- [Male] Who turned you into this guy?
Did something turn you--
- America and my mother.
I was born in the Soviet Union.
I didn't come up with much.
So adversity, America, my mom and my dad
because when I was 14 and started working
at my dad's liquor store for two bucks an hour,
I was so full of shit
and he sucked it out of me over 10 years
'cause he hates lying and bullshit.
And so he scared me.
I was scared to embellish, let alone lie.
I don't get upset when people are like,
"Yo, this guy's full of shit,"
because I'm like, I understand.
I actually had that in me.
But my dad systematically took it out
and I think it comes from lack of entitlement.
I turned 14
and by being the oldest son in an immigrant family,
my dad dragged me into the small store
in Springfield, New Jersey, Shopper's Discount Liquors.
I went from making $2,000 a weekend
looking cool to the ladies with all my cash
to being paid two bucks an hour to bag ice
in my dad's liquor store for 10 hours a day.
And more importantly,
I wasn't allowed to leave the basement.
I was truly like Sloth from Goonies.
I was like, "Hey, you guys."
Terrible, hated it.
Used to cry going to work for the first year and a half.
Finally, when I was 16,
my dad let me leave the basement.
So I went upstairs to dust bottles
and in 1998, I took over the family business
and from 1998 to 2005,
I grew the revenue of Wine Library
from a three to a $60 million a year business.
I had a burning desire to pay back my parents
for being the best.
I was passionate,
like just obsessed with building my family business for them
because they had put me on so much, emotionally, not,
people are always saying,
when people like to razz me, they're like,
"Easy for you to say,
"you were given a liquor store."
I wasn't.
I built a business for my family
and left with no economics
because emotionally my parents perfectly parented me
which is now been the foundation of all my success.
There's only one way to win a family business,
radical candor.
And you know how easy that is in a family business?
Almost impossible.
So I'm giving you advice that's hard, radical candor.
You're just gonna lose,
it's gonna eat you inside.
And I have good news for you.
This is the only chance
to have a good relationship with them,
not the other way around.
You think you're doing the right thing
to have a good relationship with them.
You're leading to the things
that's gonna make you have regrets
and real issues with them.
Then you're gonna snap
and you guys are gonna have a bad relationship.
Second, third generation family business people
pay the biggest tax in the world
and when they're fucking talented,
they really are fucked.
You know what family business dynamics are good for?
Losers.
That's when you're lucky.
When you suck shit
and you're the one benefiting.
You know when family businesses suck?
When you're a winner.
And you're paying a tax nobody's ever paid in life.
It wasn't about how many impressions you got
or how many awards you won in fucking Cannes.
It was about if we didn't sell fucking pinot noir,
we weren't gonna eat.
So it was results driven.
My dad and I,
for all the things we agreed on,
all the things we disagreed on,
thank God we loved each other
just enough more than we loved the business
which allowed us to keep a relationship.
But 99% of our energy was always about the business
for the long term.
It's easy for everybody from the outside saying,
"Yo bro, stop carrying your sister and your uncle
"and everybody's getting money off your back."
If it makes you feel good and you're okay
with 15 cents on the dollar or 50 cents on the dollar,
well then that's your life.
So I would say this,
if you've got a problem with it
and your friends are saying that
because they're supporting
what you're saying after four beers,
that's one thing.
But if they're just observing from the outside
and they're starting to change your mind,
I wouldn't let outside sources
tell you what to do with inside of family dynamic.
At the end of the day,
if you are the parent in the situation of a family business
or if you are the child
in the situation of a family business,
you have to deeply understand
that when both of you are done and finished,
nobody's gonna count
how many zeroes they have in the bank account,
they're gonna count how many hearts and vibes and loves
are in the system.
What my dad and my brother and I were capable of doing
was loving each other just a little bit more
than the business making some more money
or the ego or insecurity scratches that we needed
in the dynamic of our relationships.
If there's anything that this film could get across to you
I hope it is that at the end of the day on that last breath
ask yourself what you're gonna be really thinking about.