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]