Name: Dwyane Wade opens up about his business ventures and new documentary
Uploaded: 2020-02-21
Duration: 5 min 41 s
Description: Following a storied NBA career, Dwyane Wade is now focused on building upon a stream of successful business ventures and telling his unlikely story in a new documentary.

When did you decide you were going to venture into the business world? It was very early in my career, I got injured, I ripped my shoulder up. And I remember thinking, I may not never be the player that I was. And if I do not return to the player that I was, then my career now becomes shorter. Can I still live life and The way that I've come accustomed to, so I started to challenge the people around me to do more and I started to challenge myself to do more and learn more so I jumped into business. Do you remember what your first business venture was? My first business venture was restaurants. I Dream of always owning my own restaurant and we set out to have The Way Sports Bar and Grills and his whole thing and a year or two later I was in court being sued by my business partners because I didn't cross my T's and didn't dot my eye and they left Gap in there for me to be taken advantage of and I suffered from it. I spent a lot of time in court. I lost a lot of money. But what I did is I walked away with an experience. I learned something from that moment. Hopefully, I don't know how to deal with that again because of what I learned. I think from that point on I started having everything looked at by the people that I trust Not just trying to do it on my own and do it because of someone's cool or someone's nice or someone's telling you the successes they had. Like really going deep and doing a deep dive into the individuals that you are doing business with. You learn from all that. You came out the other side. What are some of the projects you're involved with now? One I get back into the restaurant business. It took me a long time. My teammate Dennis has them and I have. A partnership together, we have a restaurant called 800 degrees. I have my own shoe and apparel company with a Chinese brand Li- Ning, I have my own wine business, I started my wine business 5 years ago. And I wanted to do a documentary 2 years ago and now is out. So all of these investments that you have and projects, are they all just independent Projects and investments, or are you building toward something bigger? They start off as individual projects. And then you see how this one works with this one. And this one works with this one. And then eventually how you have a company. So we're building toward something. If you ask me what's the final, what it looks like at the end? I have no idea, because I've done so many things that I said I would not do. Like I didn't drink until I was 27 years old, and I have my own wine business, and I'm only 38, right? So, we're building towards something and a lot of it is just your passions, a lot of it is some things that You know that you wanna be part of and it will make you get up and go to work because you enjoy doing these things. As you restarting your business career was there anyone that you reached out to for advice? Yeah, I reached out to Magic Johnson, I flew down to LA a few times and then I took a mean with him and I just asked a lot of questions. Was there a particular piece of advice that kind of sticks with you that he gave you? Yeah, you have to approach it The same way you approach the game of basketball. And you know, this is one of the greatest has ever play on the court and he's one of the greatest to do it off the court. But the approach is the same. You know, it's to get up, it's the grind, is to do more than what everyone else is doing. Don't just do the bare minimum. So he kind of you know, told me already have a. The blueprint because I've shown that I can do it in the game of basketball. Now you gonna take that same energy and put it into what you're doing in business. Was there anything you learned from basketball that has translated to the business world? Everything. I have learned teamwork. And I'm not successful without my my team. And it's the same way in basketball, you don't win championships as an individual. You win championships as a team, and you have to understand that what a team is gonna be different personalities, is gonna be different strengths and weaknesses. And what makes a great team is all you guys working together to cover up your your weaknesses You cover up my weaknesses, and we make it a strength together. And that's the same thing in business. So you have a new coming out. Tell me about it. How did you decide that you wanted to take this journey? Yeah. My documentary, the way life unexpected and I think that title really explains everything. My life has been unexpected and We talked about my divorce, talk about my wife having not doing it via surrogacy. We talked about my 12 year old daughter that was born a boy and now identifies as a girl. We talk about their journey. We go through it and I share all these experiences. Because I know that there's someone out there that needs to hear it. There's someone out there that needs the inspiration. And so I went through it for a reason, and I'm gonna try to give it to them. So hopefully everyone enjoy it. What is the biggest difference in your mindset from Dwayne Wade a year and a half ago, the NBA player and now? My mindset is the same. My I just traded in my jersey for these nice clothes that I'm wearing now. But the mindset, it doesn't change because that's all I know, I know the success from the sport, right? I know that I built myself from nothing to where I end up having an amazing career and it was just an amazing journey along the way. So I've done it already. I've shown myself that I can hit the lottery and keep it going and keep doing this and so why change it right? So I'm taking that same mentality into business. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Dwyane Wade opens up about his business ventures and new documentary

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Dwyane Wade talks business ventures and new doc

WATCH: Dwyane Wade discusses post-career business ventures

Following a storied NBA career, Dwyane Wade is now focused on building upon a stream of successful business ventures and telling his unlikely story in a new documentary. 