Cant Stop. Wont Stop.

[Music]

i’m jeffrey tweedy

president ceo of sean john i’ve been

guys up with me with sean john

up daddy

so hopefully today i’ll leave you with

some uh

an ideas how i started some of the

things i’ve gone through

and hopefully i’ll leave you with some

encouragements and some things that

follow your life by

they’ll give you a little direction

the reason this slide is here it’s very

interesting um i grew up in washington

dc

uh my house was seven people in a

two-bedroom home

i didn’t understand what um

and why when you hit the light switch at

night in the kitchen there were a lot of

roaches

i thought that was the way people lived

i thought that was normal

um it inspired me to know that this

wasn’t the life i wanted

and it inspired me to realize that

there’s something better

but i didn’t know what that was i

thought this was normal um

i had a chance to uh

um i had a chance to

understand that my education wasn’t the

best

education i was a c-plus student and the

reason i got the plus because

the teacher loved the way i dressed

though that i know that i have

i wish you’d focus more time on my

education the way i dress but i got by

and i truly got by but i understood that

but not having a great education there

had to be something else to

to to to trigger my career and get where

i needed to go

so i had to find my hustle and you guys

get this lightly all the time about

finding your hustle but it’s not

necessarily a hustle but

what is it that going to drive you to

get to the next step and it might not

not always be education i think i gave a

a

keynote speak at harvard business one

time and i asked everyone to look to the

left and the right

everyone there was from harvard so the

person to the left was from harvard the

to the right was from arbor but the

difference was was that who has the best

hustle

the kid to the left father might be the

president of merle lynch

the kid to the right might be just a

great kid good education

he’s got to have the best hustle though

what i realized also is that

one time i was on a bus um from my high

school to my neighborhood

and i fell asleep on the bus this is a

true story i woke up in georgetown if

you guys don’t

know anything about georgetown it’s very

similar to waking up on 57th and madison

avenue

coming from this if you could imagine um

and i didn’t know where i was i was i

was extremely

nervous about where i was and how do i

how do i get back

what am i doing up here and how upset

would my mother be at the age of 16 that

i’m up in georgetown

but when i realized the next day i got

back on the bus and walked around

embraced it um and this do it that i was

out of my comfort zone but how do i make

the best of being out of your comfort

zone

and in this store ice cream pile was a

sign said help wanted

i was 16 years old 15 16 years old and i

knew at the time

you had to be 16 to get that job i

walked right in

nervous first thing i did was live and

said i was 16 years old because i wanted

that job and i realized that

you have to take advantage of those

moments and not always lying i’m not

saying lying about things but that was

the moment for me to seek my opportunity

i had a chance to really embrace um

georgetown and get to know the people

that were coming into the stores

and one of the things you should always

do is always engage with your community

always engage i always meet young people

that never want to speak up

always speak up introduce yourself

that’s very important so i started

asking

the gentlemen that were coming in every

day that worked at the clothing store

next door did they need a stop boy

one day one came in and said hey we need

to stop waiting would you like to apply

for it i did

that was a quick turn for me which was

great um and i realized that that was my

moment of creating relationships

as small as that was for me scooping ice

cream

to meeting a gentleman who worked at a

clothing store to me now being a

stoplight in this store that was really

exciting for me it was like a small

barns of

new york that you could imagine um about

six months later i lost that job and the

reason i lost that job was because i was

feeling myself at 16. i was a little

cocky

we all get that feeling sometime right

but as we know that setbacks is always

is a setup for comebacks um two weeks

later i applied for another

opportunity at nemo markets further up

within

a year i was the youngest assistant

manager in the men’s department

responsible for 20 million

business um

coming down the escalator was mr ralph

barney

with our entourage of 12 people it’s the

first time i realized what our entourage

was

and i took the time before i got that

job to understand everything about the

fast industry

from a distance that means i was reading

everything i was looking at all the

trade publications all the magazines

understanding what stores and what i

traveled

to any store i could get to go to within

the neighborhood to understand what

ralph lauren was what besides him was

where george armani was

so i embraced the industry and i and i

tell you

do not wait for a institution to teach

you

your craft learn it on your own and i

did that i learned

this crap from my own coming down the

escalator was mr ralph thornton

i simply walked over to him very nervous

as african

uh american man and introduced myself mr

lauren i’m jeffrey tweedy

i’m the assistant manager of the men’s

department may i show you around

now one of the things that always that i

like to emphasize here

is aggressive and a knowledgeable

approach

i meet a lot of people who approach me

but they’re not knowledgeable why they

approach me

first thing they say is can i get a job

and i go what do you want to do

and a lot of them say i don’t know i

just want a job well that’s the person

i’m not gonna hide

because they don’t know what they want

to do and i’m not interested in figuring

out what they want to do

and there’s there’s some people who

approach you aggressively

um that’s on the right track and

understand it but don’t be afraid to

speak up don’t be

afraid to introduce yourself to people

and that’s what i did with mr rob

foreign

now he asked me what did i want to do i

said i would love to be in the fashion

industry

he said well if you want to be in the

fast industry you need to be in new york

city

okay i don’t actually need new york city

it sounds wonderful it sounds like a

great dream

he gave his car for six months i didn’t

call

but what i did i continued to study and

i would read the magazine mr ralph

warner opens the store

in london mr lauren congratulations on

the new store

mr ralph celebrates an award mr mr ralph

horn congratulations on that new award

so i did this for about six to seven

months to prepare myself for that phone

call

i didn’t realize that i was really

preparing myself

and i didn’t realize that what i was

doing was was opening those

the door for my call and i’ll tell you

what i mean by that i was maximizing the

moment

i didn’t realize who gets those calls

cards and

and phone calls and those notes the

assistants

right so when i got on on the phone to

call the first time

i thought they were gonna take a message

just get rid of him next

they said i said it’s jeffrey tweet

might speak to mr lauren

sure hold on next one mr

executive office man hi it’s jeffrey

tweety nice to meet you mr bart

now at this point i’m sweating bullets

i’m like no they’re supposed to take a

message

you’re not supposed to keep couldn’t be

through so finally mr law mr lauren’s

personal assistant gets on the phone

she goes jeffrey how are you

however why are you asking how about the

cards

and the the notes that i was writing i

was stalking from a distance is what i

call

it but it worked for me so needless to

say two weeks later i’m at fit

through mr ralph thorne who was on the

board of trustees at fit which

really took my career to a whole new

level and that’s what i mean by

maximizing your opportunity

maximizing the moments and we have to do

that

i encourage everyone to

get away from emails and get away from

social media and how to contact people

i have on my wall in my house several

handwritten notes from students i meet

and written notes from john tyson from

tyson food

different people handwritten notes means

so much

more than an email understand that that

means that

you someone took took the time to

actually him write me a note

i’m going to make sure i respond to that

note and by the way i’m going to

look for this person to be part of my

organization

because they’ve already have a momentum

and they’re maximizing

the opportunity which i love the other

thing i worked on was building my

personal brand

i made sure that when i’m when i met

people i introduced myself i’m jeffrey

tweedy and i want you to always remember

who i am

over the years from ralph going to fit

to working for ralph lauren again back

in new york city as a gopher

and then on my career plateau it took

off i was the president of cross-country

and call can i

i was responsible for all spike lee’s

product

uh uh 40 acres of view um you guys are

familiar with that malcolm x hat that

was on michael jordan

i was the one that put that on microduit

the first time and the business really

took off

from there i went to east england and

went to several other companies

and i continue to build my brand i

continue to build what i was all about

which was important to me not the

company who i was so i made sure that i

was at

the right events not all the events the

right events

um and really it was it was an

opportunity that i had with mr cones

that uh that really took my career to

another level

almost 21 years ago and i was moving

back

from i was living in l.a and i had an

apartment in new york i was moving back

to the east coast because my mom in dc

was ill

so i wanted to move back to the east

coast and at the time i was going to

really accepted a job with damon

uh john who was the president i want to

fool you i don’t know if you guys are

familiar with that you’re probably too

young

but um he moved me for about six months

it was interesting story damon john knew

who puff daddy was they met one time

and he simply said paul simply said to

him one time i want to start a new

company called sean john right

and what puff did was um meet with him

as a new partner right and damon john

made the mistake of saying oh

i got this guy named jeff tweedy who’s

coming to work for me

in a few weeks he can do fubu and sean

john will be great

coffee we’ll all be partners this will

be fantastic well that’s not really what

you want to do around cuff

he immediately picked up the phone and

called me for three days i didn’t return

this call

i was focusing on my mom it was and

i really wasn’t interested in building a

new company so in public ways it took

probably six months

three and a half four months to really

pull me in then i never forget this one

particular call i got

um on a saturday after several

conversations with

puff and he called me on saturday and i

was in my apartment in new york and he

said um

i’m really getting tired of talking

about this contract i need you to come

to the trump hotel sorry because the

trump hotel is back in general opening

two days i’m sorry

but i need you to come to the hotel and

tell me exactly what

you want we’ll put together a contract

tonight

wow that sounds exciting right the first

thing people most people do is run

for the contract and i said something

very interesting i said pop i would love

to

but my financial advisor my advisor is

not available today it’s saturday

most people have saturday’s off right

paul says something very interesting to

me

he said your financial advisor he works

for you or you work for him

i said well of course he works for me he

said we’ll call his ass and tell him

it’s time to go to work

what do you say to that three hours

later with the trump hotel we put

together

an amazing contract and the business

just was

was elevated from there but it wasn’t

easy for us

when we started sean john it was really

com how do we combine

fashion and entertainment sean p d

coleman’s pub that he was an entertainer

i knew the fashion industry so we really

combined those two

and we coined the word fashiontainment

the first time we

we we presented the collection we

thought everyone’s gonna hate it

but what we did was i realized that

in fashion and in any part boxing would

like you have to prepare yourself for

that moment

a lot of people like to take the

elevator before they take the steps

a lot of people like to take the elevate

before they take the steps

so what i decided to do with puff was oh

we got to go to everyone’s fashion show

we’re going to embrace the industry

i want everyone to see you front row at

the show so when we do our factory when

we do our fashion show we do our

collection

they realize that you’ve taken the time

to prepare yourself for your own fashion

company this is where i understand that

and that’s what we did that was very

important to us um

and we grew an amazing company we’re now

250 million dollar company where we do a

lot of

different brands a lot of different

collections international a lot of major

distribution

things of that nature but i want to

leave you um

with a few notes just a few um

words just just a few things that were

important to me in my life

when i grew up in washington dc i

explained to you that

i grew up in a house of seven uh in a

two-digit room

was the best living but i dreamed i

dreamed big and i understood that this

wasn’t what i wanted

but there was something better than this

how do you dream about it how do you

make that dream become reality or at

least reach for it

um do you want to inspire greatness

that’s that’s a great

hard two words to understand but a lot

of people

have jobs and they are okay with those

jobs

and then some people were just great

everyone can aspire to be great

don’t think that you cannot inspire to

be great don’t let anyone influence you

not to be great

um sometimes it’s gonna be uncomfortable

i explain to you that

my trips to georgetown in washington dc

first time i’ve ever been in that

environment

in my life was very uncomfortable but it

opened me to a lot of exposure

to the culture of the world the

international world

how people think how people the culture

of people

it just taught me a lot being outside of

that environment believe in your vision

you’re not too young to understand that

you should start setting

visions and a blueprint for your life

and that’s not happening your vision

could just be simply

i know my life i want to do this i want

to be the best technician

i want to be the best athlete or i want

to be the best chemist

start now understand your vision write

it down

every once you start a blueprint when

you’re on your notepad

keep a blueprint i know a lot of people

keep diaries keep blueprints

start your vision understand that

there’s no such thing as i can’t

my last slide was can’t stop won’t stop

there’s no such thing as i can’t

about four months ago i threw one of my

employees at my office

because she said i can’t there’s let’s

just say

i don’t believe in that one of my uh

famous favorite lines of jay-z

is difficult takes a week and pop

that’s right difficult takes a day it

possibly takes a week

think about that difficult takes a day

in possible things a week there’s no

such thing as i can’t everything can be

accomplished

and lastly make an impact on the world

and

start with your community we need that

right now more than ever

and i’m at a level where that’s very

important to me that’s why

i go out and speak as much as i possibly

can to whoever wants to listen

because i want to impact the world

hopefully i’ll reach out and touch

someone

with these few secret sauces that i have

and hopefully

someone will look back one day and say i

remember when jeff tweety told me

it inspired me to that i can have a

vision

dream big inspire greatness and

understand how to be outside your

comfort zone

thank you very much for your time

[Applause]