Outlier TV Episode with Patrick Janin Founder of Raiwasa Resort

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Andrew McCombe:

Hey guys, Andrew McCombe here and welcome to Outlier. In this week’s episode, I’m in beautiful Taveuni, Fiji, where I’m going to be speaking to Patrick Janin, the founder and culture whisperer at the beautiful Raiwasa resort. Okay, guys, I’m excited. Let’s go and make Patrick. Patrick, Janin, welcome to Outlier. (Thank you for having me. It’s great.)

Patrick, you’ve won the world boutique hotel awards twice for obviously for an incredible resort that you’ve got here at Raiwasa, but it hasn’t always been like that. Has it?

Patrick Janin:

No, it didn’t start that way. I mean, neither did Raiwasa nor my experience. It’s actually an interesting story because it comes from experiences that I had throughout my life that basically culminated and brought me to where I am today. I was born in France, from European parents. My father was an amazing entrepreneur, immigrated to the United States when he was very young and had all three of us boys. And we moved back to France and spent some time there. I always seem to have a connection with islands and with Fiji. I remember, as a child, I had a big poster of the Fiji islands in my room. I always knew that I would spend time here.

So it’s amazing how sometimes you just think about something and it just, it just happens. But really to make a long story short, cause I don’t wanna take too much time. I come from an entrepreneurial family, and I had several medical businesses. I had a great business partner and friend of mine, Chris, who was our engineer. We built this amazing medical business, in the orthopedic field, and we eventually sold it to Johnson and Johnson as a big closing event. I stayed on with them for two years in the business. And after two years, unfortunately, my friend Chris passed away from secondhand cancer smoking. That was back in the day when people were smoking everywhere in restaurants and in bars and stuff like that.

And I remember that event was just so traumatic to me. I came home that night, and I spoke to my wife, and you know, I kind of have to admit that I was very much a workaholic, and I’ve been struggling with workaholism. I mean, working 18 hour days, we both did, building new technologies. Patented technologies were really unique and had a tremendous market share, over 80% market share in certain European countries. So it was traumatic. I remember coming home and just thinking of speaking to my wife, Erica. And I said, “look, I don’t want to go out that way.” I mean, that’s just such a sad story to work so hard and to provide for your family and do everything. And then all of a sudden it’s just slipped. Everything, just so quickly, right?

My plan was to take a trip around the world. I’d tell my childhood friends. I was like, I always want to take a trip around the world. And I said, “look, Erica, we’re pulling the kids out of school.” I had two beautiful children, Oscar and Estelle. There were about eight and ten at the time, the perfect age to do something like that. They still think the parents are cool. And we decided we’re going to take a one-year journey around the world. So we embarked on a journey, literally one year, nothing but travel. Obviously, we had a sale event, so we had the means to be able to go to some beautiful, beautiful locations and properties as well.

That was kind of the initial embarkation onto the journey of understanding the difference between, let’s say, a tourist and a vacation and a traveler and an experience. Because when you’re going on a vacation, you know, vacation is very finite. You’re gonna take some time off from work. Hopefully, you’re gonna get in an environment that is outside of your normal routines. Hopefully select a nice hotel, choose a good restaurant, have a nice meal, maybe seek some adventure. It can be hit or miss. And that’s usually those types of experiences, have somewhat of a fleeting effect. I mean, after you come home, everything comes back. The difference between a traveler like we did. We were a family unit, nothing but love, no social media, no emails, nothing, completely disconnected.

You become a traveler. So you’re basically roaming around the earth. I would home-school the kids every morning, for half a day, and Erica would prepare our trips going forward.

Andrew McCombe:

What was the plan there? Was it just to travel, like make it up as you go. Did you have an intention or a vision for the year, or how did it actually start?

Patrick Janin:

It was an interesting thing. We were living in the South of France and the French Riviera at the time. We had run these medical businesses with 50 employees, and it was really challenging to run businesses in France. It’s not the best environment for entrepreneurs. I had spent half my life in Europe and half my life in America. I don’t have the French accent that you usually hear because I did my education in the United States. I went to graduate school in Washington and also to college. So I was in France until high school. And then I moved over to Europe, and I’ve been back and forth. it was basically completely different experience.

Andrew McCombe:

Yeah. So were you five starring, or were your backpacking?

Patrick Janin:

That’s a good question. And we did a bit of both, and actually, that’s kind of what spurred on some interesting things. So we went to some amazing places. I mean, just beautiful resorts, the best in the world really. And what we found is a lot of those places were like corporate and kind of manipulated in a way. Because they’re great beautiful areas and stuff like that, but at the same time, it’s really corporatized. It’s structured. (Did it feel like it had a soul?) No, no. The people that you meet are friendly, but it’s a turn on friendly. It’s not genuinely friendly. And then we also did some amazing experience. We took a camper van; we went all around Australia, New Zealand, you know, South Island, the North Island, we spent two months in New Zealand. And to answer your previous question, what was the purpose of the trip? Well, the purpose of the trip was we were living in the South of France, and we wanted to find a new place to live. So that was part of the journey, figuring out, what did we like about different parts of the world, and where do we really want to bring our kids into adulthood?”

Andrew McCombe:

Was it also a part, like with your friend’s death, was it, “I can’t do this anymore.” The way you’d been operating, I need to do something different to change,” or?

Patrick Janin:

It wasn’t about operating. Cause I think, being a workaholic, it sounds cliche, but it’s just innate in most entrepreneurs. I don’t find the word is appropriate for me. My wife pulled out a checklist once, and it’s in my book overworked about all the different points that make you a workaholic. And I think if you get three of those points, you’re a workaholic. I think I had 15 of them. So I couldn’t escape the fact that I was, but when you’re an entrepreneur, and you have got a passion for what you do, it’s not work anymore. It’s just you do it because you love what you’re doing. (You’re passionaholick.) Yeah, absolutely. That’s a good point. That’s a good way to put it.

Andrew McCombe:

Okay. So it wasn’t so much about change and getting away from it. It was about creating a new place to live for the kids and having them grow up in a new environment.

Patrick Janin:

I think very selfishly, Andrew, it was about saying to myself, “if I die tomorrow, I want to feel like I really lived, as I’ve really experienced something.” Now I have a super great relationship with my whole family, including my wife and my children. So that was fantastic, but I felt like there was a lot more to it. And I just wanted to touch that. I wanted to experience it. I wanted to just get something that, at the end of the trip, if I had had to die on the last day of the trip, I would feel like, “okay, it’s okay, I’m done. I did it.” And I achieved that. It was the most transformational experience I’ve ever done. The best year of my life to date, I highly recommend it to anybody, whether it be. This is a big thing that most people can embark on, but if you can take a sabbatical, if you’re between jobs and you can afford it, even becoming just a month traveler, and regardless of your means, you can travel.

And the beauty of that is, it’s a more of a volume thing. So as a traveler, you’re going to different places, and you’re hoping to hit one or two experiences, something that’s going to really transform you as a person. I mean, I’m just thinking of things that pop into my head, feeding the monks in Laos on the street was just amazing, humbling. Such empathy to see that these monks, and you’re just, you know, walking the street, asking for people to feed them and the kids, of course, to see their wonder in reaction to the world that in itself was also just amazing.

Andrew McCombe:

So just give us a little itinerary. What happened, so you left Nice. And where did it go and tell us about the most impressive or wow moments that you did have?

Patrick Janin:

We basically decided we were going to hit pretty much five continents. We’re not going to do South America. We felt that a lot of those places might be a little bit less safe for the kids. So we started in Nice, and we went through Europe part, part of Europe, not all of it. Scandinavia, my wife’s from Sweden. So we did, you know, Norway and Scandinavia. And then we moved over to the U S. Cause what we did is we took a trip around the world with Star Alliance. So it’s a business class ticket at the time. I don’t know if it exists anymore for like 5,000 us dollars.

Andrew McCombe:

With the stop in each continent?

Patrick Janin:

I mean, you can go anywhere you want with that trip. You start in one pot; you can’t go back. So you got to go West or East, and it was all business class. It was amazing. And of course when you’re traveling that much, if you can sleep on the planes, it’s a great plus. So we went to the US, we did a lot of great things on the East coast. My wife and I, and the kids lived in Annapolis, Maryland, and in New York, but we went to Maine, went to Massachusetts, and crossed the country. We went to amazing national parks, like in Montana and in Wyoming. And ended up in San Francisco. Did some great events in some of the big cities and stuff along the way. And that’s really kind of what it embarked for Erica and I.

We shot down to New Zealand, and we spent one month in the North Island. We spent one month in the South Island, touring, and we know that country really well. (so that was a motor home trip.) Well, the North Island was a car trip and hotels and boutique hotels and stuff. And the Southern Island, which, as you know, is not as infrastructurally good. We went with the motor home, which of course, was the highlight for the kids. I mean, for us, I would do it again for the kids, but it was a little, it was like camping, you know, so it was fine. We had a great time. I home-schooled the kids and did all that stuff. So all the beauties of New Zealand. Then we hopped over to Australia. We spent a month in Australia and doing all the East Coast and all the way down to Adelaide and Kangaroo Island.

We didn’t go quite to the West of Australia. Then we started hitting up towards Asia and did Singapore and Malaysia, Thailand. We thought we were going to live in Thailand. So we spent a month and a half in Thailand. We did all the Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, China, and Hong Kong, all these areas around Asia. I’m forgetting some of them, of course. we made our way and headed down to South Africa. And so we hit the big parks, Kruger national park. We went to Zimbabwe; we went to Zambia, we went and drove down all of the garden routes and ended up in South Africa. I’m a huge diver. So I did cage diving with the great white sharks, ate tremendous food, stayed in beautiful lodges, all those things. Erica and I were just absorbing some of these little touch points of a lifetime of tiny experiences.

And throughout that process, thinking to ourselves, “wow, it would be nice to be able to put all these things in together into one experience.” After that we headed up to North Africa, we hit Senegal and Tunisia and Morocco and Greece. We spent a lot of time in Greece as well. And then we came back. So like I said, over 30 countries, five continents. (So you came back to niece. So you came back. Cause obviously; you came here at some point.) I apologize, I fully forgot about that. So on the way down to New Zealand, we stopped into Fiji, because I wanted to be in Fiji. So it was something. And I gotta be honest. I was disappointed when I landed on the main Island.

We stayed at the big box hotels. I’d heard so many great things about Fiji and people, and I’m not saying that they’re not nice over there, but it was not what I expected. I mean, we were disappointed. It felt like it was kind of simple, basic, you know, resorty type thing, really. And we were disappointed. I remember one day we were just having breakfast. We were right next to people. And when you travel like that, you really connect with people because it’s just your family unit. So when there are other kids around, the kids like to play with each other, and the parents were there, so we spoke to them, and they were some, some Kiwis actually. And they said, “Oh, you’ve got to go to the North.”

“Only 5% of the people who traveled to Fiji come to the North, and you should go see the Garden Island, which is known as Taveuni.” So we just said, “okay, screw it. Let’s just, we’ll close out this bill. And we’ll just take a flight up.” And we came up to Taveuni, and that’s where the love started. I mean, the people here are just amazing. This is the true Fiji. And it’s like that place that’s forgotten by time. People are genuinely interested in you; they are the happiest people. They’re not materialistic. They’re not after your money. Things are the way they were 50 years ago. The infrastructure is still good. It’s a big enough Island. You can get around to places relatively quickly. Amazing vegetation, beautiful waterfalls. I’m a big diver. The rainbow reef, which is 20 minutes away from here, is known as the soft coral capital of the world.

So I just fell in love with the place. (And so, did you know you’d come back, or it was just more like an experience, cool. That was great. And we move on.) It’s kind of a tricky thing. I think if I have to be perfectly honest in my mind, I was like, “I gotta buy something here.” And I think at the end of our trip is when I kept on thinking Fiji, Fiji, Fiji, I gotta do something, gotta do something. And we’d met some people here, and I kept on bugging them like, “Oh, is there a house for sale? Is this for sale?” And that and the other. And eventually, when we came back from that trip, I told Erica. At the time, we were in the South of France, and we have always had a couple of businesses.

So we had a Villa rental business in the South of France. So we were very familiar with the service aspect of that. (wasn’t it transitioned to something completely different from medical? Or did you already have some experience?) I had a little bit of experience in the South of France and renting homes. And we would rent our home when we would travel. And we did have some experience, but that’s different. I mean, doing a VRBO rental and doing something high touch, five-star was different, but we knew that what we were getting into, we knew that it was not leverageable, that it was not something that was going to be big. It was a passion. It was about what we wanted to do. The creative process was really what we were trying to achieve with it.

And so I kept on bugging Erica. I said, “look, we’ve got to bottle this experience, this one year trip around the world.” we won’t be able to bottle the trip around the world, but what we can bottle is all those transformational and experiential travel experiences. How do we do that in a specific one-week vacation? Because what we noticed is that Erica would plan the trips. So as she planned the trips, she would cater to what we would be doing as a result of preceding choosing what she would do. She would have expectations. And often she was disappointed with those expectations, because as you can imagine in the travel industry, we’re not going to put up the average picture, we’re going to put up the best picture we get. And it’s probably going to be a lot of places photoshopped.

Often at the end of the day, as a debrief over dinner, she’d say, “Oh, I was disappointed about this. I was disappointed about that.” And she’s a super optimist and not that type of person at all. And I was like, “Wow, what a fundamental difference between the kids and my experience and yours.” And we just realized, which is pretty obvious, that if you have expectations, right, then you’re putting the bar somewhere. We came into this travel with no expectations, zero. So if an event didn’t happen, quite like it was supposed to, it still was great. It was still amazing. So we said, “let’s find a way to bottle that experience in a travel experience in Fiji,” because we loved it here so that we could create a transformational and experiential, something that would, we’d be able to cater everything for our guests, without it being scripted, but they would have to basically do no research.

And the idea behind it originally was, you know, I’d been, and I still do work many, many hours. Usually my normal day starts at three in the morning. And I’m early to bed. I’m usually sleeping at about 10 o’clock, but I’m still kind of that workaholic. I wanted to try to give to other CEO’s, entrepreneurs, and C suite execs, the ability to do what I did during that trip away for one year, but in a really short span of time, to disconnect, completely regroup, be with your loved ones and be completely disconnected from your life and come away with a transformation, something that made you a better person. And that’s done when you could come into an experience and have those transformational and experiential kinds of experiences without it being catered.

If I tell you, “this is going to transform your life, Andrew, your bar’s here.” Like that’s a big expectation. So I don’t really try to oversell the property in the resort. Our sales team and marketing really are really careful. It’s probably to our detriment as business owners, to not tell people or put more information about what’s happening. But for me, it’s all about the people that are going to come and have that tremendous experience. we have over 99.5% of the guests that stay with us, say, “it’s one of their top 10 travel experiences.” And 93 and a half percent, say, “they’ll recommend it to friends.” Over 50% of the people say, “it’s their number one travel experience.” And these people are CEOs, entrepreneurs, world travelers, people who’ve been everywhere. As you can see, the data is something. I’ve always been in the medical field, always kind of collected data. So it’s great to have that feedback.

Andrew McCombe:

So with all of the experiences you had on your travels, and you wanted to bottle that experience, what are some that inspired you to then try to recreate it here in Fiji?

Patrick Janin:

I’m trying to think of the ones that really spurred us and touched us. I think the one that was really instrumental was a place in Thailand, in Koh Samui, we rented a Villa, and we had a small amount of staff. It was a chef called Mayo, a beautiful Thai woman, a great chef, and a great property manager. We started connecting and interacting as a family. She was just great with the kids. She was great with us, the wife, and she was a great chef, really great cook. She just cooked beautifully, not anything presentation, but the flavors were there, and it was fantastic. I’m quite a foodie myself. I love to cook. I’m not a trained chef, but I love to experiment. And so I remember going on these trips with her, and I’d say, “look, in the morning at six, let’s go to the market together.”

We’d go through these markets that were mind-blowing. I mean, you’ve seen them now on all the travel shows with the weirdest stuff in the world. And I’d say, “Mayo, I want to eat snake tonight!” And she’d make snakes. Sometimes I wouldn’t tell the kids and they’d be like, “this is like chicken. It tastes so good.” So that connection, that human connection that I had with her was something that I was like blown away by. It was amazing. And I just thought the Fiji and people as a core are really nice. They are fundamentally caring people, happy people. They’re voted every year as the happiest people on earth. It’s just an amazing culture and people. So it felt like the perfect place to build that type of experience of five-star high touch experience.

I mean, anybody who’s listened to this who’s ever dealt with this industry, you’ve got to come in here, do a five-star high touch experience with people who have never eaten at a Michelin starred restaurant. Never stayed at a hotel. Don’t have a passport, have never traveled, never been outside the country. Never been served, have never been to a restaurant with linen on it and all that. (So you’re talking about your team, right?) Yeah. This is my team at Raiwasa. that was that click that you were talking about that made me say, “okay, that plus, this is gonna, is gonna work.”

Andrew McCombe:

So it sounds to me, like going back to Mayo and Thailand, so you were fully immersed. You weren’t just another number in the crowd where you’re experiencing it almost from the outside with them, you know, shallow Lee saying hello and being friendly. You were fully part of that process.

Patrick Janin:

You became friends. If your friend goes to live in the country and they become your tour guide, you can’t get better than that. And this is what happened with us. It was unscripted. It was not corporate. It was not manipulated. It was just everything you would want out of the experience. And you were, you know, deep diving, deep into the culture, into the experience of her life. And she shared that with us. That was transformational.

Andrew McCombe:

So what I love about your story, not only the history of it and the inspiration and the drama that happened, and it set you on a new journey, et cetera, is that, where we are right now, we’re in the middle of the Pacific ocean an hour and a half from the international airport. So you truly are an outlier in that regard, but you’re also an outlier in the fact that you’ve won the world boutique hotel awards twice, with a team that, as you mentioned, have never experienced anything to do with five-star luxury in their life. How do you do that?

Patrick Janin:

Yeah, that’s a good question. And definitely a challenge. For sure. I mean, the way I looked at it, as I said, look, I’m going to give myself an impossible challenge. I’m going to build that experience. We just talked about that high touch with people who have never done it before. And in addition, because that’s not hard enough, I’m going to do it 10,000 kilometers away from my home in Colorado. And anyone will tell you, that’s just not realistic. That’s just not going to happen. You need to have the person who’s got that experience to be here locally. And I have totally proven everybody wrong from that perspective. And the way that I did that is I started to think about how that could happen. I knew that doing what I had started with the medical industry, which has to be really Carthusian and do standard operating procedures and KPIs and stuff, that this is foreign.

They wouldn’t know how to follow these instructions. I said, “I got to build something that’s alive. I got to build an organism. I’ve got to build a culture.” And we traveled around the world. We saw all these cultures, and really, at the end, we started realizing, culture is basically shared values and beliefs of people and multiple levels. You have your own culture as an individual, your ethics and who you are as a person, you got your family’s culture, you’ve got maybe your state culture, your country’s culture and the world culture, you know, you’re human. We’re human beings. We all have relations regardless of where you’re from. And so I said, “okay, let’s build an organism. Let’s build something that’s alive. That’s going to be able to mutate, heal itself, monitor itself, do all these kinds of things.”

(Sounds like you’re a biologists.) Well, actually, my dad worked in the microbiology field. I was in the medical field, but I thought to myself, it had to be organic. It could not be digital. It could not be that structured, but obviously, we’re going to frame it with structure because there’s training. There’s important things. So what I went about doing is I sat a lot about it. I thought a lot about it. And I said, “look, I’ve got to build a culture.” I’ve got to build a culture that can be pushed through with the proxies that I have. Richie and Rosie are my general manager, executive chef, and assistant manager. And they’re beautiful people. And they just bought into the culture, you know, totally. (Had you met them on the original trip?)

Well, when I bought the property, I came and lived in Fiji for six months to do everything here at the pool. My wife is an interior decorator. I was on illustrator, building all the decks and figuring out what we did. And we had friends that helped us with all the development and stuff like that. And then we met them because Richie has just started his chef career, just out of school. And he was my chef here, at the Villa. And at the time, we had a home-school teacher who was staying with us, and we were working on figuring out what we’re going to do here. And he would cook for us every night, and we would basically critique his food. So we made like a little Excel, and we’d have flavor profiles, how detailed the presentation was, all these things.

And everybody at the table would judge. And Richie just loved it. And I saw that spark that you look for in people. As an entrepreneur, you’re looking for people who are humble, who are willing to accept criticism, and don’t see it as criticism. They’re smart enough to understand that this is not about hurting their ego or being superior to them. It’s about improving them. Anyway, then we left back. We ended up living in Colorado, up in the mountains where my wife horseback rides, and we do a lot of hiking and have dogs. And that was a great place. And we put our kids in high school in a relatively rural town in America. And, you know, always, always had, you know, Fiji, Fiji, Fiji in mind.

So when we decided to take over in 2016, after the big storm at Winston, we said, “okay, we’re going to basically take this product and build it for everybody to enjoy, not just, you know, an invitation-only kind of thing.” so we went ahead and built this organism. What I tried to do is I tried to build things that I collected throughout my life and my different businesses that I found to be really valuable. A lot of these things are the way I am naturally. Because you can’t just push culture into something, that’s not who you really are. Like at the fundamental aspect, it’s gotta be part of who you are.

Andrew McCombe:

Well, it’s an extension of you, isn’t it? Or an external manifestation of your underlying values.

Patrick Janin:

It is. And so we’ll talk about the culture today, and what I would always warn the people who are listening, it is like, feel free to copy whatever you want out of the culture, but this should be really something that you speak. It’s gotta be your language. It’s gotta be things that you feel comfortable with. If it’s foreign to you, don’t do it because it’s a tool to lead through example and stuff like that.

Andrew McCombe:

And so, Richie’s on board, he’s obviously fully engaged. Things are coming together, construction-wise, you’ve decided you’re going to put this out to the world. People can come and stay. What do you want them to experience?

Patrick Janin:

Ultimately this was created for two types of clients, the overworked entrepreneur, who should be taking a vacation, and doesn’t think they need it. But if they come here, they’re going to really experience something very, very different. It’s going to make them better at their work. It’s going to improve their health, their sleep, all these kinds of things, which sound crazy. But I guarantee you; we get reviews all the time from that. That’s really, really critical. And of course, honeymooners, cause it’s such an idyllic location that it’s great. So those two targets.

Good markets are ideal for Rwasa.

Andrew McCombe:

And it’s interesting. Cause we could talk about all the features, the diving, the paddleboarding down there, the fishing, the beautiful ocean, the infinity pole, the cocktails, everything that goes like in a lot of resorts in Fiji. Right. But that’s not what this is about, is it?

Patrick Janin:

No, it’s about the human connection. It’s about the proximity of the shared emotions that you get as an individual. So there’s a study. I don’t remember who wrote it, but they say that humans could start tracking people at about 20, 30 feet away. So our brain is always tracking for safety. And so at 20, 30 feet away, we start, you know, it’s kind of the public space past that, we know they’re there, but we’re not really present. Within six to 10 feet, we start tracking people, and that’s primarily our primitive mind that says, “is this a safe person, or is this a danger for us?” And we don’t think about it. It’s our primitive brain. And then the really powerful, shared emotion is when you can see people’s eye colors, and that’s the cocktail party distance that three, four, five feet.

And that’s the power; I feel untapped in business for many people. It’s that connection. So everything that we do here is really within that zone. Whether we are traveling and the driver’s in the car, the tour guides within that three feet, whether it’s out on the boat, and it’s not a huge boat. So we’re close to people, whether we’re servicing them, whether we’re massaging them, whether we’re interacting with them, organizing what they’re going to have for dinner. That shared emotion gets transferred from the Fiji and people who are just the happiest people. I mean, just take a look at the smiles. We have amazing staff, and every time they smile, I just feel so happy because it’s contagious.

Andrew McCombe:

So it’s almost like sharing a secret with yours. And it’s like, when they smile, do you feel what I’m feeling?

Patrick Janin:

It’s the shared emotion. I mean, what it is, is that people first come here, they bring the baggage, and it all sheds away because they’re such nice people and they smile at you, and they’re looking at doing things for you and helping you with improving your life and preempting and being proactive. They’re doing it in a genuine way. Effortless, they’re not even trying. I don’t train for Fiji’s beautiful smiles and stuff like that. I mean, we pick the right people, but they’re just amazing. And that’s something that is powerful. Really, the proximity that you can have with your guests or clients is something that I would highly recommend.

Andrew McCombe (02:40):

So the thing that I’ve experienced, being here for a day or so, is like you said, it’s a proximity thing. They’re there, they’re around, but they’re not invasive, but you do feel like you’re part of a family now. That’s after one day. You can’t train that sort of thing. Right? But obviously, you have trained it. So I guess for another business owner or an outlier, that’s out there, who’s I guess, the key is here, we’re trying to be an outlier. Right. We’re trying to be different. We’re trying to be unique as a positioning thing, just as much as ourself thing. What would you recommend to start that process? So there are such great relationships with the customers. That’s effortless, and it sounds like you don’t even have to do anything once it’s like that, but it’s not like that, is it?

Patrick Janin:

The best way to describe that, I think, is that this is part of their culture as well. You’ve got to position yourself as an infinite game. This is not a finite game we’re playing. It’s not chess with you as our guest is going to lose. And we are exchanging value. There’s a transaction between you giving us some money to come here and enjoy yourself and us giving you value equal or superior to it. So the infinite game, think marriage, think about your relationship with your wife. You’re not about who’s going to win or lose. You want both to win. And so the first thing you need to do is to try to think about when you’re building, I think any company really, but I mean, what we did here at Raiwasa is to build that infinite game.

And the first way to do that is to build safety. Think about your own family. If you start beating your kids or you start being abusive verbally to your wife or whatever, no one’s feeling safe. You know, and that first behavior that you’ve got to do is about safety. Again, our primitive mind is always thinking about like, “Am I going to be safe in this environment? Is this okay for me? Will I flourish? Or will I be punished?” that’s always where the mind first goes. That’s the most important.

Andrew McCombe:

So just on that, your staff, you get your staff to make sure they’re looking out for the customers at all times, obviously, from a distance, from nearby, if necessary, but is that broader than just looking out for the customer?

Patrick Janin:

Well, back to what your original question was about, what we’re doing with that? So after they’ve got that infinite game set up, you’ve got to make that happen. So how do you make that happen? The first thing you need to do is to send some belonging cues to people. You need to tell them; I’m talking about the staff now that they belong to this family. I see you. So you get close, you get to know their name, you get to know family, you go and see them in the village. You get to know who these people are. I see you. I trust you. I care for you. and then what’s really important for an entrepreneur and a CEO is to then make them feel like, “look, I’m no better than you are.”

“I don’t have all the answers.” The biggest failure of all, I’m going to speak for myself, but I know that many entrepreneurs have this is that we feel obligated to have all the answers to the questions. Because we lead the organization of the team, and the power of not knowing is massive. That vulnerability that you can create to yourself opens the channels to everything. It’s the magic key. If you can create a vulnerability loop between yourself and your employees, what you’re telling your employees, you’re saying, “I messed up. I did this wrong. I don’t know how to do this. Can you help me?” And what that does is, it gives people the opportunity to be vulnerable. And in that vulnerability, the power starts coming out because now we can fail together as a team. And we feel safe together as a team because inevitably in most corporate ladders, you’re not going to tell your boss you failed, because you know your view’s coming up at the end of the year.

I always tell Richie, I told Richie this from the beginning, and this was something that took a while for him to comprehend. I said, “if you make yourself indispensable, if you make yourself replaceable as an employee, to me, you become irreplaceable. So let that sink in.” If you make yourself replaceable, you become irreplaceable to me. Because think about the value for me to have someone like Richie. I’ve already started two other businesses with Richie as a result. Within Raiwasa. So it’s because he’s got the intelligence and the foresight to be able to say, “look, this is what’s best for the customer. This is what’s best for some other thing.” And you know what? I don’t have to hold all these in control. I could share that wealth with everybody.

And I share my wealth with Richie and the team. He is my mentee, and I mentor him. I’ve been spending one hour every single day since we started this property, together on Skype, training him, not operationally, strategically, financially, marketing, all those assets. (Mindset related.) I mean, that’s the only way to do it. It’s not like a one-week training program, which is going to be over their heads. It’s a slow, slow, drip, drip, drip, drip, every single day. And of course, spending time here with the team and doing team-building exercises is definitely a way to do that. So building safety is really, really important. The last thing on that is that; you got to actually do something about it, you got to reinforce it. You actually have to go out there and show to them that you care.

What does that mean for us? We have great health employee programs. A lot of the boys didn’t have teeth because of the fighting because of the rugby. If you’ve been a good employee, we’ll pay for all the teeth to be replaced. We do a lot with the Taveuni hospital, the Loma foundation, they give some donations in May. They bring OB GYNs from Europe, so all our girls get checked. We have a rugby team. So we give back to the Island, the whole Island and Fiji in a way. Our boys just came back yesterday from the coral coast ball. And these are farmers.

They work on our farm. So we support them. We give them work, and they work for us, and they give back. And it gives back to the community. So you gotta act and you gotta do it from the heart. It’s gotta be genuine. If any of this is contrived, it seems so fake, right?

Andrew McCombe:

Well, that’s what I really love about this story, is from a young boy where the poster of Fiji islands on his wall, obviously you couldn’t foresee what was going to happen to now. But it’s incredible when you look back at the journey to where you are. But not only the fact that you have Raiwasa and your journey to it, but you then also impact all the staff and the team. But now you’re making a difference in the community, but also clients’ lives. I’m not saying it’s secondary, but it’s like, it’s an outcome, a byproduct of all the amazing stuff you’ve got going on.

Patrick Janin:

They are the byproduct. And that’s really the front-facing aspect that people see. The reviews. You know, we have five-star reviews on TripAdvisor. Read our reviews on our website; people write pages. I’m trying to get people to write shorter reviews because not everybody wants to read a three-page review, but it just flows out. We have a huge amount of guests who cry when they leave the Island. They want to come back and. Everybody who stays, “We wish we had stayed longer”, because they think to themselves, “Oh, a five nights stay is going to be more than enough.” But there’s so much to do on this Island. And just doing nothing is also amazing.

Andrew McCombe:

Well, again, it comes back to the vision of what you wanted to instill in the experience. What would be the one word you’d say they leave with, or the thing that’s occurred to them by being here?

Patrick Janin:

I’m going to be partial on this one because what I want them to leave with is, and we do this from a KPI perspective, is we want to have as many ‘wows’ as we can. So, obviously, the first ‘wow’ that we get is that the images don’t do justice. And when you’re here, you really feel it. And it’s just relaxing and mesmerizing. We cater our experiences to wowing the customer, and what I want my clients to leave is with, “wow”.

And actually, a lot of people say, “look, you’ve kind of ruined our vacations. we’ll always be comparing our future vacation experiences to Raiwasa because what you’ve done is the future of travel.” I mean, if people could travel this way in every single culture, it’d be amazing.

Andrew McCombe:

Yeah. I guess the one thing that I’ve experienced so far, I guess, the analogy I can use is the stress level before being here. It’s like a radio dial is just being turned down. I can’t explain it, but it’s like a wall of tranquility hits. And then I’m at peace. All of a sudden.

Patrick Janin:

Everything is that. We’re bordered by luxurious jungle on both sides. We have some of the most amazing gardens. I think it’s the best property. Of course, I’m partial, but we really have amazing gardens. And we really cater our gardens to the people who stay here. And as you said, Raiwasa is a dedicated property only for you and your family and your guests. So privacy is really important, but it’s all yours. And then, of course, the proximity to the ocean, the right distance from the ocean. The lapping ocean sounds and the ability to see, and still have some structured islands over there, the palm trees that are there. It just melts away. And people are often sitting here, and one of our, either eight dining locations or multiple areas with a hammock, the outdoor couch, or the swing chair. People just sit there and just go, “this is heaven. This is heaven.”

Andrew McCombe:

So when you think back to your friend, the turning point for you with the friend passing, and you now look back at that retrospectively, do you think, and I don’t say this in any disrespect to him and that he had to go through what he went through, but do you think that was a blessing in disguise for where you are now and what you’ve created?

Patrick Janin:

Any type of trauma that you have in your life is always going to be a pivotal point in your life. And Chris, you know, I can tear up about it. He was a great friend, and I loved him dearly, and he built so much for Raiwasa. And when I say Raiwasa, it’s part of myself, that’s why I use it interchangeably. And absolutely. His passing allowed me to take the next step of my life. And Raiwasa was a great success from the perspective of being able to materialize that vision. I had those small posters and stuff as a boy, but to materialize that vision and to build a culture in a microcosm, with a great team. And so, yes, it was totally instrumental. I’ll endlessly be thankful to him as a human being for giving that to me. And I wish only one thing is that he would have been able to come and enjoy it himself.

Andrew McCombe:

Yeah. So if we look at the business being an external reflection of our internal self, and you look at what you’ve created here. What was your internal self that created this? So we’ve talked about the external, the travel, the trauma, the overcoming, all of that, and then everything you wanted to bring together. But if we look at you, who are you underneath all of this?

Patrick Janin:

I think you’ve got to ask other people about that. I don’t want to really like, you know, tell you who I am or, I mean, it’s not that I don’t want to, but I’m not a really egotistical person.

Andrew McCombe:

Well, I’m just thinking more of a reflective, do you introspect regularly and look at what you’re passionate about, what makes you tick, all of those things, or?

Patrick Janin:

I love to build, you know, this came from my father, who was an entrepreneur himself. I grew up with kind of the mentality of work hard, hard. So I did that for many, many years, and was very successful at it. But as we’re getting older and now giving back has been really, really important to me, and being able to work smarter rather than harder and build systems that can live alone has been hugely important to me. And so this is like the thing that people say all the time, you’ll see some movies where people say, “well, I wrote that song in 10 minutes,” and I say, “no, you didn’t write that song in 10 minutes. It took you a lifetime to write that song.”

You just happened to write it. It came out. That culmination of this lifelong experience, just the fruition, was that song was written, but you’ve been writing this song. So I’ve been writing Raiwasa since I can remember. I mean, that’s who I am inside and all the values that are here, all the people that are here, all the ways of thinking and everything, it’s just who I am. So it’s tremendous pride and pleasure to have people come, have a great time, experience it. And for me, it’s such a blessing in disguise. I live on that. That’s my new drug, just to get people to write the reviews or send us reviews, or video reviews or stuff like that, saying this has been the best travel experience of their lives.

And we don’t go looking for them, but they just feel obligated to share that. So that’s just been a tremendous success for me.

Andrew McCombe:

So what do you think you value the most?

Patrick Janin:

What I value the most is human connection. At the end of the day, one of the things that I failed a lot at, after I sold my first business, because my goal was to give back, try to get entrepreneurs to work. I made a lot of mistakes during that process. I would find a business that I thought would be great, but I didn’t want to work in it. And I found someone who had the skills or wanted the skills to do it, but didn’t have the money. And I assumed that they would have that same passion, that same vision.

But not everyone thinks like an owner; not everyone’s willing to sacrifice what you need to sacrifice as an entrepreneur. Often people think, “Oh, entrepreneurs, or CEOs, and stuff like that. Oh, that seems easy.” everybody who is doing this job, who has actually made money or been successful, has created value for people. There are no businesses that I know of, except perhaps the drug deal. And then even in the drug industry, if you don’t create value for your customers, they’re not going to come. They’re not going to come back. So it’s all about value creation, and that’s what I would tell your viewers. Just focus on the value that you create for your customer. If you’re endlessly thinking about, “am I providing more value to my customer than I’m taking?”

That’s what you gotta do. Just hammer the value. Don’t worry about the price of your product. Don’t worry about that. Just how much value can you give the customer? Is it fair? Is it fair value? Obviously, we need to pay ourselves, we’ve got to run and keep the place impeccable. And this is a passion project. So it’s not about you taking inordinate amounts of cash. This is not a cash business. I give a lot of it back anyway, or we start building other businesses. So it’s really about that.

Andrew McCombe:

Well, it’s a really interesting point you make there. Obviously, business is about providing value, but also about making money and being profitable. Do you focus elsewhere on making money? And this is about the value or, being who you are, that human connections are the highest value. It’s going to run through all the businesses, but?

Patrick Janin:

That’s exactly right. You need to be there for your staff. So we have built other businesses at Raiwasa to cater to lower price points, because we want to share this experience for people who can’t afford to come at the highest level. And also, I said, “look, let’s also have a farm.” We have two farms in Taveuni, and they produce gourmet food, organic food for our property. We have cows and goats and animals as well. That’s for the high-quality produce and proteins that we produce, but also to be able to weather the storm when the storm comes. And that’s about caring for the employees. Most resorts will close down at the bad season; I keep my staff on. I pay them throughout. And as a result, they give it back to me. They provide me with love, and they are taking care of it. So I try to give back and prepare those other businesses to be able to weather the storm, which is invariably coming.

Andrew McCombe:

And I guess for the outliers that are out there, the entrepreneurs who are starting out and they don’t have the money. So to me, giving is receiving, but in the context of a young entrepreneur, is the key to just keep giving? Even if it’s out of balance initially, like it’s going to come back or, what’s your thoughts on that?

Patrick Janin:

Come back if you give, well, whether you believe in God or the law of the universe, the law of attraction, I don’t know. My experience has always been that it comes back. It’s a question of time. I just want to hit the first thing that you started with, at the beginning. And you said, for the ones who don’t have the money, what I would say to your outliers that are watching this, that are the young entrepreneurs that are getting into it, “Don’t let that be a hindrance. Money is out there.” There is money everywhere. You need to show someone who has money, that their investment in you is the right one. So you got to get everything to that point and pitch it. Don’t ever use the lack of money as a reason for not following your dream.

That’s a total mistake that people make. And it’s easy to make. I made it myself. You know, when you’re starting out, you’re just like, “Oh, I could never do that. I can’t ever do this!” But it doesn’t mean there are not other people who do it. Look every day, I’m a talent scout. That’s what I do. I’m looking for people that have the value that can bring value to me, whether it be from a connection or from a business partner. I’ve got other businesses in other parts of the world, where I have amazing CEOs that have the same mindset that we’ve built a culture with, that I don’t need to manage. And I don’t need to do anything. That’s powerful.

Andrew McCombe:

And it doesn’t go unnoticed. Does it? If you are providing value on a regular basis?

Patrick Janin:

No, you can’t. You can’t; there’s no way that it’s going to go unnoticed. Especially when you’re creating such a unique amount of value. And this is not just a transaction. We touch our clients before they come, we touch them when they do come with the wow moments, and we touch them after they leave. So most resorts are, you know, the moment they hit the door, they’re yours, the moment they leave, they’re gone. We build relationships with our clients; we try to wow them throughout the process. And the way we look at it is that every single client who comes here is an ambassador to Raiwasa when they leave. 90, 93 and a half percent of the people say they would highly recommend it to friends and family.

Andrew McCombe:

And if there was one message that you’d have for the potential outlier out there, based on everything you’ve been through everything, you know, the ups, the downs, that could help them get there. What’s the big one that stands out for you the most?

Patrick Janin:

I’m just going to go with one that I struggle with. And I think a lot of people struggle with it and it can be self-doubt. You know, you have an idea, you have a concept, and being an entrepreneur by definition is being a surfer. You’re looking for waves. You’re looking for the right timing. Timing is everything. How many times have I had the wrong timing the great idea. And it didn’t work. Experience is paramount to that. And to get that experience, you’ve got to go out there and fail. You got to put yourself out there, and don’t worry about the level of that business you’re going to do or what you’re going to do. It doesn’t matter if you start with a small garage or a small business, you know, renting garage spaces, or it doesn’t matter.

I mean, look at all the examples. I’m just a small fish. Look at all these amazing entrepreneurs who’ve just become amazing contributors to the world as a result of just believing in themselves and believing in their value. For me, when you hit that low of, you know, the world is not listening to me or, I can’t get that, it’s not working or this and that. I’m not saying you shouldn’t give up, but at the end of the day, when you give up, you’re the one who’s doing that. In a business, when you lower your prices, your competitors can lower their prices. You can decide, “do I lower my price? Do I increase my price and increase my value?” You make those decisions.

Look outside to see what’s happening, but really think about the values that you’re creating and the value that you’re creating for your clientele. And is that in check, is that imbalanced? Are you creating enough value for them? And the reviews? We have such an amount of communication now that I didn’t have when I started. That feedback loop comes very quickly now; it used to not. I mean, with all the social media platforms, you can post-stay interviews and post-stay surveys, and you can ask your clients to speak with you and always continuously improve. That’s one of our values, just always fix and improve. How do I get better? Don’t rest on your laurels.

Andrew McCombe:

So don’t give up, reevaluate, look at a different angle, and take some more action?

Patrick Janin:

Yeah, it sounds so obvious that it’s embarrassing for me to say it, but just do it, just go out there and just do it. If you give up, you just gave up. No one’s forcing you to give up, not saying that you shouldn’t give up, but you do it to yourself. I’ll often say, “The only problem that we really have is us.”

Andrew McCombe:

Well, I guess to me, failure is if you have a setback and you give up. You cannot fail If you get back up, can you?

Patrick Janin:

No, you can’t. You only fail when you decide to fail. When you decide to quit, you’re the one who quits. Obviously, there are times when you should quit, and there are times, I often say, sometimes the best deals you make are the deals you don’t make. So you’re right.

Andrew McCombe:

So the self-doubt, right? What’s the conversation you have with yourself when you’re going through that. Cause obviously, when emotions are up, intelligence comes down, short term. And so, “this is frustrating. This is whatever,” but what’s your process for overcoming the self-doubt?

Patrick Janin:

It’s easy. It’s my wife, Erica. She’s that person who can just bring me back up from the lows. And I need her. So she is the one who takes me back up to like, you know, “look at all you’ve done, look at what you’ve achieved!” And yeah, we’ll do it. We’re equal. So we’re always discussing and having conversations about it. Sometimes she’s right, and sometimes she’s wrong, but she is the one who picks me up. She’s the one who gets me there. That just little spark of someone to remind you that self doubt is just those passing and fleeting moments. The lows can end up being pretty short, and often, the lows are associated with the overworked and being tired and stuff like that.

So come here or somewhere, or go meditate in the woods or do something, connect with nature, and really give yourself that time. And that will naturally heal you.

Andrew McCombe:

It sounds like you’re a bit of an ambassador for that now. And I know you have written a couple of books on that, overworked CEO. So that’s more about your journey and your advice for CEOs. Then you’ve got more of the – how-to, to plan the vacation. Cause obviously a lot of CEOs don’t have a lot of time,

Patrick Janin:

I’ve got two eBooks that I’ve created. One is called “Overwork.” It’s kinda my journey about building Raiwasa. There’s a quiz in there. That’s quite good to see if you’re a workaholic. And like you said, it’s about the stress-free travel and how to actually learn how to delegate. Cause the last thing you want to do is, you know, although we have great wifi, you don’t want to be connected to the office. You want everything to be set up; your systems know what they need to do. They know when to interrupt you. It’s important. You also need to plan ahead with your clients and your vendors and stuff. And just say, this is my time and do it. Plan your next vacation and try to make it experiential and transformational.

Andrew McCombe:

Yeah. Well, it’s really interesting you say that, because for me, the book is the intellect, the head thing, right? Raiwasa is the heart thing where you get to actually experience what you’re talking about. So, Patrick, you make me want to be a better person. Really appreciate, you know, your journey, your story. You’re sharing it with all of us and all of our potential and existing outliers. Thanks so much for coming on Outlier. (It’s a pleasure. Thanks so much. Wow. There it is guys. I hope you enjoyed this inspiring interview with Patrick Janin.

 


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