Tarek El Moussa

Taric El Musa is an American real estate investor and TV personality. He's best known for co hosting HGTV's Flip or Flop alongside his ex wife, Christina Hall. Tark is here to talk about his journey in real estate and his life. His new book is called Flip Your Life. Great great read. Definitely, this is one you're going to want to listen to. This will just be with tarik El Musa. Let's get into it.

How are you.

I'm doing fantastic. How are you?

I'm okay.

I have been reading about you, and I guess it's obviously I've heard about you and heard your name, But as happens with many people, I then start eating about them and I'm like, holy shit, this guy's had a life.

It's been interesting.

Yeah.

So you seem to be pretty transparent and out there about everything you've experienced, maybe even more so now than ever. But that's something that really jumped off the page for me.

Yeah.

You know, you know, looking back in the last twenty years of my life, I'll look at that. You know, there there have been a lot of struggles, a lot of ups, a lot of downs, and you know, I'm still here still working, still motivated, still thriving. And that's really what my new book's about. It's about flipping your life, and I really talk about it doesn't matter how bad

Going, yeah, and reinventing yourself. And I guess you're I'm very much like that, where whatever's happening, as brutal as it is, even when it's happening, I realized that, like there's meaning to it and that there will be. I think it is golf like golf holes. You're at what hole are you at? You at the fourth hole? Sometimes you stay there forever, someon as you go backwards, but hopefully to get through the game. So you always knew

No, I didn't actually know. I always wanted to be in real estate.

When I was an eighteen nineteen year old kid, I was dating a girl in her family where real estate investors, and her dad would tell me war stories from the nineteen sixties, how he would play poker and lose houses on hands and these wild stories. Unfortunately, he liked gambling, especially on horses, and he didn't have much at the time that I met him. At the time, I was actually selling kitchen knives. Lost my lead book one day, so put myself out of business. Standing at an ATM

And that's how I got started.

Oh wow, and do you love real estate? Like do you love the game of it? And it is I mean, you're talking about a horse gamber. I grew up at the racetrack, being a I would say, it's a side hustle. Like it's a passion of mine. I love to invest in real estate, and I do. I have flipped houses sort of intentionally. I want to talk to you about

Yeah, you know.

I mean it depends on what you qualify as screwed. Right, So, if you're investing over twenty years and two of those twenty years didn't go.

So well, did you get screwed or did you do really well? Well?

I say you did really really well. I say the analogy all the time. If I gave you a million dollars twenty times and you went to Vegas and you only want eighteen times, would you still.

Go Yeah, it's so true. That's very true.

It's true because I sometimes think about the one apartment that I lost on which bothers me. But you're right, I've sold probably six seven places and done well.

So that's true.

Exactly.

It's the averages, and it's the fear that prevents people from getting in the game, and that fear prevents them from building wealth, and we all know we need to be buying real estate. And the funny thing is, you know, most people, when they get older, their entire net worth comes from their primary residence. So imagine if everyone that owned a home just bought one or two more, what would those golden years look like?

Well, that's a good question, you flip. So do you believe in really keeping real estate? Do you believe in a combination? Meaning some people invest in real estate so it's an income producing asset that's going to throw off money every month. Some people want to like get in and get out. I like the get in and get out, you know, holding a couple of things. But I'm not a person that psychologically wants to hold so many places.

Well, one hundred million percent hold the assets.

The reason I got into flipping houses was so I can make money so I can buy real estate.

Okay, so today I own a.

Little over two hundred rental properties, you know, over well over a thousand apartments. We're developing self storage, we're developing multi family. But here's the most important thing I've learned over the years. You buy it, you said it, and you forget it. I mean, I looked at all these deals I flipped years ago. I literally could have stopped flipping houses eight years ago and just held the ones I had, and probably would have made more money than flipping almost a thousand houses.

If you're renting them out or if you're just holding them because of the direction the market's gone, because you're not renting them out. And renting them out means you have to be a landlord. So like, I had a four thousand square apartment in New York City that I was never going to rent out that I was paying you know, a lot a year on, so I had to. I wanted to let it go because I felt like it's just sucking up income. What do you think about that?

Oh, one hundred percent.

I would never have an asset sitting there not receiving cash flow.

Okay, yeah, yeah.

And I think a lot of people get confused about what investing is, Like, I don't want the headaches of holding and this and that. The only time you have headaches is if you create the headaches, meaning if you get involved as a real estate investor. You're not a property manager. You shouldn't be talking to tennis. You shouldn't be worrying about repairs. You hire people to do that, and your job is to go out there find more deals and continue to build wealth.

Great, so we agree.

Okay, so you're talking about it as an income producing asset, but you don't believe in holding.

You don't believe in.

Having three homes of your own that are just sitting there hoping that the market will go up and in five years will be worth more. That's not what you're talking about.

You're talking about I mean, yeah, I mean sure, Like you know, you're a billionaire with a limited money and you don't give a shit and yeah sure, But like you know, for the normal person, having an asset sitting there sucking away your cash flow isn't a good thing to have.

So that is something I would not do.

And where are you on? Are you always about owning versus renting? Because some people think in situations based on your money being in the market versus being in a property, they would rather rent, not have the property sucking up their money.

Yeah.

See, that's that's one of those things that we've been seeing a lot over the last couple of years, don't buy a house and this and that. So here's the truth, right, So, like, does it make more sense to probably buy some rental properties first before buying a primary residence. It probably does. But let's think about this. We're humans, right, we have families, we're here once. There's more to life than just money.

By the way, I could not agree. I think it's pride.

And even if it's like I'm a person that likes small and perfect like whatever it is, you know, designed with an inach of its life, if it's going to make you feel good, I'm that person too. I'd much rather spend money on the home than on something else, like then a bag or something else. That's that's very smart. And so now it's all your own money, do you have investors? Like, how does that all work? And how did it work? In the beginning and you know, have

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I got started flipping houses. I came up with the idea in twenty ten, and I actually pitched the idea of getting a TV show about flipping houses before I've ever flipped a house, So that was a wild experience.

Yeah.

So bought my first flip in twenty ten, bought it out the auction for one hundred and fifteen thousand. That same week that I bought a flip, I went to a real estate convention in Las Vegas. There was about five thousand people there and I met a guy and at the break he was telling me he had a local TV show and he got all this business out of it. So I was like, man, I got to get on TV. Two days later, I went home and I just had this crazy idea, Let's get a TV show.

Nice?

She said? She called me crazy. She went to bed.

I jumped on Google Hollywood production companies. They came up found button that said, casting, sent some pictures, and next morning I woke up and they said, send a home video. And that's where it all started. Yeah yeah, so yeah, very like.

Let's go. I'm the state. You're very like, all right, let's do it.

Let's go right now, let's go.

I believe anything's possible, and if you got to go for it every single day or you're never going to go anywhere. So I'm a believer that, like you know, manifestation is a real thing if you're willing to work your ass off, right, So so they responded, send a home video, so we documented that very first flip. Of course they loved it. I didn't know anything about construction. I mean I electric tutd myself. I burned my feet with acid. I painted all the baseboards to the floor.

But I was there.

I was there twelve fourteen hours a day, got the deal done start to finish with the buyer closed under sixty days, thirty four thousand dollars. And for me back then, it was life changing because it was getting right out of the Great Recession, and that very first deal, I found a partner and the deal was we went fifty to fifty. The deal went well, so moving forward, I had no money, so he put up all the money. I did all the work. We split fifty to fifty.

They finally wanted a pilot.

Then I was told, you know, the odds of getting a show are small, and if you get a show, it's going to take a long time. So two weeks later I get a contract for a house flipping show on HGTV where I got to flip thirteen houses and ten months.

Oh my god, right, No, it sounds very torturous.

It sounds two problems.

Two problems. One, I have no idea how to flip houses. Problem too, even if I did, we're in the world. Am I gonna get all this money cash flock?

Yeah?

So you know, I called my lawyer. I said, what's the worst case. He said, they could sue you. I looked around my apartment. I said, they can have it signed. That contract burned the boats. That first year, I worked all day and then overnight I would drive properties that were going to the auction in the morning to make sure nobody lived there. So from ten PM to four am, I drove southern California by myself.

And then every morning at nine am, I was at the auction.

Unbelievable, and that guy put up that money.

He put up that money, and I kept bringing better and better deals. He kept putting on money, and then we became full blown business partners. Outside of that, we started raising capital and you know, started flipping mid twenty ten. By two thousand and I think fourteen, we had as many as seventy to eighty flips going at one time. So, you know, I've always changed my life very fast, safe, and I'm a big believer that you can make money very fast. Most people think it's this twenty year or

Yeah, you seem fairly fearless, and you're just like, let's go and now what's the state of your business. Not the entertainment aspect, but like, it's your money. You still are partners with this guy. What kind of investments are you making? Like what's going on now?

Absolutely?

So today I own nine different brands and I run nine different brands, but the original company is called Tart Buys Houses. That's where we buy fix and flip, and we also wholesale houses. So we'll probably this year. The goal is to do in twenty twenty four three hundred to three hundred and fifty transactions, and I'm looking to scale that into the thousands over the next couple of years. Majority of the deals I'm doing right now is wholesaling.

It's worth six hundred. You want it? Yeah, I want it.

So now Bethany buys the house from Bob, but I get the difference in contract price, which in this case is one hundred thousand dollars. The great thing is I don't have risk. Why I didn't take a mortgage. I have no skin in the game. There's no loan, there's no carrying cost.

It's like being a diamond broker. You just have the contacts. Like same thing.

By the way, selling handbags on the secondary market, no one knows where to go, who the buyer is. You just know you're going to these people that are taking twenty five percent because you just want to get rid of your arms bag. But they know where all the people are, and that's a service. That is they deserve the money because I don't know who the hell Jane is who wants the bag.

Exactly and that's the beautiful thing.

So I have a company called Homeschooled by Tark where I teach people how to wholesale houses, how to flip houses. And it's the most beautiful thing when you have someone come in knows nothing about real estate, that's struggling, that can't make their rent, and you watch them, over a year period, completely flip their.

Life because they can hustle and find the people in between. That is a skill set. Yeah, they don't have to touch anything.

Let me tell you how easy house slipping is.

Right, most people, they overcomplicate everything and that's why most people don't get started. Like I have this gift of simplifying things. So here's how you flip houses. There's two ways to find them. Way number one you talk to people that own them. Way number two, you talk to people that sell them. So if you can talk to people that own houses and sell houses and ask them do you have any fixed ruppers I can buy, you can flip houses. Two funding you can raise private private money,

Yeah?

So what is house flipping? House flipping is being good at finding deals.

It's like being a producer of a film, puts together all the elements and they sit at the board. Yeah, it's like that. There are different ways I have unintentionally flipped houses, because one I did with Frederick, which did really which did very well in a market that was changing. Because you're increasing value if you're willing to do the work, as you know, that's the thing that people don't want

And it happened. I did it.

Twice, so that was I get a little more personal about it. Like most people are dispassionate, I have to get really passionate about it.

Yeah, And there's different types of investors, right, there's more of the passionate investor, and then they're more of the I want to just build wealth and I don't care about the emotional side investor right exactly.

But I can't get into it unless i'm into it because I need to be able to ride both lines. Like know that you know what I'm saying, Like, I can't just get into it for like an industrial reason just mentally, I don't know why.

Yeah, well we might need to work on that.

Well, it's a side thing because I don't want like I don't I love it, but only I only love it if it's something I really like for me. So I just liked the safety aspect if I'm over buying, Like I bought a house out of like a passionate reason. I like the safety aspect of knowing I could dump it, you know what I mean. That's it's sort of more of like that. So you've had some trouble. It says you lived in a halfway house, you were addicted to steroids, you.

Went through a cancer scare.

We'll get into it individually, but in talking to you now, I'm realizing how you were addicted to steroids.

You know, looking back reflecting on my life, you know, I'm forty two years old today and looking back like I see all the mistakes.

Right.

So, throughout my entire life severe ADHD, suffer with anxiety, always had issues with sleep. My late teen years, I major sleep issues, which I started drinking so I could fall asleep, which then in turn turned me into a raging alcoholic, which then in turn caused me to gain sixty pounds, which then in turn made me hate myself.

Wow.

Okay, so that was the first hit and that was another. It feels like that was extreme too. Now you're like addicted to the gym, you know, like you need something to be focusing on. The sleep thing is a big discussion that probably led to, like you had issues with hormones and sleep does. Lack of sleep does lead to so many problems and weight gain in particular, because you're eating. People are eating their feelings or they think they're hungry,

It's working. I go deeper.

I love it. I love that that you just said that. Like I.

By the way, I finally mastered my sleep over the last six months.

I've figured it out.

I'm going to sleep at the same time, I'm waking up at the same time, and for the first time, I'm sleeping between between like you know, four and a half and six hours a night. So it's been just beautiful and that's.

Not even a ton. But are you okay? So do you take anything now to see?

So the interesting thing is I was taking all these different sleeping pills, and what would happen is I would take them, I'd fall asleep. Thirty minutes later, I'd wake up in this weird, like delusional state where like I mean, it's just torture if anyone's been through it.

And this is how I overcame it.

So a lot of the sleep anxiety, as you know with insomnia, it's like you're in bed at nine o'clock, nine thirty, ten o'clock, right, and then you're falling asleep at oh shit, it's eleven, eleven thirty, and then it starts getting later.

Then you start thinking about the morning, I'm gonna get no.

Sleep, oh my god, counting.

So here's what I did, because I was waking up at six thirty every day, and one day I said, you know what, I'm gonna wake up so obnoxiously early. I can't be stressed out the night before because I'm gonna have so much free time in the morning. So I started waking up and it was torture at like four am.

But here's what happened.

The first two weeks were awful because I'd fall asleep at eleven twelve one, but no matter what, I'd have to wake up at four. No matter what, Yeah, I'd make myself wake up at four. And then what happened was my body became so exhausted. I eventually started falling asleep. But I had to wake up at four.

Oh, you like had to do? You do like a boot camp for yourself to try.

To, like Joel exactly, reset the body.

So by waking up at four, I got rid of my anxiety of Okay, I gotta wake up at six, and I got to be at the gym at seven. I'm gonna be rush right, So by waking up at four, I knew I was gonna have a peaceful warning.

And then what happens is you just get so tired.

Eventually, it's ten o'clock at night and you've woken up at four am for the past two weeks. Naturally, I started falling asleep, and that's how I fixed my sleeping problem.

And now I have fallen in love with the mornings.

The most exciting part of my day is like sometimes I'll wake up at three and I'm excited to get up because between three and six thirty am, it's peace. I got the fire going, it's black outside. I can create, I can think.

Let me tell you what I did because it's different, but there are many roads to roam. So yes, I've used the apps. I think the apps are great. I do not take anything. I used to be a person too, I couldn't sleep. I won't take anything. So the first thing for me is to allow yourself that you may not fall asleep. Okay, what's going to happen the next day? Nobody's gonna die. You slept four hours? What you're going to die?

Who care?

Like? Allow that instead of the noise in the mania of I have the Today Show tomorrow? Oh my god, Like that noise had to go. So the noise of it was like what that was the worst paralysis. That's the first thing.

Acceptance.

Yeah, like okay, so for years it's different. I'm getting up at four.

It's the same. Those two things are saying the same thing.

It's a less no but the same thing as you. Because I what used to trust me. I was thinking, oh, I'm only going to get four hours of sleep, and then one night I realized, well, I'm gonna be fine.

Okay, So that's the first thing. It's a boring story. Nobody cares you didn't sleep, okay. But then what happened was I started really watching, listening to the stupid things people say watching TV in a different room. Do not watch TV in my space. And then I put my phone on a curfew, like at nine o'clock. But again, if I wanted to go on the phone, that's fine, but not have it come in my room. Go to it like going to the fridge to eat the cake, Like you still have to go to the other room.

And then I have a sleep like a cabinet.

I have this forever in another closet, it's a warming cabinet and it warms these like herbal neck pillows. Okay, I right before I go to sleep, I get it. I put it around my neck. The warmth and the herbs like calms you down. And I breathe in and out and you can't get to five breaths, like heavy deep breaths, and you pass out. And I myself too, like wind it down at nine o'clock. The phone's curfew

It's changed my life.

That's beautiful.

And most people, if they would just understand by creating a sleep schedule, the rest of their life would be so much easier.

Beyond beyond, like it. It's so important.

And again I went out to a premier two nights ago and I went to bed at one o'clock and it did you know, it wasn't as easy to get to sleep.

But no one died.

I was tired, and you know, and I find that when you're on a sleep schedule, you're napping, you can you can watch TV and your body will fall asleep, because once you start to allow yourself to sleep, you're more tired sometimes at other times, like your body is more relaxed versus being manic.

Absolutely, honestly, I couldn't agree more. Like the number one focus is sleep. Like I even have this whoop thing on and every night, you know, I'm competing trying to get more sleep.

Yes, my fiance Paul has the whoop. He loves it and tells you you're you're in a deficit.

You did this.

I have a sleep tracker that's under the mattress and it just basically says, like what happened. It's not as detailed did that people.

Do the or or ring. It's all good.

You intervened in your life and you live in a halfway house.

For me, you know I lost everything, you know when, and you know in twenty sixteen, the day my ex wife left me, And you know, I lost everything mostly because of me and my actions and the way I treated people. And you know, I went through lock with the cancers and the steroids, and I have one hundred percent was not myself by any means. But at the same time, I wasn't the best guy. So there's a lot of you know understanding of you know, why my ex wife left me, but you know, it broke me.

So I was at a point where I didn't know what was going on. I was.

I was living on my boat actually at the time, because I had to leave my house and I wasn't doing well and I was at the point where I needed help. I didn't trust myself, so I checked myself into that halfway house. And it was an experience, you know. I was, you know, fairly you know, successful famous TV shows, and I'm living with crackheads and heroin addicts and I have to do laundry and I'm getting you know, alcohol tests did there's curfew and it was definitely an experience.

How long were you there?

I was in that I believe I was there for about sixty days. I was there for about sixty days.

And who suggested that.

It was actually doctor Drew?

Really?

Yeah? Yeah.

I was on the back of my boat with a couple of my buddies one day mid conversation. You know, I just fell over, passed out, hit the deck when I came to, you know.

Literally hit the deck of the boat. Yeah, that's an expression, but yeah.

Yeah, next time I know, my friend puts the phone on my ear and it's doctor Drew.

And I knew I knew of him, but I didn't know him.

And next thing I know, I'm talking to doctor Drew. And next thing I know, I'm checking into a facility.

Wow, So the Halfway House is a facility. And was your ex wife supportive? Was she to like traumatize on her own, on her own journey, Like she was.

Way to traumatize on her own and she was on her own journey And that was the most difficult part, you know, it was just it was just too far gone, and no matter what I did, it was just too late. So it you know, I yeah, it was very very tough experience, but you know what, I wouldn't change it.

You know, it.

Changed my life. Took away all these fears and all these anxieties and all these stresses, and every single thing I was always worried about and stress about literally disappeared the day she walked out, and I realized none of it mattered.

Nothing mattered, you know, you mean, because you lost it all and you were still alive, like you didn't have to worry about like the thought of everything, there just was nothing, so like you were at that was that was the real bottom?

Is that what you mean?

No?

Meaning everything that would cause stress or pain in my life. You know, when she left me, I realized that wasn't stress, that wasn't pain. Her leaving me was the real pain. And now you know, I've been through so much pain. When something bad happens, I reflect right, and it's nowhere near as painful as the shit I've experienced. So I'm just so much stronger today.

I so relate to that because I had a very gnarly ten year divorce, But it was so bad, and I grew up in a very abusive, like dysfunctional, drug alcoholic you new disorder everything childhood. This was so bad that like I couldn't imagine surviving and I couldn't imagine my life being anything but like how bad it was, it just could you couldn't. It was that golf thing I told you, Abaud, But like when it was free.

It was such freedom.

When it was over, it was like, I mean that I understand what you're talking about. Like you're just like, oh my god, I survived this thing. I don't want to survive anything else, but I kind of could, Like you survive that thing exactly right.

It's all that reflection, so like I look, you know, I got to my cancers in twenty thirteen.

They removed my thyroid.

All my emotions were all over the place because your thyroid regulates everything. And then they removed my thyroid, and then they I started taking synthetic medication, but later on I turned out I was totally under medicated, so I had a depression, brain fog, fatigue, I wasn't myself. And then I went through the two surgeries of thyroid cancer and testicular cancer, and I wasn't feeling good. And then

Oh my god.

And for the next year and a half of my life, it was.

It was worse than cancer, to be honest, because I was taking you know, ten to twelve delauded or vike it in a purpose at every single day. If you watch early seasons of my shows, you'll see me go from two hundred and forty pounds from cancer to one hundred and sixty five pounds from the pain pills and the opiates.

Didn't you get sick getting off of it?

You know? Yeah? You know?

I actually I quit cold Turkey the day that my back got better. And I didn't know I did okay when I got off of it. But when I was on it, like I was, I wasn't. I was not a good human. Oh my gosh, Like that stuff is toxic. But the pain I was experiencing from my back was like nothing I ever experienced in my life. And then I had the surgery. I came home the night of the surgery, and then there was complications. My urinary check

And when you say my family, you mean your ex and your kids. Are your parents? Like who's your family?

Everybody? Everybody? Everybody you have a you have.

A decent spital, that you have a decent support system.

Absolutely, my my parents are fantastic. They've always been big supporters of me. My family, family is number one for me. But during the during those years, like I look back and I was, I was so gone because I I had so many different chemicals in my body and and then I didn't have my hormones, I didn't have my thyroid, I was on testosterone, I was taking opiates, I was toughering with anxiety, and it just like I was.

I was dying inside.

I mean I was when was this?

When was the pinnacle of this?

What Yearah, twenty sixteen.

Okay, so not that long ago?

Yeah, that was.

Yes, almost seven years ago now, no, almost eight years ago now, Wow, and.

What is right?

You were like in a cloud and a fog, but functioning in business because probably in the first thing in the morning you can get shit done by the end of the day.

Yeah, and I and honestly, I've just come home at night, go up to my office, stare at the wall, and turmoil and pain for no reason whatsoever. Oh my major, Like you know, mental health, depression, all these things are real, you know. And I've I've experienced, you know, a lot of different things. You know.

I was actually on bipolar medicine for nine years.

You have had a lot of crap in your body.

Is there anything in your body now or you're like completely clean of stuff.

I do take ADHD ADHD medicine and that's all I take. And I started taking that two years ago, and man, what a vast improvement. So I started taking ADHD medication for the first time when I was seventeen. So I got into some trouble when I was seventeen. I ended up going to juvenile hall for a little bit. And when I got back, when I got out, they sent me to the doctor. Turns out at ADHD and they started me on this medicine and like overnight, my GPA

I went into that free fall. That's why I gained sixty pounds.

That's dangerous.

That's like going off your bipolar medicine or something like, you went off your meda and you aren't thinking straight, so you made your own decisions based on bad judgment.

Yeah. Yeah, so that's what I did.

And then I went on that downhill spiral until Justin came into my life and forced me to go to the gym. And then two years ago, you know, just very overwhelmed, and I decided to give it a shot again. And man, it's been such a game changer for.

Me, the ADHD medicine. Wow.

So yeah, there's a mental health situation here. And so your ex wife, are you friends you co parent. Do you have a decent relationship now, Christine.

Yeah, we're actually doing the best we ever have, which is which is fantastic.

You know, her and I we communicate regularly. We get along.

We're extremely friendly. You know, Christine and my wife head their communicate all the time. They get along great, and it's and it's been really really good for the last i'd say, about two two and a half years.

So you have a good blending, blended situation. And your ex is remarried too.

Yeah, yeah, she's she's remarried. Yeah, she's remarried.

Okay, because I feel like the whole thing has been public and I've seen it in the periphery, but I don't know about it.

Who did she marry? Didn't she marry someone?

Go on?

Yeah, so, I mean she got remarried twice. So she got married to a gentleman named Aunt Ann said, who I'm friends with him now too, and actually had a baby with him.

Okay.

You know, we talk about difficult.

You know, she got with aunt shortly, you know, after we separated and I was still filming with her, and it was a difficult experience watching someone you love girl baby right, Wow, So talking about pain.

Yeah, it was.

It was tough because I still loved her, right and I had to show up every day and watch her belly grow and think.

Man like holy she's yeah okay.

But you know, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. So unfortunately that marriage didn't work out. And then she got remarried to a gentleman named Josh Hall and and today they're married and they're they're filming some together.

Well, so you got a lot of entertainment in this crew, and so you get along with him and her. It's all decent, like pretty good.

Yeah, we're all totally good.

You know. Like like I said, if you're always dwelling on the past and negative experiences and you have hate, rage.

And it, you're never gonna you're never gonna have a happy life.

Right. But you're you're doing all this in the entertainment industry, which makes it like n in LA, which makes it like double triple challenging. Like I'm friends with Kyle and Maurice and I watch them on TV and in Beverly Hills. With the pressure and the money and the businesses, it's a swirling layered thing.

It's a lot, it's a lot. You know, but you know I have no you know, like I said, it's acceptance. You know, all the anger and rage blah blah, But at the end of the day, guess what, did I have a part in it?

Yeah?

Do I need to take some responsibility? Yes? So is it her fault? No, it's our fault.

Well, she must respect the fact that you say that publicly. That's really because everyone wants to blame everybody else in that.

I don't know yet.

I don't know if she's ever heard me say that public here. Oh okay, well you know I just started talking recently. Yeah, you're ready. Yeah, that's nice. That's nice. It's nice. It's amazing what time can do to your It is.

It is. And that's what I tell people. Man.

Every people waste their entire lives worried and stress and think about it. The shit we were stressed about when we were eighteen years old, did any of it matter?

No?

The shit we were stressed about when we were twenty seven did it matter?

No?

The shit were stressed about today? Is it going to matter in ten years? No?

No? Well, this woman, this woman on TikTok, I have to get her name back because it's not fair that I like, I'm living by this, and I don't remember her name because I recognize that you gave credit to the person which we'll talk about, who saw that you had a bulging something bulging in your neck and is responsible for you finding out you had cancer, and then

One hundred percent. You want to know what changed my life, and it's a very simple thing.

One word. So I think it was twenty seventeen.

I was looking at Newport Beach, driving up and down Newport Boulevard, literally just up and down, up and down, up, down, screaming, crying, cursing, hitting my like so sad and screaming about how life's not fair.

It's not fair, this happened. It's not fair.

I got cancer. It's not fair. I hurt my back. It's not fair. She left me, and then it hit me, Life's not fair. And like in that moment, like this calm came over me except and started and I said, life's not fair.

Like that, shit happens to good people every day.

There are things happening exponentially worse than what I'm going through, to people that don't deserve it.

Life's not fair. So because life's fair, not fair, what do you do?

You do the best you can with what you got right, and the second you acknowledge that you're free, you're free to go out there and build that new life and chase those dreams and rebuild yourself.

Well, it's the same thing you're saying about the sleep. It's allowing for it to be. Okay, you might not sleep tonight. Okay, you know it's going to die. Like that happened, this person broke your heart, you were an addict, you fucked up, it happened, you lost my Like that's what you're effectively saying. You're saying like it's liberating to allow for things to be fucked up. It's very liberating to allow for yourself to get your heart broken or

Exactly. It's acceptance.

Like like literally, it is impossible to be a highly successful individual without being in a lawsuit at one point in your life.

Right, So what does.

That mean for anyone who wants to be an entrepreneur? You better expect that one day you're going to be in a lawsuit. So when it comes, don't cry to bone, say okay, it's here.

Costs a business, Yes, totally.

Happens to everybody.

Yesterday I let a designer go that I paid most of their fee for a house that I'm doing, and I'm going to give somebody else half what they got and they're going to do double the work because I got to finish this thing. And I'm mad that I paid that person all this money and they shit the bed.

But we are where we are. It's a cost of doing business.

I can't like want to just stay with that person and fuck up the whole project because I already paid them chasing it Like that's what you see, you know what it's like, we did it exactly.

I'll give you an example. Early on in my career, a contractor would burn me or a sub would burn me. I would spend months fighting over fifteen hundred dollars, hundreds of hours and energy and letters and anger and hate and rage.

Today it happened fifteen I said, bye, it happened exactly.

The money, Yeah, you'll waste more money, keep staying on the road. Totally.

Yeah, we we have a lot of things in common, like with this philosophy. So Heather, Heather is your wife, she's all on TV with you, and like this is another entertainment relationship.

Yeah, and it's funny because it's totally it was totally random. I randomly met Heather. I didn't know about her show. It wasn't a setup. Was she was living and I think Sweden dating a hockey player at the time, well not at the time, but right before I met her. So it's fourth of July twenty nineteen. We're at Woody's Bar in Newport Beach and it's like party and the fires going and people are dancing and it only fits like five boats.

Luckily I got a spot.

I'm mid conversation and out of the corner of my mind just seeing this beautiful blonde girl with these braids, and like mid conversation, I stopped talking. I'd be lying a right to her, and of course I'm feeling confident because it's my yacht. Yeah, I put my hand out.

I go, hi, I'm arch. She goes, oh, I know who you are.

And I'm thinking, all right, yeah, all right, this is good, good, good, Thank God for TV. And then she goes, you asked me out two years ago, don't you remember?

So shit?

I said, where I ask you out? She goes Instagram. So I said one second. So I put my back to her, pulled up Instagram.

Look.

She responded she had a boyfriend. So I swung back around and said still about that boyfriend? She said no. So I was really excited. A couple of cocktails in, so I said, hey, you want to go to Paris?

She said no. I said you want to okay? I said, okay, you want to go to Las Vegas? Want to do something funch? She goes, I'm not going anywhere overnight with you. I said, okay, you want to do dinner? She goes maybe.

So then we start talking and we started getting into like a good conversation and then this, you know, like wasisted. Twenty one year old girl comes over and she was being obnoxious, So Heather got bothered and she left and she went back to the boat next to me. So now I'm sitting there sulking because I hadn't seen one girl in like four years.

That I was like wow.

And then I look on the boat next to me and I see her and this other guy, this like good looking guy with nice pretty hair and shade.

They're laughing.

She's throwing her hair back, and I'm watching, and I'm watching my future wife be stolen, right, And.

I said, oh, hell no, I'm not going down like that.

So I go to the wheelhouse, I find the horn and I late on that sucker. The whole bar jumped, like the whole like everybody jumped and they and I stuck my head out the sunroof and I yelled at the guy to get off my girl. Luckily, luckily Heather thought it was funny because they started laughing. So then I walked out to them. The guy tells me big fan walks away. I was like, thank.

God, oh my god.

And then I got her number.

There you've got a number like in a goodwill hunting and that was it. We were together. In the end is the rest is history.

She canceled our first date.

It was two weeks after, she said I'm not ready blah blah blah, and I just sent her one text message.

I said, I'm different than you. Think you should give it a shot.

Okay.

So a week later she said she'll give it a shot. I said, let's do dinner. She said, no, I'll go for a drink. I don't think she wanted to spend that much time with me. So I show up. It's the middle of summer, there's a heat wave, but I know I look good in this one blue sweater I wear every Christmas. So, not thinking about the heat wave, I go to dinner in this blue sweater and the whole dinner, I'm just sweating. My heart's pounding, I'm having anxiety.

Four days later, we moved in together and this is it.

You've been together. And then you got married and here we are and it's a great relationship.

Yeah.

And our son turns a year old in a couple of days.

So you have a baby. And how old are your other kids?

Taylor is thirteen years old. I can't believe it.

I have a thirteen year old.

Oh my gosh, so much fun. I am so obsessed with my daughter. And you know, we're talking about divorce right and talking about pain. I never would be the father I am today if I didn't go through what I went through.

I was not connected with my daughter when she was younger.

I was working all the time, and I felt so shitty about myself. And what I learned is all I had do was invest the time.

It's completely an ROI. What everything you put in you get out. Like, my daughter had a bad day yesterday. She's thirteen, and I was texting her, like, you know, because sometimes you want to problem solve with these kids instead of just being there for them, so they because they feel safe if you problem solved, they feel alienated. And so she came home and I just gave her like the most gigantic hug and was like, I'm here for you.

How can I help?

Like, how can I help for a thirteen year old because they want to yell at you and be frustrated. No, Mom, it's not. I'm like, how can I help you? Whatever I can do? It really works.

Yeah, No, I love it. It's investing the time.

And like today, me and my daughter, like since she was five years old, you know, we've been like best friends, you know.

I mean we're so close.

And me and my son were so close and it's the most feeling in the world.

He's eight years old.

So you have a thirteen and eight and a one. You have a beautiful family and the blending is going well and they accept your story, your past, and like you're in a good spot right now, perfect time to launch a book.

Yeah, everything is just going so well right now. Personally, Like, you know, I got what I've always wanted. It was my family back, you know, like I feel like I have a family again, which I do have a family. We're a family of five, we had a dog. It feels good. You know.

I didn't like being on my own.

I was just lost. I was I mean, it was just it wasn't fun, you know. And and just to have Heather in my life and in my kids' lives and to have this family I have, I'm just very blessed.

So you have a family, you are sleeping, and you are successful, and you're at peace.

So it's a good, good, good story.

All right.

Well, it was so nice to meet you, so honored to like hear your story and talk to you, and I really appreciate it, and I wish you the best of luck on the book and in life.

Absolutely, it was a great, great chatting with you.

I've been a big fan of you for many years and it's been exciting to watch what you've done.

I appreciate. Thank you so much.

Great great story and amazing like happy not ending, but happy moment in time.

Oh, just getting started. Wait till the second book.

Exactly, The next one will be called Life Isn't Fair. Awesome, Thank you so much.

After the flip, all right, we'll see you, yeah.

Exactly awesome. Thanks.

Taric was very very interesting, very open, very raw, very vulnerable. What a ride, young guy for such a story cancer, addiction, breakup, loss, halfway house.

ADHD money.

I mean, wow, this guy has a story of ten people's lives.