Hi everyone, I'm Nicolola Tangan, the CEO of the Norwegian Southern Wealth Fund. And today I'm in really good company with super agent and media mogul Ariel Emanuel.

He's represented some of the biggest names in Hollywood and he's now the owner of companies such as UFC and WWE. Ari, warm welcome.

>> Hi. Hi. How are you doing? So, how long has this been since you started doing this and why?

>> It's like 3 years.

>> You think it's going to be an interview you to me? I'm going to interview you.

>> Let's see how it goes. Let's see how it goes. So Ari, when I was researching this, I was just astonished about how many things you do. So just in brief, what do you do?

>> You know, I started out almost over 30 years ago representing writers, writer, director, actors.

Then I had a vision for where entertainment was going. Started, you know, merged quote unquote with William Morris.

And then bought IMG and then realized half my life was representation, half my life was ownership.

Almost like, I mean, I don't know what your investment strategy is, I know that you're one of the largest investors in the world of every single country and every single company, but we realized when we were in the representation business of entertainment, and entertainment takes from podcast to owning sports events, music, writer, director, everything, we could look at companies that we represented or people or things and then we could move them, the thought process, to an ownership position.

Because we could extract greater value because we were global. And if a company was localized but had a global possibility, we could extract a great deal of value.

And as we're negotiating deals between IMG, negotiating all sports rights on an international basis, we added content to that and then we got out, we sold that business for a billion dollars. We had a very big playing field, and so we just started moving stuff to ownership from live events to sports.

So we represented the WWE, we represented UFC, we represented bull riding and we realized, you know, if we got involved, we could make all the broadcast deals, we could do all the, you know, marketing deals, and then we could extract more value with site fees and all the other tricks that we have.

And so we bought them and people thought at the time we were crazy with IMG and then they thought we were crazy with the UFC and it turned out we made the right position and then we merged it and we just are on the field a lot. So we get to kind of move things around.

So all right, we're going to kind of unpack one thing after the other here but let's kick off at the beginning with the endeavor. So you started in Creative Artist Agency and how did they get the job? I gather you cold called him quite a lot of times.

>> Way, way, way before that. I started in New York with an old, with a kind of guy in the theater business by the name of Robbie Lance.

After six months I realized kind of the business. I had just moved back from Europe where I had been playing around. My father told me to come back. He was cutting off my bank account and I went into the mail room and I was making 15 cents a mile.

That's how I made my living dropping in the mail room dropping packages off became an agent and then I went to this company Inner Talent which was a small boutique that had started as a spin-off of some of the big guys.

After three years I think it was they sold they broke the company up and I went to this company called ICM which recently CA bought.

And a crazy thing happened, I got hit by a car and I realized life was not a dress rehearsal, you know, you can't just sit around and think it's going to it's going to figure itself out.

So I just after 18 months of surgery, rehab, surgery, I said I want to, you know, be on my own and go for it. And so we started this company called Endeavor in 1995 on my birthday, March 29th.

>> Who was your first client?

>> It's between Amy Litman, I think it was Amy Litman and Greg Daniels. And then there was a bunch of others.

>> Why did they choose you? Um,

I don't think they wanted me to keep on calling them to beat them up to sign with me, so they just gave in.

>> What's the most times you called a client to get them on board?

>> To get them to sign with me? I think it was probably Larry David way back in the day. I don't know. It was It was unrelenting. I felt really bad for him. And I kind of said it to him. I think I said, "I feel bad for you. Here's what's going to happen." I don't embarrass easily, so it doesn't really matter.

>> What's the key to cold calling?

>> You know, if I believe, like when I saw the UFC that there was more value that could be created, if I if I'm looking at a client that I don't think is being handled properly, I will just pound on that issue until they realize because eventually they're going to realize I'm right. I believe I start the conversation usually with something like are you happy?

And then and I know where I I believe after analyzing say where the trigger points are and then I just pound away.

>> What does an agent do for a client?

>> Well, in this day and age because there's so much distribution and there's depending on the client like all clients are different. Music clients are different than actors, actors are different than directors. But if you're talking about a writer creator in the television space, you have multiple players going on. How you tell them what properties to buy to write or create on their own and then packaging them together.

You're putting together kind of a package to go out to the marketplace. It used to be that the studios would be the composer of the content. It's now moved to the agent. And I always say to the people here, ideas matter more than ever right now as an agent because you have to you have to be full service.

And what we've attempted to do by all the companies we've bought and put together is be a full-service agency whether it be licensing, marketing, books, all actors. How you put things together for a director, an actor, a writer happens inside our doors now more than it does at the Sony's, at the Netflix, at the Paramounts.

>> And what's the key to maintaining a good relationship with a client?

>> You actually have to be their partner, not their representative. You actually have to be their business partner and think about the world and where the possibilities and, you know, there's bad things happen, you have to have an agent I believe that is willing and I hope we've taught this to have endurance.

And take the failures and kind of think through all the different possible teams together to help you think through things. I think we've done that here.

Not always great, but usually pretty good. And I think that's the requirement for whether it be a music client, a social media client, you know, a book, an author, an actor, a director, everything.

>> You are known as one of my Hollywood's toughest negotiators. Why do you think that is?

>> Well, I'm just I, you know, I'm not going to roll over because somebody thinks, you know, somebody's more powerful or whatever. I'm not sure I'm the toughest negotiator. I just have a point of view on something and I'll stick to my guns.

First of all, I don't have to I don't when I I think when I negotiate, I don't have to have all the chips off the table. Um, but I do have to I think there's this line.

There was this old lawyer at Warner Brothers in my first deal. And he told me, and I said to him in the middle of the negotiation, the head of CA, Bill Haber, gave me a property to negotiate for him, an underlying right. And he and I told him in the middle of the negotiation, I said, "This is not fair."

And he was the senior lawyer at Warner Brothers. And he told me to drive over to Warner Brothers. And I did. And he I walk in. I said, "Mr. Stleness, hi, I'm Ari Emanuel."

And he said, "Son, fair is where we end up."

And he said, "Leave my office." And so, you know, in all these negotiations, I just always say to the people, fair is where we're going to end up. I might not be completely happy, you might not be completely happy, but it is the right number.

>> If you were to give them the listeners like a 20 second crash course in negotiation, what would you what would you include?

>> One is you've you've got to keep the negotiation within the, you know, you don't go out of the you don't negotiate in public. You respect your negotiator, you're tough and you kind, you know, but you you negotiate inside the rooms.

You don't kind of and every negotiation is different.

There's not one negotiation, there's not one principle to a negotiation. Sometimes there's only one buyer. You you you you struck out, you have to get a deal done and you close. Sometimes there's multiple buyers and you you drag it out as long as you can to get the highest price.

So you just have to recognize the environment and the situation you're in. I think everybody does the same thing. You know, you have to be honorable. You have to keep your word whenever you're negotiating. It's not your last deal if you're talented.

And so you you know, your word, your negotiation with that person is actually important because that reputation kind of precedes you and follows you.

>> You once said that agents are like cockroaches.

>> Yeah.

>> What did you mean by that?

Meaning you can't kill us. We're going to be around in this business forever.

As much as people have tried to disintermediate agents, when I think I started in the business, we were just in the television business and a little bit of motion picture business. Now we're in Instagram, people, podcasts. We're in so many different areas and the agency business has constantly adapted and kind of transformed itself in what is required to be a good agent and representation.

You got to have marketing in there. You got to have books in there. You got to have license and merchandising in there. And you know, you you just constantly are adapting your skill set, the agency at large, to actually perform the best for the clients. And I don't think a lot of agencies have done that. That's why they haven't survived.

We have done that. And I think that's why we're thriving.

>> Many, many would have seen the series Andrew Rash which is loosely based on you I believe. How how spot-on is that?

>> In my early days it was I'm sad to say too spot on. Um but I've mellowed. So yeah, I mean in the early days of remember when I started the business, you had four. No, you had Yeah. You had four big agencies against us and you you weren't you there was no price differential that could distinguish you. It was all the same price. So you know I was difficult.

>> Well,

I'm a lot nicer now.

>> Why is that?

>> You know, success. I don't have to constantly be fighting battles. The employees are doing a lot of a lot of the heavy lifting that I used to do by myself. Um and with others and um yeah, taking on a lot of the battles that I don't have to take on makes life a little bit easier.

And also my clients have reached a stature that it's a lot easier to to to move their careers around. And I have I think and you'll have to just ask the buyers. I've lived by my reputation and how I negotiate and

>> All right, moving on to sports. So in 2016 you bought UFC.

>> Yes.

>> Was that a strategic transaction or an opportunistic opportunity that just came by?

>> Well, we had bought before that PBR. We had proven that we could buy an a a company in the sports area and resurrect it.

I think Silverlake would say as they thought about it, we negotiate every deal with networks on behalf of packages etc. We do in at that time we did internationally all the sports rights. We knew how to handle UFC internationally in the value.

We represented him and had already negotiated a lot of the broadcast deals by owning it, running it properly. We could get 90% of the value as opposed to 10% of the value.

>> When would you say that when did you say a combat sport got into the mainstream?

>> Well, I was just looking at the numbers and looking where sports was going to go and where I thought the distribution model was going and the requirement for ESVOD and Avod and

I did my calculation that Fox had to have the product based on where they were going with their business from the RSNs and etc. I didn't realize that they were going to sell, that RER was going to sell, but I did did realize where, you know, the marketplace was going with regard to streaming and sports has always been a huge driver in that space.

And there's not a lot of sports to own. And I thought between international distribution, sponsorship, site fees, all the things that we did, production where we had global production facility in London and five different locations, we could take a lot of costs out and add a lot of value.

And it it rang true and we just let I mean we I had I have one of the great partners in Dana White who could continue to do what he needed to do and I would do the business side with Mark Shapiro. Everyone and and if we had that combination, it was going to be a lethal combination.

>> Why is it a good business to open? What what are the characteristics with that particular business?

>> One is

>> with that particular sport.

>> Yeah. One is it's a sport that happens over one day, six hours. The demographics are four quadrants. Young men, older men, women now. I mean, it's it's a and it's global and it's very the the fights are 15 minutes or 25 minutes. They're action-packed. They're great for social.

We're in every country in the world with our fighters. It was the dominant player in that sport. And so, and I just thought it had bigger and bigger upside because people want big events, on a weekly basis. And, you know, it turned out to be true. You're going to have an event in the White House, I think, next year.

>> Yeah, in June. I think it got announced, the president announced it last week.

>> I don't know when this is airing, but yes.

>> Tell me about the the links between politics and uh martial art.

>> Well, you that that that you have to actually talk to my partner Dana White. I have a I you know, I represented the president for seven, nine years in his days on NBC. He had an incredible relationship with Dana when the UFC started. He was the first one in Atlantic City to put the UFC on when nobody would do it and they were calling it fighting.

And um, they've maintained an incredible relationship. And um when the president was running for the second time, Dana helped him out with his his his strategy in social and was very helpful and has been helpful for the president for a long time.

>> Do you think politics is increasingly becoming a bit more like combat sport?

>> I would say the following. I hope not. Going to this Charlie Kirk situation, I hope that this is a kind of watershed moment where people realize this is a very bad path for the United States and for the world. I think it's all over the world. There's a very combative situation in politics.

But I hope nobody gets choked out in politics. I just hope we kind of kind of realign our thinking.

>> So, um

I mean that I think as Bill Maher said, it's very important to talk to everybody and I agree with that.

Because you have to have you have to understand them and you have to be able to express your opinion so that there can be a there can be a middle ground. Uh, it's like any negotiation as I said to you. You have to you can't take everything off the table.

>> No.

>> They have to win some. You have to win some.

>> Then you bought WWE.

>> No, we merged.

>> Well, we merged. No, you were I believe I be I believe you were a wrestler in you know in your early years. Is that is that why you begin to buy it or

>> No, I also I represented Vince in the WWE for a long long time at Endeavor and then we didn't go public at the like in I want to say 19. I had approached Vince with my partner at Silverlake Egon Durban to kind of pull the UFC out and merge it with the WWE and create one entity and we would like we have now be private with Endeavor.

Vince because we were just getting into co I think it was in 200 I don't remember 2020 2021 something like that. Vince didn't want to do it. We then retook Endeavor out with all of the the first time we went out, we only had 51% of the UFC with we had negotiated a deal that KKR and and Silverlake would roll their their portion of it in. We went public.

The market never really understood what I was trying to express that we cover every aspect of entertainment from sports to social to books. That conglomerate conversation never happened. We kept on selling off pieces.

We sold off our academy. We sold off our production company. They just never got. And so, you know, we looked around after, you know, significant time and other representative businesses were getting valuations of $7 billion. And this doesn't make sense.

And that's, you know, it the pure play was the right thing for the UFC and the WWE in bull riding. We first started out with just UFC and WWE.

Vince under circumstances had to leave. We then realized here's the here's the remaining portion of what sports is which is distribution production premium ticketing with on location and we rolled in our last sport PBR and

That is a pure play sports entity in TKO and the rest is the representation business and and that's actually private. So now you have something like 350 events per year and is it close to a billion viewers?

>> A lot of viewers and a lot of events.

>> Are there any challenges to having choreographed and non-coreographed content in the same company?

>> One sports entertainment and this past weekend I don't know when this again when this is going to air. We had our launch for uh Russell Palooa in Indianapolis with ESPN. And ESPN realizes when you go to one of these live events or you watch it, it's uh sports entertainment.

And it is definitely, you know, competitive. Um it is entertainment. So there, you know, but the fan base is incredible. It's again like the UFC, it's global and it's it's it's it's it's a blast to see. You have said in the past that you'd love to go into boxing and then you had the Ali Act which was kind of protecting the boxers and now you have people who come out and say that they want to update the act and so now you are going into boxing right?

>> Well we had an event two weekends ago at Allegian Stadium where the Raiders play and there was 70,000 people in the arena. We had one of the great on Netflix, one of the great boxing events ever. Actually, in Alleion, I think the records are with WWE and our boxing match for live events. It was crazy. It was It was incredible.

We are in the middle of kind of seeing if we can work with the administration and Congress about kind of having having an addendum to the Ali Act, which I think is better for the boxers health-wise, moneywise, etc. Creating an opportunity like we have with the UFC. And if if everything works out, we'll boxing is an area that we're looking at. We're also in jiu-jitsu. So we will cover the full spectrum of of combat sports.

>> How how large could book boxing be for you?

>> I you know the funny thing is we again we have Nick Khan and Dana White and Hunter Camp. We have a great team led by Dana and and Nick Khan. Uh we have a good partner in in the Saudis.

Um, and you see how big I mean I think on the event we had two weekends ago I think there was 25 million consecutive streams on Netflix. I don't remember how many globally. It was a significant number. Boxing has been around for hundreds of years. I mean UFC has been around for over 30 but you know not and there's an understanding of it.

If we can bring it back to the glory days and Dana and Nick can create the stars behind it, it can be as big as any of our other assets.

>> You nearly bought Formula 1 at one point, I believe.

>> You know, when we So, before the TKO merger, we had been working on CBC in the UK. they had owned it at the time.

Uh to buy it because they were you know they it had run its cycle and Egon real we had just bought three months before the UFC.

And you know it was a 910 billion chunk. We had not gone into our execution of the broadcast strategy yet and we had we were starting to cut costs and do all the things that we were doing. And I just think it was um

We you got to remember also, you know, you had Brexit so we had a banking issue. We didn't have a relationship with you so we could get infinite money. Um, and uh, I think it was just a little bit kind of thought through, hard to kind of get, you know, I think looking back and we both looked at each other, we're probably going to regret this, you know, regardless, we've done very well.

>> If you could buy another sport, what would it be?

>> Well, first of all, I I I'm not thinking about that right now. I mean, we have to execute on everything we have now. We have to get jiu-jitsu up on its feet. We got to continue to execute slowly our boxing strategy. Um there's a lot on our plate.

We've just finished the majority of the broadcast deals domestically, internationally. Things come up every year. So we got we still got integration, you know, with the WWE and UFC savings that we have to get to. You know, I got a full I got a I got a big plate. So, um I appreciate you me wanting to kind of keep on going, but if I just do what I'm doing, it's going to be a really it's a great business.

>> Philosophically, how is um how is the way people consume and think about sports changing? How how how do you see this in 10 10 years? you know, you have to you have to have a to keep it young, you have to have a really thoughtout social strategy.

Uh with your fighters, with your sport. Um to keep the demo young and I think we have some of the youngest demos in the business in across our platforms. You then have to be on your distributors domestically, internationally about their marketing strategy. And then you have to kind of with your sponsors, you have to do integrations with them appropriately for your sports as the events come up.

And if you do all three of those properly, then you know, you can have a pretty successful business. And we're in an enviable position. We have very young sports and they're consumable on this thing. You know, you can have a knockout.

Boom. So, Ari, how do you when you do a deal, how do you do the research? How much is analysis and how much is gut feel?

>> No, no, no. when like when we presented the WWE or the UFC when we're taking our rights out for market, we have a whole research team that does here's our demo like on Netflix or on Amazon or on Apple. Here's who you're not touching.

Here's the people that want to sign up for your place and if you get them, here's how much we believe. We do a huge, you know, 100page decks about the value creation by being in business with our assets are like the NFL does, the NBA does, etc.

And um yeah, I mean that was you you don't go into these things like where do you think the wins? No, there's a huge presentation and then you know because each one of them has a different strategy. With the WWE and ESPN, they wanted a big launch. They needed another thing to kind of drive people into their new service. Netflix wanted to get to an advertising base.

Each one of them have different reasoning for what why they want an asset and so you have to tailor your presentations to those assets and we have a ton of people doing that for us.

>> And um you have a lot of different people in this process with different voices. Why is that important? I I think

I think it's important for leadership that if you are a good leader, one is you you want a lot of voices inside the mix to come to the right conclusion and not make a decision that your opinion is the right opinion.

So there are many executives that we sit around constantly going back and forth about deals, you know, what we can ask for, what we shouldn't ask for, places we should be growing the business. Um, we have calls every week on the UFC, calls every week on the WWE jiu-jitsu bull riding.

And I think that's um, you know, um, important for leadership um, to get to the right conclusion. You always know you're going to make mistakes, but you want everybody that is running the operations for your company at every level to have a voice in it so that when the mistakes come, we can at least mitigate them a little bit and then have a path forward. And you constantly have to be reviewing this stuff um as you as as you as you operate your business.

Um I don't know how other people do it. running a sport is like anything else, but we have the added um situation that you're on the WWE they're employ, you know, they're signed contracts on the on the UFC they're independent contractors.

That's why it's very difficult for a media company like a Disney, a Comcast, a Warner Brothers, a Netflix to own a sport. I think they would hurt the operate because it's it's a very kind of fluid situation. Um, and that's that's why you need a lot of voices in that can tell you all the different things going on because it's not only how you run the business, it's how your superstars and athletes are thinking about it and those that that's a very dynamic situation to to kind of constantly be reviewing as you're trying to run the business.

>> What type of leadership does it take to run this type of fluid situation? a democratic dictatorship

>> and that's what you have.

>> Well, we have we have multiple leaders in the democratic dictatorship. Yeah. On on the on the you know, you know, Triple H runs WWE with Nick Khan, Dana runs, you know, kind of making the fights and everything. UFC, Mark and I run the business side of it with multiple people underneath us. And then there's that coordination between uh you know the people that are creating the storylines, creating the fights, and us about where we're going with it.

>> You seem to have very close relationships with your with your management. How do you balance kind of um

>> Do you think there's work life balance?

>> No, I don't think so.

>> I don't either.

>> No, no. I don't think that. No, I don't think I'm not asking how you balance your life. I'm just asking how do you balance professional and personal relationships?

>> You know, I've known Dana for 30 years. I've known, you know, Nick Khan was an agent at CIA. We tried to hire him as an agent here. Have a very close relationship with him. I've known Triple H off and on for a long time now. Very close. You just you just have to, you know, stay close, know what's going on in their lives. I mean, you just you're you're you're in business with somebody, so therefore you have to know a lot about them and care about them.

>> Now, moving on to a different type of entertainment. You recently bought the Freeze Art Fair, right?

>> That's a new business I started.

>> less violent.

>> Well, here's what I here's what I concluded. So, we took Endeavor Private, we spun UFC and PBR and on location and IMG into TKO.

Silver Lake as we took Endeavor Private was selling. They wanted it to just be a pure play representation business. We had bought over time about 700 different events.

I have a thesis that, you know, we're down to four day work weeks, maybe three day work weeks. Europe, you know, with AI and a bunch of other stuff. Co started it.

And so if that's the case, there's going to be more free time than ever. We're social animals, human beings, and they're ether going to go to sporting event, you're going to go to dinner, you're going to watch entertainment, you're going to live music. And I also think you're going to do live events.

So, we've acquired the tennis business, the participatory sports in collectibles freeze and and Barrett Jackson, our food festivals, a bunch of assets and we're we you know we've raised money about $2 billion in equity and we've bought these assets and we're going to hopefully create like Live Nation is in music. We're gonna create a mini version because they're a great company, but in live events, a global live events business as this world kind of transforms itself with AI.

>> And freeze is a part of that.

>> And freeze is a part of that. And I think live is more important than it's ever been. Um and that's the marketplace that we're going to try and go capture.

>> What kind of art do you collect?

>> I collect artists. I work with this gentleman by the name of Jeffrey Dichch. I collect art mainly at the beginning of my life it was all over the place and then I I've focused significantly on black artists, American black artists and South African 1930 to now from Sam Gilliam, Mark Bradford, Noah Davis, Carrie James Marshall, Benny Andrews. It's a It's a pretty nice collection.

It's I've been doing it for now in this specific space.

And anybody I didn't mention, and please, nobody um Cara Walker, please don't be offended. It's it I um it's it's a good collection.

It's not perfect, but you know, I I got a lot of time.

>> Where do you think your energy comes from?

>> Well, I was hyperactive when I was a kid. I was one of the first Riddlin kids. So, I was actually just having this exchange with Egon Durban in this morning about one of his portfolio companies that I'm involved with out of Silverlake and he was saying something and I was saying something and I said to him, "What makes us crazy?" And we just had this tax exchange.

I really don't know. But I'm still intellectually curious,

You know, and I love it. I have, you know, I don't I I don't I I don't I'm not tired. I'm not I I love the every bit of the process now. I'm not sure I I enjoyed the process before, but it was a it was a means to get to, you know, to fulfill an idea. Now I actually love the process and the aggravation.

>> Which part of the process you like?

>> All of it. I I I realize there's going to be a lot of aggravating moments. Those are what it's required to do business.

If you don't if you don't accept that, which was at the beginning I didn't understand it. Now I've accepted it, it's great, you know, and the outcome is a different conversation.

>> I think you said pressure is a privilege.

>> Yeah. And uh

>> I think that's a good one. I actually I have to admit I used it earlier today.

>> Oh, you did with what?

>> No, I just thought it was No, just explain why we like to be where stuff is happening, you know.

>> Yeah. Um and it just you just kind of get a different sense of the world as opposed to kind of like being a bystander.

I'm I'm not my my parents were never bystanders.

My mom wasn't. She was in the civil rights movement. My dad was a very pretty hard advocate. He was a pediatrician about uh you know kind of kids rights.

>> and you had two you had two clever brothers.

>> Yeah.

>> Who is the cleverest of the three of you?

>> in our respective field? I think we're all pretty clever. I wouldn't want to have an argument about healthcare against my brother Zeke who's at pen as I said to you. And I definitely uh wouldn't want to have a political conversation uh against my brother Rahm who

>> he's not the ambassador,

the former ambassador of Japan and mayor of Chicago. Hopefully he runs for president and I think he's the most qualified guy out there for the Democratic party. Um and they're pretty dynamic in their own specific fields.

>> When do you wake up in the morning?

>> I flew to Indianapolis on Saturday, saw our launch of our WWE Wrestle Palooa on ESPN. Then I flew to New York, had dinner with the Amir of Qar last night, flew back, got in at 2:00, woke up at 6 here with you, and I'm flying back to New York on Tuesday because I have a premiere for a client. Flying back here on T on Wednesday night, going to Aspen and then back to Indianapolis on the following Tuesday. So, I don't know. I Whatever it is, it is it just does.

>> What is your What kind of fitness regime do you have?

>> Oh, it it that's its own as its own podcast with you. It's it's too long to discuss.

>> Okay. One minute.

>> No, no, it's way too long. I mean,

>> well, give me a give me a give me a taste.

>> I wake up at 4:30, 5:00. I work out for an hour and a half. Sauna, ice. I mean, it just it just it it it it is over the years it's gotten crazier and crazier. Do you drink anymore?

>> I have a glass of wine from time to time.

>> I don't drink at all anymore.

>> But you know what? But I'll tell you I'll tell you one thing. Before this podcast, I did have an ice bath and a sauna.

>> See, I have one every day. Do you do one every day?

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> Yeah. How long is your sauna?

>> Well, not very long. I'm uh I'm pretty quick.

>> How How long do you stay in

>> in the sauna? 10 minutes. Maximum 10 minutes.

>> So, I do I do 20 minutes and I do three minutes in the ice bath.

>> Okay. every day.

>> That's good. No, I I am a big believer.

>> Yeah.

>> How long is your attention span, you think?

>> I've I've been pretty good here.

>> Yeah, absolutely. I'm I'm I'm going How long have we been going?

>> No, no. Yeah, I I had expected you to say uh uh I have to go. Love you. Uh because I think that's how you normally finish your

>> No, no. Two more two more minutes. Uh uh learning from fa I mean some people call it failures. I think you call it something else but uh learning from trials, mistakes.

>> One of the biggest failures was you know not going public the first time. I didn't like I didn't even understand it right.

But that enabled us and then co hit and so reading all the points of view of what wasn't good admitting that we screwed it up going back into the market but with a different uh strategy uh working with Morgan Stanley and Egon and and really refining it.

I had you know Mark Shapiro and team dealt with all the issues on COVID which was as as you know for a lot of your companies significant how you handled it. Um doing the raise we you know we just you can't I try and instill this with my kids hopefully with people that work with me you know when you're running something it's not how many punches you can throw it's how many punches you can take. So endurance, emotional endurance is a really key factor and failure really puts the light on that.

And being able to get up off the canvas and get back in the arena is crucial and there's all these great quotes about it and you know the Tom Brady's everybody doesn't it just you just have to be able to get off the canvas.

>> What would be your advice to young aspiring entrepreneurs in

>> actually enjoy the aggravation. enjoy it because that is what it's about.

If you if you love what you're doing and I still love it and it what what I'm doing is expanded then enjoy the hardship because the hardship is part of the process of the enjoyment.

>> How can you enjoy uh, you know, aggravation and stuff that hurts? How can you how can you teach yourself that pain is good?

>> Doing three minutes in an ice bath ain't easy. meditating in a in in a very hot sauna. You know, one of my things in my in my uh why I do these things for my health, you know, today I'm on a 24-hour fast. Every quarter I do a three-day fast. getting your mind, the ability for your mind to be able to handle uncomfortable also on on a personal level for your health helps you in business too because it in you know kind of putting barriers around yourself of what you can and can't do.

And that that also helps even though it's for your health, it also helps in your business decision making and your ability to to kind of be um the ability to endure the aggravation.

And you realize this too will pass um and uh and it's not going to kill you and you're going to work through it. You just have to work really hard.

Um and if you kind of learn those things at at at many different levels, sometimes it comes from business, sometimes it you see that you got through this or sometimes it comes from your personal life. You can handle it. It for me it started and I didn't realize this during the moments I was dyslexic.

It was not easy reading and it was embarrassing.

It was uncomfortable and being able to be comfortable in the uncomfortable enables you to handle aggravation and all the other things you need in business.

And even at the time I I I hated myself and my inability to read it has helped me now realizing that you have to be comfortable in the uncomfortable and I think that's true for all business people.

>> And what is your advice to young people?

>> Be comfortable in the uncomfortable. learn that and don't think that, you know, it's just it just should just happen. You actually have to work through all the pain to make it happen if you care.

And and I don't I don't you know, people talk about I'm not sure that that is being taught now. you know, you your parents can't cuddle you and can't give you an award for coming in second and have to, you know, ground you and do certain things for you. And then then you have to pick up the mantle as a as an adult and and keep on doing it and and your parents have to be there all the way but not giving you the answers.

So, um hopefully I've done that with my kids.

>> Sounds like it. It's been great having you on Ari. Uh all the best of luck with all your projects and there are lots of them.