Air magazine

“I wanted to build my own brand…fortunately for me, in 1981 I got the nickname the ‘Great White Shark’. Well, the first step to brand recognition is that you have got to live the brand, you’ve got to be the brand. One of the hardest things that I have to focus on all the time is, when you are the brand…you know, you look at Ralph Lauren, you look at René Lactose at those times…René Lacoste is not around anymore, but Ralph Lauren is around. So when you are the living brand, you have to be very cogniscent of the things going on around you. For me to make the initial decision to go on my own, the hardest thing was finding the right people that want to come and work for you when it’s your pipe dream. I use the terminology, ‘You’ve got to get them to drink your Kool-Aid.’ You’ve got to get them to believe what you have so passionately within yourself, and when you go out there and you find the right people who can think not two or three years down the road for an endorsement deal, but think 15 to 25 years down the road.

Because every business you do, whether you’re designing a golf course or building a business for an exit strategy, it doesn’t happen overnight. You build that business up from the grassroots and just be patient and wait for it to evolve, and it evolves because you stick with your vision. And then on top of that, you bring the people in that can pull it through for you, because I’m not going to sit here and tell you black is white and white is black. I’m going to sit here and say, ‘Please give me advice. Are you working for me? What are your expectations out of this deal?’ And that’s how you learn, you know, everybody working together as a team. A rising tide floats all boats.

“The only way I believe you can leave a legacy is if you can build a platform of a brand very early on. That platform is very difficult to [build] because you’ve got to create a base first. It takes one thought process, so you’ve got to keep those things in the forefront, that’s what an entrepreneur is all about.”

“My philosophy in life is the 30/30/30/10 rule. I’ve always believed that if you earn 100 dollars, you’ve got to pay taxes [of] 30 percent, you’ve got cost of living [which is] 30 percent, you’ve got to save 30 percent, and you have ten percent left. That ten percent left is your slush fund, your fun money, because you’ve got to reward yourself every now and then for the efforts you put out in life. It could be going and buying yourself a nice blouse, or a nice suit. I think self-reward is a good reward, so that’s my 30/30/30/10 rule. I still apply it to this day, and it’s worked very, very well for me.”