Escaping the Drift with John Gafford - Ice Cream Scooper to Multi-Millionaire: The Inspiring Story of Noel Bowman The Power Move Podcast EP 61
Episode Date: August 22, 2022Noel Bowman was at the top of his game. He was the proprietor of a successful successful restaurant , had a family, and owned a luxurious home. But then, in the blink of an eye, it all came down.Noel... was forced to declare bankruptcy and lost everything he had worked hard for. He was left with nothing but the clothes on his back and a few dollars in his pocket.Most people would have given up at this point, but Noel started over. He got a job scooping ice cream at a local shop and started to rebuild his life.Since then, Noel has gone on to become an incredibly successful entrepreneur. He is now a multi-millionaire and owner / President of the Minus 5 Icebars and is living proof that it is never too late to start again.This is the inspiring story of Noel Bowman's journey from rock bottom to the top. It is a story of perseverance and determination, and it will show you that anything is possible if you never give up on your dreams.☑️ If you liked this video, consider subscribing to The Power Move with John Gafford The Power Move podcast stands to be one of the top sources of knowledge and insights, specifically into real estate and entrepreneurship out there! Not to mention tons of coverage of topical events and insights into our non-commercial lives as well…
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from the art of the deal to keeping it real
live from the simply vegas studios it's the power move with john gafford back again back again for
another episode of power move i'm your host john gafford this is a podcast where we try to talk
about business we talk about life we talk about interesting things try to get you from one place where you are now to the next
with me to my left as always is the bulgarian mongoose called amadan or michael miller that's
who stole my identity on instagram and has more followers than me. That made me feel bad today.
I'm not going to lie.
There's a fake account on Instagram
and they have more followers than Cole.
So fake you is better than real you.
Way better.
Yeah, but fake you probably puts out some effort.
Way better.
I lost friends.
And piping in from the couch is the counselor, Chris Connell.
How are you, counselor?
Gentlemen, always good.
Always good.
And in the hot seat today, ladies and gentlemen,
we have one of my oldest and dearest friends,
believe it or not.
And he's not here because he's one of my friends.
As a matter of fact, the fact that he's one of my friends probably makes him not want
to be here.
But we have him here because it's an interesting story.
Noel is the president of probably one of the most interesting restaurant concepts.
Well, not even a restaurant concept.
Hospitality concepts. Attraction not even a restaurant concept. Hospitality concepts.
Attraction, we'll call it.
Essentially, Noel makes millions of dollars
selling cold air, is what he does.
Brilliant!
If you're talking about what that is.
But there's more than that.
Noel is the president of the ice bars here in Las Vegas,
and they've also scaled some across the country.
And Noel's got a cool story, man.
I mean, I figured the reason that I
called Noel is not just because you're going to listen to this and say, how can I become brutally
successful selling cold air? That's not why I had him in. Why I had him in is as the economy
starts to turn and starts to change, and I'm seeing these companies lay a lot of people off.
Well, Noel and I have been friends for a lot of for a long time and i saw him get
smoked in a downturn type deal where he lost something that was a lifetime literally of work
for you fell apart and then the climb back to where you are now is a pretty good story it really
is without a doubt that uh you know life will throw a lot of unexpected things at you, and some people can crawl under
a rock under the bed and never come out of it.
Yeah.
I got a lot of shit thrown at me.
No, you did, man, for sure.
But before we get to your story, man, we got to talk about some current events as we go
along.
So the first thing is, I'm pretty proud of us, boys.
Pretty proud.
Pretty proud.
There are.
All of our wives this weekend went away to the beach and stayed at the newport house
i am proud to report seven kids went seven kids seven are still alive yeah they're still alive
all of our children survived the weekend seven kids arguably alive yeah i mean yeah no trips to
the hospital no stitches everything's fine and we were talking about this earlier so let's get
into well actually let's see the frequency at which our wives listen to the show.
Let's just see if they're never going to hear this. Let's see if this even comes up. So
my experience, and I think we discussed it, everybody had a similar experience was
my house might have been cleaner the whole time my wife was gone and had nothing to do with me
cleaning anything up it just had to do with not letting the minions run the asylum control lack
of tolerance i think that was it yeah i had a zero tolerance policy that's so funny that all three of
us that was the first thing we all said yeah i mean it smelled like a tropical beautiful tommy
bahama it was nice it was like i could see
i could see colt laid out in the bathtub i like some bombs a glass of white wine i could tell red
wines john get it right get it right i could see you doing this like the kids banging on the door
you're like daddy needs time connell truth be told did the maids come before the wife he came nope
no no i went through and i got to see the beauty was i got to throw a lot of shit out
that i would never dare risk doing while she's there won't notice it undercover yeah i think
the best part it was the fear in your eyes though when you're like what have you done now i have to
take care of my own children i just didn't sign said to me. Well, I just didn't sign up for that. And I had no intent of ever being.
I mean, I want to be a father on paper.
I want to be a celebrity on paper.
I don't actually want to be one.
I want to be one on paper.
Noah said I have to do the work.
I just want to be able to call up and get a good.
This is why I said I'll be John Grisham famous hopefully one day.
Where nobody knows what you look like.
You're not being followed to the bathroom in Disneyland.
But you can call up a restaurant and get good table that's what i wanted out of
fatherhood to like get the big piece of chicken to have the day where you gotta you know bring
me golf socks or whatever yeah but that's basically the line is that's just a line
so colt i gotta believe speaking of being followed into the bathroom at disneyland i
gotta believe you have a story of this. I'm just going to.
Bathroom?
You know what?
It's what happened to me the other day at the bathroom.
I was really disgusted by it. I can't remember.
Give me a second.
I'll take it.
What happened to me in the bathroom the other day?
I was really disgusted by it.
If you ever know what it's like to be on a reality show,
like you would say something like that,
it would definitely get jump cut in something else.
What happened to my reality show?
Some guy interviewed me.
I can't go.
No, there's no way.
I don't know.
I can't remember.
Something just happened.
I was so disappointed.
Oh, you know what it was?
The guy straight up started to have a conversation with me
and tried to shake my hand.
In the bathroom?
In the bathroom and hadn't even washed it.
That's what it was.
At the urinal.
At Town Square. At the urinal?inal yeah you don't do that yeah we don't tell you i don't tell
my guys i'll tell you the don king story no so a million years ago when i was running cobalt
lounge in atlanta we had all the super bowl parties during super bowl 2000 i walk in the
bathroom in the vip area and uh and don king's in the bathroom right stealing money from somebody
no no no no no no no no no no no no no no he walks it and i'm just in there because i was like
whatever the little bathroom attendant guy needed so i was doing something right i wasn't milling
around the bathroom for yeah right there was a reason i was the same thing
so i'm in there and he walks in and he washes his hands and then he goes to the journal
and then he turns to walk out and i'm standing there and i kind of had this look on my face like
and he looks at me it doesn't even say he goes when you shake as many hands as i do
you wash your hands before you touch the dick he's not wrong no it really isn't i was like that's the
cleanest thing on your body oh yeah that's my that's my don king story there it was but you
know i did want to talk about something else i want to know something is it about the death penalty
because i want to no feel free for death i feel like if you go to another man and there's a urinal
that could have divided you and you go to the one beside the other man. I don't believe in the death penalty for a lot of reasons.
I think it's so fun to mess with people.
That's a positive.
So directly, you're guilty of this.
There should just be some kind of drone that hovers over a bathroom.
So help me here, because my son, 10 years old, Raiders game this weekend,
big crowd.
Stadiums are difficult.
He's got a choice.
One guy's here, a couple empty ones over,
and he goes to three or four
and he's running away, right?
I guess that's pretty normal,
but there's a lesson there somewhere.
Well, the lesson is
he's like three and a half feet,
four feet tall.
He's in the spray zone.
He's like,
I'm out.
Yeah, he's got to choose
a lot more careful than we do.
Oh, God, God.
I don't know about that.
Stay clear of other men
in the urinal when you have a choice.
When possible. When you ever have a
choice impossible or or make it super weird i had a friend a long time ago in orlando that would
always come up and stand next to me at the urinal in a crowded restroom and just lean over and go
hey great penis everybody would just make it very strange uh which is which is good but i'll tell
you what else is strange all right let's talk about a conspiracy theory that i believe may be true oh i heard this one over the weekend and it resonated
with me made a lot of sense i have no idea if it's accurate could just be a theory but it was
a guy i saw on a podcast so you know it's real you know it's true you know it's true so anyway
what this cat was saying was he goes uh his theory was he goes goes, listen, in China, the algorithm for TikTok is entirely different than the algorithm in the United States.
About positive and negative?
Have you heard this?
No, no.
In China, the algorithm will reward you for talking about science or mathematics or this and that.
There's a positive.
Yes, there's positive.
Whereas in the United States, it rewards you for doing the dumbest possible shit.
I don't think that's a conspiracy theory.
You think that's real?
Oh, yeah. I think so. I was under the impression that that was already established i didn't know
i didn't know that i thought it was just a conspiracy theory yeah so essentially you're
training a whole generation of idiots what do you think we're doing welcome to america
if you're just figuring this out, that's a bombshell.
Talk to the guy in the urinal next to you and go, look at that penis.
Yeah.
We're right here in the power move.
In the power move.
We should be telling people how to exploit those facts.
Yeah, that's a good point.
Whether or not they exist.
That's a good.
No.
So you're in agreement that that's real?
Oh, for sure.
100%.
Do you show me a Chinese TikTok where you got a dad doing some dance move?
Well, you feel like you should be building rockets.
Can I ask my other tick tock question, which is this?
How long do you think it is before somebody goes up to somebody in a Home Depot in the state of Florida and knocks their hat off or puts a bucket on their head and they pull a gun out and shoot them on the stand their ground with that again that hasn't happened and it hasn't happened how
long before it i mean it's coming i think those are set up though i don't do anything i would i
hate that they come down my stream on everything i look these morons that want to bump into people
or knock people's hat dude i i can't wait for you to get shot. I cannot wait for that to happen.
If you want to look at that optimistically,
if you want to be an optimist,
which I think we see so many instances of X,
Y,
Z happening.
When you look at the actual world,
I argue that most people are honest.
I think that most people do the right thing.
The shopping cart theory.
Yeah.
Well,
no,
because no,
I would,
I would say that more people are genuinely honest.
I think some people don't maybe think.
They're maybe not self-aware.
But I think people want to be.
In the moment.
I think people want to be the good guy in their own movie.
And I think that people will see themselves as the protagonist.
Right?
And so at the end of the day, I don't think that most people are going to pull out a gun and shoot you at Home Depot.
I think when that happens, there's 330 million people in this country and when you're a statistician you go well i see five
horrible things happen but you're talking about that's 330 million it's 229 million
who aren't doing crazy shit yeah so if you see guys walking up the escalator one guy's going
down and then he rubs his hand on him and like gives him the eye and most people you might catch
the wrong guy right you might catch her you might get the wrong guy i mean you get these idiots that go there they go to south
central or wherever compton and start pretending like they're going to fight somebody that's i
think it's a low statistical probability yeah it's a generational thing though on the genuine everyone
wants to be the hero but it's eroding oh yeah parts traded for a like and traded for a,
you know,
here's an interesting,
here's an interesting thought.
Cause I had,
I had a little exercise in my own brain this week.
I'll share with you.
This was interesting.
So I won't get into exactly what was going on cause it's irrelevant to the
story.
But what was happening was so many times in life we get disappointed in other
people because they don't behave in a way that we feel we would put in their similar situation like leaving bags of ice in a lamborghini exactly
leaving bags of ice in a lamborghini but it's amazing but in case of case in point case it
wouldn't talk about that if you want but case in point um there was a situation where somebody
close to me was very upset because somebody else was not behaving a way that they felt they would
in a similar situation and so i said okay hand a, hang on a second, let me do this. And I said, let me try to think back where there's a
time when I didn't act to that standard. And can I find a place in my life when I did? And I think
as soon as I thought back and I realized, holy shit, here's a situation where I guarantee somebody
wanted me to act a certain way. And I not even though what i felt was okay and maybe i
asked that person about it is this okay whatever down deep it probably was not to the standard
that i'm asking this or thinking this person should act and i think if before you get disappointed
in others i mean look the stoics say and i'm all about modern stoicism it's funny there was a uh
on modern stoic today it literally came up talking about having no expectation for other people.
You'll be a lot happier.
But I think as humans, I think it's impossible sometimes to do that.
So, you know, looking at that and before you start to get angry or upset or deflated about someone else's actions, just simply place yourself in a similar situation.
Look back in your life and say, have I always held myself to that standard?
None of us are perfect but i but it honestly in my brain was immediately like and when i was able to vocalize to that to the person i was
talking to they were like oh i guess that's true and it kind of diffused that emotion it's true
that's called family setting but it's also true in a work setting but a little different because
there have to be expectations to be set yeah yeah sometimes they don't deliver right but i think
that's true in a personal relationship
it's different than a job i'm paying you like don draper says that's what the money's for
you know it's just at the end of the day i'm not paying i'm not paying the empathy for a friendship
a good boss will probably empathize with employees to a point as long as it's not disruptive to your
business that's where the coaching piece comes in yeah that's where you you can get it you can get them to good in my defense it was eight truly's deep so sorry john yeah there was yeah um for those who wonder about
the lamborghini thing this weekend we ordered everybody uh aj bet with aj you can go back and
check out his episode if you like one of the best sports handicappers here in vegas i thought
which is this is really strange to me and aj AJ, I hope you're watching, buddy, because Jesus, this is not you. If not, I'm sending you.
If not, we'll send it to you.
But so let me tell you what, here's what AJ does.
AJ, first of all, I call, he says, I say, hey man, we're taking the sprinter to the
tailgate, which was awesome, by the way.
It worked out perfectly.
And come on down.
So he shows up, like as we're walking to the stadium.
He says he's coming at like 11.
He's texting constantly the whole time.
There in a minute, there in a minute, there in a minute.
Shows up as we're walking to the stadium and as we get right in front of the stadium he goes are you guys going to the game it's like right yeah dude he
goes where are you chris i'm like watching kickoff yeah dude we're going to the game he's like oh i
didn't know we're going to the game i thought we're just gonna hang out in the parking lot
that's what we did in college i go no the tailgate is the pregame. We have money now. We get to buy tickets to the game.
But he's calling Colt saying,
what can I bring?
Or called you or somebody.
And they're like, bring two bags of ice.
He rolled up in a quarter of a million dollar Lamborghini,
parked it, left two bags of ice in it,
and came in the game with us.
And shockingly enough, it did not melt.
So, AJ, whatever you're doing, you're doing it right. Because if because if that was my car god would have flooded that thing that sticks it would have been
110 degrees out oh no kidding humidity no kidding four four hours that's amazing it was amazing that
is amazing it wasn't me so if you're still listening that's 15 minutes of nonsense well
thank you for staying with us hopefully i'll make sure i tag this so we can get to what we
want to talk about today but again today's show is about overcoming adversity as much more than it is about selling. There's a
lot of good lessons in Noel's story and I want to kind of go through them. So as you're telling it,
if I stop you and kind of dig deeper, let's do that. So first of all, I mean, I know all this
stuff, so it's a little redundant for me, but for those of you who don't know Noel, where did you
grow up? Tell us about the young age. Tell us about you as a kid, man.
Grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana.
All my family's still there.
Migrated to a little town of sand dunes called Destin, Florida, 1977.
I got off to LSU for a few years and found myself in Orlando.
Well, stop this.
Hang on a second.
Because we always ask this question.
Go Tigers.
Go Tigers.
This is the question that we always ask this question. Go Tigers. Go Tigers.
This is the question that we always ask, which is, what was the first hustle as a kid to make money?
What was the first thing you can remember doing to make money?
10 years old, cleaning up a parking lot of a bar called Hogsbreath Saloon.
Famous place.
Yeah.
Out of Fort Walton's where it started and managed to be Key West Cancun.
Clean up the parking lot for five bucks
a day and a free
Coca-Cola. How'd you get that gig?
Went in and asked for it because I needed some
money. Is there anything I can do
to make some money at 10 years old?
Yeah, it was a
grind. I needed something to do.
I saw the fruits of
my bigger brother's labor as he was working
and it became important.
And it was tough.
Broken bottles, glass everywhere.
It was hot.
OSHA compliant.
Exactly.
Wasn't OSHA compliant at all.
There's a lot of that from our younger days, I guess.
So that was the first hustle.
And then you went to LSU.
Went off to LSU.
I was bartending through college.
Was that the first job in hospitality?
No, I'd kind of come up through a restaurant in the Destin area,
bar backing and bus boying and whatnot,
chucking oysters.
And,
uh,
and it,
uh,
actually paved the way to open that door at LSU when I needed some money.
It wasn't a free ride over there.
I kind of worked my way through college.
Yeah.
Uh,
and then got out of there and kind of wound up in Orlando,
Florida.
That's kind of really where the saga begins.
Uh,
I was looking for a job and,
someone told me there was this place, uh, that's about to open and they have this cool thing called a boom
and onion and i started at one of the very first uh outback steakhouses what was your employee
what was your employee number oh i thought one good one you told me it was like if i recall
correctly i want to say it was like 27 is that
i don't know maybe i don't really remember that yeah you told me at one point but i started as
a server with them at their third location um and of course you know the story that thing kind of
blew up um quickly and um that was an interesting story without Outback. Well, health food has really exploded lately.
It's changed a lot.
The Blooming Onion is perfect.
I will say the food quality at Outback, while still okay, is not nearly what it was when they first opened.
No, not at all.
It's not even remotely the same product.
Not at all.
Look, I didn't know that that was going to be a 21-year career for me.
I was just trying to make ends meet and you're hanging out in Orlando doing my
thing.
I think I was 22,
23 never in my life dreamed I would be in hospitality.
It was a stop along the way,
like it is for most people,
but they had a great program and I didn't know that eventually they,
I really didn't pay attention to it.
I think my work ethic and my personality and gregariousness kind of had them tapping on my shoulder at some point to get behind the bar and eventually become a trainer.
I think the second year I was there, the company opened 100 restaurants, and I opened probably 40 of those.
That's a lot.
On the road, traveling, making my mark, and kind of it was great.
I mean, I was really having the time of my life.
I got to see a lot of things, meet a lot of people.
But I started to see really what the deeper program was about, you know, in the management, right?
I had stars in my eyes of this big trainer deal.
And I learned a lot.
Great culture with this company at the time.
Didn't open for lunch.
It was dinner only.
Then I kind of come to find out that their GM, they didn didn't really have gms they had partners put up money you get a 10 you know stake in the business and
you run it for five years in your community and you become the mayor the human resources the
maintenance guy you're everything and i said how do i how do i do this and i remember to this day
you know my uh my superior at the time said, got to get in the kitchen.
I really wasn't a kitchen guy.
I was a front of house guy for my whole life.
And it took a lot of nuts, but I did it.
I was in Daytona Beach, one of the busier stores that they had.
And it's funny, I remember being in that kitchen, you know, making those blue onions.
And it wasn't easy, right?
Six in the morning.
It was a 70-hour-a-week grind.
I mean, it was a grind.
And I was like, what am I doing?
I mean, I was making less money than I was bartending.
But I saw the light at the end of the tunnel.
These guys were making good money, and they had equity.
And I thought it was worth going two steps backwards to take one step forward.
And I remember there was a point in time where I was kind of over it.
I was like, this is a grind. This is what everybody everybody says don't get in the restaurant business you're gonna burn
yourself out right and there was this old dude my next door neighbor in daytona shores which i lived
on the beach and he was always about his garden retired we got into this pattern for six months
but he'd be out there and i'm going to work six in the morning and every day he would look up and he goes don't let the bastards get you down
seriously don't let them get true to me to this day every day i mean this dude was like don't
let him get you down well i can tell you in an industry that's so will just burn you up and burn
you up that's what i do love about that particular brand is is they do offer that proprietor i mean
whenever you walk in a restaurant and they still to this day,
it says like,
this is the proprietor of this business,
right?
The programs change quite a bit.
It's not what it was,
but,
but,
but there,
but there,
but doesn't Darden do some stuff like that as well?
Darden does that as well.
People try to replicate what it was.
It's difficult to do.
I think what you're seeing is it,
it was there.
And then that,
that went away.
Yeah.
And now with all the labor problems that are happening,
especially post-COVID,
I think you're starting to see some people
really understand the equity of that.
These people are soldiers.
Well, the word that you're saying that's most,
people are so short-sighted about money today.
They get so short-sighted about it,
they don't understand the value of equity.
Equity is everything.
It's everything in a business.
You can be the most well-paid person in the world,
but if you are the one that's operating the business day in and day out, you got to have
equity. Absolutely. It's what kept us busy every day. So yeah, you got to do it. So you're out
back in, when did you become, where was your first store that you were a proprietor? I was one of the
youngest partners at 26 and I made my way to Utah.
That's right.
So I traveled around all over Florida as a manager and cutting my teeth.
I was asked to come to Vegas in the early 90s.
I think I moved here in 89, or I'm sorry, about 93.
And we opened all of the Outbacks here in town.
I was still a manager, kind of moving around.
Then we developed the Salt Lake City market. I moved out there, got one of the first ones in salt lake going and then i took the one believe
it or not catholic boy from new orleans had to spend five or six years in provo utah wow oma the
byu cougars yes sir yes sir and then from there uh you know i'd really uh done well one of the
lowest liquor mixes in the company and i had had just tremendous numbers and migrated my way back to Tampa and wound up having a store right next to
our home office. The equity grew in that situation. When you re-sign again, you have the opportunity
to buy into a deeper, deeper stack, if you will, the company, and then made my way up to a joint
venture partner we
partnered with jimmy buffett and uh operated a concept called cheeseburger in paradise i had
the whole state of florida started developing some things uh company what happened what happened
with that that seemed like that seemed like a can't miss deal was it too much too much
competition like margarita like what happened there What happened there? We never really talked about what happened.
You know, at the time, our company had gone private.
We went public, went private, public again, and things were kind of changing.
We were 1,200 restaurants, 60,000 employees.
We started at three.
It was a huge ride.
Some buyouts, some stock, et cetera.
I think the cheeseburger thing is we acquired a Mexican concept that went out of business,
and we took over 40 sites.
I think we just grew way too fast.
We didn't have the infrastructure.
It was a lot of things.
But the concept itself, I think, had legs.
The culture that Jimmy Buffett brings, you know, everyone's on vacation.
It is paradise found.
It was a neat thing, especially when we tried to bring that to middle America. I think it is paradise found it was a neat thing especially
when we tried to bring that to middle america i think it worked but we grew a little too fast
well i think if you're open and trying to open 40 doors that quick the logistics must have just
smoked you and trying to get product that was consistent incredibly tough on all points right
on all that so you know with that said uh you know that's kind of where we get into you know
the exit about 20 21 years later i mean
it uh it hit hard it wasn't a pretty exit for me yeah it was i'd gone through a lot of personal
things if we're going to get right into the you know the the the hit and bottom type of thing
which i think is really what we really want to get into with this segment um you know not to get too
personal but but i i lost three kids with my former marriage. I had to bury three kids.
Kind of had a rough ending to that outback.
Things had changed quite a bit.
It was probably time, but, you know, it didn't end very well at that point in time.
I wound up moving back to Vegas, kind of out of work,
and this was when the housing crash kind of happened.
You know, long story short, you know, within a six-month period of time of uh you know long story short you know within a six month period of time of
you know having that personal tragedy stuff happened to moving back to vegas to to divorce
and bankruptcy i turned 40 years old um you know with nothing to show for it i dumped all of my
outback buyout into a huge house in um mountains edge uh probably you know at the time the robo signing
was going on i dumped it all i don't want a debt i don't have a job let me just dump it all in here
and make sure i got an asset that's or something or something and of course you know divorce and
then and then eventually bankrupt uh uh but uh yeah i was sitting with nothing yeah i remember
i remember that time with you.
And man, it was a real struggle.
There were days, I mean, you moved in with a friend of ours.
And that was nice enough to kind of let your couch surf.
Saved my life.
So I mean, yeah, but I mean, here you were, you're 40 years old.
Marriage is dissolving.
Bankrupt, you just lost the house.
I mean, this was, you were struggling.
Yeah, big time.
And our buddy Pike let you move in, couch surf with him. And I'll never forget. You called me up one day and you
said, okay, you know, I got to do something. I got to do something. You said, there's this
margarita slash slash, uh, margarita slash ice cream deal. It's Caesars. I can go manage it.
You know, it's not a job i necessarily want but
you know they're gonna pay me a hundred grand what would you do now i'm asking what i would do
and i was like i mean shit man you need money it's a hundred grand take a hundred grand just
go yes it'll get your feet on you find something different and you did and i'm gonna show a picture
real quick you look where did you you can see it you look up on the screen i'm gonna show this
oh wow so uh yeah there's a picture of noel and when i first walked up to when i first walked up on him i was like
that little cutie i was like you didn't tell i'd like you didn't tell me there was a hat involved
i remember this day i mean i do because my heart hit the ground when i saw you because i didn't
think i was gonna see me here scoop an ice cream at at 40 years old why yeah because i wanted to pay my child support
and i wanted to do my responsible thing but uh it was a tough ego dude pop so bow tie and a little
top hat yeah can we talk about 100 grand for ice cream scooping yeah i know he's running i know
the story i was really underground ice by bartender because the gentleman that kind of brought me on
was like i think something's going wrong here i need you to kind of infiltrate and see what's
going on and uh but but i literally scooping ice cream so the first okay let me ask you this because
this is because dude there's going to be some people out there man that have to go through this
and you're going to have to swallow your ego and you're going to have to do what you got to do and
you're going to have to take you know when you're used to being on step 57 and all of a sudden you're going to have to swallow your ego and you're going to have to do what you got to do. And you're going to have to take, you know, when you're used to being on step 57 and all of a
sudden you're back at zero looking at step number one and you're going to have to swallow that. So
what was that first day like when you're like, okay, I'm going to put this on, I'm gonna go do
this. What was that like? You know, I had to look at myself in the mirror and almost pull yourself
up by your bootstraps and look, it was a dark time for me. You know, I don't know if I was really me.
I look back on it and go, God, I'm lucky I survived this.
Most people don't, just on the personal tragedy alone.
Forget the bankruptcy and the divorce and the money.
It was a lot of heavy, heavy shit.
And it was times that I didn't give me.
I probably went five, six months without the job, kind of going, nobody would touch me.
No corporate America chain would work.
No one was hiring.
The housing crash was going on.
So, yeah, but desperate times call for desperate measures and i remember driving to work going
you know i got to get this done and believe it or not i did it for my daughter that's what
i had to pay that that that child support and do my part there and that's what kind of kept
me alive on that so you know the human spirit as we talked about earlier kind of prevails
well and listen there's probably a lot somebody is listening to this right now
going a hundred thousand dollars to scoop ice cream,
I'll wear whatever the hell you want, right?
I don't need that.
But you have to understand something else.
Everything is relative.
And you're talking about somebody
that had been very successful
making well past $100,000 a year
and literally back to zero.
I mean, this is everything.
It wasn't 100, by the way, it was 60.
Oh, was it 60?
I graduated to 100 when I got another job after that. All right, well, this is everything. It wasn't 100, by the way. It was 60. Oh, was it 60? I graduated to 100 when I got another job after that.
All right, well, it's 60.
See, now the story might change.
I don't know if that happens.
But you know what?
But this is like a perfect thing of you're not starting over from zero, right?
You've got so much experience now.
You're not starting over like you did when you were 18 or 20.
And I think people are afraid to start over in life because they think it's well this is how it was when i was 18 years old you
have so much more education i'll tell you that i got lucky with 60. i was prepared to take whatever
yeah i couldn't get anything i got i really fell into that that was good uh but i was prepared to
do whatever it took just just as a power move point something that
people forget and miss all the time and it kind of got glossed over there um there is a huge value
in bankruptcy i just i think a lot of people don't appreciate that step in the story and they're
always so worried about it they go oh my god it's it's the end of the world but but it's not it's
actually something it's a hard reset and and and to your point had
you not been in the middle of a housing crisis right had you been there today like you could
still keep all the equity in your house effectively in nevada i just like i said i think some people
they forget about that step and it's hugely important ego prevented me from doing that
for almost two years i wish i would have done it two years earlier. 100%.
It's a system that's in place for a reason.
For a reason.
And I'll tell you, without it,
it would be a very struggle to get back to where I was.
100%.
I had a lot of debt.
It was two houses, a Florida house,
and there was a house here.
There was a lot going on.
Oh, I forgot about the Florida
because you couldn't sell it either
because the market turned.
That's right.
I just thought it was important
because that's a valuable business lesson
that people think that it's the end of the world.
You can walk out in Nevada a millionaire after bankruptcy, by the way.
Well, I know, but I think, too, I think a lot of people, like you said, it's pride.
It's pride, 100%.
Same thing goes for unemployment.
A lot of people want to do unemployment.
I don't need unemployment.
You put into it.
Take it.
It's a program.
I tell any employee that ever leaves me today, I said, if you have it, take it.
It is not about pride.
Get the check. You've earned it. You put into it, and that's part of the deal. Get the check, and that have it, take it. It is not about pride. Get the check.
You've earned it.
You put into it, and that's part of the deal.
Get the check, and that's part of the deal.
That's a very valuable point that people miss.
But I think now, so here you are.
You didn't scoop ice cream very long.
It didn't last very long.
No, I managed to get another job.
But here's the point.
The point was, you tried for six months.
I mean, hitting every job there was, trying to get something, trying to get anywhere.
It's like dating.
When you ain't had a girlfriend in a year, how long since you had a girlfriend?
Yeah, I don't want to date you.
She's okay.
Yeah, but when you've got three girlfriends, girlfriend number four wants to know why.
So if you don't have a job and you want a job, it's okay to take something because if you look like you're gainfully employed,
even if it's something.
One step at a time.
One step at a time.
It's hard for people to gather and grasp,
but you have to do it.
You have to do it.
So if you're out there and you're having the struggle,
and I know it sucks, it's heavy,
and everyone's got their own issues, right?
Mine was heavy.
Not on the personal side.
It was super heavy.
And you just got to do it.
If not, you're going to wither.
You're going to wither away.
You've got to take that step.
Take whatever comes to you because you're going to learn something from it.
And it will open other doors.
So you go to, so from there, where do you wind up?
I went over to a seafood restaurant in Mandalay Bay.
I got lucky there and was GM of a place called RM Seafood.
Oh, yeah.
Rick Moonen, buddy.
With Rick Moonen.
Thank you, Rick.
If you're watching this, he was very educational, and I learned a lot about food.
Back of house was always my weakness.
But at the same time, I had to make some tough choices there because he had this real high-end,
upstairs, chefs, sous chefs, and this whole labor thing going on, and no one was out.
Vegas was struggling.
Yeah.
So I kind of had to convince him to just turn this thing
and let's shut some things down.
Let's make this thing viable.
Let's get through this period.
And it was tough.
We had to let some people go
and, you know, it was not easy.
How much did,
because Rick has notoriously high standards
with the way things operate in his places.
How much of that did you take on to yourself?
Did you take on going forward?
Because, like, let's face it.
We worked at chain restaurants.
You train.
Here's this.
But, dude, it's nothing like the standards that a chef of his level expects.
And I know his level of expectation.
Yeah, look.
I mean, chef-driven places are a little different.
I mean, just from a pure business point of view.
I think Rick and I had an understanding of he was was he's a smart dude he knows what he's
doing in the kitchen now he's great with the camera his book was doing well you know he'd
turned through some gms he'd had quite a few and i was a little worried you know i'm number six in
a short amount of time why are you burning these people out and um so chef driven things are a
little different they operate front of house a little different it's not a separation of church
and state right artist so but no i learned a lot about uh how to balance that where we didn't really have
that in the in the corporate side that we were on right yeah but it was it's intense man it's
intense and i was a guy that didn't really know a whole lot about culinary i knew i knew my way
around but i was more business right labor people let's let's marketing let's get the sales in let's
let's figure out how we're going to get through this downturn in the housing deal uh but at the same time he was tough man he was a tough
dude to work with and he had a very high standard you're very correct so yeah what was it what was
your favorite thing you accomplished when you were in arnold uh you know i think the unfortunate side
is we had the business savvy enough to to whittle it down and get it still profitable with what was
going on in the
market.
And that was the hard part.
So yeah,
I think we,
he could have really gotten strangled in that thing.
And I think we got into a point where we,
we got to running and operating correctly.
I don't,
I don't recall.
It was boiler room open before or after?
No,
boiler room was after.
Yeah.
So this was the upstairs kind of deal.
When it was that tasting deal.
Really,
really high end stuff.
Good,
good stuff so
anyways you know to carry that story on as i would would work there uh right across the hall there
was this construction banner coming up with this uh minus five thing right so i didn't really know
what that was about but uh you know i kind of uh it it opened up and I met the folks that were actually running it, who's my current business partner.
And they kind of tapped me to come over.
They needed some help.
They didn't pick the right people to start with.
And I was like, you know, all right, let me get out of this environment with this chef-driven deal.
I'm laughing because I've had two terrible pieces of advice I've given in my life.
I mean, dreadful pieces.
The first of which is when I was living in Tampa and I got a rough cut of what would be Zach Brown's debut album.
And prior to this, Zach Brown had more of a rock edge to it and was almost kind of like driving and crying.
And then they super countryed it up.
And I called my buddy Sonny and I said, this is never going gonna work so so there goes my career as an a and r rep number one
and then when noel tells me about this opportunity with the ice place i'm like bro that shit's never
gonna make it is that their first show you're you're very funny on that because as i took the
job i went back to all of my restaurant people.
I'm like, what are you crazy?
That doesn't have legs.
So was it just me?
It doesn't have legs.
Look, truth be told, I wish I could take credit for creating this wonderful concept.
That's not.
That's from a wonderful guy named Craig Ling.
He's a New Zealander.
He kind of created this deal and kind of got it here to Vegas.
And I was fortunate enough to
come on in a very very limited months after it opened and uh and we didn't have it right in the
beginning you know you know for those listening i don't know if you know what what ice bars are
now well john you tell me i'm gonna i'm gonna pull it up and i'm gonna well you keep talking
so it's an attraction where we coach you up and whisk you into a winter wonderland of 90 tons of ice and you drink cocktails out of glasses made of ice uh in in the beginning wearing fur coats fur coats faux fur coats the whole bit
and it's it's it's it's an attraction however when i first came on you know it really wasn't it was
really more of a high-end deal they were trying to pitch it with bottle service and caviar and
this real ultra lounge kind of super swanky experience
and and it was quick to me to realize that you know no one's going to stay in there for three
hours you're going to have your drink 500 bottle of tito's right right so we quickly you know kind
of pivoted to uh attraction mode and uh and it kind of just hit. And we got lucky to have Travel Channel come do a story on us,
and it kind of went out to nationally.
And it kind of hit.
It really did.
But we've morphed into a lot of things over the years.
Do you have a PR guy for that kind of stuff,
or are people reaching out to you guys?
If you're watching this,
if you're watching us on YouTube, you can see there's Noel right there.
Look at that young, handsome man there.
Success will get you old.
We got the before picture in here today.
That looks like the after photo.
Juxtaposition that with the ice cream.
Can we crop that in there?
We might be able to.
So yeah, I mean, this is an experience.
So that was the first bar, though.
This is the first one where everything's built of ice.
I mean, the glasses of rice.
You go in and have a great experience.
That's enough of that.
But yeah, it's one of those things where it is a cool attraction when you first took it over like
you said they were trying to do all that stuff so you immediately because we had a lot of
conversations about this when you first did it i'm not taking credit for any of this you just
would bounce stuff off of me and what i thought and i thought you know looking being able to look
at the kpis of that business and and the indicators that really make it go, I think, is where you excelled and brought some to the table that they didn't have.
Because like just the only thing I really remember vividly, we had a lot of conversations about a lot of things you did, but watermarking the photographs.
I mean, how much do you think annually that drove to the bottom line?
I mean, you know, everyone would try to come out and either rip them off online or copy and paste them or do whatever.
So, yeah, hitting the watermarks and the photos were a big part of our deal.
Yeah.
No, huge, huge, you know, tons and tons of money. I mean, we were doing a couple million bucks a year in just photo sales.
Right.
But remember, it's like, do you buy the picture after you get off the roller coaster at disney yeah for six flags i mean they snap you going all crazy and people want to
take pictures and at the beginning phones in the beginning this was 12 years ago now we've been
going 12 years um did i think it was going to last 12 years no way yeah no way and i want i want to
get into how we kind of have grown with the no we're getting there but the photo thing in the
beginning the phones really weren't super attached to people
12 years ago. We had lockers. We wanted to lock everything up for multiple reasons. You're holding
a glass made of ice. And if you're dealing with your phone and whatever you drop it, it's a
liability. So we would lock up your bags and your goods and our photographers would come in and we
wanted to sell the photo. But eventually that became a very contentious point and i held on to it probably
too long two years longer than i should have uh because we didn't want to lose that revenue it
was a very very difficult step for me to take um but once we did it the viral nature of social
media was hitting at the same time it actually increased sales and made a better experience because you were driving it so i mean list literally your your product is a room full of ice it is
a couple drinks that come with your entrance booze john the answer is booze that's it but what i'm
saying is coming from the restaurant business where you're trying you know you're like oh crap
this this you know these steaks are going to go bad if we don't sell them today.
Chicken wings are on sale, whatever.
Who played special, baby?
Yeah, and you're trying to balance your labor.
You're trying to do this.
I mean, literally, it's the simplest thing in the world to do.
You know, a lot of people.
But yet I see people screwed up.
That's my point.
A lot of people would think that it's simple.
I'm just going to build a freezer and walk in cooler and then have it happen.
We learned a lot.
Ice is perishable.
It has a mind of its own, and it does different things every time.
But it's also molecular.
So when you think about it, the ice, these big blocks that we put together,
and before you know it, after a couple of days, it just blends and melds together.
But more so than that, you know, we were experiential before the whole experiential thing came into play.
This is 12 years ago.
Look at Vegas today.
We were way ahead of the curve.
All the VR stuff.
All that.
The skateboards.
No wheels.
Area 51.
We were.
Jason Egan stuff.
An ice bar in the middle of Mojave Desert and having this experiential 45-minute experience.
We played well off the heat,
but we were kind of ahead of the curve. And I think the beauty of our 12-year success is, you know,
I'd never rest on my laurels. And it's funny because I've got a pretty legit, loyal management
team that's been with me a long time. And I kind of come out of left field with some crazy concepts
and they're like, what are you thinking?
How do you keep up with it?
And I get a little nervous about what, there's so much immersive stuff going on right now.
I'm reading a book, or I read it already, called The Experience Economy.
And if you haven't read it, you need to pick it up.
It's amazing.
It talks about everything from how people are vacationing you know
bloggers and these instagrammers these influencers are going out to foreign countries and they're
you know it's it's a work vacation there's foodie vacations there's medical vacations i'm going to
mexico to get my teeth done and it's amazing what people are doing you know who our biggest
competition is right now it's a cell phone i tell my staff every day the second someone gets on a phone and i'm not
talking about to text their friends hey we're at the ice bar we're going to meet up later i'm
talking when they're just surfing we've lost them we've got to keep them engaged off of their phones
really fast forward 12 years used to be we celebrated the art of ice that was enough for
people to get excited it's not cheap to come in there, right? You come in there and we're always changing it. Ice is pliable. That's what's beautiful. We can move
the bar. It just changes. In the beginning, it was like, wow, this ice is cool. And then the ice got
smarter and better and more colorful. And we did cooler things, interactive things, but now that's
not enough. So we started adding different things, right? What's this QR stuff about? What's a QR
code? So now I've got, you know, QR codes all around with time-lapses of how this particular wall was built,
an expose on the ice carver that built it.
We've added so many more immersive features inside.
I've got a sorbet tasting game.
We have chef-driven.
So you want to stare at your phone, at least stare at your phone with stuff that's involved in our place.
We have tricks in our back pocket that we tell our people.
The timing of introducing these experiential concepts within our concept.
You need to wait.
Don't blast them all at once.
We know the life of an ice experience.
And ring toss.
We had the ring toss until people started throwing them.
We shouldn't be throwing them.
But sorbet tasting games, we could guess the flavors.
We've got all these exotic flavors to scavenger hunts.
Do you have human flavored?
I didn't say I'd eat it.
I was asking if Chris, the most interesting guy I know,
would eat human flavored.
That was it.
That was all I was asking.
Hey, Noel, do you have a PR team, but a big one,
or is a lot of it social media because you guys if you know
what you're looking at right like you see a billboard and you're like oh now i see it all
time like now that i know you you guys are everywhere yeah like i see you on national
channels on local channels all the time you know because we have such an exciting concept it's an
ice bar in the middle of the Mojave Desert.
The camera does love us, and it creates such rich content.
But yeah, I mean, I have a PR firm to kind of help do some of that stuff.
But the influencers, my social media gal, is really where it's at.
I mean, you've got to get everywhere to compete,
and you've got to have rich, great content for people to get excited about.
Yeah.
So you guys are kicking ass here.
You get where you're up and running.
The first door is here.
And you start thinking to yourself, I'm going to take over the world.
We're going to have ice bars on every court.
It's going to be an ice age.
And that's when the big bucks start rolling in.
So what are the thoughts?
You get established at Manly Bay, it's doing great.
So now you start dreaming about world domination.
What happens now?
You know, we wanted to take another stab at Vegas.
The question was, how many of these can we really do, right?
Is this a one-hit wonder?
Do we figure it out?
And I had a knack.
I don't know if the company really was going to move on.
I mean, we had intentions to, but I'd been there and done that with Outback.
I mean, I was all over the countryside in leases and really knew how to scale, if you will.
And we knew that this concept really wasn't for every town in America.
It has to be a tourist town with specific turnover every week.
You know, we didn't do New Orleans, which I really wanted to do.
It's so hot, a drink, and you can drink on the street.
But New Orleans can be a regional play.
Same people kind of come every year.
So about four years into it, you might fall off because they've all done it.
So Vegas, Orlando, Nashville, those types of really big turnover.
New York.
New York.
But I really started scouting Vegas and looking for dead spots in casinos.
And our next stop was I went to Monte Carlo.
And there was the old David Copperfield.
Or not David Copperfield, but there was a theater in there.
Jabbawockeez.
No, there was a theater.
Oh, four Jabbawockeez.
It wasn't Copperfield.
I forgot the guy's name.
Lance Burton.
There you go.
Theater.
And it was just dead 80s
gift shop and a couple of shows and i was like you know let me pitch these guys and see what's
up we were already partners with mgm and sure enough you know we we managed to pull that off
and and we put our second store there and it just came out of the gate my gangbusters doing well
doing really well and of course from them we're like oh we we're gonna throttle down we're moving on
billions one on every corner yeah every corner is most of your people coming uh walk-bys or are they
people actually finding you to come to the experience good good question it's a 50 um
viral organic kind of you know walk by and then the other 50 is kind of destination.
We pre-sell a ticket online.
They know where they're going.
We're part of their plans.
We're before dinner, after dinner, before show, after show.
And that is growing exponentially because of all of the digital advertising,
the things that we're doing online.
That's why we're popping up everywhere.
If you're not using digital marketing, if you're in business,
you shame on you.
You have to.
You have to use it. You have to. And know what you're in business you shame on you you have to use it you have to
and know what you're doing so monte carlo's open and then but then all of a sudden they come to you
and go like hey just kidding just kidding no they they uh they went in there we we we got about
three or four years out of it well let's let's back up a little bit because i i from that we
we started really colt interrupted you and just ruined the
whole podcast it's it's every call no because your location's very ruined the mall's a very
to me is it's just a weird location right that walkway so i was one i just always wondered that
took us a year to convince me and lebe to do it really it's another story but then we wound up
getting a spot in new york then some people started coming to us you know some people had experienced it and they were looking for cool
immersive attractions retail was starting to kind of slow down they wanted cool things for
their property so long story short we we got new york going at the uh with the second
temperature related pun right we got new york city and then we did one in Orlando on International Drive.
And so we had four going, and things were kind of swimmingly until.
Until.
Dun, dun, dun.
What happened, Noel?
I don't know.
I mean, sometimes you pick good real estate.
Sometimes you pick bad real estate.
And you guys are in the real estate game, especially on the commercial side.
And New York was great.
Matter of fact, when New
York hit, we opened up in a heat wave in July. And the media, I've never seen anything like it
in my life. For a week straight, we had lines and lines of national media waiting to get into film.
We were being broadcast in Egypt and you name it, we we were everywhere which i think is great i know is
great it helped really get vegas on a national stage uh orlando you know we opened for about
two years it was just a wrong site wrong place we thought it was going to work point stuff
convention center and it just uh it just did not work so we wound up closing that deal and uh
sometimes you got to be careful what you wish for.
So let's talk about that.
So this is another mistake that a lot of people make when they start to scale, right?
And I love talking about scaling businesses because that's what I kind of feel like my
forte is.
And, you know, you asked me earlier, you said, you know, hey, have you made a mistake yet?
You asked me flat out with scaling.
I was like, yeah, we made a mistake in atlanta we made a
mistake with the wrong back the wrong horse and rather than go down the hole of of just you know
losing our ass we just said hey maybe it's better time to cut bait and move this somewhere else and
that's what we did but but at the same time when you're in growth mode that's a really hard thing
to do and it was for me so what i mean it, are you strictly looking at P&Ls? Like, are you starting to add up like this one,
this is feeding that, and this is causing a problem. And what was that decision like for you?
Of course, you've got partners. And sometimes in certain situations, you've got OPM, you know,
other people's money that are involved and you, you, you have liability to them and you're trying
to get their return on investment back and uh closing a store is not
an easy decision i mean i i i think pride certainly is the one of the first things you have to overcome
you know i can make it work i can turn it around we're winners and especially on the restaurant
side you know you let me get a crack at that i'm gonna i'm gonna switch it up you know uh
but you know you you can't send a duck to eagle school the site is what it is you just can't send a duck to Eagle School. The sight is what it is. You just can't.
A tiger doesn't change its stripes.
You can't send a duck to Eagle School.
I like that.
I like that a lot.
That's true because how many people do that?
All the time you see the same restaurant go in, out in eight months,
in, out in eight months.
Everybody's like they didn't know what they were doing.
The death spot, as I call them.
That's the death spot. You get lightning can strike a couple times but you know when you get the fifth iteration of a restaurant it's usually something right you've been to town
square right dude there are a couple spots there that are just cursed there is a witch that is
if you're if you're facing double helix we all all know which one. We knew where we were going.
You're done.
I almost went up there with our new Bohemia concert.
If you're to the right, you're done.
You have to be a national franchise.
Left, you can dance underwater and not get wet.
As much as you want.
To the right, you're dead, man.
You are barbecued from day one.
I can do this.
They've had nine iterations.
However, how does Blue Martini do it?
Well, no, because they're on the left.
They're on the left.
It doesn't matter.
Then over here you've got favoritism.
There was literally – there's no rhyme or reason.
You got me.
You got favoritism.
No rhyme or reason.
On national brands, right?
There's certain national brands that can pull you back.
Nothing would work there.
There's a lot that could work there.
Just no one's – there's no need to compete in that big space but the right side that's how you right like john back to your
point you know when is the right time to cut bait and move on right right right that's the hard
question for everybody and and we had to make some tough decisions with it and i think it's the best
thing we've ever done kind of like back to your bankruptcy thing i didn't want to do it i know i
fought it i fought it but as soon as i did it all the doors opened right you know people always say well i'm not the kind of person that quits yeah right
you associate losses with who you are as a person right meanwhile instead of being like well what
winners do is they do the things they win at too right because derrick jeter is probably a pretty
shitty uh offensive lineman right i'm a winner with the yankees i should be great you know
no no no no like you said you don't
ducks don't go to eagle school hey and we can all be uncle rico and be like if coach would have put
me and i would have won state but you say you saying the captain can't block is that what you're
saying right now you said i bet there's some new york yankee fans disagree with that the saying
the captain can't blow in some wedge breakers once in a while maybe something but you're right
you can't put a duck in eagle school for for that very same reason you just you know realize you have to
look at yourself in the mirror and make that decision and some people that's their last
location think of these mom and pop folks right they're gonna have to keep it going or you know
it doesn't work it doesn't work you know you gotta move on along those terms it's funny i did a
speaking gig right about a year ago one of the deals i did it was in one of the barbershop. I was there and it just, you know, your memories come up on your
stories where people tagging stuff. And this happened a year ago and every single kid, this
was, this was like, this was a bunch of 20 year old kids, right? It was a bunch of really young
set for really young crew for me, not my normal standard crowd. Right. And, uh, the thing that
they were all posting that I resonated with that I said when I was like, look, don't become what you do because what you do will change several times.
And I think the ability for truly successful people that scale is their ability to detach
themselves from the failures and just under, just let it, just let the truth be in the
math.
You know what I learned from the Outback fallout?
What's that?
It was my whole identity.
Yeah.
I did not know anything else except what i
learned with that company i knew people i knew energy but it's who you were i i literally when
you say don't let it become who you are yeah it was who i was i was devastated yeah and a lot of
people don't really understand what i went through oh dude it was heavy man it was a tough tough time
but you're absolutely right you have to have a life outside
of what you do and you have to balance that if not you just become possessed and it'll hurt you
it'll sting you don't make bad corporate decisions like don't let who you are like yeah what you're
doing john's car after six margaritas of chili thought i forgot about chilies i did not i'm
guessing noel was in salt lake city for a couple of years he may know somebody up there
like an attorney or somebody like that chilies look out chilies were coming on my car you know
i didn't forget about you you thought you're getting a pass i didn't forget about you but
you know what else i didn't forget about it is that time that my favorite time of the podcast
we go every year every week are you ready are you ready for this i have no idea what's coming
it could get dark it's my favorite time.
You're not in trouble.
It's me that gets in trouble now.
It's a dark and evil place.
It is five questions into the mind of Colt.
I'm still upset that's music you guys went through.
No.
I'm going to figure out good, upbeat, happy,
because that's what people think of when they think of me.
No, it's a dark and terrible place, and now we're going ready here we are your five questions for the week colt you're prepared
no let's see what is one thing you wish you'd spent more time doing when you were younger
uh one thing i wish i would have done yes having fun sports i was into sports way too much as a kid you would have done less sports
that was 100 i probably wouldn't have played any sports to be honest if i can redo it again god
what a what a bad take why that's like think about what sports do but no what did dude freaking wreck
my knees wreck my brain wreck my physically but also like i'm i don't know if i'm a kid at 18 but i didn't
have a college experience like i went straight into doing commercial real estate and working a
lot so i wish i had fun doing that but no i i don't know i i had a good childhood so sports
and really i i actually think sports is one of the most instrumental things for people
that gets overshadowed because people think it's
for meatheads when when in reality everybody i know yeah but it was successful it was six days
six days a week 52 weeks a year right so i wish i wouldn't have much yeah yeah dude nothing
important next question kindly if you were a boss of many would you want them to fear you or love you oh fear we need to go back to the 48 laws of power
yeah colt it's the closest i've ever seen colt to like literally passing out from happiness
we're reading the 48 laws of power have you read that noel no i haven't oh dude it is
yeah robert green will tell you straight up he's like look i ain't this i'm not advocating you
behave like this i'm just saying this is how you get power this is how you get power no no no that
is a manifesto manifesto for my life did you guys not really enjoy that as much as i did
those are traits of narcissistic psychopaths
which was amazing all right next up we need to do that episode again if if you were all about it, which was amazing. All right, next up. We need to do that episode again.
If you were a captain of a ship, what would you call it?
Captain of a ship?
Yes, if you were sailing the seas of Colt in search of humans to hunt.
And eat.
No, the eating was for Connell.
He just could hunt them down.
That was for Connell, guys.
That wasn't me.
A name of a ship yes what
would it be you gotta give me time on the you're such a good friend i thought might be the
relationship yeah hmm no yeah is that what you think of me good friend hey he'd be the relationship
captain of the relationship yeah i don't i have i'm just trying to like that one i'm trying to yeah i'm trying to go with
the think of it i thought i mean it'd be the bulgarian
no i thought it would be the event because it'll take you wherever you want to go but
eventually it's probably going to hit a thing eventually it's that's a hard one what would
you guys name yours what would you name yours that's a a hard one. Name mine? If I had a ship? Yeah. The Prestige Worldwide.
Yeah.
That's pretty good.
The Love Boat.
The Love Boat?
The Love Boat.
That's a hard question.
I didn't like that question.
Here we go.
Colton, that's a hard question.
These are, so far, sorry guys.
Sorry guys.
These ones are not good.
Oh, gee.
This could be, this could go anywhere.
I like when John's face picks up.
What's the strangest thing you've ever seen in the middle of the road?
Decapitated the body.
Yeah, that's strange.
And that's, yeah.
But you'll see a lot of shit in Utah.
Can you give some context, Cole?
Did you do it?
No.
No, I've unfortunately had multiple times bodies have flown in front of my car.
Are you watching Stranger Things a little more than you need to?
Never seen it. Never seen to? Never seen it.
Never seen it.
But in Utah, you find a lot of weird shit in the middle of the road,
driving around.
You don't do that in Vegas.
You do.
First time we were ever in Cleveland, I saw a dead body in the road.
You know what?
Oh, yeah.
I was like, somebody else was talking about a dead body in the road.
It was your daughter, Chris.
Chris's daughter.
Tell me a thing.
Family trip to Cleveland.
I'm going gonna hijack the
segment and we're gonna do five questions with noel yeah because i'm sorry these were those were
bad on my part here we go time power yeah is a man a man if he's never seen a star wars movie
yes yes he is okay he's like a real man you know he's thinking of like amazonian you know tribesmen
that are you know hunting for survival that's a man that's a man so he lives in a third world
and hunts tigers that and i feel like i uh mirror that type of manliness no buying or selling tom great actor? Speak your mind. Be truthful.
Yes.
Okay.
What?
Name one movie.
I'm just trying to rile you up.
That's all I'm trying to do here.
You're going Wilson?
You're going that movie?
Just that one line.
Forrest Gump.
Come on.
He's pretty good.
Saving Private Ryan.
All right.
No.
You got it out of your mind.
Next question.
Do you know how much, how better of a movie those would be with
like better actors all right next question it's like the rock next question rock and saving private
ryan would be amazing here we go as an english teacher i would cry next question is there any
universe where colt could be an equestrian olympian in a year and a half starting today
he has one and a half years to train with
the best there are the greatest access to the the best you know jumping horses there are do you
think that colt in his current state as it is day to day 500 days out be an olympian equestrian
medalist i have my answer okay and it's going to be well backed up. No.
Absolutely not.
You have four for four, Noel.
You know what? Four for four.
I'm waiting before I come
He played way too many sports in high school
and his knees are busting.
Yeah, but guess what, Noel?
It's more of just a shock
absorbent because the horse
does everything,
and I could suffer for – how long do they go?
For three – two minutes.
90 seconds?
You don't think they're training every single day for the next 500 days?
I don't think you need to train that hard.
I think it's all mental.
The question is just not being afraid of the horse because the horse does everything.
I love that I'm going against the grain of every question.
Oh, yeah.
No, no, no.
I'm the blind.
It's because you're a human.
You're not a pod person. Yeah, and he said I was a man.
He said I was a man for not seeing.
You know, it's funny you didn't talk about the bobsled
because I assume you think that does all the work, too.
No, because have you ever seen bobsledders?
Yes.
They're like 6'4", 240.
I don't have the frame for it.
Yeah, they're like middle linebackers.
I could have been a luge
or a skeleton.
The double luge where they lay on top.
You could be the top guy. Do that every Saturday.
Got a lot of training.
There it is. Well, I think we're going to
end on that. Noel, really?
You're going Tom Hanks was
amazing in...
Castaway?
I can't believe you even watched that whole
You guys
You did not watch that whole movie.
I didn't even watch it, but come on.
Saving Private Ryan, Forrest Gump.
Think about Forrest Gump.
Why does he drift off
if you're still listening to this nonsense?
Remember, thanks for listening to Power Move
and if you're going to move, keep moving forward.
See you next time.
Yeah, run for it.
Cheers.
Run.
Run for it.
Horrible.
Horrible.
It really is a horrible movie.
We need a bourbon.