Introduction to David Steele

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to Cut the Tie podcast. Hi, I'm your host, Thomas Helfrich, and I smell lovely. Today. It has nothing to do with our show, but we're here to help you cut a tie to anything holding you back from success, and I'm joined today by David Steele. David, how are you today?

Speaker 2 0:13

I'm great, thank you.

Speaker 1 0:15

It's nice to see you. You were talking off camera. You got multiple homes. You start these companies. You're successful. Life is good. You got all your hair. Why don't you introduce yourself and what you do?

Speaker 2 0:27

Well, professionally, let's see. I am the founder and CEO of a financial planning company called One Wealth Advisors. I started the practice 34-ish years ago and we manage about $1.1 billion in assets for about 380 clients and it's a lovely little partnership, family type business. And then about 15 years ago I had an itch I needed to scratch and open a restaurant, so I put a team together to open a restaurant. It ended up being one of the more successful restaurants in the history of San Francisco and we turned that into a company. And now I'm essentially responsible for having started a company that has eight restaurants and the consumer baggage goods business and I'm founder and executive chairman of that company.

Speaker 1 1:18

When it seems like is your? Is your goal entrepreneurship like world domination, or do you come up with an idea and opportunities go with it?

Speaker 2 1:27

Well, there was who I was years ago and who I am now. So goal future tense is to help people live their dreams and achieve their goals. Because I've achieved all of my personal, professional and, frankly, personal goals as well, and I think that things are not worth doing if they're not in the service of others once one satisfies their base needs of staying warm, dry and fed. And so, having written multiple life plans maybe every decade and having achieved everything in each of those little life plans I did, I had an awareness that I now want to help other achieve their life goals and actually write life plans.

Speaker 1 2:16

So I hear that I feel like you didn't challenge yourself enough. You hit all the goals. I feel like there should be a few on there. You're like, oops, missed them.

Speaker 2 2:23

Maybe, but I'll just push back and unpack that a little bit. It's like I I have heard the saying that happiness is when your reality exceeds your expectations, and I think at some point time you can let yourself be happy yeah, I'm in that phase where I'm like I look at the house, I've never been a car, so that's an easy one.

Speaker 1 2:44

I have a comical car of beat up minivan that I just I love because I don't give a shit about it, which is the best. But then I see, like the trophies you collect in life, like right, people have cars, they have houses. At some point I'm like I want to have less and want less.

Speaker 2 3:21

How do you ever look at it and go of my life savings into this home and all I see is imperfection when I walk through the home, having tried to plan a perfect home. People walk up to this home and they say it's arguably the most beautiful home anybody's ever seen. And I have a 350 square foot apartment in New York City that I also live in sometime. I'm absolutely happier when I'm in that little apartment in New York than when I'm in this home seeing nothing but problems. Still, I couldn't help myself. I had the money. I knew at some point in my life I wanted to build a home. I wanted to see if I could do it design it from ground up with an architect. I did. Lo and behold, the journey was very painful and the the result is is disappointing. And so what a life lesson you know, did you?

Speaker 1 4:13

uh, are you the only one that like sees it? So, to give you an example, I'll do my own like kind of home repair, tile work, wood, everything except everything except working a hot electrical panel. I usually bring an electrician to do that. I'll do everything, though I won't install a panel though, cause that's like, that's like you messed that one up. It's death instantly. But um, I look and I can see all the little nooks and crannies of all the stuff that's wrong, but no one else notices at all, cause they couldn't. They couldn't know the detail of what it could have been. Do you suffer from the same?

Building Billion-Dollar Businesses

Speaker 2 4:41

Yeah, but not for the same reason. I don't do any of my own work. To me, my philosophy, and pretty much anything I do in my life, is, if I can get somebody else to do it 80% as well as I could and I can quality control it up to 100%, I just save myself a heck of a lot of time, and that certainly pertains to the type of work you just described. So I see all the imperfections because of God knows that psychoanalytically rich territory and I'm sure that my therapist would have a lot to say about that but it's because I'm OCD and not because I did the work myself. On himself critical.

Speaker 1 5:17

That's what we're getting into. We're just getting to set up the ties you had to cut in life. So, on your journey, a massive success by anybody's means, and you can always, you could always have more, want more, do more in your life, but by all measurable accounts you're very successful. But what's been the biggest tie you've had a cut to get there. I mean a lot.

Speaker 2 5:38

Let's see. I mean I grew up poor my mom, single, single parent, two children, school teacher. We had no money. I had to work from 16 to 24 in restaurants, dishwasher up to manager, got out, started building a financial planning practice, which is an exaggeration. It was a stockbroker practice where I really didn't know what the hell I was doing, did nothing but lose clients' money because I didn't know what the hell I was doing and had to start over and rebuild my business over and over and over again. But I was very disciplined and I had a lot of systematic behavior around that.

Speaker 2 6:18

And then I actually got fired from the CEO of a financial finance company, hated me, had a reason to fire me, fired me, had some partners that kind of screwed me over, had to start over again after having built a decent little business five years into my practice. And then I was with Bear Stearns, which went out of business, essentially in the credit crisis, and we were bought by JP Morgan, which made me and my partners miserable, and we had to leave JP Morgan to start our own company, which was scary, but I don't know. I think that would be defining cutting your tie, and it was a bold move and it obviously paid off. But these are inflection points which, for some people, would possibly have had them think about pivoting careers giving up, if you will and I just think that those moments in time are really what defines us.

Speaker 1 7:19

Well, you look at them, it looks like not as a failure but as a lesson. Ah, I learned something, let's do that different. I learned something, let's do it again. And if you get so married on an idea, like the OCD on an idea, and you just cannot get away from it, then, yeah, that idea will probably fail. But you also created that idea with the least amount of knowledge in your life at that moment, and so it's like you have to adapt, otherwise You're not learning from the knowledge that's being presented to you in success or challenge.

Speaker 2 7:46

I mean, I read Malcolm Gladwell has this idea of 10,000 hours is at. That moment in time is when you have developed mastery in a thing. For me it was survival. I didn't know I was developing my 10,000 hours and I should just stick with it. I just thought the path of least resistance was to actually continue to do what I knew and knew best, even though I was starting over. Upon reflection I was building my 10,000 hours, so it was much easier for me to rebuild each time I had to rebuild.

Learning From Failures

Speaker 2 8:21

Then probably somebody coming to the business that was leaving a different business because they were pivoting, because they failed and they had to start over to literally learn the business from ground up. You know, interestingly, I had a restaurant in San Francisco that failed and the chef, who has had equity in the business, um, was thinking about leaving the business and going to start to be a foreman on his uncle's construction company. And I told him that's fine if you do that, it's your choice and I can't tell you not to do that. But I will tell you you have developed mastery in this thing and it's failed right now. So you think you're at zero, but the truth of the matter is you're not really at zero. You're not really at zero. You're at a huge competitive advantage versus anybody else who is starting out in the restaurant business or, more specifically, starting out as an owner.

Speaker 2 9:11

You've been an owner, you've had a failure and there's a real opportunity for you to pivot that into something in the future and to apply that mastery. Lo and behold, I convinced him to open another restaurant. The restaurant is one of one of our more successful restaurants, radically successful, and he's he's an equity holder, and then he owns equity and the second restaurant that we opened with him, and so and we're literally today talking about doing a third and he's making a lot of money, he's by just bought a house with his wife and new child, and that was an inflection point for him, and I suppose it was only because I had gone through those inflection, going through those inflection points, and chose not to leave and chose to apply my mastery that I didn't know I had at the time.

Speaker 1 10:01

Do you? I'm sure you have lots of moments, but do you have a moment that sticks with you where you realized, like the epiphany ah, I'm going to start or stop doing this or that.

Speaker 2 10:13

I don't stop doing much. I have started doing some things, more than a couple, which I guess relates to what we were just talking about, because once I've sort of figured something out well, actually I'm going to pull back on that. I wrote a play. It was on stage, Thought I wanted to be a writer, Decided I hated writing.

Speaker 2 10:31

I didn't enjoy it. I had several shows with some of my art visual art in art galleries, sold some work, realized I actually didn't like creating the art. I thought I would like creating the art and I actually was decent at it, but I didn't enjoy it and had a realization from those experiences that my art is living, breathing art, which is, as an entrepreneur, starting businesses and I believe those are rightfully, you could describe them as art projects in the way I think of as art. So I guess there have been things that I've started and then stopped doing. So, yeah, I mean, but for the most part, the businesses I've started. I haven't built businesses to sell. I've built businesses that are hopefully generational and I just sort of keep doing them and iterate within.

Speaker 1 11:26

Yeah, I think that's probably why you build a successful business, because you build with the idea for existence and so it's got to have something special, something that keeps people coming back, something that you'd be proud of. And when you build something to exit, you're building it for more efficiency and market and money, and those don't always line up to the experience of the customer. Is it fair enough to say that?

Speaker 2 11:46

well, the way I, the way I see my business life, my professional life, is. It is the different companies that I started that I am still involved with, and there's more than a couple. If I were to sell them, I would no longer get to have the relationships that I have with my business partners. Business partners and the idea of getting money but losing those relationships, the richness of those relationships and how they impact my life and my happiness, would be really heartbreaking for me. So my motivation may be a little bit different. I do believe any business that one can sell for high valuation, any traditional business I'm not talking about a venture capital backed business that really isn't built to develop positive cash flow and be sustainable over time it's really trying to fill a quick niche that they believe would fit into a potential acquirer. A technological gap would be appealing to potential acquirer. A technological gap would be appealing to an acquirer, and that really is the genesis or the purpose of starting the business. Those exist and I'm sure people make lots and lots of money. But most businesses that are started are, I believe, started because the person had an idea and they wanted to make some money for themselves and they wanted to build it and keep growing because they wanted to make some money for themselves. And they wanted to build it and keep growing because they wanted to make more money. They wanted it to be, they wanted to have confidence that it would sustain. Oh, and then they woke up one day and said oh, there's a buyer. I'm tired, I'm going to sell it. I have no problem with that decision. It's fine. Who knows, maybe someday I'll sell a business.

Mastering Your Craft

Speaker 2 13:28

But I think the motivation of starting any business the way I see the world is you should imagine it living for generations after you're dead. And if you do that, then your decision-making, first of all, you're going to make long-term versus short-term decisions. You're probably going to be fiscally responsible. Every dollar you spend you're going to see as an investment in something that's going to have a return on investment long-term return on investment. It's just a different type of mindset. That has been my mindset. Just so happens, I woke up one day and realized, man, I love my relationships with my business part. This is really one of the great aspects of my life and if I were to sell these things it would be heartbreaking my life and if I were to sell these things it would be then heartbreaking yeah, it's like it's your family, almost it's a.

Speaker 1 14:16

Yeah, what impact it is, and so, and so I and you've talked about this a little bit. I normally ask what kind of impact it's had on your life to be the way you are, but maybe describe the impact you've had on other people's lives building these businesses that you've played so good to they're not here to speak for themselves, so I'm going to attempt to speak for them.

Speaker 2 14:31

I think they would say that for the most part, the the partners that I have in my business would say that their lives are better because I've been involved with them, that they may not have been able to accomplish anything near what we've been able to accomplish because I've been an influence on our entrepreneurial spirit, our boldness, our strategic thinking, and that I have because of my view on how to work with people and build businesses. It's, it's a, it's an active empowerment for them. That is, they feel more empowered and more successful by all measures because I've been their partner. But I absolutely have gotten more from it than they have, because my sense of purpose is completely predicated on my ability to positively influence them.

Speaker 2 15:26

And I got a text from one of my partners in one of my companies. He's the CEO of one of my companies that he and I started and he texted me and said I just want you to know that outside of my parents, there's nobody in my life who has been more supportive and more positive and influential than you. I mean I, I I teared up when I got that. He did. He literally said that to me yesterday, that text from him. He was 24 when I hired him and then made him a partner, and he's 40 now and he's the CEO of that company and I'm executive chairman of that company. We're partners, we run the company together. He does most of the artwork, though, and what a? I mean I mean that that right there.

Speaker 1 16:13

Honestly, that text was worth a million dollars, worth something crazy like that to me yeah, I'm one who believes that you don't separating work and life, and you just can't, and your identity is wrapped up in both and it's a cop-out. You'd be living two different lives. Yeah, you'd be living two different lives. Yeah, you'd be living two different lives.

Speaker 2 16:31

It's a cop out, it's. I believe that anybody who says, oh, it's just business, um, I don't want to do business with you.

Building Businesses as Living Art

Speaker 1 16:39

Yeah, I mean, I get that and I agree with you. Like it's just too interrelated to say it otherwise. And anybody who's thinking, oh, I just go to work and I just want to be home, well, you should probably get out of what you're doing, because you're just trading your time and soul for money. So you might as well try to find purpose if you can At least take a direction toward it. Anyway, we could go do a whole, probably podcast on that, like a whole series. Tell me something, just give a lesson to the listener. If anybody listening out there they're on an entrepreneurial journey. What's the best thing?

Speaker 2 17:23

Give. Give them some advice. I said it earlier and I can't emphasize this enough Everything we do should be in the service of others, assuming hour, every day, everything they're doing, and just make sure that it's in the service of others. It doesn't mean you shouldn't get paid for providing such a service. In fact, usually you should, and I think there is some wrongful guilt around conflating being compensated for serving. There's nothing wrong with that. But I'm in the service of the clients of my financial planning company. I'm in the service of my team members of that company, of my partners of that company, every second of the day, and the same thing with my restaurant company. I'm in the service of the customers that walk through the door. I'm in the service of the team members, the partners in the company, the executive team. We are in the service of the employees. I can go on and on and on. It is truly all about service. Oh and, by the way, I get paid pretty well.

Speaker 1 18:25

Yeah, I like that. That's a good idea. All right, let's do some rapid fire. I'm curious in these, who gives you inspiration?

Speaker 2 18:34

My mother. She taught me about relationships. She taught me about how, really, at the end of the day, all human beings want is to be loved and valued. And one of the ways that we feel loved and valued is by loving and valuing others and having it be reciprocal. And sometimes you have to end relationships where it's not reciprocated, but that doesn't mean you stop doing that, and she taught me that and that was that's really probably the fundamental reason for my success.

Speaker 1 19:07

Yeah.

Speaker 2 19:08

I hope my kids say something about me like that Me too.

Speaker 1 19:13

What's the best business advice you've ever received?

Speaker 2 19:28

it's there. There is a healthy tension between hurry up and slow down, that is, to making snap decisions versus being deliberate. And so when one is in the business world thinking about projections or goals or behavior, systematic behaviors, I think one at all times needs to feel comfortable and uncomfortable. And that tension is a good tension. And you know, you've heard people around goal setting, which is, whatever goals you have, make sure and you said it earlier, right, did you? Did you challenge yourself enough? Right? And I think my pushback was at some point in time you have to, you have to be happy and it's okay to be happy. And what I'm arguing for is that that tension, that push pull is, is very healthy, and to to harness that and respect that. And if it's out of whack there's probably a problem. And having it, having equal or equilibrium between those two seemingly oppositions, is a good thing.

Speaker 1 20:29

What's that? A must read book.

Success Through Service to Others

Speaker 2 20:33

Oh man, wow, must read book. Uh, I'm drawing a blank, but Warren Buffett read a book that is the basis of his entire career by Benjamin Graham, and I think it's the Intelligent Investor. For me, that book is a book that teaches you to try to remove emotion from your decision making and really look at the facts, the fundamentals of things, because the world can be very you know, especially right now with what's happening in the financial markets and tariffs and political environment, etc. It would easily lead you to make emotional decisions and I read that book back in the 90s and it really stayed with me that try to push aside all of the noise and really make fundamental, foundational, analytical decisions, rather than emotional ones.

Speaker 1 21:34

That's solid advice. Also, just compound interest, start early. It's a simple one. If you had to start over and if you had to go start over, when would you start over and what would you do differently?

Speaker 2 21:45

Meaning at what point in my life would I have chosen to start over? Upon reflection? Correct, that's a really good question. I think for me I was really ready to rock and roll in my 30s because I had learned a lot, I had matured in my 20s, and it took a lot of tie cutting failures, wins, losses, scar tissue development to then have more clarity about what my capabilities were. So I think it would have been in my 30s. Does that answer your question? I'm not sure it totally does, though.

Speaker 1 22:20

Well, it's win, but what would you do differently?

Speaker 2 22:22

Oh, what would I do differently? Well, I would have started my own company and I was with Bear Stearns and then JP Morgan for years and I would have looked at the fact that I was building a team within a large organization, and then what that large organization was providing me was completely dependent upon me being afraid to leaving them, and that I needed them when in truth, I didn't need them, and that everything they were providing me was easily attainable on my own.

Speaker 1 22:57

Awesome. If there was one question I should have asked you today, but didn't, what would that question be and how would you answer it?

Speaker 2 23:05

Well, as I've looked, you know, dug into your podcast a little bit and we had talked. I know that you attempt to get to more vulnerable places with people, and so I think I would have asked, asked me, why I chose not to have kids Go ahead.

Speaker 1 23:18

You have to answer your own question, and so I think I would have asked me why I chose not to have kids Go ahead. You have to answer your own question.

Speaker 2 23:22

I think I chose not to have kids because I saw my mom struggle so hard with raising my brother and I on teacher salary, no money having been left by my father, and it really put her into a dark, dark, dark place. And I was nine years old and I observed that and I think that really had an imprint on me. To say that having kids is such an incredible struggle that it seems like without kids it would be less of a struggle. I have observed excuse me, I've observed many of my clients have incredibly happy, harmonious families and what amazing humans they are, the entire family as they get together and sometimes I look at them like they're aliens. I just don't. I just don't understand.

Speaker 1 24:20

I just don't. I just don't understand. Yeah, it's the pain. The pain of having being the child on the other end of that is the pain you don't ever want to. You'd have to relive it almost as kids. It would be hard, but you'd be providing for them. I have a feeling you'd probably be a pretty good dad. I don't know. I think you probably Maybe.

Rapid Fire Questions

Speaker 2 24:36

Thank you, and I do want to say that intellectually, I think you know, and I do want to say that intellectually, I think you know. I think there's nothing wrong with people getting divorced Nothing, it's how does the divorce happen, Right, Is there the kids? The kids just want to be loved, 't able to provide that to us, and so all I saw was dysfunction and struggle. So it was. I don't think it was. I don't want anybody to leave this to me thinking I said don't get divorced, stay together even if you're miserable. Because I'm most certainly not saying that.

Speaker 1 25:21

I appreciate that. Thank you, I appreciate you coming on today. By the way, shameless plug time If who should get ahold of you and how do they do?

Speaker 2 25:28

that you know I, I a lot of people go on podcasts, I think because they're doing some business, some form of business development. Truthfully, I just I don't want to write a book, but I think I have a lot to say. So I like to talk and that's why I choose to go on podcasts and tell my story. But you can. I have this silly website, david Steele, d-a-v-i-d, s-t-e-e-l-e, dot X, y, z. That shows that you could probably reach me at and it shows you my weird background.

Speaker 1 25:55

Wonderful, I love it. You don't even sound, just I'm out here just telling my story. I love that. Yeah, true service-oriented architecture of a brain right there. I love it. Altruism in its purest form. Thank you, by the way, for coming on, david.

Speaker 2 26:07

Yeah, thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 26:09

For everyone who's still listening. I appreciate you Go out there, cut a tie to something holding you back from success One thing you should probably do.