A so-called military brat, Culotti grew up traveling throughout Europe with her English-born mother and Irish-American father. She credits her sense of style and drama to her childhood years exploring German castles, English farmhouses, and Renaissance towns of Italy. She soon opened her own business importing antiques, collectibles, textiles and architectural elements, later branching out to launch her own design firm, retail store and manufacturing facility. Her experience in design has given her the ability to manage projects from start to finish for her clients. One of the projects she is, perhaps, most known for is the iconic House of Rock in Santa Monica, which she designed and organized into a pop-up designer showcase and luxury event space before eventually selling it.

Culotti also owns the 40-acre Big Z Ranch in Fallbrook, California. There she grows everything from palm trees to fruits and vegetables. The property is an expression of her deep passion about the food we put in our bodies as well as the solidarity she feels with the local farm workers who grow it. She has, therefore, partnered with local farmers to make it easier for fresh food to be sold directly to consumers without the middle men of big box stores. Each week, Big Z assembles packages of fruits and vegetables grown on the ranch and delivers them directly to consumer’s doorsteps. In a time where American farmers are desperately struggling, her vision is to build permanent farmer’s markets across the nation where local farmers and the community can meet and do business.

I recently spoke with her about this latest turn in her entrepreneurial journey.

JWK: So, tell me a little about yourself and why you were asked to take up the challenge of doing Undercover Billionaire.

Elaine Culotti: I’m a serial entrepreneur…What that means is I like to start up businesses on my own – I always have – and see how well they do and then try to (get) other people to join me in my idea. So, they (the producers) thought that was a good fit for this…I don’t know how many (other entrepreneurs) they looked at. I didn’t know about Monique and Grant either. It was meant to be a stand-alone show but, because of COVID, I think they felt it was timely to combine us and create this beautiful triptych of all of us.

I think my entrepreneurial spirit – combined with my high net-worth capabilities – made (me) a perfect fit for the show – and I was willing. I’m sure that other people that were asked weren’t. It’s a big deal to say I need to take 120 days off of my life – 90 of which are completely incognito, meaning you have absolutely none of your resources including your name. And then there’s some lead-up time and some exit time because you have about five to seven days prior to leaving where (you) kind of say goodbye to your family and they do some video and stuff in Los Angeles and at my ranch. They want to create an entry into the story.

And then, once the show is done filming and you’ve gotten to your goal or have not gotten to your goal at the end, there’s sort of a little coming-out party, if you will, where you let everyone who you are. And then I personally felt obligated to be there for a while with my team because, you know, it was a big shock to them. So, that’s kind of it in a nutshell.

JWK: How difficult is it to take $100 and turn it into a million in 90 days?

EC: I think it’s eminently more difficult for someone to do who doesn’t have a lot of faith in themselves. If you know that you can, you can. It really cuts down to your existential well-being.

JWK: So, putting yourself out there to create a business and build wealth is, in a real sense, an act of faith.

EC: Oh, one-thousand percent. That’s not debatable. You’ve gotta give it to God. If you don’t, you’re not gonna do it. It’s just one of those things. People can talk about it or not talk about it. Real true grit requires a tremendous amount of courage. You’ve got to rely on whatever it is that you rely on. Who knows what that is? Who am I to tell people what it is that they rely on that’s bigger than themselves. For me, I dig down real deep and I really manifest things and I mantra them out. I say them over and over again. I make them my reality and I embrace that. And, when things get in the way of it, I tend to go over, under, around or through.

JWK: The show itself, I guess, is sort of a primer for people with entrepreneurial dreams – but you do have any tips you can share in a nutshell?

EC: Well, I will tell you this. The show…is in some ways a class on its own because it’s really a kind of on-the-ground business school. It’s really a lesson in starting a business…There are things you could literally (jot down) on a piece of paper. You could write A. Do this, B. Do this, C. Do this – because we stop in the middle and we narrate our (story). We call them sensei interviews. We’re, basically, stopping for a minute and telling you exactly (what the strategy is). I think it’s a class on entrepreneurialism. It’s certainly a class on startup. There are many people who would see a difference between a startup business and an entrepreneur. Maybe one (is) just participating (in building a business) and the other is completely dreaming something up out of thin air.

(Undercover Billionaire is about what happens after) having rolled into a place where you don’t know where you are (and) you have no idea where you’re going. (You also have) no resources – only $100 and a phone that doesn’t have wifi. You don’t have your driver’s license. You have a new name. That’s entrepreneurial because it’s without any resources – whereas you could call a franchise a startup.  You can have structure in a startup. You could have baking (facilities) in place in a startup. You could have a lot of things. (Established franchise) partners, whatever you might have.

I’ve had some startup businesses where someone had come to me and said “This is my idea” and I said “That’s a great idea” and we started it up. That’s different – a little bit – this kind of spirit of nothing toasted into something.

JWK: I take it that you’re a proponent of capitalism as something that serves society well.

EC: I don’t think that capitalism is a dirty word – absolutely not. We can’t survive without it. (We need to) balance between taking care of those who can’t (fully manage) and taking care of ourselves. I always turn to that interesting thing that happens when you get in an airplane and the lady stands in the aisle and she says “When the oxygen mask falls from the ceiling be sure to put it on yourself first before you help the small child next to you or whoever is next to you.” Conceptually, that is a very important statement because what it is essentially saying is that if you’re not healthy you can’t help anyone.  Let’s peel it back a little bit and stop saying things like “Capitalism is a dirty word.”

We have to be healthy as a country – which means we have to be productive. If we cannot sell what we produce, we are not earners – and, if we are not earners, we cannot keep our families healthy, happy and safe. We have to just think about that for a minute.

JWK: Do you have any thoughts about Universal Basic Income?

EC: I do. I have many thoughts about it. I understand the arc of economics – both existential economics and our traditional capital system. What I would say is that you have to kind of flatten the curve a little bit to really see where and how much that would fit into the program that we’ve laid out in the United States in terms of how we earn our capital wealth. In other words, trying to implement a new concept into an already existing structure is what we’re trying to do when we say we’d like to have more of a social economy.

We’ve got this weird thing (where) we think we pay a lot of taxes. Everyone freaks out when taxes go (up). They really do. They panic. I always say go take a good look at Germany or someplace where the social structure is very clear and delineated and then take a look at the tax base. Then come back and ask “How much do we pay (in) taxes?”… What we can’t do is not allow our bureaucracies to distribute the money that comes into them in the way that it was designed to be distributed. That’s what we’ve got to stop doing. It’s quagmiring everything and stopping the flow of money that’s there for help…and then having that money to be eaten up in the wrong way through bureaucracy payroll, through bureaucracy litigation (and) through bureaucracy approval.

We have a lot of resources for homelessness in this country. We have a lot of resources for drug addiction in this country. We have tremendous interest from (Americans) to help, get involved and to do something about it. We’ve had many, many private citizens and public entities put money into solving these problems and we don’t shine a light on our progress. We only talk about the (failures)…We have a huge problem with homelessness in this country and it should not be. We have plenty of food. We have plenty of wealth. It seems to be the distribution of the money that we’ve raised that becomes the big problem. What are we doing standing in the way of that? Get it there, you know? Look at each program and decide which ones are the best ones – or listen to people that have ideas. Look into capital markets that we haven’t tapped into.

JWK: Getting back to Undercover Billionaire, Episode 3 of Season 2 airs tonight on Discovery. If there’s a third season, will you be doing this whole undercover thing again?

EC: It will be a whole other group of people next year. I think they’re actually starting that process of selecting new, I guess, challengees for the big challenge.

JWK: I can think of a business person who launched his political career off a show not too different from this. Do you have any aspirations in that area?

EC: Well, you know, you’ve got to give him credit where credit is due. It’s interesting. I actually was talking to somebody about why was Donald Trump successful on his show but not successful as president, as a leader. He was successful leading his television show but not successful in leading people.

JWK: What was your answer?

EC: I think it’s pretty simple, honestly. I think it comes down to being humble. It’s a juxtaposed position when you’re the president because it feels like you’re empowered but really you work for the people. So, really, you’re the biggest employee in the world. If you’re not used to working for people – being an employee, being humble and being grateful for the job that you have – I think it’s hard to communicate. It could be as simple as that because he didn’t communicate well in a way that he could get the buy-in from fans that he didn’t already have. He didn’t gather (new) masses.

He kept the ones that he had because I believe in blind faith too. I mean we all do. As long as he was moving forward, I think he kept a pretty strong hold on his fan base but as things got crunched (and) as he got more and more pressure on him…and people were more and more frustrated and becoming more and more vocal, he didn’t calm the waters. That’s what you have to do when you lead because, right or wrong, you have to keep everybody under control and calm and believing in you. He lost control of the ship. That’s what happened.

I feel for the guy. I honestly do. I genuinely think there were some great things that happened in the administration that were good for the country and I think that there were a lot of really great people he surrounded himself (with) in his cabinet. Anything good got overshadowed and that’s a shame. I wish Biden a much better outcome because we need some bringing together, you know?

In the Pledge of Allegiance, that word is in there that’s so important – “indivisible.” We are not dividable.

JWK: Would you have any inclination to enter the political field yourself?

EC: I don’t know if I would be a good employee. I have to think about that. I think if I learned to be that person, I could do it.

Postscript: Below is an extended analysis of Elaine Culotti in action during Season 2/Episode 1 of Undercover Billionaire. As mentioned, a new episode airs tonight (1/27) at 8:00 PM on Discovery.

Encourage one another and build each other up – 1 Thessalonians 5:11