Episode #142 - Michael Epstein, Founder & Former Race Director of Malibu Triathlon

Michael shares his journey from Philadelphia to Malibu, blending a passion for sports with a background in operations to lead events like the Malibu Triathlon. He reflects on growing up in an entrepreneurial family, lessons from leadership and failure, and the impact of sailing the world. Emphasizing heart-led work, community, and charity, he offers insights on fatherhood, legacy, and defining success through peace and purpose rather than material gains.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
How's it going everybody? And welcome back to another
edition of the Stupid Questions podcast.
Today on the pod, we're going tobe talking with Michael Epstein.
He is best probably described asan entrepreneur of triathlon
events and a sailor. We get to talk about his
experience crossing the Atlantic.
We talk about him starting famous triathlons like the
Malibu Triathlon and more Hermosa Beach Triathlon.

(00:22):
California native who's been living here for quite a while.
Born and raised on the East Coast, but really thoughtful
guy, very articulate, to the point.
Make sure to get his idea out there stated and doesn't waste
any time with just extra fluffy words.
So I really appreciate his to the point attitude.
Thank you so much, Michael, for coming on.
And without further ado, I want to introduce you to Michael

(00:43):
Epstein. Yeah, perfect, perfect place to
start. All right.
I'm home in Malibu, CA. OK, nice.
Are you from Malibu? I'm not from there, but I've

(01:04):
lived here for about the last 17years or so.
OK, to do it. Where were you at before Malibu?
I live not far away, a little town called Oak Park that's
maybe 20 minutes away inland. OK sweet, so California native
your whole life. No.
I grew up in born and raised in Philadelphia.

(01:27):
She was there last weekend seeing my mom for her birthday.
But when I graduated college, which was many, many moons ago,
I moved to this kind of basic area where I am now.
OK, nice. What was it like growing up on
the East Coast? Fun.
I mean, I, I love getting back there.
You know, definitely the California lifestyle suits me a

(01:48):
lot better. But you know, I have not lost my
East Coast route. So my family's back there and it
was, it's a good place. Philly's a great city, great
food scene, great entertainment scene.
So it's a great music scene. So it's it's a great place to
hang out. Yeah.
How does the West Coast suit youbetter?
What does that mean? Active lifestyle.

(02:11):
The weather. You know, just.
About everything. Yeah, Yeah, Awesome.
But now it was a very, very special place.
So we have great hiking trails, obviously.
We have the ocean, the beaches. It's very remote.
You know, we're in the very far kind of western North End of Los
Angeles County. And it's almost like living on
an island. You know, there's some

(02:33):
downsides, you know, not a lot of restaurants, but we don't
have to drive far if we want to.And the entertainment in LA is a
little bit far away, but, you know, we, we make up for that
and the beauty and the peacefulness and the serenity
and really, really cool community here.
Yeah, that's neat. I recently just moved to
Redding, CA, so it's also prettyrural, probably a little bit
more rural than Malibu, but I moved there from the East Coast

(02:56):
as well. I was over in Chattanooga, TN
and it's it's been a fun change of pace.
It's only been what, 5 months now?
Four months now. But yeah, it's pretty, pretty
cool place to live. I like the sunshine for sure.
Yeah, I mean, ours, it's interesting.
I mean, obviously not as rural as Reading, but my traffic
light, which is around the corner from my house, there's
not another traffic light for 35miles.

(03:18):
Wow. So it's more than people
realize. Yeah, I would not have said that
Malibu was rural. I mean, I've, I guess I've
driven somewhat close on the waygoing to like Tucson to visit
some guys. We just went straight South and
I think Malibu would have been on my W at that point.
But yeah, pretty, pretty cool place for sure.

(03:38):
So I guess first of all, so justshould say thank you so much for
making the time to come on. I guess Bob Babbitt connected
us, so he must think pretty highly of you.
So thanks for coming on and and making it happen.
Yeah, my pleasure. Yeah.
How long have you known, Bob? Probably 40 years, probably a

(03:59):
few years after he started doingtriathlons.
We were actually talking about this the other day and we met.
He used to have a magazine that was like a health and fitness
and running a triathlon magazinethat he produced in San Diego.
And we met. I pretty much, we're pretty sure
like he launched the magazine the same year that I lost
launched the triathlon in Malibu, which was like 19861987.

(04:22):
So we met through, you know, a mutual interest in sports.
Yeah, that's very sweet. So the question I would love to
open up with is one that I like asking everybody and it's an
introspective and pretty deep question.
So take as much time as you wantto think about it.
But who is Michael? I don't need to think about it a

(04:43):
lot because I mean, as I get older, I think I kind of really
understand my place and, and, and what I do and what I like to
do. So who I am, I mean, I think I'm
an athlete first and foremost. And by athlete I don't mean
competitive athlete, I mean outdoors person.
As I mentioned, I love Malibu because of the hiking, the
trails and just a scenery. I live up against the mountains

(05:07):
and between, you know, get the out of my backyard.
The closest thing is probably 15miles away and it's just
mountain range and animals and things like that.
So I'm someone who loves the outdoors.
I moved to Malibu years ago whena friend of mine told my friend
like, hey, where do you guys go to eat?
He's like, we don't, we BBQ withour friends, like we don't go

(05:28):
out to dinner. So I think I'm a family person.
I think I'm a good friend and I'm somebody that likes to give
back. I've raised millions and
millions of dollars for various different charities through my
athletics. And you know, I'm a very, very
organized and detail oriented person, which is how I ended up

(05:48):
in the event world. Yeah, for sure.
So for all of that organization and the raising of money, would
you say that you approach the the operational side of the way
that you do things more from your head or more from your
heart? Wow, that's a good question.
It's it's, it's honestly, it's avery, very, can you hear me?

(06:10):
Equal balance. I used to have a personal
slogan. I actually remember this came up
in a like was like a contest at a New Year's party where people
kind of wrote their own mottos down and then they had to guess
who wrote it. And mine was testing came here.
And everybody guessed that I wasthe one that wrote it.
So I, you know, I, I definitely follow my passion and I leave

(06:31):
with my heart. But that said, you know, to do
things well, you need to be organized, you need to be
disciplined. And I think that's what comes
from my head. OK, I didn't hear anything that
you just said. For some reason it like totally
froze. Did could you hear me and see me
the whole time? Yeah, you got a little blurry,
but yeah. OK, let me.
I don't know. It didn't my.

(06:52):
Internet connection Let me see if I'm on my fastest network.
I am. OK, well I heard the last little
bit of it. Do you mind repeating it one
more time for me? No throw throw me the question
again. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So for the organizational aspectand the way that you operate,

(07:15):
raising money, doing events, working with people, would you
say that you approach the operational aspect of your world
and your business more from yourhead or more from your heart?
Got it. And when the example that I
brought up and I said, I said it's a great question and thank
you for asking, it is. I was at a New Year's party
years and years ago, and we wereasked to write down our personal

(07:36):
mottos anonymously. And the people at the party had
to guess who wrote what. Mine was Lead with Your Heart
and everybody guessed that I wasthe one that wrote it.
So I people clearly know that I follow my passion, that my heart
and my energy starts first. But it's a balance because to do
things well and do and be successful, Adam, it takes, you

(07:58):
know, organization. It takes that and takes your
head as well. So I think it's a good
combination of both. Where did you start to learn
those skills for organization and just the ability to put
together like large events? Because I know there's lots of
moving pieces. You have to learn how to
delegate time management. There's a lot of those things.
Where did you start to pick up the skills?
My background was in operations management, so before I kind of

(08:20):
got into this world, I had a degree in operations management.
So I went to college for it. I practice it.
In my career, I oversaw purchasing at a couple different
companies. So I've always had like a very
detail oriented and, and good organization skills and I found
that the event world was a greatway to apply them.
And I'm very fortunate that I was able to build events and in

(08:42):
a lot of different areas, thoughI, we worked in triathlons, we
worked in adventure racing, we worked in mountain bike racing
and running a lot of different disciplines, obstacle racing.
And I used the organization to build, to develop a base to, to
create marketing platforms from.So I had to learn the marketing
side. So marketing didn't come natural

(09:03):
to me. That was a skill that I
developed over time by putting on great events that drew
attention, whether it was media,whether it was celebrities in
the case in Malibu, and large corporate sponsors, you know,
and it was mainly because we were always the best
organizationally what we did andthat just kind of drew and
everything else and then we got sophisticated at it.

(09:26):
Yeah. So the organizational side of
things, obviously that's something you can learn and from
experience as well, you can garner what's needed to make a
good organization flow like a well oiled machine.
But in terms of the passion side, that's I would say that's
more of a an inherited or a nurture type of thing from a
younger age. So how far back do we have to go

(09:46):
in Michael's life to find where your passions came from?
I mean, I didn't, I wasn't a like a lifelong athlete.
I'm gonna actually started out more.
I raced motocross for a long time.
That was sweet. I was always in, in pretty
intense activities. I guess it's probably the best

(10:07):
way to say it. That was a a sport that, you
know, you required your full focus.
I started, I think I started racing when I was 16, maybe
something like that, 17 in motocross.
I raced motorcycles till I was about 40.
Wow. Amateur.
Never. Never as a professional.
And so in terms of my passion, Ithink, you know, I was, I was

(10:28):
passionate about my friends, about my family and about my
athletics, probably less so. Helped my school work from a
very early age. Yeah.
Can relate. Yeah, I, I grew up in the East,
like I was saying, but in the inthe rural parts of the town and
we did a lot of hair scramble and some motocross racing.
So yeah, there's quite nothing quite like waking up early in

(10:49):
the morning. One of my buddies, I say
buddies, he's like 30 years my senior, but he ran a number of
different hair scramble series around his 203 hundred acre, I
don't know, lots. And so he'd wake, wake up early
in the morning, got to go and work the front gate and take
cash and, you know, write people's names down and then got
to race for free in the afternoon.

(11:10):
So those were some of the coolest memories that I have
from a younger kid. But was that something that you
came into on your own or was it,did your parents have any
passion and interest in those sports or you kind of found them
on your own? No, it's all on my own.
But there was a, there was a while there where I was driven
and this is long before your time, but there was a show on TV
called the ABC Wild World Sportswhere they would feature, you

(11:34):
know. Especially.
You know, what was considered aslong before extreme sports, but
what was considered extreme sports, you know, so they would
show one motocross race a year. That was the Carlsbad Grand
Prix. You know, they the, the tower.
I found out about triathlon. They, they aired the Ironman
triathlon. They were the first people to

(11:54):
put triathlon on television and they started with the Ironman.
And I think I tried to actually tell him Bob, the other Bob
Abbott the other day. I think I saw it in 84 maybe on
Wild World Sports, which might have been the first year that
they aired it. I'm not even sure, but right
around there. So and I would just see sports
sports there and try to figure out how to do them, you know.

(12:15):
So it took me a while. I actually eventually raised
Carlsbad. It took me a long time, but once
I moved out here, I'm like, OK, someday I'm going to do it.
I'm raised obviously amateur, not with the pros.
I did an Ironman triathlon, not Hawaii, but I did Canada.
So that, that that lit a fire onme for, you know, over time.
Yeah, for sure. Did you ever have aspirations to

(12:36):
become pro at any of these activities that you.
No, I was a very mediocre athlete.
You know it was, it was always for fun.
Yeah. So then how did you start to get
into, I mean, obviously you met Bob and you said you got
introduced into triathlon from these instances, but what gave
you the idea that, oh, maybe I should go and try to do this

(12:57):
full time? It's a long story, but I'll give
you I'll try to give you the brief.
You can give the long version. It's OK.
So saw the Iron Man on TVI was actually working out of Ventura,
CA which is a town about an hournorth of here.
Really cool. Quintessential California beach
town. Lived up there for a while.
I was working on offshore oil rigs.

(13:19):
Oh, wow, that I'm in management,in operations management for the
oil rigs. And so that's when I saw the
Iron Man on TVI saw it sitting on an oil rig one day and I
went, OK, I want to figure out how to do that.
Back then, like, you know, therewas no Internet, so we tried to
think. I went to a bookstore, found a
book on track. The only book there was on
triathlon. It probably was written by Dave

(13:40):
Scott and said, OK, I want to figure out how to do this.
I started training. I hadn't run in years.
I was, you know, like I said, I'm still racing motorcycles,
but not that much. And started running on the oil
rigs. We had a little heliport, so I
run little circles. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. 20 laps was a 25 laps was a mile.
Oh, that's monotonous. Wasn't very on steel, wasn't

(14:01):
very good for your knees. But that was, you know, that was
my jogging at 4:00 AM on this moving oil rig that was wet and
slick. And I had them send me a
stationary bike because we livedon them to to train on and we
couldn't swim. I could only swim when I was
home and didn't. My first triathlon had fun.
There was a thing called the BudLight Triathlon Series, which

(14:22):
was like a national tour. Back that went on for probably.
About 10 years, maybe a little more, and did one of those
races. So it was like that was a goal,
you know? So I started out with a Sprint
in Mexico that I did in RosaritoBeach.
That was super fun. Did some local sprints in the
area in Southern California and shorter races.
The Olympic distance, which literally the distance that's in

(14:44):
the Olympics now evolved from this national series that a guy
named Carl Thomas developed thatwas televised, that had pros,
that had prize money. There was like a 10 city tour
that I ended up actually patterning a lot of my business
after off of later on, but I went that was a goal to do it.
You know, again, like Iron Man was this anomaly back then.
There was an Iron Man's in, you know, your city and everywhere

(15:06):
around the world. There was 2 in the world.
There was Hawaii and and Canada and, and not very well known at
the time. So the Olympic distance for me
at the time was a very which is a one mile swim.
For those that don't know, a 40Kbike was around 25 miles and a
10K run, which is 6.2. So that was long to me at the
time. You know, with not having an

(15:26):
endurance background that they, looking back on it now, it seems
like that's just a workout. But with that was a huge
accomplishment. So they had an event in Boston.
I trained for it, decided I was going to never been to Boston.
I'm going to go see Boston. Incredibly organized.
You started outside, you know the organize organizer me, the
wheels were turning the whole time They you started in a town
outside of Boston. It's called Natick.

(15:48):
You swam in a lake like 25 milespoint to point.
So you got to see all of Boston by Fenway Park.
You ended up in downtown Boston and with a run along the Charles
River. So because it was a point to
point transition, your shoes were supposed to be waiting for
you by the banks of the Charles River that you dropped off the
day before. Mine weren't there.
There was like 50 of us where they lost our shoes and I ended

(16:12):
up running the tablet like I hadtrained for, you know,
essentially probably for a year for that event.
I was not going to finish. So I ran the 10K barefoot, one
of the first barefoot runners. I don't know if barefoot running
was a thing back then. Got it.
But I could still picture the gravel, whatever it was like a
little fine gravel that we were running along the along the
banks of the river. Got a bunch of stress factors my
finish. You got a bunch of stress

(16:33):
fractures. Oh my goodness.
Yeah, I learned what stress fractures were.
And at the end of the day, therewas like a big party and it was
Bud Light was a sponsor. So there was beer afterwards and
everybody got together in a hotel and and they gave awards
and things like that. It's a bunch of people pretty
upset, especially if they got a bunch of beers in them yelling

(16:54):
at at the race director. And I went up to the race
director and said, I can't believe all that happened was
you lost my shoes. I don't know how you got 2000
people. You closed freeways because
again, this wasn't heard of. There just wasn't, you know,
there was the Boston Marathon wasn't like there was events,
you know, every day like there are now.
And I was blown away. And I said to him, how can I get

(17:14):
more involved in this than he literally planted the seeds like
he's put on your own race. I was like, what?
That's like, that's crazy. I don't even know what that is.
I don't know what's involved in it, but like I said, I had a
background in operations management.
I started volunteering at local events in Southern California
and designed with the help of the sheriffs in Malibu.

(17:36):
Malibu wasn't even city back then, That's how long ago it
was. Malibu's a city now.
Malibu was unincorporated. An event at Zuma Beach in
Malibu, which coincidentally wasthe first beach that I went to
when I came to California to kind of see if I really wanted
to move here from the East Coast.
I went up to Ventura, interviewed for the job, drove
back down the coast to LAX, stopped at this random beach.

(17:56):
It's this huge, very well known beach that 50,000 people a day
are at in the summer. I was here more in the spring
and it was just me and a couple surfers and I said, hey, where
am I? And they're like, you're at Zuma
Beach dude. I'm like, OK, that's cool.
I ended up, I literally live around a corner from that beach
now. So I designed an event there.
I did it with a roommate that I had who helped me put it on.

(18:18):
Took us a year to put it together.
We had 300 people in it. I lost money and my roommate who
was in real estate said this is crazy.
We worked for, you know, one time he jumped in.
It was probably about six months.
We worked for about 6 months, didn't make a cent.
He said I'm out, I'm out. I said this was the time of my
life. And then at 300 people, to this

(18:39):
day, I can picture them coming out of the ocean with smiles on
their faces. You know, had a good time
because what I did, I didn't do it to make money.
It was a hobby. It was just an extension of my
sports and my athletics. And you know, I still working on
the oil rigs and I just loved itand I just decided to do more
with it. And that turned into a very

(19:02):
successful sports marketing agency for quite a long time
with events all around the country.
Like I said, I was inspired by that Bud Light series.
We built the Malibu Triathlon into a very, very large kind of
world renowned event with celebrities and fundraising and
just came up with a lot of different ideas along the way to
make it bigger and better and more well received.

(19:24):
All built on the, you know, the original concept of good
organization. So at what point did you start
to be able to turn a profit fromthese events?
I think probably the next year we broke even.
I think it took about 3 or 4 years.
I started putting on a lot of other events.
I started helping at lifeguard competitions on weekends and you

(19:49):
know, I eventually left the oil industry and was working and
doing management in the electronics industry.
And at one point I'm trying to figure it was one of my jobs.
I had gotten laid off from a job, but I was putting on like
10 small events a year and I just, they were making money at
that point. And I just said, you know what I
mean? I use the getting laid off as an
opportunity to just take do my business full time.

(20:10):
I got a part time job like in recreation for a little while to
help pay the bills. And decided to make it into a
business. Yeah.
So practically speaking, with any event, like obviously you
have to have your revenue exceedexpenses.
That's how you make a profit. But what were some of the key
things that you realized were key and essential to make sure
that that was actually a realityfor not just breaking even, but

(20:32):
having, you know, a sustainable business model where you could.
Yeah. Again, from my, from my
operations background, just really, really good budgeting,
you know, I mean our, our revenues over time, which turned
out it was around 50% from entryfees and 50% from sponsorship.
So it was building platforms that sponsors wanted to sponsor
and, you know, large national corporations and just, you know,

(20:57):
really got really good at budgeting and sticking to
budgets. Do you think it's easier to
start and a successful event series now than it was back
then, or vice versa? No, it's much, much, much harder
because back then everything that we did was innovative.
Yeah. It was, it was brand new.
You know, we added, you know, westarted it.
We created this interesting model for triathlon here, blew

(21:22):
that out to different beaches inSouthern California and then
eventually to the East Coast as well.
We created some sister events inMiami Beach that were very, very
well received. There's a lot of fatigue from
municipalities now from having their streets closed because,
you know, expanded from this little thing where there wasn't

(21:43):
much going on to, you know, it'salmost the opposite now where
municipalities have policies against events or to minimize
the number of events, including my city here in Malibu, where
they only allow two events a year.
They'll only close their roads twice 'cause they want the
residents to be able to get around the people to be able to
come to the beaches. A lot of the sports that we

(22:06):
either started or were creative in starting, like obstacle
racing, you know, when we put onour first obstacle race and
actually Bob probably, Bob Abbott probably put on the first
one on an event called the Triple Bypass.
Yeah, he told me about that. Something that we executed for
him and that's what that helps spawn Tough Mudder and Spartan

(22:29):
Race and all the things that areout there now.
But it's just, it's like a flooded marketplace.
A lot of these people have really competed with themselves.
You know, we, we had a national obstacle racing series that was
sponsored by by Merrill that we sold to a sports marketing
agency. That unfortunately doesn't
happen anymore. Even Tough Mudder and Spartan
Race had to combine because theyjust saturated the market with

(22:52):
too many events and they had a kind of, you know, pair
everything back essentially. So now I think it's much harder
right now to do, to do somethingthat's unique and new.
And it's possible. Yeah, somebody's got to come up
with the next big idea. Yeah.
So what, in your opinion, what is the next big idea?
What's something you're working on that you're excited about?
I'm the opposite. I'm way, way, way, way, way

(23:15):
back. We're doing the event in Malibu
as a nonprofit that we're only focusing on giving back to the
local community, to the Challenge Athletes Foundation
that Bob helped found. And we're I, I don't know what
to I, I leave that to the younger folks to, to figure that
out and make it happen. So what are you working on these
days that you're excited about? What's what's new in your

(23:36):
sphere? So my biggest project is we
started in Malibu. When I say we some Malibu
residents, some key people in our community, a nonprofit
organization called the Zumba Foundation that recently won the
rights to produce the triathlon in Malibu, it's called the Zuma

(23:56):
Beach Triathlon. Our first year will be this
September. So that's my passion project.
I'm definitely kind of leading with my heart with that 100%.
We're working real closely with the Boys and Girls Club here in
Malibu to just to keep local people kind of benefiting from
the event as well as the Challenge Athletes Foundation

(24:18):
because those athletes have inspired literally hundreds of
thousands of athletes in the US and around the globe, whether
it's at the Boston finish line of the Boston Marathon, at the
finish line of Iron Man and definitely at the finish line of
the triathlon in Malibu. So that's my passion project.
That's, that's it. Actually, you know what I forgot
I have I have a small event, a little Tri Sprint triathlon we

(24:40):
do in Hermosa Beach. That's super fun that we limit
to 1000 people that sells out every year.
When is I'm just doing things that are fun, that are in my
wheelhouse, that aren't far fromhome.
Yeah, when is that small Sprint triathlon?
Hermosa Beach Triathlon is August 10th.
It's already halfway sold out. We don't even advertise it.
It's a quarter mile swim, nine mile by a 10 mile bike and a

(25:03):
three mile run. And it's just like it's for
people that want a fun way to exercise and then hang out in a
beautiful beach town in SouthernCalifornia and have brunch and
we call mimosas and Hermosa after the event and just hang
out and have a few drinks with friends and and just enjoy the
it's in August. We're very fortunate the city

(25:24):
there lets us close streets in August for a couple hours.
And it's a lot of friends and family that do it.
Local people do it. People fly in for it to meet
their kids that live in California.
And, and so that, that that's anevent we've been doing for
probably 35 years. And then this one here in my
backyard, they're trying to go far from home.

(25:46):
Yeah, I traveled a lot for a long time with events all over
the country and, and, and thankful and grateful for the
opportunity to see so many cities and bring cool concepts
to a lot of people throughout the US and actually a little bit
worldwide as well. We had some events in the UK and
in Canada, but thankful now to be able to be home and just
enjoy the environment in my local community.

(26:08):
Yeah. So talk to me a little bit about
like the local community and like what does your daily life
routine look like? Well, I don't know how much
you've seen about the fires in California and in Malibu, but
it's. Destroyed the.
Point upheaval, devastation, andit's, you know, where it's an
opportunity because the fires are out.

(26:31):
People, a lot of people have lost their homes.
Thousands and thousands of people actually went through.
I hate to call it this, but it almost looks like a war zone in
Malibu and the Palisades last night with a friend.
And it's helping people have hope and a vision for the future
because it's going to be years before they rebuild.

(26:52):
Most people now are settled, butwe are raising our boys and
Girls Club in Malibu actually has a fire Relief Fund that you
know, funds less fortunate people.
That's some people have lost bighouses and they have insurance
and they'll be fine. But a lot of people lost work
and lost jobs that rely on thosepeople.
So we're raising money for them and we're matching the first

(27:14):
$10,000 of any donations anybodymakes.
And then we're helping people that lost their home.
So we have a whole wildfire recovery program where you get a
free entry into the event. You get free access to our
triathlon training programs all summer long.
We actually got, I think we got nine people bicycles last week
because they lost everything they owned.

(27:34):
And it's everything from seasoned triathletes that lost
their home that have been doing the triathlon in Malibu for a
very, very long time to people that have never done a triathlon
before that just sort of wanted something to look forward to
that we met through this processand through the some of the
social media marketing that we did that we're trying to help
them and give them hope and something to look forward to.

(27:54):
Because until you see it first hand, you see things on the
news. And it's probably out of the
national news now, I would think.
But obviously it's very prevalent in the local news.
Our highway's not even open and won't be open for another month.
So it'll be 6 months to one of the biggest arteries in Southern
California has been closed, Pacific Coast Highway, and

(28:14):
they're only going to open up one lane.
But we're going to celebrate that.
We're going to celebrate the opening of PCH and hopefully get
people out here to help the businesses recover and get
people to train and enjoy our beautiful coastline and our bike
riding and our trails and give them, you know, I mean, exercise

(28:35):
is an incredible way to deal with stress and give them an
outlet. So that's kind of what I'm
focused on is just trying to help as many people as possible.
Yeah, that's awesome for you personally, were you there and
around whenever the fires were raging through?
Yeah, So unfortunately, fires come through here, I wouldn't
say often, but relatively frequently, more frequently than
any of us would like. So there was a fire in 2018 that

(28:58):
was called the Wolsey Fire that came through, literally came
through our neighborhood. My next door neighbor's house
burned down. Mine didn't.
I think we lost 30 or 40 houses in our neighborhood.
I've seen it first hand. We were locked out of our
neighborhood for about 3 weeks, you know, until they just got
everything out and felt that everything was safe.
Like I said, fortunately, I haven't personally, you know,

(29:20):
lost it. I lost a couple trees.
That was about it. The fire literally burned down
in my backyard. So we've seen it.
And then this latest fire, whichwas just a few months ago, it
was one in December that was closer to our home.
And then there was the big one in January that went came
through the the Palisades and actually through Pasadena and

(29:40):
through Malibu that yeah, I mean, we have friends that have
been affected. We have businesses that have
been affected. Businesses are closing in Malibu
because they don't have customers and we're trying to do
everything we can to help. Did you lose any people that you
knew from the fires? In terms of.
Like, actually their lives. Oh, no, I don't know.
No, I mean, there were people that died.

(30:02):
I do not know anybody that died.Yeah.
That's fortunate. Yeah, it's crazy seeing that
stuff. I haven't really experienced
that side of the, I mean, just being out here since October,
there was like 1 fire, a little fire, I guess that happened up
here in Northern California whenwe moved here, but nothing close
by. But then after seeing all that
stuff in Southern California, it's like, wow, that's, that's
some serious stuff. I know they had the 2018 a fire

(30:24):
that came through here and wipedout.
I mean, the whole place really up to like a certain place South
of Mount Shasta. It looks like it's just
completely wiped off the map. It's just wild how those fires
can rage through so fast and take so much and just everything
in their path. That's a scary thing.
Yep. Absolutely.
Yeah. So let me ask you this question

(30:47):
with the concept like we touchedon a little bit, you leading
with your heart and you're very passionate individual.
Given those character traits, would you say that those were
inherited some by your parents? Oh, that's a good question.
Yeah, Yeah, I know for sure my dad was extremely passionate.
My family is. Yeah, absolutely.

(31:07):
Yeah, who are you? More like your mom or your dad.
I'm a combination of both. Yeah, what's the split?
What are the character traits that you have you have decided
to take on and? I haven't really given that a
whole lot of thought. So I, I think I mean, and I
think everybody is right. I, I couldn't say I'm more like
1 or the other. I'm probably more like my dad.

(31:28):
Yeah, yeah. Organization.
Is that him? Is he Mr. Organized?
Was he an entrepreneur as well? Passion, passion and an A
lifelong entrepreneur. He was, yeah.
What was it like growing up in an entrepreneur's household?
Stressful stickers, ups and downs.
You know, in business, sometimesyou make money, sometimes you
lose money. So we don't always have a lot of

(31:49):
money. Yeah.
Tell me a little bit more about that, if you don't mind me
asking. I like hearing the the origin
stories because obviously it it left enough of an impact on you
to where you decided to venture out and try those things where
passion LED. Most of my family was
entrepreneurs, so we just come from, I mean, I didn't start out
to be an entrepreneur right now.I went to college and was
working for companies I just didn't like.

(32:10):
So I mean, a lot of it was myself, right?
I just didn't enjoy not having abig bigger role in the decision
making process. I wasn't a great employee, you
know, because I would see a different way to do it and not
necessarily agree with people that didn't agree with my
vision. So it made more sense for me to

(32:31):
work on my own and, and call my own shots and, and, you know,
have enjoy the rewards, but also, you know, pay the, the
consequences when things don't go well or when decisions, you
know, you don't always make great decisions.
You learn from them and try to apply them to your next
decision. But you know, we've had events
that have failed. We've had things that haven't

(32:51):
gone well and that's what we learned from and build and and I
think I enjoyed the building process, the creation process
and things like that. Yeah.
So in the context of leadership,what are some of the lessons
that you learned through your failures that you've carried on
to help, continue to guide and just adequately and sufficiently
lead? Yeah, I mean, I spent a lot of

(33:13):
time mentoring Young have almost, I start say students,
but like employees. So, you know, we would hire a
lot of people out of college andI feel like we did a really good
job of setting people up for success in their next grade.
I mean, we're a small company and we never have more than 10
employees. So at some point, you know,

(33:34):
people are going to move on and do something else.
And, and we knew that and built that into our systems.
But I mean, our biggest thing was what we tried to teach
people. And then what I learned myself
is it, you know, challenges, problems are just obstacles and
opportunities to learn and to overcome.
And not everybody looks at things otherwise.
Some people have a problem or challenge whether to work and

(33:57):
life and dissolve the set back and they, they, they, they melt
and don't do well. I mean, the challenge athletes
Foundation and the people that they attract is a great example
of people that don't let life's obstacles get them down, you
know, and that make the most outof the opportunities that

(34:18):
they're handed. And that's, you know, as a
leader, as you know, I think I had to make sure I exemplified
that myself so that when we had mistakes or failures that we
didn't overreact and just use them as, you know, OK to analyze
them. What went right, what went
wrong? What are the lessons that we can
learn here? And what, how do we apply them?
So number one, we don't make thesame mistake again.

(34:39):
If it was a mistake, there was aa decision that wasn't made well
or wasn't made with careful thought or different things that
they know allowed for an outcomethat wasn't what we wanted.
Is is to just see it as that, that obstacles are just that
there's something that you can overcome.
There's a way around them. You can go over them, you can go

(35:01):
under them. You can figure out what it is
that's going to get you past that obstacle to achieve your
goal. Yeah.
What are or what is a failure that you are particularly
thankful for? Well, I'm thankful for all of
them. I mean, whether it's events that
we've lost, events that haven't gone well, you know, I mean, in

(35:24):
the business world, you know, I mean, there's I've, I've, you
know, I remember launching and it's one really, really good
example. You know, it was, you know, I
mentioned that Bob kind of kind of helped start, he realized,
helped start a sport called adventure racing, which is still
out there in the world. It's it's, I think it's bigger
in Europe. It was big in the US for a long

(35:45):
time. It's growing.
We had a big national televised series of it that led to this
sport that's now called obstacleracing.
And but when we first kind of dabbled in it, where the roots
come from a couple different places, one and one was kind of
what me and Bob did. Another one was a mud run at

(36:05):
Camp Pendleton. That was, you know, a military
obstacle course that, you know, thousands and thousands of
people did. There was a one off that was
just once a year at Camp Pendleton.
And we we looked at it for a while and said, this is cool.
And, you know, maybe we should do it.
Maybe we shouldn't or try to create our own.
And, you know, at Camp Hamilton,it's a real military base.

(36:26):
So it was legitimate, you know, and we're like, well, how do we
manufacture this at, at different, you know, places
throughout the US? And we kind of hesitated, didn't
do it. And then, you know, I think
after four or five years of looking at it was like, you know
what, we should do this. And, you know, I told you we're
really good at budgeting. I think we planned for, you
know, a few thousand people to start out, which is relatively

(36:49):
small. But when we first launched, we
were nowhere near that. You know, we were looking at
losing a significant amount of money and we just circled the
wagons, got our teams together. We looked at our marketing and
looked at how we can get this messaging out to convince people
that have never done this. The sport didn't exist.

(37:09):
We literally created a sport outof thin air.
And you know, the first few events didn't go well.
Our first adventure race, the first adventure race I did, I
think we had 100 people in it and we needed thousands to make
money. And it was televised.
But thank goodness those 100 people made a great television

(37:31):
show that was on ESPN that caught on and this little event
that was actually in Pittsburgh,PA and bounced around a little
bit. But I mean, that could have been
viewed as a failure. You know, we, we wanted, you
know, 1000 people. We got 100.
Well, those 100 people created asport that eventually we did 15

(37:52):
events a year at different lengths and different distances.
We had 24 hour long adventure races.
We had rock climbing, we had rappelling, we had Sprint
adventure races. We were doing 15 television
shows a year on them. And national sponsors and
worldwide sponsors from shoe companies to tequila brands.

(38:14):
So, you know, it just, it started out as a failure and it
turned into a major, major success that we eventually sold
to Octagon Marketing. Yeah.
Were you when you sold it, were you happy?
It was a process, I would say, in terms of the sale, and I've
sold multiple events to multiplecompanies, but that was the
first one I sold that I used to call my MBA.

(38:38):
So I never went to grad school. I.
Always wanted to. And again, like, am I happy with
it? Yeah.
The what I learned in that process was amazing.
You know, would I have done it differently?
No. Didn't work out the way I
expected to. Absolutely not.
Within a year, I was no longer part of the event that I sold.

(39:00):
The plan was to help Octagon build.
I don't know if you know what Octagon is, but they're.
Marketing. Large worldwide sports marketing
agency. They do golf, they do tennis,
they do NASCAR, and they were trying to build an outdoor and
adventure division. And I lasted a year there, you
know, and then I just didn't getalong.

(39:22):
I didn't like the way they were doing things.
And we agreed to disagree. And then we probably spent a
year making the contracts to putthe sale together and executed
for about a year and probably another three or four months to
undo the contracts that we spenta year doing.
And you know, they ended up owning the events outright.

(39:44):
We were partners. I ended up actually ironically I
bought, I had sold them the Triathlon and Malibu as well.
I bought it back from them and Ihad to rebuild my business from
scratch. That had 10 employees and 25
events at the time to where I started off with one event.
And rebuilt it. But yeah, I mean, I, I don't

(40:04):
consider that a failure. I mean, it was, it definitely
didn't work out as planned. And it was a incredible learning
opportunity in which there's no way other way I would have
learned it without those things not working out.
Yeah. Can you dive into a little bit
more about just, I don't know ifcontroversy is the right way,
but to describe it, but with thethe sale of I guess it was

(40:25):
Malibu Triathlon was was that toOctagon And there was like some
press that came out around that.I saw it come through in flurry,
but I've never dove in deep. Well, you're talking about
recently, so that's completely different.
So what I sold the I sold the Malibu triathlon and it was
called the high tech adventure racing series and the balance
bar 24 hour adventure racing to Octagon marketing.

(40:48):
This is back in I think around 2000 and seven, 2008, I forget.
It was a while ago. And then I bought the Malibu
Triathlon back from them. What you're talking about is a
lot different. What you're talking about was
recently. With supertray or something.
Well, no. So I had partnered.

(41:08):
I didn't really sell. I had partnered again with the
lessons that I learned instead of selling.
So the Malibu Triathlon is something I was incredibly
passionate about that unlike, you know, some of these other
events I did not want to depart from.
I was actually looking for a wayto get out of some of the day
today and work on the fundraising more.

(41:29):
I was raising a lot of money forChildren's Hospital Los Angeles
at the time, over $1,000,000 a year.
And but I was still doing a lot of the day-to-day stuff.
And like I said, I was getting tired of traveling and doing
events around the country. So I sold off all our national
events outright, stepped out of them again, learned from that
and just did clean contracts andgot out.
Yeah, kept the triathlon here and had a lot of people offered

(41:52):
me to buy it out because at thatpoint people were trying to buy
triathlons large, you know, venture capital companies were
scooping up events, Ironman was scooping up events.
And I turned down offer after offer after offer and partnered
with a company called Motive where I retained ownership.
Again, learning from. What I previously.
Passed SO and I got to run the events with the way I wanted to

(42:18):
run them with incredible resources.
So I didn't have to worry about accounting anymore.
I didn't have to worry about marketing anymore.
I didn't have to worry about legal anymore.
And I just did what I was reallygood at and we expanded the
fundraising side of it exponentially.
And unfortunately that company, which was an investment firm out

(42:43):
of Denver, was buying events allover the world.
They basically the guy that headed it up wasn't happy with
his return on his investment anddecided to divest himself.
When he divested himself, he hadthe right to sell our events and
basically had the rights to buy me out.
So they bought me out and that Ididn't have control over that's

(43:06):
they sold the triathlon in Malibu to a company called at
the time was called Super League.
And I didn't agree with the direction of Super League and
what they were going to do with the event, you know, so I
stepped aside. I resigned.
So I actually had an employment contract that Super League had

(43:28):
to pick up was part of this. I resigned, bought a sailboat,
sailed around the world for two years and it was amazing.
So again, like not a mistake you.
Know solitude. No, with my girlfriend.
No. We bought a, we bought a big
boat. It was incredible.
Lived in Europe, across the Atlantic.
So I had a new passion project. I hadn't been sailing.

(43:48):
I learned how to taught myself how to sail, or we taught
ourselves how to sail and spent 19 days at sea crossing the
Atlantic. And then I wasn't here, but I
don't know what. Something happened between Super
League and the city of Malibu, where the city of Malibu decided
to put the rights to the event out to bid.

(44:09):
So we started a nonprofit organization, put a bid together
of something that was less impactful on the community
because I have a good feel for what's going on in the community
because I live in it. And we did something.
We put up a bid together where there was less traffic impact
and more benefit to the local community.
We won the bid and here we are putting it on again.

(44:31):
Nice. Are you happy with that, how
that all went, or just neither here nor there?
This was arduous, but you know, nothing that's worthwhile isn't.
You know, there was a lot of, let's say, not the most accurate
reporting in some of the media, but the media's small.
I mean, it's like the the triathlon press in the big

(44:56):
scheme of things is read by a very select group of people.
Probably it would have been niceif some of the reporting was
more accurate than it was, but it all worked out in the end.
Yeah, well, let's touch on that footnote, which really isn't a
footnote. Sailing around the world for two
years, 19 days, crossing the Atlantic, like these are in

(45:21):
their own respects, arduous activities, I would imagine.
What kind of lessons did you learn from sailing and crossing
the Atlantic and those types of things?
Yeah, You know what we realize we talk about it a lot.
So it's like a lot of things when you're in, you know, you
asked me like, you know, can youwatch events again?
When we were launching events, you know, we were full speed
ahead and it was just we're in azone.

(45:42):
And, you know, in hindsight, I don't think I realized how hard
I was working at the time. It was really, really, really
hard. And it wasn't, it wasn't really
easy to do. And I'm sure anybody that had
the same amount of work ethic that I had and our employees and
our team had at the time could be successful again today.
We realized when we stepped awayfrom sailing and we'll get back

(46:04):
into it. But we're, you know, we're
taking a couple years off and, and building the zoom of each
triathlon out. And as soon as we get that built
back out again, we'll probably step back into our sailing, our
sailing hats in the offseason. It's kind of like the overall
plan, but we realized when we stepped out of it, like like in
business, we were in a zone. There's a lot we didn't realize
how much there was to it in terms of, you know, we lived on

(46:26):
the boat full time. So we live mainly in anchor.
So finding the next anchorage, finding a place where the
weather was safe, figuring out what to do when the weather
wasn't safe or when the forecasts were wrong or when
they were right and we should have this horrendous weather
coming. And I was talking to Maria, my
partner the other day were just like, wow, like we really.

(46:49):
And I said, I don't know if I can get back in that zone again,
You know, I mean, she's like, sure, we can, you know, but
there's a it's hard to just explain within words what it
because you, you'd look on thesesailing channels, it looks all
glamorous and it's and it was glamorous.
I mean, we're eating whitefish and drinking wine in the
Mediterranean the majority of the time.
It's it's the 20% of the time orthe 15% of the time when things

(47:12):
aren't going well, an anchor slips and you crash into another
boat. Oh, that's.
Happening an engine breaks, yourbattery stop working and you
have no power. Crossing the Atlantic, we had a
sail. We had the sail RIP, you know,
1000 miles offshore. We had figure out how to repair

(47:33):
it. We had.
How did you repair it? In the we had a kit.
We had a kit, kit. I'm like I'm.
Just I had a guy with me that knew how to sew, thank God.
And no, take it down. You take it down.
OK, figure it out, use a different sail.
And we had in our heaviest windsand the most in the biggest
seas, of course, the furthest offshore.

(47:53):
One of our sales guys, that's actually the worst thing.
It's when you can take a sale down, that's fine because then
you can just figure things out. But we had a sale get stuck out
in the heaviest winds that we needed to take down that we
couldn't take down because something broke that wouldn't
allow it to come down. Oh my goodness, that.
Was crazy. You know, that was, you know,
like 2 days of trying to figure it out.
You know, like I said, it's an obstacle's an opportunity.

(48:15):
Endurance race. You know, it actually the device
that, you know, kind of reefs the sale or brings the sale down
broke at night in heavy seas. So we couldn't really figure out
when the sun came up. A bunch of us put our heads
together, figured it out, fixed it and, you know, kind of moved
on with our lives. But it was, you know, I think
there was 24 to 36 hours that were pretty hairy.

(48:38):
I can imagine you. Know we've had to hide from
storms and, you know, find safe haven to hide from storms.
And, you know, it was for two ofus.
It was a lot, you know. But the by far, the benefits
outweighed the challenges. Sure.
Yeah. I think that can be said for any
great arduous process, 100%. I mean, I'm, I'm over here being

(49:01):
a little more romantic now. I'm like picturing you and your
girlfriend sailing across the sea dodging storms and you get
there, like, eat your fish and your wine.
Like, that's got to be quite theexperience.
But you said something about, you know, your girlfriend was
saying or maybe you were saying,can we get back in that zone
again? What does it take for you to get
into the zone? I mean, it's for, I mean,

(49:23):
especially to go from life on land to life at sea.
I mean, in general is one thing.This specific example, it's a
huge shift. It's it's a completely
different. And again, we lived on the boat
full time. It's not like we have a boat in
Marina del Rey where we're goingout for a day sale.
That's easy. It's a completely different

(49:43):
lifestyle and mindset. It's an amazing lifestyle.
It's an amazing community of people that help each other out,
that have each other's backs that are you all unique in their
own ways from all walks of life.But it's it's, it's a shift that
when we do decide to do it againand the opportunity presents
itself that we're going to have to make.
I mean it's everything from getting along as a couple,

(50:05):
especially when there's an obstacle whenever going out.
Going into land one day and going to a really, really nice
dinner. Beautiful calm day.
We took our little dinghy in, went to a dock at a five star
hotel, had an incredible dinner,met a nice couple, hung out with
them all night. We come back and then wind pick

(50:26):
up that we wasn't in the forecast.
It was almost dangerous to get back to the boat in the dark.
And it was hard to get back on the boat because of the wind
kicked up the waves, which kicked up the seas and our
anchor line broke. Well, we weren't fortunately
broke when we got back on the boat, but now here we are.
It's late at night and we had tofigure out how to fix our anchor

(50:48):
line in heavy winds, you know, at 11:00 at night, which it was
the last thing that we thought of.
And Speaking of being in the zone, it's like like you don't
have to do that. Like that doesn't happen you.
Know houses and the. Fires as bad as they were, we
knew they were coming. You know, it's just like if you
had to evacuate, you get a warning.
You know, this is more like an earthquake hitting.

(51:11):
It's a bad example. But where it was just like, no,
like there was no planning for this.
We just I'm like, hey, get a flashlight, get a life jacket
on. We got to figure this out, you
know, and for to that particularproblem we fixed in probably
about 45 minutes or so. But it's being in the zone to be
able to make that shift that quick and make quick decisions
that they're not necessarily life or death, but they're

(51:34):
important decisions that you do not have to make on land.
Like, you know, it's, it's not like forgetting to put your turn
signal on at a traffic light. It's you're in the ocean, it's
dark, you're on a strange islandin the Caribbean, you know,
probably a different currency, maybe a different language.
And you become very, very self reliant that you don't have to

(51:57):
do in day-to-day life. Wow, what an experience.
That's quite neat. Maybe next time you you do this,
you should have somebody come and do a little vlog series.
It'd be interesting. Probably sell it to, I don't
know, TLC or something, Animal Planet or Discovery Channel, who
knows. It sounds like quite the.
Adventure. I'm writing a book, but the
book's for my mom. It's not to be published.
Oh, it's for your mom? I'm writing a book on the

(52:21):
experience. It was amazing.
Yeah, but you said for your mom,actually.
Like that's the, that's the focus.
I think she's going to be the audience.
It's I, it's not. I don't think it's going to go
past my family. I think it's my point.
Yeah, what, what, what inspired you to write the experience?
Just to write it in stone to notforget the memory for some I.

(52:41):
Had enough people. We like a lot of people in
sailing. We had an, you know, an
Instagram. I started to say channel but
whatever. Instagram.
It's basically an account. For the for the sailing, it was
again was just for family. We weren't trying to get
followers or anything like that.But you know, a lot of people

(53:01):
like the posts that I wrote, so I would get caught, you know,
comments from my friends like, hey, you're a really good
writer, you should try this writing thing.
So I started writing a book on it.
That's awesome. So where are you at in the book
right now? What, what, what like.
I'm only like, I'm only like chapter 5.
So we're I, I did a lot of background on how we got the

(53:21):
bone and where we got. Actually my mom, she's
sweetheart. She took all my Instagram posts,
printed them out and made a bookout of them so we got a great
reference point. I have to go back.
Like it's like a great, like a, like a log essentially of the
trip that I'm using to write longer stories from of just kind
of what we experienced. So we're we're just, we're just
getting ready to take off from by and we bought a brand new

(53:43):
boat. We had an outfit.
We had to learn all the things that you need and don't need.
And so we're getting to that point.
I'll have to link and you have to tell me what the Instagram
is. That'll be fun for people to
probably check out because I'm I'm curious.
I know other people would be. It's the boat was called
Harmony, so it's SV dot Harmony.SV dot harmony.
Yeah, I mean, we haven't posted it for years, but it's still

(54:03):
there. Yeah, that's great.
I'll check it out. So let me ask you this question
with the experience that you hadhere, there's you've gone
through, I guess quite a number of different seasons in life
from working in corporate America to running these events
to going sailing, not kind of back into the corporate world.

(54:27):
Given all of these experiences, what would you say is the most
important thing that you've everdone in your life?
Most important, having a child. Yeah, tell me about that.
I. Mean it's, it's not just me, I
think it's anybody that's had a family.
It's just the responsibility of,you know, raising a family I

(54:50):
think is above all. So I'm going to hopefully be a
father in the next year or two. We're not pregnant yet, but but
when once that happens, like I'mgreat looking forward to it.
Just life circumstances have steered us in this direction.
Been married eight years or almost eight years, but what
kind of, I don't know, advice orexperience would you share about

(55:14):
what it means to be a father, tobe a good father?
I started to say it's, it's no different than being a good.
I mean, it's, it's, it's the ultimate leadership test, right?
I mean, you're, you're, you're not leading a business, you're,
you're not leading finances. You're, you're hopefully giving

(55:36):
somebody the opportunity to create a great life for
themselves. So you want to give them the
experiences and the lessons and the discipline to become their
own person that hopefully has a positive impact on the world.
Yeah. How many children do you have?
Just one. Just one.
Yeah, but just one. One can change the future,

(55:57):
change the course of history. One can do a lot.
Right. Yeah, how old is your kid?
He's 29. OK, so we're about the same age.
I'm just a little bit older. What's he doing?
I lived in San Francisco. He works in tech skis.
He's got a great kind of outdoorlife, great set of friends.

(56:18):
He went to school up there and he went to Berkeley.
So he's up. Yeah, by his buddies.
We see him a couple times a month.
Either way, he comes up there, Igo, or he when I go up there, he
comes down there. Yeah.
I just went to Philly with me tosee my mom.
Oh cool, that's awesome. So for me, I know it was
probably around the age of 2122 when I was able to actually look

(56:42):
at my mother and father and see them as humans rather than just
parents. Because it's interesting, we go
through this phase where every when we're young, even though we
don't agree with our parents, they kind of are on this
pinnacle of well, they know whatto do.
They are the be all end all has your and then you, then you move
into that segment of life where like you're able to see them and

(57:02):
humanize them a bit. Do you think that your son has
moved through that segment of life and where he is now at the
place when he can like really connect with you as like man to
man, human to human, not just father to son?
We've always had a really great,strong relationship.
I couldn't tell you how he'd useit.

(57:24):
I haven't asked him. I'm happy.
I'm just happy with our relationship.
And you know, it's sometimes it's father, son, sometimes it's
human to human. It's, it's, it's just, you know,
we still take vacations togetherwhen it makes sense.
So I'm not sure how he'd use it.I don't know, maybe we have to
have him on and ask. Him have to ask him.

(57:45):
Yeah. So just a couple more questions
for you. At this point in your life, I
don't know how many years young you are, but I would assume that
your mindset now is settling more around the things that you
want to do. And so you're doing them and
you're thinking probably about, you know, what your legacy or
the mark that you are leaving behind, what you want that to

(58:07):
be? What do you want to be
remembered for? What is Michael Epstein's
legacy? You know what I've learned as
you get older, quite honestly, like I'm not trying to create a
legacy. I'm just not, I mean, you, my
thought process on that is that whether it's a year from now or

(58:29):
50 years from now or 100 years from now, the, the world
evolves, you know, so I'm just trying to be a good person and
hopefully my son will be a good person who will create more good
people. But I, I, I'm not, you know,
looking for, you know, like thiswas my mark in the world that I,

(58:50):
I, the things I do, I do 'cause I want to do them.
You know, I'm very proud of whatI've done and what I've
accomplished. I'm not worried about how other
people view it. Yeah, well, what do you want to
do in the next 10 years? Like, what are you, what are you
aiming for? Just to have a good time?
Is that it or is there anything more?
No, no, no. No, I mean, we're like I said,
we're, I mean I've been very, it's very specific.
And I'm, I'm building this triathlon at Zuma Beach as a, as

(59:15):
a new kind of rebirth that is going to create hopefully a lot
of funding for a lot of great organizations, both the local
community here. And like I said, the challenge
athletes foundation, Bob's organization that we partner,
that we partner with. And it's not necessarily I want

(59:37):
to create a legacy with that, but I want to create, I want to
put that in a place where I can step away from it and feel
comfortable that, you know, it'slike I said, it's a nonprofit
foundation that we've started the long term plan with the
nonprofit is to make it big enough that it can sustain
itself. And, you know, I can hire, I'm,
quote UN quote, the executive director right now.

(59:59):
And that's not my long term plan.
You know, I, I would hope in thenext 5 or 6 years I'm able to
step away. And I wouldn't call it creating
a legacy, but I'll be creating this project that continues to
thrive long past when I'm here. I'm going to done it for 40
years. So it's got a, it's got a good
start, you know. But to put systems in place that

(01:00:24):
this thing can continue whether I'm around or not.
Well, I think whether you like it or not, you're probably going
to end up leaving a legacy in the name of this organization
and all the ones that you've touched in the past.
So I guess however you want to take that.
Thank you. Yeah.
So what final question then You have done, like I said, many
different things. You've experienced lots of

(01:00:45):
seasons of life, a successful father going through
organizationally pretty sound. How has your definition for just
personal success and fulfillmentchanged from when you first
started? I mean, it's, it's changed
significantly. It's a really great question.
I mean, I think it, I had different measuring sticks along
the way. They were financial at some

(01:01:09):
point, you know, I was getting ahouse and I was paying off a
house and I was getting more houses.
And, you know, it was a lot of material things for a long time,
the material things, especially after living on a sailboat.
One thing was cool about the sailboat is it taught us how to
live with nothing. And I don't say nothing.
I mean, it was a luxurious, beautiful boat.

(01:01:31):
Yeah. But you know, I have closets
full of clothes at home. And the sailboat, you don't have
room for all that stuff. So, you know, you have a handful
of clothes like, oh, you. Know what I can't survive?
We're we're fine with a pair of shorts and AT shirt or you know,
3T shirts and three pairs of shirts.
So taught us a lot, even though we lived on, you know, a very
beautiful and comfortable vessel.

(01:01:53):
It taught, it taught us to live a lot more minimally.
So, you know, success was, was measured by finances at a point,
it was measured by vacations. And it's not measured by any of
that anymore. I mean, success for me now.
And I think anybody that gets older.
So I'll, I'll be 65 in June. You know, I think this is

(01:02:16):
probably every, I don't think it's me.
It says everybody's hoped to getto a place where success is, is
being calm. Success is peace.
Success is not worrying about the next measuring stick the
neck. I mean, if anything, you know,
and everybody gets to this point, instead of buying bigger
houses, I'm going to try to buy smaller houses and have less to
worry about and just spend more time with friends and more time,

(01:02:39):
you know, enriching other people's lives and my own life.
You know, I mean, whether it's with hobbies or other ways to
give back and, and just enjoy the people and this amazing
world that, you know, we're, we're allowed to participate in
for as long as we can. Yeah, for sure.
A lot of deep things you said there for the contentment, peace

(01:03:01):
and the peace. Like to find peace, to find that
place when you can step back andno matter what's going on in
that externally, you can have that internal calm.
Where do you go to find that? Like, is there like if something
stressful is coming about you and you maybe go to a specific
headspace or a thought or a prayer or maybe it's tapping

(01:03:22):
into a higher power, What do youdo to kind of settle the
internal to be calm? I mean, it's not fortunately, I
mean, it's not really, you know,I've gotten to a place in life
where it's not really a struggle.
I mean, it's, it's I, I've achieved what I want to achieve
financially, I've achieved what I want to achieve with family.

(01:03:44):
So I'm not looking for to conquer anything.
And I think once you get to thatpoint, whether you do it at 20
or 30 or 90, it's a lot easier to live a peaceful and
satisfying life. So it's, you can just get to a
point where you learn not, you know, don't sweat the small
stuff. And it's all small stuff, you

(01:04:04):
know. Yeah.
Well, final question, is there any question that you wish I
would have asked you so far? No, you've done a great job.
Very, very thoughtful and insightful questions.
I appreciate you taking the timeto ask them and it's really been
a pleasure chatting with you andgetting to know you.
You as well, Michael, thank you so much for taking the time and

(01:04:26):
sharing a bit about your life. If there's ever an extra seat on
the sailboat, I want to come trythis.
Very dear will be, we love having guests.
Yeah, good deal. Awesome.
Well, thank you so much for yourtime.
I appreciate it. Awesome.
Thank you. Take care.
Thank you so much to Michael forcoming on the pod letting me
dive into his life, talk about family, friends, sailing,

(01:04:46):
everything entrepreneurial, triathlon.
I really enjoy the time has instilled in me that
conversation a desire to go try out sailing, although I will
admit open water kind of frightens me a bit so I don't
know how I would do in that situation, but it does sound
intriguing. If you want to check out the
triathlons he was talking about I will link them in the show
notes, the Hermos speech Tri andthe Zuma Beach Malawi Tri.

(01:05:10):
Make sure to go check out those if you are looking for a cool
race to jump into yeah. If you met this point, the
podcast though, thank you so much.
Check out the show notes for anylinks and stuff that you can
check out there for sign up for the newsletter and whatnot.
If you could like comment, subscribe if you're on YouTube
and if you are listening on any of the podcast platforms, if you
could also like review, subscribe any all things you can

(01:05:32):
do on those platforms continue to help grow the pod.
Really appreciate you guys for being here.
We'll talk to you in the next 1.See ya.