The Tim Ferriss Show - #700: Guy Laliberté, Founder of Cirque du Soleil — The Power of Belief, Street Gangs, Wild Tales from Las Vegas, The Dangers of Nurturing Fear, and Dancing on the Cliff

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Starting point is 00:03:23 pod cover by 8sleep this winter. 8sleep currently ships within the US, Canada, the UK, select countries in the EU and Australia. Now would have seen an appropriate time. What if I did the opposite? I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton. The Tim Ferriss Show. Hello boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job each and every episode to deconstruct world-class performers, to tease out the backstories, the frameworks, the philosophies, the tactics,

Starting point is 00:04:10 and so on that you can apply to your own lives. And my guest today has been in the works for a long time. I'm thrilled to have him. And if I'm not mistaken, this is his first long-form podcast ever, Guy Laliberté, who is the founder of Cirque du Soleil, One Drop Foundation, and Lune Rouge. If I'm pronouncing that correctly, my apologies for the French, which I do not speak. He was named by Time Magazine as one of the most influential personalities in the world and has been recognized as one of the most creative and innovative minds by Condé Nast. An artist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist, Guy is a three-time winner of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, which included World Entrepreneur of the Year. He is a Knight of the National Order of Quebec

Starting point is 00:04:53 and an inductee of the Canadian Business Hall of Fame. Guy has been granted the insignia of the Order of Canada, the highest distinction in the country, and in 2010 received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Guy now dedicates his time to his company, Lune Rouge, and his international nonprofit, One Drop Foundation, which aims to ensure sustainable access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene for communities everywhere through innovative partnerships, creativity, and the power of art. This is a wild conversation full of a lot of unbelievable stories. And we take a few minutes to warm up, but definitely stick around.

Starting point is 00:05:29 There's a lot to learn. There are many, many negotiation tactics, philosophical tenets, and more that you can pick up from this conversation. You can find him on Instagram at GuyLalibertéDJ. And you can find his new projects, which are brand new projects, and they will contain descriptions of some different projects that we allude to at the end of the conversation, and that is frougs, F-R-O-O-O-G-S dot com, and you can get to the English with slash E-N, so frougs.com slash E- en. And without further ado, please enjoy a very wide

Starting point is 00:06:08 ranging, very tactical, very hilarious conversation with Guy Laliberte. Guy, nice to see you. Thank you for making the time. I know you are a man on the road. You are a man on the move, which I suppose would be on brand as I did research for this conversation. You seem like a very hyperkinetic man. And I thought we might start in 1977. I might be getting the date right. I might be getting the date wrong.

Starting point is 00:06:37 A trip to Europe. What prompted this trip to Europe? And what was your experience? To understand this desire, hitting the road and engage in that journey, which was a very important moment or year of my life. We have to go back a little bit in my childhood. There's always that famous question that adult asks your kids, what do you want to do when you're an adult? And my answer back then was, well, I want to discover the world and I want to travel. And that came from three very important key moments in my life.

Starting point is 00:07:12 The first one was, that was the day of when my father brought the first color TV in the house. And the first program we'll watch was a National Geographic program that showcased basically something I've never seen in my life, which was animals that doesn't exist in my own town or my country, colors of skin or dressing of people. So I was just like so amazed by this colorful impact that it have on me that I was like, triggered my curiosity. And it stays at that moment and that grows slowly. And obviously I was a big fan of those National Geographic every time it was coming. And it was like, yes, I want to see what's more on this planet.

Starting point is 00:07:53 Actually, at that time, it made me realize and my mom explained to me, she said, listen, you're not only living in a city or a province or in a country or on a continent, you're living on a planet. And that made me realize that the world was bigger than my backyard. Second thing, 1967, which was the World Expo in Montreal. My mom, another very curious person, I bought for the family passport.

Starting point is 00:08:19 And almost every day of the summer, she was bringing us to this international expo. And we visit pretty much probably minimum of three close to me in a way that, again, it reinforced this desire of discovering what was out there somewhere. I didn't know the notion of distance, but I knew it was far away. And the third thing was, I think, put the cherry on the sundae, was when Neil Armstrong walked the moon. I was in a summer camp, black and white TV that time, bunch of boys because it was a boys camp. And we spent the entire night and it was a

Starting point is 00:09:12 long program because they showed up all the process, the expectation was there. And suddenly this guy put a foot on the moon. And it was very interesting because you could see the reaction of the other kids and even telling, wow, I want to be an astronaut. I want to do, I want to go on the moon. I want to do what he's doing. And for me, my look at that moment was totally different. It was like, whoa, the little Prince story could be real. No, it's very interesting. And then it triggered my belief that if I have a dream or anything that was dreamy could be achievable. So from that moment, it was really, okay, how could I shape and I was still too young to hit the road by myself. Soon, my parents were bringing us more into America. And around the age of 14, 15, we did our first international trip to Cuba.

Starting point is 00:10:17 And then this is where I discovered Green Tomato. Beautiful long legs, woman dancing, dance that doesn't exist in my place. Colorful music, happy dancing. So it's just like, wow. And blue color, the ocean of the sea and the ocean and fish that doesn't exist in the lake. And I was just like, yes, I knew it. Here it is, the beginning of a great adventure. But at that time, you know, obviously I was a minor. So I really started to engage in discovering my province,

Starting point is 00:10:48 hitchhiking, going in a theater festival, music festival. And at the same time, I pick up the accordion of the family of my father because I come from a family of musicians, but traditional music. And I started to realize that maybe I could activate a little bit this adventure, this adventure using music. So I took the time to prepare a little show of myself, singing songs, storytelling, music. And then short after, connecting with a couple of other musicians, creating a band. And that, for three years, permitted us to travel around Canada and a little bit of the

Starting point is 00:11:26 States to encounter other musicians, to play on the street, play in a music festival. So I realized that, hey, listen, I could have fun playing music. I discovered through this journey, the beginning of the pleasure of entertaining people, but mostly I was able to always go further and further geographically. And then obviously after a couple of years, 18 years old was coming soon. And it was just like, I'm going to Europe. And I had enough money to pay myself open tickets for a year. And I bought 50 bucks in my pocket. But an amazing number of contact that either either had met over the previous three years

Starting point is 00:12:06 or people that had been in Europe said, you should go in this bar to play, you should meet that person. He's an interesting musician and went out, hit the road, and basically spent almost a year in Europe, discovering the pleasure of playing in the street, realizing the impact of making people smile. But mostly, I was achieving my dream. And I came back with more money in my pocket than I left with. You came back with more money than you traveled there with. So I assume, and please correct me

Starting point is 00:12:37 if I'm wrong, that means you were busking and entertaining and earning money in that way. What were the keys to good busking? What did you learn about effective busking? First of all, where do you busk? Because it's not every corner of the street that you can get your bread and breakfast money. So one of them is really to rapidly identify in a city where's the hotspot for people to busk, okay? And obviously there's already busker when you arrive,

Starting point is 00:13:05 so you don't invent the wheel. You just observe things. But then you have to deal with territorial situations. So you have two ways of dealing with that. Either you provoke and you confront, which normally is not the right way to do, or you engage. You engage in the street neighborhood,

Starting point is 00:13:22 which is not always busker, but it's also a lot of different people of all kinds. Very colorful, very misfit people, very disrupting people, but also amazing personality because a lot of artists are there, musicians. So you engage in a community that belongs to this city. But what I realized is basically there's two things the busking business in Europe. It was the permanent people, the people who live in that city that didn't move, and they were the one that was there every day. But there was the traveling people. and respectful of certain rules that exist and you have to learn about them, then you engage in a community

Starting point is 00:14:08 that is really supporting of each other. And then you make friends and then you decide with the traveler when to do, I don't know, two weeks with the violin player or a week with the belly dancer or the fire breeder person. So through this experience,

Starting point is 00:14:24 it's not only encountering a community that was much bigger in Europe than it was in Quebec, because obviously Quebec, we have the climate factor, which is a little difficult to busk at minus 30 on the corner of the street of Montreal. So the timeline is pretty limited. And also the population is much smaller. Paris was my base at the beginning,

Starting point is 00:14:45 which is where I speak French, right there. And from Paris, then I met a lot of people. And then you start to engage, okay, do I go to Ireland or do I go to that festival? And I kind of like organically, the rhythm or the speed of the wind, you know, it's like, I was waking up in the morning, I was like, okay, let's go there, hitchhiking. Again, depending on the success of the hike, you could arrive on time or not. So it was this journey of going from one place to the other one with people who are alone and making friends and engage in jamming, making money, learning. This is where I learned all my fire breathing things, a little bit of the performance size of a busker,

Starting point is 00:15:25 because there's a music side and there's a performing side. So this is where that I start to also engage in learning. You know, I had never been a specialist of things, but I always been a very good generalist. Time after time, I was practicing things and basically my offer to the street was a little wider at the end after a year. So let's talk a little bit about your mom and dad. How did your values differ from perhaps your parents when you got back? Maybe a different way of looking at that would be asking what their hopes for you were and then what your hopes for yourself were.

Starting point is 00:16:01 First of all, my parents were amazing characters to start. They were entertaining, not knowing they were entertaining. My father probably a little bit more. My mom, my father had this way of triggering reaction in my mom and it was create a amazing, funny, dramatic moment that was triggered their own story to be shared with us, which the children and my friends, they were entertaining us all the time. My mom come from a very specific type of family. Both of them were very poor. My mom worked her ass out to be a nurse, hit the road at the age of 18. She had her stud baker at 18, hit the road to California as an adventurer with two other nurses, workaholic, musician, piano player. My father come from the

Starting point is 00:16:43 other side. He was coming from a neighborhood in Quebec, which is like a bunch of kids hustling, playing tricks, having fun, and getting away with it by just being what some people would think bad little boys, but they were having fun. And actually, he was another wheeler-dealer. He always made his way.

Starting point is 00:17:03 Got broke so many times because he was a gambler. But, you know, he was the most amazing entertainer. He ended up his career as vice president of an Alcon company, not because he was former and went to school at that, but because he was the best person in the company. One client, international client was coming to Montreal. He was organizing all the party. And all the client was going back, signing the contract.

Starting point is 00:17:28 And whatever it need, he was organizing it. So I learned these things. And by the way, and this is pretty special because I not met many people who qualify that. In all my life and many years after I grew up or still now, I never heard a bad word about my father. It was always Gaston, clean, amazing guy. My father was always smiling. It was always like humor, smiling, not reacting to things. Where my mom was that little scorpion. It was like she was picking, picking. It was mama mama controls and the dynamic was interesting

Starting point is 00:18:06 but i grew up in this type of family one brother what we were fire and water together but now we're best friends because we're both parents who passed out last year and then the grand family my father was coming from a family of eight seven sister and him, and the grandmother had her twins. So together, you know, on the father's side family, there was about over 120 people, uncle, aunt, and things. And every weekend in one of the house, and nobody had money.

Starting point is 00:18:37 Nobody was the rich one. The richest one was an uncle that had a printer company. He was printing a pamphlet and stuff like that to tell you a little bit how rich we were. But every weekend, somewhere in one of the house, there was always, from Friday night to Sunday night, 48-hour party. I remember we were just sleeping on the floor, 10 kids, pile on that. They were doing music, playing cards, have fun, drinking, getting drunk, singing, arguing. And all my life, I've seen that family supporting each other in terms of when one of them was

Starting point is 00:19:13 screwing up, there was never judgment. And, you know, this is what I grew up on. So my roots is love, support, is community spirit. It's like understanding that nobody's perfect. So I learned a lot out of that. I didn't understand it at the beginning, you know, because obviously when you grow, especially at the teenager moment, then it's starting to be a little confrontation. And there's many stories I could tell, but I don't think it's relevant. More than saying in their heart, they try to educate you, the parents, in terms of what they believe is a good thing for you based on their value.

Starting point is 00:19:47 So at that time of my childhood, being a doctor, being a judge or whatever, was the consecration. You know, you're an engineer, you get a good salary, you have security. And I was trying all my life to my teenager moment to try to explain, well, listen, I have a call. I was like, I don't like that. And every time I do that, I learn more. I have fun doing that. I do more money than that now than I'm doing. Yeah, it built up.

Starting point is 00:20:13 You know, I want to have long hair. No, you have to shorten that. You have to go to church. It was like all this type of things. So I was very confrontational. And actually, they helped me because when they were punishing me, they were putting me in my room. And this is where I learned music. This is where I was very confrontational. And actually they helped me because when they were punishing me, they were putting me in my room. And this is where I learned music. This is where I was practicing my music.

Starting point is 00:20:29 By rage, I was transferring my rage in not being dark. That being said, I was in a dark moment from 11 to 14 for other reasons. But when my parents was all of that, then I left home at 14 years old. It was enough is enough. One amazing moment in my life. One teacher. Moral science, because you could have the option of Catholic, you know, or moral science. Obviously, I was rejecting the religion, but I was interested again in the moral sense.

Starting point is 00:20:56 And then one day, he threw a text to all the students there. The text was about Kael Gibran, the prophet. Yeah, I have a copy at home. The page about the children. I said, the children are not your children. I was just like, it blew my mind. That text was everything I want to say to my parents.

Starting point is 00:21:16 So I think within a week or two weeks after, I got in conflict with my parents and left home, hit the road because they wanted me to cut their hair and there was another thing. And I took the page and I wrote on the piece of paper, when you will understand that meaning of that text,

Starting point is 00:21:33 we'll be able to communicate. That's pretty brutal at 14 years old when you throw a text like that in the face of your father and mother. And actually, it was a very important moment in my relation. The first, like like this is where the first time I stand by my my thing before I was arguing I was screaming I was like bitching but this is really when I say enough is enough we have to make a point in our relationship because I'm not happy I'm at the point I'm questioning if you love me but things like you know all the teenager

Starting point is 00:22:01 turmoil you know this is a very, being a teenager, this is the most fragile time in your life if you're not being aggressive sexually before the age of 10 or beat up. But if you have a normal life, this is a very fragile moment. So obviously I came back. My mom was crying and stuff like that. Came back like 10 days after.

Starting point is 00:22:19 And then I sat down and said, let's make a deal. We don't agree a lot of things, but I will continue my school. You pay for my lunch, my clothes, but I want to be having the right of keeping my hair long and second, work to earn my own money to pay myself what I want because I'm tired, Dad, of every time I ask you something, you ask me to do something for it. And enough, you know, because sometimes things could go there

Starting point is 00:22:47 because I'm trying to ask you things to be able to achieve things, but it's always a negotiation and you try to bring back in your way of saying. So I cleared that and it worked. Actually, that deal worked pretty good because without supporting everything I was doing, it was at least a dialogue that took place.

Starting point is 00:23:05 And there was some up and down. But I realized, and this is where the first thing I realized is, actually, at the end, all this courage that I have, going and hitting the road, taking risks in my adventure, I always knew somewhere. And I realized that after. And it's maybe that subconscious or this third eye or sixth sense or whatever. But I realized that, hey, wait a minute.

Starting point is 00:23:31 I knew and I know exactly what they were about. They never told me if you cross that door, don't come back, first of all. You know, and you know how many parents screwed up when they said that to their kids. And second, I realized that if I screwed up, I will always be able to come back. I would have a bed, food, and love, and comfort. And this had triggered this enormous wave of courage and desire to even engage more. They didn't know that at the moment. They think I was crazy because I was doing more than I was doing previously. And then obviously, there was this confrontation about

Starting point is 00:24:05 starting to do business and entertainment, because it was one thing for them to understand that I was using art and music to live an experience. In our conversation, I always made them believe that I would come back to schools, but I was always every year extending the return to school. But when they realized, when they realized that I was shifting and I consciously made the decision to not go to school, but give myself the chance to live out an entertainment, whoa, that was difficult. With my mom, it took the first year of Cig du Soleil to realize it and she collapsed in line. And so now I understand. My father, it took three more years because it was still some issue related to, I reached him a couple of times for financial help to help to go through some tough moment.

Starting point is 00:24:52 And it was coming back with his old moral or condition and it pissed me off. But we had a great conversation in a steakhouse, Moshi's in Montreal, a good bowl of wine and with a big dill pickle and Coach La Sala. And we made peace there. And from that moment, I brought them everywhere moshies in Montreal, a good bowl of wine and with a big dill pickle and coachless salad. And we make peas there. And from that moment, I brought them everywhere in the world with me. We became good friends. We had our up and down, but it was an amazing connection. You know,

Starting point is 00:25:20 in the life of a children or any relationship with parents, when that's, you know, obviously it's not instant, but you always wish that the complete connection of the circle of this relationship is done before one of us die. And I did accomplish that with my parents, and this is another beautiful gift of life that I had. I may want to come back to that. I mean, I know a lot of people who have not been able to do that. That may be for a bottle of wine another time, but I want to connect the dots to Cirque du Soleil. But before we get there, if you're open to talking about it it and we can always cut this afterwards if you want to cut it but you mentioned that you had a dark period from 11 to 14 and my main question is how you got out of that dark period but would you be willing to say a bit more i could share i could share i've

Starting point is 00:25:58 been sharing uh people yeah it's part of my life my close friends know and i have no problem talking about that and that's actually relate to a very big problem in the world that we're living in. It's coming out and keep coming out year after year, which is all about this Catholic church controlling schools, abusing children, and being excused because they were the voice of God. So at the end of time, my parents sent me to a school in a college in Montreal, which was a boarding school. And obviously soon I realized with my friends that there's a bunch of priests that want to abuse you sexually. So I resist that. I beat that up.

Starting point is 00:26:38 But I had a friend who suicided himself. And so I start to be very, very reactive. And it brought me a lot of angriness. Because, you know, what is the feeling? First, you resist. I've not been raped. But I've been, they try it. And I got their trick. I resist. I fight it back.

Starting point is 00:26:55 But there's some other kids there that didn't have this courage of reacting. And they were my friends. And they got beat up in the sense of it killed their soul. And then one suicide itself. So obviously, and I was incapable of saying to my parents at that time, remember, I was 10 years old, 11, and knowing my parents were religious, so obviously, would I be punished? I didn't know.

Starting point is 00:27:18 I was confused about the information. And I guess there was a taboo thing because I see my parents were very religious. I was confused. So I kept that for myself and among my friends. So I built up this desire to destroy to the point at a certain moment, even because of another event later, I left two events, a little bit like that. And the last one was just kind of like the add-on of that. I arrived to a point where I don't want to kill the person.

Starting point is 00:27:45 And actually, I was not feeling that. So that dark moment really was present. I was doing things that was not necessarily creative, that was more destroying. I was doing things that is not how I was educated. It's not what I was feeling, but I was doing it by rage. And this is where it's super important to understand that what saved me out of that darkness is music and this desire of traveling and actually activating the action of

Starting point is 00:28:11 getting out of my city and getting out of my environment, because that was toxic. It was contaminated by what I had to live as children. And I was not able to see the beauty, and I was just seeing the darkness. And going out of this circle, geographical circle, had permitted me to slowly heal these things to a point where a certain moment, I remember there was a very, very precise moment where I have the address. I knew where this person that tried to rape me was living. And I kept in my pocket always the address because I said, if I pass by there, I want revenge. And a certain moment, I physically took the paper, rip it off, put it in garbage, and that was it. I was living my future and I boomed it. But again,

Starting point is 00:28:57 this is how lucky I am. Do you know how many kids, their life will be destroyed for things like that. So again, what that comes from is it the love of my parents, this understanding of what you are that, this feeling that the way you think is not the way you want to be and overcome that. Do you know how many friends have not survived that? How many people have been, their life have been destroyed by living something like that. So obviously once I overcome that, I become so engaged in those type of value and defending that, that I become very, very strong about not allowing those type of things in my surrounding. Combat that, fight that, not with my fist, but with my creativity. For me, making people live an emotion because they live a moment of joy. And when you're capable of putting down the walls that people put in general around them

Starting point is 00:29:53 to protect because they got hurt before, and you bring them to a point that they put down those walls and open their heart for you to plant a seed, it made me realize that part of my job is not only to be a merchant of happiness, but a soft medicine healer of the soul. I don't know how you could do that. And then it reversed, totally. At the moment, I started to feel this power to understand that feed the circle of life,

Starting point is 00:30:17 it feeds you back. And it was like very, very powerful. And I was like trying to explain it in a colorful way, but the dynamic is what I just explained to you. So it's very interesting because sometimes people tell a story, but they don't tell the source of why you are there. And there's many other things that I learned my lesson out. But this is a typical example that you could reverse negative and build it to even be better. So what do you believe in that? Of course, that person,

Starting point is 00:30:46 those person was wrong because this is not right. But on the other side, if I didn't live that moment, maybe I would be a different person and not realize very young in my life that, wait a minute, no, I would not be, and I would not use that type of power over other people. So it's very interesting. We could talk and talk this is my philosophical uh part of the brain but those are typical way that i learn out of everything i engage in gee thank you for sharing that and i'm sorry that you and your friends experienced that and as a spectator as a i guess participant from the stands, someone who's gone to many Cirque du Soleil performances, it's beautiful for me to hear how you referred metaphorically to the lowering of those walls, those protective mechanisms, because we don't have to spend much time on this. But I was very badly abused when I was very young, two to four, and I have very well established walls, but when I've gone to Cirque du Soleil performances,

Starting point is 00:31:47 and there are a few places in life where this is true, but it's where I can forget those stories and become engaged with awe and wonder in a way that allows me to exhale and experience these things very fully in a very tangible way. So I just wanted to reflect back my personal experience. And you'll be surprised because I always said, you know, to hit the big seven, which is having the privilege on this planet to be born on the right side of the planet, having the love of your parents, water, food, not being beat physically before the age of 10 or sexually abused,

Starting point is 00:32:26 whoa, has a question around. I will tell you, there's not many that qualify for the big seven. So this is very important to understand. I believe in the society we're living. It's a lot of creepy and twisted things that happen to human beings and that human beings to teach other so again so i'm so happy to hear your story because two things my show were about of course the spectacular of it the things like that this is like this was the big pleasure but the fundamental

Starting point is 00:32:57 satisfaction was coming from two things really having the impression that each of my show was helping to build a better world in two ways. First, in exposing. Because all my show was all about inspired by the culture of the world. Either through the music, the costume, the team, and things like that. My artist was a mosaic of all these beautiful people around the world that was performing. So for me, I believe that I was a promoter of one world. And by then, opened the mind of people that there's other people than you, and they could be beautiful too, and they don't have to think like you. That one. The second one is really what I just explained

Starting point is 00:33:35 about this wall, because I believe strongly that the power of love overcome the power of hate, because it's a feeling. So when people feel something that's extremely profound and deep in the emotion of joys, well, they will try and they will look into living that again and again and again. And the same effect when somebody suffers something. And this is why sometimes one event of aggressivity could provoke a monster. Why? Because the emotion is there and he wants to give revenge. So he's building even more what he had in there. So it's like, it goes both ways. And like I said, I'm so happy to make that choice of my life that I could have these tools, these healing tools that I believe is... My job at Cigna Soleil, I did a lot of things,

Starting point is 00:34:26 but one of the most important functions I had when we created a show, my job was to assure that every show, it could be a fraction of a second, that any spectator in the place would say, wow, they did that for me. You know? Whatever it is. And if I was able in my show to make people feel that I did that for them, that was the most wall was falling down at that moment. So again, it's an understanding the psychology,

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Starting point is 00:36:29 who busk. I actually did a very small amount of busking in Paris, actually. But it pissed everybody off because I wasn't asking for money. I just did acroyoga with another woman who was there. I think we were actually near, I'm not going to pronounce it properly, but near the gardens. What is it? Tuleri? Well, Les Jardins de la Tuleri. I was close. I was close. In front of the Louvre. Exactly. And there are many buskers, many people who busk, but very few people who create something like Cirque du Soleil. So you come back from Europe. Could you describe some of the key decisions or moments leading up to Cirque du Soleil after you return? Actually, when I came back, I was not yet decided if I was going back to school or not.

Starting point is 00:37:15 Again, I find another way to extend my year not going to school to tell my father, well, I need to make money now. Could you help me to have a job? He had a friend who had a factory to do a window for the RVs and trailers. So I worked there for months. Obviously, this was a factory job, but it was bringing a little money while I was playing in bars with music and still willing, dealing, anything that could sell on the side. What kind of stuff would you be selling on the side?

Starting point is 00:37:41 Not baseball cards, anything? Anything, anything. I will find anything. I was able to see a opportunity to make a buck on anything. So you just buy a bicycle at a yard sale and then sell it to somebody else? Exactly, something like that. Or buy a whole cell, a bunch of jeans and going things and making five bucks over the jeans. That's cool. Whatever. I was a wheeler dealer. I was a hustler also. I was good at bagamon. I was like a pool and stuff a little bit of everything you know i always i'd like to put

Starting point is 00:38:09 to challenge i love competition like i said same competition amongst people i think this permit you to it's like playing poker you discover personality of people by being a good chess player so it's nice and actually it's something I apply in business later on. But at that moment, we're talking about when I come back to Europe. So 1978, 79, got that job. And then there's another friend my father had, because at that time, the biggest job you could have was to go work on the dam and the north, the electrical dam. The wages there was like, you were sent there, you had the highest wages, extra hours,

Starting point is 00:38:47 you were working seven hours, it's like you were doing so much money. So my father got me that job. So I go there. Then three days after I arrived there, my syndicate go on strike. Your syndicate is like the union of the workers? The union, the union.

Starting point is 00:39:02 Got on strike three days after. I got, oh, here we go. My summer is screwed. My money is out. Bad timing. Then I come back. They want me to go picking. I have nothing to do with their things.

Starting point is 00:39:14 You know, to be honest, I was, it's a community that I didn't even engage with. And I was like, I didn't know. I didn't feel emotionally engaged to go picking because they were giving you a check, small check, but they were giving you a check. So what I decided to do, I said, where did I then go in my province? And there was one place, Baie Saint-Paul, okay, which is a little village, North Quebec, which had the reputation of one of the coolest youth hostels there.

Starting point is 00:39:38 And I said, wait a minute, I have a little check. I'll go there. I'll offer my service to help against a bad food. That was it. And I'll wait. I didn't know when the strike would stop or not, but it ended up to be all summer. So when I arrived there, climbed the hill, and funny enough, I see Gilles Sainte-Croix, that is one of the most important person in my life with Cigna Soleil, and another guy, Daniel Gauthier, that was my school friend, which was, we left a relationship, not a good note. And there I go, I said, okay,

Starting point is 00:40:10 why do I end up with this guy that I want to see? But as part of this, it was a nonprofit organization. And I arrived at the time where they were shaping the usual sales. So we prepared the things. I got the job of animating. So I was in charge of the party. You were in charge of parties at the hostel? Exactly. Okay. Parties, organizing things. That's what I was good at.

Starting point is 00:40:32 I always been good at doing those things, organizing trips and stuff like to Louisiana at 15 years old, running the Mardi Gras. I have many of those mini stories there that we could talk for a long time. But this one was an important one because first, the deal was, they would tell me, we cannot pay you, that we could talk for a long time but this one was an important one because first the deal was they would tell me we cannot pay you but we could offer you a roof annabelle i said that's okay with me but could i have uh maybe the opportunity of making a little

Starting point is 00:40:54 more money i said i'll organize your party but i want to be able to pick up every beer bottle on the site and earn the money of the beer bottle. Oh, like the redemption, like you get the few cents. Exactly, the two cents or the five cents. But I'm telling you, after every day there was a truck on an empty bottle, I made so much money going back and selling every day those bottles that I end up having a very with little contract of music and the bar and the cafe, I end up having a pretty decent thing. And this is where Gilles Sainte-Croix, which was coming out of, was also a very interesting misfit creature. He was

Starting point is 00:41:33 just coming back from an experience at Bread and Puppet in Vermont. I don't know if you remember. I just heard about Bread and Puppet or Bread and Puppets for the first time from some of my family who live in Vermont. Literally last week, they just told me about it. Yeah, because you're probably too young to remember that. They're still there. But at that time, there was this leader and the Bread and Puppet movement was anti-war. It came during the Vietnam War and they had that farm in Vermont that they shaped and they had a magic wood. And every year they were doing this festival and they were the master of stilt walking. And Jill came back of that and said, I have an idea. Let's do it. You

Starting point is 00:42:11 know, I'm doing music. We're doing a little theater. So let's start a theater troupe on stilts. That's the end of 79. Then in the falls, I got called for the strike sale, and I go back to work on the dam. And Gilles, in the meantime, choose another partner. I said, okay, well, you're not doing a collective. You want to do business? Fine. He said, but I won't hire you. I said, well, listen, I'm going in Mexico.

Starting point is 00:42:37 Came back, went to the dam. A month after, Gilles said, I have the grant of the thing that you want to be an artist in my troupe. I said, I don't know. So a grant, this is from the government? The government, yeah. Basically, they had those grants that you could have enough money to pay salary for the summer. In that region of Quebec, it was very simple. 80% of the population was working on grant salary during the summer and get the unemployment check during the winter. This is what that region is about. So basically you need 20 weeks to work to get your check the rest of the year. And that's what's

Starting point is 00:43:10 the life. And most of the people was living on that pattern, but I didn't know. So what I said, I said to my employer, I said, listen, I didn't have a house. I said, my house just went on fire. Could I have a couple of weeks to just organize the the thing i didn't want to lose my job you know because if i say i quit uh that's it i'm done so i don't know if i'm worried so i nailed that story i got the permission went there never went back but at least i had that back off it's always you know you're playing chess in life i know it's like you make a move but you want to know what's your back move that was one of them so so eventually I accept to be one of the artists in this theater, True Bone Stilts, which was in partnership with this guy, Sylvain Hiron.

Starting point is 00:43:52 We end up to be so bad for the business. So at the end of the season, actually, we had an amazing experience. It was the summer of my first big love in my life and an amazing theatrical original experience, but bad relationship with the management, especially that guy. So everybody was like, we don't like the guy. They end up bankrupt at the end of the season.

Starting point is 00:44:17 Gilles said, well, you know, it's like I'm making mistakes. And we all decided to create a nonprofit organization, buy back the assets and started under a new company, which was the original, the foundation company that we built Cirque du Soleil with in the future. So step two of that was to manage. And then I was tour manager. I was like assuming a marketing business function. I was able to give my skill.

Starting point is 00:44:46 And we had an amazing 1980 summer. This is the year also of the federal election. I was a candidate at the Rhinoceros Party. You know, there was this like crazy party that was promising anything. I was a political candidate. We have a lot of fun. Quick question.

Starting point is 00:45:01 So was the performance at that time still mostly theater on stilts or had it changed? Theater on stilts, music, fire breathing. But that moment I really had mastered, I would say then all the skill I had, probably fire was the highest level I was mastering. So I had my pyro license. I was one of the best fire breeder in the world. I was developing device to manipulate fire. I was organizing show with fire. And this was my personal, I would say, feature. And I was very proud about it. And I was recognized for being one of the best Quebec fire player or fire master. That being said, then we did one season. And the winter, I was always, again, 20 weeks of work.

Starting point is 00:45:50 And people were going and getting their paycheck for the rest of the winter. It was not my style. For me, it was about, okay, the job's finished. I was hitting the road all the time. So one time on a motorcycle going to Montreal, Key West, then San Diego, and then jumping there. But in 1979, 1908, and 1979, at the end of the first year, which was my love affair, I discovered Hawaii. Summer was a love of my life back then, first big love. And at the end of the

Starting point is 00:46:21 year, it was like the broken art of my life. Within six months, seven months, it was like I went from, wow, this is love, and saying, oh, heartbreaking is very hard. It's very painful. So I had to take care of somewhere. So I was a friend that was in Hawaii on the big island, and I passed by and arrived there. And wow, I was discovering a part of the world that I didn't see. And I always want to go to Hawaii because my parents told me so many good things about it.

Starting point is 00:46:50 And then I was there and it was very interesting. There was an interesting hippie community performer there. There was like the hippie side. There was, you know, nice nightlife, simple life, mellow things. But I was still in pain. And it was a very interesting moment in my life. So for the two first weeks, it was fun. Get to know people.

Starting point is 00:47:11 But I had this sadness inside of me. And I was heartbroken. And I was getting this little cafe or juice. I was not drinking coffee, but like this milkshake type of things, you know, in the morning at the same cafe. And there was always this old EP there. I remember he was a magician. I learned that after. That was always the same thing with me.

Starting point is 00:47:29 And as soon as he approached me and he said, hey, what's wrong with you? I said, what's wrong with you? He asked me the question, what's wrong with me? And I said, well, there's nothing wrong. He said, you're not on the vibe. I said, what do you mean you're not on the vibe? You're fighting the rhythm. You know, this guy was throwing me like that.

Starting point is 00:47:45 I was like, sitting down, didn't even invite himself. He invited himself. He said, wait a minute, I'm in my bubble of pain. And he just keeps throwing me those things. You're not feeling the vibe of the island. And he said, the sermon, he said, you know what? I know I'm disturbing you there, but I will tell you one last thing.

Starting point is 00:48:03 I said, try to feel the rhythm of the island, and the island will bring you on the right side of your soul. Boom. Okay. What is that? And I let mom in. And, you know, I could be very thing, but I listen. You have to understand.

Starting point is 00:48:18 Remember, K.L.G. Brandt, the prophet, things like my first philosophical reading, and I ram on it. Everything that made poetic sense or whatever i was it got my attention after that because when you're capable of reading behind the word and the meaning of it i start to discover and this is where i start to like words before that it was pain but now i start to understanding and i really reflect on that and watching sunset. And then I start to just, and this island changed my life. This is where I start to get inspired. I connect with Lua troops.

Starting point is 00:48:54 I was doing my fire ants. I was playing accordion in the Italian restaurant, going and hustling a baguette and a bar after. And, you know, meaning and realizing that actually so many things at that moment. I'll try to mention all of that. First of all, at that time, there was 101 type of religion or spiritual faction that was on there. On the island.

Starting point is 00:49:19 On the island. Made me realize, wait a minute, because at the same time, you hear about all those fights about religion and things, and you say, wait a minute, because at the same time, you hear about all those fights about religion and things, and you say, wait a minute, what is it? And then you suddenly see a piece of land on Earth that people live in peace with each other and respect. Wait a minute, oh, something. Then you meet all those healers with potion,

Starting point is 00:49:38 with growing herbs and stuff like that, and there's this healing spirit on the island. You see people at a rhythm that doesn't exist on the north american continent there's a pace that is more toward the pace of the the rhythm of the wave of the island or the wind instead of the subway rhythm and then you meet a bunch of performer that we hang out on the beach every day and perform on the naked beach, on the non-lapid beach. There's a party there, a full-on party.

Starting point is 00:50:09 And then I start to, for the first time in my life, got to what I believe still today the closest to meditation on my side. I'm not a meditator. I never stopped. The hamster in the head. But when I watch sunset, this is a very peaceful thing and this Hawaiian sunset this is where I start to

Starting point is 00:50:29 think about project remember every winter I was coming out of that was the second year of the not first year and then second I went there three years before we did the Fête Foraine

Starting point is 00:50:38 which I'll talk but the sun was my inspiration moment so I start to think about project, creating this. So my creative mind explode there. Okay. The reason what the name Soleil, Ysique de Soleil is for two reasons.

Starting point is 00:50:53 The inspiration of the sun of the big island. Okay. Sunset, which are amazing. And at that time in the symbolic book of symbol, sun was the symbol of the energy of youth. So that was, this is the name of my company. You see, it came later. But before that, while I was there, every winter I was going down, finding my old friends and just having, it became my healing island that for the rest of my life, every time I

Starting point is 00:51:18 have a business decision, an emotional distress, a question about my decision to be made. This is where I'd find my answers. Every time I was coming there, I was planting the seeds of my question. And then I knew that when I come out of there, the answer will be there, whatever decision I made, and they were pretty much all good. So this is where the evolution of the theater troupe on stilts, you know, we were trying to grow. And then Gilles said, okay, we'll do a winter version on Skyeet and now on the Arenas.

Starting point is 00:51:49 And not for me, Dara. I'm not spending a winter here. I'm a beach bomber. I'm not a ski bomber. And this is where I started to talk about the project of a street performing festival in Baie Saint-Paul. And with Gilles, what we did in 1982, we went into this village,

Starting point is 00:52:04 which is very traditional painting. You know, this place is recognized by all. This is a beautiful place for artists that paint landscape and things like that. So we were already black sheep there, the Uso people in this village of wolf mentality. You know, you have to understand this is all the old traditional families that are direct line from the founders of Quebec. You know, the people who got thrown in the boat by the French as bandings and built this country. And actually, it's very, it's not this wolf mentality because it's all very strong, established families. So when you're a stranger coming there.

Starting point is 00:52:41 Oh, I see. They're just aggressive when you say wolf mentality. Well, yes, yes. And clan. Clan, I see. They're just aggressive when you say wolf mentality. Well, yes, yes. And clan. Clan, I see. They're very protective. And here arrive a bunch of people who are in a Utah cell

Starting point is 00:52:54 or maybe dancing naked around a fire, taking substance. And actually, the first business that's been opened by our community there is called Le Mouton Noir, the cafe, the restaurant. It was called Le Mouton Noir, the cafe. The restaurant was called The Black Sheep.

Starting point is 00:53:14 We made a statement that we will assume the perception that we have. So you could imagine. And they had that festival at that time, which is an art festival painting, very touchy, white glove, white glove festival. You know, it was like an institution and we arrive wanting to close the street and do a street performing festival so we have to go through all the political level convinces that and then sponsorship we're selling you know in our program $75 little business card size in our program to the merchant but we have to convince the people

Starting point is 00:53:41 to give us a chance and And it became a success. You know, it was like, financially, we lost a little bunny, but we had the attention of the big city in terms of culture. We brought the merchant, we're super happy. So the black sheep go pitching this crazy idea in this, let's just call it maybe a conservative town, protective town. What was the key to the pitch? I don't know. You know, it's like, I guess, again, it's so convincing. Like I said, me and Gilles is a charming human being, always paused, never raising my hand. I was the jester.

Starting point is 00:54:19 The jester. The jester, the Speedy Gonzalez guy. I'm always like hands up talking like that, but with a lot of passion. But we arrived with something I believe was safe enough, colorful enough. Business-wise, maybe it will have a good economic impact for us. So we got a shot. We got a shot. And actually pretty well on, obviously, and again, the last day, the last day of the last show in the arena, because all those people from home were there. There was workshop.

Starting point is 00:54:52 People were learning how to do clowning in the wood, in the mountain, whatever. We organized a very nice program. You know, it was not a big budget, but people showed up. And mostly, a lot of my international friends decided to come and visit us because we were booking, co-booking. The big paycheck was from the main festival in Quebec City, but I got a good deal if I was getting a deal for them in Quebec. So that justified them to come and I got them for a good price. But we had that closing show in the arena,

Starting point is 00:55:21 which was everybody on the scene together. And where the last moment is the fanfare is there and I'm blowing fire. And that moment is a thunderstorm. And we're playing that track that's called the Fnabil, which means the person that walk on the wire. It became more anthem tracks. And we're in the grand finale and suddenly the storm shut down all electricity and we're just with the flame the camera super dramatic and I

Starting point is 00:55:50 still have goosebumps and this there was a big big quantity of the Quebec Street Performer and this is where we look at each other it was so emotional and I said okay let's think about maybe would be time to think about creating our own circus, okay? And this is what inspired me. The first flame of inspiration came out, wow, look at all us together on stage, imagine under a big dome. Start to share that, but obviously,

Starting point is 00:56:18 starting a circus, far more difficult than doing a street performing festival. So we did a second year in 1980. That was 1982. In 1983, we do the second version of it, and that's greater success. And then we got the attention of the government because 1984 was a celebration, the 450th anniversary of Discovery of Canada, both celebrating by the federal side and the provincial side. And you have to understand the provincial, we're French-Canadian, we're frogs or French fries. And then the Anglo-Saxon on the other side.

Starting point is 00:56:57 And obviously the government want to celebrate and both take a position, very political. So there's a lot of money that is thrown for cultural shows, activities, or things. So special money. So I've been invited, based on the success of Vellfarin, to propose a project. And this is where, at that moment, I said, well, this is our window. So we build relationship with the director of programming. But we're still, remember, I'm dealing now with the government,

Starting point is 00:57:29 a cultural minister that is so in the high-end, classy, I'm hanging out with the stars. So you're thinking about a government where this minister of culture is totally star-systemed. In all the different departments of culture, you have dance opera singing whatever music street performing circus was not there basically you have to understand the social reality there's and the mentality of whatever festival government was about pay them a sandwich they'll entertain you for 50 minutes okay so so this is where we started their assumption was it was very low the low brain you were down this food chain okay. We're down the food chain. Okay. We're way down the food chain. Everybody get the money.

Starting point is 00:58:10 Everybody get the contract and things. And here I am with one other friend that was Robert Leguer, which actually is the real co-founder. It's not the other one. The other one came later. But there's one real co-founder that left after the first year. So we engaged ourselves of going pitching to the government. And then there's different level of contracts you could get. But there was this artistic director that was in charter programming,

Starting point is 00:58:31 that really we had connect, but I was pushing him to the, he was coming red sometimes. That's not what I'm asking you. We had to fit in a formula and I'm trying to pitch the first Quebec circus. And I'm trying to explain to them, you believe in it. They said, you will not be able to sell that to the government.

Starting point is 00:58:50 You will not. I said, no, no, this is the time. And then slowly by slowly, they will apply us to hire or put in our team somebody that was recognized by the government, a friend of mine. We play with it, but she was absolutely not the same level. But slowly, and I will always remember the deal thing because there was a famous cap of a million dollar contract. And it's not grant, those were contract negotiating.

Starting point is 00:59:13 And my project, what I want to do with some compromise was costing 1.7 million. But to have over a million dollars, you have to do a minister council. So they didn't want to bring a freak like me as a proposed content provider, especially not that minister that doesn't like

Starting point is 00:59:32 street reformers. So basically I will always remember you pitch in front of the commissary, the minister, and stuff. I have two documents on the table. One big cover collars. And I put a corner there and I have a black and white one okay and then because they asked me to stay at 999.99 okay and one dollar under the million dollar project

Starting point is 00:59:53 and i did work so i presented black and white everything of my project i presented black and white i said this is a project and there's one of course i've seen the document i said what is this other document with color but i said well it's not important it's, this is a project. And there's one, of course, I've seen the document. They said, what is this other document with color? Well, I said, well, it's not important. It's like, this is the 1.7. You don't want it. And I raised it, and I'm playing the game, full on the game.

Starting point is 01:00:14 No, no, no. It's like, this is what you get for a million. And eventually, somebody will ask me, convince me, and it was part of the game, actually. It's all negotiation colorful negotiation i call that strategic thinking understanding human nature okay and it's very interesting and i learn all that in the street you know because in the streets is basically you have a fraction of seconds to decide if you hit and run if you hit or run fast or talk but

Starting point is 01:00:41 you don't have one minute to converse if there's a situation there. So one of the biggest skills in business I learned was in the street because of this dangerous environment, or you make friends or you run, or you're ready to face a more physical reality. So obviously there was a compromise there where it was, we cannot give you $1.7 million now, but let's start with $1 million. And we promise you that over the summer, we'll be able, by exception, by exception, by exception, to get to your budget. So basically, I have my $1.7 million contract. And with all the hard start, we were the star

Starting point is 01:01:17 of the summer. Everybody was failing, huge failure. We fell too in the first month, but the beauty of it is we were the product that was going in the country, in the countryside. So the first month was a disaster. We lost our big top, it was raining, and it was like conflicts. The artist was fighting,

Starting point is 01:01:37 and there was a strike. Whatever happened at the beginning, we were in the mud up to the throat. But a month after, our show was so tight. You were able to prototype it in the countryside. So you were able to be a mess. But it didn't matter because you could refine it. Yeah, because they asked us, the minister,

Starting point is 01:01:54 want to keep the big city and the stars of the big city. They put us on the third row. You know, go in the cheap country. Where were the piece of bread that was thrown in the country to satisfy, to touch everybody with a celebration thing. But at the end, it became the best thing that arrived for us. Because when we arrived in the big city, because we did play in the big city, we arrived so ready. We became the success of the summer, press-wise, public-wise, and government-wise. And prime minister was there and said, wait a minute, those are the type of,

Starting point is 01:02:26 because you have to understand, we're right in the middle of the independent movement. And the prime minister at that time was trying to always say, we're not done for a little bread coming out from the religious things by then. And we lost everything to the English, the rest of Canada in terms of the economy. So this minister was like,

Starting point is 01:02:44 believe in the French-Canadian creativity, business skills, and stuff like that. thing to the English, rest of Canada in terms of the economy. So this minister was like, believe in the French-Canadian creativity, business skill, and stuff like that. So we became... The symbol. Totally. And I developed that relationship with that prime minister, and he fell in love with that. We were his case or the product and the example of what he meant. So basically, the second year, he like twist the arm of the minister of culture. He said, no, you, if you want that amount, you have to give them. So it was a very important thing. So obviously year second was more being in the, by yourself in the business, but this is the beginning of this is how it came and that's how it take place. So let me pause for one second. So in that meeting,

Starting point is 01:03:20 you have the black and white copy of the color copy. So you're playing on human nature and you're doing it really well because of, in part, your experience learning lessons on the street. Still, when you walked in, I assume that their perspective was that street performing, again, lowest on the food chain, right? So what else was there in the presentation that made them change their mind? Over time, because that was a year in preparation for meetings, we slowly got allied.

Starting point is 01:03:55 Ah, right. You developed some relationships. Chief financial officer, which is a big man, Monsieur Mathieu, became our defender. Then the press person was in love with you. You know, it was like there was so many, Jacques Renaud, director of creation, that was like pushing, he won our project. So suddenly, the administration,

Starting point is 01:04:15 the people at the administration level, not at the decision level, well, middle level, decision level, start to recommend us. I said, no, you have to have that type of programming and all this, this is different. They became our defender. And actually, and we had certain ally,

Starting point is 01:04:31 but slowly we convinced them by, I believe what they believe was a great creative project, but also were enthusiasts. We were a bunch of kids. You have to understand, we were coming from the streets and this was a window. And as a wheeler dealer, this is an opportunity i'm not giving and they're like unless the fish is cutting the line i'm taking that fish out of the pile okay so i was really always in this like war i was on a mission and i

Starting point is 01:05:00 achieve it and because what i was carrying on my shoulder is the dream of all the community in Montreal or Quebec that for years was talking about the dream of doing a circus, but never nobody organized it. And I had the credibility of that tribes because I did a street performing festival. So I was able to ally behind me the entire community. And I was giving kind of like the carte blanche to make it happen and without having to go through this collective process of things because you know I believe in consultation I believe in collectivity but a certain moment I believe also that everybody in the organization

Starting point is 01:05:35 have specific responsibility and mine was to make final decision and I got the respect of that it was not I had to gain it in the first month because there was a lot of challenge related to that. But at the end, I got the support of the community and the press, favorable critics, and the love of the public. So once you have those three things in front of whoever, you have an army. Yeah, you have an army. And let's talk about maybe influences, philosophies. I read, and maybe this came came later so we could also pause

Starting point is 01:06:06 this for later but that your marketing inspirations were pt barnum and walt disney pt barnum obviously people who know and read well very complex character but basically invent modern marketing talk good talk bad but talk about it was his his line and you know this is a guy that was bringing a circus in new york and will make sure that the biggest truck that carry the biggest lfn will have a breakthrough in middle of times square oh and he will have yeah a breakdown and and will will have the front page of the new york times the day after that word hundred thousand dollar okay he was a master of that. And for people, and I understand, even if people

Starting point is 01:06:47 think that he was abusing freaks and stuff like that, he had decided yes, to do business with all the misfits, but he gave them a roof and a community. So that, and the other one is Walt Disney. Walt Disney. Oh my God. And I was like,

Starting point is 01:07:03 I don't know, we're not on the visual here, but over a napkin, he designed the entire vision of Walt Disney with things. And there's a famous napkin drawing that he did. Yeah. The, uh, like the parks, the merchandising. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. So this guy was so creative and so business. It was a perfect balance of the two sides of the brain of a person. So obviously, this was my other influence. At the time that you get the million dollars with additional, like maybe it adds up over time to whatever it was,

Starting point is 01:07:35 1.5 million from the government, then you do another year. At that point, what was your aspiration? Well, the other year was almost killing it. The other year, we were technically in bankruptcy. Okay. What you don't know in between, say once you have those contracts, well, then you have to go and find a bank. It's one thing to converse the government, but I'm telling you, it's much more difficult to convince bank. To help you with your financing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because the government was signing your letter contract, but the payment process of government is a little longer than just signing a check every month.

Starting point is 01:08:09 So we have to go and finance and find the bridge, which was Banker. And my God, this was like hilarious. I don't know. I think we did every Banker in 100 miles around the city we were in. And basically, we're entertainers. They all have a smile. But they all told us no with a smile saying, well, I like your project, but us bank, we need collateral.

Starting point is 01:08:29 And actually, we don't know what we'll do with a trapeze or a tent or a crane truck or a counter of hot dog if you fail. And then, listen, this is a contract. Yeah, but we end up, and it's very, very funny, we end up in the last financial institution we ever thought we could know or not. That was a little bank that was mainly known to finance strikes.

Starting point is 01:08:57 So basically, you know, you have a union that have a lot of money and things, when people go on strikes, they need a bank that will manage the strike budget. How does the bank get repaid if they're funding a strike? They take some portion of the settlement? No, no, no. Basically, the union has a lot of money, but they use those banks.

Starting point is 01:09:16 This is where they put their money in. So this is the number one bank in Quebec where the union put their money. Deposits their money. Deposits. So most of their members are union workers. Right. There's not a business person in business with them. They're all union. This is a union bank. I get it. Yeah. That have no clue of financing a business or whatever. And this is where we, and this is the one bank that gave us our first bank account with a first credit line or advance the money that the government they trust because that's what they get they're used to that they use that union would say okay found give money those people we found it we guarantee the money so it's in their dna to advance money to people who have

Starting point is 01:10:02 no money because they have people, big bank account that say we'll pay. Government is the same thing as a union. They have big bank account. Anyway, so in this moment, we established the first Israel was not risky because it was all pretty much guaranteed. And we end up with 50,000 profit out of the 1.7 million,

Starting point is 01:10:23 couple of equipment, but a lot of experience. But obviously it also tell me that we cannot work under the model. We did that because it was a compromise. So we had to go to the market and then we were by ourselves. There was no more grant or no more contract from the government,

Starting point is 01:10:37 but we had the prime minister out there that really loved it. And 1985 was the international year of the youth for young people, youth. So that just made me, the one thing like that for me to build all the next second year of Cirque du Soleil under the youth banner.

Starting point is 01:10:53 And here we go, we build Cirque du Soleil. And actually, even there, I recognize that we cannot survive with the ambition we had when I built only in our province. We were condemned to export on time. I see, just for financial reasons, you were condemned to export on time. I see. Just for financial reasons, you would have to export.

Starting point is 01:11:07 Yeah, yeah. There was not enough market. Yeah. Not enough market. You know, the analyze we had on the things was, okay, we could do three months, four months. But to run a circus, you have to do nine months, ten months. Because of the climate and the population ratio, we have to export. So our first line of exportation was Ontario, Toronto, and Niagara Falls.

Starting point is 01:11:32 Two million visitors or whatever by month or things like that. That's what the government told us. You should go there. There's like the biggest tourist destination, Niagara Falls. So the way we had no money from our marketing. And you have to understand that we were tied we had a little subsidies we had things but money was always coming at the end and at the end what make the success of entertainment is your marketing campaign but we

Starting point is 01:11:55 were always short on money for for promotion so we were betting always on the first night or creating a pd bar and yum event in the downtown city or whatever to get the little press. And that year, it was going well. Toronto was going well, but we were so fragile in terms of a general budget that one city, we could afford a little hiccup, but a drastic failure would create a drastic financial situation. So we arrive. That's almost the last city of the tour. We're in Niagara Falls. We all prep, you know, for the opening night. There's fully people there, all the politicians, the local people.

Starting point is 01:12:34 And then normally, the history tells us that the day after, the sales tickets increase, and we get our end result. Second day, 10 tickets. Oh, shit second day 10 tickets oh uh-oh second show 65 people in the room when i have 75 worker okay second day 20 tickets so it went on and on it's like what happened what's wrong what happened and then i have a revolt of the artists are we're not going to play in front of 15 people this is where the rule of we will never perform. We made a deal with the artists that we will never perform if the number of public is under the number of artists.

Starting point is 01:13:14 At the moment, we made a deal like that. But it was catastrophic. So then it's like, what's going on? And we did all kinds of things, by page of things. We tried to react, but nothing was working. And this is where a certain moment is like, what's wrong? Why are we that bad? It doesn't work.

Starting point is 01:13:30 To then realize that yes, there's 2 million people passing an airfall, but the average of stay of people is 45 minutes. And the other one who stay long, they're on a moon or in their room having their honeymoon or moment. So we understand that the notion of market study, really. But the result of that is we're technically in bankruptcy. And we saw that. So this specific bank, and this is a true story.

Starting point is 01:13:53 You know, obviously we were about three quarter million dollars in deficit at that time. But to arrive there, we had to survive the end of the tour, pay the salary. And if we don't do that, that's it. So we have a list of supplier under $5,000 and over $5,000. We have a payroll to deliver every two weeks and we have our minimum OPEX costs and we cannot bill back, you know, so you have to pay cash. And then we have no more cash. We're coming back in Montreal. We know we'll get a little more money and we could reduce that and not overcome everything, but we have to survive that because if we cannot bring a little

Starting point is 01:14:29 more money to balance a little bit, we're done. And then who's else? We have no money to not sell tickets. So the banker, this union bank that we have like, I don't know, 100,000 that year or $200,000 credit line, start to allow without approval of his committee. First, it was every check we're doing, we went over maybe another $100,000. Then he said, wait a minute, you know, you're over your line, yeah. And you know, instead of telling,

Starting point is 01:14:56 yeah, you can't do anymore, he said, please, could you not do check over $10,000? I said, wait a minute, this is a banker. So we do check under ten thousand then the second call is please could you not do check over five thousand it went down to five hundred dollars so he was in and the last thing we got of him in it was uh i think a 25 or 30 thousand dollar payroll the last payroll of the season. We went to there and said, listen, I know we're way over. It's like, and the guy said, look at me. And he said, I'll lose my head.

Starting point is 01:15:30 I have no authorization. I did things that I was not authorized to do as a director of the bank. I said, if this goes wrong, I'm dead. So, but I said, yeah, but please, you're definitely dead if you don't help me to pay the payroll. And the guy released another $25,000, $30,000 to pay the payroll. And then we're end of season. And my partner at that time, Danielle,

Starting point is 01:15:52 we look at each other. If one, and we have maybe $20,000 cash that we put aside and we said to each other, if one supplier come and post an action. Like a lawsuit or yeah, a claim well just just claim just going to court then it will trigger all the thing then very soon what we did is i took all the supplier over 10 i said to the bank first of all i said the bank could i have five six months you know we're doing another tour we have a contract with the exposure Night 86 in Vancouver. We have good traction. You know, it's like we're popular, but we don't, we're totally, technically we're broke. So I went

Starting point is 01:16:30 on with my director of administration and me, we went to every supplier and made a deal. Didn't pay none of them except three. And then we'd use the cash. We made a deal, postponed check, eight months in 12 checks. All of them, they all accept. Why did they accept? They loved us. They trust us. I think they believe in us. We were upfront, but we had a deal. You know, we had a braid of eight, six months minimum, eight months of each of them was postponed and checked with the promise that if the cash was coming first, we will pay them faster. My God, this is angel flying. And not only one, this is like 50 angels.

Starting point is 01:17:15 And actually, it was about 250 supplier, whatever, for 500 to 10,000. The biggest one, I think, was 100,000. And the bank. And the bank. And the guy has to go back. So the one, I think it was 100,000 and the bank and the bank and the guy, you have to go back. So the bank, I have to ask. So this guy is clearly just breaking all the rules. It seems like to give you guys this money. Was he, I want to know a little bit more about that. I mean, was he just pissed off at his boss and he was going to quit in six months anyway? No, no.

Starting point is 01:17:40 I know I'm being a bit of a joker, but why would he, I mean, he's risking his job, I would think doing this. Totally, totally. But I guess you have to be there at the origin. We came like, we were a storm of color of happiness and what we're doing, we're what people never saw in the circus thing. So we were, we were clearly, we were inspired and we were working hard and we were working on a business plan and we And everybody understand if we bring that things, it could be a huge success. But we were just young entrepreneur that was living everything a young generation have to face when you do business. And suddenly, every wall of those people that normally would put a wall in front of kids at the side, and I didn't interview everybody of it but i would say for

Starting point is 01:18:25 the banker point because he became a great great friend it was just like i just believed yeah and i was ready i was ready to go battle with my bank committee you know and say we should and actually this philosophy was banks should sometimes take risk business risk and not only protect themselves you know his principle we do so much money that a portion of our things should be when we feel it to take greater risk over and above what the rules of bank rules is. And that's what he was defending.

Starting point is 01:18:55 Actually, he was using my case. And actually, this bank that we stayed until I sold Cid du Soleil, we were super faithful to him. And for him, it became the bank that every young cultural enterprise or young things were to go because they made a model out of that. And they had been able to service there. And it was just like, again, this was the type of thing.

Starting point is 01:19:17 And then 86, we went to Vancouver. In one year, we pay everybody, the bank and stuff like that. It was all done. And then 87, we hit LA. It was a live or die in LA. Opening night, again, at work. Most died that night. Wait, did you say you almost died that night?

Starting point is 01:19:33 Well, listen, that day. Okay. You have to understand, we're going to Los Angeles Festival, art festival, super, again, institutional things. Director of programming, come, he came late. He said, well, we're interested, but we have no money to book you.

Starting point is 01:19:47 I said, well, I'm going from Quebec to Canada to put everything on things. And one of my partners was saying, well,

Starting point is 01:19:54 let's go to Vermont. What the hell? Vermont will tell you if we will be successful or not. We have to hit the big city, New York or Los Angeles.

Starting point is 01:20:04 And we had an opportunity there. So I made a deal with the Los Angeles Festival. I said, okay, I'll go. I'll take my own risk. But please, could I have the opening night of the festival? And please, could you just at least make sure that in your promotion, your generic promotion, you put us? And I said, third, could you make sure we have good press, the big name of Hollywood, on the opening day? But here we are. We're in little Tokyo.

Starting point is 01:20:31 You know where they put us? In little Tokyo, yeah. Everybody else is in the forum of that, all the big institutions. They threw us in the middle of the worst neighborhood there is, little Tokyo, okay, downtown L.A la in a site that is the middle of side which basically is the middle on one side you have one street gang and the other one you have the other street gang is one of the biggest crime place things that is like murder all over the day it's just like wait a minute so we end up having to deal with the neighborhood there and we have

Starting point is 01:21:03 to you know we have two choice. Either we are security or things. So we decide. I've been able to negotiate kind of a truce between the two gangs, saying, listen, I'm coming. I come from the streets. I put all my street history behind. I made them laugh. I did the clown of myself.

Starting point is 01:21:19 I got their approval. Why? Because I said, your wife, your kids, I'll give them job, other than selling drugs or killing people, whatever, stealing. My God. Two memorable moments. Okay. And it was a very interesting, because people tell us, put that 20 foot, no, no, I can't afford 20 foot things.

Starting point is 01:21:38 We'll give job. So everybody had a job, the security, parking cars, cleaning, hushers, selling hot dogs, whatever. Everybody was hired from the two gangs there. And actually, I think for a very long time, that was the first time they were not killing each other in the same roof. Anyway, so there's two events that happened that made me laugh. One is about that opening day, which you see people arrive, the big limo, the big Mercedes, the big Rolls Royce, and they give the key to the hood.

Starting point is 01:22:08 This little kid that usually will break in the window. And the guy was like going to park the place in the worst place you could park that type of car. So just that thing was like, wow, wow, wow, wow. Just that for me was an interesting mission accomplished somewhere to be able to make that connection. But the most freaky moment was the opening was in the afternoon and it was so hot. Just that for me was an interesting mission accomplished somewhere to be able to make that connection. But the most freaky moment was the opening was in the afternoon and it was so hot. So hot. And people arrive and you know Hollywood, they don't arrive on the dot.

Starting point is 01:22:36 It takes 45 minutes. Oh my God. We were dying just then. They had people, it was like 100 degrees. People were sweating. And then, okay, it's not complete. And the organizers were like, wait a minute. This star is coming. He's on his way.

Starting point is 01:22:50 So we decided to send the clowns to animate the place. And you have the mayor. You have the governor. It's like all the big shebang is there. And they're on time. Okay, so they're just sitting down waiting. Yeah. And then my clown go

Starting point is 01:23:05 because we have to give a little animation pre-show so i said to my my bunch of clowns okay just go uh don't do the things of the pre-show but uh you have enough tricks uh to make them laugh my one benny clown one of us club first thing coming he's coming with a hose a water hose oh water hose yeah yeah water hose open the hose and start to spray

Starting point is 01:23:29 everybody and think I said I'm dying I'm there dying I said I will really die in LA and then suddenly in a fraction of a second

Starting point is 01:23:37 because you could see people reacting in salt and then you see the first body talk but there's suddenly a bunch of people all together

Starting point is 01:23:44 give it more they stand up and it's like give me more water magic moment And so, and then you see the first body talk, but there's suddenly a bunch of people all together. Give it more. They stand up and it's like, give me more water. Magic moment. Wow. We did the show. That could have gone a lot of ways. Yeah, that could have gone a lot of different. That's what I'm saying.

Starting point is 01:23:54 I thought it was going the other side. So finally do the show, standing ovation. And the day after is like salsa. So we're sold out. And this is, there was a beginning of never looking back again. We did have bumpy road and stuff like that. But from that moment, there's only one year,

Starting point is 01:24:11 the year of a growth crisis and our growth that we lost a little money. But since then, sick except the bankruptcy year, we've been doing money, money, never, never been on a deficit year. That's interesting. Super interesting. So if you look at LA, so you told a bunch of stories about LA,

Starting point is 01:24:28 you're headed to Vancouver, you do really well in Vancouver. You don't want to repeat Niagara Falls, obviously. Now Vancouver is very different from Niagara Falls, but was there any planning or changes that you made to the preparation before going to Vancouver that made a big difference? No, you have to understand that we start to build wealth, you know, on reputation and we're able to do media deal. So we're starting to be much more strategic in our communication. Remember the first year was very difficult because we have all the money for the operation, but we're very tight. Suddenly we start to generate cashflow and profit. So again, it's support a good campaign. So we're able to buy a full page in the New York Times

Starting point is 01:25:08 and hit and create, I would say, attention. We were very famous to every opening night at that time. It was an amazing party that everybody wanted to be there. And then after that sale was going on and the model was click, click, click, click. And then we expand to show. And then the breakthrough of Vegas with Steve Wynn. It was just like life or the universe.

Starting point is 01:25:31 And it was presenting us opportunity. And we were, or Heise was enough open to see them and seize them. Because it goes both ways. And I believe this is something that's very important for people to understand how we were thinking. You said, somewhere in this space or this dimension, there's something for us and we have to find it. But not only we had to find it, but it was coming to us. And this is all the notion of the blue ocean concept versus the red ocean environment. We basically created a blue ocean by itself. We were ahead of our time.

Starting point is 01:26:07 We packaged. We didn't reinvent nothing. The art form of circus was there. We just put color on something that was very dusty and apply a theatrical approach versus a circus show approach. And we R&D and once we start to have money, we reinvest for supplying our organic growth in the same time that we're building relationship and having access to bank money. So we became great business people.

Starting point is 01:26:33 And that always related to when, at the beginning of Cirque, when I tried to convince bank, put a place on the board where nobody wanted to be a board. I said, well, now I'm condemned to play business. And I still had to play business. I had a lot of fun playing business because it was always about the game. And I was like, we come from nothing. So what was the role of the situation? Go back to nothing?

Starting point is 01:26:55 I couldn't live that. That's where I come from. And while I was seeing successful people failing, because they were starting to nurture, to not having tomorrow what they have today and start to nurture fear. And it was like, no. Could you explain that a bit more? I've seen a lot of successful enterprise.

Starting point is 01:27:14 There's many things that kill success. The first one I've seen is about once you have success, you get a lot of reward financially, economically. And then you're starting to nurture the fear of not having tomorrow what you have today. And that changed your entire way of addressing things. So suddenly you're not the same person. You don't address your business the same way. You don't address your vision and things because you nurture fear. Okay. So my say of that is like danger there is, but please evaluate danger. Don't nurture fear because at the moment you nurture fear, there's a good chance that you call your fear

Starting point is 01:27:52 and the result of the fear. So that's one thing. And I've seen a lot of entrepreneur shifting. They, we have been shifting or transforming what they are and deny where they come from. So at the end, not being themselves and having a business of success, changing their soul, their way of doing things and become other people, which again, could affect the result company. And the other one is more recognizing or realizing that a certain moment, you're not the person to bring your business or your baby to another level. To be able to step out when you realize that you maximize, for different reasons, your contribution to the success of your enterprise. So let's talk about the first part of that just a little bit longer.

Starting point is 01:28:39 Because I lived in Silicon Valley for 17 years and I have a lot of friends from that period of my life. Many of them have shifted, I would say, into trying to defend what they have or have experienced more fear because they don't know who to trust, et cetera. I mean, there are many stories about it. Yeah, trust is a big factor also. So what else would you say to those people? They're people you care about, you see them maybe changing or feeding the fear. What else would you say to them? You mentioned something about trust. There's a thin line between wasting time of doubting versus trying to see the best side of a person and work toward making emerge of a person's best side.

Starting point is 01:29:19 And this is a conversation I still have, whatever, with my kids, with my ex, and the actual business, is this notion of to which level you trust without compromising the fundamental. And this is very difficult to conclude because I've lived the two spectrum of that in life. I got some of the best reward by trusting people and focusing on their beautiful soul versus their dark side. And that has been very rewarding. That provoked the observation that people have sometime

Starting point is 01:29:52 when you have give them trust, they will fell in the trap of falling in the greed, ego, and power side of life versus the love, respect, and trust side of life, which is what we had built our things with.

Starting point is 01:30:07 And that brought me a lot of deception to people I really trust, that I believe that we had enough experience together, and they fell on that part. And again, it happened in my own little ethos, but look what's going on in the world. You know, we're driven by this tension between the two sides of it. And obviously the people who are driven by greed, ego, and power, every morning they wake up and then thinking about how they could be better.

Starting point is 01:30:33 Us, you know, on the side of the love, peace and love and stuff like that, we get it on the face. We look at the sun, we meditate and we're a little more slow to react to that. So I guess we have to be a little more organized. If I'm understanding you correctly, I mean, it sounds like you're suggesting maybe defaulting to trusting people and expecting sometimes you're going to get punched in the face, but that's just the tax you pay for being optimistic? Or are there other ways that you

Starting point is 01:31:00 protect the fundamentals? No, I would say at the end, there's more success than failure, but the failure are more touching than the win of trust because it's usually attached to deception. So I'm talking more about the deception. You know, you're in business, you win, you lose, you make good decisions, you do bad decisions. That's part of it. Nobody's perfect. And nobody's perfect in the choice of who you work with, who you trust or not. It's part of doing business. It's more deep than that. What I'm saying is just like, so this is why I guess as much honest conversation at the beginning to establish not the contract.

Starting point is 01:31:36 This is why in my contract, I always not put just the legal part. I always start the first page by the assumption, the spirit of how a deal is done. Because my wish that if there's conflict before going on the legal battle, you look at what the spirit of the deal was. And if you have sensitive people, intelligent people, they will relate to this foundation version, the word of the legal things. And that's actually a page in the document that has the contract. It's a that has the contract. It's a page in the contract. It's a page in the contract where the first page is not about legal stuff. It's about the philosophy, the spirit of why we're doing the dream. What brought us to that deal?

Starting point is 01:32:16 What is the spirit of the deal? Okay. I made a mistake to forget that sometime. And this was the most chaotic things because I'm telling you it's like if you don't attach to the spirit and it's just legal we're living in a country you know not america especially in the states hit and me will make me happy making mistakes and not clear it's much more difficult for a person to deny the spirit if it's been written down. Absolutely. They will deny it and say, it's not what I say. Because when you try to bring the spirit in an oral conversation, they will always find a way to justify that it's not what they say. Yeah, that's smart.

Starting point is 01:32:53 If you write the thing, it's very difficult for them. Then it's betrayal. Yeah. Understand? Then you know it's a betrayal. It's not a misunderstanding. Is that first page, I'm very interested in this, is it almost just like regular text, like it's paragraphs, or is it bullets?

Starting point is 01:33:10 It's understanding that we desire to conquer planet Mars. We will do everything to, you know, it's like very poetic sometimes, very philosophic. It's very mission-oriented. You know, we all do document in business a mission and vision and stuff. Why are we not putting those principles right in the contract when two parties do things? Because this becomes a new mission. This is built on new value. And I think this is, I believe, an antidote against persecution or a legal process. Yeah, that's very smart.

Starting point is 01:33:47 Well, I've not been that smart all the time because I'm in some case that I forgot to put it or my family office, I forgot to put it. But now I'm telling you, this will be for no one. Even with experience, I did forget to put it because I guess I even trusted more than I believe that I should not put it in it. And that became the biggest betrayal in business I ever did. So now it's there forever. So you mentioned a name earlier that I'd love to hear you say more about. So I think you mentioned Steve Wynn. So how does Steve Wynn fit into this story? Game changer. Steve Wynn, a game changer for me. When I started Signe du Soleil, I always found myself

Starting point is 01:34:28 by going to see as much show as possible. So right after being at Cirque, I would go visit, see artists, and I would always make a stop in Vegas to see the entertainment.

Starting point is 01:34:37 And then suddenly, Mirage arrived there and the Siegfried and Roy show was there. And it's not the entire show. The first 20 minutes, it was like mind-blowing. I said, wow.

Starting point is 01:35:00 It was so inspiring and impactful for me because I realized and made me realize that, wait a minute, Vegas is at its baby foot of modern entertainment. You know, you have New York on one side, London on the other side. But Vegas is still cheesy. They have big production, but still not deep in what we call the theatrical, the artistic. It's very flamboyant. It's a big thing, and they put a lot of money. You have a volcano. You have, like, showers or whatever.

Starting point is 01:35:21 A hundred dancers. You have the spectacular. But when you analyze that in the artistic quality things, it's level one. And then with this 20 minutes, I say, wait a minute, I look around, it's one, two, three, four, five, six, casino, they don't have big show, or this big show has been there.

Starting point is 01:35:37 So I suddenly realized, I said, wait a minute, this city has the potential of becoming the third biggest entertainment city in the world after New York or with New York and London. And this is where at a certain moment I start to put a lot of focus. Then we have, Caesars was the first one to approach us from a vice president entertainment part, Caesars location. So we engage in the development of the deal, which I had that time to put $300,000. They put $300,000. They put $300,000 and we develop a concept of show.

Starting point is 01:36:09 It's called Timeless Kiss. But Timeless Kiss is the first show, which is a, but Mystère, okay? Mystère at Treasure Island. But we went to a level, presented the board, Henry Glock, Terry Lanny, and Century City in Los Angeles. All those very aged person with a couple of young executives. And we pitched. And we believed at that moment that we did a great pitch. We were confident in the show.

Starting point is 01:36:33 And actually, the deal with them was far away from the deal I may in the future receive with. So I'm back in Montreal, waiting the answer. I received a phone call. I was on my treadmill. And this vice president said, well said well sorry i have a bad news said what said well the board think that your show is too esoteric for las vegas esoteric was the word to explain me why they're not go ahead with the deal i rage i don't think ever in my life i had

Starting point is 01:37:01 done so many hours of step master in my life in a row. I was raging, screaming for three hours. And then I was like, wait a minute. And that was $300,000 investment at the moment. We're talking 1990, 91, beginning of a success. And that was into the concept development. Yeah. Well, yes, yes. We were trying to make a deal with one of the casinos to put our product there. Then that failed. So we went around. Next one. Next one is the Hilton, where Elvis Presley was there.

Starting point is 01:37:31 At that time, it was like a Broadway show was there. Same story. Pitch, pitch, pitch. Suddenly, oh, it's too complex. And then that one, I didn't rage because having received that answer once, I was expecting. And then like a week after, I received a message called, Steve Wynn called you, called back. So I called back, Monsieur La Liberté. It's like, he's having this very more radio voice than me.

Starting point is 01:38:00 He said, I heard you were flirting with my competitors. Have you made any deal with my competition? I said, no, why? I said, why did you come see me? I said, well, you have the best show in town. I didn't even think you'd be interested in my product. You have the best show in town. Well, he said, I would like to have conversation.

Starting point is 01:38:20 I think I have some things that we could bring Cedric Dussault. I said, have you seen Cedric Dussault? Yeah, I've seen him in Santa Monica in 1987. Oh, I said, we have a new show. It's called The Real Experience. Have you seen it? No. I want you to see it. He said, where are you? I said, well, I'm in Toronto now. But I said, before we converge, I want you to see what I am about now. I don't know at that moment that he has an eye problem and vision problem. So he said, I'll be there Friday with my CEO and one or two board members. So he flew in, received in, look at things.

Starting point is 01:38:55 And then I see the guy. We go intermission. He said, I like it. So I would like to bring this show behind the Mirage, and we could set up there. He turned around. He said, deal. I look at that deal, and he presented his end. I said, well, we have to negotiate.

Starting point is 01:39:10 He said, this guy will make sure that you will have a good deal, and I will have a good deal, and we'll make it happen. I need to be activated very fast. Shake hand. Day after, make a deal. They bought all the new equipment, built the thing behind the Mirage. And I didn't know at that time that for him, you have something else. You have the Treasure Island, what is mine,

Starting point is 01:39:33 and actually you want to lock me down. He did that contract just to lock me down so I could not talk to others because in two years after he was building this thing and it cost his money. And on the top of that, opening night, my God. Again, all the big shebang of Vegas. And Steve Wynn had very powerful and influential friends

Starting point is 01:39:53 in the political things, the business side. He had his bankers there. And opening night, one artist, animation, again. But this one could have been turned very bad. He did that 2,000 times. He's lying on the road from the tower over the head of people on the stage we're about to start the show i'm seeing from the side of my light the artist fell on the people oh god I think I experienced what it means and what is a temperature and a feeling to be in a tomb. The sound, the sound of the big top,

Starting point is 01:40:32 the CEO, Bobby Ball, and see the same thing. And Steve wouldn't, don't say, what's going on? What's going on? And the CEO said, well, there's an artist who fell on the end. And he knew that we fell. I think it was a banker, one of the major banks. He said, you just fell on that end and he knew that we fell i think it was a banker one of the major banks so he just fell in that thing oh no and see say what and dead silence so thank god it was just kind of like hurt on the shoulder he couldn't break his neck basically one inches on the top

Starting point is 01:41:01 to break the neck and that was it for me it was done okay so we go to show and you know it was a hard show to start the show and build up success so the reaction at the end was good but it was not the tyrannic you know it was not overwhelmed it was like everybody was like is he okay and uh so we overcome that moment that it have been crucial. And then two, three months after, he said, the real reason why I want to lock you down is because I'm doing Treasure Island and I want you to do the main show of this thing. So the show gave us and became the timeless kids that we missed there. We tried to explain to him our creative process, which we need.

Starting point is 01:41:42 You give us a theater, we'll design it for a show, but we need dust free and we need time to rehearsal. And with clowns, we need the audience to test things and stuff like that. So, theoretically, you get everything. First dress rehearsal, another magic moment with Steve Wynn. My clown, the same Benny, by the way, the same Benny, that is my clown. He wanted to do a satiric clown number The Firehose, right, the Waterhose The same one who did that

Starting point is 01:42:09 still believe he's one of the best clowns in the world but he wanted to do an original clown act which is about a satiric number of boxing in Las Vegas and his game is to set up kind of boxing things theatrical one, invite an audience member to have a boxing fight

Starting point is 01:42:26 that end up to throw each other tarts, cream tarts. Okay. But the test people are only the worker of the casino plus all the executives, because Steve wouldn't ask all these top executives, go check it out. First, we don't even call that a dress reel, so we call that a lion den,

Starting point is 01:42:46 meaning it's a cage for lions. So it's the risk we're taking there, and we just want a little bit. Normally, we invite friends and family, small crowd. The room is like probably 50% of the executive with the attire right there, and the number go wrong. Benny panic, the clown panic,

Starting point is 01:43:03 and he start to throw all the tarts on the audience. So, of course, I received a phone call from Steve doing ski and ass panics. I will not use the word. Happened. He's like, what are you doing? What is it to throw tarts to people in the room, in the

Starting point is 01:43:21 new theater? And I said, Steve, this was the lion dance, and we're testing it. Get it wrong and stuff like that. The clown panic will correct that. Don't worry. That's part of the process. Clown panic.

Starting point is 01:43:33 And he said, there's no F way. You can say it on my show. That's okay. No, I'm just joking because with all those things. There's no fucking way. Exactly. Well, I didn't say it. You say that. Yeah. I just tried to because with all those things. There's no fucking way. Exactly. Well, I didn't say it. You say that.

Starting point is 01:43:45 Yeah. I just tried to play with the situation. So he said, listen, I'm flying tomorrow. I want a private view of the show, okay? And there's no way you will open the show. And I will tell you what's worked, what doesn't work. I have the experience of that in Las Vegas. And we're there.

Starting point is 01:44:04 Everybody's freaking out. So I'm cranking because we took months to explain him this process. And now he's like treading me to not open the show, whatever, you know, in a Steve Wynn way. So we arrive, I'm not sitting with him. I'm sitting with Bobby Baldwin, the CEO, because he's my friend. And that's the one I made the deal. Franco Dragon and Gilles Saint-Croix, the director and the director of creation, with Steve. And you could see Steve. And you know, those shows that have so much mechanic on it,

Starting point is 01:44:33 you cannot put the artist on risk. So you don't run the show at real speed. You run the show in a safe way so you mark the step and then, you know, it's a process. So I'm obliged to run a show that's supposed to give them the information what the show is about. But instead of being a hundred miles an hour, it's running at 75. So obviously you don't see the beauty of the race car.

Starting point is 01:44:54 You know, it's like, it's like, it is just safety, safety, safety. You mark your tech and client lining. Does the light could affect an acrobat? You know, there's all this hundreds of detail. So obviously everything is slowed down. does the light could affect an acrobat you know there's all these hundreds of detail so obviously everything is slowed down so at the end of the show stand up we have a meeting with him and he's around a day bowl you look at the talk to him say what the fuck is this show he says look and feel like a fucking German opera.

Starting point is 01:45:28 Franco Dragon, the director, turned around and said, thank you, Steve. This is the biggest compliment you can ever tell me about the show I create. It's very good. This is a true story. I see this, it's like, what? I just tell you the show is a piece of crap, and you're telling me thank you

Starting point is 01:45:45 by telling you that and yeah and Franco explains do you know German opera is very important in the world of opera as an institution and Steve is totally disambiguized and then he starts to say I like that

Starting point is 01:46:01 I don't like that I want you to change that and then I intervened and said, no, Steve. I said, I explained to you, explained all the things. We're not done yet with the show. This will be a great show. Trust me. And by the way, I have the last word contractually about what will be the show or not. And his reaction, yeah, but I control the room.

Starting point is 01:46:21 And if I decide nobody goes in, fair from you. Then you'll be in penalty. Because if I deliver a show and I have the right, if you don't want to let people in, it's your problem. I would have done my job. And then he turned rage because he said, you have to understand, Steve Wynn always had control and true percent of his narrative.

Starting point is 01:46:38 Everybody's at his foot. Here's a little kid from Quebec, and he's like standing in front of him and saying no. When people tell him yes three times in a row to make sure you understand no, yes. And then he turned a bobby ball and said, what the fuck is that contract? I don't have the last word. And he said, well, Steve, you asked me to make a deal with them, and that was a break deal.

Starting point is 01:46:58 You asked me to make sure that it will be with us. I did it. That was a condition. It was a break deal. I signed it. To the credit of SEAL. To the credit of SEAL. To the credit of SEAL. At the moment,

Starting point is 01:47:08 SEAL said, this is contractually binding. SEAL said, okay then, I will have to trust you. I hope you're right and you will prove me wrong. But here it is.

Starting point is 01:47:20 I will trust you. See you at opening night. Just like that? Just like that. Opening night. Day after, sold out, sold out, like that. Just like that. Opening night. Day after sold out, sold out, sold out.

Starting point is 01:47:27 We were the hit new show, rock Vegas. Then after that, there was an old show. And you know, the story is like bang, bang, bang.

Starting point is 01:47:36 There's a certain point that after he sold to MGM, there's a moment of the pentacle of things. We were responsible of 6% of about 40 million visitors of primary reason why people were coming to Vegas. And we were controlling almost 39% of every entertainment tickets in Las Vegas. Wow. So we did contribute a little bit.

Starting point is 01:47:58 Now Vegas is a total red ocean, but we arrived, create a blue ocean and just like squeeze it with beautiful show and they were giving us all the money we want to create the most amazing show and oh is an example of it this is my masterpiece it's like that's the perfect match with somebody who believe in you have a lot of money and a team that arrive at creative maturity to do his masterpiece so i'll just mention for people, Blue Ocean, Blue Ocean Strategy, also a great book worth reading that gets more into this concept.

Starting point is 01:48:28 Which was a test case, a story, a case study on it. And it's very interesting. And people will read it. It'll really make you understand how addressing a red ocean by creating a blue ocean

Starting point is 01:48:41 could totally be a game changer for an enterprise and the way of thinking about your envisioning strategy. Yeah, total game changer. And I would love to ask you more about Steve Wynn. We might come back to it, but I know we're coming up on two hours, so I want to be respectful of your time. But let me ask you this question, which is, I would love to get your perspective on maybe what people miss about Cirque du Soleil and why it became successful. Because I imagine there are many people listening to this who will wonder, and I've wondered this too, why didn't someone else do this?

Starting point is 01:49:11 Well, we were a pioneer, but after the success, like any good success, you have impact. Creative mind or production company. Some will have the easy reaction, a lazy reaction of trying to copy you. Very bad for them, very bad for the business, very bad for my brand. Why? Because they will play, inspire, buy,

Starting point is 01:49:33 they will call that a sick lalune, sick of that, to try to grab the flavor and attract them by trying to sell that they're at the same level, right? Disaster. And this, for me, it's lazy people who do that and non-creative people.

Starting point is 01:49:52 There's some of that, and you have to deal with that. Some tribes are usually, they don't last long, but it does affect your credibility for a period of time. But people are not stupid. They will understand what is the real recipe versus the fake one, right? We're the original. Then there's the other one that you inspire, okay? Young artists.

Starting point is 01:50:11 And I had a lot, I was responsible with a lot of new emerging entertainment company that inspired themselves about what we did and became the second generation. You know, it's like an art. You have the first generation, you have the second generation, and you have the other one that we call the derivative, derivative of the bad one, you know, that sometimes make money out of things, but they're just copy and they have no contribution

Starting point is 01:50:37 to the evolution of the art. But today we have nurtured, Cigna Soleil has nurtured a dozen of second generation of artists and things. And it's not necessarily always about circus. Mia Wolf, for example, I don't know if you know Mia Wolf. Yeah. So, for example, Mia Wolf, without saying they're second generation, but they are because I know the founder of some of them. And, you know, obviously we had a huge impact in inspiring cultural or artistic entrepreneurs to use us as inspiration.

Starting point is 01:51:08 And my eye wolf, some of them, I said, well, listen, you've been very important in inspiring us. And many others like that. was things that are all like babies of Cig du Soleil that had defined their own style, that had inspired and contributed to the elevation of the art of circus. And that's beautiful. And there's more of that, there's failure. And actually, it's very rewarding to see that type of impact

Starting point is 01:51:39 you could have on the next generation. So yes, it's people who try, but the clever one are the ones who don't try to copy, but try to make their own signature. So Guy, I want to be respectful of time. Do you want to keep going for like 10, 15 minutes? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

Starting point is 01:51:55 I would like to talk about the community, you know, which is, again, the beautiful 40 years that I live with amazing, colorful people that come from the same environment of work, which is funny. Then, obviously, I sold Cig du Soleil, 2015. Many things happened. Another story to tell. And I'm jumping to the conclusion where went from family office, different portfolio,

Starting point is 01:52:24 explore a lot of things. I don't want to go details, rough moment, COVID having to, you know, I was about to activate new content, new project and COVID killed it all, lost my investors and stuff like, you know, like starting to lose, not every year. Now it's like at least couple of months, friends that are dying, you know, make me realize that, wait a minute, I'm not saying clock is ticking, but let's say time passes fast and it does have impact. And I realized that what became important from lost my parents,

Starting point is 01:52:55 and then suddenly it was like, wait a minute, one of my dreams, because I had some dream in my life, but the recent dream was about, hey, I would love to go back with all my group of people or friends, invite them on the island, Hawaii, or Miami, whatever, and spend a couple of days or a night just with a good bottle of wine and just listen what their life was about, just to see the people you love, what they evolved. Because a lot of them, I always keep contact with them, but some I've not seen for 20 years and we're still in contact. We just would love to hug ourselves and have a good conversation again. So it changed

Starting point is 01:53:31 the last couple of years, really, especially from last year, about 14 months ago, I really went through that period of, whoa, what are my priority? First, family office type of money management. Not my type of, I'm an entrepreneur. Okay, I need action. I don't have the patience of most of the things. One of my investment was the biggest betrayal of my life. I said, wait a minute. I want to be with my friend.

Starting point is 01:53:59 I want to be with my loved one. I want to be with my tribe. I want to be with my family. So it shifted, made me the decision that I said, I want to be with my tribe. I want to be with my family. So it shifted, made me the decision that I said, I want to do shows again. So the last year, about, since last September, yeah, about a year, I've been gearing up and with developing concept and with some of it with my old friends that we told ourselves, let's do something again. And a bunch of young, new kids, young people that have the fire, the drive,

Starting point is 01:54:28 and that I invite to play with us and make sure with all my elders that we use this opportunity of creating things and transfer the knowledge of what we have, or wisdom, or form them and give them and work with them so they could carry on a nice entertainment environment and at the end what does it mean is what is the conclusion of that is like you know in life you could have all the success you want you could have all that but what is the most important your family your friends your tribe the people that live a life with and the comfort of that is so much important than anything else after, which at the end, if you realize that, and for me, this exercise of starting up a new entertainment company

Starting point is 01:55:10 with new show that I cannot disclose today, but I believe they're pretty ass kicker also there. And we have, first of all, we have a lot of fun. We're laughing our ass out every morning that we're writing and creating that thing. So we'll live or die from the public reaction. But among the team here, we're like cranking up and we have a lot of joy. But at the end, what all this will permit me is somewhere, hopefully, to this new adventure engage in, which I didn't have to, is maybe end up having achieved one of my goals at

Starting point is 01:55:41 the end, which is, as I it before, being a good ancestor. And this is all the desire of giving back as much as I could in the time left. And I hope there's another 30 years, whatever. My goal is at least 100 years. But I was fed by so much love, so much joy, so much opportunity that what I got was bigger than what one individual have. So I'm trying to find a way that how could I give back of all that through what I know best is creating shows and creating entertainment companies. So this is where I am. We talked about the tome one, there's a tome two,

Starting point is 01:56:17 and I'm starting to engage tome three, basically. Very different and also very interconnected chapters, it would seem. And how much of the getting back to performing or shows is the performing in the shows, the content versus having a reason or an excuse to get together with your old friends and the performers? Well, there's a different factor on that. One is I realized I didn't do my epilogue. I left, I'm playing in the cold, I visit things. I had a bad result thing for X reason. Again, another conversation. But what is my epilogue in all this amazing,

Starting point is 01:56:58 creative production adventure? And what I'm working now is my epilogue. The second thing is a challenge. It's funny. As much, I'm very active, sometimes I have the impression that I could become very lazy when comfort is there. So I always perform the best when I'm on the cliff. It's true. It's true. And knowing that if I decide to come back on that, and I'm risking a lot, I cannot do what I did at Cirque du Soleil. I have to find a different way. I have to address every angle of the artistic experience I'm about to do with a different look at it. And this is intellectually so, so challenging and interesting. So I'm having a very interesting

Starting point is 01:57:38 brain activities with all those hamsters that keep rolling. The hamsters are definitely awake in this brain. Alive and well, dancing on the cliff. Well, Guy, is there anything else you'd like to say, any requests of my audience, or anything else that you'd like to add before we close this first round? Yeah, but if I open my mouth again, it will be $5 by word that I say from now on.

Starting point is 01:58:02 No? It's okay. No now on no problem no problem well well this has been uh incredibly fun i'm glad that this finally came together and i really appreciate you taking the time and sharing everything that you've shared and hopefully we'll get a chance to do around to have a good bottle of wine together have a good bottle of wine absolutely where are you based i'm based in austin texas okay but i travel a lot so i'm on both coasts i'm international frequently so i'm sure there's an opportunity or we can make an opportunity i spend a lot of time in vegas especially by activating certain things i will have let's make sure we don't lose contact. I would definitely either a good bottle of sake over a good Japanese meal or a good bottle of wine, the red wine, Burgundy over a good meal.

Starting point is 01:58:52 Sounds perfect. And really appreciate you taking all the time. And to everybody listening, we will link to everything in the show notes and more at Tim.blogs.com. And as always, be a little bit kinder than is necessary, both to others and to yourself. Until next time, thanks for tuning in. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday.

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Starting point is 01:59:56 end up in my field, and then I test them, and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to Tim.blog slash Friday, type that into your browser, Tim.blog slash Friday, drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening. This episode is brought to you by eight sleep. Temperature is one of the main causes of poor sleep, and heat is my personal nemesis. I've suffered for decades tossing and turning,

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The Tim Ferriss Show - #700: Guy Laliberté, Founder of Cirque du Soleil — The Power of Belief, Street Gangs, Wild Tales from Las Vegas, The Dangers of Nurturing Fear, and Dancing on the Cliff

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