Connect with Michael and Bob

The Climb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-climb-podcast/
Bob Wierema: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-wierema/
Michael Moore: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelpmoore/

Connect with Chris Lee

Website: https://www.rtcpartners.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-lee-97816344/

[00:00:00] Chris Lee: There can be multiple approaches to accomplish the same goal. And you can also learn a lot from people from different backgrounds and experiences, because it's so easy to get caught up in, Oh, this is what happened to me. This was my experience. Everyone else must be treating something the same way. And even when you know, that's not true and there's always the almost need to, you know, fight that projection.

Oh, because I would behave like this in a certain situation. That must be that, you know, whether it was you, the one going back to the simple things in Italy, like not asking for substitutions and the plates, or, you know, it might take a little longer for the food to come out, or it's not for you to start eating when the food's there because it's hot.

And instead of waiting for it to be there for everyone, but just all these kinds of different nuances and the way people are addressed, the way you treat other people. That really, I think have been helpful for me in understanding different perspectives. 

Robert Wierema: Welcome to the climb this afternoon. We have the pleasure of sitting down with Chris Lee from Round Table capital.

Chris is a friend of mine that I've gotten to know over the years. And, Michael and I are really excited to have the conversation with Chris today. He shares a lot of good things that are going on, not just in a business climate, but also some of the challenges we're facing across the country these days.

And Chris is just a fantastic guy that has. It's an absolute love for what he does a real love for life. And, it's just such a good conversation and so great to have Chris join us today, Chris. Thanks for joining us.

Robert Wierema: good afternoon, Chris. Thanks for joining Michael and I on the climb today. Well, this is a, this is [00:02:00] a fun one for me, Chris and I have gotten to know each other over the last number of years of doing work together. met through some God. I don't even remember how we met probably five, six years ago now, but, our paths have crossed many times.

We've become good friends over the last couple of years and you know, so this'll be a good conversation. And, you know, Chris, I think maybe just for everybody to get started, tell us a little bit about who Chris Lee is, where you're from and, and we'll just kind of direct the conversation from there.

Chris Lee: All right. Sounds good. Thanks Bob. I grew up in Southern California, originally outside of the San Diego area where I was raised by my single mom, but also fortunately lucky enough to live with my aunt and uncle at the time as well. So those were the early years growing up in Southern California. Great family background in that regard, but never really had the chance to travel much and really get out of Cal.

So one of the things that I always wanted to do was explore, right? 

Robert Wierema: We know you like to do that. 

Chris Lee: Yeah, definitely. And so other than well, Las Vegas, of course, because that was easy drive going off to college was really my first time outside of California. And ended up going to Harvard and Cambridge first exposure to the East coast, first of all, exposure to the winter and the snow and the jacket, but really loved the experience.

And one of the best parts about it was, you know, at that time I was studying history and history of art architecture. No two things I thought were really interesting. And so I had the opportunity to do my junior year abroad. the first semester grown and the second semester in Paris, that was my first, I was a country.

It was really a life changing experience. I had the opportunity to live with a bunch of Italian guys in Italy and really exposed to the country. And then, you know, Paris was great as well. And so the number since that really established her love for travel, and then, you know, senior year of college rolls around looking at kind of the [00:04:00] options that are out there for art historians, and that really jumped to mind.

So decided to go straight through to law school. Any vote in full disclosure, that was without really fully understanding what it entail. I thought I wanted to be able to put a Gator be in the courtroom and much of that was based on, you know, but I had seen on TV, not very many people in my family had professional careers and that sense.

And so I was kind of on that law school path. Got to law school realized litigation was not for me, just a bit too adversarial, not the Courtney drama that I was kind of expected. And so after doing it first internship to go the MMA route, which I really enjoyed. I had a great mentor at Melvin when I do make somebody's internship there and really liked the aspects of M and a, and kind of putting a deal together.

And just because there's so many ways to look at it, is it a bit adversarial? Yes, but it's not a zero sum game. You know, sometimes it's about maximizing the pie as it will be say. So you're making the circle bigger for everyone. 

Robert Wierema: Chris, let me, let me interrupt there because, so with Harvard, you didn't, did you study business at all while you were at Harvard?

Chris Lee: no. There's a couple of classes here and there. You know, the Harvard at that time, the undergraduate curriculum was pretty interesting. So I believe it was, you know, 16 courses you had to take half of them would be in your major. But then the other half had to be in the areas that were furthest removed from your major.

Oh, interesting. Because I was doing, you know, modern architecture history. The other classes I took were introduction to investments, biological sciences, and some other aspects like that to try to get the full well rounded picture. 

Robert Wierema: Yeah, no, I just wonder, cause like, if you think about a [00:06:00] lot of the people in your business, right?

A lot of them go back and do that traditional track of business school or in school study business, come out, do the analyst role. I was banking on going back to school and then, I mean, that's just a very different path. So it's, I think an interesting one. 

Chris Lee: Right. And I actually found it really helpful in, you know, throughout my career because a lot of times when people think of.

You know, history, they're just thinking, Oh, you're reading a book and memorizing a lot of facts and regurgitating it, or same thing with a, you know, a painting. You're just taking a look at it and describing what it looks like when really what you're doing is you're trying to construct your own historical narrative about what happened.

Right. If you're looking at, you know, the fall of Constantinople, You're reading so many primary sources of different accounts and actually trying to f...