What Muhammad Ali taught his daughter about business

Laila Ali, the eighth child of boxing legend Muhammad Ali, says while her dad didn’t really teach her any business chops growing up, she did learn one key piece of advice.

“My father's advice really was more about character,” Ali tells FOX Business. “[He was] always teaching us to be kind and compassionate and never step on others to get ahead. So that is something that I definitely could apply to business but I just apply it to my life as whole.”

Ali, a former professional boxer in her own right, says given what she knows now, she could have probably given her dad business advice.

“You know everyone has their thing and that wasn’t his thing. I could have given him some business advice,” she says.

The 40-year-old entrepreneur, who retired from boxing in 2007, says she is now focused on her family and pursuing various opportunities in the health and wellness arena.

“I'm getting ready to launch my own line of organic seasoning blends as well as launching a new line of nutrition products, and I’m hosting a new show called, ‘Home Made Simple,’ on OWN,” she says.

Ali has also teamed up with the organization, Think About Your Eyes, to spread awareness to children and adults about the importance of getting a yearly eye exam.

“It’s something that a lot of people don’t really think about,” she says. “I wear glasses and my daughter wears glasses, and [I] didn’t get my glasses until I started squinting and my teacher had to tell my mother that I was having trouble.”

The same thing later happened to her daughter, Sydney, in school.

“So, I’m just trying to prevent that from happening to other people,” she says. “For me, it's always about overall health. You don't realize how connected our eyes are to our overall health.”

Ali adds that while she’s currently juggling multiple projects at the moment, she loves being an entrepreneur, which is something she’s been doing for more than 20 years.

“When I was 15 or 16, I got my license to be a manicurist and I built up a clientele and later subleased some space and had a salon by the time I was 18,” she says. “It was a successful business but around that time, I started boxing for the first time and my career kind of took another direction.”

But she adds that the experience taught her at a young age about the demands of being disciplined, organized and responsible, which has helped her thrive today. Ali says her biggest piece of business advice to aspiring entrepreneurs today is to never give up.