27 - Chase Clark. The Entrepreneur Interview Series

Episode Title: Episode 27 - Chase Clark. The Entrepreneur Interview Series

In this episode, we dive into the inspiring journey of Chase Clark, a successful entrepreneur in the real estate industry. Join us as we explore Chase's background, upbringing, and the pivotal moments that shaped his entrepreneurial spirit. Discover the influence of his adoptive Christian family, his father's focus on self-help and positive thinking, and how these factors contributed to his confidence and mindset. We'll also explore Chase's transition from a banking career to entrepreneurship and the valuable lessons he learned. Prepare for an engaging conversation with insights and practical tips for aspiring entrepreneurs.

Guest Information

Our guest today is Chase Clark, an accomplished real estate entrepreneur with a wealth of experience and knowledge. Born in Ocala, Florida, Chase was adopted at birth into a loving Christian family that played a significant role in shaping his character and confidence. With a background in finance and a passion for entrepreneurship, Chase brings a unique perspective to the world of real estate. His journey is a testament to the power of self-belief, taking risks, and finding balance in work and family life.

Episode Summary

In this episode, Chase Clark shares his remarkable journey from being adopted at birth to becoming a successful entrepreneur in the real estate industry. Growing up in a Christian family, Chase attributes much of his confidence and entrepreneurial spirit to his supportive upbringing and the positive influence of his parents. He highlights the impact of his father's focus on self-help and positive thinking, which instilled in him a mindset of taking risks and not letting doubt hold him back. The conversation delves into Chase's banking experience before transitioning to entrepreneurship. He emphasizes the importance of stability and risk evaluation, drawing from his time as a credit analyst in the banking sector. Chase shares the valuable lessons he learned from setbacks and how they shaped his resilience and determination to succeed. The role of spirituality and decision-making is also explored, emphasizing the long-term perspective and the importance of finding a balance between work and family. Chase's journey inspires those pursuing entrepreneurial dreams while maintaining a fulfilling personal life.

Key Sections of the Podcast

1. Introduction to the episode and its focus on Chase Clark's entrepreneurial journey in the real estate industry.
2. Guest introduction highlighting Chase's background, upbringing, and expertise in the field.
3. Discussion on Chase's adoption, being raised in a Christian family, and the influence of his parents on his confidence and entrepreneurial mindset.
4. Exploration of Chase's transition from banking to entrepreneurship and the lessons learned.
5. Focus on the role of spirituality in decision-making and finding work-life balance.
6. Reflection on the importance of stability and risk evaluation in building a successful entrepreneurial career.

Key Lessons

1. The influence of upbringing and supportive parents in shaping one's confidence and entrepreneurial spirit.
2. The significance of taking risks and not letting doubt hold you back in building confidence.
3. Stability and risk evaluation are valued in transitioning from a stable career to entrepreneurship.
4. The role of spirituality in decision-making and finding a balance between work and family life.

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Transcript

Podcast Meeting/Recording/Planning (2023-05-17 10:03 GMT-4) - Transcript

Attendees

Chase Clark, Peter Murphy

Transcript

This editable transcript was computer generated and might contain errors. People can also change the text after it was created.

Peter Murphy:  Hello, everybody. Peter Murphy here with the buying Tampa Bay podcast. Today, I'm here without my co-host, Chase Clark because Chase is actually in the guest seat today. Many of you want to be in real estate entrepreneurs. You may wonder if you have what it takes to break out of wherever you are, that you currently find yourself and try something new and life-altering. And although everyone's journey into entrepreneurship looks a little different in the next few episodes. We're gonna interview some of the realistic entrepreneurs to hear their side of the stories of development and self-discovery and evolution from wherever they started into entrepreneurs and community builders and change agents and the men and women who are making a difference in in their communities and in the field of fields of real estate. So we look forward to talking to all of these entrepreneurs today and we'll go back as far as they'll let us and ask as many questions as well have time for, with the goal that you might see yourself in their story and be inspired to do something equally brave.

Peter Murphy:  Brave is the right word. Even right Chase. So welcome to the show is our guest today.

Chase Clark:  Yeah well I got to be brave today man. It's a it just seen being on the other side of the seat here you know and being asked all the questions but you know I kind of like this journalistic type of approach and getting into some biographical stuff because I love hearing about other people's stories and the story behind people is really the anecdote to what makes them tick and why they do what they do and how they've done what they've done. And so hopefully as we kick this series off you know people learn about a little bit more about me today. Maybe you next week and you know some other people in the future that have some interesting stories to tell.

Peter Murphy: Well, my my story would be like five minutes long. It's not all that deep in meaningful but unlike yours, I mean, I've got some stuff. I'm really interested in it. I probably have never even asked you and, you know, even partners for a long, long time. So I'm really looking forward to this to this episode as well. And, you know, so right out of the gate, Why don't you tell us a little bit about your background? I think that really affects people's perspective, their life perspective, and I'd like to hear anything you want to share that, you'd like to share about your upbringing and your back story and you know, all those kinds of details that it will help us around out who Chase Clark actually is

Chase Clark:  Yeah well yeah it's kind of interesting. A little bit unconventional actually you know started in March of 1979 and boy how blessed I feel like I am today. Looking back to have been born at that time. And having been able to experience all the things that we've experienced over the past you know 40 years at the Times in my life that I've been able to experience them but I was I was born in Ocala Florida. sleepy little town at the time, you know about 28 30,000 people known for its horse farms and you know country living and really, really fortunate to have been born in a place like that in hindsight, you know, but when you're growing up there, It seems boring and slow and nothing to do and, you know, thank goodness. We were, you know, 45 minutes from the gates to Disney World, which we maybe went once a year.

Chase Clark:  And we had a local water park. Next to Silver Springs called Wild Waters. Which if we were really lucky, I think for eight dollars, you could go there for the whole day and it was a pretty cool place looking back on, on the memories of those big, water slides and the wave pool and stuff like that. But

Chase Clark:  I was adopted at birth. And so, my story is a little bit unconventional in that way, but not not terribly unconventional because, you know, I didn't even know, I was adopted probably until it's about, you know, seven or eight years old. My parents had that conversation with me. And if you look at me today, my personality my mannerisms, you know, people tell me all the time. They they see a lot of my dad and me and you know, so you know that's that's a great thing because I was fortunate enough to be born into, you know, Christian family. There was part of a wonderful church in Ocala. And that played a big part in my life growing up. you know, I I, you know, almost everything, I think back on and everything that I remember doing as a kid revolved around, doing something with people from church,

00:05:00

Chase Clark:  And that was a huge influence in my life and continues to be to this day. And so I was very fortunate to have. I like to tell people have been chosen by my parents, right? I wasn't birth by my mother. So, you know, she had to pick me from the, the litter there and the in the hospital that day. So I told my brothers that growing up, I had two younger brothers and every time they'd get angry or I'd get angry with them. Actually, I tell them, they look Mom and Dad, picked me, they had to deal with you, you know. So that was my good. Come back for them.

Peter Murphy:  That's remarkable. I mean, I just have a few thoughts, you know, about some of what you said already. I mean, like, surely that has to do great things for someone's self-confidence. Right. I mean, if they come into the picture, you know, it could have gotten either way, right? I mean who knows what kind of family you you could be chosen by but just to be able to throw that retort out, right to be able to have that perspective about yourself that you've been picked by someone. You are special. I mean, surely that has a lot to do with the kind of self-confidence that I know you have because I know you and probably everyone else who is around, you knows that you have to. So I mean that's first of all that's interesting that you have that because I imagine that has had a huge effect.

Chase Clark: Yeah, you know, I think, I think for people people that I know that were adopted, you know, even at birth, it can go either way, you know, some of them end up having a lot of questions later in life about you know, their origin, their birth parents, you know and things like that and wanting to reconnect with their biological family. I've never had that. I've never had that desire. I've never had those questions, and I do have a pretty high level of self-confidence, as you mentioned, And I think it has a lot to do with my upbringing. Some of some of that is the adoption story but also, I think a lot of it has to do with with my mom and dad, you know, my dad was in sales. During my younger years. So lots of different things. So a lot of his time I spent selling insurance products

Chase Clark:  And he was constantly reading, self-help books, and positive thinking type things and going to sales training and, you know, constantly trying to stay in that positive. Be I can do it, I can, I can, I can accomplish anything, I set my mind to type mentality. And you know, I tell people sometimes the story of him coming home from a sales trip one day and he brought me a teddy bear and the teddy bear was dressed, you know, in a in a pinstripe navy suit and you'd pull a string on the back and the string would say You're a winner Teddy knows, you know, it would be the first thing it would say and then you pull the string again and say You're a born leader, you know, and you keep pulling it it would say those things over and over and over again.

Chase Clark:  And you know hey no big deal but when you pump a young kid full of messages like that and and positive you know confidence building type things. You can't help but have that rub off on them in some way and I think I was the beneficiary of that. In a lot of what my dad did and those early ages, I mean, from from quotations that he would ride on index cards and into the bullets and board above his desk. Like, you know, when you're not practicing somewhere, someone is practicing. And when you meet, they will win, right? You know, that this this commitment to things like this guy back here, there's no, it's no secret why I have this poster on the wall, Charlie hustle, you know, Peter Rose, you know, that kind of mentality. If I'm gonna out work, everyone, I'm gonna hustle everyone. I'm gonna do whatever it takes to accomplish, what I'm trying to accomplish, and

Chase Clark:  Those types of messages, you know, implanted into young people, you know, can can do a lot of good and go a long way in their life.

Peter Murphy: Well, I don't think you put, I don't think you can put a price on it and I think I certainly think it's a very interesting lesson because I know your dad now and what I know about your dad is that he is a teacher and he's been a teacher of, you know, I guess high school and a coach to some degree. But I think he was more of an academic instructor for a long time. So you know all the successes that come with that role and the influence the wide reaching influence that he had certainly applies. But that isn't necessarily the job that you think most people who are super go-getters, go into, right? But he still had a great mentality, you know, to be able to implant the kind of messages and the positive energy that you're talking about here in you. And if, if I'm, unless I'm mistaken also in your brothers because I know your family and it seems like each of you have some interesting skills, exceptional skills, maybe and surely that same influence just played out differently in each of their lives because you're not all business people, right? You've got some great diversity in your family.

00:10:00

Chase Clark:  Yeah, you know, my my talents were cultivated on the baseball field and so I was of the three of us. I was definitely the athlete in the family. My my, the middle brother, my younger brother Cole, he's three years younger than me, and he's a gifted musician. And you know, how does that for a profession him and his family have a band called Colt Clark, the quarantine kids, you probably heard of And their YouTube sensations developed that during Covid, but extremely talented. And he's made a good living doing that. And then my youngest brother Ryan, who's eight years younger than me. It was very interesting because you know growing up we we really weren't that close. I mean, eight years is a pretty big separation. And when I left home, he was 10.

Chase Clark:  You know, so, you know, we I missed a lot of his formative years of his life, being gone gone from home from 10 to, you know, when he left at 18, but he's a a talented musician as well but also a talented actor, voiceover artist and graphic designer and So yeah, a lot of different, a lot of diverse talents within our family. And each of us have also become quite entrepreneurial and what we do. Colts obviously got his own music gig that he does, you know, we together have started several businesses and done that for the last 18 years or so. and Ryan has got his own gig on the side, apart from working for The Disney Channel. Does a lot of different things on the side with comedy troops, with voiceover stuff, with acting, and all kinds of things. So,

Chase Clark:  That entrepreneurial spirit was implanted in us by by our dad, probably early on. And I don't want to discount the impact of my mom and this too because you know, You mentioned the pivot. My dad had in his career from sales to teaching Well, you know, you can work as hard as you want, but sometimes you're, you know, either the victim of circumstance or, you know, the market changes on you or you see an opportunity and you need to pivot because it's a better option for you at that time in your life. And that's exactly what he did. He got tired of the grind of sales. And decided that he'd go back to school and get his master's degree. And he did that while I was in high school actually. Right at the beginning of high school into middle school.

Chase Clark:  And became an administrator in the school system and all the while my mom worked behind the scenes. You know, and probably I learned a lot of my work ethic from her because When we needed extra money, she would clean houses. We would clean the church building as a family. And so we learned the value of hard work and doing jobs. Other people didn't want to do all the time and, you know, scraped out a pretty decent living doing that. But my mom was always working doing something. And the thing that that she's known for actually especially within the church family, it's her evangelistic spirit and converting a police officer in Ocala, who had pulled her over for having too much tent on her windshield. So, you know, that that's the kind of personality and the kind of person my mom is always looking for.

Chase Clark:  An opportunity to build a relationship with someone and always willing to work hard and do the things that no one else wants to do.

Peter Murphy: Well, that's very interesting and I'm sure our listeners can probably see some parallels either in their lives or some opportunities in their lives, as they raise their kids. I mean, it seems like there's some really practical lessons there about messaging about work, ethic about, no matter where you are about modeling, the kinds of behaviors that your sons and daughters are going to take and run with. You know, we've talked a lot about your confidence level but I'm interested more about that because you know, I I know people who look, confident act very confident and talk to me about confidence and you are, is that universal? Is that in every aspect of your life, or are there chinks in your confidence armor? Are you just like the kind of person who is just overwhelmingly, confident and positive?

Chase Clark: Yeah. Well You know, there's a there's a lot of things in life that I made portray is being very confident at, but behind the scenes, I'm shaking in my boots, you know.

Chase Clark: and I think, you know, You know, there's things like like public speaking, you know, I don't relish the idea of public speaking. I I can get up there and do a decent job and pull it off but I don't like, I don't like that all the time, you know, I'm not very confident and and myself and the ability to come across as well in that as I would hope to all the time. But even going back back to, you know, high school days and junior high. I always had a lot of friends, but man, I was not very confident in making relationships with girls. And that was always the challenge for me and…

00:15:00

Peter Murphy: Who is right when they're in high school.

Chase Clark: could not speak that very well.

Chase Clark:  So you know I that was that was that was a big challenge for me with all my friends, you know, started dating people and whatnot. Like I was never very confident and establishing relationships of the opposite sex. And so what I did in that situation and and this is a coping mechanism for me that I even used today. Is that, you know, I try to justify it and saying, Well, you know, I'm not so good at that. I'm gonna leave that to somebody. That's somebody else that's better at that than me, you know. And And/or I'll just dive deeper into something that I am good at that. I'm very confident in and spend all of my time doing that until everyone. I'm too busy to do that other stuff. Oh,

Peter Murphy: Interesting. So a planning to your strengths kind of approach really is like, This is what my strengths are and I'm gonna double down there and like, leave the other stuff to other people. Now that could work to your disadvantage and relate and finding a woman because they're gonna be all guns but obviously didn't go that way for you. You found yourself a wonderful woman, it looks like and you figured out how to like bridge the gap. I certainly see that in public speaking, you do a great job of that when you're called to do it. So you know maybe you're shaking your boots but you don't give that impression. So that's there's a what is that? Exactly.

Chase Clark: Yeah, I don't know. It's a, I'm glad to hear that it comes across better than it feels sometimes. But I do think that, you know, one of the things that that has continually Been reinforced in my life, is that?

Chase Clark:  It's actually another quote that my dad had that I think about all the time and it goes like this, our doubts are traders that make us lose the good, we oft might win by fearing to attempt. so if you don't try it, if you don't do it and you let doubt sink in It's just working against you. It's it's a traitor of your life. It's it's holding you back and keeping you from doing things that you probably can do and you probably can practice them enough to do them well at some point, but if you never try them, you'll never even start, you know, that journey toward toward being good at that particular skill. and you know, that's that's something our try to remind myself all the time of because if you don't ever take that leap of faith, if you don't, if you don't ever go out on a limb outside, your comfort zone, whatever you want to call it.

Chase Clark:  You'll never have the opportunity to build that confidence. And so, I've, I have pushed myself quite a bit throughout the years, to do things like that. And Sometimes it comes from a place of expectation where I feel like people expect me to do this and expect me to do it well. So I've got to do it, you know, and that's a big motivator.

Peter Murphy: Yeah, living up to other people's expectations being driven by that to positive ends is something that could either will make you or break you. You see a lot of people crumble under that pressure so you haven't crumbled under the pressure of the expectations you haven't allowed your doubts to get in your way. Many people do, there's something exceptional going on right? And maybe it's the support network, you've talked about your parents right there backing you up. I mean, I don't know many people who can have all of these quotes from their dad off the top of their head. That's really impressive stuff. I love hearing about it. Very, very helpful. We'll talk to me a little bit. Chase about early decisions that you made in college, your degree track that you took there. Tell us Tell our list. There's some things that might be interesting about that period of life for you.

Chase Clark: Yeah. So, you know In high school. I had a pretty singular focus and that was on baseball.

Chase Clark:  You know, my goal was to get a baseball scholarship that would help me pay for college. I mean, my family wasn't in position where they were gonna be able to pay for it and Probably around six or seventh grade. I got connected through summer camps with Florida College. And those relationships were meaningful to me, meaningful enough to me, that I knew I wanted to go to school there. But at the time, they didn't have a baseball program. And then, my junior year in high school, they started a baseball program.

00:20:00

Chase Clark:  And, you know, I had received some other offers from some other schools to play in the state of Florida, but it was kind of fortuitous that they started up a program right around the time that I was ready to sign a letter of intent to go to school. And that was very fortunate for me because that was one of my goals to get a scholarship to play college baseball to to help with the financial side of that. Really I had made a I had made the determination early on. Probably around my junior year in high school that, you know, going beyond college, professional ambition. that didn't sync up with my plan for life and so I hadn't planning on going beyond playing in college, even if, if I'd been given the opportunity And so that's how I ended up at Florida College playing baseball, there, being able to attend college with a bunch of my friends for the first two years.

Chase Clark:  Great environment to be in formative from a spiritual standpoint. Great connections made there like like our connection. That was formed there. Met my wife there. Have lifelong deep. Connections with people, great friendships from that two years at FC. And then from there went on to USF and decided to I decided I was giving me an accounting major. Actually at first and started down the path of becoming a CPA And I guess about a year into it decided that finance with a minor and economics was a better way to go. And so I pivoted a little bit didn't really have to rework a whole lot of courses but just pivoted into that finance major with a minor in Econ. And from there my path was set kind of to go into a banking or financial services career

Chase Clark:  Um, and that's kind of where I landed out of college. One. Interesting thing from a timing standpoint that happened there was, you know, I graduated In December of 2001. And we all remember what happened. Just several months before that with the attack on 9/11, and so when I graduated from USF and went out to find a job, it was a slim Pickens. A lot of companies had hiring freezes. A lot of uncertainty in the world at that time, we were engaged in a war on terror now, and Now I landed a credit analyst position with at the time, Southern Exchange Bank down on Westshore and Kennedy there in the Westshore business district of Tampa.

Chase Clark:  And that was interesting job, it was a good opportunity, you know and exactly aligned with my major you know, going into finance and I didn't know until years later. How formative that job actually was even though I stayed there for only seven months. During that time. I was fortunate enough to underwrite. Dozens of commercial real estate loans for wealthy high, net worth investors, that were buying up commercial properties. All over Tampa Bay, some on the beaches of Pinellas County, someone Ybor City some in downtown Tampa.

Chase Clark:  And I didn't realize that at the time, but what I learned in those seven months of looking at those commercial real estate, loans was gonna pay huge dividends down the road as we started to develop our own real estate business. Our own real estate rental portfolio and understanding how banks looked at real rental real estate and what what kinds of things had to be in place for you to be able to get financed with a bank and and to grow your business in that way. So that that whole trajectory of going from, you know, hundred percent focus on baseball landing at Florida College Building incredible relationships meeting my wife. On the USF, slight slight change in major landing at a bank that put me in a position to work with real estate. And then having a real estate career years after that,

Chase Clark:  Kind of fortuitous how that all looks now in hindsight.

Peter Murphy: Yeah, there's you can definitely see a trajectory there. That makes sense. I want to go back a little bit. If you let me to the idea that you kind of said that playing baseball in as a professional career, wasn't a part of your plan for life. So that seems to suggest that you had a plan for life, right? Coming out of high school or is that in hindsight? You had a plan, did you have a plan for life and was the career track? The coursework that you took, you know, right at right out of high, school into college was that planned out or all these things? Kind of the things that you kind of evolved into and learned about yourself. As you're in college, talk about what it means to have a plan for life at the age of 17, right?

00:25:00

Chase Clark: Well, you know, when one thing that really impacted my plan for life was as a junior in high school. I was in a program that allowed me to do a mentorship. And I had thought for years, that I was gonna go into the medical field. Now, it's gonna be an orthopedic surgeon. That, that was something that interested me a lot, it tied in, with my love for sports and, and, you know, athletics and all of that. But for three months, I had the opportunity to shadow an orthopedic surgeon. And I knew his kids he was a well-known doctor in Ocala. Well, respected orthopedic surgeon there and really good at what he did learned a lot. It was an amazing experience. I've seen basically up close and personal in the or every joint in the human body replaced.

Chase Clark:  It was really cool. I enjoy that stuff. I know that some people can't stomach that but a fascinating experience. But the thing that I remember most from that mentorship, wasn't those surgeries it was sitting down with him in the doctors locker room one day and him telling me how he only was able to see his family every other weekend.

Chase Clark:  There's virtue and hard work. but there's a point at, which Hard work can become too much work. And that was not what I wanted for my life. I didn't want to see my family for a couple hours every other weekend because I was tied up in an or somewhere with a laundry list of surgeries to do.

Chase Clark:  I knew family was gonna be more important to me than that. And that was my goal for life was to to find a godly woman to have a family.

Chase Clark:  and to kind of take that path instead of having a long drawn out, professional career oriented type, Plan with marriage and family later on in life. and so that was real formative for me is getting that getting that perspective from him that day,

Peter Murphy: oh, that is

Peter Murphy:  I would have to say That's not common, right? I mean like if you're talking to a young guy in there, what high school years and they're shadowing orthopedic surgeon and instead of being distracted by the, well, the appeal of the job and the lifestyle, they're hit by the fact that they're not with their family. Right. And that says, That's it, I want me to make sure that whatever it is that I'm doing. I have enough time to spend with my family. It seems to me that you're heavily family oriented and heavily socially oriented in a way that many people are not, probably right. Which I imagine, you know, just takes us all the way back to where we started with just the importance of, you know, the family for you and a great. Well, functioning parent unit, and the fact that you are chosen and all that goes into that, to make you prioritize that in a way that most young men probably do not, right? So you're planning for life, not being a workaholic, is probably not where most, I was just, I was hearing Bill Gates, commencement speech, like Arkansas, State University, or someone like that recently.

Peter Murphy:  I just a few days ago and his emphasis was like, Here are the things that I learned now that I'm, you know, 50, 60, Whatever. And number one on that list is you, you're not a slacker if you slack off occasionally, right? And, you know, he was, he was someone who worked exceptionally hard and he said, he's situated his desk by his parking lot. So he could see which of his employees were leaving early and not coming in early enough and he was highly driven and very career driven, and I would say that children of Boomers Gen X are still and Boomers themself. We're very career driven, putting a ton of effort in time into that. And although I think that has certainly played out in Gen Xers and the Millennials not having that same work ethic because they probably saw the demise of their families under those kinds of environments that was not your story, right, your stories. Like, I don't want to have that. I want to be more. I want to have more of a flexible life. So all that's very interesting to me.

Chase Clark:  Yeah, you know. And again in hindsight, right? Because you don't always realize this stuff at the time when you're in that season of life, but, you know, there is a season for everything, right? The Bible speaks to this that, you know, there is a season of your life. When when you should be devoted more to your your job and getting yourself entrenched in a career and you're studies in school and whatever degree you're pursuing, and all of that. And then there's a season where, you know, family is gonna become more important. If you're blessed with with a with a good wife and and children,

Chase Clark:  that's a new season and it's different and it can't be the same. You can't keep working 60, 70 80 hours a week when you got young kids at home. I mean you can and plenty of people do it but to their demise and it's my my perspective when I look out at other families that I see where the the husband and the wife are both consumed by the workplace. The children suffer and and so that's a very mature statement to make. And one that I can make with, with a perspective of being married for 21 years and having a 16 year old, right? So I say that. Now, with all that experience behind me, but people were telling me this, when I was 20,

00:30:00

Chase Clark:  I didn't always listen right when you're when you're when you're 18, 20 22 years old. You know if you're smart enough to seek advice and you've got a church community or a family community where you've got wise people that can give you advice like this. My my advice. Now to anyone listening that's at that age is listen to what they're telling you you can learn it yourself by experiencing through life but you know, Decisions matter. They do like you can only mess up so many times in life.

Chase Clark:  And and not cause yourself, you know, so much of a setback that life becomes so much more difficult for you. I'm a firm believer in that and I know some people get lucky, some people get bailed out in life, but if you want to be conscientious and, and do things and set yourself up early on to live, the kind of life, where you can be effective, as an individual, have a great family, be charitable, be be someone who can have an impact on other people and an example, people can look to you got to get these decisions, right? A lot of the time.

Peter Murphy: Well, the decisions that you don't put in that category, though, or at least doesn't seem like you had a very clear, you know, step by step plan for. I mean, you went from hoping to be an orthopedics to then coming out with a an Econ and finance major that's that's very different and it doesn't seem like you were heavily academically focused in terms of like you had a very clear.

Peter Murphy: Experience was going to play out. It sounds to Like that was, you probably did very well. I know you did do very well but that wasn't, you know, you know, a lot of people who just make that planning process, Are college. Care. Both undergraduate and graduate extremely carefully and they follow it with great discipline and they think they're going to be majorly thrown off track if they don't get that right, right? You got to get your college years, right? In order to have a good life, would you say That's it was true for you. I mean, looking at your, at your timeline there, and would you say that that is what happened for you or was a little different than that?

Chase Clark:  Well, during during the two years, I was at the University of South Florida, getting the finance degree, I was working part-time for a large bank here in town. And I was to tell her on the teller line. But what I, what I learned from that part-time job and and maybe would even steered me into the finance realm a little bit or solidified. My decision to continue to pursue the finance realm. Was the banking was a sure thing, right? Banks. Don't go away banks, provide stable, jobs, bankers hours are very attractive, and if nothing else in life, that would give you a great foundation to build on. Going into the financial services sector. and so I felt like it was a safe play also I was very good at math. I love numbers, right? All that stuff made sense to me.

Chase Clark:  And so in a since I felt like well, okay, I've been given that that talent I can build upon that. I can use those skills that I have with, with math and numbers and all that and in this role. And so it kind of made sense from that perspective. It wasn't too risky. It wasn't, it wasn't extremely rigorous either. but it was something I felt that would set me up for at least some level of success and stability early in my career.

Peter Murphy: Gotcha. So that is again not necessarily you're not looking at this as some big risk play where you can go at it hard. You're looking at a stable play for some kind of foundation you're looking to try to maintain. So is in retrospect, is was that deliberate for your entrepreneurship? That was coming up because you you moved out of college, you moved out of these stable plays, into an entrepreneurship role, fairly early in life. Was that all deliberate at a part of the your life's plan, or those things that just kind of happened, and you just reacted to

00:35:00

Chase Clark: well, I think my advice to anybody that's 20 years old, or even 18 years old, graduating high school right now is that Most of you are not in a position to take risk.

Chase Clark:  I I my opinion and my perspective is that, if you, if you play it safe and don't take extraordinary, risks and early stages of your life when you're probably not even capable of evaluating those risks effectively. You're gonna do better early on and set a better foundation for yourself to be able to take more risks later in life, right? And I don't, I think that's a concept that a lot of of young people in college right now. Don't really understand this idea, but of the relationship between risk and reward. And they don't effectively evaluate the risk correctly. You know, there's a lot of risk and doing things that are unconventional when you're 20 years old.

Chase Clark:  Um, and I say that from the perspective of everything you do in life builds upon itself. Okay. so if you want to take a risk in your 20 years old, and you're single, get a day job and take your risk at night and on the weekends, Don't go all in on the risky option, without any kind of steady income or any kind of training or any kind of, you know, backstop career path. If your parents are uber wealthy and they want to support you in doing that fine. But that's, that's an outlier right. Most people need to start out their career with something stable, something foundational that they can build a career on.

Chase Clark:  And if you go after this risky, venture of front and it sets you back several years, you just got a whole harder road to hoe down, you know, to get yourself built back on that solid foundation.

Peter Murphy: Yeah, so sort of like get your house in order before you're willing to take on some of these bigger both opportunities, but challenges that are ahead of you, right? So the importance of making sure that is in play. Now that traps a lot of people though, right? A lot of people get sucked into that world and have this nice sedate environment. It's low risk. There is comfort and safety there and getting out of that. Into an entrepreneurial venture is tough. So again, part of your plan to get out of all that into the entrepreneurial venture or just you reacting to happenstance in a well, well, fortuitous way.

Chase Clark: Yeah, I think. I think probably speaking from this perspective now looking back. I was bound to be an entrepreneur at some point in my life and But I think I think we did it the right way. You know, I think, you know, when we started out And, and cut the cord from a a nine to five steady paycheck. We still had wives that were working and supporting us and we were able to pay our bills, right? We had also worked for, you know, four or five years in in industry and cultivated skills and relationships that we were able to bring to an entrepreneurial venture. All right.

Chase Clark:  So that that's important. I think all of that stuff helped us build a foundation that that let us to have a successful entrepreneurial venture. You don't, you don't have to have that. And I'm not saying that there's one size fits all for everyone but You can't go wrong, taking a a career path, that is stable and solid, and piss your bills.

Chase Clark:  Um, because there's other things you can do with your life, to fulfill yourself and to use your talents and abilities for good that don't necessarily have to revolve around you owning a business and doing something that maybe taking on more risk than than you're capable of handling, and especially if you don't have another partner, doing it with you, where the two of you together can bring your talents together, your resources together and possibly have a better chance of success. Because of that,

Peter Murphy: But so were you looking for it or would you have taken either, right? Would you have if your career in banking, whatever else had painted for you? A trajectory of opportunity and wealth and appropriate reward, would you have stayed there versus taking this entrepreneurial route? Was that it was at the plan you were looking to pursue was there. Some catalyst within your life? That said, That's the way you have to go versus staying here where you were, you soul searching for that kind of a free opportunity? I think a lot of people want to know, I mean, like, what is it? That motivates an entrepreneur to break the ties of all that safety and security and to try something like this because it's, it's two roads diverging, right? I mean once you take one, it's tough to go back to the other.

00:40:00

Chase Clark: yeah, sure is I like to say at this point, my life, I'm unemployable.

Peter Murphy: I get it. Yes.

Chase Clark:  But yeah, there was totally a catalyst. I mean, the fact that I went into the banking sector influence that greatly because one thing that any of you out there who are in the banking industry you know good and well that it's not a meritocracy. Everything in a bank is based on seniority. The person who's been there, the longest is gonna be in charge, no matter what. And there's nothing you can do about it and you can outperform and you can you can bring in more revenue, more profit, all that for the bank. They're gonna give you a tiny little bonus and you're still gonna be reporting to someone else. And so that right there taught me that I didn't always want to have a boss. I wanted to be the boss at some point and I didn't see a clear path to that in banking unless I just wrote it out for 25 years.

Peter Murphy: Right. And you if it weren't banking, would you think it's hard to make these decisions or make these? I have clear perspective in retrospect especially like 20 years of but if you chosen a different sector and it was tech or something there which was of course, burgeoning in other markets back at the time where you were coming out of college, that was the early 2000s. But not necessarily in Tampa has always been kind of a banking hub and financial services and customer service is hub and not, really a tech hub. But had you chose it in a different, a different sector, would you have seen the ability to achieve, whatever, whatever your life plan is quicker versus going into entrepreneurship entrepreneurship. By the way, took a ton of your time and energy. I mean, we say that we wanted to be our own bosses but, you know, you're a slave to something, right? And you're in an entrepreneurship, you're a slave to your company of your own creation. That is an exacting and brutal boss sometimes, right? So it's not like you're freeing yourself up from all kinds of, you know, discipline task mast.

Peter Murphy:  And structures, but would have been a different industry. Could it have been a different industry? Or is this just something in you? That is had to go this way.

Chase Clark: Yes, I think. and I don't want to generalize it too much, but I think for every person

Chase Clark:  The catalyst to jump ship into an entrepreneurial venture really has two components. One is your risk quotient. Okay, so I've got a lot of friends that are very talented people. They've been very successful in their, you know, 25 years careers working as employees and banking or other sectors for that matter. And the only one of the main reasons why they've never gone out and started, an entrepreneurial venture is because they are too risk, averse.

Chase Clark:  So they're the ones sitting at home telling themselves all the reasons why this is gonna fail and won't work and it's gonna make them uncomfortable and all of those things, even, when they've definitely got the skills in the abilities to launch something, and make it successful. So your risk quotient is huge in that you cannot be too risk averse. And and then, you know, decide that you want to take on an entrepreneurial venture, they typically you know are at odds with each other. And the second component is is that and whatever job you're in, whatever your your professional or career circumstances, you've got to feel like or know that you can do more or do something better.

Chase Clark:  On your own then you can within your company. Right? And so I think a lot of people come to that conclusion, where they're working in an industry for years and all of a sudden, they see an opportunity. They take it up the ladder, take it to their boss, or their team, or whoever they're working with, they get shot down, or there's some reason why they can't execute on some new idea or some new product. They want to launch and they say Forget these people. I'm gonna take this idea or this product and I'm gonna go launch it myself over here with my own company and take off, right. We know many success stories like that in corporate America, right? Where someone had an idea, they got shot down, so they left and they took it out on their own and made a success out of it. Um, happens in the tech world a lot. So I think those are, the two things that I see is like, you've got to feel like you can do more and you got to have the right risk question.

Peter Murphy: Yeah. So in stepping out then tell me how did you deal? I mean, maybe your personality Helped in this on all kinds of ways that we've already talked about. How did you deal with self-doubt? How did you deal with fear? How did you deal with risk as you moved into entrepreneurship? Every one of us has it to some degree? I'm not. I'm sure you wouldn't say, You have none of those things but maybe a lower quotient in some of your peers. So what did you do with your fears and doubts? And you know, in order to in order to make it a success of yourself in entrepreneurship.

00:45:00

Chase Clark: Well, I think from a risk perspective. I was always blessed with. Small opportunities that came along. To help stabilize that. transition from You know, career stability with a job into, you're on your own, right? We either had clients that would show up that provided us a nice little, you know, monthly income doing a certain thing for them. Or we had some kind of opportunity that would come along that would help. You know, just in my mind at least Stabilize the financial side of the entrepreneurial launch. Um, and it wasn't anything. Extravagant or extraordinary. It was just enough, right? It was just enough to get over the hurdle, right?

Peter Murphy: Right. Right. So it never seemed like a huge risk to you. They also seem like small risks

Chase Clark:  yeah, it was a bunch of small calculated decisions that that in my mind it seemed like the worst case scenario was never that bad.

Peter Murphy: Right. Well, that helps right. If you're not ever saying Let's jump off a clip without a parachute, right? You're you're talking about really measured and well, quantifiable risks. Well then the risks are almost non-existent and you have a very little self-doubt and that's of course a really good way to deal with that. So that's a lot of wisdom there.

Chase Clark: Yeah. Yeah, and you know, losses teach you valuable lessons. But sustained losses are killers of everything, right? And so, you know, throughout that journey, we had these little, you know, we had these little nuggets that would come along, that would kind of in my mind solidify. The approach we were taking in the path and kind of provide a financial way forward.

Chase Clark:  But, it was never without setbacks, right? It was never without times where you did doubt yourself and say, Man. You know, we've got, we've got 30 days of cash flow left. We got it. We got to get busy or we got to find some some opportunity or we've got a, you know, engineer some new cash flow stream to be able to pay our bills next month, right? Or we've got to go flip another house or you know, whatever the case was that, whatever, you know, time. And the process that was but I mean, I tell people all the time, you know, The most valuable period of our entrepreneurial journey to me was you know two thousand, eight 2009, post housing crash financial crisis.

Chase Clark:  Where, you know? My second daughter Ashland was born, May 2nd 2009. And I remember sitting in the hospital when the financial guy came in, he's like Hey you know we need to collect that $4,000 copay you have for the birth of a child and I had nothing. I mean, I think maybe I had enough money in my bank to to pay my mortgage that month. And that was it, right? I mean, it was rock bottom. There was a big loaf for us. I mean, we had we had acquired a bunch of rental properties. We we had lost a bunch of tenants who had lost their jobs. We had rising costs of property, taxes and insurance with with decreasing rents and increasing vacancy.

Chase Clark:  Um, we had been, you know, kind of strung out on a couple flip projects that we had. We had large amounts of leverage, we had a friends and family fun. That was going to funk because of the of the housing crash and that was just at the time. So stressful. Full of doubt, full of second guessing. You know me? Plenty of times where I thought, Wow. Okay. What what job am? I gonna need to go get right.

Chase Clark:  But we made it through and making it through that kind of period in your entrepreneurial journey. is an invaluable thing when you come out on the other side, when you've learned lessons like that and how to persevere, how to overcome, That kind of situation and how to avoid doing that in the future just stuff that you can't read in a textbook.

00:50:00

Peter Murphy: you know, I'd like to dig in more That at another time I think because, you know, how do you make it through that kind of a thing? And that's a question. I think it's, it's nice to hear that. And, and I hear so many entrepreneurs say that they had that kind of a rock bottom experience, but they just like survived for one more day. One more week, one more deal. And it was, it was enough, right? To get them through. And the question, I, I think that deserves a lot of thought is, you know,

Peter Murphy:  Does everyone go through that? Right? Is, is the one more deal, really? The one more deal or is it just that you have enough endurance to turn the that, that last moment, just prolonged through whatever that low point is, where you're bumping along the ground for a long period of time until things finally start working. You just can endure it and you're willing to go through the suffering and the the pain long enough to endure. And then the reward comes or was it really the doors would shut and you have to go get a job in in a month. It's what's the truth of that statement and that perspective as you think back I mean had the paycheck not come in the next month from whatever deal you were doing. Would you really have shut the doors and gone back and got a job somewhere?

Chase Clark: Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, the single moment I think in all of that for us is when and I think this is a trap in Elijah, a lot of entrepreneurs fall into is They go down one path and when it's not a successful as they think it's going to be, they're trying to pivot to something else and then before they know it they're doing like four or five different things and they're really doing none of them very well but they're doing all of them, okay? And we plowed into property management in 2008 right after the crisis and went all in on that. And making that choice and that decision to do. That one line of business with all of our effort at a time when no one else wanted to do it. And when it didn't look like a popular decision,

Chase Clark:  Paid huge dividends for us. And one of the main reasons we did it was because we knew it would provide us a steady income We didn't have to worry about going out there and making the next deal. We knew we could grow a residual income out of a book of business that we continually grow. If we put our 100% effort behind it. And, and I think that was one of the key lessons that we learned out of that time is a, you know, don't try and do everything, just do something really well.

Peter Murphy: Yeah, the Some of the things I've heard you talk about are not necessarily the characteristics of a high risk tolerant individual, right? A desiring stability in the way you described here, describing that thing that will be dependable that you can kind of go all into, but you don't even necessarily really love it, right? I mean you didn't go into property management because it was your Passion it was part of your life plan, right? It was the thing that would pay the bills and so you made a success out of it, right? So that really flies in the face of a lot of what people are, what they sit their goals on, right. They want to do that thing that passion play that they love the most right and they're willing to like you know they say they're willing to throw everything behind that idea. That wasn't you at all right. I mean because here you are and property management or here you are necessarily at a place that that wasn't a key part of what your childhood admissions were right? And you were just grinding it out.

Chase Clark: Yeah, one thing, one thing you learn as you go through life is your passions change. And so, if you start a business simply based on your passion, Be rest assured, in most cases that passion will wane at some point and then you'll be stuck with a business that you may not love to. And so my philosophy has always been more of. I want to do something that I know is gonna work that if I take my talents and abilities in my skills and I planning 100%, I can see success.

Chase Clark:  And I don't really care what that is necessarily. It's been property management. Like you said, I mean, how many people aspire to be a property manager? I mean, but we could have done the same thing doing trash collection, you know, we could have done the same thing with a pressure washing business, had the opportunity been there and we were committed a hundred percent to applying our talents and abilities to making it a success. It was going to be a success and I think that's that's the essence of entrepreneurship. It's not that you have a passion. For one particular thing in life, it's that you've got a passion for being successful.

Chase Clark:  And you've got talents and skills and abilities that God's bless you with that, you know, how to harness and, you know how to plow forward, 100% in a singular direction to make sure no matter what you do. It's gonna be a success, right? And that to me, is the essence of entrepreneurship, you should be able to take a true entrepreneur and plug them into any business, any industry, and they will be successful doing it because they know how to do those things.

00:55:00

Peter Murphy: Well, I love it, you know, I wish we had a little bit more time in digging to some of these things. Maybe we'll do a part two, because a whole lot more to talk about, I wanted to talk about things, like, You know, you sold your company. We sold our company together, wait years ago now and the the trajectory that our lives have taken since then has not looked a lot. Like I would imagine that someone who sells a company at the prime of their professional life would look. So you've made some choices and here you are. I'd love to know the rationale behind some of those stories. So what decisions you've made? I'd love to know how you view your your current time utilization. How you would, how you see your optimizing? All your resources to fulfill the life plan that we talked a little about earlier spending time with your family, How are all those things playing together? Recording to what you hoped and wanted them to and again, What's next? These are all questions. I have for someone who does what you do at a young stage of your life, so maybe we'll kick off. I will go into some of those things.

Peter Murphy:  More detail in the next show, but I just think this has been a fantastic insight chase and some of these some of these little behind the scenes, facts of you, anything else you want to share with us before we go? Any other lessons learned or important? Little nuggets from your dad, perhaps you got in your desk somewhere.

Chase Clark:  Yeah. well, you know, other than my dad, you know, I I would just emphasize the the role that you know, spirituality and the Bible and being a follower of Jesus Christ has played in a lot of these decisions that you make in life, because Without an eternal perspective to your life.

Chase Clark:  You, you don't understand the day-to-day as well as you should and you end up making decisions that are for the moment and and not for eternity. And and I think I I can't understand how important that is and how how greatly that has shaped my perspective on what I do and how I choose to spend my time, even now, you know, being in a fortunate situation where I don't have to go to a 40 hour a week job, I don't have a lot of other obligations in my life that Take me away from doing things that I think I can be very effective at, and most of them in a charitable way. So I I would just offer that up as as something that's foundational and and sentinel and your approach to life.

Peter Murphy: I love it and Chase has been a real real treat for me even though I know some of these things it was great to kind of put them in this kind of format and talk with you about them. So thanks for being transparent and sharing all these these stories with us. I look forward to continuing this conversation soon, all right?

Chase Clark:  Definitely man, appreciate it. Love love this opportunity to chat and I can't wait to turn the tables on you.

Peter Murphy: Oh man, that's gonna be a lot of fun. I can't wait. All right. Well, let's let's be done for now and we'll talk soon. All the best.

Chase Clark:  Perfect.

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