This is how the world's biggest music manager, Scooter Braun, climbed out of his rock-bottom to make it to the top. What started as sweat, tears and hustle blossomed into a life of generosity and compassion, all because of one important piece of wisdom from his father.
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00:00 You're a liar.
00:01 I was about 14 years old.
00:04 My father came outside and I was shooting hoops
00:06 in the driveway and the day before I got grounded
00:09 for lying, he came outside, I want to talk to you.
00:11 My dad is kind of a force.
00:13 He looked at me and he said, look, yesterday you lied.
00:15 I said, I know dad, I'm sorry.
00:16 He goes, no, no, we're not here to talk about that.
00:18 We're here to talk about some truths
00:19 that I need to give you.
00:20 I always told you if you lied,
00:22 you wouldn't be successful in life.
00:24 And that just isn't the truth.
00:25 Out of all my kids, you're the one that I have
00:28 absolutely no doubt will be successful in life.
00:30 But you're a liar and you're going to know it
00:32 and I'm going to know it and that's just the way it is.
00:35 And I just broke down crying.
00:36 I went in the house later and I said, look,
00:39 I thought about it and I'm going to go through life
00:42 and I'm going to be a man of integrity.
00:43 And it might be harder to be successful,
00:45 but I'm not going to be a liar.
00:47 And I'm going to show you that I'm going to have integrity
00:48 in everything that I do.
00:50 And he smiled at me and goes, good decision.
00:52 My dad was a refugee in the United States from Hungary.
00:57 My grandparents were Holocaust survivors.
00:59 Both of them just really fought
01:01 for everything that they got.
01:03 And I felt very guilty that I was the first person
01:06 in my family to grow up with any kind of means.
01:08 In a weird way, it kind of put a chip on my shoulder
01:10 that I wanted to prove to myself, to the world,
01:12 to my family that I could build something of my own.
01:16 Most of the great advice I ever got was from great parents,
01:18 not from great businessmen.
01:20 He taught me there's a difference
01:21 between winning and truly winning.
01:24 You know, there's a lot of people who win in the outcome,
01:28 but because they don't understand
01:30 that living with integrity is a different kind of winning,
01:32 they never understood how they actually lost.
01:34 I only lasted in college for a year and a half.
01:37 I started my business my freshman year.
01:40 I did that for three and a half years.
01:42 And I had all these ideas about social media
01:43 and no one was listening to me.
01:44 Music artists were at their biggest
01:46 when there was a feeling of self-discovery.
01:48 For these kids, it was social media.
01:50 I started my own record label management company.
01:53 I signed a kid off MySpace named Asher Roth.
01:55 And then four months after finding Asher,
01:57 I went on YouTube and saw, by mistake,
02:00 a kid singing who had 60,000 views
02:02 in his church in Canada.
02:04 And I was so blown away by what I saw,
02:07 I knew I can make this kid
02:08 one of the biggest artists in the world.
02:09 I just knew instantly.
02:10 And that was Justin Bieber, 12-year-old,
02:13 singing in a church.
02:15 And I called every school district in that part of Ontario
02:18 until his mom called to get rid of me.
02:20 And I convinced her to go out on the first plane,
02:22 she and he had ever been on.
02:24 I had saved money for about 13 to 14 months
02:28 before I knew I was going broke.
02:31 And this was probably month 11.
02:33 I ordered a pizza and I had to get out $11 in change
02:37 from a bucket of change I kept dropping
02:39 every time I came to my house because I had no money.
02:41 I had Justin and his mother.
02:42 I was paying their food bill, their electric bill,
02:44 I was paying everything.
02:46 And I was trying to build this company.
02:48 And everyone in Atlanta thought I was winning,
02:50 thought I was successful.
02:52 But I knew the truth.
02:53 And my dad just called me to say,
02:55 "Hey, what's up, what's going on?"
02:57 And one thing led to another and I just broke down
02:59 hysterically crying on the phone.
03:02 That dad, I'm gonna be a failure.
03:03 I'm a joke, no one knows.
03:05 And everyone's about to find out.
03:07 And my dad said, "You came this far, see it through."
03:12 Kind of wiped up my tears, said, "Okay."
03:14 The next day, Asher Roth came to my house,
03:16 played me a song called "I Love College."
03:18 And I instantly knew what to do.
03:20 Within a month, I was able to get us a publishing deal
03:23 for a million dollars, the commission, saved my company.
03:27 That was the first time I really understood
03:29 that tomorrow comes.
03:30 That the line, the homes of success and failure
03:34 are next door to each other.
03:35 That if I would have given up in that moment,
03:36 I would have never known that success
03:38 was waiting for me next door.
03:39 And to me, that is success.
03:43 It's who's gonna keep swinging.
03:45 We define, oh, you're successful because you're rich.
03:48 You know, we decide our eligible bachelors
03:51 based on net worth.
03:52 We should be looking at success as a very different thing.
03:55 Are we happy?
03:57 Do we have quality of life?
03:58 Are we surrounded by loved ones?
04:00 Are we able to take time to actually enjoy the victories?
04:05 Do we even know what the victories are?
04:07 And yes, I know what the haters say.
04:10 Easy for you to say this, you've already had success,
04:13 you have wealth.
04:14 You know, you're not dealing with what I'm dealing with.
04:16 But I have once.
04:18 I was there.
04:19 And now I can tell you that with all the monetary success
04:22 I have, if it wasn't for my wife and my children,
04:24 'cause I'd be so lost.
04:26 Family and friends, that's your real value.
04:28 Each birthday I have, I don't look around and say,
04:32 gosh, wonder how much money I got.
04:35 No, I look around and say, God,
04:37 look at the people I've collected in my life.
04:40 Look at the family I've collected.
04:42 The rest is just house money.
04:44 (gentle music)
04:47 (gentle music)
04:49 (gentle music)
04:52 (gentle music)
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