The Secret To Success & Creating Change In The World w/ Rick Caruso EP 1330

Our minds catch what's real and there's psychic income, for lack of a better word. When your eye catches what's real and gives you pleasure. What you smell, what you see, what you touch, right? And the more real it is, the.

More welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur and each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

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Did you ever dream that it would be this big, that the business would be this big, the impact and your ability to serve would be as large as it is now?

No. The short answer is no. But you know, listen, first of all, thank you so much for having me because I'm a big fan of yours. So I really appreciate being here. I gotta tell you, when I started the business, I was a lawyer to start out and I was practicing law and I was doing corporate finance work and my dream was always to be in some form of real estate. I didn't really know what it was and even as a small child, I still remember to this day being with my father like maybe 6 years old and I would tell my dad, I want to build a building like that, or I'm going to buy a building like that. It's just wild.

Why real estate?

I don't know.

Was there someone you saw who owned real estate or was there. Did you watch a TV show or.

Maybe.

I don't know. It's just sort of what was in my brain. It was my DNA. It was how I was made. And so it was always in the back of my head. And when I was practicing law, I was with a firm that at the time was one of the. I think it was the largest law firm in the United States. I was not a particularly great lawyer.

Right.

And it was not a career that I wanted to have my life. Whole, whole life. But what happened was, is the law firm literally went out of business. Okay. And the senior partner walked into my office one day. I'd been there for about six years, and put a check on my desk and said, I highly recommend you go downstairs and cash it because it probably won't clear tomorrow. Wow. And I went home that night. I had just gotten married, and I said to my dear new wife, still my wife after 37 years, I said, I'm out of a job.

How old were you?

I was probably in my early 30s at the time. Okay. Wow. And so we literally went down. We lived in Westwood. We went down to the local McDonald's, and we sat there, and I said to Tina, I said, I don't know what I'm going to do. I'll go look for another job practicing law. And she was the one that said, rick, you've always loved real estate. Go do it. Now's the time to do it. Really, it was a game changer for me.

Had you done any real estate? Did you own an apartment or a house at that time?

Well, it's a good question. I bought a duplex. Before then, or right around, I bought a duplex. And the duplex was a test model of some theories I had. All right. But at the time, I was the gardener, the painter, and Tina and I did everything together. Right. You know, because I was this young lawyer. I wasn't. I was making good money, but not a lot of money.

Sure.

So anyway, I convinced my assistant at the time, Laura, I'm going to go start this company. And I did it. But what I learned from the duplex is I took it, fixed up the landscaping, because I love landscaping. My grandfather was a gardener, so I grew up riding around in his gardening truck. There were immigrants from Italy, and he was just this incredible gardener. But I fixed it up, and I was There one Saturday, you know, with the four lease sign, trying to get it leased out. And there was a unit right across the street for lease. And a gentleman was looking at that unit and walked across the street to mine, and I had priced mine above the one across the street. And he said, why would I spend a couple hundred dollars a month more? And I had beautiful flowers out and all this kind of stuff. I said, because every morning you're going to wake up and grab the paper, you're gonna look across the street and you're gonna wish you lived here.

Oh, I like that.

And he was a resident for like six years.

No way.

Just a great guy.

It's good marketing.

It is. But I just. I don't know, I just inherently learned that if you make something nicer, a better experience, if something really has a higher purpose to it, it creates value.

Interesting.

And that was the premise of starting the company.

Yeah.

We're on.

You're on the same street. You're across the street. It's the same type of house, same amount of rooms. Probably, you know, it's. It's wood, it's brick, it's. Whatever it is. But you add an experience, right. To the front yard and you tell a story.

Right.

I think that's something that I've experienced, you know, living in one of your buildings and also going to the Grove and other places that you've developed. There's a story and an experience to the real estate. It's not just, here's a storefront, here's a restaurant.

That's right.

It's a journey that you enter into a new world.

Right.

And I think that's a beautiful thing that your mind has developed over the last, I guess, 40 years now in the real estate space, which is really.

Cool, but with an incredible team of people. I mean, I can't take. I can't even take the lion's share of the credit on this. The team is amazing. But for me, it started with, and I think with any great company, no different. What you do, you have to say, what business am I in? Right.

What business is that for you?

We're in the business of enriching lives. We're in the business of making people happy. If I would have told everybody that started with my company and is in the company today, we're in the business of building retail centers, or we're in the business of building a resort or apartment buildings, we would all have blinders on that. That's what we're doing every day. If we had that premise we would have never built the Grove because if you're in the business of building a retail center, why the heck are you putting a trolley?

A train runs every day.

It actually doesn't go anywhere, but it's full every day.

It goes 100 meters and back or whatever it is.

It's 1600ft, basically, that it goes every day. Right. But the purpose of it is to bring people here to enrich their lives, to give them joy, to make them happy. That the child says to the mom, let's go to the Grove today and ride the trolley. And that's a shared experience. If it was just about shopping or dining. Yeah. We'd build an indoor mall. Sure. You know, so that's what's been so fun about my company, that I've experienced along with my team and sharing that experience with my team is that mission of enriching lives gives us permission to do things that we would never otherwise.

Be able to do. Now, did you know this for the start, I guess, around 40 years ago, or is this. Did you make a lot of mistakes the first five to 10 years and then eventually learn this from a mentor or just see this and intuitively say, like, how can we just go to the next level? How did you learn about hiring, training and culture?

Yeah, that's a great question. I'm not sure I have.

You're still learning it.

Yeah, constant learning. You know, I've made mistakes, like everybody all along the way, you know, fortunately, none of them have been fatal. But mistakes all along the way, I think the trick of doing that is learning from them. I spent a lot of time with my team members over the last 30 some odd years. We not only go around the world and look at things that are great, and we really do go around the.

World and look at things you'll experience other properties, other.

Down to what's the height of the curb? What's the crown on the street, really? Oh, yeah. Oh, and it's so much fun.

The height of the curb on the.

Street because your eye catches it. So if you go to the Grove and then you walk King street in Charleston, we patterned the dimension of that street off of King street, which is a really cool street.

Really?

Yeah. Interesting, because your eye will catch the pattern of the trees, the rhythm, the rhythm of the lampposts. If we built the Grove and it didn't have a crown in the street like a regular street has, it wouldn't feel like a street. It'd feel like a plaza.

Even if it was just a flat flat. But it has this crown.

It has a crown.

And the trolley goes over that crown.

It's going down the top of the crown.

Interesting.

And it's no different that those are real train tracks. That's a real trolley that we built from the ground up. We used a Disney guy, which is a whole other fun story, but because our minds catch what's real and there's psychic income, for lack of a better word, when your eye catches what's real and gives you pleasure, what you smell, what you see, what you touch. Right. And the more real it is, the more organic it is, the more comfortable you are in that space. So that's always what drives our design. And so we go around the world and we have fun doing it.

So you're an experiential space designer more than a real estate developer.

Right. Because I want to get people to come someplace and stay. Right. The original premise of shopping centers was how quickly can you turn the parking lot? If you can turn the parking lot quicker and have people do their shopping.

Quickly, you get more people in the.

Door and you have to build less parking cheaper.

Interesting.

Right. So that was a McDonald's model. You're right. Make the seats in McDonald's a little bit uncomfortable so people don't stay too long.

As fast as possible.

There's better turnover. Interesting. I wanted people staying longer. The longer people stay, the more money they'll spend. Wow. And that's sort of what drove our designs also.

So you build a bigger parking garage. Yeah.

You build more parking. But you've got to give people a reason to stay. Right?

Yeah.

So there's this is like, I've got to give you a reason to stay at 8,500.

Exactly. Yeah.

Right.

You got the nice restaurant downstairs. You got the Trader Joe's. So I can just go in the elevator to the grocery store and we can.

We'll bring up your food. We'll do grocery shopping for you. Oh, really?

I didn't know that. Yeah, I'm going to have to start doing that part. We will do that. Oh, the one thing that I forgot, I should have read all, like, the details early on because they gave me the package that told me the whole thing, but. But I forgot that the Caruso card gives me free valet to the Grove.

Absolutely.

I didn't realize until about six months in. I was like, oh, man, you gotta use it.

Exactly.

And I think it helps you out at Miramar, too. I think we got special benefits.

Yeah. So you add all those benefits there, which is really cool. I'm curious I mean, what made you think this way? How does your mind come up with these things of, like, I want the curb to be a certain height, and I want the road to be a certain curvature, and I want the sights to smells like. How did you come up with that? Is that something you had when you're making this duplex, or was it just over time? You said, how can I continue to innovate and evolve this brand?

You know, if I can just, like, bounce back for a minute, Give it to me. Yeah. Yeah. I was really lucky that when I went into real estate, I had no idea what I was doing. And had I known the rules, I would have never been able to. To have the courage to break the rules, to do something else. There's a permission structure that you have with, you know, frankly, trying something new and getting over your skis. So I was building things that I enjoyed, that I would go to, you know, and being of Italian descent, it was about being in the piazzas, it was about being around people. It was about smelling the food of the restaurants, watching everybody enjoying life. Right. And so I wanted to create that. And if you look at each one of my properties, it starts with sort of pretty modest open space. And each property evolves. I've learned from it with more open space, with more and more and more.

There's a place in Glendale that I've been to a few times. Right.

The Americana.

It's got more open space.

Right. It's got a bigger park, almost two acres. Interesting. Yeah.

And that came after you built the grove, right?

That's right. That's right.

So what does more open space do for you?

You know, there's more sunlight, there's more fresh air for people. There's more programming that we can do in the parks.

Music and activities and those things.

Yeah. Mommy and me's in the morning and yoga in the morning and all these kind of things. And frankly, it's just pretty. Right. I like building things that are nice and pretty and enjoyable. Right. Because again, if my mission is to enrich your life, I want you to go there and feel enriched.

Right.

And if I have beautiful lawn and beautiful flowers and beautiful trees and you're watching the sunset and you're having a glass of wine and you're with somebody you care about or your family or your friends, that's a beautiful day. How about that?

How do you. But when you're starting, I think the grow is, what, 20 years now?

Yeah, 20 years.

When you're starting in that and you're either raising the money or it's your money and you know, you're paying a premium on experience where you could have done it for, I don't know, 30% less or whatever, 40% less if you didn't have all of the trolleys and trains and that's.

Right.

Certain dimensions of everything, like you could have done it for way less.

Right.

Without the high quality service and all these different things, how do you know you're going to return a profit and stay profitable when it might take years until you start seeing that return?

I didn't know. Really, I didn't know. But I learned along the way, right? With each project I learned more. And as the company grew, I was really lucky that I hired really talented people that were incredibly passionate. A couple of rules I had on outside consultants. I never hired an architect that designed shopping centers. No, no. Because I don't want a shopping center.

What type of people did you hire?

People that did downtowns, people that did streetscape. Right. I hired landscapers. One of the all time greats, guy named Don Brinckerhoff. He did resorts. Because if you hire a landscape architect, with all due respect to the shopping centers, you got a little tree and you got a little plant and you don't have big lawns and you don't have fountains, you know, and then Wet Design, I got inspired by Bellagio.

The fountains are so cool.

Same company that's Wet Design. Can you take Bellagio in Vegas and miniaturize it? How do we do that? Right. And so just surrounding myself with people that challenge me, push me, you know, but the numbers, I never lost sleep over the numbers.

Really?

Yeah. Maybe it's because I was sort of naive or blind, but I always had confidence that people were going to come and enjoy the place. If I just got them to enjoy the place, they'll end up shopping and dining. It was never about, am I getting them into the store. I wanted to get them to the front door and then the store is going to convert them inside. Right. And I don't know, it's been an incredible journey. I can't explain it. I don't have a set of rules necessarily. I have thoughts about how to do it. Looking back, you know, you sort of, you know, fill in the blanks. But God, I was really just blessed with talented people around me. What was that inspired me. I mean, Walt Disney inspired me. Yeah, no doubt. You know, he inspired me on operations. You go to Disneyland, it's so operationally nice. It's clean, it's pristine. The landscaping all the little details, the fact that he designed all the buildings, I think it's in 7, 8 scale. So the buildings are not full size. They sort of look full size, but they're a little smaller. To get more storefronts lined up to get a rhythm and a pace as you're walking along, which I thought was cool. That's interesting. And like I mentioned, we, we hired a gentleman that was retired George McGinnis, who was the last imagineer actually hired by Walt Disney.

That's pretty cool.

To do the trolley.

That's really cool.

It was amazing experience.

But I mean, the trolley alone must have cost a fortune. The, you know, Bellagio style water, the water fountain experience must have cost. I mean, over Christmas there's like a Santa Claus with snow coming out. It's like this. All these things must have cost so much more.

It did.

How did you.

I mean, when I ran numbers. Yeah, yeah, I was just. When I ran numbers, there's a lot of assumptions. Right, right, right, right. I ran numbers. But. But again, think about it this way too. And we do build something that's more expensive than your typical mall or whatnot. What I wasn't building is a roof. Instead of a roof, I'm putting in lawn. What I wasn't building are escalators. Instead of escalators, I was putting in fountains. I wasn't putting in air conditioning. In big common space. I was putting in a train.

Interesting. Because it's all outdoors, Right.

And the outdoor nature of it was driven by the fact that human nature, we want to be outside, it's unnatural for us to always be inside. Right. So why force somebody inside a box to go shop? Let's enjoy the outdoors. And people say, well, you can do that in Southern California. You can't do it anywhere else. It's just not true.

In Columbus, Ohio, we were just talking about, there's a decent town center that has an outdoor experience. They've done a great job where it's half indoor, half outdoor. So when the cold months, you can do it indoors. What was the big first, like financial success that you had? Was there a business deal you did? Was there a building that was like, okay, now I'm not just have this little duplex with some flowers outside. But, oh, this is like a thing that I could build. What was that?

It was an evolution. But I think, you know, where I knew it was going to really work was the project I did in Encino at the corner of Ventura and Havenhurst. It was a, you know, relatively modest outdoor shopping center. There Was a supermarket, stores. There was a Barnes and Noble there. It became very much of a community center. Ground a little bit bigger common area, not a lot.

This is Pre Grove.

Oh, yeah, this is Pre Grove. This was number two. It was the second thing I built. And a lot of different pieces came together and I knew, you know, there was a formula here that I could build off of and ramp up. But it's. Listen, it's. It's sort of an evolution. And, you know, you fast forward to Miramar and built. I've never built a hotel. And what the hell am I doing building a hotel?

I hear it's amazing. I check it out.

It's. My team did an incredible job. And we were right on the beach in Montecito. And we have a railroad running through it.

That's right. That's that hotel that goes through that one. Oh, my gosh.

Because there's a train that goes up.

The beach through the actual hotel.

I mean, no, it's running down the middle of the grounds.

That's crazy.

It was crazy. It was like the craziest thing in the world. And my dad at the time, who was alive at the time, who was my dearest friend, I loved him. And he wasn't involved in my business, but he said, rick, you're nuts. How are you going to build a five star hotel with a train running down the middle?

How loud it is and all those things?

Yeah.

How did you do it?

I have a rule. Every piece of property has an issue. You can either isolate the issue or celebrate the issue. I chose to celebrate it. And so we designed it. Where that train. Now, as it runs, there's a great outdoor bar. You look in one direction, you're on the ocean, the other direction, you're looking at the mountains as the train is coming along at the same exact grade that you're sitting there. Nobody ever sits along a train. Right?

Right.

So it's cool. We put a $200 bell at the bar. The bartender starts ringing the bell when they hear the train coming and everybody starts cheering.

It's an entertainment.

Now, it's the thing where everybody says, what's the schedule of the train?

Come on.

It's crazy. You got to go up there and.

See how often does the train go.

Now, I did lose some sleep on that one.

I can imagine. Do people lose sleep when the train goes by?

No, because we actually built the rooms near the train on shock absorbers so you'll. You never feel the vibration. Come on.

I'm serious.

Right on the beach.

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So you got a view of the beach, the ocean, and you get to see the trains and you see the.

Train and the kids love it.

That's really cool. Yeah, that's inspiring. Who was the most influential mentor growing up for you and what was the biggest lesson they taught you? And then also the most influential person in your business career and what did they teach you? Two answers.

Okay, well, the most influential person was my dad. You know, he was just an amazing guy and he was a brilliant, a businessman and marketing guy. So he was just creative and you know, he was a guy that was a very, very large car dealer when he was young, you know, famous at the time. I think he was the largest car dealer in the, in the country. And he was about 30 years old.

That's amazing.

And he was, and it was all about how we marketed and whatnot. And then he lost everything and he got into trouble and he actually, which is something we never really talked about much until he was literally in his 880s. He actually went to jail, lost everything. Really? Yeah. And it, you know, people say, you know, do you believe in second chances? I lived with a man that got a second chance, lifted up by his own strength and his bootstraps. You know, this was a guy that was the son of immigrants. So the shame, right? The pride of an Italian family. But anyway, he came back and he started a company called Dollar Rent a Car and it became a global company, massive brand. So I'm a big believer that as a father or a mother, more is caught than taught. And I caught so much from watching him and growing up with him and the hard work and integrity and just not giving up. This was a guy that had to build himself back, so that's cool. He was inspiring to me in. In so many great ways. And we had a lot of fun together, even though, like, when I was building the grove, he said, you're nuts again. He said, what are you doing this for? You know, you're in the middle of Fairfax. Nobody goes to Fairfax anymore. Which was true at the time, because.

It was 20 years or 25 years ago.

It was 20 years ago. Yeah. It started probably 23 years ago.

But that's also an opportunity. The land might have been cheaper at the time if no one's going there. So there's. There's opportunity, there's challenges, there's all sorts of stuff.

And it also goes back to the rule. I didn't know what I was doing. Right.

This could either be a blessing, or you could have failed miserably.

You're right. No, you're right. I was really lucky. So fortunate in so many ways. And I'm a big believer in this one passage, which I actually have at the Miramar from the Bible, that says, dear Lord, you've given me so much. Please give me a grateful heart, because every day you got to wake up. At least I do. With a grateful heart.

Yeah.

You know, this isn't all about hard work and wisdom and intellect. It's about a lot of good luck, and you have to be grateful.

Yes. Okay, so that's your growing up, dad.

You know, Disney was a big influencer in my life.

When did Disney pass?

Disney passed when I was a really young kid.

I forget the year seven or something.

I was probably about that age. I remember listening to it on TV as a kid, and, you know, I think, like, everybody brokenhearted. And again, Disney, and I read a lot about him, was influential to me because his core talent was a cartoonist. That's what he did. And if he would have just stayed a cartoonist, none of us would have ever known or remembered Walt Disney. And then he became a really good manager, starting the Walt Disney Company. Right. But if he just was a great technician, as a cartoonist and a great manager, we still wouldn't remember the guy. What he combined was an incredible vision that he was passionate about and actually had the courage to execute against all odds. And that's what really inspired me, because so many of us can be good technicians and good managers, and we can have a really cool vision, but not necessarily have the courage or the ability, you know, to go say, I'm going to go do this. And he was Constantly failing. Right. And he just never gave up. He just stuck to his vision. And, I mean, look what's been created today.

It's unbelievable.

So he really inspired me. But I watch a lot of people, and I do this thing where I will randomly call people that inspire me, no matter what industry they're in, and I'll reach out to them and say, you know, my name is Rick Caruso. You don't know me. I have no agenda at all. I would just like to grab a cup of coffee and hear about how you're doing, what you're doing and how you're successful and just try to learn.

What's the most fascinating conversation you've had with someone you've reached out to randomly that you still remember today? I'm sure there's a lot of things, but what's the first couple things that stand out? And who were they, if you're allowed to share? And what lesson do they share with you?

Yeah, you know, there was so many of them, so I don't want to.

Of course I don't want to.

Yes, they're all great.

They're all great.

What came to your mind?

You know, one of the guys that continues to inspire me is Brian Grazer, the filmmaker.

Yeah, he's great. I've had him on the show. Okay.

He's amazing.

He's brilliant. And he knows everyone.

He knows everybody. He knows everyone. And I just cold called him, and he took the call, and we went and we grabbed lunch, and we've become friends since. And I just sat and listened to him. And I was so taken by what he calls his curiosity. Just keep being curious in life. And then from that, I reached out to Ron Howard, because in so many ways, different, but in the same business I'm in, they've got to make something, create something that people literally have to get up and go, do. You got to go to the move.

Hand ticket for it. Yes.

Right. And so you've got to make it entertaining, and you don't know if you're successful until opening day. Right, Right.

Scary.

It's scary. Opening day. Opening day at the Grove, it was.

Like, okay, who's gonna show up? Please, someone buy something. Something's showing up.

But I just learned so much from Brian, and he's such a dear guy and smart guy. And I just love that idea of staying curious in life, because I think all of us can become complacent, you know, or I think it's death when you start thinking I know all the answers, because you never do and he also was telling me about a funny little thing that he does when he goes to people's homes. He'll take a picture of himself framed, and when his hosts are not looking, he'll leave it in, like, their collage, really. Collage of family pictures. I just think that's one of the.

Most genius things to do. That one morning you're always going to remember.

Maybe six months later, you realize, why is Brian's picture here on the piano with my kids?

But it gives you a reason to think about them, to call them, to say, this was a great thing and it's just fun. Yeah, it's fun. It's just fun. So anyway, what's something that, you know, you're a public figure more and more now, obviously, but what's something that you are really proud of that most people don't know about?

I'm most proud of my family. You know, my kids are absolutely incredible. Tina and I, we have four kids. Three. Three sons and a daughter. And each one of them is as good as they can be. They have big, kind hearts and they're humble and they're sincere and they work hard. They're grateful. You know, they've been given a lot. They're on the campaign trail with me. Two of them were with me today, Alex and Justin, down on skid row. We walked skid row together and just saw the, you know, the incredible inhumanity that's going on down there. But they're just amazing people, and I'm inspired by them every day. I really am. I really am.

Your wife's Tina, right?

Yeah.

37 years, 38 years. I'm curious. I always like to ask questions about marriage and relationships to really successful men who have been successful for decades. Because I feel like there's a lot of wisdom that you have. I'm not married yet.

Okay.

But I know that there's very few people who have a fulfilling life without a long term committed relationship. They might make a lot of money, but not be fulfilled. And you look like you have a lot of peace in your heart, which is probably hard to do on the campaign. On the campaign trail is probably. You're like five events a day, seven days a week. You're going through all of it, but it looks like you have a lot of peace.

I do. Thank you for saying that. I do.

I'm curious. This may be a question that no one asks you, but I'm curious, what has been the keys to having a long lasting, healthy, thriving relationship?

Well, it's a great question. I Don't know if I know all the answers, other than I would say you marry well, you know, who you marry, who you marry really does matter. And I think alignment on. On what's important in life, what your values are. Alignment on values and what your hopes are in life. You know, Tina and I never talked about what we wanted to create in terms of a business, wealth. That was never a priority.

Before you got married. You didn't talk about that.

No, because it wasn't a priority. It was. We want to raise a beautiful family, we want to have kids, and we want to stay close to them our whole life, and. And we want to have a big family and all these kind of things. So I think it's alignment of values. I also do believe that you have to have this commitment that you're going to work things out, because it's not always perfect. Nothing in life is always perfect. And I'm certainly imperfect, and I don't think I'm the easiest person to live with at times. And so you both have to be forgiving. And I think forgiveness is really important. I'm not talking about, you know, cheating on your wife and stuff like that. I'm just talking about you're in a bad mood one day or letting stuff go. Yeah. And then I think you always. I believe, and I know Tina has done this for me in incredible ways, especially now, being on the campaign trail. You've always got to be there for the other and show up exactly sort of where they need to be at that time, without judgment. And, you know, this campaign has been really interesting for me and the family and for Tina, because when you meet Tina, and I would love to have you meet her.

Yeah, I'd love to.

She is the kindest, sweetest, dearest human being on the face of the earth. How I ended up with her, I have no idea. But she's also very private. She's very protective of her family, as, you know, all moms are.

And you're out there in the public now.

Now we're even more public. We used to be public, all this kind of stuff. But now you're more public. You're exposing the family, exposing the kids. And that's not something she ever bargained for or would ever want. But like me, she loves the city.

Right.

We raised our family here, started our business here. We owe the city so much. And so jointly, we made a decision, let's go do this. To try to save the city? Not save it. Help the city. I don't want to overstate it.

Sure.

And all the kids were part of that decision, too, because it's a shared experience. One serves, everybody serves right. And so I just found that so incredibly generous of her to sacrifice a big part of her life, which was just the privacy of being with your family and their security, to do what was really important for her husband.

Wow. And what's the thing you love about Tina the most?

Probably that she forgives me a lot.

Every day there's something.

You know what, It's. I don't know, it sounds so crazy and canned. I love her more every day. We talked today. She's in New York with my daughter in Fashion Week. They started a company together. It's so incredible for me to watch. They are best friends, which is really cool. And I popped back there to spend a day with them, you know, in New York, because they've been gone 10 days, and I miss both of them. And, you know, she's just. She's just good. Yeah, she's just good.

It's a good person.

Yeah, there's nothing fancy. She's the most low key, humble, modest human being in the world. How.

I mean, how did you. You're a driven human being, right? You don't build the business you've built in the real estate space in Los Angeles the way you've built it without having focus, drive, and consistent dedication. And you're also in a healthy marriage, it seems like, which is amazing after 37 years and you have four kids that seem like they still love you and they're not. They don't hate you. Right. And they're working with you and they're thriving. How do you manage to raise good kids with, you know, the success and the wealth and the things, like, without raising entitled children, I guess. How do you learn how to do that? I'm asking this for me, for my future, because I want to have a healthy marriage. I want to be. Look as good as you. I want to.

I wish I looked as good as you. I gotta tell you, you won the award on that.

I want to be able to build the, you know, the business of my dreams that impacts lives and be able to raise children that are healthy, good human beings that aren't entitled to the world. How did you do that with your success and your.

Well, first of all, you're going to do it. And I can tell you that you're going to do it because you're asking the questions, and the questions come out with sincerity and passion. So that means that's going to be your priority. I learned from my grandparents and my parents, it was so simple. I think, especially when there's immigrant roots, there's a lot of simplicity because life is a little bit extra tough. Right. And I learned that you have really simple priorities. Priority number one is your faith. Whatever your faith may be. Priority number two is always your family. Priority number three were my friends. And then community in those priorities. You don't hear me say work, because work is a duty. It's something you need to go do. Right. But if you're true to your faith, if you're true to your family, if you're true to your friends, if you're true to your community and give back to your community. For me, it always helped organize my day. It helped organize my life. And so people may not believe this, but in the midst of building this company, I drove my kids to school every single morning. Every single morning. Really? Yeah, because that's the priority. Everything was organized around it, whether I'm working out, whether I'm going to a meeting, and I did carpool. I picked up the neighbors. I tortured my kids by singing to them in the morning. I've got the worst voice in the world, even though my name's Crusoe. So, you know, it was that I didn't always make dinner when they had dinner, but I was always home at night. I was maybe a little bit after dinner, but then we always had Sunday night dinners, the whole family, the cousins, the uncles, the aunts. And so I think it's those kind of things that are just. They're just basic, you know? And again, I would always tell my kids, I'm going to give you roots and wings. I'm going to be your best friend or your worst enemy. I'm always going to be here for you, no matter what. Tina was an incredible moment in raising them. The charities that we've been involved with for the last 30 years, every one of our children to this day work there, down on skid row. Par Los Ninos. Operation Progress. And so they've grown up just like today, walking skid row and being emotional about it, seeing people really suffering, really. And my kids have been on skid row before, but we haven't been down there a couple years because of COVID really affected them, but that's a really positive thing, and that they wake up with that grateful heart. And we talk about it a lot, and then a lot of it, honestly, is just really being blessed because there's a lot of great parents, and sometimes things don't always go right. So you got to realize that good fortune plays a role in blessing.

I think I read, correct me if I'm wrong, that you or your businesses have donated and given back over $100 million, or maybe 130, or somewhere around that range in the charities over the last 30 years, which I think is so important for people to hear about, because I've been involved in charity and giving back for 10 years. Not on that scale, but every year I try to give what I can and give more.

Right.

To the causes that are meaningful to me. And I can't donate to every cause, but I can give to a few key causes that I really speak to my heart. Right.

That's smart. It's the right way to do it. Good for you.

Why did you get involved in, you know, service of not only your time and community service, but also giving of money within the last 30 years? Why was that something meaningful to you? And why do you think it's important for everyone to think about how they can be of service once they have a baseline of taking care of their own needs?

That's right now, really well said. I was raised where you only need so much, and then after that, give back to others that need more. I think we're all in this experience together of whether you're living in the city or whatever. It's a shared experience, and it doesn't matter how much you have. I saw that with my grandparents who had so little. They were so modest, but everybody was welcome to dinner. There was always enough food somehow. Right. The neighbors would come over, whatever. And that really helped inform me. And then there was a really important turning point in my life. At 26, Tom Bradley asked me to serve him when he was mayor.

Tom Bradley Airport.

Tom Bradley Airport, where we go in.

Yeah, Mayor back there. That's right.

And he asked me to be a commissioner at 26, which was crazy. But he introduced me to a lady I was actually with last night called Sweet Alice. And Sweet Alice is now 89 years old. She's been in the Watts community for almost 60 years, serving kids. And we sat on her porch, and Alice and I have been friends now for 40 years and seeing families and kids that are at or below the poverty line and how difficult life can be. Food on the table, education, health care, having.

Having one missing parent, potentially, whatever it might be, safety.

And so Tina and I just said early on, we're gonna focus on children and families that are at or below the poverty line to help. And that's what's driven us.

That's cool.

It's really cool.

That's really cool. Why do you think it's important to. For people to be of service and to give back in general? And besides the just the good deed of doing it, how did it support you in your business? By giving back consistently?

Well, for me and I think for everybody, it feeds your soul. I really do believe that we're all here to serve others. We have a duty to serve others. It's the right way to live your life. But I don't know. I think every business and every human being should have a higher purpose. I don't want to just, you know, this is a terrible thing to probably think about. I think you have to protect your obituary. Wow.

That's powerful, right?

Because some people live really incredible lives in terms of success. But that's not what I want my obituary written about.

What do you want to say?

He was a. He was a good dad, a good father, good husband. Made his parents proud and gave back to his community and made other people's lives a little bit better along the way. And how cool would that be?

Be very cool.

The rest of it is makeup stuff?

Yes. It's just a warm dinner, a full.

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How often do you.

And it's just the fuel to really do something that's more important, right?

I mean, there's a. There's. I don't know how true this is, but I've heard that there's a country called Bhutan that in the country, the community, the society, thinks about their death five times a day. I don't know if this is 100% true, but this is the story I've been told. And they think about their death five times a day to remind them of what's important right now and to live right now in gratitude to let Go of things that don't matter, to let go of grudges, things like that. Do you think about your death or your obituary often, or is it more of a once in a while you think about it?

I think it's more once in a while. I mean, I'm not consumed by it, but it's something that I think we all should. You know, I do think that at the end of my life, whenever that is, as I'm sitting there, I want to be able to look back and be proud of my life. And so. So I try to do things that would make me proud, my kids proud. I want my kids to be proud of me, my wife to be proud of me, my friends, things like that. But it's more of a personal thing. Also. I want to be proud of myself. Otherwise, I think to your point, you don't have that sense of satisfaction. And life is complicated and tough. It's never perfect. And so I like to know that I've got a reservoir of sort of goodwill, for lack of a better word, because you're always going to fall down and you're going to need to pick yourself up and move forward. And if you feel good about your life and good about yourself, it's much easier to do.

It's easier to pick yourself up.

Why?

You know on the Internet it says you're a billionaire, right? You're on the billionaire list. You've got one of the biggest privately held real estate companies in the United States. You're making people happy every day. You're enriching lives and making people happy. You've got this thriving business. You've got your children who are older and they're happy. You're happily married. Why do what is arguably one of the hardest things to do, which is run for, you know, public office and really wanting to be the mayor of Los Angeles, one of the biggest cities in the country and in the world. Why put yourself through this experience?

Yeah, good question.

When life is good already, life is good. And knowing that when you take this on, that there's going to be obstacles, challenges, adversities. Your family is going to be getting involved in potentially messy things from other people attacking you, long hours, hard things to change.

Why? Why now?

Why this?

It's a great question. I have a history of service to the city, like I said, starting with Tom Bradley. I served under three mayors, Tom Bradley and Dick Reardon and Jim Hahn. I've been doing it for 40 years. Not for pay, not for applause, just because I think giving back to your community is important, like we talked about. And I do love government service. I think it's an honorable service. And it's the city that I love. It's the city that's my home. It's the city where I was born and raised. It's the city where I got married and raised my kids and all my kids live here. And it's a city that's in trouble. And I believe that if you're given the ability or given a gift to help others, go do it. And what higher form of giving back could I ever be blessed to have than to go serve the city that I love? It sounds corny, but it's true. And this city's given me everything. Everything. And I don't want a political career. I don't want to go for an office after this. I'm not looking for that. And I'm looking to go serve the city like I've done before. Work really hard, do the best I can, have only one allegiance. Serve the residents of Los Angeles. Not worry about any special interest. I'm not obligated to anybody. I just want to wake up and do what's best for the city of Los Angeles. The problems we're having today can be fixed. Really?

What are the three biggest problems we have? I feel like the homelessness is number one. I mean, we see it everywhere. Yeah.

Homeless, number one. It is an actual result of a failure of leadership in this city. And don't even get me started. 44,000 people living and dying on the streets. 44,000 homeless just in LA city that's.

Bigger than the city I grew up in.

Okay. It's bigger than 90% of the cities in the United States.

44,000 is bigger than 90% of the cities in the U.S. yes. Holy cow.

If you talk to the people that are doing incredible work, the non profits on skid row, like I was with today, walking the streets, they will tell you it's absolutely fixable. It's been the lack of strength and courage and the will to solve the problems. I know it can be solved. That's what excites me. You say, why are you doing this?

Because you know there's a solution.

I know there's a solution. We'll find a solution. Everybody always told me, you can never build the Grove. You can never compete with all these big people. I built my company with no outside investors. You know you can't do that. And people now telling me what I can't do as mayor actually excites me more. Right. So you got Homeless is number one. It's fixable. It's inhumane. What we have allowed in the city to have this many people on the streets, Number two is crime. Crime is running rampant.

How big is crime right now in L. A?

Well, we're on a 15 year high of homicides. That's nothing to be proud of, right? I mean, look at what happened this last weekend. Two young kids in Lincoln Heights, teenagers were killed. The guy last night, I think it was in Hollywood was killed. The rapper was killed while he's having lunch. I mean, this is crazy. And people are worried today in the city. You know, they're worried about going out at night, they're worried about wearing jewelry, they're worried about their home getting broken at night. They're worried about their kids going for a walk down to the park. We need a more livable city.

Right?

So we have to prevent crime and we, we have to actually hold people accountable. We have to be respectful. We have to serve the community, do it in all the right ways, but we can't allow crime to just continue. And then the thing that, you know, really bothers me is corruption. Because public service should be about service.

For others, not for themselves.

Not for themselves. That's why you're getting into it, right? That's why I'm getting into it. We've had three council members let out of their office in handcuffs. One's gone to jail, one's about to go to court. City attorney's office was raided. One of the senior city attorneys pled guilty. Got the mayor's office that's constantly in some kind of corruption. Today we got a member of the board of supervisors home raided this morning at 7:30 in the morning, you know, alleged corruption charges. The Karen Bass, who I'm running against, is now named as, you know, critical or the center of a federal investigation. How do you allow this? And so those kind of things, I just want to bring the city back to center. Yes. Let's make it a little bit nicer, cleaner, better life for everybody. Right.

What would be the first in the first 90 days when you're mayor, what will be the first, first three action steps you take to support those main issues that we have?

Well, you know, I, I, I would call a state of emergency on homelessness. Take the authority to, to solve that problem in the mayor's office. Right now, it's diffused between 15 council offices. It's like in your business, if you had 15 different people telling, can't get anything done, can't get anything done. And that's why nothing's getting done. One of the reasons why do that, start building shelter beds. Get people off the street, get them safe, give them the services they need with dignity and humanity and care. I was seeing that today down there. It was incredible to watch. And then start building housing to make it more affordable in the city. Right. We want young people to buy a place, to buy a condo, to buy a home, to raise a family here, businesses to come back, create jobs.

I wish we knew a real estate expert who could help us build some good affordable housing.

You know, I'm ready to go. Get me the.

I wish there was an expert in office that has been doing that for 40 years who could bring their expertise, you know, with some real world experience.

Listen, I'm going to do my best, but it's going to take all of us to do it. I mean, the reality is this is a big, complex, diverse city and that's the great beauty of the city. It really is the greatest city in the world.

It's incredible.

It's incredible.

Well, here's the thing. I mean, to add into that, not to cut you off. There you go. But a lot of people, here's the funny thing. I moved here 11 years ago and I remember the first year not liking the city. Now, I came from New York City. I had that whole energy for the first year and a half. I was loving New York City for a year and a half. I wasn't there for 10 years and feeling like I needed to leave that city. Like most people after 10 years, it beats them down. I was like, this is incredible.

That's great.

And I moved here for a girl that I was dating.

Okay.

And we ended. We ended things quickly, though.

Oh.

So it's kind of like an emotional place where I was like, ah, this girl. And do I really want to be here? Should I go back to New York? But I stayed and I'm so glad I did because during the pandemic, there was a lot of people that I know that left and now I'm reconnecting with them. And I'm saying, how is Austin and Nashville and Florida and all these places that everyone said get out of California because of the homelessness, because of different challenges in politics, things that were challenging during the pandemic, now they're all like buying homes again in LA or around LA area because, like, it's just, there's such a great place to be, It's a great environment. There are challenges, obviously, but even with the challenges, I don't know a Better place I would want to live.

I agree.

I don't know. At least the next five, ten years of my life, maybe something changes, but, you know, I don't know where else I'd live.

I agree. And there's a beauty to this city. Not just the physical beauty. There's a beauty of the people of Los Angeles. Hardworking, caring, entrepreneurial, innovative, creative. Creative. And the diversity.

Oh, my gosh.

One of the greatest things about running for mayor, I've come across communities and people that I would have never known, never had the experience, and just fallen in love with. Right? And it's so cool.

It's beautiful. Is there anything else you'd like to add before I ask my final three questions about why you're running, your mission, or anything else around, you know, your intention for being the mayor?

I want to be a mayor of everybody, you know, of all people in this city. You know, I just love the city. I'm proud of the city. And we can turn things around. I want everybody to really have that belief and that hope that we can turn things around. I love it.

I love it. This is a question I ask everyone towards the end, is called my three truths question. So it's a hypothetical scenario. Imagine you live as long as you want to live, but eventually it's your last day. You get to accomplish everything, experience everything the way you want to, you serve the way you want to, you have the family that lives the life. All the things you want to do, they happen. But for whatever reason, everything you've ever created that people get to experience from your you speaking, videos, content, written articles, anything you've ever said is gone hypothetical. But on your last day, you get to write down the three things you know to be true about your life, three lessons that you would share with the world. And this is all we have to remember from your messages.

Okay.

What would be those three lessons or three truths that you would share?

Wow, that's an amazing question.

Off the cuff, you're not prepared.

Okay, off the cuff, not prepared. One is, I believe that you've got an inner soul and inner energy that if you listen to, you will lead a good life. Two would be, and I feel grateful that I've been able to do that, however that occurred, that I really enjoyed hard work. I think hard work is a requisite. And it doesn't mean that you're trying to translate it into monetary wealth. It just means that you're dedicated to your craft and to your work and to your passion. That's something that I think Gives you great peace. It has for me in my life. And I guess the last is just, you know, is the golden rule that I've tried to live by is be good to others along the way because life is a circle and it comes back to you. I'm a big believer in karma. Yeah, absolutely.

I love that. I want to acknowledge you, Rick, for your innovation, for your dedication to your family, to being a great husband, of course, great, great father, to your mission of enriching lives and making people happy. You know, I've been here for a little over a decade, and every time I'm in the experiences that you've built and imagined and have come to life, it always brings joy and happiness to me.

It makes me happy.

So I'm really appreciative and grateful and I acknowledge you for taking the call inside of your soul. You're listening to your soul. You're taking the call to what you believe your creator is, to telling you to do, to be of service right now.

Thank you.

It's really inspiring to see someone accomplish so much and continue to want to serve the community that you love so much that help build your life and support you in times of success and challenge. So I really acknowledge you for the mission, how you've built your team. I've experienced your team by living in one of your properties. And I can only imagine that your leadership and the people you've hired has just taken good care of people, that they take care of us. I really acknowledge you for doing things the right way in your career. From what I've experienced and what I've experienced in our time meeting here. I have one final question before I ask it. I want to make sure people follow you on your website, carusocan.com, rickcaruso la on Instagram and Twitter, follow you go to the website, sign up for the newsletter. You know, people can learn more about what you're going to do once you become mayor, how they can support you, when to vote, all these things that people need to know about, they can go there. Where else can we go to be of support and service to you? Are those the main places?

Yeah, those are the main places. And, you know, get the good word out. There's a lot of misinformation going around that we need. You know, I am, I'm not Donald Trump. My opponents like saying that I'm a proud Democrat in this city again, I think we're in the greatest city, like you said, and let's go clean it up and let's just make it wonderful and let's enrich everybody's lives in Los Angeles. That's what we want to do.

I love it. Well, they can follow you, support you there. Final question, what's your definition of greatness?

Wow, you've got great questions. The definition of greatness? Boy, that's a tough one. I think it's having other people just genuinely enjoy your company and in a way that it's made their lives other lives just a little bit better.

Rick, thanks so much.

You've been great to see it. Thank you so much.

Appreciate it. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes and in the description for a full rundown of today's show with all the important links. And also make sure to share this with a friend and subscribe over on Apple Podcasts as well. I really love hearing feedback from you guys, so share a review over on Apple and let me know what part of this episode resonated with you the most. And if no one's told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and and do something great.

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