[0:00]I never had fear of of of failing or anything like that. I always had this philosophy like, at the time when I decided that I wasn't gonna do that job. I was a Bellman at the Boston Harbor Hotel. And my thing was always like, if this doesn't work out, I can always be a Bellman, right? I can be a Bellman when I'm 50, I can be a Bellman when I'm 35, I can be a Bellman whenever I want to be. But can I, can I achieve this other thing that I want? Why not give it a shot? I was 19. Now is the time, not married. I got no kids. Nothing tying me down. Why would I not go for this right now? And all my other friends are in college. So I was working the overnights at the Boston Harbor Hotel and I signed up for classes at UMass. Yeah. So I would take the classes in the daytime and never really went. I mean, I, I signed up. I went to a few classes and said, you know what, not for me. I always knew for some reason, the I say this all the time, but it's the truth. I was I've been very lucky in my life in that I always knew exactly who I was and what I wanted to do even when I was young. Um and I knew school wasn't my thing, that school definitely wasn't gonna be my thing. And at that time, I don't know if that's still the the narrative that's put on kids these days, but at that time the big narrative was if you don't go to college, you're never gonna amount to anything and you're gonna, you know, uh, you're gonna be working these type of jobs for the rest of your life and I never necessarily believe that either. I, I believe that I knew what I and I focused on it and I just and I just went after it. I never cared about money. Money was was never a a motivating factor for me. Being able to do what I wanted to do was what motivated me. And when you do what you do and you do it well enough, the money just happens. I was a paver for these crazy Italian guys and uh and in Boston, the evangelist of Brothers, uh Tommy EJ. Yeah, they were but that was the that that was the greatest job I ever had. The greatest job I ever had because that taught me what real work was. You you go lay asphalt and you do construction and poor concrete and these type of things, that's when you really find out what real work is, what what hard work is. These people that work construction and and paving and things like this, they get up every day and they they work hard. So like, um me, like people say I work hard. I saw a quote from you where you said Steven A Smith works hard and I agreed with you. Hard work. Hard work you you go, go spend a couple weeks following a construction crew and they'll show you what hard work is. First, everything in life is about timing. All about timing. And the timing couldn't have worked out better for us with this thing. Not just Adam Corrigan's wedding, you know, Bob Mitz being financially in trouble at that time with the UFC, you know, the demise of boxing, boxing's on the downward spiral. But technology too. Income streaming, income social media, you know, this next generation needs to, you know, great great quote by Ronald Reagan. Freedom is only one generation away from extinction. It's so true. All these people that that complain about these billionaires and all these guys, who do you think's keeping this country afloat? How do you think this works, you dummies? Right? Where do you think this this government money comes from? Where you know, one of the things all you young people that are watching this right now, you don't want anything from the government. The only thing you want from the government is for them to stay out of your business. That's it. As less government as absolutely possible. If you think the government is ever gonna take care of you and make all your hopes and dreams come true, you are out of your mind. It's not how it works.
[3:49]It's not how it works. You know, when I worked at the Boston Harbor Hotel, we had security guards that had master's degrees from badass colleges in Boston, right? Here's the problem with college in my opinion. Everybody tells you when you're growing up, if you don't go to college, you'll never amount to anything. And you have these kids that are walking around school that if you ask them what's your major? Well, major in psychology, but I'm thinking about switching to School isn't the problem. The problem is they don't know what they wanna do with their life. That's right. That's right. The biggest question in life is who am I? Uh huh. Who and what gets me so excited that I jump out of bed every day and I can't wait to go to work. When you figure that out, college, no college or whatever, you'll figure it out. You can go to college, get a degree in in in in finance, which I think everybody should do. Be honest with you. Finance rules the world, finance and lawyers. I mean, lawyers and finance are the two guys that you need the most in the business. Other than the guy who is the creative driving force of the business, finance and lawyers. So I'm surrounded by all of them. Okay. I know what my strengths are and I know what my weaknesses are. And one of my problems is I'm really good at making money. I'm really good, not really good at taking, you know what I mean? I'm like the broke dude who got rich, I'm I'm really good at making it. Well, the thing is for some people that come out of uh, some kids that that you know, grow up with money, um, you know, this is this is this is the the the scenario for my kids now. My my kids, it's impossible for my kids to grow up the way that I grew up, right? And and it just and it just never gonna happen. You it's impossible to do but your kids have to have to have those jobs when they're young, when you're 18, 19, 20, 21 years old, that you realize you learn things from. This is real hard work, this is what I definitely don't wanna do. Maybe I wanna do this. You have to have these sort of form who you are and and what direction you wanna go in. So, my my my son Aiden, uh he he worked at U-Haul and doing everything. He had to fix tail lights. He had to uh unload trucks. He had to move trucks and do all the stuff. And the phone calls I would get from him, I would be like, this is awesome. Yeah. So, he uh he decided that he didn't want to stay in college. He had to take these jobs because he was working on this business of his own that he's been trying to build. And but you can't just, can't just build a business, you gotta have money. You gotta make money. So, I'm trying to lead my kids in the U-Haul job is the greatest thing to ever happen to Aiden. He went out and actually applied for these jobs. He went out and had to put in applications, had to apply for these, you know, the only thing I want for my kids is that they're happy. I don't care what they do for a living. I'm not one of these guys that's like, you know, oh you gotta go to med school and be a lawyer and all this other bullshit. I I literally want my kids to be happy. I don't care what they do. As long as they're happy, one of the things I did when they're very young is I got them into surfing when they were babies. I love the whole surf culture and and everything. I hope one of them or all three of them just become surfers and just travel the world and surf and don't give a fuck about anything. I would be happy for them if that was their deal. Destroy teams by a hundred points if you're capable of doing it. If that's what you're capable of doing, then do it hundred percent and and to try to take away this this this uh, you know, killer instinct from these kids, it is absolutely disgusting. I got to the point where I was just like, okay, this is what 53 feels like. Yeah, right? I guess this is what 53 and wrong. That's not what 53 supposed to feel. Right? And look like. I love it. I'm I'm I'm addicted. I I was just telling, uh Brandon this morning, I got a fly to Abu Dhabi tomorrow and I'm gone for four days and it's driving me crazy that I'm not gonna be able to do, you know, the recovery stuff for four days. I wake up in the morning, I do the cold plunge. Okay. I do the alkaline pad. I do the oxygen and then I do the red light and then I do my workout. Uh huh. Uh huh. I do it every day. Yeah. Saturday and Sunday I don't workout, so I just recover on Saturday and Sunday with, you know, I do it every day. Every day, I'm addicted to it. I absolutely positively love my people, right? Number one, number two, when you think about your job, right? If if if your job is just a job and you get up every day and you go to this place and um you're missing kids' football games, baseball games, volleyball games, you're missing their plays, some of you are missing their first words, their first step, their first everything, right? And you're doing it for a company that that talks about you like that and that's what they think about you. Yeah, yeah. It's just not my not my not my thing, man. Maybe that works for some of these guys and some of these people. Not me and not me. And and and when I look at when you start talking about the bottom line and laying people off because you wanna make more money, that that we make plenty of money. When you go when you get into a position like COVID, which is the most extreme thing that could ever happen to a business, you know what I mean? And some of these people, you know, just go right into immediately. We're gonna here, here's the percentage of people that we're gonna cut. And it doesn't even become about, um you start looking at numbers. Yeah. Uh oh Sage Steel makes this much. See you Sage Steel. Forget about everything you've done for me, Sage Steel. All the fucking years that you've, you know, like I said earlier, put other things off so that you could come help this business grow. That goes right out the fucking window, right? Now it's all about numbers. Yeah, I know. I I was so I said, if this doesn't work, take my salary, my bonus and everything else and company keep that and that'll that'll that should settle it. Nobody does anything themselves. You need a badass, solid, great team. Every year I stand up at that stage at the fucking Christmas party and I tell my people how much I love them and how great they are and the the UFC's been this rocket ship of success, right? The first time we face adversity. Yeah, we gotta let 40% of you guys go. There's no way in hell, I'd rather die. You can be whoever you wanna be and you can believe you are whatever you wanna believe. I I always say this, America, you do your thing, but men cannot compete against women. It's ridiculous and and it's it's common sense. I believe in every life is too short. Live your life, be whoever you want to be, do whatever you want to do. You can't compete against women. I hate sleep. I love every minute of my life. Love every minute of it. I can't wait to wake up tomorrow. I can't wait to start tomorrow and and when you when you really feel that way, I just don't I really don't give a shit about a lot of things. When you get in early and you start playing the game and as you work your way up and you start to see how things really work and how the world really operates, it's actually kind of gross. And I was never gonna be a person that would do something against what I believed for money. I said it when I got into this thing. People thought I was ridiculous that I wanted to be in the fight business when I said I wanted to be in the fight business. We bought the UFC people thought it was ridiculous and it would never and it was never gonna be anything. Um the media wouldn't cover us anyway. We had to figure out how to run this business without the help of anybody. Then I wanted to start power slap. Everybody shit on it and said it would never work and then I, if I cared what people thought, I'd still be a Bellman at the Boston Harbor Hotel. You know what I mean? That's the truth. If I really cared what people thought, I'd still be doing that. I know some guys that are fucking crazy rich in the most miserable human beings you could ever meet. If you get up every day and you're really happy and you really do enjoy and love your life and you you surrounded by people you love doing it with, you could not be more successful. And and it doesn't have to be this, my life and what I do. It can just be your own version of whatever makes you happy every day. That is that is the key to success. Everything that's coming your way is deserved. Um you know, you're brilliant, you're smart, you're strong, uh and and and and you're tough. You gotta be tough. Yeah. And and it and it's easy to look back now and say, you know, I had to do this because of this that and everything. You didn't have to do anything. You could have stayed comfortable. You could have stayed silent. You could have stayed, you know, you a good little good little trooper and stayed in line. You didn't. You chose to to to go outside the lines. You chose to to fight and you chose to show everybody who you really are and it takes a lot of courage to do that. And and everything that you get from today on, you deserve. Congratulations.
