The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka - 03. David Grutman | How Biohacking Helped Build a Global Hospitality Empire

Episode Date: October 24, 2023

Get weekly tips on how to optimize your health and lifestyle routines - go to https://www.theultimatehuman.com/ Get more resources + information from Gary here: https://linktr.ee/thegarybrecka ECHO GO PLUS HYDROGEN WATER BOTTLE https://echoh2o.com/?oid=19&affid=236 BODY HEALTH - USE CODE ULTIMATE10 for 10% OFF YOUR ORDER bodyhealth.com/ultimate In this episode, Gary speaks to David Grutman, founder of Groot Hospitality and globally renowned innovator and entrepreneur. They talk about David’s biohacking journey and developing sustainable, healthy habits - practices which helped lower his triglycerides, insulin levels, and cholesterol. Along the way, David shares invaluable insights about the power of relationships and honesty in business.  (0:00:00) - From Bartender to Business Leader (0:07:19) - Building and Reviving Brands (0:10:24) - Benefits of Tennis and Other Exercise  (0:12:45) - David’s Blood Test and Biohacking Journey (0:20:20) - The Next Five Years  (0:28:19) - Balancing Business and Parenthood (0:32:20) - The Art of Hospitality and Leadership (0:37:26) - Addressing Restaurant Issues and Expressing Appreciation The Ultimate Human podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing or other professional health care services, including the giving of medical advice, and no doctor/patient relationship is formed. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast is at the user’s own risk. The content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their health care professionals for any such conditions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm in better health than I was when I was 19. And once you start seeing the different blood results month after month, and you see the results in your body, Oh dude, you're so in it. you don't want to go back. You're like, uh-uh. You break it down so easily so I can understand it and it makes sense to me. It's not about sacrificing.

I'm not sacrificing. I'm enjoying. I know that I have so much farther to go. I love that. Hey guys, welcome to the Ultimate Human Podcast. I'm your host, Gary Brekka, human biologist, where we go down the road of everything that makes human beings ultimate human beings. Not just longevity, anti-aging, and functional medicine and biohacking, everything that makes regular humans ultimate humans. And I have an ultimate human on the podcast today, Dave Grotman. This has been a long time in the making.

Ah, so excited to be here with you, man. Yeah, I'm jacked that you're here too. So you've got a really interesting story you know from graduating with a with a finance degree yep you started bartending at 21 started bartending became passionate about the business and I you know I'm from Naples Florida same yeah yeah from your stomping ground as well very small retirement community all my friends are dead way out grew that yeah they were 90 years old when i grew up with them and it's they're gone yeah but uh it was a it was a great place to to grow up small town coming here to miami being in the

hospitality business exciting yeah but it's a global hospitality magnet from 21 year old bartender sure i mean there's a lot of distance there, right? I mean, and I got to say that probably every 21 year old bartender wants to be a global hospitality magnet. You know, listen, I don't know that a lot of people love to get into the hospitality business as the in between before they become an actor before they become or other in medical school or law school or this or that. And for me, it's not just a profession it's it's what i'm passionate about it's my lifestyle everything revolves around it you know and it's in my home as well so it's not just do i want to take care of you in my places but if you come to my home it's the same kind of

you're absolutely you're absolutely straight honest about that i mean i live and breathe it's just who you are so you're you're 21 year old bartender um you're not necessarily in a nightclub business you're not in the restaurant and i'm not super good looking right i'm not super good looking you are now though i mean obviously now but uh and you know what's great about it is i was making and i talked about this all the time i was making 100 grand a year bartending but i wanted to be a leader. Very good. Great job in the Aventura Mall. The owner of the mall today is my partner in all my nightclubs. So you never know where the relationship is going to start. And I always preach to people, relationships, relationships, relationships, because it's been the superpower of my success. You know, it's funny that you say that because

I talk about you behind the scenes a lot and you gave me one of the best pieces of advice that i've ever gotten and i don't know if you remember this but i was working with a very well-known celebrity and um there was a kerfuffle about a picture that made its way in on onto social media and you called me and you said gary this is not good um and you said the best piece of advice i can give you and it's the simplest piece of advice but i've applied it every single day since then you said with these people that are a-listers celebrities entertainers at the top of the food chain always play the long game always always play the long game just get

into their flow don't ask for anything just add value add value add value otherwise they'll have no time for you and as long as you continue to add value you'll get into your their flow and and and the rest will happen no i mean i literally follow that advice every day listen gary to your great listen you know very quickly you uh started seeing and had a client list of amazing a-lister celebrities people that constantly have the finances and the and the and the will to seek out answers right and i see it all the time right because of my business and people are always so scary to get the picture get this or get that and it's not that it's just like it's it's fun it's sizzling but if you play the long ball it'll happen organically right naturally and i think you took that and

right away and and i remember the person was like you know you were like yeah they're upset at me and this and that and i said just be honest you're not gonna fool anybody right right it's always to say you know what i made a mistake right i understand why you're upset it's never gonna happen again and once you say that it's over yeah and that's exactly what happened it was over and since then the trajectory has been by the way it happened to me listen in my business it it because you know these people are letting their inhibitions go down they're having the best time of their lives everybody knows it's the most press worthy thing out there but i don't go for the the short press with it i try to go for the long ball press with it and it's worked out a lot now a lot of my competitors will go for interest to try to get the

the terrible press on the person blah blah blah and what they've done is not only they burn that celebrity but they burn the publicist, the agent, the manager, the whole team who control 10, 20 other people each. What's astounding is the connectivity at that level. They all know each other. And everybody talks and everybody knows. Everybody knows each other. That's why I never, ever open my mouth.

Yeah, it's just better. Best piece of advice ever. So I want to get back to this journey because, you know, when we talk about what makes ultimate humans ultimate humans it's it's sometimes those little things the the failures you recovered from you know the the passion that you never gave up um you know the business partner that actually taught you a lesson out of some kind of negative event in your life so talk about you know how you evolved from being a bartender to going into the hospitality industry

because i actually remember you in in the mansion days with um with the opium group of course right you were with uh working for eric yeah eric milan roman jones yeah roman jones and all those guys and they're they're still around well and the milans aren't around but roman jones yeah yeah kiki's um and and his partner eris great great guy great guys great guys eris is one of the kindest human beings roman to his credit this guy roman jones guys uh i was working in a very small cool place at the time but doing these big events with sponsors and stuff like that and roman came to me and said i want you to run my nightlife group and i and i remember his two partners were like we never heard of this guy

before this is the guy you want to run our nightlife group and they came and sat me down and i said yeah i want this much money i think at the time it was whatever and they said we've never heard of you we've been burned by so many people we don't want to pay you that and i go tell you what what do you want to pay and they said this and i said i'll tell you what i'm going to work for you for one month for that amount. But if you want to keep me after that, it's going to be this amount. And you're going to pay me the difference of that one month that I did this compromise with you.

After two weeks, they were like, we're good, man. Thank you so much. We're so happy. That's awesome. Would you say that was a tipping point? It was a big tipping point because it gave me a platform to do what I do. Having Opium Garden Prevay at that time and being able to it had it had kind of started to go down a little bit but still had this really great aspirational yeah yeah thing and it gave

me a platform to really say okay let me go to work now and do things and bring sponsors and be able to do events that were bigger than that that venue should have ever done in a million years and it helped build my name and by building a great brand within that i wasn't a front of the house guy then i wasn't such a guy that was out there in the i was always behind the scenes creating but what made what made what you did different right because i got to think that the industry's full of great hosts at that time people at that time i was just very event how can i bring djs and celebs and people to do events and use other people's brand equity marketing equity to grow my brands

and so you already had this mindset that yeah because this is going to be a brand of my own because people just inviting someone to a fr Friday night at the nightclub is cool. But if you invite somebody to a Friday night at that time to a big Playboy event or a big Mercedes-Benz event or Versace or whatever it is, it gave them a reason to go out and made it feel more special than just being in a regular nightclub. And that's how I kind of took that and tried to and try to magnify the out of that so you started building this list you're always thinking i'm trying other other brands brands brands brands building brands and building brands together yeah so i used their brand equity to build my brand and i think too you know one of the things i've gotten to know about you is that

you know you're known for the hospitality industry the nightlife life business the restaurant business but it's really there's a lot going on behind the scenes alcohol brands i mean you're known for the hospitality industry, the nightlife business, the restaurant business, but it's really, there's a lot going on behind the scenes. Alcohol brands. I mean, you're just reviving the Prince brand. I still remember Prince as a kid, just a big tennis brand. And I felt like it was kind of like an old stodgy dinosaur. So you came in and started to reinvent it. Tell me a little bit about that. Yeah. Almost five years ago, a friend of mine at ABG said, hey, Dave, we have a bunch of brands here. It's an authentic brand group. And I said, well, you have this Prince brand that was just out of,

it was just bankrupt. We just got it. I said, I want to do that. I love how iconic the brand is. It reminds me of my childhood. To me, it's Country Club America. It's an American iconic brand to me that resonated with me because of those days of Andre Agassi.

Yeah, Andre, oh yeah. And that for me, that was the best time of my childhood. Wasn't that McEnroe too? Not McEnroe. He was before. Yeah, it was Michael Chang, all these guys. But if you look back in the archives, everybody played with Prince. Yeah.

And then they didn't. Yeah, and then they didn't. So bringing it back has been one of the greatest experiences of my life. And what's the plan for that brand? I mean, so keep going, going more fashion forward. We know we're not going to have the budget to have players like everybody else, but we want to just give great hardware, which is the technical stuff, the rackets and all that,

and then give you the coolest aesthetic to be able to play tennis or lifestyle. Right. And I didn't even like tennis when i when i did this i take up tennis during covet i'm so obsessed with covet i mean with tennis now that i play two hours every morning eight to ten yeah obsessed with tennis as you know yeah you're i live and breathe tennis yeah and actually just sent you an article of clinical study that people that play racquet sports live longer than than than the average kid i i never had a sport that i was so excited about every and if it rains i get pissed off i'm like ah so i've played in the rain i've done whatever i can but i i have to tell you it's just for me to have some something

and my wife is always yeah my wife is always like i I wish you like this, like you like tennis. And she always refers to what she wants to change in me or for me to do like the way I like tennis. You know, I think, I think people, one of the things they don't realize about exercise is exercise is actually a form of meditation. And so for people like you and me, that type A's, that the mind's always going, you know, when our environment quiets, our mind wakes up, we've got a thousand ideas. We have a thousand meetings. We've got a thousand projects. So it's really hard to just sit down and sort of quiet your mind. So listen, after many years of, of this kind of stuff is Dave, when you, uh, when you sit and relax, how do you feel? Well, here's the thing is, and I'm sure you're going to find it with a lot of

guys like myself. They probably just don't want to be alone in their own heads. Like, like where people, I don't like vacations vacations yeah like where people are so happy to just be by themselves and i can't be by myself and i can't just stop thinking i just can't stop doing and it could be that maybe you know i have some traumas that i had to deal with as a kid or whatever it is right but i'm so happy to be busy and to be going and figuring things out and what's the next and how do I make it great that I don't really want to sit back. And that's not relaxing to me. Right, right, right.

It's the opposite of. No, I see it. Every time I go into your place, it's like there's another meeting with Skinny Dip. There's another alcohol brand. There's another fashion brand. So you're branching out not just from hospitality. Well, I try to create an ecosystem for myself, right? So I try to invest

in brands from liquid death to goodles mac and cheese to last crumb cookies and now this new one skinny dipped which i'm so excited about as you as you are about it too it's a better for you you know snack and candy every girl loves it one gram of sugar and a lot of them it's it's amazing for me it's like now that i've gone on this journey to try to better myself, I don't want to just put shit in my body, right? So much different. I mean, so you and I, we've known each other for a while, but we really started to get going in around May of 2021.

Well, okay, yes. You said, let me just get a blood test. Oh, let me just do an exosome and a blood test on you. And a cheek swab. And a cheek swab and a cheek swab in my dna and it it really changed my whole life now i have a great trainer that i i went on this mission during covet to try to get i was 240 anthony anthony rhodes he's the best trainer ever still my trainer every day i went from 240 to 190 and i couldn't get past 190 and I also wanted my levels to be correct and my endurance and my energy and you changed all that for me thank you uh and not only did

you change it all for me that I weigh 170 now but I have great muscle mass and and I feel like I have a team around me right with with you guys what's so great is I can't wait to tell other people about you, everyone that comes to my house. You're probably 60% of my business right now. I mean, 60 is a little low, I think, to be honest. Maybe 72. Okay. 72. So what I think is so cool about it is

once I put you in front of somebody, they're like, what's this biohacking, dah, dah, dah, dah. I'm like, listen, let me just get a blood test and a swab and we'll go from there. Just happened five minutes ago. It happened yesterday. It happened today. It happens every day.

I can't wait for people to see what all this is about because it's just crazy to me that not so many people know about it. Well, you know, a lot of people, they think they feel great, right? They have a feeling of how well they're thinking, how well they're sleeping, their energy level, their response to exercise, but they actually have no idea where their true baseline sense of normalcy is. And I remind people about this all the time because a lot of times they'll go, oh my God, Gary, I feel amazing. And I'm like, you don't really feel amazing. You're like, well, what do you mean? You feel normal. That's how normal is supposed to feel.

Like you feel normal now like you know you say i feel great and i have i have more energy and i'm thinking more clearly and i sleep more deeply and you have you know probably the most fucked up schedule of of anyone right i mean um when you're not traveling your schedule is still off right just based on on on your career and now for you to say that you feel amazing it's because your baseline sense of normalcy is so much higher. I mean, human beings have no idea how well they can thrive when you replace the right raw material. So, you know, when you get a level of success and you're in this busy business,

your health, it's the second thought on your list. And you think you're unstoppable. But after having my blood test and seeing my testosterone level was 97 and i remember this and that and that i could be better sugars were high well my cholesterol was and of course i blamed that i eat a poppy steak every night so that of course caused it but you're like we could fix this you could still have your lifestyle that you're looking to do but at at the same time, let us fix the inside of you out. And once you start seeing the different blood results

month after month, and you see the results in your body, you don't want to go back. You're like, uh-uh. You're so into it. And that's how it is, I think, for most. Once you see a little bit of a result, that's what changes everything. And the nice thing is you see the results on the outside, right?

I'm losing weight. Oh, I i'm shopping i'm buying clothes that i could never buy before because they didn't make it an extra extra large but when you see what's happening on the inside when your bloods start to change and you're like wow my triglycerides are down my sugars are down my insulin's down my cholesterol is down you know my immune system's improved my red blood cell counts higher now you realize the real impact because you're super into it man i'm real like like i'm like this guy calls me 24 hours after his blood works in my blood back because my blood back because my blood back because i feel like it's passing an exam yeah i feel like listen i i i was because listen at the end of the day you

do have to be disciplined with making sure you take your stuff daily. You have to make sure you stay on it. It's okay. And now, if I have a slice of pizza or this or that, it's okay. Right. How much of a chore is it for you to stay in shape, to stay on the protocol, supplements, nutrients, and to kind of stay within the guardrails of the diet? And that's not really a diet.

It's not really a diet because, let me tell you guys, at the end of the day, when you get to your desired weight and muscle mass and all that kind of stuff, it's okay. You know what I mean? You know that tomorrow you're just going to do, you're going to work a little bit harder, and you're just going to get it off. And I think it's not about sacrificing. I'm not sacrificing.

I'm enjoying. I'm, like, so excited to go play tennis. Before my glutes weren't firing, this wasn't good. The fact that I'm able to go at, I'm almost 49 in like, let's say a week or two. And I'm in better health than I was when I was 19. Oh, you look amazing, man. We're going to run some before and after pics.

It's just astounding, man. I saw a video with you and Mark Wahlberg. You were doing a fight scene. Yeah. The other day. Yeah. How long ago was that? That was in 2018. So that's 2018. So not that long ago. And you were, you were, no, no, that was probably one of the happiest I was at. Yeah. You were probably closer to 250 at that. You were a big boy. You were doing this, um, your fight scene. I don't know where I saw it. And I was like, wow, that is an astounding transformation talk a little bit about um after you made this transformation you got to your targeted weight like what kind of things are you seeing in your life as a byproduct of just feeling better well thinking more clearly unfortunately i can't keep my shirt on now i want

to keep my shirt off at all times. I noticed that too. And even my friends are like, okay, man, we get it. Can you put your shirt on now? And I'm like, I can't put my shirt on. I've been a chubby Jewish guy my whole life. I never once had a muscle. I've been to meetings where he shows up shirtless,

literally shows up shirtless. I don't ever want to wear a shirt. It's not good. My friends and my family, everyone, they're like, can you just put a shirt on, man? And I'm like, no. No. Because it's not good. My friends and my family, everyone, they're like, can you just put a shirt on, man? And I'm like, no. No. Because it feels so good.

I spent my whole life with shirts on. Yeah. Let me at least live a little bit, right? Yeah, yeah. And that, to me, is the best part. Friends of mine that have been friends of mine for 20, 30 years, they're just like, we never thought this would be possible. I used to smoke two packs of cigarettes eat fat food

It fried this do that didn't matter drinking Everything you could imagine and now I don't do any of that man. I in a And yeah, I still have a desire to have fried chicken I still have a desire to eat this and that and you know once in a while I'll have a bite of that but I won't eat the whole thing of that. And I won't make it my lifestyle to do that. But you know, it's amazing. I refer to some of the things I do as my drug of choice,

like cold plunging right now is my drug of choice. That's a great idea. And the reason why I say it's my drug of choice is because nothing makes you feel that good. Right? I mean, I get in there for three to six minutes. When I get out, I feel like I won the fricking lottery. And I'm in that mood for seven hours. And I'm like, if I could just tell the world how good you could feel by just doing something as simple as an ice cold shower or cold plunge. You wouldn't want the

other things that you're trying to use to get you to that same feeling. I couldn't agree more like, as this journey's been in and listen, again, it didn't happen overnight. It's been years now that I've been doing this. But every time it keeps getting better and better. And I love just seeing the results and the results and the results. And when I'm like, this is kind of it, I know I have so much farther to go. I love that.

So let's get back to your journey a little bit. Where is Dave Grotman in five years? You know, people always ask me, what's your five-year plan? Yeah, where are you in three years? And, you know, listen, I have like 22 openings in the next few years. Restaurants? Restaurants, hotels, resorts, nightclub, a dayclub. And that's kind of, for me, that's where I am.

But also on the venture capital side, investing in founders and really pushing these investments and these products that people are, I love working with founders to make their dreams come true too, to use my network, to use my resources, to be able to grow brands. I know you're close to the GoPuff guys and obviously they're exploding and they're great guys.

The best guys ever. The guys that founded GoPuff, Raph and Yak, my favorite people in the world. Best guys. But I'm lucky enough to have some of these, I call them the masters of the universe because I get to be around some of the greatest business minds in my life. And I think it's so great for my daughters because they get to be around it and they see and they're inquiring about it. My daughters love your daughters. In fact, my daughter's down

with your daughter right now. And you know, to see my wife, who's now such an entrepreneur and she won't take fees. Her jewelry brand. Her jewelry brand, her clothing brand, but she's also, she won't take fees a lot of the time.

She'd rather take equity in a brand because she knows she's going to help turn the needle for that brand. And she thinks like an entrepreneur and we've done this restaurant thing together. She gave me my life is when we opened our first restaurant, which was Komodo, highest grossing restaurant. In the country, right?

In the country. That's insane. How old is Komodo? Seven years old. Wow. And it's still going strong. And we just opened Dallas. We just opened Dallas two months ago, crushing, doing great.

The brand's going to grow now to another big city, which can't talk about but that'll be in December and it's it's great to see one of your brands live outside of Miami you know in Miami of course it has a better shot than not with with for me to be able to do a brand but when you take your brand and you take it out of Miami to Dallas and it's working well, that's one of the best feelings ever. Now, do you take the same team there, or do you have a local partner, do you have different partners in the same restaurant, different places?

What we've found is you really want to know the landscape of whatever market you go to, so you definitely want to hire a local. That's the biggest thing, because, and you want to have, like, we have- What about partnerships? I mean, are partners local? So we have a couple investors that are from Dallas,

and that's great, but you want to make sure, about partnerships. I mean, are partners local? So we have a couple investors that are from Dallas. And, and that's great. But you want to make sure that we have a quail on our menu in Dallas. We would never have quail on the menu in Miami, that's right. Sure. But maybe now but you always want to know what what, what's going to make that city identify with your brand and not just be the big shot from out of town that's coming on in. So those so those investors are strategic because they've got local market knowledge.

Of course. Because obviously, I mean, at this stage, money can't be that difficult for you to raise. But at some point, it had to be a real issue. Yeah, in the beginning, capital was the hardest thing. People, like when I first did Komodo, people thought it was going to be, at that time, Brickell was not that busy.

I had seen that all those condos that the condo crash had happened with, that were all filling up with young professional rentals that were coming to my nightclubs and stuff like that, coming to live, coming to story, doing all that, that this was going to be where they're going to live. I knew that this area was going to be full of young professionals. Yeah, yeah. So I had some data telling me this, which was great. We opened Komodo, but my friends were like, I don't know, but we want to invest in you, Dave, blah, blah, blah. Jeff Sofer owns the Fountain Blue, but didn't see me as a restaurateur, didn't invest in me.

I'm like, Jeff, I've made you so much money, man. He's like, yeah, but you're a club guy. And I go, okay. So meanwhile, now Komodo is going to be going into one of his hotels coming up. I love it. I think it's all about hospitality, whether it's a restaurant, car wash, whatever it is. Hospitality is hospitality. Yeah, you know, you kind of remind me.

My favorite sports quote of all time was Wayne Gretzky's famous quote, I never skated to where the puck was. I always skated to where the puck was going to be. It's 100%. And I feel like you're that foreshadowing guy in in the hospitality industry to say it's not where the hospitality industry is today it's where the hospitality industry is going so where does that come from because when you're like the lead rhino in the herd there's no one to give you advice there's no one to say this is the spot dave you you know the

city's creeping that way you know you're you can be ahead of the tide. I mean, like anything else that that's you get a feeling and a sense and you kind of have great instincts and instincts a big part of this business. But I am lucky enough to have people around me like Noah Tepper, who has Tao group and even Jeff Sofer and I talk and even my my own team. So as great as I am,'m i'm good but as good as i am is because of the guys that i work with right like uh the chris comos the purples the edwardens like i have great teams around me lots of great people that work with my company or i wouldn't be here today with you sitting in this chair man yeah no question it's like everyone's always like you know oh you're

you do this and you do that no i i our company's able to accomplish this because I have some of the greatest individuals around me. And is the idea to just keep growing Groot Entertainment Group and continue to do lifestyle type projects where you're doing the hospitality, you're doing the nightlife, you're doing the restaurant? Yeah, I mean, we just want to do super cool shit right now. At this point in my life and in my company, we just want to do super cool shit right now. At this point in my life and my company, we just want to do the coolest stuff you could imagine. And that's why a few years ago, we partnered with Live Nation, who's the number one entertainment company in the world. Michael Rapinoe, best CEO ever, president.

And he bought into my company. We have a great partnership. And it's being able to partner with people that are going to grow your brand and help really accelerate what you do and give you that guidance and help and kind of along the way you know obviously you're known for all this this record of successes but talk a little bit about the the things that didn't work out oh my god like what was the concept that you were like holy holy shit, that really, never saw that coming. Yeah, I opened this amazing diner on an old architectural firestone,

very vintage building. I remember I went to the open. Winkers. Coolest winkers, named after my one-eyed cat. Best food, my favorite food. Legit named after his one-eyed cat. Total failure, total, total failure. So what do you do when you recognize it?

How fast do you switch gears? Listen, you have to be able to say, I'm not going to put good money over bad. And you have to know when to say, it's going to burn so much of my time working on this when I can apply it to things that's going to 10x, you know, 10 times my money on something else. So, you know, after three, four months,

we said, no, thank you. Sugar Factory, a very good friend of mine, now took over the space, and I'm partnering with him on the space. Okay. So it's going to be Sugar Factory? It just opened Sugar Factory, and he's doing great. And I love that someone else can make a space work that I just couldn't make it work. And there's sometimes where I just can't make it work, man. So is that one of the things you'd say you've learned along this journey,

is like when to put your ego aside and say i'm not just going to keep pushing this and pushing this so that dave grutman doesn't have a failure on his records to say hey we're going to shut the lights i have listen by the way i'm going to have more failures on my world because as if you're if if you're not afraid to swing for the fences you know you're going to strike out sometimes it's just it's just life. It sucks when it happens. And everyone's like, oh, but it's a learning lesson. Da-da-da. It just sucks.

No matter if they say it's a learning. Whoever tells you it's not a failure is just like, okay, I get it. But it's still, it's just not a great feeling, right? And I have an ego like anybody else, maybe even more so. And it sucks to get a black eye. But that kind of you know everyone's like oh but you know what i pick myself up right away and i go attack and then i have a gecko i

have another big hit right so you want to make sure that you follow it up with something great and and people have short memories yeah you know another thing i feel that a lot of people might not know about you is you're an amazing father um well if you talk to my wife she'll tell me that i need to be more present i'm sure like you see that i was just gonna say you're an amazing father um well if you talk to my wife she'll tell me that i need to be more present i'm sure like you see that i was just gonna say you're so present every time that i'm there because i'm around you quite a bit behind the scenes there's no cameras rolling there's no fanfare we're not at your clubs we're not at your restaurants we're in your living rooms but the time the dedication the bond i see you have with the little girls um i can tell that they just own your heart yeah listen i have two daughters uh kaya and vita

my wife isabella and thank god i have my wife because she's really made sure these kids are not entitled kids they're not spoiled kids they're sweet kids they're polite kids they're respectful kids yeah i feel like you and isabella are kind of the yin and yang yeah you know i she tells the kids one one toy each and i say i want to buy the whole store and she's like if you buy the whole store we're going to have real issues later on and she's right and you know my one of my daughters yesterday said i want a happy meal and i was like no we're going to get this for dinner not a happy meal and she started crying so badly and throwing such a temper tantrum and i was like should we just get her the happy meal my wife's like if you get her

this happy meal i'm going to kill you and i'm like okay no happy just get her the Happy Meal? My wife's like, if you get her this Happy Meal, I'm going to kill you. And I'm like, okay, no Happy Meal. And then she's right, because later on, it would be very bad. And then they learn that that's the way to get dad to give in. But listen, it takes work to be present. Everyone loves to say, oh, I'm the best father. I'm always with my, and I see this with my friends.

It's not a badger trying to go for it. Right, for me, it's just like, it takes a little bit of effort. Of course, I want to cuddle my daughters and love my daughters. And I do. But to be present in their lives, you've got to do it. And it doesn't come so easy for me. I have to really focus on it because I want to check my phone. I want to see what's going on. I want to talk to this person, that person on the phone.

And they don't really care about any of that stuff. You kind of detach a little bit in the summertime. I mean, you guys are going overseas. You're going on the boat. You're doing a little European tour. But the girls are going with you. Yeah, of course. We bring our kids with us everywhere.

They've been to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel. That's the best. Paris. We homeschool our youngest, too, because they're just on this journey with us. I think it's the coolest thing to see my daughters run around the pyramids in Egypt or be around JR, the artist,

who's one of the most amazing people in the world. Yeah, he is amazing. And we just did Tokyo and Korea together. And to see my kids running around and having the best and really taking in the different environments that they get to experience. And yeah, they're young

and they may never remember any of this, but I think it's going to leave some kind of imprint on them that it's going to help them for the rest of their lives yeah you know when uh when you peruse your social media you see a lot of a lot of isabella um so how did you guys how did you guys meet met her in new york at a mutual friend of ours was dating one of her best friends another brazilian my wife's brazilian and uh i met her for a few minutes she put a flower in my head she's one of the calm brazilians she's very calm she left brazil when she was 14 to go model in korea okay but she is one of the most smartest stable people i know and i uh took her for lunch the next day and i convinced her to come to Miami a week later.

From New York. From New York. And I'm just so lucky to have her, man. I can't. Every day, I wake up with grateful. I'm just so grateful. I have a lot of gratitude for her. Your kids are like mini-me's of your wife.

Literally just shrunken versions of your wife. Listen, guys, as you know, I do some of the coolest shit in the world i get to be do the most fun things adventures this that meet the coolest people there's nothing that even comes close to how cool it is to have kids i know i totally agree man my oldest tool for me you know both of my you know madison and cole um they're both in school full-time they both work with me full-time we travel together we see clients together like they caught the bug because i i feel like you can teach your kids anything but you can't give them a passion no right that's got to come from them and i always hope they'd

catch the science bug and then they both did because we make science fun yeah you know what you guys do is you guys break down science so the joe schmo can understand it i don't know what a neutron is and this and that whatever the whatever we talk about in this stuff i don't know about any of that stuff but you break it down so easily so i can understand it and it makes sense to me oh it doesn't you you can't process that process this because your body doesn't allow you to process this you have to be able to process it a different way. So let's go over this and this is going to help you process it and be able to take it in.

And just something simple like this, being able to understand the chemistry of your body or whatever it is. And I don't feel like you're making me feel like an idiot for not knowing it, right? That's the best part. I think that's my superpower. To take the ultra complicated

and explain it in a way that people understand i mean i really want to get that message out i mean my passion is to change the face of humanity this is why i'm sitting here giving them that information i i turned down so many of course i've done a couple great ones but i'm so happy to sit with you and be able to get this message out because i think the more people like my friend's father has parkinson's the fact that you're helping him and he's now showing insane results and and of course a mutual friend that was going to get a kidney transplant he doesn't need the kidney transplant anymore i i think it's just oh that's chicken soup for the soul stuff it's the coolest thing ever and when i bring you downstairs or i bring people to your place and and you just talk with them

it helps me win deals does it yeah of Yeah, of course. People love it, man. People think it's the... When you change someone's life, you build a relationship with them that you're going to have with them forever. They're always going... That's why everybody that calls me and says, hey, you know my kid is going to go to University of Miami.

Amazing. Yeah. I meet with the kid. I make sure the kid could get a haircut, dinners, whatever that kid wants. I make sure that if the kid gets sick, the kid could get a haircut dinners whatever that kid wants i make sure that if the kid gets sick he has the best doctors or she gets the best doctors it changes your relationship with people when you do something great for someone's kid you love people a different way and i make sure of it man because i know if i was a father and my kids were

going to a different city i would feel so happy to have a friend like myself to be able to look after them and make sure if God forbid something happens that they're there. And that even if the kid just wants to feel like they have a home cooked meal or whatever it is that they can come over and see Isabella, my daughters and whatever it is. But it's, it changes people. When someone does something for your kid, it's just like, I love it. Yeah. You know, that's another thing I noticed about you is that behind the scenes, it's just a a bunch of superficial relationships like these people are in your home they're your friends they're your family you vacation with them you go to their weddings you break bread with them well i show up yeah that's the main thing so that's

you know no matter what whether it's whoever it is you just want to be able to show up for people when you show up for people it means so much yeah people you know listen when people show up for me i'm like wow thank you for showing up like i know how busy you guys are i know you acknowledge that it's just like it's the most genuine nicest thing you could do yeah i mean you've done the same thing for my kids for their 21st birthday i mean every time that i need a reservation i mean you guys go out you go out of your way i mean it's mean, it's astounding to me how involved you are in the details. It's all about the details. What do you mean? It's all details. My business is all details. That's what people don't understand. They're like,

yeah, I'm eating dinner, but I'm seeing the table next to me with a dirty plate or I'm seeing- It must drive you crazy. No, no. The whole thing's crazy. It's a nightmare. Is it worse going to your own restaurant or is it worth going to somebody else's restaurant like if i go to someone else's and i don't and i listen i know i don't want to be disrespectful and say anything but sometimes i have to be like listen this is you know whatever but can you bring the manager over here i have a list no just like this like just your own knowledge but the more thing is like i'm looking at social media people tagging my restaurants and stuff like that and i'll see on

there if if if there's an app like if there's sushi with like a duck and and and different stuff and i'm like wait a second why is there sushi with a duck that means the server just ordered everything at once and didn't didn't take them on a journey just brought it all out and the person may not say anything but the person will never come back again because they felt like they got rushed out of your place. So you always want to see how the sequence of service is at your place. And social media, and I'll call the manager and be like, tell me what's going on with this table, this name, right now. And they're like, you're right, David.

The server ordered everything at once and fired everything. And when you do that to your team, it lets your team know that you're watching. Always watching. When they don't know you're watching. And they know when I walk in the restaurant, the energy is going to change right away they know they better be on their game right because i'm looking at everything but it's just as important they're on their game

when you're not there because obviously by the way that's the best leadership is everyone's great when you're there but how does your leadership when you're not there yeah i'm not able to travel and do all this if i don't have a great team so what's like a typical thursday friday saturday night look for you you do your you do your thing at home you've got tonight yeah i do eight to ten i do the tennis as you know yeah i usually do a little bit of therapy or something like that one day a week just to you know get this the soul right that's great yeah and then um meetings meetings meetings all day long i break for an hour or two and then i go into my restaurants and then sometimes my nightclub. And so you go into your restaurants, you hop from restaurant to restaurant, just keep an eye on. So I try to focus in on one a night instead of trying to hit

five a night. I'd rather have great quality time in one of them and go around to the different ones, you know, nightly. You're touching the management team, you're touching the wait staff. Yeah, but I love to have the experience inside my restaurants and i love and i and i and i you know when i first started going it would be like the managers with the managers making on i don't want a manager to ever serve me i want to know what the experience is for for my guests i want the servers to serve and and to see what the whole experience is if you just have your manager on top of you i don't get a good sense of it. So what's the difference between a good wait service and bad wait service? What's the difference between good and great? So I think being able to anticipate their desires and their needs before

they ask for it. You make sure that that water's full. You make sure that that cocktail, the second one's on the way right before they finish their first one you make sure that the the food is coming out timely and when it's supposed to and they don't feel like rushed or they feel like it's taking too long for certain things you have to really be able to and i don't want someone really talking my ear off and that are doing the whole thing right i really just want great service so they could have so they feel like they're being taken care of and they could have their best experience now That's amazing. And when you go into your restaurant at night and you look around and you see that some of these things are off,

do you go right to the waiter or do you go to your manager? I'm not one of these guys that writes things down on notes and then will send an email the next day about it. I hit it right away. I grab the manager. I grab the server. I see an issue. I wish I could because some people say it's better to then make notes, send it later on. No way, man. And if the food is not great, I make sure they send it right back to the chef in the

back and whatever it is and say, this is the issue, take a look at this, because I don't want someone else to have the same issue. And part of that's got to be your experience starting as a bartender. You're probably a bar back, you're probably waiting. You're probably manager. You're probably general manager. I've done every job from host to server to manager to assistant manager to general manager,

director of operations, all that. Marketing. So you can do it all. Yeah, I never have to be handcuffed by anybody because they think I'm not gonna do the job myself. They all know that I know what I'm talking about. I'm not some guy that inherits some money and I said, let me open up a spot, da da da. Right. They know that I know what the'm talking about. I'm not some guy that inherited some money and I said, let me open up a spot, da-da-da. Right.

They know that I know what the fuck I'm doing. Yeah, you ran the POS system. Yeah, they know what I'm doing. David, this was amazing, man. I super appreciate everything you do for my business. Of course, of course. I appreciate everything you do for my family, personally and professionally.

It was amazing having you on. I love you. I love your family. I love what you're doing. And I think it's important the world knows. I love you too, brother. family. I love what you're doing. And I think it's important the world knows. I love you too, brother. Thank you for having me.