Ever Onward Podcast

$100M Exit to “The Quest”: Dan Berger on the Journey of Belonging | Ever Onward - Ep. 55

• Ahlquist. • Season 1 • Episode 55

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Early life challenges can often shape an extraordinary entrepreneurial journey. In this episode, we sit down with Dan J. Berger, an Israeli-American entrepreneur known for his resilience, innovation, and dedication to community. Dan’s journey includes founding Social Tables, an event planning software company acquired by Blackstone-owned Cvent for $100 million, and his latest venture, Assemble Hospitality Group—a revolutionary lodging concept for corporate retreats.

Dan shares how pivotal moments in his life, from adoption and immigration to parental divorce, ignited a unique entrepreneurial spirit that continues to fuel his success. His deep belief in mentorship shines through in his support of a young Serbian entrepreneur, Nikola, helping him evolve from a basketball scholarship student to a thriving business owner and MMA fighter.

Throughout the conversation, Dan delves into the lessons he’s learned from building impactful companies, highlighting the importance of structured processes, strong team dynamics, and staying grounded amidst the challenges of imposter syndrome and cultural shifts in startups.

A proud recipient of numerous industry accolades, including the Pacesetter Award from the Events Industry Council, Dan reflects on how reconnecting with his faith and Boise’s vibrant community has brought a renewed sense of belonging and fulfillment to his life. His passion for fostering collaboration through intimate retreats in Idaho’s breathtaking landscapes underscores his belief in the power of place to inspire and connect.

As Dan prepares for the release of his book, The Quest – The Definitive Guide to Finding Belonging, he invites us to explore how meaningful connections and shared spaces can spark innovation and growth. Join us as we celebrate Boise as a hub for entrepreneurs and discover Dan’s profound insights on finding purpose, embracing community, and leaving a lasting impact.

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Speaker 1:

Today on the Ever Onward podcast, we have a great guest of Boise, formerly of New York City, don Berger. Don Berger is an Israeli-American entrepreneur. He has successfully grown and exited companies. His most recent company he exited in 2018 for $100 million. He then went on a kind of a search, or an awakening, and ended up in Boise, idaho. I have been able to get to know him a little bit. He's an incredible human being, has become an incredible part of our community already in just a few short years. I can't wait to tell you his story and to talk about his new book, mr Don Berger. Don, welcome, thank you. Good morning, I'm looking forward to this. I know we're going to have fun. It's going to be fun. I've met you a couple times now in the conversations. I think last time we were together like in the middle of what I said hey, we just got to stop and do this on a podcast Remember?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think you were thinking where your crew is, and then you realize they're not present.

Speaker 1:

So no, it was just so fascinating. You're a very incredible history and unique individual and entrepreneurial and all the things, and so thanks for coming on. I can't wait to talk about it all.

Speaker 2:

I, um, I, in a way I'm happy you lost your gubernatorial race because we get to do this right. Yeah, it's a lot more fun.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, god works in mysterious ways. Yeah, yeah, this is a lot more fun. Um, hey, I don't even know where to begin with you. I'm going to begin with a story, cause it's a great story.

Speaker 1:

So, because it just happened again, I spoke at something, oh, six months ago, and this young kid comes up to me and he grabs me and he's like hey, thanks so much for talking to me. And he has a pretty thick, you know accent and I said what do you do? He's like I run a cleaning business. And within about five minutes after this talk, this kid's got me all fired up, like he's just ready to go. And anyway, it was this incredible story of him and how he built this from scratch hardworking kid, goes on and on and on. He's just so entrepreneurial and he's just ready to set the world on fire. And I just I walked away thinking that was cool, that was awesome. So then we're talking and you were his investor, you're the, you're the, you're the guy behind him.

Speaker 1:

Well, here's the followup. So last week I gave another talk and he was there, yeah. So he came up to me and he's like hey, how are you doing? Same energy. I said how are you doing. He's like great, everything's awesome. And I said I got to meet Don. He's like, oh, that's so awesome, he's the best guy, anyway. So tell me about that. I think it's a really cool story of how you invested in this kid and what it's become, and then we'll get into all your other entrepreneurial stuff.

Speaker 2:

So I think the story is emblematic of several things and I will respond to your story with a different story about him, which is that a year ago he decided he's going to start training in MMA.

Speaker 2:

So he went from being kind of like a bit of a couch potato, going through the motions of entrepreneurship and just kind of like working the whole day and just kind of crashing at night to saying I'm going to become a fighter. So he started literally training a year ago and he just won his third fight in 45 seconds in Idaho Falls. Wow, this kid's driven Absolutely and I think that to me is so emblematic of the American dream and what we need in this country, where he came from Serbia as a refugee, went to NNU on a basketball scholarship, played basketball, kicked butt, and then he realized, wait, I got to make some money to support my son and my wife. So work nights and weekends cleaning, and then he had a bit of a falling out with his previous employer. So he decided, well, I need investors. So he started just going through the directory old school sales of the Boise Chamber of Commerce and I had just joined the Chamber of Commerce trying to network.

Speaker 1:

There's a shout out from the Chamber of Commerce that I had just joined the Chamber of Commerce trying to network. There's a shout out from the Chamber of Commerce.

Speaker 2:

That's right, bill Connors. I joined with Bill Connors, but yeah, so he came, he dialed me and he said hello, I'm Nikola, I'm looking for an investor. And I said I got nothing going on, let's meet up tomorrow. And he's like sure, and it was a cold winter day. We met downtown on 8th Street. I love this and I was like you know what? I'll seed your next business.

Speaker 2:

And, tommy, it was at the same time when I got interested in search funds and for the listeners who may not know what search funds are, they're basically kind of micro PE, private equity, where you basically find kind of blue collar. It started blue collar, it started blue collar. Now it's everything but blue collar labor where you're able to kind of take the business to the next level when somebody wants to retire. So I've been looking for I was doing a search sort of and it just fit kind of my thesis at the time. It fit a lot of things and, being an immigrant myself who moved to this country when I was nine and didn't speak a word of English, I related to the guy and I said I'm going to give you a chance, so awesome. And yeah, I seeded the business with $400,000 over a couple of different payments. He probably could have done a little better on the with the margins early on. Um and yeah, today we're doing we'll close the year at over a million in revenue. I'm going to look uh is this it?

Speaker 1:

Executive cleaning that's it. So let's give him a plug. Executive cleaning of Idaho. He continues to grow. He is so gosh. The one thing about it is I knew his story playing basketball and he kind of told me that. He told me how he just wanted to work. And again, this American dream that you can do and be and become right Absolutely, and then, but the enthusiasm is just off the charts with this kid.

Speaker 2:

That's right, it's just infectious, and for me, what I think it highlights is kind of the two qualities I look for in entrepreneurs, which is work ethic and coachability. Everything else is just kind of nice to have, Isn't that true? You work hard and then you listen to mentors and you can do amazing things.

Speaker 1:

It's interesting that you bring those two things up, because I think we had our work Christmas party last night and I got to tell a little story. But I think work is a great equalizer. You may not be as smart or as talented in certain things, or be set up. A lot of people the old saying born on third base and thought you hit a home run right. There's a lot of that too, but despite where you start from, work equalizes in many ways if you can work harder than the competition. And then the other thing you just said, and that's, by the way, why America kicks butt that is.

Speaker 2:

That is why America is the best country in the world, Because the playing field for the most part has been leveled. And yes, sure, there are so many systemic problems and we can get to that and can sort them out over time, but at the end of the day, if you bring work and you bring work ethic and you just take all the opportunities, I truly believe that you can do anything, and I'm a testament to that.

Speaker 1:

And so are you, by the way. Well, the second thing you said is coachability, yes, which you know I try to. I've learned this over time. I had a when I was in my medical residency with Dr Frank Walters, so I had great mentors down there. I was in Tucson and um, I came out, you know, you come out of medical school and you're just ready to go and you think you know everything and you're like Moon Knight on the side and you're, you're a real doctor now.

Speaker 2:

And I had a couple of just all the family starts calling you with what's bothering them.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and it just feels good because it's such a long ride to get there. And and, um, I had a couple of great mentors that would just humble you. And one of them, like on the first night shift, grabbed me and he said, hey, listen, I'm going to teach you about professionalism and you got a long ways to go. Wow, and that talked to me, I remember. And then the second one was my very first interaction with this guy named Frank Walters, one of my idols. So I come out, you go, when you're a resident, you go see all these patients, you run in, you see them, you formulate a treatment plan and then, especially as a first year resident, you have to go find the attending and kind of run it by them and then they approve it and then you, then you can go order your tests and do everything. So I go run and grab Frank and I'm just on fire. I'm like, hey, dr.

Speaker 1:

Walter here's the deal I got going. To get back to the point here. He looks at me and I'll never forget, puts his hand on my shoulder and he says, tommy, wisdom comes from bad experiences, and bad experiences come from lack of wisdom. You need to slow down and listen to me. Wow, and it was a little jarring because I'm like what did I say? What did I do wrong? But his point was hey, you've got to realize that around every corner there's a chance to be coached and avoid a problem with a patient. So this coachability, this humility and this idea, can you learn wisdom from other people?

Speaker 2:

And you're going to learn it one way or another in life. Right, you're either going to go through it on your own and have bad experiences and get wisdom, or you can be coached. That's right, and I'll add to that that I think the flip side of it with coachability is a lot of people who mentor, like the ones you just shared. They're doing it because they care, but if they don't see change and they don't see action, they're going to give up on you. And that's why I think it's for me, the mentors that played a role in my life, like my first investor, glenn Hellman, who said to me I'll only invest if you quit your job. You know what I did Quit my job and I called him. I said where's your check? It was my first $25,000 in my last business. By the way, you sold for a hundred million. That's low key, so, um, but it started with a 20 back when I was, you know I ended up raising, you know, 30 million in VC, but that $25,000, I remember. You know you. You appreciate those small checks early on. I mean the five and $10,000 friends and family.

Speaker 2:

But the point I'm making is mentorship is a two way relationship. People want to be of service and they want to be helpful and you want to learn, but they have to feel recognized. And one thing that kind of gets under my skin is when I do something for someone and I never hear back Because I'm doing it for a reason. I'm doing it for a selfish reason. I mean, at the end of the day I'm motivated to help. So I've gotten many calls over the years from people who said hey, you know, you really kicked my butt when we had that conversation, but it changed the way I looked at something.

Speaker 1:

I love it, you know, before we leave this, um, I think people love being mentors too. I mean, I think of people in my world and I still have mentors that I go to regularly. But world, and I still have mentors that I go to regularly. But but there's nothing better than having someone come to you and say, hey, you've been through all this, what did you learn? Would you help me? It's so. It's like I think, as you get older you're not as old as me, but as you get older, I think it's one of the most rich parts of existence and living is to be able to share and, hopefully, help people.

Speaker 2:

So you know, to that point I'm in a 12 step program and a recovery program and the steps are kind of split up into categories. It goes from kind of admitting powerlessness and accepting higher power and all that, but at the end that step 12 is about being service to others. Yeah, and that's part of living the program.

Speaker 1:

It's awesome. Hey, tell us. I do want to hit on your beginnings. We have all day right. The problem is this hour goes by so fast. It goes by so fast. So tell us a little bit about your upbringing, sure, and then let's start there, yeah.

Speaker 2:

I think my upbringing is kind of important to understand me. Start there, yeah, I think my upbringing is kind of important to understand me. So I kind of summarize my upbringing as just being belonging-less for four plus decades, and it started with my adoption. So I was adopted. I'm originally from Israel. I was adopted in Israel.

Speaker 2:

My biological mom gave me up when I was two days old. My adoptive mom waited a decade to have a kid waiting on this list and she got a call when I was five days old to the kids ready. So my mom was driving around Israel you know, working jobs, whatever with baby products in the trunk of her car. She stopped what she was doing and drove to the hospital and she tells a story where they said okay, here's your son, you can come pick him up in the morning. She said what the hell are you talking about? That's my son, I'm taking him right now. So she called all her friends and they're, and some of her friends went up and down the buildings they lived in and collected all the baby products they could, delivered it to her home and that's how she got me wow, incredible woman.

Speaker 2:

It sounds like, oh my god. I mean, yes, 10 books. Uh, she's written 10 books, she. She's still working hard at 78. So God bless her and her granddaughter, who was born three weeks ago.

Speaker 2:

My first daughter is kind of like giving her a real new light. But adoption is this kind of primal wound where, even when you're in the womb and you're kind of suffering this loss, all the cortisol is passed from the mother and all the stress and kind of the knowledge of knowing she's going to give me up. So from a very young age I was kind of belongingless and I refer to my adoption as my first belonging trauma. My second one was my parents' divorce when I was two years old. So kind of this nuclear family just disappeared and my dad kind of neglected me over the years, abandoned me.

Speaker 2:

And then immigration. Immigration is another kind of belonging trauma where you're negotiating identities. Am I Israeli? Am I American? What am I? You know I am a dual citizen. I, especially this time in the world, like I'm thinking about Israel but I'm thinking about America. What's good for who? And that's just the latest kind of how it's metastasized. It starts with like, what language do I speak? What do I read, so I've identified, I've kind of played around with Israeli-American or American-Israeli, so that's kind of like. My background is these three major traumas before the age of 10 that have kind of created this belonging-less story. So how old were you when you?

Speaker 1:

arrived here, I was nine. And what city did you come into? In New York City?

Speaker 2:

You remember those days? Oh yeah, I mean, I remember going to Central Park chasing squirrels and thinking like this is awesome. And then a month later I was like F you to my mom and stepdad, like why did you bring me here? I had a treehouse, I had friends, I was, you know, I had my crew Like it sucked.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, what did your parents do when you first came?

Speaker 2:

My mom social worker, so she's a professor of social work, and my stepdad also a professor of social work, so he taught at Columbia and she continues to teach at Adelphi University. That's great. So grew up in New York. Grew up in New York's first decade in the Bronx. Second decade in the States in Manhattan.

Speaker 1:

When did the? I'm going to jump a little bit, sure, because I want to make sure we get to everything, but were you always entrepreneurial?

Speaker 2:

No, no, I did not. I'm one of those people that thinks entrepreneurship is kind of something you're born with, not something that's taught. I know controversial topic, especially every school now trying to position itself as, like, the entrepreneur school. So I think I mean we can make people entrepreneurial, but like that risk taking is kind of biological in my opinion. But no, I'm not like the kind of guy.

Speaker 2:

Well, I guess I had like a web design agency when I was in college making $25 an hour, but I never thought about that as entrepreneurship. I thought about it as just kind of being a freelancer. So you were, and you didn't know you were, I guess. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of folks kind of mix up solopreneurship with entrepreneurship, which is another story.

Speaker 2:

But for me I never, unlike many folks, I think I wasn't like I'm going to go start my own thing. It was a real kind of like process and story where I was working in management, consulting, cursing the ground I walked on every day when I I didn't you know, I was in Washington DC at the time after grad school took me an hour and a half to get to work, to just sit at a desk waiting for a project as a consultant and I was like God, this sucks. So I thought, well, what if I start a side hustle just to pass the time? And that's how my last company was born from being a little seating chart app for weddings to becoming a hospitality software with 6,000 customers and 20 million in revenue Wow.

Speaker 1:

You make it sound so easy. It was just easy. I really. I don't think it sound so easy, it was just easy, I really. I want to talk to us a little about building. I don't think it's that hard, like I think.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I think well, but talk about building it, yeah, and I do have some questions for you, and I know it's hubris to say it's not, but at the end of the day, if you follow a process and you're committed, it's and.

Speaker 1:

I think it's really helpful for people to hear how you process it. But talk through the original idea. Sure, so something you knew it was an idea. And then this idea of entrepreneurship versus solopreneurship. Talk about your early thoughts of I got a great idea, I know it, but immediately. How soon into this did you start thinking, with the end in mind, of scalability and how you grow this thing?

Speaker 2:

I mean, if you don't grow, you're dead, right. So I think so that amount the kind of the process. The story is that I was a single guy and I thought I'm going to a wedding. I'd love to meet a young, eligible potential partner. So I said, okay. Well, I was invited to my first American wedding and I thought, well, I'd love to know who's at my table, to know where the cute girls are sitting. So I said, well, what if I could see Facebook profiles of people ahead of time at my table? Tell me who's sitting there. I want to talk to Tommy. I want to talk to Tommy. I want to talk to Matt. I want to talk to people.

Speaker 2:

Let's go, let's network, let's meet people. So I thought, well, what if there was a seating chart, a social seating chart app hence the name Social Tables and our logo was a chat bubble with chairs around it. And I said, well, let's hook up this seating chart into the social graph and allow people to see who is at their table. And initially that's what it was. It was a social seating chart. And then it was just like a grid on a website, what's called a single-page application, where it's just kind of like drag and drop people into seats.

Speaker 2:

And then we realized that people planning the events had more of a need for this tool than the people attending these events, because getting people to take kind of change their behavior is really hard. So it's moving away from spreadsheets to kind of visual application is what started it. And then we realized, well, wait a second, the software that's being used to do this in the hotels, in the venues, in places like the Boise Center, which is a customer place, like the Grove Hotel, where all these function spaces, is really old. It's like it's server-based, it's, you know, on the computer. It's not cloud, it's not collaborative. Let's move this stuff to the cloud. And that's kind of like what happened and by I sold it in, started in 2011, sold it in 18. And when, in those eight years, we had 6,000 paying customers, 3 billion square feet of meeting space mapped out and about a million and a half events planned in the software on an annual basis.

Speaker 2:

Amazing and the thing about scalability. It's just like, okay, we just did that, what's next?

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

And I walked in this morning. I was like December. I love December because I still have the energy of closing the year.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

December was our biggest month by the, by the, by year seven, eight. We were closing like a million, over a million dollars in contracts in December and I remember the buzz like let's go, we got to crush the goal this year.

Speaker 1:

One of the things that you mentioned last time we were talking was your team. Time we were talking was your team. I walked away from that. I walked away from our conversation because I can't remember how we originally met and it was a virtual meeting about something. And then we're like, hey, we got to get together. Amos Rothstein introduced us, that's right, that's right so. But then you said something and it really struck me because when I talked about, hey, you exited a company. Tell me a little bit about that. You kind of immediately, and when you left, I thought that guy understands how to do this. So talk about how important people are to doing something like you did once, and now we're in the middle of doing more things, but how important is your team?

Speaker 2:

So I think a lot of people focus on co-founders where I think about late founders. Because for me, what I learned early on is this guy, matt, who I founded my company with Social Tables. Six months later he was gone. Our work ethic were just on two different kind of slopes. Mine was like I'm going to grind, I'm going to go, and he's like, well, I'll quit my job when we raise money and you have to raise the money. So we went from friends to co-founders and for many people that works For me it didn't work.

Speaker 2:

We always hear the story about, like you know, bill and Paul and Steve and Steve and like Ben and Jerry. You know we don't hear about just like the individuals. And for me I started, so I kind of think about being a solo founder, but very early and, by the way, I credit Matt in like pushing me over the edge. Solo founder, but very early and, by the way, I credit matt and like pushing me over the edge. We stood there at top of the cliff and he just pushed me and I was dropping and that's kind of when I anyway. So I I then started, I was all alone and I started thinking about hiring people and my second hire was a guy named trevor who eventually I remember the lunch when I asked him, will you be my, my late co-founder, and I was like asking him to marry me it was like so anyway. So I just think about these founding moments people can have. And when Ron Perimi, our head of our first salesperson and became our head of sales, got us to 10 million, that's a late co-founder.

Speaker 2:

I think about Trevor, our CMO that's a late co-founder. He had a founding moment where he was like stop this B2C stuff, business to consumer let's go B2B and let's kind of go on that path. Ram was like here's how we do sales. We do 40 dials a day. So it's these guys who brought this expertise that I really credit with our success. And then there's the line. You know, for me the point around 40 employees. We I sold about a hundred with 120 employees, but it got a little less fun after 40 because I wasn't able to kind of like connect with people in the way that I really valued and I really I really think that the line was so important because they created the culture that unlocked the ability to have $40 a day. That unlocked kind of like going to events and just really getting a ton of leads and that unlocked weekends of programming and so forth.

Speaker 1:

As you're talking, I'm thinking about something you said today, which was it was. I don't know if you said easy, but it was fun, it was, you enjoyed it, it was, and you and you talk to a lot of founders and you talk about their stories. Most of them are in a lane that they really enjoy. They love work, they love creating something that's right, they love creating something bigger than they are, and they love driving a team, they love driving a vision, they love having a plan and working their tails off and it ends up being fun. And that's the one thing that that you see in common with with guys like you is, if you've got a passion and you, you're building this thing so that it's sustainable and scalable and all those other things, it's you're like your baby. That's how you develop value anyway, right? So that's how you treat people right. You treat customers right and and, and then it ends up rewarding you at the end when you're, when you're going to sell. How did you know when it was time to sell?

Speaker 2:

yeah, my number was always 100. I had a banker who was kind of like providing updates to the board on a quarterly basis and I said, listen, larry, you're awesome, don't talk to me about any acquisition offer. I don't care what the board says. Hundreds my number. And then I remember this like it was yesterday. I was on a date, it was Friday, it was after work hours. I get a call from Larry and Larry says Don you ready to sell? And I said talk to me, larry. He said 100 million, let's go. And I was like all right let's go Wow.

Speaker 2:

And we closed the deal in 45 days.

Speaker 1:

Good for you Life changing.

Speaker 2:

Life shattering.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Life shattering and and and I say shattering because shattering assumes there's change as well. I mean for me. I mean I'm in Idaho because that happened. You know, I'm in, I'm a, I've leaned into my Judaism because that happened. I have I got married and started a family because that happened. Um so, but there was a kind of three year lull. There's a great book named halftime by Robert Buford. He talks about kind of like first half of your life, second half of your life. You need that halftime to figure out what you're doing in the second half. And to me that was the locker room time.

Speaker 1:

I was like let's figure this once you get to my age, then there's like these books on how you wind it down seriously yeah, there's some really good ones. Arthur brooks just wrote one last year and I sent it to all my guys that are my age. It's like how you stay, but I feel like you're not slowing, how you stay engaged till you die, kind of yeah, so yeah I like halftime a lot better.

Speaker 2:

yeah, I feel like you're in that moment of significance and you're thinking about legacy and significance For me life-shattering in the sense where I figured out what I want to do next and I'm on chapter two.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to ask you a couple of follow-up questions. It's interesting that you spend all this time working hard driven, single guy, singularly focused on growing this business. $100 million goal. It comes true to you and you return to faith and family.

Speaker 2:

That's right. The basics.

Speaker 1:

It's kind of interesting. Was it natural, and talk to me why that became important? Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I kind of did it backwards, you know, and that's okay. I got to kind of like what works for me when you sell your company and leave the company? You were kind of I talked about belonginglessness, belonginglessness and my company gave me a sense of belonging, but as soon as I left it was gone Right. So in my book I talk about the different fuels for belonging. One of them is self-esteem.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, just kind of like hey, it's tommy, let's you know he's on the stage like he's getting accolades, he, people like nicola walk up to him. It feels good and that's part of feeling like you belong. Yeah, but, and also group, there's a group experiences that make you feel like you belong, interpersonal relationships and so so on. Social tables filled all those needs for me and as soon as it was gone from my life, I was just alone and what I realized is that I didn't have a foundation, I didn't have a safety net of belonging in my personal life. So in a way I was putting the cart before the horse and I needed to go back to the basics.

Speaker 1:

Were those basics obvious to you.

Speaker 2:

No, it was a three-year process that led me to writing this book and again I'm a process guy. This book is about a process to find belonging. It's not listening to all these kind of people who kind of say, go find it.

Speaker 1:

By the way, that was a hell of a segue into the book. All right, I promise you, none of this was scripted man. All right, so let's get to the book. Your new book just released. I got a copy today. You're going to sign up before you leave the Quest, the Definitive Guide to Finding Belonging yes, first book First book Technically.

Speaker 2:

second, my first book was about founding. It's called Founding Alone. Never released it. It's about how to start a company alone. You probably should release it yeah, we'll see how this book does. Actually, I should use it as lead gen for this book. There you go, buy this book and I'll give you the other one for free.

Speaker 1:

There you go uh, so that is the book. So you're this three-year process of okay, I've, I've done this, and and how do I find?

Speaker 2:

this book is really about my imposter syndrome, because it's like I think about where am I? Fancy three letters at the end of my name? Who am I to write this thing? Which is why I really leaned in to the academic literature. So the book has 112 citations from academic journals and so forth. It involves interviews with people who but it's not like anecdotal, it's actually a process, and it's the first book in my opinion and I've read hundreds on this topic that actually tells you what to do.

Speaker 2:

Some people are like go in the wilderness and figure it out, or they describe what happens once you figure it out, but they don't describe how to get there. And that's what I was missing and I took this, the 10,000 hours I spent on getting there, and I'm not like there is always kind of like you're working to continue to stay there, but that's kind of what I want to cover. So what are some of the highlights? So it's basically um, anybody who's listening, I'm happy to send you a few chapters. Um, this, I'm not doing this book, dude, trust me. It cost me almost $200,000 to get this book out, so I'm not trying to make money off this thing, but for me it's a step-by-step process.

Speaker 2:

It starts with self-awareness, figuring out what your belonging fuel tank looks like, where you get belonging from. An average person has about eight fuels they use and the range is two to 17. And it's like what's your fuel tank look like? If it's a little empty, because it's, you know, and you can put. And if you put like you can put diesel and you can put unleaded, it's all good, like you can just kind of mix it up. But there's a delta between 100 and wherever you might be, and that delta represents opportunity, opportunity for more belonging.

Speaker 2:

So you got to reassess the fuels you're currently using, find out what's missing. And the way I help you reassess the tank is I help you figure out what's your belonging archetype. And there's four belonging archetypes. It's basically a formula based on your attachment style and something called the need to belong. We figure out one of your four archetypes. We tell you what fuels to use. I tell you what fuels to use and you just kind of go try them out. I tell you the skills you might need for them and that's kind of it. I can't wait to read it.

Speaker 1:

It's very straightforward, obviously inspired by the path you took. So I want to hear a little bit more about that, because you find a wife and now you have a daughter. Yeah, tell us about that. I mean, you're three weeks in buddy, yeah. Yeah, I always like Dude, it's easy, I know, but like I'm just kidding, I thought the pinnacle of my life was when I held my kids. Like it's just, there's something about it and you don't even I don't even think you can describe love. You think you know what love is and then you know what love is. And then when my daughter had her daughter, which happened recently then there was this like next level stuff.

Speaker 2:

You might be a great-great you might be no, a great.

Speaker 1:

You might maybe a great, you might maybe great, great, but great for sure. I don't know if I'd be a great and that's the long ways out for me, but but mathematically possible. Mathematically possible if my health is all right, but she is. Uh, when I watched her, oh my gosh, don, it was like, and I remember with her first child. I remember saying this to her because it was so overwhelming for me, and I remember whispering in her ear now you know how much I love you, and so that experience you just had it. Tell us about it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you know, so being never have I met my biological mom. About seven years ago, um, and I immediately jumped to biological love, but I never really felt biological love, because being adopted, it's it's different, it's different and um, so is it? It is because, um, it's unconditional. It's like I made this thing, I helped create this thing. I helped create this thing. I love it Only because we've adopted two kids, Okay yeah, have you read Nancy Verrier's Primal Wound book? No, it's a really good lens from the adoptee?

Speaker 1:

I will, and so that's why I'm asking you, because I need to understand that. Sure, I can tell you from the parent side, yeah, oh, I'm sure from the. But it's just a weird thing to hear because you're like yeah.

Speaker 2:

I'm sorry. I'm sorry for bringing this up. We may want to cut this. I mean so allow me to.

Speaker 1:

I'm not going to cut anything. This is great stuff.

Speaker 2:

Allow me to share. So what happens for some adoptees is they are so wounded by this primal wound and they may not know that they're wounded by it that they take out their frustration and anger over their biological parents at their adoptive parents, because kids don't know any of the difference. So for me it manifested by severe acting out, saying terrible things to my mom, that I talk about them like you're not my mom, and just terrible things. And I didn't. And for better, for worse. I was never kind of put in therapy. Today it's not as common. Today Then it wasn't as common and I think that that would help me heal a little bit earlier. But there is just this kind of rift that exists for the child and it's sadness, it's mourning this loss. That's really difficult, yeah, and as an adoptive parent you can't really know that, because what do you mean? I love this thing, it's mine, it's almost.

Speaker 1:

You want to ignore that right. Yes, normalcy, exactly. Yes, you want to ignore it because you want to. I've had you since you were Right, for one was seven days old.

Speaker 2:

I saved you Two months old? Yes, why would you feel that? And it complicated because the adopted child has often said things from a spiritual perspective, like God brought you to me. You are special, you are so lucky, they hear that all around them, and then they have to live up to the standard that's really hard to meet. So it's just perspective, right, yeah?

Speaker 1:

You send me a bill later for the session that's turned into Okay, so tell us about-.

Speaker 2:

And I talk about it in the book. I mean I'm very open about it, I'm super open about it.

Speaker 1:

So tell us about the birth of your daughter.

Speaker 2:

Yes. So this is kind of like going back to this idea like I had biological love. For us it was an exceptionally painful two years in getting there. My wife underwent 10 fertility treatments, we used a surrogate because of what she went through and whatnot, and we had two failed transfers prior to Cella being born. So I've been waiting a long time and they say that the best kind of cure for adoptees is to have their own child and for me, having suffered this divorce at a young age from my parents, it's my opportunity to make whole what I didn't have.

Speaker 2:

So I wasn't able, because of the surrogacy, I wasn't able to see the progress in real time and I think that created a bit of a disconnect for me, because it's kind of like I joke around. It's like we Amazon primed a kid and you know you're there with the surrogate, kind of I was there in the in the delivery room and and there's your child. It's like I didn't see this coming, even though I knew it was coming. So for me it took a little bit to kind of realize that I have this living thing and I absolutely adore her. I mean, I can sit and pet her hair and it's just. It's just a really. It's just. It feels like home. It feels like home and I really want to protect her from the kind of suffering I endured and, at the end of the day, I'll do my best.

Speaker 1:

Isn't that cool, that is, that's uh, that's just amazing. Yeah, I'm just sitting listening to you talk and seeing the joy in your face. Our little poppy is three months old, the little granddaughter. She'll go home and I've been holding her and I'll just sit and smell my hands. I tell my wife, oh, my God, I miss her so much. She's so awesome. Yeah, that's still cool, that's great. So talk about so you found family. Yes, and that's great. So talk about so you found family.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

And that's now your core. You also went back to your faith, that's right.

Speaker 2:

Talk a little bit about that and then talk about how your faith in Boise, idaho, is different than New York. Well, it's related. So, really quickly, I've crash landed in Boise after doing a four-month road trip during COVID. I was basically in this really special time in my life. I just sold my business. I could do whatever I want.

Speaker 2:

I told my closest friends hop in the car, I'm funding a road trip. It was supposed to be two weeks to Florida, ended up being four months across the country and we covered 15,000 miles in four months. And Boise was one of the last stops we made. And I got here and it was just like a kind of a we made a left on the way to Bozeman. It wasn't like we were thinking about let's go to Boise, no offense.

Speaker 2:

So made that left wasn't, was kind of unimpressed as I was driving into the treasure Valley and then I was like boom, the beauty just hit me. And then I kind of settled in for the day and we went out, went downtown and I was like these people are awesome. And then I kind of didn't make much of it left. And then I said what if I moved there? And so I posted on LinkedIn I'm thinking about moving to Boise. If you know anybody let me know know it.

Speaker 2:

Like 20-plus coffee meetings set up meeting people and I was like there is excitement here. So it was first the beauty of the place, then it was the kindness of the people, and then it was the opportunity of the place and I was like this, I feel like, is my place. And then I obviously leaned into the recreation and the outdoors and that's kind of my heart and I then realized wait a second, I took for granted being around a lot of Jews Because those are my people, even though I'm kind of like, oh, I kind of didn't, really wasn't hanging out with Jewish American circles but I kind of missed it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Where I could use words that people wouldn't understand. Or people have met a Jew. I've met people who are like, oh wow, you're the first Jewish friend I have. That's so cool. And I was like, well, I got to lean into this Jewish thing. You're my second. Yeah, yeah, that's right, Working on being the favorite.

Speaker 1:

So I got and I was like If I told you one of my old partners was Jewish Amy Baruch, she'd be very disappointed if you were already my favorite.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Move over, amy, you're on, you've been put and put on a warning.

Speaker 2:

So I kind of like I was like I need community, like it's the first time in my life where I want a community.

Speaker 2:

So I went to the local synagogue and kind of like, did the community thing helped out, you know, supported the synagogue, and then October 7th happened and my blood boiled and I wanted to connect with my tradition, with my ancestors. And then Jen and I were serious and obviously married for a few months at the time and she agreed to convert because we wanted the same kind of family values. So this process of October 7th and this real stain on the Jewish people and then followed by the desire to have some shared family values, has led me to my faith and then being in recovery, being sober now for six months, that's also helping me. So all those things put together has kind of led me to what I know, which is my Jewish identity and I'm just inspired by the tradition of Judaism, the wisdom in Judaism, the values of Judaism, and that's kind of what keeps me going right now and this foundation of faith is really important to my belonging because I belong to this peoplehood and that means a lot.

Speaker 1:

I think that's so important. I mean we have different faith, beliefs and traditions and heritages that we come from and it's been interesting to look at just the statistics in America from organized religion and the participation levels and not just religion, clubs, social clubs, different things, it's just down. I think most technologies that change in America have been very gradual.

Speaker 1:

And the revolution of technology, the social media and social ways of connecting was a very quick change in America, and I think most organized religions and organizations are trying to figure out oh, this is different. People are meeting. Where do we fit in? People are meeting, meeting their needs. People are meeting their needs in different ways. Um, and how are they? Uh, how are they doing that?

Speaker 1:

but it's so refreshing to hear you say, uh, heritage yes beliefs, foundational stuff that that is just so good to connect with, and the community that it provides and that support group. And I'll bet here what is the Jewish community like here? And tell us about the community, because it is unfortunately, you know, it's not.

Speaker 2:

Non-existent. Yeah, so before I touch on that, you said something really important. It actually goes back to the topic of belonging. So Robert Putnam, the kind of famed Harvard professor, talks about the decline of social capital from the invention of television. Started with the television when entertainment moved indoors, followed by suburbanization where people kind of left their kind of tight communities and continued with social media and all these other things, and the decline of social capital is highlighted. But exactly what you just said the declining membership of civic organizations, of associations, of neighborhood associations, and that had a real impact on the isolation of Americans. I refer to that in the book kind of coined by Pete Buttigieg, the former presidential candidate the belonging crisis.

Speaker 2:

We have a crisis of belonging in this country. To me, the solution is a bottom-up approach for every person to go through their process. What's happened is that religion, or whatever you want to call it, has been replaced by individualized religion where everybody's like this is my God, this is what I believe, it's my space, my bubble and all this stuff. And that's dangerous, because if we don't have a shared belief system, then we can't really agree on stuff, and I think that the moral decay in our country is a byproduct of that, yeah, and why we've kind of lost touch with morality and we're putting performance over morality when we select candidates, for example, for office, and that concerns me, and that concerns me. So when I wrap my tefillin, which is the oldest Jewish tradition of putting parchment with prayer on your arm and near your heart and on your head, I am reminded by all the Jewish ancestors that have worn tefillin and wrapped themselves with a prayer shawl to help me get to where I am today.

Speaker 2:

That's powerful and that's part of the reason of connecting with my heritage and my ancestors is the reason I do that.

Speaker 1:

I love that. I could not agree with anything more. And religion, belief in a higher being, whatever you want to call it, regardless of the theology, there are grounding principles that you can always find with friends of other religions, that there are things that we agree on, and a lot of those fundamental principles are the same and you can find commonality on how we treat each other and how there's just wisdom, there's wisdom, there's kindness, there's goodness, there's humanity. Yeah, there's no religion that says treat people like crap, no, and there's even theological. I mean there's just some stuff. There's no religion that says treat people like crap, no, and there's even theological. I mean there's just some stuff that you can always find, hey, this is where we agree. And isn't this wonderful? And I can't. I mean this is probably going to get, but I can't even imagine like life without one paying kind of.

Speaker 1:

I mean it's part of kind of, it can be part of your core belonging, paying tribute to the heritage of what came before you and beliefs, and why that drove those people and how that was such an important part of their lives. Right, it just was. I mean, it was just foundational to them. So that's one to them, so that's one and two, that God or a belief in a higher power that has us is also. I mean, I can't imagine not praying for my grandchildren every night, praying for them every morning, thinking of them being watched over or protected.

Speaker 1:

It's just a and that belonging right that you're, you know, there's sometimes that you think of oh, there's some great, great book I read and a title that was the kind of the four titles that we all have. And one is you're the son or daughter of God. Right Two, you know, is that you're a disciple and it kind of goes down there. But you have these different titles that can be very founding in your life and give you comfort If you truly believe that that's at the base of it all. That's what I am and that's what we are and that's belonging.

Speaker 2:

That's right. And in the book I have a very simple exercise to help people figure out what they believe in. And it's very simple. There's a rabbi out of LA. He talks to people and he says people say I'm not believing anything, rabbi, and he said okay, no problem.

Speaker 2:

What do you believe in you? How do you think the Sun didn't just rise up this morning? Like what do you think's going on? Well, I believe in nature, I believe in the universe, I believe in consciousness, I believe in the higher spirit. I believe in, I Believe in the power of mycelium, mushrooms and their fungal networks around the world underneath us, connecting everything, no problem. So you believe in something and the word God has kind of been hijacked by some people who kind of use it for their own kind of agenda. That's fine. You don't want to use the word God? Totally fine. If you do this thing, it'll give you the word that will fit you, i's fine. You don't want to use the word God? Totally fine. If you do this thing, he'll give you the word that will fit you. I guarantee it.

Speaker 1:

Higher power, higher something. Something always is founded. You know what I did with my kids we used to go to Moab a lot. It's just one of our favorite family things and there's a trail, a jeep trail, down there called Hell's Revenge.

Speaker 2:

Have you ever been to Moab? I've been to Moab. I haven't done Moab.

Speaker 1:

So if you ever get in a plane and kind of just the one thing about Moab is within about a three-mile radius from the town, there are just crazy different geological structures within one area. I've seen the videos where like jeeps, kind of like go on. Yeah, but you're like, so you can kind of go down to Devil's Kitchen and the Slot Canyons down in one area, and then you have the LaSalle Mountains here and then you have these big rock domes there.

Speaker 2:

Isn't it funny, things like that are called devils when it's actually like well, that's why. Why Isn't it funny, things like that are called devils when it's actually like why?

Speaker 1:

Why? It's just because it's hard.

Speaker 2:

It's red, it's red, it's red and spiky. Well, I'm thinking about even in Rio or in the Iguazu Falls. It's like the devil's mouth. Okay, yeah.

Speaker 1:

I've been to Iguazu Falls, but I would take my, so the one trail is this Hell's Revenge, and it's these big domed rocks that are gigantic. And you go out on a Jeep and I would always. You couldn't do it every trip because you had to look at when there was no moon, and so we would usually go down a couple times a year and it was on nights, when there was no moon, middle of the summer, and I would take my kids out and get out of a Jeep, turn off the lights and lay on. You know, it's down there, it's warm in the summer, and you lay on these hot rocks and they're positioned that you could lay there forever, just because of the way they arch.

Speaker 1:

And you look up and you have a discussion that goes like this it is pitch black and it's just, and you're like I'm there right now, I get it Well, and you just say, hey, what do you think about this? Right, right, the majesty of it all. You just stop the grandeur of it all and, in their own ways because they're, you know, young describe what you see and feel to me, and I'm telling you you, every once in a while, with my kids, we'll talk about that, um, because there's, there's someone telling you about it higher power, god or whatever. And then there's when you feel it and you, you like in a real way, say I am so small.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

And I am. So. Look at this. I don't even understand what I'm feeling right now, but I like it, I feel it, it fills me and I need it. Anyway, it's been something we've done with all of them and I just treasure it.

Speaker 2:

I might steal that I mean. I think the flip side of it is yes, I'm so small, but how special is this? Right, and it's like I'm so small and this is amazing.

Speaker 1:

And then the flip side of that is they will have things happen in their life which are simply not coincidental. I mean, you might call it coincidental, but some things will happen and you'll go okay, remember how big that was, remember how small you are, and that was not coincidental. I love that and and I think those two things can be grounding right, that it is big but, but, but, anyway, we're getting pretty deep. I love it. I love yeah, I said we got it all day right. Oh, my gosh, we're 9, 50. Uh, hey, round, speed round, speed. So speed round, so speed round. We talked about your business. We talked about your book. So, everyone, I'm going to give another plug the Quest, the Definitive Guide to Finding and Belonging. We'll put a link when we send this out. This is really cool. I can't wait to read it. I'll text you sometime this weekend after I read it. But what's next for you here? I know you've got a lot going on, so talk about the new business, which I thought we would talk a lot about.

Speaker 2:

That's okay. So I would say my life is kind of four things, obviously. The first is family and focused on my new daughter. The second is the book and focusing on getting in front of the right people. The third is my nonprofit, which is the Idaho Israel Alliance, which is about fighting anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, which I view as the same thing in Idaho. Unfortunately, we still have a little ways to go in our state. And the fourth, and the thing I'm most excited about, is Assemble Hospitality Group, which is my new vision for small group lodging, which is basically a fancy way to saying retreat centers and secondary and tertiary markets.

Speaker 2:

The flagship location is going to be in Boise. It's in the North End, formerly known as Franklin House, kind of renovating it, million dollar renovation and it's going to be a place for teams to come together and achieve great things, because I truly believe that the biggest things happen in the smallest rooms. I always joke that you're not going to set your corporate goals at your town hall. You're going to set your corporate goals in your conference room and then you will then talk about it at the town hall. It's not like a company set a 10-year vision to colonize Mars in a virtual meeting. So getting together, setting goals, reviewing the year, doing whatever brainstorm, whatever happens in small rooms, that's what we're focused on.

Speaker 2:

So the first one's in Boise. The goal is to have 20 by 2030, and kind of like kind of these up and coming markets and the difference I call it the 15 by 15 by 15, 15 minutes from the airport, I call it the 15 by 15 by 15. 15 minutes from the airport, 15 minutes to downtown and then 15 direct flights to that city and that's where we market to those markets that fly direct. And then it's close to nature but not in nature, so it's easy to get to. And the last thing is that we kind of add this concierge services to do whatever you want to do. That's incredible. So you want to go practice tactical shooting? You can do that as a team. When did your first one open? July 1st.

Speaker 1:

And do you have a website or anything like that?

Speaker 2:

Assemblehospitalitycom.

Speaker 1:

Can you look that up, matthew Assemblehospitalitycom, and the first one right here in Boise. I can't wait, yeah, can't wait, to be a user. Thank you, we've talked about it. I can't wait to take our team. But incredible, uh, there it is. Ah, man, you're an incredible guy, you know that I mean likewise, you are uh I think you might have been the governor doctor.

Speaker 2:

Has there ever been a governor?

Speaker 1:

doctor? No, I don't know, but I shouldn't have run, but it was it was fun.

Speaker 2:

I'm here to draft tommy for the next race no, no, no, no, that's.

Speaker 1:

Uh, that's something. Leave a comment if you think that should be done, you do that once and and then, when you're not good at it, you go. I'm not very good at that, so here it is. Productive retreats start here.

Speaker 2:

If you actually go to locations and then go to Boise, you can see our Boise offering.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's great, and available in July, that's right. Love it. Hey, we got to do this again because this went way too fast. Really appreciate it. Don't tempt me with a good time and we'll put all your links for people who want to reach out and connect with you here in the Valley. Thank heavens you chose Boise. Oh, thank you. You're very kind to say that. Thank you, and good luck with the—. Boise chose me, boise did choose you. Thanks, man, I appreciate it. Thank you.