welcome back to another episode of Inside personal growth. This is Greg Voisen, the host of inside personal growth and joining us. Are you in Clayton Missouri this morning? Clayton Missouri, yes, sir, one of my stomping grounds from before we have Ron Rubin gold in your backyard. I've been actually waiting for this interview for a while. You can see the book has been bookmark a lot as well. Ron, Good day to you. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Thank you. It's a pleasure to have you on the show, and for you to spend some time with our listeners, and for our listeners to get familiar not only with your book, but you as a person, your philosophies in life and everything else that you've done. You're quite the entrepreneur, and I'm just going to tell people a little bit about you, because I want you to tell a lot of your own story. This book is kind of a memoir, but not only just a memoir, it also has and I'm going to show for my listeners how this came. There's a little can of tea, and on it the side, there's 50 lessons, and I do because Ron owns the Republic of tea. He also was kind enough to send me daily matcha, which, which I have here as well. So, you know, in 71 Ron began dreaming about owning winery and then studying about how to do that at UC Davis, 40 years later, in 2011 that dream came true when he purchased River Road family vineyards. It's a winery homes as well in the Green Valley of Russian River Valley in Sonoma County, and he has done so much and and it's just something that I'd really kind of like to ask you, Ron, and the trajectory of your life, between the winery and the tea business and all the things that you've done, um, tell the listeners about this journey that you've taken from a very young age all the way to today, because I think they'd like to hear it in your words.

Well, here we go. Well, okay, our family started a wholesale wine and liquor business my dad did in 1950 in Southern Illinois, and I grew up in the family business. Grew up working in the warehouse, and I knew that my father would like me to go into the family business with him. And so we had a gentleman suggest my dad that if Ron is going to go into the family business, he should go to the University of California Davis and study viticulture and enology. So in 1971 I went out to California for the first time in my life, coming from Southern Illinois, and it was a whole different world. Parents asked me, what'd you think about California? I said, I signed up, I enrolled in the school, I got an apartment, and I'm driving to California. So in 1971 I started my studies of viticulture, enology, the science of the grape and the science of wine making. And I fell in love with that. And a lot of my classmates were going to go work for their families in the wine business that had wineries, and I started dreaming someday, I hope I have a vineyard and winery myself. And that was in 1971 and as you said, That's my 40 year dream. It took me 40 years, but in 2011 I bought River Road family Vineyards and Winery. In the meantime, I worked with my dad. I started in 1972 and we worked together for 17 years till he passed away in 1989 1990 I read a book. I read a book

about tea. I'd actually, by the way, just not to interrupt you, but I downloaded that book, by the way, off of Amazon and the Kindle version, because I was just curious about these people that founded Republica tea that you ended up purchasing. And it's a fascinating story. Actually,

it is a great story. Changed my life. So my life, my wife likes to remind me when she sees me with the book, it's the most expensive book I've ever bought in my life. So I'm one of those individuals that read the book and bought the company. So it was 22 months old, so I really wanted to buy that brand as a brand over I wanted to be a brand owner. And when I grew up with my dad, we were in the middle. We were the wholesale distributor in the middle, and we represented a lot of wonderful suppliers, wine suppliers, liquor suppliers, manufacturers, but we didn't own a brand, and that's really where I found my interest in the Republic of tea, a new brand, 22 months old. And could I build this brand, the Republic of tea, into the leading specialty tea in the industry? And so you did,

and I say, and you did well. Thank you. I actually, I actually just to say I went on LinkedIn this morning to look at some of the staff who you have hired to help you, and that's one of your lessons in the book. But these people who are out representing republic of teas around the country who have their profiles on LinkedIn. And I was quite impressed with many of the people that you've chosen, their background, their history. And my hat's off to you, because you know one of the things you say in the book is to surround yourself with smarter people, right? And these people that you have hired to help you grow this brand. Are many of them amazing compliments to you, right? Thank you so much. And not only that is, you know, we I said we wanted to talk about your business. We also want to talk about your philosophy in life and some of the things that happened to you. But you know the book, when I turned the T and people saw that, you saw these 50 little axioms which this book is made up of, and the gold in your backyard offers 50 golden lessons on entrepreneurship, and obviously you're speaking to one of the best entrepreneurs around what inspired you? Because when people get to a point to write a book, right, it's like, okay, this is a crossover point. I have a story to tell. I want people to learn. I've learned so much, and I want to give back. And usually Writing a book is about giving back. It's about your lessons. So what inspired you to distill your business wisdom into this particular format, which, for my listeners, they should know, every one of these lessons is about two to three pages long. You know it's isn't this isn't a tough read, it's a very easy read, and it's in that format. And which of these lessons do you believe is probably most critical for aspiring entrepreneurs that are out there listening today, or the ones that are very successful?

Well, the most critical one is find a mentor, and that's the one I start with lesson one. And of course, I had my dad. I had another gentleman, Julian vaneske, I had a sales manager, Frank Perez, and just through my career, finding a mentor is really critical, someone that's been there, done that, hopefully in the same industry that you might, you know, be pursuing. And I just think that that's where you start and they're out there, you just have to find them and they're actually in your backyard. Yeah, so

well, so how did you kind of build that community? I mean, I pointed out to the listeners that you built a great team at republic of teas, and obviously at the vineyard as well, right at River roads. And this, this title of this book, gold in your backyard. It resonates with me because I remember this book by Russell. It was about being gold in your backyard. I'm trying to remember the name of it, but it was about the fact that people go out and seek all over the place to try and find something. And yet, this fable was about, hey, there's gold right here in your backyard. And it suggests that this opportunity for most people is closer than we could think, right? So could you share a personal example of a time when you discovered an unexpected opportunity that was really right in front of you. Well,

that's interesting. There's been a number of them, but the latest one, or I would say one that's right now, is that the book came about from YPO. Really me speaking to Young Presidents Organization a number of times. And during my speech, I decided to tell them, like my top 10 secrets for entrepreneurship, kind of like a David Letterman, yeah. And then the 10 became 20, and the 20 became 30, then became 50. And then every year from 19, you know, 72 to 2022, was 50 lessons. And when I would do my speaking, the the lessons would be, you know, a two or three minute lesson, because if I had 20 of them that takes care of an hour of public speaking, and so that's kind of how the book came about, from my speeches at YPO. And I had a gentleman who I knew through the wine business that lived in Napa, California. I'm in Sebastopol. He's right over the hill from us, and he came to visit my winery. And I, you know, I didn't know a lot about Paul's background, but I knew who Paul was, Paul, Chuck CO and Paul, we were just talking about my 50 lessons. He said, Well, Ron, why don't we? Why don't you write a book? And I said, Well, I'm not so for sure, I want to write a book. And Paul is a publisher. Okay?

He helped you write it.

He published the book. And so there he was in Napa, California,

right in your backyard, gold in your backyard. And he did a phenomenal job of this book, by the way, too. I mean, this is a very high quality paper. This is a very high quality book. It is a hardback book for all of my listeners. It is up on Amazon. We're going to put the link, but just to give you now, when he said, gold in your backyard, there you go. There's the gold the gold leaf on the pages. So I just just phenomenal. Kind of cute

story was the fact that we spend three months in Naples, Florida, January, February, March, and I was told that I needed to do an audio book. And so well, I said, Well, I'm in Florida for three months, January, February, March, in Naples. Well, anyway, believe it or not, they found a studio in Naples, Florida. I did my recording in Naples. You know, for the audio book, only had to drive about five minutes to get to the studio, and I felt that I had found gold in my backyard in Naples, Florida to do the audio book. Well,

I'll tell you when your spiritual side, like yours, is is aligned. It all of these things can come about in life, right? And I totally fundamentally and realistically and truthfully understand this, because it's very serendipitous these things start to occur and but you have to be open to receive. You got to understand, and you've got to put it out there. It's like an energy you put out, and you emanate that as a individual. And I want to compliment you that now, in your book, you discuss this concept. It's all about the 5% Could you elaborate on what this means and how it applies to entrepreneur success. I know what it is, because I read,

okay, well, well, the 5% it seems that most businesses have their systems together. They, you know, entrepreneurs, you know, everything's running smooth, and you're, you're, well, you know, you got 95% working for you, but I think it's the small detail, is that looking at that 5% and trying to figure out, you know, a culture within your organization, of how to Look at that last 5% and really the small details. And that's what I think is very important. And, you know, it's just, it's just small details. I can give you one, one real small detail. I felt that maybe I'd be asked to autograph some books. Okay? And so I I thought, well, you know, what am I going to what kind of pen am I going to use if I autograph a book? Well, should be a gold pin and and so I started working with gold pins. And I had a whole selection of 30 different gold pins, and I found the one I love. You know, it's just fantastic. It just writes wonderful. And

what's the name of that one? Huh? I

don't even know. The brand extra fine tip, A, R, T, i, s, t, r, okay,

before, but, but you found it, and you love it,

and I love it, and it's a small detail, you know, it's a small detail, but it means something, you know. So I've had a number of people give me their pin, and it was a black pen. I said, Wait a minute. I have my own, and I pull it out, and they love it, and it's just those small, small, little details.

You know, well, I think that you, like you said that 5% that additional 5% the pin, is part of that 5% you bet. And I think you're always striving to make a difference, to make things better. I know at the show here, I do a lot of preparation, and most authors out there, like, Hey, I've been on other podcasts, but nobody prepares like you do. I've never had anybody quite like you. You give me the questions ahead of time. You're, you know, you're doing it to me, that's the 5% right? So, you know, one of the things I wanted to cover, because I went through the book and I looked through it, I'll do like, two at a time, and then we're going to talk about how entrepreneurism and your relationship to the university and things you're doing is helping young people with the MBA program. But one of them is collaborate, and the other was, that was lesson seven, and the other was strategic planning, this woman that you actually found to bring back to your dad's business, and then came out and helped you with Republica tease too, too. So it was number seven and eight in the book, for anybody who picks this book up, and the first one collaborate. I think you're just a natural collaborator, Ron, because that's just who you are. Tell us why an entrepreneur out there today should be looking to collaborate. And then secondly, this woman that you found for strategic planning, I think both of those are really, really important tips that you give.

Well, collaboration to me. If I added it up, I'd say one plus one equals three. And I really feel that there's so many opportunities out there to look to collaborate with another company. It not necessarily someone that you compete with, but someone that you know you admire, some other company that you can learn from, you know, our collaboration was with a company that does jams and and jellies and specialty products like that, and we had tea so, you know, I had this idea. Most entrepreneurs have plenty of ideas innovations, and I approached them to do a tea jam, and they asked me, What is a tea jam? And I said, Well, it's my tea your jam. It's just a collaboration. We had fun. We both learned together. We both created a new product, and it was just an exciting time. And I think that that's really where you know collaborations are about. I remember that our first, our first book collaboration, was Memoirs of a Geisha. I don't know if you remember that book or not, but it was, it talked about Japanese tea in the Japanese tradition. And I thought, well, you know, maybe we could do a tea and a book collaboration. So, you know, I wrote Arthur Goldin, and the next thing I know, we had a Memoirs of a Geisha tea that got promoted, and it was a wonderful collaboration. And so I asked him, Why did you write this book? And he said, so I could have a tea that's why I wrote the book.

It is. I mean, some of the stories you tell in the book, including how you found the collaboration for the Jam, which is, you know, obviously in this industry, whether it's tea or it's any food products or, you know, fine products that people have. You guys go to these events, and I remember reading that you were at this event, and that's where you met it. And I think if you keep your eyes and ears open, it's like me, I go to the natural products West Expo every year. And I know many of the people that listen to this, it's like, oh, so what is that? Well, that's a place where, like, who knows how many it's so many people come to Anaheim and share their new products and their food products, right? Their teas, their their everything. And I think that's where you have to look for your collaborations. That's where to look for your partners, because they're there, and those entrepreneurs are seeking new ways to figure out how to do something too. Now, one of the things that you, you, you talk about, was this strategic planning. You said your dad had never done a strategic plan, and you went to this event, listen to this woman, and then you thought, Oh, this is a great idea. We had to do a strategic plan. And you know, as much as I tell my clients who are in business to do a strategic plan at least three years, so few of them really do it. They're running by the seat of their pants, right? It's like the next, next, next, whatever happens next. That's what I'm going to do it. What did this do for Republican tea and also for you and your dad in the central wholesale liquor company,

well, I think it was a roadmap for my dad myself. It was really part of looking at a succession plan, and in planning that out over a three year period, learning from that, I had that experience with my dad. I had the experience with my son, Todd, when we went through our three year succession plan, and that was all part of strategic planning in our plan. I think that when you hear about strategic planning, you have to realize that this meeting that I learned about it was, you know, 40 years ago. It was kind of a new topic. It was like, you know, something that no, you know, not a lot of companies have done or heard about. And so I was fascinated, and especially since my father's business, our family business, you know, started 1950 and we're talking about 1980 or right around that period of time. And so, you know, the company's already 30 years old. So why do you need to go through through strategic planning? So I really had to convince my dad, but it was so helpful for us to sit down and just look out for 36 months. You know, we probably here all the systems were in place. But, you know, we looked at competitors, we looked at the environment, we looked at succession, and we, you know, we learned that plan, and that was our plan, and we met, you know, once a quarter to go over the strategic plan. We set up goals, we set up responsibilities. And so it was a natural for me with the Republic of T to bring strategic planning to the Republic of t, and that was a 22 month old company. So when I sat down with Barbara, you know, I'd been working with her, I said, Well, let's, you know, plan out for three years. And she looked at me strangely, and she said, Ron, three years, we're going to plan out for six months. Startup company. Let's get this six month plan knocked out, and then we'll go to 12, and then we'll go to 18 and 36 but we're not going to start at a third, you know, through the year plan. And that's exactly what we did. We started with our six month plan. It started in June 94 and went to the end of 94 and then we started with our 12 month plan for all of 1995 and so but today, our son does a three year strategic plan. And

no, it's you know what you're talking about is so valuable, these lessons in family businesses, or any businesses, you know, I think I shared with you a little bit for 30 plus years, I have been a business advisor and a certified one, and I literally did this through coming through the Financial Services and insurance business. And I would do succession planning for people you know, like, Hey, how are you setting this up to move this down to the next generation? You know, how's Todd and Jane gonna get it? What's it gonna look like? What's your estate plan? What are your insurances? I mean, we look at everything we look at and you touch on a lot of these in the book. You even had talked about in this book, the term insurance, and then what happened to you, and then we'll, we'll get there. But I would always tell people, you know, look, you're not going to live forever, and you've got a next generation. Do you want to move this to the next generation, or do you want to sell it right? And what is your goal? Because most entrepreneurs have their life savings tied up in their business, right? That is what it is, and you need to have way to get that out, because that's what you want to live on and retire on. So good points you make here, but for throughout your career, you've maintained this unique corporate culture. And I think this is where philosophy comes in is around culture. And at the Republic of tees, you call them ministers instead of employees and citizens instead of customers. How important to you is organizational culture to entrepreneur success, and how can leaders foster cultures that align with the values. I know that, you know, I haven't had Yvon Chouinard on here, but if you look at Patagonia, and you look at the values that the company has set for themselves, and then you talk to the employees that work there, the reality is, is that this has been a really key thing for you, and Todd has carried it on, carried it forward. Why did you make this decision, and why is it that you're so strongly an advocate for this?

Well, I think, of course, I learned from my mentor, my dad, back then, you know, he thought profit sharing was very important. You know, giving back at the if you had a good year, at the end of the year, you know, you share your profits and starting a retirement program for your employees. My dad was really philanthropic, and so, you know, there was a lot of this that kind of came through my DNA, and I learned from my dad and I've tried to do that with our family and our children and our lives. And so in business, it became somewhat of a natural but with the Republic of t when you read the book, you know the the founders created the culture, and what I wanted to do was use it as our DNA for building their brand, and so we kept true to what the book is. Now. The founders also had created the Banana Republic clothing chain. And I don't know if you remember the Banana Republic when it was Safari look, and they had the experience, and now, when they sold out to the gap, gap just changed everything. It doesn't even look like the Banana Republic from the founders point of view. And so, you know, I think, you know, keeping the DNA of the of the brand, that's what we wanted to do today. I think you know, when you think of business, and you think of doing good, you know, you should be thinking about becoming a certified B Corporation.

I'd agree 100% it takes a little extra work, but it's important, and that, you know that,

Can I correct you a minute? You said it takes a little extra, takes a lot of extra, well,

extra horse. I do. I wanted to be nice. The reality is, I'm aware of what it takes to become a B Corp. And yes, I'm going to tell my listeners, it takes a lot of extra and both of your companies are B Corps, and that's just a commitment to you. Also, you know this, this runs down this line of social responsibility and environmental stewardship that you have, and you know, looking working with growers in all these Asian countries for these teas, and looking at how they're treating their employees, and are they getting fair pay, and all these kind of things that you have to look at. I think it's just fantastic that you do that. So how do you balance profit motives with these broader societal concerns? And how has this, you know, approach evolved over your you know, your career, because right now, I think it's probably one of the most important things that you could pay attention to. Well,

first of all, if you're not making a profit, you can't be good so today in business, but I think before you make a profit, you really had to look at your debt structure. I think what makes it a little easier for us we have no debt, and that was planned that way. That was how I was taught. That's what my dad instructed. And we were able to grow a business with no debt, using the resources and pay off debt. And so I think that that's really important part. Now there's some companies that you know want to go public, and they're going to build a big manufacturing plan, and they need millions of dollars, and I understand that. But you know, for us, as a family business, a specialty company, we went down the specialty path, not the mass market path, and we wanted to become, you know, debt free. And so this gives us a lot of lot of ways that we can give back and take some of those profits and put them to good use. So that's, that's what I would recommend, you know, try to become debt free if you can. Took me six years, three months and 15 days at the Republic of T Wow.

You got that down to the day 2000 when you wrote that last check to the bank, or whoever wasn't loaned the money. You know exactly. Well, I'm, I'm impressed, very impressed with that, because so many companies have debt, and they're spending a lot of their time earning revenue to service debt, and so it's very hard for them to get away and get ahead. They're constantly servicing the debt. They're hiring new employees, and they're running on razor thin margins. And so when you run on those kind of margins, you can't make many mistakes along the way. So Mike, hats off to you, kudos that you've been able to do that. That's a very enviable place for for you to be,

you know, and for the winery for me personally, you know, it was a 40 year dream. So I had 40 years to save for, save up for that winery. And so when I bought the winery. I bought paid for it in cash, you know. And we have no debt at the winery. And so that's been since 2011 and that gives us some tremendous strength, but it also gives us the way to take our profit dollars and give back. So

let me ask you a question, Ron, because in both of these companies, not the central wholesale liquor company, but obviously republic of tea and the winery back road, you purchased companies, and they weren't your companies originally, you bought a company out and how did you kind of do your own due diligence about the people that were running these companies. I know you read the book in the Republic of T case, but the reality is is, how did you kind of decide, through your own personal due diligence and family due diligence, to say, hey, we're going to go ahead and make a sizable investment in this company, and we believe this is where we want to go. How did that occur?

Well, the winery, you know, specifically I wanted to look at either Napa or Sonoma. I found Napa to be more Hollywood. Sonoma was country, so I felt more comfortable in Sonoma. So I started reaching out in Sonoma worked with a wine broker, and he brought me to this opportunity the river road family Vineyards and Winery. Their their exit strategy was to sell their winery, and they had one customer, and doing about 20,000 cases with one customer. That customer at the time was total wine and more. And so a lot of people shied away from that. But through my experience, we started working with Panera Bread in St Louis when they only had 12 restaurants, and now they have 2000 we started growing with the Whole Foods down in Austin when they only had a couple of stores, and now they have 450 so I had the experience to grow organically and not to go out and find more customers, but try to do more business with the customers that you already have. And I guess my due diligence, just for the winery, it didn't scare me off. It scared a lot of people off. Only one customer. That's pretty risky, yeah, but my due diligence was going out to meet the owners in Maryland, Robert Trone, David Trone, and I said, Listen, I'm interested in buying this winery, but you know, you're our only customer. Will you stay with me? And they said they would stay with me under one condition, and that condition was Ron, most of the new winery buyers, first thing they do is they raise their raise their prices on their wine. And if you keep your prices the same to us, we'll stay with you. And so I said, Well, I'll do that for three years. Let me get my feet wet. And they said they would stay with me. So, you know, we started with 76 locations, and today they're in 277 locations, and we've been able to grow our business with them, and they've been a great partner, and we think we've been a great partner with them. And so I think my due diligence was talking with the previous large customer. So I really recommend a lot of times, when you're looking at buying a company, go out and talk to their customers. You know,

that's a I think that for people listening today who are potentially thinking about an acquisition, to actually get the customer list and to actually speak with their customers is a very important move. Due diligence is so important to really understand. I, just as a side note here, helped a company. Actually, there was another company pushing for a letter of intent, and I did the due diligence. And in the end, I told my client that this was not an appropriate move, given what was at stake. And in the end, he walked away from it, right? And I think that's important thing. That's why I asked about due diligence. That's an important thing in any business. Do due diligence about all of the things you're in. And you know, you've done your own due diligence when it comes to your health. And I'm going to shift gears here a bit about your personal journey after your cardiac event in 2009 and we're not calling it a heart attack, because it wasn't and it was interesting. You say this because I learned all about it through you, and then I read more about it. My daughter in law is at Moran general right now, the brand new one, and she was only 42 years old, and she had a a aortic tear and and she just at 40 something years old, three days ago, went through open heart surgery, and it was something genetic. Didn't quite know it was there. The doctors don't see much about of it. They don't even know about it too much. She's up and around now, walking in the hospital out of ICU. So, you know, it was a shock to us, because that's the mother of our grandchildren. And so the thing is, is that you had this event in 2009 you finally pursued your lifelong dream of owning a winery. How this health thing? Because you write about it in lesson 17, because you are an avid jogger, I should say you were running marathons even. How does health challenge change your perspective on risk taking and pursuing your dreams? And what advice would you give to others who might be postponing their own dreams?

Well, you know, we can't, we can't focus on what's going to happen tomorrow. Plan what's going to happen tomorrow. Nobody knows what's going to happen tomorrow. You know, we know what happened yesterday, but we don't know what's going to happen today or tomorrow. So you know, you can't sit back and think about it. You have to, you know, make it happen. And for me, I think the wake up call was being in a hospital bed at age 60, realizing I was going to have a heart procedure done on a Monday, and I'm there on a Friday, and all gave me a little bit of time to think about it over the weekend. And really, I the only thing that I thought about was dying. You know, my life over at age 60, and you know, if I make it through this heart procedure and surgery, you know, this is what I want to do, and I'm not going to wait around anymore. I'm going to try to make make this happen. And so it was a wake up call, and for me personally, but what I try to tell in my book is that, you know, don't wait. Don't wait for a ventricular tachycardia to happen to you. You know, try to, you know, live your dream now, you know, try to make it happen. Now, just, you know, we can't wait. You know, it's just,

I think that the advice is, is incredible. And, and I, you know, look, I've joint written books with one of my friends. This is his third time up Mount Everest, about parfet. And, you know, he doesn't wait for anything. He goes for everything. In other words, it's like, Hey, I'm not going to wait till tomorrow. Yeah, I could die up there, just like the other two times I went up there. He's, he's reading about it, so he's got the book right next to him. And, you know, he just finished coming down about three days ago and re acclimating again from another trip. But here's what he did this. This kind of leads into you, he went up there with an expedition to raise money for the blind cause, kids that go blind. And he raised this phenomenal sum of money with the company that he's a partner in. And the whole time he was carrying this flag, not only for that, but for these blind kids, right? And I think that you know, when you have a cause like that, you're more apt to get it finished, right? It's like, I'm going for this, because there's something greater for that than myself involved in this, right? So you described yourself as a zentrepreneur, okay? And I don't know if you practice Zen practices, or you're Buddhist or whatever, but the point is, I'm a big meditator and so on. How does this philosophy differ from traditional entrepreneurship, and how's it, how's it influenced the way you approach business challenges? Because I think that's the most important thing. Well,

I think you know when I if, if I had to define the term entrepreneur, and what you know today, when you think about an entrepreneur, you know that you could probably put equals workaholic. You know, 60 hours, 70 hours a week, maybe even more, they're trying to get their business off the ground and or whatever they might be pursuing, and they forget about their life, yeah, forget about their family, yeah. Get about their health. They forget about a lot of things. And a zentrepreneur, we love it. We like to define it as someone that has a business and a life. So, you know, I'm not saying that it's 5050, you know, I'm not saying not to be 90. It could be 9010 but you know, don't forget about your life. Take care of yourself. Take care of your family. Be considerate, you know, in in so that's what we we want you to, kind of, just like the Republic of t, you know, sit by sip rather than go by, go, you know. We want you to slow down a little bit and look at life and look, look what's around you, and look at nature and and, you know, go for a walk, or whatever it might be. Go for a run, you know, and so don't, don't just entrepreneurs, workaholics, and you think, you know, that's what you have to do. But I think if you could balance yourself out just a little bit better be as entrepreneur and think about a business and your life.

Well, what would your younger self tell you about that? Because look, when you came up, my

younger tell me that my younger Tell me.

But of all those listeners out there who are younger that listen to this show, you're telling them, be patient, right? Look at the timing. It's not important to have it happen today. I always remember this from from Bo actually, the guy we were just talking about who climbed the mountain. He take his young boy, he lives in Boulder into Whole Foods, and the boy would run over and say, I want this. And he goes, is it a want or need? And I think it's little, small lesson like that to do you really need this muffin, or whatever it was that he was, you know, I was some candy something, right? Or is it just a want, right? And you don't really need it, so I'm not buying it for you. So the point is, is that I think that when we put those things in perspective, as you you had a Jewish father, I had a Jewish mother, and she used to say to me, and these are the lessons that I keep hearing in my mind, it's not how much you earned, it's what you saved of what you earned, right? So these are like little cliches that click off of my head. I still hear them today, right? Yesterday's a canceled check, tomorrow's a promissory note. The only time you have is now. She used to say that too, you know? So she'd say, stay in the present moment, just like what we're talking about here today, right? And I can hear my mother saying those things because she came from, I'm going to say not abject poverty, but pretty close living in St Louis, watching people jump out of windows when the Depression came right and putting in when she died, she had money stashed all over the house in different areas. It's just really quite a little story, right? So, you know, look, you you have committed yourself to so many causes, and I think that's part of it. And one of the causes was, and I'm going to turn the pages here, was the, the the the things with the A ed program. So after this cardiac arrest while training for your eighth marathon, you created this training for saving lives program, donating 400 AED to wineries across the United States. Can you share how this near death experience kind of transformed your perspective on giving back and what does it mean to know that your program has such a great potential to save so many lives in wine country? Well,

thank you. The first I should say, a defibrillator saved my life. I was shocked by a defibrillator that brought my heart back to normal rate. And what ended up happening to me is I had an implantable cardio defibrillator. I have it right here with me now. So if my heart takes off, I get shocked. It's shocked. It has shocked me five times in my life, and saved my life all five times. So I know you know what the value of having a defibrillator? I'm one of those lucky ones. I have one built in, so it's right with me, I'm

going to say Thank God for Bill George and medtronics. You betcha. He started, he started in the garage of his of his house in Minnesota, and he's written many books, and he is a wonderful man. And I'll tell you, you wouldn't be alive. It wouldn't be from medtronics. That's

correct, no doubt about I went up to visit them. Yeah, in St Paul Minneapolis, yeah. So, you know, going owning a winery and even the Republic of T we train our staff and CPR, and we also have AEDs at our facilities. And so, you know, I just talking to my winery friends that have tasting rooms that are in the area, and I asked them, Do you all have a, you know, AD, do you train your team with CPR? And really, I was surprised to find out the answer was no, right? And I have a friend here locally in St Louis that's on the American Red Cross national board, and we put a collaboration together,

collaboration, another one Red Cross,

and the AED manufacturer Zol Z, Oll, Zoll medical. And so we all met, and I kind of came up with an innovative idea. You know, why don't we try to come up with a program called train for saving lives now, while we put out over 400 AEDs, the one number that I'm really, oh, I guess thankful for is that we have over 200 excuse me, we have over 2000 winery staff personnel trained in CPR first aid and how to use an AED.

And How many lives do you think you've saved. Do you keep in track? Well, I'm not keeping

track, but I have winery owners write me and say, you know, we had someone just drop at our winery, and we knew what to do, and we had our AED and and so, you know, I know it's going to work. I know it's going to save a life. You know, it's not a matter if, it's just a matter of when. And so, you know, it became a passion for me, especially, you know, in you think about the wine industry, and you hear about sustainability and taking care of the land, but you know you had to take care of your staff, your visitors, your friends, your customers,

yeah, you know it's like, you've had that thing go off, and I've had clients that have had them. And I actually, I was walking with one of my clients on a mall somewhere, and his defibrillator went off, and he just like, boom, he went down to his knees, right? And I know sometimes it could be quite a like bulk, right? Well, and I was, I was wondering what happened to him. I was like, Oh, my God, he goes, Well, my defibrillator just went off. So, you know, you suffered one of these shocks while giving a speech. Your implantable defibrillator shocked you, leading you to stop public speaking entirely. How well you're now. You're public speaking to me right now. How has this challenge affected your ability to share your entrepreneur message, and how have you adapted and your mentoring and teaching approach to work around this? What you're going to call a limitation? I don't really think it's a limitation, because I don't see you as a guy that's limited at all. But tell us what you're doing. Well,

I think for me, doing a public speech, what? What thinking about those that are in the audience or those that are listening to your speech, when? When I did get shocked, it scared the death out of everybody. They had never seen it before. They didn't know what to do. They thought I died, you know, you know, we had to call the ambulance, 911, and it was just, it was just a hate to use the word shock, but it was a shock for everybody there. Yeah, I kind of knew what was going on. I did racing, I I had been shot before. This wasn't a new experience for me, you know, but for those that were listening to me, it was, it was really traumatic. Yeah, figured that no more traumatic events. I don't want to have a traumatic event for others. And so with the help of zoom podcast radio interviews, I do like to do teaching and classes I like to do, you know, a small classroom setting. But you know that that was my desire. And well,

you went back to your alma mater, and you call it the Ron Rubin

rule for

the entrepreneur, yeah, exactly. Tell the listeners a little bit about that, because you went back to Indiana, right? Yeah,

cover Academy and cover

Yeah, and you have a mentorship program there an entrepreneur, and you give scholarships, right?

We have an endowed program, yeah. And

how many people have been have received scholarships from you there?

The school has about 823, students, and over half of the students have taken classes in the entrepreneur program and over started off as kind of more of a one year program, and now it's a regular four year high school program. You start as a freshman, and you can graduate in honors of entrepreneurship so and you get a certificate. Yeah, and awesome. We have two businesses that they run as a senior regular profit businesses. You know, they hire, they fire, they buy everything. They learn how to run a business. One of them is a cafe, Rubin cafe. The other is called ego Outfitters, where they sell all the, you know, merchandise that a school might have, T shirts, sweatshirts, hats, whatever. And they run that business online, mainly, wow. So there's two, two active businesses. The profits that they make, they give back to the Culver fund, I'm happy to say. And so that's been a wonderful program for well, but it what

it did. It allowed you to take your knowledge, wisdom, expertise, implanted into a school, and endow the school with some funds and to actually teach people entrepreneurship. That's um, I think you had to change the name from entrepreneur to entrepreneur, you know. So, building sustainable legacy. Look, you've talked about Todd. You have a daughter, Jane, Julie, I'm sorry. She's married to a wealth manager. They live in Plano, Texas, you know, so with your son Todd, now leading republic of t as CEO and this various philanthropic efforts like we just talked about, including the school at Culver Academy, how do you balance preparing this next generation to carry on your business legacy, while ensuring really the social impacts initiatives that you that you want to continue to thrive. And then this final question is, what does finding gold in your backyard mean in the context of family succession and community responsibility.

Two wonderful questions,

two questions. I gave you a double hit. Here you get you get to go, boom, boom. Okay,

so start off again with the first question. So we'll repeat it again. I'll let you read.

Yeah, well, so your first question is really in passing this down from generation, how do you balance preparing Todd and then the next generation, who's going to carry on in your businesses, while ensuring that you know they keep the social impact and the initiatives that you've worked so hard for continue to thrive. And then the second part of the question is, what is this finding gold in your back Mar mean in the context of family succession and community responsibility? So a two part question. Well,

I think, with regard to Todd, you know, we have an advisory board, which I write about, which is so I'm on an advisory board. I also talk about being his mentor, being a mentor like my dad was. So I think the two things that for me personally is to help Todd navigate running the Republic of T being a mentor and an advisor, and and I think that he has seen what I have done kind of set the path in the journey, and that's the same path that we want to go down together, and then someday, I'd like him to go down that path, and maybe with his family. So I think, you know, there, there's some sacred cows. We call them, I guess I don't know if that's a good expression or whatever that you know, this is what we want to do. We don't want to change this. This is who we are. This is what we're about. Philanthropy is about, about that. I think Todd knows what it's about. And, you know, we have our strategic plans, and we go over that. And so, you know, it's a clear path. It's a clear way. So there's no questions you know about what you know, what we want to do. And you know, we meet and we talk about it, so community, including,

including your succession, because you're donating a lot of your time to these philanthropic activities. And so Todd really is 100% running Republican tease, other than you being an advisor, would that be correct? That's correct? Oh, yeah, yeah. He runs it 100% Yeah, yeah. And you're very proud of what he's been able to accomplish. He's taken it to the next level. Yeah, exactly. Well, that kudos to Todd. I've never met him, but, you know, sometimes they like, say, Like father, like son, great, great. Kudos to him for keeping the legacy and carrying it on. And for your tea company to move on and at the winery is he's not involved in the winery business. That's just you, is that correct? Just

me, but I have our vice president, general manager, who is, you know, my backup, right? She's, well, we've worked together for 18 years together, and so I have all the confidence in the world that she can handle running the winery. Well, I

think one of the things that you've let our listeners know is that building a team is important and staying focused, which is one of your things, number 28 and I want to commend you for really staying focused as much as you've like had several different businesses here, right? The reality is, you know, kind of the tea and the wine for a while, other people may say I don't see the correlation. I totally see it. You've got to pick this book up and read it, because you will definitely learn about the correlation of Ron, because he is living his life as a zentrepreneur, as he said. And I just want to honor you. Honor your family, your wife, Pam Todd, for hanging in there with you during all the tough times and during all the good times. And you know, you guys creating a legacy through all of these things that you're doing. And more importantly, for people, just remembering you for you being just such a compassionate individual. So namaste to you. Thank you for all that you're doing to help so many people.

Thank you so much. I appreciate this has been a lot of fun, and I've enjoyed all of it.