ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: To speak with absolute
veracity to future entrepreneurs, current
entrepreneurs or potential ones, what you
have to know about your life is if you're
going to be an entrepreneur you have to accept
that some of your success or failure is providential.
There's only so many things that are inside
your control.
CHRISTINE ROMANS: The Coronavirus pandemic
has tanked the global economy with unprecedented
speed.
Millions out of work, markets plunging, business
slammed to a screeching halt
VARIOUS SPEAKERS: U.S. markets tumbled Friday
because of concerns of the outbreak…The
Dow Jones Industrial average closed down nearly…Wall
Street ending one of the worst weeks of trading
since the financial crisis in 2008.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: You can work hard, you
can build a nice relationship network, you
can sell good products but you have to have
the right environment to work inside of and
some of that's beyond your control.
We can't predict terrorist attacks like 9/11
or debacles like the WorldCom accounting disaster,
the Enron accounting disaster of '01 to '03.
The 2008 global financial crisis.
None of these things we can predict, and so
you have to live your life recognizing that
a sense of your life is out of control.
That's hard for the average person but that's
par for the course for the entrepreneur.
ELON MUSK: The odds of coming into the rocket
business not knowing anything about rockets,
not having ever built anything, I mean I would
have to be insane if I thought the odds were
in my favor.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: Running a business the
first thing you have to do is you have to
drop your ego and your self-identity of whatever
it is you think about yourself.
And so there was great sadness that I had
while my business was failing because my self-pity
was, at a scale of one to ten, it was at a
16.
And what was the self-pity?
'My god, I went to Harvard Law School.
I should be doing way better than I'm doing
and my business is failing and woe is me,
woe is me.'
So the first thing you have to do is you have
to drop all of your self-pity and you have
to accept your journey in life.
The second thing you have to do is you have
to stop comparing yourself to everybody else.
I think that is a huge, dangerous thing that
business leaders do and even competitive athletes
do.
And then once you're able to do both of those
things then your mind clears up.
And once your mind clears up and you start
to accept that there are so many things about
the next forward steps of your life that are
uncertain no matter what you do.
No matter how brilliant you are, you could
still fail and you're comfortable with that
then you finally have made it as an entrepreneur
because at the end of the day Steve Jobs has
his set of failures.
People don't remember this about Bill Gates
but his first operating system failed.
He had to go to digital research in Seattle
and buy that and change it from DR-DOS to
MS-DOS, and so every great entrepreneur, if
they are being honest with you, will tell
you about disastrous things that happened
to them.
Michael Dell's notebooks, we're talking about
this Galaxy 7 catching on fire.
In 1993, Michael Dell's notebooks were catching
on fire, bursting into flames and his stock
went from 41 to 7 and he had to re-create
the entire business right there.
And so every entrepreneur will tell you when
they're going through crisis: number one,
clear your mind, accept whatever the possibly
outcome will be and then the steps that you
have to take are non-fear based and that's
the biggest, biggest problem for people because
we all have these fears.
You have to remember you're in a 100,000 year
old piece of machinery that hasn't had any
real major evolution in the last 100,000 years.
So your personage, you're the same person
that was walking around in ancient Rome, so
you're filled with all these primordial instincts.
You've got to dial down your fear-based instincts
and you've got to focus on being aggressive
in a time of crisis.
Because if you don't do that you have a very
high likelihood of failure.
You have to say to yourself 'What is the worst
that could possibly happen?'
And then 'Xan I live with what is the worst
that could possibly happen?'
I've got buddies of mine I graduated from
law school with and they went on to investment
banking.
And the worst thing that could have ever happened
to them is any scintilla of failure.
Any scintilla of failure.
And so therefore they're not going to take
any risk and they're going to stay in this
little bubble of what I would call the establishment
complacency.
And I've got friends of mine that are like
okay, I'm going to try this thing.
They failed two or three times in different
businesses and now they're very successful.
And so you have to ask yourself, self-diagnostically,
what is the worst thing that could possibly
happen and can I live with the worst thing
that could possibly happen?
I'm comfortable walking into the cocktail
party and saying 'Yes, I am a middle aged
has been.
I happen to suck as an entrepreneur.'
I'm also comfortable walking into the party
saying that 'You know what, I tried my hardest
and for me it was the journey that was way
more important to me than the destination
or the status related to whatever the positive
outcome is.'
You've got to have a thick skin and you have
to steel yourself for whatever's going to
be out there that could be potentially against
you.
And so, for me, those are two big lessons
I share with people.
Drop the elitism, try to get out into the
public and understand what is going on in
society—that will make you a better person
and more prepared.
And number two, if people are railing against
you or saying nasty things what other people
think of you is none of your business.
Who cares?
Just go out and live your life and do what
you think makes sense for yourself.
The world has completely changed with Big
Think and all these other social media websites
and Facebook and Twitter.
You better get out there and define yourself
before other people define you.
So you've got to accept yourself.
You've got to recognize that—be self-aware.
Okay, you're really not that important.
Let me give you the news flash.
And the universe doesn't care if you're successful
or not.
And so you shouldn't either.
You should just follow your journey, but if
you're an entrepreneur you've got to be bold
and you've got to think very, very big.
Otherwise, what are you doing it for?
Have you ever been to a Donald Trump rally?
MALE: Only the Trump campaign understands
how popular Donald Trump is and what his path
to reelection might be.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: Have you ever been to
a Bernie Sanders rally?
CROWD: Singing.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: Let me tell you something.
We can sit in a salon like this and we can
self-talk to each other and we can insulate
ourselves with what we think are the right
ideas or the best ideas, but the average person
is hurting out there.
And so they're looking for something more
disruptive or something more change oriented.
So if you are a media personality or you're
a CEO and people are telling you you have
to be more of a media personality, you better
be authentic.
