The Exchanges

Q Is there a spectrum of sort of concierge services or access?

A The easiest way to think about what we do is this five-step Spectrum, where to the left, things are simple, and to the right, they're difficult to impossible. So, one, two, three, four, five. On the left, anything that you can purchase on a web browser. You want to rent a home to stay in when you go to LA. Well, there's Airbnb for that. You want to buy a ticket to Coachella, go to Coachella.com. You've got a VIP pass. Number two is hard. These are things where maybe they're available online, but they're still difficult for you to get your hands on. Uh, so these would be things like booking a private jet. Yeah, you can book a private jet online, but it's so confusing and so much brain damage from a booking. Most people use a broker or a travel person to do it. Number three, we call off market. And so these are things that sellers want to sell, but they never list or make available on a website. Artist credentials to go see your favorite band, and all sorts of other things that are never on public sale. Category four would be stuff that's hard, walking red carpet at the Met Gala, or being on stage with your favorite artist, et cetera, et cetera. And then, um, the fifth category are the impossible requests, like the ventilator chase, or all of these other sorts of wild and interesting things that we get called on to do.

AI assessment note: “The easiest way to think about what we do is this five-step Spectrum”

Q anybody. You have an onboarding process. Uh, and through that process, you're getting to know each other. They're getting to know you, you're getting to know them. I'm wondering if you can go through some of the questions that you ask people, uh, and I'm sure our audience would, would value going through these as well in terms of how do I get to know myself and where I'm at?

A Yeah, I think one of the great opportunities is to choose happiness today and to choose, you know, a broader definition of what we think of as success. So when we sit down with people, we send them a questionnaire, and the questionnaire includes a bunch of different sections. There's a fun section, because again, I believe if people are having more fun in their life, we're all human beings. Who doesn't want to enjoy their life, right? Like everyone wants to be having a good time to feel good, to feel special, have a great time. And so there's all of the, The bucket list questions, if you will, right? What's the stuff that you've done? What's the stuff that you've been wanting to do your whole life? You know, what are the things that you're curious about? Um, and then we get into more of the philosophical things. Imagine you're at your 80th birthday or whatever late life birthday you want it to be. Uh, everyone you love is gathered around and they say, uh, they're going to toast you. What would those closest to you say about you? Now, if that birthday party was held tonight, uh, what would they say about you today? And, um, if there's a Delta, what do you want to do about it? If your doctor called you right now and was like, you know, you've got one year to live. What would you be doing anything different than you're doing today? And if so, why? And just really asking these sort…

AI assessment note: “Imagine you're at your 80th birthday... What would those closest to you say about you?”

Q people who are like you, right, or just one level above you. They're moments of people who are, who are just well beyond the gap between, you know, rich and the money that you can afford and the things that you can afford. Is you're not exposed to people that are like you anymore. You're exposed to people who are very different than you. How do you think about that?

A Uh, I agree with you. Uh, that is part of the problem. And I think, you know, all of the studies are pretty clear that it has a negative effects or a negative effect on people. It's like a slot machine, right? Every time you, you open your phone, you've got the notification and the, the uncertain, you know, what you're going to see, it's addicting people to it. And, and I also think it gives a false impression. So even folks who are way wealthier than you are, they're still only posting the great moments of their lives. They're still humans. They've got crap moments in their lives just like everyone else, but they're not posting that, right? And so you're seeing this highlight reel of life, and so you're not just looking at economic inequality, you're also looking at, you know, kind of the best of the best of the best moments in anyone's life, and the supermajority of your life isn't like that. Well, the supermajority of all of our lives isn't like that.

AI assessment note: “I agree with you. Uh, that is part of the problem.”

Q What, what, what's another example of something on that extremely difficult, nearly impossible thing that you guys have pulled off?

A We had a client who was vacationing in Europe and he wanted armed private security, um, in a nation that did not allow for armed private security. The only people who could carry a gun in that country were on duty military and on duty, essentially federal police. Um, the client had, uh, some security concerns. He was on vacation. And, um, we essentially got security, an exception made by the government to treat him like a diplomat. And, uh, the president of the nation actually gave a member of his own, the equivalent of the secret service of his own security detail to secure a private American citizen. I mean, the degree of difficulty on getting stuff like that done is, you know, kind of off the, off the chart.

AI assessment note: “We had a client who was vacationing in Europe and he wanted armed private security”

Q which was trust and circles. One of the things that we, we both noticed and talked about a little bit beforehand is how Sometimes the wealthier you are, the smaller your circle is. And not only is it smaller, but it gets smaller every year. And it's really hard to get into that circle for an outsider. Can you talk to me about that and what you've seen and experienced?

A Right. Um, so it starts really and truly with the successful person being focused, right? So great financial success, you know, and I'm not talking about heirs, but, but entrepreneurs, people that are out there building businesses, it takes a lot out of you. Right. And we are all only given 24 hours a day. And if you've built some giant thing to give you a bunch of money, you've spent the majority of your time doing that thing. And so whatever that thing is, it's just like one vertical, one business. And so that in and of itself is, um, is insular, right? So you're focused on that thing. You're, you're missing the kids' ball games. You're not on the PTA board. You're at work, right? So it kind of starts there. Um, Having a bunch of money has some awesome parts to it, right? The more money you have, uh, the more stuff you can buy, the more places you can get, right? There's some cool parts to it, but then there are some downsides. Most things are directly related to money. The more money you have, it's going up, but then a lot of the personal pieces are inversely related. So the more money you have, the fewer people you can trust, the The more money you have, the harder it is for a person to look you in the eye and tell you the truth, just tell you things that you don't want to hear. And so that circle to your point just keeps shrinking and shrinking and shrinking and shrinking.…

AI assessment note: “the more money you have, the fewer people you can trust”

Q That's interesting. A lot of people, it does seem very bifurcated between doom and gloom and Optimism. There's not a lot of like, well, we'll see how it plays out sort of in the middle. I'm wondering, what do your clients tend to worry about? Like, what stresses them out? Is it the same things that stress normal people out? Is it different? Is it amplified?

A Um, I think money, ah, is an amplifier. It turns up the volume on who a person is. It doesn't change who they are. Um, with the caveat that, that great wealth does have the negative effects I was, was mentioning earlier. So the, the normal worries, um, that folks have, safety and security, um, is kind of a big one. They become targets for frivolous litigation and a lot of bad behavior. Um, you know, things which If they were poor, you know, um, would never be an issue, but even the minorest of infractions are like, you know, everything's super, super litigious. And so people, this leads to the, the kind of isolating and insular thing where they, you know, they have to be careful with people because they don't know what's going on. Oh, I slipped and fell. Here's, you know. So besides the security and kind of the, the, the litigation issues, there's a lot of, um, a lot of hand wrangling over what's going on in society. Um, the, the broader sort of, you know, these are, there are people who are I feel like really concerned about it, putting their money where their mouth is and kind of thinking through these problems, um, in a, in a significant way. But yeah, people are people, right? So they, they have the basic fears, but it does kind of turn up the volume on some of the, uh.

AI assessment note: “So the, the normal worries, um, that folks have, safety and security”

Q go get a job at McDonald's, it's gonna cause resentment. Uh, so you have to live whatever lifestyle you want them to grow up in. So if you want your kids to grow up in a middle-class lifestyle, you actually have to live, you can't force a subset of a middle-class lifestyle on them, or how do you, how do you see this? Like, you interact with all these people.

A That, that is a truism. Let's go back to our definition of success, right? So in America, this Horatio Alger. I worked hard and I made it. You know, I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps. I, I did it. I went out there and made it, young man, and you too, you're gonna go out there and make it, right? So I'm worth ten billion dollars. I'm gonna leave you a 100,000 dollars or, or nothing at all, and you're gonna go, you know, because I don't want to spoil you. You know, somewhere along the lines, our definition of success also kind of Blended with masculinity in this weird sort of way, and it comes to kind of define the alpha male, you know, I'm super, super successful. And if you look at Forbes, so Forbes publishes the billionaire list, and 26, 2700 names on it, that's actually not the most important designation. The most important designation is self-made. So within the Forbes billionaire list, there's heirs, there's all these, but that self-made billionaire, that's the designation that everyone wants. And it leads to this sort of thing where everyone has to be self-made. Talk to any billionaire, the first words out of, out of anyone's mouth will be like, I didn't come from anything. Whether or not that's true, right? They'll be like, ah, I came from nothing, right? That's, that's at the beginning. Of every story, uh, on the self-made thing. And I think it, um, it leads to som…

AI assessment note: “That, that is a truism. Let's go back to our definition of success”

Q Does wealth become hollow at some point, or money, I guess, is a different way to word this. Does money become hollow at the point where you can go out and buy anything you want that's available for sale?

A You know, money has, um, has been proven, uh, to, you know, have some negative effects on people, right? We become Uh, the richer we become, we become insensitive. Wealth is also, um, isolating. You know, the rich become very, very insular. Um, billionaire is becoming a dirty word. It's becoming a pejorative. You know, people, you know, are very, very concerned. And so, yeah, I think, you know, wealth can have several different effects on you, but we think that when people get to a point where They have everything that they want financially. They move kind of being out of this luxury mindset and into a place of, of what we call post luxury, where it's not necessarily about the nice thing. Um, it's about experiences. It's about connection. It's about people. And, um, we're building an organization to help folks find other people of like mind.

AI assessment note: “when people get to a point where They have everything that they want financially”

Q I want to come back to the questions that you asked just for a second. Is there one that stands out for you as Like if I could only ask one question to get to know somebody and determine whether, um, this is a person I want to work with, what would that question be?

A That would be the question. And it's different for everyone. There is no right answer, right? So for every person, uh, for our clients, for every person who comes in young, twenties or thirties, wealth event, single, ready to go have fun, meet people, party, whatever. We have a mid-career person. With kids, the last thing they want to do is go party. They're trying to do fun stuff with their family. We have other people, late stage career, who are focused on wealth transfer, who are legacy, so forth and so on. There's no right answer to it, but if you ask the question, would we want to work with them? Uh, I think the what do you want is very, very helpful.

AI assessment note: “I think the what do you want is very, very helpful.”

Q How can it not? When I think of wealth versus rich, I think, you know, wealth has a language and it's not money. And that language is sort of, um, connectedness, relationships, health, all of that to me goes into wealth. So does money if you have enough, right? And enough is how do you define enough?

A You know, there's the great story. Kurt Vonnegut eulogized Joseph Heller. Who wrote Catch-Twenty-Two. And in his eulogy, he told a story about he and Heller visiting a billionaire's island. You probably heard this in all the great literature you have behind the wall, but the story goes something like Vonnegut teases Joseph Heller by saying, do you know that our billionaire host made more money today than you made in all the copies of Catch-Twenty-Two you've ever sold since publication? And Heller said, yeah, I know that. But I have something that the billionaire will never have. And Vonnegut asks what? And Heller says, enough. I have enough. I believe that people broadly don't understand the difference in large numbers. We don't have an intuitive grasp of what it means, you know, because, you know, what is that, a thousand books behind us or 500, you know, it's hard for me to just look at it at a glance and know. And when you get into really big numbers, 1,000,010 of millions and billions, we just can't, we can't process it, process it, we can't intuit it. And that leads us to just not knowing what these things mean or not having a grasp of what it means. Sharing the difference between, or developing an understanding around what is the difference between a millionaire and a billionaire is important. And I think the clearest example of that is to use time. Nearly all of us have,…

AI assessment note: “And Heller said, yeah, I know that. But I have something that the billionaire”

Q So in dealing with this subset, Of the population. Is there a difference in your mind between being rich and being wealthy?

A There is. I think that, you know, every child, we grow up like, hey, I want to be successful. Your parents say, go be successful. Right? And we, we chase success. Um, in our society, broadly speaking, we have made the definition of success, how much money you have. Right? And so, you know, that's led to You know, work, work, work, work, work. Hustle culture. Entrepreneurial culture. You see all the blogs. You see all the tweets. You know, I'm out there hustling. They're hustling. Got to make money. Got to make money. But there is no end to that, right? And so you wind up in a scenario where you have made it. You have a wealth event. You've got a hundred million dollars, but that's not enough because someone has five hundred million dollars. You become a billionaire. That's not enough because somebody's got ten billion.

AI assessment note: “There is. I think that, you know, every child, we grow up”

Q What happened? Your day of reckoning? Like, what was the, the moment or the story that, You were like, whoa.

A Yeah, so, um, in twenty-twenty-one, uh, kind of the worst things that I could ever imagine happening to me, uh, all happened at once. Like, you know, major, major life crisis. It was the sort of thing which, you know, when it happened, my life would either, my life would never be the same from the instance it happened, and the outcome would be binary, right? I would go on to, to be okay Or, you know, or, or wind up in a very, very bad place. Going through it, I discovered that the things that were happening to me were not really happening to me. They were happening for me. And it produced this really, really incredible personal effect on me. One of the most visible effects, if you see old photos of me online, I was 350 pounds. I lost a hundred pounds in about four and a half months. Um, you know, it helped me to rebuild my company, rebuilt, uh, and improved, you know, the time I get to spend with my kids, and just all of these other things that kind of came through, uh, that, That journey of, the journey is, is the inward journey, right? Um, really reconnecting with and understanding one's self and then our relation to others, and, and being able to just kind of get outside of our own, um, lens, our own perspective, and see ourselves, um, more honestly, more candidly.

AI assessment note: “worst things that I could ever imagine happening to me, uh, all happened at once”