Pod Insights The School of Greatness 842 Building a Hospitality and Wellness Empire with Eugene Remm About this episode PLAY MORE CHESS AND LESS CHECKERS. We always make fun of dogs chasing their tails. It’s funny to watch- they spin and spin and spin trying to catch the impossible. They eventually flop onto the ground exhausted. What’s the “tail” you are chasing? You probably think something will change when you finally catch that thing that is just out of reach, but the reality is that it probably won’t. I’ve accomplished so many goals that ultimately left me feeling empty. Stop spinning around reaching for things that won’t ultimately bring you happiness. Instead, focus on the process and the impact you have on others. On today’s episode of The School of Greatness, I talk about figuring out what really matters with a King of New York hospitality: Eugene Remm. Eugene Remm is an entrepreneur and wellness expert whose companies include Catch Hospitality Group (Catch Restaurants, Lexington Brass) and the boxing-inspired group fitness concept Rumble. Forbes Magazine dubbed him one of the “New Kings of New York Hospitality.” Eugene has been able to leverage social media in truly innovative ways by staying ahead of trends and being authentic. He had to learn through failure to be a team player. He now teaches that looking out for the benefit of all benefits you as well. So get ready to learn how to play big and stay humble on Episode 842. Some Questions I Ask: What happened to your nightclubs? (27:00) How do you handle relationships when their investments are lost? (28:00) What was the moment you had the biggest ego slap? (34:30) Why does a nightclub guy think he can start a fitness company? (47:00) How do you attract such high profile investors? (52:00) How do you manage 1000 people? (1:04:00) In This Episode You Will Learn: Why you should focus on the process and not the goal (7:00) Why it’s important to know your limit (21:00) The power of taking accountability for your failures (25:00) Why you need a balance of gut instincts and data (38:00) The three things you need to be successful (40:00) When to lean into a trend and when to go against it (42:00) Why paying people isn’t the number one thing (1:06:00) If you enjoyed this episode, check out the video, show notes and more at http://www.lewishowes.com/842 and follow at instagram.com/lewishowes Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX
Transcript 13,660 words · 2 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Lewis Howes? This is episode number 842 with Eugene Rem.
0:06 Lewis Howes? Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.
0:31 Lewis Howes? Walt Disney said, "Do what you do so well that they want to see it again and bring their friends."
0:39 Lewis Howes? I've never had someone on quite like Eugene Rem. And most of you probably don't know his name, but you might know his brands. Eugene is an entrepreneur and wellness expert whose companies Catch Hospitality Group and Rumble have achieved notable success as bi-coastal multi-market operations. Forbes Magazine called Eugene "one of the new kings of New York hospitality." Eugene, along with his business partner, propelled their seafood restaurant Catch from a standalone New York City flagship to an international phenomenon with successful locations in LA, Playa del Carmen, Las Vegas, and additional outposts slated for this year.
1:23 Lewis Howes? He is currently the Chief Brand Officer of Rumble, which is blowing up in LA and New York and taking over the social media world. It's one of the fastest-growing fitness concepts with numerous locations opening up all over the United States and a recent minority stake acquisition by Equinox Fitness Clubs. And with a new bootcamp-style running concept, Rumble Treading, rolling out this fall, Rumble is further poised to take the fitness and wellness space by storm. So watch out for Rumble. And in this interview, we talk about Eugene's definition of success and why he thinks money is like sugar. We talk about how he got his chops in the New York club scene
2:04 Lewis Howes? and all of the mistakes and failures that he learned by opening up too many restaurants and clubs too fast. What investors need to understand about all industries out there? The importance of constantly innovating and when to lean into trends that are happening in the industries. How to find branding that works for you and will have longevity. And the most powerful ways to manage teams and egos. When you have hundreds or thousands of employees, it's challenging to manage all the egos and build teams within your business. He talks about how he does that with all of his brands. Excited about this one. And now, without further ado, let's dive into this episode with the one and only Eugene Rapp.
2:50 Lewis Howes? What would make this the most impactful thing you've ever done in your life? This conversation?
2:57 Speaker 01 If one kid out there who was similar to me at 21, 22, got some information that shifted his perspective and then he went out there and did some cool stuff. When I was 30, I made some money. I put 50K into a basketball foundation in the town I grew up in in Queens. And I thought I was going to find a bunch of Russian Jewish kids that wanted to like play basketball and hear about life. And I was super disappointed that none of them gave a darn about life and just wanted to come play basketball and could care less about any information on their growth. And I thought that other 14, 15 year old kids would have questions and opportunities when they met me or the other people that I brought in to speak with them after the basketball,
3:41 Speaker 01 that they would be into it and they weren't. And I was disappointed initially and I spoke to someone and they said, it's not result driven. It's the process driven. So as long as your goal was there, if you want to be just driven by the result, you're going to be disappointed way more often in life than you're going to be happy. So focus on the process. So in that scenario, I wasn't able to reach one single person to do something successful. So why I go on these things is if I can communicate to young people who are trying to do something, they can take something from this and pivot, that's awesome. So I know I'm not going to have a chance to have one-on-one lunches or dinners with 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, whatever amount of people.
4:24 Speaker 01 So if any opportunity to share an authentic message with no personal agenda from me.
4:31 Speaker 01 That would make my day.
4:32 Lewis Howes? That's great. I love it. We've got Eugene Rem in the house. Very excited about this. Good to see you, man.
4:36 Speaker 01 Thank you, brother. Good to see you as well. Thank you for having me.
4:39 Lewis Howes? I love what we were just talking about because I think in my life, I was so driven by results and goals of needing to achieve my dreams. As an athlete, I wanted to be an All-American, a professional football player, and I achieved those dreams and I was always disappointed by achieving them. And you were just talking about having this goal of, you know, having these kids be impacted and really want to be like hungry for mentorship, and none of them were.
5:06 Speaker 01 Yeah.
5:06 Lewis Howes? Isn't it interesting that it always comes back to the process in life? Like even when we achieve the goals, I remember being miserable for days, weeks afterwards, being like, I did everything I wanted to do, but I'm still not happy.
5:20 Speaker 01 Yeah.
5:21 Lewis Howes? And so it doesn't matter if we achieve it or not. It should always be focused on the impact, the process, what we learn in the process, and how we help people.
5:29 Speaker 01 Yeah, I agree. I mean, I educate through storytelling, so for me, it's, you can give a statement like, "Hey, enjoy the process," and people are like, "Cool."
5:39 Lewis Howes? Yeah.
5:40 Speaker 01 But for me,
5:40 Lewis Howes? I really want this thing.
5:41 Speaker 01 I really want this thing. So for me, I could simply say that every time I look back on a successful moment, the moment where something sells or something happens is the most uneventful part of the entire process, so.
5:53 Lewis Howes? Like raising all the money, or selling the company, or.
5:56 Speaker 01 The whole thing, the day-to-day journey. So I remember sitting with someone, and I own two nightclubs, and they said, "What do you want next?" And I said, "Three nightclubs," and he goes, "And then what?" "Four nightclubs." He goes, "And then what?" He goes, "A restaurant," he goes, "And then what? A hotel." "And then what?" And then you start thinking like, "Oh, my God, I don't even know what I really want." And I always compare it to the way we make fun of dogs when they chase their tail. They spin and spin and spin, then they get dizzy, and then they flop. And I feel a lot of times, people are just chasing a tail. They never catch it, and then they just flop. And even if they do catch it, then what? They just sit there. So I think sometimes you're wasting a ton of energy on the goal, and I can tell you,
6:39 Speaker 01 at certain moments where you hit financial success, I thought something was gonna change, right? And nothing changed. So if you think that your happiness is based off of financial success, and by the way, what a wonderful thing to put in front of people, because say, when you make a lot of money, you will be happy, because most people will not make a lot of money. So then they can go on that journey for their whole life and never reach their goal. Which is kind of fun, because then the process is there for them.
7:07 Lewis Howes? Right.
7:07 Speaker 01 So, no one's really crying for people who are super successful or wealthy, or doing the best at what they do, but they should have a little bit of empathy, because when they keep achieving things, they realize that it's not enough. So, it's really, really important to think that money is dangerous, and the idea that getting it is going to fix life's problems and the world's problems, it's so not true. But most people are like, "Yeah, right, you say that, because you have it," and they don't, so they won't be able to really understand. But that's just a fact.
7:40 Lewis Howes? I think Jim Carrey said something like, "I wish everyone becomes rich and famous one day so they can realize it's not the key to happiness," or something like that.
7:47 Speaker 01 Absolutely.
7:48 Lewis Howes? It's not gonna solve all your problems.
7:50 Speaker 01 Look, I think, I compare it to when you're in an airplane and they tell you to put your oxygen mask on first so that you can help other people. I do think money is energy, and energy is oxygen. So I do think it's important to like, have enough money where you feel safe. Like, I will admit that I can sit here very comfortably talking about how I want to create relationships in my business, how I want to grow our teammates, because financially, we are doing well as a business. And if I didn't have that financial security as a business, it'd be much harder to sell this in to myself and to others. So I do think there's something about a level of a platform that money can give you, so that you could take that next step.
8:33 Speaker 01 But by no means is it a pill or a silver bullet to any sort of happiness.
8:36 Lewis Howes? Yeah, it might give you a sense of peace around safety, but there might be a lot of other emotional challenges you're faced with. I think people with money have a weight of responsibility that people that don't have money will never face. And that can cause a lot of stress and anxiety in itself. And I'm not saying like... Poor people that have money and they have so many problems. But I know a lot of people with money, I'm sure you did too.
8:58 Speaker 01 Yeah.
8:58 Lewis Howes? Aren't happy, who are struggling more than anyone, it seems like.
9:01 Speaker 01 I was making $65,000 in 2005. I was working for a gentleman named Steve Hansen. I was running one of his 30 stores. And every night, people would come in and they were incredibly wealthy. And it was the first time I saw wealth. Because there was no Instagram. So when I was growing up.
9:19 Lewis Howes? You saw like.
9:20 Speaker 01 Yeah, you saw stuff.
9:21 Lewis Howes? The cash coming out, the bottle buying stuff.
9:23 Speaker 01 That's right. So, you know, when I was growing up and someone said, "Oh, I'm going away on a ski trip for vacation." I didn't know what that meant. I only saw the little tag on their jacket. And I knew they went skiing, but I don't even know what that meant.
9:36 Lewis Howes? Yeah.
9:36 Speaker 01 So I didn't understand that they were, they had means to go skiing and where they stayed and all that sort of stuff. So I just thought like, I went to the Poconos and stayed in a hut. And they went to Florida, there was probably a hut in Florida. I didn't realize that there were different layers of it. So you don't know that growing up. In 2004 and 2005, you start meeting these really successful people. And at first, you're enamored with their ability, with their title. And then they are kind to you because you are the key holder to their fun. So they, they communicate with you and share with you. And then you, with time, you find out that most of them have just as many problems as your buddies from college.
10:12 Lewis Howes? Right.
10:12 Speaker 01 That have just as many issues. And you would think that they are unstoppable and completely secure with their wealth, but they're not. So being in that industry and seeing all these successful people and understanding that they are no different other than this outer layer that they show to the world. That, that was really interesting to me because that's the first time you really understood what wealth did. It was this thing you heard about. So again, when you hear about it and you never accomplish it, you just think, "When I get there, I'll be really happy." So let's spend my entire life.
10:43 Lewis Howes? Getting there, trying to get there.
10:44 Speaker 01 Trying to get there. And that's, that's kind of a scam. And I think that needs to be flipped on its head and people need to really focus on.
10:50 Lewis Howes? That's true, man.
10:51 Speaker 01 On doing things that make them happy.
10:53 Lewis Howes? I think, you know, if you're financially rich, but you're spiritually, emotionally, relationship poor.
11:00 Lewis Howes? You're just like trapped, you're dead.
11:01 Speaker 01 Yeah.
11:02 Lewis Howes? You're gonna feel exhausted, you're gonna feel lonely, you're gonna feel sad, resentful, angry, all those things.
11:07 Speaker 01 Money's a sugar rush. It's an immediate high with a very, very, very long low.
11:13 Lewis Howes? That sugar tastes good for a second.
11:15 Speaker 01 One second, so I really, I really believe that, like, in your twenties, when you're starting out, you try to, you can take as much sugar as possible, and you're willing to give up what I'll call the broccoli.
11:26 Lewis Howes? Yeah.
11:27 Speaker 01 Great in fiber, great in minerals, really healthy for you, really, like, really will give you long-term energy. Doesn't taste like sugar, but that's the process that will make, that's the food that will actually make you feel great. And people that are driven by the sugar, they're going to burn out, and they're gonna need a lot more sugar to be one bit of happy.
11:48 Lewis Howes? Yeah, yeah.
11:48 Speaker 01 It's like, in the beginning, one cup of coffee, you're flying, right? Then you need four or five to get that same result, so that's what I find that successful people do with, successful, when I say successful, I mean financially successful.
12:00 Lewis Howes? Yeah, yeah.
12:00 Speaker 01 They need more coffee, so they need, they make a million, then they need ten, and then they make ten, and then they need fifty, and they need fifty, they make a hundred, to try to reach that same thing that that first cup of coffee did for them in the beginning.
12:11 Lewis Howes? So what's the difference between, okay, you've got one restaurant, and now you wanna have multiple restaurants, and you've got another business with gym, and now you wanna have, scale it to twenty gyms, like, why not just stick with one each?
12:23 Speaker 01 It's a very good question.
12:24 Lewis Howes? Why do we need more? I'm not saying it's right or wrong.
12:27 Speaker 01 No, no, no, I think about it often, and I think about what life was like when we had, when Mark and I had one nightclub, and we lived in a cool apartment, three blocks from the club, and I think it's, I think it's growth, and I think it's evolving, and I think it's opportunity to grow other people, because at the end of the day, if you're not in service to others, you will be incredibly lonely.
12:47 Lewis Howes? That's true, that's true.
12:48 Speaker 01 And I really feel that if you're given a platform to create things that more people can enjoy, that it can employ more people, that can then make them enjoy things and do more things, like, that's exciting to me. So at twenty-five, or at thirty, one club would have been enough. But that's not enough if you wanna grow, but it's really important to know what your limit is. And, you know, I've gone through it several times where I think my limit is this, I push it, and then the world slaps me back, so...
13:18 Lewis Howes? How did that happen?
13:19 Speaker 01 I mean, look, we had...
13:22 Speaker 01 We went from one venue.
13:24 Lewis Howes? Ten June. Which was the hottest nightclub in
13:26 Speaker 01 Two thousand six.
13:27 Lewis Howes? New York and the country.
13:28 Speaker 01 It was, it was certainly something special and it was something we certainly weren't expecting.
13:33 Lewis Howes? Every celebrity, all the models, all the important people came, right?
13:37 Speaker 01 Day one was Kanye West, Jay-Z, Penelope Cruz. Our first birthday party, Mark and I are both born on the tenth of June. So we called it Ten June. Because we really wanted to make sure everybody knew it was ours.
13:50 Lewis Howes? No ego involved at all.
13:52 Speaker 01 No, no, no, of course not, but, and I think it's okay at twenty-eight, twenty-nine. Like you wanna, you wanna make a name for yourself and there's no, that's why I say like when people say like, oh, what's the keys to success? I was like, I have what has been successful to me and what has failed to me. And I'll share that and I think everyone has their own different version. I think there are times to be, to have ego and to be positive about who you are. And then there's times to pull it back. There's no one strategy. I think at twenty-eight, twenty-nine, to make it about yourself because it was about us and we were driving it. So that went to one and fast forward to fourteen.
14:27 Lewis Howes? Fourteen nightclubs.
14:29 Speaker 01 And restaurants.
14:29 Lewis Howes? And restaurants.
14:30 Speaker 01 Yes. Atlantic City, Miami, New York, New Jersey, all of it. And we had to go back down to three.
14:43 Lewis Howes? So you went to fourteen, is what you said?
14:44 Speaker 01 Fourteen to three.
14:45 Lewis Howes? What happened? Where they can go down to three?
14:47 Speaker 01 We
14:47 Lewis Howes? Got slapped in the face.
14:48 Speaker 01 We, we thought it would be great to just continue to do it the way we did it and grow it. And that's where you have to learn about structure and strategy.
14:58 Lewis Howes? Operations.
14:58 Speaker 01 Operations and stuff where it's not just a sizzle and you need the substance. So now in twenty nineteen, it's structure and culture. And we're in a seesaw in our business on how to balance the culture, which is the fun, because we're in the business of fun. And that's the challenging thing about the business of fun. It can be really fun. But you better find the structure to it. And if you're all structure.
15:20 Lewis Howes? You're boring.
15:21 Speaker 01 You're boring and then you're a widget company and then people won't come to your restaurants or your gyms or anything like that. So we went through this process of fourteen. The world told us that the way we did it was wrong. And it snapped us back down, but that was the best thing that ever happened to us because it allowed us an opportunity to retreat. Reset, refocus.
15:44 Lewis Howes? Probably get some coaching and mentors from people that I've done before.
15:46 Speaker 01 Yeah, absolutely. Because again, going from one to 14, who's gonna tell you you're wrong when everything you do is right?
15:53 Lewis Howes? Is working.
15:54 Speaker 01 Is working. So, and that's important too, because if you came to me right now and said, "I'd like to open up a restaurant," I'm gonna say, "You're gonna fail." You're like, "Well, you didn't even tell me the idea." And I'm gonna say, "I'm 95% right." Just because you say you want to open up a restaurant, it's gonna fail. So you really want to make sure in the beginning, you do listen to that 5%. Where like, "Yeah, I get that most are gonna fail, but that's not this. This is gonna be different." And you need that to be successful in the beginning. But after a while, you have to start understanding that I should probably start listening to a few more people because we know how this story ends. Just like every athlete that makes $150 million and burns it all. How is that possible? Their whole life, since they've been five years old, they're the best at what they do.
16:38 Speaker 01 They're the best kid in their middle school, they're the best kid in their high school, they're the best kid in their college. Why would they ever think it's gonna end?
16:45 Lewis Howes? Yeah, their talent's never gonna run out.
16:46 Speaker 01 Absolutely. Why would they think it was ever gonna end? And you can understand it now, and even I can understand it now. You get caught up. And that's when you slap back. That's when you reset. And with that reset, we found this diamond. The diamond is Catch. And it wasn't 4 a.m. nightclub, seven days a week. It wasn't multi-concepts, Mexican food and this, and it wasn't multi-city, it was Catch.
17:11 Lewis Howes? In New York.
17:12 Speaker 01 In New York City. And that property was reshaped. And it was led by great food, great service, great vibe. And that was put into place. And our basic core principles of running the business. Take care of the staff. Staff will take care of the guests. Guests will take care of the bills. In the past, it was, "I need money." So I'm gonna take care of you, the guest, and staff. You better work because you're making money too. So I had it backwards. And I take full responsibility for that. In the past, that was the other thing. I blamed other people. I blamed employees that worked for us. I blamed developers and partners and other people. But quite honestly, I made the decision to hire all those people.
17:56 Speaker 01 So as soon as you take accountability and responsibility for your failures, and yes, other people may not have executed, but you hire them. You decide to put them in that position. You chose not to pivot earlier. You chose to go down the path. You didn't instruct and inspect.
18:10 Lewis Howes? You cut them on for a year, two years, hoping they'd change, yeah.
18:13 Speaker 01 And hope is not a strategy. And that's a big one. Hope is not a strategy. I hope this works. That's not a strategy. That is almost just blind faith. And occasionally, blind faith works. But I think if you're trying to be successful in a percentage game, you need more than blind faith. So 14 to 2, focus on catch, expand to Los Angeles. Understand that.
18:37 Lewis Howes? Did the nightclubs, oh, sorry. Did the nightclubs stop then?
18:40 Speaker 01 Yeah.
18:40 Lewis Howes? You said we're done with the nightclub business.
18:42 Speaker 01 It wasn't one moment where 12 places closed. But you know, Ten June was in its eighth year, stopped being successful. We gave it back to our partners who owned SDK upstairs. Abe and Arthur's had run its course. The club below it has run its course. Atlantic City, which was a $2.4 billion casino, where we were doing incredibly well, the casino went bankrupt.
19:06 Lewis Howes? Wow.
19:07 Speaker 01 It went bankrupt. So these are things, you couldn't write this in a story, but it happens. Miami, the project didn't work. So here you are. We did this project on the Lower East Side called Finale and the General. 22,000 square feet. And we're supposed to open, and then Hurricane Sandy hits.
19:25 Lewis Howes? Oh, man.
19:26 Speaker 01 So we go about $1.5 million on overages to get it open. Is not successful, is not soundproofed. The concept wasn't proven, the neighborhood wasn't proven. And we're in 12 million dollars.
19:38 Lewis Howes? Oh.
19:39 Speaker 01 Bye.
19:40 Lewis Howes? Oh.
19:40 Speaker 01 Yeah.
19:41 Lewis Howes? What do you do about that when you're down 12 mil?
19:43 Speaker 01 You.
19:44 Lewis Howes? Your own money or investors' money or?
19:45 Speaker 01 Both.
19:46 Lewis Howes? Oh, man.
19:47 Speaker 01 Both. I mean, you have to have honest conversations. You have to accept that the process wasn't executed and there's many reasons for it. And you have to figure out how to pivot and move on.
19:57 Lewis Howes? How do you handle those relationships when, I've never taken investors in my brands. I've had a lot of different offers.
20:02 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
20:03 Lewis Howes? And I've always been timid. I never felt like I needed it yet.
20:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
20:05 Lewis Howes? But how do you deal with that when concepts may pay dividends to these investors for a while, but then a 12 million loss and they're out and you can't really do anything about it? How do you have that conversation? And is that relationship done forever? Do they back you again?
20:22 Speaker 01 I'll tell you this, as an investor myself, when I give anyone money in anything like a restaurant or a nightclub or anything along those lines, I basically take the money, hand it to you, and in my head, I expect to throw it in the toilet.
20:33 Lewis Howes? Gone, yeah.
20:34 Speaker 01 And anyone who invests in some of these, even these venture capital guys.
20:38 Lewis Howes? Especially a restaurant, right?
20:39 Speaker 01 Or any, actually, today, anything.
20:41 Lewis Howes? Yeah.
20:41 Speaker 01 If you want to invest in a tech startup, if you want to invest in an app.
20:45 Lewis Howes? It's gone, yeah.
20:46 Speaker 01 You better hope, you better just assume that your money goes into the garbage. So I think everyone comes into it with eyes wide open. And they were definitely, investors at that time were definitely older than me and definitely had more experience than me. Again, I'm in my late twenties, early thirties, no financial background when I did these things. Now, with real partners, with real capital, we run it different. So the conversations today are super easy. Here's our risk tolerance, here's our P and L, here's how much it's going to cost to build, and here's what we think we're going to do. Here's your low case scenario, here's your base case scenario, here's your high case scenario. And yes, there is always a shot.
21:25 Lewis Howes? Lose it all.
21:25 Speaker 01 Of losing it all, and anyone knows that. So I think at the time. Honesty is just really what you do, but it's it. The biggest challenge wasn't the conversation with investors. The biggest challenge was swallowing of your own pride.
21:39 Lewis Howes? Ego pride.
21:40 Speaker 01 Yeah, because you believe you're the best. So, so I think honestly, most people were super understanding and understood what they, what they got involved in. And that's part of that game. But I think in general partnerships are challenging. Investors are challenging, so pick really good ones.
21:56 Lewis Howes? Wisely.
21:56 Speaker 01 And don't go into businesses unless you are 100% sure. And I use this line a lot. You have to be 100% positive to have a 50% shot.
22:05 Lewis Howes? Wow, interesting. So don't go in like, I think this is gonna work.
22:09 Speaker 01 In anything.
22:10 Lewis Howes? Wow.
22:10 Speaker 01 In anything.
22:11 Lewis Howes? Say it again?
22:12 Speaker 01 You have to be 100% positive to have a 50% chance.
22:17 Lewis Howes? Okay.
22:17 Speaker 01 So we're in the middle of opening up a restaurant right now. We've hired 16 front of house managers, 24 back of house managers.
22:24 Lewis Howes? Yep.
22:26 Speaker 01 And when we interview them, openings are challenging. There is no system in place. It's not a spoke on a wheel. There's not a structure. We're winging it, we're building it. It's a six, seven day week. This company is really about work-life balance, but not for those first 90 days.
22:39 Lewis Howes? No, no, no.
22:40 Speaker 01 So I say to a manager, because sometimes managers who've been through an opening or are concerned about an opening are like, oh, you know, my work-life balance, my, my family. And I say, I want you to be 100% sure that you want to be part of this opening, because that's the only way you have a 50% shot of making it through this opening. So if you are not.
23:01 Lewis Howes? You're wishy-washy.
23:03 Speaker 01 If you are not, now you can be, you can have a little bit of nerves.
23:07 Lewis Howes? Doubt, insecurity.
23:09 Speaker 01 But like, but like.
23:09 Lewis Howes? You can be all in though.
23:10 Speaker 01 You gotta be like, I'm going for it, right? And I actually think that goes for anything in 2019. People smell.
23:17 Lewis Howes? Relationships.
23:18 Speaker 01 Yeah.
23:18 Lewis Howes? Intimate partners.
23:19 Speaker 01 Absolutely.
23:20 Lewis Howes? Businesses.
23:21 Speaker 01 Yeah, look, everything is challenging. Owning a dog is challenging.
23:25 Lewis Howes? So hard.
23:26 Speaker 01 You better love your dog. Because when it poops on the floor, you're not gonna be happy unless you really love the dog. And when it's 11pm and the dog doesn't wanna pee and you're outside and you're freezing and you're like, "Why am I out here in 24 degree weather?" You better be 100% loving of that dog to have a 50% shot of being like, accepting that situation. So I really think that, in general, you gotta have that attitude. You have to be 100% believer. So in the beginning, you play craps, right? You throw a bunch of stuff on a bunch of thing and see what hits. But as you get a little bit older, like, and Tillman Fertitta, our business partner in Landry's, he always says, you know, "Pick carefully.
24:10 Speaker 01 Make your decisions. Pick things that are smart. Pick things one by one. Don't just spray it all out there and do a bunch of stuff. Just pick the things and then also be conscious of your time. If this one project can generate 10 times the revenue of these 10 small projects, what is your time worth?" Right. So we do big box restaurants and always I wanna do like, I'll go to like a Chick-fil-A and I'll be like, "Oh, I could do this better." Or I go to like a small 12-seat omakase and they're like, "Oh, I'd love to do a 12-seat omakase." And then you're like, "Wait." It's the same effort to do a 12-seat restaurant as it is to do a 300-seat restaurant. So Mark, Tillman and I are always of the mindset that if you're gonna put in the time, go big. Wow.
24:53 Speaker 01 And again, someone who owns a 12-seat omakase restaurant should really think it, look at themselves and be like, "Am I a 200-seat restaurant guy?" Yeah. Or "Am I a 12-seat guy?" And that's okay. And why do I wanna do a 200-seat restaurant versus a 12-seat restaurant? I like blockbuster movies. I have no interest in making independent hits. Ah, interesting. So for me, I wanna make movies that reach as many people as possible. Yeah. Not just for financial gain because also allows me to hire talented managers because I'm not looking at a P&L dollar by dollar where a small restaurant has to really focus on the nuances of the details. And I wanna make hits. Yeah. I wanna reach people who travel from New Jersey and Connecticut. I wanna reach New Yorkers who live locally. I wanna reach them all.
25:38 Speaker 01 I have no interest in just like, doing this really needle-type restaurant that focuses on just a specific demographic. I'm trying to connect. Large groups of people of all different ages, all different demographics, and put them in the same room, because that's what I like.
25:54 Lewis Howes? Yeah, yeah, trying to make the maximum impact.
25:57 Speaker 01 And exactly, and I also, I live four blocks from the majority of our, of our businesses. Mark, my business partner, he lives here in the West Coast and he breathes Catch L.A. and he breathes this, this vibe here and, and I do the same for New York. So it translates to our properties.
26:16 Lewis Howes? It's amazing. What was the moment you had the biggest ego slap? Where you thought you were the man, like, man, everyone wants to be a part of this. Everyone loves me, everyone's showing up, they're throwing money left and right, and then the big wake, wake up call.
26:30 Speaker 01 I think it was during, during the closing, that, that probably 12-month process where those properties were closing, I remember.
26:36 Lewis Howes? 12 of them in 12 months?
26:38 Speaker 01 I mean, some, some of, some of the 12 were like three-in-one buildings, so yeah, I'm, I'm by name, but it was really like four projects.
26:45 Lewis Howes? Wow, that's gotta hurt, just like every couple months, boom, another one.
26:48 Speaker 01 Yeah, but it hurts, but it feels really good once it's done.
26:51 Lewis Howes? Free.
26:51 Speaker 01 Free. And like most things in life, the idea of doing it is much harder than actually doing it. The buildup to telling someone you want to break up with them is way worse than the breaking up. The six months of agony of, what am I going to tell this person about this, that? That is way worse than actually doing it, because if you're doing it from a place of love and a place of honesty, it is what it is, but it's the buildup. So honestly, the buildup was the hardest part and not knowing how to do it.
27:21 Lewis Howes? Unwind it all.
27:22 Speaker 01 How to unwind it was a challenge, but after, it felt great. It felt great. It didn't feel great to downgrade your office. It didn't feel great to have to let go of people that were super close to you. It didn't feel great to do those type of things, but it certainly felt great to get back out of a big corner office and move your desk to the middle of the office. Surround, it felt great to sign every check over $200 again. It felt great to reconnect with every single host, server, bartender, as opposed to not even knowing. Their names or where they're from because we had so many. Yeah.
28:03 Speaker 01 So having that, those principles, so that was super challenging. And I remember sitting with five friends, my best friends from college and we take a, we take a ski trip every year. And we were sitting. Poconos? No, no, no, no, no more. Nice ski trip. Actually now, now we go to ski trips, we go west. I actually don't know what east coast skiing is and I hear it's. I see. It's, it's not good. I only started to ski when I was 32, but um, I remember we were sitting there and we all said, what would you like to change in this upcoming year? Just in a conversation and everyone answered and it came to me and I said, I think I'm doing everything right. I think I got it all handled. Wow.
28:46 Speaker 01 I think I'm, I'm working on my business, I'm working on my health, I'm working on my spirituality, I'm working on my relationship. I'm just great. And I came home from that trip and I think literally there was a light switch of just, that's when every challenge started coming. Wow. So I think it was, it's almost comical that what your ego will allow you to believe versus the reality that sets in and I think ever since then, I'm just more, I'm much more cautious and much more checks and balances. I had no checks and balances to feel that way. It was just a feeling and that's a challenge between gut and data, right?
29:25 Speaker 01 Like I'm a big gut, I'm a big gut guy, but you better have, like, that's like, that's like um, if you can run a five minute mile, but I can run a 10 minute mile, but I got GPS of where we're going to, but you're running in a circle. So you may be more of an athlete than me, but without that GPS, you don't know where we're going to reach that mile point. So I think data, as I've gotten into my late 30s and now in my 40s, using data to support my gut is the best balance of both. And anyone in any extreme is a terrible way to do business. It will work. Once in a while, but if you want to keep, if you want a good batting average.
30:08 Lewis Howes? Right.
30:09 Speaker 01 It doesn't work.
30:10 Lewis Howes? Yeah.
30:11 Speaker 01 It doesn't work.
30:13 Lewis Howes? That's true, man. You gotta know the data of like, okay, this pitcher usually throws a fastball on the first pitch. Seventy percent chance he's gonna throw a fastball, this, but you gotta know the timing, the situation, and have just like natural intuition as well.
30:24 Speaker 01 That's right.
30:25 Lewis Howes? When do you swing to bat?
30:26 Speaker 01 That's right. When we opened Rumble.
30:28 Lewis Howes? Two thousand sixteen?
30:29 Speaker 01 Two thousand seventeen, January.
30:31 Lewis Howes? Yeah.
30:32 Speaker 01 So we're two and a half years. Two and a half years. We have seven open.
30:36 Lewis Howes? It's crazy, man. So fast.
30:37 Speaker 01 It was never part of the plan. And look, growth comes with its own challenges and its own excitement. So to grow is awesome and every person's into it, and then it comes with its own learning curve. But if you did one a year, less learning curve, but less growth and less opportunity.
30:55 Lewis Howes? Less stress.
30:56 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah. So it's really, I think it's a balancing act of finding it. But we opened that in twenty seventeen, and it wasn't like, oh, I think boxing's gonna work, and I think group fitness is a good business, so let's go do it. We had, we knew what every other group fitness concept was doing within a one mile square radius.
31:14 Lewis Howes? You knew their numbers.
31:15 Speaker 01 We knew their, we knew some basic numbers of what people do. We were able to figure that out, and most people could. We knew what it would cost to build. We knew what it would, what we, what on a low case scenario, base case scenario, and high case scenario, it would cost to return the capital. And that's how you go into, and then you still gotta feel like, I'm gonna kill this thing, and these numbers won't matter, because we're gonna.
31:36 Lewis Howes? Pull out the crab out of there.
31:37 Speaker 01 We're gonna destroy these numbers. That's right. I got great people. These amazing trainers are so much better, but you still, it's like, I think there are three parts, right? There's an amazing team, there's capital, and there's timing.
31:52 Speaker 01 And. There are great teams that have failed at projects. Howard Schultz, one of the best people in the world, he has not always been successful. But we know he's an amazing leader and we know he has amazing capital, right? So sometimes it's timing or the idea. But I think you need all three to be successful. But most importantly to me, in my opinion, is timing. So we opened that nightclub in 2006. By the way, economy on fire, everyone is making a ton of money. I just walked in, we would walk in on Tuesday night, we would do $60,000 on a Tuesday and we'd have crazy celebrities and I'm like, oh, I guess this is what it... Every day. This is, and again, I'm 28, I don't know any differently.
32:36 Speaker 01 So, oh, I guess guys buy buildings, then sell buildings and make $100 million all the time. I didn't then realize that they were like, it was a propped economy by like mortgage and like crappy mortgages, so I didn't know any of that. So, that club opens in 2008, I don't know if I have an opportunity to be sitting here with you. I don't know that we have the Catch Hospitality Company and, and all these amazing people. I don't know that I even can get an attempt to do Rumble, because then I just fail at a nightclub and then I go work for somebody. Yeah. That's it. And that's, and that, and then, then I got a house in the suburbs and I'm, you know, I'm doing that thing. Probably don't have tattoos, probably don't do any of these things, probably don't get to hang out here in LA, so, timing.
33:20 Speaker 01 And in 2017, Group Fitness hit its peak and social media really hit its peak. Crushing. Stories has just come out. Instagram just starts doing paid posts and we have this hot new thing. So I always find that like celebrity and trend, it's either gasoline or water. If the product is good, all of these factors make it gasoline and make it explode. If you have celebrity and you have hype and you're, you know, my friend likes to call it born famous as a business. If you don't back it up with a quality... The product sucks. Product, it's water. So you're a flame. Puts it out. That's right. And there's no time to build it or pivot it. Wow.
34:01 Speaker 01 So what was great in 2017 is now super challenging in 19 because now everyone has mimicked what we've done in branding at. With like the cool group fitness class. Yeah, and like, it's like, alright, oh, look, you want to do a boxing photo shoot with attractive people in a warehouse? And alright, got it. So what we have to do in those situations is pivot and counter program. So recently, another business started doing warehouse photos with attractive people in a boxing gym. And I saw it and I forwarded to my, um, our marketing team and I said,
34:40 Speaker 01 remove every image on our social that connects to this sort of thing. We did it and it was awesome, but now that's it. Now you gotta innovate. Back to the avocado toast, right? Right, right. Avocado toast became popular. Everyone took a picture of avocado toast. They put the egg on top of it. They cut the egg, it oozed, it was great. You have no interest in seeing another avocado toast on anyone's social media. So there's times to lean into the trend, there's times to completely go against the trend. So we leaned into it in 2017. Same with Catch. There were many nights where Mark and I would sit at Catch, like, I wish people can see what's going on here right now.
35:21 Speaker 01 The Rangers, the Knicks, uh, the Knicks were playing the Lakers and the Lakers were there and celebrity X, Y, and Z is there. I wish people can see it and they couldn't. And then all of a sudden, social media comes out and they could. Right. When Drake performed at 10 June in 2010, when we just handed him a bottle of Grey Goose, no one knew. Nobody knew. So it was cool, but I have no, you have to be there. Yeah. So you can lean into that with the restaurant and the fitness business now because people who are there, if they choose to be seen. You could tell the whole world, so you don't need to be there.
36:00 Lewis Howes? But now everyone's got an Instagrammable wall or experience.
36:03 Speaker 01 Yeah.
36:04 Lewis Howes? Everyone takes photos in front of every gym.
36:06 Speaker 01 That's right, and I think we were really big on that in the beginning. And that is something that I think set us apart. But you could put anything somewhere, but the connectivity to that image still has to be backed by the brand.
36:18 Lewis Howes? Product, yeah.
36:18 Speaker 01 That's right, so it's not that people were like, oh, if that moment was at a bad gym, I don't think anyone takes a photo in front of it because it's not, it's an entire package.
36:27 Lewis Howes? They don't care.
36:28 Speaker 01 It's not one or the other. It's not like, so like, if Coca-Cola calls me right now like, "Hey, we gotta make this product really cool. Can you just give us one of your designs that you did at Rumble? And we'll just take a picture of it?" I was like, "No, no, no, no, no." First, you gotta move back 10 steps. Coca-Cola, you have to be cool.
36:44 Lewis Howes? Hmm.
36:44 Speaker 01 You have, like, there's 25 things for that person to take that photo in front of that.
36:48 Lewis Howes? Yeah.
36:48 Speaker 01 So, like I said, you lean into that, right? Everyone did it. And now, uh-oh, that's not working anymore. So when we're thinking about our design for the Rumbles 2020, 2021.
37:00 Lewis Howes? New studios.
37:01 Speaker 01 New studios, I'm scrapping it back to simplicity.
37:05 Lewis Howes? Really?
37:05 Speaker 01 That's right.
37:06 Lewis Howes? With all the gyms or just with the new ones?
37:08 Speaker 01 With the new ones. And it doesn't mean that we won't have Instagrammable moments because I still think people want to show what they do. And I think our product is unique in the way that they will want to show something, but it's not going to be the same thing.
37:18 Lewis Howes? Mm-hmm.
37:18 Speaker 01 So we put Basquiat's up in the first couple of studios.
37:22 Lewis Howes? Yeah.
37:22 Speaker 01 Not real ones, obviously can't afford that, but I thought it was cool. And I had no really reason for it. I was like, you know, I really love this artist and people don't really get to see it, so why don't we just put up a print of it?
37:32 Lewis Howes? Mm-hmm.
37:32 Speaker 01 A really good print and let people take photos of it. And that was done. But now it's done.
37:38 Lewis Howes? Yeah.
37:38 Speaker 01 So that's the challenge. You need to stay constantly relevant, constantly evolving. And sometimes you just have to take risks. I always, I always use the analogy of like a basketball game, right? Teams up by 20, they stop shooting. They just try to run the clock out to get through the 24 seconds. They play defense to get through the end of the game. And that's where the other team goes on a run. I don't want anyone else to go on a run. So at Catch, constantly innovating with the food, constantly innovating with the design, constantly innovating with our social media. So our social media campaign and our marketing campaign, we have no care for critics. We're opening Catch Steak in September.
38:18 Lewis Howes? I gotta try it out, man. In New York, right? Not in LA?
38:21 Speaker 01 New York. Lighter, brighter, fresher take on steak, smaller portions, shareable. A really unique experience on steak where it doesn't just like you get the filet, I get the strip, here's our side of potatoes. Everything comes as it's ready, so it's fresh, taking out a lot of the like lard and everything like that. So super lean cuts, but premium cuts. So every bite has an amazing flavor.
38:42 Lewis Howes? Wow. I'm sure a lot of people have asked you, was like, why does a nightclub/restaurant guy think he can start fitness?
38:49 Speaker 01 Right.
38:50 Lewis Howes? And be successful and...
38:52 Speaker 01 Because that's that 5%. And that's that 5% where we were, I was working for a gentleman who owned 20 restaurants and nightclubs. And I was able to spend enough time to see his organization. And then I said, I think I can do that. Maybe a bit arrogantly, maybe a bit naive, but we did it. And then when we opened up that first nightclub, there was a restaurant above us. And we got to watch how they operated that restaurant. And Mark and I looked at ourselves and said, I think we can do that. Because we got to see it. So we did have some data. We were able to see what they do on a day-to-day basis. And then they say, well, why would you, why didn't you open up a 60-seat restaurant for your first one? But we opened up a 350-seat restaurant for our first one. So, and then that was successful.
39:37 Speaker 01 So why wouldn't you think you can do it? And in 2016, I barely drink anymore. I don't go out late at night. I wanted to do something in fitness. And I was, I train all the time and I really enjoy it, every aspect of it, but I still couldn't find that thing for me. And I enjoy SoulCycle class, but spitting isn't my personal preference. But I enjoy it once in a while, but I was trying to find that thing that I can do. And I was going to the gym, but boxing became something I really loved. And the idea that I couldn't find... A boxing version of something that I love to do in a group setting with like-minded people. To find a white space in New York City is really, really hard. There's nothing.
40:21 Lewis Howes? Everyone's thought of something, is doing it, trying it.
40:24 Speaker 01 You can get anything you want in New York City at any hour of the day. At 3 a.m. there's a place that serves burritos and they're great.
40:29 Lewis Howes? Anything, yeah, yeah. Burritos with ice cream or chicken, whatever it is, yeah.
40:32 Speaker 01 There is never a moment that something can't happen in New York City. So when you find that, and that's actually what happened with our restaurants. We wanted to go to a restaurant that was shareable, that played hip-hop, that wasn't white cloth, that wasn't classical restaurant where we can see the people who were going to a nightclub before they went to a nightclub. We couldn't find it, so we did it. We wanted to open up our first nightclub because we thought that people weren't as kind to people when they walked into nightclubs and that they weren't giving the proper service. We wanted to play the music we wanted to play. We wanted to invite the friends that we wanted to invite. We wanted to have control over that, so we did it.
41:06 Lewis Howes? Yeah.
41:07 Speaker 01 And that's really what happened with fitness was the team that came up with the idea together, we cumulatively thought, there's a white space here. Our partners, great at scale, another partner, Tech, and me with the nightlife restaurant experience came together. Another partner that came from five years of group fitness experience as the leading instructor, Noah Neiman, at Barry's Boot Camp. And he was a beast and he happened to be a kid who went to the same school as me. He probably was one of the only kids I knew in group fitness.
41:38 Lewis Howes? Wow.
41:38 Speaker 01 Right? So.
41:40 Lewis Howes? Timing.
41:40 Speaker 01 Timing, that's what I'm saying, like, that's where you can't put it in a P and L.
41:45 Lewis Howes? It's the magic.
41:45 Speaker 01 That's right. And it happened to be when Instagram started.
41:48 Lewis Howes? If it was three years sooner, maybe it wouldn't have worked.
41:50 Speaker 01 Most importantly, I only knew it because I followed him on Instagram and he started posting videos of him boxing.
41:58 Lewis Howes? The trainer.
41:58 Speaker 01 The trainer, Noah, who's our partner.
42:00 Lewis Howes? That's when you were like, oh, this guy's amazing.
42:02 Speaker 01 This guy's amazing. I know him from Barry's, but he boxes. So I sent him a text, hey, if you know anyone in group fitness who really loves boxing, that is looking to make a move into becoming a partner into this new business, not you, of course, but anybody else, please let me know. And that's where the conversation started from, but that doesn't happen without social media.
42:21 Lewis Howes? Right. Wow, man, this is crazy.
42:23 Speaker 01 And then that, it all came about. And then the first one on 23rd Street, similar to the story on 2006, 10 June, the timing, the location, and everything hit at the same time. And then, obviously. Celebrity relationships that build it and there you go.
42:37 Lewis Howes? How do you, I mean, how do you, I think I read you have what Sylvester Stallone, Bieber, Blake Mycoskie, you've got Skrill Braun, like even probably more investors. How do you, one, attract those investors? And these are a lot, people with a lot of big egos, a lot of big successes who are saying, you know what, I deserve 30%, 10%, whatever it is. How do you divvy it up all the investment and still make it worth it for you with four partners, tons of investors? Everyone thinks that they're responsible for the amount of clients it's getting or the success, the promotion. How do you manage all the ego and energy of that all?
43:14 Speaker 01 You manage everyone else's ego by controlling your own. So you start by saying that this doesn't happen because of me. And then you, and then for me personally, Eugene Remm says, I can't do this by myself.
43:27 Lewis Howes? Without this team.
43:28 Speaker 01 Without this team. I'm, I'm a team guy. I'm, I do not like doing businesses by myself. I love my partnership with Mark and Tillman. I love my partnership with the Rumble founders. I love my investment community from, from Equinox and Harvey Spivak and Scooter and Blake and, and all of the other celebrities. So to manage everyone else's ego, you must not have one. And for me, that's super important. So to me, I remember it was Tommy Hilfiger told, said it one day at a speech. He said, I'd rather be a small piece of an elephant than a large piece of a pea. And I'm interested in doing big things, but I certainly know that I do not have the skill set to do all aspects of this business. So that's the first thing you need to do. The second thing you need to do is treat everyone equally.
44:13 Speaker 01 So everyone involved is an equal participant and everyone's money is the same and everyone's, everyone's belief is the same, so.
44:21 Lewis Howes? No matter how much they put in.
44:23 Speaker 01 Yeah, everyone's treated the same. And no one's responsible to say, I love Rumble, here's 10 bucks. Now say it again and say it again. So that's the other thing with our social media. We have never done a paid. Paid to play in our entire life. I have never paid a human being to walk into Catch and say, "Have dinner and post about it." We have never paid a single human being to walk into Rumble and say, "I'll give you $5,000 for this post." Never. But what we do-
44:48 Lewis Howes? We do complex meals or classes or-
44:50 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, we'll do, but we would do that, I would do that to you. I would do that to friends, because that's, that helps and adds value to everyone else's experience. So that's part of the business model. But as far as a paid to play thing, we don't do that. So I think it's really important that everyone gets treated the same. And then for me, it's, they have, it's not one thing, like, "Oh, I know a lot of people." A lot of people know a lot of people. So you have to know a lot of people. You have to have a great track record.
45:14 Lewis Howes? Mm-hmm.
45:15 Speaker 01 Or at least a track record where you've been honest throughout the whole way, where people want to do business to you. So great product, an honest track record. And then you really just gotta make sure that they love it.
45:26 Lewis Howes? Hmm.
45:27 Speaker 01 Because if they love it, they're down to do it much more. And then you have to make a decision. He or she wants to do it for the right reasons, down to have them. But if someone's trying to get more or less, or think they're more important, no one is more important than the whole.
45:40 Lewis Howes? Yeah.
45:40 Speaker 01 Rumble Boxing is the brand, that is the important product. The team and the people who work at Rumble Boxing are the most important thing.
45:46 Lewis Howes? Yeah.
45:47 Speaker 01 At Catch, Eugene Rem, Mark Bernbaum, Tillman Fertitta is not the priority for Catch. It is the brand, it is the food, it is the services, the vibe. And if, last night, it's Kevin Durant and DeAndre Jordan, they're important, but no one individual makes it. We did 785 covers last night on a Wednesday. Everyone enjoyed seeing Kevin Durant and DeAndre Jordan.
46:11 Lewis Howes? Covers, what do you mean, covers?
46:12 Speaker 01 People. People in the room, I'm sorry.
46:14 Lewis Howes? At the restaurant?
46:15 Speaker 01 Yeah.
46:15 Lewis Howes? 700 people?
46:16 Speaker 01 755 people.
46:17 Lewis Howes? In LA or in New York?
46:18 Speaker 01 In LA, because I was here last night. We're in Los Angeles. So those six gentlemen had a great experience.
46:24 Lewis Howes? Right.
46:24 Speaker 01 But if we just focus on them, the other 700 plus, that's a miss. So I think the best way to get all of this to work is make sure that everyone is handled. And there are people with way more relationships than I do, way more people in their cellphone than I ever have. And there are many, many businesses that start with celebrity that are complete and total failures.
46:47 Lewis Howes? Fail big time.
46:48 Speaker 01 I mean, in fact, I think if you did a case study on it- I think it would be probably nine to nine to one, ten to one of successful business started with celebrities versus those that don't.
46:58 Lewis Howes? Why is that?
47:00 Speaker 01 Well, because for everyone Randy Gerber and George Clooney, who absolutely love their product and create Casa amigos, there's nine hundred and ninety-nine who are inauthentic to the brand.
47:10 Lewis Howes? Just wanna make money.
47:11 Speaker 01 That's right. Or maybe they are authentic to the brand, but don't have the business practices involved, or don't have the timing, or don't have the partners. So maybe they don't have the capital, maybe they don't have the team, and maybe they don't have the timing. So for every time someone refers to Casa amigos, which I really just enjoy, oh, the billion-dollar business, amazing. Randy Gerber, who I who used to work for, has loved tequila since the day I met him when I was twenty-four years old. He knows this business, and they both enjoy their product. Mike Melman as well, so that's why everything had to work. They had, they're authentic, they're backed financially, they probably ran a great business, and they also had all those relationships. It's never one thing.
47:53 Speaker 01 So if someone's listening to this, looking for a silver bullet for success, it doesn't exist, because if there was one, everyone would just mimic it, and as soon as they mimic it, it will change.
48:03 Lewis Howes? Yeah, you gotta reinvent.
48:04 Speaker 01 Yeah, you're no longer unique.
48:06 Lewis Howes? So how important have relationships been for you over the last, I guess, fifteen years since you started Ten June and have been in the business? Have you cultivated these relationships consistently for fifteen years? Have you burned a lot of relationships from certain things?
48:21 Speaker 01 I think I'm a relationship guy. I work really hard on relationship. I try to put relationship before dollars in almost everything I do, which is why I love having partners. So to me, and this isn't the case in any of my businesses, but if I did ninety percent of the work and you did ten, and we were co-partners, I wouldn't care splitting it fifty-fifty with you, because the end result is I want an A.
48:44 Lewis Howes? Yeah.
48:44 Speaker 01 Because to me, that ten percent that you do might be really special and allow us to create this one percent product. So I don't really have an issue with that. So my relationships are a priority to me. I care about friendships, I care about relationships. I hope I haven't burned any relationships. I'm sure everyone has burned a relationship. I would never want to. And sometimes, though, you have to look at someone and say, like, what you're asking for is unreasonable. Yeah. I would love to make you happy, but it doesn't work for me. And if that's a burning of a relationship, then that's a burning of a relationship. And I think the better you get in business, you better get some thick skin for some of that.
49:26 Speaker 01 Because burning a relationship and ending a relationship are two very different things. Sometimes things don't work out and people have two extreme, different points of view on things. And then it just has to, it just has to end. Yeah. Countries go to war and people willing to die because both of them think they're 100% right. Yeah. So, of course, there's gonna be differences of opinion and of course, you can't maintain every relationship. I think it's how you do it. And as long as you can keep to whatever makes you sleep at night really well. Mm-hmm. That's the key, because there is no amount of money that makes up for a good night's sleep. That's true, man. There is no amount of money for me to wake up this morning, I am not nervous, when this ends, to go look at my phone and see what's coming in. Yeah.
50:08 Speaker 01 I'm certainly confident that no one, nothing wrong in a big scale is gonna happen. Now, 10 more dollars in my bank account is not gonna be worth the potential of creating those conflicts. And that's another thing, people need to know their own threshold, their risk tolerance in business, who they are. I'm sensitive. Yeah, me too. I know I'm. I'm very sensitive. I know I'm sensitive, and that's a hard thing to say as a man in this world today. But I'm generally a sensitive person. And that's also made me really good at taking care of people because I'm sensitive to their wants and needs. So in the restaurants, I'm really, I don't want people waiting that I know. I want them to really enjoy their experience. If they're on a date or if they're with their mother, I would be heartbroken if they sent me an email
50:53 Speaker 01 that said their experience was anything less than great. So I go a million times over to make sure that that's taken care of. And that's partially due to my being somewhat sensitive to being upsetting people. I don't like to upset people. Yeah. But some, you know, there's a concept called the bread of shame. It's don't give people bread they don't deserve. It'll come back and hurt you. So that's my line. I want to take care of people, but if I'm paying you and you're not delivering on the service that I'm paying for you, I'm hurting you because you should go do something else.
51:27 Lewis Howes? Mm-hmm.
51:27 Speaker 01 And I'm hurting myself because everyone around me is like, you're continuing to pay someone who isn't delivering while I am delivering.
51:34 Lewis Howes? Busting my butt hair.
51:35 Speaker 01 That's right. So now, these people aren't happy. You're not happy and that person's not happy. So that's where you just make the decision where like, hey, you might not be happy that I let you go today, but I know it's the right thing for all parties involved. Because you need to go find that. How many people have been fired from a job and say, it's the best thing that ever happened to them because then they found?
51:53 Lewis Howes? Yeah, the next thing.
51:53 Speaker 01 Their next thing. How many people have ended a relationship or a marriage and then two years later find the love of their life and couldn't be happier, but at that time?
52:02 Lewis Howes? It's miserable.
52:03 Speaker 01 Miserable. So I think it's just people, people gotta play more chess and less checkers.
52:07 Lewis Howes? That's true. I'm pretty good at checkers though.
52:09 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'm terrible at checkers.
52:11 Lewis Howes? Chess I'm not good at.
52:13 Speaker 01 Yeah, and I'm terrible at chess as well. And that's because I don't have the patience.
52:16 Lewis Howes? Yeah, I know.
52:17 Speaker 01 And I don't care about the result, but I think in life.
52:20 Lewis Howes? Yeah, emotional chess I'm good at.
52:22 Speaker 01 That's right.
52:22 Lewis Howes? Mental chess, but not the game.
52:24 Speaker 01 Yeah.
52:26 Lewis Howes? You're 41, is that what you said? What was the biggest lesson you learned when you were 30? After four, five, six years in the nightclub business? Hitting 30, what did you learn about yourself in that decade? The biggest lesson you learned about yourself from 30 to 40? Running the city at 27, 8, 9? The big shot in town, you know, building things. Everyone's coming to your club.
52:50 Speaker 01 I know nothing.
52:52 Lewis Howes? That was 30?
52:53 Speaker 01 No, that's what I learned from 30 to 40. I thought, at 30, I thought I knew everything.
52:57 Lewis Howes? Oh, wow.
52:58 Speaker 01 At 40, knowing way more than I did at 30, what I have learned, I know less than ever.
53:04 Lewis Howes? Wow.
53:04 Speaker 01 And every year I look back at the gentleman who I was a year before, and I hope this to be the case till the day that I die. It's like... That guy was silly. That guy was an idiot. Because I constantly want to grow and evolve and I want to look at the 42-year-old version of myself and look at the 41-year-old and be like, wow, he didn't know. And I really love the idea that I keep pushing myself personally through business coaches, through personal coaches, through mentorship, through spirituality, through all of these things to constantly evolve. But what I learned at 30 was that at 30, I thought making money was everything and I had my first exit when I was 29 years old.
53:49 Speaker 01 I had our partnership with Tillman Fertitta when I was 39 years old. And I can tell you that such a difference in those two experiences of what I felt at those times. At 29, you just feel this.
54:04 Lewis Howes? I'm the king.
54:05 Speaker 01 I'm this king of a moment. I'll never have to work again. I'm just gonna, I could just live off of this for the rest of my life. And boy, was I wrong, because when those things did not do well, every dollar that we made went into keeping this business afloat. And at 39, when we had our experience, I learned that it was about relationships. I learned about it was sharing with small groups of people, not bragging about anything, removing all of... At 30 years old, we would take pictures of like bottles of, we were buying in Cristal.
54:40 Lewis Howes? Right.
54:40 Speaker 01 We would take pictures when we were on private planes of other people. We would take pictures of fancy hotel rooms. At 39, I have no interest in any of that stuff. I have no interest in showing any of that stuff off. I have no interest in any of that. I just care about building businesses. The business and other people's success is my success. And I try to like really minimize my own personal wants and needs and keep it pretty basic.
55:05 Lewis Howes? And how do you manage a thousand people, a thousand employees?
55:10 Lewis Howes? From like a, you know, one nightclub of whatever, 30 people to now 1,000.
55:14 Speaker 01 I don't manage 1,000 people. I probably manage 50. And putting the care, I've always managed 50. So when we had 10 June, Mark and I managed 50 people.
55:26 Lewis Howes? You managed everyone?
55:27 Speaker 01 That's right.
55:27 Lewis Howes? Yeah.
55:28 Speaker 01 And when we tried to manage 500 people ourselves, we failed. So the shift there was managing, still managing 50 people. When I say managing, really day-to-day maintenance of those 50 people, growing them. That's how you do it. You just hire amazing and talented people. You have to recruit. You have to constantly evolve. They don't have to inspire you. You have to inspire them. That's my job. My job is to continue to be inspiring to our operators, to our marketers, to our talent, so that they continue to want to work here. So what do I have to do? I have to keep elevating. I have to keep, I have, creating a better offering financially,
56:12 Speaker 01 but not just financially. I found that financials, paying people represents this much. I spend my entire day trying to focus on a work-life balance for myself and my employees. I try to find ways to grow my employees so they can take the position of the employee above them, so that person can then grow above them. So to ask your question, why do I want to keep growing and not just stay with one nightclub? Because I will create stagnant growth for the people who work with me.
56:37 Lewis Howes? Yeah.
56:38 Speaker 01 So at this point, we are creating projects that fit the people that we have. And I tell my team all the time, our team in both properties, the only thing that slows down our growth is the lack of people that we can put in the position to do it. So the more of you that become capable to take on bigger roles, the more that we can open.
56:59 Lewis Howes? Wow.
56:59 Speaker 01 Because financial, we have the finances.
57:03 Speaker 01 And we have the ideas and We need the people that can implement. We need the people because Mark, myself with Catch and our partners at Rumble, we're limited unless people below us, not below us, next to us, want to continue to grow. So if they stay limited, then we can't grow. Yeah. You've got the cap, you've got tons of investors that would want to help fund new ventures. But those ventures have to be successful. So you better, as soon as you stop being successful, that capital dries up real quick. That's true. And people jump ship and go on to the next thing. Yeah. And that's also important to remember. Be careful of who you think all your friends are because one failure. They're not a friend anymore.
57:43 Speaker 01 That's right. Someone told me, you spend your entire 30s building your Rolodex from 50 to 5,000 and then you spend your entire 40s taking your Rolodex back from 5,000 to 50. Really? I'm 36 right now, I'm learning that. And what you realize is, New York, Los Angeles, the guys at the top stay on the top and everyone else is just visiting. You want to be great at a business, stay in a business. Guys who do this for two years and do that for two years and do this for two years, they, they don't stick. But the head of a record label is still the head of a record label, maybe a different one. The guy who runs the hedge fund still runs the hedge fund. The guy who's the best restaurateur, 10 years later. Doing restaurants.
58:28 Speaker 01 Is still the best restaurateur. It's very, very few people. Who stay there. Who stay there. And there's very, even fewer people in 2019 that make it into that group. So in 2006, there was an elite group of nightclub guys and we were the new kids. And we made it in and we stayed. And it's the same people that are still the elite today. Same people. There's been probably one or two big restaurant groups that have come up with us. Maybe one that I can really think of that's been super popular and has a growth the way we have. One in 10 years nationally. Crazy. That's how hard, excuse me, that's how hard this business is. It's crazy. It's a hard, hard business.
59:12 Lewis Howes? What's the regret you'll have by the time you're 50 if you don't do something? What's the thing that you know like, man, if I don't do this in the next nine years, I'm gonna really regret it? Or if I keep doing this and don't stop doing it, I'm gonna regret it?
59:30 Speaker 01 I don't know. I'm not regretful of anything that I have been doing. I find that the biggest challenges have given me the biggest opportunities. So I'm not sure I regret.
59:42 Speaker 01 I don't think I regret anything in anything I'm... Like, for example, I'm trying to have a great work-life balance. So I don't put my iPhone in my room when I go to sleep.
59:54 Lewis Howes? That's great.
59:55 Speaker 01 I don't check my phone for the first hour that I'm awake.
59:59 Lewis Howes? That's amazing.
59:59 Speaker 01 I do my 20-minute meditation, I drink my one liter of water. I work out six days a week. I am unapologetic for that hour and a half. So I will not regret starting another business in order to then not have to do those things. So I think I'm trying to accomplish those things. But I will regret if I do not continue to grow, if I do not continue to listen to people, if I start to believe my own BS again.
1:00:25 Lewis Howes? Yeah.
1:00:26 Speaker 01 If I revert back to the guy...
1:00:28 Lewis Howes? 26-year-old.
1:00:29 Speaker 01 Or 26, or 31, or 35-year-old version of myself that stopped listening to others, that started to believe my own BS. If I revert back to that guy, I will be really disappointed and I will be very regretful that I could not have learned from these opportunities that I had. That would be the biggest regret. If I could go, if I go backwards instead of forwards to that guy or be any other version of myself from the past, I would be really disappointed in myself. That would be, that would be a real disappointment.
1:01:02 Lewis Howes? I'm inspired, man. I didn't know what I would learn from you, but I'm really inspired to go to Catch More.
1:01:08 Speaker 01 It's gotta get you in the rumble, too.
1:01:09 Lewis Howes? Yeah, when I go to rumble, it's just right like a mile away, not even. And how can people support you? I've got, I've got three questions for you finally, but how can people support you with your endeavors right now?
1:01:19 Speaker 01 I continue to support what we have. You know, we have Catch, we have Rumble. We're opening Catch Steak in September in New York City. It's a 15,000 square foot, 450-seat restaurant, steakhouse. I think steakhouses need to be redone, and I think there's a 2020 version of it. And we're excited to give it a try, to try to hit that. So that's a, that's a big one and a new one for us. We're opening our second concept for Rumble, which is our treading concept, which is half treadmills, half weights. And Rumble Boxing is half the class boxing and the other half weights. So we're just, in boxing, we taught you something we didn't think, you didn't think you know how to do, and we got you to do it. And in treading, we're gonna, in treading, we're gonna make you enjoy something that you do, but don't like doing, which is running.
1:02:04 Lewis Howes? It's not fun to run, but when you have it with an experience, and a passion, and the music, and the lighting, like a SoulCycle feeling.
1:02:12 Speaker 01 Look, I think SoulCycle was the king of group fitness. They're certainly, they're the OGs of this game. They are what inspired me to get into the group fitness. And I think what they've done with cycling, we are really, we were very excited to do with boxing, and we're very excited to do with now with treading. So that opens at the end of October, and that opens in 23rd Street, down the block from Rumble Boxing, and also in San Francisco simultaneously, in the marina.
1:02:37 Lewis Howes? Is it coming here to LA too?
1:02:38 Speaker 01 It is.
1:02:39 Lewis Howes? 2021 maybe?
1:02:40 Speaker 01 We're working, trust me.
1:02:42 Lewis Howes? You're trying to find space.
1:02:43 Speaker 01 The team, the, one thing I can guarantee, the team that we have at Rumble is working hard to get it wherever, wherever it makes sense to have. So for me, those are things that are great. But honestly, if anything here is valuable and in some way can help you use it, and then if anything, more importantly, you use it and it works, share it.
1:03:01 Lewis Howes? Yeah.
1:03:01 Speaker 01 That's, that's.
1:03:02 Lewis Howes? And you're on Instagram, Twitter, what do you spend time on personally, online?
1:03:06 Speaker 01 I'm on Instagram, my name, just Eugene Rem. I think I have a Twitter, but I think it just connects, I think it just connects to my Instagram. But yeah, I'm on Instagram, Eugene Rem.
1:03:17 Lewis Howes? A website too, for you personally, or no?
1:03:19 Speaker 01 No.
1:03:20 Lewis Howes? Okay, so Instagram, message you, tag you, all those things.
1:03:23 Speaker 01 Instagram's where I'm at, and you know, I take breaks from Instagram now on a regular basis. I take probably, you know, a week, a month off.
1:03:31 Lewis Howes? But I think if people, there's a lot of entrepreneurs that listen. I think if people want to learn about branding and culture, go follow Catch Instagram and Rumble, because you guys do an amazing job of creating like this experience for people. And I think they can learn a lot in their businesses. Whether you have a small business, you're a solo entrepreneur, you can learn a lot. From what the way you've branded and created a culture, I think that's really cool.
1:03:52 Speaker 01 Thank you. We work really hard on that and I think we just try to do it authentically. If I were to give any advice to any brander, don't brand the way someone else's brand because you see it working for them. Brand what you would like, what you would enjoy, what you think you're good. If you can be authentic in 2019, in 2017, unauthenticness worked because there was a first, we were flooded with it in social media. But in 2019, right now, everyone smells everything.
1:04:18 Lewis Howes? Yeah.
1:04:19 Speaker 01 In 1990, whatever Pepsi needed to sell things, they put Michael Jackson on a commercial for 30 seconds and everyone, that doesn't work anymore. So find what works for you and make sure you have a point of view.
1:04:30 Lewis Howes? It's amazing. This question is called the three truths.
1:04:33 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:04:33 Lewis Howes? So imagine it's your last day on earth, many years from now, and you've accomplished everything you want. You've created every restaurant, concept, fitness, written the books, whatever you want to do, you've created it.
1:04:45 Speaker 01 Yep.
1:04:45 Lewis Howes? And you've got no regrets.
1:04:47 Speaker 01 Yep.
1:04:48 Lewis Howes? But for whatever reason, you've got to take it all with you. So all the restaurants gotta go with you wherever you pass them to. And you get to leave behind three things you know to be true about all of your experiences in life that you would share with the world, kind of like your three lessons to humanity. And that's all people would have to remember you by. What would you say are your three lessons or three truths?
1:05:10 Speaker 01 Oh, wow, this is, do people pause on this one? Because this is a...
1:05:16 Lewis Howes? Whatever's off the top of your mind right now, you know, doesn't have to be perfect.
1:05:18 Speaker 01 Three things I would want to leave this world to know is that...
1:05:21 Lewis Howes? Three lessons.
1:05:21 Speaker 01 Three lessons, have real relationships. Many, many likes, many friends doesn't equal many real friends. One partner and one best friend is bigger than any of that.
1:05:36 Lewis Howes? Wow.
1:05:38 Speaker 01 Just one, just have one, one love and one best friend. If you can die with that, you are, you are way better than most people on this planet.
1:05:46 Lewis Howes? Wow, yeah, okay, that's one.
1:05:47 Speaker 01 That's one, two.
1:05:48 Lewis Howes? That's powerful.
1:05:49 Speaker 01 Two, do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life. Or is it love what you do and you'll never work a day in your life? If your work is fun, it's not work.
1:05:59 Lewis Howes? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Number three?
1:06:03 Speaker 01 Take care of your body, or none of this is possible.
1:06:06 Lewis Howes? Right, that's true. Health is everything, right?
1:06:10 Speaker 01 A healthy man has 10,000 problems, a sick man has one.
1:06:14 Lewis Howes? That's a good one right there. Is that your line, or is that someone else's?
1:06:19 Speaker 01 Definitely. Anything smarter I have said today is mostly from someone else. And any of the silly isms, my friends call it Eugene-isms, are mine. But anything that actually had some real... The 150 thing, that one I'll take credit for. Everything else is things that have been taught to me, and I pull those.
1:06:38 Lewis Howes? Wow, that's great, man. I want to acknowledge you, Eugene, because I think someone like in a position of yours, who is in the top of the world in New York City in your twenties, can continue to ride off of this energy of getting all his attention, all his acknowledgement, all the celebrities, whatever came with this, and the fast money and the success. It can be really easy to stay there. But you decided to continue to reinvent and live with humility in the process of all the attention, celebrity acknowledgements that you get. So I acknowledge you for constantly doing the work. We talked earlier about you doing Hoffman stuff, and working on emotional intelligence, and getting coaches, and really diving into your health, and not drinking as much.
1:07:21 Lewis Howes? I think it's cool that someone who lived this lifestyle that was working realized it's not what it's all about.
1:07:30 Speaker 01 No, no, it's... Thank you.
1:07:32 Lewis Howes? And you're trying to create new innovative products and businesses to serve your employees and staff, as opposed to have them serving you.
1:07:40 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:07:41 Lewis Howes? And you just keep reinventing yourself. So in our limited time, I really appreciate your wisdom and your reinvention of yourself. It's really inspiring, yeah.
1:07:51 Speaker 01 I appreciate it. I enjoy talking about failures more than successes because I feel that people learn better from failures. And when the winners write the history books, they never talk about their failures. So I enjoy talking about things that don't work, and hopefully that can resonate to other people.
1:08:09 Lewis Howes? Yeah, that's cool, man. Final question for you is, what is your definition of greatness?
1:08:14 Speaker 01 Consistency.
1:08:16 Lewis Howes? There you go. Eugene, thanks, brother. Appreciate you, man.
1:08:19 Speaker 01 Appreciate it. Thank you for your time. Appreciate everything.
1:08:25 Lewis Howes? And there you have it, my friend. I hope you enjoyed this interview. If you did, make sure to share with your friends. Text one friend today, the link, lewishouse.com/842, and be an inspiration in someone's life today. If you know someone that could be inspired by this, that can learn from this, that could help them in their career, their business, or their life, then send them the link that you're listening to on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or anywhere you're listening to this podcast. You can be a champion in someone's life by sending them some powerful wisdom and information, absolutely free. As well, share it on social media, tag me @lewishouse on Instagram, and tag Eugene Rem as well. I'm sure he'd love to hear
1:09:07 Lewis Howes? your thoughts on what you got out of this episode. So make sure to share it with him on Instagram, and let him know what you thought about this interview. I hope you guys enjoyed this one. Please leave your feedback over on Apple Podcasts. I don't care if you leave a one-star review, or if you go five stars, like most of the people do. Leave a review and share your thoughts. Write a sentence or two about how this podcast specifically impacted your life, how we can improve this moving forward, and how I can improve your life with other great content for free for you. So leave us a review, leave a comment, and let me know your thoughts. I'd love to hear from you over there. As Walt Disney said, "Do what you do so well that they
1:09:49 Lewis Howes? want to see it again and bring their friends." I love what Eugene has done with his brands. I just went to his restaurant Catch today in LA, and it was packed. Lines, people taking photos everywhere. They created an experience to really captivate you to want to always come back. Make sure you're doing that in your business and in your brand, and you'll never have to do marketing ever again. I love you guys so very much. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.
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