#700: Guy Laliberté, Founder of Cirque du Soleil — The Power of Belief, Street Gangs, Wild Tales from Las Vegas, The Dangers of Nurturing Fear, and Dancing on the Cliff

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Eightsleep currently ships within the US, Canada, the UK, select countries in the EU, and Australia. Optimal minimal. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I also request a question? Now I just see a new program coming. What if I could be out? I must have a netty organism living this show with a metal hamposcopic. Lead him to Paris show. Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferris.

Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris show where it is my job each and every episode to deconstruct world class performers to tease out the backstories, the frameworks, the philosophies, the tactics, and so on that you can apply to your own lives. And my guest today has been in the works for a long time. I'm thrilled to have him. And if I'm not mistaken, this is his first long form podcast ever, Guy La Libelte, who is the founder of Cirque du Soleil, One Drop Foundation, and Lune Rouge.

If I'm pronouncing that correctly, my apologies for the French, which I do not speak. He was named by Time Magazine as one of the most influential personalities in the world and has been recognized as one of the most creative and innovative minds by Conte Nast. An artist, entrepreneur and philanthropist, Guy is a three time winner of the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, which included world entrepreneur of the year.

He is a Knight of the National Order of Quebec and an inductee of the Canadian Business Hall of Fame. He has been granted the insignia of the Order of Canada, the highest distinction in the country, and in 2010 received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Guy now dedicates his time to his company, Lune Rouge, and his International Nonprofit One Drop Foundation, which aims to ensure sustainable access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene for communities everywhere through innovative partnerships, creativity, and the power of art. This is a wild conversation full of a lot of unbelievable stories. And we take a few minutes to warm up, but definitely stick around. There's a lot to learn.

There are many, many negotiation tactics, philosophical tenets, and more that you can pick up from this conversation. You can find him on Instagram at Guy La Liberté DJ, and you can find his new projects, which are brand new projects, and they will contain descriptions of some different projects that we allude to at the end of the conversation, and that is Frugs, fr-o-o-o-g-s.com, and you can get to the English with slash EN.

So Frugs.com slash EN, and without further ado, please enjoy a very wide-ranging, very tactical, very hilarious conversation with Guy La Liberté. Guy nice to see you. Thank you for making the time. I know you are a man on the road. You are a man on the move, which I suppose would be on brand as I did research for this conversation. You seem like a very hyper-canetic man. And I thought we might start in 1977. I might be getting the date, right? I might be getting the date wrong. A trip to Europe.

What prompted this trip to Europe? And what was your experience? To understand this desire hitting the road and engaging that journey, which was a very important moment or year of my life, we have to go back a little bit in my childhood. There's always that famous question that adult asks to kids, what do you want to do when you're an adult? And my answer back then was, well, I want to discover the world and I want to travel. And that came from tree, very important key moment in my life.

The first one was, that was the day of when my father brought the first caller TV in the house. And the first program we watched was a National Geographic program that showcased basically something I've never seen in my life, which was animals that doesn't exist in my own town, in my country, callers of skin or dressing of people. So I was just like, so amazed by this colorful impact that it had on me that I was like, trigger my curiosity. And it stays at that moment, that grows slowly.

And obviously I was a big fan of those national geographic every time I was coming and it was like, yes, I want to see what's more on this planet. Actually, at that time it made me realize and my mom explained me, said, listen, you're not only living in a city or a province or in a country or in a continent, you're living on a planet. And that made me realize that the world was bigger than my backyard. Second things, 1967, which was the world expo in Montreal.

My mom, another very curious person that bought for the family passport. And almost every day of the summer, she was bringing us to this international expo. And we visit pretty much, probably minimum of three times each, each pavilion that was there, which again was putting me closer to being touched with the culture that I was seeing in the national geographic.

So kind of not where they were, but close to me in a way that again, it reinforced this desire of discovering what was out there somewhere. I didn't know the notion of distance, but I knew it was far away. And the third things, which I think put the cherry on the Sunday was when Neil Armstrong walked the moon. I was in the summer camp, black and white TV that time, bunch of boys because it was a boy's camp.

And we spent the entire night, and it was a long program because they showed up all the process, the expectation was there, and suddenly this guy put a foot on the moon. And it was very interesting because you could see the reaction of the other kids, and even telling, wow, I want to be an astronaut, I want to do, I want to go in the moon, I want to do what is going. And for me, my look at that moment was totally different. It was like, whoa, the little print story could be real.

And now it's very interesting. And then it triggered my belief that if I have a dream or anything that was dreamy, could be achievable. So from that moment, it was really, okay, how could I shape my rest of my life to be able to travel and discover that world? So obviously, I was about 10, 11 at that time, and I was still too young to hit the robot myself. Soon, my parents were bringing us more in North America. And around the age of 14, 15, we did our first international trip to Cuba.

And then this is why I discovered green tomato. Beautiful long legs, woman dancing, dance that doesn't exist in my place, colorful music, happy dancing. So I was just like, wow, and blue collar, the ocean of the sea and the ocean and fish that doesn't exist in the lake. And I was just like, yes, I knew it. Here it is, the beginning of a great adventure. But at that time, obviously, I was a minor.

So I really start to engage in discovering my province, it's I came going in a theater festival, music festival. And at the same time, I pick up the accordion of the family of my father because I come from a family of musician, but traditional music. And I start to realize that maybe I could activate a little bit this adventure, the adventure using music.

So I took the time to prepare a little show myself, sing songs, storytelling, music, and then, short after connecting with a couple of other musicians, creating a band. And that, for three years, it was for me to travel around Canada and a little bit of the states to encounter other musicians, to play on the street, play in the music festival. So I realized that, hey, listen, I could have fun playing music. I discovered through this journey, the beginning of the pleasure of entertaining people.

But mostly, I was able to always go further and further geographically. And then, obviously, after a couple of years, 18 years old was coming soon, and it was just like, I'm going to Europe. And I have enough money to pay myself, open tickets for a year, and about 50 bucks in my pocket.

But an amazing number of contact that either had met over the previous three years, or people that had been in Europe say, you should go in this bar to play, you should meet that person, he's an interesting musician, and went out in the road, and basically spent almost a year in Europe discovering the pleasure of playing in the street, realizing the impact of making people smile. But mostly, I was achieving my dream. And I came back with more money in my pocket than I left with.

You came back with more money than you traveled there with. So I assume, and please correct me for wrong, that means you're busking and entertaining and turning money in that way. What were the keys to good busking? What did you learn about effective busking? First of all, where do you busk? Because it's not every corner of the street that you can make your, get your bread and breakfast money. So one of them is really to rapidly identify in a city where is the hotspot for people to busk?

Okay. And obviously, there's already busker when you arrive so you don't invent the wheel, you're just observing. But then you have to deal with territorial situations. So you have two way of dealing with that. Either you provoke and you confront, which normally is not the right way to do. Or you engage. You engage in the street neighborhood, which is not always busker, but it's also a lot of different people of all kind.

Very colorful, very misfit people, very disrupting people, but also amazing personality because a lot of artists are their musicians. So you engage in a community that belonged to this city. But what I realized is basically there's two things the busking business in Europe. It was the permanent people, the people who live in that city that didn't move and they were the one that was there every day, but there was a traveling people.

But I rapidly recognize that if you play the game well, if you're socially engaged and respectful of certain rules that exist, and you have to learn about them, then you engage in a community that is really supporting of each other. And then you make friends and then you decide with the traveler when to do, I don't know, two weeks with the violin player or a week with the belly dancer, or the fire breeder person.

So to this experience, it's not only encountering a community that was much bigger in Europe that it wasn't Quebec, because obviously Quebec, we have the climate factor, which is a little difficult to busc at minus 30, the corner of the street of Montreal. So the timeline is pretty limited and also the population is much smaller. Paris was my base at the beginning, because we're a speak French right there.

And from Paris, then I start, met a lot of people, and then you start to engage, okay, would do I go to Ireland or go to that festival? And I kind of like organically, the rhythm or the speed of the wind, it was like, oh, I was waking up in the morning, I was like, okay, let's go there, you're chiking. Again, depending the success of a chite, you could arrive on time or not.

So it was this journey of going from one place to the other one with people who are alone and making friends and engage in jamming, making money learning. This is where I learn all my fire breeding things, a little bit of the performance size of a busker, because there's a music side and there's a performing size. So this is where that I start to also engage in learning.

You know, I have never been a specialist of things, but I always been a very good, generalist time after time, I was practicing things. And basically my offer to the street was a little wider at the end after a year. So let's talk a little bit about your mom and dad. How did your values differ from perhaps your parents when you got back? Maybe a different way of looking at that would be asking what their hopes for you were and then what your hopes for yourself were.

First of all, my parents were amazing characters to start. They were entertaining, not knowing they were entertaining. My father probably a little bit more. My mom, my father had this way of triggering reaction to my mom and it was create an amazing, funny, dramatic moment that was triggering their own story to be shared with us, the children and my friends. They were entertaining us all the time. My mom come from a very specific type of family. Both of them were very poor.

My mom worker asked out to be a nurse, hit the road at the age of 18, she had a stud baker at 18, hit the road to California as an adventure with two other nurse, work all at musician, piano player. My father come from the other side. He was coming from a neighborhood in Quebec, which is like bunch of kids usling, playing tricks, having fun and getting away with it by just being with some people would think bad little boys but they were having fun. And actually it was another wheeler there.

He always made his way, got broke so many times because it was a gambler. But he was the most amazing entertainer he ended up with career as vice president of an Alcom company, not because he was forming when a school of that, but because he was the best person in the company when client, the national client was coming to Montreal, he was organizing all the party. And all the client was going back signing the contract. And whatever it need, he was organizing it.

So I learned this things and by the way, and this is pretty special because I not met many people to qualify that. In all my life, and many years after I grew up or still now, I never heard a bad word about my father. It was always guest town, clean, amazing guy. My father was always smiling. It was always like humor, smiling, not reacting to things where my mom was that little scorpion like she was picking, picking, and he said, was mama controls you.

And the dynamic was interesting, but I grew up in this type of family, one brother where we were fire and water together, but now we're best friends, because we're both parents of the past last year. And then the Grand Family, my father was coming from a family of eight, seven sister and him, and the Grand Mother had a twin, so together, and then father side family, there was about over 120 people, long, cool, long time things, and every weekend, in one of the house, and nobody had money.

Nobody was the rich one. The richest one was uncle, that at the printer company, he was printing a pamphlet and stuff like that, tell you a little bit, our rich we were, but every weekend, somewhere in one of the house, there was always from Friday night to Sunday night, 48 hour party, where the kids were,

remember we just sleeping on the floor, 10 kids, pile on that, they were doing music, play cards, have fun, drinking, getting drunk, singing, arguing, and all my life, I've seen that family supporting each other in terms of when one of them was crueeting up, there was never judgment. And you know, this is what I grew up on. So my roots is love, support is community spirit, it's like understanding that nobody's perfect. So I learned a lot out of that.

I didn't understand it at the beginning, because obviously when you grow, especially at the teenager moment, then it's starting to be a little confrontation, and there's many story I could tell, but I don't think it's relevant. More than saying, in their heart, they try to educate you to parents, in terms of what they believe is a good thing for you based on their value.

So at my time, my childhood, being a doctor, being a judge, or whatever, was the consecration, you know, you're an engineer, you've got a good salary, you have security. And I was trying all my life to my teenager moment, to try to explain it, well listen, I have a call, I just like, I don't like that. And every time I do that, I learn more, have fun doing that. I do more money than that. And now that I'm built up, you know, I want to have long hair.

Now you have to shorten it there, you have to go to church, or it's like all this type of things. So I was very confrontional. And I truly they helped me, because when they were punishing me, they were putting me into my room. And this is where I learned music, this is where I practiced my music by rage. I was transferring my rage in not being dark, that being said, I was in a dark moment from 11 to 14 for other reason. But when my parents was all of that, then I left home at 14 years old.

It was enough is enough. One amazing moment in my life, one teacher, moral science, because you could not have the option of Catholic, you know, or moral science. Obviously I was rejecting the religion, but I was interesting again in a moral sense. And then one day, if true a text to all the students there, the text was about Kadejibran, the prophet. Yeah, I have a conversation at home. The page about the children. I said, the children are not your children. I just like, it blew my mind.

That text was everything I want to say to my parents. So I think within a week or two weeks after, I got in conflict with my parents and left home, hit the road, because they wanted me to cut the hair and there was another thing. And I took the page and I wrote on the piece of it, when you will understand that meaning of that text will be able to communicate. That's pretty brutal, a 14 years old, and it's like another physical father and mother.

And actually, it was a very important moment in my relation. The first like, this is where the first time I stand by my thing before I was arguing, I was screaming, I was like, bitching, but this is really, what I said, enough is enough. We have to make a point in a relationship because I'm not happy.

At the point I'm questioning, if you love me, but you know, all the teenager term old, this is a very, being a teenager, this is the most fragile time in your life, if you're not being aggressive actually before the age of 10s or beat up. But if you have a normal life, this is a very fragile moment. So obviously it came back, my mom was crying and so like that came back like 10 days after and then I said, Dennis, let's make a deal.

We don't agree a lot of things, but I will continue in my school. You pay for my lunch, my clothes, but I wanna be having the rights of keeping my hair long and second work to earn my own mommy to pay myself what I want because I'm tired, Dad, of every time I ask you something, you ask me to do something for it.

And enough, you know, because sometimes things could go there because I'm trying to ask you things to be able to achieve things, but it's always a negotiation and you try to bring back a near way of things. So I clear that and it work. Actually that deal worked pretty good because without supporting everything I was doing, it was at least a dialogue that took place.

And there was some up and down, but I realized, and this is where the first thing I realized is, actually at the end, all discouraged that I have going and hitting the road, taking risks in my adventure, I always knew somewhere and I realized that after and it's maybe that subconscious or this turd eye or six cents or whatever, but I realized that, hey, wait a minute, I knew and I know exactly what they were about.

They never told me if you cross that door, don't come back first of all, you know, and you know how many parents screwed up when they said that to their kids. And second, I realized that if I screwed up, I will always be able to come back without a bad food and love and comfort. And this at trigger this enormous wave of courage and desire to even engage more. They didn't know that at the moment, they think I was crazy because I was doing more, that was doing previously.

And then obviously there was this confrontation about starting to do business and entertainment because it was one thing for them to understand that I was using art, music, to live and experience. In our conversation, I always made them believe that I will come back to schools but I was always a year extending the return to school. But when they realized, when they realized, I'm waiting for that.

That I was shifting and I consciously made a decision to not go to school but give myself the chance to live out of entertainment. Well, that was difficult. With my mom, it took the first year of Sikdusalai to realize it and she collapsed in line. I now understand.

My father, it took three more years because there was still some issue related to a reach-in couple of times for financial help to help to go through some tough moment and it was coming back with his old moral or condition and it pissed me off. But we had a great conversation in a stake-out, Smoshies and Montreal, the good ball of wine and with a big deal pickle and Coach La Salle. We made peace there and from that moment, I brought them everywhere in the world with me. We became good friends.

We had to were up and down but there was an amazing connection. In the life of a children or any relationship with parents, when that's obviously it's not instant but you always wish that the complete connection of the circle of this relationship is done before one of us died. And I did accomplish that when my parents and this is another beautiful gift of life that I had. I may want to come back to that. I mean, I know a lot of people who have not been able to do that.

That may be for a bottle of wine another time but I want to connect the dots to Cirque du Soleil. But before we get there, if you're open to talking about it and we can always cut this afterwards if you want to cut it, but you mentioned that you had a dark period from 11 to 14. And my main question is how you got out of that dark period but would you be willing to say a bit more about that? I could share. I've been sharing people. Yeah, it's part of my life.

My close friends know and I have no problem talking about that and that's actually related to a very big problem in the world that we're living. And it's coming out and keep coming out here after a year which is all about this Catholic Church. Controlling schools, abusing children and being excused because they were the voice of God.

So at the end of the 10, my parents sent me to the A school in the college in Montreal which I was a boarding school and obviously soon I realized with my friends that there's a bunch of priests that want to abuse us actually. So I resist that. I beat that up. I'm out of friends who suicide itself and so I start to be very, very reactive and it brought me a lot of angriness because you know what is the feeling? First you resist. I've not been raped but I've been trying it and I got their trick.

I resist, I filed it back. But there's some other kids there that didn't have this courage of reacting and they were my friends and they got beat up in the sense of it killed their soul and then one suicide itself. So obviously I was incapable of setting to my parents at that time. Remember I was 10 years old, 11 and knowing my parents were religious.

So obviously will I be punished or will I, I didn't know I was confused about the information and I guess there was a taboo thing because I see my parents were very religious. I was confused so I kept that for myself and among my friends. So I build up this desire to destroy. To the point of a certain moment and even because of another event later, I left two events a little bit like that. And the last one was just kind of like the add on of that.

I arrived to a point where I'm gonna kill the person until actually I was not feeling that. So that dark moment really was present. I was doing things that was not necessarily creative that was more destroying. I was doing things that is not how I was educated.

It's not what I was feeling but I was doing it by rage and this is where it's super important to understand that what saved me out of that darkness is music and this desire of traveling and actually activating the action of getting out of my city and the getting out of my environment because that was toxic. It was contaminated by what I had lived as a children and I was not able to see the beauty and I was just seeing the darkness.

And going out of this circle, geographical circle I permit me to slowly heal. This things to a point where soon a moment, I remember there was a very precise moment where I have the address. I knew where this person that tried to rape me was living and I kept in my pocket, always the address because I said if I pass by there, I want revenge. And a certain moment I physically took the paper, rip it off, put it in garbage and that was it. I was leaving my future and I bow my...

But again, this is how lucky I am. Do you know how many kids, their life will be destroyed for things like that? So again, what that comes from is the love of my parents, this understanding of what you are at, this feeling that the way you think is not the way you want to be and overcome that. Do you know how many friends I've not survived that? How many people have been, their life have been destroyed by living something like that?

So obviously, once I overcome that, I become so engaged in those type of value and defending that, that I become very, very strong about not allowing those type of things in my surrounding, combat that, fight that, not with my fist, but with my creativity. For me, making people live an emotion because they live a moment of joy.

And when you're capable of putting down the walls that people put in general around them to protect because they got hurt before and you're bringing in the point that they put down those walls and opened their heart for you to plan a seed. It made me realize that part of my job is not only to be an emerging of happiness, but a soft medicine, the healer of the soul, I don't know all you could do that. And then it reversed totally.

At the moment, I start to feel this power that to understand that feed the circle of life, it feed you back and it was very, very powerful. And I was like trying to explain it in a colorful way, but the dynamic is what I just explained to you. So it's very interesting because sometimes people tell story but they don't tell the source of why you are there. And there's many other things that I've learned my lesson out.

But this is a typical example that you could reverse negative and build it to even be better. So what do you believe in that? Of course, that person, those person was wrong because this is not right. But on the other side, if I didn't live that moment, maybe I would be a different person and not realize very young in my life that way in a minute. Now, I would not be and I would not use that type of power over other people. So it's very interesting. We could talk and talk.

And this is my philosophical part of the brain. But those are typical ways that I learn out of everything I engage in. Guy, thank you for sharing that. And I'm sorry that you and your friends experience that.

And as a spectator, as a, I guess, participant, but from the stands, someone who's gone to many Cirque du Soleil performances, it's beautiful for me to hear how you referred metaphorically to the lowering of those walls, those protective mechanisms because we don't have to spend much time on this. But I was very badly abused when I was very young, two to four. And I have very well established walls.

But when I've gone to Cirque du Soleil performances, and there are a few places in life where this is true, but it's where I can forget those stories and become engaged with awe and wonder in a way that allows me to exhale and experience these things very fully in a very tangible way. So I just wanted to reflect back my personal experience.

And you'll be surprised because I always said, you know, to hit the big seven, which is having the privilege on this planet to be born on the right side of the planet, having the love of your parents, water, food, not being beat physically before the age of dance or sexually abused, whoa. It has a question around, I will tell you, it's like there's not many that qualify for the big seven. So this is very important to understand. I believe in the society we're living.

It's a lot of creepy and twisted things that happen to human being and that human being to teach others. So again, Cirque du Soleil, I am so happy to hear your story because two things. My show we're about, of course, the spectacular of it, the things like that. This was the big pleasure, but the fundamental satisfaction was coming from two things. Really having the impression that my future, my show was helping to build a better world in two ways.

First, in exposing, because all my show was all about inspired by the culture of the world, either in true music, the costume, the team, and things like that. My artist was a mosaic of all this beautiful people around the world that was performing. So for me, I believe that I was a promoter of one world. And by then, open the mind of people that there's other people than you and they could do beautiful too, and they don't have to think like that one.

The second one is really what I just explained about this wall because I believe strongly that the power of love has overcome the power of hate because it's a feeling. So when people feel something that is extremely profound and deep in the emotion of joys, well, they will try and they will look into living that again and again and again. And the same effect when somebody suffers something, and this is why sometime one event of agro-sidity could provoke a monster. Why?

Because the emotion is there and you want to give revenge, so he's building even more what he had in this. So it's like, it goes both ways.

And like I said, I'm so happy to make that choice of my life that I could have this tools, of this healing tools that I believe is, think my job at Cygnusolai, I did a lot of things, but one of the most important function I have when we create a show, my job was to assure that every my show, it could be a fraction of a second, that any spectator in the place would say, wow, they did that for me. You know, whatever it is.

And if I was able in my show to make people feel that I did that for them, that was the most wall was fellin' down at that moment. So again, it's an understanding, the psychology, the world, different way, radical acceptance, a recognition that nothing's perfect. It's just like, this is all came to my journey and Cyc was the sandbox in which I was able to build that castle. Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by Mementis.

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Let's track your path to the sandbox because there are many people who busk, I actually did a very small amount of busking in Paris actually, but it pissed everybody off because I wasn't asking for money. I just did Acro yoga with another woman who is there. Plasma board. I think we're actually near, I'm not going to pronounce it properly, but near the gardens, was it a tulerie? Is something? Well, they're not tulerie. Yes, tulerie, they're not tulerie. I was close, I was close.

We were in front of the Louvre. Yeah, very exactly. And there are many buskers, many people who busk, but very few people who create something like Cirque du Soleil. So you come back from Europe, could you describe some of the key decisions or moments leading up to Cirque du Soleil after you return? Actually, when I came back, I was not yet decided if I was going back to school another.

Again, I find another way to extend my year not going to school to tell my father, while I need to make money now, could you help me to have a job you had a friend who had a factory to do a window for the RVs and trailers? So I worked there for months. Obviously, this was a factory job, but it was bringing a little money while I was playing bars with music and still willing, dealing, anything that could sell on the site. What kind of stuff would you be selling on the side?

Not baseball cards, anything. Not anything, anything. I will find anything. I was able to see a fortune to make my buck on anything. So you just buy a bicycle at a yard sale and sell it like some days? Exactly, something like that. Or yeah, yeah, yeah, we're buy old sell, a bunch of jeans and going things and making five bucks over the jeans at school, whatever. I was a wheeler dealer. I was a hustler also. I was good at bagam and I was like a pool and stuff. A little bit of everything.

I always like to put to challenge. I love competition. I said, same competition amongst people. I think this permit you to, it's like playing poker. You discover personality of people by being a good chess player. So that's nice. And actually, it's something I play in business later on. But at that moment, we're talking about, when it comes back to Europe, so 1978, 1979, got that job.

And then there's another friend my father had because at that time, the biggest job you could have was to go work on the dam and the north, the electrical dam. The wages there was like, hey, you were sent there. You had the highest wages, extra hours. You were working seven hours. It was like you were doing so much money. So my father got me that job. So I go there. Then three days after I arrived there, my syndicate go and strike. Your syndicate is like the union of the workers? The union.

The union. Got to strike three days after. I got to, here we go. My summer is crude. My money is out. Bad timing. Then I come back. They want me to go picking. I have nothing to do with their things. To be honest, I was a community that I didn't even engage with. And I was like, I didn't fell emotionally engaged to go pick things because they were giving you a check. Small check, but they were giving you a check. So what I decided to do, I said, where did I didn't go in my province?

And there was one place, Bay St. Paul, which is a little village north Quebec, which had the reputation of one of the coolest youthful still there. And I said, wait a minute. I have a little check. I'll go there. I'll offer my service to help against a bed than food. That was it. And I'll wait. I didn't know when the stride was stopped and not. But then I end up to be all summer. So when I arrived there, climbed the hill.

And finally, now I see Jill Sancoa, that is one of the most important person in my life with Sig just today. And another guy, Danielle Goethe, that was my school friend, which was we left for relationship, not a good note. And then I go, I said, OK. Why do I end up with this guy that I want to see? But part of this, it was a nonprofit organization. And I arrived at the time where they were shaping the usual sales. So we prepared a thing. I got the job of animating. So I was in charge of party.

You were in charge of parties at the hostel? Exactly. OK. Parties, organizing things. That's what I was good to. I always been good at doing those things, organizing trips and stuff like to Louisiana at 15 years old, running the Mardi Gras. Many of those mini stories there that we could talk for a long time. But this one was an important one because first, the deal was, they would tell me, we cannot pay you, but we could offer you a roof and a bell. I said, that's OK with me.

But could I have maybe the opportunity of making a little money? I said, I'll organize your party, but I want to be able to pick up every beer bottle on the site and earn the money of the beer bottle. Oh, like the redemption. Like you get the sense of the five cents, but I'm telling you, after every day, there was a truck on anti-bondle. I made so much money going back and selling everything, those bottles that I end up having a very with little contract of music and the bar and the cafe.

I end up having a pretty decent thing. And this is where Jules Encua, which was coming out of, was also very interesting, misfit creature. It was just coming back from an experience I'd bread and pop it in the very month. I don't know if you remember. I just heard about bread and pop it or bread and pop it for the first time from some of my family who lived in Vermont. Literally last week, they just told me about it. Because you're probably too young to remember that.

They're still there, but at that time there was this leader. And the bread and pop it in the movement was anti-war. I came during the Vietnam War and they had that farm in Vermont that they shape and they had a magic wood. And every year they were doing this festival and they were the master of still walking. And Jules came back of that and said, hi, let's do it. I'm doing music. We're doing a little theater. So let's start a theater troupe on stills. That's the end of 79.

Then in the fall, I got called for the strike sale and I go back to work on the dam and Jill in the mean time, choose another partner. I said, OK, well, you're not doing a collective. You want to do business. Fine. But I won't hire you. I said, well, listen, I'm going in Mexico, came back, went to the dam. A month after Jill said, I have the grant of the thing that you want to be an artist in my true. I said, I don't know. So a grant, this is from the government? The government.

Yeah, basically, they had those grand that you could have enough money to pay salary for the summer. You know, in that region of Quebec, it was very simple. 80% of population was working on grand salary during the summer and get unemployment checked during the winter. This is what that region is about. So basically, you need 20 weeks to work to get your check the rest of the year. And that's what's alive. And most of people was leaving on that pattern. But I didn't know.

So what I said, I said to my employer, I said, listen, I didn't have a house. I said, my house just went in fire. Could I have a couple of weeks to just do all the amazing thing? I didn't want to lose my job. You know, because if I say a quid, that's it. I'm done. So I never even know if I'm going to worry. So I milled that story. I got the permission. Went there. Never went back. But at least I had that back off. It's always, you know, you're playing chess in life.

I was just like, you make a move, but you want to know what's your back move. That was one of them. So eventually I accept to be one of the artists in this theater through one stills, which was in partnership with this guy Savannah. And we end up to be so bad for the business. So at the end of the season, actually, we had an amazing experience. It was a summer of my first big love in my life. And an amazing theatrical, original experience.

But that relationship with the management, especially that guy. So everybody was like, we don't like the guy. They end up bankrupt. At the end of the season, Jill said, well, you know, it's like, I make mistakes. And we all decided to create a nonprofit organization, buy back the assets and started under a new company, which was the original, the foundation company that we built significantly within the future. So step two of that was to manage.

Then I was tour manager, I was like assuming a marketing business function. I was able to give my skill. And we had an amazing 1980 summer. This is the year also of the federal election. I was a candidate at the Rhinocervous Party. You know, there was this like crazy party that I've promising anything. I was a political candidate. We have a lot of fun. Quick question. So was the performance at that time still mostly theater on stills or had it changed? Theater on stills music, fire breeding.

But that moment, I really had master. I would send in all the skill I had. Probably fire was the highest level I was mastering. So I had my pyro license. I was one of the best fire breeder in the world. I was developing device to manipulate fire. I was organizing show with fire. And this was my personal, I would say the feature, and I was very proud about it. And I was recognized for being one of the best Quebec fire player or fire master. That being said, then we did one season.

And the winter, I was always, again, 20 weeks of work. And people were going and getting their paycheck for the rest of the winter. It was not my style. For me, it was about, OK, the jobs finish. I was hitting the road all the time. So one time on a motorcycle, we're going to Montreal, Key West, then San Diego, and then jumping there. But in 1979, 1978 and 1979, at the end of the first year, which was my love affair, I discovered Hawaii. Summer was a love of my life. Back then, first big love.

And at the end of the year, it was like the broken art of my life. I love mine. The first, within six months, seven months, it was like I went from, wow, this is love and singing it whole. Hard breaking is very hard. It's very painful. So I had to take care of somewhere. So I was a friend that wasn't a Hawaii on the big island, like Kona, that's an iPuzzby. And I arrived there. And wow, I was discovering a part of the world that I didn't see.

And I always want to go Hawaii because my parents told me so many good things about it. And then I was there. And it was very interesting. There was an interesting EP community performer there. There was the EP side. There was a nice nightlife, simple life, a meadow things. But I was still in pain. And there's a very interesting moment in my life. So for the two first week, I was fond, yet to know people. But I had the sadness inside me. And I was outbroken.

And I was getting this little cafe or juice, although it's not drinking coffee, but middle like this milkshake type of things in the morning at the same cafe. And there was always this old EP there. I remember he was a magician. I learned that after. That was always the same time with me. And as soon as I went to the approach, he said, hey, what's wrong with you? He said, what's wrong with you? And he asked me the question, what's wrong with you? And I said, well, there's nothing wrong.

He said, ah, you're not on the vibe. He said, what do you mean? You're not on the vibe. You're fighting the raider. And you know, this guy was throwing me like that. It was like, sitting down, didn't even invite himself. He invited himself. This is a wait a minute. I'm in my bubble of pain. And then this keeps throwing me, those saying, you're not feeling the vibe of the island. And he said, and so am I. And I said, you know what?

I know I'm disturbing you there, but I will tell you one last thing. I said, try to feel the rhythm of the island. The island will bring you on the right side of your soul. Boom. OK. What is that? And at that moment, and you know, I could be very thin, but I listen. You have to understand. Remember, Kael G. Brando, the perfect things of my first philosophical reign in it. And I've ram on it. Everything that makes poetic sense or whatever I was, it got my attention after that.

Because when you're capable of reading behind the word and the meaning of it, I start to discover. And this is where I start to like words before that. It was pain. But now I start to understand things. And I really reflect on that. And watching Sunset. And then I start to just, in this island, change my life. This is where I start to get inspired. I connect with a Lua Troops. I was doing my fire dance.

I was playing accordion and the Italian restaurant going and usling a big diamond and a bar after. And you know, meaning and realizing that actually, so many things at that moment, I'll try to mention all of that. First of all, at that time there was 101 type of religion of spiritual faction that was on there. On the island. On the island. And then you realize, wait a minute. Because at the same time, you hear about all those fights about religion.

And then you say, wait a minute, it's like, what is it? And then you suddenly see a piece of land on earth that people live in peace with each other in respect. And I'm like, oh, something. Then you meet all those ealer with potion, with growing herbs and stuff like that. And there's this eeling spirit on the island. Do you see people that are ridden that doesn't exist on the North American continent?

There's a pace that is more toward the pace of the rhythm, of the wave of the island, or the wind instead of the subway rhythm. And then you meet a bunch of performers that we hang out on the beach every day and perform on the naked beach, on the non-lamping beach. There's party there, full party. And then I start to, for the first time in my life, got to what I believe still today, the closest to meditation on my side. I'm not a meditative guy. I've never stopped the hamster.

And I had a mom's arm. But when I watch sunset, this is a very peaceful thing. And this Hawaiian sunset, this is where I start to think about project. Remember every winter, I was coming out of that was a second year, of the not first year and then second. I went there three years before we did the fate for it, which I'll talk. But the sun was my inspiration moment. So I start to think about project, creating this. So my creative mind explode there.

The reason what the name Salai is for to reason, the inspiration to the sun of the big island, sunset, which I'm amazing. And at that time in the symbolic book of Symbol, sun was the symbol of the energy of youth. So this is the name of my company. You say, it came later.

But before that, while I was there, everyone there was going to find in my old friends and just having it became my healing island that, for the rest of my life, every time I have a business decision and emotional distress, a question about my decision to be made. This is where I find my answers. Every time I was coming there, I was planting the seeds of my question.

And then I knew that when I come out of there, the answer would be there, whatever decision I made and it were pretty much all good. So this is where the evolution of the theater, true bone stills. We were trying to grow and then Jill said, OK, we'll do a winter version on Skype and now on the arenas. And not for me, there. I'm not spending a winter here. I'm a beach bomber. I'm not a ski bomber.

And this is where I start to talk about the project of a street performing festival in Beys-Saint-Paul. And with Jill, what we did in 1982, we went into this village, which is very traditional painting, or this place is recognized by all. This is a people's place for art is a pain landscape and things like that. So we were already black sheep there, the youth social people in this village of wolf mentality.

You have to understand this is all the old traditional families that are direct line from the founders of Quebec. The people got trolling the boat by the French as buildings and built this country. And actually, it's very, it's not of wolf mentality because it's all very strong established family. So when you're a stranger coming there, oh, I see. There's this aggressive when you say wolf mentality. Well, yes, yes, and clan. Clan. They're very protective.

And you arrive a bunch of people who are in a youth hotel or maybe dancing naked around a fire, taking substance. And actually, the first business that's been opened by our community there is called the Mouton Wall. The cafe, the restaurant was called a black sheep. That's weak. We made a statement that we will assume the perception that we have. So you could imagine, and they had that festival at that time, which is an art festival painting, very touchy, white glove, white glove festival.

And I was like an institution. And we arrive wanting to close the street and do a street performing festival. So we have to go through all the political level, convince us and then sponsor us. We're selling in our programs. And if I've dollar a little business card size in our program to the merchant, but we have to convince the people to give us a chance. And it becomes a success.

You know, I was like financially, we lost a little money, but we had the attention of the big city in terms of culture. We brought the merchant with super happy. So the black sheep go pitching this crazy idea in this, let's just call it maybe a conservative town, protective town. What was the key to the pitch? I don't know. You know, it's like, I guess again, it's so convincing. Like I said, me and Jill is a charming human being. Always paused, never raised my mind. I was the jester. The jester.

The jester, the speedy Gonzalez guy. I'm always like hands up, talking like that, but with a lot of passion. But we arrive with something. I believe was safe enough, colorful enough, business wise, maybe maybe we'll have a good economy came back for us. So we got a shot. We got a shot. And actually pretty well on obviously, again, the last day, the last day of the last show in the arena, because all those street performance there, there was workshop.

People were learning how to do clowning in the wood in the mountain. Whatever we organized a very nice program. It was not a big budget, but people showed up. And mostly, a lot of my international friends decided to come and visit us, because we were booking, co-booking. The big paycheck was from the main festival in Quebec City. But I got a good deal if I was getting a deal for them in Quebec. So that just to fight them to come. And I got them for a good price.

But we had that closing show in the arena, which was everybody on the scene together. And where the last moment is the fanfare is there, and I'm blowing fire. And that moment is a thunderstorm. And we're playing that track. That's called the Fna Bill, which means the person that walked on the wire. It became a random attract. And we're in a grand finale. And suddenly, the storm shut down all the electricity. And we just with the flame, the candle, super dramatic. And I still have a good spot.

And this was a big, big quantity of the Quebec street performance. This is where we look at each other. It was so emotional. And I said, OK, let's think about maybe it would be time to think about creating our own circus. And this is what inspired me. The first flame of inspiration came at, wow, look at all of us together on stage and imagine under a big time. Start to share that. But obviously, starting a circus far more difficult than doing a street performing festival.

So we did a second year in 1982. In 1983, we do the second version of it. And that's greater success. And then we got the attention of the government. Because 1984 was a celebration of 450th anniversary of Discovery of Canada, both celebrating by the federal side and the provincial side. And you have to understand the provincial. We're French, Canadian, we're frogs, or French fries. And then the influence accent on the other side.

And obviously, the government want to celebrate and both take a position at very political. So there's a lot of money that is thrown for cultural or shows, activities, or things. So special money. So I've been invited based on the success of Edforento depose or propose a project. And this is where that moment is said, well, this is our window. So we build relationship with the director of programming. But we're still in the remembered. I'm dealing now with the government.

The cultural minister that is so in the high end class, see I'm hanging out with the stars. So you're thinking about the government that where this minister of culture is totally star-systemding. In all the different department of culture, you have dance, hope you're seeing whatever music, street performing circus was not there. Basically, you have to understand the social reality there is in the mentality of whatever festival of the environment was about pay them a sandwich.

They'll entertain you for 50 minutes. OK, so this is what we started. Their assumption was it was very low. The low-brain. You were down the food chain. OK. We're way down the food chain. Hey, everybody get the money. Everybody get the counter-agent thing. And here I am with one other friend that was a rebel, like he was actually the real co-founder is not the other one. The other one came later, but there's one real co-founder that left after the first hit.

So we engage yourself of going pitching to the government. And then there's different level of contract you could get. But there was this artistic director that was in charter programming, Jacques-Lenoux, that really we had connect. But I was pushing him to the he was coming red sometimes. It's not what I'm asking you. You know, we had to fit in the formula. And I'm trying to pitch the first Quebec circus and I'm trying to explain him. He believed in him.

He said, you will not be able to sell that to the government. You went, I said, no, this is a time. And then slowly by slowly, they will blow us to higher or putting our team somebody that I was working at. Like, we're going in a friend of mine. We play with it, but she's absolutely not the same level. But slowly, and I will always remember it and the other thing, because it was that famous cap of a million dollar contract. It's not grand, and those were contract negotiating.

And my project, that what I want to do with some compromise was costing 1.7 million. But to have over a million dollar, you have to do a minister council. So they didn't want to bring a freak like me as a proposed content provider, especially not that minister that doesn't like street reformer. So basically, I will always remember you pitching front of the commissioner, the minister, and so on. I have two documents on table. One big cover callers.

And I put a corner there and I have a black and white one. And then because they asked me to stay at $999,9999, and $1 under the million dollar project, and I did work. So I present in black and white everything of my project that presented black and white. I said, this is a project. And there's one, of course, I've seen the document. They said, well, it's this other document we call it. I said, well, it's not important. It's like this is the 1.7. You don't want it.

And I said, I'm playing the game full on the game. No, no, no, no, no, you're just like, this is what you get for a million. And eventually, somebody, I'll ask me, convinced me. And it was part of the game, actually, it's this whole negotiation, colorful negotiation I call that strategic thinking, understanding human nature. And it's very interesting. And I learn all that in the street.

And because of the street, it's basically, you have a fraction of seconds to decide if you hit and run, if you hit or run fast, or talk. But you don't have one minute to converse if there's a situation there. So one of the biggest scale in business I learned was in the street because of this dangerous environment. Or you make friends, or you run, or you're ready to face a more physical reality. So obviously, there was a compromise there where we cannot give you $1.7 million now.

But let's start with 1 million. And we promise you that over the summer, we will be able by exception, by exception, by exception, to get through your budget. So basically, I have my $1.7 million contract. And with all the hard start, we were the start of the summer. Everybody was failing. Huge failure. We fell, too, in the first month. But the beauty of it is we were the product that was going in the country. So in the country side. So the first month was a disaster. We lost our big top.

It was raining. And it was like it was like conflicts. The artist was fighting. And there was a strike. Whatever happened at the beginning, we were in the mud up to the throat. But one month after, or show us, so tight. You were able to prototype it in the country side. You were able to be a mess. But it didn't matter because you could refine it. Yeah, because they asked us. The minister wanted to keep the big city and the stars of Zigzini. They put us on the third row. Go in the cheap country.

We were the piece of bread that was thrown in the country to satisfy, to touch everybody with a celebration thing. But at the end, it became the best thing that arrived for us because when we arrived in the big city, because we did play in big city, we arrived so ready, we became the success of the summer, press wise, public wise, and government wise, and prime minister was there. And he said, why not?

Those are the type of, because we have to understand, we're right in the middle of the independent movement. And the prime minister at that time was trying to always say, we're not done for a little bread coming out from the religious things by and then. And we lost everything to the English, the rest of the Canada, and the service of the economy. So this minister was like, believe in the French, Canadian, creativity, business skills, and stuff like. So we became the symbol. Totally.

And they've loved that relationship with that prime minister. And he fell in love with that. We were his case or the product. And the example of what he meant. So basically the second year, like, twist the arm of the minister of culture, he said, no, you, if you want that amount, you have to give them. So he was a very important thing. So obviously, year second was more being by yourself and the business. But this is a big enough thing. This is all it came and this all took place.

So let me pause for one second. So in that meeting, you have the black and white copy, you have the color copy. So you're playing on human nature. And you're doing it really well because of, in part, your experience, learning lessons on the street. Still, when you walked in, I assume that their perspective was that street performing, again, lowest on the food chain. Right? So what else was there in the presentation that made them change their mind?

Over time, because that was a year in preparation for meetings. We slowly got a lie. All right. You developed some related things. She financial officer, which is a big man, she matured, became a defender. Then the first person was in love with you. And it was so many, the Shakranu director of creation that was like pushing you one or project.

So suddenly, the administration, the people at the administration level, not at the decision level, well, middle level, decision level, start to recommend us. I said, no, you have to have that type of programming. And all this, this is different. They became a defender, and actually, and we had certain a lie, but it's slowly we convinced them by, I believe what they believe was a great creative project. But also, we were enthousies. We were a bunch of kids. You have to understand.

We were coming from the streets, and this was a window, and as a Wheeler, the leader, the Vaughn, this is an opportunity, I'm not giving them. And they're like, unless the fish is cutting the line, I'm taking that fish out of the power. OK? So I was really always in this war, I was on a mission, and I achieved it.

Because what I was carrying on my shoulder is the dream of all the community in Montreal or Quebec, that four years was talking about the dream of doing a circus, but never nobody organized it. And I had the credibility of that tribes, because I did a street performing festival. So I was able to lie behind me the entire community, and I was giving kind of like the carte de blanche to make it happen.

And without having to go through this collective process of thing, because I believe in consultation, I believe in collectivity, but at a certain moment, I believe also that everybody in an organization have specific responsibility, and mine was to make final decision. And I got a respect of that. It was not, I had to gain it in the first month, because there was a lot of challenge related to that.

But at the end, I got the support of the community, and the press favorable critics, and the love of the public. So once you have those three things in front of whoever, you have an army. Yeah, you have an army. And let's talk about maybe influences, philosophies, I read, and maybe this came later, so we could also pause this for later, but that your marketing inspirations were PT Barnum and Walt Disney.

PT Barnum, obviously, people who know and re-well, very complex character, but basically invent modern marketing. Talk good, talk bad. But talk about it was his line. And this is a guy that was bringing his circus in New York, and will make sure that the biggest truck that carried the biggest elephant will have a breakthrough in middle of Times Square. Oh, breakdown. And he will have a breakdown. And we'll have the front page of the New York times that they have to that worth $100,000.

He was a master of that. And for people, I understand, even if people thinks that he was abusing freaks and stuff like that, he had decided, yes, to do business with all the misfit, but he gave them a roof in a community. So that and the other one is Walt Disney. Walt Disney. Oh my God. And I was like, I don't know, we're not on the visual here, but over in Napkin, he designed the entire vision of Walt Disney with things about it. It's a famous napkin drawing that he did.

Yeah, like the parks, the merchandise. Exactly, exactly, exactly. So this guy was so creative and so business, it was a perfect balance of the two sides of the brain of a person. So obviously, this was my other inflation. At the time that you get the million dollars with additional, maybe it adds up over time to whatever it was, 1.5 million from the government, then you do another year. At that point, what was your aspiration? Well, the other year was almost killing it.

The other year, where we're technically bankruptcy. OK. Between, say, once you have those contracts, well, then you have to go and find a bank. It's one thing to go and verse the government, but I'm telling you, it's much more difficult to go to Vince Bank to help you with your financing. Yeah, because the government was signing your letter, contract, but the payment process of government is a little longer than just signing a check every month.

So we have to go and finance and find the bridge, which was banker. And my God, this was like a hilarious. I don't know. I think we did the Avery Bank, or then 100 miles around the city we were in. And basically, we're in Trutane, or they all have a smile. But they all told us, no, we're the smile saying, well, I like your project. But as bank, we need collateral. And actually, we don't know what we'll do with the trapeze, with Tantra, a crane truck, or a counter of a dog, if you fell.

And you're there. Listen, this is a contract. So, but we end up, and it's very, very funny. We end up in the last financial institution we ever thought we could know, not. That was a little bank that was mainly known to finance strikes. So basically, you know, you know, you know that I have a lot of money. Things went go very well. People go on sites. They need a bank that will manage the strike budget. How does the bank get repaid if they're funding a strike?

They take some portion of the settlement? No, no, no, basically the union have a lot of money. But they use those banks. This is where they put their money in. So, this is the number one bank in Quebec, where the union put their money. Deposit their money. Deposit. So, most of their members are union workers. There's not a business person in business with them. They're all union. This is a union bank. I get it. That I have no clue of financing a business, whatever. And this is where we.

And this is the one bank that gave us our first bank account with a first credit line or advance the money that the government they tried because that's what they get. They're used to that. They use that union and say, OK, found a give money. Those people will found it. We guarantee the money. So, it's in their DNA to advance money to people that have no money. Because they have people big bank account that say we'll pay. Government is the same thing as a union. They have big bank account.

Anyway, so in this moment, we established the first Israel that was not risky because it was all pretty much guarantee. And we end up with 50,000 profit out of the 1.7 million, couple of equipment, but a lot of experience. But obviously, it also tell me that we cannot work under the model we did that because it was a compromise. So, we had to go to the market. And then we were by yourself. There was no more grant or no more contract from the government.

But we had the Prime Minister out there that really loved it. In 1985 was the international year of the youths for young people, youths. So, that just made me for the one thing like that for me to build all the next second year of the SLA under the youth banner. And here we go. We build the SLA. And actually, even there, I recognize that we cannot survive with the ambition we had with when I build only in our province. We were condemned to export on time. I see.

Just for financial reasons, you would have to. Yeah, yeah, there was another market. Not enough market, you know, we had an analyze we had on the things was, OK, we could do three months for months. But to run a circus, you have to do nine months, ten months over the end, because of the climate and the population ratio, we have to export. So our first line of exportation was Ontario, Toronto, and Niagara Falls, two million visitor, whatever, and by month or things like that.

That's what the government told us you should there. This is like the biggest tourist destination in the air of all. So the way we had no money from a market thing, and I understand that we were tied. We had a little subsidies, we had things, but money was always coming at the end. And at the end, what made the success of entertainment is your marketing campaign. But we were always short on money for promotion.

So we were betting always on the first night or creating a PD Barneyum event in the downtown city, or whatever to get a little press. And that year, it was going well. Toronto was going well, but we were so fragile in terms of a general budget, that one city, we could afford a little hiccup, but the drastic failure would create a drastic financial situation. So we arrived. That's almost the last city in the tour. We're in Niagara Falls. We're all prepped for the opening night.

There's fully people there, all the politicians, the local people, and then, normally, the history tells us that the day after the sales tickets increase, and we get our end result. Second day, 10 tickets. We should get it. Uh-oh. Second show, 65 people in the room when I have 75 worker. OK, second day, 20 tickets. So I went on. I was like, what's wrong? What happened? And then I have a revolt of the artist. I was like, we're not going to plead in front of 15 people.

This is where the rule of we will never perform. We made a deal with the artist that we will never perform. If the number of public is under the number of artists. That's a moment we made a deal like that. But it was catastrophic. So then I was like, what's going on? And we did all kind of thing by page of things. We tried to react, but nothing was working. And this is where a certain moment is like, what's wrong? Why are we that bad or doesn't work?

To then realize that, yeah, there's two million people passing an airfall, but the average of stay of people at 45 minutes. And the other one was stay long. There are honeymoon and there are in their room having their honeymoon or mom. So we understand that the notion of market study, really. But the result of that is we're technically in bankruptcy. And we saw that. So this specific bang. And this is a true story. You know, obviously, we were about $3.40 million in deficit at that time.

But to arrive there, we had to survive the end of the tour, paid a salary. And if we don't do that, that's it. So we have a list of suppliers under $5,000 and over $5,000. We have a payroll to deliver every two weeks. And we have our minimum upex costs. And we cannot bill back. So you have to pay cash. And then we have no more cash. We're coming back in Montreal. We know we'll get a little more money. And we could reduce that and not overcome everything. But we have to survive that.

Because if we cannot bring a little more money to balance a little bit, we're done. And then who's else? We have no money. We're not selling tickets. So the banker, this union bank that we have, like, I don't know, $100,000, that year, $200,000, credit line, start to allow without approval of this committee. First, it was ever check with doing. We went over maybe another $100,000. Then he said, wait a minute. You're over your line.

Yeah. And you know, instead of selling, yeah, you can't do anymore. He said, please, could you don't do check over $10,000? I said, wait a minute. This is the banker that's down here. So we do check under $10,000. Then the second call is pleased. Could you not do check over $5,000? It went down to $500. So he was in. And the last thing we got of a mint, it was, I think, a $25,000 or $30,000 payroll.

The last payroll of the season, who went through there, so listen, I know we were over the dislike guy. And the guy said, look at me and said, I'll lose my head. I have no authorization. And I did things that I was not authorized to do as a director of the bank. I said, if this goes wrong, I'm dead. So when I said, yeah, but please, you're definitely dead if you don't have me to pay the payroll. And the guy released another $25,000, $30,000 to pay the payroll. And then we're out of season.

And on my partner, that's time. Danielle, we look at each other. If one, and we have maybe $20,000 cash that we put aside, and we said to each other, if one supplier come and post a nation, like a lawsuit or, yeah, claim. And then just just claim, just going to court, then it will trigger all the things. Then very soon, what we did is I took all the supplier over 10. I said to the bank, first of all, I said to the bank, did I have five, six months? Do we have another tour? We have a contravery.

They exploit the $9.86 in Vancouver. We have good traction. You know, it's like we're popular, but we don't, we're totally, technically we're broke. So I went on with my director of administration and me, we went to every supplier and made a deal. Didn't pay none of them except three, and then we'd use a cash. We made a deal, postponement, check, eight months in 12 checks. How did them? They all accept. Why did they accept? They loved us. OK. They trust us. I think they believe in us.

We were up front. But we had a deal. You know, we had a braid of eight, six months minimum, eight months of each of them, with postponement check, with the promise that if the cash was coming first, we'll pay them faster. Like, God, this is angel flying. And not only one, this is like 50 angel, and actually, it was about 250 supplier. Whatever, for 500 to 10,000, the biggest one, I think, was 200,000, and the bank and the bank and the guy you have to go back. So the bank, I have to ask.

So this guy is clearly just breaking all the rules it seems like to give you guys this money. Was he, I want to know a little bit more about that. I mean, was he just pissed off at his boss and he was going to quit in six months anyway? No. I know. I'm being a bit of a joker. But why would he, I mean, just risking his job, I would think, doing this totally, totally. But I guess you have to be there, the origin. We came like, we were a storm of color of happiness.

And what we're doing, what people never saw in the circus thing. So we were clearly, we were inspiring. We were working hard. And we were working on a business plan. And we, everybody understand, if we braid that things, it could be a huge success. But we were just young entrepreneur that was living, everything a young generation have to face when you do business. And suddenly, every wall of those people that normally would put a wall in front of kids at the side.

And I didn't interview everybody of it. But I would say, for the banker point, because he became a great, great friend, it was just like, I just believed. And I was ready. I was ready to go battle with my bank committee, and say, we should. And actually, this philosophy was, banks should sometimes take risk, business risk, and not only protect themselves.

And he's principle, we do so much money that a portion of our things should be when we feel it to take greater risk over and above what the rules of bank rules is. And that's what he was defending. Actually, he was using my case. And actually, this bank that we stayed until I sold to the sole, we were super faithful to him. And for him, it became the bank that every young cultural enterprise or young things were to go because they made a model all of that. And they had been able to service it.

And I was just like, again, this was a type of thing. And then 86, we went to Vancouver. In one year, we pay everybody, the bank, and stuff like that. It was all done. And then 87, we hit LA. It was a liver die in LA. Hoping night. Again, it was most died that night. Wait, did you say you almost died that night? Well, listen, that day, OK? You understand? We're going to Los Angeles Festival, a lot festival, super again, institutional things.

Director of programming, come, we came, ladies, and well, we're interested, but we have no money to book. I said, well, I'm going from Quebec to Canada to put everything on things. And one of my partner was saying, well, let's go to Vermont. It's evident in the world. The hell, a Vermont would tell you if we will be successful or not. We have to hit the big city, New York, or Los Angeles. And we had an opportunity there. So I made a deal with the Los Angeles Festival.

I said, OK, I'll go, I'll take my own risk. But please, could I have the opening night of the festival? And please, could you just at least make sure that in your promotion, your generic promotion, you put us. And I said, third, could you make sure we have good press, the big name of all the wood, on the opening day. But here we are. We're in a little Tokyo. You know, where they put out a little Tokyo. Yeah, everybody else is in the forum of that.

All the big institutions, they true us in the middle of the worst neighborhood. There is little Tokyo, OK? Downtown LA, in a site that is the middle of site, which basically is the middle, on one side, you have one street gang and the other one you have the other street gang is one of the biggest crime plays things that is like murder over the, it's just like, wait a minute. So we end up having to deal with the neighborhood there. It's not. And we have to, you know, we have to choice either way.

I was sick, I really think. So we decide I've been able to negotiate kind of a truce between the two gangs saying, listen, I'm coming. I come from the streets, I put all my street the story behind. I made them laugh. You know, I did the clown of myself. I got there approval. Why? Because I said, you're wife, your kids, I'll give them a job. OK, other than selling drugs or killing people, whatever we're stealing. My God, two memorable moments. OK?

And it was a very interesting because people tell us, put 20 foot, Nana, I got another 420 foot things, we'll give job. So everybody had job, the security, parking cars, cleaning, hushers, selling up dog, whatever everybody was hired from the two gang there. And actually, I think for a very long time, that was the first time they were not killing each other in the same roof. Anyway, so there's two events that I've been to.

Maybe that one is about that opening day, which is you see people arrive, the big limo, the big merciless days, the big rose voice. And they give the key to the hood. This little kid that usually will break in, the winter when the guy was going part of the place, in the worst place you could park at that type of car. So just that thing was like, wow, wow, wow. Just that for me was an interesting mission accomplished somewhere to be able to make that clear.

But the most freaky moment was the opening was in the afternoon. And it was so what? So what? And people arrive and you know all they would, they don't arrive on the dot. It's fashionably lit. Oh my God. As we were dying just that's like the other people was like 100 degree people were sweating. And I like. And then okay, it's not complete. And the organizers were waiting a minute. This star is coming. His own is wait. So we decided to send the clowns to animate the place.

And you have the mayor, you have like the governor. It's like all the big shabang is there. And they're on time. Okay. So they're just sitting down waiting. And so you're there. And then my clown go because we have to give a little animation pre-show. So I said to my bunch of clowns, okay, just go. Don't do the things of the pre-show, but you have enough tricks to make them laugh. My one Benny clown, one of them is clever. First thing he's coming is coming with an o's. Water hose. Water hose.

Water hose. Open the hose and start to spray. And everybody didn't think I said I'm dying. I'm dying. I said I will really die in Italy. And then suddenly it's fraction. And then the second because you could see people reacting in salt. And then you see the first body talk, but there's suddenly a bunch of people all together. Give it more. They stand up and it's like give me more water. Magic moment. Down. We did the show. I couldn't go in a lot of ways. Yeah, I could have gone in.

That's what I'm saying. I thought he was going the other side. So finally do the show. Standing ovation. And the day after is like sales. It was sold out. And this is the beginning of never looking back again. Wow. We did a bumpy road and stuff like that. But from that moment, there's only one year, the year of a growth crisis and our growth that we lost a little money. But since then, sick, except the bankruptcy year, we've been doing money, money, never never been on the deficit here.

Isn't it interesting? Super interesting. So if you look at L.A., so you told a bunch of stories about L.A., you're headed to Vancouver. You do really well in Vancouver. You don't want to repeat Niagara Falls, obviously. Now, Vancouver is very different from Niagara Falls, but was there any planning or changes that you made to the preparation before going to Vancouver that made a big difference?

Now, you have to understand that we start to build well, you know, on reputation and we're able to do media deal. So we're starting to be much more strategic in our communication. Remember, the first year was very difficult because we have all the money for the operation where we're very tight. It's not that we start to generate cash in profit. So again, it's supported good campaigns. So we're able to buy a full page in the New York Times and hit and create a tension.

We were very famous to every open and night at that time. It was an amazing party that everybody wanted to be there. And then after that, cell was going on. And the model was click, click, click, click. And then we expand to show. And then the breakthrough of A.G.S. was Steve Win. It was just like live or the universe and it was presenting us opportunity. And we were or highs was enough open to see them and see them because it goes both way.

And I believe this is something that's very important for people to understand how we were thinking. You said, somewhere in this space or this dimension, there's something for us and we have to find it. But not only we had find it, but it was coming to us. And this is all the notion of the blue ocean concept versus the red ocean environment. We basically created a blue ocean by and so forth. We were ahead over time. We packaged. We didn't reinvent.

Not thinking that the hard form of circus was there. We just put color and something that was very dusty and apply a theatrical approach versus a circus show approach. And we are in the end. We once we start to have money, we reinvest for supplying our organic growth. And at the same time that we're building relationship and having access to bank money. So we became great business people.

And that always related to when at the beginning of sick, when I tried to convince bank, put a place in the board where nobody wanted to be a boarder. So well, now I'm condemned to play business. And I still not play business and not a fun playing business because it was always about the game. And I was like, we come from nothing. So what was the wrong situation? You go back to nothing. And this is where I come from.

And while I was seeing successful people failing because they were starting to nurture, to not having tomorrow they have today and such a nurture fear. And there was like no. Could you explain that a bit more? I've seen a lot of successful enterprise. There's many things that kill success. The first one I've seen is about once you have success, you get a lot of reward financially and then you're starting to nurture the fear of not having tomorrow what you have today.

And then change your entire way of addressing things. So suddenly you're not the same person. You don't address your business the same way. You don't address your vision and things because you're not your fear. Okay. So my say to that is like, danger there is. But please, evaluate danger, don't nurture fear because at the moment you nurture fear is a good chance that you call your fear and the result of the fear. So that's one thing. And I've seen a lot of entrepreneur shifting.

They we have been shifting or transforming what they are and deny where they come from. So at the end, not being themselves and having a business of success changing their soul, their way of doing things and become other people which again could affect the result company.

Another one is more recognizing or realizing that at a certain moment you're not the person to bring your business or your baby to another level to be able to step out when you realize that you maximize for different reason your contribution to the success of your enterprise. So let's talk about the first part of that just a little bit longer because I lived in Silicon Valley for 17 years and have a lot of friends from that period of my life.

Many of them have shifted, I would say, into trying to defend what they have or have experienced more fear because they don't know who to trust, etc. I mean, there are many stories about it. Yeah, trust is a big factor also. So what else would you say to those people? There are people you care about, you see them maybe changing or feeding the fear. What else would you say to them? You mentioned something about trust.

There's a thin line between wasting time, a dougling versus trying to see the best side of a person and work toward making a merge of a person this best side. And this is a conversation that still has whatever my kids, my ex and the actual business is this notion of to which level you trust without compromising the fundamental. And this is very difficult to conclude because I've lived the two-spectrum of that in life.

I got some of the best reward by trusting people and focusing on their beautiful soul versus their dark side. And that has been very rewarding. That had provoked the observation that people have sometimes, when you have given them trust, they will fell in the trap of failing in the greed, they go on the power side of life versus the love, respect and trust side of life, which is what we had built or things with.

And that brought me a lot of deception to people I really trust that I believe that we had enough experience together and they fell on that part. And again, it happened in my own little ethos, but look what's going on the world. You know, we're driven by this tension between the two side of it. And obviously the people are driven by greed, ego and power every morning they wake up and they're thinking about how they could be better.

Plus, you know, on the side of the love, peace and love and stuff like that, we get it on the face. We look at the sun, we meditate and we're a little more slow to react to that. So I guess we have to be a little more organized. If I'm understanding you correctly, it sounds like you're suggesting maybe defaulting to trusting people and expecting sometimes you're going to get punched in the face, but that's just the tax you pay for being optimistic.

Are there other ways that you protect the fundamentals? Now I would say at the end, there's more success than failure, but the failure are more touching than the win of trust because it's usually attached to deception. So I'm talking more about the deception. You know, you're in business, you win, you lose, you make good decisions, you do bad decision, that's part of it. You know, nobody's perfect. And nobody's perfect in the choice of who you work with, who you trust or not.

It's part of doing business. It's more deep than that when I'm saying it's just like, so this is why I guess as much honest conversation at the beginning to establish, not the contract. This is why in my contract, I always not put just the legal part. I always start the first page by the assumption, the spirit of how a deal is done because my wish that if there's conflict before going on the legal battle, you look at what the spirit of the deal was.

And if you have sensitive people, intelligent people, they will relate to this foundation, version, the word of the legal things. And that's actually a page in the document that has the contract. It's a page in the contract. It's a page in the contract where the first page is not about legal stuff. It's about the philosophy, the spirit of why we're doing the dream, why that brought us to that deal. Why the spirit of the deal? Okay. I made a mistake to forget that sometime.

And this was the most chaotic things because I'm telling you, it's like if you don't attach to the spirit and it's just legal, we're living in a country, you know, not America, especially in the States, hit and meet or make me happy, make a mistake and not clear. It's much more difficult for a person to deny the spirit if it's been written down.

And it's not what I say because when you try to bring the spirit in an oral conversation, they will always find a way to just find that it's not what they say. That's right. The thing is very difficult for them. And it's betrayal. Understand? Then you know it's a betrayal. It's not a misunderstanding. Is that first page, I'm very interested in this, is it almost just like regular text, like it's paragraphs or is it bullets? It's understanding that we desire to conquer a planet, March.

We will do everything to you know, it's like very poetic sometime, very philosophical. It's very mission oriented. You know, we all do document in business, a mission and vision. And so why are we not putting those principles right in the contract when two parties do things because this become a new mission, this is bill on new value. And I think this is, I believe, an antidote against persecution or a legal process. Yeah, that's very smart.

Well, I've not been that smart all the time because I've made some case that I forgot to put it or my family office, I forgot to put it. But now I'm telling you, this will be for no on. Even with experience, I did forget to put it because I guess I even trusted more than I believe that it should not put in and that became the biggest betrayal in business ever did. So now it's there forever. So you mentioned a name earlier that I'd love to hear you say more about.

So I think you mentioned Steve Winn. So how does Steve Winn fit into this story? Game changer. Steve Winn, game changer for me. And I started seeing Düsselay. I always fed myself by going to see as much as possible. So right away, I was going to visit the artist and I would always make a stop in Vegas to see the entertainment. And then suddenly Mirage arrived there and the Zick Finn and Roy Shoe was there and it's not the entire show. First 20 minutes, it was like mind blowing.

I was so inspiring and impactful for me because I realized and make me realize that, wait a minute, Vegas is as his baby foot of modern entertainment. You know, you have New Yorker on site, London on the other side. But they as a still cheesy. They have big production but still not deep in the, I would call it a theatrical, the artistically is very flamboyant. It's big thing and they put a lot of money. You have the volcano, you have like showers or whatever.

Hundred dancers, you have the spectacular. But when you analyze that in the artistic quality, the things is level one. And then with this 20 minutes, I say, wait a minute, I look around. X12345. It's like kids, you know, they don't have big show or this big show has been there. So I suddenly realized, just wait a minute. This city have the potential of becoming the third biggest entertainment city in the world after New York or with New York and London.

And this is where I started to put a lot of focus. Then we have, Caesar's was the first one to approach us from a vice president entertainment part, Caesar's location. So we engage in the development of the deal, which I had that time to put $300,000. They put $300,000. We develop a concept of show, it's called timeless kiss, but timeless kiss is the first show, which is, but Mr. Okay. Mr. But we went to a level, presented the board and re-glogged Terry Lennie and Santorie City in Los Angeles.

All those very age person with a couple of young executive and we bitch and we believe at that moment that we did a great bitch. We were confident in the show. And actually the deal with them was far away with the deal image in the future with Steven. So I'm back in Montreal waiting the answer. I received a phone call. I was on my treadmill and this vice president said, well, sorry, I have a bad news. I said, well, the board think that your show is to azo-terrick for Las Vegas.

Azo-terrick was the word to explain me why they're not go ahead with the deal. I rage. I think ever in my life had done so many hours of stepmaster in my life in the world. Raging, streaming for three hours. And then it was, I went a minute and that was 300,000 all investment at a moment. We're talking 19, 1991, beginning of a success. And that was into the concept development. Yeah, well, yes, yes. We were trying to make a deal when one of the kids, you know, to put their product there.

Then that failed. So we went around next one, next one is theilton. We're Elvis Presley was there at that time. It was like a Broadway show was there. Same story, pitch, pitch, pitch, song, and oh, it's too complex. And then that one I didn't rage because I, having received that answer once, I was expecting. And then like a week after I received a message, calls Steve Wind called you, call back. So I call back, I'm a shoe that you're there to.

And it's like, it's very, very more radio voice than me. Said, I heard you were flirting with my competitors. Have you made any deal with my competition? Said, no, why? I said, why did you come see me? And I said, well, you have the best show in town. I didn't even think you'd be interested in my brother. You have the best show in town. Well, I said, I would like to have conversation. I think I have some things that we could bring to do so late.

I said, I've just seen, you know, yeah, I've seen it in Santa Monica in 1987. And I said, we have a new show. It's called the Villexperia. You know, I've just seen, no, I want you to see it. I said, where are you? I said, well, I'm Toronto now. But I said, before we converge, I want you to see what I am about now. I don't know at that moment that if I, is I problem and vision problem? So I'll be there Friday with my CEO and one or two board member. So he flew in, received in, look at things.

And then I see the guy, we go into a mission and say, I like it. So I would like to bring this show behind the Mirage. And we could set up there. He turned around and he said, deal. And look at that deal. And he presented them. I said, well, we have to negotiate. He said, this guy will make sure that you will have a good deal. And I will have a good deal. And we'll make it happen. I need to be activated very fast. Shake him, they are for me.

They bought all the new equipment, build the things behind the Mirage. And I didn't know at that time that for him, you have something else. You have the treasure island, what is the mine? And actually, you want to lock me down. He did that contract. Just lock me down so I could not talk to others. Because he, in two years after, he was building this thing and he cost his money. And on the top of that, opening night, my God.

Again, all the big shabang of Vegas and Stephen have very powerful and influential friends in the political things. The business side, the other bankers there. And opening night, one artist, animation, again. But this one could have been turned very bad. It did that 2,000 time. He's sliding on the road from the tower over the other people on the stage. We're about to start a show. I'm seeing from the side of my life, the artist fell on the people.

Oh, God. I think I experience what it means and what is the temperature and the feeling to be in the tomb. The sound, the sound of the big top, the CEO, Bobby Ball, and see the same thing. And Stephen, don't say what's going on. And CEO said, well, there's an artist who fell on the end. And you knew that we fell, I think it was a banker, one of the major bankers. Just feeling that thing. Oh, no. And Steve said, what? And did silence. So thank God, it was just kind of like hurt on the shoulder.

He couldn't break his neck. He basically one inches on the top of the break the neck. And that was it for me. It was done. Terrible. Okay. So we go to show, and it was a hard show to start a show and build up success. So the reaction at the end was good, but it was not de-terremic. It was not overwhelmed. It was like everybody was like easy, okay? So we overcome that moment that it could have been crucial.

And then two, three months after he said the real reason what I want to lock you down is because I'm doing Tricia Allen. And I want you to do the main show of this thing. So the show gave us and became the timeless kids that we missed there. We tried to explain him our creative process, which we need. You know, you give us a theater, we'll design it for a show, but we need dust free and we need time to rehearsal and with clowns, we need an audience to test things and stuff like so.

So, theoretically, get everything. First dress rehearsal, another magic moment with Stephen. My clown, the same Benny by the way. I'm the same Benny, that is my clown. He want to do a satiric clown number. The firehouse, right? The one. The same one who's done that still believes he's the one of the best-selling award, but he want to do an original clown act, which is about a satiric number of boxing in Las Vegas.

And his game is to set up kind of boxing things, theatrical one, invite an audience member to have a boxing fight that end up to throw each other tarts, cream tarts. Okay. But the tests, people are only the worker of the casino plus all the executive. But you'll see when I ask all these topics, you'll go check it out. First, we don't even call that a dress rehearsal, we call that a lion then. Meaning it's the case before lion.

So, it's not the risk we're taking there and we just want to do a bit normally when we invite friends and family, small crowd. The room is like probably 50% of the executive, the entire right there and the number go wrong. Benny Panic, the clown Panic, and he start to throw all the tarts on the audience. So, of course, I receive a call from Steve Wynn, that's doing ski and ice band, say, well, not use the word. Happen. What are you doing?

What is it to throw tarts to people in the room, the new theater, like they said, Steve, it's like this was the lion dance and we testing it, get wrong and stuff like that. The clown Panic will correct that. Don't worry, that's part of the project. And I said, and he said, there's no F way. You can say it on my show. I mean, just don't think because with all those things, I like it away. Exactly. Well, I didn't say it. You said it. I just tried to play with the situation.

So he said, listen, I'm flying tomorrow. I want a private view of the show, okay? And there's no way you will open the show and I will tell you what's work, it doesn't work. And so that in Las Vegas and with everybody's freaking out. So I'm cranking because we took months to explain him this process and now he's like treading me to not open the show or whatever, you know, in a Steve way. So we arrive. I'm not sitting with him.

I'm sitting with Bobby Baldwin, a CEO because he's my friend and that's the one I made to deal. Franco Dragón and Jill Sanctua, the director and the director of creation would Steve and you could see Steve. You know, those show that have so much mechanic on it. You cannot put the artists on risk. So you don't run the show at real speed. You run the show in a safe way so you mark the step and then, you know, it's a process.

So I'm obliged to run a show that's supposed to give him the information what the show is about. But instead of being a hundred miles a hour, it's running at 75. So obviously you don't see the beauty of the race car. You're not like it's like it is just safety, safety, safety. You mark, you take a client lining, there's a light could affect an acrobat. You know, there's all this hundreds of details. So obviously everything is slow down.

So at the end of the show, we have a meeting with him and he's around the day, but we'll look at the talk. I was like, what the fuck is this show? They said, look and feel like a fucking German opera. I called it a gun, the director turned around and said, thank you, Steve. This is the biggest compliment you can ever tell me about the show. I create. This is too sorry. I see this as like what?

Then just here, I just tell you the show is a piece of crap and you tell me, thank you by telling you that. And yeah, in front of the explain, this is like, you know, German opera. It's very important in the word of opera, but institution and Steve is totally disabilized. And then he started to say, I like that. I don't like that. I want you to change that and then I intervened to no Steve. I said, I explain you, explain with the things. We're not done yet with the show.

This will be a great show. Trust me. And by the way, I have the last word contractually about what will be the show or not. And it's reaction. But I control the room and if I decide nobody goes in, fair for you. Then you'll be in penalty because if I deliver a show and I have the right, if you don't want to let people in, it's your problem. I would have done my job. And then he turned raised because he said, you have to understand Steve, when always I control on 3% of his narrative.

Everybody's at this foot. Here's a little kid from Quebec, like you're standing in front of him saying, no, when people tell you, yes, three times in a row to make sure you don't understand no, yes. And then he turned and Bobby Baldwin's CEO said, what the fuck is that contract? I don't have the last word. It's how I'll Steve, you ask you to make a deal with them. And that's what a break Dean, you'd ask me to make sure that it will be with us. I did it. That was a condition. It was a break deal.

I sign it. To the credit of seal. To the credit of seal. At the moment, a CEO said, this is contractually binding. Steve said, okay, then I will have to trust you. I hope you're right. And you will prove me wrong, but here it is. I will trust you. See you at opening night. Just like that. It's just like that. Opening night, day after, sold out, sold out, sold out. We were the hit new show. Rock Vegas. Then after that, there was an old show and you know, the story. It's like binding.

Yeah. To a certain point that after you sold to MGM, there's a moment of the pendicle of things. You were responsible of 6% of about 40 million visitors of primary reason why people were coming Vegas. And we were controlling almost 39% of every entertainment tickets in Las Vegas. Wow. So we did contribute a little bit. Now Vegas is a total red ocean, but we arrived to create a blue ocean. And it's just like squeeze it with beautiful show.

And they were giving us all the money we wanted to create the most amazing show. And always an example of it. It's like masterpiece. It's like that's the perfect match with somebody who believe in you. Have a lot of money and a team that arrive at creative maturity to do his masterpiece. So I'll just mention for people, blue ocean, blue ocean strategy, also a great book worth reading that gets more into this concept, but. Which was a test case. A story is part of a case study on it.

And it's very interesting. And people who will read it, it really makes you understand how addressing a red ocean by creating a blue ocean is could totally be a game changer for an enterprise and the way of thinking about your envisioning strategy. Yeah, total game changer. And I would love to ask you more about Steve when we might come back to it. But I know we're coming up on two hours. So I want to be respectful of your time.

But let me ask you this question, which is I would love to get your perspective on maybe what people miss about Cirque du Soleil and why it became successful. Because I imagine there are many people listening to this who will wonder, and I've wondered this too. And I didn't someone else do this. Well, we were a pioneer. But after the success, like an innate good success, you have impact, creative, mind, or production company.

Some will have the easy reaction, a lazy reaction of trying to copy you. Very bad for them, very bad for the business, very bad for my brand. Why? Because they will play, inspire by, they will call now the sickle, let it learn, sick of that, to try to grab the flavor. And I track them by trying to sell that there at the same level, right? Disaster. And this, for me, is lazy people to do that and non-creative people. There's some of that and you have to deal with that.

Some try, but usually they don't last long. But it does affect your credibility for a period of time. But people are not stupid. They wouldn't understand what is the real recipe versus the fake one. Where are the original? Then there's the other one that you inspire, okay? Young artists. And I had a lot, I was responsible with a lot of new emerging entertainment company that inspired himself about what we did and became the second generation. You know, it's like an art.

You have the first generation, you have the second generation, and you have the other one that we call the derivative, the derivative of the bad one. You know? We have money out things, but they just copy and they have no contribution to the evolution of the art. But today we have nurtured Circusalea, nurture, dozen of second generation of artists and things. And it's not necessarily always about circus. I'm Yahwul, for example. I don't know if you know me.

Yahwul. So, for example, Yahwul, we're not saying they're second generation, but they are because I know the founder or some of them. And obviously we had a huge impact in inspiring cultural or artistic entrepreneur to use us as inspiration. And Yahwul, some of them said, well, listen, you've been very important in inspiring us and many other like that.

And when you see this, or even in circus, it's been a little truce, like it was, it's like all like babies of Circusalea that are defined their own style, that are inspired and contribute to the elevation of the art of circus. And that's beautiful. And there's more of that, there's failure. And actually it's very, we were all doing to see that type of impact you could have on the next generation.

So yes, it's people who try, but the clever one or the one who don't try to copy, but try to make their own signature. So I want to be respectful of time. Do you want to keep going for like 10, 15 minutes? Yah, yah, yah. Okay. I want to talk about the community, which is again, the beautiful 40 years that I live with amazing colorful people that come from the same environment of work, which is funny. Then obviously I sold Circusale in 2015. Many things happened, another story to tell.

And I'm jumping to the conclusion where when from family office, different portfolios, explore a lot of things. I don't want to go with details. Rough moment, COVID, having to, you know, I was about to activate new content, new project and COVID, kill it all, lost my investors and stuff like, you know, starting to lose not every year. Now it's like at least a couple of months, friends that are dying, you know, make me realize that we're in it.

I'm not saying clock is ticking, but let's say time pass fast and it does have impact. And I realized that what became important for me, lost my parents and it suddenly was about wait a minute. One of my dream, because I had some dream in my life, but the recent dream was about, hey, I would love to go back with all my group of people or friends and invite them on the island, oh, you're my, whatever.

And spend a couple days or a night just with a good bottle of wine and just listen what their life was about. Just to see the people you love what they have all, because a lot of them, I always keep contact with them. But to some, I've not seen for 20 years and we still in contact, we just would love to hug ourselves and have a good conversation again.

So it changed the last couple of years really and especially from last year, about 14 months ago, I really went through that period of, whoa, whatever my priority. First family office type of money management, not my type of entrepreneur, okay, I need the action. I don't have the patience of most of the things. One of my investment was the biggest betrayer of my life. I said, where I'm in it. I want to be with my friend. I want to be with my loved one. I want to be with my tribe.

I want to be with my family. So it's shif and make me the decision that I said, I want to do shows again. So the last year about, and I was in the last September, I mean, about the year, I've been gearing up and developing concept and with some of it with my old friends that we told us, let's do something again.

And a bunch of young, new kids, young people that I've defied or that drive and that invite to play with us and make sure with all my elders that we use the support and the opportunity of creating things and transfer the knowledge of what we all are or wisdom or form them and give them and work with them so they could carry on a nice entertainment environment. And at the end, what does it mean? What is the conclusion of that? It's like, you know, in life, you could have all the success you want.

You could have all that, but what is most important in your family, your friends, your tribe, the people that lived a life with. And the comfort of that is so much important than anything else after. Which at the end, if you realize that, and for me, this exercise of starting up a new entertainment company with new show that I cannot disclose today, but I believe that Prinayas Kikkar also there. And we have, first of all, we have a lot of fun.

We're laughing, we're asked out every morning that we're writing and creating that thing. So we'll live a dive from the public reaction, but among the team here, we're like cranking up and we have a lot of joy. But at the end, what all this will permit me is somewhere, hopefully, to this new adventure engage in what I didn't have to is maybe end up having achieved to one of my goal at the end, which is, I just mentioned it before being a good ancestor.

And this is all the desire of giving back as much as I could in the time left. And I hope there's another 30 years, whatever my goal is at least under the hundred years. But I was fed by so much love, so much joy, so much opportunity that what I got was bigger than what one individual has. So I'm trying to find a way that how could I give back of all that to what I know best is creating shows and creating entertainment companies. So this is where I am.

We talked about the Tom one, there's a Tom two, and I'm starting to engage Tom three, basically. Very different and also very interconnected chapters, it would seem. And how much of the getting back to performing or shows is the performing in the show? Is the content versus having a reason or an excuse to get together with your old friends and the performers? Well, there's different factor on that. One is I realized I didn't do my epilogue. You know, I left a plan to call my visit things.

I had a bad result things for X reason, again, another conversation. But what is my epilogue in all this amazing creative production adventure? And what I'm working on is my epilogue. The second thing is a challenge. It's funny. As much I'm very active, something I have the impression that I could become very lazy when comfort is there. So I always perform the best when I'm on the cliff. And it's true. It's true.

And knowing that if I decide to come back on that and I'm risking a lot, I cannot do what I did at Cirque du Soleil. I have to find a different way, I have to address every angle of the artistic experience about to do with a different look at it. And this is intellectually so, so challenging and interesting. So I'm having a very interesting brain activities with all those amsters as keep rolling. The amsters are definitely awake in this brain. Alive and well. Dancing on the cliff.

Well, Gis there, anything else you'd like to say, any request of my audience or anything else that you'd like to add before we close this first round? Yeah, but if I open my mouth again, it will be $5 by word that I say from now. No problem. No problem. Well, this has been incredibly fun. I'm glad that this finally came together and I really appreciate you taking the time and sharing everything that you've shared. And hopefully we'll get a chance to do a round.

To have a good bottle of wine together. Have a good bottle of wine. Absolutely. Where are you, Bays? I'm based in Austin, Texas. Oh, okay. But I travel a lot. So I'm on both coasts. I'm international frequently. So I'm sure there's an opportunity where we can make an opportunity. Well, I spend a lot of time in Vegas, especially by activating certain things. I would love to let's make sure we don't lose contact.

I would definitely eat a good bottle of sake over a good Japanese meal or a good bottle of wine, the red wine, burgundy over a good meal. Sounds perfect. And I really appreciate you taking all the time and to everybody listening, we will link to everything in the show notes and more at Timed Up, Lock, Slash Podcast. And as always, be a little bit kinder than it's necessary both to others and to yourself. Until next time, thanks for tuning in. Hey guys, this is Tim again.

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