Ice Cream Scooper to Multi-Millionaire: The Inspiring Story of Noel Bowman The Power Move Podcast EP 61
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From the art of the deal to keeping it real. Live from the Simply Vegas studios, it's The Power Move with John Gafford. Back again, back again for another episode of The Power Move. I'm your host, John Gafford. This is a podcast where we try to talk about business, we talk about life, we talk about interesting things.

Trying to get you from one place where you are now to the next. With me to my left, as always, is the Bulgarian mongoose, Colt Amidon. Or Michael Miller. That's who stole my identity on Instagram and has more followers than me. Oh,

That made me feel bad today. I'm not going to lie. There's a fake account on Instagram, and they have more followers than Cole. So fake you is better than real you. Way better. Yeah, but fake you probably puts out some effort. Way better. I lost friends. And piping in from the couch is the counselor, Chris Connell. How are you, counselor? Gentlemen, always good. Always good. And in the hot seat today, ladies and gentlemen, we have one of my oldest and dearest friends, believe it or not.

And he's not here because he's one of my friends. As a matter of fact, the fact that he's one of my friends probably makes him not want to be here. But we have him here because it's an interesting story. Noel is the president of...

of probably one of the most interesting restaurant concepts. Well, not even a restaurant concept. Hospitality concepts. Attraction, we'll call it. Essentially, Noel makes millions of dollars selling cold air, is what he does. Brilliant! If you're talking about what that is. But there's more than that. Noel is the president of the ice bars here in Las Vegas, and they've also scaled some across the country. And Noel's got a cool story, man.

I mean, I figured the reason that I called Noel is not just because you're going to listen to this and say, how can I become brutally successful selling cold air? That's not why I had him in. I had him in is as the economy starts to turn and starts to change. And I'm seeing these companies lay a lot of people off.

Well, no, no. All when I've been friends for a lot of, for a long time. And I saw him get smoked in a, in a downturn type deal where he lost something that was a lifetime, literally of work for you fell apart. And then the climb back to where you are now is a, is a pretty good story. It really is. Without a doubt that, uh, you know, life will throw a lot of unexpected things at you. And, uh,

Some people can crawl under a rock under the bed and never come out of it. Yeah. I got a lot of shit thrown at me. No, you did, man, for sure. But before we get to your story, man, we got to talk about some current events as we go along. So the first thing is I'm pretty proud of us, boys. Pretty proud. Pretty proud. Pretty proud.

All of our wives this weekend went away to the beach and stayed at the Newport house. I am proud to report seven kids went seven kids. Seven are still alive. Yeah. All of our children survived the weekend. Seven kids, arguably alive. Yeah. I mean, yeah. No trips to the hospital, no stitches. Everything's fine. And we were talking about this earlier.

So let's get into it. Well, actually, let's see the frequency at which our wives listen to the show. Let's just see if they're never going to hear this. Let's see if this even comes up. So my experience, and I think we discussed it, everybody had a similar experience, was

My house might have been cleaner the whole time my wife was gone and had nothing to do with me cleaning anything up. It just had to do with not letting the minions run the asylum. Control. Lack of tolerance. I think that was it. Yeah, I had a zero tolerance policy. That's so funny that all three of us, that was the first thing we all said. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, it smelled like a tropical, beautiful Tommy Bahama. It was nice. It was like I could see I could see Colt laid out in the bathtub. I like some bombs, a glass of white wine. I could tell red wines, John, get it right. I could see you doing this like the kids banging on the door. You're like daddy. He's in his life. Daddy. Donald. Truth be told, did the maids come before the wife? He came. Nope.

No, no, I went through and I got to say the beauty was I got to throw a lot of shit out that I would never dare risk doing while she's there. We'll notice it undercover. Yeah. I think the best part of it was the fear in your eyes that when you're like, what have you done now? I have to take care of my own children. I just didn't sign up for that.

You know, I had no intent of ever being. I mean, I want to be a father on paper. I want to be a celebrity on paper. I don't actually want to be one. I want to be one on paper. No one said I have to do the work. I just want to be able to call up and get a good. This is why I said I'll be John Grisham famous hopefully one day. Where nobody knows what you look like.

You're not being followed to the bathroom at Disneyland, but you can call up a restaurant and get a good table. That's what I wanted out of fatherhood, to get a big piece of chicken, to have the day where you got to bring me golf socks or whatever. That's it, yeah. But that's basically it. That's what the line is. That's just the line. So Colt, I got to believe, speaking of being followed into the bathroom at Disneyland, I got to believe you have a story of this. I'm just going to- Bathroom? You know what, it's-

What happened to me the other day at the bathroom? I was really disgusted by it. I can't remember. Give me a second. I'll take it. What happened to me in the bathroom the other day? I was really disgusted by it. If you ever know what it's like to be on a reality show, you would say something like that and it would definitely get jump cut into something else. What happened to my reality show? Some guy interviewed me. I can't go.

No, it's no, I don't, I don't, I don't know. I can't remember. Something just happened. I was so disappointed. Oh, you know what it was? The guy straight up started to have a conversation with me and try to shake my hand in the bathroom, in the bathroom and hadn't even washed it. That's what it was at town square at the urinal. Yeah. You don't do that. Yeah. We don't tell you the Don King story. So a million years ago when I was running Cobalt lounge in Atlanta, we had all the Superbowl parties during Superbowl 2000 and

I walk in the bathroom in the VIP area and Don King's in the bathroom, right? Stealing money from somebody? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. He walks in. I'm just in there because I was like, whatever. The little bathroom attendant guy needed something. I was doing something, right? I wasn't milling around the bathroom for no reason. Yeah, right. There was a reason I was in there. I did the same thing. No, no, no, no. So I'm in there and he walks in and he washes his hands.

And then he goes to the journal and then he turns to walk out and I'm standing there and I kind of had this look on my face like, and he looks at me and doesn't even say he goes, when you shake as many hands as I do, you wash your hands before you touch the dick.

He's not wrong. No, he really isn't. I was like, okay. That's the cleanest thing on your body. Oh, yeah. That's my Don King story. There it was. But, you know, I did want to talk about something else. I want to talk about something else. Is it about the death penalty? No, feel free for death penalty. I feel like if you go to another man and there's a urinal that could have divided you and you go to the one beside the other man, I don't believe in the death penalty for a lot of reasons. Oh, I think it's so fun to mess with. That's a positive.

so directly you're guilty of this, there should just be some kind of drone that hovers over a basketball. So help me here because my son, 10 years old, Raiders game this weekend, big crowds. Stadiums are difficult. He's got a choice.

one guy's here, a couple empty ones over, and he goes to three or four, and he's running away, right? I guess that's pretty normal, but there's a lesson there somewhere. Well, the lesson is he's like three and a half feet, four feet tall. He's in the spray zone. He's like, I'm out. Yeah, he's going to choose a lot more careful than we do. Oh, God, oh, God. I don't know about that.

Stay clear of other men in the urinal when you have a choice. When possible. When you ever have a choice. Or make it super weird. I had a friend a long time ago in Orlando that would always come up and stand next to me at the urinal in a crowded restroom and just lean over and go, hey, great penis. Everybody would just make it very strange, which is good. But I'll tell you what else is strange. Let's talk about a conspiracy theory that I believe may be true. Uh-oh.

I heard this one over the weekend and it resonated with me. It made a lot of sense. I have no idea if it's accurate. It could just be a theory. It could just be a theory, but it was a guy I saw on a podcast. So, you know, it's real. You know, it's true. So anyway, what this cat was saying was he goes, his theory was, he goes, listen in China,

The algorithm for TikTok is entirely different than the algorithm in the United States. About positive and negative? Have you heard this? No, no. In China, the algorithm will reward you for talking about science or mathematics or this and that. There's a positive. Yes, there's positive. Whereas in the United States, it rewards you for doing the dumbest things.

possible shit that's a conspiracy theory you think that's real oh yeah i think so i was under the impression that that was already established i didn't know i didn't know that i thought it was just a conspiracy theory yeah so essentially you're training a whole generation of idiots what do you think we're doing welcome to america i'm trying to listen

If you're just figuring this out, that's a bombshell. Talk to the guy in the urinal next to you and go, look at that penis. We should be telling people how to exploit those facts. Yeah, that's a good point. Whether or not they exist. That's a good... No, so you're in agreement that that's real? Oh, for sure. You think? 100%. Do you... Show me a Chinese TikTok where you got a dad doing...

Some dance move. Well, you feel like building rockets. Can I ask my other tech talk question, which is this? How long do you think it is before?

Somebody goes up to somebody in a Home Depot in the state of Florida and knocks their hat off or puts a bucket on their head and they pull a gun out and shoot them on the stand their ground with that again that hasn't happened and it hasn't happened how long before it I mean it's coming. I think those are set up though. I don't do I would I Hate that they come down my stream on everything I look these morons that want to bump into people or knock people's hat dude. I

I can't wait for you to get shot. I cannot wait for that to happen. If you want to look at that optimistically, if you want to be an optimist, which I think we see so many instances of X, Y, Z happening. When you look at the actual world, I argue that most people are honest.

Think that most people do the right thing. The shopping cart theory. Yeah. Well, no, because I would say that more people are genuinely honest. I think some people don't maybe think they're maybe not self-aware, but I think people want to be in the moment. I think people want to be the good guy in their own movie. And I think that people will see themselves as the protagonist. Right. And so at the end of the day, I don't think that.

Most people are gonna pull out a gun and shoot you at home deep. I think when that happened there's 330 million people in this country and when you're a statistician you go well I see five horrible things happen. You're talking about that's 330 million. It's 229 million bull who aren't doing crazy shit Yeah, so if you see guys walking up the escalator one guy's going down and then he rubs his hand on him and like gives him the eye and I

You might catch the wrong guy, right? You might get the wrong guy. I mean, you get these idiots that go to South Central or wherever, Compton, and start pretending like they're going to fight somebody. That's stupid. I think it's a low statistical probability. It's a generational thing, though, on the genuine everyone wants to be the hero, but it's eroding. Oh, yeah.

Traded for a like and traded for a, you know. Here's an interesting thought because I had a little exercise in my own brain this week I'll share with you. This was interesting. So I won't get into exactly what was going on because it's irrelevant to the story. But what was happening was so many times in life we get disappointed in other people because they don't behave in a way that we feel we would put in their similar situation. Like leaving bags of ice in a Lamborghini. Exactly. Leaving bags of ice in a Lamborghini.

But in case in point, we can talk about that in a minute if you want, but case in point, there was a situation where somebody close to me was very upset because somebody else was not behaving a way that they felt they would in a similar situation.

And so I said, okay, Hannah, second, let me do this. And I said, let me try to think back where there's a time when I didn't act to that standard. And can I find a place in my life when I did? And I think as soon as I thought back and I realized, holy shit, here's a situation where I guarantee somebody wanted me to act a certain way. And I did not, even though what I felt was okay. And maybe I asked that person about it. Is this okay? Whatever.

down deep, it probably was not to the standard that I'm asking this or thinking this person should act. And I think if before you get disappointed in others, I mean, look, the stoics say, and I'm all about modern stoicism. It's funny. There was a, on modern stoic today, it literally came up talking about having no expectation for other people. You'll be a lot happier. But I think as humans, I think it's impossible sometimes to do that. So,

You know, looking at that and before you start to get angry or upset or deflated about someone else's actions, just simply place yourself in a similar situation. Look back in your life and say, have I always held myself to that standard? None of us are perfect. But honestly, in my brain was immediately like, and when I was able to vocalize that to the person I was talking to, they were like, oh, I guess that's true. And it kind of diffused that emotion. It's true in a family setting, but it's also...

true in a work setting, but a little different because there have to be expectations to be set. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes they don't deliver. Right. But I think that's true in a personal relationship. It's different than a job paying you. Like Don Draper says, that's what the money's for.

You know, it's just at the end of the day, I'm not paying the empathy. For a friendship. A good boss will probably empathize with employees to a point as long as it's not disruptive to your business. That's where the coaching piece comes in, right? Yeah, it does. That's where you can get it. You can get them to good. In my defense, it was eight trulys deep. So, sorry, John. Yeah, there was.

Yeah. For those of you wondering about the Lamborghini thing this weekend, we ordered a buddy, AJ, Bet With AJ. You can go back and check out his episode if you like. One of the best sports handicappers here in Vegas. I thought, this is really strange to me. And AJ, I hope you're watching, buddy, because Jesus, this is about you. If not, I'm sending you. If not, we'll send it to you. But so let me tell you, here's what AJ does. So AJ, first of all, I call, he says, I say, hey man, we're taking the Sprinter to the tailgate, which was awesome, by the way. It worked out perfectly.

And come on down. So he shows up as we're walking to the stadium. He says he's coming at like 11. He's texting constantly the whole time. There in a minute. There in a minute. There in a minute.

Shows up as we're walking to the stadium. And as we get right in front of the stadium, he goes, are you guys going to the game? It's like, yeah, dude. He goes, where are you, Chris? I'm like, watching kickoff. I'm out. Yeah, dude, we're going to the game. He's like, oh, I didn't know we were going to the game. I thought we were just going to hang out in the parking lot. That's what we did in college. I go, no, the tailgate is the pregame. We have money now. We can buy tickets to the game. But he's calling Colt saying, what can I bring? Or called you or somebody. And they're like, bring two bags of ice.

He rolled up in a quarter of a million dollar Lamborghini, parked it, left two bags of ice in it. Thank you.

and shockingly enough it did not melt so aj whatever you're doing you're doing it right because if that was my car god would have flooded that thing that's 10 degrees out oh no humidity no kidding four four hours that's amazing it was amazing that is amazing it wasn't me so if you're still listening that's 15 minutes of nonsense well thank you for staying with us hopefully i'll make sure i tag this so we can get to what we want to talk about today but

Again, today's show is about overcoming adversity as much more than it is about selling. There's a lot of good lessons in Noel's story and I want to kind of go through them. So as you're telling it, if I stop you and kind of dig deeper, let's do that. So first of all, I mean, I know all this stuff, so it's a little redundant for me. But for those of you who don't know Noel, where did you grow up? Tell us about the young age. Tell us about you as a kid, man. Grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana. All my family's still there. Migrated to New

A little town of sand dunes called Destin, Florida, 1977. I got off to LSU for a few years and found myself in Orlando. Well, stop this. Hang on a second. We always ask this question. Go Tigers. Go Tigers. This is the question that we always ask, which is, what was the first hustle as a kid to make money?

What was the first thing you can remember doing to make money? 10 years old, cleaning up a parking lot of a bar called Hogs Breath Saloon. Famous place out of Fort Walton's where it started and managed to be Key West Cancun. Cleaned up the parking lot for five bucks a day and a free Coca-Cola. How'd you get that gig? Went in and asked for it because I needed some money. Is there anything I can do to make some money at 10 years old? And yeah, it was a, you know, it was a grind. I needed something to do and I...

I saw the fruits of my bigger brother's labor as he was working and became important. So, and it was tough, broken bottles of glass everywhere. It was hot. - OSHA compliant. - Yeah, exactly. Wasn't OSHA compliant at all. There's a lot of that from our younger days, I guess.

So that was the first hustle. And then you went to LSU, went off to LSU. I was bartending, uh, through college. Was that the first job in hospitality? I'd kind of come up through a restaurant in the Destin area, bar backing and bus boying and whatnot, shucking oysters. And, uh, and it, uh, actually paved the way to open that door at LSU when I needed some money. It wasn't a free ride over there. I kind of worked my way through college. Yeah. Uh,

And then got out of there and kind of wound up in Orlando, Florida. That's kind of really where the saga begins. I was looking for a job and someone told me there was this place that's about to open and they have this cool thing called a Bloomin' Onion.

and I started at one of the very first Outback Steakhouses. What was your employee number? Oh, good one, good one. You told me it was like, if I recall correctly, I want to say it was like 27. Is that accurate? I don't know. Maybe. I don't really remember that. You told me at one point. But I started as a server with them at their third location.

and of course, you know, the story, that thing kind of blew up, um, quickly. And, um, that was an interesting story without back it. Uh, well, health food has really exploded. It's changed a lot. It's changed. The blooming onion is perfect. I will, I will say the food quality at Outback while still okay is not nearly what it was when they first opened. No, not at all. It's not even remotely the same. Not at all. Look, I mean, I didn't know that that was going to be a 21 year career for me. Yeah. Um,

I was just trying to make ends meet and you're hanging out in Orlando doing my thing. I think I was 22, 23, never in my life dreamed I would be in hospitality. It was a stop along the way like it is for most people. Uh, but they had a great program and I didn't know that eventually they, I really didn't pay attention to it. I think my work ethic and my personality and gregariousness, uh, kind of had them tapping on my shoulder at some point to get behind the bar and eventually become a trainer. Uh,

I think the second year I was there, the company opened a hundred restaurants and I opened probably 40, 40 of those. That's a lot on the road, traveling, making my mark and kind of,

It was great. I mean, I was really having the time of my life. I got to see a lot of things, meet a lot of people, but I started to see really what the deeper program was about, you know, in the management, right? I had stars in my eyes of this big trainer, trainer deal. And I learned a lot, great culture with this company at the time. I didn't open for lunch. It was dinner only. Then I kind of come to find out that their, their GM, they didn't even have GMs. They had partners.

put up money you get a 10 you know stake in the business and you run it for five years in your community and you become the mayor the human resources the maintenance guy you're everything and i said how do i how do i do this and i remember to this day you know my uh my superior at the time said uh gotta get in the kitchen i really wasn't a kitchen guy the front of house guy from my whole life and uh and uh it took a lot of nuts but i did it i was in daytona beach one of the busier stores that they had

And it's funny, I remember being in that kitchen, you know, making those blooming onions. And it wasn't easy, right? Six in the morning, and it was a 70-hour-a-week grind. I mean, it was a grind. And I was like, what am I doing? I mean, I was making less money than I was bartending, you know, but I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. These guys were making good money, and they had equity, and I thought it was worth going two steps backwards to take one step forward. And I remember there was a point in time where I was kind of over it. I was like, this is a grind. This is...

This is what everybody says. Don't get in the restaurant business. You're going to burn yourself out. Right. And there was this old dude, my next door neighbor in Daytona shores, which I lived on the beach. And he was always about his garden retired. We got into this pattern for six months where he'd be out there and I'm, I'm going to work six in the morning. And every day he would look up and he goes, don't let the bastards get you down. Seriously. Don't let them get you down. True to me to this day. Every day. I mean, this dude was like, don't let him get you down.

Well, I can tell you, in an industry that's so, will just burn you up and burn you up. That's what I do love about that particular brand is they do offer that proprietor. I mean, whenever you walk into a restaurant, and they still to this day, it says like, this is the proprietor of this business. They do. The program's changed quite a bit. It's not what it was. But it was.

But doesn't Darden do some stuff like that as well? Darden does that as well? Several people try to replicate what it was. It's difficult to do. I think what you're seeing is it was there and then that went away. Yeah. And now with all the labor problems that are happening, especially post-COVID, I think you're starting to see some people really understand the equity of that. These people are soldiers. Well, you know, the word that you're saying that's most, you know, people are so short-sighted about money today.

They get so short sighted about, they don't understand the value of equity. Equity is everything. It's everything in a business. You can be the most well-paid person in the world, but if you are the one that's operating the business day in and day out, you got to have equity. Absolutely. It's what kept us busy every day. So yeah, you got to do it. So you're, you're at Outback and when did you become, where was your first store that you were a proprietor? I was one of the youngest partners at 26 and I made my way to Utah.

Oh, yeah, that's right. That's right on your deal. So I traveled around all over Florida as a manager and cutting my teeth. I was asked to come to Vegas in the early 90s. I think I moved here in 89, or I'm sorry, about 93. And we opened all of the Outbacks here in town. I was still a manager, kind of moving around. Then we developed the Salt Lake City market. I moved out there, got one of the first ones in Salt Lake going, and then I took the one, believe it or not, Catholic boy from New Orleans,

I had to spend five or six years in Provo, Utah. Wow. The BYU Cougars. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And then from there, you know, I'd really done well. One of the lowest liquor mixes in the company. And I had just tremendous numbers and migrated my way back to Tampa and wound up –

Having a store right next to our home office, the equity grew. In that situation, when you re-sign again, you have the opportunity to buy into a deeper stack, if you will, of the company. And then made my way up to a joint venture partner. We partnered with Jimmy Buffett and operated a concept called Cheeseburger in Paradise. I had the whole state of Florida. Started developing some things. What happened with that? That seemed like a can't-miss deal. Was it too much...

Too much competition like Margaritaville? Like what happened there? No, I think... We never really talked about what happened. You know, at the time our company had gone private. We went public, went private, public again, and things were kind of changing. We were 1,200 restaurants, 60,000 employees. We started at three. It was a huge ride. Some buyouts, some stock, et cetera. I think the cheeseburger thing is we...

acquired a Mexican concept that went out of business and we took over 40 sites. I think we just grew too fast, way too fast. We didn't have the infrastructure. It was a lot of things, but the concept itself, I think had legs, the culture that Jimmy Buffett brings, you know, everyone's on vacation, you know, it's, it is paradise found. It was a neat thing, especially when we tried to bring that to middle America. I think it worked, but we grew a little too fast. Well, I think if you're open and trying to open 40 doors that quick, the logistics must've just smoked you and trying to get,

product that was consistent. Incredibly tough on all points, right? On all that. So...

You know, with that said, you know, that's kind of where we get into the exit about 20, 21 years later. I mean, it hit hard. It wasn't a pretty exit for me. It was, I'd gone through a lot of personal things. If we're going to get right into the, you know, the hit and bottom type of thing, which I think is really what we really want to get into with this segment. You know, not to get too personal, but I lost three kids with my former marriage. I had to bury three kids

Kind of had a rough ending to that Outback deal and things that changed quite a bit. It was probably time, but you know, it didn't end very well at that point in time. I wound up moving back to Vegas kind of out of work. And this was when the heart housing crash kind of happened. You know, long story short, you know, within a six month period of time of, of, you know, having that personal tragedy stuff happened to moving back to Vegas to, to,

divorce and bankruptcy. I turned 40 years old, you know, with nothing to show for it. I dumped all of my outback buyout into a huge house in mountains edge. Probably, you know, at the time the robo signing was going on, I dumped it all. I don't want a debt. I don't have a job. Let me just dump it all in here and make sure I got an asset that's,

or something or something. And of course, you know, divorce and then, and then eventually bankrupt. Uh, uh, but, uh, yeah, I was sitting with nothing. Yeah. I remember, I remember that time, um, with you and, and man, it was, uh, it was a real struggle. There were days, I mean, you moved in with a friend of ours and, uh, that was nice enough to kind of let your couch serve, save my life. So, I mean, yeah, but I mean, you know, here you were, you're 40 years old, marriage is dissolving, bankrupt. We just lost the house. I mean, this was you, you were,

He was struggling. Yeah, big time. And our buddy Pike let you move in, couch surf with him. And I'll never forget, you called me up one day and you said, okay, you know, I got to do something. I got to do something. You said there's this margarita slash ice cream deal. It's Caesars. I can go manage it.

You know, it's not a job I necessarily want, but, you know, they're going to pay me a hundred grand. What would you do? Now I'm asking her, I would do. And I was like, I mean, shit, man, you need money. It's a hundred grand. Take a hundred grand. Just go. Yes. It'll get your feet on. You find something different. And you did. And I'm going to show a picture real quick. Where did you get this?

You can look up on the screen. I'm going to show you this. Oh, wow. So, yeah, there's a picture of Noel. And when I first walked up to him, when I first walked up on him, I was like, bro. Look at that little cutie. I was like, you didn't tell me there was a hat involved. John, I remember this day. I mean, I do because my heart hit the ground when I saw you because I didn't think you were going to.

See me here? I was scooping ice cream at 40 years old. Why? Because I wanted to pay my child support and I wanted to do my responsible thing. But it was a tough ego pop. Bow tie and a little top hat. Can we talk about 100 grand for ice cream scooping? Yeah. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was. I know he was

kind of brought me on was like, I think something's going wrong here. I need you to kind of infiltrate and see what's going on. And, uh, but, but I literally scooping ice cream. So the first, okay, let me ask you this. Cause this is cause dude, there's going to be some people out there, man, that have to go through this and you're going to have to swallow your ego and you're going to have to do what you got to do. And you're going to have to take, uh,

Like, you know, when you're used to being on step 57 and all of a sudden you're back at zero looking at step number one and you're going to have to swallow that. So what was that first day like when you're like, okay, I'm going to put this on. I'm going to go do this. What was that like? You know, I had to look at myself in the mirror and almost pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And look, it was a dark time for me. You know, I don't know if I was really me. I look back on it and go, God, I was, I'm lucky I survived this. Most people don't just on the personal tragedy alone. Forget the bankruptcy and the divorce and the money.

it was a lot of heavy heavy and uh but i knew uh and there was times that i didn't give me i probably went five six months without the job kind of going nobody would touch me no corporate america chain would work at no one was hiring the housing crash was going on so yeah but desperate times call for desperate measures and i remember driving to work going you know i got to get this done and believe it or not i did it for my daughter that's what

I had to pay that child support and do my part there. And that's what kind of kept me alive on that. So, you know, the human spirit, as we talked about earlier, kind of prevails. Well, and listen, there's probably a lot. Somebody is listening to this right now going,

$100,000 to scoop ice cream, I'll wear whatever the hell you want. I don't need that. But you have to understand something else. Everything is relative. And you're talking about somebody that had been very successful making well past $100,000 a year and literally back to zero. I mean, this is everything is relative. It wasn't 100, by the way. It was 60. Oh, was it 60? I graduated to 100 when I got another job after that. All right. Well, it's 60. All right.

See, now the story might change. I don't know if that happens. But you know what? But this is like a perfect thing of...

You're not starting over from zero, right? You've got so much experience now. You're not starting over like you did when you were 18 or 20. And I think people are afraid to start over in life because they think it's, well, this is how it was when I was 18 years old. You have so much more education. I'll tell you that I got lucky with 60. I was prepared to take whatever. Yeah. I couldn't get anything. I got, I really fell into that, that it was good. Uh,

uh but i was prepared to do whatever it took just just as a power move point something that people forget and miss all the time and it kind of got glossed over there um there is a huge value in bankruptcy i just i think a lot of people don't appreciate that step in the story and they're always so worried about it they go oh my god it's it's the end of the world but but it's not it's actually something it's a hard reset and and and to your point had you not been in the middle of a housing crisis

Had you been there today, you could still keep all the equity in your house effectively in Nevada. Like I said, I think some people, they forget about that step and it's hugely important. Ego prevented me from doing that for almost two years. I wish I would have done it two years earlier. It's a system that's in place for a reason. For a reason. And I'll tell you, without it,

would not be a very struggle to get back to where I was. It was two houses, a Florida house. And there was a house here. There was a lot going on. Oh, I forgot about the Florida cause you couldn't sell it either because the market turned. That's right. I just thought it was important cause that's a valuable business lesson that people think that it's the end of the world. You can walk out in Nevada, a millionaire after bankruptcy, by the way. Well, I know, but I think too, I think a lot of people, I think like you said, it's pride. It's pride. A hundred percent. Same thing goes for unemployment. A lot of people want to do unemployment. I don't need unemployment. You put into it, right? Yeah.

It's a program. Any employee that ever leaves me today, I said, if you have it, take it. It is not about pride. Get the check. You've earned it. You put into it. And that's part of the deal. Get the check. And that's part of the deal. That's a very valuable point that people miss. But I think now, so here you are. You didn't scoop ice cream very long. It didn't last very long. No, I managed to get another job. But here's the point. The point was you tried for six months. I mean, hitting every job there was trying to get something.

Trying to get anywhere. Because when you're... It's like dating. When you ain't had a girlfriend in a year, how long since you had a girlfriend? Yeah, I don't want to date you. She's okay. Yeah, but when you got three girlfriends, girlfriend number four wants to know why. So if you don't have a job and you want a job, it's okay to take something because if you look like you're gainfully employed, even if it's...

even if it's something one step at a time, one step at a time. It's hard for people to gather grass, but you have to do it. You have to do it. If you're out there and you're having, you're having the struggle. I know it sucks. It's heavy and everyone's got their own issues, right? Mine was heavy. Not on the personal side. It was super heavy.

And you just got to do it. If not, you're going to wither. You're going to wither away. You've got to take that step. Take whatever comes to you because you're going to learn something from it. And it will open other doors. Yep. So you go to, so from there, where do you wind up? I went over to a seafood restaurant in Mandalay Bay. I got lucky there and was GM of a place called RM Seafood. Oh, yeah.

Rick Moonen, buddy. With Rick Moonen. Thank you, Rick. If you're watching this, he was very educational and I learned a lot about food. Back of house was always my weakness. But at the same time, I had to make some tough choices there because he had this real high end upstairs, chefs, sous chefs, and this whole labor thing going on and no one was out. Vegas was struggling. Yeah. So I kind of had to convince him to just turn this thing and let's shut some things down. Let's make this thing viable. Let's get through this, this period. Yeah.

And it was tough. We had to let some people go and, you know, it was not easy. How much did, because Rick has notoriously high standards with the way things operate in his places.

How much of that did you take on to yourself? Did you take on going forward? Because, like, let's face it. We worked at chain restaurants. You train. Here's this. But, dude, it's nothing like the standards that a chef of his level expects. And I know his level of expectation. Yeah, look, I mean, chef-driven places are a little different. I mean, just from a pure business point of view, I think Rick and I had an understanding of –

He was, he's a smart dude. He knows what he's doing in the kitchen. He's great with the camera. His book was doing well. You know, he'd turned through some GMs. He'd had quite a few and I was a little worried, you know, I'm number six in a short amount of time. Why are you burning these people out? And so chef driven things are a little different. They operate front of house a little different. It's not a separation of church and state, right? But no, I learned a lot about how to balance that where we didn't really have that in the, in the.

corporate side that we were on right yeah but it was it's intense man it's intense and i was a guy that didn't really know a whole lot about culinary i knew i knew my way around but i was more business right labor people let's marketing let's get the sales in let's let's figure out how we're going to get through this downturn in the housing deal uh but at the same time he was tough man he was a tough dude to work with and he had a very high standard you're very correct so yeah what was it what was your favorite thing you accomplished when you were in arnold uh you know i think

The unfortunate side is we had the business savvy enough to whittle it down and get it still profitable with what was going on in the market. And that was the hard part. So, yeah, I think he could have...

really gotten strangled in that thing. I think we got him to a point where we got it running and operating correctly. I don't recall. Was Boiler Room open before or after? No, Boiler Room was after. So this was the upstairs kind of deal. When it was that tasting deal. Really, really high-end stuff. Good stuff. Anyways, to carry that story on, as I would

Would work there right across the hall. There was this construction banner coming up with this minus five thing, right? So I didn't really know what that was about. But, you know, I kind of, it opened up and I met the folks that were actually

running it, who's my current business partner. And they kind of tapped me to come over. They needed some help. They didn't pick the right people to start with. And I was like, you know, all right, let me get out of this environment with this chef-driven deal. I'm laughing because I've had two terrible pieces of advice I've given in my life. I mean, dreadful pieces.

The first of which is when I got, when I was living in Tampa and I got a rough cut of what would be Zac Brown's debut album. And prior to this, Zac Brown had a more of a rock edge to it.

and was almost kind of like driving and crying. And then they super countryed it up. And I called my buddy Sonny and I said, this is never going to work. So there goes my career as an A&R rep, number one. And then when Noel tells me about this opportunity with the ice place, I'm like, bro, that shit's never going to make it. Is that their first one? Goes to show. You're very funny on that because as I took the job, I went back to all of my restaurant people. I'm like, what are you crazy?

crazy that doesn't have so it wasn't just me it doesn't have legs look truth be told i i i wish i could take credit for you know creating this wonderful concept that's not that's from a wonderful guy named craig ling he's a new zealander he kind of created this deal and and kind of got it here to vegas and uh i was fortunate enough to come on in a very very many months after it opened in uh

And we didn't have it right in the beginning. You know, for those listening, I don't know if you know what ice bar is or not. Well, John, you tell me. I'm going to pull it up and I'm going to, well, you keep talking. I'm going to pull it up. So it's an attraction where we coach you up and whisk you into a winter wonderland of 90 tons of ice. And you drink cocktails out of glasses made of ice. In the beginning. Wearing fur coats. Fur coats. Faux fur coats the whole bit. And it's an attraction. However,

When I first came on, you know, it really wasn't. It was really more of a high-end deal. They were trying to pitch it with bottle service and caviar and this real ultra lounge kind of super swanky experience. And it was quick to me to realize that, you know, no one's going to stay in there for three hours drinking a $500 bottle of Tito's, right? So we quickly, you know, kind of pivoted.

to, uh, attraction mode. And, uh, and it kind of just hit and we got lucky to have travel channel come do a story on us. And it kind of went out to, to nationally. And, um,

it kind of hit, you know, it really did. But, but we've morphed into a lot of things over the years. Do you have a PR guy for that kind of stuff or people reaching out to you guys? If you're, if you're watching this, this is, if you're, if you're watching us on YouTube, you can see there's Noel right there. This is, look at that, look at that young handsome man there. Success will get you old. We got, we got the before picture in here today. That looks like the after photo. Sure.

Juxtaposition that with the ice cream. Can we crop that in? We might be able to. So that was the first bar, though. This is the first one where everything's built of ice. I mean, the glasses of rice. You go in and have a great experience. That's enough of that. But yeah, it's one of those things where it is a cool attraction. When you first took it over, like you said, they were trying to do all that stuff.

So you immediately, because we had a lot of conversations about this when you first did it. I'm not taking credit for any of this. You just would bounce stuff off of me and what I thought. And I thought, you know, being able to look at the KPIs of that business and the indicators that really make it go, I think is where you excelled and brought some to the table that they didn't have. Because like, just the only thing I really remember vividly, and we had a lot of conversations about a lot of things you did, but watermarking the photographs. Yeah.

I mean, how much do you think annually that drove to the bottom line? I mean, you know, everyone would try to come out and either rip them off online or copy and paste them or do whatever. So, yeah, hitting the watermarks and the photos were a big part of our deal. Yeah. No, huge, huge, you know, tons and tons of money. I mean, we were doing a couple million bucks a year in just photo sales.

Right? But remember, it's like, do you buy the picture after you get off the roller coaster at Disney? Yeah. For Six Flags? I mean, they snap you going all crazy and people want to take pictures. And at the beginning, phones in the beginning, this was 12 years ago now. Yeah. We've been going 12 years. Did I think it was going to last 12 years? No way. Yeah. No way. And I want to get into how we kind of have grown with the time. No, we're getting there. Yeah.

But the photo thing in the beginning, the phones really weren't super attached to people 12 years ago. We had lockers. We wanted to lock everything up for multiple reasons. You're holding a glass made of ice. And if you're dealing with your phone and whatever you drop it, it's a liability. So we would lock up your bags and your goods and our photographers would come in and we wanted to sell the photo. But eventually...

That became a very contentious point. And I held on to it probably two years longer than I should have because we didn't want to lose that revenue. It was a very, very difficult step for me to take. But once we did it, the viral nature of social media was hitting at the same time. It actually increased sales and made a better experience. Because you were driving it. So, I mean, literally, your product is a room full of ice. It is...

A couple of drinks that come with your entrance. Booze, John. The answer is booze. Booze, that's it. But what I'm saying is coming from the restaurant business where you're trying, you know, you're like, oh, crap, this, you know, these steaks are going to go bad if we don't sell them today. You know, chicken wings are on sale, whatever, you know. Who played special, baby? Yeah, and you're trying to balance your labor. You're trying to do this. I mean, literally, you go to the, it's the simplest thing in the world to do.

You know, a lot of people. But yet I see people screwed up. That's my point. A lot of people would think that it's simple. I'm just going to build a freezer and walk in cooler and then have it happen. We learned a lot. Ice is perishable. It has a mind of its own and it does different things every time. But it's also molecular. So when you think about it, the ice, these big blocks that we put together, and before you know it, after a couple of days, it just blends and melds together. But more so than that, you know, we were experiential.

before the whole experiential thing came into play this is 12 years ago yeah look at vegas today we were way ahead of the curve all the vr stuff all that the scale wheel area 51 we were jason egan stuff an ice bar in the middle of mojave desert and having this experiential 45 minute experience uh we played well off the heat but we were kind of ahead of the curve and um

I think the beauty of our 12 year success is, is, you know, I'd never rest on my laurels. And it's funny because I've got, I've got a pretty legit, a loyal management team that's been with me a long time. And, uh, I kind of come out of left field with some crazy concepts and they're like, what do you, what, you know, what are you thinking? Uh, you know, how do you keep up with it? And I get a little nervous, uh,

about what there's so much immersive stuff going on right now. I'm reading a book or I read it already called the experience economy. And if you haven't read it, you need to pick it up. It's, it's amazing. It talks about everything from, from how people are vacationing, you know, bloggers and these Instagrammers, these influencers are going out to foreign countries and they're, you know, it's, it's a work vacation. There's foodie vacations. There's,

medical vacations i'm going to mexico to get my teeth done and it's amazing what people are doing you know who our biggest competition is right now it's a cell phone i tell my staff every day the second someone gets on a phone and i'm not talking about to text their friends hey we're at the ice bar we're going to meet up later i'm talking when they're just surfing we've lost them

we've got to keep them engaged off of their phones. Really fast forward 12 years used to be, we celebrated the art of ice. That was enough for people to get excited. It's not cheap to come in there, right? You come in there and we're always changing it. Ice is pliable. That's beautiful. We can move the bar. It just changes in the beginning. It was like, wow, this ice is cool. And then the ice got smarter and better and more colorful. And we did cooler things, interactive things. But now that's not enough.

So we started adding different things. What's this QR stuff about? What's a QR code? So now I've got QR codes all around with time-lapses of how this particular wall was built, an expose on the ice carver that built it. We've added so many more immersive features inside. I've got a sorbet tasting game. We have chef-driven... So you want to stare at your phone, at least stare at your phone with stuff that's involved in our place. We have tricks in our back pocket that we tell our people the timing of introducing these...

in these experiential concepts within our concept, you need to wait, don't blast them all at once. You know, we, we know the life of, of an ice experience. It's a, and ring toss, right? Well, we, we had the ring toss until people start throwing them. They shouldn't be throwing them, but you know, sorbet tasting games, if you guess the flavors, we've got all these exotic flavors to, um,

um scavenger hunts do you do you have human flavored I didn't say I'd eat it I was asking of Chris the most interesting guy I know would eat humans that was it that was all I was asking all right hey Noel do you have a PR team or but a big one or is a lot of it social media because you guys

If you know what you're looking at, right? Like you see a billboard and you're like, oh, now I see it all the time. Like now that I know you, you guys are everywhere. Like I see you on national channels, on local channels all the time. You know, because we have such an exciting concept, it's an ice bar in the middle of the Mojave Desert. The camera does love us and it creates such rich content. But yeah, I mean, I have a PR firm to kind of help do some of that stuff. But the influencers...

my social media gal is really where it's at. I mean, you've got to get everywhere to compete and you've got to have rich, great content for people to, to, to get excited about the, um, so, so you guys are kicking ass here. You get, you get where you're up and running the first doors here and you start thinking to yourself, I'm going to take over the world. We're

we're going to have ice bars on every court. It's going to be an ice age. So what are the thoughts you see? You get established at Manly Bay soon. Great. So now you start dreaming about world domination. What's what happens now? You know, we, we, we've, we wanted to take another stab at Vegas. The question was how many of these can we really do? Right. Is this a one hit wonder? Do we figure it out? Um,

And I had a knack. I don't know if the company really was going to move on. I mean, we had intentions to, but I'd been there and done that with Outback. I mean, I was all over the countryside in leases and really knew how to scale, if you will. And we knew that this concept really...

really wasn't for every town america it has to be a tourist town with specific turnover every week you know we didn't do new orleans which i really wanted to do so hot a drink and you can drink on the street but new orleans can be a regional play same people kind of come every year so about four years into it you might fall off because they've all done it right so vegas orlando nashville you know those types of really big turnover new york new york

But I really started scouting Vegas and looking for dead spots in casinos. And our next stop was I went to Monte Carlo. And there was the old David Copperfield. Or not David Copperfield, but there was a theater in there. Jabberwocky's? No, there was a theater. Oh, four Jabberwocky's. It wasn't Copperfield. I forgot the guy's name. Lance Burton. There you go. Theater. And it was just dead 80s gift shop and a couple of shows. And I was like, you know, I don't know.

let me pitch these guys and see what's up we're already partners with mgm and sure enough you know we we managed to pull that off and and we put our second store there and it just came out of the gate my gangbusters doing well doing really well and of course from them we're like oh we we're gonna throttle down we're moving on

One on every corner. Yeah, every corner. Is most of your people coming walk-bys or are they people actually finding you to come to the experience? Good question. It's a 50%...

viral organic kind of walk by. And then the other 50 is kind of destination. We, we pre-sell a ticket online. They know where they're going. We're part of their plans. We're before dinner, after dinner, before show, after show. And that is growing exponentially because of all of the digital advertising, the things that we're doing online. That's why we're popping up everywhere. You know, if you're not using digital marketing, you know, if you're in business, you shame on you. You have to use it.

You have to. And know what you're doing. So Monte Carlo's open, but then all of a sudden they come to you and go like, hey, just kidding. Just kidding. No, they went in there. We got about three or four years out of it. Well, let's back up a little bit. Yeah, okay. Because from that, we started really- Sorry, Colt interrupted you and just ruined the whole podcast. I'm sorry. It's every- Thanks, Colt. No, because your location's very- Ruined the podcast. That mall's a very-

to me is it's just a weird location, right? That walkway. So I was one, I just always wondered that took us a year to convince me and the lay bay to do it. Really? It's another story. But then we wound up getting a spot in New York. Then some people started coming to us, you know, some people had experienced it and they were looking for cool, immersive attractions. Retail was starting to kind of slow down. They wanted cool things for their property. So long story short, we, we got New York going at the, uh, with the second temperature related pun, right? Yeah.

Uh, we got New York city and then we did one in Orlando, uh, uh, on international drive. And, um,

so we had four going and things were kind of swimmingly until until dun dun dun what happened to well i don't know i mean you sometimes you pick good real estate sometimes you pick bad real estate and you guys are in the real estate game especially on the commercial side and uh new york was great um matter of fact when new york hit we opened up in a heat wave in july in the media i've never seen anything like it in my life for a week straight we had

lines and lines of national media waiting to get into film. We were being broadcast in Egypt and you name it, we were everywhere, which I think is great. I know is great. It helped really get Vegas on a national stage. Orlando, you know, we opened for about two years. It was just the wrong site, wrong place, right?

We thought it was going to work. Point's tough. Convention center, and it just did not work. So we wound up closing that deal. And sometimes you've got to be careful what you wish for. So let's talk about that. So this is another mistake that a lot of people make when they start to scale, right? And I love talking about scaling businesses because that's what I kind of feel like my forte is. And, you know, you asked me earlier. You said, you know, hey, have you made a mistake yet? You asked me flat out.

was scaling. I was like, yeah, we made a mistake in Atlanta. We made a mistake with the wrong, we backed the wrong horse. And rather than go down the hole of just losing our ass, we just said, hey, maybe it's better time to cut bait and move this somewhere else. And that's what we did. But

But at the same time, when you're in growth mode, that's a really hard thing to do. And that was for me. So what I mean, it was strictly looking at panels like are you starting to add up like this one? This is feeding that and this is causing a problem. And what was that decision like? Of course, you've got partners. And sometimes in certain situations, you've got OPM, you know, other people's money that are involved and you have liability to them and you're trying to get their return on investment back.

And closing a store is not an easy decision. I mean, I think pride certainly is one of the first things you have to overcome. You know, I can make it work. I can turn it around. We're winners, especially on the restaurant side. You know, you let me get a crack at that. I'm going to switch it up, you know.

But, you know, you can't send a duck to Eagle School. The sight is what it is. You just can't. A tiger doesn't change its stripes. You can't send a duck to Eagle School. I like that. I like that a lot. It's true because how many people do that? All the time you see the same restaurant go in, out in eight months, in, out in eight months. Everybody's like they didn't know what they were doing. The death spot, as I call them. That's the death spot.

You get lightning can strike a couple times, but when you've got the fifth iteration of a restaurant, it's usually something, right? You've been to Town Square? Right. Dude. There are a couple spots there that are just cursed. There is a witch that is cursing. If you're facing double helix. We all know which one. We knew where we were going. You're done. I almost went up there with our new Bohemia concert. If you're to the right, you're done.

You have to be a natural franchise. Left is zero. Yeah, left you can dance underwater and not get wet. As much as you want. On the right, you are barbecued from day one. I can do this. They've had nine iterations. However, how does Blue Martini do it? Well, no, because they're on the left. They're on the left. Doesn't matter. And over here you got favoritism. There was literally, there's no rhyme or reason. You got favoritism. No rhyme or reason.

Oh, national brands, right? There's certain national brands that can pull you back into the back thing. There's a lot that could work there. There's no need to compete in that big a space. Yeah, the right side is just dead. John, back to your point, you know, when is the right time to cut bait and move on, right? That's the hard question for everybody. And we had to make some tough decisions with it, and I think it's the best thing we've ever done. Kind of like back to your bankruptcy thing. I didn't want to do it. I know. I fought it. I fought it. But as soon as I did it, all the doors opened.

And you know people always say, well, I'm not the kind of person that quits. You associate losses with who you are as a person, right? Yeah.

Meanwhile, instead of being like, well, what winners do is they do the things they win at too, right? Because Derek Jeter is probably a pretty shitty offensive lineman, right? I'm a winner with the Yankees. I should be great. No, no, no, no, no. Like you said, ducks don't go to Eagle School. And we can all be Uncle Rico and be like, if coach would have put me in, I would have won state. You're saying the captain can't block? Is that what you're saying right now?

I bet there's some New York Yankees fans that disagree with that. They're saying the captain can't block. Throw in some wedge breakers. Once in a while, maybe something. But you're right. You can't put a duck in Eagle School for that very same reason. You have to look at yourself in the mirror and make that decision. And some people, that's their last location. Think of these mom and pop folks, right? They're going to have to keep it going or, you know,

It doesn't work. It doesn't work. You've got to move on. Along those terms, it's funny. I did a speaking gig right about a year ago. One of the deals I did, it was in one of the barbershop I was there. And it just, you know, your memories come up on your stories where people tagging stuff and this happened a year ago. And every single kid, this was like...

This was a bunch of 20 year old kids, right? It was a bunch of really young set for really young crew for me, not my normal standard crowd. Right. And the thing that they were all posting that I resonated with that I said when I was like, look, don't be calm what you do, because what you do will change several times.

And I think the ability for truly successful people that scale is their ability to detach themselves from the failures and just under, just let it, just let the truth be in the math. You know what I learned from the Outback fallout? What's that? It was my whole identity. Yeah. I did not know anything else except what I learned with that company. I knew people.

I knew energy. But it's who you were. I literally, when you say don't let it become who you are, it was who I was. I was devastated. And a lot of people don't really understand what I went through. It was heavy, man. It was a tough, tough time. But you're absolutely right. You have to have a life outside of what you do and you have to balance that. If not, you just become possessed and it'll hurt you. It'll sting you. Don't make bad corporate decisions. Don't let who you are. Like towing John's car after six years.

Margaritas and Chili's. I thought I forgot about Chili's. I did not. I'm guessing Noel was in Salt Lake City for a couple years. He may know somebody up there, like an attorney or somebody like that. Chili's, tow my car. Look out, Chili's, we're coming for you. Towing my car. I didn't forget about you. You thought you were getting a pass. I didn't forget about you. But you know what else I didn't forget about?

It is that time, my favorite time of the podcast we go every week. Are you ready for this? I have no idea what's coming, but I'm ready. It could get dark. It's my favorite time. You're not in trouble. It's me that gets in trouble now. It's a dark and evil place.

It is five questions into the mind of Colts. I'm still upset. That's music. You guys went. No, I'm going to figure out good upbeat happy because that's what people think of when they think of me. No, it's a dark and it's a dark and terrible place. And now we're going to go ready. Here we are. Your five questions for the week. Colt, you're prepared. No, let's hear them. What is one thing you wish you'd spent more time doing when you were younger? One thing I wish I would have done. Yes. Having fun.

sports i was into sports way too much as a kid you would have done less sports that was sports 100 i probably wouldn't have played any sports to be honest if i can redo it again god what a what a bad take why that's like think about what sports do football no what did dude freaking wreck my knees wreck my brain wreck my physically physically but also like i'm

I don't know if I'm a kid at 18, but I didn't have a college experience. Like I went straight into doing commercial real estate and working a lot. So I wish I had fun doing that. But no, I don't know. I had a good childhood. So sports is really, I actually think sports is one of the most instrumental things for people that gets overshadowed because people think it's for meatheads when, when in reality, everybody I know was very successful. It was six days, six days a week, 52 weeks a year. Right. So I wish I wasn't that much. Yeah. Yeah.

So nothing important there. Next question. Kind of lame. If you were a boss of many, would you want them to fear you or love you? Oh, fear. We need to go back to the 48 laws of power. I think we're good. Yeah, Colt, it's the closest I've ever seen Colt to like literally passing out from happiness. We were reading the 48 laws of power. Have you read that, Noel? No, I haven't. Oh, dude, it is.

Yeah, Robert Greene will tell you straight up. He's like, look, I ain't... I'm not advocating you behave like this. I'm just saying this is how you get power. This is how you get power. Colt's going, no, no, no. That is a manifesto. That is a manifesto for my life. Did you guys not really enjoy that as much as I did? I was sitting here thinking about those are traits of narcissistic psychopaths. And you were all about it, which was amazing. All right, next up. We need to do that episode again. If you...

If you were a captain of a ship, what would you call it? Captain of a ship? Yes. If you were sailing the seas of Colt in search of humans to hunt. And eat. No, the eating was for Connell. He just could hunt them down. That was for Connell, guys. That wasn't me. A name of a ship? Yes. What would it be? You got to give me time on these. You're such a good friend. I thought it might be the relationship. Yeah.

No. Yeah. Is that what you think of me? Good friend? Yeah. Thanks. He'd be the relationship. The captain of the relationship. Yeah. I don't know. I have nothing for that one. I'm just trying to like diffuse. Yeah, I'm trying to go with. Think of a...

I thought it would be the event because it'll take you wherever you want to go, but eventually it's probably going to drown you. It's going to hit a thing. That's a hard one. What would you guys name yours? What would you name yours? That's a hard one. Name mine? If I had a ship? Yeah. The Prestige Worldwide. Yeah. That's pretty good. The Love Boat. The Love Boat. The Love Boat.

That's a hard question. I didn't like that question. Here we go. Colton, that's a hard question. These are, so far, sorry guys. Sorry guys. These ones are not good. Oh, this could be, this could go anywhere. I like when John's face picks up. What's the strangest thing you've ever seen in the middle of the road? Decapitated the body. Yeah, that's strange. And that's, yeah.

But you'll see a lot of shit in Utah. Can you give some context, Cole? Did you do it? No. No, I've unfortunately had multiple times bodies have flown in front of my car. Are you watching Stranger Things a little more than you need to? Never seen it. Never seen it. But in Utah, you find a lot of weird shit in the middle of the road driving around.

You don't do that in Vegas. You do. First time we were ever in Cleveland, I saw a dead body in the road. You know what? Oh, yeah. I was like, somebody else was talking about a dead body in the road. It was your daughter, Chris. Chris's daughter. Tell me a thing. Family trip to Cleveland. I'm going to hijack the segment, and we're going to do five questions with Noel. Yeah, because I'm sorry. Those were bad on my part. Here we go. Time power. Is a man a man if he's never seen a Star Wars movie?

Yes. Yes, he is. Okay. He's like a real man. No, he's thinking of like Amazonian tribesmen that are hunting for survival. That's a man. That's a man. Perhaps he lives in a third world and hunts tigers. That and I feel like I mirror that type of manliness. Buying or selling Tom Hanks, great actor. Speak your mind. Be truthful. Yes. Okay. What? Name one. I'm just trying to rile you up. That's all I'm trying to do here.

You're going Wilson? You're going that movie? Just that one line. Forrest Gump, come on, he's pretty good. Saving Private Ryan. No, you got it out of your mind. Do you know how much, how better of a movie those would be with like better actors? Next question. With like The Rock? Next question. The Rock and Saving Private Ryan would be amazing. Here we go. I would cry. Next question.

Is there any universe where Colt could be an equestrian Olympian in a year and a half? Starting today, he has one and a half years to train with the best there are, the greatest access to the best jumping horses there are. Do you think that Colt, in his current state, as it is day to day, 500 days out, be an Olympian equestrian medalist? I have my answer. Okay. And it's going to be well backed up.

No. Absolutely not. You have four for four, Noel. You know what? Four for four. I'm waiting before I come to combat this one. He played way too many sports in high school and his knees are busting. Oh. Yeah, but guess what, Noel? It's more of just a shock absorbent because the horse does everything and I could suffer for... How long do they go? For three... Two minutes. Two minutes.

90 seconds you don't think they're training every single day for the next 500 days we have something to do i don't think you need to train that hard i think it's all mental equestrian just not being afraid of the horse because the horse does everything i love that i'm going against the grain of every cult question oh yeah it's because you're a human you're not a pod person yeah and he said i was a man he said i was a man for not seeing you know it's what you didn't talk about the bobsled because i assume you think that does all the work too

No, because have you ever seen bobsledders? They're like 6'4", 240. I don't have the frame for it. Yeah, they're like middle linebackers. I could have been a luge or a skeleton. The double luge where they're on top. You could be the top guy.

do that every Saturday. Got a lot of training. There it is. Well, I think we're going to cut on that. No, well, really? You're going Tom Hanks was amazing in the what? Castaway. Castaway. I can't believe you even watch that home. You guys, you have not watched that whole movie. I didn't even watch it, but come on. Saving Private Ryan, Forrest Gump. Think about Forrest Gump's

Think about cool. As you drift off, if you're still listening to this nonsense, remember, thanks for the power move, and if you're going to move, keep moving forward. See you next time. Yeah, run for it. Run for it. Horrible move. We need a bourbon.