Garrett Rothman, Real Estate Broker

[00:00:00] Speaker A: I feel like my, whatever degree of success I've had professionally, a lot of it comes from the confidence I got from doing those things at a younger age and the confidence you get from picking up the phone and calling a promoter and saying, hey, can my band play this show? And then I'm actually saying yes. Or getting used to people saying no. It's okay if people turn you down. [00:00:21] Speaker B: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the show. Today's guest is someone that we're doing a round two with because we had some technical problems last time, and we really are very appreciative for his time. Great person, really interesting career and life path, and I know you're going to get a lot out of it. Before we get to it, please subscribe to the podcast. Turn on your notifications. My name is Aram Arslanian, and this is one step beyond my man. Welcome. [00:01:04] Speaker A: Hey, how you doing, ram? [00:01:06] Speaker B: Good. Good to see you again. So, for those who don't know, for the uninitiated, who are you and what do you do? [00:01:14] Speaker A: My name is Garrett Rothman. If you're asking what I do as a profession, I'm a real estate broker. I help clients buy and sell real estate, lease real estate. My company is called RSR Realtors. I've been an agent for 20 years. I'm also a licensed attorney, practiced law for a few years before I got into real estate. And I still have my. Still do a little bit of legal work. And the way we're connected is I'm also. I play in a couple of bands, kind of in your world, and that takes up. Other than work and family, band takes up most of the rest of my time. So it's, as we talked last time, it's a passion of mine, not a hobby. You made that distinction, and that actually really made an impression on me. So my passion is music? [00:02:10] Speaker B: Heck, yeah. Awesome. All right, let's. Because we've already talked and we've gotten to know each other a bit. I know a bunch about your story. So I'm going to just start, like, hitting on a few things first. Let's start with the band, because that's what we kind of hit on last time and, like, towards the end. And let's start in the beginning. The two bands don't sleep in calling hours. What do you got? [00:02:32] Speaker A: So, currently, the most active band I'm in is called calling hours. We are mostly based out of Pennsylvania. Our singer kind of goes back and forth between California and Pennsylvania. Our singer is a guy named Popeye Vogelsang, who a lot of people on this podcast will remember him from being the singer for Farside. And he really was a little bit quiet on the music side for maybe the last eight or ten years. But we sort of pulled him out of retirement and recorded a record with him that came out in November on Revelation Records, which was put out all the far side records. So that was a natural landing spot for him. But we were thrilled because we've all been massive fans of revelation since we got into music, basically. So that record's called say less and we have been started tour around that record. We did a european tour in the last fall, did a little California run a few weeks ago. We're actually leaving for Europe again next week. We'll be playing four shows in Germany and we're doing some stuff in California at the end of the summer. So it's keeping us busy. We're all there, five people in the band. We all have careers and families and things that are keeping that take up most of our time. But we feel amazingly grateful that we have the opportunity to do music in, you know, in a meaningful way, like the way we're doing it now. So the band's a lot of fun. Also have a band called don't sleep, which is the same musicians, but we have a different singer. It's Dave Smalley, who was most people on this podcast will recognize from dagnastian all on down by law. We put out a few records with that band and he is going through some health issues now. So sort of quiet. We've been quiet for the past couple of years, but that, that's a band I'm really proud of too. [00:04:21] Speaker B: Heck yeah. So music, you've been involved in music since you were very, very young and you got involved in punk and hardcore. Tell us a little bit about that because it's not just about the bands you played in. It was like your involvement, but you also were part of launching a label that I have a lot of good feelings towards. And then in that there's this like a big pause where you started your professional career. And I want we'll back into that. But let's talk about like how did you get into you punk hardcore? How did that, how did you find it or did it find you? [00:04:53] Speaker A: That's a great question. I've always been obsessive about music. I mean, there was a, when I was a kid, I would listen to the top 40 radio and I knew every word to every song and, you know, that was on the radio, so music was always on. Not necessarily in my house, but in my bedroom, you know, I would like. I always had the music on. And I had an older sister who was kind of in the new wave in the. I would say the early eighties. And she turned me on to. I just would like. She didn't intentionally do it, but I would sneak in her room and listen to her records. And she had, like, sex pistols in the clash and echoing the bunny man and Susie and the Banshees. And so that kind of turned me on to non radio music. And I love all those bands to this day. But I would say in high school, I started to go to punk shows. And I think what really pulled me in about that community and that culture is that I realized that it wasn't about, like, some big star on a stage. And the fans, you know, looking up an adoration that you could actually, like, the band would finish playing, and then the singer would go and sell t shirts or records or whatever. And you could meet him or her and really quickly become a part of community. So I think that's what really, you know, in addition to loving music, I think I was. The idea of being part of a community of like minded people. Really pulled me into the punk scene. And then my summer before my senior year in college, I was really lucky. I got to go. I lived with some relatives in the Bay area. And I had a car that was borrowing, which was great. And I was left totally alone. Because I was living in an apartment above my aunt and uncle's garage. And they really didn't care what I was doing in a good way. So I would drive into Berkeley a couple of times a week. And I would go to shows at Gilman street. And I was probably 16, I guess. And I knew about it because I could buy maximum rock and roll in my town at the local record store. And it had show listings for Gilman street. So I went, and it just blew me away. Because, I mean, first of all, I saw, like, a lot of my favorite bands that summer. But also just seeing. I didn't really understand what, you know, what punk meant as sort of an. As an organized community until that point. But seeing, like, people volunteering at the show. You know, the guy collecting money at the door would then go and play drums in the band later that night. And they had a policy, I think you had to have, like, a membership card there. But you also had to volunteer if you want to go to shows regularly. Or if you want to play there. So just being able to see how that community worked got me excited. About wanting to take my interest in punk one step further or a couple steps further. And so after that summer, I came back home and I became friends with this band called Admiral that you and I talked about at length last time. They were like the local hero hardcore band that kind of made it out. There weren't a lot. They maybe were the only one that really made it out next to, like, did us tours and put out records that were pretty widely distributed. And I became good friends with them. And the day after I graduated, graduated from high school, they took me on tour with them on a us tour as their roadie. Looking back now, like, I know people who are professional roadies now, and I understand what they do, and I don't know. I had no. I got to know how to change a string I didn't know how to put together. I really had, like, no skills except for that. I think they just, they probably didn't even know what to look for in a road either, except for I was just like a guy who liked them and they liked me and, you know, I would dance when they played. So they took me on tour with them, and that was really eye opening because we got to. Again, we went back to Gilman street, they played there. We met a guy named Kent McLard who ended up putting up their record, who had a big distribution, record distribution company, but also had a fanzine, a label. And they played some shows with Green Day on that tour before Green Day became what they are now. But that showed me, like, oh, you can be in a band from a small town in Pennsylvania, and you can go on tour and you can really do get to see the country and get to meet people from your community, but all over the country. And so I think doing that, that's what really set me off into wanting to, like, do a record label, be in bands, and, like, really do things on a different. On a different level. And it all happened. I was like eight years old by then, so it happened in a very short time period. Yeah. [00:09:37] Speaker B: If you don't mind, I just want to. I want to touch on something here. Like that idea, and this is not a commentary on anyone in admirals musical ability or anything like that, but that idea that people could tour the country and, like, start venues and start fan scenes and do these things, but actually have no, like, education in these things, no background in these things, no training, no infrastructure, no money. I talk about this a lot on the podcast, but the idea of, I think some of the coolest, I don't want to say training. But some of, well, I guess you could say training. Some of the most, the best training you can get for, like, the real world is playing or being involved in the punk scene, playing in a punk band or putting on shows or any of those things. Because that idea of, like, having literally nothing, including, like, no talent, but then being able to do stuff that could take you national or international or put out a fanzine that changes people's lives is huge. I want to go back specifically to something like maximum rock and roll and Tim Johannon, like, the impact that person had and still has. And of course, rest in peace, Tim. The impact that person has cannot be understated. That person has literally changed tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of people's lives just because they decided with some friends to start a venue and start a fanzine and do something. And that led to someone like Kent McLard, who I just give huge props to Kent, because if you were no answers and ebullition records and all that stuff in the nineties and early two thousands was again, was like the center of gravity and like life changing. And this is just some dude from California who was just like, yeah, I'm just going to do this thing. And all of it just comes from people being into something and being like, yeah, I just want to make this thing happen. And that's like one of the most powerful things I've ever come into contact with in my life. It's just the, the willingness to do and the willingness to dare to create something. [00:11:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I think, you know, part of being, coming up in the punk world and the punk world, whether you're in a band or doing a fanzine or just going to shows and, you know, being a part of something, putting on shows, is that you don't have to ask anyone's permission to do anything. And really there's no point because there's really no. I mean, now, you know, this punk thing is 50 years old almost. Now there is a blueprint and you can look back on history and see how others did it. And I'm not. I mean, I guess I'm dating myself when I say this, but I feel like at the time there was much less of that. I mean, I think we got a discord, had like a handwritten list of like, venues and promoters that somehow we got a hold of. And that's my, when I was in my band, I started after that called junction. That's how we booked our tour. We just had like this photo xeroxed, handwritten list of people across the country who were known to put on shows and you just pick up and call them, you know, and, you know, half the time the number already changed or their parents would be like, he doesn't live here anymore, you know, but like, you just had to. You kind of had to follow your own path or create a path. [00:12:48] Speaker B: Yeah, like the idea of zines, like, I just, for anyone listening to this who's just unaware or has kind of heard the term, like, there was maximum rock and roll and then of course, like so many other incredible scenes, but they had this thing called book your own fucking life, which was essentially you could write into this thing and list your house as a place for people to crash or a venue or like, you know, your record store or all of these, your co op. It was insane. And when I was a kid, and so this is like pre Internet and then also kind of when the Internet was starting and kind of like becoming a little bit of a thing, some friends and I drove out from Calgary, Alberta, where I lived, out to the first crazy fest in Louisville, Kentucky, and we used that book, your own fucking life just to crash at people's houses. And it was insane. And I was like, young, young, and I couldn't believe people were just letting us stay at their house. These random people were like, yeah, let's go. Come stay at my house. [00:13:49] Speaker A: What? [00:13:49] Speaker B: That's insane. But that's that power of people coming together, don't know each other, but they, they believe ish in the same thing. And they're like, yeah, we're just going to make this happen. [00:14:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Isn't that crazy? And no cell phones. I mean, the number of, like, shows that we booked on that first admiral tour where we would drive, we literally, they had a show in Little Rock, Arkansas, which actually was. Was a really good show. And the next show they had was in Lubbock, Texas, which is probably, I don't know, a thousand miles. It was, it's forever. And we got all the way to Lubbock and found out the show was canceled. Like, and then the next show was in Phoenix, you know, but now, can you imagine? I mean, you would be checking in with the promoter, you know, every hour until they respond. You know, you'd be texting, you'd see flyers online, you know, like, you just. It was sort of like on good faith that you did this stuff. But the funny thing is those things that, those fails are the ones you really remember almost more than, like, the good shows because it was like, such an experience. But do you remember the booklet that simple machines put out on how to put out your own record. Do you ever follow that booklet? [00:15:04] Speaker B: No. [00:15:06] Speaker A: The label, simple machines put out a booklet that you could just send them a dollar in the mail, they'd mail it back to you, which showed you how to put out your own record, how to start your own record label, which is so counterintuitive because they were a record label putting out, you know, cool independent bands, and they were encouraging other people to do the same thing, you know, which is like bringing on competitors, right? So like, in the normal world, the normal corporate world, that would never happen. But it was so it like, gave said, this is how you. These are studios you go to. This is how you record a record. This is how, if you want to have the record press, these are the pressing plants that you can send your work to. This is what they'll need from you. This is how you get artwork done. This is how you get records distributed. But that was kind of like book your own fucking life. That was something that a lot of people use to start their own record labels, God bless them. [00:16:02] Speaker B: Yeah, it's just an interesting idea that unified by a type of music, unified by kind of like sort of shared politics or sort of shared ways of living. Some people are straighted, some people are vegetarian or vegan, some people believe in this or that, but really more so, just connected by almost a community and like, again, loosely like punk or loosely like hardcore, whatever it was at the time. And everyone coming together and of course having their, like, arguments and their beef and whatever it is, but everyone coming together, being like, oh, no, we're just going to create this insane network, literal, worldwide network of people, where we're going to start bands, we're going to put you up, we're going to have venues, we're going to promote ourselves, we're going to do all these things, all pre Internet or early Internet. Just so powerful and so insane that that happened. So let's bring that back, though. A band that I and you seemed a bit surprised when you and I first met in person. In person. And I knew the band. Let's bring it back to junction. When did you start your start playing in Junction? And how did that happen? [00:17:09] Speaker A: So I started playing. Junction was a band I started in my first year in college. I was not a great student in high school at all, so I just. I applied to one college and I didn't even get into it technically. They applied to Penn State University, which is a huge university, but my grades were too lousy to get into the main campus. So they sent me to a. A branch campus, which was in the middle of nowhere. It was in a state forest, like, an hour and a half south of where I lived. I mean, literally, there was nothing there. And it actually ended up being a very kind of bucolic and sort of a nice, soft landing for an immature student. I mean, immature kid who was a bad student because there weren't a lot of distractions there. But, like, the last thing I thought would happen when I was there was I would play in a band. And this is. I just got back from tour with admiral, so I was like, damn. Like, I want to go live somewhere cool where there's a lot of music happening and there's bands. But, you know, I figured I needed to get my degree. And, like I said, I didn't have a lot of options, so. But, like, my first day of classes, there was a kid sitting in front of me wearing a Bauhaus shirt. And again, this is a. This school, this particular campus had its own woodsman team. So they would have, like, wood chopping competitions and, like, you know, axe throwing and crazy shit like that. Like, that was the main. And then people would, like, roll kegs out into the woods and make campfires and just drink and then, like, jump over the fires. And I was like, where the fuck am I? This is not my people. But it was. I was only supposed to be there for a year, so I was like, I can make this work. It's fine. But I sat down my first class, and there's a kid sitting in front of me wearing a bauhaus shirt. And I was like, hey, you know bauhaus? I love that band. He's like, oh, thanks. And started talking about music. And, you know, before I knew it, he was telling me he's a drummer, and he was a local because mom was the dean of our college. So he's like, I have. I live off campus. I have, like, a basement with drums and musical equipment. And he said, and I have. My best friend from childhood who's from Philadelphia, where he used to live, just started going to school here too, and he plays guitar, and you want to get together? And I was like, sure. And he said, do you play anything? And I said, I don't, like, I own a bass, but I don't really know what to do with it. And they're like, ah. He said, that's fine. You can just fake it. That's what most bass players do, which is still true to this day. I'm still faking it. So we started jamming and started just messing around and writing music, and we started the band. We recorded a couple songs, and we were able to put out a record, like a split seven inch with this band called separate piece, and played our first show. And then we were three piece. And I think our guitarist was like, he's a good singer, but it was. I could tell it was kind of. He's a really good guitarist. I think he was. I felt like he was struggling to, like, play what he really could play and sing at the same time. And none of us were really good lyric writers, either. So we had the Ra in our dorm, which an RA is the resident assistant. It's someone who, like, she's a student, but she lives. She gets to live in the dorm for free because she's kind of like the den mother or, like, the. She's kind of in charge. To make sure the students don't, like, burn the dorm down was this woman, Vanessa, and we just loved her. She was really cool. And we said, you know, would you want to sing for a band? And she's like, oh, I don't know. Like, I'm super preppy, and I just. I like Michael Jackson, and I don't think it could work. We're like, just give it a shot, you know, you've got a lot of personality. And we knew she had a good voice, so she started singing for us and she became our singer. And that's. I felt like that's really when the band congealed and got its own personality. And she was a great lyricist and just. She's a really good front person. So we ended up moving. We left that campus after year and went to the main campus in state college, which was a pretty small college town. Like, without the university, there's nothing else there. There's just, like, two or three streets, but a really cool place to be, like, a 19 year old because everyone is there. As your age, there were a lot of record stores, arcades, music stores, cool bookstores. And it was easy to do a band there because you put up a couple flyers on the main street, like, on telephone poles, and everyone knew what was happening because everyone was always walking around in the downtown area and became an awesome place to start a band, really. We had a great following, and, like, I booked shows there, and so I was able to bring all my friends bands that I'd met on tour. And we did that band for probably four years or so, and then just sort of life happened. We all kind of moved on to the next thing in our lives. [00:21:53] Speaker B: So it was kind of parallel, if I'm right, that also you started with your friend art monk construction records, right? [00:21:59] Speaker A: Yeah. So we. About that time, there's a guy named Eric Astor who was from Phoenix and he played in the bank hall. Wouldn't have changed that. I had met on tour, like, when they came through Pennsylvania years earlier, and then I met him when I was in Arizona with admiral. I ran into him and we sort of reconnected. We became pen pals, which is also like a weird hardcore thing at the time. I'm sure you had them too. You're running these letters to other people who are sort of strangers, and you're just writing about, like, whatever you're listening to or whatever shows you what to what zines you liked. So he and I were sort of just writing letters back and forth, and he would send me t shirts and stuff like that every once in a while. But at some point he called me and he said, I want to move to the east coast. And I said, great. He said, but I really don't want to. Like, a lot of the people from his band have moved to DC. He said, I really don't want to live in a big city. I'd like to live in a smaller town. I said, well, come to state college. I mean, it's a cool, you know, everyone's sort of transitory. Like, you can walk everywhere. It's super cheap. We had a four bedroom house that we were paying $800 a month total to live in. So I said, why don't you come here and let's start a record label? Maybe we can play music together. So he. He did it. You know, he packed up his stuff and he moved. And we started a record label really right away. And our timing was great. Our friends had a band called Hoover that the guitarist from Hoover was in admiral. So that was my connection to them. And the other guitarist, Alex, was in window change that Eric Astor was in the band with. So we had a real connection with them and they were just starting to get together. And then there's another band called Lincoln that junk should have played their. Our first show with. They're actually called Ice Fan at the time, but it was basically the same personnel. And they were starting this band called Lincoln that we saw play and we loved. And so I asked them to put out a split seven inch, and they did because Lincoln Hoover, like two presidents. And we called it two headed coin. Two sided coin, two headed coin. And that was a great first release because it just like, I called Kevin McLaughlin. I was like, hey, I'm doing this because he had this distribution company. I said, I'm doing this record and it's Hoover and Lincoln. He said, just send me as many as you have. Just send me everything you have. As many as your first press is. Just send them to me and I'll sell all of them. And so it was a great way to start. The label got us a lot of notoriety right away. And to this day, it's a pretty celebrated. That seven inch is probably what the label is best known for. It's still. People talk about it a lot. [00:24:48] Speaker B: Yeah, let's. Let's hit on that seven inch. Real interesting time in punk and hardcore because, you know, you could feel like the reaction to kind of the rev sound, right? Like the rev sound. Or it's kind of like more. I guess people could relate to being a little bit more like jockey or a little bit like straight edge vegetarian, like aggressive, loud. And then at the same time, going on to DC was kind of like more like Dagnasty and embrace and all those bands. And of course, later on, Fugazi, that was like bands that had been aggressive and had been loud and boisterous and super, like, in your face had switched downs to being, like, more melodic and having more ideas. And that reaction of the kids that were fans of, let's say, like a youth of today or judge or whatever, then getting into more of those DC bands and being inspired to them and their art, taking a dramatic shift so you don't have, like the crazy live photo of a Jack dude, like, jumping to the crowd, but instead you have, you know, the Lincoln Hoover split or all the stuff that came out. Art Monk, it's like a real interesting shift because punk and hardcore is like a reaction to what came before. And then it's like, okay, this is what we're going to do now. This is what we're going to do now. And I always felt art Monk was such a. Art Monk construction was a really cool label because every record looked like it should be on that label. And every band didn't sound the same, but they sounded like they play a show together. It was a very. Well, and I know it wasn't, or maybe it was intentional, but from an audience perspective, it felt really like a really perfect documentation of a time and a reaction to what had happened before. That seven inch, specifically, like, if you see the shift between the first Lincoln seven inch and how they were more kind of aggressive and hard to that seven inch, like, that split seven inch, where it was, like, way more emotional, more musical. Like a little bit low fi, more lo fi. It just says so much at that time. About that time. [00:26:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, what an exciting time. And we were. You know, it's. I wish you could. I wish I could say it was all intentional, but really, it's like, whatever our friends happen to be doing in that moment is what we were putting it out. Because, you know, like I said, we had this connection with Lincoln. We had the other. The drummer for Hoover also was in a band called Finday before Hoover and Junction had toured with fine day. So, like, we became friends. So we knew all four of the guys in Hoover. I knew them really well. They were my friends. And so it was like, is it cool that my friends are making this great music? It'd be great if we could put out one of their songs. And then, like, we did a couple of kerosene 454 records, and those guys were all. And wouldn't have changed with Eric. So that's what. That's how that happened. We did an ice burn record. It was on Rev. And that was like, they were from Salt Lake. We were just talking about Salt Lake a few minutes ago, but they were, you know, Eric knew them from. From their previous band, from their straight edge band. They were in, you know, and. And then, like, we did this karate crown hate ruin record and karate. Jeff Farina is from my town, and I grew up with him. I met him in high school. But, you know, we're. He's from my same little town, and he started this little band called Karate. And we were lucky to get one of their songs. And now, like, karate is this. Like, it's amazing. I mean, they're still. They've. Now they've gotten. Their records were all just rereleased and by new rogue group, and they're, like, playing sold out shows all over the world. It's crazy, but it was just like, he was our friend, you know, and I love his music and wanted to. You know, I always felt like, it's interesting, Jeffreena has this other band. Jeff Farina from Karate has another band called Secret Stars. And I remember asking what the origin was of the name, and they said, because we feel like we're from this community. I'm probably botching this. But this is how I. This is how I remember it. Or how, like, what stuck with me. We come from this world where a lot of very talented people, but people who aren't self promoters, necessarily, so they're like, secret stars, you know, so like, I wanted. I thought it was cool to do a label because you could help sort of elevate your friends art because they weren't necessarily gonna do it themselves, you know, and people are. They're humble and they don't like to promote their own work, but to, like, help my friends be heard better was a really cool experience, and that's why I wanted to do a label, for sure. [00:29:25] Speaker B: Yeah. So much of your story relates to your professional career now, and we'll get into that, of course. But so much of. About relationships, you're like, oh, yeah, you know, so I was this kid, and I met this band. Admirable. And we did admiral. We did this tour. I met all these people. Then I was going to college, and I remember I knew this guy and I knew that guy. [00:29:45] Speaker A: And then this. [00:29:46] Speaker B: This person moved here. And we did invite our friends, like, doing all of these things, like, arguably, and I hope you'll take this the right way. You and I have no right, at least at that age and maybe even now, to really be doing anything in music. Like, I am a hero. [00:30:04] Speaker A: Especially now, 52. I should not be leaving to go on tour in Europe next week. There's no reason why it should be. But at the same, at the same. Of the same token. Sorry, just filled my water. At that age, we had no reason. I mean, first of all, I didn't know how to play. I could barely. Thank God I had a tuner. I would have never known how to tune my instrument. I didn't know how to write a song. You know, I didn't. We couldn't even play cover songs. You know, people will be like, are you a cover band? And I'd be like, no, but one of the reasons why is because we couldn't. I mean, our, I will say in junction, our guitarist, Greg Foreman, who now is like, he's had a very successful career in music, and he's played a lot of, like, pretty plays in cat power, and he's in, I think he played in the gossip and he. I just see him on tv. He's like, a session, like, guitarist and stuff. Like, I couldn't play cover songs because I didn't know how to play. I couldn't play them, you know, like, they were too hard for me to play. So some of punk music is just like, you write original music because you can actually play it, you know? [00:31:08] Speaker B: Yeah, well, this idea of. And even, like, let's just say in, like, professional world, the idea of, like, people with, like, a super high education or, like, real intense like, expertise in something versus people who can just figure it out. [00:31:22] Speaker A: Right? [00:31:22] Speaker B: Like, one of the things I try and tell people when they're thinking about hiring and building talent is like, listen, I would a hundred times over hire someone who just has a history of figuring stuff out and doesn't necessarily have deep expertise or, like, all the degrees. And, like, I really often tell people, oh, you should hire someone who's, like, grown up, playing music or been involved in music, or someone who's been very involved in art or theater, someone who's used to putting things on and getting things done with almost nothing. That will be the best hire you ever had. Because there's just something about, like, you know, like, going back to that idea. It's like, dude, you don't even know how to play bass. I barely know how to play guitar still. Like, I started playing guitar or bass when I was 15, and I'm going to be 50, and I'm not much better than I was when I was 15. Like, I suck, but I know how to write a song. I know how to do this, I know how to do that. But most of all, I know how to have, like, I have the right relationships with people because I care and I love my friends and I love doing this stuff. And that idea of how that can, like, that can create a pathway for you unexpectedly. And you could do so much cool stuff just by. Just by, like, being earnest, giving it your all, figuring it out, and having the right relationships. [00:32:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think I'm not trying to transition the conversation to my current professional life, but, I mean, a lot of what I feel like my, whatever degree of success I've had professionally, a lot of it comes from the confidence I got from doing those things at a younger age, you know, and the confidence you get from, like, picking up the phone and calling a promoter and saying, hey, can my band play this show? And then I'm actually saying yes. Or getting used to people saying no, it's okay if people turn you down. It's like, there's. Because if you think, like, okay, 90% of the time I'm going to get turned down or whatever it is, 50, 90, 80, if someone says no to you, it's like, oh, that's one less no, I'm going to have to get over, because the yes is coming pretty soon. And so I think being in a band, starting a label, booking tours, doing a fanzine, all those things really teach you great sort of interpersonal skills, but they also teach you to, like, grind and to be afraid of failure and rejection, but also to, like, you get it. You get hooked on the success, too. When it does work out, it's like, you want more of that, right? [00:33:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I want to hit on, and I think this is a perfect transition to talking about career, but I do want to hit on that. The kind of the guts to grind and ask for things. So in the first, like, real tour that my. That my own band did, like, we do. Like, when I was very young, we'd done, like, little weekend things where we literally have to call promoters. This is way before the Internet. Call promoters or write to them and ask, and we got to do some cool stuff and play with some cool bands. That was when I was, like, very young. I was just finishing high school. But when I did my first real deal tour, the Internet did exist. I could email people, but it was still, like, very early days. And I remember asking promoters, they were like, big shows and be like, hey, can we get on that show? Just emailing some promoter who I had never heard of, and some of them were, like, legit promoters and then being like, oh, yeah, you guys are from Vancouver. Yeah, no problem. I got you on. You can open. And not only did they put us on, they paid us super well, like, really fairly. And it was like, they assumed you. [00:34:41] Speaker A: Were, like, a real band because, you know, you had actually. [00:34:44] Speaker B: No, they didn't. They. They didn't think we were a real bad. They. They took. They took pity on us, but it was the, like. And of course, we got no's and people ignored us and, like, and all that. But on that tour, we did a six week tour on a demo, just me and my friends. And it was really just people, like, kind of taking pity on us and helping us. And a lot of bands at the time were very, very helpful to us. Like, a lot of bands that were. That were happening at the time, it was just this amazing. It was a. It was a band called Face tomorrow. We were so bad. Like, I mean, embarrassing, embarrassingly bad. I mean, obviously inspired by mouthpiece and a shout out to Tim. But we did this tour. And just what I learned about just asking for something and seeing what happens and then earning it, like, showing up and being super respectful, working hard, like, playing well, like, being really respectful of space, being grateful for the help and what you got paid on that tour, I learned so much about, like, just putting yourself out there and not taking it personal. If people say no, that's helped me so much in my professional career. And actually it's helped me a lot with this podcast. When I started this podcast, I just started asking people that I admired to be on the podcast. And they could be business people. They could be people from the punk scene. And of course, it's like, during COVID 9000, people start podcasts. Like, who am I to have a podcast? And we got a lot of people ignoring us. We had a lot of people, like, being like, oh, no, I can't make it. No, like, whatever. But I had one person that I looked up to my entire life or most of my life, who we hit up, who took the time to get on the phone with, who was then my assistant to basically be like, fuck your podcast. And I was, like, totally taken aback, like, oh, my God. And basically we'd had someone on the podcast that they personally didn't like, and that's the episode they listened to. And they went up and down my assistant at the time and said some really horrible, like, actually horrible shit. The reason I'm saying this is, like, I took it in stride because I was like, at first I was like, oh, shit, like, maybe I shouldn't do this. And, oh, maybe fuck our podcast. And maybe I, you know, maybe this is like, maybe, like, we're all like, totally got this wrong and I shouldn't try and do this business podcast. And that kind of has a punk side, a punk angle. And I really thought about it and thought about it, and I just went back to like, fuck that guy just did the most punk thing. Like, he doesn't know a lot of facts, doesn't really know us, doesn't know anything. Super salty. He's like, fuck you. It's like kind of getting a shitty review, you know, in a fanzine. And then the counter move to that is being like, fuck, yeah. All right, cool, man. You do your thing. We're going to keep going. And it was like a real good learning lesson. And it goes back, or good lesson I learned. It goes right back to asking for things that you want. Just, it's not personal. Take it and stride. Use it as a growing opportunity. And some of the critique that guy gave beyond being like, fuck you, was like, good critique. And I was like, cool. And I've applied it, really. So, yeah, that the willingness to put yourself out there to ask for things and to, like, totally not only get to get a no or get ignored, but also get negative feedback and take it in stride and learn from it is what I learned from punk, and I'm still using it today. [00:38:14] Speaker A: You have to get thick skin, right? I mean, you can't, you know, you can't take things personally at all. But that, that would have been tough, I think, if someone called in and told me that nine, I mean, he could have also just said, no, thank you, or, I'm not available, or, you know, I'm not into podcasts. But, but the fact that you can take something positive away from that is impressive. That means that you're a pretty confident, healthy person. [00:38:38] Speaker B: Because I'm going to cry, I'll tell you. Well, I had 48 hours of total depression. I was really bummed. And I'll tell you who it is afterwards, not on the podcast, and you'll laugh about it. And anyone listening, it's not who you think it is, but I thought about it for a long, long, long time. For about 48 hours. And just like anyone growing up in the punk scene, it's like sometimes you meet someone like Walter Schreifles, and you're like, oh, dude, you're awesome. Like, you have no reason to be cool to me, and you are so fucking cool. [00:39:11] Speaker A: That's just natural state, is to be cool to everybody. [00:39:14] Speaker B: Totally. But then you meet other people that you look up to, and you're like, you have no reason to be awful to me. And you're so shitty. Like, you're so terrible. [00:39:22] Speaker A: Yeah, well, that's, you know, that's, that's an interesting point, because I feel like that's something. I don't know. I think it was how I was raised by my parents or it's just like, you know, the, it's a one, I have a lot of negative personality traits, for sure, but one thing I think that comes naturally to me is I try to be, you said earnest earlier. I just, I try to be earnest with everybody, and I try to treat people regardless of who they are or whether I, like, I need something from them or whether, you know, there's something they can provide to me. I just treat everyone well and with respect, and, and you be generous with other people. So then when the time comes when you actually need to ask them for something, it's natural. It's not like, oh, he's that person who's only nice when he wants something or when he needs something. But if you're, like, consistently just treat people well, even when there's no reason to do it, everything, you know, when you do need to ask for something, it comes, it's a lot smoother, and it's a lot more natural. And, yeah, I mean, Walter's a perfect example of that. Like, he's just, you know, treats everyone well, you know, just because that's just the person he is. But, you know, if. If he ever needed to do a GoFundme, God forbid, you know, like, he'd probably make $5 million just in overnight because he's done so much for so many people, you know? [00:40:39] Speaker B: Yeah, well, it's also that idea, I think, of when you have a certain amount of influence or success or power, the ability to be shitty is so easy. And it can kind of go on autopilot. People can go on autopilot, and then there's other people who are just naturally cool, like Walter. But sometimes it's like you've got a lot of influence, power, success, or whatever, and you have to be intentional about being cool, like being a boss, which, again, we'll get to. It's like, you have to be intentional about being cool sometimes and be like, oh, I could. I'm irritated by this. This just pissed me off. But I know if I act like an asshole right now, which, depending on the situation, you might be entitled to do what it means to me versus what it means to the person I'm about to talk to is going to be totally set, like, totally different things. And I actually have to gear back and I have to be thoughtful. And I think the ability of someone, like, again, let's just say Walter, who I give a lot of praises to because Walter's been specifically, like, very, very, really helpful to me and very, quite kind to me, is the idea of, like, some people. And I think it is for Walter just. He's just naturally like that. But also, I think it's like, even if you're not naturally like that, like, being intentional about being like, hey, I don't want to be shitty. And I actually have to be thoughtful of, like, not taking for granted my position and my power and my influence in this situation. That's tough, but it's a discipline that I think if you get any level of wind in your sails, you've got to be intentional about being cool to people and being kind and, like, really plugged into people. Yeah. [00:42:14] Speaker A: Because they're expecting you to be a dick a lot of time. If you're. Especially if you're in a leadership position, they're expecting you to treat them shitty because they've probably been treated poorly by supervisors or bosses or parents or teachers or whatever throughout their lives. And so if you can go the other direction and treat them well, it can really make a positive impact on people. [00:42:38] Speaker B: All right, so let's get into your career. What is a real estate broker? What do you do? [00:42:44] Speaker A: So I'm a real estate broker in Pennsylvania. So we, I'm licensed throughout the state of Pennsylvania and we basically assist people buy, sell, lease real estate. And so that can be homes, it can be commercial properties, apartment buildings, it can be land, condos, office buildings, really pretty much anything. Most real estate agents really specialize in one area or the other. I live in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and I would call it a small to medium size. It's the capital of Pennsylvania. But if you poll most people in the US and ask them what the capital of Pennsylvania is, most of them will get it wrong. They'll stay either Pittsburgh or Philadelphia. Most people don't even know what Harrisburg is. It's actually, we live close to Hershey. So most of the point now when I travel, I tell people I'm from Hershey because everyone knows Hershey. But we help people. Because I'm in a small town, I don't specialize as much. I do commercial real estate sales, I do residential, and I do land development, things like that. But we represent clients who are doing these transactions and we advise them and we help them get from sort of finding the property to closing on the purchase of the property or closing on their lease and help them on every step along the way. [00:44:12] Speaker B: What's the difference between a real estate broker and a real estate agent? Or is there no difference? [00:44:17] Speaker A: That's a good question. So it's a different. So a real estate broker is someone who can own their own real estate company. And so it's a license that you have to get sort of later on in your career and allows you to supervise other agents. A real estate agent is someone who's a licensee and you can get your license pretty easily. It's maybe an eight week process to become a real estate agent. So that's someone who can, early on in their career, they can start doing transactions, whereas a broker is someone who can actually own their own office and supervise other agents. So I started as an agent and then I became a broker. [00:44:54] Speaker B: It's kind of like an oddly, as an industry, it actually oddly has a lot of like punks in it and actually like quite notable punks in it. You know yourself, Andrew Klein. Shout out to Andrew. But Taylor Steele, who was like, he might be the OG real estate agent from the punk scene. From four walls falling. [00:45:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:13] Speaker B: Am I missing anyone? [00:45:15] Speaker A: When they played in our town at this little punk show, I took him and his bandmates to up the road to a convenience store to buy snacks before the show. So I don't, probably doesn't remember me, but I remember him from those days. [00:45:28] Speaker B: And he's been doing it forever. Like forever forever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:45:33] Speaker A: And Andrew. I just saw Andrew when we were in LA a few weeks ago. We were talking about this. We said we need to do a podcast with you and him and Taylor Steele. And I don't know. I know there's a lot of other real estate agents. Yes, there are a lot of real estate agents who are punk rockers for sure. [00:45:50] Speaker B: So I want to get into the industry and talk about it and some of like, the pros and the cons of it in terms of like, the business world, but also how people interact with real estate, but specifically what's appealing to it as a guy who kind of came up in punk, punk and slash, kind of like indie stuff. What we will talk about how you got here, but today, you even playing in active bands. What's appealing about this industry for you? [00:46:18] Speaker A: Well, you know, I like the fact at this point in my life and having a family, three children, who are all kind of in slightly different places in life, different places in the country even. And then I have a band that keeps me busy and my wife and I like to travel. What I love about my career right now is that it gives me a lot of flexibility. Technology has helped a lot because I used to have to run around and get people to physically sign contracts. I had to fax things or scan things that never really looked right. So then he had to rescan them. I was working a lot at night and on weekends. Now with the tech, with, you know, with docusign and things like that, the technology has helped. But also where I am, my career right now, being more established, doing this for 20 years, I love the fact that I can kind of do it and still be able to pursue these other passions of my life. And also I love the fact that I have clients who understand that. So from time to time, I'll get a call from someone saying, hey, I want to see this property right now. And it's okay for me to say, I'll tell you what, I'd love to be able to show it to you right now. I happen to be at my daughter's basketball game or something. Would it be possible if we did it later today or tomorrow? And people get that not all professions are like that. I have a good friend who's an ER doctor, and it's like when he's in there and someone comes in after a motorcycle accident, he can't be like, oh, sorry, I gotta go to band practice or whatever. So obviously he's dealing with life and death stuff. So I appreciate the flexibility that I have. I appreciate the fact that I am a people pleaser. I've learned that about myself. That's a personality trait that I've discovered about myself in recent years and it allows me to actually. [00:48:09] Speaker B: Work harder for. [00:48:10] Speaker A: People so that they're satisfied and they feel like they've been well taken care of. And I get satisfaction from that. And I think those are probably the two, the two things that I financially, it's great. There are a lot of good opportunities and I appreciate the position. It's helped me and my family arrive at, you know, in life, but it's really the satisfaction I get from, from clients and taking care of clients who many have become my friends. And it's the flexibility that it gives me in my personal life. [00:48:44] Speaker B: So you, you and Andrew have something that I think is like, probably somewhat attached to your industry is like you're both real relationship people. Like Andrew Klein knows everybody, friends with everybody. Everyone's got like a, you know, an Andrew story. And it's like, you know, it's like as soon as you bring up his neighbor, one's smiling and everyone knows you. It's like, it's crazy that you and I didn't meet until we were like much older because everyone knows you and you know everyone and everyone's got a good word to say about you. So it's that idea of like, knowing people, having good relationships, like showing care, showing attention, that seems to be like a through line throughout your whole story ever since you were a little kid to now. [00:49:25] Speaker A: Well, ill tell you one thing that gives me a lot of satisfaction is I know ill have a client will do some real estate transaction that goes well, and theyll call me a year later and say, hey, im looking for an accountant. Can you recommend someone or, hey, I need a therapist, can you recommend a therapist? I guess we build a trusting relationship. And even though I'm no expert on what makes a good therapist, I probably happen to know someone who has a good reputation in our community. And so I think that gives me a lot of those relationships that you develop and the trust you develop that can lead to a lifetime of them sort of knowing that they can count on you is really satisfying to me. And again, it kind of goes back to what we were saying before. Just treat people well in all circumstances and always take the extra step to ask how people are doing. You know, ask if there's any way you can help them. And then, you know, in turn, the business will come. You know, they, they'll see that you're the kind of person who wants to, who's helpful and they'll come back to you. [00:50:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:50:33] Speaker A: Andrew is way cooler than I am, by the way. He's, like, played in bigger bands. Cooler bands. He's in LA. I did listen to a podcast of him one time. He, like, worked in cool, like, clothing stores. And, I mean, he's definitely way cooler than I am, but the fact that you said my name in his breath is an honor. [00:50:51] Speaker B: Well, so my whole crew here, like, my wife Monica, and Mike, who's our engineer, who's also one of our best friends, we all know Andrew well and have traveled with him and know him. I absolutely love him. And Mike just got off tour with Berthold City and he's dying laughing behind the camera because he's got some Andrew stories. Andrew, you rock. We love you. What you said is interesting to me because our real estate agent, my wife and I, our real estate agent is this guy named Paul Fraser. And I met Paul because I bought a house from him. So he was the real estate agent for the other party. And I was so bummed on my real estate agent who I thought just totally sucks. I had two real estate agents before that who I just felt like, we're talking about the biggest purchase you're ever going to have in your life. And I am not an expert. Like, I don't know anything about houses. I'm like, I'm. This is a huge stretch for me to be able to buy these properties. I'm scared, I'm nervous. And the first person I ever dealt with was just, I don't want to say con man, that's too far, but basically was like, I was just a get this person a house as quick as we can. It's a hot market. I don't really care what you, what you get. I just want you to sell something. And I ended up buying something that wasn't ideal. And then I had that for a while and then we upgraded to something else and we had someone else who I went to with. I was like, oh, I'm going to try a different real estate agent. And brought those concerns. I was like, this is the experience I had. And they said all the right things and shame on me for kind of getting tricked into it. I had basically the exact same experience. So when I was buying this second place a few years later, dealing with Paul, who was the other real estate agent. I was like, this guy rocks. I want this guy to be my real estate agent. And years later, he helped me buy the house that my family lives in now. And he was incredible. And we became really, he's like one of our best friends. And when I need a contractor or I need this or I need that or accountant or whatever, I always call him, because he knows everybody and he's usually right. He usually gives you a great group recommendation. So it is a real relationship based, and not just to get something, but, like, the real relationship based industry. Yeah. [00:53:10] Speaker A: It's interesting. When I first got into the business 20 years ago, I decided early on that I, my goal was not, of course, I wanted to make enough money. We just had our second child, and I quit a corporate law. You know, I left a corporate law field that was, you know, had a lot more guarantees than real estate, which is 100% commission based. I mean, you don't, there are no salaries in this industry. So I decided I want to build up a book of clients. I'm more interested in, like, building up a lot of relationships and clients than I am and doing, like, the size of the deals I'm doing. So I would literally do any deal. If someone called me and say, I want to rent, you know, I want to. I want to rent out a doghouse for my dog, I'd be like, I'm going to find you that dog house, you know, or like, someone would call and say, I want to do a little, like, frozen yogurt spot. And I only need 400 sqft. My budget's $500 a month. I'd be like, I'm going to find you that frozen yogurt spot. And I'm not exaggerating. I would run around and do any deal because I figured this person who's, like, running this apartment or buying this little house, it's not a big commission, or leasing out this little space for their accounting firm they're starting is going to be, they're going to have a career. They're young, relatively young, too, the time, but they're going to have a trajectory where later they're going to need more help, they're going to need other properties, or they're going to recommend me to their friends, or they're going to tell their mother that they should use me or whatever. So I just wanted to get in front of as many people as I possibly could in a meaningful way. And so someone told me very early on when I first started, get the dollar signs out of your eyes. If clients see that you're only after a commission or only after a paycheck. They're not going to trust you, you, or respect you. And so I really, you know, sometimes people will be like, what? You're going to work for me. We've been running around for three weeks trying to find a property, and your commission's going to be like, $500. Are you okay with that? I'm like, sure. I just want to do the deals and take care of you. So, you know, that experience you got, I, you had with those agents who just want to see me get that all they seem to care about was getting the deal done. I really made a concerted effort not to be that kind of, that kind of agent. And to this day, I think the way I gave the most credibility with clients is when I tell them not to buy something, they'll call me and say, I want to go see this property, and I'm really interested in it. And I'll sometimes, I mean, I'm not going to talk them out of it if I think it's a good deal. But sometimes they want to buy it and I know it's not good for them, and I'll tell them that and they're surprised. Like, when do you ever go to, like, a car dealership and you drive a car, and then the guy, their woman showing it to you says, oh, you shouldn't buy this car. You know, you should probably go down to the other lot down the street and buy one from them. It never happens. But if you're honest and you're truthful and you know, and you're credible, then you'll tell your client what you really believe and, you know, because it's the right thing for them. So, yeah, that's helped my career. I believe, being that way, I want. [00:56:10] Speaker B: To hit, hit this, like, kind of trust factor from two different angles. But the first one I'm going to go to is, it's not intended to be a critique of the, the industry at all or anything like that. But of course, being a professional and also just being an adult in the world, real estate has become increasingly daunting for people. And, you know, like, we have, we have three kids, my wife and I. We have a 28 year old, a 20 year old, and then a six year old. And the 20 year old is already like, I'll never own a house. Like, I'll never be able to own a house. Like, I can never afford it. And a house of Vancouver, like a house house, a detached house, is like 2 million some dollars. And yeah. And even a condo, like, a two bedroom condo is like, we're looking at, like, and of course, depending where it is and how much, but we're talking like, you know, the high sixes and getting into the, getting into the sevens. So, like, in terms of digits, but it's really, really hard to own here. But also, it's like, we were just in Salt Lake City the other day visiting my, my wife's brother, and they were talking about how crazy real estate is. Real estate has become crazy everywhere. So what advice do you have for people who are kind of listening to this and thinking like, yeah, I'm screwed. I'm never going to buy anything. And the advice would be like, how do they do it? How do they get into the market and kind of build that security and that wealth? But also, how do they pick a real estate agent or broker? Like, how do they figure out who to trust with this, like, crazy, crazy thing in their life? [00:57:47] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, that's a really, that is daunting. And depending on where you live, I mean, people live their entire lives in New York City and make, you know, have great careers and make a great living and still are never able, still never buy real estate. I mean, some areas are just, it's just not attainable, I would say. My advice would be, you know, consider having some flexibility with where you're going to live. The reason why the Salt Lake market is so, has been blown up is because a lot of Californians have moved there and a lot of people, and so that's, people from California decided that Salt Lake had a really high quality of life and was a lot more affordable. So maybe consider, if you're able to, and if you have some mobility, maybe move to an area. And even if it means moving a half an hour away or moving into an area that might, whatever, there are certain areas around here that have always been a little stigmatized that they're like, country or they're backwards or whatever, but maybe consider moving to an area that's less populated and you might find that you actually really enjoy living there and you can buy way more real estate. From a really practical standpoint, I know that your listeners are probably extremely educated and probably don't need to hear this, but simple things like your credit score, I mean, the better your credit score is, the more affordable, the better interest rates you're going to get, which will get, make your purchase a lot more affordable or the house you want to buy a lot more affordable. Also, I mean, the other thing, going back to what I mentioned about being flexible about where you live. There are certain loans that you can get if you are willing to live in places that aren't as popular. So, like in the US, there are these USDA loans where if you live in an area that's deemed to be, like, rural, they're called rural housing loans. You can get low interest rate, you can buy them with almost no money down. You can get help for all your closing costs. So just being willing to have a little bit of flexibility and be willing to consider living in places where you might not otherwise live. The other thing is, I deal with a lot of apartment sales. If you can find a four unit apartment building, you can live in one and rent out the other three, and you can get the income from your three tenants who can help you pay your mortgage. Or even if you go out by a two unit, you can live in one and rent out the other, and that'll help cover your costs. And you can get a standard conventional loan for up to four units. So two, three, four units you can go. And almost anyone can get a loan for something like that, as long as you have credit and income to justify it. And then you can have your tenants help you pay your mortgage and you can actually cash flow with them. So I'd say just sort of considering those options. But, yeah, if you're living in New York City, it may just be a reality. I think a lot of New Yorkers actually end up buying, they rent in the city, but then they buy a home upstate somewhere that's like their weekend getaway because it's affordable. And plus it gives them a way to get out of the city on weekends or in the summer when things are, when it's hot. So those would be, my daughter lives in New York City and she plans to stay in New York, and shes like, daddy, ill never be able to afford a house. Im like, buy one in Harrisburg and have a tenant living in it, and youll be able to build wealth that way and you can just manage it, manage them as your tenant, and you can develop sort of a long term investment plan that way. So that would be my, yes, but also interest rates going up hasnt helped. There are a lot of challenges right now. But I would also tell someone, if you're frustrated now, these things go in cycles, and probably in a couple of years, you know, it will be easier to buy a home if you can sort of wait it out in terms of what to look for in a real estate agent. That was your other question. So what did you mentioned Paul Frazier, right? That was the name. I'll know if I ever need to send, you know, refer someone to every. Have anyone who wants to buy a house in Vancouver. I'll notice something to Paul Frazier. But what does like about Paul, what was. [01:01:55] Speaker B: Let me hit on something that I think is born, too. Our neighbor just down the street is about to sell their house. And he talked to me. He was like, hey, we're thinking about this r1 estate agent, but I know you really like yours. What can you tell me? And I was like, well, who's your real estate agent? And it happened to be the guy, the first guy that we dealt with. No way. Oh, the first guy. And I was like, okay, here's, here's why we're not working with that guy. It's not that guy specifically, but he works for that guy's company. And I was like, man, here's the experience I had with him versus here's the experience I had with Paul. And what it is for Paul that stood out is when I went into the house that he was selling, and I did not want to buy this house at all. I did not want to do it. And I was super sour about the first house that I bought, and I was real bummed on the situation, and it was like a very specific situation, which I won't get into. But talking to Paul and this dude was not trying to sell me anything. He was just like, oh, well, like, if you own a house, why are you trying to buy a new house? And what happened with that house? Like, what was it like, what was your experience like? So this wasn't my agent. This was someone else's agent was like, oh, like, I'm sorry you had that bad experience. Like, tell me about it. Hey, have you thought about what you could do with this property? And if you stayed in this property, what you'd be able to do? And it was more just like talking to someone who genuinely was like, oh, you're kind of in a bad situation. Well, here's what I know who could help. I've got no financial tie to this guy. The way I was talking to him, the likelihood that I was going to buy the house he was selling was very, very low. He just genuinely felt bad and wanted me to do well and wanted to help. And I also wanted to address kind of the idea of like, oh, you might have a sour feeling about this, but, like, here's how you could turn that into something good. The idea that it was someone who could offer such really practical strategy from like, how you turn this around, how this won't be a disaster for you financially from a wealth building perspective, but also demonstrating real, genuine care while largely ignoring anyone else who was coming to the house because they were just kind of like, going through the house on their own. But here's this one guy who's kind of like, meh. And it was, it. It was really cool. He really took time out of his day because he knew I was kind of, like, not feeling it and wanted to have a conversation of why. The helpfulness, the attentiveness, the empathy, the ability to kind of read the room and like. Like, all these people are fine looking on their own. I can. I should pay attention to this guy. It was so impressive, and I didn't feel like I was being maneuvered or sold to at all, that I did end up kind of trusting this guy. We ended up buying that property. I was relatively happy with that property, and that property ended up. Was able to leverage that to buy where I'm at now. So it was a huge win, and that's why I wanted to work with him. [01:04:37] Speaker A: Well, and give yourself some credit. There's probably something about you that he felt connected to as well. He felt like he could actually have a conversation with you. And I think that that's. I'll work with most people, but I am a little. I've gotten to a point in my life, for sure, where I'm a little bit more selective. If I have a bad feeling about someone from the beginning, I'm probably not going to want to work with them. Because it is a relationship. When you commit to working with someone, especially as a buyer or agent, but also in selling their property, it could take three days, or it could take three months, or it could take three years. God forbid you have to be committed to working with this person. You have to feel like there's a working relationship that can be established. You have to feel like you have probably some shared ethical approach as well. So there may have been something about you that he felt connected to as well. So that would be interesting. You can ask him that next time you see him. What it was about you that really drew him in. But I think that's one of the cool things about real estate as well, is if we were talking about the car example, I hate comparing real estate salespeople to car salespeople, but if you sell cars from Honda or whatever, and someone comes on the Honda lot and they want to buy a Subaru, you can't suddenly sell anything to them. What I love about real estate is I can meet someone who wants to look at a property that I'm selling. If it doesn't work, I can go sell them. Anything else. I can find them. I have that challenge to go and find them in the right place. You're not limited to just properties that you have listed for sale or just in a certain area or anything like that. That's the one thing I really love about real estate, is just finding that fit for that person, but not being limited, really. [01:06:29] Speaker B: So, but what's, what should someone be thinking about when they're looking at which real estate agent or brokerage to work with? [01:06:37] Speaker A: So I think, again, that fit is, is important. It needs to be someone who you, first of all, that, that you trust. Second of all, that, you know, really has market knowledge, knows what they're doing. Didn't you know? I, I wouldn't discourage someone from working with a new agent because that new agent is really going to have a lot of energy. And as long as they're working under the supervision of a more experienced agent, they can take care of you very professionally. You will. One complaint that people will make about their real estate agent is they didn't return my call. They didn't seem like they were available when I needed them. They never seemed like they had time for me. Well, if it's a new agent, they're going to have all, you're probably their only client or one of their few clients, so you'll get the time and attention that you'll want from them. But I would say definitely local market knowledge is really important. Like they need to know that certain sections of certain towns, you know, go for a higher price than other sections. Or they need to know, sort of, if you want a big school district versus a small school district, they need to know, you know, the differences in sizes amongst the school districts or where the district lines are. So I think having someone who understands what prices the local market, what the market values are for the homes, is really important. And I know we talked about this before, but how do you find a real estate agent? That's a really good question. And I really believe the same way that you told your neighbor to go and list with Paul, that's the best way to find a real estate agent. Just talk to people who you know and you trust, who you know have recently bought homes or sold homes and ask them what their experience was. If they tell you it was lousy, then you'll know it across that person off the list. But if they tell you it went well, you know, that's someone who you should consider for sure. I don't do a lot of advertising. I never have. I don't, you know, don't do billboards. I don't do tv ads. I don't, I don't really even do a lot of Internet stuff. You know, I boost listings from time to time. But 90% of my business comes from referrals and past clients. This sounds counterintuitive, but I always think if someone needs to advertise too much, they probably don't have enough business on their own. Maybe they haven't treated their clients really well, so they have to go out and find new clients who they have no connection with at all and who are clueless as to who they are as people. So I've kind of taken the opposite approach, which is like, people can find me based on their friends who recommend me or based on their experience with me in the past selling their homes, and it's worked out really well for me. So I would say find people you trust and ask them what their experience was. I would definitely interview a few agents, too. Don't meet one person, say, okay, I'm going to work with you. They wont be offended if you say, hey, id like to sit down, have coffee with you and tell you what our needs are. And when youre done, its okay to say, im going to talk to a couple of other people and then ill get back in touch with you. Chances are if theyre good agents and theyre really confident, they know youll end up going back to them in the end anyway because the other people they talk to are going to make the same impression. So do your due diligence know that you are tethered to this person, especially as a buyer agent in the United States. The laws are changing and soon you'll have, you will have to sign what's called a buyer agency agreement with your agent that will have, we've always, it's always existed, we've always had these contracts, but it wasn't required to sign them with agents. But most agents are going to make you sign this agreement that says, that explains how they are compensated and what your financial responsibilities are going to be to them as a buyer. So understand what you're signing, ask a lot of questions about what you're signing and understand what you're signing up for with that agent. [01:10:35] Speaker B: Heck yeah. I want to ask you another question about how you build your talent pipeline on your business. And then after that, I want to get into what got you into being a real estate agent, because it's a super interesting story because you didn't actually set out to be a real estate agent. [01:10:52] Speaker A: No way. [01:10:54] Speaker B: All right. We'll get to that in a sec. But you're part of a family business and you're a part owner now, is that correct? [01:11:04] Speaker A: Yes. [01:11:05] Speaker B: All right. So I know it's like a legacy business, family owned. You're kind of building it forward. You want it to continue to exist. How do you build pipeline? How do you grow your business and find young agents to go out and do the business in a way that you believe reflects how you think it should be done? [01:11:24] Speaker A: Robert, thats a great question. And every company does things differently. Some companies have no interest in growing at all. It takes work to manage agents. And im our broker of record, which means that I literally have to supervise, we have about 40 agents here, and so I have to supervise all of them. So some companies want to stay very lean and very mean. They dont want to have, they want to be boutiquey because theres way less management involved, way less headache. Some companies want to grow exponentially more national companies that youd see them really all over the world, national, international. Theyre required by the franchise or to grow a certain amount every year. Theyre required to add a certain number of agents to their roster every year, else theyll lose their franchise guys. So they very aggressively go out and recruit new agents, either current agents who are working somewhere else or recruit brand new agents. We've always taken a very organic approach. We want to grow. We know in order to evolve and survive, you have to grow because you lose people naturally, agents will leave. And so you want to make sure you're gaining more than you're losing, but it has to be the right fit. I think the number one word, I think, is professionalism. For our company, we want people who are professionals, not people who are doing things kind of halfway or who are gimmicky or who, like you said, will say anything they need to say to get a deal. We want people who are professionals. And we have cultivated a family atmosphere here at our company. We want people who kind of fit into that family as well. And so I know that's sort of amorphous, but you kind of know it when you meet someone the first time and you interview them or they're interviewing you, whatever it is they're thinking about coming to you, you get that feeling. I would say in order to grow, it's important to first of all be successful, because people, when they see your signs up everywhere and your name on it, then they won't. Then they, you know, as an agent, they're going to say, boy, I'd like to go and work with that person because it seems like they're having a lot of success. It's also treating people really well. We've had a lot of agents who have come here to work, who I did a deal with, who at the time worked for a different company, and we had a good working relationship, we got along really well, the deal went well and at the end, a year later or whatever, when they were thinking about changing companies, they remember that experience and they called me. So I think that's a big part of it too. And it's like your reputation is everything. So as a person, but also as a company, if you have a stellar reputation, people will want to go and be associated with you. If you have a lousy reputation, they won't. So I think it's sort of a combination of a lot of different things. Again, we don't, a lot of advertising, we're not like tv ads, hey, we're hiring new agents just because it's not a great way to get quality people. Necessarily. [01:14:25] Speaker B: Just an industry specific question that I've always been curious about. Does a real estate agent have to work with a brokerage? Can they be totally independent or do they have to work with a company like yours? [01:14:37] Speaker A: They have to work with, unlike lawyers, if you're a lawyer, go to law school, you pass the bar exam, you can hang your own shingle and start your own company. Real estate agents have to work under a broker until now. Eventually, when they become a broker on their own, they can just start their own business and work by themselves. But yes, you have to work under. [01:14:57] Speaker B: The supervision of a broker if you're comfortable explaining it. How does the financial model work? So for example, it's like it's 100% commission based. So I would imagine part of that commission then goes to the brokerage. [01:15:11] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, part of the commission goes to the brokerage just to keep the lights on. And that has been a sliding scale too. When I first started, it was normal that the brokerage kept 50%, sometimes 40 or 50% of the commission. Its now really changed. Id say the industry average is probably 70% to 80%. Some companies its 90% now. The reality is theres a cost to that. Obviously maybe 50% was too much. But what happens is the lower the percentages the company keeps, the less the agent will really, the less the company can really provide to the agent. I believe. And so there are brokerages where there might be one broker for the entire state of Pennsylvania, whereas, like, I'm a broker locally, and we have 40, we're locally owned company, we have 40 agents. There might be one broker in the entire state for 10,000 agents. So, as you can imagine, there's not a lot of supervising going on, necessarily. And who knows what they're out there doing? And then those agents are the ones who tend to get sued or tend to lose their licenses. And then, as a broker, if I'm supervising them, I get pulled into that, and it's a headache. But if you're only taking a very small percentage of each commission, as a company, you have to have volume. You have to have a lot of agents doing a lot of deals. So there tends to be less supervision in those companies, I believe. But that's the reality. The company takes a certain percentage, and that covers, like, you know, most of our agents have an office or a workspace. You know, we pay for the real estate signs. We have administrative people who handle. Handle a lot of paperwork for them, handle the bookkeeping and things like that. And so there's, you know, mostly from the percentage that our agent pay. Agents pay into the company. That kind of pays for us to keep the lights on. [01:17:08] Speaker B: All right, so we're heading towards the close of the interview. We'd be remiss if we didn't talk about how you became a real estate agent, because based on the reaction a few minutes ago, we were like, hell, no. I didn't think I was going to be. To be one. I'll lead us into this. You grew up, your dad was a real estate, had this real estate brokerage. You'd gone off to college, but didn't really have a sense of what you wanted to do. You weren't planning on doing that, but you were just like, I don't really know what I want to do. Which led you to getting into the peace corps, which led you to Poland, which eventually led you to your very short lived law practice. So tell us the story of that and how all that happened. [01:17:52] Speaker A: Yeah, so I was on the verge of graduating from college, and I was still in state college, and junction had kind of, like, wrapped up art. Monk was still happening. But I think I had a sense. I didn't really. I mean, at that point, I think I was probably involved with maybe our first ten releases or so. I really kind of quickly realized that my aspiration was not to run a record label like our idol. You know, our. To me, like, the record labels that I wanted to emulate were, like, discord, revelation, and touch and go. Those were like the three that were sort of like, you know, aspirations in terms of quality of the music. They put out, you know, consistent quality. And. But I. And, you know, the. The ethos that went along with all those labels, I just kind of realized that. I started to realize that running a record label wasn't my gig. Eric was really good at it. Great, great business person. I'm sure. I'm sure you're aware. He just, you know, he started after Art monk. He then had lumberjack distribution, and then he started his own record pressing plant furnace, which he just sold to Metallica. And I'm not. I don't have the moxie to ask him how much he sold it for, but I don't think he ever has to work again, I can safely say that. So, anyway, he had that, you know, he had that drive. I didn't have it at the time to do that, to do a record label. So I decided I wanted to do something totally different. Once I was graduating, a lot of my friends who are musicians were moving. Leaving state college and moving to bigger cities and, you know, trying to get into the scenes there. But I kind of just wanted to do something totally different. But I wasn't sure what it was. But I was walking across campus one day, and there was a job fair, and I was like, oh, like, I don't have a job. I should. I wonder what this is all about. And one of the first booths I saw was a recruiter for the US Peace Corps, which I really didn't know much about. I just thought it was kind of a hippie thing from the sixties. So I stopped and started. I talked to the woman who was working there, and she basically said, it's really cool. You can go and live somewhere else in the world. It's a two year commitment. And I said, I have no skills at all. I'm a sociology major. I'm a very solid c student in college. I like to read it. I like to write. Like, I have certain soft skills, but I don't have any hard skills at all. And she said, that's okay. You have time on your side. Because I was graduating probably, like, ten months later. And she said, a lot of the opportunities we have are for teachers in eastern Europe. She said, basically, based on your skill set, you have two options. You can either be a teacher in eastern Europe, or you can be a beekeeper, because we'll teach you how to be a beekeeper. And I was like, fuck that. I am not going to be that. I would be a terrible beekeeper. But I said, the teaching thing seems kind of interesting. And she said, you'd be teaching English. Recently, Eastern Europe had just democratized. A lot of the english teachers in eastern Europe had gone into the private sector where they could make a lot more money because all those economies had opened up to the west, so they needed english speakers. And so they had a shortage of english teachers at that point. This is 1990, 519 90 419 95. So I said, well, that sounds cool, but I'm not a teacher. She said, well, go and do, like, some tutoring or something like that, so you can put that on your application that you have some experience. So I did some tutoring of some high school students in Spanish because I had just done a semester abroad in Spain, and my Spanish was okay, good enough to, like, get a passing grade in high school so I could, like, help these kids pass. So I did that on a volunteer basis for a few months. And then I came back to her and I said, okay, I did this teaching. I have something for my application I can put on. And she said, great. She helped me through the application. She did my interview. She submitted me, submitted my application. And then around Easter time, I found out I was going to Poland. And I had never been to Poland. I'd been to, surprisingly, in high school. I took a trip to Eastern Europe. We were in Russia, Czech Republic, and actually Turkmenistan. We kind of went all over the place. And I'd been in western Europe. I'd never been to Poland. So I had to sort of look on the map and figure it out. I got a language tape of Polish and was like, what the fuck is this? How. How am I going to live in this country if I. If this is the language? These don't even sound like words to me. But I took the assignment, and I went through a couple months of training there with my group of about 50 people where they taught us. We did three months of teacher training and language training. Picked up the language pretty quickly because we were living with the family, with families. And I got my teacher teacher certification to teach ESL and not to teach ESL. And then I got assigned to this little village outside of Krakow, Poland, and it was teaching at an agricultural school where none of the kids, they were really great kids, but none of them had any interest in learning English at all because they were at that time, and this is the mid nineties, they hadn't joined the EU yet. They weren't really traveling. They were from the small village where they grew up on farms. They had no interest in leaving the area. No need to learn English. The only way I could get a lot of them to learn it is a lot of the kids, for whatever reason, were into, like, super into metal. And so I would, like, give them assignments to, like, translate metal song, like, metallica songs or, like, slayer songs, and they were interested, like, me explaining them what, you know, what the lyrics and stuff like that. And so, like, that was the only way. Or I would just make them do, like, bogus. Like, just bogus assignment. Like, we'd watch, you know, a clip from, like, fast times at Ridgemont High. And, like, we talk about, you know, like, anything to, like, trick them into hearing English or, like, maybe learning a few words here and there. I was not a great. Needless to say, I was, like, a very average to probably below average teacher, I would say. I don't. I don't know if anyone learned a lot of English, but, like, we had fun. And. And honestly, the kid, I had other friends who were teaching who were my group who were teaching at, like, way more academic high schools or, like, where they were, like, the kids wanted to do model un, and so they were, like, their supervisors for model un, and these kids were, like, really wanted to learn English, but that wasn't. Those weren't the kids I was working with, but I did. We had to pick up a side a project because we didn't teach on Fridays, and we had summers off, obviously. So we had a responsibility to pick up another project as a Peace Corps volunteer. And I ended up working for a woman who was a human rights lawyer in Krakow at Yagilodonian University, which is one of the oldest universities in Europe. And she was an international lawyer. She was teaching law students how to become international lawyers and how to do human rights law. And so just through, like, I met someone who worked at the consulate in Krakow, and she told me about this really interesting woman. I met her, and she asked me to help her teach. Not that I knew anything about law or international law, but because I was a native english speaker, I could kind of help her students as they were writing, learning how to write briefs, learning how to speak publicly, learning how to debate, learning how to do mock trials and things like that. So I would come along to her lectures that were in English, and I would help the students kind of learn how to practice in English. While doing that, I got to learn a little bit about the law, too. And I started to get interested in possibly becoming a lawyer. I also, during that time, met a couple of professors, law professors from the US, who were. Ran legal clinics at their colleges, at their law schools in the US, which were basically legal aid offices, where law students would give free legal service and advice to indigent people in their communities, which they didn't have in Poland, they didn't have it anywhere in Europe. It didn't exist at the law schools at the time. I don't know what it's like now, but european law schools were very theoretical, just theory based. And then once you graduated, you would go and work as a. Basically do an internship or work under a mentor, and that's how you would learn to practice law. But there was no practical teaching in the schools themselves. So I met a couple professors who were in Europe, in Krakow, for a conference, and they were talking to me about how these exist in the US but not in Poland. And they said, do you think you'd be interested in helping start one in Poland at your school? And again, I said, I don't know anything about the law, but I can bring people together who do, and I can try to figure out how to make this thing happen. It's like booking a tour, really, or starting a band. And so I was able to got four or five really qualified international lawyers who were polish, who were also on the faculty at the university. We found a space, we got some grant money, I wrote some grant applications to the Ford foundation and to some other big international foundations. We got somebody from the UN and we started this legal clinic. And the first day we were open, we put out a press release. And the deal is, it's law students, and they work under the supervision of law professors and attorneys. So they're not out there sort of floating around in the ether. They actually have supervision. But we put out a press release and there's a couple. It was a novel idea that didn't exist in Poland, so it got picked up by a lot of the news stations. And it actually worked too well because I went into our office the first day we were technically open, and there was a line of people out the door who had come to get free legal advice, and I'm the only one there because I was like. I was the one who had to open the door that morning. So I was like, am I bad Polish? I was like, I am not a lawyer. I can't really help you, but here's a form, fill this out, give me your information, someone will call you. Well, I think we had like 80 people that first day, and we ended up doing. We did a lot of refugee law, refugee law assistance. There were a lot of people who were refugees who were trying to get either from further east or coming from further south, and they were trying to get into western Europe, but they would get stuck at the border in Poland. Wasn't their intention to land in Poland, but they get stopped there. So they had to pursue their refugee status in Poland. And there's a refugee center near our. Near our law school. So a lot of our students helped those people get refugee status, which is really cool. We did a lot of. There was a lot of domestic violence victims who we helped and some other, like, civil matters. But anyway, it went really well. And the other law schools in Poland started to hear about it as well. And they thought, well, geez, you know, if the University of Krakow is doing this, we should be doing that as well. And so within about two years, all 13 law schools in Poland had started these legal. Started legal clinics of their own. And then we started to get some exposure sort of regionally. So, like, I ended up working with some groups in Hungary. I know, Czech Republic, they started them, and then further western Europe, they started to do legal clinics. So it just kind of came from an idea, from a couple of conversations, and to this day that I know the office, the legal clinic in Krakow is still running. So anyway, that's a very long way to say from that experience. I decided I wanted to go to law school because it just seemed like a natural transition. And so when I was done with my time in Poland, I went to law school in DC at catholic university. [01:29:59] Speaker B: So you went to law school, did the whole thing to get into it. But your legal career was relatively short lived. What can you tell us about that? [01:30:08] Speaker A: Yeah, my first year of law school, I worked for a judge in DC who was. It's called a. They called a clerkship, a legal clerkship. So I worked for a judge. That was a great experience. And so I. Obviously, we were doing litigation. It was criminal law. But I decided I wanted to try to be a litigator, so I did. I was living in DC with my wife. We were very happy there. We had our first child, and I got a job offer in Harrisburg from a law firm here that seemed like a really good fit. So we picked up and moved to Harrisburg, back to my hometown, with a child in tow, which kind of influenced our decision, too, because we had family support here. So I did work for a law firm. I did commercial litigation for a couple of years. I hated it. It was just not a good fit for me. If I was to be a litigator, I really needed to be in the courtroom all day. I think that would have been a better fit. But it was a lot of just research, writing, drafting briefs, very little, if any, client interaction at all because you're working under a partner who really has the relationship with the clients. I just was fidgety a lot. I was very distracted. I was not enjoying the process at all. I knew, although I said hell no about real estate earlier, never pictured I didnt want to be a real estate agent because thats what my dad was and that was his thing. I wanted to do my own thing, but he never pushed me to do it. He wasnt trying to encourage me even to be a real estate agent. Growing up, people would always say, oh, youre going to be an agent like your dad. And id say, no, no, im going to do my own thing, to be a punk rocker. So I ended up, while I was still practicing law, I decided I was gonna get my real estate license just because to have as like a side thing. And by the time I finished my license, I just, I always knew my brother also works with me as well. He's my older brother. Whenever he and my dad would get together and talk about real estate, there was like an excitement in the air. And I could tell that they're really passionate about it. So many aspects to deals and clients and things. And as a lawyer, you're not hanging out talking with other lawyers about your civil litigation or your commercial litigation. It's the last thing you want to talk about when you're not working. So I knew that I saw the excitement that they got from the profession and I just, I was very unhappy practicing law. And I thought, the hell I'm just going to try it. I went home to my wife, and this is a funny story. I went home with my wife and I was like, we had just had our second child. And I said, we had a mortgage, we had car payments, we had all this stuff. And I had a pretty well paying job as a lawyer. And I went home and I said, we need to talk. She was like, oh, God, what? They said, well, I want to make a career change. And I swear to God. So she paused and kind of looked at me and she was sweating. And I said, I got my real estate license and I think I want to go and give it a shot to sell real estate. I mean, I can work with my dad, work with my brother. They love it. I think I'd be really good at it. I think it's a good fit. And she was like all this weight went off of her shoulders and she looked so relieved. And I said, I thought your reaction would be way worse. I thought you'd be pretty upset because it's a, you know, this is commission based, so this is a big risk. And she said, I thought you were going to tell me you wanted to be a roadie. [01:33:46] Speaker B: At the time. [01:33:47] Speaker A: Some of our friends were like starting to, you know, like actually tour professionally and do well. She's like, I thought for sure you're going to say just wanted to drop everything, become a roadie. And I was like, oh, my God. So that, so from there on, I had her full, full support. But it was, it was a little scary to go 100% commissioned. [01:34:07] Speaker B: What can you say? What can you, what can you share with us about like that? I know it wasn't like a total leap into nothing. Like it wasn't a complete leap of faith because you had a family history, there was a job to go into, but you did leave something that you had to work really hard to attain and also that had a pretty serious paycheck involved. You left a very lucrative career to do something that had a question mark, but you did it because you wanted to be happy. What can you tell us about that, Trey? [01:34:38] Speaker A: Yeah, im lucky I figured it out when I did. Its funny. Since then I still have friends from that law firm who are now have become, we are all entry level at that point, but theyre still there and theyve become partners and theyve done very well for themselves. I've had people who have gone into the 12th or 13th, 15th year of their legal careers and they've said, God, I wish I did what you did when you did it, not necessarily become real estate agents, but to get into something else because once you get to a certain point in your career, it is very hard to leave it. The golden handcuff thing is a real thing because each year your compensation goes up, as you know, as you mentioned, the cost of living in Vancouver, your spending tends to track your earnings so you can really get yourself bogged down with debt, responsibilities, and it becomes harder and harder to leave that lucrative career. So I think in some ways I was lucky. I did it relatively early on. I was used to living probably at or below the poverty line with being college student living in Poland, where I was making $200 a month, and then being, you know, a relatively poor law student living in expensive cities. So I hadn't really gotten used to, you know, a certain lifestyle that was that we were too attached to. But I just think you, you know, when you know, you know, and if you're generally a happy person, if you're generally a relatively satisfied, like, grounded person, and then you get into a career and you're miserable, there's something that. It's the career, it's not you. And so it's scary. But if you can make even. And the change doesn't have to necessarily be to do a wholesale change of your career, maybe it's going. Working for a different organization or getting rid of a partner or bringing on a new partner or making some adjustments can really make a world of difference. Again, if you're a person who's generally, like a pretty balanced person and you're. And your career is making you out of balance, then it's, you know, it's time for a change. [01:36:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I like to speak to that. I think that there nothing will make you a stranger to yourself more than working at a job that you're miserable in. And what I mean by that is, you know, for my. I'll use myself as an example. I love what I do. I really like being a coach. I really like working with people to help solve their business problems, the company culture problems, help people grow as leaders, create better leadership culture to communicate better. I love that. I totally love it. I found it completely by accident. I worked for a company before I started cadence that was kind of a cousin of what I do. It's sort of executive coaching. And their company culture was the worst. It was total shark tank. It was like everyone was, like, backstabbing each other to get the sale and all that, and it was just really bad. And very specifically was a family ran company, and the family were awful. Like, my boss was just. My boss was just a kid who grew up with money and privilege and is like, kind of like a rich kid, right? And it was so shitty, but I had left being a therapist, and I was in this thing, and I started making a lot of money, and in fact, I was making more money than I ever thought I would make in my life. And my life changed as a result of that. But I was so unhappy. I was so depressed. I was so, like, what do I do? If I leave this, I'm going to be making literally a quarter of what I make right now. If I go back to. To being a therapist. My life had adapted to, like, how much money I was making at the time. I was the. I was the worst version of myself. I became a complete stranger to myself where I was so unhappy and doing things that only made me more unhappy but unable to not do them. And I'm really lucky that, like, the way my life went, I ended up, like, being. Finding myself in a position where I started my own company, and it was, like, a huge, life changing thing because it was, like waking up out of a dream where I was like, who the fuck was that person for the past five years? That's not me. That's not who I am. And it was really good to. I was really fortunate to have the events happen that led me to starting cadence and kind of, like, getting to know myself again, because being super unhappy in a career where you're spending 40, 50, 60 hours a week, like, totally focused on this thing, being tied to it because of those golden handcuffs, and then also feeling like, I hate this. I don't want to do this. I don't want to be in this company. I don't even know if I like this job, but I have to do it for the money. Or thinking, you have to do it for the money to realizing, oh, I actually love what I do, I'm going to do it differently. I'm going to focus on this thing. I've got my own thing, but, like, I care about the money, but I care way more about being happy and healthy and doing things that I feel good about. It was like, if I'd stayed in that job, I don't know what would happen to me, but at the same time, I was making, at that time, the most money I'd ever made, but I was just totally miserable. So staying in a job that you hate, but you're staying there because of money will turn you into a stranger to yourself? 100% Trey. [01:40:03] Speaker A: But what do you think? What did you have in you? What was that sort of innate thing in you that made, you know, that there was something better out there or made, you know that? Like, because, I mean, frankly, like, I totally understand it. For most people, I think if you just. What they're looking for is, like, stability and sort of predictability, and so if they're in a career or a job that even they don't love or maybe that makes them miserable, at least it gives them a certain amount of stability and predictability that they're looking for. What was it that made you know, that there was something more out there or that you were. That you deserve better for yourself? [01:40:41] Speaker B: As corny as this is gonna sound, it's the music that we grew up with that I'd be, like, listening to, because I still always, like loved, loved hardcore and punk and I've always been, like, quite involved in it. But I was listening to all these records and going to see all these bands that had lyrics where I was like, oh, the thing that you're singing about that you're saying is like, shitty. I've actually kind of become like that a little bit and really? Yeah, yeah. It was like, you know, I was listening to the disengaged seven inch at one point and I was like, oh, this song, these three songs are just about me right now. Like, this is, this is just the life I'm living. And really feeling like, holy shit, I'd become this total stranger to myself. And, you know, I'm a guy that grew up on, like, minor threat and, like, out of this might sound odd, but out of every band, every punk and hardcore band, probably my favorite band is embrace. Like, that's the, that's the most impactful record of my life. [01:41:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:41:37] Speaker B: And I've never met Ian Makai. I've always kind of been like, oh, I don't want to meet him. I've, like, he's. He's written so many songs and been part of so many things that have literally, like, changed my life. That embrace record is the way that I want to go through life is not mapped out on that, but, like, I want to have that level of just, like, I just want to be happy. And, like, kind of plug, kind of. [01:42:00] Speaker A: Is a roadmap, though. I mean, honestly, it is. That record is astounding. It is a roadmap to your life. And he probably wrote that when he was like 24 or something. You know what I mean? Whatever it was, it was all there. [01:42:13] Speaker B: I want to be happy. I want to be just a good husband, a good father, a good friend. I want to be plugged into my community, understand what's happening. I want to do the good things that I can do. I don't want to be blind to the suffering of the world. And I was in this job that has turned me into the worst version of myself. Like, so, like, so different than, than who I am. And that's. It's not the employer's fault. It's not anyone's fault but myself because I stayed in the job and I stayed in the job because I wanted predictability, I wanted comfort. I wanted to be able to own a house and all these things. But a lot of the music that we grew up with, it was just like, I am not who I'm supposed to be right now. I'm like, I somehow I've gotten gotten off sideways, but also when. When I ended up leaving that company and I was in a really terrible place in my life, it was also the music and the ideas and the things that, like, people in our scene kind of grow and learn, but also the ability to build things and have good relationships. That's what allowed me to get back up on my feet. It's what allowed me to start cadence. When I started cadence, I had exited that other company, and the day I exited that other company, I called all my clients and just said, hey, I just started my own company. And they're like, you did? I'm like, yeah. They're like, what's it called? I'm like, I have no idea. I don't have a name yet. They're like, okay, what do you do? I'm like, called embrace. I'm like, they're like, well, what do you do? I'm like, I kind of do a version of what you did, what I did before, but, like, way more based in psychology. And they're like, well, that sounds kind of vague. I'm like, yeah, I haven't figured it out yet. They're like, all right, well, how much are you going to charge? I don't know. I don't have it. Like, less than what we did before. Like, okay. But I'd had good enough relationships with people, and I had just had the moxie to call people that. That day. I'd started my company, basically, and within a year, or within a year, I'd hired four people. And then now, eight years later, it's like, 30 people. We work globally. Just got back from a european business trip. We're expanding into Europe. All of that is because I. All of that is because of lots of angles. But getting through that darker period of my life, kind of reflecting that I'm not who I want to be. Having the guts to go out and start this business and also work on myself so I could kind of get back to who I want to be. So much of that comes from punk and hardcore and the lyrics and the ideas and the people that I met and the things that I aspire to. Something someone said to me about Ray Capo one time, and they said it to me like they were letting me in on this terrible secret about re capo. I was someone who had played in a band with Ray Capo and was like, you know, Ray Capo's not actually like that. Like, all those lyrics from youth at Indian Shelter, he's not really like that. He. He aspires to be like that. He wishes he was like that, but he's not like that. And when they said it to me, I was like, well, yeah, but isn't that everyone, like, don't all people aspire to be better than they are and want to be ways and then fall down and act like shitheads? And some people do it more than others. Like, I think of a guy like Ray Capo, who I don't know at all. I've had a few interactions with him, and some have been okay and some haven't been, but what I'd say is, like, I think it's incredible to aspire to be something amazing and also recognize that you can be a total shithead, but also get up on your feet and then start working and being. Try and be that person more than you're not that person. I think that's, like, a really powerful thing. Anyways, I'm pulling away from your story a little too much. I want to go back to you, Jeff. [01:45:45] Speaker A: No, no. When you talk about embrace, I was thinking, like, number of people who have told me that at some point in their lives, when they're trying to make a decision, like, you know, there's a divergent path and they're trying to figure out which, you know, which path to take. Like, there's. Ian's voice is, like, in their head, you know, like, what would he. You know, like, there's. W what would Jesus do? Like, what would he do? It's a real thing, you know? And really, and for some people, I mean, frankly, for some bands, it's probably sort of financially, in some ways strapped them, you know, because they've not done things that probably would have been the financially, you know, smart things to do. But, like, Fugazi would do that or Ian wouldn't do that. But, you know, in terms of, like. But for the most part, you know, that what would Ian do is, like, it would be the right thing, you know? And those lyrics are definitely a guide. And so, no, I agree about that. Embrace record a lot. We were talking off camera. I saw Ian do a Q and a the other night. It was like a virtual Q and a about the Fugazi instrument movie. It was so cool. Like, he had no, there may be 20 people in the audience, and he. It was a Sunday night, and he, I'm sure he had other things he could have been doing, but he spent an hour and a half just like. And people were, some people there were, like, very much in the know about Fugazi, and some people had never heard of Fugazi before in the audience, and one guy said, hey, you guys were around in the late eighties, early nineties. Like, do you remember grunge? And Ian was like, yes, I'm familiar with grunge. Like, so were you really influenced by those, like, grunge bands was like, were you, were you really influenced with them at the time? And to his credit, he could have been like, no, but he gave a really thoughtful answer to this guy. This guy who asked the question was probably 30 or whatever. Like, he's, you know, his band was. The kid probably wasn't even born when the band was happening, but he gave a really thoughtful answer. And he's like, well, you know, when we were minor threat, we're trying to play some shows in the Pacific Northwest, and there's this band called the Farts. And, you know, they're actually, there was really good, like, punk band. And some of the guys from mud Honey were in that band. And we reached out to them. We tried to make a show happen. So, like, the show never happened. But I kind of got to know, you know, the guys who were mud honey. And he's like, you know, and he's like, there were some other people we knew, the guys from sub pop and, you know, so we knew what was happening there and we had, you know, some mutual respect, but in no way were we influenced by any of those bands. And that wasn't. He's like, we were listening to dub and we were listening to the Stooges and we were listening to wire. That's what turned into Fugazi. But it was a really thoughtful answer, to his credit. And that's a situation where he could have just been dismissive or whatever. It reminds me it was another lesson of, that's a cool way to handle uninformed questions, you know? And he handled it, like, super gracefully. [01:48:40] Speaker B: Excellent. [01:48:41] Speaker A: What would you do? He did the right thing. [01:48:43] Speaker B: So let's go into the crucial three. I'm going to ask you three increasingly difficult questions that we go on. You already have some insight into the process here, as we did it last time, but I'm going to start with what I think is one you're not ready for. So in your story, you've talked repeatedly about being a average or even below average student, but also in your story, you've done consistently really cool and interesting things. So. And this is me saying this, so you don't, you know, no need for you to be humble here. I thought junction was really, really cool, really unique, cool sounding band put out cool records, art mach construction, which is great. Really, really. Like that record label. It had a big impact on me when I was younger. Then he wanted to be in the Peace Corps and you were in a situation where you had students that were like disinterested, but you were able to tap into a way to work with them, which was through metal. And I love that you're getting them to work on slayer lyrics. I think that's charming and awesome. Then you went on to create this law clinic. That's something that had never happened, that literally helped hundreds if not thousands of people and changed the way law schools were working in Poland and has gone on to make a huge impact. Then you went on to go into the legal place and you had the guts to choose happiness over a paycheck. So while you havent always had great grades and id imagine when you got into the legal space, you probably got better grades. But while you werent always an academic, you were always a doer and a doer of meaningful things and things that added to the culture and made a difference. Thinking about that, if you were in school again now, would you still be an average student or would you apply yourself differently? [01:50:40] Speaker A: That's always a tough line to toe. As a parent, do you really tell your kids how shitty of a student you were? Or is it like, do as I say, not as I do. But to be honest, once I got to law school, I think the thing about school is I never really cared. I didn't really. I didn't see that it was like a. I didn't know. Other than knowing I needed to graduate, I didn't know. I didn't look at schools like a tool to, you know, to get me somewhere else. When I went to law school, that changed because I knew I wanted to be a lawyer and I sort of knew it to have like some sort of meaningful career, I needed to apply myself. And also I was really interested in the law. So I was a very good student, law school, and I studied my ass off. So. But I think what I learned is like, I think I just never really thought I could be a good student and law school taught me that I could be a good student. So yeah, if I went back to high school now, I'd probably be a straight a student, I guess in college the same. But would I do it differently? Not at all. Like, I also had a lot of fun in high school. I went to shows, I played basketball a lot, I hung out with my friends. The time I would have spent in order to be a good student, I would have had to probably not do a lot of things that I like to do. Same thing with when I was in college, I was doing junction and put a lot of time in doing the band and doing a record label. I wouldn't have been able to do those things if I was a serious student. So it's sort of like you're going to become who you are regardless. [01:52:08] Speaker B: All right, second question. You have pursued things throughout your life that you're into, and you've done really well when you're into them. So even, like, you decide you want to be a lawyer, and becoming a lawyer, that goal made you a good student when you've been pretty mediocre at it before. So a lot of your stuff has to do with pursuing things that you love to do and that you're excited about. Even if those things make no sense financially or career wise, you just want to go and do it. What's your advice for people who are starting their careers, their early life, and they're trying to figure out, should I follow my passion or should I follow something that's going to make financial sense from a career perspective? [01:52:53] Speaker A: That's a good question. I mean, the easy answer is to say, follow your passion, right? That's sort of like the safe, kind of touchy feely answer. But I don't think. I think you should look at your life as a. As a marathon, not as a sprint. And, you know, having children now who will soon be in the workplace. We've told them, like, get the first. Get the first job under your belt, and you don't know if you're going to like it. I mean, I remember there were classes I took in law school that I thought would be super interesting, and they ended up being really boring because the professors weren't great. They could take an interesting topic like human rights law. I remember I had a really boring. I hope they're not listening. Guessing they probably aren't. I had a really boring professor who made my human rights class a drag. But then I had, I remember my contracts. Law professor was fantastic. It made the class so interesting, and you'd think that would be a really dry subject. So I would say, like, you know, get that first job and you don't know if you're going to like it or not. And it doesn't necessarily have to be your passion, but you can build on that to get to the place where your passion is. And you can eventually use those initial career choices to help get you to where you ultimately want to be. So it shouldn't be just about the money. Of course. You don't want to do something that's going to compromise your values because you make more money, or you don't want to do something that's going to force you to work in really uncomfortable work situation just because of the money. It's okay to, like, take something that's not that sexy and not that exciting as a job. If it seems like, you know, it'll be a good and kind of an entree for you into a, you know, a long and meaningful career. [01:54:38] Speaker B: All right. [01:54:41] Speaker A: That'S a thing to be like, well, I'm not really sure what I'm gonna do. I'm just gonna, like, wait until the right thing comes along that. That, like, never works. That's gonna. That'll be a disaster. [01:54:49] Speaker B: It's what I. What you just said there is what I refer to as getting stuck when you're just doing a. When you're just doing a, like, a holding pattern in your life, and you're like, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I'm just gonna, you know, I guess I'm just gonna work this job that I don't really care about, and it's kind of go along, like, yeah, but then you're stuck. Like, if you're not out there, like, grinding, trying to make your passion happen or trying to pursue something that is gonna be a career job or financially, like, beneficial or something that you're super into, just from a educational standpoint, if you're just kind of existing, the potential that you're going to get stuck is high. And it doesn't mean that everyone has to go out and achieve all these crazy things. But getting into the driver's seat of your life and, like, really, like, trying to make stuff happen for yourself, I think, is one of the most important things you can do. Like, not just when you're young at any age, like, get into the driver's seat, don't be a passenger in your own life. [01:55:42] Speaker A: That's great. Great advice. [01:55:44] Speaker B: All right, man. You ready for the last question? [01:55:46] Speaker A: I think so. [01:55:47] Speaker B: Okay. This is kind of a cheater question because I asked it to you last time. Do you want the cheater question, or do you want something really hard? [01:55:53] Speaker A: Oh, I'm a glutton for punishment. Give me the hard one. [01:55:57] Speaker B: All right. I'm going to do two, then I'm going to give you the easy one afterwards. But I'll start with the hard one because it's only easy because you answered it before. Here's the hard one. What's one thing you learned about yourself throughout your career that you didn't like? And it could be about your personality, it could be about your work style, it could be how value you approach problems. It could be about anything that. And you could have learned that from self reflection or feedback. But one thing you really, really didn't like and what steps did you take to address it? [01:56:30] Speaker A: I think I do not have thick skin. I have very thin skin. And so when something would be going wrong in a deal, I mean, every deal, at some point, there are challenges. Some deals, the challenges are way bigger than others. And some deals, there's way more challenges than others. But I think when things would go wrong and a client would get upset or get emotional or get frustrated and sort of lash out at me, I would take it personally, and not in a way that woes me, but in a way that I don't think I did anything wrong here, but maybe I did do something wrong. Maybe this is my fault. Maybe they're upset because I should have done something better, which I think can be a positive reaction because if you just kind of blow it off, it doesn't really help you evolve. But what I've realized over time, and it took a toll on me emotionally, it's not enough that I was going to therapy, but I had sleepless nights. Sometimes when deals were going sideways, I knew my client was unhappy. And over time, you realize two things. One is they were unhappy because they were unhappy because the deal was going badly. It wasn't because I had done something wrong. But inevitably there's going to be problems. And so my job isn't to. I shouldn't take it personally. It's just the deal that needed to be coked. So my energy, instead of having anxiety about client being upset, my energy should have been focused on, like, how do you fix this situation? You know? So that was one thing. And the other thing you realize is sometimes when people are lashing out, they're, even if they're lashing out directly at you, it's not because of something you've done. It's because they are dealing with some sort of stressors, or several stressors in their life, which is normal. Everyone has them, and you're the one person who happens to be in front of them at the time and can't tell them to go fuck themselves because they're your client. So if they're going to kind of yell at you, they're probably yelling at you because, like, their boss was addicted to them that day, they. Someone cut them off in traffic. They're behind in some bill payments. You know, they have a pain. They literally have a pain in their neck or their back or something. And you happen to be the person there who can take it. And so, you know, I always tell our agents now, like, it's not about you. If you have a client who's, you know, who's being, you know, who's being rough with you, just remember, they've got something else in their life that's going on, and they're channeling, and there's nothing to do with this deal or you, but they're channeling it through you right now, and you. So just sort of. It's hard to do, but you have to sort of, you know, let it just bounce off of you and just know it's not you. So I think, like, that's something that I definitely was a very thin skin. I took things personally, and I internalize too much. And so I've learned to sort of. It's part of, also, when you turn 50, sort of, like, things don't bother you that much anymore because, you know, it's like, whatever. So I would say that that's something that's. That's involved with me. [01:59:32] Speaker B: Heck, yeah. All right, last question. Cheater question. Most. The most important Pennsylvania punk or hardcore band to you. [01:59:41] Speaker A: Oh, man. So you asked that question our last session. I have to say I'm changing my answer because I actually ran the question by a few of my bandmates and friends, and they were like, they didn't really get my answer. So I'm not going to say what my answer was before, but I'm going to change it to something new. So I would say personally, to me, the most important Pennsylvania band is admiral. As we've talked about, by the way, there's a. I don't know if you saw, there's a cool post that Norm Branham put for antimatterzine. He did a post about admiral, actually, yesterday or two days ago, about unheralded bands from back in the day. That was really cool. So I would say admiral just because of what they meant to me personally in my life. I think in terms of influence, I'm going to have to say title fight. [02:00:40] Speaker B: Ah, good. [02:00:41] Speaker A: Very beloved band and a long history. And I think they're, like, influences. Still to this day, you hear bands that sound like title fight. They're from. I want to say they're from, like, Scranton Wilkes Barre area. The last time you asked me this, I said, turning point, because I always felt like they were a Philadelphia band, but I did go back and check myself, and they're actually from New Jersey, I mean, in like, South Jersey. So they were like, just over the Philadelphia, you know, they probably. They're probably part of the Philly scene, but they're technically not from Philadelphia. So I think I have to. That's one that I have to knock off the list. Do you have something to say about that? [02:01:26] Speaker B: At the time, I was like, they're New Jersey. I'll put it this way. The first time I ever met someone from turning point was in Philadelphia. Right? So it's like, you're the. The idea that they'd be like a Philadelphia associated band. And everyone I know from Philadelphia is like, I grew up watching turning point, but like, I felt, I thought they were always kind of branded as a New Jersey band. But I didn't want to say anything when he said it. I was like, I'm just going to let history play it out, man. [02:01:52] Speaker A: So, I mean, even admitting to it now, I just lost major punk points. [02:01:56] Speaker B: I should have never, but I did. [02:01:58] Speaker A: Go back and check myself, so. And the other band, I'm going to say, just in terms of influence and going back to sort of old school days, there was a punk band from Pittsburgh called Half Life. And they were like, early, I want to say probably early eighties punk band that was, I think they had a pretty major impact on Pennsylvania punk bands in the US and in Pittsburgh. But previously I said Don Caballero. That was the last answer I gave because I love them. They are a Pittsburgh band and they were like the guys I sort of knew because they used to play in state college a lot. And when they ended up putting out a record on touch and go was a really big deal. And I felt very proud as a Pennsylvania band that was on touch and go. But the drummer for Don Caballero was a drummer for Half Life. So there is some. Some threads between those two answers. So that's what I'm going to say. Half life, title fight and Admiral Heck yeah. [02:03:01] Speaker B: Great, great answer. All right, man, we are at the end. Thank you so much for being on the show. [02:03:07] Speaker A: Thank you. It was so fun. Big fan of the show. I'm proud to finally be on it, and I'm so glad that we met at that hardcore show in Oakland that you played, and that led to me being able to come on your show. So thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. [02:03:24] Speaker B: Heck yeah. All right, so we'll have all of your information in the show in the episode bio. You rock, man. Thank you so much. And everyone, if there's one thing I'd say, if you listen to this and you're thinking about, like, what's next for me, you don't have to have some grand plan. Like, Garrett's life is in career. It's just so interesting. There's been so many chapters, so many things. Just make sure you're doing something. Get out there, like make something. Like paint something, record something. Like put on a show. Do a zine. Start a job. Start a career. Take a. Take a trip. Just go and do something. Don't be on hold because life's not going to wait. My name is Aram Arslanian. This is one step beyond. We'll see you next time. Thank you. Thanks, Garrett. [02:04:03] Speaker A: Peace. One step. [02:04:08] Speaker B: One step. [02:04:13] Speaker A: What? [02:04:14] Speaker B: That beyond.