#93: Risk Versus Reward with Robin DeSota

Well, we do what we can, you know. We always aim to please.

Yeah, that's a good thing. I don't know whether aiming— that's a great To aim to please, man, that's kind of a relentless task and it's exhausting too to please, right?

Actually unachievable, but why not make it a goal?

Why not make it a goal? You've had an impressive career and I'd love for you to share some of the diversity of your career path with us. But in sharing that introduction, brief introduction, what's not written there? What's kind of between the lines that you would love for our community to know about you?

I think it's real easy when you look at anybody who is sort of in sync with how they want to live their life and doing the things that they want to do and having some measure of success and however you define that. I think it's real easy to look at that person and say, well, gee, they make it look so easy. Their journey is nothing like mine. My journey is a struggle. They're living a life that just seems to be everything's falling in place for them. But as you can imagine, There's much more to the story. And we've all had our highs and lows and moments in life where we've made positive changes, conscious changes to get to a place that we're happy enough. And as they say, it takes at least 15 years to be an overnight success. I think that's— there's a lot more hiding beneath the surface that allows one to get to a place that they're happy with. It includes a lot of work, a lot of struggle, a lot of work, a lot of potentially risk. Whatever, however you want to define that, but I think that's one of the main things. I think it's just that there's a lot more to the story that got you to a place that you feel happy about.

Isn't that interesting too, right? It's so easy to look at other people's life situation or what we can see of it and think that the grass is greener. I made this statement earlier today, actually talking to my dad and discussing something kind of similar to this. And I said, this might sound crazy, but I think the grass is never greener. I've not had an experience yet where even when I thought the grass was greener, that it really was in the end.

Yeah, totally. In whatever way that is, socially, business-wise, et cetera. I think it's really easy to look at somebody else's path and think, well, geez, they're making tons of money and cruising along and seem really happy. But again, I think what most people don't realize is the cost at which they spent to get to that point. And I don't mean cost in a dollar sense. I just mean cost in terms of a time commitment, a social commitment, a family commitment, a psychological commitment to be in that place. And to me, the goal really is how do we each identify what we actually want? Then we can make positive steps to do that. And that sounds nice and easy. It's obviously not, but those are 2 pretty important, I think, I didn't

plan on doing this with you, Robin, so forgive me if I catch you off guard, but you're an investment advisor. So there's criteria that you use, models and metrics and lots of things I'm sure that are sophisticated and some that are probably more just about gut instinct and experience, I suppose. But you guys are making decisions all the time on risk and reward.

Yeah.

And how to determine that proper balance of risk versus reward and looking at what's the ROI for taking a certain risk. Can you apply that formula to your personal life or to the way that you've made decisions in your personal or even in your business life outside of just specifically investments? Oh,

that's a very interesting question. And I think absolutely the answer is yes. There ought to be a risk-reward sort of matrix for all of those decisions. Personally, the risk-reward matrix ought to look like, what's the risk of not living your true self and living your dream and living, going after the goals that you want. And I think you'll, in most cases, find the risk far outweighs the outcome of going down that direction. Similarly, in the investment world, absolutely we analyze risk and risk is looked at not only in terms of risk of loss, but risk of loss of access to capital or liquidity, those types of things. Just like in our personal life, we have risk of loss of time spent doing things that you don't want to do or aren't consistent with your value set or the way you want to live your life. And so there's absolute similarities there between the risk-reward that you would take in a sort of a financial context and how you would do it personally.

And has the modeling for that changed over time? I mean, I know the answer is yes, of course, but looking back at a different time in your life, Did you assess risk differently? Were you making decisions in a different way? Because I think ultimately, the quality of our lives, and this is not, I don't think, a profound statement, but it is, I think, true nonetheless that the quality of our lives is equal to the quality of our decision-making.

Right.

The quality of the choices that we've made. So at the root of it is how do we make choices to begin with?

Yeah. I would say one of the interesting similarities in the investing world and the personal decisions that we make are When you're young, when you're 21, 22, 24, something like that, you think you have all the time in the world. And you may spend your time doing things that you don't necessarily want to do because, hey, I've got lots of time left. And in your investing world, you can afford to sort of make small decisions that aren't hugely impactful but are mistakes, investing mistakes, because you have time to make up for that. Ironically, if we actually made better decisions investing-wise and in our personal life when we were younger, we would be in a much better position later on. Unfortunately, we're not blessed with that kind of foresight. And oftentimes we don't know ourselves well enough, either from a financial context or personally, to actually make those decisions. And as you get older, you get to know who you are and what's important to you. Unfortunately, we start to realize that time starts to run out or lessen, and we start to value that more. And so the decisions that we make, both from an investing context as well as our own personal decisions, are that much more important because we're running out of that perceived time later in our lives. So it is an interesting parallel.

It is for sure. And financial literacy is definitely something that isn't really taught early on. I mean, unless you're fortunate enough to have parents that were sharing that information or mentors that were sharing it early on, we certainly, at least I don't remember getting any education in the financial literacy space, even through college, even through law school. Frankly, we weren't taught the business of law or anything related to sort of the management of money and that kind of thing.

Yes, it's amazing that something so important and so central to our livelihood and our family's livelihood and health and happiness oftentimes isn't discussed at all like that. So it's unfortunate, actually. I'd love to be able to change that at some point. That would be, I think, a great add-on to get people on sort of a solid foundation of investment learning.

Yeah. So just to pivot a little bit in our conversation, which may relate to this, you've had pivots in your life. You've had significant changes and more micro pivots of a sort. Where do you want to start that conversation? What's a good place for you to begin there?

Sure. I've had several pivots, but really one fundamental pivot in my career life, and I would say career and personal life, which was— I'll just describe it for you if that's all right.

Please.

Yeah. I was sort of on the track of, I'm going to be wildly successful very quickly, at least I thought so, early in my life. And so, Going to undergraduate school, going to graduate school, getting out. Okay, now I'm at this great job and in a career-oriented job. And this was back early '90s when the economy wasn't very good, pretty high unemployment rate, particularly out west. But I found a great job working for theoretically dream projects in my career at the time, which was sort of land planning and architecture, landscape architecture and design. And we were working on huge, very enviable projects. I felt like, well, this is what I'm going to be doing. Fast forward a few years, I was miserable, miserable for a whole bunch of reasons, miserable because I wasn't living where I wanted to live. I wasn't living the life I wanted to live. I wasn't growing in my field. I wasn't even enjoying my field. So I did some serious soul searching at the time and also soul-searching into the patterns that I had growing up. And so my parents were both, you know, this is the job that you're trained for and this is the job you're going to do for the rest of your life kind of people. I don't fault them for it. It was just a culture at the time that that's what you did. So I had to sort of battle those preconceived ideas about how to pursue your career and then what that means for you versus personal and professional happiness. And I, guess what, made a pivot and said, you know what? I want to pursue a career that I've always wanted to do, which was help people based on personal finance and investing so that whatever it is that you want to do, we can help you be successful in a financial sense. You just be whatever you want to do and let me help you with the financial side so that you're ultimately doing what you want to do with your life and you have successful life. And I'm being intentionally broad and vague about what that means, but that was sort of my goal. And I want to live in a place I really want to live in. And both of those things, by the way, were seemingly impossible at the space I was in at the time. How am I going to move to a place with limited career opportunities? Can I build this business up? What does all that look like? But at least I'd identified what it was I wanted to do. Now I need to figure out the steps to getting there.

About what age were you at this point?

27.

So you'd gone to Cal Poly, you got a degree. What was your degree in?

In landscape architecture.

Landscape architecture. You and I are both— our alma mater is UMass Amherst. We both are grads of that school. And you got a master's degree there. What was your master's in?

In land planning.

In land planning.

I was a researcher. I was a teaching assistant. They claimed I was pretty talented at what I was doing, that computer applications and geographic information systems and all that, it was all very interesting to me because I was growing as a human being and a person and as a student. It was interesting to me. Reality hit when I was working on things that were supposed to be incredible projects and they weren't driving the feeling of success and happiness that I thought I was going to get out of it.

Right.

It led me to go on this sort of soul-searching to some degree. Backing up a little bit, I grew up in a single-parent household with an art teacher, my mother, who raised us 3 boys, us 3 brothers. And as you can imagine, on an art teacher's salary, you're not doing very expensive things, but we were fine. But nevertheless, what I got out of that experience was I want to learn as much as I can about investing and investments. and personal finance so that I could help both myself in my career and others.

Yeah.

And that's what actually was my underpinning. Even with my other career and all of that, I still had a strong interest in the investment and personal finance side. That's when it sort of dawned on me that, you know, instead of just dabbling in it or doing it personally, why don't I go out there and truly help others and get in the field? and deal more with helping others, that actually does drive a lot of happiness for myself.

Yeah. So was it a smooth ride right out of the gate or were the usual challenges?

Oh no, it was perfect right from the get-go. No, you, uh, you know, it's really hard and it's really hard. Doesn't matter what you're doing. It's hard to start over. It's hard to start a business. Making money, good money, is hard work. So if anybody says to you that it's not or it's going to be super easy, you probably ought to seek a different opinion and just to have a variety of approaches of opinions because the reality is it is tough. It's tough mentally, like, gee, is this going to work? Finding the confidence and the perseverance and the security to know that, nope, we're going to make this work and it's going to work. And to keep at it. And so yes, there's small victories along the way. There's plenty of defeats, but just like everything else and every other adventure, I think the journey is truly what defines who you are at the end of all of this and the journey of highs and lows and the strength of character and also doing it in the way that you want to do it, doing it in a way that's consistent with your value set, consistent with how you want to approach your business. Oftentimes the quickest buck isn't the best buck. that may not be consistent with your value set. And so that was important. Those are important values for me.

Yeah, I think that's a really important thing to stress there, the idea of the quickest buck isn't always the best buck. Sometimes I call it clean money. There's a difference between the kind of money that you can earn if you're willing to sell your soul a little bit or sell out your values or any number of other things that just don't feel right. And I'm not saying necessarily anything illegal or immoral or unethical, but just something that just Doesn't feel right. And those are sort of pinholes, if you will, in the container. And whatever leaks out of that container isn't going to be based on that one little pinhole. You think, well, not such a big deal. Just kind of make this small sacrifice here. But after a while, those pinholes can really add up and the leaks can be pretty significant. I would imagine that especially in the investing space that you— it's so important to have rules rules of the road for yourself, not just the SEC rules or not just some other sort of rule of governance, but more along the lines of just what makes sense and feels right to you as the person in charge of that?

Wow. There's so much to be said about that. Absolutely. The field is littered with all sorts of folks that are unscrupulous. Forget even the obvious examples, just folks that don't act necessarily in the way that's in the best interest of the client. They act in their own best interests. And unfortunately, the field allows that kind of range of motion. And so you really have to have a compass in all of that personally that says, I'm going to do this that's purely in the best interest, sometimes at my own detriment, but it's just the right way to do it. And it's just the right way to live your life, frankly, in every aspect. The beautiful part about where we've sort of come to is there's complete consistency with how I feel about something, how I act about something, and how I communicate that something to someone. And that just feels great because there's no turmoil in that case. And it is what it is. For those folks that do that in the financial world, it can be a tough road because you're competing against people who don't necessarily have the same value set, who can make claims that aren't necessarily complete or true even. So it's good to have that sort of compass of sorts.

Yes. There's a documentary out right now that I can't remember the name of, but it's about the 2008 crash and what led up to that and what was going on with Bernanke and Paulson and a number of other people on the street at the time. You came through that period, obviously, your firm has been around a long time. How was that for you? Was it as bumpy as it was for a number of folks, or were you set up to sort of weather that storm a little better?

Oh no, I mean, I think everybody, it's human nature to definitely have that sense of panic, or just sort of mild depression, you might call it, for a lot of folks. They didn't open their statements, they didn't wanna talk about it, they didn't wanna look at it, they just said, you know, they either ignored it, or those folks who wanted to act on it, you know, we try to explain the broader context of things. And so yeah, it was an extraordinarily challenging time. One of the things we talk about quite often, and this is true with anything, it's not just an investment conversation, but there are 2 extreme moments in an investor's world which can parallel anybody's personal experience, which is when things are going fantastic and they're really high. At that point, everyone's a brilliant investor, everyone's optimistic, everyone sees blue sky. Why do I even need an advisor at that point? I can do it all kind of thing. And again, there's parallels to everyone's personal life where you You get sort of an artificial confidence when you were successful, which may not necessarily be 100% the truth. Well, the contrary to that is like the 2008, 2009 scenario, which is just complete giving up. Gee, I don't know anything. Gosh, the future looks dim. Extreme pessimism. It's the exact flip side where you're not taking advantage of opportunity. You're in fact wallowing in— The darkness of it. Well, that's a lie too. And the reality is the truth lies in the middle. And really it's sort of the oscillating curve of life, which is you have these highs and lows and not to get lulled into, as Rudyard Kipling says, the imposters. Those two are imposters. And we need to sort of live in the middle and know that we're going to have highs and lows, but let's appreciate those for what they are and continue on our journey. And the more we can do that ahead of time, both personally and professionally and investment-wise, the more prepared we mentally are.

Yeah. It's like this too shall pass, that saying, because typically when people say that, it's because there's something that's gone wrong and this is a way to help you to get through it, this too shall pass. But the truth is, it applies in both directions. So, when things are great, when you feel as good as you could possibly imagine feeling, this too shall pass. I mean, that's just the nature of the whole experience that we're having. So to get all worked up in fear when things look as troubling as they did and actually were, I think were more troubling than most of us even were aware in September 2008, or to be so irrationally exuberant to use— I think that was—

Greenspan.

Yeah, exactly. Even as recently as September 20th, which I think might have been the sort of the high water, recent high water mark of the market, Where, as you said, describing people that can't feel like the market only goes in one direction and that direction is up kind of thing. And to think in terms of how that greed and fear oscillate with people and how it drives different behavior. Wow. The pace of change over the last couple of years has been rapid. And if you're a leader, a business owner, an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every day it's some different and something new. But the one thing that I've learned in performing at the height of all of those roles has been that we must be resilient. In fact, it's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And it's the reason why my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilience The best way to take the Resilient Leader Assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are.

We're not well designed to be disciplined. Certainly not just among investors. And you could argue in other parts of your life, we do get carried away with the negatives and the positives. But I think if you can look at things philosophically in that regard, and again, both personally and professionally, and sort of appreciate that, let's enjoy the great times, but let's not put too much pressure on the idea that it's going to be great forever or we're bulletproof. Just like we don't want to put too much weight on when things are bad and frankly out of our control, that things are going to be bad forever. And to your point, this too will pass. So I think the more you can sort of prepare yourself as a human being to sort of treat the upsides with grace and the downsides with humor, perhaps, you know, I think the more happy you'll be in life.

Yeah, exactly. I want to build a bridge to the way that you and I actually connected and came together. And it was with the theme of building bridges. Through a TEDx experience that you curated up in South Lake Tahoe. So I want to build the bridge to that. And I suppose what's coming up for me right now is there is a bridge that can exist between those 2 quite diametrically opposed or differing emotional states, that of fear and that of joy or exuberance. And that bridge in many ways, I think, is how it is that we enjoy the ride. Because without that, the ride that we're taking is very much this roller coaster experience of one day I could be up and the next day I could be literally thinking it's all over based on things that are outside of ourselves. To the point of the event and the talk that I was privileged to be invited to give at your TEDx event, it really was more around the lines of how is it that we live within ourselves each day where regardless of the stock market is up or it's down, That we still have a loving experience for ourselves and every place where we are interacting in the world. So let's talk a little bit about that, because you took on a big project, a massive-sized project, if you don't mind my saying. All the time. And you've been doing it a couple years. I'd love to know how it is you got inspired to want to curate a TEDx event and what that's been like. And even if you want to give us a little lay of the land as to what's The good, the bad, the ugly. That'd be great.

Yeah. So this is actually ironically the social pivot, I would call it, which it really is. You know, I was at a point where I'm like, you know, I love my community. I love where I live and I love the community members that we have. And I've often looked for ways to try to contribute back to my community and doing so in a way that was consistent with the things that I was interested in. I love the sharing of ideas. I love expanding people's ideas. I love educating people because I think we're all better off when we all kind of get more information and get smarter about things collectively. I think we make better decisions as a society when we do that. TEDx was the perfect platform to sort of be able to do that. It checked all the boxes for me of, great, this is something that I— and that is sort of not traditional, but I can put this event on. I can bring amazing people in to share great ideas that aren't just ideas that we have here in our town, but they're ideas from the outside that people are bringing in that are at times international in scope. And so that was sort of how it was born, is I want to do this for my community. Now, as you can imagine, like I mentioned with all the other sort of adventures in life, you run through the gamut of emotions. Okay, I'm going to put this event on, spend hundreds of hours, if not thousands of hours on it, and lots of money on it. And it's not money-making, by the way. It's Quite the opposite. We're not allowed to make money, and we do a fantastic job at not making money at it.

It's the one area of your life where you're allowed to not make money.

That's right. That's right. Yeah, we couldn't make money, and we did it with exception. Yeah, we were exceptional at it, put it that way. So you're thinking all these things like, well, this is going to be a lot of fun, but you're also thinking, is anybody going to care? Is anybody going to show up? Does anybody else care about the same things that I care about? Am I actually benefiting the community? So you always have these sort of questions and to some degree self-doubt about, am I wasting my time or is this going to be something of value? So 3 years ago we did the first one. We had to do a smaller one just based on the licensing and how it works with TEDx. So we were limited to an audience of 100 people. You know, we sold out in 20 minutes. So, we thought, well, this is great. Maybe we're onto something. We had a really nice event, great people, great speakers, so lots of great feedback. Next year, we grew in size, involved our local community college who were fantastic partners in it. And, as you grow, you're still having these nagging voices of saying, well, that's nice that you want to grow. Does anybody else want to grow with you? When are you going to hit the wall on this thing, and is there a wall to hit? Anyway, sold out in a few days on that one. And that was about 2.5 times the size, about 260 people went to that one. Really nice event we had and had some great feedback. So again, we're growing and trying to do— the thought being this, let's just spread this to as many people as we can. We're giving all the information away. We want to inspire people to do things and to do things either in their personal life or to do things that shares their passions with the world. Because the world needs people with passion. Nobody needs people who are beaten down. We need these ideas and we need inspiration. So I thought, well, let's make it bigger again. And we were very happy to have the speakers we had, including you last time. And you've left me actually with a fantastic mantra, which has given me a lot of gratitude. So thank you for that. And I appreciate that. But kind of adding on to what you're saying, this sense of gratitude in life is a place that can center us in those up times and those down times. And so if you feel gratitude in the, in the great times, it's humbling to some degree. And then in the real negative times, it's uplifting to feel that gratitude. So that's sort of been our journey with TEDx. We had 400 and some odd 50 people or so in the audience last time, in a much bigger theater with the potential to do more. So it's been a great journey. I've met some amazing people and made some great friendships. And it's just been a really fulfilling ride so far.

That's so beautiful. And let me ask you this. Is it still your goal to see that event grow? Is there still an iteration of it that's even bigger than I saw? Because it was quite impressive what you produced this last time around.

Yeah. I'm willing to grow and to the extent that the community is interested in growing too. If there's a demand for growth, then absolutely. I certainly don't want to— push things on the community that there isn't interest for, but I'm certainly interested in sharing ideas and bringing the best of the best speakers and ideas and inspiration to our community, both from a sense of putting it out on the TEDx platform, because that then is essentially putting it out forever and hearing those ideas out there forever. Also for our local community to bring some sense of pride and also To be there in person is quite a magical experience, and I think very moving for a lot of folks. That experience, to provide that is an honor for us.

Yeah. Being a speaker at this event, I didn't get to watch everybody's talk, but there were some that really moved me. Sandra Joseph's talk and Sam Horn's talk and Max Stossel. We just had Max on the podcast.

Max is great. Yeah, he's great.

And he shared a poem that was sort of an impromptu poem that came up while we were chatting. I thought, geez, what a talented young man. I mean, he's just an incredible guy. Is there one particular talk over the last couple of years that still resonates with you or a message or something that still is part of your consciousness on a regular basis?

I can't really— sort of like saying, oh gee, what's your favorite child? I am the collective whole of all the experiences that I've had there, you know, in terms of my memory and inspiration from TEDx. There's a lot of individual ideas, like I mentioned your mantra there, but there is a bunch of either philosophies with DeWitt Jones of celebrate what's right with the world, to, you know, I love my life, to listen to other folks, to don't wait some days, not a day in the week, right? I mean, you can't do it now. Is it the Dalai Lama that said the problem is you think you have time and you don't? So really it's a sum total of all those sort of snippets that I refer back to in a sort of a mental Rolodex. TEDx kind of way. Art is very important to me, as you can imagine, with my parents' background in art. So some of the, you know, why art matters. I mean, the expression of self, the sense of passion. I mean, all of that stuff. There is a consistent thread through all of this stuff, which is hope and passion. Those are the things that I think if you're going to draw a thread between it all, it's hard to go to a TEDx experience and not leave there completely inspired and hopeful.

No kidding.

Yeah.

What was the theme for your first event?

Our themes have really just been placeholders in the sense that really what we're looking for is your best idea, not you to contrive your idea to fit our somewhat random theme. Most people don't have a zillion great ideas. They've got a couple.

A couple if they're lucky.

If they're lucky. That's right.

For sure.

I want that couple. I don't want you to make up something to fit the theme. I want you to bring your best of what— who you are, because that is ultimately going to inspire others. One of our musicians that we had last year was Helena Kletsch, and she says, you know, what do you want me to do? I really like this song, but I think this one's more poppy and maybe more popular. Yeah. I said, you know, you gotta do you. You gotta bring what you're feeling in your heart that you're gonna really be happy that you expressed. And she did. And she was amazing and really brought that emotion to it. And you saw it and we all lived it and felt it and goosebumps and all that kind of thing. And that's just true of everybody who's a speaker and so on. Be you, because it's obviously cliché at this point, but, you know, everyone else is taken. So you be you in the best way that you know how to be you.

There's a lot of people who are looking for those opportunities, or speakers anyway, or people that have something they want to say that are looking for a TEDx event. In fact, I heard some recent statistics on it. It's pretty crazy. Some of these events, they've got people, 4,000 people applying for spots. I know somebody that's a part of now a— there's like an audition, and there's 40 people that have been selected to audition to be part of that group. So I mean, you know, these things have gotten pretty competitive, I suppose, in some regard. So, the advice that you've just given is probably priceless for those folks in our community who are thinking about, yeah, they might want to be part of a TEDx event at some point. I think the best advice is the one that you just provided, to be you, to do you, you know, in the classic way that that is. And then some people are probably going, well, if I only knew myself well enough to be me, to do me, I would, kind of thing. Right. Which is great, because I tell you, part of the TEDx experience from my perspective is the way that you can distill an idea down. So for me, I ultimately started out with about 4,500 words of something that was really 2 talks, not one. And I think it was Hemingway that said writing is a process of killing off your darlings. Now you think about that, that's not a word used today very often, but like to kill off your darlings, these things that are so precious to you, that you love, your precious words, your precious thoughts, Well, I had to kill them off in a way. It was like excruciating, Robin. Like, I went from, I don't know, 4,500 words down to like about 3,500. I thought, there's just no way. I'll just have to speak faster, you know? Like, I'll have to condense things somehow, bend time. And then after practicing and realizing that I probably couldn't get, from a word count standpoint strictly— I know I'm getting technical here, but I probably couldn't say more than 2,400 words. Without it feeling rushed to me and rushed to the audience, which would have been the worst of all situations, to be up there hurrying or speaking quickly as opposed to embodying whatever the message was and then delivering it at a pace that made sense. So yeah, to get down from 35 to 24-ish was excruciating, to cut things out. But that process of excruciating focus on getting to the clearest message the most concise, precise way to communicate something has such great value. And so for anybody that's even thinking about it, on the fence at all, or never gave it some thought, but now all of a sudden you're thinking about it, yeah, if you're clear about what you want to say and what message you have, the idea, quote, the idea worth spreading, Yes. According to the TED standards, great, go for it. And if you are somebody who knows you've got something deep inside to communicate, but you're not clear about that at all, and you're thinking, well, that's a good reason not to do it, Au contraire, like think of it the opposite. This might be your greatest opportunity in your adult life to get so crystal clear so that you could stand up in front of however many people, small or large group, and communicate that from the heart in a very powerful way.

So yes, wow, yeah, absolutely.

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I always think, you know, everyone's got something to say and everyone has a story to And it's your job to find out what that is as a human being. And it doesn't mean you maybe are doing a TED Talk, but— and if it is, great. Otherwise, it's a great place to come from. And you go through a journey to find out who you are. And that's ultimately the people who give the best talks are the ones who actually know who they are, because you have that sense of connection with your passion and what you're doing and have spent a lot of time in that space. understanding what it means and doing the research and, you know, understanding how you got here and all of that. And that— all of that depth adds to what— ironically, the complexity of that depth leads to simplicity in the message. And the simplicity of the message is the essence of it. And that's what takes it from 10,000 words to a much smaller talk, but concise and with some beauty to it, because it's the simplicity of it all that I think really appeals to, I think, a lot of folks.

Yeah. So not only do you end up with your great talk, whatever that looks like, but you also end up with maybe 20 years of therapy in the process for a fraction, right?

That's right. It is therapeutic, absolutely, to go through that journey.

Robin, last question for you. Is there a practice, sort of a ritual practice that you have each day that does something special for your outlook or your attitude or your remaining passionate about the road ahead, et cetera?

I have a few. I exercise daily. That involves usually some sense of cardio, which I find to be quite meditative. I sort of require it to be meditative. And so for me, that's a huge stabilizer. It's not only good for you physically, but great for you mentally. So I think exercise in some way, whatever way that is for anybody, is a great thing to do. The other thing that I've done for going on 20 years now is I wake up in the morning and I focus on all the things that I want in life. I'm not talking material things, but they could be, but just things that I want in life. And then in the evening, I focus on being thankful for everything that I have. And I have found that to manifest a lot in my life. And even if it didn't lead to manifestation, it leads you to a happier place, leads you to a more sort of centered place. But I think what it does is it allows you to, again, sort of maintain focus on the things that are important to you that you want. And it also gives you that sense of gratitude at the end of the day, maybe at sunset, maybe you allow yourself some minutes to enjoy the sunset and you're just thankful for that moment. And those 2 things which can work together, I have found to be quite productive for me personally.

Indeed. I have so enjoyed our talk. I really appreciate you being a guest on the show and I know our community is going to love having listened to you, learned from you, and maybe even thinking about some new things based on this discussion.

I really appreciate you having me, and I've enjoyed our discussion as well and look forward to the next.

Indeed. I'll leave our audience of Pivoters with this, that I think if you've listened to any recent podcasts or even any of them, I suppose, from the beginning, we always come to this place, this fork in the road, I suppose, which is how will we choose to embrace the day? Because tomorrow, if we're lucky or as fortunate as we were today, We'll get to wake up again. And you brought that up just a second ago, Robin, how it is that you wake and the ritual that you have when you wake up and even the one you have before you go to bed. So my prayer is that we all get to wake up again tomorrow. It's a blessing. It's not a guarantee. It's clear that when we're waking up and we take the first conscious breaths of the day, there'll be people taking their last breaths of life.

Indeed. One of the things that's quite helpful Particularly when you're doing hard things in life or hard training or something, you know, hard at work, the attitude of, I get to do this. I get to do this. I get to be outside. I get to be working hard. I get to feel my body working hard or my mind or whatever. I get to have this human experience. It changes your perspective. To your point, the alternative isn't good. This is good. This moment's good.

This moment's good. Real good. And thank you, Robin.

Thank you.

Yeah, we get to, we don't got to. And how often when we catch ourselves in that got to energy of obligation or whatever that feels like, it can really detract from the moment. So tomorrow we all get to wake up and we get to take that breath and feel gratitude for that moment. And if you're willing to do this as well, the way that our TEDx talk ended was to propose that you take 10 seconds, not a requirement by any means, but an invitation, I suppose, to take 10 seconds and as you put your feet on the floor to feel gratitude and appreciation for yourself as you take those breaths. And then if you're inclined to do it, you can say these words, I love my life. I love my life. I love my life. What would it take tomorrow morning to wake up and acknowledge yourself in that way? What could be different? It's something I've been doing for about 10 years now. And just as Robin said, that these seemingly non-business-related practices pay tremendous dividends, both on the side of the material world, and they pay even greater dividends in this invisible world that we all live in, primarily within ourselves. So Robin, again, a joy, a pleasure, and much gratitude to you, brother, for the incredible event that you

Well, thank you for all of it, Adam. I appreciate it. And thanks for having me.

Awesome. So everybody out there, I hope you've enjoyed this. Know that you have, of course, and love to get your thoughts and your feedback. So if you go to iTunes, you can leave a review. We love to get those and just want your honest feedback, whatever that looks like for you. Go to adamarkel.com/podcast. You can leave a comment and I'll get to respond to you directly right there. And of course, if you want to join a community of like-minded and like-hearted pivoters, people who are contemplating what it is that you're wanting to incubate in the future, even what changes are happening in this moment, you can go to startmypivot.com and join that community as well. But we'll see you again real soon, and we appreciate your commitment to this and your giving us some of your time. So again, ciao for now, everybody.

Thanks for listening, everyone. We hope you now have the tools and greater insights to navigate your own pivot. Help us inspire others by sharing this episode and leaving your comments over at adammarkel.com/podcasts. For more tips, strategies, and support as you consciously pivot into a new business and lifestyle you love, join our Pivot Community on Facebook at pivotfb.com.