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WSO Podcast | E185: VP in Investment Banking Jumps to Stand Up Comedy & Acting

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In this episode, Dick shares his winding path from George Washington University to investment banking. We learn why he took a few years off in the middle of college, why it took him another 3 years after graduation to get into investment banking and why he recently made the jump to leave a lucrative vice president position to jump into the world of Hollywood.

 

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WSO Podcast (Episode 185) Transcript:

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:06] Hello and welcome. I'm Patrick Curtis, your host and chief monkey, and this is the Wall Street Oasis podcast. Join me! As I talked to some of the community's most successful and inspirational members to gain valuable insight into

Dick: [00:00:19] Different career paths and life in general. let's get to it.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:25] In this episode, Dick shares his winding path from George Washington University to investment banking. We learn why he took a few years off in the middle of college, why it took him another three years after graduation to get into investment banking, and why he recently made the jump to leave a lucrative vice president position to jump into the world of Hollywood. Enjoy. All right, Dick, thanks so much for joining the Wall Street Voices podcast. yeah, thanks for having me on. Awesome.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:58] So it'd be great if you could just give the listeners a short summary of your bio to get started. yeah. Short shorts is a tall order as short as short as you can make it. Yeah. Well, it's funny, so I I've been reading the BSO for. Ten years now, probably actually a little more, I started in undergrad, graduated in 2010 from George Washington University, which at that time and I still think it's pretty much not really a target school. Um. I figured out I wanted to do banking late in the game like junior year, because that's when I took actual banking classes.

Dick: [00:01:46] And so I didn't have like the traditional banking internship, and it wasn't a target school, so I leaned really heavily on resources like WCO to basically come up to speed on the subject. And you know, I found I found the site incredibly helpful. And even throughout my career. So anyway, I actually left, I graduated 2010, I worked in wealth management for a year. Morgan Stanley. And then I jumped to consulting because I knew that I needed something that was more analytical to appeal to investment banks. Yeah, but I still had my licences from my rom my wealth management gig. So I had my seven and sixty three. Which was actually really helpful because. After a year in consulting, I. I moved into banking at a small boutique firm. I was still I was in D.C. where George Washington is. And. And that was actually very helpful for them, and I think help me as a candidate because they knew that I already had my license, so I wasn't going to need to take the risk of not passing and not being useful for them. Yeah. So I worked for them for years at a small, basically equity capital, market focused firm. And after about a year there, I had an opportunity through a headhunter to lateral into a larger international bank headquartered in New York, so I left I left D.C. to go to do banking at the smaller firm. And then when I was in New York, I had the opportunity to interview at the border place. It was like a full service investment bank with all products capabilities. Uh, and I was there for seven years until September of twenty one, when. I was in New York. The pandemic hit and just turned into a Gong Show. Um, and so at that point, I was basically I I left I was living remotely in Florida for like seven months and loved it. Where in Florida? St Petersburg? Ok, cool. The West Coast? Yeah, St. Pete. Yep, God's country. And so I had a taste of the promised land, and I liked it, a lot came back to New York because the place I was living, I got sold. And I wanted to stay in Florida because I just couldn't deal with the chaos and confusion of New York. And I proposed it to my to my boss after bonuses to basically continue working remotely from Florida. Like I've been doing for the last eight months, and I was basically that wasn't going to work because of compliance reasons and supervision and stuff like that. So I said, you know what? This whole time, for the last three years, I'd also been doing stand up comedy in New York. In Florida and I got a manager like a talent manager. Right when the pandemic set in. So I've been auditioning for movies and TV for like a year on the side. And doing stand up and doing my banking gig. So it was it was a busy thing at that point. I was like, You know what? I have an opportunity to go at this full throttle. You know, I have the banking skills that I'm not going to lose, but it's really a unique time to take a shot at acting and comedy. And I always wanted to be an actor. And I actually had booked a movie right before, like maybe two months before I was talking about leaving in June, I was supposed to film in the fall of twenty one, so it almost worked out perfect end up getting delayed because of COVID. So I said, you know what, I'm going to I'm going to just ride off into the sunset and. And that was in September, and the rest is history.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:33] Awesome. So let's go back, so a lot of time back there, let's go all the way back to undergrad, though, for sure. Where did you

Dick: [00:06:39] Grow up

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:40] Around like, Oh, Connecticut? Okay, so any specific reason? George Washington, you .I actually liked politics, and I thought I was going to be like a poli sci major. And then I took a poli sci class and it was not fun. It was really boring and it was about like, you know, how legislation gets passed. Which is fine and good to know, but was what I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing. But, you know, I was in

Dick: [00:07:16] D.c. and so I actually I actually left after my freshman year. I did volunteer work for three years for my church. Then it came back. Where was that? Where was the volunteer work

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:31] In New York? Ok. What did you what did you do? I was close to home. I was doing like promotion and public outreach and stuff like that. you left college for a year or for three years. Yeah. For like two and a half. Ok. Yeah. And then I came back, and when I came back, it was like the financial crisis. Yeah. So yeah, I was I was looking at what was going on in the financial world and I didn't know anything about finance. No one in my family didn't about finance. I knew people whose families worked in finance. But I personally didn't know anything about finance or money management.

Dick:  [00:08:07] Yeah. And so I was like, fascinated by it because it was in the headlines constantly. You know, in 2008 it was like COVID today. Yeah. And so I was like and I wanted to make money. So it was like, you know what, this seems like a really interesting opportunity, and I had also while I was volunteering, I worked in like real estate appraisals to make money. Yeah.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:38] So you got the volunteer thing. Can you just tell me like, you start a year? Why leave after your freshman year? You just felt like this isn't for me. I'm ready. Already knew what I wanted to do. Right? Ok. Here's a searching phase for you. Yeah.

Dick: [00:08:52] And I was like, You're 19.Yeah, I was like, spending all this money to go to school. Yeah. And it just seemed like a waste because I was there to do politics and I was like, I don't like politics. I don't know what I really want to sell you, right? So I really like music, just experience in the world and I get it.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:11] I think it's really interesting because I don't hear a lot of guests say, OK, I stopped in the middle of undergrad like almost none of the people that have come on here would ever be like, Hey, I'm going to stop undergrad because it's like they have this focus mentality. So it's interesting that you felt like the confidence to do that. It's kind of similar to kind of the jump you made recently. But yeah, I was going to say they probably would love baking, either.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:32] Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about just like the mentality around, like, OK, I don't know what I want, so I'm just going to stop and I'm going to go, was it, Hey, I'm just gonna go live at home and get a couple of side jobs like, I'm just going to try to get some work experience. Tell me about that thought process. No, I lived. I lived in New York. I live in a home for a couple

Dick: [00:09:50] Of months and then I moved to New York and had some roommates.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:56] It's like, how yeah, how are you paying rent in New York? So I was doing, I was working. I was working in real estate appraisal for a little while side, and then I was working. And then I like was living with my girlfriend's family, so I have to pay rent. I figured I just figured it out. I just found ways to basically pay whatever I needed to pay. And it was interesting because I was I was working in an appraisal from like the real estate market was collapsing. So I had like basically a ringside seat to what was going on. And it was eye opening. And like I said, I didn't know anything about what was happening. All I did was read news articles and see what was going on at work. Just like two

Dick:  [00:10:43] Thousand nine ish, around ten thousand eight nine, yeah, 2007 to 2008. Ok. And then so I went back. I was in school fall of 08 with like Lehman Brothers was crashing. I was taking, you know, economics classes, basically. And it was like I was learning from people because I was in D.c., I was learning from people who were like. On the board of the Fed and worked with Tim Geithner. Yeah. So I had this amazing proximity to. Yeah, like my intermediate economics professor was Tim Geithner, a good friend.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:27] Amazing. My quantitative easing framework to quantitative easing QE. Yeah, it was fascinating and I was like, completely. just I ate it up. I was. You know, because I could I could apply it, I could I could take what I was learning and apply exactly to what was going on. I still didn't really know what I wanted to do, and I didn't know what you could do, right? I just wanted to understand what was going on. And also, I wanted to learn how to manage money. I didn't know anything about managing money. Nobody my family did. And, you know, it's an important subject they don't really teach it to in school. what are your parents do if you don't mind me asking? My dad's in advertising. My mom is artist. Yeah, so there you go. So, yeah, yeah, and no one, no one in prior generations. Yeah. So it was basically a situation where like, you know, I was like, you know, sort of a baptism by fire kind of thing, you know, I was reading in the headlines what was going on in the economy and then I would like go take a macro econ class. Yeah, it's cool about QE. Yeah. So that was like I was, I guess, your sophomore year, but you didn't really learn about banking or you were late to the game by junior year, you said.

Dick:  [00:12:47] Yeah, exactly.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:48] You are like, Oh, wait, this investment banking thing sounds interesting. My guess is you probably had stumbled around so around that point. And we're like, Oh, I started about. So was it too late after like junior year? Yeah, like second semester junior year. And so then did you try to like, get interviews and just couldn't? Yeah, you couldn't do it. I did, and I got actually. I got it was 20. I took. I took an intermediate finance class over the summer of. Sophomore year, whatever between my junior and senior year. Ok. And that was like it was basically as cold redefines what really was like investment banking case studies. I learned about, like, you know, recaps and learn about elbows and takeovers and M&A transactions. We actually would look at like we did case studies on my first day to buyout by KKR. And yeah, you know, liveried recap that like series did, which was the parent company of an outdoor furniture chain based group. And I didn't know it was investment banking at that point. I just knew like, Oh, this is really interesting because it tied together all the elements that I've been learning about, you know, corporate finance, capital markets, microeconomics. And it was it was fascinating. And so that was like my favorite class. I was like, OK, that's what I want to do. And that was something that was like the summer of my junior year, right? So it's the time when I would have been interning learning about this stuff, which is too late to get an internship. So what did you do coming in to senior year? Oh, I just I just basically I. I was in the I think I joined the finance club like senior year or something like that early. So I was I was basically like, did you drop your resume though? Did you know what to how to network or do any of that stuff? Or did you just? Not really. We were lucky we had someone who is a former Lehman Brothers VP. That actually he was at City, I think, one of the two. He got laid off in the crisis and this was still like two thousand nine. Yeah. So there wasn't a lot of hiring going on to begin with because Wall Street was still like, yeah, recovery survival mode here. yeah, exactly. But I did have an internship, actually an asset management firm, my junior, my junior summer. Going into senior year, it wasn't banking. Yeah, so I had the prior year, I had the prior summer, I interned at a consulting firm, economic consulting, and I was working on antitrust cases for the Intel merger or the Intel acquisition of McAfee. So I had like relevant experience and I had done actually basically M&A modeling and for my asset management firm, interestingly enough. So this all kind of came together without really my knowing it. So I basically had enough to be like a credible candidate for banking, even though I hadn't done a banking internship. Yeah. And if it had been a better recruiting year, you know, who knows, like, like have been now, I probably would have got a job. Yeah, yeah. So did you. Did you? So did you end up getting any interviews or applying? I got I got like two interviews. Steve Full and the TD Bank, if I didn't get it because I got a question wrong, unlike how you allocate your portfolio, your investment portfolio in

Dick: [00:16:40] A recession that was ignored by like bank stocks or something, they're like, you think banks should do well in a recession of like, maybe. And then TD, I didn't get it because I didn't really understand what like wholesale banking was, and I didn't really even understand entirely what investment bank? Yeah. So I was like, I was into like a Super Day. Yeah, at the at the offense and. They kept like, Hey, I kept going back, I don't think literally learning in this interview what wholesale bank looks. I didn't know. Yeah. And, you know, people coming into those, those situations are a lot more polished. Um.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:21] I think I don't get it, but then so how do you put the it the Morgan Stanley job right? There was more recently and I got that through our job board at where those interviews, where those interviews easier for like the wealth management. Yeah, it was. It was much easier like I was, you know, you didn't need to do four years of finance to learn a job. Most people didn't, but it was. It was in the industry. I knew I could get my licences and it was relevant and I could learn something from which I did because I worked with guys that had been stockbrokers for 30 years. So do you think if people can't get into banking or they're late like you, do you feel like wealth management is a good kind of step for them? Do you base looking back, I don't know if you know, it sort of depends like obviously, if I can do it. And I think actually that's the

Dick: [00:18:18] Power of it. So is, you know, you can learn from people like me, you know, like I, I would read, you know, all kinds of backgrounds. Yeah, people. And like my background was like the one of the least likely like if you if you read my resume on paper, you like this guy. I've never, ever shot that, you know, front office banking.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:40] Yeah. Well, it's interesting because like, you know, there's a lot of kids in your situation even more nowadays that are in quotes late because recruiting really, it's like it's sophomore year now. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, I know. So there's a lot of juniors and seniors who are really sharp kids who are just they're left out because they didn't. They didn't. They didn't know freshman year that like investment banking or calling. And so, you

Dick:  [00:19:06] Know, what I

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:19:07] Always say is like, Oh, it's OK, because eventually you can make it their wealth manager just one angle. Would you agree that like valuation or like a transaction, advisory services at like a big four would be good? Oh, totally. I know people who've gone in from valuation of people who've gone in from transaction by the service. Everything from accounting, from audit, from yeah, consulting obviously is like a tried and true path. Yeah, ideally something related to something related. Yeah, yeah. If you if you have like, you know, if you really want to do it and you have the willingness to learn what it takes and you're willing to work at it like I was, I took weekend seminars

Dick: [00:19:51] On financial modeling. I networked aggressively with people from my school would be bots on my school with contacts that. You know, I knew from family and friends, but were you were you doing

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:04] That after you were already at Morgan Stanley? Kind of once you knew you knew more at that point? You kind of you had your series exams. You're like, Oh, OK, here's where I am, here's where I want to go. And so tell me about that. So tell me a little bit about like, OK, you're doing some boot camps on the weekends for financial modeling. You're starting to develop your skills, make your resume look a little bit more financing or banking. Yeah, but then you end up transitioning after year from Morgan Stanley to more like a consultant consulting role. So why? Yeah, exactly. Now I knew I needed to do something. You needed jump. I knew I needed to do something more analytical. Because wealth manager really wasn't I wasn't doing anything that was like similar to it to investment banking. I wasn't. I wasn't doing anything, I was doing really much in Excel, I wasn't doing that much. Analysis, really, like I wasn't even like picking stocks, I was like basically like helping people manage their wealth management account or whatever. Right, so. So I needed some and I had the skills because I'd studied, you know, I've done these classes and I've done boot camps and stuff like that. So I was like, I knew I could do it. I liked Excel a lot. Yeah, I really enjoyed the financial modeling stuff that I did. And interestingly enough. The coach of the boot camp that I did this like two day weekend boot camp ended up recommending me to one of his clients because he was a similar. Probably, I'm sure your clients at W, so for your trainings. He was like, Hey, this guy's really good people. You should talk. That's how I got my bank account, actually. I just. Sorry, go ahead. That's amazing. So he, like, saw you were like a wizard and excel like that touching your mouth? Yeah. And I was and I was I was asking tons of questions. You could tell I was really fired up and I thought about it and I did. I loved corporate finance. I was like, totally gung ho because I was like, OK, this is how you run a business is how you manage a company. That's how you read a company like I didn't know. The biggest thing I wanted to learn coming into

Dick: [00:22:14] School was like, How do you even know what a company's finances mean? You know, I'd heard all these terms, you know, financial statements, income statements, balance sheets said, what does all mean? Yeah. And I was like, it was so cool because you could actually learn it. You could know what it was and you could have like definitive answers. And I like that.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:32] So you kind of you ended up getting your job out of an instructor from a bootcamp. Yeah, he comes up to you and says, Hey, you know, I know these guys at this boutique bank, you know, I kept I just kept in touch with him afterwards. We hung out when he was in town and we, you know, just and he's a great guy. Uh, his name is Neil Kumar. He's from shout out if you watch this, but you know, he's just one. He's really, genuinely great people. Yeah, and we're still I talk to him like three weeks ago. We're still in touch. He's a great guy. He's an entrepreneur.

Dick: [00:23:07] He's like a total go getter. And you know, it's what I've learned later on in my career and this applies to early in their career. I just didn't know it at the time was. Um, you know, the people you know, business is done through people not through done through machine is not going through computers and it's not done through phones, it's done through people, it's done through people that you create relationships with in any business. Mm hmm. I didn't know it at the time, but what I was doing was selling myself and you know, and you just saw how eager I was and how determined I was to do this job. And so he held me, but I had to do a lot of other steps before I had to make myself credible. I had to basically create a candidacy for nothing. Yeah, I was lucky that I had a finance background in college because that's that helps. It helps you learn all these concepts because you have to do them on your own. It's much harder and there are people who of course, do that, and they're just brilliant and they just figure it out. But I was lucky that I had that background and that really helped. So anyway, so then I went into consulting. I was I was consulting for basic banks. Regional banks company was in D.C. we consult all these banks all over the country now and travel to them, and that would help them create banking products that would help them with M&A analysis and help them with integration. And it was really good, and the firm that I end up basically labeling to for banking had a really strong fig practice. Got it. And so I was great for them because I had my licenses and I had experience banking and I done, and they work so like perfect figures, you know, it's very, very like it's niche. Yeah, exactly. It's what you would call like. God, what is the term for it? Specialized or abstract? Yeah, specialized, exactly.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:09] And it's I explain to listeners that don't know if financial institutions group financial institutions. Their financials are very different from a normal firm, so your revenue is not typical. Revenue is oftentimes is your interest in your all the stuff. The ways banks and financial institutions make money is very different from a typical widget maker. Yeah. So no, no. Yeah. So in terms of the skills you learned. I mean, that's really interesting. So you were able to kind of. Do the consultancy for almost a year and a half travel around make a good impression? I assume that there was a pageant from wealth management of Morgan Stanley to that consultancy or is it still relative? I'm guessing like 60 ish base, 50 50 ish base. The typekit like the salary, Yeah, like wealth management to wealth managers a little higher. Not, not that much. Yeah, OK.60 or 70, I think at that time. Who knows what it is now? Everything so. And then the jump to banking. Was it a big pay raise, at least on the bonus side? No, it wasn't. This bank paid terribly. They actually lost on tons of tons of balance. My entire class quit within a year. Oh my gosh. Ok, so they were paying. It wasn't a pay jump at all. It was like flat. No, no. Yeah, it was like a lateral. It was a lateral move in every sense. They then raise the pay that year that I left because everyone quit.

Dick: [00:26:33] Everyone was.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:34] Everyone's leaving. Ok, yeah, but you were there. You're getting you were doing mostly fake work. But I see here, you're doing some M&A and capital raising. Is you mostly fake? But also did. So I moved to New York. I knew that was important because I knew that that's where the majority of the Land of Opportunity firms were. Yeah. So if I want really if I wanted to be in finance, I had to be new. I knew that. So that was great. And the big practice was a lot in New York. And. So I basically I moved there, I was doing mostly food, but also real estate and energy, interestingly enough, and I learned the real estate thing. Came in handy later on, who's now? Now I invest mostly.

Dick: [00:27:21] Actually, I invest entirely in real estate, so that helped flatten the energy stuff was useful because I could figure out what was going on in like twenty fifteen. Yeah. When oil fell out of bed. And then, you know, the fix up was useful because later on I would work on, I moved into financial sponsors at the next firm. Yeah, which everyone confuses the fig. Yeah. And still, recruiters hit me up to do fig

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:53] Eight years later. That's hilarious. Really, they don't know if I should sponsors is different. no, they don't. They have no idea. It's so funny for the listeners, financial sponsors. It's more like more like the Levin Group, right? It's private equity based on equity, equity, family offices, hedge funds. But anyone that does leveraged buyouts because what you're doing is essentially 90 90 percent of your job is arranging debt or elbows, and the other 10 percent is like. Recapitalization for 11 companies. Add on acquisitions, exits, things like that. So are you working with private equity companies essentially like twenty four hours a day? Yeah, I mean that, literally. So anyway, that was really helpful because there. Let's back up, so you're at this boutique not paying you a lot. And was that what kind of push you to kind of look for a lateral move to a bigger bank? It wasn't really the money, it was.

Dick:  [00:28:51] Mostly it was mostly the experience I didn't really want you think forever or energy or real estate because they were so. They were like so abstract, yeah,

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:06] No, like they're special, they're specialized, like you could be very specialized, you can be like a specialist in energy or in real estate or in fog. It's weird to be like doing all three. Yeah, exactly. And also, they don't really like they don't really deal directly with like anybody's lives, like, I want him to do something that was like a little more tangible, a little more like relatable for like everyday life, you know, like sponsors to end up being great because

Dick: [00:29:37] I was I was like a product and coverage group at the same time. Oh, cool. So I was basically like working. I was doing leveraged buyouts in every possible sector of the economy and industry, and so I got exposure to everything, you know, real estate gaming, consumer health care, even building products, industrials, chemicals, you name it. You learn a lot about all these different things. So, the big thing actually came in handy because everyone is like big. It's so much harder. Then all the other banking practices that like if you can do big. People assume you can do anything, and you pretty much can. Yeah, and I had done all this modeling and coursework in college, so I, you know, I knew that I could do that and I knew how to like. Bottle regular EBIT.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:32] So you went from like. Wealth management, you know, an associate to whatever, an analyst, consulting analysts, to an investment banking analyst, you're there. You're already three years out of college. Yeah. And you took the three years off in the middle, right? Yes. How old are you at this point? As an analyst? You're 20, you were 20.I think I was twenty five. Oh, OK. You weren't that when I came in. Ok. In college, I did college in three years. college in three years. Ok. That's why you saved your year. So yeah, you kind of lateral again, as an as an analyst to this larger bank, you finally get the big pay raise. Libya's big players have included the bonus most people in the street. For me, it was like, so you're kind of starting there and they're starting off as like a first year analyst again. yeah, yeah. So to get your back? Yeah. Well, I ended up doing. For years as an analyst, it's a lot. On top of the consulting thing I did, which I was announced, I was like an analyst for five years. That's it. Tell me about that. Do you feel like It's hard core? Is your always I will tell you, you take it on like nonstop. Like you're always. Yeah, I was so used to it at that point that it was like, if it just didn't even matter. And honestly, I loved what I was doing. Yeah, well, that's huge, especially in sponsorship sponsors.

Dick:  [00:31:57] I just loved I was like in heaven because I was doing now because I really liked elbows. I wanted to do it because when I was in college, I was learning about.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:32:09] The KKR buyout, and I was like and I was reading, I was reading every book I could get my hands on. I read House of Morgan. I read Liar's Poker. Of course I read barbarians.

Dick: [00:32:20] I read predators Ball. I read and read. Um, big short. And I was like, this is the way you transform American industry, which is what they did in the 80s to to a large extent. Yeah, I would later learn that that's really not how it works today. When I had this sort of idealistic dream that like, OK, these are enterprising. Basically, investors that can reshape ossified companies and their four industries, they can shake up these like and you don't

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:04] Believe that you don't believe that today. I don't think that's the primary motive today. I don't I'm not sure it was the primary motive then. The primary motive

Dick: [00:33:11] Has always been to make money, right?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:13] But you mean, like back then they were like they were really moving industry like it was it was dramatic because nothing had nothing like that had existed. It wasn't. It wasn't institutionalized at that point. It was a very. Novel concept no one knew really would not be a was, and the people who are doing them weren't like these like, you know, veterans of private equity, they were like basically investment bankers and industry professionals.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:39] The funny thing is people have been doing elbows, real estate investment in the sixties. Yeah, like. That's what the mortgage and the flipping

Dick:  [00:33:46] And the, you know, you just

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:47] Keep rolling your capital and you get as much. Yeah. And it wasn't that, you know, like when like Kravis and Schwarzman and Foresman, little and all these guys were doing it, it still wasn't institutionalized. It was, you wouldn't call it, it was called bootstrapping. Yeah. And you know, and then and then, you know, Drexel Burnham and Mike Milken, all those guys came in and obviously took off. But when I was reading about, you know, you'd get guys like. Steve Wynn, you know, who couldn't get money from anybody to basically build his empire and then financed him, and he backed it, and he created this amazing empire, and then he molested a bunch of massage therapists later on. But for a while he had a pretty good thing going.

Dick: [00:34:29] You know, or what was it, RJR Nabisco? You know, they took that over and they did a lot of things to it, and there was there was this sort of energy to it, right? You're infusing these companies with capital and new management and energy and the guys who are doing it. We're also running the businesses and you had these, you know, these incredibly sort of intriguing. Auctions going on, you know, where they're like, these massive, massive companies were being shaken up Chrysler, right, with Cerberus. Great example ended in tears, but was another way that they were able to take? I mean, who would LBO an auto company right now? Today, it's like unthinkable, but they did it. Yeah, so there was this like this really enterprising spirit that I was gravitating toward. And I was just in there doing deal after deal after deal. I was one of three analysts at the entire bank and financial sponsors. Now, when I left, there were about seven, so we were just getting shelled constantly.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:30] Yeah. So tell me about it. Tell me what the progression. So like, you're there for the first year. You're immediately like, you're obviously an experienced Daniel. So they're immediately throwing you to the, you know, in the deep end of the Wolves stay one. Yeah. And so you're working 80 hundred hour weeks

Dick: [00:35:44] Right off the bat? Yeah. Yeah, yeah I did that. I did 80. I probably average 80 hours a week for the first two years, my third year as an analyst. There I was I. I throttled it back to like. Seventy five hours or seven or something. And it was, you know, it was cool, but then you got a big you got a big

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:36:07] Promotion eventually, right? So you're

doing it. Yeah, yeah. So I stayed there. I mean, I was there for seven years. I loved it. I love the group. I love the guys. I was working. What are the deals? I love the industry experience that I was learning, you know, I was just I was surrounded by brilliant people all day long and I learned so much. I mean, I think of banking now. There are people who want to do it. I think of as business school, you get paid for. Yeah, especially if you are in a really any, any group, product or industry, you're going to learn more.

Dick: [00:36:41] I think you will learn about more industries as a product anchor. But it just you get so much exposure that you would never get really in any other job, maybe consulting. I'm. But it's just it's just such a great way to learn about all these different industries, and I was fascinated by it constantly, constantly learning and being challenged. And you're doing really world,

Patrick (CEO of WSO): 00:37:04] You're doing really

Dick: [00:37:05] Well and you're getting probably paid really

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:07] Well. So bonus you're probably making like eighty five bass and 80 bonus or something like that or the bass the bass jumped up. The bass wasn't that good. Started it amped up because I I've started a certain 14.Sorry, seventy something seventy five. Or yeah, it's it didn't jump up into the nineties until my second year. But yeah, I mean, that was great compared to what I was making for and. And I always I never spent a lot of money, so it didn't really matter that much to me. But it was nice to have for your listeners. Always get mad if I don't ask about

Dick:  [00:37:40] What you made. Yeah. So like, what do you do? Like, how did he do? I'm like, You know, I wanted to make money just like anybody else.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:47] Yeah. Well, I

Dick: [00:37:48] Think, you know, people here

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:37:50] 80 hours a week and they're like, Oh, yeah, that's hard, but I could do it. But then when they actually live it, when you live it, it's totally different. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, Oh yeah, you can do it. But then like you realize Friday night, like you're called back in the office and you're there all night. Yeah, something planned like to go out. And why did I do one hundred hours a week for 50? So.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:38:08] So Eddie was sorry. You did one hundred hours a week for what? For 50 grand. Yeah. Oh, you, you were getting work as my starting was my starting salary was 50 and you were getting work more at the previous bank. yeah and it's hard. So I always said my thing was I've done worse jobs for less money. It was true, so, so, yeah, so yeah, my analyst, my analyst, we got bumped up. I think my second and third year 90. Straight now is what at first you're like a hundred. No, it's like, yeah, one hundred to one 20. Yeah, first year one twentieth. Yeah, I mean, because they have to I mean, people are working. It's crazy and their attention, obviously. So anyway. I love the deal. I love the group, I love the guys I work with, I still do. I would have probably stayed in banking realistically if I can do it remotely. I didn't really bank when I left New York because it was just too much. You just wanted to get out

Dick: [00:39:12] Just because, like the lockdowns

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:39:13] And everything that was going on. Yeah, I mean, people were rioting in the streets and I had to stay in my apartment 24 hours to make any sense. Yeah. And all the stuff that it's great about New York wasn't there. Yeah, it was. All was all closed

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:28] When you had to come back, when what day did you come back to New York, where you came back in february of twenty one and say it hadn't quite opened up back yet, right? Yeah, it was still not fully open.

Dick: [00:39:38] Yeah. And I had basically my lease. I was still I still had a lease in New York, but I had my family was at a place in St. Petersburg, so I was staying down there. I wasn't thankfully paying rent down there so I could hang out on my New York apartment. Yeah, and my lease expired in June, so I was the whole time trying to renegotiate my lease because rent had fallen by like crazy amounts. Yeah, at that time in New York and you could rent, I was paying, probably. 40 percent more than what other cops were renting for in my in my building, not even across the street, so I was like negotiating with my landlord furiously for like five months. They wouldn't renegotiate, worked out well for them because I'm sure they probably got the same rent when I left. Anyway, I'm like, I'm paying off rent doesn't make any sense. What was your

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:40:29] Like three grand a month? No, I was. I've figured out. Uh, I had. It was smart because I got a rent controlled apartment and I wasn't making that much money. Oh wow. I had a rent controlled apartment for like six years and so I was paying about twenty five. And where was that? I think in Lincoln Square. Ok. In the studio. But like no amenities. Not a great deal now. It's just I was paying whatever.I live right near there. I I lived at fifty and eighth. Oh yeah, yeah. Four floor walkup or whatever. Oh, really? They called it a one bedroom, but it was like, you know, closet bedroom. And I was good because I had an elevator, so I was like living

Dick: [00:41:18] In the lap of luxury. But yeah. And I worked in Hell's Kitchen, so I used to. I probably walk by your apartment like a thousand times. Yeah, but it was great because I was two subway stops from work. And when you're working that much, that really helps. Yeah. So anyway. But no, I like I like the deal as I like the guys, I work with them now.

Patrick (CEO of WSO):  [00:41:39] What did you get the promo to VP? Like what happened after so a couple of years? So that was enough. That was in 20 20 in May. and so when were you an associate? I was an associate from for two years from June 18 and 19,18 and 19. Okay. Got it. Yeah. So as an analyst from 14 to 17 and then that's pretty fast. Get promoted from associate to VP, right? Two years is like pretty fast, right? I don't even know anymore. Usually like three to five years or something. I think it depends. You know, the banks are different now. Now it's probably now that would be probably slow because people are doing this for two years and as soon as you for two years. Yeah, because the retention they just have to like give you have to give the VP title fast. yeah, because people just won't stick around. Yeah. and like, it's moves. The pendulum has moved too far away from like the retention. I almost like argue like people are. some people has, you know, the thing is, it really shouldn't be about time. It should be about capability, just like anything else. I mean, you know, a person being in certain jobs on time doesn't look good. It increases the odds, but they never become one hundred. I don't think it's swung too much. I think it should. I think it should be an option for two years. I think you should basically be able to fast track someone after two years to VP like two years analyst. You get the option to go to two associate to associate, you get the option. But, you know, By the time you're a VP, you're clearing really good money. Are you like, you're not spending? Pretty good. You're not spending a lot. So you're are you saving a lot and investing? Yeah. Let's talk about. Do you mind talking about like you have to say what you have in your net worth? But can you talk about your obviously rent control apartment? You're not spending a ton, you're working a ton. So how are you throughout these years? How are you thinking about deploying some of that capital to get a return on it? I have no idea. I mean, I was I was in the stock market in and out. I was always skeptical of the

Dick:00:43:38] Fed and tightening and because I had learned a lot about. I didn't I knew I said a lot of economics outside of, I guess, what you would call conventional economics like, I looked at

Patrick (CEO of WSO): 00:43:56] That you were really nervous about, like the Fed suddenly tightening and I just knew that they could never do it. I knew that. I knew it never worked, So I wouldn't take money in the market any time they tightened. I knew that there was going to be a recession because there always has been right every right history. They've never gotten it right because they can't get it right. They can't control it that closely.

Dick: [00:44:15] All they can do is manipulate interest rates and the discount rate and stuff like that. So I had I had this sort of like the conventional whatever education, and then I had the sort of unconventional or unorthodox education of learning it, like what different people from the Hagel School of Economics would say around the Austrian school. And those are from a lot of different viewpoints, but I knew that I knew that the Fed had never really gotten it right, ever in its history and knew this time wouldn't be different, no matter how much said, because they always said that. So I basically I speculated in the market in and out, but it was the only thing I had available to me because I wasn't accredited. I couldn't really invest in alternative any alternative vehicles. Yeah. Um, but so I would I would go in and out. When I thought things were going to go well, when I thought,

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:45:14] How did that work out, I mean, it was pretty crazy. Great. I mean, look, I was investing in a secular bull market, so the odds are in my favor. But I didn't. I never really caught any downdrafts in the market because I always got out beforehand. So I went I. Got out of the stock market in like. Spring, summer 2020, something like that. I. I'm going to give you my whole my whole portfolio

Dick: [00:45:43] History because it's boring, but

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:45:45] Like real estate too, like when did you start doing that and tell me a little bit about like how you didn't start doing that until till summer 2020? So I got out of stocks. I. I thought I thought Kobe was going to be done sooner than it was. So I was basically in mostly cash. I was, Yeah, I was in cash prior to COVID. When COVID hit, I bought the dip. I bought it a little early, so my returns weren't as good. Mm hmm. And then I sold when I got to a threshold that I thought made sense. Like, no. Mid mid teens returns basically was where I was comfortable and I was like, All right, I made my money. I got out, but I didn't like where things were going. I didn't like all of the easing that was going on. I didn't like the stimulus that was going on. I figured there was a good chance for inflation, so I didn't want. And I was I had actually, interestingly enough, done some like just real estate classes online during that summer, during the summer 2020, because it was interesting to me where doing

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:46:53] Classes online while working as a VPN. Yeah, you're insane. I just never, I don't know. I just I'm restless. Did you have family? I don't have family now. I can do that. Yeah, because I would have been divorced. Yeah, I knew divorce before that. Working at the.

Dick: [00:47:11] Sorry, my 70 hour

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:47:13] Workweek is done, but I got to take a couple of hours a day. So yeah, yeah. Sorry, honey, I fought with the kids while they go there about real estate investing. So anyway, yeah, so I learned about and what I what I thought was really interesting was you could get private equity returns with that private equity risk. You weren't going to get the

Dick: [00:47:33] The top tier private equity returns, you weren't going to get 80 percent IRR. Yeah, like Tolo Bravo is making or some of these like software funds, but you will get mid-teens to low 20s, maybe higher returns without the downside. And the reason I knew that real estate was where it was at was because no one ever told me about it. And the plebs are never, ever, ever told, But this is what this is, what the

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:48:06] Billionaires call yourself. I was a. Yeah, absolutely. I was a finance major. I had a 4.0 in my major. I, you know, I knew portfolio theory, but you feel like that even in 06. I mean, if you invest it in real estate in 06, you probably I mean, there's definitely pockets that people got burned in real estate. You're saying not, not commercial multifamily, though. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you probably would have some if you over levered it. Yeah, right? Yeah. If you're over levered, right, OK, I'm selling my multifamily. So I'm not like offense, but like huge like three hundred unit apartment buildings. You don't

Dick: [00:48:41] Think that that could go through a

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:48:42] Bubble or that's in a bubble or anything like that. So you can be because it never. First of all, it's a liquid, so you don't have the downdraft. You know, people, people can't get out in a day or week.

Dick: [00:48:58] Second, it never really experiences that much depreciation. It usually will drop. Maybe. I mean, I think the most is like 15 percent, but that's like, that's like that's like 1980 seeing prices like 2008 crisis. But people always have to have a place to live. And in a recession, it's kind of cyclical because people will often trade down to apartments when they have to. If they can't pay their mortgage, if they're underwater, if they get kicked out, they get evicted, they can foreclose whatever. So you have a lot of downside protection and you can say,

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:49:32] Are you? How are you getting that exposure? You buying up with partners like private equity, Private equity syndicates? Ok, so tell me I'm an accredited investor now, so I can. I can now do private equity. But when I was, you know, plea, I couldn't. I didn't know about it either. But how did you how did you get in touch with these people or just friends, bankers, other bankers? No, I how do I do it? I was reading a. I was reading a book by a guy who does real estate. Here's a guy in seems Grant Cardone. And he does like basically these like huge, he's almost like crowdfunding. Yeah. So but it's but it's for accredited investors, so it's private equity. But it didn't have the minimums that large major institutional private equity fund, real estate, private equity funds would have because I didn't have that much money. I love to be accredited, but I didn't have enough to like. You can't write a check to work with Blackstone, right? Or like a big brand real estate PE fund. Mm hmm. So I just mess with him, and I over time invested in like four funds and I put every dollar that almost every dollar that I had. Because it was just the safest investment, it had better than market returns. Yeah, because you can also lever it. And I knew so because I'd been doing elbows for so long, I knew how to leverage stuff. And so I knew the profiles of the buildings that he was buying. And I'd also done real estate. I'd be so I knew how to calculate it in the wise, so I could read the models that that they were underwriting. And, you know, when you're coming off of elbows and you're living loving stuff like ten times EBITDA.

Dick: [00:51:30] Yeah, because we're doing like tech and software company crazy. Yeah. So like the leverage profile was conservative compared to what I was used to see. So I was like, This is perfect. I mean, obviously you can. You can go higher in real estate. The quality of the asset. But. You know, I don't invest in those, because then you're just you're just increasing your risk, but regardless, whatever. So that's where I sit today because I don't like the setup for the market. I was pretty I was. It's funny, I had a very bearish kind of tilt because I didn't like what the Fed was doing and I was reading guys like Jeff Gundlach was a genius. I recommend everyone because he what he pointed out was like if you looked at. Basically, how much of government spending was going into GDP? Basically, all the GDP growth was coming from government spending and effectively debt, so. So all of the great performance of the last 10 years or whatever was largely attributed to GDP growth that was funded by debt, right? So we're kind of sitting on House of Cards, which arguably it's even worse today, I would say. So I never liked any of I never liked the setup for either the stock market or the bond market. I couldn't really do private equity because I couldn't really afford the minimum. So this was like perfect debt that really well.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:52:58] I appreciate that. Thanks for explaining.

Dick: [00:53:00] So tell me now.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:53:01] Like so the big decision happened. You said, I'm not going to be in New York anymore. I'm going back down to Florida. I'm going to do this acting and comedian thing. So like, tell me how that's going and looking back, you know at it. I mean, you just kind of did it. So, but tell me, like movies, booked auditions, what? What's your day to day like now? Very different, probably from six months ago.It's so funny. It's a completely different thing. I mean, I was I was auditioning. I was doing standup for three. I've been doing it for three years off and on. That was a great thing about being in New York was I had access to all of these clubs. I would just leave work and I would go down and I was like, I was like the husband and Mrs. Maisel. So I didn't fake the act.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:53:45] How many how many shows would you do in a given month? I would do, probably. I would do like. Open mikes a couple of times a week, I usually do like a show every month or two go. But I did nothing but open mikes for like probably six months, I was writing for six months before that. Mm hmm. And then I had enough stuff that I felt like I could do it, and then I started doing it, and then I realized that I didn't have enough stuff because I only use 25 percent of what I write. Yeah. And then I did my first open mic and it was like. No, almost none of my stuff worked had this whole grand scheme, right? I rehearsed the practice and almost none of it worked, and I had the, you know, the moment of like complete and utter terror. But of course, at that

Dick: [00:54:38] Stage, there's no one else there. there's not a sound in the room. And you can I mean, you can hear you can hear people like move a napkin. Yeah, that's how bad your bombing. And but I did. I got enough out of it. So I could. I could. I was like, All right, I think I can figure this out, and I just kept going. I kept doing it and I kept.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:55:02] Yeah, I mean, the good part about that is you're testing material, right? You're testing delivery. You're testing. Yeah. And you really like, I didn't know it at the time, but like, that's your hardest audience, mostly open mikes. It's mostly other comics, and they don't get out there to listen to you. They're there to do their material. Get out. Yeah. So therefore, for six months, it was really hard and then I started doing shows. We're like, there's people paying to go. And that was a totally different experience that I was like, Oh, wow, this is like fun. But you know, the other stuff was fun and it was like grueling. It was like being an analyst even worse. I d and I just kept doing that. And then I ran to the talent manager and I was like, You know, I've been acting. And so she started setting me up for I had to again learn a whole new industry with that, and at that point it was like the pandemic struck, so all the auditions were now remote.

Dick: [00:55:53] So now he's doing stuff on my iPhone, you know, taping my own auditions and they were like, horrible at first. And then I would learn that. So I had to learn how to edit those things and use all these different web platforms and whatever. So it was like this year long basically learning curve until this last summer. And then I. I auditioned for this this movie. Are they getting and that was supposed to film in the fall, so it almost worked out perfectly where I could basically ride off into the sunset from banking and then go straight to Hollywood? Yeah, and then I got delayed and now it looks like it's going to film. Hopefully, the summer, but I think it's going to be in, like Sri Lanka or something like that. Yeah. I mean, all these different reasons and then I just I just booked a Western.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:56:41] When you book a movie or book a Western like and you're a new actor, I assume the economics are not great. But do you mind sharing like what it looks like or you have a talent part of like? It depends. If you're in the

Dick: [00:56:52] Union, are you in the union? It's almost like it's almost like a street level salary. yeah, there's like a standard that you have to get paid. So are you part?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:57:04] You're part of the union. So you know, I'm not. Not yet. I'm. If he had to build like a certain amount of credits to get in the union

Dick: [00:57:12] Right and then go from there, it's I mean, it's funny because all these things are couldn't be more different, but it's also similar because it's kind of like banking, right? Like you build your credibility somehow, right? You like, do your internship and then you do. You're like, you have a finance major and then, you know, then you do some modeling bootcamps.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:57:33] All the same is probably the networking matters and who you no matter where she is huge. Yeah, totally. I mean, that's the thing. It's like, you know, the skills you build, the skills that I built plus and get my, you know, Wall Street gig of the same stuff I'm using now, you know, I'm getting people. I'm going to conferences, you know, talking to people, calling people, doing Zoom calls. It's like a man. It's all over. Like, I'm a I'm like a college, you know? Junior, all over again,

Dick: [00:58:00] Setting up coffee meetings and talking, where are you listening now? I'm still Florida, Florida, like 30 minutes from St. Pete in Clearwater, which is like right on the beach. Yeah, I've been there, which is amazing because the cost of living is like.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): 00:58:19] You could last on your bonus for a long time there. You could, yeah, you really could. I mean, I basically retired. I totally when I retired from banking, which I was pretty much true. I mean, it is it's a retirement community, essentially. So it's not far off, but you're not. I partied in Clearwater party in Clearwater with the buddies back in. I have a friend who's OK, who's from Tampa and another friend who on who had a house in Clearwater, I think. And so I've been out that way.It's yeah, it's nice. I mean, it's like I pinch myself sometimes waking up there saying, Yeah, and then Tampa has all this like film and TV and standup and stuff. So it's like a, you know, it turned out to be even better than I anticipated. But, you know, I mean, God, I'm paying 20 percent less than I was paying for my studio apartment. And I have a one bedroom like you can imagine.

Dick: [00:59:09] It's just it's crazy. Yeah.so there's, you know, it's just funny when you what I found over this whole sort of journey and I think it's actually really inspiring for your audience and it's I'm glad to be doing this with you because I learned so much from. From WCO and all the amazing people in the Congress is that you guys did. I mean, I think we met, what, 10 years ago on it at the. At the Pan Hotel,

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:59:44] That was a long time ago, man, yeah, I know crazy, know a lot more grace to show for it. but it was, I mean, that was it was the same. It just it's the same pattern over and over again. You meet people. You had the idea, you had the attention you have when you want to do and if you're sold and if you're committed, you can do it. And whether it's banking, whether it's Hollywood, whether it's, you know. Real estate investing, I mean, whatever it is, if you I know I don't people who don't didn't have my background at all and made it into banking or didn't real estate investors now or doing. You know, whatever, whatever the thing they wanted to do. Entrepreneurs and big companies and done really well, you know, turned down jobs at McKinsey to do their own thing and made it happen. Now, look at you, look at what you've created here, like you've really. The some of the best advice that I got from wheelchair races was there are a lot of ways to make money, and that's true. Mm hmm. It really are. Wall Street's a great sort of entryway to that, it's a great, obviously career as well.

Dick: [01:00:56] But you know, the skills that you build there are incredibly valuable and the way the people that you meet, they're invaluable. But in a lot of ways, I learned as much trying to get the job as I've learned on the job. And that's something I think that maybe is no touted as highly for sure for people in this industry is that, you know, the hustle that you do and look for guys that come from target schools and whatever. You know, they had also to get into that school. You know what I mean? So I don't think it really changes.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:01:31] It's still tough to get in where you are. Yeah, I mean, getting into an Ivy League school or a target school is, you know, an enormous hustle on its own and it takes years, right? Building that resume and the extracurriculars and. Um. You know, all of the, you know, your scores and everything, so it's like. Any of this stuff is. Requires preparation, thought and and connections and connections that you build, it's not who your parents know necessarily it's. Ways that you find to meet people like I've got in through the instructor at my bootcamp class, right, I never heard of anybody doing that. I was expecting to do that, but that's how it happens.

Dick: [01:02:15] So what do you think about like your?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:02:19] You're just like entire demeanor

Dick: [01:02:21] And like your

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:02:22] Outlook on life now in terms of like where do you see yourself? Do you see yourself like continuing to grind until you're successful as an actor and a comedian? Like, you'll just keep crafting it like, are you going? Are you dedicated to do it for the next five years if you need to before you hit anything? Or like, Oh, I'll do it. You know, I always. What's funny? It's like? I always wanted to be an actor. I just I didn't think you could make money doing. And I was like, I just was like, I need money to survive or whatever, so. That's what led me on this,

Dick: [01:02:53] On this, on this sort of path, but, you know? I've always done things that have really excited me, and I've never really done anything that hasn't excited me for that long. I had done things happening inside me, but I usually left after a while to go do something else. And I think I've what I've seen in really essential people and I've, you know, I've had, you know, speeches with Steve Schwarzman and. Tons of incredibly successful business people, entrepreneurs, Tony James, I mean. All these guys have read I've read all these books and what I found in all of them, whether it's a musician, whether it's a, you know. Wall Street executive, whether it's an entrepreneur or a billionaire artist and actor. Every single one of them just has the passion before they have anything else. They don't even know how they're going to do it. Most of them have no idea how they're going to do it. yeah, they just know what they want to do and they figure it out. So for a long time, I thought you had to have a plan and it does help to have a plan. But what you have to do and what I found and everything that I've done that's worked is if you just start doing it and you have the intention to do it most of the time. If you really want to do it, you will, yeah, and it can take years, I mean, it took me. I mean, if you want to count school, it took me six years to get into banking. It took me at least three. Yeah, if you don't want to count school right to do acting, I started. Four years ago, almost so. Never underestimate how much time it's going to take, but if it's the right thing, you're not going to care. Yeah, and if it's the wrong thing, you'll figure out eventually because you just won't want to do it. Yeah, you know, guys like Gary Vee will tell you that, you know, all these really, really talented, successful entrepreneurs, they'll kind of say the same thing. It's like, figure out what you want to do and then just start doing it. Don't wait for it to be perfect. It's not going to be perfect. Yeah. If I had waited, if I had done a ton of research on a stand up comedy, I never would have done it because it would suck so much. But if I learned how bad bombing felt, I never would have done it. You know, if I knew how many auditions of mine got rejected, I never would have gotten into acting. You know what I mean? If I knew how many times when we got, I would have gotten rejected to drag it into Wall Street. I never would've done. You know what I mean? Yeah, if you focus on that, you'll never do that. Well, you got to focus on is what is my goal? What do I want to do? What do I like doing? You know what really motivates me, because that's it's going to take you. What I what I used to mentor our kids, you know, on Wall Street. They said people hit me up on LinkedIn all the time and I would always talk to them because people help me. And when I would say it was just make sure this is what you really want to do because a lot of people get the idea that. It's the road to riches, and it can, yeah, but. If it's not what you want to do, you won't get there because it just it just takes so much to make it to that point and not even just to get in there, but to succeed because you're competing against incredibly smart, talented, driven people. Yeah.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:06:13] So it's not enough just to get in and you have to do it and you have to then then you have to grind, you know? yeah, exactly. And that's the biggest thing. And it applies. Luckily, it applies to a lot of other things, too. But just make sure it's what you really want before you go into it. Don't let yourself get talked into it. Your friends are doing it. Your family wants you to do it or because. You know, it seems cool or both your

Dick: [01:06:40] Finance buddies are doing it or whatever to make sure it's what you want. I mean, you can you can be a finance major and go off and do something else. You know, if you really want, you know, whatever, make sure what you're doing is what you want to do because it's hard to be successful if it's not.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:06:57] Yeah. And I think one of the other thing I'd say is the sooner you can figure that out, what you like, the easier life your life will be because you're absolutely doing it. The hard part is actually. But I don't blame kids even even coming out of college that don't know that yet. I think it's really hard like you haven't worked or done. I mean, internships one thing, but like, you haven't really worked full time and tasted that like those all nighters are like, OK, wait, you know, the existential crisis comes like in that third all nighter in a row. You know that 40th or that you haven't gone home and you start thinking, Yeah, you'd rather have the crisis in your in your late teens and twenties and you would in your thirties

Dick: [01:07:36] And forties. Yeah, exactly, for sure. But yeah, you're right. I mean, I personally think that the idea of a gap year is really good for people.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:07:45] Yeah, that'd be awesome.

Dick: [01:07:46] I would. Yeah, I think

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:07:47] You're probably more mature too by the time you pull it out. If I'd stayed in court, I would have, you know, all the way through like undergrad, I would have wasted my time. Now what a waste. A lot of money. Yeah. You know, so you know, not everyone has to do that or has to like whatever. But I would say, if you don't have the experience to relate your education

Dick: [01:08:09] To, it's going to be less valuable for you. And you know, I think the educational model is starting to realize that I think people are starting to come around and said, Yeah, like. Just. Funneling people into a four year college because they graduated high school is not always the right decision for a lot of people, and a lot of people are walking away from school with a lot of debt and not that many more answers. Yeah. You know, so just find, you know, figure out what you want to do and then do that because that's what everyone who is successful does in any field, whether it's profit, nonprofit, arts industry, government, you know, they've all they've all done that, you know, that's probably what you did, too. I would imagine.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:08:52] Yeah, for sure. Well, we'll end it there because I think I've already kept some taking you away for over an hour, but I really appreciate you joining. I tell the people where they can find you or where. yeah, absolutely. Yeah. and I'll link you to the show notes to a link. thanks, man. Yeah, I appreciate that. You can follow me at Dick Jokes Comedy

Dick: [01:09:14] On Instagram, YouTube and Twitter. I have all my standup clips are on YouTube, and then I do all my sketch and comedy and little acting clips on YouTube and Instagram. So that's the best place in a whole lot of my jokes in on Twitter, too. So that's the best place. Find me. I love connecting with people and. You know, staying strong, a part of the community, because it's a great, you know, it's a great world and the world that you've built NWSL is fantastic and you know, you've got an incredible wealth of talent there. So, you know, people want to hit me up. I'm happy to help them. They're trying to get into Wall Street. They're trying to get into Hollywood. Whatever. Let me know. Love it.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:10:02] Love it. Awesome. Thanks so much, dick.

Dick: [01:10:04] Great, man. all right. Happy holidays. Happy New Year holidays.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:10:07] And thanks to you, my listeners at Wall Street Oasis. If you have any suggestions whatsoever, please don't hesitate to send them my way. Patrick at Wall Street Oasis dot com. And till next time.

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