there's a relationship between wanting something working really hard and doing something someone will pay you for so that's the formula 10,000 clients that give you a five out of 10 is not helpful 1,000 clients that give you a 9.8 launches a business early on you don't need quantity you need quality the first rookie mistake is being blinded by your own Brilliance Jeff Hoffman Jeff Hoffman Jeff Hoffman an iconic highly accomplished entrepreneur with multiple successful startups including the founding of Bin preline and ubid.com executive producer of grammy winning Jazz album and an Emmy awardwinning television show what is it that the world's most successful people are doing that everybody else isn't and it turns out that there are habits and disciplines that successful people do everywhere Pitbull's a singer Mark's an engineer but they have similar attitudes habits and practices so one of those is and that was the common element when I saw these successful people good morning good afternoon good night Club the luno Bento Community we have a special guest iconic this is we're making history right now in this podcast we're bringing international business people experts professionals and in this case it's very special I'm even a little nervous but yeah we have Jeff hofman I'm going to introduce yourself you're an iconic highly accomplished entrepreneur with multiple successful startups or companies huge companies now to your credit including the founding of bookin Priceline and ubid.com you have an extensive experience as CEO motivational speaker author film producer executive producer of grammy winning Jazz album and an Emy award-winning television show when I was reading this I compared to you with my colleagues with Leonardo avinci because you look at your biography and you excel in different uh singularities so we're going to dive into that thank you currently Jeff serves as the board of various companies across the globe including the global entrepreneurship Network he recognized business Expert and has received numerous awards for his contribution to entrepreneurship so it's quite weird to have such an iconic person like yourself here in Spain it's a it's a pleasure for for our audience to have you and and thank you very much for making it Happ thank you for inviting me and we came in perfect weather in Madrid so hope you good time to be in Spain hope you enjoy the rest of your stay Madrid so Jeff I wanted to jump in and how did you start like like going back back the the furthest where you kind of Lemonade Stand entrepreneur almost so I I will tell you because I grew up uh in the United States in the Arizona desert um but I had a single mom uh who had four kids and three jobs right never had any money um so as a kid um I never knew the word entrepreneur or anything what what it was was like for example I played every sport and when the season changes and the sport changes from basketball uh to football you need different shoes and Equipment but I didn't want to ask my mother who didn't have money so what I would do was find a way to make money I would literally I literally remember one time as a child I walked to somebody's house knocked on their door and he said can I help you and I said your garage is embarrassing and he said what and I said your garage it's a mess you never clean it it's embarrassing and he said you knocked on my door to tell me my my my house is embarrassing and I said yes and and I said you ever going to clean it and then his wife came to the door she said who is that isn't that the kid from down the street I saides she said what do you want and I said you guys never clean your garage and she says to her husband you need to clean it already and he said it's too hot out I said I'll do it for $20 so that's always I was trying to make money so I didn't have to ask my mother um and then I started to realize that entrepreneurship never heard the word but there's a relationship between wanting something working really hard and doing something someone will pay you for pay you for so that's the formula but I I learned it young wow and just to actually jump into the the analogy I made with lonardo Vinci and and yourself which it's amazing how how do you manage like you just said that you you played every sport is this something that has accompied you in your more or less DNA to wanting to excel in difference and why or what motivates you yes but there's a really important well I I think there's a couple factors um one is probably a little bit of add I guess right I can't stay I can't just do one thing for too long uh because then I start to get bored um but more it's that that's the negative the positive side um is and this is what I always encourage people to be especially entrepreneurs my favorite entrepreneurs are lifelong Learners they're curious right and so I have a I have a a TED Talk out there and it's called The Power of childlike Wonder right 5-year-olds try to ask you a million questions why do we have to go to the store why do we need food why do we why do we have to eat why will we die if we don't eat 5-year-olds never stop asking you questions my favorite adults and the most successful entrepreneurs are the ones that don't lose that childlike curiosity how does that work and so that I think for me was the driver I always wondered about everything and instead of wondering why don't you just go try I'll go try this new thing so all along I always wondered about music the process of creating a song the process of making a movie the process of creating a television show in addition to creating products as an entrepreneur so creating having a space to let your curiosity drive you and try stuff right the worst thing in life is not failing the worst thing in life is in not trying because then you spend your whole life wondering if that would have worked so I've always been curious I've always liked learning and I've always said I'm just going to go find out how that works and a lot of my favorite sort of business Role Models uh that became friends like um like Steve gnak from Apple right I noticed W is always saying I wonder how that everything he sees he's wondering about it another friend of mine Nolan Bushnell he's the inventor of video games right Atari was his company Nolan and I were sitting at a we were doing media after we both spoke at something and we were sitting in someone's office waiting for the cameras to come and all of a sudden I looked down and he took apart something on this person's desk I said what are you Nolan what are you doing I said this is not your office and he said I'm trying to figure out how this thing works I said okay but you took apart a machine on someone else's desk his curiosity drives him so that's been my thing I want to learn something new I want to see how things work I want to take stuff apart and I was just never afraid to fail at it that's great I I I listened to you in a in a podcast where you H said tools or things you Ed to keep that Curiosity alive which was perhaps doing a sentence can you share a little bit of how to keep curiosity uh sure and that comes from emul I so many years ago I got this question what is it that the world's most successful people are doing that everybody else isn't why are some people really successful right and I started wondering is there there must be doing something that everybody else isn't doing right that's what I started to wonder so I made it kind of a lifelong study every time I'm around somebody that I admire that's been successful and whatever they do by the way I started to ask the same set of questions to understand and it turns out that there are habits and disciplines practices that successful people do everywhere and that's when I started to notice that for example uh you know I I I mentioned somebody like Steve gnak or Mark Randolph who I'll be with tomorrow that uh invented Netflix but then friends of mine like Pitbull the singer is a friend of mine they're similar in ways you'd never guess right Pitbull is a singer Mark's an engineer but they have similar attitudes habits and practices so one of those is that these people are trying to absorb information from a world broader than their own right and and so to answer your question that the Habit is I created I I just made up this word I call it infos sponging but I challenge myself like for example the first time Pitbull called me I was like okay you're really you're Mr worldwide why are you calling me and he said because I want to learn business now right and he said all my friends are in music you're in business teach me business and I thought that's pretty smart that he's wants to continue to grow his lifelong learning the most successful people don't just study in their field they look to see what everyone else is doing so really quick info sponging the idea that I created was every day I'm going to challenge myself to learn one new thing every day but here's the important thing that I don't need to know so for 10 minutes every day this is what I'll challenge your your your you know your listeners for 10 minutes every day um and I usually do this first thing in the morning 15 minutes if you can't do it every day do it once a week um I go out to learn one thing that is not in my industry so if you were in travel so for these 10 minutes you're not in travel and you don't work for your company go read one article watch one video talk to one person and at the end I write down one sentence of what I learned today but when I write it down I'm like I have no idea what that even means right today but I I want you to think of knowledge like puzzle pieces if I gave you a piece of a puzzle and I said hey what is this you'd say you gave me one piece Jeff if I gave you two or three you wouldn't know but if every day I kept giving you pieces out of the box of the puzzle and you moved them around the table one day you would call me right and you would say oh this is a cathedral that's what it's going to be you would see the pattern forming that's what the most successful people do with knowledge they collect bits of knowledge and they push it around the table and they oh I see a trend coming that no one else sees so info sponging learn one new thing a day that you don't need to know write down one sentence of what you learned and then some days just stare at that list and you will start to see patterns before anyone else sees them yeah when when you see patterns is that you more or less like they saying connect the dots and and then abut those pieces of information you you okay they're relevant in a near future you connect the dots and you apply them in a way that before anyone else saw it and that was the common element when I saw these successful people I was like how'd you get there and I realized something because they were studying the world and putting connecting the dots before anyone else connected them wow so you know and you yourself of our our iconic in in entrepreneurial ecosystem history what would be the best advice you've ever got and the worst advice you've ever got sure so I'll I'll I'll go with the best uh well the worst I don't know if it was advice so much as my own I'll do the worst first so we'll close on the positive note um the the worst was people telling me that's a great idea go for it okay and I'll tell you why that was the worst advice because they were giving me their opinion and validating mine and and I this board where I write down the lessons I've learned and I'll tell you the lesson from that of it being wrong one day I wrote down we get our advice from proximity not relevance and the reason I said that is I was listening I was getting advice from people whose only qualification is there near me it could be uh husband wife mother father brother sister your best friend so the people around me were telling me that's a good ide AA or that's a bad idea and I was getting advice from them because they were the people around me and then one day I realized wait a minute uh somebody actually it was my mom my mother was commenting on some internet idea I was telling her about and my mom was saying why she didn't think it was a good idea and all of a sudden I thought to myself so that actually was bad advice she was saying don't do it it's a bad idea but what I realized was I said mom you're telling me that because of all the internet companies you built my mom's like I never built an internet company I'm like like exactly and then I realized Jeff it's your fault why are you listening to the wrong people so advice from people who are not relevant to your Market if you're building a travel product don't listen to your best friend unless she is a person that travels all the time and knows a lot about travel that was the bad advice the best advice uh was when when I had a mentor that told me it's never about you it might be your idea and you might be the founder but the only path to success is through building a team of people smarter than you around you so I I originally thought it's my idea I'm the founder I'm the Creator no one can do it better than me whatever all that crap and and the truth is one day somebody said you will never get anywhere until you surround yourself with people smarter than you so that's the best advice I ever got was stop trying to build a company and spend more time building a team they'll build the company totally but wonderful you you mentioned advises and then you referred to the word even in the second question Mentor so what importance do you give I know you yourself is are a mentor of great entrepreneurs what importance and how do you see mentorship in in sure that's a great question and and you know I wish someone had told me that and can you still be mentored when you're in your level at say okay so absolutely you never stop learning in fact if you think you're done learning you're you're already irrelevant you're over you you never ever stop learning and you can always be mentored because there's still something you don't know how to do you've never done and somebody's done it successfully that you can learn from so I think a mentor is critically important um the mistake that I made early on first of all I didn't have any mentors early then later I thought a mentor was somebody that's just the qu the only qualification I thought was they've done this so I was building travel technology for travel and Hospitality right that's what we did at Price Line booking Etc um that's what those companies do um I was building technology for travel so for a mentor I thought I just needed someone maybe they work for an airline Hotel company the lesson that I learned about picking a mentor is the best Mentor is someone you want to be like when you grow up so that's a a holistic view the person when you look at somebody not say he used to be the CEO of an airline that's not the qualification for a mentor when you look at somebody and say man someday I want to be just like him that's who you pick because it it entrepreneurship as we all know is a difficult Journey it's a lonely Journey right there's a lot a risk involved you alienate people that you know are around you if you're going to do all that stuff it better be taking somewhere taking you somewhere you want to be so when you pick a a mentor that you say I want to wind up where she is someday that's how you select your Mentor find someone you want to be like someday I don't care how old you are somebody you want to be like when you grow up and talk to reach out to that person to be your Mentor they may have no knowledge of the industry you're in but they have knowledge of how do you make you an effective leader a better Communicator a good person lead a good life all that stuff's way more important than did they work for an airline how do you contact mentors I know there's a story I I really like the pretty girl high school story I don't know if you so how can young entrepreneurs get in contact sure so you know I'm glad you said that well I I'll explain I'll explain what that story is um and that is part of the quote that I said get your advice from uh don't get your advice from proximity get it from relevance but I thought of that one day because I was sitting in a football stadium American football but in any given I started to wonder this afterwards so I'm sitting in this football stadium in one little town and on the team in American football the head person's the quarterback right and the quarterback is playing well and everybody's around me is saying he's going to go pro he's going to be a professional football player and then they have dancers and cheerleaders and one girl's by definition there's always a prettiest girl at that event and everyone saying she's going to be a famous movie star and I was sitting there and I was thinking and and I then I went and looked it up right now on a Friday night in the United States there are 177,000 high schools so that means divided by two right there's like 89,000 games going on on any Friday night so in 9,000 stadiums someone's the prettiest girl and someone's the best athlete and all the people are saying he's going to be Pro and she's going to be a movie star and yet none of those people have any qualific to say that I like do you run do you own a professional football team are you a scout no so how do you know they're going to make it in the same way that girl none of these people are a talent agent right in the in Hollywood that's when I started to think about a mentor right and I need somebody that's been that's had the the career path that I want to have that's been around that if I want advice on playing football I want advice from somebody who played football professionally so anyway the mentor I mean you personally or are are a a LinkedIn genius you know how to use it you know how to work it you've created so much value and following you use LinkedIn really well I know that people learn from you and people that are listening if you don't know that you should they should learn from you the way you do LinkedIn but that's by far the best tool out there people are on LinkedIn because they want to do business and they want to be contacted so going through Linkedin reading about people and finding someone that you say man I want to be like that person one day that's how you find your Mentor go out and reach out old reach and and tell people I really admire you and I would love to talk to you someday most people won't respond somebody will why are the key qualities you would Envision into that figure of great leader or Mentor for you personally what are the qualities that every successful or Mar has um so uh there's a few the first one the biggest one is humility when people think they know everything and they're smarter than everyone you can't learn from them and they can't they stop learning so the first one is humility right I like working with people that say you know they might have been immensely successful right but they're still saying can you teach me something can I grow more can I learn more so humility pay attention to that if somebody we were listening to a speaker earlier today uh I will not mention the name um that that came across like he already knows everything and he's already smarter than everyone and you know what happens to me I just tuned that out I'm already not interested in listening uh I somebody with the humility to know that you never stop growing and you never sto learning and I don't know everything that's a big characteristics so you want your mentor to be open-minded too not the one because some people think I need to find a mentor that already knows everything nobody does right the second one I would say is empathy um is people with listening skills and by the way I didn't know that till I failed one of the companies I launched um we were trying to sell products that stay-at-home moms to Housewives at the time none neither me nor none none of my employees were were stay-at-home moms none of them were Housewives and we launched a product and no Mom at all liked the product and later we we launched an early internet company uh that was that was I I won't say the name of it I don't want embarrass the other people but um we thought that instead of going to the mall a mom instead of packing up all the kids could use her computer to order something on this brand new thing called the internet and here's what happened in real life no one bought anything the company failed and I had to tell the investor s and the employees you're all I have to let you all go home we're done with this shopping company but I reached out to some of the people because you could see them on the website so this is a true story H this m mom replied and I said I saw you looking at my products but you didn't buy anything and I said why not I said the company failed um and this is where the empathy the listening skills came in and she said to me she said well your products are good I wanted to buy this sweater but I'm not going to type my credit card into your computer so you this is what she said so you and your nerd friends can buy more computers I said okay ma'am that's fine but we can't see your credit card she said of course you can I'm typing it on your website and I said no we use something called RSA 128bit encryption and this woman said uh sorry man I only speak English and I said I'm speaking English and she said I don't know what that is and I said you don't know what encryption is because all my friends and everybody I know know what it means to encrypt something and she said I said you don't know what encryption is this woman said to me unless that's the way Egyptians bury their dead then I don't know what encryption is and I said no that's not it and so I walk I I went back she goes and I don't have any idea what you're talking about and I realize I'm a bad listener I'm telling people what to do but I'm not listening so empathy how well do you listen to the world around you what I started doing on that when I was a CEO I would tell people I'm going on a listening tour I'm going to go talk to 50 or 100 moms and if they don't even know what encryption is I got a problem and I need to figure out how to solve it that's that's crazy and in parenthesis I think you this is real life case scenario I came here sweating all nervous and you started asking me questions about myself when I'm like trying to GA your information so so it's just that like that constant curiosity humility like it's you truly have it in you in you I really appreciate those are the things I've learned along the way that's great um well be before I wanted also to talk a little bit more about H well matter of fact I want to talk about the import you mentioned lots of key figures like Nolan from Atari Steve bosnak Mar Randol like friends of yours who also changed the world like yourself what important do you give ER to networking um and what importance do you give to like for example Silicon Valley has something special that's going on where lots of Founders that you even mentioned come from that bay area so do you find it important also that location where you you're you're okay those a great questions um no location doesn't matter anymore and it turns out it never did but the reason it worked for Silicon Valley because they had an ecosystem that no one else had it turns out you can build that EOS I'll explain you can build that ecosystem anywhere it wasn't they didn't own it but no one else was doing it so that ecosystem has a couple of elements in it um that that are answer your question and and so the the short answer is networking is critically important but here's why every problem you're trying to solve in business someone probably has already done that someone knows something you don't somebody could help you so if you're sitting in your office alone or with three people trying to solve problems and meanwhile someone's already done that one right but why would they help you right you say to yourself well why would they tell me how to do that and it helped me the answer is because you probably have done something they're struggling with so what Silicon Valley did it wasn't the location they created something that people didn't realize they socialized business here's something interesting if you go into a restaurant in Silicon Valley back in the day especially um you and I would come in you and I are about to have a meeting as just a two of us and I'd say table for two they'd put us at a table with eight other people a table for 10 and the first time I said it's just two of us and they're like you're right you're sitting here and I'm like there's all these other people at the table and in Silicon Valley like that's right because we all want to hear each other's ideas is so they socialize business in Silicon Valley even the restaurants you all sit together everybody talks and you say wait a minute you have that problem I can fix that and then you say to me okay what can I do for you and I say well I don't know how to do this and you say ah I know him he can do that and then he says well if she'll help me with this that's what worked they understood the attitude was that a rising tide lifts all boats everybody else didn't get that so the network effect of meeting all these people and sharing and helping each other in Silicon Valley it was everybody's goal for everybody to win and that's what made it work because people interact so much there I I literally did something one of the times I was there I was everybody wanted to meet with me and I didn't have any time left and so I met as many as I could but the last meal all I had left was a dinner and there were five different entrepreneurs or startups that wanted to meet so I sent a note to all five of them the same note I said I only have one time slot left it's dinner you can all have it and all five of them without hesitation came to the same dinner and they're all at the I did get a table for 10 makes sense and they're all like sharing with each other and saying I can help you with that the network is critically important for being able to help you at times where you're stuck on something and you need to learn something totally now talking on on that concept of ambition so you've had on your name your founded H companies that literally have changed the world and are Global no when you started those Ventures what was that that motivated you is it still the same thing that keeps on motivating you to keep doing things which we'll touch later and how was your ambition like was it I'm I want to change the world or or how how do you so yeah yeah you're right um impact matters right um part of the way I attracted talent in early days why was by saying wouldn't you like to look in an industry one day and it's completely different because of your work the things that you did we created the uh so one of the things I was building way before there was a priceline.com or Expedia or booking or any of those things was these check-in chios that are in the airports when you go and you check in um I was telling the team then wouldn't you like to walk into an airport and no one's in line anymore they're just walking up to kiosk and checking in and you can nod and say you're welcome right because you build I still get people from us building the early ones that will'll take a picture of themselves at a kiosk with a boarding pass and they'll just text me thanks because we help Pioneer that so when we were doing that we've always talked about impact you really want to look back at your life and say I help make something better somewhere impact is a big deal and and the the rock stars in an industry they they don't want just a paycheck they want to look back and know they've made an impact so that does matter um it's a it's a a win for everybody an impact still matters to me to be able to look back and say did we do anything that mattered do we make did we make something better for somebody else how do you see uh present Generations young generations of entrepreneurs in glow in general and with that that you just referred us seeking more impact or is it what motivates us how do you ambition what I'm really excited about with this generation um is the focused on two things impact and experiences that previous My Generation it was title and salary oh wait you're a vice president that makes you great right and what's your salary your generation there's uh Focus much more on am I having an impact am I making any difference in the world but you also care about experiences right this this this generation wants to grow they want to learn they don't just want a job right they actually want an experience in addition and I think that is phenomenal we did this crazy experiment so I'm part of a couple of nonprofits and and we can touch on that later if we have time but one of them is called the unreasonable group and we were trying to kind of prove a point that the entrepreneurial Spirit are people that want to have an impact and want to make things better so we actually chartered a ship that sailed around the world full of entrepreneurs um showing entrepreneurs the way the the world's real problems and challenging them to fix it and it it it was a success meaning we proved the point that people like you that said well I didn't know that was a problem saw the problem and said I'm going to design a solution and I'm going to make it better impact matters totally I want to go back a little on on for those young entrepreneurs that are starting um uh their Ventures uh what would be some not at advice but what what would be the rookie mistakes that most entrepreneurs sure how can they avoid them I I obviously work with thousands of startups all over the world now so I see them all and I hear them all and I live them all we made every mistake you can make three times myself along the way um uh the first rookie mistake is being blinded by your own Brilliance you think it's a great idea who cares because you're expecting the stay-at-home mom to buy it and she has no idea what you're talking about so that's the first one I hear these people like I got this great idea and I'm thinking who thinks it's great you do your mom does right your brother does who thinks it's great and then when I say who are you going to sell it to and they'll say I'll make up an example schools and I'm like okay can you go get me some school administrators to tell me it's great they're like well they haven't seen it yet and I said but you haven't even talked to them being blinded by your own Brilliance is the first mistake you're excited about your idea people around you remember what I said proximity not relevance are telling you it's a good idea and not one of them is the person you expect to buy this so stop listening to your opinion and go talk to that Mom or that school administrator that that you want um the uh probably a second rookie mistake we touched on a little bit is believing that you can wear Seven Hats because at the beginning you have to you're paying the bills you're doing the marketing you're building the product you're answering the phone so all of a sudden you're good at customer service finance marketing operations no you're not you're actually only good at one thing so figuring out the one thing you have a strength in and then getting out of the way and letting other people do the other things that's the mistake I people say I they say look man I'm doing I wear six hats and it's going well and I was like okay that's bad news right the fact that it's going well is actually a problem because you think you're good at stuff that you're actually not those are those are rookie mistakes people make and and in the end that whole product Market fit thing right going and talking to those moms before you build them a product ures product but I don't see that people build a product then they mistake IM made they take it out and say how come no moms like this and the mom's like if you had told me you were building that I would have told you not to waste your time I was like I wish I talked to you first what would be the the key ingredients now to build a global brand and also like to get those perhaps 1,000 clients is does it change or are they different it does change yeah okay um early on uh I'll answer those separately early on to get those early clients um you've got to do something special for them right you don't treat your initial clients uh we always call them reference clients and the reason why is they're the ones everyone's going to go to for a reference it's a social media world so in the beginning you don't need lots of clients that's another mistake companies make they're like we need 10,000 clients I said no you need 1,000 clients 10,000 clients that give you a five out of 10 net promoter score right is not helpful 1,000 clients that give you a 9.8 launches a business that's a mistake they focus on quality quantity of clients early on early on you don't need quantity you need quality you need 9.8 out of 10 because it's a social media world and everybody's going to go out there and and and kind of look so that's part of the brand is you need virality right we live in this social media world where people don't say uh you know uh they don't look at your ad and say I have to buy this product they call their friends and say what product do you use and they look at social media and they say man all my friends love this I'm going to do that so in that validating World your brand has to be this viral thing that happens because the ear people that first encounter you can't stop talking about you and absolutely love you and the other part of brand is that Brands need to be simple and resonant right don't tell a comp ated story tell a really simple story all the Best Brands were just really simple message of why do I care about you what do you do for me what is the simple message I learned that by the way from uh the F Fred Smith the founder of FedEx okay uh because I had a chance to spend some time with him and his brand was this at the beginning it said when it absolutely positively has to be there overnight that's all he said he didn't talk about the cost or or the convenience of finding a FedEx all he said was if you absolutely need this package delivered overnight call me super simple his brand resonated because it wasn't complicated simple wins wow that's crazy talking about hats I wanted to ask how how do you balance your role as CEO film producer author entrepreneur motivational speaker H how do you balance this this hat all right so I'm glad you asked that because that's another hard-learned lesson and the answer is and part of this I learned from Richard Branson at virgin um uh and because I asked Richard that once you have all these companies and he turned to me and he said not at once and so all those things that I've done were Ser I'm not a parallel entrepreneur I'm a Serial entrepreneur okay each of those things when I when I was doing the music stuff uh there was a point when we were building the first travel company where if you had called me and said hey I want to show you this idea you know what I would have said if you don't have an idea to help us get more heads on pillows in hotel rooms call me next year then later I was doing music and if you had called me I would have said if you don't have an idea for selling out Friday night's concert call me next year or whatever it was you're working on so the answer is one thing at a time the good news about that Jorge is that when you fail you fail fast because you're not trying to do five things you're all in on this one thing so it's important each of those things I did were were serial not parallel I finish one thing before I started I never tried to run two or three companies at once and you recommend that to Young entrepreneurs who have because it's very typical in my generation speaking that we have lots going on very parallel what would be your advice to those so like me okay so there's a question first which is what's your end goal and and you know in the entrepreneurial world there's there's sort of these two terms behind the scenes more on the investor side we label these things a lifestyle business or growth business a lifestyle business if if you want to make half a million euros a year and live a great life then you can have four businesses and four projects that's a lifestyle but if you want to build the next Amazon booking Netflix way if your goal is to build something big and Global every one of those people only did one thing none of them had multiple projects that so by the way I studied that right because way back in the early internet days I used to talk to Bezos a lot because there was like three groups building a companies Jeff and Pierre were building eBay we were launching Price Line and the other Jeff was building um Amazon at the time so we used to talk a lot and I learned a lesson he kept saying right now if people forget this for years on Amazon you could only buy a book and he what Jeff told me back then is one day I'm going to sell a lot of stuff but right now I want to be the this is what he literally said best DN book seller on the planet and then I ran into another friend Tony Shay his company was zap host did you know what zap and Tony said one day I'm going to do other things but right now I have to be the best darn shoe seller on the planet so our Focus was let's just be the best darn something today as an example booking.com is the world's largest it's price on and booking are all one company the world's largest seller of hotel rooms but it really only has one product really all the company sells his hotel rooms and it's the world's largest Bezos now sells everything on Amazon but not until he was the best at something so when I then I started looking at all these companies right the net the ones I said just pick those the Apple Story the Netflix story pick a story the people that achieved the highest levels did did not have multiple projects they picked one and they were all in on the one thing they knew they could do best and Jeff how would you define your philosophy in life or north star purpose what's yours I I I think that if you don't have a North star if you don't have a purpose um uh a a a bigger reason for doing this so I'm going to tell a story um uh specifically about my daughter who is in the studio with us today um because there was a time where I was just gone a lot working really hard um and when you do that there's sacrifice to family members right and and you know you have a daughter saying man you're gone a lot right um and so one of the times uh I was the chairman of a a charity that provided physical activities sports for disabled children but for the most disabled children you can't play wheelchair basketball if you're blind or you have no arms right so we created a league of sports for children that that that could not participate in anything else um but it's a nonprofit it's a charity um and I was doing this with a friend of mine who was an athlete and one of the times I'm working really hard at work which means there's a sacrifice to yourself personally into your family but I took her we were doing a softball game and I I took my daughter out there and we're pushing these kids around like when they quote hit the ball in softball then someone has to push them down to the base and were pushing these kids around in the sun having an absolutely great time and parents were thanking me and they weren't just thanking me for the league but some of them were saying thanks and they were going by in these brand new Wheelchairs and my daughter said why does everybody thank you and I was saying well because we created this league and I'm the chairman of it and we created this opportunity and she's like what are they mentioning the Wheelchairs and I said because my partner in this it was a a boxer named Evander Holyfield Evander and I were doing this together I said because ivander and I bought all these Wheelchairs and my daughter who was helping push people that day stopped and said wait a minute you guys paid for all this and you bought all these Wheelchairs and you created all this I said yes and she said is that why you work this hard and I said absolutely because if I don't work hard and run a good business and make money these kids don't have wheelchairs and she just looked at me different then and said you know her attitude was more let me know how I can help right she came to the office a lot of times instead of why are you doing this she was like now that makes sense if you don't have a North star a reason then you're just working hard and wasting your life and paying sacrifice we were doing it because we wanted to leave an impact and do bigger things and it was just cool the day my daughter said this is why you're working this hard yeah that's my North Star is at the end I don't want people to remember the businesses I want people to remember the the lives we made better that's why we do gen right we just want to make other people's lives better but you have to work hard to do that totally well my next question was specifically that what inspired you to start World JS Horizon on Reon group all these philanthropies I don't know if you want to add something more to sure yeah just to kind of summarize that it was it was that entrepreneurship isn't a job it's a mindset and a tool set right a skill set and it was because I chose to be an entrepreneur and not follow I started in a corporate engineering job it's because I chose to be an entrepreneur that gave me the opportunity to create value that we got paid for that enabled us to create these nonprofits if we didn't create value in the world right and we didn't get paid for it we don't have the money to buy the wheelchairs or anything else so uh uh the businesses were the I was tell people success is not a destination even though everyone thinks it is success is a platform if you work hard and you have a successful business then you have a business that can actually go out and buy wheelchairs a business that can go out in the price line day um we did a lot of Charity Price Line sponsored a lot of Charities we were making internet money and we were using it to make other people's lives better and I realized that the harder I work the more of a difference I can make and that that's what the inspiration was crazy how your DNA extrapolated to the business's DNA it's it's it's amazing uh yes to to to we're ending now I have a couple questions and then some quick questions also okay sure so in Broad terms what would be that one advice you would give young Spanish entrepreneurs who are listening to you um the the biggest advice I'd give you is when you have a good idea get out of your office go out into the world and show it to the people that you think are going to buy that product or service spend more time out of your office talking to people uh and and too many people spend too much time working in their office and on their whiteboard and not enough time validating their ideas for product Market fit in the world totally what would be that one advice you would give to a child if you could give only one advice to child oh no I absolutely and that one is to never stop being curious wonder about everything go pick up a shiny object instead of walking by it and wondering I I know what that is just turn around and go pick it up and see so never stop wondering and never stop being curious that's great yes for context also what's next for Jeff Hoffman what are you you doing what are your Ventures I know you're here in in Madrid South Summit as a headliner um but apart from that if you could tell our um really the the Focus now is on teaching people how to help themselves um so uh the not business part of my life is again serving as chairman of the global entrepreneurship Network we're on the ground in 200 countries now and we're teaching people how to get a better life by turning their idea into a money-making business so it's not about money or business it's about you don't like the life you have go create the one you want the question is how do I do that and the answer is through the skill set of Entrepreneurship so we teach people how to turn an idea into a business that's the global entrepreneurship Network um the one I mentioned before that I was the founding board member of I'm still a partner in is called the unreasonable group it's named after a George Bernard Shaw quote about the fact that all progress is dependent upon unreasonable people right that are crazy enough to think they can change the world um that one is similar but unreasonable focus is only on social good we're aligned with the United Nations 17 stgs the goals um and then the last one world youth Horizons is the the Youth Foundation I set up and that one's focused on you know I was born a white male in the United States so I'm already way ahead of people through no you know no design of my own I just was born there but I was in a village in Africa one day talking to this brilliant young man and thinking why is he born in a village in Africa and I'm born in the United States as a white male it's not really fair he's a smart as I am he's probably smarter but I was born here and he was born somewhere else so the focus of world youth is we're trying to create Pathways for children who don't have a shot at a better life to have a path to a better life that's what we do at World youth so those are the things that are most important to me now truly amazing and inspiring thank you je for for adding value and also I'll put in and plug in your social media your websites and so people can find your projects and yourself so quick questions that I have if you could have a dinner with anyone in the world Dead or Alive which is quite curious because probably Walt Disney Walt Disney because I wanted I wanted to comprehend the way that he took imagination and creativity and turned it into business as fascinating to me that's awesome a book or or movie or song you would recommend yeah uh for me it was The Alchemist nice because the Alchemist actually made me think about what do you actually want in life why are you doing what what are you chasing but I I hadn't really thought deeply until I read The Alchemist what's the best investment you've made in your life and the best investment you've made for on under $50 or Euros oh that's a hard one um because it wasn't quite under 50 but it's F I'm just going to tell you the first thing that came to mind because it wasn't a business investment it was headphones because music actually helps me get inspired so when I finally bought some decent headphones and put them on the music like if I'm not energized I put on the right music and I'm ready to go to the office and do something if something makes me sad right the music lifts me back up if I need to calm down cuz I'm worried about something the music calms me down so when you said that I'm just answering the first thing that came to my mind headphones and then uh uh the uh best investment I've ever made in my life is a pretty easy one it's time with my children that's great uh that that's that you get to keep that forever they can take everything else away from you but they can't take away moments and memories totally and yes to end one quote speech word that imagine every everyone 8 billion people are listening to you what would be that one thing that you would I'll just pick one I have a lot of quotes that I that I uh really really like in fact my favorite quote machine is Mark Twain okay right he had so many great quotes um but I'm gonna I'm GNA do something that that fits kind of for this moment um your attitude this isn't the quote your this is what I wrote on my wall that your attitude determines your outcome and I started to notice that people that believe that have the biggest attitude achieve the most right and the people are like that probably won't work they're always negative and looking for a way out so I was doing television commercial a public service announcement on Univision okay and and on uh a telmundo and stuff um yeah but it was me and pitpull and we were sitting side by side and I said somebody said as asking about attitude and I said you have to believe that the sky is the limit and pitpull sitting right next to me and he turned and looked at me and he goes yeah Jeff I used to believe the sky was the limit too but then I saw footsteps on the moon and I was like thanks man for making me here right and that was it he said I used to think the sky was the limit until I saw footprints on the moon and I was like that's the attitude I love that quote because there's always another step you could go if you just keep looking and believe crazy let's end this like this thank you very much I'm I'm really inspired I'm really grateful for this event this encounter thank you Jeff for for for giving us this valuable lessons secret hacks I'll plug in your information of social media you can find Jeff and hope to see you soon back in Madrid