175 Kfir Levy: Exploring the Journey of Habitas Hotel Group: From Experience to Global Success

CK: Welcome to Noble Warrior. My name is CK Lin. This is where I interview entrepreneurs and practitioners about their journey to master their mind and their body, to have greater purpose, performance and joy in life and in business. My next guest is the co-founder of Habitas Hotel Group. They have 11 locations from Chile, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Mexico, Costa Rica, upstate New York and soon Bhutan. If you are curious about what my guest has to say, go to ourhabitats.com. Please welcome Kafir Levy. Hi guys. Great to be here. Thank you so much for being here, Kafir. Now, you and I, before we started HitRecord, you had said that the number one thing you want to teach your children is about prioritizing happiness. Why don't we start there? Why is that such an important value that you want to instill, not just your kids, but people all around you and all over the world?
Kfir: I mean, I think to put it as simply as possible, you know, I'm 42 years old and the thing that I realize we're left with at the end of the day when life goes up or down or left and right and everything changes is our happiness and that it is internal and that it is more or less a choice. And I wish I had those lessons when I was younger. I wish that, you know, I was empowered with understanding what the value is of happiness and what the meaning is of happiness, you know, that it's not some goal that you have to attain, but it's just, you know, something that's internal. It's a choice for how you're choosing to move forward with basically. And had I had that at a younger age, I think life would have been a little bit more fun. Life is pretty fun, but I think it would have been a little bit more fun. And so that's why I'm prioritizing for my kids. I want them to understand that. You know, the most important thing is your personal happiness and your personal wellbeing, because without those two things in the forefront, you're not going to be able to be the person you want to be to everybody else around you.

CK: Now, we hear a lot in terms of, yes, prioritizing happiness, in terms of prioritizing wellbeing, especially in our community. So I'm curious, was there an origin event? Was there a specific event that happened? that have you faced, you know, reality for what it is and then you're like, all right, this is the wrong path and I'm choosing the path of happiness and well-being. Is there anything happened that you can share with us?

Kfir: I mean, I don't think there's been anything, you know, overly traumatic or profound or one of these, you know, sort of situations you're faced with where you have to just, you know, turn left and then life takes you in a different direction. I think You know, my life, like probably most of these listeners, we have ups and we have downs. Right. And in the moment, they're the most catastrophic thing in the world. Right. But six months later, you realize that had that not happened, the place that I'm in right now wouldn't, you know, wouldn't happen either. And I think just in general, throughout my life. I think the areas that I've succeeded in the most and the things that have brought me the most, uh, I guess you could have leapfrog, leapfrog, leapfrog me forward in terms of my personal growth, my life experience, adventure, whatever have been things that have started with, you know, bringing me joy with, with happiness. And, uh, yeah. And I think just, you know, being at my age, which still a kid at the end of the day, you know, I. I have to look at things from a more mature lens and say, okay, what is my strategy moving forward? Right. With everything I've learned, looking at things strategically, left brain, right brain, happiness. You have to lead with happiness. It just, what makes the most sense at the end of the day, all roads lead to that.

CK: So I'm going to do a gentle pushback. All right. And then I'll share a little bit of my story and then see if there's anything you want to add or anything like that. Sure. So my whole life, I was born Chinese and, you know, raised in a traditional society, Chinese and Confucius teachings and everything. So I oriented my life, everything towards achievement. I achieve a lot, right? I got a PhD at a young age. I work as the director of University of California. I went to… Valley, you know, as the chief culture officer of a unicorn company, all these are everything I set my mind to achieve. However, one thing that I realized as I got to my thirties and forties is, hey, wait a minute. I achieve all these things. But I wasn't, I was miserable effectively. I was constantly in a state of frustration. And then what's next? What's bigger? And the happiness that I received from achieving those goals were fleeting. Literally in nanoseconds, I didn't allow myself the experience of joy. So I said, something's got to change. That's why I went down the path of What else is there? What does it really mean? I arrived to the same conclusion. However, if you can paint a little bit more of a picture of how did you arrive to that conclusion? Or were you just blessed with this realization at a young age?

Kfir: I definitely wouldn't say I was blessed with the realization at a young age. I think when I try to explain why happiness is, you know, should be your North and should be what drives you, it's because for me, when I look at it logically, right. And I look at it, you know, almost mathematically, it's what makes the most sense, right? It's just, you know, the most logical approach to how, you know, to, to what matters in life at the end of the day. Right. And. I think if you put it this way, in 2010, I had closed my company that I was running for, you know, for several years and it was my biggest passion. And I remember the world economy basically flipped upside down. Things started buying all over the place and I was forced to close up shop like many people around me. When I had done that, it took a big emotional toll on me. And I remember feeling pretty low at the end of the day. And all I can think about was stabilizing my life, getting back on track and then relaunching it. Right. And I was so fixated on going back to realizing that thing that I wanted to achieve. Right. Except as soon as I stabilized my life and I got to a place where I had a clear mind and I was happy, right? All of a sudden I had no interest in going back to whatever that thing was. And I really enjoyed just being at that place for a while, taking a breather, right? And I think it was the first time in my adult life where I allowed myself just to be fully present to having comfort and stability. And I don't need to be overly ambitious. I don't need to be lazy. I don't need to be chasing something. I don't have to go and achieve something. I'm at a point where everything is okay. Right? It's not phenomenal. It doesn't suck, but it's good. And. Well, all of a sudden just incredible things started happening. I had opportunities, open up ideas. A lot of inspiration came about my wife and I became a couple, you know, and life just took even more, you know, profound direction. And at the, around the same time was when I started just experiencing more and more and more things, allowing myself to indulge outright. Right. I have my business at the time I was making decent living. I had fun. I was traveling. And I was just indulging. Right. And what I found was, you know, the happier that I was doing whatever it is that I was doing, I'm meeting more interesting people that are far more engaging. Right. I have much more opportunity. I have more confidence to go on. You know, take risks, take chances, explore ideas and whatnot. Right. And at the end of the day, if you look at it mathematically, those things didn't happen because I sat there and analyzed risk. Right. Or because I was looking at it strategically with a goal and with the shortest path to get to X, Y, Z. They happened effortlessly because I was happy. Right. And I thought, okay, this makes sense. And that continued and that's very much how Habitat was born, right? It was born out of an idea that, you know, my co-founder and I had to how we wanted to live our lives. And that idea was rooted in happiness. It was purpose and it was our values. It wasn't business, right? We didn't have even have any business plans at that time. And so, you know, today, when I look back on it, that entire journey that brought me all the way up until probably the pandemic, right? When I look back at my life experience, at least in the last 10 years, it's very much, you know, a lot less resistance, a lot more of being present and allowing yourself to just put a strong focus on being happy and And everything that looked like, so I think it was a process that, like I said, you know, I think it's rooted in logic and deductive reasoning. And I know that sounds boring, right? It's not as poetic, but that's the way that I explain it to people oftentimes without sounding like an asshole. When I tell them my own personal well-being and my own personal happiness is more important to me than anything else on the planet, including that of my kids and my wife and my family. Reason being, because without that, who am I for them, right? Who am I, you know, as a leader in my company, who am I as a leader in my community and everything else. And so, like I said, it's, for me, it's the most logical argument, you know, for how you should pursue things.

CK: Yeah. I'm asking this question. How do I say this? Because we hear this a lot. And I think having your own story paints a picture to why is that important for you, right? So that way it's not just, oh, just follow your passion, life will be fine. I mean, yes, but what about the details, right? So let me double click on a couple of things that you said. When people think about happiness for you, What's the difference between happiness versus hedonistic pursuit versus fulfillment? Is there any nuanced difference? I mean, I have my opinion, but I'm curious to know what's yours.

Kfir: I mean, I think there is, I think for starters, you know, there's this level of responsibility, right? That sort of, you know, comes with life, right? And oftentimes, Oftentimes people attach the word responsibility to fault, right? But those two things are very, very different, right? Fault? What does that mean? Well, fault. So if you say to somebody, you know, take responsibility over it, or you are responsible for your life, right? Oftentimes people might hear that as, okay, it's, you know, you were at fault, right? Things didn't work out and you were at fault, but that's not it. You can live with that perception. You can tell yourself, yeah, it's not my fault. It's their fault, but that's very disempowering. Right? And so when you take responsibility over everything, and again, this is rooted in a lot of our background, you're on mine. Um, but I think when you take responsibility in something it's One, it's empowering and two, it gives you a lot more conviction when you're pursuing those things, right? That hedonistic sort of just, you know, moments of joy or this pursuit of something greater or the sense of fulfillment, right? I think, you know, we're human beings. There's a lot of things that we can do that make us happy. Sometimes it's watching TV and sometimes it's, you know, bouncing on the trampoline, right? Doesn't mean that's what I'm going to do all day in my life because I still have to be responsible for myself and for those around me. And so I think there, there does. You know, there is an attachment to responsibility with happiness. You know what I mean? Um, when I think about happiness, I think, you know, fulfillment comes in many different ways, right? Fulfillment. I, I, I associate fulfillment more with my values, you know, being able to live with purpose and being able to live within my values. And I find that to be more, you know, what brings me a sense of fulfillment. Right. But. The things I do that bring me joy and happiness, you know, I, I think are the ultimate drivers of like, let's say inspiration or peace or tranquility as opposed to when I would consider to be fulfillment. Right.

CK: Um, back up, slow down one more time.

Kfir: I'd say that, you know, the things that bring me joy and happiness, like, you know, fun, adventure, you know, exploration, learning, all of those things, those are not necessarily things that I would say would lead me to the sense of fulfillment per se. Right. Oh, okay. Yeah. When I think of fulfillment, you know, it's like, it has to do with what's your story, right? What's your, what, what is, what, what are you out to create? What are you out to, you know, exemplify? What are you out to lead with? Right. And if you can do all that and, you know, your place in the world and, you know, within your community or within your family or within your company. Is that, uh, you know, I guess you could say to some degree accomplishment or, you know, an example of, Hey, we did this because we stood true to what we believe in. That's that's fulfillment, you know, with Habitats, I don't look at our, you know, our company's growth at something that I would say is going to bring me fulfillment. I would say that I hit a place of fulfillment, you know, probably just through the pandemic when I realized how far we had taken the company from this idea to, you know, this, this thing that employs today, you know, thousands of people in, you know, I don't even know how many countries we're in and how many people it's impacted. And I look back and I say, you know, if it was all over tomorrow, would I consider it a success? And I'd say, absolutely. And would I say it's fulfilling? 100%. You know, would I say that that's what has, you know, what I consider when I think of joy and happiness? Probably not. You know, um, I don't think to myself. you know, I want to go do something fun, let's go work. Right. Or let's go get on a plane and, you know, open a hotel. It's fulfilling, but it's not necessarily, you know, the thing that I attach to joy and happiness.

CK: Oh, interesting. So what I'm hearing you say from the very beginning, 2010, if I recall correctly, you were in a clothing business. Is that correct? If I recall correctly. Okay, good. So good.

Kfir: Design and manufacturing.

CK: Very good. My memory served me right. Okay, awesome. So you were in the, you were in the, you were in the clothing industry, didn't work out because of X, Y, Z reason, circumstances. And then you had a reset and they realized, let me stabilize my wellbeing. And then you focus on happiness, joy, fun, adventure. That was a place of which allow you to, um, see new opportunities in a new way in the, uh, your reality in a new way. And then, and then what comes after that is fulfillment. Kind of like if I have to linearize it.

Kfir: I think if we had to put it in some kind of a linear path, maybe there's a few more, you know, we can come up with, right? Like, what are you out to create? Right. And like, what are you putting out into the world? And that will ultimately bring you fulfillment. At least for me, that's what I'm, you know, that's what I, I guess that's what I can attach myself to. But I think it wasn't a realization of happiness, you know, back then it was more, you know, um, the consequence of, or the result of the choices that I was making. I allowed myself to be present and to take a breather and to just be right. And amazing things started happening and it was fun and, you know, and I was happy. Yeah. You do that over and over again and you allow yourself to be in that place and You know, if you're, and maybe, you know, you can relate to this too. I mean, you've, you've obviously worked with a lot of different organizations, but we have this thing with achievement, with, you know, the pursuit of something, whatever the hell it is. Right. And if we're pushing so hard against it, based on whatever we think it is that we need to do to get there, there's a lot of resistance that comes with it. Right. When you're happy and you approach from a place of happiness and you lead with happiness and your purpose and your values, that resistance starts to fade away. Right. And more things happen, more cool opportunities open up. Right. And so after several years of sort of being on this journey today, I can say that happiness is, you know, my north. It is very much that because when I look back. Mathematically speaking, that was the consistent, that was the common thread, right? And even now, when I think about what I want to do in the future, whatever these next projects might be, whatever my life might look like, there's just no question that any business decision that I'm going to make has to come from a place of is this aligned with, you know, my personal happiness and wellbeing, right? Because that's not, I don't want to waste my time.

CK: I love that. So let me just pause real quick. Sure. So what I'm hearing you say that your internal compass, you know, whatever projects, relationships, podcasts you want to be on, your joy, your happiness is your inner guidance of what to follow. Is that an accurate reflection?

Kfir: Yeah, it has to be. And again, just to sort of caveat that it's not that Oh, I don't want to, you know, do this or put together this work or do X, Y, Z, or, you know, take on this heavy lift because it's not fun. Right. But there's, you know, if this is the trajectory that I'm on and this is something that's going to bring me joy and happiness and something that I believe in, then you, you, you do it. Right. And, and give you an example, I turned away various opportunities. I've turned away various projects because I just, I'm not interested. Yes. They're an incredible financial opportunity. Yes. It's a, it's a. It's an opportunity for me to grow professionally and to break through yet another milestone or leapfrog or whatever the hell it is, but it's not in alignment with the way that I believe I want to live my life, you know? Yeah. You know, whether it's where it's based or who it's with or, you know, what it looks like or whatever it is, that whole package has to just make sense, you know?

CK: So on Noble Warrior, we talk a lot, I mean, I'm all about supporting people, myself included, to have greater purpose, joy, and performance. I used to orientate myself, my inner compass was performance, whatever is going to get me the achievement, the success, all these things that you had talked about. Then it shifted to purpose, right? Allah, fulfillment, anything that's according to my core value and all these things. Joy was missing. Joy is new. That, that inner compass is new. It's only been a couple of years old and I love it. So, so for me, isn't like, oh, is this purposeful? Is it joyful? Is it performance oriented? In my opinion is the sweet spot is the main diagram in the middle. And then, yeah. So, so that's the way I oriented, you know, what I want to speak to on my podcast or a project I want to take on, what's the program I want to create, so on and so on. Anything you want to say about Anything else you wanted to say?

Kfir: Put it this way, you know, you don't have kids, do you? Not yet. Okay. You know how like your parents, and again, you know, I'm assuming that like this everywhere in the world, you know, your parents your whole life tell you, yeah, you'll understand someday when you have kids, you don't know what it's like, you know, when you have kids, when you're younger and you're fighting with your parents about something and you don't get it. And then they tell you, wait until you have kids, then you'll understand. Right. And you know how like your friends tell you, oh, you've never experienced love like this. You've never experienced joy like this, caring like this, vulnerability like this. And intellectually we know it, right? Because we're relatively intelligent people and we can understand the language and we can use our imagination. When you have kids, you realize how you had absolutely no clue, right? How it doesn't matter what anybody on the outside could have ever told you. in reality what you feel, right, and how it actually occurs for you, there's nothing that you can do to really grasp, you know, what that's like, right? And so any way you look at it, you're going to get hit by a train, right? You know, you understand it, you've been prepared your whole life, you understand that you're on the tracks, you understand the weight of the train, you understand what it's like intellectually, but that train's coming. And it's beautiful and it's incredible. And overnight it puts everything you've ever expected and everything you've ever known into the most radical perspective. Right. And, you know, there's countless cliches around, you know, fatherhood and around parenthood in general. And they're all nice. Not a single one I think can really embody and get it to land, right, in terms of the actual visceral impact it has on you. And I think, you know, when I think through joy and happiness and why that's also become so important is because, you know, logically so important is because when you have kids, right, and when you actually spend time with them and as they get older, you start having conversations with them and you start to look at how they live their life and, you know, you have, privilege to be present to it and to see how, you know, everything is fascinating. Everything is interesting. You know, that, that, that enthusiasm for life, it really puts everything in perspective. Like how much more are we looking for to make us happy? Right. And I know it's a cliche. I know it's been said a thousand times, but living through it ongoing, it really, really, really makes it so that, you know, You just, I mean, I don't know how to explain it. It's like, yeah, it's unlike anything else. And so that continues to play a massive, massive role in just about every decision I make is, is how can I instill my purpose and values into my two little boys into their life because of everything that they're going to be and everything that they're going to create in theirs.

CK: I love that. So what I'm getting is your kids are constant reminders to be that embodiment of happiness and purpose and fulfillment and responsibility.

Kfir: More than a reminder. I think, you know, more than a reminder. I think it's, I think it's, I almost look at my kids to hold me accountable. Right. And I check in with them. And I do everything in my power to not just, you know, give them a beautiful life, but really get them from an early age to understand the importance of the things that took me 40 years to figure out. Right. And I guess at the end of the day, that's every dad's, you know, will or hope. fun, you know, so it's definitely something that plays a massive role in, in, in every decision that I'm making today.

CK: So pulling yourself back to the shoes of the 2010 version of Cathiere, because you were, you were shutting the company down, you were stabilizing yourself, your personal wellbeing, and then you were jumping into a whole new industry that has nothing to do with your previous manufacturing and clothing line and all those things. Inevitably, there must be some self-doubt, insecurity, should I, shouldn't I? Or is there anything or nothing at all? You just kind of like, yeah, OK, it's going to turn out, it's going to be great. Walk us through that, that moment of like, should I, shouldn't I? And by the way, let me actually drop in another data point. It reminds me of the story of the Summit series, guys. Yeah, they're very different. Yeah, they give us some similar and then they basically just grab the balls and say, fuck it. You know, I want to do this. This is the life that I want. Then I just kind of go for it. So was there any kind of self-doubt at all doing that process?

Kfir: You know, I wouldn't say self-doubt. I would take it a step further. You know, to doubt something, you have to know what it is you're getting yourself into. Right. I think ignorance is bliss beyond. When you're doing something because it's fun and because it's exciting and because you want to give it a shot. Um, more importantly, because you believe it's important. Right. then somehow that starts to fog up pragmatism, right? It starts to cloud and blur out logic and reason and business sense, right? And whatever else. And so, and I think for good reason, you know, it takes, it takes that to create something, you know, something different and something impactful. Um, I wouldn't say self-doubt. I would say ignorance, you know? Okay.

CK: Thanks for being honest. I appreciate it.

Kfir: Yeah, no, for sure. I think in hindsight, you know, and I say ignorance, not in terms of like, can we create the experience? Can we bring together the community? Can we do. those things and create something magical, you know, that's not where I say we were ignorant or where I'd say that we were doubting. I think we just didn't really think about the business side. We didn't think about pragmatism. We didn't think about, you know, practicality. We just knew this is what we wanted to create and we believed it and holy shit, it's fucking worked out, you know? So that's the idea.

CK: I know that you're a burner, so it was very much of a Burning Man ethos of what can I, what beautiful art and beautiful experience can I bring to the world? I mean, I'm projecting a little bit. Let me know if I'm if I'm correct there.

Kfir: I mean, I went to Burning Man for the first time in 2011, and then last year I went to was my last year was my tenth burn. And in 2011, you know, I went and I think we got there on a Monday. No, we got there on a Tuesday, and about an hour after getting to Burning Man was, I would say, aside from my kids being born, was probably the most profound hour of my life, right? For many, many reasons. It wasn't because of the lights and the music.

CK: We have the time. Why? Why was it the most profound experience?

Kfir: So, so my wife and I, you know, we had a, we had a very, very deep friendship for about seven or eight years long before we became a couple. Right. It's like, I had a girlfriend, she had a boyfriend, we were living in the same neighborhood. We were always, you know, very, we just became very close friends. And that year I decided I was going to go to Burning Man and she was like, wait a minute, you're going to Burning Man? I'm joining you guys. You know, and it was a group of like, you know, three of my friends, like she's like, and she was just fun. So we. She decided to join us and the month or so leading up to Burning Man, Let's just say like energetically things started shifting. Right. And I was terrified.

CK: And so, uh, it was just- Terrified about what? The dynamic? Yeah. Yeah.

Kfir: The dynamic between her and I. And, um, you know, for seven, eight years, we're friends. Everything's great. Like, you know, we're very, like, we're very intertwined in each other's lives. And then that month or so leading up to it, things started kind of changing. Right. It was just weird and I was scared and it was, it was awkward as all hell. Right. Um, and my friends were telling me, they're like, just get out of your head. Don't worry. You know, blah, blah, blah. You'll get to Burning Man and whatever's supposed to happen, supposed to happen. We're going to go have this adventure. Right. So we drive out to Burning Man and, uh, you know, after like 15 hours or whatever the hell it was, I remember we got there, parked this absolutely horrible RV that we were all crammed into. Um, we, we get out and we just wanted to walk. And so we went out for this walk and ended up at some super weird, you know, horrible music at the time, like this little party, right. And everybody just felt good. And they wanted to dance and meet people like excited to be there. And I was super in my head doing this very awkward thing, like just super stiff, like kind of bizarre. Like if anybody was watching you, they're probably like, he's not okay. Right. And in that same headspace that I was in, completely out of the blue and no context, I went up to, you know, my wife today, I went up to her and just gave her a kiss and she freaked out. Oh yeah. And before she like, you know, respond. No prep, no words. No prep, no game, nothing. Right. It was so bizarre. Right. So like Casanova. forget about it right and then like immediately you know five i can't believe i'm like saying this while this is being recorded but like then i guess you know within a second you know she like looks up at me she's like Right. Like, what the hell was that? And I do it again. And then my friends see what's going on and they all walked away. Right. And they're like, what's that? And she looks up at me and she's like, wow. She's like, this is, you know, super overwhelming. Like, I don't know what to make of all of this. Right. And then I said to her, um, pretty much verbatim, I said to her, I'm like, look, you know, you and I have known each other for, you know, this long, we, We're basically on the moon right now, right? There's no cell phone signal, world war three could break out. We won't even know about it. You know, um, we're here on this adventure. Let's let our guard down and be open and vulnerable to one another. And whenever it comes up, comes up and let's have this experience together and see what happens. And if it's, you know, and as well as like worst case scenario, we go back to LA with a crazy story, best case scenario, who knows. And she looks up at me and she's just like, okay, you know, And that night, I remember just, I mean, it was just the most insane, you know, just things that can only happen at Burning Man, right? Happened, right? These, these little moments throughout the night and just these, you know, you want to call them coincidences, but they're not, right? All these little things that happen, right? And more stuff just starts coming out, and we're both, you know, just letting everything out. And by day three, you know, we're out in the middle of the playa, it's like probably 3 a.m., and we're just walking, right? And we start, you know, we're talking, and she tells me, she's like, I am so overwhelmed, I have no idea what to make of any of this. And I told her, I'm like, let's skip the dating part, skip the getting to know each other part. We're a couple, we're going back to Los Angeles and we're going to be together and everything else is going to work itself out. What do you think? And she says, yes. And it's been that way since, you know, and we've been together since then. And so, you know, and I'm giving you the short version. There was a lot of, you know, funny, interesting, psychotic moments, you know, throughout the whole week. But I'd say Burning Man definitely played a very big role, you know, in my life because where I was, you know, again, coming out of closing my company and then going to Burning Man for the first time and not just going there as a spectator, going there and throwing myself and saying yes to everything. Let's just go and experience this, you know, see what it's all about. That was like, it was a catalyst, right? It was, you know, I mean, you know, it's like, whether you like it or not, if you're present, right? You, there's no hiding, right? If you go there and you're guarded, then you're just going to watch like you're watching TV. Right. And so it played a big role in, in, you know, in, in Brahma at the same time. And, you know, and I think that, I don't know if you remember, I mean, obviously you remember your first burn. You coming out of your, your first burn lasts a year, right? It's until your second burn and mine was no different. And so, you know, the happiness I felt, the excitement I felt, all of these different things reinforced, you know, just whatever I'm doing is working. Right. Whatever's happening. is working and ironically enough, there's no resistance and it's effortless and it's insanely fun, you know, and so keep going.

CK: So there's many different things I can double click on. I do want to focus on the effortless part and the no resistance part. I think for me as an overachiever, my ego is really strong. So, you know, when we met, it's all about striving, you know, strive, strive, strive, you know, and what's the answer? Let's go, you know, biohacking, optimization, let's go, right? And then over the years I had to learn the art of effortless effort, right? That was, you know, go with flow kind of a thing. So anyways, without projecting too much of my story into yours, Has your life always been that way? Or what's your opinion or perspective around effortless effort? Is it just purely go with flow, wherever it happens, happens? Or, you know, there's still effort involved, a lot of discipline. Like, how do you think about effortless effort?

Kfir: You know, I think effortless effort is, you know, I'm not, I'm not like some You know, I'm a very open-minded and very free individual. Let's just put it that way. But I think I'm not what you would say. And I've never really, it's never really resonated with me. You know, this, a lot of people that are just, how can I put this in a diplomatic way?

CK: Uh, I'm going to just speak it straight. It's okay. You don't have to be diplomatic.

Kfir: I'm not one of those people that have ever identified with just go with the flow. Right. Because. Yes, go with the flow, meaning be present to what's going on around you a hundred percent, but put an effort into whatever it is you want to create. Right. You know, if you sort of zoom out from, you know, joy and happiness and responsibility and, you know, all of these different things, I guess you get to the creation, right? The creation step. Right. And I feel that. You know, we all have a responsibility to create, right. And, and, and life and, you know, whether it's art, whether it's, you know, business, whether it's, you know, whatever it is, we are creative beings. Right. And so. I feel that, you know, whatever you choose to go out and create and whatever you choose to put out into the world, it does take effort. Right. But in that process, be mindful and be aware of what you're putting your effort towards. Right. And, and how much am I fighting this? Why am I forcing this? Right. Why am I, you know, I want to get from A to C and I'm at step B. Why am I plowing my way through this one thing? Right. There's just, it doesn't make sense. Take a step back, take a breather and then figure out another way to get past B. Right. That's a little bit more effortless. That's a little bit more aligned. Right. And you know, a lot of people that I've worked with, a lot of people that, you know, I guess you could say are also in my, my social circle, my community, they're in a constant state of resistance. Right. And they're in the constant state of just, you know, like, uh, trying to break through this barrier to get to the next step. And. That's fine. If that makes you happy and it brings you joy to do that, knock yourself out. For me, it's more just, okay, I'm putting this much effort into it. Does it make sense? If it does keep going, if it doesn't take a step back, realign, find another way. Right? So it's not, Oh yeah, just go with the flow and everything is easy. No, easy and effortless are not the same thing. You know what I mean? And so, yeah, I mean, I guess that kind of sums it up, I think.

CK: I am thinking a lot about Effola's effort for me personally, because Bruce Lee has this beautiful articulation of be water, my friend, right? When you pour water into the cup, it becomes the cup. So a lot of people like to pass that around because like, yeah, just be like water, you know, go with flow. And yes, on the macro point of view. But what they forget is he took Bruce Lee decades of massive effort to get to the effortlessness. So I'm, I'm a huge believer of the discipline of putting an earnest and sincere effort in everything that we do so that we can, we have the spaciousness, we have alleviated the resistance, internal and external. So, so then when, when, when opportunity arise, when I'm meeting Kafir, whoever at a social event, doesn't matter. then it's effortless. But to go from, I'm totally awkward, introvert, shy to be a massive public speaker. I just haven't met a single masters who like, all right, I surrender. And then there's the mastery like that. I haven't. Have you? Have you ever experienced someone like that who

Kfir: I don't think anything, you know, I don't think mastering anything for that matter is effortless, you know, but I think when you think of achieving effortlessness, right. That is very much the milestone that is very much a goal, right. As opposed to a process, when you get to a stage where you can do what you do, right. Or you can, you know, and you're doing what you're doing rooted in your purpose or rooted in those values or those things that bring you happiness and you're doing those. effortlessly, that is, to get to that stage is definitely a milestone or an achievement or whatever you want to say. So it's not just let go and surrender and everything is going to be perfect. No, I don't believe in that.

CK: So one other thing that I noticed is your willingness to throw yourself in, into whatever situation, whether it's Burning Man or starting a new business, trusting your joy and fun and happiness into an events experience business. That's something that, is that an accurate read of who you are? I think so, you know, with, again, with the caveat that it's not so much that

Kfir: You know, I would just say yes to everything arbitrarily or whatever it is. I think that, you know, I've never necessarily been somebody that's afraid of either taking a risk or I won't do something because I don't know it. Right. Um, The process of learning is something I'm, I mean, that's like, that's half of it, right? That's that, that, that, that on its own, the, the, the personal growth and the learning and that journey, so to speak, is something that's so incredibly important. Right. And so I think that's a big part of how I like to approach things. Like, I don't know how to do that. Right. And I've never done that before. And okay, like, let's see what this looks like. Right. And I think there's excitement in that. Um, And again, I'm just, it just, you know, has to make sense. And I think there's a lot of things that you equally you say no to because they might be misaligned. Right. Which, you know, even now there's, there's a handful of projects, a handful of ideas and things that I want to do. They're so outside of my realm of anything I've ever done in my life. Truly, you know? Yet I have zero doubt that I'm going to do it and I'm going to make it happen. Right. And it's not coming from a place of ego. It's coming from a place of just excitement and I want to figure it out.

CK: Kindred spirit, I'm very much the same way. I believe that we're infinite learners. It doesn't matter the age, education, background. If there is a will, there's a way. And then for me, part of fun, the joy of life for me is let's keep challenging, you know, what we're able to do. And then wherever the chips may fall, they may fall. And that's OK. And, you know, either I win or I learn. Either way, I win. So that's the way I think about it. Do you feel like that's a quality? Cause you obviously know a lot of high performers, you know, people are very successful in various areas in life and in business. Do you feel like that's a quality that you can see the common denominators of the people who are enjoying life and are also successful?

Kfir: It's a tough one. Um, you know, obviously naturally I want to say yes, but I kind of struggle with that because a lot of these people that I know that are overachievers, are not people that I consider to be very happy.

CK: Right. Hence the caveat, happy and successful.

Kfir: Yeah. I mean, on the happy and successful part, on the happy and successful part, it's interesting because I think the stage in your life at which you've either, you know, allowed yourself to be happy or reached that level of success are sometimes different. Right. Um, I don't know. Say that sentence again. I feel that a lot of the people that I know that I consider to be happy and successful got to different stages. You know, they reached success at one point in their life and then realized it had nothing to do with happiness and then, you know, sort of embraced happiness at a later stage in life. Right. Um,

CK: Okay. So let's, let's double click on that point. Do you feel like knowing what you know today, success, happiness, purpose, all these things that, you know, it's pretty esoteric to talk about. Do you feel like that's a sequential thing, knowing what you know today, or do you believe that, Hey, you don't have to achieve financial success first, then purpose, then joy in sequential. You can actually start, it may be even an easier path, a simpler path. if you start growing whatever it is that you wanted to grow from the beginning. Does that make sense?

Kfir: It does. It does make sense. And I think, you know, it's a sensitive question, right? Because the prelude to anything that you and I have been speaking about since this conversation started is privilege, right? If I'm in a place in my life where I can prioritize my happiness and I can make decisions from a place of happiness, I feel that I've checked survival off the list. Right. And I think, you know, we're not equal. I think that people are not born equal. I think that, you know, there's so many different variants in humanity alone, you know, whether it's, you know, in our blood and DNA to the way and the conditions in which we're born into. And I think, you know, obviously what works for one doesn't work for everybody. Um, you know, knowing what I know today, I think it's all about context. Right. I think it's all about that, which is also why I believe that there's just no room anymore for business as usual. Right. I think that anybody on the planet today, if you have a company. And I think you and I spoke about this last time. It's like, whether you have a taco stand or you have a, you know, a hundred billion dollar company, there's just no room for impact to not be, you know, in your P&L reflected in your business model, in your operating model, everything else. And a big part of that is because. Privilege is something that I don't believe people speak about in the right context, right? There's nothing wrong with acknowledging your privilege. I'm very privileged. You know, you're privileged. We're both privileged to be able to even have this conversation right now. And so we can speak about, you know, the importance of happiness over material, right? Because our life allows us to. Others, not so much. And so I think context is how I would address that, right? Um, When I talk to my kids about it, you know, I try to explain both. I try to teach them from a young age that what we have and what we've created, it's not something that was given to us, but it's something that we did create and we did build and we did earn as a family. And at the end of the day, you know, not everybody has this and you know, other people have things that we don't have. Right. And so look at your life and understand what do you need? You need to eat and you need to survive, prioritize it, get yourself to that. You know, but at the end of the day, money, in my opinion, you know, is not something that I've ever associated with bringing me happiness. Right. Um, freedom. Yes. You know, nice things. Sure. But at the end of the day, And I, you know, what I've learned from two of my mentors is if you're worth X and your net worth increases the incremental, put it this way, happiness in your life. does not track against the incremental increase in your worth. Right. They're completely independent of one another. So then you have to ask what's driving me.

CK: Yeah. Right.

Kfir: Um, and I know that's a very long answer to a rather simple question.

CK: I mean, everything we talked about, what matters in life and business in general, in my opinion, we're teasing apart things that's hard to, isn't it? It's the affable, like what is success? What is joy? What's purpose? Like, well, okay. There's a thousand different ways to talk about it, but we're here to talk about Kafir's way of talking. So but but I do also have a gentle pushback of fear. Here's my opinion. This is a strong opinion. Much like what you said, there are different skill set. But there are learnable skill sets. Happiness is a skill set. Purpose is a skill set. You know, success is a skill set. So my personal belief is that, and you're correct to name it privilege or sensitive, you want to be sensitive about it. However, I've been broke before and I've been pretty well off. And for me, I just didn't have the skills of being happy when I was well off. Now I'm learning it. Knowing what I know today, I would tell people it doesn't ultimately matter with the status of your financial bank account. It matters to a degree, but ultimately it's about finding that joy, that happiness in the most simple moments. So that's the gentle pushback I have.

Kfir: No, and I, and I don't think I necessarily disagree with that. I think when I, when I think about the question, it's more of, you know, I think about it in the context of ambition, right. Or what you're driving towards or what you're trying to achieve. Right. And I think, you know, there's this idea that we have to do X, Y, Z to achieve happiness. Right. But happiness, like I said, it's a, it's a choice and you know, having kids is irrefutable proof of that. Right. You, you watch your kids. And you can see happiness without things. Right. And so we, we lose that obviously, you know, as we get older, but I think, you know, happiness is not a target. I have never necessarily considered that. I think I've just been oblivious to it. Right. Think about it. When you're growing up and you're going to school and you're meeting people, how many people actually teach you about the importance of happiness?

CK: No, it's a skill that I believe everyone should be taught, but unfortunately school don't teach that.

Kfir: 100%. And I think, you know, on that end, you know, love is the same thing, right? And I think, you know, you and I both probably learned this back in the day, but I think love is not some phenomenon, right? It's not some thing that happens. It's not this thing, it's a choice, right? It's you choose to approach things from a place of love. You naturally protect the things that you love, right? And so it's just, there's certain intrinsic things about our character that I think as we get older and we're You know, we can, we can have the opportunity to learn these things and experience them. It's very much that it's very much, you know, these things are not, I guess you can say a destination or a target to achieve. It's they're, they're all really a matter of choice.

CK: So speaking of choice, I'm going to come back to the impact point that you made earlier. So remind me if I don't come back. But I want to talk about mastery, effortless effort and choice. Because you made a choice to live your life a particular way. What are some of the disciplines that you're consciously taking on in the past that help you achieve a certain level of competency, mastery then? And then what are some of the disciplines that you're taking on today that you are actively trying to be cultivating that skill, that competency level towards mastery?

Kfir: Interesting. I think, you know, are you, are you thinking about Primarily like, like and again, we can move me asking you this question, but like specific like skills and whatever that is, or would it be previous failures? Would it be like, like a little unclear?

CK: Sure, sure, sure. Of course. Um, so for a time I was very intentional about studying the science of achievement, right? Habits, discipline, you know, all these new business, you know, product, culture, organizational design, all these things for a time and achieve a certain level of competency. Then I move my target to coaching. What does it mean to be an effective executive coach? Nowadays, I focus a lot on other things. So I'm curious for you, what were some of the things that you were very intentional about cultivating skill level that you have achieved some level of competency and mastery in then? And then what are some of the new areas that you want to be better at and then you're putting in the discipline in place to cultivate your level of skills?

Kfir: I mean, I think, you know, when I look back at the various things I've thrown myself into over the last, call it 20 years, right? I think the things that have worked out, right. Have ultimately been the things that have also made me happy as I keep going back redundantly. And I think along the way, you know, when I think about the disciplined or you know, how can I put it in, in again, simple terms, I have a tendency to blur the lines. I'm either on or I'm off. There's no, you know, work hours, personal hours, you know, whatever else. Right. And there's a fine line between passion and obsession. Right.

CK: What's the difference? What's the difference between the two?

Kfir: I think, you know, When I think of things I'm passionate about, right, I consider that, you know, a feeling, right? It's something that is just where it comes from, right? It's just like, I, I'm incredibly passionate about, you know, the current state of our oceans, right? It's the thing that keeps me up at night. It's the thing I think through. The oceans? I'm, I've been in the, I'm the happiest version of myself when I'm either, you know, underwater or on a boat in the water with no humans in sight, right? This is. the happiest version that I am of myself. I've been this way since I was 11 years old. And, um, when I think about my passion for, you know, for conservation, for creating a sense of empathy for our planet, for, you know, just all of those things. And I can be up for days, digging, reading, researching, connecting, systemizing, thinking about different ideas, you know, again, tying back to impact. and racking my brain around those things, primarily because I'm incredibly passionate about it. When I think about obsession, right, I could be obsessed about the solution to a problem. I can be obsessed about, you know, a function of something, right? Or, you know, I really want to be able to do X, Y, Z and prove it out, right? And so what goes into the time you're putting into it is just stemming from a different place. Um, you know, you can be passionate about things that may not yield anything. Right. Whereas oftentimes I could be obsessed with something and I'll go deep on it just because I want to learn about it or because I want to fix it or because I want to get my hands on it or I want to understand it. Right. And it's something a little bit more mechanical, but I'd say like over the years, you know, I guess you could say like, I've learned to be okay with it. Right. I've learned to be okay with. you know, it's okay for me to obsess with things. It's okay for me to go deep and want to learn and want to understand and want to grasp all of those things. By that same token, I'd say my biggest lesson is don't do that if it doesn't interest you. You know, if you have to do it, and it doesn't interest you, then you're not going to be good at it, right? It's probably not going to get you very far because it becomes a task or a chore you've become good at, but there's no implicit value outside of the outcome of whatever that task might be. And so, you know, today when I'm thinking about different projects or ideas that I have, And I roll deep on them and I would lead from a place of both passion and obsession in some cases. I try to be aware.

CK: Actually, I want to dig in on that because you mentioned that, you know, so what I'm getting from the difference between passion and obsession is this. What I get is, well passion is an experience, it's a feeling, it's an emotion that you have. It doesn't need to, you're trusting your curiosity, your interest, and perhaps ultimately devotion. But it doesn't, you're not attached to a specific outcome. Versus obsession, you know, you want to prove it out. So there's an outcome that you're trying to get at. Is that the difference? Is that the nuanced difference?

Kfir: For me, I think, I think that is a good way of putting it. Um, and if I had to translate that into like say business terms, right. You know, I could be incredibly passionate about conservation. I'll just say, and I could be completely obsessed with defining an incredible business model, right. That's going to be that impact business model. That's going to, you know, have that impact upon that I'm incredibly passionate about. My mind is two very different distinctions because I could be obsessed with something I'm completely not passionate about. Right. You know, I, I find myself digging and learning and reading and, you know, learning the code was a perfect example many years ago. Right.

CK: You know how to code? What?

Kfir: That's awesome. I used to, but then I lost track. Right. And when I started learning, you know, I wanted to know, I just, I wanted to know things. And I became obsessed with understanding, you know, this is 25 years ago trying to learn the most basics of, you know, how to structure a SQL database, right. Or whatever it was, right. And, and learning how to just write basic code. And I was obsessed with it. I wasn't passionate about it by any means. It wasn't something that I could say brought me joy, but I was so obsessed with like really learning and understanding how that works out there. Right. But there's no other feeling besides it. When I learned, it wasn't like, oh, I'm happy or I feel at home. It was just like, okay, I got it. Now I can use that and do something impactful with it. Right. And that's, I guess to give you the two different realms I've always looked at it.

CK: Really interesting. Hmm. Cool. So, uh, in psychology, so I actually looked into the science of motivation quite a bit. So there's intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is something that is fun, is enjoyable, brings a lot of joy and an adventure, right? So you can do it by yourself without any, no one, if no one knows what you're doing, it doesn't matter because ultimately it brings you intrinsic Motivation. So that's what it sounds like. Ocean conservation it is for you. And then there is the extrinsic motivation. You can unpack it into two different buckets. One is really about purpose and meaning. You reinforce certain identity that you have. For a lot of men, you want to be a provider. I want to live a long and healthy life. I'm an athlete. These are things that it's not necessary for me. Working out isn't necessarily fun, but I do it because it reinforced my identity. So that falls into that. And then there is the you do it because of other obligation, people pleasing or somebody else out of guilt, shame or people pleasing. You do those things. Um, so anyways, I don't know if that framework tracks with what you just said, but when I'm, that's what I'm getting.

Kfir: I think it does. I mean, I think, you know, like I said, I mean, when I, you know, just to sort of wrap, you know, and sort of close the circle on that one, I feel there are a lot of things that I may obsess over that I'm not necessarily passionate about directly. And there's a lot of things that I'm very passionate about that I don't obsess over. Right. Um, and I would say one is much more driven by feelings and emotions and values. And the other one is, you know, much more, I guess you could say mechanical or rooted in some kind of function. You know, it sounds boring as hell, but that's kind of.

CK: Nope. Not at all. Not at all. So do a segue about relationships. I assume, since you run a hotel and hospitality and all that, you live in different countries, you live in different locations, you probably know thousands and thousands and thousands of people. How do you think about relationships today?

Kfir: That's interesting. I've also recently learned about my human design and that's also played a big part in like, you know, sort of me embracing a part of this, you know, how I would normally answer that. But I think Yes, you know, we, we started off Habit Us and it was very much all about community, right? It was about bringing people together and doing so through incredible experiences, right? It was how do you create human connection through meaningful, impactful, shared experiences. Now the word community, right. And especially in today's, you know, business world and whatever else, community is just people look at community and they think, you know, or they just substitute it for mailing list, right. They'll say we have a mailing list. That's our community. But really what happens is if you make a friend, right. And you are in this incredible event and you have five people. And they have this amazing experience together and they walk out of there as friends, right? You do that at scale and you have a community, right? With or without the mailing list. And doing what we've done at one point, we were very much, you know, the community leaders, so to speak, or we were very much sort of the stewards of this community or, you know, uh, how can I put it, you know, And again, it sounds awkward to say, but at one point it was like, this is our community, right? But communities and friends and people on your network and these relations, they don't belong to you. Right. And so this circle was growing and growing and growing and growing. I mean, every place we'd go, every hotel we would open, every event we would go to. I mean, it's like, I have so many people that know who I am that I don't necessarily remember them. But we might've had an incredible conversation at one point, we might've had a moment or we might've, you know, been in the same room and an incredible experience together. And I think, you know, there was, there was a point, right, where the business, right. And the, the organization, right. Um, grew and the mechanics of it grew to where what we were doing actually wasn't you know, curating a community, but rather creating the spaces for these communities to thrive and for these people to gather. Right. And so the model and the function of the company, so to speak, shifted, right. We're now creating these global spaces and that has a direct impact on my relationships and on my connection with these people and on my interaction with these people. Right. And I think, you know, Ironically enough, it was somebody that I met many, many years ago, um, through the work that you and I have done together, you know, ages ago that he wrote this book. And I remember in this book, he showed me, he's like, you're going to get to a point in your life where people are going to matter or they won't. And it's okay for some of the people that are arguably the closest to you in your life to just not matter. And it's perfectly okay for them to fall away or for you to break away from them. Right? Not intentionally, but for it to sort of be a by-product of what happens, right? And so, you know, today, I think after having this sort of growth in terms of like the social side of things, right, where we are basically bringing hundreds, if not thousands of people together around the world, these incredible experiences and we're corralling them and we're connecting with them. It's, it's just this really beautiful thing that we were doing and it grew and grew and grew. And today I look at it and think, how can I keep my network and my circle as small and as tight as humanly possible? Right? Because the time that I have, right, I want to spend it in different ways. And the conversations that I have, I want to be mindful of who I'm having those conversations with. Yeah. And it's not because I'm a snob or because I'm an egomaniac or because I think I'm special. No, I think that the one thing that we have in life that no matter what we do, we will never get back is time. Right. And again, I go back to my time with myself alone, without any, you know, anybody else around, which I just don't have, right. My time to, you know, create or listen to music or be with my family or go dive or do whatever it is I want to do. you know, there's that. But relationships and people, they, you know, the right relationships are reciprocal, right? You receive and you give. A lot of times it's one way, right? You know, more often than not, they're not binary. And so what I have found, again, and I hate to I think this might sound bad, but it's like what I found is that like, you know, being mindful and selective of how you're spending your time and with who you're spending your time, and to what degree is also a matter of your responsibility. Right. So when I think about it, you know, and I, and I, you know, and I had this conversation ironically enough with somebody very dear to me about a week ago, I said, you know, ask yourself, like, why are you constantly surrounding yourself with all of these people? Why do you always have to have an entourage? Why are you always putting yourself out there? Why do you have to do all of these things? What, what is it contributing to you in terms of your personal growth? Right. And sometimes it's. helps me run away from my problems or it helps me, you know, feel validated or it means I don't have to confront the things I need to confront or because I lack the tools to actually focus on something else or whatever it may be. And I think, you know, for me, those questions are really, really important because how, how can you connect with somebody really, really lovely and it's a beautiful friendship and then consciously choose to not make time for it, right? I don't think there's a pretty way of saying it though, but it's okay. By the way, I know that you are

CK: You weren't apologizing for it, but you were kind of speaking about it with a little bit of a caveat. That's not the impression I get. What I'm getting from what you're saying is you value your time. It's so important for you. Therefore, you want to spend it with people that's near and dear to your heart. And I think that's a very honorable way to think about who you are and what you get to contribute. In addition, right, this company that you build, create containers and spaces to allow other communities to thrive. And that's great. And that's a professional offer. And this is how you think about your personal relationships. I think that's both is fine. Both is great.

Kfir: I think, and how did you put it before? It's a gentle pushback. The profession, sure, became professional, but I cannot begin to explain to you the joy and happiness and, dare I say, fulfillment that I experience today when I bump into people around the world that have met and connected in our spaces years ago that we were a part of. And that I feel like, you know, I mean, I don't even know how many countries I can say today that I can go and land in. And I know that I have place to stay, right? Because I have people there that I could just reach out to and I feel comfortable doing so. And there, you know, and I think that that's a beautiful, I'm not going to say a by-product. I would say that that was the driver for what we were doing. So professional offering. Yes. You know, that's how we scale and we grow and that's the thing that we do. Right. But. I would say that that was very much the fuel, right? That was the thing that pushed us. Today, I think, you know, when I think about how I want to spend my time and the relationships that I am, I'm not going to say that I invest into, but the ones that I'm consciously pursuing, right, are ones that Either I can be of service to somebody else, right? And I can really help because I understand that what I have that I can give to them effortlessly will make a world of difference in their life. And I'm very generous with that because of what I get in return, right? I believe we have to give. And so with things like that, I do find myself spending a lot of time at the same time, you know, If I'm having, if I'm hanging out with friends, I want to hang out with friends that might stimulate me intellectually, that might challenge me, that might, you know, I might learn something from, right. If I'm pursuing a new relationship with somebody, you know, strategically, so to speak, because I want to learn from, you know, because I want to do something that I don't know how to do. And I don't doubt myself and I want you to teach me, right. And that might be selfish, but what I get out of helping and being there effortlessly for others, that person gets the same for doing that for me, you know, so I justify it. But, uh,

CK: I love the way you think. I mean, the best way to learn and going back to geeking out. Right. That's another reason why I'm number one. Appreciate being here, spending your time with me. That's one. But also just the nerding out about like growth and learning. For me, my mental model around best way to learn is teach what I know to a few people, you know, who is behind me. mastermind with people who is about my level and then learn from those who are a few steps ahead of me and then doing these things continuously. For me, this is the best way to learn. Any other thing you want to say about that?

Kfir: I mean, I that that resonates deeply and that was something that, you know, I think, you know, has been taught to me or explained to me in various you know, various ways, I guess, over the years. In one sense it was, you know, you need to be able to have your peer group and your friends to be able to just enjoy life with and, you know, remove yourself and co-create with and whatever. You need to be able to have mentors and advisors and teachers that you all learn from. You need to be able to have, you know, whatever the other word was for those that you can teach and those that you can be of service to. And there's also, I think scientifically, there's a number of how many actual real relationships we can potentially have. Right. And it's not infinite, right? It's not even that many. And so when you start to become present to the amount of people that you can really go deep with and have those long lasting relationships with is not, it's a finite number and it changes throughout your life. You become more conscious. Right. And, uh, by no means in life. you know, antisocial or a snob or an asshole. Right.

CK: But I think that thought never crossed my mind, my friend.

Kfir: But I think at the same time, it's like, you know, when when you think about it, there's a lot of people in my world that need to be, you know, friends with every single human in the room. They need to be known in an audience of 500 people. They need to be the one that everybody knows. I've never been that person.

CK: Right.

Kfir: And that's not what has ever fed me.

CK: Right. So so let me ask you. So tactically, again, right on your roster of people, contactless, probably thousands and thousands of people. Yeah. And and by the way, people watching this, chances are that's like them as well. Right. We have all these followers and acquaintances and then people who are our real friends in life and they're a close group of circle. How do you manage it all? Because some people then I'll give you some people's perspective and then you can tell me how you manage it. So you have some time to think about it. Some people basically they don't they use CRMs. So that way they can systematically touch base and send cars and birthday presents and all these things. That's how they do it. Some people don't use any of that. They just whatever comes to mind and just text them, call them. I was just thinking about you. How are you doing? What do you do?

Kfir: Definitely not the CRM. I'm not, you know, kind of my wish I was that hyper-organized and strategic with my contact management. Although I do keep a very neat and tidy database of contacts, but I think, you know, my, when I, when I think about, you know, Gabby's just, I have people in my database. I have thousands of peoples and thousands of records between different platforms of people that I am connected to in one way or another. at any given time, the circle of how many of those people are actually relevant in what I'm doing now or what I'm doing in my life or in the immediate short term or near term or whatever, That circle is not very big, right? Because I'm only ever working on a handful of projects with a handful of people or connecting with a handful of friends or doing whatever it is. And so it's very much, you know, what I'm hyper present to. Of course I have all my, you know, tools and scheduling and calendars and, you know, whatnot, but I'm not actively out pursuing and, you know, building all of these relationships. I wish, you know, that's a skill set that I wish I had.

CK: And to give you an example, I was hoping you could teach me something because you know so many people.

Kfir: I know a lot of people, you know, I didn't even know a lot of people, but what does that really mean to know a lot of people, right? You know? And so, so when I think of. You know, how that can translate into call it a missed opportunity, right? Because there is a missed opportunity. And then I think being able to manage and maintain relationships only for the sake of maintaining and managing those relationships without any target is, is a skill. And I think it's something beautiful that I wish I was better at, right? My, my co-founder, you know, Eduardo, when we started Habitus, right, you know, he's relatively well-known, you know, around the world through his music and his, you know, his creativity and whatnot. And I think even today, you know, we hang out and he'll bring up a name from the past. Somebody that I remember was like, awesome, really, and a solid person that today I wish I had a relationship with because we fell off. And he's like, oh yeah, no, I still keep that person, you know, in the loop. And we still touch base every now and then, right? And it's so important to be able to do those things because you want to be able to communicate to somebody and show them that, Hey, you know, you're still, we haven't spoken, we haven't connected, we haven't transacted, we haven't done anything in two, three years, but you're still, you know, out there and I'm still here and, you know, let's keep that broader circle between us. And that's a skill that I would say I probably don't have, you know, and I think I could get a lot better at doing, but, um,

CK: Well, it sounded like you had a good business partner that has that skill, so then he can continue to. Yeah.

Kfir: I mean, listen, we're both very different personalities, you know, extremely different personalities in that respect. And we're, we complete each other's sentences and we're connected at the hip, you know what I mean? But I think that's also what makes, you know, strong partnerships. It's, it's to be able to embrace the opposites. So.

CK: So part of your brand is luxury for the soul. You want to go a little bit deeper on and perhaps maybe tie it back to impact that you mentioned earlier. You made a provocative statement. There's no room for no impact in the P&L. Maybe we can start there. Like, what does that mean for you?

Kfir: I mean, I think, you know, Well, when it comes to when you start up a luxury for the soul, that's something that I don't remember who came up with that exact expression, but I think. We, we needed to demonstrate and define that traditional luxury is obsolete. That's not what people really need. That a much more visceral and, you know, human centered and emotional luxury is, is really what's important. Right. And, you know, what is that, right? What does that mean? And I, and I stand by that because, you know, I can count. I mean, you and I both potentially, but I've stayed, I don't even know how many nights, I don't know how many nights in my life I've stayed in hotel rooms, right? But it's a lot and it's all over the world. And I've stayed in absolutely ungodly, horrific places. And I've stayed in, you know, stunningly mind-blowing places. I can probably count on one hand, how many of those stays or how many of those places I've been. I would consider to be an experience, right? Because it's that few. And when I do think about what the experience was, it oftentimes have nothing to do, it oftentimes has nothing to do with that traditional sense of luxury that we're sort of told is what justifies a price point or justifies what we understand to be valuable, right? So how do you kind of flip that around, right? What is important, right? Well, experience is luxury, right? Connection is luxury, right? Um, that software, the stories that you tell, those are the real luxury, right? You want to be able to come back and talk to your friends about what you experienced as opposed to coming and telling them how incredible the faucet was or, you know, how pretty the room was, right? Like that's not the thing. Right. Um, great. And you stayed in a six star hotel. You had somebody chase after you and, you know, do everything you wanted to do. Okay. You know, if that made you happy, awesome. I'm not taking you away from that. But at the same time, the story would be a little bit more interesting if it involved, you know, a conversation you had or music you heard or a mind blowing sunrise you saw or some incredible thing that you did. did, that wasn't attached to the traditional luxury. Right. Because that story is what matters. Right. And so how do you summarize that up into one catchy sentence to put, you know, in an investor deck or on a website or whatever it is, you know, redefining what that luxury is. Right. And I think that that's where, you know, sort of.

CK: I like that.

Kfir: You know what I mean?

CK: I mean, you and I, we know the concept called enrollment, right? Life is all about enrollment in the long term. I mean, another word for enrollment would be narratives, right? Narratives about yourself, narrative about your relationship, narrative about your company and what it does for humanity, narrative of what humanity ultimately matters in the whole grand scheme of the universe. To me, these are just all narratives. Not to make it too overly simplistic. So Luxury for the Soul is what I'm hearing is you're trying to capture the thing that matters when you travel. The sunset, the experiences, the stories from the locals and all these things. How do you do that as a company to capture these enrolling stories? And it's also designed specifically for the aha moments. What do you call it earlier? Human-centered emotional luxury.

Kfir: You know what I mean? It's, it's very much what it is. And I think that's how we started the company. That's how we started our events. Right. Um, we had, you know, how we did it, I would say is that we, we played with different methodologies, I guess you can say. Um, I hate that word, but, but you know, that was more or less it, and I'll give you an example, right? We, when we, we started off doing events, right. Um, you know, my background is designing and manufacturing, I can walk you through a common thread between fashion and, you know, designing an event, right? So there is a common thread. And when we would go out and put together these events, you know, we had some really awesome programming, you know, we had incredible music, amazing food, you know, beautiful people. I mean, it was just awesome. Incredible locations.

CK: I mean, to one of your events, so I can attest. Yeah, it's beautiful. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kfir: Okay. Oh, it was a while ago. Yeah, yeah. Very early on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So when we would do that, we would never actually, give people the itinerary. We would never give people the program. We would never tell people, you know, here's what's going on because that's not what the value is. We would never announce artists. We would never, you know, give away the headliners, right? Because if you're coming because of that, the value proposition, but that's not our value proposition, right? So it doesn't matter what the headliners, doesn't matter what, you know, is in the program. You just need to trust us. Right. And we had our values and we had our, you know, sort of non-negotiables, right. And to give you an example. One of the things that, you know, one of the things that was, there were two things that we did that I think kind of surprised people at first. Um, but we stood our ground and it worked out quite beautifully is, you know, we would have people emailing us and saying, you know, Hey, this is a $5,000 ticket or a $3,000 ticket or whatever the hell it costs. And they're like, can you please share with us, you know, the itinerary or the program or what's going to be there. We would tell them, fortunately we can't, you know, it's so-and-so and, you know, we reward it nicely and respectfully. And sometimes people would just be like, we wouldn't hear from them again. Other times that excited people and they would just, you know, jump in. But the two things that I think we did that were different, right, in the events. The first is we would tell people, you know, the gate is open from 6 PM to 8 PM on Friday, right? And you have to arrive between six and between eight and at 8 PM the gate closes. And if you're, and you're not going to be allowed to come in late and if you're stuck in traffic, turn around, go back home and you're also not getting your money back. And we didn't tell that to people because we wanted to do hassles or because we thought this is, you know, we're better. No, it was because we would explain to them, you know, you show up to so many things in your life on time, right? To school, to work, to flights, to workshop, to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. When the hell was the last time you made that same level of commitment to showing up for yourself? simply to have fun and to connect with other people and to treat yourself to it. Right. And so we were very, very firm about, you know, that you have to show up with integrity for the sake of having fun. Right. Not just because it's work or something fancy. Right. So that was one. The other thing was there's something incredible that happens when everybody arrived and leaves at the same time. Right. When people walk into a space and they all walk in together, You know, they don't really know each other and everybody's kind of there. And then there's the first dinner and then there's the first program and there's the first thing that happens. And this sort of, you know, evolution of the relationships that are being formed and the connection between people happens. It's incredible because you have 150 people all moving together. Right. And that's amazing. It can't happen when people come late or the second day or whatever else it is, because then it's off. And so that was something that we definitely realized early on was that, you know, and even to this day, whenever we would host events at our hotel, people would say, you know, can I arrive two days later? We would tell them, unfortunately not, you know, we can't stop you from leaving early, unfortunately, you know, but it's important that everybody arrives together because that's part of what, you know, brings everybody together. Um, The other thing was trust, right? Trust played a big, big, big part in this. And we would tell people, you know, we ask you to trust us with your time. We ask you to trust us with, you know, your weekend and your experience. Um, we would, you know, people, we, we, we wanted to be aspirational, but not exclusive, right? We wanted to be implicit. And so we had a very simple form. Uh, people would call it an application, but it was a form that people would fill out before they can buy a ticket. And the form simply said, you know, time is our most valuable commodity. Please tell us why you choose to trust us with your time and why this experience speaks to you. That's it. There's no right answer. And sometimes people would write us and say, you know, I am friends with fear. I'm friends with Eduardo or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, whatever. And the person who was replying to the emails would say, sorry, please take the time to fill it out. And, you know, sometimes we wouldn't really hear back from that person. Fine. Other times people would write to us and tell us, you know, a lot of my close friends have been, they say it's beautiful, or I hear there's, you know, there's great music and, you know, this experience speaks to me because it just looks incredibly fun. And I know a lot of the people in there and da, da, da, da, da. Amazing. Great. Join us. Nine out of 10 times, what we found was that. People would write us an essay about what they're concerned with life and why it speaks to them on a human level and what they hope to get out of it. And I mean, they would just unload, right. And we still have them saved and they're beautiful, you know, beautiful. Now, imagine you have 150 people showing up at the same time to a place they know nothing about, right. And they're choosing to trust. The same time, every one of those people have taken the time to think about why they're showing up. Right answer. You don't all have to be here for the same reason, but you've at least taken the time to think about and get present to why you are showing up. How many other things in your life do you actually do? Right. When you think about why you're showing up and you get present to why am I doing this? Right. When that happens, it's fucking awesome. You have an incredible group of people. from all walks of life that are cracked wide open, that are so excited to be there, that when it starts to rain and the power goes out and the kitchen collapses and all this stuff happens, none of it matters because people are just stoked to be there together experiencing all this amazing stuff. Right. And that is also why everything we did kind of went viral at the beginning, you know, and it worked. It was this idea of how do you crack people open? Right. Um, You know, as the events grew and evolved and we got into, you know, hotels, then the conversation turned into, okay, how do we adopt that to hospitality? Because now we're casting a much wider net throughout the whole world. So for us, it became, you know, how do we teach our staff how to communicate with people? How do we show our staff how to interact and how to. participate in creating this person's experience, right? And really what it comes down to is purpose, right? When we started hiring people for the hotel, you know, it wasn't by any means a graceful opening, but when we, or hiring for that matter, but when we started hiring people, You know, we had this, this girl that, you know, she still works with us today. She's an incredible human being. Um, she came to us and she's like, oh, I can do HR. Okay. Do you have any experience? Well, no, but I can learn. Like, okay, fine. You're hired because we just needed to go. And she worked her ass off. You know, today she's, she's just a powerhouse and an incredible person, but she would hire people who were, you know, on paper professional. Right. They're a five-year experience bartender, five-year experience server and housekeeper and front desk and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. So they had the skillset when we hired them. And then very quickly, we realized that what, what they were doing wasn't necessarily translating on our brand values and our promise and our vision. Right.

CK: Hmm.

Kfir: So we changed our hiring strategy and we said to her, forget about hiring people with skills, go back and hire people with values and purpose. And let's get to know them on a human level, connect with them on a human level and understand who they are, who their families are, what they do, what brings them joy and happiness and whatnot. And then we'll teach them the skills, right? It's a lot easier to teach somebody skills than it is to get them to adopt a culture, right?

CK: And so. Let me actually double click on that note, because that's an important piece. I wanted to ask you this. So you had the wherewithal to hire for soul effectively, purpose, brand value and vision, right? People who are aligned, but not necessarily have the competency level in terms of skills that you want. So when you think about this, do you build that into the potential quote unquote setbacks, failures, you know, buffers, the cost of ramping them up? And as you scale and you're taking on bigger risks, does that margin of risk now become tighter? Tell us a little bit about that. A lot of people do say what you're saying, and I'm a believer in that as well. But practically speaking for the startups, for the upstarts, that is hard to fathom. Like, how do you build that in as you're coming up? You know what I mean? And you've walked that path already. Now you're hiring thousands of people. So you have thought about scaling as well. So anyways, Long, complicated question.

Kfir: Love to hear what you got from my question. I'll tell you. And I, and, and, you know, I might, am I not necessarily, I mean, some of the people in our, in our company, our organization may not necessarily resonate with this, but I stand by that 1000%, right. With full conviction. And I will say with the challenges that comes with it and the risk that comes with it, it's the way to go, right? Because what you get in return is exponentially more valuable to the company than efficiency, right? A short-term efficiency, right? Then that person that has that skill. Now, of course, there's a balance, right? You know, it depends who you're hiring. It depends what that person's function is. Yes. As a blanket, I would say whether I'm hiring somebody back of house and administration that doesn't interface with a guest, that person still needs to align with our brand. He still needs to align with our values. He still needs to be a human that I would very much love to connect with. Right. At the same time, you know, I'm not going to make that person the CFO if he lacks the skillset. Do you understand what I mean? Now. Any good leader, in my opinion, right? Their function is the core function of a good leader is to empower your team, in my opinion, and to be able to make them just better at what they're doing and more connected to their why, right? Their sense of purpose. That's how you're going to get what you need out of them, right? And when we did what we did, it was for us a very quick validation that it was the right choice, right? Because all of a sudden we brought in people that have never eaten at restaurants like we had, for example, right. They didn't even serve at a table at a restaurant that our caliber, yet they were by far the best on the floor. They were performing, they were outperforming everybody else. Right. And the reason for that is because. What we leaned heavily into was who they were as people, as opposed to what they can do with their skills. Right. And so the satisfaction that they got and the sense of, you know, how can I put it? Somebody said it recently, the emotional salary that they received in additional to their compensation, so to speak, was invaluable. Right. Now, I guess my message to anybody listening is, you know, Your pay or your employment package or whatever it is you're giving somebody when you're hiring them is either good or low or it's high or whatever. Right. But ultimately, you know, that shouldn't be what you're going to use to keep people working. Right. Because it means that what you're doing is you're giving them, you're attaching their longevity and performance in the company to their job security, right? And if you're motivated to do your job because of job security, respectfully, I don't identify with that. I don't think that job security is a motivator, right? The emotional salary on the other hand is much harder to replace, right? You know, when I look to see, you know, and we've had ups and we've had downs. And when I look to see when people have left, it's because their emotional salary, so to speak, has gone out the window. And it's very easy for them to get a job that might pay them either a little bit more or a little bit nicer, a little bit closer to home or a little bit more convenient or whatever it is. Right. But if those are the things that are keeping somebody working with me, You know, that's not necessarily my goal, right? I got it.

CK: So, so double clicking on that real quick here. Cause that was the chief culture officer. I've hired, I don't know, hundreds of people, you know, so hundreds of people I've interviewed with the company and so forth. So here's a debate, you know, I. come from a place of, I want to know who you are so that I can see if our company is the best place for you to thrive, right? But then also my friend reminded me, they want a job. So they may not be consciously saying things, but they do want a job. So as a way to impress you, so they can get the comp package that looks awesome and all those things, all the perks. So how do you, how do you close to their true why, in addition to the paycheck and the perks and all these other, you know what I mean? How do you get to their truth? Have you figured out a way to get to that?

Kfir: Why would, why would you think that they know their why? Right? They don't have the luxury. They've never had the luxury of being able to even ask themselves the question of what's my why? I need to survive. Job security. What's the shortest path to getting this job? How fucking incredible is it to give somebody the opportunity to discover their why? Right? That's everything. It really is.

CK: Now, do you ask about their why during the interview process or do you ask about their why after they get in so you can inculturate them to this is a safe space. You know, you've got a job already. Now let's go deeper. You know what I mean?

Kfir: I think, you know, This was a long time ago. This was, you know, let's see, it's been five years, I think.

CK: I love that five years is a long time ago for you.

Kfir: I mean, last eight years, there's been so many things that have happened that it's like, you know. I just, I, I'm blown away that sometimes I think back and I think it's only been five, six, seven years, but, but I think, you know, our company has grown so much to where, you know, I'm no longer the one doing the hiring. I'm no longer doing the recruiting. And, you know, I did that for a very short period of time when we had our first hotel, when we had our second hotel. Right. And, you know, whether it was interviewing the general managers, whether it was, you know, our department heads and whatever else, I was very much. You know, I was much more hands-on in that process, but as the company grew and today has completely outgrown me, right? I can't keep up with the company's growth. Uh, you know, it's very hard to continue. I mean, how can I put this? I'd say that sometimes people and companies make decisions on hiring. based on whatever they think they need to quote unquote succeed or get to the next milestone or whatever it is. And when you have a hotel that somebody has held accountable to opening on this date, right? They're going to do whatever they need to do to open and they're going to do the absolute best job they can. And they're going to do everything in their power to bring on the right people. But you know this better than anybody else. There's going to be turnover. There's going to be, you know, ups and downs and whatever else. And so I would say that our approach has changed. to where we're also putting a much stronger emphasis on the onboarding, right? We have, just to give you an example, a task force. We have a group of people that ironically enough, most of which, you know, I'd say either Eduardo or I hired many, many years ago or, you know, call them the old timers, right? It's only been five years. But, uh, this group of people, they carry the torch of, of what this brand, you know, was out to put into the world, right? And they were some of our earliest hires. And today we send them out around the world to go and spend two, three months to onboard our teams and instill that culture in them. Right. And to show them how we actually operate and what we're out to create and what's in it for them and what they can actually get out of it. And, and so it's a little bit of a different approach and it's incredible. You know, we just opened Atacama. I think it was a week ago we opened it and I got a message from two of our two of our guys on the ground out there and it was a little beautiful message and telling me you know like how rewarding this has been for them you know to be able to go there and share this now with a staff of over 100 people that they're the ones doing what we did for them five years earlier, right? And they did the same thing in the Middle East and they did the same thing, you know, in, in various parts of the world. And we're going to continue to, and it's, so it's a little bit different.

CK: So I want to ask you a question, right? Cause even for a company, cause that, you know, uh, the company that was at as chief culture officer was You know, 15 all the way to 250. Right now there are 600. So I hear, you know, from very close distance that it's really hard to maintain culture, especially as a company scale. Now you, my friend, have a global a task force. Do you adjust how you do it so that it fits more local culture? How do you maintain it? Do you use like McDonald's style rule book? Here's the McDonald University handbook. I'm assuming not, but you know, that's one way of doing it. Another way of doing it is like, how do you do it? So then the culture, this ineffable quality, you know, still remains as pure as possible versus letting it dilute as you scale and expand all over the world.

Kfir: So to go back to what you said at the beginning, you said that you find that as companies scale, right, it's hard to maintain culture. I will. How can I put this? That is a I mean, that is arguably a fact. That I will. Tried to refuge for as long as I possibly can. I don't think it's scale that is the killer, right? I think it's speed, right? That ultimately does it. I think.

CK: Oh, because how fast things grow.

Kfir: Yeah. And I think that at the end of the day. You know, there's a give and take, right? There's this, there's this give and take in terms of, you know, are you going to just show steady growth curve? Are you trying to create a, you know, what's your growth story look like and how ambitious and blah, blah, blah. But I think, you know, when I think about those areas that we've lacked, right. It's because we've had to do things with a sense of urgency and then we've had much more turnover. Or we've had damage to the culture of the company. Right. And I mean like outright damage. It's not, you know, the culture sucks. It's not, you know, the culture's changed. It's that explicitly hurt the culture of this company.

CK: Like what? Can you give us maybe a tiny example?

Kfir: And there's been people that have come in and out of our company, whether it's on a hotel level, on a corporate level that, you know, were hired and they might've been hired because we had a timeline or we had a target to hit or whatever it was. Well, we had a milestone because of what was going on or we couldn't remove that person because of what was going on in the broader organization or whatever it was. And that had a lasting impact, not a positive impact, right? It had caused damage. And so I go back and I say, you know, there's the speed element, but also how important is it, right? Our company today, you know, Eduardo and I, you know, we started off this idea, right? We had this vision. It was far from a business when Oliver came on board and he's our third co-founder and he is the CEO of the company and he is a machine. He is superhuman. You know, the guy is brilliant. I think that in the last five or however many years, it's been eight years, you know, what I've learned from him is in value, right. At the same time, you know, we're very different people. And whereas for me, right. being unforgiving and unapologetic and uncompromising with the human quality of what we're trying to cultivate. is so much more important than the speed at which we're growing. Right. Here's just something that we may not align with. Right. And that is something that I've heard over and over and over again with many companies, many friends. I mean, it's the typical story, right? It's like, you know, founders start a company and they grow and then, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then they get to their series Z and all of a sudden, you know, it's the company's a beast and the founders were fired, you know, two years earlier. Right. Fine. It's a growth story. It happens. It is what it is. But, you know, I would, I genuinely believe that if you are building an organization today and your hiring and recruiting strategy doesn't start and end with purpose and values right above skillset, then it's just not that interesting. And I think it has limits. You're not going to do anything different. Right. I can give you tangible examples. I can list names. I can give you a breakdown of people that we've hired. You know, I would just say whether they're, you know, gardeners and landscapers at some of our hotels, all the way up to the executives of our hotels that will exemplify both ends of that spectrum. Right. And. To me, like I said, you know, when I was talking about happiness, I think it's just a logical thing to do. Right. It's just fucking logical. Like why go against it?

CK: That's a quotable quote. Happiness is just fucking logical. You should put down a t-shirt, go back to your old roots. I think it'd be a good brand.

Kfir: I'll have my eight year old son say that to his class tomorrow, you know.

CK: There you go. Um, real tactical question. You know, how do you resolve conflicts? Well, maybe not conflict, disagreements about, Hey, I want to grow faster. No, you know, let's stay with integrity, with a vision and culture first people first. Um, how do you do that amicably?

Kfir: I don't know.

CK: Figuring it out still. Yeah. Along the way.

Kfir: I don't know, to be honest, I think, um, You know, look, I, I, the thought of taking what we've created and taking it around the world and having as many people on the planet impact, you know, or her, her experience, what it is we're out to do is massively inspiring. Right. What we did in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East and that journey of what happened there. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I was brought to tears. Right.

CK: Why, why, why?

Kfir: Because how many cultural barriers and experiential barriers were completely obliterated to get to what that product was. And then, you know, two years later, looking back and seeing the ripple effects that came out of it. Again, it's fucking logical. It just, it's amazing. Right. And the dream of taking what we've created. around the world is fucking, it's amazing. I have zero, zero, zero objection to growth completely. It's just how you get there or the speed, right? I think I have, you know, this much experience in my life, which is where my, you know, my decision-making might be rooted in and somebody else might have this and it's different. Right. And, you know, sometimes it's a matter of a board decision. Sometimes it's a matter of strategy. Sometimes it's a matter of, you know, whatever. And sometimes you get outvoted. Sometimes you win. That's, I guess, what comes with a growing organization and you, you have to know when to curb your emotions. Right. Especially as a founder.

CK: How do you, again, tactically, right, as a founder, as someone who runs, you know, 11 different locations globally.

Kfir: Well, the team run at this point, but yeah. 15? No, no, the team, I'm saying the team run these locations.

CK: I understand, but ultimately you set the strategy, like you're the general setting certain strategic directions, right? So to that point. Uh-huh.

Kfir: I was up until recently focusing a lot of our, our new projects. Right. So, you know, how do we create something that is, is this destination on brand for us? Is this going to work? The actual growth, the trajectory, the direction we're going in, that's our CEO. That's Oliver. He's the one that's saying, okay, this is what we're doing. We're opening 9,000 hotels by Tuesday. Right. And we're going to do this. And then I come in with more of like, right. It was until we, we, we standardized, but I was coming in more and saying, okay, here's what we need to create here. And this is the vision. This is the idea. This is the concept. And, you know, let's put that out there. And I think today we have, I've, my role in the company, as of the last six months, especially has shifted dramatically because our team is growing and they're also being empowered to lead, you know, which, so I'm doing a lot of different things.

CK: I'm really inspired by the vision. What I'm gathering is Abitaz from your perspective is really brought place of where a space, a container where community happens all over the world. Is that an accurate reflection of what you found?

Kfir: I would say where, you know, communities are seated and where people can gather and have these incredible experiences. Yeah.

CK: Awesome. Very good. Can you maybe share with us, um, What you've seen, what you've witnessed that you left an impression like, oh yeah, we're doing things right. You know, maybe someone's story or. You know, a customer, the traveler who have shared something that really moved you or anything like that.

Kfir: Yeah. Um, most recently, so we have in our Tulum location, we have one of our servers. He's a very humble, incredibly amazing human, right? Now, my kids grew up in our hotels, right? They've known our, our, our staff since they were born. And, you know, our staff have been over to my house for the kids' birthdays and yeah, you know, whatever. Right. But there's this one particular staff member who is very, very special and, you know, he's a waiter and he's been with us since day one. And about a year ago, you know, I'm there with, you know, my family and we're hanging out and he comes up to me. He's like, Hey, you know, he's kind of shaky. He's like, can I, do you have a minute? Can I speak to you? I'm like, yeah, sure. Let me finish up a few things and then we can speak. And I go and I sit with him and, you know, I say, Hey, what's up. Right. And he tells me, and he opened his phone and he showed me a picture of a cat. Right. And he's like, shows me and I'm like, like, okay, it's a nice cow, I think. Right. And he's like, and he starts flipping through these pictures and starts telling me, he's like, you know, because of the opportunity that you gave me and because of the work that I've been able to do over the last several years. And again, he's started off as a busser and he's waiting tables. He's like, I've been able to provide for my family. I've been able to expand my family's farm, right? We were able to buy and acquire more land, a lot of land. We were able to expand this. I now take care of my parents. I take care of my brother and his kids. And I've been able to do all of this, you know, thanks to you. And wherever you are in the world, whatever it is you're doing, I will always, you know, you can always count on me and so on and so forth. And he's crying while he's telling this, right? And he proceeded to tell me, he's like, and it's not because of the money that I'm earning. It's because of how, he's like, it's because of who I know that I am, right? He's like, it's because of what, the way that I feel and the way that I'm treated here gives me what I need to go out and do that for other people in my life. For me, I remember what he was telling me that, I mean, I'm getting goose bumps just thinking about it. And he shared, you know, similar with Eduardo as well. But when he was telling me that, I remember thinking there is just no way in hell anybody can look at what we've done early on when we started this thing. And when we were unapologetic with what we were doing and telling me that it was wrong. Right. Because that is why people know our brand. Right. The way that that person feels and how he lives his life directly impacts our guests. And he lives and breathes, you know, what we've instilled in him and what we've created for him. And he is just, you know, by some account, a server. But that server interacts with God knows how many people over the last several years in our restaurant. And that embodiment of the brand, the conversation they have with him is the story that they go out and they tell people. And we all lack that up. Right. And so, you know, I don't know where in the growth story of enterprises and companies and blah, blah, blah, where that gets diluted or somehow becomes less important than, you know, EBITDA or whatever, because I see the two as being completely related. Right. And, um, you know, Those are the things that I'd say that I'm extremely proud of.

CK: Thank you for that. Uh, I too got goosebumps as you were talking about that, you know, and, uh, What a better way to live, man. That was amazing. You know, creating jobs, changing lives, impacting family of families, you know, really getting someone to know who they really are and then make a difference in the world. Like you're doing all of that. Like if you think about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right. Physiology, security, sense of belonging, you know, self-esteem, self-actualization, self-transcendence. I think it's almost every single level.

Kfir: It sounds so poetic when you say it, but you know how sometimes you're just so entrenched and you're just so deep in what you're doing that you don't get to see the macro, right? You don't get to see and experience, you know, what others do. That's has been my reality for many, many years. Right. And so, you know, this summer I was traveling for a few months and, you know, I was in I was in Indonesia, I was in Israel, I was all over the place. And, and I'm meeting people that know about our brand. They know about what we've done. They've known about, you know, what we've created and their perception and their interaction with, with that is incredible. And it's insanely humbling because I don't get to experience that side, you know? Um, and look, you know, where we were. three, four or five years ago, it's very different to where we are today as an organization. You know, I am optimistic. I'm excited at the same time. I'm also completely unattached. Right. And while this, you know, this company and this, this brand, you know, we Yes, the cliches of blood, sweat and tears, we bought these hotels with our bare hands, right? They affected our physical health and emotional wellbeing and all of the above and everything in between. I find myself today very unattached because it's no longer about myself and my co-founders. It's no longer about the brand. This thing needs to go out into the world and grow and do its thing. And that is just, you know, I guess it's another stage of the maturity of the company. And I can only hope that I can continue to influence it, um, in a way that's well-received and impactful.

CK: That's beautiful, man. I got to ask you this question. This will be your last question. Okay. Um, I met many people who are really successful, and they're purposeful, and they're seeking joy, greater purpose, joy, and performance in life, right? And one of the most common dreams that I hear from these people is, I want to buy a piece of land, build a retreat center of some sort, so then I can have my friends around. And I'm talking to someone who did that, right? You started with the transformational experiences for people, now building spaces for people to share all over the world, knowing what you know. I mean, I don't know what your personal dream is beyond that. Maybe you build a retreat center as well. I don't know. But knowing what you know today, building spaces for transformation and community, building spaces for a community to happen. What would you say to those people who dream of a better piece of land, retreat center, have people come around? Any words of advice?

Kfir: Don't think twice, do it. Do it, like right away with urgency.

CK: Do it right away, don't think.

Kfir: With urgency. Yeah, I think, look, people want this, right? You know, I think the pandemic accelerated our yearning for personal growth and our recognition of the importance of personal growth, right? You know, transformation is a very subjective term that's widely used today, but I think, you know, you and I both learned it's not change, it's transformation, right? Because change implies it's broken, let's fix it. Transformation implies evolution and growth. And I think People want it, they need it. And if you feel that you have something to offer and you can create a space for people to actually go and experience something different, fucking do it, you know, like with whatever. It doesn't take much, really. You know, today we're building all of these hotels and we're doing all this fancy stuff and we won, you know, all these different awards and magazines and all this stuff. Yet what started what we were doing, right, was whatever we could get our hands on that we happened to have in our warehouse at the time. Right. And it back then had the same, if not greater impact than anything we're doing today. It doesn't take much. Right. Eduardo and I always say, you know, Give me a few 10s, candles and music at a beautiful location somewhere. I don't need anything else. And we will leave people completely floored because that's really, really all it takes. And so you don't think twice about what you have and don't have to just do it, figure it out. It's fun.

CK: Anything you want. I mean, I have to ask a follow up question there. Anything you say we will leave people completely floored. That implies transformation space holding is easy, but I, from personal experience, it's not. So is there anything that you could say about creating that container, that space, foster transformation?

Kfir: I never said it was easy. It was definitely not easy. Right. Okay. It comes with an insane amount of responsibility and there's nothing easy about it. Right. It's not the fact that I'm telling people do it. I didn't say do it, it's easy. I said, do it, it's fun. Right. Because at the end of the day it is. Right. Um, and maybe that's something that you and I, you know, may or may not agree on in terms of holding space for people, but I think context is important. Right. I think, you know, again, what is the purpose behind what you're doing? Right. If you have this idea to go and buy a piece of land somewhere and you know, Costa Rica on a hilltop and build 15 rooms and host incredible workshops and retreats and music and whatever else. What is behind that, right? Is it, you know, you seeking your own sense of self-worth or are you, you know, looking to, you know, basically create a profitable business? Are you looking to just explore a passion? Like what's behind it, right? What is the context and what's seeded that idea or that yearning for you to create that? And I think, you know, when I say to people, just do it, and I tell people, we will leave people for it, it's because I have a lot of conviction and I stand by what I believe is important. Right. And we tell people all the time, you know, if you're coming here because you want white glove butler service and you need to feel special and like you're the influencer on your own, probably check out someplace else. Cause that's not what we're going to do. But if you align with what we believe is, you know, meaningful and what we believe is purposeful or we believe is actually important, then yes, we will leave you for it. Because I don't believe that it takes a lot to do that. It just be, just get straight to it. Yeah.

CK: I love it. Any, I know that we talk a lot of different areas or anything I didn't ask you. Anything you said, CK, this is so important. If there's one thing that people would leave this with, this is it. Is there anything that we didn't touch?

Kfir: Yeah, I mean, we started talking about it, then we got off subject. The conversation ran back, right? You know, when I think back today on who I was as a manager, a business person or whatever, right? Since we started Avidos, who I was then, who I am today is basically unrecognizable, right? In terms of my professional self and the journey and the experience that I've gotten is, you know, it's invaluable. Truly, truly, truly, truly invaluable school that I've been through and You know, by no means am I going to say that Hobby Trust is going to be the end of my, whatever it is that comes next, because I just, I like change. I just, I want to continue creating. And so with, you know, when I, when I've gone around the world and I've looked at these incredible destinations, mind blowing sites, you know, I get to see the side of things that most tourists and most people don't, that most of our company doesn't, right. And I see sort of like, whether it's the underbelly or the back door or whatever it is of what a lot of these places look like. And, you know, I go back and I say, you know, over and over and over again, there is no room today to build a business that is not an impact company. You know, and I don't mean impact company in the traditional sense of we're an impact company. I mean, that doesn't have impact baked into its operating model, right. And it's corp business and it's P&L. And oftentimes today, I think people, you know, they look at impact and they'll say, okay, we do the, you know, whatever organization that we donate text to that we can put their logo on the footer of our website or. They donate to an NGO or they do some, you know, whatever impact work has a marketing response to something or whatever. Right. But that's not necessarily sustainable and it's not very impactful and it's not regenerative. More importantly, it's not rooted in the right place. Right. I'm not doing this because I need to be able to. Because that's what the market demands, right? I'm not doing this because of conscious consume. I'm doing this because it aligns with my purpose and values, right? Because I believe that this is what's needed to be done, right? And so I find that today, a lot of that is just lacking. You know, some of my favorite companies in the world, my favorite organizations world are ones that lead with that. And they've done things that are just phenomenal, that they should all be, you know, case studies.

CK: What, where are they? What are some of the companies that you can point us to?

Kfir: So, I mean, listen, the most obvious one that everybody talks about that I was just speaking to somebody about yesterday was just as an example, Patagonia, right? If you look at what was done and you go back and you watch these different interviews that, you know, Ivan has done over the years, he's talking about his failures and he's talking about, Oh, you know what? We were wrong about what we did there. We fucked that up. We own it. So here's what we're going to do next. We're going to fix it. And yeah, we'll spend. an ungodly amount of money doing so, but it's the right thing to do. And nobody can get mad at him for doing that, right? Because then there's a ripple effect, right? The regenerative cons standard, all these different sustainability standards, all these different regenerative practices that he's implemented. Yes, you can do that when you're the single shareholder of a multi-billion dollar company. I get it, you know what I mean? But the framework is laid out, right? The context of what measures a successful company and what those KPIs are needs to change. Right. I'm not an anti-capitalist person, blah, blah, blah. That's not the case. I just think that in today's world and the way that the world is trending, you know, we're so removed, right? We are so insanely removed from the natural world, from our place here, from, you know, one another. How does it make any sense that we don't put more of a focus on this stuff? Right? Like, why not? I'm not telling you to don't make all the money in the world. Go for it. Do it. Please your shareholders from here to the moon. But you can do that while still having, you know, the regenerative impact component baked into your model. Right. And there's been a handful of other companies that have done it that have blown my mind. One of them specifically in the hospitality world. Um, you know, it's a longer conversation, but he is somebody that I would love to introduce you to because what he's done has inspired me arguably more than anybody else I've met in the last 10 years.

CK: Wow.

Kfir: That's speaking volumes. No, no, no. He's, he's. This person builds the hotel having zero experience. And he, his small little hotel shaped an entire destination, funded a foundation that impacted the lives of I don't know how many hundreds of thousands of people. And it continues to do it today. And he doesn't even fully grasp the potential behind the roadmap that he's laid out for everybody else. Right. It's mind blowing and incredibly humbling. So I guess where I'm going with this is like, whatever it is that I do next, whatever it is that I do, you know, that we do with how we do us, whatever it looks like, whatever opportunities may arise, I think leading from a place of impact and understanding that this is how the company needs to be governed. Right. Whether, you know, it gives you social media clicks or not, it doesn't matter. It just, this is just what needs to happen. Right. And, uh, that's something that I think I'm. far more passionate about than anything else.

CK: I love that dude. Um, that's a deeper conversation for sure. Um, I was speaking to a, the, I don't know if I remember Google glass at all. Okay, good. So I was speaking to the, one of the inventors of glass, Tom Chi, he's an advocate, uh, for, uh, nature. Yeah. Now has a venture fund. He funds everything. He believes deeply. Yes. Make as much money as you want and, you know, think sustainability, you know, giving back to nature kind of a thing. That's one thing that I want to make an introduction if that's of interest to you.

Kfir: I haven't had the chance of actually connecting with them yet.

CK: Yeah. So that's one. But two, I think a lot of people aspirationally want that. but they don't have good model. Like, Oh, I guess it sounds good, but what, how do I do it? Right. Is it B core? Is it, you know, this other proclamation, is it this conglomerate, conscious capitalism? Um, that that's why I want to talk to entrepreneurs who is on point to their purpose, who is thinking about this so they can have like, Oh, if Kefir can do it this way or Patagonia do it that way, or this hotelier can do it this way, I can do that too. Cause they all are trying different things like cryptocurrency, this and that, whatever. So anyways, long conversation. I don't have a framework to even ask the question other than I'm curious to know where it goes. And I think it's so important what you're talking about, because ultimately We live in this spaceship, right? Nature, like if nature dies, we die. So why would you want to trash your house where you live? And that just makes no sense.

Kfir: Look, we, we, we, we have all but lost our connection to the natural world in its entirety. And I don't mean nature. I mean, the natural world, our understanding of, you know, our place, you know, here, right. And how important, you know, everything around us actually is. At the end of the day, you know, with whatever it is, you know, I'm doing, whatever it is Eduardo's doing, whatever it is we're going to continue to put out into the world, you know, our goal is to be able to create a sense of empathy for our planet. Right. And when you say empathy, you know, why empathy? Well, empathy comes one step before love. Right. And when you love something naturally, you want to protect it. Right. And. There has to be that, right? There has to be that. And earlier when I told you, you know, we leave people blown away, it's because I can't tell you how many times, you know, we've done something that somebody has just opened their eyes in that moment. And because of what we were able to create, they just break down in tears because they're able to experience the world around them. in that jungle or in that ocean or in that whatever it is in a way that they've never imagined before. It's fucking visceral. It's not going away. They're going to forget it. Right. And all of a sudden they care, right. They care in a different way than what they were taught because this time they feel it. Right. And so emotional empathy plays a huge part. As far as like, how do you create a business framework around it? I don't know, but I have a huge monitor right here next to me that if I was to show you, I've got. a variety of different diagrams and org charts and spreadsheets because I'm constantly thinking of different ways to be able to do it piecing together from other people that have, right? And I want to learn from others that, you know, know much more than I do in this space because it's, it's a matter of responsibility. You know what I mean? Conscious capital, crypto, bunch of fancy things, too much of a learning curve. I just don't think it could be that complicated, you know?

CK: Sounds like another community is in the planning. Let's go. Oh my gosh. I really, really appreciate how you showed up, you know, from the very beginning, pre-podcast to now. I really get a sense of who you are. I get how passionate you are, how willing you are to try new things, your staunch commitment to your happiness, your well-being, and let that be the space of which you explore new opportunities, receive it. and now where you are at, the journey you've taken on growing your hotel from experience to now a hotel, now global, and the lives that you touch, your employees, your guests, and also the people that they touch in your life as well. And I can't, I mean, this is, you're a young guy, so this is one of your first and many more to come. I can't wait to see what comes next. Thank you so much for sharing your mental models, your wisdom, your experiences, most importantly, your heart on Noble Warrior. Thank you. Thank you.

Kfir: Thank you for the words.