hello everybody
so nice after eight years of putting a
thousand shows on the stage to actually
get to be the talent for once
it's nice to be up here thanks for
coming out today
isn't this theater beautiful
i don't know if you realize this but
it's about to be our 90th birthday
the fox turns 90 in january i believe
it's around the first week of january so
we're gonna have to
have you all back here for a party when
that happens
i feel really honored by capturing that
story because it's been one heck of a
ride
and the video mentioned that i had a
feeling
in my heart you remember that part
that these old beautiful theaters were
going to play some
kind of role for me in my life so let's
address
that the two key words in that statement
heart and roll
why did i phrase it that way what was my
true why for buying this theater
i was on easy street i was ceo of a
global company
i loved my company i think my employees
loved me
we only had four leave in a decade
that's a pretty good track record with
50 employees
we had over 10 000 customers we inspired
college students to live their dreams i
really thought i'd run that company my
whole life
things were good i was living on the
beach in santa cruz i had a view of the
ocean
i was only working about seven hours a
day to figure that commute out
so why take the risk would you agree
pretty big risk why do
anything here's a list of pros and cons
that i actually made at that time
no joke would you all agree with me that
it certainly wasn't
logic that i listened to what would
logic tell you to do
in this instance with these pros and
cons
staring you back in the face there was
one more
my wife was supportive
that was on the pro side but isn't this
why
we're here today you heard it earlier
from patrick you heard it earlier from
val
if logic is the only voice talking
wouldn't we all turn our backs on bliss
every time bliss isn't about logic
that comes from your head it's about
what comes from your heart
what my brain came to realize at that
particular decision point
is that it just wasn't in charge
my heart was my brain couldn't compete
with the fact
that i fell in love with old historic
theaters as a kid
when my grammar school of all things i
wasn't even
10 12 years old would take me on field
trips
to see the nutcracker you guys ever seen
the nutcracker here
that's why we have the nutcracker here
we all need to see the nutcracker as a
kid
but we went to the san francisco war
memorial opera house
to see the nutcracker and to be honest i
could care less
about what was on the stage i really
could
but when i walked into that lobby
and i looked up and saw this
architecture something started to stir
inside of me
and then i made my way into the
auditorium
and i think that was really the first
time in my life
i remember actually being truly inspired
by something
other than girls sports and eating
and that feeling those memories
stayed with me all the way through my
early adult life
i actually had a vision board remember
vision boards
in my bedroom through my entire 20s
probably why i stayed single till 35
and well into my 30s that had pictures
of all the most famous
historic theaters from around the world
i put them up without really knowing the
why sometimes you don't know
why you have something in your heart but
my heart trusted that that would become
clear later
i just knew that they inspired me
and that i wanted them to be the first
thing
i saw every morning when i woke up
look at that if that's not beauty i
don't know what is
so today you sit in the very place
that was my bliss for eight years that's
why i get to be on the stage today
the fabric on the chairs you notice they
actually match
with the ones back there you know the
super comfortable ones back there that
you're not sitting in
it wasn't easy to get that matching i
had to search the world to get it it
wasn't easy to get these chairs you know
we moved the chairs out that's why
they have to be stackable i spent
literally
months looking at fabrics before i
enthusiastically picked that one
and i sure as heck remember coming up
with an innovative approach
to funding the seats we were so broke at
that point that we literally had to put
it back
to our patrons you want new seats that
don't stick you in the ass with a 50
year old metal spring when you sit down
help us freaking pay for one we just
bought this place out of foreclosure
nobody else was willing to buy it
help us out a little bit same with the
carpet you guess
it had to be just right it had to match
the seats you'd be
shocked to know how many carpets there
are in the world to look at
this sound system that's hanging up here
we got left with no
sound system when we came in it was god
awful and i remember the day i committed
quarter of a million dollars that i did
not have
i took a loan at nine percent interest
so that we could have great sound
i also remember replacing mark the
marquee and having the mayor
jeff ira who i know is going to come
here today and uh
little did we know a pigeon got trapped
behind
the marquis plastic literally that day
when we put the marquis up the brand new
marquee
so here's mayor ira who i've just met
and i'm trying to impress right and get
on his good side
and he has the media there to do a
ribbon cutting and a speech
and literally the pigeon is banging up
against the thing trying to get free
so those of you that are animal lovers
like me we did get it out
we just had to wait for the awful speech
to get done
with uh the banging pigeon
so everything about this place
we needed to have a red carpet because
you just
don't know who might show up in 2012.
that's one of my favorite marquees ever
it actually the day the dnc showed up it
had
abba president obama and air supply and
they immediately asked me to take down
abba and air supply
everything about this place has a story
behind it
who gets to do that that was backstage
that was 20 feet back here
i get choked up just thinking about it
if that's not bliss on my face seeing my
wife meet the president of the united
states
i don't know what bliss is that's me
holding court with the president united
states you know what i'm telling him
how i bought this place i'm thanking him
since the banks weren't
freaking lending which you'll hear about
later from me he actually freed up
sba to be more aggressive with lenny
only way we were able to buy this
theater you guys
like i said 300 in life savings that's
pretty good
most people i know had nothing at least
we had something
and that was all we needed to be able to
to buy this theater
for six million dollars all sba loan so
my wife and i had so many incredible
experiences here that's with oprah
backstage she literally sat right here
and got interviewed once
uh so many shows like i said a thousand
shows that we've had
and all my life my wife and i think to
ourselves
we've only been here eight years this
thing's been here
90 years what are the other stories
and who are the other owners that are
going to come after us for the next
couple of decades
will they put their heart and soul in
this i sure hope so
you don't buy a historical theater today
because it's freaking
logical you do it because your heart
desires it what i just told you
is a love story in most bliss journeys
are
when love stories go right magic
can happen and by magic
i mean growth and contribution
maybe people see your efforts and they
start giving you awards
that they say i see you
a lot of effort i see you and i thank
you for all your efforts
you don't do it for that but it sure as
hell feels good
when a friend like roseanne and an amy
and a beth
you're all here today acknowledge you
it's fantastic so maybe it allows you to
do something completely new
too it emotionally touches you but
maybe you get to build a freaking
building
your own building that's going to last a
hundred years i'm not a developer
what the hell did i know i know i had
some parking lots and i'm
a pretty darn good entrepreneur well
that's our building right back here
it was just a bunch of dirt gravel that
building's
leased up for a decade i think it's
beautiful
i hope you guys like it and uh i'm proud
of it
maybe it allows you to start a freaking
magazine
i started a magazine because i just
wanted some positivity
and i wanted people to be proud of our
downtown
i've uh
we actually got an ad on the back i
don't own this magazine anymore
i sold it for one dollar as long as they
promised to hire everybody that i
employed and keep it going
and uh to keep it classy
maybe just maybe it brings you
incredible financial rewards that you
never
really plan for wish for hope for
allowing yourself to buy your dream home
even in a place like silicon valley
in 2016 a local real estate real estate
tycoon
offered my wife and i 20 million dollars
to sell the fox theater we bought the
theater in a recession
for 6 million we borrowed another
million
to fix it up so selling it at this price
would net us
a 13 million dollar profit in just seven
years i would show you the pros and cons
of that
decision tree but well
i'm a lot of things but i'm not a dummy
because this was when
logic took over and the brain definitely
won
and we took the money but sometimes
bliss
runs come to a natural
and epic end and it's something to know
when it's the right time it's important
but not even a month after the close
i found myself struggling with the
feeling that something very important
was missing from my life it wasn't the
theater
because the owner asked me to stay on to
run it for four more years
so i still get to do that by any
measures i should have felt great
i had and still have a wonderful
marriage
i have amazing lifelong friends many of
whom are here today
that flew in from all over the world i
had a laundry list of business
accomplishments
in my past that i was proud of and
people even knew me for
i was living in my dream home that i had
truly truly and that's where that
emotion came from earlier
earned i even had an awesome hobby
i make wine if you go into our venues
you drink our red wine you don't get
another choice
plus i just netted enough money
to never have to work again it's enough
i don't need more
it's plenty yet still like an albatross
around my neck
i can feel something important was
missing
but i didn't know what it is six months
before i would have guessed my health
which i'd completely forfeited while
running this theater by the way
and it almost killed me literally
i was 310 pounds with the blood sugar
level
six times what it was supposed to be
and it ended me up in the er and the
doctors were amazed
i didn't drop dead from a heart attack
or have a stroke
diagnosis was diabetes
that was my huge huge wake-up call
but that was two years ago today
today i went to sequoia hospital two
years ago
and they prescribed lifelong drugs i
nodded
threw them in the garbage went home to
the internet and decided to become an
expert on what causes diabetes and i was
able to defeat it in less than four
months
i lost 80 pounds i feel great
i've kept that weight off this whole
time
so i thought that was going to take like
five years and it took four months
and so i had time on my hands
and i had a lot of thinking to do i
started to call my friends
and they're telling me i should do this
and this you'd be great at this
but i had love i had success
and i had my health now but still
i wasn't joyful
and then sitting on my easy chair at my
beautiful home
when my lifelong friend patrick combs
who you saw earlier does a facebook live
and talks about the importance of
following your bliss
i don't think i'd ever heard that word
at least not in a sentence
it literally hit me in my soul
what's missing from my successful life
is my bliss
in the past 10 years i've made plenty
and even made what many have called
a huge positive impact in my community
redwood city but i had ignored
my true true deepest bliss
in the process you see my bliss has
always been helping others
live their most joyful life my bliss
wasn't just owning and operating
theaters
it was having the setting i most
loved and adored to deliver
the message i wanted to deliver
i've waited all that time till today
but i'd put it away in for but i'd put
it away in frustration after
feeling like i'd failed in my previous
endeavor
trying to do just that so sitting in my
dream home
i knew the cost of ignoring my bliss was
feeling
happy but not joyful
being well off but not fulfilled feeling
good
but not alive that day literally that
day i decided to follow my bliss again
by creating a new company
joseph campbell says magic doors open
for those who follow their bliss through
a series of unforeseen events
magic doors quickly opened for me i met
the perfect partners
and that's when bliss champions was born
now fast forward a year it's only been a
year
we're in kauai midst of running
our third risk for bliss retreat some of
you were there
we're graduating our first class of
eight participants
and everyone has had a massive
transformation
i'm sitting in the hot tub with patrick
we finally get a moment to ourselves to
just
kind of chill out and uh that's the hot
tub
i didn't take that off google so right
over there is the hot tub
nice view pretty much look like that
every night
and uh this hot tub
is part of this infinity pool obviously
that looks over 180 degree view
it's in a 35 million dollar house not my
house
that we had rented to put this retreat
on
and a guy runs up to us and he says guys
i've had the biggest breakthrough
my entire life this week and i know what
my bliss is
and i just want to thank you from the
bottom of my heart
and he scampers off patrick and i
congratulate him on his way away and
while he walks away
it quickly dawns on us that this guy
wasn't even actually a customer
he was one of the bliss experts we
brought in to teach everybody how to
follow their bliss
earlier in the day this massively
wealthy
auto parts owner who owns this
unbelievable estate in kauai
calls i take the call yes sir what can i
do
i'm not doing anything your house i
don't think so do you have video cameras
there or something
and he asked me if we could run our
retreat for his family
next year the property
manager and the cleaners told him about
it
patrick and i literally just smiled and
i'll wrap up with this part
and i made a little joke i looked at
patrick and i said
patrick we're gonna be rich
now patrick knew felt well that we had
given scholarships to just about
every retreat customer to date so we
were definitely not getting financially
rich from our work that week
however he took the bait because he is a
comedian
and he asked me a question he said eric
if this company did make us rich
how would you spend your money
i took a look around and with a big shit
eating grin on my face i said
if i were rich i would take vacations at
a 35 million
mansion with a 180 degree view of the
ocean with not
one but two hot tubs
in an infinity pool they actually have a
second hot tub
on the other side patrick picking up on
the irony of it all says
and with my cut of the riches i would
make sure
that any vacation i took had two
world-class masseuses not one with
british
accents i then fired back
and i would want a house with not just
one kitchen but two kitchens
because you gotta have two kitchens the
gourmet chef has to make three meals for
us a day
at the michigan rated level so that we
can all be
fed properly we were having such a good
time
and laughing so hard that one by one all
the participants said
we got to go see what's going on with
patrick and eric and they started to get
in the hot tub with us so before you
know it we awkwardly had like
i think 15 people i think even the chef
came in and got in and uh
they didn't say a word and they just
watched us go back and forth
and play this game and when patrick and
i had finally run out of things to
describe
that we had just experienced the entire
week
with a dozen or more other people we had
helped discover their bliss
he looked around the hot tub at each of
us
like the freaking guru he is and he said
hey everyone if only we were rich
we could live rich
that was the moment i realized i had
what i'd been searching for
pure bliss we had fun
we experienced joy it's my wife lori
i felt fulfilled i felt
alive alive you can't fake that
and it's funny because i've held some
really big checks in my life
but none of them were as big
as the paycheck i got from my bliss
thank you very much everybody
you
