Asking NY Billionaires If They Believe in God!

Excuse me, sir. Question for you. How did you get rich? What do you mean? How did you get rich? I have a channel with 24 million followers. I go all over the world interviewing the richest people. How did you get rich? Give me a dollar and I'll tell you. A dollar? Yeah. I have a hundred. I'll take a hundred. You want a hundred? I'll take a hundred. You want a secret, huh? You gotta pay for it. How did you get rich, man? What'd you do? Have you played Grand Theft Auto? GTA? Yes. Like GTA 5? Yes. You like it? Yes. Okay, good. Is that your company? That's one of our games, yes. How big is your company today? It's big. It's got about a $40 billion market cap. Is it a computer business? It's a computer business. Do you have your own company? Yeah. So what was the most amount of money you made in a single year? $650 million. Are you serious? I make very expensive. I can sell them through the finest galleries all over the world. So what's the most amount of money you made in a single day? I made a million dollars in a day before. You're a god, actually. You believe in God? Absolutely. Who is your god? Who's your god, my man? I believe in the source. I believe in the universe. I gotta think about this. Unquestionably. I'm not sure you'd call that believing in God, but I do have a spiritual life. People say my god is better than your god. So I don't go in that direction. Was there ever a point in time in your life where you were part of a religion or part of anything like that? When you're ready, you're ready? New York City is the richest city in the entire world. And I'm not kidding. There's more millionaires and billionaires that live here than any other city on earth. But today, I'm not just asking them how they got rich. I'm asking them something much deeper. Do they believe in God? If you've achieved everything that money can buy, what do you actually believe in? This video is brought to you by Shopify. That being said, let's get this video on the way. Excuse me, sir. How old were you when you became a millionaire? I'm not a millionaire. No, real quick, sir. I got a channel. I got 23 million followers. I've interviewed 56 billionaires. Hey, wait, real quick, real quick. How are you? Nice to meet you, sir. 23 million followers, 56 million. All right, my man. Have a good one. Excuse me, sir. Question for you. How old were you when you became a millionaire? Real quick, sir. I got a channel with 23 million. Excuse me, sir. Sir. How old? Real quick, sir. I got a channel with 20. Could I get 30 seconds? It'll be worth it, man. All right, my man. All right, brother. Excuse me, sir. How old were you when you became a millionaire? I interviewed millionaires and billionaires to help the younger generation. Just 30 seconds with you? Walking. All right, my man. Excuse me, sir. Sir. How did you get rich? I've seen you. How did you get rich, man? How did you get rich? Come on. You do it. Real quick, man. Real quick. Can we do it? How did you get rich? I'm just asking millionaires and billionaires out in New York City whether or not they believe in God. We're just private. Oh, you're good. Do you believe in God? Yes or no? Yes, I do. How did you know God was real? Who is your God? Hey, look. As you can see, man, these millionaires and billionaires aren't stopping for anything. He's seen the channel before, you guys. But look, I didn't come out to New York City for nothing, man. I'm going to find the wealthiest people, the richest people out in New York City. I'm going to stop them, figure out how they got rich, built their million-dollar, billion-dollar companies, and whether or not they believe in God and who is their God. So let's go see who we can find. What's up? I like all your videos, man. Thank you, man. I appreciate that. You're ******* spectacular. You look more buff than normal, huh? You look buff, man. No, you're buff. How did you get rich, though? Do I look rich to you? You look rich, man. Are you? What do you think? I think so. You think so? Look at the eyes. The eyes don't lie, man. You think I am? I think so. What do you do? I work in the art business. The art business? Yes. Are you a dealer? No. I make very expensive artworks and sell them through the finest galleries all over the world. Oh. So what's the most amount of money you've made in a single day? I've made a million dollars in a day before. Yeah, you have. I have, actually. Are you serious? I've sold editions of certain artworks. Galleries bought the entire edition, which is a million dollars for every image I make. It's a million dollars. What was the secret to making a million dollars in a day? I mean, that's... Not thinking about the money. Thinking about the work. You have to believe it to see it in a world that needs to see it to believe it. Say that again. That again. I'm sorry. You need to believe it to see it in a world that so often needs to see it to believe it. If you love to win, you'll always make money. What age did you make your first million? Early 30s. So you've been a millionaire for a while now. I never think that way. I never think I'm a millionaire. I think I've been winning for a while. Do you ever get comfortable? I'm always comfortably uncomfortable. What's that mean? I'm very comfortable being uncomfortable. When you're an entrepreneur, you're never comfortable. You know why? Because no success nor failure is ever final. You believe in God? I believe in the source. I believe in the universe. I really feel like when you look up at the sky, you can feel something because it's always moving. It's never the same. Not a particular religion though? No. Why not? I'm a big believer, man. I'm a big Christian. You know why? I always like to talk about this, man. Creation like us has to have a designer. I'm a firm believer, man. There's got to be a higher power bigger than us. I believe in the universe, but I'm not really into... I don't call it anything other than source and the universe, and the universe has always been my guide. It's always been my guide. Was there ever a point in time in your life where you were part of a religion or part of anything like that? It wasn't for you, man. I love everybody, man. I think religion gets in the way because I think people say my God is better than your God, so I don't go in that direction. I just love everybody. I don't care what you look like. I care more about how you feel than what you look like. 100%. Are you a good salesman? You tell me. Are you a good salesman? No, be honest. This is the show to talk your s*** off, man. I'm a fantastic salesperson. What did you learn about price? One of my favorite things is that price is only an issue if value is absent. This is going to be a big film right now. By the way, how great is this? Is this one of your favorites? Fantastic. No, I love it. That's why we're here for so long. If I didn't like it, we wouldn't be here. Exactly. What did you learn about price? You ready? The higher the price, the easier it is to sell the art. I don't know. It's crazy. It's much easier to sell a piece of art for more than $25,000 than it is for less than $10,000. It's way easier. It's not easy, but people feel like it's more special sometimes when it's at that price point and there's very little availability. Price is only an issue when value is absent. How old are you now? How old do you think? 41. 56 in August. No, you're not. I am 56 years old. You're coming up soon. In August, yes. In August soon. If me and you died tomorrow and you had one more message to leave with the younger generation, what would that be? It's always two words. Be yourself. Because everyone else has taken. You have amazing advice, sir. No, you're the man. Thank you for your time. Hey, I like to connect with all the millionaires and billionaires I interview. Could I get your contact? Yeah. Guys, those are always the best interviews right there. My guy comes up to me. Was a fan of the channel. That man made a million dollars in a day in the art business, man. It does not get any better than that. You know he was a good salesman, but he just gave an incredible interview talking about being authentic, being one of his superpowers in the business world. Nonetheless, I asked him if he believed in God, didn't necessarily give us anything specific right there. He said it was maybe part of the universe for him, but he attributed that as part to his success. Great interview. We got to go find this expert out here. Go give this expert an interview. Guys, come on. Excuse me, sir. Question for you. Yeah. How did you get rich? What do you mean? How did you get rich? I have a channel with 24 million followers. I go all over the world interviewing the richest people. How did you get rich? Give me a dollar and I'll tell you. A dollar? Yeah. I have a hundred. I'll take a hundred. You want a hundred? I'll take a hundred. You want a secret, huh? You got to pay for it. All right. There we go. How did you get rich? I sold a food company. A food company? Yep. For how much money? One and a half billion dollars. No, you did not. I did. What type of company was it? We shipped fresh meals directly to your house. We were the third fastest growing food company ever. No, you were not. Yeah. Went to zero to 550 million in sales in a little over five years. Can I interview you for a minute? I go all over the world. I've interviewed 60 billionaires around the world. You paid for it. Let's do it. You built one of the biggest food companies in the world. $1.5 billion. If you think about the richest people you know in your network, what's that one trait they all have in common? What do the most successful people have in common? They work harder than everyone else. At the end of the day, there's no shortcut. You got to be willing to put in the work. I'm not the smartest. I'm not the best looking, but I'm the hardest working. I'll put in more work than anyone else, and that over time compounds. You said work hard, but you can work hard and work at a fast food restaurant. Give me something else. What is it? You got to work hard for yourself. If you want to create wealth, you have to start your own thing. You can't work hard for someone else. Not that that can't ultimately get you a good salary, but if you really want to create wealth, you got to do your own thing. Did you have rich parents? Did you come from money? I did not. I had $15 in my bank account when I started the business. How old were you? I was 35 when I started it. You had $15 at 35 years old. I had $15. I'd lost. I'd started a company before that. It went bankrupt. I came off that though with tenacity, passion. I had a million dollars in debt that I had to pay off, so nothing like that sense of urgency. I had three years to pay it off, so I had a great idea. We'd already had some product market fit, and I said, well, we got to go. I'm a big fan of your back's against the wall. You're going to make it happen. Take your glasses off. I got to see the eyes. There we go. I want your face to see that way. People can see your face. What's your name? Michael Weistrack. I want you to talk to the broke Michael. I want you to talk to the broke you at 35 years old with $15 to your name. Talk to the people watching right now. What's that first actionable step they can take to get rich in today's world? The key is you got to stop wishing, and you got to decide. So the difference is wishing is I wish I was a founder. I wish I started something. I wish I was self-employed. Decision is I am a founder. I am going to be self-employed, and do an action. Do something right now. If you're watching this, get off Instagram, get off YouTube, and go do something that is going to change your life. Did you have any marketing or branding tactics that helped you build a billion-dollar company? What is your number one marketing or branding tactic for anybody starting a business? You have to be relentlessly data-focused every single day. Every day, there's a new thing. We were the absolute best at meta-marketing. No one beat us. We built a $550 million company in five years. Almost 99% on meta, because we were the absolute best. Running ads. TikTok to Instagram. You got to understand these things. You got to understand the data. You can measure relentlessly. Know what's working. Know exactly what's performing. Be intellectually honest with yourself. Don't be afraid to move quickly. Don't be afraid to test and fail. Are you a good salesman? I have gotten better over the years. Do you have a sales and negotiation tactic for anybody in business? What is the number one sales and negotiation advice that turned you into a billion-dollar founder? Ask questions. I think people think sales is about talking. It's about asking, really listening to what people need, and then seeing if you can provide a solution for that. Did you have investors in your company? I had a ton of investors. Started with 100% ownership. Ended with 10% ownership. Sold the business for $1.5 billion. Owned 10% of it, so you can do the math there. At the end of the day, if I didn't sell that 90% and get all the people I got around, including employees, including things, there's no $1.5 billion exit. But isn't there a risk taking investors in, because now you're getting up some control, some decision-making to other people? Is there a risk we're taking on investors? I think the hubris in there is that I have all the right answers. I think I'm intellectually honest with myself to be like, I can get smarter people who've done things, and I can listen to them. They will respect me, and they will acknowledge that I bring some stuff to the table, but we're going to find the right balance. To me, it's no different than whatever sport you play. You get a coach. The reason you bring that coach on is you want to listen to him. You don't want to argue with him and tell him, no, no, I'm right. It's like you want the coach there for you. You had a food company, right? What did you sell? We sold prepared meals we shipped to your house. So did you have an online store where people would buy from you? 100% online. It is now shut, but you would go to freshly.com and buy it, and it would be shipped to your house that day or the next day, and it would show up at your house, and all you had to do is heat and eat. And what platform did you use to build your store? So we built our own. Unfortunately, we were before Shopify. If I was doing it today, I would 100% do it on Shopify. It's a rinse and repeat. When we had to start it, Shopify was a very beginning company. It didn't have all the things that we needed around recurring revenue. Now you can plug and play. That's the best platform if you're doing e-commerce, at least early, because everyone's building on it. So if we didn't have to build it, we spent close to $40 million building our own platform, I would have gladly taken that $40 million and invested in other ways. And you would have used Shopify. I would have used Shopify. 46 years old today. Yes. If me and you died tomorrow, and you could leave one more message with the younger generation, what would that be? If you are hiking only because you want to get to the peak, don't hike. You've got to enjoy the entire journey, because when you get to the peak, it's never as good as you think it is. And I'd say when you sell your business, you get that wire, it feels great for a day, and then guess what? You wake up, and you're back to all the problems, all those things, and it didn't solve everything that you thought it was going to solve. So you really have to enjoy that journey. You have to enjoy going up the mountain, down the mountain. And so for me, as I always tell founders, is that if you don't like the journey, don't do it. Do you believe in God? I do. Who is your God? I'm a Christian. I'm a Catholic. I grew up in a Catholic church, Catholic school. So we can tell them that Jesus is king. Yeah, we can. I think religion's highly personal. Whatever religion, they all fall on the same foundation. Be good to people. Follow that golden rule, and work your ass off. Can I tell you something? Yeah. You've got amazing advice, my friend. I appreciate it, my man. Thank you for your time. I really appreciate this. And I connect with all the billionaires out there. Could I get your contact? Let's give you that hundred back. This is a fun conversation. No, I got to pay you for the conversation. Come on, man. Can I get your contact? Of course you can. Awesome. Hey, guys. We just interviewed an entrepreneur out here in New York City that sold one of the fastest growing food companies for $1.5 billion. And one thing he told me that absolutely blew my mind was when I asked him, what store did you use to sell your products? He said he spent millions of dollars building his own custom store. But if he were starting over today, he said without a doubt he'd be using Shopify. Think about that. A guy who sold his company for over a billion dollars is telling you this is the greatest time in history to be an entrepreneur. But it's thanks to tools and platforms like Shopify making it easier to start a business than it ever has been before. Shopify is the place where you can turn your idea into a real business, a real store overnight. You can build your store, accept payments, manage orders, and do everything all in one place. But what makes Shopify so powerful today is how much AI has changed everything. With Shopify's new AI store builder, Sidekick, it's like having an AI co-founder at your business. You can literally describe your business idea, build your store, create product descriptions, and get help launching your store faster than ever before. So if you've been sitting on an idea, stop waiting. Waste no more time. Go down right now. Click the link in the description of this video or go to shopify.com slash SOHK and turn that idea into a real business. Now with that being said, let's get back to the video. Sir. How did you get rich? How did I get rich? Yes, sir. I'm meeting you. No, how did you get rich, man? Tell me. I'm not rich. Well, what line of business are you in? I got a chain of 20. I'm retired. I know who you are. I've seen you before. What do you do? I'm on social security. Yeah? No. Did you ever own a business? I was in a computer business. A computer business? What were you doing exactly? Selling computers. Back in the 80s. Did you have your own company? Yeah. National Data Products. Actually? Yeah. Did you come from a family of entrepreneurs? No. So you didn't have rich parents? Nope. My dad died when I was 12 years old. Are you close with your mom? The best. What did your mom teach you about life? No bird flies so high that they don't come down for water. Everybody's the same. Everybody's got an opportunity. How old are you today? 67. How big was your biggest company? 650 million. Are you serious? So what was the most amount of money you made in a single year? Oh, God. 600 million. Are you serious, man? As a multiple nine-figure entrepreneur, what's the best financial advice you would give to the younger generation? Don't ever give up. Everybody can succeed in this country. Do you have people that doubted you at all? Everybody does. Everybody thinks that you were given stuff in your life. Nobody understands the hard work that went into doing that. Nobody knows the hours, the years that you put into it. And then all of a sudden they go, oh, they inherited it, which is not true. You weren't given anything? Nothing. We put my mother's house up as collateral for a loan in 1979. Are you serious? Yeah. We couldn't fail. My mother would be out of her house. So it has to work. It has to work. She had no choice. I'm going to challenge you, though. In these 67 years of life, what was the greatest piece of advice you ever received throughout your career? Work hard. Play hard. Do you believe in God? Absolutely. Who is your God? Who's your God, my man? Jesus Christ. Hey, you're not afraid to say it, man. No, I'm not. Jesus is King. That's it, man. At the end of the day, that's $650 billion. The only thing that matters is that relationship we have with God, my man. You got it, my man. You have amazing advice, sir. Thank you, my man. I connect with all the millionaires and billionaires I interview. Could I get your contact? My son saw you earlier, he said. Could I get your contact? Is that cool? Sure. Thank you, my man. Real quick, why are you putting that in here? I wanted to ask this last one. Before you became wealthy, real quick, real quick. Before you became wealthy, how did you network and build relationships with the right people? I want you to think about that because you have to know the right people in business, but if you don't have like great credibility or you don't come from money or that name, how did you build relationships? I think there's only, I told my kids, there's only two things in life that you control. Your credit and your reputation. Everything else, somebody else can ruin. You can only ruin your credit and your reputation. Hey, that's gay right there, man. Hey, real quick, real quick. And what- You would- I know, I know. Real quick, real quick. What do the wealthiest people do with their money differently from everybody else? I don't know. I'm done. All right, my man. Have a good one. Hey, $650 million, man. That man was not playing it odd. He was dropping soundbite after soundbite in that interview and we found another believer, man. We found a believer right there, man, in Jesus Christ, man. We got him to say his name right in front of you with probably a billionaire right there, man. He just gave us an incredible one. We got to go get this next one, you guys. Come on. Excuse me, sir. Sir. How did you get rich? What makes you think I'm rich? You look like money, man. I'd be billionaires all over the world. Like everyone else on the street. I just wear a blue suit. How did you get rich, man? What'd you do? Have you played Grand Theft Auto? GTA? Yes. Like GTA 5? Yes. You like it? Yes. Okay, good. Is that your company? That's one of our games, yes. It's our biggest game. How many copies have you sold? 230 million. What company? TakeTwo Interactive. How big is your company today? It's big. It's got about a $40 billion market cap. I go all over the world. I do billionaires and billionaires. Can I get one minute with you for the channel real quick? Sure. Is that cool? Yeah. Awesome. When is GTA 6 coming out, man? November 19th. Why did it take so long? The team at Rockstar really does seek to do something that's never been done before. That's really hard and it takes a long time. How long have you been in that business for? A long time. Almost 20 years. 20 years. When you approach business, do you have a very long-term view? I think everyone's looking for an overnight success. My experience is the only overnight successes are someone else's. Everything worth doing is hard and takes a long time. I took over TakeTwo in 2007. It was at least five years before we began to have real success. I've been at it for 19 years and I'm still at it. What was the most amount of money you made in a single year? In the year that just ended, $6.7 billion. Next March will be over $8 billion. Congratulations. Oh, it's congratulations to the team, not to me. Did you go to college? Yes. Where did you go to school? Harvard for law school and business school. But I'm going to challenge you. I want you to give me one lesson about business right here that is not taught in a Harvard business school. Work hard. Listen. Never compromise your integrity. It's the only thing you have. So you have to keep your word in business is what you're saying? Unquestionably. Has there ever been a time where maybe you didn't or somebody else kind of around you didn't and it kind of messed up the company? I applause. There was a time, one time in particular, where I acted in a way that wasn't consistent with my views about integrity and business. It hurt me really badly and I learned a powerful lesson. Never do that. How old are you today? How old am I? Yeah. 68. You're not 68. I am. Very much 68. Would you say that you've made it yet? I think it's important to take some pride in the things that you've done that have worked out. Have I done great things? In my opinion, no, not really. Have I pursued my passion and am I proud of the work I did? Most of the time, yes. How many employees do you have? 20,000. 20,000 employees. What's your best... Colleagues. I don't call them employees. Why not? Because I'm just another colleague. I've never had somebody correct me like that before. What's your best leadership advice to anybody running a business today? You need to have a mission that is straightforward and understandable, ambitious but achievable. You need to state your strategy, preferably in three words. You need to state your culture. You need to live by it. You need to believe it. It needs to be honest. That's a master class right there. Do you believe in God? I have a spiritual life and I'm not sure you'd call that believing in God, but I do have a spiritual life. Has that helped you out at all? Yes. Having something... Talk to me about that if you can. Is it just kind of like faith in a higher power? Yeah, something like that. Or just kind of the universe per se? It's a belief that I'm just able to control and be responsible for what's within my wingspan and everything else is outside of me. I can control my desires, my actions, my goals, my plans. I can't control the outcomes. The outcomes are out of my control. 68 years old today, if me and you died tomorrow and you had one more message to leave with the younger generation, what would that be? Think about what you truly want in life. Truly want. Professionally and personally. Not what someone wants for you, but what you want. And then go for it. Do you think people should chase their passion or is that often not great advice? I think it's terrible advice half the time. People should chase the intersection of what they're good at and what they like to do. With emphasis on what you're good at. Everyone's good at something. Do that thing. The world will probably open up to you. You have amazing advice, sir. Thank you so much for your time, my friend. I like to connect with all the millionaires and billionaires that I interview. Can I get your contact? Of course. Guys, that's a wrap on today's video. I need you to stop right now. Like and subscribe for amazing content coming every single week to the School of Hard Knocks, man. But I want to go a step further. I want to give you direct access to every single one of the eight-figure, nine-figure and billionaire entrepreneurs that I interview on this channel. Every week I host live Zoom calls with the millionaires and billionaires I interview where you can ask your questions directly to them inside of my private entrepreneur community, the School of Mentors. If you want access, go down right now to the link in the description of this video to join and I can't wait to see you on the inside. That being said, we'll see you in the next video.