3 Things I Learned from the Billionaire Hüsnü Özyegin - The Billion Dollar Secret
Hüsnü Özyegin is the wealthiest self-made billionaire in Turkey.
In this video, I share what I learned from him during the interview, that he has given me. There is a contest at the end of the video.
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VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION
Hi! Today I will tell you the 3 most important things I've learned from the self-made billionaire Hüsnü Özyegin.
Hüsnü is the wealthiest self-made billionaire in Turkey.
He owns over 80 companies in 12 countries and he is also one of the greatest philanthropists in Turkey.
[Music]
I remember several years ago I came to Istanbul to interview Hüsnü Özyegin. He was one of my first billionaires I"ve interviewed.
And I remember talking to a taxi driver when going to Hüsnü's office.
And I asked the taxi driver who he thinks is the wealthiest person in Istanbul.
Since Hüsnü is the wealthiest in Turkey, he is also in Istanbul but I didn't tell that to the driver.
And the driver was telling me some names of some football players because this is what the average person understands under "wealthy people".
Like football drivers, actors or maybe TV stars - celebrities generally.
And this was funny for me because these people work for much wealthier people who are billionaires.
And I've been talking about that topic in another video. I will link it here and also in the description.
So, have a look at that video.
But today I want to tell you 3 things I've learnt from Hüsnü Özyegin. Of course, I've learnt much more.
You will find it in my upcoming book "The Billion Dollar Secret" but I will give you these 3 today.
The first thing - he reads a lot of books and gets inspired by really great people. I mean great people, i.e. like the caesars and so on.
And you need to realize this guy built 80 companies in his life in 12 countries.
For example, his companies in Russia are huge. He owns one of the largest bank chains in Europe, and so on...
This guy has founded an university. His own university. Many schools, dormitories, and so on...
And this guy says "I accomplished so little in my career because I'm taking example from the Sultan of Ottoman Empire.
In 18th century he was able to command armies of hundreds of thousands of people.
And with all the logistics in that era.
To organize all the Empire and all the infrastructure he was building.
This was just amazing. And also, his main architect who during one lifespan was able to build 500 mosques and prayer houses which is just amazing.
One lifespan - 500 mosques and prayer houses.
And he says also: "In my philanthropic activities I take example from the greatest philanthropists of our times".
Like from Rockefeller who in the beginning of 20th century was building schools for blacks in the south of the United States.
So, Hüsnü took example of him and built schools for disadventaged girls in the south of Turkey.
And also, he takes example from other great philanthropists in the history of mankind, like J. P. Morgan and Andrew Carnegie.
With all that these people have accomplished.
So, he has established an university. Can you imagine? You found your own university.
Where he has educated 10,000 of students already.
So, first lesson: read biographies of people who accomplished a lot.
Of people you want take example of and read their biographies, learn about their lives.
What they did and how they did it what they did.
The second lesson is take a leap of faith. Take a chance. Sometimes in life you just have to take a chance.
To take the risk of fading and to take this brave step. And just try to do it.
If you're successful, If you manage to do that, it will become a great success.
If not... well, you have tried.
Hüsnü was a president of student body at his university at that time in Oregon.
And he read in some newspaper that Robert Kennedy is coming to Oregon.
So, he wrote a letter to Robert Kennedy. He was brother of the president J. F. Kennedy.
And Hüsnü just wrote him up and invited him to his university.
Stating "I've read you are in the Vincinity, you are in Oregon. Why don't you come by and give a speech in our university?
You're welcome to our university. We would be so proud, and so on...".
And guess what. He actually did. So, Hüsnü has a picture with president's brother and he was the president of the student body.
So, he was welcoming and taking care of Robert Kennedy and taking stage with him and speaking with him.
And then, he had this great reference that allowed him later to get into Harvard Business School without any job experience and with actually bad grades.
He was surprised that he got accepted but he got this can-do attitude and he had this reference of Robert Kennedy on stage with him.
And acquiring Robert Kennedy as a speaker when he was president of the student body.
So, he took this leap of faith, he took this chance and just tried. And he was successful.
And there are many examples in his life when he was taking this leap of faith but I will tell you another story.
When he became a General Manager of one of the banks in Turkey because his friend was the owner of this bank.
And he had trust in Hüsnü and he gave him a general manager job for this bank.
And after many years in that bank he made that bank profitable. He spent many years in that bank and made it a big success, grew the bank and so on...
But he always had this feeling "I'm not working for myself. I have very good salary, I have bonuses, whatever but I don't have any equity.
It is not actually my bank at all.
So, he went to his friend and said "I would like to work for myself. So, give me at least a possibility to buy 1% of the shares of this bank.
So, I will know I'm a partial owner, I'm a shareholder of the bank and this will give me more motivation, more self-esteem, and so on...
And his friend said "No, I can't do that. If I do it with you, the general managers of other companies will come over and want also shares in their companies".
So, he said "I can't do it".
So, what Hüsnü did was he sold his houses, he put together his savings, he acquired some investors and he took a huge loan in order to establish a bank.
And guess what. So, he invested 8 million dollars into the bank. 4 million was his money and guess what.
After I guess 18 years he was able to sell this bank for 3.7 billion dollars. This was the largest company sale in the history of Turkey.
And this sale made him a billionaire.
Since then he has been taking this leap of faith many, many times and it made him so successful in his life.
But all that success wouldn't be possible without the third thing that I learned from him and this is the diligence.
Being diligent in what you do. And Hüsnü was always very diligent in everything he did.
When people had vacation during their studies he took not only one job. He took 2 jobs at the same time.
So, he was a janitor during the day and in the evening and in the evening he was a busboy.
A busboy is, so to say, a less qualified waiter. His function was to clean the table, to cover the table, to bring water and salads for the guests.
And that's it. He wasn't allowed any tips. So, 2 jobs simultaneously during the vacation time.
And during the semester he took over the university's pizzeria at some dorm.
And it was a business that was award. You would apply and they would choose one student from the applicants to run the business.
So, his predecessor earned 1,500 dollars in a year.
Keep in mind - I think this is like the 60s or the 70s. So, you need to multiply it, I guess time 15 in order to get our dollars right now.
So, in a year his predecessor earned $1,500. It would be like over $20,000 a year running that business.
And he had 8 employees. And when Hüsnü took over, he was working like a horse.
He was working, I guess 6 days a week. He didn't have 8 employees. He had only 3 employees.
And even cleaning the floor... he did it himself. Because he wanted to save the money for the cleaning person.
And of course, he brought some improvements to the business and so on... and at the end of the year he was able to earn $8,000 in this one year.
So, it's like $120,000 in today's money. For a student it was a lot of money.
So, he was able to earn 5 time as much as his predecessor because he was so diligent.
So, these are the things I've learned from Hüsnü Özyegin. Of course, I've learned many other things that I described in my upcoming book
"The Billion Dollar Secret".
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