Building Companies and Re-building Lives with Private Equity Impresario Bryan Cressey

Living a Life in Full is a conversation you always wanted to have with that person who gave an amazing TED Talk, or the author of one of your favorite books, or that inspirational Olympian you always wanted to know more about. It's graduate-level conversations with those making a difference in the world and in the lives of others. This show brings you new ideas and approaches so that you can live a life in full. I'm your host, Dr. Chris Stout, and I hope you enjoy this episode. This episode of Living a Life in Full is brought to you by ATI Physical Therapy. If you need physical therapy, choose ATI. ATI offers exceptional care, trusted expertise, and remarkable outcomes customized to your needs. ATI has over 800 clinics coast to coast in 25 states. Want to start feeling better fast? ATI can help address chronic pain or recovery from an injury or surgery expertly, quickly, and conveniently. ATI's FIRST program uses a performance-based methodology to safely return injured workers to their workplace. FIRST is designed to increase strength, endurance, and cardiovascular functioning. ATI's Sports Medicine provides athletic training services to help athletes get back in the game. ATI has hundreds of professional, collegiate, high school, middle school, and club relationships nationwide. ATI also offers a variety of specialty services including home health, hand therapy, and women's health. To learn more about ATI's advances in evidence-based practice, clinical outcomes, and their innovative new smartphone app, please visit atipt.com. Welcome to another episode of Living a Life in Full. I'm your host, Dr. Chris Stout. As you know, this is an audio magazine that takes a look at a variety of different kinds of interesting people and interesting kinds of activities. And today I'm especially happy to have Bryan Cressey on. Bryan is a partner in the health service equity firm Cressey and Company that he founded in 2008. He's responsible for acquisitions, divestitures, and oversight of portfolio companies. His particular expertise is in health care services. Since 2010, his company has invested in 13 companies worth about $2 billion. He's a member of the Dean's Advisory Board at Harvard Law School. He chairs the Harvard Law School Leadership Council of Chicago. And he's a partner of Frist Cressey Ventures. He serves on more boards than I can count, which should be no surprise, as he holds 2 postgraduate degrees from Harvard, one in law, the other in business, neither of which are easy to get in nor compete. Even though I got into U of C at Booth, we're still friends. His work and accomplishments have been recognized by Forbes and Time Magazine. He's a well-deserved member of the Chicago Business Hall of Fame, as well as a member of the Chicago Area Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame. He's a Stanley C. Golder Medal winner from the Illinois Venture Capital Association as well. And perhaps most notably, he is a recipient of the Healthcare Lifetime Achievement Award from HCPEA. He began his career at First Chicago Equity Group and next served as principal at Golder Thoma Cressey Rauner, otherwise known as GTCR, which in 2004 had raised $5.3 billion and became one of the largest private equity firms in the United States. Bryan has been recognized as a venture capital pioneer. He's also an amazing humanitarian, which we'll also do a deep dive into. So welcome, Bryan. It's great to have you on.

Thank you, Chris.

I think we got connected through Wayne Cavanaugh, and was— so a shout out to Wayne. And correct me if I'm wrong, but was he part of GTCR at the time? Is that how you two came to know each other?

He was part of it later.

Later? Okay, great, great. Well, GTCR also was one of the Early private equity firms that helped fund ATI and boost it to kind of where it's at today. So it's sort of very small world and nice to see some of these circles come together.

So I got to know Wayne through the healthcare business. He's such a terrific individual.

Oh, he is. I just love him.

We met and been excited by him and what he's doing ever since.

Yeah, he's amazing. And just also just his family life and everything else. He's just a great, great guy. So I have to ask, to just kind of go back, you put yourself through undergrad by installing and repairing conveyor belts. That's probably a little unconventional for people that are in private equity and venture capital today. And then likewise at Harvard, you worked as a building manager and a janitor. So really kind of a humble, good, hardworking spirit to start off with. And from that, I'd really kind of like to know more about your origin story. So if you could step us through your family background, You come originally from Washington, and how did you wind up in venture capital and private equity, and bring us up to today?

Sure. So I grew up in Seattle to 2 wonderful parents, and a couple of the highlights of my childhood— first, my parents were very involved in helping the poor, in giving, taking groceries to them. I have memories of that, going to families with groceries.

Mm-hmm.

And also, I had severe asthma when I was young. It's much better now, but still my friend. And I have a memory of when I was about 4 or 5 years old, looking out my bedroom window into my yard, which was right outside the window, and seeing 6 or 8 of my friends running around and playing and realizing I couldn't go out and play. And I was frustrated by that, disappointed. And I think that ever since then, that has given me more zest for life, appreciation for what I can do when I'm healthy and how much fun life can be. So I think it turned out that those difficult times actually are beneficial today.

Hear, hear.

I then decided to go to the University of Washington And I wanted to put myself through, so I worked different jobs like driving tax returns to different tax stores overnight and then sleeping in class. I remember jumping my Volkswagen off of a hill in Seattle a little bit while I was on the job. The faster you go, the more air I could get on this one street. And so I worked and I ended up taking a year off because I was playing and partying too much and my grades weren't what I wanted because I always had the vision I wanted to be able to go to any graduate school in the US that I decided to choose. And so I took a year off, worked for a conveyor belt company installing conveyor belts, driving, doing a whole variety of things, but learning the real world. I remember the other person I worked with, the office manager, was an older fellow who bemoaned that he had gotten in a rut in his life. And I learned from that. He said, I'm 64. I'm retiring. I was in my 20s when I took this job. And I planned to leave soon to do something I loved. Then I got a family. and a mortgage, and suddenly it's today and I'm retiring. I so regret, and I learned from that, and I learned never get in a rut. If you want to do something, you got to break through the current obstacles and go do it right away. So that was telling, and then I decided, because I was unsure what I wanted to do in life, I was able to apply to and get into a joint program at Harvard where you can go to the law school and the business school and get both degrees in 1 year less. I knew that was for me because I was indecisive and interested in lots of different things.

Wow.

And so I did, I did go out there and it was a terrific experience. I also wanted to pay my way through the schools and so I worked part-time being a janitor for our building, painting apartments at night, renting apartments, worked for the state of Massachusetts, which gave me great insight to how government doesn't think and plan. I was going to say at all, but at least very much. While I was there, this was in the '70s, I learned about venture capital. It was a nascent industry. Boston and San Francisco Hotbed would be the wrong word because there were probably 3 firms in each city, but it was where the industry started. And I realized finally I'd found what I wanted to do. I liked the idea of helping grow companies, helping build, and also taking some intelligent risk, investing capital that would help companies grow and where the odds were in my favor. And so, I kept after that. And when I graduated, there were no jobs available in venture capital because it was a deep recession and it was a young industry. And the people I met in Boston, I went and saw some of the venture capitalists, they thought they'd lost all their money.

Oh, wow.

In 1976, they thought they had invested and lost it. And it turned out 4 years later, 10 years later, they'd all made a lot of money. The thing that saved them is people usually criticize illiquidity. Illiquidity saved them from selling. It saved them from investing the way emotions would tell you to invest rather than logic. And so, illiquidity can be a great friend. And that was a terrific lesson. A professor introduced me to a venture capitalist in Chicago, which was with First Chicago, part of the bank institution. And I loved the people there. They seemed bright and energetic and successful. And so I agreed to join them and move to Chicago. had the opportunity of Seattle and Boston, both lovely ocean cities with mountains nearby, and I chose the flatland because of my— I was going to say love, but being enthralled with the idea of helping build companies.

That's great. That's great. So take us to the time. So you That was late '70s, early '80s? When was that?

That was 1976.

Okay. So, the economy was starting to get its feet back underneath itself at that time, or what was it like then?

A little bit. The economy in the late '70s was up and down, and stock multiples prices were low. So, we invested very, very successfully. We invested in cable television and 1978, we helped start 2 companies. Those were major successes. And— but interest rates were quite high. So, we would buy things at 5 times cash flow back then, companies that today would sell at 15 times cash flow.

Wow.

So, you have to be a lot more creative to make good returns paying 15 times cash flow than we did. paying 5 times. And it was a new industry. We didn't know everything we were doing, but we knew to get with good people and good industry niches.

Mm-hmm.

By 1980, 4 years after we'd been there, we wanted to get a piece of the upside, a share of the success. We were making tremendous profits on our investments. for First Chicago, but we got small little bonuses and in hindsight, very small salaries. I was okay with it at the time because I knew how to live like a student. But the bank wasn't able to do that for us. We left in 1980. 3 of the senior people left, including Stanley Golder, the wonderful leader, and started our own firm in 1980, which became Golder, Thoma, Okay.

And then that really sort of— was that then— did you start to branch out then into healthcare then and other kinds of things?

Yes. In 1980, in fact, I made my first healthcare investment. It was a hospital company that had 4 hospitals in dusty little towns in Texas. And I ended up backing the wrong management team. Oh, gosh. It wasn't looking good, but when we changed the management team, we were in the right place at the right time. For-profit healthcare was growing. The management company could bring efficiencies to the hospitals that bought, improve service, and save money. It was a great opportunity. So it did very well over the years. And I recognized that while we were doing just about everything, we would do venture capital leverage buyouts, a whole variety of investment types that as the industry was going to become more competitive, we needed to focus and become specialized and become very good at something to continue producing high returns. So I chose healthcare services. At the time, there was medical devices was a specialty, biotechnology was developing into a specialty, And I chose healthcare services. One is because I didn't have to be smart to do it. You had to have a PhD, I think, to do biotech and medical devices. And I could almost understand healthcare services. So I chose to specialize in that. And over the years since then, we've done a number of healthcare investments from physical therapy clinics to rehabilitation hospitals, behavioral hospitals, home nursing, hospice. A variety of services that touch patients. And so quality is crucial. And we monitor and learned how to measure quality and growing quality in our companies. Through the— into 1990s, we started to grow. And my partner and I, one of the partners and I didn't want to become huge. Some of the young Younger people wanted to build major large funds, which was terrific. I liked the more hands-on aspect of being with smaller, medium-sized growth companies, and so we spun into two firms. And ultimately, in the 2000s, we started Cressy and Company, which is healthcare only.

Gotcha.

And with the help team of healthcare people, I think the key to successfully. starting the businesses have been— number one was people. Number two was the industry niche. And 180 degrees different today than in 1980, raised our first fund. Investors like companies and pension funds would ask us, what is venture capital? We had to explain what it was.

Seriously.

Like investing in growth companies and making good returns. Once we explained what venture capital was, if they thought that sounded good, they would almost inevitably invest in us. Nowadays, everyone knows what venture capital and private equity is. And what you have to explain is why you're better than 1,000 other firms. So, it's changed 180 degrees from back then. I recall, in fact, at A quick story is that in 1980, a medical firm invested 10% of the entire pension fund in our fund, which today would be viewed as a big no-no, too much risk and concentration. We ended up making 11 times our money on that fund. So, we doubled their pension fund for them.

They're very happy with you.

They're very happy.

So it's— it works out well. Is it— is it more now that there's more propensity for VCs, you know, and whatnot? Is it— do people now have niches like, like Cressey and Company that are healthcare or that are certain kinds of entities?

Yes, much of private equity and venture investing is specialized now. There's— we still specialize and probably the only one still Investing solely in healthcare services, but there's a number of firms that do. It may have three specialties, including healthcare. They may have finance, and they may have business services. It's becoming more specialized, and I think in the future there will be very few generalists because the returns dictate who survives. In our business, you produce high returns. Or your fund goes out of business and you need to look for another job. And I might have to go be a janitor again.

You got expertise.

Yeah, I'm experienced. Work my way up again. So it's very market-driven and returns-driven. And so another way that private equity and venture firms are different than they were 35 years ago is that back then, We would invest, pat the CEO on the back and say, go make good returns and bring back the money multiplied.

Uh-huh.

In about 5 or 10 years. Nowadays, we have to help the companies grow. We look at our mid-sized companies and help them determine how they can grow, how they can improve quality, and we now have specialists on our team, a talent management person, an operating CEO who's built a major healthcare company. We have an advisory group of successful entrepreneurs that advise us. So, we bring a lot to the company and we have to help grow it better than it would have done to make returns today. So, it's changed from investing into still investing, but large part understanding operations And how to make things good things happen.

So much more hands-on rather than just farewell and good luck.

Yeah, far more hands-on. So it's changed 180 degrees, and I think a lot of industries change like that.

Yeah, I think I think you're right. The aspect too—I mean, healthcare is a very complex and always changing kind of entity, and you've been able to navigate those waters. I mean, you've you've been with it, you know, through the GTCR days to now with Cressy and. What's been some of the highlights and what's been some of the challenges in healthcare that you've seen?

The highlights have been our ability to grow great companies. There's one management team that we've done well with and invested with in 4 different companies, which was in rehabilitation hospitals, physical therapy clinics, long-term acute care. We've invested with them for Wow. And that's one of the beauties of the business. They become like family, love each other, respect each other tremendously. And so it can have a deep relationship over the long term, which is to me more rewarding than anything else. It's the relationships. Some of the hard parts are that after 5 or 10 years, we have to sell our companies and can lose a relationship with that management company if they continue growing that. And I miss that. The other hard parts are that when I was young, I thought if I made a bad investment that wasn't working, I could figure out how to fix it. I think it was probably a product of too much education and too little experience in the world. So, I found out the hard way that when you've made certain mistakes, the market isn't big enough, there's too much competition, some fundamental things, it's better to sell what you can and walk away. Didn't want to do that. And that was difficult on me in my 30s, was admitting mistakes. And yet, admitting mistakes turned out to be crucial.

Mm-hmm.

Most of what I know today did not come from business school or law school. It came from the numerous mistakes I made and learning from those. And what I've learned is when you make a mistake in your 30s, that helps in your 50s. Well, the stakes are much higher in your 50s, whether you're managing more people or investing 10 times the size of money. Learning from those mistakes is invaluable later on, and so I say mistakes have been my best teacher.

In fact, that's really that's really an excellent point. You know, the the I've heard a common phrase of fail early. You know, so that you know, and then and you really have that learning experience that then you can apply to other kinds of things.

When I'm speaking to younger people, I tell them to. 2 things. One is the world changes 180 degrees when you leave school, and you need to know this. And it changes because in school you get paid for getting 100% right, for getting A's and A pluses. When you go in the real world, I tell them, he or she who makes the most mistakes wins. It's the opposite of school. Presuming that one learns from their mistakes, The successful entrepreneurs make lots of mistakes, but ultimately it guides them to how to succeed in a business because they found everything that doesn't work and eventually they find what does work and then they run with it. If you're afraid to make a mistake after you leave school or in life, in business, in a not-for-profit organization, you will never innovate and grow and be real successful.

I think that's very true. People get so risk-averse that they become paralyzed by it for fear of making that mistake as opposed to being able to have resiliency and recover from it and get back in the game.

I can give you an example that's a little bit of a sad one, but I kept in touch with some of my law school classmates and I recall when in their late 30s I would have dinner with them and Recall conversations where they would wonder why they're not happy in their career, being a lawyer, and they bemoan or protest that all these people that aren't as smart are entrepreneurs, and they do work for them as clients, and the entrepreneurs are making millions, and they're not, and they don't think they did anything wrong. They went to school; they got A's; they got into a top graduate school. They went to the best law firm. They practiced and practiced and made partner. And yet they're dissatisfied.

Mm-hmm.

That is a great lesson for all of us to understand where your passion is, what you want to be doing. If you really want to be really rich, you should not go into legal practice because you get paid by the hour. If you really want to be something like I wanted to be in venture capital and help grow companies, well, there were no jobs. I worked hard to go find that. And I only say that not to say I was smart, but to say, go with your passion, figure it out, create your own path. In America, almost anything is doable. Such a big market. There's a need for anything you want to do. There's a great need for, but figure it out young and go start doing it so that you don't wonder when you're 40 why you're not satisfied.

Right. Well, and it just brings back your first story about the fellow that you worked with, you know, when he was getting ready to retire. I mean, it really is, you know, that kind of a thing. I want to— I'll circle back to that point too because I think some of the things that you've done in your life, sort of your extracurriculars, are just as fascinating as some of your, you know, business kinds of work. So I wanted to circle back with what you were saying also with one of the secrets to, you know, success is recruiting the talent. Like you said, historically it was maybe just you invest, you wish the CEO the best, and, you know, let them go at it. Now it's a different landscape. Now you have to bring in kind of your own in-house talent to be able to coach and to be able to do kinds of things, clean out teams and whatever. How do you go about recruiting your talent?

It's a great question and probably the most important one in any organization in life. First, I'll mention how I do it and how we do it internally, and then how we do it with our companies. Internally, I want to get the very best people, which means they're talented, and I want them to be very humble so that they— humble people succeed. Those who are arrogant fail, and I've seen that forever. Our people must be humble because unless you're humble, you won't keep learning. We are a learning organization. We innovate. We have to to stay ahead of the other thousands of competitors, and we do. And so we want to get people who are not just talented and very nice people, but who are also humble and want to learn. And then I espouse a great vision to them, one that seems difficult to attain, and those talented people who are excited by that vision are the ones that we want to recruit because We all in this company who gather around this conference room table weekly to talk, we all have a vision. And our vision is to help create the best healthcare companies in America, to help build those, and for our firm to become the best private investor in healthcare and acknowledged as the best. and be a place that's so much fun, the really talented people would love to work here and to remain humble and aspirational, to keep going farther and farther. So we want people whose dreaming ability has no limits.

Yeah.

Who can envision great things and then have enough belief in the team and each other that we're going to go accomplish them. So that not only recruits great people, but it motivates them.

That's nice.

And if someone doesn't fit that culture, they can't be on the team. So that's how we do it internally. Within our companies, we know what sort of roles are needed to grow it. You need possibly a head of sales, you need an operator, you need a CEO who has both vision But also financial understanding so that company's profitable as it grows. And then you need people in healthcare particularly who know how to collect money from insurance companies. That's not easy. No kidding. They delay, have forms to be filled out correctly. You need to protest nonpayment of bills. Really need to keep after it. And takes good people and good software. Software to do that. So we help companies identify where they're going to need stronger capabilities when we're going to triple the size of the company together, which would be our vision to do in 5 years. And so we— and we have people on staff now. Interestingly enough, the biggest single mistake we used to make in our business up until a few years ago was backing the wrong CEO, wrong company leadership. We've solved that in 3 ways. One is we brought on a talent management— I call him a guru. He has a gift. He can meet people for 30 minutes and tell you whether you want to partner with them. He can meet a team and understand in 2 hours their interactions, who doesn't like whom, who needs to go. He's amazing. And he started out, he had a great education, but he started out as a parole officer. No kidding. And he tells me, Bryan, everything I know now, I learned being a parole officer.

Really knows how to size people up.

I know when people are lying. I assume they are until proven otherwise.

That's great.

But he's the nicest guy too. That didn't harden him at all, but it made him wise. So, and then we have an in-house a talent person who helps us recruit great people to run our companies when we need someone to run them. And we also have a person who ran a $5 billion public healthcare company, who's in a variety of businesses. He is now partner here and he understands people as well.

Right.

So, we identified our biggest weakness and went after it. And the last few years, knock on wood, We haven't backed any CEOs we'd like to change now.

Wow.

So admitting weaknesses. And another lesson, when I was young, I'd say, well, I'm not very good at this. My reflexive reaction, I think many of us have this, is, oh, I got to get better. That's the wrong reaction. The right reaction is, oh, I got to get someone on the team who's a rock star at that, who does that so well I'll never be good at it, but other people are great at it. So let's get them on the team. And so the more I can find weaknesses, the more we can improve. And I've learned over the last 10 years, that's what I want to be doing. To achieve our dreams, we have to think differently and how you can improve. You can't improve unless you identify what you're not doing now.

That's great. So you really sort of create sort of an ensemble. So it's an ensemble team that has its niches, sub-niches, I guess, of their own expertise that can then be brought to bear wherever those needs are.

Absolutely. It's more like a symphony, I guess. Yeah, yeah, big cellos and the big horns, and then you got the quieter violins.

Right. And, and, but it— would you then now be the, the conductor of that then, of knowing, like, kind of your job is where this is a weakness and this is where we need to emphasize This is where we need to go soft on that.

I would be a conductor and have been the conductor, but to really grow, I need to gradually spread that aspect of it through our team too. So the leadership of this firm is far more diffuse than it used to be as young people grow up and they're great and they're more talented than I am at several things. So we're in a process of of making leadership committees and different specialty groups to talk about different issues, that creates something that can last.

So then they're empowered and that becomes synthetic to the fabric of the company, not just one individual person like you as the, you know, figurehead or something.

Absolutely. Okay. Because we are striving to build a great organization that lasts. 50 years, 100 years. The number one key to that, if— when one studies organizations that win and last, is culture.

Mm-hmm.

When I was young, I didn't ascribe much to culture, again, because I thought I could analyze and figure things out. Turns out culture is the glue and the foundation. Our culture is one of teamwork and open communication, leading with bad news, Valuing your teammates, living a balanced life. So it isn't the number of hours we put in, it's what we get done that matters.

Mm-hmm.

And it's not based on hours effort. Want our team to be with their families and when need be, be other places. So it's a special culture and everyone's sharing that culture and then deepening that and then solidifying that around the firm. Only then can a company last for decades after the founder is no longer active. He may be skiing or out playing tennis or something fun, right? But when the founder's not there, that company will continue to win and become even greater.

So it's not the cult of personality of the founder. It's not, you know, you avoid the corrosiveness that can be in a culture that can Absolutely. I really applaud you for that. I know those are not easy kinds of things to come by, especially, you know, during the aspects of growth and being able to cultivate that. But, you know, because I know you personally, I feel like you probably are also a very good role model of that, of kind of walking the talk. You know, I think there's some— I've seen more so from a distance of, and read about them in You know, in publications of, you know, people sort of have the corporate speak, but then in reality, you know, the company acts very differently than how the CEO acts, so to speak. And you've probably seen that in companies.

Absolutely.

And those were the companies that the CEO, you know, really didn't stick around for very long.

People pay attention to what you do and how you live your life. They don't pay attention to your words only. And only if your actions are consistent do they remember your words or Give them any credit at all.

Hear, hear. What kinds of things, I think you've kind of hit some of the questions I had about what's been helpful and least helpful, and you have a very, I think, humble approach. You talk about that, but I think you also live that in terms of being open and being able to learn from experiences, learn from mistakes and things. But do you all have, like, And maybe it varies by virtue of who you've invested in, but are there certain kinds of key performance metrics, or how do you dashboard— you know, you've talked about culture, but how do you then take a look at the quantified kinds of things or performance maybe in the investments that you make?

Sure. We are measured by the returns we produce to our investors. We have pension funds, so they can be retired police and teachers. We have corporations, families, a whole variety— insurance companies, a whole variety of people that invest for the long term and need good returns. Our— in our industry, returns have been higher for 40 years than the stock market has produced and bonds, et cetera. The reason for that is, however, that creates a difficult high hurdle to surpass. The reason for that is that nowadays venture capitalists are helping companies invent and grow new things. Private equity firms are improving the operations management companies. So it's not trading pieces of paper like stocks. It's helping build a better company with better quality and lower costs. Mm-hmm. And so the hurdle rates tend to be high. Our objective is to produce returns on the investments that we make of 25% compounded and return after expenses and different things to our limiteds about 18% compounded per year over the years. So it's a very high hurdle compared to other returns. We do that. But we only do that because we innovate and get better and better and better. And in fact, we've been counter to the trend with more competition and cheap money and lots of liquidity. As we all know, rates on bonds and returns are going down everywhere. Our returns have increased over the last 10 years.

Wow.

But it's only because we're getting better and better at what we do, and we only do that by criticizing ourselves and figuring out where we can be criticized or ought to be. So it's high hurdles, and that's why firms disappear in our business. We'll keep going and going because we have the greatest team that I can imagine, and we have a big vision that we're after. I think those are great lessons.

I mean, I'm taking notes. These are very good things. I'm going to put on my little mercenary hat now. So if I wanted to get involved in private equity, what would your recommendations be for someone that looks to that as being a potential possibility for a career path?

If someone wants to get into private equity, almost mandatory to go get a graduate degree, probably an MBA, then need to work for a summer with a private equity firm and show some skill at analyzing companies, doing the analytics, being good with people. In every business, in every position in life, didn't realize when I was young, you've got to be selling yourself or your mission or your company's mission. You've got to be outgoing, friendly with people, engaging. And so, if you have that persona, you can then join a private equity firm. And whether you're joining a private equity firm or another one, I know what I did. And it's just what I wanted to do. I always try to find a better way to do the things the firm is doing.

Hmm.

From when I joined, I created some ideas to do things differently. And it turned out they were good.

Nice. So adding value.

Adding value because anyone joining a job, any firm they join, they get taught you do this with this, you do this process with this piece of paper. Well, I'll guarantee you that's not the optimal way to do it. Every young person has the opportunity to recreate how processes are done, what is done, what is wasted time. And once you start seeing that, just announce it. That's how you become successful.

That's excellent. So, um, and I could see those kinds of things maybe from your, you know, the other kinds of things that you had back when you were working your way through undergrad and graduate school. So from those, and maybe you've already answered this question, but would there be anything else you would say about experiences that have prepared you for where you're at today? You've talked about mistakes, you've, you've You know, you've been in the, you know, in the bunkers and, you know, rolled up your sleeves and done work, but anything else that has helped bring you to where you're at today?

2 things in particular I learned in grad school. One was because I was so busy, I had to learn to prioritize because I was going to spend far less time on school than the other students. And I learned the importance of prioritizing. So, for law school cases, I'd read through them, figure out which ones are important, what was the key lesson, what's a professor going to want to know that I know, etc., etc. Same thing at business school. I learned, and this is important, that helped serve me so well in life. So, I don't do most of the things that people might usually do. I figure out top 3 Priorities. I get those done. I do those well. The ones that are going to win, and too many people in life try to do twenty different things and don't cull out those that are not needed, or they're needed but really not because they're not important. So learning to prioritize when I was in school and then in business to focus on the key determinants of a company's success, not the thousand things you could look at. What are the 3 things that are going to determine success? Then how do you make those work? It's usually getting the right person or it's doing the right analysis and figuring out, but prioritization has been the key to my success. Another helpful thing I learned, probably not so much grad school, but early in my life is when I hear someone across the table that says something I don't agree with or they Or negotiating, take a position that I don't buy, I've learned to not just to say they're stupid, they don't get it. I've learned saying, wow, what if they're really smart? What set of facts would make them right and suggest that they're seeing things correctly? And then I construct— What could those things be? And then I look to see, are those facts true? And many times I get great insight to why that person is thinking that, because I learn, ah, here's what they see. And I realize I didn't see that, and I would never have seen it if I didn't start with the assumption, what if they're really smart and they're right?

Wow.

That has been a great lesson that's helped me learn To what other people are doing and how to succeed, to understand situations and to help throw off my biases that we all carry around with us.

That's very good. Yeah, because if you just sort of pigeonhole that person and say, well, they're a lamebrain about this or that, then everything they're going to say subsequent to that is going to be seen tainted versus—

Exactly.

They are a smart person. Here they are. We're having this conversation. I really like that.

Exactly. And just as an aside, this lowers stress in life. I've also learned that more than half of the things that happen that I didn't want to happen and I view as bad, I now say to myself, wow, that's good news. I'll wait to see why. Many of the things that happen that we didn't want are redirecting our direction, redirecting how we spend our time, redirecting us away from things that are just not going to ever work. And it may take a day, a month, or years, but over and over I see what I wanted was not right for me. And so I don't worry about it. I just realize, well, that's good news. We'll wait and see why.

I love that. That's great.

And it so often is. It's amazing.

That is good.

And it helps again to understand life a whole lot differently, that we are being guided to what's best for us. We need to quit resisting.

That's good. I mean, that's a very therapeutic kind of way to look at things too. And I forget who it was, if it was someone with another VC firm or a hedge fund, but someone had talked about when there's the things that occur in a market and all the experts, quote unquote, and pundits, and say, you know, well, we can't understand why this is, or we can't understand why that is. And the fact that it is sort of says that there's a variety of factors and variables that you have no visibility to, that you don't have any understanding to. Otherwise, you would have seen this coming and you would now understand it today that it's happened. Exactly. And it's not just black swan kinds of things, rare events, but, you know, just the kinds of things that impact markets day in, day out, I think.

Exactly. For instance, after the Great Recession in 2011, I was initially expecting inflation because of the money that was being printed and higher interest rates. And after about a year, I had that same thought, interest rates are not rising. So, there's a reason. What is it? And part of what I found was what I call the deflation of aging. more baby boomers were growing old and retiring. They spend far less. Peak spending years around 48 years old. And you can almost track the stock market if you do a graph of peaking 48-year-olds, how many there are, and the stock market. It's very predictive. It predicted—

Wow.

The peak around '05 before the— and so I realized, wow, so spending is dropping. So there's less demand in the economy. Just like happened in Japan, that became my role model to look at. And I realized, wow, rates could stay low for a long, long time. And absolutely, they have. But it's only looking at it and saying, I must be wrong. What's going on here?

Right.

So, that's a great—

As opposed to the market's catching up with me.

Yeah. No, no.

So, speaking of that, what kinds of things do you see as risks? Either in your space or for Cressey and Company? And how do you deal with that? How do you mitigate those, whatever risks you do see?

One of the key things we do in investing is identifying potential risks, especially in healthcare where it's heavily regulated. There's all sorts of professional care equipment, things can go wrong, things can be misread. We look hard at risks, trying to identify the main ones. We do have to let go of the ones that are 3% likely to happen, 7%. We do have to focus on, again, prioritize, find the one or two that could potentially— is there one that could take a company down? If there's an exogenous risk that could take a company down, like a change in regulation that might actually happen, and there's nothing we could do to run the company better, it's just over, we don't invest in those companies. Companies that have a single customer or primarily one customer, that customer goes away, that doesn't matter how well you run that company, it's over. Exactly. And so we look, we really spend a lot of time, what are the risks, and then trying to talk to a lot of smart people, not a priori think about it like Descartes, but go in there and find out what's really going on What is the actual risk? And then we decide whether or not to take the level of risk, but we also compare to that, what's the upside here? If it's got greater upside, of course, we'll accept a bit more risk. Doesn't have much upside beyond what we expect, we can't take much risk. So it's a very important area of this and of life as well when you think about your life.

That's very true. Yeah, I continue to see lots of these parallels in And blending with you, which I just, I love. So I want to take a little bit of a shift, still talking about career, maybe a little less about private equity in the business, but what do you consider some of the major milestones in your career?

Well, I've had several milestones. Excuse me. One of them is an odd one, but it seems like a milestone and still does. When I was a kid, I liked the idea of pitching baseball and I was 10 years old. friend gave me a magazine, a family friend, about baseball. And I read an article on how to throw a curveball. There was no internet then, so I had to read this. And I went outside and tried and tried to learn how to throw a major league curveball. Eventually, I was able to make the ball spin and then eventually to break pretty sharply.

Ah.

And I started using that in Little League. which I was in, and I was throwing no-hitters and became really exceptional. And what I learned from that was not that I could become a great pitcher because I— that actually wrecked my elbow by the time I was mid-teenage years throwing a curve too young.

I can imagine, yeah, practicing a lot.

But what I did learn is, wow, I can create a dream of doing something really well learn about it, read about it, and then figure out and work hard how to do something that's innovative. And innovation wins. And that was a terrific lesson for me at age 10 or 11 on innovation and how it can win. And it takes perseverance and hard work. That was a milestone for me. I think getting admitted to the 2 grad schools at Harvard was a milestone. Because I was a kid from Seattle, I'd never been out east. I had no idea—

Really impressive.

If when I went to first few days of school, if the other kids are gonna be way, way smarter than I was. It turned out I was lucky they weren't. But once I figured that out, I knew I could work and play as well, which I— because I believe in a balanced life. I do believe in working, playing, and helping others. And then I think starting our first company, Golder, Thoma, Cressey, Rauner. Another one was the first investment where I made 100 times our money. That was a milestone for me.

Wow.

And I haven't done that since. It's not easy to do.

That does seem like a fairly hard and rare kind of event.

But it was just a company that grew and grew and grew, had great management, and we held it 14 years is one reason. We— but we did get in 3 years, we got 8 times our money back and then just kept going and got another 92. So I learned, don't sell your winners. If a company can grow and grow, the management's good, the market continues to be good, you're creating a lot of value. Just keep going. Don't try and cash in and brag that you made 3 times your money, but keep going and going. Long-term wins.

That's good.

And good news is about investing, As I get older, time flies, so people think I'm patient. I thought it was 2 years. It might have been 10 years. And then starting Cressey& Company in 2008 was another milestone because that finally allowed me and our team to create exactly the culture we wanted. Most of private equity are individual stars doing good deals and getting rewarded. We share the rewards around here evenly. It's a totally different culture. And we take— we don't take individual blame for doing a bad deal, nor do we take credit for doing a good deal. It's all the team, the teams involved. And if something— if one, one of our companies drives into the ditch, we're all got to push it out of the ditch together, all of us. And so starting Cressey and Company And being able to build companies in the way I believed would be ideal was— and we have a great reputation for being honest and doing what we say we're going to do. Key point in life that I've learned, we have a great reputation. I don't think I've done anything special, but the one thing I guess I've done is over the years, every time I say I'm going to do something, like I'm going to send you that email, I'm going to look that up for you. I make sure I do it. I have to. And if I don't know I'm going to be able to, I say I'll try. If I tell myself in the afternoon I'm going to work out tonight, I ask myself, am I going to or maybe? And if I say to myself I'm going to, I have to keep that commitment to myself. I try to keep every commitment to everybody that I make. And I think that leads to a great reputation. I don't think you have to do too much more than that.

That's good. Well, you know, it's sort of I think it, you know, again, it speaks to kind of who you are. You, as you were saying that, I just sort of picture that, that maybe there's more because I have a very naive view of the work that you do, but the components of if someone comes to you vis-à-vis needing funding to, you know, grow or to, you know, get to their next level, your reputation will hold that and you'll be one of the top contenders. To to to gain that, to to win that. When the pension funds, etc., come to look for performance, they come to you to see that. And when you recruit for the deep bench that you have of great talent, they come to you because of that. So it's sort of like those are really kind of three key aspects that you need to have. If you don't have good opportunities to be able to make those investments in, or people you know can choose. you know, in a sense, you know, there's some choice probably oftentimes, but the fact that they choose Cressey& Company, I think all those things speak to the ethos of what Cressey& Company, you know, speaks to, of recruiting and retaining their own— your own staff, of being attractive to investors and being attractive to companies that, you know, seek to get your support.

No, I think you're right, and the thing I would add that I think really attracts people, whether it's investors or new teammates is a great vision, an exciting vision, a vision they don't think other firms are going to accomplish. And I describe it as being on a journey together. We're on a journey to create the best, to discover, to build great companies in a way no one else will do. Do you want to be on that journey? And do you want to be part of that? I think that vision that people get, it lights them up and they get excited and they can accomplish more with their life and feel better about it, more enthused than they ever would otherwise if they got a, quote, job.

Right, right, exactly. I think that's, I think that's so true. So I have to ask, you have such a full life. You've talked about, you know, balance, you know, from graduate school days to today. How did you manage being with, you know, Starting up, so to speak, with the private equity venture capital world that you've been in and also manage a family? I mean, you've been married for a number of years, you have 3 daughters, right? So how did— how do you— what's your secret sauce for being able to manage a work-life balance that's been successful?

It comes back to 2 things. One is prioritization. I only do the highest priorities in my life. With children, I never believed in quality time. I believed in quantity. You got to be with them, I think. And so I gave up golf. I never worked all that hard because I got the job done, but I did— I had the vision to see where we should go and what needed done, and I would do those things, and it works.

Mm-hmm.

So I'd encourage everyone to get balance in your life. I also like to play, and I like to have fun too. And you can do all those things if you prioritize. The other part of that was not getting in a rut, as I described. If you stay out of ruts in your life, you'll be enthused by what you're doing. And if you're enthused, you'll get your work done way faster. You'll see the priorities because you understand what you're doing and you love it. But, well, I think enthusiasm for what you do during the day Creates enthusiasm for your family, for your fun, for your entire life. And so balance. I've always, since I was in grad school, I knew I'm not going to study as hard as everyone else. I'm going to get really good grades without studying very hard. That was my— and I figured out how to do it.

And you did.

Yeah.

So do you have, um, do you have like a typical week? Can you step us through what it's like to walk a week in your shoes?

Yeah, every week, of course, I would say is different, but in general, I will travel a couple days a week. One might be to visit a healthcare company we haven't met before, and to me, it's like a detective novel full of mystery. What are the clues? What's really going on here? Here's what they tell you, but what's really happening? And figuring— so I love the mystery of every company that we meet. And then, of course, selling them on why would we be a good fit, not just listening, but also— and selling isn't confusing or trying to mislead. Selling is trying to connect where you have mutual interest, finding those and explaining and then creating a picture of how— What you bring can really help them. That's that's true selling. So do that. Then we'll have a board meeting and a board meeting dinner for our companies. That's getting to know the management team better, and then at the meeting trying to understand what's going well and what's going poorly. Getting management to talk about where they need help from the board, whether it's ideas. whether it's connections with people other directors know, that sort of thing.

Mm-hmm.

I also spend part of my time at a place I started that provides addiction treatment to the poor called Above and Beyond. I'll spend a few hours there brainstorming on how we're going to get better and better at how we serve and the lives we change there. I also started a few years ago a new venture capital company with my partner, Senator Bill Frist, who's also a heart-lung transplant surgeon, a very talented and wonderful person, because he and I both wanted to invest in earlier-stage companies. So we put our personal money into this.

Mm-hmm.

Cressey and Company does companies that are already successful but can grow a lot better. The answers to where healthcare is going lie in small companies.

Right.

And the solutions lie in small companies. So we started that a couple of years ago to invest in smaller companies. And I spend a bit of time listening to ideas, talking to people, giving my judgment on whether we should spend any time on that or not. And then in a couple of weeks, we have an annual meeting, going to meet all the companies and one setting, having dinner together and trying to motivate them because part of getting companies to succeed is letting them know what I've learned is the world is malleable for you. You can create the world you want. You can actually make it happen by dreaming big and then getting good people and going for it. You can do it. Just motivating them to realize they can reach their dream. And then I spend a day in the office here perhaps interviewing future employees, talking to my teammates, sharing ideas, asking about different companies that they spend time with, what's going on there. And that's probably actually 2 days a week here doing that. So I spent— and then on the weekend, I'm spending some time on some healthcare, some medical research that I'm working on. with another, with a physician, which we hope we have a couple breakthrough ideas which are going to help a whole lot of people. So, that's another passion.

Fantastic.

Innovating there too, because if there's a way to help millions of people improve their health, want to get that proven and out there. So, there's, and you were sort of implying how can I get so many different things done. Great people and delegate to them. When I have a great idea, like for Frist Cressey Ventures, we got a terrific partner, younger person who's running it for us and does all the legwork. Brilliant person, very likable. But Bill Frist and I only spend maybe a couple hours a week on this. That person spends probably 80 hours a week on this.

Perfect.

And so, for every venture, that I get going that's meritorious and going to work well, get great people and delegate to them and then come up with another idea.

That's good. That's good. Set them loose. So you mentioned— I want to do a dive into this because I had the opportunity at your kind invitation to go visit Above and Beyond. And I just thought that was just an amazing humanitarian effort. Can you tell us a little bit more about its genesis and what it does and who it serves?

Sure. Above and Beyond is a not-for-profit addiction treatment center I formed, and the genesis of it was in my extended family there was some addiction, and I had quite a bit of exposure to it, and I visited during family week different treatment centers in the US, including very expensive ones. And I was dismayed at the lack of care. I thought that the real care that was given to the people, training, therapy, etc., might be an hour or 2 a day. And they sit around, they go to town, do different things the rest of the day. But I was shocked and, and I felt bad for people walking in to those centers thinking, oh, being motivated, I want to get rid of this addiction. It's not who I am. And I was sadly thinking of how little real care they would get.

Yeah.

And also I noticed that care is solely what was done yesterday and what was done in 1940. It's one niche of our economy, our world that hasn't changed in the US. It's different in the rest of the world, but it hadn't changed here. And it doesn't work for most people. AA is a great program, but it only works for about 10% of the people who enter it, and most drop out within weeks or a year. So I recognize 2 things. One is addiction treatment in the U.S. could be improved vastly, I believe, through innovation, finding evidence-based treatments that work, that may be different than what's done done today elsewhere. And so we started doing that and bringing that new knowledge to Above and Beyond and have created a program that's quite different than anything in America. And so the vision is twofold for Above and Beyond. One is to develop the very best treatment in America, the most effective treatment, the most loving, caring treatment in America, and then to provide that very best care not to those who will pay the most for it, to those who can pay the least for it, the poor and the homeless who never get treatment. They'll never get downtown Chicago. This is in the neighborhood. They'll never get downtown to get good treatment. They won't have access to it. So we're continuing to bring the best care. We built or we renovated a space on the west side of Chicago in a poor neighborhood. Where?

Right.

Where the homeless, the poor can walk in and get no appointment, get treated, get started right away. We have about 300 people in the program now, probably 500 graduates. And we also took a realistic look. I thought about how do we transform these lives, not a 3-month statistic that they're sober for 90 days. Forever, and the answer had to be of course they had to get housing. So we have a person working on getting housing for the homeless, and we do that. They had to get jobs if they can work in the right ages, and so we help them write resumes, get trained, and get jobs. And my vision is that three years out, if a person is reunited with their family. has a job and housing, their life is good. They're not going to go back.

Yeah.

So that's our measurement, is not short-term success. It's permanently transforming lives. Now, we won't transform a big percentage of the homeless and poor. Their circumstances and backgrounds can be very, very difficult. But the ones we do save, we celebrate and value so highly. Because I recognize each person on the street, the homeless, are as important to God, to the universe, as I am. They're very important people, and they're not getting a fair shake, so we're starting to give them one.

That's so wonderful, and I mean, I can attest too that the visit that I had there was so amazing, you know, and I grew up in behavioral healthcare and can And, you know, second to your point about a lot of expensive places have very poor outcomes and high recidivism rates and things, and I think part of it is that disconnect between looking at the person as a holistic individual that has family, that has— wants to have self-respect, that may have, you know, issues with housing and employment. It's hard to apply for a job when you don't have an address, you know, kind of thing.

Right.

So taking a look at it in that kind of way. And getting rid of the access barriers. And also, I want to say, when I went out on that visit, the space was fantastic.

Yeah.

I mean, I've, you know, done work with the places I shouldn't say, but which I won't, but, you know, where it's sort of like, you know, thirdhand furniture, the environment is, you know, not conducive for anything that seems like there's any bit of self-respect for the provider, let alone the client. So, you know, yours, your space really pushes back at that. It's a very comfortable, welcoming, people are engaged, people, when I would walk through there, everyone was chatting with you and everyone was chatting with each other. It was just a wonderful experience. And then to see the backbone of that done with evidence-based practice kinds of approaches to care and not holding just some sort of orthodoxy of, well, this is the way it's always been done, so that's the way it always should be done. is groundbreaking. So I applaud you, and I love the name too.

Thank you.

Yeah, the Above and Beyond.

Thank you. Well, in terms of how it looks, that was important. We thought through the person's journey from meeting us to the 3-year point and being successful with their life. The very beginning, walking in the door, I didn't think it should look institutional nor medical. And so we made it like a beautiful home with plush new couches. And because not just so they'd feel comfortable, I wanted them to feel the first twinge of pride they might have felt in years.

Yeah.

Pride that they belong at a place that's this nice. Want them to start that pride going, and they do. And we tell them, when they're halfway through, they become members of Above and Beyond. When they graduate, they're lifetime members and come back for classes or to visit or talk anytime. It's like we want it to be their country club they're proud to belong to. So restoring their pride, their self-worth is so important. We wanted to hit it when they opened the door, and that's why you saw what you saw.

I think you've done it. And I applaud you for that. So last few, couple of questions. You know, sort of besides our overlapping circles, our Venn diagrams of Wayne Cavanaugh and Harvard and Chicago Barrington, things like that, you're also vegan, right?

Mm-hmm.

Likewise. So tell us, how did that come about?

This is interesting. I became vegan about 20 years ago when my 3 daughters were at the same time Teenagers, and they had the crazy hormones that teenagers get.

Yeah.

So they didn't always behave rationally the way I defined it. And I realized it was really hard to have good substantive deep conversations with them because they had different values than I did, they spoke a different language than I did, and their mission was way different than mine was. So I thought, well, maybe if 3 of the— 3 were vegetarian and 1 or 2 were vegan at the time. I thought maybe if I become vegan, I can connect with them more easily because I will become part of their world and they would really respect it because they don't expect a parent to join them in being vegan. And so I did it.

Wow.

And I decided to go all the way to vegan over the year. And it did help. It helped communication with my girls. They thought, well, Dad is kind of on the team. Well, we can talk more.

I love that.

It's just naturally we talked more easily about things after that. And I learned over the years, wow, this is healthier. I read about it. For me, it was definitely healthier for the animals that don't get killed. And so I stayed vegan and will stay vegan. So it's been It's been 20 years. After a year, my taste buds changed. I used to not be so high on vegetables.

That's tough.

After a year, my taste buds changed, so now I love vegetables. So I was glad that my body adapted, and it's quite easy to do, and I think it keeps me healthier today.

You look amazingly fit, and I understand too you're quite the winter sportsman.

Oh, yeah.

So what— tell us about that.

Oh, I love I have a ranch in Steamboat that we go to, and it's a large ranch near a ski area. So I downhill ski, I cross-country. I like the speed of downhill skiing. I like to go fast.

It goes back to those days in the Volkswagen.

It does, jumping the hill in the Volkswagen. I like going fast. I also like cross-country skiing in the trees and for the beauty and reconnecting with nature and God. It's a wonderful feeling. But we have some excitement at the ranch too. There's some steep hills. So we build a run for tubing. You can get in a tube, you go down to the bottom. When you're going fast, there's a jump. And so you go up in the air, you land, all your hat, your gloves, everything comes off. But it's in about 2 feet of snow. So it doesn't hurt. It's just a great wild experience.

I love that. That's great.

We also snowshoe. And I've done some snowboarding. The last time I snowboarded, I counted how many times I fell. In 2 and a half hours, it was 74 times. That's when I decided I was not going to become good at this sport. So I hung up my snowboard. No, you didn't dream of Shrewu, huh?

No. No Shaun White.

I couldn't join the kids in that way.

So in wrapping up too, it's like you have such a rich, full life. do so many different kinds of things and do them all quite so well. But in addition to this, you're also a novelist and you're also an actor. So tell us about that.

I love writing. I've written poetry and I've written a book called Endgame. I wrote the type of book I wanted to read, one that's fascinating, multiple plots going on at the same time. It moves quickly.

Wow.

And so you never want to stop reading. And my friends tell me I did that really well. They love it. I've not worked to get it published. My dream is, my vision is to see it become a movie someday. It's a perfect, fast-moving, surprising ending movie that would apply to what may happen to our society as well.

Okay.

With a bit of a surprise. So My vision is someday that will be a movie.

I'll— we'll backchannel. I have a friend who might be able to help with the screenplay aspect of that.

Well, that would be necessary. Let's— we can partner right here. We'll shake hands.

All right, it's a deal.

We just shook hands for those of you who are only listening.

It is committed.

And I like writing poetry because I think it can bring out deep inner feelings, thoughts, emotions about life, and I think it helps me bring that out. And when others read it, I think it helps them go there too. It's a place we need to go to refresh ourselves and to understand ourselves, I believe.

That's great.

And so I think poetry writing, that has helped me both understand and refresh.

That's fantastic.

And acting? Yes, we had a local playgroup that we acted And in— was this in Barrington? In Barrington. And we actually, we do 5 plays a year and they have Academy Awards at the end. And I love acting. I know it's helped my career because I'm more comfortable speaking, being in front of a group. It helps in many ways. And it's been great, great fun to try and convince people of a different reality. is another way to grow, it's another challenge, and it's another way to get comfortable speaking to groups.

I would just be so terrified. Well, last couple of questions. Thank you. I just, I could spend all afternoon with you. We'll have to have a second round. But so full disclosure, full transparency, my daughter is in the Honors Business program and is in her undergrad, and she's specializing now in finance. And I'm just curious, what advice would you have for her or her classmates, for the class of 2020?

Well, 2020, one thing I know is they know a whole lot more about social media and online than I do.

She fixes all my stuff.

So I will give, I will give no technical advice.

All right, fair enough.

But I do have 5 things I'd recommend. First, do not follow the paths that most of your compatriots take. Do not do what's expected of you. Do not go where you're expected to go. Figure out what you love, and it may be interning in different organizations or companies, but figure out what you love and then work hard to get with a great firm that's in that business or activity. Once you get to that firm, and there's jobs out there, you just got to work hard to get what you want, but it's there. Don't— I mean, for a few months you have to kind of do what they tell you to do, but then start looking at what they're having you do. Which parts of that are smart? Which are a waste? Which are inefficient and could be done way better, way more effectively? You will see things. If you ask those questions when you're new to a job, you will see those things. A 22-year-old can spot things because recognize the world as it is today is going to look backwards in 50 years. It's going to look ancient in 50 years and things will be done so much better. So be part of those steps forward because they're going to happen. And if you point out some of those changes, some of those steps, opportunities, you will be very successful. You will be given more opportunity, responsibility by the firm or the organization you're working with, and you will go up and up and up. And then take that learning of innovation into your life because you can create the life you want. The way I would put it, kind of not just for life, but what I described about working for a company, remember this: everything can be improved, period.

Hmm.

Everything can be improved, whether it's your personal life, whether it's work, the way things are being done. Once you come at everything with everything can be improved as your understanding or your model, and knowing that what's done is not ideal, You can change the world for the better, and that will become infectious. You will love changing the world for better wherever you go. That opportunity is crying out for someone to take it, and why not make that yourself?

Wow, that's fantastic. So I guess maybe my next to last question, what do you— you have a very visionary aspect and tone to like really everything that that you do, and it seems like that again has really been part of your ethos and the person that you are. What do you envision as your legacy?

I don't know what my legacy will be. I think others have to decide that. What I view, you might think, oh, these are legacy years, you're doing a lot, you can do a lot. My mission is to change the world for the better in every significant way I can and to find more ways I can improve it over the next 30 or 50 years I have healthy. That's my mission. That's what I'm going to do. And others can figure out what was my legacy. I can't predict it because I will tell you, I know my greatest accomplishments are in front of me. Even though most people would ask, aren't you thinking of retiring? The answer is no, because I'm getting more and more understanding of the power we each have and the influence we can have on the world for good and on our lives.

So I, I love your energy. I mean, you are certainly a testament to that. You, you walk the talk. And the, the aspect of, you know, I, I just look forward to I'm sitting back and watching what comes next, Bryan. So this has been fantastic. Just in closing, if people want to learn more about you, learn more about Cressey and Company, what are best ways to track? We'll put all these kinds of things in the show notes.

Well, certainly Cressey and Company is online. Frist Cressey Ventures is online. But I would say especially The individuals who are out there who have a question or want to talk, call me.

Be careful, your phones may be lighting up.

I'm fine with that because you know what, when I give some advice or listen to someone, I also learn. It's a learning experience for me and I enjoy helping others. You are such a generous person. I've had young people I've mentored in their careers for a number of years now and I enjoy doing it. And I also learn. So give me a call.

All right, excellent. Well, thank you again, Bryan. We'll wrap it up on that note. So thank you so much, and I'll look forward to watching what comes next.

Thank you so much, Chris. This has been a pleasure. You're always a pleasure to be with, and thanks for organizing this.

You bet. You're very kind. Bye-bye. Living a Life in Full is a production of Stout Media, a subsidiary of Gordian Knott. Assistant producer, Gracie Wong. Music, Dan O'Brien. Post-production, Sam Rood. Graphics, Larry Newberry. Executive producer and host, Dr. Chris Stout. To learn more, stop by our website, alifeinfull.org, for show notes. And please recommend us to your friends and leave us a review on iTunes. Thanks.