Do Talk To Strangers!

Connecting with strangers can transform our lives and open doors to extraordinary possibilities. Embrace the power of connection and the beauty of exploring new places. In this episode, we have Peter Pessetto, CEO and founder of two enterprises: Active Coaches Coaching and Follow Up Speed Systems. Today, Peter will be teaching the importance of embracing conversations with strangers as a positive habit. He shares his experiences of empowering agents and business owners to achieve remarkable results. He also shares how he assists entrepreneurs in improving their follow-up game, resulting in increased profits and conversions. But above all, he shares how this simple habit has become life changing for both his professional and personal life. Tune in and learn why you should talk to strangers!

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Do Talk To Strangers!

You know God loves you when he brings someone like Peter Pessetto into your life. When I decided to scale my business nationwide, I prayed for twelve people to come into my life and make it happen. I wanted to follow the leadership style of Jesus Christ to grow my organization by doing life with a few good men and women. The first person to raise his hand and help me to love and transform people was Peter. He truly loves people. He loves to communicate, and he is a master at it.

He served as one of the top BOLD coaches with Keller Williams and authored the incredibly impactful book Active Choices, where he says, “The people on your bus are a reflection of the standard that you set for yourself.” I’m so glad that Peter led me on his bus and that he’s on mine. He’s the CEO of Follow Up Speed Systems, helping entrepreneurs with their follow-up game, increasing their profits and conversions. He coaches agents and business owners weekly, helping them get the results that he knows they can get.

Peter toured me around New York City because he loves to see wonder and discovery on other people’s faces. I had never been there, and he was the best guide I could have possibly had. I love this guy. He is my upstate New York business partner at the Worley Real Estate Network, serving investors and enterprise clients. He has taught me that it is okay to talk to strangers and that we should make a habit out of it.

We’re in Central Park. It’s amazing to be in some of these iconic places. I’m from the Midwest. You are such a great tour guide. You have such passion and joy for seeing passion and joy in other people. You took me to these places because you knew that I would fall in love with them. You chose all the great places like Grand Central Station. We went to St. Patrick’s Cathedral and lit a candle there for some loved ones.

That was an amazing experience. That was a very needed ten minutes of centering.

It was centering.

You would think Grand Central Station would be chaos like a beehive, yet that was calming as well.

It was calm in the middle of the chaos. I felt safe there. I’ve heard you talk to other people about it. You and I legit lost each other in the first ten seconds of being there because I was looking at the sky and wandering, and you were doing something else. I was like, “Where did Peter go? I’m alone in New York.” You were pulling out your phone right about the same time I was pulling out mine.

I saw you pulling out your phone, and I was like, “There he is.”

It’s beautiful. Here we are now in Central Park.

I enjoy seeing joy on other people’s faces. I was talking to strangers. It doesn’t matter. Being witness to them experiencing something great is just.

That might be the title of this episode, Do Talk to Strangers, because you’re this amazing guy. You speak five languages. I’ve had the privilege to know you for a little bit. That’s a long time to get to know somebody. We don’t live in the same town but this is the second time we have hung out in strange places. You are such an incredible lover of people. It’s fascinating to me how you rush toward a problem that a person is having and solve it. Why do you do that? Does it give you joy? Why are you such a good problem solver?

There’s always going to be a piece of my coaching, speaking, and everything I do that is trying to reach back to the Peter Pessetto years ago or whatever it was. When I started the journey, I was like, “I wish that I had been able to have somebody pull me aside and say this.” I look for those people whom that lesson will resonate with.

What is the thing that you wish someone had said to you years ago?

It’s different for different times but it’s probably to take a breath a little bit. Problems only need to be solved once. You get to try as many times as you want until you accomplish it. One of the biggest life hacks I’ve found is you can solve problems with a who faster than you can do anything else.

You can solve problems with a who, not a what. You need the right person in your life to solve the problem that you have, which is probably why you talk to strangers because you’re trying to find that person.

I also know that it’s not a one-way street. What problem are you looking to solve? I know that if I solve enough of other people’s problems, it’s the old Zig Ziglar that my problem eventually will get solved or won’t be important anymore.

You talked to German people and French people. Our bartender was Spanish. You talked to him. You walked past some people, and you’re like, “That’s Italian.”

I was in Italy with my parents. I was twelve years old. I was walking along with my cousin who didn’t speak English. He was going like this and saying words but I didn’t understand what the words meant. By the third time through, I realized he was counting. By the time we got to where we were going, which was two blocks away, I had to count to twenty.

By the end of a couple of weeks that I was there, my parents were asking me to translate what other people were saying because it made sense to me. That was a big a-ha for me. People are universal. We have universal reactions to certain things. We just use different words but it’s the same human reaction and human experience. When you understand that, words fall into place faster for me.

Cross-culturally, you were talking about different languages.

They’re so much fun to speak to.

Different nationalities have different approaches to their language. You said that Italian is spoken with the heart first.

You speak Italian first with the heart, second with the hands, and then the mouth. Italian is justice. It’s spoken, fun, and rhythmic language to me. I know some people will say for them it’s Spanish. It probably has to do with which one you learn first. My family is from Italy. My grandparents were there. I had more of an emotional attachment to it. The French say about Germans, “He who is good in math is good in German.” It’s all rules. French is, “Here’s the rule on day one. We’re going to spend the next 97 days teaching you all the exceptions.” It’s so subtle. The French culture appreciates a fine meal, all the different flavors in a great meal, wine, cheese, and art.

It’s the beautiful things.

You could tell what’s important to the people. There are some languages out there that are very functional.

You love to communicate. It makes sense to me that you speak five languages. I’ve learned so much from you about communication and how to coach people. You’re such a tremendous business coach. I’ve told you this before but everyone else should hear it. You showed up in a group coaching call. You had the opportunity to coach us. I took eight pages of notes. I couldn’t write fast enough the stuff that you were saying. I was like, “Who is this guy?” I almost felt embarrassed to reach out to you because you were like a celebrity to me. You had a very high–level coaching position at Keller Williams. It’s hard to become a BOLD coach. You had done that and done well at it.

That was one of those accomplishments that meant a lot to me. When I became a coach, I was 25. I had a company. At that time, they made $140,000. They sent me an eighteen-page PDF and they were like, “You will have this memorized by Saturday and be presenting for twenty minutes.” I had to pass that. There were a lot of other hurdles along the way but you’re talking about firsthand witness to seeing people change their lives in that room. That was an intense room.

For people that don’t know, BOLD coaching is coaching for real estate agents that helps them change their mindset and skillset and gives them accountability.

It’s very high-level accountability. It’s high-energy. It’s once a week for seven weeks in a row. There’s a lot of homework. There are teams getting called out in front of a room. Nobody goes through that and stays in their comfort zone.

It’s a significant financial cost to purchase BOLD coaching as well. It’s a real commitment that people make to meet these obligations while they’re running their businesses. Serious people take BOLD coaching. It’s a great offering by Keller Williams.

It’s people that were top 1%, not their market but their country, especially up in Canada. There are some sharp people up there.

People take it more than once too.

I had a lot of people take it with me multiple times, 8 times, 8 times, or 10 times.

That’s fascinating.

One of the guys runs a big team up there. He’s a super sharp guy. He always pays for it. He takes it every time it comes through. He pays for his entire team to go. Over the course of 5 or 6 years, he spent $100,000 on his team because he believed in it that much.

Here’s the first thing that I remember walking away with a major nugget from you. You said, “On a scale of 1 to 10, how direct can I be with you?” I’m a very direct person, but I’ve never given people permission to be direct. I’m not an arrogant person. I don’t classify myself as that. It’s jokingly. I do like to be direct. Impatient is the better word to describe that.

I’m impatient for someone’s move to success, especially when I can see something they’re doing and when they’re putting up some roadblock. I’m impatient to see them move past it quickly only because I know and I feel the incredible release of having a major breakthrough in your life. I want that feeling so badly for somebody else. You gave me the right words to be able to get somebody’s permission to be direct. I never even stopped to think that was important but it is.

I found that one the hard way. That’s another reason why I share the things that I do. A lot of what I’ve learned is from banging my head against the wall. Don’t do that. It hurts. Let me help you through that. I coach people too hard. I hadn’t had their permission, whether tacit or out loud, but you need to have someone’s permission. I know a lot of coaches. They go after people. They don’t know any better. It ends up turning the person off to a conversation they need to hear.

That’s the big tragedy there because maybe that person wasn’t the right person to say it but you could have at least put a lot of effort. As a coach, I always say, “The onus is on me to figure out how I have to communicate with you for you to understand it.” If I need to learn sign language, if I need to do smoke signals with a rug on a cliff, or if I need to do carrier pigeons, whatever I need to do, it’s my responsibility to meet you where you are so that I can help you get to where you want to go.

I’ve talked to my kids about that because all parenting is coaching if you’re doing it the right way.

You think you’re headed for the World Series and other times, you’re like, “I need to trade.”

Understanding that the other person’s feelings matter to the way they’re going to receive the information you’re about to present is so important. At one point, I was coaching my kids. One kid had gone to hug the other kid, and the other kid didn’t receive it well. The kid comes to me, and he is like, “I tried to give my sister a hug, and she didn’t want it.” I was like, “She knows you love her, and you know you love her. There’s something happening there that’s a mystery to both you and her.”

I said, “Change your approach in how you are delivering the little package of love to her because she’s not ready to receive the one that you have for her. It’s your job to figure out how to present that love in a way that will be received.” That’s exactly what you’re talking about. It’s presenting the information. This goes not just for business but this goes for communication in general. Would you agree that it’s our responsibility to deliver information in a way that people will receive?

It’s our responsibility to disperse the information in an edible form. You know that I like to learn. I have a fair amount of experience in this industry. I know what I’m talking about when it comes to investment stuff, yet you could have dumped a truckload of stuff on top of me, and I never would have been able to dig out of it because I wouldn’t have known where to start. You could have taken a dump truck full of apples and said, “Take a bite out of all of them.” You said, “Here’s where we’re going to start. Here’s where you’re going to learn. Here’s what you’re going to do next.” I didn’t have to think about worrying. I follow the process. Our goal is to find out, “How much appetite do you have for this conversation?”

At what point in your life did communication become important to you?

It was pretty cool when I went over to Italy when I was twelve that I could figure out how to talk the language right away. From there on, I wanted to be an exchange student in France. I got to do that. I’m sixteen. I’m on the other side of the world. This was pre-email, pre-cellphone, and pre a lot of communication methods we have. It was very isolated. You want to talk about being completely submerged. I was so submerged that when I got home, I had a tough reentry for a couple of weeks using the English language again. I felt like I didn’t have an advocate for myself. Part of communication is being able to communicate for yourself and being able to say, “No. I don’t want that. I want this in life.” It’s being able to have a place where you could speak up and say it.

Was there someone in your life that helped you understand that coaching was beautiful? Were you a social kid, and you were like, “I love people. I want to talk to people.” I can imagine you’re the kid on the playground that’s hanging with everybody and not shy at all.

It was funny because I’m very social but I’m also a bit of a loner. I can talk to people all day long, and it won’t wear me out. When you’re a coach, especially when you’re on the road, you don’t go out with your students. You don’t hang out with people and have dinner. You have to maintain a little bit of distance.

That is a philosophy unique to that company. I would love to do an episode on the philosophy of Keller Williams. I would write a Doctorate thesis on it because it’s so fascinating to me. I’m not sure it’s appropriate to truly discuss in this episode. Maybe we will do another one. I don’t want to offend anyone.

I got to see all facets of that company. There was some amazing stuff on having gone there. It had a huge positive effect on my life. I never thought I would be able to get to that level but Keller Williams and the people around me created a path for me to get there, which was cool. I got to coach. My dad was a gym teacher, a football coach, a basketball coach, and a baseball coach. He did it all. It’s a small town.

Was he good at those sports?

My dad’s favorite sport was basketball. My dad was extremely athletic with a firm voice. He was very strong but he always had great hand-eye coordination. He could pick up virtually anything. He had stage-four cancer. Probably six months before he passed away, he went out to a paddle ball court, and they were like, “You need to move up a level.”

He picked it up.

He was able to do that. I started coaching when I was 29, 30, or 31, elite soccer players, U-17s, and U-18s that would play in college. There were 80 to 90 kids trying out for a spot. When I did that, I realized how much I loved it and then I started having different conversations with my dad. I didn’t miss them because I didn’t even know to have them but once I started coaching, I was able to connect with him on a whole other level. I used to joke because as a soccer coach, your evenings and weekends are like, “If I could coach from 9:00 to 5:00 and have my evenings and weekends for it, it’s all I do the rest of my life.” I found a way to coach and make a living out of it. It’s pretty cool.

You’re getting there. If they’re a business person and they want to be better at coaching their people, or if they want some tactics to be able to easily move forward in a relationship, help somebody have a breakthrough, or even communicate better to a staff member or something like that, what are some nuggets that you have uncovered in your years of coaching that are universal and that could help somebody either be a better communicator or a better coach?

The first place that I would start in any coaching conversation is you have to give the person an opportunity to look good and be right before you’re going to give them an opportunity to coach. Say, “I believe as your manager or your coach that you’re having challenges with time management. We talked a little bit about your time management. Let me ask you this. Where is your time management working best for you? What are you able to do that you’re happy with? Are you setting good boundaries?”

I let you author that and then say, “Where is time management not serving you on the path that you want to go?” The ego is designed in our brains to look good and be right. People don’t want to not look good. When you start a conversation with, “What are you getting done? Your time management sucks,” even if a person wants it, there’s a part of their brain that’s already turning it off.

When you can start a conversation by helping someone first look at where there’s evidence of their life of where they can do this, then you can say, “What are we doing? What other evidence do we have that we’re succeeding here and that we can take and apply to this situation?” At that point, get an action step within 24 hours. That is the second thing. Always have that person offer it, “What do you think you can do in the next 24 hours that would be a half step better or a step better toward what we want to accomplish? I’m going to have you offer it because I’m not going to tell you. If I tell you it’s my goal, not yours. You don’t have the emotional tie that you will get it done.”

Do you find that when people do that, you get a better result on them showing up and having completed the homework that they assigned to themselves?

100%.

That’s beautiful. Going back to the first part of what you said, I connected with that because one of the things that Kelly and I have always done in our relationship is let’s say I treat her a certain way or I ask a question, and it causes her to have a feeling. She’s offended. I’ve done this with other people outside of my close relationships. I take responsibility for the feeling that I made somebody have, even though it wasn’t my feeling and even though they may have reacted inappropriately. Maybe they misjudged what I said, or they’re having a bad day. For whatever reason, they had an emotional reaction. I’ve always taken responsibility for causing that.

I’ve also always made the decision to affirm that feeling. In couples, somebody is feeling jealous. If somebody talked to me, maybe I said something that was a little too flirty, or maybe that person was feeling jealous and I didn’t do anything, I must affirm that feeling first before I’m going to try to eliminate it, show them facts, and move past that conversation. If you don’t, that person is going to be jealous the rest of the day. Let’s affirm that and say, “This feeling of jealousy is real. It’s real to you. Let’s address that because it’s important.”

Here’s the number one thing you can say to somebody in that situation. Start with, “Thank you for telling me. Thank you for sharing it.”

What good would it have done us for you to hold that in?

When you start that conversation not making somebody wrong immediately, then the communication is on a different plane. That’s what I see so often. People get into a conversation of, “I’m right. You’re right.” Here’s one of my all-time favorite things. There’s a video on YouTube about an experiment by Albert Einstein. It’s how two people can see the same event, have different perspectives, and both be right. Simultaneity is what it’s called. We fight so hard, and we don’t need to. We can both be right. You’re right. Your perspective on the world is right, and mine is too. I don’t have to agree with you.

It’s beautiful. I’ve read books. I’ve got to the place where I know that if I want to be a better coach or a better communicator, I should ask more questions rather than have more statements but then you’ve helped me realize you have to ask the right questions. You can’t start with a why question because that puts people on the defensive. Instead, it’s a what or a who question. Give us an example of that.

Here’s one that you can use with your family. A kid gets in trouble at school. Instead of, “Why did you do that? Why are they saying this? What happened?” I had a challenge with my son one time. I didn’t even go into what happened. I said, “Who are the other kids in school that you see getting sent to the principal’s office? Are those the type of kids that you want to hang out with?” I never had the issue again. I didn’t have to talk about the event.

You’re a hypnotist. You’re hypnotizing people into coming up with their solution. Thanks for bringing me to Central Park. As a Midwesterner who’s only watched TV and seen places like this on TV, I think of Seinfeld and Friends. You see little snippets of Central Park. They shoot movies and stuff here.

Movies have been shot here like Law & Order SVU.

It’s a gorgeous place. If I was in the Midwest and I saw this many people hanging out in one place, I would get claustrophobic, leave, and probably go somewhere else. I wouldn’t drive to a place that I know that had this many people in it. However, they’re spread apart enough and acts chill enough that I feel fine and safe. As a somewhat introverted and nervous person when I go to new places, New York has been quite relaxing and fun. I don’t feel unsafe. People are easy to talk to. In some cases, they are more friendly than in the Midwest.

We’re in a touristy area but that’s part of the fun. You have people that are smiling at you because it’s their first time in New York too. It’s their kid’s first time in New York too. It’s not ironic that you and I are a bunch of country boys. We’re hanging out in a flannel. What do we do? We’re in New York City. We find Central Park. We find the biggest open green space we can.

I did bring a flannel. I brought two flannels to New York because I had two.

Welcome to New York. Have a nice day. We started a conversation. You were talking about communicating. I wasn’t allowed to continue the conversation, which was cool.

Peter was taking me for my first slice. We had finished our first slice.

That’s part of the joy. I’m not a big New York City person but I heard it was Jeramie’s first time. If he had been here 30 times, I might not have come down but when he was like, “I’ve never been,” I was like, “I want to be there.” We’ve been to Grand Central, Times Square, Rockefeller Center, NBC, and all that here. I had to get a slice.

You got a slice.

You were talking about communicating, and I was saying how I wanted to find myself from earlier to get more perspective on the entire journey that we have taken. We always had that dream, “I could call back and do this or that or make this decision.” I was thinking. The average age is 80 years old. Those are rough numbers. I had a group of people, and I said, “If you knew there was this new vitamin that you could take and pretty much live to 160 but you knew that early on, how would you have lived your life differently from 0 to 80 if you had 0 to 160? Would you go to college as quickly? Would you get working right away? What would you do?”

I’m from the Show-Me state. I would make you show me the pill and some data that it worked. I wouldn’t believe you at first but then once you calm me down and you’re like, “Answer the question,” I would say, “Wait longer to get married. Wait longer to have kids.”

Take more time developing your career.

I don’t know how much more time I need to develop my career. I’ve been developing my career since I was thirteen years old, and it’s never fully developed but I probably would.

If you knew you were going to last 160 years, would you have started investing sooner?

I started investing pretty early. I started flipping houses in my twenties. I would probably be concerned that I would need to invest more to have more money to survive longer.

Do more things on the journey. You don’t want a longer journey to sit home and watch Wheel of Jeopardy. I call it Wheel of Jeopardy. If I get in a time machine and go back 200 years to around the time the country was created and the average lifespan was 40, and I said, “You were going to live for 80 years and not 40,” what would you do differently?

Probably get married later and enjoy the journey more.

We are already living the dream of our ancestors with some of the things that we get to do.

I’m living the dream of my fourteen-year–old self because I used to have to steal my best buddy’s parents’ camcorder so we could go out and make home videos. Now, there’s one sitting here that I can take phone calls on, check my email on, and do all kinds of amazing things on. I’m like a cyborg. Without that machine, I can’t do as many things. I can’t calculate math as fast. I can’t look up information as fast. I can only do what I’ve got with me. I can cook you a brisket.

We can’t find our way back to our hotel. I could translate for us. I could ask for directions from somebody who doesn’t speak our language.

Full disclosure, I learned how to cook a good brisket on that machine by watching YouTube again and again. We’re cyborgs now, and I’m happy to be a cyborg. I’m less effective without that machine. We are living the dream of our ancestors.

Miscommunication causes conflict. Major conflicts don’t happen overnight. They come from a long series of miscommunications and beliefs, whether it’s in marriages or countries going to war.

Miscommunication causes tragedy. Look at Romeo and Juliet. If they would have been able to send a text message, they could have avoided a whole lot of problems.

There’s the general that was warned that the Japanese might attack prior and then got a telegram a couple of minutes after. An attack was imminent as they had left.

There’s the guy on the Titanic who got annoyed by being contacted by that other ship that he turned off his radio. It was another boat that the Titanic could have reached out to but somebody there had turned off their radio because another ship was continuing to contact him. He got frustrated as a human being and shut off the communication. The Titanic as it was sinking couldn’t communicate with that boat, which was so nearby. It could have saved tons of lives. It’s because of frustration.

If you’re sitting at home and wondering about this stuff, and you’re frustrated that you’re not getting results that you want in conversations of business, coaching, or life, even if you’ve done all you can do, assume you haven’t done all you can do no matter what you’ve done. You have to decide. As I’ve learned, some people don’t want to communicate. They don’t want to increase that, and that’s fine, “Once I learn that, I’m out. See you.”

It reminded me. You are helping businesses communicate with their customers better as well. What would you call yourself, the Founder of Follow Up Speed? Follow Up Speed performs like a CRM, which is a customer resource management software.

It’s a system that’s running systems. It’s a system to run your social media, all your websites, and all your marketing. It’s a system to gather all those leads and track them. It’s a system to communicate. It’s integrated with all these websites and stuff. It’s a system that runs all the different core systems that businesses, especially real estate agents, need to be successful.

My first a–ha with Follow Up Speed is this. If I’m a coach and I’ve got a person in front of me, I want to be sure that they have a breakthrough. I’ve always had a problem selling information because you don’t know what’s going to happen to that information once somebody buys it. I’m emotionally attached to the outcome and the breakthrough. When I sell information, I don’t get to see or witness that breakthrough but with Follow Up Speed, you help me understand that when somebody purchases that coaching product, they can now open up their first video and instantly get a text from me that says, “Congratulations.”

I’m taking action. This is going to be great. At the end of a video that is important, as soon as they finish that video, I can say, “Do you remember this point that I made in that video? Don’t forget that one. You’re going to need to keep that one close so that you can interact or be present with people while they’re learning from you.” Even though it’s digital, it’s critical.

Education without implementation is entertainment, and education with implementation becomes a habit. That’s what you want. If we can get people into action, we know they’re going to have positive results. I’ve got a ton of respect for you and everybody in the world of real estate networking that I’ve come into contact with through you. You are the product in a way. People want a piece of Jeramie. They want time, one-on-ones, groups, and you, which is great that you’re in demand. It’s a pain in the ass.

There are only so many pieces.

I wanted to help me because it was originally for me. I was like, “I can help so many more people.” I built it so that you and everyone else can scale the number of people that they’re in a relationship with at a higher level. Some of it is automated but it’s not that you didn’t want to send that automated text. You thought enough to write it ahead of time that when that person took that action at that moment, you were there. You would love to be there for everybody all the time but you can’t. You need a system around that.

You’re the systems guy for sure. You are an architect. From the very beginning, you came on board as somebody who started loving the people inside my network. It started with my employees because I know you wanted to help me, and you did so without being asked.

Your folks are rock stars. I love those guys.

I do too. You take such good care of them. They would take bullets for you. We would talk about you all the time. You are a member of our family. I’m so honored to know you. What’s interesting is that as we begin to have new people come into the network, you rush in, surround them, and love them. You do that without being asked. It’s in your nature. That’s such a beautiful thing. I’m honored to have you in my life as a partner in my business. The interesting thing about being a small independent broker is that everything relied on me, all of the problems and all of the challenges. It is a tough life. I often felt like I wasn’t enough for people.

It is not the dream that you’re sold.

It’s not. Most people become small independent brokers or small business owners because they love a product or the people who are using the product.

They couldn’t stand how it was done at their previous place, “I’ll go out on my own and do it better and faster.”

In my case, I didn’t have any training or coaching whatsoever. I figured everything out on my own. I said to myself, “If I ever had the opportunity to lead people in a real estate setting, I would never let anybody experience what I experienced. It was too difficult.” Scaling my company nationwide is as difficult. It’s more difficult, but now, I’ve got you, AnnMarie, Candice, Dan, Chris, Beth, and Kelly. I was worried about having somebody I didn’t recruit because I couldn’t handle any more capacity. Now we are building the system to be able to have unlimited capacity so we can serve not just agents but investors all over the planet. We’re still in this interesting startup phase, which is exciting.

It’s a startup in structure. A lot of startups will take years to get to the knowledge base.

We’ve got fifteen years of knowledge base. We are scaling that model.

You structure that information.

It feels like a startup. It feels like we’re doing new things because we’re finding new ways to communicate. You’re helping me figure all that out. You and me hanging out in New York is helping me figure out more ways to enjoy the journey. I don’t know why I’m like this, but I would have spent this entire week in my room getting caught up on work. I have a lot of work that I need to get caught up on that I’m still not getting caught up on.

The work will be there. We’re enjoying the day.

Work is loyal. It will wait for you.

It is the old lab at the end of the dirt road waiting for you to come home.

What’s not loyal is meaningful experiences because they will pass you by in an instant if you let them. Quality time is not loyal. It will not wait for you. You have to make it happen. You have to be intentional about it. This experience in New York has been eye-opening. It made me a better person. I would have had a horrible time without you here. It would have been business.

If it was a color, it would have been gray because you would have been in your hotel room.

Gray is not bad. I shouldn’t have said horrible. I should have said perfunctory. It would have been utilitarian. I didn’t score very high on my SAT because of anxiety. The ticking clock gives me anxiety. As a kid, I scored the lowest in math. I was good at math but once you set a time limit to something, I’m done. What is the game where you have to fit the things inside at a certain time, and then it pops up? It’s a terrifying game for me. I get good at those games because I want to be able to finish before it all pops up. I don’t want to be in the middle of a project before it pops up.

What is the name of that game? I don’t even know. It’s like Exaggeration or something like that. We will figure it out. The ticking clock on those math tests made me perform poorly. A lot of times, I can feel the clock ticking in my life. That’s why my whole mission has been to help people get a greater return on their time. You can get a return on your money but it’s hard to get a return on your time.

There was an interesting concept that I learned. We used to talk about it a little bit in BOLD. I got this from one of my coaches, “Time is a feeling first, and it is a recorder of events second.” When I say it to people, they’re like, “I get it,” but I like to make examples real. When you and Kelly got married, did that not seem like one of the fastest days in the history of the universe?

Yes.

Yet think back to study hall in middle school. It was the longest 45 minutes of my entire life.

The second hand is banging away loudly.

When you’re looking at your life, think about what the current time in your life feels like. Does it feel like it’s taken forever? Does it feel like it’s rushing by? Is it a different context? When you’re with your family or when you’re doing stuff, have more of that feeling.

It is a feeling first. I’m getting the feeling that we probably need to go and put on our sports coats so that we can make it to our dinner reservation at a fancy place.

We did an episode in Central Park. Check. I have to write that on the bucket list first so that I can check it off.

Here’s what we’re going to change. One of the things that I talk to my team about and the reason why we go to Alaska, and I can’t wait to go there with you, is that I don’t want to say the word bucket list anymore. I don’t want to have it in my language that I want to do things that I would check off before I die because I want to come back to Central Park with you. I want this to be a lifestyle. Let’s do that. Let’s commit that to each other.

You better bring some of your team.

It was good hydrating with you. I will.

If you come back here, they’re going to be like, “Oh, no.”

We’re coming along.

Cheers to you at home.

Important Links

• BOLD
• Active Choices
• Follow Up Speed Systems

About Peter Pessetto

Peter Pessetto is a man of many talents – a devoted father, accomplished coach, successful entrepreneur, inspiring speaker, and published author. With over two decades of experience in the real estate industry and a decade of coaching, training, and consulting top brokers and mortgage lenders in North America, Peter has become an expert in his field. He was formerly a Keller Williams MAPS and BOLD coach and now offers coaching to anyone looking to improve their real estate game, regardless of their brokerage.

Peter’s passion for creating and implementing systems to ensure the success of his clients is evident in his coaching company, Active Choices Coaching, and his proprietary software, Follow Up Speed Systems. He firmly believes that taking active choices is the key to achieving success, and this philosophy is reflected in his book, “Active Choices.”

As a seasoned public speaker with thousands of hours of experience, Peter’s dynamic and engaging presentations have earned him a reputation as a “fan favorite.” He believes in speaking to a group the same way he would to an individual, and his greatest satisfaction comes from hearing that his audience has taken what they’ve learned and put it into action.

With his wealth of experience, unwavering passion, and dedication to helping others achieve success, Peter Pessetto is truly a force to be reckoned with in the real estate industry and beyond.