"I have one life, and it must come together."

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INC.: How has your idea of the good life changed since you started the company?

M.R.: I was 25 when I started the company, and I used to think that I had to work really hard--I'd work 12-hour days six days a week and not think twice about it--to get to the destination. And it paid off--I have the financial mobility and lifestyle to do just about anything that captures my imagination. But over the past couple of years I've had a small, but intriguing, change in one context, which is you have to have fun all along because otherwise, what's the point?

INC.: So what changes have you made?

M.R.: I joined an organization called YEO [Young Entrepreneurs Organization]. I travel and network--this year we went to the America's Cup in New Zealand and spent a week in Australia. I'm a big believer in personal growth. I have a business coach, professional mentors, and a personal trainer. I take on average a week off each month to get away and think.

D.O.: I thought I needed [to add] more structure to the balance, so I got into a program called Strategic Coach that helps you focus on the things that are important to you and helps you get to where you want to be. I'd work too much if I let myself.

INC.: Isn't the good life also fast cars and other stuff? What do you have?

D.O.: BMW K 1200 RS and R 1150 GS Adventure motorcycles.

H.C.: I have the K 1200 RS too!

D.O.: I have a tree house with an espresso bar and bathroom in it. I wanted a place to escape. I can walk out the door and feel as if I'm in Brazil or Switzerland or any place I want to be.

M.G.: I've combined the things that I want with my business. I've always wanted to have beautiful homes, and I love to decorate, so to help me afford that, I started the B&Bs. I calculated I would need the income from four rooms to pay the mortgage. I have an 18-room mansion in Brooklyn, and I use four of those rooms for the guests. I also want to open a spa because that's my other indulgence--a massage every Tuesday.

K.S.: My car is a Mercedes E55 AMG. In L.A. you can see 10 or 20 of these in a row. Sometimes I can't find my car. My other extravagance is music and media, so I have a media room in my house with a full-blown home theater and an all-out audio system.

M.R.: Buying things has never excited me. I grew up in a Latino barrio and the fact that I made it out was probably very extravagant. I have a Blackberry phone so I can stay in touch with my office--I really don't ever need to go into the office, so that is my biggest extravagance. I get more pleasure from investing in people and am a big supporter of issues near to my heart, such as women's health care and educational funding for minorities.

H.C.: I had a BMW M3, a Land Rover Defender 90, an Audi allroad, but stuff has become less important to me. Now I have a diesel Volkswagen Golf. I also have an 11,000-square-foot apartment. I don't go out and party, but I like having dinners at my house. And if I want to shoot a film, I can do it downstairs. I'm very interested in people, and I like to be able to say, "Stay with me. I have room."

INC.: Do you keep your companies at a certain size because the good life is easier lived at that size?

D.O.: We've limited ourselves. The more staff we have, the more problems we have. I will take financial or accounting or marketing struggles any day of the week over HR. Ninety-five percent of our stress is human resources. We love and want to keep everybody we have, but we don't want a great big company.

INC.: Is family something that's hard to fit in?

D.O.: I don't know if I could have done it with a family. I shut everything out of my life at the beginning. Every day the money I'd saved up was worth a little less, so I had this incredible sense of urgency. Now I'm engaged, so working toward more balance is a good thing.

M.G.: I'm the only one in this group who is married with a child. I often get asked, "How do you balance family and work?" and I don't attempt it. People make a mistake when they do, and if I put my family and my businesses on a scale, I certainly expect my family to outweigh my businesses. I also don't make a distinction between a personal and a professional life. I have one life, and it must come together. I could not be doing what I'm doing now without my family's support.

Continue Reading The Good Life

• "I have one life and it must come together."
• "I need to be able to go anywhere and do anything."
• "My focus is my children."
• "Material things aren't about money, but lifestyle."

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