From Pre-Med to Private Debt: An Investor Interview with Nabil Istafanous
Do you want to hear from a successful investor who has a diversified portfolio of non-correlated assets? Do you want to obtain valuable advice from a seasoned entrepreneur who has a unique and unconventional career path? Do you want to expand your network in alternative lending and private debt? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you will love our latest investor interview with Nabil Istafanous.
Chris and Nabil have been friends and collaborators since before Kirkland Capital Group was founded, when Chris was still assisting startups with finding funding. This is how Nabil developed an appreciation for the Kirkland Income Fund. His expertise and contacts have been very valuable for us at Kirkland Capital Group.
He started as a pre-med student at MIT, then switched to law at Stanford and graduated. He worked in healthcare as a Chief Compliance Officer. He spent 10 years as a CCO in healthcare before pursuing an unconventional career path. He became a wealth management advisor at a global investment bank and RIA, started an alternative lending company and joined an Alt Lender, led Business Development at a PNW CFO consulting firm, to launching his new alt lending advisory firm. He recently founded Foothill Capital Advisors where he helps companies that face challenges in obtaining traditional bank-led financing.
He is also an active investor recognizing the value of alternative investments, especially the diversification and illiquidity of certain investments.
Video Highlights:
Learn about Nabil's background
His views on investing and portfolio diversification
His personal and professional lessons and goals
This interview is full of insights and wisdom that will help you grow as an entrepreneur and an investor. You don't want to miss this one!
Watch the full interview below, and let us know what you think.
“I caution people when I hear them say they want to become hard money lenders, lending to one or two individuals. Instead, I tell them about the Kirkland Income Fund to get their exposure in private credit.”
“I started in the alternative lending space in the factoring world. I had the unfortunate experience of having a non-performing loan. After that, I made the decision not to lend my own money. However, this didn’t sour me from being in this space.”
“The best hedge is long-term investing in a diversified portfolio of a variety of non-correlated assets. Unfortunately, when we’re in a crisis, often most assets all go down together. That said, the benefit of a private investment is that it doesn’t trade on a daily basis. And that actually becomes your friend in the alternative investing world.”
Watch the full video below.
Transcript
Chris: Hi, everyone. Welcome back. We have another opportunity to talk with one of the investors of the Kirkland Income Fund. Today, we have Nabil Istafanous. Did I get that right? Ah, see, I, I, I'm under pressure. Got your last name correctly. Um, no, and we're going to walk through as we've done before, just really taking an opportunity to get to know each other.
Introduce the really dynamic and interesting people that we have as investors and share them with the best, you know, our broader investor community. Um, and you know, here we go. I died, you know, Nabil, thanks for joining us. And, you know, I always love to start this off with Tell us a little bit about, you know, yourself, where you went to school, you know, what your passions of you always knew you were going to go into private debt, I'm sure, um, you know, how, how you got there.
And then I know you got some pretty big news, uh, some recent big changes that you've had in your life. So definitely want to spend some time and dive into that and share that with people. So welcome to
Nabil: Well, thank you very much Chris and I really, um, love the opportunity. I, I, you know, I've known you for a number of years and have enjoyed talking shop with you on a variety of, uh, uh, uh, of esoteric investing topics. Um, as you mentioned, I am a little bit of a unicorn. I'm not your typical professional.
I've done a few things. I've seen a few things in my career. Uh, I was your typical science math guy, pre-med, biology degree, uh, from MIT. And when I realized I didn't want to be a doctor. What did I do? I just went ahead and applied to law school not knowing anything about being a lawyer. And, uh, fortunately Stanford accepted me.
So I went off to Stanford, beautiful Palo Alto and spent three years there. Started my career in Washington, DC. Um, found myself in the healthcare industry. Um, and, uh, was a Chief Compliance Officer in Seattle for 10 years. And that's what brought me to Seattle over, I guess, 25 years ago, then, and met my wife.
And three kids later, you know, we're, uh, living the life. But, um, uh, since then, I left healthcare, and I think I met you, Chris, back in the day when I was in Wealth Management. I, uh, joined a business. You know, Global Investment Bank during the great, I did not have a crystal ball at the time. I joined in 07 and not surprisingly in 08, uh, I was looking for another job.
Um, I joined a, uh, high net worth RIA in Seattle, very well-known and that, and really dove deep. Uh, they were very well known for alternative investing. And of course, during that time, it was a lot of distressed assets, distressed real estate was the game, uh, you know, during the last great recession. Um, I ended up leaving private wealth management in part because there wasn't much new wealth being created, uh, during that time.
Um, and I, um, you know, did a, again, I hung a shingle as a lawyer and did some healthcare work, etc. But then I found myself wanting to start my, go back into finance, And how I got into alternative lending was, um, I started my own factoring company and, uh, that's probably when we started having conversations about, hey, I provide alternative lending, non-bank lending for companies that need growth or working capital when they don't fit in the typical conventional lending, um, box, credit box.
And I've been in that world ever since. Um, during the pandemic, I, uh, led business development for a, uh, very well known, uh, you know, CFO consulting firm that did a lot of turnarounds and, you know, worked with companies like going through transformation, growth, M& A, but also A lot of turnarounds. And then I recently decided to launch my own debt advisory practice.
And we could talk a little bit about that. But, um,
Chris: Let's about that. I mean, you've definitely been all over the place. Um, and yeah, you're right. I was, uh, I was actually trying to help a number of startups in Seattle, of course, find funding, find a startup, and you can find somebody who's looking for money. Um, and that's where we first met was like, oh, hey, what kind of lending are you doing for a variety of different companies?
Um, still super difficult, uh, because a lot of these guys were either very low revenue or pre revenue. Um, so almost impossible to find, you know, lenders, but we definitely met and there's a couple, a couple of companies I knew I had sent over a your away, um, and then, yeah, this was all before I was even, you know, at Kirkland Capital and doing private debt. So it's interesting to see how our two worlds have kind of meshed up in, in similarity. So, but let's go back and dive in a little bit on this latest adventure of now you're back hanging your own shingle, doing your own work. Walk me through, well, how did you come up with that opportunity? Why what you're doing right now?
And I, it also involved a physical move. So
Nabil: Yeah. Well, I, um, I had moved, uh, Now I'm, I live in Boise now with my family. Um, and moved about three years ago during the pandemic. Um, I was at my previous employer at the time when I was already in Boise, but, um, my decision to launch was I, I missed doing deals. You know, I, I, you know, Chris, I, I love it. Um, I'm, I'm a deal guy.
I love, um, structuring deals. They're usually, uh, you know, you have to do creative solutions for difficult problems and I like that. uh, helping companies through the, that difficult minefield, if you will. Um, and you know, I decided to go ahead and, and launch because I had built a, quite a network in Seattle, Oregon, you know, Boise, um, with bankers and I've been partnering with them for years and they know me as the person to be their go to resource on all alternative, all forms of alternative lending. And it became clear in the last year, and you and I have talked a little bit about this, that, you know, Uh, bank credit, uh, environment is really tight and more and more companies are going to need alternative forms of capital, um, during this period, especially as they, uh, work their way through all the surplus capital they received during the pandemic from all the various government grants.
Um, so I was seeing it. There was great demand for it. I missed doing that work and I realized they didn't want to work for just one lender. I wanted to be truly on the side of the client and find the best solution for them with the lenders that I know, trust, and know that, you know, they'll treat my clients well.
So that's, that's why I'm doing it. And in fact, I, you know, every once in a while I see Folks that need bridge real estate lending. And there may be an opportunity that I'll show you a couple of deals as well.
Chris: We look forward to that, definitely. Yeah, no, I'm preaching to the choir on the banks not able to get their hands around anything esoteric these days, especially as regulations continue to tighten. So, I imagine there is no lack of playing field for you, even in a smaller regional area. So, I mean, just so people understand, um, You're covering
Nabil: I'm covering the Pacific Northwest. Oh, well, typically I can do lend loans anywhere in the country. So my lenders. The asset based and private credit lenders that I work with in my network are national lenders. My referral, I do all my work are from trusted referrals and referral partners. So my referral network is in the Pacific Northwest, um, so Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and some, you know, some national when I, you know, through various networks I belong to. But, um, you know, primarily the Pacific Northwest is where I get referrals from.
So mostly the companies are located in this region, but that said, uh, I'll get introductions to companies. Um, all across the country, primarily the West Coast.
Chris: That's good. Well, um, well there you have it everybody who's uh, listening to this. Uh, Nabeel is uh, definitely eager to talk to you if you've got a company that All the other lenders are telling you “No” for a variety of different reasons. There might be something he can put together for you. So let's change gears a little bit and talk a little bit about, you know, we're obviously in the investment world.
We both love the investment world. Well, Walk me through the history of, you know, you've obviously had a lot of different jobs and in and out of, um, you know, a variety of different aspects of the investment world. How has that sort of formed your portfolio and how has your portfolio changed over time? I mean, what would, you know, we're all, we're all not getting any younger. So, um,
Nabil: That's right.
Chris: always creates some level of change.
Nabil: Well I will say and I know you know this, the last 10 years have been quite a change in the regime. I mean, it's simply because of the change in interest rates, which has changed the investing landscape. Um, I, you know, like most investors, primarily were in conventional assets, asset, you know, you know, stocks and bonds and ETFs.
And, you know, originally, 25 years ago, it was the mutual funds and diversified sources. Um, and has become more and more ETFs. I'm someone who believes in, uh, a diversified portfolio. And, um, as I got involved in alternative investing as a wealth management advisor, I was always looking for those assets that don't correlate with the markets.
Don't, don't necessarily correlate with, you know, the, the equity markets and the, um, and bonds. And frankly, as I got involved in private lending, I think, you know, uh, I saw the other side of, well, wait a second. How else can you get the senior, have a senior lien and have the first pledge of assets of a company while getting, you know, significant, you know, much higher, you know, returns than treasury bonds.
And that's really in the, you know, senior credit, senior loan, or, you know, sort of that ABL space, asset based lending space. And, um, as soon as I got involved, like, how do I get involved? How do I become an investor in this? But I also caution people who think that they can, why don't I just lend to so and so company or so and so developer?
It is extremely important when you start talking about to have a diversified pool of loans.
And that is extremely important. And that's why I tell people all about Kirkland Income Fund, the minute they say, well, I'm thinking of becoming a hard, hard money lender myself. I'm just lending to one or two people.
And I said, well, I'd be very careful. You know,
Chris: No, it's surprising like yourself. I mean an expert in the space. We've actually had A number of people, and I know they're always looking for other funds, not just ours, but a number of people who are doing loans themselves saying, hey, I can do this myself, but they're also saying, you know what, this is a lot of work. Um, I'm not actually able to do enough loans on my own to create what I want to figure as a diversified portfolio. So something you never thought of, especially when, you know, when we built the Kirkland Income Fund was the number of people who are in the space that are like, Hey, I actually want to take a piece of my money and give it with you as well.
I'm not going to, I'm not going to stop doing loans because I've already built some up network, but I can actually do one or two and still be able to be in your fund and a couple other funds, create the diversification I want and get that non correlated, you know, equity like return with debt level risk, which, you know, they're all looking for.
Um, so that's been interesting. I didn't see that. as a piece where, you know, people who were expert in the space would want to dive into other people's funds. But it's definitely been a trend of late where I think a lot of people who are like, Hey, I can go do this myself. They're realizing, especially in this environment, it's not that easy. It, it, it takes a lot more work and you better have…
Nabil: Yeah.
Chris: …knowledge of how you're going to deal with when one of these loans has a problem. That's where it really becomes a big time suck.
Nabil: That's exactly right. And I had the experience, remember, I started in this alternative lending space, not in the real estate lending, but in the factoring world. And I had the unfortunate experience of having a credit that became, you know, non performing. My client stopped paying and wasn't able to, and was, you know, difficult to reach.
And I had to get a collections attorney and there's all the legal issues and it's costly. And, and takes a long time. It took me a year and a half to collect on that. And I finally got my principal back without her, without interest. And by then I had made the decision, I'm not lending my own money. But it didn't sour me from being a, in, in something like this.
So I'd always said, well, if I ever do this again, I would want to be in a diversified pool of funds where that scales. And so the cost of the few loans that go bad, you can, you know, you've become expert in knowing how to, you're knowing, knowing how to collect, knowing the process. And it's a small piece of your portfolio as opposed to a significant
Chris: No one brick can bring the house down.
Nabil: That's correct. So it, it's
Chris: That's what a lot of people who are on the smaller side have definitely realized over the last, uh, well since 2022. So last couple of years
Nabil: Right. Yeah.
Chris: So now outside of that, I mean, what else do you look at in investing?
Do you do anything or you sort of stick to your knitting of hey, I understand private debt, I'm going to stick to my traditional stocks and bonds as a piece of the portfolio, um, do you do anything else in the alternative space.
Nabil: Yeah, look, uh, every once in a while, I, um, I like to be in the game and do a little bit of trades. That's not, that's the difference between investing and trading. Um, I made about a year ago realized I don't have much time to trade because that requires daily monitoring of what's going on in the news and all of those things.
So I tend not to do that. I'll put some, uh, I call them emotional trades. I'll put some, uh, you know, options calls or puts, you know, spreads on to just like, well, when everything is on a red, there's at least something green on my portfolio in my equity portfolio at least. Um, but really that it doesn't really hedge my, my portfolio.
I think of, uh, the best hedge is long term investing in a diversified portfolio in a variety of assets and trying to be as non, if they can be assets that truly do not correlate great. Unfortunately, when we're in a crisis, often most assets all go down together. That said, the benefit of a private investment is it doesn't trade on a daily basis.
And, you know, people can't enter and exit. And that actually becomes your friend in the alternative investing world.
Chris: That's very interesting you bring that up because that's been a topic on a lot of people's minds of where everyone's always looking for liquidity. Everyone's like, no, liquidity is king. Well, okay, it's very difficult to achieve outsized returns or excess returns of any sort and have pure like daily liquidity, the one that's almost impossible. But just as your point was saying, there's If you understand the instrument and you understand the natural nature of its illiquidity and that's acceptable, it actually can, you know, mute some of the volatility. And it also kind of limits at least a portion of your portfolio from emotional knee jerk reactions, which, I mean, I saw, I saw heavily in, you know, 08 and 09.
You know, unfortunately, there was perfectly great investment shops that were just put in the meat grinder and destroyed because they could offer the liquidity. Um, they didn't do anything wrong, but they were basically out of business because everyone wanted them as an ATM. And really the guys that were kind of schmucks and weren't always doing the right things, they gated and locked up and they survived. Um,
Nabil: No, I mean, well,
Chris: I was like, wow. Um, but you know, you also saw for most things, if you were invested in the right place, at least what we saw empirically in, in the portfolio that I was working on. You were back in the black by the end of 09. So all within a year. So if you had, if you'd really believed in your investing and had a longer term mentality and you weren't out there willy nilly just buying anything and everything because of FOMO, which a lot of people were in 06 and 07.
But if you really had a thought process behind how you were investing, even in a downturn, if you'd stuck with what you were with and you believed in the managers and products, within a year, you were back in the black. And so, I mean, I saw that for our portfolio and I also saw it for a lot of others. So to that point, I think that's a, that's a really keen insight that, um, hopefully a lot of people watch this.
You figured it out, but a lot of other people need to figure out that it's okay to have liquidity and based on your liquidity needs, you might want something, but not every investment in your portfolio, if you structure it correctly, needs to be liquid.
Nabil: No, in fact, and that's, in fact, it almost is a protection, um, protection from yourself or even frankly, the herd.
Chris: Correct.
Nabil: Right? Because that's, that's really what causes, it's the cascading,
Chris: Yeah,
Nabil: know, emotional selling that causes things to drop drastically so quickly.
Chris: I'm secretly waiting for some next shoe to drop because, um, I'm, I'm okay saying this for someone watching this because I think I'm uh, open about it was, you know, a lot of the big aggregators and a lot of the big money managers are putting everyone's money in the same place. There's, you know, only so many big names of funds they're investing in. And that's all been done before. The one thing that really interests me is, is it's also had a catastrophic event when something fails. Everyone's standing in the same place. And to your point, everyone's going to try and rush to get out of that door as fast as possible. And there just won't be enough room.
Nabil: And there won't be, and, and that's, and that's a big part of like why, and anyway, we, we could go on and talk a lot about it, but yes, a portion of your portfolio ought to be illiquid, but people need, you know, either they've, they're thoughtful or they have a thoughtful advisor thinking about. Buckets of money and when they need it.
Like if it's in a retirement vehicle and if you can get alternative investments that are illiquid and you know, you're not going to touch it for 10 years, then okay. So that's perfect. Now, would I put all of your money in one kind of asset? No, that's not me. No, I would never do that. Some people feel more comfortable doing that, but I don't.
Chris: It's one of the things we're seeing in, um, You know, I find that having been and worked across multiple different venues of, um, of alternative investments, you know, venture capitalists tend to love venture capital, real estate loves real estate, hedge funds love hedge funds,
Nabil: Yes.
Chris: Traders love traders.
I mean, you know, everyone's got their love. But the one thing I am Definitely seeing out of this latest events is even the diehards, especially on the venture side, to your point, you know, everything's locked up for seven to 12 years. Okay. That's great. If you've been doing it for a while, you might have liquidity that is now coming around on a, on a more frequent basis. But if you're just getting started in that, be careful. You might find yourself with no liquidity. It may, it may all work out in time, but that doesn't matter. Um, if you needed money today. Uh, it doesn't work out, but I'm seeing venture capitalists turn around and realize, Hey, you know, maybe there is some other things I should think about.
You know, I still love venture and I'm still going to be heavily weighted in it because that's what they do every day. Not going to argue with that. If you're passionate about that and you have great transparency and understanding, you know, definitely follow that. But there are other things that, uh, play, you know, very uncorrelated to venture and other, uh, other market participants, but it's one of those things, hey, you can have liquidity, you know, that's not seven years.
You can have something that's maybe six months or a year or a year and a half,
Nabil: Right. Or frankly, for the first time people. You could have short term debt instruments and get paid some income, actually.
Chris: well, that's, that, that's a big play right now. I hear that from a lot of people of like, well, I'm in no hurry. I always tell people don't be in a hurry to invest, but hey, I can actually sit on my cash and make like 5. 3. Okay.
Hey, that's that. I'm not going to argue with that as a, you know, if that fits your model, then, then do it. Um, no, it's a matter of like, well, okay. And then use this time while you're getting paid that to go do your homework and find those things that you want to add to your portfolio and then, you know, send it out from there. Um, so I guess one of the things you always ask is like, okay, you've done a lot of different things. Do you have two, three things that you've learned maybe even recently or over the last five years that you're like, Hey man, I wish I could go back and tell my younger self. Um, don't do that or, or, or, or do this, uh, you
Nabil: right. Well, for one, it's funny. I would say this. I, I do try to tell, look, I made a, do you know why I made, I learned by making mistakes? I mean, you, when you make your own mistakes, You learn them and hopefully they're not catastrophic and you do everything in moderation. So you don't like take so much risk that you put on risk, all your wealth in doing one idea, which I've never done.
But, um, I try to give advice to my children and realize, Oh gosh, you know, I didn't listen to my parents. Why will they listen to me? Right. It's. It's just the way, the way it goes. So, um, you know, I guess the advice is I don't have any regrets, but it's to, um, don't just follow what other people say you ought to do and really examine what do you love to do and do it, you know, and do what you love to do. Figure out what you're good at. Obviously, you know, if financial security is important to you, which it is to me, you know, hopefully you're, you choose a passion that has a higher likelihood of getting compensated by the market if you will.
Um, then other professions but yeah, you know, if you know, you, you got to pursue things that you're good at and you love and are likely to, you know, rely, rely on, be compensated for it. Now, you know, I, I loved soccer. I pretty quickly learned I'm not going to become a professional soccer player and be well compensated for it, right?
So that's a dream and that's not, that wasn't a profession I was going to pursue. But, um, anyway, you know, that's, I think that's it.
Chris: I went from high school to college and realized, Wow, everyone in college is a lot better than me.
Nabil: And, and what I, you know, I played soccer, that was my sport. And I look at my kids today and I mean, the, the skills of soccer players today. are leaps and bounds better than, you know, the soccer that we, I loosely called soccer back then, back then. I mean, then we were just good athletes. We were somewhat coordinated. Today they learn skills at such a young age and they're just so much more advanced. It's amazing.
Chris: Yeah, and I think that's not only soccer. I think that there's just so many things.
Nabil: Yes.
Chris: and things available for kids to learn. I mean, I see my daughter.
I can't figure something out on the iPad and she's like, Dad, just, just give it to me here. I'll solve it. And you know, it's like, you know, of course she moves things around so fast.
I can't really actually ever learn what she does. Cause I'm like, well, okay, you went too fast for me. Um, but yeah, no, there's a, I mean, and I guess like, um, it's a good transition to a sort of a next question here well, Obviously you're super busy and a number of things going on. You just started a new business, but with regards to investing, is there something you'd want to learn more about? Something you just haven't had time to like, hey, I, I have an internal passion, but I just haven't had time to really learn about X.
Nabil: Oh boy. I, you know, it's funny. The thing I'm, uh, I can go deep on these subjects and realize I'm interested in them, but would it change anything? Probably not. So, you know, I'm very much interested in macroeconomics and the impact because, like, I believe we're in a global world and we, if we think that we can just, you know, invest locally and not pay attention to, you know, world events, global economics, you know, debt levels, currency.
We're impacted. The world is so connected. We are impacted by things that are happening in China and that, or in Japan or in you name it, right? And I, my brain's just not big enough to quickly process all of that. Um, and so now I've realized, well, you know what, I, I got to, I've gotten, I guess, mature enough to know I'd love to learn more about it, but it's not going to change my approach and.
I better just spend my time doing what I'm good at and helping companies, you know, right now, helping companies get the capital they need to grow and, you know, just hopefully build a diversified portfolio that hopefully will survive whatever comes our way.
Chris: Yep. I totally agree with you. Um, you, you can't, um, You know, the positive is, okay, hey, news is, and information is more available, but are you getting the right news and information and then being able to assimilate just because I, you know, someone tells me something, it's like, I don't always immediately, Oh, has that affect my investments?
I mean, that, that sometimes is a harder leap. I mean, there's actually people who professionally do that. Like, Oh, Hey, here's an event that's occurring on the other side of the world. This might have a ripple effect to create X. Um, you know, we'll leave that up to the global macro traders.
Nabil: Yeah, the macro traders You know, they've got their models and it works until it doesn't. And they, they're, they're fast and first, and then, you know, they've got to move on to the next thing because then there's always second order and third order effects that, you know, we've never seen before.
Chris: Correct.
Nabil: You know, that's, yeah.
Chris: Yeah. It's no longer, you know, the other, the negative I always say is, is, um, back in the day when I was managing people's money, you could truly create diversification by saying, Hey, I'm going to be in this U. S. mutual fund, and then I can go to this international fund. And what you're finding is an international equity fund in a variety of different events will act very, very similar. to your U. S. equity fund. Um, and historically they've been underperforming. You know, the U. S. has continued to sort of be that, that, that engine that just, you know, won't stop. Um, everything has a top as we all know, or we're just wondering when that's going to come down. Um, but it transitions a kind of same kind of question, but non-investment related, something in life you wanted to learn, something that's going on. Like, Hey, I wish I had more time to learn, you know.
Nabil: Ooh.
Chris: More in life.
Nabil: Oh, there's lots of things. I just don't know if our listeners would be that interested in it. I think it's just the absolute control of my own emotions and my own thoughts. And, you know, being able to be serene and calm. But. Um, I think that's,
Chris: Yeah.
Nabil: that, that for me is what, that's important for me and try to be the master of my own, what I can control. And that said, it's not easy.
Chris: yeah, no, that, that's a constant, uh, challenge for many, many people is, uh, being able to, uh. Have adversity and challenges thrown at you and maintain that calm. I have that conversation with many people. I go, I mean, you may know this or, you know, other listeners and I, I still teach. I've been a practitioner of martial arts and I obviously don't fight anymore, but I teach.
And one of the things I always tell people is you're, you got to maintain your calm. You got to stick to what you know how to do. And eventually you get to the point where. can have reactions that are more muscle memory rather than a panic or sort of a flight type reaction, um, that'll increase, you know, your success.
Um, and I always take that to the real world. You know, people always ask me, I got good news and bad news. I always take bad news first because it's one of those. It's like one is usually not that bad, but two, you can immediately start to think about, okay, how do we start solving that issue and come up with solutions?
Cause there's always a solution to every challenge. Um, but if you panic, you're probably not going to find that solution. Um, and that goes, I mean, I always tell people it's like, well, and there's some times where I work with people and I, I throw a lot of punches at them pretty quick, just to see if I can get them to try to, you know, some people will turn and cower. try to get away. That's not a good defense. Um, and I always tell people I go, okay, let's take a deep breath and try that again and see what else you want to try. And eventually you get to that point where people under stress, I mean physical stress, someone is literally trying to hit you in the head. How are you going to react to that and stay calm?
That's a, it's a big task. I mean, it's taken me decades to get used to it. Um, but yeah.
No, so yeah, that's great. Thanks for sharing that. I mean, it's um, it's something that I definitely work on and I know a lot of other people in today's age, uh, struggle with. Um, a lot of, a lot of stressful things going on out there, especially, you know, now you've got a newfound stress of your, your new baby, of uh, every day waking up going, uh, everything to do with your new business is your job. Um,
Nabil: Yes. Yes. There are, I wear multiple hats. Have to. Yes.
Chris: Uh, Anything you've read, any books or anything else you'd like to share? Um, That you've gone through? I mean, it can be related to almost anything. Um,
Nabil: Yeah. No. Um, only because I just finished it. And I, I've, uh, my oldest daughter is, uh, she's in college. She's actually entering. She's a rising senior and she'll be spending her summer in an internship in Manhattan, right? She's at NYU and she recommended a book to me and, um, the title is. And what happens if you're an Egyptian who can't speak English or something like, it's like that.
And it's a first novel by a new Egyptian writer or she's, you know, part Egyptian. And my daughter read it and she said, you need to read this. And so I did. And it was very interesting. And I, it was interesting to us and the best part about it was. I got to share and talk about it with her, right? Um, and we had a conversation through this book that we never really had before because I'm, you know, I'm a first generation immigrant.
But I grew up in the United States and I had my own, you know, both my parents were immigrated as adults. I immigrated when I was one, so I was raised in the United States. So I can, I assimilated and all my friends were American and I, you know, grew up American, but I also understood the culture of my parents and my children have very little exposure to it except through their grandma, like my dad has passed, but, um, they don't have very much exposure to the, quote, Egyptian culture. And to have this conversation with her was really, um, it was wonderful. You know, it was, uh, so it made me realize I do, you know, on my bucket list is to take my, my kids have never been to Egypt, despite the fact that they're half Egyptian, right?
And, uh, we just, every time we thought it'd be a good time that just hasn't been a good time for world events. And this is one of those times again, of course. So, um, but one of these days, so that's.
Chris: My other big hobby is history and obviously there's a lot of important history that comes from that area. Um, have not been myself, would love to go. Um, there's just no lack of amazing culture and fascinating history in that area, um, for thousands of years. But, uh, yeah, you, you definitely have to find the right time. Yeah, so, um, that's great. Um, In that, I mean, from the book, is there a key point that sort of resonated with the two of you? I mean, something that really was like, hey, this is, this was super important.
Nabil: There was a line and she said it and I, I'm not going to quote it correctly, but, um, it is if you're from Egypt, you know, if you're from there, um, you can't explain it and if you're not from there, you'll never get it, meaning you can be an American, but if you didn't grow up in the culture and you can't understand, you didn't grow up with the language. And the culture and the meaning and the nuance of the language. You will be there and you will never really fit in.
Chris: Yep.
Nabil: And likewise, an Egyptian can't explain it to you because they typically don't have the language skills in English to give you the full fabric of what the meaning of something is. It's just, it's just culturally things we take for granted.
Like, you know, if you grew up watching Friends and you can make a reference to Friends, you try to explain that to an immigrant who didn't grow up and watching Friends, they won't understand you. And, and you can try to explain it, but it won't matter because they didn't have that shared experience. Well, that's the flip side, same thing in, in Egypt.
And that little pithy quote captures the difficulty in people from different parts of the world with different experiences. can try to explain their differences of their values, their culture, their, the way they look at things. And try to explain those differences. And it's important that we do so, but it's hard to reach full understanding if you don't have a shared language, shared history, shared, you know, just shared experience.
Chris: Very much so. That, uh, well, yeah, that, that's, that is a truism of the world. Um, yeah, I mean, everyone grows up a little different and it's hard to really, as the old saying is, is, you know, walk in their shoes
Nabil: Correct.
Chris: So, Well, is there anything else you would like to share with people?
Anything else that we haven't touched that you think is important? Um, you know, here's that moment.
Nabil: Now, you know, listen, if, um, you know, the commercial would be if you know anyone who's struggling. with their bank and bank financing, and they need help with, they really need a professional experienced guy dealing with the whole world of alternative lending. I'm there. Happy to help.
Chris: Well, and I'll double that. You're a resource for us as well. When we have a number of different questions and things like that. Have you ever, you know, I think since we've known each other, I've always called you and said, have you run into this before? What do you think about this? So, um, with that said, Nabil, thanks for joining us.
Um, you've been a resource for us. Hopefully I can continue to be a great resource for you and for anyone else listening to this, you know, don't be shy if you've got a situation where you think, yeah, Nabil can help out. Uh, that's why we do these interviews. So, um, thank you again. And, uh, I know we'll be talking soon.
Nabil: Yeah, no, absolutely. Thanks so much, Chris.
