Eddie Wilson is a real estate investor, a CEO, a national speaker, and has a passion for business growth. He has built or run more than 125 different businesses and successfully exited over 90 of them, generating over $1 billion in business, and earning him the nickname the King of Exits. Currently, his humanitarian work is known around the world, and he is the executive director of the nonprofit organization Impact Others.

On the intersection of time, wealth, and purpose:

“If you actually control your time, if you control your time on a daily basis and you fundamentally put it into the things that matter, you end up gaining all the wealth. And it ends up leading towards a life of purpose. So, it’s a very sequential process that’s happened in my life.”

How he treats time like a mathematical equation:

“So, throughout the day, I just toggle (my time). Right now, a toggle is running. It says I’m speaking on a podcast. I give all that to my CFO at the end of the year, and he gives me the actual equation for how much I created in wealth based on the exchange of my time. So, time is a human construct. However, it is exchanged for something.

And if I’m cognizant of what I’m exchanging my time for, then I get very intentional about it. And then the outcome and the production end up increasing. So, every year for 11 years, I’ve increased my output year over year, over year, over year.”

Why philanthropy is so important to Eddie:

“What I found is that fulfillment in my life, and I think that fulfillment can be different for others, but for me it’s very much helping someone that cannot help themselves. So, whether it’s a homeless person on the street, or it’s the orphanages that we’ve started. It very much gives me this satisfaction, this fulfillment, this deep fulfillment that cannot be given in any other capacity.

I’ve searched the world for fulfillment, you know, and what I find is, is if I can find someone who can’t get there on their own, and I can provide that path for them, then it gives me a deep sense of satisfaction and fulfillment. Yeah. I think the more you achieve your goals, it definitely happens that way.”

His hugely successful Aspire Tour:

“Two and a half years ago, I had sold 76 companies in one year and was really in a place of retirement, and I was doing all the philanthropic things around the world.

(My business partner Andrew Cordle) showed up in my office and said, ‘Hey, I want to pitch you on an idea.’ He’s an extreme visionary, and I’m more of the operator. I love the actual fundamental running of the businesses.

He walked into my office, and he said, ‘The whole world has been shut down. You don’t see these big giant events anymore. What if we were first back to the market with big arena style events? We know a lot of celebrities. Let’s just invite them, see if they’ll come. Let’s do something aspirational for the business owner and see if we can get small businesses to essentially assemble.’

We did Dallas and we sold Dallas out. We went to Fort Lauderdale. We sold Fort Lauderdale out. We went to Denver, and sold Denver out. Then we booked the entire year. Now we’re 27 events straight.

We’ve done Madison Square Garden. We did the Toyota Center in Dallas. This thing has just exploded. This year we actually have a big virtual one coming up in June, which we’re planning on having 100,000 people live and then we go international in the fall.”

What Eddie is grateful for:

“I am so grateful for family and life, and there’s just so many things, but my parents lived an amazing life and had an amazing journey and taught me so much. I had a bunch of losses early in my life. Lost my sister, lost my brother. But my parents’ resilience and emotional intelligence and what they went through to help me gain success even though it was in the midst of loss. It was a gift that I can never repay, you know, and so I’m extremely grateful for some great parents.”