Scooter Braun

5-Minute Friday Interview With Scooter Braun

TSOG – Ep588 – The School of Greatness with Lewis Howes

Lewis Howes:                      This is 5-Minute Friday!!

Welcome , everyone, to an amazing episode on The School of Greatness Podcast. I’m super pumped today, because we’ve got my man, Scooter Braun back in the studio here at the Greatness Studios in Los Angeles.

Scooter Braun:                    I still remember to this day, my dad told me… You know, I wasn’t a trust-fund-kid. We grew up with a great middle-class family, great neighbourhood, but there was no trust fund waiting for me. And there were kids in my school, like my best friend, who arrives in town today, his dad was a cab driver, his mom was a housekeeper and there was definitely no trust fund there. And then there were other kids who had huge trust funds. All in the same school, public school.

And my dad told me, “If anyone ever asks you if you’re rich, say yes.” I was like, “What?” He goes, “Tell them you’re rich with love, you have everything you ever need.” And that was the mentality that he raised us with. It was,like, if you have that, everything else is house money. You know, you’re in Vegas and you’re playing with house money now.

And now, that I have Yael and my two sons, I feel like I’m playing with house money. So, the working for wealth and everything else, did I ever think I’d get here? I hoped. You know, when I was twenty years old I wanted to be a billionaire. When I was twenty-two I realised making ten grand was really hard. So, I reassessed everything and I met a guy who I admired. And I said, “What do I need?” And he gave me a number.

Lewis Howes:                       What do you need for what?

Scooter Braun:                    To have his life, to have the success of his life. Because I found his life to be perfect. And he gave me a number, not even close to a billionaire. A millionaire, but not even close to, like, hundreds of millions, but it was like…

Lewis Howes:                       Twenty mil. Twenty-five mil, something like that.

Scooter Braun:                    I won’t even say the number, but it was there, and it was a number. And I said, “Okay, I’m going to work my whole life to get to that number. This is the new goal. Start being realistic. Billionaire happens, great, but this is realistic. And when I was twenty-seven, I passed that number. And I pulled over to the side of the road, and called my dad because I was a little depressed.

And I think I told you this, and I just basically said this happened and here I am telling my father I’m the wealthiest person in the family, and he’s like, “Oh, my gosh!”

Lewis Howes:                       At twenty-seven!

Scooter Braun:                    At twenty-seven, and I told him, I said, “But dad, this is the number I always wanted, this is my goalpost and I feel nothing, and now I’m depressed because I feel nothing. And he said, “Do me a favour. Hang up the phone, think about all the times that you were happy, and call me back.”

And I hung up the phone, thought about it and called him back and said, “It’s going to sound cheesy, but when I’m giving away tickets, when I’m playing baseball, when I’m answering kids randomly on Facebook, or on Twitter.” And he’s like, “Well, then implement more of that into your life. Understand that the wealth is part of your job. The happiness is the time you take because your job is giving you that freedom. And that is the way I look at my life.

I work my ass off so I have time for the moments that mean something. You know, our company mantra is “Inspire the World to Try”, and you can only do that if you’re trying something new every day yourself.

Lewis Howes:                       You got to do it yourself, yeah.

Scooter Braun:                    So, we’ll see where that takes us. I don’t know why, but when you said that, it just reminded me… I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this, but when I was in college, my first semester I started my company, and I went from being honour roll my first semester, to literally the second semester, like, doing awful, because Emory didn’t offer night classes, or didn’t offer internet night classes, and I couldn’t be at school, I was working fulltime.

Lewis Howes:                       This was doing the night club stuff, right?

Scooter Braun:                    Yeah, night club stuff, doing promotions and working for JD and at So So Def and all these things that I was doing, you know, promoting Ludacris, and Tho Them Beauses, and I got put on academic probation, because my grades dropped, and then they brought me in to see a counsellor. I don’t even remember his name. I remember where his office was, I remember what it looked like, I don’t remember his name. It was the only time I ever met him.

And the whole point of this guy is to sit you down and see if there is anything really going on, and help you get a path to getting back on the right track. And he comes in, and immediately the questions are, am I on drugs, are there family issues. He’s trying to figure out how do you go from being this type of student to being this type of student.

And I said, “You know, it’s not like that. I’m actually an entrepreneur and I’m going for it, trying to do this, I’m trying to play basketball but do this and, you know, there’s no internet classes and if you could help me, I’d love to stay in school.” And he stops me and he tells me this whole story about Robert Woodruff, who is one of the founders of Coca-Cola, who has the largest endowment. Already he owns half the stuff in Atlanta.

But, this guy, Robert Woodruff, gave the largest endowment in the history of our school and basically every building in Emory is the Woodruff this, Woodruff that. And he tells me about this amazing entrepreneur who funded our school. And I’m like, “This guy gets me!” I’m thinking, he sees what I saw in Mike George. He gets me!

And I’m like, “I’m staying at school, I found somebody who can help me, this is great!” and he looks me in the eye, and he goes, “And the chance of you being like Robert Woodruff are, like, one in a billion. So we need to get you back on the right track, and when you get out of school and you have the degree and everything else, you can start.”

And I looked at him, and it clicked, like, right there. And I literally just looked at him and I said, “I really want to thank you, I now know what I need to do.” And he’s like, “So, we’re going to get you a plan to get you on the right track.” I said, “I’m dropping out of school.” And he goes, “Excuse me? I think you’re making a very big mistake.” And I said, “I appreciate that and I will come back.” And he goes, “But you don’t know if you’ll be able to come back.” And I said, “I appreciate that too, and I will come back if I fail, and I will probably want to be coming back at one point just to be showing my children.” I remember saying all this to him. And I was like, “But I need to do this right now.”

And I left, and I have no idea what his name is, or where he is now. But I’m not mad. I’m actually grateful. He gave me that little nudge I needed to really go after it. What’s the point of going after anything that’s reasonable? That’s not gratifying. It’s not gratifying going after something that people have done before and is expected.

“Well, You’re young and don’t have children. When you have children, you have to live for someone else. Your goal should be to be called Jagger’s dad.” But when you don’t have children, it’s okay to go out and fail, time and time again. And that’s what I don’t understand. That should be what we’re teaching people, like, “You should go out there and get after your dreams, because now’s the time to do so.”

Lewis Howes:                       Hey guys, if you enjoyed this inspirational clip from a past episode of the show, then you’ll love the free book I’m giving away right now. It’s called, The Millionaire Morning. It includes some of my best tips for starting off your day with a millionaire mindset. Get your free copy at themillionairemorning.com and just pay shipping. Again, check it out right now, themillionairemorning.com.