In this profound episode, Cris Zimmermann, Co-Founder of Medici Global Ventures, shares Medici principles for transitioning from success to lasting significance. If you struggle with emptiness despite wealth and unclear legacy impact, you won't want to miss it.

You will discover:

- How to foster multi-generational family and business continuity like the Medicis

- Why blending art, leadership, and strategy builds enduring influence

- What strategic planning secures your wealth and values for centuries

This episode is ideal for for Founders, Owners, and CEOs in stage , of The Founder's Evolution. Not sure which stage you're in? Find out for free in less than 10 minutes at https://www.scalearchitects.com/founders/quiz

Cris Auditore Zimmermann is a seasoned entrepreneur, global investor, and keynote speaker with over 25 years of experience. He emphasizes the importance of strategic planning and legacy building. He has founded more than 20 companies across five countries, authored Get Your House in Order, and co-founded the Medici Community. Cris empowers entrepreneurs to harness the timeless principles of the Medici legacy to build lasting success and impact.

Want to learn more about Cris Zimmermann's work at Medici Global Ventures? Check out his website at https://medicilegacy.com/

You can buy his book Get Your House in Order at https://medicilegacy.com/medici-box/

Mentioned in this episode:

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Founder's Quiz

Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again

to the start, scale and succeed podcast. It's the only podcast

that grows with you through all seven stages of your journey as

a founder. And there's something that I see, particularly for

those in the latter parts of our journey. In stage seven, you

have built more than most people could ever hope to build. You've

accumulated more resources, and whether that be financial wealth

or relational wealth or network wealth, and you're sitting there

in what most people would define success, yet you're haunted by

this question, what do I actually want to leave behind

because you look at those bank accounts, but you still somehow

feel empty inside. You look at your companies and wonder what's

going to happen when you're gone, what's going to happen

when they're gone, and you realize you've been playing on a

field that's too small, and this is especially true in stage

seven. Now it's not a new question, right? This dates back

hundreds, if not 1000s of years, and fortunately, we can look

back some of those years to find some answers from those who have

gone before us, specifically a 15th century banker of all

things, and to help us figure that out is the one and only

Chris Auditore Zimmerman, who is a seasoned entrepreneur, global

investor and keynote speaker with over 25 years of

experience. He emphasized the importance of strategic planning

and legacy building. He's founded more than 20 companies

across five countries, authored get your house in order, and co

founded the Medici community. Chris empowers entrepreneurs to

harness the timeless principles of the Medici legacy to build

lasting success and impact. Well, Chris, welcome to the

show. So excited to have you here calling in from Frankfurt,

Germany, if I'm correct,

yes. Scott, greetings here from Germany. And

I love it that you have a German last name as well.

I had another guest on the show, and he

corrected the pronunciation of my name for me, so I learned how

to say my name.

It's Ritzheimer. It's very simple is

there's no there's no doubt about how to pronounce your

name.

Oh, that's so funny. That's so funny. It's got

a little too much phlegm for me, but that's all right. So Chris,

you've done a thing or two in your life. You've started 20

companies, five countries, and by just about any measure of

success, it's been remarkable, right? But in you tell the story

of, I believe it was back in 2020, you found yourself having

a panic attack on a beautiful vacation in a wonderful place.

What happened? What led to this? And how did a story about an

Italian banker turn it all around?

Well, yes, I've been, I'm an entrepreneur, and

I've been building companies here. I'm from Frankfurt,

Germany, and studied law at Frankfurt University and but

I've never really wanted to be in law. I've always been

creating companies, and been doing that for many, many years,

but what was absolutely dramatic was exactly that incident that

you just mentioned in 2020 during the pandemic. Obviously,

different places around the world had different ways on how

to handle the pandemic. Germany was on a brutal lockdown for

about a year. We couldn't go to any restaurants. We couldn't go

out to fitness studios. They even closed down golf courses

with the explanation of social distancing, which I have no idea

how you cannot have a social distance on a golf course. And

anyhow, I have a family. I've been married for almost 25 years

to my wife, Andrea, and we've got three boys, and we had three

teenagers sitting here at home playing video games all day

long. Homeschooling didn't work, and it was just a terrible year

for us. I'm naturally more of an extrovert. I like to have

meetings. I like to go to the office. I like to fly around the

world and to the different projects and different companies

and and I couldn't do any of that, and then my wife wasn't

doing well. She had a she had a health issue with her heart, and

hit something like, like a burnout. Yeah, everyone was mad

at me because I was very irritated at home, so we had a

house on fire, and that's literally why I called the book

that I wrote a couple of years later, get your house in order,

because that's literally what I had to do. I needed to get my

house in order. And I got inspired on a vacation in the

beautiful city of Florence in Italy, when I learned more about

the Medici family, or the Medici family, specifically the

founding patriarch. His name is Cosimo de Medici, and he

probably was the wealthiest person in the 15th century. It's

a little bit more difficult to measure these things. Nowadays,

because their currencies are different, but, but he was a

self made entrepreneur. They started off as cloth merchants.

They went into banking, and then they built this incredible

banking Empire all over Europe and and as I was reading about

him, doing my moment or my time, really of crisis. And, you know,

I don't use this word crisis lightly, because literally, it

didn't feel at all good for myself. It didn't feel good for

my family, and it also didn't feel good for a number of our

companies. Interest rates started climbing during that

time. I had a number of deals fall through, so also

economically and financially, it wasn't a good time for us as a

family. Yeah, I kind of started digging myself into someone who

lived 500 years ago, and and I, and this kind of sent me off on

a journey to really learn some from some some from some

families from the past on how do you set up yourself, how do you

set up your family, and how do you set up your business? And so

I can say that the last few years I've been on this quest of

learning more, and this is what I'm very passionate about.

Yeah, it caught me because get your house

in order was not exactly what I expected from a title of a

business book and and so there's this interplay between our life

and entrepreneurship and how intertwined those are. But you

also think of you speak to something very specific, and

it's not one house, but four. So walk us through from your book,

the four different houses and why they're relevant to us as

entrepreneurs.

Yeah. So that was actually what was so

surprising to me. So I had always learned about the Medici

family growing up in Germany. It's part of our normal high

school education that you learn that in the 15th century, you

know, the Renaissance family that literally, kind of became

the great patrons of the arts. They sponsored people like

Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Donatello, they had some Popes.

They worked themselves into the Catholic Church. They InterMed

with the house of Spain. They InterMed with the house of

friends. So I'd always known kind of about them being kind of

this very extravagant, successful business family. But

when I started reading about the life of specifically Cosimo, the

founding patriarch, I was so astonished that, literally, he

wasn't just successful on his business side, but it kind of

became obvious to me that he had the different areas of his life

in order. And, you know, this is how this, you know, the title of

this book came about, and, and, and so I've structured the book

in a sense where I take people through this journey influence

in Italy, where there are these different houses, which most of

them you can still visit today. So the first one is what I've

called the House of personal development. So Cosimo built a

or bought a countryside home called Villa di Careggi, which

is just outside of Florence back then. Now, is actually included

because the city has grown and it was so interesting. This was

a house where he countryside home where he would go, and I

literally found some quotes where he said that he goes there

to work on himself, and so, you know, not to take care of

business. You know, even though he had lots of people employed,

and he was running all kinds of things, but he literally had a

physical location where he, as an entrepreneur, would go to

work on himself. And so a few things that kind of stood out,

one, one of them was that in the mornings, he would get up very

early to kind of work himself in the garden, you know, water the

flowers, you know, perhaps plant a few trees, and literally get

his hands a little bit dirty in gardening. Now, I'm not a

gardener, but I thought it's quite interesting for a guy who

can employ 1000s of people to do his gardening. Yeah, he had a

location where he would spend time, and he said that, you

know, it's almost like this gave him, you know, fresh fresh wind

under his wings, and fresh air to breathe and and then he

found, then he then he started assembling a library at the

villa dicareggi, which was very astonishing. He lived before the

printing press was invented. So he grew up in a house where

there were three books, you know, because there were no

books. No one had books around. But he went on this hunt for

books, actually, before he entered into kind of fully into

business, he had two years where he went scouting around the

world to collect books, ancient manuscripts of Greek philosophy,

theology, books, all kinds of Wisdom literature, and brought

it back to his home. So by the end of his life, at his villa

dicareggi, he had this massive library, which now is one of the

most fundamental European libraries we have in the whole

continent. And so he, as a business guy, was a reader. He

loved to read devout books, climb into the manuscripts of

Plato and Aristotle's and Socrates and, you know, and

that's why. You know, he and his family is called the Renaissance

family, because they rebirth some of the old, ancient wisdom.

Yeah. Anyhow, so he had, he had this place for personal

development. But then the other, you know, other kind of houses,

just to hint at that. So the villa Medici, which is downtown

Florence, I call it the house of relationships. He was very much

a relationship manager. You know, he built his own family

there, but he also built very strong relationships with popes

and and and kings from around the world, and he would host

them at his place, and they sit around the, you know, campfire

in the evening there in his house and and kind of share some

of these stories. And then he would also host the artists. And

so build relationships with the artists. Like Donatello, for

example, lived with a manichi family. They would discuss the

artworks over dinner. So house of relationship is the second

1/3. One is the, you know, the house of influence is kind of

the political center, the Signoria in Florence that he

would go to in order to influence the city the good of

the city, get involved in politics. And the fourth one is

that, you know, the house of business, which is the manager

bank.

Yeah, there's so much in that that we could

unpack for hours. I think one of the the interesting things about

stage seven in particular, that you touched on just briefly, and

I'd like for you to expound on a little more for us, is that it's

not just business, right? So it's the personal development,

it's the relationship, and it's influence, which I think is a

really, really key piece in stage seven, that we're moving

away from control of everything to influence in a much greater

scale. How did, how did he think about influence, especially

toward the latter part of his life?

Yeah, Scott, great question, and that's very

true. So basically, this is where I find find myself after,

you know, after this 2020 pandemic, I basically

reorganized my life and now our company. So I own like 26 or 27

different companies around the world. Mainly, I'm an investor.

Now I'm not operational anymore, so I handed over all operational

work, and now we run things through our Family Foundation,

which is all about not just, as you say at the beginning of your

the different stages, kind of the hustle and the building out

phase, but it's really now about, how do you structure

things, not just for yourself, but also for your family, for

your kids, for your grandkids and their kids and so forth, but

also for impact in this world. You know, at some point it's

really, you know, it's not about just another deal. It's not just

about another investment, and whether you have a few more

euros or US dollars on your bank account. It's really kind of

what kind of impact you want to do have in this world. And so

this is, you know, if you've ever been, have you, have you

been to Florence, Italy? Have you ever taken a trip? Not, I

have not Well, Scott, I'd love to invite you, because that's

one of the things that I now do, is I, I invite business,

business families to come and join me on one of these trips.

Basically the Medici family constructed the city of

Florence. So, you know, every Palazzo, every church, the

Cathedral, the museums that people go to in Florence, they

all stem out of a building period where the Medici family

was in power and in influence. And so what is fascinating is

that they literally went beyond just money, just creating a

successful business. They really invested into culture and into

art and into the sciences and religion, you know, and many of

the but today, that's why they call the Renaissance family. And

so one of the great joys that I have now is to be thinking

through strategically. You know, how can I do that with my little

family, with with with my few companies? You know? How can I

set them up? And that's where it goes beyond just, let's say,

financial success. It also really goes about impact in the

world.

It's so true. It's so true. Chris, there's

this question that I ask all my guests. I'm very interested to

see what you'd have to say. But in the light of this

conversation and where you are in your journey, what would you

say is the biggest secret that you wish wasn't a secret at all.

What's that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening

today knew?

So that, basically what I'm what I'm

trying to draw out here. There are about 1000 books written on

the Medici family, and they're all written by historians and

art historians, which are wonderful people to kind of

record the story of this family. But what I'm trying to draw out

is some of the principles that actually help us, you know,

shape our lives and our families and our companies. And so I

almost feel like it's a it's a missing secret, that there are

principles that can help and guide us towards success,

significance and legacy. And it's almost. We do not have to

walk in the dark, but there are things we can learn and study.

And you know, it needs some brain capacity, it needs some

good thinking, it needs some research, but there are things

we can work out that can help us in the present to be successful,

and that's what, what I think, you know, oftentimes, gets, gets

missed, that it's not just, you know, the nice country that

you're born into, or the kind of nice degree that you've got from

university, or some luck in finding some investors to invest

in your company, but there are steps to take in order to set

yourself, your family and your business up for success and

legacy.

Yeah, so good Chris. There's this old Greek

proverb, I'm sure you're aware of it. It says society grows

great when old men plant trees under whose shade they'll never

sit. And stage seven is rarefied air. It's not often that we get

to see folks who have been there, let alone really looked

at how stage seven works and and made that pathway easier for

those who follow in our footsteps. So thank you so much

for being on the show. Before I let you go, I have to know, how

can folks reach out to you and find out more? Where can they

get a copy of the book?

Yeah, so I've now a Family Foundation. We've

set up what we call the Medici community, where we're involving

business families around the world who really want to think

beyond, you know, just success. You know, how do you how do you

create a legacy? So, under Medici legacy.com Medici

legacy.com you can get a download of my book. I just

wrote, actually, a second book on the life of Lorenzo de

Medici, which is the which is the grandson of Cosimo. And that

book is coming out very soon. It's called from success to

significance, and there are some lessons from the art and the

leadership of Lorenzo, managing some leadership principles.

Yeah, I'd be very happy if you, or any of your listeners are

interested to really kind of work on the on the theme of

legacy. We've really created a realm of learning together. So

that's well, be happy to be in touch.

That's fantastic. Chris. Thank you so

much privilege and honor having you here with us today, and for

those of you watching and listening, you know your time

and attention mean the world to us, I hope you got as much out

of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see

you next time. Take care.