August 29, 2025 • 38 mins
I had the chance to talk with Francis X. Suarez, the 43rd Mayor of Miami, about how his "open-for-business" leadership transformed the city into a global tech and finance hub. We unpack Miami’s “quantum opportunity,” the practical growing pains—housing, schools, transit—and the civic strategy behind international diplomacy and major sports deals. We also explore his run as President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors and his reflections on leadership, resilience, and embracing failure.
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Episode Transcript
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We've had this incredible influx of migrationfrom high tax states like New York, Bezos, Carl
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Icahn, Ken Griffin.
How do you build on this momentum?
You have to take advantage of the quantumopportunities.
When you think about how we took this quantumleap, there were four major factors that
conspired to come together.
We were open while other cities were closed.
Remote work.
We're doing a podcast remotely.
Right?
So this phenomenon of remote work certainlybenefited Miami.
Obviously, tax policy, federal tax policy,which was a soft deduction going away, favored
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Miami.
You know, our attitude was pro growth, probusiness.
What's the next one?
I didn't know what it was gonna be, and that'snow becoming very evident to me what it's gonna
be.
Reflecting back on your seven and a half yearsas mayor, what accomplishments are you most
proud of?
I can point to projects or specific wins likebringing an MLOS team to Miami, right?
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And building an unsubsidized stadium that'sgoing to generate billions of dollars in
revenue and now has some of the best soccerplayers in the world in Leo Messi, Jordi Alba,
Bousquet, and others.
Or I can talk about the ecosystem of Miamiafter the how can I help moment where we
created an ecosystem where we attractedcompanies that managed $12,000,000,000,000 in
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assets coming to our you know to our ecosystemwhere we have the lowest unemployment in
America, where we have the highest wage growthin America, where we have the lowest homeless
rate in eleven years?
It was never about putting numbers on a board,right?
It was always about the humans, the humanbeings, the citizens, your city, the image of
your city, and how it affects each oneintimately that you really cared about.
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And so it was never really about specificthings.
It was really more about about doing a good joband working hard.
You've had this incredible influx of migrationfrom high-tech states like New York, and you
mentioned Bezos, also Carl Icahn, Ken Griffinfamously moved from from Illinois.
You've gotten this very elite part of thenetwork.
(02:04):
How do you build on this momentum and get thenext tier?
Maybe not the deck of billionaires, maybe noteven the billionaires, but either the
entrepreneurs that have had a couple ofsuccesses or maybe even just getting started in
their twenties and thirties.
You have to take advantage of the macroopportunities, right, Or the quantum
opportunities, right?
What are those?
When you think about how we took this quantumleap since February, right?
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There were three or four major factors thatconspired to come together, but we took
advantage of them.
What were the major factors?
COVID, right.
We were relatively open while other cities wererelatively closed.
Remote work.
You know you could come and be in a place likethis right behind me.
And what we're doing right now is remote,right.
We're doing a podcast remotely, right?
(02:48):
So this phenomenon of remote work certainlybenefited Miami.
And I think obviously tax policy, we talkedabout tax policy, right?
The federal tax policy which was the softdeduction going away significantly favored
Miami.
And then I think the fourth thing was attitude.
You know our attitude was pro growth, probusiness.
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While other cities like New York famouslyrejected Amazon after winning the HQ2 prize.
California famously told Elon Musk f off and hesaid message received and left.
Right?
So our attitude was you want to move SiliconValley to Miami?
How can we help?
Right?
We had the completely different attitude.
So that was one major macro moment, one majorquantum opportunity that we took full advantage
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of.
What's the next one?
And I didn't know what it was going to be.
And that's now becoming very evident to me whatit's going to be.
It's going to be on November 4 and that is theelection in New York.
That will be our next quantum opportunity.
If New York elects a socialist, communistsocialist, whatever you want to call it,
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government is a solver of all problemspolitician, it will become another massive
opportunity for Miami.
One, for people from the Jewish community whofeel that the incoming potential mayor is
antagonistic to the Jewish community or hasmade statements that are antagonistic to the
Jewish community.
Miami is the safest place on the planet forJews to live and the most welcoming.
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And we embrace that.
We love that.
We will continue to shoot it shout it from themountaintop, right?
So for us that's a competitive advantage forus.
And secondly, if you're going to continue to goin the opposite direction and tax the wealthy,
right, and continue to burden people with moretaxes, people are just going to be fed up and
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they're going to say that's it.
If you happen to be in both those categories,wealthy and Jewish, I mean it's like there's
going to be a massive you know there's like aVenn diagram overlap there.
And you know I think so I think whoever becomesthe next mayor of Miami, because this will
literally happen as I'm evolving out, Reallyand I'm going to do it right between now and
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the election right.
I'm going to certainly do it.
But whoever becomes the next mayor needs topick up the baton and really run with it.
And that's how I'm 47, I'll be 48 in October.
That's how Miami will have another decade ofrunway and success, right?
And so I firmly believe that.
I believe that cities at some level arecompetition for talent and capital, right?
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We want to be what we call the capital ofcapital And that's human capital and actual
capital, right?
Money, financial capital.
So that we can build companies and scalecompanies.
Right?
That's how you do it.
So we think we can do that in this generation.
But without without a doubt, you have to beintentional.
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You have to put your foot down on theaccelerator when the opportunity presents
itself.
And I think this November will be one of thosemoments.
A lot of people say I'd love to move to Miamibut, insert the reason, these are kind of the
bottlenecks for your next quantum leap thatwould maybe keep you from there.
What are some of those bottlenecks?
What are you doing to address them?
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I'm gonna answer this question in two ways,because I wanna I wanna talk about something
that's slightly different but but related.
So let's talk first about the question as youasked it, right, which is someone who wants to
move to Miami.
What is the bottleneck that they will oftenarticulate?
Almost universally that bottleneck,particularly if they're coming from wealthy
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areas of the country, is educationalopportunities, schools, right?
I can't get my kid in to name the school.
There's just a capacity issue.
There's too much demand and not enoughcapacity.
So that's something we're going to have to dealwith in the short run.
I've done all kinds of things from the zoningperspective in the city to basically make it as
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liberal as possible to be able to have a, youknow, a school in our city zoned at what they
call as of right without you having to go backto government ask for additional permission.
So that's that's probably the number one thing.
I think the number the way I would like toanswer the question a little differently is
this.
And noticed sometimes in the comments when Ispeak long form you know podcast.
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And I'll talk about you know, first of all Istole all of Miami's virtues.
That's my job.
I'm the mayor, right?
Born and raised in Miami.
Born and raised.
Don't know sometimes I feel like sometimes Idon't know what my residents expect.
They expect me to come out on a show and talkbad about my city.
That's not gonna happen, right?
Like I'm the mayor, I was born here, I lovethis place.
I think the world of it.
I'm not blind to the fact that we're notperfect.
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I don't think there's any city in the worldthat's perfect.
There's no city in America that's perfect.
There's you know, we and by the way in ourimperfections if you will, are often common
defects that all cities confront.
So it's not that and we may have it at a littlebit greater scale than others and I'll give you
an example of one which is you know housingprices or you know the fact that we become
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expensive.
Number one, yeah I think we are we've becomemore expensive.
There's no doubt about it.
And you know and it's almost like you know sadwhen I'll have somebody criticize me and say
you know the mayor all your policies everythingyou've done you've made Miami more expensive.
And the answer is well first of all of course Ihaven't wanted to make Miami more expensive.
That's not the goal, right?
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The goal is to make Miami the best city in theworld.
That's the goal.
The byproduct of making Miami the best city inthe world is that we're more expensive, right?
Because demand drives prices, right?
So if people want to go there, right?
And so they don't want to be in Colombia forthe reasons that we mentioned, unfortunately.
Or if they don't want to be in New York becausethe reasons that we mentioned, they're going to
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come to mind.
So yeah, I mean, could we do better?
Of course we could do better.
Any city could do better.
Every city could do better, Right?
And I think every mayor and again, this is likenot a Republican Democrat thing.
I think every mayor in America, regardless oftheir party, is striving to do the best that
they can and create the best city that theycan.
So yes, we do have problems.
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I'm not sitting here and telling you we don'thave problems.
But I'm never going to increase taxes orincrease homelessness or increase crime or
increase the things that will make our cityless attractive to reduce costs.
Your father Javier Suarez just announced hiscandidacy for mayor.
He was mayor when you were a child in 1985.
(09:22):
What advice, if he asked you, what advice wouldyou give to how to run a successful campaign
2025?
I thought about this question.
You know, one of your staff members had sharedthis question with me.
Think it was a good question for me to thinkabout and contemplate rather than just answer.
And I'm reminded of Jeb Bush's presidentialcampaign, his last one, right?
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Where there's only one where he ran forpresident.
And you know he had been a great governor, andhe had taken a long time off from being
governor to running for president.
And you could tell, right, you could tell inhis performance.
And I think and by way, I'm a huge Jeb Bushfan.
(10:05):
So if he's if he watches this, please, Jeb, youknow, I don't mean this in a bad way.
I love you.
I think and I think he would admit it.
And and in fairness to him, you know politicsin today's day and age has become like an MMA
fight, right?
And politics in my dad's time in the 80s, andactually my dad was he was mayor in the 80s,
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but he was a county commissioner way morerecently.
So like in fairness to him, was a countycommissioner as of like a few years ago.
But between the 80s and 90s and now, it used tobe boxing and now it's like MMA, right?
And like it's far more you know sort of nastyon the one hand.
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And I think the second part of it is that youreally have to understand communications in a
different way.
I was actually interestingly watching somebodywas circulating the other day an interview that
they did of my father at a Miami Heat playoffgame in 1992 in the Miami Arena.
And I was watching him do the interview and hedid a great job in the interview.
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Know, when I think about him today and I thinkabout you know all these podcasts and all these
different alternative ways to get your messageout, right?
And I think the advice I would give him is totry to do your very best to understand the
world of communication because it is differenttoday than it was even ten years ago when he
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was a County Commissioner or few years ago whenhe was County Commissioner than it was even you
know obviously in the 80s and 90s when he wasmayor.
So I think to me that's the most radicaldifference.
I have for example a I'm blessed to have asocial media channel with we just hit the
160,000 person followers threshold onInstagram.
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So I think as mayor I'm probably one of thehighest social media followings in the country.
But the beauty of that is it's a direct I lookat it as direct to consumer, right?
Like I can say whatever I want to say directly,right?
And the other thing I thought about ityesterday or the other day which was I think is
really cool, is when I reflect on my mayoralteam and my kids.
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So again I'm gonna go back to the example Ijust used of watching my dad do an interview in
the Miami Arena 1992.
Once in a while I get to see an interview ofhis or a speech cut up or whatever or you know
it's very rare.
My kids are going to have and they're a littleyounger than I was when my dad was mayor.
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My kids are gonna have a very comprehensivechronology of my mayoral team because we have
documented it in social media right?
Like and it's all positive, which is beautifulbecause in some way it's gonna be not a 100%
telling of everything, right?
Because obviously when we're telling our storywe're telling the best version of it.
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And I'm not saying we're ever beingdisingenuous, we're not.
As a matter of fact, part of the problem withpresent day media and part of the reason why
you know podcasts are so prevalent, like yousaid the long form conversation is so
important, is because you can be your authenticself.
There's no filters.
Nobody's filtering me, right?
Like no one's editing me, no one's I get tojust talk.
And for better or for worse, right?
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And so I think the beauty of my social media isit's going to tell a story of my mural team.
And it's a positive story.
And it's going be a positive thing because it'sgoing be it's me the one telling the story,
right?
It's like it reminds me of a famous WinstonChurchill quote where he says, you know that
history will be good to me because I intend towrite it.
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And so, know, and so in a sense it reminds meof another saying which is if you're not
telling your story somebody else will andyou're not going to like their version of it,
right?
And so another one that I use a lot.
So it's our social media is our ability to tellour story, what we've accomplished, what we've
done, what we do every day, three times, fourtimes a week, five times a week.
And it will bring back to me incrediblememories of the work that we've done for
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sixteen years now.
I think the paradox of modern communication isthere's the fifteen second clip and the two
hour clip and almost nothing in the middle.
And you have to be proficient in both toThere's
so much more.
There's there's a two minute story, right,every day, every night on television.
There's the print.
There's you know, there's blogs.
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There's print internet sites.
Then there's you know then there's the threeminute, five minute, seven minute segments in
cable, right?
Like when you go on Fox or CNN or MSNBC orwhatever those tend to fall into that category.
So you just have to be good at all of them.
You know, you have to be good at communicatingperiod.
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And that means you know oftentimes condensingwhat you want to say, simplifying an idea, you
know finding a way to connect which is alwaysso hard for your empathy to shine through and
your and your sincerity.
So it's it's it's it's hard.
I spoke to a friend in the Trumpadministration.
He said you're still the favorite to be theambassador to Saudi Arabia.
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Obviously, I'm guessing you can't comment onthat.
But if you take a step back and look at therelationship between The Kingdom and The United
States, what are some low hanging fruits forcollaboration?
How do how do we become better allies withSaudi Arabia?
I don't know if it's low and you're right Iwon't comment on it, but I don't know if it's
low hanging fruit or not.
But I think left to be done and should havebeen done under Trump won and would have been
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done done if Trump would have been reelected inmy personal belief is the the extension of the
Abraham Accords to Saudi Arabia.
I think that's that would have been and thatprobably is priority number one under the Trump
administration.
Obviously they have a lot on their plate.
They're dealing with the Russia Ukraine youknow war.
They're dealing with you know what's going onin Gaza.
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They're dealing with Iran right.
So they are are they're busy.
They're very busy.
And then they're dealing with the domesticissues that they have.
So they've been very busy and they've been inmy humble opinion extremely effective.
They've got a very effective team.
Marco Rubio is a great Secretary of State.
Steve Wickoff is an incredible Middle Eastenvoy of peace.
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I mean what he's done with hostages, what he'syou know he's become a pinch hitter for all
kinds of different conflicts.
So they have a great team.
I think one of the biggest biggest strengths ofTrump administration number two is who they've
chosen.
You know, and even in the case of Marco, he'snow not just Secretary of State but he's
National Security Advisor, right?
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I mean this there's a lot of good stuff thatthey're doing.
And so so I think that's one.
I think think Saudi has positioned itself veryintelligently over the last couple of
administrations, right.
Even in the Biden administration where theydidn't you know let the Biden administration
really bully them on increasing oil productionin advance of the midterms, right?
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On having to deal with the fact that Bidencalled them a pariah then wanted to do a fist
bump with MBS, right?
Like so there was just a lot of challengesthere.
And I think Saudi managed it well.
They did their deal with Iran through China,which I think put The U.
S.
On notice like, hey, you're not the only gamein town if you're, you know, not going to
become a strong ally and help us in ournational defense and help us on some issues of
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our priority, you know, the sale of rawmaterials, even nuclear material.
You know, there are other players in the game,right?
And so I think they've been very smart.
But I do think to your point, David, I thinkthat there's a lot of opportunity for
collaboration.
Mean we're hosting Saudi hosted talks betweenRussia and Ukraine that The U.
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S.
Led, right, in terms of ending the war.
I think there's a great natural affinity.
Saudi Arabia wants to be aligned with TheUnited States, right?
From everything that we know about the longhistory and the long partnership and you know
you know being an ally for so many many years.
I mean we staged our troops during the KuwaitIraq War in Saudi Arabia created a lot of
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that's it's part of what birthed Al Qaeda,right.
As Al Qaeda was was birthed in part out of outof anger resentment for the fact that Saudi
cooperated and collaborated so much with TheUnited States, right.
So and we're both super aligned with and so isIsrael with the eradication of Islamic
extremism, right, which is something that hascreated all kinds of problems throughout the
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world but certainly in The Middle East.
And so I think those are multiple bases forcollaboration.
As you look at Saudi's 2030 plan, right, andhow they want to grow as a country from a
population of about 35 to 60, they want toalmost double their population.
For them to do that, I think there's got tohave there's going to have to be tourism
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increase significantly.
They're going to have to continue along theirpath of that they've been on, right, of making
internal changes that have been verysuccessful.
And has have led to the people seeing Saudidifferently.
And I think that The United States is going tobe play a big role in that, right.
And I think United States investment, UnitedStates infrastructure in terms of construction
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companies, etc, are going to continue to domore business in Saudi.
And so will other parts of the region.
You were part of the famous trip with Trump toSaudi.
What were some of your takeaways from thattrip, and what was it like being on the ground
in Saudi Arabia?
So one of the most incredible moments of mylife, there's a picture where I'm with Trump on
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the left and MBS, Royal Highness, the CrownPrince on the right.
And I got to share a few private moments withhim.
And it was surreal.
I mean it was surreal to be there, and to bethe only mayor in the world.
Not the only mayor in America, not the onlymayor you know in Florida, the only mayor in
the world there was very special for me.
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And I think it highlights not me so muchbecause it highlights what Miami is and what
Miami can be in the conversation of you knowthese worldwide issues.
Being on the ground there, seeing the conveningpower of the president and the crown prince,
right?
Like you have the most incredible people in theworld, top 50, top 100 people in the world
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there.
And they're all there, right?
They're all there and want to be there.
And we're all like little kids at some level,right?
Because it's giddy to be with all theseincredible people and to be with these
incredible world leaders, Right?
It's a surreal moment and I think it takes yourbreath away no matter who you are.
I shared a car ride with Jensen Huang, likejust going from one place to the other.
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And I'm like, am I doing?
Like this is crazy, you know?
And again, we had a nice conversation in thecar.
But it's just like it's those kinds of surrealthings, right?
So just really, really interesting for thecountry.
I think it was a master class for thepresident.
I have to give him a lot of credit.
He came in there.
He lifted the sanctions on Syria on the basisof the Crown Prince's recommendations.
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Had a very successful economic trip you know,because it was there in UAE and also in Qatar.
So I think it was a world, you know, sort of amaster class in diplomacy for the president and
one of his many, many, many successful foreignpolicy victories in a very short period of
time.
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You're one of many people that ran againstTrump in the last election cycle.
You got to know him really well.
As you mentioned, you were the only mayorinvited.
You've built a relationship with him over time.
What makes him so good at his diplomatic role,and what skill sets does he have that that
translate to being a great diplomat?
He has a lot.
(22:03):
I'll tell you.
He was I was the so I'll tell you this.
I don't look at it as I ran against him.
I look at it as I ran in the same election ashe did.
Right?
Like, I had my own vision.
I had my own ideas, and I had my own theory ofthe case as to why I was the best person.
I don't I don't really run against anybody.
Right?
I'm running, you know, because I thought I wasthe best.
Having said that, when I dropped out of therace, he was the first person that called me.
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The first person to call me.
Right?
So there was a ton of candidates.
Right?
I forget what it was, what the number was.
At one point I know it was like 11 or maybeeven 15.
He was the first person to call him.
This is a former president of The UnitedStates.
The first person to call.
So I think that humility and awareness, andobviously he has a great team, right?
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Because obviously you know I'm sure his teamalso told him like hey this guy's dropping out
you know you should you should call him.
The humility, the awareness, the hard work tosay I want to be first.
I'm gonna be first.
I'm gonna make sure nobody gets ahead of me.
I think that's one.
I think number two, traditional politicians arenot always great negotiators because they don't
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necessarily have to negotiate for a living.
I think one of the things that Trump and thepresident I have in common is we both came from
the real estate industry.
You know we both cut our teeth in the privatesector.
I can give you a you know I'm not trying tothrow DeSantis under the bus but you know the
governor was a JAG officer, he was acongressman, he was a governor, right?
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So he had three public sector rolesconsecutively, right?
He didn't really I've spent my entire career inthe private sector, right?
Even though even as a public sector actor I wasable to work.
So I work for a living, right?
I don't rely on my public sector salary.
And so I understand what it's like to make apayroll.
I was in a small business.
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I understand what it's like to beat to meet tomeet numbers, quarterly numbers and you know
and every day is a day of pressure becauseevery day you have to produce, right?
And when you produce well, you get rewarded.
And when you don't, you pay the consequence,right?
So I think you know the President hasdemonstrated that he knows how to negotiate and
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use leverage, and use the country's economicand military might as a leverage tool, right?
When he said to Colombia, to go back toColombia as an example, that he was not going
to allow you know certain diplomats to come toMiami or to come to The U.
S, right?
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And he shut that down in addition to increasingthe tariffs.
I mean it was a master class.
I mean he got Mexico's President newly electedto agree to put more troops on the border,
right?
And the border has essentially stabilized sincethe President became President, right, from all
accounts.
No one, even Democrats I don't think aredisputing the fact that the border has been
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essentially closed, right.
So I mean he has really and then I think thethird thing is, you know, and I can certainly
attest to this on a personal level.
His team today is significantly better than theprior administration's team.
I mean significantly better.
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I mean these are people who are incrediblyaccomplished in the private sector, most of
which have built billion dollar businesses inone generation, okay, versus ideologues,
academics, and people who you know were noteven A players under the prior Democratic
president's administration.
Right?
So you're talking about a huge difference intalent, huge difference.
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And so when you have a very talented guy, andthen you're starting five, let's say are super
talented, you have a talented coach and atalented starting five versus guys that
shouldn't even be in the pros.
You know it's just a huge performancedifferential and that's what you're seeing.
He's already accomplished his economic plan,right.
(26:08):
The beautiful bill.
And now we'll see what other thingslegislatively he has in mind.
I think he's got a very clear runway.
And if he continues to stack up wins in advanceof the midterm, he can do something no
president has done in a long time, which ishopefully keep control of both houses of of
congress so he can continue to execute on hisagenda.
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I don't typically flaunt my credentials, butone of my masters in psychology from Harvard
and looking at president Trump from far away,I've never met him, it seems like he's
dramatically a different person from his firstterm.
It's almost like two different people.
A, have you seen that?
And b, what do you attribute to that?
I have seen that.
(26:51):
So I'll answer it in two or three differentways.
He's probably a different person, a, becausefirst of all they tried to indict him, and they
tried to kill him.
So I mean, and he survived both of thosethings, right?
So I think psychologically, you know, as aHarvard psychologist, I think you would say
that there's a tremendous amount of potentialtrauma there, right?
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And if you survive those things, you areenlightened at some level, right?
Because you realize, A, the fragility of lifeand the fragility of your freedom.
And b, you know, at some level you have a senseof confidence that, hey, if I survive this,
what is God trying to tell me?
Or what is like, you know.
(27:32):
So I think that's part of it.
The b part, I don't think he gets enough creditfor, which is he has a lot more experience.
Right?
Like he has a lot more experience.
And I would say two things.
And I heard, I think it was Eric Trump talkingabout this or maybe it was Donnie talking.
It might have been Donnie talking about this onFox just yesterday or the day before.
(27:53):
And he was focusing on the four years that theywere out of office.
And I think people discredit the experiencethat he got in those four years as well.
In other words, you get four years to dothings, and you get four years to contemplate
what you did right or wrong, and then anotherfour years to do things.
And I actually think it's interesting Havingthat four year hiatus in a in a way is actually
(28:17):
quite good because it gives you a lot of timeto reflect.
Obviously, you have to fight tooth and nail tostay relevant because typically when you lose
in a reelection, you're gone.
Like, I've never seen I mean, I don't thinkI've ever seen anybody politically just rebound
like that the way he did.
He stayed relevant.
He didn't let people put put him in the coffin,literally, figuratively, you know, judicially,
(28:41):
in all kinds of ways.
Right?
It wasn't just judicial, and it wasn't justliteral.
Right?
It was also figuratively because, again, mostof the time when you lose, you're forgotten.
Like, next day, like, in your politics, youlose, you're done.
Like, good luck trying to climb that mountainagain.
But he found a way to stay relevant and byendorsements, by keeping himself as the
standard bearer of the party, and none of uscould could could get him off that mountain.
(29:05):
I mean, all ran.
Right?
We all ran with a view that we were the bestcandidate.
And obviously the people thought otherwise,right?
People thought he's the best candidate.
So I think he's changed in a lot of differentways.
I think he's always been charismatic.
But I think he's more he seems to be calmer.
He seems to be a little bit more rest assured,more confident.
(29:26):
If that's even possible at your age to actuallybecome more confident.
He was a TV star and obviously a personalityfor many many many many years.
And there you know, but it's another thing tobe the president United States.
That's a whole another ballgame.
So he was president, he was former president,so he was in that sort of limelight for a
while.
And I think he got he grew into it and he gotaccustomed to it.
(29:46):
And I think he now understands and appreciateswhat it means to be presidential and why it's
important.
And I think you know maybe he didn't didn'thave that nuance at the beginning.
I think paradoxically going through a neardeath experience can both give you clarity.
It's both very humbling and empowering.
(30:07):
It both, like, brings you, like, takes awayyour your ego, but also says, and I still
survive.
Now let me go do what I'm here to do.
So it empowers you as well.
It gives you a sense that it can be taken fromyou at any moment, but it also gives fills you
with purpose.
Because it wasn't taken away, I now have allthis purpose that I need to fulfill, and it
(30:30):
gives you drive and energy and confidence asyou said.
Going back now almost sixteen years ago whenyou had just turned 32 and started as as a
civil servant in Miami, what advice would youhave given a younger Francis at that time that
would have either accelerated your success orhelped you avoid mistakes?
(30:54):
I'm gonna gonna answer this question a littledifferently, but I will I will answer the
question and then I'm gonna I'm gonna sort ofpivot a little bit.
What I would have told a younger Francis is notto put limits on himself, right?
I think I think when I was younger, and maybepeople will be surprised to hear this, I lacked
(31:18):
a lot of self confidence even though I was apublic official at 32.
I was still along I was still in my journey ofknowing who I was and I was still in my journey
of feeling comfortable in my own skin and sortof like the self confidence journey.
And I think maybe that would surprise somepeople to know.
I actually this is gonna sound counterintuitivewhat I'm gonna say, I actually would not give
(31:42):
myself any advice to avoid mistakes.
I'm gonna explain to you why.
I think mistakes are probably the best learningtool that a person has.
So if you avoid mistakes, you don't have thatyou don't learn.
Right?
So yeah could I have said, hey I've learnedwhat the mistakes are.
I'm going in the DeLorean back to the future.
(32:04):
Right back.
And I'm gonna tell you what the mistakes are soyou don't make a mistake.
You know, I don't know what other mistakes thatwould have made me make.
Right?
Because because that would have potentiallylet's say I didn't make those mistakes.
Would that those learning lessons that humbledme and made me better and stronger, would they
be replaced with hubris, right, because Ididn't make the mistake, and then create and
(32:27):
cause other bigger mistakes?
Like, I don't know.
So I remember when I remember when I was toldinitially that I would had made the debate
stage when I was running for president, andthen later informed that I was not in fact
gonna make the debate stage.
And I remember very very clearly I was inMilwaukee in advance of that debate.
(32:52):
And we had like Airbnb the house and I was inthe backyard and and I remember vividly walking
in the backyard and thinking, you know, God hasa reason for this.
You know, what would have happened had I goneto the debate?
Would I have made a mistake that soundedfoolish?
I'm embarrassed myself, embarrassed my city.
Who knows?
I mean, you just don't know.
(33:14):
What is God protecting me from?
There there's a great poem, and I've beenciting it a lot lately.
It's called If by Rudyard Kipling.
Right?
And he I don't know if you have you have youread the poem?
No.
You got to read it.
That's my homework.
Very, very short poem.
You'll love it.
And it's father telling his son, you know, whatit is to be a man.
And one of the lessons is to treat victory anddefeat as the same impostors.
(33:39):
Right?
And I think the lesson is that succeeding youknow doesn't always it's not always the best
thing for you and losing is also not the worstthing for Right?
Sometimes you learn a lot from losing andsometimes you're at your strongest when you're
at your weakest because people want to helpyou.
And when you're at your strongest, you'reactually your weakest because people are
(34:01):
jealous of you, resentful of you, you know whatI mean?
And they're like, look at that guy he's got itall like like can't wait for him to stumble,
right?
Or trying to precipitate your stumble.
So I know it's a lot of kind ofcounterintuitive advice and maybe people might
think it's gobbly gook or whatever, but that'smy life view, right?
(34:25):
You know other than that you know I would Iwould probably tell my younger self it's gonna
be okay.
You know like don't worry about it it's allgonna work out.
And I do work with a mindfulness coach.
I've been working with him for a little over ayear.
And one of the exercises is we just look backfive years, right?
(34:48):
And he said, if you look back five years, youknow, could you have predicted what was going
to happen in your life in five years?
And I told him, absolutely not.
I said to him, as a matter of fact, if GodHimself would have come down and said to me,
hey, you get to write the next five years ofyour life.
I'm gonna pretend that I'm a genie now, right?
God's gonna convert Himself into a genie.
And you get to rub the lamp and select whatyou're gonna do for the next five years.
(35:12):
I don't think I could have come up withsomething as fantastic was what actually
happened.
I don't think it would have been even my realmof of thinking of possibility.
Do you think I ever would have thought that asa mayor of Miami I was gonna be the president
of the US Conference of Mayors or that I wasgoing to one day be in front of the president
The United States and the crown prince of SaudiArabia having a conversation with them as if
they were my friends.
(35:33):
You know, that would never have occurred to me.
It would not even occur to me, right, to putthat into the genie lamp.
So you know, I just think that that's atestament to how great God is.
And that's a testament to not limitingyourself, which is something I talked about
before.
And it's a testament to having faith andembracing the unknown of the future.
(35:56):
Right.
The fact that there is an unknown future,because I know we talk about goals and goals
are important because they set the course foryour action, right.
So I'm not sitting here and telling you not tohave goals or anything.
But I also I also want you to be open to whatthe future has for you, because it may be
better than even you think.
It may be better than even these impossiblegoals that you might set.
(36:18):
To quote Alex Zormozi, failure is the feedback.
People think sometimes in order to succeed Ineed to deal with this rejection and these
issues but that is actually the feedback.
It's not something that comes with success.
It is how you get to success and it'simpossible to disentangle it.
And I I think the older you get, the more youembrace the pain that comes from that.
(36:43):
Right?
Like at some time when you're younger like, whyis this happening to me?
This terrible.
This sucks.
You know what I mean?
Like I don't want to lose or I don't want towhatever.
And the learning process that comes from thatis more gradual, painful, and more may take
maybe takes longer.
Right?
When you get older you start to see ithappening.
You're like okay this is I'm about to get mybutt kicked, right?
(37:03):
And I see it happening.
And I know that it's okay.
I know it's gonna be over eventually.
I know that it's gonna be painful for a periodof time.
And I know that I'm gonna learn from it.
So just let's get to it.
Let's get to the process.
Let's just get going and let's see how quicklyyou can come out from you know come come out
from the other side.
Coming full circle, you're the reason that Ioriginally moved to Miami.
(37:24):
I met my now wife as of last Saturday and andmoved to New York, but she wanted me to make
sure this morning to tell you we have a placein Park West that holds 300 people.
You're very welcome.
We don't use it enough.
We are very welcome to to use it for forwhatever purposes.
So so please come visit us in our neighborhoodor New York City, and thanks so much for
(37:47):
spending time and looking forward to catchingup in person.
Thank you, David.
I wish you and your wife the best, the happiestfuture and success, and certainly when I'm in
New York, I'll look you guys up.
Thank thank you so much.
You got it.
Thanks for listening to my conversation.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share witha friend.
This helps us grow.
Also provides the very best feedback when wereview the episodes analytics.
(38:08):
Thank you for your support.
We've had this incredible influx of migrationfrom high tax states like New York, Bezos, Carl
(00:06):
Icahn, Ken Griffin.
How do you build on this momentum?
You have to take advantage of the quantumopportunities.
When you think about how we took this quantumleap, there were four major factors that
conspired to come together.
We were open while other cities were closed.
Remote work.
We're doing a podcast remotely.
Right?
So this phenomenon of remote work certainlybenefited Miami.
Obviously, tax policy, federal tax policy,which was a soft deduction going away, favored
(00:31):
Miami.
You know, our attitude was pro growth, probusiness.
What's the next one?
I didn't know what it was gonna be, and that'snow becoming very evident to me what it's gonna
be.
Reflecting back on your seven and a half yearsas mayor, what accomplishments are you most
proud of?
I can point to projects or specific wins likebringing an MLOS team to Miami, right?
(00:54):
And building an unsubsidized stadium that'sgoing to generate billions of dollars in
revenue and now has some of the best soccerplayers in the world in Leo Messi, Jordi Alba,
Bousquet, and others.
Or I can talk about the ecosystem of Miamiafter the how can I help moment where we
created an ecosystem where we attractedcompanies that managed $12,000,000,000,000 in
(01:18):
assets coming to our you know to our ecosystemwhere we have the lowest unemployment in
America, where we have the highest wage growthin America, where we have the lowest homeless
rate in eleven years?
It was never about putting numbers on a board,right?
It was always about the humans, the humanbeings, the citizens, your city, the image of
your city, and how it affects each oneintimately that you really cared about.
(01:42):
And so it was never really about specificthings.
It was really more about about doing a good joband working hard.
You've had this incredible influx of migrationfrom high-tech states like New York, and you
mentioned Bezos, also Carl Icahn, Ken Griffinfamously moved from from Illinois.
You've gotten this very elite part of thenetwork.
(02:04):
How do you build on this momentum and get thenext tier?
Maybe not the deck of billionaires, maybe noteven the billionaires, but either the
entrepreneurs that have had a couple ofsuccesses or maybe even just getting started in
their twenties and thirties.
You have to take advantage of the macroopportunities, right, Or the quantum
opportunities, right?
What are those?
When you think about how we took this quantumleap since February, right?
(02:28):
There were three or four major factors thatconspired to come together, but we took
advantage of them.
What were the major factors?
COVID, right.
We were relatively open while other cities wererelatively closed.
Remote work.
You know you could come and be in a place likethis right behind me.
And what we're doing right now is remote,right.
We're doing a podcast remotely, right?
(02:48):
So this phenomenon of remote work certainlybenefited Miami.
And I think obviously tax policy, we talkedabout tax policy, right?
The federal tax policy which was the softdeduction going away significantly favored
Miami.
And then I think the fourth thing was attitude.
You know our attitude was pro growth, probusiness.
(03:08):
While other cities like New York famouslyrejected Amazon after winning the HQ2 prize.
California famously told Elon Musk f off and hesaid message received and left.
Right?
So our attitude was you want to move SiliconValley to Miami?
How can we help?
Right?
We had the completely different attitude.
So that was one major macro moment, one majorquantum opportunity that we took full advantage
(03:31):
of.
What's the next one?
And I didn't know what it was going to be.
And that's now becoming very evident to me whatit's going to be.
It's going to be on November 4 and that is theelection in New York.
That will be our next quantum opportunity.
If New York elects a socialist, communistsocialist, whatever you want to call it,
(03:51):
government is a solver of all problemspolitician, it will become another massive
opportunity for Miami.
One, for people from the Jewish community whofeel that the incoming potential mayor is
antagonistic to the Jewish community or hasmade statements that are antagonistic to the
Jewish community.
Miami is the safest place on the planet forJews to live and the most welcoming.
(04:15):
And we embrace that.
We love that.
We will continue to shoot it shout it from themountaintop, right?
So for us that's a competitive advantage forus.
And secondly, if you're going to continue to goin the opposite direction and tax the wealthy,
right, and continue to burden people with moretaxes, people are just going to be fed up and
(04:35):
they're going to say that's it.
If you happen to be in both those categories,wealthy and Jewish, I mean it's like there's
going to be a massive you know there's like aVenn diagram overlap there.
And you know I think so I think whoever becomesthe next mayor of Miami, because this will
literally happen as I'm evolving out, Reallyand I'm going to do it right between now and
(04:59):
the election right.
I'm going to certainly do it.
But whoever becomes the next mayor needs topick up the baton and really run with it.
And that's how I'm 47, I'll be 48 in October.
That's how Miami will have another decade ofrunway and success, right?
And so I firmly believe that.
I believe that cities at some level arecompetition for talent and capital, right?
(05:22):
We want to be what we call the capital ofcapital And that's human capital and actual
capital, right?
Money, financial capital.
So that we can build companies and scalecompanies.
Right?
That's how you do it.
So we think we can do that in this generation.
But without without a doubt, you have to beintentional.
(05:43):
You have to put your foot down on theaccelerator when the opportunity presents
itself.
And I think this November will be one of thosemoments.
A lot of people say I'd love to move to Miamibut, insert the reason, these are kind of the
bottlenecks for your next quantum leap thatwould maybe keep you from there.
What are some of those bottlenecks?
What are you doing to address them?
(06:05):
I'm gonna answer this question in two ways,because I wanna I wanna talk about something
that's slightly different but but related.
So let's talk first about the question as youasked it, right, which is someone who wants to
move to Miami.
What is the bottleneck that they will oftenarticulate?
Almost universally that bottleneck,particularly if they're coming from wealthy
(06:27):
areas of the country, is educationalopportunities, schools, right?
I can't get my kid in to name the school.
There's just a capacity issue.
There's too much demand and not enoughcapacity.
So that's something we're going to have to dealwith in the short run.
I've done all kinds of things from the zoningperspective in the city to basically make it as
(06:48):
liberal as possible to be able to have a, youknow, a school in our city zoned at what they
call as of right without you having to go backto government ask for additional permission.
So that's that's probably the number one thing.
I think the number the way I would like toanswer the question a little differently is
this.
And noticed sometimes in the comments when Ispeak long form you know podcast.
(07:13):
And I'll talk about you know, first of all Istole all of Miami's virtues.
That's my job.
I'm the mayor, right?
Born and raised in Miami.
Born and raised.
Don't know sometimes I feel like sometimes Idon't know what my residents expect.
They expect me to come out on a show and talkbad about my city.
That's not gonna happen, right?
Like I'm the mayor, I was born here, I lovethis place.
I think the world of it.
I'm not blind to the fact that we're notperfect.
(07:37):
I don't think there's any city in the worldthat's perfect.
There's no city in America that's perfect.
There's you know, we and by the way in ourimperfections if you will, are often common
defects that all cities confront.
So it's not that and we may have it at a littlebit greater scale than others and I'll give you
an example of one which is you know housingprices or you know the fact that we become
(07:59):
expensive.
Number one, yeah I think we are we've becomemore expensive.
There's no doubt about it.
And you know and it's almost like you know sadwhen I'll have somebody criticize me and say
you know the mayor all your policies everythingyou've done you've made Miami more expensive.
And the answer is well first of all of course Ihaven't wanted to make Miami more expensive.
That's not the goal, right?
(08:19):
The goal is to make Miami the best city in theworld.
That's the goal.
The byproduct of making Miami the best city inthe world is that we're more expensive, right?
Because demand drives prices, right?
So if people want to go there, right?
And so they don't want to be in Colombia forthe reasons that we mentioned, unfortunately.
Or if they don't want to be in New York becausethe reasons that we mentioned, they're going to
(08:39):
come to mind.
So yeah, I mean, could we do better?
Of course we could do better.
Any city could do better.
Every city could do better, Right?
And I think every mayor and again, this is likenot a Republican Democrat thing.
I think every mayor in America, regardless oftheir party, is striving to do the best that
they can and create the best city that theycan.
So yes, we do have problems.
(08:59):
I'm not sitting here and telling you we don'thave problems.
But I'm never going to increase taxes orincrease homelessness or increase crime or
increase the things that will make our cityless attractive to reduce costs.
Your father Javier Suarez just announced hiscandidacy for mayor.
He was mayor when you were a child in 1985.
(09:22):
What advice, if he asked you, what advice wouldyou give to how to run a successful campaign
2025?
I thought about this question.
You know, one of your staff members had sharedthis question with me.
Think it was a good question for me to thinkabout and contemplate rather than just answer.
And I'm reminded of Jeb Bush's presidentialcampaign, his last one, right?
(09:43):
Where there's only one where he ran forpresident.
And you know he had been a great governor, andhe had taken a long time off from being
governor to running for president.
And you could tell, right, you could tell inhis performance.
And I think and by way, I'm a huge Jeb Bushfan.
(10:05):
So if he's if he watches this, please, Jeb, youknow, I don't mean this in a bad way.
I love you.
I think and I think he would admit it.
And and in fairness to him, you know politicsin today's day and age has become like an MMA
fight, right?
And politics in my dad's time in the 80s, andactually my dad was he was mayor in the 80s,
(10:26):
but he was a county commissioner way morerecently.
So like in fairness to him, was a countycommissioner as of like a few years ago.
But between the 80s and 90s and now, it used tobe boxing and now it's like MMA, right?
And like it's far more you know sort of nastyon the one hand.
(10:49):
And I think the second part of it is that youreally have to understand communications in a
different way.
I was actually interestingly watching somebodywas circulating the other day an interview that
they did of my father at a Miami Heat playoffgame in 1992 in the Miami Arena.
And I was watching him do the interview and hedid a great job in the interview.
(11:09):
Know, when I think about him today and I thinkabout you know all these podcasts and all these
different alternative ways to get your messageout, right?
And I think the advice I would give him is totry to do your very best to understand the
world of communication because it is differenttoday than it was even ten years ago when he
(11:30):
was a County Commissioner or few years ago whenhe was County Commissioner than it was even you
know obviously in the 80s and 90s when he wasmayor.
So I think to me that's the most radicaldifference.
I have for example a I'm blessed to have asocial media channel with we just hit the
160,000 person followers threshold onInstagram.
(11:54):
So I think as mayor I'm probably one of thehighest social media followings in the country.
But the beauty of that is it's a direct I lookat it as direct to consumer, right?
Like I can say whatever I want to say directly,right?
And the other thing I thought about ityesterday or the other day which was I think is
really cool, is when I reflect on my mayoralteam and my kids.
(12:16):
So again I'm gonna go back to the example Ijust used of watching my dad do an interview in
the Miami Arena 1992.
Once in a while I get to see an interview ofhis or a speech cut up or whatever or you know
it's very rare.
My kids are going to have and they're a littleyounger than I was when my dad was mayor.
(12:37):
My kids are gonna have a very comprehensivechronology of my mayoral team because we have
documented it in social media right?
Like and it's all positive, which is beautifulbecause in some way it's gonna be not a 100%
telling of everything, right?
Because obviously when we're telling our storywe're telling the best version of it.
(12:59):
And I'm not saying we're ever beingdisingenuous, we're not.
As a matter of fact, part of the problem withpresent day media and part of the reason why
you know podcasts are so prevalent, like yousaid the long form conversation is so
important, is because you can be your authenticself.
There's no filters.
Nobody's filtering me, right?
Like no one's editing me, no one's I get tojust talk.
And for better or for worse, right?
(13:20):
And so I think the beauty of my social media isit's going to tell a story of my mural team.
And it's a positive story.
And it's going be a positive thing because it'sgoing be it's me the one telling the story,
right?
It's like it reminds me of a famous WinstonChurchill quote where he says, you know that
history will be good to me because I intend towrite it.
(13:40):
And so, know, and so in a sense it reminds meof another saying which is if you're not
telling your story somebody else will andyou're not going to like their version of it,
right?
And so another one that I use a lot.
So it's our social media is our ability to tellour story, what we've accomplished, what we've
done, what we do every day, three times, fourtimes a week, five times a week.
And it will bring back to me incrediblememories of the work that we've done for
(14:05):
sixteen years now.
I think the paradox of modern communication isthere's the fifteen second clip and the two
hour clip and almost nothing in the middle.
And you have to be proficient in both toThere's
so much more.
There's there's a two minute story, right,every day, every night on television.
There's the print.
There's you know, there's blogs.
(14:26):
There's print internet sites.
Then there's you know then there's the threeminute, five minute, seven minute segments in
cable, right?
Like when you go on Fox or CNN or MSNBC orwhatever those tend to fall into that category.
So you just have to be good at all of them.
You know, you have to be good at communicatingperiod.
(14:47):
And that means you know oftentimes condensingwhat you want to say, simplifying an idea, you
know finding a way to connect which is alwaysso hard for your empathy to shine through and
your and your sincerity.
So it's it's it's it's hard.
I spoke to a friend in the Trumpadministration.
He said you're still the favorite to be theambassador to Saudi Arabia.
(15:11):
Obviously, I'm guessing you can't comment onthat.
But if you take a step back and look at therelationship between The Kingdom and The United
States, what are some low hanging fruits forcollaboration?
How do how do we become better allies withSaudi Arabia?
I don't know if it's low and you're right Iwon't comment on it, but I don't know if it's
low hanging fruit or not.
But I think left to be done and should havebeen done under Trump won and would have been
(15:35):
done done if Trump would have been reelected inmy personal belief is the the extension of the
Abraham Accords to Saudi Arabia.
I think that's that would have been and thatprobably is priority number one under the Trump
administration.
Obviously they have a lot on their plate.
They're dealing with the Russia Ukraine youknow war.
They're dealing with you know what's going onin Gaza.
(15:58):
They're dealing with Iran right.
So they are are they're busy.
They're very busy.
And then they're dealing with the domesticissues that they have.
So they've been very busy and they've been inmy humble opinion extremely effective.
They've got a very effective team.
Marco Rubio is a great Secretary of State.
Steve Wickoff is an incredible Middle Eastenvoy of peace.
(16:19):
I mean what he's done with hostages, what he'syou know he's become a pinch hitter for all
kinds of different conflicts.
So they have a great team.
I think one of the biggest biggest strengths ofTrump administration number two is who they've
chosen.
You know, and even in the case of Marco, he'snow not just Secretary of State but he's
National Security Advisor, right?
(16:39):
I mean this there's a lot of good stuff thatthey're doing.
And so so I think that's one.
I think think Saudi has positioned itself veryintelligently over the last couple of
administrations, right.
Even in the Biden administration where theydidn't you know let the Biden administration
really bully them on increasing oil productionin advance of the midterms, right?
(17:04):
On having to deal with the fact that Bidencalled them a pariah then wanted to do a fist
bump with MBS, right?
Like so there was just a lot of challengesthere.
And I think Saudi managed it well.
They did their deal with Iran through China,which I think put The U.
S.
On notice like, hey, you're not the only gamein town if you're, you know, not going to
become a strong ally and help us in ournational defense and help us on some issues of
(17:29):
our priority, you know, the sale of rawmaterials, even nuclear material.
You know, there are other players in the game,right?
And so I think they've been very smart.
But I do think to your point, David, I thinkthat there's a lot of opportunity for
collaboration.
Mean we're hosting Saudi hosted talks betweenRussia and Ukraine that The U.
(17:49):
S.
Led, right, in terms of ending the war.
I think there's a great natural affinity.
Saudi Arabia wants to be aligned with TheUnited States, right?
From everything that we know about the longhistory and the long partnership and you know
you know being an ally for so many many years.
I mean we staged our troops during the KuwaitIraq War in Saudi Arabia created a lot of
(18:12):
that's it's part of what birthed Al Qaeda,right.
As Al Qaeda was was birthed in part out of outof anger resentment for the fact that Saudi
cooperated and collaborated so much with TheUnited States, right.
So and we're both super aligned with and so isIsrael with the eradication of Islamic
extremism, right, which is something that hascreated all kinds of problems throughout the
(18:37):
world but certainly in The Middle East.
And so I think those are multiple bases forcollaboration.
As you look at Saudi's 2030 plan, right, andhow they want to grow as a country from a
population of about 35 to 60, they want toalmost double their population.
For them to do that, I think there's got tohave there's going to have to be tourism
(18:58):
increase significantly.
They're going to have to continue along theirpath of that they've been on, right, of making
internal changes that have been verysuccessful.
And has have led to the people seeing Saudidifferently.
And I think that The United States is going tobe play a big role in that, right.
And I think United States investment, UnitedStates infrastructure in terms of construction
(19:21):
companies, etc, are going to continue to domore business in Saudi.
And so will other parts of the region.
You were part of the famous trip with Trump toSaudi.
What were some of your takeaways from thattrip, and what was it like being on the ground
in Saudi Arabia?
So one of the most incredible moments of mylife, there's a picture where I'm with Trump on
(19:45):
the left and MBS, Royal Highness, the CrownPrince on the right.
And I got to share a few private moments withhim.
And it was surreal.
I mean it was surreal to be there, and to bethe only mayor in the world.
Not the only mayor in America, not the onlymayor you know in Florida, the only mayor in
the world there was very special for me.
(20:07):
And I think it highlights not me so muchbecause it highlights what Miami is and what
Miami can be in the conversation of you knowthese worldwide issues.
Being on the ground there, seeing the conveningpower of the president and the crown prince,
right?
Like you have the most incredible people in theworld, top 50, top 100 people in the world
(20:29):
there.
And they're all there, right?
They're all there and want to be there.
And we're all like little kids at some level,right?
Because it's giddy to be with all theseincredible people and to be with these
incredible world leaders, Right?
It's a surreal moment and I think it takes yourbreath away no matter who you are.
I shared a car ride with Jensen Huang, likejust going from one place to the other.
(20:52):
And I'm like, am I doing?
Like this is crazy, you know?
And again, we had a nice conversation in thecar.
But it's just like it's those kinds of surrealthings, right?
So just really, really interesting for thecountry.
I think it was a master class for thepresident.
I have to give him a lot of credit.
He came in there.
He lifted the sanctions on Syria on the basisof the Crown Prince's recommendations.
(21:19):
Had a very successful economic trip you know,because it was there in UAE and also in Qatar.
So I think it was a world, you know, sort of amaster class in diplomacy for the president and
one of his many, many, many successful foreignpolicy victories in a very short period of
time.
(21:41):
You're one of many people that ran againstTrump in the last election cycle.
You got to know him really well.
As you mentioned, you were the only mayorinvited.
You've built a relationship with him over time.
What makes him so good at his diplomatic role,and what skill sets does he have that that
translate to being a great diplomat?
He has a lot.
(22:03):
I'll tell you.
He was I was the so I'll tell you this.
I don't look at it as I ran against him.
I look at it as I ran in the same election ashe did.
Right?
Like, I had my own vision.
I had my own ideas, and I had my own theory ofthe case as to why I was the best person.
I don't I don't really run against anybody.
Right?
I'm running, you know, because I thought I wasthe best.
Having said that, when I dropped out of therace, he was the first person that called me.
(22:27):
The first person to call me.
Right?
So there was a ton of candidates.
Right?
I forget what it was, what the number was.
At one point I know it was like 11 or maybeeven 15.
He was the first person to call him.
This is a former president of The UnitedStates.
The first person to call.
So I think that humility and awareness, andobviously he has a great team, right?
(22:47):
Because obviously you know I'm sure his teamalso told him like hey this guy's dropping out
you know you should you should call him.
The humility, the awareness, the hard work tosay I want to be first.
I'm gonna be first.
I'm gonna make sure nobody gets ahead of me.
I think that's one.
I think number two, traditional politicians arenot always great negotiators because they don't
(23:14):
necessarily have to negotiate for a living.
I think one of the things that Trump and thepresident I have in common is we both came from
the real estate industry.
You know we both cut our teeth in the privatesector.
I can give you a you know I'm not trying tothrow DeSantis under the bus but you know the
governor was a JAG officer, he was acongressman, he was a governor, right?
(23:38):
So he had three public sector rolesconsecutively, right?
He didn't really I've spent my entire career inthe private sector, right?
Even though even as a public sector actor I wasable to work.
So I work for a living, right?
I don't rely on my public sector salary.
And so I understand what it's like to make apayroll.
I was in a small business.
(23:58):
I understand what it's like to beat to meet tomeet numbers, quarterly numbers and you know
and every day is a day of pressure becauseevery day you have to produce, right?
And when you produce well, you get rewarded.
And when you don't, you pay the consequence,right?
So I think you know the President hasdemonstrated that he knows how to negotiate and
(24:20):
use leverage, and use the country's economicand military might as a leverage tool, right?
When he said to Colombia, to go back toColombia as an example, that he was not going
to allow you know certain diplomats to come toMiami or to come to The U.
S, right?
(24:40):
And he shut that down in addition to increasingthe tariffs.
I mean it was a master class.
I mean he got Mexico's President newly electedto agree to put more troops on the border,
right?
And the border has essentially stabilized sincethe President became President, right, from all
accounts.
No one, even Democrats I don't think aredisputing the fact that the border has been
(25:01):
essentially closed, right.
So I mean he has really and then I think thethird thing is, you know, and I can certainly
attest to this on a personal level.
His team today is significantly better than theprior administration's team.
I mean significantly better.
(25:23):
I mean these are people who are incrediblyaccomplished in the private sector, most of
which have built billion dollar businesses inone generation, okay, versus ideologues,
academics, and people who you know were noteven A players under the prior Democratic
president's administration.
Right?
So you're talking about a huge difference intalent, huge difference.
(25:47):
And so when you have a very talented guy, andthen you're starting five, let's say are super
talented, you have a talented coach and atalented starting five versus guys that
shouldn't even be in the pros.
You know it's just a huge performancedifferential and that's what you're seeing.
He's already accomplished his economic plan,right.
(26:08):
The beautiful bill.
And now we'll see what other thingslegislatively he has in mind.
I think he's got a very clear runway.
And if he continues to stack up wins in advanceof the midterm, he can do something no
president has done in a long time, which ishopefully keep control of both houses of of
congress so he can continue to execute on hisagenda.
(26:30):
I don't typically flaunt my credentials, butone of my masters in psychology from Harvard
and looking at president Trump from far away,I've never met him, it seems like he's
dramatically a different person from his firstterm.
It's almost like two different people.
A, have you seen that?
And b, what do you attribute to that?
I have seen that.
(26:51):
So I'll answer it in two or three differentways.
He's probably a different person, a, becausefirst of all they tried to indict him, and they
tried to kill him.
So I mean, and he survived both of thosethings, right?
So I think psychologically, you know, as aHarvard psychologist, I think you would say
that there's a tremendous amount of potentialtrauma there, right?
(27:11):
And if you survive those things, you areenlightened at some level, right?
Because you realize, A, the fragility of lifeand the fragility of your freedom.
And b, you know, at some level you have a senseof confidence that, hey, if I survive this,
what is God trying to tell me?
Or what is like, you know.
(27:32):
So I think that's part of it.
The b part, I don't think he gets enough creditfor, which is he has a lot more experience.
Right?
Like he has a lot more experience.
And I would say two things.
And I heard, I think it was Eric Trump talkingabout this or maybe it was Donnie talking.
It might have been Donnie talking about this onFox just yesterday or the day before.
(27:53):
And he was focusing on the four years that theywere out of office.
And I think people discredit the experiencethat he got in those four years as well.
In other words, you get four years to dothings, and you get four years to contemplate
what you did right or wrong, and then anotherfour years to do things.
And I actually think it's interesting Havingthat four year hiatus in a in a way is actually
(28:17):
quite good because it gives you a lot of timeto reflect.
Obviously, you have to fight tooth and nail tostay relevant because typically when you lose
in a reelection, you're gone.
Like, I've never seen I mean, I don't thinkI've ever seen anybody politically just rebound
like that the way he did.
He stayed relevant.
He didn't let people put put him in the coffin,literally, figuratively, you know, judicially,
(28:41):
in all kinds of ways.
Right?
It wasn't just judicial, and it wasn't justliteral.
Right?
It was also figuratively because, again, mostof the time when you lose, you're forgotten.
Like, next day, like, in your politics, youlose, you're done.
Like, good luck trying to climb that mountainagain.
But he found a way to stay relevant and byendorsements, by keeping himself as the
standard bearer of the party, and none of uscould could could get him off that mountain.
(29:05):
I mean, all ran.
Right?
We all ran with a view that we were the bestcandidate.
And obviously the people thought otherwise,right?
People thought he's the best candidate.
So I think he's changed in a lot of differentways.
I think he's always been charismatic.
But I think he's more he seems to be calmer.
He seems to be a little bit more rest assured,more confident.
(29:26):
If that's even possible at your age to actuallybecome more confident.
He was a TV star and obviously a personalityfor many many many many years.
And there you know, but it's another thing tobe the president United States.
That's a whole another ballgame.
So he was president, he was former president,so he was in that sort of limelight for a
while.
And I think he got he grew into it and he gotaccustomed to it.
(29:46):
And I think he now understands and appreciateswhat it means to be presidential and why it's
important.
And I think you know maybe he didn't didn'thave that nuance at the beginning.
I think paradoxically going through a neardeath experience can both give you clarity.
It's both very humbling and empowering.
(30:07):
It both, like, brings you, like, takes awayyour your ego, but also says, and I still
survive.
Now let me go do what I'm here to do.
So it empowers you as well.
It gives you a sense that it can be taken fromyou at any moment, but it also gives fills you
with purpose.
Because it wasn't taken away, I now have allthis purpose that I need to fulfill, and it
(30:30):
gives you drive and energy and confidence asyou said.
Going back now almost sixteen years ago whenyou had just turned 32 and started as as a
civil servant in Miami, what advice would youhave given a younger Francis at that time that
would have either accelerated your success orhelped you avoid mistakes?
(30:54):
I'm gonna gonna answer this question a littledifferently, but I will I will answer the
question and then I'm gonna I'm gonna sort ofpivot a little bit.
What I would have told a younger Francis is notto put limits on himself, right?
I think I think when I was younger, and maybepeople will be surprised to hear this, I lacked
(31:18):
a lot of self confidence even though I was apublic official at 32.
I was still along I was still in my journey ofknowing who I was and I was still in my journey
of feeling comfortable in my own skin and sortof like the self confidence journey.
And I think maybe that would surprise somepeople to know.
I actually this is gonna sound counterintuitivewhat I'm gonna say, I actually would not give
(31:42):
myself any advice to avoid mistakes.
I'm gonna explain to you why.
I think mistakes are probably the best learningtool that a person has.
So if you avoid mistakes, you don't have thatyou don't learn.
Right?
So yeah could I have said, hey I've learnedwhat the mistakes are.
I'm going in the DeLorean back to the future.
(32:04):
Right back.
And I'm gonna tell you what the mistakes are soyou don't make a mistake.
You know, I don't know what other mistakes thatwould have made me make.
Right?
Because because that would have potentiallylet's say I didn't make those mistakes.
Would that those learning lessons that humbledme and made me better and stronger, would they
be replaced with hubris, right, because Ididn't make the mistake, and then create and
(32:27):
cause other bigger mistakes?
Like, I don't know.
So I remember when I remember when I was toldinitially that I would had made the debate
stage when I was running for president, andthen later informed that I was not in fact
gonna make the debate stage.
And I remember very very clearly I was inMilwaukee in advance of that debate.
(32:52):
And we had like Airbnb the house and I was inthe backyard and and I remember vividly walking
in the backyard and thinking, you know, God hasa reason for this.
You know, what would have happened had I goneto the debate?
Would I have made a mistake that soundedfoolish?
I'm embarrassed myself, embarrassed my city.
Who knows?
I mean, you just don't know.
(33:14):
What is God protecting me from?
There there's a great poem, and I've beenciting it a lot lately.
It's called If by Rudyard Kipling.
Right?
And he I don't know if you have you have youread the poem?
No.
You got to read it.
That's my homework.
Very, very short poem.
You'll love it.
And it's father telling his son, you know, whatit is to be a man.
And one of the lessons is to treat victory anddefeat as the same impostors.
(33:39):
Right?
And I think the lesson is that succeeding youknow doesn't always it's not always the best
thing for you and losing is also not the worstthing for Right?
Sometimes you learn a lot from losing andsometimes you're at your strongest when you're
at your weakest because people want to helpyou.
And when you're at your strongest, you'reactually your weakest because people are
(34:01):
jealous of you, resentful of you, you know whatI mean?
And they're like, look at that guy he's got itall like like can't wait for him to stumble,
right?
Or trying to precipitate your stumble.
So I know it's a lot of kind ofcounterintuitive advice and maybe people might
think it's gobbly gook or whatever, but that'smy life view, right?
(34:25):
You know other than that you know I would Iwould probably tell my younger self it's gonna
be okay.
You know like don't worry about it it's allgonna work out.
And I do work with a mindfulness coach.
I've been working with him for a little over ayear.
And one of the exercises is we just look backfive years, right?
(34:48):
And he said, if you look back five years, youknow, could you have predicted what was going
to happen in your life in five years?
And I told him, absolutely not.
I said to him, as a matter of fact, if GodHimself would have come down and said to me,
hey, you get to write the next five years ofyour life.
I'm gonna pretend that I'm a genie now, right?
God's gonna convert Himself into a genie.
And you get to rub the lamp and select whatyou're gonna do for the next five years.
(35:12):
I don't think I could have come up withsomething as fantastic was what actually
happened.
I don't think it would have been even my realmof of thinking of possibility.
Do you think I ever would have thought that asa mayor of Miami I was gonna be the president
of the US Conference of Mayors or that I wasgoing to one day be in front of the president
The United States and the crown prince of SaudiArabia having a conversation with them as if
they were my friends.
(35:33):
You know, that would never have occurred to me.
It would not even occur to me, right, to putthat into the genie lamp.
So you know, I just think that that's atestament to how great God is.
And that's a testament to not limitingyourself, which is something I talked about
before.
And it's a testament to having faith andembracing the unknown of the future.
(35:56):
Right.
The fact that there is an unknown future,because I know we talk about goals and goals
are important because they set the course foryour action, right.
So I'm not sitting here and telling you not tohave goals or anything.
But I also I also want you to be open to whatthe future has for you, because it may be
better than even you think.
It may be better than even these impossiblegoals that you might set.
(36:18):
To quote Alex Zormozi, failure is the feedback.
People think sometimes in order to succeed Ineed to deal with this rejection and these
issues but that is actually the feedback.
It's not something that comes with success.
It is how you get to success and it'simpossible to disentangle it.
And I I think the older you get, the more youembrace the pain that comes from that.
(36:43):
Right?
Like at some time when you're younger like, whyis this happening to me?
This terrible.
This sucks.
You know what I mean?
Like I don't want to lose or I don't want towhatever.
And the learning process that comes from thatis more gradual, painful, and more may take
maybe takes longer.
Right?
When you get older you start to see ithappening.
You're like okay this is I'm about to get mybutt kicked, right?
(37:03):
And I see it happening.
And I know that it's okay.
I know it's gonna be over eventually.
I know that it's gonna be painful for a periodof time.
And I know that I'm gonna learn from it.
So just let's get to it.
Let's get to the process.
Let's just get going and let's see how quicklyyou can come out from you know come come out
from the other side.
Coming full circle, you're the reason that Ioriginally moved to Miami.
(37:24):
I met my now wife as of last Saturday and andmoved to New York, but she wanted me to make
sure this morning to tell you we have a placein Park West that holds 300 people.
You're very welcome.
We don't use it enough.
We are very welcome to to use it for forwhatever purposes.
So so please come visit us in our neighborhoodor New York City, and thanks so much for
(37:47):
spending time and looking forward to catchingup in person.
Thank you, David.
I wish you and your wife the best, the happiestfuture and success, and certainly when I'm in
New York, I'll look you guys up.
Thank thank you so much.
You got it.
Thanks for listening to my conversation.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share witha friend.
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(38:08):
Thank you for your support.
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