031: It's All About Hard Work with Fabio Viviani

Hi, I'm Natalie. Jill, fat loss expert turned high performance coach. When odds are stacked against us, how do we shift and create everything from nothing? How do we level up when we aren't feeling it yet or we've had a big setback? On this podcast, I'll be talking to some of the most inspiring and courageous men and women on this planet who at their worst, learned how to achieve success greater than they ever dreamed possible. Leveling up and creating everything from nothing. Growing up in Florence, Italy, in a modest blue collar Italian family, Fabio knew food stamps and a life of hard work for necessity. He understood, broke, and he never knew a world where things would just come easy. He had his first job at age 11 working at a bakery. And he didn't know then, but he would one day be the chef, culinary personality, restaurateer, cookbook author that he is today. Best known today for his participation in Bravo's Top Chef seasons five and eight, earning the fan favorite title. His on screen appearances have propelled him to become one of the top culinary names in the country. Fabio is a recurring guest on national TV shows such as Good Morning America, the Rachel Ray show, and countless Food Network shows. Fabio speaks the truth today on how he continually has leveled up in business and created everything from nothing time and time again. Today I've got my friend Fabio here. Thank you so much for being here. I've been dying to interview you because you are such an example of somebody who is, time and time again, created everything from nothing. So thanks for joining me.

Of course. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

So, Fabio, people can look you up online, on your website, in your newsletter, and they see this just tremendous success. It's like anything you touch just turns to gold. And I know that that was not always who you are. And I'm curious, I guess my first is who were you before this success that we see everywhere?

I think the success that you guys are seeing is just the good part of business, Right? Most people, of course, is like the bragging rights. Most people don't see the down, they only see the ups. They don't see the struggle. They only see the successes. Right. So we are a success in the making. And this has been a long time coming. It's about 30 years. Long time coming. You know, I grew up in Italy in a very, very modest family. I mean, half of our budget was coming from food stamps, so we didn't have money. I don't come from an entrepreneurial family. My mom and my dad, they worked as many jobs as they could just to put food on the table. And on that note, When I was 11 years old, my mom had to quit half of the things she was doing because she got some health problem and she couldn't work as much anymore. So I kind of, you know, I kind of embraced the working culture and I kind of deviate from school and I went to work when I was 11. Now being 11 in Italy, there is not a whole of a lot of things you can do. So I find myself a job, found myself a job overnight at a bakery store. You know, my background is restaurants and my background is hospitality. And yes, today we have, you know, 20 plus restaurants, hundreds of million sales and all seem shiny, but we really started, you know, 30 years ago baking pies and making bread at a bakery store from midnight till 7:30 in the morning. And after that getting my backpack and going to middle school. So that was kind of, that's kind of the quick 30 years journey. But we really started out of necessity, me and my whole team. Actually one of my business partner was, has been with me for 27 years. And you know, we have this background of just trying to understand, coming from Italy, from a different culture, different country, being an immigrant came here the right way, creating a lot of opportunity for both immigrants like me and American folks. I think that the key takeaway is that there is a process that you have to go through. You know, weather is up and down and the down part is part of the process. My background is very modest. You know, family in Italy, broke, to put it mildly. And you know, my family, working class, all blue collars. There is no, there was an incentive for me to be an entrepreneur. There wasn't money available to kick off my career. It just, we made the right decision. We surround ourselves with the right people. We made a lot of mistake. We didn't make them twice. And we were very frugal. We saved a lot of money and we reinvested the money that we saved in ourselves. That's kind of where we are today with restaurants, hotels, tech company, real estate and a marketing agency, a publishing group. So we span across different venue. But it all started from the very first things that we did, which was cooking and running restaurants in Italy.

So I want to back up for a minute because fast forwarding now, I mean, yes, we do see the 20 restaurants and the 100 millions in sales. Did you ever even envision that that would be a possibility for you? Like when you were growing, you said you were a very blue collar family and you were working out of Necessity, like did you, was that even a possibility to you? Did you have a dream for that?

It was, you know, I'm a do it. I'm not a dreamer. I like to build upon things that works makes sense. So for me, what made sense was to do what I was doing better than anybody else around me and trying to every year do a little bit better than the year before, right? So now I'm employed and I'm making a few thousand dollars a year. Now the next year I make $10,000 a year, then the next year I make 20, then I make 30, then I make 50, then I made 100. Then I invest portion of the end. I got my first restaurant going, then we made that work and I got the second restaurant. So the dream was built on a vision. In a millionaire, I wouldn't dream to have, you know, 200 million in sales, 2,000 employee and do these in a country that I didn't grow up in. Moved to United States in 2005, I didn't speak a word of English. And for me this was a long, long vision that was completely different from what it is right now. It was survival to begin with. How do I meet, you know, how do I get to month end? And then it grew from there. And now the vision is bigger, right, because now we have cash, we have availability. The goal was never to have a big dream. The goal was always be better than the year before. And that's the philosophy that brought us where we were a few years back. And now that we really understand the market, we understand the game, we're not hating on the players, we just know how to play the game now it's time for a vision. But sometimes when you're really small, it's very hard to have the long term vision. So all you can do not to get demotivated is to focus on the path and make that the best experience possible for who's around you and grow from that. You know, it's hard. It's like, you know, you're a very successful, you know, influencer in the fitness business and you have a lot of things, but it's a long time coming from when you were doing workouts, video and you got 10 viewers. So. And you couldn't, you know, imagine to be Forbes and all the things you're doing right now, but you had an idea and you try to make that work and eventually pan out in what you are today. I think that's kind of what we.

Did well, you know, but it's interesting though because it Sounds like you had a more strategic growth strategy than a lot of people do. Because I think a lot of people do start with just that vision. They don't really know how. But you were like, I'm just focusing on getting better than yesterday, better than last year, and I'm being smart with my money. So that seems like that's what's worked for you.

So, you know, think about this, right? Everybody wants to be a millionaire. Everybody wants to be a top 10 Forbes influencer somewhere. Everybody wants to be. Everybody wants to make a million dollar a year. But how are you gonna make a hundred grand? First, because most people that wants to make a million, most people that wants to be Forbes influencer, they're not even neighborhood influencer yet. They don't even make a hundred grand a year. So why would you focus on how to make a million when you haven't figured it out, how to make a hundred grand? Why would you want to be a Forbes influencer on anything if you haven't even influenced your friends and family? That's what I have a problem with. And that's why entrepreneurship is very hard. Because, you know, people shoot too high too soon. And I'm not saying don't dream because the dream is good, but the plane is better. You know, the plan, the plan to go there, it's like, it's like it's the essential step and the essential pathway that it will eventually get you there. Because once you realize that making a million dollar a year in income, earnings for yourself, it's only figured out how to make half a million dollars twice, it's a lot easier to make a half a million dollars than it's doing a million. I love that. Once you realize that, make it.

Yeah, I love what you're saying right now. Because I think so many people will give up too soon because they have such a big dream that they, because they don't write to that, they just quit.

They don't build two ways like, oh, I like to get into boxing. Let me go head to head with Mike Tyson right away. You're gonna get crushed. I mean, it's normal. And this is the biggest problem, entrepreneurship. Everybody wants everything right now. It's a long time fucking coming. There is too many bad example out there. Kim Kardashian, Mark Zuckerberg, fucking everybody out there wants to be somebody that they believe is over an overnight success. It's a long time coming. Here's the problem. If I tell you, Natalie, you know, you're gonna be a fitness influencer in China, but It'll take you 20 years because first of all, you gotta learn Chinese for 10 years, then you gotta go there, work for nothing for five. And then once you have your bones and you know your way around, in 20 years you're going to earn millions of dollars from China. Most people, all they see is, they go, shit, it's going to take me 20 years. Anything good is going to take you 20 years, it's going to take you 15 years to raise a decent human being. Teenage it's going to take you 20 years to build an empire. The problem is not the 20 year, the problem is the step that you're going to take to get there. Because whether you take those steps or not, the 20 year is still going to go by. Whether you learn a new language, whether you learn a new language, whether you build that fucking company, whether you want to be an influencer, that 20 year will still pass. So instead of focusing for 10 years on the wrong priority, which how do I make a million dollar, focus the first three year, four year on how do I make 50,000? Once you made 50,000, how do I do a double debt? Once you double that, you made 100, how do I double that? Once you double hundred, which is a lot easier to make a million, you make 200. And now you're closer to the million because instead of going from 30 grand a year to a million, which you have to do 35 times there, now you only gotta do what you're doing four times higher. Yeah, it's a lot easier to go from. It's a lot easier to go from 250 to a million, then go from 30,000 to a million. So why people focus on the wrong.

Priority and why do you think that is? Is it because of what we hear in the media, what we hear in marketing, like the examples of like get rich quick, do this quick.

Yeah, you know the things, get rich or die trying, right? Yeah, you can try your whole life. You can try your whole life. There is few reason, I think, you know, most people, I do believe this firmly. There is a lot of good potential, a lot of good talent out there, but a talent without execution, it doesn't go really far. In Italy we say, I don't know if it's going to translate well in America, but in Italy we say that a stupid person that is willing to walk consistently every day is going to cover a lot more ground than a scientist on a couch. Which means you could have all the hope, all the brain, all the intelligence, all the best idea in the whole world. But if you don't put the work in for a very long time, it's not going to happen. Because statistically everything is against you. The odds, the economics, doesn't matter. And it's not about where you're coming from. It's not about who's the President, it's not about what year it is. It's not about the color of your skin. Nothing that every other conditioning, the outside, your environment, the years you're in, the nationality, the, the color of your skin, your religion, your sexual orientation, who's the President, who's not. Democrats, Republicans, none of that matter in the macros, only matter in the micros. And the reality is that the only things that matter is not how good you had it, is now how good you have it. It's only a matter how bad you want it. Because if you want it bad, if you want it bad enough, who gives a shit who's running the country? Who gives a shit if your family is rich or not? It might be a shorter or a longer path, but the pat is there. Look, there is nothing today, literally nothing, let's be honest, there is nothing today that has not been achieved yet. Pretty much, sure. Do you want to be. You want to invent a time travel machine? Well, that hasn't been invented yet that we know at least. Pretty sure military have something, but we don't. Do you want to do you want to be the first guy to walk on Mars and you got to be a pioneer because nobody has done it yet. But if you want to be a settlers, you want to be a Forbes 10 top 10 influencer in the world for fitness, somebody has done it. You want to build a 200 million dollar restaurant business in 12 years in a country that doesn't belong to you. Well, you got to be a, you got to be a settler because somebody has done it. Somebody had pioneered that already. So all you got to do is to figure it out how they did and fucking do the work and be ready to go up and down and be ready to be a very long process. Most people, they're scared on the timeline, you know, everybody. I want to believe that most human being, whether we deem as smart or stupid, whether we're rich, of poor, whether we're straight or not, it doesn't matter. I think that 99% of the population physically and mentally is able to do that. But the conditioning in their own brain, they just talk themselves out of it and they give them excuses on why their position doesn't really suck enough. And that's why, you know, they don't want to do it. A lot of people have a plan B. Well, if you have a plan B, plan A never works. Or you're just like my dad. My dad is one of the happiest people I've ever met in my life. He does not have ambition. He doesn't give a shit. He wants to work the least amount of hours possible so he can pay the bill that he has, save very little money. He doesn't need an extravagant life. He doesn't care about helping others other than his own family. And he wants to be off Fridays and Saturdays and Sunday. My father made 30 grand for the rest of his life. My father is 60 years old and he's been making 30 grand a year for the last 30 years. It's an employee of some company, and he's really, really happy. That's an amazing part. To me. I would be miserable if I was my dad, but I'm not him, and I respect that so much. Because you find happiness in what he has. The problem I have is that most people bitches about it. Most people bitch about everything, but they're not really acting upon. Right? So it's either you stop bitching or you embrace what needs to be done. One of the two. My dad hasn't bitched once in 30 years. And, you know, my dad is the kind of guy that look at my mom and goes like, well, we have to only go at the lake for three days because we can't afford the week. And they're all fucking happy about it. Good for you. I mean, I couldn't. I couldn't.

Yeah, I love what you're saying because it's really. It's not that there's anything wrong with having that type of happiness and ambition. That's what you want. But if you want to do no work and make the millions of dollars, that doesn't really go together.

It doesn't. It doesn't. It just doesn't work. And you're just wasting everybody's time. You know, if you are very aware of the fact that you. There is a lot of wannabe out there. I want to be these. I want to be there. This is what I want to do. This is what I want to have. Okay, great. I want to have a lot of things I don't have yet. But realistically, I can't complain that I don't have it because I didn't put the kind of work in it that requires to get there. You know, I hate, personally hate commercial Aviation. I hate flying. Flying public. But although I have a $200 million business, although next year the restaurant I own number wise will double, I still not comfortable to spend 10, 15, 20 grand to go from the east coast to the west coast on a private plane. Now would I would like to do that? Yeah, absolutely. I love to be able to create enough income where half a million dollar a year in private plane is just a write off. Am I available to do that right now? Not really. I could, but it would be a lot of spending for me, which I'd rather save them. And did you hear me complain about it? No. I'm not gonna be like fuck these, I don't like LaGuardia. What, the lax. I can't do this shit anymore. I'm just doing it. And I'm not complaining because I'm not willing to put the work to be able to afford to fly private every day. You know why? Because I got a three years old boy, I could work twice as hard and get my own damn plane by the end of the year. I'm not doing it because I'm not willing to. Because I'd rather spend time with my kids and my wife at home and you know, fly economy or fly first class but still commercial instead of push a lot harder to work, create a pasta for be able to waste a half a million dollar power plane and still do it. I'm not willing to do it, but you don't hear me bitching about it. Yeah, a lot of people complain about things that are not willing to do, so why are you complaining? Solution is there. Whether you embrace the solution or not. Just either you do it or don't complain about it. I love the weight every fucking day. You know what? Weight every fucking day. Just get on a diet to shut the fuck up. You know, it's like what do you want? What are you gonna. I mean seriously, you're.

I love this, this side of you because I, you know, it is true. Like you see people online, you see this glory that they've created and you really don't know the hard work that go behind it. And sometimes you don't know the hard work because they're selling how to get rich quick. And that's not.

Look, you know there's a lot of people out there and some, some of these folks I really respect very much. You know, four hour work week. Yeah, four hour work week my ass. It took him a year and a half, 20 hour a day to write that book. In a four hour a fucking week. Could be a four hour a week after 20 years hustling, you know, but there is always, there is always a backstory.

There's always a backstory.

Some of my business partner, they're billionaire with a B B. And Yeah, they work two hours a week now. They make three phone calls. But it took them 50 years to get there. You know, I've never seen, never seen an overnight success that makes billions of dollars, hundreds of million or a million dollar a year just because they got lucky. Sure, there might be some example out there, but when you hear about, you know, all the story, the Ubers, the Airbnb of the world, the Robogenic, all these people that now they're like, shit, I wish I thought about that idea. The guy that founded rbnb, I had a great conversation with him not long ago. The guys were selling cereal on ebay with an Obama face on it, that they were printing out a 3D printer to pay for the rent of his first RBMB apartment in San Francisco because they run out of money. And they did that for a year. They were selling cereal online and people was like, yeah, I want to be him. I want to have a billion dollar idea, motherfucker. The billion dollar idea sometimes takes 10 years of execution. When you're starving, you eat fucking noodles for dinner and lunch. Then one day something go right and then eventually you made it. But for every billion idea out there, there is a million people still struggling to figure it out, how to make a living at the end of the month. So don't focus on the billion dollar idea. Focus on the billion dollar execution that will make you 50 grand first, then 100, then 200, then 500, then a million, and then 200 million eventually or more. You know, that's a problem.

Yeah. So I. You know what? I love this interview with you right now because it's different than. It's not just a mindset and a visualization. It's really like, okay, yes, you can have the vision and the mindset, but you got to take the baby steps and actually do the work. Like do the work step one at a time to build on and then be. Make logical decisions based on what you've created and made to invest and do the next.

Look, I'm a firm believer about the love of the law of attraction. I do, I am. Every night I thank for my. I thank whatever is out there for what I have and I think for what I don't have yet that I'm working to get hundred percent. I attract, I put my mind, my body and My spirit in line with things, you know, I celebrate sometime. I celebrate things like I haven't achieved. And I'm not even close yet. You know, I was just for shits and giggle. I was at the airport, Los Angeles airport. Again, not to complain about it, but I was three hours delayed and I was very, very annoyed by it. Okay, great. I'm a kind of guy that he three hours late, I catch up with a bunch of email. So it's a kind of blessing in disguise. But whatever I got, I go there delayed three hours and I was so freaking annoyed that I couldn't even do an email. I was so annoyed. I just want to just, you know, get a glass of wine at the lounge and bitches about it with myself. So I just put myself in the state of mind of when I finally get to fly private. I got my mind there, I got my eye there, I got my heart there. And they got goosebumps literally getting at the private airport and be like, fuck this shit. Now I'm going to be whenever I need to be in two hour and fuck you all flying commercial. I don't care, I'm out of this game now I'm bowling. And I got into the emotional state of me flying private and I was out of a PC mood in no time. Now that's a law of attraction. Eventually In a year, five years, 10 years, I'll get it. But the law of attraction and dream big. It doesn't work unless you do. Yeah, it doesn't work unless you do. You know, if you're. There is plenty, sorry. Even in your industry now with fitness, with nutrition, with health. You know, there is a lot of shit going on in America right now, health wise. Cancer vaccine, all this stuff. Whether you believe in eastern medicine or western medicine or not, I don't care. You do you. But there is just as many stories out there of people that have been deemed terminal ill with incurable illness that because they turn around their lifestyle, their belief and their action, they have regressed and now they're fine. I met people that they were given six months to leave. I've met people with Alzheimer's and with Ms. That now they're walking fine and they have no trace of the disease in their body because they have changed everything around them. But that shit worked because they did too, you know, so. And most people, they just go with it. Okay, well this is not gonna work for me. How do you know? You haven't done anything for it. I came to lose weight. Have you tried it? Oh, you know it's like me, you know, I was 40 pound overweight, I started to eat healthy and you know, but you know, before losing the 36 pound, I lost 200 pound because I lost 5 pound. 40 fucking time because I was losing 5 pounds. And then I was going back to it because I wasn't consistent with it. So, you know, I lost, you know, I lost in my whole life, I probably lost £500 because I lost three, four, five pound a hundred times. And then I went back to my shitty ways. I really didn't want to work for it. So now I decided, right, fuck, I'm gonna work for it. And I went from 210 down to 175, and now I keep it that way because I work for it.

So what do you do when you have a setback? Like just even that, like you lose five pounds, you gain it back. Like what's your go to when you do have a setback like that? Do you just. Do you tell yourself I didn't work hard enough and then just get yourself to go again? When do you know when to.

I don't negotiate with myself, meaning I do not negotiate with my brain. I do not negotiate with myself. And sometime I allow myself to be lazy, but I call myself up, you know, hey, if I want to lose 30 pounds, and I own restaurants, I own donut bar, I own gelato stores, and I'm eating a pound or two of gelato every other day. Who am I kidding? What am I blaming? The workout routine? Am I blaming my trainer? That shit doesn't work. I just chug 2 gallons of ice cream. It's not gonna fucking work no matter if God train you, you know, So I don't negotiate with myself. I call it bullshit, I recognize it, I analyze it. Why have I lost the momentum? Why have I been lazy today? And I try to fix it. I have setback all the time. I lose every day. Every day I pick up my phone and on my phone there is 200 fucking problems every day in the micro. I lose every day. Because when you have, you know, a $200 million business, 2,000 employee and 50 investor, every day there is some shit going wrong, but I analyze it. I'm very critical with myself. I judge for what it is. Not worse than it is, not better than it is. I'm not optimistic, I'm not pessimistic. I'm just, this is what it is and this is why it's happening, so we can fix it or it's going to keep happening and same things don't have a setback. I try to be very critical on why that happened and not trying to blame anybody else. Because like I said, circumstances never define who you are, where you are, or where you're gonna be. Only your reaction to the circumstances will. You can be all pissed for the next four years that Trump is your fucking president. Guess what? It is what it is. Half of the nation dealt with Obama for a year whether you like it or not, they did. So now it's the Democrat turn to deal with it. Now let's analyze why this guy won. Let's build a better, let's build a better platform. So maybe in 40 years the Democrats is going to be back there instead of trying to blame the guy for it. This fucking guy, whether you like it or not, every week during the election said something that would torpedo anybody. And Hillary's still fucking lost on it. She fucking blew is what it is. You see what I mean? It is what it is. Guys, you can't, you know, you just got analyzed what's going on, why happened, how we can prevent it from happening again. And I'm just taking the election now because it's the hot topics. You know, half of my business partner, they're Democrats, the other half are Republican. I feel myself right in the middle. I'm a people person, but I have a very good business, so I don't care. I just try to, to have a civil, educated, non emotional conversation about anything is going on in my life. Because whether I agree with you or not, in fitness, in family, in principle, in politics, in anything, in order to move forward, we still gotta keep it civil and we have to be objective on what's happening. So whether you can't lose weight, whether you can't make your business profitable, whether you don't understand how these guys in the, in the Oval Office, or whether you don't understand why it's not you being there if you're not objective, educated, civil and very objective without trying to bullshit yourself and blame everybody else but you, that's when you grow. That's when you really know. Okay, fine, I blew at this time. I didn't lose 20 pounds, I lost five. So what was I doing that lost me five and why I haven't lost an extra 15. When you break that shit down and you don't negotiate with yourself and you don't lie to yourself, the solution is right in front of you, Natalie. It's right there. It's right there. Whether you embrace it or you know, but you know what's Up.

So I love this really big reality check is what I'm hearing. It's like a wake up call. Like, reality check. Like, how hard are you actually working? And what you're complaining about, are you actually doing something about it? Are you just complaining about it? And I love that. So I'm wondering, how do you, like, see, when do you know to cut your losses? Like, when you've started so many businesses, you've had so many ideas, I'm sure all of them weren't like a smashing success. Like, what, when do you know? Like, okay, I just need to put in more or I need to cut the ties.

You know, every intelligent, educated person, which is nobody, at the beginning of their business career. Because at the beginning of your business career, passion trumps intelligence and judgment all the time.

Yes.

This place, you know, in restaurant business, you know how many times I hear people saying, this is my dream, I will never shut this down. I'm like, bro, it's dying. It's actually dead and it's killing you and everybody around you. It's time to shut it down.

Yes.

And I've been there when you. It's normal, everybody. I've been there a few times. When you lead with emotion, business is never good. You pitch, you tell an emotional story, but then you have a lead with conscious competence. Conscious competence is not something that you have very soon in business. Usually you have an emotional competence. You know, you're very optimistic, you're overly optimistic, but you haven't really bottle ground your optimism to see if he's gonna weather some bullets, you know, in the body armor. So the reality is that at the beginning is a very, it's a very, very hard things to do. And so I. Most people screw at the beginning and they never get back because they believe that that's the norm. The norm. It's the lesson that you learn. That's a norm. I have a million problems. People say, oh, I wish I had your money, I wish I had your business. I'll be problem free. You crazy. You think Trump, do you think Warren Buffett, do you think these people don't have problem? They do. The difference between you and them is that they have better quality problem. The goal is not to get rid of problem. The goal is to get better quality problems. You see what I mean? If you bitch about the fact that you're paying 20 million a year in taxes, you got a great fucking problem. So the fact here is that, you know, when you cut your losses because you have acquired the emotional conscious competence in Business that really makes you understand that you have done everything that you could have to make it better. And for some reason it's still not working. It happened to us in Miami with one of our lead, one of our main brand restaurants. We lost the restaurant in Miami. We lost over $3 million that we invested. I lost it all.

Like how did that tell. I'd love to go through like that thought process. Like when, when did you know it was bad? What was, how did, how long did it take you to get to like I need to just call it quits on this.

So when we realized that the rest of the metric weren't working for the amount of people that we were getting into the door, we weren't making enough sale to justify to be there. And, and when every metrics in your business is maxed out legitimately, when you cannot find more customer, when you have tried everything to find them, when you have tried everything to maximize your market viable product, when you have find every way to figure it out how much you charge them. Because the goal of every business is to charge you as much as I can for the value I provide. Right? You don't want to be undervalued and you want to be overpriced. That's why if I teach somebody how to be in shape, I probably charge you a Starbucks gift card. If Natalie Jill does it, it'll probably cost me a few thousand dollars at least because there is a different education behind. So when you realize that you have truly done everything you can to either increase your people through the door, your higher price margin, when there is nothing else to do, it's time to call it quit. Because why would you want to keep bleeding if you can't make it work? Cut your losses and if you're smart, you cut your losses before your losses overcome your earnings. What am I saying by that? Let's assume that you Natalie, last year made a million dollar because you're in California and California love to suck you dry. Chances are you're paying 40 cents on the dollar between personal and federal taxes. So now out of a million dollar you pay to the taxes, 400,000. Let's say that you want to invest a bunch of money in a business. You should never let yourself lose more than $400,000 because if you do that it will affect your earnings and your savings. If you catch your losses before the $400,000 mark, then you can write it off. And then his Uncle Sam. Is Uncle Tom paying you? You see what I'm talking about here?

I think so yeah, so it's just.

If a person that if every year I pay $10 million in taxes and I try to do a business and a business lose me 2 million next year, I can write it off against my taxes because it's a business distress, it's a business liability and it's a missed opportunity of earning. So next year Instead of paying $10 million in taxes, I'm only paying 2, because $2 million, it's a write off, it's a loss. So the state and the American legislation give me the chance to recoup from that loss by lowering my tax liability for a few years later. Make sense? So you really didn't lose money, you really did lose the chance of earning money with that capital, which is still sucks, but it's a lot better than lose the money too. So technically all you did by losing a business, you're advancing money for taxes. Technical. Yeah. Now most people, what they do, most people, they earn 100 grand a year, they get in the neck for a million and a half or two, they take loans out, they borrow money. Now you make a hundred grand a year and you lost $2 million. How the fuck you gonna pay that back?

You're right. That's what most people do.

I mean. Yeah, most people do.

So I like that you really from a very logical point and I. So it's not that you don't have vision. You do, you do have a vision and emotion, but you're very logical. Like where I think a lot of people get so stuck in the vision and the emotion behind it that they're not even looking at the numbers, they're not looking at the sales, they're not looking at the facts. They're just looking at their vision.

Yeah, somebody that makes $200,000 a year likely pays, you know, with. Now the Republican Congress and Oval Office is a very, it's a very business thriving market for business owner. So technically, if they don't kick these guys out of the White House and they don't kill him or he doesn't torpedo himself by saying something wrong for the next two years for sure, maybe six. If you are an entrepreneur, it's your time to push the pedal of the gas. But what I will still say is this, if you make 2, 300 grand a year, you're paying $100,000 in taxes. Don't put a million dollars in a business because if the business go down, you don't pay enough taxes to be able to write the losses against them, get creative with it or start the business with 100 grand or 200 at the most. Because otherwise if something go wrong, you can't sail yourself out of that water. You can't. Now if you're making $10 million a year, maybe you do, Natalie, and you want to try an app for fitness that you're. I'm not sure about it, but let me check this out. So my tax liability last year was 600 grand. Let me put 200,000 on my cash towards this or 300 if something go wrong. Fuck it, I'll write it off. And the year after you pay 300 instead of 600.

Yeah, this is it sounds so logical. And I have really didn't ever look at it like this before. So I'm assum.

Now every state, I'm going to make it very simple. Every state, every administration, every. There is a lot of differences. But if I lose a business and I lose a million dollar in the business in general, generally speaking, any change. I'm not a cpa, so you know, I'm not a certified tax advisor, but I have enough business. I know how this shit works. You can take that million dollar loss and write it off against your earnings. So next year, if you're making $2 million in earnings now you lost a million. You only pay taxes on a million that you didn't lose. So it's just, it's. Maybe you spread it across two, three years or you figured out a way to do it, but, but there are ways out there. The problem is people just go, wow, I got, I'm gonna do the. I'm gonna kill this. I'm gonna, I'm gonna be such a big suck. You all gonna hear about me in three years? Yeah, we're gonna hear another story about how you fuck it up and I can't pay back your investor. That's exactly what we're gonna hear statistically 99.9% of the time. But if you approach these with an emotional intelligence and conscious competence, then you can plan for the downside. And that's the best part. Because if you plan for the downside now, there is no fear. Because you know what's up when shit doesn't add that.

Yeah, this is good. Okay, Fabi, I've got more questions for you. So I want to know, like, when you. Do you ever take failures personally?

Well, it's always personal for me because business is personal. Unless you're investing in somebody else business and I'm putting a half a million dollar in your next app for workout and you blew it. Then I'M not going to take it personal. I'm probably going to send you an email, be like, really Natalie? That's how you did it. Great. Wow, thank you. But still, I'm going to write, I'm going to probably write it off. So I'm not gonna be upset. Business is personal, but you can't take it personal because the success of the business, it's up to you as long as you do the right step. But it's also everybody else. You know, business is such a complex algorithm. It's like business is like your skin. You know, skin is an organ. It's not like coverts that you have. It's not like a raincoat. Skin is an organ that is made by multiple layers of tissue and nerves and muscle and veins and stuff. And so is business. You are only one small part of it, which is usually the part that people fuck up the soonest. But once you made it and you understand that you're not the part that's gonna screw it up, you got a lot of variables. So while business has to be personal to be able to run it, don't take it personal. It's just business.

But what I guess what I mean more to in that like do you ever. I think you're missing that part of like and I want to know how you are able to miss that part and because it's awesome and I want to take some. It sounds like when you have a business doesn't work well. Like the restaurant that you said you lost $3 million. You never take it as I shouldn't have done this or I'm not good enough or I should.

Well first oh, of course I am. You think I didn't, I didn't thought about it. If I had blew half a million dollar in Las Vegas, I would have two and a half million dollar left and I would have had a lot more fun. Of course I'm thinking there, but you can take it personal.

Yeah, business, okay.

If you can't digest it, don't do it to begin with. I don't let shit. You know, it's like you know how many people. I'll tell you this story. True story. Good friend of good friend of mine. At this point I don't know if I should call a friend, but whatever. Great POD has a great podcast guys. A great podcast in Italy, right? Good friend of my great podcast in Italy guy called me about two years ago, asked me for 20 grand. The friend known him for my whole life, gave him 20 grand to start this podcast podcast get really fucking big. I asked him, I say, hey, bro, can I be in your podcast? Because I'm an Italian guy. I'm not in Italy. The guy said, well, you're. You're really not in Italy. So I don't think it's a good fit for my audience. And all I want to do, I want to be on his podcast so I can start to build some trust in Italy because I have some Italian project going on, and I'm thinking about. I'm like, what a motherfucker. If it wasn't for me, you wouldn't even have this shit. And you're telling me no. But again, that lasts about 30 seconds, because I have zero expectation from business and had zero expectation from people. If I ask you to do me a favor and you don't do it, I still wish you well. I still love you. I'm not gonna be the guy. Oh, you know what? Nah. I gave Natalie a bunch of advice. I'm asking for a favor. She say, no, I don't care. You do you. I know better not to ask next time. And same thing as business, right? Am I. Am I. I'm gonna be like, oh, shit. Oh, my God, I shut down a restaurant. I'm such a big failure. How I'm gonna raise my child? Oh, it's. Hey, you know what? It's business. It happens. It happened to everybody. That's right. I don't know anybody out there that hasn't opened a business or 2 or 3 or 10 that something hasn't gone wrong. Am I a worst father because of it? No. Am I a piece of shit human being because I failed my business? No. I'm just trying to learn a lesson. Cause losing $3 million fucking sucks. And unfortunately, I learned my tax things after that. I wasn't making 3 million a year yet, and I lost a lot more than I could have digest. But again, there is ways around it. And does it make you a worse human being? No. It just makes you an inexperienced business owner that hopefully learned a lesson, and hopefully you got enough guts to try again with the fact that now, you know, you don't know the recipe for success, but you still know the recipe for disaster. So just don't do that again.

Fabio, you do you have, like, a way that you routine your day or start your day like that you to stay consistent because you. I just see you accomplish so much, and I'm wondering if that comes from routine or what. How do you do that? Like, how do you structure your day.

Managing from a head standpoint? I rehearse the whole day. Every morning, I rehearsed the day for about 10, 15 minutes in the bathroom. I built myself a nice kind of spa in my home. So I take a steam sauna. I just take a nice shower, a plunge bath, whatever. Cold, hot, cold. And I kind of rehearse in my head what's going on during the day. I'm a very thankful person. I thrive on appreciation. So for me, just the fact that I see, I get to live in the house I live. I get to drive the car I drive. I get to help the people I help. I get to give back the way I do. I have a happy wife, I have a happy son. That is enough for me to get myself out of bed, ready to take everything off. Because I just don't want that opportunity that I have that I'm so grateful for it to go away. So I just make sure that every day I take a moment to remind myself how lucky I am to truly have built what I have built. And that motivates my soul as far as managing my body and my timeframe. That. That. That's bits and a half, meaning it's. It's painful. I use the 15 minutes rules. So from 6am Till 10pm My day is divided in an Excel spreadsheet in 15 minutes lot. So every. Every day, every hour has four minutes lot. And that's my calendar on Google. 15 minutes is locked. If you don't fit in one of those 15 minutes, whether is a one slot of 15 minutes, two slots of 30 minutes, three slots, 45 minutes, four slots an hour. I got no time for you. And sometime. And sometime people goes like, oh, dude, let's get together for a glass of wine. Tell me when you're available. Okay. I pull up my calendar And I'm like, December 7th. And they go like, what, dude, it's November 1st. I'm like, I know, but I live in South Barrington. Driving downtown takes 45 minutes. Spend 30 minutes with you, it's hour and 15 minutes and drive back 45 minutes takes two hours. I look at my calendar, I don't have two hours lot until December 2nd or December 7th. And people was like, wow. Wow. All right, whatever, dude. I'm like, sorry, bro. What do you want me to do? I'm fucking. You know, it is what it is.

Yeah, but I'm assuming you do also make that time for your family and things that are priority.

Oh, yeah. But guess what? Date night with my wife, Tuesday has a bunch of 15 minutes blocked.

I love it. Wow.

Listen, you have to run your shit really tight and may run frogs ass tight because otherwise it doesn't work. So my wife said, hey, we're all successful, we all love this shit. But you got a kid, you gotta be home for it. Great. Told my office manager Sunday, 7p 7am till 6pm block every single slot and it says Fabio home time. Well, I wife, we do date night Tuesday or Wednesday. Guess what, it's a three hour. It's 12 slots blocked.

I feel very honored that I got four slots for this interview. It's cool.

Yes, we got five because I was trying for. I got five because I was trying for 15 minutes to log into the Zoom and had a bunch of time that I forecast I was not able to. So you got five blocks.

So somebody else got booted out of their 15, so I got five. Thank you.

No, no, no, they didn't get booted. You got first. I don't boot anybody. But even in scheduling these, it took as well. Almost two months. Yeah, well, that's the way. That's the way it's gotta be. If you live in reaction of emergency, you will always change something. I live in anticipation. I anticipate, I don't react.

Mm, I love this. Do you have like a circle of friends and what type of people do you like to surround yourself with?

I'm assuming you have a circle of friends. Yeah, I do, but I go from, you know, pong to king. I don't have my stereotype. I don't like. I don't like lazy people, people that complain they're not in my circle. I get rid. I get rid of people really fast in my life. Natalie, you won't believe it. My wife sometimes was like, you're such a dick. Why don't. It was just, you know, can you just call back? You still promise I'm not going back because it puts me off mood. They always complain. I wish him well. I want to talk about it. And I always tell people there. You know how many times I tell people, look, I think you're probably a great person, but you're very negative. So unless you're changing your attitude around me, you're not gonna hear about me very often because I. It puts me off mood. Be around you. It really does. Everybody got shit going on. Everybody got problem. I don't want to fucking hear about it. If you need my help, ask for my help. If you need to complain all day while I'm with you, I don't want to be with you. You know, and so I hang out with my dishwashers. I hang out with my billionaire friends. I don't have a stereotype of friends. I have a stereotype for the people I want around my children. And I have stereotypes for the people I do business with as an associate that I'm very selective. But friends, you don't expect anything from your friends. I don't ask money to my friends. I don't expect my friends to have a 20,000 thousand square foot home. I don't care. I'm very generous. I hang out with everybody. Everybody. I have been everybody. I have been the dishwasher, I've been the line cook. I have been the struggling business owner. I've been the guy making 20 grand a year. I've been the guy making 100 grand a year. I've been the guy being told what to do. And I've been the guy that fucked it all up. I've been the guy making a million dollar and I've been the guy having a 20,000 square foot mansion have been all of them. So I love all of them because all of them. It's part of who I was and who I am. So I don't really judge who I hang out as a friend. I only judge who hang out around my children and who I do business with. Because if you're not successful more than I am, chances are I got no time for babysitting.

But it sounds like the commonality though is you want, you want people that are hard working, have the right energy. You don't want people that are going to.

Yeah, no, no. That's why I said I don't like people complaining. Other than that, I know, you know, I know felony and I know people that go to church three times a week. I don't discriminate against anybody.

You're funny, Fabio. You can be a comedian. Could be another one of your businesses. You're funny.

I can, I can put for Zwob for some stand up.

I love it. Okay, I've got this, this question I'm just dying to know because you've got some very strict rules around your life that's working for you. But I'm wondering if you're talking to somebody right now that's in that rock bottom space. I mean, maybe they just moved to this country and they don't speak English like you didn't in 2005, or they just had a massive business failure and they didn't do what you did. They didn't look at it with from the tax perspective, but they're in Their rock bottom spot. What would you advise them? If you were to give them like three things that they can do right now to start shifting out of that, what would you tell them to do?

Number one, chances are you haven't really analyzed why everything went south. Because if you really analyze why everything went south, you can find some truth. And understanding the problem, you know what it is, right? It's half the solution. Number two, try to figure it out. How to be able to redo what you did by avoiding the mistake, can you have a comeback or is it dead in the water? Now most people will say it's dead in the water. I don't want to do this again. I'm fucked. It. I blew it. Let's say I'm done with entrepreneurship. Okay, well, you still gotta be around for 30, 40, 50, 60 years. What are you gonna do? You're gonna be the guy that won a medal in high school and you tell everybody that you were number gold medal in high school? No, doesn't work like that. You gotta win gold medal every day. Otherwise ship doesn't stick around for a very long time. So what are you gonna do? Plan your next 30, 40 year? It's not easy. It isn't. But if you really want to be a restaurateur, if you really want to be the next Natalie Gillespie, maybe go to Natalie Jill and say, hey, I'm gonna work my ass off for you or for you, Fabio. Just, just let me smell what you do every day. Let me live what you do every day. And you're gonna find someone that is willing to give you a shout, but at least you're gonna be bitching about your position while working for someone that you want to be in a few years and in an industry that you would love to be at. Although you blew it. That's the number two rule. Number three rule, it is what it is. Meaning you are only in control of what you can control. I repeat myself. You can only control what you can control. So start with that. You can't control the weather. You can't control the economy. You can't control. You can control. You can't control the weather. You can control whether you're going to have an umbrella or not. You cannot control the economy. You can only control the choices that you make through that economy. So seize the opportunity. Are you able to control who's running the government? Not really. So how are you going to benefit from it? Whether you're Republican, Democrats? How can you control how many customers come through the door? No, but you can control how many people you will reach? Can you control how much they're gonna buy? No, but you can control the quality of your offering and offer more. There are things that you think you're not in control, but you are in control of everything but the ultimate outcome. So just start to control things that is in your control. And you can't worry about the tide, the wind, the weather. You can't worry about this shit because there is going to be always something to worry about. It that is out of your control, that is going to suck time away from the shit you can control. But you're not doing it because you're too busy. Bitch about everything else.

This is really good. Fabio, you're awesome. Where can people find you and what.

Are you working on next 2019, we have 18. We have 18 new restaurant opening and two hotels.

Wow.

You know, we are shifting my tech company from celebrity influencer base to a more family vault, memory kind of platform. You know, I'll reach out when we're ready for that. I'll give you a shout. So if you do a plug, I love to. If you don't, I still love you. But most of my year next year will be spent in hospitality with, you know, 18 restaurant open, two hotels, we're taking over a bunch of casinos, we're doing a lot of stuff, but the easiest way to do it, just follow me on Instagram. Avioviviani if you want to shoot me an email infoabioviviani.com I reply all my email might take me a minute because I get a lot of them, but I promise I answer and that's it.

You know, you're awesome.

Pretty easy.

Thank you. Fabio. Thanks for leveling up with us today. Please share this episode if you found it helpful so others can join in. And don't forget to hit that subscribe so you don't miss out on future shows. And if you would leave me a five star review, I appreciate those so much. I read all of them and it's how I know that I'm giving you information that you find valuable. And come interact with me over on Instagram @nataliejofit. I read all the direct messages and comments over there. Make it a great day. Creating everything from nothing.