And they were going at it.

So here I am day one of Takers. I got my studio head where my major stars they're arguing right outside the hair and makeup trailer. The rest of the actors are on set with my director, and my director's calling me saying, will what do you want me to do? I'm supposed to shoot this team?

the suitent tie look. I had had a behind the scenes argument with Indrew Celbook, but I had handled it behind the scenes, and so it just had agreed, all right, I'll wear it, I wear a suit, I'll be clean shaven. He agreed to do it. But I knew if word got out that Paul was fighting back, everybody's gonna fight back, right, So I said the director's name of John. I said, John, go shoot the first scene. Don't make it seem like Paul was ever supposed to be in it, continue as it.

By this time, Paul Walker had left the trailer and gone to his own personal trailer because he was about to find the next fight in Hawaii. He was like, I'm out of here. I'm not doing the movie. I walk in the trailer and I knock on the door. I can hit a gruff, Yeah, yeah, what do you want? I come in, And the first thing I did was I apologize. I said, Paul, I am so sorry. I said, you are here, this is your first day on the

Willpacker set. You are clearly very unhappy. Something has been miscommunicated. You thought one thing, the studio thought something else, and now you are here in an uncomfortable and tenable situation. And I take full responsibility to that because this is my production. I am sorry I should ever mint it. I took because he was ready. He was ready for somebody come in and tell him how I was wrong

and how the emails have been exchanged all that. I came in and immediately said, I gave him somebody to blame for it. I said, I'm sorry, blame me, and I meant it right, you got to be real, don't be superficial with it, right. But in that moment, it was not about me saying what Paul we told you was it was gonna look like. And it wasn't about me saying, well, studio heads, you should have made sure that Paul knew. And it wasn't about that. What was we trying to get done? What were we trying to

get done? So I walked there and immediately said this is on me. I said, if you stay with us in this production, I will work every day to make sure that you do not feel like this again. Because on a Will Packer production, you should be able to concentrate on what you're doing. You should not be have to be emotional about anything. And he took there, he breathed a second, and he said, he said I get it, he said. You're the good he said, but you're a damn good one. He said, I'm gonna do it, really

do the movie. Yep, he said, just give me a second. But what I did in that moment was I took the thunder out of the situation. And so so many times, like you said, John, we're trying to win the battles. We're over here trying to win the battle. Somebody said something about me on social media, somebody looked at me the wrong way, somebody just something that was disrespectful. You're trying to win a battle.

there all this stuff. I can't wait till John comes in here. I'm ready. I'm ready for him. I got a whole list of things because John know he messed up, and I'm ready to do all this. I'm ready to tell him. And if John walks in and says, you know what, I apologize my part in this, because everybody has a part is never one way I'm part. I apologize because my part of this helped exacerbate the situation.

I'm wrong, and you start off like that, they got this whole list of thing that was read and run down. Wait what you said? You said you were wrong? What? But wait a minute, I was waiting for you to I'm ready for you to argue with me, because I got retorts, I got stuff to come back with. Nope, I apologize. I apologize. How can we move forward? Take that thunder out? Take it out because you keep your

eye on the bigger prize. I've learned that that has served me well multiple multiple times in Hollywood, and it will serve you right in whatever industry. Because we all fall victim to that moment where we get so hot, so angry, and focused on the battle, and we lose in the war.

He's given you thirty years in business, forty something years on this planet. He now owns an island in the Caribbean. He's an part owner in a professional football team. He's got nine NCP Image Awards, he's got all this success to his credit, billion dollars in ticket sales.

wouldn't listen to you. They're leaving your house, they can't visit, they're leaving you. How they're walking away. You won't see them again, or at least for a long time. You want to leave them with a nugget that they can hold on to, that they can hopefully, in time become to appreciate. What's that thing or things that you'd like to leave the audience with. That's a Will Packer special.

focus on the wealth part. Yes, because the money will come everything we've talked about, these things that manifest themselves in ways that allow you to become more successful and live a more fulfilled life. That's wealth. I have been

blessed beyond my dreams in terms of material success. What I'm very very happy and proud of and what sustains me is the wealth that I have that is inclusive of not just the material success, but also balancing that with my family, my mental health, and my well being. I'm a happy person. Listen, I get it. It's hard to be happy. When you're broken. It's hard to be happy when your stomach is drumping. I get it. I'm not somebody that says, no, no, I don't worry about it.

Just be happy. No, don't worry, be happy. I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is, when you're going out and you're realizing the value that you have within yourself, and you're acting according number one, place that value on yourself and don't give that power to anybody else. The wealth that you will accumulate successful people attract successful people.

The wealth that you will accumulate will surprise even you because you will be out there building your brand and you will be presenting to the world just like them. John told you. The banks, right, they give them money to people who don't need it. Trust me. I know that is the truth, and that is that's just, that's

what it is. I just I was telling I gotta I was telling my kids the other day because I have some really big retail sponsors, brands that send me stuff because they want me to wear it or they want me to put in movies and what have you. And they'll call me and be like, hey, you get any more shoes from so and so you got any more hoodies? I said, listen. They said to that, y'all stop trying to trying to leach off of my gifts that I'm getting. But I said, how ironic is it?

Because I could buy any one of these things. There are people that can't buy them, but the people that get it for free are those that could. That is the point of it. The way that manifests itself in your life is the fact that you got to understand continue to work on being successful and other successful people

will come. Money will come, and wealth will come. We have absolutely spent this last hour talking about wealth building because we talked about the traits and we talked about the skill set and the mentality that you have to have to be successful.

rapport in forty five seconds, and you improve us. Forty five seconds may turn into four or five minutes, and four or five minutes my turn into here's my number or here's my email address, and then follow up and send a note. Don't ask for anything. Yeah, thank you for your time, even if you even by the way, no one ever does this. You meet me in an airport, whatever, you meet him in the airport, just send a note it's really nice to meet you, a handwritten note, really nice

to meet you. Honored, respect what your flow, appreciate you. You know your your wife. You know Heather Packer is beautiful. You know by behind every successful man is an exhausted woman. She's beautiful.