From selling ACs to becoming the tourism king of Jamaica

If you're like me, you're gonna get inspired by the story. A white dude from Jamaica who built an incredible, you know, multi-billion dollar business and lives life on his own terms. That's the headline. ♪ I feel like I could rule the world ♪ ♪ I know I could be what I want to ♪ ♪ I put my all in it like no days all ♪ ♪ On a road, let's travel never lose ♪ This is my Billy of the Week. So this is a guy who created something called Sandals. Now, let me tell you the story. First, we just gotta look at this picture because I'll be damned if this doesn't look like a young Sam par. Look at this guy. This is not you. Yeah. This guy's you. It's actually, he's Jamaican. So he lived in Jamaica. Okay, so here's the story. So his name's Gordon Stewart and he's born in Jamaica, white kid born in Jamaica. His mom calls him Butch 'cause he was chubby. So he becomes known as Butch for the rest of his life, which is amazing. As a young kid, he does all kinds of odd job, little hustles. So he's like, help it out the fisherman that he buys a boat. Then he starts making money boating the fisherman around and repairing boats. And he would skip school altogether. He was like, he's like, I just want to be on the water. And he goes, he said later, I didn't want to be a businessman. I want to be a fisherman. Just a rich fisherman. And that led him into business. So I love this guy. So he's like, along the way, he's living in Jamaica. Obviously Jamaica is super hot. And he realizes as air conditioning becomes a bigger and bigger thing, air conditioning is going to be huge in the Caribbean. Things take time to diffuse from different places. And so maybe it was normal in the States, but it wasn't as normal in the Caribbean yet. And so he saves up $3,000 and he starts a company called Appliance Traders Limited. And the idea is he's going to import AC from the US, AC units, and he's going to go door to door selling them himself. And he decides, I'm going to do this B2B. And it convinced business owners that they should have AC. Because for them, it's not just about their own comfort, but they're going to have more sales. If their store has AC and the other store doesn't, customers are going to want to spend time in their stores. So great idea. Now, he's like, how do I differentiate myself? So he tries selling door to door. He makes some progress just hustling. And he hires some other island boys to come help himself. But he's going up against general electric. So he's going up against Westing House. He's going up against these huge companies that have much bigger sales forces than him. So he's like, he asks himself a better question. Instead of, how do I outcompete them on sales, where they're excellent and have more resources, how do I do something they would not dare to do? So he goes, what can the big guy not do? Speed. And what does the big company not care about? Service. So he decides to differentiate his offerings. So he says, if you call me, I'll have AC installed within eight hours. And he just starts with that vision. And he's like, works backwards to figure out operations. Like, how can I possibly do that? Well, I guess I'd need boys over here. I need a call dispatcher. I need to prioritize the most recent call, not the oldest call, and deliver this eight hour service. And then the second thing he says is, look, these ACs, they break, they're running them all the time. Here's the deal. We will fix all the ACs, no extra charge. Like, if it breaks, we fix it, and we fix it fast. And nobody else is going to offer you this. And because of these two things, speed and service, he dominates the Caribbean market. He takes over Jamaica. He builds a powerhouse. And so out of this, he makes, you know, that's his first kind of fortune that he makes. How much did it make? I don't know what his network at this time, but it's enough where he could go to Montego Bay and buy a rundown hotel that everybody else ignored. And so 1981, he buys this resort called Bayrock. And at the time, people think he's crazy, because tourism is not that popular in Jamaica at the time. Crime was super high. This hotel was rundown, had a bad rap. And so he was buying kind of like a rundown distressed asset. But he has his vision. So he's like, I love it here. I think people will love it here. I just have to find a positioning for this. And this is where Butch, the marketing genius starts to inspire me. What's Montego Bay? I mean, it's a city in Jamaica. I think it's a city. It's an area. I don't know if it's a city or town or whatever you call it. But yeah, my sister got married there. I should probably know this. But I think Jamaica, it's a Jamaican thing. Got it. Okay, so he has his vision. He's like, I want to give Americans a carefree luxury Caribbean vacation. And so he's like, what's the worst thing about like a vacation? And he's like, you know, you, you don't know where to go. You don't know what you're going to get. And then you sort of the cost add up and you get nickel and dime. And people feel like they may not be able to afford it. And that will stop some people from coming. So he's like, let me do it instead this way. Up front, you get one price and everything is included. And I'm going to standardize luxury. So he's like, there wasn't luxury in this area. So first thing he does, he rebrands the Bayrock to sandals. Because he's like, that already sandals like embodies relaxation and like being on the beach. Then he goes and he starts studying. So he's a shameless copycat. So he's like, I'm going to go study all the other hotels in this area plus other other islands. And I'm going to steal the best ideas from each. So he goes and he sees Club Med and he's like, it's good, but it's a little too Spartan. I feel like I'm going to like make a mess here and I'm in trouble if I do that. So like I want luxury, but still you should feel like you're here. You can have a good time here. And then he's like, oh, I like the way they serve this champagne. Oh, what is this thing? A whirlpool? We're going to get one of those over here. So he starts importing innovation from all these different places. Wait, really quick. Have you seen that meme where it's like, you know if you're going up against a deal? Or you know if you're going up against this guy in a deal, you're going to get screwed. And it's like a first class with a fat wallet wearing like, you know, Wrangler blue jeans. And he's kind of fat and chubby and with a fat watch. You know that meme? And new balance. Yeah. And new balance. A bush doer looks like this guy. And I could see him like doing research where he's like at a bar and he sees something interesting. And goes, hey, miss. You know, you've been a lovely waitress. Can you bring over that song, bitch? Let me, let me, let me look at that margarita maker. What is that? Tell me about that thing. Hey, can you do me a favor, dial. Go ahead and order me about 20 of them. Will you please, Arlene? Exactly. It's a famous Sam Walton story where Sam Walton did the same thing. He would study every other retailer, Sam Walton, who created Walmart, of course. But on the way, on the rise, what helped make Walmart so great is that he stole anything good. Any other retailer did. He would steal it. So there's this great story of Sam Walton in Brazil. And someone is walking down the aisles of a store and they see a man dead on the ground. And they were like, oh my god, it helps. This guy is dead here. He just passed out on the ground. And that man was Sam Walton and he was not dead. He was measuring the distance between aisles using his body length. Because he didn't have a ruler with him. And he's like, I like this spacing. What is this? So he laid down and used his body to measure things. It's about from the shoulder to knee. They didn't understand what he was doing. And so, so, butch was basically doing this. He decides to rebrand it as couples only. Because one of the things he realizes that like a lot of these resorts, it's like you look around. You see the people who are here, the lovebirds who are here, then you got the families who are here. And they're kind of interrupting, you know, the families don't want to see these two making out. And the makeouts don't want the kids running around. So he decides, what if I just made it instead of just okay for everybody? What if I made it great for one one killer use case? So he rebrands it as couples only. It's adults, it's romance, it's no kids. And this was a radical positioning at the time. Nobody was really doing this, but he gave it a clear identity. And then he pours millions of dollars into advertising, which again, most people would not do. He had not proven out the concept. It's not like he was taking profits and reinvesting them. He was reinvesting because he just had a belief. Well, had he raised money for this? No, this is the money he made from the AC company. And so he's like spend bigger to earn bigger. And later he had this great line, which he goes, because he built, he ends up building, I don't know, 30 resorts or something like that in Jamaica. And he's done all, you know, millions of square feet. And he says, the most valuable real estate and the hardest real estate to build is the one in the consumer's mind. And that's always where I start. And I was like, oh, I love this guy. Just an old school ad man, just a classic ad man. Like the type of guy, he's like never read a book in his life on advertising, but like listen to one Ted talk. And that's what he bases his entire education on. Yeah, yeah, exactly. All right. So a lot of people watch and listen to the show because they want to hear us just tell them exactly what to do when it comes to starting or growing a business. Now, a lot of people message Sean and I and they say, all right, I want to start something on the side. Is this a good idea? Is that a good idea? And again, what they're really just saying is just give me the ideas. Well, my friends, they're in luck. So my old company, the hustle, they put together a hundred different side hustle ideas. And they have appropriately called it the side hustle idea database. It's a list of a hundred pretty good ideas. Frankly, I went through them. They're awesome. And it gives you how to start them, how to grow them, things like that gives you a little bit of inspiration. So check it out. It's called the side hustle idea database. It's in the description below. You'll see the link. Click it. Check it out. Let me know the comments, which I think. And the other thing cool thing he does is he basically revitalizes Jamaica. So he ends up employing like 10,000 Jamaicans. He's like loved in Jamaica for what he did for the local economy, how he treated people. There was a big change that happened when he brought tourism. So he goes on on a buying spree basically as this happens and he starts buying more and more failing hotels across the Caribbean. He would be super hands on. So we go stay there. He'd eat the food, he'd sleep in the bed, he'd check the pillows, and he basically make detailed notes about anything that needed to change. So like if a customer complained about the temperature of the champagne, it wasn't chilled enough. He would make sure by the next day like all the fridges are recalibrated to the right temperature. And he would let the customer know like you know, thank you. We you know, we changed it for you. So he was always tweaking. He was in it. I was one of his core philosophies. He was like, I'm not going to get it right right away, but I'm going to tweak a tweak a tweak until I get it there. And you know, this kind of works. So hotels are known for their repeat rate. So like you could tell the quality of hotel not by the number of stars that it's rated. But by how many guests come back and stay again. And sandals would have like for decades like a 50% repeat rate, which was like on the herd of in the industry. People loved going there. And so this guy would just take all these crazy measures to make it to build this business. So he would he's like, I after he ran out of buying the like distressed hotels that already existed. He's like, I need to buy new great properties on beach fronts. And so one thing he realizes that there's so many beaches that people don't even really know about. So he would rent a helicopter and fly over the island and look for undiscovered beaches and then find them scout them by the land and then build the hotel on that. Which is just like again, just a sort of a brute force first principles approach to building, you know, a luxury hotel. And now his kids are running it. So is it and is it an independent business? Yeah, he passed away in 2021. I'm not sure so sure what's going on with the business since then. But yeah, he kind of left that that's his legacy basically in in Jamaica. And his kids like they said like, you know, all these wonderful things about him, which is another great test, you know, how great of a man are you sort of like, you know, dear kids want to be around you. What do they have to say about you? And you know, it seems like at least from the outside that he did a good job there. He also did this crazy thing with the airlines. You know, the story. Well, I honestly, I could be it says that he owned Jamaican air. Exactly. So he realizes at a certain point, he's like, it's pretty exact. I'm telling you this is paradise. But the experience to get to paradise is hell. Right. This is heaven. Well, that's held. So he's like air Jamaica was this failing airline. The brand sucked the service sucked. And so you know, you you sign up for this vacation. I give you these glossy ads. He was buying ads and Playboy and Cosmo and like anywhere that he could sell the idea that if you're in love, you go to sandals. So not just like it's a nice vacation. It's a symbol of how much you love each other is that you do a sandals vacation. And like, you know, the way that sort of diamonds or girls best friend or like diamonds or forever diamonds became this symbol for. Do you commit, you know, are you are you all laying on this? He did that with basically the vacation. So he's doing this. But he's like the airline experience sucks getting here and going home sucks. That's kind of the first impression in the last impression that the consumer is going to have. So what does he do? He buys the airline takes full control like vertically, and he's like, look, the airline was a tough business. It's a bad business. But he had an advantage, which is he owned the resorts. So he basically used the airline as a giant flying billboard to the resort. And he's like, I will just market my resorts. I'll bundle the flights and hotels. I will use it to advertise my resorts so that you want to stay there. I will do service and kind of like lose a little money or break even on the airline as long as I give you a first class experience down to my resorts where you're going to spend a lot of money. He's like, if they get off the plane angry, you know, then it doesn't matter. I've already lost the game before this step foot on the beach. Again, I love this guy. Brian Chesky, my wife, he's a work at Airbnb and Brian Chesky wouldn't give this talks about like I think he called it a 10 star experience where he was like he has his famous like way of art. Is it 12 star where he was like, well, what's like a one star experience? One star experience is like you book you do a booking and we leave the key out of the mat and it's just fine. And there's rats and it doesn't look like the pictures. Yes, that's one star. And a five stars like Michelin restaurant like style service. He's like, but what's six stars and like people start getting creative. They're like, you get picked up in a limo and whatever. But what's eight stars? What's 10 stars? And he goes all the way up to 12 stars. And for him, it was it's a really cool exercise to think about what's like extreme hospitality. And he made this argument and this was pre COVID and it's COVID changed everything on Airbnb because they had to focus on different stuff because they were, you know, it's an existential existential crisis, but he's to say that he wants to launch an airline. And I was thinking I was like, what could the tagline be for that? And that it would be like when you fly with us, the vacation starts at the airport. Right. And I was like, that's so interesting. Like we could actually make that a thing. Like, like, because when you have your if you're a flat or he said that. I said that's not to him. I was just like thinking in my that Airbnb job off might come back around 20 years later. That's a good one, right? Because I was thinking about like when, you know, if you fly first class or flying or you go to the lounge, you're like, it's pretty cool. The vacation started now. So like I just got it. If you sometimes get there early and you got to wait three or four hours because I'm a early early early arrival at the airport. Like it's kind of like, I just get hours early like three hours. But like if there's a delay, dude, I get there early crazy. What are you doing? I've never missed a flight in my life. The time with you was the closest I've ever gotten. But no, I don't miss flights. How early do you get there? Now I guess I get there. I've TSA kind of changed things. But yeah, I'm always at least a two hour early guy. I like to slide in at 50 minutes before the flight and see if I can get to TSA in the next 20 to 30 that leaves me another 20 to 30 to get on the plane easy. But if I have lounge access, I'm like, look, I'm just going to eat there. I'll eat my lunch or dinner there and then we'll get on the plane. And so. But that's my slogan. The vacation should start at the airport. We need to trademark. We need to trademark on that. That's pretty good, right? That's really good. Yeah, that has a ring to it. I enjoy reading about hotel businesses. You know, there was a I had a fling with my own little hospitality business. It was called an Airbnb that went horrible. But I read a bunch of books on this. Have you ever heard about hairs entertainment? It was a hair is was a casino. And this was like in Vegas. Yeah, so it was a casino, but this was before like kind of casinos became hotels. But I was reading this book called the Caesar Palace coup. And in about 2018, all these hedge funds had owned little bits and pieces of Caesar palace, which I think was the largest casino hotel management company in the world. And it's about like the greed and all the stuff of like what it took to bike by and how like the downfall of it, but they talk about the founding of it and it was founded as hairs entertainment. And then there was another hotel they merged they created Caesars entertainment. But up until like the 1990s or early 2000s hotels were just they were like the hotel and casinos were just like really simple businesses. But then Harris and the Caesar when it merged hired a guy who is a 40 year old mathematician from Harvard. He had no management experience, no experience running a company. His name is Gary Lovenman. And he comes in and he just makes this is math playground. And he dials it in to the within two years of him being CEO. They dial this in. I think in like the year 2001 before the internet was like super popular to where when you call them booked a hotel based of all types of math and math. They would know to offer you an upgrade or offer you $50 in free gambling because it was all math to them. And they knew that if they get you a free room, they got you hooked on gambling. It was all like a statistical thing. And he basically invented this idea of of I actually don't know the phrase would be but this idea of like using data in math like a money ball type of way for hotel guests. So this is sick. I've never heard of this guy Gary Lovenman. So he's after nine years at the faculty of hard business school. He left to become CEO of Harris and then became the CEO of Caesars for 12 years. That's crazy. He owns a minor, he's a minority owner of the Boston Celtics. The use of analytics to influence customer behavior. Yeah, up until him it had never been done, but he was a famous faculty member at Harvard and he would teach all this methodology. And then one day Harris was like, hey, we will like hook you up big time. We'll give you access to the private jet so you can fly down on a Monday, come home on a Friday. You know, we're going to roll up the red carpet for you. Just do what you want. And he did what you wanted and eventually they go, all right, brother, you're now CEO. It works great. And so he like it was crazy. Like within three months of him joining the company, they saw massive improvements. And then within like a year or two, he implemented it was all data driven. He's like cherries in the vodka. We're going to put cherries in the vodka. Everyone's like, we don't know. The data says put cherries in the vodka slot machine. Sales are going to go up by 3.3% right like that. I mean, a casino is one of the most I can well optimized. It's like you are the sponge and the casino is ringing you out. Well, she's the guy who did that. And so now I think he's chairman or VP chairman something like that of Etna, one of the largest insurance companies in the world. Yeah, perfect. Just what we need. It's the same. It's the same like math where it's like it's just like, if your goal is just maximize profits. Like you do this math equation. This is like when I learned the tobacco companies like own craft food or whatever. It's like, oh, the children's food is done by the cigarette company. Yeah, like Annie's goldfish is owned by the same guy who's like making a making a sigurillos. Exactly. Today's episode is brought to you by HubSpot. Did you know that most businesses only use 20% of their data? That's like reading a book, but then tearing out four fifths of the pages point is you miss a lot. And unless you're using HubSpot, the customer platform that gives you access to the data you need to grow your business. The insights that are trapped in emails, call logs, transcripts, all that unstructured data makes all the difference because when you know more, you grow more. And so if you want to read the whole book instead of just reading part of it, visit HubSpot.com. So this guy is kind of a genius. I want to tell you about this genius thing that I've been thinking about. Not not my idea. The idea of genius is. Let me just tell you a story here. I'm going to read from I think this is a financial times article, but I'm just going to read you a couple of the intro here because it's amazing. I would say I want you to be imagined you are Stacy Tang, your Chinese woman. Like you've always wanted to be a manager at a pharmaceutical company in Beijing and you receive a phone call on some squid game shit. An unknown number calls you and says, we like your son. You have a 15 year old son says we believe that he might be qualified for the genius program. And we'd like to give him a test. Now it's also COVID. It's Pete COVID 2022. People can't meet in person. So they said, Stacy, I know you might be concerned about COVID. You're you're a good mom. Fear not. We're going to put him in the back of this van and we're going to drive around the city. And he's going to do math problems in the back of this van. And we'll know by the end of the ride if he's qualified or not and we'll dump him off on the street. If he's not. And if he is, you'll see him in a couple of years. And like Stacy would feel you might be I would say what colors the van and what corner should I leave a map exactly that's exactly what Stacy felt she says. I wasn't worried about an abduction plot and any other country I would but not here she goes. I was not. I was not mid COVID not mid COVID who I full tray full trust in China mid cover. I was weeping with joy and I sent my boy right away because I knew this what I knew what this was a golden ticket to the best educational resources of China. So this is a very optimistic woman. So Stacy and her son were part of this program that China is trying to is running right now where they have a hundred thousand kids that they've identified as like possible geniuses. And they put them through what they call the genius program what they do is at a young age they sort of identify certain aptitude for math for science, et cetera. And they say we'd like to invite you to the genius program. The RSVP says yes or yes and then you go you said your kid and it's a few year intensive study program you get to skip all your normal school. You can just skip the college entrance exams you don't have to take any of those but you're in basically math bootcamp and you are going to be studying with the brightest and the best. And they are trying to produce incredible talent in China and so you might wondering what like how does that work is working. Right that's what question is a working. Sam, if you like TikTok genius program, Sam, you heard about towel, which is there essentially they're like PayPal genius program have you heard about their group on genius program have you heard about their super app genius program have you heard about the brothers who were behind their big and video competitor genius program you ever heard a deep seek they were in the news recently created that big algorithm didn't even have access to the best chips and somehow outperformed all of the opening eye models genius program it's like a teal fellowship room of the government. Exactly so China already has this incredible like population advantage where they produce five million graduates in math computer science and engineering compared to I think we have like half a million that are in technology the technology in science fields in the US so 10 to one already there 10 to one us just in in normal college graduates. But now they're looking for the cream of the crop and they are basically trying to create this talent pipeline homegrown talent pipeline of. Math genius computer science geniuses et cetera and it's working so they started this program many years ago and at the time China didn't have a very notable. Math or science like achievement record at the international level so there's these things called the math Olympiad and social like the Olympics for math and so the first year they sent a team of three and they got like the bronze and they're like yes and then they next year they sent like six teams and they got two medals and now basically they just sweep all the medals every year they just dominate these programs they send like the most they have the most players and the most wins and their AI program like you know if you go walk into an open air. So you're going to see tons of Chinese PhD I researchers who now work in the US but there's for everyone that you see here you know there's a hundred that are still in China working at the Chinese companies the Chinese labs and I was just pretty inspired by this whole thing they there's one anecdote in the story where it says that like if you go into a normal Chinese public school there's a blunt slogan on the wall does not even the genius program this just a normal elementary school public school. And it's a reminder for the teachers and staff there and it just says produce talent quickly and early and I thought about that because I send my kids to school and the teachers in the staff do not have a philosophy about producing talent quickly and early it what's our slogan no child left behind right that was the famous education program that we launched I don't know tent when bush was president or something like that exact opposite is the exact opposite it's about don't discriminate. Don't discriminate don't make anyone feel left out in San Francisco they were doing this thing they were getting rid of the gifted in honors programs because it was like made the other people feel bad and we basically are taking the exact opposite with the sort of inclusion focus and the like no child left behind focus whereas if other countries are taking this idea of like your job is to produce talent quickly and early and that like it's the goal is greatness and let's be competitive about it. Like what's going to happen over 20 year arc right like you're going to get more and more it's they're going to win and so I just thought this was pretty interesting I wanted to hear your thoughts on this kind of makes a question like why doesn't Facebook have like what's it what's what's it well yes but what's it called the D league with MBA up to me yeah the G league or what's like the minor leaks like you know. Yeah like why doesn't Google and Facebook and the top 200 schools have like a farm team where they identify 14 year olds that are promising and they go hey would you like to come to school here forever or for free and you can choose to work at us we're at our company afterwards but just so you know you have like a job here if you choose to and we will educate you and get you up to date up to speed on all the stuff. Totally I actually when I first moved to San Francisco this was the thing I was pitching investors I was like I think I should go create Google you. And my dream would be to be the dean of Google you I was like I can't I think it's crazy that these giant companies don't have their own talent forms right why wouldn't they try to produce talent we wrote a story the hustle about this kid named Michael praiseman Michael if you hear this what's up and he was like a 15 year old who had this rack to which a story where he somehow got Mark Zuckerberg's attention at the age of 14 because he wrote. Like a viral app and he made the news because Zuck was like hey do you want to like an internship here and then that led to a full time job when he was only 16 and now I think he's doing I think he's on the. The AI what's it called the super team the super intelligence. Facebook team which is like the hundred million dollar your salaries and saying stuff and it was like we wrote a story because of how remarkable it was that Facebook hired a high school kid. Do you need more doogie house or shit right like why don't we do a competitiveness so you have the T.O. fellowship right that's like a thing and obviously there's a little programs all around did I remember what I was in seventh grade. Do you university did what I didn't realize was essentially just a marketing campaign but they created something called the Duke program is called the talent identification program. And I didn't I lived in Texas and suddenly Duke University did this thing where my school in Texas had us all go to the cafeteria and take a little test and then you got like a little merch bag with it of like Duke gear and then the results came back was like we think you talented. And bro that I think I rode that for like seven years and then I went to Duke I think really influenced me in some weird subliminal way that like maybe I am special and maybe I can do this and maybe I should go pay Duke $200,000 to go to school there and I did all those things and I'm surprised that more that shit doesn't exist. I kind of want to create something like this because I think it actually creates inflection with the China one is more like boarding school right and there's been other countries that do that but like I feel like we need our own versions of these where what is the what is the American talent pipeline look like and where are we identifying the best in the brightest on some shit and inviting them to the academy and then letting them you know dual and compete in like a pretty hardcore way because look hardcore is not for everybody. But there's some people that only thrive on hardcore situations they want to play the game at the competitive level basically what we do with like you sports with you and travel ball and shit like that. But do that for the genius kids do that for the makers right like I think that is maybe it exists and I'm just not aware of it but have you heard of birthright love birthright. Crazy so those listening I well I learned about it because I was dating a girl who went on birthright I don't remember what age I was like 21 years old do you remember what you told you about it do what your reaction you're like what yeah she wasn't even Jewish like she was like ethnically Jewish I guess but like basically birthright is a program it's funded I think it's funded a little bit by the government but a lot of it is wealthy Jewish people but also I think a lot of wealthy Christian people who believe that is a lot of people who are not really good at it. People who believe that when the end of the world according to the Bible when the end of the world happens the Jews need to rise first then the Christians go behind them that's like what the book of Revelation says and so they believe for a variety of reasons that we need to keep Israel strong. I don't care about the politics I'm just telling you guys the facts and so a lot of Christians I think but also like Bernie made off with a huge funder a lot of people are funders it says 67% of the funding for birthright is individuals 3027% is the government and then there's like a couple percent. And it's basically a free trip to anyone who could prove you'll have to tell me the exact measurement but I think it's like if you have like a great grandpa great grandparents who's Jewish so you could be like not Jewish at all does it say what the requirements are. Well I just asked does it count if I have a Jewish friend and said no that does that's not going to get me there like do identify as Jewish but basically it's like a very small percentage and they bring you on something like us to reweek all paid expenses trip. All expenses paid trip and they basically at least one Jewish birth parent or a recognized conversion. Okay so just a parent they bring you for like two or three weeks I forget how long it is but they like yeah but they give you a tour and you see all the types of stuff but they basically like I remember when she was when I was dating this girl we broke up afterwards because she was like they introduced all these Israeli soldiers and like. And I was like alright like this guy is really ripped. Why did he take a shirt off like you know like why do you photo anyway. And like it like a small percentage of them then you know become like a good buddy see of it like become more in touch with the Judaism and in touch with Israel and thus support Israel more. And how culture lasts through generations right is cultural experiences and exposure any culture can do this they've just systematized it in this really like cool like opportunity for people yeah it's awesome and like it's pretty great like I would because I think you have to be like 18 between there's an age limit I think it's like 18 to 25 or forget what it is when you're like prime to like want to go on a free trip you're like yeah fuck it I'll go and then you like free trip hell yeah and then you get there you're like okay I actually do like this or like that right so it's pretty good. And so it's pretty cool and I think that's kind of a good example the world's best time share presentation yeah and I think that's like a really good way in the sounds bad I don't mean a bad to indoctrinate someone into like a cause and get them long term bought in and it is kind of like an interesting model yeah love that. What do you do with the money once you've already made it this is a question. I asked our successful guess all the time and the reason we ask it is because if you are successful if you do have a little bit of money information on how to spend or invest your money it's actually really hard to come by. And I know this because inside of hampton which is my community of founders people ask this question all the time people have made 10 or 50 million dollars how do you spend it how do you invest it and so help solve this problem answer this question i actually interviewed 80 plus founders guys like scott gallow a alx from osy brine johnson people were worth 50 hundred even billions of dollars and we got them to reveal everything so they're not worth how much they pay themselves their monthly expenses portfolio things like that and we turn these 80 interviews into one document and i don't think you can find this type of information literally anywhere on the internet. And it's completely free so if you want to see behind the net worth of people who are worth billions of dollars and their portfolios are expenses everything you go to join hampton dot com slash reveal again join hampton dot com slash reveal check it out. So what do you say we need our own birth rate what were going with that well no what i'm saying is to actually do think that America should have a mandatory I think scott gallow a set us have agreed with us for a long time we should have mandatory service for American military I think that would be great. But number two i think that's a really good example of how you have like whatever calling this like a farm leak of like getting in with people at a young age like it is i wonder like it worked really well with do you can you i mean i didn't go to a good school of from Missouri i didn't go to get college but like it is interesting why you aren't promoted to a little bit earlier on. To like buy into like a certain movement like going to a good university or joining like an interesting company well we're kind of saying three different ways to can produce this like talent farm so the first one was the china one which is. You identify promise and potential early and then you invest in that and they do deliberate intensive practice and you know you the those people who had potential they build the skills in a more intense way in a more hardcore environment. Okay that's one way you do things second thing we talk about let's say the Duke example is sometimes just creating a test or something like that just to do talent identification if nothing else makes people feel like they're special and that they're talented and literally they're not going to do that. So it's not what you did and literally that self belief is worth something it's not the same value as going to an intensive boot camp and capitalizing on it but it's not nothing either and then the third one is how do you get that sense of pride cultural like ties and enthusiasm and one ideas like you know birthright or something like that so there's like all these different ways you could do it I was sort of studying I was like who else has done things like this and so there's the. So the story of the Soviet like have you familiar with the story of like the Soviet Olympic program basically how they did this yeah and how they're just like the shit and ball they also like drugdom that's why they like one all the like a ton of the women track and field records are from the USSR in the 80s like still it's like the longest standing records. I didn't I didn't know the whole story so I was kind of looking into this is pretty interesting so Soviets were kind of famously independent they were kind of like we don't need to be a part of the Olympics so they actually had their own kind of like fitness games they had what they called physical culture which is like physical tour and then they had their own thing called like sparta something sparta caeitas that's like their Olympics but at certain point it was kind of like the Olympics had the network effect it had the brand had the prestige so even if we were winning our local thing kind of didn't hold we couldn't do this. And so they basically built a machine so they decide all right we're going to enter the Olympics the way they did it was just so Russian so incredible they built an incredible machine and so that I respect so what they did they did same thing talent on the vacation so they go at age six to 10 they start measuring how long your arms how big is your wingspan you know what's a reaction time what is your body composition look like what's your flexibility like for gymnastics. And they basically didn't wait for greatness to appear they went on a talent search and they searched for greatness and once they did that they they basically hack the system so at the time I think until like 1988 or something I did 86 something like that. The Olympic charter said that you couldn't be a professional athlete one of our past topics to pre-fantane was one of the biggest advocates to abolish that. Okay great so the Russians basically just worked around it so they're like this gymnast she's a student this guy and this hockey player he's a officer and like you know they had these job titles are only on paper but actually there's training full time for this whereas the US would be like I'm juggling school in my training and obviously somebody who's only training is going to get further ahead. Well you remember Mirko Kroakop the one of the best you ever see every fighter yeah yeah he was supposed to be an ex police officer that was like the stick was that he was a but he was really trained I think is in quote I forget where former US are state as a fighter that's a trained full time. He's like I'm the can man anybody can get it right now. That's funny. Different boxers. So they do that then they start drugging right so they're like okay what else can we do P E D's so that became obviously I think they also did like world class in you know I guess like progress innovation in calisthenics and training programs and regimens that were like progressive loads and D loads. How do you peak at the right time stuff that's they standardized they invented and like kind of created then we had to go steal it from them basically of like how are they doing this. And they're running there's called periodization which is like you start with heavy miles and then you slowly taper off where you go to speed they helped invent that they also helped invent the idea of training lifting weight in cold at miss with the AC down to like 60 and 55. What is that to it just makes you stronger I don't know the science behind it but that was like one of their theories. I love how I ask as if that's my problem. And then the temperature this whole time no they just like came up with like all these like really weird I mean they were lab rats and so they came up with much of stuff like volume training for weightlifting like they were the best weightlifters and so like a lot of the best they're now old guys but a lot of the like bodybuilding in the 90s and 2000s they're on their 80s now were uss our guys right and so they ended up dominating the Olympics they were either you know first or second in metal count and then you know it just sort of like there was a period of time where they really dominated. And it was also cool like why did they care so much and it was basically. But send a message like physical dominance was like a signal for dominance and other things this is why I thought the China thinks it's interesting because the exact opposite it's brain it brain dominance but even even more there's more stakes like this was symbolic. It's like we'll show the world what we're capable of and this always been the symbolic victories like the first to climb Everest or the North pole or the South pole things were. There's objectively no value to be gained by being the first guys to reach the South pole aside from bragging rights and countries cared a lot about these bragging rights and now with the AI thing it's like it's not just a symbolic victory it's actual like total domination of the world's most powerful technology and will probably create the next global power so it's like all of the same national pride bravado stuff from the Olympics. Multiplied by actual real world tangible benefits and dominance do I think it's great like like blue angels bravado stuff like this is like the group like the greatest thing ever like I think it's wonderful sams all the bravada I just think that like having a common enemy is really good for bringing people together like I remember post 9/11 like I remember like there wasn't a lot of crime I remember I distinctly remember the week after I remember walking around the street and I was like there's something about this that I just feel like. Bond with strangers remember that feeling well little different as a brown guy but yeah yeah you actually had the exact opposite of experience forgot about that. I'm the common enemy you are the enemy you are the other thing great yeah I was the us and you were the them. Have you heard of this thing this is related to what you're saying about planting a seed in someone that they're good have you heard of this thing called them the Michelangelo effect Michelangelo fact. It's just like psychological phenomenon where basically it's a there's been a bunch of tests that prove it is true and we use this phrase with hand it all the time it's like a gift from the gods this phrase so the Michelangelo fact it basically just says that if you have two romantic romantic partners or peer group or friend group. They if they as long as they affirm each other and plant the seed in you like for example like Sean like you are the man you will be fit you will achieve this you will do whatever you want and we keep affirming each other every time you say that to one another it's as if when Michelangelo is doing the statue of David someone said how did you make this amazing statue he says. The statue is there I just chip away at all the stuff covering that beautiful statue and so it's as if like the greatness is in you because I have put that label on you and each time I affirm or congratulate or say how you're amazing I'm chipping away at the stone that's going to unveil this beautiful like thing inside of you which is whatever the goal is that you want to become and they have found that basically like. If you are raised around fat people you are more likely to be fat if you are raised around depressed people you are more likely to be depressed if you're raised around rich people you're more likely to be rich it's not just because of like you know what your parents do it just like you become what you are firm and what you are told. And it's called the Michelangelo fact and it's a really cool idea and like this has been studied by psychologist like there is a but they looked at like a group of 50,000 people and they were like what words are you using to. Talk to this person and how do they end up and where do they become and it's like really telling and so it's a really cool idea that if I tell you at a young age that you are special that you work hard that you're going to be great that you belong in this category you are more likely to actually become that simply of me like telling you that you are. That's amazing my dad told me the story about something his dad for him that's always stuck with me and so this is a little dad dad not going to go to pay forward so I don't want to cry not emotional but maybe you're in that phase where you know the hormones. Happy to have a little girls man I feel like I want to like tear up all the time so my dad was telling me so my dad grows up in India right like and if you look at you know today lives in San Francisco and he's had this great life but like you know it's kind of unheard of from a village in India right this like hard to imagine starting there and ending here in one lifetime. So he he tells me the story and he's like you know there's one thing my dad always did for me and he goes my dad always he's like he planted the seed in me. That I was special that I was different that I was going to go do great things and he goes didn't make any sense because I was not doing anything I would be lived in this little dirt village right nobody in our family had ever done anything so his dad worked at a factory. And he told me the story how his dad would bring him to the factory and the boss would be there like oh hey kiddo like you know who's the kid you know and he put a hard had on him and be like you know one day like you can you know you can be here with us you know when you grow up and that his dad to his boss was like a kidding me he's like no this boy this was special this boy is not going to be here. Take the hat off the hard had off of him like he's not going to be here is not going to be a factory he's going to be an America this boy special you don't know this guy is really special really smart is really special he's going to do something amazing in America and he told him that since he was like age four five years old six years and seven years old he's like he put this in me that like I was special I was going to do something I was going to go to America is like my dad had never been to America he doesn't even know what America is at the time he never been on a flight never been on an airplane. But he had this idea and he put it he just said it so matter of factly and he said it in front of other people to his boss and he's like I just had to take that as like this must be serious. He wasn't even telling me I just overheard it I he's dropped on that and I thought that was great. I was like I'm ready for my kids. How great is that is that the best? That's the best. I do that in a kiss all the time but we do daily affirmations at the morning we say I'm bold I'm tough I'm smart. Yeah we do this I'm brave I'm strong happy and I can do anything yeah we we run that all the time. I don't I'd say about the tennis little victory ahead with my my son when he would go into new classes he would always get scared to like new soccer class new tennis anything and as a parent is very frustrated right you pay you drive through traffic you go there and then your kid doesn't go in. And then in front of you all the other kids are like doing it happily blah blah I'm like bartering and bribing and threatening and then ignoring and then trying again and then I'll go in with you and then I'll do the I'll jump on the trampoline like let me let's do this together and then the teachers like hey can you leave like the parents aren't really allowed to be in here. So it's been the situation over and over and over and so we go to a tennis class new tennis class and sure enough doesn't want to go in and I'm like okay. I'm gonna try this a little differently so we just. We hang out and we're talking we're just talking I decide we're gonna stay here we're not gonna try to force you to go and we're just gonna sit here and talk and I start telling them I'm like you know. You know I get I get pretty afraid at doing new things to actually so I totally get that and you know I realize that it's other people aren't it's not that the other people aren't afraid like they have the scared they have the scared in them to right here right in your chest. I was like but you get to decide like does this scared when I was like and sometimes the scared wins and like today the scared one but it doesn't always have to win sometimes you get to win. So tell them this I forget about it he doesn't really even really giving you know kids are always like verbally affirm like. Yeah you know she is what a wonderful lesson like he's just like you know looking at his like car that he's playing with or whatever. So three weeks later we go and we go to class and my wife takes him and he goes in she's like oh he went into tennis no problem this time after you know three weeks and then afterwards is like you know what good job like you know so proud of you how did you do it and he was like I didn't want to let the scared win today and I was like yes. Totally complete victory in life I did it I did it I'm not a terrible dad I actually taught him something it was like this huge like you know great moment of my life that I was just hearing that that that little seed. Watered enough like eventually did bloom in his own words and I had actually forgotten about that whole thing and he remembered it what a whole some episode. Right that's a fires me up because we're in that corner yeah I want to go to hug my my kids. All right that's it that's fun. I feel like I could rule the world I know I could be what I want to put my all in it like a days off on a road let's travel never looking back. All right my friends I have a new podcast for you guys to check out it's called content is profit and it's hosted by Luis and Fonzie cameo. After years of building content teams and frameworks for companies like Red Bull and Orange Theory fitness Luis and Fonzie are on a mission to bridge the gap between content and revenue in each episode you're going to hear from top entrepreneurs and creators and you're going to hear them share their secrets and strategies to turn their content into profit. So you can check out content is profit wherever you get your podcast.