It's been a minute. I know. But I'm back, baby.
Okay. Really? What it was is I was just trying to figure out what I wanted to do with this content. I still like them. I'm producing them, but I'm doing them more here in video. Actually. I'm doing a lot of 'em. Live on LinkedIn going forward. At least that's the plan. This is one of those videos. And I'll probably put this on the Authentic Avenue podcast as well in audio form, but wanted to introduce it here.
This was the first live stream that I did on LinkedIn. And I got a buddy of mine, Pete, who, uh, is up here in Pittsburgh with me, another founder to serve as the, the Guinea pig as it were. He knew I could interview him just fine. He wasn't even at his home, he was on vacation, but. He let me talk to him for like 20 minutes.
And I think we had a decent conversation. So I figured why not put it here for you as a, uh, soft and rough means of bringing this channel back to life a little bit. And so that's what I'm doing. This is, um, maybe a, a refreshed, Authentic Avenue format in video. With Pete Schramm from Lattus.
Learn more about Lattus: https://lattus.com/.
Pete's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pete-schramm-pmp/
Above you'll find the video interview in full, pulled from my LinkedIn livestream. Here's where you can watch more livestreams and follow me:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjconner/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/adamonbrand
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adamonbrand/
TRANSCRIPT (powered by Descript; accuracy not guaranteed):
Adam Conner: Welcome everybody to Pete Schramm from Lattus now, Pete, I wish that I actually had your, uh, correct broadcast frame up here. So let me do that real fast. There he is. Hey, can you gimme now? Yeah, I gotcha. What's up, Pete? Thank you so much for, uh, joining.
The first stream I've ever done for being a Guinea pig. I understand that you, as soon as you heard you were gonna be here rather than be in Pittsburgh with me, you fled the state, uh, and you are now in Cape Cod. I think how are those lobsters?
[00:01:51] Pete Schramm: Yeah, they're great. We didn't get the lobsters yet, but, uh, we're gonna go find some later this afternoon.
So yeah. Lobsters are, uh, not safe while we're up here.
[00:01:59] Adam Conner: Yeah, you'll get on a roll soon. So I am really interested in, in a few things. First of all, thank you for joining me while out of town. Uh, you're also joining us via satellite feed, uh, viewers, very advanced stream here, but, uh, thousands of them now, right?
[00:02:16] Pete Schramm: Yeah. It's
[00:02:17] Adam Conner: it's fine. You're LinkedIn. On LinkedIn. Holy. Okay. Hey, uh, viewers, if you can see all of this, uh, throw a comment into the chat, say hello to Pete, by the way, introduce yourselves network with each other. But listen to what we have to say. Now, Pete, when I first met you, it was 2015, I guess. And, uh, I, I, I, you were still in the DC area with me.
Eventually you decide that. You've got an idea in your head that you wanted to, uh, just see if there were any legs to it. Of course it took a while to become a fulltime entrepreneur. But before we talk about that journey, can you talk a little bit about what Lattus is and does right now?
[00:03:01] Pete Schramm: It does this, it brings people together to have the right folks and the right rooms to have the necessary conversations.
Lattus is the one stop shop employee engagement platform, and we help organizations onboarding new talent. Mentorship programs and building out your personal board of advisors. That's what my Ted talk was, uh, about two weeks ago. So Lattus saves you time and the big focus is on the results. Right? You can talk about features.
You can talk about those different pieces of it, but Lattus is all about keeping your people attract, engage, develop, retain. You did a
[00:03:35] Adam Conner: Ted talk two weeks ago. Yeah. Where was I? Where was the invite?
[00:03:41] Pete Schramm: Pete? . It was for, uh, a closed group of people, um, inside the department of defense. Whoa.
[00:03:51] Adam Conner: Okay. So you're in there with all, all right.
You're getting all the secrets. Now. I knew that you had your clearance in DC, right? You still have that. They let you, they let you in the room. Say you must have. Correct? Yes. Yeah. Correct. All right. Any secrets for us? No. Nevermind. So,
[00:04:04] Pete Schramm: oh yeah. Look, there's, there's all kinds of secrets. We'll just have to figure out which ones we're gonna
share.
[00:04:08] Adam Conner: Oh, okay. Could have been a big reveal here on the stream. It's all right. We're gonna drop breaking news. Eventually. We'll be the source for exclusive, uh, news from our entrepreneurs and the government agencies. We'll wait
[00:04:16] Pete Schramm: until we're up to over 10,000 people on that. That's right on the live.
[00:04:20] Adam Conner: That's right.
So, okay. Uh, jokes aside, tell, tell me about the, the moment or the week or the month leading up to the point that you decided like I did to start your own business, because that is a, a huge jump that a lot of people, actually, a lot of people viewing this probably haven't made, but have just have, have imagined yeah.
When the rubber hits the road, like how does that feel? What were the factors that caused that push.
[00:04:47] Pete Schramm: Okay, so we'll start off by what was going through my head, uh, right before March 4th, 2018. Okay. Um, I remember, uh, meeting with Dave and Mike at, uh, bar right in DuPont circle. And I think it's changed names a couple of times.
But we would just meet up there, like on Wednesdays or every other week and be like, okay, we're gonna start a business. And these are the right people and we're gonna do something entrepreneurship. We all studied some kind of engineering and all worked, uh, either at Lockheed Martin or Leidos. Um, so defense contractors, so we know what big companies are, but we completely sober
[00:05:23] Adam Conner: conversation by the way, too.
Right. Something that's like, oh yeah, cut for a couple beers business. Sounds
[00:05:27] Pete Schramm: great. Um, there, there was intention, you know, each, each time I still have some of the notebooks for each of them. Um, and it got to the point where we're like, huh, we're onto something here. Yeah. And then we would find out like another day later.
Nope. No, that's not a great idea. So then we stopped, uh, those, but I, those meetings together as a group, uh, but I kept having, uh, those different like self discussions and it was one day, uh, you know, I was living in DC, working in DC and having one or two or three or four calls a day. Hey, Pete, how'd you get to where you are.
Hey Pete, can you connect me to this kind of person? Hey Pete, can we practice for this kind of an interview? Hey, look at my resume. Can you connect me over that way? Like, I, I need a new job, right? So all these different things and I was spending multiple hours a day and I'm like, huh, man, I'd really love to start a company, man.
I'd really love to help all these people, man, everybody needs connected and I'm like, uh, Hmm. All my friends were leaving their jobs to travel the world, to go to med school, to, you know, start a basketball company. And I. My friends are following their dreams. What are my dreams? How do I put all these different things together?
Huh? Look at that. Right. Hey, all coming together. Yeah. Yep. And, uh, that's, that's where it came to be. And so I drew a line in the sand on March 4th, 2018 and said, I'm gonna start a company. And then I Googled how to start a
[00:06:52] Adam Conner: company. Mm-hmm . Yeah. Right. And so March 4th, 2018, you figure out the hand gesture by the way, for folks who didn't know.
Very that's a Lattus now of course your, uh, name I'm guessing, play on words with, with Lattus L a T T I CE, but us, right? The connection about us.
[00:07:10] Pete Schramm: Yeah. Well,
[00:07:10] Adam Conner: exactly. You Google in the first quarter of, uh, 2018, by the way, first comment comes in, Dave golden. Another Pittsburgh guy says hello to Pete. Um, you, Hey Dave,
[00:07:22] Pete Schramm: nice to meet you.
Yeah,
[00:07:24] Adam Conner: actually you guys will get along. Okay. Yeah. I'll, I'll connect. You'll see networking live and in person, so well, not in person, but we'll get there. So in the first quarter of 2018, you say, okay, I'm gonna start Googling how to actually start this. How long was it between that epiphany of, okay, I'm gonna break through this bar barrier and finally do this for real.
To the first time where you said, okay, I was right. Like, because I think a lot of people don't understand really how long it can take between that first ideation and first like, okay, I'm gonna take the first step to getting, like, to knocking on the door, to getting a response for me, it took several months for you.
What was that process like?
[00:08:13] Pete Schramm: You know, I'm still figuring it out. If I'm gonna be honest with you. Uh, I set pretty high expectations and, you know, we always talk about as an entrepreneur, you're on this climbing a mountain journey and it's lonely and you know, it, it, it is for sure, but you're also, you're never quite at the top of the mountain.
Right. So we're still going on the way up. Let's talk about from that idea, the date of the idea to the date that I went full time, and that was October 5th, uh, 2020. So wow. The last two and a half years later. Yeah. Mm-hmm, , I'm working, building this on the side, trying to figure out, Hey, you know, is there a need, so number one is, is there a need?
Right? Uh, then the other piece is like, is, am I solving a problem or am I building something? And then they will. So the big question to ask yourself, is this an aspirin or is this a vitamin aspirin? Like, you don't really need them, but a or so a no, no, no vitamin you don't really need it. Right. There's plenty of people that don't take care.
We're we're all, we're all here. Yeah. Yep. Aspirins, uh, I'm in pain. Right. Am I solving a pain? So that's the first thing, second thing. And then is, are people gonna pay for it? Right. If people are gonna pay for it and you're gonna generate revenue off of this thing, then it's more than just a hobby hobby takes you money.
Uh, a job gives you money makes you money. Um, so those are the. Two different pieces. And so we generated some revenue before I went full time, but it was also one of those instances where, uh, different advisors, different investors were getting involved. And I said, Hey, I need to make it clear to everybody else, but I'm very serious about this.
And you know, in my twenties, I figured if I failed, um, I, you know, get to the point of 30 years old and hit the reset button, not the end of the. I'll learn a lot. I'll meet a lot of people and we will succeed in some capacities.
[00:09:58] Adam Conner: So October of 2020, and I, I remember this fondly because this was, this was right around the time when I was pushed myself into this world.
Yeah. Now I didn't have, you know, roughly what, what would it have been two and a half years of pre-thought. Same time. And you post a video on LinkedIn. And I remember this because it like went locally viral. At least to me, I've never seen a video with 500 likes or whatever it has now. Um, everybody was thrilled to hear about this update.
Now I experienced something similar, not as big of a magnitude, but I said, Hey, I'm gonna start my own thing. And everybody's like, whoa, hype cycle was way up here. How I wanna know, because obviously you had a little bit of revenue trickling in. I had a little bit, a little bit later on. But personally I experienced that the next three to six months was like the real test because I thrive on words of affirmation.
I thrive on people like clapping and saying, yeah, good for you. I also thrive on money, but who doesn't those first, like three, six months for you? What were that like? What were they like after making that announcement? Did anything change? Was it the two and a half years of mental prep, which kept you through that?
wh when was your first moment of temptation and by temptation, I mean, ah, God job sounds great. You know, can you, can you talk about that for a second?
[00:11:21] Pete Schramm: Hmm.
So that was about two year, year and a half ago now. Right. So made the leap left corporate America about a year and a half ago. That's right. And it was. It was very, very scary to, uh, you know, move home to my parents' basement. Uh, because rent in DC was, uh, more than zero. So I'm like, that's what we'll do.
Right. And every, you know, successful startup has to have a basement story. So we have a basement and a barn. So something, something good's gonna happen. Right. yeah.
[00:11:49] Adam Conner: That's that's the old ad of course. Yeah.
[00:11:52] Pete Schramm: Yeah. Well maybe a garage as well to find a garage for part of the story. Right. Um, The next three to six months is a full-time journey.
I surrounded myself with great people. There's a lot of, um, accelerator programs, incubator programs, uh, that you can access. And there are some in Pittsburgh. So, you know, shout out, thank you to Jim Gibbs, to, uh, Scott McTaggart to Kip Muller, uh, to Michelle Flyn, um, to a couple of Curtis Wadsworth, right?
Some of the other people in the. For area that really helped out and said, Hey, you wanna be serious about starting this business? Here's what works. And here's what, doesn't a lot of, um, the business model, canvas. Um, so going through the different pieces of, again, what we talked about, what's in your business plan, how do you make money?
Who are you gonna go after? Who are you gonna target? And there's a lot of refine, refine, refine. I don't like to say no to people, Adam. Um, and you've learned this about, uh, me. Quite a lot. And you've, uh, kind of mentored me in this space as well. You're like, Hey, you can't say yes to everybody and you got, yeah, yeah.
You have taught me things. Yes. And that is not just me. My shoulders are getting dirty pink.
We'll get it in writing later. Um, So yeah, surrounding myself with the right people was, uh, very, very important. And that's particularly, uh, necessary whenever you have those rough days, because whenever you're, you know, leading the ship and you're running the party, um, you're running the company. At the end of the day, you're responsible for everything, the good, the bad, the ugly.
And there's not really a way to say, Hey, self man, this really sucked today. Uh, you know, let's just complain. Somebody else will pick up the slack. No. Right, right. In the early days, especially, um, you need to have that kind of internal, uh, you know, fire. So for me, that's my, my why. Right? Sure. Bettering the lives of others and Lattus is simply a platform that helps us reach more people.
And. Companies, uh, you know, do what they're trying to do, but you know, they don't have enough resources internally to accomplish it.
[00:13:50] Adam Conner: Right. I, I can't break from that phrase of you're responsible for everything, the good, bad, and the ugly, without asking, just to have a little bit of fun. Can you gimme the example of the ugly?
[00:14:03] Pete Schramm: Oh yeah. Uh, whenever. Hmm, stumped him the good
[00:14:13] Adam Conner: stumped
[00:14:14] Pete Schramm: folks, bad, ugly. So the good is whenever we have things, uh, that we're excited about and successes and the, you know, platform works right. The bad is whenever people say, no, I don't really want this. Or, uh, you know, not really a good time and the ugly.
Ooh, this is the. Whenever you're doing a demo, right? Lattus is a software as a service. So technology you're doing a demo and something just doesn't work or you do one thing and then something else pops up and you're like, we've done this thousands of times and that's never happened. That's never occurred before.
Yeah. And I play it off as like, no work. This is we're being like a detective right now. Phenomenal. I'm so glad that we found this. Right. Um, you know, we are, you're part of the story, getting to the solution here. Um, that's less than ideal, right? Um, whenever that happens, the other ugly part is the, the team, right.
When the early stages, you don't necessarily have enough, uh, money to pay, uh, everybody. And so there are certain folks that'll come on and they'll help. And they say, Hey, I'm here. Like what can I do to help? And then you get invested and it's kind of like a relationship, uh, right. Like dating. And so you get closer and closer.
And then life happens and this happens in businesses, you know, I've hired and fired, you know, dozens more than 50 people, probably in a professional setting. But whenever it's your own organization, man, that is, uh, you know, different. Yeah. Right. So the people part, uh, and that, that, we're all about bringing people together.
Uh, and again, I love to please everybody. So whenever team members come and go. Um, and of, of course it always happens for the right reasons. Um, but that, that can be just tough. Right? Any kind of relationship that you're excited about and comes to an end, uh, can be a tough one.
[00:15:58] Adam Conner: Yeah. I've, I've, I've felt that over the last, uh, roughly year I'm, I'm glad that you have that example of the ugly.
I, I went through something like that. Uh, last week I was interviewing or I was. Monitoring an interview viewers. Part of my work is sometimes I'm the host. Sometimes I'm not in this case. I was not, but we I've used this like recording software, not this specific one for hundreds of shows. I mean like prob over 300, maybe almost 400.
And I had a first time problem last week where somebody got on, we could all see them. We could see that their mic worked. We could, they could hear us and they couldn't be heard. And I had to real quick pivot to something else, which was fine, but it made me look in front of this person, like what the hell you doing?
Right. And it's, and my client, my client is the host in this case. And, uh, you know, she's sitting on the line and the coms person and the marketing person. And everybody and it's audio only. So it's just deafening ugly silence moments like that. You get by 'em and then also, yeah, I mean, the I've not built a team yet, so I can't wait to go through that.
But, um, yeah, the, the money side's another interesting one too. So when you encounter these issues, let's say the bad and the ugly cuz the good times are great. They're easy to get through, basically. What keeps you going.
[00:17:26] Pete Schramm: My why, uh, of, you know, helping others. That's, that's important, right? The internal motivation, uh, I'm intrinsically motivated to see other people succeed. Um, which is, I love connecting people. How many times have we done this? When you're like, Hey, do you know anybody? That's kind of like this. I'm like, yeah, yeah.
There's this person go talk with them. What about this? Yeah. Yeah. There's this person over here. Go talk to them. Um, Brian's also phenomenal with that. Yep. There's just a lot of great people and then great people like to help other great people. Um, so that's one, uh, I think the athletic background is also a piece of it, right?
So you, uh, set out, you wanna win and you go into a game and this is a, you know, slightly different game, slightly longer game than a game of basketball. Uh, but it's also, so that kind of, uh, can't stop, won't stop mindset. Right. Um, and then also the, you know, drive, uh, to create, so. Okay. We figured out ways not to do it.
Um, okay. That didn't work. Let's try it differently. And the other part is, oh, I think back to pet rock a lot. I dunno. Do you know much about pet rock? Did you see the post? I put up about that one. So Gary doll, he used to be in marketing and he said, Hmm. I think he was out at a bar in California one day.
And he is like, Hey, what if you had a pet that you didn't have to feed it? You didn't have to scoop its poop. It's not gonna be loud. and it costs like 10 bucks and your kid has a pet. Wouldn't that be pretty fantastic. The guy made millions of dollars putting rocks in a box and selling them. People have sold, done more with less.
So I'm like, okay, we're just figuring out, uh, more ways, uh, to, you know, not, uh, win as quickly as we'd like to. Sure. Yeah. Great, weird days whenever it's just like, oh, geez.
[00:19:11] Adam Conner: No, of course I I've been through 'em. I, I don't publicize them very often on LinkedIn, I guess I'm trying to, but, uh, I'm right there with you.
So I'm gonna round this out. Thank you. First of all, thank you for being this Guinea pig. I have another question. Um, mm-hmm thank you for being this Guinea pig with me. Um, before, before I go scale of one to 10, honest with me, how'd it go? What'd you think?
[00:19:34] Pete Schramm: Yeah, I think it was good. Um, okay. I think, I don't know what number I would give it.
I think I would want to understand what we were trying to accomplish. Yeah, me too. The agenda. What would some of the questions ahead of time be? Right. Um, so I'd say for not knowing anything tech, uh, it looks like I'm well, I'll also be curious to see how I look on the other side.
[00:19:56] Adam Conner: It's a little greeny, kind of black and white.
I don't really know whether you're sitting in Cape Cod or in a forest filming the Blair witch project three.
[00:20:03] Pete Schramm: That no it's in SA Salem. So we'll be going to, to look at the witch trials. Yeah. Yeah. Not of course, uh, you you're off by one town. My bad. So close. Uh, yeah, we'll work on that. Uh, but it did look a little grainy on my side.
Yeah. But I think, um, I wonder, can you put subtitles up here and like questions on
[00:20:21] Adam Conner: the screen? Yeah. That's, that's a good idea. I have. So I'm, I'm looking down at my broadcast panel. Uh, viewers are getting real professional here and I can certainly do it. Like there are things that I can pull up, like images that I can pull up that you could see.
Um, Obviously getting questions ahead of time. It's something I commonly do, but I was, I, this was a full guine pig, cause I didn't think this was gonna work, frankly. That's that's fine. We got four people here watching this work now. So
[00:20:48] Pete Schramm: 40,000 people, hell
[00:20:50] Adam Conner: wow. Suck it haters, dude. Why you didn't even think I could do it?
What anyway, so, uh, yeah, and by the way, my entire professional network is watching. So, um, I. Yeah, I can do that. Um, that was that's part of the prep for sure. So good. Okay. So it sounds like tech is okay. Sounds like the prep could have been better, but that's fine. I'm willing to take that. I mean, we, are we north?
Are we north of three?
[00:21:17] Pete Schramm: We're north of three. Yeah. Okay, good. Yeah. Most definitely. I'd say that we give this a, a seven out of 10. Wow. I'd also, if we're, if we're able to turn my video off. Yeah. Over here. I don't know if you can get like that screen away so that I'm just looking at like us, because over here I have like Adam and Pete and then all Pete all on my screen in front of us.
Okay. It's a little just kinda like looking at me. Yeah. Yeah. Not
[00:21:39] Adam Conner: quite sure how to do that one yet. I spent all week trying to figure that one out, but, uh, that will happen. Okay. I might just throw a second webcam here somewhere. I don't know, so that I don't even mess with the split, but, uh, Good feedback.
Thank you, Pete, go enjoy the seafood and uh, and I will see you. I don't know.
[00:21:58] Pete Schramm: Maybe like, well, what's gonna happen from here. What are you doing with this now? Are people gonna ask questions in the comments or do you want people to engage? Are there, should we recommend other folks to, you know, come on for follow
[00:22:09] Adam Conner: on's session?
Almost like it's almost like, you know what you're doing? This is you're the networker guy should be asking you. All right. Well then listen, I'm gonna sit here. We're about 15 seconds behind, I think, on the stream versus what people see. If anybody has a question for Pete put into comments or me, you don't wanna talk about yeah.
Put it into comments and we will look at it and I will ask it and we will go from there. I can fill up the, uh, I can fill up the space a little bit, Pete. Um, and we'll go to some of the good cause I focused on how to come back from the bad and ugly. What was your first deal? Tell me about what you did for the remainder of the day.
Once you hit your first deal,
[00:22:52] Pete Schramm: I'm weirdo. I went and worked and tried to do another one. Cause I'm like immediately. Yeah. I'm not like a succeed and go and celebrate kind of person. I'm getting better at like the whole winning and, uh, self care stuff. Yep. It's a big improvement place. Uh, and so friends and family are like, you got, this is the best analogy and I'm, I'm definitely much better at it.
Hey, I've taken a whole week away from, you know, headquarters in the home office. So there we go. Um, The oh, where was I going with that one? Um,
[00:23:26] Adam Conner: um, you were talking about what you did or didn't do the remainder of the day that you got your first deal. While we wait on a question from one of our loving view.
[00:23:34] Pete Schramm: Yeah. So the, the rest of that day, I think it was just more, more work. And I was so fired up and like in the zone, but I'm like, great. Now let's do do it again and do it again and do it again. Cause you know, that's what I en enjoy again, that if I want to, you know, get satisfaction uh it's when other people are winning.
So the more I put into it, the more others can get out of it.
[00:24:00] Adam Conner: That's a good way to be. I have struggled a lot with separating personal satisfaction with professional success. It's one of my kryptonites. I don't know how to do it. I still don't. I can present myself on LinkedIn, do great videos, uh, do bad videos, just produce, get on a call with people.
Um, but I can't get out of that. In your self care improvement regimen, what has been the most or what have been some tips? What, what's something that you've not expected to work that did, because I assume that you've tried many of the common culprits, the workouts, the breathing meditation, the walks, the journaling, the talking to mentors.
All that crap. That gurus say right, you've done it. I've done it. Everybody here has done it. You watch and you've done it. You've done it in your, in alone, in your basement. What, what has worked that you tried, that you maybe were skeptical about that ended up hitting.
[00:25:12] Pete Schramm: So the workouts, uh, that's a big thing whenever I'm more focused, uh, that definitely works. Um, the other one that's really helpful is saying no, and having like an accountability partner, um, that says, Hey, do you really need to go to this meeting? Do you really need to go to that event? Do you really need to, uh, do this?
Um, and so saying no to other things is kind of like an aha to me. Cause I want to, you know, do all things to all people, um, and, and just be there. Um, the other thing is cons and, uh, Ali Jafar, uh, shared this insight with me, the, um, amount of nonfiction that you consume directly correlates to increased revenue generation.
So more reading, more podcasts, more nonfiction that you're learning, reading news, newspaper, podcasts, things like that, um, helps focus. You helps educate you. And I've seen that whenever I invest in myself more and, you know, getting up to speed more that does, uh, help. But the biggest thing, Adam is being persistent and consistent, um, and saying, Hey, I'm gonna go and I'm gonna do this.
And this is what I'm focused on. And this is like less, less, less, less, less. Got
[00:26:30] Adam Conner: it. Do more, you got a particular piece of nonfiction that you like that you're reading right now that people should read. That was your road to Damascus moment. Anything like that?
[00:26:40] Pete Schramm: Yeah. So I just finished reading the four hour work week.
By Tim Ferris. Right. And I, uh, I was waiting for like the, yes, that's the piece that like changes your life. And, uh, it was kinda like you outsource everything. Okay. That, that makes a ton of sense, uh, focus in on like what matters most. And the biggest thing I think I got out of that book was, um, Do what you love and follow your dreams and don't let anything stand in your way.
It's possible to do more with less. Um, and that's the, you know, lesson that I got from the book Essentialism. So there's two books that I always recommend to people. First one is Psyched Up by Dan McGinn and I'll be doing some kind of a book club, uh, for it soon. And then the other one is Essentialism by, I think it's Greg McKeown.
Um, but those are two of the ones that I definitely, uh, recommend to people.
[00:27:33] Adam Conner: Good to know listeners listeners, like we're on a podcast. Viewers, write that down. I'll write it down. And I will ask. Yeah, we can
[00:27:41] Pete Schramm: question Dan we'll tag Dan in this somehow. Good. Yeah. Throw,
[00:27:45] Adam Conner: throw it in a comment somewhere. Uh, okay, so that on here, uh, you can, you can go to the LinkedIn event and comment on the, on the page where we're streaming.
That's what I, okay. That's what I've learned. I've learned a lot from this experience. Uh, thank you to Pete, by the way, for that, uh, viewers took a chance on me. So last question for you, cuz I've been waiting for a question over here. I'm not sure whether we're gonna get it today. That's fine. The question is in line with what I like to talk about on Authentic Avenue generally, cuz I feel like as choppy and rough as I performed in this one, it's gonna go in the feed.
I used to ask people what their definition of authenticity was. I used to ask people how they can advise others to carve their own path to authentic. Self-expression maybe instead, um, I'd like to ask what are the best ways that you have seen either yourself or others embed their personal journey into their professional ventures?
Because I think that's where authenticity lies, where you are truly either being yourself. or layering that, which you love with that, which you do, obviously you do that. It is your motivation, your passion. It allows you to pursue and persist and never to stop. So I gotta ask you, as we round out, how would you advise that others learn to do it the same way in which you have.
[00:29:20] Pete Schramm: I think you need to know yourself first and what it is that gets you excited. And I ask the question to people very often, if money wasn't an issue, what would you do with the next five to 10 years of your life? What would you do? Um, you know, would you travel? Would you get a different job? Would you volunteer?
And once you figure out, like, what is that? It gets you more excited than anything else then you can say, Hmm, how can I achieve that? And just being genuine and telling your story, and that's what people love, and that's why we've been successful. Uh, and that's why we continue, uh, to, you know, grow and expand and evolve is because people.
The way we go about things. They like that I'm a genuine individual. Hey, you get what you see. And this is what we do. This is what we don't. And oftentimes folks are like, huh? I, I like that. There's some energy here. It's exciting. Right. It's contagious. Uh, and that's, you know, my thing, right? So anybody that's, that's listening, watching, uh, hopefully you're like excited and there's some kind of, uh, a takeaway from here, but just to be yourself.
And that was something that was difficult, you know, uh, to not, uh, follow and you know what the book says, good looks like. Um, you know, the book doesn't necessarily say leave your six figure salary and team of a hundred engineers and scientists and, uh, you know, living in the, the DC area to go and, uh, do something that is statistically not going to succeed.
Um, that's not really what the book of, you know, good says to do. Sure. Um, so being okay, uh, with going about, uh, your own. And I like this, uh, quote from Bruce Lee, uh, and he says, um, absorb what is useful discard? What is not and add what is uniquely your own? I think that's something that we can all take away from this.
And as we develop our authentic selves,
[00:31:29] Adam Conner: I'm gonna clip that. I'm gonna pull it back later. It's gonna be a LinkedIn video in and of itself, I think. Um, and I, I'm glad that we, that we rounded out with that a really nice. Chaotic start, thanks to yours. Truly a really prophetic way to close it out. Uh, Pete Schramm, Lattus, thank you very much, Pete.
What's gonna happen now is I'm gonna switch back into my other frame. I'm gonna say goodbye to you now. You feel free to close that browser window when we're done. um, but Hey, enjoy the Cape. I'll see you in like a couple weeks. Maybe we'll go play some golf.
[00:32:01] Pete Schramm: Let's do it. Bye. Thanks everybody. See you check you later.
[00:32:08] Adam Conner: I hope you enjoyed that, uh, interview with Pete this return. I'm trying to do a lot more here with this channel. Thankfully. It's kind of great that right now I'm at eight loyal subscribers. I'm gonna try to grow that a little bit. Try to hack more great conversations again. I'm gonna do some live things on LinkedIn, which is a little weird, but it's business stuff.
So I figured that's where it should live, right. At least for now. I will be there and here and across all sorts of socials @adamonbrand. By the way that's where I am and where I'm talking about brands, either from a founder's angle or from creators. I really wanna get into that niche too. And so hopefully some of the next ones you see will be from content creators who do that as their full-time job.
I'm fascinated by that hell. I try to do it. And so I figure, well, why not interview them and learn how they do it and bring it to you? That is it for. Have a great whatever day you're watching this. And, uh, I'll see you again. Next time. Goodbye.