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Monday May 17, 2021
Monday May 17, 2021
J. Fife Symington IV is an entrepreneur and Arizona native with more than three decades of experience in greenhouse agriculture. He serves as Managing Director of Copperstate Farms, a vertically integrated cannabis company he co-founded in 2016.
Symington’s agricultural pursuits began in the early 90’s. After graduating with honors from Harvard University, Symington spent time travelling in Mexico where he was inspired to take vegetable production to the next level. He co-founded and developed several commercial scale greenhouse operations, including International Greenhouse Produce in Culiacan, Sinaloa, Nueva Agronomia de Nayarit in Jala, Nayarit, and Apache Produce in Nogales, Arizona. Collectively, these agricultural facilities encompassed 850 acres of covered greenhouses and shipped more than 175 million pounds of vegetables to the U.S. each year.
With an affinity for project development and innovation, Symington decided to explore large-scale cannabis cultivation in the early stages of the industry. In 2016, he transitioned his grow expertise from tomatoes to medical cannabis with the purchase of a 40-acre glass greenhouse in Snowflake, Arizona.
With a strong vision centered on economic growth and community welfare, Symington refurbished and outfitted the failing facility with the latest greenhouse technology and established Copperstate Farms. Now one of the largest cannabis greenhouse operations in North America and the largest employer in Snowflake with over 800 team members, Copperstate Farms continues to advance the industry on a positive level. The company owns and operates four medical/recreational dispensaries, and is the largest wholesaler in the state of Arizona.
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Friday Apr 23, 2021
Friday Apr 23, 2021
Kevin is an active businessman and entrepreneur in the startup tech community. While attending Indiana University, he founded the nation’s first collegiate hosted mini marathon. He went on to serve as Sr. VP of Sales for venture-backed ClassWatch until it’s $15M acquisition in 2011. Kevin founded Upper Hand in 2012 after seeing an opportunity as a Little League coach to revolutionize the sports and fitness industry. Kevin actively supports the startup and sports community as a TechStar Sports Accelerator mentor and overseeing a predictive analytics program with Butler University.
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Thursday Mar 18, 2021
Thursday Mar 18, 2021
Dr. Oram holds Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in environmental chemistry and engineering from the University of California Los Angeles and bachelor’s degrees in analytical chemistry and biochemistry from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Dr. Oram spent his research years studying the complex physical and chemical processes governing the fate of contaminants in the coastal environment. He has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications and technical reports, has given presentations before local and international audiences, and is an invited member of several technical review and scientific steering committees. Dr. Oram’s research was instrumental in forming government regulations regarding water quality and assessing human health impacts of agricultural pesticides.
In 2009, Dr. Oram co-founded CW Analytical Laboratories to establish standardized testing and certification protocols to ensure the safety and quality of medical cannabis. CW Analytical Laboratories is now recognized as the most trusted analytical laboratory in California.
Dr. Oram and his lab were instrumental in developing cannabis regulations in California, Washington, and New Jersey. Specifically, Dr. Oram was an invited member of the scientific advisory panel for Washington’s Initiative 502 regulations.
Dr. Oram founded and operates multiple successful businesses in the cannabis vertical that currently employ over one hundred thirty full-time employees combined. Dr. Oram is also a significant contributor to Oakland’s Cannabis Equity Program where he incubates six equity-qualified applicants with infrastructure, financing, and business training.
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Thursday Mar 18, 2021
Thursday Mar 18, 2021
Born and raised in Michigan, Mr. Tolia attended the University of Michigan where he earned a BA in economics and BSE in Industrial and Operations Engineering, He previously held roles with investment banking firms Peter J. Solomon Company and hedge fund Midtown Capital before co-founding Bengal Capital Trading LLC, a Chicago based hedge fund.
While at Bengal Capital, Vinay was an early investor in various US multistate operators (MSOs) as well as other ancillary cannabis companies.
In 2018 he left Bengal to become the CEO of the Flowr Corporation. Mr. Tolia led the company’s go-public fundraise as well as subsequent financings as well as the acquisition of Holigen Holdings which gave Flowr a global footprint.
Vinay served as a member of the board of directors of Imerman Angels, a cancer support organization and his keenly interested in education reform and social justice.
In this episode, Vinay answers questions like:
- How do you manage life on the road as a husband and father while managing your day-to-day tasks in business?
- What about business management are you most passionate about?
- Who or what do you attribute your success to?
- What has your biggest success this year been?
- What was your biggest failure and why? How did you get through it?
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In this episode, John answers questions like:
- How do you manage life on the road as a husband and father while managing your day-to-day tasks in business?
- What about business management are you most passionate about?
- Who or what do you attribute your success to?
- What has your biggest success this year been?
- What was your biggest failure and why? How did you get through it?
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Thursday Jan 28, 2021
Thursday Jan 28, 2021
Giadha A. DeCarcer is the Founder and CEO of New Frontier Data, the authority in data, analytics and business intelligence for the worldwide cannabis industry. An entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in business strategy, execution, management and business development, DeCarcer’s began her career in banking, and progressed to technology, data analytics, intelligence collection and reporting, and emerging markets across multiple sectors, domestically and internationally.
DeCarcer has launched, built and operated four data-centric businesses, including disruptive technologies for the innovation behind Progressive’s Snapshot and Verizon’s Hum. She is considered an expert in strategic positioning and risk management in emerging high growth markets, as well as a seasoned professional in government and commercial intelligence data collection and analysis. These core focus areas, along with unwavering entrepreneurial drive, have defined Giadha’s career and her vision for New Frontier Data.
DeCarcer is an official member of the Forbes Technology Council; her work has been featured in Forbes, Fortune, CNBC, Fox News, CNN Money, Bloomberg, WSJ and many other top-tier news outlets worldwide, as well as in documentaries and books, including “Mary Janes,” “The Marijuana Show,” “The Great Green Gold Rush,” and “Breaking the Grass Ceiling,” among others. Number 7 on the list of the 20 Most Influential Women in Cannabis by greendorphin, DeCarcer has also been designated as one of The Most Powerful Women to Watch in D.C., is a two-time Stevie Awards Maverick of the Year recipient, a 2019 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year finalist and Moxie Award nominee, and a winner of the Washington Business Journal 2019 Women Who Mean Business Award.
Her commitment to education and information sharing inspired her to create The InterCannAlliance (ICA) in 2018. The ICA is a New Frontier Data-led initiative to foster best practices and knowledge sharing amongst newly emerging cannabis markets, introducing what she has coined the “Nine Foundational Pillars” of a healthy and stable cannabis sector. Her continuous pursuit of knowledge has remained the ultimate constant throughout her life and career, also illustrated in her many mentoring and volunteering efforts such as the creation of Women Entrepreneurship Reinforcement (WeR), a program designed to mentor and coach female entrepreneurs establishing their first business.
New Frontier Data, headquartered in Washington D.C., has been recognized in DCInno as one of 17 DC area startups to Watch for 2017 and PC Mag named the company one of just 15 Blazing Hot Tech Companies to Watch. Since the company’s inception in 2014, New Frontier Data has generated the most earned media of any reporting company covering the cannabis industry crossing 15 billion in earned media reach. As one of the winners of the Best in Biz Awards 2019, Most innovative Company of the Year, New Frontier Data is also at the center of the 116th Congressional discussion on federal legalization, providing vetted and unbiased data and analysis to regulators as they assess the potential socio-economic impact of cannabis federal legalization in the United States.
Giadha A. DeCarcer is fluent in five languages including French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. Born in Italy, raised in France and Spain, Giadha earned an Associate Degree in Business Administration from Miami Dade Community College, a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Relations & Trade from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Master of Arts degree in International Security from the Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.
Interview Transcript
Max
Welcome back to Episode 53 of the Built on Purpose podcast with Max Hansen brought to you by YScouts where we higher purpose aligned and performance proven leaders. Today, our guest is Giadha DeCarcer, the founder and CEO of New Frontier Data. Giadha, is an internationalist born in Italy, raised in Switzerland, France and Spain. All places I can't wait to travel back to she has lived in six countries across the globe. She speaks five languages and has a keen appreciation for cultural and economic dynamics. Giadha an analyst and strategist by training, a serial entrepreneur by practice identified the lack of critical data and analysis through her own attempted cannabis industry research. Despite ridicule from her peers across banking, technology, energy and defense. She jumped at the opportunity to bring big data, the pillar in any modern burgeoning industry to cannabis. She has built her team of unparalleled experts from fields just as diverse as their own in 2014, New Frontier data started collecting data streams and cannabis, normalize them, and centralize them to provide vetted polished and actionable reporting to the industry before and better than anyone else worldwide. Ladies and gentlemen, let's welcome Giadha DeCarcer.
Giadha 8:57
Max, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure.
Max 9:00
Awesome. Well, I'm gonna start out let's start off for talking about New Frontier data. I just think it's, it's, it's awesome. I want to hear you know, kind of what you guys do. I obviously, the introduction gave a little, little, little piece or a little intro to what you guys do. But ultimately, what problem are you solving and kind of how did you arrive at this?
Giadha 9:22
Well, the problem the core problem is visibility and risk mitigation into this booming industry on a global scale. This is an industry that was born of a movement it was some stigma and transparency into it from a financial perspective, from an opportunity and risk assessment perspective was challenging. Arguably, it continues to be challenging. So what we've set out to be to do is leverage cutting edge technology such as Big Data technologies to begin collecting information in a responsible, objective and comprehensive manner, slice it and dice it. So study So that we can get to the point where we're providing actionable intelligence as close to real time as possible to again, stakeholders. Are those looking to become stakeholders in this now global sector.
Max 10:14
Awesome. And let me add a little bit on and I and I read a little bit on it, but I'd love to hear it straight from you. What How did you build up the skill sets to finally launch this company? Like, what were the building blocks of understanding and getting your feet wet in big data and getting confident enough to jump into a new industry and apply that those those skill sets?
Giadha 10:36
I mean, isn't the whole you fake it until you make it isn't that sweet spot. So if this is you mean, me personally, it was serendipitous I, I say with as much humility as possible that it almost feels like it was meant to be, I had very diverse careers that fit perfectly into new frontier data. So I started as a financial analyst with JPMorgan Chase, right out of college. So I really sort of got the opportunity to understand how financial analytics impact a lot larger company and a market when you're looking at more financial type vehicles or investment opportunities. I then, because of 9/11, I left banking altogether, because I was in New York. And as most of us in New York at the time, it had a massive life changing impact. So I left banking, and I decided that I wanted to join the war on terror. So I got my masters and I decided to go into intelligence collection, then really honing the skills on how do you turn human human, so human collected information into something that's actionable, all the way to the president and to our national security. And then after that, which was a gruesome experience, a very gratifying one, but certainly a very, very difficult career to have. I left after three, four years, and I decided to go into emerging markets. You mentioned I speak languages, I was very fortunate to travel the world. So I figured, you know what, I have financial analytics, I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with intelligence collection at that point. And so I decided, you know, it was around the time when we were experiencing it, the financial and economic sort of crisis. And so a lot of US companies were looking at the BRIC nations is when the BRIC nations was really hot. So I was like, Well, let me go into emerging markets. When you combine experience in the financial industry, with understanding how to leverage technology and how to collect information for humans to turn it into intelligence and then understanding appreciating an emerging market, then you combine the three, candidly, you have new financial data, where financial analysts with high tech technology collecting information trade into intelligence for an emerging market. So serendipitous, is really the word that I would focus on here for for the answer to that question.
Max 12:58
Such an awesome story. So let's take me back to when you were when you went on your, your own search for data and cannabis, what did you find? What did you find? Was there anything out there was it was there a lot of bias?
Giadha 13:14
a lot of closed doors, and a lot of people looking at me like I was asking them to show me their undergarments. When I asked for data. And the industry remember that the especially the early folks in the industry, were not folks that weren't necessarily happy to share information with others, right? The industry was sort of operating for many years, decades behind the veil. So not only was there no information whatsoever, it's certainly all of this sophisticated, or I guess, mature market. Usual Suspects were not reporting on the industry, it was too taboo at the time. Countries like the Netherlands that I had really had an industry in one shape or another for decades, hadn't was not collecting any information on it. So that was out. academia had nothing, there was no interest beyond sort of, you know, your brain is a fried egg type of research in terms of cannabis. So it was there was a little bit of research, medical research in California due to sort of cancer and AIDS, etc. But in essence, there was really nothing that we could use from a financial reporting and micro macroeconomic reporting. So we really started knocking on doors, and we spent a lot of time a time building trust within the industry, so that folks would open up to us. So I, the first few years, I was attending 50 to 80 conferences a year, just to literally shake hands and meet folks and let them know that we were here to help them and help the industry by providing transparency, objective transparency, and that we're not going to do so at you know, giving away their competitive edge. It was hard.
Max 14:56
Yeah, I bet it before we before we went on the air. Giadha and I were talking about Y Scouts transition into cannabis, I think when we first started four or five years ago now, I think we were a little bit hesitant to put it out front and center, just because we didn't know, you know what the rest of the markets that we're working with banks. So, man, we've come a long ways and and this is a legitimate industry that has a huge market ahead. So, you know, one thing I want to ask is, you know, the international experience that you have, I think everybody that has traveled the world and has spent time in other countries and has seen, you know, different cultures, they start to understand how that, you know, kind of helps them in life and in business. How has it helped you in life in business being that internationalist living in so many different countries, and particularly the countries that you've lived in? are, you know, very, very modern companies that you've probably gained some incredible insights and perspectives from But tell me, tell me a little bit about your background and how that's helped in living in those different countries?
Giadha 16:07
That's an excellent question. Thank you for asking it. I guess they'd be too too strong points that I'd make there. The first one is appreciating diversity. I'm very proud of the fact that new frontier data, as it's at its birth, was already a diverse company, from a from a gender perspective, from an ethnic perspective, from a background perspective, from a political perspective, religious sexual orientation, you name it even more just for people, and then went on to be eight and then 15. And today, we're almost 50, we were always very diverse. And I think that part of that appreciation came from the fact that I had the opportunity to meet talent, extremely talented people in very different places. So there really wasn't a lot of cookie cutting sort of, you know, I wasn't really looking for a profile, I really was looking for talent, especially given that we were facing unprecedented challenges this industry was so new, the the questions were asking was so complex with no one else answering them. So right off the bat, I wanted to make sure that we had as close to a 360 view into this very complex environment. And so I was able to bring, I was able to appreciate and identify diverse talent, but that diverse talent was also able to connect with me, because I had that experience. So that I think was a huge, a huge benefit of the traveling I've had. The second one, the further along the way in the industry, I think that I was able to appreciate the fact that the industry will go viral and global, probably faster than some of my peers. I remember in 2015, and 2016.
So I remember in 2015, and 2016, when the industry was really at the stage where we still had small investors coming in the average check was maybe, you know, 50, or $100,000, a quarter million dollar check would be a huge deal. Everyone was going into cultivation. Everyone was looking at Colorado and California, to some extent some of the newer states. But you know, all the companies that had entered along with me in 2014, were certainly not looking at an international marketplace, they were really focused on planting their flag and strengthening their position in the very local market. Even ancillary services such as New Frontier data. I immediately started traveling, I went to my first international conference in Israel in early 2016. were identified the first company I wanted to acquire which was again an international had an international sort of angle, it was very much CBD and hemp centric. So I think that because my world My, my world was always sort of cross continental. And cross border II possibly. And I guess I did see the international element and opportunity way faster. We entered Europe before any of our peers in North America we're entering, and we started talking about Latin America before anyone else. And we were the first one to put out a global report. So I think those are the two aspects that probably benefited from my early my youth traveling my early stage traveling.
Max 19:35
Sure, well, and on that note, let's go to the other side of the coin. Obviously, your traveled has been inhibited a bit from COVID. How has that changed? Yeah. How has that changed? both personally, you know, because it sounds like you're the type of person that just gets charged up by being in a new place and traveling and taking that on as a challenge and enjoying the journey and in adventure of it. But how How has How has it changed both personally and professionally? Not being able to travel and you know, in getting these advantageous positions that you just talked about?
Giadha 20:11
Well, on a personal level, I must admit that traveling is exhausting to me. I'm actually an extreme introvert. I don't appear it I know people will say that Oh Giadha, you definitely you're an expert. Uh, no, actually, I lose energy fast when I try when I'm around people. So I've been able to recharge personally, massively because attending in 30,40,50 conferences a year, the Traveling is pretty tasking. However, from a professional perspective, it certainly has been challenging to keep up with some of the nuance, nuances on a regional basis. For instance, we are expanding into Europe, which is why I'm currently in Europe, by the way, and that one of the reasons is because you're the European market is becoming increasingly important, not only from a consumption perspective, but from a production perspective and export import dynamics that I that we will be discussing later this year and reports but but that are going to become very important on a global scale. But but the the, the, we have been fortunate However, in that the because we're now an almost six year old company, we were at a point internally, at least that we were able to focus internally and the market, the market externally sort of did not experience any massive shift. I don't want to say that the growth of regional markets slowed down, because as you know, cannabis consumption has actually gone up pretty much globally under the COVID app and the pandemic. However, when it comes to massive shifts in Dynamics and trends, we haven't seen that. So we've seen sort of more of a linear growth. Thus, we were fortunate that not that there was nothing really that required sort of this, this boots on the ground last year, because of the pandemic, I would say we will however, need to start traveling quickly this year, because we are beginning to see some pretty strong new trends, for instance, in Latin America, with Mexico and other countries, legalizing and of course, in Europe with a variety of bills and regulatory matters that are evolving. But we were lucky the one year I think gave us an opportunity to breathe and to strengthen and to really put our head down and study. But I think that pause is now short lived. I think it's time to get back out there.
Max 22:35
Sure. Sure. Yeah, it's coming soon. Speaking of cannabis consumption, I would love to hear maybe a glimpse into some of the trends that you see coming up like, and I'll tell you on the on the micro level for us, I'm in Arizona, in the US and Arizona legalized obviously, for recreation, and it was this past week, where now it's actually the dispensaries are opening up. And I've heard from people that have been to the dispensaries. I haven't been there any my clients this week since they've opened but the shelves are like empty. I mean, and they were preparing they knew that was coming. And so this is on a micro level. And I know we you know your company, this is the data, but I mean, it can let's get into like, What are you? What are you anticipating, as some of the trends as we start to see, you know, we're starting to see states and countries and you know, the like start to start to move towards recreational legalization.
Giadha 23:36
So the recreational legalization continues to be centric in North America. So the rest of the world is really much more interested at least for the time being in in medical applications of the plant, not to say that there aren't pockets of interest in adult use. And not to say that there isn't adults use all over the globe. But in terms of legalization, most of the countries outside of North America are very much looking at legalizing medical use before anything else. Again, with some gray areas here and there, there's quite a bit at least half a dozen nations that it's sort of their their loopholes. What we are seeing in North America, which continues to be sort of the most mature consumer market in the world when it comes to cannabis. One of the reasons because indeed there is a mature recreational adult use market is is the during the pandemic we've seen triple and quadruple the size of individual purchases. So certainly a very much a stock up type of trend, which is basically what you just mentioned. So you know everybody and everything off the shelves in fear that they'll run out and not have it. We were not necessarily surprised about this. In fact, when we started talking about this and predicting this
Max 24:56
Sorry, no worries.
Giadha 24:59
So we Very much like what you saw in Arizona, there is sort of that stuck up mentality, in case you run off and run your runs out. But this is something that we began to discuss, in fact, in March early during the pandemic, because we were also beginning to talk about it potential recession, economic crisis. And during times of recession, economic crisis, sectors such as alcohol, tobacco, and chocolate and condoms tend to do very well. And believe it or not, recreational cannabis would fall in those categories. I think the pandemic and sort of heightened that further because of the potential because of the stress and anxiety that the pandemic itself was bringing to bear. And that's something that we've seen across the board. So consumption went up. The other interesting trend that's worth mentioning is, depending on the population group, depending on gender and age, an increase in edibles and flower. So a little bit of a decrease in vaping, which, again, not surprising, given sort of what we saw happen in the last 18 months with vaping, and the health, potential health risk and health questions around it. But certainly a very large sort of a, which had begun in 2018, with a spike in edible consumption. And a sort of return to flower, especially high quality flower. So this search for very high quality flower. And that's true across North America. And we've seen where that is true in other nations, we've seen that trend also. Sustained.
Max 26:40
Yeah, and speaking of So, you know, in the US, I think, you know, in just my travels across Europe, and I think when people travel Europe, I think smoking is a lot more tolerated, obviously in Europe than it is in the US. I think that there's, you know, some differences there. Is, is do you expect the same decrease in vaping? Is that happening worldwide? Or are you talking more in the US? I'm just I just interested in that, just just to see if there's a difference between the way Europeans look at vaping versus the US,
Giadha 27:11
So, that is a very much a North American trend for now. And to be candid with you. And we all were always very honest about, you know, if we don't have an answer, and we don't have a data based answer, we don't tell you we don't know, we don't have as much visibility in other parts of the world when it comes to the annual consumption, as we have in the United States and in Canada. That said, the information that we do have in from Europe and Latin America still does support those trends.
Max 27:37
What from your, if you can share what countries are really going to set a precedence, as you see. countries, I don't want to say get more lenient as far as medical, because medical is medical in it, and you have to go through the medical system, but you only think of what countries are leading the way what when you are going to send signals to you that the industry is really making progress in Europe, when they when what countries do want I mean, Germany, like who's leading the charge, in your opinion, like what are going to be the pillars that really lead
Giadha 28:11
from the regulatory perspective, in a in an initial sort of early stage consumption perspective, Germany, England, France, Spain, Italy, those are the those are the nations that sort of seem to have the largest opportunities, we are seeing an emergence in interest from Slavic countries. So the former Soviet nations that have northeast, Mediterranean nations are interested. I mean, the whole Mediterranean has high consumption illegally. So there is an emergence of sort of do, again, driven by this economic crisis, right. A lot of countries just like a lot of states in the US are looking at ways to mitigate the loss in revenue. And so taxation of something that is being consumed illegally is a no brainer. Something that is interesting in Europe, however, beyond the consumption, adults use or medical and medical is still most prominent beyond adults use for now is the interest from a b2b perspective, right? So large consumer packaged good companies, whether it is in food and beverage, or health and beauty are interested in entering the space to address consumption in North America and to address consumption in Europe. But there's some very large multinational companies that are looking to come up with new brands that are seeded with CBD infused products, and even THC infused products. So that's something that's interesting, across Europe that we're seeing that I would say is is fascinating to me. And that certainly shows that Europe is maturing as far as perception even if multinational corporation are getting up to speed faster than the individual concern consumer, then the shift is occurring.
Max 29:58
Got it fascinating. I'm gonna start switch gears a little bit, I want to go back to something that I think is awesome. I was super excited to have this conversation with you. What does it mean? And because of what I'm going to ask you, but what does it mean to be a woman and minority owned business or business leader? I mean, it's, you're such a powerhouse, I just want to go back to it. You talked about the diversity and everything that that we're in alignment. And that's important to really building, especially a global business doing what you guys are doing, but what does it mean to you? And then second, these might be together. And I could repeat the questions as you as you unfold your answer here. But I believe everybody's fighting something internally, not necessarily in a bad way. But what are you fighting? And what are you fighting against? Is there something that you're that charges you up? So they're they're kind of two separate questions, but I think you'll you'll, you'll crush them together?
Unknown Speaker 30:48
Oh, I The second part is certainly something that I'm gonna have to think about. Again, I fight for so many things on a daily basis, I guess that would be the first answer. Listen, as a business owner, regardless of your gender, or ethnicity or business founder, right? Because can my investors own the business, we all own the business, we're also employee owned. But as soon as the founder. It's, it's just it's a constant fight, right? Especially when you're in such a volatile high growth industry, one that had the type of taboos that the cannabis industry had. I mean, it wasn't exactly a walk in the park. And it still isn't, right. So that's true of any as a female and, and as a minority. And as an immigrant. Some of the things that I often find is credibility, right, I went crazy getting degrees from is some of the best companies some of the best academic institutions in the world just because of this constant feeling that I had to prove that I could be trusted that I was credible that I'm so and i think that that continues. It's something that many women and many minorities will say, I happen to also have an accent doesn't really help because it isn't exactly a British Oxford accent. So there's it when I pitch investors when I especially as we now begin to pitch very large investors, and we begin to work with very large multinational companies. When in North America, there's always a little bit of of that fight of Yes, I know, I'm a woman, yes, I wear red lipstick. And yes, sometimes I wear a very tight pink suit, guess what I still can speak to you and I can, I can sort of hang in here and be at par with you. However, internationally, I will say that being a woman or minority has helped me so the tables have turned a bit while it was excruciatingly painful, the first three, four years. It's not that we are an international company, my diversity and the fact that I'm a woman is actually helping. So there is a day of reckoning, I guess, as I say, in terms of what really drives me every day. It has changed over the years. At first there was this, this really wanting to there's, I've always been very loyal. And I have been very grateful to the talent and the folks that helped me early on. And so there was this massive need to sort of do right by them and make sure that we succeeded. There were a lot of sacrifices made early on by a lot of people. And so there was that drive of do right by all of them, including investors and and and team members. Today, I think I've returned to a little bit of my a pipe alpha, early youth drive where I just want to win. I think that they're we're in a unique position. And this may seem a little superficial. But we have gotten to the point where we're very well positioned to bring transparency into this industry on a global scale. And I think we can do it right. I think when I say win, it's not just making money, when I say win is I think we can truly elevate the discussion on a global scale whereby medicine is is is being allowed, whereby in jobs are being created, where there is social equity. And so those are the things that I begin to think about after six years, and it's exciting to be able to think of these things do you even believe for one minute in the morning, that we could have an impact on such macro level global matters. I mean, I was an international relations student undergrad so these are the types of things that I'm really excited about to see us take an active role and and and i and i think we can and I am working towards doing it. We are
Max 34:40
I I really respect the you know, the the idea of fighting credibility but as I was preparing to talk to you, I'm thinking you might have an accent but you you speak five languages. So you could be talking about me and five, you know, four other languages that I don't even know what you're talking about per se. I mean, I know a little bit but So you're not fighting credibility with me. In fact, the interview with you today for me is helping build my credibility, just so you know. So. So I'm gonna move on to some other probably a little bit more personal questions, but I think you'll, you'll enjoy them and so of the audience, but is there a particular motto that you live your life by?
Giadha 35:24
Do it. And I know Nike has its Nikes. But hey, I live by, just do it. I've learned early on in life that fear is is probably one of it fear and envy, right or hatred. But for me fear because I'm lucky enough I don't think I I have had much much envy or hatred in my life. But fear certainly. And I decided deliberately that this should be no fear regret, this is something that's awful. So just doing things not to do it thoughtlessly, obviously, not to be, you know, careless, but certainly to just do it, talking and talking about it, thinking about it too long talking about it too long. I it's frustrating to me. And I feel like it can be a waste of time. So the model for me is, if there's something that we need to do when it just do it. And then if we need to go back and tweak the tweak, but just take that step forward.
Max 36:17
Got it, love it. And then you talked about winning, which hits home for me, because when I when the when the gloves come off, and I really think about what are we sometimes if I'm frustrated and moving the business forward, or at the end of the day that when I think about what what am I, What's pushing me? and I say the same thing I want to win. But and and I can trace that back to you know, playing a lot of sports and being competitive. And there's a big difference that I had to learn over time, and being competitive in business and being competitive in sports. But what When did you first starting wanting to win? Like what was it? Was it did you? Did you play an instrument? Did you compete? Like Was there anything like early in your childhood that started you down this feeling of like I want to win? or How are you raised? Like, is there something I just want to go back to like, that really connected with me and I, you know, I gave you some of the reasons. For my early childhood. Most of it was sports related but wanting to win. And for the right reasons. It's wanting to win, it's wanting to achieve certain, you know, goals and hit certain pylons with your company, not only not just making money, but that is part of it. But what was the starter or the driver of wanting to win early in your life?
Giadha 37:27
I don't know that anyone's ever asked me that question in such a manner. So very, very helpful question. Well, I, I moved every three years growing up, which is why I speak the languages. But with that came a certain level of solitude and independence and autonomy. Every time I shift countries, I had to learn a new language. And as such that getting getting up to speed with everyone else and not feeling like I was left behind was I guess my first I need to win. That said, I think I was born competitive period. In terms of the sports I always played loner sports began, again, the language barrier. So I'm a runner, and I to this day I run. I remember I was in relays and I wanted to win, I wanted to run against the male team and school and I did, and we won. So there was a little bit of there was certainly competitiveness. But if I had to say one experience in my life that wasn't so young, that truly turned things around and made it that sort of ignited that that drive if not passion. early on. When I moved to the United States, I went to community college for about five years. Again, that was the last language I learned English. And I only knew Romance languages. So this one was the hardest for me. And I was older. So having moved here at 16/17 to pick up in your language at that point was certainly a little more challenging than when you're five or six or seven. So it took me a long time to just get my associate's degree. Again, it's a two year degree and it took me almost five years, but I wanted I really, I was very perseverant. And I remember, my goal was to transfer to a to a really good school, I actually wanted to transfer to an Ivy League school. And I took Esau which is English for Spanish or other languages for many years. And finally I was able to take in normal English and I even got to an honors English class, my last year, all with the same professor from Israel to the honors. So I asked her for a recommendation when I applied to Harvard, Yale and University of Pennsylvania and those were the only three schools I applied to. I also took the SAT like 57 times, literally I kid you not. So when I did that, I provided the time you thought it was all typed, and we literally mercy you know, the typewriter and I sent it again with the forms and the next day she came to the seminar and she she called did class to attention and she said that she wanted to discuss Something that was really important. And it was the understanding of not reach, overreaching in life and not to set yourself up for failure. And she used my application to Harvard, Yale and University of Pennsylvania, as an example of overreaching and setting myself up for failure. Something triggered inside of me that day, the humiliation first and foremost was huge. And the lack of confidence from someone who I thought I had made proud, having gone from Israel to honors, was crippling inside. And I did get into Penn. And I sent her a postcard from it. And from that, beyond, it's been sort of this thing of like, I don't care how many times people tell me, I can't do it, I'm gonna win.
Max 40:46
I love it. Thank you for sharing that. For those of the for those of you that are listening, and are thinking about ever giving up this is she learned English last out of all of her languages, and then went on to to be successful, you know, in the academia, world, and obviously successful in business. So thanks for thanks for sharing that. And take an SAT 57 times. I mean, there is perseverance.
Giadha 41:14
Maybe we feel less but I took it certainly a couple of dozen times I kid you not I took I took this at, at least across the two years period. My first score was 790. And I'm pretty sure you get like, what 600 points for getting your name right. took me a while It took me a while.
Max 41:35
I have a feeling here a pretty humble person. So I appreciate this. When thinking about what's your bit, what would you say your biggest professional accomplishment is today, and I have a feeling you're you always think moving forward. Like you've you're humble you're you feel well accomplished to a certain degree. But I know you have your eyes on something moving forward. But let's stop and just think about what what has felt like the biggest professional accomplishment today.
Giadha 42:01
The talent that I was able to bring together and I say I and I say that and I shouldn't because it's we write it really has been. We started with four why I started by myself then it was two than it was four and now we're over 40 people across the world. But, but I do still keep the little part of me that says you know what, Jenna, you brought this team together. And with the help of others, but you did and that that, to me is a great accomplishment because the talent of the company is what drives us. Um, I early on, I was not a micromanager. Like, you wouldn't believe OCD control freak, you name it. But I call I call myself a war General, right? Because at a time of war, mistakes cost lives. And so I made that analogy. We have evolved and and certainly I'm no longer that word general. I don't have to be there's incredible talent around me that now leads lives with me. But it's, it's, it's kind of awesome to see. It really is like it's I never thought I could bring that many interesting and unique and intelligent and driven people together in a rather risky journey. This this is still today a risk, like, obviously much less risky than it was five years ago. But there's still it's still an emerging market and you know, so. So that I would say is my feeling my greatest accomplishment. And you're right, my greatest accomplishment, I believe is yet to come beyond.
Max 43:36
But man, our worlds just collided as professionals, obviously our entire business is built off of the premise of talent being the number one priority, and really building businesses. So not surprising that that's where you went with the, you know, with the biggest professional accomplishment. What about on a personal side? What would you say you by the way, you've mentioned some good ones. So I'm not discounting anything you've said. But personally, like a personal accomplishment that you look at, like you'd say, that was one of the biggest for me personally.
Giadha 44:08
It's gonna sound a little I don't know if it's gonna sound a little petty. I'm gonna say it anyway. I'm nothing if not honest to the fault. Honesty is our core value number one core value New Frontier data. When that incident occurred, I was waitlisted the school one the English teacher, one I went to, I went to university Pennsylvania, yell straight out, say thank you, but no, thank you. But Harvard, Harvard wait listed me and I had seen the movie with honors early on in life. And I had this sort of vision of you know, one day I want to go to Harvard, I was finally able to go to Harvard as an executive for an executive program. December of last year, now well, the year before last. And it was probably one of the most humbling experiences I've ever had. The type of individuals that I sat across and next to I couldn't believe I was there I mean from soon to be president to incredibly successful multinational executives to scientist and folks that have really, that should get Nobel prizes for peace and a variety of other things. And I, it was a very short program, but to me was something that I always wanted to do. And I guess I'm very academically driven. So on a personal level, being able to do that, while working, and while driving forward without sort of stopping to work. I was very excited to take that off my bucket list.
Max 45:41
As you should,
Giadha 45:43
I think I'm done with studying there now, because it also, after nuts not been in school for like, 15 years, I kind of was like, What the hell was I thinking, Jesus work what.
Max 45:54
So, on kind of that note, and this might fall in line with it, what person has had the greatest impact on your life and why?
Giadha 46:05
I mean, this is gonna sound a little cliche, but it's the truth. I mean, my mother, my mother, with her presence, and my father through his absence. And you know, and not to get too personal. But I think that the parent dynamic as many of us, as is true for many of us, a truly shaped me, my mother very early on, as early as 10 years old, sort of, remember this as if it was yesterday said, you always need to be autonomous and independent. And the few things that my father ever said to me early on in life, because after that he wasn't around was, knowledge is power. He didn't say it in English, but it basically translated to that, because I could do he had, he had, I believe, nine he spoke then languages, I had three different degrees in two PhDs, which is why education is so in trenched into me, but sort of the idea of being autonomous, that being strong and independent certainly came from my mother and this this need to, to know and to use knowledge, as my strength is definitely driven by by my father while he was around.
Max 47:12
Awesome. Well, I have a very strong mother too. So I can, I can relate to that. And I know I do have some Italian friends and their mothers are usually very there, they have presence presence was a great word that to bring the table there.
Giadha 47:27
That's one way to put it. Yes.
Max 47:30
So I'm going to I'm going to switch gears just a little bit. But. So before, I'm going to take it into some sort of some rapid fire questions, that'll just be kind of short and a little bit light. But before doing so, I want to kind of go back and just see from your perspective. COVID-19, I always talk to the guests that I've had lately, I've always want to, like reach in and find out what good things have come from COVID? Like, what is it? You know, obviously, you haven't had to travel as much. And you said, That's personally kind of taxing on you. So it's probably allowed you to I'm just making some assumptions to do some things personally that you haven't probably done or maybe never did. But what are some good things that have come of COVID. And I always try to concentrate on the positive side, there's obviously a lot of challenges and things that have come up COVID for people and some very unfortunate things, but what are some things that have come positively from the COVID-19 challenges?
Giadha 48:27
So I assume you mean for me personally, not for our company? Yeah, you spending time with my family. I mean, one of the reasons I came to Italy was because I wanted to make sure that my entire family was close by I think the is the crisis at this global scale. When many of us are used to being in different states, hell, in my case, we were in different countries, literally, like we see each other over the holidays. And that other than that, it's FaceTime and zooming. But the this pandemic and and I sort of took it I living in Washington, DC, I actually very early on last year felt that the the situation around election was going to make Washington a little bit of a HUBZone. And so I literally just under the umbrella, we can all work remote, I left and I got all my family together in one place. So one great thing is sort of it pushed us and now that we are close together, not to say that we're all in the same house, but we're very close and literally within five minutes we can see each other I don't think we're going to go back to not I think it reminded us after after living apart for most of my adult life, I think there's a renewed appreciation for being close to family. Not just in a time of crisis, but just periods. So that's one big thing. I I'm pretty I've been pretty high stress and high strung for the past six years. Starting this company was a challenging endeavor. But the COVID-19 answer, as you said, the non traveling did allow me or it forced me I'm not really sure which of the two just to be in a little more introspective and to kebab can take better care of myself, not just for me, oh Lord, I need to be strong and healthy, I can't, you know, I, my immune system needs to be strong, I need to work out more, which I've done in the past, but more meditating, sleeping better, drinking less, to say I was drinking that much, but literally like not at all. And I and that is again, a shift that I hope I can maintain. Because the introspection the meditation every morning, well, it's all it's helped me manage my stress associated with everything that's going on. It's also given me a tap of a kind of equilibrium that I had not had before. So I would say that those those two things, I think we're triggered by this pandemic, for me and my family.
Max 50:58
Awesome. Well, let's just dig in on that a little bit further, are there, which you spoke of some of them meditation for for mental, and physical well being, but any other rituals that you have stuck with or that you have now that really help you as a person and as a leader, you know, whether it be what you do in the morning, or just rituals that you that you have two different types of workouts, anything like that, that really helped you to perform better as a person and as a leader.
Giadha 51:29
I have one. So I've never presumed to be a yogi. Because I don't know yoga. But I do like to stretch. And I do like to meditate. And I like to read about metaphysics I consider myself a spiritual person, I was raised very religious, and I'm today I think, more religious or more spiritual than religious. Every morning, the first five minutes of my morning, literally, I could still be in bed, I stretched my entire body just sort of and take very deep breath to sort of wake up my body first. And then I spend a few minutes just setting I guess, one could say an intention for the day. affirmation. And I literally, it's, I do it before anything else. Like as I open my eyes, I don't want to waste one second of breath of life without a clear intention of what I'm going to do that day. And it's, it was something that was triggered recently, during this pandemic that I had done on and off, and now I just do it well, religiously. I guess. I even though it's not a religion. But yeah, I have helped me set the tone. I know that Yogi's do it, I don't do it or thinking matter in a way that it's as it's supposed to be done. But the idea of setting an intention for yourself for the day, I think is very powerful.
Max 52:54
Well, thanks for sharing, there's a, you know, the last three or four guests, they've kind of poked around in this topic. And I've learned a lot and and I guess not ironically, there's been some sort of alignment in, in the thought of really getting things straight in your mind in the mornings. Ian Lopatin is the chairman of spiritual gangster. He's really into breathing in the mornings, with along with some other stuff. But so thank you for sharing that. I'm going to go through this, by the way, I will say has been one of my favorite conversations like Time flies, and I'm sitting here like, Okay, how do I bring this to a close? Because there's so many, I probably only got through the questions that I kind of structurally have in my head, I probably only got through about 20% of the questions. So there's so much more that I could ask, but and I'd love to selfishly, but for the sake of time and to respect your schedule and everything you're doing. And by the way, she's in Italy right now. So it's what time is it there?
Giadha 53:58
It's about 7pm.
Max 54:00
Okay, 7pm. So we're just getting started about 10am here. But so one, this is kind of selfishly, I want to ask, but hopefully there's other people that are listening that want to know this question, too. So out of all the traveling that you've done, and the places that you live, like I said at the beginning, they're all places that I can't wait to travel back to some of my favorite places, or some of the places that you live, personally. So what is what's your favorite city in the world? And why that you've been to?
Giadha 54:27
Oh, man, that's such a hard question. It's a really hard question. And I have been asked that before, and I really struggle. Because it depends, and I'm sorry to say that but I'll name a few of my favorite washington dc Believe it or not, despite the chaos that it's recently been through is a city that is very dear to my heart does it because of the education I got there, and the friends I have there and my company was born there and the opportunity that it represents is the capital of the nation that gave me everything. I am today professionally. I love Washington DC. It also happens to be a very European looking city for someone who grew up in Europe, and then was sort of shifted over to Miami, I had a very difficult time in Miami. So Miami would not be on that list. But DC certainly is. I love I love Rome. I love Florence. I mean, those are obviously I'm Italian. And so those are, those are the cities that that truly means something to me. And they're just beautiful in terms of the history they bring to bear. And it's really live museums. But to go a little further away from that in terms of truly beautiful places. I had the opportunity to travel to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, as well as Thailand, Phuket. And I cannot think of more. I at least personally have not seen more natural beauty than I have seen when I went there. Truly in incredible, beautiful places. So I would say those, those are the 10 there is one one last one that I will mention, which is kind of unique for those who have not gone to Petra. And can. I'm someone who's traveled a lot. And that took my breath away. It certainly should be considered one of the wonders of the world doesn't really qualify as a city. But it is certainly a place that I would suggest people go It's really amazing.
Max 56:32
I would second that. I'd say one of the most amazing experiences I ever had with my wife was in Cannes for the firework show. We did we didn't even know that was happening there. We were traveling and we were getting they're showing us to our hotel at the JW Marriott i think is where we're staying. And they asked he said by the way, you're going to watch the fireworks show tonight. We're like what fireworks show? And then what a question to ask because now we will go back and watch the fireworks show they have. I think it's over four or five weeks, each country puts together a firework show over the Bay of Cannes, and it's choreographed to music. It's one of the most amazing things you'll ever see. I'm sure you've probably seen that.
Giadha 57:11
I know. But I tell you what, I'm going to make it my business. This is something amazing.
Max 57:18
It was amazing. I mean it when once they told me about it, and then we were out at the beach club, watching them set it up. I mean, they have barges all over the water with a bunch of police around it because it's the other barges full of explosives, but it was one of the most breathtaking taking things you'll ever see in your life. Like it will like bring you to tears without many fireworks with music. And just it was amazing. So Alright, well I'm gonna move into the rapid fire questions. You've been an amazing guest. I'm going to start kind of bringing us to a close but what we're now going to move into kind of some some quickfire questions. What book Have you read more than once? Or what is one of your favorite books?
Giadha 57:54
Hmm. I feel like well, I read his news and intelligence reports these days. I can I can tell you I read many of our reports more than once. And some of them are actually not in English. One that I have read multiple times is called Landry. They don't the night of times that it's it's I don't know that if I was ever translated in in English, but it's a childhood favorite of mine. And I've read it in this adult as well. I I actually don't read books multiple times, if I do is for recreational purposes. And I must admit that I don't read for recreational purposes as much these days. So I would say that's the only one that I can say for sure. And the reason why I have read that one more than once is because that is the book that got me into reading. I used to hate reading until a teacher in Spain differentially save forced me to read this book. And that changed me. So yes, let me get on.
Max 59:03
Awesome. What's your favorite song?
Giadha 59:09
Hmm.I have quite a few Live To Tell I wrote an essay in college about it by Madonna. That's one of my favorite songs.
Max 59:20
But what is your favorite word?
Giadha 59:24
strength.
Max 59:26
What is something on your bucket list that you're waiting to check off?
Giadha 59:30
I had to jump off a plane. I have to do it. I'm a little afraid of heights. I just have to face it. Remember fear? No fear.
Max 59:38
If you could teach one subject to schoolchildren, what would it be this is you've been through a lot of school and a lot of different places. But so this is coming from somebody that's been in the international school system. So what would it be one subject to school children? What would it be?
Giadha 59:54
I don't know if it's a subject that Max and I don't know if there's one word to explain. But learning that the the idea of learning to be kind and listening and instead of understand others around you, I don't know what that's called. But I think we need more of that. And I don't know if that's a subject in school.
Max 1:00:18
Almost like emotional awareness. Yep. Are you a morning or night person? I mean, given the fact that I've talked to you at night and given I heard your morning routine, I'm now confused.
Giadha 1:00:31
We're both we're both confused my entire life. I've been a night owl. In the past year, however, I've turned into an early morning person coming to the south of it, and I'm in I'm in rural area, South Italy here. I learned now get up with a chicken. And so I'm becoming and maybe it's because I'm getting older, but I'm now definitely more of a morning person.
Max 1:00:52
Awesome. If you could change one thing about the world right now, what would it be?
Giadha 1:00:57
Oh, Lord. You keep them light. Hmm. That's judgment. I like to stop judging each other. I don't think it's really helping anybody.
Max 1:01:09
Awesome. Well, I'm going to leave you the last word. But before I do, I'm going to kind of close this out. This has been the built on purpose podcast with Max Hanson brought to you by Y Scouts where we higher purpose, purpose driven and performance proven leaders. I'm gonna give the last word did Giadha, give us the last word?
Giadha 1:01:27
Well, first and foremost, Max, this is a really fun interview. very thoughtful. So thank you for that. I've generally enjoyed it. And then I would leave any listener, especially women, minority, right. And you know, and folks out there that are that feel that they're facing challenges and want to achieve something that I would leave them with, you can just do.
Max 1:01:49
Awesome. Well, thank you for sharing. And if you're listening, please be sure to share the podcast and thank you for being a guest today, Giadha this was amazing. I'll be sure to follow up with you and I look forward to reconnecting down the road sometime soon.
Giadha 1:02:03
Thank you.
Max 1:02:04
Alright, talk to you soon. Thank you. Bye
Friday Dec 04, 2020
Friday Dec 04, 2020
Josh McCarter, CEO of Mindbody, dives into what drives him, his triumphs, and his appreciation for life changes. Press play to discover more! 'Mindbody emerged from the simple idea that small business owners deserve the time to focus on what matters most: their customers. Our software has transformed that vision into the world's leading wellness services marketplace, linking hundreds of thousands of passionate health, wellness, and beauty professionals to the millions of clients they serve.'
Interview Transcript
Announcer: [0:00]
Welcome to the built on purpose Podcast, where on each episode we interview exceptional leaders, entrepreneurs, authors, philosophers, and straight up interesting people to explore their outlook on life, work and leadership. And now, here's your host, CEO and co founder of Y Scouts, Max Hanson.
Max: [0:26]
Welcome to Episode 52. The Built on Purpose podcast with Max Hanson brought to you by Y scouts at Y scouts we deliver purpose align and performance proven leaders. Speaking of today, our guest is Josh McCarter. Josh is currently the CEO of mind body, the world's largest wellness marketplace. Some interesting statistics on Mind Body include they have over 70,000 fitness, beauty and integrated providers running on their platform. They have 1.3 million plus users per month. Is that correct? With three and a half million workouts in services book per month, generating more than 1 billion in transactions per month. Wow. Prior to mind, body, mind body Josh is a well traveled serial entrepreneur and successful business leader. Outside of work. Josh has served on numerous boards, most notably the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and young presidents organization. Josh has an adventure have traveled to more than 50 countries and traverse the US on his Harley. Josh, welcome to the built on purpose podcast.
Josh: [1:25]
Thanks, Max. It's great to be here.
Max: [1:27]
Well, let's start out I want to talk a little bit about the mind body mission is to leverage technology to improve the health and wellness of the world. It's frickin awesome. Tell me a little bit more about that.
Josh: [1:36]
Yeah, so our purpose statement is actually to help people lead healthier and happier lives by connecting the world to wellness. And so that's obviously a big remit. When you think about all of the different wellness activities that the people can take on. And certainly during the pandemic, if anything we've seen is that the world is not well, the people that are getting, you know, impacted by COVID, in many cases have underlying health conditions that could be avoided if they practiced a better wellness regimen. So you're despite the fact that COVID really impacted the wellness industry. We're really optimistic about the tail winds that we'll have coming out of it.
Max: [2:11]
Yeah, I mean, just when I think about, you know, company's missions and purpose statements, just to be a part of a company that's doing something that's providing so much good in the world is so powerful. So yeah, super lucky to have you on the show. And I'm glad you're in that role.
Josh: [2:25]
Yeah, thanks, Max.
Max: [2:26]
But let's I want to jump into the obvious. And I did I told you kind of when I'm walking up here, I was watching a video. It was I think it was a CNBC interview. And he was talking about the you know, some of the obvious stuff, given the COVID environment, you know, gyms, salons and spas reducing capacity and you know, an upwards of 50%. I find it absolutely fascinating on what you guys are actually doing as a company in pivoting your you're investing in your infrastructure and building your technology and making those pivots. Let's talk about those pivots. I think it's a it's really cool.
Josh: [3:00]
Yeah. So as a global provider to the wellness industry, we started seeing the industry shutting down in January and February overseas. And then about a month later, it hit us here in the US. So think about like March, mid March. And as that happened, everybody started thinking, Man, how are we going to stay connected with our customers? How long is this going to last. And in the fitness industry, it was relatively easy to see a line of sight that you can do virtual wellness, you can have a virtual fitness class or a one on one instruction. And we have actually been building out a platform and a strategy around delivering something was fully integrated with our software for fitness businesses to be able to use to do video on demand to do live streaming, and some other ways that they could stay in touch with their with their members. Well, that obviously got accelerated. We were planning on releasing that at our bolt conference in August, and we ended up accelerating it and we got it out the door in May. And so the the focus on that was really trying to you know, give our customers an alternative to zoom that they could have fully integrated with their business management system. Because you can imagine if you're doing zoom versus something that's integrated, you know, it's not behind a paywall. So how do you sell those classes, it's not tied into your CRM system. It's not tied into your marketing systems. And so that's one of the things that you know, mind body has has become known for is really building this all in one solution for wellness businesses. And we just look at the virtual side of things, as an extension of that platform. And now we really predict that the future of wellness is going to be what we call a hybrid model, where you will be doing classes in person, but you're also going to have to deliver virtual classes that may be on demand, it may be streaming, it's been really interesting to see how in certain markets, people are more interested in on demand. And in other markets, they're more interested in streaming. So we think everybody needs to have both capabilities. And then over the next you know, year, it'll probably settle out and we'll see what happens as we get more through the pandemic.
Max: [4:51]
That's interesting. So in a way it almost it almost fast forwarded some of your plans that you kind of had in motion.
Josh: [4:57]
Yeah, in a way. Absolutely. And I think that it was it wasn't as much of a pivot as it was an acceleration. Now we also serve the spa and salon industry and you can't do virtual haircuts and you can't do virtual massages. And so that industry, what we focused on was what we call a low touch client experience. And so if you think about going into, you know, any salon or spa right now, you're not sitting in the waiting room like you used to, you know, we used to have nice lounges and areas that you could hang out, maybe sit in a massage chair, you're not doing that now. And so what we've done is a way for people to notify the business, through messaging that they're there, they're ready, they can get checked in, they can go straight into a chair, they can go straight into a room, they can do all of their payments, and they're tips through a mobile phone, much like you would do with with an Uber, and then all of the rebooking, we're driving actually through an AI NML product that we purchased last year.
Max: [5:44]
Okay, that sounds convenient. I can't wait to wait to use that I've actually used the platform before I met you. I was scheduling back and you could go to yoga studios, scheduling yoga, and realize that I was using the system. So in we talked a little bit about this personally, but you've you have a dev team in India and just trying to talk about where it's a company geographically spread out, how has that started to adjust? And what what are some of the pivots that you have made as an internal team?
Josh: [6:14]
Yeah. So I think the the first part is, is just the pandemic itself has caused you to reassess your overall real estate footprint pre pandemic, we had 14 offices. And you know, now we still have 14 offices, but nobody's going to the offices. In fact, the only office that we have open right now is in Sydney, Australia. Our UK offices were open for a couple months, last couple months, and then they shut down a week and a half ago when the UK went back down on lockdown. So right now we're reassessing our real estate footprint really trying to say, Okay, what makes sense in this new hybrid work model, we we surveyed our team, almost half of the team said, Hey, you know, either we don't want to come back full time, or we want to come back in some kind of a hybrid fashion fact, that thing was closer to 75%, when you put everybody together. And so that makes you really look at your real estate differently and say, Hey, do I need all of this space, even with social distancing, that's not going to last forever. So say, it's another year. And the surprising thing for us was that we were able to keep up productivity, we thought, you know, Hey, everybody working from home, and especially for those, you know, parents that have young kids that they're being, you know, they're working, and they're being teachers as well, we thought, Man, our productivity is going to fall out. And we found just the opposite. And so that's been, that's been a great learning for us. And so we are going to lean and we think it's actually a benefit to offer to our customers and prospective recruits is the ability to have flexible work arrangements. And then with India, you know, we're looking at ways that we can tap into different talent pool, certainly, you know, India is known for a lot of things, and tech development is one of them. And as you get to a certain scale, like us, you know, we're operating in over 120 different countries. And so we're competing with companies that are already developing in, you know, Eastern Europe and in South America and India. And so, frankly, to be cost competitive, we also have to tap into some of these other labor pools. And you know, interestingly, the way that our business has grown, some has been organic, some has been through acquisition. So around the country, we have different pockets of developers that have come from different acquired businesses. And so the it's already distributed development that's happening now, and are what we call our center of excellence in Puna. India is the only place where all of the disciplines are actually housed in there working on all of the products. And so we acquired a business there last year, that only had about 40 people in it, they were kind of a dedicated developer for mind body. And we've scaled that now to about 150. I bet by the time we exit next year, it'll be 250 to 300.
Max: [8:35]
Yeah, you know, and as as preparing for this, and just kind of reading through some stuff. You always remind yourself when you're a world wide company, there's, you know, countries are operating differently. And this pandemic is different, but how is it? How, what are some big differences that stick out to you different markets and end users in different countries, where you see a lot different type of activity versus the US because of the because of COVID?
Josh: [8:57]
Yeah, I mean, I think the first part is, is how do the countries respond to it? Right. And, you know, certainly in some of the Asian countries like Singapore, and Hong Kong and China, they went hard on crack down, and they really stamped out, you know, COVID much better, frankly, than we've done here or what we've seen in Europe. And so some of those countries, like I was just giving a report today Thailand's up 24 25% from last year, whereas the US is down 35% in New York and California are down 55% compared to last year. And so so that's one thing is is just how the original approach happened, you know, whether they enforce masks and social distancing and how they close different, you know, markets. Now as things are coming back online, you know, people seem to be doing it fairly consistently. So it's, it's all about cleanliness, right? Like you don't want to go work out or get your hair cut or go on to a massage table if it hasn't been cleaned and disinfected. So So that's kind of universal. Number two is we're definitely seeing distancing so in the, you know, in the gym setting, it might be shutting down certain machines like you know, in the big box gyms where they've got, you know, 50 treadmills, they're doing every other one or every two. And in some cases, I've seen this more in Asia than in Europe. And here, they're actually putting up Plexiglas in between the areas so that it's really like your own kind of cube that you're exercising. And if you're on some type of a cardio equipment, and then in the, you know, and more of the boutique fitness, the yoga polities and spin, it's really all about capacity. And so what what's happened is, is, you know, most markets when they reopen, I think California honestly was the most extreme anywhere, I've seen it 10% capacity. Imagine you had a yoga class with 20 people, and now you can have two, you're not even gonna open your doors to do that, right. And so, so what, what we've seen is, is that, you know, most states are getting and countries 25% capacity, 50% capacity. And so the ones that start seeing more traction, the, you know, the entrepreneurs that run these businesses have to get creative. They're thinking of, what can I do outside that don't have limitations on outside, maybe before I only had four or five class times during the day. But now I can offer 10 class times during the day, they're going to be smaller classes, but I can keep the revenue coming in and making that work. And then you know, of course, we've talked about virtual and that's another way that people are driving revenue during these times.
Max: [11:08]
Yeah, by the way, when I go to the gym, prior to COVID, and people didn't have a towel, sweating on equipment. Question was like, What are you wiping the equipment off? There's certain positive things that COVID has.
Josh: [11:24]
Yeah, for sure.
Max: [11:25]
One is cleaning your equipment when you work out? Yeah. Tell me about. Tell me about your journey becoming the CEO of mind body. You know, I know I saw you this summer and you had just become CEO, right? Probably in press releases. I didn't see it. I was probably paying attention to stupid politics. I should have been reading press releases, but So congrats on that I was in August, if I believe is correct. Yep. And so my, I guess what I want to get into here is, you know why when we look at companies, especially when we hire leaders, for companies, we usually see a visionary and then an execute or Yep. And it is come, you know, come to mind, as I look through kind of your profile that I think you're the combination of both, which is kind of rare. But what is what is further evidence of this is you bought so you are running, you're the CEO and co founder of Booker, correct? Yep. And that was for how many years?
Josh: [12:14]
I started that in 2010, or joined it in 2010, I was a spin out from a company I was on the board of they had started building a technology module in that business that we thought could have some real legs. And so we I ended up leading the spin out of that and raise the capital, and then built that for eight years. We sold it to mind body in April of 2018. And then I joined mind body at that point is Chief Strategy Officer
Max: [12:38]
Gotcha. And then he went from chief strategy officer to President and then right promoted to CEO?
Josh: [12:43]
Yeah, yeah. And it was, it was an interesting kind of timing, because we sold in April of 2018. Mind Body was a public company at that point. And then we ended up announcing that we were taking the company private with VISTA Equity Partners in December of 20 2018. And so that was really totally unexpected to me. And frankly, to the rest of the management team, it wasn't you know, we had no view that that was, that was the outcome that was going to happen for mind body. And when VISTA came in, you know, they assess the management team, they were talking about kind of their longer term vision. And they asked me to step in as president. So I did that in in early 2019. And then, as we started going through, they've got a big playbook that they run with all of their companies, their best practices, and frankly, it's really good. And, and so I was kind of the lead sponsor be as President, I was the one that was kind of the senior most person ensuring that we were executing against that playbook.
Max: [13:36]
That's awesome. Crazy times to be promoted as CEO. Yeah. When all of your customers were shut down. Yeah, yeah. But, but I think they picked the right guy. Yeah. Thank you. So I'm gonna move on a little bit. switch gears. Tell me about your nickname shooter..
Josh: [13:52]
Yeah. So you know, I've had a couple of nicknames in my life. None of them have ever really stuck for very long. So shooter was from when I was at a company called arbetet, where I was one of four partners. It was a technology distribution company. And this place was like the Wild West. I mean, we were selling computer we called them commodities. It was basically data center equipment, servers, and storage and memory and hard drives and so forth. And this was very much like a brokerage. When you walked into the office that everybody had three or four screens, we were taking data feeds from distributors around the world. And we were always just like, it was always about closing deals and how much GP Did you book that day and you know, very much like a, you know, the boiler room kind of mentality. And and so I came in and very quickly became one of our top salespeople, I was VP of Biz Dev, I was one of the partners, but everybody all the way up to the CEO had their own book of business. So I had to build my own book of business. And so I came in and I just I started, you know, shooting down deals, they were saying, you know, hey, you keep shooting down these deals, and you're making it happen. And so that's where I got my nickname shooter. And then you know, I'm sure at one Christmas party or something, somebody was drunk and they're like, shooter McGavin thought oh man, now I gotta ditch that This nickname because you remember that guy from Happy Gilmore? That's not that's kind of damning with faint praise.
Max: [15:06]
Very true. Very true. We'll get into the Christmas party story too. I'm just kidding. So another, what is a motto that you live your life by, like, obviously, I personally know you, but I think it'd be fun to talk about this. And share with our audience.
Josh: [15:20]
You know, the one thing that I that I always agree with, is, if you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right. And, and to me, it's really about how to live your life with intentionality and purpose, right, as you're thinking about things you want to achieve, you've got to have a positive view of it. Because if you think oh, man, I'm not gonna be able to get that done, and I got, I can't get the team together to build that, or nobody's gonna buy it, if I build it like that negativity, you know, if your glass is half empty kind of person, that's what your life is gonna be, it's gonna be half empty. And so I really think this idea of, you know, putting positive energy out in the world doing things that you know, where you are really striving for things, bringing people along, building people up, and carrying them along for the ride and having them carry you to when the appropriate times. That's, you know, I think that's a great way to live life.
Max: [16:10]
You know, and, and that's what makes you an amazing leader. Tell me, just just looking across, I always like to talk about what I call about life resumes. Yeah. So into thinking about your life experiences and resumes, tell me about what would be maybe one of your top experiences, and then we'll talk about maybe something that was maybe, you know, maybe one of the worst experiences, but best learning experiences from it.
Josh: [16:35]
So yeah, so I'll break it up into a couple of things. So life experiences, probably most challenging my dad died when I was 12. And my daughter got diagnosed with Type One Diabetes when she was four. So both of those were life experiences that you never wish on anybody. And, you know, certainly changed the course of my life. And interestingly, though, you can look at both of those and say, Man, really horrible, you know, things to have happen. And, you know, again, going back to life is what you make of it, I think that I've actually turned those things into positive, things become very independent, you know, as a result of not having a dad and my mom was a huge influence in my life. And then with Charlie, you know, her type one has given us like, a different sense of purpose. And for my wife and I, we've gotten really deeply involved in charities, we've raised millions of dollars for it, I'd never wish it on anybody's kid, it's a horrible disease to have. But it's also something that, you know, as a family, we've it's kind of united us around something, some, some commonality. And so that's, that's really positive. And then on the other side, like positive things in my life would be really, you know, I look at my wife and think about my marriage, we've been married for over 20 years. And she's a great life partner, she brought me you know, two amazing kids and has supported my career and been, you know, just the best that I could have asked to have her as a partner. And then on the business front, I think, you know, the two things that I would say that are, you know, highlight So, you know, or one highlight was certainly selling Booker and, you know, you have as an entrepreneur always this desire to build something that is meaningful and makes a difference, and then that somebody is actually willing to pay for it. Right. And, and so that happened, and we sold the business again in 2018. And so that was great. And, and then lowlights, I would say, you know, usually have to do when you have to make some really tough decisions about your business. There was a time at Booker where I had to go through a downsizing and, you know, say goodbye to about 100 employees, and that was really challenging. You know, now here with COVID, we also had to go through a massive restructuring in what we planned for it, and in March, we executed it in early April, and we ended up having to let go of 600 employees and furlough 200 additional employees and you know, no matter how you're wired like doing something like that is just horrible. And imagine having to do that remotely right like this was we're doing it over zoom calls and emails and so forth not something where we can actually look these people in the face they're getting let go for no fault of their own. They did nothing to deserve it. But we you know, we're staring at the real prospect of you know, losing hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.
Max: [19:13]
Yeah, yeah. Well, switching gears a little bit Do you feel like in in we've never talked about this but you feel like you've found your purpose in life and business?
Josh: [19:23]
Yeah, it's a good question. So um, interestingly, I had a coach years ago when I was at the the technology company Arbor tech. And I felt at that point that I was a bit lost like you know, here I am, I'm in my 30s making more money than I knew what to do with every we had you know, we were fastest growing company in the US and entrepreneur, multiple placements and eight Best Places to Work in Orange County. And, and I still felt lost. And so I got a coach, a guy named Vance Caesar out of Orange County, and part of his program was really thinking about kind of your beliefs and your values, and then thinking about your purpose. And so part of his you know, process was you will Write a purpose statement. And think about it. And it actually took a while to kind of get there as you start because you have to kind of clear your mind right to be able to think about, okay, what am I put on this world to do? And so I came up with a purpose statement. This was when I was probably I'm 47. Now, so I was probably 30 to 33 then, and, and that has been something that has helped me like kind of figure out, hey, am I on track or not? And, and the statement itself was to live and experience life as an adventure, building rewarding friendships and partnerships along the way, while enhancing my life and the lives of those around me. And so it's it's a, it's a pretty big, you know, you can fit a lot into that, right? But it does help me think about like, hey, am I doing things that am I enhancing my life and I am I enhancing the life of those around me, it could be my employees could be my family, it could be my business partners. And you know, also thinking about, you know, really living life as an adventure like I like, you know, like you said, I've traveled to over 50 countries, I love riding my Harley, you know, and I also just, like, you know, kind of doing fun things and different things. And you know, I don't want to live a state life, you know, we're all only on the earth for so long. And I want to look back and say, Hey, man, I've lived my life without regrets. I've done everything I set out to do and more. And, and I've also impacted people in a positive way,
Max: [21:14]
ya know, and I've seen it. He recently came over to my house for Halloween, and he was Joe exotic. There's a picture of this online. So we'll talk about but he still has a mustache. You guys can't see this. But he still has the mustache from the costume doesn't have the handlebars. But he had the best Joe Exotic out. There was actually another guy that showed up is Joe exotic. And he had him beat and the other guy had a knee brace on. Yeah. So he had some extra gear.
Josh: [21:40]
And his name was Joe.
Max: [21:41]
And his name was Joe. Yeah, he still he didn't he didn't hold a candle to, to this. But on a serious note, I think I have met, how I came to know Josh is I hired a head of sales that was working for mind body. And she came over and work for me and kind of made the introduction. And I just kind of poked around. And I asked her name's Christine. And I asked Christine about Josh. And she said, and he knows how to have a good time. And so I asked, you know, some stories and and, and now that I've gotten to know him, it really holds true. But let's dig into that a little bit. I mean, you, you know, you seem to always have a good time, obviously, you're getting a lot done at work, you're making a lot of big stuff happen on the work front, but you always I feel like you balance it well. And you do it naturally. It's not like you're having a good time. And it's an artificial, you know, good time, I think it's all across your life, but talk about why that's important, and how that comes naturally for you both inside the office. And then personally
Josh: [22:40]
Yeah, so I think that, you know, fortunately, I've just got a positive disposition. And I think I'm just naturally wired like that. But there's also a part of it, which is, man, when you're grinding as hard as we do building businesses and so forth, you've got to have a release, right? You have to have something and you know, people talk about work life balance, or work life harmony, but it's real, like, if you're just grinding away, you know, 7080 hours a week, and you're not able to unplug and spend time with your family and develop friendships and you know, go out and see the world, then I think that you know, ultimately you're going to crumble or your your relationships that are the most important are going to deteriorate, right your relationship with your spouse or with your kids and so forth. And so that's one thing that I've always really, you know, tried to try to invest in. And then when it comes to the work side, you know, I want people to see me having fun, right? Like, I mean, I'm not going to be hammered at a holiday party or stumbling over, but I'm going to dress up like a total idiot. I've got more holiday pictures of me in you know, a Christmas tree suit or dressed up as the Grinch or like all of these different things, just to have fun and to be able to lead by example, and tell people like, Hey, man, don't take yourself so seriously. Like, if you know if you can laugh at the CEO, you can come up and take pictures with me like it be accessible, right? And right now like this mustache that I'm growing. I'm growing it for Movember. And so this is something I've sponsored at the company, I usually do a matching donation for whatever we we raised for the Movember foundation. It's focused on men's health this year, they focused a lot on first responders and mental health of men in particular, that are obviously struggling as everybody is with with COVID. But, you know, I reached out to the team, you know, in our Slack channel, we have a wellness Slack channel, and I kind of challenged the team. I said, Hey, guys, you know, I'll match everybody's donation up to x, and let's grow out our facial hair. Let's post pictures of our progress every week. And and it's just something to have fun, right and be able to laugh about.
Max: [24:31]
Yeah, yeah. No, and going back to things you participate in. You know, since Charlie was diagnosed with Type One Diabetes, you obviously joined the nonprofit to help drive awareness and money. And I really admire that about you. You also were both in YPO. But you've been on served on the board. And so you really one that serves and puts a lot of time and you put in what you you know, get out and so where did that come from? I mean, where did you start? Thinking that way of like to put you know that much time and effort in something in order to get something out?
Josh: [25:05]
Yeah, it definitely happened later in my life. And it was around that time that I started seeing my coach because that was also when he was the one that suggested I joined YPO. And it was also at the same time, more or less the Charlie got diagnosed. And so, you know, my wife and I were saying to each other before all of that, man, we can't believe what a charmed life we're leaving, we're so blessed. We've got you know, we have solid job, we've got our health, we've got good income, we have good friends like and we were living in Corona Del Mar at the time. So you know, right next to the beach, and just a beautiful lifestyle there. And when Charlie hit it, just when her disease hit, it really kind of rocked our world. And immediately, like the very first thing I did was I tapped into my YPO network because we weren't able to get her into Children's Hospital of Orange County, she got like the the pediatrician said, Hey, we think she's got type one. But the only way you're going to know is if you go there, and we couldn't get a bed. And so luckily, two of my forum mates were on the board of chalk, I gave them a call they got us right in got us connected with the President. And so, you know, we saw from that really, you know, one they now why did they get involved with chalk, because, you know, one of their sons had a brain tumor. And so it just started getting us to think a little bit more lenient, less selfishly and more about how can we bring great things to the world. YPO has been transformational for me. And one of the blessings that I've had from that is that my forum made a guy named Mark Moses. He, I think, you know, Mark, yeah, he started the father, daughter and father son programs in YPO. And I took Sydney to this when she was my oldest, who's now 19, when she was seven, in California. And it's basically an extended weekend where you bring fathers and daughters of the same age together, and you bring resources in child development resources to talk with you about how to help your kids grow up, don't solve all their problems for them, how do they develop leadership skills and grit, and then also have one on one time with them. And so I ended up taking that he started, you know, building that program out, I took it and ran it for eight years, with both of my kids at different areas. And so that was one where I look back, like as much as I was giving to other dads, about 25 dads and daughters that would come to each of these, I was getting so much back in return in terms of teaching my kids about leadership and giving back and also the relationships that they build, especially with social media. Now my kids have, you know, friends that are in Jordan and Israel, and then you know, the Philippines because of these type of events.
Max: [27:27]
That's amazing. It's amazing I am I'm being coached by a guy that's partners with Mark Moses right now really
Josh: [27:32]
funny.
Max: [27:34]
So when thinking about all this, because this is I love talking about what makes people great leaders and this humbleness, and this, this giving back and just everything that you the authenticity that you bring to the table as a person makes you a good leader. But when were you first called to be a leader, because everything you're talking about was kind of happened for you a little later in life. Yeah. And I frankly, I've only really had conversations about business stuff and YPO stuff that's more recent, and I've never really dug in going back into your life. Like when were you first called to be a leader? What did you do that got you into that position?
Josh: [28:05]
So I'll tell you two quick stories. So the first one is, is that I didn't even know what leadership was when I was a kid. And one time I was with my grandma, I was probably seven or eight years old. And we were messing around some kids from the neighborhood and I in her backyard, she had this big kind of big property with an orchard on the back of it, and I start picking up some oranges, and I'm throwing them against the garage at the back of the house, making a mess. All the kids are laughing and everything and my grandma comes out, she starts yelling at me, what are you doing? Don't you see the mess that you're blah, blah, blah. And so I was like, man, the kids scatter, right? They all go running everywhere. My grandma comes and grabs me and pulls me into the garage and she says, Josh, you're a leader, you can't behave like this. Because you can lead people to do good things. And you can lead them to do bad things. And you're obviously leading kids the wrong way. So he's like, so she grabs a broom and a mop and something else and gives it to me and she says now go lead your friends to go clean up all that mess. It's like that that was literally the first time where I realized that, hey, maybe I do have a leadership quality, but it's you know, when you're a kid, you just kind of Don't you know, you don't think about it as much. You know, I was fortunate that you know, I worked as I mentioned, my dad died when I was 12 I got my first job when I was 12. And so I was working, you know, first detailing cars at a Volkswagen dealership in San Diego. And then I started working in a bike shop and within like two months, the guy laughed and basically said, hey, you're managing the bike shop, you know, I'm gonna go do these other projects. And so pretty much I was managing that I was started managing people at 14 years old. And and then in college, I sold cars and I just kind of kept every job I had, I was able to, you know, rise up through the ranks through performance pretty quickly. And and that's kind of how the leadership team it wasn't. You know, I always tell people, my companies you know, don't wait for somebody to tell you that you're a leader you you have the opportunity to exhibit leadership every single day. And you know, also make sure that you know, you're you're not always the one that's kind of the squeaky wheel because Sometimes that's not the kind of leader that people want. They want the steady leaders, the people that are they can always rely on. And, and if you're at the right shop, they're going to recognize that and they're going to value that. And you're going to get promoted based on that.
Max: [30:13]
And what type of leader do you think you are at this point?
Josh: [30:16]
Yeah, I mean, I usually subscribe to the servant leadership, you know, concept, I did hear a new version of it called empowerment leadership, which I like a lot. Because the idea you know, is that you need to have the right team, build the right team, and then empower them to be successful. And you know, for me, I always say, my job is to clear the land mines, like, I've got to make sure that you've got, you know, you're the domain expert in your area, I need to make sure you have all the tools necessary and the runway necessary to go be successful. And, and so that's, that's really I try to hire the best people and get out of their way.
Max: [30:51]
Yeah, that's a that's a good way to go about it. For sure. What are some fun leadership lessons that you've learned over the years?
Josh: [30:58]
Leadership lessons? You know, so a few so one, I heard from Robert Smith, who's the the chairman and CEO of VISTA who now owns mind body. And and I love the saying it's be a learn at all, and not a no at all. And I think that that's something that you know, you can you can really take in a lot of different ways you can take it in your personal life, and you can take it in, in your business life, that that's certainly one. You know, we have a value at mind body that's humble and helpful. And I think that, you know, I've seen that leaders that are the opposite of that, like, if you think of the opposite of humble and helpful man, that's really not a leader that you're going to want to, to work with. And and then I also think that you know, this concept of really hiring the best people and building a team and letting them be successful and get out, get out of the way. And also giving them the accolades for the work, you know, like I I try when I'm talking when I'm doing a board presentation, or when I'm talking with other folks, it's not about me, right? It's not about my success. It's about Jimmy success for bringing this idea forward and opening up a whole new market for us. And so those are, you know, some things that I think that especially younger leaders, a lot of times don't think about, because they are thinking about, hey, how do I stand up above from the crowd? And, you know, I just appreciate on our team that we do have a culture of people that, you know, at every level level, from a, you know, manager to a director to a VP, you know, they don't always try to take credit for what's happening. It's always a collaborative effort. They're giving, you know, praise to their team. And I think that that goes a long way when you're developing your leadership skills.
Max: [32:27]
Yeah, no, I 100% agree. I think anytime we look at companies that have their what we see is great values. There's always a learning value. Ours is relentless learning. Yep. And yes, it's it's terrible working for no at all. Yeah, especially super talented people. They just shut down, they could bring in new ideas. It's it's stifling innovation. So
Josh: [32:48]
well, that's that's one thing I you know, in terms of, you know, leadership thing, where I've seen people fail with leadership, it's always been people that come in with that I'm a no at all, I'm the smartest guy in the room. Because a few things happen. Number one is, is that they don't retain people that are smarter than them. They don't even think about recruiting people that are smarter than them because they either don't want to be challenged, or they think they know everything better than anybody else. So why why are they going to stretch for that, you know, a plus player in a perfect area, or particular area, my uncle told me, you know, early on, he said, and he was a very successful entrepreneur. He said, you know, a good CEO surrounds himself or herself with somebody that makes up for their weaknesses. And, and I thought that was really smart. And then later, you know, I drew a corollary, because of somebody that I worked with, it was, you know, always the smartest guy in the room? And I said, Yeah, but, but you also have to recognize, right, you have to be humble enough to recognize where you're strong and where you're not. And frankly, a lot of people don't.
Max: [33:47]
Yeah, no, absolutely. Let's begin a hiring. I'd be remiss if I didn't talk a little bit about hiring. So how do you like I guess this is both we this can go towards mind body. And you personally, I would have to say, some of your success has been from being able to hire talented people, right? What do you what is it that you do? Is there a certain you know, certain interviewed styles or anything that you do in particular, that helps you be so effective at hiring great leaders?
Josh: [34:15]
So I would tell you that again, it's about the team, right? Like, it's not me, that's just doing the interview process. I've always had kind of like a battery of of interviews. Usually we'll target specific people to focus on certain areas. And so if we identify like, we're recruiting a CFO right now, our CFO is retiring. And so we have an outside agency that we're working with, and they've brought, you know, a handful of different candidates to us. And so I think by the time that we would get to even like bringing somebody to our board, they're going to talk to 10 different people in the company, because especially a role like a CFO or a president. It's just vital that you know a number one is fit right like is there a fit is there a core values fit is there a culture fit They're, you know, kind of a skill fit. And, and so one person in a 45 minute interview cannot assess that right? And part of it is, is how do you bring the I want to bring people along in that decision. So that it's they don't feel when somebody comes in that it's like, oh, hey, Josh, you know, pick this person, and now we got to go work with this person I want them involved in the decision making. And it's also kind of a recognition that, you know, somebody else might pick up on something in an interview that you don't because you didn't ask that question. Maybe they were going down a different line of thought. And so, you know, I would say that there's only you know, when I look back, I think I've made two or three hires that I deeply regret. And that's after hiring, you know, I mean, hundreds of people, but you know, probably 50 executives during my career. And so I think that's a pretty good hit rate,
Max: [35:48]
ya know, and going back to that relentless learning mentality, I always feel like, interviews are won or lost. And the questions that candidates ask when you open it up, like, hey, do you have a question? The types of questions they asked whether they're like, no at all questions, like pointing things out, or if they're truly curious questions. Absolutely. But speaking of curious, what do you what are you curious about now? What are you most curious about now?
Josh: [36:10]
I mean, I think, you know, two things. One is, is kind of a What is this world look like? And specifically in the wellness industry after the pandemic? You know, the industry reports say that 25% of the industry is going to be gone. And so, you know, what I wonder is, okay, well, how fast is it bounce back? Right? And what does the new normal look like for the, you know, for the wellness industry? Are we still going to be operating on, you know, reduced capacity? Are we going to be operating, you know, with just kind of hybrid models, and virtual and so forth? And so I think that's like, you know, that's one area that I'm, you know, I'm curious, and then probably as everybody that you know, depending on the time that you're listening to this would be curious about is, hey, where do we land with the election and everything that's going on in, in politics right now?
Max: [36:52]
Yeah, no, absolutely. In what do you find? Obviously, you've done a lot of things, right. You're very humble person. But what do you found? What do you find most challenging in life right now? I mean, work in life,
Josh: [37:03]
I think, I mean, so most challenging would be, I think, just the division and everything that exists today, even with among my own friend groups, you know, you get into certain, you know, whether it's politics, or, you know, globalization or climate warming or trade, there's very, there's so much polarization now that, you know, trying to find that common ground is is definitely challenging. You know, the, you know, the other part that I look at and think what I'd really like to see this get, you know, get settled, is, is just, you know, as we're thinking about the the broader competitive landscape, you know, when we look at peloton and what's happening there, and you have a lot of people that are saying, hey, it's all about virtual in the in the future. I don't think it is, man. I think that technology is important, but I think the community is even more important. And, you know, again, some of those same forces that are you know, pulling friendships apart are also kind of pulling communities apart. And so I think that that's another challenge that we've got as a as a society is, you know, how do we bring communities back together and and and do that the wellness community has always been kind of a very tight knit community. And we just had our bold conference today, we had over 1000 people attend that. And it was great to kind of just hear the stories of you know, of survival and struggle and grit and everything. That's, you know, that's been happening there. So yeah, so those are a couple things that I challenged by, I will tell you, like, jokingly, but one of my biggest challenges in work is I'm horrible with Excel, it is just something that I've never been good at, and I've never taken the time to get good at it. And now I have you know, a bunch of people in FPA and data science they can, they can do all the Excel work for me.
Max: [38:39]
I think one thing that's changed, even since I've known you is you traveled a lot for work. Yeah. And I think you you're the type of person that you you just it was part of the job. Yeah, but I think you actually enjoy it. Yeah. So you've had to change your lifestyle, which has been good for me, because I get to see you around town right more often. But it's been quite a shift. You correct?
Josh: [39:00]
Yeah, it's been a huge shift. I mean, I'm normally you know, racking up a couple hundred thousand miles a year, gone 50% of the time. And so, on one side, it's been great to be home. You know, last year, my daughter was a senior in high school. And so we got to spend really an extra six months together. And you know, before she took off to Cal Poly. And so that was great. And, you know, I'm home now I'm cooking most of our dinners. I love grilling, we got a smoker and a grill. And so I'm always out there, you know, doing that. But it has been a challenge also just being home more and you know, it's because I really miss the team. Like I miss seeing people I like going on, you know, trips meeting my you know, taking out the the top performers and all of our offices going and doing town halls and so forth. And so now we've just had to adapt to be able to do that with zoom. And you know, it's definitely not the same but it's better than nothing.
Max: [39:49]
Yeah, I think you're like me, I think when people will appreciate when you come out to see them more in the near future once we get further down this and I look forward to that because I'm the same way Old school and the right way where you know, you make it you make the trip to meet somebody face to face, shake their hand, maybe not shaken. Maybe an elbow bump these days. Yeah, but that's, but no, I agree. So tell me speaking of COVID. And so I talked to you, obviously, pretty often throughout it, what have been some COVID like blessings for you like this? I mean, obviously, this hasn't been great for a lot of people. But I think when you there's things that certain people take away, that it has forced them to maybe think differently, what are some things takeaways for you that have been positive? I mean, more time with your family? Yeah, with your wife?
Josh: [40:34]
Yeah, definitely those, um, you know, I think some other you know, positive takeaways. One is, it just kind of reinforces that, you've got to be agile in your thinking. So your, you know, your comment about, you know, always growing and so forth, we have a value that's consciously evolving. And so, you know, for us thinking about consciously evolving through the pandemic, it's both ours, our software, it's how we're managing our team, it's our office footprint, it's all of those things, we, frankly, have become so much more efficient as a business as a result of this. And we're able to, you know, we had, we had to think about the business fundamentally differently. And it's kind of like, hey, if you were given a blank slate, how would you redesign this business to be successful going forward? And, and so I think that that's been you know, for me, one of the the great takeaways from this is, is that, you know, you can have a quantum paradigm shift, you know, this was forced on us by COVID. But, you know, think about how do you reinvent yourself and, and know that there's always a, you know, there's always opportunity to improve and, and so I think that that's something that we've seen, that's been really positive coming out of COVID
Max: [41:42]
Yeah, amazing. So what's one thing that you wish people would stop saying? I mean, and I always think at COVID I write for me it's like the new normal Yeah, just kind of you know, the new normal is just normal for me, but anything that like sticks out?
Josh: [41:57]
I haven't heard it in a bit, but unprecedented. God that words are crazy, right? Like if I hear unprecedented again, it'll all go nuts. The other one that's like, no, it has nothing to do with COVID. But it's also started dying down. But you know, years ago, I used to go to the UK quite a bit. And I always laugh because they had the you know, keep calm, you know, Mind the Gap, keep calm carry on. Now you started seeing keep calm, whatever, everywhere, right? They had, you know, everything had sayings. And that just drove me nuts. Because I didn't feel like I could escape it.
Max: [42:29]
What do you think in the, in the future, going back to wellness and fitness, from what you're saying? And kind of what I think too, is people are always going to want to work out and people are always going to want to be, you know, part of a community. Yep. Do you think this comes back? The wellness industry comes back stronger at some point. I mean, that's, that's what I'm gathering from. Yeah, like very strongly, but yeah, about that.
Josh: [42:52]
I think so. I mean, we were sharing just today that like in Australia, that, you know, has done extremely well, I mean, they're an island, they can, you know, lock down a lot better than, than most other places can. But they've really bounced back, you know, better than than most of the England we call the English eight countries that we do a lot of business in. And what they're seeing is, is that their per location bookings are higher than what they were before. And what we think that is, is that people have just been bottled up, right, like, if you think about the amount of services that you forego during a year, if you're not going to a gym, you're not going to spa you're not going to salon, now all of a sudden, you probably got some money that saved up or you've got credits at your, you know, at your gym, or you know, your spa if you have a membership. And and I think people are going back and taking advantage of that. But I also think there's one other part, which is, you know, there's been a spotlight put on health and wellness during this and and, you know, I was just watching the news last night, and they were talking about, you know, how people with type two diabetes or people that have cardiovascular issues and so forth, that they're likely the ones that are going to be getting the vaccine first, right? And so you think about that, and you go, yeah, they are definitely the target. That should get it first. But man, I don't want to be in that category. I want to be healthy, I want to, you know, be able to, you know, live without, you know, worrying about some of these comorbidity issues. And so I do believe going forward, that people are going to be more, you know, thoughtful about their health. You already see like Millennials are very engaged. I think Gen Z is going to be there. You know, baby boomers were the ones kind of early on with the, you know, Jane Fonda and VHS and now they're a big component of our business. And as Gen X, you know, that we're in. As we start aging out and we start getting more into our retirement years, I think we're gonna be, you know, a lot more conscious of our own health than our parents were. And just like, our parents are a lot more conscious of their health and working out, like my mom does yoga all the time, she can do a headstand, I can't imagine that she's 72 years old. I was worried about her breaking her neck, but you know, she's, she's incredible. And so and I think about like the difference between her and her mother. So I think that it's something that over time, just generationally, it's not even going to become an A, you know, a thought it's just going to become part of kind of what society does.
Max: [45:04]
Yeah, that's what I think about the travel industry too. I mean, everybody that's used to traveling, it's just pent up and they want to travel so many places, I would say I'm the same way. And that opens up, I'm traveling probably more, just in case something happens again. Speaking of traveling, so you've you've traveled to 50 countries. Yeah. What have been, what's what's been your favorite place to travel to? And kind of why I mean, just in somebody that's traveled that many countries, that's that's kind of what you never talked about.
Josh: [45:31]
Right? Yeah. I mean, they're all unique in different ways. I would tell you that India, I thought was going to be one and done check the box. I went there for the global wellness summit with my with my family. We loved it and want to go back, we did the Golden Triangle. And, you know, we went to it's a ogra, Delhi and Jaipur. And so we saw the Taj Mahal and so forth. And I was just blown away by the vastness of the of the country. It's kind of like going to the US and saying, Oh, yeah, I know, the US and you went to Texas, right? Like, that's kind of like the space that we went to it wasn't, you know, you didn't see Miami, you didn't see New York or San Francisco or LA. And so now, you know, I really want to go back and explore India, my mom who has gotten really into yoga, she got into a major car accident, could not get help, here in the US from Western medicine was basically becoming a cripple, and went over to went over to India. And she lived in, I forget exactly the part she was in, but it was basically an aerobatic hospital for a month and a half. And she came back walking, doing yoga, all of the arithmetic, you know, treatment that she had. So I think that that's something that I want to explore it at some point in my life. But there's a lot of places I haven't been, you know, I've been going to 50 countries. You know, I haven't been to Israel. I haven't been to Jordan, I haven't been to Peru to Machu Picchu. So those are some of the places that you know, I'd like to go.
Max: [46:49]
Absolutely. It's been a bucket list stuff. So in your profile, I mean, obviously you traverse across the US on your Harley. Yeah. Have you done a lot of that? What are some other things that you would like to do on the the bucket list side of things? I know this is a sometimes a tough question.
Josh: [47:04]
And yeah, yeah, I mean, I there's definitely more countries I want to go to I just you know, I listed some of those. I'd love to do another you know, trip on the on my Harley somewhere, you know, kind of long distance. I'd love to drive a Formula One car. I've never done that before. So you know, doing something with a car. I've always wanted to get my pilot's license. And so that's something my wife's, she has to she has a father and a stepfather. They were both Navy fighter pilots. And so she's not thrilled about me wanting to do that. So we'll we'll see if that ends up happening. But she gives me a lot of leeway on my Harley. Not sure which is which is more dangerous. Right?
Max: [47:38]
Tell me what it is about. I've written motorcycles. I grew up riding dirt bikes and written a Harley. It's a long story. I had a friend getting axed on a Harley. So I just promised I'd never ride a Harley. So I've never had that experience of really going on long trips on Harley's, but what is it about riding a Harley, that is get you in the zone that is most fun for you, you know,
Josh: [47:56]
I think there's a couple things. So the first is, is I just I love the feeling like it's like freedom, right. And, you know, I always envisioned myself as like, you know, a cowboy back in the 1800s driving across, you know, going across country on a horse, but I'm on an Iron Horse this time, right and, and so you see parts of the you see parts of the country that you wouldn't normally do, I love road trips, but you know, I wouldn't normally go off and take a weekend and drive around, you know, certain areas like I like I do on my on my motorcycle. I love the smells. It's really funny. Like I say this, my wife's like, You're like a dog or something right hanging your head out the window. But like, I love the smells, when you go through you smell the wild wild flowers, you smell the pines, you smell like all of that. And, and that's great. And then the last thing is, is that it's like it's really my Zen place, it's like the only place in my life where I can be 1,000% present, because you have to be man, you're you know, when you're zipping along, you know, I go a little too fast on time. So you know, so you're going along at 90 miles an hour, you stuffs coming at you super fast. And that pothole that is 100 feet in front of you is going to be on you and you know half a second. And so you're always scanning you know everything in front of you. And so you have to be present. So I'm not thinking about my earnings release. I'm not thinking about a board meeting. I'm not thinking about you know what any of these things, it's just you're 100% present and so for me, that's what I love about it,
Max: [49:14]
man, amazing years were typical guys that really like to go fast, right? You know, do things cars, but Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna go into some rapid fire questions. Sure. What's the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning?
Josh: [49:27]
Well, now that I live in Arizona, the first thing I do is I have a glass of electrolytes because I wound up in the hospital one one day after working out and not having had electrolytes. So that's the very first thing I do now.
Max: [49:39]
What about a book that you've read more than once?
Josh: [49:42]
Um, you know, so I'm not a big book reader. And so I would say that probably the one and I recommend this book to a lot of young leaders at mind body is Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I think I think that's a great one.
Max: [49:57]
Awesome. What person has had the biggest impact on your life?
Josh: [50:02]
Well, I break it up into into three on on who I am as a person and a human, my mom for sure. Because I mentioned my dad passed away and she raised me I was not an easy child, you know, at that point at 12 years old impact on kind of like my life and and the happiness that I have and how I live today is my wife. Absolutely. We've been friends since since junior high and didn't start dating till after college. And then on business was my uncle. And he, you know, was a serial entrepreneur also went bankrupt. And you know, so I saw the high highs, the private jets and the house in Aspen and I saw the man I'm destitute right now and then came back and built a company and took it public. So really, you know, talk about grit and determination. That was something I learned from him.
Max: [50:47]
Yeah, you've talked a lot about him. And in our conversations, yeah. If you could teach one subject to children in school, what would it be?
Josh: [50:54]
Grit. I think it's, it's really one of the things that people you know, need to have if they're going to be successful in business, especially if they're going to be, you know, entrepreneurs. And I also think it's in life too. Like, it's, you know, we think about the pandemic, right, like, if you're not able to handle adversity and be able to muscle through it, and so forth. It's, you're gonna have a challenging time right now.
Max: [51:18]
Absolutely. Are you a morning or night person?
Josh: [51:21]
Morning.
Max: [51:21]
I thought that Yeah, what's the most spontaneous thing you've ever done lately?
Josh: [51:31]
You know, I gotta say, I'm not super spontaneous. I'm definitely more planned. You know, I mean, the normal times we plan out our life, you know, six to nine months ahead of time. So I think the most spontaneous thing I've probably done was, you know, take it take a day off, and I went did tactical training with, you know, with an ex marine? That was the most spontaneously got did.
Max: [51:52]
If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be?
Josh: [51:55]
I think just kind of all of the division that's happening right now, you know, and the lack of discourse and and, you know, engagement positively, like, I always like to assume positive intentions, you know, and that, you know, that there are ways for people to bridge their differences without being so polarized. And I just, I feel right now, like, as a as a society, we're becoming a lot more polarized. And, and I just, I wish there was more room for dialogue. Awesome.
Max: [52:21]
Awesome. Well, I'm going to start winding it down. I think. I try to keep these to about 45 minutes. Yeah, totally. Listen to them. But you're listening to the built on purpose podcast with Max Hanson, brought to you by why scouts, you can find all of our past and future podcasts at yscouts.com Josh, I'm going to give you the last word, what advice do you give everyone as we face an increasingly challenging COVID? environment?
Josh: [52:45]
What advice? Well, man, that's a good question, Max. I think that, you know, right now, it's, it's you got to have patience, because this is not going away overnight. And, you know, I think that it's it's important to, you know, pay attention to what your local, you know, municipalities are saying about how because everywhere is different, right? Like how you're going to deal with it here in Scottsdale is going to be really different than if you're in Boise or other places. And so, I don't think that there's a, you know, one size fits all approach to this. And so I think that people just need to have patience and recognize great progress that we're seeing on the, you know, on the vaccines. And so hopefully, you know, by the time we're in summer, we're at a point where people that want to get vaccines can and for those that don't want that, that there's at least therapeutics that are out there. So I think it's patients and everybody right now has been so pent up that there's a lack of patience, and I think that's what we need.
Max: [53:36]
Awesome. Awesome. Well, thanks again for today. It was wonderful having you on the show. And I look forward to maybe do it again sometime. Yeah.
Josh: [53:42]
All right, Max. Thanks, man. Thanks, Josh. I appreciate it.
Announcer: [53:48]
Thanks for listening to the built on purpose Podcast, where on each episode, we interview exceptional leaders, entrepreneurs, authors, philosophers, and some straight up interesting people to explore their outlook on life, work and leadership. You can hear any of our previous shows 24 seven right here on Star worldwide networks or wherever you get your podcasts.
Tuesday Oct 27, 2020
Tuesday Oct 27, 2020
Nathan Harris, CEO, and co-founder of Ease, an AI-assisted global talent platform that connects leading companies with the world’s brightest people based on culture fit and allows you to collaborate remotely within our virtual workspace. Listen to find out how it all started!
Interview Transcript
Announcer: [0:03] Live, it's the behind the resume podcast, with why scouts, Max Hansen, where you get to know the person behind the resume. The interesting stuff people never hear about just by looking at a profile here intimate conversations with leaders to learn their story, life hacks, life experiences, and any other interesting practices or learning experiences that have made them who they are today. You know, the interesting stuff. Now, if you're ready, let's go behind the resume. here's your host, why scouts back sanson.
Max: [0:43] Welcome to Episode Two of behind the resume with Max Hanson brought to you by why scouts Today's guest is Nathan Harris. Nate is originally from Milwaukee, a Korean and current Scottsdale resident Nate is a successful restaurant here, tech pioneer. Think it's a word I just made up growth strategist, podcaster, consultant, motivational speaker and so much more. Nate's story is an incredible example of the American Dream from growing up and during periods of homelessness to becoming a successful entrepreneur and multiple companies. I can't wait to get behind the resume with Nathan Harris. Welcome to the show, Nate.
Nathan: [1:16] Thanks. I appreciate the value in intro.
Max: [1:18] You got it. So let's start out what is a motto that you live by? Let's just jump right in.
Nathan: [1:25] Yeah, one of the biggest things, it's also the only tattoo on my body is a is the strength in adversity, I feel like the greatest strengths that you find in life. And in pretty much anything that you do is largely when you're facing some form of challenge. And you have to push through that. So that's one of my biggest mottos.
Max: [1:42] Got it. It makes sense. So I know a little bit about you. So I'm going to ask some questions. Normally, on this show, I like to start with the professional stuff, and then dig into the juicy stuff. But you have such an amazing story that I want to jump I want to go back. And I want you to tell me about your journey as a child, and you know, being homeless for short periods of time, or maybe they're long periods of time, we'll find out no father figure your mom's role, your brother's role, like let's start with that story. Because I think there's so much there to unpack.
Nathan: [2:12] Yeah, I mean, I think that that is the most significant part of what made me who I am today is, you know, having a single mom, being able to try and provide for kids and still grow as an individual as well, is really, really inspiring, you know, to see someone that you know, eight to 20 years old, two kids, and at times, he had to live in a shelter, you know, just to get us to that next chapter. But her willingness to keep us happy and to keep us motivated. And always finding that positive spirit, even through the face of that adversity. So she could give us a better opportunity, or at least the best opportunities you could set us up for. That was just something that inspired me and really having her now even we're walking miles in the snow, you know, with, with no money and just carrying groceries, she keeps us singing, even if our, our feet were freezing. And eventually, though, a lot of that kind of took a toll on her. So by the time I was around 12 years old, my mom attempted suicide out of just facing depression that wasn't really addressed, right. And there's no one there for her to call on. She was all by herself raising two kids. And it created a level of awareness. And in that moment, it was when my brother really kind of showed me what what real man is he decided, you know what, I'm not gonna let us get separated, he basically asked me to go with the flow. Because right now, if we tell anybody that mom's not here, they're gonna take us. So in this moment, he had to decide like, he's got to now be kind of like, we got to be our own dads. So that's really was the turning point for me that, you know, from there forward, it was on us to kind of provide for our families. And it's been that way ever since.
Max: [3:48] such an amazing story. How will what's the age difference between you and your brother?
Nathan: [3:52] He's about two years older than me. So I was 12, he was 14. And we really had to like band together. And so what we did honestly, to survive as a mom would get these checks and melfin disable, we just take him to the corner store and in the ghetto, like no one's gonna, like was there full girl like cashing a check? I don't know. But that's just how it was. So we would go there with cash, we don't have to, like manage bills. So like, a lot of times we'd be showering with candles, because in the winter, like they would cut the lights off, but they won't cut the heat off. Because like illegal in Wisconsin, we kind of figured out the loophole or the guy, well, we may not have lights, but at least you have enough money for food. So like, that's really kind of how it was growing up. It's like, you had to pick a struggle. It wasn't like you were gonna have any hair, you just have to pick which one. So um, that was my early part of my life. And through going through that ended up taking a toll on me. So by the time I got to my senior high school, I gave up, I didn't want to finish I actually didn't graduate high school on time. I was just like, I want to find a way to live in the streets. And with all this opportunity I had like I was class president I was set up for success, but I just didn't believe myself. So then, when I did that, my brother's like Alright, well then I'll I'm not going to college you then because I'm not leaving behind. So I seen how I was kind of impacting him. And he just basically it really broke me Actually, after a while I was like, I can't be the dragon a family we've been through enough. So then I do a lot of tears decided that I'm going to literally live every day and be better no matter what happens. And I don't know what that better looks like. And I think I was 19 at the time, and a mom do want to hold us back either. So eventually, I moved and got my own apartment and I started working at UPS. I was a receiving manager. I loaded the trucks first, then I became manager. Yeah, but that was kind of like my origin of really breaking out because I got promoted for months to like management. And I started seeing like a different world. And that's when I moved to Milwaukee. And I had to like kind of leave my mom on her own. And she did so great. Like she would go to the grocery store all by herself, which was not a thing. So yeah, that was kind of my origin of like, really want to spread my wings. But I eventually stopped the corporate route about a year in two years to end and start a digital agency, which was my first business.
Max: [6:07] Got it. Got it. So did you did you and your brother like play sports? Or like, Did you have any? Did you get to compete when you're younger? What was your childhood like?
Nathan: [6:15] He did. So my brother was amazing track athlete reward winning, you know, he went to stay metalled Gold all that wrestling conference champion. He was all those great things. I was class president like, and also the number one talent guy because I was a breakdancer. So that was my thing is like I didn't really like sports. I love dance. So I created my own crew called the fresh bombs crew. And because we live our lives on the ground, but we're still fresh. So we really competed a lot on computer multiple stages. And it was it was my escape.
Max: [6:48] That's awesome. I love how breakdancing goes from generation to generation because that was a thing when I was younger, too. And clearly I'm you know, a little bit older than you at least 10 years.
Nathan: [6:57] It's a lot of fun. It's a it's something that like I could control but then push the limits still at the same time.
Max: [7:04] Yeah, that's what I was gonna I was gonna dig into that a little bit like how do you connect, being a competitive breakdancer to being good professional at what you do now.
Nathan: [7:12] Um, they called me dream all the time. And I think it all ties in everything. So rather be how my bars or how I remind a software company or anything that I'm a part of, like a dream it right is it's this weird thing I have where like, I'll even get up and just drive my car for 30 minutes and just like visualize things. So I've always been like that as a kid. So I was right on right all the time. So like, I could see stuff. And then I connected writing and music. And as I listen to music, I would see my mom like moonwalking and stuff in the kitchen and stuff because my mom loved to dance. And apparently like you know, my dad was like a DJ and the dance when he was younger. And I was like, oh, man, it's in the blood. So like, I just got really addicted. And I would dance in front of like the mirror. But it was always like I would Daydream visualize. So it really taught me that in order to dance, you got to be able to create nothing from just to be in a movement or something to be inspired by a trigger, right? So now today rather be when I'm consulting people or are trying to build an ecosystem grow company, my ability to have foresight, my vision, my ability to visualize and created create those experiences in real life, I think is immensely impacted. Because that's all I do. And it's all I've done is just visualizing and execute on officialize.
Max: [8:26] Yeah, love it. And I think, you know, one of the things that sticks out to me is that you would dream visualize, and then you would write it down. Because a lot of people you know, I for a long time would think of great ideas. And if you don't write them down, they're very hard to execute on upon that, because they will just be fleeting thoughts. So yeah, it sounds like you develop some good habits early on through breakdancing, which is amazing. Now let's let's change gears a little bit, I will jump in to your company. ease and I'm pretty infatuated with it. Just because I think we're both somewhat in the same industry. Obviously we don't compete but you know, it's it's around recruiting. Yeah. And hiring. So tell me tell me about your your company ease. I know a lot about it, but I want to hear it from you. And, you know, kind of dig in that way.
Nathan: [9:10] Yeah, then ease is a was accidental brainchild. Everything I've done is an accident. I was actually working on like my first like bar deal. And it went bad. And like I ended up like kind of on my own. I was like, I don't want to work for anybody ever again. But I got where I was because I had an agency. My agency was virtual. So I had all these smart people all over the United States that were awesome engineers, awesome. Marketers, you're just super brilliant. They were part of a forum that we were on. And I realized, like the thing that I really liked the most was really getting into different business environments and solving problems, but I didn't really like the execution. So what I would do is like, Hey, guys, like I'm gonna code sell strategy, and I'm going to send you guys a bunch of work down for that. Yeah. Okay, great. Now I have this, you know, repertoire of things that I could execute on, as I started, essentially about building a community first. So then as I built this community, a really smart people started connecting them a jobs started then building the platform where they can manage your projects on, they can connect and send messages, and then eventually file share. So I just kept building more tools that they called on. And then now after a while, I had so many different clients managing talent, that I said, What is the real problem? Now at scale? How do we scale this without the human interaction component. And the only way to really scale it is to be able to predict what the key things that make up an ideal fit for a job are. So those key characteristics are around behavioral dynamics, cultural dynamics, and learning styles. So utilize disk, and a variety of predictive analytics tools now today, to predict who will be the best fit for opportunities primarily focused on freelancers. So we are always been focused on remote work digital nomad, brilliant people that want to solve complex problems. And that's really was the brainchild of users really just already had the smart people and I just built a community around giving them what they asked for
Max: [11:08] God, what's that's unpack this a little bit. So what I love is, and I think this comes more natural to younger folks and millennials. I don't know, I don't know your exact birthday. But let's just say it's a millennial, I'm just guessing. So the cultural aspect that doesn't come natural to you know, people that are older, and we we got infatuated, I had been in the staffing business for a long time has started to realize that it was it was the differentiating piece, you know, being able to do a job is one thing, being able to fit in with the culture and do the job was, you know, kind of what you're looking for. But how did it just naturally that was just one of the pieces of the puzzle that was super important from the beginning? Or was it something that you figured out through, you know, the your other work that you're involved with,
Nathan: [11:52] it was something that I figured out when I was at UPS, honestly, when I was there, I looked at the way that corporate culture worked from the back in the day, and why they even need the unit just to protect them from the policies are set in place, there was nothing about culture was about get the job done and get out. And it didn't allow you to have retention. And it didn't allow you to create what I call the launch pad, right? Every individual today is looking for diversified opportunities, short term burst to get to the next chapter. So realistically, everyone has to think about if you can't be like the only way to be a launchpad, you have to know where they want to go. So I dove deeper into where do somebody want to go? And how can I set you up for success to get there through what I have to offer today. So that was really, really important to me, then and I always brought it in every business I have is I really want to know where my employees want to go. Or anybody in my community wants to greet my friends. Like, I want to know where people want to go, and how can I help you be there? Because even as easy as a product at the end of the day, like I built my career on being a connector, so just happen to build a product around it.
Max: [12:55] Yeah, that's it. That's awesome. And it sounds like from it being a technology base being around freelancers. It sounds like one of those businesses where COVID it might you might have had seen some growth during COVID. Is that true? And tell me about your experience in with ease during COVID?
Nathan: [13:15] Yeah, it's honestly to the set weird to say this as COVID has a negative impact on society. It's been a blessing, honestly, because what it did was, it somewhat validated what I had been screaming from the mountaintops for so many years, where I'm like, the world is going to go remote. The world is going to go remote. These are the things you need to understand about your employees. And my first ever, like big conference workshop was around how to build a team of self directed workers. And what does that look like? And how do you make what leadership look like in that environment? So for me, we got about 400% increase in our talent pool, and about a 54% growth rate in sales for just COVID. Because not because we found a bunch of new customers is because the customers that weren't listening, decided say, Yeah, he talked about that a couple months ago. Didn't he call that guy?
Max: [14:09] Yeah, that's amazing. It's amazing to hear those stories. So looking back at when I when I kind of skimmed through your past and just looking back, it looked like there was a pivotal point, in my view for entrepreneurship. And it was when you're working for uglies, you started as a director mark and then you had an opportunity to get a stake of ownership through helping them turn the business around or reap rebrand it from kind of what I understood. Tell me about that, because I kind of felt like from my perspective, and obviously I want to hear from you. But tell me about that. That journey or that pivot? Was that was that when you've your first taste of entrepreneurship, or was there stuff before that?
Nathan: [14:50] I guess the only other taste I have is when I was in like my dance crew, we would have like performances you'd pay for so they don't count. That's like selling lemonade. But I think for realistically, that was my Real first tastes, it was first good and bad taste. That was that negative journey that was talking about. Now I came in as Director of Marketing for a business and quickly became the inovio. Like I'm designing the place, I'm getting us to fire code and turning a grocery store, which was a three and a half million dollar construction project, you know, a multi level bar in front of a dead basketball team called the bucks, which are now like number one. And it's like I visited before that and everyone's like, You're an idiot, there's no way this the guys you're working with, they're going to fail. And why are you putting all your eggs in this basket, because I wasn't even getting paid for it for free in exchange for set sweat equity. But, um, so I just grinded for two years on that project. And then finally, I hired every employee. And then my birthday was August 5. And then the week after that, they literally like deleted my email, and then like, fired me, out of nowhere, like didn't, they really never signed my contract so I can do anything. I was sleeping, I just moved out and got a new condo, I was like, literally, all I have is a couch and TV. Like, alright, well and I just bought an office like I've no income or at 300 bucks for office $500 apartments 15. Like, I got three weeks to figure this out. And that's what I came up with ease. And it worked. But that was the time where I realized that the world isn't all sunshine and rainbows and the capital world is very predatory. So you have to really, really dig deep. And that's where the values came into play. As I said, I will never work with anybody again, it doesn't have the same values as me. So then that's what I that's what I did. I started aligning myself with amazing mentors like Kevin Kawasaki, who first investor in ease and person has been a great part of my life and snowballing into just like Chris ably who has been a mentor and a guide. I mean, God like to have Chris ably to see me at like 22 years old and say, I believe in you. And never actually like I never asked for anything. I mean, this guy's dad founded Boston Scientific and he went on to become Walker County Executive and, and you know, the most active VC in Wisconsin, he's I was just able to sit in a room with these types of guys. So for years, I just kept grinding and trying to grab their attention. And what ended up happening was, I won, took the bar back, because the guys who screwed me over, they ended up failing three months in, and then they literally had a judge contact me to come in and turn it around. And then I basically bought them out of the next few years. So like, after me doing the right thing, I actually ended up taking a bar that screwed me. And then in two years after that, somebody should just sue me Cody ugly for like something for having named uglies. They ended up closing, I end up taking their bar. So it's like, whenever you do the right thing, somehow justice will come and find you. You don't have to go find it yourself. So that's where like, I learned so much about that side of entrepreneurship, because the intellectual stuff will always come right. But the entrepreneurial side is, is is a little more cutthroat and more agile in your mindset. And it's a lot about like values. I think that that I learned during that time.
Max: [18:02] Let's dig into I mean, it sounds like you had some amazing, you know, people to look up to and people you could use as resources. But how did you get in touch with those people? How did you get connected originally? And how did you you know, stick stay in front of them? And how were you able to use them as resources?
Nathan: [18:19] Well, I was really blessed. When I first came into Waukee. Like, I didn't hang out with people my own age, you know, 19 years old, and all my friends like 25 to 35. And I'm like, No, he's going down to city hall meetings, I'm hearing about what's happening in the city because I could feel the walk. He was onto something. But I didn't understand it. And I don't know why or how so like, I'm looking at everything I possibly can learn about entrepreneurship score, which is like free stuff you can get. And then I'm the only young person in the room. So eventually, they're like, why is there one young guy here, and they were just drawn to me. And people were just like, Hey, I'm gonna keep watching you. I was always giving business cards. I was just really active, like, I didn't want to party. I wanted to like figure this thing out. So that's really how I started meeting people. And then eventually, my work started speaking for itself. So I took a couple retail stores in Milwaukee and a bunch of bars and increase your sales by 50 60% of my name started getting around town that like this guy knows, you know, these parts of business. So I ended up getting hired to take on growth marketing for a startup called chitters at the time, and just Kevin kawaki was a lead investor, that startup didn't work out. But what he seen from me working, he said, Hey, I want to stay in touch. So then when I finally came up my own idea, he said, Hey, I want to support you. Same thing happened with Chris ably. I'm working my butt off to just really bring this dream forward. And I get accepted into one of the top ranked accelerators in the world generator. And all of a sudden he find out you are an owner that I'm like, oh, wow, it's amazing. Like how do you own this and all I got about dial back. Well, when I opened my bar, I didn't know that the Milwaukee Bucks are gonna get bought. So actually find out 2016 some before the public even knows, because they're coming around like what you sell. Like, let me see your plan. No, like not going anywhere. So like our building owner, all of a sudden on board, we're like we're not leaving. So they ended up buying every single thing around us. And eventually, the deal was going to not go through because a lot of city people are fighting it. And they decided to have one bar be the commercial to talk about what would happen if the Milwaukee Bucks left walking went to Vegas or something. And I was in that commercial little nose for Chris ably politician. So I this is like, I want the Bucks here. And also I want to be on TV. So I end up doing it. He ends up to us brings me down to thank me. And they end up talking for three hours, he canceled the rest of his day. And like every since then he took me to every basketball game political meetings flew me to different parts of the country to meet some amazing people of his because he just straight up told me like I believe in you, I love your story and where you're going. And so when I got into generator, he's like, you know what, don't touch any other investors, all of us to half a million. Take this company off, and I'll introduce you to everybody I know. I really help build it because I believe in you. So same thing always happens is I just asked for advice. And then I get investment or support. But just showing up I think really was the key.
Max: [21:22] Got it, tell me about Milwaukee. I've only been in Milwaukee. Once I'll tell you I was going to Lambeau for a football game and I couldn't fly in anywhere closer. So I flew into Milwaukee. So I drove by. And it was the most amazing city as I was driving away. But I never went back. And I know you know those are you built some routes there. But I'm just curious as to you know, what, what did you love? And what do you love about Milwaukee
Nathan: [21:45] Milwaukee is such a vibrant city with deep culture that we call a small Waukee the ones that live there is because when you're there, you feel like you know everybody, you know, the guy walking down the street, it's selling the same CDs every day, or the guy that you know, the best burger in town, you know who every restaurant owner, like it's just so small and tight. Where the focus is raw food, good times, cultures, festivals, and just good integrity. You know, that's one thing I like about about smaller cities is that they the love is so much stronger. Because when you do something like everybody knows, right, it's like, we got to have each other's back, then Everyone's so proud of our city in our state. So they rally together in such big events. I mean, our bar crawls everything. It's just, it's just a city that people sleep on, you know, rather be winter or summer. You can dance on though and you can boat on the water or go dance on the ice in the winter. Like, it's whatever you want to do. So I think that that's really it, man. It's just a great food and community that's really, really tight knit.
Max: [22:46] And what my what brought you to Scottsdale Arizona.
Nathan: [22:50] You know, what's funny is the traditional story of a girl. So I was bored, I got my bars to autopilot. And I really handed over operations and ex girlfriend was basically, hey, I'm going to ASU, I'm like I vacation there every year. I love to go check it out. I started checking out even more. Also north, I'm getting a place here. So then all of a sudden I'm on vacation home became my main home. Adele, I basically ended up living here full time as of about two years ago, mainly. And I fall in love man like it is just such a great landscaping and more diverse mindset here. You know, there is a lot of walking on cigarettes in America, a lot of barriers there for African American entrepreneurs, that I don't feel here. You know, it's people are a lot more open to work with new people because everybody's transient, nobody's from here. So you don't have that generational closed mindedness that I feel that the Midwest can have when it comes to like the entrepreneur ecosystem.
Max: [23:51] Gotcha. And how old are you now? I'm 31. You know, when I graduated from college, I went to North graduate of Northern Arizona University, I moved right by ASU. And so I felt like I got to go to ASU after graduate college too. So similar, similar, similar background, but I'm going to switch gears a little bit here. Tell me you're just looking back. And this has been an amazing conversation so far, but tell me about kind of a best you know, the best experience in life that you've had so far. I know. It's big question. And and obviously, you know, you've had a incredible childhood and a tough childhood and then then incredible runs since then. But what are your best life experiences look like? And then I'm going to flip that to and I'm going to say hey, what does what's the worst been like?
Nathan: [24:38] Man, that's tough. I think the best for me, and I always attach my best experiences to professional things because that's really all I know. But I think mine was getting into my first accelerator and graduating from our first accelerator, and you know, getting a fully funded stepping on premier knife. First time I've never actually walked across the stage before. I've never graduated from anything. So either just don't want to show up. I used to be really shy. So for the first time graduating and stepping on stage and being introduced on stage by like Chris ably and being welcomed by 700, Executive leaders and that like believe my idea, that was like a special moment for me, because my brother and everybody, my family, like they've got me a graduation cap, everybody signed it, because they remembered that like, I've never graduated from anything like this is this first graduation. And everybody made that super special, because they knew how important it was to me, even though I didn't say anything. Like even my dog was there. So that was one of the most memorable moments.
Max: [25:40] That's amazing. That's amazing. I don't like my kids to hear from people that didn't have to graduate that are as successful as you. But Congratulations, because then they're like, see, I don't have to go to school that guy's successful. I can do what he did. And I also, at one time, I always felt like I was the youngest person in the room, and then all of a sudden, I wasn't. So have you crossed that gap yet, where all of a sudden, you're looking around and you're not the most the youngest person in the room?
Nathan: [26:03] Yeah, I'd say I have crossed a gap. Because I'm being in the startup ecosystem. It's constant, where I'm like, man I did so well in life, then like a 19 year old wage raises $20 million. I'm like, Oh, okay. I'm doing all right. But not that great, because there's just so many brilliant people in the world.
Max: [26:18] Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's how I feel. And I was an eo I was the youngest person to join eo when I joined. And now I was in eo for 10 years, and I've been YPO for seven. And now I'm far from the youngest person in my forum, even like, when I look around, I'm like, Oh, my gosh, these people are crushing it. So what Tell me tell me a little bit about generator. I don't know a lot about it. Obviously, you've talked a lot about it. It's been very impactful, and getting to where you're at today. So I'd love to hear more about I think it deserves from, from what you've talked about so far, deserves a little airtime. And I'm curious as to you know, what it is and in what the process is like, because it sounds like it's a pretty successful process.
Nathan: [26:58] Yeah, it was created by Joe cargas. And Troy vossler. To law graduates from University of Madison, they wanted to solve the problem of the drain of venture capital that the Midwest is experiencing. So they wanted to find the best and brightest startups from anywhere, and bring them to Wisconsin. And if they're in Wisconsin, investing in them, and each startup gets about 100, hundred and $50,000. In venture capital investment. They pick five startups out of thousands that apply per cohort. So is less than a 1% chance of getting in? No sir survived seven years in a row never got in, I was so honored to get into my first try. And it was just a blessing. And what they do is they take you and have you pitch round, Robin 20 pitches a day for two to three weeks, over and over to the biggest executives that are like in all of the Midwest around the country, just as practice, then they put you in like about another month of refining, and Griffin going after marketing, coordinate customers trying to raise up your metrics. Then after that, to take you on a roadshow across the US and nine different states to pitch 300 investors. By the end startups typically raised between one to $2 million and follow on capital, and then go on to got do bigger and better things. So they've done that started in 2016. I believe in today, they raised about a half a billion dollars and created 10s of thousands of jobs for startups all over the Midwest and acquired about 13 other markets and startups. So they have music accelerator it Motown Warner Brothers, you know, everything, you name it, they have it now, and they just snowball of growth. And Chris ably is backing that as well. So they're all part of what CSA partners. So my company is a portfolio of CSA partners, which is crusade was very fun. And so it's generator. So really awesome for anybody that's building technology, trying to solve technology problems. And then I also were alumni of plug and play tech center. So that's the largest corporate tech innovation hub in the world. It's located in Santa Clara. So your favorite people like Google and Dropbox came from there. We were blessed to get into that. And I've been able to see two worlds this does San Francisco Silicon Valley startup strategy, then the Midwest, more traditional strategy. And that makes me come up with this idea. But I always call it like, we're a zebra startup, where I like to remain profitable while raising capital for growth. Wow, instead of traditional burn capital method.
Max: [29:26] Sure, it sounds like just that process that they put you through even if you didn't end up getting, you know, the capital that you would be set up for success just based on that process. They put you through,
Nathan: [29:37] yeah, hundred percent, because when you're done you get access to hundreds of corporate partners, right. So for plug and play, I can say, hey, I need to connect with someone at Nike. That's in this role. They'll give me that connection tomorrow. I mean, like that's all I really been building my podcast to because I'm also eases a partner in HR transform in Las Vegas. So really transformative HR conference in Vegas, where we Bring some of the best leaders and chief people officer from fortune 500 together and really talk about not just people operations, but how is tech impacting culture and corporate ecosystems? And how do we put ourselves in front of tech? How do we not make bias tech. So really, really cool innovative ideas around people and technology that that really give us access to these things. And I didn't get that until generator got me into that. So that's where that's where it's so great to be a part of accelerators, they take equity in your business, but they buy it. But it's not about the money, like you get 100 grand for them, and they give you millions of dollars worth of connections,
Max: [30:36] how much do you think in that program? Look, going back to generator How much? What percentage of it is based on the business idea or the leader? Do you think just from your experience?
Nathan: [30:46] Oh, it's, I would say it's the 8020 Wait, 80%, the leader 20% the idea because ideas don't matter without execution. And also, the entrepreneur that you're looking for, has to have grit, like so many people forget about the grit part. And I think only about the intellectual and metric metric, measurable parts, but that you can't measure every year predict every challenge. So that grit component, I think, is an imperative part of their selection process, as well as your idea of strategic strategy. And then the another thing that's important is Who else is a part of the company in terms of your advisors and investors? Because there is a entrepreneur world's a gatekeeper of society. So you know, you're not going to run a Facebook ad to get the big deal. It's all about who you know,
Max: [31:29] Yeah, Absolutely, absolutely. Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna jump in a little bit. Obviously, you've seen a lot of success, and and you've been fortunate, but you've worked very hard for it. So I'm going to break this down, like on a day to day basis. What do you do on a day to day basis? Like, what habits do you have? Like, how do you break down your day, I want to try to figure out and suss out what has gotten you to where you're at? Because you're super humble. So I'm gonna have to dig a little bit. But when what how do you how did you get that grit? How did you you know, take those ideas, how do you act upon execute upon it on a daily basis,
Nathan: [32:00] I've actually done the same thing every day since that day, I said, I want to be better. And I used to start off with the only thing that's changed is the sound in my head. So in the beginning, I would start my day by listening like Eric Thomas and townville use like motivational like YouTube reels, or like two hours long, they're like, I could do this, because I needed to see that it was possible, like, I just chip on my shoulder at something to prove. But then today, it's more of a gratitude approach to my day. So I start my day with gratitude versus this burning desire, or chip or rage, I want to fight. But the methodology is the same, or I don't even have to use an alarm anymore. Every day, my body wakes me up at 530. And immediately I look at I don't want to touch my phone, because they're going to create anxiety is going to do things that I don't want and allow somebody else or something else to take control of my focus or day. So what I do is I make myself extremely selfish in the first hour. So I get up, I do my little routine, I'll get one my car up, then I go for a nice drive. And I'll go to the mountains. And I'll play music and I drive up to like the same houses that I've drove up to, since before I had a nickel. And there's this beautiful view off a Lincoln drive. And I just go over there and I just like look out and I think about what I'm grateful for. and really think about where I came from every day because I don't want to forget that. And it's sometimes an emotional experience. And then after that, I go back and then I set up by like 8am or even 730. I'm going to sit down, I'm going to eat I'm gonna do my typical routine. So I'm big into fitness. So I'm always make my meals in the morning. And then from there, I go into my workday, it's my part until 9am, then the other people can take my day. Now I just organized that because I've read Daniel Pink's when I've realized that the difference between an owl and a lark, and because of my Lark behaviors, I know that my inhibited controls are at their greatest peak right when I wake up in the morning. So that's why I got to be crucial to protecting that. Because my chronotype tells me that I can work diligently on these tedious meticulous tasks until halfway through the day when I start to have what they call a trough. And when that trough happens, that's when I go to the gym. That's what I need to get out, I need to lift some weights, I need to really push myself and get everything fired up again, then my inhibitor controls are going to go back up, but they're never going to reach the level they were when I woke up. So that's when I do my creative tasks, because now I've had outside things going into my head. But in the evening, it's great because that's what I want. I want outside influence to execute on finding new ideas. So I've always followed that methodology. And a lot of it's coming from reading Daniel Pink books.
Max: [34:43] Love it, I just realized and that's exactly how I am. But I now have five kids and the only way to get ahead in life with five kids is you got to beat them up in the morning. That will work out first thing in the morning. But if I had my choice, I would design it just like that. That's how I used to do it. And let's speak about working out the guy Scott who works in my office, I think you know him from probably Milwaukee, he's from Minneapolis, but he said, You guys are gonna, you guys are gonna hit it off. I mean, you're both, he said, You're both jacked, he probably not jacked like you because I'm old now. From working out the workouts for me, I always felt like when I was building businesses, when I worked out, I could control that. And so I've always stuck with that. And I still will say that I like the, I can always tell when I stick to my workouts and things going good. It just happens that business kind of follows. But it really helps me keep in control. And I just want to say I just want to ask you, if that's how it is for you. And that's what has kept you working out like you do or where does your inspiration come from?
Nathan: [35:44] I feel like we have alot in common because I feel like the exact same thing. When I'm working out my life is so it's like clockwork, man, I'm in my stride. I call it sync, I'm in sync. So it's like but when I'm not, you know, and I feel like I start to get a little lethargic or when I like have to travel a whole lot. And I'm like, man, like I need to get back in my routine. Like, even though it's great traveling for work. It's like if I need my routine, I need my gym time to get that clarity, Alyssa felucca I'm getting buried, but when I'm in my, my daily routine, I can be in the city and just get stuff done that I've never, I can't even put into words how much more effective I am,
Max: [36:22] yeah. Oh, no, I can put it in a lot of words. I sometimes I can't wait to get back to my routine when I'm traveling or, you know, out of town. So I know exactly what you're talking about. When did you like thinking back on your journey? When were you called to be a leader like most times, I most of the time, I talked to successful entrepreneurs, and they always tie it back to like, you know, being a being competitive on the basketball team and playing sports. And since you didn't have that, I'm just thinking about when did when we were called to be a leader like when did you know you were going to be a successful leader, and have the confidence in building businesses like you like you are today.
Nathan: [36:59] I think the turning point was when I had a successful outcome, because in the beginning, when I first started, I didn't always have successful outcomes. There's times I wanted to achieve something I just couldn't figure it out. But right after that, when I got kind of kicked out of the bar, and I had the successful outcome of building ease and seeing it scale so fast, you know, like, literally went from zero dollars to $20,000. In my first month. I was like, what, like, didn't do that every month. But it was like, wait, what, like, how do I do that again? Now I was like, Alright, the way I did it was by taking all these different people and leaving them towards a mission. Well, how do I do better at that. So instead of focusing on getting better and better and better and better at one craft, I started realizing that every person that I looked up to, they weren't great at one craft, they were great at being the champion, they're great at being the spearhead. They're great at seeing wherever we wanted to go, and being able to pull them behind them and take all the punches along the way to protect everybody else in the back. So that's really what I started looking at, like, I want to be that person, that's essentially the hero of the story. Right, like so that's really what motivated me.
Max: [38:11] Do you feel like you found your purpose in life yet? Are you do you feel like you're still pursuing it,
Nathan: [38:16] my purpose is, is going to be an ongoing thing, because my main job is I have a mission. And my mission is, I have to do enough in my life to set my next generations up for success. So they don't have to, like deal with any of the stuff that I went through. And I feel like I'm almost there. But if I let off, there's going to be some generation is going to get left behind. So I feel like if I can just push my life as far as I possibly can, that when I do die, my kids can say, Man, like your grandfather did all this for us. And this is why we are here. And like, you know, this, you know, my legacy can kind of leave on. And like, really keep moving forward. So I think that that's my purpose. I mean, it's to be essentially like this champion right now to do what I can of our family for.
Max: [38:59] And just like fill in the blank, leaders would become better if they did blank...
Nathan: [39:06] listened.
Max: [39:10] That doesn't surprise me. Let's talk about like, let's talk about fun, leadership lessons you've learned over the years, I'd like on a little lighter note, like what what have you I mean, you've stubbed your toe, um, things that you've learned that that might help you become who you are today and really improve and continue, you know, becoming a better leader.
Nathan: [39:29] Honestly, I, oh, my dad always told me like some alluded to just now as you give two ears, one mouth, so like, Listen twice as much as you speak. Because I'm always listening to so many things. It allows me to step back, think speak less, and innovate more. So like, I have so many like compartmental things out here that are problems that I dream about solving one day. So I think that that's helped me to be leaders because I'm always thinking into the future and always listening to what people's problems are and trying to help them and it's kind of I think comes from my mom and My brother's, like, if you've ever meet my mom or brother, like, we're gonna meet one day, formally, in person, you're gonna see like, we're really nurturing people. And I think that nurturing behavior is something that's been fun. And it's been great. And it's why like, I love creating experiences for my staff, my bars, my friends, I mean, I've got an event company solely just because like, I just love creating experiences. And that's what's been fun about entrepreneurship is like, I would have so many brilliant people, I just love bringing them all together. Like even for Halloween, like I'm written like this extravagant, like mansion of red carpet. And just like saying hey, you guys are all my friends, but you don't know each other. So tonight you're gonna meet? And like, of course, you're gonna have masks on maybe. But, uh, yeah, so like, I just really want to make sure that like people don't forget that, like, the best part of entrepreneurship is not what you're working on the day, but the relationship you're building to create, like what you're gonna do tomorrow.
Max: [40:55] I love that. I love that. What are you most curious about now?
Nathan: [40:59] Ah, man, like behavioral psychology. Like I'm so so. So in that right now where, like, it's all I want to read about, it's all we talked about, because you have a certified behavioral consultant, our team, and assessment like architects. So right now, we're literally building this technology that is going to be able to predict not only and create a profile of that individual, but to be able to then collect feedback from their peers, as they work on jobs in the field, to then get a more robust profile to predict better matches for jobs in the future. Like if I could like figure out how to get the right data points, to create the roadmap, have a blueprint of our ideal organization, and personality types, really good blueprints for your career path based on these characteristics about you? Like that would be magic to me. So that's something I'm just super addicted to. And no, I didn't get a PhD. But I'm sitting with people that have them. So it's working.
Max: [41:55] You know, one thing I want to go back to, just because I've been listening and reading and this has come up countless times, I feel like in the last, I don't know, two, three months, but it's your routine in the morning about not getting to the cell phone, and really owning your own time and then grabbing your cell phone. I think so many people, they're on Instagram and going through their their routine, and you know, before they when they go to bed, and then they first wake up and they get all these texts and emails. So I mean, I just really want to highlight that because if you're not, you know, this is this is this conversation has come up so many times, but just want to kind of point out your discipline in that and in, you know how important that is? Because I do believe it's, I've heard it from a lot of successful people recently.
Nathan: [42:38] Yeah, this is about producing content, not just consuming it. You know, like in the morning, I may make a video, but I'm not consuming something. I'm creating something that I can offer value on. So you'll see a lot of my morning wake up routine videos, I'll say something maybe inspiration or all my mind. I think that's okay, but you consuming it leaves you subject to so much, especially during election time. I don't wanna look at my phone at all.
Max: [43:01] No kidding. Don't get in text, like I keep getting text like, oh, how do you how did you get my number? Nobody texted me anymore. I'm done with the election or at this point, I already voted. If you if you knew a blank 10 years ago, you would have done what?
Nathan: [43:15] Oh, has that means I have to say I wish I would have done something differently. Know what that would be. If I would have known that we will be where we are 10 years ago, I would have told my brother to quit his job sooner. Because I feel like you know, now that he's in the entrepreneurial world, he can really accomplished even so much more, because he was doing great work at Amazon. He reason all those packages come to your door so accurately. For those flex drivers here. He built that here. So he did that with Amazon. But he was like, in that box. I'm like, Man, you got to see the world and travel. So like, I think that, you know, it's been so great having him as my partner, and in this business and, and to be able to work side by side, I have always dreamed of working and building the company, my brother. So I would have definitely done that even sooner.
Max: [44:02] So how was that conversation? So I have a brother he's two years older than me. He's actually very successful entrepreneur, but we've never really been true business partners. We found some stuff together. We've lost some money together and some investments, but we've never really been in business. So did you courting him or was it a constant conversation? Was there like some monumental, you know, conversation that started the relationship? or How did it go down?
Nathan: [44:24] Yeah, we never really figured out how the heck we were going to work together because he was in supply chain logistics and it and I'm in like this entrepreneurial, but digital transformation consultant kind of role. So I'm doing my thing, no thing and all of a sudden was I did come up the idea of ease. And he was simultaneously building the on demand independent contractor platform for Amazon, primarily focused on obviously flex drivers package delivery, but I'm doing it in a digital space for like we were both solving the same problem but in two different industries. What would you think about join that over here, so we both did. uses a side project. Well, I had my safety net my bar revenue, and he had the safety net of Amazon. It was like, wow, like this thing's taken off. It's working. And I told him, Hey, if I raised this money, and I get in this program, you can have to quit your job literally, like, next week. So I pitched generator in three weeks go by didn't hear anything. And all of a sudden, they called me and said, Hey, you got in and you have four days to be in Madison, Wisconsin. I'm like, oh, shoot, saw you got to quit. He's like, well, what I've been in two weeks knows, like, not today. So he ended up just click it fill up there with me. .
Max: [45:39] It's amazing What's one thing that you wish people would stop saying,
Nathan: [45:43] man? Um, I would say the word hate. I think that, like, so many people hate so many things today. I wish people instead say I don't understand. Because I think that when people will have that inkling of hatred or animosity towards anything, it's just a lack of understanding of somebody else's perspective, and at least a confrontation. So if you can stop trying to hate or judge or dislike something and start trying to moreso ask, How can I better understand I think the world would be in a lot better place.
Max: [46:12] And you should run for public office of some sort. We should blast this out from the hills. So in on that same note, like what's, uh, what's an unpopular opinion that you have, it doesn't have to be around politics obviously just in general.
Nathan: [46:26] know. I mean, I, I definitely have an unpopular opinion, that's been kind of my gears as of late. I feel like in current, like, in my life, right, I'm an African American entrepreneur from a really struggling Trump background. And as I work towards getting to the next chapter in raising my family up, it's been really, really hard, right. And one of the things that's bothered me, I think, as of lately, regardless of politics, or side of the party, is that it's now being convenient for people to kind of monetize a minority pain. So now it's cool to get behind it. So I think that as of today, on that long that understanding, train, is a list of focusing on how to monetize and capitalize and commercialize a problem. Let's focus on actually getting stuff done the solver, because I think that that's one thing that the people maybe may not like to have to say, but like, I want to see legitimate accuracy and not monetizable. Advocacy.
Max: [47:20] Got it. And another thing we start you you mentioned this earlier in the conversation, what are some positive like things that COVID has served up to you? I mean, obviously, your company has, you know, has picked up some momentum. But what are some other things? I love having this conversation? Because I think there's so many I mean, there's people, there's a lot of people that went through a lot of misery. But I think when they really sat down and thought about it, there's a lot of positive things that came up. But what is some for you?
Nathan: [47:46] Yeah, I mean, I think the things for I'm in two worlds, so having bars and startup and pandemic are two of the worst things you can have. And somehow it's worked out. But like, for me, the positive parts of of, of it is we're growing our business, we're able to see through the between the cracks, and we're able to also get a better understanding from people and a lot more empathy of around the problem or solving. So that's been really good. And like really being able to get access to a lot more talent. So many people have left work or different jobs, and now they're exploring the idea of what if I was just self employed, what if I just free as a freelance economy grew by 20% in the pandemic, that's like, that's like point $2 trillion. So you got to think about that. And that's really important as a whole. And then I think the other thing, from my bar side is I got so much more close and connected to my community, the mayor, the health and City Health officials, and really having them rally behind us instead of kind of shutting us down. Waukee did an amazing job of saying, Hey, we're gonna work by you, we're gonna make sure that we can get rules in place that keep you in business. And I think that that brought our community together more than it tore us apart.
Max: [48:55] Wow, that's amazing. I was just gonna ask how how it was affected in Milwaukee? How was how's the business going? How's the bar business going? Now?
Nathan: [49:03] It's been up and down. I mean, we lost like $2 million or more because we lost the NBA Finals. We had the Democratic National Convention. We had a variety of different major events that it was supposed to be the biggest year in history for Wisconsin in Milwaukee. So like that was like a low blow man like I was like no way and I'm at the entrance of the arena we're all that is like you can't go into the arena without walking through my guard your guard so like you walk up you shoot big uncle box last all that but the thing is, though is sitting walkie does it shut us down for a period of time. They had his create real COVID policies, they brought all the best restaurant leaders together and said, Hey, we're gonna come up with things that makes sense. Have you be our consultants? So they've allowed us to survive and thrive so now we're back to in the green. They are trying to put some restrictions in place in from up top from the governor level. But right now the city is really fighting for us to be able to stay open because about 30% of all right bars city are permanently closed.
Max: [50:02] Wow, man, that's crazy. I'm gonna throw some quicker questions at you. And then we'll start wrapping up pretty soon. But I just want to kind of go through kind of a rapid question section. So we know what you like to do when you first wake up. So I want to ask you that. But what what book Have you read more than one time?
Nathan: [50:20] Drive? by Daniel Pink and War of Art? Love it
Max: [50:25] What? Which person has had the greatest impact on your life? A mom doesn't surprise me. What's something on your bucket list that you're waiting to check off? A skydiving? If you could teach one subject to schoolchildren? What would it be?
Nathan: [50:41] Social Studies.
Max: [50:43] And obviously you're you're a morning person. That was one of my questions. Yeah.
Max: [50:48] All right. And do you think leadership can be taught? Absolutely.
Nathan: [50:51] Absolutely. Well, everyone has an opportunity to be a leader if you know which characteristics to tap into.
Max: [50:56] If you could change one thing about the world now what would it be?
Nathan: [51:00] I'm a big make it more peaceful making people listen to each other more, because we're all trying to get to the same goal, but no one's hearing it.
Max: [51:09] Now, it's amazing. I'm gonna start wrapping up. But I think about what a great breakdancer you are and how that comes in handy. Like he just did a wedding and somebody's like, hey, do you want to dance? And you know, he's just like, yeah, sure you break it out. So I just kind of laughing to myself of like, being able to be an incredible dancer would be a handy tool to have in your tool belt for sure.
Nathan: [51:29] Yeah, it's been so awesome. One of the things that was really transformative is one time I was really young, not really, I guess I felt like 20 common, who's like one of my favorite artists was rapping on stage. And I looked at all my voices. Like, we have to do this right now. They're like, what are they we don't do this right now. No one's ever gonna notice this. We rushed the stage while he was dancing or singing rapping on stage. security's like trying to pull us off. And we're like back flipping and dance all over. And then eventually, as yankin is off stage, he tells him to bring us back on. And that was like one of those moments where I was like, I knew it, if we just got up there broke, and then he actually broke dance with us.
Max: [52:07] Oh, man, that's amazing. That's amazing. One other thing I do want to cover with you gotta love that. from a standpoint of managing your time, I'm just trying to think back through our conversation, like make sure I'm able to pull out things that can help listeners really be more successful in. So but managing your time. So I think, you know, I think when you get married, you have kids things change a little bit, I can attest to that. But so you have a battle with manage your time, how do you effectively manage your time? And is it getting easier or getting worse,
Nathan: [52:40] it's getting easier. Every single day, like the past in 2016. Sounds crazy about 26 a guy, it'll all run I need to fight, I want to do something different in my life. So I finally got my bar open. And I found the amazing GM Lawrence. And he took this pace under his wing. And I was like, You know what, like, you've been here since I started. Like, he knows it plays back and forth, I literally had to do nothing anymore. And still to this day, he's still there. And I am so thankful for him. Because now the team, they come up their own marketing ideas, their own events, and everything. And I have amazing partner. So like my partner and their operations, I'm the bright ideas. And now I get to come down and see be the owner where it's just building its own thing now. And that place will be there forever. So that's gotten easier. And then with ease, same thing, like I just every business I start, I empower build the people up, my goal is to walk to the next one within two to three years of starting it. Either a solid exit or IPO. I'm the type of guy that I'm not trying to build 1000 person 2000 person company and be a public face and CEO. Even if ideas that great, I will literally build infrastructure and be a part of the core ecosystem of the business. But hand off those tedious tasks, somebody that's going to be better at them. Because my thought process when you look at my psychometrics, I'm not designed for a job. I'm designed to ideate innovate create. So that's why it's become easy for me because I just refused to do the things I'm not good at. Love it.
Max: [54:13] I love it. Well, if I can part on one note, refuse to do the things that you're not good at is one of them. So that was an amazing conversation. This was the first time we've met but I look forward to spending time with you outside of this conversation for sure. Thank you so much for sharing everything you did. You know to learn more about Nathan you can also go check out his website, which I believe is I Ts ease calm, right?
Nathan: [54:36] Yep, I Ts s e.com.
Max: [54:39] And he also has a podcast it's called life with ease. Is that right?
Nathan: [54:43] Yes. Hashtag life with ease all one word, and then you'll be able to see it'll pop up everywhere.
Max: [54:48] Awesome. All right, you're listening to behind the resume podcast brought to you by why scouts we find purpose aligned and performance proven leaders. For more information about why scouts please find us at why scouts.com Thanks. For listening to behind the resume with Max Hanson
Max: [55:06] thanks for listening to the behind the resume podcast with why scouts max Hansen. Join us next time as we continue to have intimate conversations with leaders to learn their stories, life hacks, life experiences and other interesting practices or learning experiences that have made them who they are today. You can learn more about your host max Hansen and why scouts at why scouts comm Join us next time as we go behind the resume with why scouts max Hansen on demand 24 seven right here at Star worldwide networks.com or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.
Wednesday Sep 23, 2020
Wednesday Sep 23, 2020
Today's guest is Ian Lopatin, the Spiritual Gangster.
Announcer: [0:03] Live, it's the behind the resume podcast, with Y Scouts, Max Hansen, where you get to know the person behind the resume. The interesting stuff people never hear about just by looking at a profile here intimate conversations with leaders to learn their story, life hacks, life experiences, and any other interesting practices or learning experiences that have made them who they are today. You know, the interesting stuff. Now, if you're ready, let's go behind the resume. here's your host, Y Scouts admin max Hanson.
Max: [0:42] Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode One of behind the resume podcast with Max Hanson. We're purpose driven leaders dig deep to share insights on what got them to where they are today, even more importantly, where they're preparing themselves for better tomorrow. Today, our guest is Ian Lopatin who's currently the co founder of spiritual gangster, a hip yoga line. That's all about spreading good vibes, giving back and choosing kindness. Before creating spiritual gangster Ian was a lawyer turn Yogi, where he started ran and sold at one yoga to lifetime is a close friend and one of the positive most positive people I know. Ian, welcome to the show.
Ian: [1:14] Glad to be here, Max. Thanks for having me.
Max: [1:16] I have so many questions for you and so many things to talk about. So I can't wait to get going on this. This could probably last for like four days.
Ian: [1:22] I'm looking forward to it. All right, well, let's go. I ate before I came here. I don't know four days will work. But I didn't
Max: [1:27] Robin four days. Okay. So this is episode one. So no pressure. But we did have a built on podcasts before this. And there was 39 episodes with Brian Moore. So this is my first episode a little nervous. But let's get after it. First of all, frame it. This is behind the resume is the vision of this podcast is really to Front Load the business stuff and then go deep. So we'll get there. And then for all the listeners out there, Ian has not been given the questions, so he's not prepared. With that said, Ian, if you want to pass on a question. I have lots of good questions. Feel free to just say pass and we'll pass. So here we go. And then at the very end, then I'm going to go into a rapid fire section. We'll go through questions a little bit quicker. Good. Awesome. All right. So here we go. Tell me about your nickname, The eagle. I just discovered this at a current text conversation with him. I asked if he had any nicknames. And he said the eagle and I couldn't wait to hear where did it come from?
Ian: [2:19] So this is interesting. It comes back you know from we used to live in LA. And it's if we would always be wanting to deliver you something special. They say the Eagle has landed. And it really became from like, we're flying high. So we got the eagle.
Max: [2:35] All right. All right. I love it. The eagle makes a lot of sense. All right, what's the most interesting thing going on in your life right now?
Ian: [2:44] Well, one thing I'm really excited about spiritual gangster I've been a lifelong fan of the Grateful Dead. And in two weeks, we're launching a collaboration with spiritual gangster and the Grateful Dead. So it's an amazing way for me to share with everyone in spiritual gangster how much the Grateful Dead has been an influence on my life. And you know, we're we're bringing that ethos and vibrations and getting out to the spiritual gangster gang community. And to me, I'm super excited about that, because as a lifelong, Grateful Dead fan, and seen, you know, over 50 shows, and they've been a massive impact and how I see the world. And now I'm really excited to get to share what I love with you know, people that I love.
Max: [3:26] I love that i i know i know you so well and I didn't know this was going on. We also went to a Grateful Dead show right before COVID hit was dead
Ian: [3:34] Dead Company, which was amazing. And they're they're doing they're doing amazing. They're keeping on the vibrations of the grateful that you know, even one thing I was saying is God bless John Mayer, I love what he's doing. And I love how he's really, you know, made the Grateful Dead music relevant with younger generations now. So that's awesome, too.
Max: [3:51] Yeah, Brian Moore be so proud of this podcast, starting out with the Grateful Dead content here. But so spirit, speaking of spiritual gangster, it's a brand I love. How did it come to be? I know it's a big question. We'll dig a little deeper in there. But how did it come to be anything about spiritual gangster?
Ian: [4:07] So spiritual gangster, it's always been a movement to us. And you know what I used to teach yoga here and we had a chain of yoga studios and we would teach yoga really all over the world. But one of the things that I used to do is I used to teach yoga to hip hop rap music, and it would be anywhere from like Tupac to Biggie to Nelly back and a friend of mine after class one day she came up to me and she said, You're a gangster. You're like a spiritual gangster and we started selling t shirts that we sold in our yoga studio here. And once we ended up deciding to sell the yoga business at one yoga lifetime fitness, you know, we kept spiritual gangster because it really started as the house brand that we were selling in the yoga studio. And then you know turn from really a hobby to an expensive hobby and passion into you know, now a global movement.
Max: [4:53] Oh, I love it. I love it. Where When was that? When did you first No, it was a movement
Ian: [4:58] from the beginning. I mean, we you know intentionally what we realized is when we created the yoga studios, you know, we created almost I mean, like Howard Schultz, they were the third place where people would come in and be like a fitness thing, it would be a social element and also have a spiritual component. So they come and they could mix with community. And what I realized in the yoga business, it was extremely labor people dependent, and in order to scale that you just have to manage. And so what we wanted to figure out is how can we take the vibes? And really what what we learned from building the yoga community, and how do we share it with the world versus our local community here? So that was always our intention behind it.
Ian: [5:38] And now, it's really, you know, snowballing.
Max: [5:41] Yeah, I feel so good. When I wear my spiritual gangster stuff, man, and I've heard you talk about this, you've said this to me before, but you talk about how people represent brands. And then when you wear your spiritual gangster shirt, you are the brand.
Ian: [5:54] So I feel like it's superhero clothes. Sometimes for as adults, I mean, we get more letters from people who are, you know, whether they're dealing with a cancer treatment or something, then the the shirt makes them feel better about themselves. And I wear it every day, or they're going to, you know, give us big speech, and they put on a special shirt. But I think it allows people to feel better about themselves. And you know, a friend of mine who used to have an ESPN show, and he would travel all over, and he would wear our brand. And he wore a couple other brands. And he would say, hey, he and when I'm wearing these other brands, I feel like I'm repping the brand. When I'm wearing spiritual gangster, I feel like I am the brand. And that's what I think a lot of people, you know, there's a lot of spiritual gangsters out there. And people define it in different ways for themselves, but we want it to be empowering for people. And I think that, you know, you are the brand when you're wearing it.
Max: [6:40] Yeah, no, I definitely feel that way. So let's talk about Tell me about the at one yoga journey that led to spiritual gangster I just realized as I was kind of digging around preparing for this, that that was like a 13 year journey. Is that right?
Ian: [6:53] Exactly. So I went to law school in California. And in my first year law school, I was, you know, law schools are very competitive stress environment. And I was looking for ways to just, you know, de stress and I was learning to surf and I wasn't good. I was just getting pounded, and I go running. And my mom said, you know, go check out a yoga class and yoga. This is about 25 years ago, but yoga was starting to boom in LA. And I went to a class and it felt amazing. And then I had a like a lot of synchronicity and serendipity happened. But one of the greatest things that happened to me is I was flying back from I went to see my mom in Florida. I was flying back from Florida to LA. And she gave me a yoga book. So I got on the airplane, and there's an Indian guy sitting next to me in a satin jacket with a tiger on the back and his wife. And I take my yoga book, I'm like, he's like, Oh, you do yoga, I am Bikram I'm like you want to see my book, I've no idea who the guy is. At the time. He goes, I have my own book 2 million copies. So I landed I went to the border bookstore, borders Bookstore at the time when they existed in Westwood bought his book and he was literally 10 minutes from so I would go to Bikram once or twice a day. And I then I ended up taking a teacher training at yoga works. And this time when I first started going to yoga, there was like 10 or 15 people. And by the end of the year, there was like 80 to 100 people in the class, it was just like at a tipping point. But it was only happening in New York and LA. So I come out to Arizona on family vacations, and I look for the yoga studio. And it was, I mean worse than like the basement of the dirtiest motel six, and it just didn't exist here. So you know, one thing led to another but I took some business classes at UCLA business school and wrote a business plan. And I had some friends who sent me money. And while studying for the LA bar, I ended up opening the yoga studio in Arizona. And then for the first like six or eight months, I would be a yoga teacher on the weekends and fly back to LA be an entertainment lawyer and then like twice a month fly out here. And you know, what I realized, you know, pretty early on is that for our business really to work, I had to quit being my being a lawyer and move out here and really run it.
Max: [8:56] Yeah, how long were you an attorney for?
Ian: [8:58] So I was an attorney briefly. You know, I got the job my second year, and I worked there less than four months. I knew immediately like, I just, it wasn't for me. And was really, this is a funny story to like, I came back on vacation, I went to go quit my job like four days, five days in a row. And I kept going into the office to quit, but none of the partners are there because it was over over the holidays. And they had given me like a big like bonus to start, you know, and then they gave me another holiday bonus. And I offered the bonus back. And they're like No, thank you very much. But if you want to come back, you can come back. And then after that they changed the clause that if you quit being a lawyer within a year or two you to pay back the bonus. It was funny.
Max: [9:37] That's amazing. That shit only happens that Ian lopate and by the way, in fact, I'll jump in there now, because I think this is hilarious. There was one point when I first met Ian and a couple years ago that I ran into him like four times in a week. And so I hadn't really I didn't know him that well yet and I kept saying like what's crazy I keep running into you. And I will say that the better that I've got to know Ian There really is no coincidences, like, you just you open yourself up for what's going to happen and it just happened. So I mean, talk about that. I know there's this couple of things I want to touch on with that. But you kind of take that run with it. I know things just you just feel like they just happen if you set yourself up.
Ian: [10:15] And I'm a big believer, like interesting coincidence gets misinterpreted. Coincidence comes from the Latin terms when two angles coincide. And that means perfect alignment. So everything's coincidence. The idea is just to be open to it. So I, you know, I'm a big believer of like, showing up open and seeing what's here for me and you know, one of the things and I, I call it creating friends and Fred's are one of my teachers, Dr. Berry taught me this, but as friends in the energy, so everywhere I go, I create friends to be like, oh, they're like, you know, this is a great story. Just a simple one. The other day, I was flying back, I went to see my sister for and took my son. And we ended up flying back. So we we got to the airport. And, you know, I got there a little bit early, and I wanted to come home for my other son's birthday. And I saw Oh, there's another flight there. And it's, it's open. So I kind of do my energy exercises, tapping on the energy. And I walk up and say, Hey, can we get on this earlier? flight? They said, Well, we have policy. We can't you check bags. We can't put you on the earlier flight. Okay, thank you. But uh, let me see what you can do. Five minutes later, the ladies like check. So the supervisors come back to me, she goes, Oh, sir, we got you on the flight. No problem. You just gotta get your own bags. I'm like, No, she's then then I sit on the airplane and they tapped me when I get on the airplane when I'm supposed to be on. They said, Oh, sir, we want to go sit up in first class. I was like, perfect. And then my bags got there. And I didn't have to pay anything. But that kind of stuff happens me all the time. Like you find someone lets you in the door. There's Fred's available everywhere if you if you create them. So I'm always looking in the moment. Okay, how's this supposed to work out for me? You know, one of, you know, my favorite trips, like we talked about is like, you know, going to the, the NCAA, I mean, the NBA Finals game, I show up to the wrong airport at like two in the afternoon after the dead shows we were at together in LA. And I get to the airport and I go to the wrong airport, I go to Burbank instead LA. So I'm like, okay, tip office in three hours. There's no commercial flights. I ended up getting a ride from another friend of mine who owns the wires on their jet, we circle the arena, I walk in the arena, I get to hang out with Tony Robbins before tip off, and then fly home on another private jet all because I went to the wrong airport and missed the flight. So I just I'm a big believer in, you know, everything always works out. You just gotta stay open to it. I think that a lot of times the best plans happen once once the first part of the plan kind of goes awry.
Max: [12:34] yeah. No, that's awesome. I think you and I talked about you just feet you you can walk in as basketball Stadium, but he is very into basketball, run into it. In the front row. It's son's games. And he can walk into the stadium and end up in the front row. Even if he doesn't have tickets. Like, he's just how does that work?
Ian: [12:51] It just always works. I mean, I have to, you know, have to say last year, I think I was in seven different arenas and got to sit on the floor and all the different games and just not even having a plan. You know, Phoenix, we have courtside seats, but just sort of would happen one thing would lead to another and I think to that when you share what you love, then it comes back to you 10 acts. So I mean, one thing I love is basketball is sharing and VA and it comes back to me and I think that just planting the seeds for that flow to come back to you always. You know, just it just works if you stay open to it.
Max: [13:21] Yeah, yeah. Well, speaking of that, so everything kind of just happens for a reason. And things have worked out pretty well for you and, but he's also into a lot of personal development stuff. And I know this personally, because he was in we took a positive intelligence course and we're in the same pod. And I think he told me he took a happiness course at Yale. He's been the it's at least two or three Tony Robbins events that I know of. But tell me a little bit about why personal development such a priority to you and then let's talk about some of the personal development experiences that have been that you would rank the highest
Ian: [13:55] i think you know, one of the things from the positive intelligence class that I learned when we did together is my one of my number one drivers. I'm curious, I love to learn and I love to grow and I also realize I'm my own graves asset. So I'm always learning I'm always reading I'm spending it's just part of who I am and allowing myself to become you know, just you know, I like to get healthier wealthier, smarter, more intelligent everyday and continue to expand we live in expanding universe. So I love to keep feeding myself. You know and i think that i've you know, Robin Sharma has been a really good friend of mine You know, I've done a lot of stuff a Tony Robbins has been incredible. You know, someone I'm working with right now who's absolutely amazing. As Dr. Barry Margolin, he does energy for success. We've done landmark stuff together. So I'm always consuming different different types of stuff and beyond just intellectual stuff. We've done Wim Hof breathing, you know, we have a couple trainers we work with all the time. So you're we're working mentally and physically all the time to to have more energy to have more vitality and also just grow and learn and I'm a big believer of like, once you get the lesson, then you can move on. So how do I get the lessons quicker? How can I learn from others? So I don't have to make mistakes the hard way. And, you know, so that's a part of, you know, my life philosophy. And it's really allowed me, you know, to continue to build who I who I am.
Max: [15:19] yeah. Well, speaking of that, I have spent some time with you. And some of my favorite memories are showing up to his office, and he'd have a, you'd have a bathtub full of ice for us to do ice ball. And so let's talk about daily routines and rituals. I mean, I've done you know, some some stuff with you bio chargers, stuff like that. Let's talk about what you think works the best and in an ideal world, and then maybe talk about what you've been working on. I know you and Craig, we're working on some stuff, as far as you know, the kind of the biohacking side of things. But let's talk about first of all, your favorite daily routines and rituals. Let's talk about that first.
Ian: [15:53] So, you know, things that I do daily are I do a journaling, I actually keep three journals, I keep a five minute journal, which is how I started journaling. And my mother passed away about three years ago. And I've journaled every single day since she passed away. And the other two journals I keep, and this comes from the Dr. Barry Morgan's course, energy for success. I keep one journal, which has all my goals for the day. And then I keep the whole idea is that I'm building a platform to live my life on and this platform is not only am I building, I'm building it, so I can take it with me. So I write goals and all these different areas and relationships and expanding finances and creativity and intelligence, and health and vitality and serendipity. And so this, this platform continued, I feel it every day. And then there's a whole second journal that keeper only my wins. So when something great happens, coincidence, serendipity things drop into my lap, I keep journaling and writing those. So I'm, I'm keep investing energy. And it's like momentum, life works and momentum. So those are my momentum practices. I do breathing exercises every day. So a meditation slash breathing exercise, you know, we have a cold plunge in our house, I'm a huge, I did a cold punch before I came over here today. And then I I work out, you know, I have a trainer, I have multiple trainers who come to the house. And, you know, someone told me this is funny, because we're kind of recording this at the end of COVID. But these people said, you're going to come out at COVID three ways, a hunk a drunk or a chuck. So I think it's you know, you right now, you know, a lot of what I've always been working from home, you know, I've always been working from zoom, I've kind of like created this thing. And now a lot of things are the world's moving in that direction, where you can be casual, where you can get a lot of stuff done, you know, without having to have an office and go to a lot of people. And I think that, you know, what I'm finding is that I've been doubling and tripling down on all these practices over the last like three months. So instead of a trainer twice a week, I've had three different trainers twice a day. So really stepping up these practices. And you know, what I find personally is my coincidence, increases my synchronicities, my vitality, my energy, and also like my abundance and prosperity. I think everything's related. And I think that, you know, you have to raise the entire platform. Because if you're wealthy and even though healthy, have nothing if you're healthy, and you've no access to abundance, it's a much different life. And I think that you have to have relationships and creativity and all this stuff, his life is set up for us to succeed. And I think the whole key is fueling yourself to have enough energy and vitality and be open enough to take advantage of that and enjoy it.
Max: [18:30] Yeah, yeah. And I've heard you talk about how life is happening for you, not to you. So think about in thinking of how COVID How has COVID happened for you, and not to you?
Ian: [18:42] You know, I more blessings. I mean, our business has never been better, you know, we have a business that is gone now, even more and more direct to consumer online. So that's fantastic, we'd have a better relationship with our customers. You know, I've had more I used to have to travel a lot our office or in LA. Now I have way more quality time. You know, we both both have four kids, two younger boys. So I got to spend way more time with my kids and I ever had not been traveling and just also to building fitness and routines and getting the trainer's to come over and really working on a real platform and a home base. These have been all massive blessings, my relationship with Vanessa, like so many things have really blossomed and even like working on our house because we're all traveling. We never really did all this stuff. So for me, it's been building a great platform to really thrive off of and also getting in better shape physically and mentally. I think now more than ever, people are afraid. And that's what I think this thing is brought up and people it's brought up fear, money and health, which are like the two most root basic. And I think it's more important now than ever to take care of your own mental state and your physical state.
Max: [19:55] Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I was lucky to I got to Idaho, and We are a 200 yards from the fitness center for the first two months of it. So
Ian: [20:03] when I mean I would love you to show me pictures of your, your red light deal. And I mean, it's, it's all these things and you realize when you're doing these things to take care of yourself, you feel so much better you have more time for your kids, you have more energy to do the things you love. And I just think that the number one biggest thing that people should be investing in is themselves and their own health and wellness.
Max: [20:23] Yeah, I agree. I was doing great. At the beginning of the summer, I was in really good, really good shape all of June. And I was eating a lower sugar diet. And I was up in Idaho. And this bartender that I had been to a few times I was drinking a little bit more often than I normally do because we're at the lake. And I told him, Hey, can I just do the vodka soda, the North 44 and soda, because I'm not really eating a lot of carbs. And he said to me, this is my kind of downturn where I started to gain the COVID-19. Now I'm starting to take it off again. But he said to me, he said, You know how much sugar is in that vodka? I'm like, Oh, shit. So So from that point, I, you know, kind of threw the diet out the window for a little bit. But I'm coming back. I'm coming back. So speaking of like, extreme body hacking treatments, I've done some pretty extreme stuff. I mean, I don't know, I used to plunges that extreme. But when you're jumping in a little ice bath with ice on it, that's, you know, pretty extreme. What would have been the most extreme, you know, kind of treatments or things that you've done? How would you rank it?
Ian: [21:25] So I think, you know, it all depends. I think the Wim Hof stuff can be very extreme. Because it's all mentally it's very way more mentally than it is physically challenged. And the idea to be able to get yourself to go in the ice bath and not freak out and regulate your breath. And also the breathing exercise. I've been really into breathing practices lately. There's a great book by Daniel Nestor called breathe, and I just finished another book called The oxygen advantage. I think that breathing is like the new meditation, you know, people are really becoming aware which in meditation was a new yoga, people are really becoming aware of how important conscious breathing is and to breathe through your nose. So there's a lot of different breathing exercises that I've been doing that can be extremely intense, long breath holds like four or five minute breath holds. So that and I think it's overwhelming more mentally than physically. Those are the things that I'm kind of playing with now that I seem that I feel, you know, I mean, we do a lot of fun stuff that people heliski we do a ton of heliskiing and things that I don't necessarily look at as being extreme. But it's, it's one of the happiest places on the planet for me out in the middle of nature skiing powder with no one around. And it's so that that I think that's a spiritual practice for me as much as anything.
Max: [22:43] In it, Ian will just disappear and he'll all sudden be surfing or heliskiing. Somewhere, it's just part of part of being Ian. So what is a model you live your life, I'm gonna change gears a little bit here. But what is the model you live your life by?
Ian: [22:55] Share what you love.
Max: [22:57] love it. Tell me about an experience that changed your life. You can pass
Ian: [23:01] almost, I almost failed out a law school. And then I studied and applied myself. Really, really, really. And I finished the top of my class like top five people in my class. And that really led me let me realize that I could do it my way versus having to do it the way everyone else was doing it.
Max: [23:19] And that was you graduate from UCLA. Right.
Ian: [23:21] I graduated from UCLA. So
Max: [23:22] it wasn't an easy school.
Ian: [23:24] And it was just it was a great experience of of trusting that I can get it done doing it the way that I wanted to do it versus kind of falling in the matrix or getting getting stuck where everyone else was going.
Max: [23:35] Yeah, going back to the foundation, because I think this is important. And I don't know if I've ever asked you about this. So I might as well learn some stuff and share it with everybody else that's listening. How did you first get into yoga to because I think that was kind of one of the foundational things if you talk about, you know, just the the positive nature and just you know, how you carry yourself, what was the building block, like when you're younger.
Ian: [23:56] So, you know, it's interesting, my mom was very spiritual. My dad was a lawyer, but my mom was very spiritual. And she had some health problems that, you know, open her up to a bunch of alternative healers. But one of the things we used to have, she would have this guy come from Swami satchidananda, his ashram, this guy, Bob Burns, and he would teach yoga, and I used to think it was like crazy, but we do like shoulder stands and headstands. And I got away from it. And then my first year of law school, I was, you know, I was going through an ending of my college relationship with my old girlfriend and just feeling stressed with law school. My mom's like, you should go to yoga, and I went into yoga, and it felt amazing. And I do think that yoga, you know, it's not like a magic bullet for things. But for me, what it's done is it's opened me up to this whole world of, I don't want to call it self help but self discovery, and going deeper and learning how to work with my own body and getting into it. And it really, you know, changed my path like I was extremely not flexible. I mean, I think I was not flexible mentally as well as physically and it's really really opened me up. And it's also allowed me to experience so many different things that came from that.
Max: [25:06] Gotcha. Ian, by the way, is one of the only guys that will walk up to me and fix my posture from behind him grab my shoulders and open me up. But I will say, I, since you've done that the first time, and he didn't just do a once every time you'd see me walk up, and it was like my mom, you know, grabbed me and put me in the right position. But so he grabbed me and opened me but I, since then, I always do this and that he you can't see it, because you're listening. But he's got his arms open. And he's, you know, stretching out, but he's opening himself up to talk about posture and like, Why so that's so important.
Ian: [25:36] You know, I think they all these different things about body language, but what you're saying is only a portion of how you're communicating. And there's a great thing we should share with your audience. There's a Stanford professor called Amy Cuddy, who did a TED talk on posture. And it just, it's amazing. Just how physical posture affects everything not only affects your mood, but it affects how people perceive you. And, you know, I'm a big believer of like we talked about earlier, if you're gonna make the most of your environment, you have to be open to it. That's why I like heliski. And that's why I'm getting the fly fishing, you have to be tuned into your environment, like even golfing what's happening in the, in the elements around you. And when you're closed off physically, you're not tuned into your environment. So I think that how you carry yourself, you know, we have all these sensors, we're more than five senses, we have hundreds of different sensors in the body. It's like when you learn to ride a bike, no one teaches you ride a bike, all of a sudden, you get it right, you turn on the sensor of balance, someone's sensor balance is so good, they can walk across a tightrope in the middle of the Grand Canyon. And once you learn how to ride a bike, you never forget it. So life is like that. How do I get these sensors open, that are closed. And then I have all these different experiences their sensors around money, there's sensors around intelligence, there's sensors around everything, but getting your body open is is massively important. And most people close as they get older, when we you know, we're for me, I'm that's why I'm learning. I'm growing. I'm doing all this self discovery. So I every day, I want to be more open than I was yesterday. more flexible.
Max: [27:02] I love it. I love that to my goal, too. So tell me on that note, and this is kind of in the same vein, what do you attribute your success to? And we're talking about I mean, all of this does, but if I asked you that question, like how would you answer it? Like what, how do you what do you attribute your success to?
Ian: [27:19] I you know, it goes back to me of the notion of planting seeds. So I think there's a, I grow things in my life where other people are like hunters or gatherers. So like I have, there's a one of my greatest teachers, a guy's greatest geisha, Michael Roach, and he wrote the book, the diamond cutter, and he's the only white guy who's like a master of Isa. He's a geisha like, which is like, I'm a cardinal of like Buddhism. And he has a four step process to get what you want. One is like, figure out what you want. Step one, pretty, that's not even most people can't even get to that. Step two is find someone else who wants what you want. Step three is go help the other person get it. So that's counterintuitive. Most people you know, it's like in order to get it, you got to give a fourth and the fourth step, which is like the real magic how you fertilize it is like when you're at home and you feel really good about helping the other person get it. So I'm a big believer of success comes from planting seeds and being generous. You know, one of the things we talked about, we didn't talk about this, but since we started spiritual gangster, you know, we've done I think over 13 million meals now with Feeding America plus we do a bunch of other stuff with but we found what I call karmic business partners. So when it's not just the company, spiritual gangsters winning, every time we sell an item online, we donate a meal. So the customer gets the karma donating the meal, and someone gets fed. And so it's it's important that you know, I call it 360 degree winning or even things that happen spiritually, when someone walks in the office. It's not just the owners who when the employees when the customers win, but the FedEx or UPS guy wins the everyone feels good and feels the energy. And that's how I think it's important to build things. And I think that's why it's successful. Because we're having a real positive impact, and it's intentional.
Max: [29:06] That's what I love, too. If you go to their website, they don't brag about this. They do it for the karmic reasons.
Ian: [29:11] For years, we didn't even share about it. And now I feel a lot like way better about sharing about it. One thing you know, you know, one of the greatest things that we talk about, you know, you do things and all these wonderful things come from it, like you know, we had a great thing. And one day we were on Good Morning America, Savannah Guthrie, whose initials are SG love spiritual gangster, she got to pick one brand in the entire country. And she made her shirt called like you with my wife. And in five minutes, we sold enough to sell to give 3 million meals. And we got Tony Robbins to match it. And that's how I ended up getting connected. Tony Robbins who ended up inviting me to date with destiny. Of course that's how it happened. So it's just like these things snowball in a way better than you could ever expect it.
Max: [29:56] yeah. No, I love the given back piece of spiritual gangster, it's one of the reasons I love the brand. It Tell me about the challenges and finding one's purpose or challenges you've had and kind of finding your purpose. I mean, it sounds like you're a spiritual gangster, you know, I kind of know you and met you just a couple years ago. So you're pretty far down the journey, but in finding your purpose in life, and maybe maybe you're still in the search purposes, a journey for sure. But tell me about the challenges and finding your own purpose and, you know, kind of share the challenges other people have that you see and finding their purpose.
Ian: [30:32] I think clarity is powerful. So, you know, one of the things the practices that Tony Robbins I got from David s&c is you get really clear of like, you know, what are your drivers? What do you value the most, and we even, you know, did a little bit of that in positive intelligence, but what's important to you and then every year I keep a board of these are my four goals for the year. And then when you get them you want to always be setting new goals. I think a lot of people some people are super successful, they reach their goals, and they don't set new ones and they kind of plateau. So you always want to be you know, right as you get close to hitting a goal, you want to set another one. And I think that it's you know, one getting clear what you're going for because clarity is power. If you don't know what you're aiming at, you don't know when you're gonna hit the target or not. So I'm a big believer of like writing things down even the journaling, like I write daily goals and things I wanted to have a great podcast with you and be able to share the energy with people so it's very you know, important for me you know, specificity like being clear like you the way you can work with the universe's you'd be clear, you know, and I think one of my one of the greatest examples, and this gets back to it is not only people like you know, we like to golf like you want to focus the fairway, not the water. But Ghostbusters, one of my favorite movies is the greatest example of like, how most people work with the universe. Most people figure out their I don't want this, I don't want this. I don't want this their biggest fear the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. And guess what peers the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man bigger than ever. So most people are focusing on all the time of what they don't want or talking about what they don't want. It's important to be positive and speak about what you want in a way that you're having it versus the universe doesn't understand. No. So it's just you're always manifesting your your fears and nightmares. And I think most people are stuck on that channel.
Max: [32:18] It's a frequency. Yeah, yeah, we were in our positive intelligence course together on our pod. So we'd have these conversations. And every morning I get up to work out I'd see a deer. And so we're trying to figure out what that is. And to Ian's point, he said, my dad died three years ago, and he loved coralayne rows that he said, Every time I saw a deer, it was probably my dad, which I don't know if I think I probably mentioned this before, but since that time, I probably saw 10 deer a day there. So it was well, there's
Ian: [32:44] another great book for your readers called signs. And there was she was just on the goop deal. And, and I read that book, and I shared it with you. And you know, both my parents have passed away. And I think you know, it's just with my son and you know, deers, hummingbirds, dragonflies, birds, if you're aware of their environment, they're your people, they're always communicating to you. And then once you become aware of and see it, they'll do it even more. And it's, it's amazing. It's just, there's so much out there that's available to us, if you open up our sensors, you know, it's like, the thing is, most people are missing it. That's what we talk, you know, it's like, why is it so hard for so many because they're missing it, they're closed, they're not even, they're not even where they are
Max: [33:25] They're stuck in the matrix,
Ian: [33:26] they're fully in the matrix. I mean, one of my favorite movies is the matrix, you want the red pill or the blue pill, you know, it's like, what reality is going to be and and I think, you know, even now the vibe of the matrix is so thick with fear, you know, like, we talked about fear around money fear around health. And what it does is it close closes people down. And it's a frequency of, of lack versus abundance. And then the other side of the coin is, you know, you're in the energy and you have coincidence, and you have serendipity in your, you're in tune with the animals and wonderful things drop in your lap. And it's even better than than could be expected. Yeah, but there's, there's two frequencies. And whichever one you invest in, the thing of this is really important. That's what we talked about building a platform, is the matrix is always going to want to crush you or bring you down. So that's why it's so important to do these practices and build your energy up. So you're at a different frequency, and that you're coming out with vitality versus coming out of it. In a broken state of lack.
Max: [34:25] Yeah, yeah, he had such a good example of what he's talking about, too. So if those of you that don't know, um, I can attest to. He just lives by the stuff we're talking about. So coming back to fill in the blank, leaders would be better if they did, blank...
Ian: [34:41] listened
Max: [34:43] They listen. If you could sit down with one person and ask them something, who would it be and what would you ask
Ian: [34:48] Tony Robbins? And I would just how do I continue to dial it up? You know, what are my three greatest things that I could tune into right now?
Max: [34:58] Yeah. You went to been to two?
Ian: [35:01] I've now probably been to maybe five to eight live events, I've got a two day with Destiny's and I'll redo that again, I find it's like one of the, it was one of the greatest, it happened right after my mom passed away but I went there and I was able to really author my life versus there was so much default programming in there that I was unaware of. And it was just a massive wake up call for me. And I had, you know, there have been different people and things that have shined the light on it. But all of a sudden, at that moment, like all the lights in the room got turned on, it was a it was a huge, huge beginning of, you know, a massive breakthrough that's continuing to this day. Yeah.
Max: [35:45] So this is why I love asking you this question. Because it may be difficult because you have this abundance mindset. But if you knew x 10 years ago, you would have done what?
Ian: [35:58] So if I knew half of what I knew now, I mean, you know, one of the biggest things that I've learned is, is really being aware with people and learning how to, to size up people better. You know, I think there's different types of people, there's people who are win win win, people like you and I are always looking to help others and contribute. And, you know, and then there's, you know, other types of people, there's some people who are win lose are always out to kind of take a little piece from you. And you know, and then there's people who are massively win losing their job, they're gonna carve you up and take as much as they can. And then there's another type of people, which is a complete narcissist, who pretend their win win win, and they got your back and they got your interest, and they're just out there to like, completely crush you. And if I had could realize that everyone's a type one, and how to how to really categorize the type one from the narcissist, and learning how to win with all these different types of people. Like, you know, that's what I've done over the last, you know, I'm a total win winner, and I'm always looking at how to have other people win. And I had a huge education and realizing that not everyone's set up that way and you also to the more the bigger light you are the narcissists are there to kind of take you out. So getting into reality and not saying everyone's the greatest guy in the world, because there's a lot of people out there that are narcissists who are out there looking to, to, to win at your expense, where I'm out there looking to win with you and everyone else involved.
Max: [37:22] I love it. I love it. I think, coming into the business world, I played a lot of sports, and I was very competitive. And it took me a long time to figure out how being competitive was to my advantage in the real world of the business world. And I think if you're overly competitive, you focus on just being a little bit better than your competitors, which if that's what you're focused on, what I've learned over the years, is you missed a huge opportunity to just crush everybody not in a bad way, but crushed like the game and and change the game. So I love that. So what is the one thing you wish? People would stop saying?
Ian: [37:57] I'm trying? I'm like, can't try either do it or don't? Like, it cannot? You know, that's annoying when people I'm trying? I'm trying like,
Max: [38:06] either doing or you're not? Yeah, yeah, do try. And by the way, his son's name is Jedi. So he's the only guy I know who named his son Jedi. So you do not try you? Do you do it or you don't do it? Yeah. If you had only one sentence, describe yourself what would you say?
Ian: [38:22] enthusiastic, positive. generous
Max: [38:26] Yeah, me too. Me too. What are you curious about now? I mean, obviously, you're very curious person. That's almost all we've talked about. But like, what are you most curious about today?
Ian: [38:36] right now I'm very curious about breathing. And you know why there's such a disconnect in our society of people don't know how to breathe. And I think a lot of the health issues, anxiety, over obesity are all due to people breathing through their mouth. So I'm very curious about breathing correctly, and finding ways to share that with other people. I mean, I've even been this sleeping now taping my mouth when I sleep.
Max: [39:05] It's amazing. And we do we meditate at least once a week at my for my office, and we usually do it by zoom. Can we have you do blood? breathing? 100%? All right. All right, we've got them. We've got them committed. So why Sal's going to have them do our meditation this upcoming week. So what do you find most challenging?
Ian: [39:25] So the thing that I find it's keeping the energy and using the energy with my kids, and staying in a positive state and always, you know, one of the things that I really, you when you're in a positive state, when you're energy rich, when you're things work better. And what I find is sometimes with my kids, that's where I'll get, I'll respond or react from an A low energy state and it's never the great way. So what I'm really working on is only responding especially with my family, my wife, then as we work together and my kids when I'm in a good energy state. And that's, it's it's more challenging than the sounds I've gotten. They're pretty good around business stuff, but around family and even little kids of, of not reacting from a from a low energy place.
Max: [40:13] Yeah. What's it like, being in a successful partnership with your business partnership with your wife? And I, you know, I've been by your house recently. But what is there is there challenges in that?
Ian: [40:23] Oh, there's tons of challenges. And I think it's like any relationship, it just brings, you know, different, this whole other dynamics, you know, we work together, we live together. Now, we don't have an office over, you know, we're trading and we're in different parts of the business, and she's incredible. She's super creative, and passionate, and, you know, but we've learned, you know, over the years, how to communicate with each other how to share and give feedback. And I think, you know, like, we really making massive evolutions, and we're growing and learning together, I think, you know, any relationship and it's all about growing and learning together and having each other's backs and, and just, you know, it's the same thing as raising. It's like, the, the kids are our main business and then spiritual gangsters, but we're, we're partners in life, and then all of them, you know, she's granted a lot of stuff that I'm no good at, and I'm good at other stuff that you know, so I think it's figuring out like, where to play with your strengths, and even most importantly, how to communicate.
Max: [41:20] Yeah, no, that's awesome. That's awesome. All right. Well, this is uh, this has been episode one. I think he's setting the bar high for for our last guest. What a great guest have episode one. I think I planned this out perfectly. If you if you have a bad interview or conversation with Ian, it's probably not you is what I have come to the conclusion. But I'm going to start wrapping up just a little bit. We're gonna go I'm trying to create like segments. This is the first time I've ever done a podcast before so we're just kind of feeling this out. But I want to break into some segments and I always want to end like on a rapid fire question like segment so I'm gonna just kind of throw some questions at you. quick answer, actually answer as long as you want whatever you feel like needs to complete the answer, but they are in a rapid approach. So what's the first thing you do when you wake up?
Ian: [42:04] I do my energy exercises. Like, like, I one of the things I learned from Dr. V, one of my meditations before I go to bed, do him like do a mantra to myself and do in the mirror.
Max: [42:14] But what book Have you read more than once?
Ian: [42:16] the game of life and how to play it Florence Griffith Shin,
Max: [42:19] I still have not read it. You've told me about that more than once now. So what person had the greatest impact on your life?
Ian: [42:26] Yeah, I would say Tony Robbins, massively impactful. There's been a lot of people who have impacted me in powerful ways. But recently, Tony Robbins. Dr. Barry Moreland very good. Sadhguru geisha Michael Roche, I've been very lucky to have like, awesome influences.
Max: [42:44] Love it. What is something on your bucket list that you're waiting to check off?
Ian: [42:47] Play Augusta.
Max: [42:49] We have to we have to do it together. If you do that. If you could teach one subject to school children, what would it be?
Ian: [42:58] mindset, the value of positive mindset and posture.
Max: [43:03] Are you a morning or night person?
Ian: [43:05] Both.
Max: [43:06] Yeah, you know what? To think about that question. I couldn't.
Ian: [43:08] I mean, I feel like I'm on like, as long as your eyes are open, yeah, I'm on that I like morning and night. And
Max: [43:14] if they're not on the way Oh, and you're feeling pretty good. Probably. What's the most spontaneous thing you've ever done lately?
Ian: [43:20] lately? That's a good one. I mean, I feel like a lot of spontaneity. This is a little bit not super recently, but you know, within last year, and so I was in LA I was out there. And uh, one of my best friends has his own private heliski place I'm in it's in Canada, and I don't have a passport. And I'm there for a bunch of meetings. I'm interviewing like a couple people and he calls me it's like, 99. He's like, We're going skiing tomorrow. What do you mean, I got a bunch of meetings. He's like, we're going to ski tomorrow. So I'm like, Okay, I'm like, I don't have a passport. He's like, don't worry about it. So I end up moving a bunch of my meetings doing one morning, get on an airplane. And then I have to come I'm like, I got to come back the next night because in Phoenix my this is my son's favorite player was Russell Westbrook. I promised I take him to the game. So I go we go up we heliski all day. And then I get into Canada using the energy with no passport. So getting the energy, use the pack, go to Canada, no passport, all that even asked and then now I have to fly home. So he's going somewhere else. And I have to get back to take my son to the game. So I end up getting back and having my assistant Meet me at the airport with my passport. So I get this heliski all day and then pick up my son and get to take them to see see the songs play Westbrook and he gets to hang with Westbrook and we get there in time for the warm ups and was was amazing. So and that just fell out of the blue like that was, you know, an amazing day
Max: [44:49] Yeah, that's amazing. That's amazing.
Ian: [44:51] But I think the biggest one for me was learning how to get in another country without a passport.
Max: [44:56] That Canadian one or two. That's not exactly right. All right, well, I'm gonna have to bring this to a close. Luckily, I get to continue to talk to Ian today and moving forward. But thanks for being on episode one, you set the bar, like I said extremely high. We're grateful to have you and we look forward to having you at why scouts to the lead our breathing and our meditation practice next week,
Ian: [45:18] Max. Thanks for having me. You know, you're tremendous friend. And I know this is gonna be an awesome success. You've got so much to share, and thanks for having me.
Max: [45:27] Awesome. Thanks for being on behind the resume. Thanks, Ian.
Max: [45:34] Thanks for listening to the behind the resume podcast with why scouts max Hansen. Join us next time as we continue to have intimate conversations with leaders to learn their stories, life hacks, life experiences and other interesting practices or learning experiences that have made them who they are today. You can learn more about your host max Hanson and why scouts at why scouts calm. Join us next time as we go behind the resume with why scouts max Hansen on demand 24 seven right here at Star worldwide networks calm or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.
Friday Mar 15, 2019
Friday Mar 15, 2019
Today's guest is Chip Conley, the founder of Modern Elder Academy.
Rebel hospitality entrepreneur and New York Times bestselling author, Chip Conley disrupted his favorite industry... twice. At age 26 he founded Joie de Vivre Hospitality (JdV), transforming an inner-city motel into the second largest boutique hotel brand in America. He sold JdV after running it as CEO for 24 years, and soon the young founders of Airbnb asked him to help transform their promising start-up into the world’s leading hospitality brand.
Chip served as Airbnb’s Head of Global Hospitality and Strategy for four years and today acts as the company’s Strategic Advisor for Hospitality and Leadership. His five books have made him a leading authority at the intersection of psychology and business. Chip was awarded “Most Innovative CEO” by the San Francisco Business Times, is the recipient of hospitality’s highest honor, the Pioneer Award, and holds a BA and MBA from Stanford University.
In today's episode, Brian & Chip Discuss:
- What it's like to have your birthday fall on Halloween
- Choosing to go to a high school where Chip knew he would be in the minority
- Having a very engaged, passionate father who wanted nothing more than for Chip to become a better version of his dad
- Starting a hotel brand in one of the worst neighborhoods in San Francisco
- How Maslow's Hierarchy has influenced Chip's Leadership & Business Philosophy
- Meeting AirBNB Founders & joining the company as both a mentor & an intern
- Why today's workforce must embrace the wisdom of our Modern Elders
Connect with Chip: Website | LinkedIn
Check out Modern Elder Academy: Website
Connect with Brian Mohr: Website | LinkedIn
We Help Leaders Hire on Purpose: YScouts.com
Chip Conley Podcast Interview
Brian Mohr: [00:07:43] Well ladies and gentlemen welcome to another edition of the Built on Purpose podcast.
Brian Mohr: [00:07:49] I am incredibly excited to have with me today hotelier, author, social alchemist, disruptor, student, sage, and modern Elder the one and only Chip Conley... Chip:
Chip Conley: [00:08:08] What is up man.
Chip Conley: [00:08:10] I am wearing way too many name tags... All different.
Chip Conley: [00:08:17] You know I dig it.
Brian Mohr: [00:08:19] It's a good thing. I guess you've been constantly reinventing yourself or should I say continuing to learn more about who you are and what you're capable of.
Chip Conley: [00:08:29] Thank you. Thank you very much.
Brian Mohr: [00:08:31] Absolutely great to have you. So I want to start off.
Brian Mohr: [00:08:34] You were born on Halloween and I am just so curious. As a guy born on Halloween as a youngster was having your birthday on the same day as Halloween. An exciting thing? Or did it just piss you off that Halloween was robbing you of your special day?
Chip Conley: [00:08:52] I think it meant it meant that my special day meant that I was just a weird kid, you know, everybody and you got dressed up really strangely on this, like "what was all that about" No, I - you know - I have lots and lots of photos of birthdays with people dressed funny and I still have those because every five years I do have a birthday somewhere in the world starting at age 30.
Chip Conley: [00:09:17] And now I'm 58 so I've got the sixtieth coming up soon. But it's been everywhere from Bali to Marrakech and I promise you we do have a master party one night.
Brian Mohr: [00:09:27] I love it. I love it.
Brian Mohr: [00:09:28] So as you as you think back on all of these Halloweens is there any one particular costume of yours that just really brings back me or the most vivid memories as the costume itself.
Chip Conley: [00:09:44] Interesting question.
Chip Conley: [00:09:48] No not quite. I mean I you know. I did show up at one point in what looked like a birthday suit. Like....
Chip Conley: [00:09:55] Nothing. But it wasn't I actually; it was a body double... Gave me a suit, like showed me how to actually create in essence what looks like...
Chip Conley: [00:10:06] A naked body, but it's not my naked body. And I did show up at a birthday party like that once. And the shock factor was enormous. You realize:
Chip Conley: [00:10:16] Oh! Chips wearing something!
Brian Mohr: [00:10:19] I'm sure the looks on people's faces were were pretty priceless.
Chip Conley: [00:10:24] The good times good times.
Brian Mohr: [00:10:25] Thanks for indulging me on that. I'm always curious there's you know you always meet folks who have their birthdays coincide with that with a big holiday and you were the first person I met who was born on Halloween social super curious about that.
Chip Conley: [00:10:41] You know I will say one thing that's interesting Brian is that you know, I live in Mexico for more than half the time. And I was in San Miguel de Ndadaye which is not too far from Mexico City a couple of years ago. And going to the day of the dead which is actually after Halloween. It's in early November and doing the day of the dead experience in Mexico that is how they do their Halloween. Or their post Halloween, right? I mean it's really quite an experience. And I think probably of all the places in the world, there's no place that does that - That period around Halloween day. The dead are better than men in Mexico.
Brian Mohr: [00:11:24] That's awesome. That's awesome. Well that sounds like a whole 'nother conversation we could probably hear.
Brian Mohr: [00:11:30] And I'm really curious, and I want to kind of rewind the clock here, and this may be super interesting or maybe absolutely not an interesting topic but I'm curious when you attended Long Beach Polytechnic... You're enrolled in the PACE program which stands for the program of additional curricular experiences. And having not attended Long Beach Polytechnic or having not been a part of any kind of a program like that: Is there any impact? I'm curious as you think back on the impact that program had on who you are and the experiences that you pursued after you left Long Beach Polytechnic.
Chip Conley: [00:12:12] Oh my gosh wow! Well I appreciate you doing the homework. I've rarely been asked that question or anything close to that. So Long Beach Poly is a famous high school. It's actually where Snoop Dogg went to high school. And Cameron Diaz. And it's pretty famous because it's the number one school in the country for being a feeder school for the NBA and the NFL. So it's a big inner city high school public school. But it's also the number one feeder school for the UC. System in the state of California for the public state universities system. So it's an academically relatively strong place. PACE, my program, was the first graduating class. PACE Was meant to be a way an alternative to bussing. So I'm 58 - this is back in the 1970s. There was a strong desire in us to integrate high schools. And one alternative was to create a bussing program and there are just all kinds of protests around bussing from school. So what long beach did was different. It actually took all of the best programs academically in the school district where there were five high schools and they put them all in the inner city high school. And they said if you want to do college prep programs, you can do it. And we've got great programs but they're all in inner city school. And what that was meant to do was, to sort of - Instead of forcing people to be bussed it was giving choice to say I want to go to school in a neighborhood that is generally not integrated.
Chip Conley: [00:14:00] So I was known as curious white boy is my older nickname.
Chip Conley: [00:14:06] And I would say that's the combination. To answer your question.
Chip Conley: [00:14:08] The two elements to it. Number one is going to high school in an inner city school where I was a minority as a white guy was a great experience because I think all of us in our life need to live in a place for some extended period of time...
Chip Conley: [00:14:23] Where we are the "other." And when I say the other I put that in quotes. The "other" being the person who is not in the majority because it helps students understand and have empathy for what that means. To be in the minority whether it's a woman in a boardroom or a person of color. In most companies or me at AirBNB as an old guy. So I was the "other" by being a white person in a predominately non-white school. And then the PACE program was a really intense college prep program that prepared me well for going to Stanford. And so, you know, you wouldn't expect an inner city high school to have had five or 10 grads be accepted into Stanford but that's exactly what happened because the program was strong enough that this. The Inner city public school system allowed that. So I think it really helped me also get really connected to purpose. My own sense of like... How do I give back? Because I was able to see in an inner city community how so much of society wasn't really giving back to that community. And so for me, one of my chief things I did with my foundation is to have it give money as well as project support to inner city youth programs because of my experience growing up there.
Brian Mohr: [00:15:51] That's awesome. I appreciate you sharing that.
Brian Mohr: [00:15:54] As you finished Stanford, and if my research is accurate, you spent a couple and a half years in the real estate business and from what I gathered it sounds like you realized pretty quickly that that was not where you were going to spend your career and after a couple and a half years you got out of it. Was there anything in particular about the industry or any incidents that you encountered where, you know, that sense of purpose you talk about where you just knew that that wasn't where you were going to dedicate your life's work?
Chip Conley: [00:16:42] You know, I went directly to Stanford undergrad business school so the years you're talking about are after getting an MBA and I felt that business can be very money driven. It's somewhat of a mercenary business on the brokerage side on the development side, etc. and there are some visionary developers and I really admire them and the developer I was working for was moderately visionary. But at the same time it felt like I didn't have enough creativity. What was really fueling my decision that I wanted to take my real estate background and apply it in a more purposeful but also more creative way - was the need to sort of feel I was going to. And to do something that was pioneering that haven't been done before and that's when I decided to start a boutique hotel company in the mid 1980s at a time when boutique hotels were just getting off the ground in the US. And I love the fact that the purpose of the company or the mission of the company is to "bring joy of life." That was also the name of the company in French. I also like the fact that I can use my real estate background, but apply it in a more creative way and also in a way where if I did my job well and our team did their jobs well, we would make people happy and that's really what the hotel business is about. So yeah - that's how I got started. Age 26: got my first boutique hotel and in a bad neighborhood.
Brian Mohr: [00:18:12] Yeah right. Right. Yep. Yep exactly.
Chip Conley: [00:18:16] Yeah.
Brian Mohr: [00:18:26] So at some point I would assume during the early part of you hotel career, you had - please correct me on how the interaction occurred - but you had a chance meeting or a chance connection with a legendary concert promoter Bill Graham and then I think there's somewhat of the story as Bill had impressed upon you that as musicians are coming in and out of San Francisco that there's really isn't a property that psychographs and there was a real opportunity there. I'd love to talk just a little bit about your experience with Bill: What you picked up from him and what kind of a figure he was in your life.
Chip Conley: [00:19:03] So when I was working for the real estate developer for two and half years out of business school, one of the projects that I was assigned to was a potentially joint venture with Bill Graham and his organization to build the Shoreline Amphitheater which is right down your Google headquarters.
Brian Mohr: [00:19:20] Now down near STANFORD UNIVERSITY, Yes.
Chip Conley: [00:19:23] And so the truth is that there was a joint venture that didn't really need us. And so the question was: How are we supposed to be partners with them? And over time I got to know Bill a little bit, and that's when he said listen: "You know what you guys really should do instead of trying to be our partners on this project, is you should try to create a hotel that accommodates musicians on the road." And then he told me why. And that's what led me to saying: "OK you know I'm going to get a broken down motel in the tenderloin of San Francisco which is a tough neighborhood and turn it into a rock n roll hotel called the Phoenix. And that was more than 32 years ago and it became a surprising success against all odds. And led me to creating 52 boutique hotels over the next 24 years. As my role as the founder and CEO of what became the second largest boutique hotel company in the U.S. and yes it certainly was doldrum.
Brian Mohr: [00:20:24] Yeah that's super cool and as I understand it the original name of the Phoenix was Magnolia Court, if I'm not mistaken.
Chip Conley: [00:20:34] You've done your research. Funny, I saw my mom & dad yesterday at the Phoenix. We had an annual owners meeting at the Phoenix yesterday and they're investors and I laughed at my dad and I said that you wanted to call this place Magnolia Court. And I said: "We want to make sure we're in play and that our primary customers - families from the Midwest that were coming didn't say: 'Dad, this is a motel surrounded by hookers & pimps in the neighborhood...this is not where we're going to go' "
Chip Conley: [00:21:08] And so the Phoenix is what we became because it was rising from its own ashes like the mythical bird. The Magnolia Court - My God - it sounds like a place where you go to retire for sure, at least a very nice assisted living facility or something like that.
Brian Mohr: [00:21:34] Yeah, for sure. You know, I don't want to spend too much time on it, but was it hard to have your dad one of the lead investors in the Phoenix? Did that present challenges or was it pretty easy?
Chip Conley: [00:21:46] I mean at first it was very hard because I was young and let's start with that - I was way too young to be doing what I was doing. So having my dad help.. He was a small investor but he was somebody I would bounce ideas off of. But what became clear was there are certain things like traditional business stuff -Yes he was helpful. Anything that related to theoncept of a hotel, what kinds of services were offering, the design of the hotel, the branding of the hotel. All of that... He was so much a fish out of water. And what was problematic was that he didn't really get my vision. And it was almost up to me, the way I thought it was. He didn't have confidence in me or my vision or what I was going to be doing, and it was it was a tough time.
Chip Conley: [00:22:31] You know, we had almost a wrestling match & the hotel staff was watching like "What is going on here?!"
Chip Conley: [00:22:43] But over time it was hard. And my dad you know let's also recognize, I was always in his shadow. Or he was always there right next to me and that was supportive. And yet it was also a little oppressive. And I'm even his Junior, which is another "Chip off the old block" which is part of the reason I have the name Chip.
Chip Conley: [00:23:06] And I went to the same high school as my dad and swam and played water polo there just like he did and went to the same college as my dad - Stanford - and joined the fraternity just like he did. I'm a mathematics major just like he was. I went to business school just like he did. And he was my Boy Scout leader and Eagle Scout and I became an Eagle Scout. And he was my baseball coach and I was a star pitcher. So, bottom line is my dad was ever present in my life. And I would say if he had diluted that by 20 percent it would have been perfect. Because it was a little too much. And yet from those whose fathers were not in their life at all, you know, I would rather have my dad in my life the way he was not in my life at all. But I would say it would have been probably healthier for my dad if he had been about 20 percent less active in my life, because I felt like I was very much on my dad's path.. He wanted me to be a better version of himself. And he even admitted that yesterday we were talking he says: No, I want it. I want you to be a better version of myself."
Chip Conley: [00:24:08] And it's like: "Well if you if you'd said you wanted me to be a different version of yourself that would have been helpful because I was a different version. I was just trying to be a better version of you."
Chip Conley: [00:24:20] Because that would actually have limited my path in so many ways. And as it turns out, I am a better and different version of my dad - I'm both. It didn't have to be an either-or; it could be both.
Brian Mohr: [00:24:32] Yeah, sure. Absolutely. I appreciate you sharing a little of that insight. That's really good stuff.
Brian Mohr: [00:24:40] I want to shift a little bit here and I want to make a reference so Jerry Seinfeld.
Brian Mohr: [00:25:02] I think he's an absolutely brilliant comic and I think so much of his brilliance comes from his keen awareness of paying attention to simple acts of daily life. And, you know, finding the humor in the daily things and I want to draw an analogy because I think in many ways your leadership follows a similar path - at least what I've seen and read and experiences I've had - Where you have looked to your frameworks like Maslow's hierarchy and instead of recreating the wheel you're finding what is a Truth. You adopt them and then figure out: "All right. How can I leverage this framework as the way to run a business?" And you talk about joie de vivre the joy of life and to bring a sense of joy to the people that you're serving. To me, using Maslow's hierarchy makes so much sense, but I'm curious. What might seem like common sense to some is very uncommon to many. So my question is: When did you know or how did you know to simply look for these common sense frameworks and use them as the basis from which to grow everything that you've been involved in?
Chip Conley: [00:26:20] First of all, thank you Brian - I appreciate that. For me, I am a voracious learner and reader. So I like to constantly learn new things feed and feed my head. So I'll just give a couple examples using Maslow and Viktor Frankl. So with Maslow - I took one psychology class in college. I liked it but I didn't do anything beyond that. I do rememberin one classs that the guy who had the halo around his head as a psychologist was Maslow because most that most psychologists were focusing on neuroses and deficits as I was focusing on best practices and human behavior and what we learn. From them created this hierarchy of needs theory. So when I was struggling in the dot com bust we were the largest hotelier in the SF Bay Area. At that point we had 18 hotels in San Francisco alone. That's just in the city. And the city and everything was just falling apart. That's 16-18 years ago. I went to the local bookstore looking for a book or business book saying: "OK, I went out into business school so I learned something, like You know I need a clue right now" and I only after about 10 minutes in the business section I ended up in self-help and psychology and that's when I realized my problems are more serious than just business. And that's where I ended up running into one of massive books and I sat on the floor for two hours reading Maslov. I had to learn this stuff in college and this is really interesting, and I was really applying myself here to have actualisation on the level at the top. To myself, saying like "How can I feel self actualized in a time when I feel completely deflated right now?" And so I bought the book and then reading at night I just said "Well what if if companies are full of humans in masses - here is basically a human hierarchy of needs. How could you apply the same hierarchal image for an individual and apply it to a collective like an organization?" And that's again with my desire to read and learn it's sometimes a matter of reading, learning, and then reapplying it in a new way. And we took Maslow's pyramid, five old tiers, and turned it into a three level transformation pyramid to apply that hierarchy of needs principle and sort of paradigm to employees customers and investors who are our three most important stakeholders in our company. And ultimately we tripled in size in the dot com bust which was a big surprise to everybody because everybody said we were a goner we were the biggest foothold in Bay Area. Kimpton and Schrager who are two biggest boutique competitors were losing hotels to the banks & turning some hotels going into bankruptcy. And instead we know we did really well and it was partly because of this theory which ultimately led me to reading a book called: "Peak: How Great Companies get their Mojo from Maslow." And then a few years later, you know the great recession once again it was a Jewish psychologist who actually came out of it out of the woodwork...
Chip Conley: [00:29:38] And you know on the library shelf it was like "OK I'm going to read that "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl, a guy who had been in a concentration camp in World War II and apply it to myself. And that's how I sort of got reacquainted with the idea of:
Chip Conley: [00:29:53] "How do you find meaning in the darkest of times?" And for anybody who's who's having a difficult time and lamenting, you know reading Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" about what it was like to be in a concentration camp and you'll realize that you are you are just in your pity pot because your life is probably not bad compared to what he was going through and the people he was in the camp with. But his books are very very powerful books and it lead to me reading a book called "Emotional Equations." And led to me just sort of start looking at how do we apply emotional intelligence in a more fundamental way in leadership in organizations. And that's what I did in my company and that's ultimately what I used when I went to AirBNB.
Brian Mohr: [00:30:38] Yeah let's talk about that. It's a perfect segue.
Brian Mohr: [00:30:42] You know I'd love to hear how did you originally connect with AirBNB as a gender neutral team there and you know clearly this sense of value from all of your experience and your your building of emotional intelligence and as you talk about that exchange of Iike EQ for DQ and I'll let you explain it. You know, how did you meet the team? How did you guys decide that this was a good idea? And how did you find your way through with the maze?
[00:31:21] Yeah I mean, it was funny - when I read "Man's Search for Meaning" I read it at a time when I was struggling and it made me really realize I needed to sell my company which is a hard thing. You know when you start a company at age 26 you can run it for 50 or 60 years and 24 years into it, it's like"You know what I'm over this. I need to move on." It was a hard thing to do but I did and a couple of years later as I was in a new era, there's a great great quote from Robert De Niro in a movie where he says "Musicians don't retire, they quit when there's no more music left inside of them." And I think that really was appropriate for me I was 52 I knew there was a lot of music inside of me but. And that was when six years ago Brian Chesky Co-Founder of AirBNB and CEO approached me and said I'd love to have you be my intern and in-house mentor and help us become a hospitality company because we're a small tech company that's growing fast but we have no hospitality or travel industry people in the company. So I delved quite deeply into helping run the company with those three and a senior leadership team that helped. To work with them ws a full time job and what it taught me quickly when I was as much as I was the mentor - I was older than everybody else, twice the age the average person in the company - but I was the intern as much as I was the mentor. Yes I had a lot of wisdom around hospitality and leadership and strategy. I had a strategy for the company as well. But I didn't know a damn thing about technology. Didn't know a lot about millennial travel habits, didn't know much about the Silicon Valley tech world of investors, and so often I was learning as much as I was teaching. And so it led ultimately that coined the term in the company people started calling me "The Modern Elder" and the modern elder is different than a traditional elder in the sense that the modern elder is as much a curious learner as they are a wise teacher. And it's that combination of curiosity and wisdom that makes them relevant and elder. The past is all about you give reverence to your elders. But no one does that anymore in Western society. So it's about having relevance and relevance allows you to use your wisdom but apply it to modern day problems. And so that's what I did. And EQ for DQ that you mention is I traded my emotional intelligence for their digital intelligence. And the truth is that power is moving 10 years younger in most companies and we're all going to live ten years older and so all of a sudden create a 20 year irrelevancy gap. If powers were younger and were going to live older and that's what I've tried to do in terms of those speeches I have been giving and the book I wrote which is called "Wisdom at Work: The Making of a Modern Elder."
Chip Conley: [00:34:23] And then the Modern Elder Academy which we created in Mexico.
Brian Mohr: [00:34:27] So I want to hang on this for a minute and specifically talk about - I'm not sure if there's a better word for it so feel free to jump in here - ageism and what is happening within the workforce right now. I think we are in the most fiercely competitive labor market certainly in the last 20 years if not longer. And you know with great technology and platforms out there like LinkedIn that have certainly proliferated the resume and you can find people and learn about what they're up to at the same time. You know you've got photos on there and people are making judgment calls based upon college graduation dates or what their photo looks like or the number of years of experience and you know whether we want to believe it or not people are discriminating. I'm curious: what have you learned or what did you learn from the AirBNB experience and what are you learning from the Modern Elder Academy as you are working with individuals that have had and gained such amazing wisdom and continue to share it but maybe are running up against these invisible brick walls?
Chip Conley: [00:35:43] Yeah. Yeah great question. And yes ageism is the last form of socially acceptable bias in our society. Now the others still exist but they're less socially acceptable and we laugh about, we joke about, eccentric such a senior moments etc. And the truth is let's be honest that there are certain things as we age that don't get better with time. And other things do get better. What we've tended to do as a society is have a societal narrative that gets very fixated on what doesn't get better without focusing on what does. Let me use a specific example so it doesn't sound too abstract. As we get older our recall memory and our quickness with our mind isn't as good as it was say 25 years earlier. Fine. But what a lot of people don't know is there are a series of studies as shown in the last five to seven years. As you get older you're more adept at doing what I call the left-brain right-brain tango which means you actually have all wheel drive. You're better at being able to move from logical to artistic and back and forth and do that. Left brain right brain which what why is that valuable. It allows you to be more holistic in synthetic meaning - being able to synthesize things in your thinking. It allows you to get the gist of something faster. It allows you to actually tap into your intuition and use it in a more fundamental way. So what does that mean for a company? Well if you have somebody who's older who's got a great ability to get the gist of something, there's someone who actually doesn't get caught in the weeds. And that is exactly my role. I mean all this I've learned since joining AirBNB six years ago but it's exactly true of what happened to me. I joined and was like "Oh my gosh 30 strategic initiatives why don't we just have like four - let's get clear about what the four are what essential what's important what's good." So that's the kind of thing.
Chip Conley: [00:37:58] So the point is that we have a narrative in society that much says as people get older, the best times are behind them and in some ways that's true if you're talking about the playing field of your body that may be true. If you're talking about the playing field of how much money you make a year salary wise you top out at age 45 in the tech industry and age 50 in the general population so when it's 55 or later you're late probably making less salary.
Chip Conley: [00:38:31] But your emotional intelligence gets better with time: your ability to synthesize and have wisdom can get better with time etc. So what's my answer to the ageism society? Number one is is to go out and give lots of speeches write books like this one and try to help people see the value in intergenerational collaboration. I'm not suggesting we go back to the era where we revere our elders. That's not coming back but I'm also saying that diversity of all kinds is valuable in the workplace and we are very familiar with diversity of gender and race and sexual orientation but there's a lot less familiarity with gender of age and cognitive diversity which sometimes has nothing to do with age. Can be about neuro-diversity but often age is an element of cognitive diversity in the sense that you get somebody at the table who's going to look at things a little differently and that means you have less likelihood for group think. Finally I'll say one last thing on this subject which is I was talking with a well-known executive recruiter not long ago. And she said to me something really interesting s- she said "You're right if you just get caught up in the robots, the artificial intelligence looking at your resume you're in trouble because people perceive you as older and that could be a problem." So you have to use soft contacts -sometimes people who know people to get in the door. Or actually go to a networking event or things like that. But she says the key thing to know is this: when you do have that face to face time which will happen occasionally, the key thing to know is that when you are curious and passionately engaged your wrinkles start to evaporate and what people notice is not your face and it's wrinkles what they notice is your energy, and if you've got that kind of passionate energy that people want to sort of feel a part of it becomes a bit magnetic. You can overcome people sort of looking at you and judging you based on your age. And that's probably true of any bias we out there but the truth is I think it's more frankly for someone with age in terms of those two qualities: curiosity and passionate engagement.
Brian Mohr: [00:40:49] So as you think about the team you built at the Modern Elder Academy and having folks on board like a resident Shaman and a yoga and meditation teacher and massage therapy are the folks who are enrolling in the academy embracing with open immeditely? Is there some resistance given that some of things like - I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that some of the folks coming to the academy may know what a Shaman is in principle or in theory but having one is probably a new experience for some of these folks.
Chip Conley: [00:41:32] That's optional. No one has to work on that. That's an optional added benefit.
Brian Mohr: [00:41:42] Got it. Got it got it. So really meeting people where they're at and allowing them to pursue what they believe is going to create the most impact for them.
Chip Conley: [00:41:50] Yep yep yep. So I think that first of all, the key thing that people need to know is that they are not alone. And first of all one of the biggest surprises of the academy has been the following. That people are showing up at a much younger age than I thought. So almost 20 percent of the people who apply are are people under 45, when it was originally said there was a 45 to 65 year age range. But what we found is we've had people as young as 30 and people as old as 74 in the program. But we've had between five and 10 percent of our actual grads at this point have been in their 30s. So people are feeling a little irrelevant in their 30s or have a desire to sort of somehow start to cultivate their wisdom. The average age is about 52. So these are not people who are elderly. There are people who are at a stage where they may be an elder in a more relative term in the sense than it typically means. You are older than the people that surround you, so if you're a 35 year old surrounded by 20 year olds which is how it is many tech companies, you could be an elder. The key that we do at the academy is we help people frame their mindset, but on a personal level in terms of the actual world nd then also from the perspective of the societal narrative on Aging. The thing that's really interesting, Brian, is that there's a ton of evidence and a lot of them made this about the curve of happiness. There's even a book that we came out last year called "The Happiness Curve" that's quite good. And the happiness curve shows the following across all societies except Russia. Russia is the only one that's a little bit of an aberration. But across all societies on the planet, there is a huge curve of happiness where people start seeing a decline in their happiness that goes from about age 28 to about age 45 to 50 and then it bottoms out around 45 to 50. And then it starts getting better and people in their 50s are happier in their 40s. People in their 60s are happier than the 50s and people in their 70s are happier than in their mid-60s. There's a bunch of reasons for this but it's not actually woven into our societal narrative on aging. So that final narrative on aging is you hit midlife you have a crisis. You don't love your life as it is then you actually go out and, you know, have an affair and buy a sports car or whatever you do and then you get through the crisis. But on the other side of midlife is aging which is awful. It's for decrepitude and disease. And that's what people know and when we actually start introducing some action, some research - scientific information that helps people to understand that a new narrative that they could add a new mindset that they could actually adopt it it helps them to see I have some wisdom that I've learned along the way that it can be applicable. In a whole new industry that might be a better habitat for for me because. I am in you know I'm a I'm a computer engineer and I spent 20 years doing it but now I'm in my 40s and I feel. You know over the hill. But I've learned team collaboration skills and I've got to tell you those companies are full of really smart technology people but they're full of teams too. So maybe I start shifting my skill set to being a team leader. More than that the individual contributor is a rock star as an engineer.
Brian Mohr: [00:45:55] So as a tech entrepreneur, since so much of this modern elder philosophy came from the experiences you had with AirBNB, Is there any advice that you would want to deliver to tech entrepreneurs who are brilliant in the products or services that are creating the technology that they're building but have yet to have that realization that there's this massive massive well or reservoir of elder talent - modern older talent that they can tap into to help them with building teams, collaboration, focusing on whittling down 30 key strategic initiatives... How do you help them realize that they need this when they are so smart smart and maybe you just haven't had those laps around the track - help them realize?
Chip Conley: [00:46:43] The thing I'll say to them is the same to anybody is: do not hire people who are just like you. I mean your natural tendency is to do that because you like them, you're socially adept with them, and they agree with you a lot of the time. But actually go beyond that. Because I understand the age side of things: maybe somebody who has some experience. The thing I would also say is don't hire somebody who's just stuck in the past. If you're hiring somebody because they actually just tell you the way they always would have done it or they don't have a curiosity and an appetite for learning - that's not a modern elder, that's just sort of an older person who's trying to sort of live on the fumes of their past. So I think what's really important is to look at people, especially - let's say your technology is disrupting an industry like health care, and you know health care deserves to be disrupted because nobody likes the industry and all that's true. But that means maybe you should go out and hire a really serious modern elder. From the industry. He's got a big Rolodex and I know you don't know what that means.
Both: [00:47:57] --Laughter--
Chip Conley: [00:48:00] But they also know how the industry works - that person while they are wedded to that if they're wedded to the past and they don't really believe in their technology, then don't hire them. I believed in Bryan and in AirBNB as a disruptor in the lodging industry. Not to actually take over the hotels. The good news is I'm still here. I still own hotels. I just don't manage the company but I still own the real estate of hotels. So I didn't think that AirBNB was going to come in and just ruin the hotel industry. So you know, it was easy for me to be part of a disruptor that I knew was going to still keep me in the industry, and intact in general.
Chip Conley: [00:48:37] But the new way of doing things would actually help maybe improve innovation in an industry. So that's what you want to look for. How do you find those people? Maybe ask your parents, they may be an alma mater in common and you might need to actually go out and literally look for that person.
Chip Conley: [00:48:57] If you've got a venture capitalist or an investor involved you might sort of say to them: "You know what? I want to hire somebody as our head of strategy that I actually want them to frankly be 10 to 15 years older than me." Let's look for that and not only exclusively deals for anybody exclusively based on a demographic. That's a very dangerous path to be going on but you can say that you want some of the following experiences as well. And so. Long story short is that this is part of what a lot of younger people don't think about as a possibility. Partly because they feel like they don't want to hire their parent. Or their preacher. And a lot of times that older person is a parent or a preacher and are lecturing most of the time.
Brian Mohr: [00:49:39] You know, that's fantastic advice. So, I saved what I hope would be the best question for last. Are you ready?
Chip Conley: [00:49:51] Yeah.
Brian Mohr: [00:49:51] --Spanish words that this transcriptionist doesn't understand--
Chip Conley: [00:50:05] So actually give it to me in English.
Brian Mohr: [00:50:10] I'll give it to you in English. And this is about the extent of my Spanish.
Chip Conley: [00:50:16] It sounds like it was about listening potentially, or something.
Brian Mohr: [00:50:19] You're super close. The question is I understand you are learning Spanish - How's it going?
Chip Conley: [00:50:31] Yes - Oh, yes yes. I just answered. Still I'm learning Spanish and surfing in my late sixties and I'm enjoying it. But I mean I've only had six lessons for Spanish & my Spanish is better than my surfing.. Clearly it didn't work.
Both: [00:50:42] Laughter
Brian Mohr: [00:51:01] There ya go. It's my pleasure. What an amazing, amazing conversion - my curious white boy friend Chip. Thank you so much for joining us. And I could chat with you for hours. I really appreciate it. Take good care and good luck to you.
Chip Conley: [00:51:10] All right. Thanks. Bye bye.
Wednesday Dec 13, 2017
Wednesday Dec 13, 2017
As the CEO and co-founder of Upward Projects, a family of restaurant concepts, Lauren Bailey knows firsthand how hard work, passion and grit can help pave the road to success.
There's a lot covered in this episode, including: exploring Lauren’s passion for art and design and how she was able to find her calling in the restaurant business, the philosophy of Upward Projects - putting employees first no matter what, the disruption happening in the restaurant business, and how Lauren and her team are monitoring the trends. Lauren also talks about one of the biggest mistakes she's made, and how she and her team responded to the challenge.
This episode also explores the importance of women in leadership - an interesting topic given the late 2017 explosion of sexual harassment claims happening across entertainment, business and politics - Lauren’s infamous ‘cookie monster’ story is one for the ages, and finally, we touch on Lauren’s inaugural Conscious Capitalism experience and the impact it is having on her and the business.
Listen to this podcast interview and more episodes from the Built On Purpose Podcast at http://yscouts.com/podcast