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Buying Tampa Bay
Buying Tampa Bay
29. Embracing Change and Building a Legacy: The Entrepreneurial Journey of Peter Murphy
Ever wondered what makes someone choose a life of entrepreneurship? Join us as we dive into the incredible journey of our co-host, Peter Murphy, who shares his inspiring story of growing up in Ireland during the Troubles, adapting to a new culture, and navigating the ever-changing world pre- and post-internet. Born in 1979, right at the end of Gen X, Peter's unique perspective on life and work ethic will surely leave you wanting to learn more!
From discussing his parent's mission to evangelize Christianity in Ireland, to the challenges of fitting in and adopting the American way of life, Peter's experiences have shaped him into the entrepreneur he is today. With a strong academic background and the support of his faith community, he's managed to find the perfect balance between aspirations and relationships. Discover the secrets behind his journey of self-discovery, knowledge-building, and perseverance!
Sit back and enjoy our candid conversation with Peter as we explore everything from the impact of technology on work ethic, to his college experience and career path. You don't want to miss the fascinating insights on how Peter nurtured his entrepreneurial mindset through apprenticeships and mentorship, and how he finds fulfillment in family, hobbies, and building a lasting legacy. Tune in for an episode filled with inspiration, reflection, and valuable life lessons!
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Hello everybody, chase Clark here with the Buying Tape of A podcast. Today we're going to turn the tables on my co-host, peter Murphy. He's going to be our guest today in the hot seat. I sat in the hot seat for the last two sessions of this podcast and now it's my turn to ask some questions, and it's our opportunity to learn more about Peter and his life experience and what has got him to where he is today. He's been my business partner for the last 20 years and I probably only know a small part of his story, so I'm looking forward to hearing more about it as well myself today. So, peter, hey, welcome to the show and a different role today as the guest, and we can't wait to hear more about your story.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much, chase. I really enjoyed doing this with you the other day because when you talk to someone trying to really understand who they are and how they tick, you can go into business together. you can work alongside someone, but you don't often dig in the way you should to really understand how they're wired and why they work the way they do. So I really enjoyed that from you. I hope our listeners get some value out of this from me today, from my perspective, and maybe I'll have a thing or two that will benefit them as they look at my experiences, more than not a couple things maybe that they shouldn't do. I can be their negative example as well as their positive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i'm sure it'll be more positive than negative, but everyone's got a great story to tell. Their stories are somewhat unique to people that are in the real estate industry, definitely unique to ourselves and hopefully interesting to our listeners and something that they can learn from all of our mistakes from.
Speaker 2:I hope so. Yeah, that would be great. That would be my goal for this episode.
Speaker 1:For sure. All right, so let's go way back. Let's go back to the as my college students this year like to say, the 1900s, so back in the 1970s. Peter Murphy's born. Tell us a little bit about that. I mean being born in the States and then moving overseas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, 1970s, i mean, it makes me sound like the ancient of days. You know, i am right, i catch, and you do too, chase, so don't smile too hard, right, i catch. Like the last year of Gen X, right, i mean that's 1979, because in 1980, the millennial generation begins. And so 1979, i do think there's a special sauce in that year that our parents are drinking, because there are a whole lot of people that have a similar mindset to me and you, that were born right around them. And I guess that's the definition of a generation, right, there are things about that time that are unique to it. And then, over the course of maybe sometimes quite rapidly, something very new emerges, and so what was happening at the very end of the 70s and into the very early 80s was a generation of people being born pre-tech. Almost right, they were going to be born into households with personal computers that were islands, stand-alones, not connected to the internet, and we were using those for very distinct purposes prior to that point. But we came of age professionally as the internet began to emerge, and so you can imagine a very unique kind of individual. I've heard it talked about, actually, in various ways at this point, that the individual, the Gen X, is almost a silent type of generation right now that we hear a lot about boomers, often derisively because they're the people who are living large now off the wealth of millennials and Gen Xers. But Gen Xers almost seem to slip by because here we were kind of keeping our heads down. It was pre-internet, and boy I think we learned a lot from that time that we put into practice in our professional lives and certainly in our personal lives.
Speaker 2:But yes, i came on the scene in March of 1979, born in Maine. So I bet our listeners are like three people born in Maine. I'm one of them. So I was born in Maine to the child of a missionary and his wife who were trying to evangelize Christianity to the northeast of the United States. And if you know much about Maine, you know that that was not an easy thing to do. It's a little bit atheistic in its approach Maybe much of New England is right now And so I am the product of parents who are very much bucking the trends and going into a very tough place to live to evangelize their faith. And so that's my stock.
Speaker 2:And when I was a year and a half old my parents left Maine, as though Maine wasn't hard enough, and decided to move over to Ireland And in Dublin, ireland, they decided to bring Christianity to the Catholics right A Protestantism to the Catholics more than is probably a better way to say that. And you know how that's gone. If anyone's a student of history, bringing Protestantism to the Catholics, well, that's a recipe for war And they've been fighting that war for the last hundred years over there. And you know, shortly after I left Ireland, actually, they were able to bring peace to that dynamic. But I was in Ireland during the heart of what they call the Troubles, and that was when Catholics and Protestants were literally putting petrol bombs on each other's doorsteps in reprisals for their different spiritual beliefs. But at that point no one really knew they were spiritual beliefs anymore, like political beliefs, and that was my dad trying to evangelize to those kinds of people.
Speaker 2:Well, you can imagine his work was a wonderful success in some ways, because through diligence and perseverance and just through like 15 years of sheer sweat, equity and effort, he dug it out and managed to establish, with the help of other Christians over there, small bodies of faith believers. But it wasn't like. This was a massive success for him. He didn't leave a mega church When we left Ireland in 1995, he left a body of about 15 members behind And you know a lot of people would look at that and say you know, that's not a lot to show for 15 years of work over there. It's like one convert per year. And but again, i think that's the stock that I come from. People who are not going to measure their success by sheer numbers alone are going to put in the work and the sweat equity and they're going to emerge from there with, hopefully, some values that sharpen and refine to them and maybe a small mark to leave on the world. And I think that's what.
Speaker 2:What I did, what my parents did. It really was very little of my involvement, of course, in their overall, although I was out on the streets of Dublin helping my dad evangelize sometimes. So as a very young boy I would work out with him handing out flyers inviting people to church. These were things that were a part of my life as a kid And you know, again, that was the that was pre tech days And I remember being yelled at by people I was trying to handle hand hand flyers to on the street and being pitied that for being abused and used by a father for those kinds of purposes. But I can imagine those were all kinds of things that really, you know now as I look back sharpened me and made me a little bit less resistant to the kinds of criticism you get when you're in sales and entrepreneurship. I mean those, those life lessons as a child that you can learn can either make you angry and cold and bitter that your parents made you do such hard things, or it can make you say, hey, that was really good school for me And I learned a lot from it. So I'm inclined to take that second perspective. I think that that kind of upbringing gave me all kinds of calluses in areas that I needed to be callused and I needed to be refined and tested and developed, and so I'm grateful for all of those opportunities, even though they might not be classic parenting techniques.
Speaker 2:Right, i'm in the United States, i'm 15 years old, i move up to the Massachusetts area I'm sorry, i just turned 16 actually and I finished out high school up there. I wrap up high school in 1997. And I remember in 1995, when I came back to the country, getting my first dial up network on compute on my computer and I would watch when I would go to a website and upload something. I would watch that image, you know, slowly evolve on my page to where there it is. You have your first internet experience and it's like it takes minutes and you hear the classic AOL dial tone connecting you to the internet. You learn patience, you learn perseverance and how to try again and again and again to get a signal. You learn that nothing is instantaneous. You've got to work for everything. Those are the kinds of lessons I emerged on the scene with through my elementary and high school years And when I finally came to college in 1997. So that's my way back story, chase.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, how many people have that kind of story? I mean, it's definitely unique, right, It's, you know, born in the States, off to Ireland. No better way to learn hard work than to be out going door to door trying to convert openly hostile Catholics, right, I mean, especially at a young age. Right, I mean, I can't even imagine you know the lessons of life that are ingrained in your memory and that drive you every day from that kind of an experience. You know, just truly going after something that's very difficult to do and being persistent at it like your dad was for 15 years. An incredible experience. But tell us a little bit. You know about some of the differences that you experience. That growing up, you know, until you're almost 16 or to, you were 16 in Ireland And then coming back to the States, What was that transition like and what were some of the biggest differences in your life that you Immediately recognized upon coming back to the States?
Speaker 2:you know, thanks, thanks for recognizing some of those, those questions. By the way, you know, i do want to give a lot of credit to, to people in my life who modeled the kind of endurance behaviors But I think make a difference in, in whatever mission each year about. You know, the kind of way that you can enroll up your sleeves and slog through your hard work, no matter what the results might look like in the short term. Those are the kinds of behavior traits that really did Define my family experience and my parents experience. I see that to this day as they continue to slog through whatever kind of life challenges They face, and that you wonder if those kinds of experiences a child and as a young person Don't prepare you for what is gonna lie ahead, because, well, we can all be certain about is that there's gonna be chaos in our lives ahead, because, well, that's kind of a lot what defines life, isn't it? It's like there's a lot of things that you, that happen to you, that aren't ideal and they're troublesome and aren't pleasant, and so you've got to learn how to, how to handle and adapt to those, and so moving from one country to the next is not necessarily a highly Pleasant thing it. You know, you realize how different you are and how much you have to learn. And When you're talking about moving from one culture to the next, well, i didn't move from a culture that that spoke a different language, so that's something right. Having to learn a whole new language would have been Entirely different.
Speaker 2:I moved from an English-speaking Western European country to an English-speaking American country, but you can imagine that, socially and culturally, how much I had to learn. The whole Sports complex is one of those things. I mean. You have no idea how difficult it is to learn a lifetime of Sports knowledge, right? so what you learn Organically as a zero to 15 year old in America, just by having ESPN on in the background And with the information you have flowing for your mind, if you've got a start from zero on that, i'd figure that out you arrive in a new country. Well, that's enough to make everyone, anyone, sweat, right, that's a lot of work that goes into that. But think about that exact same ideal transferred to almost every pop culture area of your life, any political make, any major political Area of your life. This was entire. This was an entirely different system that I had to figure out. Schools were very, very different in their structure and approach. The grading system was different. The way that kids just conducted themselves socially and interpersonally was very different. Of course, common trends, but lots of different finesse things that make you either fit in or stick out, and so I just remember Sticking out like a sore thumb, a lot like here's a great example when I moved to the United States, i noticed really early on that like for some reason, all these kids would wear shirts and ties to school And I was like, well, maybe that's what you're supposed to do, you're supposed to wear a shirt and tie.
Speaker 2:And so, like the next day, when I saw that I wore a shirt and tie. But what I didn't realize was that was the sports teams, right, they were getting ready to go to a game and because they had, in a way, game, they had to wear a shirt and tie that day, right. So I wear a shirt and tie the next day, like nobody else is wearing a shirt and tie, because no one had a game that day, right. And I had a bunch people coming up and saying so what team are you on? Why are you wearing a shirt and tie today? And also was one of those like all silk ties really wide at the bottom that had pictures of Warner Brothers characters on it, because that was, that was, i guess, a thing back then.
Speaker 2:So I had to. I had to get over. I had to learn those kinds of really vulnerable lessons where embarrassment Was a high potential. But all of those things where you've got to learn socially how to adapt and you know What is expected of you from a social standpoint are things that you learn when you come from one country to the next and of course, none of that is easy. All those lessons come with a bunch of embarrassment and you got to put a ton of study into people and processes and systems and Nuance in order to get through that and not come out of there a pariah or a social outcast. So you know, i did that.
Speaker 2:I also, interestingly, didn't have an Irish accent very, for very long because I wanted to fit in. I thought it was an important thing not to stand out. Now I, when I came it, got into college in my early 20s. All the, all the guys were like man, girls love guys with accents. You should have kept your accent. But I didn't think of it that way. I more thought of it like I need to fit in, i need to learn how to adapt, and so I got rid of the accent and try to figure out the clothes and when we're When and when not to wear a tie, and those are things I learned pretty soon. But all of those things are the kind of work ethic and the adaptability things that you've got to learn. You're moving from one country to the next at their very vulnerable age of 16.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, you know you came back to the country at a great time, right, right in the middle of the 90s, and so you know You came in to Bill Clinton playing the saxophone. You came in the middle of Michael Jordan's. You know second three Pete, you know some of the best alternative, you know music and you know alternative rock that we've had ever. Probably. There's a great time, right, great time, to come back to the States and get indoctrinated into the culture here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was, and it was a time of a little bit more innocence too, because, like I said, internet hadn't hit yet and internet, the internet, has changed people. We, we have to admit that, whether or not we're I mean we whether or not we like that or not. I mean maybe there's a lot of good that has changed people for, but it's certainly, it's certainly fragmented people, and now we've got lots of very small and Highly defined, highly specialized identity spread all over about, all over different interests groups and affinity groups, and you know There's lots of different ways to define yourself as a person, from interest levels to other ways. And back when I came in, it was a lot more simple than that right you became well, you still were becoming just an American right and you're, you're in. Everyone was kind of a defined by the same kinds of pop culture And the same general kinds of music and sports. So it was a good and easy way to be introduced to a society, and so I would imagine that's a far harder thing to do now. When you're coming into the United States. You know what exactly does the American look like? well, who knows right? whatever, whatever Definition of social media you want to engage in at that point in time, at this point in time, right, but back then it was a little bit more Streamlined, a little bit more defined and it wasn't wonderful to have time to come into it.
Speaker 2:And there was so much changing in the tech space that was getting ready to change in the tech space And I was entering it with a mindset of an adaptability and learning So that when I did actually get into college and what was rolling out then in the early years of college was like people were buying their own laptops for the first time and then, very soon into that period of time, google was hitting the space and we were figuring out how to integrate desktop technology with internet technology. And I was in the mode of learning. I was in the mode of adapting. Although I may not have been in the tech space and developing out that technology, my mindset was very much in, you know, in learning and figuring out how to, how to adapt to things. I don't think that was totally unique to me. I think you and probably people like us were all learning how to adapt right then. So adaptability and change and comfort with change Was very comfortable for all of us and I think that served me very well and many of my peers very well too, because many people I know who are my age are entrepreneurial, highly entrepreneurial, and that's because I think they're not afraid of risk and change.
Speaker 2:And it's major change that refines you, right? lots of little Changes like whatever the new social media app? That's not real change, that's just like an evolution of something that exists. But going from desktop computing to internet right, that's giant change, right, that's. That's societal revolution getting ready to unfold, and there aren't very many times in history where we've had to Figure out how to do societal evolution at that kind of scale. But I came on the scene during that time. I think that was helpful for a lot of what unfolded subsequently.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was a remarkable time because, you know, i remember like in 1992 I got my first IBM computer. That was given to me by a teacher at school And the only thing we could do on that was Q basic programming, right. So me, my friend, would write programs to play little games and launch rockets and whatnot. But then two years later, in 94, aol was out, right. And so I remember my biology teacher showing us dial-up internet for the first time And I was buying one of these compact for Sario all-in-one computers where we had a, a world book, cd Rom that you could put in and it wasn't a book anymore, you could see it on the screen, right, you know.
Speaker 1:And then the advent of search engines and all that, and you know, never forget that day in 2000 where Google was the first, first time I saw Google on a screen. Just an incredible time, right, because we got to do the slow roll with technology. Yeah, we got to see it from infancy, really from a consumer standpoint, up until, you know, it started to launch in 2000, right and um. So, yeah, very, very fundamental, formative time for us to be at the ages we were at, with the ability to learn and adapt to those sayings and paid dividends for us. I think you know later on in our careers.
Speaker 2:But well, i think it did. And I think what do you think about this reality? Right, we had to learn how to do a research paper using books, and then we learned how to do a research paper using the internet and books, and then we learned how to do research with just the internet. Right, the level of discipline and focus and drive that it takes to do a research paper with paper, books and the library and micro fish only Is a totally different skill set than what goes on to doing it with electronic resources. Yeah, and so if you're the kind of guy who knows how to do both of those, right, you're that kind of like Like tipping point generation.
Speaker 2:Well, you should have a whole different group of grouping of skill sets that will serve you well when you, when everything, moves into Technology only, and I think it really has made a difference. I, in fact, it's such a difference, it's such a unique age that I think the people who came just a year or two after us, who came of age with only the internet, have a very different work ethic than those of us who were born right at like 1979 and 1980. And I see that all over and I ask our listeners to do some self-assessment there. Look at the people who were born late 70s, look at the people who are born early 80s and see what you see as far as work ethic and discipline goes, and I think you're gonna see a very different type. They're very different skill set.
Speaker 1:I You know how many people under 40 have handwritten a Gordon rule? 5,000 word research paper. Oh, Right.
Speaker 2:Can you remember that, mike? Yeah, and it was like you had to have very good handwriting to do that, because you're a lot of white out. Oh yeah, a lot of right now. I remember doing that distinctly on, like you know, and it took forever, and you know there was no spell check, by the way right, so you Literally had to have your spelling right. That means you know how to use a dictionary in In concert with your like world book encyclopedia while you wrote your paper.
Speaker 1:Yep, no doubt crazy. So now tell us. So we've got, we've gotten up to college. Now. So tell us about. You know you're living in the Northeast and you decided to come to Florida to go to college. You know, tell us about your selection of a school and and then from there how you launched into your degree program And where that kind of took you into your first job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i selected my parents on the matter. Partly because of my faith based background, i chose to go to Florida College same school You did, small Christian school in Tampa and it was a logical choice for me. I was coming back into the country, i was reconnecting with American society. That one was kind of a soft landing in some ways, even though I finished my junior and senior year in high school. That would have been an easy way to kind of matriculate into adulthood And so I chose that I intended to go there for two years and kind of get a foundational Associative arts degree and then get a master's degree from a different school, right So but I went and I went into Florida College with quite a few credit hours from dual enrollment programs I took while I was in high school. I wrapped up high school by doing some dual enrollment in the German language and in some In some biochemical sciences which were offered in concert with the University of Massachusetts in Lowell. So I was always pretty disciplined academically And I did a bunch of research with solar technology for a while in my left in my last two years of high school Kind of got involved in lots of clubs.
Speaker 2:I mean this was part of me learning American culture. So I tried to immerse myself in as many of these things as I could, but it resulted in me coming out of high school with about 20 credit hours and back in the day that was unheard of right. So now it's very common. But 20, but well, 35 I'm kind of 25 years ago That was very rare. So I brought that to Florida College and went through two years of Florida College. But I was able to take a little bit more of a specialized career track or academic track, even at Florida College Because I had a lot of hours at that time. So I booked up on sciences.
Speaker 2:I I really, you know, took a lot of classes while I was there because my intention was I was gonna apply to the big schools. I was gonna come out of Florida College and I was applying to Harvard, i was applying to Yale, i was applying to rice in Houston. I had a bunch of high aspirations, you know, but not too much realism, honestly, because my SAT scores were just marginally good, you know, a little above average. I had a pretty good GPA. I was very involved socially and societally at school, so I was a lot of clubs and stuff. I thought that would be good, but I really had no idea of how competitive those schools were to get into and what I noticed after I applied to those schools Was that I was nothing and I was gonna be rejected to all of them.
Speaker 2:So made widespread application across the country to go to my like top tier schools. That didn't work out, so one of my safety schools was Was a USF, the University of South Florida, and I applied to USF as well, got accepted there, so good for me. I had one school that actually accepted me and I went there. But wouldn't you know how kind of fate goes. But in USF is where I met you, right, i mean we met each other in some USF classes, although I knew you at Florida College. We didn't hang out all that much, right, and. But I did hang out with you in some of my business classes at USF. And While I was hanging out with you, i also started hanging out with my wife and I met her. And you know Those two things wouldn't have happened if I was up in Harvard. Right, i would have met someone different now. It had a different business power. Probably would have met the Winklevoss twins, though chase.
Speaker 1:You could have done a little bit better. Ah, man, i mean, i guess.
Speaker 2:I I guess I missed out right now, but I but listen I had you as a partner fantastic that are as a friend. That worked out very well met my wife as a future life partner and You know lots of great social networks continued to expand for me in Florida. I put down some strong roots there in my first few years being at USF and then after USF, staying in Florida. You know I came out of USF with an economics degree, which was a little bit rare for some of my peers, and I came out right before 9-11. So I was able to get a pretty good job and You know it. As a result of those things and being in a good relationship with my wife at the time, as well as having what I Felt like was a great church community that I was a part of, where I felt like I had a Role to serve, and at a distinct place where I had a good fit. I was working a lot with the teens and the young adults there and it's kind of like You know the best way to describe it is like just really involved with it, with the youth groups at church. No, the church is that I'm a part of don't really have youth groups That's kind of the best way to describe it, though and I was very involved there with them, and I felt like it was a way for me to give back and to serve, and so I came out of USF into a really good job In management consulting At a health and welfare consulting group, and that was right prior to 9-11, when good jobs could be found, so I was really lucky with some of my timing there, but I do think that a lot of that came from Chase really pursuing diligently strong academic pursuits.
Speaker 2:In college, i really tried to keep myself very sharp and very relevant. I tried to keep looking ahead, for what was that next chapter in my life, what that was going to look like, and I tried to make sure That I was giving myself all the tools I needed, so that, you know, i'd have a, i'd have a pretty Stacked tool chest for applying for the most possible opportunities when that time of life came. That's why I did as many dual-rollment classes as I did, why I got as many classes as I have as I Got, why I applied to as many schools as I did so that I'd have as many options as I possibly could have. I may not have had a really clear idea for how I wanted to use that as far as a specific career went, but I had a lot of options and it ended up working out. Ended up working out pretty well for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so you know you. You talked about, i think, a dilemma that people often face in their lives, no matter what they're doing, and probably face multiple times, and that is, you know, at some point you have a crossroads where you're choosing between aspiration and Relationships. Maybe you know where people are influencing, influencing you in your life to take a certain path, but your aspirations and your gut may be telling you to go a different direction, and so what would you say to people about that and about you know the impact that had on you staying here in Florida, even versus going off to an Ivy League or even somewhere else to pursue, maybe, a greater academic aspiration?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great question And I think, like we could even say, let's say, ivy League wasn't a realistic Aspiration for me. Well, i very much could have moved to New York and pursued my career aspirations in a city like New York, which would have been far more heavily steeped in you know, a type of professionalism at the time where I would have, you know, put a lot of hours in and grown my career Meteorically in a certain kind of, you know, financial services industry. That was certainly on the table for me too, and my personality was that that was an option. But you're but you're right What was more heavily weighing on me at that particular time? or some of these social pressures And I don't think it was particularly strategic chase, i can't say that I was like I had this great balance of like, of Social, of the importance of these social relationships to me long term, and so I chose to stay local. I didn't have that. I don't think I clearly understood what I was doing or why I was doing it till well. Beyond those inflection, those decision points, i can look back and I can say I'm so glad that I allowed Relationships to be more important to me than personal career ambitions, and that really is what I did there.
Speaker 2:But that wasn't necessarily on purpose. In some of the ways I looked at this, i'm like I'm just gonna give this a shot and I always kept open, going to Ivy League schools and moving to New York. But as time continued on, my relationships with you and my wife grew deeper and, yeah, those those things and those people did provide a sort of anchor here locally. But I could have pushed against that and I could have uprooted my young wife and Probably said let's go to New York, and she probably would have done it with me, right, but we would have had it would have been a lot of work against some really powerful headwinds to do that. And Was it wisdom that caused me to stay back and resist those headwinds? Why, i think it was, but it wasn't my wisdom, it was.
Speaker 2:Maybe it was maybe some other forces that ended up working out really, really well and had, i like, broken Through the boundaries, the barriers that were ahead of me, i'm not sure it would have worked out better. I think some people would have looked at it and was like, yeah, you were being a whole lot more driven because you pushed to get to where you were going, but I probably would have broken some things in The process and maybe I would have broken some relationships in the process. Certainly my relationship with you would have broken Right. We would have been in a different place and we wouldn't have been able to work together. So you know, i guess you got to look and say I hope that my ambition Isn't just bull in a china shop and I'm gonna break some things that can never be repaired again, and some things that can never be fixed are broken relationships. So I'm glad that I listened to whatever small voice was in my head and stayed back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, people do play such an important role in your life and Influence you in so many ways and so often, like you said, it's not until later on, when you look back in hindsight, you realize how strong that influence is or was and what kind of benefits you reap from those relationships, and that's some really good insight on that.
Speaker 1:But so you know, i was always impressed with you right out of school because you graduated usf a semester before I did You mentioned already, there was just before 9-11, whereas I graduated after 9-11 and I was always envious of your job.
Speaker 1:Right, you left usf with your econ degree and went down to work in one of these shiny, fancy new buildings you know, down in the West Shore District, and had a great job you know Fancy title I felt like at the time had a decent salary, you know, i think you bought a new truck right after you got a, got your new job, which was awesome, and so, like I was looking at you thinking, man, this is great, i can't wait to get done with school and graduate so I can go down there and be like Peter, you know so. So tell us, tell us a little bit about that first job, and You know how long you were there and then how that launched you into several other jobs after that Where you kind of you were able to up your game and also obtain some diversity in your experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was interesting, right, And so it's hard to know what exactly it was that caused that level of opportunity to emerge for me. I think you know there were certainly more opportunities for people right out of school, and But I was surprised to get that job too. I think I interviewed really well. I think that was my strength, right. I had a very diverse background. I had a lot of Credits and a lot of just very interesting things about my resume. I had a lot of experiences that just my competition didn't have and I think that worked to to my advantage, so that when I interviewed with some of these higher, higher tier management consulting groups, i got several job offers and those came with, yeah, the signing bonuses and shiny offices and nice titles And they were very enticing and so I super blessed to get those, felt very grateful, took the best offer on the table. I had three offers to consider. I ended up taking the one that was. You know, i negotiated a few extra grand on the ask price and a few extra grand of the signing bonus, and I got some good advice from someone that, hey, you can always negotiate more on the signing bonus because that's not contractual cool company. So make sure you dig in for more money there. So I did and it worked out and, yeah, i use that for a down payment on a truck and a new set of clothes and all that kind of things. You know is wonderful. It was like you're coming of age, finally, right, and this is what they say is supposed to happen after college. And well, worked out.
Speaker 2:And then, yeah, 9-11 happened, but it was okay because I was in kind of deep at that point And I was working hard and there our company did not do a lot of layoffs. I worked there for two years and, chase, i worked in this dark back room cubicle farm of a management consulting firm grinding out Actuarial type work and spreadsheet kind of work, where I learned a lot about analytics and about spreadsheet management and underwriting and business consulting. I worked a lot in presentations to boards that were complex and although I didn't get to do the presentations very often, i did all the back work for them, and so I learned precision and refinement in my presentations. I don't know how to put together accurate and beautiful stuff, that's that painted good pictures With numbers, and that was all very compelling. I learned the importance of that and so that was a lot of work And it was not glorious and I think my skin grew four shades Wider as I sat out of the Sun in that kind of job, but it was a good job.
Speaker 2:It's the kind of it's the time of your life where you should do that kind of work right, there's any kind of work, of job, or you ought to burn the midnight oil. It's when you're young, you don't have kids, you know pulling you to their sporting events or other social events, and you can work really, really hard and you should work really hard. And so I did and I really rolled up my sleeves and I dug it out. But what I did find is that that back office work is uninspiring and it took a few years to figure it out. But some of my learning also taught me that every few years or so, if you can, it's a good idea to find upward, upward momentum within your company or within another company, because that's that's the kind of the point in time at which you're, you're, you've learned what you need to know and now you need to be advancing. And if you're not advancing in your existing company, well, you can jump to another and you can advance potentially more rapidly and that's what I did.
Speaker 2:I networked heavily during those first few years in my first job and I introduced myself to some great people and found ways to essentially jump into other companies and other industries.
Speaker 2:And so I went from that management consulting firm into actually a marketing company where we sold advertising, literally design and creative work, and there was some inside connections there because the guy who ran that company also went to church with me.
Speaker 2:I chose to go to that company and I worked there for two years where I learned a very different type of skill.
Speaker 2:Now there's not a really clear progression between management consulting and advertising, so I view that as a little bit of a lateral, but it taught me a whole different silo of skills. Right, if you looked at my resume you'd feel like, huh, what happens there? as I shot off to that point. So it did divert me a little bit to a different kind of industry because I went from that marketing and sales job to working at another company as one of their marketing supervisors And I worked there for two more years. So approximately five or six years of different professional companies making in each company incrementally more money and having more opportunity learning different kinds of presentation and analytics skills, really expanding my resume, and those are the things I did for that first five years out of school. I would say I took advantage of every networking and socialization opportunity I could take advantage of and every professional development opportunity I could, so as to give myself once again the most tools, and it ended up working out okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so I mean that sounds like a great foundational base for you to launch your career from right. You had experience with several different firms, several different capacities, but somewhere along the way you got bit by the entrepreneurial bug, right, you know, when do you look back and see that happening, or how did that? how was that cultivated within you over that period of time To the point where you thought, hey, i want to start my own business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was very early on Chase. So within the first year of working at that, at that management consulting firm and being in their back office cubicle, you're realizing that this is not what you're cut out for, that you must. you must be more than this, right You're. you see the people around you. you see them 20 and 30 years into their careers. you see the level of like, of satisfaction, of life satisfaction that they seem to have, and what you can know is that's not what I want for myself. I don't want that lifestyle.
Speaker 2:So what are my alternatives? right, like a join the army. that's one kind of like alternative And like. for me, that was a real alternative, although I was getting pretty serious my wife at the time and that wasn't going to work out there for my relationship, but that's an alternative, right. And then there was the alternative of just entrepreneurial work, like be your own boss, right, you call the shots, you direct your own, your own sales, right To an extent. And so that was very much what I said.
Speaker 2:I knew I needed to do, i knew I needed to start my own company of some kind, and I didn't have a lot of ambition for what that would look like. But I started looking then, and it took me about four years to really understand what that would look like and to put all the pieces in place so that, when I had the right kind of stability, where my house was going to be sufficiently in order, i could leap out of that very careful and curated corporate environment into an entrepreneurial world without feeling like I was taking on too much risk. So early early on. that happened, chase.
Speaker 2:I think it takes years to do that well, because you've got to look at every move and say how does this fill in a missing piece of my resume? I need the skill of financials, i need the skill of marketing, i need risk taking, i need presentation. So I need to like actually go to school for that right And I'm not talking about a conventional school. I need a job that gives me that learning right, or maybe conventional school right, but in my case I needed jobs to give me that learning, those learning pieces. So I felt like I had that somewhat rounded skill set to come out as an entrepreneur or at the very least, to add something sufficiently substantive to another entrepreneur, so I could be the ying to his ying right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what you touch on there is so important, i think, because so many people want to leave college and immediately go start a business or be their own boss or be an entrepreneur right away, and I mean it works for some people, but I'd say it's the vast minority that succeed that way. Because there is something to corporate America and working for other people, where you learn some valuable skills. you learn how to be a part of a team. you learn, you learn skills that you may not be able to obtain on your own, and you're forced to do things, sometimes in ways that teach you lessons about how things work right, along with developing relationships and things like that that may be needed to help you be a successful entrepreneur in the future, and so you're beneficiary of those things for sure.
Speaker 2:I think that's the right mindset Chase. I mean, each of these jobs is an apprenticeship, right, that's what you view that, as we're going to use arcane language? right, you're going to go out on your own, you know you are right. So what am I going to learn in this job to help me do that right? And what? how am I going to apprentice under all of these master craftsmen masters of analytics or econ or finance or marketing or whatever to get the skills I need to actually add some value to someone's life long term? And you definitely don't have that when you walk out the door of college, and I don't think you have it for several years of life. I mean, let's be practical Most apprenticeships, even in the most basic trades, last many years, because no one will trust you to do sophisticated and complex work for them And they don't believe you have some experience or some master master level knowledge, and so I think that's the kind of time it takes, unless you're bringing a brand new innovation right To the, to the four that you've been able to develop over the course of your collegiate career. But most of us are not. I'm bringing me, and so the thing I have to offer now is I have five years of apprenticeship under under different masters. I've been able to package it in an effective way And I've got a widget that I want to sell you.
Speaker 2:Right, and that's kind of what it was for me. I had a widget and it really isn't. It wasn't a super innovative widget, it was real estate services. Lots of people do that, right. I had a little twist on it. I wanted to do it in from an investor standpoint And I wanted to bring a real level of professionalism to the investor marketplace.
Speaker 2:Well, what was timely about that was that in 2003, that didn't really exist. The real estate investor was this kind of gritty mom and pop guy who bought houses on his own and was kind of reclusive and no one really trusted. And that was the guy who was in everyone's social network, who was a real estate investor, right. But I thought, hey, i could be a real estate investor and I can do this in a professional capacity and make people trust that industry more. So I'll bring them analytics and marketing and I'll bring them economics and I'll bring sharp presentation skills So they trust what I have to offer. And you and I didn't. We emerge on the scene right when that was going to be a very valuable thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we did And you know, in hindsight we can look back and think, man, what perfect timing did we have for all this to kind of unfold when it did?
Speaker 1:But you know, somebody going back one step, so many people do what you did right, they do their apprenticeship right, they get their experience, they build their skills, but they fail to launch right. You know, real estate was something that was coming of age, you know, and a hot button, you know kind of thing at that time in our lives And we went that direction. But so many people fail to either identify a course of action or fail to launch as an entrepreneur And they're dealing with fear and self doubt And, you know, can they motivate themselves to do it? Do they have a good partner maybe to work with? They're dealing with all these things that that really cause them to fail to launch in an effort like this. So what was it that helped you overcome some of these things when it was that time to strike, when it was time to take advantage of an opportunity or a path that you saw could be beneficial or profitable in the entrepreneurial realm?
Speaker 2:So, chase, i think a lot of it is mindset for me. I absolutely 100% believed I would be successful. I gave myself no margins for failure. It wasn't going to be. I'll try this for a couple of years and if it doesn't work I'll go back to my job. Or? I didn't even imagine a scenario whereby I wouldn't win at this. Right, and I think that's a really important thing for almost anyone to remember. If you don't burn your bridges to wherever it is that you're coming from, if you don't truly have faith in who you are, i think it's very easy to not launch, because as soon as the going gets tough, you just fall back to where you were and then you're not really a failure, right. You're just kind of like resuming where you left off and you don't have to, like you know, tell people that you've made a big, you know, transition and a redirection in your career. You know that wasn't what I was. I was. I am quitting my job, i'm going to start this new company, i am going to be successful, and there was just not even a scenario that failure was. It was an option for me. That wasn't in my purview.
Speaker 2:You know, I've been asked a few times. I've talked to my wife a few times. Would I have predicted that I would be where I am in life 20 years ago? And I can tell you that you know she says no for her. She would not have predicted that For me. I absolutely predicted it And in fact I'm not quite where I thought I would be. I thought I would be even better right In certain areas of my life. I thought I'd be better positioned, that I would have more things like that.
Speaker 2:That sounds funny to say And maybe you could think, wow, that's such a greedy statement to make, but I think it goes into the idea of. That is the mindset I approached this with. That I fully believe I can do these things And that is, i think, a differentiator And maybe that comes from my upbringing. You know that I wasn't not going to go out and do hard work in order to like, and we were going to work for 15 years, you know, evangelizing an un-evangelizable group of people And we were going to be successful.
Speaker 2:And maybe you know, even if we weren't going to be successful with, like, raw converts right in my case of growing up, we're going to be successful. We will learn so many lessons that will be successful next time. You know And maybe that's kind of the way I've approached all this So there was no failure, there still is no failure as an option, and if I end up floundering for a couple of years, or whatever my trajectory is, it's only because I'm learning. Whatever next it is, i need to know to be very successful. That's my outlook.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i mean self-confidence. Something we both share, i think, is not only are we confident in our ability to do things, but we're just confident in ourselves to make it happen. Right Now and a lot of people are that way, and I think, when you have the confluence of experience and skill set and hard work, that you go along with that kind of self-confidence right. It almost is a situation where failure is not an option and it won't likely happen. You know, because when you do all of those things well, it's hard not to find a path to success somewhere.
Speaker 2:Well, that's right. And you know, even more I believe in everyone else too. Like I actually believe that this country is set up for success, i actually believe that I can be maximally successful within you know, with other people like you around me. I believe that the structures and the systems in which I have been placed are all primed for my success. I don't perceive them as being as odds being stacked against me, and you know, i know that a lot of people view, see obstacles and headwinds in where I don't see them, and I'm not sure always why. That is because it's not like I had life served up to me on a silver platter.
Speaker 2:But I believe in the virtue and the abundance of other people that they desire to help me, they desire to kind of help me along the path to success, and that they rejoice with me when I'm successful, because they're also going to be successful, right? I believe in the true win-win of these things And I think if that's your perspective, then you're not even going to approach, you're not even going to look at failure the same way as someone else, because failure isn't failure. It's just like this learning moment where you're actually gaining something really good and you're going to go from there to even greater success, right? So I believe in myself, i believe in you, i believe in everyone around me And man. I might be disappointed from time to time on that, but generally I'm not. I truly believe that people have over delivered in their you know success and abundance around me over my life.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So you know, like you mentioned, so many people would look at you and what you've got in life and the things that you've done, and say, hey man, this guy is super successful. Yeah, you're sitting here telling us that you haven't quite reached the heights of where you know you can go right. So is that what motivates you? Is it attaining this higher level of things and having something out before you all the time? no matter what level you achieve, there's something more to do. And how do you keep yourself accountable to that kind of standard?
Speaker 2:No, that's a good question and it's one of the most probably troubling questions I think about when it comes to my personality and possibly my personality type. I am not particularly satisfied, right, about almost anything in my life, right, and that can make me kind of a tough dad, probably. Sometimes I try to be abundant and encouraging to my kids but, like, i truly view them from the perspective of what they will be. You know, i love them for who they are, but I also am excited about what they will be one day, you know, and that maybe that's a guy thing, maybe that's not entirely natural, but it's kind of what keeps me working with them and then staying involved in their lives, because I believe they can be so much better too. So hopefully that won't come back to bite me one day. We were one of those dads, right, but I additionally do that for myself.
Speaker 2:I'm never satisfied. I'm very internally critical. I spend a lot of time, you know, biting my nails and wondering if I should be doing something different and I shouldn't be driving in a slightly different direction or tweaking something here or there. I'm a little bit of a. I do some fitness and health stuff and you know I look in the mirror and you see where you are today, and I don't see gains or strength. I often see, you know, all my inadequacies and my weaknesses and I look at my times, i see like where I'm not and not where I am or where I want to be and where I'm going, and so those things create in me quite a bit of discontentment and ambition that's not easily satiated. So I will say that the times in my life where I'm not actively growing in measurable ways are very hard for me, because it does make me say what do I need to change and what do I need to improve to get there. So the lack of fulfillment in where I am does motivate me to keep going, and I don't know what that will look like.
Speaker 2:Chase, i think in some ways I have had to learn to modify what the measures of success are right, so a truly successful and happy person is equals. What, right? What does that picture even look like exactly? Well, if it's only financial success, well then you'll never achieve full success and happiness. right, because there will always be more you can reach. So it has to be other things and I've had to learn how to introduce those and balance the ways into my life. You talked in your episode about having a very close, present sense of family and connections and community early on, and those were always very valuable to me. I had to learn how to make some of those things a bigger motivating force in my life to achieve satisfaction and comfort. And those are all things I've had to learn, but without a doubt I'm motivated by what is still out there to achieve.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sometimes those things are soft targets, right, and it's hard to quantify or measure the level of success you obtain in some areas of life. When you have diversity of what you do throughout your day, right, whether in a business pursuit, we have metrics for that, and weightlifting or exercise, you have metrics for that. But in quality time with your kids and developing relationships and doing charitable type work, it's like sometimes it's hard to quantify that or put a metric on it. that's as meaningful as the work actually is.
Speaker 2:Well, that's right. And I think, as your life grows more diverse too, you're spending less focused time in one area. And so now your time is diffused over multiple areas And you're seeing slower impact. Right, because when you can invest everything, you've gotten one thing. You can see a fairly rapid trajectory of growth. Right, because everything you've got. But if you're investing everything, you've gotten 10 things and each of those are moving forward slowly, right?
Speaker 2:Then how do you measure success? I mean, it's tough to see it, even. It's certainly tough to measure it when it's a hard to measure item. So that's something that is always difficult the more you move through time and you diffuse your time. But the second thing is, my personality makes me a very difficult partner. So kudos to you for sticking with me, because it's very easy for me not to just rest and say, hey, we've got a good system, we can rest on this for a while and let that system move along. It's very easy for me to say, yeah, but it's not good enough, and this little thing is annoying to me. We've got to tweak it. Let's see what comes if we adjust this a little bit. Lo and behold, it might not be good, right? So maybe we tweak it too much and we start losing momentum, right? So we've got to tweak it back.
Speaker 2:And my personality is the kind of personality that drives that kind of disruptive change.
Speaker 2:And if you don't have a force holding you back or at least moderating your kind of energy, you can be destructive in the environments you're in. So I've had to look very closely about how my personality impacts my relationships, my partnerships, my quality as a spouse. Right, do I push too hard on things within my family? I've got some volunteer boards that I'm a part of and I'm like, well, am I a little bit too negative, a little bit too dissatisfied with where they are?
Speaker 2:And so all these guys are coming in here with this positive energy that hey, look how much we've accomplished and look at how peaceful things are. And I'm like, yeah, but right, here's all the things we should improve. I mean like that makes me annoying, right, and really like almost like I'm being critical of other people because they've put a lot of work into where they are today and here I come saying it's not good enough. Well, that's not a nice person to be aligned with. So I've got to really fix my delivery so that it doesn't sound like I'm just saying you stink and where we are isn't good enough and let's see how we can change everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we got a couple minutes left in this part one episode. I think what we're going to do in part two is talk more about the business pursuits and how we went from 2004 to where we were in 2016 and then today. But to wrap up the last couple of minutes of this episode, why don't you talk a little bit more about some of your hobbies and passions right now and how you're finding the kind of fulfillment that you look for in those pursuits?
Speaker 2:Yeah well, so it is a diverse set of hobbies right now. So after I well, i should say probably over the course of time I have prioritized health and fitness spend a little bit of time every day in the gym. That's important to me. I started running somewhat competitively distance running heavily, invested myself in the marathon and tried to really grow that skill in me and became somewhat successful in that, Ran about four marathons over time and it was my goal to run a marathon at under three hours, which I did. And then I was hoping to run Boston and under three hours and I didn't So. But I had by that point, run for four years and I was like I can scale back from that a little bit because the amount of training I was putting into that was taking away from other interests. And but it was one of those areas where I was like Chase, i can do this and I can get better and I could be, i could really be good in my age group if I continue to go at it. I truly believe that too. But that's an interest for another life. At this point, right, you can always say to yourself but that was an important interest to me and it might still be again And as my kids continue to develop out themselves athletically, they enjoy some distance running So maybe I'll run with them, who knows? But that was a big hobby for me.
Speaker 2:I also, a few years ago, bought a little bit of extra land and have been developing out an agricultural interest around fruit trees mainly. Well, that's like a little bit nichey and but it's been. It's been a lifestyle adjustment because I wanted to bring my family a little bit back to a more grounded outlook, you know, literally grounded, where we have a lot of technology in our lives, a lot of business interests. I want to also have a keen appreciation for our stewardship of the land, for what we're supposed to be doing with our hands as it relates to the earth and propagating it and making it beautiful. I think these are all very fundamental to my belief system about why people were put on the earth to begin with, and they teach you some really important skills. I don't want to lose that by moving into a glittering skyscraper city. So I have some land and we farm that And I think that has created a lot of really good time with my family good, really good personal time with my family.
Speaker 2:My family are super important to me. I spent a ton of time with my sons and my wife. I'm at their athletic events, i coach their athletic teams. You know these are these are really important relationships to me And they're the kinds of relationships, chase, that I'm like. This is my one. Go at it right. In just a few years my oldest son leaves the house and I'll never get to coach one of his teams again, right, and so that window of opportunity completely goes away, and that goes away from my other two sons over the next eight years. So it's a very short amount of time where I'll never get a chance to do those kinds of things. But I will have a chance to build another company again.
Speaker 2:So I've chosen to divert some time away from my productive enterprises and to put them in my family, because I realize what an exploding time window that is. It's gone in in who knows how long, right, so I'll never get a chance to do that again. So I'm investing heavily time there.
Speaker 2:I have some volunteerism that are important to me, certainly in my kids' schools and also in my church and my church community. You know a church community is a big family, so you end up spending a whole lot of time with people and building relationships there, because you know, once again, these are all people who need me and need what I have to offer and who I benefit from being around. So I'm trying to really make sure I spend time with these kinds of people. You know, for all the reasons that you spend time with people. So those are the hobbies I'm pursuing, you know, and every now and then, every year, i try to like be really calculated about my goal setting. I try to expand, to have clear objectives of success in all of those areas.
Speaker 2:So I'm really growing and developing those skills, one of them that you know I try to take on skills that allow myself to align interests with my children, and so I've gotten to diving a little bit a few years ago because some of my kids did, and now that's created some wonderful opportunities for one-on-one time with my children.
Speaker 2:Now my youngest child wants to dive too. So lots of things I'm doing like that now because I know this is the only time I'll get to do it, and I think all of these things are creating in me a slower pace of life right now, but a diversity of tools and skills. They're going to make a difference for me, because at 50 years old my last kid moves out of the house And I've got the chance to be a whole new person all over again. Right, my wife is still going to be with me, you know. So I'm not changing that component, but I can be whoever I want to be at that point in time And I want to have the maximum number of skills available to me so I can make whatever choice God sends my way. That's kind of how I'm looking at it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know I sit here listening to that. you know we've been so fortunate to be able to be in these positions that we're in it in our early 40s And it's a true blessing that entrepreneurship brings to your life when you're able to have some success in it and have the flexibility and be able to make the decisions to spend your time on things with an infinite ROI, you know, like family time and coaching teams and you know one-on-one time with your kids and your wife and things like that. And such a blessing to be in that position of life at this age.
Speaker 2:Well, it is man And trying to like transcend the temporal right. I've got this time to be productive in life and it's going to be done by the time I'm 80 or so years old, maybe 90 years. But I truly believe my kids will carry on my legacy, and my grandkids too, and I've seen way too many examples of kids blow up their parents' legacies and waste all their money. We all have right. So what I'm building right now, what I'm investing in in my children, is legacy building, but not for personal honor, but because if I can set my children up with the right work ethic, with the right values, the right resources, then the influence, the things that they can do when they're men and women and I'm gone from their lives and that they're grandchildren, that my grandchildren can do, their children can do, will just be so much more exponentially valuable than what I could have done that I was able to do on my own. I was able to be the catalyst for that over multiple generations of people And being in Europe, i've seen the power of that.
Speaker 2:I've seen kingdoms and households endure wealth over multiple generations. And of course you kind of see corruption involved in all of that. But if you can look beyond the corruption, you can see the massive power and opportunity that is created for those cultures and societies to have the preservation of wealth and values through families. And if I can do that just a little bit and start that, that's not really a common thing in America. America is a new society with new families and new money And if we can turn our money and our opportunities into old, old families, old money, preserved values and preserved wealth, if God wills for that to happen, there's immense power that can come from that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, learning where it takes to be successful and then being willing to take the risk to make it happen and then being able to teach another generation those life lessons and those give them those stories of success and set them up to be successful in their own way. Such a valuable legacy to leave and definitely something I hope to do with my kids as well. But I think that might be a good way to wrap up part one here. Any other comments you want to leave our listeners with before we end this section of the interview?
Speaker 2:Well, so next time I'm looking forward to chatting a little bit about the few years of our business development. Those were interesting years, and I think what we'll look to is strategy the role strategy played or didn't play in that. I'm kind of excited to discuss some of that with you, because I'm interested in your perspective, as we went through all that together. Was that strategized? Was that deliberate? How do we make the most of the roles of the dice that we were making at that time? And that's a question I definitely want to go into for the benefit of our listeners. I'll leave them with that to ponder, though, and thanks again for the great questions, chase. It was really enjoyable to think through some of that with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely. Hope all of you listeners enjoyed that today. And if you want to know more about what we do and how we do it, you can find us on the Web at this YouTube page. You.