My main business now is two books that I've written but I'm still the a non-executive chairman of a company called high vista
which manages about the 20 to 10 billion dollars of
various kinds of money institutions and individuals
Wow, okay and the books I sort of seen some of them. Don't you?
You have two out there, correct?
The books one called on the road less traveled which was essentially an autobiography and the second one was a fable called
the island of the four peas and the the the on the road that travel has the
subtitle of an unlikely journey from the orphanage to the boardroom and the
and the
Island of the four peas under title is a modern fable about preparing for your future
I've been always fascinated by fables and it's the fable of basically the
Input in the fable is basically something that I believed in all my life and used all my life
I put it into a fable because the fable tends to transform ideas much better to a much larger audience
And I understand that there's the fable and then there is it's it's a two-part, right?
It's your and then your stories involved in it and then it's sort of also in the fable
I wrote the fable first and put a thumbnail such of my faith my
My basic autobiography and I sent it out to 15 people and they all came back said you better write your part of Bargara first
So I stopped everything and spent another three years writing my autobiography
But once I got that out that I was able to have the table pretty easily
And there's a third book which is going to be the lessons on the road less traveled or the lessons on the unlikely journey
the orphanage to the boardroom all of this by the way is a total pivot for me because I spent
50 years or 60 years on Wall Street with it with the
With the moniker to live happy was to live hidden stay out of the press stay away from talking people like you
Stay out of social media and of course in the last three years in order to carry out this next mission
I basically had to violate that particular principle
I'm finding it quite scary but quite fun and quite interesting and quite rewarding actually
That is that is so funny as you can tell this big smile because it's funny to be happy is to be hidden and that
Was pretty much the world, you know what?
I mean, it's just but we also didn't have social media and things like that back then, you know to be able to the press
And you had radio and television and I was a Wall Street CEO and everybody wanted to know what I thought and I said
I was either gonna become a public figure and do a crappy job of running my company
Or I was gonna run my company really well and not have be a public figure because I didn't have the capacity to both
I found that people some people got away with but a lot of people that started to what I call drinking and starting to see
There what want to see themselves in print and on television turned out doing a not a good job with their companies because the company was a
Very difficult experience during those days. Now we during my period of running a medium-sized investment bank
75% my competitors went out of business. So it was not an easy time
You know that's in and you're right I can only imagine and to actually be faced with press and to have that conversation
Is completely different from right now where we can relax and feel comfortable in our own setting and not feel so out of the pocket
Well, I'm not running, you know, not running a company that has a half a billion in sales and 800 employees or I'm not basically
You're running a university with 40,000 employees. I have now a privilege of somebody I quote Verdi
But you know, I don't think it's true, but I try to find his quote was that I'm 80 years old
My internal fires are out. I can begin my life's work. That's kind of one of the things I'm living with right now
I really truly believe I can play do things now that I could never do before because I have the time and the ability to
Put certain energies in these kinds of things and also the the kind of satisfaction you get from this kind of work is totally different than
In an organization where you're trying to make a profit or try to overcome competition
So that it's I find that just very different because you know, a lot of people say
You only live once right or live your best life now and I guess if I can ask do you
Do you wish you would have started this earlier or done this a little bit earlier in your life?
Where you'd still have that freedom, you know to be able to have these conversations and to write these books sooner than now
I read a book very early on in my life by Levinson called the phases of a man's life
The famous a person's life. I believe each phase has its own at characteristics and you can't can't mix up the characteristics
I always kid about the fact that you know when I was a teenager my passion was math and science
Baseball and basketball and girls and of course, you know that morphed over time and changed
So there's a time for everything and I don't think you have to have what I'm doing
You have to have had been there and done that, you know, I've been I've got too many years on the planet
I've worked in just about
Every possible job you could think of on Wall Street at least and I also was an engineer
I was in plastics before Deslen Hoffman. I was a naval officer
I I I married for 51 years with three children and eight grandchildren
If I didn't have that experience, I couldn't possibly do what I'm doing right now
I couldn't basically couldn't speak with authority anyway
You know, I have all these experiences and when you have eight grandchildren, you know one of each you
To learn a lot about life and if you have three children, you learn a lot about life
Have you stayed married to one woman for 59 years?
Have you stayed married to one woman for 59 years just get a little out life?
So that's why this phase of my life is what I'm doing is good. Also, I've been totally committed to education
and this is a time in my life when I
Can actually make not only you know verbal and you know written contributions. I can make financial contributions
to educational institutions and that carries you a long way because I have a
Mission right now and this is presumptuous
Maybe I shouldn't bring this up to you because you think i'm a little bit overdone
But I truly believe I want to add a dimension to college education
I feel that
There's a man named john trullo adams that quote him the two kinds of education one
That teaches you how to make a living the senate second one to teach you how to make a life
I think institutions today do a decent job of teaching how to make a living but very few do a good job of teaching
How to make a life?
I want a freshman to start to think about who he or she is
Where they want to go how they're going to get there and why they're going where they're going and start that as a freshman
and when they graduate they'll have a
Life design along with a diploma life design will be written in pencil so they can erase it
But they'll have something and they'll have during that four-year period, you know testing and I this comes to my own personal experience
I you know the word like being a physicist in my sophomore year. I wanted to be a physicist
So I took advanced physics and I found out boy that wasn't for me, but luckily I thought about it
I looked around you get a kick out. I looked around that class. I said
These guys and gals are not my not my people
They wanted to work a lot harder than I did, you know things that I didn't understand and so forth
So, you know, that was the kind of thing that that I believe young people should do and I
Come with that, you know
Never waste the summer and in a four-year prison also people in transitions can use my capabilities and I had
an enormous number of transitions relative to my
My my particular period of history. I I went from being an in
A college student to a naval officer to an engineer to a business school student
I went to wall street took all the different steps. I was an analyst a portfolio manager
I ran it not if I ended up being a ceo of a company which we
Grew over over a you know, a period we did from you know
20 million dollars to half a billion and from 70 employees to 800 we sold it we bought it back
We sold it again. So, you know these kinds of things that I've gone through and then I created a golf course from nothing
We I started a golf course up in nantucket from you know
Binding the land selling the memberships and so forth and we turned the golf course in I was just there this morning
We turned the golf course into an institution without the largest charity on the island
So these experiences allow and long answer a short question each period
Of your life you have certain capabilities which you've accumulated and you can bring them to bear on that particular thing
You're doing at that point in time and I don't think I could ever do what i'm doing now
If I didn't spend those, you know 80 plus years doing all the things that i've done. Well, luckily or experienced
Yeah
And and i'm i'm totally intrigued it's so funny because i'm really
Ever like just cheesing and stunned, you know because
You you have a wealth of knowledge and a wealth of experience, you know, and and and I I really want to
It's crazy because as I read your about about me about ed
I i've seen that you were in an orphanage and
You know and now now you're in a boardroom and now you're owning and building businesses and
Educating as an orphan
Where did where did this drive come from? How how did you get started to to?
Choosing this this this road
Well, you know it it it they I had had a very difficult childhood my
My father kidnapped me when I was three told him i'm gonna died
He went to war I went into
Foster homes that was in five foster homes
And then after the war we spent a year together
one of which
Part of which was in the ymca on 34th street in new york
And then then he had to go back to sea so I went I ended up in two different orphanages
So well what happens during that period and I make this a point to young people is that although you know
It was difficult. I gained those disadvantages. I had became advantages
In other words if you have to go through, you know, and as I did five different
Catholic foster homes and five different catholic foster homes
And five different catholic schools and five different catholic schoolyards
You learn how to become pretty adaptable to various difficult circumstances
You'll learn to overcome something you get resilience and perseverance and you get quite a bit when you get through that you
You get a certain amount of self-confidence
And so that those disadvantages there weren't there were some real disadvantages that hung on because I was I was an angry young
Man for many years because I kept asking myself why me but that that's how I grew up and it was
It's difficult. I didn't have a mother. I didn't have I didn't have had no relatives
People say describe your life in one sentence. I can very easily do that. Nobody came to my
Grammar school graduation. Nobody came to my high school graduation
Nobody came to my college graduation and nobody came to my graduate school graduation
So, you know, I grew up alone and you know, that's and that gave me some, you know
Great deal of self-confidence gave me a lot of other negative characteristics for many years. I never trusted anybody
I was always angry to some extent. I took it out by throwing, you know golf clubs and rackets not not
People so but I got rid of that it took a while and this is what I want
I want young people to solve these kinds of problems a little earlier than I solved it
But I don't want any do-overs. I don't you know, I think do-overs have unintended consequences, you know, you don't know
Yeah, I'd like to do this a little differently. Well, if I did a little differently, what would happen? I'm not sure so
That is wow, I mean I'm truly inspired I know that
After you mentioned no one came to any of your graduations, but you still kept moving forward that that right there is
Is is is unbeknownst to to our days now because when we feel like we don't have anyone in today's
Life it it's it's a different turnout
You know it could either hinder you or or make things happen and for you you you chose to keep keep the drive
And and I tell you that that that's that's not the norm. It's rarely the norm right now
So that's my best one my book
Don't people read my book and listen to me because I want to convince them that anything is possible to start off with
The second thing I want to convince them that education is a solution to everything
And the third thing which I think is important to what you're just talking about is that never be a victim if you can help it
Yeah
That energy use and being a victim take that energy and place it on what's next
That's hard enough to decide what's next and to pursue it. That's what I that's one of my secrets
I always I never was a victim. I mean I I was a little tiny guy beat up people beat up on me
I didn't wait. I didn't weigh 100 pounds until I was 14 years old. I went
When I was 11, I was four foot six sixty six pounds. I mean so and I was always getting pushed around but you know
But you got it. Don't focus on being you know, a little guy don't focus on being a particular in a particular situation
Focus on what's next always and if you get that
Habit in your head then I think you've got a greater chance of being successful
Nothing's easy and there's no way nobody nobody goes through life. I mean I talk about what about you
You haven't told me about yourself. I want to hear what you've got to say about that
You haven't told me about yourself. I want to hear about you. I bet you got a story, too
You didn't grow up with a silver spoon in your mouth I did not you know, it's so
You know, it's so funny. I want to tell this story real quick is because my my family and I just went to a
family reunion in Georgia and
One of our nieces came up to us and well I went up to her and I was like hey, how's it going?
And then she's like, oh, it's okay. And I was like, oh my gosh, you've grown up so much and she's like, yeah
I was like, well how's school and she said
It's good. I'm about to be a senior and I was like, okay, but her face
It was just very straight no emotion. No nothing and I just couldn't figure it out and she said I'm scared
And I was like, well, what are you scared for? She's like, I don't know what to do with my life
And I'm like what I mean it just touched me. She's like this is the moment where I have to make the decision
Because now I'm graduating but I don't know what to do and ed
I was I was taken back like I didn't know how to answer that, you know
Just to ask those leading questions of what do you want to do? What's your passion? What's your vision? You know, and
She she went taking my course. You've been ahead. Yeah, yeah, right
And I was like, oh my gosh, and so I'm I'm a person of
passion and belief and and and seeking the answer rather than trying to seek it from someone else and
And so what you just said was was amazing is the solution for everything is education, you know, go go back to where you
Where you were not scared if that was ever a point and so using now I have something to say to her
Let me just end it with that
Now I have my book i've read my book and he has to answer the questions
And you know you when you have a passion and it has a word at that good pursue it physics, you know
Pursue it international business. I was going international businessman. I pursued it turned out to be a bad idea
On to the next thing and you keep doing that by the time you're a senior
You'll figure out at least a general path. You won't figure it. You know, by the way, we're not going to get everybody
We're not trying to get everybody. You're a fool. I mean don't let the not the good don't the perfect
You know effect of good, you know
Because you're going to try to do as much good as you can and you know people say why are you doing what you're doing?
Well, I got a letter from omen who said her daughter read the book
She was planning on not going to college and now she's a freshman in order to name
Yeah, that paid for my writing the book, you know, I mean that's you know, that's that it took care
I've affected one one one one one life
And this is the the goal you have when you're in certain ages as i'm usually doing
I think if you can and it is painful. I mean, I just spent two days on the road
Talking to people about this and you know, it's not something I have to do
I'm you know, you could play golf and and uh eat ice cream, you know
But this is something i'm a little crazy and I I really enjoy, you know having this interplay and
Yeah, you can see yourself. You're you're starting to think because of our conversation
You think so sudden you just came up with your niece which is something that you know
Maybe we can solve that we call up your niece and say hey, you know, let's talk about your passions
Who your principles what are you who your partners, you know, let's write a plan put it. Let's write it down
You know one thing that's about writing is that as you know, you start writing things down
Yeah, this is what I really believe. This is really you know, it's you know, it's a it's an important experience
anyway, absolutely
I'm telling you
You started off with you you didn't tell me the rest about you
Okay, so about me. Hmm. I'm originally from denver catarato born and raised and um
Ventured into some other states. I went to jacksonville for a couple of years. I am a young parent
Uh, I was I had my first child at 16
Um, I can't yeah. Yes, I really can't
No regrets no do-overs. No anything. I tell you
I didn't play victim. I didn't do anything. All I did was I seen that there was a
Staircase that went up there was no staircase that was stagnant or that went down. It just went up for me
and so as I got to I became um very involved in
just doing
What do you call it where you don't actually have to have a temporary jobs?
I I got myself involved in a temporary job and I only wanted to do that because I wanted to figure out where
I was going right? Of course, I could have utilized college which I did later on
But I ended up at a location
And I was to read
I was to be um
Oh my gosh, I was to be as an assistant. That's all I was
That's that's what the temporary job was was an assistant
So I got to the job in and next thing, you know, i'm reading autopsies. So I was like
Yeah, where in the world am I and so I after I read that autopsy I sort of now knew I was like, okay
bone donation
Now i'm speaking to families to see if they can donate their bones from their loved one that just passed and the company that I
worked for
They melted the bone down and injected it into individual spine so that they could sit up straight
And so I did that for about three or four years the company was shutting down and they said
My one director said when I make it big i'll find you
Five years later. He made it big found me in denver, cotter atl and I now live in san and
Antonio, texas and have been there for about 20 years
Yes, so I went from organ tissue and eye donation talking to people over the phone having four hours to reach
people for organs and 24 hours for for bone
uh educating them on the benefits of it and then I went into the field of hiv aids substance abuse and mental health
And I did that for about 10 years made it to coo and I tell you I was drained with stories
Uh, but I wouldn't be who I am today if I did not experience all of that speaking to all walks of lives
Not meeting any victims, but but victorious individuals
And choosing to now be in real estate because that's the complete opposite
of everything
You're the proof of my pudding
What i'm telling them people like you is basically in most people my life my grandfather or great grandfather
Not mine, but people went to work for general motors or in exxon. They stayed there for the whole the whole life
Today in today's world people are gonna have to constantly pivot because things are gonna go out of business people gonna change
It's gonna be it's what you die real estate. You're a perfect example of what i'm talking about
You'll pivot again somewhere down the road. You wait and see good. Well ed i'm doing a podcast. I'm a co-host on a podcast again
totally different
Respective or or interest but I believe the more that you become involved in life and what it has for you
It's okay to take different avenues and I I mean i'm sitting here speaking to a man who was on wall street
Who's now, you know probably has a street. Do you have a street yet?
I'm sure you got a street named after you somewhere, but I have I have I have better than a street. I have a statue
I'm the only person my neighbor with a with a not eight foot statue of bronze statue on the campus
I believe it. I believe it. You know what and at this point you can do anything, you know, like i'm truly
Possible. I mean who would you know, how could have a less than 100 pound, you know 14 year old and you know with
Four feet 11 and then you know 50 years later. You got a statue on the campus, you know
And a school named after you, you know, so that's it happens
And I see do you have a scholarship you were working at a university?
I've scholarships at 10 different institutions
Mainly the university of rochester is my biggest one but i've at harvard. I have a university of mont
brunswick school
Middlesex schools university denver university
Some of the largest some of the small my main contribution is university rochester where
I graduated from I had i've had well, I must have 200
Scholarship students over the last 30 or 40 years and that's my main gov
but young person gets to 17 or 18 and the only difference between
Them and getting you know going to higher education is money
That's where I want to put my money because those are the people that you know, they've gotten through it
I can't handle a five-year-old or eight-year-old has got problems. That's that's another group of people are going to handle that person
Yes, we just need that little extra take them and also i've become a very strong proponent of what they used to call vocational education
Which I call professional education nurses marine engineers
hospitality workers public safety workers, you know divers
Carpenters electricians. I think that we can start training those people who basically won't be put out of business by ai, by the way
They'll be here forever. And so i've got a couple scholarships started in that and my country club now gives 415 of those scholarships
a year the local high school
Professional scholarships, you know, we have level I want to have 100 people in school next year. We have at 75 right now
This is a that's another story that we've converted the golf club into a the largest charity on the island
It now gives 25 scholarships a year. So it's it's you know, we've changed we've changed the whole island
The whole high school situation
It's really a it's something that I get goosebumps thinking about me to those 25 kids sitting up on stage
And we've just done all that and it's it's a golf club, you know, and these people are just so generous. They're freaking kids. Yeah
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