In Search Of Excellence - Rick Caruso: Why Money Should NEVER Be Your Motivation (Worth $6 Billion) | E178

Starting point is 00:00:00 Don't do business with bad people. You'll never make a good deal with bad people. How important should money be as a motivation to working hard and being successful? Zero. Never thought about it. The money's going to come. If you do your job well, you're smart about it, continually reinvest, the money's going to come. How important has extreme preparation been to your success?

Starting point is 00:00:20 I'm probably not as extreme as you are. I'm impressed how extreme you are. So congratulations. Will you announce on my show today whether you're going to run for me or again, or, as rumored, governor of California. Welcome to In Search of Excellence. My guest today is Rick Caruso, the most influential real estate developer in Los Angeles, who has reinvented the retail shopping experience by turning shopping malls.

Starting point is 00:01:00 into lifestyle destinations. His company, Caruso, owns 10 major retail and lifestyle destinations, including Palisage Village, including the Grove, which has over 20 million visitors a year, which is more than Disneyland. Rick ran for mayor in Los Angeles in 2022, lost by a very narrow margin, and we're going to talk about today what his political aspirations are. Rick, thanks for having me. Welcome to In Search of Excellence. Good to be here. All right, so now I'm going to talk to people who don't live in Los Angeles. Okay. West side of Los Angeles, I live in Brentwood, Pacific Palisades is next door, and you built the Palisades Village, which finished in 2018. Arawan is a grocery store that has a cult-like following.

Starting point is 00:01:38 There's people who fly from New York just to eat there. If you can believe that, I read that somewhere, which is insanity. Yeah, that's pretty big. It's a place on its own. And we're going to talk about your private fire department in a few minutes. When is it going to reopen? Because I got 300 DMs for people. you got to ask Rick. When is Airwant coming back? When is that center reopening?

Starting point is 00:02:03 Well, the whole center is going to reopen in August. So what we're doing right now is we're literally gutting the inside of it, which I know you'll talk about, but the property survived the fire. But what I really wanted to do was to assure everybody that place as safe as can be. So we gutted the inside. What does that mean you got in the inside? Because it's open space. We took out all the drywall. The spaces that we took out on the inside of the space, we took out So there's no smoke, there's no lingering contaminants. We ripped all the drywall, all the improvements. Of all the stores?

Starting point is 00:02:34 All the stores. Went down to the studs. All the apartments, went down to the studs. You can't see it from the outside at all. You don't see that. That's what's happening right now on the inside of the space. We took it down to the studs. Then we treated the studs.

Starting point is 00:02:47 And then we had an engineering firm come in and test to make sure it's perfectly clean. And it is. And then we're rebuilding all the spaces. So we will reopen fully operational next August, and I think Aeroon will open a little bit after that. They've got a little bit longer building period, but they'll be pretty confident they'll be reopening with us. Let's go to January 7th. I work in Brentwood on the fourth floor of the Comerica Bank building. Okay.

Starting point is 00:03:17 And I'm writing a book. I got my phone off, my computer off, but my son was in town that day from college. I got my phone up, right? we're supposed to have lunch or whatever and he's not supposed to call me till noon but just in case he calls so the school calls Pelly Elementary where my then second grader went to school and like okay they call call again and they're always calling this is brought this is principal herman brought you by Caruso with a message right and so I never pick up the phone I pick up the phone evacuate because of the fire look out the window and like holy smokes for lack of a better word

Starting point is 00:03:52 you can see the fire on the ridge and you know pick up your kid immediately so i basically look at the fire which is three miles away from my office you can see it and it's black smoke it's like a tire burning you know at at that point and i get there i'm driving down sunset like a maniac double it's a it's a windy road as you know and it's double yellow and i'm honking to people and the only people passing me police cars fire engines you get to the school there's four schools nearby right you can't park anywhere so I double park. I ran into the school. Pure pandemonium, right? You know, they're calling your kid on the walk and talk. I remember carrying Carter out in my hand like a football, you know, running down the street. Hey, dad, put me down. When did you hear about the fire? Early that morning, it's probably around 10 o'clock

Starting point is 00:04:39 from one of my kids from my son saying, Dad, there's smoke. And he was on his way to our house in Brownwood. He lived in the Palisades. It was on his way to our house to use our gym. He uses the gym after I use the gym. So it's fun. We get to see. each other in the mornings. But yeah, I learned about it then. And then we monitor it, obviously. And we had our people embedded in the command station watching it. I hope you're enjoying this video so far. But before we jump back in, I want to know if you've ever thought about what you need to do to reach a nice level of success in your life. Over the last 25 years, I've been an advisor to more than 50 companies. I've invested nearly 100, including Google Lift and Seagate. And I also co-founded a company that today is worth

Starting point is 00:05:16 more than $15 billion. I've been incredibly blessed in my journey. And at this stage of my life, I want to give back. I want to share the lessons I've learned so you can reach incredible success way faster than I did. In my own journey, I've learned that having the right mentor is a massive advantage to achieving our goals. I'm hugely passionate about mentoring others. I'm looking for a few hungry entrepreneurs or are excited to take action on their journey to incredible future success. So if that's you, I've got an opportunity. In the description of this video, there's a link where you can apply to work with me.

Starting point is 00:05:45 All you need to do is answer a few simple questions. And if you're a good fit, my team will reach out so we can build a game plan together. All right, now let's get back to the video. You did something in advance, though. I mean, we all knew the winds were coming. Right. They were forecast 100 mile per hour winds. Right.

Starting point is 00:05:59 There was fire warnings. Right. Right. So you did something smart, very preventative. Right. Where two days in advance, why don't you tell people what you did and how you were able to save that center from getting burned down? Because everything around it burned down, except yours is basically standing by itself,

Starting point is 00:06:15 except for the gas station that my friend owns across the street. Well, what we were able to do is not only save our property, We saved everything on our block and we saved everything across the street, that whole block. So there's one commercial block that's still remaining that our team saved. We learned a lot up at Merrimars. We were building Merrimar up in Montecito. There was the, I think it was the Martin fire. I forget what the name of it was.

Starting point is 00:06:36 And we were just in framing. I talked to one of our senior people and I said, listen, if that fire comes over the hill, the fire department, rightfully so, is going to have all their resources to saving homes. And they're not going to have the resources to protect us. What are our options? He came back and he said, we can hire private firefighters. And I have our own water tanks and have retardant. We can spray the retardant down on the framing, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I said, okay, do it. Put the plane in place. And we mobilized during the fire up there with a private firefighting team, retardant, and our own water. So we weren't taking resources away from the city. And at the same time, we were protecting ourselves. We had that plan and play at the palisades. We knew we were building in an area that is a fire risk. We designed and built property to make sure there was no combustible materials. What looks like wood is really concrete. We don't have vents and eaves where embers get in, things like that. So it started with a very smart design, very smart construction materials. And we had a plan on the shelf in case there was

Starting point is 00:07:36 a fire. And so two days before when we were getting these notices of the winds, catastrophic winds that was coming up on our phones, we deployed. And we had private firefighters, our own water and retardant with the same philosophy that the firefighters are going to have to protect and should first protect the homes. We can take care of ourselves. And we were able to do that. And we saved, like I said, the full block along with eight of our own residences. But listen, it was a terrible disaster up there. I'm grateful to our team. They did an amazing job. And because of that, we're going to be able to reopen, which is giving that community hope that their town is coming back. And that is really gratifying to me that we're going to

Starting point is 00:08:16 to be part of giving people not only the hope, but the will, to rebuild because it's an enormous amount of effort to rebuild that town. And we're very active up there supporting those people as we are in Altadena and in Malibu. There's a ton of conversation out there, as you know, especially in L.A. about whose fault this was, that it was allowed to get to where it gets. I mean, so many of my friends, you know, my daughter, we knew at Pally, 95% of the family, live in the palisies. We live in Brettwood. We got in the Pally. So maybe 80% of our friends' homes burned down. And everyone's of the same mentality. It's not going to actually burn down because there's a fire department on sunset right next to your center, actually. I live in Brentwood.

Starting point is 00:09:02 There's a fire department 0.7 miles down the street for me. I'm never thinking that our home is going to burn down. Thankfully, we had a lot of ash, but we were fine. And no one took stuff out of their home, right? Because it's just not going to burn down. There's no way. it's going to burn down. So people didn't take their possessions, their photos. Didn't even have time. They didn't have time by the time they realized it's going to burn. Mayor Bass, Karen Bass at fault, is the former LAFD Commissioner Kristen Crowley at fault? Who's really to blame for this? Well, listen, I don't think the city was prepared. It's clear the city was not prepared. And the after-action report proves that. It could have been stopped. Fire never had to happen. And so we know that now.

Starting point is 00:09:45 Had the city been better prepared, there wouldn't have been a fire. People would still be in their homes today. People, kids would be in their schools today. And that's based on an independent report. Listen, the buck stops at the mayor. The mayor should have had the city more prepared and doing the right things and following up. And she made a decision to be out of town. But she also made a decision, apparently in lead of this, not to ask a lot of questions from the fire department, from all your agencies, from DWP, are the reservoirs full? Do we have enough water? Are we prepared to deal with this? Did the fire that started on January 4th? first, is it completely out? What a lot of people maybe don't realize is the original fire that started January 1st was still smoldering. That's what reignited on the 7th. Had the fire department actually put it out and monitor it, it would not have reignited on the 7th. And therefore, there wouldn't have been a fire. There would have been winds. There wouldn't have been that fire. This disaster was completely preventable. We know that now. That is just as bad as it gets to me. I mean, it's negligence at the highest level. It's beyond being unprepared. You entered politics when you were essentially 25 years old. You were having lunch with a lobbyist.

Starting point is 00:10:51 Oh, with a lawyer. Well, you know, who had a badge was on the L.A. He was on the Fire Department Board. You said, oh, that's cool. And then at 25 years old, you became the youngest commissioner on the L.A.W.P. Board. And he's commissioner in the city. In the history of the city, yeah. You're listening to Part 2 of my incredible interview with Rick Caruso, one of the most successful real estate developers in the world whose net worth is $5.9 billion. Rick ran for mayor of Los Angeles in 2022. And on today's show, I'm hoping he's going to announce he's running for mayor again. If you haven't yet, that's in a part one, be sure to check that one out first.

Starting point is 00:11:24 Now, without further ado, here's part two of my incredible interview with Rick. Right, in the history of the city, 80-year-old. And then the history of the organization, and then the next year you became the president as well. And then years later, you ran the LA Police Commissioner Board as well, where I think you served for three years. Then in 2020, you decided that you were going to run for mayor. You talked about it years before. And then you ran. And then the word on the street was, here's Rick Caruso billionaire, who's going to spend a lot of his own money to basically become the mayor of Los Angeles.

Starting point is 00:11:57 And you're going to buy your way in. J.B. Pritzker is a law school classmate and friend of mine. And when he was running for governor, he got the same critical. criticism. And I remember him calling me on the phone. He said, hey, Randy, I'm, you know, running for a governor. And I said, I mean, he wasn't looking for money. He spent his own money. He spent $100 million of his own money. He spent $100 million of his own money. He said, why would you do that? He said, because I think I can make a difference to the people in my state. Tell us, you're going to spend $100 million of your own money and you're going to buy your way into the governor's office. He said, yes, I am. So why would you do that? He said, because I think I can make a difference to the people in my state. Tell us, you lost. to Karen Bass, 52.something percent to 47. something percent. All of my friends were pissed because we wanted you to win. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, we still want you to win. And what was the thought process? Why did you want to become mayor, number one? And how do you think you lost? I wanted to become mayor because I worked for three mares. I worked for Tom Bradley. I worked for Dick Reardon.

Starting point is 00:13:00 I worked for Jim Haunt. And I really learned a lot and I saw what great mares can do. And those three, in my opinion, were three really great mares for us. And I learned the sort of the management skills necessary to manage the city, which is a very complex city. And then on top of that, what I was seeing, which all of us have seen, the city was in a state of decline. We had rising homelessness, we had rising crime, you know, all these things were going on.

Starting point is 00:13:25 And it was clear to me that all of that could be solved, given the right management, given the right leadership, all of these kind of things. And I feel confident I could do it. And I wanted to give back. I loved public service. What Tom Bradley and Dick Reardon and Jim Hahn did is they gave me really tough assignments because they trusted that I could figure it out.

Starting point is 00:13:44 And they were complicated assignments. And so I wasn't worried about being able to figure out the problems of the city. So I ran. I don't think anybody buys an election. You know, I spent my own money because I needed to get my name out there. And I was running against somebody that was well known. You know, we'd been in politics for 30 years, whatever the cases. And I've known Karen Bass for a long, long time.

Starting point is 00:14:07 Do you like her personally? I do. Listen, I think Karen Bass means well. It's a very different skill set to be a legislator, to be in Congress, and be drafting bills, passing bills, sitting at hearings, on and on and on, and being an executive. When you're a mayor, you're an executive. When you're a governor, you're an executive, as you know. That means you've got to define goals.

Starting point is 00:14:29 You've got to create a team. You've got to have expertise. You know, you've got to have systems in place to get things done. You don't do that in the legislative side. So it was clear to me that the skill set was not matched up. And we had just went through that with Eric Garcetti, who was a legislative. Who was on my show, who's an old friend. I met him when he was running for city council the first time.

Starting point is 00:14:51 And you know what he said about being mayor? He said, it's a thankless job. You have no power, essentially, to make any real decision because you've got the board of commissioners. And it's really your main job is to really work. work as a someone who can put together people to actually make the decision. Couldn't disagree with him more. Oh, couldn't disagree. Okay.

Starting point is 00:15:10 Couldn't disagree with him more. And I think that's why he was a weak mare. Okay. Because he didn't. Well, he was. He's a great guy, though. He's a great guy. Just because you're a weak mayor doesn't mean you're a bad guy.

Starting point is 00:15:20 Yeah. Just because Karen Bass has not been a good mayor doesn't mean she's a bad person. You know, that would be like if I went and decided I'm going to go do brain surgery, I'm going to do a terrible job. It doesn't mean I'm a bad person. Yeah. It just means my skill set isn't lined up with the job responsibilities. Eric, as a councilperson, that's a legislative job.

Starting point is 00:15:40 To move into the mayorship, he wasn't qualified to do it. And we had huge problems, and the problems have now gotten worse. I don't think anybody in this city that I know of will honestly say, the city is better today than it was 10 years ago. The city is better today than it was five years ago. The city is better today than it was a year ago. I don't know how you could say that. financially, homeless, crime. Do we have clean streets? Do we have safe streets? We don't have any of that.

Starting point is 00:16:07 I'm saddened for the city, but I'm also so positively optimistic that all of it can change because I do think it's the greatest city. And with the right leadership, with making some really smart decisions, the city will bounce back. Will you announce on my show today whether you are going to run... What I'm having for lunch afterwards? Will you announce on my show today, whether you're going to run for... mayor again or, as rumored, governor of California. Yeah. No, I won't do that today. But there'll be an announcement soon. And it's a very tough decision because I want to do what's, I want to do what's right and where I can be really productive. You know, I'm at the state of my life. I want to be

Starting point is 00:16:45 productive and I want to give back. And I've done that my whole life. And I, like I said, I loved working for Tom Bradley and Dick Reardon and Jim Hahn. You can make an enormous difference. I couldn't disagree with Eric Moore. You could make an enormous difference. Look at what Tom Bradley did. look at what Dick Reardon did. Look at what Jim Hahn did. They made enormous differences in this city. The mayor's got more than enough power to do a lot of great things. So keep me a very simple. If you could just list that one by one without going into them, because I know we're getting toward the end of the show, what are three things that you would do as mayor of Los Angeles, the first three things that are different than what Karen Bass is doing.

Starting point is 00:17:21 I would enforce the laws, clean the streets, not allow drugs to be sold in our streets, which is only harming the homeless population even more. make this streets cleaner, safer. I'd have homeless getting into shelters and homes and giving the services that they need. And I'd bring down the cost of housing dramatically, which I know how to do. L.A. has become too expensive to live in, and we need to drop that cost of living in this city, which we can do. It's only gone up under her leadership. We need to turn that around. Okay, so let's talk about the cost of homes in Los Angeles as well. It's very expensive to live here. If you live in the west side of Los Angeles, the average home in the Palisades was over

Starting point is 00:17:56 $3 million. Right. California is a Democratic state. You are a Democrat. And there's something in Los Angeles that's called the mansion tax. Right. That essentially says if your home is over $5 million, your tax an extra 4.7% on the house. And if it's over $10 million, your tax, I think, 5.3%. The people, that's obviously very popular to the state of California where most people don't have a house that's $5 million. So there was a tax that was passed overwhelmingly that the state estimated was going to bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and is backfired tremendously because it's put a massive damper on the number of people who want to sell their homes. That's a lot of money to pay in taxes.

Starting point is 00:18:39 Would you try to get the mansion tax repealed? I know it's coming on the ballot again next year. Are you for it or are you against it? You have to change the mansion tax. And it's not a mansion tax. And that was the sort of the great sales job. I know. It taxes every kind of property.

Starting point is 00:18:55 Yeah. Office buildings, apartment buildings, industrial buildings, homes. And it is actually put cold water on the city of Los Angeles. It only applies. That ULA tax only applies in the city of Los Angeles. So what it's done is it's redline Los Angeles. If you're going to invest money, you're going to invest money in Glendale and Culver City and in areas around us because that tax, you have to build into your pro forma, right?

Starting point is 00:19:19 If you're going to build a home and sell a home, you have to add another. five percent into it. So why would you do that? If you're going to build an apartment building, you have to add it back in. It makes it unattractive to have capital coming into Los Angeles because of that. So you definitely have to change it. There's no question about that. It's a bad law. I hope the amendments that are coming down through the state. And we did give a proposal to the mayor and the city of Los Angeles that we created to exempt people who have lost their homes from the tax. Because to me, I mean, that is so insane that if you've lost your home and you're forced to sell your land, you're going to pay a tax on it. You should be exempt and hopefully they'll adopt

Starting point is 00:19:57 what we gave them because there is a way to exempt people that have been through a disaster. Governor Newsom has suggested an asset tax. What kind of tax? Asset, a tax on how much money you have. Okay, okay. Absurdity. I don't think he, do he, I don't think he proposed it. I think, I think it's out there. It's out there, but he's not, he's, the word is, he's kind of, yeah, I think it's a good idea. Yeah, my understanding, though, is he's opposed that consistently. So I don't think he's out there supporting it, endorsing it, and I really haven't followed where that's at. I haven't followed where that's at. I haven't followed where that's at. I hope you're enjoying this video so far, but before we jump back in, I want to know if you've ever thought about what you need to do to reach

Starting point is 00:20:42 a nice level of success in your life. Over the last 25 years, I've been an advisor to more than 50 companies. I've invested nearly 100, including Google Lift and Seagate. And I also, co-founded a company that today is worth more than $15 billion. I've been incredibly blessed in my journey and at this stage of my life, I want to give back, I want to share the lessons I've learned so you can reach incredible success way faster than I did. In my own journey, I've learned that having the right mentor is a massive advantage to achieving our goals.

Starting point is 00:21:09 I'm hugely passionate about mentoring others and I'm looking for a few hungry entrepreneurs are excited to take action on their journey to incredible future success. So if that's you, I've got an opportunity. In the description of this video, there's a link where you can apply to where you can apply to work with me. All you need to do is answer a few simple questions and if you're a good fit, my team will reach out so we can build a game plan together. All right, now let's get back to the video. All right. I want to make sure that we covered the politics, but now since we're done with it and we still have time, I want to go back to something else and then we'll cut this up and

Starting point is 00:21:41 then we'll move this back. A lot of entrepreneurs, young professionals, are very focused on money. At some point, you became a billionaire. And again, Forbes says you're worth $6 billion today. How important should money be as a motivation to working hard and being successful? Zero. Never thought about it. I thought about and was very careful as I'm building something that it made financial sense to do it. You have to be smart about that.

Starting point is 00:22:10 But in terms of, did I say to myself, I want to be worth $100 million one day, $500 million one day? No. You never had a personal goal, might. No. Many people I know, and I did. I want to be worth a million dollars by the time I was 30. I had a long-term goal. I want to be worth $10 million. No. I never did. My goal was I want to build a certain kind of projects. I want to build quality projects. I want to build places people enjoy. I want to build places that sustain the next hundred years. I want to build a company that's dynastic that lives well beyond me. But I never thought about the money side of it. I think you get locked into something and it's not productive. Because, the money's going to come. If you do your job well, you're smart about it, you can, you know, you continually reinvest, the money's going to come. I couldn't imagine if I said, okay, I want to be worth X and therefore I'm going to build the grove, but I'm going to spend a little bit less so I can make a little bit more because this is my goal. I wouldn't have the grove. I wouldn't have

Starting point is 00:23:09 the Miramar. I would never support that as part of your business plan. Make your business plan being the in your field. Make your business plan being that you're the most innovative in your field, the most thought-provoking in your field, that you're somebody that will take a few more calculated risks and do it with great integrity. Be the most honest person in your industry. I started construction at the Grove on a handshake. The Gilmore family and myself, Hank Hilty at the time, we didn't have the contract done. We did it on a handshake. And I'm very proud of that. We live by that rule in our company. We live by a handshake. And that's the way it should be integrity. to me is the most important thing in business.

Starting point is 00:23:49 People have asked me over my career, what are the most important characteristics that have made me successful? And one of them is something called Extreme Preparation. I'm writing a book by it as well. It means when someone prepares one hour for a podcast, I'll do 12 or 14.

Starting point is 00:24:02 And you walk into any meeting, and the first thing I want to do is blow someone off your chair with a question, showing you've done your research. It just starts a podcast, a meeting on an entirely different level. How important has extreme preparation

Starting point is 00:24:16 been to your success? Can you give us an example of one? I'm probably not as extreme as you are. I'm impressed how extreme you are. So congratulations. I prepare for sure. No doubt I prepare. And I expect everybody in the meeting to be prepared.

Starting point is 00:24:30 But I don't know if I overly prepare. Maybe I should prepare more. You know, there is a little bit of a theory that sometimes if you're not as prepared as you should be, you sort of learn to think on your feet and whatnot. But I definitely do my homework. And I want to know the right answers. I generally know where I want to go. And, you know, I'm lucky now I've got a really exceptional team that helps me get there.

Starting point is 00:24:57 So it's not about me at all. It's about this team that I have. And they work very hard and they're very well prepared. One of the other thing that's been very helpful to me in my career has been the ability for me to earn mentors, not get mentors. And I think that's something that people really don't get, right? They want to meet Randy. They want to meet Rick. I've had so many people throughout the years ask me, do I know Rick Caruso? No.

Starting point is 00:25:22 Well, now we do. Well, now we do. But you're well-known. People want to come work with you. And by the way, one of the things that I hated when I was younger, when a boss would say Randy works for me, it made me feel terrible as opposed to someone, you know, Randy working with you. I think there's a huge difference there. How does someone today, who doesn't know you, get Rick Caruso as a lot of you? the mentor. Oh, I am so easily accessible. I get emails and we get calls in the office and I always talk to people, especially people in college or just graduated and wanting advice. I do it every week. I do it every week because there's so many people that help me. You know, you stand on the shoulders of others. You don't get, you don't get to success on your own. And so I always like paying it back and I enjoy it and I learn from talking to people that are in college. And I go down and I talk

Starting point is 00:26:15 at universities. But when I get a random email, we'll respond to it and we'll take the call. Do you give out your email publicly? Yeah, you can go online at caruso.com and get my email. It's not, I'm not secretive. I'm out there. I meet people. I say a load of people. I love people. If I didn't love people, or I should say it this way, if somebody doesn't love people, you should not be in the retail development business because you'll be miserable. If you love people, you'll be delighted every day. You should not own a resort if you don't like people. I love being out there with the people.

Starting point is 00:26:48 I love walking around. I love saying a load of people. It just gives me great joy and energy. We're at the end of the show, and I always conclude my show with a game I call Fill in the Blank to Excellence. Oh, my God. I hate games. You're ready to play?

Starting point is 00:27:01 I guess I have no choice, sure. The biggest lesson I've learned in my life is... Dust yourself off and get back up when you fall. My number one personal goal is... Have a healthy, happy family. My number one, personal. professional goal is to continue to build places that people enjoy my biggest regret is my biggest regret is um i don't know what my biggest regret is probably there's there's people

Starting point is 00:27:28 sadly who have and we just lost somebody that a lot of your your uh listeners would know again and father gregg gothels at ran loyola high school passed away at 70 i loved father gregg spend more time with people that you love i said spent a lot of time with Greg, but now that he's gone, I wish I would have spent more. So spend more time with people that you love. My biggest fear is the happiness of the family, the wellness of the family. That's what I care about the most, my wife and my four kids, and my new little grandson and my daughter-in-law and my soon-to-be son-in-law. That's what I care about as my family. First, congratulations. Thank you. I know. I love being a grandpa.

Starting point is 00:28:08 The craziest thing that's happened in my career is success. I didn't expect it. The funniest thing that happened in my career is. Oh, I love having funny things happen. I couldn't account for that one. There's been too many funny things. We've had a lot of fun building this business, a lot of laughs. And that's something I think that's really important. Don't be too serious. Laugh at yourself, have fun, go to work and enjoy it. And we've had so much fun in our company. A lot of fun. The best advice I've ever received is, my dad, just be honest in everything that you do. The best advice I could give somebody, if you don't mind. Well, that's the next question. Is it? Oh my God. Okay. You know, I always think

Starting point is 00:28:58 about it this way. This is what I get myself. Protect your obituary. And I know it sounds morbid, but you got to protect what they're going to write about you. It's something to really think about. Like, you know, maybe even spend the time to write your own that you'd like people to say about you. But, and what that means is do the right thing. Just be good to people, be fair to people, be honest, just do the right thing. And life will be good. And I really do believe in karma. I think life comes around, and I think the more that you're good to people, people are good to you, and good things happen.

Starting point is 00:29:28 And life is complicated, and it has twists and turns. So having close family and close friends and enjoying life to me is, like, really critically important. Writing your own obituary is something that I just did. I went to this organization called the Hoffman Institute where you go for seven days for mental healing and to work on yourself. Good for you. And one of the things...

Starting point is 00:29:50 I'd have to be there longer than seven days. Well, it's, you know, the range of people who go are... The youngest person was a 25-year-old water rafting guide and the oldest person was 63. And there's CEOs of big companies. You can Google this too. LeBron James has been. Katie Perry's been, but you really go

Starting point is 00:30:10 and you bury your soul in front of 40 people. Everyone cries. You know, you talk about all the things that you do, but you really had never you really don't think about who's coming to your funeral. Right. And you talk about who's coming to your, like, what were the people who don't like you say at your funeral, and what would the people who love you say at your funeral, and then you have

Starting point is 00:30:26 to write your own. And it really is a worthwhile experience. So it's something I've never mentioned on the show. I just got back, actually, and it's something that if someone is going through emotional trauma and just wants to get away, no phone, no email, no communication with the world other than there, it's something very healing to do. Yeah, that's great. That's great.

Starting point is 00:30:51 If you could pick one quality that led to someone's success, it would be... I don't know, I don't think there's any one quality. I think there's multiple qualities. But again, you have to have... I'm not giving you the answer you want, but I think you have to have a... Like a politician. No, I'm not trying to be a politician. I hope I'm never a politician from that standpoint. I think you have to be competent.

Starting point is 00:31:17 I think you have to be really diligent, work hard, but none of that matters if you don't have integrity. And I am just such a big believer on integrity. And I don't... I have the Charlie Munger Warren Buffett rule. Don't do business with bad people. You'll never make a good deal with people. bad people. And I remind my team about that all the time. You can't have a contract to anticipate

Starting point is 00:31:41 what's going to come at you. Life is too short to do it. And really pick good people to do business with and surround yourself with that have a high level of integrity. And things work out really great. The most important thing that's contributed to my success is? I think integrity. People trust what I say and that what we're going to deliver in these communities when we say we're going to build a project you're going to be proud of and we're going to be a good neighbor in this community for a long time we're going to do it and if i if i tell you i'm going to do something i'm going to do it the one thing i've dreamt about doing for a long time but haven't is learning another language i really want to learn another language i started to and i was taking lessons once a week

Starting point is 00:32:25 and then january seventh hit and my lessons blew up what language italian i grew up around a table where italian was spoken so if i could invent one thing in the world it would be oh my goodness there's so many good things that need to be invented i don't know i mean i i would invent something that helps children um that are that are ill that don't have the same opportunities give people a chance to live a really productive life if you could go back and give your 21 year old self one piece of advice it would be really take the time to enjoy the ride it goes quick if you could meet one person in the world today who would it be uh jesus christ if you could meet one person today who was alive, who would it be?

Starting point is 00:33:08 Oh, that's interesting. I don't know. I'd have to give that one a lot of thought. I'm not quite sure who that would be. There's so many people I'd like to meet. Give us three. I really, I'd have to think about it. You stump me on that one.

Starting point is 00:33:23 I have to think about that one. I don't know. I don't know. If you were the mayor of Los Angeles today, the first thing you would do is... Safe and clean streets. If you were the governor of California today, the first thing you would do is safe and clean streets. And but there's so many things.

Starting point is 00:33:44 You got to drop the cost of living in this city. You got to drop it in the state. Listen, I'll end with this. When I was a young guy starting out, and I'm sure you were the same way, I had a big dream and I was willing to work really hard. But I also felt so firmly in my mind that this city was going to give me a chance to succeed, that if I worked really, really hard that I could pull myself up one rung at a time and I could be successful. I don't think people feel that way in the city of LA anymore. I don't think people feel that way in the state anymore, that the city or the state has your back, that they're sort of, for lack of a better

Starting point is 00:34:23 word, your partner helping you. And the cost of living here is what's preventing so many people from being able to pull themselves up. And we've got to give people the opportunity and the chance to do that. Or you're not going to have a great city. You're not going to have a great state because people are going to leave. So that's really the top priority. And I would love to have everybody had the same opportunity that I had starting out. That you can dream big, work hard, and you could get to where you want to be. Very tough to do that now. My last question is, what's the one question you wish I'd asked you but didn't? What's the love of my life? Tina Caruso. I just lover. I married so well, and she's just an incredible lady, and I couldn't have done what I've done

Starting point is 00:35:14 without her. She's been by my side, and she's been that reasonable voice in my ear when, you know, sometimes I was unreasonable, and she is the most humble, kindest human being in the world. So she just is the best, and she's given me the greatest kids in the world. Rick, it's a true pleasure to have you on my show. I've wanted you on here for a very long time. I'm a big fan. I'm a big fan and I hope you announced soon and I hope you win. Thank you. We're all behind you. So we'll figure out how we're going to be able to help you. I love that. So thank you. I appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you.

In Search Of Excellence - Rick Caruso: Why Money Should NEVER Be Your Motivation (Worth $6 Billion) | E178

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