The Power of Community, Mentorship, and Just Getting Started with Rob Pekarek

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Welcome to the Turtle on a Fence Post podcast, where we talk about leadership, business, and lessons learned, but more importantly, how successful leaders got to where they are. Because if you ever see a turtle on a fence post, you know it didn't get there by itself. It's the same for successful individuals. No one got to where they are on their own. We've all learned good and bad lessons from those leaders we've either worked with or for. And my hope is to provide a little bit of knowledge and insight through this podcast to empower the next group of leaders to do it a little easier and a little bit better than those you hear today, because you are never alone. And none of us got to where we are without the imprint from others. And we absolutely cannot achieve all that we are called to without leaning on and learning from those around us. So make sure you're learning from the right people for you. Thanks for taking this journey with us.

Hey, everybody.

Welcome to the Turtle on Offense post podcast. Today we have Rob Picarek joining us, and so we're grateful for Rob jumping on here and having a conversation with us today. So, Rob, welcome.

Thank you so much for having me, Richard. It's super exciting to be the first podcast guest, this new podcast. I'm super excited to get the chance to talk with you a little bit.

Yeah, I mean, this is kind of, really kind of been a passion project for me and something I've always kind of wanted to start, especially the last couple of years, and have finally now kind of gotten the bandwidth and the time and everything in place to do it. So I'm glad that you kind of pushed me into doing it, saying, hey, I'll be a guest. Like, I'm just gonna schedule some time on your calendar, and we're just gonna do this thing. And so it really kind of made me jump two feet in. And so I'm grateful for you for that. So hopefully there's a podcast that people can get something out of, and, you know, we can all kind of go on this journey of business and entrepreneurship and leadership together. So with it. So we'll just. We'll jump right into it and kind of see where it goes. So first, kind of, who has been the most influential leader in your life, and what did they teach you?

So when I was thinking about this question, I was trying to think, because I feel like I learned everything from a bunch of influential leaders. But if I have to go all the way back to my childhood, I would say my dad. So he has spent a lot of time as a software engineer. But then, even while we were children growing up, he spent a lot of time volunteering with our church and purposefully going out of his way to help other people and also spending lot of time investing into me and my siblings as children. And what I learned from him was being super genuine to other people and always trying to help other people out. And then also just not to be selfish and just try to give from yourself to the community, and that will ultimately find its way back to you. And so I have an example of this. So, as I said, my dad's a software developer, and he was, you know, I was nearing the end of high school, and he had a little bit of extra time. And what he decided to do was to go back to school to get a master's degree in counseling so that he could help out at our church with, like, counseling victims of, like, trauma and domestic abuse. And so that has absolutely nothing to do with his career at all. And he sacrificed for a couple of years, you know, going to night classes and stuff, to gain the skills to be able to show up emotionally for those people in our community who he's able to help.

That's all. So what. What kind of, like, how have you seen that kind of play out in your life or in some of the things that you've tried to do in your career?

So I'm generally, when I'm talking with people and interacting with people, I'm trying to help them out with whatever their goal is. So a lot of my friends and I, we have, like, weekly scheduled calls or monthly scheduled calls where we check in and we see how the other person's doing. I have a good buddy, Cam, who's working on a healthcare tech startup. So I check up with him probably once every couple of weeks, and I ask him about how his business is going, and I try to connect him with other people who can help him accomplish his goals. And that's a big thing that I love doing, is I love talking to a bunch of different really smart people who are also interested in making the world a better place and trying to connect them together so that we all can grow and learn together.

Well, that's awesome.

That's.

That's a really cool story. And you know something that I think you. You are a really great example of, right? Because you're so, like, you just in the relationship that we've had, and as we've kind of gotten to know each other and personal and business, you're so good about asking, okay, how can I help you? What value can I add to you? It's, you know, you're very selfless in that and trying to figure out how you can be, you know, really kind of a force multiplier if you want to take it back to military terms. Right. I could be a force multiplier for the people that you interact with and from a really genuine place and really not trying to get anything else out of it other than just learning and helping and being that kind of example for others. So I think you're doing a great job, you know, kind of living. Living that piece out. So I appreciate it.

Yeah, I actually have a. I actually have one more. This is my best friend. We're still best friends. His name's Jared, Jared Richard. And he went straight into investment banking right after graduating from college, was doing that, made his way up to associate, was making, you know, close to $200,000 a year. And then we. We brainstorm when we meet up every couple months or so. And he basically said, this job, though, I'm making a lot of money isn't fully fulfilling me. And so, like, how do I actually achieve my life purpose and make my life better? And he realized his purpose is to basically be like, a mentor for others and to help others. He's Catholic. And so then he ended up dropping his job in investment banking and moving to go be a focus missionary, like a missionary for the Catholic Church. And he's doing that. He's been doing that for the past year or so. And so being able to interact with people who are working towards some goal that's even bigger than, you know, financial freedom or whatever else is a really big influence on me, because I realized it's not all about the money. It's about who you can help and how you can make people's lives better.

Yeah, that's. That's awesome. You know, and, you know, as you. As you've been doing this and having these meetings with everybody, right, you still got an Air Force career, kind of, and you've been getting into investments in real estate and just a lot of different spaces, really. And so kind of in that vein, one kind of two. Two questions, really. So what are. What prompted you to kind of start expanding outside beyond the Air Force career? You know, I know you have the Naval Academy flag back there. We won't hold that against you, but at least you are in the Air Force. But then what was somebody or a leader that you've had in the Air Force, good or bad, that you learned something from or was a pivotal moment that Kind of helped you get to that next level or. Or realize what you wanted to be as a leader at that next level.

Okay, so I'm actually going to take a leader. And he's another friend of mine who's I. So I have been very focused on financial independence for many years. And I did all the normal things, you know, maxing my 401k, maxing my Roth IRA, all of this stuff over the course of the years after I graduated from the Naval Academy. Best service academy out there, some would say. And then I was kind of worried about, like, what's the next step? Like, I've already done all of this to set myself up for my future. And I have a friend, his name is Matt Lewis. He's another Naval academy class of 21 guy. And he started, like, this investment club called the Junior Officer Investing Network that he ran for all the pilots in flight school down in Pensacola. And so he sent me those slides because I was like, this is such a cool thing that you're doing. And then I worked with Major Peterson. He was somebody who was. He was like the senior student for us while I was in graduate school at Purdue. And so we set up this lecture series where once a month, either him or somebody else would lecture on some specific topic. And so I ended up having the chance to talk to all the other lieutenants about, you know, how to max your tsp and your 401k and Roth IRA, whatever, all those things, and also how to go about buying property. But with Matt, I had talked with him because I'd already maxed those retirement accounts. And then he just was telling me a lot about what he was doing with real estate, and he kind of convinced me to take that jump. And part of it was him, you know, sending the slides on everything you had to do to buy a house, because before I bought a house, I didn't know how to buy a house. So having somebody in my corner who just was like, hey, it's easy. You get a lender, you get a realtor, you look around. He gave me this whole Excel spreadsheet that I was able to put in. You know, how much for Capex, how much for vacancy, how much for maintenance, all of those things. So I could see will this property cash flow when I buy it. And just having somebody in my corner who was able to back me up in that made it very easy for me to take that first step of just buying my first single family property.

You know, it's funny, through that story, it made me chuck a little bit because I grew up around real estate, right. My dad was in real estate since I was a little kid. So I take the idea of like, hey, before I bought my first house, I didn't know how to buy a house totally for granted because I just kind of lived that whole life around how you do real estate forever. I was like, didn't even occur to me that people are like, oh, I don't actually know how to buy a house without having somebody kind of really there holds your hand. So that's, that's really, that's really cool. Have you, have you talked to him and thanked him for that or reached back out and, and how he's doing?

Yeah, no, absolutely. I just talked with Matt. We do like a check in. So we actually just did our check in last night and we were, we're both on this. We both have Excel spreadsheets that track everything in our lives as we're going toward financial freedom and all of this stuff. And he also inspired me and he gave me a lot of those slides which I've shared a lot with the cgoc, which is a company grade officer council here at Joint Base Langley Eustace. So I've been able to give briefings on these topics to like a first term officers course. And I also started a thing here in Hampton Roads called the Hampton Roads Investment Club, where we meet and it's, it's relatively casual. Everybody just comes, they have a question, they have their favorite book, whatever. Everybody goes around in a circle and is like, this is what I'm trying to work on. And then somebody else in the circle could be like, this is how you do this. And it's just so great when you get a bunch of people all together to exchange knowledge.

Well, what's one thing you've kind of learned from spearheading and leading that group?

There are a lot of people out there who know things that I do not know. And I don't know that much really. All mo. Most of what I do is just based on the fact that I have a lot of really smart people in my corner who can help me out. When I'm like, I don't know how to do this thing. And then one of my friends will just always be like, oh, I'm really good at this thing. I can help you with this. And then also just the importance of most people are so willing to help and they just don't have a venue. So if you just provide the venue where people can gather and they can share like the lessons they've learned people are so willing to help out with that. And you just need to be the one to make the first move and be like, hey, are you interested in this? And if you just get a couple people together, it just grows.

It's awesome. Yeah, it's. It's so important. The, the power of community, right? Where, you know, we realize that we're not on an island and we don't have to do this ourselves. You know, I think that was a really important, like, distinction and kind of light bulb moment for me is that, like, hey, I don't have to do these kinds of things myself or, or grow businesses or whatever, you know, myself. And that surrounding myself with people who have a lot of different shared experiences or are a lot smarter than me really kind of frees us all up to achieve the goals and the outcomes that we really are trying to achieve, because we don't have to carry the entire weight ourselves. We can share it. And it just. Everybody gets to a higher mountain at that point. So getting into some of the tougher questions. What's one mistake you've made as a leader and how did you grow from it?

Okay, so I've made a lot of mistakes. And I'll. I'll say, I'll say one. I've. I've been relatively active on social media for probably 15 years. My friends and I, when I was in high school, we ran like a big vine account that had over a million followers. And then when I was in. So I, I, I made. I made a lot of posts on social media. And from that, there have been three notable faux pas, I guess, posts that went larger than expected. And there was a little bit of blowback. But the one I'll talk about is one that I made when I was in college. I was at the Naval Academy. It was my senior year, and I ran a meme account, sort of, but it was under my own name, so it was just Rob the Peck on Twitter. But I made variations of, like, popular memes that were going around, but made them very tailored to the Naval Academy. And in one of these, I name dropped our battalion commander. And there was another battalion commander who's, you know, an 06 in the Navy who was on Twitter. And I guess my post got shared and retweeted enough times that he. He took a screenshot of it and sent it in the battalion officer group chat. And then I was on leave, actually out in Colorado skiing, and I got a call as, like, my battalion commander, and she was not happy about my tweet. And I realized, okay, I gotta, you know, maybe be a little bit more professional online. And there's a little bit of a balance there because it's kind of tough because a lot of online discourse is less professional. And so it's kind of difficult to kind of weigh that out between, you know, how much do I want to go viral versus how much do I want to stay professional. And in general, like, there's a little bit of a trade off and maybe that part of that is my audience, but it is definitely difficult to balance those two. But I realized, okay, let's sacrifice a little bit of virality. Even though this is funny, let's stay professional.

I like, this is such a world that I have no understanding understanding of which is, which is funny.

But so it's a struggle even now. It's a struggle even now because I love just posting about my life and I love posting funny memes and making plays on funny memes. But I'm trying to attract more now, you know, serious investor types to my social media platform. And I think there's still a place for memes, but I'm still trying to find that balance of how much serious content to put out versus how much light hearted stuff I got that.

So here, this is a question that I like. So a piece of advice that sounded wrong at the time but proved invaluable later because I think so often when we're having conversations with other people, we think we know better than them or we think we know we're the smartest person in the room. And you know, I never want to kind of believe that I'm the smartest person in the room and I can always learn something from somebody else.

And.

But even still, I think we kind of cast aside either offhanded remarks or advice that people are trying to give us because we're not in the right frame of mind to hear it at the time. So what's kind of something that's really that stuck out to you kind of in that vein?

I think before I started, you know, buying apartment complexes, I thought that it was a really big thing. And it still is, right? It still is. But some of the advice I got was just to start small and then grow from there. And that as you start small, the larger things will just become more and more apparent. And that was not something I realized at the time. I was like, okay, I'm buying a house. Like, this is not going to lead to much. And I was like, oh, I'm helping out with this syndication. This is not going to lead to much. But the advice of just starting small and then working your way up, because I was like, I want to. I want to start really big and. But just starting small, you just. Opportunities just come into your lap. And over time, you just meet more and more and more people, and everybody needs somebody to help them. And as long as you're somebody who's willing to help, people want to be around you and talk with you, and if you help them out, then maybe there's some reciprocity there and you can, you know, grow your career as well.

Yeah, that. That's so true.

Right?

People being in the real estate space, people come and ask, like, okay, well, how do I get into this? Or what's the next step? Or, like, they all want to start with, like, the triple or the home run because, you know, they've seen somebody who's maybe been putting in the work or listening to podcasts or, you know, all these kinds of things where people are 5, 6, 7, 10, 20 years down the road from where they're at right now. You know, there's all sorts of distractors and all sorts of different, you know, reasons and rationale to not get involved in, whether it's real estate or an investment opportunity or Bitcoin or, you know, anything out there.

Right.

But if it's something that you do the research around and are interested in, the best advice is just start right with. Find a way to just start with whatever you have or whatever you are comfortable doing at this time or even just maybe a little bit uncomfortable, right? To kind of really, you know, skin in the game. How do I learn? How do I get better? How do I improve with enough stake in the. In the game, really, to force yourself to get better. And that's kind of my biggest piece of advice for a lot of people that I talk about is to just start what it find. Find the. The avenue or the asset class. Like talking real estate, specifically.

Right.

Like the asset class or the region or whatever that you are interested in or want to be a part of, and then find something to just start because. Totally agree. Like, it. It's so much built on top of itself. You know, the place where Falcon Capital is at right now is not where we thought it was going to be. You know, five, six years ago. We started it, and we're further along than we thought we would be in some. In some areas and not as far along in other areas. But we've got some really incredible opportunities that have, like, come across, you know, our desk that, you know, you And I have talked about that are really, really cool.

So I wanna. I wanna piggyback on that. Just start. That is the number one piece of advice, is just start. Because it's really easy to try and prepare and prepare and be like, I'm gonna read this book and this course, and I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do that and all of this. Some of it is productive, right? Reading books, listening to podcasts, all very productive. But some of it is also an excuse to not get started. Because you have that excuse. You have that limiting belief that, oh, I don't know enough to get started. You will learn.

You, you, you need to just wait until interest rates change or I have this much in the bank or this much reserves, or I can do this big a property or this many units or whatever it is. It's just about starting. Yeah. And there's so many places out there where you can just start with not that much. Whether it's a syndication or a, you know, a group of people together. Right. Like an investment club or something like that, where you can just get involved and just start. Because that is the most important thing is just getting involved and getting started. Understanding the risks, certainly.

Right.

Like, you have to understand the risks of what that could do, but at the same time, it's about just starting.

Yeah. Because nobody ever succeeded by waiting until the end of their life and never starting. It's true. You have to start at some point and why not now?

So kind of on that, around that, like, uncertainty piece. Right? How do you handle kind of these decisions when you maybe don't have all of the information or a fraction of the information when the right answer isn't abundantly clear? How do you kind of move forward from there based on, you know, your past experiences or kind of where you're at today?

So what I do when the answer is not clear, I find somebody who's done it already and I talk with them and I. I bring basically my specific concern. Well, first of all, I will think about it, you know, and write down some detailed questions about what specifically is my fear? What is my fear about taking this path? What is my fear about taking this path? And then ask someone who's two to five years ahead of me. And, you know, most people are very willing to help, especially if somebody's, you know, young and ambitious and wants to get to where they're at. It's a little bit like validating almost for the. For the person who's kind of in the mentor sort of position and It's. I love helping out, like, midshipmen cadets who like DM me, and they're like, hey, we're interested in starting a real estate syndication, or we're interested in buying our first house or whatever it is. And I just point them in the way to go and can help, you know, assuage some of their fears. But for me, yeah, if I'm having difficulty choosing between two things, I talk to somebody who I respect, who generally is older than me and more experienced, and it depends on what the thing is. But I just try to find somebody I respect in the field and get their opinion, and that helps me get a lot more clarity about where, like, what the right path to go on is.

So what's the hardest lesson you've. I'm gonna switch up the questions a little bit here. So what's the hardest lesson you've learned and the hardest lesson you've had to teach somebody else that you've been in charge of?

Okay. I would say it's kind of the same hard lesson. So this is more military than real estate.

Yeah.

The commander calls a foul. And something that I noticed a lot, both at the Naval Academy and at the Air Force Academy, there is a attitude of cynicism about large decisions that get made. Why is this the way that it. That it is? Why does leadership hate us? Saying these things just puts you in a negative mindset and makes you, you know, not focused on the things that you can control that are, like, inside of your lotus of control, where you can actually make an impact. So focus on the mission and focus on controlling the controllables, and don't worry about everything else. And this is something that I've struggled with, you know, when I was a midshipman at the Naval Academy, and this is something that I've seen many other people struggle with. And so I just say this is the way that it is, and eventually maybe it will change. And there. There are possible pathways to find change, but sitting around and talking about it and complaining about it does nothing. If you actually want to make change, you know, there are ways to do that, like formal ways to provide feedback. But sitting around and dwelling on the problems never helped anybody. It just creates an attitude of misery where everybody's just like. Everybody's just talking about how this is so unfair, and that doesn't help anyone, and it especially doesn't help new members who are coming into the unit at all.

Yeah, I totally, totally echo that. Right. Like, at the Air Force game, we were always kind of like, why is it this way, what's going on the same game. It is what it is, right. Like it's just. And you know, as I've gotten up in my military career and you know, promoted and was in charge of more, more responsibility and, and then even in, in business, right, Especially in business, came to realize that I just didn't have all of the information. Right. Like when you're down kind of that, that lower levels or entry level kind of coming in or even mid management for military or you know, business, there's a lot of times you just don't have all of the information and all of the, the variables that are having to be considered kind of at those top levels and they're. I genuinely believe in like even me and my businesses, right. Like making the best decision that I can for the company and the direction of the business. You know, not everybody's going to be happy, right. Like change and change management is a super important, you know, thing that we've tried to focus on in our businesses is like, okay, we have these changes we want to make or we have these ideas or these directions that we want to go instead of just you know, quick firing all of these things in a row, sitting down as a leadership team and figuring out, okay, how do we conduct change management. So it's not like, doesn't cause this thing where everybody sits around and just kind of, you know, bitches about it, right? Like no, you know, because that creates a culture where people are like you said, cynical and not focusing on the right things and not being productive. And that was kind of a light bulb moment for me as I got up in my military career and in business is like, oh man, I was so short sighted and didn't even realize everything that was going on with all of the decisions and all the variables that had to be considered before these decisions get made. So kind of kind of staying in that military vein right now is okay. How do you intentionally build strong relationships within your team knowing that, you know, there's kind of a hierarchy there, but at the same time you need to work together and collaborate. But at the, at the same time, like there is a ultimate decision maker, you know, whether that's you or somebody else. How do you kind of build those strong relationships?

Yeah, I would say for building strong relationships, I, I treat, I try to treat everybody the same. And the way I see it is if people have a goal, I want to help them accomplish that goal. And so that's really the number one thing is, you know, what is your goal? How can I help you reach that goal. And then also just I treat everybody like a, like a normal person. I'm just like, hey, how are you doing? How was your weekend? What are you working on right now? How can I help? And then how can I connect you to somebody else who can help you in a big way? And then for personal relationships, you know, like my friends at work and I, we like do a lot of things outside and being the organizer of events for people, everybody appreciates that because especially in a military environment every PCs is in, you don't know anyone, you just want somebody to invite you to an event where everybody's hanging out and having fun, playing volleyball, whatever it is. And so if you can be the person who's like. For me, I try to be the person who organizes these events. I do some of those with like the cgoc, which is the company grade Officer council where we have all these new lieutenants and captains come in. They don't know anybody and so being able to help them meet more people is really helpful for them.

I think that's awesome. As a mentor or a mentee, what's something that you look at or look for in somebody you're going to either mentor or who are you looking for? Trying to target as a mentee.

So as a mentee, it's definitely people who have initiative. I learned this kind of early on. I'm the type of person where if I get a presentation on some sort of topic, let's say it's, you know, some CEO on stage or it's somebody briefing on something and they have a contact info on the last slide, if they have that, I will text them, I'll say, hey, I really enjoyed your talk or I'll go find them on LinkedIn. And if it's, you know, somebody who doesn't have that on the last slide and then there's some follow up question that I have or some, some, some way that I feel like I can learn something from them. I will go up to them after the talk and I will go, hey, I really enjoyed your talk. I would love to get hear more about this topic, exchange numbers. Most people are very willing to do that because I guess they're not really ready or they're not super used to it. You have 300, 400 people in the audience and like two or three come and talk to the speaker afterward. And so yeah, the thing that I look for in mentees though is initiative. Anybody who DMs somebody out of the blue and is like, hey, I'm really interested in looking at this thing. You know, I've watched your podcast. I'm. I'm interested in doing what you do. I'll always make time for that person every time.

Awesome. So what's. How do you kind of stay not gonna do that question. So what's one book, quote or resources that has profoundly shaped your leadership style?

So I would say how to Influence and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. And that's a book that I read. So back in the day, I was 13, 14 years old. I used to be a really good chess player, but I spent all of my time thinking about chess. And then I ended up transitioning into public school, and I had been homeschooled before this, and I was, like, awkward, shy. I had no idea what I was doing, and I basically joined the chess club. I actually. I actually did not join the chess club because nobody at that high school was like, I was. I was good for my age. When I was 12, I. I'm still as good of a chess player now as I am when I was 12 years old. So I've not gotten any better since. And I'm okay with that because I focus on other things in my life. But reading that book helped me realize some basic things about social interactions and how people really just want you to ask them questions, smile, be nice, and care about them as a person. And so that's something I try to do every day, is I try to leave. Like, if I'm speaking with someone, I want them to leave that interaction better off than when they started it. So whether that's, you know, having gained some information or B, just having had the chance to share about their day.

Or, you know, active listening in, that is important, right? Not just like this, oh, how are you doing? And then you just kind of zone out. But like, the active listening, the staying engaged, the. The response, the eye contact, I think is super, super important as part of that.

I agree. I strongly agree. And also just, I try to stay in a positive mood because no matter how you're feeling on the outside, if you just put a smile on, nobody can really tell. And also, like, so this is something I read is that just the act of smiling and acting like you're in a good mood makes you be in a good mood. You can just force your brain into thinking, I'm in a good mood. And then you are in a good mood and you're happy, and it's great. And then people around you are also happy. I also joke around a lot with people. Yeah, you know, Poke fun at them lightheartedly and try to get people in a good mood and not take everything, because life isn't that serious at the end of the day. We've got about 80 years and then we die. So let's have some fun while we're here, for sure.

So what's. What's one piece of advice you could give to an aspiring leader? What would it be?

I would say probably to take action before you think you're ready, because it can be really tempting to not take action on something or try to delegate it out. You can do it. You can do it.

Just.

Just go do it. Talk to who you need to, to learn how to do it, but then just make the choice. Every day. I'm going to show up, I'm going to do the work. Yeah, that's what I would say. It's just. Just go out there and take action.

Awesome.

Also, screen your emails. I do screen my emails by people now. Cause I've. I've. I fired off a lot of emails in my day, and sometimes I'm a little. Maybe sometimes I take a little too much action. Yeah. Who.

Who's someone we should all learn from and why?

Hmm. I might actually say Alex Hormozi. I've been listening to a lot of his podcasts and content recently, and I feel like he's just such a motivational person. Actually, I'm gonna step that back a little bit because we're a kind of military audience. David Goggins. I love David Goggins, and just listening to his stuff just pumps me up, because he's all about, just do the work. It doesn't matter if it's hard. Just go out, do it, have a good attitude about it, and just go. And I think a lot of us kind of get stuck in this cycle of, you know, I have to be here. No, you get to be here. You get to be, you know, a member of the United States Air Force, making an impact to the mission every day. And if you weren't here, what would you be doing? You know, you could be doing something else. And a lot of people are in some sort of scenario and they think the grass is green on the other side. The grass is green where you water. Just water the grass where you are and just go out and get after it for sure.

All right, so final question. Not on the list of questions that I sent you, but it's something that we've talked about before. So you asked me, I don't know, a couple months ago, just kind of around like what books I was reading and just some kind of insights. And I think you were trying to interview some people. And one of the things I, I talked about this is from Peter Thiel in his book Zero to One. And the question that he always asks everybody is, what is one fundamental truth that very few people agree with you on? And that is my question to you. Rob, final question is, what is one fundamental truth that very few people agree with you on?

I love that. So I love that you brought up Peter Thiel. I don't know if I told you, my buddy Peter that I connected you with a couple weeks ago, he actually had the chance to have dinner with Peter Thiel, like three weeks ago. Yeah.

That's amazing.

And also thank you for giving me that question because I actually used that question in job interviews. It's really fun for me. I would say the fundamental truth about the world that other people do, some other people disagree with me on is that conversation with random people, random strangers you meet on the bus, the sidewalk, whatever else, most of the time that is actually welcome. A lot of people are very worried to start up conversations with strangers. I found 90 plus percent of the time I start a conversation with a stranger, you know, maybe we're walking the same on the side of sidewalk. And people are super receptive to it. They love having somebody who's just, you know, excited, they're motiv, not a little bit motivating and just somebody who's interested in them and what they're doing. And I think a lot of people are sometimes like worried about what other people will think about them, but nobody, nobody cares. They, they are, they are fully engrossed in their world. And if you can come in and add something to it, it's great. It's a great interaction for you, It's a great interaction for them and it just makes the world a better place. So I think more of us should talk to strangers.

Love that. I think that's awesome. That's a great answer. Any final thoughts? This is kind of your opportunity to kind of say what's on your mind. Any kind of final thoughts as we wrap up?

Yeah. Thank you for having me on. And if any listeners want to connect with me, I'm on Instagram at Rob the Peck on LinkedIn, Robert McCarrick and also just go out, do the work. If there's something you're thinking about doing, just do it. I mean, you only have one life, time is short. And if you're not going to go after and chase your dreams and accomplish them now. When will you do it? It's going to be now. We only have the present. We only have the present moment to live.

Rob, that's great. Again, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Being the first guest of something that hopefully is beneficial to other people, I know it's beneficial to me, so I really, really appreciate that. And let's stay connected. And I always love and enjoy our chats, man.

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me on. I'm very honored to be the first guest. This is awesome.