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Carlsbad, CA—Rick Harrison, the star of cable TV sensation Pawn Stars, was a speaker at the recent GIA International Gemological Symposium here. As part of a panel about estate and vintage jewelry, Harrison regaled the audience with his story of rising to the top of cable television popularity with his famous History Channel program—now seen in over 120 countries and translated into more than a dozen languages. In fact, the program is so popular that he can’t actually go out on the sales floor of his own Las Vegas shop, otherwise business immediately comes to a halt.

In an exclusive video interview with The Centurion, Harrison reminds jewelers that the secret to success is doing what nobody else does, only better.

Harrison’s tenacity began with acquiring a pawn license in Las Vegas long ago. A strange city ordinance said there would be one more license available once the population hit 250,000. Every week, he contacted the city statistician, and the very moment the number hit the mark, he applied for the last available license.

But the other pawn shops in town were owned by large companies, he said, and they simply entered an item into a computer, which told them what to pay. They wouldn’t take bizarre items like antique ormulu clocks, he said, but he would. He would take the item, research it, learn about it, find and consult experts about its value, and as a result became a one-of-a-kind sensation.

“I’m a complete geek,” he said of his passion for learning the history of an item. He’s a passionate collector of illuminated books, which he reads at night before bed.

After a PBS documentary about the shop resulted in a huge surge in popularity, he realized TV was the way to go. So he pitched a reality show to a number of networks until HBO bit.

“TV is like hotdogs. You really don’t want to know how it’s made,” he said. At odds with HBO about the format of his show, it never was aired, but he was forced to sit out the two-year contract regardless. After the contract expired, he teamed up with The History Channel, and the rest is, well, history.

Click here to watch Harrison's exclusive interview with The Centurion here.