Timothy Daniels - President and CEO of TIGER 21 | The Membership Club For Billionaires

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Today my guest is Timothy Daniels. He is the president and chief executive officer of Tiger 21. Tiger 21 is the premier peer membership organization for high net worth wealth creators and preservers. He is based out of New York and is responsible for the strategic, operational and financial results of the organization but most importantly, the delivery of an unparalleled world class member and community experience for the 700 plus members of Tiger 21 who collectively manage personal assets of more than 70 billion dollars. Mr. Daniels has been successfully directing education and human development companies for more than 25 years, leveraging his strong leadership, technology enabled innovation and international capabilities prior to joining Tiger 21. He served as chief executive officer for Laureate, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific, overseeing these regions for the leading international university's group. He was based in Singapore and then London and had total operational oversight of 34 institutions in 15 countries with revenue totaling nearly $1 billion. Before that, he was president of Apollo Global, a joint venture between Apollo Group and the Carlisle Group. Previously, he served as chairman and chief executive officer of Wall Street Institute International where he led the turnaround of the leading global provider of English language instruction which was ultimately sold in a successful transaction to Pearson PLC. So we went into his origin story but then what I wanted to pull out is his rationale and his mindset when he chose to join Tiger 21 as president and chief executive officer because Tiger 21 is a relatively novel new and cutting edge community and concept. We spoke about some of the strategies that he's using to build the community, to architect the brand, to focus on exclusivity, to focus on providing an immense amount of value for the members and the lessons that we can pull out from how he's built a Tiger 21 community can be applicable to any community. We spoke about why organizations and communities that foster support and encourage radical candor amongst peers are so important for entrepreneurs when they're first starting out all the way through to when they have had a successful liquidity event. We spoke about what the wealthiest of the wealthy worry about after having that major liquidity event. What happens when you get a wire for $500 million in your bank account? What are the things that go through your head? We spoke about the habits and the mindsets of some of the most successful people on earth. We spoke about the Tiger 21 portfolio defense and it's not just a pure financial portfolio but a life portfolio defense, what it is, how they do it, what it accomplishes and why would you try and do things in communities that replicate that because it brings out the best in people and it creates trust and it creates community and it creates a peer group that is second to none that can support you whatever it is and then lastly of course it's interesting to understand how he deploys education and human development for some of the most successful people in the world, so some strategies that he deploys in Tiger 21 to help people upskill when they've already had incredible success. We can learn from that and we can apply that to helping people in our own communities and our own organizations and lastly of course some interesting financial portfolio data from members, anonymous members of the Tiger 21 community because it's always fun to figure out what people who are operating at the highest levels and have achieved incredible business and financial success are focused on in terms of investments and trends and so on and so forth. So let's jump right into it. This is Timothy Daniels, the president and chief executive officer of Tiger 21. Well maybe I will go back a little bit before that Scott and just because education has been as it is in many people, many people has been an important part of my life and my parents, I grew up in Wisconsin, my parents were divorced, my mother cared deeply about our education and I would have been the first person in our family to pursue a university degree or not for the fact that my mother was going to school at the same time that I was so I'm not sure which of us actually can claim to be the first in our family but following university I took a position in financial services and this is now in the mid 80s I guess I've just dated myself. It probably was obvious anyway but in the mid 80s and you know for those who might have heard of what was going on back then in financial services, leverage biodes were sort of the trend at the time they were really sort of coming into their own. What really most people now is understand not to be private equity investment predominantly but I was able to get in on the early stage of that trend and it afforded me the opportunity to see literally hundreds of companies and hundreds of different management teams, hundreds of different CEOs and patterns started to emerge for me and things that seemed to work or not work management or leadership styles that worked and didn't work and you know I did that for about 10 years I thoroughly enjoyed it was doing well from a financial perspective but as I looked forward sort of over the next 20 or 30 years of my professional journey I didn't necessarily see a learning curve that I found appealing and so I at that time made the conscious decision to pivot my career from one that was sort of transactionally oriented one that was going to be management or operationally oriented and put myself on a path to hopefully run a company one day and lo and behold a couple of years later I found myself in a CEO role as my first CEO role this is now the late 90s 1997 in fact and I was running by pure coincidence Scott a an education business it happened to be a state-based testing business where we help people who are in certain professions get their state qualifications and what I realized is if I was going to work as hard as I was going to work to be able to create value in the entities that I was associated with and now leading the value of being able to sort of see the value created when people actually improve their lives achieve their life objectives was just such an additional reward that I I backed into and I found so compelling and it put me on a path which really has been the last 25 years of my career now just dating myself yet again where I've now been running education and human development companies for the last 25 years and for whatever is left in my career I will continue to do so because again I continue to work as hard as I have and when you make the commitments and sacrifices that you do to run a company again having the necessary requirement for you to be able to create value be that people are improving their lives and achieving their life objectives is something that I've just found to be so rewarding so that's that's kind of what's brought me to this point I'm happy to jump into now how I've joined Tiger 21 if that was going to be my next question it was is you've you've been chief executive and see sweet at multiple companies so when you look at something as new and innovative as Tiger 21 and what you're trying to accomplish there what was your thought process for joining how did you figure how did you figure that this was going to be the next stage in your career like you mentioned you you did date yourself a little bit but it's experience right you've been through a lot of different organizations and now you're taking on something that's so novel after working in probably a lot of very legacy institutions and legacy organizations that probably have been around for a significant period of time so what was the thought process well yes and no maybe just provide a little bit more context on that and I will come to the Tiger 21 element Scott but I was in a legacy industry especially when one considers sort of education broadly it's it's it's an industry that has been slow to adopt technology it's been slow to change its processes it's heavily regulated in many parts in many parts of the the industry but I've always been someone who's been trying to sort of innovate relative to this legacy industry because I saw there being better ways of being able to create outcomes and the value of both time and money that people invest in education from frankly early childhood education all the way through to postgraduate and ultimately adult education and so as an example in the early part of this millennium I started a virtual charter school business because I recognize that traditional public education doesn't work for a lot of a lot of families and a lot of children and they they there was there were ways to be able to sort of unpack that traditional offering and then repackage it in a way that might be more effective for a certain part of the population it proved to be very successful when I was in running universities which was what I was doing most recently before I joined Tiger 21 I've been very focused on how you use technology as an enabler not as a replacement for traditional instruction or teachers or professors but as an enabler to make the process more efficient more effective and deliver better outcomes for the users or the students or now at Tiger 21 our case members so when I came when I was presented with the opportunity at Tiger 21 it was really for me kind of the convergence I think of three things that over the course of my career had proven to be very important to me and very impactful not only for me but but for hopefully the entities that I was involved with you know as I mentioned earlier it was the recognition that the way that you create values by helping people to improve their lives absolutely the case of Tiger 21 and we'll talk more about who our members are they're all readily already wildly successful but if there is one common denominator it's that they're never going to be done making themselves better never going to be done making a bigger impact on the world and hopefully a more positive impact on the world we'll come back to that but first was creating creating value by having by helping people to improve their lives second is personally for me surrounding myself with people who are better than I am on the teams that I helped to create on the constituencies that we serve and there's arguably no better place for that than Tiger 21 surround yourself with 1100 plus people who all by definition are enormously successful and are never going to be done improving themselves boy that that checks that box and then the last is you know I and I alluded to this relative to a certain extent relative to what I was doing with universities but the power of networks I believe is that there's so much untapped potential and we see it in social media in ways that perhaps isn't always positive but when you look at the potential of being able to put Tiger 21 members together one plus one equals something a heck of a lot more than two probably more than five and so we can figure out ways to do that you know when we're in early stages of this a Tiger 21 the power of what these people are going to do individually and then collectively is just enormous so those three things led me to Tiger 21 and now three years on into my role as CEO Tiger 21 I will say that what I hope was the case relative to those three things my diligence was correct so I'm very pleased with that no that's good I mean you're still there and the organization is still growing and I also want let's let's let's describe the organization because I think that that's important too because nothing like this and does anything like this exist what's this is there a comparable or is this something that is so novel and so new that realistically this is like the first iteration of trying to build an organization that is focused on individuals that has that have achieved this level of success are you like the the people that are basically leading this we are and and I will say Michael Simon fell the founder recognized an opportunity that existed and he basically took something that was a model pure networking has been around for maybe ever it's certainly a long time but it had never been applied to this group of individual people who've had this level of success because oftentimes it was perceived well what additional help can be provided to the people who've had this level of success but what you come to realize is there is more that they want to and can do and that's really what the I think the the rational for the creation of Tiger 21 was so is there anything else like Tiger 21 no in this specific sense but there you know take YPO in Vistage to very well known and very large pure networks focused on business leaders CEOs predominantly you know there's a lot in our models that are somewhat similar but the the outcomes for their members or our members are actually quite different we characterize ourselves often because we see if we don't see ourselves necessarily as in competition with YPO Vistage we do them as sort of the great undergraduate institutions and we are like the graduate school so you know come get your Harvard masters or PhD at Tiger 21 then you will have gotten your Princeton undergrad at by the way I hope I'm not sort of alienated you know you're good let's Harvard ready where else yeah any any any you get the point the analogy the analogy sound no I think that I think it's interesting because I so the people that are generally in Tiger 21 they've had incredible success they've built something and for some people it could have been their first thing that they built that where they had thousands of employees and they probably exited for like you know north of 50 to 100 plus sometimes IPO'd and they have an enormous amount of wealth and there's a point in their life where they probably don't have to be as involved in that company anymore maybe they're not on the board after they've been acquired or what not or there's a variety of different things but now that person is sitting with an insane amount of money that they've never had before in their life and there's no YouTube video that you can really watch to figure out like I think there's like fat fire on Reddit which is like a subreddit where you go but that's pretty much it like there's not a lot of communities that actually cater to this so talk to me the the experience of somebody the average person not the person has done a few times but the average experience of somebody that has hadn't exited and their their reality that they're realizing when they finish that exit they have this wire come into their bank and they and they've never had experience with this sums of this amount of money before well first of all it's got your characterization spot on in terms of that is what our members experience and so just for context purposes so I'm going to generalize to a certain extent all off some areas of specificity but I actually a couple of years ago I started having calls with all new members I do a welcome call with all new members after they've been a member for three or four months typically so they have some sense for what Tiger 21 is but it allows me to sort of get a better understanding of kind of their journey what's brought them to Tiger 21 and what they're looking for here and you know by the way the thing and we should explore this a bit further that your audience might be quite interested in it the common denominator there again is it's what's next what's next in my life I've had just as you said Scott I've had my head down running this business you know some combination of talent timing probably a modicum of luck credible hard work have brought me to this point but now I lift my head up and one aspect of my life wealth has been addressed likely will never be a concern for me again but now new issues have emerged what do I do with that wealth how do I make sure that I'm continuing to use it in the most positive way you know that I'm having the greatest impact in terms of my commitment of time and treasure to my philanthropic causes that I make sure that if I have a family and especially if I have younger children and many of our members too how do I make sure that this doesn't adversely impact their lives and so this whole concept Scott of what's next is what is key for our members and I think one of the key reasons that they come to tiger 21 which is there is no playbook for this just as you've pointed out and they're not I don't think there will be and this is what our founder realized he was he's our first member and he realized everybody is trying to advise you everybody's trying to sell you something but they have their own agenda whereas if you sit around the table with 10 to 14 other individuals who probably made their money in different ways but have some common themes in terms of the issues that they're now trying to resolve that's the best council that you're going to be able to get and that's what tiger 21 is all about and so yes our members typically are our individuals who have through entrepreneurialism through the real estate through being a high level CEO they have actually achieved great success and with it comes wealth but by their nature they're not done yeah and they're never going to be done so that's not going to give up exactly and so that's what they come to find a tiger 21 how do I make sure that I maintain my relevance and my impact so I have a friend who had a great exit it was for you know hundreds of millions and I was speaking to him and he said his biggest concern was what if I lose it what if I screw this up what if I put my money with the wrong financial advisor and I'm curious you see a lot of people probably at this stage what's the biggest concern that somebody has coming out of an exit in the first three months six months well this is a couple of months into my journey Scott I said to someone and it still holds true if you've met one tiger 21 member you've met one tiger 21 member and so we have I mean I'm just going to intentionally sort of use your your friend as an example um you know that person could very much be listen I I want to swing for the fences I want to figure out how do I take this 200 million and make it a billion yeah another person might say I want to take this 200 million and I'm giving away 190 of it 10 of it is going to be created it is going to be dedicated to you know my my own lifestyle my my my I've got two children whatever it may be but I want to figure out how do I take this 190 million and have the biggest impact on the world I'm in a pot you know outside of my business realm the next phase for me if you will and another might be you know what I just want to make sure that you know I've got this 200 million when I draw my last breath and so you know it's enough for me I don't need more and everywhere in between those three data points Scott are our members and so it is a bit difficult to generalize but what I will say is you know they typically are most thought most concerned about how do I take the wealth make sure that I it doesn't have a negative effect on my life or on the world and how do I actually continue to have a positive impact it's actually funny because I see a lot of people talk about you know I every every like I've had an exit myself and every person that I follow like they're all entrepreneurs that have achieved some incredible level of success those are the people that I look up to and try and learn from but it's always people trying to figure out what's next because I the second you have this conversation is unfortunate because you have the conversation about having success in life and a lot of people will immediately be like well that's a rich person problem but I don't think people understand the fact that people that do have success don't want to just be seen as a person who had success once and they never want to make an impact ever again and this is why I you know I this is this is not part of this conversation but I don't love the the hate on Elon for example when he's achieved so much success and we talk about all the the the BS with the taxes even though he's paid more taxes than a human and human history when realistically he's quite literally advancing human civilization as we know it and I think that obviously Tiger 21 members are not at even at the level of of Elon but the point is when you do have no one is you want you want to have a playbook forgiving back but I want to back it up a little bit I want to also understand how you built this I want to understand because I think there's a lot of community building exclusivity uh uh architecting that you've built into Tiger 21 which is very effective and that could be a lesson for even if you're not trying to build a community of like these ultra high net worth individuals the way that you've built out the community and the value offer and the way that you've structured it and the way that you attract new members I think is is a very tactical playbook that somebody could use for building out other communities because you've done it very well so I want to understand the actual the business strategy behind Tiger 21 you know um I'm going to sort of create a framework that hopefully will allow me to answer that question as best I can Scott which is kind of heart and heart and mind um and it's sort of perhaps a blinding glimpse the obvious or tried or what have you but it's also true and I want to come back to it but but I also just want to make clear um you know um I'm actually the the steward of what I think is a great institution this institution was created by its founder Michael Sonnenfeld um it has now been around we're entering amazingly our 23rd year and so this is something that has been um while all the core elements are still there we're really just building on top of it to make the member experience um even greater based upon what members tell us might enhance their experience but so um I'll I'll I will just be clear about this you know sort of I'm I'm I'm standing on the shoulders of some very impressive people not really sure not to not to diminish what they've done but I do know that now you've picked up the torch and you're running with it and you still know the strategy they use so even if it's coming from them you're the you're the person that's deploying you're executing it now so so yes I understand I just want to give credit we're crazy yeah I'll take my own credit when it's yeah what I heard but but anyway but you know so so it is um I think the heart and mind part of this first of all take basic elements of peer networking it is how do we actually bring together um people and in tiger 21's case intentionally built on the foundation of collective intelligence which means we strive for diversity at every turn we'll never be done um we'll never achieve our diversity objectives um because you can never optimize diversity ultimately against all dimensions and so but it's when you consider on the table with people who've had different experiences who have different interests who come from different backgrounds um that's where the richness really comes in and so and by the way that's most peer networks are built on that basis but from tiger 21 I will say from day one we sought to build that out and thankfully I think we're continuing to make some very good strides along those lines um because that diversity again those people represent your board of advisors and if you had you know if if a board a public company board is not structured with uh you know eight people who all are from your accounting firm or from accounting firms or from legal firms or just from or product or marketing people they bring you a diversity for the very reason that you need these different lenses to look at optimizing an opportunity and as a member it's your your your life your future your that's your entity that your board is now helping to advise you on and so you want people who are different sitting around the table um but the heart and mind part is you know I often ask members in in these welcome calls that I referenced did you come here for think about uh you a continuum you've got a you you've got on one end of the continuum utility aspects I want to improve the performance of my portfolio your friend I want to make sure I don't lose the 200 the hundreds of hundreds you said hundreds it's probably more than 200 but started 200 a little bit more but it was a good exit but yes that I created how do I avoid losing this yeah how do I make sure that my um philanthropic impact investments are having the greatest impact that my estate plan is established properly etc etc so there's these utility items that it's sort of like check the box on right I want to have I want to see a unique proprietary deal flow which absolutely is a key benefit at tiger 21 but on the other end of that continuum Scott is sort of the experiential aspects I've had my head down I haven't developed other relationships um and just as you said you know last week I had 2,000 people who laughed at my jokes now it's it's my paid assistance who really could care less about me if you bought my jokes and you know he's actually to sort of chuckle if necessary but in any event you know it is very much of that right and so um you know how do we actually create the structure the experiential element how do I create new relationships how do I actually have new experiences how do I diversify sort of my own portfolio if I will and I'm not talking about my investment portfolio I'm talking about my life portfolio and so where on that continuum you know might you emerge and what I would say is some numbers will say I air I air on one side or the other but ultimately they all end up benefiting from the entire plate the entire yeah opportunity set that exists for them at tiger 21 so we create the conditions through our group meeting as I think you probably know we have um paid facilitators that we call chairs chair people who lead the group who curate the group who really are there to make sure that each individual member and the group as a whole are optimized in terms of their experience but then we augment it with other areas that look across the entirety of the network not just in their 15 member group but across the entirety of the network to be able to tease out opportunities to be able to enhance and and and customize each member's experience as you will and so that's the fundamentals of networking forgive me I'm kind of prattling on your bits God but no no no no no keep going it's good it's good go ahead it is is you know the more nodes that you have out there and the more that there's differentiation of the nodes then you can create them that so so that they can reinforce one another that's where the power of the network really starts to emerge and so the most power is going to exist in that 15 member group um that you have but what we're also doing is bringing the power of the entirety of the network to you so anyway that's that's kind of the foundation on which it was built and also gives you some senses to where we're going and when when you uh bring these individuals one of the things that I thought was very interesting is that you you deliver education and human development but at this level uh it's far beyond what a regular mastermind for example would deliver and also you have some of the smartest individuals in the world that will probably critique and analyze and pick apart every single thing that you say or do or try and teach them like this is not like an easy crowd right like these are not these are not people that are gonna that are gonna be easily convinced of of this that or the other if they don't believe in it like wholeheartedly so when you have all these personalities how do you build the curriculum out because I want to again take the take the lessons that you that you teach over and the things that you help these people with at this age in their life and then if we can figure out how you do it at this level then how you build a meaningful curriculum that actually helps people that you can get on board to buy into can be distilled into any level of community or group that anybody's trying to build well this is it and again it goes beyond curriculum to include experience and other elements what we treat really try to understand we support the chair in this regards got is to understand what individually are people trying to achieve and that is the question that I have in my welcome call with every member what are you trying to get out of this um and and the other part is what is the group trying to achieve you know as as as a sort of collective if you will what are the what what what would success look like and so you know when you and this this now goes back to my sort of educational background and if done properly you start with the endpoint right what's the objective and then you back up from that and so when we think about content we sort of go to the group and if the group doesn't need to be um and you know instructed on health and wellness or if they don't need to be instructed investing an industrial real estate we're not going to include that as part of the curriculum but we're going to sort of bring it to bear based upon what they really are looking for and this again is where we work in you know hand in glove with our chairs to be able to make sure not only that they have the tools necessarily necessary but that they have access to the resources to be able to get the members what they need but I would also say many of the learnings and you are alluding to this come from the members themselves one of the key criteria as we evaluate members and if they're a good fit for Tiger 21 because not everybody is is do they not only have the ability but do they have the desire to both teach and learn and so you know we can look around that table and you're going to have just as you said you're going to have experts in a number of different fields and are they willing to sort of share their insights um it's not that they have to get up and be the instructor they don't but they have to be willing to sort of share their insights from the areas in which they have expertise additionally they have to be receptive to others who are willing to share um their insights in areas where the members want to enhance their portfolio if you will and again not investment portfolio life portfolio could be investment portfolio also does that answer does it does yeah so and and I think that that that personalized touch and the feedback loop that you create with the members is that's sort of the the x factor that allows for success um now there there are various things that you do that I find quite interesting like I think one of the activities is like a I don't know if it's done in real time but there's like surveys that you send out where you force people to be very candid about the the information I have right here is like their actual investment activities but how do you how do you force how do you force these individuals to actually sort of divulge what they're invested in what they're not invested in are there other parts of their life that you try and sort of pry out information to get them to teach over or is this one thing in particular just because of the average type of person they're very focused on investment and whatnot this is something that you just found to be like incredibly useful that you you built into the into the experience I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode trends now looking to start a business but you're not sure where to start trends can help the trends community tells you the next big thing months before everyone else sign up to trends and get analyst vetted business ideas and market trend reports delivered straight to your inbox weekly plus you'll get instant access to online training events and an active community of over 16,000 business owners investors and entrepreneurs backed by house bought and the hustle trends provides you with the tools to help build and grow your business what are you waiting for get a seven day trial of trends for only one dollar at trends.co slash mfm well let me highlight two things Scott one of which is where what I think you're talking about in one of which I think might be an interesting area for us to discuss the first is we created an asset allocation report where we aggregate yes I think it is as well and so and I also then want to talk about the portfolio defense which is an important part of the maybe the most important part of the tiger 21 experience but the asset allocation report is basically our members who sort of share their information about me on an absolutely anonymous and confidential basing well it doesn't need to be confidential since it's anonymized but on an anonymous basis they share sort of where they're making their investments what's been constructed their portfolio and then we aggregate that and sort of look at trends that emerge over the course of time and you know not surprisingly you may have seen at the beginning of covid we saw a massive spike in cash from our members and thankfully not surprisingly I guess they were out in front of this they they were ahead of the curve on this and then they were reinvested pretty quickly as well and again if one were to look at the general trends have remained invested oftentimes in private investment private real estate private equity which is sort of again attends to the sort of entrepreneurial orientation our members are much more heavily invested in private real estate and private equity than the general population who are much more invested in public securities if you will but so that's the allocation asset allocation report and you know our members benefit from it because they contribute to it I would I would highlight that there are areas where we're looking to be able to expand off of that Scott so as an example you know is there something that we could highlight that's going to provide value to our members to be able to say how are members getting involved in philanthropic endeavors this has been an area of massive growth for our membership over the course of the last couple of years pre covid by the way but was sort of this collective activity around philanthropy so can we actually create other sources of aggregated data for the benefit of our members regarding other activities in that develop trends among what are you know people who are usually at the front edge of curves yeah and so that's one I'd like to shift to the portfolio defense but before I do yeah let me see if anything else on the asset allocation you don't know no that makes no I I guess I was just you mentioned one trend where they pulled cash out they were ahead of the curve then they reinvested everything I'm just looking at some of the some of the actors not no but they went back in yeah correct sorry I'm just all the trends are are interesting like you know you the things that were sent an email can I speak about them publicly like that the the because I guess it's anonymous anyways like some of the things pulled out from the last report I just thought it was interesting or as I cannot talk about yeah no no no I think you can share sort of percentages yeah yeah yeah it's been in private real estate private equity yes absolutely which we show so I just I thought it was very interesting so if you look at the the May 2021 cryptocurrency polls again this is from your member base right you have 25% bullish 30% bearish 45% neutral it have you initiated or increased on investment in cryptocurrency in last three months 32% yes 68% no this was obviously made of 2021 and then during the last three months if you invested in a crypto fund Bitcoin Ethereum dogecoin or other coins of 20% in a crypto fund 31 and Bitcoin 31 and Ethereum 5% in doge and 13% in other and then the overall asset breakdown is 27% real estate 25% public equities 22% private equity 14% cash and cash equivalent 7% fixed income 3% hedge funds 1% currencies 1% commodities then 1% miscellaneous and I just thought those numbers were very interesting because of course they they're actually not they're not that I would actually the only thing that seems to fall out of line with what I would consider like a normal market trend is I feel just anecdotally because of Twitter probably that more people are bullish on crypto than 25% that's the only thing that stands out as a as a as a strange thing to me but outside of that everything actually makes quite a bit of sense the the breakdown is pretty is pretty it's nothing is to no no one number is is out of whack with all the others and then of course you actually like if you look at a crypto breakdown I think that a crypto fund Bitcoin Ethereum are like the top investment strategies for most individuals yes but that's a very interesting to those are very interesting data points because that's what the richest of the rich who have had success who do their research definitely do their research those that's what they're putting their money into and this is not investment advice if somebody's well thank you for sharing that because we certainly we certainly do not offer any investment advice we just sort of provide what members are doing with back to them but no you're right and by the way let me highlight the the what you quoted relative to because you you touched on this and I I wasn't with the asset allocation report I wasn't looting to this the questions that we asked around crypto we're part of a periodic survey that we will do and we will ask questions that want to do a deeper dive not just sort of what is the allocation in your portfolio which is some of the last data that you provided the front end where I think you asked you were sort of quoting from three questions that we asked regarding crypto we were trying to do a deep dive on crypto because we've sort of noticed a trend emerging where you know maybe two years ago it was you know okay everybody needs one to three percent in their portfolio as much as a defensive position if anything else to people who are becoming a bit more bullish on crypto and we wanted to understand that a little bit further I would also say we had 70 members who were attending Bitcoin conference in Miami and so we wanted to be able to sort of build some momentum around that since a lot of people were thinking about crypto in the run up to to to that conference as well and so there was a theme that we were trying to tease out we could then share back to our members about how do you all feel about crypto it's certainly getting a lot of press it's become increasingly I don't know if it's increasingly volatile it remains volatile so that was our initiative there and we do that periodically my college Sherry Horowitz is a great job really sort of diving in deep figuring out okay what might be the item that the members really want to understand better and then sort of asking them and giving it back to them so that they have an understanding of what's happening in the network no that's great actually there's actually one more thing that I'll just put on the record which I think is interesting your members also believe that you're in the middle of the most fundamental shift within the energy sector in a century moving to electricity so you're actually focused on this is not that actually surprising but Tesla, Nikola, Lucid and then selling Exxon mobile and then solar energy on the rise with first solar and sun power for the two companies that were also indicated here as well as rare earth minerals which I don't have any companies here that were listed as notable rare earth mineral companies but it's just interesting to see what people focus on and which trends because you could make an argument that people want to focus on a variety of different disruptive and emerging technologies and sectors and you can have AI robotics, health tech, putting things into space, Bitcoin, blockchain, crypto, NFTs, DeFi but this particular topic the shift in electricity and the energy sector is something that was just very notable and spoken about so I thought that was interesting as well but anyways you can talk or we go to portfolio defense that's also something we should go into. Well let me just touch on that briefly because I think it highlights both the specific and a general point. One again is this whole idea of being able to understand a sector and what's happening and sort of longitudinal trends that might exist and so investments in renewables, investments sort of in consideration of climate change and how to play climate change if you believe the climate change occurring it is really an emerging trend that we are in fact starting to see you mentioned a couple of companies in particular and I want to reinforce we are not an investment advisor we offer no comment on any on the Pacific security so but in any event and so relative to this this is what we are what we see and again for my chair I have the benefit we all do of seeing these trends emerge and then you start you hear about them sort of a year later after our members have already kind of been in it so climate is one aspect of that crypto was another aspect of that and you know you see certain others but in any event well let's let's shift over to the portfolio defense if we might which is a pretty a broad pivot if you will. No no no it's good let's go into that because that's that's a very interesting I don't know how that actually works and walk me through how it works the rationale for what it helps accomplish with your members and and and what what some of the results are from getting somebody to do this portfolio defense that maybe we could translate into other types of communities at a different scale or in a different way. Absolutely and it is it is a very unique element of Tiger 21 and the Tiger 21 experience and so the portfolio defense is basically for each member to say I have here's who I am here's who I got to where I've gotten to here's every aspect of my life financial non-financial etc and here's where I would like to go now I'm going to put specific questions to my board of advisors who are the 12 to 14 other members in my group that I want your counsel on and so if you'll forgive the characterization each member is asked is required in fact to stand in front of their peers fully expose themselves nothing is off the table and if you're not willing to do this you shouldn't be a tiger but and to be able to then get incredible feedback from your personal board of advisors if you will and relative to the questions that you put to them about how do you optimize your future come back to this what's next question is there a better way for you to be able to sort of get the kind of input that you want but but to be able to ask your board you know what is it that how you know how should I here's how I think I should be going forward but you know we all have our blind spots help we find them and so that's really what the portfolio defense defenses how it's structured and what it's intended to do what I would also share Scott is and again I had met with some people early on to understand what are the group dynamics what are the behavioral dynamics that occur when you do this and you know when you when you bear all with me and tell me everything that is deeply personal to you some stuff that you made out of told others in your life it causes me to then feel more comfortable opening up and sharing with you and when you do that the utility starts to evolve to the experience and these deep relationships get formed because we're willing to share things in this incredibly open and transparent environment that allow us then to be able to tackle some of the real items that we that we need to address to be able to optimize each of our what's next and every members expected to do this we do it one typically once a year and this can this can be this can transcend business so this can be your your your family your peers your investment everything absolutely it can be you know I've got a 12 year old daughter and a 10 year old son you know I've had a hundred million dollar exit how do I make sure that you know this money doesn't pollute their future how do I optimize their lives so that they can have the same sort of joy and fulfillment and accomplishment that I've had you know that we've had in our life as parents and so it can be that it can be you know okay my daughter is getting married we're requiring a prenup because of you know the penetration of the trust is going to be a big issue how do I keep from having my daughter hate me you know by insisting that she have a prenup again this is personal but it can be but it can also be you know my portfolio I believe is underweighted relative to risk your assets I think I should be investing more in risk your assets what do you think when you're building something on your own you generally unless you seek it out or you're just fortunate enough to have it you don't have these groups of people that can be so candid with you in a in a in a holistic holistic view of your life and everything you're trying to solve for and it's it's very stressful and when you're building something it can be very draining on your mental health and well-being and then you have this event and you still have success but then you still I'm sure some of these individuals have even even at the height of their success I felt very alone for a long for a long period of their life so when you push people to open up like this and to do this portfolio defense what are the results in that individual what are the things that you've actually seen have you seen these people evolve have you seen these people just I guess is there is there a positive that we should take away from something like this where we can build more communities even like at YPO or at a smaller level because of the actual mental health benefits that really really can support an entrepreneur which I think mental health and well-being an entrepreneurship is a is a incredibly big thing that we have to tackle that nobody's really trying to solve for no yeah by the way across society in every population that I think that's a statement of fact it's got you're you're exactly right and I think you know attending to it is in different ways is always going to be a positive thing I always say almost always going to be a positive thing so yes I think it is an important part it's very interesting I was having I think I've had five welcome calls with members in the last two days and one yesterday obviously I won't divulge anything that is particular to this individual but he said you know I've seen portfolio defenses now and what really strikes me is the vulnerability and and how open and transparent people are and I said you mean the person who's portfolio defense it is and he said well yes but everybody in the room starts to sort of share that and so it I think you're exactly right Scott it does lead to those sort of sharing things that you know oftentimes don't get shared many members say to me you know I've got great friendships but I can't share these things with my friends I look like a jerk you know they don't have the level of wealth that I have and so I don't have anybody I can talk to about these things yes my spouse or significant other if that if they have one is somebody who they may be able to share with oftentimes you know it's hard hard even to share with them to be able to get a level of understanding and empathy there and so it is being able to have a group that has gone through something similar to what you have and to share all dimensions the utility and the experience I think is just incredibly valuable and I think you're I think you're exactly right there are mental health benefits probably not for everybody but for many that emerge from this when you think about building this community and and where you want to take it so you mentioned before yes you you were not the founder but now you're the one running with it and you're the one who's going to try and grow it into what is going to be in you know the next five or 10 years where do you want to take Tiger 21 what's the next iteration of Tiger 21 that you want to see manifest well I'd say I'd highlight two things and they both kind of come back to the same thing which is an enhanced member experience and you know this is probably again a blinding glimpse of the obvious for every one of your listeners Scott but you know if you can deliver on your promises and whatever business you are in and and have great customers or students or members or whomever you're serving satisfied or hopefully truly excited about what they've gotten from you that is sort of the holy grail that's how long-term success I believe is created and we have I think in many ways achieve that at Tiger 21 and it is our north star we'll not you know we will continue to aspire to make that even better and so you know two of the key ways in which I think we can do this and again I think they reinforce one another is to create a truly global community I've spent 15 years of my career immediately prior to Tiger 21 building global networks of education and human development businesses and I see no reason why Tiger 21 shouldn't be just as successful throughout the Asia Pacific region, Amia, all of the Americas as we are we're presently in North America and Europe and so building up that global network which again is doing what I've done for the last 15 years and I think it's going to create opportunities for our members that again are going to cause the network to become self-reinforcing to be able to provide more value if I'm if if we when we have a group in groups in Singapore members in Singapore just think about you know okay a business opportunity emerges in Singapore I may have a sense for what's going on there but I may not understand who do I talk to to get the best tax advice who do I talk to to be able to understand human the HR regulations that exist how to put in place a proper financing structure you know so how do I diligence real estate in that market so by the way how do I figure out what the best restaurant to go to that isn't in you know trip advisor you know those you can you can go out and this member this network will take care of you when you come to their market and vice versa for a Singaporean members to be able to understand what you know how to get those same things when they go to Paris or London or Montreal or Chicago so building out the global network and then this again it's it's that is a subset of this which is continuing to drive the network effects be able to create the conditions for members to be able to connect with the entirety of the network for the things that they want to sort of engage on at any point in time and that implies a love an element of enabling technology and I'd offer like many other companies and and industries COVID has acted as an accelerant for us in that regard all of our members are now much more comfortable many of them where you comfortable using technology we're not going to a technology product based offering or experience but enabling technology can be very important especially when being able to optimize the network effect um I want to I want to pivot and ask a couple rapid-fired pull some last things out of you um in your career and insights but before we go there uh any closing words as well as all the websites all the social all the links where you want to go send people well it's tiger21.com um and you can find us on virtually every social media site um they are so please do um you know look we're we're not an organization necessarily that pitches itself um we hope that people who would want to find tiger 21 can find tiger 21 and so you know we you know um I'll offer that but um if there are people who are listening and they'd like to learn more you can certainly go to tiger21.com and we will get you to the right place amazing okay let's do a couple rapid-fired pull it from your life um what keeps you up at night now after all the success that you've had in your own personal career what's the one thing could be professional could be personal what stresses you out? Well I I think um COVID has been a catalyst for disruption in so many aspects of what what seemed like a long-term or longitudinal trend and globalization and I think we all started to envision and in fact build for whether it's our investment portfolios whether it's supply chains whether it's the way we travel internationally for pleasure um around you know these increasing the barriers coming down relative to um globalization and I think that's sort of been brought into question and I think you know now and virtually every aspect of our lives um you know we're not exactly sure what that's going to look like in the next 10 years can and leave there's opportunity in that um and I certainly from listening to our members I think there's opportunity in that but you know it does create some level of uncertainty and disruption and you know we've got to we've got to continue to win relative to the opportunities that do emerges a result of that what's the the biggest challenge you've had to overcome in your life again personal professional what was that one thing in your life do you remember there was like holy shit like when you were going through it you didn't think you were going to come out on the other side so uh I hope this fits um when I was running a company called Wall Street Institute which was a Carlisle backed um network of English language instruction centers around the world we had 400 centers around the world 28 different countries and we were really starting to grow in China um and it was a franchise model um and we wanted to acquire the Chinese franchise and this is in 2006 and so and and there was still a lot of them there's a lot of unknowns in China today but there were you know perhaps in order of magnitude more than and um you know if if I'm really honest uh you know the areas that I grapple with are being able to take enough risk and so um and by the way sort of the structure of Tiger 21 really provides me with a great color balance in that regard um but I think it's more you know and should we actually acquire that Chinese entity at that time and I grappled a lot because we were doing quite well with the company the Carlisle investment was growing extraordinarily well but this was turning you know a home run into a grand slam if we get it right or a home run and you know you taking a home run off the board and it's a triple play and so um you know uh we ended up executing on it um it ended up being the grand slam that we wanted um but it was knowing that I I needed to sort of run counter to some of my natural instincts relative to risk and it's something I still push myself on Scott which is you know making sure that I you know um and and appropriately um risk oriented I was gonna say I think that because of the group that you're exposed to and I think that's actually a lesson for anybody who's listening um not everybody is exposed to the group that you're exposed to but when you do expose yourself to people that are operating at such a high level I feel like your ability to take on risk or the way that you look at risk is much different because now this small little thing in your life whether it's starting something from scratch or taking that job or whatever does it is it really that risky in the grand scheme of things when you think about what some people deal with on a day to day and these are all decisions that people make people can make billion dollar decisions that people can make hundreds of thousands of dollar decisions but I think that there's always there I think that when you break it down to the person who isn't worth over a hundred million dollars I think that uh everybody could play a little bit riskier in my opinion I think it always sort of benefits one way or the other I I will share I think those are words of wisdom Scott and I was not I would not have been tiger qualified at that time but I will share with you I think it's a it's a very appropriate observation that um top being able to engage with the tiger membership and network um does allow you I think to look at risk a bit a little bit differently um if you had to pick one person obviously there's been many but pick one person who's had a major impact on your life who is that person and what do they teach you well mother's day is Sunday um and I would have I told you I was going to university at the same time as my mother um and you know I and I mean it's sincerely um you know she raised three children working as a waitress then going to school and um ultimately ended up starting her own business and actually having an exit not to get her to be tiger qualified but she she allowed herself to level up to a level of self self self-sufficiency um and I think she taught me a lot about being able to sort of have a strong work ethic to be able to sort of the dignity of being in service to others um which is a management style that I think I still I hope I live by today um and just the ability to know to have a positive attitude to know that you know when you're confronted with hurdles you know um don't just stop figure out you know continue to work how do you go around over or through uh if you had to pick a book or or some source that uh that is impacted or influenced your life that somebody should go check out what would you recommend I'm not big for business books I'm really not Scott you know I I because not no no and I think you know I by the way I do and this is a tip jar item that I got by early days at tiger 21 up to uh enrolling blinkest because um blinkest is a great way to sort of get quick hits on some books that maybe you know you don't want to be taking two hours on a Saturday morning to read um but um I I mean this sincerely this is not sort of uh uh uh you know any sort of anything unintentional relative to our founder but his book think bigger Michael Sonnenfeld's book think bigger is actually a really interesting observation look into kind of what was behind what was in his mind in creating tiger 21 and sort of what is this all about and what are our members really experienced as much more than we could cover in our our year and so I don't know that it's had the biggest impact on my life but I think it is really well done and offers a perspective that fewer privy to um if you had to tell your 20-year-old self one thing what could it be don't enjoy the University of Wisconsin quite as much as you are I was a very poor undergraduate student and I spent the next years trying to fight my way out from hopefully you know shedding the the the underperformance of my undergraduate education all kidding aside I think it would be um be who you are try to figure out how to be the best version of yourself um because you know not everybody is intended to be an entrepreneur or CEO or anything um just try to you know understand who the best version of yourself is and then commit to being that and then last question what does success mean to you I think when uh when one draws that I'll put it in my own contact because it is to me when I draw my last breath to have as few regrets as possible