The Bossticks - Rick Caruso On The Keys To Success, Leadership, Fixing America, & How To Think Differently To Win In Business & Life

Episode Date: June 2, 2025

#850: Join us as we sit down with Rick Caruso – renowned business innovator, dedicated civic leader & actively involved philanthropist. He is the founder & Executive Chairman of Caruso®, one of the largest & most admired privately held real estate companies in the United States – best known for creating some of the most luxurious & experience-driven shopping & lifestyle destinations, such as The Grove in Los Angeles. In this episode, Rick shares insights from navigating law school to entrepreneurship, gets real about the challenges he faced when proposing innovative real estate concepts, emphasizes the key to success, offers advice to young entrepreneurs & discusses his nonprofit initiative, Steadfast LA, aimed at community recovery efforts & addressing complex societal issues. To Watch the Show click HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To connect with Rick Caruso click HERE To connect with Lauryn Bosstick click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE Get your burning questions featured on the show! Leave the Him & Her Show a voicemail at [phone]. This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential Head to the HIM & HER Show ShopMy page HERE and LTK page HERE to find all of Michael and Lauryn's favorite products mentioned on their latest episodes. This episode is sponsored by The Skinny Confidential For a better choice and peace of mind in your home, shop The Skinny Confidential Non-Toxic Toilet Paper at shopskinnyconfidential.com. This episode is sponsored by Cymbiotika Go to Cymbiotika.com/TSC today to get 20% off plus free shipping.  This episode is sponsored by Smalls Cat Food For a limited time only, get 35% off plus an additional 50% off your first order when you head to Smalls.com and use code SKINNY50.  This episode is sponsored by Caraway Visit Carawayhome.com/THESKINNY10 or use code THESKINNY10 at checkout. This episode is sponsored by Branch Basics You can also use my code SKINNY15 to get 15% off at branchbasics.com/SKINNY15. This episode is sponsored by Spritz Society Spritz Society is now available everywhere! Head to spritzsociety.com to find a store near you, and make sure to follow @spritz on Instagram for all their latest announcements and upcoming events. Spritz Society, Summer Starts Here! This episode is sponsored by Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau Visit FindYourMiami.com. Produced by Dear Media  

The following podcast is a dear media production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her.

Hello everybody. Welcome back to the skinny confidential, him and her show. Today we're sitting down with one of the most influential and visionary minds in real estate, civic leadership, and philanthropy. Rick Caruso, he's the founder and executive chairman of Caruso, the company behind some of the most iconic destinations in the U.S., including the Grove and Rosewood Miramar Beach. With a career that spans into law, real estate, public service, and giving back on enormous scale, Rick has redefined what it means to build not just properties, but legacies.

From serving as president of the L.A. Police Commission to endowing entire departments at USC and Pepperdine, Rick's impact has felt far beyond business. deeply personal and profoundly civic. And today we dive into his mindset, his mission, in the key moments that shaped it all. This was one of my favorite conversations in a long time. Lauren and I both personally admire Rick, not only for his business savvy, but him as a father, husband, family man, and just a good all-around person that does a lot to give back to the community and provide so many others with so much inspiration, hope, dreams, you name it. Rick is one of those guys. With that, Rick Caruso, welcome to the Skinny Confidential, him and her show.

This is the skinny confidential, him and her. I feel like we have one of the ultimate godfathers of entrepreneurship on the show right now. Oh my God, what a title. Thank you. I sort of like that. That's okay. It's like an octopus of entrepreneurship. Oh, thanks.

At what point in your life, when you look back on everything, did you realize that you had that entrepreneurial vibe in you? I had a very entrepreneurial father, even growing up as a little kid, a story that I haven't told in a long, long time. We lived up in Truesdale Estates, and there wasn't many homes at the time. It was mostly empty lots. And I remember one day I was maybe five or six years old and I was standing there with my dad. And I jokingly said, Dad, one day I want to build in this city. You know, I'm going to build big buildings and whatnot. And he just sort of looked at me like, that's sort of surprising for a little kid. I just think, you know, I was wired.

I was born that way. And I've always dreamed of business and entrepreneurship and being involved and connected. I find it really exciting. Michael, because I've known Michael since we were 12, and he's an entrepreneur, he had trouble in school. He was like he would get seized because they don't really know what to do with you. Sears is being generous. Especially I'm thinking like at your point, they don't know what to do with you when you are

thinking outside the box and you are entrepreneurial, did you find that or were you really good in school? I struggled in school. And I didn't really get my footing in school. Yeah, I was definitely a C student at best. And I didn't really get my footing in school actually until I went to law school. And then I sort of realized, okay, I've got to hunker down here and really be serious about it, but I did struggle in school. The difficulty for me personally was I couldn't relate to why the lessons were applicable to what I ultimately wanted to do. or find interesting. Right.

I remember sitting in a bunch of these classes, being like, what is all this stuff? But then whenever I would get, fortunately, my father was very entrepreneurial. And whenever they would come to him and say, hey, we got a real problem with Michael over here. He would say, no, I've seen him get super interested in things. When he gets interested, it's like very laser focus. And, you know, I went through all of that until later I realized like, oh, like once I found a purpose, then I could go. Yeah.

I think that's fair. What happened when you were at law school? What's the first thing that's hitting? There was no escaping having to perform, right? You sort of can fake it in grammar school. You sort of fake it in high school. You can sort of fake it through college. Law school, you know, you got to be disciplined. And I didn't want to fail. I'm generally insecure, even though people don't think I am. And so the idea of getting into law school and then not doing well, I didn't do great in law school, but I did well enough. I was lucky I passed the bar and all those kind of things. So I had to really learn how to learn. And that flipped a switch for me, which was really cool because I felt my brain becoming more analytical in terms of the process of problem solving and whatnot. And that did change my life in a lot of ways. When you say insecure, were you insecure of flunking out of that situation in the perception of what people would say around you? Or what do you mean by that?

I was always insecure when I was young of not being as good as my peers and being called out for it. You know, I was never like a great athlete. I was never like a great student. And so what sort of am I great at? And an interesting way that really propelled me because I wanted to prove that I could be good at something, whatever that something was going to be. What was? Made me work harder. Totally.

It's like ammunition. That's right. When you were in law school, were you doing things that were entrepreneurial during law school, or does that come after? It really came after. The most entrepreneurial thing I did in law school was figure out how to get through law school and still have fun. Right. Love it. Because I like having fun, and I also like to work.

So that's always the, you know, how you manage your time. So I really learned how to manage time. And can you have a group of people over and have a barbecue and have fun? fun and study, right? How do you wrap around the work with fun? And I've lived my life that way now, and I've built my business that way. Work hard and have fun. Really resourceful. Yeah, I was saying one of the difficulties with you before we started is like this, this bio is the next great American novel. We could go through, and there's so many things. Who generous. I don't know. What was the first thing that was a real hit for you, that started driving some real success?

You know, I practiced law. I went to law school and practice. I knew it was really great training for me. My dad really wanted me to go law school. He really wanted me to practice law for a while. And it was figuring out how to be successful in a law firm. This is going to sound like a terrible thing. How to be successful in a law firm and not have to practice law too hard. And so what I realized was there's a road in a law firm that becomes really important, which is driving business. After about three years of typical grind of working 20 hours a day, I went to the managing partner and I said, I think I can make you more money by bringing business in than billing hours. And so I'll take a cut in salary and I'll take a percentage of what I bring in and let's see how it goes. And that was sort of the first business move.

So instead of doing a lot of, tell me if I'm wrong, the law work, you would figure out how to go get the clients to go and spend more of the law firm. Exactly. Exactly. And I still did law work, but I didn't have the billing requirements. requirement. And then it sort of triggered to me, how can I add value in an industry that's pretty stayed, where you sort of take a common multiplier and sort of bend the curve. Do something a little bit differently. And that led me into real estate, which I always wanted to be in. And I think I had the great benefit in real estate of not knowing the rules. And when you don't know the

rules, it gives you permission to break the rules because you're not worried about breaking the rules. And, you know, got a great team that feels the same way. I built the company on that. It's so funny because Michael used to be like, Lauren, you're the creative one. And what I've realized is we've been married is he's the creative one because he sees creative angles and deals. And it sounds like you guys are very similar like that. You figure out different ways to work a deal or, as you said, Ben. To pull that clip and put it, play it to me.

Lucky you. You got a big compliment. But I think what you're doing is, you know, The fun talent, if you're lucky enough to have it, is to be able to look around a corner. You guys have done that. You've created a whole industry. You're ahead of the curve. And that's exciting.

Well, I think what I get excited about is looking at things that have been done one way for a very long time. And then tapping into the things that obviously work, but kind of evolving those things so that they don't get stuck. Exactly. I get very bored and uninteresting. if it's like, hey, even if it's driving, you know, success, like if it's just the same thing, redundancy over and over, I just kind of lose interest zone out. Yeah, that's because you're creative.

But here's the other thing that I've always thought of. Somebody told me this, so it's not my great thinking on this. The genius of Steve Jobs was never inventing anything. The genius was reinventing something to the point that people needed it, right? and now we live with an Apple phone like you would die if you didn't have your Apple phone, right? I'm exaggerating. And so to your point, take something that's out there. That's what I did with shopping.

Take something that's already out there and just reinvent it to make it more relevant to your guest, to your customer, to people, to the public. And it's fun doing that. Can we talk about that? Sure. We're, you know, California natives originally lived in L.A., very familiar with your properties. or iconic properties out here. Anyone that lives in LA, the Grove, and the Rose, all these places.

But for people that are unfamiliar with your work and have not been here, how did you flip kind of shopping and retail on its head? What was your approach? The approach was to do it in a way that was all about, well, maybe back up a minute. If you ask me or anybody in my company, what business are you in?

The answer will not be, we build shopping centers, we build a resort, we build apartments. The answer would be, We enrich lives. That's the business we're in. And the reason we say it is because when you have a big platform, you get permission to do things that other people won't do.

So if I said, we build shopping centers, I'm going to build shopping centers that look like every other shopping center. If I said, we're going to go enrich lives, all of a sudden at the grove here in Los Angeles, the trolley makes sense, the fountain makes sense, The trees make sense. So the big move for us was, there's certain things that human beings have always enjoyed. They've always enjoyed being connected, having fun, feeling safe, triggering all your senses when you walk into a space.

So why would you walk into an indoor mall that's artificial? So the big move was we do everything outdoors. We do everything pedestrian scale. We do everything about welcoming people for no other reason, just come and have fun and relax. We're going to transport you to a better place in time. And then of course they're going to shop. And of course they're going to sit and dine. And of course they're going to spend more time.

And if they spend more time, they'll also spend more money with us. With the Grove when you had this idea and you had this whole concept, did you get pushback or was everyone on board? Oh, massive pushback. I should have I asked? Massive pushback. Of course. But, you know, it's like, have you been up to the resort or a resort of a resort of in Montecito? Sure. The Rosewood. Of course. The Miramar. Yes. Beautiful. We'll use that as an example.

Announce that you're going to go build a five-star hotel, albeit on a beautiful beach. You're going to go build a five-star hotel and have a train run through the middle. Right. It's like my dad came to me, who wasn't in the real estate business, but he came to me, he said, are you nuts? And he was my best friend. He's passed away says, but he was my best friend. He said, you've never built a hotel, and you've got a train running through the middle of of it. Well, now that train is an attraction at that hotel. All of a sudden, it's this amenity that people enjoy seeing come through because it's so unique. So that goes to the point any piece of real estate or I think any business, there's things that you can isolate or celebrate.

You can't isolate a train, so you better figure out how to celebrate it. The same at the Grove. It was an old part of Los Angeles that people had long forgotten. Why would you be building in the Fairfax District? Why wouldn't you be building in the Fairfax District? It's near Beverly Hills, near Hancock Park, West Hollywood. The demographics are unbelievable. But when we turned it inside and turned our back to Third Street, I mean, you could pull up the articles, widely criticized.

Why would he turn his back to Third Street? Because I was trying to create my own environment for people. Because Third Street was for people that don't know is very busy. Very busy Boulevard. Yep. Which most retailers would say, I want to be along a busy boulevard. We had to convince the retailers the actions on the inside because we're creating this environment where people want to hang out, feel safe, have fun, sit and read the paper, have a cup of coffee,

let your children run around in the park, you know, all of those kind of things. Do you almost like when you get pushback because you know you're on to something? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure you do too. I love it. Yeah. I just launched a whole of paper and people are like, what the fuck are you doing?

I heard. You know, we have a big toilet paper debate at my house. What's the debate? Gigi, there's a, there's a debate. Oh, my. There is a toilet paper controversy since being married. My wife has a particular brand. We're going to need to have to have to try yours.

None of the kids have ever liked it growing up to this day, right? Okay. But she will not budge. We can't, but that's probably because it probably doesn't have all the chemicals. Tina, we're going to try. We have to try mine because it has no formaldehyde and no chlorine in it. Okay. And you can't be wiping your intimate areas.

But when you, I didn't think we were going to go there, but I think I'm okay with that. That's why we need it. I'm okay. I'm okay with that. You said to let it up. It's a necessity. It is a necessity. You got to go with it.

But so when you get the pushback, you know that you're on to, it's like a compass. You know you're on to something. Yeah. So how have you used the pushback to your advantage? I mean, obviously with the train, but what are other areas that you've used pushback? You know, honestly, even running for office, when I ran for office a couple years ago, I just, I felt so strongly I still do today that all the problems, and this isn't supposed to be a commercial, but all the problems that we're facing in Los Angeles and most other big cities are solvable.

And I loved when people kept saying, there's no way you can solve the homeless problem. There's no way you can solve the crime problems. There's no way you can do this. There's no way you can do that. That just gave me fuel. And I think it also got people to think, you know what, maybe there is a solution to things. No different when people told me you can't build a shopping center without a roof on it. Really?

Every great street in the world doesn't have a roof on it and people shop along it. So I think what's fun in life for me is taking really complex problems. breaking them apart into small pieces and putting them back together in a different way. You're also very practical with the way you approach it. Like there's also a simplicity to it, which I think is nice. And sometimes I feel like with politics, people try to overcomplicate it and create all this chaos, which just makes it too crazy and it does have to be that crazy. Well, I was saying to you, you know, we grew up not in L.A., but in San Diego, not too far down.

I think they're in a lot of ways, they're very different places, but share obviously the same state. And then we left here in 2020. And what I was saying, one of the most frustrating things as a former California resident was how many things I personally believe are solvable,

especially now because I live in another city where those issues were solved. Right. That don't get solved here. You know, like when you ran, we were super excited for you to be elected. Didn't happen. But why is it so hard for this state

to take these issues, you know, one of the highest tax rates in the country, greatest infrastructure. What needs to happen in here to start solving some of these issues? Well, maybe we're at a tipping point. I hope we are. I mean,

I hope we're at a point where people say, the state of California should be the best state in the country. We should be taking the lead. The rest of the country should be following us. We went down a path with, you know, a lot of experiments that just didn't turn out well, like in Los Angeles, too, and we did it statewide.

And so I think now, and I hope now that people sit back. And maybe the fires were really a trigger point for a lot of people to say, you know what, actual competency in our leadership is critical. And we got to start electing people that are competent or appointing people that are competent. And we have to get back to the middle and get rid of the extremes and start governing from the middle and be very practical. To your point, I think people just want to hear. common sense, compassionate ideas of saying, let's figure out how you're going to have a better quality of life.

Let's figure out how you're going to feel safer in your neighborhood. All of those kind of things are just critically important, but they're not talked about enough. Yeah, I mean, I really am hesitant to publicly over and over criticize some of the policies in the state, because I don't want this to become the proper. I'm going to go, oh, here he goes in California again. but I am passionate about it because my parents still live in California. I was born here.

I was raised here. My first child was here. Half the company is here. And it's frustrating to watch some of these experiments, as you say, or policies take what should be one of the beons of, you know, to your point, an example of what a great state should be and say, like, why do you have these kind of safety issues? Like, I don't just know of people that have been harmed or hurt or robbed. I know them personally, multiple people.

I don't just, I haven't just lived through one fire. We were here during that last one, which is terrible, but like multiple fires that have gotten out of control. Right. And it's somebody who's seen it over and over. It's frustrating and you're looking around and saying, well, where are all these tax dollars and resources going, if not to support the infrastructure that should exist?

Well, I agree with you. And I think, I know how I feel. I feel that I don't mind paying high taxes as long as I get my money's worth. And I think what people in California, are saying, we're not getting our money's worth. Yep. And I just, it, it kills me because our family is all here, grew up here. I started my business here. Tina and I raised our family here.

We love Los Angeles. We love California. It's the golden state, for sure. But we think about so many things now we used to never have to think about. We don't go for a walk at night anymore. We used to always go for a walk after dinner in our neighborhood. Why do you not do that? I worry about where our kids are living or where they're raising their families or all of these kind of things.

And it's so fixable if you have people that have the backbone and the courage, the will, and the competency to just solve some of these problems. And it benefits everybody. Yeah, you know, it's funny because people are like, oh, you live in Texas now. And obviously Texas is a completely different kind of state. And not to go into the gun world, but the gun laws are different. But what I tell people is like, funny enough, I've lived in both. And I feel much safer over there. And I don't have to worry about my wife going on a walk in the neighborhood.

And I don't have to worry about, did you wear the wrong piece of jewelry or carry the wrong piece of clothes? We don't have to think about it. And I think that there, that's a commentary on experiencing both places. And if you are looking at one place that has much more, you know, strict regulations around, you know, firearms and stuff like that and safety. And another place that's a little bit more liberal with it, it's strange that the place that's more liberal with it feels safer. Yeah. And I would also say, you know, we have a home that we use down in Newport Beach. I mean, we love Newport Beach.

And we've been down there for a long time, too. We go down for the weekends. Same laws apply. We don't think about locking our door. We're not worried about going for a walk at night because the priorities are different. And what I would say is in California for Los Angeles, we've got to get our priorities where I think there's sort of two big priorities. making people safe, which includes feeling safe, which is different than actually being safe.

You need both. And giving people the opportunity to prosper. And in my mind, everything sort of stems from that. That means you're going to have great schools, great parks, clean neighborhoods. You're going to enforce the law. You're not going to have criminals run around and not be held accountable. You know, all of those kind of things are important. Whether the gun laws are different, to me, is more about, is law enforcement empowered to actually

enforce the law? Is the district attorney actually holding people accountable? Do we have programs that allow somebody to be rehabilitated and get back on the streets and be productive again? Right. So it's a big basket of things, but none of it's complicated. And states like Texas or Florida or many other States have really figured this out and the quality of life is up. The investment in the states are up. I mean, I go down to Florida. I'm just blown away. I was just in Austin. The amount of high rises are going up. Find a crane in Los Angeles. Find development in Los Angeles. It stopped. I mean, my dad years and years ago built a medical building together. Okay. 12,000 square foot medical but nothing big.

It took like five years on the permitting. It's crazy. It was insane. And I was like, who has this time to wait on this kind of stuff? That's why people go somewhere else. And the tenant was the partner. You know?

When you have all this going on with your career, the grove, all you have your resort in Santa Barbara, all these different things you're doing, what makes you decide, you know what I actually want to run? Like, what was the epiphany?

I've always believed in public service. I started when I was really young. I was a point. by Tom Bradley, who was way before your time, was one of the great mayors of L.A. I was 26 years old, practicing law, and a mutual friend said, do you want to be appointed a commissioner? I didn't even know what a commissioner was. And I said, sure. I said, I love business. Is there a commission that's a business? He said, Department of Water and Power, largest public utility in the country. I said, okay, great. And I loved being a part of the

city infrastructure that were doing really cool things. And at that time, DWP was doing really cool things. We're building power plants and solving water rights issues. And so intellectually, it was fascinating. But here's what I learned, the big takeaway and why I wanted to become mayor. When I was appointed the president of the police commission by Jim Hansom 20 years ago, crime was going out of control in Los Angeles. It was post the Rodney King beating. a terrible incident that happened in Los Angeles. Officers were quitting. It was just a bad time in LA. And we had a very, very popular chief of police. He looked like he came out of central casting. Couldn't have worn the uniform better. And a good human being, not a good manager.

And I had the job of having to fire him and bring in a new chief of police. I had to fire a very popular black chief of police. And I ended up picking who I believe was the best cop in the country, Bill Bratton, a white man from Boston. That wasn't the politically correct thing to do, but it was the right thing to do. And I called Jim Hahn, who's the mayor, and I said, this is what I'm going to do. He said, do what's right. There's going to be political fallout, but do what's right. Bill Bratton and his team, along with the the police commission got crime down to levels not seen since 1950. It's amazing the work that he did.

Still a great cop. And what I learned was if you make decisions, not because you're worried about getting reelected or reappointed, but if you make decisions because they're the right decision, for the right reasons, incredible things can happen. And I think what's happened in the state, in the city, the county, we have elected officials that are on this. carousel. They're in city council, get termed out, they go to the state senate, they get termed out. They go to the LA County Board of Supervisors. And all they really start caring

about is, am I going to get reelected? And that changes how you make really good decisions. And that's why we continue to have homelessness. We continue to have crime problem. We continue to have dirty streets because they just refuse to make tough political decisions that maybe will cost them their job, but will actually be good for the people they serve, including the people on the streets. I think that's a commentary known not only on California, but many places in the country. So how do you start, how do you get out of that cycle? Hopefully the electorate gets to the point, again, what we were talking about, and maybe the fires, unfortunately, were the tipping point where people say we've had enough. We're not going to worry about ideology. We're not going to worry about

what party you're in. What we're going to think about is, does this point, person have a track record of making really good decisions and is he or she competent? And do they have our back? It's just terrible that events like that fire, which ruins so many people's lives have to happen in order for us to get to that place, right? But you got to find a silver lining in it because everything else is so bad about it. One of the main supplements that I've done this whole entire pregnancy is elderberry. And I get my elderberry from symbiotica. I actually learned about elderberry from another mother who was pregnant, and she told me about all the immune benefits, and so I've just done it the entire pregnancy. How I like to use symbioticus elderberry is I mix

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How do you think L.A. will recover from everything it's been through? How do you hope it will recover? I think it's going to be great. I'm a big believer in L.A. I mean, I'm optimistic about L.A. I'm optimistic about the rebuilding of the palisades, Malibu, Altadena. Listen, it's going to be tough. This is a massive disaster on epic proportions that have never been seen in this country.

We have lost two and a half times the size of Manhattan. The scale is in. insane. The work that needs to be done is huge, but I always try to look at the bright side. After the devastation and the heartache, I mean, Gianna lost her home. My son lost his home. It's standing, but it's destroyed because of fire, smoke. We lost a home of ours. So we understand the pain and the devastation of losing a home and what that means. Losing a lifestyle. It was so dear and wonderful. or Altadena, Malibu. But it's going to come back and it's going to be all new, if done right. The infrastructure is going to be new. The parks will be new. The churches, the synagogues.

And so there will be a rebirth. And, you know, we're a part of that and I'm honored to be a part of that. I think it's going to be great. I would bet on L.A. Switching gears a bit, what do you think some of the habits or thought process are that you have personally that have made you so successful? If you were coaching your younger self or just any young person listening. Don't tell me you wake up at 4.30 or something. No, oh, God. No, no, no.

I'm not an early riser. Please don't tell me that, please. No, I don't like people that wake up at 4.30. They just wait too. No, I like staying up late, actually, because that's my think time. Okay. Yeah, I like having, after everyone sort of settles in, Janet will tell you this, I got my routine. As everybody settles in after dinner, we do a lot of family dinners together.

We're very close. I go outside and I have my my cocktail and I just like that think time and I have my music on and What's the cocktail choice? From time to time I'll have my cigar with my cocktail. Wait, hold on. What's your cocktail? I drink Johnny Walker Blue.

Okay. And what's your cigar? Partigus. Oh, Michael's gotten two cigar wrecks this week. You got to get on it. Yeah, Pierce Morgan was on here yesterday. He said Monty Cristo number two. It's a good one. Yeah, but I think you got to try it. I've never heard that one. Okay, I'll send you by.

You don't have to send me a box, but... We'll have a cigar and a blue together. Okay. Twist my arm. It solves a lot of problems. It does. But it allows me to, I think, you know, and I've got a couple of really basic rules. And Gianna and the kids have heard them, but all so many times they're sick of them.

But I really do believe in my heart there is a solution to every problem. It may not be the solution that you think is there or that you want, but if you keep working towards that, you will find a solution. And I just run heavily optimistic that in business, in life, whatever it is, there's certain things you can't solve. You know, a terrible cancer, those kind of things you can't solve. Other than that, I try to prioritize my life into buckets and I prioritize my life with my faith, my family, my friends, and fun. That's my priority. work isn't in there because it's a given. I don't have a choice.

I'm going to work hard. But I do make a choice to be faithful to my God, to be faithful to my family, to have great friends, and to have fun, to just work to have fun every day. I think that's really good advice. There's this book called The Road Less Stupid.

I love that. I've never heard of it, but I've got to get it. He reminds Keith Cunningham. He talks about the importance. importance of thinking time, how none of us want to sit with our thoughts and just think. And it's not even meditating. It's like having a strategy session with yourself is so powerful. And I think that's so cool that you naturally do that. Yeah. And then I repeat it in the morning because I'm really into taking a steam before I work out. And so I love infrared steams. I love a wet steam and then

an infrared steam. And then, you know, I talked about I do my cold plunge, which is I thought I would never be able to do, but I'm addicted to. Now you're into it. Oh my God. I hate it. I did it this morning. It was cold out. What kind of cold plunge you're using? Curious about this. Oh my God. What's the one? The boys recommended it about a year ago. Yeah, it's 50. I'm not like super. You know what, though. I'm not breaking ice to get in. Let me put it that way. I'll break ice at night to pour my drink, but not in the morning. We had, we talked about this all the time, but we had somebody, Gary Brecker was on the show. He's super in a lot of that. stuff and he was saying you don't need to go much lower than that. Like a lot of people that think

they need to get down into the 30s and stuff, you get the same effect. Good to hear. Yeah, good to hear. I'm glad now I got an excuse. I like the, I like it fucking freezing. Really? She's insane. I like my cocktails. Insane. I like it's so cold and I like to sit in there for four minutes. And can you do it pregnant? No. I mean, you, I guess people I don't, we're going to be destroyed. No, no, people have done it pregnant. I intuitively don't feel like I can do it pregnant. I'm really about intuition with pregnancy and it just doesn't feel right but you better believe after i'm done given birth i'm getting in that thing i like it free you do it every day i probably do it about five days a week good for you it's kind of like crack once you start doing it it's like you it's it's you have to get

so uncomfortable to feel comfortable 100% i love it i think it makes you mentally tough too yes because for me the decision point to do it is the toughest part because i'm not going to say no yeah i got to do it Yeah. And it changes, it kind of like this is weird, but it feels like it's a windshield wiper and wipes the fog off your eyes. Like you just can see clear. Well, for me, like I just, I think as everyone listens knows, like life is hard. There's a million challenges. And I think the more difficult things you can do over and over, it just makes all of those challenges much more digestible. What workout are you doing? You said workout. So I have a, I have this routine that I do. But I, three days a week, I have a trainer. So I do.

weights. Okay. And then the other three days I do tennis. Cool. And I do it with a pro so it's a workout for like 45 minutes. Jeez, you guys are... When I start my morning, I read my papers. You know, I got my routine. I like reading my papers, dating emails, getting like everything pushed back. Trying to keep up. I'm just trying to keep up. No, no, no, no, you're a stud. You look great. No, no, no. What he does is it's very, you guys are very similar. I just recently got into tennis. Oh, great. As I've gotten older, I can't do the things that I use. you used to do. Just everything that I shouldn't do, all combat and, you know, getting hit and boxing.

Boxing. Like jujitsu and that kind of stuff. Never jujitsu. My son and my son's is really into jiu-jitsu. Tell him to cover his ears. Isn't that the one that gets you, the ears? They get, yeah, you got to cover your ears. You got to make GGC like ear covers.

I want to get our. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to get our son into jiu-jitsu because I've heard so many benefits of doing it. How old is your son? He's two and a half right now. That's awesome. Michael, he's literally. a fetus. We can't throw them into

do this. Listen, we were with a friend of ours and he said for young children, it's one of the better things because the things that I would do would break the bones and you'd actually get hurt and head injuries and all the things. But with Jiu-Jitsu, you don't have that and you also stretch the bones in a way that he was saying later guards you against osteoporosis and many bone degenerative diseases that will

last their entire life. But anyways, back to the tennis, I love tennis now because it's so frustratingly difficult. Yeah. Good challenge. Every time you think you're getting it, there's... Good for your brain. Oh, you're absolutely right. Yeah, it's good for your brain.

To exercise and see green at the same time. Huh. Stimulates your brain. Yeah. Green. That's what the doctors have told me. Okay. That's why tennis is so good if you're in a landscaped area playing tennis.

Yeah. I'd like a landscaped area tennis court. And you could do it together. Come by. And travel. Yeah. Come by. We'll have it blew a cigar.

We'll go to sleep and then we'll wake up. We have our schemes. Just stop the show right now. Play tennis. take a coal plunge. What does the behind the scenes of the Grove look like running it and dealing with all the different retailers and how does it all come together? What does your day-to-day look like running that? You know, for me, I have an incredible team of people that are managing that.

It's a bit of what you would imagine there's showtime in the morning, right? So in the middle of the night and early, early in the morning, there's teams of people cleaning, replanting, trimming. polishing, just like Disneyland. And then boom, when Showtime hits, they all go away. But we've got management teams on all of these properties that just do an incredible job. They're so dedicated. What do you think makes it like so special? Obviously it's outside. That's incredible. But whenever you say the Grove, it does evoke this warm, nostalgic feeling. Well, that makes me happy. It was intended. Yeah.

And every project that we built, we start with a story. And we literally, put it on paper. And we build to that story. And every contractor that's working on the property has that book and understands what they're building. So the grove, the story behind the grove was it was this great old downtown that was built after World War II adjacent to the original farmer's market that fell into disrepair and now has come back to life.

There's a rebirth to it. So that's the nostalgia of the trolley of, and there's so many things that you're, and you guys know this because you're so successful in your businesses with your products and how you market it, the look and feel of it, what your eyes sees and the signal it says to your brain. There's sidewalks, curbs and gutters at the grove. There's no cars on the street. Big battle with the landscape architects not to build curbs and gutters. People are going to trip. I said they don't trip walking down a street. If we would have built it like a plaza, sends a different signal.

You feel like you're on an old street. And somehow you're not supposed to be there, but because you're there is sort of fun because you usually aren't walking down the middle of a street with a trolley near you. Right. So it evokes things in your brain, the music, the scent of the orange trees, the flowers, the lawn, the fountain, all of those things. are very intended to just trigger a form of happiness. My middle name is Five Senses. So I love this so much.

When Michael and I got together, he didn't know about them. So I had to introduce him to the Five Senses. Michael would be woken up with a hundred lights in his face with no music. I don't even think you knew what a candle was. But I had a father that in the morning, slam the lights on full blast, get up, wing the door open.

That was the dog. I want the light dimmer. with the candle flickering. Oh, yeah. I have this theory that I think that the train and the trolley, the reason that people love it so much is people, this is weird like movement. Yeah.

Like if you turn a fan on in your house and you get the energy moving, that's a good point. People like energetically, like moving. It feels progressive. I agree. That's a great point. I hadn't thought about that, but that's a great point. It feels like it's like there's, when I'm at that resort,

it feels like there's movement and then you get the waves in the background. It's like, it's cool. There's energy there. There's totally energy there. And it is funny when you think about that trolley goes nowhere. Right. And it's always full of people. That's so cute.

It's always full of it. And it goes 1,600 feet. That's so cute. And also that the restaurant, tell me the name of the restaurant on the corner that I love. What's the Piazza? It's so good. Yeah. And you feel like you're like kind of in Europe almost.

That's the idea. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you for being a customer. there. I'm a customer. I love it. How have you managed to raise children with such confidence? She's obviously very entrepreneurial. Yes, she is. How did you think about raising kids when they were young? I would love to know selfishly. Well, I'm sure you're the same. It starts with a great spouse. I mean, Tina is an amazing woman and probably literally the best human being I've ever met.

There's just a goodness to my wife. And so how could I not have great kids? Everything in our life, including today, starts, like I said, with family. I drove the kids to school every morning. I did carpool every morning. I was at every sporting event. It's what we do. It's what you guys do.

And I just figured everything else I can find time for, but I'm never going to sacrifice time with the family. Now, there's always exceptions if I had to travel or things like that. But that was really pretty rare. And to even now, I mean, we as a family probably have dinner two to three times a week. We're always together. They're always popping in the house. And I would always tell the kids, though, too, we're going to be your best friends or your worst enemies.

You know, there's going to be rules. But in between all of those rules, we're going to create an environment that everybody just wants to be together. When your children come to you for life advice, what do you? you think the most important advice you give them is? The confidence that they can solve their own problems. I'll give them my best thinking, but I think what Tina and I do, it's more of a conversation. You know, how are you really feeling about it? What's really bothering about that?

You know, these are the different ways you might think about something. But somehow, some way, and I don't have all the answers. You know, they're all faithful. They're all just good human beings. they all have their priorities right. They just came together. And now they're a little ecosystem. They're all best friends.

They all support each other. But I also learned something from my dad that I never understood until I was older. I would come home complaining about something. And my dad's response was, you'll figure it out. And it wasn't, I realized, I used to think it was being dismissive, like I don't have time for that. It was empowering. It was literally, you will figure it out. And he was always there for me, but that helped me learn a lot to be a dad.

But we haven't been perfect parents, but we try hard every day. The you'll figure it out is so important, I think, to children. I actually think it's number one. I think you're right. That's why I said. It starts with giving them the encouragement that they can solve their own problems. Otherwise, you're so dependent. on somebody else. You don't want to live your life that way. When you come to me with one of your

problems at an inconvenient time, I'm going to say you'll figure it out. No, what is it? I need emotional residency. Is that what you said? No, yeah, emotional residency is when I have an emotion and I want him to match the emotion. And if he doesn't match it, I'm mad. I've never heard of that. Well, it's like, you know, when you're upset about something, you know what's not upset? And you're like, well, why aren't you just as upset about it? Yeah, I know. Oh, I get that at home. Yeah, yeah. I have, I have I have lived through that. And that same lane line of questioning and not only for your children,

but when young entrepreneurs or career-driven people come to you for advice, what are the things they're asking you mostly and what is, in your opinion, greatest pieces of advice? I think the best piece of advice, you know, I am not an expert on giving people advice,

but what I say to anybody is do what you're really good at, not what you really love. If the two come together, it's magic and powerful. But if you do what you're really good at, you're going to be successful. I think what a lot of people start doing is, you know, I love real estate. Well, maybe you're not good in real estate, but maybe you're really good in technology. And what I do think happens, at least it's happened for me and I've seen it with other people.

And I think for you both also, when you do what you're really good at and they're, then you love it, nobody can compete with you. You will run circles around people because it's not work. Then it becomes fun and exciting and a challenge and energetic and you're going to go crush, you know, everything. So I think you have to really sit back and ask yourself, hey, what am I good at? What am I naturally good at? When your daughter, Gigi, comes to you and she says, I want to launch my own business. I have this idea.

It sounds like you started it with your mom. What did you tell her to do or were you like figure it out? I first said, do it, go for it. You got a passion for it. You got a talent and you're good at it. She was great at design, great at envisioning things. She still is. She's so creative.

And even at a young age, what I noticed with her, she has an incredible business mind. Great combination. Great combination. She's tough. Sweet as can be, but she's tough. She's a good Italian girl. No, I just encourage. it along the whole way. And what I saw in her, and I see it in my sons, our sons, then they

start getting inspired. We've got really creative kids, and it's great. We've got one that's a lawyer, one is a great filmmaker, one that's in music, now moving over into real estate, about to have a baby, so we're going to be grandparents, which we're excited about. You know, Gianna, in business and creativity, in fashion. I love your baby. suits. I'm such a fan. You guys all have to go check them out. If you've ever seen me wearing a long sleeve bathing suit, it's a GGC bathing suit. Oh, that's sweet. So everyone needs to go stalk her bathing suits. You guys just gave me a couple, a baby blue, a white, a black. I love them. They're so flattering, which is the best part. I want to go back to when you talked about your wife. It seems like you

and your wife have an incredible relationship. What do you think the secrets, the secret sauces to marriage? Oh. Michael needs all the tips. I doubt it. Michael looks like such a nice guy. He is. I don't know what. That's nice. They're nice. I'm smart, talented. Rick, I'm going to keep you around. He's a great husband. He's a great husband. Amazing couple. Listen, I think you'll learn as you go. We're Catholic. So I start from the point of view as this is going to work. There's not an option. Rick, my name is Michael Joseph. There you go. My mom is half Italian. Okay, well, that's why you're so great.

Italian's rule. You're very Catholic? No, it's a very Catholic name. It's a very Catholic name. It should have been a priest or something. Well, you could still do it. I don't know. You can be married and have kids and be a priest.

I would have to repent a lot of things. Well, we all do. But Tina and I, listen, I don't think there's any marriage that's perfect. Nobody has all the right answers. I think you've got to be super committed. You're going to work through it. Raising kids, as you know. is a lot of work and it's challenging at times.

Nothing goes right all the time. And you just got to say you're a team. And, you know, listen, my kids will tell you, there's been, you know, points in our marriage that have been tough. We've gotten through it. We've never gotten close to divorce or walking away from each other, but it's just life. Yeah. And so you've got to also give yourself permission and grace to go figure it out to say,

okay, we need some help. I mean, sometimes you need to go get outside help, whether you're talking to friends or family or somebody who's a professional. But it's so worth it in the end if you stay together and have a family. And that's what Tina and I have both been committed to. What's the yin and the yang of you guys, like your personalities? Who's what? Mom is super smart and creative like Gianna and more reserved.

Like very low key, super low key. Her favorite night is Uggs, Cozy, the Family, Dinner, Let's Watch a Movie Together. You know, I love to travel. I like to get out there. I like having parties, you know, right? Isn't that right? Am I missing something? And I love being with the family and cozy, don't get me wrong.

But she's just sweet and dear, super smart. But she likes her family, her friends, and just being. Okay. How did you guys meet? Blind date. Oh. And did you like her right away? I did, but I go back to my shyness. If you ask Tina, she'll say, she'll say he never said a word to me. I'm going to embarrass my wife now. You want me to embarrass my wife? Yes. She was like a supermodel. And so she walked in and I go, whoa, that's amazing. She's gorgeous. And she just, you know, you see people like you, you have these beautiful eyes and there's like happiness coming through their eyes. You've got that. Rick, you better calm down. You're making me look bad like you can't make me.

No, I just said you're a great Italian. But it's true. She's got those eyes. And Tina had those eyes. So I fell in love with her, but I was so intimidated by her because she really was just beautiful in a way, not in a model way, even though she was a very successful model, just naturally beautiful. She still is today, if you see Tina. But when you set up on an official date and you didn't talk or you just were in the same kind of? It was an official date and I swear I got it in talk. Michael calls what you're describing. He says,

Blind date. Features. What's that? That's what you say. You say you love features. Yeah. I like it. That sounds like Tina had features.

All of the things. Yeah, well, fixtures. That's something different. What do you think that if you could wave a wand, you would want to infuse our generation with? Like, what do you think we all need more of? When you look from your bird's eye view of us, is it more work ethic?

is it more grit? What are the things that you think that we could use more of? Don't hold back on me here now? Yeah, don't hold back. Oh, man. That's a great question. And I see it to some extent in business, work ethic. We saw it at COVID. I'll put it in those terms. Coming back to the office, that drove me crazy. This notion that you can be productive in work in your pajamas sitting on a couch. I just was so against it. I fought many people in my company that did not want to bring people back. And then I got people back three days a week. And then I said, I'm sick of the three days a week.

I think people, I think everybody needs to realize if you want to be successful, you've got to get up, get dressed, come to the office, have a sense of collaboration, work hard, and then go enjoy your life. We are still in suit. I'm not today. But our company is suit and tie every day. I think we're the only people I know that get dressed up. But I think it's like going to the World Series. You get dressed up to play ball and be the best.

And there's a transformation that happens actually in getting ready in the morning. Here's the deal. Today I got in a ride share, one of these rideshare apps. I'm not going to name which one. And I got in the car. Very nice lady. There was so much perfume and artificial fragrance and that Christmas tree thing that hangs. I almost had a connipion fit.

a convulsion. I had to hang my head out the window like Ace Ventura. Ever since we switched to branch basics and got all of these artificial fragrances and chemicals out of the house, we are so sensitive. And what I realize is that we do a really good job as human beings of ignoring these senses, these scents, these smells, these chemicals that are in our house lingering around. It is so important to clean your house with healthy cleaning supplies that don't have hormone disruptors, chemicals, and artificial fragrances. You don't need them. They don't do anything other than masks. that shouldn't be masked. This is why Lauren and I love Branch Basics. Branch Basics, one of our all-time favorite cleaning brands, is now available at over 600 Target

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It is absolutely delicious. It became their best-selling flavor, and it's now at Target stores nationwide. So you can go buy the flavor that I created with Claudia and Jackie from the Toast podcast. The can is absolutely adorable. It's pink, it's cheeky, and it's really the ultimate pink sparkling cocktail. It's honestly perfect for me to put on ice. I like to put it in a wine glass with a sprig of basil. If you're looking for a different flavor and pink lemonade isn't your jam, they also have lemonized tea.

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throwing fun events Spritz Society summer starts here one of the greatest things that lorne and i have experienced moving to the middle of the country moving to texas is that we are now much closer to one of our favorite places and that is miami lord and i have got to spend a lot more time in miami ever since moving to austin because it's only two hours away and it has quickly become one of our favorite places for an assortment of reasons first they have such a great art scene they have museums they have exhibits they have things for kids and adults whether it's the Perez Art Museum of Miami, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami.

They also have so many great outdoor activities. Lauren and I, outside of loving the beach, you can go boating, you can go kayaking, you can go scuba diving, golf, tennis, pickleball, you name it. What I love about that city is everybody is happy, they're fit, they're active, they're in the sunshine, they're moving, they're grooving, and it's just a great time.

It's great for family. It's great for adults. It's great for kids. And there's always something to do in a very active city. And let's not forget about the culinary experience. There are so many incredible restaurants in Miami. In Greater Miami and Miami Beach, there is always mouth-watering meal around the corner with Michelin-starred restaurants, food trucks, and local favorites. You can pretty much throw a rock in any direction and hit a great restaurant.

It's just a moving and grooving city. We spend a lot of time over there now. We have a lot of friends that have moved there. It is no surprise that it has stayed and continues to be one of the most popular cities in the United States. Many people are familiar, obviously, with Miami Beach, but there's also downtown, the design district. There's also Little Haiti. There's the Coconut Grove, Little Havana. there's so many places, coral graves, Miami Gardens, and Miami Springs. So check Miami out,

learn more. Visit www.Findyourmiami.com. Again, that's findyourmiami.com. Did you know that most tolla paper has formaldehyde and chlorine in it? It also has dyes. I was shocked to know. I found out this probably a year ago, that there's all of these crazy things in toilet paper. We're wiping our most intimate areas with this all day long. My daughter is using the toilet paper. My husband's using it. I went on this like wild goose chase to find the best tole paper on the market. And while I found some brands that were great, I also wanted to create something better. And so that's what we've done at the skinny confidential. We have created a better choice. I was involved in every single detail of this toilet paper. We took out

formaldehyde. We took out chlorine. We took out the dyes. We took out all the things that I didn't want. my family exposed to. And then, of course, in our very skinny confidential way, we wrapped it in pink, as you can see. I wanted the experience of the delivery when you got it to be very romantic and pretty. Never are you excited about getting your monthly delivery of toilet paper, and I wanted to make you excited. So it comes in the most luxurious box. You open it. It's packaged cute. And it also has our little stamp on it and you can put this on all of the rules in your house and know that it's a better choice for you and your family. I am so passionate about this launch. We have been working on this launch for a long time. My team is so excited about it. It's shaking up the market and it's

disruptive and it's everything that we want to bring to the table. So if you're looking for a better choice when it comes to your toll of paper, go to shopskin confidential.com. Grab it now. We will sell out, but we're doing subscription. So I would definitely say to subscribe so you can make sure that you get it monthly. That's shopskinningconfidential.com. We had Emma agreed on the show yesterday who runs and his partner with Kim Kardashian on Skims.

I know Emma. Yeah, she's great. And she was saying that if you want to be an ambitious company, which they want to do, like you have to kind of operate that way. And for people that don't want to operate that way, then it's maybe not the right company. Right. But I agree.

It's like there was this. even for this business, what happens it started full in office, everybody together. COVID hit, obviously everyone had to go out of office, especially in L.A. And then coming back, you know, I agree. I think you get the most, not only out of productivity, but

out of happiness over time with people when you're actually with each other. Like, there's some people, I think, for a short period, I'm like, I need to be home and I like this, but I've seen that manifest over years where people eventually, like, don't have any connection to the people they work with. And so right, you know, I think that's a challenge But I was joking today, and a young lady that looked at me when I said,

we need to start getting a little bit more back in time. She's like, I thought this was a modern work culture. And I was like, well, what does that mean to you? Because I don't understand that term because we all came up in a time when you had to be interacting with everybody. And there's something so powerful to me about the hallway, running into somebody, having an idea and say, hey, I just thought about this. What do you think? So many of those great ideas happen in just the random interaction.

an office. You never get that on a Zoom. I like seeing people too. I mean, for somebody who runs an I'm just going to be honest about this as performance reviews come up and promotions and all this. I'm like if I don't know you difference from a screen, and by the way, people look different on a screen. Like I see people and they say, oh, it's nice to me. I'm like, I don't know if I've met you through the screen. I can't tell. I need to feel this. And so, you know, I'm just be honest, as an employer, like more of that visibility and more of that in-person interaction is going to put those people in a better position to even just catch my attention in the first place. I don't.

You're exactly right. I don't see people through the screen in the same way. Exactly right. There's a softness about wanting to work, and I'm just being really honest, three days a week from home and then at the same time wanting an exceptional life. If you want an average life, work three days a week from home. I can tell you, from my experience, I have had to work seven days a week together. to get to an exceptional life and I want to go further and I know what it takes. I think you have to just come to terms with what you want because what I see right now is

people who want to work three days a week and then they want an exceptional life. And from what I've seen and all the high performers I've interviewed, that's not the way it works. But practically speaking, you're absolutely right. If I worked for you and I worked in your organization and the only time you ever saw me was through a screen somewhere like, you're not going to register that. You have too many people that you're already interacting with in person. Like, I'm just never going to get your attention. Right.

And from the employee side, if you really want to build your career, your boss or your supervisor needs to know you. Yep. To your point, right? How you get, I don't know. I think it's a no-brainer, but I know there's people that just like being at home. So you would inject that, you know, next generation to get some of that, I don't want to call it work out of, we're just some of that, you know, tenacity back in the workplace.

I think it's more the realization of really to you. your point, the realization of understand really what your goal is and marry your work ethic to your goal. Yes. And if you want to be home and you want to just do what you want to do, great. I don't have any problem with that. But if you want to be part of an exceptional team, be creative, you know, inventive and be an innovator and entrepreneur, all those kind of things, you've got to earn it. You've got to put the time in it or it's not going to happen. I don't know. if you're a great chef, whatever it is, it takes time and a lot of work.

I mean, we refuse to do this show on a screen, like through a Zoom for many reasons. But what I want to tell people is in the early days when we had no business, we're making no money doing this, we're working other jobs, we would get on commercial flights with little suitcases with the equipment, and no matter who it was, would go to people just to do that. And I, you know, people ask me now, like,

like, oh, what makes this? And they start the conversation with like, how much money am I going to make and how can I do this the easiest way possible? And what's the way where I can only take a little bit of time? Like, it's just such, it's a wrong way to think about doing a business. That's exactly right. I want to know how you manage your time.

You have all these different projects. You're involved. And we're going to talk about the foundation. But I just, how are you managing everything? Do you time batch certain days? Like on Mondays, are you on one project and Tuesday? is you're on a different. How do you do that with your schedule? Well, I have great help and support in doing that at the office. But I look at it this way.

There's 24 hours in a day. On average, you sleep seven. Now you've got 17 hours. That's a lot of hours. Agreed. Okay. So you can get a lot done. And I am not a believer that I used to love it in the office. I mean back about it. I used to love it in the office years ago. People would say, you know, I was in the office at 730 this morning. And somehow that made you a great executive. I frankly don't care if you come in at 7.30 or 10.30. What I care about is that for the time that you're spending in the office, the eight hours, whatever, you're being productive, right? So I organize my day around the way that I feel like I'm the most productive.

But I don't, I sort of touch everything every day, whether it's the nonprofit, whether it's the company. I don't time batch at all. And a lot of it is driven by what bubbles up that needs my attention. But here's a really important rule that I heard from somebody else that I've tried to follow. Do not go to a meeting unless you're the one that needs to either make the decision or help make the decision. And so a lot of times meetings are called or you show up to places. You really don't need to be there. I try not to go places where I don't need to be.

I want to spend my time in a meeting on a call, on a Zoom, or whatever the case is, because I can move the needle or help people move the needle together. So, for instance, this podcast, you can't outsource. You have to be here. You can't delegate that. But if you could delegate it, you delegate it where you can. Yeah, because delegation is important to grow in enterprise anyway. It sounds like you're just doing whack a mole all day.

Whatever problem comes up, you're whacking the mole. No. Now I'm doing really creative. Listen, there's some days to the horror of my team that I'll pull everybody together and say, I walked the Miramar the other day and I'm not happy with the flowers. What are you guys thinking? The other day I walked the Grove and I said, who played with the play mix? There's some songs on there I don't like.

And there's other days I'm dealing with big financial decisions. So it's a very creative decisions. It's a whole spectrum. And that's what's fun about my business. How do you relate to anyone with your business? Your businesses are so unique. Like, do you, like when you go home, do you want to talk about it to your wife? Do you call a friend or just like your thinking time and your Johnny Walker Blue with your cigar?

I like talking to the family. I like talking to Tina. One of my favorite times is in the morning. We have coffee together every morning. So we start the day off together. So we can compare notes and just talk and have fun, whatever the case may be. No, I don't really talk about business at home much. We'll talk about all the kids are on the board.

Cool. We're a private company. You know, it's family-owned. So they're all on the board. They all understand the business. They're all engaged. So we do have conversations about what's happening. But I don't like to relive my day necessarily.

I do love being with other executives that are like so smart. I randomly call people that I think are just amazing. and introduce myself and say, would you have a cup of coffee? I've got no agenda. But I love talking to super smart people. So I go out of my way to do that or have dinner or coffee with other executives. Before you go, you have to tell us what you're reading, what you're listening to, if you're meditating, what are the things that you consume content-wise?

Are you looking at Instagram? Are you on TikTok? Yeah, no. I'm not on TikTok. We just talked about on the elevator. I'm not on TikTok. I'm not on TikTok either. He's got enough going on.

I don't spend a lot of time looking at a screen. I look at Instagram a little bit, not a lot. I'm a big reader of newspapers and periodicals. So every morning, I start my morning, coffee with Tina, and that's about 30 minutes, usually about 7 or 7.30, and then I'm into diving into newspapers, and I'll read six newspapers in the morning. And then I'm online reading articles. I'm watching CNBC, and if something pops up, I chase it down. I'm fascinated by what's going on in the world and the economy right now, trying to understand it. I'll call economists that I know around the country and ask questions, and I'll do that for about an hour and a half every morning. But I'm not a book reader. I wish I was. And what are you looking for in the papers? Like what kind of nuggets are you trying to pull out? Sometimes it's like a business article that maybe will help my business solving a problem. Sometimes it will be a headline that we need to worry about something this morning in the Wall Street Journal. There was an article about how the tariffs are affecting the building of apartments.

We have a division that just does apartments. Wasn't they saying about office buildings too? Office buildings, you're right, the same page. Office buildings are now getting, they were starting to come back and now they're declining because of the tariffs. We're not in the office building business, thank goodness. So it could be that. And then I'm so low tech, this is so embarrassing.

I don't know how to find links. So I take, I'll show you my phone. I'm so embarrassed. I take a picture of the article. I took a picture of the newspaper today and I send it out to my executives. And I'll say, okay, worth reading, look into this. And I'll do that in the morning. So that's how, that's what I do.

What do you think about the tariffs? What's going to happen? What should you do if you're a small business? I worry about the tariffs a lot. I think there's been damage to the economy. I think the small business owners are who I really, really worry about. on how they're going to survive this. And people are being wounded, I think, unnecessarily on this.

I agree that we have a problem with China, that we need to solve, meaning we are so dependent on certain supplies coming out of China, and we should have learned from COVID. Let's just take medical supplies. We are still dependent on medical supplies coming out of China. We can manufacture those in the United States or somewhere else. but the idea that there's going to be massive blanket tariffs that the way it was started with Trump did so much initial damage to the economy, I'm not sure we're going to recover

quickly from it. I worry about that. But here's the other thing I worry about the most. And you both know this running a significant business, whether you're a small business or a big business. If you don't have predictability, you cannot run a business. and everything is changing every day. How do I run my business?

What is loan cost going to be? What are the tariffs going to be? How is it impacting products when we're building things? We have a restaurant division. What's the impact on our restaurant division? There was another article in the Wall Street Journal about that a couple of days ago on just the ingredients going into the food supply and the cost of that going up so much. Do you know the number one provider of garlic is an Italian family in China that produces like 90% of the garlic in the world?

Their business has basically, maybe it's not 90, maybe it's 80. Still significant. Significant. Their business has basically stopped because in our restaurant division, why are we going to buy garlic that's now 150% more than garlic we can get somewhere else? So the impact of this is so huge, but the fact that we can't be predicting our future, I think is really tough on business. You mentioned that you don't read a lot of books,

but there's maybe one, randomly I came across this. It was just like on Amazon. It showed up, and it's called How to Be Rich, and it was by John Paul Getty. And he wrote it years ago, and the reason it's relevant is I was just reading about this guy, obviously he had a huge footprint in L.A., oil, all these things. but he starts talking about tariffs and trade.

And he said even back then, there's a lot of politicians that start rattling their swords about how we need tariffs and trade. And he was vehemently against that because he predicts that over time, you actually need to rely on open trade and in a global economy.

And it's weird to read that book that I had no idea I was talking about that that was written so long ago talking about how this would happen and how he was very much against this approach. Anyways, I thought it was just like interesting timing.

That's one of my things that I got to start doing this reading. You got a lot to do. I know, but I start with the premise. You've got to have a free open market in the economy. And then, of course, there's going to be tariffs at some level, but I do worry about that. That was his premise. That's why I brought it up to you.

You just really quickly have to tell us about your foundation, your nonprofit. Tell us about that. Steadfast, L.A. I'm so proud of the people that are part of Steadfast, L.A. So I started this foundation right after the fires, and it's got a singular mission. Get people back in their homes as quickly and safely as possible. And we are roll up your sleeves, issue-oriented. I asked a whole bunch of people who are the best in their industries, bankers, engineers,

insurance peoples, all these senior executives are donating their time and their talent, and we're literally solving problems and then handing it off to six. the state and the county because this disaster is so big, government alone can't do it. It's got to be a public-private partnership. And the private side brings innovation and urgency. And just like we announced the rebuilding of the park out on the palisades the other day, it's the center of that community. It's also to bring hope.

But we went to the city and said, we'll raise all the money. You let us build it, but the community has to operate it. It's going to be a public-private partnership, a new way of operating a park for families. The undergrounding of the power lines critically important in the county, Altadena, Malibu, and City. We pushed the elected officials to underground the power lines. They finally agreed to it. So it's all of those kind of issues that we're working to solve where government may have the right intention, but they just don't have the ability to quickly and maybe creatively solve problems.

And that's what we're doing. Wow. Rick Crusoe, you're great on a mic. Start a podcast. Add it to your list. I don't want to have to compete with you. That's for darn shit. No, no, no way. GGC Bikinis. Do you want to do a code? I didn't ask you this off air for the audience. Like skinny for 10% off? Okay. GGCBikinis.com code skinny for 10% off. Everyone go by the long sleeve bathing suits because they're so preventative. You don't get all the sun all over you. I'm a big preventative beauty person and I love your long sleeve bathing suits. The biggest fan. What an endorsement. Well, they're beautiful. They're beautifully designed. Thank you for

coming on. Come back. I'm so honored to be here. Rick, we could talk to you all day long. Thank you guys are amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you.