Full transcript: Dan Peña LIVE At The Ritz, Part 3
0:14 Dan Peña: We’ve discussed a lot of different things. And 95% of what I’ve said, you could have got off the website. And you still can. Maybe more than 95%. Except for the vignettes and the stories that I’ve added.
0:35 Dan Peña: Everything I’ve said is on the website, and my product on Torrent. Look at the podcast, How Do You Get The **** Money? It’s 47 minutes of pure **** gold.
0:52 Dan Peña: Even a monkey group like this can’t hardly **** it up if you follow the steps. Pretty **** simple. You read that in conjunction with deal flow. How do you get deal flow, and how do you get the deals done? Which is in the left-hand corner, up in the top of my website, it’s an MP3. The podcast is a video on How Do You Get The **** Money? And that’s 75% of anything anybody ever wants to know.
1:26 Dan Peña: I’ve got 12 or 15 podcasts, all jewels. And I’ve got 115, I believe, newsletters. But that doesn’t get you from A to B. Or A to Z at the end. What gets you from A to Z is taking action, pulling the trigger.
1:56 Dan Peña: Because, again, QLA intellectually is simple. Seven simple steps. I mean, just seven, guys. Not even 12 steps, seven. Now, each one of them has got two or three steps, but they’re not major compared to the seven steps. But the seventh step is exit strategy. Because if you do the first six and you don’t **** get out, you might as well not have done the first six. Because my whole plan is, see, wealth is built on a series of transactions building wealth.
2:28 Dan Peña: You ****, what you try to do is you try to get rich off one deal. You hold one **** piece of **** for 5, 10, 15, 35 years, and then you try to get rich off one transaction. 95% of all businesses worldwide don’t sell. 95%, and I think that number is low. Why don’t they sell? Because you’re trying to get rich off one transaction. Because you **** around working in your business instead of on your business, and you try to over-evaluate it because you value your business, what do I need to retire?
3:05 Dan Peña: I’ve had people pay me to take their business 40 years off their hands. Millions. They had a potential tax liability. They had this, they had that. They had a zoning issue they didn’t want to **** with. I can go on and on and on. Because if you don’t pull the trigger, if you don’t take action, all this stuff that’s on my site for free doesn’t mean anything.
3:36 Dan Peña: Now, the two announcements, I’m not closing yet, but while I’m thinking about it, to make it even easier for you monkeys, I’ve got a slide in the seminar where it’s got a chimpanzee sitting over a computer. And the chimpanzee can actually do **** on the computer. And I tell the funny, but the seminar at the castle is set up just like this.
4:11 Dan Peña: And a U in the seminar room with three up front because then when we do role playing, these three guys can move, and the role players can come in and sit. The Hall of Shame’s over there, the Hall of Fame’s there, and the influencers are here. So this is very reminiscent to my own deal.
4:32 Dan Peña: To take away the last bit of excuse, I give you everything anyway. But now some people email me and say, or not me, Vinica, or Kim, or Thelma, my three assistants, I can’t find this, I can’t find that. Can’t you make it easier on the website? Torrent is really not too reliable. The **** server’s not always up.
5:03 Dan Peña: Can you believe this ****? Can you direct me, how do I find the server? I hear every **** day. So even when you’re giving away free, the **** like you, oh, can you make it easier, Dan? I don’t know, it’s too hard. So I’m going to make it easier. Effective in the next few weeks, one of my mentees has a favor to me because I made him rich, and he is thankful.
5:37 Dan Peña: And he knows I don’t want his money. And he said, Dan, I’m going to put all your **** on one site. The Torrent ****, the free ****, everything on one site. Because I know the level of incompetence you deal with every day. I didn’t realize that 10 years ago when you trained me. But I know what a crying **** sounds like. And even after I do this for you, Dan, you’re going to still have crying ****.
6:09 Dan Peña: So we’re going to put it all on one site. And it’s going to be a product of Dan Peña, legal, illegal, blah, blah, blah, blah. I’m even going to supply the server. Because I now realize, I didn’t realize it before, that guys would have it on Torrent if they turn off the server, the **** goes down. You can’t see it, I didn’t know that. And I’m going to have the server just like Facebook, 24-7-365, with backup servers. And backup for backups.
6:42 Dan Peña: And you’re still going to fail. And we’re going to make this announcement soon. And you’ll come up with a new excuse. The second thing I’m going to announce today, this is an exclusive. This is a London Realer loser announcement.
7:10 Dan Peña: I’m going to start a new podcast. It’s got nothing to do with QLA. I’m not going to interview anybody, because I’m not interested in anybody’s opinion. And I don’t have to fill time. See, I can have a podcast from now for the next 50 years, and talk every day, two hours a day, and never run out of ****. And the new podcast is going to be called Reflections and Confessions of the $50 billion Man. And I got the idea from Grant Cardone. Thank you, Grant, when he trick-**** me into that interview in his **** new Rolls, that I didn’t know was part of the interviewing process.
7:47 Dan Peña: And whenever I’m being picked up in my new Phantom stretch, or going someplace in my Phantom stretch, I’m going to have a GoPro camera attached to the front seat, because I sit in the back seat. I don’t drive myself. And the first one is when they pick me up from the airport tomorrow afternoon. And I’m just going to talk about ****. And the people I’ve met, the Queen, President Bush, former governors, shaman, and Costa Grazos, my experience with the Onassis Shipping Line, my experience with the Vatican Bank, my experience with the Church of England, the Bank of England, my experience with the Mexican government, the Chilean government, the Israeli government, the Canadian government, the US government, the Japanese government, the Dutch government,
8:53 Dan Peña: Icelandic government, which I’ve all been in business with, joint venture partners. The Japanese government was with Ido and Wada, Ido-san and Wada-san, a Japanese national oil company. And we did a joint venture, and they wanted to drill in the Gulf of Mexico. And so I went to pay my respects to Ido and Wada. They were the chairman and president of a Japanese national oil company.
9:23 Dan Peña: And when I paid my respects, I told them, I still remember, and I said, I realize you’re taking a big risk. This is what I’m showing. I’m taking a big risk, but we’re using all your money. And I feel obligated to assume more of that emotional risk and make sure you never have to lose face. Now, they got my attention when I said that, because Japanese don’t want to lose face. And I said, with your permission, of course, all successes that our joint venture has will be Japanese national oil company, Japex.
10:02 Dan Peña: All failures will be Great Western Resources. And Wada, or I forget which, no matter whose fault it was, Mr. Peña. I said, no matter whose fault it is, all successes will be yours. All failures will be mine. They said, this is an agreement we can live with. So they took me to a geisha house.
10:34 Dan Peña: And all the stories about the geisha house are all true. All true. And we suck money out of them like **** out of a goose. And my guys, my engineers, were insulted.
10:56 Dan Peña: Pride of authorship. And they really got insulted when the first dry hole that we drilled was a great Western dry hole, even though we used Japex geology, because I don’t care.
11:12 Dan Peña: Call me anything. Just give me the **** money. I mean, give me the **** money. You call me anything. I’m an American. You can’t hurt my **** feelings. That’s the length I’ll go to succeed. Not many in this room would do that. And my professional engineer, geologist, geophysicist hated it. But when we had unlimited budget, when oil was going from 40 to 6, and we were the only ones using the Petroleum Club, because we were the only one that still had a budget, there was a secondary market in Rolex watches in Houston and Dallas, because people selling their **** gaudy Rolex watches.
11:58 Dan Peña: I have a Rolex watch, but anyway, Rolex watch. And we still had jobs, and we’re hiring, and everybody else is firing. I was a **** bloody genius. And when the city couldn’t figure out how come I kept coming up with **** money, there’s a reason I live in a **** castle. It ain’t by accident. And most of the success most people have had in this room is by accident and serendipity.
12:29 Dan Peña: Not by design, but I’m going to give you all the **** in the next few weeks. I hope I never see you again. I mean that sincerely. And if there is a big man upstairs, I won’t.
12:51 Dan Peña: But you’ve got to pull the trigger. And as my mentee that’s putting this together for me said, Dan, I’m doing this as a mercy **** to the poor ****. I know you don’t need it. You don’t want it. You don’t care. And I know I can’t give back to you for all you’ve done to me, done to me, for me, with me. But I’m going to give back to the other poor ****. But they won’t appreciate it. They’ll come up with a whole new plethora of reasons why they can’t do it.
13:24 Dan Peña: And you will. I can’t wait to post it. I can’t wait. And I’m not going to take the time to try to figure out what the new excuses are going to be. But there will be. I guarantee it. Because after 22 years, Jay Abraham, God love him, he said, Dan, I can’t look him in the eye anymore because they won’t do it.
13:55 Dan Peña: They won’t. And the personal development and success business is playing on the Achilles heel of most people, thinking they can fix the Achilles heel. When they don’t understand, you just gotta man up and get your way through it, the Achilles heel. Just like I did when I made that appointment with Klaus Kleinfeld, that I’m all slumped over. And when I knocked my tooth out a couple or three weeks ago, and I still went through and gave the presentation.
14:35 Dan Peña: Because I’d have to be dead not to give the **** presentation. I mean, literally, I’d have to be dead. And again, my role model was my dad, my arms around him and his back’s bleeding. And you wonder why you’re not more successful. But you can find role models out there. They exist. I’m not the only **** role model that walks. I’m a dying breed for sure.
15:06 Dan Peña: I’m a Neanderthal. And people call me old school. I don’t know what that means, old school. But if old school is doing what I say I’m going to do, when I say I’m going to do it, then I’m **** old school and proud of it. I don’t make excuses about anything. And I mean nothing. And I always uphold, and high performance people always uphold agreements they’ve made even when they become inconvenient.
15:40 Dan Peña: It’s easier to say yes. Some of you will be fingering each other out here when we’re having a few drinks. Say, yeah, I tell you not to **** bond. Don’t waste your time talking to these pricks in here.
15:57 Dan Peña: And I’m telling you that from the third chakra. Now, I didn’t finish the story. When Mary’s telling me about how she, I got so **** excited when she said that she had died and she regretted. And then I told her about the third chakra. She says, no way. I’ve known you for almost 40 years. Don’t give me that ****. You never meditated one **** second in your life. I said, no, no, I know. I’m going to try it again. So we’re standing there in the kitchen. I got a glass of merlot. I put it aside.
16:28 Dan Peña: She’s standing about where you’re sitting. And I went through the whole hocus pocus again. And I said, you just scratched your crotch. And I went through this and she started, ****. It’s for real. And that’s the last time I did it. And I’ll probably never do it again. And more importantly, I don’t give a **** why I can do it. It’s not important to me. I don’t need to spreadsheet it, Google, **** it, Wikipedia, **** it. I don’t care. And many of the things that I can accomplish, I don’t care why I can do them.
17:03 Dan Peña: And you do. And you spend your life wondering why. Why Dan is the way Dan is and why I’m the way I am. My only hope, and it’s limited, is that I may have touched one or two of you here today. That’s my only hope. I owe that to Brian QLA Rose for the opportunity he gave me.
17:41 Dan Peña: But he won’t find somebody that swoops down an opportunity like I do. There’s not a bunch of me running around. And I jumped on it like stink on ****.
17:57 Dan Peña: And whereas some of you would still be thinking about it a year later, I make decisions almost instantly. Because I know the repercussions of making a mistake are Slim and none. And Slim left town. Doesn’t matter if I’m wrong. It doesn’t matter. And I don’t care what other people think. In December 2011, I fired 118 people in one day.
18:31 Dan Peña: 118. That’s not the most I’ve ever fired in one day, but 118. And the lawyers told me I couldn’t do it. HR told me. I fired HR, too. I mean, they all told me I couldn’t do this **** and I did it. And I used to have 267 employees. I currently have around 20. The 20 make more money than the 267 did. Because when I have manager meet, he’s a man of, well, what do you think, Brian? What do you think?
19:02 Dan Peña: Oh, we’re doing fine. We’re doing fine. We’re not doing fine. We’re firing everybody. You included. And now with 20 people, more or less, I’m doing the same amount of business as 267. Now, I could go through your businesses and I could smell death. It would be ugly. Be **** ugly. And I can do that because I’ve been through so many businesses and so many business models. My weakness is manufacturing.
19:32 Dan Peña: I’m not as strong in manufacturing as I am in all the others. Yeah, manufacturing, I’m not Henry Ford. And I’m not sure he was a manufacturer, either. But the guys, it’s all about taking action. And when people say, how would you talk to the 20-year-old you? I get all kinds of questions about that. What are the three things? Whether I’m 20, 25, 30, 35, or 40, it’s the same.
20:04 Dan Peña: Just **** do it. Because the consequences of making this mistake are zero in the big cosmos of time. Now, I’m not saying that it won’t hurt your feelings. I’m not saying that your wife’s not going to say you’re a ****. I’m not saying that your brother-in-law and all these other things that you depend on for feedback. See, you like their feedback because it’s more or less positive. Or if it’s not positive, it’s not condescending.
20:34 Dan Peña: And if it’s not positive or not condescending, it’s noncommittal. And you would rather have noncommittal feedback because that’s like them giving you tacit approval again, remember? Tacit approval because they don’t want to hurt your feelings. Now, I’m just the opposite of that. I know that if I hurt your feelings, notwithstanding you may be a quasi-high performance person, you’re not going to forget. Although getting your feelings hurt in New York isn’t such as big a deal as some of these pricks come from.
21:09 Dan Peña: In New York City, it’s dog eat dog. And I’m trying to think, in Cleveland, Ohio, maybe it’s not. Or maybe Des Moines, Iowa, that’s a better example. Des Moines, Iowa, it’s not dog eat dog. Bristol is not dog eat dog.
21:40 Dan Peña: Inverness is not dog eat dog. I’ve got to think of places where it’s not dog eat dog. But QLA survives and prospers and grows. And that’s how you take what would normally take you a generation, 20 to 25 years, depending on which kind of generation, that you can do in three to seven years, depending on how focused you are. And remember the example I gave about Mrs. Gates asking the question of Warren Buffett and Bill in general to the dinner table, what do you attribute your success to?
22:19 Dan Peña: And both of them said the same thing, same word, simultaneously, focus. Many of you have more than one business model. Wrong. And the reason why you don’t close one or two or three of them down is because you’re trying to operate, throwing up **** on the wall, maybe some of it will stick. And what if this business model stops? Brian the mustard could write a book about this.
22:50 Dan Peña: But what if this doesn’t happen? Or at least I’ve got these other three backups. If you have a backup plan, the first lady billionaire, which is a new section in the seminar. I forget her name now. But on her own, where she didn’t inherit it, et cetera, she said that I have no backup plans, no B plan. And I got to say what B role is before that. I have no B plan because I know I’ll use it. Some of you’ve got a B plan, a C plan, and a D plan.
23:23 Dan Peña: And guess what? That means you’re not committed. That means your back’s not against the wall. Your back’s not against the river. You haven’t put yourself in the position where you’re either going to fight or die, where he’s really saying you’re either going to win or die, in the art of war example I gave you before. De Sena, who’s the Spartan man, who was one of the guys I could relate to at the biohacking conference for Dave Asprey, he said, now he’s talking about physical things which I can relate to.
23:53 Dan Peña: I put myself in a corner. I overcommit so I have no way out. And I used to do the same thing physically when I ran 100-mile races and 50-milers and stuff like that. And when I ran in a Boston Marathon, my third marathon, I got sick and I told you the story. But I naturally think positively. It doesn’t always work out, especially when I was depending on my athletic prowess, which there isn’t too much of it, but I got a big heart and big balls and so I could push myself hard.
24:33 Dan Peña: If you haven’t run 100 miles and pissed blood, you’re a ****. And so the Spartan guy, De Sena, I could relate to him. And he says, I put myself in a corner no matter what. So I have no way out. You guys allow yourself, even if it’s not at a conscious level, you allow yourself a way out. You allow yourself a fail safe. You allow yourself a weasel way out.
25:05 Dan Peña: And none of the high performance guys that I’ve ever had the privilege of being around or doing business with do that. None of them. Zero. Zero. OK, now if all these guys have the same attributes, and to the extent that I look at the crowd and I may be exaggerating, none of you have that attribute. What does that tell you?
25:34 Dan Peña: It tells you there’s a reason why most of you are sitting in here and not on the other list. Now, people always ask one of the questions that were asked, Dan, how come you didn’t go out and try to be a billionaire or be a billionaire? It’s a good question. And this is the answer and this is the honest truth. I didn’t find it that hard turning $800 into $450 million.
26:00 Dan Peña: I did what I set out to do. My goal was $2 billion company. And if I had to do it, we’re going to set higher goals. And I think it was Dell. Michael Dell said, about 30 years ago, if Dan had been in the computer business, it might have not been Dell. Yeah, I think it was Dell. Had Dan had been in the computer business, Dan would have been the first trillionaire on the planet.
26:26 Dan Peña: Because I grew at 55 million percent, 67,000% a year. But I wasn’t. I don’t know if oil and gas is called bricks and mortar, but it’s close enough to bricks and mortar. But I know it was a collapsing market. Now I’m going to get another swing at the plate. I can’t **** believe it. Oil goes down, breaks 20. I mean, I’m going to be in there like a **** rabid dog.
26:56 Dan Peña: **** everything I can get my dick in. Well, like they’re running like **** thieves in the night, cutting and slashing like a buccaneer boarding a ship, killing women and children and everybody. And there won’t be many of us, because people are going to be afraid of what other people think. Oh, he’s taking advantage of the misfortune of all those others.
27:27 Dan Peña: **** you, you ****. If you built a dream team, had an anchor chairman, and a **** mentor, you’d be doing the **** same. It’s not my fault that you read 300 books and listen to 700 podcasts instead. That’s not my fault. The biggest difference between me and the people in this room is I take responsibility for my actions. And I don’t blame them on other people.
28:01 Dan Peña: And that’s tough. Even when I make a mistake, which is rare, but early in my career, I made a lot of them. And I bellied up to the bar. I sucked up my pantyhose and said, I **** it up. How can I fix it? And when I sit down for a meeting, I always start the meeting the same way. How can I help you? And I don’t have to see all these **** melon heads. I’ve seen about 20 or 22 this trip for free, 20, 30 minutes each.
28:33 Dan Peña: But I do it because maybe I can set them on the right track. Because most of them don’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. They got no money. But maybe I can steer them in the right direction. And as many of them say, we wanted to know what it’s like to be around a really high performance person because we’ve got no role models.
29:01 Dan Peña: Some of them say, we wanted to see what an alpha male looked like up close. Then, ah, I go like this. And they jump back. And then I look down to see if I can see any pee.
29:19 Dan Peña: So maybe I touched one or two of you. I hope so. But the odds are I didn’t. The odds are notwithstanding you won the contest, I would have liked to have seen what the losers looked like because the losers would probably be more desperate.
29:39 Dan Peña: And if we did it for free, I know what the results would be, zero. Because I’ve tried that model before. I’ve tried that model. And it’s like Costa Grazas told me many years ago, Dan, no good turn goes unpunished. So I leave my charity to the orphans. I leave my charity to the Rwandan school children. Oh, god. And I **** up all the pictures. We took some great pictures of the school we support there in Rwanda.
30:12 Dan Peña: Oh, these cute little kids. And they can’t go to school yet because they’re not five. And in Rwanda, you’ve got to be five or older. Now how they keep track of the age, I don’t know. It’s **** because a lot of the kids, how old are you? I don’t know. But anyway, so I think it’s at the height level. If you’re less than two feet tall, you’re considered less than five. And so when Sally was in there, they have one meal a day at the school. And it’s porridge in a big bowl.
30:43 Dan Peña: And they come to the school, and they feed them. But one of the little kids was crying. And I said, were they crying? Oh, because somebody took. And they take school supplies seriously. You give them a book and a pencil, that’s all the belongings they have. And so somebody had stolen the little guy’s pencil. And the teacher’s trying to reason with the students.
31:13 Dan Peña: No, that dog ain’t going to **** hunt. I’ll get the **** pencil. I’ll get the **** pencil. So there’s 40 kids in the class, 10 a row. I started marching up and down the rows. And Sally says, oh, Dan, you’re going to make them cry. Please, Dan. I started marching up, down, and I got to the third row. And the guy’s going, with a pencil like this. Give me the **** pencil, you little ****. And I went over, and I gave it to the kid that was crying. And I said, I want you to tell him in Rwandan, whatever the ****, and I want you to tell him, next time I come back, if he isn’t getting all passing marks, I’m going to throw him out of the **** school.
31:55 Dan Peña: Since I support the **** school. He said, well, I can’t tell him that. I said, you what? I got a hearing problem. So I told my driver, in Rwandan, you tell him, because she didn’t want to do that. So he told her, he told the kid. And the kid didn’t cry. He understood. Even little kids want leadership. Now, you probably tree-hugging ****. Who would have given him a little hug? Right? Give him a little hug. Give him a little love.
32:27 Dan Peña: That’s not what **** people need. You’re wrong. You’re so **** wrong. It’s beyond my comprehension that you think that. And why do you think that? Because your **** parents told you that. Because the truth of the matter is those **** **** are the ones that need the love. They’re the ones that felt insecure. They’re the ones that have low self-esteem. They’re the ones that have no self-confidence. And guess **** what? It’s rubbed off on you.
32:58 Dan Peña: And that’s why you’re the enigma man. I don’t understand. I don’t understand. And if I do this another 20 years, which I probably won’t. In fact, I know I won’t. But for the next few years, I know that the people like Bavarian Bob and Brian the Mustard and QLA Brian are the anomalies of life. Even though I bust Brian QLA Rose’s balls, and I certainly have busted Mustard’s balls, and I’ve busted Robert’s balls a long time, they’re the anomalies.
33:38 Dan Peña: But it’s early days because these guys only started in October. But he’s five years into the program. And most people can’t take the love I give for five years.
33:56 Dan Peña: They’re pressing the edges of the envelope for 12 months. Because as time goes on, I get tougher and tougher. Like Bill Landry, the coach of the Dallas Cowboys, what’s his first name? Tom Landry told me a long time ago. He said, Dan, I get people, and this is what I do, I get people to do what they don’t want to do so they can be what they want to be. I get people to do what they don’t want to do so they can be what they want to be.
34:27 Dan Peña: That’s what I do. Marcus Bauer, who was the former world-class skier for the Austrian ski team, he says, you remind me of Fritz, my old ski coach, Olympic ski coach for Austria. No matter what I did, it wasn’t good enough. He says, and they beated me. I don’t know why they always add ED. Certain countries, when they said, he beated me.
35:00 Dan Peña: I mean, physically, they beated me. And when I tore my knee out, he says, too bad. That ended his career. Too bad. In Whiplash, the guy drove them beyond the limits. And that’s how you get to be world-class. That’s how you have to drive beyond the limits. And as I said at the beginning of the seminar, a lot of people that have known me many, many years say that I have reached my Peter Principle because I’m at the level of which I’m not going to get any better.
35:43 Dan Peña: And I’ve used all my talent to the extent that I’ve got any talent. And the thing that I can do better than just about anybody I know is get me close to the goal line and I get the **** in the net, no matter what.
36:02 Dan Peña: Yeah, no matter what. I get the ball in the net. I know how to get the ball in the net. I know the right buttons to push. And then you know how to get the ball in the net the second or third or fourth time. But I show you how to get the ball in the net. But remember, 99% of the people that have been successful at QLA have never met me, never seen me. They’ve done it off the material that you can’t seem to find. You can’t seem to find.
36:34 Dan Peña: And I have all your names on the list. So I’m going to have my staff put them in a database. So when we get the new site up, the first one of you that asked me a **** stupid question, I’m going to take a **** full page ad out, if you’re British, in the **** Financial Times, and I’m going to humiliate you. If you’re in Atlanta, I’ll take it out in Atlanta, whatever. I don’t even think they got a newspaper where you live, mustard.
37:07 Dan Peña: Yeah, yeah. But I mean, Brian, in a lot of ways, his story is more remarkable than Brian Rose or Robert because he was in deep guano. Would you agree? Yeah, he was in deep ****. It’s only by the grace of the big man. I believe in the big man when I see people like him saved. When I see, you know, he happens to be a pretty religious guy, which isn’t the reason why I help him because I would be considered not like the Antichrist by a lot of people, which doesn’t hurt my feelings.
37:49 Dan Peña: If that’s what you have to call me, for me to get you to be successful, you can call me any **** thing you want. Because my whole task in life for the remaining years I have is to get as many people across the goal line as I possibly can. And that’s why I’m thankful to Mr. Rose for giving me the opportunity. And I am now thankful to the two reality shows. Now, I’m going to close by, I’m going to show you two supposed lines or the formats of the reality show, and we can talk about them when we’re having a drink.
38:25 Dan Peña: The one, it’s called Back in the Black with a $50 billion man. We’re going to take, well, we could take some of you actually on the verge of bankruptcy, should have filed bankruptcy, should have put a bullet in your **** head. I said to make it more real, we got to have a loaded gun on the **** table for these people. But anyway, they’re going to go through all Britain and they’re going to interview people all over Britain. And they’re going to start, I don’t know where you put ads and papers for this kind of ****. And then we’re going to narrow it down to 50 and they’re bringing them to London.
38:58 Dan Peña: And then they’re going to narrow 50 down to 20. And then 20, I will get to see their background, their CV. No, but they got to be able to talk, speak English, and look presentable. Because I said, I’m not going to do any ****. Like, all these people either have a business in bankruptcy or they should file bankruptcy, which a few of you are covered in this. And they’re going to go to the banks and they’re going to tell the banks for the publicity for HSBC or whatever, we want you to forgive their interest payments for the next six months.
39:35 Dan Peña: Now, I don’t think that dog will hunt. I think the banks will say, go **** yourselves. But if they don’t do, then the network is going to pay their interest for the next six months. That’s the fallback position. And then we narrow it down to eight, two alternates, six, for six weeks. And then I go in and I do my magic and I turn them around or I turn the key, whatever. And the first time I tell you to do something and you don’t do it, you’re off the show.
40:08 Dan Peña: Because I said, I can’t allow them. I’m not going to be judged by whether they feel comfortable or not doing it. And then I’ll just make an announcement. The reason why this Rufus Dufus is off the show is because I told him what to do and he didn’t do it. And in real life, that’s it. That’s one format. The second format is we go through a similar review process, we get a bunch of people, and we take them to the castle.
40:39 Dan Peña: This is castle-based. And one’s a UK company or a reality show. One’s a US reality show. We take them to the castle. We’ve got six people there. And we pick one a day.
41:00 Dan Peña: We give them tasks to answer questions. It’ll be stretched over six weeks. One a week gets thrown out of the show for lack of fulfillment of the tasks given. The one that wins at the end, either I or the network, or both, invest in the company to take it to the next level. Those are the two formats. And I told them that I could do these in a coma, no sweat, whatsoever.
41:35 Dan Peña: And if we run one season, I only expect to run one season, because I can’t imagine they’re going to let me say **** I just don’t. I can’t imagine that. Yeah, well, I can’t imagine. But they say there’s a taste for this now.
41:56 Dan Peña: And they’ve seen, I’ve done interviews, they’ve put me up against a protagonist. I don’t even know what a protagonist is, but I did a audition. And when I did the audition here in London, the people in the room looked at me like I was the Antichrist. I mean, literally, the kid they put in front of me, I tore him to shreds, made him cry. And then they took me outside the studio, and they filmed me walking down the street.
42:29 Dan Peña: Of course, I had cameras and everything. And people were coming up to me and saying, who are you? Get away from me, don’t touch me. Who are you? You must be famous. And so the camera guy said, we’ve never seen this happen. I mean, you brutalize that kid. And all these people are coming up here and sucking your ass. Regular Joe Doakes on the street. Of course, that’s the British for you. Joe Doakes on the street. And then two weeks later, I came back and told my wife at the Ritz, this hotel, my showbiz quiz is over. I get a call from my agents.
42:59 Dan Peña: They loved you. They didn’t know whether to **** or go blind or jack off on the computer. They loved it. They’re worried that you’re gonna run out of stories. And I said, who’d have **** thunk it? So my time has perhaps come again. I’m gonna see $20 oil and they have two TV shows.
43:29 Dan Peña: Yeah, yeah, it looks like I’m gonna have another swing at the **** bat or at the pitch or whatever it’s called. And so, but I continue to swing at the bat every single day, guys, and in closing, if I swing at the plate continuously with all the success I’ve had, and I fail all the time, all the time. I fail. And I haven’t had to work for 30 plus years, more than 30 years.
44:05 Dan Peña: You know, people say, how do you get up in the morning, Dan? Like, you know, that’s not my erection, but that is like this, I get up like this, you know? Because I love what I do and I would wish that this group love what you do 5% as much as what I love what I do. If you generate and you develop the communication skills just 2% of what I have, that’s more than enough to have all the money in the world.
44:38 Dan Peña: And I want, from the bottom of my heart, that resonate, my message is resonated with a couple people. I have Brian Rose to thank. I’m glad that he picked me to be his first guinea pig, so to speak.
44:57 Dan Peña: And I’m gonna do everything humanly possible to make his model work. And I haven’t, there’s no fallback plan, we’re just gonna make it work and we’re gonna monetize it because of all the value he’s brought you guys over the years, he should be making something and he should be making a lot. He should be making a lot. Thank you very much, God bless.
