The Deal Dash Webinar: The Practice of Perseverance

Good morning everyone. Welcome to the SS&C Intralinks Deal Dash webinar series brought to you by SS&C Intralinks in the all day running company. I'm John Martin, I'm head of products here at Interlinks and I'll be a moderator today. For those of you who weren't here last month, the Dealdash series is an exclusive collection of webinars, newsletters, in person meetups designed to bring together our deal making community. To make things a little more fun, we've added a physical run, walk steps challenge through Strava. So on any given day you can compete to see yourself on the leaderboard and or see activities uploaded from the community from places like Manhattan, Milan or maybe a hot and humid run from Singapore.

At Interlinks, we're super excited to connect with our global network of over 5 million users, including bankers, corporate professionals, private equity leaders, lawyers, accountants and investors, all of those represented on the call today. Through this series, we aim to foster deeper connections within the deal making community and express our appreciation to our customers, all of our users, certainly our employees with a blend of learning and hopefully some fun. Got just a couple of quick housekeeping notes before we get started today. We're going to do AQ and a session at the end. So at anytime during the talk, you can submit your questions via the chat.

Second, everyone attending today is entered to win some great gear from the all day running company. Things like this backpack right here. You'll need to be in attendance at the end and we'll pull names and announce winners at the end of the session. Now most importantly, let me introduce our guest, Ken Wright out. Like many of you on the call, Ken started his career in banking. He worked in fixed income in New York and London, and he now runs his own placement agency, Camrock Investors. Beyond his impressive career in finance, Ken would describe himself as a dedicated father of four, a podcast host, an investor and a runner.

Calling Ken a runner, it's a little bit like calling Michael Jordan a basketball player. It's a little bit of an understatement. He's a four time age group marathon world champion, starts every day with a 10 mile run. Go check his Strava and he's tackled some of the toughest ultra marathons in the world. As you'll hear in a minute. His story is one of really overcoming adversity through mental toughness, perseverance and a regular running practice. Ken joins us today. He's fresh off the on Rangers Ultra A5 day, 230 kilometer, that's about 30 miles a day foot race crossing several wildlife conservancies in Kenya.

I think he told us the other day still has the sore legs to prove it, finishing third overall. Without further ado, it's truly an honor to introduce someone who truly embodies the practice of perseverance. Mr. Ken. Ride out, Ken. Thank you for that kind introduction, John. Sometimes when I hear my own introduction, I think, wow, who is that guy? Because there's still a part of me and, and one of the things we're going to talk about is this duality of man, this internal struggle of like self doubt and self belief.

And as I would always say to my children, the self belief only has to be 1% bigger than the self doubt. So when you hear that self doubt coming in, I'm sure a lot of you are feeling this as we get down to year end, especially in financial worlds of thinking like they're not going to do the deal. I doubt they're going to do it. You just have to be 1% louder saying no, we're doing this effing deal. And by the way, I hope this isn't PG rated. If I curse, I'm going to apologize in advance. Don't personal dysfunction and how how I became addicted, how I got over it and how I turned myself into a marathon age group world champion.

And I heard a quote the other day from Bobby Kennedy, and it says if you're going to do anything important in life, there's going to be a hero's journey where you go through the valley of death and you're going to feel completely alone. And I think that that is really a perfect summary of the story I'm going to tell you because while I haven't been alone, I have a beautiful wife and I've had some incredible, incredible business mentors, slash partners in my life. At the end of the day, no one's going to come and do the hard stuff for you. And if you don't do it yourself, it's very easy to paint yourself into the victim's role and think that the cards are stacked against you.

My manager doesn't like me. This client doesn't like me. But at the end of the day, that's all bullshit. There is one person who is responsible for your success and failures and that is you. I spoke at a prison yesterday in Marion, OH, and I told those guys specifically if you are waiting for the system to come and fix your problems and you think that you have been victimized. In some cases that may be true. But at the end of the day, until you take extreme responsibility for yourself, don't expect anyone else to care. Don't expect anyone else to be your cheerleader or be your support crew 'cause when you win, they'll all be there and you won't need it and it will be so rewarding.

And again, that's part of this duality of man is like you have your own self doubt and I created an enemy out of that self doubt. Much like Michael Jordan created in the In the Last Dance. He would create enemies and fabricate them, even though he knew and they weren't actually true. The truth doesn't really matter. Your reality is the only thing that matters. So I've created this internal enemy where I think that this internal enemy hates me and the good guys are going to beat this guy down every day. I'm going to tell you how I did it and what I'm talking about.

I started my career when I was, I was born in, in Boston. I grew up in the projects. When I graduated high school, I started working as a guard in prison. For context, my stepfather had been an inmate in that prison and my brother would end up as an inmate in that prison. Hopefully that provides some, like, context as to how and where I grew up. And, you know, everyone has their own challenges. My kids tease me all the time, about to say, you know, I walked four miles uphill in the snow.

But at the end of the day, your story is your story. And the things that I had to deal with are the things I had to deal with. And they would come back to haunt me. But it ends up being my greatest blessing at the end of the day. So I moved to New York when I graduated college. I had a degree in sociology from Framingham State College, so not exactly the kind of pedigree where Wall Street banks and firms will couldn't wait for me to get to New York and help them take over. I went to New York as a pharmaceutical sales Rep.

Hated the job, wasn't good at it. But I joined a men's Hockey League at Chelsea Paris, and I met a guy who would change my life called Mike Peltier, who unfortunately died in during 9/11. I worked at Cantor Fitzgerald, but Mike said he worked on a broker desk at our Eurobrokers Commodities Broker Electricity and asked me if I'd be interested in being their assistant. And I had known from working out at a local gym in on the Upper East Side that I knew a lot of kids in younger guys working in finance. And I would look at them and think, if this idiot can make that much money in finance, like, what could I do?

But again, I had a degree in sociology. When I say I knew no one, I didn't know anyone in New York. I had no idea how I would even begin to. If you told me to go to New York and work in finance, I would have said, why not be an astronaut like that? It was just completely foreign to me. I didn't know anything about finance, and I didn't know anybody. But Mike Peltier offered me a job as an assistant on this trading desk and the desk was actually out in Greenwich, CT.

So we do a reverse commute that send a limousine, which again, for a poor kid, this was like just being in a limousine every day to work was crazy. But I was working with a group of people and as you can imagine, I'm the junior trader. I'm the youngest guy. And you know, like in the in the 90s, it wasn't exactly ADEI friendly place. There was not a, there wasn't a welcome wagon that rolled out. HR didn't give me a, you know, a stress ball. It was like hazing from the minute I got there. And I was working for a woman who for whatever reason hated me and bullied me constantly.

This person was the worst person I've ever worked with in my life. I would go there everyday cringing like what are they going to do to me today? Which sounds crazy because I was boxing for the New York Athletic Club. I wasn't exactly what I would call a pushover. And Long story short, the haze of me one day one of the one of the bigger bullies threw a dry erase at me. And I was like, OK, that's the end of this. And I slapped him across the face and almost knocked him out of his chair.

And he was sitting next to Mike Pelte. Of course, Mike Pelte, a French Canadian kid who played hockey in college, was like, Ken, what are you doing? I was like, Nah, I've had enough of this. My integrity is worth too much to me to like, let this kid continue to bully me. Now, I wouldn't suggest anyone else does this, but I'm going to tell you how that slap changed my life for the better. I was so naive. I didn't even realize that we had competitors. I didn't know there were other brokerage desks. I, I, I knew a handful of clients and I was covering the junior traders at Enron doing next day Power, which was a service if you wanted to do the term trades for their senior traders.

And they had one of the biggest traders in the world, a guy called Darren Lobdell, which was, you know, worlds away from what I was doing. But when I slapped this kid, the guys at Enron heard that I got fired and they told Darren. Darren was from Martha's Vineyard, and he called me that day at home because, again, no cell phones, like 9, I want to say 96, and said, hey, what happened? So I'm telling the story to me. I'm Speaking of Gordon Gekko. Like this is, you know, right after the movie Wall Street. I'm like, I can't believe this guy even knows who I am.

Long story short, he called one of my competitors. I was making 40 grand when I got fired. The competitor called me up. Lee Taylor at ICAP called me up and said, hey, can you start Monday? This is on a Thursday. I was like, yeah, what about pay? And he was like, we'll give you 80 grants. And to me, at this point, that was more money than my parents made. This was more money than anyone I knew, right? I couldn't believe my good fortune. But more importantly, when I got there, I'm now covering Darren Lobdell and the trading desk and I kept wasn't necessarily great.

And all of a sudden, we're competing with every trading desk and I'm doing trades. I'm writing tickets with two hands. I can't keep up with them. The guys on the desk love me because they're getting the other side of all the trades and very quickly they were like, hey Ken, your new salary is 125 grand. It was like a dream come true. I couldn't believe it. Nevertheless, things progress. The guy who hired me at ICAP, Harry Fry, he goes to E speed Cantor Fitzgerald electronic trading platform.

This is in 2000 and asks me to come to Cantor. But I have a contract that ICAP long story. They asked me to go to London for a year, help start the European trading desk and come back to New York. When the when the when the contracts up, I said OK, great. Around this time I had a minor procedure on my ankle and I was prescribed Percocet. While all this stuff is happening to me inside, I'm suffering badly with anxiety. I'm suffering from a fraud.

Fraud complex, imposter syndrome. I know it sounds crazy and I tell people all the time, money won't make you happy. It's just going to emphasize whatever feelings you have, good or bad. And for me, the month of the fear of having money and losing it was so much greater than never having it. And I, I again, I know that this sounds crazy, but it is what it is. And I discovered Percocets. And when I took those drugs the first time, I realized that holy shit, there is a whole nother world where I can feel happy and confident all the time.

Although to the outside world, I probably had all those feelings and exuded that I, I was immediately addicted and was immediately taking these pills. You know, initially for a few weeks I take them at night after work. Then I'd have a hangover and I took them in the morning one day to get over the hangover and next thing you know, I feel great all day while I'm in work too. That quickly became a 24/7 drug addiction that would haunt me for 10 years. And the thought of trying to go through those withdrawals every time I would try to do it was so overwhelming.

Keep in mind the whole time I'm doing this, I know this is not good, but the feelings that I'm getting from the pills and the, the, the doom and gloom that comes with, you know, 10 days of withdrawals of being sicker than you've ever been. Knowing that it can go away with one pill with that feeling was so powerful that I spent 10 years wallowing in this addiction. My career was just puttering along. Unfortunately or fortunately, I was making decent money. So to me, everything I was doing was working and I'm just prolonging the withdrawals. I went to London, continue to wallow in my addiction and eventually in London I ended.

I get sober, I go to NA meetings, I get sober again. These two voices battling it out in my head. And for once, the powerful voice, the positive voice, one I got sober, came back to New York, started working again. Enron goes Enron goes bust, the electricity market gets toppled in London and 911 happens. I'm in nine, I'm in London, Thank God, when the during the terrorist attacks. So when Cantor loses all their people, I'm working at Cantor. They asked me to come back to New York and take over credit derivatives again, sociology degree.

I barely know what bids and offers are, but I knew people and I knew how to do business. I come back to New York and I take over the credit derivative business. It was, you know, that fake it till you make an expression like I can't believe in hindsight that I was able to do it, but I did and I ended up having some really good relationships there trading correlation products and I end up moving to the to the sell side. I go to the Texas. So now I'm not a broker anymore. All all along I'm thinking broker is a good job, but it's not really a career for me.

And my friend Mitch Levy gets the job running the desk at Natixis and hires me to run hedge fund sales coverage and I take the job. It goes great. And at some point during this process I fall back into my addiction much worse than I was previously the Intuit for. So I was sober for maybe a year and then I get back into the addiction in the early 2000s and I'm addicted until 2010 when I meet my wife. And again, this what I want to stress here is everything that is good that's happened in my life has come from me #1 believing in myself and #2 picking the right partners, business and personal.

And when I met my wife, she represented everything that I didn't have. Sure, she had a beautiful family. She was kind and polite and and squared away. And I knew I wanted her to be the mother of my children. But I was also new. If I don't get this addiction squared away, this is going to end in tears. And just to give you an idea of where I'm at at this point, I'm so desperate that in my mind, suicide is a viable option. If I can't fix this, I'm just going to end it.

I legitimately told myself that for the last few years of my addiction and then finally I went to A, I had always tried to do it so get clean on my own. And I eventually went to a place called Parallax in New York that was essentially an outpatient detox facility and they would prescribe medications to help ease the pains of withdrawals. I'm, I'm, I'm trying to give it to you quickly here so we can get in some of the other stuff. So apologies if I'm going fast. I'm taking different medications to get off the drugs.

I'm taking Ritalin to stay awake, Xanax to go to sleep. And all along my wife kind of know something's up but not really. Like she knows that I've struggled with some substances, but she doesn't realize I'm high every single day. And one night late in the detox process, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I know I can make it to the finish line. I got to do like 7 or 8 days of withdrawals and then they're going to give me a shot called Vivitrol. That's an opioid blocker that prevents you from getting high.

So to me, that's my safety net. If I can just get to the finish line, I'm going to be good. The 4th or 5th night going through the the detox I wake up in the middle of the night to pee and black out on the bathroom floor and my wife comes in scared to death and obviously shock doesn't know what's going on. And like in a moment of honesty and weakness I just tell her the whole story and I'm sorry the story makes me emotional. In my mind I'm looking at her. I'm thinking should I just run to the balcony and jump?

And obviously I didn't. We made it through it. Part of the motivation for trying to get sober at that point was we had just been approved to adopt our daughter from Ethiopia. So I knew I had a few months before we would go and get her. And I just, I couldn't live like this anymore. And like I said, those two voices in my head were battling it out. And thank God the stronger of the two One, I got to the finish line, got the Vivitrol shot and from there I was pretty much sober from then until now.

And I've had some, like I've had some bumps along the road, but for all intents and purposes, I'm going to tell you how I use this practice of perseverance to stay sober. So we end up adopting my daughter. We had three more biological boys. And around this time, I started to get into endurance sports, not with any hopes of winning or being great at anything. I just, I just needed something to distract myself. Even a new addiction, If it was endurance sports, cool. I'll take that addiction over the drugs any day. So I started biking, running and started running a lot.

And again, I was, I was never a good runner. I played football and hockey in college, but was average at best Division Three sports, like I said, degree in sociology. I start running and riding and very quickly I did a small race in Central Park, a duathlon, a run, bike, run. And I want to say I finished like 20th overall. And I said to my wife, I'm like, I guarantee you I can beat everyone here. Of course, she looks at me like I was crazy. But as you can say, as you'll see, that's been a common theme in my life where I think I can win this.

And as a matter of fact, you know, I'll come back to the title, but it's very significant in my story. I start doing these races and I'm slowly moving up, slowly moving up. And I would eventually go on to do the Ironman in Hawaii three times. You know, it's very difficult race to qualify for. I did like a 939 there. But the first time I get to Hawaii, I was so excited just to be there. And I had my goal was just to just to get there that I had forgot about the fact where I had to compete.

To me, it was like qualifying for the Olympics. And I know, listen, I triathletes can be like kind of nerdy. And it's like they make a big deal out of these things. And, you know, at the end of the day, like I said before, the reality, it doesn't matter. Only your reality matters. And in my mind, I was qualifying for the Olympics. It was the closest I was going to get to elite sports at that point in my life in my late 30s, early 40s, qualified the first time. And.

Like I was saying with the two voices, they're common theme throughout my life. I get onto the run in the Iron Man. I'm thinking I'm here, I'm I'm good to go. And I run about 3 miles and realize I'm in hell. I don't know how I'm going to finish this. It's Hawaii. It's 2:00 in the afternoon. The heat is searing and I see my wife on the side of the road. She actually has this on video I'm running up to and I start doing like the cut side across my throat, like stop recording me.

I quit like a dead dog loser and walked back to the start line. Just like it's one thing to be injured or have issues, but it's another thing just to give up on yourself. And I did that. That would that decision would change the course of my endurance career as you're going to hear. But I can't tell you that that feeling lingers with me today and my friend Teddy Atlas, I host a show called the fight with Teddy Alice and Teddy Alice, the legendary boxing trainer, he will always say it's so much harder to quit than to persevere.

That quit that feeling is going to linger with you forever. You'll never forget it even for all the things you want to have won World Championships, I've won ultra marathons. I never get rid of that feeling of quitting there because there was no need for it. It was just a complete and total moment of weakness. And one of the other things Teddy talks about in our show is that the fight, fighting is like a metaphor for life. We're all in a fight, a fight to get out of bed, a fight whether we should work out or not.

And it doesn't matter if you're not getting punched in the face. The mindset you need for a fighter is the same thing. You need to be successful at everything. All this client's going to yell at me if I call, he's going to think I'm calling too much. Like these are internal fights that you're having every single day with yourself. And when I quit, I said to myself again, I no one cares about this except me. I'm the only one. No one gives a crap if I finish in Hawaii except me.

And my wife doesn't care. She's indifferent to all of it. But I said to her, I said I'm never ever going to do that again. I will. I'll die before I do that. I'm never going to stop unless I have to. And, and listen, there's been times when I've had to stop. I've crashed my bike in Iceland. I had to walk back to the starline. I mean, I was drenched in blood. It was like, sometimes that shit happens.

But you know, you know when you quit or not. Just like you know the right things to do. People ask me how should I train for marathon? I said run a lot. How am I going to lose weight? Eat less? We all know what the answers are. It's just sometimes we don't want to hear it. We want to hear other people tell us what's obvious. And same thing goes with quitting in a raise. If you're injured, you know you're injured. If you're not injured, you keep going. And I went back the next year, I did a 939.

We had our fourth child around this time. And again, a few bumps in the roads with drugs where I needed a reminder of how awful my life was before. And around 2016, we moved to LA. And when I got to LA, I gave up triathlon. I just started running full time. But more importantly, this is key to everything I'm going to tell you in terms of picking the right partner. I moved to LA and I was riding my bike, training, running, and I met a guy called Jack McDowell from the Palisades Group. And Jack, super nice guy.

He had a, you know, $3 billion private fund that managed whole loan residential credit for a like two or three big SMA separately managed accounts. And in the course of us riding together, I would always tell him, why don't you raise the discretionary fund? Why don't you do this? Let me come run business development. He didn't have business development. They were owned by a bank holding company, which prevented them from doing discretionary stuff. Long story short, but I finally said to Jack, Jack I'll work for free if you give me a chance to run business development and we were super close.

So of course he says you know, we're friends I don't want if this doesn't work out. I said you won't have to tell me if it's not working out. If it doesn't work, I promise you I'll know. Well two, 2-3 weeks into the into my job at the Palisades Group, again, I was always in sales and trading. Now I'm running business development so I'm calling allocators. And two or three weeks in and it was obvious that it was work. And we went on to raise several billion dollars in SM as we raised 3 discretionary funds.

Jack McDonald changed my life and he gave me a chance. And when you have things that are bigger than you, like a family, someone who believes in you, you'll help them to bury a dead body if they need it. I would do anything for Jack McDonald. You know, I'm sure he would say I just gave him a chance and he did what he had to do. But I'm telling you, when I was working in finance on the on the sell side, I remember interviewing at Alliance Bernstein one time on 7/7 different times, praying that they'd give me a job on the buy side, praying they'd let me run business development and they never would do it.

My friend Doug Peebles was the CIO and he had sales guys that ran the marketing side. They'd interview me. I think I'm getting the job and then they wouldn't. I can't even tell you how frustrated and angry I was. But in hindsight, obviously it was the greatest thing that ever happened to me because I had I gotten hired, maybe I'd still be in New York doing that. And if you're doing that and you like it, cool. But that was not a job for me. And so I'm working with Jack. We, we go to raise our first discretionary fund.

We tried to hire a placement agent and they literally a few of them like laughed us out of the room. And at one point one of them said, why do you guys think you can raise this fund? And I said to that guy, why do you think we can't? And, and, and he said something else smart. And I said, listen, I think I'll win the New York Marathon until someone beats me. Optimism causes 0. I can be negative and passive and pessimistic as soon as I get a firm no, but for now, why should I start something thinking that I can't potentially can't win again?

You can win this. I believe I can win this. And we would end up going on to raise 3 discretionary funds. Massive success. And then Jack did me one of the best favors anyone's ever done me, done for me. Few years into our work together in 2018, he said to me, you should do this on your own. You should be a freelance placement agent. And of course, I was like, I've always had a job and, you know, identified with my job. It was such a big part of me.

And he said, I'm going to give you X amount of a month, which was a lot to get out of here for a year and go try and do it on your own. And that decision would end up changing my life. I met a guy called David Sinclair who wrote a book called Lifespan Genetics Professor from Harvard Medical School. We ended up re I ended up helping them raise a $50 million for Life Biosciences and a pharma startup in Boston focused on longevity. Through my work in longevity and in my association with David, I then went on to raise several different private placements for health and Wellness brands where I would only in, I would only work on it raises on deals that I would invest in myself.

That's a whole nother talk. But while this is all happened in Palisades, I'm running 10 miles a day to stay sober. And slowly I'm getting faster at running running. And I do the I go and do the Malibu half Marathon and I come in second or third in the fall in in in 19. I go back and I win and all of a sudden I'm winning real races. I went to the Pasadena half marathon. I ran a 112 and I won the whole race. The race finished in the Rose Bowl on TV on KTLA live and I come across the finish line like holy shit, why are they holding the I?

Literally I was like, there's no way I'm winning. Sure enough, I win the damn race and all of a sudden everyone, like I said, no one wanted to know me. I couldn't get arrested all of a sudden now I'm winning races. My job in finance is getting easier because I'm starting to be recognized as a runner. Like John said, I would never identify myself as a runner. I just told you that like my my crazy background and story, I just happened to run a lot. But soon, soon enough, like I said, same thing with the duathlon.

I said to my wife when I was showing up at some of these smaller Rd. races, I'm like, I bet you I can win this, 'cause she always thought I was crazy and then thought I was even crazier when I did win. And so last year, I, sorry, three years ago I decided I'm going to run all the major World Marathon majors, Boston, NY, Chicago, Tokyo, London and Berlin. And I did them all in 17 months and I won four of them. I won in Boston, NY, Chicago and Tokyo and I got second in Berlin and London. And in London I missed.

I missed by less than a minute. And last year they had the age Group World Championships in Chicago. And I went there and ran 2/29 at 52 years old and beat everyone in my age group in the world and became the age group world champion, which sounds crazy to say. I can't believe I did it, but I did it. And I called my wife and she said, how do you feel? And I said relieved. It was such a sense of relief that I had like accomplished this goal that it didn't even occur to me to be happy initially.

Obviously now I'm happy. But the point of this, the point that this whole story is like, this is just a very average person who at some point made a mindset shift to say, I'm not, I'm not losing anymore. Or at least at the very least I'm going to go down swinging. This is something that's available to everyone. Everyone on the call can do this. And when you hear that voice in your head, you have to remember you're suffering from self doubt while others are intimidated by your full potential. It's easy to show up at the race and think you're going to lose and and things are going to go terribly.

But as soon as I showed up at the race and started not just thinking I can win, but positioning myself like I can win, getting to the front, however aggressively I have to get in terms of the start line standing like you believe you're going to win. I swear all these little thing things matter and they matter in everything you do. The same thing when I was working at the Palisades group, if I went into a into a client call intimidate and thinking they were going to say no, you can almost guarantee yourself a no. But if you went in there thinking with the attitude, like maybe we'll let you invest.

It sounds simple and it sounds cliche, but things like this get repeated. Cliche is like this because they're true. This stuff works and I'm evidence of that. Like I'm a very average guy with a sociology degree from Boston. I don't have that academic and professional pedigree that so many successful financiers have. But I've I've turned myself from a drug addicted, mediocre loser working on a trade. And that's just a number. I was just like another number, easily replaceable. And now I'm in LA getting ready to do a photo shoot for Reebok in like a world renowned film production studios.

And I sometimes I have to pinch myself and I look around like, is this is this is really happening? And my wife and I literally ask each other every week, like, Can you believe that this is happening? Can you believe you did this? And no, I can't believe it. But at the end of the day, I did it. And I'm telling you right now, anyone can do this. The secret is there is no secret. And yeah, I that is that that was a brief synopsis of my journey and how I got to the point where I'm at now. But honestly, I know a lot of times when I do these talks, there are a lot of questions because there's probably a lot of holes to fill in.

So if, if, if you have any questions, like, please ask some more. I'm happy to like elaborate on my experience in the prison or anything else to do with endurance sports. Can we definitely have some questions coming in? You ready to take a couple? All right. First one, Ken, Congrats for your perseverance. As they say, never surrender. The question from this audience member is, do you have an idea of what percentage of people actually keep going against all odds and have that mindset that you were describing?

Probably very small because like I said, if, if, if I could do this, there's a lot of more talented, athletic, strong people out there than me. I just don't think that I don't think that many people believe this concept that I'm talking about, that you, you, you are. So you are capable of so much more than you think you are. Your body can take so much more than your mind thinks it can. And again, one another quick story. When I last year, a friend of mine called Scott Deru who was the CEO at Equinox called to ask me something about running.

And he said, hey, I'm doing this race called the Gobi March in Mongolia. It's a six day, 150 miles self supported race, meaning you have to carry everything you need except water in a tent. And I don't know why again, this thing comes back. I said, dude, I bet I can win that. And of course he asked me like, are you crazy? Have you ever run with a backpack? No. Have you ever slept in a tent? No. I'm not even interested in sleeping a tent.

I'd rather, like, I'd rather run extra miles and Long story short, I got all the equipment I needed. I was I've always been very diligent with gear and and preparation and I never really leave too much to chance. Like I get my stuff laid out the night before the race. I complete nerd. My wife teases me all the time. But I at the end of the day, this system works. I got all my stuff ready. Started running with backpacks in Nashville for a couple of months.

I was running 10 to 20 miles a day with water bottles and towels packed into the backpack. I went to the race in Mongolia and it was like 21 miles, 28265026 and six miles everyday. And on the 50 mile day I put I, I destroyed everyone and won by 90 minutes. I end up winning the whole race by 90 minutes. First time ever running an ultra, like I said, first time any kind of experience like that. And again, how did I do that? Like I the only thing I did that other people weren't doing was tried harder. There's nothing that there's no, there's no special skill set.

I just trained more and went there with the attitude that you, I will die before I give up here. And coincidentally, a few people did die at the race that we went through some crazy sand dunes. They had to rescue them with, try to rescue them with camels to get the people out of the sand because they couldn't even get vehicles in there. It was dangerous, but at the end of the day, that's part of the journey. When I think about where my life was, I think, I don't think I'm going to die running. And I wouldn't suggest anyone else adopts that mentality in the desert, but I did it.

And yeah, I won. I, I just, I mean, I can't believe it when I say it, but I won. The running questions are streaming in now, Ken, so I'm going to give you a couple of more. What do you think about when you're out running? What's the source of your strength if you're feeling overwhelmed or weak or like you didn't want to get out of bed that day? Yeah, good question. First of all, I never like I've done this so long now. I've run 4000 miles a year for the last several years.

The thought of not getting out of bed in the morning, never even. It's so far into me. It'd be like, you know, I, I can't, I can't even think of something crazier because I just get up and I do it. It's part of my routine. I would also say that at this stage in my life and a lot of people tell me, oh, you should do recovery runs. You should do every, everybody wants to tell me what I should do when it comes to running. And I say this is probably more at this point about mental health and physical health.

So when I get up and run, it's not that I'm just trying to flog myself physically. I'm trying to like stay healthy mentally. And this commitment and dedication and this focus and this addiction, if you will, takes away from the time that I would sit by idly contemplating getting high because that feeling never leaves. Like I'm cursed with this damn disease. Every day I have thoughts about getting high. It pisses me off. I don't want to, I don't want to think about it, but I do. And when I think about all the rewards, what I've received in my life as a result of my dedication, consistency and commitment, I think not.

I think I like. I think I like like my life like this. I don't think I want to go back to a trading desk and kiss an ass on clients who I'd rather punch in the face. Nice. Very nice. More questions coming in about really mindset. A lot of questions on mindset. How do you think about balancing your your, I don't know if I'd call them hobbies, but hobbies, activities with family commitments and work commitments. And how do you think about balance?

That's a great question, and I get it a lot. I treat my mental and physical health like it's my number one responsibility in the world, because it is. And I prioritize the things that are important to me. So for instance, if we take the kids, if we take the kids skiing, we went skiing the last few years. I get up first thing in the morning, maybe four or five in the morning, and I run on the side of the mountain. Like, you know, up in there, like we were in Alta last year. It's on a, it's literally built on the side of a mountain.

There's nothing flat. I just ran up and down the mountain till I got the 10 miles every day. I mean, one day was like a Blizzard. I put on my ski goggles and I just do it. It's just like, like I said, a lot of times when people have kids, they feel like their whole life should revolve around the kids and that they abandon all sense of self. I don't think you're doing anyone some great service by being like, it's all about the kids. Yeah, it's all about the kids.

But like, I you're not dead. You don't, you don't cease to exist when you have children. And I don't put my selfish, selfish interest ahead of my children. But I will say I do adjust my personal schedule to accommodate the things that are important to me. So I get up in the I just get up super early. It sometimes my wife gets frustrated when I'm like, hey, I'm going to bed at 8:30. But said, listen, if you consider the alternative, you know, I get to work from home.

I don't play golf. And you think about, you know, some of the lifestyles other people live. And not that you should compare yourself to others, but I'm like, all things considered, this is pretty good. I like the way things are going and she's my wife, like I said about picking the right partner and working with Jack McDowell, the two decisions I've made in my life, working for Jack McDowell and marrying my wife. Honestly, that's how important I think Jack was in my life. And that's how important my wife is that this, this decision to marry her was not just we've been married like 17 years.

It's not just a personal decision, but it's obviously a professional decision in the sense that I needed a business partner. When you, the parents out there will know this when you get married, you're having a good time with your friend. It's all great. You're doing fun stuff to many. You have children. You're now running a deadly serious business together that require business decisions. Who's getting up in the morning? Who's doing this?

And if you can't work with that person in that setting and ain't all like rainbows and butterflies, it's the truth. And that's the way we approach you. We take our relationship seriously. You know, we've been to couples therapy, not as a lifesaver, but as a way to make our relationship better. Because I apply this running mindset to everything I do. I want to be the best that I can be. And sorry again, long winded, but yeah, I, I, I adjust my schedule accordingly. And recognizing my family also recognizes that for me to do what I do and be who I am, they recognize that I have to do certain things for myself every day.

You know, it's only 90 minutes or whatever it is, but I do it. Very nice. So all the questions coming in or everybody wants to be inside your head on mindset. This is the theme here. There's a great question here on you shared that story with us about your race in Hawaii when you when you stopped early in the marathon and and how it affected you since then. The question follows that and says since that moment, what's been the hardest challenge you've faced in an endurance race? Interesting.

The the hardest race that I've done since that happened. I mean, the, the, the, the ultras are super hard, but at the end of the day, you know, if you start falling apart in ultra, there's so many days to make it up. You're just at the end of the day walking. But the I did when I did the Berlin Marathon, I was in the best shape of my life. This is actually crazy story. I was lucky enough to be in the pro field. So I walk into the professional runner tent in Berlin, which is such a luxury to have. You're not out in the open.

Like I'm in a heated tent with food. And I walk in and it's like the Japanese runners together, the Chinese runners, the Americans, you know, the Europeans and then the Kenyans and Elliot Kipchogi, the world record holder, the best marathon probably in the history of the world. And no one's sitting next to him. So of course, I walk right over there. I give him a not go bomb, like, hey, you mind if I sit here, brother? He's like, yeah, yeah. Come on, sit there. Walk out of the tent with Elliot Kipchogi.

In years past, I would hustle down to the start line if I were running a marathon just to watch these guys warm up. I was so enamored with, like, their ability to suffer in their, like, fitness. Now I'm running under the Brandenburg Gate at the start of the Burling Marathon. They have a whole section cordoned off where the pros can run back and forth to warm up, and I'm out there running with them. I'm running beside LA and Kipchoge warming up. We're in the same field, and at the starting line there's an awesome pitch of Elliott Kipchogi smiling.

And right behind them you see my big giant head with my hat on back. What's ready to go? Like the only, the only Caucasian in a sea of African runners. It was just, but unfortunately the race went out hard and it was humid that day and I was in the best shape of my life because two weeks later I ran 229 in Chicago, which is a crazy turn around, but I went out hard and I normally I run like a 539 pace, 539 to 5:45 for 26 miles. And I went out a little hard.

And very quickly, groups of pros start to break up on the course and I end up getting in the second group of pro women on the road and they're running 530 flat. And it's funny, when you link up with a person or a group early in the race, you can immediately tell what their pace is if you're pacing them because they're like every single mile is like within 3 seconds. So they run in 530. And I convinced myself that I'm 10 mile, I'm 10 seconds a mile faster than I really am because I'm thinking I'm in great shape. I should, maybe I can do this.

Well, I got to about 18 miles and literally thought I was like bleeding from my eyeballs. I was never ever in such hell. But again, that feeling of quitting was ringing in my head. I want, I desperately wanted to quit. I mean like honest to God, I was seeing sideways, I was seeing stars. My vision was blurred and I just kept drilling it to the finish line. I end up running 235 and got second in the age group. At the minute I crossed the finish line, I just collapsed.

I like, I vaguely remember get in and out of consciousness and they brought me into the medical tent, gave me IV's and eventually, you know, for a minute they were like, call an ambulance, let's send him to the hospital. And I'm like, I don't need to go. I don't want to go to the hospital. I have a flight home tonight and I end up making it out. But one of the things we talked about that on my podcast with Teddy Alice. And it's funny, he, he picks up on everything psychological and he said, you know, I'm more proud of you for finishing that race than even the ones that you won.

And that's, that's how I felt. I was like, I mean, I was bummed and I called my wife started getting choked up because I would did so poorly. And she's like, what's going on? I'm like, she's like, why do you care about this? I'm like, I care so deeply about the things that are important to me and that's reflected in everything that we're doing. If you're trying to close deals by the end of the year and you don't care deeply, someone who's willing to die to win is going to get the deal. And you're not it's, it's just a fact, man.

It's again, mindset. Everything that I have that I'm talking to you about is available to you. Just you can't accept mediocrity. You can't accept defeat in a sense that it's still within your control. You have to keep digging. You have to keep throwing punches until the final bell. You just never know. And again, I know it sounds corny and cliche, but I've done it. I did it. And again, there, I'm sure everyone on this call has a more impressive professional and academic resume than I do.

But the things that I can control, I don't think anyone can beat me. And that's available to anyone. It's simply a thought process. Very good. The questions are streaming and everybody wants to wants to hear more. I'm going to switch back to go to a maybe a couple of business questions now. How did you think about, you worked for some big companies early in your career and you kind of walked us through that. How did you think about the timing, the right timing to spin off from a big corporation and and drive your own, run your own ventures?

Great question. The timing is never right. You decide when it's right. When I was working in finance in New York, I was working at CIBCI, left there and joined my my one of my best friends in the world of Mark Cucinard, who ran at one point structured credit trading at Goldman and we started an electronic trading platform. I knew that this was a long shot. I wanted to win, but I was also realistic and thinking that I don't know. And I was just struggling in again, my career was going nowhere.

I loved working with Amar and I love the autonomy of trying to build our own thing. But I was also realistic and it there were a lot of there were a lot of things that were outside of our control. And it's not an excuse. I mean, we lost and I told him I wanted to work with him, but I with him, but I wanted to move to LA and cover West Coast accounts. I just, I don't know why I just needed a change and I wanted to move to LA. And one quick thing. If you think you're moving away to change your fortune, you know, have a, a, A twist of fate.

See if you can shake things up. You, you can't run from your problems, the same problems you have now. I'm going to follow you wherever you go. And not that I was running from a problem, but I went to LA and we moved to the Pacific Palisades. At this point in my career, I had made a lot of money, but I had also spent a lot of money. I was never the thriftiest and never the most responsible and I'm getting low on funds. I have 4 young children.

We moved into a beautiful house in the Palisades because I didn't want my family to feel like they were like along for my struggle bus ride. And we moved into a house that I couldn't really afford. I want to say it was like $12,000 a month and I'm getting low on funds and I'm and I convinced Jack to hire me for free. Like I don't even know if I had three months of runway. That's how effed up I was. But as soon as I made the time right, like I said, the times never right, I made it right and I didn't run from the problems.

I fixed them on the spot. I just got serious. I started applying the same mentality I applied to running to my professional career and my God, the experience I had at the Palisades was like a dream come true. It took a little while, but when we started to have success, we were Jack was able to buy the bank, buy the firm back from the bank. I would help them negotiate the deal. It was, I don't want to share too much because that's Jack's business, but what a crazy story how we did it. And then to raise 3 discretionary funds.

First fund we raised with zero management fee and a 30% incentive, $35 million and we doubled the money in 26 months. That one fund paid almost as much as some of the SM as were paying us. It was insane. And from there, the life took off. And then Jack having the vote of giving me the vote of confidence to go and do my own thing. And now I'm living my best life like I, I do things I want to do. I've helped raise money for some of the biggest funds in the world.

You know, I have a, you know, maybe 20 or 30 institutional allocators, pensions, endowments, foundations that I'm very close with that funds will say like, hey, we want to raise from these funds. Here's the here's the structure. If you can get those guys interested, here's the deal. But I've also, like I said, worked on a lot of private placements, so like health and Wellness brands that very much aligned with my own interests and my own kind of brand. Not to sound corny, but when I see those brands that align with what what I'm all about, it's very easy to raise funds for those guys if obviously if they've got all their stocks in a row.

And yeah, it's been a dream come true. So all I can tell you is that if you're waiting for the time to be, to be perfectly right and the stars to align, you wait. If the hell to freeze over, you have to tape life by the horns and just attack. It's literally, I know it sounds crazy, I know, but you have to attack. Very good. All right, so the runners are in here now. I got a lot of running questions coming up ready for a couple of running questions, training running races. Do you have any tips on switching your mindset when approaching your longer runs?

When training for an endurance event? The long run is my biggest mental challenge and a constant hurdle in my own training. Yeah, it used to be like, it used to be like that for me too. And I would say that eventually I did it so much I I just follow my schedule. For the longest time I just ran 10 miles a day and then I'd add in a 20 mile run on the weekends for 10 weeks prior to the marathon. And for a long time I felt the same way. And I wish I could tell you that there was a hack, but I just decided that instead of waking up with dread, I'm going to convince myself that I want to do it.

Lately I have been, I usually download a podcast called The All In Podcast. It's hosted by a friend of mine, Jason Calacanis. That's another thing that has come from the running success, the group of friends that I have. Sometimes when I say it, I feel like I named like a name dropping idiot. But at the end of the day to being friends with guys like Joe Rogan, J Cal Jelly Roll I moved to LA and Jelly Roll in the I mean when I moved to Nashville, Jelly Roll is across the street. It for me.

No one had ever I mean he he had a little following but nothing like what he has now. We could go to dinner and do things and not be accosted. Now 33 security guards, private planes. We flew back from LAA couple months ago. Private just I, I look around at at at at my life. I did the Rich Roll podcast twice. I was on Cameron Haynes podcast about bull hunting. I can't believe it's happening and everything that I did is that what I'm trying to emphasize is it's available to anyone when you prove yourself to be proficient or a master at something.

And and not that I don't think of myself as a master, but when people identify you as an authority in an area, whatever it is. And I'll guarantee you there are sales guys on this call that are scratch golfers and they have an incredibly successful sales career because other golf nerds want to play golf with them. It's just the way life is. And it's like the biggest muscle man in the gym when he's in the gym for two hours, he's the alpha of the gym. He might not, you know, have two nickels to rub together, but for that.

He's the cool guy. And that applies to everything in life. When you prove to be really good at something, other people want to be exposed to it. And so yeah, that the long run, I would say I, I download the All In podcast on Saturday morning and I listen to that and that gets me an hour and a half of running right there. So I'll sometimes distract myself with podcasts and audio books. Nice. Very nice couple more. Couple of easy ones. I'll mix a couple of short, maybe shorter, easier ones.

They're all easy, John. They're all. Right, You're a Boston guy. What's your favorite run in Boston? Probably done a lot of running up here in the Boston area. It's funny when even when I think about running, I never think about favoring anything. It's like work, which sounds crazy, I know, but it's like it's getting done. But there is very few runs where I'm like, oh, this is awesome. But definitely along the Charles River, anywhere where there's things, there's things to see without getting super distracted by crossing streets or getting distracted by, you know, vehicles.

But my favorite run in the whole world was when I lived in Pacific Palisades. I lived at the top of a road called Palisades Dr. near the Temescal trailhead. And I'd run 10 miles every day there with 1200 feet of elevation gain, which is like, you know, 150% of what you get in Boston over 26 miles. And I'd run, I ran up there every day. I'd bump into matter of fact, here's another good story. When I was running up there, I would always be alone. And every couple of days I see this big, tall, lanky black guy on a mountain bike.

And one day we're going up the hill at the same time and, you know, running in mountain bike and you're basically going the same speed. And I roll up and I'm like, holy shit, it's Reggie Miller. And he says, dude, I see you out here every day. Nice work. Reggie Miller is my friend. Like he was. He posts about me on Instagram. We, I talk to him like every every couple of weeks again, because he recognized the commitment and the dedication that I showed to my craft.

And he's an avid mountain biker, like a competitive mountain bike racer. But that's what I'm saying is like when you, when you stop being true to yourself and, and, and living your best life and, and, and, and, and chasing your own passions, you're going to find other people that are on the same journey with you. And there's like something about the camaraderie and endurance sports that has been one of the greatest gifts in my life. All of the success that I had in finance when I was working with Jack, every big investor, every big meeting, every single one came from endurance sports.

We had a family office that helped invest in the operating company that helped us buy the firm back from the Bank of Cal family office. Guy who's done Iron Man Hawaii with me a few times, just like, I don't know, it's been like a dream come true. Very nice, very nice. I think we'll do, we'll do one more question here and maybe this is a, a nice one to to wrap up on. Now that you've achieved your best life quote UN quote best life, what's next on the bucket list for you? Good question.

I was just telling my wife the other day, It's important that when as you're going through this journey and you have different goals, if you're just in the fight to get to the destination, you're going to miss 99.9% of the of life. The struggle and the process is where magic happens. It's like the daily run. Yeah, winning the race is nice, but a race is like a beauty pageant. It's like you show up on that day and show everyone what you've been working on, like a bodybuilding contest, Like, hey, look what I did. All the magic has happened weeks and months in advance.

So I would say that I've focused very diligently on enjoying the process and, and, and being present in my everyday life. Again, I know it sounds corny, but that's the truth. And I'm about to launch my own sports and marketing agency. I've got four children that about 1413, eleven and nine. I want to work hard to make sure they go to the universities they want to go to. I want to make sure that they that they're taken care of again, the way I grew up like no one, no one, no one left or gave me anything. But I'd love to be able to do something nice for my children and I'm just like enjoying the process.

I have some, like I said, I'm going to start my own sports and entertainment agency, but I also still love doing the placement agent stuff. I love helping people close deals. I mean, I know it's coming into years and I I've been fielding a few calls from people interested in help getting some deals over the finish line. I love doing that stuff. But in terms of racing, I might do the High Rocks World Championships next year. That's like a CrossFit type game. I did one in May, like 4 weeks before I got invited to do it.

So for four weeks I trained like a nut and I, I ended up winning my age group, but I just missed breaking the world record for over 50, which I think I can do. So I think that's probably the next goal realistically. High rocks. Championship, I'm not surprised you've got a good you've got a thorough list there of what's next. I think we're going to pause there. I want to announce the the raffle winners. We've got 3 raffle winners for the all day running gear. I'll announce them quickly.

Eric Samuels from Prospect Medical, Michael Linger from Houlihan and Ben Stumpf, who by the way, I see on the Strava leaderboard quite a bit from William Blair. So we'll be following up with the three of you for for our our raffle follow up and get you the gear by the. Way one quick thing. Absolutely. I hope that people appreciated the Q and AI mean. I could have rambled forever, but I think that I know when I've done talks like this, when I speak at the prisons, people prefer to like get some dirty kind of steer me in the way that they want to go and elaborate on different topics.

So I hope that was helpful to everyone. I just didn't want to give you my selfish ramble. I wanted to make sure that people are getting some value from the conversation. So thank you for your patience and thank you for having me here. And thanks to everyone on the call. Appreciate all the questions and I'm on Instagram and LinkedIn if anyone has any questions or if I can be of service to anyone. Part of my journey is being of service to others. 100% thanks for the time today. I think we all leave with a, with a, a little more of a, something in our tool bag around the practice of perseverance.

So thank you for that. I want to thank the audience as well. We've got hundreds of folks on here today. So folks, thanks for participating. We will be back next month. We have a nutrition specialist as part of the next the next webinar in the Dealdash series. So thanks everyone, have a great day.