In business, one thing you cannot understate is the value of having a good mentor. I’m thankful for all of the mentors who have helped me throughout my career and life. And almost every successful person I have ever met can vividly describe the mentor or mentors who helped shape their business knowledge and put them on the path to becoming who they are today. Mentors can be people who come into your life for a brief period or those who stick around forever. One of the best pieces of advice I can offer young entrepreneurs is that they should always be looking for mentors in their field and soaking up as much as they can from them.

My firm belief in mentoring and helping provide mentorship has been a significant focus of mine for the past few years. In 2015, I was appointed a Global Ambassador of Entrepreneurship as part of the Presidential Ambassadors for Global Entrepreneurship to help under-served entrepreneurs. I was tapped by President Obama to work on his My Brother’s Keeper initiative to help mentor and support young African American males. And in 2015 I also launched my own mentor program, Daymond John’s Success Formula, which has held events across the nation that have been attended by over 100,000 people.

My friend and current mentor Jay Abraham recently shared a study with me that I found particularly illuminating. The study showed that startups that have helpful mentors and learn from those thought leaders raise seven times more capital and have over three times better user growth. Think about that for a second. This one single thing made that much of a tangible difference on these businesses. Mentorship is what allowed the successful companies to focus, not take funding too soon, and scale at a good pace. If you needed a reminder how vital good mentorship is in business, there it is right there.

My first mentor was my mother. I have talked time and time again about how influential my mom was. However, most of the stuff that she taught me I didn’t fully comprehend or understand until I was at least 20 years old. Like most kids, I was deaf to my mother’s advice as a teen. Eventually, the lessons stuck though. My mother used to say, “money is a great slave but a horrible master.” She helped me gain financial education, which if you’ve read my books or routinely read my column in Jetset, you know I believe it is one of the most important things we need to impart to the younger generation.

My mom taught me that it was my homework that was going to make me wealthy, not my remedial summer job. So, she used the summer as an opportunity to expose me to different people and cultures. She would save up all year so that she could afford to send me away come June. I will never forget how incredible it was that she managed to do this (and had the wisdom to know it’s importance).

One summer she sent me to stay with her friend on a naval base in Hawaii. (Other summer trips included Barbados, Trinidad, Canada, California wine country, and more.) Even though we were poor, my mother somehow found a way, whether putting me up with family or close friends, to make sure I developed a global view. The impact that had on me is quite profound. It taught me to appreciate a variety of cultures and broadened my outlook on the world.

Another mentor of mine, my stepfather Steve, came into my life after my parents got divorced. He is a white, Jewish man, who takes pride in his faith and culture. Steve taught me that I should be proud of who I am. He told me that I should absolutely be “pro-black,” but also not be anti-anything else. So I have embraced my racial identity, but never judged or put down any other race or culture. Living with Steve taught me that people are people. Here was a guy who came from relative wealth, but all he cared about was health and happiness. And Steve also had a passion for animal preservation and rescue, which has stuck with me as well.

My FUBU partners were tremendous mentors too. Like any good business partners, their impact was invaluable. Keith, Carl, and Jay were my guys, my brothers really, whom I came up with and knew since I was ten years old. We used to call it “the brain trust,” as on the days that I wanted to quit, they wouldn’t let me and I on the days when they wanted to give up, I would save the day. We were working towards a common goal, and we were a force to be reckoned with.

Two more people, Norman and Bruce, became my partners after replying to an ad I had placed in a newspaper, seeking investors for FUBU. They didn’t have much experience in the urban market, but they were smart enough to let me do what I do best — market, brand, design and construct — while doing what they do best, make goods and sell them. We had a fantastic partnership back then, and still do today. Without these five people, I would not have been able to scale that business into the multi-billion-dollar force it was at its height.

These mentors and the lessons they taught me have stuck with me until today. With every year of wisdom and every piece of new business knowledge, I appreciate and respect them more. The value of what they provided me is why I launched Daymond John’s Success Formula. The idea was to work to help millions of men and women achieve their goals of becoming successful entrepreneurs and escaping the dreaded and destructive paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle. We help them carve out a structure for success modeled after some of the most sought-after media moguls in the world.

Nothing makes me happier than sharing what I have learned and helping as many new entrepreneurs as I can get on a pathway to success by teaching proven business strategies. A team of talented professionals run this program on my behalf across the country. We have held over 900 workshops in almost 600 cities, and I have almost 100 qualified instructors helping spread the word. As I said before, over 100,000 people have attended our events, and over 15,000 people have become paying students. Because of the Success Formula, I am able to educate and mentor exponentially more entrepreneurs than if I was doing it on my own and I couldn’t be prouder.

So, my advice to you is this. First, I want you to take a moment to reflect back on the mentors you have had in your life. These can be anyone from parents to teachers to bosses and business partners. Think about the lessons they’ve taught you and how you’ve applied them to your career. Then, I want you to think about the people you have mentored on your path to success. How did you specifically help them? What lessons did you impart? And finally, I want you to think about how you can continue to mentor and pass along your wisdom to help grow more businesses and create new generations of millionaires. Because nothing in business is more rewarding.

Daymond John’s new book Rise and Grind: How to Out-Perform, Out-Work and Out-Hustle the Competition is now available online and in bookstores everywhere.

The post Proper Guidance: The Importance of Having Good Mentors appeared first on JetsetMag.com.

I begin my new book with a quote from the Dalai Lama. In it, he says his biggest surprise about humanity is that we sacrifice our health to make money, and then spend our money to take care of our health. He goes on to say that as a result, “Man does not live in the present or the future. He lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.” It is powerful stuff, and it really opened my eyes to the cruel reality that many successful people face. We work so hard to build an empire that we sacrifice our lives and health to get there.

Just look at Steve Jobs. Probably the most admired entrepreneur of the past century, anyone who’s read Walter Isaacson’s brilliant biography of him knows that he was notoriously obsessive and devoted to his work. The man often worked from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. and would go without sleep altogether when he was locked into a groundbreaking project like the iPhone. He would demand things of his team that were deemed impossible, but somehow under his leadership, they found a way. As a result of his tireless efforts, he made Apple what it is today and left us with some of the most substantial innovations of our time…but he also wore himself down and died at the age of 56.

Now as you may know, in April, I learned I had stage II thyroid cancer. Luckily after having surgery to remove the nodule on my neck, I am fine. But the incident put things into perspective for me. As anyone does when faced with their own mortality, I began to reflect. It took this giant wake-up call for me to realize that the reason I was put on this earth was to make life better for the people around me — not just the people I love and keep close, but the people all around me.

So how do you change the world like Steve Jobs and still have time for your family or your health? Because if you think about it, time is the only thing we can’t get back in this world. Once we spend it, it’s gone, so you’ve got to make sure you’re investing it wisely. And whether we have a hundred dollars in the bank or a hundred million, we all get the same twenty-four hours a day. The key is learning how to put those hours to work for you so that you can make an impact while being as productive as possible.

Every day I get up — before the sun, some mornings — and start grinding at my goals, hard. I go to sleep—stupid-late, most nights — still grinding. Because when I hear people say there isn’t time enough in the day to do everything they need to do, it gets me upset. Yeah, I get that it sometimes feels like there aren’t enough hours in the day, but the feeling only hits me when I’m not using those hours wisely. When I’m not efficient, organized, on it. But if I’m on top of my game, in tireless pursuit, there’s always time. And if it starts looking like the clock is about to run out on me, I’ll work even harder.

“One common trait I notice in all the people I meet who are thriving and striving: every single one of them has got a killer work ethic.”

Now I’ve seen some things, met all kinds of interesting, ridiculously successful people. I’ve hung around with world leaders and game-changers. I’m always learning from these people, and one of the things I’ve learned is that there is no secret formula for success. However, there are specific essential ingredients that are always in the mix. One common trait I notice in all the people I meet who are thriving and striving: every single one of them has got a killer work ethic. Seriously, they are up and at it each and every day, and they are at it hard. You could call it drive. You could call it determination. You could call it oomph, grit, or hustle.

I call it rising and grinding. And in my new book, Rise and Grind, l share a bunch of my day-to-day habits and routines to show how I make the best use of my 24/7. I also break down the rituals of some of the world’s most successful people, from all walks of life — people who inspire me, who amaze me, who push me to be the very best I can be. I asked them what they do as soon as they get up in the morning, where they turn for inspiration, how they organize their days. I asked them some tougher questions, too — questions I’m asked almost every day by aspiring entrepreneurs who want to make something of themselves, and by corporate leaders who bring me in to motivate their employees and get them to start thinking outside the box.

As a successful person yourself, I am sure you have your own set of rules and routines for maximizing productivity every day. I am sure you have your own specific guidelines for grinding. But my advice is never to forget that we grind to get and keep ahead, but that we also grind to make our world a better place for the people we love. For some of us, that might mean our world close to home. For others, we might keep a bigger picture in mind. At the very least, we always need to make time for our loved ones (and because we care about them, take the best possible care of our health) and be mindful of the impact we are leaving on the world. So keep grinding my friends…just make sure you’re doing it efficiently and never losing sight of what’s important.

Daymond John’s new book Rise and Grind: How to Out-Perform, Out-Work and Out-Hustle the Competition is available online and in bookstores everywhere on January 23rd.

The post Pledge Allegiance to the Grind: Remembering to Hustle With Purpose appeared first on JetsetMag.com.

I launched FUBU in my early twenties. As many of you know, I started out sewing hats in the living room of my mom’s house with the money I made working at Red Lobster and selling them on the street corner. I managed to turn that into a $4 billion clothing empire. I am not bragging when I tell this very familiar story; I just want to remind you that anything is possible and take the time to carefully illustrate some of the steps that got me from Point A to B. It wasn’t blind luck, and it certainly didn’t happen overnight.

For those of you who have launched successful brands of your own (of any scope and in any industry), then you know the tremendous amount of blood, sweat, and tears that go into building a brand. You have to live and breathe it. You have to represent it at every turn and constantly be thinking about how you can further it. It’s a painstaking process, but when it does finally take off, you feel immense pride and ownership in seeing your baby grow and evolve into something beyond you, something bigger with a life of its own.

As a Jetset reader, odds are you have already scaled to great heights in your field. Every true entrepreneur has tales of success and failure, lessons learned and crises overcame. And when Jetset told me they were running their first-ever Entrepreneur Issue — aimed at honoring and educating entrepreneurs both young and old — they asked me what I wanted to write about, what wisdom I had to share on the subject. My first thought was to offer five rules for those launching a brand for the first or fifteenth time. So whether you are young and hungry like I was, or far more seasoned and simply looking to break into a new field, here are a few things I wish I would have known back when I was that kid in Queens with dreams of a brand of my own….

Invest in Financial Intelligence

In my last Jetset article, I wrote about the importance of educating our new workforce for the jobs of tomorrow. I talked about the antiquated, inept nature of our education system and lamented the fact that people today are not taught basic financial intelligence. Kids come out of college with insane credit card debt. They are brought up in the culture of “you need money to make money.” But whether you are operating a billion dollar business or launching a clothing line or simply managing your portfolio, you need to have sound financial intelligence.

This extends beyond going to business school and getting an MBA. Now despite the fact that I never went to college, I will never disparage higher education. But I will say that your education doesn’t stop when you grab that diploma. If you are a real entrepreneur, then your business education is a life-long work-in-progress. It never ceases. For those trying to launch a new brand (or any business venture), I cannot stress the importance of finding knowledgeable people in your field and doing the proper market research. Conduct cost analysis, interview people, study similar companies and market trends. The better your financial education, the better your brand. Period. And be smart with your money. Never let that financial education go to waste.

Take Affordable Steps

Don’t go out and try to build Rome in a day. If you have ten pieces of product that you can’t sell, then raising $10,000,000 to have a million pieces of crap just puts you in a far deeper hole. You may think you are doing great but you are really just leveraging your brand to death. One of the top reasons a lot of new entrepreneurs fail is not because they lack funding — just look at Silicon Valley, where thousands of VCs out there are just dying to inject nascent businesses with cash — it’s actually the opposite. Many businesses fail because they are overfunded.

If someone was starting a company and they went out and borrowed ten times what they are worth and mortgaged their house to fund it, I would tell them they are being extremely foolish. Same for the man with $100 million in assets who seeks a billion dollars in funding to launch a brand. No matter where you are at, take affordable steps. Don’t overextend yourself or ever allow yourself to be dug into a hole. For six years while I was launching FUBU I was still taking shifts at Red Lobster. Why? Because it gave me medical benefits, kept the lights on, and kept me fed (perhaps too well). Now I was only making about $35,000 a year, but over the course of six years, that added up to over $200,000. That’s over $200,000 that I didn’t have to borrow, $200,000 of debt that I didn’t have hamstringing my fledgling business. Never lose that mentality.

Rethink OPM

Everyone in business is familiar with the concept of OPM, or “Other People’s Money.” Countless billionaires built their entire careers off of OPM. (Heck, our new president has often bragged about his OPM prowess.) But one of my mother’s greatest contributions to my financial education (and there were many), was getting me to think about the “M” in OPM as something beyond money. Other People’s Manufacturing. Other People’s Mentoring. Other People’s Manpower. Other People’s Mindpower…the list goes on. Regardless of how much capital you have, you need to constantly be leveraging. You need to constantly be thinking of ways to utilize other people’s assets.

When I got my first $50,000 order, I was ecstatic….until I realized I didn’t have the money to actually fulfill it. Determined to find a solution, I went to the printer who used to charge me $6.25 a pop to screen print a shirt. I told him to instead charge me $7.50 per shirt, ship the shirts directly to the retailer, and in turn, the retailer would pay them. Why did it work? Because it was Other People’s Manufacturing. It was a win-win-win scenario. The retailer got to do business with someone they knew had an established business and could trust (not some kid in a busted Nissan), the printer got a new retail contact they could possibly exploit later (and an extra $1.25 a shirt), and I got paid without lifting a finger or (most importantly) giving up a single point of precious equity.  Always be thinking about how you can utilize other people’s assets to benefit all parties.

Find a Way to Catch Fire

When I was trying to make FUBU grow, I knew I needed the proper spokespeople to help it reach the next step. The biggest rapper on the planet at the time was LL Cool J, who had just signed a multi-million-dollar deal with The Gap. Lucky for me LL was from Queens and still lived there. We knew where he lived, so my crew and I camped out at LL’s house for hours, determined to talk to him. When he finally came outside, we showed him the clothes. LL was a businessman, he had financial education, so he was reluctant to wear a product for free when he was getting millions to wear another. But I convinced him that wearing FUBU would prove he still represented where he came from, still hadn’t forgotten his roots. He reluctantly took some clothes.

A little while later, The Gap aired a commercial featuring LL rapping while wearing nothing but Gap clothes…that is nothing except the FUBU hat they inexplicably let him wear (and mention by name when he spelled out the brand’s acronym in his rap). After that, our orders went through the roof. The next year, we cleared $300 million in sales. In one master stroke, my brand had caught fire. My advice? Find your LL. Find that one person or demographic or venue that is going to best help drive your brand into the stratosphere (and at minimal cost). If you are launching a clothing company, you could borrow or spend a ton of capital on a massive marketing budget…or you could just mail one article of clothing to 100 demographically relevant celebrities with a hand-written note. If just one of them wears it on their Instagram, you just did more for your brand than a million dollar marketing campaign ever could.

Know Your Brand…And Protect it at All Costs

Your customers are part of your company’s ecosystem. You must create trust with the people who buy your products and make them invest in you and your business. Their belief in what you do will result in returns beyond imagination. But never lose sight of who your audience is, what they want, and above all else, what your brand is. I knew FUBU to its core. I knew that LL was the perfect person to help it grow. If I could have gotten a hat on Steven Tyler, I would have probably said no, because, despite his legendary fame, he was not my brand. Never lose sight of your brand. Never lose sight of your core audience. Follow these steps and don’t be affraid to dream big.

The post How to Launch a Successful Brand: Honest Advice for Entrepreneurs appeared first on JetsetMag.com.

At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, I had the pleasure of visiting with one of the nations’s top auto manufacturers. This enlightening meeting gave me a little insight into how they do business and helped get me up-to-date on everything that they’re working on. The most exciting thing? Their new technology concerning self-driving cars. I am always looking towards the future, and I am convinced — especially after visiting with this automaker — that autonomous vehicles are going to play a huge role in our future. But something they shared alarmed me. They told me they can’t find enough technicians to service these vehicles. How could that be? I wondered.

It really speaks to a larger problem in our country, one that begins in the classroom. Kids these days are going to college for four years, and getting out two-hundred or three-hundred thousand dollars in debt. This places a tremendous burden on them as they begin their careers. Imagine starting a basketball game down twenty points; your chances of success aren’t great, are they? And the worst part is that fifty percent of these kids in school today will end up retiring with a job title that doesn’t exist anymore. Think about that for a second. Think about the massive amount of debt these kids are acquiring, and remind yourself that many of them are studying for job titles that will be either antiquated or obsolete.

On the other hand, as countless jobs disappear, others (many in entirely new or developing sectors) are being created. The automaker I met with said that they can find tons of traditional mechanics — the kinds that work at body shops and dealerships — but the specialists they actually need are scarce, to say the least. The week after CES, I went and spoke at the Associated Equipment Distributors (AED) Summit and Construction Dealer Expo (CONDEX), and they told me that whether it is for crane operators or technicians or bulldozer operators, their job listings are vacant for 15 months. 15 months! Meanwhile, another 5,000 steel workers will probably have gotten laid off by the time you read this….

Unlike my fellow shark Mark Cuban, I am not a political guy. People that know me know that I steer clear of heated debates and try not to get involved in public political discussions; it’s just not who I am. I have met our new president several times, and I know many people who have done business with him. There are things I like about him, and things I don’t. I didn’t support him, yet there are definitely some things I agree with that he has proposed. But there is one thing, in particular, he has said that frustrates me, one thing he has really hammered on that I feel is somewhat disingenuous.

Frequently throughout the campaign (and now in the White House), President Trump has talked about how he is going to bring back manufacturing and coal mining jobs. He has gone to the plants, hosted members of these communities, and made several firms, declarative promises. Now I understand where he is coming from; he wants to acknowledge the people that feel like society doesn’t care about them (and in many ways, the forgotten blue-collar workers in the Rust Belt are the reason he got elected). But I feel like he is doing these people a grave disservice.

He doesn’t want to tell them the truth. But if we truly care about them (as I believe he does), then we have to be honest with them. The truth is that many of these people’s jobs are not coming back. The world has changed, manufacturing has changed, and energy is changing as well. Many jobs that have been shipped to China or Mexico are gone for good. But where some see despair, I see opportunity. What if we taught these steel workers to become crane operators? What if we taught these coal miners to work at solar plants? And what if we taught our truck drivers to become autonomous car techs?

The car manufacturer I met with told me that these technicians can earn up to $150,000 a year. Even better, they only have to go to school one year, not four like so many of these kids who are piling on debt to learn an antiquated trade and pray for a 50k a year starting salary. The crane/bulldozer operators and machine technicians I learned about at the CONDEX? They can make over $200,000 a year. And these are just some of the “blue collar” jobs; the tech companies of tomorrow are literally begging for more well-trained technicians and programmers. I could go on, but the fact is that there are countless good, high-paying jobs out there in new and emerging industries.

We just need better education. Schools in this country (at all levels) are antiquated. I could dive way in depth on this topic, but that is a different article for a different time. All I am going to say is that we need to start being honest with not just our blue collar workers, but our kids as well. They deserve it. Reality check. Not everyone who graduates high school should go to college, and not everyone who goes to college is going to become a doctor, teacher, or lawyer. But everyone who goes to college will leave with massive amounts of debt. So why not start at the beginning and find the right path for each student before they learn useless information and pile on tremendous debt?

I am also a realist. I know that educating workers, who have spent years in dying industries, to learn a new trade will be tough. But it’s not impossible. And it’s far easier to reform our education system from grade school to trade school to make sure that we are training our workers for the careers of the future, not the careers of the past. Now, as a Jetset reader, you may be wondering how exactly this all applies to you. But this issue goes way beyond moral responsibility. These are the people that will make our businesses successful for generations, and our financial future is directly tied to theirs. So let’s start being honest with them. Let’s start really educating them. Our future depends on it.

The post Investing In Our Future: Educating for the Jobs of Tomorrow appeared first on JetsetMag.com.

If your business is really a business, then you have employees. And if you have enough employees, then you have to have an office. On Shark Tank, Kevin is always talking about the difference between a business and a hobby. Well, an office is a pretty good way to make the distinction. It’s the difference between when I was knitting hats alone in my living room and actually running FUBU with a team of people on each floor of my house. At the time, I ran the business out of my house out of necessity and as a way to save money. Why pay a high price for office space if I don’t have to? I thought. But nowadays, there is another option for small business owners.

It’s called co-working spaces, or shared office spaces. One of the hottest new trends in the business world, here’s how it works. Basically, you pay for memberships (the prices of which vary based on the size of your business) at large communal office spaces, typically in urban and metropolitan areas. A far cry from those awful, brain-draining, florescent-lit cubicle farms people associate with large workspaces, these are usually in cool, modern buildings. They have nice new furniture, lots of large windows, and a layout specifically designed for one purpose…to foster interaction.

The sense of a community is one of the things I loved most about those early FUBU days. We turned my home into a factory/headquarters/living space, with raw materials in the basement, production on the main floor, and our office and sleeping areas upstairs. We lived like that for about two years, and you certainly feel a bond with your employees when you see each other every single day. I imagine it’s how all the tech startups running their business out their houses in Silicon Valley feel. I imagine it’s how Steve Jobs and the Apple guys felt back in the day.

But like I said, for your business to truly be a business, eventually you have to take the next step. And if you still want to feel that sense of unity, but look professional and save money, I love the shared option. What it does is it allows you to work alongside other startup companies in the same space. This constant networking can pay off big-time for your business, but beyond that, it allows everyone to feed off of each other’s creativity. You can see what works for other businesses and what doesn’t. Co-working spaces foster interaction while giving you a peek at what other companies of comparable size are doing.

As you may have heard, I had an opportunity to invest in Uber a while back and regretfully passed. It kills me to this day because I pride myself in being able to see trends and knowing when something might be the next big thing. But in my opinion, co-working spaces are the way of the future, and I want to be a part of it in some way. I love the concept so much that I am launching my own shared office space, blueprint + co, in Midtown Manhattan this year. I want it to be a place where like-minded entrepreneurs can work alongside one another, sharing ideas, helping each other along the way.

I also want it to be an affordable and accessible option for entrepreneurs. I will never forget what it felt like when I was first struggling to make it with FUBU. We did the home factory/office out of necessity, but I wish there was something like this available. I am truly confident that blueprint + co is going to be fantastic, but regardless of where you are or which one you choose, I strongly urge all small business owners to consider the shared office option. Working with young and new entrepreneurs has been perhaps the greatest thing to come out of Shark Tank. I get inspired and encouraged by their

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As someone who has been fortunate enough to fly private for almost two decades, I would like to think that I know a thing or two about the luxury of private air travel and how much easier and more care-free it can make your business trips and vacations. Between filming Shark Tank and my role as a Presidential Ambassador, between the dozens of businesses I manage and countless speaking engagements I have each year, I am flying constantly — and commercial air travel is simply not a viable option. What would take me a week flying commercial will take me two days in a private jet. (And now as Shark Tank gets more popular, I tend to get stopped more and more at commercial airports by people pitching their business ideas, which chews up a lot of my time!)

I will never forget the feeling of purchasing my first plane back in 1999. It was obviously a huge milestone in my life (as I am sure it was in yours, if you have been lucky enough to experience the same feeling). As a kid from Queens who started his business by selling hats on the streetcorner, owning a private jet was the ultimate status symbol. It was the kind of thing I had dreamed about but could never actually imagined happening. It was one last way to show the world that I had arrived.

But after a few years, I started examining the costs of owning the jet and realizing that it was quietly bleeding me. Between housing the plane, fuel, pilots, crew, taxes, fees, and more, it was starting to become a huge burden. To me, it didn’t matter that I had a six billion dollar business — I certainly didn’t get to where I was by being foolish with my money (as my book, The Power of Broke, and last two Jetset columns can attest) — and dumb money was dumb money. So I started to wonder if there was a more viable option. As it turns out, there was….

I did my research and found that the cost-per-mile when you own a plane is (on average) around $12, whereas if you charter, the cost is anywhere from $6 to $10 per mile. Furthermore, the annual cost is on average about $800,000 for ownership versus $450,000 for chartering. Even if, like me, you charter 20, 30 times a year, you are still saving money. Almost as important, you are saving the hassle and headache associated with owning an aircraft. (I don’t care how rich you are, it still stings going on a two-week Caribbean vacation and have to spring for your entire crew to have one too!) So around 2002, I sold my plane and started chartering, and have never looked back.

Now, of course there are still several pros to owning your own jet: You can decorate your plane however you chose, and every time you fly, you can leave your personal belongings on-board. You can throughly vet your pilots and crew, and control exactly who does (and does not) ride on your aircraft. And then there’s the big one — the one that, let’s face it, everyone really cares about. When you own your own jet, it’s your jet, and you can make sure everyone knows it (heck, you can even write your name across the side in big, bold letters like Donald Trump). There’s a special ring to saying, “Hey want to take my private jet to Vegas?” Like I said, it’s the ultimate status symbol.

But if you’re like me and your bottom line is more important than impressing people — if you want to enjoy the ease of private travel without breaking the bank — then chartering (or maybe fractional ownership) is probably the best way to go. Today there are a number of charter companies that offer proven safety, reliability, and service — and most of them, like VolJet and JetSmarter, have their own apps that make chartering a private jet cross-country almost as easy as calling an Uber.

Personally, I have been using JetSmarter for a while now, and I could not be happier. When I have to go shoot Shark Tank, or speak at something like the Global Entrepreneur Summit, I just fire up the app or give them a call, and I have a G4 waiting for me in no time. It is honestly as easy as booking a commercial flight on Expedia, maybe even easier. Like a lot of these companies, they offer memberships that provide many useful benefits and discounts to people like me who fly constantly — including great rates on “empty legs” all over America.

So while nothing can truly compare with the total control and “look at me” status that owning your own private jet provides — and if you have billions in the bank like my fellow shark Mark Cuban, more power to you — for me, the more sensible option is chartering. I save money, save headache, and still always arrive in style…and isn’t that all that really matters?

The post Owning Versus Chartering: What is the Best Way to Fly Private? appeared first on JetsetMag.com.

In the last issue, I broke down in detail what the power of broke is. For this column I am going to tell you exactly how you can tap into this incredible power. As I said before, the power of broke is about working harder, faster, smarter, and more efficiently, so let’s take a look at one of the ways we can all be doing that — no matter where we live, who we know, or what industry or business we’re trying to disrupt. And let’s be clear: You don’t have to be a tech-visionary like my friend Gary Vaynerchuk. You don’t have to be Jeff Bezos. You don’t have to have millions of dollars in the bank or a bunch of seed money behind you. No, you just have to have the passion, ingenuity, hustle, and drive: the entrepreneurial heart.

Since my last column, The Power of Broke, has been released and become a New York Times bestseller. And as I travel the country promoting it, I keep encountering people whose lives this philosophy has affected. Many of these people had already found the power of broke on their own; I just gave it a name. And as they share their incredible stories with me and tell me how this philosophy has changed their lives, what I keep remembering time and time again is that it starts with goals. You must have goals, set them firmly, and never lose sight of them. And that brings me to my first of five SHARK Points for unleashing the power of broke:

SET A GOAL

It all comes down to knowing where you’re headed. Surely your past business experience has taught you that things rarely ever turn out as planned, so be realistic on this. Aim too high and you’re bound to be frustrated, disappointed; aim too low and you might leave some opportunities on the table, so take the time to get it right. Think what’s possible in a best-case scenario. Think what’s possible in a worst-case scenario. Think what’s in reach. Then reach a little more—but set it all down on paper. Commit to it.

These days, I’m all about writing down my goals on a piece of paper. At any given time, I’ll have about seven goals that I spend some time with about five days each week — I try to give myself two days in there where I can just relax, refresh. I’ll read over these goals at night, so they’re the last things I think about before I go to sleep. Sometimes this helps me to dream about them — that’s the idea. Then I’ll read them again in the morning, first thing—and the idea here is that I can hopefully make a small step forward in each of these areas if I set everything in motion before the rest of the day runs away from me.

HOMEWORK, DO YOURS

In almost every business, analytics are key. Know your field, know your competitors, know your stuff. After all, if you don’t know your stuff, how can you hope to know what’s possible? How can you prepare yourself for what’s coming? So part of doing your homework means appreciating the history of your idea, your market, and your competition. “A fool can learn from his own mistakes, but a wise man learns from the mistakes of others.” That’s a line I picked up from Mr. Magic, an old-school radio deejay from New York. The thought behind it reinforces this concept that there are no new ideas—only new ways to execute those ideas.

Homework these days means analytics. It means looking at others who’ve succeeded in the same field. But go ahead and also look at all the businesses that failed to connect with your market, and see what you can learn from their missteps. These people failed so you don’t have to. Why fail on your own dime and on your own time if you don’t have to? Say you’ve already had great success in one field and now you’re contemplating another, radically different one, you must do your homework!

ADORE WHAT YOU DO

Never, ever underestimate the immense power of passion. You’ve got to love, love, love what you’re doing — otherwise, why not do something else? “The only way to do great work is to do what you love.” That one’s from Steve Jobs, and it’s been repeated into the ground, but I’m repeating it here because it’s an all-important point. Own it, love it, live it…and you can find a way to make it work.

Do you love what you do? Would you do it for free? If not, then maybe you should think about doing something else. Sure, money and success can be powerful motivators, and for a lot of us our bottom line is our bottom line, but even a little guy like Moziah Bridges (the 11-year-old kid with the great bow tie business I invested on Shark Tank), knows that out of his joy in making great ties, good things will come. So what makes you happy? What are you passionate about? What’s your bow tie? Figure it out and embrace it. Once you make joy your biggest asset, you’re way ahead of the game.

REMEMBER, YOU ARE THE BRAND

I opened my book The Brand Within with: “You are what you eat. You are what you wear. You are what you drive, where you live, what you drink, how you vote, what you stand for, how you love, hate, dedicate…you with me on this?” I still feel the same way today, especially when it comes to building a business or career. With the advent and expansion of social media, branding has only become more and more crucial and omnipresent.

In my new book I tell the story of Gigi Butler, a Nashville woman who started up a cupcake business with just $33 to her name. It is a tremendous tale of the American entrepreneurial spirit and the power of broke in action. You see, Gigi has been nurturing the “Gigi” brand her entire life. At fifteen, she put her name on her first cleaning business. After that, her first band carried her name. At each step along the way, she’s worked hard to ensure that the name would stand for something genuine, something real, something of value. And people connect to that.

Because it’s all about how you carry yourself, what you put out into the world, the way you interact with your audience, your customers, the marketplace — it’s on you. So represent it faithfully.

KEEP SWIMMING

Even when they’re asleep, sharks are slipping through the ocean, swimming, scheming, getting ready to attack—which is pretty much the approach you have to take when you’re starting out in business. You have to be relentless, nimble, moving ever forward. No matter what. And real sharks out in the ocean, if they don’t keep swimming, they die — so keep this in mind, too.

If you’re reading Jetset, chances are that you have attained a certain level of success. You have worked hard, set goals, and like many of the people I have been encountering, followed the power of broke whether you knew it or not. But the key now is to maintain that power so that you never become stagnant. And as nice as it is to chill by the beach and enjoy the fruits of your labor (which you should be doing from time to time), you can never stop swimming, scanning the vast ocean and searching for your next multimillion or (hopefully) multibillion-dollar idea.

To understand these SHARK Points more fully, check out the guide I’ve created specifically for you at: DaymondJohn.com/PowerofBroke. It’s a dynamic resource designed to help you wrap your head around this SHARK mind-set, and to guide you as you begin to tap into assets you might not even know you have.

And know this: no matter how old you are, the power of broke never leaves you. It’s not something you outgrow, outpace, or out-earn. It’s not something you can shake once you get a couple bucks in the bank. No, it gets in your DNA—and that’s a good thing, because you’ll almost certainly need to call on it throughout your career. So keep swimming.

When you want it, when you need it, you find a way to make  good things happen. – The Power of Broke by Daymond John

The post Unleashing the Power of Broke appeared first on JetsetMag.com.

Daymond John

In my inaugural column last issue, I mentioned the concept which defines my new book, The Power of Broke. Now I am going to further break down just what the power of broke is.

The power of broke is a mindset. It exists in all of us, whether we have money, opportunities, or advantages. Trouble is, most people don’t recognize this power for what it is. They leave it alone, or maybe they don’t even know it’s there. Instead, they buy into the line from the people in who tell us that there’s a certain way to start businesses — we need money.

But that only works for a few of us — and only for a while. Why? Because, take it from me, the power of broke is all about substance over flash. It’s about creativity over certainty. It’s about taking a shot over playing it safe. And here’s another thing: The money runs out after a while. Those deep pockets you (as a Jetset reader, almost certainly) have, they’ll never be deep enough to buy all the passion, ingenuity, and determination it takes to have success over the long haul. Even if you’ve got money behind you, there’s no guarantee that it will see you through. It’s the money in front of you that counts, after all. It’s the money you need, not the money you have, that makes all the difference.

“The power of broke is the half-court shot you fire up with time running out and the game on the line.”

– Daymond John

Because let’s face it, when you’re up against all odds, when you’ve exhausted every opportunity, when you’re down to your last dime… that’s when you’ve got no choice but to succeed. You’re out of options, so you double down, dig deep, and switch into that relentless turbo mode we’ve all got kicking around in our machinery. And that’s when the real magic happens. Are we clear on this? The power of broke is the half-court shot you fire up with time running out and the game on the line. It’s the shot your teammates won’t take because the likelihood of that ball kissing the net is pretty damn thin and they don’t want to mess with their stat lines. They’re playing the percentages while you’re playing to win — and this can mean everything.

I don’t mean to mix my sports metaphors here, but I’m reminded of that great Wayne Gretzky line, “We miss one hundred percent of the shots we don’t take.” So, take the damn shot! Absolutely, take the shot. The power of broke is all about taking that shot. The power of broke is looking up at the sky, wondering what you’ve got to do to catch a break, and saying, “God, why am I doing this?” It’s living with the constant fear that you’ve gone crazy for putting it all on the line — but putting it out there anyway. There might be a million reasons for you to throw up your hands, throw in the towel, throw away your dreams, and put an end to whatever craziness you’re pursuing, but the power of broke is that one reason you keep going.

So even if you just sold your brilliant startup for a billion dollars, or you’re the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, or just signed that $100 million contract with the Yankees, you have to continue to summon the power of broke. You have to remember the hunger which fueled you in those early years. Because when you’ve got nothing to lose, you’ve got everything to gain. Sometimes it takes having your back against the wall, leveraging your last dollar, and having no place to go but up, up, up if you expect something to happen. Because if you’ve got to succeed to survive, you will. Trust me on this.

I come from the world of fashion. And a lot of the most iconic fashion brands started out in a small, hand-sewn way. Haute couture, at the high-end of high fashion, is based on the same principle: high-quality clothing, made by hand, with a personal touch. In French, the word couture simply means “dressmaking,” and when it started out, it just referred to plain folks figuring out a way to dress nicely — to turn their rags and loose fabrics into clothing that made them feel a little more like nobles. But today the term has come to symbolize the best of the best. Why? Because it came about in this genuine way.

This idea that the best concepts and innovations tend to happen organically, authentically, is not limited to art and discovery. It cuts to our personal lives, too. Our most lasting relationships are built on the same solid foundation. It’s got to be pure, got to be real, or else it just won’t work. If you’re a guy, and you pull up to meet a girl in a hot car, you’ll make a certain kind of first impression, right? Then you take her out for an expensive dinner, buy her a nice pair of shoes and maybe some bling, sip the finest champagne, and by the end of the night, guess what? She’s into you. And if you keep it up, at end of the week, she’s totally into you. Doesn’t matter what you look like; all that matters is that you showered her with power, bought her a bunch of gifts and flowers, took her away on romantic weekends, and so on. It all adds up. You’ve presented yourself to her in a certain way.

But what happens to that kind of relationship in the long run? What happens when all that money goes away and there’s nothing left but to be yourself? What happens when you buy her a present every time you see her, and then all of a sudden you lose your job? Then what? Don’t be surprised if you find your relationship was only as strong as the money you put into it. When the jewelry runs out, there’s no more fancy dinners, and the getaway vacations end… what’s left? You’ve been riding a superficial high, a false emotion — and it’s bound to catch up to you.

Or let’s say you open a new restaurant. You design a gorgeous new space, in the best part of town. You have no experience in the kitchen, but you have the money to hire a top chef, the best decorators. You have no vision, no specific market you’re trying to serve, no style of cooking that speaks to you, but your research tells you that a certain kind of cuisine is crazy popular right now, the edge of the cutting edge, so that’s what you decide to pursue. Basically, you focus-group the crap out of the place, spend all kinds of money throwing in all the bells and whistles and every conceivable amenity, open your doors, and wait for the tables to fill. But it doesn’t always work out that way, does it?

“Businesses built on steroids and injections of capital are living on borrowed time. When the money runs out, the business runs its course.”

– Daymond John

Remember: Eight out of 10 new businesses fail within the first 18 months. Why is that? Many times, it’s because they’ve been cashed to death. And businesses built on steroids and injections of capital are living on borrowed time. When the money runs out, the business runs its course. Because in the end, it’s about your brand and your relationship with your customer, and with the marketplace. It’s a marriage: I’m giving to you, and you’re giving to me. It’s a partnership: I’m here for you, and you’re here for me. If the authenticity is there, if the business is built on a solid foundation, you’ll have a shot to succeed. If it’s just a superficial enterprise, built on flashy gimmicks, machinated hopes, and a big budget, the odds run a little longer.

My point here is that there’s great value in being true to yourself, having an organic business concept, and behaving like your back is still up against the wall when you’re starting out. That’s why I’ve worked hard to champion the underdogs on Shark Tank, to shine a light on the hardworking success stories, and to help people recognize a good idea — a real idea, a winning idea. Because when you start from a place of nothing much at all, when you’re hungry and laser-focused on succeeding at whatever it is you’re out to do, when you’re flat-out determined to get where you’re going no matter what…well, then you’ve got a running start. You’re moving in the right direction, for the right reasons.

“When you want it, when you need it, you find a way to make good things happen.”

– The Power of Broke by Daymond John is being released January 19th by Crown Business.

Remember those great Rocky movies? When does Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky character start to stumble? When he starts throwing all this money around, letting success go to his head, right? He gets away from wanting it, he gets away from needing it…and it costs him. The same goes in business. When you want it, when you need it, you find a way to make good things happen. When you expect it, when you feel entitled to it, you might just be headed for an ass-whupping. Now, I’m not suggesting that you can’t start a business with a ton of money and great contacts behind you — because, hey, too much of a good thing can still be a good thing. And I’m not suggesting that the only way to start a business is from a place of desperation — because, hey, why struggle if you don’t have to? But I am suggesting that you never lose sight of that early hunger. And that’s the power of broke.

Click here to purchase The Power of Broke on Amazon.

The post Daymond’s Corner – Understanding the Power of Broke appeared first on JetsetMag.com.

I am honored to say that as of this issue, I will be joining Jetset’s esteemed team of Executive Editors. Each issue I will be bringing you my insight and advice on business, entrepreneurship and life.

I look very forward to contributing to a magazine that has such an elite readership. Jetset readers speak my language.

Many of you know me from my time on Shark Tank, others from my work as an entrepreneur. For those of you who are unfamiliar with my bio, I grew up as an only child in Hollis, Queens. It was there that I parlayed selling hats on the street corner I’d sewn myself into the sixbillion- dollar clothing empire known as FUBU. In the process, I didn’t just create a company, I created a brand. I built something that spoke to an entire demographic. What was exciting about our clothes, what a lot of folks connected to, was that we wore them proudly. They were a reflection of our world.

Long before Shark Tank, I was investing in companies and mentoring entrepreneurs. And over the years, I have watched as countless people attempted to launch brands of their own. Some were successful; many were flops. Through my Shark Branding consulting firm, I put entrepreneurs and their products in the hands of influencers and trendsetters. The idea is not to just throw capital at their companies, but rather to teach them how to do what I did. We show them how to actually create a living brand.

Throughout my career I have analyzed business of all sizes. Something that has always fascinated me is what happens when individuals launch brands and create businesses from a place of desperation, of hunger. The fuel that propels them in those strenuous early years is the same fuel that propelled me when I was selling hats on the street corner, trying to launch FUBU. It’s something I have termed the “power of broke.”

The power of broke is a driving force that is responsible for many of the most iconic brands in our history: Apple, Ford and McDonald’s were all founded my men desperate to make ends meet. They poured their blood, sweat and tears into their businesses and built brands that are as iconic as the American flag. But what happens in business when entrepreneurs lose sight of that early ambition? What happens when they lose the power of broke? We all know the story…their brands suffer as a result.

The truth is that eight out of 10 new businesses fail within the first 18 months. It’s simply not enough to have a good idea for a start-up or a hot new product; execution is key. It’s something we strive to reinforce on Shark Tank and it’s the focus of my new book, The Power of Broke.

In the second installment, for my first full, in-depth column, I will be giving an extensive breakdown of this philosophy and advice on how to fuel, or perhaps rekindle, that essential hunger. See you then!

The post A Shark Joins the Jetset Editorial Team appeared first on JetsetMag.com.