Mindset, Connection, and Growth at Any Age Ep 125

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All right.

Welcome back to the Find Your Edge podcast. I am excited you all are here, and I'm even more excited for Bob Campana, our current guest today, who I found as I was hunting for guests with an interest in heat therapy. And Bob, you've got quite the background, and then you've got all these other cool things that we're gonna talk about. So you started You started your company— did you actually start your company in hot tubs? How did you get into it?

Yes.

Yeah, so, so tell us about that.

I was 21 years old. I had some neighbors next door, and we, uh, got together and did a 6-7 month trip around the world. Um, sold everything I owned at that point at 21 years old. It was so impressionable. I had never traveled outside of the country, and now I've gone to like 13-15 different countries. We basically experienced all of this human connection, metaphysical, different spiritual things, all, uh, just a mind-blowing experience. Well, when I came back, I made a commitment to myself that I wasn't going to squander the promise of America. And from traveling around the world, America gives us the right for self-determination and to start your own company and make your own way. I came home after this trip and I made an announcement that I was gonna start my own company. Well, a friend of mine, in Northern California, there's a lot of little reservoirs, and these reservoirs feed little power generators all through the Sierras. And during World War II, these power generators, the pipes that would make the water go from the top reservoir to the bottom reservoir were built out of redwood, because the war effort took all the metal for what they were doing in World War II. Well, in the late '70s, early '70s, they started to replace these wood pipes, they were called penstocks, with metal pipes. We made an offer on this wood pipe that was made out of clearheart redwood. It was, we bought 1,670 feet of it, broke it down, chopped it into 5-foot high sections, reassembled it, put a bottom in it, and we made hot tubs out of this pipe. And those hot tubs we called vintage hot tubs because they were vintage wood. I bought the pipeline with the partner for $1,670, and we sold about 300 hot tubs at $2,000 each. So that was a revelation in what is possible. And then when we were doing that, we were constantly being called by swimming pool contractors because it was vogue at that point to have a hot tub, not a spa, the pool. We witnessed the pool construction business, thought we could do better, and therefore entered into the swimming pool construction business. And when that company was sold, I kind of, uh, took a little bit of a break. I bought myself a— I'm a pilot— I bought myself a Bell Jet Ranger helicopter and really enjoyed that for a while. And then my daughters talked me into going into the restaurant business. 25 years later, the restaurant was the most popular restaurant in our area. Our restaurant did weddings, it did catering, it had a fine casual experience. It was wine-centric and special occasion where people are always coming there. An international development company came to me because I had built that business and the restaurant on the human connection. I had built on being a part of the community and every customer would be treated in such a way that there was a bond with the restaurant. And it was a very critical part of the community, which I discovered through COVID. And, uh, This company came to me and said, we want to put your restaurant on our new 5,000-acre development that has 15,000 houses in it. And we basically made this deal. So now we basically physically took the restaurant, put it on wheels, cut it up in sections, moved it 20 miles down the freeway to a new location. And now we are building a brand new building and inserting the old building into the new building. For the historical significance of this. So they basically decided we're just going to take the building and do the whole thing. So now we're in the middle of construction of this new restaurant as my entrepreneurial journey continues when I thought I was done. And now I've got the biggest project I've ever worked on.

Okay, so as you're talking, it was like, okay, how did you get into saunas? And it's Almost like this journey started from this trip that you took as a, we'll call it a young, a youngster.

We were in India, Nepal, and all of these kinds of places. You had interconnection with people and so forth. We came back. I went to a hot tub party in Marin County, California. And, uh, at that hot tub party, uh, I had no idea of what I was going to do or what I was going to— and I go, hey, this is just as good. And then the idea of the pen stock, when we found out that the Pacific Gas and Electric Company was selling, auctioning off that redwood, we basically put two and two together. And an entrepreneurial mentor of mine, his name was Barton Stevenow, was the money guy behind it. And he basically said, okay, I'll put the money up if you guys want to do this work. And we basically started building these hot tubs Um, and it's just like you go down a trail and one thing leads to another and, uh, you had to educate yourself on every aspect. I had no idea about bookkeeping, management of people, cash flow, uh, all of the different aspects of running a company where I was just naive to all of it, but I was built to not fail, to prove to my father I was not going to fail. And I was the fear of failure, of constantly being persistent to learn what I had to learn at any given point in time, to basically, uh, pull my fat out of the fire more than one case, learn through failure all the way through that journey was a character-building experience. Um, and, uh, it basically turned out okay, I guess, you know, I'm still here. So we have, uh, people that help us in our lives. All the way through. And Barton was the first person that had faith in me and said, you know, you can do this. And I'll never forget, I— the first hot tub I sold was to this lawyer. He was buying it because he had back problems, but he said, you know, just do me a good job and I'll give you a referral to the next customer.

So what I— as I'm zooming out here, listening to your amazing journey that you've had and of one thing leading to the other, leading to the other, of just like having somebody else believe in you and going through this whole process of, you know, okay, I think I'm just gonna build a hot tub, to now you're building a restaurant and then moving it, and then now you're flying around the world and you're like yourself doing the flying. All of this is so fascinating, but what I hear this common thread is Connection. Connection to other people and really and truly, um, finding how to make someone's, not only their experience in, you know, buying a hot tub or buying a pool, but even with the restaurant business, that it seems like that's the true magic here that maybe you learned on this trip. When you are a young person, that that's what's meaningful. I, is there any truth to that? Where, where do you feel like that is in this world of AI now and how we're becoming more and more what feels to me to be more disconnected? And my job as, as an endurance coach and trying to get people to do triathlons and do hard things, how can we stay connected? And, um, and, and keep that sense of, of fun and memory and making memories.

You know, that's so on point where I'm at. So as I travel, um, technology and people's faces in their phones, in my viewpoint, is a— is separating us more and more and more, even though we're interconnected for like proximity-wise, but we're not connecting people-wise. So, uh, technology, uh, like these Facebook communities, even on these podcasts, uh, I'm talking to you. Will I physically ever actually meet you and have a break bread with you and meet you? I hope so. That'd be great. But in a lot of cases, not so much. So when I— the restaurant business, in my viewpoint, is the glue and connectivity in a lot of communities where people go to escape their daily life. In my particular case, it's like a fine casual restaurant. So we're to a special occasion restaurant where our restaurant's a little bit upper scale. So that basically is a reward situation that people give themselves in a small way. And the human connection there— I don't have televisions in my restaurant. I basically am very much attuned to aesthetics. I'm attuned to acoustics where you can hear each other speak. And I am involved where I will go and be doing table touches on the weekends and connecting with people. It's something that I get so much energy out of, bringing joy to people, being a— come up to the table, I want to thank you for coming to my restaurant, you have so many choices, I'd like to make sure that everything goes well for you tonight, and what's the reason you're here? They might say it's my birthday, might ever— if I could give them a special recognition, this was kind of an interesting thing. So, you know, when we go to the restaurants and they clap their hands or they sing happy birthday or whatever it might be, which is an awkward, uh, type of thing in my viewpoint. A lot of people don't— I'm not really a fan of that kind of thing, but I bought this, uh, gong in Vietnam when I was on a trip about 10 years ago. And, uh, I'm bringing it home, but I know my wife's not gonna let me like hang the gong in the living room, you know? So like, I basically, uh, come up with this idea. I go, what I'm going to do is I'm going to use the gong as my birthday vehicle in the restaurant. And I made up this story where I said, like, on your birthday, you hit the gong, the noise goes out in the ethos of space, and the gods grant your wish. It's like a non-denominational kind of thing. And I would walk up and I find somebody to have a birthday. It'd be an 80-year-old woman or whatever it might be, and they're with their family and they're celebrating the birthday. And I go, oh, well, it's time for you to hit the gong. And they look around the table. What the hell does that mean? I go and get the gong, give them that story. They would hit that gong, their lights would light up. Everybody would, but they get their phones out and all of that. And it was a unique way to recognize people. And then people at the other part of the restaurant hear this gong hit. And as we're walking around, they go, what's that all about? And then all of a sudden they were feeling, well, we're here for our anniversary. Or what? And I started to make this connection. When COVID happened. When the restaurant actually reopened, and it was a revelation of how much people loved coming to the restaurant and how much they felt it was a part of their lives and part of the community and part of that human connection. And at my age, I've come to the realization— I'm going to be turning 72 in January— that the only real value that we carry with us our whole lives is our experiences, and it's our interconnection with people. And those are what form our individual personalities and our experiences and all of that. And if you work on that human connection and making other people's dreams come true, it's amazing how your dreams will manifest themselves. And so I have been a humble servant of making people's lives as joyous as I can. And that would be through the construction of their dreams in the pool business. It would be in a minor way of being able to give them an escape for an hour or two when they come to the restaurant and be able to enjoy, and their problems can hit them right in the face when they walk out the door. But when they're in the restaurant, I want them to escape and enjoy their company of the people that they're with and be served upon. And that gives me tremendous energy to be able to create that, what I call nonverbal communication, which is in the design and the aesthetics and the lighting and all of the different things that go into a finely crafted restaurant.

That is such an amazing story and how, uh, really wrapping it all together of how you went on this serial entrepreneur journey to truly bring some level of connection to people through your path. And that's so interesting. I, I'm thinking that so many people are listening to this like, oh my gosh, I could never do that. That seems so hard. Like, you know, just starting a hot tub business, starting a restaurant. What would you say to those people? Or even in our case, you know, doing an Ironman or just doing a, doing a 5K, that might even be a challenge for some people too. What would be some of the things that you would say to them about doing hard things.

Well, I think that you of all people would understand there are two voices in our minds: the voice that says you can and the voice that says you can't. And who are you listening to at any given point in time? And being able to put that positive motivation into your mind and your self-talk that you're basically motivating yourself and be able to capture control over that dialogue in a way that you can move forward is a skill that is constantly challenged because that dialogue never goes away. So you're always, can I do that? Can I do that? The 5K, I made it, but now I'm going to go for a marathon, 3, 4 times the amount of endurance that I basically just experienced and make that quantum leap forward into that next achievement. When I, when I'm thinking about what I'm going to do and how I'm going to achieve it, I understand that through these experiences that I've had, that making an experience for myself, as long as others, that's striving towards a positive outcome, even though there will be inevitable bumps, roadblocks along the way and so forth, it's how you look at those roadblocks as learning experiences those minor failures. Or here's a classic story that I really go back on. I remember there was a guy that was interviewing Thomas Edison when he's building the light bulb, and Thomas Edison was being interviewed by this newspaper guy. And this guy goes, you know, Mr. Edison, I'm looking at your records here, and you're personally telling me that you have conducted 1,800 experiments with failure on a light bulb. Don't you think at some point it's just not gonna work? And Mr. Edison goes, no, I just know 1,800 ways it won't work. So the, the answer is your first impression of what you think you may be able to achieve or may be able to do might be a dreamland situation, but if you can think about it, you can do it. So then it basically just goes, put one step in front of the other and be persistent. And doggedly in your pursuit. And that's kind of like my message in my book is don't lose focus on what your goal is. So when you're making a determination that you're going to run a 5K race, well, that should be your focus. And you shouldn't be diverted with any other thoughts other than I'm going to complete this task. And when a roadblock comes in front of you, which might be your knee pain, or some other imaginary, real or not, image. How do I mentally work through that? How do I basically solve that problem? Can I do it on my own? Do I need outside influence? Do I need to educate myself better? Do I need to work out more? I only made it 3K. I didn't really train as much as I could have. I gave up. Maybe I don't need to give up. Maybe I just need to put a little bit extra effort in, whatever that particular answer is, as long as you don't give up until you make it to your goal, then you haven't failed.

So some of the questions that you had mentioned, like, do I need to get outside help? Do I need to, you know, do something else? Did I not train enough? Like, I'm thinking some of those questions— were those going through your head as you were going through some of your, uh, that entrepreneurial process? Like, where were you always thinking like, I'm not going to give up, I'm going to find a different way? Was— were those the things that were always going on in your head?

Yeah, I think I referenced it earlier. It was fear of failure, uh, public shaming. So I had this like peer pressure kind of thing that was self-imposed on me, and the fear of failure was probably the biggest driver. So when I would have a problem or whatever it might be, I would start searching for the solution And you only know what you know. So I would discover so many times, I don't know what I need to know here. So then I would have to go out and seek information as to what I would need to know. It might be accounting. It might be sales. It might be management of people. It might be, how do I build trust and connection with people when I have 4 sales calls from 4 o'clock until 9 o'clock at night, and I have to connect with that person, draw them a layout of a swimming pool. Oh, by the way, it's not like I could take it out of the box and say, this is what you're buying. I had to paint a word picture of what they were going to receive, an interconnection with them as to what their dream was, draw it on a paper, come up with a price and convince them to spend $70 grand in an hour and a half. So the thing is, is that that human connection and being able to make those relationships in short order of trust and so forth was a skill that I owned over time, but it became easier and easier. So I'm going to imagine in your particular case, you have several success stories that you can reference of challenges that those people that adhered, uh, went through. You were able to help them break through that. That gave you great joy of accomplishing and helping that person going on. And then that person would share that story with someone and they would come to you and say, X person thought you did a great job. Could you maybe help me with my problem? And that's how you're probably growing your company.

That was a great parallel. I think everyone has a passion and a purpose on this planet, and it sounds like ours are parallel in that respect, right? Of this is what I wanted. I wanted people to feel that joy, whether it be at the finish line or through the whole process of, wow, I can do I am a phenomenal human being. I'm capable of so much more than I think I am, which is why I think it's so great how you're sort of putting all this together alongside your entrepreneurial journey and bringing people joy through, you know, going out to eat or having their amazing moments like sitting in the hot tub and looking at the stars like, hey, Bob made this possible for me and this is so great.

Yeah. And the human connection is there and also experientially. So what I do is I call it nonverbal communication, where when I build something, I'm talking to them through the architecture, through the acoustics, through the lighting, through all of that. And that puts them into a state. I want to share with you what a revelation that I had of how valuable the restaurant was in the community. And I go around, I do these table touches as I described earlier, and that gives me a great energy because, you know, the owner of the restaurant comes up up and thanks you for coming in. It doesn't happen as often as it used to, and it's kind of a great thing for this connection. And I came to a table occasionally, maybe once every 5 to 6 months or longer than that, where there'd be 3 people sitting at a 4-top table. And I'll go up there and I'll thank them for coming, and they'll go, you know, um, our friend loved this restaurant and they passed away a couple years ago. 'But we always come here to commemorate their life and share a meal at your restaurant because they loved it so much.' That— I can't tell you how you would feel if somebody told you that. You know how that— that's like the whole pal— the whole ball of wax right there. You created something that was so personal to those people's lives, so special to them, that And after their death, their friends knew it was special to them and would come back and celebrate that person's life in your restaurant. I mean, I just can't— I would never have thought that I would have that impact on people ever. So that's kind of it. And I'm sure that you would share things on races, on personal breakthroughs that you've been able to help people with, that you got more out of it than they did, that you were able to be the facilitator of that, of that transformation. And I think that that's why you do what you do, because you're getting the energy out of it. More in a weird way than the people that are accomplishing their goals.

Absolutely. I like to use the analogy of being the match. Like if you're the person who strikes the match and then you can light it and you just describe that situation for you, like you can impact so many people through following your passion and your purpose, you know, just like that. Like, you know, It's amazing.

Well, here I am. I'm 70 years old. I'm just getting into social media. I built my business. I never had an Instagram page. It didn't exist. And it made me foster those human connection skills to grow my business. And I, I, I, as we go through and I see you're observing it and we're observing it, we're using this disconnection. Look, I'm able to talk to you through technology. That would not be in existence. But at the same time, technology is separating us in such a way that we almost cocoon ourselves in public, uh, of the way that we're interacting or not interacting with people in the way that we would normally. Now, I talked to you about the travel business. I don't know if we even, even spoken about that yet. That is an extension of the human connection and spirit. So when I'm in the restaurant, People are going there for it. Now I'm taking that extension through my travel where I'm creating experiences for small groups. So like, if you just like go to Italy the first time, just getting out of the airplane and walking around is good enough. I mean, you could just see so much. It's just amazing. You're just like, oh my gosh, look at this. Well then over time though, you want to dig a little bit deeper. You'd like to, well, let's get into how, how can I build, make some of the food that these people eat here? So I go to a cooking class and then maybe how do I, interconnect with other folks. So I've drilled down to a point to where currently I'm working on an apartment for myself and some of my guests in my travel company in Sicily, where we dig into the community to such a way where you're going to baptisms, you're interconnecting with the local people, you know the shop vendors because you've returned so many times that they know you, and you're melding yourself into that connection of a different culture. That to me is such an enriching experience. And then to be able to take people in small groups and be able to share that experience with them. So like, we'll go to a, uh, you see on TikTok, a lot of people are going to Sicily now, and there's a very famous little town there called Taormina, which is just a fairytale place. It's just absolutely amazing. It was established by the Greeks. It's got a Roman amphitheater in there, Greek amphitheater and all that. I've made deep inroads in that town where when we go there, there's an opera. We'll, our guests will go to the opera and And after the opera, we will go and have dinner with the singers of the opera and make that connection to where they actually went to a show and then they go and have dinner with the performers and interconnect with them. I have hoteliers where we'll go to a hotel and the hotelier, because we're returning, will come down and have a personal engagement with the, with our guests, explain to them the heritage of their hotel, how it came to pass and all of that. These human connection stories are just so fulfilling and enriching that I'm able to do through travel.

That's so beautiful, and I'm, I'm so glad that you shared that. So what I'm gathering from our conversations so far is believe in yourself. If you have a mission, stick with it, keep going. And to connect, to, uh, truly experience other connections with other humans, and that will enrich your life so much more. Anything else that you want people to leave with?

You know, you've summarized it very much. And I think that if people take a conscious effort in their daily activities to interact with people and kind of push themselves past a little bit of resistance on that, they will find their rich— their life's a little fuller and they'll be proud of themselves that they made the effort to connect with another person. And, uh, that human connection is such a vital part of our lives.

Yes, I think you're so right, Bob. And how can people reach you? And don't forget to tell us about your book.

Yeah, the book is available on Amazon. It's called Don't Look Down. We didn't, we didn't, we didn't talk too much about that. That was about, uh, I fly airplanes and helicopters. And, and as a matter of fact, you could go to bobcampana.com And that's like with a book, but I also have a YouTube channel called Get Back to Work. Get Back, the number 2, Work exclamation point. And that YouTube channel is documenting the journey of the construction of this new restaurant that I just spoke to you about and my travel experiences. So you can see Sicily, you can see Italy. You can— I'm leaving on January 12th for China. And I will be in China for 10 days doing a buying trip for the restaurant. So we will be documenting the negotiations with Chinese manufacturers and different experiences on filling up sea containers, uh, to ship for this restaurant construction. And that'll be shared with people. So I would, I want to share with people. That you can do things even like at 72 years old if you have your mindset to it. Now you've got me motivated. I'm going to have to get out there and run a race or something. I'm going to probably have to call you back for some personal help on that. To have a breakthrough, I think, is going to be one of my goals that I'm going to be engaged in now that I've met you. I think that your persona comes across as a very positive influence And I think that your demeanor is very calming. And I think that you could— I can see why you're helpful to people. And I might have to engage in that service.

Well, that's part of the fire. Even if you don't, you've got that in the back of your head, like, hey, maybe I can climb that Great Wall of China while I'm out there. You know, a little side trip, right?

There you have it. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so grateful.

I truly appreciate all of the stories and wisdom that you shared with me and with our community. And Bob, thank you so much. And go buy the book, Don't Look Down. And we so appreciate you being on the Find Your Edge podcast, Bob. Thank you, Chris.

Thank you so much. I'm honored.

Thanks for listening to the Find Your Edge podcast. If you like what you heard, don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode. And if you're interested in learning more about our endurance coaching, sports and wellness nutrition, metabolic and sweat testing, triathlon training team, or our triathlon training library, be sure to check us out at theenduranceedge.com. And don't forget to follow us on social media at The Endurance Edge. Thanks again. And we'll catch you next time.