From The Streets to Healer ft. Richard Taite | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby

0:00Most people who beat addiction walk away from the fire. But Richard Tate, he walked back in, scars and all. I get my self-esteem by giving people back to their families. After losing 25 years to drugs and alcohol, he built one of the most elite treatment centers in the world. No debt, no partners, no compromise. It's not rehab, it's a return to dignity. And in a world addicted to shortcuts, Richard still believes in showing up. He's helped over 10 ,000 people find their way home and somehow he's just getting started from the depths to the top Welcome to coffees. Oh, it's my pleasure. You only got one thing wrong.

0:43What's that? I've only had one exit one exit Okay, well, but it was a big exit. It was it was nice Yeah, it was nice because although it may not be considered big it was nine figures and There was no debt and no partners so it was a nice exit for me and specifically in this space tell the audience why does that matter in comparison to other folks who are in this space who have had partners and debt well i mean it's you go all in right i mean that's how i do it i go all in so i don't want any feedback or i mean i know how this ends right i've done it before so um i don't want any feedback i don't want any noise.

1:27I just want to be able to do what I want to do. Love that. Yeah. Love that. Now I like to start the show off with the same question I asked everybody. Now you particularly, I am sure this question is very relatable. What's your morning routine? My morning routine? Yeah. It's the same every morning. I wake up at five o 'clock. Okay. My buddy Stuart wakes up at four. so he has me beat. But I wake up, I roll out of the rack. Before I do anything, I meditate for five to 10 minutes, depending on where I'm at. I'll jump in the shower. I always do my shaving in the shower. But what I really like to do when I get out of the shower is I turn on the cold water and it just wakes me right up when I get out.

2:18I feel like that does something to me. It gets me going. Then I go down and work out right here in the gym. And then I take my vitamins and my medication and I come right into work. Nice. Now, that's a pretty regimented routine and it's kind of like cold plunging, which is like the new fad, right? I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that. So how are you staying in such great shape? Is it diet? Is it consistency? It's important if you want your brain to work the right way. It's important to eat the right way. So I eat one unit foods. So what's a one unit food? A steak, a banana, an apple. That's a one unit food.

3:07There's only one thing in it and that's it. Okay? So if you can eat like that and get sleep and meditate and move your body and work out, then you're going to have a good mental state. If you don't and you don't take care of yourself, you're not. And then you can't operate at peak performance. You just can't. One unit foods, all three meals? Look, I do as good as I can, but I'm not eating like processed meats. Okay? I'm not having sugar. I have very little bread, but I do it.

3:51What's important is consistency. That's what's important. Yeah. So let me ask you, what was it that drew you to this space that you're in now? Well, I lost 25 years to drug addiction and alcoholism. this dog is wants to come in let him in or he's just going to sit there and do this let him in

4:18okay he doesn't bark I'm sorry buddy what was the question what drew you to the drug rehabilitation industry well I lost 25 years to drug addiction right and I figured it out so when I figured out how to get sober I opened up a men's sober living and then I realized very quickly that I was offering therapy and they didn't like that so I had to get my license and I started my last place and and that's that's how I got into it. So are you an MFT or did you get your therapy license? No I never did I never got my therapy license but I'm probably the most over-therapized person on the planet. All of our therapists have between 10 ,000 hours of treatment experience and 30 ,000 hours of treatment experience.

5:15So I got that covered. Now your treatment centers are known to kind of dominate in the celebrity space. How did you gain that reputation? that's a great question um i built it for me right so my last place was considered to be the finest treatment facility in the world um but i wouldn't even smoke crack in it i wouldn't okay this this new place is far in a way carrera is far in a way uh the best treatment center in the world and it's not close it's one of one okay if you're an ultra high net worth individual or a celebrity and you go somewhere else and you find out about carrera you're hating everybody and that's how it was built word of mouth not really like advertising just like well i mean people knew that i came back and i got rid of all my social media uh when i sold my last place i was done and when i started it was really hard it's a different climate and nobody knew I was back do you know how they found out I was back how I got the cover of the LA business journal and then I filled up like this right because people know um you know I've when you've given back over 10 ,000 people to their families and loved ones they know who you are it's just I was gone for five years now that was then now you're like you're podcasting you're building your brand you're out you know you've totally changed the landscape of how you're doing things what is it that's inspired you to like build a personal brand and you know start a podcast and i don't have a personal brand i don't have a personal brand i don't look at it that way um this podcast that i do called we're out of time is not monetized It's never going to be monetized.

7:22I do it because we're out of time. I mean, our children are dying and I'm a father. So I didn't want to do a podcast. I mean, I've never even seen a podcast or listened to a podcast ever. Okay? I'm doing this because I can and because I'm a father. And I think the worst thing in the world, the very worst thing that could ever happen to anybody is to bury their child. I mean, I can't even discuss it. Okay? So that's why I do it. That's why I do it. I mean, yeah, I got four kids, and I can't even imagine. How old are they? 11, 10, 5, and almost 4 at the end of the month. Yeah, well, you better have the conversation early and often.

8:09Conversation about? About drugs and about fentanyl and how it kills people. You know, when you and I were kids, we could do those drugs. We could experiment with drugs. It was a rite of passage. These kids can't do that anymore. Yeah, they're right. They're all dying. And you're a kid, you think you know everything, right? And your frontal cortex isn't even fully developed. So that's a bad combination. You know, it's almost like your brain isn't fully developed. So, you know, you've got brain damage almost. But you think you know everything. I mean, it's the worst combination in the world. And so you got to have that conversation, man, early and often.

8:49When do you have that conversation? I have not had that conversation about drugs. The school has. They obviously know that... The school... No, no. Forget the school. That's not your... They're your kids. Yeah. Okay? You have to have the conversation, and you have to have it by 10. What I want to do... What I want to do is I want to... And I'm close. We're going to get there. We're going to make certain that in every public school in the country, everyone, okay, They see a video twice a year, okay, in every grade, starting in kindergarten. And these videos will be made for that age group. And first semester and then at the beginning of the second semester.

9:35And we're going to put together these films on the evils of drugs and how dangerous they are now. how it's just it's a non-starter because when you get these kids young they're conditioned and they don't even know why they believe it they just know it's part of their dna and that's how you start dealing with this thing it's one of the like 12 uh steps that i've created to really deal with the fentanyl issue and it's not perfect yet so it'll be it'll be done complete uh by the end of this month and then hand it off to the right people to make change you know i don't know if this is serendipitous or this is just like fate but i had a conversation about someone about this specific subject with someone less than 12 hours ago like talking about how he lost 15 friends in the last year to fentanyl oh i want that guy on my podcast yeah i'm not kidding yeah like it's just unreal and he's someone because you know when you and I were young we probably had a great time and it's someone who you know when I was young I started in my book one of my earliest ventures was I was throwing parties and after parties like as a kid that was my first business at 15 years old and everybody was obviously doing drugs right at that time and it was pretty much like standard practice you go to a rave you go to a nightclub you go to an after hours you know that's right And that was normal.

11:04Now you go to these things. And I live in Newport Beach on the beach. And I was walking on 5th of July. And I see just paramedics everywhere. And a party ended. And a kid didn't like what I thought was a body bag. I'm like, are you kidding me right now? This is a party? 5th of July? 4th of July? Like something happened here. And it looked terrifying. And that kind of stuff, you didn't see stuff like that when I was young. No. No, you didn't. And it's a crisis. It's a crisis. It's one of the reasons I came back. Okay? Because, you know, if you can deal with something like this, right, and save even 100 parents from losing their child, I'm sorry.

11:49I'm going to be very proud of that. Very proud. I mean, look, I couldn't get through it, losing a child. Could you? No way. There's no way. So this is, that's why I do what I do. you know I'm the worst at business I'm the worst but you've made a fortune in business well sure because I've I've hired the right CEOs I mean I'm the worst CEO in the history of the world and I'm not being self-deprecating I suck okay so the first time I hired a guy who was good But this time, I've got the single finest CEO in our industry. Everybody tries to steal her. Everybody. She ain't going anywhere, okay? Because she knows where the love is.

12:38That woman's my work wife. She does everything. She makes it so that I don't have to hear any noise. And all I have to do is focus on what I have to do as the executive chairman. And I've never had that before. this is this is new how have you been able to hire that kind of high level talent oh that's a great story um at first uh we hired corn fairy now corn fairy as you know is the biggest headhunting firm in the nation and uh luck of the draw i ended up with the head of the health care division so we became close and then he um uh before he even found me somebody the first time um he referred me his uh who did he refer me he referred me his godson and he was really worked up about it he was really uh panicked and he asked me how much it was going to cost and everything and i said your money's no good here just bring me the boy don't worry about it and so he brought me his his uh godson and he's never drank again and he got well real fast and then he was on it then he drank the kool-aid then he knew that you know we were different than others right and so he went ahead and found me the perfect person.

14:14It was like he had religion. And then this time around, he called me a year and a half early and said, should I start looking for a CEO? And I said, no. And I would not let him start until the day my non-compete ended, right? I wanted to be in complete compliance with it. And he found me this new person. Her name's Candy Henderson. and she talks like this. She's got that Alabama draw that's just gold. I just love her. So it was personal for him to help you. Yeah. So what do you think is... My life is completely personal. It's completely personal. People, I believe that people work with people that they like, okay?

15:02And I'm only going to work with good souls and I'm only going to work with kind people, talented people. That's it. That's one of the secrets to success for sure. What is it that makes your treatment center different other than the aesthetics? Yeah, well, obviously it's the nicest treatment center there is. And we've got a full spa, a world-class spa inside of the treatment center. And people thought that was a vanity play. And it isn't. I believe that self-care turns into self-esteem, which turns into self-love. And I have never, ever met an alcoholic that truly loved themselves trying to kill themselves with drugs and alcohol.

15:40It doesn't happen. But what makes us different is we give you whatever you need. And other places have a program. We've got a program too. Think of it like college. Okay. You've got your general education and then you go for your major. Right. So we expose everybody to everything. And then we go, okay, babe, what do you like? What do you gravitate to? And as long as it's positive and it's something that they gravitate to, it's something they can take with them outside of the center. So we want to find something that really works for them. Another thing that makes us different is I have a client care department.

16:23So I have people literally walking around the centers looking for the person with their head in their hands, right? Roll up on them and take care of them right there. Nobody does that because it's not cost effective, right? And especially in this climate. See, when I was here the last time, we had 18 ,000 treatment centers. Now we've got under 10 ,000. So how do you lose half the treatment centers in seven years? When there's more drugs and alcohol than ever. That's right. How do you do that? Well, I'll tell you why. It's an excellent question. The reason is, is because insurance companies used to pay 67 cents on the dollar, and now they pay 25 cents on the dollar.

17:06So if you're working at a 25 % margin like most of these companies are, you're broke. Now you're failing and that's why they're all failing. But here's the good news. I'm glad that I jumped into this thing without knowing the climate. I'm glad because it's been scary. I'm not gonna lie, I've been scared. But I want it hard. I want it hard. Okay. I want to know who I am. I want to know if I can succeed when everybody else is failing and I'm doing it. All right. Now you charge$165 ,000 a month for, for Carrera, right? How do you guys, uh, how does, you know, Carrera is, uh, is, is the first luxury center for you h n w clients how do you justify opulence or recovery without romanticizing all the privilege i like to romanticize the privilege why not these people have big lives they're not entitled to get sober too look people say to me well rich you didn't go to a fancy rehab well yeah that's true okay but i wasn't the guy i am today okay i would have never gone into a treatment center today that was substandard i never would have done that okay what so i'm not entitled to get sober right i mean look you have to you have to work with people you have to be able to give them what they need and work around their lives it's just that's the way it is sobriety is not its own gift no matter what people say okay if you don't have the sobriety is about thriving in the world it's about creating a better life than you had and if you can't create a better life for yourself than the one you had on drugs and alcohol you're going back to drugs and alcohol That's just the way it works.

19:16Now, insurance covers only a small percentage of this, but from my understanding, you guys are only, like most people are cash buyers or paying cash for this. They're not even leveraging insurance at all. Well, we offer that opportunity. I mean, I've got a revenue cycle management department, so that way people don't have to come up with the whole thing. I mean, some insurance companies pay$30 ,000 a month. Some pay$60 ,000, okay? So we'll offset that for them for sure. Even six figures a month is still insane for a normal layman. It is. It is. So we're not advertising to the average guy. We're advertising to about a quarter of a million people in the United States.

20:01But I have an affordable treatment center. okay so for 250 or 500 bucks a month typically uh you get 30 days of treatment and 80 percent of my staff at carrera works at my affordable center okay so they're getting the best care anywhere in the world uh using their in-network insurance policy where is that center that's that is that Okay, so you know how Carrera is one of one. It's the nicest ultra-luxury treatment facility in the world. It's actually the first ultra-luxury treatment facility in the world. So my affordable place, normally these types of centers have bars on the windows and they're in rough areas of town.

20:50This is a nine iron from Cheviot Hills Country Club. So it's not the most luxurious, but they're$3,$4 million homes. so these guys are living really nicely in a comfortable space to do some really uncomfortable work and that's what this is yeah I'm sure it's not bad the way looking at you talking to you like it's probably still really nice no no no the guy the guy who owned it before I bought this one and the guy that owned it before advertised it as a luxury treatment center now for me that ain't luxury. Okay. But for some people, okay, it's magnificent. They're like mansions. Okay. And I think it's important when somebody comes into treatment, look, when you go to a, uh, I've been in a motel six and I've been in a four seasons and I can tell you that I felt better in a four seasons than I did in a motel six.

21:47Okay. Now when I was homeless, the motel six was the four seasons. Okay. So it's all, it's all contextual. It's all perspective. That's right. Better word. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, so your, your, your model serves the elites, but you're committed to veterans and in network care. How do you balance exclusivity and accessibility? Oh, it's easy. okay um there's like uh um

22:21candy is my ceo and she is a specialist at scaling so that we can treat as many people as humanly possible carrera is not that carrera is never going to be more than an 18 bed boutique facility. Candy, although she deals with the operations of Carrera, for sure, she's almost exclusively dealing with the Affordable Center because that is why I hired her. I hired her to make certain that we could treat a thousand of the military, veterans, and people with HMOs. these are the people who i wanted to help this time the problem is is i don't know how to do anything on a budget like nothing okay um i may have to write raise the prices at carrera because um you know we're full and we're not making anything because we give you whatever it is you need i mean i don't care what it is this guy lost his uh uh parents just recently at Carrera and he came in he was all bent out of shape and he was having a real hard time and I was talking to him and I realized what he would benefit from mostly is a grief and loss professional so I called one of my best friends who is the number one hospice nurse in the country and who does this kind of thing.

24:05And I said, will you work with this kid? And he said, absolutely. And when this kid left, he stayed for about 60 days, maybe 90. But when he left, he was a new guy. And he was hugging me and telling me how grateful he was to have been here and how it changed his life. When you go to Carrera and you spend 30 days, that's like getting three years of therapy. So how are you after three years of therapy? Are you the same guy? No, not even after one, two sessions. I mean, it opens my perspective. That's right. One thing I'm personally curious about is your marketing strategy. You're marketing to 250 ,000 people.

24:50Right. Not a big demographic. How do you target that demographic? Well, that's hard, and I'm not going to tell you.

25:00that's that is my secret sauce that's hey bro this is what i do this is this is i'm only motivated i suck at business and i failed at everything the only thing that i can get my head around the only way i can wake up in the morning and get out of bed is if i'm helping to solve a social problem okay other than that i'm not a widget salesman i don't know how to do this all i do is i i do the best i can to leave this place better than i found it that's how i operate one thing i'm impressed about is your skills as a closer i mean like you're closing people on a couple hundred grand a month coffees for closers that's right well it's not hard to close anybody if you tell them the truth, right?

25:49And the truth is, if they're calling me about their kid and I say, well, how many kids you got? And they're like, one. I'm like, oh, well, then you better get this right because you're going to have a lot of pain, okay? Look, I'm so in love with my children. I'm going to tell you a story. You're going to love this. We were at my daughter's graduation from preschool. school. And I go in and the teachers, they're all hugging me because we're all very close. And the lady that ran the school looked at me and she said, you know, we used to laugh at you because you thought you loved your kid more than everybody else loved their kid.

26:36But then we got to know you and we realized not only do you love your kid more than anybody else loves their kid a lot of times you love their kid more than they love their kid when you have a child as late in life as i did and you think you were and you thought you were going to miss it and you finally get it it's the greatest thing in the world and to have children late in life means i appreciate it more right and it's scary because you know we end up kissing God's ass all the time just get me to where they're okay in the world without me that's it and those are my prayers god I didn't answer that question did I I forgot the question no you know what I talk about God and faith uh as we kind of close out the show but uh you know like faith and trusting in God is a big part of my purpose my whole purpose in life is just to do God's work So that's it.

27:37As long as we're wrapping up, I'll tell you this one story that will illuminate for you exactly who I am, because I don't think there's a better story.

27:53i just wanted to start carrera with a handful of people okay we're going to go slow and steady it takes a lot to open up a treatment center it takes six months of of ramp up before you're even licensed and you're spending a fortune to do it millions okay so i wanted to stay lean but a guy called me and he was crying and he told me about how he didn't have money for payroll and he owned this this center called one method center and i said when's payroll and he says 36 hours and i said well how many people you got in your house and he goes nine now nine drug addicts alcoholics getting treatment and this guy can't pay his employees and what happens when that happens is the employees take furniture and tvs and computers and they walk out of there leaving nine people okay who will never ever seek treatment again because they can't trust it so i went in there at 9 30 the next morning and by 12 30 i had met not met all the employees the clients um saw all the locations did all my due diligence negotiated the deal wrote up the short form and and had it all fully executed in three hours i was out of there at 12 30 because that's how i do my because that's how i do my uh due diligence because i'm such an adult okay so i come back to the office and I tell the girls what I did and they just start packing their stuff.

29:41And I'm like, where are you going? They're like, oh, we're going to see what you just did. And they come back with the blood rushed out of their face. And they're like, you bought nothing. I'm like, what are you talking about? They have no staff. I said, what are you talking about? I've met all the staff. Baby, you've been out of this a while. Okay. We have three shifts. We're the only shift they got. They're completely understaffed and operating illegally and we can't even take the money. And so I went like this and I said, you people have no faith. Go home. It'll be fixed in the morning. And then I cried myself to sleep because I had no clue how I was going to deal with this.

30:27None. And I woke up in the morning and I'm shaving and I don't like to look at myself in the mirror because who wants to see their grandfather? But halfway through, I just looked at myself and I said, everybody comes home today. And I called my old place cliffside and I called 10 people. And I said the same thing to everybody. I'm sorry for the late notice, but everybody comes home today. And everybody said a version of the same thing. We're doing it again. We are. Okay. Let me go give my notice and I'll call you back. And 10 people within one hour gave their notice to a fully realized, fully mature business.

31:12That was the number one treatment facility in the world. When I sold it, the number one and the second most recognizable second to Betty Ford. And they all came. So then I tell the president of my company, I said, Aaron, do me a favor. Don't take anybody else. We need to stay lean. We're all going to roll up our sleeves. It's a startup. We're going to get this done together. Okay? She says, okay. Ten days later, she walks into my office and she says, they're calling. I said, who's calling? She said, the people from Cliffside. I said, what do they want? They want to know what's wrong with them.

31:49They want to know why they can't come. How many, Aaron? 14. Wow. And I just started crying. And I said, take them all. And six followed. And then one more. And we had 31 people from the finest place in the world come right over, making our place the finest in the world. That's all you need to know about me. Put it all on the line. I got a couple of questions. A couple last questions. This one's about your kids. You know, you don't come from an extravagant, opulent upbringing like your children. How are you instilling that same level of grit and mindset and growth perspective that you had coming from poverty into your children growing up in abundance?

32:51Well, that's all my ex. My ex is without question the best woman I've ever met and the best mother I've ever met. So much so that my daughter is now learning to drive. and I said to her I said hey babe have you thought about what kind of car you want and she looked at me and she said I'll let you buy half my car and I said okay where are you gonna get the other half and she goes I'm gonna get a job what's wrong with you those are my kids okay my kids understand from a very early age that things don't matter i don't do the things okay yeah i got a nice watch okay i got one watch okay that's that's a lie i've got two watches okay that's a lie i've got four watches but the point i'm stopping that for myself yeah for yourself yeah but the point is i only wear one at a time um Um, my children understand that things don't matter.

34:07All they care about is time with their loved ones and that's it. They want your time. Your kids don't care about money. They want your time. They want to play. They want you to get down on their level and throw the ball. They want you to be interested in what they're interested in because when you're interested in what they're interested in. They feel important and I don't have to treat them. No phone around the kid because then they're not important. This is how you create agency in a child. That's great advice. One thing I feel like, my kids have even called me out. They're like, Dad, get off your phone.

34:52Get off your phone. Get down on their level. Dude, these are the only things that matter. Nothing else matters. It's all noise. The money doesn't mean shit. Kids make you money because if I didn't have children, I wouldn't have sold my last place. I would have just been grinding out a living and doing whatever because it would have been enough. But when you have children, you're scared. The world's getting to be a dangerous place. You have to make certain that they're okay in the world when you're gone. That's what every father, every good father wants. That and for their children to be proud of them.

35:35And that means the way you live your life, not what you have, but how you treat people. Treating, look, I love, I think that the best part of what I do is that I love the people that work for me. I don't just like them. I love them and they love me. Okay. That is how you run a boutique finest in the world treatment facility where you're, do you know that our first hundred people were by invitation only? well i don't know if that's ever happened before you could not work here unless you were vouched for by one of the 31 that started this and when people ask me rich i'm getting really busy i need some help will you hire somebody for me i don't know find somebody you know everybody in this industry find the person you want to work with with a good soul okay and hire them and they do that's how i operate two last questions this is a three-prong question what oh well you better do them separately because i don't have that kind of memory what's a personal goal that you have for yourself a family goal that you have for the family and then a goal that you have for your businesses okay the goal I have for myself and the business is the same oh no it's not the goal I have for myself is let me start with the kids first the goal I have for my children are to be like board members I want them to know what we're doing as a family so that they can do it and live a certain way right there are rules that i didn't know about when i got my first bag that now i'm very clear about okay and i don't want my children to make the same mistakes that i did okay um i think it's important that they're not given anything that they earn everything okay because otherwise they're going to donkey it off okay and that'll be my fault and I don't want to work my entire life to create a legacy where my kids understand their station in the world and their core belief which is we leave this place better than we found it okay we help people in our family they understand tell you a great story I'm driving with my kid and I see this woman at a bus stop but she's not sitting on the bench she's laying down on the floor and it's raining and she's got this blanket and all her stuff is all over the bus bench and so I look at my my son who's 10 at the time and I go babe daddy's got to get out of the car for a second I'm gonna lock you in it's a tough neighborhood all right he goes no problem dad so I get out I look at this woman and I say and I've only got like 300 bucks on me.