Shark Tank’s Matt Higgins: How I Beat Poverty, Loss, and Cancer to Become a Global Investor | E73
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What challenges did Matt face growing up?
Matt Higgins, from basically a broke high school dropout selling flowers to co-founder of RSE Ventures, building a multi-billion dollar portfolio of over 100 global brands. He teaches at Harvard Business School that appeared on Shark Tank in the US and Dubai.
There was a lot of dysfunction, a cycle of abuse that I was born into. I started selling flowers on street corners when I was nine. Little boy taking care of his mom. By virtue of me dropping out at 16, I started using whatever assets I had to move quickly with jobs. And I got the offer of a lifetime. As I'm sitting in the office at around 10 o'clock, Angela, who worked in the office, said, your mom's on the phone. By the time I had gotten to the hospital, she had died five minutes beforehand. Every bad thing that happens to me is an opportunity for exceptionalism. When I see really successful people, they do have the ability to absorb the wins and repel the losses. And when I had testicular cancer and it didn't kill me, I thought.
Matt Higgins, from basically a broke high school dropout selling flowers to co-founder of RSE Ventures, building a multi-billion dollar portfolio of over a hundred global brands. He teaches at Harvard Business School that appeared on Shark Tank in the US and Dubai. Author of the bestseller, Burn the Boats. I mean, wow, what a turn, Matt. Take us back in time to your childhood.
Well, first of all, it's great to be with you. Great to be with your audience. And I know your audience is dedicated to just transcendence and how to go to the next level. So that's a topic I love talking about in all its gritty detail. The most important thing to know about me, and I always start here, is just my framework of growing up in abject poverty. And those words lose their meaning when you say it, but what does that mean? Grew up wondering what's for dinner, where dinner is coming from. Like a lot of people grow up in poverty, there was a lot of dysfunction, cycle of abuse that I was born into. My poor mom had a horrendous childhood, which only became clear later on in life. You don't understand these issues as a little kid.
How did Matt decide to drop out of high school?
So everything about me was, how do I get dinner? How do I get out of poverty? feeling like I don't belong here and where I grew up in. I grew up in Queens, New York, in a little garden apartment, little shoebox. And it was a roach motel. I mean, just true squalor. And so I started selling flowers on street corners when I was nine, little boy taking care of his mom, kid knocking on your window at the street corner on Mother's Day and Easter, trying to sell you something. And just all these hardscrabble odd jobs, shoveling snow, whatever it would take. And at the same time, trying to take care of my mother, who, because we were so poor, had no services. She suffered with morbid obesity. She had a thyroid gland disorder. So she would get heavier and heavier. And then at the same time, she was trying to make something of her life. She had a ferocious mind. And a couple of things intersected. My desperation of truly hating my life and hating being the hero child of having to take care of your parents while trying to do the right thing.
And then knowing that if I don't do something and take matters in my own hands, my mother was going to succumb to depression and to her illnesses.
First of all, it's fascinating because a lot of people will say certain words, but this is real for you. You know, I always laugh at some people in Silicon Valley. I call them broke millionaires. They feel broke, but they're not really broke.
And everybody these days has to have like a hard luck story. Unfortunately, we've all been like, you can't be born on third base. I'm like, what's so wrong with third base? I would like to be born on third base. Everyone's got a story. Yes.
Exactly. But also we're right before, I mean, as we record this, it's probably not when it's going to come out, but we're right before Thanksgiving and you actually have a beautiful story about Thanksgiving. Can you share that?
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What challenges did Matt face growing up?
0:05–2:24
2
How did Matt decide to drop out of high school?
2:24–5:20
3
What was Matt's experience with his mother's illness?
5:20–6:46
4
How did Matt rebuild his life after cancer?
6:46–12:43
5
What lessons did Matt learn from his failures?
12:43–42:15
6
How has Matt's background influenced his success?
42:15–51:47
7
What is the significance of the title 'Burn the Boats'?
51:47–59:10
Speakers
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