Can You Follow Your Passion and Make Money? | Gregory Cheng

Can you follow your passion and still build a successful career?

After finishing his freshman year with a 0.0 GPA, Gregory Cheng could have accepted failure. Instead, he rebuilt his life, pursued music, became a conductor, launched businesses, led teams in wealth management, and ultimately co-founded a firm where creativity, leadership, and purpose matter just as much as financial success.

In this episode of Made By Challenge, Gregory joins Alberto Sardiñas to share why failure isn't something to fear, how artists can thrive in business, and why the skills you develop through your passions may become your greatest competitive advantage. Whether you're pursuing a creative dream, considering a career change, or searching for more meaning in your work, this conversation will challenge the way you think about success.

If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe for more conversations with entrepreneurs, creators, and leaders who turn challenges into opportunities.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

There are a lot of ways to starve, not just food. His father worked 30 years at IBM. He switched his major to music. And by the way, he got a 0.0 GPA his entire freshman year of college. How in the world do you not drink, not farting, not fate, and get a 0.0 GPA? What was the story about?

SPEAKER_00 0:26

I am someone who you respect. And someone who's got to take you might like.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

He's a music conductor and at the same time has an impressive wealth management career. And many of his finance colleagues are musicians.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

With all due respect, I confident my voice today.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Because every breakthrough begins with a challenge. Gregory Chen, made by challenge. Most people watch this, get the value, and disappear. The ones who subscribe, they're the ones building something. So hit subscribe, turn on notifications, because you never know, you never know which guest drops the next exact framework, the one that you need, the one that rewires how you think about your career and your life. Gregory Cheng, a lot of people are facing a big dilemma in their lives right now because they love the arts, they love acting, singing, dancing, being a musician, creating sculptures. But the world is telling them not to be the next starving artist. Why should they listen to the conversation we're about to have?

SPEAKER_00 1:44

I think it depends upon how you define the word starving. So what does that actually mean and compared to whom? There are a lot of ways to starve, not just food, emotionally, spiritually, um, thinking about um happiness and how you build a career. And so um I know a lot of artists who maybe by worldly standards are uh considered starved, but are richer in so many ways than people with hundreds uh times the money of the artists.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Would you be a good example of someone who was able to do well financially while at the same time being loyal to the love for music or for any art in particular?

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Yeah, I would say I love that I love the word for art because it's love for just about anything that you do. I mean, you can find art in just about anything, right? It doesn't have to be the visual arts or the performing arts. Um there can be art in finance. And so if you love what you do, a lot of the times the money will come. But people are so afraid of putting the money before their love that they get derailed and they get focused on different things. I have an example. Um I had a friend when I was at the San Francisco Symphony Chorus and uh beautiful tenor voice, amazing singer. And he came in one day and he said, and he was just miserable. I could, I could see it on his face. And I said, Dave, what's what's wrong? He said, Oh, I had an awful day. So we talked a little bit about it, and I said, Well, at least you love what you do, right? And he said, No, I hate it. I said, What do you mean you hate it? He said, I can't make this much money anywhere else. He was an attorney. He hated going into work every day. He would have been less starved as a tenor using that beautiful instrument of his and performing, you know, wherever he might be around the world.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

So, what you're saying is that even the opposite could happen of what everybody believes in society, where everybody thinks that, you know, making money as an artist can be the hardest thing in the world. And then suddenly you can see yourself being an amazing artist, making money and making a living off of being an artist, and be very unhappy about it. Right.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

You can you can be so I'll give you an example. When I was um at Morgan Staley, I ran the training program for new advisors, and I hired a dozen people a year, and they would come in, and many of them studied finance at college, had a really defined path that they were about to take. There's so many ways in finance, you don't have to just be an advisor. You can be on the technical side, you can be on the operational side, you can be on the investment side. And um, likewise, going into the arts, maybe you want to be that great singer or drummer or performer. But once you get in there, there's a whole world of backstage and project management and theater, film. You know, there are a lot of crossovers that you could do, but if you don't try the first time, you might never discover that.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

Throughout your career, you have found success both in the arts and in the world of finance, which I believe, you know, makes for a very unique case. And I'm I know that you're gonna bring up examples that prove that maybe you're not that unique, and a lot of people have managed to do that. But let's go back for a moment to you being the son of someone who worked at IBM for 30 years, and you telling your father that your path in your education was not gonna be his path. Can you take us there?

SPEAKER_00 5:38

He was not a happy camper. So I started as a chemistry major. I spent a year in computer science and I ended up in music. And I remember very vividly in my father's bedroom in front of his desk, telling him that I was going to become a music major. And I had not seen my father flappergasted very often. Um, he had a really tough time finding the words, and he looked at me and he said, It you could be so successful, so many things. But music, it's just it's just a shame. So my brothers to this day give me grief, you know, at family events. They'll look at me and go, it's just a shame. Um, but I kept on the path. And uh to show you how time changes things, he retired uh after 30 years at IBM. Uh, at the age of 55, the first thing he did was he bought a grand piano and started taking piano lessons, played four hours a day, made my mother crazy practicing to figure out what this crazy kid of his was up to and what he was doing. So he eventually came around to music uh as well. It just took a little time.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

What would be your advice to someone who is ready to break the news to somebody important? It could be a family member, it could be a significant other, that his or her path is going to be different than what everybody expects.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

You just have to do it. Life is too short. Life is too short to spend time with knuckleheads. Life is too short to not be true to yourself and what your passions are and what you want to do. I have a I have a friend whose son um went to the Berkeley School of Music drummer, uh, got out of, was on his way out of college and said to his father, um, well, maybe I should try to get a real job. And he looked at him and he goes, John, you're are you kidding me? You're you're 21 years old, 22 years old. You went to the Berkeley School of Music, you're a drummer, go play your drums. Have have some fun, see where the career takes you. If you wake up one day, 10 years later, and it's not working out financially, then maybe you make some adjustments. But in the meantime, figure out how to live within your means and do what you love to do. It's a lot better than being miserable, even if you have more resources.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

But you understand the pressure that a lot of people live under when they look at social media and they see all these people in tech. You see uh 19-year-olds, which is a recent story, uh selling their companies for $20 million to a bigger company. Uh, you see people going up this corporate ladder so quickly, or you see somebody saying, Oh, here's my house, or here's how I'm flying private, and all these things. And then there's somebody saying, Oh my God, if I ever try to do that, I know I'm gonna be miserable, but at least I'm gonna, you know, be able to keep up with the Jonases.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

Right. I don't know if you're um a lot of your viewers will uh probably spend time with Gary Vernichuk, right? Who um I remember very very vividly him um in one of his sessions. Uh so if you if you love what you do, like if you're if you want to be a singer and you're making $60,000 a year and you're able to live within your means and doing what you love to do, that that's what gets me up in the morning. Like getting up in the morning is not for me trying to make a bunch of money. It's it's to try to pursue some goals and some dreams and do the stuff that I love to do. And um, Gary's point was that if you're an opera singer and you're living within your means and and doing uh what you love to do, that's a lot better than having a plane and being miserable. Like he knows a lot of people who have planes who are just not nice people and living pretty miserable lives. It all looks glorious from the outside, but when you get inside, not so much.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

Right. And that's something that Gary Vaynerchuk has referred to many, many times, you know, about the the mystery of just trying to, you know, copy what everybody else is uh is doing. Was there a point in which you hit a real low with your GPA? What was the story about?

SPEAKER_00 9:46

Well, I like I like to say there's um there's failure and then there's abject failure, right? This was very, very much so so um I don't know that many people can boast um who actually finished college, um, a 0.0 cumulative GPA for their freshman year. No, so I you had a 0.0. The only reason I wasn't last on the roster is because my last name begins with C and not W. I was um I never had to study in high school, right? And I'm talking about my father, right? He was not happy about that either. But um, I never had to study in high school. If I couldn't do the problem set the next day, um something was wrong. And so I get to college and uh I actually grew up in a in a um pretty religious household, so I wasn't drinking, I wasn't doing a lot of dating, I wasn't I didn't have the excuse of being distracted, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:41

How in the world do you not drink, not party, not date, and get a 0.0 GPA?

SPEAKER_00 10:46

Because you I was naive, I didn't know how to study, I didn't have that skill set. You know, I was actually showing up to classes and I thought, I'll read most of the chapters, maybe I'll do some of the problem sets.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

Oh, you're going to classes that you actually were interested in, or was this a total lack of interest?

SPEAKER_00 11:01

Uh it was a little bit of a little bit of both, right? There's some parts that I enjoyed. There were some that just did not keep my attention, and that's probably some of it. I actually hadn't thought about that. Um one one of the, I think one of the turning points for me um was a computer science class where I would I came into it. This is maybe my second um, my second quarter. And uh I had failed, I had failed the first exams, and it was just the final was left, and the final was 50% of the of the grade. And I had this light pulp go off because you know, I when I failed, I thought, well, I got to figure out how to make this work. I actually didn't think about dropping out of school. I was sitting with the dean and um going over my sort of scores for my second quarter. He said, Greg, there are people who did better than you who dropped out of college. But that wasn't an option for me. I thought, okay, what did I do wrong? Right. My mother said, you know, well, the the there's only one place to go, but up from here, right? So pick yourself up, dust yourself off, right? And and try again. So I got some tutoring. I tried to figure out what was it about my habits, whether it was studying, the way I approached it, um, and tried to just rebuild it bit by bit. And so back to the computer science story. Um, something clicked in how to study and how it all sort of processed and my understanding of it. And I got 100% on the final, which gave me a C in the class. But that was the beginning of a shift in making everything better from there. So it I had to go through a lot of pain to figure out what was next, but that was a little part of the journey. It worked out.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

It worked out. So let's talk about life after college. Because you have built a career that has paid as much attention as you can give to the music and has also given attention and has had success in the world of managing people's money, uh, you know, finance, wealth management, etc. When you were in your early 20s, how did you find this direction? Was it something that happened immediately after college? Was the energy put 50-50? Because I think a lot of people debating between doing the right thing, quote unquote, and going for their passion will be very interested in knowing how is it that you carved this path?

SPEAKER_00 13:33

So I'm gonna go back to the college story to try to connect the dots. So, out of that abject failure, um, once I got through my undergraduate, I got into graduate school, I ended up getting straight A's, right? So nobody was gonna look back at my first semester or first quarter. And I think that's a lesson for people who are afraid of failure. Like it's okay to fail because it's not the end of the world. It rarely is the end of the world, right? There's always something next. And so if I think about carving that path, and once you fail and realize that it's okay to fail and you can come out of it, you're less afraid of failing. And so you're willing to perhaps do things um that have some level of risk that you might not have otherwise undertaken. So, an example, people can think of rejection as failure, right? Um, I was um I'd auditioned for the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, I was a singer, really enjoyed the rehearsals. And I so I went to the conductor at a break at a rehearsal, and I said, Um, can I study conducting with you? Do you teach uh privately? And he looked at me and he smiled. He said, You know, I haven't taught conducting in 15 years, and you're sweet to ask, but I'm not about to start. And I thought, okay, no harm, no foul, right? I didn't think much about it. Um, and then four or five weeks later, he came back to me and he said, Are you still interested in study? I said, Sure, what changed? And he said, You know, I've been thinking a lot about it. And Margaret Hillis, the Chicago Symphony Chorus, and um Robert Shaw all spent a lot of time with me as a young conductor. It's not right for me to deny you the same. When would you like to start? So I started private lessons with him. It turned into a really great mentor, mentee relationship. I eventually ended up as assistant conductor for the San Francisco Symphony Chorus. That would not have happened if I was afraid of rejection and hadn't been willing to put myself out there and have that conversation.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

And then realizing you were planting a seed, you didn't really know you were planting a seed because you were not counting on him coming back five weeks later about it. Back in in that stage of your life, how exactly were you making a living at that moment?

SPEAKER_00 15:49

So I did um I did a little bit of, I did a little music, I was I was singing, I was conducting, but I also was moonlighting, uh doing some bookkeeping and accounting, you know, taking some of the uh my college courses and applying them to you know other business. I've always been entrepreneurial. And so um another example of that is I I had a parking company. Um I ended up um working at a sheet music business that was the largest music retailer on the West Coast. Uh, 20,000 square feet of print music, a staff of 30, not a computer in the place. And um, so again, not afraid of rejection. I called the owner, I said, you don't know who I am, but I work for you. And would you consider selling your business to me? And he said, no at first, right? But again, some persistence and conversation, and um eventually ended up buying that business and running it. And so another example of not being afraid.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

But does that come naturally? Is that something that that that is part of someone being sort of a risk taker? Or is that something you have to develop, in your opinion?

SPEAKER_00 17:02

I think it's being comfortable with yourself. And I, as I was saying uh to you just before the session, I I am thinking back about on these failures, right? It's not always pleasant, but I actually think that it gave me a foundation for the way I live my life today, and that if you're not afraid to fail, um, that allows you to be confident in who you are because you know what failure is like. So nobody can tell you that you're a failure if you know what that's felt like, right? There are people, I've had examples. Um I was I was doing an ear training with Vance George and I couldn't hear something. I said, I'm I'm I'm sorry. And he stopped me and he said, Listen, what is ear training? So um we were we were doing um we were doing some exercises that would allow me to um hear different parts of the score in different ways. And so um I said, I'm sorry, I can't hear that. And he stopped me and he said, you know, the two of us have had enough guilt from our graduate programs to last us a lifetime. If you don't know something, regardless of how remedial you think it is, just ask. It's the only way we learn, right? And I think of whether it was graduate school and saying, you know, kind of a drop the needle, they they play some symphony piece, and what is this? You should know that you're a graduate student. Or I have an example where um from my finance world as a leader, I had um I had an office, um, I had an office meeting with my boss's boss, who is in town. And um there are about 25 people around this conference room table, and uh was sitting next to this gentleman, and I realized that my largest producer, who is also the largest producer in the firm, was not in the room. So I made the introduction and I stepped aside next to a buffet to leave that place of honor for him when he shows up. We finished the meeting, and um this gentleman's about to leave, and he said, Greg, can I see you in um the conference room? I said, Sure. So he takes me into the conference room and he says to me, he looks at me and he says, I'm not gonna even ask why you stepped aside. That was the stupidest insert expletive here, thing I have ever seen in my life. You are not a leader. And so going back to failure, knowing what that's like, building blocks of leading, I was very confident my ability to lead. But here's someone who's telling me that I'm not a leader. I could have just said, okay, I guess I can't lead. Instead, my response was with all due respect, I'm quite confident in my ability to lead. And I will lead from the front when necessary, but I also often lead from the side and even from the rear. And if you're not okay with that, we're gonna have bigger conversations than just stepping aside. And so I think giving people an opportunity to be comfortable in their own skin, failure gives people that opportunity to be comfortable with their own skin because then they know what their limits are.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

So what you're saying is that we should be grateful for failure and for rejection.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

100% right. You don't know where your boundaries are, right? There's a my wife who was a dancer, says there's a very fine line between being on the top of your game and flat on your back looking at the ceiling, right? Because if if you're and I think of singing too, you know, there's a particular part of the voice where if you're right in the middle of it, it's great. If you're just a little off, you crack, right? It's not that you had a bad um process, it's that you just you pushed a little far. And that's the only way we learn where those boundaries are.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

So going back to the time in which you were, you know, making money and making a living off of music, and then you were doing some bookkeeping at the same time. Were both of these based in interests, or were or was the bookkeeping based in let me figure out how to survive?

SPEAKER_00 21:08

A little both, right? So the the good news is it started in that little um how just kind of how to survive, right? Needing to put together the pieces to do what I love to do on the music side. But once I got in there, this is to the point earlier, right? Um, that the world is a big place. You never know with one position what might open to you from there. And so while this was a bookkeeping position, I also found out that they were doing a lot of business development and writing proposals. I happened to have a skill in writing from my music in college, right? Had a great professor as a musicologist who taught us to write. And so I started helping this person write um business proposals. He found out that I enjoyed it. We started winning a bunch of business. That's how I ended up with a parking company because we went from, I don't know, six parking facilities to 30. In maybe 18 months, and I thought, I can do this myself, right? I would not have so what started as just trying to keep the wheels on the bus turned into an opportunity to do something based upon the stuff that I love to do.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Well, what I'm noticing here is a pattern in which you have worked for companies, and I see it even in your current endeavor. You have worked for companies, have gathered the skills, have practiced enough to understand the business, and then you have gone on your own. I mean, I see it in the parking, I see it in the, you know, in the sheet music business, and I see it in your wealth anniversary for now. Is that is that a good interpretation? And and what can somebody watching in their 20s or 30s learn from the pattern that you have implemented in your life?

SPEAKER_00 22:48

I would say surround yourself with good people, right? The quality of the people that you have around you and the quality of the time that you spend with those people is super important. So I've been very blessed to have some really good people in my life. And I was at a turning point in my financial career where everything was going fine, but I wasn't super passionate about it. And a friend said to me, Greg, I think we should put some people in a room who know you well, personally and professionally, and we're going to brainstorm what's next for Greg. And if you're open to that, right, and you have to be open to feedback, um, it might be in widgets, it might be in music, it might be in finance. And so I did that. And what I realized through that process, it actually gave me permission to say no to jobs that I was wholly qualified to fill. So I think some people get on a career path and they think that success means that next position, that next um promotion, that next pay, right? That may not be a pretty circuitous path, right? That may not be the best way to go. Um if you give yourself permission to go back to doing what you love to do. And I realized that I loved building things. I love creating and impacting culture. And so that's what I searched for.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Now, surrounding yourself with the right people sounds easier when you have the career, the experience, the years, and sort of the leverage, right? The authority within a certain industry. How could someone with no leverage entry-level job that doesn't know a lot of people in the company or that's job searching and feels that they have no leverage to get the attention of a good peer advisor? How can somebody get that? How can somebody be surrounded by good people when they feel that they have nothing to offer?

SPEAKER_00 24:44

Don't be afraid to ask, right? Find find someone who you respect. Not um, and there's there's a difference in um finding someone whom you respect and someone whose job you think you might like one day, right? Because there are a lot of ways to build a business. What is that difference? The difference is the is the quality of the person and the honesty with yourself of having someone who can help mentor you, right? So finding someone, and they may be two or three tiers above you, and people feel like because they're in a higher position, you can't ask. But why wouldn't you? Say, hey, I really respect what you do. I've seen you in meetings, I like the way that you present yourself, I like the way that you problem solve. Would you be willing to spend a little time with me? Make it easy for them.

SPEAKER_01 25:40

I've had that experience, and I agree 100% with you that it's life-changing when you're able to reach out to someone who could give you guidance and mentor you, etc. But I've also lived what a lot of people watching and listening are probably afraid of, which is that negative voice in your head that says, Don't dare to do that. You're gonna make a fool of yourself. What do we tell ourselves when we hear that?

SPEAKER_00 26:10

But it's okay to fail. Like there's such a stigma with failure. Um, think about um I'm gonna get into an area where I have known nothing about, but um baseball, right? I mean, how many times does someone get up at bat? That's used that that imagery is used all the time, right? I'm my my business partner talks about being in a hedge fund, right? And you can be a wrong a lot and still do really well, right? You just have to be thoughtful and have a process that you use to get there.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

So one of the things that you have done is you have you know remained a musician and an active, you know, uh part of the music world while you're building a wealth management firm with a lot of sensitivity towards the arts and and and people that that sort of like live in a similar world than yours. How can someone that has been a musician in their teenage years, that loves music, that loves art, that loves something that doesn't sound scientific or financial at all? How can someone take those skills to apply for a job in the world of finance or in a world that they're not part of? What are those skills that can transfer when you are an artist?

SPEAKER_00 27:36

So I was trained as a conductor, right? Trained to dive into the minutiae of the music in a level of detail that makes most people crazy, but I sort of enjoy, right? Um but for me, when I got people asked, how do you get in finance? And my response has always been they're just numbers instead of notes. Right. The whole, the whole rest of the process is the same. The the people skills, the interaction, um, the listening, right? Those those skills are highly transferable. If you're a music musician, I was I was listening to a friend who was playing at Birdland a few weeks ago, and he said, one of the first things that you learn as a jazz musician is to listen really carefully.

unknown 28:19

Right.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

I think too oftentimes we end up talking too much and not listening enough. That's another way to gain a lot of great experience, it's just to listen.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

So, in your opinion, there are skills that we don't realize we have that can be transferred over to a different discipline, whether that's because of an opportunity or because we're curious about something that has nothing to do with it, whether we want to test the medical field and see if there's anything there for us. There are things that we should look for that we use in our arts, so to speak, that can be valuable in something that's more scientific.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

100%. And I think finding um finding those people. So here's here's maybe a way to think about that. Finding the people in your life who share that same passion around you, right? So if it's dance or it's music, it doesn't have to be just dancers or musicians who are doing that professionally. It can be in any profession. So let's say you want to get into law or tech, there are plenty of people in those industries who have hobbies and spend time in around those arts. It's connecting with them, asking them those questions about, you know, how does your art play into what you do every day? And maybe it does and maybe it doesn't. But my guess is that especially those on the more creative side of uh the equation in technology, right, are going to use the creative skills that they had, whether it was maybe playing in band in high school or college or glee club. I've met so many people through in finance, and it's also leading with it, not being ashamed to say that you're a musician. I've had so many people say to me, wait, I just met someone who's in finance who's also a singer, or also or is placed in the orchestra, you two should meet. And so there's a there's an easy and natural way to get into that conversation about finance, but we start with music, right? And we share that sort of common bond. So the the back end of the conversation I find to be a lot easier and a lot more fluid.

SPEAKER_01 30:35

Now, I can imagine a lot of people going through the process of saying, okay, you know, I I love the arts and maybe they're not paying the bills, right? So let me look into a different area. Let me see, you know, let me look at Greg's experience and see how skills can be transferred. But there could be a feeling of defeat. There could be a feeling for some people watching or listening where they say, well, given that nothing happened with the music career, I am going to have to find a job as a teller in a bank or, you know, anything that's not related to it. What could be a good reframing based in your experience when somebody has that type of thought?

SPEAKER_00 31:23

Say that again. So the someone, someone who's just feels defeated because they don't want to because they've been rejected so many times.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

Well, yeah, they feel that they didn't make it in the arts, no matter how many paintings they made, no matter how many sculptures they made, nobody buys them, nobody buys their music, nobody downloads what they're recording, and certainly it gets to a point where they have to make a living and they say, Well, I'm gonna have to look for a job at a bank, at a hospital, at a nursing home, or whatever that is. What could be a good reframing that can replace the feeling of being defeated from what your passion has always been?

SPEAKER_00 32:02

So I think I think the answer for me is um that the way to have someone think about that isn't is um to think about not defining themselves by any one thing. So I've always thought of myself, for better or worse, as Greg. And I have these sort of you know, passions, these things that I love to do. Love to conduct, uh, enjoy singing, love my day job of finance, as I said earlier, love creating impact and culture. So finding out what really drives me. So if I woke up tomorrow and I didn't have finance or music, I know I would find something that enabled me to build and to be around people, to build culture, to impact, to make the world a better place. Like every whether it's the music, whether it's the finance, they're the same sort of end goal. So maybe the reframing back to the surrounding yourself with good people who can be honest, because it's tough, I think, when you are down on yourself to have the right um framing for what you're capable of. And so surrounding yourself with those good people who can be candid and share with you what they see, kind of light you up and get you excited, is maybe the place to start that conversation. Because once you know that, then you can go to each of these, whatever industry it is, whether it's banking or healthcare or tech, and know what drives you and frame what opportunities are uh with respect to that.

SPEAKER_01 33:37

You've had plenty of experiences where you failed and you embrace those experiences. And one of them has to do with the sheet music business. So, can we explain what that business is about and how massive this business was when you were there first as an employee and then as an owner, and what happened that it went downhill?

SPEAKER_00 33:58

Uh so we had 20,000 square feet of just print music. So think about a football field with the bins with sheet music. So if you think about um maybe it's your grandmother's piano and you see a piece of sheet music old school, not digital, right? We sold to uh orchestras, choruses, schools, churches, synagogues, all of that is wholesale pretty much.

SPEAKER_01 34:24

I mean so we would have so it was retail, but just selling to a lot of organizations, right?

SPEAKER_00 34:29

So yeah, so we would we would buy from publishers and then we would sell to um organizations around around the country, frankly. And um so not a 1996, uh staff of 30, not a computer in the place, people still using typewriters and uh trying to bring it kicking and screaming into like the next century. And it was a period where it was really the very beginning of online um and digital music, and a very telling conversation with one of my publishers, who was a one of the larger publishers in the United States, said, I said, Hey, we can reduce your inventory to zero. We have this piece. And he said, Look, it looks as good as some of the offset printing I do. Um, but he had just bought this big press and staff, and they weren't willing to take that first step. And so um.com came. My uh evite moved into the building that we were in downstairs.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

My company that sends the electronic invitations, evite.com moved downstairs.

SPEAKER_00 35:38

They it in the building that I was in, and uh our our rent quadrupled overnight. And I said to my wife, listen, uh life is short, right? And either you're making a lot of money, having a lot of fun, and when both cease to be the case, what are we doing? And so um that was a tough time uh winding down a business that had been a place that some of those people had worked for 20, 30 years, right? It's it's it was a shift in an era. There really aren't any businesses of that size around anymore because everything's digital, right?

SPEAKER_01 36:15

Did you have to close the business? Wow. Can you estimate or guess how much money you lost by having to close the business?

SPEAKER_00 36:25

I like I like to say it was a very expensive MBA, and I don't have the plaque to show for me.

SPEAKER_01 36:36

So fast forward, you spend you know quite some time in the corporate world, even when they were telling you that we're not a leader, but you became a leader and show and prove to them that you were a leader. And then it gets to the point in which your ability to continue being involved in music uh and your ability and your experience and your credibility in the finance world allows you to co-create a wealth management firm. Can you tell me a little bit about the process that took you to where you are now? And how can this teach a lesson to the 25-year-old that can't even imagine the idea of having a firm that sort of like comprises all of their interests?

SPEAKER_00 37:28

Uh, music brought it all together, right? So back to the point of doing what you love to do and following those paths. Um, what I was starting about thinking about starting my own firm, again, back to I keep going back to that time with these good friends, which gave me the confidence to know what I wanted to do next and what I was passionate about. So I'm thinking about starting my own firm. And a couple of years ago, um, a friend of mine who sang in a choir that I conducted in San Francisco is an investment banker. And he said, Hey, Greg, there's this really good guy that you should meet anyway, because he's in our business, the finance business, but he's auditioning for his local church choir and was hoping for some vocal tips. Would you take that call? I'm like, I always take those calls, right? So I call this guy Kevin, and we talk a lot about music mostly. I didn't think much about it. And then when I was starting to think about um launching a firm, I thought I should call Kevin and just brainstorm. So, because of that music connection, I picked up the phone. He said, sure, I'd love to have a conversation. We're 30 minutes into it. And he says, Um, you know, Greg, I'm actually thinking about what's next too. If there were an opportunity um for collaboration, I would welcome that conversation. So that was the very beginning. I'm gonna connect some dots. Um, my other partner, Christina, I'd known for a decade, met through a music friend, and uh she's also a singer, but happened to be an advisor. And um reached back out to her, and uh she also said, Hey, I'm thinking about what's next.

SPEAKER_01 39:02

So, what is this about all these financial advisors or a musician under you know, in their free time?

SPEAKER_00 39:09

Find them all. I find them all. Of the five founding members, four of us are almost six, I would say, five of us are musicians. The one who isn't actually is the one who came up with the name Cantata, which is a musical form.

SPEAKER_01 39:22

So you get together with a bunch of people that in my world I would have thought rarely existed. And then everybody's into music, and everybody is into finance, and you guys basically open a firm.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

A few weeks ago, I'm with someone who's at a family office, um, and we're talking about finance. And he says, Oh, I just met someone who runs a family office exchange out of New York, and he sings with the New York League Club. You guys need to meet. I had lunch with him last week in New York, so I've got another connection point with somebody else in finance, and it just makes it so much more enjoyable. Like we can do the finance all day long, but to be able to share our passions too, that makes a difference.

SPEAKER_01 40:06

But what I'm discovering here, Greg, is the fact that the world's perception about certain things that sound scientific, numerical, uh hard to grasp, needing a lot of studying, etc., it's pretty wrong in terms of the essence of the people that are involved in it.

SPEAKER_00 40:31

I think so. I'd I'd agree. And I think that this this notion that um like everybody has a passion, they just don't lead with it, right? You can find um oftentimes if I'm if I'm looking for some to connect with someone that I don't know on LinkedIn, I will look at their hobbies. And if there's music there, like for me, that's jackpot, right? Because I know I can lead with that and likely get a conversation, even if I don't know them because of that musical connection.

SPEAKER_01 41:02

Is it true that once somebody asks you that if you would have made the same money in music than in finance, would you have chosen music and you said no?

SPEAKER_00 41:11

I said no, because I get to do both, right? I I made a decision. I could have pro I could have um pursued a career in conducting. A lot of the people that I was with in my 20s went on to have really successful conducting careers. Um, but I chose because I love this building thing, um I love doing both. And I've been able to uh again feel very blessed to have had the opportunity to do um a bunch of work in both of those areas and have a lot of fun doing it.

SPEAKER_01 41:45

Is it true that one day you walked into a club in New York where you were about to perform and you ended up meeting a tax person?

SPEAKER_00 41:54

Yeah, no, I wasn't I wasn't there to perform. I actually was just there to meet um uh I got connected on the finance side with someone who was in the arts, and we were just there to have that conversation around the arts. And um we were going to leave and uh we I heard heard this singing. I said, What's that? He's like, Oh, you have to you have to see this. And I went up and there were 45 or 50 people around a grand piano singing show tunes, right? I don't know any of these people, but I met a guy and um happened to run into him the next day, and he's like, You're the conductor singer, and we got to talking, and the woman behind us had just sung a solo with San Francisco Symphony, where I was for years, and so like it's just a small world, whether it's music or finance, like you find your people. It turns out that while he was also a great singer, he works in my world as a tax attorney, and so there's another connection point of somebody that I would not have met, but likely, but for music.

SPEAKER_01 43:00

What does a musician know that can make him or her great at finance?

SPEAKER_00 43:13

What do they know? So if you're if you're an ensemble singer, it goes back to listening. So we talk about listen acutely, right? It's important uh back to my friend the jazz musician who said one of the first things you learn as a jazz musician is to listen. There's there's intimate work in being uh firm in what you do as a performer, but as an ensemble, also flexible enough to lean in and out of those people who are around you. And I would say it's the same thing with client conversations, right? You have to listen acutely, um, you have to have a sense of. Of where you're headed, but you also have to be flexible enough to lean in and out of the conversation as to where they want to go.

SPEAKER_01 44:07

Well, you also talk about discerning signal versus noise. Can you explain that?

SPEAKER_00 44:12

Yeah, so we did it, we did an event um to try to connect my worlds, right? The music and finance, and this notion of listening acutely. Uh, signal versus discerning signal versus noise in jazz and finance. So we put together a session with um with my uh business partner, Kevin Berry, who's our chief investment officer, um, and then two Grammy Award-winning musicians, and we asked the same question of them what is it like to listen in your world? Like what are the inputs?

SPEAKER_01 44:43

You're asking the same question to people from completely different worlds.

SPEAKER_00 44:49

And the answers are more similar than you might realize, right? So so so things like um, what happens when you stop listening? You know, do you do you listen differently when things go sideways? And whether um whether you're in a jazz ensemble and someone takes a detour and that feels like it's sideways, or you're in the markets and something happens and you feel like that's going sideways, you know, what's what's constant in both of those? We actually talked about um risk and how risk plays into that, right? What may feel risky to some is often not risky to others if you have a skill set and a tool set and experience, right, in that in that arena. So I think it's maybe that each world has its own inputs and things that they listen for, right? So where a musician may listen to harmonic structure, rhythmic structure, melodic structure on the finance side, you might be listening to the tenure treasury, right? Macroeconomic policy. So there are similar inputs that drive where you go, but you need to know what those are.

SPEAKER_01 46:04

Well, your firm's values include dignity of life, community, collaboration, doing well, doing good. You're in wealth management. And most people's perceptions about managing wealth for someone are completely the opposite of these values. In terms of perception, people may say if I give my money to someone, they're gonna be crooks, they're gonna be trying to make me, you know, take my money away. You've shared with me a statistic that says that even most people that lose their significant other at some point very quickly tend to fire their wealth management. So, but how can you make that about values, community, etc.? And how do we find at everyone's different level of needs for wealth management, someone that we can trust and that has this kind of values?

SPEAKER_00 47:03

It goes back to surrounding yourself with good people, right? So the comment about someone who's looking for a mentor, don't look at the person whose job you want, but someone who you respect, right? You attract the type of people that you want to be around. And so having those foundational values was very important to Kevin and to me as we were starting to put together this firm because we wanted to be very clear about the people we want to work with, the clients we want to have, and the firm we want to build. And so that's the lens through which we look around at we look at a lot of things. So if we have a client who does not respect dignity of life, does not treat people well, no, I don't care how much money they have, not interested, right? Same thing with working with each other. Again, life is so short.

SPEAKER_01 47:51

Most people don't have a lot. So somebody may be watching or listening, got $5,000 that they inherited from their grandmother, and it's all they have. And then you're walking into this branch at a commercial big bank and you are shaking and wondering if you're going to find the right person that will do the best thing for you and for your $5,000. How do you make sure that you're dealing with the right person that's really going to help you?

SPEAKER_00 48:23

So it's always having people that you know. If you go to your good friends, right, who um may know somebody who's worked with, that's one way to make sure that there's a connection point. Um, also credentialing. So someone who has a certified financial planner designation, that's someone who's gone through a combination of sort of training, um, both technical and ethical, that are required by that designation to uphold a very high standard. So that's where I would have people start.

SPEAKER_01 48:56

How come people find you? What's the best way to connect with you?

SPEAKER_00 48:59

CantataWealth.com. You can see a little bit of our bios and our backgrounds and how we think about the world. Hello at Cantata Wealth. Um, we'll always respond and happy to try to connect the dots.

SPEAKER_01 49:10

So let's imagine for a moment that we are at a hundred years from now, and we're going to assume that Google still exists, and somebody googles Gregory Cheng. What would you like those top 10 search results to say?

SPEAKER_00 49:31

Um, not my GPA. Not the 0.0. Um I would I would go back to those so values, right? So if if they were if they were to say, um, you know, here's someone who treated uh whose firm treats people with dignity, uh, who makes the communities that they live and operate in better places, that built a firm that was collaborative, that did well for its clients, its employees, its shareholders, and did good in the world and made it a better place. I'd love to see that.

SPEAKER_01 50:13

Gregory, I want to thank you for allowing us to break patterns and preconceived notions about finance, about science, about wealth, but mostly about art and music. I feel that in our conversation today, you have proven to a lot of people that their passion for the arts has value. It has value in what they do, it has value in what they're passionate about, and it also has value in a marketplace that can give them opportunities they never thought about. So, for that, I thank you. I appreciate the opportunity of having this conversation. I appreciate you know our friendship, and and I mostly appreciate the fact that you are a living example of how people can find happiness in what they love, in what they do, in community, and in helping others. So thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 51:13

It's been a great delight.

SPEAKER_01 51:15

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