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World-Class Business Man Shares Business Secrets

World-Class Business Man Shares Business Secrets

World Class Business Man Shares Business Secrets. Barry, the Ambassador of JOY, invites Peter Nolan, one of America’s leading businessmen to discuss: SOB: State Of Business. Get ready for inside information on where we’re going. Peter founded Nolan Capital, Inc. for his family office to make long term investments in growth-oriented companies. Peter is Senior Advisor to Leonard Green & Partners (“LGP”)  with over $40 billion in assets. Peter also acted as advisor to entities such as Adidas AG, the Government of Mexico, Saatchi & Saatchi PLC, Televisa S.A., Metromedia and Orion Pictures. Peter presently serves as Chairman for Diamond Wipes, Fresh Brothers, and Ortega National Parks. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Activision, Inc. and AerSale Holdings, Inc. Peter serves as a trustee of the United States Olympic and Paralympic Foundation. Please feel free to share YOUR views with us, the show is all YOURS!

Show Notes:

  • 00:45 – Barry’s rousing introduction
  • 14:17 – World-Class Business Man Shares Business Secrets
  • 24:40 – The classic definition.
  • 41:55 – Now, what if the Fed raises rates too much?
  • 52:21- Barry’s Interesting Wrap-up

Important Links:

Barry Shore:

This person really does inspire noble deeds. He is going to teach us a lot about the economy, about money. And it’s our dear friend Peter Nolan. Peter… 

Peter Nolan:

Hey, Barry. 

Barry Shore:

Please say hello to 353,822 people around the world.

Peter Nolan:

Hello everyone and hello to you, Barry. It’s great to see you.

Barry Shore:

Nice to be seen and good to see you sporting your new suit.

Peter Nolan:

As I told Barry earlier my wife doesn’t like it so it’s going to go.

Barry Shore:

It’s going away, that’s his Father’s Day gift today. Now, we don’t usually date the podcasts we do because they live for decades, maybe even centuries and millennia. But I want to do it today because today is the second of June, it’s the year 2022. And in America, there is, in my humble opinion, a crisis with a small c at the moment. And we’re going to be focusing with Peter as is I want on the economy. As I said, there is a crisis with a small c. I will have to tell the audience for those who don’t remember, even though thank God when I told people and announced that you’re going to be coming back we have thousands of people who said well, that’s great. I like that guy. They didn’t say your name. They said I like that guy. So, it was very interesting because Peter is, the best way to describe him, he’s a wonderful person. He’s a good husband, he’s a great father, he’s a good friend, and he is an astute and capable businessman and generous person. He was an Eagle Scout. He went to Cornell, we won’t hold that against him. And he does two things that I think are very important for establishing bona fides for this show. And that is that he is a senior adviser to a company that has a plus or minus $50 billion venture fund, investing fund. But even more important is he has his own family office, thank God, it’s very successful and he puts his own money where his mouth is. So, we’ll call him the Warren Buffett way. He looks for operating companies that do well, and he invests in them, meaning investing in people but operating companies, things that do business. So, he puts his money where his mouth is. And that’s really something special. He’s on the line, he’s out there, knowing what’s happening. He helps to keep his pulse on the economy because he just invested a large amount of money in business and he doesn’t want it to go south. He wants to succeed. So, with that as an introduction, Peter, let’s touch upon what I say the crisis, thank God at the moment with the small c, but it is looming high, larger, it might be a tsunami, and that is the twin or the tripled sisters. Sometimes not even good ones of inflation, which is here, potential recession, and the rise of interest rates. So that’s a lot on your plate, kid. Let’s just start with the big I. Tell us your take on inflation, where it is, where it’s going, and what it means for real human beings and just people doing well, whether they were earning 50,000 or 100,000, 500,000, 5 million, it doesn’t matter. People are working hard, what happens to their money with inflation and what can we do about it?

Peter Nolan:

Well, Barry thanks for that intro. The last time we talked was before Russia invaded Ukraine. And I think at that time there was a theme that you and I discussed that I was saying that I see a lot more inflation out there than the government is seeing. And I was very concerned about it. And again, I would say that the last time we talked I saw some fairly clear directional things that I believed were going to happen. A, I’m not an economist, I’m not a Fed watcher, I’m just out there as an investor and a business person. So, I’m not going to say what’s going to happen, or what the Feds are going to do because I really don’t know. But I think we’re in a period of time, which I would describe as very unclear. And you’re seeing that the leaders of the major banks, Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan, Waldron, and Goldman Sachs, and you see very mixed predictions of what’s going to happen. And I think that it’s an extraordinarily difficult time to figure out what’s going to happen. I would say that, generally, my belief is that we’ve had such rapid growth in inflation. And I don’t think it will continue. I think the government and the Federal Reserve have woken up. And therefore, I don’t think they’re going to push it like they were. But inflation is horrible. It’s a tax by the government on anyone that has an income or anyone that owns certain assets. When we last talked, I continue to say, I think the consumer is going to be under increasing stress. I have a pickup truck, and it was over $200 to fill up my pickup truck the other day. 200 bucks and you have to actually either put on one credit card and use a different one because the pump doesn’t allow you to go over $120.

Barry Shore:

I was just going to ask you. The pump only goes to a certain number.

 

Peter Nolan:

Yeah. It used to only go to $100 and then they move it to $120, $125. And so now $200, I just can’t help but think about the guy or the family whose income has gone up a little bit. There has been upward wage pressure. But that’s swamped by the cost that people confront. Transportation costs, food costs, utilities, rent, everything has gone up. And so when in fact, there was a real push to give everyone a raise, give them a raise. But what happened is that was an illusion almost because the raise gets swallowed up by the inflation monster. And so, people now have less spending power than they did, even though their nominal income went up, or the nominal wage went up. What matters is what they can buy. It’s always funny whenever you see someone saying, well, I used to be able to buy a candy bar for a nickel and look at what I pay now. I don’t even know what a candy bar costs. Let’s say you pay $1. And look what’s happened. Well, that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that it wasn’t [unintelligible 00:15:57]. It matters how many hours you have to work to buy that candy bar. That’s what matters. So, what’s happened in the United States over the years is because of technological improvements and everything else. Things have become relatively cheaper over the past almost 40 years until now. And now what’s happened is through a combination of things, and no, it’s not just the war in Ukraine, this was happening and we called it well before Russia went into Ukraine. There’s a whole variety of reasons. There have been supply chain disruptions because of COVID. Everyone came back to work, and they were spending money. But also the government injected in the Federal Reserve, injected a tremendous amount of money into the system. And so people, during 2021, in particular, really started to have a lot of excess cash, and they spent it. And that drove up the prices of things. There were scarce items. But there were also too many dollars chasing too few goods, which is… 

Barry Shore:

The classic definition.

Peter Nolan:

Yeah, that’s inflation. And it’s not just the United States, it’s everywhere. Europe’s inflation is running slightly ahead of ours, and Canada is running slightly behind ours. So, all the governments have basically inflated their currency and it’s understandable. We had this once-in-our-lifetime pandemic. The whole world gets shut down simultaneously. And so, these governments decided this was the time to basically flood the economy with dollars, and in many cases, it was free dollars. And all the economies did this to basically stimulate their economy so that they didn’t go into a recession, or depression during the shutdown. But the thing that I think that the government has done is they didn’t get off the crack, they just kept it going, and they kept the party going. They said this is a great party. It’s working well. Let’s keep doing it. Let’s spend more money and let’s print more money. And now we’re finally paying the price.

Barry Shore:

I want to unpack a few things here because you use some very important words that I think touched the human condition. Number one, you called inflation a monster. And it really is because it gobbles up people’s hard-earned money faster than you can make it. And that creates a mindset for people thinking, well, gee, I think I should use my money rather than save or even invest because I need to get it while it’s still available. And I think you used a beautiful word, two other words, one as you said, of course, it’s a tax without having to send it to Washington but it causes stress, not just stress on the economic system. It causes stress on the individual, the family unit, and the business environment. And then you used a great word. You said, what happened was that the printing of the initial giving of money which people applauded, and said oh, that’s so good we’ll do that and help people out. That created an illusion. And we know what illusions really are. They are just that, they’re illusions. And if you believe in illusion then you’re not going to be able to function well in life, let alone in an economic situation at the moment. So, I think you’ve touched on something very, very important. Again, in very human terms. I want to say something to the point that [unintelligible 00:20:15] about. You believe, hopefully, that the government, the current administration, the Biden administration, which is heavily Democratic, and obviously controls all branches of government, except for the Supreme Court, which nobody’s supposed to control. But the drivers are such that it appears at the moment that Mr. Biden is not really himself in control. He’s not a strong controlling president as such. And he just wrote an article, an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, which is published. And in there he actually relinquishes control of inflation, even though he said it’s his number one priority phase. He said it’s really the Federal Reserve’s responsibility. So, he’s abdicated that, by the same token, thank God and this goes to your point, Janet Yellen, who is our treasury secretary, and a former head of the Federal Reserve, has just gone on radio, television, any place that will listen to her and the Internet yesterday, and said, I made a mistake. By the way, isn’t it amazing that a government official admits to an error? In and of itself that’s a once-in-a-lifetime [unintelligible 00:21:29] as big as the lockdown and such then you can say it. But the fact that she is either falling on her sword or recognizing that she did make a mistake by downplaying the role, which you and I so eloquently talked about months ago, that they didn’t want to say it, they didn’t want to admit to it. So now she’s admitting. So, I say that that is probably, to go to your point that is potentially an encouraging situation. By the same token, it’s up to the Fed. Now, what if the Fed raises rates too much? For instance, right now, when you used to be able to get a mortgage on a house for three, three, and a half percent. I think the mortgage rates today are five to five and a quarter. That causes a slowdown in the housing market. That’s not particularly healthy, either for the housing market or for the business market world.

Peter Nolan:

We had a lot of bubbles that were driven by a number of factors. We had a housing bubble, we had a stock market bubble, just incredible appreciation in value in a lot of different areas. The problem that the people in Washington have is they have boxed themselves into a corner, and there really isn’t a good way out, at least, in my opinion. In other words, you want to deliver rainbows and candy to your voters. And you can do that in the short term, you can print a bunch of money and hand it out, or you can have a new spending bill and give people all sorts of stuff, free stuff. And you’re seeing that right now with the attempt to basically forgive student loans. Its purpose is to deliver something that excites the population, the constituency. But the problem is that you’ve run out of tools. The Fed’s balance sheet in 2019. Just Google the Federal Reserve balance sheet, and there’s actually a very, very understandable graph. And I have to attribute this to Warren Buffett and his annual meeting, he talked about this. In 2019, the Fed’s balance sheet at 3.7 trillion with a T of assets on it, today it’s close to 9 trillion. Call it three years later, they haven’t really shrunk the balance sheet at all. And they really don’t have the capacity to expand it at all. So, the problem is that this is probably a little disappointing I don’t know what you do other than struggle through it, and what you do is the Fed has to raise interest rates. And I really hope that Congress and the White House don’t pass some massive stimulus spending bill and tax increases because they’ve talked about that and I just don’t see that that’s going to help the economy at all. The best thing the government can do is get out of the way and let the economy rebalance, and we’re going to have pain. It’s interesting, you see that we have still record-low unemployment. But in a lot of ways, I think we’re on an aircraft carrier. And we’re in the ocean and the aircraft carrier is moving but the screws, the propellers that move the aircraft carrier they’ve slowed down a lot. And we’re still coasting on inertia. And my belief is, eventually that inertia will come home to roost. We’ve gone through a period since 2020, where you couldn’t hire people. And that’s why wages went up. There was a shortage of labor so more dollars had to chase the labor. And it was very difficult to hire people. And that was one of the biggest complaints we saw last year. And we still have very low unemployment but you’re starting to see companies shed employees. Netflix stock [crosstalk 00:26:49] today’s at 200. It’s lost well over half its value in six, seven months. And you just going to see that the consumer is going to be stressed. You have to pay for your food, you have to pay for your gas, you have to pay for your house and that now soaks up most of the people’s budgets that don’t have a lot of excess earnings, and most of the country doesn’t. So, you have to start cutting back. You have to cut back on discretionary items. You have to cut back on entertainment, you have to cut back on travel, you have to cut back on clothes, and you have to cut back on certain items.

Barry Shore:

Even certain food items. 

Peter Nolan:

Yeah, sure. Again, we talked about it, I used to work in a grocery store in Syracuse, New York stocking shelves in the 70s when I was in high school. And I’d come in and I’d have to raise prices every time I came into work. They would hand me a price list, and I have to go clean the old price off the cans of soup or whatever, and I had to put a new price on it. And what happened during that time is you saw an explosion in this new phenomenon called Private Label. Before the 70s inflationary period, grocery stores really didn’t carry private label brands. Think if you go to Costco the Kirkland brand, that’s a private label brand that’s on the Costco. And what you saw was the proliferation during the 70s. I’ll never forget, you’d have a Kraft macaroni and cheese, it’s that box of Kraft macaroni and cheese and then you’d have a white box, I worked at a grocery store called Loblaws. And there was the Loblaws macaroni and cheese and the Kraft was, call it 25 cents a box and the Loblaws was 19 cents a box. And so, people had to trade down instead of buying Kraft they bought Loblaws if they bought macaroni and cheese. And so, instead of buying steak, you’re going to have pasta or you’re going to have rice or something like that. Your choices will change and it’s not fun. The last time we talked before the invasion of Ukraine, I said I was very concerned about a recession. I’m just not sure how they get out of this.

Barry Shore:

On that wonderful note, on that high note uplifting, we’re going go to, well, thank God we still have sponsors that love us and pay to be here. Because when Peter talks people listen, if you remember that kind of stuff, and we’ll be right back after this short break. Don’t go away because there’s more Peter Nolan and he’s going to give us some good stuff on the other side, we hope. 

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Barry Shore:

Good day, beautiful, bountiful, beloved immortal beings and good-looking people. Remember you’re good-looking because you’re always looking for and finding the good. We have good in abundance. Now, it may not be the good that you think because it’s all fluff and great and gee isn’t a wonderful thing positive and purposeful, yes. Peter’s delivering reality, truth. It’s subjective because nobody knows, as he said before, it’s unclear. Now interesting, you know I love to work with words, Peter. Unclear, the same letters spell nuclear. So, we could be in a nuclear situation as well as an unclear situation. Oh, my gosh, think of that. So we’re back. Now, we’re going to talk about the R-word. But just before that I had prepared some things. And you mentioned the Fed’s balance sheet in 2019 being at 3.7 trillion, that’s a T. People can’t even count that high in 17 lifetimes but think about that. I just want to make mention of on the other side on July 11, 2019, also, the stock market for the first time in history hit 27,000 Dow. That was only three years ago. Now, nobody wants to see a $27,000 Dow again, I don’t even want to see a 29 but it could happen. That’s a possibility. I want to mention two other things that President Biden did write about, he wrote this in his op-ed. Now, let’s be blunt he didn’t write it but he approved it, and he put his name on it. And in there, he mentioned three things. One is that it’s up to the Fed to control inflation, it happens to be that we are now in the lowest economic confidence rating and the economic confidence index, the lowest rating ever. Okay, data point. But the President wants, he wants to spend hundreds of billions of dollars more. He’s not giving up. He’s going to be pushing his agenda. He wants to spend not just more money, but hundreds of billions more, and he wants to raise taxes on business. Now, I’m just a person. You’re out there in the world Peter, you’re dealing with big money and lots of people that are influential. To me, that doesn’t bode well for an economy and it could turn us into this, a world of recession.

Peter Nolan:

Well, there are competing economic philosophies. The so-called Keynesian philosophy is that if the government spends more money that stimulates the economy, even though you have to either tax people, borrow, or print money in order to spend more. And there’s a belief that that’s somewhat of a free ride, that you can create wealth for everyone by having the government just spend more money one way or another. I’m not of that school. I just never bought that. What happens is that if you all of a sudden start to raise taxes and spend more money, in my opinion, first off, I think it’s stupid. I think it’s a terrible idea. And I don’t think right now, and I really don’t know anything about politics but it doesn’t strike me that there’s going to be the institutional with the political will to vote that in right now but we’ll see. You never know what they’re going to come up with. The problem is that there is a natural human reaction to do something. So, there’s inflation, what are you going to do? There’s a recession, what are you going to do? This would be to tell your supporters or other people that I’ve done something. The Federal Reserve controls the monetary supply, which indirectly controls interest rates. In my opinion, I don’t think they fully control interest rates because the market controls interest rates. But they do control the ins and outs of the currency. Are there more dollars flooding the market or fewer dollars flooding the market? How easy is it to provide currency into the marketplace? But I think this is strictly almost a knee-jerk reaction to my approval rating is terrible, the economy is on everyone’s mind, it’s the single top issue on everyone’s mind. And so, I need to do something. I don’t want to get off topic but it’s sort of like you had these horrific shootings and now people want to do something about shootings. And let’s not get into all that but that’s a do-something reaction. So, everyone in Washington can go back and say, well, we tried, we did this. I think at times you have to let the market work its way through and stay out of the way. And in my opinion, the Fed needs to raise interest rates, they need to shrink its balance sheet and Washington needs to basically let the market correct, and it’s not going to be pretty. We’re backed into a corner where there’s no elegant solution, there’s no easy solution. There’s only the lesser of evils. And the question in my mind is what Washington wants to do if, in fact, they do put through a big tax increase and a big spending bill are they actually throwing gasoline on the fire? And I believe that would throw gasoline on the fire. I think that would make a bad situation worse. And it’s truly unfortunate. We didn’t have to be in this position. But again, it’s kind of like we were all at the party, the government had the open bar and they left the bar open too long. And they started passing out tequila shots when everyone should have been driving home, and as a result, we’re going to have some car wrecks.

Barry Shore:

Unfortunately, I think your analogy is all too easy to picture. An open bar at the wedding or the party and people doing that and losing inhibitions and acting incorrectly, and there’ll be a lot of car wrecks. Let’s go back to some of the other words you used. First of all, you’re right. Knee jerk reaction is something that happens, in my humble opinion, I’m 73 now, more in the teenage years and the early 20s in the human beings we tend to hope and pray and think that people mature and tend not to [unintelligible 00:40:30] and yet what you’re saying is, don’t be fooled by the longevity of certain people chronologically, they will act as knee jerk as possible. And because they’re playing to constituents, as you just said. The canceling of student debt is so obvious a ploy to literally buy votes that it creates a mindset of saying, is there anybody responsible here? Is there an adult in the room? Now, it turns out that maybe one or two in Washington, we know we named the senator from West Virginia and such who thank God has been keeping the Democratic Party, at least within certain boundaries instead of a country or lane. It’s an eight-lane highway but at least there’s something there. But you used the word stupid also. And I don’t think you’d said it just in a flippant way. I think if you were in your boardroom now for whatever company or companies you were working with, or managing and people came in and made their reports and gave you information and they gave you the data that was being given to you and you looked at it you would probably analyze it, think about it and not just fly off the handle, you would probably say the same thing. Well, this is stupid. You made dumb mistakes. And now, let’s look at it. There’s going to be some pain. Maybe some people lose their jobs, rightfully so but there’ll be some pain. Now, what do we do to make sure that we don’t continue stupidity? And as you said, put gasoline on a raging fire that could go out of control, it could go out of control. And if things go out of control it’s not just recession, we won’t use any stronger term than that but the pain is so widespread because you said so eloquently this is not just America. We’re talking about touching the world. Because we have the reserve currency of the world, the strongest economy in the world, by far. And yes, there is a war in Ukraine, and the bad actors but that is not what brought us here. What brought us here is the increasing inability to face true business decisions in a responsible way. Am I saying it accurately?

Peter Nolan:

Yeah, you don’t get elected by telling the population there’s going to be some tough medicine.

Barry Shore:

[Inaudible 00:43:05] elected, right.

Peter Nolan:

Whether you’re on the left or whether you’re on the right. As a politician, you want to make people happy. You want to make your constituents happy, you want to make the voters happy, you want to get reelected, and you want to be popular. And so, that’s one of the reasons that very difficult situations are kicked down the road, the can is kicked down the road, whether it’s social security liability or just overall spending. You can just make it someone else’s problem and get reelected. And that’s the reason I’m just not sure what they’re going to be able to do to get us out of the hole. And so, I think it’s going to be, and you’re seeing this in the public marketplace and I think it’s going to be tough, very tough. When I talk to people in other areas, in real estate, they’re saying there’s definitely a big slowdown. There’s venture capital, a huge slowdown. Because venture capital, for example, you invest in technology-related companies that you sell to the big companies that have big valuations that need to grow. Well, if their valuations are declining there’s going to be fewer buyers out there for the business that you’ve been growing. So, I just think we’re in a very tough spot and I don’t see us getting out of it easily.

Barry Shore:

So, let’s take a look at something because I’m going to end up on a note here. Our Time goes by so fast. I’ve been reading where there are a number of, I won’t call them economists but business people [unintelligible 00:45:13]. Yes, it’s going to be painful during the summer but by the fourth quarter, by November, December, we’re going to have a roaring stock market again. I’m just giving you information that I’ve been reading lately. And I’m scratching my head and looking like you. I look at a particular number of what I call Bellwether kinds of stocks, things that people do or did. Netflix, as you mentioned, is an example to lose half of its value. That’s hundreds of millions of dollars. Meta lost $500 million in value over the past few years. Peloton is another good example of a high flyer that is having to go out and scramble to succeed in the public market still, and to be maintaining ongoing business. And recently, the spec companies that you and I spoke about a year ago when we did one of our shows, and I labeled it as speculation posing as creativity. A lot of these spec companies now are underwater, and they’re issuing because of their public going concern of, do we have enough funds to continue going? And so, you’re going to see, as you said, pain. Let’s say there is pain. Is it pain for 3 months, or 6 months? Are we talking about real pain? Let’s say like a 2008 kind of pain that could be a couple of years?

Peter Nolan:

Yeah. Could be. I don’t know. [Crosstalk 00:46:46] the future is predicting the future. It’s the story that everyone knew.

Barry Shore:

Like Kentucky Derby winner.

Peter Nolan:

Right. You know the long shot that’s good. You would have bought the tickets if you knew the long shot was going to win. It’s extraordinarily difficult. Investing is conceptually easy except when you actually go do it. It’s extraordinarily difficult. Now, when the tide is rising, and all boats are lifted it’s not that hard. And no matter what you invest in, we’ve had a period of time where we’ve had just phenomenal growth. And now there’s the great reconciliation, the great recalibration is going on as we speak. Again, I’m not an economist and so I can’t go out and make a prediction. I can only tell you what we’re seeing. And I think it’s just going to be tough, and how long it’s going to be. It’s funny, I bought a farm a number of years ago, and the first year we bought the farm California had about picking over 30 inches of rain. And I’ll never forget I was talking to one farmer and I said, well, I hope it rains next year. And he goes, it could maybe not rain very much for the next 10 years. You just don’t know. And this is a long time ago. And that’s what’s happened. California is in a drought and we haven’t had rain for a long time. I think the same thing is true with the economy/ I have tremendous faith in the US economy because we have such a great alignment of interests between businesses and people that want to create value. This is why capitalism works. Unlike someone that works in a communist country, the capitalist is going to beat their brains out every night and day in order to build value for themselves and also for their shareholders. We have an incredible economy. No, it’s not perfect but we have an incredible economy across this country and an incredible work ethic, and incredible talents. And you look at what good has come out of our capitalist system that certain classes of politicians love to hate, capitalism is so evil. But it’s that drive that creates anywhere from a vaccine to an electric car to just the incredible thing, technology. Look at the technology we’re using today. I just have such tremendous faith that the inherent drive of the American business person and entrepreneur in the end will succeed. So, for that reason, I have longer-term optimism. Short term, I predict pain.

Barry Shore:

We’re going to quote your farmer because I guess that’s what it’s really all about. There’s a great song that I’m trying to find, I may even send it to you. I think it’s Ry Cooder who sings, and the farmer feeds us all. Through all the different things and the farmer feeds us all. So, the ability for you to be sort of downhome, done kicking on your back 40. And you meet your neighbor who’s been there for generations and you say, what’s it like out here? You know it has not rained for years, who knows. But he has faith that it will rain sometimes and we will have crops. What a way to come on the crescendo. Thank you, Peter. Because on another show, I’m going to ask if you will come back again. I love the way that you’re finishing here with this faith, the idea of driven people who drive for benefit. They’re not driving for greed, they’re driving for benefit, they want to build value, and they want to be creative. They know, hey, I could get a lot of benefit out of this. Personally, I make a lot of money doing that but I want to build. That’s inherent in the American psyche.

Peter Nolan:

The one thing I’ve learned in my career is you back the person that has that drive. It’s funny, we have a business where we run these concessions at parks. And just before this call I called up the CEO and I said, well, where are you? And he said, well, I’m in New York, and the company is based in Missouri. And I said, well, why are you in New York. He said because we have a park and we have a pool that we couldn’t get open and I couldn’t get workers there so I flew to New York and I am opening this pool because we have to have this pool open. It’s a short summer season, we have to have the pool open for our guests. And I hung up the phone and said, that is a guy you want to back. Because he’s got this drive as opposed to someone else sitting at their desk and going well, we can’t open up because there are issues with the pool. His voice was hoarse, you could tell he had been up all night but he got the pool open. And it’s a small thing but to me, it just shows that drive. You take Tiger Woods, when he is done with a tournament he used to go to the driving range and practice. He had that drive that no one else had. And you see that in sports, you see that in business, you see that in creative endeavors. The person that really succeeds is the one that has that drive beyond what the normal population has.

Barry Shore:

Well on that high note. That’s a great story and I love it. And it’s illustrative of what you just said, it’s the American spirit. When you find it, you back it and that’s the one that’s going to win the Kentucky Derby. You got 80 to 1. So, we have only two questions for you, Peter. And the first question is, will you come back again?

Peter Nolan:

Only for you, Barry.

Barry Shore:

Thank you. We got that in writing. Well, we got it, it’s recorded. And the second thing is, I was going to ask you your most fervent desire but I think well, [unintelligible 00:54:25] you that. You get 80 seconds, kid. What’s your most fervent desire at this point in life?

Peter Nolan:

Well, it’s always the health and happiness of our family. That’s what matters most but my fervent desire is that our country really starts to come together again. Even though I’m pretty negative about the economy I do hope that there’s continued opportunity for everyone.

Barry Shore:

Thank you and that’s why you’ve tuned into The Joy of Living with your humble host Barry Shore and our amazing wonderful friend and guest, Peter Nolan. And you tune in consciously and conscientiously for one reason and one reason only because you care the most in the entire world about you, Y-O-U. When you become the best you possible you make the world a better place. And you know that when you follow the three fundamentals that we talk about on this show, which is number one, life has purpose. You lead a purpose-driven life. You go mad, that’s number two, make a difference. And number three is to unlock the power and the sequence of everyday words and terms. You will be happier, healthier, and because of Peter’s information wealthier. You’ll be able to protect yourself and look for opportunities out there. Use this great word www what a wonderful world. Smile, seeing miracles in life every day. Or as my eight-year-old niece says, seeing miracles in everyday life. Create the kind of world you want to live in that Peter just talked about. He’s creating the kind of world he wants to live in, he’s working with people like you just heard who say, hey, I got on the plane, I’m opening up the pool, dah. Causing, rethinking, enabling all to excel. That’s what you want to do in life. And you want to use the two most powerful words in the English language three times a day, every single day from now and the rest of your life because it will make you better, your family, your friends, and all living being, they come together better. And these two words are thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank stands for to harmonize and network kindness. Kind stands for keep inspiring noble deeds. And with that Peter I say, thank you to you. Peter and I give a blessing to everybody watching. Now over 360,000 people around the world. Go forth. Live exuberantly, spread the seeds of joy, happiness, peace, and love. Go mad. Go make a difference. 

Peter Nolan:

Thank you, Barry.

Outro  

Thank you for listening to this episode of The Joy of Living Podcast. Now, that’s another step towards your healthier, happier, and healthier life. Never hesitate to do good in the world no matter what the situation. Join us for another upbeat discussion next time at barryshore.com and be sure to leave a rating and subscribe to the show to get more conversations like this. And remember to share it with your family and friends, too. See you on the next episode.

About Peter Nolan

Peter Nolan founded Nolan Capital, Inc. in 2014 as the holding company for his family office to make long term investments in growth oriented companies.

Prior to founding Nolan Capital, Inc., Peter joined Leonard Green & Partners (“LGP”) as Managing Partner in 1997 along with Jon Sokoloff and John Danhakl. Under their leadership, the firm completed approximately 100 principal investments and grew Assets Under Management from $500 million in 1997 to over $38 billion today. In 2019, Leonard Green raised approximately $15 billion for its most recent funds. Peter transitioned to his current role as Senior Advisor to Leonard Green & Partners in 2014.