You have to ask a millionaire. What do you mean? I'm a billionaire.

You're a billionaire? Yeah.

Have you ever been broke before? No.

No? And what lot of business are you in?

Let's see, I don't want to tell you that, but I ain't been broke.

Are you a business owner? I was, but I sold my company.

How much did you sell your company for? $255 million.

You sold a company for over $250 billion? I did.

Actually. Yeah.

How old are you now? I'm 39.

And how old were you when you became a millionaire? 17.

17 years old? That's right. You became a billionaire at 17.

Throughout your career, what was the most amount of money that you made in a single year?

In sales? Yes.

Hundreds of millions a year. Did you go to college?

I did go to college.

Elementary was good enough. Elementary was good enough?

Alright, so give me one last lesson about business. It's not time to screw up.

You guys, we just landed in Beverly Hills in one of the richest cities in the entire world,

Los Angeles, California.

And today, I'm going to be going around one of the wealthiest shopping centers out on Rodeo Drive to ask holiday shoppers how they created their wealth, how they grew multi-million dollar, billion dollar net worth, and how you can do the exact same thing and start your path to becoming financially free going into 2025.

So stay tuned from start to finish because this is going to be another banger.

But with that being said, let's get this video on the way.

Excuse me, sir. Yeah.

Question for you. Yeah.

How old were you when you became a millionaire?

You have to ask a millionaire.

What do you mean? I'm a billionaire.

You're a billionaire? Yeah.

How old were you when you became a billionaire?

Oh, in my 50s. In your 50s?

Yeah. And what line of business were you in?

The hospitality business.

What were you doing in hospitality?

It's a funny story. I was busboy to boardroom.

I've done every job. Created Diamond Resorts International.

Yeah, so you're a business owner.

I was. I was. Hilton owns my company today.

Hilton bought your company? Hilton bought my company.

Wow. Eventually, yeah.

What did the company do? I own hotels.

All over the world. 35 countries.

I go all over the world.

And you're one of the most successful entrepreneurs.

Can I get one quick minute with you for the channel?

Sure. Do you come from a lot of money?

No, like I started with negative $20 million.

Unfortunately, my father went broke.

I had to pay it off. So I didn't start from zero.

I started negative $20 million.

Tried that party trick.

What did you turn that into?

I actually created a company.

It was worth $2.2 billion.

$3.3 billion equity value.

Actually? Actually, enterprise value. Yeah.

Wow. What was your relationship with debt as a business owner?

I always made sure that I never over-levered myself.

That I always paid my partners back as quick as I can.

My bank's off as quick as I can.

Before I took money myself.

So I always made sure that people were paid off before I paid myself.

Did you go to college? I did.

Did college help you become a billionaire?

It taught me how to think logically.

Because I went to school to be a surgeon.

I never went to business school.

But I kind of did.

Because Mike Milken helped me learn business.

He gave me my business degree.

And Harry Reid taught me about politics and policy.

You've sold billions of dollars in revenue and in profit throughout your career.

What is a billionaire's secret to sales?

Give me some sauce on sales right here.

Listen.

Is that simple?

Listen.

Yeah.

The customer, your friends, your bankers will always tell you the pathway.

Listen.

Deliver equally greater value.

But what's your best negotiation advice as a billionaire?

Put the pen across the table and the first person who talks loses.

Actually, break that down.

You don't want to speak first in a negotiation is what you're saying.

When the deal is right, it solves itself.

Just put the pen across the table and shut up.

But that comes from listening.

What's the lesson about money that banks don't want people to know?

The lesson, always, I never negotiated with my banks.

Don't negotiate with your banks.

Make sure you make your banks a ton of money.

They'll always be there for you.

What do you mean by that?

Because banks are in the business of making money for themselves.

So how can you kind of, I guess, forego that?

I never negotiated rate.

I always made sure my banks made a lot of money with me.

We all made a lot of money together.

Everyone was always paid back.

Everyone.

My investors early.

My bankers early.

And they all made a lot of money.

So never worry about negotiating rate.

If somebody offers you a deal and it makes sense for everyone, let everyone make money.

Like have you ever been broke before?

Came damn close to being broke.

Never.

But it was usually for unintended consequences like 9-11, the financial crisis of 08-09.

Uncontrollable situations.

What do you mean by 9-11?

When the planes hit the Twin Towers.

And I was in the hotel business and we had guests at our hotel.

And then all the planes stopped flying.

I had no customers.

My cash register went to zero.

How important were relationships for you?

Relationships are always very important.

But a matter of fact, you got to stay out of one zip code.

The zip code of bad people.

If they're around your life, make them go away.

Don't go in that zip code.

You are who you hang around with.

So hang around people that are smarter than you always.

That are more successful than you.

Learn, learn, learn.

And you'll have your time.

But you got to work hard.

There's no free lunch.

There's no lottery.

And if you win the lottery, it's called the lottery curse.

So you will go broke.

Bad things will happen to you.

You have to earn it.

Go fashion way.

Work hard.

What's the red flag that you see in people that tells you to stay away from that person?

When you're leasing a Lamborghini or leasing a house in Bel Air or Beverly Hills, you can't afford it.

Yeah.

Don't stay there.

Don't drive it until you can pay cash for it.

So you can't trust people who are renting is what you're saying.

Flakes, frauds, cons, grifters.

Wow.

You got amazing advice, sir.

Thank you so much for your time.

I appreciate you.

You guys, we just ran into and interviewed a billionaire out here in Beverly Hills.

He said, I'm not a millionaire.

I'm a billionaire with a B.

And I have to say my favorite part of that interview was when he talked about the importance of listening and most importantly to your customers.

Guys, the biggest reason people go out of business is because they have the customers who are buying their products, but they don't listen to what they want, the changes they want being made.

So they're going to go give their business to other people.

If you listen to your customer feedback and figure out what they want in the products and the services that you're offering, you can create real market share and build a winning million dollar business.

Great interview out here in Beverly Hills.

We got to keep this video rolling and go get another one out here.

Come on.

Excuse me, ma'am.

Quick question for you.

Have you ever been broke before?

I have.

And what line of business were you in?

I owned hair salons.

So you were a business owner?

I was, but I sold it.

How much did you sell your company for?

$255 million.

You sold a company for over $250 billion?

I did.

Actually.

Yep.

I go all over the world interviewing the most successful business owners.

Could I get one quick minute with you for the channel real quick?

Sure.

Did you have a lot of money when you started your company?

No, I had no money.

I had no money.

Luckily, my brother had a little bit of money.

My brother was one of the first employees at Yahoo back in the day.

So he had made a little bit of money, but I had no money.

But he offered me basically sweat equity and said, you know, you run the business and I'll, you know, be the day to day.

And he had another job at the time.

I was like, so let me get this straight.

I don't put in any money, but I have 50% equity, which I thought I was like, that's a great deal.

Like, yeah, no, I had nothing back then.

Did you raise a lot of money?

We did.

$75 million.

You raised $75 million?

About $75 million, give or take.

Yeah.

Eight out of 10 companies in today's world, they don't make it past five years.

Oh, I know.

I've invested in a lot of those.

Yeah.

What's the number one reason why those businesses fail?

What I see in general, most businesses, they're just not paying attention to enough of the details that are important.

And also like, I believe in like asking your employees, asking your customers, like what's working for you?

What's not?

And like, most people don't want to hear bad feedback because it hurts.

And you're like, you've put all this money into this business and you don't want to be told like something you thought is good, isn't good.

But if you can get past that and listen and pay attention to what's going on in your business and what's working and what's not working, you know, I just don't think a lot of people even see it to be able to correct it.

So in other words, the littlest things can make some of the biggest differences.

Huge.

I mean, you know how it is.

Whether you're going into a restaurant or your favorite coffee shop, you inherently, whether you realize it or not, you feel better if everything's taken care of.

You feel like there's somebody in charge.

Things are running smoothly.

You're not waiting forever.

The person at the front doesn't have attitude with you.

Like you go to the bathroom, it's not disgusting.

Like there's an ambiance that a business owner can create to make you as a customer, me, feel comfortable.

And I really like being here.

They don't often know why.

You know, have you ever been in like a place where someone pulls out a chair and they hear that loud like screech and you're like, why doesn't somebody fix that?

Put a little thing on the bottom of the chair.

Like it drives me crazy.

But I'm, I'm a lunatic.

Like I will go into any place and be like, this could be so much better, you know?

So I think that's why, to your point, I didn't know exactly the statistics, but yeah, so many fail because they're just not paying attention.

As a multiple nine figure entrepreneur, what was the best financial advice that you ever received?

I would say be really careful who you get into business with.

And that was definitely an experience that we went through as we were raising money and we raised about 75 million.

You don't want to raise money from the wrong people.

And by the wrong people, I mean people who aren't in lockstep with you, what you want to build, what your vision is.

It's like a lot of entrepreneurs I think can easily make the mistake of someone's offering to give them a lot of money to invest in their company, but they have a different idea of what they want and what the longterm vision of it is or you know, what infrastructure is going to look like, or if the CEO or founder is going to stay.