From selling ACs to becoming the tourism king of Jamaica

A white dude from Jamaica who built an incredible, you know,

“multi-billion dollar business and lived life on his own terms.”

That's the headline. ♪ I feel like I could root a world ♪ ♪ I know I could be what I want to ♪ ♪ I put my own in it like the days are ♪

♪ On a bold, less travel never ♪

This is my billy other week. So this is a guy who created something called sandals. Now let me tell you, let me tell you the story. First, we just gotta look at this picture because I'll be damned. If this doesn't look like a young sand par.

Look at this guy. This is not you. - Yeah. - This guy's new. - It's he actually, he's Jamaican.

So he lived in Jamaica. Okay, so here's the story. So his name's Gordon Stewart and he's born in Jamaica. White kid born in Jamaica. His mom calls him butch because he was chubby.

So he becomes known as butch for the rest of his life, which is amazing. As a young kid, he does all kinds of odd job, little hustles. So he's like helping out the fishermen that he buys a boat.

Then he starts making money, boating the fishermen around and repairing boats. And he would skip school all together. He was like, he's like, I just want to be on the water. And he goes, he said later,

I didn't want to be a businessman. I want to be a fisherman. Just a rich fisherman. And that led him into business. So I love this guy.

So he's like, along the way, he's living in Jamaica. Obviously Jamaica is super hot. And he realizes as air conditioning becomes a bigger and bigger thing. That air conditioning's going to be huge in the Caribbean.

Things take time to diffuse from different places. And so maybe it was normal in the States, but it wasn't as normal in the Caribbean yet. And so he saves up $3,000. And he starts a company called Appliance Traders Limited.

And the idea is he's going to import AC from the US AC units. And he's going to go door to door, selling them himself. And he decides, I'm going to do this B to B. I'm going to convince business owners that they should have AC because for them,

it's not just about their own comfort, but they're going to have more sales. If their store has AC and the other store doesn't, customers are going to want to spend time in their stores. So great idea.

Now he's like, how do I differentiate myself? So he tries selling door to door. So he makes some progress just hustling. And he hires some other island boys to come help himself. But he's going up against general electric.

So he's going up against like, Western House. He's going up against these huge companies that have much bigger sales forces than him. So he's like, he asks himself a better question. Instead of, how do I outcompete them on sales

where they're excellent and have more resources? How do I do something they would not dare to do? So he goes, what can the big guy not do? Speed.

“And what does the big company not care about service?”

So he decides to differentiate his offerings. So he says, if you call me, I'll have AC installed within eight hours. It just starts with that vision. And he's like, works backwards to figure out operations. Like, how could I possibly do that?

Well, I guess I'd need boys over here. I need a call dispatcher. I need a prioritized, the most recent call. I'm not the oldest call and deliver this eight hour service.

And then the second thing he says is, look, these ACs,

they break, they're running them all the time. Here's the deal. We will fix all the ACs, no extra charge. Like, if it breaks, we fix it and we fix it fast. And nobody else is going to offer you this.

And because of these two things, speed and service, he dominates the Caribbean market. He takes over Jamaica. He builds a powerhouse. And so out of this, that's his first kind of fortune

that he makes. How much did it make? I don't know what his network at this time, but it's enough where he could go to Montego Bay and buy a rundown hotel that everybody else ignored.

And so 1981, he buys this resort called Bayrock. And at the time, people think he's crazy. Because tourism is not that popular in Jamaica at the time. Crime was super high. This hotel was rundown, had a bad rep.

And so he was buying kind of a rundown, distressed asset. But he has this vision. So he's like, I love it here. I think people will love it here. I just have to find a positioning for this.

And this is where, butch, the marketing genius starts to inspire me. What's Montego Bay? I'm not feeling, I mean, it's a city in Jamaica. I think it's a city.

It's a place area. I don't know if it's a city or town or whatever you call it. But yeah, my sister got married there. I should probably know this. But if it's a Jamaica, it's a Jamaica thing.

OK, so he has this vision. He's like, I want to give Americans a carefree luxury Caribbean vacation.

“And so he's like, what's the worst thing about vacation?”

He's like, you know, you don't know where to go. You don't know what you're going to get. And then you sort of the cost add up. And you get nickel and dime. And people feel like they may not be able to afford it.

And that will stop some people from coming. So he's like, let me do it instead this way. Up front, you get one price. And everything is included. And I'm going to standardize luxury.

So he's like, there wasn't luxury in this area.

So first thing he does, he rebrands the Bay Rock to sandals.

Because he's like, that already sandals, like embodies relaxation and like being on the beach. Then he goes and he starts studying. So he's a shameless copycat. So he's like, I'm going to go study all the other hotels

And I'm going to steal the best ideas from each. So he goes and he sees club med. And he's like, oh, it's good. But it's a little too Spartan. I like, I feel like I'm going to like make a mess here.

And I'm in trouble if I do that. So like, I want luxury.

“But still, you should feel like you're here.”

You can have a good time here. And then he's like, oh, I like the way they serve this champagne. Ooh, what is this thing? A whirlpool? We're going to get one of those over here.

So he starts importing innovation from all these different places. - Wait, really quick. Have you seen that meme where it's like, you know, if you're going up against a deal,

or you know if you're going up against this guy in a deal, you're going to get screwed at a time with a fat wallet wearing like, you know, regular blue jeans and he's kind of fat and chubby and with a fat watch, you know, that meme.

- And new balance? - Yeah. - Yeah, new balance. Bush do her looks like this guy. And I could see him like doing research,

where he's like at a bar and he sees something interesting goes, hey, miss, you know, you've been a lovely waitress. Keep bringing over that song, bitch. Let me look at that Margarita Maker. What is that?

Tell me about that thing. Hey, can you do me a favor, Dahl? Go ahead and order me about 20 of them. Will you please darling? - It's not like, exactly.

It's the famous Sam Walton story.

“Where Sam Walton did the same thing, he would study every other retailer.”

Sam Walton who created Walmart, of course. But on the way, on the rise, what helped make Walmart so great is that he stole anything good, any other retailer did. He would steal it. So there's a great story of Sam Walton in Brazil.

And someone is walking down the aisles of a store and they see a man dead on the ground. And they were like, oh my god, it helps. The guy's dead here. He's just passed out on the ground.

And that man was Sam Walton and he was not dead. He was measuring the distance between aisles, using his body length. Because he didn't have a ruler with him. He's like, I like this spacing. What is this?

So he laid down and he used this body button. That's about from the shoulder to knee. They didn't understand what he was doing.

And so, so Bocho was basically doing this.

He decides to rebrand it as couples only. Because one of the things he realizes is that like, a lot of these reports, it's like, he look around. You see, the people who are here, the love birds who are here, and then you got the families who are here.

And they're kind of interrupting, you know, the families don't want to see these two making out. And the makeouts don't want the kids running around. So he decides, what if I just made it instead of just okay for everybody?

What if I made it great for one killer use case? So he rebrands it as couples only. It's adults, it's romance, it's no kids. And this was a radical positioning at the time. Nobody was really doing this, but it gave it a clear identity.

And then he pours millions of dollars into advertising. Which, again, most people would not do. So he had not proven out the concept. It's not like he was taking profits and reinvesting them. He was reinvesting because he just had a belief.

Well, had he raised money for this? No, this is the money he made from the AC company. And so he's like, spend bigger to earn bigger. And later he had this great line, which he says, because he built the ends up building, I don't know,

30 resorts or something like that in Jamaica. And he's done all, you know, millions of square feet. And he says, the most valuable real estate in the hardest real estate to build is the one in the consumer's mind.

And that's always where I start.

And I was like, oh, I love this guy. Just the old school ad man, just a classic ad man. Like the type of guy he's like never read a book in his life on advertising. But like, listen to one TED talk.

“And that's what he bases his entire education on.”

Yeah, exactly. [MUSIC PLAYING] All right. So a lot of people watch it, listen to the show, because they want to hear us just tell them exactly

what to do, what it comes to starting or growing a business. Now, a lot of people message Sean and I and they say, all right, I want to start something on the side. Is this a good idea? Is that a good idea?

And again, what they're really just saying is just give me the ideas. Well, my friends, they're in luck. So my old company, the hustle, they put together a hundred different side hustle ideas.

And they have appropriately called it the side hustle idea database. It's a list of a hundred pretty good ideas, frankly. I went through them, they're awesome. And it gives you how to start them, how to grow them, things

like that gives you a little bit of inspiration. So check it out, it's called the side hustle idea database. It's in the description below. You'll see the link, click it, check it out. Let me know the comments, which is the thing.

And the other thing cool thing it does is he basically revitalizes Jamaica. So he ends up employing like 10,000 Jamaicans. He's like loved in Jamaica for what he did for the local economy, how he treated people.

There was a big change that happened when he brought tourism. And so he goes on on a buying spree, basically, as this happens. And he starts buying more and more failing hotels across the Caribbean.

He would be super hands-on. So he'd go stay there, he'd eat the food, he'd sleep in the bed, he'd check the pillows, and he'd basically make detailed notes about anything that needed to change.

So if a customer complained about the temperature of the champagne, it wasn't chilled enough. He would make sure by the next day, like all the fridges are recalibrated to the right temperature. And he would let the customer know, like, you know,

thank you, we changed it for you.

So he was always tweaking.

And that was one of his core philosophies. Like, I'm not going to get it right right away, but I'm going to tweak a tweak until I get it there.

So hotels are known for their repeat rate.

“So like, you could tell the quality of a hotel,”

not by the number of stars that it's rated. But by how many guests come back and stay again? And sandals would have, like, for decades, like a 50% repeat rate, which was like, unheard of in the industry.

People loved going there. And so this guy would just take all these crazy measures to make it to some build this business. So he would, he's like, I, after he ran out of buying the like distressed hotels that already existed,

he's like, I need to buy new great properties on beach runs. And so one thing he realizes that there's so many beaches that people don't even really know about. So he would rent a helicopter and fly over the island and look for undiscovered beaches

and then find them scout them by the land and then build the hotel on that, which is just like,

again, just to sort of a brute force first principles

approach to building, you know, a luxury hotel. And now his kids are running it. So is it, is it an independent business? Yeah, he passed away in 2021. I'm not sure so sure what's going on

with the business since then. But yeah, he kind of left that, that's his legacy, basically, in Beijing. His kids, like, they said, like, you know, all these wonderful things about him, which is another great test,

you know, how great of a man are you sort of like,

“you know, dear kids, what do your kids want to be around you?”

What do they have to say about you? And, you know, it seems like, at least from the outside, that he did a good job there. He also did this crazy thing with the airlines. You know, the story?

Well, I honestly, Wikipedia says that he owned Jamaican air. Exactly. So he realizes at a certain point, he's like, it's pretty, he's like, I'm telling you this is paradise, but the experience to get to paradise is hell, right?

This is heaven, well, that's hell. So he's like, air Jamaica was this failing airline, the brand sucked, the service sucked. And so, you know, you sign up for this vacation. I give you these glossy ads.

He was buying ads and playboy in Cosmo and like, anywhere that he could sell the idea that if you're in love, you go to sandals. So not just like, it's a nice vacation. It's a symbol of how much you love each other

is that you do a sandals vacation. And like, you know, the way that sort of diamonds or a girl's best friend are like diamonds or forever diamonds became dissymbol for, do you commit, you know, are you, are you all in on this?

He did that with basically the vacation.

So he's doing this, but he's like, the airline experience sucks, getting here and going home, sucks, that's kind of the first impression and the last impression that the consumer is going to have. So what does he do?

He buys the airline, takes full control, like vertically integrate the experience. And he's like, look, the airline was a tough business. It's a bad business, but he had an advantage, which is he owned the resorts.

So he basically used the airline as a giant flying billboard to the resort. And he's like, I will just market my resorts. I'll bundle the flights and hotels. I will use it to advertise my resorts

so that you want to stay there. I will do service and kind of like lose a little money or break even on the airline. As long as I give you a first class experience down to my resorts where you're going to spend a lot of money.

He's like, if they get off the plane angry, you know, then it doesn't matter. I've already lost the game before they step foot on the beach. Again, I love this guy. Brian Chesky, my wife's work at Airbnb and Brian Chesky,

would give this talk, it's about like,

“I think he called it a 10 star experience”

where he was like, he has his famous like way of art. Is it 12 star or he was like, well, what's like a one star experience? One star experience is like, you book, you do a book and we leave the key out of the mat and it's just fine. And there's rats and it doesn't look like the pictures.

Yes, that's one star. And a five star is like Michelin restaurant, like style service. He's like, but what's six stars? And like people start getting creative. They're like, you get picked up in a limo and whatever.

But what's eight stars? What's 10 stars? And he goes all the way up to 12 stars. And for him, it was, it's a really cool exercise to think about what's like extreme hospitality.

And he made this argument and this was pre-COVID. And it's COVID changed everything in Airbnb because they had a focus on different stuff because they were, you know, it was an existential crisis. But he used to say that he wants to launch an airline.

And I was thinking, I was like, what could the tagline be for that? And it would be like, when you fly with us, the vacation starts at the airport. Right. And I was like, that's so interesting.

Like, we could actually make that a thing. And if you were a flat or he said that, I said that. Not to him. I was just like thinking in my, that Airbnb job off from my come back around 20 years later.

That's a good one, right? Because I was thinking about like, when, you know, if you fly first class or flying or you go to the lounge, you're like, it's pretty cool. The vacation started now.

So like, I just got, and if you sometimes get there early, and you've got to wait three or four hours, because I'm a, I'm an early early arrival at the airport. Like, it's kind of like, it's four hours early. Like, three hours.

But like, if there's a delay, I don't know. Dude, I get there early. Are you crazy? What are you doing?

I've never missed a flight in my life.

The time with you was the closest I've ever gotten. But no, I don't miss flights. How, how early do you get there? Now I guess I get there, I have TSA kind of changed things, but yeah, I'm always at least a two hour early guy.

and see if I can get the TSA in the next 20 to 30

and that leaves me another 20 to 30 to get on the plane easy. But if I have lounge access, I'm like, I'm just going to eat there. I'll like eat my lunch or dinner there

and then we'll get on the plane. And so, that's my slogan. The vacation should start at the airport. All right, we need a trademark. That's pretty good, right?

That's really good. Yeah, that has a ring to it. I enjoy reading about hotel businesses. There was a, I had a plane with my own little hospitality business.

It was called an Airbnb that went horrible. (laughing) But I read a bunch of books on this. Have you ever heard about Harris Entertainment? It was a, it was a,

Harris was a casino.

And this was like in Vegas?

Yeah, so it was a casino. But this was before like kind of casinos became hotels. But I was reading this book called the Caesar Palace coup and about 2018, all these head shruns had owned little bits and pieces of Caesar Palace,

“which I think was the largest casino hotel”

management company in the world. And it's about like the greed and all the stuff of like what it took to bike by and how like the downfall of it. But they talk about the founding of it. And it was founded as Harris Entertainment.

And then there was another hotel they merged. They created Caesar's Entertainment. But up until like the 1990s or early 2000s hotels were just, like the hotel in casinos were just like really simple businesses.

But then Harris and the Caesar when it merged hired a guy who was a 40 year old mathematician from Harvard. He had no management experience, no experience, running a company, his name is Gary Loveman. And he comes in and he just makes this his math playground.

And he dials it in to the within two years of him being CEO. They dialed this in. I think in like the year 2001 before the internet was like super popular to where when you called and booked a hotel based on all types of math, they would know to offer you

an upgrade or offer you 50 bucks in free gambling because they was all math to them. And they knew that if they get you a free room, they got you hooked on gambling. It was all like a statistical thing.

And he basically invented this idea of actually don't know what the phrase would be. But this idea of like using data in math like a money ball type of way for hotel guests. Uh, this is sick.

I've never heard of this guy.

Gary Loveman says after nine years at the faculty of Harvard Business School, he left to become CEO of Harris and then became CEO of Caesar's for 12 years. That's crazy. He owns a minority owner of the Boston Celtics.

The use of analytics to influence customer behavior. Yeah, up until him, it had never been done. But he was a famous faculty member at Harvard and he would teach all this methodology. And then one day Harris was like, hey,

we will like hook you up big time. We'll give you access to the private jet. So you can fly down on a Monday, come home on a Friday. You know, we're going to roll up the red carpet for you. Just do what you want.

And he did what you wanted. And eventually they go, all right, brother. You're now CEO, it works great. And so he like, it was crazy. Like, in the three months of him joining the company,

they saw massive improvements. And then within like a year or two, he implemented, it was all data driven. He's like, cherries in the vodka. We're going to put cherries in the vodka.

There was like, we don't know, the data says, but cherries in the vodka slot machine sales are going to go up by 3.3%. Right, like the, I mean, a casino is one of the most I can well optimize.

It's like, you are the sponge. And the casino is ringing you out. Well, he's the guy who did that.

“And so now, I think he's chairman or VP chairman,”

something like that of Etna, one of the largest insurance companies in the world. Yeah, perfect. Just what we did. It's the same.

It's the same, like math, words like it's just some, like if your goal is just maximize profits, like you do this math equation. This is like when I learned the tobacco companies, like own craft food or whatever.

It's like, oh, the children's food. It's done by the cigarette company. Yeah, like Annie's goldfish is owned by the same guy who's like making a, making, uh, cigarette lows. Exactly.

Today's episode is brought to you by HubSpot. Did you know that most businesses only use 20% of their data? That's like reading a book, but then tearing out four fifths of the pages. Point is you miss a lot.

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instead of just reading part of it, visit HubSpot.com. So this guy's kind of a genius. I want to tell you about this genius thing that I've been thinking about. Not my idea, that's just the idea of geniuses.

Let me just tell you a story here. I'm going to read from, I think this is a financial times article, but I'm just going to read you a couple of the intro here, because it's amazing. All right, Sam, I want you to imagine.

You're a Chinese woman.

Like you've always wanted to be.

A manager at a pharmaceutical company, in Beijing.

“And you receive a phone call on some squid game ship.”

An unknown number calls you and says, "We like your son. You have a 15-year-old son." It says, "We believe that he might be qualified for the genius program."

And we'd like to give him a test. Now, it's also COVID, it's peak COVID, 2022. People can't meet in person. So they said, "Stacey, I know you might be concerned about COVID, you're a good mom.

If you're not, we're going to put him in the back of this van and we're going to drive around the city. And he's going to do map problems in the back of this van. And we'll know by the end of the ride, if he's qualified or not.

And we'll dump him off on the street if he's not. And if he is, you'll see him in a couple of years. And like Stacey would feel, you might be. I would say, "What colors the van and what colors should I leave a map?"

Exactly. That's exactly what Stacey felt she says. I wasn't worried about an abduction plot. And any other country I would, but not here. She goes, "I was not trying to..."

I was not mid COVID, not mid COVID. Who, full trust in China, mid-Covid. I was weeping with joy, and I sent my boy right away because I knew what this was. A golden ticket to the best educational resources of China.

So, "Stacey is a very optimistic woman." So Stacey and her son were part of this program. That China is running right now, where they have 100,000 kids that they've identified as like possible geniuses. And they put them through what they call the genius program.

What they do is at a young age, they sort of identify certain aptitude for math, for science, et cetera. And they say, "We'd like to invite you to the genius program." The RSVP says, "Yes" or "Yes." And then you go, "You said your kid."

And it's a few year intensive study program. You get to skip all your normal school. You get to skip the college entrance exams. You don't have to take any of those. But you're in basically math boot camp.

And you are going to be studying with the brightest and the best.

And they are trying to produce incredible talent in China.

“And so you might be wondering, well, like, how does that work?”

Is it working? Right? That's a question. It's a working. Sam, do you like TikTok?

Genius program. Sam, you're referring to a towel bow, which is there, essentially, they're like PayPal. Genius program. Have you heard about their group on?

Genius program. Have you heard about their super app? Genius program. Have you heard about the brothers who were behind their big Nvidia competitor? Genius program.

You have heard a deep seek. They were in the news recently. Created that big algorithm. Didn't even have access to the best chips and somehow outperformed all of the open AI models. Genius program.

It's like a teal fellowship room at the government. Exactly.

So China already has this incredible like population advantage, where they produce five million

“graduates in math, computer science, and engineering, compared to, I think we have like half a million”

that are in technology, the technology and science fields in the US. So 10 to 1, already they're 10 to 1, us just in normal college graduates. But now they're looking for the cream of the crop. And they are basically trying to create this talent pipeline, homegrown talent pipeline of math, geniuses, computer science, geniuses, et cetera.

And it's working. So they started this program many years ago. And at the time China didn't have a very notable math or science, like a achievement record at the international level. So there's these things called the math Olympiad and social, like the Olympics for math.

And so the first year they sent a team of three, and they got like the bronze. They're like, yes. And then they next year they sent like six teams, and they got two medals. And now basically they just sweep all the medals every year. They just dominate these programs. They send like the most, they have the most players and the most wins.

And they're AI program, like, you know, if you go walk into an open AI office, you're going to see tons of Chinese PhD AI researchers who now work in the US, but there's for everyone that you see here, you know, there's a hundred that are still in China working at the Chinese companies, the Chinese labs. And I was just pretty inspired by this whole thing.

Like there's one anecdote in the in the story where it says that like, if you go into a normal Chinese public school, there's a blunt slogan on the wall, there's not even the genius program. There's just a normal elementary school public school. And it's a reminder for the teachers and staff there, and it just says, produced talent

quickly and early. And I thought about that, because I sent my kids to school. And the teachers and the staff do not have the philosophy about producing talent quickly and early. Just Logan, no child left behind, right?

That was the the famous education program that we launched, I don't know, when Bush was president or something like that. Yeah, exactly opposite. It's the exact opposite. It's about don't discriminate, don't make anyone feel left out.

We're doing this thing. We're getting rid of the gifted and honors programs because it was like, uh, made the other people feel bad.

And we basically are taking the exact opposite with the sort of inclusion focus and the, like,

no child left behind focus, whereas if other countries are taking this idea of, like, your job is to produce talent quickly and early, and that, like, it's the goal is greatness. And let's be competitive about it.

“Like, what's going to happen over 20 year arc, right?”

Like, you're going to get more and more, they're going to win. And so I just thought this was pretty interesting. I wanted to hear your thoughts on this. They kind of big a question, like, why doesn't Facebook have, like, um, what's it called? What's it? Well, yes, but what's it called the D-League with her MBA up at G-League?

Yeah. The G-League or what's um, like, the, the minor leagues, like, you know, uh, crypto-based. Yeah. Like, why doesn't Google and Facebook and the top 200 schools have, like, a farm team, where they identify 14 year olds that are promising and they go, hey, would you like to come

to school here forever or for free? And you can choose to work at us at our company afterwards. But just so you know, you have, like, a job here. If you choose to, and we will educate you and get you up to date up to speed on all the stuff, totally.

Uh, I actually, when I first moved to San Francisco, this was the thing I was pitching investors. I was like, I think I should go create Google, you and my dream would be to be the dean of

“Google, you know, I was like, I can't, I think it's crazy that these giant companies don't”

have their own talent forms, right? Why wouldn't they try to produce talent? We wrote a story at the hustle about this kid named Michael Praseman, Michael. If you hear this, what's up? And he was like a 15 year old who had this ragdoll, which is story where he somehow got

Mark Zuckerberg's attention at the age of 14 because he wrote like a viral app. And he made the news because Zuck was like, hey, do you want to like an internship here? And then that led to a full-time job when he was only 16 and now I think he's doing, I think he's on the, um, the AI, what's it called?

The Super Team, the Super Intelligence, uh, Facebook team, which is like the $100 million

of salaries and saying stuff. And it was like, we wrote a story because of how remarkable it was that Facebook hired a high school kid. We need more dukey houses shit, right? Like, why don't we do that? We're a competitiveness.

So you have the teal fellowship, right? That's like a thing. Uh, and obviously there's like little programs all around. Did I remember what I was in seventh grade, Duke University did what I didn't realize was essentially just a marketing campaign.

But they created something called the Duke Tip Program, and it was called the Talent Identification Program. And I didn't, I lived in Texas and suddenly Duke University did this thing where my school in Texas had us all go to the cafeteria and take a little test. And then you got like a little merch bag with it of like Duke gear.

And then the results came back and was like, we think you talented. And bro, that, I think I wrote that for like seven years and then I went to Duke. I think we really influenced me in some weird subliminal way that like, maybe I am special. And maybe I can do this. And maybe I should go pay Duke $200,000 to go to school there.

And I did all those things and I'm surprised that more of that shit doesn't exist. I kind of want to create something like this because I think it actually creates inflection with it. The China one is more like boarding school, right? And there's been other countries that do that, but like, I feel like we need our own

version of these. Where is the, what is the, what is the American Talent Pipeline look like? And where are we identifying the best in the brightest on some Enders game shit and inviting them to the Academy and then letting them, you know, dual and compete and like a pretty hardcore way because look, hardcore is not for everybody.

But there's some people that only thrive on hardcore situations. They want to play the game at the competitive level.

Basically what we do with like, you sports with a you and travel ball and shit like that.

But do that for the genius kids, do that for the makers, right? Like I think that is maybe it exists. And I'm just not aware of it. But have you heard of birth, right? I love birth, right?

Crazy. Fascinating. I learned about it because I was dating a girl who went on birthright. I don't remember what age I was like 21 years old.

“Do you remember what you told you about it, do what your reaction, you're like, what?”

Yeah. And she wasn't even Jewish. She was like ethnicly Jewish, I guess, but like basically birthright is a program. It's funded. I think it's funded a little bit by the government.

But a lot of it is wealthy Jewish people, but also I think a lot of wealthy Christian people who believe that when the end of the world, according to the Bible, when the end of the world happens, the Jews need to rise first, then the Christians go behind them. That's like what the book of Revelation says. And so they believe for a variety of reasons that we need to keep Israel strong.

I don't care about the politics, I'm just telling you guys the facts. And so a lot of Christians, I think, but also like Bernie made off with a huge funder. A lot of people are funders. It says 67% of the funding for birthright is individuals. 30, 27% is the government and then there's like a couple percent of other things.

And it's basically a free trip to anyone who could prove, you'll have to tell me the exact measurement. But I think it's like if you have like a great grandparent who's Jewish, so you could

Well, I just asked, does it count if I have a Jewish friend and they said no, that's not going to get me there.

Like do identify as Jewish, but basically it's like a very small percentage and they bring

you on something like us three week all paid expenses trip, all expenses paid trip. And at least one Jewish birth parent or a recognized conversion. Okay, so just a parent, they bring you for like two or three weeks, I forget how long it is. But they give you a tour and you see all the type of stuff.

But they basically, like, I remember when she was when I was dating this girl, we broke up afterwards, because she was like, they introduced us to all these Israeli soldiers and like, it was like, all right, like, this guy's really ripped. Why did he take a shirt off like, you know, like, why do you have photo anyway? And like, it's like a small percentage of them, then you know, become like a good buddy

see of it, like become more in touch with a Judaism and in touch with Israel and the support Israel more. It's how culture lasts through generations, right, is the cultural experiences and exposure. Any culture can do this. They've just systematized it in this really, like cool, like opportunity for people.

Yeah, it's awesome.

“And like, it's pretty great, like I would, because I think you have to be like 18, there's”

an age limit. I think it's like 18 to 25. I forget what it is. When you're like prime to like want to go on a free trip, you're like, yeah, okay, I'll go.

And then you like it's free trip. Hell yeah, and then you get there and you're like, okay, I actually do like this. So like that. And so it's pretty cool. And I think that's kind of a good example.

Like the world's best time share presentation. Yeah, and I think that's like a really good way in the sounds bad. I don't mean to bad to indoctrinate someone into like a cause and get them long-term bought in. And it is kind of like an interesting model.

Yeah, I love that. What do you do with the money once you've already made it? This is a question, Sean and I asked our successful guests all the time and the reason we ask it is because if you are successful, if you do have a little bit of money, information on how to spend or invest your money, it's actually really hard to come by.

And I know this because instead of Hampton, which is my community of founders, people

ask this question all the time, people have made $10 or $50 million.

How do you spend it? How do you invest it? And so to help solve this problem and answer this question, I actually interviewed 80 plus founders. Guys, like Scott Galaway, Alex Ramosi, Brian Johnson, people who are worth $50, $100, even billions

of dollars. And we got them to reveal everything, so their networks, how much they pay themselves, their monthly expenses, their portfolio, things like that. And we turn these 80 interviews into one document. And I don't think you can find this type of information literally anywhere on the internet.

And it's completely free.

“So if you want to see behind the net worth of people who are worth billions of dollars”

and their portfolios or expenses, everything, you go to joinhampedon.com/reveal. Again, joinhampedon.com/reveal. Check it out. So what do you think we need? I'm birthright.

What are you going with that? Well, no. What I'm saying is, too, I actually do think that America should have mandatory, I think Scott Galaway said us. I've agreed with this for a long time.

We should have mandatory service for American military. I think that would be great. But number two, I think that's a really good example of how you have, whatever we're calling this, like a farm leak of like getting in with people at a young age. Like it is, I wonder, like it worked really well with Duke and you, I mean, I didn't go to

a good school. I was from Missouri, I didn't go to a good college, but like it is interesting why you aren't promoted to a little bit earlier on to like buy into like a certain movement, like going to a good university or joining like an interesting company. Well, we're kind of saying three different ways that you can produce this like talent

forms. The China one, which is you identify promise and potential early and then you invest in that and they do deliberate intensive practice and you know, you, those people who had potential, they build the skills in a more intense way and a more hardcore environment. Okay, that's one way.

You do things.

Second thing we talk about, let's say the Duke example is sometimes just creating a test

or something like that, just to do talent identification. If nothing else makes people feel like they're special and that the talent did. And literally that self belief is worth something, it's not the same value as going to an intensive boot camp and capitalizing on it, but it's not nothing either. And then the third one is how do you get that sense of pride, cultural like ties and enthusiasm

and one idea is like, you know, birthright or something like that. So there's like all these different ways you could do it. I was started studying. I was like, who else has done things like this? And so there's the, have you seen the story of the Soviet, like, or have you, have you

familiar with the story of the Soviet Olympic program basically? How they did this? Yeah. And how they were just like the shit and well, they also like drugged them.

“That's why they like, one of the, like, a ton of the women track and feel the records”

are from the USSR and the 80s, like, still, it's like the longest standing records. So, so the, I didn't, I didn't know the whole story, so I was kind of looking into this. This is pretty interesting. So, Soviets were kind of famously independent. They were kind of like, we don't need to be a part of the Olympic.

So they actually had their own kind of, like, fitness games, they had what they called physical culture, which is like, physical toura, and then they had their own thing called,

But at a certain point, it was kind of like, the Olympics had the network effect. It had the brand. It had the prestige. So even if we were winning our local thing, it kind of didn't hold. We couldn't do this.

And so they basically built a machine. So they decided, all right, we're going to enter the Olympics.

The way they did it was just so Russian, so incredible.

They built an incredible machine, and that I respect. So what they did, they did the same thing, talent and education. So they go at age 6 to 10. They start measuring how long are your arms, how big is your, you know, wingspan, you know, what's your reaction time, what does your body composition look like, what's your flexibility

like for gymnastics, and they basically didn't wait for greatness to appear. They went on a talent search, and they searched for greatness. Once they did that, they basically hacked the system.

“So at the time, I think until like 1988 or something like 1986 something like that,”

the Olympic Charter said that you couldn't be a professional athlete. One of our past topics, GP Fontaine was one of the biggest advocates to abolish that. Oh, okay, it's great, so the Russians basically just worked around it. So they're like, this gymnast, she's a student. This guy, this hockey player, he's an officer.

And like, you know, they had these job titles. We're only on paper, but actually, they're training full time for them. Whereas the US would be like, I'm juggling school in my training. And obviously, somebody who's only training is going to get further ahead. Well, you remember Mirko Kroka, the one of the best students ever, yeah.

Yeah, he was supposed to be an ex-police officer. That was like the stick was actually, but he was really trained, I think, is in court. I forget where I formed a USSR state as a fighter. That's a trained full time. He's like, I'm the can man.

Anybody can get it right now. (laughs) That's a funny. Different boxes. All right, so they do that.

Then they start drugging, right? So they're like, okay, what else can we do? PEDs, so that became obviously a thing. They also did like world class, you know, I guess, like progress innovation in calisthenics and training programs and regimens that were like progressive loads and d-loads.

And how do you peek at the right time? Stuff that's day standardized.

They invented and like kind of created, and then we had to go steal it from them basically

of like, how are they doing this? In running, there's called periodization, which is like you start with heavy miles and then you slowly taper off or you go to speed, they helped him at that. They also helped invent the idea of training, lifting weight and cold at mis, with the AC down to like 16.

55. What does that do? It just makes you stronger. I don't know the science behind it, but that was like one of their theories. I love how I ask, as if that's my problem.

God, then the temperature of this whole time. No, they just like came up with like all these like really weird. I mean, they were lab rats, and so they came up with a bunch of stuff or like volume training for weightlifting, like they were the best weightlifters. And so like, a lot of the best, they're now old guys, but a lot of the fathers of like body

building in the 90s and true thousands, they're all in their 80s now, where U.S. us are guys. Right. And so they ended up dominating the Olympics, they were either first or second in metal count, and then you know, it just sort of like there was a period of time where they really dominated.

“And it was also cool like why did they care so much?”

And it was basically a send a message. It's like physical dominance was like a signal for dominance and other things. So this is why I thought the China thinks so interesting because the exact opposite, it's brain. It's brain dominance, but even more, there's more stakes.

Like this was symbolic, it's like, we'll show the world what we're capable of.

And this always been the symbolic victories, like the first to climb Everest or the North

Pole or the South Pole, things where there's objectively no value to be gained by being the first guys to reach the South Pole, aside from bragging rights. And countries cared a lot about these bragging rights. And now with the AI thing, it's like, it's not just a symbolic victory. It's actual like total domination of the world's most powerful technology and will probably

create the next global power. So it's like, all of the same national pride, bravado stuff from the Olympics, multiplied by actual real world tangible benefits and dominance. Dude, I think it's great, like blue angels, bravado stuff, like this is like the greatest thing ever.

Like I think it's wonderful. Sam's all in, bravado. Well, I just think that like having a common enemy is really good for bringing people together.

“I remember post 9/11, like I remember like there wasn't a lot of cro- I remember I distinctly”

remember the week after, I remember walking around the street and I was like, there's something about this that I just feel like a bond with strangers. Do you remember that feeling? Well, a little different as a bragging, but yeah, yeah, you actually had the exact opposite of experience.

I forgot about that. Oh, I was a common enemy. You were the enemy. You were the other. I think great.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would see us and you were the them. Have you heard of this thing, this is related to what you were saying about planting a seed and some of them that they're good.

Micro-angelo effect? No.

“It's just like psychological phenomenon where basically there's been a bunch of tests that”

proven it to be true and we use this phrase with Hampton all the time. It's like a gift from the gods, this phrase. So the micro-angelo effect, it basically just says that if you have two romantic partners or a peer group or a friend group, they, as long as they affirm each other and plant the seed and you, like for example, I'm like Sean, like you are the man, you will be fit,

you will achieve this, you will do it whatever you want and we keep affirming each other. Every time you say that to one another, it's as if when Michael Angel was doing the statue of David, someone said, "How did you make this amazing statue?" He says, "The statue was there, I just chipped away at all the stuff covering that beautiful statue."

And so it's as if the greatness is in you because I have put that label on you and each time I affirm or congratulate or say how you're amazing, I'm chipping away at the stone that's going to unveil this beautiful thing inside of you, which is whatever the goal is that you want to become. And they have found that basically, like, if you are raised around fat people, you are more

likely to be fat. If you are raised around depressed people, you are more likely to be depressed. If you're raised around rich people, you're more likely to be rich and it's not just because of what your parents do, it's just like you become what you are affirmed and what you are told and it's called the Michelangelo effect and it's a really cool idea and

this has been studied by psychologists, like there was a group of 50,000 people and they were like, "What words are you using to talk to this person and how do they end up and where do they become?" And it's like really telling and so it's a really cool idea that if I tell you at a young age that you are special, that you work hard, that you're going to be great, that you belong

in this category, you are more likely to actually become that simply of me telling you that you are. That's amazing.

My dad told me the story about something he's adapted for him that's always stuck

with me. And so this is a little dad, dad, not going to go up to pay forward, so I don't want to cry. No, it's not emotional, it's not that emotional, but maybe you're in that phase where the performance has happened, the habit of little girls, man, I feel like I want to tear up all

the time. So my dad grows up in India, and if you look at today, he lives in San Francisco and he's

“had this great life, but it's kind of unheard of from a village in India, right?”

It's like hard to imagine starting there and ending here in one lifetime. So he tells me the story and he's like, he's like, "You know, there's one thing my dad always did for me and he goes, "My dad always," he's like, "He planted the seed in me that I was special, that I was going to go do great things." And he goes, "It didn't make any sense because I was not doing anything.

I would've lived in this little dirt village, right? Nobody in our family had ever done anything." So his dad worked at a factory, and he told me the story about his dad would bring him to the factory, and the boss would be, they're like, "Oh, hey, kiddo, who's the kid?" And he put a hard hat on him and be like, "You know, one day, you can be here with

us." You know, when you grow up and that his dad, to his boss, was like, "Are you kidding me?" He's like, "No, this boy, this boy's special. This boy's not going to be here. He would take the hat off, the hard hat off of him."

But he's not going to be here. He's not going to be in a factory. He's going to be in America. This boy's special. You don't know.

This guy is really special. He's really smart. He's really special.

“He's going to do something amazing in America.”

And he told him that since he was like age four, five years old, six years old, seven years old. He put this in me that like, "I was special, I was going to do something, I was going to go to America."

He's like, "My dad had never been to America, he doesn't even know what America is at

the time. He'd never been on a flight. He'd never been on an airplane. But he had this idea and he put it, he just set it so matter, and he set it in front of other people.

Two his boss." And he's like, "I just had to take that as, like, this must be serious." He wasn't even telling me. I just overheard it. I used dropped on that.

And I thought that was great. I was like, "I'm going to do that for my kids." How great is that? Is that best? That's the best.

I do that in my kids all the time. We do daily affirmations at the morning. We say, "I'm bold, I'm tough, I'm smart." Yeah, we do this. I'm brave, I'm strong, I'm happy, and I can do anything.

Yeah. We've run that all the time. I'd say about the tennis little victory ahead with my, my son when he would go into new classes.

He would always get scared to like, new soccer class, new tennis class, anything.

And as a parent, it's very frustrating. You pay, you drive through traffic, you go there, and then your kid doesn't go in. And then in front of you, all the other kids are like doing it happily, blah, blah, blah. I'm like bartering and bribing and threatening and then ignoring and then trying again and then I'm going with you and then I'll do the, I'll jump on the trampoline, like, let's

do this together and then the teachers like, "Hey, can you leave?" Like, the parents aren't really allowed to be in here. So it's been the situation over and over and over again. So we go to a tennis class, new tennis class and sure enough, doesn't want to go in.

So we just, we hang out and we're talking, we're just talking, we're going to stay here.

We're not going to try to force you to go in, we're just going to sit here and talk. And I start telling them, I'm like, you know, I get pretty afraid at doing new things to actually, so I totally get that and, you know, I realize that it's other people aren't, it's not that the other people aren't afraid. Like, they have the scared, they have the scared in them too, right here, right in your chest.

“And I was like, but you get to decide like, does this scared win?”

I was like, and sometimes the scared wins.

And like today, the scared won, but it doesn't always have to win.

Sometimes you get to win. So I tell them this, I forget about it. He doesn't really even really give you, you know, kids don't always like verbally affirm. Yeah. He's just like, you know, looking at his like car that he's playing with or whatever.

“So three weeks later, we go and we go to class and my wife takes him and he goes in.”

She's like, oh, he went into tennis, no problem this time after, you know, three weeks. And then afterwards is like, you know, what, what good job, like, you know, so proud of you. How'd you do it? And he was like, I didn't want to let the scared win today. And I was like, yes, totally complete victory in life.

I did it. I did it. I've not a terrible dad. I actually taught him something.

“So it was like this huge, like, you know, great moment of my life that that was just hearing that.”

That that little seed watered enough, like, eventually did bloom in his own words. And I had actually forgotten about that whole thing. And he remembered it. What a wholesome episode. Right. That's how fire is being on.

Yeah, thank you for that corner. Yeah, I want to go to hug my kids. Um, that's it. All right. That's it. That's fun. ♪ I could be what I want to ♪

♪ I put my all in it like a days on ♪

♪ On a bold less travel never looking back ♪

All right, my friends. I have a new podcast for you guys to check out. It's called Content is Profit. And it's hosted by Luis and Fanzi, Camayo. After years of building content teams and frameworks for companies like Red Bull and Orange Theory, Fitness, Luis and Fanzi are on a mission to bridge the gap between content and revenue.

In each episode, you're going to hear from top entrepreneurs and creators. And you're going to hear them share their secrets and strategies to turn their content into profit. So you can check out content is profit wherever you get your podcast.