Bob Simon (00:00):
Can you express your failures and how it made you famous?
Suneel Gupta (00:02):
I'd started two companies, both did not work. I had joined another company called Groupon, but I was part of the early team, and Groupon had sort of a payday. It went from $0 in revenue to over a hundred million dollars in revenue very, very quickly to over a billion dollars in revenue very quickly. Then within just a few financial quarters, it came crashing down.
(00:30):
That was my third sort of experience. And I had been invited to speak at a conference called FailCon-
Bob Simon (00:37):
Really?
Suneel Gupta (00:37):
... Where they invite people who have failed multiple times to come speak. And so I'm there and I'm giving this speech on stage, and I don't realize this, but there's a reporter from the New York Times in the audience. Fast-forward to this full-length article on failure with My Face as the cover of this article. And this is 2014. This story goes so viral. There was a point in time you could have Googled the word failure, that's it, just the word failure, and my face would've been your top search result.
Bob Simon (01:18):
Welcome to this episode of Bourbon of Proof, where we interview lawyers who have been successful over law and life, and we do it over a series of spirits, always whiskey or whiskey-infused. And of course we have our fabulous co-host, Mauro Fiore here.
Mauro Fiore (01:33):
Hello. Hello.
Bob Simon (01:33):
And if you're watching, he has a BUDA-FCKN-PEST hoodie on for some reason.
Mauro Fiore (01:37):
Yes. Well, I got this while I was in Budapest with you, as a matter of fact.
Bob Simon (01:41):
You did in fact.
Mauro Fiore (01:41):
And we pretty much drank from sun up to sun down on that trip.
Suneel Gupta (01:45):
Which is pretty much what you guys do in every city.
Mauro Fiore (01:48):
Yes, yes. That's usually our MO, eating and drinking.
Suneel Gupta (01:52):
He was trying to act and make it look like it was a Budapest thing. I feel like that's in everywhere thing.
Bob Simon (01:56):
For some reason we're both wearing black and white, Domino's even. But we're very, very blessed to have today Mr. Suneel Gupta and his childhood friend and maker of whiskey, Lance Havelka, who is, I spent time with him in Detroit. We did a fragrance romance of whiskey, which we're going to explore.
Mauro Fiore (02:13):
I thought Habelka was a font on Microsoft Word.
Lance Havelka (02:19):
Helvetica.
Mauro Fiore (02:20):
Oh, that's Helvetica.
Lance Havelka (02:23):
Thanks for having me.
Bob Simon (02:24):
So Lance has his own whiskey line. He's a connoisseur. He's going to be able to actually tell us notes of the actual whiskey, Mauro and I just talk shit the entire time.
Mauro Fiore (02:33):
We're drunks. It's a difference.
Bob Simon (02:34):
Yeah, we're like your barflies more. But Suneel, we're going to talk about your life from inception. Not too far back.
Suneel Gupta (02:41):
Yeah, my parents here? [inaudible 00:02:43] back?
Bob Simon (02:43):
We're not talking biblical stuff. We're talking about core memories on.
Suneel Gupta (02:48):
Yeah.
Bob Simon (02:49):
And we're going to go all the way till today. So Mauro, if you could, can you pour us the first whiskey?
Mauro Fiore (02:58):
Let's see what we've got here.
Bob Simon (02:59):
This is the Drexel one that is Lance's.
Mauro Fiore (03:02):
This is crafted in Detroit, Michigan. Wow, look at that.
Suneel Gupta (03:04):
By Mr. Lance Havelka.
Mauro Fiore (03:06):
Detroit, Rock City.
Lance Havelka (03:07):
I made it myself.
Mauro Fiore (03:08):
I am a big Kiss fan myself.
Lance Havelka (03:10):
Excellent.
Mauro Fiore (03:11):
Detroit, Rock City. Let's see. So straight out of Detroit.
Suneel Gupta (03:15):
So Lance gave me a sip of this back in the day when I went and visited him in his bank, which is like, we call it the bank, but that's basically where he produces the whiskey. It's this beautiful, I don't know, Lance, you can describe it much better than me, but it's this amazing building downtown Detroit, where really all the magic of Drexel happens. Right?
Mauro Fiore (03:33):
Isn't Drexel like a college in Philadelphia?
Bob Simon (03:35):
Drexel Dragons, but its in [inaudible 00:03:38].
Lance Havelka (03:37):
It is, but it's actually, we kept the name very localized. So it's actually the cross street next to my building.
Bob Simon (03:44):
So Lance, tell us what we're drinking first and then we're going to say why we picked it for Suneel.
Lance Havelka (03:48):
Okay. So this is actually a blend of two different straight bourbons. So a high rye, 21% rye, mash bill in a weed mash bowl, 45% rye, and then it's finished in chocolate liqueur barrels.
Mauro Fiore (03:58):
I was going to say I smell chocolate right away.
Lance Havelka (04:00):
Okay, that's good.
Mauro Fiore (04:01):
Let's give it a whirl.
Lance Havelka (04:01):
And I think-
Mauro Fiore (04:01):
Cheers, boys.
Lance Havelka (04:03):
Cheers.
Suneel Gupta (04:05):
Cheers. Thanks for flying in for the show. Going to...
Bob Simon (04:09):
This does smell good.
Mauro Fiore (04:14):
That's a complex.
Bob Simon (04:15):
Oh, this is good.
Suneel Gupta (04:16):
It's really good, Lance.
Bob Simon (04:16):
This is really good. What's the proof of this?
Suneel Gupta (04:18):
Really good.
Lance Havelka (04:18):
It's actually 104.
Bob Simon (04:20):
This is 104 proof? Oh, wow. This will get me into trouble.
Lance Havelka (04:24):
It's interesting, [inaudible 00:04:25] picked up on the chocolate note's, sort of mid-palate and then on the finish, but the goal was really to maintain a lot of the core bourbon flavors and then just have the finish be subtle. Just a nice combo.
Bob Simon (04:37):
So Suneel introduced me to Lance when I was taking a trip to Detroit, and he said, "You're going to meet my friend Lance. He owns a distillery. You guys would be fast friends." And we spent all night smelling fragrances and drinking whiskey. And this is a true story. And East Michigan, what part of town were we in?
Lance Havelka (04:55):
So it's actually considered Midtown now.
Bob Simon (04:56):
Midtown. Midtown.
Lance Havelka (04:58):
And that bar in particular is called Castaglia at Sfumato. So the Sfumato is the scent company, Castaglia is the cocktail bar. And yeah, it's amazing. It's actually in the basement of a 19th century-
Suneel Gupta (05:11):
So you guys were pairing fragrance with whiskey or with spirits?
Bob Simon (05:15):
This was one of the most amazing experience. We had two other lawyers that I had never met before, but we were in Detroit, "Lets go out for drinks." We met with Lance and they would bring you out a drink from this fragrance shop, almost. It's a mix, but they infuse a lot of the Drexel spirits. They bring out a tasting note on top of the thing you would smell and drink. And every drink was different and awesome.
Lance Havelka (05:37):
And the co-founder of both operations, he actually is a legitimate cocktail scientist, but he got his start in fragrances and just really wanted to make it a full sensory experience. I know you guys were blown away.
Suneel Gupta (05:52):
I wish you guys know about Detroit, but it's 140 square miles. It's a big city. And usually when people talk about what's happening in Detroit, how it's flourishing, they're talking about the 7.2 miles in the perimeter. But there are all sorts of cool places outside of that 7.2.
Mauro Fiore (06:09):
Yeah. What's the name of the White Stripes guy? He's got his record-
Lance Havelka (06:12):
Jack White.
Mauro Fiore (06:13):
Jack White's got-
Lance Havelka (06:13):
Third Man records.
Mauro Fiore (06:14):
... Third man records.
Bob Simon (06:15):
That's why you're wearing black and white, because you would've mention Jack White.
Mauro Fiore (06:17):
No. Well, Third Man Records there in Detroit is, I think it's one of the only places in the world that is still pressing vinyl. He's doing all kinds of crazy stuff there. He's got a gigantic old warehouse. I've watched a lot of it. I'm a big White Stripes fan, music fan. But Third Man Records is legendary for [inaudible 00:06:35].
Suneel Gupta (06:35):
Where is that, Lance?
Lance Havelka (06:36):
That's actually in Midtown as well. It's literally two blocks from Kevin's Place.
Suneel Gupta (06:41):
There you go.
Bob Simon (06:42):
So we're interviewing Suneel today who was an accredited author, speaker, lawyer, and huge failure. So we keep it real on this show, real. One of the first things that we discuss a lot. All of us here have failed very early on. And The New York Times panned you one time, but it made you famous.
Suneel Gupta (07:08):
Yeah.
Bob Simon (07:09):
So now you're on your third book, and I mean you're speaking across the nation every week, but I want you to... We keep it real here. Can you express your failures and how it made you famous?
Suneel Gupta (07:18):
Yeah, yeah. So I'd started two companies, both did not work. I had joined another company called Groupon, which you might be familiar with, early on-
Mauro Fiore (07:31):
I used to buy Groupons all the time.
Suneel Gupta (07:31):
I used to buy Groupons all the time too. You don't hear that very much anymore though. There's a reason for that. But I was part of the early team, and Groupon had sort of its hey day, it went from $0 in revenue to over a hundred million dollars in revenue very, very quickly, to over a billion dollars in revenue very quickly. I was part of sort of that early rise, and we went public as a company and then within just a few financial quarters it came crashing down, lost like 20 billion in market value, never to return.
Mauro Fiore (08:02):
Is it still on the stock exchange?
Suneel Gupta (08:03):
It's still on the stock exchange, but it's a fraction of the value that it once was. So that was my third sort of experience. And I had been invited to speak at a conference called FailCon-
Bob Simon (08:16):
Really?
Suneel Gupta (08:17):
... Where they invite people who have failed multiple times to come speak. And so I'm there, and I'm giving this speech Onstage, and I don't realize this, but there's a reporter from the New York Times in the audience. So fast-forward to this full-length article on failure with my face as the cover of this article. And this is 2014. This story goes so viral that there was a point in time you could have Googled the word failure, that's it, just the word failure and my face would've been your top search result.
Bob Simon (08:47):
Mauro, thanks you for that because it [inaudible 00:08:49].
Suneel Gupta (08:49):
Because otherwise it would've been his.
Bob Simon (08:51):
It was close.
Suneel Gupta (08:52):
Or wanted. You're welcome. You're welcome. So I get a piece of advice at that time, which is why don't you use this? Do something with it. Because embarrassed by it, and I'm trying to be perceived as successful the way that many of us are. I still haven't gotten a success under my belt, but somebody says, long-term success comes from short-term embarrassment. So do something with it. And so what I decided to do is I started to email all these people that I admired, people who had no idea who I was from Oscar-winning filmmakers to celebrity chefs, to coaches and professional sports teams, to people who were leading large iconic companies. And I would literally just cold email them a link to this article and I'd say, "Hey, as you can see, I don't know what I'm doing. Would you be willing to give me some advice?"
(09:40):
And the response rate to that email was just extraordinarily high. People said, "Yeah, I'll talk to you." And not only were they talking to me, but all of a sudden I was starting to realize that they had their failures as well. They had their mistakes as well, their setbacks, a lot of stuff you couldn't read about online. And because I was approaching them, not through a prism of success, but a prism through failure, we were having these open, honest conversations. So I started to write about them. I started to write blog posts about them, and those blog posts eventually turned into articles, and then they eventually turned into books. And today what I do and what I have been doing for the past 10 years is I basically travel the world. I meet with, what I think, are some of the most extraordinary people on the planet. But my twist is that as a researcher, I try to study the highest performers at their lowest moments.
Bob Simon (10:29):
Wow, that's good.
Suneel Gupta (10:30):
To try to figure out how they rose again. What were the tools? What were the lessons? What were the habits? Today, I write about those habits. I teach those habits inside classrooms, inside boardrooms sometimes. And I get to do things like this be with you guys.
Bob Simon (10:46):
And your show started with AMX. Now you have Netflix specials on doing this exact thing, which is interviewing people on their failures to-
Suneel Gupta (10:53):
Yeah. Yeah. I love it so much. We decided to turn it into a television show. So a couple of years ago I partnered with American Express and started traveling around the world, started meeting with all sorts of people from very, very different backgrounds. From Issa Rae to Martha Stewart to Tony Hawk.
Mauro Fiore (11:10):
Did you say American Express?
Suneel Gupta (11:11):
American Express, yeah.
Mauro Fiore (11:12):
Don't give him my whereabouts.
Bob Simon (11:16):
Actually, I've seen his card get declined all over the world.
Suneel Gupta (11:19):
Yeah. Well, there's other reasons for that Mauro, but we can talk about that later. But it's been a blast, man. And the show is now streaming on Amazon Prime. It's like-
Mauro Fiore (11:29):
What's it called?
Suneel Gupta (11:30):
Its called Business Class. And it's kind of like Anthony Bourdain for entrepreneurship and leadership. Just talk to really interesting people and just try to unpack what it is that they do that's different. I really am a believer that when we look at great leaders, we study how they behave externally. We try to look at their external habits, but I think that that's looking in the wrong place. What we need to be doing, there's that John Wooden quote, that character is how you behave when nobody is watching.
Bob Simon (12:00):
That's good. We don't want to understand Mauro when nobody is watching.
Suneel Gupta (12:02):
We definitely don't want to. Although I have a sense for Mauro-
Bob Simon (12:05):
Well, I'll tell you-
Suneel Gupta (12:06):
... He probably behaves exactly the same.
Mauro Fiore (12:07):
Well, I'm from the old school before everything was politically correct. And business class to me is a guy that has a fat girlfriend. We would say, your girlfriend is business class, I mean she's too fat to ride in a coach seat on a plane. But that's back in the old days. I mean-
Bob Simon (12:27):
Every show we get an edit.
Mauro Fiore (12:29):
Well, so if your girlfriend was business class, it wasn't good.
Bob Simon (12:32):
I've actually never [inaudible 00:12:33].
Mauro Fiore (12:32):
When I was a kid.
Lance Havelka (12:33):
That was Lance Swingers, wasn't it?
Mauro Fiore (12:35):
I don't know. I mean-
Bob Simon (12:37):
You know what? I like to have Lance here because now we know when you joke steal.
Mauro Fiore (12:41):
I don't remember what it was from, but we used to tell people all the time that if they had a fat girlfriend, they were business class. Whatever.
Lance Havelka (12:47):
It was Vince Vaughn at a party-
Mauro Fiore (12:51):
It was before political.
Lance Havelka (12:51):
... He tore up the phone numbers.
Mauro Fiore (12:51):
I'm woke now. I would never say that.
Suneel Gupta (12:51):
You know what's funny is-
Bob Simon (12:52):
Thank you, Lance.
Suneel Gupta (12:53):
... As soon as he asked the name of the show and I said the name of the show, I knew he was off in a different place. And now we know where he was.
Bob Simon (13:02):
Yeah. So I mean, you grew up in Novi-
Suneel Gupta (13:05):
Novi, Michigan.
Bob Simon (13:06):
Which I spent time there.
Suneel Gupta (13:07):
Which is [inaudible 00:13:09].
Mauro Fiore (13:07):
Novi is the name of the city?
Lance Havelka (13:07):
Right outside of Detroit.
Suneel Gupta (13:10):
So Novi, N-O-V-I. The reason it got its name is number six, N-O-V-I.
Bob Simon (13:16):
Oh, I didn't know that.
Suneel Gupta (13:17):
There was a big train station that passed through and we were the number six stop. And eventually they built a town around this stop. They just called it Novi.
Bob Simon (13:27):
I know you guys, you even roomed together in college, you guys have been together a long time?
Suneel Gupta (13:32):
So Lance and I have known each other for, how many? 35 years now. Just about 35 years. And we've seen it basically through it all from Little League to being on set with Mauro.
Mauro Fiore (13:46):
Wow.
Suneel Gupta (13:46):
Yeah. Really look how far we've come.
Bob Simon (13:48):
They're both very lows of your life.
Suneel Gupta (13:50):
That's right. Little league definitely was. I'll tell you after this. How about the next one?
Bob Simon (13:56):
Yeah. So I want to do our second port here, and I picked this one because you got your law degree and we'll talk about how you had the spirit to help people, maybe some of the background, but your severe sense of civic duty in helping people. The first time I met you, you can sense what people are true at their heart, what they want to do. And I know you spent some time back in California in North Cal talking about the failures, writing books and everything. And then you went back home. You went back home, saw Lance people going back and you ran for office. I would never have the stomach for it. And my wife always says... I told her the second day I went on with her that I wanted to be President of the United States of America. She asked me, "What do you want to do with your life?" And I said, "That's what I want to do."
(14:45):
And she said, "I'll be your Marilyn Monroe, but never your Jackie O." She told me this story. Anyways, ask her this story when you see her again. But to his credit, he made an attempt to run for public office out of going back home to do it. And I want to talk to you about the whys, what you loved about it, but what you hated about it.
(15:05):
Lets talk about it all.
Mauro Fiore (15:10):
Keeping with that, this has 15 stars. It's called, this is because Kentucky was the 15th state.
Lance Havelka (15:19):
On the second flag of the United States. So 15 stars, 15 stripes. And this is a father and son duo in Bardstown, Kentucky. And this particular bottle is a blend of an 18 year, a 15 year, and a 10-year straight bourbon.
Mauro Fiore (15:34):
Wow. Now that's nice. 15, 18, 10. It's got to be pretty good.
Lance Havelka (15:39):
There's some solid oak in this one.
Bob Simon (15:40):
So whoever's watching or listening, somebody sent me a few of these bottles. I don't know who did, but I drank one of them. We had some people over. We drank almost the entire bottle at my house and it's delicious.
Suneel Gupta (15:50):
So you just had bottles show up at your house. You have no idea who they came from?
Bob Simon (15:53):
I have no idea. I wish you would send a return or something like a QR code maybe or a Groupon.
Mauro Fiore (15:59):
Yeah. One time when we did a show, Bob just brought in a bottle, looked like somebody filled it in their garage and just had a label, like handwritten label that said Rye Whiskey. And we drank it and he was like, "Shit, if we go blind, we're going to have to find out who sent it."
Suneel Gupta (16:13):
Do you ever get anonymous notes that just say, "I love you so much, Bob"?
Bob Simon (16:17):
Well, it usually has a very strong scent to it. It's usually a pickle.
Suneel Gupta (16:22):
It's usually from Mauro.
Bob Simon (16:23):
Cheers. I don't have long arms like Lance, so its as far as that.
Suneel Gupta (16:26):
Lance does have long arms.
Bob Simon (16:28):
He does. I noticed when you reach back and forward to put the water back, you're a lanky guy. Look at that.
Suneel Gupta (16:32):
My God, [inaudible 00:16:33]-
Bob Simon (16:32):
I with I was lanky.
Suneel Gupta (16:33):
Made him good at basketball.
Lance Havelka (16:34):
Never measured the wingspan, but it certainly, well, we played, I mean just countless hours of basketball.
Suneel Gupta (16:41):
And can you imagine, I'm like doing jump shots and Lance just like-
Lance Havelka (16:44):
Yeah, he's just puts his hand up.
Suneel Gupta (16:45):
Just casually reaches down, pass.
Bob Simon (16:47):
You guys could really help the pistons right now.
Suneel Gupta (16:49):
Yeah, there's that.
Lance Havelka (16:51):
They need it.
Bob Simon (16:51):
It's pretty bad.
Mauro Fiore (16:52):
This is what I [inaudible 00:16:54] a very classy whiskey.
Suneel Gupta (16:55):
This is really good.
Bob Simon (16:55):
Yeah, this is what-
Mauro Fiore (16:56):
Amazing. It's got an 18 year, 15 year. I mean, this is another echelon, high level. Whoever sent you this, God bless them.
Bob Simon (17:02):
I don't know but this is fantastic.
Mauro Fiore (17:04):
High level. High level whiskey.
Bob Simon (17:06):
So Suneel, I want to ask you about that calling to help people on scale. We spent a lot of time together and you're an altruistic person. Why the fuck would you run for office?
Suneel Gupta (17:17):
It's kind of funny. My wife asked me exactly the same question. We were living in San Francisco and I mentioned that I had these companies that didn't work. I'd finally started one that did and-
Bob Simon (17:29):
That was Rise.
Suneel Gupta (17:30):
... That was a company called Rise. We did one-on-one health coaching, and we finally get some success. We sell it. It's a good exit. A company is now owned by Amazon.
Mauro Fiore (17:41):
And what did it do?
Suneel Gupta (17:43):
So one-on-one health coaching. I started the company-
Mauro Fiore (17:46):
One on one-
Bob Simon (17:47):
Health coaching.
Suneel Gupta (17:48):
Health coaching.
Bob Simon (17:49):
Its very good. We would use this in everyday practice for our clients to be able to... Yeah.
Suneel Gupta (17:55):
Yeah. So my dad had a emergency triple bypass surgery when he was in his forties. I was about 11 years old. Drops me off at school. He's like, "I'm going to a routine medical appointment. I'll pick you up right there by the flag pole." And school bell rings. I go out there, he's not there. About an hour later, my aunt pulls into the school, picks me up. She's like, "Your dad's been rushed to the O.R." Didn't even really know what that meant. But basically by the time I was out of school, he's on the operating table, his chest cut open, they're trying to save his life. He basically collapsed in the middle of the stress test that they gave him at the hospital.
(18:30):
So yeah, nearly lost him that day. He ended up basically struggling the way that a lot of people do to get their health back on track. But we were lucky insurance kicked in and helped pay for the cost of a health coach. And this person basically helped him clean up his whole behavior. Like everything about the way he ate, the way he slept, the way he exercised was a miracle. Completely turned his life around.
Mauro Fiore (18:54):
I might need that.
Suneel Gupta (18:55):
Yeah. Well that was the thing is that I was thinking to myself-
Mauro Fiore (18:58):
I got problems with all of those.
Suneel Gupta (19:00):
Yeah. Well, I think a lot of us do.
Bob Simon (19:01):
He's a force. He's not even a 15 star, he's a four star.
Suneel Gupta (19:05):
Well, I mean, the thing is that that's exactly what I was thinking is what if he had somebody like that in his life before he had to be rushed to the OR? And how many of us could use that right now? And the fact is that to have somebody like a health coach in your life, you either have to be very sick or you have to be very rich-
Bob Simon (19:25):
Very wealthy.
Suneel Gupta (19:26):
It's one of those two. And so I wanted to figure out if we could bring that down to a price point that everybody could afford. And that was the idea behind it. Because we had mobile technology, we could be a lot more efficient with people's time and we could do that. So we started the company, and this is in 2012. So it's a-
Bob Simon (19:43):
How long after your first company or the one that failed, did you start the new one?
Suneel Gupta (19:47):
It was about a year after.
Bob Simon (19:48):
Wow.
Suneel Gupta (19:49):
Yeah.
Bob Simon (19:50):
Was it hard to get back up and be... Because we talk about this all the time at [inaudible 00:19:55], we have a big loss in how hard to get back up to do it again.
Suneel Gupta (19:58):
I think for me it wasn't. Part of the reason for that is at that time I didn't have kids.
Bob Simon (20:07):
You can take big risks.
Suneel Gupta (20:08):
And I think also, it's interesting. It's a good question. My dad and I were talking about this the other day. My parents both worked at Ford Motor Company. We lived in a pretty nominal sort of house, everything was under budget. And when I graduated from law school, I felt like a lot of my friends in school wanted to become entrepreneurs.
Bob Simon (20:32):
Really?
Suneel Gupta (20:33):
We would talk about that. I had a group of friends and we were all like, "Hey, we're going to go start businesses one day." But the thing about that though is that once you sort of get a good salary and you start getting used to-
Bob Simon (20:44):
You get locked in.
Suneel Gupta (20:44):
... Certain quality of life, you kind of get locked in. The idea of bootstrapping it again and eating ramen noodles, it's not always easy.
Bob Simon (20:51):
See, I like the ramen noodles with tuna.
Suneel Gupta (20:53):
Yeah. Well, ramen noodles with tuna is a different story.
(20:55):
That's a different story.
Bob Simon (20:56):
Yeah, its a higher class.
Mauro Fiore (20:58):
Incidentally, I don't have a health coach, but I have a life coach, my wife. She keeps me from killing myself.
Suneel Gupta (21:04):
Okay, that's a good responsibility.
Bob Simon (21:07):
He doesn't mean by him pulling a trigger. He means to him stop eating Twinkies in between sex.
Suneel Gupta (21:11):
Listen, I think ultimately our spouses are our best coaches. That is a vital-
Bob Simon (21:17):
My wife is literally a health and fitness coach.
Suneel Gupta (21:18):
I feel like your wife is everybody's advice coach.
Bob Simon (21:22):
I told my daughters the other day, I was like, "Your mom saved my life because I was eating vegetables out of a can and she introduced me to these things called fresh vegetables." Might've saved my life.
Suneel Gupta (21:31):
Right. Right. Yeah. But look, ultimately this person, this health coach, to your point, did save my dad's life. I wanted to figure out how to get more people-
Bob Simon (21:39):
But it was reactive rather than proactive? He had-
Suneel Gupta (21:42):
In his case, it was reactive. He needed it. If he didn't do it, he would've been dead within 10 years. That was 30 years ago. I talked to him this morning, he walked three miles.
Bob Simon (21:51):
Wow.
Suneel Gupta (21:52):
That is the miracle, I think, of better habits, which is basically what we were trying to build with this system. And just like any other startup, we had a rough go. I would say most startups that we think are overnight successes have that rough go.
Bob Simon (22:05):
They're not.
Suneel Gupta (22:05):
Right. The big break for us was Michelle Obama was looking for some partner, some technology partner for everything she was doing. She was First Lady at the time- and she was really focused on obesity.
Bob Simon (22:17):
This was [inaudible 00:22:17] First Lady too then?
Suneel Gupta (22:18):
This was 2000-
Bob Simon (22:20):
Mid first term?
Suneel Gupta (22:21):
This was second term. So this was like 2015-ish. She's focused, she makes obesity one of her central goals. She wants to figure out a way to do it at scale, because what they were doing is they were literally going out into the field and working with people. They were like, we need to get behind what's happening in Mobile. And so somebody brings Rise, this company that I built, to her attention. I get invited to go to the White House to go pitch to the First Lady's team on what we're building. So
Bob Simon (22:49):
So are you pitching?
Suneel Gupta (22:50):
I'm pitching. I'm there. Yeah.
Bob Simon (22:51):
So you did a lot of speech writing.
Suneel Gupta (22:54):
Yeah.
Bob Simon (22:55):
When did this happen for you?
Suneel Gupta (22:57):
So speech writing was early in my career. When I was growing up, I wanted to be a speech writer. That was my thing. I was-
Bob Simon (23:04):
Lance, did he always get you out of trouble when you guys were kids?
Lance Havelka (23:08):
Not only when we were kids, but it's actually sort of the first legal case he took on. Got me out of trouble with an ex-girlfriend.
Suneel Gupta (23:20):
Story for another time.
Bob Simon (23:21):
Did he write you your speech to get her back, these types of things?
Lance Havelka (23:25):
No. Well, that would've been a terrible idea-
Suneel Gupta (23:28):
Because he didn't want to get her back.
Bob Simon (23:29):
Oh see, this was like the quasi-
Lance Havelka (23:33):
It was the other way around. So sort of a rather desperate attempt to do so.
Bob Simon (23:40):
We have a friend of ours, a trial lawyer wrote his apology letter to his wife, and then she found out. Very bad. Don't mention names.
Mauro Fiore (23:45):
No, but he had someone else write it for him. He had one of our friends write an apology letter.
Suneel Gupta (23:50):
That's pretty much what I would do. I would do things like that. I never-
Bob Simon (23:53):
It went terribly bad. Like nuclear bad.
Suneel Gupta (23:57):
I did not graduate valedictorian at my high school.
Mauro Fiore (23:59):
Where did you go to law school? I'm always fascinated.
Suneel Gupta (24:01):
I went to Northwestern.
Bob Simon (24:02):
He's a smart guy.
Mauro Fiore (24:04):
Northwestern.
Suneel Gupta (24:05):
But I did write the graduation speech for the guy who was valedictorian in my high school. I would do things like that and eventually I got an internship at the White House on the speech writing team.
Bob Simon (24:15):
What years were this?
Suneel Gupta (24:16):
So this was '98, and '98 was an interesting year. This is Clinton White House.
Bob Simon (24:21):
So you were in college?
Suneel Gupta (24:21):
It was in college, yeah.
Bob Simon (24:22):
I was in DC in '98.
Suneel Gupta (24:24):
Is that right?
Bob Simon (24:25):
Yeah.
Suneel Gupta (24:25):
I don't think we put that together.
Bob Simon (24:27):
'98, 2002 I was in DC.
Suneel Gupta (24:29):
You were living there?
Bob Simon (24:30):
I was living there.
Suneel Gupta (24:30):
I didn't realize that for that many years.
Bob Simon (24:32):
I was in the White House towards the end of that because my friend, I mean I'm a big left-side guy, but Bush came in at the end and I got invited to go to the White House because of baseball shit. So he had a pitching mound. George Bush Jr. had a pitching mound inside the White House where he would practice throwing.
Suneel Gupta (24:48):
And you went in to pitch?
Bob Simon (24:50):
I did it terribly. It's a weird way. It's like a tunnel they have it set up. It's not on a field. It was very weird. I have a picture of this.
Mauro Fiore (24:57):
I was a bankruptcy lawyer in Pacoima in 1998.
Bob Simon (25:00):
Out of necessity.
Mauro Fiore (25:01):
Out of necessity.
Bob Simon (25:03):
That was his 11th failed.
Suneel Gupta (25:05):
Look, being an intern in the White House, a lot more glamorous than it seems. I'm sharing a desk with three other people, and I don't know if you remember this, but Clinton had a dog named Buddy.
Bob Simon (25:14):
I remember Buddy.
Suneel Gupta (25:15):
Buddy. Beautiful. He was a beautiful Labrador.
Bob Simon (25:17):
Oh, I thought it was a Brittany Spaniel.
Suneel Gupta (25:17):
No, no.
Bob Simon (25:18):
Was that Obama that had a Britney Spaniel?
Suneel Gupta (25:18):
Obama had, Yeah.
Bob Simon (25:18):
He had a Britney Spaniel.
Mauro Fiore (25:20):
Obama had a Portuguese water dog.
Suneel Gupta (25:24):
Buddy was this-
Bob Simon (25:25):
Really?
Suneel Gupta (25:26):
Okay. All right.
Bob Simon (25:28):
How do you know that?
Suneel Gupta (25:29):
I was wondering if Mauro was going to fact check me on this.
Bob Simon (25:31):
I didn't know that.
Suneel Gupta (25:32):
But Clinton's lab, Buddy was just really wild. Really wild dog too.
Bob Simon (25:39):
Other than Biden's dog biting everybody right now, by the way.
Suneel Gupta (25:41):
Is that? I didn't know that.
Mauro Fiore (25:42):
They sent the dog away. It bit like 15 people.
Suneel Gupta (25:44):
Did it really? Oh my gosh. But Buddy, he would wander through the West Wing. He would just wander through the West Wing. So as the intern, I would be sitting at the desk. Buddy would always come up to me because I would play fetch with him.
Bob Simon (25:55):
Oh my God, that's awesome.
Suneel Gupta (25:57):
And every once in a while I would really kind of go for it. There's Secret Service everywhere. And I really, I'd chuck it and I just see if go down the hall.
Bob Simon (26:07):
You were 18, 19?
Suneel Gupta (26:07):
I was 19 years old, and it's like bouncing off the walls and Buddy's just going ape shit. So one day Buddy comes up to the desk and there's nobody in the press office where I'm sitting and the Oval Office is right down the hall.
Bob Simon (26:22):
No.
Suneel Gupta (26:23):
And I chuck the ball and the door to the Oval Office is closed, which means that Clinton's in there. But apparently whoever closed it did not close it all the way. Did not seal it shut.
Mauro Fiore (26:34):
Was this the intern?
Suneel Gupta (26:36):
And this thing bounces. This thing bounces. Buddy goes crashing into the door. Door blows open.
Bob Simon (26:42):
Oh my God. The dog goes in?
Suneel Gupta (26:43):
Door blows up. Oh shit. I go back to my desk and I just hear... The dog just goes ape shit. It's barking. It's barking, it's scrambling, and it's wood floor. And you can hear his claws clawing up the floor and you just hear Clinton go, "Buddy!" And I go back to my desk and I just sit there like nothing happened. And I start writing and maybe three minutes later there was a Secret Service agent at the desk being like, "You were playing with the dog, weren't you?"
Bob Simon (27:12):
What did you say?
Suneel Gupta (27:12):
I'm like-
Bob Simon (27:14):
You have to admit it.
Suneel Gupta (27:15):
Of course. I'm like, "I'm sorry, man." I You guys camera's everywhere, but yes. Yes. So anyway, that was probably the highlight of the internship. To answer your question, yes, I did this in some ways was like a return to politics, going back to Michigan, running. I had always had it in mind. I'd watch Clinton gives the speeches. 2004, I went and I joined the campaign, the Kerry campaign.
Bob Simon (27:40):
Really?
Suneel Gupta (27:40):
I was working for the Democratic National Committee. And so this was the re-election campaign for W, Kerry's running against him. I'm a speechwriter again. And what was wild about that is I'm backstage in Boston and I'm writing speeches for people who are about to go give speeches at this Democratic National Convention. They're all the headliner figures, the people that you would expect. It's Clintons, it's the Bidens. At that time, Joseph Lieberman. But there's one guy who's back there that no one knows. He's this state senator from Illinois.
Bob Simon (28:17):
Really? No way.
Suneel Gupta (28:18):
And I walk up to him.
Bob Simon (28:19):
This was 2000, what?
Suneel Gupta (28:21):
This is 2004.
Bob Simon (28:22):
Hussein himself.
Suneel Gupta (28:23):
Yeah, it's 2004. And I have no idea. I have no idea who he is. I ask a couple of people, "Who is this guy?" They don't know who he is, but we know he's speaking. And so my job backstage is just to make sure everybody has what they need for their speech. And if they need any help, I'm here to help. And so I walk up to him and I say, "Hey, my name's Suneel Gupta." And he says, "Pleased to meet you. I'm Barack Obama." And I'm like, "Hey. So I just, I'm here in case you need help. Are you good for your speech tonight?" And he's like, "Oh yeah, I'm pretty good. I'm pretty good."
Bob Simon (28:59):
That's a good impression.
Suneel Gupta (29:01):
And I'm like, "Okay, cool." And I walk away and of course that night backstage I'm watching as Obama goes up and basically introduces himself to the world world.
Bob Simon (29:09):
You knew the first time I ever heard him speak, it was like, "This guy is going to be president."
Suneel Gupta (29:13):
That was that speech.
Bob Simon (29:13):
Oh, God.
Suneel Gupta (29:14):
That was that speech. And I have to tell you, Bob, if you ever have a moment where you're like, "Wow, I want to be part of this in a big way," it's a moment like that because the whole world is watching him. And I'm from backstage watching them.
Bob Simon (29:30):
Oh wow.
Suneel Gupta (29:31):
And you could just see this electric wave rip through the crowd. I mean, it was just unbelievable, the way that people were fixated on. And by the, he was the final speech that night. So imagine you're part of a crowd and you're watching speech after speech-
Bob Simon (29:45):
But who picked him to go? Somebody knew. Somebody knew.
Suneel Gupta (29:48):
So that's an interesting story. So he was not actually expected to be the keynote of that convention. It was a guy named Harold Ford Jr. who was, at that time, I think senator in Tennessee. And he was sort of the guy they had picked. But John Kerry had gone to Chicago and he had seen-
Bob Simon (30:09):
So John did this.
Suneel Gupta (30:09):
John Kerry saw Obama speak. And had John Kerry not been the nominee, Obama would not have given that speech. Had it been Edwards or had it been Howard Dean, if it had been anybody else, he wouldn't have given that speech. But when John Kerry got the nomination, when he became the presumed nominee, he said, "I want that guy, Barack Obama." That
Bob Simon (30:28):
That is crazy. I did not know this back in the story. So Howard Dean was, I mean, I don't want to go to this whole political show, but this is fascinating because I lived this shit. I was at DC during the hanging chat and stuff. Howard, do you remember what killed him?
Suneel Gupta (30:41):
The...
Bob Simon (30:42):
Yeah, that's what killed him.
Suneel Gupta (30:43):
Yes, of course.
Bob Simon (30:44):
He lost an election because he did that.
Suneel Gupta (30:45):
Yeah. It was just so wild to me.
Bob Simon (30:46):
So stupid.
Suneel Gupta (30:47):
I still-
Mauro Fiore (30:49):
Because he made a woot sound?
Bob Simon (30:50):
You don't know this?
Suneel Gupta (30:51):
He made a woot sound.
Mauro Fiore (30:52):
I'm more from the Gary Hart kind of phase with the guy with Monkey Business.
Bob Simon (30:56):
Yeah, I know what you're talking about.
Mauro Fiore (30:57):
You remember him? Yeah. That's my era. But I also was very impressed the first time I ever heard Obama speak. I mean, the guy was a... He gave a good speech.
Suneel Gupta (31:09):
He gave a good speech.
Mauro Fiore (31:10):
For sure he gave a good speech.
Suneel Gupta (31:10):
He gave an amazing speech. But then he built on top of that. I mean a lot of people, as we learn in politics, will have their moment. The question is how do you turn a moment into-
Bob Simon (31:19):
Movement.
Suneel Gupta (31:20):
... A movement? And he did that brilliantly. Part of the reason I went to Northwestern for law school, which was after that-
Bob Simon (31:27):
Wait, this was after that?
Suneel Gupta (31:28):
I went to Northwestern after that.
Bob Simon (31:29):
You're probably 24, 25 when this was going down.
Suneel Gupta (31:31):
Yeah.
Bob Simon (31:31):
You're about the same age.
Suneel Gupta (31:32):
Yeah, about the same age. I'm 44.
Bob Simon (31:35):
You're 44.
Suneel Gupta (31:35):
So I was 24-
Bob Simon (31:38):
By the way-
Suneel Gupta (31:38):
... 23 to 24.
Bob Simon (31:38):
... Who was the 44th president?
Mauro Fiore (31:41):
Donald Trump?
Bob Simon (31:42):
Mm-mm.
Mauro Fiore (31:42):
No? He's 45.
Bob Simon (31:43):
He's 45.
Mauro Fiore (31:44):
Obama?
Bob Simon (31:45):
Barack Obama.
Suneel Gupta (31:46):
So we... That's interesting. Yeah.
Bob Simon (31:50):
You learn something new every day.
Suneel Gupta (31:51):
That's basically why I hang out with you, to create connections.
Bob Simon (31:54):
I want to go to the last one because this one's a very good story. So you've written many books and I've read this book and the first 10 pages, I was texting you while I was reading it because it spoke to me, individually. We talk a lot about this. But the Everyday Dharma book that you wrote, it was probably three or four months ago it came out. When did it come out? October?
Suneel Gupta (32:17):
Came out September.
Bob Simon (32:18):
September. Immediate bestseller. And I know you're on the speaking circuit for it, but one of the things you talk about through all the failures, the success, the ups and downs of where you are now is teaching people this, the everyday Dharma. And I had a friend of mine come back from India and because I like whiskey, people bring whiskey all the time. And this is one, the [inaudible 00:32:40], which apparently you can't find many places.
Suneel Gupta (32:42):
Yeah, it's very rare.
Bob Simon (32:43):
I've never had this. And it's very rare. And it was very special for him to bring it to my house.
Mauro Fiore (32:48):
It was a whiskey?
Bob Simon (32:50):
A whiskey from India. And Lance has all the notes because he's a whiskey guy. But I'm-
Mauro Fiore (32:54):
This is from India?
Lance Havelka (32:55):
Its an Indian single malt.
(32:57):
And so this one is actually made with domestic six-row barley.
Mauro Fiore (33:05):
Because I've hung out with lots of Indians and they drink Johnny Walker, man.
Suneel Gupta (33:08):
Are you hanging out with my dad again?
Mauro Fiore (33:11):
Well, Indians drink Johnny Walker. That's as sure as the sun's coming up.
Bob Simon (33:15):
Anybody that says-
Suneel Gupta (33:18):
Its true. India consume more Johnny Walker than any other country.
Bob Simon (33:19):
100% true. And anytime somebody sends me a Johnny Walker, I know they don't understand and appreciate whiskey, but they think this is a good gift for you. We had a conversation, like there's two types of lawyers. One's the Johnny Walker lawyer, and what was the other one? It was... Fuck, now I forget, man. Too many shows today.
Mauro Fiore (33:34):
Yeah, I mean I have so many Johnny Walker Blue labels that people have given me that I just have them stacked up in the corner. I just re-gift them. I don't want that shit. But people think, "Oh, let me give them a Blue Label."
Bob Simon (33:44):
But it's a thing if you're a giving person-
Suneel Gupta (33:46):
Blue Label is pretty good.
Bob Simon (33:47):
Yeah. Well we have to the ways.
Mauro Fiore (33:50):
What's your birthday? I'll send you one for your birthday.
Suneel Gupta (33:54):
May 2nd. May 2nd.
Mauro Fiore (33:54):
Okay. There you go.
Suneel Gupta (33:55):
Thank you, Mauro.
Bob Simon (33:55):
Oh, you're a May baby.
Suneel Gupta (33:56):
There's way you'll remember that.
Bob Simon (33:57):
Means you're almost 45.
Suneel Gupta (33:58):
I know, man.
Bob Simon (34:00):
Oh, God. This is your-
Mauro Fiore (34:00):
Remember my birthday is May 22nd, so it's 20 days before mine.
Bob Simon (34:03):
All right.
Lance Havelka (34:04):
So finishing up on, so Indri is actually Sanskrit for the five senses and this particular bottling, it's pretty amazing. It's actually aged in three different casks. So a bourbon barrel and then a PX sherry cask, which is the Pedro Ximenez is the sweetest form of sherry. And then a French wine cask, which is going to be inherently drier to balance out the sweetness and richness of sherry.
Bob Simon (34:32):
This is going to be interesting.
Suneel Gupta (34:33):
Good notes.
Bob Simon (34:34):
Lance, will you do the pleasure for us, please my friend.
Lance Havelka (34:36):
Wow. Sure thing.
Bob Simon (34:37):
If you could pick heavy, light, medium, poor, doesn't matter.
Suneel Gupta (34:39):
Light please, light my friend.
Mauro Fiore (34:40):
You can go heavy with me but my T-ball practice got canceled today. So I was going to show up and teach. I was going to show up and I'm the coach of my son's T-ball team and I would've been raging drunk today, but they canceled it because the field's shitty so let's drink.
Bob Simon (34:55):
By the way when we grew up, they used to light the fields on fire to get them ready for, because we had inclement weather all the time at Pittsburgh. I remember pulling up for an All-Star game. They would just put gasoline light on fire to dry the field out.
Suneel Gupta (35:04):
You're kidding me? You're got to be kidding me.
Mauro Fiore (35:04):
You got to love those mid-Westerners.
Bob Simon (35:06):
You got a shit Michigan for sure.
Suneel Gupta (35:07):
Cheers guys, this has been the best.
Bob Simon (35:11):
Oh God, this smells very interesting. I thought this was going to have a scotch smell to it, but it doesn't not.
Suneel Gupta (35:14):
Cheers.
Bob Simon (35:14):
Mauro, I can't reach that far.
Mauro Fiore (35:15):
Okay.
Lance Havelka (35:16):
That's amazing.
Suneel Gupta (35:19):
Yeah, it does have a scotch-like quality.
Lance Havelka (35:21):
Well, I still get some of the malt on the nose, but-
Suneel Gupta (35:24):
Its good.
Bob Simon (35:24):
The end of it.
Mauro Fiore (35:25):
This reminds me a lot of like a Weller green label or a 107.
Suneel Gupta (35:30):
They basically re-bottled Johnny Walker.
Bob Simon (35:33):
Yeah, this is Johnny Walker fucking black. They got us. Guys, they got us.
Suneel Gupta (35:38):
It's good. It's good.
Mauro Fiore (35:40):
Very good.
Suneel Gupta (35:43):
I thought he was reaching for the book and he was reaching for the bottle.
Mauro Fiore (35:46):
Dharma like Dharma and Greg?
Suneel Gupta (35:49):
A lot of people know that one.
Bob Simon (35:50):
The very same.
Suneel Gupta (35:51):
A lot of people know that.
Bob Simon (35:52):
Take a look at this, Mauro.
Mauro Fiore (35:53):
What does Dharma, but what does it mean?
Suneel Gupta (35:55):
Take the green casing off the book.
Mauro Fiore (35:59):
Dharma and Greg was one of my favorite shows.
Suneel Gupta (36:00):
It was a great show. Yeah. [inaudible 00:36:04]. All right, so you see that casing there? That is-
Bob Simon (36:06):
Show it to the camera.
Mauro Fiore (36:07):
Isn't this, what do they call that? A wind walker or whatever what they call it?
Suneel Gupta (36:11):
So that's the center of the Indian flag. That's the wheel of Dharma.
Bob Simon (36:15):
The wheel of Dharma.
Mauro Fiore (36:17):
Okay. What are those Indian things called that are like that?
Suneel Gupta (36:19):
I don't know.
Crew (36:19):
Dream catcher.
Mauro Fiore (36:20):
Dream catcher.
Suneel Gupta (36:21):
Oh, dream catcher. Yeah. So let me show you this. My grandfather explained it to me like this. I'm sitting on his porch in New Delhi. I'm like seven years old and he points me to an Indian flag and he says, "You see the center of the flag, that is the wheel of Dharma and that wheel represents your life. And as the wheel starts to spin faster, which your life will, you'll start to get busier and busier. We inevitably get sucked to the outside of the wheel. And our job in life isn't to prevent ourselves from getting sucked out of the outside of the wheel. That's going to happen inevitably. But when that happens, you have to find your way back to center. Inside this center is really who you are, who you are and how you express who you are through what you do. That is your Dharma."
(37:09):
In the book, I try to break down this philosophy that's been around for thousands of years, has been passed around from east to west, from ancient to modern. There are characters in this book, Jimi Hendrix and Dr. Martin Luther King, people who use Dharma in their lives. I tried to break it down to something that was really simple and the way that I think about it is that Dharma equals essence plus expression, essence plus expression. Essence is who you are and expression is how you show up. And if you are showing up in a way that really reflects who you are, you are in your Dharma.
Bob Simon (37:46):
So the expression for Mauro, he's a trial lawyer, but what is your essence? What makes that is what you show?
Suneel Gupta (37:56):
The thing about Mauro, and I think the thing about you as well is that you can have multiple expressions for the same essence. Mauro, just a trial lawyer.
Mauro Fiore (38:03):
Just to be real.
Suneel Gupta (38:04):
Right.
Bob Simon (38:05):
But they're saying show it.
Mauro Fiore (38:06):
That's authentic, trying to be authentic.
Suneel Gupta (38:09):
But Mauro, you're an entrepreneur, you are an attorney, you travel the world, you like music. I'm getting to know all this about you right now. Those are all expressions. And underneath those expressions is, it's coming from some place. And that place is maybe, I like to explore creative ideas. I like to bring things to life. I like to make people feel like they matter. That there's something underneath all that. And the reason that that's important is because ultimately, when we think about career paths or purpose, sometimes we go to occupation. I want to be a doctor, I want to be a lawyer. But those are just expressions. They are expressions of something else. So Bob, you and I have daughters that go to school together. And when we ask them, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" They're kind of being conditioned to be like, "Well, I want to be an artist, I want to be an actor." There's some profession.
(39:06):
But I think the key to Dharma is really going beneath the occupation and into the essence.
Bob Simon (39:13):
Forget the why.
Suneel Gupta (39:14):
What is it that really lights you on fire when you go beneath the title, you go beneath the salary, you go beneath the status. What is that thing? Because if you find that thing, then you can express it in many different ways. And I think that ultimately, that's the power of it, which is that you can be sweeping floors and be in your Dharma.
(39:36):
This book has stories of plumbers, of nurses, of frontline workers, of assembly workers back in Detroit where Lance and I grew up, who found their Dharma not by leaving their job, not by abandoning what they do, but exactly through what they do.
Bob Simon (39:51):
And I wore this because he told me I was a shepherd.
Suneel Gupta (39:57):
Yeah. I mean look, I would not be surprised if the two of you become shepherds.
Bob Simon (40:01):
Yeah, but it's true. But this is after a few gins, you brought a whole bottle of Monkey 47.
Mauro Fiore (40:05):
I've taken many a stray, for sure.
Bob Simon (40:11):
But Mauro, this would be a good one for you to read. He's a big reader by the way.
Mauro Fiore (40:13):
I do read. I do like-
Suneel Gupta (40:15):
Do you like to listen to your books or you read?
Bob Simon (40:16):
No, I actually read them. I'm old school.
Suneel Gupta (40:19):
You do? Well look, I have to say I go all around the world looking for stories that are sort of the essence of Dharma. I look at historical figures and meanwhile the whole time, perhaps one of the most inspiring Dharma stories is this guy right here.
Bob Simon (40:35):
Really?
Suneel Gupta (40:36):
My childhood friend, Lance Havelka, who literally says, "I'm going to go build my own whiskey brand from the ground up." And it is so inspiring. You go to his place and you see how it's all being done is a man hard at work, just saying, "It doesn't matter. I'm going to go do this thing because it's what I want to express to the world." I think that your story is one of the purest forms of Dharma that I've seen.
Lance Havelka (41:08):
Well, thank you.
Bob Simon (41:10):
What gives you the passion, Lance? Why does your curation of whiskey, what does that speak to you about you?
Lance Havelka (41:16):
Well, it really started, I mean the core inspiration. I mean, I became an aficionado of sorts in grad school and wound up studied photojournalism there, which is quite a ways away from making whiskey. But that sort of ran its course and whiskey, it was always something that I wanted to at least work with, whether it was my own company or just working for someone else. But I actually had the opportunity to spend some time in Scotland, lived there for about seven months and that was really the inspiration. I learned a lot about distilling and blending. And the second part was really most interesting to me. Then I realized at that point, by the time I left, I knew I was going back to Detroit and I wanted to actually start my own distillery, but start small and just see where it went. And it was quite an adventure. And I mean a great challenge because there's not a manual out there that explains every step of the process.
Bob Simon (42:21):
Do you find joy every single day you wake up in your life in this process?
Lance Havelka (42:26):
I guess I do, I do when I'm there. And it's interesting, even when I'm not there, I actually do find myself wishing I was. And certainly not in the moment. And it's amazing coming to California and I mean just seeing everyone here, but in general, yeah.
Suneel Gupta (42:45):
People sometimes ask me, how do I know what my Dharma is? And I think one of the greatest, I think signals of it is curiosity. What are you deeply curious about? Because I think sometimes we over-rotate on competence. Competence is obviously very important, being good at something that's very important. But I think what is even more important is curiosity. What are you endlessly curious about? Because if you can find that, chances are that's pretty tied to your Dharma. And for Lance, I mean he's a bottomless source of curiosity on whiskey, just wants to know everything, wants to travel the world, wants to talk to as many people as possible.
Bob Simon (43:23):
We are Mid-City Detroit, sniffing fragrances and bringing the whiskey together. I mean, Mauro, by the way, we have to do this because it was one of the coolest experiences ever. I want to do this on the show at one point. It takes you back. When we tried cases, the number one sense out of the five that brings you back, that makes you real for [inaudible 00:43:42], is the sense of smell. It always brings you back. So we try cases, you want to talk about, you're on the asphalt after this crash, what did it smell like? And you feel it and then it's what was it like in the emergency room? And they start describing the smell. It's real for everybody. So when you were doing that, it was like an experience.
Lance Havelka (43:59):
Full sensory experience. And that's one of the things that really is such an important part of just the whiskey making process as well, is sort of in the aftermath of being able to share the end product with other people. I found it's really interesting, in my life, it's actually allowed me to form a greater bond with my father just through whiskey. And I've introduced him to many different types of whiskey and so he actually has a bigger collection than I do now, but it's an amazing thing that-
Bob Simon (44:33):
Even at my dad's house, amazing collection.
Lance Havelka (44:34):
... When we come together.
Suneel Gupta (44:35):
Does he?
Bob Simon (44:35):
Amazing.
Suneel Gupta (44:36):
I would love to see it.
Mauro Fiore (44:38):
Bob, you're talking about scent. I was at a party this weekend and they had a perfume company at the party. I've been to lots of parties, lots of fancy Hollywood parties and whatever where people have caricature artists or this or that shit. These people had a perfume company to where a party favor was. You go through and there was like eight stations and they say, "Okay, these are the smells that..." And you make your own perfume at the end you get your own. And they say this is what you smell at first when you get a cologne. And they give you five different scents and then you say, "Oh, I like this one." So they put that in the bottle and then you say, "Okay, this is the one that kind of like the after smell, after the original smell. And there's the mid tone." And they put that in the bottle.
(45:25):
So you go down like eight spots and at the end you end up with your own perfume. And I thought it was the most amazing thing because you don't really think of perfume having so many layers, but it had eight layers to it until you got to the end.
Lance Havelka (45:38):
Exactly. Its almost infinite.
Mauro Fiore (45:40):
It was an amazing experience.
Lance Havelka (45:42):
And I would encourage you guys, when you go to Sumato, Kevin, the owner, he will actually do a private scent making session. So he will create from scratch a personalized scent.
Bob Simon (45:54):
You go back to CK one, it's just high school for me. Same age.
Mauro Fiore (45:58):
You know what the thing is? My father's been dead for a little while, but my dad wore Brut. I mean he was a straight up Brut guy.
Suneel Gupta (46:06):
I like the smell of Brut.
Mauro Fiore (46:08):
Old school. And I have a bottle of Brut that I got out of his bathroom after I cleaned out his house after he passed away. And I keep it in my bathroom and anytime I want to think about my dad, I can just open it up and smell it and my dad is standing next to me.
Bob Simon (46:20):
This just reminded me whenever I move to my old house in Hermosa Beach, you sent me a gift and it was a bottle of Brut aftershave. 100% I kept it underneath my sink.
Mauro Fiore (46:28):
Yeah, I mean if I ever wanted my dad, to really connect with my dad, I smell the Brut bottle, it like if you're stand in there.
Suneel Gupta (46:34):
I love that.
Mauro Fiore (46:34):
That's the only thing he ever wore. It's weird.
Suneel Gupta (46:37):
More [inaudible 00:46:39], before we, I want to talk about your Dharma for a second though.
Mauro Fiore (46:42):
Oh God, here we go.
Suneel Gupta (46:43):
Okay. Seriously, I don't know if you talk about this on the show at all, but you at the show, you're a trial attorney, entrepreneur, you run teams, you run conferences, what is it that brings it all together for you?
Mauro Fiore (46:59):
Me.
Bob Simon (46:59):
Mauro.
Suneel Gupta (47:00):
Mauro. He's always the-
Bob Simon (47:01):
Its about Mauro. No, I mean I just like to help people to an endless fault sometimes. I like to connect people to be successful and just to give. My dad was always the anti-bully guy. My dad was a big guy, played football for Pitt back in the day, he would always say, "You go to school. If somebody's picking on somebody, you stand up for them, you help them, you help to a fault. When you go to the grocery..." And I tell my kids this now. Actually my oldest daughter and she had a little bit of meltdown. I was hugging her. I was like, "Look, you're assignment and what we do, we're always happy. You always help people. I don't care what they do or say, if they're at the grocery store, if they're somebody friends at school, you're there just to help. You're that bridge."
(47:40):
So at the core I like to help and I like to coach. So I like to thank lawyers that have left my firm, that I've given the good platform to do it. And it's like a coaching tree for me. And that's how I find success is how many people have I helped to bring up their career and that's it. And drink a lot with my friends and to afford the vacations we take.
Mauro Fiore (48:03):
And Bob really, Bob really doesn't look for anything in return. I can tell you from my first hand experience, Bob's helped me tremendously in so many areas of my life for nothing in return other than me being the butt of his jokes here on the show.
Bob Simon (48:18):
Actually, I actually hate thank you's. I don't want to hear it.
Mauro Fiore (48:21):
For nothing.
Bob Simon (48:22):
I hate it.
Mauro Fiore (48:22):
But Bob will do it for nothing.
Suneel Gupta (48:23):
I'll keep that in mind.
Bob Simon (48:24):
Don't ever say thank you. I'll be mad at you.
Mauro Fiore (48:27):
You know what they say that the person that really wants to help someone is the person who doesn't... When they want nothing in return. Bob wants nothing in return.
Suneel Gupta (48:33):
Is that sort your mentality as well when you play credit card roulette?
Bob Simon (48:37):
Oh my God. Credit card roulette. I just want to win.
Suneel Gupta (48:39):
The other night-
Bob Simon (48:39):
I actually want to lose.
Suneel Gupta (48:39):
... The other night we had dinner-
Bob Simon (48:41):
Mauro knows.
Mauro Fiore (48:41):
You know how many times this guy's got me? He's a legend.
Suneel Gupta (48:43):
He got me the other day. The other night we go to dinner and-
Bob Simon (48:47):
This was not my fault.
Suneel Gupta (48:48):
... The bill comes and I'm assuming we're all throwing credit cards in to split this bill evenly. And all of a sudden I turn one way, I turn back the other way and Bob says, "We're playing credit card roulette." And I say, "I don't like that game. It doesn't go well for me."
Bob Simon (49:04):
It never goes well for me. If you're playing with him-
(49:05):
We had all the kids with us, everybody, 10 kids.
Suneel Gupta (49:08):
And I am like, "Let's just split it evenly." He's like, "Come on, everybody's in." I throw my card in. Who loses?
Mauro Fiore (49:12):
You.
Suneel Gupta (49:13):
I lost.
Bob Simon (49:14):
Yeah, actually I tried to pay the bill discreetly and another friend of our said, "No, I want to split." I was like, "Let me let play roulette." And I to see Suneel go like, "What did he fucking say?" And the whole time he was like, he knew he was going to lose.
Mauro Fiore (49:25):
I remember one time-
Suneel Gupta (49:26):
I knew I was going to lose. I always do.
Mauro Fiore (49:27):
This is like 10 years ago in Europe. Bob went on a 17 night winning streak for dinner in Europe and I'm talking some expensive fucking dinners.
Suneel Gupta (49:36):
I think that's-
Mauro Fiore (49:37):
Doubled the price of my trip to credit card roulette. The guy didn't lose for two weeks. I mean he's a legend with credit card roulette.
Bob Simon (49:43):
That's my essence.
Suneel Gupta (49:45):
I wish I would've met you before I played that game with him.
Bob Simon (49:47):
No, play with Mauro, you'll win.
Mauro Fiore (49:50):
He got me for some langoustines in fucking Iceland. It was like a thousand dollars each. He got me, this guy got me with a credit card roulette.
Suneel Gupta (49:56):
By the way, we're with our kids too. It's not a credit card roulette situation. Let's just split the bill the way that family men do.
Bob Simon (50:05):
No, that's not how we-
Suneel Gupta (50:06):
Not the Simon way.
Mauro Fiore (50:08):
This guy could pay the next 500 bills and he'd still be ahead. That's why he doesn't mind paying.
Bob Simon (50:14):
I try to lose.
Mauro Fiore (50:15):
That's why he doesn't mind playing because he's won 99% of the time. He's done it for the last 10 years. So he's-
Bob Simon (50:20):
Look, I did lose it in and out one time with you. I lost it in.
Mauro Fiore (50:25):
Oh, you know what? You did lose one time for 50-
Suneel Gupta (50:26):
You guys have playing credit card roulette at In-N-Out?
Bob Simon (50:30):
We do it every chance we can. Yeah, we got to even it out eventually. Those langoustines in Iceland really add up, so subtract.
Mauro Fiore (50:37):
They really got me there, those langoustines.
Bob Simon (50:37):
So Suneel, we have to-
Mauro Fiore (50:39):
That's when I fell asleep during the Northern Lights. Remember?
Bob Simon (50:42):
By the way, so if you go to my Instagram handle, there's a whole little sub story called That's a Mauro and it's him sleeping and passed out around the world. It's the most entertaining series you've ever seen.
Mauro Fiore (50:53):
And I was like, "Oh yeah, I saw the Northern Lights." Like, "Bullshit, you were sleeping."
Bob Simon (50:55):
You saw me sleeping. I have one where we're outside the most beautiful place in Ibiza. We're on this island, we had this fantastic lunch and-
Mauro Fiore (51:01):
Formentera.
Bob Simon (51:03):
Formentera. He's passed out on-
Mauro Fiore (51:04):
Oh my God.
Bob Simon (51:04):
.... He's on a ledge like this, everywhere.
Suneel Gupta (51:07):
The beauty is just too much for you.
Mauro Fiore (51:08):
I just like to sleep, man.
Lance Havelka (51:10):
I can relate. I actually fell asleep during the Phantom of the Opera in Australia.
Bob Simon (51:15):
I would.
Lance Havelka (51:15):
It's one of those-
Suneel Gupta (51:16):
I actually fell asleep during Phantom of the Opera.
Lance Havelka (51:17):
The jet lag was so intense.
Bob Simon (51:19):
Yeah. Yeah. Mauro does it because he had a rough two hours anywhere at any time. Okay, so Suneel, we do this at the end of every show. This is probably the widest range, the net that we've done for whiskeys because we went from India and this one was Tennessee or Kentucky?
Lance Havelka (51:37):
Kentucky. This one actually contains bourbons from Kentucky, Indiana and Tennessee.
Bob Simon (51:44):
And what's the middle one? Where's that one?
Mauro Fiore (51:46):
That's the Detroit.
Lance Havelka (51:46):
Detroit.
Bob Simon (51:47):
Yes. We went from hometown, we went down to-
Mauro Fiore (51:52):
Indiana, Kentucky.
Bob Simon (51:55):
They call it that trifecta. Like it's right around the same, the Ohio River that has the turbulent, whatever, all way-
Lance Havelka (52:00):
It's just an ideal climate to age.
Bob Simon (52:01):
Ideal climate.
Suneel Gupta (52:02):
We went to Indiana to India via Detroit.
Bob Simon (52:05):
Ooh, that's a very strange, that sounds like a good song, the start of a song.
Suneel Gupta (52:10):
Yeah.
Bob Simon (52:10):
Born and raised in South-
Suneel Gupta (52:11):
Should we make that?
Bob Simon (52:12):
... Detroit by way of India and Indiana by whiskey. So Suneel, what was your bourbon of proof? And you could pick by your palette, storytelling and what spoke to you.
Suneel Gupta (52:22):
Listen, it's no question, it's Drexel right in the middle.
Bob Simon (52:26):
Wow, that's good.
Suneel Gupta (52:26):
Detroit.
Bob Simon (52:27):
I love that one.
Suneel Gupta (52:28):
It was beautiful. It tastes amazing.
Mauro Fiore (52:30):
It is amazing.
Suneel Gupta (52:32):
It packs a punch. 52% alcohol.
Bob Simon (52:34):
But you don't taste it.
Suneel Gupta (52:35):
You don't taste it.
Mauro Fiore (52:35):
How much does Drexel cost? How much, what would this retail for?
Lance Havelka (52:38):
In Michigan its 49.96.
Mauro Fiore (52:39):
Oh, that's great.
Suneel Gupta (52:41):
The best whiskeys are always under price point.
(52:44):
It's a beautiful bottle of whiskey, my friend. You've done amazing work. You're truly in your Dharma.
Lance Havelka (52:50):
Well, thank you. Yeah, thank you.
Bob Simon (52:52):
So let's do a Dharma and Drexel.
Lance Havelka (52:54):
We'll give a quick shout out the-
Mauro Fiore (52:56):
What does Kintra stand for? What is that?
Lance Havelka (52:58):
So Kintra is actually Scottish Gaelic for-
Bob Simon (53:01):
That was actually the girlfriend he wrote the breakup letter for.
Suneel Gupta (53:04):
Her name was Kintra.
Lance Havelka (53:08):
It's Scottish Gaelic for country, just the countryside.
Mauro Fiore (53:11):
Cool.
Lance Havelka (53:13):
But yeah, so my sister actually designed the label and the logo. She's just this brilliant artist and graphic designer.
Suneel Gupta (53:22):
Brilliant packaging.
Mauro Fiore (53:23):
Shout out to your sister.
Suneel Gupta (53:23):
Brilliant product.
Bob Simon (53:25):
All right, guys-
Suneel Gupta (53:26):
Well done, my friend.
Bob Simon (53:26):
... Suneel, Lance, thank you for coming on this episode of Bourbon of Proof. We look forward to having every person that watches or listening find their Dharma, or at least their essence, or at least their Mauro. If you can find your Mauro, that's a good start.
Suneel Gupta (53:37):
Everybody needs a Mauro.
Bob Simon (53:38):
Everybody needs a Mauro. So tomorrow till we see you, good night, good luck. How did this, how's that go?
Mauro Fiore (53:43):
Good night-
Bob Simon (53:43):
Good night.
Mauro Fiore (53:44):
... And good luck.
Bob Simon (53:44):
There you go. Thank you, Mauro. Thank you for watching or listening to this episode of Bourbon of Proof.
