0:00

You know, every child, we grow up like, hey, I want to be

0:02

successful. Your parents say, go be successful.

0:05

In our society, broadly speaking,

0:08

we have made the definition of success

0:10

how much money you have.

0:12

Work, work, work, work, work, hustle culture,

0:14

entrepreneurial culture. You see all the blogs, you

0:16

see all the tweets. I'm out there hustling, I'm out there

0:18

hustling. Got to make money, got to make money.

0:21

But there is no end to that.

0:23

And so you wind up in a scenario where you

0:26

have made it, you have a wealth event,

0:28

you've got $100 million, but

0:30

that's not enough because

0:33

someone has $500 million.

0:51

Welcome to the Knowledge Project, a podcast

0:53

about mastering the best of what other people have

0:55

already figured out so you can apply their insights

0:58

to your life. I'm your host,

1:01

Shane Parish. If you're

1:03

listening to this, you're missing out. If you'd like

1:05

access to the podcast before public release,

1:07

special episodes that don't appear

1:10

anywhere else, hand edited transcripts,

1:12

or you just want to support the show you love,

1:15

you can join at fs.blogs.com.

1:18

Check out the show notes for a link. My

1:21

guest today is Ray Flemings,

1:23

the founder and CEO of Myra, which

1:26

is building a community for the world's most

1:28

successful people to connect and enjoy

1:30

their lives. Flemings is

1:33

one of the nation's experts on the ultra

1:35

wealthy. His unique perspective

1:37

was honed during his 30-year career

1:40

bridging Silicon Valley, Hollywood,

1:42

and family offices. Flemings was the CEO

1:44

of Particle, which was acquired by Apple in 2010. I

1:48

wanted to talk to Ray because I

1:50

walked away from dinner with

1:51

him one night thinking he might

1:53

be the world's most interesting

1:55

person. He's definitely one of the most interesting

1:58

people I've ever met.

1:59

He's the guy you call with an impossible

2:02

request and he somehow pulls it off

2:04

and makes it happen. His stories

2:07

are legit crazy as you'll hear.

2:10

It's time to listen and

2:12

learn.

2:19

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3:59

Shane. Okay. You told me

4:02

one of the craziest stories I've ever

4:04

heard the first time we met. We were driving back

4:06

from dinner and sharing a car on

4:08

our way to the hotel. And

4:10

you talked to me about how you got some

4:12

ventilators. I'm wondering if you can tell that

4:15

story for everybody. On April

4:17

1st, I believe, 2020, now you've got to

4:20

set the scene. The world is crazy. If

4:23

you remember at that time,

4:24

Manhattan had scores

4:28

of refrigerator trucks, right?

4:30

Because the morgue system

4:32

could even process the bodies, right? This is a very

4:34

scary time. It's not, you know what I mean?

4:36

This is peak unknown COVID, right?

4:39

No one knows where this thing is heading. And we get

4:41

a call from Governor Cuomo's office. And

4:44

the call was that the state

4:46

of New York needed ventilators. So

4:48

in my company, we have a practice

4:51

where we take on special projects, things

4:53

which are incredibly difficult

4:55

to do. Someone

4:56

say impossible things that are really, really hard.

4:58

We'll get those phone calls. And this

5:01

was one of them. And so,

5:04

you know, we got two things that day. We

5:06

got a wire from the state of New York for $45.9 million

5:11

and a phone call from the FBI.

5:13

So

5:15

at this time, you remember there was all these, you

5:17

know, these crazy

5:20

people who were essentially defrauding governments

5:22

over medical supplies and PPE. And

5:24

so the call from the FBI was basically to let you know,

5:26

we're watching. Right? And

5:29

so it's like, go out here and try to get these ventilators.

5:32

And you're also under you're being essentially watched

5:34

by the FBI while this stuff is going on at the same time.

5:36

And so I think

5:39

the task was we had 72 hours to

5:41

get, I

5:42

can't remember the exact math, but a couple of thousand

5:44

ventilators, whatever the math worked out to be and

5:47

get them into Manhattan and

5:49

to get them out of China. Well, there was

5:51

a problem. It was never really

5:54

public news, but China

5:56

had embargoed the distribution of

5:59

the government. contribution or sale

6:01

of ventilators to America. They

6:04

were kind of angered by the kung-flu

6:06

comments and these other things, and they were like,

6:09

no, no ventilators. And

6:11

so the reason that the state of New York couldn't just

6:13

go and buy them direct is for this reason, right?

6:16

Now, these are life-saving instruments. It

6:19

sounds like we're setting up to

6:21

go and run drugs or something, right? We're literally

6:23

just seeking ventilators. But at that moment

6:26

in time,

6:27

those devices were the most

6:29

valuable commodity on earth. Every

6:32

hour it seemed like the price on these things

6:34

was going. So the week before

6:37

we took that project on, I think the average price of those

6:39

devices was less than $6,000.

6:43

By the end of the 10 days or so that

6:45

we worked on this project, the price

6:48

reached nearly $400,000 for a ventilator.

6:53

Everybody needed one. Governments were willing

6:55

to pay kind of whatever it took to get them. And

6:58

whenever a thing is that valuable, it invites

7:01

all sorts of

7:02

criminal elements, fraud,

7:05

you know, every crazy thing that you could ever

7:07

want to have happen. So at the end of the day, it

7:10

was a complete mess.

7:11

We wound up hiring a medical

7:13

device inspector locally in

7:16

China or a group of them to

7:18

basically run from warehouse to warehouse to make

7:20

sure we weren't buying rocks in a box and

7:23

sit on the ventilators physically and kind of tape

7:25

them down as we found

7:28

different allotments of them.

7:30

We made some arrangements

7:32

to have them essentially brought

7:35

into the United States through essentially

7:38

smuggled out of China and

7:40

then

7:42

only to find out that the state of New York ultimately did

7:44

not want the ventilators. I had no idea

7:46

why I still kind of don't know why. I

7:49

would note as a footnote that,

7:51

you know, a year and a half or so ago it came

7:54

out that the, you know, the

7:56

state of New York had kind of falsified

7:58

the death numbers. from the nursing

8:01

homes and things of that sort. But

8:03

a very, very interesting experience to go get 2000

8:06

ventilators in the middle of COVID and then have the

8:08

ventilators turned down after doing the work. So

8:12

yeah, that's a that's that story.

8:14

That is one of the craziest stories I've

8:16

ever heard. In a lot of ways,

8:18

it relates to what you do now.

8:21

You make the impossible sort of possible.

8:23

Can you tell me a little bit about that? Sure.

8:26

Myria is a community and concierge

8:28

for people who are super successful. And

8:31

in the course of, you

8:33

know, people come to us because they want

8:36

enhanced access to relationships,

8:40

people that they don't know, and to things

8:42

that they want in their life. And we help them get those things.

8:45

And I think all people want to feel

8:47

special.

8:48

Certainly successful people want to feel special.

8:51

So accessing things that other folks can't

8:54

readily get their hands on is at the heart of our business.

8:56

Is there a spectrum of sort of concierge

8:59

services or access?

9:02

The easiest way to think about what we

9:04

do is this five step spectrum

9:06

where to the left things are simple and

9:09

to the right, they're difficult

9:11

to impossible. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. On

9:14

the left, anything that you can purchase on

9:16

a web browser, you want to rent a home

9:19

to stay in when you go to LA. Well, there's

9:21

Airbnb for that. You want to buy a ticket to Coachella,

9:24

go to Coachella.com. You've got a VIP pass.

9:27

Number two is hard. These are

9:29

things where maybe they're available online,

9:31

but they're still difficult for you to get your hands on.

9:34

So these would be things like booking a private

9:36

jet.

9:37

Yeah, you can book a private jet online, but it's so

9:40

confusing and so much brain damage from a booking.

9:42

Most people use a broker or a travel person

9:44

to do it. Number three, we call

9:46

off market.

9:47

And so these are things that sellers

9:50

want to sell, but they never list or make available

9:52

on a artist credentials to go see

9:54

your favorite band and all sorts

9:56

of other things that are never on public sale.

9:59

Category four would be. stuff that's hard, walking

10:01

red carpet at the Met Gala or

10:03

being on stage with your favorite artist, etc,

10:06

etc. And then the

10:08

fifth category are the

10:10

impossible requests like the ventilator chase

10:13

or all of these other sorts of wild

10:15

and interesting things that we get caught on to do.

10:18

What's another example of something

10:20

on that extremely difficult, nearly impossible

10:22

thing that you guys have pulled off? We had a client

10:25

who was vacationing in Europe and he

10:27

wanted armed private security in a

10:30

nation that did not allow for armed private

10:32

security.

10:33

The only people who could carry a gun in that country were

10:35

on duty military and on duty essentially

10:38

federal police. The

10:40

client had some security concerns.

10:42

He was on vacation and

10:45

we essentially got security

10:48

an exception made by the government to treat him like a

10:50

diplomat. And the

10:52

president of the nation actually gave a member

10:54

of his own, the equivalent of the secret service

10:56

of his own security detail to secure a private

10:59

American citizen. I mean, the degree of difficulty

11:01

on getting stuff like that done is kind of

11:04

off the chart.

11:07

What I find fascinating about problems like

11:09

this because you're solving a problem effectively,

11:12

they're

11:12

not really repeatable. In those

11:14

two instances, in the security

11:16

instance, they are repeatable in the ventilator. Obviously,

11:18

that was kind of a once in

11:20

a lifetime, hopefully, sort

11:23

of global pandemic. But

11:25

a lot of what we do, our business

11:27

is more repeatable than it seems. It's

11:30

just not openly commoditizable.

11:33

Can you expand on that a little? Yeah. So

11:35

the secret of our business is that we're not

11:37

just randomly going out trying to do

11:39

an impossible thing for a random person

11:41

with a lot of money.

11:43

We're actually matchmaking.

11:47

We work very closely with our clients to understand them, to

11:49

understand what they want, and to understand

11:51

the value exchange. A lot of things are in

11:53

that impossible number five category because

11:56

people, it's about

11:58

more than money.

11:59

certain non-financial considerations like

12:02

who is the buyer. And by understanding

12:04

what the seller wants and how to make

12:06

that happen, the levers, and by understanding

12:10

out of all of our clients who the right clients

12:12

are for that thing, we

12:14

can make really unique things happen for them. Does

12:17

wealth become hollow at some point? Or

12:19

money, I guess, is a different way to word this.

12:21

Does money become hollow at the

12:24

point where you can go out and buy anything you want

12:26

that's available for sale? Money

12:28

has been proven

12:30

to have some negative

12:33

effects on people. We become

12:35

the richer we become. We

12:37

become insensitive. Wealth is also

12:40

isolating. The rich become very,

12:42

very insular. Billionaire

12:45

is becoming a dirty word. It's becoming a pejorative.

12:48

People are very, very concerned. And

12:51

so yeah, I think wealth can

12:53

have several different effects

12:55

on you. We think that when people

12:58

get to a point where

13:00

they have everything that they want financially, they

13:02

move kind of out of this luxury mindset

13:04

and into a place of what we

13:06

call post luxury,

13:08

where it's not necessarily about

13:10

the nice thing. It's

13:13

about experiences. It's about connection.

13:16

It's about people. And we're

13:19

building an organization to help folks find

13:22

other people of like mind. So in

13:24

dealing with this subset of the population,

13:26

is there a difference in your mind between

13:29

being rich and being wealthy?

13:31

There is. I think that every

13:34

child, we grow up like, hey, I want to be successful.

13:36

Your parents say, go be successful.

13:38

And we chase success. In

13:41

our society, broadly speaking,

13:44

we have made the definition of success how

13:46

much money you have.

13:48

And so that's led

13:50

to work, work, work, work, work,

13:53

hustle culture, entrepreneurial culture. You

13:55

see all the blogs. You see all the tweets. I'm

13:57

out there hustling. They're hustling. Got to make

13:59

money.

13:59

make money, but there is no end

14:02

to that.

14:03

Right? And so you wind up in a scenario where

14:06

you have made it, you have a wealth

14:08

event. You've got a hundred million dollars,

14:11

but that's not enough because someone

14:13

has $500 million. You

14:16

become a billionaire. That's not enough

14:18

because somebody's got 10 billion. There's

14:20

an element of like happy if, right?

14:22

Like happy when I think if it

14:24

is happy if and happy when I'll

14:26

be happy. If I can get the promotion, I'll

14:28

be happy. If I reach $10 million,

14:31

I'll be happy when I get to $20

14:33

million. And then at that point that

14:35

you get there, your baseline

14:37

for happiness just totally changes and

14:39

then all of a sudden you're looking forward, but

14:42

there's a weird sort of element where I wonder

14:44

if it's the same drive that

14:46

got you to achieve those goals

14:49

that is the same trigger that's got

14:52

you looking forward to the next set of goals.

14:54

I think there's something, uh, there's a great truth

14:56

about that. I agree with you on that.

14:59

So how do you think about rich

15:01

versus wealthy? We think that we need

15:03

to broaden the definition of what success looks like

15:05

to be more holistic, to not just be

15:08

money. And, you know, we are all

15:10

socially connected.

15:12

Have you ever had Nicholas Christakis

15:14

on as a guest? He wrote a great

15:16

book called Connected. You know, we

15:18

know that we can catch COVID. We were talking about,

15:20

oh, we know we can catch flu, but you

15:22

know, he, Nicholas is a world-renowned

15:26

academic and just great human. And he's a Sterling

15:28

professor at Yale and he's done all this fantastic

15:30

research. And basically, um,

15:33

you can also catch obesity. You

15:35

can catch smoking. You can catch

15:37

suicide, depression. You can

15:39

also catch happiness. Uh,

15:42

you can catch sadness, you know, all of these

15:44

things. And so I think

15:46

because society has kind of placed

15:49

this ideal, go get rich is

15:51

the number one thing, and

15:53

there is social contagion essentially,

15:55

right? This idea has spread that

15:57

we're chasing that thing.

15:59

I believe if we broaden that definition,

16:02

if we set a more holistic

16:04

example of what success could look like,

16:07

what if the richest people in the world were also the nicest?

16:10

What if the richest people in the world were also the kindest?

16:13

What if the world's wealthiest humans

16:14

were disproportionately charitable?

16:17

Not most charitable because they have the most

16:20

money and giving away one or two or three, but

16:22

far and away, massive percentages

16:25

of their income. What sort of societal impact would

16:27

that have? Right now, if

16:29

you went to, I imagine, school-age children

16:31

and asked them, tell me

16:33

what philanthropy looks like.

16:35

They might draw or paint many pictures

16:37

of what philanthropy looks like, but they wouldn't describe

16:39

it as cool. In making this idea

16:42

of giving back and helping other people cool

16:44

and sexy, that's really where I think

16:46

we have to go with it. I like

16:49

that

16:49

approach. I think that that would be really good

16:51

for society. As you were saying,

16:54

the hustle culture,

16:56

it also had me thinking about

16:59

how it relates to our connectedness

17:01

through Instagram and Facebook and everything

17:04

else where what we do is we work

17:06

really hard to achieve these goals that

17:08

we think we're playing by somebody else's scoreboard.

17:11

Because I think unconsciously, somebody's

17:13

told us this is what we need to do, and then we

17:16

play to that scoreboard

17:18

only two later in life to realize we played

17:20

to the wrong scoreboard. Because

17:22

we're playing to that scoreboard, then we want to show

17:24

people we're successful. We post

17:26

the new car, we post the vacation, which

17:29

causes unhappiness in other people too,

17:32

because it used to be we were living

17:34

on a street. If somebody got

17:36

a new car, you would know, but that's the extent

17:39

of what you're exposed to. Now

17:41

you're exposed to every vacation, every

17:43

sort of car, all these people who are-

17:45

The best moments in everyone else's life.

17:48

They're not moments of people

17:50

who are like you or just one level above

17:52

you. They're moments of people who

17:54

are just well beyond the gap

17:56

between rich and

17:58

the money that

18:00

you can afford and the things that you can afford is

18:02

you're not exposed to people that are like

18:05

you anymore. You're exposed to people who are very

18:07

different than you. How

18:08

do you think about that? I agree with

18:10

you. That is part of

18:12

the problem. And I think all of the studies are pretty

18:15

clear that it has a negative

18:17

effect on people. It's like a slot machine.

18:20

Every time you open your phone,

18:22

you've got the notification and the uncertain

18:26

what you're going to see. It's addicting people to it.

18:28

And I also think it gives a false impression.

18:31

So even folks who are way wealthier than you are, they're still

18:33

only posting the great moments of their lives.

18:36

They're

18:36

still humans. They've got crap moments

18:38

in their lives just like everyone else, but they're not posting that.

18:40

And so you're seeing this highlight

18:43

reel of life. And so you're not just

18:45

looking at economic inequality. You're

18:48

also looking at the best

18:50

of the best of the best moments in anyone's life. And

18:53

the super majority of your life isn't like that. The

18:55

super majority of all of our lives isn't like that.

18:57

But you're scrolling and all you're seeing

19:00

are these extraordinary moments in

19:02

everybody else's life. And it weighs down

19:04

on people, I think.

19:05

How can it not? When I think of

19:07

wealth versus rich, I think

19:10

wealth has a language and it's not

19:12

money. And

19:13

that language is sort of connectedness,

19:17

relationships,

19:19

health, all of that to

19:21

me goes into wealth. So does money if

19:23

you have enough, right? And enough is how

19:25

do you define enough? You know, there's the great story,

19:28

Kurt Vonnegut

19:29

eulogized Joseph Heller

19:32

who wrote Catch 22. And

19:34

in his eulogy, he told a story about

19:36

he and Heller visiting a billionaire's island. You

19:38

probably heard this in all the great literature

19:40

you have behind the wall. But the story goes something

19:42

like Vonnegut teases

19:45

Joseph Heller by saying, do you know that

19:47

our billionaire host made

19:49

more money today than

19:51

you made in all the copies

19:54

of Catch 22 you've ever sold since

19:56

publication? And Heller said, yeah,

19:59

I know that. But

20:00

I have something that the billionaire will

20:03

never have." And Vonnegut asks

20:05

what? And Heller says, enough.

20:08

I have enough. I believe

20:10

that people broadly don't

20:12

understand the difference in

20:14

large numbers. We don't have an intuitive grasp

20:16

of what it means, because

20:18

what is that, a thousand books behind us or 500? It's

20:21

hard for me to just look at it at a glance and

20:23

know. And when you get into really big numbers,

20:26

millions and tens of millions and billions, we

20:28

just can't process it. We

20:30

can't intuit it. And that leads us to

20:32

just not knowing what these things mean or not

20:34

having a grasp of what it means. So

20:38

sharing the difference between or developing

20:40

an understanding around what is the difference between a millionaire and

20:42

a billionaire is important. And I think the clearest

20:44

example of that is to use time. Nearly

20:47

all of us have gotten a paycheck in our life.

20:49

If you're paid biweekly,

20:52

you spend a million seconds of your life every 12 and

20:54

a half days. You

20:56

spend a billion seconds of your life every 32 years,

20:59

roughly. So

21:01

the difference between a million

21:03

and a billion is the difference

21:05

between a two-week paycheck

21:07

and your entire career in time.

21:10

If that's the difference between a million and a billion, and

21:13

we're chasing one billion, two billion, 20

21:16

billion, 30 billion, 50 billion, six, what is

21:18

the point? At

21:21

some point, we need to be pushing those things

21:23

further and further and helping people. I also

21:25

loved Warren Buffett's quote in his documentary.

21:28

They basically said, hey, Warren, you were

21:30

kind of famously not very charitable

21:33

early in your career. Why?

21:35

And his response was along the lines of, well,

21:38

I believe I could compound money as well or better

21:40

than anybody in the world. And my

21:43

goal was to grow the pot

21:45

as big as I could possibly grow it and

21:47

then give away the maximum amount

21:49

when I was done.

21:51

And the interviewer says, well,

21:53

why did that change?

21:55

And I said, well, it changed because I

21:57

discovered that the problems of humanity are

21:59

compact. faster than I can

22:01

compound money." And

22:05

that led to him, I think at this time he

22:08

has given away the largest percentage of his fortune

22:10

during his lifetime than any other person after

22:13

realizing. That's a powerful

22:15

sort of realization. One of the things

22:17

is you were talking about millions and billions and how

22:19

we lose the concept of what that

22:22

means.

22:23

We also lose it in society. It's

22:25

not just with people who have

22:27

billions. It's when governments announced

22:30

they're spending billions of dollars,

22:32

it's just become sort of a million.

22:35

We don't understand the context of what that is.

22:37

I've often wondered why they don't do it per capita.

22:41

And then that would explain to people in very

22:43

relatable terms how much per person

22:45

is being spent on X, Y, and Z.

22:48

And I think that they don't do it because they actually

22:50

know people don't grasp these concepts and we don't

22:52

teach it in school. And I think part

22:54

of the reason we don't teach them in schools is we

22:57

have this sort of incentive where we don't want people

22:59

to understand the difference between a

23:01

million and a billion. You know, I would

23:03

go a little further. I would

23:06

actually say that it's

23:08

not that we don't want people to

23:10

understand, it's that we

23:12

don't understand. And I'm meaning the big

23:15

we, the so-called

23:17

leaders. There's this idea that

23:20

there's this

23:21

group of really smart people

23:24

who have their hand on the wheel guiding

23:26

the planet left or right or kind of

23:29

making all of these decisions. I

23:32

actually don't agree with that. I believe

23:34

that the systems are too big.

23:37

If you ask me, and I know this is not a political show,

23:39

the problem is not Trump

23:41

or Biden.

23:43

The problem is not Obama or Bush.

23:45

The problem in America is with the presidency

23:48

itself. You know, the idea

23:50

of the presidency was developed

23:52

so long ago. Hey, let's elect our

23:54

king. Well, when

23:57

the Constitution was ratified, a human

23:59

being in never traveled faster than

24:01

a horse could carry them. The world was much smaller.

24:04

It was easier to manage. So here

24:06

we are saying, let's pick one person who

24:10

can run our military and

24:12

educate our children, run the

24:14

economy and healthcare. And

24:18

that person doesn't exist. There is no

24:20

human being that smart who can

24:22

do a good job on all of these things.

24:24

It's far beyond their reach.

24:28

And I think we've got to

24:30

recognize

24:33

that the system is getting

24:36

to a point where it doesn't

24:38

make sense even to the people who are operating

24:41

the system. In my business,

24:43

Silicon Valley Bank imploded. I'll give you an example.

24:47

Silicon Valley Bank imploded and people

24:49

woke up to this reality that, oh my goodness,

24:52

a deposit in

24:54

a bank is actually not

24:56

a deposit. It's an unsecured

24:59

loan to the bank. Above 250K, right? Right.

25:02

So even that number, the FDIC,

25:04

the

25:05

FDIC has about $130 billion. And

25:09

if everybody withdrew their money in this? This

25:11

is not even everybody. They've got $130 billion of

25:14

insurance money.

25:16

How much money do US depositors have in US bank? 20

25:19

trillion. So how's $130

25:22

billion ensuring $20

25:24

trillion? The

25:26

entire economic system, we think

25:29

it sits on money and people will

25:31

sit there, these policy walks and they'll talk about

25:33

numbers and all these things. The

25:35

economy is based on trust.

25:38

And when that trust breaks down,

25:40

you see what you're seeing

25:43

in our society today. When the rich

25:45

aren't trusting the poor and the whites aren't

25:47

trusting the blacks and the Republicans aren't trusting,

25:49

you begin to see this fraying

25:52

of the edges, the things that you see in

25:54

San Francisco right now with

25:56

all of these things going on. It all

25:58

actually sits on...

25:59

a lack of trust or an erosion

26:02

of trust, this fraying of

26:04

the American experiment.

26:06

How do we rebuild trust? South Africa

26:08

did something really interesting. Here was a, you

26:10

know, a community thanks to apartheid, which

26:13

there had been a lot of wrongs done.

26:16

You could look at examples throughout history where, you

26:18

know, when one group has been done wrong, if

26:21

they come to power, they do the

26:23

same things essentially to the other group that was done

26:25

to them and back and forth and back and forth throughout human

26:27

history. South Africa took a different approach.

26:29

They instituted something called the Truth

26:31

and Reconciliation Commission.

26:33

And the basic idea was that if you, that

26:36

apartheid was wrong and people were wronged,

26:39

we've learned from it and we're going to do better as a nation. And

26:41

if you committed a crime under

26:44

apartheid, come forward,

26:47

admit your crime and apply

26:49

for amnesty by admitting it. But

26:52

if you didn't, and they could later prove

26:54

that you had committed the crime,

26:57

then you could stand to account for

26:59

it. So it was this encouraging, this sort

27:01

of day of reckoning around

27:04

all of the historical wrongs, a

27:08

program to kind of make those things right

27:10

and then move forward. So

27:12

your question was, how do we

27:15

start to restore that trust? So

27:18

that's actually part of our mission

27:20

at Myriah. You know, when we say that the world's

27:22

most successful people should be,

27:24

you know, that we're a community and a concierge,

27:28

we want them to be having more fun. We

27:30

want them to be spending more money. And

27:32

it sounds very snooty. It sounds

27:34

very exclusive until you understand that

27:37

we believe in inclusive

27:39

exclusivity,

27:40

right? So success is not just

27:42

money. So our members are not just

27:45

rich. They're also people who are changing the

27:47

world in many other walks of life,

27:49

very great academics and accomplished business people

27:51

and artists. And solving

27:54

the economic problems

27:57

we need to all. kind

28:01

of do our part in it. That goes back

28:03

to, you know, what if the wealthiest

28:05

people in the world were also the nicest? What if they also

28:08

were the most charitable? Well, if you're having fun

28:10

in your life and you're enjoying your life and you're coming into

28:12

contact with people

28:14

and it's not insular and it's more fun,

28:17

you're seeing and kind of touching the

28:19

problems, right? I mean, our

28:21

primary

28:23

service for our customers on the concierge side,

28:26

of course, is human-powered services

28:29

and being nice

28:31

to and tipping well and

28:33

making sure the people who are serving you are

28:36

taken care of, it's a rounding error on the balance

28:38

sheets for most of our clients. So why not do

28:40

it? Because when you really, really think about it,

28:43

let's say

28:45

you and I hit the jackpot, build a great business

28:47

or hit the lottery, whatever our path

28:49

to success or money is, we have

28:51

all the money we can dream of. We go and buy a 70

28:54

million dollar G6.

28:57

How many

28:59

people have to wake up that morning

29:02

so that my plane can take off? Somebody's

29:05

got to fuel it. Somebody

29:07

had to drive a truck to get it there. Somebody's

29:09

got to be in that air traffic control tower. Somebody's

29:11

got to have a baggage. You got to have pilots

29:14

in the cockpit and that's just

29:16

here where you're taking off from.

29:19

Somebody halfway around the world

29:21

have to also get up and do the same thing.

29:24

Well those people who are getting up to fuel

29:26

your plane, they have got

29:28

to earn a living wage because

29:31

at the point that they don't learn the living wage, then

29:33

you have a problem. The whole system falls apart.

29:36

Right. Then you see what you're seeing in America,

29:38

the tent cities. You have people who are like,

29:41

I've worked 60 hours this week and cannot

29:43

eat and pay rent.

29:44

Why am I working? I worked

29:47

a 60-hour work week in America

29:49

and I am on public assistance. Why

29:51

work at all? This goes back to the

29:53

whole, there are three people in America with more

29:56

money than the bottom 50% of Americans.

29:59

Wealth is getting concentrated into so few hands

30:01

that it becomes dangerous. And you

30:03

never know where it starts. You never know the

30:05

moment of ignition. Think about

30:08

the Arab Spring. The forces

30:10

which led to it had been underway

30:13

for decades. Right? All

30:16

this upheaval and people were able to suppress

30:18

it, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. One

30:20

day, a person whose

30:22

name, none of us will even remember his name,

30:25

he had done everything society had told

30:28

him. I think he had two degrees from

30:30

grade school and

30:32

he's there selling fruit in a fruit stand.

30:35

And he's like, fuck it. He

30:37

self-immolates, he sets himself on fire, which

30:40

literally was the spark for

30:43

the Arab Spring because it touched so many

30:45

other people there who were like in this position

30:47

of like, I don't trust these people. I don't

30:50

trust this system. I'm

30:52

an optimist. I want you to hear me loud and clear. I

30:55

actually believe that you

30:57

and I are having this conversation

30:59

because at the end of the day, the universe bends

31:01

towards positive and most people want

31:03

to do the right thing. And sure, we've got a lot of crazy

31:06

things that we need to address. And I just

31:08

want to promote honest and open

31:10

conversation around those things so that

31:12

we can get there the fun and

31:15

interesting and happy way, as

31:17

opposed to the sort of, you

31:19

know, powder keg situations that I think being

31:22

divisive and not talking openly about these

31:24

things promotes. I want to come

31:26

back to something we said earlier and then

31:30

which was trust and

31:32

circles. One of the things that we

31:34

both noticed and talked about a little bit beforehand

31:37

is how

31:39

sometimes the wealthier you are, the smaller

31:41

your circle is. And not only is it smaller,

31:44

but it gets smaller every year. And it's

31:46

really hard to get into that

31:48

circle for an outsider. Can you talk to

31:50

me about that and what you've seen and experienced?

31:52

Right. So it starts really

31:55

and truly with the successful person being focused,

31:58

right? So...

31:59

Great financial success.

32:02

I'm not talking about heirs,

32:04

but entrepreneurs, people that are out there building

32:06

businesses, it takes a lot out of you,

32:08

right? And we are all only given 24 hours a day. And

32:12

if you've built some giant thing to give you a

32:14

bunch of money, you've spent the majority of

32:16

your time doing that thing. And so whatever

32:18

that thing is, it's just like one vertical, one

32:20

business. And so that in and of itself

32:23

is insular, right? So you're focused

32:25

on that thing. You're missing the kids'

32:27

ball games. You're not on the PTA board. You're

32:30

at work, right? So it kind of starts there.

32:34

Having a bunch of money has some awesome

32:36

parts to it, right? The more money you have,

32:39

the more stuff you can buy, the

32:41

more places you can get, right? There's some cool

32:44

parts to it. But then there are some

32:46

downsides.

32:47

Most things are directly related

32:50

to money. The more money you have, it's going up. But

32:53

then a lot of the personal pieces are inversely

32:55

related. So the more money you have,

32:57

the fewer people you can trust, the more

33:00

money you have, the harder it is for a person

33:02

to look you in the eye and tell you the truth, just tell

33:04

you things that you don't wanna hear. And so

33:06

that circle to your point, just keep shrinking

33:09

and shrinking and shrinking and

33:11

shrinking. That is one of the things that we

33:13

hope to correct with the community

33:16

aspect of Myria in

33:19

exposing

33:20

people who are super successful to other

33:22

interesting human beings that are doing amazing

33:25

things. Contact theory, right?

33:27

Just

33:28

by coming into contact with other

33:31

Myria members and the service people who

33:33

make all the magic happen around the world for

33:35

our clients, we think it

33:37

helps everyone to

33:39

be more successful and happier ultimately.

33:42

There's two things there that I wanna dive

33:44

into a little bit. One was the

33:46

often we become successful because

33:49

we've focused on one

33:51

vertical.

33:52

That vertical is usually money, career

33:55

success. We're climbing one ladder at

33:58

the exclusion of kids.

33:59

family. And so it's interesting to me

34:02

because we often look up to people and we're like, oh man,

34:05

I wish I was this person. And then

34:07

if you dove into it, you'd find out that they're an incredibly

34:10

unbalanced person. They have

34:12

extreme strengths and extreme

34:14

weaknesses. I mean, there's more

34:17

than a couple of billionaires that I'm sure we both know

34:19

in the United States that couldn't drive

34:21

their kids to school if they had to, because they don't know where

34:23

their kids go to school. They don't know how to get there

34:26

from their house.

34:27

And so we look at this and we hold these people up

34:29

and we think, oh, I want to be

34:31

like that person. But we're picking one vertical

34:33

out of that. We don't want to trade all of our problems

34:36

for their problems. Right. Well, this is the whole

34:39

changing the definition of success, changing

34:41

what it looks like. What does it mean? So

34:44

for us, if success is money,

34:46

this goes back to that idea of the Arab

34:49

Spring person. He did what society

34:51

told him to do, get an education. Well,

34:53

he didn't just get one degree, he got two. You

34:55

play by the rules, you

34:57

do what you're told,

34:59

and then the shock of your life. You don't

35:01

have what you thought would be there. And so we're

35:04

looking at success as money, and

35:06

even the rich are getting all of the money

35:08

and are like, well, I thought happiness was

35:11

here. Well, I thought community, and

35:14

it's just not because the definition

35:16

was always wrong. All of these

35:19

concepts, we were talking about America's

35:21

system of government or the

35:23

presidency being an outdated concept, even

35:27

the economy. Adam Smith wrote Wealth of Nations

35:30

the same year, 1776, that

35:33

America became a nation, right? 250

35:36

some odd years ago.

35:38

And the capitalism

35:40

that Adam Smith articulated

35:43

in Wealth of Nations is not the

35:45

capitalism that we practice today, nowhere

35:48

near it. In fact, by

35:52

today's definition, Adam Smith would be labeled a

35:54

socialist or communist if you actually

35:56

read Adam Smith's quotes in the book. He

35:58

says, the rich

35:59

should not be taxed in proportion

36:02

to their income, but something

36:04

more than, right? I mean, there's

36:06

all these crazy sorts of sounding

36:09

things like, oh, no, responsible capitalist

36:11

would, but capitalism

36:15

and democracy, all of these things are meant to

36:17

serve the people and

36:20

to hopefully make us happier and more

36:22

productive and lead better lives. I

36:27

also don't believe in this idea of a

36:30

James Bond super villain. Pick

36:34

whoever you think of as the worst billionaire

36:37

in the world. Were they alive in 1776? No,

36:42

they didn't invent capitalism. They were born into

36:44

it just like us. And if

36:46

there's a problem with the game, if there's a problem

36:48

with inequality, then

36:51

let's all work together to change

36:53

the game that we all agreed to play instead

36:55

of blaming the people who were playing it. I

37:00

believe that they are

37:02

us. We have this

37:04

idea that like,

37:06

this conspiratorial sorts of things, someone's got

37:08

their hand on the wheel, but no one has their

37:11

hand on the wheel. Do you think if we got

37:13

rid of multi-generational

37:16

wealth in the sense that you

37:18

could accumulate as much as you want during your life,

37:20

but when you pass on, it

37:23

all goes away. It would solve a massive

37:26

amount of the problems. So

37:29

would property records. Why

37:32

do you own the land past your

37:34

natural life? So,

37:37

America obviously was settled. There

37:41

was a homesteading act and

37:43

the American government gave over 10%

37:46

of the land of the United States

37:48

to people, but not all people. That

37:51

created the first inequality. It

37:53

caused wealth compounds and

37:55

the nation has protected the property records.

37:59

A generation is between.

37:59

10 and 25 years, 10 and 30 years, let's

38:02

kind of split the difference, call it 25.

38:04

There's

38:04

been about 10 generations in America.

38:07

From the foundation until 1978, if you were

38:09

black in

38:11

America, you could not fairly

38:15

compound money. 202 years

38:17

out of the 10 generations, right?

38:22

So literally my son, and I'm

38:24

not that old, is the first generation of

38:27

black folks in America that could actually

38:30

begin compounding money

38:32

in the way that other people

38:34

were allowed to in the nation. For generations

38:37

before. From the founding of the country.

38:40

Since we got there, right? From the start until 1978,

38:43

I was five years old when that occurred. And then specifically 1978,

38:46

because you had

38:48

the Fair Housing Act and all of the associated

38:50

lending protections to go in place. And

38:53

so it took literally that long, 1776

38:56

to 1978. Now, federal taxes started in 1913,

39:00

whatever that is, 65

39:03

years, and African Americans are

39:06

paying federal taxes for

39:08

benefits that they do not receive. And

39:12

it compounds this sort of

39:14

wild inequality, generation

39:17

after generation after generation. And

39:20

it's at the heart of eroding the trust,

39:23

right? At the end of the day, people

39:26

want to go to work. They want to obey

39:28

the rules of society. I've paid my taxes.

39:30

I've gone to school. I've done nothing wrong.

39:33

I voted. I've been a good person. And

39:36

there is nothing here for it. You know, that

39:38

system,

39:39

you know, as it just keeps going, going, going,

39:41

going, breaks down. Now,

39:44

the founding fathers in their wisdom gave us

39:46

a system, voting, to

39:49

change it. I

39:50

made that statistic earlier that three people

39:53

are richer than 165 million. Well, what is, what's the most

39:58

votes ever cast in a US federal election? 81 million

40:01

votes. Literally at

40:04

the next federal election, if

40:06

they so chose, those 165 million people could vote

40:10

their way out of poverty. You could tax their

40:12

way out of poverty unilaterally, but

40:15

there's too much division in the nation.

40:19

There's no honest fact-based conversations

40:21

to talk about how we solve these problems

40:24

and it just leads to this sort of spiraling,

40:27

spiraling, spiraling, when does it end? I

40:29

would tell you that even my wealthiest clients

40:32

don't like it.

40:36

They played by the rules of the game. They succeeded

40:39

and they want

40:41

to change it, but no one person, even

40:43

if one person said, hey, I'm a billionaire, here's a billion dollar,

40:45

I'm going to leave it on the street corner in the poorest neighborhood

40:47

in town, go run with it. Whoever

40:49

wants it is all yours. What's

40:51

the US federal budget? Tens

40:54

of dollars, that one billion dollars is not going

40:56

to address anything.

40:58

I mean, sure, the people who quote

41:01

unquote hit the lottery that day and found the money

41:03

would do better, but it won't fix anything systemically.

41:07

This is why we believe we've got to create groups

41:09

of people

41:11

who are having more fun, who are having these

41:13

discussions, who are being

41:15

inclusively exclusive. So

41:18

hey, I'm financially successful. Hey, I'm a great artist.

41:20

Hey, I'm financially successful. I'm

41:23

tops in music. Hey, and bringing

41:26

those people together, not in an accusatory

41:28

way, not in an agenda sort of way,

41:30

but kind of moving society

41:33

forward in that way. That's interesting because you

41:35

don't just accept anybody. You have an onboarding

41:37

process.

41:38

And through that process, you're getting to know each

41:40

other. They're getting to know you, you're getting to know them.

41:43

I'm wondering if you can go through some of the questions

41:45

that you ask people, and

41:47

I'm sure our audience would value

41:49

going through these as well in terms of how do I

41:51

get to know myself and where I'm at?

41:53

Yeah, I think one of the great opportunities

41:56

is to choose happiness today

41:58

and to choose a broader

42:00

definition of what we think of as success.

42:03

So when we sit down with people, we send

42:05

them a questionnaire, and the questionnaire includes a bunch

42:07

of different sections. There's a fun section,

42:10

because again, I believe if

42:12

people are having more fun in their life, we're all human

42:15

beings. Who doesn't want to enjoy their life, right?

42:17

Like everyone wants to be having a good time to

42:19

feel good, to feel special, have a great time.

42:21

And so there's all of the bucket

42:24

list questions, if you will, right? What's the stuff that

42:26

you've done? What's the stuff that you've

42:28

been wanting to do your whole life? What are the

42:30

things that you're curious about? And

42:32

then we get into more of the philosophical things.

42:35

Imagine you're at your 80th birthday,

42:38

or whatever late life birthday you want it to

42:40

be. Everyone you love is

42:42

gathered around, and they say, they're

42:45

gonna toast you. What would those closest

42:47

to you say about you?

42:49

Now, if that birthday party was held tonight,

42:52

what would they say about you today? And

42:56

if there's a Delta, what do you want to do about it? If

42:58

your doctor called you right now, it was like,

43:01

you've got one year to live,

43:03

what would you be doing anything

43:05

different than you're doing

43:08

today? And if so, why? And

43:11

just really asking these sorts of probing questions,

43:14

who matters in your life, talk to us about your community.

43:17

And so it kind of starts at the me,

43:20

because we're all looking at ourselves.

43:23

And then we try to broaden it to

43:25

get our clients to kind of look outside

43:27

of themselves, and to start

43:30

thinking about,

43:32

obviously their family first, then

43:34

their community, and then kind of the broader

43:37

issues.

43:38

I think one of the interesting things that COVID

43:40

did is it disconnected us from our community

43:43

on mass.

43:45

Locked us in our house, delivery

43:47

services, we don't have to interact with people, we're

43:49

not forced to see

43:51

people who are more or less successful

43:53

than we are. We don't see the full

43:55

spectrum of society. And because we don't,

43:58

we think the world looks a lot like. us, we

44:01

become disconnected and selfish as

44:03

a result of that.

44:05

I agree with you. I would argue

44:07

that you see it in music.

44:10

I am old enough to

44:12

remember how black people

44:14

in America acted before hip hop.

44:18

And I'm going to sound like a boomer. I already

44:20

know people are going to be like, what? Dr.

44:23

Dre. Everybody can see Dr. Dre

44:25

in their head. Before Dr. Dre

44:28

was in a black ball cap and the NWA

44:30

look, Dr. Dre was in World

44:35

Class Wrecking Crew, a sequins

44:37

jacket with long jerry curl. Like

44:39

it was a completely different

44:42

thing. I'm the first hip hop generation.

44:44

There would be no such thing as hip hop if my generation didn't like

44:46

it. So I'm not criticizing hip hop in any

44:48

way. But what I'm trying to say is at that point

44:51

in time, it was entertainment.

44:54

And now it's become not

44:56

entertainment. It's become lifestyle and culture

44:58

for a lot of people. The

45:01

music, even

45:04

in early hip hop, was we

45:07

centric. It was looking

45:09

out at the world. And

45:12

at some point that changed. And

45:15

all of the lyrics became me,

45:17

how much I've got, how much money, look at me.

45:20

Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. And

45:26

that me centric thinking

45:29

is, I think, closely related

45:32

to how we've defined success. All

45:35

the money. I got this, I got the car,

45:37

I've got the me, me, me, what I've

45:39

got. And

45:41

again, we are all connected. We

45:44

are not going to be

45:46

able to ever create a society where we don't

45:49

need each other. And if we could create it, who would want that?

45:51

I don't want to live in some test

45:53

tube without people. And

45:55

we've gotten very myopic,

45:57

very narrowly viewed. see

46:00

it reflected in the culture, in the music, in the movies,

46:04

et cetera, et cetera. We're all part of an ecosystem.

46:07

We are a super organism, whether we know it or not. This

46:10

was interesting because during COVID, I mean, my

46:12

kids actually used this against me to

46:14

get what they wanted, which I thought was quite clever of them

46:16

because I was teaching them like, well, we have

46:19

to support small businesses, right?

46:21

So we have to find a way to either order food

46:23

or like go out and get food. And if we

46:25

can't go in the restaurant, and

46:28

they were like, well, why? And it was like, well, because

46:30

we're all part of an ecosystem. I run a business,

46:33

they run a business. We're all interconnected,

46:35

right? I can't really be successful

46:38

if they're not successful. I

46:40

mean, I can financially, but I can't exist

46:42

in the community and in a world where

46:44

we're not all successful together.

46:48

And so

46:49

my oldest comes to me and he's like, I think

46:51

we should just,

46:52

we should make a rule to have croissants every

46:55

day. He was like 10 at the

46:57

time, I think, or 11. Mine

46:59

is 11. So I get it. And I was like, well, what

47:01

do you think will happen if we have a croissants every day? And

47:03

he's quite clever. He's like, well, in France, they

47:05

eat croissants every day. And like,

47:07

they seem pretty healthy. They also drink an espresso.

47:10

Should I give you an espresso? No. And I was like,

47:12

okay. And then he's like, and you told us we need to support

47:14

local businesses. And like

47:16

this box of cereal or whatever

47:19

is not local and like croissants, that's

47:21

just down the road. They're as smart as their pop-up.

47:24

Of course we end up having croissants more often

47:26

than we'd like because of that, but it was a clever

47:29

argument about that. But we're all part

47:31

of the same system. And I do

47:33

feel like you can't have one part of that

47:36

system be so successful

47:38

when other parts of the system aren't. But

47:41

it's about growing the pie, not dividing the pie.

47:44

So how do we grow the pie for everybody instead

47:46

of focus on the selfishness of

47:48

how do we get the

47:51

biggest piece for ourselves? That's

47:53

one of the most amazing things about all of this

47:55

stuff that we're discussing.

47:57

I wrote this section in my upcoming book

47:59

called The...

48:00

The cost of stupidity,

48:02

stress from

48:04

poverty and all of the crazy things that go on in America

48:08

shortens the lifespan of African Americans. Blacks

48:10

live 5.8 years

48:12

less than white people in America.

48:16

There's about 42 million black

48:19

people in America.

48:20

You multiply 5.8 years

48:22

times 42 million and you get a big number.

48:25

1.1 trillion hours

48:29

of life. The Apollo space program,

48:31

the moonshot, was 5.2

48:34

billion man hours to put a man on the

48:36

moon and the

48:38

benefits to society

48:40

has changed telecommunications. There would be no

48:42

space X today without the Apollo program. Like,

48:44

like think about all of the societal

48:47

benefits from one moonshot.

48:50

Then think about

48:53

how much life is being wasted in America.

48:57

2.1 trillion man hours, divide that in

49:00

half, we're wasting about 200

49:02

moonshots of human productivity

49:07

being selfish, not

49:09

letting the lessons

49:11

of the past change our future. And

49:15

there is no telling where our society would

49:17

be. We could tackle all

49:20

of these great issues we keep talking about, but

49:22

don't want to deal with in a meaningful way

49:24

just by being more open and honest about

49:27

these things. I want to come back to the questions

49:29

that you asked just for a second. Is

49:32

there one that stands out for you

49:35

as like

49:36

if I could only ask one question

49:38

to get to know somebody

49:40

and determine whether this

49:43

is a person I want to work with, what would that question

49:45

be? That would be the question.

49:48

And it's different for everyone. There is no right answer. Right?

49:51

So for every person, for our clients, for every person who comes

49:54

in young, 20s or 30s, wealth

49:56

event,

49:57

single, ready to go have fun, meet

49:59

people. party, whatever. We

50:02

have a mid-career person

50:04

with kids. The last thing they want to do is go

50:07

party. They're trying to do fun stuff with their family.

50:09

We have other people late stage career who

50:11

are focused on wealth transfer, who

50:13

are legacy, so forth and so on.

50:16

There's no right answer to it, but if you

50:18

ask the question, would we want to work

50:20

with them? I think the what do

50:22

you want is very, very helpful. Do you

50:24

see answers change over time? Like

50:26

with the people who are sort of like maybe near

50:29

end of life?

50:30

Do they think about their

50:33

role in society and

50:35

sort of things differently than people who are

50:37

maybe mid-stage?

50:38

It depends on who. We

50:41

kind of over index on people who were thinking socially,

50:44

but we certainly know

50:46

a bunch of folks who aren't. Because we all gain perspective.

50:49

I mean like the 40 year old me

50:52

looks at my 16 year old self and was like,

50:55

man that guy was an idiot. But you

50:57

know my 60 year old self is gonna look at me now

50:59

and be like, man that guy was an idiot. Again,

51:01

I'm an optimist. When I look

51:04

at the sort of folks that we're meeting,

51:06

I think that the wealthy

51:08

get painted with this broad stroke,

51:10

a caricature almost. But

51:13

certainly some of our mutual friends are literally

51:15

some of the nicest and most genial humans

51:17

on this planet who definitely care,

51:20

who are definitely trying to get it right. None

51:22

of us have this whole thing figured out. You know we can sit

51:24

here with all of our fancy words and our big talk

51:26

and our learnings, but we really just don't know

51:28

that much. I mean humanity is frankly

51:31

not that smart. I mean when you think about

51:34

AI, so

51:37

here we've created a machine that

51:39

can run on your phone that

51:42

knows everything every human has

51:44

ever thought. And for me it just

51:48

really points towards a little bit maybe a

51:50

more human humility. It's

51:53

fucking crazy like literally your iPhone

51:55

gives you access to this

51:57

incredible amount of knowledge.

52:00

But I also think it puts us into perspective,

52:02

right? The pale blue dot idea.

52:05

Carl Sagan. Yeah. The

52:07

Carl Sagan idea. That at the end of the day, when you

52:10

zoom out and really look at it, we

52:12

can realize that we're special

52:14

through humility as opposed to ego.

52:17

You know, that thinking, well, we're so smart, we're

52:19

so this, we're so that. Well,

52:22

AI knows everything we have ever thought,

52:24

or we'll think in every language and can translate

52:27

it back and forth. So if you

52:29

could build a box, a machine to do that,

52:31

we're really all that smart all along. You

52:34

know what I mean? I actually think it's a, it's kind of a

52:36

pale blue dot moment for us to

52:38

kind of look at ourselves

52:41

and gain some, some humility around it.

52:43

I'm actually not in the AI

52:45

doom and gloom camp at all. That's

52:47

interesting. A lot of people, it does

52:50

seem very bifurcated between doom

52:52

and gloom and

52:54

optimism. There's not a lot of like,

52:56

well, we'll see how it plays out sort of in

52:58

the middle. I'm wondering what

53:00

do your clients tend to worry about? Like what stresses

53:02

them out? Is it the same things that stress

53:05

normal people out? Is it different? Is

53:07

it amplified? I

53:10

think money is an amplifier. It turns

53:12

up the volume on who a person is. It doesn't change

53:14

who they are with

53:17

the caveat that, that great wealth

53:19

does have the negative effects I was mentioning

53:21

earlier. So the normal worries

53:24

that folks have, safety and security,

53:27

kind of a big

53:29

one, they become targets for frivolous litigation

53:31

and a lot of bad behavior, you

53:34

know, things

53:35

which if they were poor, you

53:38

know, would never

53:40

be an issue, but even the minor

53:42

risk of infractions are like, you know, everything's

53:44

super, super litigious. And so people,

53:47

this leads to the kind of isolating

53:49

and insular thing where they, you know, they have to be careful

53:52

with people because they don't know what's going on. Oh,

53:54

I slipped and fell. Here's, you know,

53:57

so besides the security and kind of the,

53:59

the, the litigations. issues, there's

54:01

a lot of hand

54:03

wrangling over what's going on in society.

54:08

The broader sort of, you know,

54:10

these are, there are people who are,

54:13

I feel like really concerned about it putting their money

54:15

where their mouth is and kind of thinking through these problems

54:20

in a significant way. But yeah, people are people,

54:22

right? So they have the basic fears, but it does kind

54:24

of turn up the volume on some of the.

54:27

I know some of

54:30

my

54:31

wealthier friends who might be

54:33

targets or

54:35

what have you in sort of frivolous lawsuits

54:37

or something,

54:39

they might allow their kids to have

54:41

like an Instagram account that is private, it's locked,

54:44

it's not public. And that sort of also

54:47

comes back to harm these kids in a way, right?

54:49

When they go to university and they go for,

54:52

they go to rush for a sorority or

54:54

now

54:55

all of a sudden they've got this locked

54:57

account. It doesn't seem like they're,

55:00

you know, we're always looking at the wrong metrics.

55:02

So I don't want to get into like whether we're looking at the right

55:04

metrics or not, but their life is very closed

55:07

system

55:09

of trust.

55:10

Talk to me a little bit about that and how you

55:12

see it and

55:14

what you've seen work and not work. I

55:16

think all parents, you

55:18

know, want the best for their kids. If anybody

55:21

out there has a rule book for how

55:23

to get the best out of their kids, I definitely want that

55:25

book. You know, we're all a

55:27

trying. Things that I, you know,

55:30

people who have raised happy, successful kids,

55:32

you

55:33

know, kind of some of the best

55:35

examples, you know, I feel

55:37

like are the parents who kind of let their kids be

55:39

themselves and

55:42

been patient with them.

55:43

Lord knows we all needed a lot of patience.

55:45

The child-parent relationships that have been the

55:47

most strained that we've been exposed

55:50

to have been those where the parents try

55:52

to

55:53

handle the fish a little too much. You

55:55

know what I mean? Either positively or

55:57

negatively, right? You know, you can.

55:59

be a helicopter parent

56:02

in one direction, you can be a jerk in another direction.

56:07

The families that I know where the kids

56:09

are just

56:12

most normal, happiest, leading their lives,

56:16

the parents kind of let them be kids and let them be themselves.

56:19

One thing I've heard from

56:21

somebody that I totally admire and

56:23

respect, and I don't want to reveal who the

56:25

person is, but

56:26

they said if you have wealth,

56:30

how you raise your kids is their expectation.

56:34

You can't have them live a different lifestyle. So

56:36

if you're living in a mansion and

56:38

you get picked up in a chauffeur and you tell

56:40

your 15-year-old to go get a job

56:42

at McDonald's, it's going to cause resentment. So

56:46

you have to live whatever lifestyle you want

56:48

them to grow up in. So if you want your kids to

56:51

grow up in a middle-class lifestyle, you

56:53

actually have to live a... You can't force

56:56

a subset of a middle-class lifestyle on

56:58

them. How

57:00

do you see this? You interact with all

57:02

these people.

57:03

That is

57:06

a truism. Let's go back to our definition

57:08

of success. In

57:10

America, this Horatio

57:13

Alger, I worked hard and

57:16

I made it. I pulled

57:18

myself up by my own bootstraps, I did it.

57:20

I went out there and made it, young man. You too, you're

57:23

going to go out there and make it. So I'm worth $10

57:25

billion, I'm going to leave you $100,000 or nothing at

57:27

all and you're going

57:29

to go, because I don't want to spoil

57:32

you.

57:32

Somewhere

57:35

along the lines, our definition of success

57:37

also kind of blended with masculinity

57:40

in this weird sort of way. And

57:42

it comes to kind of define the

57:45

alpha male, I'm super,

57:47

super successful. If

57:50

you look at Forbes, so Forbes

57:52

publishes the billionaire list, 26, 2700 names on it, that's

57:56

actually not the most important

57:58

designation. The

58:00

most important designation is self-made.

58:06

So within the Forbes billionaire list, there's heirs,

58:08

there's all these, but that self-made

58:11

billionaire, that's the designation

58:14

that everyone wants. And it leads

58:16

to this sort of thing where everyone

58:20

has to be self-made. Talk to any

58:22

billionaire. The first words out of anyone's

58:24

mouth will be like, I didn't come from anything. Whether

58:27

or not that's true, right? They'll be like,

58:29

I came from nothing. That's at the beginning

58:32

of every

58:34

story on the self-made thing.

58:37

And I think it leads

58:39

to some really, really interesting effects, particularly with

58:42

the relation to people's children and

58:44

their ability to be self-made kind of in a parent

58:46

shadow. And it's not just with money, it's also

58:48

with like what they're calling now,

58:51

Nepo babies. So your parents are famous actor, your parents

58:53

are famous singer. Well,

58:55

if you're interested in acting, you get

58:57

opportunities because of that. And then you look down

58:59

on it, just all of this weirdness

59:02

where of course if a child grows up in

59:04

this lifestyle, seeing this thing, maybe they want to emulate

59:06

it, maybe they don't. And

59:09

who doesn't want to look out for their kids and do the best

59:11

for them? But then when you get to the

59:13

kind of wealth money transfer and the self-made

59:15

thing, it gets kind of wonky. I

59:18

can go deeper on it, but it's kind of a

59:20

touchy subject. Yeah, there's another aspect

59:22

to sort of call them

59:24

wealthy kids

59:25

for lack of a better term that

59:27

a lot of people don't

59:29

appreciate as much as other

59:31

people, which is

59:33

often their parents aren't home.

59:35

They're working, they're not there for them

59:37

emotionally or even physically present

59:40

with their kids. And that

59:42

takes a toll and maybe later in life,

59:45

because you lived unconsciously, you

59:47

come to regret that. Maybe you don't. I

59:50

would definitely think that that would

59:52

be

59:53

something people would regret,

59:55

but it's only you sort of realize that after.

59:58

And so how do we use this? hindsight

1:00:00

to become our foresight. Well,

1:00:02

on that topic, I wouldn't even point a finger at my client. I'd

1:00:05

point a finger at myself. I've been an entrepreneur building

1:00:09

businesses and look, I

1:00:12

had a day of reckoning around this very point

1:00:15

that I

1:00:16

was not spending the time and the care

1:00:18

with my own children that I should have.

1:00:21

And listen, everything

1:00:23

that I'm saying out here about entrepreneurs and

1:00:26

success I'm dealing with as a human as well.

1:00:29

And so I definitely don't want to make this sound

1:00:31

like I'm exempted from it. And

1:00:34

a lot of these learnings and the things that we're

1:00:36

encouraging people to do, because I'm

1:00:38

a dad of two and I've run

1:00:40

multiple companies and sold the business and worked

1:00:42

too much and trying to lead a happier

1:00:45

balanced life myself.

1:00:46

So I get it, I guess is

1:00:49

another reason I hope that we're able to have

1:00:51

good conversations with folks around it. What happened?

1:00:54

Your day of reckoning? What was the

1:00:56

moment or the story that

1:00:58

you were like, whoa. So

1:01:03

in 2021, the worst things that

1:01:05

I could ever imagine happening to me all

1:01:07

happened at once, like

1:01:10

major, major life crisis. It was the

1:01:12

sort of thing which when

1:01:13

it happened, my life

1:01:16

would never be the same. From the instance it happened

1:01:19

and the outcome would be binary.

1:01:23

I would

1:01:24

go on to be okay

1:01:27

or wind up in a very, very

1:01:29

bad place. Going through

1:01:31

it, I discovered that the things that were happening

1:01:35

to me were not really happening to me, they were

1:01:37

happening for me. And

1:01:39

it produced this really, really incredible

1:01:42

personal effect on me. One of the most visible

1:01:44

effects, if you see old photos of me online, I was 350

1:01:46

pounds. So I lost a hundred pounds in about four

1:01:49

and a half months. It

1:01:52

helped me rebuild my company, rebuild improved

1:01:55

the time I get to spend with my kids and just

1:01:58

all of these other things that kind of came through. that

1:02:02

journey of the

1:02:05

journey is the inward journey, right?

1:02:08

Really reconnecting with an understanding one's

1:02:11

self and then our relation to others and

1:02:14

being able to just kind of get outside

1:02:16

of our own lens,

1:02:19

our own perspective and see

1:02:21

ourselves

1:02:22

more honestly, more

1:02:25

candidly. Was that the hardest moment

1:02:27

in your life? Far and away. Is there

1:02:29

any advice you'd have to people going through something

1:02:31

similar? Were they feeling

1:02:33

it's the hardest moment that they're going through?

1:02:36

The advice that I would give would

1:02:38

be to wholly

1:02:41

face and embrace it. Don't

1:02:45

shy away from it. Don't delay

1:02:47

it. You know mine was so crazy that

1:02:49

I couldn't. You know I think

1:02:52

I had kicked the can down the road as far as I could

1:02:54

on for me and then you know

1:02:57

when it happened there was nothing that I could could

1:02:59

do. I had to face it. I think a

1:03:02

lot of times people will start to get the inkling, hey

1:03:04

something's wrong, need to face this,

1:03:06

and you kind of delay it. You put it off because it's uncomfortable,

1:03:09

right? To go through kind of great personal

1:03:11

change and you

1:03:13

know you've

1:03:17

to be free of these things you

1:03:20

have to defeat them. Whatever that

1:03:22

is, addiction to food

1:03:25

or whatever these things, whatever

1:03:27

problem it is for a person you got to face that

1:03:29

thing whole on and

1:03:33

conquer it. I like that. That's good

1:03:35

advice. I think it's fitting we always

1:03:38

wrap up the show with a very

1:03:41

similar question and given

1:03:43

the episode and the stuff that we've talked about today,

1:03:46

what is success for you? I've

1:03:47

been thinking a lot about this lately

1:03:50

because you know our business is growing and you

1:03:54

know a lot of

1:03:55

really interesting things or a foot that you

1:03:57

know I frankly never would have dreamed would have and

1:04:00

I feel like I dream big dreams. But

1:04:03

for me, success is

1:04:07

first and foremost, being a better father,

1:04:11

my family, fulfilling

1:04:14

my social responsibility, and making a difference

1:04:16

as glib and heard it before,

1:04:21

as that sounds.

1:04:25

I've got a book coming out and all

1:04:27

of these other things that are going on, but

1:04:29

the stuff that really, really matters is the heartfelt

1:04:32

pieces for me. My life has

1:04:34

changed a lot in that regard. I

1:04:37

love what I get to do every day, being

1:04:39

able to work with the folks that we work with, and

1:04:41

I really do feel like we're making a difference, not only

1:04:43

in the lives of our clients,

1:04:46

but in the lives of everyone that we touch.

1:04:49

["The Heart of My Life"]

1:05:00

Thank you, that's beautiful, Ray. Thank you

1:05:02

for taking the time today. Thank you for having me.

1:05:04

It's nice to be in Ottawa. This is a great conversation,

1:05:07

man. Thank you, sir. Thanks

1:05:13

for listening and learning with us. For

1:05:16

a complete list of episodes, show notes,

1:05:18

transcripts, and more, go

1:05:21

to fs.blog.podcast. Or

1:05:24

just Google the Knowledge Project.

1:05:27

Until next time. ["The Heart of

1:05:29

My Life"]