On today's episode of Gathering the Kings. So honest to god's story, Chaz, I got onto Facebook, and I said to everybody I know, and I've been online since 94. So I have a whole bunch of people on social. And I said, hey, I have an opportunity to do a show. And, what should it be called? Yeah. Right? And within 48 hours, no joke. There's about a 120 suggestions. And then people were chastising me, like, this was a Friday, so Saturday, Sunday, they were chastised me for having not selected yet.
Oh. And so I I so I turned it to them and I said, look, you know what? I want plausible deniability. You guys pick the name. Right? You ended up being The Radlife. You are listening to Gathering the Kings with Chaz Wolfe featuring fellow 78 and even 9 figure business owners who have real battle scars from business and life, but have prevailed as the king that they are designed to be.
We welcome high performing entrepreneurs to the stage in order to reveal the real of the real on what it takes to build a successful business today. We dissect the good and bad decisions they've made along the way Chaz give a true and accurate picture of the journey of success and how you too can get there. Through this dialogue, you will learn the value of growing your network and surrounding yourself with power players and kings like today's guest.
Grab your pen and notebook because we're about to dive in. Alright, everybody. Gatherin, the Kings. Welcome back, Chaz Wolfe. I've got Rod Gantas here with us. Welcome to the stage Rod. Thank you, Chaz. Appreciate the opportunity. Absolutely. Thank you for coming. And and we were just chatting about your name, and and names are so important. And I know we you and I have had so much organic authentic conversation off air to this moment.
But since we just were just for a second there talking about your name and did did you find that? I mean, you've run a podcast for for a long time, like, like, how how have names played into you and your show, just your history. Like, names are so important, I think. You know? So it's interesting because There's a couple of things. I live in a town called San Clemente in Southern California, and it's a surf down. It's known for surf spots breaks, all that stuff. I'm a scuba diver.
I've never served a day in my life. Right? Okay. And my name is spelled ra a a d. So everybody wants to call me rad. Right? Right. Right. And I feel like a complete imposter because I don't serve and people are calling me rad. So I fought it for the longest time, and I would say, no. No. It sounds like r o d, but it's just spelled like that. And it's actually a functional word in the Arabic language. It means thunder. So, see, the more I talk about this, the worst it's gonna get. Right?
So, you know, now now we're talking Native American iconic elements and and animals. Right? But it actually is a functioning word in Arabic language. So I I would only tell people, you know, it's Rod, you know, it's like there's a a pause between the two a's kind of. Right? Right. Well, then about 7 years ago, I walked into a show. Somebody Bravian Chaz guest for a podcast back early days, like, covered wagon days of podcast. Right?
And the guy who owns radio station was talking about baby boomers and aging and some of the issues that we don't really talk about. In my in my professional capacity as an interior designer, we do modifications for people's homes so they can stay in them longer, becoming more and more critically important now as we get more and more aging generation. Right? And multi generations, people taking care of parents and so forth.
So the guy says, hey, we would be interested in doing a podcast on, you know, maybe like, you know, baby boomers, would you be interested in doing it? Well, I said, I'm not a baby boomer. I missed it by 1 year. She says, don't worry. We'll call you a baby boomer. Wanna be and we'll just do this show. Now, you know, so it's just okay. Fine. Whatever. I was, I think it was like Jim Carey for 6 months. I said yes to everything. Mike came my way. I just turned.
Just turned 50, and I'm going, this is bonus zone right now. This is all extra time on my part. Right? Exactly. So I then this is a very true story. I'm like, well, how do you do this? And he told me, and and I had never been told you and I had thought I had this conversation about, like, voice for radio. Never had been told anything even close to And ever since, it's like, well, you know, of course, you're doing a show with a voice voice like that. I'm like, I never really thought about it.
Like, the closest probably was you know, I'm a fan of Looney Toons and Mel Blank and voiceovers. And I thought, well, maybe I'll do, you know, a Daffy duck or something I want to do. Yeah. But So he goes, this is the thing. You know, you go and get this done, and then you get a voiceover and you get some music selected, whatever. So now we gotta select the name for the show. So honest to god's story, she Chaz, I got onto Facebook, and I said to everybody, I know, and I've been online since 994.
So I have a whole bunch of people on social. And I said, hey, I have an opportunity to do a show. And, what should it be called? Yeah. Right? And within 48 hours, no joke. There's about a 120 suggestions. And then people were chastising me. Like, this was a Friday, so Saturday, Sunday, they were chastising me for having not selected that. And so I I so I turned it to them and I said, look, you know what? I want plausible deniability. You guys picked the name. Right?
And it ended up being The Radlife. Wow. Right. And and and and it's and it's funny because I'm like, okay. Screw it. I'm done fighting this. I am giving Okay. That's the Radlife. It got to the point where because what you see is what you get with me. I mean, it you know, whether I'm on camera or not, this is why. So I would do things and I would share things and people basically started using the term Radlife as an adjective Yeah. And they would say, oh, well, of course, you would do that.
That's the rad light. It's the rad light. Yeah. So I I actually gave up. I'd start sitting on my car now. It's on my license plate. Right? So it sounds like ROD, but I have become, you know, in my as I've aged, I have become accepting other fact that if you're gonna call me rad, find call me and and might as well make it the rad life. I I just love how you've embraced it. It's your identity now, you know, it's who you are. So who you've actually always been. You just didn't know it.
Yeah. Sometimes, you know, how funny life is. That way, sometimes you just gotta get out of your own way. That's right. That's right. I love it. Well, tell us, Rod, what what type of business you kinda mentioned it briefly there, but tell us a little bit more about business and and what it is that you do, professionally? So I'm a professional interior designer.
We specialize in I will use it loosely as hospitality project type projects, meaning spas, wellness centers, pretty much anything that sits in a hotel property in terms of the different functions. So you got restaurants, bars, the spas, you have accommodations, right, and I'm using that word versus guest rooms because We also now do like assisted living, memory care, yeah. So it's projects of that nature. And what usually happens with and I've been doing that since 2003 under my own flight.
Prior to that, I worked for a couple of really large heavy hitters in the industry Hirsch Bedner out of Atlanta. They're, like, number 1, number 2, depending on billing any year for interior design for hotels.
Wow. And, W AT and G, Wemberley Allison Tong and GOO, we is out of California, Southern California, Orange County, and there, if you selected 10 projects, hotel projects at 5 star level and called them out, they were probably responsible At one point, they were responsible for probably about 8 of them. Now they're probably responsible for 6 of them, you know, or maybe 7. The it's, yeah, so I got a lot of good pedigree training at those locations.
But it started even earlier for me because my dad was is a civil engineer since retired, but he's civil engineer and he was on job sites. And I grew up in the Middle East in Kuwait and Abu Dhabi. I tell people when when we were in Abu Dhabi, and I was young, you know, we lived on a construction literally looked like a British colonial camp with white rocks around flat poles, and we had a mess tall with Indian chefs from East Indian chefs that basically made Curry every Friday. Wolfe.
There was nothing in the in in in Abu Dhabi. There was, they they were building the first airport in infrastructure, Brit. My mom broke 30 minutes in a white VW bug to get groceries, you know, and sand everywhere. So I grew up on job sites. I grew up on job sites where my fun was crushing concrete samples for core sample testing and seeing what the PSI would be. Imagine being a wrecking Ralph with that kind of machine at the age of six. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.
Yes. It wasn't in, like, a a heavy handed kind of like you go do engineering. I was gonna go do engineering at my dad's home And it was it's, it's a, at Jesbury University, almost like a Harvard equivalent in Lebanon in Beirut, but there was a war going on. I ended up going down a path of economics, and we'll come back to this. We're going back down a bit economics path in a university in Switzerland. I was sixteen when I went to college.
And ended up going down sort of the economics undergrad went and did a marshes of marketing degree at the Peter Drucker Center in Clairemont. Wow. And then lo and behold, I find myself where I'm back on job sites, working with a friend of my dad's came over with some inheritance money from Syria doing some projects, and I'm back on job sites. And it's the very familiar environment for me. So then the economy in in California as far as real estate goes in 1991 crashed. And I was like at home.
I was like, what am I gonna do with myself? And this thing comes in the mail and says interior designers Institute summer certificate program, and I'm like, cool. 12 weeks of arts and crafts. Let's go do arts and crafts 12 weeks. Right? And here we are 3, you know, this, that was what, 91, 90, 91, 92. So 94 graduate with another undergrad in economic and, sorry, in the interior design, Yeah. Yeah. And at that point, there was a bit more clarity.
Like, sometimes I think when you're young and you go to college, unless you have had a sense of purpose Right? You're kind of just following either what a a spelled out path is for you or sort of the next thing to do on this stumbled into. Projectory is x. Right? Like, hey, I'm gonna do economics. What are you gonna do after that? Well, I'm gonna go either get a law degree or go to go teach or gonna go work for the government. Right?
You know, so there's certain things sometimes that are like, this is the next step. Right. Which is interesting because you know, your show and, you know, what we talk about all the times, like with entrepreneurship spirit, I think sometimes it gets derailed. Yeah. I think sometimes early on, you get kinda derailed. I choose to think about it now at this point in my life as not necessarily a derailment, but maybe it was additional stuff you need to pick up along the way.
To make it more clear for you later on. Like, you're you know, it's like this I know you're gonna this is one of the things that you're gonna Yeah. I think I think we all can relate you're on the right you're on the right thing. We can all relate to that. Yeah. And, you know, one of the things that I know was on your list of questions for me was, like, you know, books. Right? So you know, the the normal Steven Covey, biography of Steven Steve Jobs, and all of that stuff. Fine. Whatever. Right?
I think it's interesting right now coming out of COVID, coming out of sort of like a reset almost for a lot of us if you choose to look at it that way. I mean, we were forced into a the question is whether you see that as a it was a gift or maybe it's a combination of of things. There's a book by a gentleman by name of Ryan Holiday. Who is, the head of an effort called the daily stoic.
And it's about stoicism, Marcus Aurelius, Sancat, you know, a bunch of Greeks and he's got he's got a couple of books. One of the books that he has that said I think is an interesting read for people. It's called the the obstacle is the way. Okay. And the obstacle is the way basically is not necessarily a business book.
It talks about that sometimes those barriers or those barricades or those obstacles that get into your way are actually in a way there to make you go through them to make you find the path. Sure. And it's an it's an interesting way when you read that book coming out of 2 years of dealing with a pandemic. That's right. How we could maybe see some of these things that have happened, in a different light. Right.
And sometimes it's really all it is, right, is that that slight other side of the coin thinking. Yep. When you see something, So, anyway, so we do we do interior design. We we we do design build. I'm doing right now. I've got a landscape project. We're finishing an assisted living project. We're doing a cafe, a pharmacy, a restaurant, medical spa in Beverly Hills, couple residential projects, which in the residential projects becoming out of COVID.
We're trying to bring in a layer of wellness, especially on the higher end homes. It's like we're putting in things called Zendems, which are more like sort of a meditative space, gym, maybe steaming sauna, Yep. You know, and and geared towards the person that lives there. So it's like customized so that you can maintain a regiment of wellness Yeah. In your own home because we just found out how important it is to be healthy. Yeah. Yeah. And not on Zoom for 17 hours a day.
Well, you know, I mean, that's Zoom zones. That's not Zendesk. That's Zoom zones that we're doing, which because, you know, I'll I'll just share this with you. And for 10 years or 20 20 years almost now. Everybody's been pushing for open floor plan, open floor plan, open floor plan. I kinda put this image behind me over on purpose. Like, open floor plan. Right? Uh-huh.
Wolfe, here comes here comes COVID, and we're all sequestered, and we're all in homes, and we got some multigenerational households with grandparents, right? Yep. And you gotta do a zoom caller or Chaz is gonna do a podcast. And you're like, where the heck do I do this? Because I can't isolate myself into a space.
So some of the things that we are doing, as you see over here, over on this side, you'll see, the screen that's sort of the wood, the metal screen and the glass, So those partitions have existed in in commercial settings like WeWork and places of that nature. Right? Yep. We're started bringing some of that stuff into the house. So you can actually seal off areas as you need them for some of that functioning. So again, you know, it was an obstacle.
We faced a a challenge and we were basically ready to kill ourselves or drink ourselves stupid. Right? I threw you through that. Right. But here's where what can we come out of it? We come out of it. Something that's actually a quality of life enhancement, enrichment, save your sanity with your family around. Yeah. Yeah. It was funny that you say that about, like, where am I gonna do this?
The last two podcasts that I've recorded have been with guys that, have businesses in their home, and they've been in their truck. And I've been like, hey. Hey. I just wanna make sure, like, is this are you good? Like, I, like, we're here to record a podcast. Are you are you sure you're good? And he's like, yeah, man. I got kids inside. And so, like, this is the only quiet place that we're gonna get. I'm like, hey. This is my That's fantastic.
It's now the mobile podcast truck completely fine as long as we're on the same page. But, yeah, I mean, that's how it is. I mean, I walk the door right here. And my two year old's probably downstairs doing something crazy. You know? I mean, Chaz meant I mean, and and I think a lot of people thought, you know, coming out of COVID, everybody's gonna go back to, like, sort of, oh, man. I'm craving that normal, that old normal.
I think we found out that our quality of life could be better with some of primary relationships, and now it's a matter of just how do we hybrid the situation. Yeah. So we all live in environments. Right? And so what I find myself is Wolfe have a skill set that we can bring to bear to help people with that, whether it's because they have elder parents at home or, you know, some bunch of people brought in their elder parents at Yeah.
Into the house, you're good because once they got clear for Chaz 1st, you know, 3 months or whatever, that was the only way for them to see them. Otherwise, they were constantly sequestered. Right? That's right. So it's forced us to do stuff that I think in in some ways, we may look, we may look back at this as being a bit of a blessing. Like, the it was a it was a major reset for us. Totally. Absolutely.
I gotta ask at this stage in the game, like, obviously, you've been doing this, like you said, for for multiple decades at this point now. And and you've seen transition not only in in, like, the way that you do business and the actual services. Like, you're talking what you're doing right now today, you didn't offer probably 3 years ago or at least in the residential space? Well, not even the commercial. I mean, the commercial space is So the business has changed.
When I started doing, for example, spas, it was almost like, even on on high end hotel properties. It was like, it was like, green fees for golf. They would give green fees away for demand, and they would give spot treatments for the women in order to be secure the volume business. The group Right? Right. So it was a it was a lost leader.
And now it has gotten to the point where you almost have to specialize in a particular side of things where there's like injectables or, Botox or, or, like, maybe IV drips or something. Like, you'll see these places that are very, very micro specified on what they offer versus being a whole wellness thing. Right? Right. Because real estate of value, the industry itself is now basically looking at how do I optimize real estate square footage for the maximum revenue generation. Right?
And so whereas before, within 20 years, you know, we went from anybody Chaz basically be a spot director to you gotta have somebody that is a very savvy, very sophisticated person. Right. And that applies to restaurants like what happened with restaurants during COVID, right? I mean, do you think that GED is gonna go back in the bottle about alcohol sales and delivery? Heck no. There's way too much margins in there. Right? I mean, the outside patios, we'll see how that pencils out.
In California, they're supposed to be allowed to have outside dining in makeshift patios until the end of 2023. Some cities are trying to kick, you know, pull back on Chaz, and now that that Chaz has been already become part of life. It's not like a summer period. Now it's like been 2 years that we're doing something, right? Business has changed. This is the thing that sometimes people forget a living, breathing thing that is constantly teaching you and asking for you to adjust.
Yeah. There's so many lessons in what you just said. So I wanna try to dig into that. With you being in not only the the last couple of years of changes, but just been out a couple of decades. How did you get to the place where you realized that business was living and breathing? So that you could accept that change happens all the time. Right? Cause if you don't get to that place, then you're getting you get wrecked by it. You're like, change. You know. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
Very easy to be overwhelmed by it. Very easy to, I was watching the Marvelous Missus Maisel the other day. And there was a guy Chaz on there in says that, he said, sometimes you just gotta gotta go through what you gotta go through. That's right. That's gotta go through with what you gotta go through. It was such a side thing in the show, but it just resonated, like, pretty much that's it. Right? Sometimes you just gotta go through what you gotta go through.
I think for me, it was kind of an unintended blessing going through the path of an economics degree. And then masters of marketing, and then going into a field like this, I tend to basically have a left brain, right brain at all times. So I'm gonna be, and I'm technically in a creative field. We are a provider of creative solutions, right, Right. It's for for me, it has never been just an aesthetic thing for sure. Yeah. Right? And it's always about how does this solve the problem.
I mean, I'm one of those guys that basically you should not start up as jigsaw puzzle in front of me because I will be stuck I will not leave the room. I mean, it's happened over Thanksgiving, because some people have this tradition of starting as Chris Jacques of Buzzll attracts Thanksgiving. My god. That's like the worst thing for me. I walk into a place with the jigsaw puzzle, and we're watching it. And it's like Thanksgiving and then people are the football game and blah blah.
And I'm like, why are you still there at 10 o'clock run? Because there's more pieces. I didn't know what is it. Uh-huh. If you're sort of a solver, a problem solver, and that intrigues you. That's right. Then I look at these businesses, and I've said this to you before on off the air. I say, you know, we are We designed stages for people to perform their business on successfully. And I use that stage analogy just because it's a little easier someone sometimes for people to understand.
If you think of a theater of a show, the staging of the show, based on the show itself, is specific Right. The backdrops, even down to the scenes, setting the scenes are specific. The lighting, the almost the sense of the space, the costumes, all of that stuff. Right? Yep. So as businesses, especially brick and mortar businesses, although it does transcend into her I mean, look at what we're doing, right, with backdrops even. Right?
And people working from home and having to basically zoom, in team environments, whatever, right. Yep. So what's your backgrounds? Are they going to are they going to be consistent as far as the branding for the company? Are they going be respectful. I mean, I could have put a Hawaiian beach behind me, and I don't think I would have rejected the exact same same sense of what I do. Right?
Right. So The crossroads for me, the sweet spot for me has always been this revenue generation, brand unique value proposition and positioning the business in a way where it has a 5 to 70 or sustainable shelf life. Because if we if I always use Chaz the benchmark. If I did my job right, if we did the space correctly, whether it's also outdoor meeting space and interior, and like I said, you know, assisted living memory care, But you don't call me for 5 to 7 years because you don't need me.
You go ahead and do your business, put the money into what you needed, into operations, staffing, growing your labor force. You don't have to continue to put it back into a capital reinvestment to keep your place up and current because shelf life is very much part of that. And and if you don't believe me, look at places that open up and close. And then somebody else comes in and they switch the logos on the Wolfe, and that's all that is, and it works as well or as badly.
Yeah. Every business desires, every business every business person who's putting their sweat and tears into a business. And in some cases, the mom and pops, they're not deep pocketed. They're taking 2nd mortgages on their house to expand their business and opportunity to provide for their families. That's right. If their businesses fail, There's a lot at stake. Yeah. Yeah. The ripple effect.
So they deserve a, yeah, they deserve a sophisticated product that will actually help them see that through. And perfect example, again, going, I hit to go back continuously to COVID, but it's a learning, a learning period for us. Those people who basically bucked against it Chaz a, a bunker mentality versus a growth mindset Right. Right? They suffered, and a lot of them are not around anymore. Those who embraced a growth mindset and and ended up saying, okay.
Well, we're gonna get ahead of the curve on deliveries. All of a sudden, they're no longer using Uber Eats. Right? They're now basically got a couple of smart little electric cars, and they'll delivering their own food, and they kept their people working in delivery instead of being waiting in tables. Right. And now they are looking at a bigger business model. So we are a part of that partnership, I feel. Yeah. Versus just, oh, here's a pretty space. Go ahead. Now, you know, it's your thing.
Like I said, even more importantly, when it's brick and mortar, and if you're in a product and service business, that's pretty much what you do. You put on a show and people applaud by giving you money. Yeah. And if this show look at this. Hey, Chaz show is really great. I would think you should go see Chaz's show. If you put on a show that actually resonates and connect, then the word-of-mouth is gonna be, hey, you need to go to that show.
And I'm using the word show as analogy, but you you go to that business. You need to frequent dead space. Yep. I love the analogy. I think that and it can be, like you said, for any product, any service, any any sort of business because the show being produced, Wolfe speak. And how well do you produce it? You and I have talked about this too. How well you produce it is equally important.
Yeah. And so for for just to break that down a little bit, the customer experiences, in essence, what you're referring to. And so when someone walks in to the show and and the the environment that they're in when they're getting their ticket, whether they're getting concessions, the smell of popcorn, you know, the whatever they're experiencing and our quote unquote show example here, how does that apply? Give me, like, general stuff. Like By the way, Jess, for for for everything.
And and and it even starts even earlier. It starts when you pick up the phone and you call and make that reservation. Love it. And I'll tell you something very simple for people to pay attention to. And it continues all the way through after you've left, by the way. Okay. We'll touch on that in a minute. But but if you call a 5 star resort property, this is a perfect example. Right? You call to ask them something. You call another property, and I'm not picking on any property.
It's just the the internal cultural training. Right? Yep. If you call a 5 star property, chances are The answer you will get at the front desk when they pick up the phone is they will give you their name, welcome to this property, even though you physically are not walked in there. Right? And they will be they will say the following, something to the effect of how may I be of service today? Okay. Versus somewhere else may say, how can I help you? Right.
Now listen to the difference between, how can I help you, which is totally fine? Yeah. And how may I be of service? So it starts from the very beginning. It starts from that 8 by 10 glossy ad that you saw virtually on Instagram or on some kind of ad rag that you got in your mail that says, hey, we are here. We're doing business. And what what's usually in that 5 by 7 or, you know, what's in that in that ad? Right? It's a visual.
Yeah. It's a visual usually that's because we're very visual human animals, basically. We're very visual. And so if the visual sets the stage, it sets the tone. Okay. So imagine when you see a clip art for a spa or a restaurant or a business, a tax place, versus their actual physical entry. Their actual space. Right? Yep. Now it's okay. You know, we'll just use a graphic guy and we'll just use some clip art. Well, that's great, but you're gonna build frigging front desk. Right?
You're gonna build a frigging entry experience. Why don't you own it? Why don't you now basically have a collateral element that can be utilized and repurposed for setting the stage. Yeah. And when people walk through your door, when that when that expectation that you have set is met and then exceeded, You have now basically garnered yourself a customer. And when they leave and you follow-up with them with the same level of attention, and personalized attention at that.
Then they are now there for life until you fuck up, basically, or you, they will ask somebody, and they Wolfe share with you word-of-mouth because we all know what is the most cost effective impactful Wolfe last thing kind of advertising. It's Wolfe a mouth. Yeah. It's a word-of-mouth. Right? And I'll just share this with you personally. So so when I was in design school, I was doing great. It was the first time in my life where academically, I was raising the bar on myself.
This was a new experience for me. Like, it was always competing, you know, to stay within the realm of the pro appropriate grades for a class or getting the right things. And I was like, yeah, you know, where else can I take this? It was kinda interesting, right, very much in the entrepreneurial spirit of things. Absolutely. And what and then I hit a Wolfe. I just hit a wall. I couldn't I couldn't design myself out of a paper bag. It was the equivalent of, like, a writer's block.
Yeah. And so I didn't force it. And this is gonna, again, way before I read, right, Ryan Holiday's book, but, you know, like, the obstacle is the way. And so I I didn't force it. I kinda gave it room. And this is this is another thing, I think, with entrepreneurs and people. With season incomes then realization that stillness is actually a powerful tool. A 100%.
If you're constantly trying to push, you start constantly thinking, I gotta perform like a like a trained circus animal on the, you know, whatever comes to my way. Yep. You're gonna burn out. You're gonna lose the passion and the joy for what you do. That's right. You're gonna affect everybody around you in a in a way that makes you very unappealing. Right? And you're basically gonna look around and go, this is absolutely frustrating, unsatisfactory, and why the hell am I doing it? Or Wolfe.
Or worse. Haven't haven't forbid. So I left it alone, and then leaving it alone, I realized that the way I prove I seem to design. Was very much because I was a product of the TV generation, and I'll I'll I'll share with you why. Right? Because it still applies. It supplies even more so, I think, now because we are in a better digital content driven age. Right? Yeah. So when you think about a like a TV show, right? They give you, like, the the trailer.
There's a trailer that gives you, like, the, you know, this is what's gonna this is what you can expect. It sets the expectations. That's right. Right? Then you go watch the movie, right, or the show. And the show builds on the seated expectation. Right. And meets it Right? And then it exceeds it. And what I mean by exceeds it, and this is what I find found out that I did is now that I've implanted in you what you can expect from a space. Right.
As you travel through that space, as you engage in the functions of that space, there's certain things that may not be immediately blatantly in your face. But then you notice and you go, oh, I see what they did there. Oh, yeah. It connects directly to the the synopsis of the space. They the script of the story, right? And it's a story. It's storytelling. It's storytelling. We do it all the time. We are as human beings, I think, wired for storytelling. Yeah. Right.
If it wasn't the case, why would podcast as a medium be so popular? Exactly. Yep. Why do we be here? So so so it's always it's always been like Chaz, you know, that you have to tell a story. I love the how I mean, obviously, you're tying this back to what it is that you do so Wolfe.
Clearly, you're just even your language, for the listener who's who's paying attention, but To apply this to a listener who's probably a 6 figure business, they're trying to get to that 7 figure mark super practical here, is Okay. So I'm a service business and everywhere from, like you said, how me or my team answers the phone to the sure that my guy's wearing when he shows up to the house or the presentation of the storefront when someone comes in.
All the way Personalized email on your personalized email on day that is and just a canned regurgitated templates. Exactly. Exactly. The the customer journey is really what we're defining.
And so for you, you obviously play a role in in a piece of Chaz, but in in your greater business, what what for you has before you got to the the, like, let's just say, the stage now of, like, the 7 figure plus when you were when you were grinding, when you were just kinda picking things up and, like you said, you were saying, yes, to everything when you're in that stage because that's that's more of the warrior stage. That's more of the 6 figure.
I just gotta say yes to everything to get enough to get to that point. Where do I hone in is it the whole customer journey? Is it one piece over the another? Like, what would you say to that person who's like, oh my gosh. I'm so overwhelmed. You hone in on the relationship part. K. Give give. Yeah. You know, you hone in on a relationship part. You hold in on on what it is that is why are they dealing with you? Why why is it you you with a capital y Right. Versus just a provider?
Yeah. This is the this is both scary and courageous and and, you know, you kinda like on a what? You're on the high trapeze without a nets kind of thing. Right? Yeah. Because you gotta believe. You gotta get yourself to the point where you genuinely, genuinely, in your bones, believe. That what you're giving when you're providing is unique. Yeah. And in order for value because invaluable and genuinely not just talk it, but walk the talk. Yeah. Right?
I mean, this is this is these are basic things that we all know from day 1, but we don't really trust. We don't really are willing to risk. You know? And so when you say, you know, like, that wire stage and you're grabbing for everything and so forth, even when I was doing that, honestly, Chaz, I knew in my DNA core. Yeah. That the things that I wanted to do were the things that both had 2 things.
They were they were interesting, creative, challenging, and at the same time provided a genuine value for somebody. Right? And if it met those criteria, then I was really happy. And I was in the zone, and I was really providing and giving it my all, and it was more or less all the time most of the time, effortless. It was so, like, just part of you. Right? Yeah. This is who you are.
And so I I see a lot of people who embrace at what they should be, what they need to look like versus just who you are And if and and and and and if it's the right people you are dealing with, the people that are going to be repetitive customers that are ones that are basically gonna really value what you bring to the table. They want the real you. They want that genuine relationship.
You know, we talk we talk kind of a little bit almost like at a cliche, you know, you are you you're transactional? Are you relational? Right? Yeah. Well, relational also is risky because you gotta put yourself out there. Like, you gotta be you. You can't just be. I'm relational. Then here's my script that I follow to be relational. It just didn't work that way.
So it I think and and I think when it gets to that point, it gets to that point where you're talking between 6, 7, 7 figures or whatever. I mean, let's talk about it as 6 to 7 value. Okay. Yeah. Let's just say value because it's life value. Right? It's a record. It's a reflection of. Yeah. It's reflection of. It's not necessarily just the dollar Right? Yep. I think it's really comes down to Chaz.
And I'll share with you something I I encountered back in 98 when I was doing the first spa work Chaz I was doing while I was working for Hershbedner out of Atlanta, and I was stationed, at the island of Mauritius in the middle of the Indian The island is so small that the word m, half of the letter m in Mauritius is already in the ocean. It's that small. Okay? And for people who want a reference point, so there there's 3 island clusters, Mauritius, reunion, and Rodrigo.
Rodrigo was where we have a military base where we flew planes over in the Wolfe War, bomb Iraq. So so Mauritius is a very much a hospitality country. Right. It's it's it's, 5 star. I mean, there's not a lot of Americans. It's like almost like 12 hours to Paris and then 12 hours to there. But it's an amazing beautiful, beautiful little spot in the world. So I was there because out of three offices, they couldn't find somebody to go over there for 3 months.
On White Sandy beaches and tropical island. So Yeah. You know, I I'm I I think when they asked me, all I could think of is, do they have scuba gear there or, basically, ship money. Is this a trick? Am I being tricked here? This is a Friday afternoon. You asked me to go to an island in instead of spending October to December in Atlanta, it Chaz be in the Indian ocean on White Sandy beaches. Right. Yeah. Chaz I get back to you on Monday? Honestly, so So I'm there and work on this project.
Now the project is a 5 star property. It's been operating for 25 years. They're doing a major remodel on it. They're putting in the spa. And along the way, not part of our scope per se, I was asked to see if I could help with the new staff cafeteria. K. Now keep in mind, this is the kind of property where people show up with a script from Hollywood and, you know, a a a jet stream plane dropping them off for a week to 10 days to read the script. Right.
A villa, which at the time, was about $900 a a night. Right? People leave their Rolex Watches on the counter. There are laptops. They run to the beach. And there's that kind of place. Yeah. So what made that place that way? It was staff. Chaz you imagine having a stab that was disgruntled in a place like that where they're trying to basically could be that kind of service? It was never gonna happen. Never gonna happen. So we're doing this cafeteria.
And I'm I'm I'm purposely not saying the name of the property because this is not necessarily a positive thing about the property when it comes to this. They they they saw it through, but, okay, So the cafeteria was for the staff. And they're taking all these, like, old artwork and things from the old guest rooms and replacing them with all new. Right. I was sitting there in one meeting one morning, and they were talking about how they didn't wanna be a, a 5 star property anymore.
They wanted to be a 6 star property. There's no such thing as a 6 star property. Right. This doesn't exist. So five diamond, 5 star. But they wanted to be that. Yeah. Love it. In the same afternoon of that day, I sat in on a meeting where we're talking about finishing out the staff cafeteria And the same people who wanted to achieve a 6 star level were the ones that were trying to literally do the bare minimum for the staff cafeteria.
And I'm like, you guys wanna be a 6 star property and you don't realize that you are needing to basically care for your staff. Yeah. That is providing that kind of service. Exactly. So and it was very simple. We repurposed some of the stuff that was coming out of these these rooms that the staff had been working in where the guest experience was for 25 years. And we made that part of their cafeteria experience. We we treated them like they are a valuable resource. Yeah. Right?
So when we talk about relationships, We talk about really wanting to go from that 6 to the 7. It really comes down to this. You gotta be who you are. You gotta be willing to show who that is. You'll be willing to basically, be humble, efficient, bring what you bring to the table, but you also gotta basically really care for that relationship. You can't just pretend to care for people. When it's at that level, the people you're dealing with know. They know they can see it a mile away. 100%.
Yeah. Anybody can anybody can have a business. Anybody can start something from scratch and get it to a specific level without having to care. We've all experienced that business.
But to your point, to get it to the level where where there's an experience Chaz that this is a a long lasting thing, whether a shop, whether it's a service company, a home service, whatever it is, if this company is gonna be around for 10, 50, a 100 plus years, there's gonna be an experience why do people keep going to that same Italian restaurant where the guy basically greets them at the door like they're part of family? Right. They love it. Because it's yeah.
There there's other places that open. There's Luna girls that open. There's all this stuff open. Why don't we still go to that Italian restaurant? Yeah. 2, 3 times a week. Right? I mean, you can't. It's all legacy. You can't just be working. Well, you know, I'm I just mentioned this to Part of where I'm at right now too is that very clearly, you can work for a living. Right? Where I'm a I am right now is it's not enough. I gotta work for a legacy.
Yeah. And the legacy has to be a it's not a it's not a grandiose. It's all about me, build me a statue. It's a legacy of what are you really leaving before? Mind. What's left? Exactly. Yeah. No. I think that that's huge. And I think that, you know, using the the warrior king language like we like to, it's like you know, you have to become the warrior, right, to win some battles. You gotta fight off the enemy. You gotta grow your business. You gotta you gotta nose to the grindstone.
You got it's gotta be selfish almost even. It's gotta be about you for a period of time. Right. But at some point, you have to start looking outwards. You gotta build your team. You gotta look at your community, your family. I'm trying to figure out how how to spend more time with my my three, five, and and eight year old as opposed to not, you know, because we don't have a finite resource some resources we can then use to buy others like time.
So I love where you're where you're talking your heads out there as far as legacy. Okay, Rod. Speed round. Right? First question is this. If you could only pick 1 metric in your business to track forever and ever, what would it be? That's of real value, return business, repeat business. I would repeat. Yeah. I that that would be meant for me because that's really what it's meaningful. If we've we've done our job right, then they're coming back.
Or and I when I say repeat businesses, it could also include referrals through repeat Yeah. I think that would be the only metric that's really as well for me. That's good. There's been a lot of talk about experience today, and and that ties right into that. Obviously, if you if you provide the experience and then value, then they're gonna refer and or come back themselves. I love I love that. You know, are all slogan used to be. We don't design interiors. We design experiences. I love that.
Yeah. Which I think I think actually every business should listen. They should write that down. So say it to us one more time because I just heard it, but I wanna see it. I wanna hear it again. Home design interiors. We design experiences. And when I say experiences, it's not just the physical space that they experience to get from the physical space, not just dealing with the client. Yeah. I love that. I love that. We don't design. Did you did you get all this, Jeff?
Yeah. Yeah. We it it it finally came through to us. We design experiences, and I think that we all as entrepreneurs are designing experiences, even in our own life, and we can even tie that back to what we're just talking about as far as time being luxury. If we don't design our calendar, our life, which includes the time, the stillness, then then the experience that we have isn't gonna be high quality either, and we're not gonna come back. So here's, here's, here's the truth.
So, so, so, again, the old slogan used to be forever, and it was a flipping thing. I said it a while ago, And then somebody quoted me on it, and I realized, wait a minute. We've got a slogan, and it was we don't design tiers. We design experiences. We changed it recently to designs for your life. Right? Because of what exactly what you just said. And you're right. If you don't and it by the way, if you don't design it, it gets designed for you.
By circumstance, by other in external inputs, pulls and on yours on your time. Yeah. It's all about experience. Yep. Your own experience, by the way, as well as the experience that's that's projected. That's right. That's right. So much that goes into that. I love it. Okay. So do you intentionally network her mastermind with other entrepreneurs? I'm doing it right now, aren't they? I would say so. Yeah. Real quick. What what have you gotten from a value perspective?
Like, rubbing shoulders with other guys or gals in the industry or just business. Well, you know, you can't be a really an entrepreneur without being always curious and always open and learning, right, that that's one thing that I think identifies Chaz breed of people is that we're constantly learning. We're perfectly curious. We're constantly, you know, in a way, admitting to ourselves that we don't know everything. We need more. Right?
I think that the balance of that with the rest of your life is where we get into trouble sometimes and where we don't. Yeah. And you're smiling because I know you know what I'm talking about. So so, I think, the networking is it has to be of value. And I think the only way you start realizing how to value or or how to identify valuable networking is when you have gone through enough of it Chaz isn't. Yeah. No. That's good.
When you've done enough BNI's and you've done enough you know, the tips and you've done all of that stuff. And you gotta go through it to know. Yep. Yep. You learn in a quick time or a long time, whatever. You, you know, it's all about relationships. And and by the way, the networking sometimes isn't just necessarily so like end goal focus. It's some sometimes the real valuable networking is the stuff that's the longer term return, right?
Because again, if you go back to what we were talking about, it's relationships. So you don't I mean, you wanna sitting here, we've had a couple of conversations. You know, I think we, we gel and we have a synergy, and I think over time, it'll just get better. But, you know, if you go into a situation where, you know, like, we're What I'm asking for is this. Those are a transactional kind of network. Yep. Right? And they have their place.
Yeah. But the real, real valuable networking, the stuff that's with you that's a foundational part of your life of who you become of how you grow, that stuff is You need to be selective. Yeah. And I think as as you get more seasoned in life and you get older, maybe, or maybe just season, that's because it doesn't really have to do anything with age. You start being a little more selective where your networking is, where you, again, spend your time.
Yeah. And and or, and, like, time equals money or or effort. To your point earlier, the new luxurious time. And so when you're considering your time or the money that you're spending to do these things, it's not just the return of money necessarily, but sometimes it is. I love the the perspective of the relationship because that's that's genuinely how I feel.
And I think a lot of folks in business want it to be like that, but they just haven't really found that place where they can they can do it. And so I think that that's great that we can agree on that. Unfortunately, the way the things that are set are set up are very transaction Yeah. Unfortunately, the way things are is very quarter return, right? It's not a long term strategy. I mean, I remember doing in in business school.
We talked about how the Japanese Chaz an upper hand because they basically planned their return strategies over a 5 year period versus a quarterly return, right? So any negotiation with Americans with the mindset of quarterly returns were they were disadvantaged. Because the Japanese could wait them out, basically. And the longer they sit quiet and still, the more we give away, you know, because we need to seal that deal.
So I think I think we need to maybe start considering not saying time is money anymore and start saying things like time is value. Yeah. Love that. Very good. Okay. Last question, Rod. Yes. If you lost it all, what would you do? I mean, other than just go, you know, open a philoshek on some somewhere. Wolfe, if that's the answer, we wanna hear about it. What would you do? Well, like, if you lost it all, like, what would your mindset be?
And then, physically, what would you what would your action be? Knowing knowing what I know right now in terms of what would you be your pursuit of happiness? I think I would probably I mean, there's a reality of life. We need to basically be able sustain ourselves. We need to be able to deal with the Wolfe like it is, and there's a financial component to it. The question is what would you do to do Chaz?
And where is your, where is your sweet spot for contentment and acceptance of, you know, like, real gratitude of being fulfilled, right? Right. So at this point, I think, again, I would, I the reason why I don't think I would ever stop doing what I'm doing is because I'm I'm I'm I'm I get a thrill out of solving problems.
Right. Now if I was to do something that was a business venture Chaz was sort of a passion pursued Chaz was completely like don't really care how much Chaz long as it's enough to sustain me. I don't know. I'd probably open up there like a scuba a scuba diving it's somewhere near water. And probably there will be an extort to it. Some sort of Mediterranean full, awful restaurant. Exactly. Again, just Koopa knife. You gotta eat too. You gotta eat afterwards, though. They wear it out. Right.
And and, you know, it's funny because now that you've asked me this, and I haven't really thought about it ever to any kind of level of depth other than being flippant about it is it actually would provide me the ability to interact with people Chaz I would find, you know, like, there's there's there's there's there's there's no layers sometimes when it scuba diving or sitting around eating something with your feet in the sand. There's a certain rawness to it. Right?
Yeah. And so I think that would feed my my networking needs I would feed my relational needs Chaz Wolfe probably put money in my pocket. Yeah. And I probably shut it down at 5 o'clock when sun goes down because we can't scuba dive anymore. I, Rod, I hear a new thing coming potentially. I'll let you know if and whether we call it rat something or the other. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. The rat life, you can get your scuba dive and you and your, your curry. And your falafel. Yeah. Exactly.
Good. Okay. Well, Rod, honestly, dude, you you have provided us a a fresh perspective, I think that anybody listening today was able to take away multiple pieces of, wow, that's great. Let me write that down. So thank you for your service today, for for all of us listening. Yeah. Absolutely. You've been you've been credible. Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity, man. It's always good time spending with you. Yeah. Well, that's great.
And and we wish you the best of luck in in all of your experiences that you're designing, as well as potentially the new shop with, with with diving. You just never know. So I don't know. She has you saw you sound like you wanna either get us some certification in scuba diving or eating some vegetarian food, but you're welcome anytime. I was gonna say you gotta have me out. I mean, shortly. Right? This is what relationships are for. Right? You know? Of of course.
Do what else are you gonna do with podcasts next week? Exactly. Exactly. We gotta do one live right there on the beach. Yeah. You're gonna be the only guy, so this would be great. Well, Rod, thanks so so much for coming. We appreciate it. My pleasure. Have a great day, Jess. Thank you again. Alright. Thanks for listening to gathering the Kings. We hope you got a ton of value today and learn a thing or 2 about taking your business to 7 figures and beyond.
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