From the course: Career Advice from Some of the Biggest Names in Business

Daymond John on visualizing and setting goals

From the course: Career Advice from Some of the Biggest Names in Business

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Daymond John on visualizing and setting goals

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(soft electronic music) - What do you say to people who, I'm sure this must happen to you, where someone comes to you and says, "I want to be just like you." 17 year-old, 16 year-old kid sees what you've created. What's your advice for that person? - My advice for the person is, what is the aspect of my life that you want to be like? Is it because, hopefully I've inspired and helped change people's lives, is it because you think that I have wealth, you think that I wake up in the morning in a tuxedo and fire people all day, get me coffee, this and that, because if that's ... It all depends on what they want to do. That's how I drill down on it and if it becomes the, "I want to be a boss," well then I have to tell them, "Well, you better be ready to get up before everybody, go to sleep after everybody, and everybody blames you. You will or may be able to change people's lives but the buck stops with you and it's a lot of responsibility. If somebody would have told me what I went through in my life to get to this stage, and they would have laid it out, it would be so daunting and so scary, and I'd probably say, "I'd just rather be a waiter at Red Lobster where I don't take my work home with me. I'm blessed, I'm happy I'm at this point, but if I would have had to look at all the ups and downs and the pressure, and the loss of family, and the loss of friends, and the helping of others ... Life can be pretty scary if you write those things down. - So, should people set goals, or is it important to set, do you want to set long-term goals, short-term goals, or just not even think about it, go day by day, so you don't get daunted? You absolutely have to set goals, but if you set goals you need to, I set goals and that's what I do every single day. I read my goals, my seven or eight goals, I read them every single morning, and every single night before I go to sleep, because it's the last thing I want to think about and I want to dream about. My goals are, seven of the expire in six months, and then another three expire in five years, ten years, and twenty years. You have to be able to visualize yourself there and you don't know how you're going to get there, 'cause when I set a goal for FUBU, it was in 1984, it was a Run DMC concert in the Spectrum Theater in Philadelphia, and I saw Run DMC get on that stage, and when I said to myself that day, "I'm going to live and die and prosper in a world hip-hop. I don't know how," 'cause at that time, there wasn't any designers, and I couldn't sing, I couldn't rap, I could dance a little bit, but I had no way of getting there but I set that visual goal and, unfortunately, if you don't set those goals, you let people set goals for you. You let people set those goals that you can't get that education, you can't change the world, you're never going to be anybody, you're going to embarrass yourself, you're going to embarrass us, and they set those goals for you. If you don't set those goals, who's setting the goals for you? (soft electronic music)

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