Robert thanks for being here I'm looking
forward to this for a couple of days
thank you for having a while what a
packed crowd yeah amazing and every
single one of them an entrepreneur where
do you get that what do you know what
happen you know what's amazing Eric is I
was thinking this morning I came to your
conference years and years ago and sat
in the audience and listened to some guy
probably some big business guy thinking
oh my god one day one day that could be
me and it's really remarkable how you
can achieve anything in life it's also
remarkable how long it takes yeah
I always thought an overnight success
was literally overnight and I don't want
to tell you how many years ago i sat in
the audience and thought oh one day I'll
have a big company and isn't that the
great thing about business you know when
you're doing a million a year you think
I could get to five million one day if I
could get to five million I spoke at a
conference a couple weeks ago and the
biggest business in the room was 2
million and I asked them what how do you
define big what's your dream and they
were like oh five million if I could get
to five million in sales and then you
get to five million and you think 10
million if I can get to 10 million and
that's what I love about businesses it
never stops I mean our company this year
will do close to 150 million and we're
really proud of that and big pat on the
back but on a global scale with the
people we compete with we're
insignificant so we're like 250 how do
we get to 250 let's go yeah but the CEOs
are those other companies don't get
invited to Dancing with the Stars that's
true you know I always tell my customers
you know it's interesting Tony talked
about a brand and I find that as I talk
to a lot of businesses the ones on the
smaller end of the spectrum are
worse at marketing and tend to be worse
at sales large to small or more
successful than not people that tend to
be on this on the spectrum aren't as
sales or marketing driven and I'm
generalizing but they tend to believe
that the world will be two paths to
their door you know they tend to be the
kind of people that say as long as I
build something great people will find
me from my experience I've learned that
you know there's no such thing as genius
in the darkness of the basement the
world does not be a path to your door
there really is no such thing as a
better mousetrap unless you're telling a
customer you have a better mousetrap I
mean you've gone so far let's start at
the very beginning because it's such a
great story you have such a great story
I'll open it by asking about the
creation legend of Robert Herjavec and
start with one word should be egg so
Eric you know the the village I was
raised in is called B egg which is a
Croatian word which at this is how nice
a place it was it actually is the
Croatian word for flee because it was a
small village that during the wars
people would only come to if they were
fleeing somewhere else you know it's
it's an entire melodramatic story I'm
not I'm actually not a first generation
immigrant I actually came to Canada on a
boat when I was 8 years old and the boat
was called to make it even more
hollywoodian melodramatic the boat was
called Christopher Oh Columbo you know
in the whole nine yards my dad was in
jail multiple times and last time he got
thrown in he was told if he ever comes
back he's never coming back and then he
grabbed my mom and I we crossed the
border Italy one suitcase landed on a
dock and my mom remembered she had a
friend and we took the train from
Halifax to Toronto lived in their
basement for 18 months and you know here
we are and so one of the things you know
people always say oh you're the nice
shark and you're nice on the show
now we say well you know it's relative
because the other guys are such jerks at
times right but I am a nice guy until
somebody starts complaining to me about
how hard they have it and I have to tell
you nothing pisses me off more than
people that complain or people that have
this feeling the life owes them
something and I kind of really learned
that from my dad I mean my dad was this
really proud guy and he would say that
he was a political prisoner he wasn't he
was just a young guy who liked to drink
and he would go to a bar in a communist
country drink a little too much and say
screw communism and they throw him in
jail and you know the normal person
would would kind of make that connection
oh if I stand up in a bar and say screw
communism and go to jail this isn't a
good thing my dad took it the other way
he was like I'll show them and so the
next time he stood up he said even worse
things about communism fundamentally he
was a really proud guy and he hated the
idea of building equity or building
capital and having to share it with
somebody who wasn't working as hard as
he was you know the thing I learned for
my dad is he was okay with having
nothing he was okay with working really
hard he was okay with getting knocked
down in life but he wasn't okay if he
created something that was successful
that somebody would take it away from
him and that's what he hated about
communism and what I took out of all
that is you know when we came to Canada
just to get a job he had to work in a
factory and he swept floors and and the
whole nine yards and I'll never forget
one time because it was really hard for
me I grew up in this little village but
my grandmother raised me and I always
liked to talk and so I didn't have to
work hard on the farm there was pigs and
donkeys it was you know it was pretty
good as a small kid and then I come to
North America and I got thrown into a
classroom I don't speak the language I
look funny we're very
poor I never realized we were poor until
I got here I come home one day and I'm
crying because the kids beat me up and
they were mean to me and I'm like oh my
gosh nobody loves me why I don't have
any friends my life sucks and I'm
sitting there complaining to my mom and
my dad walks through the door and he's
kind of listening and he had literally
just walked two miles from the bus stop
after having worked two shifts in the
factory and he's listening to this when
I'm done complaining he looks at me and
he says you know life doesn't owe you
anything never complain all you own is
an opportunity and in this country you
have an opportunity and then he went to
sleep so he could wake up the next day
and work two more shifts pretty amazing
so you know when you have when you have
that as your compass it's really hard to
complain there are days like everybody
in this room there are days where I see
overbearing difficulty there are days
where I see more no than I see yes there
are days where I see harder things than
see opportunities but it doesn't last
that long you know it's not about
eliminating that stuff out of your life
it's working through it and and keeping
going because it's really true this is
still the best country in the world to
start a business there is so much
opportunity in the world today
especially with the internet especially
with the pace of change especially with
cloud computing yes that's right and
this is a period in which
entrepreneurship is a golden profession
to have it get a lot of support it's the
best job in the world to have and you
know because of shows like Shark Tank
it's kind of become cool to be an
entrepreneur which is crazy when you
think about I mean look at the five of
us you couldn't have five weirder
looking people
and in general people think we're kind
of cool I mean it's it just goes to show
you how being an entrepreneur is is
really in the American psyche today take
me through the transition from you know
a lonely Croatian kid finding his way in
Canada to the head of the verge of a
group where'd you get the idea for it
and how did you get started you know
Eric there's we have this argument on
the show all the time when I first
started doing the show and mark came on
I really didn't get along mark is very
Cuban is very pushy mark is about mark
and I don't mean that in a mean way but
he's very aggressive and he's all in
your face all the time a few years later
you know I really like him and he's a
great guy but he's different than I am
I'm really not that pushy and so we have
this argument where he he has this
famous story when he was 12 years old he
was selling mustard packets to kids and
you know and he knew he was going to be
a billionaire when he got older you know
when I was 12 years old all I didn't
know I wanted to be a billionaire I
don't want to be a millionaire I didn't
know anything I just didn't want to be
poor
Source
https://youtu.be/u5uD62Plakg
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