Day 4 Part 1 | May 2026 | Dan Peña QLA Castle Seminar

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]just [ __ ] do it. Subscribe now.

[00:00:06]Which is a [ __ ] lie. I mean, and the uh I don't want to talk ill about dead people, but the way he started his advertising business. Um, allegedly the the legend is that he would call up the various newspapers and say that he had he could take a whole page of advertising space and uh he had the customers and then after he got the whole page from whatever paper he was calling then he'd call the customers and say I can give you a special on the advertising rates. Um he was doing this from a phone booth and about 25 years ago he had an idea. I was uh chairman of the fastest growing u franchise company in Europe called quantum quantum leap consulting and the uh we had an idea to to revamp his uh management style at that time supposedly had about 205 210 companies.

[00:01:08]Five companies made money, 200 did, but he couldn't close them down. He couldn't fire the people.

[00:01:16]Uh, and so we were in we met him in one of the Virgin Lounges. I think it had Heathrow. And um, he like several other guys, Oprah, not guys, mogul, Oprah Winfrey, had trouble firing people. And then they surrounded themselves with pitbulls.

[00:01:35]Pit bulls come to everybody at some time in their career. They want to stay on top. And so um we never got him to do it. Uh Chad and uh he back in the day if you were a black person you only went to two people for money on the planet.

[00:01:54]Oprah Winfrey and Bill Cosby.

[00:01:56]Now, um, in those days, Bill Cosby had a proclivity for investing in women for a lot of obvious reasons now. Uh, although he's out on the technicality, I think now. And there uh there four or five, you know, people on the planet. If you wanted to do a u a green uh green deal, you went to the Ford Foundation. And they did that. And then for this you went to the World Bank. For this you went to the IMF. And I used to say that in the 90s when I first doing the seminar, nobody went.

[00:02:33]Nobody. Maybe two people went. [snorts] And the uh the last person that went to the World Bank on his 82nd phone call 82nd at the World Bank, they only have three operators. The Qur seminar is not just a seminar. It is a blueprint for creating generational wealth as fast as humanly possible. I teach you how to turn nothing into millions, billions, and even trillions. If you want to take control of your life, to create a legacy that lasts for generations, the time is now. Do not wait for the right moment.

[00:03:07]The right moment is this moment. Be bold, be selfish, be ruthless, and take no prisoners. I will still do seminars, but I won't be able to do this forever.

[00:03:17]act now or not at your own peril. Thank you very much.

[00:03:23]So he knew these operators, you know, when their birthdays were, you know, after making 40, 50, 60 calls. So then finally on his 82nd call, this for money, uh the operator says, "Oh, you mean that you want to talk to Dr. Harris?"

[00:03:41]He had talked to her about 15 20 times.

[00:03:46]And so they plugged him into Dr. Harris and he got the money and the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, big money, not to buy a 1.7 million EVA thing in Calgary. But um but most of those have dried up now because they were some of them blame it on me because you know even though a lot of people knew it, I'm you know broadcasting in front of a lot of people. So now they're inundated with you know hundreds or thousands of phone calls and the u so I I found that amusing that um but Ted had a lot of [ __ ] I was on the dis with him at the Harvard club in 1993 and uh I heard him talk and he said my dad left me three things. He left me a $2 million revenue advertising company.

[00:04:38]He left me something else and he left me that uh early seven day a week work ethic, you know, 10 12 hours a day, etc. And so after I heard him and I I I was next on the das, you know, um and um before I was not too too fond of Ted Turner, but after I heard him speak and I talked to him, I he didn't try to win me over. He didn't give a [ __ ] who I was at the time. But um the u the magnates are dropping like flies.

[00:05:12]I guess nobody but me is going to live forever.

[00:05:16]It's nobody but me now.

[00:05:22]Not because the tour is passing, but um I was thinking I got a bunch of emails from my my flock.

[00:05:32]This is one. And uh that's you on your knees there. And that's everybody else telling you you're a [ __ ] [ __ ] I'm not putting it in a religious context at all.

[00:05:50]How? Not just you, but and I say you because of all the groups that sat there before you and the groups that are going to sit there after you. How many can take that?

[00:06:01]Not many.

[00:06:04]Now that particular case, they were going to shoot the gun, but they didn't because it got pressed, etc. And although the Chinese have shot a lot of people, this is after Tenement Square. U they decided that they didn't need any more publicity about shooting people, especially nuns. But this is what it's going to feel like.

[00:06:29][snorts] If you find anybody that thinks you're doing the right thing, either they're in an insane asylum or they're your grandmother or you know uh etc. The uh when I introduced Sally to my family these many decades ago, the um one of part of my family has nine sisters.

[00:06:48]There were still seven alive. And uh the uh they all said even though uh we had been raised more or less together as kids that I was an angel.

[00:07:00]They lied.

[00:07:02]And and uh we were we had a big dinner in Palm Springs. I still remember. And uh they're all pretty much retired there at that time. My dad was there, you know, and so uh and it sounded like a script. I didn't give him a script. Um, and so she said that uh nobody can be this holy. I mean, no, you know, it's not possible. You know, we got uh married not too long after that, but uh this is what it's going to feel like.

[00:07:33]And I mean, I would be a disingenuous old man. Um if you know, I didn't tell you that this is this is what it was going to be like. You know, I'm told that's one of the reasons Grant Cardone took my interview down.

[00:07:48]I don't know that for a fact. No idea.

[00:07:52]But when I'm on these shows, u the same thing with Wolf of Wall Street, you know, I pretty much call them idiots.

[00:08:00]They're doing it the hard way. And uh I'm pretty sure, although I don't have a copy of that interview, I'm pretty sure I I didn't pull any punches. And the um and remember I said that one of the traits of the most successful people that have completed uh not completed or still on this journey or this trip are people that can uh take self-deprecation poke fun at themselves. Not many people can poke fun of themselves.

[00:08:30]And um yeah, but most of the big moguls that I had the privilege of being around um wouldn't necessarily poke fun at themselves in public, but in their close circle, so to speak, uh they poke fun at themselves and didn't take themselves that seriously.

[00:08:51]And uh the u and you know that takes self-esteem, that takes self-confidence.

[00:09:00]There's some more. I used to tease them.

[00:09:03]Why do you go to the beach dressed like that, you know, and they got an ant anyway. And so I I might have already said this because I like the story. We had a very big estate in Manila and a place called Forbes Park. Forbes Park was named after Scott 150 years ago and it's where primarily the very wealthy people in Manila have a home. Uh Pacquiao was a neighbor. He had house where his family lived and house where his mistress lived, you know. And so we used to loan the nuns uh once or twice a year our estate um so they could have a a party, let their hair down, and we [snorts] had a big swimming pool. And so we had guards. They were around the estate so people wouldn't come in and you know take pictures to look at the nuts and they would use a swimming pool and the uh you know I once asked Sister Lu cat and EJ know who's the head she's the head dog uh you get naked in the pool should we have the pool um whatever you put acid in the pool to clean it. I mean do we have to put acid in the pool?

[00:10:13]I mean, and so these are the same nuns I used to give riding bikes and treadmills, but uh the uh and when I was raised, we had oldtime nuns that had the habits like this, you know, covered their entire face, not not dissimilar to the uh burkas. So, um um this is Sister Loose and she's thanking me for uh building a mission in Sri Lanka where they only got six Catholics.

[00:10:42]And I just wrote her back. I couldn't find any. How How about just give me the money back? [laughter] You know, it'll take a thousand years before it gets used by enough Catholics.

[00:10:54]And so, uh she just ignored me. But, uh, they, uh, they put her out there and, uh, in the middle of the jungle, uh, and, uh, she got it built. She got it built. She's she's back in in the Philippines now.

[00:11:09]Um, we don't need to see that. But I had mentioned him yesterday, and we have two kids here, not this young. And I normally tell the kids, don't talk to the older people. I forgot this time. All you're going to hear is horseshit.

[00:11:29]And if you think about it and you look around the room and what have they done with their lives, this he was a child phenom of mind. Uh and uh celebrated his 16th birthday closing a $53 million media deal, television, radio uh outside of Atlanta.

[00:11:55]and he had been working on it since he was about 13.

[00:12:02]Now, how is that possible?

[00:12:08]Most of you guys were jack just jacking off at 13 and 14 and 15 and making your board sticky from looking at porn and jacking off on your machines.

[00:12:23]Incredible.

[00:12:30]Remember I said you are an average of who you hang around with.

[00:12:36]Well, that's him.

[00:12:39]He's spilled out a little now.

[00:12:42]Um, his religious parents didn't like the fact that he had that stuff on the wall. Just [ __ ] do it. But, uh, there's He was looking at that before he was old enough to drive. And this is the house he was going to buy his parents for $8 million.

[00:13:05]Just think about that.

[00:13:09]And now he's smart, so I can't say he's just a monkey, you know. Uh, and most of the kids that get it done are smart.

[00:13:18]They're not the ADIQ end of the continuum, you know. I would I would be lying if I told you they're at the other end of the continuum, but they're still kids. What can you possibly know about life at 15? Nothing.

[00:13:30]Well, that's goes for 20-year-olds, too.

[00:13:32]I mean, you can't know anything. Um, other than, you know, your parents are pretty full of [ __ ] and dumb, [clears throat] which I think all kids do, myself included. But, uh, I remember when, uh, he went was going to go see that, he emailed me. He wanted to know uh he's trying to make appointments with brokers uh real estate brokers and he had a high squeaky voice. And so they thought that he was calling for his big brother, his mother, his father, but certainly not him. And so then he tried to lower his voice and then he'd show up and his brother that's older than him.

[00:14:10]He was driving to these appointments.

[00:14:12]His brother's in the seminary. He's studying to be a priest.

[00:14:17]uh the uh and so I've seen him go through this transition and do these deals and I've seen him naively uh some deals get stolen from him uh when he's 14 15 16 you know he had deals taken from him uh in the which was really tragic. says says a lot about adults and now that he's uh in his early 20s or 20 no 22 I guess uh he's he's more sophisticated he he doesn't tell all his deals uh to somebody that might want to advise him and when that 15-year-old picture got on on on the internet he had hundreds of people offering to do deals with him uh really just to steal his deals steal his deal So even though he's young, he's got some some [snorts] scar tissue and alligator skin and that u he said famously, which I was amusing to me, [ __ ] by the time I'm 30, I'll just just be one giant callus, you know. Uh that's not far from the truth.

[00:15:29]The I wanted to these are his buddies now when he's 15.

[00:15:34]Now is that what your buddies look like when you were 15?

[00:15:40]Not hardly.

[00:15:43]You all, one of those guys is his brother. The shorter guy to his left is his brother. The other guys are between 15 and 18. Um, but he took it to heart.

[00:15:56]He took it to heart. And when uh he and he was homeschooled, is that how you say it? Homeschooled. Uh his dad is a doctor with an MBA which is I told you dangerous combination uh and his mom's just a housewife. And the uh when I spoke at Princeton a few years ago, he was in the audience. So when this these slides came up, I said, you know, would you please stand up? They all look at him. You know, I had lunch with the governor uh when we were at Princeton.

[00:16:29]uh and so uh and he knows the governor of Georgia or whoever that is now and he's been uh taken or invited to a lot of various things you know he doesn't consider and I don't really consider him a child prodigy but I mean he's certainly uh you know the American way he's happens to be Greek uh and the uh he's a religious Greek Orthodox but if and for those of you that have kids that they're older than seven or eight or those well there's only a couple of you that could have grandkids.

[00:17:03]Uh if they're past seven or eight, it's too late.

[00:17:11]You can't take a 20 year old unless they have got the energy to do it on the own like our two 20 year olds. They're just And it's a sad thing to say because most of the people that come here remember either desperation or inspiration. Although they think they're inspired, they're really not inspired.

[00:17:33]They're probably desperate.

[00:17:36]Um, last night you saw what?

[00:17:41]>> Oh, Steve, my old colleague. Um, with these eyes, I've seen him try to throw a programmer out the window.

[00:17:51]With these eyes, I've, you know, the old computers, the big on your desk. I've seen him throw those out the window, breaking the window.

[00:18:01]With these eyes, I've seen him terrorize employees.

[00:18:08]And the movie you saw, did he rip up the uh cap table for stock in the IPO?

[00:18:16]It wasn't okay. I have three different uh jobs movies, but one of the movies is 10 or 15 days before the IPO. Wniaak was sitting around a table with six or seven people that had been there for five or eight or nine years, not from the very beginning, but almost the beginning. And they were getting ready to go public.

[00:18:35]And Jobs picks up the paper. He looks at it and he looks at W and says they're not getting any shares.

[00:18:43]Now they had worked there for shares for several years and at the end they didn't get any.

[00:18:54]And there's stories not just about him a lot of the mogul uh that um changed their mind at the last minute.

[00:19:04]uh and the uh and and don't uh keep up their end of the bargain. Now, what if what takeaways or comments would you have about Mr. Jobs in that film last night, >> sir?

[00:19:20]>> Um he didn't know how to write code. He wasn't an engineer in yet as you know Apple.

[00:19:26]>> It's like the tennis guy that didn't play tennis. But see, you guys are obsessed when wanting to know to do it yourself.

[00:19:40]And a lot of the guys and that's why I got the just [ __ ] do it part is just important thing is to do it one way or another by hook or by crook.

[00:19:54]But he, not arguably, he changed the world.

[00:19:59]And some of you have those aspirations.

[00:20:03]I've changed the world, but that wasn't my goal when I started. My goal was just to put as much [ __ ] money in my pockets that I need dump trucks to take it away.

[00:20:14]And I discovered after 15 years or so, the byproduct of this is I'm making a lot of people rich. And then they went in and did things to change the world.

[00:20:23]But that was not my my goal. Then the interviews I've given hundreds now and I tell them that wasn't my goal to change the world. The uh I thought a million millionaires wasn't going to change the world. At that time there was when I started about five billion people that was almost nine billion people. Uh it was just you know I I I wanted to be something more than I was in the body of just you know a poor Mexican kid. Poor Mexican kid.

[00:20:53]But yeah, he he couldn't write code.

[00:20:56]Uh is that the movie where uh before the presentation the product didn't work?

[00:21:03]Well, a lot of his products didn't work.

[00:21:06]That stop him? No.

[00:21:10]He just ran towards the gunfire.

[00:21:13]Now, I was with him once. That movie might be the one where he wanted a a shirt that had a pocket so he could put pens in it. Okay. I was with them once when that happened. Not that time and uh they couldn't find a shirt and then when they brought the shirt back it wasn't the right color.

[00:21:32]I remember and he's screaming and yelling at people. Uh last seminar I lost my voice on the fourth day because I was screaming so much. And uh the uh I I was always amazed how he didn't lose his voice. But you can strengthen your vocal cords if you scream enough. I'm told I guess I'm I'm out of practice now because I don't scream enough. Okay. The um Anything else about Mr. Jobs and or Apple? Now they just replaced Cook. Not as he he's still executive chairman and we're going to talk about that today.

[00:22:09]I'll talk about it now. Remember I said there's non-executive board members and executive board members. The executive board members. Goodbye.