When it comes to the pro wrestling business, it simply doesn't exist as it is today without Vince McMahon. With it being Wrestlemania weekend and with his recent interview on the Pat McAfee show, I thought it would be great to compile his lessons in being a great businessman.
In this episode, I'll go over what Vince says about negativity, being open to creative input, public perception, and planning the future in real time.
Transcript
Today we're going to talk about Wrestlemania. It's WrestleMania weekend. So you might be wondering, why are we talking about wrestling on this show? Well, we're not going to talk about wrestling, per se, but we're going to talk about one of the most influential people not only in wrestling, but in business. Vince McMahon, he is the current CEO of the WWE. He kind of bought this business from his father, many, many years ago. And he is the one that's responsible for launching the very first Wrestlemania. And now, it has grown to this huge spectacle. It's at the Dallas Cowboys Stadium this weekend. And recently, he was on a podcast with Pat McAfee. And it was one of the best podcasts I've ever listened to. Because number one, I'm a huge fan of wrestling. I'm a huge fan of Vince McMahon. And what I found in this podcast is some very good gems about being a business owner making decisions and going about your day. So I thought it'd be really fun. Since it's WrestleMania weekend to go over some of those things. He talked about what made him a businessman that he is today. All those crazy steps that he takes the daily he does. It's insane. This guy's over 70 years old, and he still puts in an amazing, huge effort. I can't really believe it. So we're gonna go over some of that stuff.
How did he get the company? 2:49
So one of the things that people ask about Vince McMahon is they kind of get this wrong. They think that he was just kind of handed this company. And that's not true. He bought it from his father. And, he turned it into what it is today. The WWE which used to be the WWF. And before that the WWF was not anywhere near what it is today. The era that started with Hulk Hogan, Ultimate Warrior, macho man, Randy Savage, that's all Vince McMahon. That's WrestleMania, that's Vince McMahon, SummerSlam, Vince McMahon, Royal Rumble, Vince McMahon, he made it what it is today, and he put the work and effort in to make that happen.
How does he stay creative? 3:42
So one of the things people ask, especially at his age, is, how does he stay creative? Perfect 30-40 years, he's still creative to this day. And a big assumption of Vince McMahon is that he is just kind of on his own. He doesn't listen to anybody. And it can get really frustrating. But you know, this is coming from his mouth, and I can imagine that maybe not 100% the truth, truth. But he says, to always have really creative people in great executives around you, to always try to listen, and you cannot learn if you're not listening and if you're just doing the talking. So in his mind, it's important to understand all levels of communication with your team, whether that be vocally, through body language, or through actions. So you can't be creative when you're close minded, that makes a lot of sense. I don't think there's any real big disagreement there. To be creative, you have to be open minded, especially if you're working with a team. Obviously, if you're your own person, you're your own brand, you're your own business, you don't really have anybody to talk to, that can be a little bit difficult.
But, if you have a team around you, it's important, as Vince McMahon says and claims to be open minded, listen, take all that stuff in, don't react in the moment of communication, and try to absorb, because you don't have to figure it out there in that moment, you don't have to, to accept those ideas there in that moment. You can bring that in, internalize the process, and then figure it out from there. In that same aspect, I kind of question the ability of Vince McMahon at over 70 years old to be open to ideas. A lot of people think he's an asshole. And I'm sorry to use that word. But that is the general view of a lot of wrestling fans, because they don't get the creative on screen that they always want. And there might have been some wrestlers in the past not happy with Vince McMahon, and may think that he's outdated, and his ideas are out of touch, and so this has gotten him this reputation of being an asshole. And in this interview with Pat McAfee, he talks about, he doesn't like getting pats on the back. Anytime something goes, well, he doesn't like that, Oh, you did a good job, Vince, you're awesome, you're great. He hates that. And when I was listening to this episode of this podcast, that was very evident, because everybody was very congratulatory towards him, telling him, you know, he's done such a great job, and he didn't take that very well. And he's just like, kind of brushed that stuff off to the side, and just wanted to get back to business.
What does he think about the negative things he hears about himself? 7:05
But what he says is, you know, if he appears to be an asshole to other people, then he's an asshole for other people, and that's the end of it. And as much as possible, he just likes to avoid dealing with the negatives, because a negative is always a double negative, if you give in to that. Because if you're dealing with the negative, then you're not dealing with the positive, which you put your intellectual cost into, and that's what he said. You can't change perception when you're a public persona type, so don't bother. Now, that makes a lot of sense. Now, to a degree, I agree with that, in terms of not being able to control what people think about you, and especially if you put yourself in a public persona, people know about you outside of your business, outside of what you do, if you're trying to, you know, improve your, your public social score, then you're going to have to deal with people not liking you, in some fashion or form. And it could be for, for reasons that are out of your control, whether it's something you said, we there, it's just pure jealousy, that, you know, there might be getting more attention than you and other things. But if you focus on those negatives, and you focus too much on what people think about you, then it's gonna hurt you intellectually, it's going to hurt you creatively. And it's going to hurt you emotionally too, because it's going to impact all parts of your daily life. So I think that was a pretty good lesson from Vince on this podcast is, you know, from somebody, obviously, none of us listening to this show are probably ever going to get to that level of, of common household name. And if we are, you know, go for it, right? You know, if that happens, amazing.
But you'll see, as your business continues to grow, or whatever you do, for yourself continues to grow, there is going to be that period of time, where somebody challenges you and somebody doesn't like you, attacks you, attacks your business, and, yeah, you can respond to those things, But don't put so much effort into it. Don't let one bad thing that somebody says about you or your company or your work bring you down, don't go into a panic situation. I have been guilty of that before, you know we will pull out 1000s of orders, but you, always as a business owner, think about the one that the customer was mad at, didn't like what they received, or something along those lines. You can't help it because you want to try to be perfect. You want to try to fix everything. If you want to be like Vince, you got it. to just let that stuff go and move forward.
Has he really ever doubted himself before? 10:06
One of the other things that he talks about, is in this is, how he, how he has never really doubted himself. Or has he doubted himself in his business? He's run the WWE so successfully for decades, you would think, Ah, he's got it down perfectly. And you know, he never does anything wrong. Well, that is obviously not true. And when it comes to doubt, he says that he has never doubted what he wanted to do. And that he will always think about whether the decision he made was the right one. If it was, then it would do really, really great. And he'll try to do it again, in another form. So tons of ideas always come across his desk, whether he created it, or he's getting it from other people, and they don't always hit, that's fine. If they do, he tries to recreate that in different forms to get more success out of it. That is an awesome way to think about things. If you're, you know, let's bring this into the world of paid ads and search and in social ad copy all that kind of stuff, you run all these different ads, and you have, you know, the one that does really well, the one that does, okay, and the one that never works.
Logic says if this one is doing okay, why not reinvent that in this, in a different form? Take the things that you think worked out of that, and expand on that and try to use that, again, that makes total sense. So, you know, the doubt that can come in running a business and doing the things that you do? Those are all valuable, those are all learning experiences. Because the doubts from the things that don't work, you can know, don't do that, again, that didn't work. The things that did okay. All right. You know, maybe if we refine that a little bit, we can get it to that stage where it's something that's super successful. And then you have the things that are working well. Well, it doesn't have to be just up, that's the one good thing, it's all over, we don't have anything else to do, we have to come up with something brand new again, if we want to see success, that's not the case, you can take whatever it is that worked, and redo it in a different form. And find success again, because you have the learning process complete, to get to where you were, for that specific thing. So awesome, kind of take their convenience.
What does he think about the future? 12:43
Another thing he thinks about is the future. And he says that he tries to stay as wide open in his mind as he possibly can, and be able to accept whatever comes in front of him. He has the skill when he's using his brain to speak with someone and answer questions, and then at the same time thinking about something else. So he's taking in all these things, and at the same time, processing at the same time. Which that doesn't have to be for everybody, that can be a little bit tough. But, you know, thinking about, all these different things that are coming in, and just be open to the future, and what you can do, look at the big and the small picture, you don't always know where you want to go, but if something makes itself available, he tries to look at look at it and see if he can fit it into that or into his business. So, what he's saying here is that the future is a blank canvas, he doesn't always try to generally plan and map out the future. He takes in information with an open mind, tries to keep the information coming in. And for Vince, he tries to process that at the same time. So he's getting ideas, and this may have happened for you before because it's happened for me before, where somebody's talking to me about ideas, and then boom, the sparks start flying in the brain. And boom, I am already starting to think of how to expand on this idea, what to do with this idea, Landing Pages ads, the whole thing, and I think that's kind of the same thing that he's talking about here, is the ability to just keep that open mind. And in a lot of cases, just process and build out the future in real time. And not really have a big plan? Maybe that's what 's going on here. But I like that I really, really like that. And it's something really really cool to think about because I didn't realize it actually did that. So maybe I'm just like Vince McMahon, that would be awesome. If that is true.
The impact of WWE and Vince McMahon in my life. 15:03
Now, as we talked about Vince McMahon here and all that stuff, I can't go without thinking about the impact that he and the WWE made on my life, I think about my childhood and all those things. And I mean, this show is called Ultimate marketer, listen to the theme song, look at the cover, it's pretty obvious that I have a love of wrestling. And it's a great business. It's a huge business. And I think that if we, if we can learn anything from this, in this, the longevity of this business is the ability to adapt the, the ability to, to roll with punches that come because there's been controversies with the WWE in the past, there's no doubt about that. But to also try to innovate, they're one of the first people to bring streaming, believe that or not, to their product. So I'm talking like, you know, obviously, Netflix was first, right and then, but now you've got like Hulu, you got Apple TV, you've got all these other streaming networks. WWE was one of the very, very first to launch their own streaming network.
So having that vision into the future of business, and, you know, if we sum this all up, into what Vince McMahon is talking about on this podcast, and how to be a businessman like Vince McMahon is to be open creatively. Do not think too much about what people think about you, let those negatives go, because they manifest. Think about the future in real time. bring things in, you don't necessarily need to have a full roadmap, but bring those future elements in in real time and try to process them and bring out the ideas in real time. And, and just always look out for your business in and look out and, and keep a positive attitude. And really for him, he doesn't really feel I know, I hate this there, this, this phrase is like you know, if you do something you love, you know, you never work a day in your life, but to try to truly love what you do. And if you don't truly love what you do, find another path, or find a way to make what you do less of a pain in your butt. So taking all those things in would be really great.
So I really highly recommend you listen to the full episode if you've loved wrestling, or if you just have an interest in how that business became so big and how the owner over 70 years old still runs it to this very day how he does things. Take a listen to that Pat McAfee show Vince McMahon podcast, you'll learn a lot. I really believe it's a fun show to listen to as well. And of course, watch WrestleMania this weekend, it's gonna be fun. It's gonna be a two night, two night thing. I'll be watching WrestleMania and I'm sure I'll be tweeting about it on my Twitter. If you don't follow me on Twitter, you can do so at https://twitter.com/orlandorios.