Gabby Reece: Resilience, Risk, and Redefining Success | E143
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You've talked about the five keys to fitness. What are they? Well, so there's buckets, right? It's like you need to get

get to bed, you need to move your body, you need to eat real food. You know, we, most of us are overeating. You need to have community. And I do believe that there's some great power in participating in your recovery. So instead of having a day off and being like, I have a day off, it's like, oh, you, if you could get your body into a sauna or have a breathing practice or take a yoga class or something that you enjoy doing. And all of these things support kind of your fitness and practice and health and wellbeing.

You're listening to part two of my incredible interview with Gabby Reese. She's a former professional volleyball player, sports commentator, athlete, actor, model, television host, best-selling author, and podcast host. If you haven't yet listened to part one, be sure to check that one out first. Now, without further ado, here's part two of my incredible interview with Gabby. You did an interview with Joe Rogan in April 2019 where you talked about

you play it safe too much and you wish you had taken more risks or were going to take more risks. Have you taken more risks since then? And what's your advice to everyone listening? Because everyone listening today is thinking about maybe doing something else, taking a risk, get out of their comfort zone, starting a new job. What's your advice to all of them? I think is take as many risks as you can, but take, but

You don't have to crash and burn with every risk. You can take really good calculated risks, but I don't think we'll ever going to regret saying what we really think, feel and believe. If an opportunity comes in your business that you can, you can kind of, and I don't want to say afford it, but like I always joke, I have stuff to sell. That's how I look at it. Like if stuff really goes bad,

We could sell a house. You know what I mean? At the end of the day, could we all shove in an apartment? Sure. That's cool. So I think a risk because it's not only such a short time, but all the good stuff happens because you stuck your neck out. Whether it was like telling someone you loved them or you went for this business idea in a strategic and well-thought-out way,

Because you had to. And I think for me, the risks I want to take still have to do with just saying it how I really think it and feel it. And also now as a person who has children that are bigger, just moving out of the roles that I've been playing for the last 20 something years. Like

claiming more of my own real estate as a person, not as Laird's wife or my kid's mom. And so I think that's where I will continue to move in.

It's always getting out of our comfort zone when we start a company. So at some point you became an entrepreneur. You started a bunch of companies, I think 10 companies, two of them have sort of made it. So what was, I've been down that road. It's exhilarating, scary, terrifying, frustrating, horrifying, terrifying.

The first time you went out and you started your own company, what was that company? And what was the mentality when you said, oh my God, I'm going to do this? You know, I had this idea, I think, gosh, in the early 2000s, where I wanted to create a training, a platform on the internet, where if you were in the middle of Idaho, but you're a really talented baseball pitcher, I could get you best in class training information from the best in class coach.

And I wanted to have that for every sport that made sense. Great idea, by the way. Thank you. It was way too early. It's been done. Well, and this was like 2002 or something. But back then it was like, and I wasn't even a techie person. I was just like, oh, this would be amazing. Because I related to like, hey, I grew up in the Caribbean. I didn't have access to

How would you give access? And so democratize information for sport training and for people who are interested. We did another one. We had a Truition, which was a nutritional company. There was no mode around it. There was nothing unique about it.

So that didn't work. I, you know, I sort of had the thought like, well, if Laird and I are doing it and we know the ingredients are clean and best in class, well, that's enough. Yeah. Okay. That's not enough. And so, you know, we had ideas either too early or not interesting enough, or like I said, not no moat, nothing unique about it. And so, you know, you have a graveyard full of companies and ideas that you think were so great.

I was on the board of invested a lot of money. I'll just share with everyone $3 million in a company called xDrive. And xDrive, there was a dial up connection at the time and we were just getting kind of faster speeds on the way to get online. And this was storage online. So you create an account on xDrive, you can put all your storage there.

And I think we raised something, $60 million, which is a ton of money. We had an investment bank raise money for us. And ultimately the company went under and that was one of the biggest investment losses I've ever had. And obviously it's not fun when you lose $3 million.

The exact same company today is Dropbox and Box. The exact same company. And sometimes you're just five or 10 years too early. And that's just what it is being an entrepreneur. It is. And I wouldn't have it any other way. I wouldn't have the failures any other way. I wouldn't. Listen, we took Laird Superfood Public in 20, CPG Products on the public market, kind of insanity.

So I wouldn't have it any other way.

I just, the idea of not pursuing the ideas and not taking the risks and not having the limitation. That's what I like. The idea maybe is you don't know how big it could be. It may be a total disaster, but I love the idea of you don't know, you're not handcuffed. Like, okay, you're gonna earn this much every year. You're gonna work this many hours. You're gonna be nine to five. Okay, some people like that. It's safe. You know what you're dealing with. I like the idea of,

We don't know. I love that. Failure in the VC world is not like failure in a real estate deal where you're not getting your cash flow or you still sometimes have the land and the building. These are goose eggs, right? So it's like taking your money and it goes in the trash basket and you have nothing. But I do a lot of coaching. I do coaching students. I do professional coaching. One of the things that I really talk about a lot, people want to talk about, oh, I'm

How did you do this investment? Or how about this one, the ones that made money? I want to talk about as a teaching moment that we learn more from our failures than our successes. Right. I mean, everyone wants to go out. And I think I see a lot of younger people do this. They go out. It's bar talk. They brag about all their successes. No one's talking about their failures. But I really think we learn more from our failures than our wins.

Do you agree? Beyond agree. I think about sports. I've said this so many times. We don't go to practice and go, you know, your three-pointers are perfect, so we're just going to do that. No, your free throws aren't looking weird. Let's get on the line over here and we're going to practice this. So getting a relationship with...

You know, and not, I don't need to make it a poster. You know, those are the other things. Like, I don't need to sit in like, oh, I'm so grateful for this learning moment. Like, I get it. But there's no way around it. All the best stuff comes from the squeeze and when you fell on your face. And it's just, I'm not looking for it.

I'm not hoping for it, but when it comes, I go, all right. I dust myself off and go, this is only going to make me better for whatever is ahead. And also people don't realize it's the thing you needed to prepare you for a much bigger thing usually.

So tell us about two of the companies that have had some success, XPT and Laird Superfoods. Talk to us about briefly what they are. I want to promote them. Oh, thanks. Well, XPT is a training. It's kind of the training arm of our business. They're going to be doing physical locations. It was really, again...

I will say on these last two businesses, we did not start them on purpose. We have a very close friend, Jen. She's like, you need to share what you and Lyrid are doing in your training. Nobody wants to see this. She goes, I'm going to put together an event. And we started XPT and now we've got, you know, apps and physical spaces and certified trainers and all of that.

And if I could say, it's a great business and it's also kind of the storytelling part. It's the place, the human part to really connect with people. Also forced learning, going back to learning. If we're not learning and doing and trying and keeping new things, we can't actually feed those ideas into this business. And then Laird Superfood was created out of a practice from coffees that Laird was making in our house, giving to his friends. Why? Because he wanted to figure out, if I'm doing this every day, how do I use this for performance so I can go out and surf longer?

And he would give it to all his friends and they go, oh, I feel so good. What's in this? And one of the people was a good friend who was an entrepreneur, startup guy, and said, you know, I really think you could do this. Can you say who it is? Yeah, Paul Hodge. Paul Hodge was the co-founder and person who took the company public. We now have a different CEO who runs publicly traded companies because that's a whole other beast. Whole other beast. Whole other animal. I just had the board meetings at my house these last two days. And anyway...

And slowly but surely, it was one of those ones where we made samples. It was kind of the first skew was really almost like our original creamer. We now have, you know, we have coffees and creamers of all kinds. We have greens and reds and proteins and bars. We have very, very strict guardrails. So not only, of course, no artificial flavors, but no natural flavors. And if you know anything about food, you know,

creating things that give you a lot of great taste and have shelf stability and all these things without these kinds of ingredients is really, to me, when you talk about success, this has been the success of this company. This is our largest company that we work with, but it is successful to me because people love it and I feel really good about what's in it. You met Laird in 1995. You were doing a TV show, The Extremist. And

As I understand it, he thought you were just this, and I'm going to quote, I'm not saying this, so don't get upset at me, big, dumb, blonde bimbo. Yeah, sure. A gun for hire. A gun for hire. So how did that relationship develop? You got married two years later, you have three kids. So how did that blossom? And what was it like dating the most famous surfer in the world? I mean, he's an icon. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, Laird is very good at what he does, obviously. But when I met Laird, he was very well known in surfing. He wasn't well known in the mainstream world. I was attracted to Laird. I have a good friend who says it's like the mania. You haven't met a person more...

like passionate and intense and transparent and you know present than Laird and in a very different way than people are used to Laird is highly intelligent and so I remember thinking oh this is this is a very intense guy and and and it wasn't after we said goodbye after the interview I thought oh you know what a unique person and I had done many interviews of many athletes very good at what they do and

But Laird, I think maybe being in mother nature and just willingness, he leads with his heart everywhere. I'm very analytical and Laird's bravery just to put it all out there all the time about everything is, it's really refreshing and impressive and exhausting, if I could say that.

And, and then I re met up with him and his friends a couple of days later to play volleyball. Big wave surfers were playing the toad, the strap crew was playing volleyball when the surface flat. And so I went back and, um, and that the only person I knew there was Laird and he wasn't the one who invited me.

And so I needed a ride back to my hotel. One thing led to another. And the rest is, yeah, is history. And, you know, we had to learn to dance. We were both didn't come from maybe homes that there was that language. So we stepped on each other's toes and we figured some things out. And I'd say we have a really, I have a, I'm very, we have a very good, peaceful, strong relationship.

kind of thriving relationship. It's - yeah. But it's like with Laird, it's intense every day. You don't get to show up halfway. Like with him, you got to show up and so you have to choose as his partner. Like is that what you're in for or do you want to like chill out on the couch and watch shows at seven o'clock? And if you want to kind of get into it and

He's your guy. Marriage, as you know, requires a lot of work sometimes, even if you're madly in love and have the best spouse in the world, have the best wife in the world. But marriage takes work. And also, you'll be married, I think, 27 years next week. Yeah. And for...

All of us, we make sacrifices when we get married. My wife was working in New York as a model. She had a good career going. She worked on Wall Street at the same time. So she was doing, she actually had four jobs when I met her. And I said, after three months, we got engaged. I said, I'm not doing the long distance thing. So for her to get married, you got to come here. As you know, I had three kids at that point and I just wasn't going to date someone long distance. So she gave up her career to move here. And it's,

She hasn't restarted the career, really. I mean, she still will model a few times a year. You were training to become a professional golfer at some point. And you were working with Butch Harmon, who was Tiger Woods coach for 11 years. But you gave that up to be a mom.

Yeah. Well, you can imagine. You've talked about my past, right? Yeah. One of the things I wasn't... First of all, I wasn't good enough in golf to not be practicing all the time in the short game, right? It was not instinctive in any way, like volleyball was more so. So once I had my middle daughter, my first biological daughter, Viola, I thought, oh, yeah, there's no way. I'm not going to be good at anything. And so...

That's not even a question. You know, if I do one thing in my life, as imperfectly as I do it, it will be here for my children and for them to know to be able to rely on me. And, you know,

It's like this idea sometimes, you know my youngest daughter, Brody, I'll be in the kitchen most times when this kid comes home. And I think to myself, I've had a whole life in between when you left and when you got here, and I'm a whole different other person than you know. And to her, I'm this kind of person that a lot of times is just right there. And that luxury...

right? That was a real luxury to be able to do that. Felt so important. In our relationships, we have to trust our partner. And as we're getting to know them, we sometimes will do things getting us out of our comfort zone. So tell us about Mike Murphy and the air chair. Oh yeah, Mike Murphy. So I did a show with Mike Murphy, who actually Mike Murphy's air chair was why Laird was able to foil

So, Mike Murphy, I had a very hard time on the air chair. I tried all these different things and this is this hydrofoil that flies kind of above the water and it rides the energy below. Well, Laird and them got the air chair and cut the chair off and put snowboard boots on there. And literally, I think for maybe the last 12 years, the only surfboard that Laird rides has a foil connected to it. Because...

So for him, it's really interesting. Mike Murphy created this whole other thing. Laird wrote a wave many years ago, maybe 15 years, maybe more actually, 18 years ago, that was close to 100 foot. And he said that the water coming up the wave on a wave that big moving that fast is

you're actually physically not able to go down the wave because the water traveling up the wave is too quick. And that's when he abandoned toe surfing altogether and dedicated all his energy and time to foiling. So it was really beginning thanks to Mike Murphy. But at some point, he took you on a 60-foot

Waves, didn't he? Oh, Laird did. I'm not going on a 60-foot wave with Mike Murphy. No, no, no. But he took you on a, in terms of just trusting your partner, you went on a 60-foot wave with him. That's a six-story office building. So Laird took me to Piyani. What did he say? Hey, we're going to do this? He said, all right, let's do it? I don't know if I said, hey, let's do it. I was like, I probably didn't say anything in my mind. I was probably, is that a good idea? Because I used to ask Laird, what about this? It's so gorgeous, but what about this draws you towards it?

It's an energy that you think, where do I go to land or to the channel? And Laird took me on a jet ski to Piahi, which is known as Jaws, a wave on Maui. And he said, it was a beautiful day, meaning the conditions were very good, the wind, the sun, the shape of the wave, the swell direction, everything, like a special day. And he said, okay, I'm going to get you in front. I just want you to look back at it. And the great thing about Laird when you're in the water with Laird

You think he's not cavalier. He's not being, you know, wild. He has a measured seriousness about him that I thought I am really scared. And I also know it's okay. I'm okay.

I trust him more than, you know, my own fear in this moment. But it wasn't like I was gawking at it. It's amazing. I kind of looked back a few times and I was like, okay, that's good. Thank you. Were you with him on a board or you were riding? No, we were on a jet ski. Because it's the only, we have to move at a, you have to move at a pace to stay in front of it. But I mean, I just want people out there to picture this. You're on a jet ski on a six-story building and the waves coming down. It's very, very loud for people who don't know, right? It's, it's, it's,

you got all the power, you're hearing the wave crash in front of you. And are you just, you know, holding on for dear life? It's primal, you know, like the idea of like, if you, if anything goes wrong, you, it's too much, it's massive. Yeah. You're going to die. Yeah. So, and drowning and all of that. You're talking about a really primal thing. But again, the idea of

seizing those moments when somebody's really good at what they do and they invite you to get just a peek into their world, you got to say yes. Garrett McNamara was on my show. And so for those people who haven't watched the Garrett McNamara show, I hope you watch it. It's phenomenal. 100-foot wave. At one point, he rode the biggest wave in the world. People have died doing it. I wouldn't go on a ski with Garrett McNamara. I would go with Laird. Kai Lenny? Maybe. Dave Kalama, I would go.

Different types, all different types, you know, we joke. Yeah, very different. Tell us about the Wigglefoot story and how that...

- Laird's Wiggle Flow story. - Oh, yes, yes, yes, okay. - Tell us about Laird's Wiggle Flow story. - So Laird went down a rapid, I don't know, class five or something, and he got pinned on a rock underneath. And he said he tried in every which way literally to get out. And he said he had this kind of vision of like a skeleton there with his surf shorts because it was where the rapid was breaking and he was not able to get off. It was like a hydraulic, it just doesn't end.

And so somehow he sort of wiggled his foot and that motion kind of offset his body that he got spit out. But that for him was one of the heaviest things that he's ever experienced in water. So you'd think it would be the ocean, but rivers, again, that kind of unrelenting power is pretty serious. Let's talk about the book that you wrote.

And in the book, there was a central premise that a woman being submissive in a relationship with a man is actually a good thing. And I think that a lot of people hearing this today who haven't read your book would say, Gabby, that's outrageous. The Me Too movement, that's exactly what we shouldn't be doing. Well, first of all, I want to say this. One thing that is true is half the best people I know in the world are men.

So, this whole thing of like I have to win and you have to lose in order for it to be fair to me, I don't actually agree with that.

And the whole premise of the book, and by the time I wrote the book, I was already in my 40s, was about being a strong person. And I happened to be a female. So I thought I had established that story for a solid 25 years about being strong, strong mentally, physically, taking up space, whatever it was. And

It was a very nuanced part of a conversation that I said, in my home in particular, I take on the female energy, Laird takes on the male. And that to be submissive, to be of service to your family really was a very good dynamic in my house. Now, one thing I will say that I've learned, I was born in 1970. So Title IX, I went to school on an athletic scholarship. So I never had to deal with...

what the idea of submissive meant to a generation before me. So I had a different understanding after because people were really pissed off about this book. And all I was saying was, is that we are going to be of service to our families, to our friends, to our community. And it feels really good. And it's really empowering. I didn't say be a doormat, get taken advantage of and be an idiot.

And so I think that people just needed an opportunity to be frustrated and take one word and, you know, go nuts. But I think there's something really powerful. And by the way, if you talk to Laird, I'm sure he feels like he's submissive to the family too. I think people are of service to their family, but I'm not afraid to say it. I don't, this is my choice. I'm not going to

go out in the world and try to be a professional and I do want to win and kick ass and be all these things and be strong. I don't want to be that same person in my house. I want to be there my kid's mom and I'm not going to lean into my marriage with Laird. I'm here to love Laird and support Laird and elevate Laird and make his life better and easier. And hopefully he's doing the same thing. And obviously I would evaluate that if he was doing something different.

But I think we've taken the idea of being soft and kind and giving as a weakness, the same as what they say, oh, feminine. Feminine is not weak. And so for me, I never looked at it that way. And it's just a nice balance. You've been a fitness advocate and guru. You talk about it on your podcast for a long time. You've been training your whole life. Mm-hmm.

You've talked about the five keys to fitness. Yes. What are they? Well, so there's buckets, right? It's like you need to get to bed. You need to move your body. I'm not going to tell you how. You just need to do it consistently. You need to eat real food, you know, probably less than you want. You know, most of us are overeating. You need to have community.

And I do believe that there's some great power in kind of participating in your recovery. So instead of having a day off and being like, I have a day off, it's like, oh, if you could get your body into a sauna or have a breathing practice or take a yoga class or something that you enjoy doing. And all of these things support kind of your fitness and practice and health and well-being. Everything else is hacks. Now, what I will say is,

that needs to get added to that list is to go outside and be in the sunlight. I think the deeper I go into learning and the impact of LED lights and blue light from our computers, sunlight. And so there are a lot of people of the thinking that that might be the number one.

And then it's sort of everything else, but you can eat perfect and move great. But if you don't have meaningful relationships, that's terrible for your health. The Harvard study shows that right connection is so important. And, and so, you know, it's great people measure it with their rings and their all these other things, but you cannot hack your way

to health. You have to, these buckets are primary and then everything else. I love it. I love like, okay, let's do ozone. Let's do red light. Let's do all that. That's great. But those are hacks. So let's talk about the sauna hack. There was a piece in the wall street journal this week or last week that saunas are the new place in Silicon Valley to me, network, socialize and raise money. Yeah. Oh God. You had a podcast years ago where you would

Host a podcast in a sauna. So how on earth do you host a podcast in a sauna? How do you get people to show up and how do you get people to breathe? Well, now you know why I have the Gabby Reese show because, you know, after a while guests are like, what? I was with an author named Neil Strauss, a good friend of mine who wrote a very well-known book called The Game.

Neil's a funny guy. I thought we have such different perspectives. It'd be cool. But we always called the sauna, our time as a group in the sauna, we called it the truth barrel. It's like, hey, it's hot. You're barely dressed. You're sweating. Get to the point. Everybody say what they need and want. And that's what it became. Really this beautiful truth barrel.

truthful connecting. I need this. What do you think about that? This is going on in my relationship. So we thought, oh, why not? Let's have a, let's have conversations in there, um, in the truth barrel. So we'd obviously have to leave the door open because our, we keep our sauna pretty hot, like two 20. And so you're 20. Yeah. So you're having like a 12 to 15 minute conversation. So we would open the door up, but it was great. It was really good fun.

220 is insane. I did a sauna this summer. It was 180. Yeah, that's great. That's perfect. 180, 190 is great. Yeah, but if you're not used to 180, you're dying in there after seven or eight minutes. I mean, it's hot. Sauna is really there, and there's a lot of data. Dr. Rhonda Patrick does a lot of beautiful work around this about all the really seriously great health benefits of being in the sauna. Yeah.

all-cause mortality goes down, cognitive function, Alzheimer's, just an amazing amount of things. But like you said, actually that time together, if you can be in there. I mean, listen, the Scandinavian countries have been sounding. They work out, they do business deals there. They've been doing that forever. They work out all their kind of familiar problems in the sauna. So I think it's pretty...

it's pretty great practice. My son, Charlie is all over the sauna thing. Dad, you got to get a sauna. And we're actually looking into it now. I mean, we build an outside structure because our house is already built. Yeah. Oh, I can help you with that. It's a whole thing. It's a whole thing. If you want to get crazy, you could go to like 150, 160 and put a stationary bike in there and do that for 15 minutes on days that you don't have a lot of time to train or do anything. Do that. And you kill like two birds with one stone. That I would totally do. There you go.

I got ideas. Instead of 45 on my Peloton. I got ideas. Tell us about Alfred Adler's book and the advice in that book, which I think is brilliant and a lesson that everybody listening to this podcast, any podcast who wants to improve themselves should learn.

So the, the, the, the courage to be disliked. We got the, I think I read it during COVID and really it's this whole deep dive philosophical into, you know, is it your parents? Is it, you know, were you born with it? Is it your destiny? Is it your fate? And what he, two things that he arrives at is no, it's your lifestyle.

And if you really want to be, and I'm going to use the word happy in that representative way, right? A sense of satisfaction, fulfillment, peace, all those things. You have to be of service. And it's as simple as that. And I think there are times in our lives that we should be striving and thinking about ourselves and kind of really figuring out like, who am I and defining that. And then there are times that we can be doing both.

And there's another kind of great addition to that, which is strength to strength. Arthur C. Brooks talks about kind of these arcs in our lives, these curves where in our younger lives, it's like, you know, kind of being the hero and being the rock star and doing all this and then jumping off this curve and going to this curve and being someone who synthesizes information and teaches others and helps others and supports others and how good that makes us feel.

- We're at the end of our show, but I always end the show with a game I call fill in the blank to excellence. Are you ready to play? - Sure. - The biggest lesson I've learned in my life is? - It's all the story that I put on it. It all is gonna be whatever story I put on it. It's gonna mean that. So pick a good story. - My number one professional goal is? - To maximize every talent that I have been given to its greatest degree.

My number one personal goal is... That my children at the end of this whole story say, you did a pretty good job and I respect the way that you tried to show up. And that Laird and I still look at each other with a little bit of a twinkle in our eye. My biggest regret in life is...

I mean, I don't play that game because there's a lot and they all have led to this place. And it's definitely to do with parenting. But there's a few. My biggest fear in life is? That somehow the push and drive that I have in any way would have negatively impacted my kids' own sort of expression of

in their own life. The craziest thing that has happened to me in my career is? I think meeting my husband on a shoot is pretty crazy. The funniest thing that's happened to me in my career is? I mean, I had to interview Charles Barkley in a hot tub once with my clothes fully on. I guess that was funny. I was trying to save time for him. Where did that happen? He was, I think they were playing the Heat and

And he was going from – I was at practice with them and then he was going to interview with me and then go to like get ready for the game. And because I understood the scheduling, like I understood that day. I was in my full clothes and he was going to – they go, well, he has to go in the sauna first or the hot tub first before after practice and then he'll do your – and I thought, well, let's just get in there because I thought he'd be more generous. I knew CB, but I thought he'd be more generous because we were saving time. So –

You're interviewing him and he says, hey, I can only do it in the hot tub? No. Did you have a bathing suit with you? No, I didn't. That was the whole thing. You just got him with your clothes on? This is my sensitivity about like, oh man, I understand this guy has a game day today. He's just come from a shoot around practice.

He's going to take this 45 minutes hour to be with me. But before that, he has to sit in the hot tub. And then he's going to go and get ready to play. So I thought, let's condense it and make his time a little better for him before game time. And so I had shorts and a t-shirt, and I just got in the hot tub.

with him. That's interesting. I have, I want to digress for a second on the hot tub. Oh, okay. It's amazing who you meet in the hot tub. You know? Especially when you're going to nice places and hotels on vacation. Who'd you meet in the hot tub? I met the CEO of Restoration Hardware when it was

Wait, are you going to tell me that you invested in Restoration Hardware? No, I didn't. I just met him at the time. It was a small company. It was failing. It had a $200 million... Gary Friedman. It was a $200 million market cap. They were selling games, like Monopoly spinoff games. Yeah.

Have you been to the restaurant in New York? Pardon me? Have you been to the rooftop restaurant in New York? No, but I hear it's amazing. There's one here, isn't there? I don't know, but I was at the one in New York and it's fantastic. What he's done with the company is just incredible. Very sexy. We were staying at the Four Seasons in Lanai and if people haven't been there, it's just an incredible property. And we went to one of the hot tubs, no kids. Yes.

Adult only one. There's this guy in there. I'm sorry I'm going to call you nerdy, but you are nerdy. There's a guy in there, Daniel Adder, and he had created an AI company. This was seven years ago before it became a thing. And the guy's brilliant and went to Harvard, AI degree, PhD. He was working for the Fed as well. He's an

advisor and he just sold a company for $500 million. Coleman Sachs was an investor and I said, "If you ever have another company, raise another round for a company, give me a call." And he did. So we invested in that company. Later in the trip,

I was with my kids and there was this young college woman in there. And I said, what do you, you know, are you from LA or whatever? Her dad was the VP of technology at Snap. And we both went to Michigan. So Michigan was really asking us both for money. And I said, oh, I know, I don't know your dad, Steve Horwitz, but I would love to meet him. So I met Steve on that trip and we become friends.

friends for a long time as well. So you never, and she became a summer intern the following summer, by the way. So it's weird to say that I met a summer intern in the hot tub. Well, yeah, but you had your kids around. It sounds like you meet way more interesting people than I meet in the hot tub. It's just one of these random things, but you never know who you're going to meet in the hot tub. You never know, or the sauna. Or the sauna. I haven't met anyone in the sauna. So there's a guy named Strauss Zelnick.

who has done so many amazing things. He at 30 years old was a COO of Fox. He ran BMG at age 40. And I wrote him a letter and we got a meeting and I got a meeting and we became friends. And he'd been a mentor to me. He was, I think, the fifth guest on my show. He's an incredible person. JDMA from Harvard, extraordinarily humble. Now he runs Take Two Interactive, which is a

a $20 billion video game company. I think they bought it something for like $20 million years ago, but he's just as humble as could be. So he's a workout fanatic, by the way. He's been on cover of Men's Fitness for, I don't know, I think he's, and Strauss, don't get pissed at me for this, but I think 63 or something like that. And he looks like a 40-year-old. And so when we'll get together, he wants to work out.

So I'll go to the gym or whatever. So Sports Club Los Angeles was a gym back in the day. Big gym. And he says, okay, let's meet there and we'll do workouts. So we show up.

I said, and he's sitting there and I said, are you a member? He said, no. Are you a member? He said, no. So we're just sitting in the lobby. Of course, he's going to make a call. Yeah. And we're in. So we do this workout. We go into the locker room and we're in this hot tub. And the hot tub is a big one. It's like eight feet by eight feet. And it's weird. Indoor basketball courts there at that place, right? Yeah. They had indoor basketball. We didn't play basketball. Okay.

It's weird, as men you're getting naked in the hot tub and you're sitting there and there's this guy in there. - There's bubbles too. - What's that? There were, by the way, I remember it correct. I remember it exactly by the way. - There's lots of jets. - So whatever the jet setting was, you could like, there weren't huge bubbles. I mean, no one's looking at anything, but it's not like the one I have at my house, I get the bubbles cranking, right? I just liked that feeling, but there were very little bubbles.

And Strauss is talking to this black man in there. And he's in the music business. Strauss runs BMJ. I mean, Clive Davis, essentially one of the greatest music producers of all time, basically reported to Strauss, which is crazy. But we're in there and they're having this conversation about music and doing this and doing that. And I'm just sitting there like I you feel weird because you don't know what they're talking about. You don't know who the guy is. You're not participating in the conversation. Yeah.

And yeah, you're naked. But then, and by the way, then we all get out at the same time. We towel up at the same time. We're getting dressed at the same time. And there's lockers right next to the Strauss's, a mine or whatever. And when we walk out, we're shy, we walk out and he says, you know who that is, right? And I said, no. He said, well, that's Sean Combs. Oh. And by the way- Thank God you didn't get invited to any parties. Yeah. Well, I mean, back in the day, yeah. I mean, it's crazy. I'm just kidding. Sorry. No, no, no. I mean, it's, I mean, what I-

I don't know what I want to say about Sean Combs, but if anything we're hearing is even close to be true, I hope he gets what he deserves. You know, that's what I'll say. That's what I'll say about it. You know, the universal thing of life. We get away with nothing, whatever that looks like. My dog's name is Karma, and Karma is a bitch. Yeah, true. I have a question for you really quick.

As somebody who was successful very young, because that's young. Very young, 33, I came into a fair amount of money. Do your kids listen to you? Do they take your sage wisdom? Or are you just like, oh, dad, like everyone else? You know, I was going to ask you the same question, funny enough, as we were talking about your kids. But it's a complicated question. There's different tiers to that question. So the first part of it is,

for me, how do you raise humble kids growing up in wealth? And so they see their dad going to work. I work 70 hours a week, but I'm always home for dinner. And when I got divorced, I made sure my kids were six, six and four. And they went to school down the street. I'd pick them up every day at 2:30 and I'd drive them home.

And they do homework. I work either at the kitchen table with them or go into my home office. I want to make sure they felt safe. So one, I want to be a good dad. And two, they know I work my ass off, even though we lived in this incredible house. Yeah. And so that's that's that's number one. Number two, do the kids listen to you at various ages? No. No.

And it's like you could have a friend or a coach on a baseball team tell your kid, Charlie, and I would tell him something and he wouldn't listen. But when another coach told me the exact same thing, he listened. He said, oh. Now, at some point, my son who said when I started a real estate company, why are you doing that, dad? You know nothing about real estate. I knew something about it. I've been an investor in deals for 20 years. And I said, I don't want to be an investor. I want to be a general partner.

and we'll get investors in the company. I want to create something. So at that point, we started, we have a small company. We've done well on some small buildings, a long leach, 10 unit building, 11 unit building. Investors have done well. We have 15 town homes in Nashville. We had 17. We sold two of those, but at some point my son

that number one, I do know something about real estate. Number two, as he gets interested in business, and I think I told you this, he's an entrepreneur. At some point, as we talked about, he didn't want to go to college. Right. And I wanted him to go to college. His mom, Laura, wanted him to go to college for the social aspect. Oh.

Oh, right. For the maturity of living away from home and making friends. I mean, to this day, college influence who I am. I recommend people go to college. And I know that, you know, you said your daughter, if you don't want to go, I'll pay you to not go to college. Well, if it's the right time and give me an alternative idea. Right. Um,

But different kind of kid. Right. So as my kids got older and as my son got into business now, he does listen to me. He's circling around. And it changed like three years ago, really, because he's very into business. He wanted to know about income statements, financial statements, how it works, raising money, what a cap chart is. And it's really been...

fun for me. I never wanted to press what I did upon my kids. My daughters are less interested in business, but I've sent them all a book about Wall Street and what Wall Street is and what a stock is. And I've talked to them a little bit about our investments that we have. And they listen, they're interested because at some point too, I think it's important for you to have

real life conversations with your kids about your situation in life. And obviously they see where we live. We have, they have well-to-do friends, you know, our kids are friends. You know, I've never been in your house. I hear it's beautiful. We have a beautiful house as well. And so I think for me, the most important part of

Me teaching my kids is the work ethic and the value I bring and how hard I work to create this life for ourselves. And I want to impart on them and I want them to listen to me, which they do. I mean, they're spoiled kids, but they're very humble kids. Yeah. Appreciative kids. Yeah. But I want them to have the same kind of work ethic.

that I have. And, and so they, they listen, they see it and they do all have good work ethics. They, they work hard. So it's a longer answer. No, it's an important answer though. But you know, the, it back in the day, no, dad had no idea what, you know, what he was doing. And, um, it's fun. I remember driving to the airport with my assistant and Charlie, um,

was in the car and you know he's making fun of me right he's self-deprecating and you go home you're successful you know but when you're home you're you know nobody and we were in the car and this assistant

graduated college, interviewed a lot of people. She moved from North Carolina right out of school. And Charlie was bagging on me big time and making fun of me. And she said, hey, Charlie, your dad's

Sort of a big deal. And by the way, I don't consider myself that, by the way, at all. And when, you know, similar to you, I pride myself on being a humble person. And when I heard that, I just wanted to cringe, right? Because in my own mind, I'm not, right? I've done well, I'm successful. But he looked at her in a funny way. And I could see like something shifted in the mindset there, right?

Right. He knows me as dad. He sees everything we have and how we live. But that was a moment where he just started to listen to me. Great. You know, it was one of those cool moments. Maybe she could come to my house. Huh? I'm just kidding. Just kidding. Okay. So continuing on.

With our fill in the blank to excellence questions, the best piece of advice I've ever learned in my life is... When you're evaluating making a decision and doing something, do it to the best of your ability for the greatness of the situation. And don't try to make everybody happy because you can't. And that was a very hard lesson, especially as a female student.

because, you know, is that okay? Is this okay? You know, you can't do things on consensus. So being okay with someone being unhappy about a decision that had to get made. And then of course, you know, it's not personal. Let me flip the question on you, by the way, before we come to the last few, what about your kids? At what point did they start listening to you and say, okay,

You know, my mom and dad are giving me advice that I'm going to listen to. We joke that an expert is somebody who lives a mile away, to your point earlier. I think it's just a circling up. Once they feel free, so closer to 17, 18, the sense of freedom, then they start to circle around.

to you. I'm also glad, like I know it sounds strange having three daughters. I don't, as much as it would make my life easier, I don't want them to be compliant. I want them to question everybody and everything. And if I don't care what uniform you have on, I want them to question things. And so it is tough to parents. And I'm so grateful that they've

bump up against us. - One of the things that I should have mentioned and I want to mention is now that my son appreciates the fact that I have experience, I have wisdom, I have good advice and I mentor a lot of people,

he's actually added a lot of value to my life and business career. He suggests podcast guests for me. I'll ask him, what about this guest? What about that guest? They'll say, yes, no, that person's definitely not right for the show. And it's been very...

beneficial to me, they have a reciprocal relationship with my son who can add value to that. And he's also introduced me to some of his parents' friends who are very successful in business. And I could care if they're successful or not, but he knows that we have the same DNA and we'll have a lot to talk about. I've made two or three really good friends with his parents' friends, which has been very rewarding to me. - Yeah, our children keep us into the world that we live in now. That's one of their jobs.

they pull us into, "Hey, you guys did it this way. What about this way?" It's like, "Oh, okay." All right. So a few more questions. In 10 years from now, I'm going to be doing... I'm going to have taken up a little bit more space in the... When I call it self-care, because I hate the idea of wellness, but from a female point of view, but still kind of... Because it's dominated and it's totally fine. I understand why by men,

but they all either have a partner or somebody who handles that side of it. I would like to be a person who also, there'll be others kind of have taken a little more real estate that communicate to men and women, but from just the female lens, not saying you only speak about female issues, because I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in very good information.

But it's like, yeah, and how do you do it if like you had a kid and you're the, you know, from the female side or trying to juggle work and family and all that stuff. If you could pick one trait that would lead to somebody's success, it would be. I guess resilience. The one trait that's contributed to my success more than any other trait is. Self-awareness. The one thing I've dreamt about doing for a long time, but haven't is.

I just haven't merged all of my skills into one spot yet. It's very difficult to be sort of pretty good at a lot of things. And the one thing I'm trying to figure out is how to bring it all together into one spot before I get too old or die. The greatest athlete in history is...

It's like socially, is it Muhammad Ali for certain social things? Is it Willie Mays? Is it the social aspect if it's physical? Is it Hawaii, they'd say the Duke Kahanamoku for bringing surfing around the whole world. Babe Dietrich Zaharias, female athlete opening the door. That's a hard one. If you could go back in time and give your 21-year-old self one piece of advice, what would it be? Be bigger. Don't apologize.

The one question you wish I'd asked you but didn't is? This conversation around success and accomplishment and pursuit. Is it in us? Is it just in us and who we are as people? Or is it something you can learn? I'm always intrigued by that idea. When I have serial entrepreneurs on the show, I always ask them, can you truly be a great entrepreneur?

If you don't, if you were not born with the DNA of having that gene. Yeah. No, I don't think. Well, yes, of course you can. You can be somebody who learns and reads, you know, the landscape of things, but you may not enjoy it as much. How would you answer your own question? I think you're born with it. I think you're, it's like you have to, you can't be confined to someone else's way.

This has been awesome. I appreciate you coming today. I appreciate you taking the time. Been a fan for a long time. Thank you. And I think you're fantastic. I know everyone's going to enjoy listening to the show, watching the show. So really appreciate you being here. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks.