Hello.

This is Laverne Cox. I'm an actress, producer, and host of The Laverne Cox Show. Do you like your tea with lemon or honey? History making Broadway performer Alex Newell. When I sing The Holy Ghost shows up, that's my ministry, and I know that well about me. That's the tea, honey. Whoever it is, you can bet we get into it. My guest and I, we go there.

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Hey, I'm Wilmer Valderrama, Executive Producer of the new podcast, Day My Abuelita First.

Each week, the.

Incredible Vicoortiz and fabulous Abuelita Lilliana Montenegro will play matchmaker for a group of hopeful romatics.

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Remember, don't do anything I wouldn't do. Just do it better.

Mental health is.

Now talked about more than ever, which is awesome. I mean, I don't have to tell you that it's a primary focus of on-purpose, but on a day-to-day basis, many people don't know where to turn or which tools can help. Over the past couple of years, I've been working with Calm to make mental wellness accessible and enjoyable, or as I like to say, fun and easy. Calm has all sorts of content to help you reduce anxiety and stress, build mindful habits, improve sleep, and generally feel better in your daily life. So many bite size options from the most knowledgeable experts in the world, along with renowned meditation teachers. You can also check out my seven minute daily series to help you live more mindfully each and every day. Right now, listeners of On Purpose get 40 % off a subscription to Calm Premium at calm. Com/jay. That's C-A-L-M. Com/jay for 40 % off. Calm your mind, change your life.

I don't give a fuck about my network. Some many people tell me I've got this great idea, but I don't want to hear about but. Let's go for it. Part of being an entrepreneur is to have the courage to fail. If you're afraid to fail, you ain't going to do shit. The global sports company, Fanatics. You heard of it? Yeah, yeah. Founder and CEO Michael Rubin. Welcome back, sir. I've seen death in its eyes. I've almost gone bankrupt multiple times. There are so many things that I should not have succeeded at, but I have because I won't quit. If you set goals that are easy to accomplish, then you're actually saying you want to fail.

Before we jump into this episode, I'd like to invite you to join this community to hear more interviews that will help you become happier, healthier, and more healed. All I want you to do is click on the subscribe button. I love your support. It's incredible to see all your comments and we're just getting started. I can't wait to go on this journey with you. Thank you so much for subscribing. It means the world.

To me. The best-selling author and host. The number one health and wellness podcast. On Purpose with Jay Shetty.

Hey, everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every one of you that come back every week to listen, learn and grow. Now you know that my goal here and intention is to talk to people from different backgrounds, different walks of life, people who've achieved impact in their own life and are having an impact around and across the world, people who are motivated to do better, be better and give back. And today's guest is someone who's doing exactly that. Probably not as fast as he would like. I've just learned as well. I'm talking about the one and only Michael Rubin, an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and social justice advocate. Michael has built several multibillion dollar direct to consumer companies. Michael's CEO of Fanatics, a global digital sports platform that is reimagining the fan experience across many different businesses. Michael is an advocate for criminal justice reform and the Co-chair of Reform Alliance, an organization that includes some of the biggest names in sports, business, and culture that's dedicated to advancing criminal justice reform and eradicating antiquated probation laws that perpetuate injustice in the United States. Michael was named sports business journal executive of the year in 2022, and has also been named to The Bleacher Report, our 50 list of most influential people in sports.

Welcome to On Purpose, Michael Rubin.

I'm happy to be here. I've watched what you've done, am I what you do? And you've got such an incredible following and just.

Huge respect for you. Well, thank you. The feeling is very mutual. It's been watching you from afar. I've always been fascinated and drawn to people who've built incredible businesses and then use their platform for impact. Because growing up, I didn't see a lot of that. Growing up, I either saw people build businesses or have an impact. And so when I see people doing the same, it's exactly the values I try and live by, and I love watching it. So thank you for going down that line. But let's dive straight in. I want to ask you, Michael, you're such a successful business person. What was your first ever job that you ever had in life?

So for me, I think a lot of people know the story, I was a terrible student, barely made it out of high school, went to college for less than a semester. As bad as a student as I was, I was honestly the worst athlete. I wasn't coordinated. I wasn't a good athlete. The one thing I was always good at was working. I loved business from the time I was a kid. Everything I remember about being young was working. My first job that I can remember is probably eight years old. I probably had five different side hustles. I was selling trading cards, by the way, not to my friends, but to my friends' parents because they had the money. I was one of the ones that would snow in Philadelphia where I grew up. I would get five kids to do the snow shoveling. I would go door to door and actually sell the snow shoveling. I was sowing vegetable seeds door to door. I was making stationary on the Apple 2+ and selling it. I was the real entrepreneur. It's what I was good at, it's what I like doing. I had so many different jobs as an eight-year-old.

But when people say, How long have you been at it? It's crazy. 43 years. I've been doing this since I've been eight.

Years old. Wow. When you were doing that, was there any inspiration? Was it just you wanted money? What did you want to buy? What were you doing with that? What excited you both?

I don't think for me, even at eight years old, it was ever about money or wanting to buy things. I think it was always about doing what you're good at. For me, knowing that I wasn't good... I had a lot of learning challenges... I mean, as a kid, I had every person to try to help me with all the things I sucked at, whether it was athleticall y or... I wasn't good at sports, I wasn't good at school, but business was what I was good at, so I just always gravitate to that. I think that's a good thing. You should always figure out how to do things that you love. You should figure out how to do things that you're good at and double down on that. So that's always been my.

Whole life. How did you know that at eight? Because I feel like most eight year olds today obviously playing video games. Back then, they were probably watching TV. Maybe they were out riding a bike. How did you know that you were good at this?

I think it's something for me I was born with. I was born with that entrepreneur, a hustle. I think I came out of the womb, just wanting to be an entrepreneur, just loving the hustle. To me, I've been at this a long time. I work harder than I've ever worked today. I love it. It's an honor to do it. It's fun. It's an opportunity. I'm never tired. I'm never worn out. I just want to go.

Yeah. Can it be learned? Can you teach people to hustle and grind and develop that mindset? Or is it born with as you are?

I think I was definitely born with it. That said, I do think for me, the way I learn is by being a sponge from people. I'm always picking things up from different people. If you just look at the diversity people I have around me, I'm always taking so much learnings from them to be better at what I do. I try to give those back. I think you definitely learn a lot of this stuff. Just find people you respect, find people that you admire, find people that you want to be like, and then take the good from them. By the way, figure out what they do that you don't like and ignore that. I see good and bad in each person. I try to take the good and learn from the bad. And same thing with me. I've got lots of bad habits. I'm myself. That's right.

That's all I ask for. That's all I ask for. There is no judgment here. It's a safe space. I just want people to be their authentic selves. Please continue to be yourself. I love that idea of learning from people, being a human sponge. What's the most recent or most memorable thing you think you took away from someone? A conversation, a moment, something you read or heard or learned? Was there anything that stuck with you?

Yeah, for sure. Look, I'm in L. A. For the week. I'm doing 6-10 meetings a day in my house. Two of the people I met with in the last two days have been through some real challenges, and just watching the challenges that they've been through, I'm like, Okay, I need to be that much more careful about how I conduct myself and everything that I do. To me, I'm always taking learnings away from people. I think if you're not, you have no chance of getting better at what you do. Life is no different than sports. You just got to keep getting better at your sport. To me, I keep working in everything I do.

What do you think? Obviously, now, when you started 43 years ago at eight years old, entrepreneurship wasn't as touted as this incredible opportunity.

No, it wasn't touted. It was actually weird. To be clear, I was a nerd. I loved business. Entrepreneurialism came cool really around technology. I don't think it became cool until almost the... From my perspective, I think it was the birth of the dot com era, late '90s is when entrepreneurialism became cool. I think before that was nerdy and weird. I was definitely born before it all.

Yeah, and I'd say even after the financial crisis in 2007, '08, that recession, which is because I grew up in the era where we still aspire to be investment bankers or consultants. When I was at college or when I was growing up, that was seen if you were into business, my goal was to go into that world because that's what I aspired for. Whereas I think the generation after me and the one after me, they were like, I'm not going to go work for someone. I want to build something on my own.

I think that's amazing. For me, I love... One of the things that I'm fortunate enough to do is really, I think in a lot of ways, encourage entrepreneurialism. One of our biggest businesses, the Collectibles business, which is trading cards and memorabilia, and that's all about entrepreneurs. There's so many entrepreneurs in that business. It's probably the business in a lot of ways that I actually relate to all three of our businesses, but it's the business that's maybe the most relatable for me because I grew up selling trading cards as an eight-year-old, but also it's all about entrepreneurialism.

Talk to me through that business, because back in London, obviously, where I grew up, I collected football stickers, soccer stickers. So that's what we'd have. You'd have the spread with all the Premier League clubs, and you'd collect the little stickers, and that was a big part of collectibles. How is that industry evolved as technology has grown? Or has it stayed the same? Were people still collecting cards and top trumps and things like that?

Yeah, well, I'll say we got into the business about three years ago in a really significant way. Today we own Tops, which is the preeminent brand in trading cards. I'd say that until our arrival in the industry a little less than three years ago, I said there hadn't been a tremendous amount of innovation, there hadn't been a tremendous amount of marketing. We looked at the business and said, Wow, this is such an incredible collector base, such an incredible fan base. Yet it hasn't changed for decades here. You go to the big trading card show where there's more than 100,000 people that come to Chicago this past summer. It's called the National Trading Card Show. It looks like something from 20, 30, 40 years ago. For us, that just meant opportunity. You actually make innovative products. You actually really market these products. You build a better consumer experience and bring people forward in 2023, what an opportunity. So for me, we do that in all of our business. We love finding great opportunities, big challenges, and being unrelentant about going after them.

Yeah, how has that changed? How has that practically changed? Are people still buying cards and trading? Yeah, physical.

Cards are the biggest part of business. It's in a lot of ways it's very simple. But I can tell you just as one quick example, this year, our team came in and actually the CEO of our business, Mike Mayhand, said, Hey, I got a great idea. Every time a player debuts for the first time, I want to put a patch on their jersey, and then as soon as they get done the game, I'm going to put that patch on and put it in a one-on-one trading card. Oh, that's sick. The card from the first... Think about for us. Maybe I grew up in the Michael Jordan era. -had I had Michael Jordan. -cobus. Yeah, if I had Michael Jordan or Cobes first one-on-one cards, yeah, that could be the most valuable keepsake that I could ever have. And so that innovation for us, it was really simple. Yeah, why would you not want to put a patch on someone's jersey sticking into a card and make this a one on one card? But no one did that until we created it. By the way, it's already live. We came up with that idea this past December.

It was live in April with all baseball players. It's going to be three to 400 baseball players debut this year with this debut patch that we put into a one on one card. That's just like one of dozens of examples of innovations because you have to be aggressive. We have to be great entrepreneurs. We have to push in whatever we.

Yeah, I know what I love about that, though, for everyone who's listening is I think we're stuck in this world now that believes that all innovation has to be digital, or technological, or virtual, or some AI, whereas this is the most tangible, physical change, but it's still so valuable because it's what people want.

Look, we're three business there. Our first business where we started is what we call Fanatics Commerce. That's our merchandise business. We own Lids, the hat retailer. We own Mitchell Ness. We own Fanatics, which operates obviously all of the different league, the NFL shop, the NBA store. And we sell more than $6 billion of mostly fan, apparel, and headwear. We have more than 100 million units of merchandise a year, that's a very physical business. But AI is helping us to do things more effectively. In the collectibles business, AI is going to help us to be more effective. Then our third business is the online sports, pet and high gaming business. For me, we still do a lot of physical things, but there's so many things in the digital world that help us to be better.

Yeah, no, but I love that collaboration and thinking about it that way because sometimes the greatest value to someone is a physical change. But you're learning that through the AI.

I still want to wear my.

Kobe.

Jersey. Yeah, exactly. I want my bronze card.

Yeah, that's the same thing. I'm still buying... I support Manchester United. That's my soccer team, and I'm still buying soccer jerseys every single year.

We appreciate that because that's a fanatic.

That's a fanatic store. Even though we absolutely suck right now, but it's...

But that's what being sports fan is about. Sometimes you're going to have great years and you're getting those championships, and other times you're going to suck and you got to stay with the team.

You got to feel the pain. I'm a real fan now. I grew up as a glory hunter because we just won everything, and now I'm going through real phandom of.

10 years. We're going to test you now. We're going to see what you're made of. Are you really committed to Man United here?

Yeah, I'm being tested right now. We were talking about people not being entrepreneurship, and not being touted when you started. When you look at it today, now it's become the cool, sexy, interesting, fascinating thing for people to want to try. It's not necessarily things people are good at like you said you were. It's not necessarily a skill that we honor or give it the kudos that it deserves. What are the mistakes people are making when they think about being an entrepreneur today?

Well, first of all, entrepreneurialism isn't for everybody, but if you think it's for yourself, you better go out there and try it, put your best foot forward. For me, look, the biggest mistakes I see people make in building a business are a couple of common themes. One is, first you have, are you even going to take the at-bats? So many people tell me, I've got this great idea, but. I don't want to hear about but. Let's go for it. If you have an idea you want to do something, I love the story you were just telling me before we went on here that you came over here and you worked one place for six months, then you're like, I want to go out and do this. You went out and did it. Part of being an entrepreneur is to have the courage to fail. You just have to go out there and try. By the way, when you fail, which many times you will, you're going to learn from that failure, you're going to grow from that failure. You talked about Kobe being your favorite athlete. Well, guess what? How many times did he fail and then he got better and he pushed through it?

That's what being an entrepreneur is. From my perspective, it's really all about, first and foremost, if you have something you want to do, if you believe in it, go for it. Don't worry about whether you succeed or not. Go out and take the swing. And guess what? If you strike out, if you fail, just go back again. And I know some people are going to say, Oh, well, he's really successful now, so it's easy to say. But I got to tell you something, I've seen death in its eyes. I've almost gone bankrupt multiple times. I've had epic failures, and every one of those led me to be better in what I do. So that's my first thing. Second thing I'd say is you need great people around you to succeed. Whether it's the people you're learning from that you want to be a sponge from, whether it's you build a great team to do what you do. I know for Fanatics, we have 18,000 people that get up and go to bed obsessed with how do we improve the fan experience each day? But I collect and work with the best people on the planet.

If you don't work with great people, you will fail. You can't win a championship if you don't have great talent, but that talent also needs to work together. And then the last thing, and this will sound corny, but have fun in what you do. I love what I do. I have the greatest job in the planet. I get to wake up, work 18 hours a day, go to bed thinking about what's next. I dream about my work nearly every day. I'm having work dreams all the time because I'm obsessed with what I'm doing. It's fun. I should pinch myself. It's so awesome what I get to do. My name is Laverne Cox. I'm an actress, producer, fashionista, and host of The Laverne Cox Show. You may remember my award-winning first season? I've been pretty busy, but there's always time to talk to incredible guests about important things. People like me have been screaming for years. We got to watch the Supreme Court. What they're doing is wrong. What they're doing is evil. They will take things away. I can only hope that Dobbs is that Pearl Harbor moment.

Girl, you.

And I both know what it took to just get through the day in New York City and get home in one piece. And so the fact that we're here and what you've achieved and what I've achieved, that's momentous. It's not just us sitting around complaining about some bills. The only reason that you might think, as Chase said, that we're always miserable is because people are constantly attacking us and we're constantly noticing it. Listen to the Laverne Cox Show on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get.

Your podcast. Be sure to subscribe and share.

Yes, yes.

The Street.

Stoic podcast.

Is back. One of the quotes that came to mind here is from Drake. The lyrics that came up for me was from Beyonce. I pulled a quote from just one of.

My favorite artists in.

General, Kik Tuddy. We are combining hip hop lyrics and quotes from some of the greatest.

To ever, Grace, a microphone.

In it, he says, Because it's.

Just waves, you've got to just float, float.

And.

Have faith. It's just waves.

It's.

The line that we've all heard before from Lauren Hill, and she says, Don't be a hard rock when you.

Really are a gem.

Along with ancient.

Wisdom from some of the.

Greatest philosophers of all time.

Seneca, right? And he says, Your mind will take shape of what you.

Frequently hold in thought, for the human spirit is.

Colored by such impression.

A stoke quote from Epictetus where he says.

Don't seek for everything to.

Happen as you wish it would.

But rather wish that everything happens.

As it.

Actually will.

Then your.

Life will flow well.

And listen, I know we all could use a daily shot of inspiration, so this is the podcast for you. Listen to Season 2 of the Street.

Stoke Podcast as part of the Mikeitura Podcast Network on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Ola, mi gente. This is Wilmer Valderrama, Executive Producer of the new podcast, Day My Abuelita First, part of iHeart Radio's Mayultura Podcast Network. Each week, host Vicoortiz and Abuelita Lilliana Montenegro will play matchmaker for a group of hopeful romatics who are putting their trust in Abuelita to find them a date. Your job right now is to get on Abuelita's really good site.

Our Abuelita.

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Yeah, absolutely. No, I love hearing that. And I think you know what's fascinating to me as well with being an entrepreneur? My story was very different to finding my way into entrepreneurship. I grew up thinking I had to have a steady job because that's how I was raised by good Indian immigrant parents who made me academically astute. And so I was a straight A student, did first class at uni. I was always good at that. And then I got into a job afterwards, after my own detour. And when I finally got into the job, I was just like, This doesn't feel right. This doesn't feel like this is going to use my skills to the best of my ability. This doesn't feel like I'm going to propel and do well and become my best version of myself. It wasn't about money or what I thought I could win at. It was, I just don't feel this is going to complete me or make me feel like I'm winning in the way that I can.

Listen, the most important thing is enjoying what you do every day. I'm going to tell you something. I know a lot of people that have been really successful financially, and they're miserable. You know what? They don't love what they do every day. They're not happy. For me, I don't think about financial success. I think about just loving what I'm doing now. Financial success can tell you, are you winning or losing? That's your report card. That's the scoreboard, right? Good financial results means you're winning. Bad financial results means you're not winning in the current moment. But for me, I just want to love what I do.

Every day. I couldn't agree with you more. I want to wake up and do what I love every day, which is why I do this, because I get to sit down with fascinating people, pick people's minds. And then.

We each learn from each other.

Absolutely.

And by the way, I guarantee I'll leave here today having picked up some things from you, and you'll leave from here. Oh, I'm definitely going to leave. That's the way it works. That's the way we should all be students of each other.

Yeah, absolutely. Who's the randomest person you've learned from? I wonder who's the most curious, random, intriguing person that we wouldn't expect for you to learn from? Not like a business mogul or someone like that, but someone you're like, You know what? That person, I didn't expect to learn from them, but I did. Is there someone like that.

Comes to mind? I could give you a thousand examples. I could tell you when I used to be part of the ownership group of the Philadelphia Sixers, I'd walk through the arena and I would ask lots of arena workers, What's going on here today? What's working? What's not working? You can pick up things from everybody. I could walk through the street, look at what someone's wearing and say, Hey, where did you buy that? Do you like that? Do you not like that? I'm always asking questions. For me, that's pretty random. If you just walk up in the street and ask somebody, Where did you buy that? Why did you buy it? Do you love that? I'm always picking things up. I'm watching the way trends are changing with people. I'm probably the most unique thing about me is the diversity of friends that I have, and I'm learning from the people around me every single day.

I think that's the only way you understand the pulse of human behavior. It's like asking questions, watching patterns. I think pattern watching is an ability, whether it's an algorithm, whether it's the stock market, whether it's crypto or whatever it is for people, watching patterns is such an unbelievable skill. Would you say that's a skill that you've honed and developed and built?

I think it's a really important skill in business because I think it's very predictive of the future. The reality is when someone comes in and I'm interviewing a top executive for a role in one of our businesses, and they could seem great, and then I'm going to go out and I'm never going to ask anybody for a reference ever. I've never asked somebody, Hey, can you tell me who to call? You ask me for reference on myself. I'd call each other and say, Hey, I gave you as a reference. Make sure you say great things about me. The reality is I'll interview somebody. The first thing I do is if I like them, as soon as they leave, I go out and I start calling people that I knew we had in common to recognize patterns. Because to me, 50 % is the interview, and 50 % is what I learned behind the scenes. And that's probably the more important 50 %, because someone can blow me away. And then you'll find out in one minute, That person sucks. That person, people don't like working with them. Or you can find out that person was a little bit understated, but they're a beast.

They've got a huge followership. They're super smart. They've got an unrelent and work ethic. So to me, pattern recognition is everything I use and everything that I do. By the way, I use pattern recognition when I go play blackjack with my friends. There's three types of cards you're going to get. Cards are either going to be you're either streaking hot, you're streaking cold, or you're in between. When you're cold, you should not do what sometimes I'll do if I'm misbehaved, which is be aggressive when you're cold because you got a pattern going on. You got to recognize patterns in whatever you do.

I find it fascinating how super powerful entrepreneurs hire and fire and recruit and reward and retain people. What have you found? When you're interviewing someone, I feel like you must have interviewed so many people over the years for huge positions, small positions in the beginning. What are you looking for and how are you finding out? Apart from the second part, which I love, calling up people that you have in common, what are you asking? What are you looking for? And how are you making sure you find it in that very date-like format?

Let me say first of all, and this will, I think, shock you. I still probably spend 10-20 % of a 70-90-hour work week interviewing people. I am a beast on finding great talent within our companies, because to me, you can't win without great talent. It is probably the thing or one of the things I spend the most time on is the quest for incredible talent. I'm looking for first, does someone have the subject matter, expertise, and the intellect to be successful in what we want them to do? And then two, do they have the leadership skills? Because generally I'm interviewing people that are either going to work for me or someone who's going to work for someone who I work with. Let's say the top 50-100 people within our 18,000 people. I'm looking for people that are going to be real leaders that are going to share the same values that we share. I'm looking for people that can be with us for a long period of time. I don't want people that want to come in and be with us for three years. I want people that want to come. I like people want to be with us and build their careers with us for maybe their entire life.

We want people that are just going to be... And also people that are going to figure out how to win. They're going to put it on their shoulders and they're going to be unrelenting. That's my personality. There are so many things that I should not have succeeded at, but I have because I won't quit. I think those are some of the things that just ramble to you that I care about.

No, I love those. I guess the thing about not quitting is really interesting, because you've got this unrelenting, you can see it in the way you speak and your eyes like, I've just spent a few moments with you. We've never met before today, and I can fully see that it is just at the core of who you are. You probably find that you can push people and they may not be able to go as far every time because they may not have that same energy in them. How have you found that balance of seeing someone who you know has the potential, you know they have the skills, but it's almost like they're like, Michael, I already went seven times. You're like, Yeah, dude, we're going to go 17, because I know at 17, we're going to get there.

Yeah, I think the people that are in my real inner circle. I have six key executives that I work with day in and day out. The people that run my three businesses, the online sports, betting, and high gaming business, the commerce business, which is merchandise, and the collectibles business, which is trading cards and memorabilia. These businesses and then my three corporate executives, they have that same mentality. I wouldn't want to work with anyone that didn't have that mentality because they're saying the culture for the entire 18,000 employees at Fanatics. And so to me, people don't share our core values. They don't believe in what we believe in. There's probably not going to be the right fit. They could be a great human being, a great individual, and just not be right for us.

Do you ever take a break? Have you ever taken a break?

To me, I don't understand work-life balance. It's not who I am, so I'm not going to apologize for it. I know I sound like people could listen to say like, This guy is a little bit deranged, but I am who I am. I know what I'm good at and I know what I like doing.

I mean, it may shock you, but I fully relate to it. To me, I think people-I.

Appreciate it. I'm trying to get more people to not look at me like I'm crazy.

I would agree with you. I feel exactly the same way. This week, and this is my average normal week. I have morning hikes where I'm out with people that I work with, but I love them and I enjoy their company. They're not people I have to work with, they're people I enjoy working with. I'm having a hike meeting in the morning, which is 7:30 a. M. Then I'm at work, whether I'm doing this or whatever I'm up to, whether I'm recording meditation. Sometimes I'm alone in a studio, and sometimes I'm with people. Then I have meetings. Then I've been having dinner meetings too, and I love it. I wouldn't have any other way. I've had the best interactions. I'm getting to know the best people. I know their families. I know they're getting to their kids, their spouses, whatever it is. To me, it's like, this is what I want life to be. I actually don't look at life as work and life. I don't have that disconnect. I actually think that when you look at life as a disconnect, that's when you think you're taking away from the other.

I also think if you do what you love to do, it almost breaks those barriers down.

Totally, yeah. I'm actually more on your side than people may think. I'm a big fan of having my daily routines and habits that make me the best version of myself. Like obviously meditation, working out. There are certain non-negotiables. Are there things in your day that you do that are your routines? There may not be those things, but things that you're like, This one thing that I do per day, this makes me feel great.

It's probably centered around work, if I'm going to be honest with you. Please be honest. I was always pleasantly plump until Mounjono came out. So now that Mounjono has came out, I've gone from 2:10 to 1:60. I'd say working out is more important to me. When you're 2:10, it's harder to work out. When you're 1:60, it's much easier to work out. So you live here in the top of Runnian, and for me, hiking to the top of Runnion, I've done that once already this week. I'm going to do it again tomorrow. I love doing it. It's a blast for me. Working out is actually something that is becoming good for me because it's the one thing that lets me get a little bit of a mental break. Putting my phone down sometimes, I can be so addicted to my phone. Sometimes at dinner, when my family has dinner, I would just put my phone down for 20 minutes. That's a good thing. I'd say things that have helped me of late have been getting those three to four workouts in per week because it does give me some mental clarity. I'd say putting my phone down 20 or 30 minutes a day when I'm just not going to look at it and say, Okay, give me a mental break, because I think you could just become so obsessed that it's bad for you and then you become less effective.

Probably the biggest routine I have, if we say, Let's keep it real, it's going to be the people that I work closely with that's talking to them all the time. I'm always just peeling the layers back on what we're doing. So any of my top leaders, I'm on the phone with, on Zooms with, meeting with in person all the time because that's the way we're just like building the best business.

Yeah, absolutely. I do believe that it's what it takes for the level of success that you've achieved. I wonder if you if you Google your net worth, it says $11 billion, it could be more, probably is. How do you define how much you're worth?

I don't. I'll tell you a story I probably shouldn't say. God, this is blowing somebody up. I shouldn't blow up. But Forbes reached out and they said, Hey, we want to put you on the cover of Forbes for the Forbes 400. I'm like, No, I don't want to be known for my net worth. I want to be known for building a great company. By the way, there are so many things with our company that we suck at that we need to be better at. The way I look at it is I'm a big startup, and I want to make sure that I'm always fighting to be better in everything we do. In everything we do, I want to build what we make better for the fan, and we have so much to do to accomplish that. I don't want to be known about money. I don't want to be known. I want to be known about making the world a better place or making my company better. Those are honestly the two things I'm manically focused on.

Yeah, I believe it. I believe it. I genuinely do. And I think.

That-by the way, I'm not in a competition for like- Totally. It's irrelevant. My life is not changing financially based on anything that happens going forward. I'm fortunate that I'm in a nice position today. So to me, the thing that gets me most exciting is winning in business because that's my sport. That's what I'm good at. And so I look at each business and I look at not all the things we do right. I look at all the things we do wrong and all the things we can be better at. And so I'm always saying, How can we improve in everything we do? Because guess what? There are a lot of things we need to be a lot better at, and that's what I'm focused on. And then upfront you talked about giving back. It's interesting. I never ever cared about making a difference in the world until I had an event in 2017 that changed my perspective. Before that, I would just always write checks. You came and said, Hey, I'm doing this. Hey, let me give you a check to shut you up as quickly as I could, because I didn't care. I just want to focus on work.

And then my eyes got open, which is what people always say like, Hey, should I be behind this? I said, Do what's authentic? Do what's real? For me, that's how my life has evolved.

Yeah, and why was it? I believe it was Meat Mill who introduced you to criminal justice.

Everyone knows the story at this point. Meat got sent to prison for two to four years for popping a wheelie on a motorcycle. The smartest thing he did for both of us was say, Hey, can you come to court with me that day? I want you to see what happens when a black person goes to court. I didn't even understand what he was saying. And then I watched him get sent to prison for two to four years for not committing a crime for popping a wheelie on a motorcycle. That was the most uncomfortable thing that's ever happened to my body because it was like, I'm used to being in control. I'm a strong business leader. I'm used to leading. Now I had a judge who sent him to prison for two to four years for not committing a crime for popping a wheel on a motorcycle. It was like the most outer body experience I ever had. And so once he ultimately got out of prison and we started the reform alliance, for me, I learned a really valuable lesson because a lot of people told me, Don't get involved with this, don't get involved with him.

You're going to hurt your business. You're going to hurt the Sixers. And I just went my instincts, which is like this is my brother and he needs help him. By the way, Jay Z and Desiree Price from Rock Nation, stepped up in a huge way. It was us collectively. But I've had a couple of experiences in the last four or five years where we've done things where people told us would be bad for business, bad for us. And we didn't care. We do what we thought was the right thing. You always get paid back in karma. That is something I've learned in the last five years. Probably the biggest thing I've learned in the last five years, don't worry about what people tell you. It's going to be the right outcome. You do what you think is right. If you do what's right, it generally works out.

Yeah, I know. I'm glad you repeat that story. There may be some of our audience who may or may not be aware, so thank you for sharing that. I wanted them to hear it from you because it's so interesting when something becomes so personal, when it happens to someone that's so close to you, the issue almost becomes so much more relatable and easy to access. For you, what have been some of the most... I loved what you said. The moment you walked in here, I was telling you how much I've appreciated the impact work you're doing, and you're like, We're not doing it fast enough. We're not... There's more to do. But we're not. And I love that. That's exactly the energy you need to have. So walk me through the wins that have been there that have shown you that you're doing the right thing, and then walk me through what are the issues that you're still trying to solve and figure out.

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That's awful. I should have seen it coming. Well, look, the interesting thing was when Meek got sent to prison in November 2017, just about everybody I knew said, Do not get involved in this. This will reflect poorly on the Sixers. This will reflect poorly on fanatics. Less people will buy tickets and they're going to see you helping a criminal. And so Desiree, Perez from Rock Nation, myself, we spent a lot of the next six months working every day to get him out of prison. And once we got him out of prison, Meek said to me and I said to Meek like, Look, this is Destiny, man. You got sent to prison because you were the one anointed to help fix the system. If you would have asked me before November 12th, 2017, when he got sent to prison, if you would have said to me, What do I care about from a charity perspective? It was writing checks to get people out of my office as quickly as possible. I did not care about any issues. But what Meek used to always say to me, Michael, this is a normal day for Black America. And so that he had been sent to prison for a technical probation violation, it was easy for us to say we have to change the probation and parole system, and that's what we set out to do.

The interesting thing was when we finally decide to do this, which was, I guess, finally, when we did it immediately, I was trying to figure out how to come up with a goal, because to me you have to come up with big, bold goals. This speaks to entrepreneurialism and not taking a charitable approach to things. I asked a friend of mine who I don't want to name, but someone I have huge respect for. I said, How many people should we try to get out of probation for all? They said, Well, how many people in the system? I said, Four and a half million. They said, Well, go with 10,000. That's a really safe number. I said, 10,000? Let's go for a million. So we're in this less than five years. We've passed 17 bills in 11 states and created a pathway for 700,000 people to get off of probation and parole who shouldn't be on it. And by the way, there were four and a half million people on probation and parole when we started. There's 3.8 million people. What's proven? This is really important to understand. If you keep someone on probation or parole too long, you entrap them in the criminal justice system.

And then what you do is you actually create a less safe outcome for neighborhoods and for environments. Versus if people serve their time, have the appropriate amount of rehabilitation, they're on probation and parole for the right amount of time, then they're going to go out and they're going to make a positive impact in the world. So Meek had been on probation between the time served and time left 18 years. Now in California, where we're doing this today, the governor signed one of the first bills that we did with the Gavanus, which was amazing, is a one year cap on misdemeanor and a two year cap on felonies. And that was breakthrough legislation that we worked on together with many people to bring together to make that happen in the state of California, which is one of the best things we've done at the reform alliance. So my point is That's huge. We turned this negative into a positive. We then came up with a really bold goal that people thought we were nuts. When I told people a million people, everyone looked at me like I have seven heads, but I'm like, What's the worst that happens?

We get 300,000 people, 400,000 people. I'll still think we won. I don't care. You want to say we fail because we didn't get the million? By the way, now we're going to surpass the million, I think.

Wow, that's incredible. You're so right. Most of us, when we set a bold goal, whether it's to make an impact or whether it's in business, we're actually just worrying about what everyone will think if we don't hit that goal.

I'm going to give you a great example. Go for it. Today at Fanatics, we build a pretty big business in our commerce business, which is merchandise. That's where I started. That's where a lot of people know us from. By the way, we still have so much to do to be better. So many things to improve the consumer experience to innovate more product. We're a leader in that business. The collectibles business, we're a real leader today. In the online sports, gaming business, we're just starting, okay? We're going to be... Fanatic sports book just launched earlier this year will be basically in just about every state by the end of this year under the Finalex brand with One Wallet. I woke up and our guys, we talk about being number three. Hey, Fandle is number one, DraftKings is number two, we're number three. Sorry, we aspire to be number three. Today we're like number eight. We just started. I woke up about three weeks ago and I called our CEO, Matt King, who's amazing. I said, Matt, our goal needs to be number one. By the way, maybe we'll accomplish it. Maybe we won't. Maybe we won't be successful at all.

The jury's out. We're investing a billion and a half dollars to try to be the top player. But I don't want to play for number three. Number three is a loser. I want to play for number one. And so many people are going to say to me, so many people listening to this would be like, Wait, you want to be number one to fan doing Draft Kings in online sports, bad at iGaming? I'm declaring right now, this is the first time my public says I want to be number one. I have no idea whether I have any chance of that accomplishing. But I can tell you what, I'm not waking up to try to be number three.

That's a loser. And that's what's got you here. So you feel convinced that that's what it was. Do you remember the first big goal you ever set?

I do. In 2009, I made a goal. I said to all our team, I said that I want to build... We were $250 million in revenue in 2010. I said, One day we could be a billion dollars in revenue. That division is $6 billion today. I said, One day we could be a billion dollars. Then four years later, we said, One day we could be five billion dollars. We were only just trying to come up with goals to try to measure success or failure. But I love to come up with bold goals, and I don't care whether I accomplish them or fail. I care about come up with bold goals to work against and then making huge progress against them, whether I accomplish them or not.

Yeah, the point is you're more likely to challenge yourself enough to come up with better strategies, more products, better customer service. You're actually just going to improve drastically towards.

That level. If you set goals that are easy to accomplish, then you're actually saying you want to fail to start with. If you come up with bold goals, and by it's easier... Look, I know what people are going to say. I'm an owner. It's easier to say that as an owner. Maybe sometimes you just need to set goals up that you'd say to yourself because you don't want to tell your boss like always. What are you talking about? Here's the budgeting goal I'm giving you, but now let me tell you the real goal that I have. I like rallying people against big, audacious, hard to achieve goals because I think you're just going to accomplish more.

Yeah, absolutely. How does this energy convert over to Michael's love life? How does Michael in love change from.

Michael and business? You have to ask Camille that. I think what Camille would say is she's incredibly supportive of what I do. She knows it's what I love doing. She's the most incredible mother in the planet. I have a 17-year-old daughter then I have a three-year-old and a one-year-old with Camille. She puts as much energies as I put into work, she puts into being a mom. I think that's what makes us great together. Would I say that I'm always the most available person? No. Does she want to kill me multiple times a week? Probably yes. But she also knows this is what makes me me and what I love to do. And she loves being the greatest mom in the world. We have a great relationship. But would you call my personal life or our personal life perfect? Definitely not, because I work like an animal.

No, of course not. Of course not. No one has the perfect personal or professional life. But did you the reason why I ask is, it's really interesting. I always feel like so much can be solved at the point of connection. What I mean by that is I know my wife's a busy person. I'm a busy person. But I've I was saying to some of my team the other day, I'm really grateful that my wife has never said to me in the last ten years that we've been together, you don't spend enough time with me. It's because she knows who I am. She understands how I work. She knows I make time. I am present when I'm there, but she gets me like she really gets me. And she got me when we got together. Yes, I was very not successful when we met, but she gets me and she's seen that energy grow. And so she loves the time. And by the way, I don't say the same to her either. She never hears from me. You don't spend enough time with me or you're not around. If she's busy and she has to move.

Did you know that when you met Camille, how did you set that up? How did that become real? How did you get to know you that well? Because I feel like for a lot of people, the way you work, the way I work, the way certain people work, it would be unbearable and it would be a deal breaker. But then it's really hard to also have an amazing life and build everything you want to build, right? I'm just intrigued as to how you had that conversation early days.

Yeah, I'm not sure if we had the conversation, it just grew into what it is. I think the same thing for Camille or my older daughter, Kylee, they would both say they wish that I were more available, more present, but they also respect and learn from my work ethic and what I do. I think it works itself out in the end, but different than you. I do hear from both Camille and Kyle, You don't have enough time for me. You're not available enough. Sometimes that's a really good pride. You're like, Okay, put your phone down and turn the ringer off for half an hour. You don't always need to grab every call. And you know what? What my older daughter would always say to me, Kyle is like, Dad, it's always somebody important. I'm your oldest daughter. Camille would say to me, It's me. Just let it go for a little bit. So they actually helped me whatever little balance I have, I think I get from Camille and Kylee.

I love what you said. Sometimes they say, I need more time, but they also respect me. How do you reconcile that dad guilt that could come with that? I'm not a father yet, but a lot of my friends who are, they'll say it's so painful watching your little girl, my friends who have little girls will say, It's so painful watching your little girl. I'll say, Daddy, just stay at home with me today. How do you reconcile? This is good for them to see me work hard, and I know when to put my phone down, but how do you make sense with that?

Well, the good thing is my three-year-old and one-year-old have grown up with me like this, and so did Kyle, by the way. They've all seen that work ethic. Look, Kyle, as everyone knows, my 17-year-old is with me all the time. She travels with me all the time. She's actually on a plane right now. She's about to land here in a few hours. Amazing. She's with me a lot. She's got a great... Kyle and Camille have a great relationship that they may have a support group together for the two of them against me. Every family is different. Every person is different. Everyone needs to do what works for them. I think I do what works for me and they do what works for them, and I think they appreciate it. I also know to be there when it really matters. For me, Kyle went through an experience earlier this year, and she called me and it had to do with Kyle. She's cursing me out. She's like, I need you to help me figure this out right now. And it's about like, get you good, because Kyleigh is much smarter than me, but she's not like...

She goes to the toughest school in Philadelphia, and she wanted some help with certain things. I had to call around and figure out how to do that and learn and pull the layers back and ultimately figure out together. When it really matters, I'm always there and I'm good at figuring out what matters and what doesn't. I think that could be a superpower I have, which is how to prioritize. I am good at figuring out when am I really needed? When do I need to lock in and focus? It could be lock in and focus on a really important business deal, or it could be lock in and focus on a really important moment for Camille or for Kyle.

Yeah. What your daughters do for you, my sister does for me, she'd always be like, Stop being Jaysheddy, just be my brother. It's like that feeling of like, Stop giving me that advice, just be my brother and give me a hug.

Yeah, I get that from both of them all the time. My three-year-old Romeo will, I'm a three-year-old, wrong people. I'm sure I'll be giving me that within a year or two.

And it's the best feeling, right? It's such a beautiful feeling because you know someone loves you and wants you to just be there.

For them. It's getting those moments, which you can really appreciate. So I try to get in when I can.

Yeah, and Michael, that's what I'm trying to do on this podcast here. I don't think there is an ideal way to live. I don't think there is a perfect way to approach your problems. I think that what I like to do is I like to introduce people. This is my whole hypothesis in life. If I can introduce people to as many diverse people as possible that have all in their own way found purpose, impact, and success, then people actually have a chance of saying, I like what they're saying. I'm going to run with that. Or actually, you know what? I never thought about it like that because I find when I was growing up, we were all exposed to the same set of people and the same set of ideas, and it was so hard to break that. It was only for me, obviously, which is my personal journey, when I met a monk at 18, I didn't know what monks were. I didn't care what monks were. I had no interest in anything spiritual. If I had never met a monk, I would never have gone down the path of life I did. I'm always asking people, Who's your monk?

For some people, their monk will be you. What I mean by that is they're going to get introduced to you and go, Yeah, that's how I want to live my life. That resonates with me. Does that make sense?

It makes complete sense. I'm a huge believer in it. Look, if you'd say what's the most unique thing about me, it's probably the diversification of the people around me. I think I built that because it's right for me, because I'm learning from all these people around me. I've got this person actually. It's a person who runs a local hobby shop, and he keeps sending me these really long text messages. I actually keep meaning to send them back a voice note to say, Hey, man, I actually appreciate your input, but I barely read. I'm not that literate. You're laughing. I'm dead serious. I haven't read a book since ninth grade. The last book I read was in ninth grade. I read The Swish, the story about the unauthorized story about film. It's not the last time I read a book, okay? I'm not a good reader. I'm pretty dyslexic, okay? The way I learn is by quick conversations. You want me to read something, send me three lines and I'm actually going to read it. You send me three paragraphs. I'm tuned out before I start. That's why I'm saying we all got to learn from each other, what works for each other, and that's what makes me me.

Absolutely. Michael, you've been amazing. We end every episode with a final five. You'll like this. Each question has to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum, so it goes aligned with what you just said. Michael Rubin, these are your final five. Question one is, what is the best entrepreneurship advice you've ever heard or received?

Don't be afraid to fail.

Because?

Because if you're afraid to fail, you're never going to take the shot. How do you want to be an entrepreneur? You're sitting there and you're trying to figure out, should I do this or not? You got to go for it.

Second question. What is the worst entrepreneurship advice you've ever heard or received?

Do it for the money.

All right. Question number three. What's something you're currently trying to learn maybe in business or in life? Something you're working on?

How to do what's best for the consumer in everything that we do. Just complete consumer focus. I didn't grow up as a complete consumer person, so I think there's things if I look at parts of Finastra where we're not good enough, we haven't been good enough, I'd say it's an obsession with the consumer.

Yeah, that's what I always loved about... I still love it today. When I grew up, I remember the first time my parents took me to Disney World, and I was just like, Everything about this place is perfectly organized for me to have the best time of my life. It's insane how much detail you can put into someone's experience.

Yeah, I think we got our business model right. Everything I do has to be about the consumer. To win in a consumer business, it has to be about consumer first in everything you do. That's something that I'm really... It's the biggest thing I'm focused on right now.

Yeah, I love that. That's beautiful. All right, question number four. How would you define your current purpose with your impact work?

Real change? To make real change. So many people who make impact work, first of all, writing a check is easy. If you have money, writing a check is easy. Don't think because you give money away that you're making a difference. Go do the work, okay? But making real change, like measure the results, treat it like a business, not like a charity. We don't want to run the reform alliance like a charity. We want to run a business. We want business results.

Beautiful. Fifth and final question we asked to every guest who's ever been on the show. If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?

I couldn't be president after 65. I want the President of the United States to be an animal from a work ethic perspective. I want them to be on their A-game. I want to make sure that they're maniacal about the country the way I'm maniacal about my business. One law to go in place, max, you can't be elected to become president after 65 years old.

Michael Rubin, everyone, if you've been listening and watching, make sure that you cut the clips for TikTok and Instagram that related to you insights that you love. Share them. I love knowing what are the lessons you're taking away? What are you practicing? What are you implementing and putting into your life? I think everyone just got the best pep talk that they need for right now in their life. This is going to get you to those big goals. Listen to this episode. Share it with your friends. Share it with your family. I'm sure someone just needs a train to come run through their mind and break through all of the barriers that they've set up. I think Michael is that train. Michael, thank you so much.

Or by the way, disagree with us. Oh, disagree with us? Tell me what you don't agree with. I love when you disagree.

With me too. Yeah, totally. Of course. If you disagree with us, you can tell us too. You do that anyway. I don't need to ask for that.

Hey, thanks for having me.

It was a blast. Thank you, Michael. Such a blast. I appreciate you, man. And thank you for being so. What I appreciate about you is your clarity, your commitment to that clarity, and that you're still open and available to learn. I think that curiosity, that's what I see in you. It's like complete clarity, complete commitment to who you are, and then still being curious. That's a deadly combination.

Thank you. Well, well said. I'm going to try to preach it and do it every day.

Thank you, man. If you love this episode, you will love my interview with Kobe Bryant on how to be strategic and obsessive to find your purpose. Our children have become less imaginative about how to problem-solve, and parents and coaches have.

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Hi, I'm Danny Shapiro, host of the hit podcast, Family Secrets. What happens when the person you idolize turns out to be someone else entirely? And what if you were kidnapped by your own grandparents and left with an endless well of mysteries about yourself and those around you. These are just a few extraordinary puzzles we'll be exploring in our ninth season of Family Secrets. I hope you'll join me and my astonishing guests for this new season of Family Secrets. On the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.