- You're a liar.
I was about 14 years old.
My father came outside, and I was shooting hoops
in the driveway, and the day before,
I got grounded for lying, and he came outside,
I wanna talk to you,
and my dad is kind of a force.
He looked at me, and he said, "Look, yesterday, you lied."
I said, "I know, Dad, I'm sorry."
He goes, "No, no, we're not here to talk about that.
"We're here to talk about some truths
"that I need to give you.
"I always told you if you lied,
"you wouldn't be successful in life,
"and that just isn't the truth.
"Out of all my kids, you're the one
"that I have absolutely no doubt
"will be successful in life, but you're a liar,
"and you're gonna know it, and I'm gonna know it,
"and that's just the way it is,"
and I just broke down crying.
I went in the house later, and I said,
"Look, I thought about it, and I'm gonna go through life,
"and I'm gonna be a man of integrity,
"and it might be harder to be successful,
"but I'm not gonna be a liar,
"and I'm gonna show you that I'm gonna have integrity
"in everything that I do," and he smiled at me,
and he goes, "Good decision."
(inspirational music)
My dad was a refugee in the United States from Hungary,
and my grandparents were Holocaust survivors.
Both of them just really fought
for everything that they got,
and I felt very guilty that I was the first person
in my family to grow up with any kind of means.
In a weird way, it kinda put a chip on my shoulder
that I wanted to prove to myself, to the world,
to my family that I could build something on my own.
Most of the great advice I ever got was from great parents,
not from great businessmen.
He taught me there's a difference between winning
and truly winning.
You know, there's a lot of people who win
in the outcome, but because they don't understand
that living with integrity's a different kind of winning,
they never understood how they actually lost.
I only lasted in college for a year and a half.
I started my business my freshman year.
I did that for three and a half years,
and I had all these ideas about social media,
and no one was listening to me.
Music artists were at their biggest
when there was a feeling of self discovery.
For these kids, it was social media.
By starting my own record label management company,
I signed a kid off MySpace named Asher Roth,
and then four months after finding Asher,
I went on YouTube and saw, by mistake,
a kid singing who had 60,000 views, in his church in Canada,
and I was so blown away by what I saw,
I knew I can make this kid one of the biggest artists
in the world, I just knew instantly,
and that was Justin Beiber, a 12 year old,
singing in a church, and I called every school district
in that part of Ontario until his mom called
to get rid of me, and I convinced her
to get on the first plane that she and he had ever been on.
I had saved money for about 13 to 14 months
before I knew I was going broke,
and this was probably month 11.
I ordered a pizza, and I had to get out $11 in change
from a bucket of change I kept dropping every time
I came into my house, because I had no money.
I had Justin and his mother.
I was paying their food bill, their electric bill.
I was paying everything,
and I was trying to build this company,
and everyone in Atlanta thought I was winning,
thought I was successful, but I knew the truth,
and my dad just called me to say, hey, what's up?
What's going on?
And one thing led to another, and I just broke down,
hysterically crying on the phone.
Dad, I'm gonna be a failure.
I'm a joke and no one knows,
and everyone's about to find out.
And my dad said, "You came this far.
"See it through."
Kinda wiped at my tears, said okay,
and the next day, Asher Roth came to my house,
played me a song called, I Love College,
and I instantly knew what to do.
Within a month, I was able to get us a publishing deal
for a million dollars.
The commission saved my company.
That was the first time I really understood
that tomorrow comes, that the line,
the homes of success and failure
are next door to each other,
that if I would've given up in that moment,
I would've never known that success
was waiting for me next door, and to me,
that is success, it's who's gonna keep swinging.
We define, oh, you're successful because you're rich.
You know, we decide our eligible bachelors
based on net worth.
We should be looking at success as a very different thing.
Are we happy?
Do we have quality of life?
Are we surrounded by loved ones?
Are we able to take time to actually enjoy the victories?
Do we even know what the victories are?
Then yes, I know what the haters say.
Easy for you to say this.
You've already had success, you have wealth.
You know, you're not dealing with what I'm dealing with,
but I have once.
I was there, and now I can tell you
that with all the monetary success I have,
if it wasn't for my wife and my children,
'cause I'd be so lost.
Family and friends, that's your real value.
Each birthday I have, I don't look around and say,
gosh, wonder how much money I got.
No, I look around and say,
look at the people I've collected in my life.
Look at the family I've collected.
The rest is just house money.
(inspirational music)