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In Search Of Excellence
Rick Caruso: Why Money Should NEVER Be Your Motivation (Worth $6 Billion) | E178
00:36:10
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- [00:00]
Rick Caruso
Don't do business with bad people. You'll never make a good deal with bad people.
- [00:04]
Randy
How important should money be as a motivation to working hard and being successful?
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Rick Caruso
Zero. Never thought about it. The money's going to come if you do your job well, you're smart about it, continually reinvest. The money's going to come.
- [00:18]
Randy
How important has extreme preparation been to your success?
- [00:21]
Rick Caruso
I'm probably not as extreme as you are. I'm impressed how extreme you are. So congratulations.
- [00:26]
Randy
Will you announce on my show today whether you're going to run for mayor again or as rumored, governor of California?
- [00:33]
Rick Caruso
Yeah.
- [00:50]
Randy
Welcome to In Search of Excellence. My guest today is Rick Caruso, the most influential real estate developer in Los Angeles who has reinvented the retail shopping experience by turning shopping malls into lifestyle destinations. His company, Caruso, owns 10 major retail and lifestyle destinations, including Palisades Village, including the Grove, which has over 20 million visitors a year, which is more than Disneyland. Rick ran for mayor in Los Angeles in 2022, lost by a very narrow margin. And we're going to talk about today what his political aspirations are.
- [01:20]
Rick Caruso
Rick, thanks for having me.
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Randy
Welcome to In Search of Excellence.
- [01:22]
Rick Caruso
Good to be here.
- [01:23]
Randy
All right, so now I'm going to talk to people who don't live in Los Angeles.
- [01:26]
Rick Caruso
Okay.
- [01:27]
Randy
West side of Los Angeles. I live in Brentwood. Pacific Palisades is next door. And you built the Palisades Village, which finished in 2018. Erewhan is a grocery store that is. Has a cult like following. There's people who fly from New York just to eat there, if you can believe that. I read that somewhere, which is insanity.
- [01:46]
Rick Caruso
Yeah, that.
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Randy
But it is a place on its own. And we're going to talk about your private fire department in a few minutes. When is it going to reopen? Because I got 300 dms from people. You got to ask Rick, when is Erewhon coming back? When is that center reopening?
- [02:03]
Rick Caruso
Well, the whole center is going to reopen in August. So what we're doing right now is we're literally gutting the inside of it, which I know you'll talk about. But the property survived the fire. But what I really wanted to do was to assure everybody that place is safe as can be. So we gutted the inside.
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Randy
What does that mean? You go to the inside because it's open space.
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Rick Caruso
We took out all the drywall. The spaces that we took out on the inside of the space we took out. So there's no smoke, there's no lingering contaminants. We ripped all the drywall, all the
- [02:33]
Randy
improvements of all the stores.
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Rick Caruso
All the stores went down to the studs. All the apartments went down to the studs.
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Randy
You can't see it from the outside at all.
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Rick Caruso
You don't see that. That's what's happening right now on the inside of the space. Took it down to the dryer, took it down to the studs. Then we treated the studs, and then we had a engineering firm come in and test to make sure it's perfectly clean. And it is. And then we're rebuilding all the spaces. So we will reopen fully operational next August. And I think Erewhon will open a little bit after that. They've got a little bit longer building period, but they'll be pretty confident they'll be reopening with us.
- [03:08]
Randy
Let's go to January 7th. I work in Brentwood on the fourth floor of the Comerica bank building.
- [03:17]
Rick Caruso
Okay.
- [03:18]
Randy
And I'm writing a book. I got my phone off, my computer off. But my son was in town that day from college. I got my phone up, right? We're supposed to have lunch or whatever, and he's not supposed to call me till noon. But just in case he calls. So the school calls Pelly elementary, where my then second grader went to school. And like, okay, like, they call, call again, and they're always calling. This is brought. This is Principal Herman, brought to you by Caruso with a message, right? And so I never pick up the phone. I pick up the phone, evacuate. Because the fire look out the window and like, holy smokes, for lack of a better word, you can see the fire on the ridge, right? And, you know, pick up your kid immediately. So I basically look at the fire, which is three miles away from my office. You can see it, and it's black smoke. It's like a tire burning, you know, at. At that point. And I get there, and I'm driving down Sunset like a maniac. Double. It's a. It's a windy road, as you know, and it's double yellow, and I'm honking at people, and the only people passing me, police car, fire engines. You get to the school. There's four schools nearby, right? You can't park anywhere, so I double park. I ran into the school. Pure pandemonium, right? You know, they're calling your kid on the walk and talk. I remember carrying Carter out in my hand like a football, you know, running down the street. Hey, dad, put me down. When did you hear about the fire?
- [04:38]
Rick Caruso
Early that morning. It's probably around 10 o' clock from one of my kids, from my son saying, dad, there's smoke. And he was on his way to our house in Brentwood. He lived in the Palisades. Was on his way to our house to use our gym. He uses the gym after I use the gym. So it's fun. We get to see each other in the mornings. But, yeah, I learned about it then. And then we monitor it, obviously, and we had our people embedded in the command station watching it.
- [05:00]
Mentor/Advisor
I hope you're enjoying this video so far, but before we jump back in, I want to know if you've ever thought about what you need to do to reach the next level of success in your life. Over the last 25 years, I've been an advisor to more than 50 companies. I've invested nearly 100, including Google, lift and Seagate. And I co founded a company that today is worth more than $15 billion. I've been incredibly blessed in my journey and at this stage in my life. I want to give back. I want to share the lessons I've learned so you can reach incredible success way faster than I did in my own journey. I've learned that having the right mentor is a massive advantage to achieving our goals. I'm hugely passionate about mentoring others, and I'm looking for a few hungry entrepreneurs who are excited to take action on their journey to incredible future success. So if that's you, I've got an opportunity. In the description of this video, there's a link where you can apply to work with me. All you need to do is answer a few simple questions. And if you're a good fit, my team will reach out so we can
- [05:50]
Randy
build a game plan together.
- [05:51]
Mentor/Advisor
All right, now let's get back to the video.
- [05:53]
Randy
You did something in advance, though. I mean, we all knew the winds were coming, right? They were forecast 100 mile per hour winds, Right. There was fire warnings.
- [06:00]
Rick Caruso
Right?
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Randy
Right. So you did something smart, very preventative.
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Rick Caruso
Right.
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Randy
Where two days in advance. Why don't you tell people what you did and how you were able to save that center from getting burned down? Because everything around it burned down except yours. Is bas standing by itself, except for the gas station that my friend owns across the street.
- [06:18]
Rick Caruso
Well, what we were able to do is not only save our property, we saved everything on our block, and we saved everything across the street, that whole block. So there's one commercial block that's still remaining that our team saved. We learned a lot up at Miramar. As we were building Miramar up in Montecito, there was The. I think it was the Martin fire. I forget what the name of it was. And we were just in framing. I talked to one of our senior people and I said, listen, if that fire comes over the hill, the fire department, rightfully so, is going to have all their resources to saving homes, and they're not going to have the resources to protect us. What are our options? He came back and he said, we can hire private firefighters and have our own water tanks and have retardant. We could spray the retardant down on the framing, blah, blah, blah. And I said, okay, do it. Put the plan in place. And we mobilized during the fire up there with a private firefighting team, retardant, and our own water. So we weren't taking resources away from the city. And at the same time, we were protecting ourselves. We had that plan in play at the Palisades. We knew we were building in an area that is a fire risk. We designed and built the property to make sure there was no combustible materials. What looks like wood is really concrete. We don't have vents and eaves where embers get in, things like that. So it started with a very smart design, very smart construction materials. And we had a plan on the shelf in case there was a fire. And so two days before, when we were getting these notices of the winds, catastrophic winds that was coming up on our phones, we deployed and we had private firefighters, our own water and retardant, with the same philosophy that the firefighters are going to have to protect and should first protect the homes. We can take care of ourselves. And we were able to do that. And we saved, like I said, the full block, along with eight of our own residences. But listen, it was a terrible disaster up there. I'm grateful to our team. They did an amazing job. And because of that, we're going to be able to reopen, which is giving that community, hopefully, that their town is coming back. And that is really gratifying to me, that we're going to be part of giving people not only the hope, but the will to rebuild, because it's an enormous amount of effort to rebuild that town. And we're very active up there supporting those people, as we are in Altadena and in Malibu.
- [08:30]
Randy
There's a ton of conversation out there, as you know, especially in la, about whose fault this was that it was allowed to get to where it gets. I mean, so many of my friends, you know, my daughter, we knew at Pali, 95% of the families live in the Palisades. We live in Brentwood. We we got into pali, so maybe 80% of our friends homes burned down. And everyone's of the same mentality. It's not going to actually burn down because there's a fire department on Sunset right next to your center. Actually, I live in Brentwood. There's a fire department 0.7 miles down the street from me. I'm never thinking that our home is going to burn down. Thankfully we had a lot of ash, but we were, we were fine. And no one took stuff out of their home. Right. Because it's like it's, it's just not going to burn down. There's no way it's going to burn down. So people didn't take their possessions, their
- [09:20]
Rick Caruso
photos, didn't even have time.
- [09:22]
Randy
They didn't have time by the time they realized it's going to burn. Mayor Bass. Karen Bass. At fault. Is the former LAFD commissioner Kristin Crowley at fault? Who's, who's really to blame for this?
- [09:35]
Rick Caruso
Well, listen, I don't think the city was prepared. It's clear the city was not prepared. And the after action report proves that it could have been stopped, fired, never had to happen. And so we know that now, had the city been better prepared, there wouldn't have been a fire. People would still be in their homes today. People, kids would be in their schools today. And that's based on an independent report. Listen, the buck stops at the mayor. The mayor should have had the city more prepared and doing the right things and following up. And she made a decision to be out of town. But she also made a decision, apparently in lead of this, not to ask a lot of questions from the fire department, from all your agencies, from dwp. Are the reservoirs full? Do we have enough water? Are we prepared to deal with this? Did the fire that started on January 1, is it completely out? What a lot of people maybe don't realize is the original fire that started January 1st was still smoldering. That's what reignited on the 7th. Had the fire department actually put it out and monitored it, it would not have reignited on the 7th and therefore there wouldn't have been a fire. There would have been winds. There wouldn't have been that fire. This disaster was completely preventable. We know that now. That is just as bad as it gets to me. I mean, it's, it's negligence at the highest level. It's beyond being unprepared.
- [10:46]
Randy
You entered politics when you were essentially 25 years old. You were having lunch with a lobbyist, with a lawyer. Well, you know, who Had a badge, was on the LA Fire Department board. You said, oh, that's cool. And then at 25 years old, you became the youngest commissioner on the law.
- [11:02]
Rick Caruso
Youngest commissioner in the city. In the history of the city.
- [11:05]
Randy
You're listening to part two of my incredible interview with Rick Caruso, one of the most successful real estate developers developers in the world, whose net worth is $5.9 billion. Rick ran for mayor of Los Angeles in 2022. And on today's show, I'm hoping he's going to announce he's running for mayor again. If you haven't yet listened to part one, be sure to check that one out first. Now, without further ado, here's part two of my incredible interview with Rick. Right. In the history of the city. 80 year old and then the history of the organization. And then the next year you became the president of as well. And then years later, you ran the LA Police Commissioner board as well, where I think you served for three years. Then in 2020, you decided that you were going to run for mayor. You talked about it years before and then you ran. And then the word on the street was here's Rick Caruso, billionaire who's going to spend a lot of his own money to basically become the mayor of Los Angeles. And you're going to buy your way in. JB Pritzker is a law school classmate and friend of mine. And when he was running for governor, he got the same criticism. And I remember him call me on the phone. He said, hey, Randy, I'm, you know, running for governor. And I said, I mean, he wasn't looking for money, he spent his own money. He spent $100 million of his own money right in heir to the Hyatt Hotel fortune, for those people who don't know. And I said to him, I said, hey, JB, you're going to spend $100 million of your own money and you're going to buy your way into the governor's office. He said, yes, I am. So why would you do that? He said, because I think I can make a difference to the people in my state. Tell us. You lost to Karen Bass, 52 point something percent to 47 point something percent. All of my friends were pissed because we want you to win.
- [12:44]
Rick Caruso
Well, thank you.
- [12:45]
Randy
And yeah, we still want you to win. And what was the thought process? Why did you want to become mayor, number one? And how do you think you lost?
- [12:55]
Rick Caruso
I wanted to become mayor because I worked for three mayors. I worked for Tom Bradley, I worked for Dick Reardon, I Worked for Jim Hahn. And I really learned a lot, and I saw what great mayors can do. And those three, in my opinion, were three really great mayors for us. And I learned the sort of the management skills necessary to manage the city, which is a very complex city. And then on top of that, what I was seeing, which all of us have seen, the city was in a state of decline. We had rising homelessness, we had rising crime. You know, all these things were going on, and it was clear to me that all of that could be solved given the right management, given the right leadership, all of these kind of things. And I felt confident I could do it, and I wanted to give back. I loved public service. What Tom Bradley and Dick Reard and Jim Hahn did is they gave me really tough assignments because they trusted that I could figure it out, and they were complicated assignments. And so I wasn't worried about being able to figure out the problems of the city. So I ran. I don't think anybody buys an election. You know, I spent my own money because I needed to get my name out there. And I was running against somebody that was well known, you know, who'd been in politics for 30 years, whatever the case is. And I've known Karen Bass for a long, long time.
- [14:07]
Randy
Do you like her personally?
- [14:09]
Rick Caruso
I do. Listen, I think Karen Bass means. Well, it's a very different skill set to be a legislator, to be in Congress and be drafting bills, passing bills, sitting at hearings, on and on and on than being an executive. When you're a mayor, you're an executive. When you're a governor, you're an executive. As you know, that means you've got to define goals, you've got to create a team. You've got to have expertise. You know, you got to have systems in place to get things done. You don't do that in the legislative side. So it was clear to me that the skill set was not matched up. And we had just went through that with Eric Garcetti, who was a legislative,
- [14:46]
Randy
who was on my show, who's an old friend. I met him when he was running for city council the first time. And you know what he said about being mayor? He said, it's a thankless job. You have no power essentially, to make any real decisions because you got the board of commissioners. And it's really your main job is to really work as someone who can put together people to actually make the decision.
- [15:08]
Rick Caruso
Disagree with him more.
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Randy
Oh, couldn't disagree. Okay.
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Rick Caruso
Couldn't disagree with him more. And I think that's why he was a weak mayor.
- [15:13]
Randy
Okay.
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Rick Caruso
Because he didn't. Well, he was.
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Randy
He's a great guy, though.
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Rick Caruso
He's a great guy. But just because you're a weak mare doesn't mean you're a bad guy. Just because Karen Bass has not been a good mare doesn't mean she's a bad person. You know, that would be like if I went and decided I'm going to go do brain surgery, I'm going to do a terrible job. That doesn't mean I'm a bad person.
- [15:32]
Randy
Yeah.
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Rick Caruso
It just means my skill set isn't lined up with the job responsibilities. Eric, as a council person, that's a legislative job. To move into the mayorship. He wasn't qualified to do it. And we had huge problems, and the problems have now gotten worse. I don't think anybody in this city that I know of will honestly say the city is better today than it was 10 years ago. The city is better today than it was five years ago. The city is better today than it was a year ago. I don't know how you could say that financially. Homeless, crime. Do we have clean streets? Do we have safe streets? We don't have any of that. I'm saddened for the city, but I'm also so positively optimistic that all of it can change, because I do think it's the greatest city. And with the right leaders with making some really smart decisions, the city will bounce back.
- [16:21]
Randy
Will you announce on my show today whether you are going.
- [16:25]
Rick Caruso
What I'm having for lunch afterwards what you're having.
- [16:27]
Randy
Will you announce on my show today whether you're going to run for mayor again or, as rumored, governor of California?
- [16:33]
Rick Caruso
Yeah. No, I won't do that today, but there'll be an announcement soon. And it's a very tough decision because I want to do what's. I want to do what's right and where I can be really productive. You know, I'm at the state of my life. I want to be productive, and I want to give back. And I've done that my whole life. And I. Like I said, I loved working for Tom Bradley and Dick Reardon and Jim Hahn. You can make an enormous difference. I couldn't disagree with Eric Moore. You can make an enormous difference. Look at what Tom Bradley did. Look at what Dick Reardon did. Look at what Jim Hahn did. They made enormous differences in the city. The mayor's got more than enough power to do a lot of great things.
- [17:08]
Randy
So keeping it very simple, if you could just list them one by one without going into them, Because I know we're getting toward the end of the show. What are three. Three things that you would do as mayor of Los Angeles? The first three things that are different than what Karen Bass is doing.
- [17:21]
Rick Caruso
I would enforce the laws, clean the streets, not allow drugs to be sold in our streets, which is only harming the homeless population even more. I would make the streets cleaner, safer. I'd have homeless getting into shelters and homes and giving the services that they need. And I'd bring down the cost of housing dramatically, which I know how to do. Louisiana has become too expensive to live in, and we need to drop that cost of living in the city, which we can do. It's only gone up under her leadership. We need to turn that around.
- [17:48]
Randy
Okay, so let's talk about the cost of homes in Los Angeles as well. It's very expensive to live here.
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Rick Caruso
Yep.
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Randy
If you live in the west side of Los Angeles, the average home in the Palisades was over $3 million.
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Rick Caruso
Right.
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Randy
California is a Democratic state. You are a Democrat, and there's something in Los Angeles that's called the mansion tax.
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Rick Caruso
Right.
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Randy
That essentially says if your home is over $5 million, you're taxed an extra 4.7% on the house, and it's over $10 million. Your tax, I think, 5.3%. The people that. That's obviously very popular to the state of California, where most people don't have a house, that's $5 million. So there was a tax that was passed overwhelmingly that the state estimated was going to bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, and it has backfired tremendously.
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Rick Caruso
Right.
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Randy
Because it's put a massive damper on the number of people who want to sell their home. That's a lot of money to pay in taxes. Would you try to get the mansion tax repealed? I know it's coming on the ballot again next year. Are you for it or are you against it?
- [18:46]
Rick Caruso
You have to change the mansion tax. And it's not a mansion tax. And that was the sort of the great sales job.
- [18:52]
Randy
I know.
- [18:53]
Rick Caruso
It taxes every kind of property.
- [18:56]
Randy
Yeah.
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Rick Caruso
Office buildings, apartment buildings, industrial buildings, homes. And it is actually put cold water on the city of Los Angeles. It only applies that ULA tax only applies in the city of Los Angeles. So what it's done is it's redlined Los Angeles. If you're going to invest money, you're going to invest money in Glendale and Culver City and in areas around us. Because that tax, you have to build into your pro forma. Right. If you're going to build a home and sell a home, you have to add another 5% into it. So why would you do that? If you're going to build an apartment building, you have to add it back in. It makes it unattractive to have capital coming into Los Angeles because of that. So you definitely have to change it. There's no question about that. It's a bad law. I hope the amendments that are coming down through the state and we did give a proposal to the mayor and the city of Los Angeles that we created to exempt people who have lost their homes from the tax. Because to me, I mean, that is so insane that if you've lost your home and you're forced to sell your land, you're going to pay a tax on it. You should be exempt. And hopefully they'll adopt what we gave them, because there is a way to exempt people that have been through a disaster.
- [20:03]
Randy
Governor Newsom has suggested an asset tax.
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Rick Caruso
What kind of tax?
- [20:07]
Randy
Asset. A tax on how much money you have.
- [20:10]
Rick Caruso
Okay.
- [20:10]
Randy
Absurdity.
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Rick Caruso
I don't think he did. He. I don't think he proposed that.
- [20:14]
Randy
I. I think, I think, I think it's out there. It's out there, but he's not. He's. The word is. He's kind of. Yeah, I think it's a good idea.
- [20:22]
Rick Caruso
Yeah. My understanding, though, is he's opposed that consistently. So I, I don't think he's out there supporting it, endorsing it. And I. I really haven't followed where that's at. I haven't followed where that's at.
- [20:37]
Mentor/Advisor
I hope you're enjoying this video so far, but before we jump back in, I want to know if you've ever thought about what you need to do to reach the next level of success in your life. Over the last 25 years, I've been an advisor to more than 50 companies. I've invested nearly 100, including Google, Lyft and Seagate. And I also co founded a company that today is worth more than $15 billion. I've been incredibly blessed in my journey and at this stage in my life, I want to give back. I want to share the lessons I've learned so you can reach incredible success way faster than I did in my own journey. I've learned that having the right mentor is a massive advantage to achieving our goals.
- [21:09]
Randy
I'm hugely passionate about mentoring others.
- [21:11]
Mentor/Advisor
I'm looking for a few hungry entrepreneurs who are excited to take action on their journey to incredible future success. So if that's you, I've got An opportunity. In the description of this video, there's a link where you can apply to work with me. All you need to do is answer a few simple questions.
- [21:24]
Randy
And if you're a good fit, my
- [21:25]
Mentor/Advisor
team will reach out so we can
- [21:26]
Randy
build a game plan together.
- [21:27]
Mentor/Advisor
All right, now let's get back to, to the video.
- [21:32]
Randy
All right. I want to make sure that we covered the politics. But now, since we're done with it and we still have time, I, I, I want to go back to something else. And then we'll cut this up and then we'll move this back. A lot of entrepreneurs, young professionals, are very focused on money. At some point you became a billionaire, and again, Forbes says you're worth $6 billion today. How important should money be as a motivation to working hard and being successful?
- [22:00]
Rick Caruso
Zero. Never thought about it. I thought about and was very careful as I'm building something that it made financial sense to do it. You have to be smart about that. But in terms of did I say to myself, I want to be worth 100 million one day, 500 million one day?
- [22:16]
Randy
No, you never had a personal goal?
- [22:17]
Rick Caruso
My, no, no.
- [22:18]
Randy
Many people I know and I did. I want to be worth a million dollars. By the time I was 30, I had a long term goal. I want to be worth $10 million.
- [22:25]
Rick Caruso
No, I never did. My, my goal was I want to build a certain kind of projects. I want to build quality projects. I want to build places people enjoy. I want to build places that sustain the next hundred years. I want to build a company that's dynastic, that lives well beyond me. But I never thought about the money side of it. I think it's, I think you get locked into something and it's, it's not productive because the money's going to come. If you do your job well, you're smart about it, you can, you know, you continually reinvest. The money's going to come. I couldn't imagine if I said, okay, I want to be worth X and therefore I'm going to build the Grove, but I'm going to spend a little bit less so I can make a little bit more because this is my goal. I wouldn't have the Grove, I wouldn't have the Miramar. I would never support that as part of your, your business plan. Make your business plan being the best in your field. Make your business plan being that you're the most innovative in your field, the most thought provoking in your field, that you're somebody that will take a few more calculated risks. And do it with great integrity. Be the most honest person in your industry. I started construction at the Grove on a handshake. The Gilmore family and myself, Hank Hilty, at the time, we didn't have the contract done. We did it on a handshake, and I'm very proud of that. We live by that rule in our company. We live by a handshake, and that's the way it should be. Integrity, to me, is the most important thing in business.
- [23:50]
Randy
People have asked me over my career, what are the most important characteristics that have made me successful? And one of them is something called extreme preparation. I'm writing a book by it as well. It means when someone prepares one hour for a podcast, I'll do 12 or 14. And you walk into any meeting, and the first thing I want to do is blow someone off their chair with a question showing you've done your research. It just starts a podcast, a meeting on an entirely different level. How important has extreme preparation been to your success? Can you give us an example of one?
- [24:19]
Rick Caruso
I'm probably not as extreme as you are. I'm impressed how extreme you are. So congratulations. I prepare, for sure. No doubt. I prepare, and I expect everybody in the meeting to be prepared, but I don't know if I overly prepare. Maybe I should prepare more. You know, there is a little bit of a theory that sometimes if you're not as prepared as you should be, you sort of learn to think on your feet and whatnot. But. But I definitely do my homework, and I want to know the right answers. I generally know where I want to go, and I'm lucky now I've got a really exceptional team that helps me get there. So it's not about me at all. It's about this team that I have, and they work very hard and they're very well prepared.
- [25:03]
Randy
One of the other things that's been very helpful to me in my career has been the ability for me to earn mentors, not get mentors. And I think that's something that people really don't get right. They want. They want to meet Randy. They want to meet Rick. I've had so many people throughout the years ask me, do I know Rick Caruso? No.
- [25:23]
Rick Caruso
Well, now we do.
- [25:24]
Randy
Well. Well, now we do. But. But you're well known. People want to come work with you. And by the way, one of the things that I hated when I was younger, when a boss would say, randy works for me, it made me feel terrible. As opposed to someone, you know, Randy working with with you. I think there's a huge difference. Yeah. How does someone today who doesn't know you get Rick Caruso as a mentor?
- [25:48]
Rick Caruso
Oh, I am so easily accessible. I get emails and we get calls in the office and I always talk to people, especially people in college or just graduated, wanting advice. I do it every week. I do it every week because there's so many people that help me. You know, you stand on the shoulders of others you don't get. You don't get to success on your own. And so I always like paying it back and I enjoy it and I learn from talking to people that are in college and I go down and I talk at universities. But when I get a random email, we'll respond to it and we'll take the call.
- [26:22]
Randy
Do you give out your email publicly?
- [26:24]
Rick Caruso
Yeah. You can go online@caruso.com and get my email. It's not. I'm not secretive. I'm out there. I meet people. I say hello. I love people. If. If I didn't love people or I should say it this way, if somebody doesn't love people, you should not be in the retail development business because you'll be miserable. If you love people, you'll be delighted every day. You should not own a resort if you don't like people. I love being out there with the people. I love walking around. I love saying hello to people. It just gives me great joy and energy.
- [26:53]
Randy
We're at the end of the show and I always conclude my show with a game I call fill in the blank too. Excellent. You really. You ready to play?
- [27:02]
Rick Caruso
I guess I have no choice. Sure.
- [27:04]
Randy
The biggest lesson I've learned in my
- [27:05]
Rick Caruso
life is dust yourself off and get back up when you fall.
- [27:10]
Randy
My number one personal goal is have
- [27:12]
Rick Caruso
a healthy, happy family.
- [27:14]
Randy
My number one professional goal is to
- [27:16]
Rick Caruso
continue to build places that people enjoy.
- [27:19]
Randy
My biggest regret is.
- [27:24]
Rick Caruso
I don't know what my biggest regret is. Probably there's people, sadly who have and we just lost somebody that a lot of your listeners would know. A guy named father Greg Gophels at Rand Loyola High school. Passed away at 70. I loved father Greg. Spend more time with people that you love. I spent a lot of time with Greg, but now that he's gone, I wish I would have spent more. So spend more time with people that you love.
- [27:51]
Randy
My biggest fear is the happiness of
- [27:53]
Rick Caruso
the family, the wellness of the family. That's what I care about the most. My wife and my four kids and my. My new little grandson and my. My daughter in law and my soon to be son in law. That's what I care about is my family first.
- [28:06]
Randy
Congratulations.
- [28:06]
Rick Caruso
Thank you.
- [28:07]
Randy
I know.
- [28:07]
Rick Caruso
I love being a grandpa.
- [28:09]
Randy
The craziest thing that's happened in my career is success.
- [28:13]
Rick Caruso
I didn't expect it.
- [28:14]
Randy
The funniest thing that happened in my
- [28:15]
Rick Caruso
career is, oh, I love having funny things happen. I, I couldn't account for that one. There's been too many funny things. We've had a lot of fun building this business. A lot of laughs. And that's, that's something I think that's really important. Don't be too serious. Laugh at yourself. Have fun. Go to work and enjoy it. And we've had so much fun in our company. A lot of fun.
- [28:40]
Randy
The best advice I've ever received is
- [28:45]
Rick Caruso
my dad. Just be honest in everything that you do. The best advice I could give somebody, if you don't mind.
- [28:53]
Randy
Well, that's the next question.
- [28:54]
Rick Caruso
Is it okay? You know, I, I always think about it this way. This is what I give myself. Protect your obituary. And I know it sounds morbid, but you got to protect what they're going to write about you. It's something to really think about, like, you know, maybe even spend the time to write your own that you'd like people to say about you. But, and what that means is do the right thing. Just be good to people, be fair to people, be honest, just do the right thing and, and life will be good. And I, I really do believe in karma. I think life comes around and I think the, the more that you're good to people, people are good to you and good things happen and life is complicated and it has twists and turns. So having close family and close friends and enjoying life to me is like really critically important.
- [29:36]
Randy
Writing your own obituary is something that I just did. I went to this organization called the Hoffman Institute where you go for seven days, okay, for mental healing and to work on yourself. Good for you. And, and one of the things I'd
- [29:51]
Rick Caruso
have to be there longer than seven days.
- [29:53]
Randy
Well, it's, it's, you know, the range of people who go are. The youngest person was a 25 year old white water rafting guide and the oldest person was 63. And there's CEOs of big companies. You can Google this too. LeBron James has been, Katy Perry's been. But you really go and you bear your soul in front of 40 people. Everyone cries.
- [30:13]
Rick Caruso
Wow.
- [30:13]
Randy
You know, you talk about all the things that you do, but you really had never. You really don't think about who's coming to your funeral.
- [30:19]
Rick Caruso
Right.
- [30:20]
Randy
And you talk about who's coming here. Like, what would the people who don't like you say at your funeral? And what would the people who love you say at your funeral? And then you have the right of your own. And it really is a worthwhile experience. So it's something I've never mentioned on the show. I just got back, actually. And it's something that if someone is going through emotional trauma and just wants to get away, no phone, no email, no communication with the world other than there, it's something very healing to do.
- [30:49]
Rick Caruso
Yeah, that's great. That's great.
- [30:52]
Randy
If you could pick one quality that led to someone's success, it would be.
- [30:58]
Rick Caruso
I don't know, I don't think there's any one quality. I think there's multiple qualities. But again, you have to have. I'm not gonna. I'm not giving you the answer you want, but I think you have to have a.
- [31:09]
Randy
Like a politician.
- [31:10]
Rick Caruso
No, I'm not trying to be a politician. I got idea. I hope I'm never a politician. From that standpoint, I think you have to be competent. I think you have to be really diligent, Work hard. But none of that matters if you don't have integrity. And I am just such a big believer on integrity. And I have the Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett rule. Don't do business with bad people. You'll never make a good deal with bad people. And I remind my team about that all the time. You can't have a contract to anticipate what's going to come at you. Life is too short to do it. And really pick good people to do business with and surround yourself with that. Have a high level of integrity and things work out really great.
- [31:55]
Randy
The most important thing that's contributed to my success is I think, integrity.
- [32:00]
Rick Caruso
People trust what I say and that what we're going to deliver in these communities when we say we're going to build a project, you're going to be proud of and we're going to be a good neighbor in this community for a long time, we're going to do it. And if I tell you I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it.
- [32:16]
Randy
The one thing I've dreamt about doing for a long time but haven't is learning another language.
- [32:20]
Rick Caruso
I really want to learn another language. I started to and I was taking lessons once a week, and then January 7th hit and my lessons blew up.
- [32:28]
Randy
What language?
- [32:29]
Rick Caruso
Italian. I grew up around a table where Italian was spoken.
- [32:33]
Randy
So if I could invent one thing in the world, it would be, oh
- [32:36]
Rick Caruso
my goodness, there's so many good things that need to be invented. I don't know, I mean, I would invent something that helps children that are, that are ill, that don't have the same opportunities. Give people a chance to live a really productive life.
- [32:53]
Randy
If you could go back and give your 21 year old self one piece of advice, it would be really take
- [32:58]
Rick Caruso
the time to enjoy the ride. It goes quick.
- [33:00]
Randy
If you could meet one person in the world today, who would it be?
- [33:03]
Rick Caruso
Jesus Christ.
- [33:05]
Randy
If you could meet one person today who was alive, who would it be?
- [33:08]
Rick Caruso
Oh, that's interesting. I don't know. I'd have to give that one a lot of thought. I'm not quite sure who that would be. There's so many people I'd like to meet.
- [33:19]
Randy
Give us three.
- [33:19]
Rick Caruso
I, I really, I'd have to think about it. I'm. You stumped me on that one. I have to think about that one. I don't know. I don't know.
- [33:27]
Randy
If you were the mayor of Los Angeles today, the first thing you would
- [33:33]
Rick Caruso
do is safe and clean streets.
- [33:36]
Randy
If you were the governor of California today, the first thing you would do
- [33:41]
Rick Caruso
is safe and clean streets. But there's so many things you gotta drop the cost of living in this city, you gotta drop it in the state. Listen, I'll end with this. When I was a young guy starting out, and I'm sure you were the same way, I had a big dream and I was willing to work really hard. But I also felt so firmly in my mind that this city was going to give me a chance to succeed, that if I worked really hard that I could pull myself up one rung at a time and I could be successful. I don't think people feel that way in the city of LA anymore. I don't think people feel that way in the state anymore, that the city or the state has your back, that they're sort of, for lack of a better word, your partner helping you. And the cost of living here is what's preventing so many people from being able to pull themselves up. And we've got to give people the opportunity and the chance to do that or you're not going to have a great city, you're not going to have a great state because people are going to leave. So that's really the top priority. And I would love to have everybody have the same opportunity that I had starting out, that you can dream big, work hard, and you could get to where you want to be very tough. To do that.
- [34:55]
Randy
Now, my last question, okay. Is what's the one question you wish I had asked you but didn't?
- [35:03]
Rick Caruso
What's the love of my life? Tina Caruso. I just love her. I married so well, and she's just an incredible lady, and I couldn't have done what I've done without her. She's been by my side, and she's been that reasonable voice in my ear when, you know, sometimes I was unreasonable. And she is the most humble, kindest human being in the world. So she just is the best, and she's given me the greatest kids in the world.
- [35:32]
Randy
Rick, it's a true pleasure to have you on my show. I've wanted you on here for a very long time.
- [35:37]
Rick Caruso
Thanks for being here. I'm a big fan.
- [35:38]
Randy
I'm a big fan, and I hope you announce soon, and I hope you win, and we're all behind you, so we'll, we'll figure out how we're going to be able to help you.
- [35:46]
Rick Caruso
I, I, I love that. So thank you.
- [35:49]
Randy
I appreciate you. Thank you.
- [35:50]
Rick Caruso
All right.