The Vuori Story - From Cash Crunch to an $8 Billion Valuation | E174

23:29So we had a tech company in late 90s, and we were revolutionizing the way that to serve web traffic. And we filed, this is crazy. We filed our S1 14 months after we incorporated the company on$3.2 million of revenue. Apple was 90 % of the business. We're the most oversubscribed IPO in Morgan Stanley history at that point. Only one more was Cisco. So when you file your documents to go public, people don't know. You file it months before, SEC reviews the documents, they come back with comments, but it has everybody's shareholdings in that company. I'm driving from O 'Hare to Chicago. I have a law board meeting.

24:11Ex-wife is with me. We were in a cab, no Uber back then. I get a call from this broker of Bear Stearns named David Pollack. And suddenly David is, who I like a lot. Hi, David, if you're listening, I still love you. But this was crazy. And I don't think I've ever shared this with you before how crazy I thought this was. He said, hey, Randy, congratulations. And I said, what are you talking about? I didn't even know. I'd left the company. So I didn't even know they had filed the S1 that day. I knew it was coming. And so he said, yeah, congratulations. And you own, I don't know what it was, 3 million shares of stock.

24:43I was taken aback by how intrusive it was. Then we went public. And I think our last round valuation, Joe, before we went public, we had Apple, we had Battery as Series A. And by the way, there was no seed back then or pre-set. It was A, B, C, and D. And so Battery was our first. They invested$8.25 million at$12.95 million. And we We had a Wall Street firm called Baker Capital put in$35 million. Apple, after Steve Jobs tried to buy the company, we were helping them serve QuickTime downloads, try to buy the company. We said no. They put in$25 million at a$250 million valuation that we thought we would never need.

25:20And Microsoft at a 1.2, Cisco at a$1.5 billion valuation. That was unheard of back then. A unicorn private company. When the stock went public on October 29, 1999, our company was worth$14.4 billion. And ultimately, 483 days or something like that, if we went public, our stock hit a valuation of$35 billion, which at the time was more than the value of Chrysler, Ford, and GM combined. And I'm from Detroit. So it was kind of a big thing. Then the company goes public, and all everybody wants to talk about is my net worth. By the way, it's paper net worth. And as you know, the only thing that matters is cash in the bank accounting entry, right?

26:02You can't live on paper. and we couldn't sell things, but there was so much press and everyone wanted to talk how wealthy I was on paper. It was highly uncomfortable. It's intrusive. Yeah. So that's likely the outcome that you're going to have, right? Access public markets, you know, fuel your growth that will go into the company. Are you prepared for all of that scrutiny? Because everyone's going to know at the end of the day, that's going to make you uncomfortable to say, but you're a billionaire. If you're not today, you're going to be. Definitely intrusive. And, you know, that is something my wife grew up in South Lake Tahoe with a single mom.

26:38I grew up, as we've talked about, without a lot of money in the household. This whole thing has been a big adjustment for our family. And we are a type of family that are pretty private. And we want our kids to grow up with a lot of the same type of values that we grew up with. And so, yeah, that's a reality that I probably won't fully come to terms with until it happens. It's tough. But it's something that I am, yeah, I'm conscious of. And it's going to be an adjustment. People treat you very differently.

27:12Joe Kudla:I hope you're enjoying this video so far. But before we jump back in, I want to know if you've ever thought about what you need to do to reach another level of success in your life. Over the last 25 years, I've been an advisor to more than 50 companies. I've invested nearly 100, including Google Lyft and Seagate. And I also co-founded a company that today is worth more than$15 billion. I've been incredibly blessed in my journey. And at this stage of my life, I want to give back. I want to share the lessons I've learned so you can reach incredible success way faster than I did. In my own journey, I've learned that having the right mentor is a massive advantage to achieving our goals.

27:44Joe Kudla:I'm hugely passionate about mentoring others. I'm looking for a few hungry entrepreneurs who are excited to take action on their journey to incredible future success. So if that's you, I've got an opportunity. In the description of this video, there's a link where you can apply to work with me. All you need to do is answer a few simple questions. And if you're a good fit, my team will reach out so we can build a game plan together. All right, now let's get back to the video. You're a lot more well-known than I was at the time. But I remember we had interesting investors in the first round, angel investors.

28:14And I'm not going to mention who they are because people will figure out who I'm talking about right now. So I remember going to a restaurant in Brentwood, Toscana. And I remember sitting there and I was with a couple of our investors, a company had gone public. And I think$100 ,000 investment at the time at one point was worth$80 million. It was something crazy. And I'm sure your people as well are sitting on$10 million. I don't think that quite, not quite that type of return. You couldn't sell. So it's like, you know, and you never know where people sell. Everyone wants to count everyone's money.

28:44But as my mom said, you should never count anyone's money. You never know what the real story is. So this famous movie producer comes over to our table. Randy, hey, how are you? I've heard so much about you. Would love to have lunch one day. I said, OK, we'll call him Steve. That's actually his name. And in Aspen, two years later, we're rolling into the St. Regis. We're getting out. We're checking in. And there's Steve. And so I get out of the car. And our stock at that point was worth$0.53 a share. Went from$345 a share to$0.53 a share. You don't feel so good, by the way, When your stock price loses 99.8 % of its value.

29:21And Steve looks at me, says, Randy Kaplan looks at me, do I know you? And it was emblematic of a lot of the relationships I have. Everyone loves a winner. People don't really like you when it's a different situation. I think that's important to remember that all the praise and acknowledgement, it's not for you, it's for the job. I am consciously aware of that. and I think it's part of why I try to keep my head down and I don't say yes to a lot of invitations. I tend to like to be here with my team building the company. I think that's where I add the most value to this process. It's not out in the public getting accolades or hobnobbing with celebrities or whatnot.

30:07I'm in this because I like to build. I really genuinely enjoy building product and that's what keeps me showing up every day. Let's talk about your biggest competitor, for lack of a better word, Lululemon. So Lululemon goes public and when they went public, they had a$1.24 billion valuation. Their peak over$50 billion. The stock has lost, I think, of today, 53 % from its high. Valuation today, I think, is$26 billion. Their CEO was high profile, went through some personal issues where he essentially was forced to resign. is now executive chairman of the company. Do you worry about going public?

30:46And if you miss projections by a penny, your stock could fall. I mean, your company could lose billions of dollars in value. That is one of the downsides, right? You keep having to make people happy. Yeah, of course. I mean, those are the realities of being a public company. As a company that has a very long-term vision and orientation to how we build, those are definitely things that we're cognizant of. So we hope that we'll put structures in place that will protect us from having to think too short term. But also, you know, we want to do right by the investors that join us on this journey. So it's a balance, you know, and we're going to have to we're going to have to tow that line.

31:24Let's talk about some of the things as we wind down today. And again, I appreciate you being here. Appreciate your time. I want to talk about some of the things that makes us successful. You were an outsider in a business and I've said before you knew almost nothing about it. Are your naivety was one of the best ingredients of your success. How can that be? I just think that we sometimes, the experience that gives us confidence to do things can also be very limiting in the way that we think. I interviewed a lot of people in the early days that had great experience, whether they were in merchandising or sales or marketing.

31:57What I realized is that they were really good at understanding one small corner of the page, but there was a lot more information and a lot more things to consider on that page than that corner that they were experts in. And sometimes being such an expert and knowing how to do an amazing job as a director of marketing or whatever the job was, a director of sales, you actually, in an entrepreneurial environment, I only need you to do the 20 % of that job that adds the most value. And I need you to spend your energy across a lot of other aspects of the business as well. but it was so deeply ingrained to want to do that small part of the job really, really well.

32:40It's hard to articulate, but in the early days of a company, you need people that are very diversified across. They're like rovers. They can do a lot of things and a lot of things well, but you may not need to do the full A plus job in this and the full A plus job in this, because you don't have the balance sheet to support that. And you also sometimes are like limited by your experience and you don't think maybe differently. Our category, for example, when we entered wholesale accounts would say, you can't sell that short for that price. And it doesn't fit into active wear and it doesn't fit into sports where therefore there's no opportunity.

33:19But we said to ourselves now, like this is the way people are living their lives. You guys are just, you guys are dated in your thinking and you need to catch up with where the market's going. So by holding a vision, it challenged everybody to think differently about our category. And so again, too much experience, you can be blinded and limited by that experience. Sometimes ignorance is the best path because you just jump in with two feet and you learn as things are being thrown at you. One of the most important qualities of my own success is something called extreme preparation. That's preparing more than anyone else for any podcast, any interview, any meeting and it works.

33:5899.99 % rate. You can take something that has almost zero chance of success and put it in the high 90s category. Can you give some examples of how extreme preparation has led to your success? I think that clarity on your strategic plan is something that is so incredibly important, especially as you go from a company in a garage with a handful of employees to hundreds of employees. And you have departments, a marketing department of 100 people, a product department of 100 people. Building alignment between your channel, your product teams, your marketing teams is something that requires a lot of intense focus and preparation to build clarity so everybody understands what the priorities and the objectives are and what not to do, what to say no to.

34:48Because there's so much opportunity that if we tried to chase down every opportunity, we wouldn't get anything done. And so learning what to say no to is something that I didn't fully appreciate in the early days of Viore, but as we've grown, I've developed a really intense appreciation for. And it all comes down to planning and communication and alignment ahead of what you're going to do when you go to market. On a scale of one to a hundred, how important is work ethic to our success. A hundred. Give us an example of you maybe staying up pulling an all-nighter before some important meeting. I think, you know, I can't speak to other entrepreneurs because I can't live within their bodies and understand what's in their minds, but I can speak to what was true for me.

35:33And that was that the idea of work-life balance on the path of entrepreneurship or building a great career, really building anything of significance, my belief is that it's not a nine to five job. It's something where if you believe in the power of manifestation, you have to feel it at a gut level. And that means you are obsessing on it. You are thinking about it. You are manifesting it into existence. And that doesn't come from a balanced approach. It comes from an obsession and a passion. And that translates to hard work. But like, I, I don't even think of it as hard work because it's like, what else would you be doing?

36:17You're, you're willing something into existence. It's like, it's not work. It's a, it's an extension of how you feel about something. Does that make sense? Yeah. You've mentioned that suffering is related to your success. So tell us about the Viore name, where it comes from, and then maybe your experience climbing the seven tallest peaks and what it's really like at two in the morning when you're freezing your ass off? A group of friends and I decided we were going to climb all the 14 ,000 foot peaks in California. And there's 12 of them. In the early days, when before Viore was born, we were in this process.

36:50So we were every summer, we would do one or two of these climbs. The process for me was quite, it was a suffer fest, you know, you know, your feet had blisters. You're carrying this horrible pack on your back. It's heavy. Your back aches. You sleep up at like usually around 12 ,000 feet, which is really high when you're coming from sea level. So I would always have these intense headaches. I wouldn't sleep. You'd be freezing cold at night because you're up at high elevation, even in the summer. Then you're waking up at two, three in the morning with headlamps and you're beginning the ascent up to the top so that you You can summit and get back down to camp in the afternoon.

37:30It was always a suffer fest for me. You know, some people just get incredible joy. They deal with altitude. But for me, it was incredibly difficult. But man, when I got to the top of that mountain, it was just like something would come over me and I'd be looking out at this incredible view. And I remember almost every time that I get up, like I would have just this like little tear, you know, just like a little tear that would come from my eye. And it wasn't a tear of sadness. It was a tear of like just pure inspiration of like pride that I overcame, that the human spirit had the power and the will to take that next step when I was just in so much pain.

38:10And so getting to the top, it was just so symbolic of life's journey, you know, and that we all are faced with these obstacles, every single one of us. And we all have our different stories. But man, when you rise and you keep taking that next step, we have the potential to unlock so much inspiration within us. And that is just the most beautiful thing in the world when we connect with that, what we're truly capable of. And so Viore means mountain in Finnish. And the rise, the shine is really all about the journey of life. It's about climbing that mountain. And we all have our own mountains. We're climbing different things.

38:45But life is so beautiful when we really, truly shine from within. Because we recognize what we're really capable of as humans. As I was sitting in your lobby before we started the show a half hour before, I always get to where I'm going one hour to 30 minutes before I study for my show. As I'm in there going over my 10th hour, 14th hour of preparation with my amazing producer, Natasha, who does an amazing job with my show. I noticed everyone walking in today. Today, I guess, is dog day. Bring your dog to work day. And I always notice, I like looking at the culture of firms. And I see everyone walking in.

39:23They had a good bounce on their step. No one was dragging their feet. I didn't see anybody, oh God, I'm coming to work today. Everyone looked positive attitude. When people talk about success of a business, I think culture is very, usually not one of the things that they mentioned the most, but here it's everything. Our three values are to make great products, to be in great relationships. And that starts with our relationships with ourselves, but extends out to each other, our customers and to live extraordinary lives. And that means different things to different people. We all express ourselves differently.

39:54I have always believed that great companies are just great people, you know, that are aligned by a common vision and they work together harmoniously. But like at the end of the day, we are, we're in the people business, you know, we make stuff, but like your culture is your superpower. And if you have to your point, people that are coming to work unhappy, people are going to feel that out in the world when they interact with Fiori's clothes. But when you have a company that's working together harmoniously and people are aligned by the vision and they're treated well and they're bought in, they're doing something that's bigger than a simple job.

40:29It creates an incredible energy within an organization. And I genuinely believe that the customer who's buying our product on the rack at Nordstrom or REI or shopping in one of our stores, they feel that energy. They feel the harmony in the organization. It translates out to every touch point. And so we always want to build this company from the inside out. It's not just a bunch of sizzle and no steak. It's about the steak. It's about the heart of the business. And that's the people and that's the product. It's how we work together here within our four walls. You hire people for fit and not resume.

41:09What does that really mean? If you have kind of a shitty resume, but they really like you here, are you going to hire that person? What is the weighted average of both of those? I don't know where that came from, but we balance both. Experience is incredibly important, as is culture fit. You have a no meeting at lunchtime rule, which is awesome. I eat through my lunch every day. It takes me six minutes, Joe and the Juice sandwich. You usually get some sushi next door and I'm jamming. I'll check ESPN news. In 10 minutes, I'm back at work. I think it's a brilliant idea. It gives people the opportunity to kind of decompress and then come back fresh.

41:55Is that the idea? Yeah, we call it our investment and happiness hour. And it's just, we encourage our leaders to not schedule meetings over lunch. We developed a firm policy that there were to be no meetings at lunch because we recognize people need a break. And people break those rules at times. We're all human. Sometimes people just want to get the work done. My experience is that when I take a moment to go take a walk, get some fresh air, take a break, I'm so much more productive that afternoon than when I just push through. We try to encourage our people to just like within the craziness and the busyness, like this is not an easy culture.

42:38It's not. We're building something of significance. We're building a global business. It's hard. We're putting a lot of new process in, new people coming into the organization. We're changing how we work all the time. It's not easy. So what I can't offer people is just a place that's going to not challenge them because it is going to be challenging. But within that, we try to make sure that the people here are genuinely kind. They care for the people that they work with, that we have a good culture, a good place of how we do the work together. We try to approach it with positivity and kindness.

43:18And so while it may not always be easy, we try to create an environment where people can thrive within it. Your marketing strategy has changed throughout time. You now have ambassadors like the Gerber family. So Cindy Crawford, Randy, Kaya. You launched the Kaya collection, I think, today, which looks very cool. I just saw some things outside in the hallway. Charles Charlie showed me around which was awesome Arch Manning Livvy Dunn Colson Loveland what Jack Draper playing in the US Open there you go Jack Draper I heard that as well it's a big one so who's next and our celebrities really worth what you're paying them to promote your brand there's a lot of CEOs and companies who at the end of the day you talk to and say gosh you know that's really a waste of money yeah I think in the early days our philosophy was that we didn't need partners of global significance and notoriety to build the brand.

44:16But the company is big now. We're opening stores in Korea and China and the UK, the Far East. The business is growing and it's global. And so we don't have the benefit of having the same grassroots strategies, boots on the ground in these distant lands as we did when we were building the business from the inside out here in Encinitas. And so we just have to think about how we build awareness on a global scale. So that looks a little bit differently than it did in the early days of building the brand. I think what's really important when you work with partners is that there's a genuine love for what you do.

44:55So that's number one. There has to be an authentic connection because if it's authentic and it's real, the partnership will thrive. If it's forced and you're just paying somebody to try to endorse your brand or product, people sniff out the inauthenticity. So there has to be values alignment. And if you start there, we tend to see great results. How are you using AI in your business? And are you experiencing what I read about, what we read about now, every day that AI is replacing humans in their jobs? We are not seeing that. As a matter of fact, We plan over the next five years to hire more people per year than we've hired any year in our company's history.

45:38So we plan to continue to bring a lot of talented people into our organization. But our hope is that AI will make our people more effective and efficient. And so people's work is more meaningful. They'll have more time to think, more space to be creative, and less time hitting keys on keyboards. With all of your success and the money that you've made, have you done something very special with a family, a trip? Have you bought yourself something that you said to yourself when you're in the quiet moment saying, oh my gosh, look at what I built. I want to buy myself something special. you know we my wife and i have have you know we bought a place in lake tahoe where we love to spend time and it really is a grounding place for our family you know if when things get crazy and i'm traveling and you know i've been away from the kids like we go to tahoe and that's like our place to re-center and so that's been really um powerful for us and we're so grateful to be able to retreat and go there but some of the biggest joys for me you know i bought my mom a house the best yeah That was a really special moment for me.

46:46My sister, who is carrying on my dad's work, she's a naturopathic doctor and an acupuncturist. I've been able to help her out a lot. I bought her a house. My dad passed away, but before he was dying, he always dreamed of living by the water. And so I bought him a house on Vashon Island where I was born. And then ultimately, I gave that house to my sister when he passed. I think one of the things that, you know, people talk a lot about philanthropy. I really believe in philanthropy starting really close to home. Are the people that are washing your clothes, are they thriving? You know, so our cleaning lady who's been with us forever, she's become a part of our family.

47:29Our kids love her like family. She was having car trouble. So we bought her a new car. Like being able to like give back to the people that are closest to us and making sure that the, you know, my mother-in-law is thriving, my mom, my sister, making sure that the nucleus is thriving. So we spend a lot of time focusing there first and then building out from there. When I made money, my grandmother, who was my hero, she lived till she was 104, raised in foster care, slept in closets, was the maid essentially back in the day. The families took them in just to make money. and I did well financially.

48:07And then I supported her for the rest of her life for 30 years, paid her rent, bought her a car. And I said, Nan, I'm going to buy you whatever car you want. You just tell me, you know, you go to the dealership, you give me a call, I'll wire the money. You have to hit me before one o 'clock in California because that's the wire caught off. So she calls me a few months later. I said, Randy, I got the car. I'm so excited. And I said, okay, and I'm waiting for the Mercedes dealership. I said, Nana, where are you? She said, I'm at the Toyota dealership. And I said, what? I said, what car did you get?

48:41I said, got a Camry. I said, and you know, she grew up in the day where long distance phone bill is like one minute a call and you'd call her and it'd be like rushing off the phone. So that was just her and, you know, she never had a Mercedes and, you know, she had a nice place, which I paid for. But so I borrowed a Camry and I go to Detroit that summer to visit. I'm from Detroit and she's excited to show me the car. And she sent me this picture of this red Camry and she's going like this in front of the car. So I'm excited. She's like, Randy, let me take it for a drive. It's a 90 degree humid day.

49:15We get inside the car and it's like worse than the sauna. And I go to lower the window and there's no button. There's a crank. And I said, Hey Nana, what's up with, what's up with it? She said, well, I said, and I said, what's up with the cloth seats? She said, well, the seats were$600 more and the windows were$1 ,100 more. And I said, Oh, no, no. Like we're we're we're beyond that at this point. And like and that was the first of four Camry's that I bought her. But it's it's such a joy when you can take care of your family and do nice things for your family. You mentioned philanthropy, which is also important.

49:49Not only when you make money, can you make a difference? By the way, we had a woman who took care of us when we were young kids to Cleo, who was with our family for 50 years. When I made money, she had been retired and was old, so I sent her family some money as well, which it's always nice when you call someone who has done amazing things for you and they don't expect it coming. And they're blown away, but it feels way more to give than to get. But when you make money, you also can give away money, but you can influence people to give away money. So talk about the Rob Marchato Foundation and what you're doing here at Viore and then personally to help other people.

50:28Rob's foundation is very separate. We've done a lot to support Rob, but they're putting clean water drinking stations in public schools across San Diego. And so we've helped Rob with that foundation and done our part. But I think beyond that, Viore has always looked for opportunities to give back to the community. And so sometimes that's a not-for-profit that has a really cool mission. Like the partner that we're working with right now is called Foster the Earth. And they take foster kids and they give them opportunities to connect to nature. So every month they go on a hike together. And then at the end of the year, they take all these foster kids and they go on a huge, like they'll go climb a mountain, you know, and that's very important.

51:10It was very connected to my story and my journey. But they'll go and like climb Mount Whitney, for example. And these experiences are transformational for these kids. And these are foster kids who grew up in the system without parents. And so we're doing a lot to support that organization right now. And we really believe in their mission. We like opportunities where we can be experientially involved in our giving. As a company, we'll have volunteers that'll go out and be a part of that experience. We also love connecting people with the ocean. Our natural playground at Viore is like the Pacific Ocean to the High Sierras.

51:48And that informs and inspires a lot of the products we make. And so that's our playground. And that's where we also want to give back is helping underprivileged youth connect to experiences, connecting to the mountains, to the sea. So creating environments for people to go surfing. We'll leverage our ambassadors and we'll partner with organizations that are out there providing those opportunities for kids that would never go to the beach. And then the last pillar, which hasn't come to life fully yet, will be around sport and providing opportunities for kids to play sports. And that's very much like the spirit of the Viore brand.

52:22It's about sport. It's about connection to nature, connection to community. And my mom always says that money is a lot like energy and you don't ever want stagnant energy. And so she talks about completing the circle where when you receive a lot, you don't want to just bottle that energy up and just be where it stops. Giving back and completing that circle of life is so important to like really thrive with your personal health, your spirituality. And so that's something that I'm trying to really incorporate into our lives, not only as a company, but also as a family. One really cool thing that the company did is in the fires in Los Angeles, you gave a 40 % discount to all people who were affected by the fires, which was really incredible.

53:13Well, we took, beyond that, we took all of our stores in LA, which I think we have five of them, and every store became a giving outpost. And so we sent all of our inventory from our distribution center, anything excess that we could part ways with, we brought it to our stores and we invited the community down and anybody that was impacted by the fires could come down and just pick out a new outfit. Yeah. I mean, I went into the Century City Mall to buy some clothes because we had to get out of our house. My daughter's school burned down and thankfully they're all set, but I didn't feel comfortable taking the 40 % discount because there were people who needed it more than I did.

53:54But I thought that was really, really cool. So thank you for doing all that. Yeah. Oh yeah. It was our pleasure. It was such a tragic moment for everybody's lives down here in Southern California. Yeah. All right, we're at the end of the show. I always conclude my show with a game called Fill in the Blank to Excellence. Are you ready to play? Let's go. If I hadn't met that woman at the party that night, I would be... Potentially still in a really challenging relationship and in a career where I wasn't super inspired showing up every day. The biggest lesson I've learned in my life is... Surround yourself with great people.

54:26You are the company that you keep. My number one professional goal is... To change the world. My number one personal goal is... To be a great dad. My biggest regret is... No regrets. My biggest fear is... Waking up on my deathbed realizing I didn't take that step towards something that was really in my heart. The craziest moment that's ever happened in my career is... Probably getting invited to go and work as a model. The funniest thing that's ever happened in my career is...

55:00uh it's probably raising money from google ventures and then um giving it back to them you got to talk about that for just at least 60 seconds a friend uh of mine was married to a guy named bill maris who started google ventures bill's great you know bill yeah i mean a little bit yeah when we were starting out on the journey we couldn't raise money it was really really tough bill almost as I think philanthropy and because he was getting married to a friend of mine decided they were going to write a check but it came with some it came with some caveats like they would put so much money in but in order to get the second tranche we had to raise so much from outside investors we got the first tranche but we were having a really hard time getting to the other amount and we had another investor that wanted to come in and there was a conflict of interest between Google Ventures and this new investor, but this new investor wanted to write a bigger check.

55:58And so ultimately we went to Bill and Bill was like a friend and he wasn't super emotional about the investment. He was almost doing it, I think more as a favor to us. And so Bill just said, look, if you want to take this other money, we're happy to unwind our investment, just pay us back and we'll tear up the legal documents. And so ultimately that's what we did. I can't remember who introduced us, but it was, I think this woman, I had a friend who was friends with his wife. And I think, did they get married? Because that was my intro. We had a few phone calls, but we've never met in person. He's a great guy.

56:35And now he's an investor in Viore. After all that, he's come back in individually. I love it. The best advice I've ever received is? I would say get a mentor, listen to your mentor, but ultimately at the end of the day, trust your own instincts because nobody knows your business quite like you do. I cut out a question, but now I'm gonna put it back in. I think mentorship is one of the most important things that any hungry, motivated person can find. You have to earn mentorship. You just can't send someone a LinkedIn message and say, hey, I mean, I get these all the time. I'm sure you do as well.

57:10And no, you got to earn it. You got to do something valuable. You got to show that you're coachable. How does a random person today get Joe Kula to be their mentor? It breaks my heart that it's probably very difficult because I'm raising young children and I just, with the limited amount of time that I have, I want to be there for my kids. And so it's hard, but I love the idea of mentorship. And so what I would just say is like, it can't be a formal ask to be a mentor, but I'm always up for a phone call. And if it organically turns into something where I can be a value, then that's what it turns into.

57:47I have a professional coaching business now, which is taking up more and more of my time. I mean, it used to be free, by the way, but I work 70 hours a week and I've changed lives. And I have a coach. I pay for the coach when you have a coach. And by the way, all of my guests nearly have coaches. You have a professional coach helping you in your business? I have had a number of coaches at different stages in my life. Right. And so, you know, my joy is not only do I get to make a decent amount of money, it's very expensive, but the results are very good. But I get to also pursue my passion. Yeah.

58:17Which is changing lives and helping people, which is which is the goal of this show, by the way. So 10 years from now, I'm going to be doing hopefully this in 20 years from now, I'm going to be doing hopefully coaching and mentoring and giving back. If you were President Trump today, the next thing that you would do is? I don't know. I think he's working hard on solving all these different conflicts that we've got going on. I would stay focused on that. If you could meet one person in the world today who's alive, it would be? I would love to sit down with Warren Buffett. I'm a huge fan of cold calling.

58:51And my guess is that you would have some decent probability of success to call Warren Buffett and say, I'm a great entrepreneur. I built this company from scratch. It's worth rumored to be$8 billion today. I bet he meets with you. Yeah. I would love to meet him. I would also love to meet Phil Knight and I would love to meet Richard Branson. So Richard Branson takes people to Necker Island. And I hear that you certainly know the right people to get the invite there.

59:17Joe Kudla:Yeah. And I've heard people go down there, crazy stories. Yeah. Him hanging and taking you around all kinds of cool things. Yeah. Have you tried to meet Phil Knight before? I was at a golf course once and he was walking around the golf course and I walked past him. And the kind of the rule of the club is that you don't kind of solicit people. So I was sensitive to like, just, you know, say something to him, but I regret, I regret it because looking back, I should have, I should have asked him if he had a few minutes. We don't, we don't have to talk about where it was, but was it one of Mike Meldman's properties?

59:51Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so Mike Meldman was on the show, Discovery Land Company. If you haven't watched that episode, you got to watch it. And it's interesting because there are a lot of people. We have a home in Coeur d 'Alene. As you know, we talked about this Gaza Ranch. And I've said it on my show before, so I don't mind talking about it. But there are just so many interesting people going around there. Yeah. Tony Robbins was on my show, which is my dream hero. He's another one I would love to meet. When I started my show four years ago, he was my number one guest. I read a book in college. He changed my life.

1:00:22So many people said, oh, I'll introduce you to Tony. And by the way, I paid$25 ,000 for this mastermind so I could shake his hand. And then Doug Evans, who was also on my show, amazing friend. Thank you, Doug. Great episode as well. Said, I know Tony. I'll introduce you. Tony left me this amazing voicemail that night, voice memo. And then invited me down to do a show at his house in Palm Beach, which is a thrill of a lifetime. And I'm going to his four-day seminar, Unleash the Power Within, which I hear is like, I mean, four days. I don't know. I mean, no phone, ADD. I'm not sure I can really.

1:00:55Oh, you're going to love it. Can't really do it. You're going to love it. He's just, he's the best. Yeah. And I'm going to see whether I can hook that up for you or not. Awesome. He's incredible. Awesome. He came to Gaza once and I'll just share the story. So it was the summer before last and we were at the clubhouse and my wife said, Tony Robbins behind and he'll fly in for one or two days and that's it. And he's gone. He was behind us, but I didn't turn around. and so I'm like all right I'm gonna get to him I'm gonna give myself 15 minutes and then I'm gonna go up I'm gonna go to the bathroom I'm gonna walk up to the table and I'm gonna introduce myself and when that 15 minutes was up he's gone so I I had the I had the chance yeah if you were on your deathbed today and you had two minutes to live and your wife and kids were with you What would you tell them?

1:01:47I would probably tell them that nothing that I accomplished in my life would have been possible without them and that I'm proud of them. The one thing I've dreamt about doing for a long time but haven't is? Skydiving. I'll share a skydiving story as well. And then that'll be the last. I have one more question and then we're done. I went to a bachelor party before my first marriage. everyone went skydiving to Vegas and my wife to be wouldn't let me go because she didn't want me to die or break a leg and so my son Charlie who's now 21 he had an incentive to do something for him to go skydiving and I would pay for it so he did he went skydiving in the video how old was he at the time?

1:02:38He was last year, he was 20. 20. Yeah. So he just said, and you know, you get the video and all that, and you see the plane going up and it's so rickety. It looks like it has holes in the side of the plane and it can hardly get up in the air. And you always read about once a year, skydiving plane goes down and there's something happening, but that's, that's on my list. I'm terrified of heights.

1:02:59Joe Kudla:Yeah. Last question. The one question that you wish I had asked, What didn't is. Honestly, I feel like you have been so thorough. The most prepared man in the business. There's nothing that you didn't ask me that I can think of. I think it was awesome talking to you. Thank you. Likewise. I'm excited to get to know you better. Yeah. We're going to be neighbors at some point in the future. Yeah. We have kids the same age. Absolutely. We'll be hanging. I hope our kids are going to be lifelong friends. Oh, yeah. No, it'll be so fun. If we can see each other down there, that would be really cool. All right.

1:03:32Awesome. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Congratulations on all your amazing success. Thank you. Really appreciate it.